A movement to correct the school books (in America) has been started and will go on. It will be thwarted in every way possible by certain of your enemies. They will busily remind us that you burnt our Capitol; that you let loose the Alabama on us during the Civil War; they will never mention the good turns you have done us. They would spoil, if they could, the better understanding that so many of us are striving for.
At the meeting of the House of Bishops of the Protestant Episcopal Church, at Detroit, October 11, 1919, a resolution was offered to exclude from the church hymnal “The Star Spangled Banner” and “America.” In some of the public schools in New York copy books are furnished the children with a picture of General Haig and embellished with the British flag, and for some time pictures of a flag combining the American Stars and Stripes and the Union Jack in one design were publicly exhibited for sale all over New York City.
We read in the Prefatory Note to the revised edition of “English History for Americans,” by Thomas Wentworth Higginson and Edward Channing (1904): “In the preparation of this revised edition, the authors have been guided by the thought that the study of English history in our schools generally precedes that of the United States.”
There is obviously as strong a Tory sentiment in the United States as there was in 1776, 1779, 1808 and 1812, and the words of Thomas Jefferson, in his letter to Governor Langdon, of New Hampshire, are as true today as they were then:
The Toryism with which we struggled in ‘77 differed but in name from the Federalism of ‘99, with which we struggled also; and the Anglicism of 1808 against which we are now struggling is but the same thing still in another form. It is a longing for a King, and an English King rather than any other. This is the true source of our sorrows and wailings.
Again we hear the prophetic voice of Abraham Lincoln as it is borne to us like an echo of his speech at Springfield, Ill., June 26, 1857:
The assertion that “all men are created equal” was of no practical use in effecting our separation from Great Britain and it was placed in the Declaration not for that, but for future use. Its authors meant it to be—as, thank God, it is now proving itself—a stumbling block to all those who in after times might seek to turn a free people back into the hateful paths of despotism. They knew the proneness of posterity to breed tyrants, and they meant when such should reappear in this fair land and commence their vocation, they should find left for them at least one hard nut to crack.
England’s chief propagandist is Lord Northcliffe. He owns the London “Times,” and the latter, on July 4, 1919, clearly outlined in an editorial the method to be pursued in turning us from our ideals and making us forget the glorious traditions of the past. It said:
Efficient propaganda, carried out by those trained in the arts of creating public good-will and of swaying public opinion as a definite purpose, is now needed, urgently needed. To make a beginning, efficiently organized propaganda should mobilize the press, the Church, the stage and the cinema; press into service the whole educational systems of both countries and root the spirit of good will in the homes, the universities, public and high schools, and private schools.
It should also provide for subsidizing the best men to write books and articles on special subjects, to be published in cheap editions or distributed free to classes interested. Authoritative opinion on current controversial topics should be prepared both for the daily press and for magazines; histories and text books upon literature should be revised. New books should be added, particularly in the primary schools. Hundreds of exchange university scholarships should be provided.