THE NEW ICONOCLAST

The desire of stifiled young intellectuals to rise and depart for Europe, where culture and liberty are rife finds no echo from Mr. Robert H. Lowrie. "Is America so bad, after all?" he asks, in an article in the April Century Magazine, and happily finds that it isn't. To people who shudder at the somewhat quixotic actions of the American Legion, or gnash their teeth in impotent rage over book censorship, nothing could be more encouraging.

Mr. Lowrie heartlessly destroys the long-cherished belief that Europe excels America in wide dissemination of culture, in unrestrained individualism, and in tolerance. Centuries of enforced hallelujahs to a reigning caste have broken down any respect for individual merit, he says, and goes on heretically: "There is no taboo among us, however silly, that cannot be matched by an equally senseless one characteristic of European castes." Lest the minions of enraged ship-owners should rush incontinently upon him, however, Mr. Lowrie hastens to add that he is not discouraging in the least the desire to see the beauties of Europe; all he wants to prove is that America has as much culture per square inch as any other country.

One cannot too much rejoice in this new-found champion. Under the impetus furnished by Mr. Lowrie, Pittsburgh will undoubtedly dispel its cloud and become the aesthetic center of the country. Perhaps strong-minded school teachers, nurtured in the best traditions of Kalamasas, will interpret much-discussed passages in Babelais, and the Chicago school of literary self-explorers become more than stock-yard rimesters. Culture, liberty, and individualism have at last come to their predestined habitat.