New York Times Current History The European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 Part 43

Out of this explanation came the following statement, made by the second Philadelphian: "I am as desirous as you are for such an understanding. I desire it so greatly that I venture to offer you a warning on the subject. It would be a mistake on your part, I am convinced, to advocate any such friends.h.i.+p, any such understanding, any such alliance, if you prefer that word, on the score of blood ties or a common speech. Believe me, the American, to speak generally, thinks very little of such matters. When America was far more English in its population than it is now scarcely any country was more unpopular with us than your country.

"I can remember when hatred for England was a kind of gospel with Americans. The Irish fanned that hatred. Your country had behaved badly toward us, war had left its scar on our memories, we rejoiced that we had thrown off a yoke which we felt to be definitely tyrannous. What, then, has produced the change in America--America, whose population is now made up from nearly all the nations of the earth? Have your people thought why we are on their side in this present war? Have they asked themselves that question? If so, and they have answered it with such a phrase as 'blood is thicker than water,' I can a.s.sure you they give not only a false answer but an answer which betrays amazing ignorance, if you will forgive the word, of this country's population. Blood thicker than water! Why, look at our names; our blood is world's blood.

"We're a nation of all the nations. The English element is only one element. Our ancestors were French, Dutch, German, Spanish, Norwegian, Russian, Danish, Irish, Greek, and Italian. The modern American citizen is no more English than the Boers of South Africa are English. And yet in overwhelming figures the American population is on the side of the Allies, and particularly on the side of England. Why?"

England Stands for Democracy.

"It is," he continued, "because England of all the nations on the earth stands for the democratic ideals which are the very breath of life to America. Modern England is for us the greatest of democracies. You lead the way to the rest of the world, if not in science and art, at any rate here in the great business of humanity's social existence. We see that the old England of privilege and obstinate prerogatives and bull-headed conservatism is dead. All your best qualities, straight dealing, honesty, fearless justice, and faith in the goodness of human nature are devoted now to the only ideals which can save progress from rot and decay. Your democracy is master. It has no overlords. And, from what we can gather since this war broke out, it would seem that your aristocracy is coming more and more into line with the democracy, making great sacrifices, showing a deeper appreciation of the democracy and shedding the worst of its prejudices in the common love of liberty and right.

"We hope that your aristocracy may render as great a service to the extravagant plutocracy of this country as your democracy has rendered to our democracy. To make life better, that's the work of all intelligent people. That's what our democracy is after, and, because your democracy is after the same thing, that's why we are on your side in this war.

Under all the sentiment on the subject this is the bedrock fact. We're for England because we're for the ideals of democracy. That we speak the same language is only an accident. It's your spirit we desire to share, the spirit which desires to make life kinder, sweeter, better, more beautiful, and more righteous. America believes in civilization. It doesn't want culture in bearskin and top boots. It wants civilization, and civilization means a culture that takes in the whole of a man's being--his body, his mind, his spirit. Well, we think you're after the same ideal; we believe that you're as conscious of humanity as we are, and we begin to realize pretty acutely that in a world rather barbarous on the whole, come to think of it, we can't afford to lose England."

The other man added: "Germany stands for nearly everything we Americans are opposed to, tooth and nail. We just loathe militarism.

Conscription's a thing we abominate. And feudalism is more dead over here than in any country in the world."

"But bear in mind," said the first, "we have few people in America better than the Germans. The Germans are almost the most efficient of our immigrants. They've taught us a lot. We owe them a mighty big debt.

Before their coming we were prodigals. We used up our natural resources with a ruthless disregard for the future. We leveled our forests for timber, and just scratched the top soil of the land for corn. Now we're learning to farm scientifically and to conserve our wealth. And this is due in no small degree to the Germans. The German, emanc.i.p.ated from feudalism and kaiserism, is a pretty good citizen. In fact, among the men who have most helped modern America we reckon Germans and Irishmen."

I told them this story: A man in New York was speaking the other day to Count von Bernstorff, the German Amba.s.sador. Count von Bernstorff was endeavoring to prove to this important personage that England had forced the war upon Germany out of jealousy of her trade compet.i.tion. "Sir,"

said the American, "you really must not tell me that, and I advise you not to tell such a tale to other Americans. For we know very well that we are greater trade rivals of England than you are, and that, in spite of that fact, here on this continent of America we have got 3,000 miles of British frontier without a fort or a gun." He then said to the Amba.s.sador: "No, Sir; your mistake all through has been in making an enemy of England when your best interest was to make friends with her.

If you had made friends with England, you would have got all you wanted." To this accusation, I understand, the Amba.s.sador made answer that Germany had endeavored to make friends with England, but had been repulsed. We have a different record in England. The American quietly reminded the Amba.s.sador of the fact that England admits German goods free of tariff charges.

Germany Represents Autocracy.

The two Philadelphians perfectly agreed with the justice of this accusation, and declared again that it was because Germany represented all the perils and slavishness of autocracy, and because England represented the freedom, the justice, and the pa.s.sion for social welfare which inspire all living democracies, that America was so absolutely on the English side.

They spoke of Ireland, and expressed the hope that the Conservative Party would do nothing to hinder that great settlement which has done so much to increase American respect for England.

"We recognize over here," said one, "that the Liberal Party, in going to the rescue of Belgium, sacrificed some of its greatest ideals on the altar of national righteousness. War must have been a bitter draught for Lloyd George. Your social programme will be checked for many years. But if the Conservatives attempt to spoil the Irish settlement, that will be worse than anything else. It will mean confusion for you at home and loss of reputation abroad."

I spoke of what I had heard on this subject from Irish-Americans, and they confirmed everything recorded in my former article. The three great things, outside of increasing opportunities for intercourse, which have drawn modern America toward England, they told me, are the social legislation of the Liberal Party, the triumph of home rule, and England's keeping her word to Belgium. By these three things, I was a.s.sured, the old animosities against England have been destroyed, and a spirit of enthusiasm for English ideals has been born among Americans.

I should like to say that, while many American women love England for the beauty and repose of her social life, and most eloquently base their affection on the a.s.sertion that blood is thicker than water, the men of America are sometimes inclined, and not unnaturally, to disapprove of this pleasing sentimentalism. I now begin to perceive that the men of America are not jealous of England's social life, but anxious to put their friends.h.i.+p on a more substantial foundation.

Liberalism not only uplifts democracy; it establishes England in the affection of all vital democracies. If the Conservatives, so liberal and charming in their private lives, combine with the Liberals after this hideous war to reconstruct our national life and to consolidate the empire, how great will be the harvest reaped by our children!

It is in the high and lofty name of civilization that the American people are anxious to make friends with the people of Great Britain. We have both got something to live for greater than patriotism and imperialism, greater because it includes them both.

II.

Irish-American Feeling

Until I came to America I had not the least idea of the depth of hatred which has existed among Irish-Americans toward England. Nothing that I ever encountered in Ireland itself is comparable with this transatlantic fury of unforgiving hate.

An Irishman who had held very high office in America, a well-educated, a kindly, and a judicious man, told me that when war with Germany was in the air he could not prevent himself from hailing this opportunity for declaring his hatred, his undying hatred, of England. His father had suffered frightfully in the great famine; every story he ever heard at his mother's knee was a story of English tyranny, English brutality, English rapacity; England, for him, stood at the rack centre, the l.u.s.tful and b.e.s.t.i.a.l slave driver, the cruel and merciless extortioner.

This man's good judgment, however, would not suffer him to approve of German militarism, and as events moved forward he gave his support more and more to the cause of the Allies.

"But I want you to know," he told me, striking the table with his hand and watching me carefully, "that I was dead against John Redmond for saying that Ireland must go to the aid of England. Ireland's call was to go to the aid of civilization. If Germany had stood for civilization, I should have been on Germany's side and dead against England.

"I tell you, at the beginning of this business I longed to see England defeated, humiliated, broken to the dust. But civilization is of such enormous consequence that I put my natural hatred of England on one side. The violation of Belgium made me an anti-German. And with the vast majority of Irishmen in America it was the same thing. The menace of German militarism forced us into your camp.

"I am perfectly certain that but for the violation of Belgium there would have been in this country among Irish-Americans an open movement publicly proclaimed in favor of Germany. That is my fixed opinion. And I happen to know what I am talking about."

No Hatred of England.

I gathered in the course of his conversation that Irish friendliness toward England is a final manifestation of a change in the feeling of all America toward England. It was not very long ago that President Cleveland wanted war with England. Hatred of England was at one time as fiercely handed down from generation to generation by Americans as by Irish-Americans. We have to thank our English stars that America has outgrown this historic hate and that Irish-Americans now show the new and happier feeling of their compatriots.

I asked this Irishman, no one better able throughout America to express a just opinion on the subject, what difference had been made in the feeling toward England by the pa.s.sing of the Home Rule bill.

"It was the pa.s.sing of that bill," he replied, "which finished the work begun by German militarism. Home rule has softened our feelings toward England, particularly among the thousands of Irish-Americans who are born over here and whose fathers have become too Americanized to remember the sufferings of their ancestors.

"There is still some hatred of England, but not very much. It is a sentimental, a poetic hatred, not a political hatred. One finds it among a few individuals. What agitation is now going on is secret and underground, a sure proof that it is unrepresentative. We ignore it. It means nothing. No; the pa.s.sing of the Home Rule bill has given balance to the Irish mind.

"It has helped Irish-Americans to realize that the dreadful sins of England are sins of a dead and gone England, and it has helped them to see that the present England, so far as its democracy is concerned, sincerely desires to make reparation for the past. In fact, the war and the Home Rule bill together have produced such a transformation in the Irish-American nature as I, for one, never expected and never hoped to see."

He then warned me that this great change might suffer a dangerous reaction if England allows the religious bigotry of Ulster to split Ireland into two camps. To the Irish-American Ireland is a country, a home, and a shrine, one and indivisible.

"Such a surrender," said my friend, "would not only be fatal to Ireland but fatal to something even greater than Ireland, and that is the cause of religion in an age of increasing paganism. For the world can only be saved from the ruin of paganism, as we are beginning to see very clearly in America, by a union of religious forces.

"I am a Catholic, but I say that any man who says 'Only through my door can you enter into heaven' is a bad Christian. There are many doors into heaven. What we have all got to do, Catholics and non-Catholics, is to insist together that there is a heaven, that there is a life after death, that there is a G.o.d. The more doors the better. No one has a monopoly of heaven.

"And to Ireland is offered the opportunity, greater than politicians appear to perceive, of presenting to the world an example of tolerance and compromise in the supreme interests of religion which may have incalculable results for the whole world. But what will happen if England bows before the worst and the stupidest bigotry the modern world can show? Not only will you strike a blow at Ireland and a blow at Irish-American sympathy, but a blow at the vitals of religion.

"For it is only by sinking religious differences and making a common advance against this universal paganism that religion can save the soul of civilization. If you do not see the truth of that fact in England I think you must be blind. The fullness of civilization hangs upon religious union; religious dissension is the enemy."

Change in Ulster.

Another Irish-American who was present on this occasion, an accomplished man of letters and a traveler, asked me what England felt about Ulster's share in the responsibility for the present war.

"I myself have seen two letters from Ulster," he said, "in which the phrase occurs, 'Rather the Kaiser than the Pope.' These letters were written before the war. Ulster, no doubt, has now changed her tune. But it was that spirit, surely, and the reports sent to Berlin by German officers who visited Ulster and inquired into the military character of Carsonism which persuaded Germany that England would not fight."

Irish-Americans are persuaded that Sir Edward Carson is in very great measure responsible for all the ruin and death and bitter suffering of the enormous catastrophe. He boasted that he would make civil war, and such were his preparations that in any other country in the world civil war would have been inevitable.

Germany counted on that civil war. The British Army was said to be completely under the influence of Carsonism. The real catastrophe for the diplomacy of Berlin was not India's loyalty and the vigorous uprising of the young dominions, but the dying down of Ulster mutiny.

These Irish-Americans have hated the ruling cla.s.ses in England, not only for sins of the past but for the unworthy and most cruel opposition offered by those ruling cla.s.ses, in the name of religious intolerance, to the ideals of the Irish Nation.

When Unionist politicians sneer at the subscriptions sent by Irish servant girls in America to help the cause of Ireland they should reflect that not only do they fail to make a good joke, not only do they exhibit a horribly bad taste, but they spread hatred of England through the thousands and thousands of people. For it is the loyalty of the poorest of these Irish-Americans, the sacrifices perpetually made by the humblest of them, which should move us to see, as it has certainly moved the American people to see, that the cause of Irish liberty is n.o.ble and undying.

Religious Education.