Contemporary accounts mentioned in the aftermath of Clark's speech that anti-Americanism was at an all-time high in Canada. Many American newspapers advised their readers, if they visited Canada, they should not identify themselves as American, or they could become the objects of abuse and hatred from the Canadians. The "New York Times", in a July 1911 report stated that Laurier was "having the fight of his career to carry reciprocity at all". One Conservative MP compared the relationship of Finance Minister William Stevens Fielding and Taft to Samson and Delilah, with Fielding having "succumbed to the Presidential blandishments."