The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun. SATURDAY, JANUARY 25, 1930. THE GREATEST MELTING-POT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 21, 25 January 1930, Page 8

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 25, 1930. THE GREATEST MELTING-POT.

For the cause that lacks assistance, v. For the wrong that needs For\: the future in the distance; And the good that we can do.

•No less an American than Theodore Roosevelt said that his nation was not a family, but a boardinghouse. The ability or inability of the United States to put the truth of that saying into the past, and to weld all the variety of race and language within its territories into one more or less homogeneous nation, will profoundly affect the history not only of America, but of 4he world.; .It is'a coincidence worth noting that while; the Naval Conference is sitting in London to determine primarily whether Britain and "the United States shall be rivals or friends on the seas, it is announced that on Wednesday of this week the total population of the United States (apparently the Continental portion Only) was roughly 122,000,000.- ' These figures are very iinpres'sive. Of all the white peoples, Americans are the most numerous but one;' the Russians number about twenty-five millions more. In economic wealth and the power derived from it there is no.comparison.. The population of America is growing at * the rate of-about a million and a half a year (the total population of/: this country), and wealth is increasing ■with it. No wonder, then, that students' 6f international affairs are > wondering What part America is going to play in the world. Here is a. country with an enormous population/ vast natural, wealth still only partly developed, bounding energy arid, as Mr. Chesterton remarks, the highest idealism mixed with the grossest materialism. Until the last generation America was considered by Europe' to be politically -and economically, as well as geographically, another WOrldJ Its growth has j been wonderful. A»hundred years ago . the' population was only thirteen millions, and.byi 1870 it was less than the present population) of Britain. Fed by Europe, to whose oppressed) classes it offered freedom and opportunity, the nation grew with astonishing rapidity, -until it is riowthe most powerful in the world. Events compelled. the United States to intervene .in European affairs, and though the nation has since repudiated membership of the.League which its leader created, destiny has joined it to Europe by bonds of . interest that the strongest -desire for isolation cannot break. What is America going todo with this power? It is obvious that if she wished to rule the world she could at least make things, very unpleasant for the rest. She couldj for example, build the greatest navy and impose her own doctrine of the freedom of /the seas. On the other hand, if America chooses to throw all her weight into the scale of peace, what an influence she will be! ■ influence in the world will be shaped partly by the success with which domestic problems are solved. Those problems remain many and difficult; some of them are 'terrible. . The number of crimes of violence, the flouting of the law, the inability, of the law to punish—all this is- a disgrace to a nation that has in so many respects reached'- a high degree of civilisation. The negro question is still a cause of anxiety and a source of peril.' The ruthlessriess'of Capitalism might produce an ugly situation in less prosperous-times. ' / There is proceeding a struggle, not clearly visible to the outside world, between what may roughly be called the Anglo-Saxon elements in the nation and other .■■European.'elements, for mastery in politics and culture. British'people arei,apt to make the mistake of thinking of America as still:a nation of New Englanders and "Virginians, whereas the" truth is that New York contains more Jews than any other city in the world, and Chicago one of the largest of Cerman .communities.: The,old culture, which has strong links with Britain, is still powerful, and even predominant, but it is being strongly challenged by the sons' and grandsons of immigrants | from Southern,- Northern; and i Central Europe. But while this struggle,'is going on internally, American influence is being extended all over the world, by medium of trade 'and the, cinema. American standards of speech, thought, and living are being presented daily to millions of peoples in distant countries. A Napoleonic conquest of the world is unthinkable, but a cultural conquest ; is not. That is. one reason why the figures of American population should be' interesting to all countries. ' ' ■■■ '•