American Vices,

Horowhenua Chronicle, 24 September 1910, Page 4

American Vices,

NO WORSE THAN EUROPEAN

So much is written about tlie extravagance of the wealthy classes in America, says an exchange, that it is only fair, when a distinguished investigator comes to their defence to give, iliis conclusions. Professor Git£lielmo Fervoro, an Italian whose, writings on Roman history have a world-wide reputation recently visited America, and brought away as one of his impressions tho conviction that tho extravagance of the Ainorifnn' millioii.'iiro is urpntlv exaggerated. Hβ says that, tHianka tit bho • American Press, a section 0f European opinion is coming to look on tho United States much as certain Puritans in Caesar's time looked on R-omo, "as the most colossal sin J of every vice which wealth can pro* clucc". as the. country where luxury lias taken on tho wildest and most extravagant forms: corruption, the most incro'liblo nud.-vity: pleasure, unbridled license." I'rnfessor F&rrero confesses .Ire was imbued with this idea when lie landed in New York, but it was quickly dispelled. Tho American middle-class man. it is true, lives in greater luxury than a man in the same position in Eiirope. but the extravagance of the. wealthy in Europe is much greatoi than Hint of the millionaire in America. The fuss about the luxury of American plutocrats has Ijeen ma do by people ignorant of the ex travagnncc of London and Paris. "The .European acquainted, with th. extravagances of .Europe receives the impression on arriving in America that ho is passing from a. world in which extravagance is fostered and encouraged by the traditions o ages to one where, on the contrary, it is limited and hold in check bv

thousand: moral obstacles, Puritan traditions, democratic principles." Why then the unsavoury reputation for .Noronian prnrtipos that the United States is quickly acquiring i'i Europe? Tt is simply Mint while the moral consciousness "of Europe has come to look upon the evils around it a.s inevita ..e, the Pu'rikiii conscience in America is constantly up in aims ngan'iist the vices of "the wealthy. In America there is protest ; in Europe there is .silence.