AMERICA’S EXAMPLE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIII, Issue 1388, 21 November 1918, Page 6

AMERICA’S EXAMPLE.

LAND OF THOROUGH LOYALTY. "Really my most vivid impression of America, is its wonderful sobriety.” Mr George Tallis, of the J. ( . Williamson directorate, v brings back this snapshot* of the United Slates at war. “From the moment you enter the country ah ’Frisco,” ,he says, “to the limit of the. eastern, coast, there is just one war throb. Coming from Australia, it. was the. wonderful sobriety oi everybody that struck me. i must have seen half a million men iu unilorm, and not one ol them under the in fin once of liquor. “The manufacture of intoxicants has practically ceased, and, of course* it the war goes on there will he national war-time prohibition as from July next. Even if peace is declared before then, 1 foci that it' will .still be prohibition. While there, I remember the conviction of a mart and his wife for supplying liquor to a soldier. They got 21) years.

100 I‘iOß CLiNT BEHIND WILSON. “That thoroughness is characteristic of their attitude to the war generally. They are, mad about it—loo per eont bel'uiid the President. The universal loyalty is stupendou.s. The flap; lifts the hat of every individual from the tiniest tot to the oldest of the oldest inhabitants. The men have been pouring over to France at the rate of 250,000 to .‘IOO,OOO a month. They have been sleeping on the transports in relays of eight hours to do that. The Allred cause is popular to the last degree. They eat war, drink war, sleep war. “This is again reflected in their admirable conservation of the food supplies and of war material generally. They obey the official injunctions to the last letter. I can give an instance that came under my own notice. One Wednesday there appeared in the papers an appeal from the President for the .saving of gasolene on Sundays. The following Sunday in New York less than half of 1 per. cent of the usual motor traiiic passed through the sreets, and they were mostly people returning to the city front the country. A week later, and there was not a car to be seen.

“Then there was M'Adoo’s nationalisation of the railways. The big presidents, with their salaries, the big competing official headquarters staffs, were swept away, and the one general command created. Before 1 left the Hallway Administration issued a general appeal to all the staff asking the men to be courteous to passengers. Immediately, travelling on tra'ins became a different matter. 1 just tell you that to,convince you of the almost inexpressible sense of loyalty that pervades the land and its people. “ Processions occurred periodically, and they were sights never to be forgotten. One I remember began at 8 in the morning and had not'passed until half-past Hat night. Then I saw the original Czecho-Slovak demonstration in Chicago, to inaugurate lonnally their acceptance at the hands of the Allies as a. nation. Livery man wore his national costume, hut every man bore a miniature American Hag, and at the head of the sections there flew Old (dory in big editions. “America, as 1 saw it, is an inspiration and a lesson in ihe arl of taking war seriously.