W.T. Stead was a British newspaper editor and is often considered the father of investigative journalism.
“The Americanization of the world is a phrase which excites… some resentment in Great Britain. It is even regarded as an affront to England to suggest that the world is being Americanized. […]
To all such irate champions of England and the English it is sufficient to reply that, as the creation of the Americans is the greatest achievement of our race, there is no reason to resent the part the Americans are playing in fashioning the world in their image, which, after all, is substantially the image of ourselves.
[…] …the Americans are only giving to others what they inherited from ourselves. Whatever they do, all goes to the credit of the family. It is an unnatural parent who does not exult in the achievements of his son, even although they should eclipse the triumphs of his sire [father]… .
…I hope the reader, if he is a Briton, will… rejoice in contemplating the achievements of the mighty nation that has sprung from our loins. […]
Of one thing the Briton is assured. However he may be outstripped and overshadowed by the American, no one can deprive us of the traditional glories which encompass the cradle of the race.
[…] …the American may stand to the Briton as Christianity stands to Judaism.
As it was through the Christian Church that the monotheism of the Jew conquered the world, so it may be through the Americans that the English ideals expressed in the English language may make the tour of the planet. The parallel is dangerously exact. […] …it was through the Christian Church… that the ethical ideals of the Jew permeated and civilized the world. The philosopher recognizes that the world-mission of the Jews was only fulfilled through the Nazarene whom they crucified; and so in years to come the philosophical historian may record that the mission of the English fulfilled itself through the American. The Americanization of the world at one remove.”
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