The Project Gutenberg EBook of What I Saw in America, by G. K. Chesterton

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: What I Saw in America

Author: G. K. Chesterton

Release Date: November 13, 2008 [EBook #27250]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHAT I SAW IN AMERICA ***

Produced by Irma Spehar, Martin Pettit and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)

WHAT I SAW IN AMERICA

BY

G. K. CHESTERTON

HODDER AND STOUGHTON

LIMITED LONDON

MCMXXII

Printed in Great Britain by T. and A. CONSTABLE LTD. at the Edinburgh
University Press

_Contents_

PAGE

WHAT IS AMERICA? 1

A MEDITATION IN A NEW YORK HOTEL 19

A MEDITATION IN BROADWAY 33

IRISH AND OTHER INTERVIEWERS 47

SOME AMERICAN CITIES 63

IN THE AMERICAN COUNTRY 80

THE AMERICAN BUSINESS MAN 97

PRESIDENTS AND PROBLEMS 121

PROHIBITION IN FACT AND FANCY 145

FADS AND PUBLIC OPINION 163

THE EXTRAORDINARY AMERICAN 182

THE REPUBLICAN IN THE RUINS 195

IS THE ATLANTIC NARROWING? 208

LINCOLN AND LOST CAUSES 222

WELLS AND THE WORLD STATE 235

A NEW MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT 253

THE SPIRIT OF AMERICA 267

THE SPIRIT OF ENGLAND 281

THE FUTURE OF DEMOCRACY 295

_What is America?_

I have never managed to lose my old conviction that travel narrows the
mind. At least a man must make a double effort of moral humility and
imaginative energy to prevent it from narrowing his mind. Indeed there
is something touching and even tragic about the thought of the
thoughtless tourist, who might have stayed at home loving Laplanders,
embracing Chinamen, and clasping Patagonians to his heart in Hampstead
or Surbiton, but for his blind and suicidal impulse to go and see what
they looked like. This is not meant for nonsense; still less is it meant
for