Browning chief. [volume] (Browning, Mont.) 1941-1953, 1943-08-06
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lWNu Scrvicell
LMNu servictJ1I

alien. I've been reporting this
United Nations war since Septem-
Der, 1899. But first thing l had to do
when sought permission to visit
U. S. A. was fill out form for aliens.
This peacetime form is all rules and
a yard wide, full of highly personal,
cryptic questions. 1t floored me.
Only two questions I'm certain I
answered correctly were could I
read and was I masculine. They
asked me also if I'd ever been in
sane. Even in the evil Nazi prewar
days when I went often to Germany
the formalities were never so tough,
and I'd never been called an alien.
1t seemed a symbol of our life and
times that you and we, so las I be-
lieve) fundamentally alike in thought
and aspiration, should build and
maintain barriers to association and
understanding.
Symbol of our times, too, I never
saw Liberty as we steamed upriver.
Liberty passed by as I was answer
ing an FBI quiz. Very charming,
very courteous those FBI men, but
the going-over they gave me wasn't
less thorough for being so friendly.
Is it too much to hope that after the
war the American and British peo-
pies may share common citizenship
in each others countries? That
would be war aim. 1t might even
prevent World War 3.
Twas entirely unprepared for New
York. Years spent in the jungles
of Burma and on the vastly deserts of
Egypt, Libya and Tripolitania were
poor training grounds for this ex-
hilarating contact. A strange city
but the natives are friendly. Every
thing has been said of New York,
but l was surprised at its smooth,
velvety functioning, the politeness of
the inhabitants; not surprised at its
fascinating window displays, its high
prices, its nothing for nothing, and
damn little for a dollar" attitude.
London has nothing of New York's
spirit or character. Paris had,
little; the same tempo, same fruity
smell of gasoline, same gusts of
warm air uprushing from the SUBJ
ways, chestnut trees. Nostalgia
broke over me like wave at sight
of those chestnuts, recalling Paris
Maytime in 1910.
Sydney has something Of New
York, in its waterfront, its irregular
skyline, its hamburger heavens and
gay, gaudy and swift taxicabs. New
York's women and Sydney's have
certain kinship, too. The skillful
makeup, 1.-THE figures, slim ankles
and well-shod feet. Il am not dis
loyal to you, you gallant British wom-
en- who fill our factories, clean our
streets and man our guns.) On Fifth
Avenue maidens in uniform are rar-
er than on London's Picadilly.
But those I saw rated backward
glance. Unlike British women's
service uniforms, seemingly de-
signed by repressed spinsters as re-
venge on their sex, US women's uni
forms are chic, feminine, frequently
fantastique. Perhaps occasionally I'm
peu trop fantastique, devised more
for front-row chorines than for 'front.'
line corps. There's something to be
said for ugly uniforms: those who
volunteer to wear them must be
pure patriots.
A New York girl asked me: II
suppose you must resent our remote
ness from actual war, and seeing
buildings unscarred, coming as you
do from Britain and the African
front-line?" But of course not! Be-
cause my home is shattered and my
people killed should wish the same
fate for others? No Britisher does.
AS they stroll on Fifth Avenue I
guess they feel like me, that it's good
to be able still to find unsecured
loneliness and beauty in peacetime
proportions.
Unaided spotted Jack Benny,
Una Merkel, Billy Rose, and some
lesser aristocrats. Walter Winchell
was there, too, doing his homework.
l was quite prepared to dislike
Winchell. OTIS the human thing to
resent success in others.) l did not
expect to meet starry-eyed youth,
but Winchell was much less sophis-
ticate than I'd imagined. Maybe it's
true what they say that every New
York columnist yearns to be farm
er's boy.
Undertaking the other day
pleaded for postwar common citi-
zenship for British and US peoples.
Someone cracked: "Ah-hah! The
British want America back" But
what with the jungly heat, the min
ers' strike, the Roosevelt versus
Congress issue, the food wrangle and
the race riots, America was no gift
just then. And in Britain right now
we've troubles enough of our own.
Talking to an intelligent New
Yorker about the United Nations air
assault on Germany these days I
referred to the air Rattle of BRIT ain