The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-05-03
EUROPE THINKS
 WE NEED SPANKING Such Is Report of Returning
 Financier GEORGE WADE'S OPINION Famous British Sculptor Admires Us and Thinks we Are Artistic. Americans Are Return
 ing to Indian Type.
GEORGE WADE'S OPINION

New York, April 25.-Could Europe
 spank America? And is this country in
 need of European chastisement? That
 is the question raised by the statement
 of A. B. Hepburn. president of one of
 the city's greatest financial institutions
 on his return from abroad. ''It is gen
 erally the impression of Europeans that
 America is bumptious, entirely too cocky
 and in need of a good national spanking
 declares MT. Hepburn on his return from
 abroad.
 Opposed to this is the judgment of
 MT. George Wade, the great English
 sculptor, who holds that, this European
 judgment is all wrong. According to
 him. Americans, for from being cocky,
 or self-confident, are at heart extreme
 ly diffdent. MT. Wade, in an article
 which he has contributed to Appletons
 Magazine, asserts that, contrary to the
 popular impression, Americans are artis- tic to a degree. In support of this opin- ion he puts forward the novel claim that
 the artistic ability of the country is not to be judged by it's products, but by what he calls the artistic tendency.
 Now as to the impression that Amer
 jeans lack the artistic temperament" says MT. Wade. There is no doubt, notwithstanding the general impression to the contrary, that it is strongly
 marked in the people of the United
 States. To show this artistic tempera- ment it is not necessary that one should
 be what may be called an executive ar
 tist It is not question of the occupa-
 tion but the bent of the mind; it is a
 question of the standard of excellence.
 All who work must do so either as slaves
 or artists; either they work in a perfume
 tory and unwilling way because they
 must in which case they are much
 slaves as if they were working under
 the whip; or their mind. sentiment, and enthusiasm unites in an effort to get at the very soul of the matter. Then they are working as artists. And 1t is be- cause of this wonderful enthusiasm with which you Americans take hold of any
 work the fire and zeal which you give to it, and the intensity with which you pursue it while it is in your minds, that you are entitled to be considered as pos | sessing the artistic temperament to a wonderful degree You work as though | inspired and that spirit can produce any l thing You are still too busy making | money to turn this temperament to the 1 production of great works of art but l they will come No race temperament- | ally gifted with the enthusiasm and fire of the artist can long postpone this
 ! But while Mir. Wade regards Ameri- I cans as artistic. he makes the surprising charge that we are not American. While
 the greatest American principle is sup | posed to be that of liberty he does not 1 find that we practice it. His allegation ] concerning the lack of the supposedly l American institution is summed up in ! I,i r6c Gn liberties | that you have no liberties"
 l "'rake for instance,' says he. ethe lib- ] erty which more than aything else IS ! supposed to be characteristic of Ameri- ca. Yet I do not find liberty here, ! judged by the English standard. You | have. or rather take. liberties innumer- 1 able but you take so many of these lib- l critics that by so doing you destroy lib- | erty Everyone seems to tread on the 1 toes of everyone else, and no one seems 1 prepared to make concessions, thus des- 1 troying indiviG ial liberty. If you do a | deliberate injury to another and interfere | with his rights as a citizen, and the au- < thority supports you in so doing. you are | destroying the very idea of liberty in 1 yourselves and your co-citizens con l tract for example. freely entered into I should be freely supported even were ! the devil himself a party to it; not for l the sake of the devil, but on your own 1 account. And as to your laws, liberty l and Justice cannot be achieved by law | alone, but only in the general accept
 ance and obedience of the law. Yet here | each one seems to be striving to apply l the law for his own personal ends, to 1 break the law, as it were, under the pro- i lection of the laws, You construct a 1 system of laws under which man, per 1 haps better advised may obtain millions ] through legal evasions and then suddenly l you turn and pull him from his pedestal i on which your very laws nave set nm making the individual the scapegoat for l the mistakes of all.
 1 Liberty is founded not on coercion