Evening star., 1961-11-19
Cities
and People
An Escape
From Freedom?
BY ROBERT ]. LEWIS

" eAAC AA4SAHogf mAAab WOhA0
you guess was the authors
subject?
If you were in doubt, you
would be entirely safe to
speculate that this was an
other book trying to explain
what Americans are like.
As a people, we've never
quite been able to figure our
selves out. Nor have we ever
overcome the fascination we
have always had for the i'm
mensity, diversity and per-
versity of our country.
EVER SINCE Hector st.
John de Crevecoeur in 1892
wrote the first book to try
to explain what makes Uncle
Sammy run, there has been
a steady stream of other
books in similar vein.
BY this time, you could as
sumo we might well have fl
nally come to some conclu-
sions about ourselves as a
people, and that the charac-
ter of our country would be
fairly well nailed down.
But the older we get, the
less we seem to know, for
certain, about ourselves. The
books, at least, continue to
spill forth in an ever-greater
flood.
The latest is written by
John A. Kouwenhoven, a
former editor of Harper's
Magazine. 1t is entitled (aS
you may have gueSsed) THE
Beer Can by the Highway"
doubleday & Co.; $4.50).
But litter and waste is not
its subject.
-
INSTEAD, Mr.. Kouwen-
hoven has a maddening the
ory that things are not al
ways what they seem.
Is the beer can tossed by
the side Of the highway a
sign Of contempt for natural
beauty?
Does it represent disregard
for the right of others to
enjoy that beauty?
Is it a sign that we are a
wasteful and untidy people?
Mr.. Kouwenhoven implies
he doesn't believe yes-or-no
answer to those questions
matter very much.
His real interest is in how
thesbeer can by the highway
Picking up beams from your
cars headlights at night and
glowing like a panther's eye
east a reflected light on
the American democracy.
The man who tossed that
can. says Mr.. Kouwenhoven,
isn't as much of a villain as
we may think.
For the litterbug Ameri-
can, the author explains, "is
what Pearl Bailey elegantly
calls the character that owns
the joint"
He needs a certain amount
Of freedom.
- -
JUST THE SAME, there's
a reaction against this
freedom loving guy. Mr..
Kouwenhoven comedies that
some Of his characteristics
"are not necessarily the most
admirable or endearing."
I'VE all feel self-con-
sciously apologetic about this
untidinesS at times -" he
says.
"In> such moods, we look
about at the spasmodic cy-
clones Of gum wrappers on
subway platforms, at the
Sodden banks OF garbage be-
tween which rivers Of indus
trial waste flow to the sea,
at the beer cans strewn
along the shoulders Of our
highways, and we think wist-
fully Of a scrubbed village
square in Holland, the pop
lar-lined entertainments of a
river in Normandy, or a
mathematically clean auto
balm in Germany.
"It would be nice, we think,
If America were not so un-
kempt."
WITHOUT DOUBT, this
has also been the way we
have been viewing our cities,
though Mr.. Kouwenhoven
doesn't mention them spe-
officially.
To improve them, we have,
perhaps, become a bit in
elined to escape from all this
freedom which allowed them
to develop-and to turn for
solutions to what Ortega y
Gasset calls select and spe-
cially qualified minorities."
In Mr.. Kouwenhoven's view
America owes both its mesSi-
ness and its abundance to
its democracy. He says: I'VE
may not be able to get rid Of
the mess without also get