ABSTRACT
In August, 1914, Britons and Americans were very close together. Newspapers and public speakers were denouncing Germany in the same phrases, and so far as outward expression went the English-speaking nations had become one spiritual community. The small minority here who desire American intervention, and the great mass of the British people who naturally desire it also, concluded that the stamina of America is decaying because it did not go to war when it talked like a nation at war. More and more the war has ceased to look like a clean-cut fight between right and wrong, between democracy and absolutism, between public faith and international lawlessness. That America should talk big and not act was bad enough, but that America should soften its tone was worse. It is curious and significant that no such division has appeared between France and America. No doubt many Frenchmen are annoyed at us, and feel many contemptuous things.
