AMERICA AND HER CRITICS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19020, 16 November 1923, Page 4

AMERICA AND HER CRITICS.

Ma Wooduow Wilson is entitled to express himself forcibly and freely upon the attitude of his fellow-countrj'meii towards the problems which arc embarrassing the world and threatening the stability of Europe. It must be gonerally admitted that the attitude of the United States towards the Peace Treaty and the League of Nations has been an international disappointment, though there exists a .smouldering hope that sooner or later she will stand shoulder to shoulder with the nations with whom she saw the long war,, struggle through. Mr Wilson, of course, has reason to be disappointed. He placed his nation on a high pedestal, and the rival political party kicked away the pedestal and sur-

rendered the ideals. While it is true, however, that the disappointed man is uot always a safe guide, there is an uneasy feeling in the minds of many Americans that all is not well with their country's national soul.. An illuminating example of this is contained in the first article in the October number of Current History from the pen of Mr Arthur Twining Hadley, President Emeritus, of Yale University. The writer dissects American character with an incisive touch, declaring that important changes in education and business are necessary for the improvement of the national character. After dealing with the chief characteristics of his compatriots Mr Hadley says : Tho really distinctive faults which can be charged against the American people are not due to materialism or to lawlessness, but to the habit of unwarranted self-assertion. If wo had to condense this charge into a single word we might use the term "bumptiousness." But it is better to employ two words, because the 'evil is essentially two-sided. It recults from a combination of two sets of faults; faults of superficial thinking or judgment on the one hand and faults oi self-advertising and hoastfulness on the other. Mr Hadley is severe on the professional talker. "By listening to the man who can talk best," ho says, "we fail to give a fair chance to the man who can think best or act best." Of another class of criticism is that contained in Mr H. L. Mencken's recentlypublished third book of "Prejudices." As an American critic of American characteristics he may, of course, trounce our American cousins, even if his sentiments fail to convince. Mr Mencken describes the American people a? constituting "the most timorous, snivelling, poltroonish, ignominious mob of serfs and goose- ' steppers ever gathered under one flag 311 Christendom since the end of the Middle Ages," and as growing "more timorous, more snivelling, more' poltroonish, more ignominious every day."