Obviously no one American can speak authoritatively for all of the 130,000,000 or so of his fellow citizens, He can give only his impressions derived from a great variety of sources, spoken and printed, private and official This article is not only unofficial but wholly informal. I am writing just as I would talk with one of my old friends in London—By James Truslow Adams, F.RSL, Lift. D, Condensed from the "English-Speaking World, London In reading of public opinion in another country one has to know something of the conditioning circumstances and also of the reporter As to ihe reporter, I may say that I am of English descent, but my family has been New World for 300 years and I am thoroughly American though very fond of England from many years' residence; and from intermarriages have many English first cousins scattered throughout the Empire.
Although here in America our institutions, language and literature descend mainly from Britain, we are a nation of large minorities, and the largest groups are from the totalitarian countries, Over one-third of the total population are foreign born or the children of foreign or mixed parentage. Let us list them:—
Germans 6,800000 Mexicans 1,400,000 British Austrians Italians Czechs Canadians French 500,000 Polish Hungarians Scandinavians 70 other nations 3,900,000 Trish 3, Negroes, all native Russians born 12,000,000 We thus have, as minority groups, populations larger than those of many European countries, such as Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Switzerland, and others, and we all get along happily together. The ordinary American cannot see why Europeans do not, People like myself, who have lived much abroad, can understand. Others cannot, On the other hand, most Europeans cannot understand us.
Accustomed to short distances, they do not comprehend what 3,000 miles of sea does, and between the mountain chain in our east and the ranges of the Rockies, the Cordilleras and others in the west, there are 2000 miles more. The Atlantic coast looks to Europe; the Pacific to the Orient. The great valley of the Mississippi in between looks nowhere; I do not mean it is ignorant, but it is unattackable, This is the background of American opinion as to Europe and its quarrels and wars. One more point: a large proportion of living Americans, and almost all the ancestors of all of us, left Europe to escape from restrictions of some sort—religious, economic, social, political or other. These things account for our policy of isolation.
Now, what of the present war? There are a few outstanding points to be noted. In the war of 1914-18, when we entered it in 1917 and at once started with conscription, we were prepared to send 5,000,000 men to France, though we sent only 2000000 before the Armistice, but the minority groups worried us a great deal. They proved loyal, and at present there 1s no such anxiety. The United States is overwhelmingly on the side of the British Empire land France as against Germany. The survey made by "Fortune," which is usually very accurate, shows that 84.3 per cent of the country was on the side of the Allies, I, personally, would say that 90 per cent. of the United States was for the British Empire.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.