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 pr