awarded more than half what she claimed. And then we disputed the
umpire's decision on the ground he hadn't given us the whole thing! Does
not this remind you of some of our baseball bad manners? It was settled
later, and we got, differently located, about the original award.

Did you learn in school about "fifty-four forty, or fight"? We were ready
to take off our coat again. Or at least, that was the platform in 1844 on
which President Polk was elected. At that time, what lay between the
north line of California and the south line of Alaska, which then
belonged to Russia, was called Oregon. We said it was ours. England
disputed this. Each nation based its title on discovery. It wasn't really
far from an even claim. So Polk was elected, which apparently meant war;
his words were bellicose. We blustered rudely. Feeling ran high in
England; but she didn't take off her coat. Her ambassador, Pakenham,
stiff at first, unbent later. Under sundry missionary impulses, more
Americans than British had recently settled along the Columbia River and
in the Willamette Valley. People from Missouri followed. You may read of
our impatient violence in Professor Dunning's book, The British Empire
and the United States. Indeed, this volume tells at length everything I
am telling you briefly about these boundary disputes. The settlers wished
to be under our Government. Virtually upon their preference the matter
was finally adjusted. England met us with a compromise, advantageous to
us and reasonable for herself. Thus, again, was her conduct moderate
and pacific. If you think that this was through fear of us, I can only
leave you to our western blow-hards of 1845, or to your anti-British
complex. What I see in it, is another sign of that fundamental sense of
kinship, that persisting unwillingness to have a real scrap with us, that
stares plainly out of our whole first century--the same feeling which
prevented so many English from enlisting against us in the Revolution
that George III was obliged to get Hessians.