Those United States

BY F. YEATS-BROWN.

T MUST confess that during my recent travels from 1 New York to Salt Lake City, Seattle, San Francisco,

Los Angeles, and back by the Santa Fe railway to Saint Louis and the cities of the Great Lakes, I acquired only one impression which I had not already formed during other visits to the United States.

I had not previously seen the 1982 skyline of New York, nor Dr. Millikan's Technological Institute at Pasadena, nor the Huntingdon Library, nor the film studios of Hollywood, nor Mr. Ford's factory at Detroit, but these things were more or less as I had imagined them. The crest of New 'York, for all that has been written about it, still strikes the stranger dumb if he sees it (as I did) between the splendid sky and iridescent sea of an American autumn afternoon. We approached the down-town skyscrapers, and gazed beyond them to the Empire State Building and other gigantic piles which loomed up against a background of fine mist and fleecy clouds. True, these great buildings were now half empty, but at the risk of being obvious I must say that I stood rapt in admiration at the plan and execution, and felt convinced that the spirit that has carried up these towers to heaven will triumph over the present depression.

A month later I was amongst the olive trees and Florentine courts of the Technological Institute at Pasadena. Dr. Millikan was my guide : he showed me the

great aeronautical research laboratory', a solar furnace that will generate a heat of 5,000 degrees Centigrade

(a temperature greater by a thousand degrees than any instrument yet invented), a million-and-a-half volt X-ray transformer (the highest voltages used by doctors are 250,000 volts) and other marvels, including the apparatus with which he is photographing cosmic rays. More than ever, in the brilliant sunshine of California, I felt that the cares of the Old World were far away, and that this country was gravid with potentialities for all mankind.

Detroit, when I visited it, was already " flat on its back," though Mr. Ford had not then any intention of shutting down his works. I went over the Rouge River plant, the Engineering Laboratory, and Greenfield Village, where a clever reconstruction of Colonial history is being installed. I saw also the but where Edison invented electric light, Mr. Ford's old schoolroom, and a wonderfully complete museum of engineering inventions.

The Courthouse where Lincoln practised in his young days has been transported from Logan County, and in an upstairs room I saw the red plush rocking chair in which the Emancipator was murdered, with his blood still on its arms. But the famous assembly-line, where car-parts miraculously become a car, interested me most of all.

The methods that inspired it have already made history—and have brought not peace to the world, but a Ford I Again, my experiences as a lecturer were not un- expected. I started by being a flat failure on the plat- form (my first audience wanted their money back- " You said he was a glamorous young Englishman," they wrote to my agent, " and we found a grey-haired man, who mumbled, and looked at his feet ") ; but gradually my tongue loosened, and I ended in New York in a blaze, not perhaps of glory, but at any rate of kindly approval.

My chief impression of present-day America, however, is that a spiritual awakening has begun, a questioning of the materialistic bases of civilization, a yearning for mysticism. The slump, no doubt, is responsible for this new thoughtfulness : we in Europe have as yet little idea how poor the people of America are.

For years the prairie farms have been exhausted by careless methods, and now they are so heavily mortgaged that their owners cannot pay interest and taxation. Forty per cent. of the agricultural area west of the Mississipi is bankrupt. Everywhere the farmers are in an ugly mood. Nor are the urban populations content. Much is being done for them (and very little for the farmers), but banks are still failing and factories are running at half and quarter-time. In Chicago, rates have not been paid for two years the Public Library has not bought a new book since July, 1981, and the school teachers have not received their salaries for three months : some sort of civic collapse seems inevitable. In Los Angeles there are 50,000 homeless and unemployed, and real estate values have slumped so vertiginously that mortgages which were considered safe in 1929 are now wild-cat speculations. It is the same'everywhere. Twelve to thirteen million unemployed is a staggering burden for any country, and in America the people are accustomed to good standards and great opportunities in life. To-day the opportunities have vanished : the last great West has been exploited : the Aryan people have accomplished their final migration : there is no new land for them to break, and nowhere to go except into the cold unfriendly waters of the Pacific Ocean.

But it is not true (as I have heard said) that " the Americans are squealing about the hard times." They are surprised, stunned even, but not squealing. "Several of my friends have gone broke this year," a friend told me ; " and it is queer how anxious they arc while waiting for the crash to come and how happy they are when they know they are ruined! It's the uncertainty that gives them the jitters. When the worst comes, that's that." He did not speak without personal ex- perience. He had made and lost a fortune; and now he was close to the rocks again, although he still kept a couple of hunters. " The family may have to eat them one day," he said, " but meanwhile they give us health and happiness."

When I arrived at Jacksonville, Illinois, to address the college for young ladies there, I thought I detected a certain malaise in the city, and the lecture committee told me that they did not expect many of the towns- people to come, owing to the depression. It was only after my talk that I discovered that four days previously the chief bank in Jacksonville had closed its doors. The President and Vice-president were even then under lock

and key, charged with hypothecating funds which they did not possess. Meanwhile the depositors could not get their money. No wages were being paid. Business was at a standstill. At ten o'clock that night I had to drive thirty miles to make a train connexion at Springfield.

The chauffeur who took me there had volunteered to make the journey at three dollars less than the standard rate. I asked him why he was taking me so cheaply ?

His answer was that he could not get any money from

the bank, and that he was in need of cash. In fact, he was ruined, but lie whistled and sang as if he hadn't a

care in the world. That is typical of the spirit in which Americans are taking the slump, and it is a thoroughly Nordic way of facing trouble. The present depression has brought out the best qualities in the American people. As for myself, I never met, in any country, at any time, with so much goodwill towards England.