LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
BRITAIN AND AMERICA.
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Sia,—In a recent letter to the Spectator, a gentleman writing from California offers the view that Americans devote very little time to considering the plight of Great Britain in its relations with other nations of the world, and, likewise, that very little sentiment is wasted by Americans in considering the British Isles as the nucleus for a bond of union of the English-speaking peoples. The American nation is a distinct nation. Nations probably do not fall down in adoration of other nations, but keep their adoration for themselves. At the same time, looking out over the world, the American nation certainly looks toward Great Britain and its Dominions with greater interest and actual knowledge than to any other people. It could not be otherwise. It was British fighting British when the American colonies fell away. Those who possibly could have averted that conflict have been as severely
dealt with by English historians as by Americans. America is still English in tongue. It has no other spoken or written language. English is spoken more evenly in Portland, Maine, and Portland, Oregon, cities more than three thousand miles apart, than is the difference in speech and dialect between London and York. With their piled-up histories and literature massed in English, how could Americans possibly look toward any other region of the world with the interest they do toward the British Isles ? The English reviews and the Spectator can be found in every principal club, from Boston to San Fran- cisco. The cables from London are carrying news almost wholly one way, and that way is westward. The American press prints, speaking conservatively, probably one thousand words to one word going from this side to the British press. When an American goes to London, he is certain to journey to Stratford-on-Avon and to Oxford and Cambridge. He dines again with Dr. Johnson at the Cheshire Cheese,' and locates the hotel from which Mr. Pickwick started out upon his memorable journey. He may even journey to Shrewsbury to be reminded of Falstaff. If Shakespeare is more nobly enshrined in Britain than in America, he is well cared for. Charles Lamb is probably better looked after in beautiful typography from the American press than by any English imprint. First copies of Dickens, Thackeray and Burns constitute one of the national quests. The outdoor sports are the English games, by and large, though Britain should improve her game of round ball. The California correspon- dent, really, is in error. America could not be disinterested in Britain if she tried.
In a.conversation, some years ago, with Mr. Moberly Bell, then Manager of the Times, the latter said, speaking to his American visitor, that he did not know, until he had come to his twenty-first birthday, there had been a row, when the American colonies had separated and had taken up life by themselves. He knew that the colonies had separated, but did not know there had been a row about it. There is nothing to be critical about in this, but it is to be feared that America knows Britain much better than Britain knows America, and for that matter, knows all Europe better than Europe knows America. It extends down through all the generations of American life. In the seventh generation of Americans, whether of pure English blood, which is most unlikely, or whether British, blended with other European races, the outcome is the same. Shakes- peare alone has mortised the English-speaking peoples around the globe far beyond his great vision, and America leads all the rest in population as an English-speaking people, and is compelled, willy-nilly, to be an English-speaking and English- thinking race. No other people on the globe is more thor- oughly composite ; whether on the Atlantic or Pacific side of the country, the speech is almost identical and without dialect. This is also true from the Canadian line to the Mexican line. The school recitations are Milton, Shakespeare, Dryden, Scott, Wordsworth, Charles Lamb, Shelley, Byron, Kipling, Brown- ing, to name a few. There are Shakespeare clubs and Browning clubs. Reading club lists are almost wholly English through- out, whether of British or American authorship. The second generation of continental peoples are American, and absorb English literature almost wholly. As a rule, they resent suggestion of familiarity with continental tongues. The German newspaper has always led a precarious existence despite the large Germanic percentage of the total population. The German papers die out with the passing of the first generation of subscribers. It is computed that one-half the Croatian nation is concentrated in Chicago. Those who remain in Croatia cling to their language and their ancient poetry. Not so in America. The second generation read American newspapers and declaim the accepted masterpieces of American and English orators. There is only one outcome to all this. It is familiarity with Magna Charta, Polonius' advice to his son, Milton's L'Allegro, down to Macaulay and Carlyle. It is not correct to say that America does not know England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales.
It can also be said, with some confidence, that America knew her own mind when she rejected Mr. Wilson's effort to make her a member of the League of Nations. Europe had fair notice when a majority of the United States Senate notified the world, under their own signatures, that the Senate would not approve the treaty in the form announced, if it was signed in her behalf. Americans at least believe they know the history of Europe well enough not to be drawn into her
boundary, and seemingly endless nationalistic disputes. The Greek episode, the Hungarian troubles, the Ruhr adventure are all in line with what America definitely desires not to become a part of, nor to take a mandate for the Armenians. If America is young, and cannot visualize Europe, she possibly has a more definite understanding about Europe as a whole than she is credited with. The fact that Great Britain had been drawn into the Great War, and that Canada on the north, and Australia and New Zealand on the far west and south, were fighting out what they deemed a great issue, had an overpowering effect upon the impulse which forced America into the War.
Granting that America has Europe photographed daily, hi thousands of words by cable, which reach to every city in the republic, the reading public of America has to know what is going on in Europe, and especially in the British Isles. The American traveller does not get the same response when he reaches London, and practically no response at all in Paris, Rome, and Budapest. It is gratifying, therefore, to find in the Spectator such an intelligent and sympathetic grasp of things as they are on this side of the water. In an American mining-camp in Mexico, to which the Spectator had found its way two years ago, was the most comprehensive critique of the life of James K. Polk, one of the early Presidents of the Republic, which has yet appeared in any publication, America included. It is a sample of the things which the Spectator is constantly doing, and which makes Americans who have followed its columns realize that one at least of the great journals of the world does not quite believe that Americans fail to visualize Europe, nor that they do not have a knowledge and affection for the islands, from which have come their language, their laws, their conception of literature, and to a large extent their religious forms.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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