Again and again has England saved the world; once when the white sails
of the Armada rounded Ushant and spread out over the English Channel;
again when Louis XIV was threatening the Old World and the New; again
when Bonaparte was making and unmaking kings from Madrid to Warsaw; but
never did England give to the world a greater service than when she
offered up that little Expeditionary Army and threw herself, all
unprepared, across the pathway of victorious Germany. Not one of us can
look at the ruins of the cities of France and Belgium and remember the
threats of Germany directed towards ourselves without thinking with a
shudder at what might be the condition of our own cities and citizens
had England failed the world in that dreadful summer of 1914.
"POISON OF HATRED"
The American citizen who is opposed to England because of the memories
of 1776, or because of the attitude of the English Government in 1861,
we can understand. We can argue with him sympathetically, for his
antagonism is based on American history imperfectly studied. But the
German-American who hates England, not because of what she has at any
time done to America, but because of what he thinks she has done or
would do to Germany and who spreads the poison of his hatred through
America, is admittedly disloyal. The Irish-American who hates England,
not because of anything she has done to America, but because of what
Cromwell did in Ireland nearly three hundred years ago or because of
what English Cabinets may not have done in more recent years may not be
disloyal in intent, but he stands upon the same basis as the
German-American in this, that he imports antagonism; he does not base it
on American soil but on a soil that is three thousand miles away. His
antagonism is not due to his Americanism, but to his affections for
another land. But exactly the same must be said of the German-American
who preaches hate for England. To-day English ships convoy our
squadrons safely through the seas made dangerous by Germany; American
destroyers are helping to guard English shores; American regiments are
merging with English regiments and are acting as reserves and
reinforcements for the English Army; our flag and the English flag are
flying side by side in Picardy. Our guns stand wheel to wheel with
English guns; our ships, our armies and our Red Cross are standing side
by side with English surgeons, nurses, soldiers and battleships. The
same spirit of unity must be maintained at home as well as abroad and we
must understand that a common cause makes a common foe, but it also
makes a common friend. Loyalty to America to-day means also loyalty to
England.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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