We want you to know this. To know is to understand.
II. First Impressions
Meanwhile, let us ask for your impressions of our country. It is only fair that we should be allowed to do this, for you know what happens to visitors in the United States when the reporters get their hooks into them.
So far as I have been able to gather, your impressions amount to something like this:
There is no ice-water, no ice-cream, no soda-fountains, no pie. It is hard to get the old familiar eats in our restaurants.
Our cities are planned in such a way that it is impossible to get to any place without a map and compass.
Our traffic all keeps to the wrong side of the street.
Our public buildings are too low.
There are hardly any street-car lines in London.
Our railroad cars are like boxes, and our locomotives are the smallest things on earth.