II[B]
“I seem a symbol—a sort of connecting link between the English-speaking people!”
I AM not really afraid to speak here to-night. I was a little afraid last night—I didn’t know quite whether New York audiences would be as kind as Plymouth audiences. I see that they are much the same. They forgive any shortcomings in the way of scholarly attainments or oratorical orations when they see that you are speaking from your heart. I usually do speak from my heart. It has been a safer guide to me than my head, and here to-night it’s easy; for surely no people on earth have understood a woman’s heart better than the English-speaking nations.
Last night I told the Women Voters that I was not a person, but a symbol; to-night I still seem a symbol—a sort of connecting link between the English-speaking people, a frail link, perhaps, but a link that is stronger than it looks. It is a strange thing that England’s first woman Member of Parliament should have come from England’s first colony. I doubt if the first English woman to land in Virginia was less expected on these shores, than the first Virginian woman to land in the House of Commons was expected on that floor. However, in spite of having neither beads nor fire-water, the natives were amazingly kind to that Virginian settler. It is all very picturesque when one thinks of it historically, but it seems very ordinary when it is done. History, I think, is more romantic to read than to make, and I apologise now to future little schoolgirls for having added another question to the endless ones which still haunt me when my mind turns back to the long list of historical personages, varying from Lucretia Borgia down to Susan B. Anthony.
I have been asked what my visit here was for. Cannot a person come home without being suspected of deep and ulterior motives? I may tell you at once, I am not on a mission to promote a better understanding between England and America. No person, however keen about it, can do much in that line. Things which are worth while are made by something better than missions or treaties. They are made only by great ideals in the hearts of the common people.
I don’t believe that trade agreements will succeed in promoting a better understanding. But I do say that if the greatest commonwealth of nations the world has ever seen and the greatest federation of states the world has ever known cannot be brought together by some common cause, some human hope and purpose, then I, personally, should feel like the Queen of Sheba—the spirit would go out of me. I do believe that these two nations are bound together by a common cause; and that cause, one of human hope and purpose, is peace on earth and good-will toward all men.
The Washington Conference was not a surprise to me. I knew that England was not a militarist nation any more than America was, and I knew, too, that once they talked things over they would see the utter futility of building battleships against one another. America and England should have the largest fleets because they will certainly use them more as policemen than as fighting forces. After all, when England had the greatest navy in the world she never used it except to keep the freedom of the seas. I often wonder whether Imperialist Germany might not have treated the Monroe Doctrine like a scrap of paper had her fleet been the strongest in the world. However, I don’t want to go back to an ancient grudge. It’s hopeless trying to go forward when you are looking backward. It is a great mistake to keep such things alive; it only means trouble, and surely there is enough trouble in the world now without looking backward.
America, I am told, draws back with horror when she looks at Europe. I don’t blame her. Certainly, it is a sad enough sight to make one draw back. I cannot believe, though, that standing back is the right way to help, and I don’t believe that any part of the world can go forward in the truest sense while another part is suffering desperately. The war has shown us that the world is really round and is part interdependent. I am struck more and more by the way in which our stock of moral good-will on both sides is still thwarted by the extent of our misunderstanding.
This not only hinders the recovery of hundreds of millions of people from all the mischiefs of war, but works new mischief of its own. I am thinking now, not so much of America and Britain, who have had their heart-to-heart explanations at the Washington Conference, with an effect which ought to make their relations foolproof, in spite of the small people who are so blinded by their fear or envy and hate, that they would do all in their power to pull them apart. But I am not afraid of them. I am only sorry for them. There is nothing more pitiful than people who are moved by envy or hate, and there is nothing weaker than people who fear. Envy and hate are the most blinding things on earth; it is only people with vision who never perish. When I talk of misunderstanding I am thinking of Europe.