A Straight Deal | Page 6

one from a sailor; this is
from a commissioned officer, in France.
"I cannot refrain from sending you a line of appreciation and thanks for

giving the people at home a few facts that I am sure some do not know
and throwing a light upon a much discussed topic, which I am sure will
help to remove from some of their minds a foolish bigoted antipathy."
Upon the single point of our school histories of the Revolution, some of
which I had named as being guilty of distorting the facts, a
correspondent writes from Nebraska:
"Some months ago... the question came to me, what about our
Montgomery's History now.... I find that everywhere it is the King who
is represented as taking these measures against the American people.
On page 134 is the heading, American Commerce; the new King
George III; how he interfered with trade; page 135, The King proposes
to tax the Colonies; page 136, 'The best men in Parliament--such men
as William Pitt and Edmund Burke-- took the side of the colonies.' On
page 138, 'William Pitt said in Parliament, "in my opinion, this
kingdom has no right to lay a tax on the colonies... I rejoice that
America has resisted"'; page 150, 'The English people would not
volunteer to fight the Americans and the King had to hire nearly 30,000
Hessians to help do the work.... The Americans had not sought
separation; the King--not the English people--had forced it on them....'
"I am writing this... because, as I was glad to see, you did not mince
words in naming several of the worse offenders." (He means certain
school histories that I mentioned and shall mention later again.)
An official from Pittsburgh wrote thus:
"In common with many other people, I have had the same idea that
England was not doing all she could in the war, that while her colonies
were in the thick of it, she, herself, seemed to be sparing herself, but
after reading this article... I will frankly and candidly confess to you
that it has changed my opinion, made me a strong supporter of England,
and above all made me a better American "
>From Massachusetts:
"It is well to remind your readers of the errors--or worse--in American

school text books and to recount Britain's achievements in the present
war. But of what practical avail are these things when a man so highly
placed as the present Secretary of the Navy asks a Boston audience
(Tremont Temple, October 30, 1918) to believe that it was the
American navy which made possible the transportation of over
2,000,000 Americans to France without the loss of a single transport on
the way over? Did he not know that the greater part of those troops
were not only transported, but convoyed, by British vessels, largely
withdrawn for that purpose from such vital service as the supply of
food to Britain's civil population?"
The omission on the part of our Secretary of the Navy was later quietly
rectified by an official publication of the British Government, wherein
it appeared that some sixty per cent of our troops were transported in
British ships. Our Secretary's regrettable slight to our British allies was
immediately set right by Admiral Sims, who forthwith, both in public
and in private, paid full and appreciative tribute to what had been done.
It is, nevertheless, very likely that some Americans will learn here for
the first time that more than half of our troops were not transported by
ourselves, and could not have been transported at all but for British
assistance. There are many persons who still believe what our
politicians and newspapers tell them. No incident that I shall relate
further on serves better to point the chief international moral at which I
am driving throughout these pages, and at which I have already hinted:
Never to generalize the character of a whole nation by the acts of
individual members of it. That is what everybody does, ourselves, the
English, the French, everybody. You can form no valid opinion of any
nation's characteristics, not even your own, until you have met
hundreds of its people, men and women, and had ample opportunity to
observe and know them beneath the surface. Here on the one hand we
had our Secretary of the Navy. He gave our Navy the whole credit for
getting our soldiers overseas.
He justified the British opinion that we are a nation of braggarts. On the
other hand, in London, we had Admiral Sims, another American, a
splendid antidote. He corrected the Secretary's brag. What is the moral?
Look out how you generalize. Since we entered the war that tribe of

English has increased who judge us with an open mind, discriminate
between us, draw close to a just appraisal of our qualities