Pierre weekly free press. (Pierre, S.D.) 1889-19??, 1918-06-20
ENGLISH IDEA OF
AMERICANS ALTERED
Soldiers Now In That Country
Give Decidedly New
Impression.
BIZ THOMAS BURKE.

London. (by mail).-''The Americans
are all over London now" a the
chief. you ought to make their ac-
Quaintance.''
AS this was a command. though cam
ouflaged as a suggestion, 1 took my hat
and made solemn preparations for the
Job. First, I visited a bar, where a
barmaid from Bermondsey mixed me
what she said was a Manhattan; any
way, it a a cherry in it. After
swallowing 1t, 1 began to feel that per-
so l went to the nearest book chop
and bought a set Of the works Of O..
Henry, George AIDE, Jack Lait n
Gelett Burgess. I found that the
American In me responded easily; I
could e the language without a
dictionary. /,
Then, muttering Gee, bub," Der.
lieve me, kid" and II get you, Steve"
l started for the Eagle Hut in the
Strand.
You've probably heard all about the
Eagle Hut from your newspapers and
coined there; it is the social head
quarters Of the American army in Lon
don. With a packet of chewing gun
in one hand, a Life of Lincoln in the
other, and my head full of startling
phrases, I felt fully prepared to en-
counter my ITSl real AIleTlCdH. III
course, l had seen Americans before;
the Kind that, in the old days, came to
London or Paris in the autumn, and
sent hotel and restaurant prices sky
rocketing wherever they stayed-that
looked as If they belongedsmore to the
stage than to real life-that Coed" 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 Americans any more tina the
people of O.. Henry and Jack Lait are
Americans. Tell ms, sweet people, why
do o allow your novelists and dra-
matists to do such things to you? Why
kline OF American? We've got a totally
wrong impression Of you. No that it's
a bad impression: oh, no.: but it isn't
correct. We look all these things as
the real America and now we've got
to change our views.
1t was about 10 years, ago tina the
invasion at London by America; began
n how we welcomed you! You should
have seen the way we ate everything
you sent us; rag time, buck dancing,
coon singers, o Henry, wild west
films. 1t may annoy h unsteady fas-
tidious, but it's q fact that the one
thing that has done more than any
entente is rag time. Your vaudeville
artists who brought it over here were
the very best ambassadors you could
have chosen; we jumped at them and
a., America: and, though we sized you
up all wrong, 1t was a good enough
start.
How wrong VIZ. were I found when
stepped inside the Eagle Hut and adj
dressed a lean, resilient, tight jawed
lad in the United States uniform. Said
/: "Saaaaay, kid, put me wise to the
Big Noise in this joint" Said,he: Il beg
%pardon?" Something in his face told
me that l had made a bloomer. Are
deed I am; a I do anything for
you?" 'Ye-y-yes, / wanted to see the
officer in charge" Just across there,
through the little door," he replied In
an accent almost purely Oxford.
Crash number n e The Americans
had forgotten their language: or
could 1t be that they had never learned
moved among the fellows in the Hut,
who were reading their home papers
or smoking and chatting. l met q
hard bitten lad from Peil street, New
York city. Here, ! thought, is surely
n who will respond to the O. Henry
lingo. But no.; he wanted to talk about
Shelley; and could I show. him the
~churchyard where Milton was buried /!
Another, from the far west, was keen
on Sir Thomas Beecham's opera pro-
auctions In English: while over at the
piano a clean cut boy with a rather
coarse face was playing-guess?-De-
busy. All the times I have visited
the Eagle Hut / have never heard
rag time from that piano. I heard none
OF those American songs which make
our office boys 30 y%earnful; songs in
which the singer, being in one place,
always wants to be somewhere else;
if he's way down in Tennessee he wants
to be in Idaho; II he's down on the
farm he wants to see the lights OF
Broadway. You're a restless lot, you
Americans, according to your song
writer's.
But your army is spesdl:y putting Us
right about you. After I had got. into
my social stride at this Hut, 4 had the
feeling of meeting a young brother. ]
found idsntica. interests with many OF
the la&s and they were all SO keen. sc
E..sophisticated, that l began to fee
for my long grey beard. Soci.l ques-
tons, music, art and literature, Inc
occasionally. military matters; these