The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1897-11-15
Mr.. Andrew Carnegie on American
Feeling for England.

Feeling for England.
In the November number of the Contenl-
poru1y Revietc Mr.. ANDREW CARNEGIE,
with the best intentions, has helped to mis-.
lead Englishmen with respect to the feel
ings really entertained for England by the
great body Of Americans. He expresses the
opinion that Gin a great emergency " the
racial instinct, which he describes as the
strongest sentiment in man, would prevail
to bind Englishmen and Americans to-
gether and make them brothers In heart
and In act. The wish Ia father to the
thought. There is no foundation for
the broad assertion that the racial in
stinct 10 the strongest sentiment In man,
and, even IL 1t were, 1t would operate to
divide the sympathies Of Americans rather
than to concentrate them upon the side of
England. The most serious objection to
such amiable theories az these which Mr..
CARNEaIE's kindness of heart prompts him
to PROFOUND is that they tend to deceive
the British Government, to which, in grave
crises, 1t might be Of the utmost moment
to comprehend the deeper feelings and gov
erning motives of the American people.
History is replete with proofs that the
racial instinct Is far from being the strong
est sentiment in man. The history of the
descendants of ABRAHAM Is a tissue Of
bloody wars between the children Of JACOB
on the one hand, and the children Of EsAu
and IsHMAEL IN the other. Even among
the descendants of JACOB there was con.
tinual internecine warfare after the death
Of SOLOMON. The ancient Greeks were q
homogeneous people, If ever there was
one, yet the racial Instinct did not
avail to unite them even against Persia, or
against Macedon, OF against Rome. AS
long as they were free they fought each
other necessarily and savagely, and there
was no more striking example of deadly
and ~unslakable hostility known to the an.
cient world than that exhibited toward
Corinth by her own daughter State,
Corcyra. The Romans were akin by blood
to the Latins, on the one hand, and the
Etruscans On the other; but this did not
prevent them from making Italy a he'll for
centuries, until. In the great social war,
their klnsmen wrung from them a SEM
blance of equality. II the Teutonic peoples,
which assailed the Roman empire, had been
animated by the so-called racial instinct,
they would have triumphed In the West
much earlier than they did. As 1t was,
they could always be bribed to oppose and
weaken one another. We need only cite
the typical fact that in the memorable bat
tie of Chalons, where civilization was, In
truth, at stake, the Ostrogoths were ar.
rayed among the levies of tho Mongol AT.
TILA, whereas the Visigoths were ranged
among the friends of Rome
The racial instinct did not prevent tho
An%glo-Saxon invaders of Britain from
slaughtering each other for hundreds of
years, nor did 1t hold back the Eastern
Franks from fighting the Western Franks.
Not even against Islam did the Visigothic
lords of Spain maintain q united front; and
the subsequent conquest Of Russia by the
Tartars, and that Of southeastern Europe
by the Ottoman Turks, were due to a like
absence or weakness of the racial instinct
on the part Of the vanquished populations.
The Danes and Swedes, although brethren
in blood, continued to be mortal enemies
until comparatively recent times. What
proofs. finally, of obedience to the racial
instinct were afforded by Germany or Italy,
until in Jul own day the impulse was
evoked, fostered and turned to political
uses by two great statesmen, BISMARCK
and CAvoUR7
1t is true that there was q time-we refer
to the thirteen years following the peace Of
~1783-when British Ministers, had they
been large-minded and farsighted, might
possibly have reknit the ties of kinship and
wrought q moral reconquest of the lost
colonies. The American patriots, who car
ried through the war for independence,
American Loyalists, but at heart they liked
the English better than they did the
French, 30 far, at least, as the Northern
States were concerned. The atrocities
which had marked the long struggle
against the French in Canada were not
yet effaced from the public mind, and
it should also be remembered that the
influence of religion coUperated with
that of race. The Federalists, as a party,
were taxed by their opponents with friend.
illness to England, and the Jay treaty
affords considerable foundation for the
charge. The attempt Of the French Direc-
tory to coerce the United States Govern
ment into a coalition against England gave
eho VIC pS"SA q piCCiOuo opportunity VI
regaining our affection and reasserting
the moral solidarity of the English speak
ing race. Instead of seizing 1t, her states.
men outdid BARRAs and BoNAPARTE in op-
p~ressive and exasperating treatment of the
American marine.
1t was the purblind and wanton folly of
the British Government. displayed in a
shameful series of insults and outrages,
which literally drove this country into the
war of 1912. Even then the opposition to
that contest In New England led to words
and acts that were almost reasonable in
their betrayal of pro-British predictions.
The acts Of vandalism committed by the
English in that war, including the destruc-
tion of the public buildings at Washington.
seemed the more shocking to Americans
because they were contrasted with
the chivalric treatment contemporaries
ously given to Paris by the Duke
OF WELLINGTON. After the peace of
Client, however, we might gradually have