THE FIRST AMERICAN CIVILIZATION
The full record of J.W.'s commercial career must he left to some other
chronicler, but an occasional reference to it cannot be omitted from
these pages.
Pastor Drury's brother Albert, a Saint Louis business man who knew the
old city by the Mississippi from the levees to the University, was a
citizen who loved his city so well that he did not need to join a
Boosters' Club to prove it. The two Drurys saw each other, as both
averred, all too seldom. On the infrequent occasions when they met, as,
for instance, during a certain church federation gathering which had
brought the minister down to Saint Louis from Delafield, their
"visiting" was a joyous thing to see.
Lounging in the City Club one day after lunch, with every other subject
of common interest at least touched on, Brother Albert turned to Brother
Walter: "And how goes the church and parish of Delafield? You told me
long ago that you wanted to stay there ten years; it's more than eight
now. Does the ten-year mark yet stand?"
"Yes, Al., it still stands, if nothing should interfere," said Walter.
He had never told his brother the reason back of that ten-year mark, and
he was not ready, even yet, for that. Of late he had taken to wondering
when and how the Experiment would come to its crisis. He wanted some
help just now, and here might be an opening. So he went on, "I've been
working away at several special jobs, as you know I like to do, and one
of them has a good deal to do with a young fellow named Farwell, John
Wesley Farwell, Jr., who'll be the mainstay of the best hardware store
in Delafield before long if he sticks to it. Everybody calls him 'J.W.,'
and he's the sort of boy that has always interested me, he's so
'average,'" He paused; his thoughts busy with the Experiment.
"Well," his brother broke in, after a moment, "what's this young John
Wesley Methodist been doing?"
"It isn't altogether what he has been doing, but it's what I'd like to
see him get a chance to do," explained the preacher. "He's tied to the
store and to Delafield, so far, and I've reasons for wanting him to see
some parts of this country he'll never see from Main Street in our
town."
"Well, brother mine, maybe he could be induced to leave that particular
Main Street. There's where we get the best citizens of this village. Has
he any objections to making a change--to travel, for instance?"
"I don't know," said Walter; "probably not. He's young, and has a pretty
good education. I do know that he's ambitious to make himself the best
hardware man in our section, and I believe he'll do it, in time.
Personally, I _want_ him to travel. But how would anybody go about
getting him the chance?"
Albert Drury laughed. "That's easy, only a preacher couldn't be
expected to see it. If any country boy really knows the stuff he
handles, whether it is hardware or candy or hides, he can get the chance
all right. This town wants him. Don't you know that the big wholesale
houses recruit their sales forces by spotting just such boys as your
John Wesley Farwell may be? But what do you mean by calling him average,
if he's such a keen judge of hardware?"
"Oh, well, he _is_ more than average on hardware, but he's so
beautifully average human; one of those chaps who do most of the real
work of the world."
"All right, old man; I'm not sure that I follow you; but, anyway, I may
be of some use. I'll tell you what I'll do; I know the very man. Peter
McDougall, who's a friend I can bank on, is sales manager of the
Cummings Hardware Corporation. Nothing will come of it if Peter is not
impressed, but all I need to do is to tell him there's a prospective
star salesman up at Delafield, and his man who has that territory will
be looking up your John Wesley before you have time to write another
sermon. By the way," he added, "what part of the country did you say you
wanted young Farwell to see?"
"I didn't say," the preacher admitted, "but I would like him to see
something of the Southwest. I want to see what will happen when he bumps
up against the sort of civilization that followed the Spanish to
America."
"Well, of course, you know that wholesale hardware houses don't run
salesmen's excursions to help Methodist preachers try out the effect of
American history on their young parishioners, no matter how lofty the
motive," and Albert Drury poked his brother in the ribs. "But supposing
this boy is otherwise good stuff he'll be in the right place, if he goes
with the Cummings people. A big share of their business is in that end
of the world."
If J.W. had been told of this conversation, which he wasn't, he might
not have been quite so mystified over the letter from the great Peter
McDougall, which came a few weeks after the preacher's return from Saint
Louis. McDougall he knew well by reputation, having heard about him from
every Cummings man who unpacked samples in Delafield. And to be invited
to Saint Louis by the great man, with the possibility of "an opening,
ultimately, in our sales force," was a surprise as interesting as it was
unexpected. Naturally, J.W. could not know how much careful
investigation had preceded the writing of that letter. The Cummings
Corporation did not act on impulse. But he would have accepted the
invitation in any case.
And that is enough for the present purpose of the story of J.W.'s first
business venture away from Delafield. Not without some hesitation did he
close with the Cummings offer; but after he had talked it all over with
the folks at home, and then all over again out at Deep Creek with
Jeannette Shenk, who was both sorry and proud, it was settled. Reaching
Saint Louis, the canny McDougall looked him over and thought him worth
trying out; so over he went to the stock department. Then followed busy
weeks in the buildings of the Cummings Hardware Corporation down by the
river, learning the stock. He discovered before the end of the first day
that he had never yet guessed what "hardware" meant; he wandered through
the mazes of the vast warehouses until his legs ached much and his eyes
ached more.
At last came the day when he found himself on the road, not alone, of
course, but in tow of Fred Finch, an old Cummings salesman who had
occasionally "made" Delafield. The Cummings people did not throw their
new men overboard and let them swim if they could. They had a careful
training system, of which the stockroom days were one part, and this
personally conducted introduction to the road was another.
Albert Drury had been sufficiently interested in his brother's wish to
drop a hint to McDougall, to which that hard-headed executive would have
paid no attention if it had not fitted in just then with the
requirements of his sales policy. But the hint sent J.W. out with Finch
over the longest route which the house worked for trade. On the map this
route was a great kite-shaped thing, with its point at Saint Louis, and
the whole Southwest this side of the Colorado River included in the
sweep of its sides and top.
To Fred Finch it was a weary journey, but J.W. gave no thought to its
discomforts. He was seeing the country, as well as learning to sell
hardware, and both occupations were highly absorbing. Before long he
found too that he was seeing a new people. Storekeepers he knew, as
being of his own guild; the small towns were much like Delafield, when
you had become used to their newer crudeness of architecture and their
sprawling planlessness; and the people who used hardware were very much
like his customers at home.
He had no fear of failing to become a salesman, after the first few
experiences under Finch's watchful eye; his father had taught him a sort
of salesmanship which experience could only make more effective. He knew
already never to sell what he could see his customer ought not to buy,
and he knew always to contrive as much as possible that the customer
should do the selling to himself. The elder Farwell used to say, "Let
your customer once see the advantage that buying is to him, and he won't
care what advantage selling is to you."
Now, as has been said before, this is not a salesman's story. Let it
suffice to say that before the two got back to Saint Louis J.W. knew he
had found his trade. He was a natural salesman, and so Fred Finch
reported to Peter McDougall. "If it's hardware," he said, "that boy can
sell it, and I don't care where you put him. He can sell to people who
can't speak English, and I believe he could sell to deaf mutes or the
blind. He knows the line, and they know he knows it. Why, this very
first trip he's sold more goods on his own say-so than on the house
brand. Said he knew what the stuff would do, and people took that who
usually want to know about the guarantee." All of which Peter McDougall
filed where he would not forget it.
But to go back to the trip itself. Along the railway in Kansas J.W.
began to see box-cars without trucks, roughly fitted up for dwellings.
Dark-skinned men and women and children were in occupation, and all the
household functions and processes were going on, though somewhat
primitively.
"Mexicans," said Finch, as J.W. pointed out the cars. "Section hands;
when I first began to make this territory you never saw them except
right down on the border, but they have moved a long way east and north.
I saw lots of them in the yards at Kansas City last time I was there."
J.W. watched the box-car life with a good deal of curiosity. Here and
there were poor little attempts at color and adornment; flowers in
window boxes and bits of lace at the windows. Delafield had plenty of
foreigners, but these were foreigners of another sort. They seemed to be
entirely at home.
"I suppose," he said to Finch, "these Mexicans have come to the States
to get away from the robbery and ruin that Mexico has had instead of
government these last ten years and more."
"Yes," Finch answered, "thousands of 'em. But not all. Some of these
Mexicans are older Americans than we are. We took 'em over when we got
Texas and New Mexico and California from Old Mexico. They were here
then, speaking the Spanish their ancestors had learned three hundred
years ago and more. But they're all the same Mexicans, no matter on
which side of the Rio Grande they were born. Of course those born on
this side have had some advantages that the peons never knew."
"But do you mean," J.W. wanted to know, "that they are not really
American citizens?"
Fred Finch said no, he didn't mean exactly that. Certainly, those born
on this side were American citizens in the eyes of the law, and those
who came across the Rio Grande could get naturalized. But that made
little real difference. A Mexican was a Mexican, and you had to deal
with him as one.
J.W. was not quite satisfied with that explanation, but he preferred to
wait until he had seen enough so that he could ask his questions more
intelligently. So he kept relatively still, but his eyes did not cease
from observing.
As the trip progressed, and the jumps between towns became longer, the
young salesman had time to see a good deal. In the far Southwest he
became aware that the increasingly numerous Mexican population was no
longer a matter of box-car dwellers, more or less migratory. It was a
settled people. Its little adobe villages, queer and quaint as they
seemed to Middle-Western eyes, were centers of established life. And he
discovered that in these villages always one building overshadowed all
the rest.
One day as they were headed towards El Paso he ventured to mention this
to his traveling companion. "Seems to me," he said, "that none of these
little mud villages is too poor to have a church, and mostly a pretty
good church too. How do they manage it?"
Now Finch was no student of church life, but he did know a little about
the country. "That's the way it is all over this Southwest, my boy, and
across the line in Old Mexico it's a good deal more so. My guess is that
the churches and the priests began by teaching the people that whatever
else happened they had to put up for the church, and from what I've
noticed I reckon that now nothing else matters much to the church. It
has become a kind of poor relation that's got to be fed and helped,
whether it amounts to anything or not. But it's a long way from being as
humble and thankful as you would naturally expect a poor relation to
be."
During the El Paso layover the two of them took a day across the
International Bridge. J.W. had watched the Mexicans coming over, and he
wanted to see the country they came from.
"You'll not see much over there," a friendly spoken customs official
told him. "It's a pretty poor section of desert 'round about these
parts. You ought to get away down into the heart of the country."
"Yes, I suppose so," J.W. responded, "but there isn't time on this trip.
Are such people as these coming over to the United States right along?"
"I should say they are," said the man of authority with emphasis. "In
the last four or five years the Mexican population of the United States
has about doubled; three quarters of a million have crossed the Rio
Grande somewhere, or the border further west. You people from the East
make a big fuss over immigration from Europe, but you hardly seem to
know that a regular flood has been pouring in through these southwestern
gateways. You will some day."
What they saw on the Mexican side of the bridge was, as the customs man
had said, nothing much. But J.W. came away with a strange sense of
depression. He had never before seen so much of the raw material of
misery and squalor; what he had observed with wondering pity in the
villages on the American side was as nothing to the unrelieved
hopelessness of the south bank of the river.
That night in the hotel lobby J.W. noticed a fresh-faced but rather
elderly man whom he recognized as one whom he had seen over in Mexico
earlier in the day. With the memory of what he had seen yet fresh upon
him, J.W. ventured a commonplace or two with the stranger, and found him
so genial and interesting that they were still talking long after Fred
Finch had yawned himself off to bed.
"I thought I remembered seeing you over there," said the unknown, "and
you didn't look like a seasoned traveler; more like the amateur I am
myself, though I do get about a little."
"I'm no seasoned sightseer," said J.W.; "this is my first time out. And
that's maybe the reason I've developed so much curiosity about the
people we saw to-day. Do you know much about them?"
"Who? the Mexicans?" The other man smiled, and then was suddenly
serious. "My friend, I begin to think I'm making the Mexicans my hobby.
I don't know who you are, but if you are really interested in the
Mexicans as human beings I'd rather tell you what I know than do
anything else I can think of to-night. It isn't often I find a traveling
man who cares."
"Well, I do care," J.W. asserted, stoutly. "They're people, folks,
aren't they? And it looks as though they could stand having somebody get
interested in them a little."
"Ah, I see now what you are; you are that remarkable combination, a
traveling man and a Christian. Am I right?"
"Why, I suppose so," said J.W., with a smile and a touch of the old
boyish pride in his name. "My initials, as you might say, are 'John
Wesley,' and I'm not ashamed of them."
"And that means you are not only a Christian, but a Methodist? My dear
man, we must shake on that. I'm a Methodist myself, as the stage robber
said to Brother Van, with the romantic name of Tanner. Got my first
interest in Mexico and the Mexicans when my daughter married a young
Methodist preacher and they went down there as missionaries. I make a
trip to see them and the babies about once a year. But now I am getting
interested in these people as an American and, I hope, a Christian who
tries to work at the business. What did you say your other name was?"
J.W. hadn't said, but now he did, and the two settled to their talk.
This William Tanner, some sort of retired business man, certainly seemed
to know his Mexico. And he had that most subtle of all stimulants
to-night, a curious and sympathetic hearer. By consequence he was eager
to give all that J.W. would take.
Before long J.W. had edged in a question about the church. He said, "You
know, Mr. Tanner, we have a pretty good Roman Catholic church in my home
town, though Father O'Neill doesn't tie up much to what the other
churches are trying to do, and some of his flock seem to me pretty wild,
for sheep. Now, these churches down here are all Roman Catholic too, yet
they certainly don't look any kin to Saint Ursula's at Delafield. Are
they?"
It was the sort of question which William Tanner had asked himself many
a time when he first came to Mexico. "This is the way of it, Mr.
Farwell," he said. "The church came to Mexico, and to all Latin America,
from Spain and Portugal. It had a few great names, we must acknowledge,
in those early times. But in a little while it settled down to two
activities--to make itself the sole religious authority and to get rich.
It was a church of God and gold, and as a matter of course it preached
that it was the supreme arbiter of life and death in matters of faith,
and extended its authority into every relation of life. It brought from
the lands of the Inquisition the idea of priestly power, and there was
none to dispute it in Latin America, as there was in the colonies of our
own country. It gave the people little instruction, and no
responsibility or freedom. It made outward submission the test of piety
and faith. And so when Spain lost its grip on the western hemisphere the
church found itself with nothing but its claim of power to fall back on.
Well, you know that would work only with the ignorant and the
superstitious."
"Mexico, and all Latin America for that matter, clear to the Straits of
Magellan, is a land of innumerable crosses, but no Christ. The church
has had left to it what it wanted; that is, the priestly prerogatives;
it marries, baptizes, absolves, buries, where the people can pay the
fees, and the people for various reasons have not cared that this is
all. If they are afraid, or want to make a show, they call in the
church; if they don't care, or if they are poor, they go unbaptized,
unmarried, unshriven, and do not see that it makes any difference. They
have no understanding of the church as a Christian institution; in fact,
I think it would puzzle most of them to tell what a true church ought to
be. Now, all this is the church's reward for its ancient choice, which,
so far as I can see, is still its choice. To the average Latin American
the church is, and in the nature of things must be, a demander of pay
for ceremonial, and a bitterly jealous defender of all its old
autocratic claims. That is of the nature of the church."
"But I don't understand," interposed J.W. "If the people have no real
use for the church, why do they support it? It certainly is supported."
"That, Mr. Farwell, is the tragedy of the church in all these lands,"
said Mr. Tanner, soberly. "The church began by looking to its own
interests first. It wanted great establishments and a docile people. It
found the gospel hard to preach to the natives--the real gospel, I mean.
The cruelties and greed of the conquest had made impossible any
preaching of a ministering, merciful, and unselfish Christ. In fact, the
vast majority of the priests who came over from Europe brought with them
no such ideas. The church was ruler, not missionary. And so far as it
dares it sticks stubbornly to that notion even to this day. So it has
had to make practical compromise with the paganism and superstition it
found here. Many of its religious observances are the aboriginal pagan
practices disguised in Christian dress and given Christian names. The
church has sold its birthright for the privilege of exploiting the
credulity and the fears of the people. It has made merchandise of all
its functions. Now, after the centuries have come and gone, both church
and people through long custom are willing to have it so. The people
have their great churches, with incense and lights and all the pomp of
medaeival days. But they have no living Christ and no thought of him. The
priests have their trade in ceremonial and their perquisites, but they
have no power over the hearts of men."
As his new acquaintance paused for breath after this long answer to a
short question, J.W., remembering something Fred Finch had said, brought
the remark in: "The man who is showing me the ropes as a hardware man
tells me that all over Latin America the church is likely to be the one
real building in every town and village. Is that also something that
the people are so used to that they don't notice it any more?"
"Oh, yes," Mr. Tanner assented. "I suppose the contrast between the
church and the miserable little hovels around it never occurs to any of
them. It has always been so. The church has built itself up out of the
community, and for the most part it puts very little back. It conducts
schools, to be sure; and yet eighty per cent of the Mexican people are
illiterate, it has some few institutions of help and mercy; but the
whole land cries out for doctors and teachers and friendly human
concern."
"Is that really so?" J.W. asked. "Do the people really want our
missionaries, or are we Protestants just shoving ourselves in? I can see
that something is desperately wrong, but we are mostly Saxon, and they
are Latins. Do these people want what to them must seem a queer religion
and a lot of strange ideas?"
"So long as they do not understand what we come for, naturally they are
suspicious. When they find out, they take to mission work and
missionaries with very little urging. I wish you would meet my
son-in-law," Mr. Tanner said with positiveness. "Why, the one tormenting
desire of that man's life is to see more missionaries sent down into
Mexico; more doctors, more teachers, more workers of every sort. He
writes letters to the Board of Foreign Missions that would make your
heart ache. The church at home couldn't oversupply Mexico with the sort
of help it desperately needs if it should turn every recruit that way,
and disregard all the rest of the world's mission fields."
"Do you mean," asked J.W., who was seeing new questions bob up every
time an earlier one was answered, "do you mean that so many missionaries
could be used on productive Christian work right away? Or is it that we
ought to have a big force to prepare for the long future of our work in
Mexico?" Now, J.W. was not so sure that this was an intelligent
question, but he had heard that in some mission fields it was necessary
to wait years for real and permanent results.
His companion saw nothing out of the way in the question. It was part of
the whole problem. "I mean it both ways," he said. "What I've seen of
our Methodist work down in these parts, particularly its schools and one
wonderful hospital, makes me sure we could get big harvests of interest
and success right off. We're doing it already, considering our
relatively small force and our limited equipment."
"But all Latin American work takes patience. I've made one trip down as
far as Santiago de Chile, and what is true in Mexico is, I guess, about
as true in other parts. The Roman Catholic Church has been here four
hundred years, and its biggest result is that the people who don't fear
it despise it. Latin America is called Christian, but it is a world in
which what you and I call religion simply does not count. Well, then,
that's what makes me talk about the need of persistence and patience.
The bad effects of three or four hundred years of such religion as has
been taught and practiced between the Rio Grande and Cape Horn can't be
got rid of in a hurry. Wait till Mexico has had a real chance at the
Christ of the New Testament for three hundred years, and then see!"
J.W. had yet another question to ask before he was ready to call it a
day. "If all that you say is so--and I believe it is, Mr. Tanner--why
should so many of the Mexicans hate the United States? They do, for I've
heard it spoken of a good deal lately, and I remember what was always
said when some one proposed that we should intervene to make peace and
restore order in Mexico. It would take ten years and a million men, and
all Mexico would unite to oppose us. You talk about how much the
Mexicans need us and want us. But a great many of them surely don't want
us at all."
"I know what that means," Mr. Tanner admitted. And it is true. We are
all influenced by the past. Look at the history of our dealings with
Mexico. The very ideas we fought to establish as the charter of our own
freedom we repudiated when we dealt with Mexico three quarters of a
century ago. We had every advantage, and what we wanted we took.
Certainly, we have done better by it than Mexico might have done, but I
never heard that reason given in a court of law to excuse the same sort
of transaction if it touched only private individuals. Then, in late
years big business has gone into Mexico. It has had to take big chances.
It has paid better wages than the peon could earn any other way. It has
a lot to its credit; but it has been much like big business in other
places, and, anyway, the admitted great profits have enriched the
foreigner, not the Mexican.
"Besides, Mexico is not the States. As you say, it is Latin in its
civilization, not Saxon. It does not want our sort of culture. And some
of our missionaries, both of the church and of industry, have thought
that the Mexican ought to be 'Americanized.' That's a fatal mistake in
any mission field outside the States. All in all, you can see that it
isn't entirely inevitable that the Mexican should understand our
motives, or appreciate them when he does understand. But that's all the
more reason for bearing down hard on every form of genuine missionary
work. It's the only thing that we Americans can do in Mexico with any
hope of avoiding suspicion or of our presence being acceptable to the
Mexicans in the long run. We've got to fight the backfire of our
American commercialism, and the prejudice which is as real on the Texas
side of the river as it is on the other; for if the Mexican thinks in
terms of 'gringo,' the American of the Southwest is just as likely to
think in terms of 'greaser.'"
When J.W. and Mr. Tanner parted for the night it was with the mutual
promise that they would have another talk some time the next day, but
the promise could not be kept. The retired business man heard from some
of his business in the early morning, and had just time to say a hurried
farewell. As he put it, "I thought I had retired, but unless I get back
to look after this particular affair I may have to get into the harness
again, and that is not a cheerful prospect at my age. So I go to
business to avert the danger of going back to business."
A little later the two hardware salesmen were in El Paso again, after a
couple of side trips. J.W. took advantage of a long train wait to hunt
up the city library. He wanted to know whether Mr. Tanner was right in
saying that the Latin-American question was much the same everywhere.
He wrote a letter to Mr. Drury that night, having thus far used picture
postcards until he was ashamed. In the letter he took occasion to
mention his talk with the "missionary father-in-law," and his own bit of
reading up on the subject.
Said he: "I guess that man Tanner was right. He did not speak much of
the difference between the people of one country and those of another,
which rather surprised me. He said nothing of the two great classes, the
rulers with much European blood, and the peons, largely or altogether
Indian. There must be all sorts of Latin Americans, rich and poor, mixed
blood of many strains, Castilian and Aztec and Inca, and whatever other
people were here when Columbus set the fashion for American voyages. But
this is where this 'missionary father-in-law' hit the heart of the
trouble: Latin America has all sorts and conditions of men, but
everywhere it has the same church. And it is a church that can't ever
make good any more. It might, at the beginning, but it can't now. It has
a reputation as fixed as Julius Caesar's. I'm hardly ready to set up as
an expert observer, being only a cub salesman on his first trip, but,
Mr. Drury, I believe I can see already that the only chance for these
people to get religion and everything else which religion ought to
produce, is for us to send it to them. Maybe that would stir up the
church down here, and help to give it another chance at the people's
confidence, though I'm not sure."
Our church ought to send doctors; the amount of fearful disease that
flourishes among the poorer people is just frightful. If Joe Carbrook
were not so set on going to the Orient, he could do a big work here, and
so could a thousand other doctors. It would be so much more than mere
doctoring; it would be the biggest kind of preaching.
And the church should send teachers. You know I believe in conversion;
but if the Mexicans I have seen are samples of Latin America's common
people, they need teachers who have the patience of Christ a good deal
more than they need flaming evangelists who make a big stir and soon
pass on. Because these folks have just _got_ to be made over, in their
very minds. They are not ready for the preaching of the gospel until
they have seen it lived. Long experience has made them doubtful of
living saints, though plenty of them pray to dead ones.
This is the whole trouble, Mr. Drury, it seems to me. They've known
only a church that had got off the track. Any religious work that
reaches them now has almost to begin all over again. It has to undo
their thinking about prayer and faith and God's love and human conduct
and nearly every other Christian idea. They have a Christian vocabulary,
but it means very little. They think they can buy religion, if they want
it--any kind they want. And if they can't afford it, or don't want it,
they don't quite think they'll be sent to hell for that, in spite of
what the priest says. They think enough to be afraid, but not enough to
be sure of anything. The missionaries have to teach them a new set of
religious numerals, if you get what I mean, before it is any use to
teach them the arithmetic of the gospel.
"I'm beginning to see that everything among the Latin Americans runs
back to the need of Christian living. The wrong notion of religion has
got them all twisted. I know Delafield is a long way from being
Christian, but the difference between Delafield and such a pitiful mud
village as I've seen lately has more to do with the sort of Christianity
each place has been taught than with anything else whatever. But I never
thought of that before."
As Pastor Drury read that letter his heart warmed within him. He said to
himself, "John Wesley, Jr., is 'beginning to see,' he says. Please God
he musn't stop now until he gets his eyes wide open. The thing is
working out. He's groping around for something, and some day he'll find
it."