The silver state news. [volume] (Winnemucca, Nev.) 1907-1909, 1907-11-25
AMERICA AND THE a1LDED LIFE

hCAC - ~ E
among them being divers editorial
brethren. who would expatriates if
they could afford it.
They consent to grace this country
with their presence merely because
in this country it is possible to moke
a good living and something over,
while the chances are against folks in
the older countries. Had these peo-
pie money, and the wings of birds,
they would fly far from these bargain
counter shores, to those glad lands
where people know how to live.
Every once in awhile the prejudice
against the United tSates as a n,r-
manent camping ground crops out in
the writings Of certain New York edi-
tors; thus we find in a recent issue of
a paper of that city Il casual reference
to the alleged fact that life in France
is far more refined, the people more
cultured and civilized and the condi-
ttons more idyllic in a general way
than they can be in this country un-
til the leaden-footed centuries have
passed over the nation AMI sand-pa-
pered away the rough edges, and that
sort of taing.
1t is probably true that in art and
science and hteraad.e the celebrated
capital of France is far and away
superior to any American city, Tut
Paris is not France, and New York is
not the United States. And nations
than books and art galleries. All that
there is of progress and civilization
ism t measured by the little tape lines
of critics and aesthetics.
The ancient GREEKS knew more Of
sculpture than any mo Tern Americans,
but they had no telephon 8 or laJy
newspapers or street cars; they hadn It
ever shoes; and when a grand old mas
ter ran a thorn into his foos he had
to pull it out with his teeth, for no
body knew anything of surg v
Cicero was a better or .tor than w.
J. Bryan or Ben Tillman, but Ee
would nave tainted had he received a
telegram, and had he stepped into an
elevator he would have thought that
the building was falling. lIe WORE
an old nightgown instead of a dress
suit, and he shaved himself with a
stone Ratchet.
Michaelangelo was a better artist
than G. d. Gibson or R. +. Outcal.t,
but he didn't know a moving picture
machine from a Irvine binder, and he
didn't make as much in a lift time
as either of them make in a month.
All of which appears quite remote
from the subject of New Workers and
their y~earnings for other lands. but
it has some slight bearing on that
theme, for the American who goes 10
Epn &c., .r -x.11 H.1 49,
his native land excels in a few things.
even though she may fall away behind
in others. In France the peasants
usually live in little huts with Dirt
floors and without windows; their
lives are drudgery, from the cradle to
the grave; they are meager, half
starved people, who do their work on
a diet of soup; the ability to read
and write is so unusual that one who
is so accomplished as to understand a
book is regarded as a prodigy.
Contrast the French peasant, illit-
crate, poverty stricken, ga brother
to the OK with the high-headed, en-
ergetic, optimistic, prosperous, Amer
lean farmer-the bone and sinew Of
the land, and then have done with
talk about the refinement a1rl culture
of la belle France.
II we would have French art, Ital-
ian paintings and music, or ancient
Greek sculpture, we must have the
conditions prevailing IN thos countries
and times, and the average sealthy
American would rather wait until
we have attained eminence as painters
or stone cutters or organ grinders than
the good little republic he
lives in, to go abroad and revel in
culture.
Let the slow centuries go ahead
with the sand-papering process; may
be some Of our descendants will be
able to paint OF sculp or sing.-Wil
liam Allen White, in the Emporia Ga
Zette.