A Straight Deal | Page 5

of any country. A responsible nation must bear the praise or odium
that attaches to any national action. If England has experienced a
change of heart it has occurred since the days of the Boer Republic--as
wanton a steal as Belgium, with even less excuse, and attended with
sufficient brutality for all practical purposes....

"She has done us many an ill turn gratuitously and not a single good
turn that was not dictated by selfish policy or jealousy of others. She
has shown herself, up till yesterday at least, grasping and unscrupulous.
She is no worse than the others probably--possibly even better--but it
would be doing our country an ill turn to persuade its citizens that
England was anything less than an active, dangerous, competitor,
especially in the infancy of our foreign trade. When a business rival
gives you the glad hand and asks fondly after the children, beware lest
the ensuing emotions cost you money.
"No: our distrust for England has not its life and being in pernicious
textbooks. To really believe that would be an insult to our intelligence--
even grudges cannot live without real food. Should England become
helpless tomorrow, our animosity and distrust would die to-morrow,
because we would know that she had it no longer in her power to injure
us. Therein lies the feeling--the textbooks merely echo it....
"In my opinion, a navy somewhat larger than England's would
practically eliminate from America that 'Ancient Grudge' you deplore.
It is England's navy--her boasted and actual control of the seas--which
threatens and irritates every nation on the face of the globe that has
maritime aspirations. She may use it with discretion, as she has for
years. It may even be at times a source of protection to others, as it
has--but so long as it exists as a supreme power it is a constant source
of danger and food for grudges.
"We will never be a free nation until our navy surpasses England's. The
world will never be a free world until the seas and trade routes are free
to all, at all times, and without any menace, however benevolent.
"In conclusion ... allow me to again state that I write as one American
citizen to another with not the slightest desire to say anything that may
be personally obnoxious. My own ancestors were from England. My
personal relations with the Englishmen I have met have been very
pleasant. I can readily believe that there are no better people living, but
I feel so strongly on the subject, nationally--so bitterly opposed to a
continuance of England's sea control--so fearful that our people may be
lulled into a feeling of false security, that I cannot help trying to combat,

with every small means in my power, anything that seems to propagate
a dangerous friendship."
I received no dissenting letter superior to this. To the writer of it I
replied that I agreed with much that he said, but that even so it did not
in my opinion outweigh the reasons I had given (and shall now give
more abundantly) in favor of dropping our hostile feeling toward
England.
My correspondent says that we differ as a race from the English as
much as a celluloid comb from a stick of dynamite. Did our soldiers
find the difference as great as that? I doubt if our difference from
anybody is quite as great as that. Again, my correspondent says that we
are bound up in our own success only, and England is bound up in hers
only. I agree. But suppose the two successes succeed better through
friendship than through enmity? We are as friendly, my correspondent
says, as two rival corporations. Again I agree. Has it not been proved
this long while that competing corporations prosper through friendship?
Did not the Northern Pacific and the Great Northern form a
combination called the Northern Securities, for the sake of mutual
benefit? Under the Sherman Act the Northern Securities was dissolved;
but no Sherman act forbids a Liberty Securities. Liberty, defined and
assured by Law, is England's gift to the modern world. Liberty, defined
and assured by Law, is the central purpose of our Constitution. Just as
identically as the Northern Pacific and Great Northern run from St.
Paul to Seattle do England and the United States aim at Liberty,
defined and assured by Law. As friends, the two nations can swing the
world towards world stability. My correspondent would hardly have
instanced the Boers in his reference to England's misdeeds, had he
reflected upon the part the Boers have played in England's struggle
with Germany.
I will point out no more of the latent weaknesses that underlie various
passages in this letter, but proceed to the remaining letters that I have
selected. I gave one from an enlisted man and