"When first my division arrived in France it was brigaded with and
received its initial experience with the British, who proved to us how
little we really knew of the war as it was and that we had yet much to
learn. Soon my opinion began to change and I was regarding England as the
backbone of the Allies. Yet there remained a certain something I could
not forgive them. What it was you know, and have proved to me that it is
not our place to judge and that we have much for which to be thankful to
our great Ally.

"Assuring you that your ... article has succeeded in converting one who
needed conversion badly I beg to remain...."

How many American soldiers in Europe, I wonder, have looked about them,
have used their sensible independent American brains (our very best
characteristic), have left school histories and hearsay behind them and
judged the English for themselves? A good many, it is to be hoped. What
that judgment finally becomes must depend not alone upon the personal
experience of each man. It must also come from that liberality of outlook
which is attained only by getting outside your own place and seeing a lot
of customs and people that differ from your own. A mind thus seasoned and
balanced no longer leaps to an opinion about a whole nation from the
sporadic conduct of individual members of it. It is to be feared that
some of our soldiers may never forget or make allowance for a certain
insult they received in the streets of London. But of this later. The
following sentence is from a letter written by an American sailor:

"I have read... 'The Ancient Grudge' and I wish it could be read by
every man on our big ship as I know it would change a lot of their
attitude toward England. I have argued with lots of them and have shown
some of them where they are wrong but the Catholics and descendants of