I have dwelt on this subject of the games of the two peoples at what may seem to many an unnecessary length, because I do not think its importance can well be exaggerated. It is not only desirable, but it is necessary, for a thorough mutual liking between them that there should be no friction in matters of sport. No incident has, I believe, occurred of late years which did so much harm to the relations between the peoples as did the Dunraven episode in connection with the America's cup races. I should be inclined to say that it did more harm (I am not blaming Lord Dunraven) than the Venezuelan incident.
On the other hand, it is doubtful whether the more recent attempts to recover the cup, and the spirit in which they have been conducted, have not contributed as much as, say, the attitude of England in the Spanish War to the increased liking for Great Britain which has made itself manifest in the United States of recent years. Few Englishmen, probably, understand how much is made of such matters in the American press. The love of sport is in the blood of both peoples and neither can altogether like the other until it believes it to have the same generous sporting instincts and the same clean methods as itself. As a matter of fact, they do—as in so many other traits—stand out conspicuously alike from among all other peoples, but neither will give the other full credit for this, till each learns to see below such slight surface appearances as at present provoke occasional ill-will in one party or the other. Fuller understanding will come with time and with it entire cordiality.
FOOTNOTES:
[420:1] Though immaterial to the argument, it may be as well to state that my personal sympathies are entirely with the English practice. In the matter of college athletics especially the spirit in which certain sports (especially football and, in not much less degree, rowing and baseball) are followed at some of the American universities, is entirely distasteful to me. On the other hand, I know nothing more creditable to the English temperament than the spirit in which the contests in the corresponding sports are conducted between the great English universities. And this feeling is shared, I know, by some (and I believe by most) of those Americans who, as Rhodes scholars or otherwise, have had an opportunity of coming to understand at first hand the difference between the practice in the two countries. But this is an individual prepossession only; against which stands the fact that my experience of Americans who have won notoriety in athletics at one or other of the American universities, is that they are unspoiled by the system through which they have passed and possess just as sensitive and generous a sporting instinct as the best men turned out by Oxford or Cambridge.
CHAPTER XVI
Summary and Conclusion
A New Way of Making Friends—The Desirability of an Alliance—For the Sake of Both Peoples—And of All the World—The Family Resemblance—Mutual Misunderstandings—American Conception of the British Character—English Misapprehension of Americans—Foreign Influences in the United States—Why Politicians Hesitate—An Appeal to the People—And to Cæsar.