The British
p. 48 · Read in the full issue
What An American Said Of Them 25 Years Ago
THESE are gloomy days. Germany, led by a kind of maniac; Japan, in the grip of a clique which plans world-con quest; Italy, growing in unpleasantness and aggressiveness—these people are turn ing the world into a place of nerve-strain and horror.
Only one thing keeps us quiet and sane —faith in ourselves and in the free in stitutions for which our fathers fought and died. The British people must not lose faith in themselves and their destiny —if, and when they do, civilisation as we know it will crumble.
Here is an extract from a letter sent by Mr Walter Page t 0 tne p reside nt of the United States in the early stages of the Great War. Page was United States Ambassador to England during the war, 1914 to 1918, and was a great friend and admirer of the British.
“The world never saw a finer lot of men than the best of their ruling class.
I meet such men everywhere—gently bred
high-minded, physically fit, intellectually
cultivated, patriotic.
“I cannot see that the race is breaking down or giving out. They write, and speak, and play cricket, and govern, and fight, as well as they have ever done.
“Another conclusion that is confirmed, the more you see of English life, is their high art of living. They have gentleness, cultivation, the best of manners in the world —and they are genuine. . . .
“Not a tear have I seen yet. You guess at their grief only by their reticence. It is not an accident that these people own a fifth of the world. Utterly unwarlike, they outlast anybody else when war comes. You do not get a sense of fight ing here—only of endurance and high re solve. The heroism, the generosity, the endurance and self-restraint and courtesy of these people would melt a pyramid to tears. There never was such a race.
“It is the fashion in the United States to say that Britain is not doing her share.
There never was a greater slander. All the old stories, from Homer down, are outdone every day by these people. When the real trial comes they do not flinch; and (excepting the thoroughbred Ameri can) there are no such men in the world.”
Anglophobes will snort and sneer; but, at a time like this, it will do British people no harm to remind them that this was said —and said by a great American, who was one of the shrewdest observers of his time.