What New York Thinks Of Us
efforts to convince their "THIS is what New York was talking about yesterday. And will be talking about to-day.
LONDON HAS THIRD RAID microcosm of America, briefly defences, then they frown and ALARM] the crowd on the pave-transfixed in "Times Square," New fret and ask questions neither you ment contracts as it' presses 'for- ward to read then expands again York, on an afternoon when, 3,000 nor anyone else can answer. Times Square, New York, is as it falls back and breaks into miles away, the capital of civili- where Broadway meets Forty groups to argue. Feople-are con- sation was being ravished by the Second Street. Americans callstantly joining the crowd and it the crossroads of the world. others constantly leaving.
where the
From the three cornered island
headlines run
:
in
bombs of an enemy as dark and evil as any that has ever stalked the earth. An hour earlier I had been at lunch with an American tion for carefulness and objec newspaper man of high reputa- tivity. "America at this moment, he had said, "is ninety per cent. confusion."
Here it was the dialectical,
America, at this moment, is listening feverishly. In news planes are hissed and pictures of reel theatres pictures of German
Americans destroyers Icaving
Boston for Britain are applauded: A drunk in the Bronx who shout- the groping of a group of Ameri-ed "I hope Hitler wins" had to cans meeting together by chance have police protection the other in "Times Square." The American evening. The two most popular people are reading their news- songs in the United States just papers and listening to their radios now are "God Bless America" and and the chaos of the news is "I Am An American," composi- flecting itself in their minds. You can discover easily enough that tions of doubtful musical merit most of the people you talk to have but of fiercely patriotic sentiment. a deeply implanted faith in the British. By the British they mean The town of Port Washington on not only the R.A,F. and the Bri-Long Island has ordered the tish Navy, but also every clerk American flag to be displayed' in A few minutes later an elderly and shopkeeper, every unsung bald-headed man
we'll be in it, Bud., We'll be in now is pitting his nerves against bill I got the other night in a said loudly, householder in every suburb who the streets every Saturday. The soon enough." Nobody said any the dark enemy.
own people that all is well with the Air Battle of Britain. It is possible, in- deed, to detect some slight retreat from the lyrical
One thing one noticed to-day "New York Times" was that there are. no women confidence of some weeks building 'stands you look up there. The men were of all kinds Broadway at the tens of thou-prosperous and poor, Jews and ago, when the Luftwaffe sands of winking signs and below Contiles, hatted and hatless men them, the cauldron of yellow taxis, with all manner of accents. You was being represented in restless crowds, cops, news dealers, could push in and listen to the
commissionaires and the German Press as ex-barkers. The pavement around the knots a
amusement arguments. In one of the thickest
red haired and tending its sway over Bri- "Times" building used to be rea-young man was telling an older sonably clear but now it is block-man what he thought. The older tain day and night "like ed on one side by a crowd of per-man kept interrupting and con- haps 150 men. This is because the tradicting. Neither of them had an avenging angel with "Times" is posting up bulletins much accurate information but fiery breath and flaming boards in and above its windows. the next group a workman
straight off the news tickers on both were shouting furiously. In sword." Nevertheless, the The "Times" has its famous elec- overalls was explaining why tric sign on the building and all France fell. ("Nobody in France Nazi radio is still claiming night letters spelling out late knew what the hell it was all that it is the Germans drilled insects. But the sign can- around like well
about"). who are dictating the not change fast enough now and so it is being supplemented by course of the air war over bulletins hastily written in capi- tals on strips of paper which are Britain, and that they pasted on the boards as soon as “can only shake their they are ready. heads" over the British assertion that in our own island we have the mastery of the air. It may be conceded, certainly, that the Germans, being the attackers, dictate.the time and place of the air battles in our skies, but since in daylight raids| they are invariably routed in disorder and with dis- The trouble with democracy at the present moment is (as we proportionately heavy losses, the element of know too well) that it hasn't been "dictation" in the matter working. It is economically out
When a new bulletin goes up BRITISH BOMB TANKER AND SUPPLY SHIP OFF NORWAY-
thing to that.
The fringe of one 'group would drift to the next group as a fresh argument began: This was
*
Manhattan restaurant had a patriotic slogan stamped across it. They say over and over again Rifle booths at country fairs now
"Hitler's up against something different now." But when the have faces of Hitler or little tin story of death and debris is cried | Nazi, parachutists to shoot at. from every headline and picture, when fires burn in London and
Berlin boasts of weakened British
Setting Democracy In
of order, it needs not only to be is neither here nor there.defended but corrected.
יי
Order
world' economy which lies in the solving of their own affairs. This There is a certain relief for is 'not identical, of course, with It is merely a piece of verbal bluff to console many Americans in turning from the speeding up of industry con- and deceive the credulous this stubborn problem that hassequent upon the threat of war, so long defed solution to the German public, and per-
more exhilarating issue of mili- haps to allay an incipient tary armament. Not that we like tendency to scepticism. A
war. or even the prepara- very different story, Weltion for it. But the necessity' may be sure, is being told being squarely laid upon us, the in the inner councils of resultant activity has stimulus. the German High Com-We must see to it that it is not mand, where Goering, diverting. For we are still con-
the
1
Conscription is in the air; couples are rushing off to get married. From all directions, from political platforms to pulpits the cry is "Rearm-get ready to de- fend America.”
Defend America 'where-and when? The question leads back in a circle from to-day's headlines to next week's and next month's. The anxious man in the street
chivalry, of inward nobility, of throughout America knows 'now
that everything his own future : unselfishness and duty." He de-and the future of the free world
depends on Britain. "Ninety per cent. confusion"-but there's the other ten per cent, which is out ahead of the American people of and may be able to see further.
Information available
at this. moment and judgment of the situation as it comes from Wash- ington can: fairly be summed 31p as the in this way harrowing stories from London have been nothing has happened yet that is either unexpected or decisive.
clares that there now sets in the final battle between. "Democracy between what and Caesarism," he calls the leading forces money-economics, and political or dictatorial power,
There is an almost beguiling No nation can justify its posi-quality in parts of these passages them, as tion solely on the basis of foreign as we move through policy. Were we to try this, we in the case of some of the pas- would be veering in a totalitarian sages of Adolf Hitler. But they pass on to an amazing -and an direction. Internal complications are famous for driving totali identical-finale. Or the true or
der of society as Spengler sees it, tarian States into heroics with
he writes: "Always it has
Invasion is not a certainty, not sacrificed truth and justice to only because the Nazis may be unable to prepare the ground ade- quately in England, but also be- cause the Nazis' own preparations must have been seriously disrupt- ed by the R.A.F.
who has been conducting fronted by grave issue of By Mary Burt Messer might and race.
respect to foreign Powers. The
Of
the campaign in person, “idle money, idle men." is confronted with the un- A recent speech of Wendell happy task of explaining willkie's has placed on a candle-
United States is a part of the. Such words should dispose of stick the illuminating comment on family of nations (if it can be confusion and the instincts away his failure.
the United States by Winston
called that at this hour), Its appeasement. As they are eluci On our side, even if we Churchill which points in this
every move bears a relation to dated at the present hour by the knew nothing else, it direction. We are reminded that the whole. But this does not logic of events, they bring our would be sufficient ans- one of the strongest possible con- deliver Americans from the obli-nation to its feet. Here is an wer to the Nazi boasts tributions to a cure of the in-gation of success at home. It order springing from a different,
dilemma would be rather lays emphasis upon it. that Hitler has not dared ternational
our own recovery. Arm we to renew the mass attacks must. Our immediate obliga- which were to be the pre- tions to neighbours must be fully lude to invasion. Actually met. But Americans cannot we know that our Air neglect the solid contribution to Force is stronger, both re- Jatively and absolutely,
The issue, of course, is more
an opposite, an anti-Christian premise, which must not be per- mitted to take over the jurisdice tion of the world.
But-so-long as the technique of terror fails to bring the British people to the point where they' would be willing to see the Gov- crnment sue for peace, invasión retains possible.
There is nothing to show that the Nazi air force is capable of the tremendous task it would have to perform the destruction of so many ports and landing fleks and the dislocation of so highly organised a war effort-before the British people would be within. measurable distance of such de- feat...
wards an ultimate super- United States. We wel-clves to the democratle order, and enterprise we are not afraid
with its maladies... These are of his big-business," subject to general bellef that, though
This Spengler thinking, which than a superficial one. There is a merges into Nazi 'thinking, leads challenge here with respect to in its "Caesarism” to the exalta-
If the Nazis should decide on than at any time before or as indicated by the an- the very character of democracy tion of one man,
itself. Spengler, in his Decline
invasion in a desperate effort to The reply of democracy is a force a decision quickly the odds during the battles which nouncement than one in of Western Civilisation," expliTM began in May, and that it seven in the Canadian Air citly sets forth some of the out-nt man too but he is to be on their success would appear now
found in every man. It is the to be against them. is steadily progressing to-Force is a citizen of the standing doubts attaching them man of alertness of into send What this boils down to is the - iority in quantity com-
a spur to reasonable rules of industrial menso destruction is to be expect their solution. Spengler is a traffic, But it is the man who ed, the Nazis are not going to be mensurate with its al come this news alike for worth considering as ready proven superiority the fighting mettle of sceptic on the subject of demo- draws lines essentially within able to crack Britain. The ox-
It is worth while fre- himself, who leadvance in occtation is that, the war wi which its forerunners in quently to listen to our intelli dustrially only so far he tho go on through the winter to the in quality.
the last war, afforded so gent opponents. Sometimes we tako others with him, it is the spring, Apart from many other splendid a testimony, and are able to glean from them the adventurer, not the gambler, the
very clue to victory. Adworker, not the labourer, or In By that time two important every capacity, behind every things may have happened. Ger- accretions to its strength, as a visible token of the
money
writes function the democratic citizen, many can have begun to show we have recently been sympathy of our friends Spengler (with the directness of acting with a kind of saving for the strain of ruling an ill-fed, able to welcome the for- from across the ocean in dive-bomber), "democracy be- your in the interest of the whole. unwilling continent and a too long mation of the Eagle Squa- our struggle to defend and comes its own destroyer." Men The practical, the technical solu inhibited nation, and Amorica can dron of volunteers from preserve the ideals of civ. are tired, to disgust of money- tions of our economic system, have emerged from a stage of con goes on to say, under these conditions, will be fusion into a stage of full realisa- salvation, from forthcoming. Democracy will hold tion that its best defence will be the United States, the pre- ilisation and liberty com-"They hope for
zomowhere...or.. other, for some 1ts own
will ultimately to throw its weight into the effort real thing of honour and i triumph,
to end the Nazi threat for over.
cursor of more to follow mon to us both.
Cracy.
"Through ::
economy," he
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