The Butler County press. [volume] (Hamilton, Ohio) 1900-1946, 1927-05-13
The Cherry
: !" Where with our
roo Little Hatchet
We tell the truth
about many things, sometimes pro-
foundly, sometimes hippantl-
sometimes reeklessly. -.

George HICKS, EngllShman, mas Deen
talking about the United States. Mr..
Hicks, having been fraternal delegate
to the last American Federation of
Labor convention, and having spent a
month in this country, knows all about
it. He is an authority, Mr. Hicks is.
The upshot of it all is that Mr..
Hicks thinks Americans are hicks, in
tellectually. They have money, per-
haps, but no brains. American work.
ers have creature comforts, but their
labor movement has no sense. 1t is
out of date, passe, dead from the neck
|up.
While he was in this country Mr..
George Hicks was entertained con-
stantly and he was given beautiful
memorial gift when he got ready to
shake the unenlightened dust of these
ignoble shores from his classic feet.
We don't know anything, in the opin-
ion of Mr.. George Hicks.
i Mr.. George Hicks isn't the only
Englishman who has gone away from
the United States saddened by our
intellectual inferiority, nor will he be
the last.
The Englishman, if his conversation
can be kept away from the basene6s
of American thought, is delightful
companion. On his own soil he is q
charming person. All Englishmen are
not Hickses, even if, in the opinion OF
the Hickses of England, all Americans
are hicks.
Mr.. George Hicks, reporting to the
British labor movement, which has, II
the past year, had many troubles ane
which now faces the fight of its life
for trade union freedom, declared tina
"the American trade union movement
lags behind our movement. | woult
say it is at the stage we had reached
at the close of the last century"
Now isn't that just too awfully dis
couraging? But Mr.. Hicks as ii
'opes, 'e as.
"There are," he declares oracularly
"indications that American labor Il
going to emerge as great politlca
| force by the development of a labo
party backed by the unions as il
Britain"
,, Mr.. George Hicks, in securing tha
interesting information, has scoopet
!. the world, it seems At least he ha:
discovered news that is not known il
; the United States. Perhaps thi
proves his intellectual superiority
Maybe.
The queer thing about this back
I wardness of ours is that along with it
! Mr.. Hicks comedies we have "wage
| far in advance" Of those in England
"an extra margin of comfort and we'll
, being" and workers homes that "shov
greater degree of comfort"
Those things, those material advan
tageS, are, 1t seems, the pflce-or Il
it the fruits of our ignorance!
, X
J, 1t is interesting to observe the pro
found logic of the Hicks mind, the un
erring manner in which the massiv
visiting intellect dives straight for tn
kernel of truth and holds it up to tn
keenly analytical British gaze. TIL
, truth is, we have everything bu
brains. When it comes to brains-ah
Mr.. Hicks knows only too well wher
the brains are and he makes no effor
to conceal their whereabouts.
: Another Englishman, certain Nh
| Kipling, once wrote something abou
boots" boots, boots, boots
that's all Mr.. Hicks saw while he wa
in the United States. Gosh, it mus
be wonderful to be so superior!