What I Saw in America

... Pictures and observations, set down by a woman's pen dear to The Woman's Voice, on a flying visit to the United States and Venezuela... What might Mrs. Aida Saab Assaf have to say of her quick impressions of those far-off... yet near countries?

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Here is New York looking down upon us in its grandeur and might. It is divided into four great boroughs, among them the borough of Manhattan, where we stayed, and which is the beating heart of New York. Its broad streets are surely unique in their orderly, straight plan and their consecutive numbering. Transportation is provided by motorcars, small and large, and by the fast underground trains that run without interruption. As for its towering buildings, unequaled in their hugeness, they are known as skyscrapers, and it is enough for me to mention the Empire State, the tallest building in the world, whose height reaches one thousand four hundred and seventy-two feet, comprising one hundred and two stories. I went up to its summit, and the sights of the mighty city were laid open before me from that towering height — I leave it to the imagination of my gracious readers to picture them.

One glance at the display windows of the shops proves the ability of the salesmen of that country to work upon the buyer's mind by ways of temptation and allure. And it seems to me that in their tempting and alluring they take us — we women — as their target. And how many great stores there are, such as Macy's, for example, which requires the service of thousands of workers, women and men, and a visit to which takes days, especially as its many departments contain everything a person needs — clothing, foodstuffs, and the rest.

New York today is rightly considered the capital of the world, for the human beings it gathers, of every race, color, and tongue. Its newspapers appear in dozens of languages, and its restaurants represent most of the nationalities of the world.

Some may imagine that living in New York is impossible, given its well-known din; but the noise is confined to the district of Manhattan and to its centers of work, while in the residential districts complete calm and quiet prevail. How beautiful those districts are — completed by trees, adorned with flowers, and bathed in an air of cleanliness and order. Their buildings are of one height, marked by a stamp of simplicity, and provided with every means of comfort. They are made more beautiful still by their inhabitants' knowledge of social duty — no horn to fray the nerves, no radio's sound to disturb the neighbors' rest, no prying or meddling in other people's affairs, no shouting, no annoyance...

In a country teeming with millions of human beings there must be centers of amusement and recreation for the refreshment of the spirit, and these abound in New York. Coney Island — the great city of amusements — brings together childhood and old age in its programs of entertainment. Some of the public parks, too, are famous far and wide — Central Park, for instance, with its artificial lakes, its zoological garden, and the rest; and Rockefeller Center, which people seek out for skating on artificial ice. Here, in this pleasure-ground as in others, the American mentality shows its inborn love of gaiety and of life, and its refusal to bow to helplessness and renunciation. Look at that old woman whose head is crowned with white hair, beside a little girl not yet six years old, taking the same skating lesson — defying the notion common among us that the enjoyment of life is reserved to childhood and youth. And how the American mentality won my admiration and esteem for its respect for laws and regulations: no sooner had I read, in one of the public places, a notice saying that spitting on the ground and throwing papers is an offense against the laws of health and society, than I found the place the very extreme of cleanliness and order.

New York is not rich in centers of amusement and recreation alone; it contains as well what satisfies a person's intellectual and spiritual desires: its museums, its laboratories, and its libraries are many, and all of them aim at widening the horizon of knowledge and learning.

The Statue of Liberty, the skyscrapers, the many bridges — first among them the Washington Bridge — the long tunnels underground and underwater, the United Nations building and its political importance: all proclaim the grandeur of mighty New York, and testify to the energy and solidarity of its people, and to the government's watchfulness over the interests of its citizens.

By train to Washington

After spending two weeks in New York, we went by railroad train to Washington, the capital — and how easy is the travel between it and New York, for a passenger train runs between them exactly every hour, night and day. We reached the longed-for city in four hours' time, and it was night. So on the morning of the next day we set out to roam through it. It was not its orderliness that astonished me, nor its cleanliness, nor its beauty — all this I had expected to see in Washington, the capital of the first nation in the world; what stirred my astonishment and admiration was the atmosphere of calm that reigns over it. I likened it to a fresh, wide-spreading forest in which the buildings had been raised and the roads cut in an ordered, harmonious plan. Around every house is a well-kept garden that assures its dwellers rest and independence.

Among the most beautiful things I saw in the capital were its national museum, which occupies several buildings; the zoological garden; and the Capitol, or parliament, adorned with works of art, the loveliest of them perhaps the paintings of its dome by the famous Italian artist Brumidi. The tombs of certain great men adorn the said city; of these I visited the memorials of Lincoln and of Jefferson. The public parks are numerous, and programs of entertainment are held in them... Once the people were flocking, troop after troop, to one of them. Why, do you suppose? For a contest to choose the most beautiful dog!!

Miami

We turned back from Washington to New York, and from there we traveled by air to Miami, in the state of Florida. I found in it a likeness to its predecessor in its calm, the cleanliness of its streets, and the beauty of its nature; but Miami is distinguished from Washington by its small islands, which display the beauty of nature and man's power to improve upon it. The pen is helpless to convey the atmosphere that envelops one during an excursion by steam launch among these islands crowned with lofty trees, planted around their enchanting mansions.

In Miami, as in the two cities already mentioned, there is a zoological garden, in which I watched a strange program: a dangerous wrestling match between an Indian and a fearsome alligator. Among the things I saw in this garden was the flamingo, with its exquisite rosy color, which is preserved thanks to special foods.

Venezuela — the United States of South America

Venezuela — that country which is the object of longing eyes for so many of the sons of our land and of other lands, for the bounties God has singled it out with, and for the known friendliness of its people toward the stranger.

Here we are now in Maracaibo, the capital of its state of Zulia. The first thing that caught my attention was the plan of its new streets, laid out like the streets of the most beautiful of advanced cities, and its strict traffic regulations, which spare it many of the collisions that come of disorder and disregard of the law.

Most of the dwelling houses in Maracaibo are of a single story, adorned by a flower garden. From the outside they all look alike, for their appearance is not marred by a small house standing near a many-storied one, or by one house set back a few meters from the public road while another enjoys a space that ought by right to belong to all. I noticed an ingenious touch in the numbering of these houses: besides its number, each house is called by the name of the mistress of the house or by the name of her daughter.

There are in Maracaibo public parks, many clubs, and means of recreation not to be despised; and the people of this city are known to give extraordinary attention to national holidays and others. In the yearly carnival, for instance, great and small take part, and much money and effort are spent upon it. As for the national holidays, they celebrate them with full respect and with a true knowledge of patriotic duty; and perhaps their government's sound guidance has had an effective part in strengthening their feeling of national pride — proof enough that it has made the raising of flags upon the houses compulsory on national holidays.

Cabimas

After making the acquaintance of Maracaibo, I wished to visit one of the petroleum districts, to which Venezuela owes its progress and its wealth — and how not, when petroleum is among its greatest resources. We made for Cabimas, which is separated from Maracaibo by one of the greatest lakes of South America, whose area exceeds the area of Lebanon. We arrived, and I saw there some of the wells for drawing petroleum and some of the refineries, and I visited some of the dwelling houses, which resemble in their outward appearance the houses of Maracaibo. As for the constant heat of this town, so I was told, it leaves no difference between its summer and its winter.

Caracas

And at last... we traveled by air to Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, which stands about nine hundred meters above the level of the sea. How great was my amazement at seeing modern Caracas, which keeps pace in its renaissance with the most advanced cities of America. It is enough to mention what I saw of the ordering and harmony of its streets, the beauty and unity of its quarters, its numerous clubs, and its luxuriant gardens. Anyone whom the fates led to visit this city a few years ago can scarcely believe the progress and flourishing he now sees in it. Here are its universities with their many branches, which qualify their students to obtain the doctor's degree and open before them the field of specialization in all manner of domains; here the crooked La Guaira–Caracas road — that is, the road of the port and the airport — has been abolished and replaced by a straight road that has defied the rocks and the mountains; here its old buildings, without order or harmony, have been torn down to widen the roads and to raise modern buildings in their place; and here its underground tunnels have been opened to relieve the crush of traffic in the city — all of them inscribing for the Venezuelan government a new conquest in the history of progress and construction.

I missed the chance to become acquainted with a great deal on this journey of mine, owing to the shortness of the time; yet what circumstances allowed me to see is enough to remind me of Lebanon's many possibilities, which could raise it to the highest degrees of advancement, if only we spent some effort toward strengthening them.