TRIP TO AMERICA

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2669, 15 January 1916, Page 14

TRIP TO AMERICA

MRS. HOLMAN-S IMPRESSIONS Mrs. W. Holman, wife of the Premier of New South Wales, and our visitor of two years ago, gives somo interesting details of her recent trip to the United States of America. To a Sydney interviewer, she says: —

I visited many universities, including Princeton, the President's University, and was struck, as elsewhere, by the utter absence of snobbery. Poor students get their fees by working at waiting, boot cleaning, etc., for the others, and they are not looked' down upon; in fact, if they are intellectually superior, they are honoured. Brains do count in America. I attribute the absenco of snobbery to the fact that tliero aro no privato schools. In spite of what people say, the United States form a truly democratic people. In all my travels there I mot only one snob. "Celobrated and interesting folk I met in plenty. At the AVhite House 1 was recoived very politely and hospitably. The President keeps up groat state, and in Washington one is able to appreciate tlio importance of 'having as the capital a comparatively small artificial city, existing only for purposes of government. Were the Whito House situated, say, in New York, with its millions, the. President would have no time to himself; the business of seeing people and entertaining and' being entertained would become unmanageable. Mr. Wilson is not a liandscmo man, nor are his three daughters blessed with positive beauty, but to mc ho does seem u great man. There is something about liim which singles him out from the ordinary citizen. His social influence docs not appear to be increased by his high position. I mean that people do not run after him just because ho is the President. A New York woman told mo that Mrs. Boiling Gait, the now Mrs. Woodrow Wilson, is not. in society, becaiPio her people inado all their money in trade. She assured mo that none of the 'cavo dwellers' (the inner ring of Now York cxclusives) would call on her. This is the only instance of" a class feeling I met with. Tho Js'ew York papers, when I was there, were much interested in Mrs.- Gait and lier trousseau. She is fond of green, and a now shade is called the 'Boiling Gait' green. Every day there would be startling headlines, 'Mrs. Gait buys her

trousseau,' and so on. Paragraphs would tell how 'Mrs. Gait was in Fifth Avenue yesterday, choosing shirt waists.' After visiting several shops, she purchased forty-two. Another had set forth that 'the fiancee of the President removed her gloves as she waited at tho counter, -and the stone of her engagement ring was seen to be even larger than reported.' Another day she bought lingerie so the headlines declared, and her fancy is for soft floecy lace and plenty of it.' "At Washington there were Ambassadors and Consuls in plenty, most of them at a loose end on account of tho war. 1 sat beside Sir Richard Crawford, recently British adviser to the Turkish Minister of Finance at Constantinople, at dinner 0110 night. He asked 1110 wliat I thought of the war, and I replied, without knowing liis identity, that I thought things took a bad turn when Turkey came in on the wrong side. 'Well, we did our best,' lie replied meekly. When I found out who lie was I wished that I had not unwittingly rubbed it in. From Sir Cecil and Lady Spring-Rice I had much attention. The British Ambassador at Washington gave mo the impression of being a brilliantly witty talker with a great power of sarcastic repartee, in which lie is ably seconded by his wife. They command a great following. The Americans say that if tlio U.S. took sides openly in tho war, there would be civil war. Tlioy aro between the Japanese to the West and the Germans to the East. They fear both, and like neither very much. Japanese servants are plentiful in the Western States, but in the Eastern nearly all tho domestic servants are from Hungary, who are called collectively Bohemian, though tliey are Magyars', Croats, aud Hungarians as well as Czcchs.'''