This was the third day of our journey. The month in New York had brought many impressions, but the more we saw of people and things the less we understood America. We tried to generalize. Scores of times we exclaimed:
"Americans are as naive as children!"
"Americans are excellent workers!"
"Americans are sanctimonious!"
"Americans are a great nation!"
"Americans are stingy!"
"Americans are senselessly generous!"
"Americans are radical!"
"Americans are stupid, conservative, hopeless!"
"There will never be a revolution in America!"
"There will be a revolution in America within a few days!"
It was an awful muddle from which we wanted to extricate ourselves as soon as possible. And then gradually this deliverance began. One after the other various phases of American life, which had hitherto been hidden in the clatter and tinsel of New York, began to disclose themselves to us.
We knew. There was no need to hurry. It was too soon to generalize. First of all, we must see as much as possible.
We glided over the country, as over the chapters of a long, entertaining novel, repressing in ourselves the legitimate desire of the impatient reader to take a look at the last page. And it became clear to us: the main thing was order and system.
In the electric house of Mr. Ripley we understood the meaning of publicity. Let us call it advertising. It did not desert us for a single minute. It dogged our footsteps.
It so happened that for about five minutes we did not run across a single advertisement on either side of the road. This was so surprising that one of us exclaimed over it:
"Bill-boards have disappeared. Look: here are fields, trees, but no bill-boards!"
But the rash speaker was punished for his lack of faith in the power of American publicity. He had scarcely pronounced the last word of his sentence when from around the curve droves of large and small advertisements flew to greet our machine.
No! Americans cannot be caught napping!
Advertisements have penetrated American life to such an extent that, if upon waking some amazing morning Americans were to find all advertisements gone, the majority of them would be in the most desperate of plights. They would not know:
What cigarettes to smoke?
In what store to buy ready-made clothes?
Which cooling drink best quenches thirst—Coca-Cola or ginger ale?
Which whisky to drink—White Horse or Johnny Walker?
Which petrol to buy—Shell or Standard Oil?
Which god to worship—the Baptist or the Presbyterian?
It would be utterly impossible to decide whether it was worth while to chew gum!
Or which film was remarkable and which simply a work of genius!
Whether one should enlist in the Navy!
Whether the climate of California is beneficial or harmful?
In short, without advertisements, the devil alone knows what might happen!
Life would become incredibly complex. One would have to think for oneself at every step.
No, it is much easier with advertisements. Americans don't have to think about anything. The large business houses do the thinking for them.
There's no use bothering your head when selecting a cooling drink.
Drink "Coca-Cola!" Drink "Coca-Cola!"
"Coca-Cola" refreshes the dry throat!
"Coca-Cola" stimulates the nervous system!
"Coca-Cola" benefits the organism and the fatherland!
In brief, he who drinks " Coca-Cola" will be well off!
The average American, despite his outward show of activity, is really a passive person by nature. He must have everything presented to him in finished form, like a spoiled husband. Tell him which drink is the best, and he will drink it. Tell him which political party suits him best, and he will vote for it. Tell him which god is the true god, and he will worship him. But one thing you must not make him do. You must not make him think after working hours. He doesn't like it, and he is not used to it. And if you want him to believe your words you must repeat them as often as possible. This is the foundation on which is built a considerable portion of American advertising, political as well as commercial and every other kind.
And everywhere you go an advertisement lies in wait for you: at home and while calling, on the street and on the highway, in the taxi, in the subway, on the train, in the airplane, in the ambulance, everywhere!
We were still aboard the Normandie in the harbour of New York, when two objects attracted our attention. One of them was small, greenish—the Statue of Liberty. But the other was huge and impudent— an advertising. shield propagandizing Wrigley's Chewing Gum — a chewing gum! From that moment on the flat green little mug with its huge megaphone, drawn on the advertisement, pursued us all through America, arguing, pleading, persuading, begging, demanding that we chew Wrigley's—the aromatic, inimitable, first-class gum.
The first month we resisted it. We drank no "Coca-Cola." We held out almost to the end of our journey. A few more days and we would be on the ocean, out of danger. Yet the advertisement won out. We could not hold out, but succumbed to that drink. We can testify truthfully: Yes, Coca-Cola really does refresh the throat, stimulates the nerves, soothes health disturbances, softens the torments of the soul, and makes a man a genius like Leo Tolstoy. We defy ourselves not to say that, after it has been driven into our heads for three months, every day, every hour, and every minute.
Even more frightful, more insistent, and more screaming is the advertisement of cigarettes. "Chesterfield," "Camel," "Lucky Strike," and other tobacco products are advertised with a hysteria which can be equalled only in the dances of the dervishes or at the celebration of "Shakhsei-Vakhsei," which no longer exists, and the participants of which were wont to stab each other with daggers in sheer abandon and drench themselves in blood for the glory of their divinity. All through the night over America flame the electric inscriptions and all through the day the eyes are stabbed with the coloured bill-boards: "The best in the world! Toasted cigarettes! They bring luck! The best in the solar system!"
As a matter of fact, the more widespread the advertising the more trivial the object designated in it. Only the sale of utter trifles can pay for this mad advertising. The houses of America, the roads, fields, and trees are mutilated by the boresome bill-boards. It is the purchaser who pays for these bill-boards. We were told that the five-cent bottle of "Coca-Cola" costs the manufacturer one cent, but that three cents are spent on advertising it. Where the fifth cent goes there is no need to say. That is quite clear.
The manufacturers of the remarkable and useful objects of technique and comfort with which America abounds cannot advertise their merchandise with the abandon indulged in by some trashy chewing gum or some brown whisky with a strong drug-store odour and utterly repellent taste.
Once, passing through a little town, we saw behind a wire grating a white plaster-of-Paris horse standing on green grass among the trees. At first we thought this was a monument to the unknown horse which heroically fell in a war between the North and the South for the liberation of the Negroes. Alas, no! This horse with the inspired eyes silently reminds those who drive by of the existence of that inimitable whisky, White Horse, which fortifies the soul, refreshes the brain, feeds learning to youths and brings delights to the old. More detailed information about this truly miraculous drink the consumer can find in the "White Tavern," located right there in the garden. Here he can learn that one can get drunk on this whisky in five minutes, that the wife of him who drinks it will never deceive him, and that his children will grow up without any mishaps and will even find good jobs.