A Straight Deal [56]
Howsoever we may talk about our own rights to-day, we pay less and less respect to those of our neighbors. The result is that to-day there is more liberty in England than here. Liberty consists and depends upon respecting your neighbor's rights every bit as fairly and squarely as your own.
On the other hand, I wonder if the English are as good losers as we are? Hardly anything that they could do would rub us more the wrong way than to deny to us that fair play in sport which they accord each other. I shall not more than mention the match between our Benicia Boy and their Tom Sayers. Of this the English version is as defective as our school-book account of the Revolution. I shall also pass over various other international events that are somewhat well known, and I will illustrate the point with an anecdote known to but a few.
Crossing the ocean were some young English and Americans, who got up an international tug-of-war. A friend of mine was anchor of our team. We happened to win. They didn't take it very well. One of them said to the anchor:
"Do you know why you pulled us over the line? "
"No."
"Because you had all the blackguards on your side of the line."
"Do you know why we had all the blackguards on our side of the line? " inquired the American.
"No."
"Because we pulled you over the line."
In one of my anecdotes I used the term Sam Johnson to describe an Englishman of a certain type. Dr. Samuel Johnson was a very marked specimen of the type, and almost the only illustrious Englishman of letters during our Revolutionary troubles who was not our friend. Right down through the years ever since, there have been Sam Johnsons writing and saying unfavorable things about us. The Tory must be eternal, as much as the Whig or Liberal; and both are always needed. There will probably always be Sam Johnsons in England, just like the one who was scandalized by our Chicago packing-house disclosures. No longer ago than June 1, 1919, a Sam Johnson, who was discussing the Peace Treaty, said in my hearing, in London:
"The Yankees shouldn't have been brought into any consultation. They aided and abetted Germany."
In Littell's Living Age of July 20, 1918, pages 151-160, you may read an interesting account of British writers on the United States. The bygone ones were pretty preposterous. They satirized the newness of a new country. It was like visiting the Esquimaux and complaining that they grew no pineapples and wore skins. In Littell you will find how few are the recent Sam Johnsons as compared with the recent friendly writers. You will also be reminded that our anti-English complex was discerned generations ago by Washington Irving. He said in his Sketch Book that writers in this country were "instilling anger and resentment into the bosom of a youthful nation, to grow with its growth and to strengthen with its strength."
And he quotes from the English Quarterly Review, which in that early day already wrote of America and England:
"There is a sacred bond between us by blood and by language which no circumstances can break.... Nations are too ready to admit that they have natural enemies; why should they be less willing to believe that they have natural friends?"
It is we ourselves to-day, not England, that are pushing friendship away. It is our politicians, papers, and propagandists who are making the trouble and the noise. In England the will to friendship rules, has ruled for a long while. Does the will to hate rule with us? Do we prefer Germany? Do we prefer the independence of Ireland to the peace of the world?
Chapter XVI: An International Imposture
A part of the Irish is asking our voice and our gold to help independence for the whole of the Irish. Independence is not desired by the whole of the Irish. Irishmen of Ulster have plainly said so. Everybody knows this. Roman Catholics themselves are not unanimous. Only some of them desire independence. These, known as Sinn Fein, appeal to us for deliverance from their conqueror and oppressor; they dwell upon the oppression of England
On the other hand, I wonder if the English are as good losers as we are? Hardly anything that they could do would rub us more the wrong way than to deny to us that fair play in sport which they accord each other. I shall not more than mention the match between our Benicia Boy and their Tom Sayers. Of this the English version is as defective as our school-book account of the Revolution. I shall also pass over various other international events that are somewhat well known, and I will illustrate the point with an anecdote known to but a few.
Crossing the ocean were some young English and Americans, who got up an international tug-of-war. A friend of mine was anchor of our team. We happened to win. They didn't take it very well. One of them said to the anchor:
"Do you know why you pulled us over the line? "
"No."
"Because you had all the blackguards on your side of the line."
"Do you know why we had all the blackguards on our side of the line? " inquired the American.
"No."
"Because we pulled you over the line."
In one of my anecdotes I used the term Sam Johnson to describe an Englishman of a certain type. Dr. Samuel Johnson was a very marked specimen of the type, and almost the only illustrious Englishman of letters during our Revolutionary troubles who was not our friend. Right down through the years ever since, there have been Sam Johnsons writing and saying unfavorable things about us. The Tory must be eternal, as much as the Whig or Liberal; and both are always needed. There will probably always be Sam Johnsons in England, just like the one who was scandalized by our Chicago packing-house disclosures. No longer ago than June 1, 1919, a Sam Johnson, who was discussing the Peace Treaty, said in my hearing, in London:
"The Yankees shouldn't have been brought into any consultation. They aided and abetted Germany."
In Littell's Living Age of July 20, 1918, pages 151-160, you may read an interesting account of British writers on the United States. The bygone ones were pretty preposterous. They satirized the newness of a new country. It was like visiting the Esquimaux and complaining that they grew no pineapples and wore skins. In Littell you will find how few are the recent Sam Johnsons as compared with the recent friendly writers. You will also be reminded that our anti-English complex was discerned generations ago by Washington Irving. He said in his Sketch Book that writers in this country were "instilling anger and resentment into the bosom of a youthful nation, to grow with its growth and to strengthen with its strength."
And he quotes from the English Quarterly Review, which in that early day already wrote of America and England:
"There is a sacred bond between us by blood and by language which no circumstances can break.... Nations are too ready to admit that they have natural enemies; why should they be less willing to believe that they have natural friends?"
It is we ourselves to-day, not England, that are pushing friendship away. It is our politicians, papers, and propagandists who are making the trouble and the noise. In England the will to friendship rules, has ruled for a long while. Does the will to hate rule with us? Do we prefer Germany? Do we prefer the independence of Ireland to the peace of the world?
Chapter XVI: An International Imposture
A part of the Irish is asking our voice and our gold to help independence for the whole of the Irish. Independence is not desired by the whole of the Irish. Irishmen of Ulster have plainly said so. Everybody knows this. Roman Catholics themselves are not unanimous. Only some of them desire independence. These, known as Sinn Fein, appeal to us for deliverance from their conqueror and oppressor; they dwell upon the oppression of England