Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-11-03
EXPATRIATE EXPLAINS WHY
HE PREFERS TO LIVE In u. S.
Compares and Contrasts America With
Countries of Europe in Telling
Reasons for Preference.
BY WILLIAM McFee,


H. lishwoman, married to a sue.
cessful American bushes,
man. There was nothing to distinguish
her from the average resident of the
East Sixties in New York, and she dis
played no aggressive nationalism in her
speech or outlook. But in the course
of an exchange of experiences the
phrase leaped out suddenly as from an
ambush, as 1t often does from successful
eXpatriates, and it evoked, as usual a
feeling of establishment at the indie
structible nature of a national senti-
ment.
The answers to such a query range
from blunt alternatives to cynicism and
evasion. depending upon the personality
of the individual without seeking to
be deliberately Machiavellian, the Eng
lishman living permanently in the
United States discovers occasions when
his heart should not be worn on his
sleeve. And he does not live here long
before he discovers also that he occu-
pies a position solitary and peculiar
among the heterogeneous elements of
what used to be called "the melting
pot. There are, indeed, times when he
doubts the truth of that phrase as APP
piled TO himself. While the exterior of
his personality may fuse and coalesce
with the adjacent American earth, he
is aware of highly refractory core
which will never melt, but which
changes its polarity.
Business of Patriotism.
Preserving his own identity in man.
ner offensive only to patriots of the
baser kind, he becomes none the less an
American more affiliated perhaps to the
original revolving colonists than do the
Mediterranean peasant immigrants who
o1f hnVD clxr AA,r
resiStingly into the moldS of standard
lied American ideals. He has had q
long training in the business of being
patriotic. as distinguished from mere
clanniShneSs and tribal fealtieS and he
is aware of it's responsibilities and i'm
plicationS. He finds American life as
tonishing and exhilarating. 1t is not
too much to say that in time he finds
it irresistible. It presents to him a
phase of human existence not only i'm
possible. but inconceivable, to those he
has left behind.
One of the chief difficulties of the ex-
patriate of long-and good-standing
when he INDUCES in an occasional re-
Prospect, is to estimate just where the
change has taken place, in the United
States or in himself. Probably in both
The pre-war English resident, arriving
without either passport or publicity, had
better opportunity of studying Amer
lea than the modern celebrity, who lives
in highly charged atmosphere. Both
the latter and the America he beholds
are Self-conscious. He is inevitably con-
cerned with what, to the confirmed ex-
patriate, are trivial irrelevancies, such
as the height of the buildings in New
York City the quantity production
methods of Detroit automobile factories,
prohibition. or the exploits of evangel-
lists, machine-gun bandits and f1agpole
sitters.
Like the celebrity himself these are
merely phases of Americas interest in
the unusual. The average residents ex-
istence Is fundamentally untouched by
such extravaganceS, just as a London
suburban child may live half a block
from a saloon requiring two policemen
on Saturday night, and yet grow up an
abstemiouS Christian. To the visiting
American such "a proximity to the
demon rum would appear horrific,
whereas it is merely human and tradi-
tlonal In England.
Stock Arguments.
And if We are to discover Just why
living in America may become not
merely endurable but superior to living
in Europe, we must jettison many of
the stock arguments favored by profess
sional boosters. A sound principle of
travel Is that you find in country what
you bring with you in yourself and very
little else. To a certain important de-
gree this applies to an expatriate, and
it Is true paradox that in America you
find what you left behind. The differ
ence is that in America you are free to
enjoy it, whereas in the old country, as
she is ever affectionately called by ex-
patriates, you cannot afford it.
To generaliZe about a country like
England requires caution and knowledge
and may be INDUCED in only by compe-
tent critics. To generaliZe about the
United States is usually disastrous, no
matter who attempts it. 1t must be
borne in mind that such remarks as fol-
low concerning life in America are not
intended to be universally applicable.
They merely explain why one eXpatriate
prefers to live in America. and they
throw an indirect light upon some of
the arguments advanced by American
expatriateS who prefer to live in Europe
Looking backward as far as 1912, an
outstanding feature of the expatriate's
experience in America has always been
the friendliness of the people. Hospi-
tally has many interpretations, some of
which are merely superficial. But in
such fundamental matters as freedom
from trouble in owning property or en-
gagipg in business and general toler-
ance toward foreign ideas in the intel
lectual world, America has been singu-
larly kind to the stranger within her
gates. A sense of dry humor which
reaches its apogee perhaps in Will
Rogers. preserves the inhabitants of the
United States from that sullen, unintel-
hgent sensitiveness which is the curse of
smaller and more backward republics,
Criticism Well Received.
1t is not uncommon for European
or North American who resides in
some Southern country to refuse all dis
cussion of that country. II have to live
there" is his laconic explanation. Did
any one ever hear of an Englishman de-
Ginning to criticize the United States on
the ground that he had to live there?
The reason for this is perfectly simple.
The United States are a federation of
sovereign states, every one of which Is
engaged in discussion of everything I'M
der the sun. Nowhere else in the world
Is discussion so universal or criticism
f'Zm stranger received in such excel
lent humor. This, of course is a direct
challenge to the commonly accepted
theory that any person holding unusual
or radical ideas is likely to find himself
Swallowed by the local patriots and to
receive sinister warnings to watch his
step or to leave town before sunrise
These things undoubtedly happen, but
they happen when the person involved
settles in peasant community. If he
settled among peasants in Europe or in
mountain village of Wales he would
probably experience a similar ostracism
The discrepancy between these two
views of human liberty in America is
due to the reluctance of intelligent resi-
dents to admit the existence of the
peasant mind in America, as though
during the passage up the Narrows
some magical transformation took place
in those poor folk from every country