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A Straight Deal-Part5_Owen Wister(1860-1938)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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million square miles. This added nearly a million square miles more. But

what had we really bought? Nothing but stolen goods. The Indians were



there before La Salle, from whose boat-sailing the title we bought was

derived. "But," you may object, "when whites rob reds or blacks, we call



it Discovery; land-grabbing is when whites rob whites--and that is where

I blame England." For the sake of argument I concede this, and refer you



to our acquisition of Texas. This operation followed some years after the

Florida operation. "By request" we "annexed" most of present Texas--in



1845. That was a trick of our slaveholders. They sent people into Texas

and these people swung the deal. It was virtually a theft from Mexico. A



little while later, in 1848, we "paid" Mexico for California, Arizona,

and Nevada. But if you read the true story of Fremont in California,



and of the American plots there before the Mexican War, to undermine the

government of a friendly nation, plots connived at in Washington with a



view to getting California for ourselves, upon my word you will find it

hard to talk of England being a land-grabber and keep a straight face.



And, were a certain book to fall into your hands, the narrative of the

Alcalde of Monterey, wherein he sets down what of Fremont's doings in



California went on before his eyes, you would learn a story of treachery,

brutality, and greed. All this acquisition of territory, together with



the Gadsden Purchase a few years later, brought our continent to its

present area--not counting Alaska or some islands later acquired--



2,970,230 square miles.

Please understand me very clearly: I am not saying that it has not been



far better for the world and for civilization that we should have become

the rulers of all this land, instead of its being ruled by the Indians or



by Spain, or by Mexico. That is not at all the point. I am merely

reminding you of the means whereby we got the land. We got it mostly by



force and fraud, by driving out of it through firearms and plots people

who certainly were there first and who were weaker than ourselves. Our



reason was simply that we wanted it and intended to have it. That is

precisely what England has done. She has by various means not one whit



better or worse than ours, acquired her possessions in various parts of

the world because they were necessary to her safety and welfare, just as



this continent was necessary to our safety and welfare. Moreover, the

pressure upon her, her necessity for self-preservation, was far more



urgent than was the pressure upon us. To make you see this, I must once

again resort to some statistics.



England's area--herself and adjacent islands--is 120,832 square miles.

Her population in 1811 was eighteen and one half millions. At that same



time our area was 408,895 square miles, not counting the recent Louisiana

Purchase. And our population was 7,239,881. With an area less than one



third of ours (excluding the huge Louisiana) England had a population

more than twice as great. Therefore she was more crowded than we were--



how much more I leave you to figure out for yourself. I appeal to the

fair-minded American reader who only "wants to be shown," and I say to



him, when some German or anti-British American talks to him about what a

land-grabber England has been in her time to think of these things and to



remember that our own past is tarred with the same stick. Let every one

of us bear in mind that little sentence of the Kaiser's, "Even now I



rule supreme in the United States;" let us remember that the Armistice

and the Peace Treaty do not seem to have altered German nature or German



plans very noticeably, and don't let us muddle our brains over the

question of the land grabbed by the great-grandfathers of present



England.

Any American who is anti-British to-day is by just so much pro-German, is



helping the trouble of the world, is keeping discordalight, is doing his

bit against human peace and human happiness.



There are some other little sentences of the Kaiser and his Huns of

which I shall speak before I finish: we must now take up the controversy



of those men in front of the bulletin board; we must investigate what

lies behind that controversy. Those two men are types. One had learned



nothing since he left school, the other had.

Chapter VIII: History Astigmatic



So far as I know, it was Mr. Sydney Gent Fisher, an American, who was the

first to go back to the original documents, and to write from study of






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