WONDERFUL, OR SENILE

Evening Star, Issue 19801, 27 February 1928, Page 14

WONDERFUL, OR SENILE

UNCLE SAM GIVES US UP In a section of the Press of this country (writes the Baroness Clifton, in the ‘Sunday Chronicle’) there is a crusade to extol America. A great deal is being written about the magnitude of her wealth and her achievements. But nothing is said about her mind. And her mind is the most jioculiar thing about her. The average American has two main complexes in his mental attitude to the English. He is prone to underrate 4horn as something lower and more obtuse than aborigines. For instance, ho docs so when he arrives at the only decent hotel in a West of England cathedral town, and finds that lie cannot for the expenditure of any amount of dollars and persuasion get a suite "with belli” attached.

Again, ho is inclined, the great average American, at other times, such as when he may have occasion to ask a policeman for informal ion and receive a civil answer, to rate our national institutions higher Ilian the stars, and bow down before them in almosi, idolatrous admiration, THINK INC IN EXTREMES.

There is very little that is equable in the American attitude ton arils England. One moment they curse us with the pitiless intolerance ol the youthful and prosperous for the aged and senile —the next they gape at ns with a reverential obsequiousness which is quite distressing. It is not only in their babies and fancies about England and (he English that Americans are inconsistent. There is a. general tendency to think' in extremes and superlatives which characterises their whole national life. They are trained, good 10U per cent. Americans, by their great American Press to profess an outward lack ol interest in anything but _ themselves. If you devote a short period of study to American newspapers you will be readily able to perceive this. " PINING FOR 'PRAISE.

The space: allotted to foreign news in a New York daily paper is fascinatingly microscopic. An earthquake of imposing .magnitude in Europe would get, if it was lucky, flic tail end of a corner column.

A street accident in Chicago, on (lie. other hand, is dignified by a couple ol headlines of varying and alarming blackness, and solid paragraphs of satisfying if fallacious detail. The American, like a- spoilt and successful child, pines for continual adulation.* He demands of his Press that it ho continually slapping him on the back and telling him what a perfectly splendid follow lie is. His attitude towards the English, therefore, varies according to his mood from patronage and pity In occasional sharp and definitely marked jealousy. TO' SHARPEN HIS TEETH. His feelings, particularly Ibo less friendly ones, arc ingenuously fostered bv I lie- newspapers who, over anxious to give the stout child of American prosperity something to sharpen its teeth on." feed it from time to time on succulent scraps about- the modern decadence. of England. , The American, il be is occasionally a creature of prejudice and hasty opinions, has, however, lar less real reverence lor Ins Press Ilian the Briton. In this country wc arc prone to regard the Press as something ol a, Delphic oracle. The American in his heart looks upon it as tpiilc a, good joke. There is a mild snobbishness with regard to things English, particularly in The art world, which can bo observed in America. AMA/iING HOSPITALITY. An English actor in New York of mediocre talent will probably get a part over the head of an American who is an artist of more genuine merit. The excuse given by one manager in such a ease was: “ He may be a rotten actor, but, anyway, be can speak bis own language.” To which pronouncement, for those who had heard the native-horn artist, there was no appropriate reply. "What is pleasing about the treatment meted out to British people by Americans in their own country is their amazing hospitality. They may criticise the clothes, manners, and generally forbidding reserve of their British guests, hut they lay themselves out with most disarming energy to bo pleasant. SHOWING OFF. It may bo that they are more anxious to show off the benefits of their superior civilisation lor the delectation of the impoverished descendants ol their common ancestors than any of the other wandering foreigners who find their way across the Western Ocean. At all events, they leave no stone unturned in order to he polite in private life. Jt occurs to one likewise that _ the American who meets a Briton officially in the course of business —say, a tram conductor, a policeman, or a lift boy—will take a peculiar pleasure in ramming down the throat of that kind British traveller a kind of “ yon be damncdne.ss,” which is exquisitely annoying. . . , , It is, in lact, so annoying that I can’t help thinking it must he done on purpose and be the result of long and careful practice. OUR- “CYNICISM.”

The average simple American citizen who is the lineal descendant of flic Puritans—of horrid memory—has a capacity for priggishness pleasantly .mixed * with ' sentimentality which is startling oven to a Briton brought up in the school of indigestible sentiment. So sentimental are the Americans, in fact, about many important things, such ns their Far Eastern policy and its alarming train of over-zealous missionaries, that they consider our own attitude of mind as in the highest degree cynical. There are various stock-in-trade adjectives in use in American newspapers about Britain — two of the most, fashionable are “cynical” and “senile.” Neither of these means very much, hut they appeal pleasantly to 'the vanity of that rollicking, if slightly spoilt, infant, the American public. AN ENIGMA.

To the good “hundred per cent.” American the British are an enigma. Their simple acceptance of traditional difficulties and discomforts which could easily be removed by a little intelligent concentration disturbs and amazes him. Their occasional stoicism in the face of grave danger commands his generous admiration. _ Ho looks upon them as at times pitifully inefficient in the mass, hut as a rule agreeable individually. They are, above all, the British, and Britain is Ills favorite newspaper topic—next to himself.