CROSS-CURRENTS IN AMERICA.
[To Till EDITOR OF TER "SPECTATOR."] Sra,—American comment flows on. Thus, an Anglican clergyman in Massachusetts—closely connected by marriage with Mr. Choate—writes :— " Every one here is anti-German in spite of the propaganda of the German Ambassador and others."
A Professor of Mathematics in Hertford, Connecticut :-
"I don't think you need feel any concern about forming an American sentiment for England : it is already very strong here."
The wife of that Judge Gray whose opinion you were good enough to publish in your issue of October 3rd (p. 460) :—
" I am so delighted with your red book [referring to Why We are at War, by six Oxford Professors] that I am going to send it to Mr. Choate to read," and "as long as those Germans can be prevented from getting out of the valley of the Meuse there is hope and some comfort."
On the other side, however, a letter from Boston informs me that the Irish-American Mayor of Boston
"could have declined the application for the use of Fanenil Hall" (as to which see my letter to you, Spectator, October 8rd,
p. 460), "for a Pro-German and therefore Anti-British meeting on divers grounds, and among others the impropriety of allowing its use for any meeting taking any side in the European war as inconsistent with the spirit of neutrality. At this Pro-German meeting, some German professors and others of German blood spoke, and also an Irish-American of some local prominence, Matthew Cummings by name, in bitter denunciation of England and sympathetically towards Germany."
My New York Evening Post of October 8th devotes nearly
three columns to a publication of the views of " Vernon Lee," under the heading in large type " English Writer in Strong Letter . Attacks the Policy of the British Government for its Part in the Great European Struggle." It seems that " Vernon Lee" is the nom de plume of Miss Violet Paget, who has been the writer of " essays and European studies." One- third of what she has to say relates to the literary work she has done in the past, "the long enumeration of which gives me [her] the right to speak upon the origin of the present war." She finds herself in conflict with " her colleagues of the English Liberal press, and, alas! with a large number of English men of letters," and proceeds to give a distorted and oft-exploded view of British diplomacy and perversion of the facts, especially as they relate to the neutrality of Belgium, to recapitulate which would invite a discussion to which I am sure the Spectator would not opens its columns. The new "Central Committee" of the "National Patriotic Organiza- tions" can be trusted to deal in an appropriate manner with these and similar stabs in the back struck by perverted English people in neutral countries to whose sympathies we
are entitled---I am, Sir, &c., S. R. H.
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