Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-03-10
GREED oF EUROPEANS

when an Englishman. or, in fact. any
] kind Of q European wfitins person who
visits the United States fDr few days and
then hines back home and writes q book
about s-when ons OF these forsign pen-
pushers gets his first page of copy finish
ed without having about dozen cracks in
the matter about the almighty dollar lust
which is supposed to affiict US In this coun-
try. then will the millennium have arrived,
observed Washington man who has been
around a lot. They all have . good deal
to Especially the English writing per-
sons-abouf the way we talk through our
noses. which we don't, and about the way
we say .Philadulphia' and Amurrica' and
I 'vurry,' which we DO NOT, and about how
all of the American women talk In q high
pitched, strident tone of voice. which Is just
bosh, and how the American men are lust
money producing dummies and automatons
who make practice of dumping all sof
their earned increment In their women
folks laps and then hiking OFF with the
dinner pail to gouge out some more money
for the women folks. and all that sort Of
/ thing. And then they infallibly get on the
subject OF the almighty dollar in the
United States. and maunder on intermina-
bly, about how we ali break our necksi from
one years END to the other going after the
dollars, and how money is our god and
Mammon Is our king. and all that sort of
They take sort of high and lofty tone
that attempts to lead you to believe that
the old mazoom' ID nothing to the nations
of Europe. and. to read their endless al
| mighty dollar cracks you'd suppose that
over yonder they were all SO deeply imbued
with the spirit of the good, the true and
| the beautiful that they never gave such
sordid thing as the old coin a thought.
Fine, ffne-but with the reverse English
on It'll I've done lot of poking around
Great Britain and the continent of Europe,
and they've got to show me over there that
| they are not just as hot after the old kale,
| and blamed sigh keener, when it comes
TO that, than we are over on this side of
the duck pond. If you want to meet up
with grasping, money clutching. wholly
| selfish and completely ungenerous individ-
ual In money transactions, all you've got to
| do IL to slam into any average Engl shman.
They're about as keen after the ker-tish,
| those Engiishmen. as any folk you'll meet
up with in the whole world and shilling
| to them Is about four times as big in their
view as one Of our dollars is in our sight.
They Hike the feel and the taste of money.
I and they like the old stuff for its own sake.
They're out for 1t with both hands wide
open and fully extended. and when they get
1t It's about as hard to pry the majority of
/ them loose from any Of it as it is to load a
steamship below the Plimsoll line with an
exclusive cargo of ostrich feathers
And the French folk of the pen-throw-
| ing habit have been letting have good
| deal OF that almighty dollar rot in their
4 y
| You'll take many long journey In all
| quarters Of the globe before you'll run
| Into any representative of a race or nation
| who likes the feel of the government
| stamped papers and the clinking metal any
| more than. OF as much as. the average
Frenchman Your average Frenchman Is
| the original tight-wad, too; the man with
| the mucilaginous mitt, the person with
| the soldered fist Every time he blows
| a franc he feels as If there ought to be
| a rebate coming on 1t, and his wife is
l y, t. T. %f1,1
| treme stinginess of the French woman Is
| a matter that has never been exaggerated
| The French wife Is the money-handler of
| the family, and she has developed into the
very arch-type and thumb-print of mfSer-
| liness.
| THE thriftiness' of the Germans, as OBJ
| served in the German empire. borders per-
| ilously close upon the stingy, and 1t
| would take anybody with considerable
| eloquence and special pleading power
| long time to convince me that the Ger
| man folks are not just as delightedly SEN
sitive to the clink of the ringing metals
as the average of US on this side of the
| big water. The Italians in Italy, too
yes. feel safe in stating that there are
| still a few Italians left In Italy. despite
| the immigration fgures-are the warm
| ones in their hunt for the mfnted metals
| and the engraved papers. and when an
| italian let's go little sum OF money you
| can generally hear him creak painfully,
| like a storm-swayed sign over an old
| store Nobody has ever accused the
| SpaniardS or Oe1n8 pTOHlSdteS DIS a TdCe.
| There's only one class of Russians who
| have anything and that's the aristocracy.
| They're not quite SO stingy as some OF
| the other European peoples, because the
| Russian aristocracy has always had
| theirs but you'll observe what long,
| loud yell the Russian aristocraey has been
| putting up in recent years over the pros
pect that something might De taken away
| from them by the people
'aThe whole truth of the matter Is that
these America touring foreigners quickly
/ perceive that we are spenders on THIS Sue,
| and 1t arouses jealous sort of crouch IN
| them. But In writing about US they DO not
dwell upon how we blow our coin, SO to
sneak with all the abandon or drunken
sailors. They harp only upon lhe hus ..t
| and hustle and rush and eagerness with
which we go after the coin, thereby con-
veyinR the impression that we strive TO
| get the money solely for the moneys sake.
A dollar is to an average american COCO IN
his view only for what that dollar Is going
| to bring In the way of comfort or luxury.
| He doesn't love the dollar for the feel OF 1t,
| but for what he thinks he'll be able TO do
with It, He wants the money Tor the sake
| of tasting and enjoying all of these new
good things that are coming into the world.
He wants to take hack at everything go
| ing and he knows that in order TO do this
| he's got to have the dollars, and that's why
| he's out after the dollars with both feet
most of the time.
"Stinginess never was an American trait.
We are, as matter of fact, wholly on the
other SlQ6 OF the llne- 10 dltcifipl lluICL
| the American nation, these pen-ptshers
do, because we are obviously out for the
| dust, would be like trying to indict the
Fiji Islanders for eating bananas. Money
is as much in the air here as bananas are
a part of the game in the Fits. because
we're ambitious to get the dough to have
the fun that other people have. and to give
our folks the same kind of fun that other
folks who'ye got the price have. But were
not money-mad. We're not pouring peren-
NAL libations the shrine of Mammon.
We're not bug-house on the coin question,
Were having out little old fun as We go
along. and the more we get the more fun
we haye--we don't hoard 1t away in the
long sock. as the French, for instance, do,
and eat black bread and onions, plenty
of well-to-do Italians do. not to trench
upon the stored-away bank-wad.
1.-THE almighty dollar gag Is merely one
of those phrases that, once started, grows
by aceretion The almighty shilling, the al
mighty franc, the almighty form. the al
mighty rouble, the almighty piastre-the
phrase might just as well have been one of
these in the beginning, and, as to any
of the nations spoken for by these coins,
it would have been whole lot more truth
full than in its application to the United
tot