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 UR DEBT 
 
 I •; ) 
 
 GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 By 
 
 AUL REVERE FROTHINGHAM 
 
Our Debt to Great Britain 
 
 By 
 
 PAUL REVERE FROTHINGHAM 
 
 "I am debtor both to the Greeks-, 
 * * and to the barbarians, both to the 
 
 wise and to the unwise." 
 
 THE BEACON PRESS 
 25 BEACON STREET, BOSTON, MASS. 
 
*7 
 
Our Debt to Great Britain 
 
 WHEN the great Apostle confessed himself a 
 debtor both to the Greeks and to the barbarians, 
 both to the wise and to the unwise, we may be sure that 
 he had not reached such a conclusion without a struggle. 
 There were many deeply-seated and inherited prejudices 
 that had to be overcome. It is equally certain, too, that 
 his acknowledgment of international indebtedness was 
 not acceptable to the rank and file of his fellow-citizens. 
 The ancient Jews were a very proud and independent 
 people. Their mission in the world, as they conceived 
 it, was to teach, not learn; to impart and not receive! 
 They belonged to what they called the "Chosen Race." 
 In their opinion they had been selected by their God 
 to enlighten and redeem the world. They spoke of the 
 land they lived in as the Land of Promise, which was 
 another way of saying that it was "God's own country." 
 Now, the great Apostle inherited these opinions. 
 They had been taught him in the schools. He had 
 boasted of them in his youth. But, with growing 
 years, he had a widening experience. He traveled. 
 He saw something of other civilizations. He learned 
 the beauty that was Greece; he perceived the grandeur 
 that belonged to Rome. In his missionary journeys 
 
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OUR DEBT TO GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 he came to have an appreciation of the rugged virtues 
 that ennobled the barbarians, as they were called, of 
 Asia Minor. Out of the dark pit of his prejudices 
 and provincialism he climbed up into the sunlight of a 
 citizenship of the world! Taught by hard experience, 
 enlightened by long intercourse with other lands, he 
 learned how much his country and his people owed to 
 sister civilizations that lay beyond the sea. "I am 
 debtor," he acknowledged, "both to the Greeks and 
 the barbarians, both to the wise and to the unwise." 
 
 Our national education here in America, in the 
 course of the past four years, has been perfected along 
 lines that are not dissimilar. We have been brought 
 to a recognition of our deep indebtedness to others. 
 We have learned to look in a different way upon France 
 and Italy, upon Belgium and Great Britain. We 
 recognize how much we owe them. Our present safety 
 is due to their unswerving loyalty to high ideals. The 
 stupendous victory, in which we have had the privilege 
 of taking part, we owe to their unconquerable courage, 
 their dogged perseverance, their rock-like, long re- 
 sistance, both at home and in the field. We are 
 debtors to them all — and they to us, as they cheer- 
 fully and gratefully acknowledge. 
 
 But today,* we are asked to pay particular attention 
 to our indebtedness to the people of Great Britain. 
 And we ought to do so with the greater gladness. 
 For they and we are kin. We speak the same lan- 
 guage: we share the same inheritance of liberty and 
 law! In a sense, it is a reproach to our intelligence 
 
 *Britain's Day in the United States, observed in more than a thousand cities 
 and towns. 
 
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OUR DEBT TO GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 and sense of fairness that we have to be called upon to 
 emphasize our debt. It ought to be evident to all. 
 And, what is more, it ought to be reverently recognized 
 and thankfully expressed by all. With the obvious 
 reasons why in certain sections of our country it has 
 not been generously and cheerfully acknowledged, I 
 have neither the patience not the desire to deal. Liv- 
 ing in the shadow of Bunker Hill and in close proximity 
 to Lexington and Concord, we find one of these reasons, 
 which is as puerile as it is provincial. The fact of 
 the Irish element in our population is another! And 
 into the intricacies of the Irish situation God forbid 
 that I should enter! When a people are unable to 
 agree among themselves upon the management of 
 their own affairs; when they use the greatest crisis in 
 all history for treasonable trafficking with the most 
 corrupt and cruel enemy that the modern world has 
 known, they have forfeited the right to be listened to 
 with patience. 
 
 Putting aside, therefore, such obvious and unworthy 
 reasons as these for whatever failure there may be to 
 recognize our obligation, let me call a moment's at- 
 tention to a reason that is not so obvious. It is the 
 fact that the British themselves have seemed to make 
 light of what they have achieved. Far from boasting 
 of their exploits, and claiming, — which, of course, is a 
 fact, — that without their fleet the war could never have 
 been won, they have persistently referred to themselves 
 as merely "doing their bit." 
 
 There is, you know, some subtle connection in this 
 world between character and surroundings; between 
 
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OUR DEBT TO GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 temperament and environment, soul and circumstance. 
 In ways that we are often not aware of, we are in- 
 fluenced by climate, soil, and scenery. The atmosphere 
 of the East has produced the dreamy, meditative 
 mind. In the West, the climate makes man restless, 
 energetic, full of enterprise. Perhaps some of the 
 differences between Americans and the English can be 
 explained upon this basis. We Americans live in a 
 big country, and we talk big! We are not given to 
 hiding our light under a bushel. We have no wish to 
 conceal the cities of our accomplishments that are 
 set upon a hill. We boast freely, build rapidly, boom 
 whatever is American. 
 
 England, however, is a little land, and its people 
 have a curious tendency to minimize correspondingly 
 their greatness! They never boast. They make light 
 of great achievements, and pass off heroic acts of sacri- 
 fice as part of the day's necessary work! It is "doing 
 one's bit", — that is all. And "doing one's bit" may 
 mean laying down one's life for a friend, or sailing into 
 Zeebrugge under a storm of fire when death is almost 
 certain! 
 
 Why don't they speak of "doing one's best," we won- 
 der, which is more what we should say, and would seem 
 to describe things better? But, to speak of doing one's 
 best would savor, to the English mind, of Cant! It 
 would smack of talk on Sundays, not on week-days; it 
 would suggest the school, and not the world. Besides, — 
 when measured by the mighty forces and the tremen- 
 dous issues, which come to be at stake, — the individual 
 act of greatest sacrifice is no more than a "bit." 
 
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OUR DEBT TO GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 Here is an instance, which is told by Coningsby 
 Dawson. In the early days of the war, on the Flanders 
 front, "during a fierce engagement, a British officer 
 saw a German officer impaled on the barbed wire, 
 writhing in anguish. The fire was dreadful, yet he 
 still hung there unscathed. At length, the British 
 officer could stand it no longer. He said, quietly: 
 T can't bear to look at that poor chap any longer.' 
 So he went out under the hail of shell, released him, 
 took him on his shoulders, and carried him to the 
 German trench. The firing ceased. Both sides 
 watched the act with wonder. Then the commander 
 in the German trench came forward, took from his 
 own bosom the Iron Cross, and pinned it on the breast 
 of the British officer." Such an act was true to the 
 holiest ideals of chivalry; but it was onlv "doing one's 
 bit." 
 
 Now, when individuals, and a whole nation, thus 
 characterize a deed of extraordinary heroism, they 
 give evidence, among other things, of the long years 
 of their existence, and of a great tradition through a 
 glorious past! In our days of youth we boast; but the 
 deeds of maturity are just a part of life. It is left 
 to others both to admire and to praise. 
 
 Let us speak, however, in some detail of the measure 
 of our indebtedness to England. In the first place, we 
 owe her a big debt for what she did in the days before 
 the war broke out in struggling to preserve the peace. 
 In the stress of fearful struggle we have tended to 
 forget those early days. But now our minds go back 
 to them. We have time to remember. When the 
 
OUR DEBT TO GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 storm-clouds were gathering on the Balkan horizon, 
 Italy and France did little to avert the tempest. Our 
 own Administration at Washington put forth no 
 vigorous, well-timed efforts to stay the lightening 
 and the thunder. But the Government of Britain, 
 through the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, was inde- 
 fatigable in working, toiling, planning for the main- 
 tenance of peace! Sir Edward Grey, who had earned 
 for himself in other crises the title of the "Peacemaker 
 of Europe," left no stone unturned to stay the strife, 
 lie was instant on the field with suggestions for medi- 
 ation: and he did not leave it, sad and broken, till the 
 unwavering will of Germany for war was clear. 
 
 "On the day of the presentation of the Austrian note 
 he proposed the co-operation of the four Powers — 
 Germany, France, Italy and Great Britain, in favor 
 of moderation at Vienna and St. Petersburg; and 
 when the Austrians rejected the Servian reply he took 
 the important step of proposing that the French, 
 Italian and German Ambassadors should meet him in 
 conference immediately 'for the purpose of discovering 
 an issue which would prevent complications.' ' He was 
 successful at last in getting Austria to consent to ar- 
 bitration, when Germany suddenly drew the sword 
 and thus made clear her sinister design. 
 
 We now know that the war was inevitable; that the 
 Hun desired it, and plotted for it! But, we should not 
 have come to know it as early and as clearly as we did 
 except for the beneficent and Christian efforts that 
 were made through Sir Edward Grey for peace. We 
 ought to be eternally grateful to that noble and high- 
 
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OUR DEBT TO GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 minded statesman, and to the country which he repre- 
 sented, that none of us in looking back can say: — 
 "It might have been avoided. If this, or that, had 
 only been suggested, the storm would never probably 
 have burst!" "The saddest day of my life," Lord Grey 
 declared that it was, when his well-meant efforts finally 
 were frustrated. And his sadness, as we know, was 
 shared by others. When the Cabinet finally decided 
 upon war, more than one of the members, we were told, 
 broke down and cried like a little child, among them Mr. 
 Asquith, who was then Prime Minister. 
 
 It is good, as we look back now, to remember things 
 like these. For nothing would have been the same 
 if England's effort to preserve the peace had not at once 
 and publicly unmasked the will of Germany for war. 
 
 Again, we owe a debt to England for the emphasis 
 she laid at once on what was right. She came out flat 
 and fair and firm, and took her stand upon the moral 
 law! Someone has said that "of all the assets which 
 England through the centuries has possessed in dealing 
 with Europe and the world, the most priceless has been 
 this — that the word of England is the bond of England." 
 You remember the "infamous proposal" that was 
 made to her by German}^. England was to stand aside 
 while France was being crushed, the promise being 
 given that no French territory would be permanently 
 held. She was to offer no objection to the violation 
 of Belgian neutrality, it being solemnly agreed by 
 Germany that when the war ended Belgian integrity 
 would be respected if she offered no resistance. And, 
 on the basis of these two bargains, it was suggested 
 
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OUR DEBT TO GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 that good relations could permanently be established 
 between the two great countries. 
 
 What the whole thing simmered down to, as Chester- 
 ton remarked, was this: — "Germany came to England 
 and said, 'if you will break your promise in the hope of 
 helping me to break my promise, I will reward you with 
 another of my celebrated promises/ ' We can not be 
 too thankful that England instantly and scornfully 
 refused the utterly dishonorable terms! The world 
 is in her debt for terming it at once and proclaiming it 
 an "infamous proposal" and for saying, as she did, 
 that "it would be a disgrace for her, to make the bar- 
 gain — a disgrace from which the good name of the 
 country never would recover." 
 
 At the very outset, therefore, England took her stand 
 upon the moral law, and international integrity, and 
 the keeping of one's word! A promise was a promise! 
 She was pledged to stand by Belgium — and stand by 
 her she would! She plunged into the war. therefore, 
 a united nation, with the sense of justice to sustain the 
 people and the consciousness of rectitude to keep them 
 firm. She nailed God's colors to the mast of every 
 ship in her majestic navy, and she sent her little army 
 on the instant into France, pitiably weak in numbers, 
 but unconquerably strong by reason of the justice of 
 the cause. It was a moral appeal that went ringing 
 through the land, and brought volunteers by millions 
 from offices and factories and great estates — from the 
 homes of rich and poor alike, to go and die if necessary 
 that honor might not vanish from the world! It was 
 the same appeal, a mighty moral issue, that reached 
 
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OUR DEBT TO GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 across the seas and set the consciences of the colonists 
 aflame in Canada, Australia and in far New Zealand, 
 India and even in South Africa, till the far-flung empire 
 was a unit, and a great crusade was entered on at once! 
 Self-interest could not have accomplished it; mere 
 motives of defence could not possibly have wrought 
 the miracle. It was the greatest instance that the 
 world has ever witnessed of the power of a noble and 
 a high Ideal. There are two kinds of war, it has been 
 very truly said. There is the war that the ruffian 
 wages, when he rushes from concealment to assault 
 a defenceless woman; and there is the kind that the 
 man wages who hurries to defend her. Great Britain 
 recognized the difference, and the world is in her debt 
 for acting on it with supreme and instant resolution. 
 Again, I think we are indebted to her for the calm 
 forbearance that she exercised all through our own long 
 period of waiting. She did not blame us, nor utter 
 stern reproaches. Whatever she may have felt, she 
 kept her feelings to herself. Indeed, she used conscious 
 efforts to understand our hesitancy, and excuse it. 
 She went so far even as to say, through the mouths 
 of public men and scholars, that under similar circum- 
 stances she would probably have done the same herself. 
 Less than six months before we made the great decision, 
 a thoughtful and distinguished Englishman, a scholar 
 and a university professor, Gilbert Murray, endeavored 
 to explain America's attitude, and tried to justify it. 
 ''What nation in history," he asked his countrymen, 
 ever did fight for motives of pure philanthropy and 
 sympathy, in a war four thousand miles away? It is 
 
OUR DEBT TO GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 not for us," he added, "to expect it, nor to blame 
 Americans if they do not draw the sword." 
 
 But the joy of the English when we took the unpre- 
 cedented step, — when we did what no other nation ever 
 had done — is evidence of how great the forbearance 
 was that had been exercised! Nothing could possibly 
 have exceeded the warmth of their welcome, nor the 
 great whole-hearted way in which they have given 
 praise to the instant assistance of our sailors and the 
 incomparable bravery of our soldiers. 
 
 But we pass to the greatest and most obvious debt of 
 all, our indebtedness to England's Navy! Where 
 should we have been without it, and where would the 
 entire world have been? We remember those long and 
 silent watches in the cold and dark North Sea: we 
 recall that barrier of might which was sleepless in its 
 watchfulness for more than four long weary years. 
 The barrier was never seriously threatened, and it was 
 seldom seen or heard from. But there it lay, so great 
 a terror that the foe was kept in hiding. Some of us 
 can remember the fears that used to come with waking 
 thoughts when we let ourselves wonder whether the 
 obstacle might somehow, suddenly, be battered down 
 and sunk beneath the waves. But the dreaded mo- 
 ment never came; and instead there came the great 
 surrender which was vastly more humiliating to the 
 foe than defeat in a mighty battle that the English 
 had so hoped for. Some of the boys from our church 
 were there on American warships when that "Ren- 
 dezvous of Shame" for Germany took place; and we 
 have reason to thank God that the Navy of Great 
 
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OUR DEBT TO GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 Britain, strengthened by our own Navy, was so strong 
 that final success at sea was won without the loss of 
 human life. 
 
 And when we speak of the debt we owe to England for 
 her power on the sea, we must not forget the portion 
 of that power which came from her mercantile marine. 
 High as we rank the valor of her navy, I think for myself 
 that I place as high, or higher, the courage and devo- 
 tion of her common seamen and her merchant captains 
 who fought incessantly the treacherous submarines, 
 and crossed and re-crossed oceans which at any mo- 
 ment might engulf them! Yet they never wavered; 
 they took their lives into their hands, and did not fail 
 in coming up to what Nelson long ago declared the 
 nation expected! A year ago, in England, when the 
 submarine menace was greatest and most terrifying, it 
 was stated in the House of Commons that as yet not a 
 single instance had been heard of in which a British 
 seaman had refused to sail. We owe to them a mighty 
 debt for that! And when we congratulate ourselves on 
 the two million men and more that we sent abroad, 
 let us not forget that more than a million of them were 
 "transported for us in British vessels, and convoyed 
 by British warships." 
 
 And what shall we say, — what can we say of that 
 larger measure of indebtedness which belongs to, and 
 is symbolized forever by, those million dead who 
 sleep forever and so well beneath the fields of France, 
 in the sandy soil of grim Gallipoli, in Egypt, Syria, 
 Palestine and far-off Mesopotamia. The places where 
 
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OUR DEBT TO GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 they lie form henceforth but a part of England; and the 
 soil is richer for the dust that lies there. 
 
 "For you, the dead beyond the sea, 
 Who gave your lives to hold us free, 
 
 By us, who keep your memory, 
 What can be said? 
 
 We can not sing your praises right, 
 
 Lost heroes of the endless fight; 
 Whose souls into the lonely night, 
 
 Too soon have fled. 
 
 We can but honor, cherish, bless 
 
 Your sacred names; — no words express 
 
 The measure of our thankfulness, 
 To you the dead." 
 
 There are some things which the heart makes no 
 attempt to utter. It is hopeless to find words. We 
 can only bow the head, and lift lame hands, and breathe 
 a prayer. But the deep heart of America will not for- 
 get the mighty sorrow English mothers, fathers, wives 
 and sisters know; and it has not failed to take example 
 of the bright, brave, sturdy way in which that over- 
 whelming sorrow has been met and borne. We have 
 suffered little in comparison. Our dead, as we measure 
 them with theirs, are but a scattered few. The British 
 lost sometimes in a single fortnight as many as we have 
 had to sacrifice in the entire war. The names in- 
 scribed upon the Rolls of Honor in their Universities 
 and other institutions mount into the thousands, while 
 
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OUR DEBT TO GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 with us it is a matter of mere scores, or hundreds. The 
 shining armor of America bears only a few stains, while 
 Britain's armor is all red with the heart's blood of her 
 bravest and her best. Yet her loss, we are well aware 
 is ours, too! For who knows what those youthful 
 heroes might have given to the world? Our literature 
 might have been enriched by them; our science added 
 to; our progress in the arts advanced; our religious 
 knowledge deepened. So her loss must be also reck- 
 oned ours, and we ask the privilege today of clasping 
 hands with our kin across the sea. "Your loss," we 
 say to them, "is America's as well; we suffer with 
 you, and we wish that we might make the load you bear 
 in some way lighter." 
 
 And what shall we say of the debt we owe the living, 
 — those who fought and did not fall; those who served 
 and did not have to make the ultimate sacrifice; those 
 who craved death, but are permanently crippled; those 
 who saw the bright sun as they crossed to France, but 
 who came back blinded; those who worked and toiled 
 at home, and found no kind of toil too menial if it helped 
 in any way the cause! How the people of England 
 worked, and more especially the women! No Britain's 
 day would be complete which did not pay some special 
 tribute to the part which England's women played. 
 Women in factories; women in munition works; women 
 in hospitals; women in army huts; high-born women 
 scrubbing Red Cross floors, and bidding for the privi- 
 lege of doing so! In all the great book of the war there 
 is no brighter chapter than the one which tells of 
 woman's part. 
 
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OUR DEBT TO GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 "Strange, that in this great hour, when righteousness 
 Has won her war upon hypocrisy, 
 That some there be, who, lost in littleness. 
 And mindful of an ancient grudge, can ask; 
 'Now, what has England done to win this war?' 
 We think we see her smile that English smile, 
 And shrug a lazy shoulder, and just smile! 
 It were so little worth her while to pause 
 In her stupendous task to make reply. 
 What has she done? No need to ask! 
 Upon the fields of Flanders and of France 
 A million crosses mark a million graves. 
 And, ah, her women! On that peaceful isle, 
 Where in the hawthorne hedges thrushes sang, 
 And meadow-larks made gay the scented air, 
 Now blackened chimneys rear their grimy heads 
 Smoke-belching, and the frightened birds have fled 
 Before the thunder of the whirring wheels. 
 Behind unlovely walls, amid the din, 
 Seven times a million noble women toiled 
 Nor dreamed that they have played a hero's part. 
 Ah, what has England done? When came the call 
 She counted not the cost, but gave her all." 
 
 All this is now a matter of the past. It belongs to 
 history. But I can not close without a word that 
 concerns the future. What has been is secure! What 
 is to be, our hands have yet to shape. And pray God 
 that our hands in shaping it may work together! Those 
 whom God in war has joined together, let not man in 
 peace hereafter put asunder! 
 
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OUR DEBT TO GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 We owe it still to England that she is ready now, in 
 the hour of Victory, to join us in a League of Nations! 
 Her great men have declared their willingness — , 
 Lloyd George, Balfour, Viscount Grey, and our faithful 
 never-failing friend Lord Bryce. England with America 
 and France and Italy and other nations that are free, 
 can keep the great Alliance that exists, and keep it 
 for the future peace and happy progress of the world! 
 
 England, I repeat, is ready! And, what is more, it 
 would seem that for many years she has been ready, 
 and has looked with longing for some kind of an al- 
 liance! When the last great Laureate of England 
 died, he left behind some unpublished stanzas. They 
 were addressed to America, and contained a prophecy 
 and hope which have nobly been fulfilled. 
 
 How many of us, I wonder, are familiar with these 
 words of Tennyson: 
 
 "Gigantic daughter of the West, 
 
 We drink to thee across the flood, 
 
 We know thee most, we love thee best 
 
 For art thou not of British blood? 
 
 Should war's mad blast again be blown 
 Permit not thou the tyrant powers 
 
 To fight thy Mother here alone, 
 
 But let thy broadsides roar with ours. 
 
 O rise, our strong Atlantic sons, 
 
 When war against our freedom springs! 
 
 O speak to Europe through your guns: 
 They can be understood by Kings." 
 
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 We have done as Tennyson desired. The poet's 
 vision has been gloriously fulfilled. And now may the 
 statesman's dream come also true! If we are true to 
 our ideals, if we are not false to the very name we bear 
 of the United States, we will rise to the glorious op- 
 portunity that God in his infinite mercy now presents 
 to us! It is America's mission to make clear to the 
 world how the many may be one; how sovereign states 
 may maintain their sovereignty and yet establish an 
 indissoluble union! What has proved to be possible 
 upon a continent may yet be wrought out on the 
 planet. Let all provincial voices of objection be shamed 
 into silence. Let whatever difficulties may arise be 
 overcome by the victorious and enlightened Children 
 of the Allies as similar difficulties were overcome a 
 century and more ago by the enlightened and vic- 
 torious Fathers of our great Republic. Let inter- 
 dependence come to crown the facts of independence! 
 For then we shall realize the Commonwealth of Man, 
 the Federation of the World! 
 
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