My Impressions of America Part 5

I asked my neighbour what the statue was which commanded such a wonderful view near the Houses of Parliament. He said it was "Sir Galahad," and had been erected in memory of a deed of heroism, and had no other inscription upon it. He told me a young man called Henry Albert Harper was skating with a friend when he observed a couple in front of him disappear into the river at a sudden break in the ice. He sent his companion to the sh.o.r.e for help, and lying down, stretched out his walking stick to see if the lady in the water, or her friend, could catch hold of it. Seeing that this was impossible, as they neither of them could reach it, he rose to his feet and took off his coat. The other skaters implored him not to attempt to rescue them as it meant certain death.

"What else can I do?" said young Harper, and plunged into the icy current. Their dead bodies were found the next morning.

Hearing that Mr. MacKenzie King had written a memoir of Harper--who had been his greatest friend--I begged him to give me a copy of it. He sent it to me with his autograph in it, and asked me to sign his volume of my own autobiography. I was truly sorry to say good-bye to the Canadian Premier.

We returned to Montreal the next morning where I found my room a garden of flowers given to me by Mrs. Reed, Mrs. Lawford and Lady Drummond. I addressed a ballroom that night full of empty chairs and chandeliers, but was consoled by my flowers, and the ladies with whom I afterwards went to supper; and I hope and think I have made lasting friends.h.i.+ps with Mrs. Hayter Reed and Mrs. Lawford.

Mrs. Reed told me that the little son of friends of hers who had always refused to meet a Jew, had disconcerted them, one day, by saying in a reproachful voice,

"Mother, you never told me Jesus Christ was a Jew."

Seeing a distressed expression upon his mother's face, he added consolingly: "But it doesn't matter, since G.o.d was a Presbyterian."

Lying awake that night, I wondered what I would have felt had I married a man who had consented to be either Governor General of Canada or Viceroy of India. I can imagine no career, excepting perhaps that of a minor royalty, that I would have minded as much. Not all the great functions, personal prestige, wonderful scenery, pig-sticking in the East, or skating in the Dominion, would make up to me for friends.h.i.+ps without intimacy, and grandeur without gaiety. I came to the conclusion that only men of a certain kind of vanity and ambition, or animated by the highest sense of public duty could ever be found to fill these honourable positions.

X: REFLECTIONS AT LARGE

REFLECTIONS AT LARGE

DRAWBACKS OF AMERICAN JOURNALISM--SENSATIONAL HEADLINES; FEAR OF THE PRESS--CONTROVERSY ON PROHIBITION WITH LORD LEE--IMPRESSIONS OF U. S. SENATE

We breakfasted at 5.30 a.m. the next morning and arrived at New York at ten that night, to be greeted by a room full of press men. When the female reporters begin by saying to me:

"What, Mrs. Asquith, do you think, with your close acquaintance with the many trends of the working of a woman's mind, of the modern probability etc., etc.," I am reminded of Sir Walter Raleigh's excellent phrase, "Stumbling upwards into vacuity."

One of these eager ladies, checking her more intelligent male companions, said:

"Tell me, Mrs. Asquith, is it not true that you are indifferent to the opinion of any living person and enjoy saying smart and daring things?"

I replied:

"Indeed no! I leave that to you."

I told them about MacKenzie King, of whom they had never heard, and what Mr. Horton and I had observed in our travels of the abominable consequences of Prohibition. I said it was a measure of such exaggerated interference with private liberty that no truthful person could call America a free country.

On my arrival I found many letters from England on the political crisis; and if I can judge at such a distance, the Coalition seems doomed.

Believing as I always have in party government as the best solution for democracy, I think Sir George Younger deserves a Victoria Cross, and it will be interesting to see how many of the timid Conservatives will regain sufficient courage to follow him. The mischief that is being made between my husband and Lord Grey leaves me cold.

Their friends.h.i.+p is not of a kind to be easily severed, and the House of Lords and the House of Commons are separate inst.i.tutions.

Trammelled as I have always been by an unfortunate combination of truthfulness and impatience, and exhausted by the journey of eighteen hours, I was afraid I had been neither genial nor informing to the reporters upon my arrival in New York, but on looking at the papers next morning I found they had treated me with friendliness and courtesy.

Journalism over here is not only an obsession but a drawback that cannot be over-rated. Politicians are frightened of the press, and in the same way as bull-fighting has a brutalising effect upon Spain (of which she is unconscious), headlines of murder, rape, and rubbish, excite and demoralise the American public.

I would like to make it clear that it is not the reporters but the owners of the papers that should be censured. With the exception of a few garrulous and gus.h.i.+ng geese, who think it smart to ask pert and meaningless questions, the male reporters that I have met have not only been serious and intelligent, but men with whom I have discussed literature, politics and religion; but it would not pay their editors, I presume, to publish conversations of this character. On the front page of even the best newspapers, paragraph after paragraph is taken up by descriptions in poor English of devastating trivialities. Violent and ignorant young men, or "flappers"--in whom the public here seem to take an unnatural interest--might easily suppose that their best chance of success in life lay in creating a sensation. Of what use can it be to create a sensation? Who profits by it? What influence can this sort of thing have upon the morals of a great and vital nation? If Christ with His warnings against worldliness were to come down to-day, after giving Him one hearing the crowd would not crucify Him, they would shoot Him at sight.

You have only to examine the newspaper comments upon Abraham Lincoln to see that even in those days abuse and misrepresentation were popular. He was persecuted and vilified every day of his life; but, like my husband, he was press-proof.

If editors would only realise it, following public opinion instead of guiding it is ultimately dull, and makes monotonous reading.

In England we are trying to raise our journalistic standards to the level of the United States, but, without claiming undue superiority, I do not think we shall succeed. There is enough common sense among our people to mitigate against any such misfortune, and we have only to recall the general election of 1905-6, when every morning paper in London, except the _Daily News_, was against us, to realise the impotence of the press.

Fear is as unproductive as it is contemptible, and until some big man has the courage to break the power of the press in America, progress will always go beyond civilisation.

I motored in evening dress for three hours to a suburb of New York. I am so tired of the abominable trains that an aeroplane or a perambulator would be a relief, and the road to Montclair was full of interest. The sky was throbbing with carmine and gold, and the varying lights of green and white, reflected in a river sentinelled on either side by high black buildings and pointed towers, left an impression on me of Whistler-like beauty.

We dined with excited and hospitable people and I lectured to an enthusiastic audience. I do not know how it is with professional speakers, but with the amateur the chairman and the audience make the speech. The Rev. Swan Wiers introduced me in an address of eloquence for which I thanked him warmly.

I arrived in Providence next day to be interviewed by three young ladies. After the usual questions upon Princess Mary's underwear and the "flappers," one of them said she had come to ask me about England's greatest man. I told her we had so many that I would be grateful if she could indicate the one she meant.

"Will you tell me who your great men are?" she answered.

"Well," I said, "we have Hardy, Kipling, Lord Morley, Lord Grey, Lord Buckmaster, and Mr. Balfour."

"Oh, no!" she replied, "I want to hear all about Lloyd George."

"I fear you will have to read about him yourself," I said, "and if you can wade through the daily columns of films, flappers, murders and headlines, over here, to our anonymous gossip about Downing Street in my country, you may discover what you want to know."

The other ladies intervened when she retorted:

"Then you refuse to tell me?" and as--the electric light having gone out all over the hotel--we were squinting at a single candle, I thought it as well to put an end to their intelligent questions.

The Providence audience consisted mostly of empty chairs, but it was an enormous hall and when the lecture was over a few of the five hundred listeners came up to ask me to sign my name in various alb.u.ms and on slips of paper. They said:

"You have given us such a wonderful lecture to-night that you must come back here." To which I replied smilingly:

"Never in this world! To speak for an hour and fifteen minutes to people who never clap is like hitting one's head against a wall." At which one of the ladies said:

"You are quite right, Mrs. Asquith, there is great apathy and lack of manners in Providence."

"Why should you clap," I said, "if you are not interested?" At this they all protested.

"We were afraid of missing a word of what we were enjoying," said one charming woman, to which I replied:

"I would have stood as still as a statue if one of you had thought of cheering me!"

We took the midnight train to New York where we arrived at six the next morning, and I felt that I was returning home.

On March 8, the _New York Times_ published on its front page:

"LORD LEE DEFENDS AMERICAN YOUNG WOMEN

"Mrs. Asquith's Charges Cruel, Ludicrous, and Untrue!"