Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-09-27
BY A. J. CUMMINGS.

BY A. J. CUMMINGS.
BY Radio to The Star.
LONDON, September 26 (N.A.N.A) -
After a close investigation into indus
trial and economic conditions in Eng
land have just completed fairly
exhaustive inquiry of the same kind
In the United Ststes.
l have visited many industrial CEN
ters and consulted scores of American
citizens whose names are household
words in politics, industry, commerce
and finance.
AS an Englishman, coming direct from
a land which for 10 years has been
faced increasingly with acute problems
of diminishing trade and increasing
unemployment, / am immeaSurably as
tonishcd at the depth and extent Of
the psychological depression in the
United States.
In England there is nothing to com
pare with it. We have lived with the
slump SO long that we have come to
regard it as an uncomfortable bedfel-
low to be endured as patiently as pos
sible until it can conveniently be got
rid Of
we have not squealed or whined at
our prolonged misfortune. We have
kept a stiff upper lip and taken our
punishment as we took it in the World
in the darkest days of the war, that
In the end We should shake ourselves
free.
Hears Gloomy Talk.
/ do not for a moment suggest that
the American people are squealing or
whining. But they have been thor
oughly flattened out by a catastrophe
which came upon them like bolt from
the blue.
From business men in New York and
In Chicago I heard more gloomy talk
in a week about the depression than
] had heard in England in a year
Except on rare occasions news and
comments in American newspapers and
magazines about the depression have
deposed from the place of honor the
news and comments about racketee-s
and gunner.
The theater revues were studded with
somber depression jests; popular adj
vertisements were based on depression
data.
Taxicah drivers, walters, shoeshiners,
elevator men and all casual acquaint-
ances, as soon as they recognized my
English voice, wanted, in melancholy
tones, to know whether the position
was as terrible in my country as in
theirs.
I myself began to feel more depressed
in mind than 1 had felt since the
retreat Of the British Armies in France
in the last Springtime of the War.
Was it possible, asked myself, that I
was dwelling in a world of illusion?
For on the surface of life there are
few signs in any American city of the
severe distresses which, was assured
by nearly every one, would create in
the coming Winter one of the graveSt
social problems in American history.
The standard of living is still very
much higher in America than any
where else in the world Americans of
all classes live with an air of opu-
European country.
They are more finely clothed. They
eat better and more varied food. They
live in more material comfort. The
working classes have a wider margin
Of personal pleasures. They enjoy
luxIries which no other proletariat
could possibly afford.
MarveIs at Many Cars.
Hundreds of thousands of working
men travel to the factories and mills
every morning in their own motor cars.
The motor is to an American working
man what bicycle or two-penny
tram car ride is to an English artisan.
Until he has crossed the Atlantic
Ocean the average American citizen
cannot clearly perceive the chasm that
separates his own conception of social
comfort from that of the average Eu-
ropean.
In spite Of the high unemployment
figures and the many tragic tales Of
privation which were poured into my
ears in every considerable city, did
not see any OF the squalor or large
aagregaticns of idle men and women
such as are a common feature of Eng
Hsh towns in cur industrial north.
In Canada, where again the standard
OF living Is markedly lower than it is
in the United States, and where in
dustrial conditions are almost equally
bad, found healthy spirit OF hope
fitness and courage which was in strik-
ing contrast to the melancholia of its
richer neighbor.
Moreover, some of Canada's leading
men told me that in contact with
American business they had observed
the same down-and-out symptoms
which had been apparent to me, and
they did not disguise their lack OF
sympathy for what on, CT them de-
scribed as 1.-The vulnerable and mercu-
rial temperament" Of the American
what. then, Is the cause of this ex-
aggerated mental reaction to hard
times IN the richest country In the
world? The explanation rests,
think, almost entirely on the fact that
in the last 10 years the American peo-
pie have been taught by their politicians
and industrislists that they were i'm
mune from the evils that beset the rest
OF the world.
Sees Reckless Squandering.
They have lived on innumerable pros
perity slogans While Europe was grow
ing poorer they were growing incredibly
prosperous. They had mass production
Of every kind Of commodity upon an
unprecedented scale. and a high and
seemingly linitless consumption.
In the history of the world there has
been nothing TO approach the artificial
stimulation Of production and sales
which characterized American industry
in the first decade that followed the
war
Americans Of all classes squandered
and mortgaged their resources and
gambled recklessly in the stock :~ar-
kets in the confident expectation that
whatever might happen to an effete
Europe, the good American times would
so on TO better times, which would last
forever.
Uneasy warnings were uttered by
few economists who were generally re-
parded as senile croakers. Then IL
1929 the crash came and hit the Amer
can Nation with a stunning force which
went near to destroying her national
morale
That is how have explained to the
British people the strange fact that
America is for the time being a she'll
shocked nation. 1t is strange fact tc
British eyes. because In Great Britain
we know how much more serious our
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