A QUESTION OF NATIONALITY

America has not yet completely conceded to the Soviet Republic her place in Europe as object of wonder and condemnation. The strange civilization of the New World, barbarous in its extreme mechanical advancement as well as in its primitivism, is still something of an enigma to the French. Recently a symposium in the Paris Figaro has endeavored to find what the attitude of the European public is on certain aspects of Yankee civilization and ascertain what should be done about it.

Answers to the Figaro's questionnaire included the inevitable tirade against robotism and the familiar query as to whether any generalizations are possible about a country which produces both Myron Herricks and Chicago gangsters. The most interesting thing about the discussion, however, was a point upon which no comment was made. American culture, in its obnoxious manifestations particularly, was treated as something on another continent, separated from Europe by a spiritual as well as by a physical ocean. The French were asked what could be done to combat the political and intellectual imperialism--of America. In that imperialism they implied all the objectionable features of a highly industrialized civilization.

Apparently Europeans find solace for their disgust at bill-boards, gasoline pumps, and other twentieth century appurtenances by calling them "American." The United States may originally have been responsible for some of these things, but the Old World received them with open arms. Foreigners of the second generation have to be accepted as Americans regardless of their good or bad qualities. It is almost time for Europeans to realize that their gasoline pumps are "of the second generation."