America really did nothing for him, and he did nothing for America. He never came back to America--during forty-eight years--after leaving it as a young man of twenty-one. He never exhibited in America until his name as a painter was one of the best known in Europe. He even preferred to exhibit his work with English artists in international exhibitions. We all remember the General Hawkins incident in 1889. Whistler only became known to America after his death through memorial exhibitions.
Now, of course, we like to claim him, and do so with ostentation. Expatriots are always claimed by their native country when they have achieved success or performed some remarkable act that has aroused the wonder of nations. Nobody cares whether Mr. Jack Johnson lived on the Place Monceau, or died on the Riviera.
To the analytical mind it is of little consequence whether he will go down in history as an American, English or Frenchman, as he was one of the great artists of the nineteenth century with an international significance. In the case of artists like Burne-Jones, Israels, Boldini, Fortuny, Lenbach, Segantini, it may be of more importance, as they are _local_ talents.
Whistler's predilections were natural. He was too shrewd a promoter of his own artistic welfare not to make the best of this dispute of nations. He could not have prevented it anyhow, and the question of his nationality will be disputed for many years to come. Of course, one can simply settle the matter by saying that as he was born in America of American parents, he is an American.
The English differ; they choose to do in this case what we have always done with our immigrants. After a person has lived for any length of time in the country we make him a citizen and consider him an American. How about Carl Schurz, General Siegel and Roebling, the bridge builder? They were all born abroad and yet their names are inscribed on our roll of honour. Of what nationality was Lafcadio Hearn, who, born on the Ionian Islands, of Irish and Greek parentage, living for years in New Orleans and New York, finally selected Japan as the country of his choice, where he lived the remainder of his life and was buried? And yet we class him as an American writer. It seems that the party most concerned in it; the personality itself, should decide the question. Hearn wished to be considered a Japanese. We are not quite sure what Whistler's opinion was on the matter. He claimed to be a cosmopolitan. But that is no answer, as it does not settle the dispute. It leaves others to settle it, and the trouble starts anew.