A NATIONAL BENEFACTOR 247 
for him as a benefactor of mankind, and a sort of proprietary 
respect for his world-wide fame. He was a rich man who had 
made his fortune honestly in carrying out a difficult plan by 
hard work despite discouraging blows of fate. 
There still lingered in the United States, however, an un- 
dercurrent of dislike for England and for persons favorable to 
that country. ‘This was a relic of the Revolution and the War 
of 1812. At times, for example during the strained period of 
the Civil War, Field was considered unduly friendly with 
the British. His cordial entertainment of European visitors 
was not entirely liked by a nation brought up to “beware of 
foreign entanglements’ and influenced by orators of “‘spread- 
eagle” patriotism. 
A number of British and American dignitaries attended a 
dinner that Field gave in New York on the twenty-fifth anni- 
versary of the first meetings of the New York, Newfoundland 
& London Company. This was on March 10, 1879, when a 
more hopeful feeling about the country’s financial future was 
succeeding the discouraging panic that began in 1873. Sir 
James Anderson sent a cablegram pointing out that since Field 
began his first promotion, sixty thousand miles of cable had 
been laid, at a cost of about a hundred million dollars. He 
continued: “Distance has no longer anything to do with com- 
merce. The foreign trade of all civilized nations is now be- 
coming only an extended home trade; all the old ways of 
commerce are changed or changing, creating amongst all 
nations a common interest in the welfare of each other.” 
Another cablegram, from the Dean of Westminster, Arthur 
P. Stanley, called the celebration ‘‘the silver wedding of Eng- 
land and America.” It continued: “What God hath joined 
together let no man put asunder. . . . Already instantaneous 
communication between the Old World and the New has 
been consigned to the commonplace book of history. It has 
become one of those familiar things which we forget all 
about because they are familiar . . . things which are of the 
