7o MY AMERICAN FRIENDS

" The contradictories of depth and of breadth
were indeed reconciled in the Oxford training."

The Rhodes Scholars are indeed but a small
fraction of the American intelligentsia; but they
represent it at a high and fairly even level; they
represent it, moreover, at the stage of youth. If
a group had to be formed of the .most promising
young men the country produces it would be hard
to form a more promising group than they. Even,
therefore, if it stood alone as an instance of absten-
tion from the political career on the part of highly
educated men it would possess considerable
significance. But it does not stand alone.

The English traveller whose good fortune it is
to make contacts with the finer types of American
men and women, whom he will find without
difficulty in any city great or small where he
happens to be staying, cannot fail to be struck by
their attitude towards national politics and to the
career of the politician. It varies from the
negatives of indifference and aloofness, to the
positives of hatred and contempt. He will find
that these fine people, though staunchly believing
in the principles of their constitution and loyal
admirers of Washington and Lincoln, have little
respect for those who represent the nation in
Congress and will often speak of that body with
sorrow, and sometimes with indignation, as mis-
representing America before the eyes of the
world. They will admit that the elements of the
national life represented by Congress are real and