How America Sees Herself
BY S. K. RATCLIFFE.
91IIE11E are people who complain of the sameness 1. of the American scene. I have never found it possible to share their opinion, being, on the contrary, more and more in agreement with the celebrated saying of H. L. Meneken that the United States is. the greatest show on earth, if only by reason of its incessant changes of mood. No one, I think, can deny that a conspicuous feature of contemporary America is the rapid spread of a spirit of self-criticism, and the adoption, by many younger writers and professional men, of a habit of ferocious assault upon the American political system and social tradition. In no country that I know can one find a body of criticism more merciless in tone than that which is now being poured out in the United States.
Perhaps the first thing to be said about the United States in 1932 is this, that more things have happened lately than during many years past to awaken the people to a sense of the gravity of their problems, and I hat as a consequence the country may be nearer to the formulation of a decisive national policy than at any time since the Civil War. Needless to say, we on this side would like to see the beginning of such policy in the contiguous realms of commerce and finance, and this cannot be long delayed. True, there is so far com- paratively little evidence that the American people are ready for a final settlement of the War Debts problem, but at least they arc fast shedding their illusions about the trade depression. The slump of 1929 fell with extreme suddenness. Nor was it the ordinary people alone who were surprised. The most influential group of American economists was caught in the thick of a demonstration that America had hit the high road to plenty. The conquest of poverty had actually begun. In the campaign of 1928 Mr. Hoover put himself at the head of this school, and, when the depth of the depression could no longer be gainsaid, the President was the most persistent of those who pro- claimed that a decisive upward turn must come in a few months. During the past two years this Cone philosophy has been excessively unpopular, and at this m Moment you may hear it denounced with anger and scorn all over the continent. There is no longer any pretence of hiding the grim facts of the industrial situa- tion.. The most cautious of Americans will admit that the total of the unemployed cannot .be less than ten millions ; and it is characteristic of present-day America that a defeatist mood is counterbalanced by an immense fund of sardonic humour expressed through all the agencies of platform and Press, stage and cinema.
This, of course, is the presidential year and the election campaign which opens next month ought, according to British notions, to comprise a contest of the highest political interest. But that is not at all what America is anticipating. Never within living memory have political questions counted for so little ; never has it been quite so hard as now to state the differences between Democrat and Republican. The modern American has no interest in those differences, for he is becoming aware that the vital problems of his country have nothing to do with the old game of the political parties.
Mr. Hoover's term of office has been known so far as an epoch of " fact-finding." And, as it happens, the Adndnistration's activity in this direction has been sup- plemented by an amazing series of revelations through senatorial action, through State and civic inquiry, and through the procedure of the criminal courts. The American citizen finds it impossible to keep pace
with the news. The Senate in Washington provides him with a bewildering analysis of American adventures in foreign investment and the scandalous extent of short-selling on the Stock Exchange. Chicago plunges into civic bankruptcy at the moment when it is compelled to cone to grips with its Al Capons. Ln New York the Tammany system is subject to one more investigation—this time of a character so ruthless and comprehensive that the name of Judge Seabury seems likely to be associated with the most extraordinary achievement of the kind on record in any land. The Seabury sword has struck down one city official after another, and it is now being brandished over the head of New York's most prominent comedian, Mayor Walker himself. It may be said that there is nothing new in all this, that even gang rule- and racketeering are old- established terrors, and that no amount of sensational exposure will enable the better elements of -America to regain control of city and State affairs. That, as we know, has been the general belief hitherto. It has for the most part been justified by the facts, and I, as a journalist. find it difficult to escape the conclusion that the American methods of exposure make in effect the strongest pro- tection for the crook and the public enemy. In the United States everything is in due time trumpeted from the housetops. The flow of disclosure is self-defeating. The daily papers publish it all, so that nobody can go through it and not one person in a thousand can tell how much has been proved. Add to this, as we must, the overpowering influence of the Press and the films in perpetuating the popular interest in crime and the extraordinary American tolerance of, and fondness for, a reckless crook, and we have a social condition, IL national problem, without parallel in the world.
Nevertheless, I should contend, " the ruling powers of this dark world " are beginning to yield before the advancing forces of a new generation. No modern country can stand an indefinite series of Wickersham reports and Seabury investigations, nor can any great city endure for many months the desperate experience of Chicago since the apotheosis and collapse of Mayor Bill Thompson ; while it seems fairly clear that the shocking farce of Al Capone—in gaol for non-payment of income tax while secure from prosecution for gang murder and arson—is playing its part in a movement of public purification. The " big shots " may cease in time to be the big news.
Nor, in this connexion, can one fail to take note of two new influences of very great significance—one general, the other most specific. The first is the economic blizzard, the unmistakable power for social cleanliness of hard times. The second is the Lindbergh tragedy, with its unprecedented appeal to the heart of the nation. The kidnapping remains a complete mystery. Nothing so far is known about it. SO stupendous has been the nfclame that few people are able to realize that no relevant fact has yet become known—that, for instance, there is no fragment of concrete evidence to connect the crime with the under- world. It is not impossible that the entire fabric of legend built up by police and Press, with the aid of the wretched go-betweens of New York and Virginia, may crumble into dust. But even so, the important result will remain, in an emotional arousal of the American conscience against conditions that breed and encourage certain kinds of social disease that are literally the most abominable known among men,
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