First and foremost among the forces that have improved Anglo-American relations I place the Anglo-American marriages that should go far to improve not only the finances but the breed of our English aristocracy. Byron writes of mixed marriages that they "ruin the blood but much improve the breed." I accept only the latter proposition. I think the young generation born of these marriages will be powerful, mentally and physically, that it may even be in time to stand in the breach and save the class to which it will belong from submersion. Certainly our aristocracy, enfeebled by intermarriage and circumscribed financially by modern taxation and the depreciation in agricultural values, degraded by the sale of "honours," would be bound to go under in the struggle with democracy, and if it is possible to predicate any of the results of the present cataclysm I should say that the democracy will issue from it as the dominating force in Europe. Another section of a royalty that tends ever to diminish has been weighed in the balances of war and will, I imagine, be found wanting.
Anglo-American marriages have given our cousins of the New World an interest in the old firm's business, have made them, even if in a limited sense, partners in the British Empire unlimited. I said as much at the dinner-table the other night and was promptly challenged until I reminded my critic that an ex-First Lord of the Admiralty, to whose genius all, including Lord Charles Beresford, now pay tribute, is as much American as English. Miss Jerome, Lady Randolph Churchill, was one of the first recruits to the ranks of the British aristocracy and has played no small part in English social life. Winston Churchill has had time to grow up, there are dozens of Anglo-American lads to whom in the course of time opportunity will be given. Who shall say that they too will not prove worthy?
The American girl, married into the wide circle of Britain's comfortable classes, finds many interests that unite the country of her adoption with the land of her birth. Visited by her family and friends, giving introductions for use in the United States to her husband's relatives, she has been powerful in spreading social intercourse and in establishing the vital truth that, in face of many of the great world problems, England and America see eye to eye and may work hand in hand. Philanthropy and social service are the finest solvents of prejudice between people speaking one language and, when that prejudice is not founded on fundamental disagreement, and is dependent for its maintenance upon ignorance, suspicion and the absence of intercourse, it cannot long survive under modern conditions. Every Atlantic Liner is a missionary of Anglo-American good-will. London and New York can exchange their thoughts in a few moments, the great sundering force of the Atlantic grows ever less, and the American girl has played a part in unifying Anglo-Saxon thought and sympathy that makes her social reward seem but a small payment for a great service.