WHAT I FOUND IN AMERICA
Oh, the wide plains, and the bustling films, that are America,
This, this is life, and Europe a _forma cadaverica_.
—SPINSHOTT.
It was early in 1944 that business claims made it necessary for me to
undertake a journey to the United States. I could not have chosen a
better moment for my visit, for the Anglo-American entente was just then
at its zenith. After the Five Years’ War, it is well-known, there was a
period at which relations were somewhat strained, chiefly owing to our
indebtedness. It is a common experience in ordinary life that, however
friendly be your feelings towards A., you tend to avoid A. in the club
or crowd to the other end of the Tube-lift at her approach when she has
become your creditor. Such was the constraint in our relations with the
United States, and for a time it seemed (I am speaking of my own
memories of my geographical training at Oxford) as if the two countries
were bound to remain on distant terms and finally drift into hostility.
It was only in 1935 that the ill-starred political genius, James
Tremayne, brought forward his scheme for a _rapprochement_, which was
still laughed at as chimerical at the time of his early death in 1936.
It is true that his proposals had erred on the side of generosity,
offering as they did four dukedoms, eight marquisates, thirtytwo
peerages, and a hundred and eight baronetcies to American citizens on
condition of a full discharge of our War Debt. There was also a good
deal of doctrinaire objection on the part of the labour Government which
was then in power: “the sons of George Washington,” as Mr. Ropes
oratorically put it, “are not to be bribed with sugar-plums.” The sons
of George Washington could not very well make any advances while the
market was still so doubtful, and it was only on the accession to power
of the Tories (under Lord Hopedale) in 1941 that negotiations were begun
in earnest. The buyers were coy at first, and for a time it seemed as if
no business was being done, but in 1942 patriotism on both sides of the
Atlantic triumphed over all obstacles and our Transocean creditors
consented to call it a deal at three dukedoms, six marquisates,
thirty-six peerages, seventy-two baronetcies, and a hundred and twenty
knighthoods, on condition that the honours in question were put up to an
open ballot, the British Government waiving on its side all right of
selection.
My American hosts used to describe to me the excitement of those early
days of 1943, when the ballot was held. An attempt was made at first to
keep a fixed price for the tickets, £1000 for a dukedom entry and so on;
but this attempt soon proved impracticable. When the first allotment had
been completed the tickets immediately began to be put up to auction,
and prices soared dangerously, £10,000 being freely quoted for a dukedom
entry before the end of April. But a slight trade depression produced a
slump, and prices were sagging heavily by the end of June, when the
ballot was held. The Duke of Illinois, for example, got in on the ground
floor and picked up his ticket in discharge of a bad debt at £4000.
Among all the buyers, none brought a cooler head or a more iron nerve to
the business than a young citizen of Connecticut, Wilson J. Harkness. He
had speculated early; a millionaire himself, he had formed a ring in
which all the other partners were men of straw whose premiums were paid
by himself, and by the time the first allotment was made he found
himself almost safe for a marquisate, while he held a block of
baronetcies that almost amounted to a controlling interest. At the
moment when the market was strongest he sold out his marquisate options,
and as prices fell began steadily buying peerages. His forethought was
justified, for though at the time of the ballot he held eighty-six
peerage tickets, only one of these proved to be a winning number. (His
three baronetcies, by a gracious act of international courtesy, he
allowed to lapse to the Crown.) There was some feeling at first among
the successful competitors against the adoption of territorial titles,
and there is still a Duke McGinnis in Boston to-day, but Wilson Harkness
knew by instinct what was expected of him, and early appeared in the
Honours List as Wilson Lord Porstock.
It was in the first flush of good feeling, when Great Britain felt the
relief of being discharged from so fearful an indebtedness, and the
United States public felt bound to us closer than ever by the
ennoblement of so many of its most prominent citizens, that I made my
business trip. I went by air, of course, on the _Atmospheric_, one of
the old Handley Page line. I missed, by doing so, the sight of the
Statue of Liberty, which had then only just been fitted with the
apparatus which makes its right eye wink on the approach of the
traveller: but as we came to earth at the customsdrome we were greeted
by the gigantic “Eagle” scar on the hill-side, which has since been
filled in with lapis-lazuli, but was then more striking for the
simplicity of the natural chalk. We were still in the old prohibition
days, and I remember that before landing we came to water beside a
sea-going liner, into which we transferred all our petrol tins,
receiving in return a heavy cargo of similar tins, concerning the
contents of which no questions were asked of us when we landed.
The hospitality of the Americans has always been, and still is, justly
famous, but I suppose the arrangements for its exercise have never been
so elaborate or so complete as they were at the time of my visit. You
took with you no introductions, had no questions asked about your
antecedents, so long as you were a first class passenger. You went
straight from the customsdrome to a hospitality bureau, where you stated
the probable length of your stay and gave a list of the cities you
intended to visit, in return for which an official handed you a complete
list of the hosts who were to entertain you at each centre, together
with a little sheaf of “emergency introductions” for each—the need for
these last came home to me at San Francisco, where I found that my
destined host had gone bankrupt and shot himself the day before my
arrival. It was without any fuss or elaborateness of introductions etc.
that I spent seven months on this hospitable continent, visiting New
York, Boston, Washington, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago,
Baltimore, Philadelphia, New Orleans, Wichita, and Rooseveltville in the
course of my stay. I should explain that when I arrived at New York I
received a wireless informing me that the business projects which my
visit had in view were not, after all, feasible; but my partners agreed
with me that since I had had all the fatigue of the journey I might as
well travel about and improve my mind a bit before returning to harness.
I have not been to America since, so that I cannot speak as an
eye-witness when I contrast the America of forty years ago with the
America of to-day. My readers will not, therefore, expect any very full
descriptions under this head. I need only remind them that this was
before the shifting of the earthquake zone, which made it necessary for
our cousins overseas to build all their houses in one storey: that the
war between the Wet and the Dry had not yet been fought, and General
Murchison was only known as an obscure political agitator; that the
repatriation of the negro population, which only set in properly with
the granting of Nigerian Home Rule, was at this time hardly thought of;
that the immigration of Chinese and Japanese exiles, which was due to
the over-population of the Eastern countries before the benefits of our
civilization began to tell upon the birth-rate, was still regarded as a
menace; that Catholicism, finally, though it had the numerical
superiority, was still far from being the dominant religion of the
Continent—its progress in Canada was more rapid than its progress
further South. It was a very different America, then, that I visited;
and I think the best way to avoid continual comparisons between then and
now, of which my readers must be sufficiently weary, will be to quote
extracts from the letters I wrote home to my mother at the time. She
kept all these, and for myself I think the value of old letters in
recapturing a lost atmosphere amply atones for the occasional irritation
one feels at their out-of-dateness. Let them stand, then, as I find them
in my mother’s desk, in the clear, bold typewriting of my girlish days.
I should say, however, by way of preface, that at the time of my visit
the country was much exercised by the violent, but, as it proved,
unsuccessful campaign which was being organized against the importation
and use of chewing-gum. Society was everywhere divided into the Sticky
Party and the Clean Party, and you have to understand what is meant when
I speak of a state “going sticky” or “going clean.”
* * * * *
NEW YORK, _March 3_.
DEAR OLD THING,—
I am quartered here on Lord Poughkeepsie and his wife, such a charming
couple. The weather is, we hear, intensely cold, but one doesn’t come
into personal contact with it in these parts: a closed motor stands
ready on the lift when you want to go “out,” and you take care to fasten
all the windows before it is lowered into the porch. The same sort of
thing happens, of course, at the other end. We had a most interesting
dinner-party here last night with a very old American family, the van
Murphy’s—he is said to have refused a knighthood, which is regarded as a
frightfully desperate thing to do, out here. He says the Cleans are
gaining in the East, though New York is sticky to a man; but it is the
Western vote which will count. In Los Angeles it is not safe to go out
of doors unless you pretend to be chewing, and some of the more
peaceable citizens keep marbles in their cheeks permanently, to avoid
being held up and questioned. Several of the States have already gone
clean, including Maine, where the result, they tell me, has been an
appalling outbreak of sweet-eating. Even here it is quite difficult to
get butterscotch or barley-sugar, because there is such a lot of
hoarding going on. I asked whether either party was likely to include
the No-gum plank in its platform, and he said the Revolutionaries (they
correspond to our Conservatives, you know) have practically pledged
themselves to it. I haven’t caught the habit myself yet; it is horrible
when they are chewing the stuff, but still worse when they “release” it.
Mr. van Murphy startled me by asking me whether I was fond of
Theocritus! For a moment I imagined it was a kind of cigarette, but just
remembered in time that it was the name of a classical author, and said
I had never been encouraged to read him, because in England it wasn’t
thought proper for young girls. This was a desperate shot, but turned
out to be a fortunate one; he quite understood. It seems that they read
the classics out here with great avidity, and Greek forms part of their
ordinary education! Mr. van Murphy continued to talk about Theocritus,
seeing that the field was clear for him, and said he did not think he
was as good as Longfellow, not so uplifting. I said I always felt
uplifted by Longfellow. He said Lucretius was great stuff, but kind of
old-fashioned: the man hadn’t got our advantages, scince being little
studied in those times. He thought if Lucretius could come to life now a
man like Jefferson could hand him the soap. I had no idea what he meant,
so agreed feverishly. He said he had learnt scince pretty average when
he was at the seminary, and thought it was a great thing for a boy; gave
him a kind of scatter for things. I was feeling badly out of my depth
(you know, Lady Poughkeepsie afterwards told me that the real high-class
Americans don’t talk slang; “a man like Alge van Murphy, now, you
couldn’t tell him from a Britisher by his talk”). I felt it was my turn
to “come in” somehow, so (remembering my _Stories from the Aeneid_) I
asked if Virgil was read much in American schools; I thought boys
enjoyed it so much more if the books they read had a plot and a human
interest. He said it was pretty generally considered in American circles
that Virgilius P. Maro was the greatest man God ever. I turned in
despair to the man on the other side. He turned out to be a Professor of
philosophy, but was fortunately disinclined to talk shop. Indeed, for
about twenty minutes on end he told me all about the points of all the
Derby winners for the last ten years or so: they are a strange
people....
New York, March 24. To-morrow I am to cross the Continent. I am going by
helico after all, because I want to crowd in as much sight-seeing as I
can. I am sorry, though, to miss the train journey; apparently it is
like nothing on earth. The trains only go at twenty miles an hour, on a
fabulously broad gauge, and living in them is like living in a hotel.
The engines consume their own smoke, and if the weather is fine you
spend your time on the top of the carriage, which is all laid out as a
flower garden! Each coach is named after the flower that is principally
cultivated on the top of it. Life on the train is so quiet that the
journey is regularly recommended by doctors to patients who have had a
nervous break down. There is always a hospital coach, and it is a
favourite joke against the company to declare that when the train
reaches its terminus the guard—I mean the “conductor”—has to hand in a
list of Births, Deaths, and Marriages. Another humorist assured me that
it is only a matter of time before they start granting divorces on these
trains; “twenty-five days between stations is a long stretch, you know,
Miss Winterhead.” It is really true that they have swimming-baths in
summer, and that you can send your clothes to the wash!
I am very sorry to hear about the strike at the College of Heralds. It’s
true, of course, that they’ve had to work overtime, and that the
salaries are calculated on a hopelessly outworn scale, but I can’t feel
they’re likely to get their way. And what will Frank Hopgood do if they
don’t take him back after the strike? He had such a promising career in
front of him, and I can’t imagine him settling down to a new job....
Washington, April 7. People talk about nothing except the Gum Question
here. Mrs. Rivers, my hostess here, who is passionately Clean (you
understand what I mean, don’t you? It’s the oddest thing to hear people
talking about it, because one’s always hearing things like “We’ll have
no Clean Senator in these parts,” or “Mrs. So-and-so isn’t as Clean as
she used to be”)—what was I saying? Yes, Mrs. Rivers tells me that the
reason why they are so keen on it is that the gum-makers have
notoriously been introducing opium into the gum for years past. She says
a girl who has the chewing habit is “sucking her Particular Judgement
every time,” which I thought a nice phrase. By the way, I have been
making a little list of Americanisms to send you: I give them here with
the equivalents opposite:
He didn’t come up by the 4.33. He wasn’t born yesterday.
He’s got his flying check. }
He’s lost weight. }
He’s joined the ’cellos. } He has died.
He’s got in amongst it. }
He’s gone in off the flush. }
Have my card. That doesn’t deceive me.
To get one’s diaphragm buzzing. To have a meal.
He’s under the hoist. He doesn’t count.
He’s mislaid his gum somewhere. He is off his head.
There’s no hair on that egg. That’s no use.
I should half. No, thank you.
To come down butter-side up. To fall on one’s feet.
And so on and so on. I’m only gradually getting into the way of
understanding what it all means; probably when I come home I shall just
have begun to talk it!
Please tell Mrs. Rowlands that I have been under the Niagara Falls on a
hydroplane. I haven’t been anywhere near them really, but I thought
she’d like to hear that kind of thing....
Los Angeles, June 2, 1944. I told my host here that I wanted to go out
and see the country a bit, and what was my surprise to be told that it
is forbidden by the police! It appears that the whole of this
country-side is entirely given up to the film industry, and there used
to be so many accidents through people getting caught in prairie-fires,
being trodden to death by wild buffaloes, falling into man-traps,
getting cut off by artificial floods, and (worse than all) standing in
the way when the pictures were actually being taken, that they had to
issue a sort of special permit for film actors, and non-combatants (so
to speak) have to keep within the area of the town itself. I was,
however, allowed to fly over the country a bit, and saw, within the
space of two hours, a volcano in explosion, two bull-fights, an
_auto-da-fé_, and what looked like a lynching, but was really, I
believe, a comic scene representing a man trying to get away from
autograph hunters....
Boston, July 29, 1944. I went out to dinner with some very exclusive and
old-fashioned people here, who, I was told afterwards, are Christian
Scientists. They believe there is no such thing as pain, and no such
thing as sin, which must be very comforting for them. They were started,
I am told, by a Mrs. Eddy, whom they are expecting to reappear on earth
very shortly.
I am beginning to be homesick already. I have not met many people here,
except one young man, whom I thought rather interesting; but I had that
odd feeling one gets sometimes that he didn’t like me. I’ll tell you
about him later, perhaps. I feel rather lonely, and wanting to be back
with you at dear Greylands.
Please tell Mrs. Rowlands that the Feminist movement is making great
strides in Salt Lake City. A woman may regard herself as _ipso facto_
divorced if her husband forgets to shut the door, and they are working
steadily towards polyandry....
* * * * *
I must here interrupt these selections from my correspondence; for it
was at Boston, as my reader will perhaps have guessed, that I had the
happiness of meeting Porstock; and my letters from that time onwards
have a way of always coming back to one subject, and treating that
subject in the sentimental vein young ladies are apt to fall into on
such occasions—I will not “give myself away” by risking any more
quotations. It was with my kind hosts at Boston, Lord and Lady
Massachussets, that Porstock was first introduced to me; he used to tell
me afterwards that he had the feeling his tie wasn’t straight all the
evening, and that he was never so uncomfortable in his life! He was of
the American type of handsomeness which has given so many bridegrooms to
the daughters of English families; tall, straight, square-jawed, a man
of purpose. After our second meeting we seemed to have a natural
attraction for one another, and he used to call every morning and take
me out in his helico till late at night, missing, I am afraid, a
luncheon engagement now and again. People began to suspect that an
attachment was growing up between us even before we realized it
ourselves; and witty Lady Massachussets used to chaff me when I seemed
absent-minded in conversation by telling me I was always up in the air!
“Was it touch of hand, turn of head?” I only know that one evening when
we were flying back from Montreal (the only time I crossed into Dominion
territory during my stay) he had just had occasion to help me with the
steering-gear, which was a little stiff, when suddenly we looked into
one another’s eyes and knew our fate. “It’s a pity,” he said suddenly,
“there’s no landing-stage at that damned registry.” “Wilson, you fool,”
I said, “has it taken you a fortnight to discover that?” “Guess I’m not
going to be that kind of fool any longer,” he said—and he wasn’t. But
there! What right has an old woman, after all her good resolutions, to
repeat all these tender passages? Enough to say, as Porstock himself
said in announcing the affair to our host, that we came down hitched. I
asked his leave to speak to his mother the same evening, and found her
kindness itself. “Take him, my dear,” she said, “and God bless you; you
have discovered our treasure.”
It was arranged, of course, that I should take him back to England, and
that our marriage should be celebrated there. Since my mother did not
approve of short engagements, we decided to put off the ceremony till
October. The Press—what a curious habit the Press has of suddenly waking
up and finding that it knew all about you!—gave us an almost royal
welcome. I must overcome my blushes, and give you an extract from the
_Daily Mail_, if only to let you enjoy the quaint, archaic language of
it:
“PEER’S DAUGHTER HITCHES MILLIONAIRE:
ANOTHER AMERICAN COUSIN GETS HIS FROM
CUPID
“The U.S. citizen is a brainy lad, and it isn’t only for titles he
comes over this side: I hardly suppose! Wilse Harkness, anyhow, Lord
Porstock as he is since those birthday honours set things buzzing,
knew a good thing when he saw one; and pretty Miss Winterhead,
daughter of the lamented Lord Blisworth, was too good a thing to
miss when he met her flying over Boston. When he found he hadn’t
foul-hooked an angel (his first impression) he lost no time in
exhorting her to nominate the anniversary. So the red carpets will
have to be got out against her return to her charming country seat
at Greylands, near West Mill in Herts, and the congregation will
have another set of banns to sit out on Sunday. Lord Porstock’s fame
as a good sportsman and a charming host has preceded him here, and
those who envy him his fortune will not be slow to hold out to him
the hand of good-fellowship. The best of luck to him and his winsome
lady!”
They are yellow now with age, those lines that once looked fresh and
clean in my scrap-book, and their old-world diction falls oddly on the
ear, that once sounded so modern and so vivid. Yet they are still fresh
to the heart of a sentimental old woman, whose wrinkled features could
once justify those sprightly gallantries, and who felt then, with a
certainty she has never had reason to regret, that the summer-time of
her life was coming and that all was well with her world.