The Washington herald., 1922-10-05
Back in Gods Country.


q observations of Senator Thomas H. Cara
way of Jonesboro, Ark, expressed upon
lis return to Gods country from trip
through Europe
Mr.. Csraway saw Paris, Berlin, Rome. Vienna,
London and all the other great centers of Eu-
ropean civilization-and he left them impressed
with the infinite superiority OF Jonesboro, Ark. He
met and talked with OF the great statesmen
of Europe-and it seems that he was impressed
by the inte lectual inferiority of these men COM
pard with the sherifs and county charmen of his
own home State. Premier Poincare, for instance,
reminded him OF the village undertaken back in
Ioncstoro-and presume the prime minister of
Greece would have suggested the fellow who
the town restaurant the Main street cobbler.
The impression of the Old World gained by
the junior Senator from Arkansas differs very
slightly indeed from that which comes to 90 per
cent OF all European tourists from this side Of
the Atlantic He gives striking expression to the
thoughts OF most OF his contemporaries. In other
words. Mr.. Caraway is the typical American tourist
blessed with the capacity for forcefu speech.
1t all back to the unquestionabe fact
that American is not European and cannot
see things through European eyes The idea Of
France and Germany gained by the average
doughboy of the A. z. F. during the great war
exactly that which the statesman
from Jonesboro. Here and there in the ranks was
man with the soul OF poet and the eyes OF an
artist. Here and there a who stood in
silent beside the great cathedrals who drank
in the beauty of the crossroads crucihxes, who
appreciated the color and atmosphere OF peasant
life. But there only such in thousand.
To the average enlisted and officer the single
thought that everything so inferior to
Podunk. Mass, Kalamazoo. Mich, El Paso,
Tex
In order to appreciate Europe the tourist must
lose the American viewpoint 1t is much easier
for educated women, more susceptible to impress
sions to reach this stage than for men. Conse-
quenty it usually is the wives of successful Amer
leans who drag their husbands with them to Eu-
rope every summer.
The average Washngtonian. for instance, goes
to France. He finds nothing like the Munsey
Building, the Southern Building the Woodward
Building. He finds nothing like Rock Creek Park
or the Speedway. There no soft drink or
cigar stores every Very few of the
acquaintances he makes among the natives own
automobiles. The street car service is not so
good The taxi service is so good. The
average and he meets the street
not dressed well. He cannot get the old,
familiar American dishes in the restaurants. He
asks a policeman the way to some place and gets
the information half hour later after, it
seems. a meeting of the national cabinet has been
ca led to decide about it. He enters store to
make simple purchase. The transaction,
which would require only thirty seconds in the
United States. takes about half hour and even
then the clerk seems insultcd when he hurries
away. What is the result? The ordinary Wash
ingtonian. without any special taste for art or
antiquities is disgusted. He away certain
of the infcriorty of the Paris department store to
the Washington department store, OF the French
street service to the desperately bad
schedules OF the Washington traction companies,
OF th. Paris police to the Washington police, of
everything in Paris to everything in Washington.
Precisely this attitude was brought back by
Senator Caraway. Very much the same ideas
were expressed by o. o. Mcintyre, another
typical American in his charming letters to The
Washington Herald from Paris this summer.
Sinclair Lewis. the celebrated American novelist,
returned to New York convinced that, after all,
Main street in Gopher Prairie much better
Main street than Main street in London
We know that all this is bourgeois and unap-
preciative and and crude and uncultured.
We know that it will be received with shouts of
dersion among those people with enough insight
to understand the shallow materiaism of the
United States-a land where good food, good
houses good clothes, good railroads, good automo-
bilcs good churches good schools etc, placed
above all else in the popular esteem
But Senator Caraway and ourselves and about
100000 others were born and bred in the pro-
vincia darkness where such ideas generated
We can get rid of them than we can
get rid OF the habits OF using tooth brush or
wearing a clean shirt.
Not that we despise the people of Europe
We pity them and we love them. And we are
struck with admiration at the silent uncomplari-
ing courage with which they live their starved
hopeless lives.