THE NEW AMERICA.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21040, 31 May 1930, Page 19

THE NEW AMERICA.

A COUNTRY WITH NO OLD MEN. There are two Americas. And for years toicome the new America must be crude, ill-disciplined, ignorant, and resentful of law and order, says Hugh Walpole in a recent article. Why is it that every book on America, ®avo possibly Siegfried’s, has always faired? Why is it that even acute observers like Arnold Bennett and H. G. Wells have been able to make but little out of it? I think it.,is probably because the external things—the rush, the hurry, the Dollar Standard. Prohibition, and the rest are all so obvious and in the end, when things have been summarised, say so little. Another thing that blinds and deafens one is that p< when you have been here for 1 a little while, Europe seems such a long way away. This sense of baffling distance has not, it seems to me, beoh at all lessened by all the modern means of communication, and I am not, I am afraid, in the least hopeful of any future real comprehension of one part of America by Europe or vice versa. I say “ one part of America,” and it is in that sentence I think that the whole problem lies. I offer these remarks with all diffidence they are limited, personal, prejudiced—but I feel very much more strongly than I did three years ago that America is now two entirely distinct countries. Of course it has been said again find again that she is many distinct countries, that California is as different ■from New England as Germany is from Italy, 1 mean < that there are now here two quite distinct peoples—the peoples that belong to the Old America, the people km to_ us and heirs of the Prairie and the Colonial Tradition, and the peoples of the New America, the children of the immigrants of the last 50 years. It is this New America whose power, influence, and character have increased so alarmingly in the last 10 years. . I .say “alarmingly” perhaps.with injustice. because it is, I am convinced, out of this New America that the great future character of this country will evolve; but it is to us of this period .alarming because at present, and perhaps for years to come, this new America must be crude, ill-disciplined, ignorant, and resentful of law and order. The Old America is disappearing—of that there can be no doubt whatever. The contrast with 10 years ago is astonishing. Now almost everyone of the Old America ecems to be hurrying to Europe, The citizens of that Old America lament without exception' the present state of government, breaking of the law, vulgarity; but they do not, so far as I can see, do anything to stop these things. How can they?

I do not wish to .push my parallel too far, but I am again and again reminded of the Intelligentsia in Russia before the Revolution. There will be no Revolution here. There is no need of one either in America or Britain, for in both countries the Revolution has already occurred. But let me say at once that I am not deprecating the New America. You might as well deprecate the changing of the seasons. Its present manifestations are even exciting and stimulating. It is quite true that you can live very happily for 10 years in Chicago without ever setting your eyes on a gunman, but I defy anyone to live for a month in any modern American city without acquiring a very acute sense of apprehension and nervousness.

It is true enough to say, as everyone says, that New York is hot America—but it is less true to say this than it was even three years ago. In New York buildings tumble down before your eyes, streets burst into flame, men and women move as though the wrath of God were behind them! It is possible that some of the nervousness that T detect just how may be due to the recent crisis in Wall street. That crisis hit, I fancy, much more deeply into the heart of American life than has been allowed. It was met, in any case, with extraordinary courage and self-discipline. It has become a regular word now when someone asks for a room 10 floors up to inquire of him whether he wants it “to sleep in or throw himself from.” I met two men last week, completely penniless, both of them over 50 and both of them cheerfully seting out on menial jobs. But then the word “menial” pulla one up. No job is menial here—any job is for anybody. But, if you don’t succeed in it and quickly, out you go and no one cares. It is a platitude to say that no one here cares for the dead. For the historic dead, yes—Washington, Lincoln, Rooseyou never see a funeral in America and you very seldom see an old man save among the negroes.' Once you’re dead, you’re dead. I noticed that in the elevators men kept their hats on their heads, although women were there. Three years ago that; was not so, and 1 used to find it a tiresome business taking my hat off my head every time a woman stepped in, I asked why the custom had changed, “Takes too much room in the elevator if men stand with their hats in their hands.”. Too much room! New York is piled so high with people that they tower to heaven. And it is not only New York—in Chicago, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Kansas City it Is the same. And what does this new tumultuous world want? It wants money, fine clothes boxing matches, baseball shows on Broadway, education for its children, and books —it doesn’t t want Europe and donesn’t think about it until it encounters its economic interests—then it begins to think about Europe very hard indeed. It wants> books. Nothing has developed more in the last thre'e years than this interest in books. Not books as we conceive them enclosed behind glass, coses in very elegant bookshops. That is the way that the old America wants them, the old America that is collecting first ediand buying limited sets in vellum. This other America does not care for books like that, it is buying them at 75 cents and a dollar, and these dollar books are now everywhere, in all the chemists and the drygoods stores and the haberdashers. A publisher was outlining to me last week what he thinks the selling ; of books is going to be in this country in a few years’ time. What he said took my breath away, but he is, I dare say, a prophet of truth. This new America cares nothing at all, as I see it, for international politics. It helps to provide politicians, and then 'it leaves them to sink or swim as best they may. Except that it would prefer for them to sink rather than swim. There is a curious element of cruelty in this new America. It is the cruelty of the mob. Talk to them in the restaurants or the trains, and, although they may be amused by your English accent and think you a little childish for having one, yet there is nothing that they. won’t do for you. But let them elevate someone into power with all the ballyhoo in the world, and at once they want to knock him down again. Hoover is discovering rather painfully just now, I fancy, what it means for a sensitive , man to be President of America. It is spreading like a flood over the land—this evidence of the taste of the democracy. New York and Chicago are hke.glorious women gloriously arrayed and with soiled underclothing. The hideousness of the miles of discarded, rusted iron and decayed motor parts on the road out to_ Long Island has to be seen to be believed—and the Chrysler Building at night is one of the most sublimely beautiful things in the world. This huge immigrant world here is feeling its strength for the first time. It does not as yet know what it wants except money, and it wants money because it wants power. It is scornful of the rest of the world, and feels itself apart.. It is not of the slightest use for us in Europe to scorn it or patronise it. There is only one thing for us to do—and that is to realise it, •