THE TRUE AMERICANS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19951, 21 May 1928, Page 12

THE TRUE AMERICANS.

Sir, —It is idle to ds;ny that there are much crime and lawlessness in the United States. One unhappy aspect 0.5 this situation is that it lowers us in the eyes of other nations. But one who regards America's crime and lawlessness as signifying that America is' inherently worse morally than other nations takes p narrow and superficial outlook. America has been experiencing an era of unparalleled material prosperity. This material prosperity has for the time blinded her eyes to the spiritual and higher values of life. But America is not the only nation that has thus been led astray. Moses said to the chosen people themselves: "For the Lord's portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance. He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness; he led him about, he instructed him, ho kept him as the apple of his eye. . . He made him ride on the high places of the earth, that he might eat the increase of the field. . .

But Jeshilrun waxed fat, and kicked. , . then he forsook God which made him. and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation. They provoked Him to jealousy with strange gods, with abominations provoked th'?y Him to anger." We Americans, too, have waxed fat, and kicked, and for a time have turned away our faces from God. Our strange gods are the many false teachers among us who lead the people astray. Our present crime and lawlessness are due to false teaching, and not to any inferiority of our national stock as compared with the peoples of other nations. Canada's beloved "Ralph Connor" spoke the exact truth when he recently said in a Canadian magazine: " I feel myself justified in my statement that the Americans are in their hearts idealists. And they are dominated by two great passions: a passion for liberty and a passion for righteousness. Unhappily there are among their one hundred and twenty millions Americans of a different sort, with different ideals, often more vocal, often more in evidence among the headliners. But in spite of these and in spite oi their noise and their obviousness, tha Americans who <lo America's thinking and who will "finally determine America's attitude on great, moral questions. are the American idealists, the true Americans." Charles Hoofer. Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, U.S.A., April 12, i 1928.