AN AMERICAN SURVEY.

Press, Volume LVII, Issue 17293, 3 November 1921, Page 10

AN AMERICAN SURVEY.

CONGRESS LACKS DIGNITY. (FROM OCR OWN" CORRESPONDENT.) SAN FRANCISCO. October 6. Tho rou£'a-and-readv methods of conducting business In American legislative lialls are proverbial, and many visitors have complained that there is an undoubted lack of dignity I'requeJitlF when sessions are in progress. Significant, indeed, is the estimate placed upon these methods by Mr Isaac Foot®, the Deputy-Mayor of Plymouth. England, and a prospective member of Parliament, who recently attended a session of the House when in "Washington very recently. Here are his impressions,'contained in a copy of the "Western Morning News," of Plymoiufi, just received in Washington:— • "Whilst in Washington I visited tho House of Representatives. I do not know if this fitting was at all representative, but to me the proteouings seem unworthy of a great country. It may bo that "America almost makes a ceremonial avoidance of oeremohial, just as Jefferson tctltered his own horse when he camo to make his inaugural speech. About thirty members were present in tii© largest legislative hall in the world, half of whom were jading newspapers. Tho speakers I heard would have compared rather unfavourably with the gentlemen who settle international and social problems in _ Hyde Park. One of them raised hia voice so effectively that his appeal seemed to be to the vast public outside ratther than tho few who bunged before him. His complaint was that the previous Government had failed to pasd the simple Bill making strikes illegal on tho railways during tho war. He lifted both arms to heaven, srtote his open palm as if it were an anvil, and in tho ,end his voice broke under the strain- All t!ho speakers I heard were interrupted, and sometimes the interruptions were such that it was difficult to know who was reaily addressing tho House, the speaker or the mtervenor; in fact, sometimes they both addressed the House together." Gum Chewing Dying Out. If American legislators are guilty of unbecoming behaviour in the House of Representatives, their faults may be overlooked by the modicum of improvement in manners of another section of the American public, and that withal a preponderating class of the residents of Uncle Sam's territory. It is now reported that gum-chewing is becoming I a lost art. Time was when an intruder in a room full of stenographers would have gum snapped or cracked at him all over the place. It doeß not take long for the bottom to fall out of the gum market, and one of the biggest manufacturers in America is complaining because so little gum is being chewed. Manufacturers cannot understand it. They thought the American public had been thoroughly educated to gum-chew-ing, and some of them have called in their best salesmen to alibi themselves and their clients. Those who make gum say that they, are putting into their product the same jazz pep, dash, and go as heretofore, ana that properly manipulated gum will crack as loudly and delightfully (?) as before I But stenographers and others are not buying. The real chewers have gone over to tobacco or snuff or something, and gum has become a drug on the market. This waß proved the other day when in the commercial news there appeared an item which related how one concern could not pay a dividend this year. It seems the old-time habitual gtimchewer is dying out, and the younger generation must be educated. So a huge advertising campaign . has been organised. It was only a few months ago that one could find, gum enough stuck around from the kitchenette to the portable buffet to supply the average family for weeks. One could get the price of admission back from any reputable movie by carefully removing the gum wads from under the chair arms, where unmannered persons filthily placed their refuse gum. Now all has changed. The war is blamed for a good deal; the former soldiers have forgotten how gum helped to win the melee. Prohibition comes in for some blame, too. In the old days of 6 per cent, and better, husbands used to purchase chewing gum at cocktail time each afternoon to chew on the way home. Lack of cocktails made the sweet-smell-ing fragrance of gum unnecessary and a large revenue was thus cut off with nothing more than a Congressional warning. This, with employers who forbid gum chewing, and the price of fur coats in Panama and the high cost of chiffon stockings in Vladivostok, and sundry other causes which are unknown, has caused gum chewing to cease in the States. Yankee Humour Fading. Coincident with the announcement of the gradual disappearance of the gumchewing habit, came another startling statement made in San Diego, Southern California, by Dr. David P. Barrows, president of the University of California, to the effect that American humour is "petering out." This assertion caused consternation among the Californian county and school superintendents, who were calmly notified to this effect by tho University professor who addressed the educators in a State Convention in San Diego, .x portion of a State which produced many humourists, including the immortal Mark Twain, a forpier San Francisco newspaperman. Dr. Barrows in his address to the Convention also said that all modern music has been Africanised in a way that Africans would not recognise, with the result that "Americans are constantly be- I set by jazz bands and the drum sounds j of the Congo." "Language and litera- | ture." said Dr. Barrows, "should be so j taught as to produce a sense of humour . and heightened imagination. I think that American humour has petered out and must be replenished so that it will not be choked with vulgarity, which is so fast creeping into our ideas of humour. The absence of fine humour is at the ■ basis of most of the vulgarity of our time, and our lack of imagination leads us to indifference on the one hand and sentimentality on the other." Aesthetic Bolshevflri. Revolt against tradition and authority has sprung up not only against the political state, but in music, art, Eoetry, and commerce, until the age as become "pre-eminently one of sham and counterfeit," James M. Beck, Soli-citor-General of the United States, declared in Cincinnati, Before the American Bar Association, when he spoke on j "Thi> Spirit of Lawlessness.'' "The statistics of our criminal courts in recent years show an unprecedented growth in crime," he said, "but this revolt against authority is not confined .

to the political state. In music its fundamental canons have been thrown aside and discoid has replaced harmony. Its culmination—jazz—is a musical crime. In the plastic arts, the criteria of beauty have been swept aside by the futurists, cubists, vorticists, and other {esthetic Bolsheviki. In poetry, beaulv of rhythm and _nobility of thought lihvc bo'ii replaced by exaltation of the grotesque and brutal. 11l commerce the revolt is one against purity of standards and the integrity of business morals. Who can question that this is pre-eminently the age of shani and counterfeit?" Aversion to Work. "The aversion to work is the great evil of the world to-day. The whole history of the> mechanical era is a persistent struggle for moro pay and shorter hours, and to-day it lias culminated in world-wide ruin. In my judgment, tho economic catastrophe of 1921 is far greater than the politicomilitary catastrophe of 1914." Accompanying the indisposition to work, the Solicitor-General continued, has been a "mad desire for pleasure such as has not been seen within the memory of living man." "Man lias danced upon tlu; verge of a social abyss, and even the dancing'has revertel to the primitive forms of uncivilised conditions," Mr Beck declared. The Princess of Braganza and Du'hess of Oporto, widow of the Prince of Braganza, brother of the late King Carlos of Portugal, has arrived at Naples from the United States with a silver and ibronze coffin, weighing half a ton, and valued at £20,000, in which she intends to convey the Inxly of her husband to Lisbon. The Prince, who died in February, 1920, lies in a crypt at Naples. The body will be placed . in the bronze and silver coffin and con- j veyed on an Italian warship to Lisbon, i where it is to be buried beside the late King Carlos. "I could not find in all Europe the sort of coffin I wished) for the 'body of the Prince," the Princess said, "but I had it mfede in the United States." The Princess was formerly Mrs PHlip van and was known some years aeo as. ine 'million dollar widow.'' !