It was not very long ago that President
Cleveland wanted war with England. Hatred of England was at one time as
fiercely handed down from generation to generation by Americans as by
Irish-Americans. We have to thank our English stars that America has
outgrown this historic hate and that Irish-Americans now show the new
and happier feeling of their compatriots.
I asked this Irishman, no one better able throughout America to express
a just opinion on the subject, what difference had been made in the
feeling toward England by the passing of the Home Rule bill.
"It was the passing of that bill," he replied, "which finished the work
begun by German militarism. Home rule has softened our feelings toward
England, particularly among the thousands of Irish-Americans who are
born over here and whose fathers have become too Americanized to
remember the sufferings of their ancestors.
"There is still some hatred of England, but not very much. It is a
sentimental, a poetic hatred, not a political hatred. One finds it among
a few individuals. What agitation is now going on is secret and
underground, a sure proof that it is unrepresentative.
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