America's "Indecent Modesty."

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 18891, 5 January 1927, Page 6

America's "Indecent Modesty."

Mr Brace's picturesque phrases at Philadelphia were uttered at a dinner, and perhaps composed while he was on his feet. They were probably coloured by the words of his host*, and by a day-or two spent in the American manner. They would be influenced by the American newspapers and by the unescapable pleasantness of American wealth. But if anyone thinks that this leaves little or nothing of Mr Bruce himself he knows jess of Mr Bruce than Mr Bruce does of Abraham Lincoln. Here in Hew Zealand we admire America—not merely in the literal sense of wondering at her—but we do not often feel that America does not sufficiently admire herself. Mr Bruce almost certainly does feel that America ia an immensely more wonderful country than the world realises, and that Australia should follow as far and as fast as she can. And yet it was not very sensible to talk about a "mis- " understood" or " vilified ", America unless he made it plain, as he seems not to have done, that the misrepresenters are the Americans themselves. It is the misfortune of all nations and countries that their best people are less often heard than their worst, but it is peculiarly, and almost bewilderingly, true of America. Why so alert a nation as the Americans, so progressive at home and so cautions abroad, should allow so much liberty to merely vulgar showmen is one of the mysteries of democracy; and if the explanation is that no democracy in such a case can help itself, it is still a mystery that a country which has carried private advertising further than any other in the world should have made such a bad job of its national publicity. For it seems sheer bungling and stupidity that the really great and good and wonderful things in the national life and national mind should be so little known, and that the absurd and childish things should be international property. The best the average New Zealander knows of the Americans he has discovered for himself in accidental contact with modest American travellers; and of this type, fortunately, be is beginning to see a good deal. But the average New Zealander—and though he may be. " uninformed " he is certainly not a vulgar "ranter"— has made far fewer discoveries of this kind than "of the other kind, and it is America's own fault that the facts are not the other way round. Mr J. St Loe Strachey some months ago borrowed a phrase from Mr Chesterton to describe the life of America before the pioneers moved West. They " pottered I" about and prayed," he said, and were

not the "'weighty, determined, hard"shell optimists" they are to-day. But we have had far too many " hard- " shell, optimists " in Australia and New Zealand, and it is not certain that " pottering about and praying " would be a worse preparation for travel than that apparently made by so many of the people by whom America permits herself to be advertised. In other words, the "campaign of education" which Mr Bruce wants to see started should begin at home, and it need never be carried much farther than home if it begins with the right people and in the proper place.