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From Labor Action, Vol. 13 No. 45, 7 November 1949, p. 3.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
Since we ourselves often have harsh words to say about fake “Americanism” and the seamy side of American life, and since we do not support American capitalism as against Russian totalitarianism, Labor Action feels qualified to present the following for the 1949 award of the Westbrook Pegler Prize for Stupid Gutter Journalism.
These representative excerpts are from an article entitled Americanism by Ilya Ehrenburg in the Cominform organ, September 16. Among other things the English is guaranteed to be an exact reproduction of the text of the English edition of this Russian version of the Peglerites:
“At the words ‘American way of life,’ there comes to mind the peculiar but hardly attractive scenes of American life: towns which look exactly alike, people always in a hurry, drug stores with their food counters, tawdry gilt and glitter, dirt, stuffiness, ‘coca cola’ adverts, and the ideal laxative taken by Romeo and Juliet on the other side of the ocean to maintain spiritual balance ...
“A questionnaire circulated recently among students in Wisconsin University asking what interested them most from studies, elicited answers like these: Sport because it is an honest business while the mental sphere is just plain humbug; Whiskey, good Scotch whiskey; Films with women vampires; Girl students only if there’s whiskey about; Racing cars; How to make three hundred thousand dollars in three years; Absolutely nothing ...
“In the Readers Digest the Americanist reads the old, old story, of how John married Mary and Jenny married Bill, how John made two hundred thousand dollars on potash, how Bill murdered John and how Jenny, after a Negro ‘tried to rape her,’ caught a ‘Red’ spy and bought a lovely villa in Florida.
“Real love is alien to the Americanist: he has no imagination. He repeats the radio advice of an expert on affairs of the heart. If the girl hesitates, the Americanist applies to the ‘Jealousy’ office where, for fifty dollars, he hires a beauty whose job, as alleged rival, is to make the girl jealous. Everything is mechanised: there is no place for thought, or sentiment ...
“Where is their individuality? Where are their thoughts and sentiments? They go to idiotic films and are dazzled. They gulp five whiskies and get into a car with somebody else’s wife. They listen to Mr. Acheson and to any other charlatan who advertises laxatives. They read only ‘best sellers.’ They are all alike. This is no human society, it is a herd of milling millions ...
“Americanism personifies vulgarity and arrogance, robots and chewing gum, fornication in an automobile and a Negro soaked in petrol; supermen who crush skulls, frame-up of Communists, hypocrisy and savagery, talk of peace and the atom bomb; it is greed, falsehood and fear ...”
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