Little Golden America

Of course, all the talk we had heard about three men switching on the current and that not one of them knows which of them actually is responsible for the execution proved to be an invention. No, it is all much simpler. The man switches on the current himself and knows all that happens, and fears only one thing—that competitors may take this profitable work away from him.

From the room where the execution is carried out a door leads to the morgue, and beyond that is a very quiet room filled to the ceiling with simple wooden coffins.

"The coffins are made right here in prison by the prisoners them-selves," our guide informed us.

Well, we thought we had seen enough! It was time to go!

Suddenly Mr. Adams asked to be allowed to sit in the electric chair, so that he might experience the sensation of a man condemned to death.

"No, no, gentlemen!" he muttered. "It will not take very long."

He settled himself firmly on the spacious seat and looked at us triumphantly. The usual procedure was being carried out on him. He was strapped to the back of the chair with a wide leather belt, his legs were pressed with bracelets against the oaken chair legs, his hands were tied to the arm rests. Again these accursed arm rests! They did not put the helmet on Mr. Adams, but he begged them so that they finally attached the end of the electric co

Before departing from Sing Sing we went into the church where at the time a motion-picture performance was going on. Fifteen hundred prisoners were looking at a picture entitled Doctor Socrates. Here we saw the laudable effort of the administration to provide the imprisoned men with the very latest motion picture. As a matter of fact, outside the prison Doctor Socrates was being exhibited that very day in the city of Ossining. What utterly amazed us, however, was the fact that the picture portrayed the life of bandits, and to show it to the prisoners was tantamount to teasing an alcoholic with a vision of a bottle of vodka.

But it was already late. We thanked the administration for a pleasant visit, the lion's cage opened, and we went away. After sitting in the electric chair, Mr. Adams suddenly became melancholy; he was silent all the way back.

Returning, we saw a truck that had run off the road. Its rear part was entirely off. A crowd was discussing the accident. Another crowd, much larger, was listening to an orator who was talking about that day's election. Here all the automobiles were carrying election stickers on their rear windows. Farther on, in the groves and forests flared the mad autumn.

In the evening we went with Dos Passes to look at the happiness of a New York counter-jumper. It was seven o'clock. A marquee the size of half a house was alight over the entrance of the Hollywood Restaurant. Young men in semi-military uniform, customary among hotel, restaurant, and theatre servants, were skilfully pushing people in. In the lobby hung photographs of naked girls pining with love for the populace.

As in all restaurants where it is customary to dance, the centre of the Hollywood was occupied by a longish platform, the floor of which was no more polished than the arm rests of the electric chair. On the sides of this platform and rising somewhat above it were the tables. Over all rose the tumultuous jazz.

Jazz may be disliked, especially in America, where it is impossible to hide from it. But, generally speaking, American jazz is well played. The jazz of the Hollywood Restaurant presented an amazingly well-composed eccentric musical intricacy altogether pleasant to the ear.

When plates of rather uninteresting and in no way inspiring American soup stood before us, from behind the orchestra suddenly ran out girls half naked, three-quarters naked, and nine-tenths naked. They began to dance zealously on their floor space, their feathers dipping occasionally into plates of soup or jars of mustard.

It must have been thus, no doubt, that the ruthless fighters of Mohammed imagined their paradise—food on the table, a warm place, and houris performing their ancient tasks.

Later the girls ran out again a number of times: in the interval between the first and the second course, before coffee, and during coffee. The proprietor of the Hollywood would not let them be idle.

This joining of primitive American cooking with the passion of service somewhat upset us.

The restaurant was full of people. The di

The faces of some of the dancers were stupid, others were pathetic, still others were cruel, but all were equally weary.

Three blocks away from the restaurant a black poodle with gay eyes was watching Dos Passos' old machine.

We parted. We had become saddened by New York's happiness.

"Good-bye, until Moscow," said the nice Dos.

"Good-bye, until Moscow," we replied.

8 A New York Arena

THE MEMBERS of the Dutch Treat Club meet every Tuesday in a white salon of the New York Hotel Ambassador.

The very name of the club gives a precise conception of the rights and duties of its members. Everyone pays for himself. On this powerful economic basis quite a number of journalists and writers joined together. Yet there is an exception. Guests of honour do not pay. But they are obliged to deliver an amusing speech. It does not matter what the subject is, so long as the speech is amusing and brief. If it turns out not to be fu

In reward for his speech the guest receives a light lunch and a large plaster-of-Paris medal of the club on which is portrayed a reveller, in a crushed top-hat, who has fallen asleep under the club's initials.

While all applaud, the medal is hung around the neck of the guest, and all quickly depart. Tuesday is a business day. All the members of the Dutch Treat Club are business people. At the stroke of two they are already sitting in their offices and doing business. They advance culture or simply make money.

At such a gathering we met the manager of Madison Square Garden, the largest New York arena, where boxing matches of importance are held, where the very biggest meetings and the very biggest of everything take place.

On this particular Tuesday the guests were ourselves, the newly arrived Soviet authors, a famous American motion-picture actor, and the manager of Madison Square Garden whom we have just mentioned.

We prepared a speech, emphasizing chiefly not its humour but its brevity, and we attained the latter completely. The speech was translated into English and one of us, in no way embarrassed by the fact that he found himself in such a large gathering of experts of the English language, read it from a sheet of paper.

Here it is:

"Mr. Chairman, Gentlemen:

"We have come on a great journey from Moscow to see America. Besides New York we have had time to be in Washington and in Hartford. After living a month in New York we felt the pangs of love for your great and purely American city.

" Suddenly we were doused with cold water.

"' New York is not America,' we were told by our New York friends. 'New York is only the bridge between Europe and America. You are still on the bridge.'