"KICKED OUT!"

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 136, 5 December 1935, Page 8

"KICKED OUT!"

AX EASTEBN- MEMORY

WHEN THE "OUTS" "CAME IN"

(By G. 0.) The heading is not mine, but an expression used—hot in the least offensively—by American friends when the people of the United States by a sufficient majority vote elected as President a gentleman holding views officially quite different from those of his immediate predecessor. A French gentleman had already warned me of the futility of an Englishman trying to understand French politics. It was excellent advice, as I subsequently proved when applied to American politics. I was living in close touch with Americans at the time a new President—l will call him Mr. Brown—was elected. They were educated people, mostly men and women of culture, but not all broadened by contacts with foreigners. Few of them had been to Europe but they knew much about it from books. It was they who spoke of the' defeated party as "kicked out!" The recent radical change in our own domestic circumstances recalls this memory, renews, in fact, the rasping effect on my mind and the expression "kicked out" as applied to a defeated party. For the moment, then, I felt that the defeated President was an unscrupulous rascal, a gangster of ■ the worst type, a "public enemy No. 1" who not only deserved kicking out, but kicking—hard, until I reflected that from all-I had heard of him, personally he was a singularly able and upright man. . All Americans are intensely patriotic but patriotism is like strong drink —only excellent in moderation; My American friends were quite sincere in their patriotism. I have never heard "God Save the King" sung with greater fervour than "My Country, 'tis of Thee" when sung by Americans (to the same tune). But I could not understand how love of country could express itself in describing a Government that had done its human best for the good of the United States .as "kicked out," like some boozy, truculent bunch of toughs ejected from a rum mill. Well, that is what the change amounted to at the United States Con-sulate-General of—l won't say where, but.it was a very important centre in the East. The former Consul-General was a gentleman of great personal charm, with legal qualifications equivalent to those of a X.C.. He was, too, a man of wide reading and had travelled much in foreign countries; spoke French and German with fluency; and, I think, thoroughly understood the British people. I never heard one word of slang leave his lips. He was "kicked out." His successor was an utterly different type of man, coming from one of the middle Western States. He was "a good mixer," I'll say that for him; but he had no refinement of any sort except in matters of dress. I asked him, "How did you come to be appointed to this job?" "Well, you see," he answered quite frankly, "I'd worked hard in my State for Mr. Brown and when he became President I went along to him and I said to him, 'Now what about me'? He said, 'well, what do you want?'" "Just like that?" I asked. "Just like that Say, we don't beat about the bush when we want anything We go for it. So I said.to the President, 'well I want the Consul-General-ship of .' 'it's yours, my lad,' said the President. So you see here I am." "Reward for services rendered?'" "That's so," was the reply. 'Well, not only was the Consul-Gen-eral kicked out, but also his vice, and his interpreter, who was a scholarly sinologue, an old gentleman who had a very clear insight into the Oriental mind—no mean accomplishment. The marshal, or police constable was "kicked out." He was a powerful man, had, in fact, been a policeman in New York and knew how to handle roughs without hurting them, if they went quietly. His successor was a gigantic ex-footballer. Then there was "Walter," the Con-sulate-General Chinese boy. He was aged I should think, about 70. He, too, was kicked out, but he declined to go. He had been on the staff for thirty years and was going to stay there till he died. "Ain't you gone yet?" said the new marshal to Walter. "No can," was his defiant but- quiet reply. "S'pose Igo you no catchee boy." That was true, for until Walter died or left of his own accord no fel-low-countryman would have had the pluck to take his place except, perhaps, to keep it warm until Walter chose to return. This rough displacement of officials by acknowledged political party hangers-on was to me in striking contrast to the system adopted by Great Britain, France, Germany, and other countries which had all highly-trained gentlemen for their Consular services. Yet I could not contradict my American Mends in their defence of the United States system (as it was then) of kicking out important public servants on a change of Government, when they assured me that "you sometimes get quite good men by this system; but in any case if they don't suit, why when the next presidential election comes around, if they haven't done well, you can kick 'em out."