oved 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 pers