me "British," into
the cities of the Mississippi Valley, across the prairies and over the
mountains to the Pacific slope. But it is not the real American--except
one here and there on the old New England homestead--who talks much of
his anti-British feeling. It is the imported American who has refused to
allow the old hostility to die but has kept pouring contumely on the
British name and insisted on the incorporation of an "anti-British"
plank in his party platform to catch the votes of the citizens of his
own nationality at each succeeding election.

Englishmen are generally aware of the importance in American politics of
the Irish vote. It is probable, indeed, that, particularly as far as the
conditions of the last few years are concerned, the importance of that
vote has been magnified to the English mind. In certain localities, and
more particularly in a few of the larger cities, it is still, of course,
an important factor by its mere numbers; but even in the cities in which
the Irish vote is still most in evidence at elections, the influx during
the past decade from all parts of Europe of immigrants who in the course
of the five-years term become voters has, of necessity, lessened its
relative importance.

In New York City, for instance, through which pass annually some
nineteen twentieths of all the immigrants coming into the country, the
foreign elements other than Irish--German, Italian (mainly from the less
educated portions of the Peninsula), Hungarian, Polish, Russian, Hebrew,
Roumanian, etc.,--now far outnumber the Irish. In New York, indeed, the
Germans are alone more numerous; but the Irish have always shown a
larger interest in, and a greater capacity for, political action, so
that they still retain an influence out of all proportion to their
voting number. On the other hand the Irish, or their leaders, have
maintained so corrupt a standard of political action (so that a large
proportion of the evils from which the affairs of certain of the larger
American cities suffer to-day may be justly charged to their methods and
influence) that it is uncertain whether their abuse of Great Britain
does not, in the minds of certain, and those not the worst, classes of
the people react rather to create good-will towards England than to
increase hostility.

The power of the Irish vote as an anti-British force, then, is
undoubtedly overrated in England; but it must be borne in mind that some
of the other foreign elem