New-York tribune., 1921-12-08
Books

Mr. Stephen McKenna, who. lest he
forget, writes his memoirs at three
and-thirty, suggests that the animosi-
ties and misunderstanding between
peoples are in large measure due to
the "complacent hallucinations" in
spired by the cartoonists. 1t is, he
thinks, natural failing of the Eng
llsh, for instance, to see them selves
and others in the terms of Tenniel
caricature. Until the war every Ger
man was contemptibly blond, mild, fat
and spectacled, with an equal love for
sausages, beer, music, metaphysics and
a long, abowled pipe The French
man, in English eyes, was something
excitable and gesticulatory in conical
tall hat, loose tie, peg-top trousers
polite, but with no interest in field
sports. The American was a tall, gaunt,
chln-whiskered fellow in strange cloth
ing, shrewd but artless chap who
spoke in the blended dialect of an East
Side saloonkeeper and farmer of the
Middle West. But the EN- mblematic John
Bull was dogged, honest, a good sports
man and lover of fair play. He was
represented as being Charged" rather
against his inclination, with an impe-
rial mission and as endowed with a
special skill in administering an en-
pire; he was credited with a marrow
deep love Of liberty and genius for
government"
Er. McKenna, elsewhere in "While
l Remember" sets down other and less
superficial reasons for the antipathy
Of one race for another. He, himself,
now loathes the Germans, for their
murders, single and wholesale; rap
ing, private and public; mutilation
worthy of a necrophile; burning and
pillage. 1t is not surprising
that, among those who remember, the
name Of a German stinks and the
presence of German is an outrage.
Until she appears bare-footed and
draped in sheet, Germany must re-
main branded with the mark of
bestiality. Though peace has been re-
stored, though trade has been resumed,
there can be no good will between
humane, just-minded men and a bar
barian nation which has not repented
Of its misdeeds" Mr.. McKenna asks
that the Kaiser be hanged.
v X *
With this idea of his neighbor's
character in his mind, it seems odd
that Mr.. McKenna should feel that
the war and England's participation in
it had no profound justification.
Though peaceful living in the same
world with the Germans, a people SO
vile, savage and belligerent, would ap-
pear to be impossible, Mr.. McKenna
protests that the war was not in
evitable. He ascribes the thing mere
ly to the laundering and bad faith of
statesmen end diplomats, leaving
mans inhumanity to man out of the
question. There is," he says, mo in
herent, life-and-death antagonism be-
tween a Stettin dockhand and Bristol
dockhand, between London physician
and Berlin physician" there
is, it seems, considerable hostility on
the part of Pittsburgh and Chicago
surgeons for viennese surgeons.
Some Liberals have searched their
hearts," he continues, "to discover
how the historic peace party of Great
Britain, elected on other issues, and
periodically fed on professions of
good will, was persuaded in day, to
honor, by payment in flesh and blood,
International obligations whose exist
ence the government had more than
once denied" This reference to the
Anglo-French entente assumes an addi-