TWO VIEWS OF UNCLE SAM

Hokitika Guardian, 28 September 1929, Page 8

TWO VIEWS OF UNCLE SAM

What a sweet, unsophisticated, gullible old party Uncle Sam must be after all (says the “Christian Science Monitor”). True, he does not seem to be so regarded by foreign observers of his ways and deed. Indeed, some of .them call him “Uncle Shylock,” and attribute to him the cunning of a fox in the acquisition of wliat he wants. . The' cartoonists of foreign newspapers bestow upon him a countenance fitted only to- glare over a pawnbroker’s counter, or through the bars of a cell. If his nature is to be assessed by the estimates of European observers he must he classed as a sort of compound of Alachiavelli, Sbylock, Napoleon, Captain Kidd and Uriah Heep—at once the slickest of diplomatists, the most unrelenting of creditors, the most aggressive .imperialist, tho hungriest buccaneer and the oiliest of hypocrites. That anybody could overroach him in a deal, or outwit him in a controversy, is a thing unthinkable to European observers. But how different the estimate put on Uncle Samuel by bis own boys at home! Always they find him getting duped and betrayed by the keener political intellects and foreigners; Will one ever hear the last of poor Air Wilson’s naive innocence and his betrayal, V those pundits- of diplomatic skill, Lloyd George and Clemoniceau? Is not flic United States out O'f the League of Nations largely because timid folks thought America’s delegates would be the mere cat’s paws of giant intellects from Bulgaria and Czecho-Slovakia, and is it not besought to stay out of the World Court lest such an innocent as Charles (R. Hughes be outwitted by its keener members?. Constantly one hoars the assertion that American diplomacy is no match for the perfected European 'variety—a theory the modesty of. which is not affected when Europeans point out that, whatever the quality of its representatives, the United States usually carries away the spoils, if there' are any, in an international conference.

Just now Williamstown -is resounding with these manifestations of an -.American inferiority complex. Admiral Bodges sees the Presidents of the United . States, past and future: as the dupes, victims, suckers, pincons, gulls, puppets and Simple Simons of international controversies. Were there other synonyms in the thesaurus doubtless, the admiral would employ them. He visions the Washington Naval Conference, as “instigated by British propagandists.” President Harding, who called it; President Coolidge, who welcomed it; and former Secretary Hughes, who dominated it, ryere but as clay in the hards of the British potters. And ever since, the: British gold which in the old days was supposed to be dispensed lavishly to defeat America’s tariff bills and British propaganda are being employed to keep the American navy in a state of hopeless inferiority. “Ain’t it awful?”