MEETS AN INTERESTING REPORTER—COMPLIMENTS FROM DR. HOLLAND—PULLMAN CAR INCONVENIENCES—MARGOT SEES HER FIRST FLAPPER
AFTER travelling all night in a train that would not be tolerated for a day in England, we jolted into Pittsburgh at 6.30 a.m. on the morning of the 23rd. Reporters and photographers waited in the sitting room to see me after breakfast and, giddy from the journey, I put my feet upon a sofa and awaited their intelligent questions.
I spoke to three women and one man. The women asked me if I did not think they were advancing rapidly as a nation; I answered that no doubt interest in international politics was making them less provincial, and with their vitality, intelligence, and resources, their country was bound to exercise enormous political influence in the future, if it was not already doing so. I observed the male reporter demurred to this; he said that the men of ideas and captains of industry were fighting each other all the time, and that the American press pandered to the public taste by keeping them in ignorance of the truth. The ladies challenged this and, addressing him as "Bruce," asked if he thought they did not revere their great men and all that was worth while; adding that they were a young and free nation and, if anything, going far too fast.
Appealing to me, I felt obliged to say I thought they were the most genuine and hospitable of people, but that in spite of being always in a hurry I had found them slow; nor could I honestly say I thought them a free nation, I was heartily supported by the solitary man, who asked the ladies where they had observed either the great men, or the reverence; he said that materialism was sapping the soul of America, that their men of intellect were choked out, and in an aside to me in French, while the photographers were taking flash-lights, begged me to let him stay on after the ladies had departed. I assented, and when the oft repeated enquiry as to what I thought of "flappers" came up, I listened with absent mind and without committing myself to a subject that, while disturbing to the morals of the female questioners, bores me to such an extent that I almost scream when it is mentioned.
After the ladies had gone Mr. Horton returned with "Bruce." He was the most interesting reporter that I have met up till now.
He said he did not know what had happened to the spirit of his fellow-countrymen. Whether it was from temporary restlessness—following the chaos of present conditions—or from a native and ingrained lack of reflection, but that jazz, hustle and headlines were killing the soul of the American people.
"There is a perpetual antagonism between the machine, the press, the money makers, and those who are groping in the darkness to be free. When they see the Light, and know the Truth, it will be as bad over here as it is in Russia to-day, and, Mrs. Asquith," he added, "why should this be? We have men of ideas, and are young and keen; why must what is fine be inarticulate? You won't believe me, but in this very hotel I heard one man say to another:
"'I never read a line that is not going to profit me in commerce.'
"Imagine, after these five years of anguish all over the world, that such a thing could be said! I'm a poor man, never likely to arrive, but I would rather starve than say a thing like that."
"Have you read 'If Winter Comes'?" I asked.