Shopper's Report
Burma's gentle, shrewd Premier U Nu, who has been touring the world's capitals from Peking to Washington like a kind of international comparison shopper, faced newsmen on his own home ground last week and reported a neutralist's findings on the U.S.
India's Nehru, said a newsman, had declared that Americans are "uncouth." Did he agree? U Nu dissented gently: "I have never been slapped on the back before by anyone in Burma except my children," he conceded, "but if I was sometimes treated with unseemly familiarity by backslapping Americans, I soon realized that it was not rudeness but friendliness that prompted their action.
In America I have also seen the President being practically ordered around by press photographers." U Nu presented his own analysis of Americans: "They are industrious in the extreme, whether they work in factories or on farms; they are luxury-loving; they are generous to a fault; and they are freedom-loving to the extent that they are willing to lay down their lives."
U Nu went on to expand on his points: Industry. "Conditions in America are very advanced and none can reach, let alone surpass, the progress in that country," said onetime Marxist U Nu. He cited examples. He had been skeptical that Ford could put a car together in two minutes, but while he watched, Ford workmen put one together in 58 seconds. In Knoxville, Tenn., a waiter in a small hotel told him he owned two cars (one for himself and one for his wife) and earned as much money as the Premier.
Luxury. "I would not put it beyond them to air-condition the roads in the Imperial Valley, where they have already gone so far as to air-condition toilets."
Generosity. "History will bear witness to the fact that never before has so much been given away to so many. It might be argued that it is dollar imperialism. But imperialism means taking away, not giving, and American expenditure will prove the contrary to be true." Their generosity is not confined to the Government, U Nu added. At San Francisco's Mark Hopkins Hotel, he discovered that the barber who cut his hair had raised and given $65,000 to a church.* U Nu was so impressed that he contributed $100 to the same church.