Franklin Delano Roosevelt, thirty-second President of the United States and Chief Executive from 1933 to 1945, the architect of the New Deal and the … - John Gunther

If you look at a map of the British Empire, neatly colored pink by tradition- an odd color to choose, when you come to think about it- the temptation is great to consider it as a unit, as something uniform. As matter of fact the British Empire, wih its 485,000,000 people, its 13,290,000 square miles, is very far from being uniform. Its vast "mixture of growths and accumulations" is by no means governed by a single law.
The Empire includes dominions like Canada and Australia, which are self-governing, sister states of Britain virtually independent since the Statute of Westminster, except for the common bondage of the Crown. It includes the colossal subcontinent of India, itself sub-divided into British India and princely states, which we shall deal with soon. It includes some crown colonies which are administrative dictatorships, and some which have constitutions and legislatures. It includes "free states" like Eire, mandated territories like Palestine, protectorates like the hinterland of Aden, condominums like the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, territory held jointly with France like the New Hebrides, and political curiosities such as Bhutan or Sarawak which fit into no normal categories. There are even regions ruled by charter companies like the old East India Company.

I went down to the City Hall the other day and had an hour with O'Dwyer after not having seen him for several years. He is a shade grayer, a shade stockier, and still a grand man to talk to- easy-going, bluff, friendly, and informal. He wore a light brown sports jacket; he was as relaxed- working a fourteen-hour day- as a character in A Crock of Gold. O'Dwyer has heavy, very short, blunt fingers, a decisive nose, and expressive, eloquent blue eyes. He is full of Irish wit and bounce. Also he is very modest. Mostly we talked about things personal. But occasionally there were remarks like, "How the hell does democracy work, anyway?" This was not, I hasten to add, said with any lack of faith. The mayor is a very gregarious man, and he loves people; especially he loves those who have fought their way out of a bad environment. What he hates most are stuffy people.

So now we come to New York City, the incomparable, the brilliant star city of parodies, the forty-ninth state, a law unto itself, the Cyclopean paradox, the inferno with no out-of-bounds, the supreme expression of both the miseries and the splendors of contemporary civilization, the Macedonia of the United States. It meets the most severe test that may be applied to definition of a metropolis- it stays up all night. But also it becomes a small town when it rains. Paradox? New York is at once the climactic synthesis of America, and yet the negation of American in that it has so many characteristics called un-American. One friend of mine, indignant that it seems impossible for any American city to develop on the pattern of Paris or Vienna, always says that Manhattan is like Constantinople- not the Instanbul of old Stamboul but of the Pera or Levantine side. He meant not merely the trite fact that New York is polygot, but that it is full of people, like the Levantines, who are interested basically in only two things, living well and making money. I would prefer a different analogy- that only Instanbul, of all the cities in the world, has as enchanting and stimulating a profile.