The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1899-06-13
MAT K|PL|NG SAID
Of America at the Tender Age
of e.
ROASTED LIKE A BRITON
But Said the Yankee Would
Rule the Earth One Day.

New York, June 12-The Herald Of to.
day publishes an extensive review of Rud-
yard Kipling's From Sea to Sea- COM
plication of the special correspondence and
occasional articles written by him for the
Pioneer Of Anahabad buring the years
lSS7-SS-S9, and containing his caustic yet
withal kindly, youthful impressions Of the
United States and the American.
At the time this correspondence was
first given TO the Indian public Mr.. Kipling
was but % years old. He had been
through seven years of slavery as a re-
porter on the driest Of dry papers. What
he knew of the outside world was confined
to much reading brief school days in Eng
land and the journey TO india via the Suez
Canal His knowledge of America was all
secondhand, and a poor secondhand at
that He was not an admirer of republics
not over charitable to new peoples; he
could not be-
The atmosphere Of one Of the oldest
communities of the world, of a land TEEN
ing with legend, romance, history, rounded
and finished things, had been hreathed into
his being until the raw, the uncouth, the
new was rarely distasteful TO him. He
was not finished himself, in fact, but
beginner, but with the precocity of youth
he believed that he enjoyed most that
which had come to an end, or at least, a
quiescent state.
1t IS therefore surprising that what he
wrote of America, understanding the en-
vironment Of his first twenty-three years
OF life, was so tempered with affection for
the uncOncealable high qualities of the
people that the sarcasm, irony and ridicule
which runs from line to line may be read
without hurt or pain by the most sensitive
citizen of the republic.
What, then, was the Juvenile Kiplings
final estimate of the people with whom he
came for a brief sojourn in 1899? He gives
it to us himself in this juvenile book.
Let there be no misunderstanding
about the matter" he says. I love this
people, and if any contemptious criticism
has to be done I will do it myself My
heart has gone out to them beyond all
other peoples, and for the life of me L
cannot tell why. They are bleeding-raw
at the edges, almost more conceited than
the English, vulgar with a massive vu-
garity, which IS as though the pyramids
were coated with Christmas cake and sug-
ar works. Cocksure they are. lawless and
as casual as they are cocksure, but l love
them"
He realized this when he met an Eng
lishman who laughed at them, and proved
that they were all wrong
from their tariff to their go-as-you-p please
civil service. and beneath the consideration
of true Briton.
Il admit everything" retorted Mr.. Kip
ling. '"Their governments provisional, |
their laws the notion Of the moment; their |
are made of hairpins and mathch !
sticks, and most of their good luck lives |
in their woods and mines and rivers, and !
not in their brains; but for all uhat, they |
be the biggest, finest and best people on !
the surface Of the globe. Just you wait a |
hundred years and see how they'll behave |
when they've had the screw put on them |
and have forgotten few Of the patriarch |
al teachings of the late George Washing |
ton.
'"Wait till the glo-American-Germ
He'll have just the least little
5ink in his hair now and again; he'll carry
The English lungs above the Teuton feet
that can walk forever, and he viii wave
ong. thin, bony Yankee hands with the
Big blue veins on the wrist from one end
# the earth to the other
He'll be the finest writer. poet and
lramatist, specially dramatjst, that the
world as il recollects itself has ever seen.
BY virtue Of his Jew blood, just a little,
title drop, he'll be q musician and paint
IT. too. At present there is too much bal
,ony and to little Romeo in the life plays
IF his fellow citizens. Later on, when the
is adjusted and he sees the
possibilities of his land, he viii produce
hings that viii make the efete East stare.
lie viii also be a complex and highly com
,osite administrator. There IS nothing /
,nown to man that he will not be, and his
ountry will sway the world with one foot
Is man tits a seesaw plank
But this IS worse than the eagle at its