Like any good national literature, the English turns inward the searching light of criticism. The reader sees hypocrites, time-servers, and turncoats. Spread before him are domestic abuses and cold imperialism. But he is also given a glimpse of a people who retain a regard for the rights and dignity of the individual, a people who have turned away from violence and shown a remarkable capacity for achieving change without sacrificing stability, for combining growth with order. THE UNITED STATES: A SELF-PORTRAIT De Forest, in _Playing the Mischief_, describes Congressman Sykes Drummond as a “Robert-the-Devil” type. This complete cynic makes an interesting comment on the conditions around him: “A John Bull told me yesterday that there is no such thing known in England as a municipal ring or a thieving mayor. That is what any American of the present day would set down as a fairy story.” If the political novel has any validity as a commentary on national characteristics, one conclusion is inescapable: many Americans become criminals when they accept public office. Drummond’s comment is borne out by the two groups of novels. In the English novel individuals such as Hamer Shawcross and Chester Nimmo sell out to the opposition. Nimmo even engages in commercial activities too closely related to his official duties to be quite proper. But there is a complete absence of the corruption portrayed at all levels of government in the American political novel. Crawford attempted to differentiate the English from the American early in _An American Politician_. The novel’s political naïveté renders any of its judgments suspect, but in this Crawford appears to come close to the truth. His opinion is that English people ... love to associate with persons of rank and power from a disinterested love of these things themselves, whereas in most other countries the society of notable and influential persons is chiefly sought from the most cynical motives of personal advantage.... But politics in England and politics in America, so far as the main points are concerned, are as different as it is possible for any two social functions to be. Roughly, Government and the doings of Government are centripetal in England, and centrifugal in America. In England the will of the people assists the working of Providence, whereas in America, devout persons pray that Providence may on occasion modify the will of the people. In England men believe in the Queen, the Royal Family, the Established Church, and Belgravia first, and in themselves afterwards. Americans believe in themselves devoutly, and a man who could “establish” upon them a church, a royalty, or a peerage, would be a very clever fellow.