AMERICAN CITIZENS.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXX, Issue 5457, 5 August 1929, Page 3

AMERICAN CITIZENS.

WRONG IMPRESSION GAINED. HARD-WORKING PEOPLE. “We in New Zealand do not hear about the great mass of ordinary American citizens who are just normal, hard-working people, speaking the same language, and with very much the same manner of living as ourselves. We take our impressions of America from the sensational dress and ihe distorted movies, which give us a totally wrong idea of American life,” said Bert Brown, the young New Zealand boxer who has returned to the Dominion from a holiday, after fours years spent in Canada and the United States, in an interview with the “Mana-vatu Times.” Mr Brown is of the opinion that the Americans are a maligned people in this country, where an atmosphere of hip flasks and gunmen is popularly supposed to pervade American cities. An ordinary individual in the United States, he said, would go all his life without seeing a gunman or a gang fight. Naturally, in a country as large as the U.S.A., with its great and polyglot population, these things did occur every day, but they-were magnified out -of all proportion by the sensation-seeking of the newspapers. As far as the movies were concerned, American audiences were fooled by their own screen caricature, just as much as the New Zealand public. In referring to the American twang was a noticeable distinction in speech Mr Brown stated that, while there was a noticeable distinction between New Zealanders and Americans, the idea that all persons under the Stars an;! Stripes drawled through their noses was ridiculous. In thenway, they had no more twang than we in New Zealand, and a person who spoke through his nose was laughed at. As far as he had observed, both Australians and New Zealanders were very well received and were very' popular in the States. The American “doughboys” had in many cases met our boys during the war period and cherished a high regard for them, particularly the Australians, whom they regai’ded as natural humorists, and some of the “hardest shots in the world.”

Tersely, Brown characterised the alleged ■ prevalence of anti-British propaganda as “bunk,” as far as normal Americans were concerned His absence, however, had taught him an appreciation of New Zealand, and particularly of its climate, which he stated was, in his opinion, equal to anything California could show. He ga ,T c an involuntary shiver* when he spoke of Canada, whore, he stated, doors and windows were felt-padded, and often double, to keep out the ccld.