The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1915-02-08
By Edgar Tiff

There was q time when We of the
fire of British criticism. Our English
visitors looked us over and then went
home and made fun of us. They ridi-
culed our manners, our literature and
our political institutions. Mrs. Troll
lope, Harriet Martineau, Dickens, Cap
tain Marryat and host of others
r,ade game of US. In some ways we
we're guilty In the period of 1918 to
lG4l we were slavish imitators of for
cign manners and literature. We aped
ald were thereby apes. A suit Of
clothes, a knife, a piece of cloth or a
book was no good unless It was Eng
lish or French. And from those whom
we initiated we got nothing but scold-
ings as IL we were awkward children
who could no nothing to please fault
finding parent.
Fall To Get Spirit.
The books Of our foreign critics,
from Fearon and Hamilton Snow to
our latest censor, Ostrogorski, a Slav
with French trimmings, would make a
library in themselves. They are very
Interesting, but not a single writer,
not even Bryce in his American Com
monwealth," catches the elusive, ma
tive-born American instinct which
works socially, economically and poll
cally to create and perpetuate our
Institutions" We know our basic
wants. We create them. How it is
done no foreigner understands. And
while many of these foreign books are
ably written they all annoy us be-
cause they assume the attitude of st.
Paul toward his Corinthian converts
when he told them that they were
neither well.hred nor intellectual. The
fighting Paul used the big stick and
set aside some of the undesirable citi-
Gems of Corinth, but our British crit
les condemned us all en- bloc; and
where Paul told his converts that they
should manifest the glory of God, our
critics wrote that every bit of pro-
gress in America must reflect the glo-
ry of England and every page of
American history can be nothing but
a mere supplement to English his
tory"
And so we fell to thinking in those
degenerate days that all genuine wool
en- cloth must come from Lancaster,
all steel from Sheffield, all pottery
from Stoke-on-Trent, all literature
from London, and all scholars from
Oxford.
Critics Prove Severe.
Our critics looked us over again and
asked, Where are your scholars?"
One Of them wrote that we had not a
single scholar and that American bus
mess men were ashamed OF learning
and believed that a literary reputation
would be q disgrace and injurious to
trade. What can we expect" asks
Mr. Hamilton. in his Men and Man.
ners in America" from raisers of
corn and tobacco and hewers of wood
and retail dealers in pans, pots and
kettles? They can never hope to at
tain to any wnokledge or literary re-
finement."
Up to that time America had hon
ored herself with many scholars, but
the English tone was still that of Pitt,
Earl of Chatam, toward Ben Franklin
when he refused to talk personally
with this greatest American and sent
word by a servant that Franklin was
no doubt nevertheless a very respec-
table man" Franklin was then at the
zenith of his political, scientific and
literary renown and had written an
autobiography ranking with three of
the truly great photographs of the
world-Benvenuto Cellini, Rousseau,
and Lord Herbert of Cherbury. No
wonder Washington Irving said that
American with a quill-pen in his hand,