Getting Together | Page 8

water," we proclaim to one another across the sea; "and we can
therefore afford to be as rude to one another as we please." This

principle suits the Briton admirably, because he belongs to the elder
and more thick-skinned branch of the clan. But it bears hardly upon a
young, self-conscious, and adolescent nation, which has not yet
"found" itself as a whole; and which, though its native genius and
genuine promise carry it far, still experiences a certain youthful
diffidence under the supercilious condescension of the Old World.
Our mutual relations are further complicated by the possession of a
common language.
In theory, a common tongue should be a bond of union between
nations--a channel for the interchange of great thoughts and friendly
sentiments. In practice, what is it?
Let us take a concrete example. Supposing an American woman and a
Dutch woman live next door to one another in a New York suburb. As
a rule they maintain friendly relations; but if at any time these relations
become strained--say, over the encroachments of depredatory chickens,
or the obstruction of some one's ancient lights by the over-exuberance
of some one else's laundry--the two ladies are enabled to say the most
dreadful things to one another without any one being a penny the worse.
They do not understand one another's language. But if they speak a
common tongue, the words which pass when the most ephemeral
squabble arises stick and rankle.
Again, for many years the people of Great Britain were extremely
critical of Russia. Well-meaning stay-at-home gentlemen constantly
rose to their feet in the House of Commons and made withering
remarks on the subject of knouts, and Cossacks, and vodka. But they
did no harm. The Russian people do not understand English. In the
same way, Russians were probably accustomed to utter equally reliable
criticisms of the home-life of Great Britain--land-grabbing, and
hypocrisy, and whiskey, and so on. But we knew nothing of all this,
and all was well. There was not the slightest difficulty, when the great
world-crash came, in forming the warmest alliance with Russia.
But as between the two great English-speaking nations of the world, it
is in the power of the most foolish politician or the most irresponsible

sub-editor, on either side of the Atlantic, to create an international
complication with a single spoken phrase or stroke of the pen. And as
both countries appear to be inhabited very largely by persons who
regard newspapers as Bibles and foolish politicians as inspired prophets,
it seems advisable to take steps to regulate the matter.
This brings us to another matter--the attitude of the American Press
toward the War. A certain section thereof, which need not be
particularized further, has never ceased, probably under the combined
influences of bias and subsidy, to abuse the Allies, particularly the
British, and misrepresent their motives and ideals. This sort of
journalism "cuts no ice" in the United States. It is just "yellow
journalism." Voilà tout! Why take it seriously? But the British people
do not know this; and as the British half-penny Press, when it does
quote the American Press, rarely quotes anything but the most virulent
extracts from this particular class of newspaper, one is reduced yet
again to wondering whence the blessings of a common language are to
be derived.
But taking them all round, the newspapers of America have handled the
questions of the War with conspicuous fairness and ability. They are all
fundamentally pro-Ally; and the only criticism which can be directed at
them from an Allied quarter is that in their anxiety to give both sides a
hearing, they have been a little too indulgent to Germany's claims to
moral consideration, and have been a little over-inclined to accept the
German Chancellor's pious manifestoes at their face value. But
generally speaking it may be said that the greater the newspaper, the
firmer the stand that it has taken for the Allied cause. The New York
Times, the weightiest and most authoritative newspaper in America, has
been both pro-Ally and pro-British throughout the War, and has never
shrunk from the delicate task of interpreting satisfactorily to the British
people the attitude of the President.
Journalistic criticism of Great Britain in America is frequently
extremely candid, and not altogether unmerited. Occasionally it goes
too far; but the occasion usually arises from ignorance of the situation,
or the desire to score an epigrammatic point. For instance, during the

struggle for Verdun in the spring, a New York newspaper, sufficiently
well-conducted to have known better, published a cartoon representing
John Bull as standing aloof, but encouraging the French to persevere in
their efforts by parodying Nelson's phrase:--"England expects that
every Frenchman will do his duty." The truth of course was that Sir
Douglas Haig had offered General Joffre all the British help