Grand Forks herald. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1916-1955, 1918-01-07
tIsy Roland G. FISHERY

Have you ever heard anyone say
that he was a good American put
"a poor Englishman''? Did you re-
alize that that utterance was con-
sciously or unconsciously, for the
most part let us hope unconsciously.
the result of a definite propaganda
created, nourishcd, and paid for ny
agents and money that came from
Berlin any time in the last 80 years!
Today We are the comrades In arms
of Great Britain and France. Nothing
is so imperative or h successful
prosecution Of the war as co-opera-
ton, harmony. and an absolute UNITY
of aim, an absolute trust each in the
other. Scarcely anything is there
fore more to the German purpose than
the preservation and development OF
the old a%ntipathies and feelings. bas-
ed necessarily on past issues a cen-
fury or a century and a half old. Ion
since forgotten and very real:
past errors and plumbers upon most
of which the best English and Amer
lean historians have been pretty thor
oughly agreed for the last genera
tom were errors of misunderstand-
ing Nand not the result of real an
tipathies. Sometimes this propaganda
is pretty direct, as in the espou.al OF
the Irish home-rule movement. the
denunciation of the sins of he Eng
fish against ireland. At other times
it attempts to maintain the raciai
sentiments of the, ~non-English SPEAK
ing elements Of our population with
the general idea, better anything than
English.
In all seriousness, do you wish TO
tax your thinking from Berlin? d.
you like to have it delivered to you
wrapped up in a package and paid
for: Have you the faintest notion
that that was where a great many
ideas came from which you embracen
simply because you had heard them
or read them a great many times
without in the least having investi-
gated their origin or basis?
There are apparently lot a great
many people in the United States who
realize h a there are no Independent
states nov in existence in Europe or
elsewhere, whatever their attitude to-
ware each other at present, who have
not had in the past very real grew
ances and antipathies against all their
There have been times
when Belgium was as much afraid
Of England as she was later of
France and as she is now of Germany.
Italy has had old scores against
France. Austria, Germany and Eng
al OhS IlhS litCICty ~ HIN Va
the relations of England and Scot
no longer ago than the fifteenth
and sixteenth centuries to realize how
very great autipathies have been be-
tween nations whose cooperation and
for one another is now taken
as a truism. Indeed the great ma
jority Of wars have resulted in the
past from causes which have not been
and which have been re-
placed by the strongest ties of con-
dence. What countries today are
together more closely than
England and Scotland; than England.
Belgium and France: than Germany
and Austria seem to be? Yet within
a generation there were difficulties be-
England and France so serious !
as almost certain to cause war, while |
and Germany were actually
war in 1866 over as fundamental
issue as two countries can posi-
bly, fight about. Time, indeed, is a
great clarifier. a great explainer Of
MISUNDERSTANDING and wars are great
forth naked and unashamed,
and when the false and the sham dis |
Nnnear into the tenuous misty back
ground of oblivion. Then the real in
terests of nations appear and their
real friends rally to the cause. Then
the wolves in Sleeps clothing are re-
vealed and the sham friendships are
stripped of their falsity. So it iG be-
tween Britain and the United States.
The identity of our aims and interests
is now clear. So it is between the
United States and Germany. The
fallacy of, a common ground. a COM
mon ideal is only too apparent.
Yet there are many who for want
of a moments thought do not realize
hat the wars and quarrels between
the United States and England never
were at any time, not even during
the revolution, as serious, as real as
the great bulk of differences and an
tipathies between European nations.
Historians have been pretty we'll |
agreed for a generation that the
Revolution was a misunder-
standing on both sides, a misconcep-
ton due very largely to conscious mis-
representation at the time. The nun,.
Der and character of the pataiots was
understood in England, their pur-
pose misrepresented. their determine
ton little realized. by George III and
Lord North in particular. Had the