A Straight Deal
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Owen Wister >> A Straight Deal
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11 A STRAIGHT DEAL
OR
THE ANCIENT GRUDGE
By
Owen Wister
To Edward and Anna Martin who give help in time of trouble
Chapter I: Concerning One's Letter Box
Publish any sort of conviction related to these morose days through which
we are living and letters will shower upon you like leaves in October. No
matter what your conviction be, it will shake both yeas and nays loose
from various minds where they were hanging ready to fall. Never was a
time when so many brains rustled with hates and panaceas that would sail
wide into the air at the lightest jar. Try it and see. Say that you
believe in God, or do not; say that Democracy is the key to the
millennium, or the survival of the unfittest; that Labor is worse than
the Kaiser, or better; that drink is a demon, or that wine ministers to
the health and the cheer of man--say what you please, and the yeas and
nays will pelt you. So insecurely do the plainest, oldest truths dangle
in a mob of disheveled brains, that it is likely, did you assert twice
two continues to equal four and we had best stick to the multiplication
table, anonymous letters would come to you full of passionate abuse.
Thinking comes hard to all of us. To some it never comes at all, because
their heads lack the machinery. How many of such are there among us, and
how can we find them out before they do us harm? Science has a test for
this. It has been applied to the army recruit, but to the civilian voter
not yet. The voting moron still runs amuck in our Democracy. Our native
American air is infected with alien breath. It is so thick with opinions
that the light is obscured. Will the sane ones eventually prevail and
heal the sick atmosphere? We must at least assume so. Else, how could we
go on?
Chapter II: What the Postman Brought
During the winter of 1915 I came to think that Germany had gone
dangerously but methodically mad, and that the European War vitally
concerned ourselves. This conviction I put in a book. Yeas and nays
pelted me. Time seems to show the yeas had it.
During May, 1918, I thought we made a mistake to hate England. I said so
at the earliest opportunity. Again came the yeas and nays. You shall see
some of these. They are of help. Time has not settled this question. It
is as alive as ever--more alive than ever. What if the Armistice was
premature? What if Germany absorb Russia and join Japan? What if the
League of Nations break like a toy?
Yeas and nays are put here without the consent of their writers, whose
names, of course, do not appear, and who, should they ever see this, are
begged to take no offense. None is intended.
There is no intention except to persuade, if possible, a few readers, at
least, that hatred of England is not wise, is not justified to-day, and
has never been more than partly justified. It is based upon three
foundations fairly distinct yet meeting and merging on occasions: first
and worst, our school histories of the Revolution; second, certain
policies and actions of England since then, generally distorted or
falsified by our politicians; and lastly certain national traits in each
country that the other does not share and which have hitherto produced
perennial personal friction between thousands of English and American
individuals of every station in life. These shall in due time be
illustrated by two sets of anecdotes: one, disclosing the English traits,
the other the American. I say English, and not British, advisedly,
because both the Scotch and the Irish seem to be without those traits
which especially grate upon us and upon which we especially grate. And
now for the letters.
The first is from a soldier, an enlisted man, writing from France.
"Allow me to thank you for your article entitled 'The Ancient Grudge.'
... Like many other young Americans there was instilled in me from early
childhood a feeling of resentment against our democratic cousins across
the Atlantic and I was only too ready to accept as true those stories I
heard of England shirking her duty and hiding behind her colonies, etc.
It was not until I came over here and saw what she was really doing that
my opinion began to change.
"When first my division arrived in France it was brigaded with and
received its initial experience with the British, who proved to us how
little we really knew of the war as it was and that we had yet much to
learn. Soon my opinion began to change and I was regarding England as the
backbone of the Allies. Yet there remained a certain something I could
not forgive them. What it was you know, and have proved to me that it is
not our place to judge and that we have much for which to be thankful to
our great Ally.
"Assuring you that your ... article has succeeded in converting one who
needed conversion badly I beg to remain...."
How many American soldiers in Europe, I wonder, have looked about them,
have used their sensible independent American brains (our very best
characteristic), have left school histories and hearsay behind them and
judged the English for themselves? A good many, it is to be hoped. What
that judgment finally becomes must depend not alone upon the personal
experience of each man. It must also come from that liberality of outlook
which is attained only by getting outside your own place and seeing a lot
of customs and people that differ from your own. A mind thus seasoned and
balanced no longer leaps to an opinion about a whole nation from the
sporadic conduct of individual members of it. It is to be feared that
some of our soldiers may never forget or make allowance for a certain
insult they received in the streets of London. But of this later. The
following sentence is from a letter written by an American sailor:
"I have read... 'The Ancient Grudge' and I wish it could be read by
every man on our big ship as I know it would change a lot of their
attitude toward England. I have argued with lots of them and have shown
some of them where they are wrong but the Catholics and descendants of
Ireland have a different argument and as my education isn't very great, I
know very little about what England did to the Catholics in Ireland."
Ireland I shall discuss later. Ireland is no more our business to-day
than the South was England's business in 1861. That the Irish question
should defeat an understanding between ourselves and England would be, to
quote what a gentleman who is at once a loyal Catholic and a loyal member
of the British Government said to me, "wrecking the ship for a
ha'pennyworth of tar."
The following is selected from the nays, and was written by a business
man. I must not omit to say that the writers of all these letters are
strangers to me.
"As one American citizen to another... permit me to give my personal
view on your subject of 'The Ancient Grudge'...
"To begin with, I think that you start with a false idea of our kinship--
with the idea that America, because she speaks the language of England,
because our laws and customs are to a great extent of the same origin,
because much that is good among us came from there also, is essentially
of English character, bound up in some way with the success or failure of
England.
"Nothing, in my opinion, could be further from the truth. We are a
distinctive race--no more English, nationally, than the present King
George is German--as closely related and as alike as a celluloid comb and
a stick of dynamite.
"We are bound up in the success of America only. The English are bound up
in the success of England only. We are as friendly as rival corporations.
We can unite in a common cause, as we have, but, once that is over, we
will go our own way--which way, owing to the increase of our shipping and
foreign trade, is likely to become more and more antagonistic to
England's.
"England has been a commercially unscrupulous nation for generations and
it is idle to throw the blame for this or that act of a nation on an
individual. Such arguments might be kept up indefinitely as regards an
act 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 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 and defects,
and possibly even discern that those who fill our public positions are
mostly on a lower level than those who elect them.
I proceed with two more letters, both dissenting, and both giving very
typically, as it seems to me, the American feeling about England--
partially justified by instances mentioned by my correspondent, but
equally mentioned by me in passages which he seems to have skipped.
"Lately I read and did not admire your article... 'The Ancient Grudge.'
Many of your statements are absolutely true, and I recognize the fact
that England's help in this war has been invaluable. Let it go at that
and hush!
"I do not defend our own Indian policy.... Wounded and disabled in our
Indian wars... I know all about them and how indefensible they are.....
"England has been always our only legitimate enemy. 1776? Yes, call it
ancient history and forget it if possible. 1812? That may go in the same
category. But the causes of that misunderstanding were identically
repeated in 1914 and '15.
"1861? Is that also ancient? Perhaps--but very bitter in the memory of
many of us now living. The Alabama. The Confederate Commissioners (I know
you will say we were wrong there--and so we may have been technically--
but John Bull bullied us into compliance when our hands were tied).
Lincoln told his Cabinet 'one war at a time, Gentlemen' and submitted....
"In 1898 we were a strong and powerful nation and a dangerous enemy to
provoke. England recognized the fact and acted accordingly. England
entered the present war to protect small nations! Heaven save the mark!
You surely read your history. Pray tell me something of England's policy
in South Africa, India, the Soudan, Persia, Abyssinia, Ireland, Egypt.
The lost provinces of Denmark. The United States when she was young and
helpless. And thus, almost to- infinitum.
"Do you not know that the foundations of ninety per cent of the great
British fortunes came from the loot of India? upheld and fostered by the
great and unscrupulous East India Company?
"Come down to later times: to-day for instance. Here in California... I
meet and associate with hundreds of Britishers. Are they American
citizens? I had almost said, 'No, not one.' Sneering and contemptuous of
America and American institutions. Continually finding fault with our
government and our people. Comparing these things with England, always to
our disadvantage......
"Now do you wonder we do not like England? Am I pro-German? I should
laugh and so would you if you knew me."
To this correspondent I did not reply that I wished I knew him--which I
do--that, even as he, so I had frequently been galled by the rudeness and
the patronizing of various specimens, high and low, of the English race.
But something I did reply, to the effect that I asked nobody to consider
England flawless, or any nation a charitable institution, but merely to
be fair, and to consider a cordial understanding between us greatly to
our future advantage. To this he answered, in part, as follows:
"I wish to thank you for your kindly reply.... Your argument is that as a
matter of policy we should conciliate Great Britain. Have we fallen so
low, this great and powerful nation?... Truckling to some other power
because its backing, moral or physical, may some day be of use to us,
even tho' we know that in so doing we are surrendering our dearest
rights, principles, and dignity!... Oh! my dear Sir, you surely do not
advocate this? I inclose an editorial clipping.... Is it no shock to you
when Winston Churchill shouts to High Heaven that under no circumstances
will Great Britain surrender its supreme control of the seas? This in
reply to President Wilson's plea for freedom of the seas and curtailment
of armaments.... But as you see, our President and our Mr. Daniels have
already said, 'Very well, we will outbuild you.' Never again shall Great
Britain stop our mail ships and search our private mails. Already has
England declared an embargo against our exports in many essential lines
and already are we expressing our dissatisfaction and taking means to
retaliate "
Of the editorial clipping inclosed with the above, the following is a
part:
"John Bull is our associate in the contest with the Kaiser. There is no
doubt as to his position on that proposition. He went after the Dutch in
great shape. Next to France he led the way and said, 'Come on, Yanks; we
need your help. We will put you in the first line of trenches where there
will be good gunning. Yes, we will do all of that and at the same time we
will borrow your money, raised by Liberty Loans, and use it for the
purchase of American wheat, pork, and beef.'
"Mr. Bull kept his word. He never flinched or attempted to dodge the
issue. He kept strictly in the middle of the road. His determination to
down the Kaiser with American men, American money, and American food
never abated for a single day during the conflict."
This editorial has many twins throughout the country. I quote it for its
value as a specimen of that sort of journalistic and political utterance
amongst us, which is as seriously embarrassed by facts as a skunk by its
tail. Had its author said: "The Declaration of Independence was signed by
Christopher Columbus on Washington's birthday during the siege of
Vicksburg in the presence of Queen Elizabeth and Judas Iscariot," his
statement would have been equally veracious, and more striking.
As to Winston Churchill's declaration that Great Britain will not
surrender her control of the seas, I am as little shocked by that as I
should be were our Secretary of the Navy to declare that in no
circumstances would we give up control of the Panama Canal. The Panama
Canal is our carotid artery, Great Britain's navy is her jugular vein. It
is her jugular vein in the mind of her people, regardless of that new
apparition, the submarine. I was not shocked that Great Britain should
decline Mr. Wilson's invitation that she cut her jugular vein; it was the
invitation which kindled my emotions; but these were of a less serious
kind.
The last letter that I shall give is from an American citizen of English
birth.
"As a boy at school in England, I was taught the history of the American
Revolution as J. R. Green presents it in his Short History of the English
People. The gist of this record, as you doubtless recollect, is that
George III being engaged in the attempt to destroy what there then was of
political freedom and representative government in England, used the
American situation as a means to that end; that the English people, in so
far as their voice could make itself heard, were solidly against both his
English and American policy, and that the triumph of America contributed
in no small measure to the salvation of those institutions by which the
evolution of England towards complete democracy was made possible.
Washington was held up to us in England not merely as a great and good
man, but as an heroic leader, to whose courage and wisdom the English as
well as the American people were eternally indebted... .
"Pray forgive so long a letter from a stranger. It is prompted... by a
sense of the illimitable importance, not only for America and Britain,
but for the entire world, of these two great democratic peoples knowing
each other as they really are and cooperating as only they can cooperate
to establish and maintain peace on just and permanent foundations."
Chapter III: In Front of a Bulletin Board
There, then, are ten letters of the fifty which came to me in consequence
of what I wrote in May, 1918, which was published in the American
Magazine for the following November. Ten will do. To read the other forty
would change no impression conveyed already by the ten, but would merely
repeat it. With varying phraseology their writers either think we have
hitherto misjudged England and that my facts are to the point, or they
express the stereotyped American antipathy to England and treat my facts
as we mortals mostly do when facts are embarrassing--side-step them.
What best pleased me was to find that soldiers and sailors agreed with
me, and not "high-brows" only.
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