AMERICA’S CROWNING VIRTUE;

Taranaki Daily News, 8 January 1927, Page 12

AMERICA’S CROWNING VIRTUE;

Out of the depths of his three days’ experience of conditions in the United States of America, and, doubtless, in that fulness of heart which kindly hospitality is ever wont to engender, Mr. S. M. Bruce, the Prime Minister of Australia, recently expounded to the citizens of the great Republic the duty which America owes to herself and to the world at large. The United States is not the first country to become aware that it is to a visitor of a day that a State should look if it requires really effective guidance. Probably on their return to their homeland the passengers from the Carinthia who recently spent nearly a whole day at Rotorua will be hailed as experts in all that appertains to the Maori race. So Mr. Bruce, with the unerring wisdom of the tourist, has discerned that America’s failing as a nation is an over indulgence in modesty. “Anyone,” he said, “who knows this splendid country, knows that the United States does not do enough talking about itself.” Consequently, he added, “no country is more misunderstood and vilified.” It may be that Mr. Bruce, who is just a little inclined towards being ponderous, may have been poking fun at his hosts, though to judge from cabled reports of his speech he has evidently been taken seriously. If he intended his remarks as a considered opinion, the excessive modesty of which he complained is surely of a distinctive and peculiarly American variety. The excessive profession of the virtue has not prevented vociferous claims to having won the great war and to having saved civilisation. Its possessors claim also to be the leaders of the world in athletics, science, finance, trade and industry, and fn democratic government. If such claims denote excessive modesty it would be interesting to see what a really robust American boaster could accomplish, and what Mr. Bruce would have to say about his efforts.