degree of personal purity as compared with the masses of Europe. Here
one is not to think of the slums of large cities nor of the masses of
still un-Americanized immigrants from Southern Europe, nor of those
people who are under the influence of temporary abnormal conditions,
such as the adventurers who flock together wherever gold and silver are
discovered. One must look at the people in the fields and the
work-shops, in the country and the small city, or at the average citizen
of the large city, and one will get from these bustling millions an
impression of moral earnestness, simplicity, and purity. These people
are poor in imagination and vulgar; and yet one feels that, in the
humble home where the average man has probably grown up, the family
Bible lay on the table. It is not accidental that the zealous Puritans
of Colonial times believed not only that man is preserved from hellfire
by the special grace of God, but also that the colonists were a chosen
people and favoured by God with a remarkably large proportion who
enjoyed His grace. They saw a moral rigour everywhere around them, and
could not suppose that such Puritan living was the path to everlasting
torment. Since then life has become endlessly complicated, the pressure
of circumstances has increased, temptations are a thousandfold more
numerous, and consequently the general level of morality has shifted.
Much is to-day called harmless which was then called sinful; but to-day,
as then, the number of those who live above the general level of moral
requirements is astonishingly large.
As everywhere in the world, so in America; temptation and distress fill
the prisons with unfortunate and mistaken human beings. But this fact
belongs in a wholly different social connection. We are thinking here of
the life of those who are not amenable to law; for intemperance, envy,
incontinence, coarseness, servility, brutality, lack of character and
kindness, and vulgarity are, in themselves, not punishable. If we speak
of those who are thus within the law, we find that life in America is
purer, simpler, and more moral than in Europe. And the average American
who lives for some time on the Continent of Europe comes home dismayed
at the exaggerated and specious politeness of Europe and rejoiced at the
greater humanity of the Americans. The incontinence of France, the
intemperance of Germany, the business dishonesty of Southern Europe, are
favourite examples in America of European lack of virtue; and aside from
all local differences, the Americans believe that they find everywhere
in Europe the symptoms of moral decadence and laxity, and on finding the
same things in large American cities, they put the blame on Europe.
At first sight it looks as if one who lives in a glass house were
throwing stones. The foreigner, on hearing of American Sabbath
observance, piety, temperance, continence, benevolence, and honesty, is
at once inclined to call up the other side of the situation: he has seen
cases of hypocrisy, he knows how many divorces and bank robberies there
are; he has heard about benevolence from purely selfish motives, and
about corruption.
All this is true, and, nevertheless, false. On examining the situation
more closely, the foreigner will see that however many sins there are,
the life of the people is intrinsically pure and moral and devout. It is
true that there are many divorces, and that these are made extremely
easy in some states; but infidelity is seldom the motive. The cause lies
in the democratic spirit of self-determination, which wants to loosen
bonds that individuals no longer freely recognize. It might be said that
this is a higher individual morality which ends marriage when it has
lost its inner sanctity. The American divorce does not indicate any lack
of marriage fidelity; married life is, throughout the nation, distinctly
purer than it is in Europe, and this is still more true of the life of
young men. To be sure, it is easy to get material for piquant booklets,
as “From Darkest America,” and there is very much vice in Chicago, New
Orleans, and San Francisco. The American is no saint, and a large city
is a large city the world over. But undoubtedly the sexual tension is
incomparably less in American life than in European, as may be seen by
comparing the life of American students with that of German students of
the same age. This is not due to deficient romantic feeling, for there
is nowhere more flirting going on than in America; but a genuine respect
of womanhood, without regard to social class, lends purity to the life
of the men.
It is true that American temperance does not prevent some men from
drinking too much, and the regular prohibition laws of many of the
states have not succeeded in suppressing a desire for physiological
stimulation; and it may be even affirmed that the legal interdiction of
the sale of alcohol in states or communities, unless an overwhelming
majority of the population believes in abstinence, has done more harm
than good. But it is clear that the fight against alcohol which has been
carried on for a hundred years, and notably by the church, has done an
infinite amount of good. The whole nation is strongly set against
tippling, and only the dregs of society gather in the saloons. And much
more has been done by moral than by legislative influence to suppress
the unhappy licentious and criminal consequences of drink among the
lower classes; and among higher classes the deadening intellectual
influence of sitting in beer-houses and so wasting strength, time, and
moral vigour, is almost unknown. In good society one does not drink in
the presence of ladies except at dinner, and the total abstainer becomes
thereby no more conspicuous than the man in Germany who will not smoke;
and those who drink at table are content with very little. Evening table
gatherings, such as the German Kommerse, are accounted incorrect, and
drunkenness is dishonourable. These ideas are making their way among the
lower classes; railway companies and other corporations have not the
least difficulty in employing only temperance men. The temperance
movement, in spite of its mistakes and exaggerations, and aside from its
great benefit to the health of the social organism, represents a
splendid advance in moral self-control. A nation which accounts as
immoral all indulgence in alcohol that interferes with self-control has
made thereby a tremendous ethical advance.
It would be still easier to expose the caricatures which are published
relative to Sabbath observance. One may say it is hypocritical for the
law to forbid theatrical performances on Sunday for which the scenes are
changed and the curtain dropped, but to allow several New York theatres
to perform the cheapest vaudeville without curtain and without a change
of scenes. But the fact is merely that the heavy immigration from Europe
has brought about conditions in the metropolis which do not accord with
the ideas of the rural majority in the state. In Boston no one would
think of evading such a law, because the theatres would remain empty;
where the attempt has been made to keep large exhibitions open on
Sunday, it has been unsuccessful.
The American people still cling to a quiet Sabbath observance, and the
day of rest and meditation is a national institution. No law and no
scruples forbid the railway companies to run more trains on Sunday than
on other days, as they do in Germany; but instead of this there are
fewer railway trains, and these are poorly patronized. People do not
travel on Sunday, even if they no longer visit the grave-yard, which was
the Puritan idea of a permissible Sunday stroll. Concessions are more
and more made to Sunday amusements, it is true; golf is played on Sunday
in many places, and in contrast to England the Sunday newspapers have
become so voluminous that if one read their fifty or sixty pages
through, one would not have time to go to church. But in the main the
entire American-born population, without constraint and therefore
without hypocrisy, observes Sunday as a day of self-abnegation; and even
many men who are not abstainers during the week drink no wine on Sunday.
The masses of the people are to a high degree truthful and honourable.
It has been well said that the American has no talent for lying, and
mistrust of a man’s word strikes the Yankee as specifically European.
From the street urchin to the minister of state, frankness is the
predominant trait; and all institutions are arranged for a
thorough-going and often exaggerated confidence. We have shown before
that in the means of conveyance, such as street cars, the honesty of the
public is not watched, that in the country the farm-house door is hardly
locked, and that the most important mercantile agreements are concluded
by a word of mouth or nod of the head. There are scoundrels who abuse
all this, who swindle the street-car companies and circulate false
checks; but the present customs could never have arisen if the general
public had not justified this blind confidence. It is true that many a
bank cashier robs the treasury; but it is much more characteristic to
see a newspaper boy, when one gives him five cents by mistake, run after
one in order to return the right amount. It is true that many an Irish
politician has entered politics in order to steal from the public funds,
but it is a more characteristic fact that everywhere letters too large
to go in the letter-box are laid on top of it in the confidence that
they will not be stolen. A school-boy who lies to the teacher often has,
in Europe, the sympathy of the whole class, but not in America; children
despise a lie, and in this sense the true American remains a child
through life.
As the American education makes for honesty, so it does for
self-sacrifice, which is the finest result of the Puritan idea of
self-perfection. The ascetic sacrifice for the mere sake of sacrifice
goes against the American love of activity, although if the many New
England popular tales are really taken from life, even this way of
pleasing God is not uncommon in the North-Eastern States. But all
classes of the population are willing to make sacrifices for an end,
however abstract and impersonal. The spirit of sacrifice is not genuine
when it parades itself before the public; it works in secret. But
anybody who watches what goes on quietly, who notes the life of the
teacher, the minister, and the physician in all country districts, who
sees how parents sometimes suffer in order to give their children a
better education than they themselves had, will be surprised at the
infinite and patient sacrifices which are daily made by hard-working
people. The spirit of quiet forbearance, so little noticeable on the
surface, is clear to every one who looks somewhat deeply into American
life.
Thus the more dangerous forms of missionary activity have always
attracted Americans; and nowhere else has the nurse’s profession, which
requires so much patience, attracted so many women. All the world knows
the sacrificing spirit which was shown during the war against slavery,
and there is no less of that spirit in times of peace. Every day one
observes the readiness of men to risk their own lives in order to save
those of others; and one is surprised to see that the public understands
this as a matter of course. The more modest and naturally more frequent
form of self-sacrifice consists in giving of one’s own possessions,
whether a small sum to the contribution-box of the Salvation Army, or a
present of millions to benevolent institutions. It is true that private
benefactions are open to interpretation; sometimes they are made for the
sake of social recognition, more often they are merely superficial,
inconsiderate, or ill-timed, and therefore they are often detrimental to
the community. But after all allowances, the volume of contributions to
all benevolent purposes is simply astonishing; and here, too, the
historical development shows that of all motives the religious has been
the strongest.
Yet in all these movements the religious motive, the soul’s salvation,
has been only one among other influences that are rather social.
American philanthropy is perhaps more often religiously coloured than it
is in Germany; but the more benefaction comes to be in the hands of
organizations with a trained administration, the more the social and
economic factors appear. In the same way, Sunday observance and
temperance have come to be social problems which are almost distinct
from ecclesiastical considerations; and if the American is honest,
upright, and pure, he himself scarcely knows to-day whether he is so as
a Christian or as a gentleman. Questions of morality point everywhere
from religious to social considerations.
PART FOUR
SOCIAL LIFE
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
_The Spirit of Self-Assertion_
On landing in New York, the European expects new impressions and
surprises—most of all, from the evidences of general equality in this
New World. Some have heard, with misgivings, of the horrors of upstart
equality; but more look with glad expectancy on the country where no
traditions of caste impose distinctions between human beings, and where
the Declaration of Independence has solemnly recognized as a fundamental
truth that all men are born free and equal. Those who fear the equality
are generally soon put at ease. They find that social classes, even in
New York, are nicely distinguished; no work-stained overalls are found
where a frock coat is in order. The other travellers are just as quickly
disillusioned in their hopes of equality. It is a short distance from
the luxury of Fifth Avenue to miserable tenement districts;—an abrupt
social contrast, in all its Old World sharpness and hardness.
If the newcomer, then, in his surprise turns to those who know the
country, his questions will be differently answered by different
persons. The average citizen will try to save the reputation of
equality. No doubt, he says, equality rules in America—equality before
the law, and equality of political rights. And such average patriot
would be surprised to hear that this sort of equality is found in Europe
also. But perhaps our newcomer chances on a mind of less typical habit.
This one may reply, with the incomparably sly wink of the thoughtful
American, that there is no more equality in America than in Europe. We
indulge in such glittering generalities in our Declaration of
Independence, to give our good local politicians a congenial theme on
public holidays, and so that badly paid shop clerks may solace
themselves with such brave assertions as a compensation for their small
pay. But we are not so foolish as to run amuck of nature, which after
all has very wisely made men unlike one another.
But both replies are in a way false, or, at least, do not touch the root
of the matter. It is undeniable that one can no longer speak of an
equality of wealth or means of enjoyment, or even, in spite of
occasional modest claims to the contrary, of an equal opportunity for
education and development. In spite of this, it is a mistake to suppose
that on this account the spirit of equality is found only in judicial
and political spheres. There is another, a social equality, of which
most Americans are not conscious, because they do not know and can
hardly imagine what life would be without such equality; they do not
meditate on social equality, because, unlike political or legal
equality, it is not abstractly formulative. The American is first aware
of it after living some time in Europe, and the European grasps the idea
only after a serious study of American life.
The social sentiment of equality, although variously tinged yet
virtually the same throughout the United States, in nowise militates
against social distinctions which result from difference of education,
wealth, occupation, and achievement. But it does demand that all these
different distinctions shall be considered external to the real
personality. Fundamentally, all Americans are equal. The statement must
not be misunderstood. It by no means coincides with the religious
distinction that men are equal in the eyes of God, and it is not to be
associated with any ethical ideas of life. Equality before God, and the
equal worth of a moral act, whether done by the greatest or the humblest
of God’s children, are not social conceptions; they are significant only
in religious, and not in social, life. And these two spheres can
everywhere be separated. It can even be said that, as profoundly as
religion pervades every-day life in America, the characteristic
principle of equality in the social community is wholly independent of
the ethics of the New Testament.
It is still less a metaphysical conception. The American popular mind
does not at all sympathize with the philosophical idea that
individuality is only an appearance, and that we are all fundamentally
one being. The American thinks pluralistically, and brings to his
metaphysics a firm belief in the absolute significance of the
individual. And finally, the American principle of equality which we
wish to grasp is not rationally humanitarian; whether all human beings
are really equal is left out of account. It is a question actually of
this one social community living together in the United States and
having to regulate its social affairs.
Let us suppose that a group of similarly employed good friends were on
an excursion, and that the young people for the sake of diversion were
agreed to represent for a while various sorts of human occupation—one is
to play millionaire, another beggar, still others judge, teacher,
artisan, labourer, high official, and valet. Each one plays his part
with the greatest abandon; one commands and the other obeys, one
dictates and the other trembles. And yet behind it all there is a
pleasant feeling that at bottom they are all just alike, and that the
whole game is worth while merely because they know that one is in fact
as good as another. If a real beggar or servant were to come into the
circle, there would be no more fun, and the game would be wholly
meaningless. Strange as it may sound, this feeling is at the bottom of
social life in America. Every one says to himself: All of us who inhabit
this incomparable country are at bottom comrades; one bakes bread and
the other eats it, one sits on the coachman’s box and the other rides
inside; but this is all because we have agreed so to assign the rôles.
One commands and the other obeys, but with a mutual understanding that
this merely happens to be the most appropriate distribution of functions
under the circumstances in which we happen to be placed.
The real man, it is felt, is not affected by this differentiation, and
it would not be worth while either to command or to obey if all men did
not tacitly understand that each esteems the other as an equal. A
division of labour is necessary, but as long as any one does the work
apportioned to him he belongs of course to the fraternal circle, quite
as well as the one who by reason of industrial conditions or natural
talents comes to take a more distinguished or agreeable position.
Whoever makes this claim honestly for himself assumes that every one
else does likewise. On the other hand, whosoever thinks himself equal to
those above him, but superior to those beneath him, conceives external
differences to be intrinsic, and makes thus a presumptuous demand for
himself. The man who truly sees social equality as a real part of the
social contract, will feel toward those above as toward those below him.
He will make his own claims good by the very act of recognizing the
claims of others. The spirit of social self-assertion requires the
intrinsic equality of all one’s neighbours who belong to the social
community in question.
So long as one seeks equality by trying to imitate one’s more wealthy,
more educated, or more powerful neighbours and trying to gloze over the
differences, or by consciously lowering one’s self to the level of the
poor, the uninfluential, and the uneducated, and either by spiritual or
by material aid obliterating the distinction, one is not really
believing in equality, but is considering the outer distinctions as
something actual. Indeed, the zeal to wipe out distinctions is the most
obvious admission that one feels actual differences to exist in the
social fabric. Where the spirit of self-assertion, with the recognition
of one’s neighbour as an equal social being, prevails, there will be no
lack of striving for outward similarity, of trying to help one’s self
along, and of helping others up to one’s own position; but this is
looked on as a technical matter and not as referring intrinsically to
the participants in the social game.
It is doubtful whether a European can fully appreciate this social point
of view, because he is too apt to distort the idea into an ethical one.
He is ready to abstract artificially from all social differences, and to
put the ethical idea of moral equality in the stead of social
differentiation. The social system is secondary then to the moral
system, as in fact religion actually teaches. The American, however,
goes in just the opposite direction. He presupposes, as a matter of
course, that the citizens of the United States are socially equal,
whether they live in the White House or work in the coal mine; and this
point of view is not dependent on any ethical theory, but is itself the
basis of such a theory. When we were speaking of the influence of
religion on morality, we especially emphasized the fact that religious
ethics are everywhere complemented by a purely social ethic, and now we
meet this new form of ethics. Religion requires a morality of which the
principle is clearly, though somewhat derogatorily, designated in
philosophical discussions as the morality of submission, and which finds
its counterpart in the ethical theories of moral lordship—the forcible
and conscious suppression of the weak. Now the American constructs a
morality of comradeship which is as far from the morality of submission
as from that of lordship; which is unlike either the morality of the
pietist based on the religious idea of immortality, or the morality of
Nietzsche, based on biological exigencies. This morality of comradeship
is based entirely on the idea of society.
This does not mean that it is a question of fulfilling moral
requirements in order to escape social difficulties, or to gain social
advantages, but of recognizing this morality simply as a social
requirement. Such actions may be called moral because they are unselfish
and arise from no other motive than that of the inner desire; and still
they are not, in the ordinary sense, moral because they are not
universally valid, and refer no further than the circle of the special
social community. They may be compared to the requirements which arise
in some communities out of a peculiar conception of honour; but the
society here is a whole nation, without caste and without distinction.
And, moreover, an idea of honour gets its force from the self-assertion
of a personality, while the social morality of the American arises in a
demand for the recognition of another. The fundamental feeling is that
the whole social interplay would have no meaning, and social ambition
and success would yield no pleasure, if it were not clearly understood
that every other member of the social community is equal to one’s self,
and that he has the absolute right to make such a claim.
The criminal and the man without honour have forfeited that right; they
are excluded from the community and cut off from the social game. But
distinctions of position, of education, of heredity, and of property,
have nothing to do with this right. If we are to strive for social
success, we must be perfectly sure at the outset that we are all
comrades, participating in the various labours of the great gay world
with mutual approval and mutual esteem; and we must show that we believe
this, by our actions. And because here it is not a question of rigorous
morality, but rather of the moral consequences of social ideals, the
ethical goes by inappreciable steps into the ethically indifferent, into
purely social customs and habits; and in many cases into evils and
abuses that follow from the same social ideals. We may picture to
ourselves the salient traits which are essential to this spirit of
social self-assertion.