I hope the young American soldier, with whom we are becoming so
familiar in the street, the tube and the omnibus, has found us as
agreeable as we have found him. We were not quite sure whether we
should like him, but the verdict is very decisively in the affirmative.
It has been my fortune to know many Americans in the past, but they
were for the most part selected Americans, elderly persons, statesmen,
writers, diplomatists, journalists, and so on. Not having been in
America I had not realised what the plain, average citizen, especially
the young citizen, was like. Now he is here, walking our streets and
rubbing shoulders with us in sufficient numbers for a general
impression to be taken. It is a pleasant impression. I like the air
of plenty that he carries with him, the well-nourished body, the sense
of ease with himself and the world, the fund of good nature that he
seems to have at command, the frankness of bearing, and, what was least
expected, the touch of self-conscious modesty that is rarely absent.
If I may say so without offending him, he seems extraordinarily
English. Physically he is rather bulkier than the average English
youth, and his accent distinguishes him; but these differences only
serve to sharpen the impression that he is one of ourselves who has
been away somewhere--in a civilised land, where the larder is full, the
schools plenty, and the family life homely and cordial. It is very
rare that you see what you would call a foreign face in the uniform.
This is singular in view of the mighty stream of immigration from
Continental countries that has been flowing for three-quarters of a
century into the melting pot of the United States; but I do not think
the fact can be doubted. The blood is more mixed than ours, but the
main current is emphatically British.
Perhaps the difference that is observable could be expressed by saying
that the American is not so much reminiscent of ourselves as of our
forebears. He suggests a former generation rather than this. We have
grown sophisticated, urban, and cynical; he still has the note of the
country and of the older fashions that persist in the country. Lowell
long ago pointed out that many of the phrases which we regarded as
American slang were good old East Anglian words which had been taken
out by the early settlers in New England and persisted there after they
had been forgotten by us. And in the same way the moral tone of the
American to-day is like an echo from our past. He preserves the
fervour for ideals which we seem to have lost. There is something of
the revivalist in him, something elemental and primitive that responds
to a moral appeal.
It is this abiding strain of English Puritanism which is responsible
for the tidal wave of temperance that has swept the United States.
Already nearly half the States have gone "bone dry," and it is
calculated that, perhaps in two years, certainly in five, with the
present temper in being, the whole of the Union will have banished the
liquor traffic. A moral phenomenon of this sort might have been
possible in the England of two or three generations ago; it is
unthinkable in the moral atmosphere of to-day. The industrial machine
has dried up the spring of moral enthusiasm. It will only return by a
new way of life. Perhaps the new way of life is beginning in the
allotment movement which is restoring to us the primal sanities of
nature. We may find salvation in digging.
It is sometimes said that the American is crude. It would be truer to
say that he is young. He has not suffered the disenchantment of an old
and thoroughly exploited society. We have the qualities of a middle
aged people who have lost our visions and are rather ashamed to be
reminded that we ever had any. But a youthful ardour and buoyancy is
the note of the American. He may think too much in the terms of
dollars, but he has freshness and vitality, faith in himself, a boyish
belief in his future and a boyish zest in living. His good temper is
inexhaustible, and he has the easy-going manner of one who has plenty
of time and plenty of elbow-room in the world.
For contrary to the common conception of him as a hurrying, bustling,
get-on-or-get-out young man, he is leisurely both in speech and action,
cool and unworried, equable of mood, little subject to the extremes of
emotion, bearing himself with a solid deliberateness that suggests
confidence in himself and inspires confidence in him. You feel that he
will neither surprise you, nor let you down.
Not the least noticeable of his qualities is his accessibility. The
common language, of course, is a great help, and the common traditions
also. You are rarely quite at home with a man who thinks in another
language than your own. The Tower of Babel was a great misfortune for
humanity. But it is not these things which give the American his
quality of immediate and easy intercourse. There is no ice to break
before you get at him. There is no baffling atmosphere of doubt and
hesitancy to get through; no fencing necessary to find out on what
social footing you are to stand. You are on him at once--or rather he
is on you. He comes into the open, without reserves of manner, and
talks "right ahead" with the candour and ease of a man who is at home
in the world and at home with you. He is free alike from intellectual
priggishness and social aloofness. He is just a plain man talking to a
plain man on equal terms.
It is the manner of the New World and of a democratic society in which
the Chief of the State is plain Mr. President, who may be the ruler of
a continent this year and may go back to his business as a private
citizen next year. It is illustrated by the tribute which Frederick
Douglass, the negro preacher, paid to Lincoln. "He treated me as a
man," said Douglass after his visit to the President. "He did not let
me feel for a moment that there was any difference in the colour of our
skins." It is a fine testimony, but I do not suppose that Lincoln had
to make any effort to achieve such a triumph of good manners. He
treated Douglass as a man and an equal because he was a man and an
equal, and because the difference in the colour of their skins had no
more to do with their essential relationship than the difference in the
colour of their ties or the shape of their boots.
The directness and naturalness of the American is the most enviable of
his traits. It gives the sense of a man who is born free--free from
the irritating restraints, embarrassments and artificialities of a
society in which social caste and feudal considerations prevail as they
still prevail in most European countries. Perhaps Germany is the most
flagrant example. It used to be said by Goethe that there were
twenty-seven different social castes in Germany, and that none of them
would speak to the caste below. And Mr. Gerard's description of the
Rat system suggests that the stratification of society has increased
rather than diminished since the days of Goethe.
The disease is not so bad in this country; but we cannot pretend that
we have the pure milk of democracy. No people which tolerates titles,
and so deliberately sets up social discriminations in its midst and
false idols for its worship, can hope for the free, unobstructed
intercourse of a real democracy like that of America. It was said long
ago by Daniel O'Connell that "the Englishman has all the qualities of a
poker except its occasional warmth." It is a caricature, of course,
but there is truth in it. We are icy because we are uncertain about
each other--not about each other as human beings, but about each
other's social status. We have got the spirit of feudalism still in
our bones, and our public school system, our titles, and our
established Church system all tend to keep it alive, all work to cut up
society into social orders which are the negation of democracy.
And as if we had not enough of the abomination, we are imitating the
German Rat system with the grotesque O.B.E. We shall get stiffer than
ever under this rain of sham jewellery, and shall not be fit to speak
to our American friends. But we shall still be able to admire and envy
the fine freedom and human friendliness which is the conspicuous gift
of these stalwart young fellows who walk our streets in their
flat-brimmed hats.
Perhaps when the account of the war is made up we shall find that the
biggest credit entry of all is this fact that they did walk our streets
as comrades of our own sons. For over a century we two peoples,
talking the same language and cherishing the same traditions of
liberty, have walked on opposites sides of the way, remembering old
grudges, forgetting our common heritage, forgetting even that we gave
the world its first and its grandest lead in peace by proclaiming the
disarmament of the Canadian-United States frontier. Now the grudges
are forgotten, and we have found a reconciliation that will never again
be broken, and that will be the corner-stone of the new world-order
that is taking shape in the furnace of these days.
'APPY 'EINRICH
The waiter certainly was rather slow, or perhaps it was that we were
hungry and impatient. In any case, I apologised to my guest, a young
fellow home on leave, and explained that the waiter was entitled to be
a little absent-minded, for he had lost two sons in the war and his
only remaining son had been invalided out of the Army, a permanent
wreck.
"He tells me," I said, "that the boy never talks about the war or his
experiences. He just seems silent and numbed. All that they know is
that he killed five Germans, and that he is sorry for one of them. It
happened while he was on patrol. There had been a good deal of
indignation at that part of the line because there had been cases
reported in which 'hands up' had been a trick for ensnaring some of our
men, and the order had been given that the signal was to be ignored and
those making it shot at sight. It was twilight and a young German
soldier was seen running forward with his hands up. The patrol fired
and he fell. He was quite unarmed and alone. On his body they found
letters from his sweetheart in England--old letters that he had
apparently carried with him all through the war. They showed that he
had been at work at some place in London and had been engaged to be
married when the war broke out."
"Yes," said my companion, as the waiter came up with the fish. "Yes,
when the enemy turns from an abstraction to an individual you generally
find there's something that makes you hate this killing business. I
don't know that I have felt more sorry for any man's death in this war
than for that of a German.
"You've been to F----, haven't you? You know that bit of line north of
the M---- road that you reach by the communication trench that is
always up to your knees in mud no matter how dry the weather is. You
remember how close the lines are to each other at that point--not forty
yards apart? I was there in a dull season."
"You were lucky," I said. "It isn't often dull there."
"No, but it was then. The Boche would drop over an occasional
whiz-bang as a reminder, and he'd have his usual afternoon cock-shy
over our heads at the last pinnacle standing on the ruins of the
cathedral in the town behind us. But really there was nothing doing,
and we got rather chummy with the fellows over the way. We'd put up a
target for them, and they'd do the same for us. They'd got some decent
singers among them, and we'd shout for the 'Hate' song or 'Wacht am
Rhein' or 'Tannenbaum' or something of that sort and they always
obliged, and we gave them the best we had back.
"Yes, we got quite friendly, and one morning one of their men got up on
the parapet over the way, bowed very low, and shouted 'Goot morning.'
Our men answered, 'Morgen, Fritz. How goes it?' and so on. He was a
big fat fellow, with glasses, and a good-humoured face, and to our
great joy he began to sing a song in broken English. And after he had
finished we called for more. He had a real gift for comedy; seemed one
of those fellows who are sent into the world with their happiness ready
made. He laughed a great gurgling laugh that made you laugh to hear
it. Our chaps gave him no end of applause, and called for his name.
He beamed and bowed, said 'Thank you, genteelmen,' and said that his
name was Heinrich something or other.
"So we called him 'Appy 'Einrich,' and whenever our men were bored and
things had gone to sleep someone would sing out 'We want 'Einrich.
Send us 'Appy 'Einrich to give us a song.' And up would come Heinrich
on to the parapet, red and smiling and bowing like a _prima donna_.
And off he would start with his programme. He always seemed willing
and evidently greatly enjoyed his popularity with our fellows.
"This went on for some time, and then one day we got the news that we
were to be relieved at once. We were to clear out that night and our
place was to be taken by a Scotch regiment. You need not be told that
we were glad. Life in the trenches when there is nothing doing is
about as deadly a weariness as man has invented. We got our kit
together and when night fell and our relief had come we marched back
under the stars through F---- towards B----.
"We had been too much occupied with the prospect of release to give a
thought to the fellows over the road or to Heinrich. I remembered him
afterwards and hoped that someone had told the new men that Heinrich
was a good sort and would always give them a bit of fun, if he was
asked, or even if he wasn't asked.
"Some weeks afterwards at B---- I ran across a man in the Scotch
regiment which had followed us in the trenches on the M---- road, and
we talked about things there. 'And how did you get on with Heinrich?'
I asked. 'Heinrich?' he said, 'Who is he?' 'Why, surely,' said I,
'you know Heinrich, the fat fellow across the way, who gets up on the
parapet and says "Goot morning," and sings comic songs?' 'Never heard
of him,' he said. 'Ah,' I said, 'he would have heard we were relieved
and didn't find you so responsive a crowd as we were.' 'Never heard of
him,' he repeated--then, after a pause, he added, 'There was an
incident the morning after we took over the line. Some of our fellows
saw a bulky Boche climbing on to the parapet just across the way and
had a little target practice, and he went down in a heap.' 'That was
him,' I said, 'that was 'Appy 'Einrich. What a beastly business war
is, and what ungrateful beggars we were to forget him!'
"Yes, a beastly business, killing men," he added. "I don't wonder the
waiter's son doesn't want to talk about it. We shall all be glad to
forget when we come out of hell."