[To rte EMT. Or IRA "RrscrAxo..] SIR,—It is rather amusing
to a number of your readers in the States to see numerous letters in the English papers coming from Boston and New England wherein you are carefully informed that the sentiment over here is over- whelmingly against Germany in this war. Undoubtedly Boston ie one of our foremost cities, having an enviable reputation as a centre of culture and learning as well as baked beans and futurist religions. Bostonians have one great failing, however; they think that the United States consists of Boston and a few other villages further west and south, and that if anything ever happened to Boston, why, chaos would be ushered in and the universe would collapse.
The writer comes from the Middle West, and has spent over ten years of almost incessant travelling in America, in which he has been in every State and every city of any consequence and seen all phases of American life. Since the war began I have travelled five or six thousand miles over the most populous section of this country, so perhaps you will admit that I may claim to know something about what Americans think of the German barbarians. The majority of people in Boston and New England are, and always have been, overwhelmingly for England in this war. You owe it to them to acknowledge this. The influential people of English descent in many other cities are in sympathy with the Allies As one travels west, however, the German sentiment increase.. As a matter of fact, sympathy with Germany has greatly intensified in the past three months. This is due to a number of things, but first and foremost to your Mr. George Bernard Shaw. If you consider that you still have a chance of beating the Kaiser, I would earnestly advise you to chloroform Mr. Shaw, or else muzzle him and lock him in the Tower until the war is over. Unquestionably he has been Germany's greatest ally in the English Press. It is rather difficult to make Englishmen understand that the United Staten contains people from almost every country in the world, seat numbers of whom are unable to speak English fluently, to say the least, and who care about as much about England as a Chinese laundryman cares about the weight of a pound of soap on the moon. If President Wilson desired to see pandemonium break loose, there is no way he could obtain results quicker than by publicly taking aides in this war. Do Englishmen realize that we have a war tax over here, and that thousands of people are unemployed, with the resultant hair-trigger dispositions coincident with empty stomachs P
The writer has a profound belief that Germany and masculinity will triumph over lethargic England and her idiotic censors. I state this though I am of New England and English descent. There is one other matter for which I crave your indulgence. One of your correspondents claims that an American who would take the side of Germany and publicly announce it would be hooted and derided. I challenge you to print this and show me one responsible man or news- paper, barring Life (joke) and the Londonified (otherwise excellent) New York Times, who will hoot or deride me. If you can find any one who can prove to the contrary when I state many Americans (not Germans) favour Germany, I will send you my cheque for 81,000 to be used in any deserving charity you may care to designate. One of our beet loved and most popular actors, David Warfield, made his great reputa- tion by his masterly portrayal of German character in The Music Master. Germans may be barbarians in war, but here- abouts we call them barbarians to their face [aid]. Americans do not exactly enthuse over the German type of government, though Harry Thaw and Becker prove bow utterly rotten our own is in places. This may not measure up to your exception- ally high literary standard, bat I most insist that if you care to inflict it on your readers you print it in its entirety.— Assuring you of my high regard for the Spectator, and hoping that the barbarians do not sink the ship which carries this
letter, I am, Sir, do., ARCHIBALD PRATT. Rochester, New York, U.S.A., Apra 51h.
P.S.-1 do not own any brewery stock, neither is my wife a barbarian.
• -)Our -correspondent exaggerates greatly. No doubt the Eastern States care more about the war than do the Western and are more anxious that the Allies should win, but if things are ac Mr. Pratt describes them, why did the recent election for Mayor in Chicago, dealt with by another of our correspondents, result in the defeat of the German candidate? Though nominally, of course, it was an ordinary political election—a Republican against a Democrat—the pro-German sympathies of one of the candidates mainly determined the result No doubt there are millions of non-Anglo-Saxon voters in America, but nor correspondent makes the common error of thinking that Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Serbs, Italians, Norwegians, and Greeks—not to speak of Russians and French—love the Germane. The reverse is the truth. We are amused at the careful way in which Mr. Pratt has guarded his $1,000 cheque.—En. Spectator.]
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