The Idolatry of Americanisms.

New Zealand Illustrated Magazine, 1 September 1904, Page 413

The Idolatry of Americanisms.

By E. C. H.

Jf THINK most of the readers of |i| the " New Zealand Illustrated ejj Magazine " will agree with me JJL when 1 say that one of the most peculiar and striking features of the present day is the increasing tendency of the British public, both at home and in the colonies, to idolise America, Americans and Americanisms. When an idea, contrivance, or system of any description is introduced in America for the first time, the tendency of the general public, both at home and out here, is to extol it to the skies, and to swallow it almost " holusbolus/' 3 instead of submitting it to the fire of criticism through which such an idea, contrivance or system,, emanating from any other source, would have to pass. American ideas of only mediocre merit are exalted to an extraordinary degree, while to be American born, to be able to " guess and calculate " and to say " right here," is to possess a golden charm, with which you may command the attention and admiration of almost any society or company, and by which the columns of the press are thrown open to you for an article upon any subject under the sun. I could give one glaring instance which occurred only recently, where a certain person was passed right over the heads of many other worthy individuals, and given a position of honour and trust, whose only apparent qualification was that he had been in the States. Americans, upon entering London society for the first time, find themselves rushed, whilst a perfect craze exists for Anglo-Ame-rican alliances. " Now, I admire as much as any-

one the great national and commercial successes of America. When [ reflect that in a little over a century of independence she has increased her population from two millions to over eighty millions, and that during that century she has moved from a place amongst the weakest to a place amongst the strongest nations of the world ; when I remember that the value of her products from agriculture, mining and manufactures exceed those of any other country — the value of her manufactured products in 1900 exceeding 10,000,000 dollars— when I know that she has attained to the position of being the greatest Republic the world has ever known, I am constrained to join in a wholesome admiration of her. Contemplating these and other phases of her successes, one is led to feel proud that she stands to-day as part of the great Anglo-Saxon race, and that our language is her language. But what I do desire to protest against is the thoughtless and foolish idolatry of every American triviality and Yankee notion. Our Magazines have recently had a surfeit of articles upon " America at work," "' America at school/ or " America at play/ by these one is almost led to believe that w^e have in America an ideal State, that joy, prosperity, success, and all those things to which men aspire are the only elements in the American life of to-day, and that failure, disaster, defeat, mismanagement and misrule are almost an unknown quantity. The prevailing idea of a business or political education seems to be a ramble through the United States.

From an article which appeared in the " North American Eeview/' one would imagine that this idolatry of Americanisms had turned the heads of some of the American writers ; the writer of the article in question evidently suffers from the mania of national greatness. The article is headed, " America, Mistress of the Seas/ and amongst other demands which the writer makes are these : that America should build a navy almost equal to the combined navies of the world, and then extend the Monroe doctrine to China. He goes on to state, amongst other remarkable things, that the average Yankee is from two to five times as vigorous as the average European, that the average Chinaman in industrial capacity is next to the Yankee, from which we must gather that the Britisher is inferior to the Chow, and that the French and German are nowhere in comparison. The whole article attempts to prove that the Americans, physically, intellectually and spiritually are a race of giants.

Now, after having- had a surfeit of articles such as those to which 1 have referred, one is driven to the conclusion that something upon the fallacies of Americanisms would prove acceptable reading, and restore to the Britisher some of the confidence he seems to have lost. I cannot admire a nation of mere copyists, and sincerely hope we shall never develop into mere imitators of the Americans. May our journalists, for instance, never copy some of the freaks of American journalism. At the outbreak of the present war in the Far East the " New York Journal " manufactured special type, and placed upon its front page in twelve-inch letters the words, " War has begun." Alongside this the cabled items were printed in almost microscopic type, the whole page presenting a most ridiculous appearance. In reading a news item in many of the American journals, you find yourself moving from the item on the first page to its continuation upon the fourth

column of the third page, the news and advertisements being intermingled in a most labyrinthine manner.

That America is not the perfect place some would have us to believe it to be, we can easily understand, when we contemplate the threatening attitude of the trust movement. The craze for trusts has spread so rapidly that now there are trusts for every industry from biscuits and chewing gum to the great railway lines. These trusts are of an anti-social and monopolistic character, crushing the small business man in a most uncompromising manner. In Britain and the Colonies Parliament has power to nationalise telegraphs, telephones and railways at her discretion, but not so in the United States, there the trusts and the financiers govern all with an iron hand.

Politics are manipulated by a ring* of financiers ; Church and State are subordinate powers ; the supremacy of heart over intellect may be questioned, but the supremacy of wealth over everything- else is unquestionable. The financial kings with, their millions of almighty dollars reign supreme, whilst amongst the people a perfect delirium rages, everywhere there is an unscrupulous strivingafter fame, power and wealth. The rottenness and corruption of American political life is almost proverbial, and the recent success of Tammanyism in New York has proved that in politics the average American is both a sentimentalist and a coward. Tammanyism has secured its recent victory by an appeal to the meanness, cupidity and insensate folly of the voters.

The condition of the labour question in the United States is anything but desirable, in fact for seven months past as at the present time certain parts of Colorado have been in a state of insurrection and rebellion as the result of a strike. On December 4th, 1903, Governor Peabody, by virtue of authority vested in him, proclaimed the

County of Teller, in the State of Colorado, to be in a state of insurrection and rebellion, since then lawlessness has prevailed. The inhabitants of this district have in the past earned the well-merited reputation of being" an unusually high class of miners, largely men of American birth, educated in American schools, reading American papers, men who have voted, paid taxes and held public offices. These men were contented, and working,' under favourable conditions. However, away in the city of Denver some of the smelting mills employed several non-union smelters, and in order to force them to employ unionj men only, the miners were called

out on strike, with the result that affairs have gone from bad to worse. A short time ago the miners armed with rifles attacked and captured the mines ; since then several battles have taken place between the military and the strikers, both miners and soldiers being" killed and wounded at several of these encounters. The relations of capital and labour in America are undoubtedly strained and a crisis is fast approaching. Contemplating this and other phases of American life one is driven to the conclusion that perfection is not the order of the day in the United States, and that the presentday idolatry of Americanisms is unwarranted and unjustifiable.