The Washington herald., 1918-05-05
HER TRIAL AND OURS
From the Louisville HeraId.I

England To-Day races one Oh IilOst
great crises out of which in the past
she has always come forth renewed
and resurgent. triumphing and tri-
umphant.
We like to think Of that In this, the
hour of her peril. We like TO think
of this in her day of trial. We. who
sense, British, too. Their story is
our story, even as their language is
our own. their literature and, in the
broadest and most catholic sense.
their religion. their outlook. their
very habits OF life, their law. their
tradition. IL We are what we are it
is because our forebears. in a gr' at
majority Of cases. were born on
those British Isles which their fore
bears had defended from invasion and
rescued from ignominy. Philip Of
Spain and his Armada, Kaiser Will
helm and his armies-do they, not
spell the same test, demand the same
sacrifice and prove the same spirit? ?
Outnumbered then, outnumbered now,
but dauntless now as then. And the
field in which they fight today is a
field that has known British fight
ing in the past, the best British
fighting and the noblest British dy-
ing. 1t was at Zutphen. in the Low
Countries. that Sir Philip Sidney gave
up his life. his sweet and gentle life.
his life beautiful in letters as 1t Was
in living, that a comrade rrigkt be
saved. 1t was in the Low Countries
that British volunteers came to the
aid of the burghers who dCfied the
Spanish viceroy. And 1t was IN the
Low Countries, too. that Wellington
broke the heart of Napoleon, as a
hundred years earlier Marlborough
broke the heart of Turenne.
1t has been somewhat the habit
In this country to neglect the bond
that unites US to the British Isles,
and to remember only the ugly
separation and the stupid hlunder-
ing that followed hard upon it, 1t
is because it is part of our daily
life that We pay little attention to
1t. and II Is because our teaching
of history has been one-sided that,
what attention we do pay to it is
for the most part unfriendly. when
it Is not actually unfair. And yet
it Is difficult to imagine what Amer
lea would be like if it were not so
very much like England, and upon
what models we should be shaping
our lives. our institutions and our
very selves if that model were not
English. For. as it happens such
other civilizations as have been on
this continent have left virtually no
impress whatever, no institution,
scarcely so much as a custom that
we can note.
What remains to US of Spain save
the picturesque ruins of California.
What do we retain from France un-
less 1t be so much OF the Code of
Napoleon as survives in New Orleans? :?
Where do we acknowledge the Hol-
lander except in legend and in GER
tain architectural peculiarities? But
England is with US in our waking
hours and our sleeping hours. in
every aspect, purpose and occupa-
tion Of our lives. The English Bible
is our Bible; the English sturdiness
and downrightness and contempt of
shams are part of our heritage. 1t
was only when England was ceas-
ing to be an England worthy Of
herself, and drifting into an Eng
land ignoble and in foreign bond
age, that those Pilgrim Fathers
were impelled. with a great rend-
ing Of ties. with bitter anguish and
saddened soul, to seek out our bleak
shores and found another England,
a new England. And they brought
with them no sense Of disloyalty,
no thought Of divorce, no wish of
disassociation. They gave to the
places Of their sojourn the names
that were dear to them. They re-
called by that loyal habit the scenes
that they had known and loved.
And from that time on. wherever
the American planted a young COM
munity. the village. the city. the
river, the very hills were piously
remembered.
If in this great war we had taken
no part and shared no responsibility,
il our neutrality had withstood all
peril and our good will been equally
at the service Of one group Of COM
batants or the other; IL business had
gone on as before, and the jar, the
wrench, the trials and the anguish had
all alike been foreign to US and aloof,
we could not then have been indif-
ferent; we could not then have sat by
idly as spectators and critics, judg-
ing the blows, marking the points and
careless Of the issue. Right or wrong,
1t was inevitable, It was not avoid
able that Engiand's agony should be
ours. We might have quarreled, as
families do, but in the great striving.
in the heroic martyrdom, 1t was not
possible, it could not have been pos
sible, that We should be untouched.
But as II happened we are sharers
and partners with England. We are
her ally in deed and in fact. as so
long we were in thought and In heart
Disaster to the British today Is dis
aster to America, neither more nor
less, and 1t is impossible to separate
the cause Of one from the cause of
the other.
The better reason then that we pray
that this cloud may pass from her
and this burden be lifted, As we
write 1t seems to be beyond her
strength. And yet. as We have said,
there has in the past never been a
task she might not enter upon. a duty
she could not perform, a sacrifice not
CALAMITY to be made.
Lat that be pyQHdly semamneredy
oeda Uf2A too