THE UNITED STATES.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXIX, Issue 134, 29 July 1911, Page 3

THE UNITED STATES.

WHAT IS WROX G ? “When the Ferrero of the twentyfirst century comes to exhume the long-forgotten past of the American people and reconstructs their history ho will doubtless he puzzled to find adequate explanation for the ‘weltschmerz’ that possessed the Americans i>- their youth,” writes Mr A. Maurice Low from Washington in the. '‘National .Review.” Pessimism and Despair. “At a time when the nation ought to have been filled v. ii.it tire priceless gift of optimism, when it ought to Stave seen everything .through the i inted eyes of hope and conti lenco in the future the historian will discover that men were weighed clown with pessimism and filled wit It despa ii • The historian of the next century who reads the nooks and magazines and daily papers of this epoch will be impressed with this phenomenon. Everywhere men are demanding reform, with idmost fanatical zeal they are preaching the necessity of reform, crying out that unless there is reform ciiaos will come, and yet they go <pn week after week and month after month preaching ihe gospel of reform, and apparently a deaf ear is turned to them, for the lamentation is as great as ever. To ootter My Locality, “The ‘Saturday Evening. Rost,’ a weekly magazine having the largest circulation in the I'nited States,-con-tains a letter which says a—- “ T am an ordinary, busy, practical man, and should he glad to do something to help better my own locality if I. knew what to do. Most men are so busy with their own work and families that they cannot take the time to do much in the various organisations that are working for civic betterment —or thinking about it. In a political way, about all they can do is to obey orders from some organisation at election time. Yet there must be helpful things near at hand that they could and would do if the things were pointed out. Why wouldn’t it be practical for the chamber of commerce in a city to appoint a small committee in each ward to report on people and conditions theiep Perhaps we could help some fellow two blocks away to get a job. We could remove unsightly, unpleasant things in our own neighbourhood, and so on.’

“This is., typical,” adds Alt Law. “It is the spirit that has the v hole, people in its grip. The passion lor reform has seized them, and not to take part in the work of reform burdens, their conscience. Not to hear the still small voice of reform is to ho guilty of mortal civic sin. Not to take part in some movement for reform,. not to join a club or erganisatiop pi’;■ society whose mission is icform, is to earn the contempt cf one’s follow citizens.; to admit by inference that one. belongs to the unr Wormed and imrcgaiKujatp, ,i», siuwnpless. ...... . “From the .tariff to the teapot notiling)escapes the vigilont eye if the reformer, who calls to high heaven to witness the iniquities of the tariff or the devastation wrought by the teapot. The tariff has made the American people rich and powerful, therefore it must he reformed; in the teapot lurks poverty and disease, therefore it must lie regulated by the reformer. In the wide field of reform there is work Tor every man, therefore every man is happy in his misery pursuing reform with a zeal that the world has never before known. The Problem. “The Americans were never so well off as they arc to-day, their future rover appeared so bright, and yet they are discontented, frightetned of themselves, fearful of what fate lias in store for them. It is not true that the rich are becoming richer and the pom- grow ing poorer; it is not true that there is no hope for the poor. Wealth grows by its own accretion, but the poor of yesterday are the rich of to-day. We see it on every hand.”