Evening star., 1923-09-02
BY SIR PHILIP GIBBS.


Paris. made my first visit to the
4 United States, and lectured in
| many American cities. I went there
again in 1920 and 1921. and on the
| third visit travelled from New York to
San Francisco.
I regard these American visits as
| the greatest experience of my life.
apart from the war, and they added
enormously to the knowledge of
| world forces and the human problem
which I had been studying among
the peoples of Europe. I was. and
still remain, convinced that the
| United States will shape, for good or
| ill-and I believe for good-the fu-
ture destiny Of the world, for these
| people, in the mass, have q dynamic
energy, a clear-cut quality of char
acter, and a power not only of ma
terial wealth, but of practical ideal
| Ism, from which an enormous impetus
| may be given to human progress in
the direction of the common we'll
being, international peace, liberty, de-
| cency and average prosperity of indi-
vidual life.
During those three visits, when. I
| talked with innumerable men and
women of great intelligence and
honesty of thought, / was made
! WISE" as they call it, to many of the
darker aspects of American life. j
was not unconscious of strong
strain of intolerance: a dangerous
gulf between the very rich and--not
the very poor, there are few of those
but well paid. speeded-up, ugly
living. dissatisfied labor; something
| rather hysterical in mass emotion
when worked up by the wirepullers
and the spellbinders: and the noisy.
blatant, loudSmouthed, boasting vul-
garity of the mob.
I saw the unloveliness of Main
Street" I met Rabbit" in his club.
parlor car and private house. But
though 1 did not shut my eyes to
all that, and much more than that
a good deal of it belongs to civiliza-
ton as well as to the United States
Il saw also the qualities that out
weigh these defects, and, in my judg-
ment. contain a great hope for the
world.
met, everywhere, numbers of men
and women who have what seems to
me a clean, sane, level-headed outlook
on life and it's problems. They be-
lieve in peace, in a good chance for
the Individual, in a decent standard
Of life for all people, in honesty and
truth. They are impatient of dirt,
however picturesque: of ruin, however
romantic; Of hampering tradition.
however ancient. They are, in the
mass, common-sense, practical and
good-natured folk. who. in the busi-
ness of life. cut formalities and get
down to the job.
y X II
nut behind all that common sense
/ ID and their practicality, they are
deeply sentimental, simply and sin
cerely emotional, quick TO respond to
any call upon their pity OF their
charity. and when stirred that way,
enormously generous.
agree with Gen. Swinton, the in
yentor of the rtanks," who, after a
tour in the United States, told me,
with a touch OF exaggeration, that he
thought the Americans as nation
were the only idealists Left in the
| world.
Europe is cynical, remembering too
much history. and suffering too much
disillusionment. The United States
looking always to the future, and not
much backward to the past, Is hope
full, confident of human progress, and
strangely and wonderfully eager to
| find a philosophers stone OF human
happiness, for which we, in Europe,
have almost abandoned search.
! | think that, as a people. they are
more ready than any other to do
some great work Of rescue for hu-
manity (as 1 write they are feeding
| 10 .o0o. 900 people a day in Russia).
and to adopt and carry out an iueal
on behalf of humanity in the way
! of peace and reconstruction, at some
/ personal sacrifice to- themselves. That
| is possible at least in the United
States, and it may almost be said
that 1t is impossiblbe in any other
| nation.
| AS personal experience, my first
visit to the United States was ex-
citing and rather overwhelming, IN
! an extremely pleasant way, except
! for my extreme nervousness. For
the first time in my life I was made
70 believe Except for secret doubts
and a. sense of humor) that I was
person Of some Importance. BY good
! fortune, of which / was not aware
| until my arrival in New York, 1 had
| gained the good opinion, and almost
| personal popularity, of an immense
American public from coast to coast.
| do not minimize the pleasure of
! that. the real joy OF ii, for there is
no reward in the world so good to a
1 man who for years has been an OBJ
! scure writer, as to realize at last
that his words have been read and
remembered, with emotion, by mil
lions of fellow mortals, almost by a
whole nation-and this had happened
l to me.
| It happened by the great luck that
since the entry of the United States
into the war my daily dispatches from
the western front had been published
in a syndicate of newspapers covering
the whole country. Day after day
| during those years of enormous his
tory, I appeared with the grapefruit
and the cereal at millions Of Ameri
can breakfast tables, and because OF
the things I had to tell and. perhaps.
a little, by the way in which I told
them Il tried to give the picture and
the pity OF the things I saw, I got
home to the bosom and business (to
use Francis Bacon's words) Of the
| American merchant, lawyer and city
man, to the lady whom he provides
with a Packard or q Ford (according
to his rung on the social LADDER, and
to the bright young thing who is
beginning to take an interest in the
drama Of life outside her dancing
school or her college rooms.