“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: