CHAPTER VII[ToC]
Address to Europe
The communications of America and Europe have always run in two channels: our fumbling, foolish diplomacy, our direct, candid, successful dealings with the people.
Our first word was to the people of Europe; the Declaration of Independence tried to incite the British people against their own Parliament; and the "decent respect to the opinions of mankind" refers to citizens, not to chancelleries. The Declaration was addressed to the world; it was heard in Paris and later in a dozen provinces of Germany, and in Savoy and in Manchester, and presently along the Nevski and the Yellow River. Since 1776, the people of the world have always listened to us, and answered. We have never failed when we have spoken to the people.
After the Declaration, the American people spoke to all the people of Europe in the most direct way: they invited Europeans to come here, offering them land, wages, freedom; presently our railroads and steamship lines solicited larger numbers; and the policy of the government added inducements. Free immigration, and free movement, demanded in the Declaration, made possible by laws under the Constitution, were creating America. In domestic life we saw it at once; but the effects of immigration on our dealings with Europe were not immediate.
We need only remember that for a hundred and twenty years the peoples of Europe and the people of the United States were constantly writing to one another; not merely doing business together, but exchanging ideas, mingling in marriage, coming together as dispersed families come together. Whatever went on in the Mississippi Valley was known along the fjords and in the Volga basin and by the Danube; if sulphur was discovered in Louisiana it first impoverished Sicily—then brought Sicilians to Louisiana; Greeks knew that sponges were to be found off Tampa. And more and more people in America knew what was happening in Europe—a famine, a revolution, a brief era of peace, a repressive ministry, a reform bill. The constant interaction of Europe and America was one beat of our existence—it was in counterpoint to the tramp of the pioneer moving Westward; immigration and migration meshed together.
Our government from time to time spoke to the governments of Europe. A tone of sharp reproof was heard at times, a warm word for revolutionaries was coupled with indignation against tyrants: Turkey, the Dual Monarchy, the Tsar, all felt the lash—or Congress hoped they felt it; in the Boer War, England was the victim of semi-official criticism; and whenever possible, we were the first to recognize republics, even if they failed to maintain themselves on the ruins of monarchy. We fluttered official papers and were embarrassed by protocol, not believing in it anyhow, and were outwitted or out-charmed by second-rate diplomatists of Europe.