(6) That having by sheer accident or because of the care and forethought, which Providence has for fools, become possessed of a President who is a man among men and a ninety horse-power statesman with direct drive on all speeds, they allow him to be handicapped by a spectacular gang of undesirable citizens.
(7) That they consider no function, public or private, sacred or profane, to be complete without a newspaper correspondent, a lime-light photographer, and a sky-sign contractor.
(8) That willingly and of their own unfettered volition they have thrown back to the customs of their aboriginal ancestors in the matter of diet, which diet is rapidly reducing them morally, physically and intellectually to the level of primordial protoplasms.
(9) That they are the only nation who in civilised times rate noise above all else, save dollars, and who in their theatres acclaim as the greatest actor or play the one that in the shortest time makes the greatest uproar for the smallest reason.
(10) That they have resolved their sports and pastimes into business propositions in which the avowed aim and object of every competitor is the utter destruction of his opponent by any means that can be found, devised or conceived.
(11) That they are the only nation who in civilised times have been happy and content to sink their individuality in an all pervading and evil smelling atmosphere of hog and by-products.
The foregoing are merely a few of the main counts in the indictment. Behind every one of them lies a history of gaiety, graft, dyspepsia, bossism, fakery, flamboyancy, hysteria, vociferation brain storms and dementia Americana of the most disconcerting and entertaining kind. The details are on record, and I do not propose to harrow the reader’s feelings with examples of them. I shall suggest simply that it is questionable whether any other known race of men, white or black, has managed to pack into three centuries such a volume of unthinkable excitement and picturesque iniquity as can be rightfully and without exaggeration laid at the door of these abounding Americans.
A certain Western city has been described by a friendly visitor as “hell with the lid off.” For the greater part of her existence as a nation that description might with justice have been applied to all America, and I am by no means sure that it is not still applicable. It would seem that under the inspiring ægis of the much-vaunted American constitution the whole of the vices of civilised man have become grossly and incredibly intensified. For unscrupulousness, insincerity, cynicism, and the pure worship of mammon the United States stands without rival among the nations to-day.
I believe the man lied who said there is not an institution in the country—political, social, economic or even religious—that is not based on a species of ingrained rottenness and not infested with the worm of corruption and the scrawl of scandal. But there is no national aspiration that does not have at the back of it the root idea that the sole duty of an American man is to get rich and to get rich quick. There are few standards of American life that are not gold standards and few kinds of American effort that are not directed towards the rapid acquisition of other people’s money.