Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1906-09-20
ENGLISH FEELING TOWARD AMER.
ICA,

This is NOT a new subject. Some of our
older readers may remember the storms
of ugly feeling and recItmina ton aroused
in this country by the English Mrs.
Trollope's offensive caricatures of Ameri-
can life, and Charles Dickens's Amer
lean Notes" three score years ago. The
subject has had much recent discussion,
since Bishop Potter of New York, re-
turning from one Of his numerous visits
to England three months ago INDUCED in
a pubic speech in some sharp CRITICS.
inns of the English people and declared
that there is little or no love lost for
sertion has been variously received on
the two sides of the water. London
Truth in a recent issue, said: Twenty
years ago the English hated everything
that was American. We nov think al
together differently. The American wo-
man is the pattern upon which our wo-
men are being rcmodelled: the American
man has wholly altered our character and
that OF our business. British institutions
are being reconstructed in accordance
with those of the United States" Or
this side, many papers and correspondents
OF papers have praised Bishop Potter for
his frank utterance. A correspondent
of the New York Times, speaking OF
English men and women whom he had
mot in New York hotels and boarding
man or Englishwoman who was not con-
tinually finding fault with us. our man
our style Of living, and they never hest
tated to express their contempt for US
always somehow conveying the Idea o.
undying hatred" Had this man seer
much of intelligent and cultivated Eng.
fish people in their own homes. he prob
ably would rave had to admit that i
English nation by the ill-bred specimens
of that people who come to this country
any more than 1t would he just~to judge
the American people by the coarse ant
bumptious Americans who go abroad t,
spend their newly acquired money AM
to air their contempt for all foreigners.
changed materially from time to tim'
in the last century. Up to and followin,
the war Of 1S12, we were a nation of rebels
whom England might. at some more con
v~enient season. have to take in han,
and whip out their conceit. Later stage
of feeling have been aptly described by
travelled correspondent OF the New Yorl
Evening Post. He found on on
OF his earlier visits to Englan,
that 1.-The English looked upon IL
with patronizing friendlincss; as
little Lrother-or a small cousin-a mic
child of their own blood, whom the,
wished we'll, and of whose precocity the,
were rather proud. That the> chill
:. yet begun to dawn upon them; to ge
them to look upon America as in an
sense an equal was n hopeless task
nor did they seem to suspect that pop
ular feeling towards England on thi
side of the water was no, one of al
lection" Mi. Cleveland's message I
1898, following England's declination Of tn
offer of the United States to be media
tor between Great Britain and Vene
zula, and England's refusal to arbitrat
the differences between the two countrie.
of war, was to the Englishmen a DO
from the blue, and left them gaspini
TO discover that the child was obstreper
Gus, did not properly love and venerate II
elder and better relative, was a paint,
shock. But after all, so ,hey argued
naughty; the less made Of 1t the better
! and English complacency remained pre-
: ty we'll unruffled. This correspondent
! next visit to England was during I'll
, Spanish-American war. OF which he say.
"The interest In the war in Englan
: seemed nearly as keen as in America
, News OF the war even In those ION
, weeks, held the most important place