Not that hostility was converted into affection, but a former condescension gave way to an appreciative friendliness towards the people of the United States.
The reaction in America was somewhat different.

Cleveland had united the country upon a matter of foreign policy, not completely, it is true, but to a greater degree than Blaine had ever succeeded in doing.

More important than this unity of feeling throughout the land, however, was the development of a spirit of inquiry among the people.

Suddenly confronted by changes of policy that might bring wealth or poverty, life or death, the American people began to take the foreign relations of the United States more seriously than they had since the days of the Napoleonic wars.

Yet it is not surprising that when the Venezuela difficulty had been settled and Secretary Olney and Sir Julian Pauncefote, the British Ambassador, had concluded a general treaty of arbitration, the Senate should have rejected it, for the lesson that caution was necessary in international affairs had been driven home.
Time was needed for the new generation to formulate its foreign policy..