Westward with the Prince of Wales

by W. Douglas Newton

Mr. Wilson's instinctive vein of humour came back to him under the pleasure of the reunion, and he pointed out to the Prince that if he was ill in bed, he had taken the trouble to be ill in a bed of some celebrity. It was a bed that made sickness auspicious. King Edward had used it when he had stayed at the White House as "Baron Renfrew," and President Lincoln had also slept on it during his term of office, which perhaps accounted for its massive and rugged utility.

The visit was certainly a most attractive one for the President, and had an excellent effect; his physician reported the next morning that Mr. Wilson's spirits had risen greatly, and that as a result of the enjoyable twenty minutes he had spent with the Prince. On Friday, November 15th, the Prince went to the United States Naval College at Annapolis, a place set amid delightful surroundings. He inspected the whole of the Academy, and was immensely impressed by the smartness of the students, who, themselves, marked the occasion by treating him to authentic college yells on his departure.

The week-end was spent quietly at the beautiful holiday centre of Sulphur Springs. It was a visit devoted to privacy and golf.

IV

During our stay in Washington the air was thick with politics, for it was the week in which the Senate were dealing with Clause Ten of the Peace Treaty. The whole of Washington, and, in fact, the whole of America, was tingling with politics, and we could not help being affected by the current emotion.

I am not going to attempt to discuss American politics, but I will say that it seemed to me that politics enter more personally into the life of Americans than with the British, and that they feel them more intensely. At the same time I had a definite impression that American politics have a different construction to ours. The Americans speak of "The Political Game," and I had the feeling that it was a game played with a virtuosity of tactics and with a metallic intensity, and the principle of the game was to beat the other fellows. So much so that the aim and end of politics were obscured, and that the battle was fought not about measures but on the advantages one party would gain over another by victory.

That is, the "Political Game" is a game of the "Ins" and "Outs" played for parliamentary success with the habitual keenness and zest of the American.

This is not a judgment but an impression. I do not pretend to know anything of America. I do not think any one can know America well unless he is an American. Those who think that America quickly yields its secrets to the British mind simply because America speaks the English language need the instruction of a visit to America.

America has all the individuality and character of a separate and distinct State. To think that the United States is a sort of Transatlantic Britain is simply to approach the United States with a set of preconceived notions that are bound to suffer considerable jarring. Both races have many things in common, that is obvious from the fact of a common language, and, in a measure, from a common descent; but they have things that are not held in common. It needs a closer student of America than I am to go into this; I merely give my own impression, and perhaps a superficial one at that. It may offer a point of elucidation to those people who find themselves shocked because English-speaking America sometimes does not act in an English manner, or respond to English acts.

America is America first and all the time; it is as complete and as definite in its spirits as the oldest of nations, and in its own way. Its patriotism is intense, more intense than British patriotism (though not more real), because by nature the American is more intense. The vivid love of Americans for America is the same type of passion that the Frenchman has for France.