“PUSSYFOOT” AS STORYTELLER

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18674, 2 October 1922, Page 7

“PUSSYFOOT” AS STORYTELLER

A CONTRAST IN IDEALS. THE ART 0E EXAGGERATION.An American parson, after preaching for over an hour on the immortality of the soul, declaimed; “I looked at the mountains and could not help thinking ‘Beautiful as yon are, yon will be destroyed, 1 while my soul will not.’ I gazed upon (ho I ocean, and cried i 'Mighty as you are, you ' will eventually dry up, but not I.’ ” . “Pussyfoot” Johnson is here, ho says, to tell us about prohibition in America. In a court of law an intelligent British jury would regard him as a biassed witness. But even if lie was not a. professional prohibitionist, and had a good ease, (here is no reason why this country should go to America for lessons in social reform. The first and supremo test of a country is its system of administering justice. In contrast with the British system, the American system is primitive. -Lynch law and the manipulation of the courts in the interests of the guilty find no place in British | communities. j Mr Johnson, through his sympathetic | biographer (Mr E. A. M‘Kenz.ie), tolls ns j that the American politicians are largely corrupt, 'file American politicians voted j by a majority to make America dry, but. a ; largo body of American opinion is against j the politicians, and one portion of the I population is kept busy spying on the | other. If Air Johnson was anxious lo per- | suade Americans to observe the law the j politicians made for them, there is scope 1 enough for his abilities in America. Pic i could take up the job of making the ob- j noxious prohibition law popular. Pie could attemnt to make it a success, and when America becomes a. blissful paradise, he could have gently broken the news to the rest of the world. Instead of which, he (ells us many funny stories. “Pussyfoot" Johnson might have helped the cause of prohibition in his own country. He is not unnractised ,in the art of spying--much of his reputation springs from his amateur detective work in antiliquor raids. The rest of it results from judicious advertising. His biographer tells how during a Stale campaign for prohibition “Pussyfoot” issued printed letter-heads purporting to come from a brewer whd manufactured “Johnson’s Palo Ale.” On this letter-paper ho invited replies from liquor dealers how best to aid him “as a member of the trade” to counteract the “dry” propaganda. His biographer says the result was a rich harvest of evidence, t Perhaps that’ was smart according to American standards, but it was a dishonest (rick. The average Britisher would describe it in other language, but the methods of “Pussyfoot” Johnson are American methods, and Americans are not great cricketers. But America is not Britain. Britain is linked together with her Allies in the late war in (ho League of Nations for great international effort to prevent future wars. America stands aloof, and allows others to assume moral and financial obligations which are hors as much as theirs. Britain has offered, as a prelude to the re-estab-lishment of international solvency, to cancel her war debts—a larger sum than _is owing lo America—but America worships at the shrine of (ho dollar, and will not forgive her debtors. What has America, from which “Pussyfoot” Johnson asks us to copy prohibition, with nil its evasions and infringements of personal liberty, given as a gift in com-, men to the. world’' What, in art, government, or literature? I’rcfessor Stephen I.eacock says; “It, is a fact which had better be candidly confessed than indignantly denied. that up to the present time the contribution of America to the world’s great literature has been disappointingly small.” Yes, but what of the stories “Pussyfoot” tells? Americans are groat, storytellers—wo have had them hero before. Sometimes we learned more about than after their departure than while they painted rosy word pictures of the hind of the wooden nutmeg, and more recently of wood alcohol. Americans excel in extravagant storic,s—----“a form of American fun,” says Professor Leacock, “which has always proved difficult of comprehension to our British cousins.” This exaggeration is peculiar to the Yankee —“American exaggeration in literature passes the bounds of common sense,’’ adds Professor Leacock, “and becomes mere meaningless criminality.” From exaggeration in literature to exaggeration in all other thing? is the easy ami logical step. “Pussyfoot’s” stories prove it to be so. Here are two American stories which he didn’t tell. The first was penned in, 1850, showing that, Yankee habit of exaggeration is ingrained:— 'Phis is a glorious country. It has longer rivers and more of (hem, and they are nnuluicr and deeper and run faster, and rise higher and make more noise, and fall lower and do more damage than anybody disc's rivers. It has move lakes, and (hey are bigger and deeper and clearer and wetter than Ihoso of any other country. Our railway cars are bigger and run faster and pitch off the track oftener and kill more people than all other railway ears in any other country. Our steamboats carrv bigger loads, are longer and broader, burst their boilers oftener and send up their passengers higher, and their captains swear harder than the captains of any other country. Our men are bigger, and longer and thicker; can fight harder and faster, drink more mean whisky, chow more bad tobacco than in every other country. The second is from Daniel "Webster’s speech to the citizens of Rochester;--Men, of Rochester. I am glad to see you. I. am glad to see your noble city. Gentlemen, I saw your falls, which t am I old are one hundred ami fifty feet high. 'Phis is a very interesting fact. Gentlemen. Rome had her 4'assnr. her Scipio, her Brutus, hut Rome in her proudest days had never a waterfall a hundred and fifty feet high. Gentlemen, Greece had her Pericles, her Demosthenes, I and her Socrates, but Greece in her palmiest, days never had a waterfall -;a hundred and fifty feet high. Men of Rochester, g 6 on. Exaggeration in all things. If prohibition in America was the heaven-sent, gift of the gods which “Pussyfoot” Johnson would have us believe, there would ho lower unemployed, less crime, uo great strikes, and no massacres like that at Herrin. where 214 persons are held for trial, 44 being for murder, Minifies are amusing, hid. fads are more important. And America is not Britain, nor are America's ways our ways • Advl.