View source for England and America

''England and America'' is a letter written by [[Arthur Conan Doyle]] first published in [[The Times]] on 7 january 1896.


__TOC__


== Editions ==

* in ''[[The Times]]'' (7 january 1896 [UK])
* in ''[[The New-York Times]]'' (19 january 1896 [US]) as ''The Shadow of the Past''
* in ''[[The Daily Picayune]]'' (12 february 1896 [US]) as ''Conan Doyle Understands''


<gallery mode="packed" heights="500px">
File:The-Times-1896-01-07-england-marica.jpg|[[The Times]] (7 january 1896)
File:The-New-York-Times-1896-01-19-shadow-past.jpg|[[The New-York Times]] (19 january 1896)
File:The-daily-picayune-1896-02-19-conan-doyle-understands.jpg|[[The Daily Picayune]] (12 february 1896)
</gallery>



== England and America ==
[[File:The-Times-1896-01-07-england-marica.jpg|thumb|250px|right|[[The Times]] (7 january 1896)]]

TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES.

Sir, — An Englishman who travels in the United States comes 
back, according to my experience, with two impressions, which 
are so strong that they overshadow all others. One is of the 
excessive kindness which is shown to individual Englishmen. The 
other is of the bitter feeling which appears to exist both in the Press 
and among the public against his own country. The present 
ebullition is only one of those recurrent crises which have marked 
the whole history of the two nations. The feeling is always 
smouldering, and the least breath of discussion sets it in a blaze. I 
believe, and have long believed, that the greatest danger which 
can threaten our Empire is the existence of this spirit of hostility in 
a nation which is already great and powerful, but which is destined
to be far more so in the future. Our statesmen have stood too 
long with their faces towards the East. To discern our best hopes 
as well as our gravest dangers they must turn them the other way.

As to the cause of this feeling, it is not so unreasonable as 
Englishmen usually contend. It is the fashion among us to 
apportion the blame between the Irish-American and the 
politician who is in search of his vote. But no such superficial 
explanation as this can cover the fact that the Governors of 30 
American States should unhesitatingly endorse a Presidential
message which obviously leads straight to war. A dislike so widely 
spread and so fierce in its expression cannot be explained by the 
imported animosity of the Celtic Irishman.

To understand the American's view of Great Britain one must
read such an American history as would be used in the schools,
and accept the statements with the same absolute faith and
patriotic bias which our own schoolboys would show in a British
narration of our relations with France. American history, as far as
its foreign policy is concerned, resolves itself almost entirely into a
series of wrangles with Great Britain, in many of which we must 
now ourselves confess that we were absolutely in the wrong. Few
Englishmen could be found now to contend that we were justified 
in those views of taxation which brought on the first American 
war, or in the question of searching neutral vessels, which was the 
main cause of the second. This war of 1812 would possibly only
occupy two pages out of 500 in an English history, but it bulks very 
large in an American one, and has left many bitter memories 
behind it. Then there was the surly attitude which England 
adopted towards the States after they had won their independence,
the repeated frictions during the Napoleonic epoch, and the 
attack upon an American frigate by a British 50-gun ship in time 
of peace. After the war there was the Florida dispute in the time of 
Andrew Jackson, the question of the Oregon line, the settlement of 
the Maine and New Brunswick line, and, finally, the hostile 
attitude of most of our Press at the time of the Civil War. Since 
then we have had two burning questions, that of the Alabama 
claims and that of the Behring Sea fisheries, culminating in this of 
Venezuela. The history of his country then, as it presents itself to 
an American, is simply a long succession of quarrels with 
ourselves, and how can it be wondered at if he has now reached 
that chronic state of sensitiveness and suspicion which we have not 
quite outgrown ourselves in the case of the French?

If we are to blame as a community for some at least of these
unfortunate historical incidents, we are even more to blame as
individuals for the widespread bitterness which is felt against us.
We have never had a warm, ungrudging word of heartfelt praise
for the great things which our kinsmen have done, for their
unwearying industry, their virtues in peace, their doggedness in
their unparalleled clemency when war was over. We have
always fastened upon the small, rude details and overlooked the
great facts behind. In our shocked contemplation of an expectoration
upon the floor we lost sight of universal suffrage and equal
education. Our travellers, from Mrs. Trollope and Dickens
onwards, have been surprised that the versatile hard-working
men, who often combined ten trades in one to adapt themselves to
the varying needs of a raw-growing community, had not the
manners of Oxford or the repose of Sussex. They could not 
understand that this rough vitality and over-bearing energy which
carried them through their task implied those complementary
defects which must go with unusual virtues. Of all English
travellers to the States, there was hardly one who did not make
mischief with his reminiscences until, in our own days, Mr. Bryce 
did something to rectify the balance. And our want of charity and 
true insight are the more inexcusable since no one has written 
more charmingly of England than Washington Irving, Emerson, 
and Holmes.

These personal and political causes of bitterness may each be 
small in itself, but in the aggregate they have assumed a proportion
which makes them of national importance. Our journals 
and public men are in the habit now, as a rule, of alluding to 
America and Americans in the most friendly way, and that must in 
time have its effect, if recent unhappy events do not change it. One 
must have travelled in America to appreciate how kindly is the 
temper of the people — "angelic" is the adjective which Monsieur 
Bourget employs — and it is impossible to think that they can 
continue for ever to feel vindictively towards a kindred nation 
which has a friendly feeling for them. But the shadow of the past 
still lies between us, and it may be long before it is lifted. In the 
meantime we should, in my opinion, lose no opportunity of doing 
those little graceful acts of kindness which are the practical sign of 
a brotherly sentiment. Opinions may differ as to the value of 
Bartholdi's Statue of Liberty as a work of art, but there can be no 
gainsaying that as a visible sign of French friendship it carries its 
message to every American who enters New York Harbour. We 
have our opportunities occasionally of showing a friendly feeling. 
We had such a one a couple of years ago, when I ventured to point 
out in the columns of The Times that an offer of the Guards' bands 
for the opening of the Chicago Exhibition might do something 
towards a better feeling between the nations. The chance was 
missed, but others will arise. Above all I should like to see an 
Anglo-American Society started in London, with branches all 
over the Empire, for the purpose of promoting good feeling, 
smoothing over friction, laying literature before the public which 
will show them how strong are the arguments in favour of an 
Anglo-American alliance, and supplying the English Press with 
the American side of the question and ''vice versa''. Such an 
organization would, I am sure, be easily founded, and would do 
useful work towards that greatest of all ends, the consolidation of 
the English-speaking races.

Yours faithfully,

A. CONAN DOYLE<br />
Mena House Hotel, Pyramids, Cairo, Dec. 30





----
* [[Sir Arthur Conan Doyle:Complete Works|Back to Complete Works]]
* [[Sir Arthur Conan Doyle|Back to Conan Doyle]]