FAR TOO MODEST!

Feilding Star, Volume 5, Issue 991, 5 January 1927, Page 4

FAR TOO MODEST!

One half of the world will wonder what come oyer Mr Bruce of Australia, and the othc. half will imagine he had his tongue in. his clieek when he declared in Philadephia, the most ’English-like city of all the Americas, that "the. United Stales i.s far too mod'esfc about wh.at it is accomplishing.” Mr Bruce has struck aA entirely new note, for modesty has never been associated with the American as a, national. An American daily paper recently declared in* all seriousness that its foremost writer of jazz was a greater musician than Beethoven. As late* as hist Thanksgiving Day (November 'in), no less an American than President Cool idge ’ got upon 1 the housetops and’ whooped for America in anything but the modeqt method. Indiced, in his Presidential decree ordering a national day of celebration for America’s prosperity, there is a touch reminiscent of Kaiser Wilhelm prior to his downfall. Thus, Mr Ooolidge wrote: “As a nation and as individuals we have passed another 12 months in the favour of the Almigbt. He has smilea' upon on,, fields, and they have brought forth plentifully. Business lias prospered. Industries have flourished, and labour has been well employed'. Sections of our country have been visited by disaster, but wo have hoen spared any great national calamity or pestilential visitation.” All ot which, however, was perfectly true; blit there is no hiding of the light beneath the bushel. More evidence is in this further Oollidggan phrase: ■“We are blessed' among the nations of the earth. Our moral and spiritual life lias kept measure w’th our material prosperity.” Certainly despite *ho advice of Mr Bruce that America? should tell the world more about her attainments, it cannot he said that Uncle Sam does not know how well off lie is—and he lets everybody else bear about it- 1