The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 1918. ENGLAND AND AMERICA.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXVII, Issue 44, 17 September 1918, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 1918. ENGLAND AND AMERICA.

, some kind of a popular as well as ;an official welcome. Bands are on j the quays and a good turn-out of people helps to show how warmly England welcomes them and appreciates their presence. Another suggestion 0 f the quartermaster-sergeant was that the rest camps in England should he transformed into places far less deadening than they are at present in their mental and moral influences. To men thousands of miles away from home, and often feeling not a little homesick, these Monk camps must cause n measure of depression and give a poor impression of England. So far as, the American soldiers are concerned, Moulding wrote pointing out that “an iinn'f”' 0 opportunity has keen neglected for stimulating friendship for England and the English in the hearts ° r these American soldiers. Their Wters home might have wed rontamod propaganda for the British whieh would have effectively roused admiration and real effecMon in fhe hearts of the citizens of the United States, and particularly of those American mothers waiting tremulously to hear that their sous have been received on this side with hospitality. But impulse of fraternity has never been given and a tremendous opportunity has been neglected.” The response of the 'neopie of 'England, high and low alike, first to a newspaper campaign inspired hy this Anglo-Ameri-can quartermaster-sergeant and later to the official movement that is following. almost to the letter, a big and detailed scheme which Colliding mapped out and set down in black 1 and ’white ha s been so tremendous and hearty that it is obvihus that , the public only had to have its at- ;

tention called to the need for team work in this direction to supply it in almost embarrassing plentitude. Of coursp “Blighty” is the British Tommy’s name for England, or “home.” and to give the, men whose own Blighty is 3000 miles away, a second “home” in England- was the end and aim of Goulding s ambition. The Ministry* of Information took the whole scheme over, and set out to carfv it through thoroughly. Perhaps the best token of all Britain’s friendship was the manner in which the Fourth of July was celebrated. Flags were flown, bells rung, speeches made, and generally the heartiest of enthusiasm was shown, “George the Third must have rubbed his eyes in the shades,” remarked the London Daily Express, “if he knew what was .happening in London. On July 4, 1776, the United States declared themselves ‘free, sovereign, and independent.’ On July 4, 1918, that declaration was celebrated with enthusiasm iu the British capital, and the great-great-grandson of George 111. was the chief son at a festival of comradeship and brotherhood. The fathers of the men training in England, with kindly consideration all round them, and fighting in France shoulder to shoulder with Englishmen, were taught that George 111. was a wicked 'despot, and that England was the enemy of liberty, whom America had whacked once aud might have to whack again. Let us remember that all that the same generation of Englishmen knew about America they had learned from ‘Martin Chuzzlewit.’ They believed that the United States were entirely populated by Mr Jefferson Bricks and Mr Scadders, who alternately ate with VJxeir knives and chewed tobacco. War has banished both George HI. and Mr Jefferson Brick to the land of make-believe to -which they belong. We know each other now, and it is interesting to remember that the threat of war was the beginning of knowledge.”

The vigor with which the people of] iAmerica are throwing themselves into war has brought to the people of England a realisation of the fact that their duty to the United States imposes on them the obligation to extend hospitality to the American soldiers who pass through England on their way to France. The American soldiers are fighting at a distance from their homes which varies from 3000 to 7000 miles, and few can hope to revisit their people while the war lasts, so a strong movement has been initiated to make Great Britain as much “Blighty” to the American soldiers as it is to the men of the British forces. At first the proverbial British reserve nearly lost England a great opportunity in this matter. Old Country people are slow to make new friends, and their reticence is liable to give a wrong impression of the kindness and heartiness that lie at the base of British character. The credit for breaking down the British reserve, so far as the American army is concerned rests largely with a quarter-master-sergeant of the United States army, Goulding by name, who though he wears the uniform of Uncle Sam, is a Britisher by birth. After a period of training in the United States he was shipped across to England on hia way to France, and when he got there —to his old home—what did he find'; To be quite frank, he found that the American fighting men, with their first enthusiasm just a bit dampened by the necessary rigors of their voyage across the Atlantic in crowded transports, had during their short sojourn in England such a dull, cheerless and generally “goat-getting'’ time that when they left England for j France, instead of being chock full ofj enthusiasm for their British Allies, as] they so well ought to he, most of them left indifferent to England and all her works. He found that, to begin with, when they landed, after enduring many days of discomfort, there was nothing in the way of a popular welcome awaiting them. “The majority of the American transienttroops,” wrote Goulding to someone iu authority, “pass on to France after having spent in England a week or more of absolute mental misery, unvaried by a cheer, by the music of the band, or by any attempt whatever at entertainment by a mail from home.” Of course it was all well understood that the secrecy which; had to he preserved regarding the movement of convoys made it difficult to always give the American troops such a greeting as they deserved, j However, Goulding’® tip was taken , and the British authorities are now ’ doing their utmost to see that the