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ANGLO-SAXON SOLIDARITY




 ANGLO-SAXON
 SOLIDARITY

 [Illustration]

 BY
 Herbert Adams Gibbons

 THE CENTURY CO.
 MDCCCCXXI




COPYRIGHT 1920 BY

THE CENTURY CO


REPRINTED FROM

THE CHRISTMAS _Century_ 1920


[Illustration]




ANGLO-SAXON SOLIDARITY

By Herbert Adams Gibbons


None denies that the world is askew. Ships of state are pilotless and
rudderless, riding God knows where. In every country internal economic
and social conditions are so upset that forecasts of the morrow seem
futile. And yet international political relationships depend upon
these internal conditions more intimately and more wholly than ever
before in history. Statesmen may still be sitting at the diplomatic
chessboard, making moves in accordance with the old rules of the game.
But each realizes that shaping the foreign policy of his nation is no
longer independent of or divorced from home policies and problems.
Things have changed. The old order upon which one could count in
directing foreign affairs has given place to new and uncertain values.
Just what the changes are, whether for good or bad, whether permanent
or temporary, and how we are to adjust ourselves to them and take
advantage of them or combat them, as the case may be, on all this we
read little that is constructive. Prophets are alarmists, and critics
keep telling us what we know, that our statesmen are making a mess of
things internationally and that we are badly off internally because
legislators and executives are passive in the face of high prices and
social unrest.

Dear me! do we need to be taught that our house is not in order
by having it, figuratively at least, pulled down around our ears?
Politicians and professors and publicists must call a halt on their
flood of complaint and denunciation and warning. The rôle of Cassandra
may have been necessary to get people to pay attention, but when the
public begins to say, "Well, what of it?" tirades must be changed to
programs, if the piercing through the armor-plate of indifference is
to accomplish any good result. "You writers on political and economic
affairs give me the willies," said a bluff business man to me the other
day. "If I do not stop reading you, I'll get to thinking in circles."

Many who see the danger-signal try to heed it by shifting from
fault-finding to rose-hued platitudes. We have seen this in the recent
political campaign. When managers and orators felt that public opinion
was growing restive under constant criticism and impatient of overdoses
of "the world is going to the bow-wows," the strident notes gave way
to a grand diapason of "All's well!" Everything had been and would
again be lovely in these United States, once the disturbing element
of the opposing political party was snowed under by the avalanche of
voters saving the republic.

In a political campaign demagogic methods may be excusable. After
all, the public has the votes, and must be handled with due regard
for the laws of mob psychology. But when we see the same methods
applied to the presentation of a question of permanent interest and
importance, and applied by men who both know better and have not the
defense of electoral anxiety and expediency, it is time to protest. As
an Anglo-Saxon American, whose deepest interest is in the solidarity
of the English-speaking world, I want to raise my voice against the
tactless and platitudinous type of article and speech one reads and
hears everywhere in connection with the Pilgrim tercentenary. In my
childhood, when the kitchen happened to run out of cereals or milk, the
cook used to give us a dish of bread or flour and water with a liberal
sprinkling of sugar to disguise its origin. To make children take
"pap," everything depends upon the sugar. The ingredients and their
cooking do not enter in.

I would not do all tercentenary orators the injustice of imputing to
them paucity of ideas. For the cleverest of writers and preachers
are among the most platitudinous when they touch the subject of our
relations with Great Britain. Why do they go no further than extolling
Puritan stock and our inheritance from the mother country and declaring
that no sinister influences disturb the complete understanding that
exists between those to whom blood is thicker than water? Article
after article, speech after speech, toast after toast, have I read
or sat through, and failed to get any idea other than that it was
reprehensible and "pro-German" to criticize Great Britain, that the
Irish were akin to the Bolshevists, and that the bonds uniting the two
great nations of the Anglo-Saxon world were imperishable. Our British
hosts are assured that history text-books have been responsible for
much of our misunderstanding of the British, and that when we have
remedied the way the War of Independence and the War of 1812 and the
British attitude in the Civil War were presented to American children,
a desire to twist the lion's tail will remain in this country only
among Germans and Irish. And we shall substitute "Over There" as our
national anthem for "The Star-Spangled Banner," whose origin is,
like the Fourth of July, extremely embarrassing for Anglo-American
relations. And no matter what war may arise, together shall we stand,
as we did in France. So on _ad nauseam_.

We must not be uncharitable in passing judgment on tercentenary
orators. With British hosts in the audience and at the table, and
considering the occasion, a graceful eulogy is the order of the
day. Still, it is possible to combine constructive thinking with
complimentary references to past and present, especially when we
consider that tercentenary celebrations draw thoughtful, earnest
people, who do not have to be treated like a movie audience or a
campaign gathering. But so strongly are we under the influence of the
propaganda of the recent war that our tongues cleave to the roof of the
mouth when any thought comes into our head that, if uttered, might
be interpreted as criticizing a British foreign or domestic policy
or suggesting that Anglo-American relations need careful guiding and
nursing. Still under the spell of the war, our tercentenary utterances
are "pap," uninteresting, tiresome, and not contributing, as they ought
to do, something new to the great problem of Anglo-Saxon solidarity.

We might dismiss the tercentenary disappointment with a simple
expression of regret over the great opportunity missed,
were it not for the strong feeling that the loving-cup and
patting-ourselves-mutually-on-the-back performances are positively
harmful to Anglo-Saxon solidarity. They have the effect of a soporific
to American believers in Anglo-Saxon solidarity and of a stimulant to
the enemies among Americans of friendship with Great Britain. The
man who attends Pilgrim dinners and celebrations goes home with the
comfortable feeling that Anglo-Saxon solidarity is stronger than ever.
It is a physical reaction from the food and lights and flowers and
music and women, not a mental reaction from the speakers. Satisfied and
reassured, the tercentenary celebrant thinks he has done all that is
necessary to maintain and strengthen the bonds of friendship and good
understanding between the English-speaking nations. The sugar is to his
taste. The German-American who reads the reports of the speeches and
toasts in the newspapers finds his instinctive antipathy to Anglo-Saxon
solidarity confirmed by the tercentenary orator's foolish and distorted
conception of it. There is no sugar on the "pap" for him. As for the
Irishman, he sees redder than ever when he reads of tercentenary
orators lauding Puritans for exiling themselves and later fighting
England for freedom's sake and denouncing the Irish for aspiring to
freedom.

Yes, I know the American of Scotch or English descent is likely to say
that this is an Anglo-Saxon country, and that the Germans and Irishmen
and other Europeans did not have to come here. When they did come, it
was up to them to forget old ties and become assimilated with us. We
have the right to justify close ties with Great Britain on the ground
of "blood is thicker than water," but they have not that right in
regard to their countries of origin. In 1914 this contention was put
squarely before Americans of European origin. We forget now that it was
never admitted by them, and that the remarkable union of the American
nation, after we went into the war, did not mean, among Americans
of other than Anglo-Saxon origin, the abandonment of affection for,
of pride in, their own ancestors. They refuse to accept the brand of
hyphenate, arguing that, until the country of origin became the enemy
of the United States, they had as much right to feel sympathetic toward
it and even help its cause as did the Americans of Anglo-Saxon origin
to sympathize with and help Great Britain. Now that the war is over,
these non-Anglo-Saxons say to us, "If in your tercentenary celebrations
you insist on blood relationship, do not speak for the United States.
We resent that and deny your right. Speak only for your own element in
the American population."

We Anglo-Saxons cannot expect to denounce Ireland and even Germany and
affirm our affection for and championship of England _on the ground
of blood relationship_, as is being done in almost every tercentenary
celebration, and expect our right to speak for the United States not
to be contested. Unfortunately, this is not "our country." The United
States, from the beginning, contained elements without a drop of
Anglo-Saxon blood in their veins, and Germans, Irishmen, and Hollanders
fought in the Revolutionary War. Throughout the nineteenth century
the United States relied for her growth and expansion upon European
immigration, and the large part of the Irish and German elements came
to this country before the Civil War. The United States is not our
(Anglo-Saxon) country either because of the great preponderance of
people of our unmixed blood or because the Anglo-Saxon element founded
it exclusively and made it what it is. The greatness of the United
States in the third decade of the twentieth century is due to the
combined aid of several different elements of her population, and it
is certain that we could not have dispensed with either the German or
the Irish element. And these elements are so numerous and so powerful
in wealth and political influence that it is inexpedient--to use a
mild word--to ignore or affront them in our tercentenary writing
and speaking. It does not help the cause of Anglo-Saxon solidarity
for a tercentenary orator to denounce the German-Americans and the
Irish-Americans. Quite the contrary. Thoughtless speakers who indulge
in such diatribes and enthusiastic listeners who beam approval are
digging the grave and assisting at the interment of Anglo-Saxon
solidarity.

On a Sunday morning in January, 1915, I went to service at an Anglican
church in Cairo. After the prayers for the king and the royal family,
the minister prayed for the President of the United States. I knew, of
course, that this beautiful and graceful custom holds in many Anglican
chapels on the Continent which American tourists attend, and I suppose
it was introduced in Cairo for the same reason. But in wartime, when
we were neutral and when there were no tourists in Cairo, the prayer
touched me deeply. It was an evidence of the close relationship between
my country and Great Britain, closer than between Great Britain and her
allies. I sat through a dull sermon, thinking of what a privilege it
was for an American to share in the advantages of the unique position
of the British Empire. Travel where I would in the world, I could
use my own language and attend my own church and hear my country
remembered in prayer. Common language and common faith, common laws and
customs and common ideals--does the untraveled American appreciate the
wealth of his Anglo-Saxon heritage and the vast privileges it confers
upon him?

But on another American correspondent who was not of Anglo-Saxon origin
this incident made no impression, and he did not follow me in prizing
the heritage. "Language is a lucky convenience," he admitted, "but
the English are foreigners to me. I feel nothing in common with them,
nothing at all." He went on to say that he regarded the British as a
more dangerous enemy than the Germans, and that our next war would
be with them. My friend was a high-minded and intelligent American
who had been to school in England and also in France. In temperament
he was more emotional than I; he loved music and architecture and
handled carpets reverently. But his American blood--three or four
generations--gave him no feeling of kinship with the English. I
realized, when it came to the test of liking for a European country,
that his sympathies were instinctively with Germany, while mine were
as instinctively with England. Why? The difference in our blood and
background of tradition. Later this correspondent rendered splendid
service in the A. E.F. But he was fighting for the United States alone,
and more than once told me that he would do everything in his power,
after the war, to keep the United States from "falling in the orbit,"
as he put it, of the British Empire.

It will do us no good to discount the importance of our compatriots
who are not of Anglo-Saxon blood. If we want to make Anglo-Saxon
solidarity a national policy instead of a group cult, we shall have
to find an appeal to the American public different from that of the
orators and writers who speak in these days of our ancestors, our
common blood, our precious Anglo-Saxon heritage. Nor is the superiority
of Anglo-Saxon culture an argument that impresses many outside of
our group. It smacks too much of a discredited political system that
sought to replace or dominate other cultures by the _Kulture_ of the
_Uebermensch_. Some of the tercentenary orators come dangerously near
plagiarizing the ex-Kaiser.

Culture is a vague word. If it means traditions and customs and mental
habits as embodied in our literature and preserved in our family
life, we shall find many other American elements than the German
unwilling to abandon for our culture what they brought here from the
Old World. Thousands of flourishing communities exist in the United
States, nurseries of splendid Americans, where the new generation is
being brought up with traditions and customs and mental habits very
different from those of Anglo-Saxons. From Scandinavians to Italians,
elements of continental European origin are not giving up their culture
for Anglo-Saxon culture. So strong are atavism, the home circle, and
the church that our public-school system does not Anglo-Saxonize the
children. I used to believe in this assimilation and to write that
it was being accomplished. Experience, especially with officers and
soldiers of the A.E.F., has taught me that I was wrong.

If millions upon millions of Americans are ignorant of or indignantly
reject the bases of Anglo-Saxon solidarity lovingly dwelt upon by
tercentenary orators and writers, what are we going to do about it?
We cannot tell Hans Schmidt, Giuseppe Tommasi, Abram Einstein, Olaf
Andersen, Robert Emmet O'Brien, and a dozen others that they are not
good Americans because they do not cheerfully accept the supremacy
of the Scotch and English among us and the superiority of Scotch and
English ways. Nothing could be better fitted to arouse within them a
fierce determination to resist assimilation and oppose the policy of
Anglo-Saxon solidarity.

Here is our problem. We of pure Anglo-Saxon stock, whose ancestors
came to America in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, have never
been accused of hating ourselves and being oblivious to our origin. We
have overloaded the _Mayflower_ and over-populated Virginia and given
William Penn a host of intimate friends. From the time of Washington
Irving we have become more and more reconciled with our British
cousins, and have learned to build our traditions from long before the
Revolutionary War. We have become aware of our precious Anglo-Saxon
heritage. At the outbreak of the World War we celebrated a hundred
years of peace with Great Britain. Then we entered the war, and fought
with the British against a common enemy.

Now, after the victory, we come to celebrate the three hundredth
anniversary of the landing of the Pilgrims. We are more than ever glad
of our blood and traditions. We are immensely proud of the British
stock from which we sprang. How the deeds of the British on land and
sea quickened our pulses as we read of them! A privileged few of us
saw and shared in them. More important still, during the war, there
were times when we realized that Anglo-Saxondom was threatened with an
eclipse of glory and influence. A thing is never so precious as when
you are faced with losing it. Will any reader of this article ever
forget the awful sensation that came when he read the first bulletins
of the Battle of Jutland? No Anglo-Saxon could be indifferent about
the outcome of the war after that experience. The aftermath of the war
has not dispelled, but rather confirmed, the instinct of danger felt
during the war. We say to ourselves that the British Empire and the
United States must face the future together. How are we going to create
an irresistible public opinion in the United States in favor of a
foreign policy that will embody as one of its cardinal principles the
fostering of Anglo-Saxon solidarity? What are the bases of Anglo-Saxon
solidarity?

I think I have proved that the elements of our population which are
not Anglo-Saxon do not take much stock in Anglo-American community of
blood and culture and history because they are not bases to them. Their
blood is not ours, their culture is different, and American history
gives them ground for antagonism to the British rather than sympathy
with the British. The earlier English history they did not share. Other
grounds must be sought to convince the American nation that it is a
part of Anglo-Saxondom and should work for the union and prosperity of
Anglo-Saxondom. The only cultural basis that has a wider appeal than
simply to one of several American groups is the question of common
language.

English is our national language. But this forms a strong bond only
with Canada, where there is a constant intercourse among peoples and
a constant exchange of books and periodicals. It is becoming a factor
in our relations with Australia, also, because Australians read widely
and with avidity popular American literature. But outside of a limited
circle, which needs no conversion to Anglo-Saxon solidarity, few
British and Americans come into personal contact, and the reciprocal
purchase of books and magazines and newspapers is surprisingly small.
Potentially, however, common language is a basis of solidarity.
It is an asset in favor of those who are working to bring the
English-speaking peoples together.

The practicable bases of Anglo-Saxon solidarity, which tercentenary
orators could present with effect to _all_ their compatriots,
are common laws and spirit of administration of justice, similar
development of democratic institutions, common ideals, and common
interests. The first two are in a certain sense included in the third
and fourth, and the fourth covers the first three. One appeals to the
moral sense and to self-interest, and then, to clinch the argument,
shows how idealism is in harmony with interest, as in the adage,
"Honesty is the best policy."

In discussing the four bases of Anglo-Saxon solidarity, it must be
remembered that the problem involves the direct relations between each
two of the members of the English-speaking group of nations and between
each English-speaking country and the colonies and possessions of the
British Empire and the United States. The following table shows how
wide a field Anglo-Saxon solidarity covers:

 Great Britain and United States
 Great Britain and Ireland
 Ireland and United States
 Great Britain and Canada
 United States and Canada
 Ireland and Canada
 Great Britain and Australia
 United States and Australia
 Ireland and Australia
 Canada and Australia
 Great Britain and New Zealand
 United States and New Zealand
 Ireland and New Zealand
 Canada and New Zealand
 Australia and New Zealand
 Great Britain and South Africa
 United States and South Africa
 Ireland and South Africa
 Canada and South Africa
 Australia and South Africa
 New Zealand and South Africa
 Great Britain and India and other possessions
 United States and British possessions
 Ireland and British possessions
 Canada and British possessions
 Australia and British possessions
 New Zealand and British possessions
 South Africa and British possessions
 United States and her possessions
 Great Britain and American possessions
 Ireland and American possessions
 Canada and American possessions
 Australia and American possessions
 New Zealand and American possessions
 South Africa and American possessions
 British possessions and American possessions

Thirty-six separate headings may seem on first glance useless
repetition. But I ask my readers simply to take each heading, think for
a minute, and there will arise in your mind some problem of Anglo-Saxon
solidarity involving primarily the two parties coupled in each of the
thirty-six headings. In fact, it is not difficult to find several
sources of friction calling for adjustment under a single head. I have
not space to enumerate. Nor have I increased the list by adding the new
headings that might be justified by the new responsibilities of the
British Empire through the acquisition--in complicated form because
of division with self-governing dominions and the as yet unsettled
limitations of mandates--of the former German colonies.

The years immediately ahead are years of great peril for Anglo-Saxon
solidarity. The problems we must face and solve go so far beyond the
matters dealt with by tercentenary orators that one feels the crying
need of light and more light in considering the quadrangular character
of relations between the different parts of Anglo-Saxondom--Great
Britain, self-governing dominions, the United States, and the
possessions and protectorates British and American. Japan? The Pacific?
Tariffs and shipping? Sea-power? Status of the Near East and the German
colonies? Panama Canal? Monroe Doctrine? League of Nations? Ireland?
We cannot treat these matters only as questions between London and
Washington affecting Anglo-American relations. Nor can Great Britain
treat them that way. Both London and Washington are forced to take
into consideration the self-governing dominions of the British Empire
whose sentiments and interests give them a distinct point of view
and program of their own. With the exception of South Africa, the
self-governing dominions are, like the United States, the outgrowth of
transplanted Anglo-Saxon civilization. It is natural that in mentality,
and frequently in interests, they should be nearer us than the mother
country. Canada and South Africa have important Caucasian elements
that have not been under the influence of, and are antipathetic to,
Anglo-Saxon culture. Australia's Irish rival ours in singing the hymn
of hate against England.

The first basis of Anglo-Saxon solidarity is to create throughout
Anglo-Saxondom the consciousness of unity in our conception of law
and in the spirit of our administration of law. Just laws justly
administered are the foundation of civilized society. Those who live
under them prize them more highly than any other possession. No alien,
whatever his origin, who comes to live under our dispensation fails to
acknowledge the blessings of Anglo-Saxon law. Our laws and our courts
are the outgrowth of centuries of English history and experience. They
offer the greatest protection to the individual man and the widest
possibility of individual freedom the world has ever known. Within
recent years, if America meant to the immigrant "the home of the
free," it was because of the scrupulous administration of justice
according to the laws handed down to us by our Anglo-Saxon forebears.
Similarly, the immigrant of continental European origin who went to a
British colony was sure of a "square deal." Before the law he was the
equal of any other man. Entering our society, he shared immediately
the benefits of our most sacred heritage--free speech, free assembly,
the habeas corpus act, and the principles of Anglo-Saxon law assured
to Americans not only by custom and our system of jurisprudence, but
by the first amendments to the Constitution. As far as laws and the
administration of justice are concerned, the English-speaking countries
have had a similar development, and have not severed this powerful link
binding them to England more closely than common language.

If we can impress upon our fellow-citizens in the United States
and Canada and South Africa and Ireland who are not of Anglo-Saxon
origin or who have grown away from Anglo-Saxondom that throughout the
English-speaking world we are maintaining the reign of English law and
guarding jealously the constitutional liberties handed down to us from
England, this precious basis of Anglo-Saxon solidarity will appeal to
them, and they will help us to strengthen it. But there never has been
a time in this country when the enemies of our Anglo-Saxon liberties
have been so strong and so persistent. The cause of Anglo-Saxon
solidarity is menaced by assaults from within. Public officials of the
mentality of Attorney-General Palmer despise the Anglo-Saxon system of
law and repudiate the traditions and customs of centuries.

Political institutions and jurisprudence go together. Although the
American commonwealth has developed its political institutions with
less strict adherence to English standards than in the case of
jurisprudence, our modifications do not affect the spirit of what we
have received, and the changes are only in detail. Representative
government we received from England. When we fought the mother country
it was to preserve our rights as Englishmen, which we did not believe
had been forfeited by transplantation. The American War of Independence
was a struggle to establish a principle that has been vital in the
development of English-speaking countries. Canada, Australia, New
Zealand, and South Africa owe to us the possession of Anglo-Saxon
liberties in new worlds without having had to fight for them. During
the recent war British propagandists in the United States made much
of the argument that the British Empire was fighting to secure the
triumph of Anglo-Saxon polity against a different system that was both
reactionary and aggressive, that Americans were as much interested as
British in defending Anglo-Saxon polity, and that therefore the British
Empire was fighting our battle. The argument was sound. It appealed to
thoughtful men in the United States, and I believe history will show
that our slogan when we did enter the war, "To make the world safe for
democracy," was not a vain one.

The continental European who emigrates to white men's countries under
the Anglo-Saxon form of government becomes, after naturalization,
an equal partner with every other citizen. He votes. He is eligible
for office. No argument is necessary to convince him of the
advantages of living under Anglo-Saxon political institutions. If
these institutions are properly administered, he appreciates them
as highly as he appreciates Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence. A basis of
Anglo-Saxon solidarity that we can urge upon Americans who are deaf to
the call of blood and culture is Anglo-Saxon polity. Every inhabitant
of Anglo-Saxondom is interested in the maintenance and defense of
the jurisprudence and polity under which he lives. Point out to him
that English-speaking countries cannot afford to risk these precious
possessions by being enemies and by pursuing antagonistic policies in
this electrically charged _post bellum_ world, and he will begin to see
the common sense of a policy of _rapprochement_ between Great Britain,
her dominions, and ourselves.

The most powerful appeal to the heart of the United States is the moral
appeal. This is true of every other Anglo-Saxon country. If we needed
proof, the recent war gave it. Great Britain was hardly less slow than
the United States in getting her soul into the war. Whatever German
polemicists may have said in their hymns of hate, there was no English
conspiracy against their commerce, and Great Britain did not enter the
war--I am speaking of the national consciousness of her people--to
crush a trade rival. Without the invasion of Belgium, the cabinet would
have had difficulty in getting Parliament to declare war. Without the
constant effort to arouse and maintain the people in a state of moral
indignation, which was never relaxed during the four years of fighting,
the people of the British Empire would not have furnished millions of
soldiers. We Anglo-Saxons are instinctively anti-militaristic, and we
loathe war. We accept the burden of war only as a last resort, when
we are driven to it. In a certain sense the United States was kicked
into the war. We could not stand Germany pulling our nose and slapping
our face any longer. But after we entered, the remarkable effort in
manpower and money made by this nation was due not to spontaneous
combustion, but to the clever propaganda of various official and
unofficial organizations, ably assisted by a large element of the press.

If the call of blood and culture, as some tercentenary orators claim,
enlisted us in the war, why were we deaf to it for three years? I
am afraid that our passivity from 1914 to 1917 flatly contradicts
the eloquent assertions made over loving-cups at Pilgrim banquets.
The United States as a whole does not possess an Anglo-Saxon racial
or cultural consciousness. But, despite our mixture of blood and
cultural background, successive generations of development under
Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence and polity have given us an idealism that
is distinctively Anglo-Saxon. It was slow to awaken, but when it did
awake, the people of this country, irrespective of origin, went into
the war for the triumph of the ideals embodied by President Wilson in
his war speeches. We believe that these were the ideals of our allies,
for their statesmen had been telling us the principles for which the
Entente was fighting ever since August 1, 1914.

But when the statesmen of the peace conference refused to abide by the
principles proclaimed during the war, and upon the basis of which the
armistice was concluded, they made impossible America's participation
in the treaties. At Manchester, in December, 1918, President Wilson
declared that the United States would never enter into any league that
was not an association of _all_ nations for the common good. How could
it be otherwise? A formidable number of millions of Americans who
fought Germany without hesitation because Germany stood for militarism
and autocracy and imperialism do not believe they are called upon to
sanction and enforce a sordid materialistic peace that makes some races
masters of others. For the sake of idealism and for the United States
they fought against kith and kin, or alongside of those they believed,
rightly or wrongly, to be the oppressors of their race. But can we
expect our compatriots of German or Irish or Slavic origin to support
a European and world order based upon the permanent inferiority and
subjection of the races from which they sprang?

Some unthinking Americans hotly answer in the affirmative, and revive
the epithet of hyphenate. But in doing so, they reveal themselves to
be very poor Anglo-Saxons. A sense of justice and an ability to put
oneself in the other man's place are the Anglo-Saxon qualities _par
excellence_. Being of pure British blood myself, I cannot help looking
with contempt upon parvenus who are _plus royalistes que le roi_. The
American of German or Irish origin who speaks and works for Anglo-Saxon
race supremacy is a strange creature. "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem"
is sacred to the decent-minded man. The pride I have in my ancestry
and the sense of partnership I feel in the history of my race enable
me to respect others for thinking of Germany and Ireland as I think
of England. Insisting that they foul their own nests is a poor test
for recruits to Anglo-Saxon solidarity. Americans who maintain that it
is our duty as good citizens of the United States to work for, or at
least not to speak against, the material advancement of Great Britain
because of kinship are appealing to a racial group and are as guilty of
hyphenism as the propagandists of any other racial group. The reader
interrupts me with the protest, "But you cannot put our comrade in
arms, Great Britain, whose language and civilization we share, in the
same position toward American citizens as Germany, our recent enemy!"
Precisely so. I agree. But why? The blood argument I accept, but nearly
fifty million Americans reject it. We must make the distinction one of
ideals.

Our third basis of Anglo-Saxon solidarity is, then, harmony of ideals
among the nations of the English-speaking world. Great Britain is drawn
to us, the self-governing dominions are drawn to us, and we are drawn
to Great Britain and the self-governing dominions because we have
common ideals. And there will be no _rapprochement_ unless this is so.
Consequently, if we are honestly working for Anglo-Saxon solidarity
and not simply setting forth sugared "pap" for public consumption,
we shall on both sides tackle courageously shortcomings in following
ideals not because we love to criticize, but because this is the
only way we can remove sources of friction that threaten to disrupt
Anglo-Saxon solidarity. In regard to Germany, Great Britain has acted
admirably, and is living up to her ideals of fair play and of not
kicking the other fellow when he is down. In regard to Ireland, on
the other hand, we have a question that must be settled before genuine
good feeling is established among the Anglo-Saxon states. Speaking for
Ireland and not against her is the highest wisdom for the Anglo-Saxon
propagandist in the United States. It proves that he himself believes
in the Anglo-Saxon heritage of which he boasts, and that he is anxious
to remove one of the greatest obstacles to Anglo-American friendship.

We are not going to get anywhere in our propaganda for Anglo-Saxon
solidarity unless we emphasize the common idealism and strive to
make the association of Anglo-Saxon nations a committee for giving
Anglo-Saxon liberties to the whole world. This thought came to me with
peculiar force when I stood on the spot in the Moses Taylor Pyne
estate where are buried those who fell in the Battle of Princeton. On a
bronze tablet are inscribed the words of Alfred Noyes:

 Here freedom stood by slaughtered friend and foe,
 And, ere the wrath paled, or that sunset died,
 Looked through the ages, then, with eyes aglow,
 Laid them to wait that future, side by side.

The "future, side by side" of English-speaking countries can mean only
working for the spread of freedom. We shall not help each other to deny
freedom to others, and if we did join in an Anglo-Saxon freebooting
expedition across the world, we should quickly follow the law of
pirates and be at each other's throats.

A poet might have ended his plea for Anglo-Saxon solidarity here. An
orator certainly would. But, as I am in earnest and want my argument
to remain with the reader, I must not leave it incomplete. Among
the bases of Anglo-Saxon solidarity, as in any human association,
interest is the cornerstone. Men coöperate in no undertaking in which
the element of mutual advantage does not play the preponderant rôle.
Other factors are present, of course, and mutual interest may not be
the exciting cause of entering into a common undertaking. But interest
is the cement as well as the foundation of human society. If I were
strictly logical, the three bases of Anglo-Saxon solidarity already
suggested ought to be made sub-divisions of the basis I call common
interests.

What are these interests? Are they numerous and important enough to
justify a close union among English-speaking countries? What particular
interests would have to be sacrificed in order to further the common
interests? Are the sacrifices possible? Is it worth while to make
them? The World War and its aftermath make inevitable raising these
questions. But those who, like myself, believe that the political and
economic _rapprochement_ of Anglo-Saxon countries is a possibility that
ought to be carefully considered, will fail of appreciable results
unless we are willing to discuss moot questions frankly and with
detachment in good old Anglo-Saxon fashion and unless we realize the
composite racial and cultural character of the American nation.




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End of Project Gutenberg's Anglo-Saxon Solidarity, by Herbert Adams Gibbons