Forest City press. (Forest City, Potter County, D.T. [S.D.]) 1883-19??, 1918-06-20
ENGLISH IDEh or
AMERICANS ALTERED
Soldiers Now In That Country
Give Decidedly New
Impression.
BY THOMAS BURKE.

London. (by naaiD.-"rThe Americans
are all over London now said the
chief. "You ought to cake their ac-
quaintance.''
As this was a command, though cam
ouilage,t a.; a suggestion, / took nv hat
and made solemn preparations for the
lob First. ! visited q bar, where "
barmaid from Bermondsey mixed me
what she said was a Manhattan; any
way. it had a cherry IN it. After
swallowing it, began to feel thai per-
maps ! had Il little American in me,
so l went TO the nearest book chop
ana bought q set OF the works of O.
Henry. George AIDE, Jack Lait and
Gelett Burgess. l found thai the
American in me responded easily; L
could rea the language without a
dictionary.
Then. muttcring Gee. bub." Der
lieve me. kid" and 81 get you, Steve
l started for the Eagle Hut in the
Strand.
You've r;obably heard all about the
eagle Hut from your and
from your boys who have been well
there: it is the social head
quarters of the American army in Lon
don. With a packet of chewing gum
In one hand, 4 Life Of Lincoln i'm the
other. and my head full of startling
phrases. | felt fully prepared to en-
counter my first real American. OF
course, l had seen Americans before;
the kind that, in tho old days, came to
London or Paris in the autumn, and
sent motel and restaurant prices sky
~rocketlng wherever they stayed-that
looked as If they belonged more to the
stage thar to real life-that "Gee'd' and
"Say,d" and "My'd" all up and down
the Strand: that kind of American.
But know that it's all wrong. They
/ weren't american nc n ,,,oco H.. II.
people of O. Henry and Jack Lait are
americans. Tell me, sweet people, why
40 you allow YOUR novelists and dfa-
matlsts to do such things to you? Why
IN peace time, did you send us that
Kind OF American: We've got a totally
wrong impression of vol Not that it's
q BAD impressions; oh, no.; but it isn't
correct. We took all these things as
n real America. n now we've got
TO change views,
IL was about II years ago that the
invasion of London by America: began
and how we welcomed you! You should
nave seen the way we ate everything
you sent US; rag time. buck dancing
coon singers, Q Henry, wild wes1
fiims. 1t may annoy the musically fas-
tiolous, put it's q fact that the one
thing that has done more than an,
other to cement the Anglo-Americar
entente is rag time. Your vaudeville
artlsts VINO brought it over here were
.he very best ambassadors you could
nave chosen; we jumped at. them ant
at America; and. though we sized vol
up all wrong, it was IL good enough
start.
How wrong we we're / found when
stepped inside the Eagle Hut and ad.
dressed a lean, resilient, tight jawet
lad in the United States uniform. Saif
Il "Saaaaay. kid. put me wise to thu
Big Noise in this joint" Said lle: II bes
pardon?' Something in his face told
me thu. J had made a bloomer. "Art
you from New York;" parted. IN.
deed IN: can l do anything fo,
'~se-N-yes, I wanted to see TIT
oelicer IN charge" Just across there
tHsousn the little door" he replied il
an acesnt almost purely Oxford.
Crash urnbe one. The America n.
mad forgotten their own language. q,
could II be that they had never learned
1t: Crash succeeded rash as
moved among the fellows in the Hut
who were reading their home paper:
or smoking and chatting, mo- /:
hard-bitten lad from Peli street. New
York city. Here, 1 thought, is snrel,
ono who will respond to the o.. Henri
lingo. But NJ he wanted to talk abou,
Shciley: n could I show him tn,
where Milton was buried
Another. from the far west. was l,eer
on Sir Thomas Beecham's opera pro.
auctions in English: while over af ~,
piano q clean cut boy with a rathe,
coarse ace was playing-guess?-De
busy. All the times I have yisite,
h Eagle Hut I have never hear
9 time from that piano. 1 heard 3
o. Q American songs which max,