LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
[Letters of the length of one of our leading paragraphs are often more read, and therefore more effective, than those which fill treble the space.] AMERICA AND BRITAIN.
fTo THE EDITOR OP THE " SPECTATOR.") SIR,,—One of your editorials is quoted in the American papers this morning. Speaking of the desirability of our sending at least a small military force to Europe, you say : " We are told that American sympathy runs stronger with the French or the Russians than with ourselves, and that if American troops come to Europe they won't come to the British front." It would be a real misfortune if the people of Great Britain should misunder- stand the American attitude toward them at the present time. The idea that we have more sympathy with Russia than with England is, of course, preposterous. Russia is on the other side of the world; we have a sentimental interest in her struggle for liberty, but that is about all. The average American has never seen a Russian—and you can't have real sympathy without acquaintanceship. Undoubtedly there is a great deal of feeling for France in this country. Perhaps this feeling is more loudly expressed than the feeling for Great Britain. France has been invaded; France seems less able to take care of herself than England; moreover, there is our old debt of Revolutionary times. The men who lead our democracy, through activities in politics and through the ownership and editing of newspapers, are still largely Anglo-Saxon in blood, and even more largely in sympathy. The basic, sometimes subconscious, loyalty of these men to England has been one of the great influences in keeping the United States friendly to the Allied cause. No one who has seen the workings of the various cross-currents in America since the beginning of the European War can have failed to be impressed by the truth of the old saying that blood is thicker than water. Added to this there is a growing understanding of the service which has been rendered us by the British Navy. The friends of England in America are not the noisy element in the com- munity. But there are plenty of them; make no mistake about that.—I am, Sir, &c., HULBERT Tarr. " Cincinnati Times-Star," Cincinnati, 0., April 1;th.
[We are delighted that our hypothetical query, for that is all it was, should receive so prompt and so generous, and we doubt not so true, an answer.—ED. Spectator.]
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