Detroit evening times. (Detroit, Mich) 1921-1958, 1942-09-05
PegIer Sees
No Reason
For Reform
Britain Needed Chanet
Got Them; We Don't
By WESTBROOK PEGLER


IT HAS occurred to me in a
L dawning sort of way that be-
cause our good friends and noble
allies, the British, have always
suffered from some self-inflicted
inequalities and hig h-f e nee
classifications and. apparently,
are determined to reform, some
time, then. just to be good fell
lows or. perhaps. just to ape
them, the people Of the United
States should do likewise. even
though our system has no seri-
Gus defects.
Goodness knows, Britain could
do with spot of reform and she
is welcome, but We are not a
classified people and the ups and
downs of our first families have
been part ofthe fun OF being
American.
In fact. until few years ago,
our people took no little pride
in the fact that ours was, no
kidding. the land of opportunity,
whereas. in Britain there were
upper, middle and lower classes
who strictly kept their places.
True. they had their upstairs.
but Sir Thomas Upton never
amounted to much after his
friend, Edward, died and his vul-
gar pushfulness deeply grieved
the middle class who knew he
was no gentleman in the strange
British meaning of the word and
thought he cheapened their aris-
tocracy.
OUR Oscar of the Waldorf was
" waiter. but is highly re-
spected as one of the gentlen -
OF New York.
Our John McEntee Bowman
struck ii rich as an innkeeper.
went in for swank and rode to
the hounds yelling "Yoicks.
yoicks, a thousand times yoicks"
but he would confide that he
had got his first view of New
York through the gunsight ears
OF a jass-mule hauling a baggage
dray.
Old man Rockefeller had been
clerk and old man Ford
tinker and most of the dissolute
snobs of the COS were tearing
up money only recently un-
earthed with the pickax in Cali
fornia. Colorado and Nevada.
The roster Of Bar Harbor and
Newport of only 40 years ago
would be a list of almost for
gotten men and women today
and even the roll of Tex Rick
ards 600 millionaires of the Era
Of Wonderful Nonsense, whom
he earnestly Endorsed as the
best damned people in town.
would turn up many a high
roller who took some tide at the
flood, rode the crest an hour
and died broke. or will.
WHAT am I driving at?
w Well. this. that we run a
fast wheel in our country and
new customers are always belly
ing up TO the table of open OPP
portunity. whereas. the British
suffer from an inner snobbery
which so far they have been un-
able to conquer among them
selves.
Their very school system tells
much OF the story.
Free. public education is So
cially degrading and the man so
educated has been, until now,
almost irrevocably inferior to
the alumni Of their pay school,
Now. in our country. we spf :
education freely over the miners
son and farmers daughter and
education is an industry, not a
profession, in which the teacher
has come TO regard himself as
a toiler on the assembly line. re-
peating one operation in his
! field, year after year. and re-
quiring union protection or its
equivalent.
That mass production makes
competition harder for the edu-
Gated because il means that the
educated person is not an excep-
ton but just average, and some
OF our graduates have been so
disappointed to discover that.
nevertheless. they would have to
hustle that they have been in
clined TO condemn the system.
But. generally speaking, we
don't rate ourselves according to
our school ties and we have
taken pride in origins which the
British would call humble.
OF RECENT years. to be sure.
" there has been a tendency
toward snobbery in education
which is best illustrated in our
present day public life by the
fact that not one member of
our Presidents family. neither
himself. his wife, nor any OF his
children. ever spent a dav in q
public school of the people.
But that snobbery does not
carry over into the world after
school except~as a Groton old
boy may throw opportunities in
the way of an old classmate.
just as a man of Siwash or In
diana might.
That isn't really snobbery. II
Is just a mild form of clannish-
ness.
One Of our worst troubles Il
a defect of our democracy itseku