The Irish standard., 1919-01-25
HORSE SENSE AND HISTORY APPLIED TO
AMERICAN ANGLOPfIILES

paper and magazine writer's, and in other quarters
with reference to the historical relations between
America and Great Britain since the beginning of
our national history. Many of our overzealous
Angophiles would go so far as to re-write and re-
cast the story of our glorious and successful strug
gle to cut loose from the tyranny and oppression of
the mother" country so as to inculcate into the
minds of the children of the present and future GEN
erations of Americans different views of those re-
lations than those that have been handed down
in the accepted American histories According to
some of these authorities the Revolutionary war
was gigantic mistake and the Declaration of In
dependence should be abrogated as to make the
record of our relations with British cousins"
entirely harmonious and amiable. The war of 1912
should be entirely forgotten and English co-opera-
ton with the Confederacy in the Civil War should
in no sense be regarded being based on the hope
of destroying the Great Republic of the West.
This belated and i-advised attempt to camou-
hage the events of history in the interests of
Anglo Saxonism' is one Of the by-products of the
world war, in which America became associated
with the Allied powers, and incidentally with Great
Britain in the cause of universal civilization and hui
mainly But it should not be presumed that in cast
ing lot with the forces of civilization as against
the barbarous legons of Hundom that we have re-
pudiated the historical ideals and policies of our
American nationhood. We would not undo the past
II 1T were III our power to do and will still
continue to cherish and revere the herosm and pa
triotism of the Revolutionary Fathers despite the
futile efforts of the would-be historians to
open the judgments of history in the interests of
Anglophiles.
In this connection we are glad to note sense of
reaction against the Anglo-Saxon propagandists
who would white-wash and deodorze some long adj
Indicated issues Anent relations to the moth
err country Replying to an editorial that ap-
under the caption "There is Difference" Mr. John
Pike Hummel of Dundas, Mimi, adduces some we'll
marshaled points touching upon this subject, which
are Nv, well worth remembering He states:
Nor are you safe in considering methods of
warfare a basis for cOrnOaricOn hove
pared the French revolution and continental wars
with Anglo-Saxon warfare. Must refer you to
some points OF history which you seem to have
loverlooked-to the massacre of the defenders of
Acre by Richard I in the Third crusade; to the
English plundering expeditions into France of the
Hundred Years war, in which the burning at the
stake of Joan of Arc but incidents to the
ruthlessness of the Wars of the Roses? Perhaps
you have forgotten Cromwes ferocious warfare
| in Ireland only year or two after Marston Moor
and the terrors of the Wellington campaign in
| Spain: Must remind you that in the wars of the
American revolution and 1872 the British were al
lied with Indian savages and that British officers
sometimes accompanied these savages and paid
bounties on the scalps of American settlers, men,
women and children? I will quote the indictment
against the British king in Declaration of In
dependence as having travaged our coasts, burnt
our towns, destroyed our people. + transport
ing armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the
works OF death, desoation and tyranny already be-
gun with circumstances of cruelty and perfdy
scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages I
will further remind you of their wanton burning of
the White House and our national capitol in 1884,
together with the library of congress with it's prec-
ous records and archives of their alliance with the
unspeakable Turk in the Crimean war of the shoot
ing of Hindu prisoners from the mouths of cannon
in the Sepoy mutiny; of the brutal execution of
Scheepers, in violation of the Geneva conference in
| the Boer war; and of the crowding of Boer women
and children into concentration camps with the
death rate at ITO per thousand per month"
| In conclusion, Mr.. Hummel adds:
&c o1o
must make plain why we must consider our civil
zation distinct from any other Let us thank God
that we are simply Americans, with clean record
! of our own"
| Mr. Hummel might have fairly added further
cogency to his argument if he had included in his
able marshaing of the foregoing historical facts
the brutal treatment that the British government
is at the present moment doing to the several
hundred Sim Fem prisoners now detained in pris-
ons and internment barracks. Many of these have
been done to death by the abuses and deprivations
they have suffered since their incarceration They
have been denied the right of trial by Jury that
fundamental principle of modern jurisprudence, and
no definite or. specific charges have been made
against then1 and they still prisoners more than
two months after the signing of the armistice
If there is difference in the Anglo-Saxon and
leuton1c savagery, in this present instance
it will require the eye of Briton an Ang1ophile
American to see it and differentiate it. It is not
dlvidual who cannot see through grindstone
! Mr. Hummel is to be congratulated for his Amer
lean horsesense applied to the matter in ques-
tlon as well as for the rrefutab1e marshang of his
tor1cal facts bearing upon the same.
I