“NO AIRS”

Waikato Times, Volume 90, Issue 14021, 26 March 1919, Page 3

“ NO AIRS”

KlftriNEßS DEMOCRACY. NEW YORK’S UNIVERSAL RUDENESS. Convincing evidence that. American democracy is unshakable is apparent to an English visitor who has travelled sufficiently in American public conveyances to have seen countless times the spectacle of eyemy aliens, military and naval officers, hod-car-riers, negro-porters, and Chinese students, all sitting together in beautiful brotherhood, while above them women clung to straps, and often to I allies, not even hoping for a scat. He says that in New York tin's sight is especially impressive, owing to the extraordinary variety of people who are reduced to one level by common rudeness. If persons in spats and real cowhide puttees can stare vacantly past ladies standing, why need the labourer rise to his weary feet? He doesn’t. From this mutual nonchalance comes a kinship beyond the scope of community songs. Here the favoured classes do not monopolise had manners as is the custom in more ancient lands. All are impolite in unison. Our system tolerates no airs. A girl who rises to offer her, scat to an older woman is frozen by the glances of those whom she lias discomposed by her old-fashioned ways. Officers and Gentlemen. Some women had a quaint notion, when so many of llicir fellow-travel-lers became officers and gentlemen, or at least doughboys and gobs, that a renaissance of courtesy was about to invade the subway. Many have felt the coming dawn and given it advance publicity. Everything was done to aid our new defenders in overcoming the natural shyness they might have in introducing to..us the outward manifestations of the chivalry which had been taken for granted. “These foreigners have polished manners, hut the American’s heart is all right,” etc. Ihe war ended suddenly, however, before our military forces could put the innovation through; and lest they might acquire habits which would prove a handicap in times of peace, ‘hoy obtain and retain seats in the familiar fashion. So gloriously has democracy triumphed over militarlsiy. that a woman can now stand upon a toe fresh from the trenches with as tittle notice as if it belonged to a floorwalker. The greatcoat of a lieutenant is particularly fitted for bumping hats, but so is the bundle of a washerwoman. Wo will have no distinctions.

The English observer points out that, in the world scheme, the treatment accorded ladies by conductors and oilier honest workmen over here may lie counterbalanced by the condescension of ladies to peasants? abroad. And if in the London subway the most untutored labourer springs up with lifted cap to resign his seat to a woman, why, over here many a society leader lias trembled as she held out new fur gloves for her chauffeur’s selection. Four Devotions.

Writing in “El Universal Ilustrade,” of Mexico City, Carlos Gonzales Pena declares that the poetry of the American character is shown in four Devotions; to women, to children, lo trees, to birds. These qualities in “men whom many people unjustly suppose to he rude" may well be envied by the Latin. There are no willows in our street-cars, no warblers in the subway; but we are certain that if a red-headed woodpecker appeared at Times Square at the rush hour he would have to take his chances, just like the women and children, and would perhaps get caught in the door, since the guard’s aim is expert. We had to win the war, to he sure, but ""England and France managed it without forsaking good breeding. We shall always he the shaken slaves of ladies behind counters and gentlemen costumed as waiters, and no emancipation is in sight. But there was an opening for a rejuvenation of courtesy among the less powerful classes—an opportunity for women to display greater delight at the proffer of a seat and for New Yorkers to hear the whiteman’s burden with elegance. Perhaps, after the Peace Conference, a Drive of the Old School can be arranged, and four-minute men will stir democracy into polite manners.