Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/52

 zation. They are all made of the same sort of dust; socially, intellectually, financially, and morally there are no appreciable differences between them. Their interests are identical; their environment is in no large degree dissimilar; there is no difference excepting that one is a member of an organization and the other not, the only way we can make a real difference is by imagining one and talking about it. It is this talking about it that does the most of the damage and stirs up the useless trouble. A good deal of it comes from silly jealousy.

Many of us found ourselves in a similar situation with reference to the late terrible European war. My father and mother were of English birth as were my older brothers and sisters. All my life my sympathies have been drawn more or less unconsciously, no doubt, toward England. America in my mind was always first, but England was second. I can scarcely see how it could be otherwise. During the last thirty years I have formed many close friends among Germans and men and women of German ancestry. I can very well see that their feelirtg toward the country from which their fathers came is not unlike that which I feel toward England. I could not expect it to be otherwise. We have gotten on together, and our friendship