AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL

Guspidors, adult-infantilism, snails women and monocles all enter into Mr. Ernest Boyd's discussion of the American panorama, in the Century magazine. Mr. Boyd belongs to that ever increasing group of radicals who are inclined to think that, all things being considered--including Europe, this country is not entirely devoid of merit. Others may not like us, in fact he says, "Columbus, I suppose, was one of the few foreigners who were agreeably surprised when they discovered America". But foreigners are a luxury which we may, if it he necessary, omit. And so are the continental ex-patriates a type to which Mr. Boyd devotes the major part of his article.

As he wisely remarks, Prohibition never seems so puerile and stringent as when one sits outside of a Parisian care thinking of the homeland. Those who are forced to endure it weather the storm amiably enough, probably never realizing their utter contemptibility. Likewise is the case with that popular being--the moron. "A moron in Europe is just a moron; to America he is something more." To be exact he is a movement, a symbol, a danger, a type he is anything but an individual. This tendency of Americans to make shibboleths of casual remarks of foreigners and men without countries is responsible, thinks Mr. Boyd, for the inferiority complex which we are now suffering. Nor will ruminating on the subject make us less inferior.

These defenders of national vanity, such as Mr. Boyd, are cheering souls. But for them the average citizen might be tempted to seek the river and thus rid himself of it all. Having psycho-analyzed its condition, mental and economic, for the last decade, the nation may now turn to the business of convalescing from its shame. To be an American does not always mean to be a boorish wretch,, unconscious of the higher things in life. Without degenerating into flagwaving one may easily endure a comparison of the United States with its most caustic critics.