AFTER FIVE YEARS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2820, 1 April 1908, Page 89

AFTER FIVE YEARS.

THE AMERICA OF TO-DAY.. A GREAT AWAKENING. Hugh H. Lttsk.) It is hardly necessary to say that for the intelligent observer of men and things there is no more interesting country in the world to-day than the United States of America. Other countries — notably those of Southern Europe — are interesting mainly because of their old associations with the history of the past rather than because of their present, importance to the progress of humanity. Others again, like those of Eastern Asia, arrest attention mainly in relation to their possible, or even probable destiny in the future. The influence of America on the imagination "is different from either of these: it has comparatively little to do with associations of fcbo past, and it does not, in the first instance, at anyrate, suggest to most persons much speculation as to the future. Energy — an ' energy that is almost wildly feverish in its intensity — is the characteristic oi its people and its civilisation, and this is so marked in every direction that it naturally arrests attention, and throws other considerations into the background in the case of the stranger visiting the country, and perhaps quite as much so in that of its own people. As a rule the average American is so busily engaged in action that he has little or no time to spare for reflection, or for consideration of the future, except, perhaps, in so far as it is likely to affect his own personal success. The stranger visiting America sees a country and a people at high pressure, in a sense, and to a degree that exists in no other part oi the world. The leading mental characteristic oi the people may fairly be said to bs ambition — the ambition which impels., men to fiwht and struggle for pre-eminence in the things they look upon as best worth having — ■ and the worship of the Deity Success. For the last thirty-five or forty years the ideal American has been the one who could get ahead of his neighbours in whatever line he devoted himself to, whether that line was politics, manufacture, or commerce. To this fact has been owing — quits as much as to the size and natural wealth of the country — the extraordinary development of the country resources and wealth. It was this that mad© the Staites the, native land of ten thousand inventions by which labour might be saved, and the productive power of realised wealth increased. It is this which to-day animates the people, as a whole, with the eager temperament that causes a visitor to any American city to pause and wonder at the evidences of life and almost boundless energy to be seen on every side. It is to this that has been owing also the vast attraction which _ has. drawn population from every country of Europe, and is drawing it still, year by-year, by hundreds of thousands, and has made the American people themselves blind to the evils that have crowded into the country along with them. This is what the stranger will see to-day iv the rushing streets, the wildly advertising shops, and almost more wildly sensational newspapers which nearly every man, and every second woman, eagerly devours, whenever he or she can snatch — a few moments during the day. He will probably be surprised, and certainly interested in observing it, and it is more than probable he will fail to see the other side of the picture which lies hidden only a little way behind this 1 really amazing view of boundless "life and energy. The other side includes almost unbounded corruption in politics — whether _ these are National, State, or Municipal ; it embraces dishonesty in trade and commerce, on a •scale, and practised with a cool audacity, hardly known elsewhere ; the oppression of the pooT, and the plundering of the public in every way that ingenuity can devise, bounded only by the danger of punishment, and hardly by that in case the profit is sufficiently large to make the risk seem worth the while, and the chance of escape merely a question of money. Five years are not a long time in the history of a people, and yet there are times when even five years may at least indicate and prepare for changes of vast importance to the future of a nation. Five years ago the attitude of the American mind was one of almost childish selfsatisfaction. It was really no exaggeration which credited the average citizen of the United States with a sublime confidence that his country, his government, his business methods, were not only the best in the world, but the best possible in any world. If he were forced occasionally to admit that politics jvas only another name for robbing tne people, either openly and grossly, as was done every day by those who wese supposed to^ govern the town amd cities of the country, * or a little more openly, and not quite so grossly,, by those who controlled the State Parliaments and executives, or with a little more regard to appearances still, but quite as real a corruption, by those who represented the nation in Congress, he would , smile and remark — " Oh, well, you know i that is politics all the world over." It j was time rather worse- than thrown away to combat the idea. The one fixed impression was that if any bad thing existed in America it existed in a far worse form in every other country, while America had a Eundred. virtues that were quite unknown elsewhere to counterbalance the evils. It would be an exaggeration to say that Jive years has changed all this: it is still very far from having done that. What it has done, however, would seem to be rather in the nature of giving the American people a rough shake, which has gone far to awaken several important classes of the public to an appreciation of th« Cact that something jg wrong— or, rather, ,

that a great many things aTe wrong — with affairs, not only political, but also social and economic, which demand a remedy, or threaten a disaster. As yet public opinion is by no means united as to the exact nature of the evil that lies at the root of the mischief, or as to the treatment most likely to give relief in the 'best interests of the people. Remedies, indeed, are as plentiful as those that appear on every hoarding promising the cure of indigestion, and nearly every other ill that American flesh is heir to. The import-ant point, the really encouraging fact is, however, that a large and influential section of the nation has awakened to the truth that something very serious is wrong, and that an effort must be made to put it right. Nothing is more remarkable than the general dying out of the self-satisfied smile that used, only five years ago, to rest on the faces of faces of all but a very few Americans at the suggestion that things were not aa they should be. The men who used to smile very often look serious now, and are willing to admit that something must be done. They wont generally admit, perhaps, even now, that they were wrong in the cheerful and more than half-blind optimiem that could see little to blame and nothing to fear in the state of things that existed five or 10 years ago ; the important thing is that they have for the most part opened their eyes to the present danger. The awakening has coma from several directions. There can be no doubt that President Roosevelt has been more prominent in giving expression to the feeling than anybody else, but it would be a mistake to suppose either that he was the first to discover that reform of a very radical sort was needed, or that he now holds the most advanced views on the subject. To tell the truth, although the President has taken 6tepa that have made him appear the representative of the reform movement, and as such have called down upon himself ths very hearty hatred of the capitalistic party in the country, he is really rather concervative than radical in his policy. He has, it is true, set on foot prosecutions on a large scale to compel the great Corporate Trusts to obey the laws, which they openly and systematically defy, but he has done so because he was sufficiently far-sighted to see that only by restraining them within some bounds could he save them from complete overthrow at no distant date by an indignant people. He has set on foot a policy of controlling railway rates for the cairiage both of apssengers and goods, but he has done so in deference to the widespread feeling of the masses of tine people that they were being systematically robbed, and as a practical alternative to Government ownership, which is advocated by many. The new era in American public affairs may for the moment be represented by President Roosevelt, but it in no sense depends upon him. The awakening is on a far wider scale, and depends for its success on no single man, however able and aggressive he may be. It would be hard to overestimate the interest or importance of the American situation to-day. In the pages of past history there have been recorded many instances of the overthrow of tyrannies, usually by methods as violent and almost as injurious, for the time at least, as the despotisms they overthrew. These despotisms were almost invariably the slow -growth of centuries, and most of their evils had grown up by slow degrees to the point at which" they became unbearable. It has remained for a new century and a young people to be confronted by the growth of a new despotism, in the form of an oligarchy of riches— sudden, overgrown, and oppressive, — using the forms of democracy, and utterly degrading its spirit. It is needlees to say that things move in this new era at a rate never attained before ; perhaps, however, the growth of the American alisrarehy of riches is the most -striking illustration of the truth. Hardly more than a single generation old, it "has already become a standing menace to the liberty and wellbeing of the American people ; and the people have begun to recognise the fact. This is the meaning of the awakening that can be felt in the air of America to-day and that was almost wholly absent from it five years ago. The questions what is likely to be the upshot., and how reforms will b3 brought about, can only be answered with even a hope of correctness in greater detail than is possible withi nthe limits o£ this article.