for the reason that the opportunities for acting upon it no longer
sprout on every bush as in the forties, fifties, sixties, and
seventies of the present century when we were a budding nation and
much of our territory was still virgin soil. I write "seems to
approximate" advisedly, for the opportunities are just as plenty,
merely less obvious. Yet here again I must make this qualification--one
which recalls doubtless the favorite aphorism employed to meet the plea
that the legal profession is overcrowded--that there is always an
abundance of room on the top benches. Indisputably the day has passed
when the ambitious and enterprising American youth could have fruit
from the tree of material fortune almost by stretching out his hand.
Now he has to climb far, and the process is likely to be slow and
discouraging. The conditions peculiar to a sparse population in a new
country rich in resources have almost ceased to exist, and, though a
young nation still, we are face to face with the problems which concern
a seething civilization where almost every calling seems full. Now
and again some lucky seeker for fortune still finds it in a brief
twelve-month, but for the mass of American young men the opportunities
for speedy, dazzling prosperity have ceased to exist. Those who win the
prizes of life among us nowadays owe their success, in all but sporadic
cases, to unusual talents, tireless zeal and unremitting labor, almost
as in England, and France, and Germany. So also, with the passing of
the period when enterprise and ambition were whetted by the promise of
sudden and vast rewards, have disappeared many of the traits, both
external and psychological, which were characteristic of our early
nationality. The buffalo is nearly extinct, and with him is vanishing
much of the bluff, graceless assertiveness of demeanor which was
once deemed essential by most citizens to the display of native
independence. Our point of view has changed, broadened, evolved in so
many ways that it were futile to do more than indicate by a general
description what is so obvious. Partly by the engrafting and adoption
of foreign ideas and customs, partly by the growth among us of new
conditions beyond the simple ken of our forefathers, our national
life has become both complex and cosmopolitan. If we, who were once
prone to believe our knowledge, our manners, and our customs to be
all-sufficient, have been borrowing from others, so we in our turn have
been imitated by the older nations of Europe, and the result is an
approximation in sympathies and a blurring of distinctions. Political
differences and race superficialities of expression seem a larger
barrier than they really are, for in its broader faiths and vision the
civilized world is becoming homogeneous. The ocean cable and the
facilities for travel have palsied insular prejudice and lifted the
embargo on the free interchange of ideas. The educated American sees no
resemblance to himself in the caricatures of twenty-five years ago, and
rejoices in the consciousness that the best men the world over are
essentially alike. This, perhaps, is only another way of reasserting
that human nature is always human nature, but this old apothegm has a
clearer significance to-day than ever before.
Yet the opportunities for the display of enterprise and independence
remain none the less distinct because we are becoming a cosmopolitan
community and the old spectacular flavor has been kneaded out of the
national life. Much of our free soil has been appropriated by an army
of emigrants from Europe, and in connection with this fact the saying
is rife that every foreigner seems infused with a new dignity from the
moment that he becomes an American. This may be bathos in individual
cases, yet it is the offspring of truth. Still it remains equally true
that we have an enormous foreign population whose ideas and standards
are those which they brought with them. Proud as these men and women
may be of their new nationality, and eager as they may be to aid in
the promotion of good citizenship, their very existence here in large
numbers has altered the conditions of the problem of Americanism. The
problem involved is no longer that of the winning of a new land by a
free, spirited people under a republican form of government, but the
larger equation of the evolution of the human race. Americanism to-day
stands in a sense more accurate than before as the experiment of
government of the people, for the people, and by the people, and for
the most complete amalgamation of the blood of Christendom which the
human race has ever known. We have lately been celebrating our
centennial anniversaries. Already the great figures of our early
history seem remote. The struggle in which we are engaged is intenser
and broader than theirs: It concerns the progress of human society.
You, whom I am addressing, find yourself a unit in a vast,
heterogeneous population and a complex civilization. You live in the
midst of the most modern aspirations and appliances, and cheek by jowl
with the joy and sorrow, the comfort and distress, the virtue and vice
of a great democracy. Your birthright of independence and energy finds
itself facing essentially the same perplexities as those which
confront the inhabitants of other civilizations where the tide of
existence runs strong and exuberant. If our nationality is to be of
value to the world, Americanism must stand henceforth for a
rectification of old theories concerning, and an application of fresh
vitality to the entire problem of human living.
Love of country should be a part of the creed both of him who counsels
and him who listens, yet I deem it my duty, considering the nature of
our topic, to suggest that there are not a few in the world,
foreigners chiefly, who would be disposed to answer your inquiry how
best to be an American, by citing _Punch's_ advice to persons about to
marry, "don't!" It does credit to your love of country that you have
assumed a true American to be a consummation devoutly to be emulated.
Humility on this subject has certainly never been a national trait,
and I cannot subscribe to any such doubt myself. But yet again let me
indicate that across the water the point is at lest mooted whether the
seeker for perfect truth would not be nearer success if incarnated
under almost any other civilized name. Let me hasten to add that I
believe this to be due to national prejudice, envy, and lack of
intelligent discrimination, especially the latter, in that the
foreigner is mistaken as to the identity of the true American. It
behooves you therefore to ascertain carefully who the true American
is, for even my defence seems to hint at the suggestion that all
Americans are not equally admirable. Forty years ago an intimation
that all Americans were not the moral and intellectual, to say nothing
of the physical, superiors of any Englishman, Frenchman, German or
Italian alive would have subjected a writer to beetling criticism;
but, as I have already intimated, we have learned a thing or two since
then. And it is not a little thing to have discovered that, though
their hearts were right and their intentions good, our forefathers
were not so abnormally virtuous and wise as to entitle them or us to
an exclusive and proscriptive patent of superiority. We glory in them,
but while we revere them as the fosterers and perpetuators of that
fine, energetic, high-minded, probing spirit which we call the
touch-stone of Americanism, we are prepared, with some reluctance, yet
frankly, when cornered, to admit that they did not possess a monopoly
of righteousness or knowledge.
I shall assume, then, that you, in common with other citizens, have
reached this rationally patriotic point of view and are willing to
agree that we are not, as a nation, above criticism. If you are still
inclined to regard us, the plain people of these United States, as a
mighty phalanx of Sir Galahads in search of the Holy Grail, the
citation of a few facts may act aperiently on your mind and wash away
the cobwebs of hallucination. For instance, to begin from the
political standpoint, our acquirement of Texas and other territory
once belonging to Mexico suggests the predatory methods of the Middle
Ages rather than an aspiring and sensitive national public temper. The
government of our large cities has from time to time been so
notoriously corrupt as to indicate at least an easy-going, shiftless,
civic spirit in the average free-born municipal voter. It is a matter
of common knowledge that in the legislative bodies of all our States
there is a certain number of members whose action in support of or
against measures is controlled by money bribes. From the point of view
of morals, statistics show that poverty and crime, drunkenness and
licentiousness in our large cities are little less rife than in the
great capitals of Europe; and you have merely to read the newspapers
to satisfy yourself that individuals from the population of the small
towns and of the country districts from the eastern limit of Maine to
the southwestern coast of California are capable of monstrous murders,
rank thefts, and a sensational variety of ordinary human vices. It
were easy to illustrate further, but this should convince you that the
patriotic enthusiast who would prove the people of the United States
to be a cohort of angels of light has verily a task compared with
which the labors of Sisyphus and other victims of impossibility fade
into ease. Even our public schools, that favorite emblem of our
omniscience, have been declared by authority to merit interest but by
no means grovelling admiration on the part of the effete peoples of
Europe.
We will proceed then on the understanding that, whatever its past, the
present civilization of the United States reveals the every-day human
being in his or her infinite variety, and that the true American must
grasp this fact in order to fulfil his destiny. If our nation is to be
a lamp to the civilized world, it will be because we prove with time
that poor human nature, by virtue of the leaven called Americanism,
has reached a higher plane of intelligent virtue and happiness than
the world has hitherto attained. Who then is the true American? And
what are the signs which give us hope that the people of the United
States are capable of accomplishing this result? What, too, are the
signs which induce our censors and critics to shake their heads and
refuse to acknowledge the probability of it?
To _A Young Man_ wishing to be an American. II.
I will begin with the inverse process and indicate a list of those who
are not true Americans, and yet who are so familiar types in our
national community that the burden of proof is on the patriot to show
that they are not essentially representative.
No. 1. _The Plutocratic Gentleman of Leisure who Amuses
Himself._--Here we have a deliberate imitation of a well-known figure
of the older civilizations. The grandfather by superior ability,
industry, and enterprise has accumulated a vast fortune. His
grandchildren, nurtured with care, spend their golden youth in mere
extravagant amusement and often in dissipation. There are many
individuals in our so-called leisure class who devote their lives to
intelligent and useful occupation, but there is every reason for
asserting that the point of view of the child of fortune in this
country is significantly that of the idler--and a more deplorable
idler than he of the aristocracies of Europe on whom he models himself
for the reason that the foreigner is less indifferent than he to
intellectual interests. Is there any body of people in the world more
contemptible, and any body among us more useless as an inspiring
product of Americanism, than the pleasure-seeking, unpatriotic element
of the very rich who, under the caption of our best society, arrogate
social distinction by reason of their vulgar ostentation of wealth,
their extravagant methods of entertainment and their aimless
pleasure-loving lives? To vie with each other in lavish outlay, to
visit Europe with frequency, to possess steam-yachts, to bribe
custom-house officers, to sneer at our institutions and, save by an
occasional check, to ignore all the duties of citizenship, is an
off-handed epitome of their existence. And in it all they are merely
copy-cats--servile followers of the aristocratic creed, but without
the genuine prestige of the old-time nobilities. And in the same
breath let me not forget the women.
[_Note._--"I was afraid you were going to," said my wife, Josephine.
"Women count for so much here, and yet their heads seem to become
hopelessly turned as soon as they are multi-millionaires."]
Women indeed count for much here, and yet it is they even more than
the men who are responsible for and encourage the mere pleasure-loving
life among the leisure class. A ceaseless round of every variety of
money-consuming, vapid amusement occupies their days and nights from
January to January, and for what purpose? To marry their daughters to
foreign noblemen? To breed scandal by pursuing intimacies with other
men than their husbands? To demonstrate that the American woman, when
she has all the opportunities which health, wealth, and leisure can
bestow, is content to become a mere quick-witted, shallow voluptuary?
You will be told that these people are very inconsiderable in number,
that they really exercise a small influence, and that one is not to
judge the men and women of the United States by them. It is true that
they are not very numerous, though their number seems to be
increasing, and I am fain to believe that they are not merely out of
sympathy with, but alien in character to, the American people as a
whole; and yet I cannot see why an unfriendly critic should not claim
that they are representative, for they are the lineal descendants of
the men from every part of the land who have been the most successful
in the accumulation of wealth. Their grandfathers were the pioneers
whose brains and sinews were stronger than their fellows in the
struggle of nation-building; their fathers were the keenest and not
presumptively the most dishonest men of affairs in the country. Though
the plain people of the nation affect to reprobate this class as
un-American and evil, yet the newspapers, who aim to be the exponents
of the opinions of the general mass and to cater to their preferences,
are constantly setting forth the doings of the so-called
multi-millionaires and their associates with a journalistic gusto and
redundancy which reveals an absorbing interest and satisfaction in
their concerns on the part of the every-day public.
Undeniably there are no laws which prohibit the wealthy from
squandering their riches in futile extravagance and wasting their time
in empty frivolities, nor is our leisure class peculiar in this when
compared with the corresponding class in other countries, unless it be
in a more manifest bent toward civic imbecility. But, from the point
of view of human progress, is it not rather discouraging that the most
financially prosperous should aspire merely to mimic and outdo the
follies of courts, the heartless levity and extravagance of which have
been among the instigators of popular revolution? Surely, if this is
the best Americanism, if this is what democracy proffers as the flower
of its crown of success, it were more satisfactory to the sensitive
citizen to owe allegiance to some country where the pretensions to
omniscient soul superiority were more commensurate with the results
produced.
No. 2. _The Easy-going Hypocrite._--Here is another slip from the tree
of human nature, which flourishes on this soil with a sturdy growth. A
large section of the American people has been talking for buncombe, not
merely since years ago the member of Congress from North Carolina
naively admitted that his remarks were uttered solely for the
edification of the county of that name, and so supplied a descriptive
phrase for the habit, but from the outset of our national responsibilities.
To talk for effect with the thinly concealed purpose of deceiving a
part of the American people all of the time has been and continues to
be a favorite practice with many of the politicians of the country. Yet
this public trick of proclaiming sentiments and opinions with the
tongue in the cheek is the conspicuous surface-symptom of a larger vice
which is fitly described as hypocrisy. There is a way of looking at
this accusation which deprives it of part of its sting, yet leaves us
in a predicament not very complimentary to our boasted sense of humor.
It is that the free-born American citizen means so well that he is
habitually dazzled by his own predilections toward righteousness into
utterances which he as a frail mortal cannot hope to live up to, and
consequently that he is prone to express himself in terms which none
but the unsophisticated are expected to believe. In other words, that
he is an unconscious hypocrite. However harmless this idiosyncrasy may
have been as a preliminary trick of expression, there is no room for
doubt that the plea of unconsciousness must cease to satisfy the most
indulgent moral philosopher after a very short time. Yet we have
persevered in the practice astonishingly, until it may be said that
hyperbole is the favorite form of public utterance on almost any
subject among a large class of individuals, in the expectation that
only a certain percentage will not understand that the speaker or
writer is not strictly in earnest. In this manner the virtuous and the
patriotic are enabled to give free vent to their emotions and to set
their fellow-citizens and themselves highest among the people of the
earth without other expenditure than words, resolutions, or empty laws.
The process gently titillates the self-esteem of the performer so that
he almost persuades himself for the time being that he believes what he
is saying: He appreciates that his hearers like better to have their
hopes rehearsed as realities at the expense of veracity than to be
reminded of imperfections at the expense of pride: And he rejoices in
those whom he has fooled into believing that their hopes have been
realized, and that all the virtue which he tremendously stands for is
part and parcel of the national equipment. Under the insidious
influence of this mode of enlightenment the every-day keen American
citizen goes about with his head in the air, knowing in his secret
heart that one-half of what he hears from the lips of those who
represent him in public is buncombe, but content with the shadow for
the substance, and wearing a chip on his shoulder as a warning to those
who would assert that we are not really as virtuous and as noble as our
spokesmen have declared.
For instance, to return to the concrete, consider the plight of a
police commissioner in most of our large cities. Those interested in
the suppression of vice appear before the legislature and urge the
maintenance of a vigorous policy. Acts are passed by the law-makers
manifesting the intention of the community to wage vigorous war
against the social evil and the sale of liquor, and prescribing
unequivocal regulations. The appointing power is urged to select a
strong man to enforce these laws. Supposing he does, what follows?
Murmurs and contemptuous abuse. Murmurs from what is known as the
hard-headed, common-sense portion of the community, who complain that
the strong man entrusted with authority does not show tact; that what
was expected of him was judicious surface enforcement of the law
sufficient to beguile reformers and cranks, and give a semblance of
improvement, not strict, literal compliance. They will tell you that
the social evil can no more be suppressed than water can be prevented
from running down hill, and that the explicit language of the statutes
was framed for the benefit of clergymen, and that no one else with
common-sense supposed it would be enforced to the letter by any
intelligent official. The very legislators who voted to pass the laws
will shrug their shoulders rancorously and confide to you the same
thing; yet in another breath assert to their constituents that they
have fought the fight in defence of white-robed chastity and the
sacred sanctity of the home.
Now, is this Americanism, the very best Americanism? Surely not. It
has an Anglo-Saxon flavor about it which it is easy to recognize as
foreign and imported. Englishmen have been asserting for centuries
that they were fighting the fight in defence of white-robed chastity
and the sanctity of the home, to the amusement of the rest of the
world, for in spite of the fact that the laws demand a vigorous policy
and the British matron and the Sunday-school Unions declare that the
home is safe, those familiar with facts know that London is one of the
most disgustingly impure cities in the world, and that the youth let
loose upon its streets is in very much the same predicament as Daniel
in the den of lions, without the same certainty of rescue. And why?
Because the hard-headed, common-sense British public sanctions
hypocrisy. They tell you that they are doing their utmost to crush the
evil. This is for the marines, the British matron, and the
Sunday-school Unions. But let a strong man attempt to banish from the
streets the shoals of women of loose character, and what an
unmistakable murmur would arise. How long would he remain in office?
It may be that the social evil can no more be suppressed than water
can be prevented from running down hill. That is neither here nor
there for the purposes of this illustration. But to demand the passage
of laws, and then to abuse and undermine the influence of those who
try to enforce them is a vice more subversive to national character
than the fault of Mary Magdalene and her unpenitent successors, both
male and female.
Take, again, our custom-house regulations concerning persons returning
home from abroad. The law demands a certain tariff, yet it is
notorious that a large number of so-called respectable people are able
to procure free entry for their effects by bribes to the subordinates.
And why? Because those who passed the law devised it to cajole a
certain portion of the community; but those charged with the
enforcement of it, in deference to its unpopularity, are expected to
make matters at the port smooth for travellers with easy-going
consciences. Hence the continued existence at the New York
Custom-house of the shameless bribe-taker in all his disgusting
variety. Authority from time to time puts on a semblance of integrity
and discipline, but the home-comer continues to gloat over the old
story of double deceit, his own and another's. Is this the best
Americanism? Yet these are American citizens who offer the bribe, who
pocket it, and who allow the abuse to exist by solemnly or
good-naturedly ignoring it. Consider the diversity of our divorce
laws. It is indeed true that opinions differ as to what are and what
are not suitable grounds for divorce, so that uniformity of
legislation in the different States is difficult of attainment; yet
there is reason to believe that progress toward this would be swifter
were it not for the convenience of the present system which allows men
and women who profess orthodoxy a loop-hole of escape to a less
rigorous jurisdiction when the occasion arises. Similarly, in the case
of corporation laws, it is noticeable that not far removed from those
communities where paid-up capital stock and other assurances of good
faith are required from incorporators, some State is to be found where
none of these restrictions exist. Thus an appearance of virtue is
preserved, self-consciousness of virtue flattered, a certain number
deluded, and yet all the conveniences and privileges of a hard-headed,
easy-going civilization are kept within reaching distance.