AMERICA, THE BIG BOY OF THE NATIONS

Evening Star, Issue 19918, 14 July 1928, Page 2

AMERICA, THE BIG BOY OF THE NATIONS

What do you thinks, of America ? is the usual question put to : the visitor back [from that country. One might as well | ask:, WhatTdo -you think of.: Europe? For America 1 is riot'a unity any more j than is Europe! ‘ They are both practically: equal in extent of territory; and | their . peoples - exhibit.’ almost similar diversity of races; and language. There are three and a-half millions of persons in America over ten years of ago who do not understand English. There are i more, than . 1,200 periodicals written in foreign languages with a combined circulation of nine millions. There is oven a Finnish Socialist College in Minnesota, a Polish College for General Education, and, Scandinavian high schools, In New York every sixth person is a reader of foreign newspapers and every third person is a Jew. As early as 1664 there were between fourteen and eighteen different languages spoken on Manhattan Island. By the time the Declaration of Independence was promulgated the population of the thirteen colonies —some four millions in all—was overwhelmingly Teutonic in blood and Protestant in religion. All that is vastly changed now. There is a common delusion that America is predominatingly Anglo-Saxon, It is not. “Rooted as our institutions arc in English. history, America is not a second edition of England. We are an Eng-lish-speaking country, but wo are not an English people.” As one travels through the country and sees its diversities of thought and action, its confusions, its cliaot'c politics and methods of government, one is inclined to think it is somewhat like the little boy in Milne’s inimitable “ Now we are six.” He thinks m 'S a muffin man, then a traveller escaping from a bear, then an elephant behind another elephant who isn’t really there, or a doctor who is visjtmg a sneeze, or a puppy hanging out it-s tongue; but round about and round about and round about the table, in the nursery he goes, and concludes; “ I’m feeling rather funny, and I don’t know what I am.” And that brings me to my main point. I have soon it stated somewhere that down at Land’s End, in Cornwall, there is an. ..interesting houso bearing this legend: “ This is the last house in England.” On, the south side of the: house there is another inscription . which reads: “This is the first houso in England.” So everything depends on the point of view. Numberless writers have given their impressions of America, each from his own standpoint. Greatly daring, I am going to venture to give mine. Mine is that there is really no America yet. The country is only in the making; it has not arrived. Bub it is on tho way. It is in its boyhood. And so I have called America the big boy of the nations. It has all the characteristics of boyhood. Lot us look at some of the evidences of this. The boy likes to do rollicking rumbustious things. His humour is of a rude, often coarse, kind. We see this exemplified in various ways in America. It is extraordinarily fond of of all sorts. Hallowe’en, Christmas, New Year’s Day, Anniversary Day, arid dozens of others are celebrated with every kind of blare ■ and noise, firing of guns and rockets, blowing of musical instruments, . flaming „ banners,,..... and violet-coloured streamers and ribbons. The same spirit is seen in its humorous papers. They are tearful and wonderful productions. The pictures are, as a nils, like nothing in the heavens above or the earth beneath; but pages of them in all manner of colours appear every, Sunday morning, and arc, devoured by young America as eagerly as his breakfast. The humour-is of the true boyish type, broad farce often tapering oft into vulgarity and coarseness. •*.-.* ♦- * Another, and perhaps the most notable, feature of. boyhood, is its claim to independence, to break away, as wo say, from its mother’s apron strings. The notice “No trespassing, no inattcr where it appears, is a challenge to defy it, in order to assert its freedom and courage. One of the earlier writers, and in many respects the greatest America has yet produced Emerson—said, in substance, a generation ago: “We have begun to govern afresh and trade afresh. .Why not begin to think afresh? Why should we not hold an original relation to the universe? We have shaken oft the Old World and the old past politically. Why should we he then bond slaves internally and religiously? The chinos is just as much ours to possess, to receive revelations from, to frame conceptions of, as it was to the prophets, the religions leaders, and lawgivers, from whom men for ages have been taking th<Jir opinions. We arc in a better position to form an opinion than they, were. Let us claim our liberty.” And an acute English writer says that this message of Emerson’s was a greater Declaration of Independence than tho one that Jefferson penned. And so America is to-day trying out this doctrine of liberty in every direction. This is in huge part the moaning of its lawlessness, which is one of the,.marked features of the country. Tho saying attributed to tho Irishman on , landing in New York, and inquiring if there was a Government in the country, “I am agin’ it,” is characteristic of the attitude of a largo number of Americans toward the hitherto accepted customs and ideas of the country. Groups of “young intellectuals,” Professor Shader Mathews tells us in his ‘Validity of American. Ideals.’ are even beginning to question the basis of American democracy. It is. they say, an outgrown philosophy, and is to be renounced ; as Mid-Vic-torian. • • * *•:. ' .*■■ : More serious is the social and religious ’breakaway.-- Marriage with many is becoming a. kind;;of; joke: Divorce, statistics .■‘mount, .higher' year by. year. The .same.,boyish -assertion.,ofemanel-■ patiou. -is seen. in .religion -oven more clearly,- just as' the best parodies are made from the highest poems. Three years ago application, was, made in Now York for a .charter, to .'establish an incorporated society for thopurpose of combating religion and demonstrating that belief in God is belief in the non-existent.” The charter was. granted, and the first organisation to; spread atheism outside of Russia came into being. Since then it has been busy, in its mission. Jt concentrates specially on the young, on high schools and colleges. ‘‘ Free our children ” is the demand “ from supsrsti-

tion,.; ignorance, and . the; mental .fdis-; eases of so-called Christianity.” And so societies for this purpose have come iqto existence in the seats of learning.; Thus, in Philadelphia, tho high school 1 studentscqll themselves “God’s Bjack : students of this "cult call themselves “ God’s Black Sheep.” " lii Rochester' they , rejoice' in -'the name “The Dammed Souls,” in tho University of Wisconsin tho “ Circle of the Godless,” in the University Of North 'akota the “ Legion of tho Dammed,” and so on. In one of the New England Colleges. Dart-, mouth, a plebiscite was taken. One of the questions was “ Do you believe in Immortality?” Three hundred and eighty-said “Yes,” 548 “No.” On the question “Do you believe in God?” 763 answered “Yes,” while 108 answered “No.” And on the further question “Did they believe Jesus? ” the Noes had it by 2 tol. “‘Fine, is it not?” said the- representative of tho American Association for the Advancement of Atheism. It is all a further manifestation of America as the big boy of the nations. On the surface all this might appear to be the premonition of a general “landslide in social morality, as in the Alps the occasional fall of icy fragments indicate:-, a general softening of.the crust, which may culminate in an avalanche. But the avalanche, though it bo destructive, stili leaves the mountain intact.” And so that brings us to our next point. B * * « Tho robust and sometimes wild pranks of boyhood are not always a sign of inherent viciousness and inevitable degeneracy. On the contrary, they arc often the indications of lusty health and abounding vitality. What the manhood may become depends on heredity and environment America was founded by men and women who believed in moral and spiritual ideals. It was this belief that, curiously enough, as Dean Inge points out, produced the modern business man, tiie most, characteristic product of . America.- New.’England was moulded by the spirit of Calvinism, and, however it bo denied, that spirit still sends its influence like a moral gulf stream through the best American society. A traveller. in tho early days visiting some of tho New England States was struck by their barrenness. He asked a friend what they raised there. His friend answered “We raise men.” That is what the industrial revolution is forcing upon the country. It demands men- in their sanest, soberest, and most ofhoient powers. And it is getting them. » * * » Tho difference .between ,fho American and English sportsman is that the former is out fo win tho game at all costs, the latter only to piny the game. The winning is secondary to the honourable playing of it. That is the boy again, Yet in the game of business the moral element is talcing control. The enormous development and complexity of. machinery and trade are forcing this issue. The motor man must be more sober than the horse driver; the mechanic than tho hand worker whom he displaces. Thus the moral element is forcing itself intd the whole industrial order of the country. The same thing is seen in business itself. Here the Boyish desire to wiri is gradually giving way to a desire to win honourably; and to use tho wnrfings'for ideal ends. It is true’the American business 1 man is keen-after the almighty dollar. It is not, however, the dollar, but its aimightiness, that :is the driving motive with him. Hence it is that, though America ns the land of millionaires, it is also the land where millionaires use 1 their wealth nobly for educational, religious, and artistic purposes. The typical American is keen to make money,, hut ho is'just,as keen to give it away to. any object that appeals to him. And what most appeal to him in tho main are moral and spiritual ones. No public question, writes Professor Peabody, of Harvard University, “can kindle popu-, lar enthusiasm unless it bo, or at least appear to be, a moral question that can be preached as a crusade. No public leader can command the heart of the! nation unless he speak, or pretends to speak, to the conscience of the nation,” This is undoubtedly true. ■ 'i • ♦ * .* What complicates the issue is thc ; stream of European races that arc ig-; norant of American history, and American ideals.- . The great conflict going on at present is whether America shall be cohtinentalised or the continentals be Americanised, for it is this latter class, that mainly is creative of America’s industrial and political troubles. But the issue can hardly be doubted. The Government is cutting off the supply of immigrants from Europe, ami both church and State arc takiim r‘ r coats in tho effort to assimilate tho foreign-horn population to .. traditions and ideals. , For years they neglected this duty till at last it was forced upon them by tho necessity of self-preservation. There is evidence they are succeeding in their efforts. Thus when the war was on a lawyer was explaining to a young German conscript* that as an alien he was entitled to claim exemption. Tho young mam straightened himself and with a high’ look replied: “ When I came to America I came all. If America wants Karl Klausen, Karl Klausen is ready.” That is tho spirit that is leavening and transforming the undigested masses of foreign, birth and blood. What we see on tho surface of the nation’s life, what is reported in the newspapers and the blatherskite of professional politics, what, wo hear of crimes of social and fashionable escapades and stupidities is not the real America. These and the like are merely the scum and froth on tho surface of the stream which mar its clearness, but do hot indicate its .current or determine its goal. • Theyarc the growing pains of the boy breaking away from the limitations of youth and struggling into the larger liberty .and life of manhood—a manhood which has as,its a!ra : “ the.achievement of national unity, for world service- upon the plane ok the highestideala.” : . So.it.appeal’s to hie. lion.