Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1921-07-16
FOURTH OF JULY SENTIMENT
BY Dr.. Frank Crane

lou OueH uHQefSldHu tHlnSS DeltSl Wien you
get away from them. You see things more
truly when You stand off little.
On the Fourth of July, 1921, am in Paris,
looking at my native land of America from a
distance of some 5000 miles.
How does it look?
Good. If anything, the farther l get away
! from it the more attractive it seems.
This, of course, is for very simple reason.
For | know Americans. ! am one of them,
was brought up with them, and have practiced
loving them, hating them, and getting along
with them. l know thenl-and what we know
we like. We dislike only the people wo do
not understand.
But, sizing up America from this distance, it
seems to me to be much more worth while to
emphasize the fact that they are about the
same as other folks than to think of all the
ways in which they differ.
For as matter of fact our points of re-
Semblance to the other nations are deep and
fundamental, and our points of difference are
entirely superficial.
Differences are easy to see. child notes
them at once. And because we are all a bit
childish we have dwelt too much on things
that separate and not enough on things that
unite.
1t may be that Frenchmen are voluble and
Englishmen are Stolid and Italians are ex-
citable and all that, but what do such things
amount to more than man having a stub
nose and another chin whiSkerS?
We are all human beings and fundamentally
interested in just the same things.
The differences are trivial; the resemblance
is cardinal
Out of my window, facing an open square in
Paris, see crowd of people in the street.
They, are walking, strolling, riding in taxis,
standing, talking-all oding exactly as the
people in Los Angeles or Cleveland.
They all have two legs apiece, all have hats
and shoes, and probably the same number have
corns and improving nails here just in
Bloomington, Illinois, or Omaha, Nebraska.
Each Of these people has a home he goes
back to at night, and probably a wife that
wants to know where he has been and why,
and little child that runs out of the door to
meet him and wants to be taken up and kissed,
exactly as in Marion, Ohio and Sheridan,
Wyoming.
All are busy making living, trying to get
better job, wondering how to save more
money, sorry for what they have said or left
unSaid, wondering what they are going to have
for dinner, and little worried over that pain
in the knee, exactly as in Brockton, MaSSa-
chusettS, or Niles, Michigan.
All the men are curSing the politicians and
yet doing what the party bosses decide, COM
planning of taxes and avoiding their civic du-
ties, finding fault with the newspapers and
eagerly buying them every day, just as the
people back home in Buffalo, New York, and
Norfolk Virginia
The boys are making up to the girls and the
girls are tlneSSing, some men are working and
some are loafing, most of the folks are mind
ing their own business and few are looking
for trouble, here, and they are doing the same
thing in Altoona, Pennsylvania and in Kokomo,
Indiana.
What some people mean when they talk of
Americans as if they differed from Europeans
as horses from cattle | cannot understand.
We are all cut from the same piece of CLOTH
Governments are artificial. NationatieS are
mostly holdovers from tradition. Race pre-
JUDGE is about ten-ninthS ignorance.
! am All American and am proud of it. But
am Human Being, and am prouder of that.
And my Fourth of July scream this year is
that it is about time Human Beings got to-
gether.
Copyright, 1921, by Frank Crane)
The time has come for woman to get
into politics, for the country needs her
badly.-Genevieve Cline, Cleveland lawyer
Young people are deserving the country
| for two reasons Monotony and lack Of
money.-Homer Folks, secretary, New York
| Charities Aid association.
1t is rumored that the woman who spen
| five million dollars in Paris stopped at al
] American hotel.