profession, and yet it is realized from the highest to the lowest
circles of society, and to a degree which fifty years ago would have
greatly antagonized at least the entire northern part of the country. In
Washington, the exclusive hostess invites only the wives of senators,
but not those of representatives, to her table; and in the Bowery,
according to the accounts, the children of the peanut vendor do not
deign to play with the children of the hurdy-gurdy man, who are vastly
more humble. The Four Hundred in the large city quietly but resolutely
decline to invite newly made millionaires to dinner; and the seamstress,
who comes to the house to sew or mend, refuses to sit down at table with
the servants. Already, in the large cities, the children of better
families are not sent to public, but to private schools. The railroads
have only one class of passenger coach; but the best society declines
that, and rides in the Pullman cars. The same distinctions hold
everywhere, and not merely as a matter of greater luxury for the rich,
but as a real social distinction. At the theatre, the person who
socially belongs in the parquet prefers to sit in one of the worst seats
there to going into the balcony, where he does not belong, even though
he might hear and see better.
The increasing sympathy with badges, costumes, and uniforms—in short,
with the symbols of differentiation—is very typical. There was a time in
which a free American would have refused to wear a special livery; but
to-day nobody objects, from the elevator boy to the judge, to wear the
marks of office. The holiday processions of working-men and veterans
become gayer and gayer. Those who have seen the recent inaugurations of
the presidents of Yale and Columbia have witnessed parades of hundreds
of gay and, it seemed, partly fantastic costumes, such as are now worn
at every university celebration in America—symbolic emblems which would
have seemed impossible in this monotonous democracy twenty years ago.
The inner life of universities gives also lively indication of social
cleavage. In Harvard and Yale, there are exclusive clubs of the social
leaders among the students. It is true that hundreds of students go
through the university without paying any attention to such things; but
there are almost as many more whose chief ambition is to be elected into
an exclusive circle, and who would feel compensated by no sort of
scientific success if they were disappointed in their aspirations for
club life. In the same way many families which have become wealthy in
the West move to New York or Boston, in the vain hope of breaking into
society. The social difference between near-lying residential sections
is, indeed, much greater than in Europe; and real estate on a street
which comes to be occupied by socially inferior elements rapidly
depreciates, because the inhabitants of any residential section must
stand on the same plane.
The transformations which the place of the President in public
consciousness has gone through are very characteristic. A newly elected
President is to-day inaugurated with almost monarchical pomp, and he
reviews the Navy, as he never would have thought of doing some years
ago. He sits down first at the table and is served first. An invitation
to the White House is felt as a command which takes precedence over any
other engagement. All this has happened recently. It was not long ago
that persons refused an invitation to the White House, because of
previous engagements. In social life all men were merely “gentlemen,”
regardless of the capacities which they had during business hours, and
in matters of invitation one visited the host who was first to invite
one. All this is different now.
There is even some indication of the use of titles. Twenty years ago
students addressed their professors with a mister, but to-day more often
with the title of professor; and the abuse of military titles which goes
on in the West amuses the whole country. In the army itself aristocratic
tendencies are strongly manifest, but only here and there come to
general notice. Contrary to the spirit of official appointments, men are
not advanced so rapidly who work up from a socially inferior level, but
the social élite is favoured. Etiquette in social life is becoming more
complicated; there is more formality, more symbolism in social
intercourse. A nation which pays every year more than six million
dollars for cut roses and four millions for carnations has certainly
learned to decorate social life. There is even more etiquette in
professional life. The professional behaviour of lawyers, physicians,
and scholars is in some respects, at least in the East, more narrowly
prescribed than it is even in Europe.
Looking at the situation as a whole, one sees the power of this new
spirit, not so much in these petty symptoms as in the great movements of
which we have spoken at length in other connections. There is the spirit
of imperialism in foreign politics, and it cannot expand in its pride
without working against the old democratic tendencies. There is the
spirit of militarism, triumphantly proud of the victorious army and
navy, demanding strict discipline and blind obedience to the commander.
There is the spirit of racial pride, which persecutes the negro and the
Chinese, and hinders the immigration of Eastern and Southern Europeans.
There is the spirit of centralization, exalting the power of the state
above the conflicting desires of the individual, and in economic matters
hoping more from the intelligent initiative of the state as a whole than
from the free competition of individuals, and assigning to the
Federation tremendous undertakings, such as the irrigation of the West
and the cutting of the Panama Canal. There is the spirit of aristocracy,
tempting more and more the academically cultured and the wealthy into
the political arena. There is the spirit of social differentiation
coming into art and science, and bringing to the life of the nation
ideals of beauty and of knowledge which are far above the vulgar
comprehension. Eclectic taste is winning a victory over popular taste.
The judgment of the most learned, the refinement of the most educated,
and the wisdom of the most mature are being made prominent before the
public mind. We have already seen how this new spirit grows and unfolds,
and how the one-sidedness and eccentricities of political, economic,
intellectual, and artistic democracy are being outgrown day by day, and
how the America of Roosevelt’s time is shaping itself in accordance with
the civilizations of Western Europe.
There are some who behold this development with profound concern. That
which has made America’s greatness, which seemed to be her mission in
the world, was the belief in the ethical worth of the individual. The
doctrines of self-determination, self-initiative, and self-assertion,
and the civilization which rested on such a foundation, have nothing to
hope and much to fear from social differentiation and imperialism.
Aristocratic tendencies appear to undermine this ethical democracy, and
the imperialistic symbols of our day mock the traditions of the past.
There will certainly be many reactions against these aristocratic
tendencies; perhaps they will be only small movements working through
the press and at the ballot-box against the encroachments on the spirit
of the past and against the expansion of office, and hindering those
aristocratic tendencies which depart too far from the traditions of the
masses. Perhaps, some day, there will be a great reaction. Perhaps the
tremendous power possessed by the labouring classes in the country will
lead to battles for ethical principles, in which the modern æsthetic
development will be reversed; it would not be the first time on American
soil that ethical reform has produced social deterioration, for “reform”
means always the victory of naked, equalizing logic over the
conservative forces which represent historic differentiation. So the
Revolution abolished the patrician society of New England, whose
aristocratic members survive in the portraits of Copley; and the day may
come when trades-unions will be victorious over that aristocracy which
Sargent is now painting. Even the reform which emancipated the slaves
destroyed a true and chivalrous aristocracy in the South.
But it is more likely that the steady development will go on, and that
there will be a harmonious co-operation between the fundamental
democratic forces and the lesser aristocratic ones. It cannot be doubted
that that democracy of which we have aimed to describe the real intent,
will remain the fundamental force under the American Constitution; and
however strict military discipline may become, however aristocratic the
social differentiations, however imperialistic the politics, however
esoteric art and science, undoubtedly the greatest question put by every
American to his brother will be: “What do you, purely as an individual,
amount to?” The ethical rights and the ethical duties of the individual
will be the ultimate standard, and aristocratic pomp will always be
suppressed in America whenever it commences to restrain the passion for
justice and for self-determination.
The most serious Americans are in the position of Tantalus; they see, in
a thousand ways and at a thousand places, that a certain advance could
be made if somehow the vulgar masses could be got out of the way; they
see how civic and national ends could be attained almost without trouble
by the ample means of the country, if as in Europe, the most intelligent
minds could be put in control. They want all this most seriously; and
yet they cannot have it, because in the bottom of their hearts they
really do not wish it. They feel too profoundly that the gain would be
only apparent, that the moral force of the nation would be sacrificed if
a single citizen should lose the confidence that he himself is
responsible for the nation which he helps to guide and to make. The easy
attainment of success is only a secondary matter; the purity of the
individual will is the main consideration. With this stands or falls
American culture. Development is first of all an ethical problem; just
because the world is incomplete, is hard, and unbeautiful, and
everywhere needs to be transformed by human labour, just on that account
human life is inexhaustibly valuable. This is the fundamental thought,
and will remain so as long as the New World remains true to its ideals.
The finer notes are only an overtone in the great chord; it is only
faintly discerned that the world is valuable when it is beautiful—after
it has been mastered and completed.
In this opposition between the ethical and the æsthetic, between the
democratic and the aristocratic, America will never sacrifice her
fundamental conviction, will never follow aristocratic tendencies
further than where they are needed to correct the dangerous
one-sidedness and the excrescences of democratic individualism; at
least, never so far that any danger will threaten the democracy. The
pride of the true American is, once and for all, not the American
country, nor yet American achievements, but the American personality.
One who seeks the profoundest reality that history has to offer, not in
the temporal unfolding of events, but in the interplay of human wills,
will agree with the American’s judgment of himself. Looking at the
people of the New World even from afar, one will find the fascination,
novelty, and greatness of the American world mission, not in what the
American has accomplished, but in what he desires and will desire.
Nevertheless, this will not seem strange or foreign to any German. In
the depths of his soul, he has himself a similar play of desires. In the
course of history, reverence and faithfulness developed in the German
soul more strongly than the individualistic craving for
self-determination and self-assertion; aristocratic love of beauty and
truth developed before the democratic spirit of self-initiative. But
to-day, in modern Germany, these very instincts are being aroused, just
as in modern America those forces are growing which have long dominated
the German soul.
The American still puts the higher value on the personal, the German on
the over-personal; the American on the intrinsic value of the creating
will, the German on the intrinsic value of the absolute ideal. But every
day sees the difference reduced, and brings the two nations nearer to a
similar attitude of mind. Moreover, both of these fundamental tendencies
are equally idealistic, and both of these nations are therefore destined
to understand and to esteem each other, mutually to extend their
friendship, to emulate each other, and to work together, so that in the
confused play of temporal forces the intrinsically valuable shall be
victorious over the temporary and fleeting, the ideal over the
accidental. For both nations feel together, in the depths of their
being, that in order to give meaning to life man must believe in
timeless ideals.
THE END
THE McCLURE PRESS, NEW YORK
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
1. Corrected “Kûnste blûhen” to “Künste blühen” on p. 237.
2. Silently corrected typographical errors.
3. Retained anachronistic and non-standard spellings as printed.
4. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.