everybody goes about his business, without feeling oppressed by those
above nor exalted by those beneath him. He feels himself an equal among
equals. There is no condescension to those beneath nor servility to
those above. The typical American feels himself in every social
situation self-assured and equal; he is simply master of himself, polite
but frank, reserved but always kind. He detests patronage and
condescension as much as servility and obsequiousness. For condescension
emphasizes the difference in the rank, and presumes to challenge a
possible forgetting of this difference by suggesting that both the
persons do recognize the distinction as intrinsic. A man who asserts his
true equality and expects in every other honourable man the same
self-assertion, scarcely understands how purely technical differences of
social position can affect the inner relations of man to man.
One who grows up in such a social atmosphere does not lose his feeling
of assurance on coming into quite a different society. Archibald Forbes,
the Englishman, describes somewhere the American war correspondent,
MacGahan, who was the son of an Ohio farmer, as he appeared in a Russian
camp. “Never before,” writes Forbes, “have I seen a young man appear so
confident among high officers and officials. There was no trace in his
manner of impudence or presumption. It was as if he had conceived the
matter on a single principle: I am a man—a man who, in an honourable way
and for a specific purpose, which you know or which I will gladly tell
you, needs something which you are best able to give me—information, a
pass, or something of the sort; therefore I ask it of you. It is
indifferent to the logic of the situation whether you are a small
lieutenant or a general in command, a messenger boy, or an imperial
chancellor.” And some one else has added, “MacGahan could do anything
with Ignatieff; he calmly paid court to Mme. Ignatieff, patronized
Prince Gortschakoff, and gave a friendly nod to the Grand Duke
Nicholas.”
It is not surprising that Englishmen are the ones who feel this trait of
the Americans most markedly. England, which is most similar to America
politically, is, in this respect of real belief in social equality, most
dissimilar; and in curious contrast to Russia, which is politically the
very furthest removed from America, but which in its common life has
developed most of all a feeling of social equality. And still the
American feeling is very different from the Russian. In the Russian man,
all the deeper sensibilities are coloured by a religious conception; he
accounts himself at bottom, neither better nor worse than the most
miserable: whereas the American feels, on the contrary, that he is at
bottom not inferior to the very best. The Russian sense of equality
pulls down and the American exalts.
As for the Englishman, Muirhead relates as follows in his book, “The
Land of Contrasts”: “There is something wonderfully rare and delicate in
the finest blossoms of American civilization—something that can hardly
be paralleled in Europe. The mind that has been brought up in an
atmosphere theoretically free from all false standards and conventional
distinctions acquires a singularly unbiased, detached, absolute, purely
human way of viewing life. In Matthew Arnold’s phrase, ‘it sees life
steadily and sees it whole’; just this attitude seems unattainable in
England; neither in my reading nor my personal experience have I
encountered what I mean elsewhere than in America.... The true-born
American is absolutely incapable of comprehending the sense of
difference between a lord and a plebeian that is forced on the most
philosophical among ourselves by the mere pressure of the social
atmosphere. It is for him a fourth dimension of space; it may be talked
about, but practically it has no existence.... The British radical
philosopher may attain the height of saying, ‘With a great sum obtained
I this freedom’; the American may honestly reply, ‘But I was
free-born.’”
But what Muirhead thus says of the colour of the finest flowers is true,
if we look more closely, of the entire flora; it may not be so delicate
and exquisite as in these flowers; it is often mixed with cruder
colours, but every plant on American soil, if it is not just an ordinary
weed, has a little of that dye.
It is not correct to suppose that inequalities of wealth work directly
against this feeling. In spite of all efforts and ambitions toward
wealth and the tendencies to ostentation, the American lacks just that
which makes the possession of property a distinction of personal
worth—the offensive lack of consideration toward inferiors and the envy
of superiors. As gladly as the American gets the best and dearest that
his purse can buy, he feels no desire to impress the difference on those
who are less prosperous. He does not care to outdo the poorer man; his
luxury signifies his personal pleasure in expenditure as an indication
of his success in the world. But so far as he thinks of those who are
looking on, it is of those richer persons whom he would like to imitate,
and not of those who can afford less than himself.
Envy was not planted in the American soul. Envy is not directed at the
possession, but at the possessor; and therefore, it recognizes that the
possessor is made better by what he owns. A person who asserts himself
strains every nerve to improve his own condition, but never envies those
who are more favoured. And envy would be to him as great a degradation
as pure servility. Undoubtedly here is one of the most effective checks
to socialism. Socialism may not spring directly from envy, but a people
given to envy are very ready to listen to socialism; and in America
socialism remains a foreign cult, which is preached to deaf ears. A man
who feels himself inferior, and who envies his wealthier fellows, would
be glad to bring about an artificial equality by equalizing ownership:
whereas the man who accounts himself equal to every one else is ready to
concede the external inequality which lends fresh impetus and courageous
endeavour to his existence; and this the more as the accumulation of
capital becomes an obviously technical matter, not immediately
contributory to the enjoyment of life. The billionaire enjoys no more
than the millionaire, but merely works with a more complicated and
powerful apparatus. Even direct economic dependence does not depress the
spirit of self-assertion. We shall have later to speak, indeed, of
strong opposite tendencies, and to speak of social differentiation; but
this trait remains everywhere. It is much more strongly in evidence in
town and country than in the large city, and much more in the West than
in the East.
The tokens of greeting are thoroughly characteristic. An American doffs
his hat to ladies out of respect to the sex; but men meet one another
without that formality, and the finer differences in the nod of the
head, expression of the eyes, and movements of the hat indicate the
degree of personal familiarity and liking, but not of social position.
Position is something technical, professional, and external, which is
not in question when two men meet on the street. They greet because they
know each other, and in this mutual relation of personal acquaintance
they are merely equal human beings, and not the representatives of
professional grades. The careful German adjustment of the arc through
which the hat is carried and of the angle to which the body bends, in
deference to social position, strikes the American as nonsensical. The
fundamental disregard of titles and orders is, of course, closely
connected with such a feeling. This has two sides, and has particularly
its exceptions, which we shall not fail to speak of; but, on the whole,
titles and orders are under the ban. The American feels too clearly that
every form of exaltation is at the same time a degradation, for it is
only when all are equal that no one is inferior, and so soon as some one
is distinguished, the principle of the inequality is admitted and he in
turn subordinates himself to others.
It would be unfair to draw the conclusion from this that Americans hate
every sort of subordination. On the contrary, one who watches American
workmen at their labour, or studies the organization of great business
houses, or the playing of games under the direction of a captain, knows
that for a specific purpose American subordination can become absolute.
The much-boasted American talent for organization could not have been so
brilliantly confirmed if it had not found everywhere an absolute
willingness for conscious subordination. But the foot-ball player does
not feel himself inferior to the captain whose directions he follows.
The profound objection to subordination comes out only where it is not a
question of dividing up labour, but of the real classification and
grading of men. It is naturally strongest, therefore, in regard to
hereditary titles where the distinction clearly cannot be based on the
personal merits of the inheritor.
One of the most interesting consequences of this feeling is very
noticeable to a stranger. The American thinks that any kind of work
which is honourable is in principle suitable for everybody. To be sure,
this looks differently in theory and in practice; the banker does not
care to be a commercial traveller, nor the commercial traveller a
bar-tender, nor the bar-tender a street-cleaner; and this not merely
because he regards his own work as pleasanter, but as more respectable.
Nevertheless, it is at once conspicuous with what readiness every useful
sort of labour is recognized as honourable; and while the European of
the better classes is vexed by the query how one can work and
nevertheless remain respectable, the American finds it much harder to
understand how one can remain respectable without working. The way in
which thousands of young students, both men and women, support
themselves during their years of study is typical. The German student
would feel that some sort of teaching or writing was the only work
suitable to him; at the utmost he would undertake type-writing. But we
have seen in connection with the universities that the American student
in narrow circumstances is not afraid during the summer vacations to
work as porter in a hotel, or as horse-car driver, in order to stay a
year longer at the university. Or perhaps, during the student year, he
will earn a part of his board by taking care of a furnace. And none of
the sons of millionaires who sit beside him in the lecture rooms will
look down on him on that account. The thoughtless fellow who heaps up
debts is despised, but not the day-labourer’s son, who delivers milk in
the early morning in order to devote his day to science.
This is everywhere the background of social conceptions. No honourable
work is a discredit, because the real social personality is not touched
by the casual role which may be assumed in the economic fabric.
Therefore it is quite characteristic that the only labour which is
really disliked is such as involves immediate personal dependence, such
as that of servants. The chamber-maid has generally much easier work
than the shop girl; yet all women flock to the shops and factories, and
few care to go into household service. Almost all servants are
immigrants from Ireland, Scotland, Sweden, and Germany, except the
negroes and the Chinese of the West. Even the first generation of
children born in the country decline to become servants. With the single
individual, it is of course a matter of imitating his comrades and
following general prejudices; but these prejudices have grown logically
out of the social ideals. The working-man professionally serves industry
and civilization, while the servant appears to have no other end than
complying with the will of another person. The working-man adjusts
himself to an abstract task, quite as his employer; while the servant
sells a part of his free-will and therefore his social equality, to
another man.
Most notorious is the fixed idea that blacking shoes is the lowest of
all menial services; and this is an hallucination which afflicts not
only those born in the country, but even the immigrant from Northern
Europe, as soon as he passes the Statue of Liberty in New York harbour.
The problem of getting shoes blacked would be serious were it not for
the several million negroes in the country and the heavy immigration
from Southern Europe which does not get the instant prejudice against
shoe-polish. But the theoretical problem of why servants will gladly
work very hard, but strike when it comes to blacking shoes, is still not
solved. There is possibly some vague idea that blacking shoes is a
symbol of grovelling at some one’s feet, and therefore involves the
utmost sacrifice of one’s self-respect.
Closely connected with this is the American aversion against giving or
accepting fees. Any one giving a fee in a street-car would not be
understood, and there are few things so unsympathetic to the American
who travels in Europe as the way in which the lower classes look for an
obolus in return for every trivial service or attention. A small boy who
accompanies a stranger for some distance through a village street in
order to point out the way, would feel insulted if he were offered a
coin for his kindness. The waiters in the large hotels are less offended
by tips, for they have adopted the custom brought over by European
waiters; but this custom has not spread much beyond the large cities. It
is, in general, still true that the real American will accept pay only
in so far as he can justly demand it for his labour. Everything above
that makes him dependent on the kindness of some one else, and is
therefore not a professional, but a personal matter, and for the moment
obliterates social equality.
Just as any sort of work which does not involve the sacrifice of the
worker’s free-will is suitable for every one, so the individual is very
much less identified with his occupation than he is in Europe. He very
often changes his occupation. A clergyman who is tired of the pulpit
goes into a mercantile employment, and a merchant who has acquired some
new interests proceeds to study until he is proficient in that field; a
lawyer enters the industrial field, a manufacturer enters politics, a
book dealer undertakes a retail furniture business, and a letter-carrier
becomes a restaurant keeper. The American does not feel that a man is
made by the accidents of his industrial position, but that the real man
puts his professional clothes on or lays them off without being
internally affected. The belief in social equality minimizes to the
utmost the significance of a change of occupation; and it may be that
the well-known versatility and adaptability of the American are mainly
due to this fact. For he is so much more conscious than any European
that a change of environment in nowise alters his personality, and
therefore requires no really new internal adjustment, which would be
difficult always, but only an outward change—the mastery of a new
technique.
A foreigner is most astonished at these changes of occupation when they
come after a sudden reverse of fortune. The readiness and quietness with
which an American takes such a thing would be absolutely impossible, if
the spirit of self-assertion had not taught him through his whole life
that outward circumstances do not make the man. If a millionaire loses
his property to-day, his wife is ready to-morrow to open a
boarding-house; circumstances have changed, and as it has been her lot
in the past to conduct her salon in a palace, it is now her business to
provide a good noon-day meal for young clerks. She enjoyed the first a
great deal more, and yet it too brought its burdens. The change is one
of occupation, and does not change her personality. The onlooker is
again and again reminded of actors who play their part; they appear to
live in every rôle for the moment that they are playing it, but it is
really indifferent to them at bottom whether they are called on to play
in a cloak of ermine or in blue-jeans. One is as good as the other, even
when the parts require one to swagger about and the other to sweat.
If the members of the community feel themselves really equal, they will
lay special importance, in their social intercourse, on all such factors
as likewise do not accentuate external differences, but bind man to man
without regard to position, wealth, or culture. This is the reason of
the remarkable hold which sport has on American life. The American likes
sport of every sort, especially such games as foot-ball and base-ball,
rowing, wrestling, tennis and golf and polo, in all of which bodily
exercise is used in competition. After these in favour come hunting,
fishing, yachting, riding, swimming, and gymnastic exercises. The sport
of mountain-climbing is less popular, and in general the American is not
a great walker.
American sport is, indeed, combined with many unsportsmanlike elements.
In the first place, betting has taken on such proportions that financial
considerations are unduly influential, and the identification of
opposing teams with special clubs, universities, or cities too often
brings it about, that the sportsmanlike desire to see the best side win
is often made secondary to the unsportsmanlike desire to see one’s own
side win at any cost. And yet even the fervour with which the spectators
on the grand-stand manifest their partisanship is only another
expression of the fact that the average American is intensely moved by
sport; and this interest is so great as to overcome all social
distinctions and create, for the time being, an absolutely equal
fellow-feeling.
Base-ball is the most popular game, and is played during the spring and
summer. The autumn game of foot-ball is too complicated, and has become
too much of a “science” to be a thoroughly popular game. In the huge
crowds which flock to see a university foot-ball game, the larger part
is not always aware of what is happening at every moment, and can
appreciate only the more brilliant plays. Tennis and golf are too
expensive to be popular; and in golf, moreover, the success of a player
is too independent of the skill of his antagonist. Water sports are out
of the question in many localities. But every lad in city or country
plays base-ball. It can be played everywhere, can be easily followed by
spectators, and combines the interest of team work with the more naïve
interest in the brilliant single play. It is said that on every warm
Saturday afternoon, base-ball matches are played in more than thirty
thousand places, before audiences of some five million amateurs in
sport. Around the grounds sit labouring men, clergymen, shop-boys,
professors, muckers, and millionaires, all participating with a
community of interest and feeling of equality as if they were worlds
removed from the petty business where social differences are considered.
There is only one more sovereign power than the spirit of sport in
breaking down all social distinctions; it is American humour. We could
not speak of political or intellectual life without emphasizing this
irrepressible humour; but we must not forget it for a moment in speaking
of social life, for its influence pervades every social situation. The
only question is whether it is the humour which overcomes every
disturbance of the social equilibrium and so restores the consciousness
of free and equal self-assertion, or whether it is this consciousness
which fosters humour and seeks expression in a good-natured lack of
respect. No immoderation, no improper presumption, and no pomposity can
survive the first humorous comment, and the American does not wait long
for this. The soap-bubble is pricked amid general laughter, and equality
is restored. Whether it is in a small matter or whether in a question of
national importance, a latent humour pervades all social life.
Not a single American newspaper appears in the morning without some
political joke or whimsical comment, a humorous story, or a satirical
article; and those who are familiar with American papers and then look
into the European newspaper, find the greatest contrast to be in the
absence of humour. And the same is true of daily life; the American is
always ready for a joke and has one always on his lips, however dry the
subject of discussion may be, and however diverse the social “position”
of those present. A happy humorous turn will remind them all that they
are equal fellow-citizens, and that they are not to take their different
functions in life too solemnly, nor to suppose that their varied outward
circumstances introduce any real inequality. As soon as Americans hear a
good story, they come at once to an understanding, and it is well-known
that many political personalities have succeeded because of their wit,
even if its quantity was more than its quality.
American humour is most typically uttered with great seriousness; the
most biting jest or the most extravagant nonsense is brought out so
demurely as not at all to suggest the real intent. The American is a
master at this, and often remarks the Englishman’s incapacity to follow
him. The familiar American criticism of their English cousins is, in
spite of _Punch_, certainly exaggerated—as if there were no humour at
all in the country which produced Dickens. But it cannot be denied that
American humour to-day is fresher and more spontaneous. And this may be
in large part due to the irrepressible feeling of equality which so
carries humour into every social sphere. The assurance of this feeling
also makes the American ready to caricature himself or his very best
friend. But it is necessary especially to observe the masses, the
participants in a festival, citizens on voting day, popular crowds on
the streets or in halls, in order to feel how all-powerful their humour
is. A good word thrown in makes all of them forget their political
differences, and an amusing occurrence repays them for every
disappointment. They say, Let’s forget the foolish quarrel about trivial
differences; we would rather be good-natured, now that we are reminded,
in spite of all differences, of our social equality.
Now, out of this feeling of equality there spring far-reaching duties.
Especially there are those which concern one’s self, and these are the
same as proceeded from the Puritan spirit of self-perfection. They are
the same requirements, although they are expressed in different ethical
language and somewhat differently accentuated. The fundamental impulse
in this group of feelings is wholly un-Puritan and entirely social. I
assert myself to be equal to all others who are worthy of esteem, and
therefore I must recognize for myself all the duties which those who are
richer, more educated, and more influential impose on themselves; in
short, I must behave like a gentleman. The motto, which certainly has
nothing to do with religion, is _noblesse oblige_; but the nobility
consists in being a citizen of America, and as such subordinate to no
man. The duties which accrue are, however, quite similar to religious
obligations. The gentleman requires of himself firstly self-control and
social discipline. Also in this connection we find a sexual purity which
is not known on the Continent; one may sit in jovial men’s society after
dinner with cigars around the fireplace a hundred times without ever
hearing an unclean story: and if a young fellow tried to boast to his
friends of his amorous adventures, in the European manner, he would be
snubbed. Nowhere in the world is a young girl so safe in the protection
of a young man.