property, nor can they be classed among the possessors of a
secure annual income. _De minimis non curat lex._
II. That it is to the advantage of the community to _increase_
the number of small capitalists, and to assist them
with State aid--though in a diminishing ratio as their
property or incomes increase, and they need less and less
encouragement.
III. That it is equally for the advantage of the community
to _decrease_ the number of large capitalists and to
discourage the accumulation of wealth in few hands; and
therefore it is necessary to fix a limit of wealth which
men shall not be permitted to exceed.
Oh! ye Astors and Vanderbilts! Ye Rothschilds and Barings! Ye kings
of railroads and bacon and nitre! Aye! and such as thou citizen
Labouchere--thou of the morbidly sensitive conscience. Tremble, for
your day is coming! The age of hap-hazard and empirical finance
is passing--the age of scientific and philosophic readjustment is
about to dawn. There are those whose mission it will be to set all
things straight, and to bring peace on earth and goodwill to men by
the exquisitely simple machinery of Fiscal Reform. When that time
comes Mammon’s Kingdom will sink to be a mere tributary to the great
pantisocracy of the future. Hoarding and accumulating will pass away
and die--brought to an end by the phlebotomy of the scientists.
Money-grubbing will be an incident in the historic romances of that
happy time, and the tutored youth, young men and maidens, will smile at
the darkness and fumbling stupidity of those untaught generations who
only chattered of a golden age, with never a dream that a better age
than that would come with the revolving years--to wit, the age of--
·0001 (x-m)².
VII.
_WHY I WISH TO VISIT AMERICA._
Many more years than I like to acknowledge, have passed away since a
day when my father caught me slinking out of his library with Mrs.
Trollope’s “Travels in the United States” under my arm. He laughed at
my absurd precocity, for I was little more than a child, and as he
took the book away from me, he said, “My boy, that is not a book for
you to read. It is not even true. You shall go to America yourself one
day, when you’re a man, and you’ll know better than to write that kind
of stuff.” It was a great hope that was stirred by that promise that
I should go to America myself some day. I used to think about it, and
wonder when I might look forward to being a man, and how it could be
managed, and who would help me, and whether I should settle there and
own a slave. A hundred times I have dreamt of Boston, and of Richmond,
for somehow I never thought of New York, and there was no Chicago then,
and no San Francisco. Perhaps, too, the United States might collapse
before I ever grew to be a man, and that was a prospect that made my
heart sick to think of. I have been told, indeed, that one night I
awoke with a cry, and was heard to exclaim, “Pray, God, keep America
till I’ve been and seen it!”
And yet I never have seen America, and I am afraid I never shall see it
now, though my youthful prayer has been answered, and America has been
kept and seems in small danger of collapsing yet awhile. I have read
a great many books about America since those days; but I am bound to
say they have not made me much in love with the writers, and I am also
bound to say that they have given me very, very little information upon
exactly those points that I most wished to inquire into. Of late years
I have altogether given up this kind of literature. I believe the last
time I looked into any one of these so-called “Travels,” or “Tours,” or
“Reminiscences,” was when Mr. Anthony Trollope’s volumes appeared, and
I could not get through them. Somehow my father’s words on the mother’s
book seemed to apply to the son’s, and spite of myself his voice seemed
to be saying to me, “It is not even true!”
But though I have ceased to read books about America, the strong
desire to see the New World has never faded; nay, it has increased
in intensity as the years have gone on, and what was at first but a
vague hankering after something merely visionary, has gradually become
a definite longing to see and know an attainable reality. My friends
laugh at me and assure me I should be very much disappointed; that I
should not like it; that no man ought to go to the States after thirty;
that at Cincinnati there are only hogs to see, and at Chicago only
monstrous corn warehouses, at New York only monster hotels, and at
Boston--oh, dear! such arrogant prigs; finally, that it would be quite
impossible for me to continue wearing a white cravat over there, for
the washing of my linen would simply ruin me. I hold my peace, but I
am not convinced, and I still wish to visit America. And why is this
wish so strong in me? I will try to answer that question as briefly
as I can, but I must needs answer it in a disorderly kind of way, and
give my reasons as they occur to me, without any attempt at systematic
arrangement.
First and foremost, let it be understood that I wish to visit America
because I am so very ignorant about the real life of a great nation
that has sprung into magnificent maturity in a single century. History
has nothing like a parallel to produce, which can for a moment
be compared with the growth of this nationality. I use that word
advisedly. As to the mere progress in wealth and numbers, that does
not impress me much. From anything I have heard or read, it does not
seem to me inconceivable that a horde of Chinamen, urged on by avarice
and selfishness, might have done quite as much as has been done in
the United States in the same time, if John Chinaman had happened to
get the start; but if they had done so, they would, I am convinced,
have remained a horde of Chinamen still. There would have been no new
nation; there would have been nothing like the sublime patriotism that,
to my mind, characterizes the great American nation; none of that
incomparable chivalry that animated a whole people during the war of
secession; none of that proud sensitiveness that surprises cosmopolitan
philosophers when they hear Americans speak of “the flag.” This is
what I should like to look into, like to ask about, like to study on
the spot, namely, What is the amazing cohesive force so infinitely
potent to bind together into one corporate, living nationality, atoms
so dissimilar as the population that makes up the great American
people; which, as I understand it does, seems to give a new focus to
whatever old love of home warms the breast of German, or Dane, or
Swiss, or Englishman; which makes them, one and all, forget their old
country and their father’s house, and lose all desire to return; which,
extinguishing the old love of fatherland, replaces it by a new love,
a passion for the glory of the present, with its boundless hopes and
ambitions, and an almost haughty contempt for traditions; this exulting
confidence in a great destiny which disdains the lessons of experience,
and does not ask from them guidance or instruction or warning? Am I
wrong? or is it not the fact that Americans have incomparably more
faith in the _solvitur ambulando_ principle than in any other, and
that, whenever it is a question between looking back to see what others
have done, and looking forward regardless of all precedent, they always
prefer striking out a new line rather than following another’s lead?
Above all men upon earth, Americans are self-reliant, self-asserting.
Yet, was there ever a people so much at unity with itself? Selfishness
never seems to diminish the intense national pride; the fierce war of
parties in politics never seems to affect patriotism. A whisper of
disrespect to “our country,” or the semblance of a sneer at it, and
woe to you! Is not this so? I should like to see the working of this
mysterious and, to my mind, awful force, a force that acts upon the
new-comer with exceeding rapidity. How soon does the immigrant feel
its operation? By what processes does it exercise its prodigious sway?
How is it that the Dutchman, who has spent all his life in Java, looks
to lay his bones with his father’s at Amsterdam or the Hague; that
our own Australian colonists, when they have “made their pile,” come
back to us and call England still their home; that the Frenchman is
always a Frenchman, with an astonishing faculty of producing a bad copy
of French fashions wherever he settles, and no power of assimilating
himself to the manners and customs of the people among whom he
sojourns; but that, when people go to America, it is only a question of
time when they will become Americans--become absorbed, that is, into a
new nationality? These are questions I should like to ask on the spot,
and, if possible, test the truth of the answers suggested.
As there are these problems that present themselves in what I may call
the national life of America, so there are others in the political life
of the American people that I have never been fortunate enough to find
discussed adequately.
We in England have been spending fifty years in timidly feeling our
way toward giving our masses a voice in the election of members of
Parliament. We are on the eve of a great change, when something very
like manhood suffrage will be ushered in among us. It is undeniable
that among the upper and middle classes there is a feeling of great
uneasiness at the prospect, amounting in some quarters to absolute
terror and despair, of what may be coming in the not very distant
future. Yet America has prospered in spite of universal suffrage, and,
as far as I know, seems to be by no means afraid of it. One hears,
indeed, of numbers of dainty people, who are sometimes spoken of as
“the upper classes” in American society, affecting to hold aloof from
political life and taking no part in the strife of parties. It may
be so; but do not these citizens of the great commonwealth who give
themselves such airs--these ἄχρηστοι πολῖται, as somebody calls them,
who, like naughty children, won’t play because they can’t always be on
the in side--constitute a very insignificant number? The fact remains
that the enormous majority of Americans are not only earnest and, if I
am rightly informed, passionate politicians, but they go to the polls
in shoals. That fact alone strikes some of us here with wonder; and
the wonder increases upon us enormously when we are assured that this
deep interest in political questions appears to be wholly distinct
from the political excitement that intermittently rouses the masses in
Europe to outbreaks of frenzied hate against established institutions.
In France men get wild with panic lest the _ouvriers_ should turn upon
the _bourgeoisie_. In Germany the socialists have their own ends in
view, and do not disguise them. In Ireland the wretched peasantry avow
their designs to confiscate the land. The war of politics with us is
eminently selfish, and in proportion as it is carried on with more and
more passion the less there seems to be of real patriotism. On our
side of the Atlantic it is becoming increasingly apparent that the
characteristic of our political warfare may be described as
Each man lusting for all that is not his own.
Mr. Lowell has summed it all up in one of those stinging antitheses
that are so stinging they can hardly be true, when, speaking from the
American point of view, he says:
Their people’s turned to mob--our mob’s turned people.
How is it that in America the masses can be disciplined so readily to
take their side, and to engage so heartily in the fray, moving together
as mysteriously as the swallows that with scarce audible twitterings
gather in thousands, plume their wings for flight, seem to hesitate
for a brief hour, and the next are gone? We, indeed, have of late been
aping some American practices, and trying our hands at the caucus,
and the three hundred, and what not. I suspect it is a very feeble
imitation, and I suspect that one of my American friends was right
when he said with a laugh: “Your fellows don’t know their business;
they don’t understand what they are talking about. They’re first-rate
at turning out steel pens and such small ware, but they’d better leave
our political machinery alone. You’re too crowded up in your little
island to find room for one of our big fly-wheels!” But how is all this
enthusiasm for politics kept up with comparatively so little appeal to
the lowest selfishness? and how are these immense numbers manipulated,
the vast armies handled as skilfully as if they were soldiers on
parade? It is all inexplicable to large numbers of wiseacres in
England, who will persist in talking of petty “motives” and “reason” as
if _they_ were the prime factors in every social problem.
And this leads me to touch upon another matter, on which I feel myself
profoundly ignorant, and which I am sure that others here are quite
as ignorant about as I am. We are told that in America there is a
recognized profession of politics, just as here there is a medical
profession or a legal profession, or, if this is putting the case too
strongly, just as here there is the profession of journalism. How in
the world do the members of this profession get along? A new President
is elected, and we are told that all the old officials are turned
out. Where do they go? What becomes of them? What is the effect upon
the executive? With us the patronage of the government, at any rate
in the civil service, has been reduced to a minimum. Our executive is
to a very great extent, indeed, independent of the government of the
day. “Men may come and men may go,” but permanent secretaries “go on
for ever.” So do commissioners and their clerks, and the thousands of
stipendiaries to whom it matters not one straw whether the Radicals
are in or the Tories. With us, when a man has gained an appointment by
passing a good examination at eighteen or nineteen years old, it is his
own fault if he ever loses it. Practically, there is no getting rid
of him as long as he can do his work; he is as safe as a judge, and
irremovable. But in America, we hear, every four years they shuffle the
cards, and away they go! What results from this? Am I wrongly informed?
or is there more absolute patronage, patronage _pur et simple_, in
the hands of the President of the United States than in any other
hands on the face of the earth? Assuming that it is so, what, I ask,
must be the effect upon the moral sentiments of the people at large,
inevitably brought day by day and hour by hour into relations with a
class of eager office-seekers, hungry, alert, jealous, disappointed,
unprincipled, or vindictive, according to their success or failure, in
getting what they consider their due. Do the “outs” accept the logic of
facts without demur, and forthwith betake themselves to other callings?
That in every change in the chief magistracy of a nation every
stipendiary of the executive, from the postman to the judge of the
supreme court, should get his dismissal, and the Democrat clerk in
the custom-house who was behindhand with his work on Monday evening
should leave his arrears to be made up by his Republican successor on
Tuesday morning; that when President A enters upon his office, a new
game should be begun, and the pieces be all set up again, regardless
of the position in which the knights or the pawns were when President
B was checkmated,--all this seems to us, from our point of view, not
only difficult to understand, but difficult to imagine. Surely, theory
and fact in this matter must differ very widely. Am I only exposing my
ignorance?
I have used the terms “upper and middle classes” on a previous page.
When I have asked Americans what the subtle barriers are that in
American society separate class from class, they have replied more
than once, “In America there are no classes! We have no differences
of rank with us.” Strange! And yet we hear of colonels and generals
and senators often enough, and I am much mistaken if such titles are
at all less esteemed on that side of the water than on this. Be it as
it may, however, rank and title may be shadows, but class differences
are substantial things. With us the titular aristocracy constitute a
class, an inner circle, that at one time united in itself shadow and
substance, and now tends to become less exclusive and less influential,
however loudly some may complain that
... in these British islands
’Tis the substance that wanes ever, ’tis the symbol that exceeds.
We love rank, because we have a lingering suspicion that it somehow
symbolizes wealth, or power, or brilliant intellectual gifts, or great
public services, that have forced their possessors into the front
rank at some time or other, and received their due recognition in
the shape of titular distinction conferred either recently or in days
gone by. But if a title is found to be dissociated from any nobleness
of character, and is unsupported by brain power or purse power, it
will not save a man from humiliating snubs, or give him the _entrée_
to the drawing-rooms of the upper classes. For we have more than one
upper class among us, as other nations have had and will continue to
have while the world lasts. In that social world where Mrs. Grundy
bears sway, our titular aristocracy undoubtedly are the acknowledged
leaders, and to them great homage is paid. But it is not only because
a man is an earl, or a lady is a duchess, that the one or the other is
surrounded by a little court, approached with deference and treated
with studied respect, but because both the one and the other are rich
enough to “support the title,” as we say. Yes, it is true that in some
sense or other
Our nobles wear their ermine on the outside, or walk blackly
In presence of the social law, as most ignoble men.
You may protest that society in England is under the dominion of a
plutocracy, then. Yes! and No! Yes! in so far as it is true and always
must be true, that no man or woman can live on familiar terms, and
keep up the habitual intercourse with the leisure classes, without a
certain amount of money. No! in so far as it is also true that money
alone, however abundant it may be, will never, among us, give any one
an introduction to what we call society. I have heard of cases, and I
know of one, where a millionaire from our colonies took a palace in
London, and lived _en prince_; was visited by no one, failed to get
into any but a third-rate club, found no one to entertain and but few
people to speak to; and finally has gone back from whence he came,
astonished, disappointed, and soured. They tell me that wealth in
America will gain admission to any society for any one. I have been
repeatedly assured by intelligent Americans that this is so; yet I
cannot understand that it should be so. I can quite understand that,
whatever a man’s rank, or gifts, or prospects may be, he would find it
very painful to mix with the upper ten thousand if he could not afford
to pay for cab-hire, or keep up his subscription at the club, every day
finding it hard to get his dinner, and every night perplexed _de lodice
paranda_; but I can no more understand how a mere expenditure of cash
could get X, Y, or Z into the best society, than I can understand how
a payment of, say £10,000, would get an average cricketer into the
All-England eleven, or a second-rate oar into the University crew. The
Corporation of London is a plutocracy; but society, while accepting his
lavish hospitality, treats even the Lord Mayor of London _de haut en
bas_. The Lady Mayoress receives ambassadors with condescension; next
year some young _attaché_ stares at Mrs. Tomkins, and wonders where he
has met that woman.
Who are the upper classes in America? It is nonsense to say there are
none. Not to speak of those states in pre-Christian times that tended
more or less to become dominated over by an oligarchy, Athens was at
least as pure a republic as America is; her people were as proud, as
self-asserting, as audaciously enterprising, as ambitious, as shrewd
in commercial ventures, as greedy for money, and as lavish in spending
it, as the Americans are; yet the “first families” among the Athenians
were as haughty as Spaniards, as exclusive as the old French noblesse,
and bragged of their ancestry as absurdly as Scotchmen do. If a
loud-voiced, bawling demagogue came to the front by sheer force of will
and impudence, his political opponents never allowed the populace to
forget that he was brought up in a tan-yard. Demosthenes gives point to
his most withering sarcasms against Æschines by reminding his audience
that he was the son of a school-mistress, and had to scrub the ink off
the desks at which his mother taught the dirty little urchins; and who
that has read the “Clouds” can forget Strepsiades’s doleful lamentation
over his fatal mistake in marrying a fine lady with a pedigree, and
begetting a son who did not take after his father? There must be an
aristocracy in America who stand upon their birth rather than their
mere wealth, yet how little we hear of them. What recognition do they
receive? How is it they so seldom come to be leaders? How is it that
Hyperbolus seems to push aside Cimon, and Cleon is quite too much for
Alcibiades?
It used to be said that no two Englishmen could be found to maintain
a conversation together for five minutes without one asking the other
what he thought of the weather. It is true still; but there is another
question that of late years has become the stock question when two
people meet one another, and that is, “When are you going away?” If
a man replies boldly that he is not going away at all, he is looked
upon as the very impersonation of eccentricity. “Not going away!
Why, what are you going to do?” This “going away” means leaving our
country-houses when the flowers are in their splendour and all nature
bids us stay where we are, and starting off for Norway or Switzerland
to spend our money among strange people, drink bad wine, get in late
for _table-d’hôte_ when we are faint and weary, or find ourselves five
flights of stairs from our pocket handkerchief in a towering edifice
without a lift. But go where we will, we are sure to find ourselves not
two chairs away from American tourists; they are everywhere. Sir James
Ross used to say that if ever he reached the North Pole he would be
sure to find a Scotchman sitting upon it. I don’t know what has become
of all the Scotchmen; they and the gypsies have grown rarer since I
was a boy; but you can never escape from Americans. Of course there
are Americans and Americans; they differ from one another as much as
any other people do, as much and no more; but this is true of all the
transatlantic tourists, they are abundantly supplied with money, and
they do not grudge spending it; in fact, if we were to judge by the
Americans we meet with in Europe, we should be forced to the conclusion
that all Americans are rich, even very rich. But when I have asked them
how clergymen and doctors and lawyers and elderly people with strictly
limited incomes live in the United States,--such people as among us
live in comfort with a couple of female servants, or even keep a pony
chaise,--I have found my tourist acquaintances very much amused at
my supposing that in America _helps_ could be got to stay in such a
household. “Are there, then, no small people in America?” I have asked.
The answer has been more often than not, “If there are, we don’t know
them.”