FIVE
The South Pacific Sailing Directory
67. I cannot say the world greeted the end of the North American continent with either rejoicing or regret. Relief, yes. When the news of the last demolition was given and it was clear the Grass was unable to bridge the gap, the imaginative could almost hear mankind emit a vast sigh. The world was saved, they could go about their business now, having written off a sixth of themselves.
I was reminded of Miss Francis' remark that if you cut off a man's leg you bestow upon him a crippled mentality. For approximately two centuries the United States had been a leg of the global body, a limb so constantly inflicted with growingpains it caused the other parts to writhe in sympathy. Now the member was cut off and everyone thought that with the troublesome appendage gone life would be pleasanter and simpler. Debtor nations expanded their chests when they remembered Uncle Shylock was no more. Industrial countries looked eagerly to enlarge their markets in those places where Americans formerly sold goods. Small states whose inhabitants were occasionally addicted to carrying off tourists and holding them for ransom now felt they could dispense with those foreign undersecretaries whose sole business it had been to write diplomatic notes of apology.
But it was a crippled world and the lost leg still twitched spectrally. I don't think I speak now as a native of the United States, for with my international interests I believe I have become completely a cosmopolitan, but for everyone, Englishman, Italian, Afrikander or citizen of Liberia. The disappearance of America created a revolution in their lives, a change perhaps not immediately apparent, but eventually to be recognized by all.
It was the trivial things we Americans had taken for granted as part of our daily lives and taught the rest of the world to appreciate which were most quickly missed. The substitution of English, Turkish, Egyptian or Russian cigarettes for good old Camels or Luckies; the impossibility of buying a bottle of cocacola at any price; the disappearance of the solacing wad of chewinggum; the pulsing downbeat of a hot band—these were the first things whose loss was noticed.
For a long time I had been too busy to attend movingpictures, except rarely, but a man—especially a man with much on his mind—needs relaxation and I would not choose the foreign movies with their morbid emphasis on problems and crime and sex in preference to the cleancut American product which always satisfied the nobler feelings by showing the reward of the honest, the downfall of evildoers and the purity of love and motherhood. Art is all very well, but need it be sordid?
As I told George Thario, I am no philistine; I think the Parthenon and the Taj Mahal are lovely buildings, but I would not care to have an office in either of them—give me Radio City. I don't mind the highbrow programs the British Broadcasting Corporation put on; I myself am quite capable of understanding and enjoying them, but I imagine there are thousands of housewives who would prefer a good serial to bring romance into their lives. I don't object to a commercial world in which competitors go through the formality of pretending to be scrupulously fair in talking about each others' products, but I must admit I missed the good old American slapdash advertising which yelled, Buy my deodorant or youll stink; wash your mouth with my antiseptic or youll lose your job; brush your teeth with my dentifrice or no one will kiss you; powder your face with my leadarsenate or youll keep your maidenhead. I would give a lot of money to hear a singing commercial once more or watch the neon lights north of Times Square urge me to buy something for which I have no possible use. Living within your income is fine, but the world lacks the goods youd have bought on the installmentplan; getting what you need is sound policy, but how many lives were lightened by the young men working their way through college, or the fullerbrushman?
I think there was a subconscious realization of this which came gradually to the top. In the beginning the almost universal opinion was that the loss of the aching limb was for the better. I have heard socalled cultured foreigners discuss the matter in my presence, doubtless unaware I was an American. No more tourists, they gloated, to stand with their backs to the Temple of Heaven in Pekin and explain the superior construction of the Masonic Hall at Cedar Rapids; no more visitors to the champagne caves at Rheims to inquire where they could get a shot of real bourbon; no more music lovers at Salzburg or Glyndebourne to regret audibly the lack of a peppy swingtune; no more gourmets in Vienna demanding thick steaks, rare and smothered in onions.