“NO AMERICAN PEOPLE.”

Gisborne Times, Volume LII, Issue 5464, 27 April 1920, Page 2

“NO AMERICAN PEOPLE.”

many races, much divided. . “You must dispossess, your rniml of the idea that there is an Amcnc-ui people at all. as wo understand a people in Europe,-’ says . Mr. Gave: Madox Hueffer. writing in the National Review” on “British Delusions Concerning Americans.” “I» you took the whole population of Europe, mixed it roughly m a mortar, added a certain flavoring of Africans, Asiatics, ami the like, crushed 1 it with vour pestel, and scattered the result thinly over the continent, you would, haw* something approximating to America. It would, however, more closely approximate to a, ‘npoplc than do the Americans at present, for instead of being properly mixed, they are divided into ethnographic strata, which only touch at the edges. America trie’s to forget this, and succeeds by vigorous newspaper propaganda in making Europe forget it, because in these stirring times it is well to belong to a ‘united, people.’ Also, s he is not at all proud of certain kinds of 'Americans,’ and does her best to forget them.” Though it is denied that there are class distinctions in America, Air. Hueffer maintains that in aip other country in the world are class distinctions more inevitable, more obvious, or more rigidly drawn. The most obvious, though the most vehemently denied, is that between the ‘white’ American and ilie ‘foreign.’ The white American may be rough]} 7 defined as anyone of British, .French, German, or Dutch extraction who has keen settled in the country for more than two generations. They have a supreme contempt for anyone outside the charmed circle, There arc classes within this class, b,ut, broadly speaking, these are the only real Americans, in their own eyes at least. They profess, with a bored benevolence, that the “Americanising” of others is a success, but “if ,>•011 ask them to dinner, to meet, say, a Jewish ‘delicatessen’ storekeeper, you will learn quite a lot of things. . . The Scandinavian, for sonic reason, though admittedly ‘white," ranks socially a- shade below the rest. The definite social line begins tp bo drawn at the ‘Dago,’ and below him come various shades, each . careful’y defined, leading to the lowest depth of all, the foreign Jew

Recent events havy made dollars so common that they cease to have any value as a class guide. There arc several billionaires who aro not received socially. There are many millionaires who are hot received at all.”

“It must be remembered tliat ‘white’ America is also governing, thinking, organising, and acting America. . . . ‘Big Business’ is on the whole favorable to the British Empire, because the> British Empire makes for the peace of tho world. •So, for that matter, is the Jcwishccntrolled ‘Little Business/so far as it takes any interest in the matter at all Fundamentally, though it is too deeply engaged in money-making to care anything whatever about America, England, or all tho other nations of the world put together. If 'Little Business’ heard that America had decided to become a British colony again to-morrow, the news would affect him only so far as it would affect the money market. Tluf American Jew iq not really in sympathy with tile Bolsheviks - except as were his compatriots who engineered the Bolshevik regimef in Hungary on money-making basis, and tveared a satisfactory return before they went out of business. At present, lie scents money in supporting tho Irishry, but as soon as ho finds that Irish republican loans are good romance but bad business, he will drop out; Mr Hearst, who lives only to register his opinions, will follow Ins example, and America will forget that such a country as Ireland exists/’