MR. CHESTERTON IN AMERICA.
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Sin,—To a citizen of the United States, who has lately read G. K. Chesterton's What I Saw in the United States, Mr. Ches-
terton's attempted refutation of Dean Inge's recent article, " Labels and Libels," indicates to my mind how the hit bird flutters. The references to Prohibition, Lincoln and the Irish Question in this book are examples of the injustice which Dean Inge justly criticizes. The following quotation will fully illustrate my meaning :- " The citizens of the United States manage even to respect us, in spite of the shady Jew stockbrokers we send them as English envoys."
The person referred to when he came to Washington as a temporary envoy had been Solicitor-General and Attorney- General of the United Kingdom, and afterwards became Chief Justice. He is now Viceroy of India—one of the highest positions in the gift of the Crown. His services in the United States during a critical period of the War were of great value to both nations, and in the course of that visit he received the highest honorary degrees from our leading universities. The simple recital of these facts fully proves the unethical, un- christian spirit which animates Mr. Chesterton in his writings.
Just now he is very much to the front in publishing what he calls Catholic Truth, and is an ardent supporter of the so-called Catholic Truth Society. Here again we have a fine example of the injustice of " labels and libels." No strictly honest man should ever place before truth a label like that, which is misleading and deceitful. There is no Protestant truth, nor Catholic truth, nor Christian Science truth, nor Hebrew truth,
but simply truth. With regard to this matter, Professor A. F. Pollard, in his essay on page 127 of The Commonwealth at War, hits the nail squarely on the head :- "Patriotic truth is generally—like Protestant truth or Catholic truth—a periphrasis for such falsehood as consists in the suppression of truth that is not convenient, and patriotic law, patriotic surgery, patriotic science, patriotic scholarship are incompatible terms."
The sign in brass letters which misleads the public on a certain window in Victoria Street, near Victoria Station, should follow the inscription on a certain famous building in Rome, looking down on the Piazza di Spagna, and should be changed to read as follows : " The Catholic Propaganda
Soeiety."—I am, Sir, &c.,
123 Pall Mall, London.
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