Bisbee daily review., 1915-01-17
TIE POWER OF A LANGUAGE

lHE POWEh OF A ERNGORGE
 Those who are unable to understand why, In the conflict the sentiment of the American people s largely with the Allies overlook very simple but highly important fact-the effect of language on peo pes International sympathies likely that the most vital factor in the attitude of the United States this time is the community of language wth Great Britain
 There other important influences, of course First among them should be noted the fact that peo pie largely because they have been recruited largely from the oppressed nations and classes of the earth tend iTesstibly to sympathze with the under dog It s this sentiment of fair play that root" for Japan and for the Boers led to fight Cuba This instnotive championship of the weaker side has now t1oSed us to pity Belgium and reproach Germany for her treatment of that country But the Belgian fact alone would not have turned so many Americans def nitey against Germany and in favor of the Allies as group Neither would our rather patonic friendship for France or any luking of future German mitarsm directed against us or misrepresentations the war from British sources As for Russia with her have nothing in
 If all other influence swept away there would remain the one big reason for the passive support that the bulk people have given the allies and that s the English language Stripped of all superficial tiles in this great worIdduel the mastery not most of us with the allies because us, the allies rep resent Great Britain and to Great Britain we un- consciously bound by the indissoube bonds Of tongue and common culture?
 In the Boer the language mattered little because the conflict small and local there issue of worldIower or standardization at stake. Now be. the English culture an dthe Kulture, meaning of those of without immediate blood connections with any the belgerents who would nat urally be ueuralwe are swept into sympathy with the English.
 Few of us think of the allperyasive power Of a language There is no bond like of the spoken and written word It means than race than blood.
 What is it that makes us all Americans coming as we do from all the of the earth? It is chiefly the fact that slough off native language and adopt English as our mother tongue With it we adopt English
 literature which is still ncomparaby greater than Amer can literature And the language and literature shape our own national character.
 A language in itself has character it carries the shape and color the thought and feeling of the
 ton that created it. It is the of tools that each mind u turn works with the medium of each successive ndt viduals thought and emotion Through the literature of he language the reading public absorbs the established ways Of looking life and its problems and obtains its outlook the foreign world Our institutions, political otherwise chiefly English the language and t erature, then enable assmilate and make them
 UT own Thus we grow into English culture, and think anG toward other nations largely the English have been accumstomed to do
 Those of us who speak and read two more Ian
 uages have our prospect and sympathies widened we
 re fraad from the domination of single tongue The 'ermans the United States to the second and third
 enerations have had their sympathy for the Faherlanl pretty well preserved by their grip the German Ian
 uage and literature which enable them to resist Che | ,ncroachment of English influences.
 1 This explanation should be obvious and yet h has seen generally ignored It not only accounts for much existing prejudice and misunderstanding, but excuse them If we all spoke and read German, instead Of Eng ish undoubtedly nearly all of us would ympathze ac l lively with Germany.