ibited by the great mass of our countrymen--the plain people of the
land. . . . Not for a moment did their Government know the lack of their
strong and stalwart support. . . . It [the incident] has given us a
better place in the respect and consideration of the people of all
nations, and especially of Great Britain; it has again confirmed our
confidence in the overwhelming prevalence among our citizens of
disinterested devotion to our nation's honour; and last, but by no means
least, it has taught us where to look in the ranks of our countrymen for
the best patriotism."[44:1]

Mr. Cleveland, now that he is no longer in active politics, holds, as he
deserves, a secure place in the affections of the American people. But
at the time when this treatise was published, he was a not impossible
nominee of the Democratic party for another term as President; and the
"plain people of the land" have a surprising number of votes. Mr.
Cleveland knows his own people and knows that with a large portion of
them war with England would in 1895 have been popular. It is significant
also that he still thought it worth while to insist upon this fact at
the time when this treatise was given to the world in a volume; and
that was as late as 1904, very shortly before the Democratic party
selected its nominee for the Presidential contest of that year. It is
possible that if Mr. Cleveland had been that nominee instead of Justice
Parker, one of the leading features of his campaign would have been a
vigorous insistence on the Monroe Doctrine, as interpreted by himself,
with especial reference to Great Britain.

Englishmen are inclined (so far as they think about the matter at all)
to flatter themselves that the ill-feeling which blazed so suddenly into
flame twelve years ago was more or less effectually quenched by Great
Britain's assistance to the United States at the time of the Spanish
War. Those Englishmen who watched the course of opinion in America at
the time of the Boer War must have had some misgivings. It is evident
that so good a judge as Mr. Cleveland believed, as late as 1904, that
hostility to Great Britain was still a policy which would commend itself
to the "plain people of the land."

It is true that the war fever in 1895 was stronger in the West than in
the Eastern States. A traveller crossing the United States at that time
would have found the idea of hostilities with England being treated as
something of a joke in cultivated ci