America at home

AMERICA
AT HOME

A. MAURICE LOW

AUTHOR OF

THE SUPREME SURRENDER

LONDON

GEORGE NEWNES, LIMITED

SOUTHAMPTON ST., STRAND, W.C.

la*

n

GENEfo

™

THE FLAT IRON BUILDING
(THE MOST STRIKING 'SKY
SCRAPER' IN NEW YORK).

PREFACE

MANY years ago a shipwrecked man was cast not far
from that historic rock where the Pilgrim Fathers landed,
and there discovered by a passing Irishman. This
Good Samaritan quickly revived the unfortunate with
copious draughts of the * crayture,' and sent him on his
way rejoicing.

On hearing of the charitable deed, one of his friends
asked Pat how he happened to know the correct remedy
for the case. He answered quietly, ' Devil a bit do I
know of medicine ; but, sir, I like whisky myself, and
thought he might too.'

So it is with the contents of this little book. It does
not pose as a profound critique of American psychology,
nor a minute investigation into social and political
conditions in the United States, but rather as a rapid
presentation of the phases of life which have appealed
to me, and I trust may interest the reader.

This is not, however, a plea for a special dispensation
of criticism such as is offered by the producer of the
so-called popular forms of theatrical entertainments,
who argues that as nothing serious was contemplated,
nothing serious in the way of comment should follow.

v

177124

PREFACE

' You must not take me seriously,' is his effort to disarm
criticism in advance, 'because I do not take myself
seriously.'

Now I, on the contrary, have a serious purpose.
Although my comments may be a surface play over
national traits, rather than an analysis of character and
institutions, still, if I have not replaced the lay figure
conception of * Uncle Sam ' as an individual enthusiasti
cally provincial, strenuously acquisitive, and infinitely
crude, by a panoramic view of a great Nation — a Nation
in flux, it is true, but crystallizing with amazing rapidity
into an heroic mould, I have failed in my task. An
attempt has been made frankly to present the truth
about the American at home as it is borne in upon
me after years of sojourn in that ' home,' and not the
caricature which is supposed to inspire the amused
admiration of the public. On this point I await the
judgment of my readers.

I have not discussed the American temperament as
demonstrated in present-day literature and art, for the
reason that all literary efforts in the United States now
seem to me to tend to inculcate the obvious without
a hint of the subjective grasp of life which is the only
touch to make a work vital and lasting, and because
there is as yet no national school of American art.

Whether the artistic temperament exists in sufficient
intensity in America to blossom on the native soil, is
an unanswered question ; for whenever a young man in
America feels the inspiration to devote himself to an

vi

PREFACE

artistic career, he is packed off by public acclaim to
Paris, where the probabilities are that he attaches him
self to some school and becomes a mere copyist.

So there is no representative Gallery of American
Art, and not until one or two generations have assimilated
foreign influences with the natural bent toward individu
ality supplied by conditions in America, can we hope
for native work. Even then the results may not be
great immediately; but if the United States is as
determined to be as great in art as she has become in
manufactures, the future is certain.

The future is the keynote of Uncle Sam's daily song. f

The sculptor, George Wade, says : ' I could tell an
American immediately, not by manner, walk or clothes,
or anything external, but by the peculiar expression of
the eye. It is an expression I find it hard to analyse.
It is a look that seems to embrace the future rather
than the present or the past. The American face has
the open-eyed look of confident anticipation.'

And the two French writers who have collaborated
on LOncle Sam Chez lui pay this tribute to American
uniqueness :

' Formed out of an aggregation of different races, the
American people forms a race by itself — individual,
characteristic, and, from many points of view, very
superior. It is as ridiculous to say that it is solely
Anglo-Saxon as that it is Latin. The American has
neither the egotism of the Englishman nor the arrogance
of the German, but he possesses their practical sense ;

vii

PREFACE

he has not the light-heartedness of the Frenchman, but
his suppleness; he has not the obsequious politeness
of the Italian or the Spaniard, but a profound respect
for established institutions.

1 The American is himself and nothing but himself.
His character is difficult to define. Polite, affectionate,
and loquacious by turns, he may become, without
apparent reason, brusque, crabbed, and reserved. Even
after living with him for many years, it is impossible to
know him completely. He is a man of surprises. One
appreciates and esteems him, one does not judge him.'

With this I agree, with some modifications — the
modifications lie in the pages beyond.

A. M. L.

viii

CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGK

I. THE GREAT REPUBLIC — YESTERDAY, TO-DAY,

AND TO-MORROW .... I

II. THE AMERICAN POLITICAL SYSTEM . . IO

III. BOSSES, BIG AND LITTLE .... 26

IV. ARE THERE CLASSES IN THE UNITED

STATES? . . ... 41

V. THE EAST AND THE WEST . . . -55

VI. THE AMERICAN GIRL 70

VII. WASHINGTON, THE REPUBLICAN COURT . 84

VIII. THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR . . . /' IOI

IX. EDUCATION AND LABOUR . . . -US

X. SOCIAL CUSTOMS I 29

XI. HOW AMERICA AMUSES ITSELF . . . 144

ix b

CONTENTS

CHAP PAGE

XII. A RICH MAN'S PARADISE .... 159
XIII. THE MIDDLE-CLASS PLAYGROUND . 172

XIV. THE PROBLEM OF THE NEGRO . .184

XV. THE AMERICAN PRESS .... 2OO

XVI. WHAT UNCLE SAM THINKS OF HIMSELF AND

ALL THE REST OF THE WORLD . .219
INDEX . 229

ILLUSTRATIONS

THE FLAT IRON BUILDING (THE MOST STRIKING

* SKY-SCRAPER ' IN NEW YORK) . Frontispiece

FACING PAGE

THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON. . . . IO

INTERIOR OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

WASHINGTON 36

A WESTERN COWBOY 64

TYPE OF AMERICAN GIRL 70

NIAGARA FALLS I3O

BASEBALL I44

HUNTING IN 'TEXAS' .160

THE BEACH AT ATLANTIC CITY . . . .172
SOUTHERN NEGRESS ^4

IMPERIAL SOUTHERN NEGRO'S ' SHACK ' . ,198
GROUP OF CROW CHIEFS 22O

xi

AMERICA AT HOME

CHAPTER ONE

THE GREA T REPUBLIC— YESTERDA Y, TO-DA Y,
AND TO-MORROW

IN the old days, the days some years behind us, when
to Englishmen America was an undiscovered country,
before British peers had contracted the habit of marry
ing American girls, when the American invasion had
not swept over Europe, when American goods were not
seen in every European shop, and Americans, men and
women, were not the mainstay of hotel-keepers, dress
makers, and dealers in works of art — in those days it
used to be said that when an adventurous Englishman
landed in New York, before even he had left the gang
way and set his foot on American soil, he was captured
by a horde of ravenous reporters who, with wide-open
notebooks and pencils poised in the air waiting for his
answer to the inevitable question, asked him for his
' Impressions of the United States ' : for be it understood
once and for all that no true American ever talks about
his country as America. It is always the £7-nited States.
In those days it used to be said that after an English
man had taken a stroll up Fifth Avenue, and with all the
love of his race for reckless daring penetrated to the

I H

AMERICA AT HOME

wilds of Central Park (which is to New York what Hyde
Park is to London), searched vainly for the Indians
whom he fondly believed made Central Park their
happy hunting grounds, and who in the interval between
slaying buffaloes scalped the inoffensive stockbroker on
his way to business, or the guileless Tammany politician
returning to his virtuous home, with his pockets bulging
with the spoils of politics ; and with superb courage
braved the unknown by going as far ' West ' as Niagara
Falls, he returned to England and immediately sat
himself down to write a book on America.

Allowing for that playful love of humour which vents
itself in skilful exaggeration of national foibles, which is
an inherent gift of the American, and which is perhaps
one of the reasons why he is naturally buoyant and
always disposed to look upon the bright side of things,
the sarcasm was not unwarranted. Even at a date so
recent as a quarter of a century ago the Americans were
still, as a people, boyishly young, and they had still
to find themselves. They had all the stripling's en
thusiasm and all his self-consciousness. They were
like a lusty youth sensible of his great physical strength,
of his superb power to battle and to win, and yet aware,
although he tried to forget it, that his manners lacked a
certain polish, that his hands were uncomfortably large,
and his feet entirely too prominent. He wanted to
make a good impression. He wanted to be liked. The
distinguished Englishman, the traveller, the author, the
scientist, must be impressed with the country that he was
about to visit, and he was expected, as every guest is, to
say pleasant things to his host.

Unfortunately not every Englishman carried his polite
ness with him across the Atlantic. Sometimes novelty
did not appeal to him, sometimes the difference between

2

THE GREAT REPUBLIC

the old and newer civilisation was too marked to appeal
to him. He failed to grasp the significance of Democracy,
to be impressed with the resistless energy of a young i
race only fairly started in the great battle for national i
supremacy ; he even sneered at some things. And then i
he went back home and wrote his book. Small wonder
the majority of Englishmen had curious ideas of America
and the Americans, and Americans came to believe that
there was little love for their country in England.

Fortunately to-day all that has been changed.
Americans and Englishmen now know each other very
well, and the more they know of each other the greater ,
admiration each has for the fine qualities of the other. /
Climate, political and social institutions, methods of work
and methods of play, modes of living, these and many
other things make the Englishman and the American
unlike, and yet unlike as they may be in many respects
in so many are they alike that they are the only two
great nations that can always meet on common ground.
They speak the same language, and how much that
means only one who has lived in the United States can
properly appreciate. The men of other races may be
foreigners, the Englishman never is. They not only
speak the same language, but fundamentally they think the
same thoughts. Love of liberty, love of justice, love of
right, are expressed in the same terms by the English
man as by the American. They need no interpreter.
They both sought and found their inspiration at thet
same fountain-head. They sat at the feet of law and\
were taught by the same teacher. The literature of
England is the heritage of America. All those things
for which Englishmen battled, all those things which
make a people strong and a nation great, belong to
America by right ; they are part of the inheritance of the

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AMERICA AT HOME

race ; they are a family possession belonging as much
to the younger as to the older brother.

Yesterday a sprawling infant, to-day the United States
is a full-grown man. Its progress has been marvellous,
the wonder of all the world ; it has been so phenomenal
that the world still seeks explanation for it and is
puzzled to find the true reason. If the past is any
guide to the future, what may not one expect of a
country so great in all that goes to make greatness, of a
people so amazingly energetic and whose ambition is so
boundless ? They have rounded out little more than a
century of national existence, and yet in that century
they have done that which other nations and other
peoples have done not nearly so well in several centuries.
In the little more than a hundred years which is the
history of the American people they have grown from
a handful of struggling colonists to a race eighty millions
strong ; they have become one of the richest and mostV
prosperous people in the world ; they have become one
of the greatest of commercial nations ; they are destined
to take a leading part in international politics.

They fought us and they taught us the iron was in
their blood ; they fought each other, a war compared
with which other wars are insignificant, and the iron of
the fathers was in the veins of their sons ; they fought
nature and with iron hand subdued her. From a
handful of settlers contending against wild beasts and
the even greater savagery of the Indian, they have
spread across a mighty continent until one flank rests
upon the Atlantic and the other upon the Pacific,
typical that Europe as well as Asia must reckon
America in all their calculations. Other nations are
sobered no less than hampered by tradition. The
civilisation of England as well as the major part of

4

THE GREAT REPUBLIC

Europe has settled itself into well-established grooves.
England is one of the most progressive countries in
the world, and yet in England progress — which means
innovation and improvement, the casting aside of the old
for the new, the adoption of modern facilities to meet
modern requirements, whether it be in the machinery
of society or the machinery of manufacture — must first
overcome the resistance of conservatism, the objection
to accepting the new and the untried for the old and
tested. In America one finds no such obstacles. That
a thing or an idea is new is no valid objection to its
use ; in fact, it is often its strongest argument. It is
new, therefore it is assumed to be better than the
old; it is American, therefore it is better adapted to
American ideas and customs. "We make our prece
dents," was the reply returned by a great American
public man when he was told that a certain thing
which he proposed to do was revolutionary and with
out the warrant of precedent to sanction it. That is
the spirit of the American. Mere age is not sacred.
The American refuses to be tied to the past, he lives
in the present, and the genius of the day in which he:
lives may be greater than that of the day of his father.
That being so, it is no disrespect to the memory of
his father to refuse to be satisfied with those things
which satisfied him, but which he knows can be im
proved upon.

Yet it must not be assumed that the Americans, as
a people, are entirely without the saving balance of
conservatism, or that they are lacking in self-restraint,
or that they delight in innovation simply because they
continually seek for change. They are, as a nation
and a people, emotional and their feelings are easily
reached. Nominally Anglo-Saxons, with the principal

5

AMERICA AT HOME

characteristics of the Saxon forming a solid foundation,
largely influencing them mentally and morally, domin
ating their social customs and their political institutions,
they have become a mixed race, and, like all mixed
races, they are a composite of the nationalities they
have absorbed. The raw material, so to speak, the
elements which go to make the stock of a nation, has
been hammered into shape and fused and moulded
into the finished product under the forced draught of
a young country, a country with virgin soil, a country
with boundless resources, a country where strong men
become stronger and even the weakling may find
health ; where men think for themselves and act for
themselves ; where everything is in a state of constant
flux, almost of unrest ; where the stimulus of the ozone
in the air, of clear, bright skies, long, hot summers and
hard, cold winters, makes men active, alert, vigorous ;
where competition is very keen, but where the rewards
of successful endeavour are very great ; where education
is more diffused among all classes than it is anywhere
else in the world.

All these things — not to overlook political institutions,
a by no means insignificant factor in the grand total —
make the American what he is. He can be easily
moved, he responds quickly if the right chord is touched,
he takes up with a fad or champions a cause with all
the enthusiasm of which he is capable, and for the
time being believes thoroughly in that which he has
espoused; which explains why Americans for the
moment have often done things inscrutable to Europeans,
why their politics are so intense, why to-day a man is
a popular hero and the next week he is the target for
malice and cheap wit. The first ebullition is the ex
pression of the emotional American, but under the

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THE GREAT REPUBLIC

light layer of emotion is the solid substratum of the
Anglo-Saxon conservatism, which always acts as a
counterpoise after the first excitement has vented itself, j
Often it would seem as if a majority of the American
people were the victims of a craze and as if the sanity
of a nation lodged in the saving remnant of the
minority. But the most vociferous shouting is not
always the work of the largest numbers. When the
count has been made reason has generally triumphed
over emotion; the firm hand of common sense has
curbed the recklessness of impetuosity.

Other nations have so nearly completed their social
problems that the social structure is well-nigh finished.
In America the work is still in course of construction.
It is the difference between living in a house to which
one has fallen heir, a house in which one's ancestors
lived, which one may not radically change but may
only repaint or repaper, and the house which one
builds from the ground up, where one can observe brick
layer and stonemason and carpenter at work, where
one can alter the plans to suit his fancy while the work
is in progress, and where, not satisfied with his house
when it is completed, he can pull down a wing and
rebuild to suit his newer or more advanced ideas. The
American can watch his civilisation being made, he '
can see his social advancement going forward, he is a ;
spectator of the evolution of his race. There is no
finality in America or American institutions. There is
respect for the wisdom of the men whose wisdom has
stood the test of time, there is acceptance of that which
has proved itself useful for the purpose for which it
was intended, but no American makes a vow of per
petual obedience, or relinquishes his right to tear down
so that he may upbuild more skilfully. And yet,

7

AMERICA AT HOME

paradoxical as it may seem, with this tidal flow of
national character American institutions remain firmly
anchored, basically they remain unshaken by the passing
storm of popular passion, they are foundationed in the
abiding faith of the people.

The American system of government has endured for
one hundred and twenty-five years. It has faced more
than one crisis. It has been subjected to more than one
supreme test. It has emerged triumphant. It has
contended with treason at home and enemies abroad.
At the time when the courage of men was most des
perately tried that courage never faltered. The Republic
has lived because its children believe in the Republic.
They may change their laws, they may alter their social
institutions, they may modify their policy to keep pace
with newer requirements, but the fundamental principles
are unchangeable and unalterable.

Yesterday a sprawling infant, to-day a full-grown man ;
what of the to-morrow ? It is an entrancing subject
for speculation. The gift of prophecy is given to few
men, and yet one need not be endowed with the
power of prescience to see what lies ahead of this young
giant. If it shall continue to make the same progress
during the second century of its existence that it did
in its first — and there is every reason to believe that its
progress will be cumulative — it will have a population
larger than that of any other country, its wealth will be
greater, its commerce more extensive, its material re
sources more abundant. It is to-day one of the great
nations of the world ; to-morrow it may well be the
greatest. Its wealth, its commerce, its power may
dominate the world. To-day its voice in international
councils is only infrequently heard ; and because other
nations are not familiar with it, it is listened to with

8

THE GREAT REPUBLIC

only a portion of the respect to which it is entitled.
Then all nations will treat it with the courtesy that
strength exacts. The power of the United States will
be as potent at the council table as it will be in the
markets of the world.

Come, let us see more of these wonderful people and
this marvellous country. I promise you it will not be
time wasted, and it will not be a journey without interest.
We shall wander a bit farther than Central Park ; and
although we may see no Indians, and no buffaloes may
delight our eyes, we shall see things even more curious
and more fascinating — we shall see a people at work
and at play, a nation in the making.

CHAPTER TWO
THE AMERICAN POLITICAL SYSTEM

IN the United States manhood suffrage exists. Practi
cally every citizen of the United States, whether native
born or naturalised, is entitled to vote for the candidate
for the Presidency, members of Congress, and State and
municipal officers. The exceptions are to be found in
some of the Southern States, where to deprive the negroes
of the right of suffrage certain educational qualifications
have been imposed, which the negroes, being illiterate,
are unable to meet.

The United States is a sovereign nation in its relations
with other sovereign nations ; it is a federation of States
in its domestic relations. By virtue of the terms of the
federal constitution adopted in 1787, with its subsequent
amendments, the various States delegated to the Federal
or General Government certain powers which the Federal
Goverment may alone exercise, but all other authority is
retained by the States. Thus, the General Government,
acting through Congress, has the sole power to lay and
collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the
national debt, to provide for the common defence, to
borrow money on the credit of the United States, to
regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the
several States, to coin money, to declare war, to raise
armies, to support a navy — in short, to do all those things

10

OF THE

UNIVERSP

of

AMERICAN POLITICAL SYSTEM

which are inherent in sovereignty and which can be done
more properly and more conveniently by a central
Government than by separate Governments.

Each State is sovereign within its own borders. Each
State makes its own constitution and can adopt such
form of constitution as it pleases, provided only that it is
a Republican form of government — as under the fourth
article of the federal constitution the United States is
pledged * to guarantee to every State in the Union a
Republican form of government ' — and is not in dero
gation of any of the inhibitions of the federal constitution.
For example, the constitution prohibits the granting of
any title of nobility by the United States, or the passage
of any bill of attainder or ex post facto law. The
constitution of a State that should contain provisions
recognising titles of nobility or sanctioning attainder
would be null and void because unrepublican in form
and essence.

The government of the United States is vested in
three branches — the executive, the legislative, and the
judicial. The President, popularly termed 'the chief
executive ' or ' chief magistrate,' is more than a mere
executive or administrative officer. It is his duty to see
that the national laws are properly observed and executed,
which is the purely administrative function of his office, but
in addition he has the power of initiative. He is required
under the constitution to give Congress from time to
time ' information of the state of the Union, and recom
mend to their consideration such measures as he shall
judge necessary and expedient,' which he does in the
form of written communications to both Houses of
Congress. The most important message is sent at the
beginning of every session of Congress, when the
President reviews at length, often at unnecessary and

ii

AMERICA AT HOME

wearisome length, domestic and foreign relations, and
makes such recommendations as he thinks advisable.
During the session, as occasion may arise, he sends to
Congress special messages advising legislation or a
particular action on the part of the law-making body ;
but he may not put his recommendations in the form of a
bill — or more properly speaking, while the constitution
does not prohibit him from doing so, inasmuch as the
essence of the American system of government is a com
plete severance of the legislative and executive functions,
for the President to put his general recommendations in
the form of a specific measure would be regarded as an
attempt on the part of the executive to infringe upon the
prerogatives of the legislature.

All bills after having passed both Houses of Congress
are sent to the President for his approval. If he ap
proves them he appends his signature within ten days
and the bill becomes a law ; but if he should object to a
bill he returns it to the House in which it originated, with
his objections in writing, when if two-thirds of the
House vote in favour of its passage, the objections of
the President to the contrary notwithstanding, the bill
goes to the other House, where it requires a similar
two-thirds vote to secure its passage. Such a bill is
said to be passed over the President's veto, and does not
require his signature. If the President does not approve
of a bill, and yet does not feel warranted in vetoing it,
he may retain it in his possession for ten days, at the
end of which period the bill automatically becomes a
law without his signature, unless Congress in the mean
time should have adjourned, when the bill fails to
become a law.

The President is charged with the conduct of foreign
relations, but his power is narrowly circumscribed and

12

AMERICAN POLITICAL SYSTEM

limited. He alone can give instructions to his ambassa
dors and foreign ministers ; he can direct them to pursue
a certain policy, but he is quite powerless to. accomplish
anything unless Congress in some cases or the Senate in
others give their approval. Thus, the President cannot
declare war ; that is a power reserved to Congress. The
President cannot make a treaty. The President can
initiate treaty negotiations, direct his plenipotentiary to
sign the convention on behalf of the United States and
secure the signature of the contracting Power, but the
treaty is not a treaty until it has been ratified by the
Senate, and it requires a vote of two-thirds of the
Senators present to assent to ratification. It is only
within the last few years, since the United States has
ceased to be isolated and has become a factor in interna
tional politics, that some of the disadvantages of this
method of conducting foreign relations have become
apparent. Secrecy is often essential in negotiations, but
secrecy is impossible when a treaty must be com
municated to the Senate. The Senate discusses treaties
in what is known as an " executive session," that is, be
hind locked doors, and every member takes an oath not
to divulge the proceedings ; but a secret shared in by
ninety-two men, some of whom may be opposed to the
treaty through personal or political prejudices, can never
remain a secret for more than a day or two. Tradition
and practice reject the idea of secret treaties or
c entangling alliances ' of any kind, which is one reason
why the diplomacy of the United States has always been
straightforward and above-board and direct to the point,
and has commanded the admiration of the world for its
honesty and moderation. There has never been an
attempt made to ' play off ' one nation against the other,
or to nullify one treaty by making a treaty with another

13

AMERICA AT HOME

nation containing antagonistic provisions. In the interest
of morality the American system is to be commended ;
in the interest of diplomacy and material advantages the
system has its disadvantages.

Every person who is a cog in the great machinery
of government — Senators and members of the House
of Representatives alone excepted — owes his official
existence to the President. Members of the Cabinet,
justices of the Supreme Court, judges of the inferior
federal courts, ambassadors, ministers, secretaries and
consuls, assistant secretaries and other subordinate
departmental officials, collectors of customs and col
lectors of the excise (called * internal revenue' in the
United States), prosecuting attorneys, postmasters — in
short, that great host comprising the civil legion — are
appointed by the President, or more correctly they are
nominated by the President to the Senate, which body
has the power to acquiesce in the President's selection,
that is, confirm the nominee, or reject the nomination,
which prevents the person from holding the office to
which he has been designated. Nominations, like
treaties, are considered by the Senate in executive
session — which appears to the outsider to savour too much
of Star Chamber methods to be democratic — but unlike
treaties a majority vote and not two-thirds is sufficient
to confirm or reject.

The framers of the constitution, partly because they
were not sure of the wisdom of putting unlimited power
in the hands of the people, partly because they were
afraid of putting too much power in the hands of any
one branch of their Government, devised a system of
complicated check and counter-check which should
make each co-ordinate branch a balance on the other
and preserve the true equilibrium. Hence the

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AMERICAN POLITICAL SYSTEM

explanation of the President nominating federal officials
and the Senate being required to confirm them ;
theoretically excellent, but in its practical workings its
soundness may often be questioned. If there was no
check on the President, an unworthy, dishonest or
unscrupulous President might fill up the public service
with his partisans, with men who might subvert the con
stitution and turn his presidency into a dynasty ; an
honest President, but one of low intellect or easily con
trolled by his friends, might appoint unworthy men who
would reflect disgrace or bring disaster upon the country.
The power of confirmation is the safeguard. In the Senate
men's characters are sifted ; their ability or lack of ability,
their standing financially, morally, socially can be freely
discussed and considered in connection with the par
ticular positions for which they are designated, because
there is no record of what a Senator says, which is the
excuse for the perpetuation of the secret session ; but
even Senators are human, with all the frailties of poor
humanity, and safely ensconced behind barred doors
may avail themselves of the opportunity to seek revenge
upon an enemy.

But now see how this system of check on the Presi
dent works. An office is vacant — an embassy, an assis
tant secretaryship, a consulate in a fever-stricken port in
South America — it makes no difference whether it is a
big prize or a very little one, there will always be a
Senator with a constituent to be taken care of; if the
place is big enough a possible rival can be made
innocuous by being shunted into a dignified position ; or
an active party worker can be stimulated to further
activity by being honoured with an appointment \ or the
working politician who looks for his reward to the party
in power receives his pay for services rendered by

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AMERICA AT HOME

drawing a salary from the Government. No matter
whether it is the very big man, or the man in the second
rank, or the quite unimportant individual who is
appointed, he feels under obligations to his Senator,
the appointment redounds to the credit of the Senator,
for it convinces his constituents, and in a scarcely lesser
degree the country at large, that he has influence with
the President, consequently he is a man of importance,
and in politics in the United States success is the touch
stone. We are therefore called upon to witness the not
elevating spectacle of Senators thronging the President's
anteroom urging him to appoint a constituent to a petty
place, wasting his time in dilating upon the virtues and
abilities of their constituents and preventing the Pre
sident from considering more important matters.

The President, of course, makes use of his patronage
to gain two ends. Every President looks forward to a
re-election and to strengthen himself by judicious appoint
ments ; often he can convert a stubborn foe into a
devoted adherent by the skilful bestowal of patronage.
Sometimes appointments are simply bribes. A measure
is pending whose passage the President deems essential
for party success, but which has encountered determined
opposition. The recalcitrants are placated by being
permitted to. name men for certain places, and it is
understood that this is the price that the President
must pay to beat down opposition. Patronage, how
ever, is a weakness as well as a tower of strength to
the President; in fact, many astute observers consider
that in the long-run patronage does more harm than
good, because for every friend gained a dozen enemies
are made. One can easily see why. Senators A., B.,
G, D., and E. desire to secure a certain important
appointment, and each man thinks it essential for his

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AMERICAN POLITICAL SYSTEM

own prestige that his candidate and not the other man's
should be appointed. If A. is the winner, B., C., D.,
and E. are disappointed, very often sullen and angry,
and the President must for his own safety mollify them.
When one remembers that this office brokerage business
is going on all the time, and that hour after hour, day
after day, during every week in the year, the President
must listen to appeals for places, that whether it be a
postmaster, an ambassador, or the ranking officer in the
army who is to be appointed he will have to listen to
conflicting claims — and if he is a timid man he will for
ever see the spectre of defeat looming before him
because of the politicians he has angered — it will be
understood that unless the President is adroit, tactful,
courageous, and resolute he is in danger of shipwreck over
his appointments.

Because the two systems — the English and the
American — are so different the Englishman must not
look upon the American as being bad or vicious and
without any redeeming virtues, or pharisaically arrogate
to himself a monopoly of all that is good. The
American system is good in that any man may aspire to
any place, and it really rests with the man himself
whether his ambition shall be gratified. In the United
States politics is a business and the labourer is deemed
worthy of his hire, so that no man is asked to work for
nothing. Fifteen hundred pounds a year, which is the
salary of a member of Congress, is a small income com
pared with the large fees earned by successful lawyers or
the fortunes made by bankers or merchants, but to some
men it spells comfort and meets all their desires. A
poor man cannot be an ambassador, because his salary of
,£3,500 is manifestly inadequate to support ambassa
dorial state, and it is seldom that a poor man is a

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AMERICA AT HOME

member of the Cabinet, because his salary of ^2,400 is
worse than genteel poverty \ but there are diplomatic
missions with salaries sufficient to tempt poor men ;
there are places below Cabinet rank that are attractive to
men who must depend upon their own exertions for their
daily bread.

There is no man in the English political system that
exactly corresponds with the President, but in a measure
it may be said that the President is both King and
Premier. In many respects he exercises much greater
and more real power than the sovereign, because while
the King has theoretically a veto power it is a power
never exercised, and it is his ministers who are the real
governors of the Empire. The President, like the
Premier, is the political head of his party ; but although
the President has in some respects greater powers than
the Premier, in others his hands are tied. So long as the
Premier retains the confidence of the country, as
represented by the majority in the Commons, he can
shape his policy as he pleases, but this the President
cannot do. By virtue of his position as President, and
also because of the fact that he is the political head of
his party, he can bring certain influence to bear upon
Congress, but it does not necessarily follow that Congress
will adopt his suggestions. It has happened that a
President has been confronted by an adverse majority in
Congress, and that majority, of course, has delighted
in thwarting the President, in defeating his policies, in
contemptuously ignoring his recommendations. It has
happened that a President has quarrelled with his party
majority in Congress and has been rendered impotent,
but the President has no remedy. He could not dis
solve Congress, he could do nothing but maintain an
armed neutrality and use patronage.

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AMERICAN POLITICAL SYSTEM

The President's chief advisers are members of his
Cabinet, so called. The American Cabinet, like the
British Cabinet, is an extra constitutional creation ; un
like the British Cabinet it is not even a committee of the
Privy Council, for in America the President has no
Privy Council, there is no one with whom he can divide
responsibility, and whatever is done by a Cabinet
Minister is done in the President's name and con
structively by him in person. The constitution does not
recognise the Cabinet, but by a casual reference takes
notice of * the Heads of Departments.' The machinery
of the Government is placed in nine separate compart
ments, each in charge of a chief engineer, and these
nine men constitute the Cabinet. They are the Secretary
of State, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of
War, the Attorney-General, the Postmaster-General, the
Secretary of the Navy, the Secretary of the Interior, the
Secretary of Agriculture, and the Secretary of Commerce
and Labour. There is nothing to prevent the President
from inviting subordinate officials to assist the Cabinet
in its deliberations, nothing except custom ; and the
Americans, with all their love of novelty, their progres-
siveness, and readiness to adopt anything new that is
good, show their Anglo-Saxon origin by their reverence
for what has been sanctioned by custom and their
respect for the law, written or unwritten. Custom, there
fore, having established that only the heads of depart
ments shall constitute the Cabinet, that council is not
an elastic body as it is in England, neither has it the
power of the British Cabinet. In the first place, its
members hold office simply at the pleasure of the
President and may not differ from him, nor may they
incur popular hostility, for in that case they damage the
prestige of the administration, and self-preservation being

AMERICA AT HOME

the first law of nature a President naturally throws a
secretary overboard to save himself from shipwreck.
The case of Mr. Alger, Secretary of War in the McKinley
Cabinet, is typical. Justly or unjustly Mr. Alger was
held responsible by the country for the mistakes which
marked the Spanish war and the country was clamouring
for a victim. President McKinley stood by his War
Minister as long as possible ; then he felt that his own
safety demanded a concession to public sentiment, and
Alger was made a vicarious sacrifice. It was intimated
to him that his resignation would be accepted, and
immediately it was placed in the President's hands.

Marshall Jewell was Postmaster-General in General
Grant's second administration. One day after a Cabinet
meeting Grant said to Jewell as the members were
leaving :

1 Wait a minute, Mr. Postmaster-General, I have
something to say to you.' When the two men were
alone Grant said : * I should like your resignation.'

' Certainly,' replied Jewell, f as soon as I return to
my department I shall write it out and send it to you.'

1 You will find paper and pen there,' said Grant,
pointing to a desk, ' you can write it out now.'

When a mandarin receives a sword from his emperor
and is told to make use of it, he promptly falls upon it :
there is no escape for him. Every Cabinet Minister
must be prepared to take his official life whenever the
President raises his eyebrows.

Members of the Cabinet are appointed by the Presi
dent and must be confirmed by the Senate. They all
receive the same salaries, ,£2,400 a year, and nothing
in the way of allowances or other emoluments. They
hold office nominally for four years, but the death of a
President or the end of an administration dissolves a

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AMERICAN POLITICAL SYSTEM

Cabinet, as every President selects his own advisers.
In the event of the death of both the President and
Vice-President the members of the Cabinet succeed to
the presidency in the order of precedence — first the
Secretary of State, then the Secretary of the Treasury,
and so on, except that a naturalised citizen is ineligible
to the succession.

Sometimes members of the Cabinet are contemptu
ously referred to as * the President's chief clerks,' a
sarcastic but not entirely untruthful characterisation.
It has been pointed out that a secretary holds office
simply at the pleasure of the President, so that in a
sense the President is the Cabinet's master, and even if
all the Cabinet should differ from him his fiat is supreme.
But the strength of the President and the weakness of
the Cabinet is the structure of the American constitu
tion, which centres all power in the President, which
does not recognise any delegated or divided authority
and really, within well-defined bounds, makes the Presi
dent an autocrat. His power is greater and more
autocratic, within certain limits, than the Premier's,
because the President has an assured tenure of four
years, because he need care nothing about a majority in
Congress, and because he need not give a thought to
his Cabinet. The British Premier must always recognise
his master — public opinion.

It has already been said that everything done by a
member of the Cabinet is done in the name of the
President. When the Secretary of State writes to a
Minister for Foreign Affairs, he uses the phrase : ' I am
directed by the President,' or * the President directs me
to say.' This is no empty formula. The Secretary of
State can only act after he has been directed to do so
by the President ; no secretary would take action on any

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AMERICA AT HOME

important matter without consulting the President and
receiving his permission. As the American Cabinet
Minister does not sit in Congress, he is not a political
chief and is not a constructive statesman. The Secretary
of the Treasury, unlike the Chancellor of the Exchequer,
cannot provide the machinery for collecting the money
which later he is to disburse; he must raise revenue
according to the manner indicated by Congress ; he
must not disburse a sixpence unless Congress has pre
viously sanctioned it. The Secretary of the Treasury
may feel quite certain that bankruptcy stares the nation
in the face, but he would be powerless to prevent it if
Congress, in its wisdom, should have made bankruptcy
inevitable by legal enactment.

As the Cabinet is not represented in Congress, official
communications between the two branches of the govern
ment are in writing, and occasionally the heads of
departments appear before committees to explain esti
mates and other matters of departmental administration.
All the secretaries, with the exception of the Secretary
of State, submit annual reports, and at frequent intervals
during a session special reports. Information required
by Congress is obtained by the passage of a resolution
requesting the President or directing the Secretary, as
the case may be, to furnish it, if not incompatible with
the public interest. The President may withhold in
formation or direct members of the Cabinet to do so if
he should consider publicity inadvisable, but usually the
information is furnished.

Practically the President is elected by direct, popular
vote, but theoretically the people vote for electors — the
so-called ' electoral college ' — who in turn vote for the
candidates for President and Vice-President, who are
voted for on the same day and on the same ticket. The

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AMERICAN POLITICAL SYSTEM

electoral college is another of those elaborate series of
checks which so delighted the framers of the constitution,
but to-day it is as archaic and as much a useless relic of
the day when customs and morals were both different
as is the pearl-handled sword which the Lord Mayor, in
token of submission, offers to the King when he visits
his loyal city of London. The people could not be
trusted to vote directly for the presidential candidates,
so they vote for electors, each State being entitled to as
many electors as it has members and Senators in Con
gress, and these electors, in theory, later meeting and
electing the President. As a matter of fact, the popular
vote determines the election, although to comply with
the requirements of the constitution and the law, Con
gress formally meets to receive the electoral returns and
make official announcement of what all the world has
long known.

The Vice-President is by law the presiding officer of
the Senate. He is not permitted to take part in debate,
and may not vote unless to break a tie. So long as the
President lives or retains his health he is merely a
presiding officer; in case of the President's death or
disability he succeeds him.

Members of the House of Representatives are elected
for a term of two years, and receive a salary of .£1,500
a year, and in addition mileage, and other allowances
equivalent to about £350 a year. Each State is entitled
to a certain number of representatives based on popula
tion, the State being divided into as many 'Congressional
districts ' as there are members of Congress, the endeavour
being to make each district contain approximately the
same number of persons. The constitution provides
that no person may be a member of Congress ' who shall
not, when elgc4§d, t>e an inhabitant of that State in which

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AMERICA AT HOME

he shall be chosen/ which in the British constitution
would prevent an Englishman standing for a Scotch
constituency. The law does not compel a man to be
an ' inhabitant ' of the district he represents, but custom
does, and it is a custom seldom ignored. The result is
that Congress is often deprived of the services of strong
and able men, because they are unfortunate enough to
live in districts where the majorities are of the opposite
political faith, or even in States, as in some of those of
the South, where one party rules. In nearly all the
Southern States the Republicans are in such a hopeless
minority that only Democrats are elected to Congress.

The powers of the House of Representatives are
practically analogous to those of the House of Commons.
All bills raising revenue must originate in the House of
Representatives, and by the unwritten law supply bills
are first passed by the House, but the Senate in both
cases may change the bills by amendment. All other
legislation may originate in either House, and the House
may amend any bill passed by the Senate.

Senators are elected by the legislature of the State
they represent for a term of six years. Each State,
irrespective of size or population, is entitled to two
Senators. In addition to its legislative functions the
Senate, as already explained, confirms all nominations
and ratifies treaties. These powers cause the Senate to
regard itself as superior to the House, and the Senate is
often referred to as ' the Upper House,' or ironically as
' the American House of Lords.3 The Senate is not
popular with the country at large ; and as many of its
members are rich men whose only claim to distinction
is their wealth, it is not surprising that in some parts of
the country the Senate should be looked upon as an
aristocratic body farther removed from the people than

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AMERICAN POLITICAL SYSTEM

the members of the House of Representatives, who,
elected by direct vote of the people, must every two
years go back to the people to give an account of their
stewardship, and receive an endorsement of their past
actions or meet with condemnation.

CHAPTER THREE
BOSSES, BIG AND LITTLE

IN the United States politics occupy a larger share of
the attention of a larger number of men than in any other
country in the world. The reason, or, to be exact, the
reasons, because there are two, are obvious. In America
politics is a profession ; it is a means whereby thousands,
in the aggregate hundreds of thousands, of men earn
a living. It is a business like any other. It is bread
and butter, and in some cases jam and cake as well.
That is one reason ; but there is also another why
America is the paradise of politicians. There are not
only politics as the term is understood in England — the
government of the Empire and a seat in Parliament — but
every State (and there are forty-six) is, so far as its
domestic concerns are concerned, a separate principality,
with all the machinery of government. In national
politics there are Presidents and Vice-Presidents,
members of the Cabinet and judges, members of Con
gress and members of the diplomatic corps, office
holders of high and low degree ; in the States there are
governors, judges, members of the legislature, and an
army of State officials. And nobody, from the President
down, works for glory. Every man is paid. Politics is
a recognised profession ; the ' party ' is the fairy god
mother whose magic wand turns the desert into pleasant

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BOSSES, BIG AND LITTLE

places where the faithful find rest after the heat and
labour of a strenuous campaign. In England an election
affects the fortunes of only a very few persons ; in
America it is of direct interest to thousands, which is
the reason why American politics are always so intense,
why an American electoral campaign arouses such
enthusiasm and passion, why an American takes to
politics as naturally as a duck does to water, and why
the ' boss ' is an institution.

The American boss is sui generis. There is nothing
quite like him in any other country ; nothing that could
be like him in any other political system. He is as
much a product of American social conditions as the
famous big trees of California are the product of the
luxurious soil of that Garden of Eden. The big trees
of California if transplanted to Europe would die and
wither. The American boss, if transplanted to the
political system of England, or any other European
country, would die of inanition. It is only possible for
him to exist in the United States.

There are bosses and bosses. There are bosses who
hold a State in the hollow of their hands, who make and
unmake Governors, and Senators, and members of
Congress ; whose States are so important and so in
fluential that they make or unmake Presidents ; who
exercise a dominating influence on politics and legislation ;
without whose consent Congress cannot act. And from
the big boss standing at the very head of the column,
the scale ranges down to the city boss and the ward
boss; and the boss, whether he happens to be big or
little, is always an interesting study.

Bosses are born and not made. But no man is born
to boss-ship. He acquires it by the exercise of his
superior qualities of shrewdness, or natural capacity to

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AMERICA AT HOME

be a leader of men, or money, or a combination of all
these, but it is to be noted that the boss is seldom
a boss because he has a large bank account. Usually it
is the other way. When a man begins his career as a
boss he is generally poor, and it is only after he has
entered into the possession of his kingdom and enjoyed
it for some years, that he becomes a solid and substantial
citizen, and has the satisfaction of being able to count
his possessions of money and stocks and bonds and to
feel that he has not wasted his opportunities.

Properly to understand what boss-ship means, one
must understand American political methods. Every
State has its legislature or local parliament, composed of
two houses, the lower house, usually called the House
of Representatives, and the upper house, or Senate.
These members of the legislature are nominated at
district conventions, to which delegates are sent who
have been elected at what are known as primaries. At
the primary every person who subscribes to the principles
of the party. holding the primary may vote for a delegate,
and these delegates then meet in convention and
nominate the candidates for the Senate and House of
Representatives. The basis of the political system,
therefore, is the primary, and it is the primary which is
the weakest link in the American political chain. The
primary usually is a small gathering held in the evening
in some obscure place, more often than not a hall over
a public-house, or some Other equally undesirable place
of meeting. The professional politician, the man whose
business or social engagements do not press heavily
upon him, the young fellow who will vote for the first
time at the coming election — in short, all men lowest in
the scale of society — are willing enough to go to the
primary ; but the man who has a dinner-party on hand

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BOSSES, BIG AND LITTLE

that night, or is kept at the bedside of a patient, or who
must prepare the case which is coming on for trial next
day, has neither the time nor the inclination to go to
the primary. Naturally, what might be expected happens.
The delegates to the convention are neither intellectually
nor morally men of the highest stamp, and men of their
own type may be, and probably will be, nominated as
candidates.

But do not suppose that 'the men who attend the
primaries are free agents. Not at all. The local boss
— for in every district there is a boss, although a small
one — has taken pains to see that the right men are
elected to the convention. How he achieves this result
depends much on the man, although the methods are
similar in all cases and vary only in detail. For instance,
in one case the boss is a man who governs because of
his personal following; because he is well liked, because
he is a man who has the natural gift for governing men.
He is able by argument, by persuasion, by threat, by
bribe, by promise of preferment, by any one of a dozen
different means, to induce his followers to believe that
it is for their interest that Smith and Jones shall be
elected and that Brown and Black shall not. He works
hard, very hard indeed. He is up early and late seeing
the voters, arguing, entreating, drinking with them in
saloons, telling good stories, being hail-fellow-well-met
where that policy is most effective, or holding out the
promise of a place for a brother or a nephew or a son
in the police force or in one of the public departments
if selfishness is the controlling motive. But he always
knows his man. He knows whether he can be ap
proached from his strong side or his weak side, whether
he or his wife is really the head of the family, whether
it is advisable to kiss the baby or to give a dollar to

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AMERICA AT HOME

the small boy, whether an order for coal or a good word
to the landlord will be most effective.

The boss does not work for salary, but his emoluments
come in a different way. More often than not he is a
petty local office holder enjoying his place through the
favour of some man a little higher up in the political
scale, and his place depends on the continuance of the
party in power. Therefore, he has every interest, material
as well as political, in seeing that the party in power
retains its control, and moreover he knows that his
chance for advancement depends on his work. If he
proves himself a man of skilful manipulative ability, if he
shows that he can hold his followers in line, that they do
not break away from his instructions but vote as they
are told, then his superiors, who always recognise the
importance of able lieutenants, will suitably reward him.
It is to his interest that he shall do his work thoroughly
and faithfully, and he usually does.

Now we come to the convention. Here there is
another type of boss, a boss of special skill and ability,
with even a greater knowledge of men and affairs, and
who is somewhat more cultured and a little better versed
in the affairs of the world. However, it is only a
difference of degree. The same methods are used here
as before, much the same arguments are employed, and
here, as elsewhere, there is the same appeal to the vanity
or cupidity of men. A man may be elected a member
of the legislature or a senator simply because he is a
good fellow, because he is the kind of man who for years
has been " running with the boys," who stands up at the
bar and takes his drink with them, who tells a good
story, who goes to banquets and picnics, who is free
with his money. Or he may be nominated because he
happens to be an Irishman, and nine-tenths of the

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BOSSES, BIG AND LITTLE

people living in his district are Irish ; or because he is
a German, and the population is largely German, or for
some other equally unimportant reason. Or it may be
that his manager has promised that he will vote for or
against a certain bill, or that he will champion a cause.
It is quite immaterial how the argument is used so long
as it is an argument that has its influence. A seat in
the legislature is usually regarded as a stepping-stone to
higher and more important places. A man goes to the
legislature where the salary is insignificant, and often
spends much more than his salary to gratify that ambition.
But it makes him known, it gives him an opportunity
to air his oratory, if he has oratory ; to pose as the
representative of down-trodden labour, if that happens
to be the special role he desires to play ; to have his
name associated with a measure which shall herald him
as a man of ability, knowledge, and courage.

But it must not be forgotten that there are chances in
the legislature for a legislator who is not burdened with
a conscience. There are always laws to be passed or
not to be passed that will be for the advantage of certain
great interests. For instance, a railroad wants a fran
chise for which it is prepared to pay handsomely, and
the member of the legislature willing to sell his vote can
frequently obtain money enough to live in comfort for
the next year. Or the defeat of a bill can be made
equally profitable. An honest member of the legislature,
who cares more for the public than he does for monopoly,
introduces a bill requiring a railway company to make
certain improvements for the protection of the travelling
public which would entail an expense of several hundred
thousand dollars. The railway company naturally
objects to that heavy expenditure, and to save it is
willing to pay ,£5,000 or £10,000, if the bill can be

AMERICA AT HOME

conveniently killed. There are various ways of killing
bills known to shrewd legislators.

The ambition of the member of the legislature is to be
elected to Congress. It is generally believed, not only
in Europe, but by many people in the United States who
are not familiar with affairs, that members of Congress
as a body are corrupt. This, I beg to assure the reader,
does Congress a great injustice, and I say this as one
with experience, having lived for more than twenty years
in Washington and having in that time become intimately
acquainted with members of Congress, the doings and
proceedings of Congress, and the methods by which
legislation is enacted. The average member of Congress,
far from being corrupt, is scrupulously honest ; and in an
assembly consisting of nearly five hundred men, the
members of Congress, whether in Senate or House, who
are open to direct bribery may be counted at any one
time on the fingers of one hand. Remember, of course,
I am talking of present conditions. It is probably true
that in the old days — that is to say, in the days imme
diately following the war and even as late as, perhaps,
1880 — there was much bribery in Congress, but I am
quite certain that to-day there is practically none. In
fact, conditions are such that bribery — that is to say,
bribery in the open and accepted term of the word, the
selling of a member's vote for money — is impossible.

But while members of Congress are honest they are
also subject to certain influences, and the great power of
monopoly and plutocracy is able to make itself felt in
Congress and shape legislation ; probably to a greater
extent in the United States than in any other country.
To understand how it is possible for monopoly and
wealth to control the actions of Congress it becomes
necessary to go back to first principles and explain the

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BOSSES, BIG AND LITTLE

method by which Congressmen are elected. The candi
dates for Congress, like the candidates for the State
legislature, are nominated in convention, and it is in the
State convention that the power of the State boss is
directly exerted. A governor is never nominated (and
when I say never, of course I use that word in a broad
sense, as occasionally a convention has been known to
break away from its leaders) unless the managers have
beforehand agreed upon the nominee. Preceding the
convention, there is much intrigue and manipulation to
control the delegates and win them over to the support
of the candidate the boss is championing. In certain
States, in New York for instance, peculiar conditions
have made the power of the boss so all-supreme that no
one has the temerity to challenge it, and whatever
a certain Senator used to say in New York was law, and
the convention was simply called to ratify his fiat. Some
times there is a sham fight over one of the minor
nominees ; sometimes the boss must make a trivial con
cession to a recalcitrant element and must not drive
matters too far ; sometimes it is wise to defer to public
sentiment by throwing overboard the man he may have
selected and accepting another a trifle less objectionable ;
but usually and in effect ' the slate,5 so called, as agreed
upon by the boss and his lieutenants, is submitted to the
convention and the convention accepts it.

When the State ticket has been nominated, with the
Governor, Lieutenant-Governor, Secretary of State, and
the other officials placed before the public and making
their campaign for election, it becomes necessary for the
boss to raise money for the expenses of the campaign,
and a campaign in the United States is a very expensive
affair. A certain portion of this money is obtained by
assessing the candidates, who are expected to make

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AMERICA AT HOME

generous contributions, and thus it often happens that a
man with nothing to commend him except his money
receives a nomination because it is known that he will
make a heavy contribution to the party's war chest.
The money received from the candidates is only a
fraction of the total that will be expended, and money
must be obtained from other sources. There are two
classes, animated by widely separated motives, always to
be relied on. There are the men who have nothing to
ask in the way of favours from the legislature, but who
believe in the principles of the party ; Republicans who
want to see a Republican Governor elected because they
are convinced it is for the best interest of the State;
Democrats who hope to see the Republican candidate
defeated and a Democrat elected, — these men contribute
various amounts according to their means. These
sums, however, are comparatively small compared to the
money obtained from the great joint-stock companies,
which, being the creatures of the State and owing their
existence to the charters and laws passed by the State
Legislature, know that it is the part of wisdom to keep
on good terms with the party boss. It has already been
said that it is quite easy for a corrupt or dishonest legisla
ture to make it expensive and inconvenient for railway,
telegraph, telephone, gas and tramway companies, and
therefore the boss goes to these large companies and
politely requests — in the same way that the late Mr. Dick
Turpin used to * request ' his victims to hand over their
money and valuables — a contribution to his campaign
fund. Most of them hasten to comply, for the same
reason that led the late Jay Gould to remark on one
occasion before an investigating committee that in a
Democratic State he was always a Democrat, and in a
Republican State he was always a Republican. Managers

34

BOSSES BIG AND LITTLE

of great companies are neither Republicans nor Demo
crats when it comes to a matter of business, and in the
United States politics are always business.

A railway company contributes ,£5,000 or ;£i 0,000
to the campaign fund, and in contributing it gives the
boss to understand that certain legislation which has
been talked about, which is in the air, and which it
fears, must not be passed at the next session of the
legislature ; or, that legislation in which it is interested
will be presented to the legislature, and the boss must
use his influence to secure its passage. The basic theory
of American politics is Bismarck's cynical motto of Do
ut des, or, translated into modern English and as the
American politician understands it, ' Gratitude is a lively
sense of favours to come.' Strange as it may seem,
bosses are usually honest — that is, honest in political
matters, and honest in carrying out their pledges. A
boss takes ,£5,000 from a railway company, gives, of
course, no receipt for it, enters into no contract, but
simply with a nod or a wink lets it be understood that
what the railway manager understands he also under
stands, and nine times out of ten that contract will
be as rigidly and strictly observed as if it had been
signed, sealed, and delivered in the presence of witnesses,
and entered of record.

The same system prevails in the election of members
of Congress, and the election of the President, only
magnified tenfold, twentyfold, sometimes a hundred
fold, depending entirely upon the strenuousness of the
campaign and the danger of the opposing party winning
the election. It has been said that the election of Mr.
McKinley in 1896, when the country was so tremendously
wrought up over the Bryan compaign, involved an ex
penditure of more than £"1,000,000 on the part of the

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AMERICA AT HOME

Republicans. This enormous sum was in the main
obtained from the great financial and business interests
of the United States. They were fighting for their own.
They looked upon the election of Mr. Bryan as one
of the greatest catastrophes that could befall the country,
and to avert it regarded almost any means as legitimate.
When the late Senator Hanna, who was the Republican
campaign manager, the boss of all bosses, needed money,
a thousand pounds or fifty thousand pounds, he went to
Wall Street or to the great bankers of Boston, Phila
delphia, Chicago, and other moneyed centres, and told
them if they were really sincere in their desire to see
Mr. McKinley elected and Mr. Bryan defeated, it was
necessary that they give the money asked for. And
they gave it. They regarded it in the light of a policy
of insurance, and they could better afford to pay the
premium than run the risk of losing everything.

Here, again, it must not be imagined that these
capitalists, even while protecting their own interests, did
not avail themselves of the opportunity to obtain what
they wanted. It was clearly understood that Congress
should pass certain financial legislation, that certain
things should be done in regard to the tariff, and other
things should not be done, and so with other important
measures that would come before the National Legis
lature. By this arrangement there was no necessity
for individual interests dealing with individual members
of Congress — by offering them bribes or holding out
any other inducement. They had made their bargain
with the party manager. They had his pledge that
in case of the election of his candidate the things
they demanded should be done, and those things which
they feared should not be done. Of course, the con
tract was scrupulously observed.

36

BOSSES BIG AND LITTLE

That is the system which prevails in every election,
great or small, whether in a city election, a State
election, or a National election. The bosses are dealt
with. In the case of the city and the State, even after
dealing with the bosses, it is sometimes necessary to
buy a certain number of men in the Board of Aldermen
or in the State Legislature, but in Congress it is not
necessary, because it is much more difficult for a member
of Congress to pass a bill or to defeat it unless he is
acting as the spokesman of his manager. All bills of
a public character — legislation affecting the tariff, finance,
subsidies to steamships, and other matters of the same
kind — become party questions, and the party bosses,
the President and the managers of the party in and
out of Congress, determine the action to be taken,
which at once makes the proposed legislation a party
measure, and lines up parties for or against it. If it
is a Republican measure every Republican is expected
to and must vote for its passage or run the risk of
being branded a traitor to his party and inviting his
political doom. On the other side, the Democrats will
be found in opposition, and no Democrat would dare
to vote in its favour unless he could give such an
extremely good explanation that it would satisfy his
constituents. As a matter of fact, his course would not
be condoned, and the man who felt that his conscience
compelled him to vote in support of a measure which
was opposed by his party would experience the fate of
all martyrs. He would suffer for the sake of his
conscience.

The State boss is usually in politics for the love of the
game, for the prestige and the power which it gives him.
Senator Platt, until a few years ago, when failing health
compelled him to retire from active participation in

37

AMERICA AT HOME

politics, was openly referred to as the Republican boss
of New York, and he did not resent that title, nor did
he ever deny that he was the boss ; on the contrary, he
was particularly anxious to have it known that he was the
dictator of Republican politics in the State of New York
and that his will must be respected. Mr. Platt is a
wealthy business man, the president of one of the great
express companies, and formerly devoted as much of his
time to politics as he did to business. He is not a man
who makes money out of politics, and even his bitterest
enemies admit that he is personally honest and that he
has spent a large fortune in politics. But although his
enemies are perfectly willing to certify to his integrity,
they do not hesitate to charge him with many things done
in the name of politics which would not stand the
scrutiny of ethical consideration. Mr. Platt is too old
and experienced a campaigner, and probably just a trifle
too cynical, to take the trouble to enter any denials. In
politics, according to the American creed, one may do
certain things which one dare not do in society or
business. Politics is war, and in war all is fair, and
especially fair if you happen to win. That might be
the motto of the American politician.

The city boss is usually a different type of man to the
State boss. In New York the boss of Tammany has
frequently been an illiterate, unprincipled freebooter, who
has plundered his satrapy without conscience and without
remorse, and whose principal object has been, like the
South American dictator, to pile up a sufficiently large
bank account against the day of revolution, so that when
forced to flee he will not go forth into the world naked,
but he will still be able to wear fine raiment and his
wife will be shielded from the bitter blast of adversity by
diamonds and satins. Help your friend always, but in

38

BOSSES, BIG AND LITTLE

helping him don't forget also to help yourself, is one
of the cardinal principles of the Tammany political faith.
Let Tammany grant a favour to a contractor — a chance
to plunder the city and make a million ; but when he gets
his million, Tammany will not forget to claim its tithe
of corruption. Let a gambler make his pile if he can,
but Tammany takes mighty good care that while he is
making his stake he is enriching its coffers. It is the
same thing in Philadelphia, and many other large cities.
The boss is there for plunder. The mission of the boss
is to make money, and the boss usually fulfils his
mission.

How does a man become a boss, the reader may ask.
How does a man become a leader of men anywhere ?
If one can answer the latter question one can answer the
former. There are some men who are endowed with
certain talents or abilities, a certain power to wield and
sway and manipulate men, a certain force, whatever it
may be, a certain way which enables them to acquire
leadership. It is these men who rise to the top. No
man suddenly becomes a boss any more than a man
suddenly becomes a general or a man at one jump
becomes Premier of Great Britain. The boss serves his
apprenticeship. It is a case unmistakably of the survival
of the fittest. A young fellow who goes into politics in
any large city is at first simply a private in the ranks, to
do as he is told to do, to vote as he is directed to vote,
to act as he may be instructed to act in whatever is
demanded of him. There are, of course, a certain
number, the larger number, who in politics, as in every
other relation of life, always remain privates ; but here
and there, say one in a thousand, or perhaps even ten
thousand, a man shows special qualities which attract the
attention of those immediately above him and win him

39

AMERICA AT HOME

promotion ; and precisely as a private is promoted to be
a corporal, a corporal a sergeant, and so on up, in the
political army the man who shows he has ability, or
superior audacity, or absolute unscrupulousness, or has
the indefinable something that attracts men and therefore
enables him to make use of them for his own ends, earns
his promotion and his commission.

The professional politician, the man who makes of
politics his vocation, has the advantage over the non-
professional that every master of his craft has over the
amateur. The professional politician, like the professional
athlete, keeps himself in constant training, and is ready
for whatever emergency may be required of him. The
non-professionals, the so-called ''respectable element,"
as they are sneeringly termed by their opponents, the
good citizens, lawyers, doctors, business men, think they
have performed their political duty when they have cast
their ballots ; and while the non-political American
always votes for a President, usually for a Governor, and
generally for a Congressman, he is frequently too careless
or too indifferent or too busy to bother about primaries
or municipal elections. The result, of course, is that the
candidates of the " respectable element " are defeated
and the candidates of the professional politicians are
elected, which explains why there is a Tammany in New
York, and why the antitype of Tammany is to be found
in dozens of other cities.

40

CHAPTER FOUR
ARE THERE CLASSES IN THE UNITED STATES?

IT is the boast of the American that neither classes
nor caste exist in the United States ; that the restricted
and painful influence of class does not make itself felt
in his country ; and when he refers to the Declaration
of Independence and repeats the sonorous phrase of
that majestic document, that all men are born free
and equal, he really imagines that mere words have
made class distinction impossible. And yet it would
be foolish to ignore the fact that in the United States /
not less than in England there are classes. If this
were the time and the occasion for entering into a
discussion of a complex and extremely complicated
sociological question, one would be justified in pointing
out that in every civilised state of society classes must
exist; that there must be the class of the intellectual
and the class of the ignorant, the class of the poor
and the class of the rich, the class of the honest and
the class of the vicious ; but that is a little foreign to
the general subject and need not now be considered.

Only hypocrisy would close its eyes to the fact that
there are social divisions in the United States. Every,
year the lines are more tightly drawn, and it must be
admitted that wealth makes classes. Money exercises a
baneful influence in the United States because to a very

AMERICA AT HOME

large extent money is the foundation on which an aris
tocracy is being erected. It is not, of course, an aristocracy
in the European sense of the word, not an aristocracy such
as is known in England ; it does not owe its existence
to hereditary titles or nobiliary creations ; and yet it is
,an aristocracy, a class apart from the great mass of the
people, a class that arrogates to itself certain things
and owes its prominence simply to the fact that it has
great riches.

There is the aristocracy of blood and the aristocracy
of money. There is a small and dignified circle of
men and women who are proud of the fact that they
'are descended from the early settlers, who can trace
their lineage back to the roster of those immortals
who, setting sail from Holland, cast themselves on the
tumultuous body of water, braving the fury of man no
less than the wrath of God, and for the sake of the
immortal truths which they held to be dear to them,
more dear than life itself, were willing to face the
dangers and perils of that mysterious and unknown
land across the sea. The history of the United States,
that history as it is written to-day, abounds with the
names of these men, the descendants of the pioneers,
of that zealous band who came over in the Mayflower
and fought nature and wild beasts and savages in the
settlement of the storm-swept Atlantic coast. These
are the men who have done most to make the United
States what it is, and to them the civilised world owes
an eternal debt of gratitude. They were patriots;
austere, it is true, in their view of life ; rigid in their
conception of duty ; their thoughts tinged with gloom,
seeing little of the brighter side of existence, impressed
always with the responsibility of living and the fear of
the future, which was never absent ; too serious, in

42

ARE THERE CLASSES?

fact, too deficient in that most priceless and saving
grace of humour, to see that life was something more
and better than a mere round of monotonous duty.
And yet it is the spirit of the Puritan that has made
this remarkable, mixed and heterogeneous race, the
American, who is a product of Europe as well as of
his own country, what he is. The spirit of the Puritan
has made the American do things which have won for
him the admiration of the world ; the spirit of the
Puritan has inspired him to win the West, to make
of his country in some respects the greatest and fore
most country in the world ; it has made him do in a
short time what it has taken other nations centuries to
accomplish. The history of the United States is a
chronicle of the effect and influence of Puritanism in
accomplishing the destinies of the country ; it is the
Puritan and the sons of the Puritan who have always
ranked high in the councils of State ; who have always
stood for all that was best and truest. These men
have written their names on every stone that entered
into the fabric. These men have given of their sons
to their country's cause whenever she demanded it.

In New York, Boston, and Philadelphia one will find
this aristocratic element, but most of these old families
are not families of great wealth as American fortunes
are ranked nowadays, and they are more content to es
cape the glare of publicity than to seek it. They have,
however, adopted one curious way to let the world
know that they are able to count grandfathers among
their hereditary possessions. When the English visitor
reads in the society columns that Richard Smith II.
or John Jones III. (but, of course, they have much
more high-sounding patronymics) has given a dinner,
he wonders whether Smith is one of the reigning

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AMERICA AT HOME

sovereigns of America or merely a member of a
mediatised house, and he is told that Mr. Smith being
in the direct line of descent from the original and
only Smith it is considered desirable to perpetuate the
name ; and as c junior ' would be confusing after the
second generation, numerals are used. A century hence
it will sound quite imperial to read of ' President
Brown XIX.'

The aristocracy of America — the real aristocracy in the
sense of ruling society, but not the real aristocracy in the
other sense — consists of the men who have made their
great fortunes or have inherited large wealth, and by their
business abilities have increased their inheritances.
These are the men and their wives and daughters of
whom Europe sees and hears so much ; who spend half
the year in Europe buying priceless art treasures and
giving lavish entertainments ; who have million-dollar
' cottages ' in Newport, who keep their yachts in com
mission the year round, who own racing studs, whose
fancy-dress balls are chronicled at length in the daily
newspapers, and whose daughters when they marry
foreign noblemen are given pages in the newspapers,
and whose trousseaux are not only described, but illus
trated.

A few years ago it was distinctly true that there was
no leisure class in the United States. To-day one will
often hear it said that there cannot exist an aristocracy
in America because an aristocracy is only possible where
there is a large leisure class, and the idle rich are not
known in America. But this is only partially true. The
leisure class is constantly growing and now consists of
rich men, the serious business of whose lives is to devise
means to amuse themselves and kill time. They are
men who either do nothing or have merely a nominal

44

ARE THERE CLASSES?

connexion with great business enterprises which they
have inherited, the real management being in the hands
of less known but more capable men.

In the United States, unlike England, it is not a family
tradition for its members to follow certain professions.
In England the heir to a title will, as a usual thing, enter
Parliament, one of the younger sons will go into the
diplomatic service, another into the army, perhaps still
another into the church. In the United States young
men of great wealth and good family do not go into
politics, and it is only the rare exception when a man
of that class is found in Congress. At the present time
there are a few men answering to that description, but
the number is limited. Neither the army nor the navy
is a fashionable profession as it is in England. In both
branches of the service there are men of inherited wealth
and high social standing, but here again the number
is limited. It is easy enough to understand why the
jeunesse dor'ee of America finds no attraction in military
service. There are no household troops in the United
States as there are in England, there is no corps d^lite^
membership in which is a patent of social distinction,
and until recently there was no great opportunity for a
man to distinguish himself in active service. When a
man enters the American army after graduating from
West Point, where for four years he must do more
serious work than suits the taste of a youth the heir
to millions, whose idea of life is luxurious indolence, he
was formerly sent out West and remained there for
several years. In the early days, when the West was an
unsettled desert, when the army post was the focus
around which gathered the little settlement, there was
a certain spice of adventure for the army officer because
he was liable at any time to be dispatched with a troop

45

AMERICA AT HOME

of cavalry or a company of infantry to round up a band
of savage Indians who had taken the war path, and the
chances were at least even that instead of his capturing
the redskins they would hang his scalp and those of his
men in their tepees. But now even that inducement to
an adventurous spirit has gone by. The Indians nowa
days are good Indians — that is to say, the warriors have
been killed, and those that are left have become con
taminated by contact with white civilisation, and so long
as they are given their rations and a sufficient amount of
tobacco and whisky they make no trouble. Life on the
plains is nothing more than a life of the most monotonous
and commonplace routine, nothing more than drill and
petty inspections and the ordinary everyday life of a
garrison post in time of profound peace. Since the
Spanish war and the acquisition of the Philippines there
has been some improvement and a greater opportunity
for an officer to distinguish himself. But the change has
been so recent that it has not affected the general feeling
of the rich young American for the army. The army is
simply the means of professional livelihood. The son of
a poor man dependent upon his own resources goes into
the army as the sons of other men similarly situated
study law or medicine.

It is precisely the same in regard to the navy. The
navy is not the natural point of attraction for members
of certain families. A naval officer has always more or
less social standing, and for that reason a great many
young men are attracted to it, and the glamour of brass
buttons and gold braid is dear to them — especially as it
is doubly dear to the American girl, and that is a thing
not to be despised. But the millionaire's son, the
man who can do what he pleases, who does not
have to work, who can elect between a life of work

46

ARE THERE CLASSES?

and a life of enjoyment, finds little attraction in the
navy.

As neither the army nor the navy nor politics is
fashionable — and in the army and navy a man must work
hard, and in politics if he is to make any kind of a
name he must also work hard and subject himself to a
great many undesirable surroundings — it follows almost
as a matter of course that a young man whose father is
rich, when he comes to his majority, prefers to enjoy
life rather than to submit to those inconveniences. If
he is a man who delights in the vanity of seeing his name
constantly paraded in the papers, in what better way
can he gain his object than to set up a racing stable
and win the Futurity, or the American Derby ? He may
be quite sure the newspapers will give him more space
in that case than if he were to deliver an eloquent oration
in Congress. His great speech on the tariff or finance
would be dismissed in half a column. If he wins the
Futurity he will get a page or even two pages, with
almost a life-size picture of himself, his horse, his dog,
his clothes, and for ever after what he says will be
quoted with the air of authority. Or he may obtain
equal fame by breaking the record in his automobile, or
by giving an elaborate or bizarre entertainment.

The very rich form a class by themselves, because,
unless a man is very rich, he cannot, to use the American
colloquialism, " trot in that class." He cannot, if he is
a man of any sensitiveness, accept favours which he is
unable to reciprocate, any more than he can humiliate
himself by going to dinners and not giving them. And
really his presence is not desired. The very rich, with
their yachts and private cars, and houses scattered
throughout the country, enjoy themselves in their own
way, and keep to themselves ; they are interested in

47

AMERICA AT HOME

themselves and not in persons who do not belong to
their set. And from the very rich there is a gradually
descending scale to sound the sharp note of class dis
tinction. In every city there is a standard of money,
according to its size. In New York a man with a million
dollars is no longer accounted rich, while in a smaller
city the possessor of a million is a plutocrat to be envied
and respected. I do not wish to be understood as
implying that there is no intercourse between the
members of the various sets and circles or that they
have no point of contact. Naturally they have. At the
house of the very rich one may often meet the genteel
pauper ; at the house of the society leader it would not
be surprising to meet a person distinctly not in society,
but the fact of that person being at that particular house
on that particular occasion does not mean that the person
is in society — not at all. The host, and especially the
hostess, would emphatically deny that. For any one of
a dozen reasons that person has been invited, but it is
no indication of intimacy, and social intimacy between
the person of small means and the person of large means
is rare.

These class distinctions are more marked in the large
cities and in the cities that are old as age is counted in
America. In New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Wash
ington, and some of the cities of the South, one finds
class very sharply defined. In the newer and smaller
cities of the West these social distinctions do not exist,
because the people are too new and know too much of
each other. It was only yesterday, so to speak, that
everybody was on a level, and it would be ridiculous for
the man whose father, within the memory of the majority
of the people, worked on the road in his^shirt sleeves
with pick and shovel, and whose mother in her younger

48

ARE THERE CLASSES?

days worked over the washtub, to put on airs because
he has money. But in the older-established East, where '
the father working in his shirt sleeves has become a
tradition, time has softened the crudities of the shirt
sleeves ; they have become refined and gilded by pure
gold : they are something even to be admired. Time
lends its magic touch — even to shirt sleeves. What
contemporaries call dishonesty, biography terms enter
prise ; what at that time appeared like the stealing of
negroes in Africa to sell as slaves in America is trans
muted into the laudable term of "commerce." The
past is forgotten in misty tradition; the present is a
golden age.

It is undoubtedly an aristocracy of money rather thaa
an aristocracy of birth or achievement. It is, of course,
always a question what constitutes the best society in
America. You will be told by members of the so-called
" Four Hundred " — the people who believe that they are
the crime de la crime — that they are society. You will
be told by college professors, university presidents, men
of learning, scientists, writers, clergymen, artists, that
they are the real aristocracy and brains of America, that
the vulgar rich are nothing, that, as Mr, Andrew
Carnegie said not long ago, nobody pays any attention
to them — they represent nothing except themselves, and
they are more to be pitied than to be envied. Mr.
Carnegie, one uf the richest men in America, can
afford to pity them, but to most people they are objects
of envy ; and the men and women on the outside, who,
like the " peri at the gate of Eden stood disconsolate,"
would be only too glad to change places with them
even at the risk of incurring Mr. Carnegie's pity.

What constitutes society in the United States ? It is
a question that has often been asked and never satis-

49 E

AMERICA AT HOME

factorily answered. Certainly not blood or breeding,
because some of the best-born and best-mannered men
and women are not recognised by society and have no
place in society; certainly not great scientific, artistic,
or literary attainments, because one never hears of a
savant^ a writer, or a painter in society, unless society
takes him up as a fad for a brief season and tires of
him after the novelty has worn off; certainly not great
services to the State, either civil or military, because
the poor statesman is no more in society than is the
army or navy officer who has no other resources than
his pay.

On the other hand, the rich man and his wife, who
are neither witty nor wise, who, to be quite frank, are
often stupid and uninteresting, and who have nothing
to commend them but their money, but who because
of their money can give great entertainments, are wel
come guests at the most exclusive houses and are able
to command the attendance of the elect at their
functions. And curiously enough no people recognise
their shortcomings so quickly as to do the Americans
themselves and discuss them with such frankness.

American writers are always fond of telling their
countrymen and women that they are ill-bred and
snobbish. Thus, in a recent magazine article a New
York woman with an established place in society says
the striking difference between Eastern and Western
society is that the Western woman ' is generally not
afraid to admit that she is enjoying herself; and almost
always she reveals a willingness to extend cordiality
to a casually made acquaintance. This last concession
we all know is not a mark of highest fashion in the
East. Some haughty dames there are who would
perish rather than accord it ; and there is no one like

So

ARE THERE CLASSES?

your aristocrat of dollars and cents for putting people
she does not know in their places.'

1 It is absurd and unbelievable,' this same writer
observes, ' how tremendous a force, in the far-away
semi-civilised portions of our country, is the " society
column " of the New York newspaper. Its favourite
heroes and cherished heroines are intimately known,
and quoted by their familiar names, on the lips of
thousands who lead lives of constant, homely toil, and
who can never in reason expect to emulate such habits
and example. In this way, weak women and ignorant
young girls are everywhere being trained in the belief
that extravagant show and inane triviality are the chief
aim and end of a successful social career. No wonder
the ill-used word " society " is rarely accepted by
Americans in the broader sense, but is regarded as
applying mainly to the capers cut by certain people in
their summer diversions at Newport, and to the amount
of cash embodied in houses, balls, dinners, clothes, and
jewels in New York.'

Of the tendency of the 'aristocrat of dollars and
cents' to put people in their proper places, this story
is told of an Englishman 'of high rank and place,'
whose simplicity and bonhomie of spirit led him to ask
a young woman with whom he was dancing at an
Assembly ball to go out with him to supper. " Oh !
but I couldn't possibly," she answered, with a gleam
of mischief in her eyes. " I know my place too well."
Pressed for an explanation by the bewildered Earl, she
said : " I'm not in the set of the people who brought you

here. Of course, they expect you to take in Mrs. ,

and if you didn't do it, and did take me to their table,
I'd have such a horrid time, I couldn't stand it, really."

' The singular part of this in the Englishman's eyes

AMERICA AT HOME

was that the pretty girl in question came of a family who
had been a generation ago eminent in social place and
fortune in New York ; and that, although now poor,
she could boast a line of ancestry representing the best
in America. He was told, also, that the leaders of
fashion who had him in charge were wholly without
position in society by inheritance ; that some of them
were in trade purveying to the luxuries demanded by
their " set " at the present moment. And, failing to
understand the puzzle, his lordship calmly gave it up ! '

This authority on fashionable society answers the
question I asked above, how it happens that the rich
parvenu is accepted by society. 'As a matter of fact,
society everywhere/ she says, 'is a mart, where one
pays for what one gets. The person who contributes
what is the most in demand — amusement, entertain
ment, novelty, variety — wins the tribute of the suffrage
of fashion. The members of old families, who go out
seldom, who sniff at existing conditions, and make
no effort to be agreeable, are rewarded by the name
"Cave-Dwellers," and are left severely to themselves.
Those, on the contrary, who philosophically adapt their
ideas to the modern trend of things, who accept the
present social evolution for just what it yields them
in return, are made welcome, although they may not,
perhaps, presume upon their consciousness of gentle
breeding and ancient lineage. . . .

' While this endures, we are not likely to see among
us the fashionable interest in artistic and literary people
such as we note in London. A " celebrity " now and
then may be found at an ultra-fashionable function ; but
his kind do not take root easily in that soil, and wisely
find their pleasure in a wider sphere.'

One of the acknowledged leaders of New York
52

ARE THERE CLASSES?

society is Mrs. Stuyvesant Fish, the wife of a great rail
way magnate. Her views of society delivered to a
reporter are characteristically out-spoken. ' American
society,' she says, ' aims to be too exclusive, and it simply
makes this country the object of ridicule abroad. Just
think, for instance, how many worthy people — artists,
writers, thinkers, and the like — are excluded from
" society," or the " Four Hundred " as it is called in this
country, whereas in foreign society such congenial souls
are welcomed with open arms. That is what I dislike
about America. Talent and intellect should open the
portals to society. That is where other countries show
understanding and where America displays snobbishness.'

And then she raps her social compeers in this lively
vein:

' And now, Mrs. Fish, regarding the Four Hundred ? '
queried the interviewer.

' Oh, the Four Hundred ! ' she exclaimed, with another
shrug, 'doesn't it sound ridiculous? Just as if in this
country there could be just four hundred persons — and
no more — worthy to be called the elect ! Isn't it
absurd ? America is too new and too big for that sort
of narrowness. It is not typical of the American prin
ciples ; it does not do justice to the American ideal.'

Yet Mrs. Fish, like all other rich Americans, recognises
the existence of classes, for she says :

1 1 would not like to be a President, or a President's
wife. I should not like to have to eat with negroes. I
do not believe in equality. It would never do. We
cannot mix with the negro at all, and negro equality will
never come about. There will always be classes in this
country. We are coming more and more to have an
aristocracy and a common people. I do not believe in
being too democratic.'

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AMERICA AT HOME

Mrs. Fish was asked about a statement alleged to have
been made by her recently concerning the decline of
Newport. She said : ' Newport is not declining. True,
it is being invaded by vulgar and newly rich people of
the parvenu class, who form a rather common circle, but
the high classes are still there in greater numbers than
ever. Newport is just now paying too much attention to
foreign lords. By marrying European noblemen,
American girls are laying themselves liable to the
ridicule of the whole world,3

54

CHAPTER FIVE
THE EAST AND THE WEST

THE United States is really two countries — the East and
the West. In all things that go to make a nation the
two sections are, of course, one. There is as much
patriotism in the East as there is in the West, but it takes
a different form. The people of the East believe as fully
in the destiny of their country and the future greatness
of the Imperial Republic as do the people of the West ;
but in habit of thought, in manner of life, in the point of
view, they are in so many things dissimilar that they
might almost be two nations.

The man of the West is by environment and natural
conditions a man of a large and free life. He is still
to-day in certain sections a pioneer. In other places he
is the son of a pioneer whose father only a few short
years ago, as the progress of society is measured, carved
his way out of the wilderness and brought Nature under\
his subjection. The West is still in a primitive stage.
Civilisation is there, it is true, but it is a civilisation \
which has not yet taken on all the refinements and the
niceties of life, which come from years of the practice of
social amenities. It is a rather rough, boisterous, and joyous
state of being. The men who make up the West are men
of an intense vitality and sturdy physique, men who have
got whatever they possess by the force of courage and

55

AMERICA AT HOME

intelligence and the determination to succeed. They
have won because they deserved to win.

When one talks of the West one uses a very indefinite
term. The West is that part of the country which is
always just a little bit beyond where one happens to live.
To the Easterner, to the New Yorker, the West is
Chicago, and the average New Yorker thinks he has gone
very far west when he gets off the train in Chicago j but
to the Chicago man the West is anywhere between his
city and the Pacific Coast. Broadly speaking, the geo
graphical division of East and West is the Mississippi
River. Everything east of the Mississippi is East, and
everything west of that mighty stream is West.

The East is the oldest settled portion of the country, and
in the East one finds the largest cities and the greatest social
and intellectual development. In the great cities of the
East, New York, Boston and Philadelphia, owing to the
close contact with Europe, both social and commercial,
there is perhaps a stronger feeling and appreciation and
liking for Europeans and European customs than there
is in the West. The New Yorker of wealth and standing
would consider that he had not properly observed the
canons if he did not visit Europe and become fairly well
acquainted in a superficial way with its countries and its
peoples, but he has no great longing for the West. It
has no particular attractions for him unless he happens
to be a hunter or has mining or other business interests,
and so it comes about that one will find many men of
wealth and good education and much leisure in New
York, Philadelphia, and Boston who have visited many
parts of the Continent, who have spent months in
travelling about Europe, but who know nothing of the
beauties of the Rockies, or the grandeurs of California, to
whom Chicago is merely a name and Colorado, is only a

56

THE EAST AND THE WEST

geographical expression. The Westerner, on the other hand,
is naturally attracted to New York and the East. Of New
York he reads much in his daily papers. He reads florid
accounts of the great hotels, of the museums and picture
galleries, of the wealth of the ' upper ten,' of their ex
travagance ; and to go to New York is not only a pleasure,
but in some respects it is an education. Hence one will
find that more Westerners know the East than Easterners
know the West.

Outside the large cities of the West, where life is
much the same as it is in any other cities, with only
the difference of a greater freedom of intercourse and a
more generous bonhomie, the life of the West is very
largely agricultural. In the European sense of the term
there is no such thing as a peasantry in the United States.
There are no people whose ancestors for generations
back were born on the soil, who have always lived on it,
whose daily life has been spent in contact with it, and
whose children will follow in their footsteps after they
have gone. There are farm workers, but the farm
worker of America is an entirely different being from the
agricultural labourer of England or the French or German
peasant. The farmer of the West is usually an American.
He has pioneered his way from the East. He found life
there hard, and he carved out for himself a new life in
the West. He needed assistance, and he turned to the
emigrants who have come from Europe, the men and
women from Scandinavia and Germany, from England
and Ireland and Scotland, who enjoy a social intercourse
with their masters which is never found in Europe.
There at least no class exists. The "hired girl," the
farm.hands — everybody in fact who works on the farm is
always a member of the family. They sit down with the
master and his wife to the noonday dinner. They are

57

AMERICA AT HOME

on terms of easy familiarity with them ; and although
they are simply working for a fixed sum and have no
interest in the farm outside of their monthly wages, the
line between employer and employee is not rigidly drawn
and is not obvious.

In a country of such enormous distances as the United
States, where millions of acres yet remain to be brought
under cultivation, farms and settlements in the newer
part of the West are necessarily scattered and neighbours
are few. Life on the farm is naturally lonely, especially
in the winter time when the snow lies heavy on the
ground and intercourse between neighbours is often
interrupted for weeks at a time. In the older days of
the far West, women were frequently driven into insanity
by their monotonous existence. Living day after day in
the same nerve-destroying atmosphere, having little
opportunity for conversation, their strength weakened by
excessive physical labour, with nothing to relieve the
eye but the interminable monotony of snow-covered
wastes, it was not to be wondered at that loneliness made
them mad.

It is this somewhat isolated and self-centred life
which makes the Westerner an extremely patriotic, not
to say pugnacious, individual. He glories in the fact
that he is an American. He has been brought up on
the Declaration of Independence, the Monroe Doctrine,
and the " Fourth of July," and he really believes every
thing that has been taught him by over-zealous teachers
or that he has heard from flamboyant orators. In his
eyes the United States is the greatest and most formid
able power in the world. It can do anything that it may
care to do and no one shall say it nay.

Englishmen visiting the West are often struck by this
peculiar Western idiosyncrasy and set it down to blague ;

58

THE EAST AND THE WEST

but it is something more than that, it is something really
finer than that. The Westerner is not a humbug ; he is
not a braggart ; he is not a boaster ; and he is certainly
not a bully. When he talks about his country — and he
often talks about it, with a devotion almost passionate,
he really, sincerely, and honestly believes and means all
that he says. He is a product of his environment. He
has not been cabined, cribbed, and confined by a life
spent in the artificial restraints of a large city. He
has lived in the free and open air of his great prairies.
He has seen the wilderness reduced from savagery to
civilisation ; he has seen the little clearing grow into a
settlement ; he has seen the settlement extend into a
village ; he has seen the village develop into a city ; and
he has seen the city transformed into a metropolis. A
man may well feel proud of having witnessed such a
transformation ; he may well feel that it is the magician's
touch that has wrought it.

Think of it ! Less than half a century ago the city
of Chicago — a city of now nearly 2,000,000 inhabitants,
the greatest grain-market in the world, one of the
greatest ports in the world (the reader will perhaps doubt
this statement, but he must remember the enormous
traffic of the lakes which makes its port in Chicago),
this wonderful city less than half a century ago was
merely a stockade, the trading-post of a few adventurous
whites who were plucky enough and rash enough to deal
with the Indians, and who were in perpetual danger of
losing their lives to the fury of the redskins. And so
one can go all over this marvellous West. One can find
in cities all the luxuries, all the refinements of creature
comforts superior to those in some European cities two
hundred years old, with better hotels and greater con
veniences — and these cities of the American West are

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AMERICA AT HOME

mere mushroom growths. They have sprung up over
night and they are still so new that even tradition does
not exist. It is not wonderful, then, that the Westerner
takes a pride in himself and in his country ; that with
so much already accomplished he feels that whatever
the future demands that shall be done.

The Easterner has none of this feeling. He has got
over the first exuberance of boyhood, and having reached
almost mature manhood feels that it is more becoming
his dignity to exercise greater self-control. The
difference between the East and the West is largely the
difference between the young fellow just out of college,
whose view of life is always rose-coloured, and who
knows nothing of disappointment, and the man who has
long left his college days behind him and who has been
sobered by contact with the world. The West knows
not of disappointment or lost hopes. The life of the
farmer is often hard — very hard indeed. His crops fail
him. He is driven out of house and home by cloud
bursts, by tornadoes, by the overflow of rivers. His
cattle are destroyed by disease or the inclemency of the
elements. The market for his products falls to a point
where there is no profit, in fact, where, as happened a
few years ago, it was cheaper for the farmer to burn
maize than it was to send it to market, and yet with all
that the future always lies bright and dazzling before
him. The future of the West is the future of the United
States. Not only the people of the United States,
but the people of the whole world, must rely upon him
for theirtcorn and their wheat and their cattle ; and when
things go wrong and hard times come upon him he simply
grits his teeth and tightens his belt and looks forward
with confidence to next year, which is to recoup him for
all his losses.

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THE EAST AND THE WEST

The life of the West moves in more even grooves and
more well-defined orbits than in the East. The big
cities of America in the East, like the big cities of Europe,
are rapidly becoming over-congested, and the struggle
for existence is keen ; it is a much more severe struggle
and much more intense than in the West. The
American works hard. One cause that has contributed
to make the United States what it is, is the intensity of
purpose of the American. The average man works
longer hours than the average Englishman, and during
those hours he works more thoroughly. Hard work is
required and the example is set by the employer. Em
ployers as a rule work harder than their employees, and
it is their inspiration and example which tell all along
the line.

When a great political or social question convulses the
nation the difference between East and West is more
than ever emphasised. The East, more conservative,
closer in touch with European affairs, realising the
necessity of retaining friendly relations with England
and other foreign countries, has often counselled peace
or moderation when the West, more local, more self-
reliant, more indifferent to foreign opinion, has clamoured
loudly for action, which if taken might have produced
the most disastrous consequences. Take, for example,
that most remarkable Presidential campaign of 1896,
when Mr. Bryan was nominated by the Democrats
against Mr. McKinley. One the antithesis of the
other, one the absolute exponent of the typical West,
the other the exponent of the East — although Mr.
McKinley was by the accident of geography a Western
man, but by affiliation and temperament of the East,
and although he came from Ohio, Ohio is to-day
no longer West and almost touches the East. Mr.

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AMERICA AT HOME

Bryan was the champion of silver, Mr. McKinley was
the champion of gold. Mr. Bryan was the champion of
the down-trodden masses — or rather he told them he was
their champion — of the masses who thought they were
down-trodden, who thought that Mr. McKinley was the
representative of greed and of men who were determined
to fasten the gold standard upon the country so as to
increase their unholy wealth and virtually to reduce the
common people to slavery. The West was aflame for
silver ; the East was solidly arrayed against it. Had
the election occurred within a month or so after Mr.
Bryan's nomination, every close observer, every politician
who is acquainted with the facts, admits that Mr. Bryan
would have been triumphantly elected and the country
would have committed itself to a silver policy. Owing
to the influence of the East, to the money contributed
by the East and the campaign of education that was
carried on, a sufficient number of the voters of the West
were converted, the fallacy of the doctrine was exposed,
and Mr. McKinley, as every one knows, became President
of the United States.

Any cloud on the horizon of American international
relations emphasises again the temperamental difference
between East and West. The respectable newspapers
of the East — of course, I do not allude to the * Yellow
Press,' which is always ready to exploit a sensation that
promises to sell a few extra papers — frown upon the
mere mention of war and point out the iniquity of such
talk. But the Western papers are far less careful in
their utterances, and the casual way in which they
discuss war with England or Germany might make one
believe that war between two great Powers is of no
greater moment than an expedition to round up a few
recalcitrant redskins. In this they simply voice the

62

THE EAST AND THE WEST

public opinion of their communities ; and if they do not
absolutely favour war, at least they do not strenuously
oppose it, and while seemingly counselling moderation
and expressing the horror they have of war, they insist
that the dignity of the United States must be upheld,
even at the expense of war. That is a line of argument
always easily understood and generally gratifying to the
Western people.

The spirit of the West is the spirit of war, of the war
fare of its pioneers on the forests, of war on wild beasts,
of war against the Indian ; and all that the people of the
West have or that they are they have won, if not at the
point of the bayonet, at least at the blade of the axe, or
the muzzle of the rifle or the shotgun ; and when one
talks of war to them — war with a great and powerful
nation — it has fewer horrors for them than for a less
militant people. Nowhere in the world have the teach
ings of history left such a profound impress as in the
West. The Westerner remembers when his nation, a
handful of feeble colonists, warred, and warred success
fully, against the mightiest military power of the world \
how England was taught more than one lesson on the
sea by the United States; how she carried war into
Mexico ; and how, greatest of all, for four years she
waged that titanic struggle with the South and emerged
from it triumphant, greater, more powerful, more
prosperous — a nation so great and so firmly united that
since then no nation has deemed it advisable to thwart
her will. These are the things the Westerner remembers,
and they are things to make him regard war with less
fear than other people. But the Westerner, like the West,
is still young. He has all the glorious enthusiasm of
youth and youth's supreme self-confidence.

It is well for the Englishman, who is often puzzled by
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AMERICA AT HOME

American politics, to bear in mind the difference between
the West and the East, as it will frequently explain things
which otherwise are inexplicable. Englishmen are, as a
rule, badly informed on America and American affairs,
principally because the source of their information is the
New York Press, and because the ordinary Englishman
who visits the United States seldom goes even as far
West as Chicago, and still less often to the Pacific Coast.
The East, especially New York, is in some respects far
less in touch with the West than it is with Europe. I
have alluded to the self-centred and narrow life of the
Westerner, and yet the life led by the New Yorker is in
many respects hardly less self-centred and narrow. The
New Yorker is busy about his own affairs, those affairs
that centre in the small circle in which he lives, whose
boundary does not extend outside of the Island of
Manhattan on which New York is situated. The average
business man or lawyer or doctor or newspaper writer
finds so much to occupy him in New York — finds that
his whole world is in New York, finds that his life is the
life of New York, and that New York gives him every
thing that he wants or desires, everything that administers
to his comfort or his amusement or his profit— that he is
quite content to ignore the rest of the country, for which
he has almost the same supercilious contempt that the
Englishman used to have for the American in that
remote era of antiquity when neither understood the other.
There is a mighty South, those great States south of
the Potomac, of which the Easterner knows nothing,
which he hears about only in an indirect and rather
vague way. There is a mighty West, a West that he
knows raises the grain out of which is made the bread
which he eats, the West which supplies his beef and his
mutton and many other things which he must have, but

64

THE EAST AND THE WEST

that to him mean no more than that rubber grows on
the banks of the Amazon, or that the coffee which he
drinks at his breakfast table comes from Brazil. His
world is the world of Broadway or Fifth Avenue. His
associates are the men and women who constitute his
social circle. What the West may think, what the West
wants, means to him very little.

Of course one must make proper exceptions. The
great banker or business man whose ramifications extend
all over the United States, the great railroad manager
whose system, either direct or through affiliated lines,
spans the continent, the great shippers of wheat and
cattle, the Rockefellers and the Morgans and the Car-
negies, know the West, know the aspirations and the
motives and the prejudices of the. West, as well as do
the Westerners themselves, and so do some of the more
intelligent representatives of the Press. But these, after
all, are only a little leaven which scarcely leavens the
whole lump. I have repeatedly remarked the indifference
with which New Yorkers, who! spend their whole time in
New York, receive intelligence or information about the
West. It does not appeal to them ; it has really no
interest for them. I remember very well that a few
months prior to the nomination of Mr. Bryan, in 1896,
business matters brought me in contact with one of the
leading business men in New York. Knowing that I
had recently been in the West and the South, he was
good enough to believe that my views were worth hearing,
and he invited me to meet a few men of commercial
prominence so that I might give them the results of my
observations. I advanced the opinion that the Democrats
would nominate a silver man on a silver platform,
although I could not at that time predict Mr. Bryan's
nomination, nor could any one else, as it was an accident.

65 F

AMERICA AT HOME

The answer made by my friend was typical of the New
York view. "What you say is incomprehensible," he
replied. " The West cannot be so insane ; and moreover,
even if the West has gone crazy on the silver question,
as you seem to think, New York will not permit disaster
to overtake the country by allowing a silver man to be
nominated."

I pointed out to him that while New York un
doubtedly exercised great influence on political counsels,
and owing to its importance and population was fre
quently able to make its voice heard, still it must not be
forgotten that the weight of numbers told ; and in a
national convention, where the majority ruled, if the
West was for silver it would not make the slightest differ
ence what the East wanted. This answer apparently made
no impression. I was again told that New York would
not allow the West to commit the stupendous folly of
espousing silver, and it was ridiculous to talk about the
nomination of a silver candidate. A few months later
the eyes of New York were opened, and it was a some
what expensive lesson that those New Yorkers learned.

During the last few years, especially since the West
has been extremely prosperous and has been able to pay
off much of the money it borrowed from the East, New
York has taken a different view of the West. It has
come to realise that the star of empire is moving West,
that in the future the West will govern the East ; that
no matter how rich the East may be the West will be
still richer, and that it is only a question of time when
the East will bow to the West, and the West will no
longer be subservient to the East.

One thing that exercises a commanding influence on
the life as well as the political destinies of the West is
its enormous foreign population. In some of the

66

THE EAST AND THE WEST

Western States, in Michigan, Illinois, Ohio, Wisconsin,
Minnesota and the Dakotas more notably, there is a
large German and Scandinavian population, who even
after they become naturalised still retain their national
habits and their national prejudices. In certain cities —
in Milwaukee, the most important city of Wisconsin, and
Cincinnati, the largest city of Ohio, for example — the
Germans constitute respectively sixty and sixty-five per
cent, of the total population, and those cities are German
rather than American. That is a thing which the
politician must always remember, and he is never per
mitted to forget it. It has always been a debatable
proposition whether the German who has left the Father
land to escape military service, or with the hope of
bettering himself in the land beyond the seas, still
retains any affection for the land of his birth or is anti-
German. That is a question which has often been
discussed, but which no one is able definitely to answer.
Here and there things crop out that lead us to believe
that the German in America is still a German. A few
years ago certain remarks made by a distinguished
admiral of the American navy were supposed to cover a
veiled threat to Germany, and were promptly and hotly
resented by some of the most influential Germans in
Milwaukee ; and so intense was their indignation that
it was deemed advisable by prominent Republican
politicians to issue a semi-official dementi of the admiral's
remarks and to make it apparent that they were not
approved by the President. The Germans, as a rule,
are Republicans, and naturally Republican politicians
must be careful not to offend the * German vote.'

In the Civil War the Germans of the West did valiant
service for the Union. They enlisted in large numbers
in the Union army, and some of the most distinguished

67

AMERICA AT HOME

generals on the Union side were Germans. That the
German is deeply attached to his adopted country no
one doubts, and if the United States should be engaged
in war with any other power except Germany it is quite
certain that the Germans would quickly respond to the
call to arms ; but if the United States should ever find
itself involved in war with Germany it is at least doubt
ful whether the German would fight against the country
of his birth. However, that is an academic question and
seems far removed from the domain of practical interest.
f One can hardly contemplate such a contingency as the
'• tragedy of war between Germany and the United States.
It has been said that the Germans are largely Republi
can in their political affiliations, and some people
attribute that to the fact that the Irish are almost to a
man Democrats, and between the Irish and the Germans
in the United States there exists no great love. It is
the conglomeration of racial elements in the United
States that exercises such a controlling influence on
politics. We have seen the difficulties that the politician
labours under in the so-called German States and cities,
and the care he must show to do nothing to antagonise
the German vote. In cities where there is a large Irish
vote, in New York and Boston for instance, it is equally
essential that the politician shall do nothing to offend
Irish feelings. In the old days when relations between
England and Ireland were so strained that almost open
warfare existed, the Irish in the United States and some
American politicians cunningly played on sentiment for
their personal advantage. Happily that state of affairs
no longer exists ; and now that Englishman and Irishman
are dwelling in amity, and the most distressful isle is at
peace with the predominant partner, the Irishman has
become very much less of an issue in the United States,

68

THE EAST AND THE WEST

and it is no longer possible for demagogues to fire the
Irish heart by twisting the British lion's tail. And with
this better understanding between Irishmen and English
men, there has come about a better understanding
between England and the United States. It was this feel
ing, which few Englishmen recognised, that caused much
of the prejudice in the United States against England,
which gave rise to the belief that for centuries England
had despoiled and enslaved Ireland, that England had
played the part of the bully and the usurer, that English
landlords regarded Irish peasants simply as a means to
provide money for their extravagant pleasures. It was
quite natural that the Irishmen of the United States,
their descendants and their sympathisers, should make
the most of this to keep alive the feeling of hostility
against England, and that the newspapers, partly be
cause it was popular, partly because it was profitable, as
it appealed to their Irish readers, helped to perpetuate
the hostility, and thus made thousands of Americans,
who were ignorant of the facts, believe all that was said
on the hustings and platform, and to accept as truth all
that they read in the newspapers in times of excitement
and political campaign.

More and more every year the foreign element is
being absorbed into the American, and perhaps the
time is coming when the real American type will evolve
itself. In fact, some writers assert that time is very close
at hand. There is a mixture of Anglo-Saxon and Latin
and Teuton which has made the American a conglome
rate people, a people who combine in themselves all that
is best of all that they have absorbed ; a people who
have worked out their own destiny, who have triumphed
against overwhelming odds, with the world's admiration
to encourage them to still greater things.

CHAPTER SIX
THE AMERICAN GIRL

To Europeans the typical figure of the United States is
always * Uncle Sam ' — a figure almost as familiar as burly
John Bull, and resembling the modern Englishman as
little as Uncle Sam does the American. The American
cartoonist who depicts his country, especially when it is
a representation of America triumphant, or America
pathetic, or America in all the dignity of her strength,
.always draws a woman — a woman young and graceful
land beautiful, who faces the world with the serenity of
confidence that comes from the knowledge that she rules,
ftt is appropriate that Columbia is a woman. In the
[United States woman dominates.

In all that goes to make America unlike any other
. country, nothing so marks the contrast as the difference
between the American girl and the European girl. The
American girl is the product of her environment, she is
what she is because America is America. The American
girl ! — she is worthy of a book, and not a mere chapter.
There is that about her that captivates, that attracts, that
makes her a constant surprise and a constant joy. She is
her own enigma. She is not a type, because she is
never the same and never like her sister. She is her
self.

The American girl is given more freedom and allowed
70

TYPE OF AMERICAN GIRL.

V

THE AMERICAN GIRL

greater liberty than the girl of other countries. In the
' best society,' in those families where there are
traditions to be lived up to, where there is pride of
ancestry and great wealth, the young girl is hedged about
with as many restrictions as in Europe ; she is always
chaperoned and under the watchful eye of parents or
governesses or companions. But even so the liberty she
is permitted is amazing and somewhat astounding to
foreigners, especially to the Latins, who are unable to
understand the free and frank intercourse and bon cama
raderie that exists between the sexes in America. It is
the difference in temperament, in education, in social
institutions.

The American girl likes the society and companionship A
of the American boy, and her parents- regard that liking
as quite natural, and to be encouraged rather than to be
frowned upon. There is no reason in their opinion why
young people of opposite sexes should not enjoy each
other's companionship and be brought much in contact ;
there is every reason why this should be encouraged,
because it is looked upon as good for both. It makes
the boy and youth have a respect for woman and treat
her with the chivalrous deference to which she is entitled
by her sex \ it makes the girl more independent and
better fitted to meet men when she takes her place in
her world.

The attitude of the American towards his womankind
is fundamentally different to that of the European.
Admitting that a woman is always physically the inferior L
of man, he sees no reason why women are to be !
regarded as mentally or morally his inferiors ; why they i
are to be treated as dependents and nqt as equals ;
why the c sphere ' of woman travels in a different
orbit to his own. The result is that both legally and

AMERICA AT HOME

socially women have almost, but not quite, equal rights
with men. In a few Western States they are accorded
the right to vote, but in the great majority of the States
they are still denied a privilege demanded by a few, and
for which the majority care nothing; politically, no
matter how well educated, cultured, or rich they may be,
they are still rated one degree lower than the negro or
the ignorant and semi-civilised foreigner. But in nearly
all other respects they are on terms of equality with men.
They may control their own property and dispose of it
by will ; they can sue or be sued ; they can enter into
contracts ; the same grounds that enable a man to
obtain relief in the divorce courts can be asserted by
them.

Many foreign observers find the American girl a forward
young person and bemoan the fact that she has none of
the reserve and shrinking modesty that are deemed
essential to the properly brought up jeune fille of their
native lands — the young woman of gentle birth who sits
sedately in the presence of her elders, who timidly raises
her eyes when she is addressed by a young man, and
who hides behind the veil of her maidenly reserve when
the end has come to an exceedingly commonplace
conversation. And compared to this ideal, the foreign
observer finds that the American girl is deficient in
womanliness, and he wonders no longer that men and
women marry and unmarry with such startling rapidity.
She is no longer content, he says, to be merely wife and
mother ; she aspires to be something more than that, to
be the intellectual partner of the man she has married,
to be a mother and still to receive the attentions that
were so dear to her as a girl.

All of which is true, or true at least in part The
freedom of life in America, the contact of the sexes, the

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THE AMERICAN GIRL

natural gravitation of boys to girls, of youths to young
women, of men to women, the fact that from the earliest
age they are thrown much with each other and that they
are not rigidly separated, make the American girl not less
feminine than her European sister, not less fascinating,
or captivating, or less subtle, but in all respects more so
because she begins her knowledge of the world and
practises her powers at an age when European girls
are entirely ignorant of the power of attraction of women
for men.

With the exception of the daughters of the rich, the
great majority of American girls are sent to mixed
schools, where their playmates and rivals are boys,
where they quickly learn — because the American girl is
precocious and develops rapidly — that the strongest boy
is no match for the weakest girl if she only knows how
to use her weakness. A good-natured American philo
sopher once observed that the American girl begins to
flirt before she is out of the nursery, and becomes
engaged while still in short dresses. Perhaps the
American girl does begin to flirt at an early age, but it
is usually an innocent and harmless flirtation ; it would
be more correct, and it would be robbed of its offensive
implication, to term it an intellectual matching of wit
rather than love-making. School-girls frequently develop
a violent and ardent affection for a boy in their class,
which has been known to last as long as one term.
These affairs break no hearts and cause no tears.

One reason for the precocity of the American girl is
that the nursery occupies a much more subordinate
place in the average American house than it does in
Europe. In the families of the very rich in America
the care of children devolves as much upon servants as
it does in Europe, but among the great middle class,

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AMERICA AT HOME

even among the upper middle class, and in those

families with money enough to have several nurses, the

V mother takes charge of her children. Daughters are

i much with their mothers, and they become their com-

\ panions younger than they do in Europe. At an age

when the French girl, for instance, is still demurely

attending her convent, or the English girl is in the

hands of her governess, her more emancipated sister

1 across the Atlantic is calling with her mother on her

'friends, or assisting her in the drawing-room on her

reception days. She is also receiving her own friends.

American girls of sixteen are allowed to have boys of

their own age or a trifle older call upon them ; and

these young persons, entirely too dignified to play, are

fond of mimicking society. They sit and talk just like

their elders ; they discuss their acquaintances, Susie

Smith's party of the night before, or Bessie Brown's

1 small and early ' to be held next week. Nor is this

artificial or forced. It comes quite natural to these girls

and boys to be interested in their social affairs and to

enjoy that life.

One feature of American life, and especially in its
influence upon the American girl, and also to a marked
I extent upon the American boy, is the system of co
education, and the mingling of girls and boys in the
same school and the same class from infancy to
adolescence, and also in the universities. At some of
the universities young men and women — the " co-eds," as
they are called — are instructed in the same classes, and
are taught the same subjects. It is a question often
discussed whether the system is good or bad, and, of
course, both sides can advance equally strong arguments
in support of their position. The opponents of co
education claim that the close contact of the sexes at

74

THE AMERICAN GIRL

a peculiarly impressionable age is morally and intellec
tually detrimental, that it turns their thoughts from study
and makes them too fond of each other's society, and
often leads to marriage at too early an age. The
argument of the advocates of the system is that the
presence of young women in a college exercises a
restraining and humanising influence, that it makes men
less brutal and more refined, and the young women •
better able to understand the world, and to cope with
it when they are thrown on their own resources ; and]
as the majority of young women who go to college do'
so with the intention of taking up a professional career
and earning their own livelihood, this knowledge of the
world is worth a great deal to them. It is obvious that
much can be said on both sides, and that, like many
other American institutions, it cannot be disposed of
lightly, or by the obiter dicta of preconceived prejudices
or insufficient information.

Colleges solely for the education of young women, of
which the most famous are Smith and Wellesley in
Massachusetts, and Vassar in New York, are to
feminine America what Oxford and Cambridge are to
England, and as unlike Girton as Oxford is to a dame's
school. The usual age of admission is about seventeen,
and graduation takes place between twenty and twenty-
one. Practically the girls live the life of university
undergraduates. They have their own rooms, which
they furnish according to their tastes and their means ;
they attend lectures or evade them as do undergraduates ;
they have their boating, athletic, and social clubs, and
devote almost as much time and attention to athletic
sports peculiarly suitable for girls as do their brothers
at Harvard and Yale.

Whether it is advisable to send a girl to college is
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AMERICA AT HOME

another disputable and often discussed question. I
have frequently been told by women, the graduates of
colleges, that it was not beneficial, as at an age when
a girl needed the influence of home, and especially the
discipline and advice of a mother, she was removed
from parental control, and acquired a somewhat false
concept of life. In the case of a girl of the middle
class, if one may use that term without causing offence
in America— that is to say, the daughter of a man of
small means and obscure position — after returning home
from her college course she is generally dissatisfied with
her surroundings, and instead of being better fitted to
understand life or make the most of her opportunities,
she is restless and discontented, she misses the stimulus
and excitement of the companionship of several hundred
girls of her own age, and either escapes from the
monotony of humdrum existence by an early marriage,
which too frequently has an unfortunate ending, or else
remains at home disappointed and doing nothing.. / '

It has often been remarked that the intellectual
college graduate seldom marries a man of her own in
tellectual attainments, which is perhaps a wise dispensa
tion of Providence to preserve the average of intelligence
and not put too much in one family, so that the expense
of her education — and it costs as much to keep a girl at
one of these colleges as it does a man at Oxford or
Cambridge— is money wasted, and her knowledge of the
binomial theorem is of little value to her when confronted
with the more complicated problem of suppressing a
fractious child's desire for the unobtainable. On the
other hand, I have been told by many women that
college life is as advantageous for a girl as it is for a
young man, because not only does it give her a thorough
education, but it gives her something that is even more

THE AMERICAN GIRL

valuable : it teaches her the priceless qualities of tact and
forbearance, and makes her understand human nature at
a time when the girl who is not in college has no
opportunity to acquire that knowledge or to understand
its importance. Here again I forbear to advance any
opinion. Certainly where women who have had
practical experience differ, it would be ill becoming for
an outsider to dogmatise, and especially so in discussing
that most mysterious of all mysteries — the American
girl.

The American girl who has left school or college and
is formally * out,' no matter whether she be the daughter
of a man who has a recognised place in society or her
father makes no pretensions to social position, is largely
her own mistress and does not have to wait until she is
married to enjoy her liberty. Fifth Avenue, like Mayfair,
is a stickler for the proprieties and the conventions, and
insists that the maiden whose heart is still fancy free
may not attend places of amusement or be seen in
public in the evening unchaperoned by parent or married
relative or companion of dignified age and sedate mien, but
in circles only one degree less fashionable the chaperone
is not regarded as all-essential. Mothers and fathers
who are neither ignorant nor indifferent, who look very
carefully after their daughters and who are ever vigilant
to guard them from peril, do not object to their daughters
going to the theatre with a young man unaccompanied
by older persons, provided they know the young man
and have confidence in him. The American parent
realises that the society young people like best is the
society of each other, and that it is foolish for them to
spoil sport by getting in the way, and they have brought
the art of self-effacement to a science. When a young
man makes an evening call on a young woman he does

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AMERICA AT HOME

not have to talk to her in the presence of her father,
mother, sisters, and brothers. He and she are given the
* parlour ' to themselves and may converse without the
embarrassment of onlookers. Of course I do not refer
to engaged couples. Naturally they are allowed to flock
by themselves.

The intercourse between young men and young women
in America is placed on a basis that does not rest on
sentiment and yet from which sentiment is never entirely
absent. It begins and ends often merely as good
fellowship, as a frank liking on both sides, or a com
panionship in which both find much pleasure, but it
need not necessarily go any farther. It is not taken for
granted that because a man calls on a young woman, or
takes her to the theatre, or sends her flowers or candy,
that he is in love with her, or because she accepts his
trifling attentions that she is in love with him. Neither
may entertain the slightest thought of love, or both may
be consumed with the tender passion, but it is recognised
that both may have full opportunity for discovering the
depth of their sentiments. That a girl who is pretty and
attractive, who is bright and just enough of a coquette
to know the extent of her powers, should receive inno
cent attentions surprises neither herself, her family, nor
her friends. They accept it. A man may be seen
much, within the limits recognised as conventional by
society, with a young woman and still not be charged
with paying her attentions. The friends of both will
conclude, and perhaps quite correctly, that they are
approaching that phase in their existence when their
world will be bounded by themselves, but fathers
do not ask young men their intentions because they
have talked or walked with their daughters half a
dozen times.

THE AMERICAN GIRL

The American girl, and the American woman when
she leaves girlhood behind her — in that long interval
between bridehood and grandmotherhood — it must be
frankly confessed, even if it makes some of her English
sisters a trifle envious, does have a good time, because
America is the paradise of women. In dealing with
men most Americans are brusque ; and one must say,
with all due recognition of the very many charming
traits possessed by Americans, that courtesy and national
politeness are not numbered among them. The Ameri
can who 'works for wages,' to use an Americanism,
resents the idea of inferiority on his side or superiority
on the part of anybody else. The tramway conductor,
the railway guard, the policeman, almost any man who
is clothed with a little brief authority, when he deals
with a man seems only too delighted to show by his
loud tone and dictatorial manner that he has his victim
at his mercy, that he considers himself as good as any
one else, and perhaps just a little bit better. He does
this more to assert his independence than for any other
reason. He does not want to lie under the charge of
being servile or that he permits anybody to * boss ' him.
The story is told of a distinguished and elderly senator
who opened his door to leave his house and was con
fronted on the doorstep by an obvious working-man.

'Well, my man,' said the senator good-naturedly,
' what can I do for you ? '

' I'm not your man ; I'm nobody's man except my
wife's,' the fellow answered, with some asperity. ' I've
come to paint the house.'

The painter who treated a leading member of the
Senate as his equal, who resented being addressed as
' his man,' because that implied the relation of servant
and master, was not ashamed to admit his subjection

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AMERICA AT HOME

to his wife. In his relations with women the American
is essentially gallant and their slave, which makes him
treat all women with a surprising deference. Let a man
approach a policeman in a large city and ask for in
formation, and the policeman will growl out something
that may be either a curse or a benediction. Let a
woman, especially if she be young, pretty, and well-
dressed, ask the same information of the same police
man, and she will be answered with such politeness
and courtesy and respect that it would seem as if every
policeman took lessons in deportment, and, like the
ever-to-be-remembered Sir Joseph Porter, K.C.B., held
that the expression ' If you please ' is highly proper to
be used in addressing the public.

In the winter the American girl finds her principal
amusement at the theatre and parties, and she usually
dances well and with much grace ; but it is in the
summer that she enjoys herself the most and appears
at her best. The Americans live much out-of-doors
in summer because the summers are long and hot, and
those persons who are compelled to remain in the city
after broiling all day are grateful for a breath of fresh
air at night. The rich girl, in the daintiest of white
frocks, in which she is even more attractive than in
her most elaborate ball costume, at seashore or mountain
resort rows or strolls or sits on the porch of a villa
or fashionable hotel attended by her cavaliers, or one
particular cavalier, undisturbed by thought of heat.
Her less-favoured city sister, who must spend most of
the summer in the city, in her own way gets equally
as much pleasure out of those months of heat, with
far less expense. Every city has its popular resort
where the young people congregate, where they may
sit and talk and walk, where at a trifling cost they

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may indulge themselves in the ' ice cream ' so dear to
the heart and palate of every American girl.

Climatic conditions necessitate the wearing of light
clothes ; and the * summer girl,' in her diaphanous shirt
waists, her white skirts, and her mannish straw hat, is
a picture to delight the eye, and is the inspiration for
poet and paragrapher. A curious feature of city life
in summer after the sun goes down is the open street
car — Anglic^ the tram — which for warm-weather use
has neither windows nor doors, crowded with young
women and their escorts, who take a ' street car ride '
(an American always says ' ride ' when he means ' drive '
or is driven or mechanically propelled) to get a breath
of fresh air. The cars running at ten or twelve
miles an hour create a strong current, and as they
are open on all sides except the top a ' ride ' from the
city to the suburbs is the easiest and cheapest way to
obtain relief from pavements discharging their stored-
up heat. On these evening excursions the American
girl scorns head-covering. It is not an unusual sight
to see a whole car-load of young women with bare
heads, waists of filmy texture, and arms bare to the
elbow. Even elderly women go bareheaded in summer.

The American girl is so petted and courted and
deferred to that she vigorously resents being placed
on the shelf merely because she has entered into
matrimony, and as a wife she retains her youth and \
her good looks surprisingly late in life. The American/
girl is good-looking, well set up, and knows what suits !
her and how to wear her clothes. Mere man may not
discuss a subject so abstruse and terrifying as dress,
nor would his opinion be worth a button on a question
so delicate as whether the American girl is shamefully
extravagant, and always appears becomingly and taste-
Si G

AMERICA AT HOME

fully dressed because she spends a great deal more
than her European sister, or because she has greater
taste. But whatever the cause, her clothes look as if
they were worn and not merely put on. With all her
love of gaiety and vanity — and she is generally quite
conscious of her looks and fond of admiration — she
makes a fond mother and a devoted wife. While she
\will not consent to being submerged by her children,
she gives much of her time to them, and is still able
to find time to be much with her husband. The average
American husband makes a confidante and a companion
of his wife, discussing with her his business and other
affairs, but not often seeking her advice. A rather
critical foreign observer has made the discovery that
the American wife is always seeking not only to reach
her husband's intellectual level, but to rise superior to
it and overwhelm him, and the more she shines in
comparison with him the greater her joy. The foreigner
of an inquiring turn of mind is apt to gain curious
impressions, and sometimes he meets curious people
and thinks they are typical. Aftejr_peading some of
these criticisms one is reminded of the neat retort of
an American woman in London, who at a dinner-party
was compelled to listen to someXatr/er ill-natured flings
at her country and her countrymen. Finally unable to
restrain herself any longer she turned to her critic,
and with her sweetest and most engaging smile re
marked: 'My dear Lord X., what very extraordinary
letters of introduction you must have had.'

No one who really knows America well would contend
that the American woman competes with her husband
for supremacy or endeavours to become his rival. She
is quite content to acknowledge him as the head of
the house and to respect him accordingly; in fact,

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THE AMERICAN GIRL

the woman who considers herself superior to her
husband is exceedingly rare. She interests herself in
his affairs, whether they be the affairs of the counting-
house or the forum, but she seldom advises him.
And her peculiarly dependent and subordinate position
is in no way better illustrated than in her abstention \
from any active interests in politics. One would natur- I
ally suppose that in America of all countries women
would play an active part in politics and wield great
influence, but the ' political woman ' is quite unknown. )
A woman who should canvass for or with her husband
would do his cause irretrievable harm, and a man who
was suspected of being influenced in his political judg
ment by his wife would find his career brought to an
untimely end. This opposition to women mixing in
politics arises partly from custom and partly from the
feeling men have that there is a better field for the
activities of women than the hustings, and that the
participation of women in politics would rob them of (
some of that feminism which is their greatest charm. .
For the American has no love for the strong-minded I
masculine woman. He likes her to be healthy and to
golf or fish if he goes in for those forms of recreation ;
but he wants her always to be a woman, to have the
peculiarly feminine touch ; to wear a dash of his
favourite colour at her throat or waist, even if she is
sitting in a boat all day drawing fish out of the water
and no one sees her except himself.

CHAPTER SEVEN
WASHINGTON, THE REPUBLICAN COURT

A YEAR or so ago there came to Washington an English
man whose reputation as a literary man is international
and who had been invited to deliver a series of lectures
in America. He expressed a desire to see the President,
of whom he had heard much, but feared that his wish
could not be gratified as his visit in Washington was
limited to three days. Mentioning the matter to his
host the day after his arrival, the latter said :

1 Have you anything on hand at the present time ? '

' Nothing that cannot be deferred until later,' replied
the guest.

* Very well, then,' the host answered, ' let us go
and call upon the President.'

The literary man from London thought this was a
sample of the American joke of which he had heard
so much, but noticing that his host was quite serious
inquired if he really meant that they could call on
the President in this familiar way and without even
the formality of making an appointment or having
obtained permission, and, as a stranger new to American
customs, asked to be informed as to the etiquette of
being received by the President.

'The President,' said the Washington man, 'is in
his office every morning from nine until half-past one,

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THE REPUBLICAN COURT

except on Tuesdays and Fridays, when the Cabinet
meets at eleven and usually sits for a couple of hours.
On the other days the President receives official callers,
Members of Congress and other officials and such
private persons as are introduced by an official or who
are otherwise properly vouched for. I hold no official
position, but I think I am sufficiently sure of my
ground to assure you that we shall see the President
unless he is engaged with other callers, and in that
case we shall see him to-morrow.'

So the two men walked over to the White House —
the Englishman delicately hinted that surely they ought
to take a carriage, but the American laughed and said
the President wouldn't know whether they walked or
came in a wheelbarrow, and what was more it would
make no difference — and after waiting a few minutes,
they met the President and talked with him for a
quarter of an hour, and the Englishman went away
amazed at the simplicity of Republican institutions, and
not a trifle shocked that so little divinity did hedge
the ruler of a great nation.

I cite this incident because it is typical of the
democracy of Washington and the simplicity of Re
publican institutions. The White House, in which the
President and his family live, is the one residence in
America tenanted by a civil official the property of the
National Government (some of the States provide
official residences for their Governors, but they are
supported by the States and not by the General Govern
ment). It is a not unattractive house, but it is neither
majestic nor imposing, and it falls far short of being a
palace ; in fact, there are private houses in Washington
more spacious and more richly furnished than that in
which the President lives. The White House, or the

AMERICA AT HOME

Executive Mansion as it is sometimes called, like the
English Prime Minister's official residence, faces the State
Department (the Foreign Office) and is within a stone's
throw of the Treasury ; and the same building that houses
the State Department also holds the offices of the
Secretary of the Navy and the Secretary of War. But
the Prime Minister's official residence is huddled away
at the end of a narrow street which the stranger would
miss unless his attention were directed to it, while the
White House fronts the principal street of the city,
and on which the electric trams run night and day.

In Washington there are no sentries in front of the
public buildings or the White House, because a military
display is not supposed to be in keeping with Republican
institutions. There are a few city policemen in and
about the White House, but there are no liveried
servants, no groom of the chambers or palace officials.
The servants are all negroes, which tradition requires.
Adjoining the White House is a small, squat, ugly one-
storey building that at first glance one takes to be the
stable and later discovers is the President's- office. A
policeman stands at the door; but the visitor having
business with the President, if he is known, is admitted
to the President's office by his messenger, a retired army
captain in mufti ; or if he is unknown he must first see
the President's secretary, at whose door stands a
coloured messenger.

In the United States public men are easily approach
able. It is a polite fiction that those who sit in the seats
of the mighty are the servants and not the masters of
the people, and although like the American servant they
often run the household and have an uncomfortable way
of showing their power, yet theoretically they are the
servants and must not too openly flaunt their power in

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THE REPUBLICAN COURT

the faces of the sovereign people, because the dear
people have an unpleasant way of showing their resent
ment when their servants assume too many airs.

The President, of course, does not see every one who
may take it into his head to call upon him. That
would be impossible. Under the American political
system, as I have already explained, the President com
bines the functions of both King and Prime Minister, and
between disposing of great matters of State and making
appointments to petty officers his time is fully occupied ;
but the President is much more accessible than is an
English member of the Cabinet, or even a minor
Government official. Members of Congress have the
privilege of calling on him and bringing with them their
friends, the blushing bride and the all-too-self-conscious
groom from the rural districts, who are in Washington
on their honeymoon and who regard an opportunity to
shake hands with the President as one of the great
events of their lives. And so we read in a daily paper
that ' the President's handshaking record for the present
year was broken to-day, no less than three hundred
people, mostly women, from all parts of the country re
ceiving his hearty grip.' There is no reason why the
President's time should be wasted in this fashion, but it
is a custom sanctified by long usage and one of the
penalties the President pays for greatness, and the
public would resent any curtailment of their vested right
to gaze upon the President. Every President is afraid
of being regarded as ' aristocratic ' or exclusive. It
must be understood, however, that all this applies only
to the time the President spends in his office. When he
leaves his desk and enters the White House proper, the
bars are put up and like any other gentleman he receives
only those persons in his house whom he cares to see.

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AMERICA AT HOME

At the White House no one calls upon the President
unless he is invited or is on terms of sufficient intimacy to
justify his calling in the same way that he would visit a
friend whom he knew well enough to go to his house
without invitation.

While the dominant note of Washington is democratic,
and the President as well as other high officials surround
themselves with as little state or exclusiveness as is com
patible with their positions, there is one peculiarity about
the etiquette imposed upon the President which is in
marked contrast to that of royalty ; regarding the
President as holding for the time being the same place
at the head of the State as the King. The King may
choose his friends wherever he will, and without regard
either to station or nationality, but the President may
not make an intimate friend of a foreigner in an official
position, and especially not of an ambassador or
minister. The Americans, with all their progressiveness
and disregard for tradition and precedent in most of the
relations of life, are in some things slaves to tradition,
and one of the unwritten laws of their country is that
no President may leave the country during his incum
bency of the White House. The fiction that an
embassy is foreign soil prohibits the President setting
foot in an embassy ; and during the more than twenty
years that I have lived in Washington, I cannot recall
any President having entered an embassy, until Mr.
Roosevelt, after the death of Lord Pauncefote, in
violation of all tradition and in disregard of precedent,
drove to the British embassy and in person tended
his condolences to the family of the late ambassador.

As custom does not sanction that the President shall
convey the impression that his personal feelings incline
him too strongly to one nation at the expense of another,

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THE REPUBLICAN COURT

no President may be too openly intimate with a
diplomat. Once during the season the President gives
a dinner to the ambassadors and ministers and their
wives, and on New Year's Day he holds a levte which
every member of the corps is expected to attend.
During the winter the President gives four or five
evening receptions, the first in honour of the diplomatic
corps, when the diplomats, their wives and daughters,
pass in procession in front of the President, his wife, and
the wives of the members of the Cabinet. These occa
sions afford no opportunity for conversation outside of
banalities ; and unlike the New Year receptions of the
German Emperor or the Czar of Russia, when both those
sovereigns more than once have availed themselves of the
occasion to send to foreign countries messages through
their ambassadors, private conversation between the
President and a foreign envoy at an official reception
would be considered revolutionary and cause a sensation.
The President never dines at a private house except
those of the members of the Cabinet, or very quietly
with a few intimate friends, where it is not etiquette for
a foreign minister to be among the invited guests, nor is
it considered proper for the President, except on rare
occasions, to attend a reception at a private house where
he would meet official and general society. Mr.
Roosevelt has set a new example in social matters by
giving every season several musicaks to which members
of the diplomatic corps and other persons have been
invited, but on these occasions there is, of course,
little opportunity for intimate conversation. Ambassadors
have the right of personal intercourse with the President
in the transaction of their business, and occasionally
avail themselves of their privilege, but not often, as the
real business of diplomacy is carried on with the

AMERICA AT HOME

Secretary of State, and it is only on rare or extraordinary
occasions that they personally confer with the President.
Members of the Cabinet are easily accessible, only
a private secretary standing between them and the
outside public. Members of Congress are officially
entitled to be admitted to the Cabinet member's room
whenever they call upon him, unless he happens to be
engaged, and between nine in the morning and one
in the afternoon the Cabinet members expect to be con
stantly interrupted by official callers and to answer the
questions that may be put to them. The difference
between the parliamentary systems of England and the
United States makes this almost necessary. Members
of the American Cabinet are not members of Congress ;
they do not occupy seats in either House, and they are
not permitted to address Congress. If Congress desires
to obtain information from the President or a member
of the Cabinet, there is no way of orally questioning
a minister, but a resolution must be offered and adopted
asking the President or the member of the Cabinet, as
the case may be, to communicate the information to
Congress if not incompatible with the public interest.
If the President deems it advisable that the facts sought
shall be furnished, in the course of a few days they are
transmitted in writing and printed for the use of Con
gress, and a copy is furnished to every member — and to
anybody else who may desire it, as all public documents
are printed by the Government at its own expense for
gratuitous distribution, and they may be sent free by
post under the frank of a Member of Congress or one
of the Departments. To avoid the formality of the
adoption of a resolution Members of Congress often
obtain information from a member of the Cabinet by
calling upon him and making a semi-official request,

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which the member of the Cabinet is generally only too
glad to honour.

The time of Cabinet members is much taxed in
listening to the pleas of Congressmen and politicians
for places for their constituents and other favours.
When one realises the enormous amount of time a
public man, from the President down, has to devote
to petty things, it is always a wonder that there is any
time left for the real business of government, or that
it should be so well done. Nearly every Member of
Congress begins his day by 'making the rounds of
the Departments ' — in trying to secure, for instance,
the appointment of a postmaster at an insignificant
place at a salary of a few hundred dollars a year, or
asking for the discharge of a private from the army, or
getting a pension for a man who fought in the war of
the Rebellion. This business could be equally as well
transacted with minor officials as with a member of
the Cabinet ; but Congressmen seem to think that they
are not doing their full duty to their constituents unless
they have personal interviews with the head of the
Department, who must be decently polite and consent
to be bored unless he wants to make trouble for him
self as well as the President.

Congress consists of a Senate and the House of
Representatives. The former is presided over by the
Vice-President, or in case of his death by a senator
elected for the time being, and the House by the
Speaker, who is elected by the members every two
years. It sits in the Capitol, a building of Grecian
design, majestic in its proportions and graceful in its
lines, surrounded by grounds, which for nine months
in the year are green and serve to throw into greater
prominence the white marble building. The Capitol

AMERICA AT HOME

is always the Mecca of sightseers to Washington, and
the thousands of people who come from all parts of
the country are never tired of having pointed out to
them the men of the hour, whose names they constantly
read in their daily newspapers. Compared to the House
of Lords or to the House of Commons, the two
Chambers in Washington are remarkable for their severe
simplicity and the absence of ornate decoration, but
the most striking difference between the American and
British Houses of Parliament are the spacious galleries
for vistors and the desks on the floor. The American
Congressman is not embarrassed by women watching
his deliberations ; on the contrary, he welcomes them
and does everything to provide for their comfort and
to enable them to see all that goes on, and to be seen
by the members from the floor. There are galleries
to which admission can be obtained only by a card
procured from a member, but there are also galleries open
to the public, in which anybody, man or woman, white
or black, may sit, and so far as being able to see and
hear goes there is no difference between the public and
the private galleries.

Instead of sitting on benches at right angles to the
Speaker, Members of Congress sit at desks which are
arranged in semicircular form facing the Speaker as
seats are in a theatre. Every member has his own
desk. To a person unfamiliar with the procedure of
the House it appears to be a noisy and disorganised
body, and it is the constant remark of strangers on
entering the gallery for the first time that they are
unable to understand the subject under discussion.
That is not due to the Speaker having a weak voice
or being unfamiliar with the art of elocution, because
most Members of Congress have considerable experience

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in public speaking and rely almost as much upon their
oratory as anything else to secure prominence in public
affairs ; but it comes from the fact that except on extra
ordinary occasions, or unless there is a great question
before the House in which the whole country is interested,
speeches are made ' for home consumption.' Members
do not speak to influence the House, or to elucidate a
measure, but for the benefit of their constituents, and
to be able to circulate a speech in their districts and
impress the electors with their importance and ability.
Congress publishes every day a verbatim report of its
proceedings, known as the Congressional Record^ which
appears every morning, and every member is entitled
to several copies, which can be sent by post without
cost under his frank. When a member makes a speech
he is careful to see that the Congressional Record is
given wide circulation in his district, and that the
papers friendly to him use copious extracts. The result
is that Members of Congress, or at least a majority of
them, are more interested in legislation peculiarly local
than they are in national affairs, so that while a member
is making a speech, with the exception of a little knot
of his personal friends, who for the sake of friendship
have to suffer, the House scatters to committee room or
the restaurant, and those members who remain at their
desks are busy with their correspondence or chatting in
none too subdued tones with their neighbours.

The American dislike of uniforms or livery, because
they are supposed to savour too much of { aristocracy/
makes itself only too obvious in Congress, where there
are no uniformed officials, but where the messengers and
doorkeepers and other attendants wear whatever they
please, slouch in and out of the house according to their
fancy, and are on terms of easy familiarity with the

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members. Members and employees constantly pass to
and fro in front of the Speaker's chair, often in front of
the member who is speaking ; there is a constant suc
cession of messengers bringing in cards of visitors, and
of page-boys running errands for members. The result
is the noise and confusion on the floor that so unfavour
ably impresses the visitor.

It is permitted to a Member of Congress to be
humorous when he makes a speech, which makes the
Congressional Record anything but dry reading. Thus, to
illustrate a point in his speech a member told the story of
Miss Week who was wedded to Mr. Day. The editor of
the local paper began his account of the wedding with
this verse :

A Week we lose : a Day we gain.

But why, prithee, should we complain ?

There soon will be Days enough

To make a Week again.

The American Member of Congress is fond of point
ing his moral with a humorous story. ' I have often
illustrated this matter of the solution of problems,' said a
member, ' by the experience of the woman with eleven
children who had seven apples to divide among them,
and who had never studied fractions. The problem
finally had to be put to the kindergarten class, and
when the teacher had announced it one little fellow
held up his hand, and, when told he might speak, said,
" My mamma would make apple sass." She'd cook
the fractions out of it, don't you see,' the orator added
when the laugh had subsided.

' Capital and labour get along pretty well out our way.
The best definition of the conflict which sometimes goes
on between them was told me by a Minnesota man when
I was a very young man. " If I should loan you $10,

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that would be^capital," he said. " But if I should try to
get it back, that would be labour." J

1 There were two Irishmen at a wake, and as they sat
beside the coffin of the dear departed Pat says to Mike :

'" And what did he die of?"

' " Gangrene," says Mike.

1 " Let's be thankful for the colour," said Mike
gravely.'

To point his moral a member told this story :

1 Do you remember the story of a Southern man who
wanted to buy a good hunting horse? He found an
owner who assured him that the horse would stand
while a rifle was fired over the saddle. "And," added
this owner, anxious to sell his horse, "he is also a good
pointer. He will point birds as well as a dog."

* It was agreed that the prospective purchaser should
give the animal a trial. "If he proves to be a good
pointer," said he to the owner, " I will give you a higher
price for him."

* So he started off with the new horse. While fording
a stream, the animal stumbled, and the rider got a
thorough ducking, at which he was much exasperated.

* " You said nothing to me about his stumbling," he
roared at the owner on returning.

' " Ah," replied the owner, " I forgot to warn you that
he points for fish as well as for birds." '

The social life of Washington is very attractive. In
Washington everybody in society is in politics or holds
an official position, but not everybody in politics is in
society. There are many members of the Senate and
House who are dependent upon their salaries of ^1,500
a year, and these men naturally cannot afford to cut
much of a figure in society ; as a matter of fact, they
are compelled to live with great economy and be con-

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AMERICA AT HOME

tent with the indifferent accommodation of second-rate
boarding-houses and minor hotels. On the other hand,
there are many rich men in Congress who entertain
lavishly, who live in fine houses and spend a great deal
of money during the season. A rich senator or member
of the House will not find it difficult to gain admission to
the best social circles of the capital.

Washington is the only city in the United States
where the laws of precedence are observed ; and because
there is no social court of last resort, and the American
table of precedence, like the British constitution, depends
for its interpretation upon the latest official dictum,
there is often much confusion and frequently much
heart-burning, especially in the feminine breast. The
position of the President is, of course, fixed, and it was
always supposed that the Vice-President, as the next in line
of succession to the presidency, ranked immediately
after the President ; but when ambassadors were first
accredited to the United States, as the personal repre
sentatives of royalty, they claimed precedence directly
after the President, but they were finally induced to
surrender this claim in favour of the Vice-President.
The members of the Cabinet, who are appointed by the
President and hold office at his pleasure during his
administration, are regarded as part of his entourage and
are accorded precedence immediately after the President.
So far all is plain sailing; but it is a question still
unsettled whether the members of the Supreme Court
of the United States, who hold life positions, outrank
the members of the Senate, who although elected for a
term of only six years claim superiority over the members
of the Supreme Court because they must be confirmed
by the Senate before they can take their seats on the
bench, while a senator is elected by the people of his

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State — he is in theory and in practice the representative
of a sovereign State, and is solely responsible to his State
for his actions.

Some years ago, on the death of the President and the
Vice-President the Speaker of the House was next in the
line of succession to the presidency ; but that has now
been changed, and in the event of the death of the
President and the Vice-President the members of the
Cabinet succeed to the presidency in the order of the
creation of their Departments, beginning with the Secretary
of State and running down to the Secretary of Commerce
and Labour, who is the junior member of the Cabinet.
Now that the Speaker of the House is no longer in the
line of succession his precedence is uncertain ; but
some Speakers have been tenacious of their supposed
rights, and one may hear the story told in Washington
drawing-rooms of the Speaker who, after having accepted
a dinner invitation, at the last moment withdrew his
acceptance because he would have been preceded by an
ambassador, and he claimed that as the mouthpiece of
the representatives of the American people his dignity
would not permit him to walk into the dining-room
behind a foreigner — much to the despair of his hostess,
who had to rearrange her dinner list and the seats at the
table.

While the President officially and socially has no peer,
and the wife of the President is by courtesy ' the first
lady of the land,' Presidents and their wives have not
often been social arbiters. The explanation is simple.
Presidents have usually been men well advanced in years,
who with their wives have cared little for social gaieties,
and who before their elevation to the presidency were
generally men of small means and humble surroundings,
who knew little of society, and who being too set in

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their ways and too old to change were quite content to
live in the White House in the same fashion that they
had formerly lived in their own homes. Mr. McKinley
spent many years in Washington as a Member of
Congress, and made one of the less fashionable hotels
his home; and so did Mr. Harrison when he was a
member of the Senate. Mr. Cleveland entered the White
House as a bachelor and cared nothing for society ; Mr.
Garfield, as a Member of Congress, lived very modestly ;
Mr. Hayes came from a small town in Ohio, where a
woman in a d'ecollete dress would have been looked upon
as immoral.

The members of the diplomatic corps used to consti
tute an exclusive circle, and were regarded with awe by
the untutored multitude. Many a marvellous story was
written by the industrious and untrammelled penny-a-liner,
who not being burdened by facts or responsibility made
the virtuous farmers of Maine or Nebraska believe that
Washington was a sink of iniquity. In those days the
members of the diplomatic corps kept very much to
themselves except on purely formal occasions, when they
were compelled to meet the people to whom they were
accredited, but they did it grudgingly and no real intimacy
existed. Now while the diplomatic corps, or some of its
members, constitute the highest social circle and still
retain a certain exclusiveness, they no longer shut them
selves up behind their legation walls, but regard it as one
of the duties of diplomacy assiduously to cultivate both
the official and social world, and during the season
there is not a night when ambassadors, ministers, and
secretaries are not hosts or guests and meet the men
and women who constitute official and social Washington.

Washington is unlike any other city in the United
States. It is the one city of consequence that has no

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commercial interests, and owes its importance to its being
the capital of the nation. It has no great manufacturing
establishments, no army of factory workers. To the
majority of its people it makes little difference whether
cotton is cornered or stocks go up or down. In New
York or Boston or Chicago business occupies the first
place in the thoughts of most of their people, and people
talk and think money. In Washington they talk and
think politics, literature, art ; and whereas in other cities
their people are local and are more intimately interested
in their own immediate affairs than they are in the
greater affairs of their own or foreign countries, in
Washington, because men are assembled from all parts of
the country, and from every corner of the earth, because
there is a large naval and military representation, with
many prominent scientific and literary men, society is
cosmopolitan rather than local : it is the society of a
capital rather than the society of a sprawling village that
still retains all of its village characteristics even though
it has the veneer of a city, which is the impression one
has of society in most of the large American cities.

Washington is also peculiar in that in a land where
universal suffrage exists it is only in the capital of the
nation that the right of suffrage is denied ; where the
people have no voice in the government, and where a
benevolent autocracy rules. The local administrators
are three Commissioners appointed by the President,
who are paid salaries of ^1,000 a year. These three
men are to Washington what the mayor and aldermen
are to any other American city, what the County Council
is to London. They derive their authority from Con
gress, which frames the budget on estimates prepared
by the Commissioners, who within certain latitude have
wide discretion, but who may not spend a penny unless
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AMERICA AT HOME

it has been previously authorised by Congress, who
cannot make or modify a law, who may not employ an
additional policeman or fireman except by the express
authorisation of Congress. Washington is noted for its
able, honest, and economical municipal government.
This is perhaps a sad commentary on democracy and
the virtue of popular suffrage, but it can be easily
understood. The average American city is governed
by saloon-keepers and professional politicians ; the
governors of Washington are men of intelligence and
standing.

i Many wealthy persons, who are neither politicians
nor in official life, captivated by the charm of Washing
ton, make it their winter residence. It is an attractive
city, with its well-paved, clean, and wide streets, where
men work — but in a different way to what they do in
New York or the other large commercial centres — where
life moves more leisurely, and the jargon of the market
place is not the only thing heard in public places, where
the greatest game ever played by man is always being
1 played, in which the pawns are men and the prize is
power.

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CHAPTER EIGHT
THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR

THE Americans are essentially a race of shopkeepers,
and that term is not used in derogation or in the
contemptuous way in which Napoleon employed it
when he referred to England, but as indicating that the
natural trend and tendency of the American is towards
business ; and commerce is the foundation of civilisation,
and those nations which have excelled in commerce
have usually excelled in the arts and sciences, as well
as in military achievements. Napoleon sneered at the
British as a nation of shopkeepers, but he discovered
to his sorrow that it was the nation of shopkeepers, the
nation of business people, that crushed his ambitions
and destroyed the power of the great destroyer.

The Americans are by instinct business men. They
are keen, alert, progressive, and hardworking — qualities
that spell success in business ; and they have the
additional virtues of great audacity, vivid imagination,
and venturesomeness. In their own country there is
nothing too great, too bold, seemingly too impossible
for them not to attempt nor to accomplish. When one
sees the lines spanning the continent, and when
one recalls the history of how these trans-continental
railways were built, one is forced to believe that their
projectors were more than mere business men of great

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ability ; that they were gifted with the power to read
the future, that they could see the time when the vast
stretches of unbroken country between the Atlantic and
the Pacific would be rich and populous cities, and that
only the railways were needed to bring to the prairies
and plains of the West the millions from Europe
eagerly seeking homes under more favourable circum
stances.

In building great bridges or dams, in tunnelling
mountains, in turning rivers from their beds (if that were
an obstacle in the path of the iron horse), the harnessing
of the great falls of Niagara so as to light a city and
move tram-cars — everything that has required scientific
and technical skill of a high order has been solved by
the American engineer, who has found behind him the
American capitalist. The American capitalist is willing
to put his money in any enterprise that promises a large
return, because he is a natural speculator, and he is
ready to risk his capital if there is a chance of handsome
profits.

One reason the American has been so successful as a
business man is that the best talent of the country goes
into business. It is the one thing above all others which
offers the greatest prizes. Wealth counts for more in
the United States than in any other country, and great
wealth means power ; frequently it is the means of
obtaining power. There is no limit to ambition in the
United States. There is no limit beyond which a man
cannot pass, as there is in Europe. Any American may
aspire to be President, and for some that ambition will
be gratified. A man who has ' made his pile ' — and
fortunes are made with startling rapidity in the land of
opportunities — as a diversion may go into politics and
obtain a seat in the House of Representatives, or in the

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Senate, or in the Cabinet ; and there is always the
White House as a possibility. If he is rich and promi
nent in politics he has an assured position.

There is nothing disgraceful about trade in the United
States. It is one of the virtues of democracy that a
man or woman who works is not regarded as inferior to
those who do not have to work or are the possessors of
hereditary wealth. Remembering what has been said in
a previous chapter about class distinction, the reader
must not accept this too literally or imagine that the
humbler worker, the clerk or other wage-earner, can
take his or her place among the elect. That, of course,
is not to be understood ; but because a man is in trade,
or because he keeps a shop, he is not in a class by
himself, although the aristocracy of wealth or blood will
not admit him to their class if they can help it. Of
course there is trade and trade. The banker has always
been the aristocrat among traders, and the banker in
the United States is much like his colleague in other
countries, but what constitutes aristocracy in trade in
England does not find its counterpart in the United
States. In England it is accepted as a matter of course
that the man who supplies the British working-man with
his beer, providing only he can induce a sufficient
number of working-men to consume a sufficient amount
of his beer, will in the fulness of time gain a peerage ;
but in the United States, curiously enough, brewers,
although most of them are rich enough to maintain two
or three peerages, do not cut much of a social figure.
Most of the American brewers, however, if one may be
permitted to be slightly paradoxical, are Germans, which
perhaps is the reason why they are not leaders of fashion,
and they are much given to marrying and intermarrying
among themselves.

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The greatest opportunities for wealth and distinction
in business are to be found in banking and railway
management ; after that the direction of industrial
enterprises, and manufacturing on a large scale.
Hundreds of young men after graduating from the
universities and other seats of learning, if they do not
take up law or medicine, enter the service of the railways
and other large concerns because they know the magnifi
cent prizes that are to be won, providing they have the
requisite abilities. To succeed in business in America
a man must have capacity of a high order and qualities
which not every one possesses. He must not only have
that special sixth sense of money acquisition, but he
must be of more than ordinary foresight and able to
comprehend the present needs as well as the future of
a country which is continually growing and expanding,
and whose business affairs are always more or less in a
state of flux. Take as a typical industry the manufacture
of iron. There may be a year of depression, of hard
times, when it is necessary for the manufacturer to
curtail output and to practise the strictest economy
so as to market his product at the lowest price to keep
his works going, and then comes a year when bountiful
crops or an unusual demand on the part of Europe for
American products puts everything on the ' boom ' and
factories are working day and night. The man with the
genius to ' sense ' the storm before the clouds break, and
have everything snug and shipshape, and who intuitively
knows that the storm is over before he sees the sun
through the rift, is the man who finds his reward in
millions.

Millionaires in the United States are made quickly
and a new crop springs up every few years, some of
whom keep their fortunes and some lose them even

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more rapidly than they made them. ' It is only three
generations from shirt sleeves to shirt sleeves in America,'
is the remark one often hears, meaning that the founder
of the family fortunes worked in his shirt sleeves, and by
his labour amassed his wealth and left it to his son, who
played the gentleman and left a much smaller fortune to
his son, who completed the wreck and ended where his
grandfather began. As the law does not sanction entail
and public opinion disapproves of primogeniture, it is
difficult to tie up a great fortune or to favour one child
at the expense of all the others, but it is less true now
than it was in the past that inherited fortunes are quickly
dissipated. The heirs are either shrewd enough to be
able to manage their fortunes, which they frequently
increase by judicious investments, or else they turn their
backs on business and are satisfied to place their affairs
in the hands of men better qualified to manage while they
spend their incomes in making life yield the greatest
enjoyment.

According to popular belief, both in America and
Europe, all the great American fortunes have been
made by manufacturers who are favoured by the pro
tective tariff. This is only true in part. Great fortunes
have been made by tariff-protected manufacturers, but
the richest men in the United States are those whose
wealth has been made from transportation; whose
ancestors were pioneers in railways when both railways
and the country were young; who like masters of the
art of war were able to see every strategical point, and
to seize it long before their opponents suspected even
their purpose.

Perhaps the time may come when an American
historian with the patient industry of a Gibbon may
write the early history of the rise and growth of the

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American railway. It will be of more thrilling and
romantic interest, more absorbing, more full of ad
venture than anything the writer of the most luxuriant
and vivid imagination ever dared to offer in the form
of fiction. The early history of the American railway
is the history of indomitable courage and great shrewd
ness combined with unscrupulousness and the debauch
of legislatures and public officials. To obtain franchises
and other extraordinary powers in the gift of the State
dubious methods were resorted to ; having obtained
them the public was made to pay; the railways were
in many instances used simply as a football, whose
stocks were kicked up or down as it suited their owners,
who made money whatever happened, but who ruined
thousands by their operations. Thirty years or so ago
the * railroad wrecker ' was regarded as almost respect
able, and, if he was looked upon askance by some
persons, society as a whole did not regard him as a
pariah. The railroad wrecker by sinister methods, by
false rumours, by bribery, by every method that was
unworthy, depreciated the price of the shares of a
railway so that they could be obtained for a fraction
of their value, or better still forced the company into
bankruptcy, had it administered in such a manner that
it ceased to have any commercial worth, stripped it and
plundered it, so complicated and involved its affairs,
so disheartened its innocent stockholders that, dis
couraged and in many cases ruined, unable to meet
the * assessments ' that were levied upon them, they
yielded in despair, and were at last only too glad to
be relieved of their property. American commercial
morality no longer countenances the railroad wrecker.
There are other ways by which the public can be
fleeced, and be made to contribute to the welfare of

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legalised chevaliers of industry. It is no longer re
garded as good form to rob with deliberation ; there
must be at least a semblance of misfortune or un
avoidable accident when the crash comes, and an
explanation more or less plausible to excuse the non-
fulfilment of glittering promises.

There are only two families in the United States at
the present day who have a hereditary connection with
railways, and this is significant as showing how quickly
possession passes when the men who created no longer
live. The Vanderbilts and the Goulds still control the
great properties that were founded by the former three
generations back, and in the case of the Goulds by
the father of the present head of the family. But the
names of Garrett, of Scott, of Stanford, of Huntington,
men who were contemporaries of Vanderbilt and Gould,
who built some of the most important railway lines,
who were their allies or opponents according to cir
cumstances, are now only a memory. Their descendants
were unequal to the task, and in one case at least the
second generation would have seen a return to the shirt
sleeves had not death providentially intervened.

The founder of the Vanderbilt fortune had little
education but great shrewdness, and before railways
were commercially possible he had amassed a modest
competence, which increased amazingly when he built
and operated railways. His son, who was even a
greater commercial genius than his father, vastly in
creased the family fortune, and since his death it has
grown by its own accretions. Wealth in the United
States, beyond a certain point, multiplies by the force
of attraction; and where prudence is exercised, which
has always been a characteristic trait of the Vanderbilt
family, each generation leaves to its heirs a larger

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fortune. The manager of Jay Gould's fortune and
estate is his son George, who, as a railway manager,
has greater constructive ability and a broader grasp than
his father; he is bringing up his sons to be practical
railway managers, and he will doubtless leave to them
a much greater fortune than that which he inherited.

The richest man in the United States, who is gener
ally believed to be the richest man in the world, whose
income is said to exceed that of any other, is Mr. John
D. Rockefeller, who began life with nothing and made
his fortune in the oilfields of Pennsylvania. The
history of Mr. Rockefeller and the Standard Oil Company,
which he founded and controls, is the most marvellous
record^of romance, business shrewdness, business villainy,
and audacity the world has ever known. Mr. Rockefeller
in the early days of the discovery of petroleum in
Pennsylvania was a clerk in a small shop in Cleveland,
and with the extraordinary ability to see opportunities
for making money perceived sooner than anybody else
the millions in the slimy fluid oozing out of the ground.
It would take too long to trace the rise of the
Standard Oil Company and the growth of the Rockefeller
millions, but it may be said in a few words that Mr,
Rockefeller by various means, some of which can
hardly stand the scrutiny of day, although most of
them have been exposed by means of investigations
by committees of Congress and State legislatures, trials
at law and other ways, gradually obtained possession
of the entire output of oil of the United States, driv
ing all rivals and competitors out of the field, until
to-day the Standard Oil Company dictates the price
of every gallon of oil used by the American people
and is enabled to charge whatever it pleases. Mr.
Rockefeller's wealth increased so enormously and so

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rapidly, his surplus income was so large, that it be
came necessary for him to invest in railways, iron
mines, banks and manufacturing companies, all of
which he dominates, until to-day his power is so great
and so wide-reaching, his control of n^ea and millions
so absolute, that in finance and business he exercises
almost autocratic sway and appears to be apart from
and superior to his fellow-men.

Mr. Rockefeller is unlike any other American million
aire. Politics apparently do not interest him ; society
does not appeal to him ; sport has no attractions for
him. With his wealth and his power he might lead
society as he now leads finance and commerce ; but
although he has an estate that a prince might envy
and a king crave, and he could gratify the most ex
travagant tastes and never miss the money, he gives
no great entertainments, no guests throng his great
mansion. No matter what criticisms may be directed
against his business methods, his private life is ex-
amplary and pious ; he is a man of strong religious
convictions and has given millions to endow the
University of Chicago. His son and heir is no less
remarkable. Like his father he is of a serious turn
of mind, and none of the follies of youth was ever
charged to his score or turned his thoughts from the
all-important business of life of making money and
safely investing it. His recreation is teaching a Bible
class for young men.

The senior Rockefeller differs from nearly all other
American millionaires in that he is not a speculator.
He aims to control articles of prime necessity, articles
the people must have, no matter what happens. They
must burn oil and gas; they must have iron and
copper and sugar, and they must enrich Mr. Rockefeller

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by using them. Mr. Rockefeller does not have to
speculate, because speculation implies risk and un
certainty. The public may be in doubt as to whether
the shares of a company in which Mr. Rockefeller is
interested will go up or down, but Mr. Rockefeller
never is. With the inevitableness of fate things happen
as he ordains, and as the tides perform their predestined
purpose, and the glacier with irresistible force crushes
everything in its path, so Mr. Rockefeller fulfils his
destiny and can scorn the risks that mortals must
incur. Day after day he becomes richer and more
powerful, until men wonder whether such wealth and
such power concentrated in the hands of a single man
may not be a menace to the Republic.

During the last few years, years of phenomenal
prosperity in the United States, and years of financial
insanity almost, the public bought shares of all kinds
in companies that were supposed to be capable of
earning large dividends, and an entirely new crop of
millionaires sprang up. Men have made enormous
fortunes by combining industrial establishments into
trusts, and the trust promoter has become a recognised
power in the financial community and has made for
himself his millions, but how much he has made for
the public time will tell. Most of these trusts are too
new for one to be able to say much about their
solvency. There are people who believe that the
trust is founded on false economic principles and that,
being over-capitalised and over-weighted, it must fall
because of its inherent weakness.

It is marvellous, the millions these men have made
in a few years, and the way in which obscure men
have by a lucky coup developed into financiers of the
first rank. Everything conspired to help them. Great

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industrial activity and bountiful crops made the American
manufacturer as well as the American farmer rich, and
everybody had money seeking investment. Anything
that offered a rich return, any venture promising large
dividends, was quickly absorbed by the public, who
believed in the promises of prospectuses with the faith
of children in the fairy tales of their childhood. Later
they were disillusioned. Just as children discover
that giants and fairies are fiction, so these deluded
persons discovered that the glittering promises were
not fulfilled and that their money had gone into the
pockets of the promoters. The trust promoters have
yachts and palaces ; the public is poorer than it was
before the trust madness numbered its victims by the
thousands.

The struggle for wealth in the United States is
desperate and ceaseless. Money is what every one
wants, and money is what every one is trying to obtain.
It is at once the test and the gauge of success, the .
standard by which everybody is rated. The man who
has made his ' pile ' has demonstrated himself a man
of capacity, and the larger his fortune the greater the
evidence of his ability and shrewdness. For money is
a substantial thing, and it proclaims its own importance.
Men sometimes win position and power by accident ; if
a man has money the world accepts it as proof of his
intelligence. Nor is this entirely a sordid test. The
man of ability in his own specialty, whether it happens
to be law, medicine, or commerce, may look for an
adequate reward for his labours, and can usually count
on being recompensed according to his worth. The
doctor may not hope to earn the great fees that are
made by the corporation lawyer ; the lawyer is seldom
able to amass the fortune of the man in trade ; but the

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AMERICA AT HOME

fact that a doctor is well off, or a lawyer is rich, or a
merchant is a millionaire, means that they have made
of life a success, and the Americans worship the great
god success.

There is every encouragement to a man to succeed.
The youngster who goes into business in America has
his future in his own hands. To a certain extent that
is true in other countries, but only to a degree. In
America the young man is given every opportunity to
show his worth ; he may think for himself, and if he can
prove that he is not a mere machine, he may feel sure
of promotion. He is not kept at arm's length by his
employer. If he has a suggestion to make that may be
for the benefit of the business, the employer will be glad
to receive it, to adopt it if it commends itself to his
judgment, and to remunerate him for it if it proves
profitable. In American business houses there are few
traditions, because most business houses are too new
to be able to support the luxury of tradition, usually a
very expensive luxury and the bar to progress. The
man of business makes of novelty a fetish, and is always
searching for additional idols to set up in his temple.
The tradesman, whether he is in business on a large or
a small scale, believes in novelty, because his customers
always demand it, and the man who shows the most
enterprise is usually the man who succeeds best. It is
this characteristic that gives the young man his chance.
There is always a market for ideas. The man who is
content to do well the work that is placed before him
seldom rises beyond a subordinate position, but the man
with initiative may look forward with confidence to the
future.

The American works harder than the Englishman.
In the large cities shops are usually open for business

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at eight o'clock, and clerks in offices and wholesale
houses are at their desks before nine o'clock, and the
interval that elapses before the proprietors put in an
appearance is brief. Half an hour is generally allowed
for lunch, which for most men actively engaged in
business is merely a ' snack,' as the American does not
take kindly to a heavy meal in the middle of the day.
The rich man in business seldom spends much time on
lunch, unless it is a cover to discuss affairs with a
customer or an associate, and afternoon tea is unknown.
Between lunch and ' quitting time,' never before five,
and usually six o'clock, there is no break. In the banks
and the large establishments Saturday is generally a
half-holiday, but in many of the smaller shops, and
especially in the West, where the hours are longer than
in the East, the stores are kept open until nine o'clock
or even later, Saturday being the favourite shopping
night for the multitude, as it is the popular pay-day.

The 'week-end' is little known in America, except
among the rich. The great banker or financier of New
York or Boston who has his country house at the sea
shore or in the country, during the height of the summer,
when, owing to the intense heat, business is practically
at a standstill, may not come into town on Saturday,
but as his house is connected by telephone with his
office he can keep in touch even while away. The man
in comfortable circumstances, but who has not yet
arrived at the dignity of an establishment in the country,
will rush for a train late in the afternoon and spend
Sunday with his wife and children at the seaside, often
returning to the city late on Sunday night so as to be at
his office early on Monday morning. Clerks whose offices
close at one o'clock go to the baseball game, or to the
seaside, if it is accessible, or they make Sunday the
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AMERICA AT HOME

great day of rest and recreation. The average man in
business takes his vacation in the summer, its length
depending entirely upon his wealth. If he is rich and
has partners who can manage affairs while he is absent,
he may be gone three months ; if he is not overburdened
with money, and must rely largely upon his own exer
tions, he will probably feel that two weeks are all that
he can afford to take. Employees in offices and large
wholesale houses are generally allowed two weeks' vaca
tion with full pay.

114

CHAPTER NINE

EDUCATION AND LABOUR

IN the United States Senate all matters relating to
education or labour are referred to the same cpmmittee,
and it is appropriate that the. two should be joined,
because there is perhaps no other country in which
education has such a great influence on labour, and in
which labour is so eager to secure education.

In America there exists almost a passion for education, c
It is one of the national characteristics. It is indicative
of the universal desire to succeed and to advance in the
social scale. The working-man, the immigrant whose
English is almost unintelligible, the former negro slave
who can neither read nor write — all are affected by this
American spirit and insist that their children shall learn
so that they may be better off in a worldly sense than
their fathers. It is not an uncommon thing for a woman
to work hard so that her daughter may go through the
high school ; for a woman on a farm to slave to earn
money to keep her daughter at the university — her
daughter who shall be something better than a farmer's
wife, who shall have a chance to make a career as a
lawyer or a doctor.

Education is not a function of the General Government,
but is carried on by the States. Practically every State
has a complete system of public education, and in

AMERICA AT HOME

nearly all the States it is obligatory for children of a
prescribed age to attend school for certain months of the
year, and the employment of children of school age is
prohibited. The public schools of England — Eton,
Harrow, and the other great foundations — have no exact
counterpart in America, and the so-called public schools
of the United States would be knownjas the council schools
in England, but the difference is as great as the designa
tion. The fundamental distinction is that of caste and
class. In America attendance at a public school is
not a sign of poverty and has no stigma attached to it.
The public schools are supported by the tax-payers, and
the children of men of wealth as well as men without
wealth are sent there; hence the son of a man worth
millions may be the seat-mate of the son of his father's
coachman ; the daughter of a leader of society may sit in
school next to the child of her mother's hairdresser.
When Mr. Mosely's education commission visited
Washington, surprise was expressed by some of its
members that the President's son should be a public-
school pupil, but it caused neither surprise nor comment
in Washington. In a Washington public school it would
not be exceptional to find enrolled among the scholars
the children of justices of the Supreme Court, members
of the Cabinet, Senators, and officers of high rank in the
army and navy, as well as the children of bricklayers,
small shopkeepers, and postmen. The public school is
the most democratic institution in America, but like all
things American its democracy stops at a certain point.
Men of wealth and position do not object to their
children attending the public school when they are young,
but after they reach a certain age almost invariably they
are sent to a private boarding-school preliminary to their
entering college. The fondness of the American mother

EDUCATION AND LABOUR

and father for the society of their children, the absence of
the nursery, the more intimate relationship existing
between mother and children in America than in England,
and the personal supervision of the American mother over
her children are reasons why it is not considered
desirable to send children of a tender age away from
the protecting influence of home to the more dangerous
environment of the boarding-school. A man of position
argues that it does his son of twelve no great harm to be
brought in contact with boys lower in the social scale,
but from that age on it is advisable to have him
associate with his equals. The same argument applies
even more forcibly to the girl.

I cannot speak too highly of the American public
school and the American system of education. The
curriculum begins with the kindergarten and ends at the
high school, in which the young man or woman can
obtain an education equal almost to that offered by the
universities. In the first eight grades the pupil is well
grounded in grammar, history, arithmetic, elementary
mathematics and English literature, but neither modern
nor ancient languages are taught until he enters the high
school. A boy who has gone through the eighth grade has
a fair education, and is qualified to fit himself for further
knowledge if he has the disposition to study. The high
school, with a course of from two to four years, is
divided into two branches — the business, where the
student is taught shorthand, typewriting, and bookkeeping,
and is given a thorough theoretical commercial training,
and the scientific or classical, where he prepares himself
for entrance to the university or a professional career.
So highly are many of these high schools regarded that
some of the leading universities will admit a student on
certificate and without examination ; and many young

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men, studying to equip themselves for a profession, after
leaving the high school are able to take immediately the
strictly professional cours-e that entitles them to practise
their profession. In some of the States there are manual
training schools, where youths serve a regular apprentice
ship at their respective trades, and in addition to the
practical work they take an academic course, especial
stress being laid on drawing, because of the importance
of a workman being able to make and interpret plans,
German, because of the acknowledged position of
Germany in the industrial arts, and mathematics,
because of their practical value in engineering.

The States of the American Union have from the
very beginning of their existence as States recognised
the importance of education and its value as a com
mercial asset, and have been generous in its support ; in
the early days sacrifices were often made to provide for
the schools. The great universities of America that are
best known in Europe — Harvard, Yale, Princeton — are
not State institutions, but have been endowed by private
munificence, but in several of the States there are
universities maintained and managed by the States. Of
recent years it has become fashionable for rich men to
pose as the patrons of learning. Two of the most
notable instances are the Leland Stanford University in
California, and the University of Chicago ; the former
the late Senator Stanford's memorial to his son ; the
latter the project of Mr, John D. Rockefeller, the head
of the great Standard Oil Trust, both of whom have
given millions of pounds to their projects. Mr. Andrew
Carnegie has established and endowed with .£2,000,000
the Carnegie Institute in Washington ; but this is not a
university in the popular sense, but is for the purpose of
conducting higher research,

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Judged by statistics the percentage of illiterates in
the United States is higher than in some European
countries, and far exceeds that of England ; but these
figures are misleading, because the illiterates in America
are recruited principally from the immigrants of mature
age who are unable to profit by the educational facilities
of their adopted country, and from the negroes of the
South who, born in slavery, have not used their freedom
to acquire even the rudiments of knowledge. If these
two classes were excepted, if the negro and the immigrant
were subtracted from the great body of illiterates, it
would be found, I think, that the percentage of literacy
among native-born Americans, or the naturalised of only
one generation back, is higher than among any other
nation in the world ; due to the fact that it is impressed
upon every American, upon the native American as
well as the naturalised American, that if he would
succeed he must have at least a common school educa
tion, and that the demands made upon the worker in
every walk of life can only be met by the cultivation of
his intellectual powers. It has been well said that the
republic is opportunity ; and every boy starting in life is
quickly made to understand that his future rests with
himself, and that if he hopes to raise himself from the
class in which he was born he must have education and
the comprehension intelligently to perceive that which is
required of him. In some cases extreme poverty pre
vents the boy from attending school, or compels him to
leave at a tender age so as to earn a miserable pittance
to contribute to his own support or that of others, but
the son of any well-to-do and thrifty mechanic or small
shopkeeper may acquire a fairly good education without
expense. Before leaving the subject of the public
school I must not forget to mention that in the South,

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the habitat of the negro, there are separate schools for
the coloured race, who are given practically the same
educational advantage as the whites.

I have referred to the c private ' schools of America,
and there are many of these institutions, which are
practically the antitype of Eton and Harrow and the
other well-known English public schools. They are
private in the sense that they receive no grant from the
State and derive their incomes from the fees paid by
the pupils or from endowments or voluntary gifts and con
tributions, and are not subject to State or Governmental
control or supervision. In these schools the boys live in
dormitories, each boy having his separate room or
sharing it with another ; they are divided into classes in the
usual way according to their capacity, and the system is
substantially the same as that in the large English public
schools. The boys go in for good healthy sports, and
like all right-minded and active youths are much more
interested in football and baseball than they are in Latin
and Greek, but they are kept pretty well up to the mark
and made to work. There are a few of these schools so
exclusive that the number of pupils is limited and prefer
ence is given to the sons or immediate relatives of former
pupils. I have in mind a certain school where it is
customary on the birth of a boy for his father immedi
ately to enter him as a pupil, so that when he is of
proper age there will be a place for him. An amusing
story is told of a young man, who in the exuberance
and pride of the knowledge that he might shortly expect
to become a father, made application for his prospective
son, informing the principal that in due time the boy's
name would be communicated. Unfortunately the boy
turned out to be a girl, but, nothing daunted, the father
wrote again, stating that the application still held good.

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EDUCATION AND LABOUR

The two great public schools of America — public in
essence, but not so denominated — are the Military
Academy at West Point and the Naval Academy at
Annapolis, where young men are trained for admission
to the respective services. These youths are appointed,
or more properly, nominated, by members of Congress,
and in some cases by the President, and after passing
a rigid physical and mental examination they are en
rolled as cadets, passing at the end of four years into
the army as second lieutenants and the navy as mid
shipmen. They are given a thorough professional and
general education without cost and are paid .£100 a
year, which covers their living and incidental expenses,
so that the sons of poor men are not debarred from
entering the army or navy. Military and naval officers
are very proud of their training system and believe that
the American officer is better educated and more
scientific than the foreign officer, because the standard
at the Academies is higher than in similar institutions
abroad.

For those men and women who were debarred the
privileges of education in their youth, and for those
young people whose craving for knowledge has not been
satisfied and who are unable to attend school during
the day, there are in all the large cities night schools,
and the University Extension Movement and the Settle
ment Houses further promote the spread of knowledge.

The great problem confronting America is the assi
milation of its aliens, the conversion of the horde of
ignorant foreigners who are annually dumped on its
shores — who know nothing of English and even less of
American ideas and institutions — into Americans in fact
as well as in name.

Labour in the United States is more liberally re-

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AMERICA AT HOME

compensed than in any other country. Working-men
can be broadly divided into two classes — the skilled
worker who has served an apprenticeship and is a master
of his craft, and the unskilled labourer who does work
requiring brute strength rather than intelligence. The
former constitutes the hierarchy of labour and wields
great power in the management of trade unions and
in improving the general condition of labour ; the latter
is usually unorganised and exerts little influence.

The factory system was early transplanted from
England and is coincident with the general expansion
of industrial occupations in the United States. Without
attempting to raise the political or economic question
whether the protective system in America has been the
cause of high wages, or whether, as American free traders
are fond of asserting, the wages of American working-
men would be equally as high without protection owing
to superior natural advantages, the fact remains that
the American working-man is better paid than the work
ing-man in any other country. Wages vary according to
location, labour commanding the highest price in the
large cities of the East, where the cost of living is also
higher ; but domestic service is better paid in the West
than in the East. Bricklayers, for instance, in New
York city earn one pound a day, compositors on
morning newspapers sixteen shillings, carpenters and
plumbers from twelve to fourteen and fifteen shillings ;
unskilled labour is rarely paid less than six shillings
a day ; and although the cost of living is nominally
somewhat higher in America than it is in England, and
actually much higher than in Germany and other Con
tinental countries, the American working-man because
of his larger wages is not only able to live better, but to
lay by something for old age or accident.

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EDUCATION AND LABOUR

Figures are misleading, and mean nothing unless
accompanied by a detail of elaborate explanation and
comparison entirely out of place in a work of this
character. It would be easy enough to show what the
working-man pays for rent, provisions, and clothes, but
those prices would be meaningless unless, in the case
of rent, for instance, compared with the same accommo
dations and relative accessibility to his place of
employment of the British working-man. In the matter
of clothing the question of quality is a determining and
disputed factor, the American contending that the cloth
woven on American looms is equally as durable as
the cloth worn by English workmen. It is sufficient
to say that with the possible exception of rent the
American workman pays no more for his clothing and
provisions than does the British workman ; that many
articles of diet are cheaper in America than in England ;
that there is a greater choice of fruits, vegetables, and
fish in America ; that in times of even moderate pros
perity it is only the idle, dissolute, or physical incapa
citated who are constantly on the border line of
starvation ; that in good times every man willing to
work can find employment at fair wages; that the
working-man in good standing, as well as the unskilled
labourer, has meat every day, usually more than once
a day, varied by poultry and fish with nutritious
vegetables, and he may have decent surroundings, and
save if he is careful and temperate.

In a country where every male on attaining his majority
is entitled to cast a vote for the election of the lowest as
well as the highest official, it follows as a matter of
course that the working-men exercise great political
power, and that political power the politician is never
permitted to forget. The working-man frequently

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coerces politicians, capitalists, Members of the Legislature
and Members of Congress, who are careful to do nothing
to antagonise what is generically known as the labour
vote. It would naturally be expected that in America,
where the labour vote constitutes in round numbers one-
seventh of the electorate, there would be a distinct
labour party which would be represented in Congress by
its own members and form a separate parliamentary
group, but the labour party has not yet appeared in
American politics.

Labour easily divides itself into four racial divisions.
There are the Americans of native birth or parentage,
the Irish, the Germans, and the races from Southern
Europe. The native-born American is a Republican or
a Democrat owing to circumstances and the accident of
environment ; the Irish almost to a man have been and
are Democrats ; the Germans in the large cities of the
East in the main are Democrats, while in the Western
States they are largely Republicans ; and the Italians, the
Russians, and the Slavs are Democrats if they happen to
settle in democratic states or cities, and Republicans if
they are thrown among Republicans. The first three
classes — the Americans, the Irish, or at least a large
portion of them, and the Germans — constitute the
skilled labour of America, while the Italian and the
Slav are now doing the manual, unskilled work that
was formerly done by the Irish. It follows, therefore,
that with labour so divided by racial prejudice it becomes
almost impossible to solidify it into a political party or
unify it in its own interest.

There is still another reason why it has been found
impossible to make a united labour party, although
frequently the attempt has been essayed. Much jealousy
exists among the labouring men, and great distrust and

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EDUCATION AND LABOUR

fear of themselves. A Member of Congress is paid a
salary of .£1,500 a year, and a Congressman's salary is a
prize worth competing for by any highly skilled and well-
paid artisan, who has to work eight and nine hours a
day and earns from £200 to £300 a year. Election to
Congress lifts a man immensely in the social scale, and
would put the labour member in a class much higher
than that of his former associates and fellow workers.
Envy at making one of their members * a gentleman,'
and the fear that if he should be elected to Congress he
would cease to be a working-man and come under the
influence of capital, are responsible more than any other
causes for the failure to create a labour party.

This divergence of political belief and this distrust of
themselves have nullified the political power of the
labour unions, but while the union exerts no influence
politically — that is, the union as an entity — its influence
both economically and socially has been felt most sen
sibly. The increase of wages that has been progressive
in the United States during the last few years is largely
owing to the efforts of the trade unions and the steady
pressure put upon employers by them ; and as a majority
of the skilled workers of the country are members of the
unions, in case of a disagreement and a strike the unions
have it in their power either temporarily to bring indus
trial operations to a standstill or at least seriously to
dislocate them.

It is for this reason that the more intelligent among
labour leaders discourage the trade union from becoming
a political body. Once that should come to pass, they
say, labour would be merely an annex to the great
political parties and would be rendered impotent either
to reward its friends or punish its enemies. Labour is
powerful, they say, because its political action is always

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an unknown quantity ; because this uncertainty is a
threat that inspires respect and makes it the object of
solicitous consideration on the part of politicians. The
chief purpose of the union, according to the labour
leader, is not to put this party or that in office, but it is
to obtain higher wages, shorter hours, and better social
conditions for its members, and that only can be accom
plished by encouraging the industrial worker to be a free
political agent and to vote for the candidate who pro
mises best to bring about those results.

The relations existing between labour and capital in
the United States are, speaking broadly, those of an
armed truce between nations immediately preceding a
declaration of war. There is little, if any, feeling of
common purpose between them, or consciousness of
common interests. Labour is engaged in a perpetual
struggle to compel capital to accede to its demands, to
increase its wages, and to diminish its hours. I shall
not here attempt to weigh the rights and wrongs on
either side, to apportion the blame, or to make any
attempt to investigate the causes. It may be sufficient to
say that neither side is entirely to blame nor entirely
innocent. While much of the discontent and dissatisfac
tion on the part of labour is caused by the tyranny and
oppression of capital and the knowledge that capitalists
have made huge fortunes at the expense of labour, the
determination of employers not to adopt a more con
ciliatory attitude toward their employees or voluntarily to
improve their conditions is the natural consequence of
the high-handed manner in which working-men attempt
to redress their grievances, real or imaginary, and their
ingratitude.

Without going into causes, I think it can be said
without fear of contradiction that, because of the power

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of labour, politicians and the Press have been afraid to
express their convictions or to advocate measures that
would be in the interest, not of capital or of labour, but
of both, and society generally. Frequently strikes have
been ordered for the most trivial reasons. The sym
pathetic strike is a favourite weapon of the unions ;
employers have locked out their men rather than make
a trifling concession ; the arrogance of capital has been
met by the intolerance of labour ; and the newspapers
have been silent, and reprobated neither labour leaders
responsible for causing untold distress to men forced to
strike, nor captains of industry who have made the public
suffer to gratify the caprice of capitalistic greed and
pride.

For many years the doctrine of laissez faire has
prevailed because it accorded with the spirit of democracy
to believe that it was not the business of the State to
settle disputes between man and man ; they could fight
it out between themselves, and all that the State was
required to do was to keep the ring and see fair play.
But now it has gradually dawned upon the compre
hension of the law-makers that industrial warfare is no
more to be permitted than any other form of anarchy,
and the organisation of the Civic Federation, of which
the late Senator Hanna was the president, and the
existence of other similar machinery to bring about a
better state of feeling between employer and employee
will probably before long lead to more harmonious
relations between capitalists and wage-earners. In other
respects the State has regarded the working-man as
peculiarly under its guardianship, and has made wise
and liberal laws for his protection, and to save him from
the rapacity or cupidity of the employer. Every State
makes its own labour laws, and the same spirit actuates

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AMERICA AT HOME

most of them. Sunday and legal holidays are observed
as days of rest ; in many States the normal day is fixed
by legal enactment at nine hours, while in some occupa
tions it is limited to eight. There are stringent provisions
regulating the employment of women and children, and
in the older States of the East, notably Massachusetts,
which has always set the example in advanced labour
legislation, sanitary and other regulations in factories
are strictly observed and rigidly enforced, and the
comfort of the operatives is carefully looked after,

128

CHAPTER TEN

SOCIAL CUSTOMS

ONE of the peculiarities of America, one that always
impresses the foreigner who has spent sufficient time
in the country to know it and whose judgment is not
founded upon a superficial acquaintance of a few
weeks in the larger cities of the East, is the difference
in social customs and the point of view in various
places. In New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, among
the very rich, there is almost as rigid adherence to
form and the strict canons of etiquette as there is in
Europe ; in the West, except in a few of the largest
cities, strict regard for conventional etiquette is deemed
of less importance. In New York the dress suit is an
essential part of every man's wardrobe who makes the
slightest pretension to having any knowledge of the
world, and even the man of small means and minor
social position considers it incumbent ' to dress ' when
he takes his wife or other women to the theatre. In
a city of the size and importance of Chicago the
dress suit, while not unknown, is sparingly used, and
in the smaller cities of that Western country the man
who dresses for the theatre makes himself conspicuous.

An Englishman relates an amusing account of his
experiences in a Western city of considerable preten
sions — a city as large as Birmingham, but not so im-

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AMERICA AT HOME

portant. He went there on business, accompanied by
his wife. The evening of their arrival they accepted
an invitation to the theatre ; and not thinking that the
customs of the newer West were different from those
they had always known, and deeming it unnecessary
to consult any authorities on etiquette, they proceeded
to dress as they would for a theatrical performance in
London ; the man in the conventional black of evening,
his wife in a dress to show her shoulders. As they
went to their seats in the dining-room they felt they
were attracting entirely too much notice, and when
they sat down so marked was the attention of every
body in the room that the Englishwoman asked her
husband in a whisper if there was anything wrong
about her looks, as everybody stared at her. He
gallantly told her that she looked unusually stunning,
which was perhaps the reason, and advised her not to
worry. She looked about the room, in which there
were perhaps not less than a hundred women, and
discovered to her amazement that she alone wore a
low-neck dress, which naturally made her most decidedly
conspicuous. Being a woman of quick wit she realised
the situation at once and understood how shocking
her bare arms and shoulders must seem to those other
women with their dresses buttoned up to their necks
and prolonged to their wrists, and asked her husband
what she should do.

1 Do nothing, my dear, but eat your dinner,' he
replied.

'But I can't sit here in this way,' she answered.
' I feel as much out of place as if I were walking in
Bond Street in a bathing suit. I shall either have to
change this waist or you will have to get me a scarf
to throw over my shoulders.'
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SOCIAL CUSTOMS

Telling the incident later when it was a less painful
memory, she said she felt that her dress was entirely
out of place. * I don't mean any play on words/
she quickly added, with a somewhat ghastly smile as
she recalled the humiliation of that time, * but I wished
that some of the material trailing on the ground could
have been on my bodice at that particular moment.'
When her husband returned a minute or two later
with a lace scarf which she put about her shoulders,
{ I heard,' she said, ' an audible sigh of relief go up
throughout the room. Outraged propriety was ap
peased.' After their experience in the dining-room
it occurred to them that if a woman at dinner in a
decollete dress created such a sensation the results
might be equally unfortunate at the theatre. What
was to be done ? There was no British consul to
whom they could appeal for advice ; they knew no
one who could serve as their social mentor.

' Ask the manager of the hotel,' said the wife ;
' hotel managers in this country, I have been told,
know everything.'

That suggestion did not appeal to the husband, who
after a few minutes' reflection turned to his wife with
triumph written on his face. ' I know,' he said. ' I'll
telephone to our host; he's a good chap and will
know.'

Of course the host had a telephone in his house
and there was a telephone in the room of the hotel,
so it was easy enough to get into communication with
him, but it was not quite so easy to ask a compara
tive stranger what his wife should wear. Never good
at finessing, this man, after vainly endeavouring to
frame a subtle question, was at last compelled bluntly
to ask : * What shall my wife wear ? ' and over the

AMERICA AT HOME

wire came this Delphic reply in the hearty tone of
sincerity : ' Oh, tell her to come just as she is. Any
thing that she wears will be just right ; we don't go in
much for style here.'

That settled it. It were better to err on the safe
side, and a change was quickly made to a dress more
in keeping with the Western idea of convention. At
the theatre there was not a single woman in a dtcollett
dress, and during the course of the evening the English
woman shuddered as she realised how narrowly she
had escaped the frightful impropriety of appearing at the
theatre in bare neck and arms ; and when later she
laughingly told her hostess, that estimable woman
gasped and said that if she had society would have
talked about it for the next month. In the West a
woman never appears decolletl except at a ball, and
even then the very smallest display of the female form
is all that society will countenance. According to the
Western code, Satan is supposed to ride on a woman's
bare shoulders.

This hostess said that the ' society ' of her city would
have been given food for gossip, and the use of this word
' society ' is a constant surprise to the foreigner. You
pick up a local paper and read of the elopement of two
' prominent young society people ' in some small place,
only to discover that the girl is the local telephone
operator and the man is the proprietor of a grocery
store. Because the girl is pretty and vivacious and the
man is well off according to the community's standard
of wealth, they are ' prominent socially ' and so regarded
by their associates. Social standing is not gauged
nationally, but parochially ; and as there is no national
standard, and there is nothing to determine social status,
it is established by local conditions. A man may be
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SOCIAL CUSTOMS

prominent in New York and totally unknown in the
West ; the leading citizen of a small place in the West,
or even a city of great commercial importance, is merged
into the mass when his local background no longer
reflects his greatness.

Marriage and the severing of the marriage tie are
attended with much less formality in the United States
than in any other highly civilised country, which has
created the impression — for which American writers
are more largely responsible than foreigners — that the
sanctity of marriage is lightly held, and that, to speak
quite bluntly, the Americans, as a race, are less moral
than the English. This, I hold, does them a great
injustice. I doubt if there is any nation where the home,
and family are held so sacred, where the chastity of
women is so great, where flagrant immorality on the
part of men or women so quickly leads to social
ostracism as it does in the United States. It is quite
true that marriage and divorce are easy ; but it must be re
membered that in America Church and State are separate,
and in the eyes of the law — no matter what may be the
view of the Church — marriage is simply a civil contract, a
contract entered into like any other agreement between
two persons of legal age, that imposes certain legal
obligations, but like any other contract is terminable for
any breach of the covenant. To make a marriage valid
it does not have to be performed in a church or by an
ordained minister ; it is equally binding if the marriage
ceremony is read by a magistrate or a properly authorised
civil officer, such as an alderman or a mayor ; in some
States the c common-law marriage,' an agreement between
the parties to regard each other as husband and wife, and
to live together in the marital relation, is a legal marriage,
the issue of the union are legitimate, and the wife is

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AMERICA AT HOME

entitled to her dower and other property rights in her
husband's estate. Every State has its own marriage and
divorce laws ; in some States only a violation of the
marriage vow is ground for divorce, in other States the
laws are much more lax or liberal, according as one may
choose to regard them, and any one of a dozen causes
is sufficient ground for divorce.

The ease with which divorce can be procured has
created the belief in Europe that in America divorce is
a recognised social institution and that the divorced
person, man or woman, does not lose social caste by
having been set free from the matrimonial bonds.
Society — and here I use the word not in its restricted
sense as applying to any particular set of persons, but in
its broader meaning of the whole body politic — does not
look with favour upon the divorcedj even upon the
innocent party, who is always under a stigma ; always ex
cepting the very rich, who are a law unto themselves, who
because of their great wealth can do as they please, and
who are so far above public opinion that they can afford
to defy it.

It is true that divorces are more numerous in America
than in England, but that comes from the difference in
social institutions, laws, and national temperament ; and
while much can be said on both sides, it can only be
said here, in regard to a question so important as this,
that while many Americans, especially clergymen and
others who look upon marriage as a sacrament, regret
the frequency of divorce, it is abhorrent to American
\ ideas that a woman, the wife of a drunkard or the wife
i of a brute who maltreats her, because she merely
committed an error of judgment by marrying a worth
less man, should be compelled to pay such a heavy
penalty as to be bound to him for life. Such a woman,

SOCIAL CUSTOMS

according to the chivalrous sentiments of Americans,
is entitled to her freedom, to marry a more worthy man,
and to obtain the happiness to which she is justly en
titled.

In marked contrast to liberality of ideas in one direction
is the extremely narrow view entertained in another.
No woman smokes publicly in America — that is, no
woman with a reputation. Should a woman attempt to
light a cigarette in a public place, in a restaurant the
equal of the Carlton or Prince's, not only would the
management protest, but she would forfeit the respect of
other women ; and those women who smoke in the
privacy of their own homes are careful not to do so
except in the company of their intimates.

There is less drinking in America than in England,
and it is done in another way. I think it is quite a safe
assertion that there are thousands of middle-class, well-to-
do families where wine, beer, or spirits is never seen on
the table except on rare occasions when a particularly-to-
be-honoured guest is entertained. You may go into a
restaurant car or a restaurant where it is patent the
diners are not forced to economise, and you will notice
that the persons who order wine are in a decided
minority. The American does not think it is necessary
to drink with his meals ; it is a foreign and extravagant
fashion that he does not encourage.

I refer, of course, to the great middle class. Once
again let it be said that the rich are a class to them
selves. With them wine is considered a necessity ; and
the rich and the imitators of the rich are so numerous in
America, that America, I am told, drinks more cham
pagne than any other country in the world. Champagne
is the drink of society. Ice water and champagne are
the national beverages of America.

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AMERICA AT HOME

The middle-class American who does not drink at
dinner will take his drink either before or after, some
times both. A cocktail before dinner is supposed to be
conducive to appetite ; whisky and water after dinner is
supposed to insure a night's sound rest. The American
of social and convivial inclination invites his friends to
take a drink, and standing in front of a bar tosses off
his allowance of Rye or Bourbon whisky and hastily
gulps down a swallow of water ; repeating this at frequent
intervals according to his capacity and conviviality.

Drinking by business men during business hours is
frowned upon and not considered good form ; although
of course there is much of it done. But employers, and
especially the large employers of labour, set their faces
severely against the use of liquor by their employees, and
the man who is known to drink is in danger of dis
missal. The American working-man is a lighter drinker
than the European, although his drink bill is heavy
enough. In England compositors working on morning
newspapers may drink while at work, but may not smoke
in some offices. In America any man who should bring
beer into the composing room would be summarily dis
charged, but an attempt to interfere with his vested
right to smoke or chew tobacco would lead to a strike.

Not only are the Americans a moral, but, which follows
as a matter of course, they are a religious people,
although there is no endowed church and the State
concerns itself no more with a man's religious belief
than it does with the opinion he holds on art or
literature. There is no church, but all churches ; no
one religion, but every religion from Confucianism to
Christian Science ; there is nothing to prevent a prophet
from writing a new creed and preaching the gospel.
Churches are maintained entirely by private contributions

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SOCIAL CUSTOMS

and receive no aid from the State. In the larger and
wealthier cities some of the Episcopal and a few of the
Roman Catholic churches own valuable property or are
richly endowed through the liberality of their supporters ;
but the great majority of all churches, whatever the
denomination, are solely dependent upon pew rents and
other forms of voluntary contributions, and it naturally
follows that where the parishioners are rich the clergymen
are well paid, and in a poor parish the ministers are ill
requited for their self-sacrifice. In America the clergy
command great respect, for they are usually men of high
character whose lives are an example to right living.

In most American cities Sunday is strictly kept as a
day of rest and religious observance. In some of the
Western cities where the foreign element predominates
theatres are open and the day is one of enjoyment
rather than religious devotion ; in New York so-called
' sacred ' concerts, where the music is more secular than
sacred, are permitted ; and in Washington, owing to the
example set by the diplomatic corps, Sunday is con
sidered as good a day as any other for dinner giving ;
but to the Puritan conscience of New England and the
strict if somewhat narrow concept of life of the Southerner
and Westerner of native American stock, this is a
desecration and profanation of the Sabbath that always
meet with the condemnation of the Press and pulpit ;
but despite these fulminations the diplomatic corps con
tinues its sinful course with unimpaired digestion. With
these exceptions Sunday in America is as lugubriously
dreary as the most rigid Covenanter could desire.
Unlike the British workman the American workman
cannot obtain his beer on Sunday, as the public-houses
are closed all day, and with the exception of the ' drug
store ' (the chemist's) all shops are shut. The working-
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AMERICA AT HOME

man and the great middle class may go into the country
or on an excursion to the seaside, and society after
church may take a sedate walk.

The American city is a city of homes ; and just as it
is the ambition of the Englishman who is ' something
in the city ' to retire and own a place in the country, so
it is the ambition of most Americans to own the houses
in which they live. In the large cities, both East and
West, during the last few years the apartment house has
become extremely popular, and people find the domestic
problem greatly simplified by living in flats. It is
popular because it is cheaper, as heat and light are
generally included in the rent, and it involves less
labour on the housewife. Flats require fewer servants,
and that is something to be thankful for, as the ' servant-
girl problem ' in America is one that the American, with
all his ingenuity, has not yet succeeded in solving.
Servants in America are generally very incompetent and
very expensive. The native American girl does not
take kindly to domestic service, and would rather work
in a shop or a factory than cook or make beds, so that
most servants in America are Irish, German, Scandi
navian or negroes, who are paid from £2 to ^4 a month,
who are independent, and, as a rule, unsatisfactory.

But the American servant has some virtues, and not
the least is that she is a harder worker than the English
servant, which reduces the number of servants in the
average household. The American woman has less
false pride than the English woman and does not engage
in a desperate and never-ending struggle to keep up
appearances. It is not a positive disgrace for an
American woman to do her own housework ; and where
the English woman of extremely limited means will
consider it absolutely necessary to have two servants, a
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SOCIAL CUSTOMS

cook and a housemaid, the American woman will manage
very comfortably with one general servant, because the
mistress will go into the kitchen, dust, or make the beds.

In the large cities in fashionable and even semi-
fashionable neighbourhoods house rent is prohibitive
for persons of small means. In New York, for instance,
,£2,000 a year will command a modest house in a
neighbourhood corresponding to Belgravia, and in the
Mayfair of New York, Fifth and Madison Avenues, and
the adjacent streets the rent is much higher. Just as
in London the man of slender means houses himself in
the suburbs, so the New Yorker of the same relative
position lives in Brooklyn or New Jersey or in the
extreme northern end of New York city in a flat ; and
he can rent a flat in New York for from £7 to .£200 or
more a month, the price depending upon size, neighbour
hood, and the luxury of his surroundings. In Boston,
Philadelphia, and Chicago the same conditions exist,
although rents are a trifle lower than in New York, but
in the smaller cities houses are not beyond the reach
of even a modest income. In Washington, for instance,
one can obtain a fairly comfortable house of eight or
ten rooms within ten minutes' walk of the White House,
the President's official residence, for about £"100 a year,
and in a less fashionable neighbourhood for half that
sum, while a larger house in a more aristocratic part of
the city will rent for £250 and more.

Rent in America always includes taxes and rates.
An American house has usually more conveniences than
an English house. An American house without a
bathroom with the hot water heated from the kitchen
' range ' is rare ; there are speaking-tubes and electric
bells, a dumb waiter or lift from the kitchen to the
butler's pantry adjoining the dining-room, chandeliers —
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AMERICA AT HOME

which are fixtures of the house and installed by the
landlord or builder — and not infrequently electric lights
as well. Nor must one forget the greatest convenience
and the greatest curse of the American house — the
furnace. The American loves to live in a dry tem
perature that is maddening to everybody except an
American to the manner born, a mummy, or a salamander.
Practically all American houses are heated by hot
water, hot air, or steam furnaces, which are a great
convenience in ctoing away with open fireplaces and
keeping passages and halls well warmed ; but Americans
in winter-time are apparently afraid of the least breath
of fresh air, and a temperature of from 75 to 85 degrees
is not considered extraordinary. Of recent years the
mortality from pneumonia in large cities has reached
the proportions of an epidemic, and many physicians
ascribe the high death rate to the debilitating effect
of super-heated rooms ; for not only does the American's
house suggest an oven, but so do his office, his place
of amusement, his tramway, and his railway carriage.

It is possible for the man of small means, for the
clerk or artisan, to own his own house, because in
nearly every city houses can be bought on instalments
by small monthly payments in the same way that one
can buy in England an encyclopaedia or jewellery ; and
as the law does not allow estates to be entailed, and
the transfer of land is both simple and inexpensive,
property is bought and sold as easily as any other
commodity. A house is sold for a small first cash
payment, and the monthly payments, including interest,
are not much more than the rent, so that the occupier
is practically buying on about the same terms as he
would rent, and if he has been shrewd and invested in
a suburb where property appreciates he can often sell

140

SOCIAL CUSTOMS

his house at a substantial increase. The working-man
in America who does not own his house lives in the
large cities in a ' tenement,' a big building housing
sometimes a hundred families, or in a modern flat
where he has greater privacy and more comforts, or
in a small house in the suburbs. Every American city
has excellent tramways, or ' street-car service ' as it is
known in America, on which the fare is five cents
(2%d.) for a long or short distance; the cars running
from eight to twelve miles an hour at frequent intervals,
so that the workman can live some distance from his
work without being unduly inconvenienced.

The ' street car ' is an American institution, and to
thousands and hundreds of thousands of persons it is
their only means of locomotion, because the American
hates to walk and can find no pleasure in walking simply
for the sake of amusement. A brilliant Englishwoman
who was in America not long ago, observing this consti
tutional dislike of the American to use his legs, remarked
that a few generations hence Americans would be born
without legs, and those members would be as much
a rudimentary survival of a useless organ as the vermi
form appendix now is ; and the American to whom this
remark was made laughed and said : ' When I want
to get somewhere I am generally in a hurry, and it is
much easier to jump on a car than it is to walk ; and
when I want to enjoy myself I know a great many
better ways than to tire myself out by walking some
where and returning.'

The street car has become a necessity because no
American city knows the luxury and convenience of the
English cab. It is true that there are cabs for hire
in American cities, but woe betide the unfortunate and
unsuspecting stranger who is beguiled into taking one

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AMERICA AT HOME

without having first made a careful bargain with the
piratical driver. He can make up his mind to be
robbed, and if he remonstrates he will be insulted and
threatened with bodily violence ; and the police being
generally in league with the driver they will give the
' fare ' no protection. The consequence is that the
average American seldom calls a cab; the street car
takes him to and from his office in the morning and
evening; his wife uses it in the afternoon when she
goes calling or shopping ; and in the evening when they
go to the theatre or to a dinner, unless it happens to
be very wet or the streets are deep in snow, the street
car is quite good enough for them. For the street car
runs everywhere, and one is rarely more than a few
' blocks ' (that is, the length of a street from turning to
turning) from a car. The street car (always a private
enterprise and never a municipal undertaking) because
of the two dominant characteristics of the American —
haste to reach his objective point, and his dislike of
pedestrianism — usually pays a good return on the money
invested, so that there is every inducement to its owners
to extend the service to keep pace with the demands of
its patrons and the growth of population ; because the
greater the facilities for travel the greater the temptation
to the American to jump on a car rather than to walk.

The primitive passion of woman is a bargain, and if
Eve had been able to go shopping the tragedy of the
Garden and all its ultimate consequences might have
been avoided. Shopping is made very easy for the
American woman. The telephone is no longer a luxury
or a rarity : even people of quite moderate means are
able to have an instrument in their houses, through
which they send their orders to the butcher and the
greengrocer. But that, of course, is not shopping. The

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SOCIAL CUSTOMS

American woman is as fond of chaffering in the bazaar
as her Oriental sister ; nothing gives her greater delight
than to price goods even if she does not buy, and
before she makes the purchase of the material for her
new dress she is sure to visit one or more shops, to
have the stuffs spread out before her, and to ask for
what she terms ' samples,' but which the Englishwoman
calls ' patterns,' so that she can take them home, submit
them to the judgment of her friends and have all the
delight of anticipation.

It is the aim of the shopkeeper in America to please
his patrons, and in his efforts to please he is in some
respects surprisingly liberal and does everything possible
to draw the public to his emporium. In the best
shops everything is marked in plain figures and from
this price there is no deviation ; in fact, no one would
suggest offering a lower price than that asked, because
it would be useless and it would betray bucolic
ignorance. Nor may the assistants misrepresent the
quality of the goods they sell. The American pro
prietor of a large shop prides himself on keeping
faith with the public and establishing a reputation for
scrupulous honesty. His advertising is generally of a
high order; it is often surprisingly well written, with
not a little literary flavour, and, while it naturally has
a tendency to paint the lily and gild refined gold, it
does not wilfully falsify, or offer as all wool that which
is half shoddy. Any article, no matter how trifling, is
always delivered free of charge, no cost is made for
packing or boxing, small silverware is engraved with
an initial or monogram without extra cost ; in the large
shops there are rooms where women can write their
letters or rest, or where parcels may be left until they
are ready to be called for.
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CHAPTER ELEVEN

HOW AMERICA AMUSES ITSELF

\

WHEN an American works he works hard; when he
plays he plays with equal vigour. Americans as a race
have all the English love for play and pleasure and
are almost equally as fond of outdoor sports; but the
indictment brought by Rudyard Kipling against the
English nation, of devoting more time and thought to
cricket and polo and racing than to the serious business
of life, would not lie against America. Every year
young America, male or female, displays greater zest
for open-air life. Girls sail, row, fish, ride, drive,
hunt and shoot big game just like their brothers, and
often excel them, but except among the very rich
these things are simply a relaxation from the more
serious duty of life — that is, money making — and are
not permitted to interfere with a man's real vocation.
The young man whose only vocation is to spend
money and enjoy himself is almost as keen a sports
man as the - young Englishman of similar position,
always, however, with the difference that is racial as
distinguishing the English and the Americans. The
English, as more than one foreign observer has noticed,
have such a surplus stock of superabundant vital
energy that it must be worked off in the form of
violent and active exercise that tires their muscles. The
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HOW AMERICA AMUSES ITSELF

American, despite his great and almost resistless activity j
and energy in business and other great affairs, is pre- I
eminently a conservator of energy, and does not en- I
courage the wasting of energy when it can be preserved. *
The Americans excel all other nations in their labour-
saving devices, in making a machine to take the place
of human hands ; and this characteristic, in its origin
purely utilitarian, has left its impress upon the national
character to such an extent that the American would
be lazy were it not that he is the most untiring of
men when the practical is to be accomplished,

The American is gregarious and loves the society of
his fellow man. In his pleasures he wants to be one of
a great crowd ; the larger the crowd the better he likes
it ; a cheering, pushing, somewhat excited throng is
necessary to his idea of enjoyment; the contact of
elbows, so distasteful to some races, gives him the
keenest delight.

The national game of America, the game that is to the
United States what cricket is to England, is baseball.
Baseball, I believe, is a modified and magnified game of
rounders, and according to its enthusiasts it is one of the
most scientific and interesting games that can be played,
combining everything that gives a contest zest — skill, an
element of luck, good judgment, audacity when bold
ness is demanded, caution when safety depends on
circumspection. I am not qualified to speak of the
merits of the game, as it does not appeal to me and I
have never been able to become sufficiently absorbed to
appreciate its science. Because the American likes to •
take his pleasures without too much physical exertion, he
hires professionals to play baseball for his amusement. All '
during the long summer thousands of people go to the
baseball games played by the professionals, but of these
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AMERICA AT HOME

thousands very few handle a bat or ball themselves. In
England the man who enjoys cricket, the clerk or the
professional man who has left his youth many years be
hind him, gets his enjoyment more from playing than
from merely watching a game, but in America no man
of dignified position would think of playing baseball. A
physician of good standing, a lawyer of prominence, a
clergyman who should put on flannels and get a couple
of hours' vigorous exercise by playing on the 'diamond,'
would be regarded as decidedly queer by his clients or
his parishioners and would find himself much and un
pleasantly talked about.

Professional baseball is profitable alike to the players,
who are paid large salaries, and the owners of the clubs,
who are baseball entrepreneurs for exactly the same
reason that other men are theatrical managers — for the
profit that accrues to them. In several of the larger
cities there are clubs which play in turn all the cities in
the 'league.' The players are under contract to their
clubs and may not leave a club to join another without
the consent of the managers, and managers encourage
the greatest rivalry between the clubs by appealing to
local sentiment so as to stimulate interest in the game
and increase the attendance.

The enthusiasm displayed by the spectators is sur
prising and almost unbelievable ; the great pitcher or
catcher is a hero, and is an object of far greater curiosity
to his admirers than a statesman or a military com
mander. As showing the pinnacle of fame on which the
successful baseball player sits enthroned, a President of
the United States told this story. A father took his
schoolboy son to see the President, and the boy asked
him to autograph his portrait. When the President
handed the picture back to the boy, the father said :
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HOW AMERICA AMUSES ITSELF

'Keep it carefully, and some day you may become
famous and be President.'

' If you want to be really famous/ said the President
satirically to the boy, ' you must play on your college
ball team. Have you heard the story of General Bragg's
son?

' General Bragg was a distinguished general in the
Civil War and later a prominent figure in our civil
affairs. On one occasion he went to Boston to deliver
an important address, and shortly after his arrival
several Harvard undergraduates called. General Bragg
naturally took this as a compliment, and to show his
appreciation remarked that he felt flattered to think his
small services to his country should be recognised so
.gracefully by his young friends in coming to see him.

' There was an awkward pause, and then one under
graduate, bolder than the rest, with the audacity of
youth, blurted out: "You know why we come to see
you? Well, you're the father of Jack Bragg, and the
way he pitched against Yale and won the game was a
corker ! " '

That boys and young men should be unrestrained
in their enthusiasm is not surprising, but that men
fairly advanced in years, in their daily affairs sedate
and unemotional, should at a baseball game forget
their self-control and vie with their sons in noisy de
monstration is one of the amazing side-lights on the
American character ; but there is never a game that
does not cause staid and respectable pillars of society
to act like lunatics — applauding their favourites when
they score, savagely denouncing the umpire when his
decisions arouse their resentment. The life of the
umpire is not exactly a life of dignified ease. The
public derides him, the players frequently insult him,
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and sometimes he is bodily assaulted. The newspapers
always devote a great amount of space to baseball
games^; and while the speech of an important public man
may be ' cut ' to suit the exigencies of space, the baseball
reporter is given all the room he needs for his adjectives,
and the portraits of players usually accompany the
description of the game.

Baseball is not entirely confined to professionals, and
is much played by schoolboys and collegians, but these
games do not attract a tithe of the attention or the
audience of the professional game. There is nothing
that corresponds to the famous Eton and Harrow
cricket match or compares with it as a social event.
Perhaps its nearest approach, curiously enough, is in
midwinter when the university football games are played.

Football between the colleges, Harvard, Yale,
Princeton, and Cornell in the East, and some of the
larger institutions in the West, has become immensely
popular during the last few years. The football field has
not yet been invaded by the professional ; there are
no professional football teams, and the college teams are
made up entirely of undergraduates. One of the most
popular games of the season is between the military
academy at West Point and the naval academy at
Annapolis, which, for the last few years, has been played
at Philadelphia in the presence of 25,000 people. A
tremendous impetus to its popularity and fashionable
character was given by the attendance two years ago of
the President, who was accompanied by other well-known
people, and caused the occasion to assume the 9haracter
of a social event. These games are usually played in
November, when the weather is always bitterly cold,
and the men and women — and there are almost as many
women and girls present to cheer on their favourites as
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HOW AMERICA AMUSES ITSELF

there are men — experience much discomfort from the
biting air, but so keen is their enjoyment of sport they
forget everything else. A football field at one of these
great games is always an inspiring and blood-quickening
sight. Everybody wears the colours of the players ;
there are the crimson flags of Harvard or the blue of
Yale; there are the leaders of the chorus — the young
men with their megaphones and flags, who when a
touch-down has been scored or a goal kicked lead the
college cheer, and from all parts of the field there rises
the shout of ' Rah, rah, rah ! rah, rah, rah ! rah, rah,
rah — Harvard ! ' to the frantic waving of flags and
coloured streamers. Everybody at a game is a partisan,
nobody is indifferent, and every partisan tries to out-
shout his opponent and to show ' the proper spirit,' as
schoolboys term it. The Latins are popularly supposed
to be the most excitable of races, and a bull-fight sets on
fire all their passions, but the most aroused Spanish
patron of the bull-ring might look with envy and amaze
ment upon the ' phlegmatic ' American applauding the
prowess of his football champions.

Football as played in America entails a good deal of
danger upon its votaries. Never a football season
passes without several of the players being killed, many
permanently injured, and many more seriously hurt.
Players have been carried off the field unconscious, but
that does not bring the game to an end, as there are
always substitutes waiting to take the place of the men
who drop out of the ranks, and an injury received on the
football field is looked upon by the collegian's associates
as something to be proud of, a proof of his valour and
devotion to his side, and is acclaimed accordingly.
Probably one reason why the colleges now pay so much
attention to football is its commercial value. These

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great intercollegiate games put a large amount of money
into the treasury of the various athletic associations, and
not only pay for trainers and other expenses, but leave a
handsome surplus.

Baseball and football are the amusements of the
multitude ; the rich, as in all other things, have their
own means of finding distraction. The twin sports of
kings, yachting and racing, are as popular in America
as they are in England, and during the summer the
water and the turf appeal to their followers. Owners
usually commission their steam and sailing yachts early
in the summer, and cruise about the Eastern Atlantic
coast, while those who have racing yachts take part in
the various regattas and other prize contests that are
held every year. The infinite charm of the American
girl is perhaps never more dangerously potent than on
a yacht, when in the daytime in her white duck or blue
serge, well set up, trim, graceful, she is the ideal of
girlish beauty and healthy womanhood, and in the
evening in the saloon in her laces and diaphanous
attire, or on deck in the moonlight lazily thumbing a
guitar and softly singing a ' coon ' song or a ballad of
love, she holds undisputed sway. Yachting is fashion
able because it is an expensive amusement and only the
rich can afford the luxury. Its expense and its select-
ness, the knowledge a yacht owner has that he is in no
danger of being brought in contact with the common
herd, is perhaps one of the chief attractions it has for
the fortunate few.

The race track is as popular in America as it is in
England, and enormous amounts of money change hands
on the results of every race. There are a few men who
keep racing stables merely for the love of the sport,
but to the masses a horse race is either the occasion
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HOW AMERICA AMUSES ITSELF

for an afternoon's enjoyment or an opportunity to make
money with the least possible exertion, and for one
man who occasionally sees a race run, there are
hundreds who place their bets through commissioners
or in poolrooms, the evils of which are so great and
so demoralising that most of the large cities have
endeavoured to abolish the poolroom by drastic legis
lation. Betting on racehorses, however, is too pro
fitable for the bookmakers quietly to submit to their
business being abolished, and they maintain their illegal
traffic despite the vigilant efforts of the authorities to
suppress it. The poolroom is a gambling place pure
and simple. The poolroom proprietor will accept a bet
from anybody, old or young, man or woman ; he will
take anything from a shilling up \ office boys and
junior clerks are induced to wager their money with
the hope of a large return, which is never realised.
The poolroom and the bucket shop, where the same
class of people bet on the fluctuations of stocks, have
done more to demoralise the youth of America than any
other agencies. The desire to get rich quickly, to
obtain money without working for it, to make in a day
what by honest effort would require a year of strenuous
labour, is inherent in the American character, and the
publicity given by the Press to the Aladdin-like stories
of fortunes won over-night on the stock exchange and
the turf always encourage the petty speculator to be
lieve that he may be equally successful. Of course he
never is.

Cricket is played in America, but only to a very
limited extent. There are cricket clubs in New York,
Philadelphia, and some parts of Massachusetts, but the
game is not popular and the American is unable to
understand what there is about it to make Englishmen

AMERICA AT HOME

enjoy it so thoroughly. Americans who go to a cricket
match applaud good play, but they never let them
selves loose as they do at baseball. Tennis has its
admirers, polo is a fad of the idle rich, but the game of
all others that has become a veritable craze is golf, which
is played morning, noon, and night by its victims, old
and young, male and female, wherever links can be laid
out. A few years ago the bicycle was a favourite form of
recreation and exercise, but it has now lost its popularity
and is regarded merely as a convenient means of locomo
tion and not as a means of amusement. Its place
among those able to afford it has been usurped by the
automobile, which might almost be taken as emblema
tical of the American, because the automobile 'gets
there ' with the least possible waste of time ; it is full
of energy waiting to be released ; a touch of the ringer
and it is off; it does not efface itself, and it works with
a good deal of noise.

The great mass of Americans — in fact, all those except
the few who are rich enough not to have any business to
occupy their attention — give little thought to amusement
of an outdoor character except when they are on their
summer vacations. Schoolboys are given holidays at
Christmas and Easter, but to the breadwinner Christmas
Day is the sole holiday of the winter, and that he usually
spends quietly with his family, or in trying to make him
self believe that he is enjoying a relief from business,
while secretly he chafes at a day of enforced idleness and
plans how he shall make up for lost time. There is
often a football game on Christmas Day, to which the
college boy, his sister, and somebody else's sister go in
large numbers with here and there a sprinkling of the
college boy's father and mother, especially if the father
is a graduate of alma mater. Eastei Monday is not a

HOW AMERICA AMUSES ITSELF

holiday and passes quietly and unnoticed except among
the children, with whom the old German fashion sur
vives of dyeing eggs. It is an occasion, however, when
sweethearts exchange gifts appropriate to the season, and
when young men may send boxes of candy and flowers
to the young women of their acquaintance. The dis
play of flowers in every large American city at that time
of the year is always striking, and the extravagance of
Americans is in no way better shown than in the pre
posterous sums they spend for plants and flowers that
live for a day. One of the New York papers last Easter
commented on the fact that the Easter lily, so long the
symbol of the season, had been compelled to take a
secondary place, not because it was less beautiful than
formerly, but because it cost too little. The lily had
become too common and too cheap, and the American
scorns a cheap gift. Azaleas can be cultivated until they
sell for j£io, and this price, in the eyes of recipients as
well as givers, makes them a fit present. The florists,
of course, prefer to sell an azalea costing ;£io, rather
than a bunch of lilies costing as many shillings, and,
as this paper remarks, ' so long as purchasers were
willing to pay these amounts the florists wisely decided
to gratify them, and the lilies disappeared from the
market for all practical purposes.'

The Americans have three holidays peculiarly their
own. ' Decoration Day,' the 3oth of May, flows out of
the war of the Rebellion ; a day dedicated to the memory
of the men who laid down their lives fighting for the pre
servation of the Union. On that day the graves of soldiers
sleeping in national and other cemeteries are strewn
with flowers by tender hands and in all reverence, by
widows and children, by men and women who are not of
kin to the dead, but who honour their services and desire
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AMERICA AT HOME

to show their gratitude. In all the large cities the
statues erected to perpetuate the great names of the war,
the military and naval commanders and the immortal
President who towers above them all, Lincoln, who freed
the slaves and saved the Union from dissolution, are
decorated with flowers and flags, and in all the cities of
the North and West there are orations at the cemeteries,
where the deeds of the dead are recited to the living and
serve to keep alive the spirit of patriotism. Originally a
Northern celebration, the South looked on sullenly at
these celebrations ; but of recent years, since sectionalism
has almost disappeared, since the bitter memories of the
civil war have been effaced and the United States is once
more in fact, as in name, one country, the South has
joined with the North in recognising the symbolic
meaning of the day, and that the honouring of the dead
who died in the defence of their country and in the
performance of their duty casts no aspersion on the
living who were equally devoted to their concept of duty.

The devotional and oratorical exercises are usually
brief, and the remainder of the day is given over to
merrymaking and amusement ; and although many
thousands go to the cemeteries and take part in the
exercises, many more thousands look forward to
Decoration Day as a holiday, and the amusement
caterers always provide extra attractions for them.
Decoration Day is to the American what Easter Mon
day is to England.

Even greater than Decoration Day as the holiday of
the masses, because it comes at a time when respite
from work for a brief twelve hours is a tremendous
relief, is ' Fourth of July,' that day being to America
what the Fourteenth of July is to France, its great
national fete. It was on the Fourth of July that the
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HOW AMERICA AMUSES ITSELF

Declaration of Independence was adopted, the declar
ation by which the bonds were severed between Great
Britain and her North American colonies, and the day
is held sacred by all Americans. It is a day when
patriotism may find full vent, when the flamboyant
speaker may give full expression to all the burning
patriotism that is in him ; it is a day much esteemed by
the orator big and small ; by the great man of national
reputation who is invited to deliver a formal address in
New York, and the little man of merely local reputation
who is the star of the occasion in some struggling mining
village in the far West, but who feels himself to be
greater and more important than the big man in New
York. Big man or little man, there is little difference
in their fervour. They both sound the praises of their
country, they both tell of its glorious achievements in the
past and the still more glorious achievements it is to
accomplish in the future ; they both delight, in the words
of the vernacular, ' to make the eagle scream.' A Fourth
of July celebration in the smaller places of the West is
decidedly interesting. The serious way in which the
orators take themselves, their unbounded belief in the
might of their country, and the sincerity of their con
viction that the frown of the Z7-nited States makes the
whole world tremble, is ridiculous because it is gro
tesque, and yet it commands admiration because it is
so intensely typical of the faith of the people and the
assured belief they have in their destiny. Like
Decoration Day, in the large cities only the minority
go to hear patriotic orations, and the majority give
themselves up to a day of pleasure. Baseball, horse
racing, picnics, and every other form of enjoyment is
indulged in.

But, to be slightly Irish, it is the evening that is the
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AMERICA AT HOME

best part of the day, for the evening of the Fourth of
July is the English Fifth of November, when fireworks
are set off as a fitting ending of that day of rejoicing.
In England on Guy Fawkes Day there are no fire
works until after nightfall, but the American boy is
too impatient to wait until night, and all during the day,
and in some places even two days before, one's nerves
are destroyed by the explosion of firecrackers. The
American boy revels in uproar, and the larger his fire
cracker and the more noise it makes the better pleased
he is. Night brings rockets, Roman candles, and other
pyrotechnic novelties, and many of the seaside resorts
make their fireworks a special feature, and draw large
crowds.

The third distinctive American holiday is ' Thanks
giving Day,' always the last Thursday in November. This
holiday dates from the time of the Puritans, and was
originally, as its name implies, a day solemnly observed
to give thanks to the Almighty for His manifold goodness
vouchsafed to His people during the past year. The
custom has endured until the present. The President
issues a proclamation exhorting people to attend church,
and give thanks for the evidences of Divine favour, and
the Governors of the State follow the President's example
and issue proclamations to their people to the same
effect. Many people obey the injunction of the Presi
dent by attending church, and a great many more
simply treat the day as a holiday and make of it a
miniature Christmas. In those cities where football
is popular the most important game of the year is
played on that day, and it is an occasion for family
reunions and feasting. Just as turkey and plum pudding
are always the pieces de resistance of the English Christ
mas dinner, so turkey, cranberry sauce, and mince-pie
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HOW AMERICA AMUSES ITSELF

are the central features of the American Thanksgiving
Day dinner. The theatres cater to young people by
giving special matintes, and in the evening the places
of amusement are always crowded.

The climate of America, in summer-time, inviting to
outdoor life, and the liking of Americans for gaiety,
colour, light, and motion, make them improve every
natural advantage and convert it into a means of
amusement. A river such as the Thames would never
be permitted to go to waste in America ; but would be
dotted with excursion steamers, on which for a small
price people could get a breath of fresh air after the
heat and toil of the day. Whenever there is a small
lake adjacent to a city it is made a ' resort ' and becomes
the playground of the masses, who patronise the various
attractions offered for their amusement, listen to the
music, and eat and drink in moderation. On all the
rivers there are excursion steamers plying between the
cities and river resorts, and where a city has neither
river nor lake, a park or picnic ground in the outskirts,
always easily accessible by street cars, is the substitute.
The Americans have more of the light-hearted joyousness
of the French than the English, and like the French
have all their fondness for eating out-of-doors.

The theatre in winter is the favourite form of amuse
ment for both men and women, and because of the
freedom permitted to young women they may, except in
the very highest circles, attend the theatre with young
men unchaperoned. In the smaller places of the West
where theatrical companies do not penetrate, the lyceum
is the great form of amusement. During the winter
lectures are delivered by popular speakers, the lectures
interspersed with musical and other forms of light enter
tainment. The Americans as a people are fond of
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AMERICA AT HOME

music and musical comedy, a great deal of which has
been given in England in recent years by American
theatrical companies, but classical and other music of a
high order does not appeal to them, In New York
during the winter there is usually a season of German or
Italian opera which is expensive and fashionable and
therefore, in a sense, popular, as people who are not
fashionable go to the opera as much to see the occupants
of the boxes, whose names are printed on the pro
grammes, and the magnificent display of jewellery, as they
do to hear the music. There are usually brief seasons
of opera, after the New York season, in Boston and
Philadelphia, and sometimes in Chicago and Washington ;
but with the exception of New York and Boston there is
little really good music, and high-class music at popular
prices, such as one hears in London or Paris or through
out Germany, is unknown in the United States. In
some of the larger cities military and other bands play in
the parks during the summer, but their audience
demand 'ragtime' and 'coon songs,' and as the muni
cipal authorities do not consider it to be their duty to
elevate the musical taste of the community, they make
no objection to the bandmasters playing any jingle the
people may ask for.

•58

CHAPTER TWELVE
A RICH MAN'S PARADISE

IN the winter the rich men of America, and more
especially the wives of rich men, turn their faces to the
South and escape from the rigours of northern climates to
the land of sunshine and flowers in southern latitudes.
Some go as far West as southern California, a land where
the roses bloom the year round, but for most this is too
long a journey, and the rich people of New York and
the other parts of the North and East spend the late
winter and early spring in Florida, where huge and
luxurious hotels have been put up to house these many-
plumaged birds of passage, and where, reading of blizzards
in the West and snowstorms in the East, they, lolling in
flannels and lawn dresses and toying with iced concoc
tions, under shaded porches trying to escape the glare of
the sun, complain of the heat. Except in occasional
spots, Florida is not scenically beautiful and has little to
attract the visitor, but it is fashionable for the idle rich
to go South in the winter, and being fashionable it is the
proper thing.

Towards the end of March, when Florida and the
other Southern resorts are too hot for comfort, the
Easterners leisurely retrace their steps. The interven
ing time before summer really comes is spent in New
Jersey, Long Island, and Connecticut, where many rich

AMERICA AT HOME

New Yorkers have country homes, and, imitating the
example of Englishmen of wealth and leisure, it has
become fashionable for a part of the spring to be spent
in the country. One of the most fashionable places in
the neighbourhood of New York is Lakewood in the
neighbouring state of New Jersey, about an hour's travel
by rail from the city of New York. New Jersey is flat
and sandy and about as unromantic and ugly as one can
imagine, but Lakewood has acquired fashionable pro
minence nominally on the ground that it is salubrious
and its climate is milder than that of New York. One
goes through barren sand-dunes to come to this settle
ment of rich men's houses, where George Gould, the
son of the late Jay Gould, the great railroad magnate,
has put up a palace that is one of the most beautiful and
artistic in the country.

But the paradise of the rich, a place in which only
those anointed by the dollar may enter, is Newport,
in the State of Rhode Island, on the Eastern Atlantic
Coast about midway between New York and Boston.
Newport is perhaps the most artificial place in the
world. Originally a quiet, quaint little settlement off
the beaten tourist track, it was discovered by some
people who had an eye for beauty and who were
charmed by its natural loveliness. Inland it has all
the soft prettiness of the Sussex country, and on the
seashore where the Atlantic Ocean sweeps in through
Narragansett Bay it reminds one of a Devonshire village,
only there is more colour in sky and sea, the sun
blazes more intensely, and there is no old-world air of
repose and attachment to the past in the clanging
trolley cars (Anglice, trams) and the puffing, snorting
fifty-mile-an-hour automobiles.

Nature was in generous mood when she dowered
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A RICH MAN'S PARADISE

Newport with all the beauty of land and sea and made
it an ideal retreat for poet or painter, and man with
his bizarre ideals of fashion has spoiled Nature's
handiwork.

Here in the early days came a few persons of moderate
means who built unpretentious summer houses, who
lived simple lives, enjoyed in rational fashion the soft
beauty of their surroundings, found rest and recreation
in sky, and sea, and all of their mysteries, and returned
to town refreshed by primitive pleasures. For many
years the tide of travel passed its doors but never
tarried there, and then by one of those unaccountable
freaks of fashion it was suddenly discovered by the elect
and became the rage. The modest country villa no
longer sufficed. The newcomers put up large and
expensive houses, every season saw the limit expand,
and to-day there are ' cottages ' costing a million dollars
or more, and Newport in summer merely duplicates the
exclusive quarter of New York in the height of the
season.

It is an artificial place, and the life its people lead
is equally artificial. The same persons who during the
winter met at each other's houses at dinners and teas and
other functions, who gossiped in Florida hotels and slew
reputations at Lakewood, continue the same pleasurable
diversion at Newport, bored beyond measure, wearied
by the monotony, aware of the poverty of their ideas
but seeing no escape from them, because American high
society is not intellectual, and the American society
girl, pretty and attractive though she is, is not a reader
and is too frivolous to be a thinker.

Bellevue Avenue and the Ocean Drive, the fashion
able promenades of Newport, are thronged every after
noon with a magnificent display of horses and carriages

AMERICA AT HOME

and automobiles, and a still more magnificent display
of beautiful women faultlessly dressed, who put them
selves on parade and who know they are watched and
criticised by the members of their set. A commentator
on American society remarked of Newport that the
smart set devoted themselves to pleasure regardless of
expense, which evoked the neat retort from a man who
knew his Newport very well, that they really devoted
themselves to expense regardless of pleasure. There
are teas and fetes and dinners chronicled at much length
in the newspapers for the delectation of the less
fortunate, but the least fortunate are less to be pitied
than these weary leaders of society going through day
after day their Sisyphuslike task of vainly trying to find
enjoyment and never overtaking it.

Because Bellevue Avenue and the Ocean Drive lead
to the Elysian fields of plutocracy, it is the aim of every
social climber to be admitted to the Newport Olympus,
but the gods are jealous of their own and only after
severe probation do they admit the lesser deities. The
haughty exclusiveness of American society to which
Mrs. Fish referred, and which I have quoted in a
previous chapter, manifests itself nowhere else so
obnoxiously as it does where Dives has set up his
cottage. The millionaire born to his millions looks
down with contempt and regards as a parvenu the
millionaire who has made his millions. The Ultima Thule
of ambitious mothers from the West with marriageable
daughters whose fathers have made their fortunes is to
contract alliances for their daughters with Eastern men
of wealth and family, or better still foreigners of title.
Newport offers the way for entering this charmed circle,
because it is smaller than New York or Boston and
people are brought more in contact, and eligible

A RICH MAN'S PARADISE

foreigners are among its attractions ; so that many
people of wealth but of uncertain social standing have
begun their campaign by renting Newport villas and
ending with the proud knowledge that they are the
parents-in-law of peers.

But Newport, or rather its aristocratic oligarchy, does
not take kindly to this invasion. Newport is in danger
of being made .common, and once allow Newport to
become simply an ordinary residential place for million
aires, and its charm would be destroyed. The haughty
rich cannot prevent the mere rich from coming to
Newport if they have such bad taste as to go where they
are not wanted, but they can at least close the door of
society to them. The edict has gone forth. It has
been announced through the public Press that while the
undesirable may come to Newport and build their
palaces they must not expect to find themselves ad
mitted to the charmed circle. And yet there are
Americans who delight in telling the foreigner that class
distinctions do not exist in America, and who honestly
believe what they say !

Even less does Newport encourage the casual stranger
to rest within its gates. The average person on a
vacation or the tripper from New York or Boston—and
to both it is easy of access — does not go to Newport
unless his curiosity takes him to see the place of which
he has heard so much, and a few hours is amply
sufficient for that purpose, because there is nothing there
for the outsider. There are no public amusements, no
means for whiling away an idle hour ; the hotels are
few and ruinously dear ; the shops are branches of New
York, London, or Paris houses, and what one buys in
Newport can be bought in New York for about half, or
in Paris or London for a quarter. Newport does not

AMERICA AT HOME

encourage the casual stranger with a lean pocket-book.
Millionaires only need apply.

Even at Newport the millionaires live at a feverish
pace and are constantly trying to devise new schemes
for amusement. Novelty is what they crave, and the
desire ' to be original,' to be talked about, to gain a
reputation for daring and doing things out of the common,
leads to some choice exhibitions of folly. In passing,
Newport habituts always affect great disgust when the
newspapers exploit their vagaries at much length, but it
may be questioned if their vanity is not really tickled by
the attention they attract, and if they would not feel
disappointed if they were considered < of so little conse
quence that no one cared what they did.

Newport has its own ideas of what constitute wit and
originality. Thus, one woman known by name through
out the breadth and length of the land, issued invitations
to a select company to meet a Mr. So-and-So, and
intimated that the guest of honour was a distinguished
foreign traveller. When the guests assembled they were
gravely presented to an organ-grinder's monkey, which
was placed on a chair at the table, and whose antics
were found to be vastly amusing by these men and
women of huge wealth. Other similar buffoonery has
marked the fashionable society of the most fashionable
resort in America.

It must be said, however, in justice to Newport, that
some of its denizens furnish more rational pleasure to
their friends, and having the command of unlimited
means they do not hesitate to spend them to gratify a
caprice. Americans of great fortunes do not count the
price of their pleasure, and have almost an Oriental
contempt for cost. There was one Newport woman who
wanted a musical comedy then being given in New
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A RICH MAN'S PARADISE

York, and much talked about, to be seen by her friends.
In the same way that a Sovereign issues a royal com
mand, she informed the manager of the theatre that she
desired the performance to be given at her Newport
villa on a certain date, and to save him from any loss
she paid what the performance would have brought that
night if every seat in the theatre had been sold, and in
addition all the expenses of bringing his company to
and from Newport. The performance was given on a
temporary stage erected in the grounds of the villa,
which were beautifully illuminated with electric lights
especially strung for the occasion. In days gone by
Oriental potentates clapped their hands, and slaves
worked miracles, but to-day the American millionaire or
his wife writes a cheque and commands the services
of anybody they desire.

The dominant note of Newport is money. Riotous
extravagance obtrudes itself. The houses, although they
are always called cottages or villas, are large and costly ;
the horses and carriages are the finest ; the servants are
numerous and properly supercilious and haughty, as the
servants of the wealthy should be, resplendent in hand
some liveries, spick-and-span, showing they have only
recently come from the tailors ; the dresses of the women
at what in the humility of the rich is called a ' small '
entertainment or a ' quiet ' dinner cost more than those
worn at a court \ the diamonds and other jewels proclaim
their owners' millions ; the automobiles that go snorting up
and down Bellevue Avenue wrecking the peace of the
occasional pedestrian — who, of course, is an outsider, a
tourist attracted by the natural beauty of the place, and
therefore has no rights that the millionaire is bound to
respect — make more noise and emit more varied and all-
pervading odours than automobiles elsewhere, and their
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AMERICA AT HOME

owners glory in their speed and cost. In the harbour are
always several magnificent steam yachts. The simple
life is unknown. People go there ostensibly to relax
from the stiff formality of a winter's season and to enjoy
the country, but as a matter of fact there is more formality
and stiffness and observance of the social code than there
is anywhere else with one or two exceptions, and being
a small place its artificiality is so obtrusive that from it
there is no escape. Its habitues, however, delight in the
life and all that it means. They would not miss their
Newport season for ten times what it costs, and to be
written about in the newspapers, and to have their enter
tainments chronicled at great length, and their pictures
appear in the Sunday supplements, is their ideal of life
and the fulness thereof.

Another fashionable resort is Bar Harbour, on the
coast of Maine, in some respects one of the most beautiful
spots in America, as there mountain and ocean meet.
Although distinctly fashionable, it is less so than New
port, which affects to look down on Bar Harbour ; and
this assumed superiority gave an opportunity to a well-
known woman famous for her mordant wit to remark,
' People who have been warned off the grass at Newport
go to Bar Harbour and really think they are in society.'
There are many handsome villas in Bar Harbour, and
life there is very similar to that in Newport, only less
vulgar, because that word properly conveys the impres
sion one gets of Newport and its people. Bar Harbour
has more hotels and boarding-houses for the moderately
well off than Newport, but the elect of Bar Harbour
keep strictly to themselves and spend their time in riding
and driving, dining and being dined.

The greganousness of middle-class America has been
alluded to in a previous chapter, and the same desire to

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A RICH MAN'S PARADISE

flock together is found in society. In America one does
not find, as in England, great houses scattered over the
country, whose owners enjoy the knowledge that they
have no near neighbours and that the people who share
their hospitality are those especially invited for a definite
occasion. In America the rich always herd in colonies.
If a man discovers an attractive place for a summer or
winter residence and builds a house, his first thought is to
induce a friend to imitate his example, who in turn per
suades his friend, so that the circle is ever widening, and
in a short time there are many people of the same social
set and of about the same financial position gathered
together in one place. One of the pleasures derived
from being rich, according to the American idea, comes
from being able to parade wealth, and exhibiting it to
people equally as rich.

Another place much in favour with the wealthy,
although it is neither as aristocratic nor as exclusive as
Newport or Bar Harbour, is Saratoga, in New York
State, in the midst of ideally beautiful country. Saratoga,
as an American magazine writer described it, * has just a
dash of Monte Carlo, a bit of Baden-Baden, and a little
of Wiesbaden in its composition. It is a sporting town
like Monte Carlo, only its sporting aspect is not so
conspicuous. It is a health town for the healthy who do
not need it, like Baden-Baden. And then, for the very
few, it is really a place to recuperate, like Wiesbaden.'

Early in the summer, in June and July, it is quiet and
decorous enough. For many years its springs have been
famous for their curative properties, and middle-aged men
and women of generous habit predisposed toward gout or
embonpoint vainly imagine they can atone for six months
of indiscretion by sipping highly flavoured water, taking
exercise behind a pair of fat, sedate horses, playing six-
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AMERICA AT HOME

penny whist and going to bed an hour earlier than usual.
But in August, Saratoga awakes from its somnolent
respectability. It becomes the gayest of the gay. Its
attractions are many ; ' the extremes of life come very
close together.'

August in Saratoga is devoted to horse racing, and
it is, I believe, the only town in the world where an
entire month is given up to the race track. Imagine
what that means. During that month the horse is
crowned king, and he is a monarch who gathers about
him a brilliant court. It is the Derby and Ascot, not
for one day, but for thirty ; it is Auteuil and Longchamps,
not for a single afternoon, but for a whole month of
afternoons ; it is all that goes to make the charm of an
English race track — beautiful horses, and women more
beautiful, blue skies and gipsies and fakirs, with the
vivacity and dash and colour of a French race meeting,
to which you may add the indescribable characteristics
of the American — the keen sense of enjoyment, the
activity, the ceaseless movement, the laughter, the aban
don of the hour. Only the light-hearted and the gay go
to Saratoga, and with them life means excitement,
change, something different to the life they lead during
the other eleven months of the year.

The circle of society is complete at Saratoga. The
millionaire horse owner and the penniless tout, whose
luck will pay the price of his supper or send him
supperless to sleep under the eaves of the millionaire's
stable, touch elbows ; the woman who prides herself
on her exclusiveness brushes skirts with a woman of
the half-world; the debutante and the professional
gambler, side by side in the grand-stand, cheer on the
horse in which their hopes are centred — only the
gambler shows less emotion when the horse which he

1 68

A RICH MAN'S PARADISE

has backed for thousands loses by a head to the horse
which wins for the debutante a five-pound box of candy.

In the month of August in Saratoga everybody talks
and thinks horse, and this common purpose breaks
down the barriers of restraint. Convention is not
entirely ignored, class distinctions still exist, the for
mality of an introduction is not dispensed with ; but
the freemasonry of sport is in the air. There is less
rigid adherence to the code in Saratoga than else
where ; there is more good fellowship. Racing is both
business and pleasure ; most people try to make a
pleasure out of the business and to turn their business
into profitable pleasure. The object every one has in
view in going to Saratoga is to drink the full beaker of
life ; to drink at the springs — not the springs that send
their crystal bubbles gurgling to the surface, but the
springs of passion, that make the blood run fire and
intoxicate with the delirium of success. And it is the
contrast of the surroundings that quickens the emotions.
Saratoga is quaint and peaceful, and lazily sleeps under
the shade of its tree-bowered roads ; the race track is
a polychrome of green and brown and blue — green
fields and brown trees, and blue hills that fade away
into the distance and are lost in a thin haze ; and a
lake of ultramarine set in an emerald frame, around
which cluster picturesque places of refreshment.

Racing begins at two in the afternoon and ends as
twilight enfolds the day. The devotee of pleasure has
much time to spare both before and after the bell rings.
In the morning there are late breakfasts at the club
house and stables ; in the evening there are dinners at
the lake and the great hotels, which blaze with electric
lights and the jewels on the velvety skin of women (for
Saratoga is of the world worldly, and the woman in a
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AMERICA AT HOME

dinner dress causes no comment) ; and there is the
roar of voices and the music of the orchestra to join
in this ocean of sound. And after dinner, when the
air is redolent with the balsamic perfume of the pines,
when a cool, sweet breeze sweeps through the old-
fashioned streets, when the piazzas are crowded with
men and women smoking and drinking and lazily thank
ful for the joy of living, a space away the lights are
twinkling in the club-houses, where over the green
cloth men may lose all that they won a few hours
earlier on the green turf or recoup themselves for their
ill-luck. Saratoga is one of the very few places in
America where gambling is recognised and tolerated ;
where thousands may be staked on the turn of a card.
Repeated attempts have been made by clergymen and
other good people to suppress it, but their efforts have
proved unsuccessful because the sentiment of the com
munity approves of gambling, and it is entirely too pro
fitable an industry not to be carefully fostered. People
go to Saratoga to gamble just as they go to Monte
Carlo ; and if there were no games of chance, the one
place like the other would soon sink in popular favour.

Probably there is no class in the world — and there
has never been any class in the history of the world
since the days of Cleopatra, when in a moment of
caprice and to show her contempt for riches she
dissolved her priceless pearls in wine — that spends so
much money on its pleasure as American millionaires.
The Americans have a natural love for flowers, and
this fondness is cultivated, because at certain seasons
of the year flowers are extremely expensive and the
money spent by the rich for floral decorations, for
their dinners and other entertainments, is almost in
credible. Hundreds of pounds paid for flowers to
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A RICH MAN'S PARADISE

decorate a house for an evening's entertainment would
not be regarded as anything especially notable or
cause undue comment, and on extraordinary occasions
the hundreds have run into thousands. The Ameri
can millionaire these days must not only have his house
in the city in which he nominally lives and transacts
his business, but he finds it necessary in order properly to
keep up his state and position in society to have a winter
residence near by where he can spend the week-end
if he feels so inclined, a ' cottage ' in Newport, Bar
Harbour, or some other equally fashionable place, and
a villa in the south. The democratic American million
aire with his fondness for aristocratic exclusiveness,
when he goes back and forth between his various
possessions, dislikes the contamination of the common
herd, and to enjoy his much-desired privacy travels
either in his private car or his yacht. The possession
of a yacht costing in the first place from ,£30,000 to
£60,000 is not unusual, with an additional £20,000 or
£30,000 a year to maintain ; and there are men who
are not satisfied with one yacht, but who are the
owners of three or four vessels. Rich men keep their
private cars ready for use whenever they may desire
to take a journey, but there are some men whose ideas
are on such a grand scale that a single car is not large
enough for them, and they charter special trains when
they take a party of friends on a little trip of a few
thousand miles.

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CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THE MIDDLE-CLASS PLAYGROUND

WHILE the very rich in summer are dawdling and
philandering at Newport and Bar Harbour, the masses,
the backbone of America, are enjoying their vacations
in a more sensible fashion, and in a way that really
gives them great enjoyment. There are so-called
' summer resorts ' — in England they would be generally
known as * the sea-side ' — convenient to nearly every
large city in the country, even although these places
are not always on the sea; but the most famous sea
shore resort in America, and one that is a combination
of several of the best-known places of that character
in England and on the Continent, is Atlantic City, in
the State of New Jersey, on the eastern Atlantic coast.
Atlantic City is distinctly the playground of the great
middle-class. It is a city of some thirty thousand
people ; and during the summer months, from the begin
ning of June until the end of August, it houses a
population of never less than two hundred thousand
persons. It is a city of hotels, boarding-houses, and
summer cottages, and its chief industry is the enter
tainment of the summer vacationist. It is one of the
finest beaches in the world ; stretching for five miles
along the Atlantic Ocean is a smooth and sandy floor,
172

/ OF THE

( UNIVERSITY I
* V °F

^^^Sa. ' ^-^3*^

MIDDLE-CLASS PLAYGROUND

ideal for bathing or for those persons who find their
enjoyment in watching the water and the bathers.

It is a place where the god of pleasure reigns supreme,
where people give themselves up to merriment, where
for a week or month they spend there, according to
the length of their vacation, they leave care behind
and endeavour to get as much fun as possible out of
life. If the reader can imagine Margate, Brighton, and
Trouville amalgamated some idea may be formed of
Atlantic City, because in its composite character and
its ever-changing panoramic kaleidoscope it suggests
both England and France. Not the very rich or
fashionable go to Atlantic City in the summer, because
the common people are there in force — although it is
much affected by the rich and fashionable at Easter,
when the people are at work and have no time for
play — but persons of means and recognised position
in society have been known to spend a month or
two at Atlantic City in the season because they enjoy
the bathing and the climate suits them — a climate, be
it remarked, where the sun shines with intense heat,
which adds so much to the colour and gaiety of the
place.

Colour and gaiety riot in Atlantic City. There is
never a dull or quiet moment there. From early in the
morning until late at night the beach and the c board
walk,' the great promenade of Atlantic City, are thronged,
and there one may see women beautiful in face and form
and no less beautifully and expensively dressed than
their more aristocratic sisters in Newport, but who are
there for what the Americans call 'a good time,' and
who have it. It has been said that not the ultra-fashion
able go to Atlantic City, yet there are many cottages
owned by people of wealth and station, and it has

AMERICA AT HOME

happened that an ambassador of an inquiring turn of
mind has preferred the middle-class environment of
Atlantic City to the aristocratic and exclusive dulness of
Newport.

Everybody bathes in Atlantic City, and in the morning
between ten and half-past twelve the beach is thronged
with men and women in their bathing suits. The
amalgamation of the sexes does not end at the
water's edge. The Americans do not bathe from a
bathing machine as custom requires in England, but
they undress in bathing houses, the majority of which in
Atlantic City are a couple of hundred feet or more from
the ocean, and men and women emerge from these
bathing houses in their bathing suits. The effect at
times is startling. The American woman, especially if
she be young and pretty and proud of her figure, whether
in the ballroom or on the beach, clothes herself in the
most attractive way, and her bathing costume is not the
unsightly and sacklike covering, always muddy blue in
colour, one sees at Margate, but is a blouse and skirt
and bloomers, black or red orgreen or blues of various
shades, daintily trimmed, and the wearers are almost as
critical about the fit as they are about that of an evening
dress.

The Atlantic City sea nymph, the veritable
' Guardian Naiad of the strand,'

attired in one of these bewitching costumes, with her
hair coiled up on the top of her head and hidden under
a silk handkerchief of the colour of her suit, with her
pink-and-white feet winking in and out of the sand, quite
unabashed in the company of her male escort, whose
manly form is about as well covered as a schoolboy's on
the cinder track, leisurely strolls out from her bathing

MIDDLE-CLASS PLAYGROUND

house, crosses the ' boardwalk,' goes down a flight of
steps, walks a hundred feet or so across the sand,
stopping frequently on her journey to talk to friends,
and then finally makes her acquaintance with the
ocean. The sea in front of the beach is a mass of men
and women, boys and girls, and very young children,
splashing about in the water, the majority of whom go
out not more than a few feet from shore. Bathing in
America is not a quick dip or a long swim and a return
to the normal garb of civilisation, but the Atlantic City
Nereides are amphibious ; and after they have been
gently caressed by the surf for a few minutes, like
modern Aphrodites they emerge from the sea, and
crouch on the hot sand with the still hotter sun beat
ing down on them, lie there in supreme content until
their clinging and dripping garments have been dried,
when they return once more to the pleasure of being
tumbled about by the waves. This leisurely manner of
bathing makes the beach an ever-changing and animated
picture. At all times during the bathing hours there
are as many persons on the sand as there are in the
water ; and from the water arises a never-ending Babel
of sound ; feminine shrieks of the timid, as an impertinent
or boisterous wave is too rough in its embrace, or the
childish treble of little ones when they first feel the
water ; while from the beach there comes a mighty roar,
as men and women and young people go romping about
the sand, scattering it over each other or burrowing in it
and revelling in its heat. The Americans are fond of
heat and warmth, and the temperature of Atlantic City,
which few Europeans could endure, is to them a perpetual
delight.

The oldest and the most staid become youthful at
Atlantic City. The germ of light-heartedness is in the

AMERICA AT HOME

air and no one can escape from it, nor does any one try
very hard. It is no place for the melancholy or those
with nerves. One must be sound mentally and bodily
to catch its step.

To women — mostly young, usually good-looking, and
not averse to attracting attention — who delight in
doing audacious things and pushing propriety to the
verge without quite stepping across it, Atlantic City
offers the opportunity they desire, because there the
boundary line between the conventional and the un
conventional has never been delimited, and Mrs. Grundy
is the one visitor in all that cosmopolitan throng
who is given no welcome. One may do in Atlantic City
what one would not be permitted to do anywhere else ;
and although occasionally a highly respectable and
middle-aged matron from the West is shocked and
watches with jealous care over her husband to see that
he does not stray from the well-trod path of narrow
routine, the middle-aged matron is in the minority, and
the great majority, old and young, men and women, go
to Atlantic City enjoying all that they see, even although
they are virtuously thankful that such dreadful goings on
would not be tolerated in the less rarefied atmosphere of
their homes. They have much the same feeling that
English people have when they go to a Paris music-hall.
There is a fascination for most persons to be within
handstretch of the prohibited, and to know that they are
immune from its danger.

Atlantic City is all on the surface. It may be, and is,
decidedly unconventional, especially from the British
standpoint, and Mrs. Grundy would, in all probability,
denounce it as sinful and demoralising to old and young,
but it is not immoral. It has the unaffected innocence
of a little child that is unabashed in the presence of its
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MIDDLE-CLASS PLAYGROUND

own nakedness. Like a little child it romps and plays
before the whole world and affects a pretty unconsciousness
of the attention of doting admirers. It is too essentially
middle-class for its folly to degenerate into wickedness ;
and the tone of middle-class America is distinctly
healthy. A young woman may walk the beach in the
full light of day in the most abbreviated of costumes and
no one thinks any the worse of her, because publicity
is her protector and her every movement is made before
a thousand eyes ; but after the bathing hour, when night
falls, there is a different code, and should she adopt the
unconventional in dress, or make herself unduly con
spicuous in a hotel or on the ' boardwalk,' she at once
classes herself among the forbidden. Atlantic City is
free and easy, unceremonious and undignified, good-
naturedly boisterous and unnecessarily loud, but it is
respectable, it must maintain its respectability, otherwise
it would cease to be the playground of the middle-
class ; and if that ever happens evil days will fall upon
it, and the hotels that stretch in an unbroken row for
miles facing the ocean would go into the hands of
receivers and the glory of the city by the sea would
depart for ever.

People who go to Atlantic City and disport them
selves for their own amusement or the enjoyment of the
spectators must expect to receive the attention of
the newspapers, and perhaps that is no more distastful
to them than are the lucubrations of Mr. Jenkins to the
Newport cottager. Here, for instance, is what an
Atlantic City correspondent writes to a paper noted for
its disapproval of the sensational; what the account
would have been in a c yellow journal ' one does not even
dare to imagine.

'First among these are Two Little Girls in Green.
177 N

AMERICA AT HOME

That is what they have been called by the boardwalkers
and the sand-flappers since they made their first ap
pearance on the edge of the surf more than six weeks
ago. But they are far from being little. They are
strapping, handsome, fine-limbed young women. They
are twins and dark.

' Their bathing dresses, like the girls themselves, are
exactly alike. They are of Nile green mohair. The
skirts are exceedingly short. The twins go stockingless,
and wear sandals, the ribbons of which are of the same
colour as their suits, cross their legs many times, and are
tied in sizeable knots at their knees.

' The raven hair of the two girls is unconfined, and
hangs below their waists. Their arms are bare to the
shoulders, and on each arm they wear heavy bands,
about an inch wide, of dull gold, and below these, on
their left arms, slender circlets of gold terminating in
serpents' heads with emerald eyes.

1 They are as striking a pair of young women as have
cavorted near these waters for many years. Trustworthy
witnesses aver that the twins have been seen to moisten
their sandals in all of four inches of water, but the
ordinary run of beach-strollers declare that the twins
haven't been within twenty feet of the sea's verge since
they first made their appearance here.

c The two girls possess an immense amount of poise,
and they don't appear to be in the least bothered by the
attention and comment they invariably arouse when they
show up on the sands. They often enjoy themselves by
playing " catch " with a large green " medicine ball."
They spend most of their bathing time in parading up
and down the strand with their arms about each other's
waist. While they don't appear to mind being stared at,
they are averse to being snapshotted by the hordes of

MIDDLE-CLASS PLAYGROUND

camera fiends, infesting the beach like sand-flies, and
they keep a wary eye out for the kodakers. When they
perceive that they're within range of a lens they quickly
take to their heels, and none of the lens gunners has yet
succeeded in catching them.

' A couple of pretty blonde girls, sisters, get themselves
up in bathing dresses of vivid yellow silk, with yellow
silk stockings, sandal ribbons, huge yellow bows in their
hair, and all the rest of it. The only touch of any other
colour in their make-up is the brilliant green sash which
they wear about their waists. Irishmen on the board
walk and on the beach, while expressing their admiration
for the physical conformation of the young women, view
with an aslant gaze the mating of the yellow and the
green.

' These sisters drive on the beach at the bathing hour
every day in a double-seated trap of a bright yellow hue,
and pulled by a pair of small white donkeys rigged out
in russet harness, to which many little tinkling bells are
attached. Both of the donkeys wear straw hats, trimmed
with green ribbon of the same tint as the young women's
bathing dresses. The girls conduct themselves with
great propriety, although when they first arrived on the
beach in their trap they sent the donkeys along at a
licketty-split clip, which caused them to be warned
against fast driving on the strand. They, too, seem to
regard the sea-water as something merely to be looked
at, for they have not dampened their bathing apparel in
the surf up to the hour of this writing.

' A quintet of actresses who have a cottage all dress
themselves for bathing in baby blue mohair suits of the
same cut, and they go through a performance every
morning that makes them the focus of the eyes of the
sand-loungers, They are all expert swimmers, veritable
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AMERICA AT HOME

mermaids, and their little performance is a mute but
eloquent protest against the heavy hampering skirts which
women wear while bathing.

'After dallying about the sands for a spell, they all
approach the water in a body. Just as they get to the
verge, they get together in a close group. Then their
skirts all drop off at once. A coloured maid gathers
up the skirts, and the five women of the stage, skirtless
and free to race into the flood in their bloomers, swim
out beyond the breaker line, and cavort around like
dolphins for half an hour or so without ever touching
bottom with their feet.

' Then they make for the shallows again in a body,
run out of the water, grab their respective skirts from
the black maid, hop into them in something less than
no time, and then make for their bathing house. They
are all pretty, well and amply formed women, and their
little act has come to be one of the expected and waited-
for features of the kaleidoscopic bathing hour. The
dictum of the authorities against the skirtless bathing
suits doesn't apply to them, for the reason that they
are not beach paraders. The rule against the skirtless
bathing dress was framed for the purpose of forestalling
women of the strand-strolling class who have an aversion
for the taste of sea water.'

The American newspapers are the keenest critics of
national foibles, and take malicious delight in good-
naturedly spearing every prevailing fad. In view of
what I have said about Atlantic City bathing costumes,
the point of the following little dialogue in a prominent
newspaper is readily appreciated :

'HER BATHING SUIT.

' EVELYN : (< If you wish to be very smart this season,
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MIDDLE-CLASS PLAYGROUND

you must go down to the sea with a Trouville cloak
over your bathing suit."

{ MIRABELL : " How ridiculous ! What is the use of
having a stunning figure, I'd like to know ? ' "

The paucity of material in a bathing suit is the stock
theme of the newspaper humourist, and the paragraphs
that have been written on the young woman who goes
to a shop and asks for a ' sample ' and triumphantly
exhibits it to her husband as the material out of which
she is going to make her bathing suit are endless. The
following is a typical example of a newspaper ' bathing-
suit joke ' :

' MRS. BIXBY : " What do you think of my bathing
dress ? " '

' BIXBY : " It's an improvement over your other one ;
this one is visible to the naked eye." '

Atlantic City by day is a huge mass of energy and
volatile spirits ever seeking release; Atlantic City by
night suggests a mammoth factory where a thousand
looms keep up their ceaseless task, where to the hum
and the clatter of whirling machinery, the shuttles in
their insatiable greed fly back and forth weaving the
threads into a complicated pattern, where the brain goes
dizzy trying to follow the swiftly moving bobbin, won
dering whether a thing so instinct with life ever tires
or ever sleeps. Atlantic City never tires and never
sleeps. At night the hotels, which range from good
to very bad, whose tariffs would tax the revenues of a
grand-duke or meet the pocket-book of a not over well
paid mechanic, where one may eat for a shilling or dine
for a pound, are thronged with their guests, who wear
silks or fustian according to their class, who whether
they drink iced water or iced champagne are equally
enjoying themselves, and have no false pride about
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AMERICA AT HOME

letting their neighbours see that they are on pleasure
bent. The lights blaze, the music blares, the waiters
rush about, women laugh and men talk, there is the
perpetual energy and motion of the sea always heaving,
always rising, always falling, never for a second still even
in its gentlest moods.

After dinner all Atlantic City goes to the ' board
walk,' a promenade stretching for five miles along the
ocean front, so called from its having been in its
earlier days a somewhat shaky wooden way perched a
few feet above the sand ; but now modernised into
a steel construction, and without a rival in the world.
On the land side it is fringed with shops, on the other
there is the unbroken stretch of sand when the tide is
low, and when the sand is hidden there are the white-
crested waves tumbling and splashing beneath one's
feet.

The ' boardwalk ' is always crowded by day, but at
night, in the height of the season, especially at the week
end, it is literally packed, and progress is slow. People
stroll up and down, or they sit in the little pavilions
that are found at frequent intervals, or they buy wonderful
and weird things made of shells and lettered in gilt
* A present from Atlantic City,' or Japanese and Chinese
curios that they can buy for much less at their homes,
but which have an added value when brought back at
the bottom of a trunk (the American never talks about
his 'boxes,' but always his 'trunks,' and his luggage
always is * baggage'), or they go to the various amusements
devised to coax the nimble sixpences and shillings from
the pockets of the unwary. They ride on the merry-go-
rounds, they shoot the chutes, they loop the loop, they
do many other things that would horrify and disgust
Newport — but they do have a good time, there is no
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MIDDLE-CLASS PLAYGROUND

doubting the genuineness of their laughter and the
sincerity of their enjoyment, and Newport and the * Four
Hundred ' may go hang for all they care. One reason,
perhaps the reason of all reasons, why Atlantic City
amuses itself so thoroughly is that the story of Atlantic
City is always the story of the man and the maid. If
the city girl would shoot the chutes 'just to see what it
is like ' and because it is only at Atlantic City that she
has the chance, there is always a man of her acquaintance
to accompany her, to take the place of a complacent
mother to whom new sensations do not appeal, to help
her in and out of the car, sometimes gently to hold her
in her seat when nearing the danger point. The man
and the maid, as the reader has been already told, bathe
together ; it is the man who teaches the maid to swim
and protects her from the too boisterous assault of the
waves ; it is the man who sports with the maid on the
sands, who takes her fishing and sailing. Neither man
nor maid goes his or her own way alone. In Atlantic
City they are always together.

Atlantic City is not the only middle-class playground,
although it is the most popular and the largest. A few
miles to its south, also on the Atlantic coast, is Cape
May, which is much frequented in summer, but it does
not offer all the attractions of its better-known rival, and
life jogs more quietly. There are several other resorts
on the Atlantic coast, as there are on the Pacific coast
and on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico ; and in the
interior, remote from ocean or gulf, lakes and rivers are
the focal points around which the people gather in
summer-time.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

THE PROBLEM OF THE NEGRO

MANY are the problems that the United States must
solve before it has worked out its destiny and placed
upon a secure and lasting foundation the civilisation that
it has established to meet its own peculiar conditions ;
but there is no problem confronting it more difficult or
more urgent, that demands the wisest statesmanship and
the broadest tolerance and charity, than that commonly
known in America as ' the negro question.'

It is always a dangerous thing to discuss in America
the negro question and the relations between the
whites and the blacks, because it is the one question
above all others that arouses the fiercest passion, that is
treated from the standpoint of prejudice rather than
from fact. If a foreigner is presumptuous enough, after
investigation, observation, and study, to reach certain
conclusions, and those conclusions reflect upon the
whites, he is invariably told that he is incompetent to
express an opinion ; that he speaks without exact know
ledge of his subject, and his bias in favour of the negro
is all too apparent. But the foreigner finds company
among Americans. The whites of the South resent
with equal hostility and bitterness anything that may be
said or written by Northern men in favour of the negro
and in criticism of the South. Like the foreigner the
184

SOUTHERN NEGRESS.

THE PROBLEM OF THE NEGRO

Northerner is told that he is quite incompetent to testify
on a question about which he has no knowledge. In
the opinion of the South only the South really is
qualified to govern the negro.

Until 1863 the negro was a slave. He belonged body
and soul to his master, who held power of life and death
over him. He had no rights in the eyes of the law ;
the law recognised him no more than it did any other
animal, but it recognised the full rights of his master,
and those rights the law guarded with great jealousy.
In that year, as one of the direct results of the attempt
of some of the Southern States to secede from the
Union, the status of the negro was transformed from
that of a chattel to a man ; from slave he became free.
Here perhaps it would have been wiser if the North had
stopped and given to the former slaves the political
privileges enjoyed by the whites only after they had shown
themselves fitted to enjoy them. But a wave of emotion
ran through the North. Many well-meaning but foolish
people, those fanatics who in every cause by their
intemperate zeal do more harm than its most implacable
foes, magnified the slave into a hero ; for him they had
an intense pity, his wrongs burned in them, they stood
convicted by their own consciences for having allowed
the brutal and demoralising institution of slavery to
exist, and the only way they could atone for their sin
and in a measure repair the wrong was to welcome the
black man as a brother, to treat him as one of them
selves, to forget the distinction of colour and give him
all the privileges they themselves enjoyed.

It was a mistake, of course, arid to-day no one
recognises that more thoroughly than the men of the
North ; but it was done, the black man was made the
equal of the white in the eyes of the law, he was given

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AMERICA AT HOME

the same political rights, he was permitted to make laws
for the white. It is now recognised that it would have
been better for both, for blacks as well as whites, if there
had been a period of probation and tutelage, if a
property or educational qualification had been required
before the negroes were permitted to exercise the right
of suffrage. It was not to be expected that the mere
act of manumission would change the character or
elevate the intelligence of the negro. It would have
set at defiance all the teaching of history, it would have
made a mockery of civilisation, evolved as the result of
character wrought by painful progress and the restraint
of individual liberty for the greater liberty of the whole.

For centuries the negro had been steeped in the lowest
barbarism. His mental and moral development had
been stunted. Brought from Africa to the United States,
his surroundings and his environment had not raised
him mentally or morally. He remained a hewer of
wood and a drawer of water, a field hand who worked on
the cotton and tobacco plantations, whose value was
rated according to the amount of labour he peformed, or
he might be trained to perform a few menial tasks — to
be coachman or house servant. But whatever his occu
pation, whether in the field or in the house, he was
condemned to involuntary servitude, he could aspire to
do nothing, even if he were capable of an aspiration ;
the greatest boon he could ask was to be the property of
a humane owner.

The great Civil War changed all that. It not only
gave the blacks their freedom, but it ruined their former
masters. The South was an agricultural region ; it
was believed that only negroes were able to stand
the effects of that semi-tropical climate, and that
the work on plantations and in rice swamps must be
1 86

THE PROBLEM OF THE NEGRO

done by black labour. Much of the wealth of the great
landowners of the South was represented by their slaves.
The war desolated the South. Its fields were drenched
with blood, its accumulated wealth disappeared in the
awful struggle that for four years taxed its resources to
the uttermost, its cities were destroyed, its commerce
ruined, its slaves free — free to do as they pleased, to
work or to idle. The South lay prostrate, spent, broken
in spirit, bankrupt.

With peace came a new order of things. Slowly the
South recovered. It once again took heart. The world
must have its cotton and its tobacco, and men set to
work to repair their shattered fortunes. But the old order
had passed never to return. The negro remained in the
South because of a catlike attachment to the place he
knew, because he knew no other place ; because, catlike,
he loves to bask in the sun, and life is a less intense
struggle under the semi-tropical heat of Southern skies
than elsewhere. But he was no longer a chattel to be
ordered to do his appointed task at the behest of his
white master, to be flogged into submission if he refused.
He was his own master. He stood his equal before the
law and at the ballot box. * All men are created free and
equal,' Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence,
and the ballot of the white man counted for no more
than the ballot of the black. The election of a President
might hinge on the votes of negroes with the marks of
their gyves still visible.

It is this right — the right of the black man to political
privileges equal to those of the white — that lies at the
bottom of the hatred of the Southern whites for the
negroes. In the Southern States the negro, if permitted
to vote as his inclinations dictated, would be a political
factor, and his vote would be cast almost solidly for the
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AMERICA AT HOME

Republican party. The negro 1 owes his freedom to the
Republican party, his slavery was made possible by
Democratic ascendency ; it is therefore natural that he
should show his gratitude by voting for the Republicans.
Hence the Republican party in the South has come to
be known as the black man's party, the party of the
negro. The Democratic party of the South is the white
man's party, the party of respectability, of culture, of
traditions ; it is tancUnnt noblesse which remembers the
time when black men were chattels and might be treated
according to the whim of the moment, It has never
reconciled itself to the new order of things, to the
revolution which made a black man the equal of the
white in the eyes of the law, which permitted him to
make laws for the white, often his former owner or the
son of the man who bought or sold him. In the North
it has been possible, it has frequently happened, for men
to forget party defending or sustaining a principle ; in the
South this has been impossible. The line of cleavage
has been sharply drawn. The whites allied themselves
against the blacks ; the fear of negro domination has
been the Democratic jehad which when preached has
always been successful. This fear, real or assumed,
solidified the South and made it regarded as invulnerable
to Republican assault.

The white man of the South asserts that the negro is
a menace to the home and the honour of women ; that
is his palliation for the lynching of the negro. The
highest duty of man, he contends, is to protect women,
and when the negro transgresses he invites his death ;
but to make the death more horrible, to serve as a
warning to his race, it must be summary vengeance ; it

1 Macmillarfs Magazine, April, 1900. ' The Future of the
Negro,' by A. Maurice Low.

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THE PROBLEM OF THE NEGRO

must be death with all its terrors, death usually at the
scene of the crime and before the criminal has time for
repentance. The law is too slow, too cumbersome, too
doubtful to be trusted ; only Judge Lynch can be relied
upon, and Judge Lynch is always a hanging judge and
would make bloody Jeffreys blush for very shame.
Another argument used by the Southerner in extenuation
of his conduct is that manhood suffrage having made
the vicious and ignorant negro the political equal of the
virtuous and highly civilised white, it is repulsive that
the black man shall rule and govern and make laws for
the whites. It was asserted by the Democratic speakers
and newspapers during the last campaign in North
Carolina that the States were being negroised and in
danger of being dominated by the blacks ; this was the
only excuse the whites gave for their determination not
to permit the negroes to vote, the same excuse which
the South has always offered when it condescends to
defend a negro massacre. But it is inconceivable that
a minority can dominate a majority ; it is still more in
conceivable that an uneducated, timorous, poor, and
leaderless minority is a menace to a majority claiming to
possess education and courage, with money sufficient
to carry out its plans, and in control of troops, police,
and other governmental agencies.

The population of the United States, not including its
dependencies, according to the last census, that of 1900,
was 75>994>575> °f which 66,809,196 were white and
8,833,994 were negroes or of negro descent. There
were 351,385 persons in addition generically grouped
as ' coloured ' for census purposes, which included
Japanese, Chinese and Indians, but they need not be
taken into account in the present calculation. Of the
eight million and more negroes, all but one million — to be
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AMERICA AT HOME

exact, 7,867,285 — were in the Southern States, those States
in which slavery formerly existed as a recognised social
institution. In those States there were only two in
which the blacks outnumbered the whites — Mississippi,
with a population of 641,200 whites and 907,630 blacks,
and South Carolina, with 557,807 whites and 782,321
blacks. The whites, therefore, being in the majority in
the South, are not in danger of being dominated by the
black minority.

The blacks being citizens of the United States, being
freemen with all the political privileges of freemen,
naturally aspire to turn their political power to advan
tage, which means to hold office. They can hope for
nothing from the Democrats, who, controlling all the
State offices, give no appointments to negroes, and so
they must look to a Republican administration in
Washington for their reward. A President can appoint
a coloured man a postmaster or a collector of customs ;
it has been the practice for this to be done, but these
appointments always arouse the resentment of the whites
of the South, who declare that it is an insult to have
a negro placed in authority over them, and they assert
that whenever a black is put in office it makes the
race more arrogant and more impertinent in their deal
ing with the whites. It encourages them to believe,
according to Southerners, that they are the equal of
the whites, that they are 'just as good' as any
body else. This the Southerner will not tolerate.
He refuses to subscribe to the doctrine of racial
equality in the concrete when it is the equality of
whites and blacks, even although he is proud of the
Declaration of Independence in the abstract and glories
in the greatness of its author — Thomas Jefferson, a
Southern Democrat.

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THE PROBLEM OF THE NEGRO

Parenthetically it may be remarked that the solicitude
of the Republicans to provide offices for Southern
negroes is not so entirely unselfish as not to be in
fluenced by political considerations. The million negroes
living in Northern States might in a close presidential
election hold the balance of power. Based on the
known coloured population in some of those States
and the majorities that the Republicans received at
recent elections, it is clearly demonstrated that had the
negro voted for the Democratic candidates those States
would have gone Democratic instead of Republican.
It is assumed, of course, that the negroes practically
voted unanimously for the Republicans because of their
natural Republican affiliations, as has already been ex
plained ; but if the negroes had any reason to believe
that they were not being properly rewarded by their
Republican friends, and if they were not given an occa
sional office in the South, it might be easy to induce
them to believe that their interests were with the
Democratic party. Republicans, quite naturally, do not
openly put such a sordid construction upon their interest
in the welfare of the negro and probably would deny
that they are influenced by mere political consider
ations, yet one must not overlook stubborn ' facts ; and
the knowledge Democrats have that the result of a
presidential election may turn upon the votes of illiterate
and half-civilised blacks is one of the reasons for the
intense bitterness of the Southerner and makes him
more convinced than ever that the suffrage should not
have been placed in the hands of the negroes.

The white men of the South claim that they are justi
fied in attempting to keep the blacks in subjection and
restricting their exercise of the suffrage, as they have
done, either by constitutional methods, by imposing
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AMERICA AT HOME

educational and other qualifications, or by the more
illegal and often simpler plan of forcibly preventing
them from going to the polls, because, as has already
been said, it is an inversion of natural laws for a
superior and highly civilised race to be subject to an
inferior race low in the scale of civilisation. The
negro, according to his white accuser,1 is lazy, thrift
less, unfit to govern himself and therefore totally unfit
to govern others, undisciplined, brutal ; a beast with all
the unrestrained passions of a beast, whose very pres
ence is a menace to his white neighbour, especially
to white women. It has been shown that, inasmuch
as the whites are numerically in the majority, the fear
of negro domination is a phantom only. Of the other
accusations brought against the negro, accusations
affecting his character morally, intellectually, and in
dustrially, it may be conceded that they are partly
true, although exaggerated. The negro is not all bad,
and for much of his badness he may thank his associa
tions. As a slave the negro learned nothing from his
Southern master except the lesson of unrestrained
passion, of cruelty, of depravity, of the triumph of
material over moral forces. As a freeman he has
learned to despise and fear his former master because
he is both despised and feared by him ; he has learned
that he is of an inferior race whose rights the superior
race will ignore and violate on every occasion ; neither
by precept nor example has he profited. Little as the
negro has to thank the Southerner, still less has the
Southern white to feel any gratitude to the negro.

The real curse of slavery is only now at this late day

being understood, and, as usual, the third and fourth

generations are paying for the sins of the first. The

1 ' The Future of the Negro.'

192

THE PROBLEM OF THE NEGRO

South, from the time of the Confederation until the Civil
War, was denied what has been the salvation of every
other race— the strengthening of the upper classes by
intermarriage with the peasantry. Races die at the top
and need to be fed from the bottom, from men and
women who actually spring from the soil. The human
race can no more live without contact with mother
earth than can trees or flowers. What perhaps more
than anything else has made the Englishman and the
American of the Northern States the virile, energetic,
hardy man he is, is the constant mingling of the blood
of the classes. King Cophetua could marry a beggar
maid to the advantage of the royal house ; the heir to
an English dukedom may be only three generations
removed from an American farmer. The South has
been denied this inestimable blessing. In the true
sense of the word there has never been a Southern
peasantry. The black man, who tilled the fields and
performed the functions of the peasant, was a slave
and not a free peasant; there was no chance for him
to rise in the social scale or to be the founder of a
family. The slave woman might be, and often was,
the concubine of her master ; she could never aspire
to be his wife. Black slavery was more destructive
than any other form of slavery the world has ever
known. One does not need to search very deep into
history to know that in the days of white slavery
women of the enslaved race were the mothers of children
whose free fathers frequently educated them and who
became no insignificant factors in affairs of State. These
things were possible when the offspring of the illegiti
mate union were of the same colour and facial char
acteristics as the father; they were impossible when
the child of a slave bore the brand of slavery in his
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AMERICA AT HOME

face and colour; there was no hope for him, nothing
to live for except the eternal degradation of the curse
of slavery.

In preventing a replenishment of the blood, in pre
venting the strain of the soil from mixing in the
arteries of the social classes above them, the negro laid
a curse upon the South ; but that was not all. From
time immemorial certain tasks were assigned to the
blacks, tasks which no self-respecting white man might
be permitted to undertake. The division of labour was
as rigidly and narrowly drawn as in the most autocratic
of military systems. Certain things an officer may do ;
other things he is not permitted to do. So it was in the
South. What a white man might be permitted to do
was part of the social code, and it could not be trans
gressed. Furthermore, the white planter, the great
slave-owner, had his energy destroyed by being waited
upon and attended by slaves, who performed services
which the master, living up to the requirements of his
own social code, regarded as derogatory, but which
men, where the institution of slavery was unknown, did
for themselves to their moral and physical profit. Of
course, it should be remembered that in talking of the
whites of the South one refers to the landed proprietors,
the men who, until the Civil War sounded the death of
slavery, were the aristocracy of America. There was an
inferior social white class, never a genuine peasantry,
which is to be found to this day. The Poor Whites, the
White Trash, as they are popularly termed, is no
misnomer. Between the Poor Whites of the South,
who live principally in the mountains, and have never
seen a railway train (but who, no matter how poor,
always own a gun and a mongrel cur), and the negro
there is little to choose ; if anything, perhaps, the negro
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THE PROBLEM OF THE NEGRO

is less illiterate, but no less revengeful, passionate, and
superstitious.

I confess to a feeling of sympathy for the white man
of the South. Until thirty-five years ago he lived what
to him was the only life for a gentleman. He was rich,
generous, and hospitable; he was the owner of vast
estates and numerous slaves ; he lived almost in feudal
style ; he held in his hands the lives of his subjects ; he
married and intermarried in his own caste ; he felt
himself to be above and apart from the rest of his race.
It was not the highest ideal of life; it was not a life
which broadened or ennobled ; but it was the one which
the Southerner knew, and to it he clung with passionate
love, In the early days of the Republic, when the strain
had not been vitiated, when the effect of the blood of
the Beggar Maid was still making itself felt, the South
gave to the country its great men, men great in states
manship, learning, and philosophy ; and Virginia, a
Southern [ State, proudly wore the title of Mother of
Presidents. Then came the war which destroyed the
political supremacy of the South, which bathed the land
in blood and carried desolation to every Southern
hearth, which worked a social revolution and placed the
negro (up to that time a chattel, a thing, something
without a soul, and with a body valuable only as a
commercial asset like a horse or plough), on the same
political equality as his former master. Suppose the
Indian Mutiny had been successful, suppose Englishmen
from the governing class had become the governed,
suppose, owing to great property interests, they were
still compelled to live as servants where formerly they
had been masters — imagine these things, and one can
understand, and yet not completely, the feeling of the
Southerner. He had fought for years in the forum to
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AMERICA AT HOME

preserve and perpetuate the institution of slavery ;
finally, finding oratorical weapons powerless, he had
drawn the sword to protect what he firmly believed to
be his rights. It is pure speculation to say that had
slavery not existed there would have been no Civil War ;
but it is history, so far as the South is concerned, that
the war was waged to maintain the supremacy of
slavery.

The greatest blot on the civilisation of America to-day
is the barbarous and too often unprovoked murder of
negroes by mobs. The Southerner pleads in extenuation
that the sanctity of the home and the preservation of
the social system justify brutal and repressive measures.
I cannot go into that phase of the question here, but it
is sufficient to say that not every negro lynched has
committed the one unspeakable crime that might excuse
his being done to death in passion. For petty offences,
sometimes on suspicion merely and at other times pour
encourager les autres^ negroes have been wantonly
and fiendishly tortured to death ; and if the best statistics
to be obtained are reliable the evidence is conclusive
that mere lust of blood and the revenge of hate are the
real reasons why the Christian sentiment of America is
continually shocked by the accounts of negroes burned
at the stake, or torn from the hands of their jailors and
put to death with all the refinement of cruelty practised
by the Indians when the West of America was a
wilderness.

While the people of the Northern States tolerate the
negro, concede to him the enjoyment of his political
rights, and encourage him to work out his own salvation
in his own way, racial antipathy even there is equally
strong. The negro exists by sufferance, but he is
never welcomed ; he is always an outcast ; his black skin
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THE PROBLEM OF THE NEGRO

is always a bar ; fashionable hotels find an ever-ready
excuse to refuse him accommodation ; the theatres dis
courage his patronage, no matter how well behaved and
cultivated he is. Nothing that President Roosevelt has
done since he entered the White House aroused such an
outcry and caused him to be so fiercely criticised as
when he, in an incautious moment, invited Mr. Booker
Washington, writer, educator, sociologist, but a black
born in slavery, to break bread with him as his equal.
Some of Mr. Roosevelt's strongest admirers and warmest
friends disapproved of his course, because they believed
it was as dangerous and injurious to the blacks as it was
to the whites to try to create the impression that the two
races could meet on terms of social equality. It is
obvious that social equality is impossible, and that the
blacks must remain a race separate and apart, if not for
ever, at least for so many generations to come, that the
present life of man and the lives of their children's
children will not see the amalgamation of the races.

Even on the verge of the grave the colour line is
drawn. The following is taken from the New York Sunt
a newspaper noted for its accuracy and strict regard for
the truth : —

'COLOUR LINE AT THE SCAFFOLD.

1 PITTSBURG'S SHERIFF RESENTS ORDER TO HANG NEGRO
'AND WHITE MAN TOGETHER.

* Pittsburgh March u, 1904. — Sheriff Dickson has
received an order from Gov. Pennypacker to hang William
L. Hartley and John Edwards on the same day, and is
much disturbed over it.

' " Under the circumstances," he said, " it strikes me
as entirely improper that the two men should be hanged
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AMERICA AT HOME

at the same time. One is a white man and the other a
negro, and there is a natural prejudice against associating
the races.

"'They were never together in their life, and that is
another reason why they should not meet death together.
Of all places in the world, the scaffold is one where
nothing that could offend the condemned man should be
done. There is more than sentiment in this, there is
humanity." '

As might naturally be expected the negro is a happy-
go-lucky individual, who perhaps is only a shade more
lazy than the white man, and who, like the white man,
accepts the curse of Adam with resignation but without
enthusiasm. He toils because he has to do, and not
because he likes ; if he did not have to earn his bread
by the sweat of his brow he would spend his days lying
on his back in the sun, and his nights in eating sweet
potatoes, 'possum, and water-melon, according to the
season, and drinking whisky. And yet it must not be
imagined from this picture that the negro spends all his
time in loafing. Having to work, a great many of them
work not only hard, but with fidelity and intelligence ; and
the progress the race has made in the two score years
that it has been liberated from slavery, and its thirst for
knowledge, are perhaps greater and more remarkable
than any other race has ever shown. Such men as
Frederick Douglass and Booker Washington are those
rare beings endowed with the divine touch of genius,
and genius knows neither colour nor race — it has been
cradled in the _muck-heap>s well as in the palace, and
the occasional genius is no criterion of the capacity of
a people ; but when one remembers that there are negro
preachers, lawyers, doctors, professors, writers, as well as
successful business men and skilled artisans, every un-
198

/

V OF

THE PROBLEM OF THE NEGRO

prejudiced person must admit that the race has made
most substantial progress, and that it gives bright promise
of the future.

As indicating what the negro has done, the following
dialogue took place between Booker Washington and a
farmer at one of Mr. Washington's { conferences.'

' Do you mortgage your crop now ? ' the farmer was
asked.

' No, sah. Ah takes mortgages now, an' ah takes 'em
off'm white men.'

' And what interest do you charge ? '

'Ah charges 'bout the same as they used to charge
of me.'

The negro has a keen sense of humour and enjoys
having a moral wrapped up in a homely illustration. A
negro at this conference, to impress upon his hearers the
necessity of acquiring property, told the story of Jerry
and the ferry. A white man without three cents to
pay his ferry fare went to a negro named Jerry and
tried to borrow the money.

1 No, sah, ah won't let you have it,' replied Jerry, { for
a white man who hain't got three cents is just as well off
on one side of the river as on the other.' ' And so it is,'
continued the speaker, * with a negro who hain't got
three cents. It don't make much difference which side
of the river he's on ! '

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CHAPTER FIFTEEN
THE AMERICAN PRESS

IN some respects the American newspaper Press is
superior to the Press of England, Germany, or France.
It excels the daily papers of those countries in the
special training and development of its reporters, and in
having cultivated the art of descriptive writing until it
rises almost to the excellence of literature. And yet,
unlike the special writers on the European Press, the
American reporter is seldom if ever a * literary man,'
and although many reporters are university graduates,
probably a majority of the best reporters on the leading
American papers are men with only a limited education ;
it is the rare exception when a reporter has written a
book or done any serious literary work, and he rather affects
a scorn for the closet worker, the man who laboriously
polishes and revises, and is proud of his ability to write
under pressure, to produce a vivid, graphic, dramatic
account of a great event that is so compelling and so
well told that even the most indifferent reads it, and
reading it recognises the skill and power of the writer,

This talent for descriptive writing is peculiar to the
American reporter and is largely acquired. There is
little resemblance between the American and English
newspaper, practically there is none between the
American and Continental journal. The American

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newspaper, whether it is published in New York or a
small city, whether it is a great metropolitan daily or a
village weekly, is managed on the theory that the things
of greatest interest to the largest number of readers
are those things happening close at hand — that is to
say, in the immediate vicinity. For instance, an acci
dent in New York causing the death of three people
would be regarded worthy of a far more extended
account in the New York newspapers than an accident
in San Francisco causing the death of ten people,
unless in the latter case there were extraordinary
features, when the affair would be exploited at length.
American newspaper managers are students of human
nature. They know that the great weakness of man
kind is curiosity ; that the ordinary man is a great deal
more interested in the domestic infelicities of his next-
door neighbour than he is about people two miles away
whom he does not know even by sight. Putting this
principle into practice, the aim of every newspaper con
ductor is to gather and present in the most entertaining
form, first, the news of the neighbourhood; second,
everything relating to men and women who occupy
prominent positions and who are known by reputation ;
third, anything that is either unique or startling or that
from its unusual character shall be of general interest
to a large class of readers.

The result is that while the average newspaper is an
excellent photograph of the day's doings, like all
photographs it cannot discriminate and has little flexi
bility ; it accentuates the foreground and only vaguely
pictures the background ; its focus is often strained, and
its proportion is frequently distorted. In a word, in
its desire to chronicle the local news it is too local ;
believing that the local gossip is really of more interest

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than greater things outside of the immediate local
radius, its vision becomes narrowed, its view is usually
provincial and not infrequently parochial.

It is the common remark of visiting foreigners, of
Englishmen especially, that they are unable to find any
news in an American newspaper, that the pages are
filled with things that they cannot understand, and that
have not the slightest interest for them. The criticism
is quite true, but in a measure it proceeds from igno
rance ; and yet it is the same criticism that many
Americans make when, travelling in their own country,
far removed from their homes they read the newspapers
of the place in which they happen to be. Although
Boston is less than three hundred miles from New
York, the New Yorker transiently in Boston finds a
great deal of space devoted — or as he would think,
wasted — to events that mean really nothing to him
because they are purely local ; and while they are
undoubtedly of great interest to the people of Boston,
Massachusetts, or New England generally, in which the
Boston papers largely circulate, they are not of the
slightest importance to the outsider. And the farther
afield one goes the more strikingly emphasised is the
local point of view. The New Yorker in Boston finds
at least one-half of the news in a Boston paper fairly
intelligible ; in Chicago, which is a thousand miles away
the interest decreases in inverse ratio with the distance ;
in San Francisco, which is three thousand miles away,
the interest approaches the vanishing point.

This system naturally tends to make unduly prominent
the local news, and to exalt the reporter who is the
gatherer of local news. Every American newspaper has
its staff of leader writers (the leader in America is always
called an * editorial '), many of whom are men of great
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ability and force of expression, clear thinkers and logical
reasoners, with a wide knowledge of politics, history,
economics, or whatever else their special subject may be,
and the tradition attaching to the 'opinions of the paper,'
a tradition derived from England, causes the editorial-
writer to be regarded with much respect by reporters ;
but, except in few and isolated instances, no American
newspaper is bought for its leaders, and no American
newspaper could long live that did not first give the
news, no matter how brilliant its editorials. The Ameri
can reads the news first and the editorials afterwards.
To a certain extent he is influenced by a leader, but
not nearly to the same extent that an Englishman is.
The American boasts that he does his own thinking
and forms his own opinions ; and while, of course, this
statement must be accepted with a proper allowance,
still it is undeniably true that his conclusions, often
extremely erroneous, are more affected by the reporter,
who presents the facts, than by the leader-writer, whose;
argument is an interpretation of the reporter's presen
tation.

The American reporter, unlike his English or Con
tinental confrere, is a man of importance, and really
makes the paper. A successful reporter — and parenthe
tically it may be added that all that has been said about
the reporter applies to the special correspondent, who
is often a reporter detailed as a correspondent, and
whose work is usually similar — must combine many
qualities. He must be alert, resourceful, of good judg
ment, with a keen and almost intuitive perception for
the news that will interest the readers of his paper ; he
must get the news at least as soon as his rivals, and if
he can obtain it before them so much the better — be
cause the American editor is very keen on publishing
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AMERICA AT HOME

exclusive news, or, as it is known professionally, ' a scoop,'
and is much given to cackling about his * scoops,' and
he must be able under the most disadvantageous con
ditions to produce a well-written narrative that must
not sacrifice description to facts, and yet must be some
thing more than a mere bald recital of the facts. The
ordinary reporter, of course, is simply a recorder of the
everyday things that go to make up the history of a city's
twenty-four hours — the accidents, crimes, proceedings
of the courts, meetings — but every reporter attempts to
put a certain individuality into his work, to describe
even an ordinary occurrence in a manner that shall
command the attention of the reader. He is given
much latitude, and is encouraged to be original, and for
this is usually rewarded. On the large papers there are
always reporters who are employed especially to write
about the ' big things,' which demand a power to
visualise above the ordinary. These occurrences are
not infrequent. An international yacht race, a great
political meeting, a state or national convention, an
inauguration, the visit of a foreign prince, the return of
a conquering hero, a strike involving a hundred thousand
men, the great horse-race of, the year, a long-distance
automobile race, or the naval manoeuvres, are the subjects
for his facile pen. And as a rule they are amazingly
well written. Whether the event has taken place around
the corner or a thousand miles away, the reader will be
presented with a picture of what took place, he will
be able to trace the logical development of the sequence,
before him will be placed the scenes and the men,
he will hear what they said, and see the manner in
which they said it.

If Mr. Chamberlain, for instance, makes a great
speech — the announcement of a new fiscal policy, or
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a momentous declaration affecting the interests of the
Empire — the average English newspaper will contain
half a dozen lines of introduction, principally devoted
to giving the names of the prominent persons on the
platform, the chairman, and the men who moved and
seconded the vote of thanks. It there is applause or
dissent it will be indicated in the body of the speech
in brackets. If Mr. Roosevelt makes a speech, familiar
as are Mr. Roosevelt's methods of public speaking, his
manner, looks, and dress, the reporters of the papers
published in the city in which he speaks, and the
correspondents representing large out-of-town papers,
will write from a third of a column to a column de
scriptive of the scene, the gathering, the oratory, the
dress of the speaker, the impression he made on the
audience, the applause at particular moments, especially
if it reached unusual proportions. In a word, there is
an attempt to enter into the psychology both of the
speaker and the audience, to see into the mind of the
orator, and to share the feelings of his auditors ; to give
a living picture rather than merely to reproduce words.
It may be asked, of course, whether this is of any
particular value, whether the opinion of one man, the
reporter, is worth any more than the judgment of any
other single individual, who simply translates his own
feelings and reproduces the impression made upon him,
even if the reporter is of sound judgment, ripe experi
ence, perfectly truthful, and without bias. It is not
necessary to furnish the answer, as every reader will
reach his own conclusion ; but it may be properly sug
gested that a picture is always more attractive than a
plan, that a perspective relieved by light and shade
more correctly represents an object than a plain geo
metrical drawing.

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The Pressman has a higher standing and more
privileges than his European colleague. He also takes
more liberties. If a newspaper thinks it important that
its readers should know the opinion of any man occupying
a high public position or who is prominent in any walk
of life, he simply directs a reporter to interview him, and
few public or prominent men object to being interviewed.
Occasionally a man finds it inconvenient to answer the
questions put to him, and either declines to talk or is
evasive ; a few men make it a rule never to be quoted ;
but the majority are not unduly reticent, and a reporter
never has the slightest hesitation in putting direct and
leading questions to public men. One can scarcely
conceive English reporters taking up their stations in
Downing Street when the Cabinet is sitting and asking
the members of the Cabinet as they come out what they
have been discussing, but that sight may be witnessed
regularly twice a week in Washington after every meeting
of the Cabinet. As the members leave the White
House they are asked what they talked about for the
past two hours. Sometimes, when matters of great im
portance have been considered which it is not advisable
for the public to know, the ministers are politely evasive
and mendaciously diplomatic; at other times they are
not averse to taking the public into their confidence,
and they give a brief rtsume^ but in that case their names
are not used as the authority for the information.
Indeed, so well is the status of the reporter recognised
that in the White House office there is a room specially
set apart for the use of the Press, so placed that every
man as he leaves the President's room can be seen and
pounced upon and asked to explain the object of his visit.
Interviewing has become a fine art in America, and al
though it is sometimes abused it serves a useful purpose.
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The difference between the news columns of an
English and American newspaper is no more radical
than between their leader pages. The column leader is
seldom seen in an American paper, because few Americans
have the patience to read a column of argument. The
American buys a newspaper for its news, and he wants
to be able to grasp it in the quickest and easiest way
possible. That is why the * headline ' is always a
prominent feature in all American newspapers. A
London newspaper printing an account of a railway
accident would probably use this heading in not over
large type :

ACCIDENT ON MIDLAND GREAT WESTERN.

SEVERAL PASSENGERS REPORTED KILLED AND
INJURED.

The American newspaper describing a similar railway
accident would have a 'heading' reading substantially
as follows :

THIRTY PEOPLE KILLED.

TRAIN PLUNGES INTO A RIVER IN COLORADO.

MORE THAN A HUNDRED PERSONS SERIOUSLY

INJURED— TWO CARS REMAIN ON THE

TRACK AND CATCH FIRE— A BROKEN AXLE THE

CAUSE OF THE DISASTER.

This is a modest and quiet heading, and would be
found in newspapers of a conservative and sober cast of
thought, and the type would not be obtrusively large or
black. The sensational paper would have a heading
half a column long in heavy black type describing * the
ghastly scenes ' and ' heroic rescues,-' and pictures of
the train plunging from the bridge into the river, ' drawn
by our special artist from description telegraphed by
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our special correspondent.' But whether the heading
is sensational or modest, big or little, the purpose is
always to enable the reader to obtain at a glance the
salient facts. If he is sufficiently interested to care
about the details he will read them ; if a railway accident
in Colorado does not appeal to him he turns to the next
column. In this way a busy man can read his morning
paper as he swallows his cup of coffee or absorb the
contents of his evening paper as he rides home on the
trolley.

The American 'leader' lacks the ponderosity of
the English ' leader,' and does not quite reach the
frothy lightness of a premier Paris. It smacks less of
the midnight oil, of ripe scholarship ; one feels in
stinctively that the writer takes himself less seriously
than the English writer ; that he is not impressed with
the belief that what he says will be carefully read by
foreign ministers and make them pause in their fell
designs. The American ' leader ' is short and crisp.
Usually it has a point to make, and makes it, sometimes
it leaves the barb sticking in its victim. But the day of
sensational journalism in America now only survives in
Athe smaller places of the Far West. Colonel Diver, the
editor of the New York Rowdy Journal^ and Jefferson
Brick were possibly true to life when Dickens visited
America sixty years ago, but now they are caricatures.
The editorial, especially in times of political excitement,
is still venomous, abusive, and often grossly unfair; it
lampoons or excoriates, it has no mercy, it never
considers the feelings of the person attacked, but it
does not descend to indecent personalities. Ridicule
is the great weapon employed because broad humour
rather than delicate wit appeals to the American. A
man or a cause that can be made ridiculous can be more
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THE AMERICAN PRESS

easily destroyed by a neat epigram or a stinging phrase
than by'a columbiad 'of solid argument. The American,
and especially the American politician, is sensitive and
self-conscious and hates to be made ridiculous.

A newspaper to succeed must not be too profound,
rather it must be light and entertaining. Of all things,
the American hates to be bored by his newspaper ; for a
newspaper to be termed heavy or dull is fatal. The
better-class newspapers that have traditions to-maintain,
and think it is incumbent upon them to instruct as
well as to entertain, have wit enough to understand that
their instruction must be sugar-coated. A two-column
article, let us say, on archaeological discoveries in
Greece written by a great archaeologist so much absorbed
in his speciality as to have stifled his imagination, who
writes only for the cognoscenti^ one would rarely if ever
find in an American newspaper, because the editor
knows it would interest too limited a circle of readers,
and its proper place is one of the serious monthlies or
quarterlies, but he would be glad to have a * popular '
article on the same subject written in a ' popular ' vein
by a well-known writer. Names count for much. The
writer on archaeological discoveries in Greece may have
nothing more than a schoolboy's acquaintance with
Greek archaeology ; but if his name happens to be promi
nently before the public, no matter in what connection,
so that it can be properly exploited, the article will be
considered much more valuable than a more scholarly
and profound article written by an unknown or,. at
least, less well-known man.

The enterprise — using that word in its proper meaning

— of the American Press is proverbial and wonderful.

No expense is too great when news of importance is to

be procured; no effort too arduous to terrify the re-

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AMERICA AT HOME

porter. If an African explorer is lost, an American
reporter will essay to find him ; if an Arctic discoverer
needs succour, an American reporter will go to the
rescue, and an American newspaper will pay the
expenses. In time of disaster or danger, when a tidal
wave engulfs a city or plague rages, wherever there is
death or calamity, the reporter fearlessly goes, knowing
the risks he incurs, but, like the soldier, regarding them
as all part of the day's work and to be met as they come
because his duty demands that his paper shall have the
news. In a hundred other ways legitimate enterprise is
shown.

One of the striking features of the American Press is
the Sunday paper. Every morning newspaper issues a
Sunday edition, which has from sixteen to fifty or more
pages. A few of these pages are given up to the tele
graphic and local news, but the bulk of the paper is
made of special articles, - stories, fashions and pictures,
the latter especially, as most of the Sunday papers are
simply an excuse to print pictures of men and women,
of their jewels or their houses or horses, of automobiles
or yachts — of anything, in fact, that can be photographed
or drawn ; and many papers include a ' comic supple
ment ' in colours, which originally was intended solely
for the amusement of the children, but is now read with
even more zest by their parents. That is one of the
secrets of the Sunday paper's success. It has something
in it for every member of the family. The man reads it
for the news, the woman for the fashions or its society
gossip, the young girl for the stories, the boys for the
puzzles, even the very small child can be interested in
the 'funny,' pictures. As everybody has leisure on Sunday,
and most Americans cultivate the reading of newspapers
to the exclusion of other forms of reading, the Sunday
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newspaper enjoys a larger circulation than the daily : and
selling for twopence-halfpenny as against the daily selling
for a halfpenny or a penny, it is the most profitable
issue of the week, besides being the best day for the
advertiser, who is willing to pay higher rates as he is
assured of a larger circulation and knows that his
announcements will be more carefully read.

There are more newspapers and periodicals of all
sorts — weeklies, semi-weeklies, tri-weeklies, monthlies,
and quarterlies — published in the United States than
in any other country in the world. The total number
of newspapers and other periodicals is 24,000, of
which? about 2,400 are dailies and 16,000 weeklies.
According to the census returns of 1900, newspaper
printing and publishing is one of the country's great
activities. The figures for that year, the latest avail
able, placed the capital invested in the business at
$293,000,000 (say ^58,600,000), which gave employ
ment to 163,000 persons, whose wages for that year
were ^17,000,000. 'Very nearly half of the world's
50,000 newspapers and periodicals are published in the
United States,' says a recent American writer, and he
adds : ' Ours — dailies, weeklies, and monthlies — have a
larger individual circulation than Europe's. New York
has more publications of all sorts than has London.
Americans read more than do any other people.'
That the American is a more voracious newspaper
reader than the European is not, I believe, open to
question, due to the general high level of intelligence,
and because newspaper reading in the United States has
become a fixed habit. In America it must be a very
small community that does not boast its weekly news
paper ; and whenever a new settlement is opened up, in
the mining camps of the West or the boom towns of the

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AMERICA AT HOME

South, the saloon, the church, and the newspaper are
the triune evidences of civilisation, progress, and light.
Every American reads his newspaper, and many read
nothing else except the popular magazines, which
again, if too frequent comparison is not invidious, are
superior to the English magazines that cater to the
same class of readers. The American ' ten cent '
magazine, which corresponds in price to the sixpenny
publication of England, contains stories by the best
authors of the day and other entertaining and instructive
articles, and the illustrations are of a high order. The
American magazine of this price is usually sold at
wholesale at a fraction over threepence-halfpenny a
copy, which is below the actual cost of production ;
but the difference is made up out of the advertising,
which commands high figures. The Americans are the
greatest and most ingenious advertisers in the world, and
it is the advertiser who makes it possible for the
publisher to issue a high-class magazine at a low price.
Perhaps it is needless to add that neither publisher nor
advertiser is a philanthropist and is not controlled by
altruism. The advertiser uses the pages of the magazine
because they bring him profitable business and the
publisher finds his profits to be equally large. The
most expensive magazines, those selling for a shilling or
more, appeal to a more intellectual and cultivated class
and are equally profitable to their owners. It is some
what curious that while America has more and better
magazines of the character I have described than any
other country, the number of serious weeklies is extremely
limited, and so are the ' heavy ' monthlies.

It has often been asserted that the American news
paper, despite its large circulation, wields very little real
influence because, as Mr. Edward Bok, the editor of the
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Ladies' Home Journal^ one of the most successful pub
lications of its kind in the world, recently wrote, the
crime of the modern newspaper is ' the forgetfulness of
the moral responsibility that should be felt for whatever
it publishes ' ; in other words, because no one takes the
newspaper seriously and on general principles is inclined
to disbelieve much that it publishes unless there is unim
peachable evidence to the contrary. Nor is this charge
without foundation. The American newspaper is much
given to exaggeration, to inaccuracy, to the distortion of
news to square with its politics or principles, or lack of
principles. I am dealing now, of course, with the respect
able Press. The so-called ' Yellow Press ' is as vile,
infamous, and untruthful as the worst gutter-rag of the
Boulevards, the only difference being the limitations of
decency hedging Anglo-Saxon convention and the wide
latitude permitted by Latin morality. Martin Chuzzlewit
leaning over the rail of the Screw tied up at the dock in
New York was greeted with cries of the newsboys, selling
the Sewer, with ' the Sewer's exposure of the Wall Street
gang, and the Sewer's exposure of the Washington gang,
and the Sewer's exclusive account of a flagrant act of dis
honesty committed by the Secretary of State when he was
eight years old, now communicated at great expense by
his own nurse,' and the Martin Chuzzlewits of to-day
may buy the antitype of the Sewer on the streets of New
York; only to-day's Sewer, while no less injurious to public
morals, is more ingenious in its malicious mendacity and
more destructive in corrupting the public taste. To the
' Yellow ' journal nothing is sacred so long as it can be
turned into a sensation sufficiently alluring to filch the
coppers from the pocket of the ignorant ; there is no lie
so preposterous that it will not be told, no truth so patent
that it will be printed, if it will help an opposing cause ;
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AMERICA AT HOME

no woman's fame is safe, no man's reputation secure;
even the grave is no haven of refuge from the * enter
prise ' of c Yellow ' journalism. It always steals the livery
of heaven to serve its own unrighteousness. It prates
much of morality, of honesty, of civic virtue, and its
proprietors are notorious for their dissolute lives and the
flouting of their vices in the face of decent society. It
affects great concern for the welfare of the poor, and
champions the cause of the masses against the encroach
ments of plutocratic greed, shouting on every occasion
its love for all mankind and its patriotism, and at the
same time it eagerly lends itself to schemes for private
gain or the designs of the enemies of its country if they
shall lead to pecuniary or social advancement. ' Of
all the forces that tend for evil in a great city like New
York,' President Roosevelt scathingly yet truthfully wrote
when he was police commissioner of that city, ' probably
none are so potent as the sensational papers. Until one
has had experience with them it is difficult to realise the
reckless indifference to truth or decency displayed by
papers such as the two that have the largest circulation
in New York City. Scandal forms the breath of the
nostrils of such papers, and they are quite as ready to
create as to describe it. To sustain law and order is
humdrum, and does not readily lend itself to flaunting
woodcuts; but if the editor will stoop, and make his
subordinate stoop, to raking the gutters of human
depravity, to upholding the wrong-doer, and furiously
assailing what is upright and honest, he can make money,
just as other types of pander make it.'

But dismissing the * Yellow ' Press, which only the dis
solute and the ignorant read, without being hypercritical,
captious, or unjust one can bring the charge against the
respectable Press of being less careful and less weighted
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by its responsibilities than the Press of a highly civilised
country ought to be. Mr. Bok, in the article I have
already referred to, cites several instances of this 'for-
getfulness of moral responsibility,' and he tells what
happened, not in the office of a ' Yellow ' paper, but in
the editorial room of what is generally accepted as a
reputable newspaper.

A report came over the cable that an English manu
facturing concern had placed an order ' for five thousand
tons of steel with the English representative of the
United States Steel Corporation. The message went to
the managing editor. Steel stock was low that day.
The paper had ' interests.'

' Work this up, Miller,' said the editor, and with the
order went a look.

I The " old man " tells me to work this up/ said the
man to the financial editor of the paper. ' How far
would you go ? '

{ As far as your imagination will carry you, I should
say,' was the reply.

When the story appeared the tonnage of the order
had surprisingly changed, and when the correspondent
in London read his dispatch in the paper a week later
he could scarcely believe his eyes.

Here are two instances cited by Mr. Bok of political
1 forgetfulness of moral responsibility ' in dealing with
friend and foe.

A reporter on a New York newspaper of standing was
sent out by his editor to ' cover ' a Bryan meeting during
the campaign of 1900. He brought back a report that
after Mr. Bryan had been speaking five minutes a
number of people walked out.

I 1 would change that,' said the editor, as he looked
over the report, and taking a pencil he scratched out

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AMERICA AT HOME

1 a number of people/ and substituted for it * nearly
half the audience.'

1 But there wasn't a hundred,' said the reporter.

* Send this up,' said the editor to the ' copy ' boy,
and the report went to the composing-room.

' What did you do ? ' I asked the reporter.

' Do ? I'd be hanged if I would stand for that sort
of thing, and I gave up my job then and there.'

'I attended in 1900 the Philadelphia Republican
Convention that nominated McKinley for President,
and named Roosevelt for Vice-President. I was sur
prised at the lack of enthusiasm. I asked the "head-
writer " on a leading newspaper how it compared with
other conventions.

' " Stupidest convention I ever attended. You see,
the nominations were cut-and-dried. The expected
happened. That accounts for the lack of 'go.'" This
was the principal editor of one of the best-known news
papers in the country, and he was to " do " the story
himself.

' The next day I could scarcely believe my eyes when
I read of the " unprecedented enthusiasm " which made
this convention " eclipse all previous conventions in
spontaneity of outbursts of applause." The writer had
seen many conventions, but this " far overshadowed all
in the tumult of enthusiasm, which lasted fifteen minutes."
But as I had been there I knew that it had lasted just
three minutes.

'I saw the editor the next day. "Did you write
that ? " I asked.

'"Yes. Why?"

1 " But I thought you told me "

( " Oh, well," he answered, smiling, "it would never
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THE AMERICAN PRESS

do to say that. Of course, the account was somewhat
embellished. But we have to 'whoop it up' for the
party, you know." '

Despite all its faults, the American newspaper Press
has been a great civilising and educational instrument,
and has tended to elevate rather than lower the moral
tone. In an essay written by the late Charles Dudley
Warner several years ago he remarked that the American
newspaper voiced the moral sentiment of its particular
community, and no matter how objectionable the char
acter of the paper might be it was always a trifle better
than the people upon whose patronage it relied for its
support.

Nobody, I think, will challenge this assertion. Even
the worst paper is better than its readers, and is
restrained by the sobering influence of power; the
majority of newspapers strive to foster a healthy spirit
of public and private morality, because the newspapers,
with few exceptions, are owned by respectable men,
by men of standing in their respective communities,
and the editor is always a personage and usually pro
minent in affairs, who to maintain his self-respect must
keep the moral tone of his paper at least equal to the
moral level of his friends and associates. The American
newspaper has performed its share in bringing civilisation
to the edge of the wilderness. The pioneer, the ad
venturer, the miner, the trapper — every man who has
left the softer life of the settled cities behind him and
gone into the unknown, fraught with all its perils and
hardships, to build up new cities, has felt himself not
quite so entirely divorced from his old life when the
printing press has followed him, and he has been able
to keep in touch in a measure with the great world lying

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far outside his own clearing when by the light of a
flaring pine torch or the fitful glimmer of an oil lamp
he has read of progress and new discovery, which has
heartened him to keep up the struggle, often severe and
discouraging enough to dispirit the most resolute.

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CHAPTER SIXTEEN

WHAT UNCLE SAM THINKS OF HIMSELF AND
ALL THE REST OF THE WORLD

UNCLE SAM is mightily well pleased with himself, and he
has every reason to be. When he looks around and
sees what his children have done, when he watches his
eighty millions at work and at play on a territory as
large as all Europe, linking hands with two oceans,
delving in the earth for coal in the East or gold in the
West, bringing to the surface iron and copper, toiling
with ceaseless energy and intelligence in the factories
that fabricate everything that man needs for his use or
pleasure, raising on their broad farms wheat and corn
sufficient not only to feed themselves, but also the
millions in Europe less fortunate; when he sees all
these substantial evidences of prosperity, when he knows
the enterprise and genius of his children and the spirit
that animates them, is it any wonder that he should
think well of himself and feel content with all that they
have done in the brief life-history of the nation ?

The American believes in himself. That alone
carries him far, The American believes in his destiny.
That gives him confidence to face the future. The'
future for him is always one of promise. There are
nations who live on their past, who long that their days
of greatness might return, and who look to the future
219

AMERICA AT HOME

with trembling. No such qualms agitate the American.
He is as a youth at school who has won all the prizes,
who at college has carried off the honours. Shall life
terrify such a one ? He looks upon it as waiting for
him to conquer it, to win in a larger arena greater and
more substantial prizes. To the American everything
is before him. He is as convinced that his people are
the chosen people, his race the world's greatest race,
as he is that nature has endowed his vast continent
! with more lavish generosity than that of any other land.
Everything points to the fulfilment of his destiny — and
destiny has declared that he shall march on ever
triumphant.

We talk of the American people, but there is no
such thing. There is an amalgamation and conglomera
tion of races living in America, and this admixture, this
confusion of Saxon and Celt and Latin and Teuton, has
produced a new type that appropriately has its habitat
in a new environment with new social and political
institutions. From this melting-pot of the races has
come forth a new race — a race of * hustlers,' who are
so much impressed by all that they have done that
they must proclaim it to all the world, who are given
not a little to boasting and not a little to exaggeration,
and yet who have done things so wonderful that neither
boast nor exaggeration can diminish the wonder of
their accomplishments, whose self-reliance and courage
and tenacity of purpose tell the history of the past and
give guarantee of the future.

Coupled with the American's self-satisfaction is a
slight feeling of mingled pity and contempt for the
' foreigner' — foreigner himself although the American may
have been only a generation or two back. But much of
the spirit and strength of America comes from the power

220

UNCLE SAM AND THE WORLD

to absorb the foreigner, to make him quickly become
an American in thought and manner and feeling. The
American, therefore, whether American by birth or an
American by adoption, is imbued with the patriotic
belief that his country and his people are really superior
to Europe and Europeans, and he has a sincere regret
that the universal scheme of things is not so arranged
that a little of his good fortune can be shared by others.
He may go to Europe and enjoy all that Europe offers
him for his amusement or intellectual development, he
may appreciate the art and science and literature of
Europe, and yet he returns more fully convinced than
ever that the future of the world lies in the keeping of
America. This is patriotism, a very wonderful and
sublime thing > a thing not be sneered at. It means
much.

Not long ago I was at the White House waiting to
see the President. Three other men were in the
President's ante-room also waiting to see the President.
I judged from their conversation that they were trying
to secure a certain appointment. They were probably
men of some substance, men of more than ordinary
shrewdness, but not of extraordinary cultivation or learn
ing. Suddenly, one of the men, apropos of nothing,
remarked to his companion, in a detached and almost
impersonal tone : ' By gad, we're a great people.' ' The
greatest on earth,' was the answer, made dispassionately,
and as if the remark were so obvious that it scarcely
called for comment. Would one hear three Englishmen
under similiar circumstances talking in this strain ?
Would they think it ? But the American not only thinks
it but believes it. Does not belief in a nation's greatness
inspire greatness ?

The American tries no more earnestly to impress on
221

AMERICA AT HOME

the foreigner the glories of his country at large than he
seeks to make his fellow countryman, who comes for
the first time to his State, concede its charms. Deep is
the love of the American for his native State or the State
to which he owes allegiance by adoption, and he quickly
and hotly resents any attempt to detract from its fair
fame. He would have every one praise the city of his
residence ; and although he may be indifferent as to its
government or may know that it is corrupt and inefficient,
his civic pride is so great that in talking to the stranger
he forgets those things, and only dilates upon its beauties
and its perfections.

What always impresses the foreigner is the spon-
taneousness and genuineness of the American and his
desire to be on friendly terms with his fellow man.
This frankness finds its expression when two Americans
strike up a casual acquaintance. Americans have none
of that reserve that makes the Englishman so un
approachable until the barrier with which he surrounds
himself has been properly broken down by the formality
of an introduction. An American travelling in a railway
train opens a conversation with a stranger in the smoking
compartment, offers him the contents of his cigar case
or his flask, talks politics or stocks, shakes hands with
him at parting, and says, ' I'm pleased to have met you
and hope we shall meet again ; when next you come to
my city let me know and we'll lunch at the club,' exchanges
cards, and really means all that he says.

As a nation the Americans are full of nervous energy ;
to them the greatest disgrace is to loaf and the one thing
to command admiration is to ' hustle ' ; their emotions
are quickly reached and easily expend themselves, and
all their customs are affected by the national temperament,
so that to the foreigner they seem to be wanting in

222

UNCLE SAM AND THE WORLD

repose, No people appreciate their defects and short
comings more than do the Americans themselves, and
the newspapers are continually pointing out the necessity
for greater national self-restraint. Typical of what one
may read in many prominent journals is this from one
of the best-known newspapers of the West :

1 Many American people will rush to the door to see
the fire-engine go by ; they will stick their heads out of
the window at the sound of a street band ; they will idly
watch a negro engaged in digging a post-hole or opening
a sewer ; they will crowd pell-mell around a man
throwing a fit in a public place. If a guard-line is
stretched out or a sign-post put to warn passers-by off
the grass, they will gather in multitudes to gaze upon
it, chatter about or contemplate in silence these ordinary
phenomena. If a duke is available to sight he is
mobbed by a rude manifestation of curiosity, and
whenever the paranoiac Carrie Nation gets on a rampage
and runs amuck in the White House and United States
Senate, there are hundreds of morbid sightseers ready
to egg her on to the ultimate limit of extravagant
spectacularity.

'Every succeeding year finds us in a worse state of
hysteria, of excitability, and frenzied and shatterpated
curiosity. You may reckon with some degree of
certainty on what one lone American will do at any
given junction of affairs. He behaves rather meekly in
strange surroundings. If his own house is afire there
is not much likelihood of his throwing out the mirror
and carefully carrying out the pillow. He will never
run through a crowded street yelling at the top of his
voice to overtake a procession of minstrels or to see a
dog-fight. Even when in the bosom of his family, when
reading his daily paper, he will reprobate sensational
223

AMERICA AT HOME

news and " Yellow " journalism. But let him join a crowd
of his fellows, and there is no telling what he will or will
not do. He might lynch a man, mob a duke, vote the
Populist ticket, smash saloons, follow some Bacchante
of madness to the last extremity, and then go home and
regret his crime, his foolishness, and disgrace.'

Yet this feverish, excitable, burning-the-candle-at-both-
ends kind of life is supposed not to be without its merits,
and finds its defenders among the Press. There died
recently in Denver a man of some prominence locally,
and commenting upon his death, one of the Denver
papers said :

'Tom Maloney was one of the great American
spenders — the men who spend money, mind, physical
force, vitality, and sleep, with equal and unstinted
lavishness. They know no place but the front ranks.
They can't breathe anywhere else. They seem to have
fun while they fight for life. To live they must do what
would kill ordinary men. To be contented they must
waste the elements of happiness. Their idea of
excellence is magnificence. Their favourite virtue is
strength. Their dearest comfort is power. Their idea
of good cheer is to win. Their thought of comfort is
to conquer. Effort, vitality, and dollars are the same
to them — made to spend. Tom Maloney died young.
But he lived while he lived, and he did not live in vain ;
nor do the American spenders live in vain. They are
an essential American element, as necessary in our
national life as the men who grew strong, and ate and
drank and made merry and lusted in their valour, and
practised feats of arms, in the old days, only to fall in
the front ranks of the charge, while the thin, pale, cold-
eyed general on the hill reaped the victory.'

That the American as a rule lives his life, crowding
224

UNCLE SAM AND THE WORLD

into it all that it can hold, may be conceded, and it is
the ambition of most Americans to live this life. The
average American would rather wear out than rust out ;
his hope is to be able to live well and to spend freely ;
to work and to make money, and money is merely a
means of greater enjoyment and higher comforts. As
a people the Americans are extravagant, but not im
provident. They have none of the niggardly thrift of
the French ; they scrutinise their expenditures less
closely than do the English ; their unit of calculation
is the dollar rather than the shilling, and that in itself
broadens the basis of calculation; but their savings-
banks deposits, their life-insurance policies, and their
individual homes all testify eloquently to their power
of saving and a careful provision for old age. But,
speaking broadly, no American will haggle over coppers
like the French peasant, or screw and pare and stint
himself little luxuries like the bourgeoisie of France.
The shopkeeper's wife is never his cashier unless his
earnings are so slender that the few dollars thus saved
are an object ; boys and girls are not put to work at an
early age unless impelled by dire necessity. Men and
women do not work early and late simply to add a few
dollars every year to their pitiful savings, denying
themselves in the meantime every pleasure and making
life simply a monotonous treadmill from which the only
escape is the grave. They will work hard, very hard,
with the hope of ample reward, and to obtain some of
this reward even before they quite attain the summit
of their ambitions. The more money an American
earns, the more he spends, is a common remark, and,
generally speaking, it is true. With the American it is
constitutional not to be satisfied with the same things
later in life that met his requirements when he was
225 Q

AMERICA AT HOME

younger. A clerk working on a salary looks forward to
having that salary progressively advanced, and with each
succeeding advance, instead of continuing his expendi
tures on the same scale as before and saving the increase,
he lives up to his new income.

It is no reproach to the American to be told that he
spends money freely, extravagantly even. He admits it,
and justifies it on the ground that money simply exists
to be spent, that the desire to have money so as to
spend it rationally incites him to renewed efforts. He
boasts that no man need remain poor if he has energy,
industry, and even ordinary ability. It is this impulse to
possess some of the comforts and luxuries of life that
keep men keyed up to the top notch. Of course one
has reference to that class which is dependent upon its
own efforts for a living, not to the persons of inherited
wealth or the very rich in business or the professions.
Their incomes are so large they can use them as they see
fit.

The Americans have often been told by their foreign
critics that their pace is too fast to last, and that they are
wearing themselves out by their feverish and unnecessary
activity and their too close application to money-getting ;
that the average duration of life is shorter in America
than in Europe ; that they are a nation of dyspeptics
with wire-drawn nerves. Half-truths are proverbially
the most difficult lies to combat, and it is almost impos
sible to answer national generalities ; besides, they are
true or false according only to the point of view and not
from any other criterion. To the Oriental, English
activity is not only phenomenal, but idiotic. Why should
sane men subject themselves to intense bodily fatigue by
chasing a small ball over a field? No sane Oriental
would do any such foolish thing, consequently the
226

UNCLE SAM AND THE WORLD

English are not sane. Now from the American point of
view if a thing were to be done it were well that it
should be done ' right away ' instead of at some indefinite
time. Americans are always in a hurry, but are they any
the worse for it ? Unquestionably they are less phlegmatic
than Englishmen and scarcely less volatile than French
men, but the Englishman who has lived long in America
loses some of his phlegm and catches the swing of his
surroundings.

Uncle Sam has heard for years that he is dyspeptic
and nervous, but it is difficult to convince the old gentle
man that his constitution is really shattered. He
compares his sons with those of Europe, he sees how
well they withstand fatigue, with what zest they enter
into their sports and the avidity with which they grapple
their work, and a benign smile is his answer to his
critics. He has no means of knowing whether his
children are really shorter lived than those of Europe,
but he thinks not. Doctors have often told him that
work never yet killed anybody ; that when men have
good food and healthy surroundings they can work up to
the limit with body and brain ; that anxiety and insuffi
cient nutrition slay their thousands while properly
directed labour kills not even its tens. Uncle Sam and
the doctors must settle that between themselves. Uncle
Sam, if his opinion is privately asked, will tell you he
believes that it might be a good thing if Europe had
some of his superfluous energy and worked with as much
vim as he does ; but then Uncle Sam is an opinionated
old gentleman, and it is difficult to make an old man set
in his ways think they can be changed to advantage.

Of one thing Uncle Sam is quite convinced, and no
amount of argument would ever alter his conviction.
He knows that he has done well, he feels that he owes
227

AMERICA AT HOME

his success to the pace he set at the beginning, and he

intends to keep that pace up so long as he retains his

vigour and will-power. The rest of the world may dawdle

and waste in play the time it should devote to work, but

| not he. Uncle Sam has a big family, but it is not yet big

j enough for him. Uncle Sam has a big cash-box, but it

is not so large as he would like to have it. Uncle Sam's

< ambitions are boundless. He wants to be the biggest

\thing in all creation, and he knows he will be eventually.

*Work, work, work, says Uncle Sam.

And now let us bid adieu to Uncle Sam. I promised
the reader when we set out on our travels that it would
not be time wasted or a journey without interest ; that
we should wander far and see many curious and fascinat
ing things, a people at work as well as at play, a nation in
the making. I hope that the reader has not been
disappointed.

228

INDEX

America, I ; English ignorance
of, 2 ; humour of, 2 ; English
attitude toward, 3 ; harm
caused by, 3 ; progress in,
4 ; conservatism of, 5 ; past
and future, 4 ; unhampered
by tradition, 4 ; political
system, 6 ; paradise of woman,

79

American girl, 70

Americans, the, an emotional
people, 6 ; a mixed race, 6 ;
effect of political institutions,
6; resentment of social in
feriority, 79 ; gallantry toward
women, 80 ; naturally men of
business, 101 ; boldness of,
101 ; why they have been
successful, 102; work hard,
H2; a moral people, 136;
religion of, 136 ; amusements
of, 144 ; fond of a crowd,
145 ; believe in themselves,
219; their inspiration, 221 ;
local attachment of, 222 ;
spontaneousness and genuine
ness, of, 222 ; spend money
freely, 225 ; always in a
hurry, 226; their ambition
boundless, 228

American type, the, 22O

Annapolis, 121

Appointments, power of the
President over, 14 ; used as
bribes, 1 6

Aristocracy, 42 ; of money, 49

Army and navy not fashionable,

47
Atlantic City, 172

Bar Harbour, 166

Baseball, 145

Board schools (see also Public

Schools), 116
Bosses, 27
Bryan, Mr., 61

Cabinet, the, 19 ; how a
President rids himself of
an obnoxious member, 20 ;
members always subject to
the President's control, 21 ;
communication between Cabi
net and Congress, 22 ; easily
accessible, 90

Campaign expenses, 33

Capital and labour, 126

Certain cities German rather
than American, 67

Class distinctions, 41

Climate, 81

Co-education, 74

Colour line, 184

Congress, 10, II, 12, 96;
members of, honest, 32 ; how
they are influenced, 32 ;
party control of members,
37 ; oratory of, 93 ; humour
of, 94 ; salary of members, 23

Constitution, essence of, 1 1

Decollett, 132

229

INDEX

Decoration Day, 153
Dismissing a Cabinet Minister,

20

Divorce. See Marriage and

Divorce
Drinking, 135

East and West, 55

Easterner, the, narrow and self-
centred, 64

Education, 115; colleges for
young women, 74 ; American
system, 117 ; public schools,
116

Electoral college, 23

Energy of Americans, 226

England and America, alike and
unlike, 3

English ignorance of America,
2, 64 ; attitude toward, 2

Extravagance, 225

Fish, Mrs. Stuyvesant, her

comments on society, 53
Flats, 138
Flowers, American fondness for,

'53

Foreign population, political

influence of, 66
Foreigner, the, what the

American thinks of him, 221
Fortunes, how made, 104
Fourth of July, 154

German, the, 67

Girl, American, 70 ; precocity
of, 73 ; influence of college
education upon, 74 ; her in
tercourse with young men,
77 ; amusements in summer
and winter, 80 ; taste in
dress, 81 ; as a wife and
mother, 82

Gould family, the, 107

Government, system of, firmly
established, 8 ; three branches
of, II

Gregariousness of the American,

H5
Growth of the West, 59

Hanna, Senator, 127

House of Representatives, 24, 92

Humour, 94, 180.

Illiterates, 119

Institutions, no finality in 7 ;

foundationed in the faith of

the people, 8
Irish, the, 68

Labour, 121, 124, 126

— unions, 125
Lakewood, 160
Leisure class, 44
Life, freedom of, 72

McKinley, President, 61
Marriage and divorce, 133
Military academy, 121
Millionaires, 107, 109, no
Money, love of, 1 1 1
Moneyed aristocracy, 44
Music, 157

Naval academy, 121
Negro, the, 184
Newport, 160
Newspapers, 200

Patronage, political, use of, 16
Party discipline, 37
Peasantry, 57
Platt, senator, 38
Political patronage, 16

— system, compared with Eng
lish, 17 ; the convention, 30

Politics, a profession, 26 ; why
it interests so many people,
26 ; avoided by young men of
wealth, 45

President, functions and duties
of, I ; compared with king
and premier, 18 ; power over

230

INDEX

Cabinet, 19 ; how elected, 22 ;

how he transacts business, 87 ;

restrictions imposed upon, 88
Press. See Newspapers
Primary, the, 28
Public schools, 116; democracy

of, 116
Puritan, the, 43

Racial divisions, 124

Religion, 136

Rents, 139

Representatives. See House of
Representatives

Republican institutions, sim
plicity of, 84

Rich, the, a separate class, 47 ;
their amusements, 159

Rockefeller, John D., 108

Saratoga, 167
Schoolboys, 1 20
Schools, mixed, 74

— public. See Public Schools

— board. See Board Schools
Senate, the, 13, 15, 24
Senators, election of, 24
Servants, 138

Shopping, 142

Smoking, 135

Snobbishness of the rich, 162

Social customs, difference in,
129 ; an Englishman's experi
ence, 130

Social divisions, 47

— problems, 7
Society, 49, 132

Sports and pastimes, 145

States, the, 10

States legislature, 28

Success, in

Suffrage, 10

Sunday, how observed, 137

Tammany Hall, 40

Thanksgiving Day, 156

Theatre, 157

Trade, how it is regarded, 103

Traditions, 5

Tramways, 141

United States. See America
Universities, 118

Vanderbilt family, the, 107
Vice-president, the, 23

Wages, 122

War, how the West regards it,

62

Washington, city of, 84
Wealth, 104, ill
West, the, conditions in, 55 ;

growth and development of,

59 ; spirit of, 63 ; influence of

immigration on, 66
West Point, 121
White House, the, 85
Wit. See Humour
Woman, American. (See also

Girl, American) ; must not

mix in politics, 83
Working man, the, his political

power, 123

231

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