od manners or
good faith. This distinction presents the big task of implanting
here a real respect for our Government. People often think to
compliment the American Ambassador by assuming that he is better
than his Government and must at times be ashamed of it. Of course
the Government never does this--never--but persons in unofficial
life; and I have sometimes hit some hard blows under this
condescending provocation. This is the one experience that I have
found irritating. They commiserate me on having a Government that
will not provide an Ambassador's residence--from the King to my
servants. They talk about American lynchings. Even the _Spectator,_
in an early editorial about you, said that we should now see what
stuff there is in the new President by watching whether you would
stop lynchings. They forever quote Bryce on the badness of our
municipal government. They pretend to think that the impeachment of
governors is common and ought to be commoner. One delicious M.P.
asked me: "Now, since the Governor of New York is impeached, who
becomes Vice-President[23]?" Ignorance, unfathomable ignorance, is
at the bottom of much of it; if the Town Treasurer of Yuba Dam gets
a $100 "rake off" on a paving contract, our city government is a
failure.

I am about to conclude that our yellow press does us more harm
abroad than at home, and many of the American correspondents of the
English papers send exactly the wrong news. The whole governing
class of England has a possibly exaggerated admiration for the
American people and something very like contempt for the American
Government.

If I make it out right two causes (in addition to their ignorance)
of their dislike of our Government are (1) its lack of manners in
the past, and (2) its indiscretions of publicity about foreign
affairs. We ostentatiously stand aloof from their polite ways and
courteous manners in many of the every-day, ordinary, unimportant
dealings with them--aloof from the common amenities of
long-organized political life. . . .

Not one of these things is worth mentioning or remembering. But
generations of them have caused our Government to be regarded as
thoughtless of the fine little acts of life--as rude. The more I
find out about diplomatic customs and the more I hear of the