A
chief reason why I liked this country from the very beginning was
that it made no difference what a man was doing, so long as it was
some honest, decent work. I liked my advertising scheme. I advertised
nothing I would not have sold the people myself, and I gave it to
them in a way that was distinctly pleasing and good for them; for
my pictures were real work of art, not the cheap trash you see
nowadays on street screens.
The city crowds were always appreciative. In the country the hoodlums
made trouble occasionally. We talk a great deal about city toughs.
In nine cases out of ten they are lads of normal impulses whose
resources have all been smothered by the slum; of whom the street
and its lawlessness, and the tenement that is without a home,
have made ruffians. With better opportunities they might have been
heroes. The country hoodlum is oftener what he is because his bent
is that way, though he, too, is not rarely driven into mischief by
the utter poverty--aesthetically I mean--of his environment. Hence
he shows off in his isolation so much worse than his city brother.
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