festival. Begun with religious exercises, supported by the lively
interest of the public and the press, the event was regarded, throughout
the country, as the event of the day; and all the more as the first
statesman of the United States, John Hay, delivered the address of
greeting. In this address, which, by the way, was telegraphed all over
the world, there were none of those diplomatic “ifs” and “buts” and “to
be sures” and “on the other hands” which are customary on such
occasions; it was a frank, unreserved recognition of the justice and
attainability of the aim of the Congress, and it contained the
declaration that a new diplomacy and a new system of politics henceforth
must accept the golden rule (“What ye will not have done unto you,
etc.”) as a pattern of conduct,—a rule which has been banished from high
politics hitherto by so-called practical politicians, on the ground that
it was unpractical and idealistic. At this introductory meeting the
great hall of Tremont Temple was filled to the last seat, and at least
three thousand people tried in vain to obtain entrance.
About one hundred and twenty delegates came from Europe. That is not a
large number; the majority and the most prominent among them came from
England. Carnegie, whose attendance had been announced, was prevented
from coming, and merely sent a significant letter. There were legions of
addresses of approbation from various bodies, religious, scientific,
industrial, and the like. One of the most noteworthy addresses, and
absolutely unique considering the source from which it came, was
subscribed, “Twenty-third Regiment, Massachusetts Infantry.”
Besides the regular transactions, which were followed by large,
attentive, and receptive audiences, the Congress gave a great series of
public meetings at which the peace question was elucidated from
different points of view, as, for example, “the peace question and the
school,” “the peace movement and socialism,” “the duties and
responsibilities of woman in the peace movement,” and the like. The
classes concerned thronged to all these meetings,—the women to one,
educators to another, and laboring men to the third.
A meeting touching the question of disarmament, and offering as its
chief speaker the well-known General Miles, was attended by many
military men,—probably by some of that Twenty-third Regiment. If the
Twenty-third Regiment has so much intelligence, there is no reason why
the Twenty-fourth, and other regiments—and in other states as well as in
Massachusetts—should not understand that, though they will do their duty
while war exists, nevertheless the “warless time”—as the Prussian
Lieutenant Colonel Moritz von Egidy saw it coming—is worth striving for.
The public interest aroused by these addresses was so great that,
although several meetings were held simultaneously and in large
auditoriums, every place was always filled to overflowing. The speakers
were always assured of the greatest applause when they called attention
to the fact that America’s glory and grandeur consisted in having
attained such proportions without a standing army, safe without defense,
giving the world an example of peace; likewise when voices were raised
against imperialism, which seemed to be gaining ground in many places,
or against the threatening increase of the navy and the danger that the
poison of militarism might infect the whole land. Since the war with
Spain this virus has certainly worked its way into the system; but,
judging from what we saw, heard, and read in the papers (with the
exception of the “yellow” journals), the American organism is protecting
itself vigorously against it and will, it is to be hoped, cast it out
altogether.
The scenes that took place at the socialist congress at Amsterdam were
repeated on the Boston platform,—a Japanese and a Russian shook hands
amid a storm of applause. According to old concepts were not both of
them traitors to their native countries? Or is the whole thing somewhat
comical? On the contrary, is not this action more attractive than that
which was related on the same day in a report from the theater of war.
In one grave two dead men were found clutching each other; the hand of
the Japanese was clinched on the Russian’s throat and the Russian’s
fingers had penetrated the eye sockets of the Japanese.
A Hindoo, in native costume, from the sacred land of the Lama, was also
there. He complained of the desecration that the war had wrought in the
monks’ places of devotion. “I come from the jungles,” so his speech
began, “and to the jungles I return.”
A tiny Chinese woman, also in national costume, was one of the most
popular speakers at the Congress. Her name is Dr. Kim. Educated by
English missionaries, she had come to America to study medicine, and now
she is going back to China to practice there. She speaks exquisite
English, and with the sweetest voice and a smiling mouth she spoke the
bitterest truths to the Europeans about the presumption with which they
were trying to impose their warlike civilization upon an older and
peaceful culture, and their dogmas upon a ripened philosophical view of
the world, and, finally, were aiming to treat the Chinese Empire as a
country to be looted.
“We can learn much from you, friends” (the word “friends” she spoke with
a peculiarly sweet intonation), “that we grant; and if those lusts of
conquest prevail, then we shall have to be grateful for learning from
you, friends” (spoken tenderly), “the art of defending ourselves
successfully against you.”
I have had opportunity for but little sight-seeing about Boston, for the
days were filled with meetings and labors. But the Public Library I did
visit. Oh, those book palaces, those book cathedrals in America! What is
not granted there to the people hungry for learning! And in what form it
is given! The building is adorned with all the magic of architectural
and plastic arts; the frescoes that adorn the palatial stairway—designed
by Puvis de Chavannes—are a poem; another great master, Sargent, was
intrusted with the decoration of some of the inner rooms. Beauty
everywhere!
There is a widespread notion that the American possesses only a business
sense and not an æsthetic sense; that the cities with their
“cloud-scratchers” and elevated roads and warehouses are ugly. What a
mistake! The horn of plenty that has scattered its treasures over this
land has not forgotten beauty any more than wealth. Not to speak of
natural beauties—Niagara Falls, the Rocky Mountains, and the like—I mean
the works of man. Whoever planted woodbine, ivy, and other vines, to
clamber in rich luxuriance up the walls, even to the roofs of houses and
churches, knew that he was creating beauty. Here again nature comes to
man’s aid, for the autumn foliage glows and gleams in colors which are
quite unknown in our landscapes. In contrast with the brilliant hues
there are soft and tender tones,—such an azure green, such a rosy gray,
such a bright golden violet as only the most audacious art secessionist
would venture to mix on his palette.
After the close of the Boston Congress public meetings were arranged in
many other cities,—New York, Philadelphia, Worcester, Springfield,
Northampton, Toronto, Buffalo, Cincinnati, and elsewhere; and in these
places the principal men and women who had been speaking at the Peace
Congress gave lectures concerning the transactions there and the peace
movement in general. Everywhere were the same enthusiastic interest on
the part of the public, the same dignified treatment on the part of
official circles, and the same detailed and approving reports from the
press. Our lectures were desired and applauded in churches,
universities, girls’ schools, workingmen’s homes, concert
halls,—everywhere.
On my return to New York I got somewhat acquainted with the city. The
word “acquainted,” though, seems presumptuous when I had only a few
days, or rather a few hours—for the days were filled for the most part
with the duties of my calling—to devote to this giant phenomenon, this
city of three millions. Nevertheless, even what is seen as quickly as in
a lightning flash can leave an abiding impression, especially when it is
so surprising and overpowering. If I were to sum up the impression that
America made on me, I might say that I was affected somewhat as
Bellamy’s hero was, who, after sleeping for many years, wakes up in an
absolutely changed and improved world. Not as if, as in the case
described by Bellamy, several centuries had been passed in sleep, but
rather as if two or three decades, filled with discoveries and other
advances, had been anticipated; thus seemed everything around me. The
woman movement, the anti-alcohol movement, the social movement,
technical arts, popular education, democratic spirit, toleration,
comfort of living, luxury, physical development,—everything speedily
carried forward and upward to a climax. A still deeper impression than
the one made by all that was so abundantly flowering there (I grant that
there may be also many poisonous plants in the garden) was made upon me
by what is planted there, by what is still hidden in the seeds but is
full of promise for rich harvests in the future. Education is power,
education is freedom, education is ennoblement; and from that treasure,
which is indeed imported from the Old World, such mighty systems of
culture multiplied and disseminated will be established in the New World
that for the coming generations an inestimable raising of the general
standard of life is to be expected. I have had the opportunity to see
universities, colleges, and libraries, and to hear about the settlements
of university extension. “Education,” said an American lady to me, “is
something which we feel in duty bound to disseminate widely; the whole
people must be able to share in it.”
All the development of magnificence, all the zeal in conferring
donations, which in the Old World has been shown in princely palaces and
cathedrals, in the New World—and from far richer sources—flows into
places for education. That, indeed, up to the present time, more
fundamental knowledge is to be obtained at European universities is
indicated by the fact that Americans whose means permit it, and who are
particularly ambitious, come to us to study, and that all the professors
and scientists there regard it as a privilege to be able to spend a few
years as students in our higher institutions; but I am speaking now of
the dissemination, especially the coming dissemination, of public
instruction, which is still so young in America. Its deepening will come
of itself, together with the rejection of much useless educational truck
inherited from the olden days and not likely to be any longer useful for
the new times.
Unfortunately I did not make the acquaintance of the so-called “smart
set,” the upper four hundred, whose palaces line Fifth Avenue and who
are so constantly regarded as the type of the leading classes in
America—though as mistakenly so regarded as a certain Boulevard society
is taken for the prototype of French character. It would have been very
interesting to study this “smart set.” All that I saw was the outside of
their palaces, but they certainly presented to the eye no remarkable
splendor. Their possessors—the Vanderbilts and Rockefellers and Morgans
and Astors and others—at this season of the year were either still at
their country estates or away traveling.
The huge opera house, in which German, French, and Italian operas, each
in the original, are performed by the leading artists of the world, was
not yet opened. The Italian opera will begin with Puccini’s _Bohème_,
sung by Caruso and Marcella Sembrich. Madame Schumann-Heink, who is
undertaking the rôle of Kundry, is just at present the object of many
social attentions and incessant interviews. The performances of
_Parsifal_, regarded by Frau Cosima Wagner as desecration, are said to
have been of overwhelming beauty.
The Americans are importing all our treasures of refined art and old
culture; for us there is only one revenge: we must absorb more and more
of their acquisitions, give more attention to the life that is unfolding
there, rise above envy and jealousy, above pride and prejudice,—those
feelings which in an epoch of international intercourse are no longer
suitable, and which in the past have stood in the way of the development
of universal comity. For, after all, we are only one world; every
treasure, every forward step in whatever corner of the earth, increases
the wealth and the potentiality of happiness of the whole human family.
The words “human family” (a family as yet far from united, still living
in bitter feud) bring me back to the theme that lay at the basis of my
whole transatlantic journey,—the Peace Congress. In New York, among the
festivities arranged in honor of the delegates, was a great meeting
organized by the Germans living there. It was held in Terrace Garden
under the honorary chairmanship of Oscar S. Straus, member of the
Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague, former Ambassador Dr.
Andrew D. White, and the universally respected Carl Schurz. “Why so
respected?” This question was once put to Dr. White by Bismarck. “Tell
me, on what grounds does the old forty-eighter enjoy such universal and
high regard in your country?” “For this reason,” replied the American
ambassador, “because he was the man who treated the slavery question,
which at that time was _the_ question, not, as was customary, from the
philanthropical or the constitutional, but from the philosophical
standpoint, with regard to its significance not for the negroes, but for
the country.”
Perhaps, I might add, the Americans are so charmed by Carl Schurz
because, when he was in a leading position in the public service, he
called a halt in the increasing deforestation of the country. And, above
all, because he is a personality! I made his acquaintance, and in his
house spent one of the most exhilarating hours of my American visit.
I made a pilgrimage to Grant’s tomb, on the door of which his
exclamation is carved, “Let us have peace!” And I saw the statue of
General Sherman, who uttered the famous saying, “War is hell.” The
hellish reports of the ten days’ battle raging in eastern Asia—where, at
the very time when we in America were discussing the question of peace,
the “field of honor” was covered with incredible numbers of the
dead,—brought to us every day a confirmation of that utterance of
General Sherman’s.
We inspected the famous hotel, the Waldorf-Astoria. It exceeds in size
and splendor anything that has thus far been attained in the way of
public houses. And yet a new hotel has just been opened in New York,
called the St. Regis, which is said to be furnished even more
luxuriously, with all sorts of art treasures, old Gobelins, masterpieces
of painting, and the like; but it is small—intended only for the upper
four hundred; I was told that the lowest price for a room was eight
dollars a day.
The ballroom of the Waldorf-Astoria is adorned with a painting proudly
proclaimed by the guide as “the biggest canvas in the world.” Not the
best-painted but the biggest canvas in the world! This naïve
boastfulness is rather characteristic of the worship of the gigantic
that prevails there. When our shops announce a sale they call it a
“great sale”; the American advertisement invites you to a “mammoth
sale.” The cicerone of the hotel called our attention to the fact that
there are three thousand gilded chairs in the ballroom and the adjacent
drawing-rooms, each with a different hand-painted scene on its cushion.
One of our company immediately sat down on one of these artistically
glorified chairs, apparently to test whether or not such delightful
artistry aroused special sensations. I had a ride on the underground
railway, which was to be opened to the public a few days later, but
which had been “running” regularly for three months so that its use
might be perfected before it was turned over to the public,—maneuver
before the real attack!
I had the opportunity in New York of making the acquaintance of Mr.
Pulitzer, the owner of the most widely circulated American newspaper,
the _World_. His home (I was invited there to a luncheon) is of the most
exquisite splendor, and two tall, wonderfully beautiful daughters are
its life. But with all his wealth, all his power, the publisher of the
_World_ is a poor man. Two of the greatest blessings of life this
otherwise vigorous, young-looking man, not yet sixty, has lost,—his
eyesight and sleep. Nevertheless, he works incessantly, dictates his
leading articles, watches and regulates the whole course of his great
paper,—a paper which does not belong to yellow journalism, but, on the
contrary, has long advocated the peace movement. A few years ago, when
the relations between the United States and Great Britain were strained
to the danger point, the _World_ requested answers to a series of
questions, and among the responses was one from the then Prince of
Wales, which did much to allay the danger of war.
If I had lunched a day later at the Pulitzer house, I should have made
the acquaintance of Roosevelt’s opponent, Mr. Alton B. Parker. The
_World_ favors the Democratic party without yielding to the illusion
that at the present time the election can be won from the Republicans.
Is not that a fortunate country that has only two political parties? Yet
even there not everything is rosy in the political arena. They have
their brazen-faced practice of corruption, economic battles,—trusts and
strikes,—that is to say, capitalism and labor unions in hostile,
threatening opposition (and various leaders of the latter bodies are
said not to be superior to corruption). Alas! even there, too, there is
need of what all politics, domestic and foreign, everywhere fails to
possess,—the moral perception.
Philadelphia—after New York and Chicago the largest city of the
Union—offered us peace people a very favorable territory. This city,
founded by Puritans, to-day still largely inhabited by Friends,—as the
war-detesting Quakers are called,—dominated by the statue of William
Penn who signed the treaty of peace with the Indians (the statue crowns
the tower of the city hall),—this city is, so to speak, permeated with
the sap of the peace ideas. Correspondingly cordial, therefore, was the
welcome that was accorded the delegates of the Boston Peace Congress.
The speakers at the public reception were the governor of Pennsylvania,
the mayor of the city, the provost of the university, and the president
of the academy. The governor referred to the widespread diffusion of our
idea, which was daily gaining ground. The time, he said, could not be
far away when collective humanity—the nation, the state—would be
subjected to the same laws which enjoin upon individuals an appeal to
right instead of violently taking the remedy into their own hands.
One of the great attractions of Philadelphia is its park, through which
we were taken on a drive. It really resembles a landscape rather than a
park, so enormous, so extensive are all its dimensions. Where we have
only a clump of trees, there they have a grove; where we have a
grassplot, they have a prairie. At the same time it is carefully tended
and richly adorned with flower beds, fountains, and statues, like a
prince’s beautiful castle garden.
Washington was not included in the schedule of cities where lectures
were to be given; but I ran over there for two days in order to get some
idea of the capital city, and especially to meet the President.
Washington has a character very different from that of the other cities
of the Union. It is not a city exuberant with trade and business; it has
no skyscrapers, no elevated or subterranean railways, no bank or trade
palaces,—only very quiet, very broad streets, planted with trees and
bordered by villa-like houses. Even the embassies and legations are not
housed in palaces but in similar elegant villas. On the other hand, that
part of the city where the Capitol, the Congressional Library, and the
obelisk rise from amidst wide-stretching grassplots, is of overpowering
magnificence. You might think yourself transported to an antique world.
But no—it is the new world, the world of the future.
The Public Library is unquestionably one of the most splendid edifices
in the world. The private citizen who goes thither to read after his
day’s work is accomplished can give himself up to the feelings that are
quickened by an environment of harmonious splendor. You seem to be in
fairyland, and the paintings and marble columns and stairways have an
especially imposing effect when the lofty dome of the central hall is
illuminated with electric lights.
On the seventeenth of September I had the honor of being received by the
President of the United States, and of having a private talk with him
about the cause which is so dear to my heart. Friendly, sincere,
evidently thoroughly impressed with the seriousness and the importance
of the matter discussed,—so seemed Theodore Roosevelt to me. Gallant
_Soldatentum_—even more, adventure-loving _Roughridertum_—is in his
blood, but he has a far-seeing social good will in his spirit; and this
last makes him the pioneer of a new era. He was the first to put into
action the tribunal of The Hague; he is now going to call a new Hague
Conference.
“Universal peace is coming,” he said to me; “it is certainly coming—step
by step.”
It would be unbecoming in me to repeat what was said in an unconstrained
conversation; only the following I might be permitted to state here. I
had mentioned the Anglo-American Arbitration Treaty that came so near
being concluded in 1897, and suggested that the present would be an
appropriate moment for taking it up again.
“I have the intention,” replied the President, “of inaugurating
treaties, not with England alone, but with all nations,—with France,
Germany—”
“Do not forget my Austria,” I interrupted.
He smiled. “And Austria and Italy, and England of course. But England
should not be the sole and only one, else the treaty might be
misunderstood as an alliance of the English-speaking races. It is
America’s duty to make treaties simultaneously with all civilized
nations. And I contemplate one other thing, namely, that these treaties
shall be more far-reaching in their scope, and with fewer limitations,
than those already concluded in Europe.”
The President said among other things that he especially admired
Austria’s acquisition of power in Bosnia; he called this “a feat.”
I went from Washington directly to Cincinnati. Cincinnati is a
manufacturing city, therefore somewhat gray and smoky, but nevertheless
it is surrounded by a girdle of smiling villas and is provided with a
public garden which, not without justification, is called Eden Park. The
lectures of the peace delegates were delivered in a concert hall which
holds four thousand people, and which on that evening was filled to
overflowing. The heads of the official departments, among them a bishop,
delivered the introductory addresses, and I was given the flattering
surprise of seeing, over the platform, the title of my book gleaming in
electric letters, “Lay Down Your Arms.”
On our way back we stopped at Buffalo, and from there made an excursion
to Niagara Falls. One thing with which I might reproach this splendid
spectacle of nature—and yet it is not its fault—is the circumstance that
around the raging waters, on the steep, wooded banks, there stand, in
place of Indian wigwams, modern villas and hotels, and—worse yet—on a
plateau mirrored in the rolling flood a billboard, twenty meters long,
calls the attention of pilgrims to Niagara to a certain species of
biscuit! On the other hand, it is bewitching when from various positions
brilliantly colored rainbows, accompanied by others of paler hues,
appear and vanish and hover over the rising mists like veils.
I brought my visit to America to a close with a visit of several days in
Ithaca at the house of the former ambassador, Dr. Andrew D. White.
Ithaca and its famous university is a little world in itself.
Thus these three weeks in America have flown like a dream, and I am
again on board, homeward bound—richer in magnificent impressions, with
my mental horizon enlarged more than I had ever dreamed possible. I have
looked through a new window—hastily, I must confess, and through only a
narrow opening—into the universe.
INDEX
Aberdeen, Earl of, II, 264
Aberdeen, Lady Isabel, II, 264, 400
Adam, Madame Juliette, I, 278, 280; II, 233
Adler, Friedrich, II, 82, 83
Adler, Moritz, I, 389; II, 142, 192