The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1898-01-02
REMARKS OF Mr.. CRAMP AND BISHOP
POTTER.


The remarks of ship-builder Cramp at
banquet last week affords food for re-
Election at the beginning of the new
year. To large and respectable body
Of hanqueters the other evening Mr..
Cramp impaired the information that
American newspapers and newspaper
men get all their ideas about problems
in this country from England; that they
first see what England did on foreign
matters, and war matters, and financial
matte. ), and a whole lot of other mat
tiers, and write accordingly. in short,
Ameri an newspapers and newspaper
men were apers of English thought.
There is much truth in Mr.. Cramps
comment that the richer citizens of
the Eastern States have become so En-
glish doncherknow, that they spend
more time in ''the dear old mother
They see nothing good for their homes
unless it has been imported, and no
body but a duke or an earl or some
other titled fortune hunter is good
enough to marry their daughters. 1t is
notorious that England's reason for
holding on TO the gold standard is that
il increases the value of the debts due
by the younger countries, and quite as
notorious that hundreds of Americans
give no other reason for favoring the
single standard than that England be-
Eeves in it.
This aping of English customs and
methods, and contrasting, with dispar-
agement this country and its citizenship
with the English people and the English
government, have come to be a ''fad"
that has even taken possession of so
great a man as Bishop Potter. In an
address last week to the Episcopal
church in New York city, Bishop Potter
says:
'sThis country has seen its greatest
period of prosperity.
Government has become a huge me-
chanism. Purity of government, integ-
essentials that should be in every Off
cial, are often lacking.
s'Americans have not the same vigi-
lance and interest in the government as
the English people have. In England
every man is interested in the govern
ment, and what is the result? Is there
a better governed country in the world
than England? Americans are deficient
%1nSx fSCtcsr nf h. arfn
governments. | don't mean adverse
criticism so much as do praise. They
do not reward meritorious service as
they should, and as is done in other
countries.
Another place in which we are de-
hcient, I am ashamed to say, is in our
interest in the lower strata of society.
Right here is where the churchman
should set beautiful example, and let
as do it"
The venerable Andrew H. Green, of
New York, gave the Bishop an emerge
tic and deserved scoring in these words:
Il do not concede British superiority
because our manners of thought and ac-
ton are not formed and maintained upon
purely the British models. Our ways
must necessarily be different from theirs
in many particulars, for the reason that
the education of the two people and
the atmosphere in which they live are
altogether dissimilar.
THE foreign communities are COM
posed of people born and brought up in
submission.
Here, on the other hand, we are
| taught from our cradles that certain
degree of freedom is the right of every
man and woman, and that the exercise
of it, properly, is the highest phase of
citizenship.
Il know Bishop Potter but slightly,
and / do not wish to seem to criticise,
but am an American"