Year: 1859




Correspondence of the N. 7. Tribune.
European Ideas OF America.


LoNDoE, Nov. IL, 1858.


When l asserted. in my letter of last week,
that the United States are better known and
more popular in Germany than in any Eu-
ropean country, did not even except Eng
land. Take ten Englishmen and ten Ger
mans at random out of the population of a
provincial town of the respective countries,
let them pass an examination in reference to
the geography. the constitution, the state
of society, etc.. of the United States, and I
am sure you will find that am right in nv
opinion. Though among the many great
and glorious achievements illustrating the
biography of John Bull, the fact of his hav-
ing begotton Brother jonathan is without
any doubt the greatest, the most glorious,
and that of which the old gentleman ought
to be almost as proud as of his own exist
ence and tolerable good health IN his old
age-yet your uncle, German Michel, still
older man, without being held much in hon
or for all that by your young folks, takes a
tar more generous interest in your welfare
and good reputation than your venerable
sire. Or if you prefer to hear of your
mother and of your aunt instead of your
father and of your uncle-I may say that
Germany admires in the United States what
she herself Is longing to possess, while
England, in the case of some less commend
able traits Of the American character, only
recognizes some of the less admirable lines
of her own face in the looking glass, and
in the case of all that is noble and praise
worthy in the United States, SO much the
more resents the cold independence of her
descendants.


Of course, the feeling toward the United
States is different not only in European
countries, but different also with the differ
ent classes and with the different parties of
European society. European governments
and government officials hate American self
government; European capitalists hate the
insecurity of American securities; Europe
an aristoerats hate American society. En-
giishmen, too, hate American society, be-
cause Englishmen are aristocrats, those
among them who are not lords themselves
being unable at least to do without lords
Frenchmen like the Americans as far as the
latter come to spend their money at Paris
they would like the devil if he came for
that purpose-but beyond this they hate
them, though not quite so much as they
hate the English. Spaniards hate America
because they have lost it, and some fine day
fear that they will lose the island of Cuba
too, and because neither Don Quixotte nor
Ssncho Panza is held in high esteem in the
United States. The Germans alone, as
nation, like America, otherwise they would
not emigrate in such numbers to the new
world. With the Germans, as a nation. the
United States are in high favor, and would
still be more so, as they really were several
years ago, if the accounts of the Know
Nothings killing the German turner's, and
some similar events, narrated in rhyme, had
net been sung to doleful tunes by the organ
grinders all over Germany. But German
poets and philosophers hate American mat
ter-of-fact interests; German sybarites hate
dry American business life and American
Sundays; German romanticists. whether
producers or consumers of romance, hate
American reality, though some of them ad
mire Cooper's novels and the song of Hia-
watha. These different classes of the Ger
man +'aristocracy of mind" foster their an
tipathies by voluntary ignorance or if some
active characters among them display an in
terest in American affairs, this interest is
exhibited in their eagerness to collect and
bring before the public such facts as are apt
to show American life from the least favor
able side. This tendency, however, is only
that of a minority, and of a class of men
not very popular themselves with the mass
of the nation, who do not need an extraor-
dinary degree of smartness in order to un-
derstand the motives of such industry, when
they see the efforts made in certain quarters
to put check on emigration.


All this is very natural, and the right to
defend its position and interests must be
granted to every class of society. IF those
who have to gain by the effect of the good
example OF the United States are free to
paint exclusively the bright side of the pic
ture, let those who have to lose by that eff
feet collect the material for painting the dark
side of it, provided both can reach their
purpose without deviating from truth. Un-
der this restriction, if the latter are able to
find such material. it is not their fault that
it exists, and the friends of American re-
Publlcanism can only regret the undeniable
fact. The United States, like other coun-
tries and nations, have no right to the SYM
pathy and good will of everybody. But
even those whose interests are insepsrably
connected with the interests of America
those who are the first to suffer from the
growing unpopularity of the United States
IN Europe-those to whom an uninterrupt- |
ed, and. if possible, a growing immigration
OF their countrymen from home would be
an increase of influence and power-those
who are indignant at the narrow-minded |
intolerance of the native party-when those
make profession of depreciating, by their
correspondence and literary labors, the coun
try of their adoption, the act is simply fool |
ish. Criticism. however spiteful. may be
thought legitimate when it can be supposed
to have bettering influence upon Its object;
but this is impossible when il does not come
to the knowledge of those with whom the
fault is found. as in the case of being writ
ten in a language which they cannot read |