New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1891-07-24
OURSELVES.
AS OTHERS SEE US; WITH ENGLISH VIEWS
OF MIR. BLAINE. OF CHICAGO.
AND OF MR. MCKINLEY.


Once in awhile the weary Briton turns hn
eyes westward and favors the Great Republic with
n hasty glance IT. is to be feared that there are
not many American topics which really interest
the general British public, or interest them per-
manently and continuously. The glance is ftfuI
and turns now in direction, now in another
II there be dispute, the dispute Is interesting
and it gives the more amiable Of the writers on
the British press occasion TO make remarks about
Mr. Blaine, and TO complain rather bitterly that
the American Secretary Of State takes the Amer
cam and not the British, view Of the controversy
which happens to be going on at the moment
Perhaps it might be said that Mr.. Blaine Is Q
more frequent topic than any other An eminent
arithmetician undertook TO compute the number
OF times that he has been said 10 occupy bimself
in twisting the tail Of the British lion. But the
eminent arithmetician succumbed while he was
adding up his columns of figures. / am sorry to
say that Mr. Baine's health is a good deal dig
cussed, and discussed much more by cable than
otherwise The most sensational and the mos.
malignant stories are telegraphed here. Most Of
the cable correspondence from America is In tie
hands of who dislike Mr.. Blaine; or In
the hands of men who, while protesting TO be his
friends, are constrained, like Mr.. Curtice Bond,
TO make the basest and falsest accusations against
Mr.. Blaine They do not carry ferocity in poll.
tics SO far as Mr.. Godkin would have them, OF
so far as Mr. GodSin himself does, or Mr.. Godkn's
young man and mouthpiece in the British press
No doubt on public grounds, they might like to
see him replaced by a Minister less capable and
less American. The Eminent Emigrant would
suit them very well, should they happen ever
to have heard of him. Not the most British Of
the British could accuse him of being too Ameri-
can. or of preferring the interests of his adopted
country to those Of the Kingdom which gave
him birth.
1t is, however, different topic Which comes to
the surface Just now. The Briton has just heard
of Chicago and it is due TO that rising community
that his interest in her should be acknowledged
Slowly. very slowly, he has come 10 believe that
the Chicago Exhibition may really take place.
We all remember that the late Mr. Golden was the
first Englisnman 20 discover this interesting spot,
and how he defed the young Briton OF the period
TO say where Chicago was, or TO come wltnln
thousand miles of it. But see how education ha
advanced The wise men who every morning tel
the British people what they onght to think now
know even the latitude and longitude OF the
Lake City. They do not go so far as to assume
that their readers are as wise as they Ihe readers
might not be readers If they were, or II they sus-
pected they were So it is still deemed necessary
by the wise leader-writer TO be geographical and
explanatory and he tells the British public this
very morning that Chicago is far tnland-about
one thousand miles from New-fork. We all know
how the Chicagoan-if that be what he calls him
self-wOuld have put the statement. He wou9
Lave said that New-York is about one THOUSAND
miles from Chicago, and he would have found
means to suggest that only by a happy accident
- ion Uifh
Continent and escaped slipping of into the Allan
tic Ocean. But to the population OF these Islands
that way of expounding Photographed truth
picturesque though it be and from the Chicago
standpoint. patriotic, would be less informing
How much less informing you must judge from the
way in which another writer puts the matter. II
l thought should be read in Chicago l should
hardly dare quote hls remark that Chicago " laDon
under the disadvantage of being thousand miles
by rail from New-York." But understand thai
Chicago now reads her own newspapers, and that
nothing which New-York can say is thought worthy
Of attention.
As have mentioned the late Mr. Golden, viii
quote what he said about Chicago for though the
allusion must be familiar on the shores oil Lake
Michigan, never heard that the inhabitants few
themselves fattered by being selected as tne
type Of the unknown, nor that any OF the Chcago
papers, some of which are well conducted, kept
this quotation standing at the head OF It's edi-
torial columns. II occurs in the last speech MI
Golden ever made: speech at Rochdale Oh
Foreign Policy, and though Mr. Cobdens views OF
Foreign Policy were not always Of an elevated kind
and though his is name on which some OF bis
disciples have brought odium in America, think
il is for us ever TO remember gratefully his stanch
friendship to the Union during the Rebellion. lie
had proved it often when everything seemed 20 90
going against us, and he proved it again IN TINS
last speech in the closing hours Of the contess
they were almost hours-in the end of November
1864 The whole point of this particular passage
is English ignorance Of American geography. 10
that ignorance, said Mr.. Golden, was due tnen
preference for the cause of the South The Tunns
class was ignorant The writer's in the Englsn
newspapers-they do not always belong to tho
ruling class though they do sometimes-were ls'
norant Their ignorance Of everything relating
to America was in his opinion, total, and he
thought this ignorance likely TO bring this English
people into difficulties which it might cost them
much of their national honor to escape from. %
he says:
If were rich, really think would endow
n professors chair at Oxford and Cambridge fof
teaching modern American geography and modern
American history | will undertake TO say-and
I speak it advisedly-I will take any undergradu'
ate now at Oxford and Cambrdge-there is map
of the United States there-and ] will ask TINS
young gentleman TO walk up to that map and pun
his finger upon the city of Chicago. and VIII
undertake to say that he will not go within
thousand miles of it, And yet Chicago is Guy
of 10000 inhabitants, from which from one ]"
two millions of our people are annually fed. Iness
young gentlemen, / allow, know all about INV
geography of ancient Greece and Egypt
And then follows the hardly less famous passaS
about the Iyssus and the Atbenian laundresses
who, of the time when Mr.. Golden saw It, naa
damned that classic stream and were using every
drop of its classic water. for washing the linen
of the modern Greeks.
The professorship of modern American geography
,,hioh tho oreat Free Trader desired has never