PRESSMEN AND POLITICIANS
Our ship, after a prosperous and pleasant voyage, steamed up the Hudson
River in a blinding downpour of rain which drove steadily across the
decks. Our clothes had been packed up since very early in the morning,
and we declined to get soaked to the skin when there was no chance of
our being able to get dry again for several hours. Therefore, we missed
seeing the Statue of Liberty and the Woolworth Building. We were
cowards, and we suffered for our cowardice by losing what little respect
our American fellow travelers may have had for us. They went out in the
rain to gaze at the Statue of Liberty and the Woolworth Building. We saw
nothing through the cabin windows except an advertisement of Colgate's
tooth paste. The Woolworth Building we did indeed see later on. The
Statue of Liberty we never saw at all. I could of course write
eloquently about it without having seen it. Many people do things of
this kind, but I desire to be perfectly honest. I leave out the Statue
of Liberty. I am perfectly sure it is there; but beyond that fact I know
nothing whatever about it.
We actually landed, set foot at last on the soil of the new world, a
little before 8 A.M., which is a detestable hour of the day under any
circumstances, and particularly abominable in a downpour of rain. If a
stranger with whom I was very slightly acquainted were to land at that
hour in Dublin, and if it were raining as hard there as it did that
morning in New York—it never does, but it is conceivable that it
might—I should no more think of going to meet him at the quay than I
should think of swimming out a mile or two to wave my hand at his ship
as she passed. A year ago I should have made this confession without the
smallest shame. It would not have occurred to me as possible that I
should make such an expedition. If a very honored guest arrived at a
reasonable hour and at an accessible place—steamboat quays are never
accessible anywhere in the world—if the day were fine and I had nothing
particular to do, I might perhaps go to meet that guest, and I should
expect him to be surprised and gratified. I now confess this with shame,
and I intend to reform my habits. I blush hotly when I think of the
feelings of Americans who come to visit us. They behave very much better
than we do to strangers. There were three people to meet us that morning
when we landed and two others arrived at the quay almost immediately
afterwards. Of the five there was only one whom I had ever seen before,
and him no oftener than twice. Yet they were there to shake our hands in
warm welcome, to help us in every conceivable way, to whisper advice
when advice seemed necessary.
There were also newspaper reporters, interviewers, and we had our first
experience of that business as the Americans do it, in the shed where
our baggage was examined by Custom House officers.
"Don't," said one of my friends, "say more than you can help about
religion."
The warning seemed to me unnecessary. I value my religion, not as much
as I ought to, but highly. Still it is not a subject which I should
voluntarily discuss at eight o'clock in the morning in a shed with rain
splashing on the roof. The very last thing I should dream of offering a
newspaper reporter is a formal proof of any of the articles of the
Apostle's Creed. Nor would any interviewer whom I ever met care to
listen to a sermon. I was on the point of resenting the advice; but I
reflected in time that it was certainly meant for my good and that the
ways of the American interviewer were strange to me. He might want to
find out whether I could say my catechism. I thanked my friend and
promised to mention religion as little as possible. I confess that the
warning made me nervous.
"What," I whispered, "are they likely to ask me?"
"Well, what you think of America, for one thing. They always begin with
that."
I had been told that before I left home. I had even been advised by an
experienced traveler to jot down, during the voyage out, all the things
I thought about America, and have them ready on slips of paper to hand
to the interviewers when I arrived. This plan, I was assured, would save
me trouble and would give the Americans a high opinion of my business
ability. I took the advice. I had quite a number of excellent remarks
about America ready in my pocket when I landed. They were no use to me.
Not one single interviewer asked me that question. Not even the one who
chatted with me in the evening of the day on which I left for home. I do
not know why I was not asked this question. Every other stranger who
goes to America is asked it, or at all events says he is asked it.
Perhaps the Americans have ceased to care what any stranger thinks about
them. Perhaps they were uninterested only in my opinion. I can
understand that.
Nor was I tempted or goaded to talk about religion. The warning which I
got to avoid that subject was wasted. No one seemed to care what I
believed. I do not think I should have startled the very youngest
interviewer if I had confided to him that I believed nothing at all. The
nearest I ever got to religion in an interview was when I was asked what
I thought about Ulster and Home Rule. That I was asked frequently,
almost as frequently as I was asked what I thought of Synge's "Playboy
of the Western World"; and both these seemed to me just the sort of
questions I ought to be asked, if, indeed, I ought to be asked any
questions at all. I do not, indeed cannot, think about Ulster and Home
Rule. Nobody can. It is one of those things, like the fourth dimension,
which baffle human thought. Just as you hope that you have got it into a
thinkable shape it eludes you and you see it sneering at your
discomfiture from the far side of the last ditch. But it was quite right
and proper to expect that an Irishman, especially an Irishman who came
originally from Belfast, would have something to say about it, some
thought to express which would illuminate the morass of that
controversy. I could not complain about being asked that question. I
ought to have had something to say about Synge's play, too, but I had
not. I think it is a wonderful play, by far the greatest piece of
dramatic literature that Ireland has produced; but I cannot give any
reasons for the faith that is in me. Therefore, I am afraid I must have
been a most unsatisfactory subject for the interviewers. They cannot
possibly have liked me.
I, on the other hand, liked them very much indeed. I found them
delightful to talk to, and look back on the hours I spent with them as
some of the most interesting of my whole American trip. They all,
without exception, seemed to want to be pleasant. They were the least
conceited set of people I ever came across and generally apologized for
coming to see me. The apologies were entirely unnecessary. Their visits
were favors conferred on me. They were strictly honorable. When, as very
often happened, I said something particularly foolish and became
conscious of the fact, I used to ask the interviewer to whom I had said
it not to put it in print. He always promised to suppress it and he
always kept his promise, though my sillinesses must often have offered
attractive copy. Nor did any interviewer ever misrepresent me, except
when he failed to understand what I said, and that must always have been
more my fault than his. At first I used to be very cautious with
interviewers and made no statements of any kind without hedging. I used
to shy at topics which seemed dangerous, and trot away as quickly as I
could to something which offered opportunity for platitudes. I gradually
came to realize that this caution was unnecessary. I would talk
confidently now to an American interviewer on any subject, even
religion, for I know he would not print anything which I thought likely
to get me into trouble.
I cannot understand how it is that American interviewers have such a bad
reputation on this side of the Atlantic. They are a highly intelligent,
well-educated body of men and women engaged in the particularly
difficult job of trying to get stupid people, like me, or conceited
people to say something interesting. They never made any attempt to pry
into my private affairs. They never asked obviously silly questions. I
have heard of people who resorted to desperate expedients to avoid
interviewers in America. I should as soon think of trying to avoid a
good play or any other agreeable form of entertainment. After all, there
is no entertainment so pleasant as conversation with a clever man or
woman. I have heard of people who were deliberately rude to interviewers
and gloried in their rudeness afterwards. That seems to me just as grave
a breach of manners as to say insolent things to a host or hostess at a
dinner party.
Every now and then an interviewer, using a very slender foundation of
fact, produces something which is brilliantly amusing. There was one,
with whom I never came into personal contact at all, who published a
version of a conversation between Miss Maire O'Neill and me. What we
actually said to each other was dull enough. The interviewer, by the
simple expedient of making us talk after the fashion which "Mr. Dooley"
has made popular, represented us as exceedingly interesting and amusing
people. No one but a fool would resent being flattered after this
fashion.
The one thing which puzzles me about the business is why the public
wants it done. It is pleasant enough for the hero of the occasion, and
it is only affectation to call him a victim. The man who does the work,
the interviewer, is, I suppose, paid. He ought to be paid very highly.
But where does the public come in? It reads the interview—we must, I
think, take it for granted that somebody reads interviews, but it is
very difficult to imagine why. The American public, judging from the
number of interviews published, seems particularly fond of this kind of
reading. Yet, however clever the interviewer, the thing must be dull in
nine cases out of ten.
My first interviewer, my very first, photographed me. I told him that he
was wasting a plate, but he went on and wasted three. Why did he do it?
If I were a very beautiful woman I could understand it, though I think
it would be a mistake to photograph Venus herself on the gangway of a
steamer at eight o'clock in the morning in a downpour of rain. If I had
been a Christian missionary who had been tortured by Chinese, I could
understand it. Tortures might have left surprising marks on my face or
twisted my spine in an interesting way. If I had been an apostle of
physical culture, dressed in a pair of bathing drawers and part of a
tiger skin, the photographing would have been intelligible. But I am
none of these things. What pleasure could the public be expected to find
in the reproduction of a picture of a common place middle-aged man? Yet
the thing was done. I can only suppose that reading interviews and
looking at the attendant photographs has become a habit with the
American public, just as carrying a walking stick has with the English
gentleman. A walking stick is no real use except to a lame man. The
walker does not push himself along with it. He does not, when he sets
out from home, expect to meet any one whom he wants to hit. It cannot be
contended that the stick is ornamental or adds in any way to the beauty
of his appearance. He carries it because he always does carry it and
would feel strange if he did not. The Americans put up with interviews
in their papers for the same sort of reason. After all, no one, least of
all the subject, has any right to complain.
Those were our two first impressions of America, that it was a country
of boundless hospitality and a country pervaded by agreeable newspaper
men. I am told by those who make a study of such things that the first
glance you get at a face tells you something true and reliable about the
man or woman it belongs to, but that you get no further information by
looking at the face day after day for months. When you come to know the
man or woman really well, and have studied his actions and watched his
private life closely for years, you find, if you still recollect what it
was, that your first impression was right. I knew an Englishman once who
lived for ten years in Ireland and was deeply interested in our affairs.
He told me that when he had been a week in the country he understood it,
understood us and all belonging to us thoroughly. At the end of three
months he began to doubt whether he understood us quite as well as he
thought. After five years he was sure he did not understand us at all.
After ten years—he was a persevering man—he began to understand us a
little, and was inclined to think he was getting back to the exact
position he held at the end of the first week. Ten years hence, if he
and I live so long, I intend to ask him again what he thinks about
Ireland. Then, I expect, he will tell me that he is quite convinced that
his earliest impressions were correct. This is my justification for
recording my first impressions of America. I hope to get to know the
country much better as years go on. I shall probably pass through the
stage of laughing at my earliest ideas, but in the end I confidently
expect to get back to my joyous admiration for American hospitality and
my warm affection for American journalists.
Almost immediately—certainly before the end of our second day—we
arrived at the conclusion that New York was a singularly clean city. We
are, both of us, by inclination dwellers in country places. The noise of
great towns worries us. The sense of being closely surrounded by large
numbers of other people annoys us. But we should no doubt get used to
these things if we were forced to dwell long in any city. I am, however,
certain that I should always loathe the dirt of cities. The dirt of the
country, good red mud, or the slime of wet stems of trees, does not
trouble me, even if I am covered with it. I enjoy the dirt of quiet
harbors, fish scales, dabs of tar and rust off old anchor chains. I am
happier when these things are clinging to me than when I am free of
them. I am no fanatical worshipper of cleanliness. I do not rank it, as
the English proverb does, among the minor divinities of the world. But I
do not like, I thoroughly detest, the dirt of cities, that impalpable
grime which settles down visibly on face, hands, collar, cuffs, and
invisibly but sensibly on coats, hats and trousers. New York, of all the
cities I have ever been in, is freest of this grime. You can open your
bedroom window at night in New York, and the pocket handkerchief you
leave on your dressing table will still be white in the morning, fairly
white. You can walk about New York all day and your nose will not be
covered with smuts in the evening. I am told that the cleanness of New
York is partly due to the fact that trains running in and out of the
city are forced by the municipal authorities to use electricity as a
motive power and are forbidden to burn coal till they get into the
country. I am told that only a hard, comparatively smokeless coal may be
burned by any one in the city. If these things are true, then the City
Fathers of New York ought to be held up as a pattern to Town Councillors
and corporations all over the world.
As a matter of fact—such is the injustice of man—the municipal
government of New York is not very greatly admired by the rest of the
world. It is supposed to be singularly corrupt, and my fellow countrymen
are blamed for its corruptness. When an European city feels in a
pharisaical mood it says: "Thank God I am not as other cities are, even
as this New York." European cities may be morally cleaner. I do not know
whether they are or not. They are certainly physically much dirtier. And
from the point of view of the ordinary citizen physical dirt is more
continuously annoying than the moral kind. If I lived in a community
whose rulers openly sold contracts and offices, I should break out into
a violent rage once a year or so, and swear that I would no longer pay
taxes for the benefit of minor politicians and their henchmen. All the
rest of the year I should be placid enough, for I should forget the
corruption if I escaped the perpetual unpleasantness of dirt, city dirt.
No government, after all, is honest. The most that can be expected from
men placed in authority is that they should not outrage public opinion
by flaunting their dishonesty. But I cannot help feeling that men in
authority, whom after all the rest of us pay, should do their business,
and part of their business is to keep smuts away from our faces. If it
is really true that we Irish govern New York, then men ought to give up
speaking of us as "the dirty Irish." Dirty! It appears that we are the
only people who have ever kept a city clean. I wish we could do it at
home.
This Irish political corruption in New York is a very interesting thing,
and I tried hard to arrive at some understanding of it. Tammany was
defeated while we were in New York, and Mr. Mitchel became Mayor,
promising a clean, morally clean, administration. He also is of Irish
descent, so that there were countrymen of ours on both sides in the
struggle, and we are, evidently, not all of us lovers of corruption. The
scene in Broadway when the defeat of Tammany was announced surpassed
anything I have ever beheld in the way of a demonstration of popular
rejoicing, except perhaps "Mafeking Night" in London. Huge crowds
paraded the streets. Youths with horns marched in procession making
music like that of Edouard Strauss, but even louder. Hawkers did an
immense trade in small gongs with balls attached to them which made a
noise like cymbals. Grave-looking men wore on their heads huge plumes of
cut, wrinkled paper, like the paper with which some people hide
fireplaces in summer time. Others had notices on their hats which
declared "We told you so," notices printed beforehand and equally
applicable to a victory of the other side. Sky signs and lights of all
sorts blazed above our heads. Newspaper offices flashed election figures
on screens in front of their windows. Now and then an explosion rose
clear above the din, and we knew that some enterprising photographer was
making a flashlight picture of the scene.
There was no question about the fact that New York was pleased with
itself. The demonstration of popular delight would have followed very
appropriately the capture of a Bastille, some stronghold of an ancient
tyranny which held people down against their will. The supporters of
Tammany Rule were, of course, not in Broadway that night. They may have
been sitting at home behind drawn blinds, meditating on the fickleness
of men, or perhaps on the ingratitude of democracies. Tammany was
corrupt, no doubt, but the water supply of New York is very good, and it
was no easy matter to get water there. Also the city is strikingly
clean. But there was no question about the general disgust with Tammany
rule. No man whom I talked to before or after the election had a good
word to say for the organization. Only, if I were suspected of glorying
in their shame, patriotic Americans used occasionally to remind me of
Marconi scandals at home and the English sale of patents of nobility.
And this was no real defense of Tammany. But I was not glorying, and
Heaven forbid that I should ever hold up European political methods as a
model to any one. All I wanted was to understand. I was eagerly curious
to know how Tammany came to be, whence its power came. It did not
satisfy me to be told that Tammany bribed people and sold offices, and
therefore was powerful. That is like saying that Mohammed spread his
religion by force of arms. I am sure that Tammany did bribe, and I am
sure that Mohammedans did ultimately conquer and put pressure on the
conquered to accept the Koran. But before you can conquer you must have
soldiers, soldiers who believe of their own free will. Before you can
bribe you must have money to bribe with. Before you can sell offices you
must have offices to sell. How did Tammany get itself into the position
of being able to bribe?
I was always asking these questions and always failing to get satisfying
answers to them. In the end, when I had almost given up hope, I did get
a little light of the sort I wanted. It was after dinner one night at a
private house in New York. The ladies had left the room, and there were
five men sitting round the table. Four of them were clever and
distinguished men, and they might have talked very satisfactorily about
things which interested them. But with that thoughtful courtesy which is
one of the charms of American hospitality, they allowed the fifth man,
the stranger in their midst, to guide the conversation. I asked one of
my usual questions about Tammany. For a time I got nothing but the
familiar stories of Tammany corruption given with more than the usual
detail. We had names and dates put to scandalous achievements, and
learned who had been allowed a "rake off" on this or that financial
transaction. I heard about the alliance, under the banner of Tammany,
between the Irish and the Jews. I reflected that other things besides
misfortune makes strange bedfellows. Then came the illumination. One of
the men present leaned back in his chair and laid down his cigar.
"A Tammany ward boss," he said, "has the confidence of the people in his
ward. If he had not he would not be a ward boss."
I did not want to interrupt by asking questions, and felt that I could
guess sufficiently nearly the functions and business of a "ward boss" to
do without an explanation.
"He wouldn't," said my friend, "win or keep the confidence of the people
unless he deserved it more or less, unless he deserved it a good deal,
unless he really was a friend to the people. He may not be a man of much
ability. He generally isn't, but he has a good heart."
This was startling. My preconceived idea of a Tammany boss of any kind
was of a man of considerable ability and a bad heart. I suppose I looked
surprised. The speaker qualified his statement a little.
"A good heart, to start with. Every one in the ward who is in any kind
of difficulty or trouble goes to the boss. Most of them are poor
ignorant people and don't know how to manage things for themselves.
There's a sick child who ought to be got into a hospital. The ward boss
sees about it. There's a boy who ought to be in a situation. The ward
boss gets a situation for him. There's a man who has been badly treated
by his employer—— Oh! you know the sort of things which turn up.
They're the same with poor people all the world over."
I did know, very well. I was also beginning to understand.
"Then I suppose," I said, "the people vote the way the ward boss tells
them."
"Naturally."
Well, yes, naturally. What do political rights and wrongs matter to
them?
"After a while," my informant went on, "if he manages well, he is let a
little bit into the inner ring. He gets a bit of money dropped to him
here and another bit there. That makes a difference to him. He begins to
do himself pretty well, and he likes it."
Most men do. These "bits of money," however they come, bring very
pleasant things with them. That is the same everywhere.
"After a while—I don't say this is exactly what happens every time, but
it's something like this. After a while he goes uptown and dines at one
of the swagger restaurants, just to see what it's like. He is a bit out
of it at first, but he goes again. He sees people there and he picks up
their names. They are people with very impressive names, names he's been
hearing all his life and associating with millions and automobiles and
diamonds. It gives him rather a pleasant feeling to find himself sitting
at the next table and hearing the voices of these men; seeing the women
with their jewels, and smelling the scent off their clothes. You know
the sort of thing."
I could guess. I have, in my time, dined at restaurants of the kind,
though not often enough to get to know the looks of their native
millionaires.
"Then some night or other one of these men steps across to our man's
table and talks to him. He's as friendly as the devil. He introduces him
to one or two others, and perhaps to some women; but women don't come
much into business over here. Well, the poor fellow is a little bit
above himself, and no wonder. He's never been anything before but just a
'Mick,' and never expected to be anything else."
Here I had to interrupt.
"A Mick?" I said.
"An Irishman. That's what we generally call Irishmen."
They call us "Pat" on this side of the Atlantic, and I think I prefer
it, but I have no particular quarrel with "Mick." Both names are
conveniently short.
"There's nothing more than friendliness at first. Then, perhaps a week
later, there's something said about a contract or a new loan that is to
be floated. Influence, a word in the right quarter, comes in useful in
these cases. Our man, the man we're talking of, doesn't know very
clearly what the talk is about. He doesn't know that he has any
influence; but it rather pleases him to feel that the other men think he
has. There is a hint dropped about a subscription to the party funds
and—well, that's how it's done."
I grasped at ideas which flitted past me. There always are "party
funds." Politics cannot go on without them. There always are desirable
things, whether contracts, rakes off, appointments, or—as in our
monarch-ridden states—titles. But I wonder where the blame for the
corruption really lies, the heavy part of the blame. Tammany Mick had a
good heart to start with and he was not a man of much ability.
However, these are only the speculations of an inquisitive man. They do
not matter. New York smashed Tammany last autumn and perhaps will keep
it smashed. But a mere alliance of anti-Tammany forces will not
permanently get the better of a well-constructed machine, nor is
enthusiasm for clean government good in a long-distance race. An
American poet has noted as one of the characteristics of truth that,
though slain, it will rise again, and of error that when vanquished it
dies among its worshippers. In politics it is the machine which
possesses truth's valuable powers of recuperation, and idealism which
gets counted out after a knockdown blow. It seems as if a machine will
only go under finally in competition with another more efficient
machine, and the new, more efficient machine is just as great a danger
to political morality as the old one was. This is the vicious circle in
which democracies go round and round. Perhaps the truth is that
politics, like art, are non-moral in nature, that politicians have
nothing to do with right or wrong, honesty or dishonesty.