and in the boundless restaurant I witnessed the working of the devices
which enabled these legions to choose their meals, and pay for them
(cost price) in a few moments, and without advanced mathematical
calculations. The young head of the restaurant showed me, with pride, a
menu of over a hundred dishes--Austrian, German, Hungarian, Italian,
Scotch, French, and American; at prices from one cent up as high as ten
cents (prime roast-beef)--and at the foot of the menu was his personal
appeal: "_I_ desire to extend to you a cordial invitation to inspect,"
etc. "_My_ constant aim will be," etc. Yet it was not _his_ restaurant.
It was the firm's restaurant. Here I had a curious illustration of an
admirable characteristic of American business methods that was always
striking me--namely, the real delegation of responsibility. An American
board of direction will put a man in charge of a department, as a
viceroy over a province, saying, as it were: "This is yours. Do as you
please with it. We will watch the results." A marked contrast this with
the centralizing of authority which seems to be ever proceeding in
Europe, and which breeds in all classes at all ages--especially in
France--a morbid fear and horror of accepting responsibility.
[Illustration: LUNCHEON IN A DOWN-TOWN CLUB]
Later, I was on the ground level, in the midst of an enormous apparent
confusion--the target for all the packages and baskets, big and little,
that shot every instant in a continuous stream from those spiral planes,
and slid dangerously at me along the floors. Here were the packers. I
saw a packer deal with a collected order, and in this order were a
number of tiny cookery utensils, a four-cent curling-iron, a brush, and
two incredibly ugly pink china mugs, inscribed in cheap gilt
respectively with the words "Father" and "Mother." Throughout my stay in
America no moment came to me more dramatically than this moment, and
none has remained more vividly in my mind. All the daily domestic life
of the small communities in the wilds of the West and the Middle West,
and in the wilds of the back streets of the great towns, seemed to be
revealed to me by the contents of that basket, as the packer wrapped up
and protected one article after another. I had been compelled to abandon
a visitation of the West and of the small communities everywhere, and I
was sorry. But here in a microcosm I thought I saw the simple reality of
the backbone of all America, a symbol of the millions of the little
plain people, who ultimately make possible the glory of the
world-renowned streets and institutions in dazzling cities.
There was something indescribably touching in that curling-iron and
those two mugs. I could see the table on which the mugs would soon
proudly stand, and "father" and "mother" and children thereat, and I
could see the hand heating the curling-iron and applying it. I could see
the whole little home and the whole life of the little home.... And
afterward, as I wandered through the warehouses--pyramids of the same
chair, cupboards full of the same cheap violin, stacks of the same album
of music, acres of the same carpet and wallpaper, tons of the same
gramophone, hundreds of tons of the same sewing-machine and
lawn-mower--I felt as if I had been made free of the secrets of every
village in every State of the Union, and as if I had lived in every
little house and cottage thereof all my life! Almost no sense of beauty
in those tremendous supplies of merchandise, but a lot of honesty,
self-respect, and ambition fulfilled. I tell you I could hear the
engaged couples discussing ardently over the pages of the catalogue what
manner of bedroom suite they would buy, and what design of sideboard....
Finally, I arrived at the firm's private railway station, where a score
or more trucks were being laden with the multifarious boxes, bales, and
parcels, all to leave that evening for romantic destinations such as
Oregon, Texas, and Wyoming. Yes, the package of the woman of Wyoming's
desire would ultimately be placed somewhere in one of those trucks! It
was going to start off toward her that very night!
* * * * *
Impressive as this establishment was, finely as it illustrated the
national genius for organization, it yet lacked necessarily, on account
of the nature of its activity, those outward phenomena of splendor which
charm the stranger's eye in the great central houses of New York, and
which seem designed to sum up all that is most characteristic and most
dazzling in the business methods of the United States. These central
houses are not soiled by the touch of actual merchandise. Nothing more
squalid than ink ever enters their gates. They traffic with symbols
only, and the symbols, no matter what they stand for, are never in
themselves sordid. The men who have created these houses seem to have
realized that, from their situation and their importance, a special
effort toward representative magnificence was their pleasing duty, and
to have made the effort with a superb prodigality and an astounding
ingenuity.
Take, for a good, glorious example, the very large insurance company,
conscious that the eyes of the world are upon it, and that the entire
United States is expecting it to uphold the national pride. All the
splendors of all the sky-scrapers are united in its building. Its foyer
and grand staircase will sustain comparison with those of the Paris
Opéra. You might think you were going into a place of entertainment!
And, as a fact, you are! This affair, with nearly four thousand clerks,
is the huge toy and pastime of a group of millionaires who have
discovered a way of honestly amusing themselves while gaining applause
and advertisement. Within the foyer and beyond the staircase, notice the
outer rooms, partitioned off by bronze grilles, looming darkly gorgeous
in an eternal windowless twilight studded with the beautiful glowing
green disks of electric-lamp shades; and under each disk a human head
bent over the black-and-red magic of ledgers! The desired effect is at
once obtained, and it is wonderful. Then lose yourself in and out of the
ascending and descending elevators, and among the unending multitudes of
clerks, and along the corridors of marble (total length exactly measured
and recorded). You will be struck dumb. And immediately you begin to
recover your speech you will be struck dumb again....
Other houses, as has been seen, provide good meals for their employees
at cost price. This house, then, will provide excellent meals, free of
charge! It will install the most expensive kitchens and richly spacious
restaurants. It will serve the delicate repasts with dignity. "Does all
this lessen the wages?" No, not in theory. But in practice, and whether
the management wishes or not, it must come out of the wages. "Why do you
do it?" you ask the departmental chief, who apparently gets far more fun
out of the contemplation of these refectories than out of the
contemplation of premiums received and claims paid. "It is better for
the employees," he says. "But we do it because it is better for us. It
pays us. Good food, physical comfort, agreeable environment, scientific
ventilation--all these things pay us. We get results from them." He does
not mention horses, but you feel that the comparison is with horses. A
horse, or a clerk, or an artisan--it pays equally well to treat all of
them well. This is one of the latest discoveries of economic science, a
discovery not yet universally understood.
[Illustration: A YOUNG WOMAN WAS JUST FINISHING A FLORID SONG]
I say you do not mention horses, and you certainly must not hint that
the men in authority may have been actuated by motives of humanity. You
must believe what you are told--that the sole motive is to get results.
The eagerness with which all heads of model establishments would disavow
to me any thought of being humane was affecting in its _naïveté_; it had
that touch of ingenuous wistfulness which I remarked everywhere in
America--and nowhere more than in the demeanor of many mercantile
highnesses. (I hardly expect Americans to understand just what I mean
here.) It was as if they would blush at being caught in an act of
humanity, like school-boys caught praying. Still, to my mind, the
white purity of their desire to get financial results was often muddied
by the dark stain of a humane motive. I may be wrong (as people say),
but I know I am not (as people think).
The further you advance into the penetralia of this arch-exemplar of
American organization and profusion, the more you are amazed by the
imaginative perfection of its detail: as well in the system of filing
for instant reference fifty million separate documents, as in the
planning of a concert-hall for the diversion of the human machines.
As we went into the immense concert-hall a group of girls were giving an
informal concert among themselves. When lunch is served on the premises
with chronographic exactitude, the thirty-five minutes allowed for the
meal give an appreciable margin for music and play. A young woman was
just finishing a florid song. The concert was suspended, and the whole
party began to move humbly away at this august incursion.
"Sing it again; do, please!" the departmental chief suggested. And the
florid song was nervously sung again; we applauded, the artiste bowed as
on a stage, and the group fled, the thirty-five minutes being doubtless
up. The departmental chief looked at me in silence, content, as much as
to say: "This is how we do business in America." And I thought, "Yet
another way of getting results!"
But sometimes the creators of the organization, who had provided
everything, had been obliged to confess that they had omitted from their
designs certain factors of evolution. Hat-cupboards were a feature of
the women's offices--delightful specimens of sound cabinetry. And still,
millinery was lying about all over the place, giving it an air of
feminine occupation that was extremely exciting to a student on his
travels. The truth was that none of those hats would go into the
cupboards. Fashion had worsted the organization completely. Departmental
chiefs had nothing to do but acquiesce in this startling untidiness.
Either they must wait till the circumference of hats lessened again, or
they must tear down the whole structure and rebuild it with due regard
to hats.
Finally, we approached the sacred lair and fastness of the president,
whose massive portrait I had already seen on several walls. Spaciousness
and magnificence increased. Ceilings rose in height, marble was softened
by the thick pile of carpets. Mahogany and gold shone more luxuriously.
I was introduced into the vast antechamber of the presidential
secretaries, and by the chief of them inducted through polished and
gleaming barriers into the presence-chamber itself: a noble apartment,
an apartment surpassing dreams and expectations, conceived and executed
in a spirit of majestic prodigality. The president had not been afraid.
And his costly audacity was splendidly justified of itself. This man had
a sense of the romantic, of the dramatic, of the fit. And the qualities
in him and his _état major_ which had commanded the success of the
entire enterprise were well shown in the brilliant symbolism of that
room's grandiosity.... And there was the president's portrait again,
gorgeously framed.
He came in through another door, an old man of superb physique, and
after a little while he was relating to me the early struggles of his
company. "My wife used to say that for ten years she never saw me," he
remarked.
I asked him what his distractions were, now that the strain was over and
his ambitions so gloriously achieved. He replied that occasionally he
went for a drive in his automobile.
"And what do you do with yourself in the evenings?" I inquired.
He seemed a little disconcerted by this perhaps unaccustomed bluntness.
"Oh," he said, casually, "I read insurance literature."
He had the conscious mien and manners of a reigning prince. His courtesy
and affability were impeccable and charming. In the most profound sense
this human being had succeeded, for it was impossible to believe that,
had he to live his life again, he would live it very differently.
Such a type of man is, of course, to be found in nearly every country;
but the type flourishes with a unique profusion and perfection in the
United States; and in its more prominent specimens the distinguishing
idiosyncrasy of the average American successful man of business is
magnified for our easier inspection. The rough, broad difference between
the American and the European business man is that the latter is anxious
to leave his work, while the former is anxious to get to it. The
attitude of the American business man toward his business is
pre-eminently the attitude of an artist. You may say that he loves
money. So do we all--artists particularly. No stock-broker's private
journal could be more full of dollars than Balzac's intimate
correspondence is full of francs. But whereas the ordinary artist loves
money chiefly because it represents luxury, the American business man
loves it chiefly because it is the sole proof of success in his
endeavor. He loves his business. It is not his toil, but his hobby,
passion, vice, monomania--any vituperative epithet you like to bestow on
it! He does not look forward to living in the evening; he lives most
intensely when he is in the midst of his organization. His instincts are
best appeased by the hourly excitements of a good, scrimmaging
commercial day. He needs these excitements as some natures need alcohol.
He cannot do without them.
[Illustration: ABSORBED IN THAT WONDROUS SATISFYING HOBBY]
On no other hypothesis can the unrivaled ingenuity and splendor and
ruthlessness of American business undertakings be satisfactorily
explained. They surpass the European, simply because they are never out
of the thoughts of their directors, because they are adored with a fine
frenzy. And for the same reason they are decked forth in magnificence.
Would a man enrich his office with rare woods and stuffs and marbles if
it were not a temple? Would he bestow graces on the environment if while
he was in it the one idea at the back of his head was the anticipation
of leaving it? Watch American business men together, and if you are a
European you will clearly perceive that they are devotees. They are open
with one another, as intimates are. Jealousy and secretiveness are much
rarer among them than in Europe. They show off their respective
organizations with pride and with candor. They admire one another
enormously. Hear one of them say enthusiastically of another: "It was a
great idea he had--connecting his New York and his Philadelphia places
by wireless--a great idea!" They call one another by their Christian
names, fondly. They are capable of wonderful friendships in business.
They are cemented by one religion--and it is not golf. For them the
journey "home" is often not the evening journey, but the morning
journey. Call this a hard saying if you choose: it is true. Could a man
be happy long away from a hobby so entrancing, a toy so intricate and
marvelous, a setting so splendid? Is it strange that, absorbed in that
wondrous satisfying hobby, he should make love with the nonchalance of
an animal? At which point I seem to have come dangerously near to the
topic of the singular position of the American woman, about which
everybody is talking....
V
TRANSIT AND HOTELS
The choice of such a trite topic as the means of travel may seem to
denote that my observations in the United States must have been
superficial. They were. I never hoped that they would be otherwise. In
seven weeks (less one day) I could not expect to penetrate very far
below the engaging surface of things. Nor did I unnaturally attempt to
do so; for the evidence of the superficies is valuable, and it can only
be properly gathered by the stranger at first sight. Among the scenes
and phenomena that passed before me I of course remember best those
which interested me most. Railroads and trains have always appealed to
me; I have often tried to express my sense of their romantic savor. And
I was eager to see and appreciate these particular manifestations of
national character in America.
It happily occurred that my first important journey from New York was on
the Pennsylvania Road.
"I'll meet you at the station," I said to my particular friend.
"Oh no!" he answered, positively. "I'll pick you up on my way."
The fact was that not for ten thousand dollars would he have missed the
spectacle of my sensations as I beheld for the first time the most
majestic terminus in the world! He alone would usher me into the gates
of that marvel! I think he was not disappointed. I frankly surrendered
myself to the domination of this extraordinary building. I did not
compare. I knew there could be no comparison. Whenever afterward I
heard, as I often did, enlightened, Europe-loving citizens of the United
States complain that the United States was all very well, but there was
no art in the United States, the image of this tremendous masterpiece
would rise before me, and I was inclined to say: "Have you ever crossed
Seventh Avenue, or are you merely another of those who have been to
Europe and learned nothing?" The Pennsylvania station is full of the
noble qualities that fine and heroic imagination alone can give. That
there existed a railroad man poetic and audacious enough to want it,
architects with genius powerful enough to create it, and a public with
heart enough to love it--these things are for me a surer proof that the
American is a great race than the existence of any quantity of wealthy
universities, museums of classic art, associations for prison reform, or
deep-delved safe-deposit vaults crammed with bonds. Such a monument does
not spring up by chance; it is part of the slow flowering of a nation's
secret spirit!
[Illustration: IN THE PARLOR-CAR]
The terminus emerged brilliantly from an examination of the complicated
detail, both esthetic and practical, that is embedded in the apparent
simplicity of its vast physiognomy. I discovered everything in it proper
to a station, except trains. Not a sign of a train. My impulse was to
ask, "Is this the tomb of Alexander J. Cassatt, or is it a cathedral, or
is it, after all, a railroad station?" Then I was led with due
ceremony across the boundless plains of granite to a secret staircase,
guarded by lions in uniform, and at the foot of this staircase, hidden
like a shame or a crime, I found a resplendent train, the Congressional
Limited. It was not the Limited of my dreams; but it was my first
American Limited, and I boarded it in a condition of excitement. I
criticized, of course, for every experienced traveler has decided views
concerning _trains de luxe_. The cars impressed rather than charmed me.
I preferred, and still prefer, the European variety of Pullman. (Yes, I
admit we owe it entirely to America!) And then there is a harsh,
inhospitable quality about those all-steel cars. They do not yield. You
think you are touching wood, and your knuckles are abraded. The
imitation of wood is a triumph of mimicry, but by no means a triumph of
artistic propriety. Why should steel be made to look like wood?...
Fireproof, you say. But is anything fireproof in the United States,
except perhaps Tammany Hall? Has not the blazing of fireproof
constructions again and again singed off the eyebrows of dauntless
firemen? My impression is that "fireproof," in the American tongue, is
one of those agreeable but quite meaningless phrases which adorn the
languages of all nations. Another such phrase, in the American tongue,
is "right away!" ...
I sat down in my appointed place in the all-steel car, and, turning over
the pages of a weekly paper, saw photographs of actual collisions,
showing that in an altercation between trains the steel-and-wood car
could knock the all-steel car into a cocked hat!... The decoration of
the all-steel car does not atone for its probable combustibility and its
proved fragility. In particular, the smoking-cars of all the Limiteds I
intrusted myself to were defiantly and wilfully ugly. Still, a fine,
proud train, handsome in some ways! And the trainmen were like admirals,
captains, and first officers pacing bridges; clearly they owned the
train, and had kindly lent it to the Pennsylvania R.R. Their demeanor
expressed a rare sense of ownership and also of responsibility. While
very polite, they condescended. A strong contrast to the miserable
European "guard"--for all his silver buttons! I adventured into the
observation-car, of which institution I had so often heard Americans
speak with pride, and speculated why, here as in all other cars, the
tops of the windows were so low that it was impossible to see the upper
part of the thing observed (roofs, telegraph-wires, tree-foliage,
hill-summits, sky) without bending the head and cricking the neck. I do
not deny that I was setting a high standard of perfection, but then I
had heard so much all my life about American Limiteds!
The Limited started with exactitude, and from the observation-car I
watched the unrolling of the wondrous Hudson tunnel--one of the major
sights of New York, and a thing of curious beauty.... The journey passed
pleasantly, with no other episode than that of dinner, which cost a
dollar and was worth just about a dollar, despite the mutton. And with
exactitude we arrived at Washington--another splendid station. I
generalized thus: "It is certain that this country understands railroad
stations." I was, however, fresh in the country, and had not then seen
New Haven station, which, as soon as it is quite done with, ought to be
put in a museum.
We returned from Washington by a night train; we might have taken a day
train, but it was pointed out to me that I ought to get into "form" for
certain projected long journeys into the West. At midnight I was
brusquely introduced to the American sleeping-car. I confess that I had
not imagined anything so appalling as the confined, stifling, malodorous
promiscuity of the American sleeping-car, where men and women are herded
together on shelves under the drastic control of an official aided by
negroes. I care not to dwell on the subject.... I have seen European
prisons, but in none that I have seen would such a system be tolerated,
even by hardened warders and governors; and assuredly, if it were,
public opinion would rise in anger and destroy it. I have not been in
Siberian prisons, but I remember reading George Kennan's description of
their mild horrors, and I am surprised that he should have put himself
to the trouble of such a tedious journey when he might have discovered
far more exciting material on any good road around New York. However,
nobody seemed to mind, such is the force of custom--and I did not mind
very much, because my particular friend, intelligently foreseeing my
absurd European prejudices, had engaged for us a state-room.
This state-room, or suite--for it comprised two apartments--was a
beautiful and aristocratic domain. The bedchamber had a fan that would
work at three speeds like an automobile, and was an enchanting toy. In
short, I could find no fault with the accommodation. It was perfect,
and would have remained perfect had the train remained in the station.
Unfortunately, the engine-driver had the unhappy idea of removing the
train from the station. He seemed to be an angry engine-driver, and his
gesture was that of a man setting his teeth and hissing: "Now, then,
come out of that, you sluggards!" and giving a ferocious tug. There was
a fearful jerk, and in an instant I understood why sleeping-berths in
America are always arranged lengthwise with the train. If they were not,
the passengers would spend most of the night in getting up off the floor
and climbing into bed again. A few hundred yards out of the station the
engine-driver decided to stop, and there was the same fearful jerk and
concussion. Throughout the night he stopped and he started at frequent
intervals, and always with the fearful jerk. Sometimes he would slow
down gently and woo me into a false tranquillity, but only to finish
with the same jerk rendered more shocking by contrast.