PROBLEMS AND PEOPLE 3

would be misleading, if not untrue. But they
certainly enjoy discussing them, both those they
have in common with the Old World, and those
that are peculiarly their own. This form of
recreation, which affords relief to so many of our
sorrows, is not, of course, confined to Americans.
But nowhere else will you find it so widely
practised and so eagerly pursued. Just as golf in
America is a popular game, and not as in England
a game for the well-to-do, so the discussion of
America's problems is, broadly speaking, every-
man's recreation and every woman's. Broach
any one of them to the first stranger you meet
—education, prohibition, colour, the " melting-
pot," crime, lawlessness, graft—even international
debts—and an interesting half-hour for both of
you is almost certain to follow. The other day I
talked with a negro here in Charleston who had
lost the savings of his life in a bank failure. The
poor fellow seemed in the depths of despair, but I
turned him on to the colour problem, about which
he had many wise things to say, and he departed
in the best of spirits. The same thing happened
with a wealthy man ruined by the slump, with
whom I travelled on the train: our problem
this time was international debts, to which he
attributed his downfall, and he informed me next
morning that he had had an excellent night. The
slump has caused intense suffering in America,
bait it has ftirnished a feast of problems to those
are partial to that kind of entertainment, as