THE AMERICAN MAN
Hash--and I do not mean by this word a corruption of hasheesh--is a term
indicating in America a food formed of more than one article chopped and
cooked together. I was told by a very witty and charming lady that hash
was a synonym for _E pluribus unum_ (one from many), the motto of the
Government, but I did not find it on the American arms. This was an
American "dinner joke," of which more anon; nevertheless, hash
represents the American people of to-day. The millions of all nations,
which have swarmed here since 1492, may be represented by this
delectable dish, which, after all, has a certain homogeneity. Englishmen
are at once recognized here, and so are Chinamen. You would never
mistake one of our people for a Japanese; an Italian you would know
across the way; but an American not always in America. He may be a
Swede, a German, or a Canadian; he is not an American until he opens his
mouth. Then there is no mistake as to what he is. He has a nasal tone
that is purely American.
All the old cities, as Boston, New York, Richmond, and Philadelphia,
have certain nasal peculiarities or variants. The Bostonian affects the
English. The New Englander, especially in the north, has a comical
twang, which you can produce by holding the nose tightly and attempting
to speak. When he says _down_ it sounds like _daoun_. It is impossible
for him not to overvowel his words, and nothing is more amusing than to
hear the true Yankee countryman talk. The Philadelphian is quite as
marked in tone and enunciation. A well-educated Philadelphian will say
where is _me_ wife for _my_. I have also been asked by a Philadelphian,
"Where are you going at?" It would be impossible to mistake the
intonation of a Philadelphian, even though you met him in the wilds of
Manchuria in the depths of night.
Among the most charming and delightfully cultured people I met in
America were Philadelphians of old families. The New Yorker is more
cosmopolitan, while the Southern men, to a certain extent, have caught
the inflection of the negro, who is the nurse in the South for all white
children. The Americans are taught that the principal and chief end of
man is to make a fortune and get married; but to accomplish this it is
necessary first to "sow wild oats," become familiar with the vices of
drink, smoking, and other forms of dissipation, a sort of test of
endurance possibly, such as is found among many native races; yet one
scarcely expects to find it among the latest and highest exponents of
perfection in the human race.
The American pretends to be democratic; scoffs at England and other
European lands, but at heart he is an aristocrat. His tastes are only
limited by his means, and not always then. Any American, especially a
politician, will tell you that there is but one class--the people, and
that all are born equal. In point of fact, there are as many classes as
there are grades of pronounced individuality, and all are very unequal,
as every one knows. They are included in a general way in three classes:
the upper class (the refined and cultivated); the middle class
(represented by the retail shop-keepers); and last, the rest. The cream
of society will be found in all the cities to be among the professional
men, clergymen, presidents of colleges, long-rich wholesale merchants,
judges, authors, etc.
The distinctions in society are so singular that it is almost impossible
for a foreigner to understand them. There are persons who make it a life
study to prepare books and papers on the subject, and whose opinions are
readily accepted; yet such a person might not be accepted in the best
society. What constitutes American society and its divisions is a
mystery. In a general sense a retail merchant, a man who sold shoes or
clothes, a tailor, would under no circumstances find a place in the
first social circles; yet if these same tradesmen should change to
wholesalers and give up selling one article at a time, they would become
eligible to the best society. They do not always get in, however. At a
dinner my neighbor, an attractive matron, was much dismayed by my
asking if she knew a certain Mr. ----, a well-known grocer. "I believe
our supplies (groceries) come from him," was her chilly reply. "But," I
ventured, "he is now a wholesaler." "Indeed!" said madam; "I had not
heard of it." The point, very inconceivable to you, perhaps, was that
the grocer, whether wholesale or retail, was not readily accepted; yet
the man in the wholesale business in drugs, books, wine, stores, fruit,
or almost anything else, had the _entree_, if he was a gentleman. The
druggist, the hardware man, the furniture dealer, the grocer, the
retailer would constitute a class by themselves, though of course there
are other subtle divisions completely beyond my comprehension.
At some of the homes of the first people I would meet a president of a
university, an author of note, an Episcopal bishop, a general of the
regular army (preferably a graduate of the West Point Academy), several
retired merchants of the highest standing, bankers, lawyers, a judge or
two of the Supreme Bench, an admiral of good family and connections. I
have good reason to think that a Methodist bishop would not be present
at such a meeting unless he was a remarkable man. There were always a
dozen men of well-known lineage; men who knew their family history as
far back as their great-grandparents, and whose ancestors were
associated with the history of the country and its development. The men
were all in business or the professions. They went to their offices at
nine or ten o'clock and remained until twelve; lunched at their clubs or
at a restaurant, returned at one, and many remained until six before
going to their homes. The work is intense. A dominating factor or
characteristic in the American man is his pursuit of the dollar. That he
secures it is manifest from the miles of beautiful residences, the show
of costly equipages and plate, the unlimited range of "stores" or shops
one sees in large cities. The millionaire is a very ordinary individual
in America; it is only the billionaire who now really attracts
attention. The wealth and splendors of the homes, the magnificent _tout
ensemble_ of these establishments, suggests the possibility of
degeneracy, an appearance of demoralization; but I am assured that this
is not apparent in very wealthy families.
It is not to be understood that wealth always gives social position in
America. By reading the American papers you might believe that this is
all that is necessary. Some wealth is of course requisite to enable a
family to hold its own, to give the social retort courteous, to live
according to the mode of others; yet mere wealth will not buy the
_entree_ to the very best society, even in villages. Culture,
refinement, education, and, most important, _savoir faire_, constitute
the "open sesame." I know a billionaire, at least this is his
reputation, who has no standing merely because he is vulgar--that is,
ill-bred. I have met another man, a great financier, who would give a
million to have the _entree_ to the very best houses. Instances could be
cited without end.
Such men and women generally have their standing in Europe; in a word,
go abroad for the position they can not secure at home. A family now
allied to one of the proudest families in Europe had absolutely no
position in America previous to the alliance, and doubtless would not
now be taken up by some. You will understand that I am speaking now of
the most exclusive American society, formed of families who have age,
historical associations, breeding, education, great-grandparents, and
always have had "manners." There are other social sets which pass as
representative society, into which all the ill-mannered _nouveau riche_
can climb by the golden stairs; but this is not real society. The
richest man in America, Rockefeller, quoted at over a billion, is a
religious worker, and his indulgences consist in gifts to universities.
Another billionaire, Mr. Carnegie, gives his millions to found
libraries. Mr. Morgan, the millionaire banker, attends church
conventions as an antipodal diversion. There is no conspicuous
millionaire before the American public who has earned a reputation for
extreme profligacy.
There is a leisure class, the sons of wealthy men, who devote their time
to hunting and other sports; but in the recent war this class surged to
the front as private soldiers and fought the country's battles. I admire
the American gentleman of the select society class I have described. He
is modest, intelligent, learned in the best sense, magnanimous, a type
of chivalry, bold, vigorous, charming as a host, and the soul of honor.
It is a regret that this is not the dominating and best-known class in
America, but it is not; and the alien, the stranger coming without
letters of introduction, would fall into other hands. A man might live a
lifetime in Philadelphia or Boston and never meet these people, unless
he had been introduced by some one who was of the same class in some
other city. Such strange social customs make strange bedfellows. Thus,
if you came to America to-day and had letters to the Vice-President, you
would, without doubt, if properly accredited, see the very best
society. If, on the other hand, you had letters to the President at his
home in the State of Ohio you would doubtless meet an entirely different
class, eminently respectable, yet not the same. It would be impossible
to ignore the inference from this. The Vice-President is in society (the
best); the President is not. Where else could this hold? Nowhere but in
America.
The Americans affect to scorn caste and sect, yet no nation has more of
them. Sets or classes, even among men, are found in all towns where
there is any display of wealth. The best society of a small town
consists of its bank presidents, its clergymen, its physicians, its
authors, its lawyers. No matter how educated the grocer may be, he will
not be received, nor the retail shoe dealer, though the shoe
manufacturer, the dealer in many shoes, may be the virtual leader, at
least among the men. Each town will have its clubs, the members ranging
according to their class; and while it seems a paradox, it is true that
this classification is mainly based upon the refinement, culture, and
family of the man. A well-known man once engaged me in conversation with
a view to finding out some facts regarding our social customs, and I
learned from him that a dentist in America would scarcely be received in
the best society. He argued, that to a man of refinement and culture,
such a profession, which included the cleaning of teeth, would be
impossible; consequently, you would not be likely to find a really
cultivated man who was a dentist. On the same grounds an undertaker
would not be admitted to the first society.
With us a gentleman is born; with Americans it is possible to create
one, though rarely. An American gentleman is described as a product of
two generations of college men who have always had association with
gentlemen and the advantages of family standing. Political elevation can
not affect a man's status as a gentleman. I heard a lady of unquestioned
position say that she admired President McKinley, but regretted that he
was not a gentleman. She meant that he was not an aristocrat, and did
not possess the _savoir faire_, or the family associations, that
completely round out the American or English gentleman. I asked this
lady to indicate the gentlemen Presidents of the country. There were
very few that I recall. There were Washington, Harrison, Adams, and
Arthur. Doubtless there were others, which have escaped me. Lincoln, the
strongest American type, she did not consider in the gentlemen class,
and General Grant, the nation's especial pride, did not fulfil her
ideas of what a gentleman should be.
You will perceive, then, that what some American people consider a
gentleman and what its most exclusive society accepts for one, comprise
two entirely different personages. I found this emphasized especially in
the old society of Washington, which takes its traditions from
Washington's time or even the pre-Revolutionary period. For such society
a self-made man was impossible. Such are the remarkable, indeed
astounding, ramifications of the social system of a people who cry to
heaven of their democracy. "Americans are all equal--this is one of the
gems in our diadem." This epigram I heard drop from the lips of a
senator who was the recognized aristocrat of the chamber; yet a man of
peculiar social reserve, who would have nothing to do with the other
"equals." In a word, all the talk of equality is an absurd figure of
speech. America is at heart as much an aristocracy as England, and the
social divisions are much the same under the surface.
You will understand that social rules and customs are all laid down and
exacted by women and from women. From them I obtained all my
information. No American gentleman would talk (to me at least) on the
subject. Ask one of them if there is an American aristocracy, and he
will pass over the question in an engaging manner, and tell you that his
government is based on the principle of perfect equality--one of the
most transparent farces to be found in this interesting country. I have
outlined to you what I conceived to be the best society in each city,
and in the various sections of the country. In morality and probity I
believe them to stand very high; lapses there may be, but the general
tone is good. The women are charming and refined; the men chivalrous,
brave, well-poised, and highly educated. Unfortunately, the Americans
who compose this "set" are numerically weak. They are not represented to
the extent of being a dominating body, and oddly enough, the common
people, the shopkeepers, the people in the retail trades, do not
understand them as leaders from the fact that they are so completely
aloof that they never meet them. A sort of inner "holy of holies" is the
real aristocracy of America. What goes for society among the people, the
mob, and the press is the set (and a set means a faction, a clique)
known as the Four Hundred, so named because it was supposed to represent
the "blue blood" of New York ten years ago in its perfection. This Four
Hundred has its prototype in all cities, and in some cities is known as
the "fast set." In New York it is made up often of the descendants of
old families, the heads of whom in many instances were retail traders
within one hundred and fifty years ago; but the modern wealthy
representatives endeavor to forget this or skip over it. It is, however,
constantly kept alive by what is termed the "yellow press," which
delights in picturing the ancestor of one family as a pedler and an
itinerant trader, and the head of another family as a vegetable vender,
and so on, literally venting its spleen upon them.
In my studies in American sociology I asked many questions, and obtained
the most piquant replies from women. One lady, a leader in New York in
what I have termed the exclusive set, informed me with a laugh that the
ancestor of a well-known family of to-day, one which cuts a commanding
figure in society, was an ordinary laborer in the employ of her
grandfather. "Yet you receive them?" I suggested. The reply was a shrug
of charming shoulders, which, translated, meant that great wealth had
here enabled them to "bore" into the exclusive circle. I found that even
among these people, the _creme de la creme_ in the eyes of the people,
there were inner circles, and these were not on intimate terms with the
others. Here I met a member of the Washington and Lee family, a
descendant of Bishop Provoost, the first Episcopal bishop of New York,
and friend of Washington and Hamilton. This latter family is notable for
an ancestry running back to the massacre of St. Bartholomew and even
beyond. I astonished its charming descendant, who very delicately
informed me that she knew her ancestry as far back as 1200 A. D., when I
told her that I had my "family tree," as they call it, without a break
for thirty-two hundred years. I am confident she did not believe me, but
her "Indeed!" was delightful. In fact, I assure you I have lost my heart
to these American women. I met representatives of the Adams, Dana,
Madison, Lee, and other families identified with American history in a
most honorable way.
The continuity of the Four Hundred idea as a logical system was broken
by the quality of some of its members. Compared to the society I have
previously mentioned it was as chaff. There was a total lack of
intellectuality. Degeneracy marked some of their acts; divorce blackened
their records, and shameless affairs marked them. In this "set," and
particularly its imitators throughout the United States, the divorce
rate is appalling. Men leave their wives and obtain a divorce for no
other reason than that a woman falls in love with another woman's
husband. On a yacht we will say there is some scandal. A divorce ensues,
and afterward the parties are remarried. Or we will say a wife succumbs
to the blandishments of another man. The conjugal arrangements are
rearranged, so that, as a very merry New York club man told me, "It is
difficult to tell where you are at." In a word, the morale of the men of
this set is low, their standard high, but not always lived up to. I
believe that I am not doing the American of the middle class wrong and
the ultra-fashionable class an injustice in saying that it is as a class
immoral.
Americans make great parade of their churches. Spires rise like the
pikes of an army in every town, yet the morality of the men is low.
There are in this land 600,000 prostitutes--ruined women. But this is
not due entirely to the Four Hundred, whose irregularities appear to be
confined to inroads upon their own set. Nearly all these men are club
men; two-thirds are in business as brokers, bankers, or professional
men; and there is a large percentage of men of leisure and vast wealth.
They affect English methods, and are, as a rule, not highly intelligent,
but _blase_, often effeminate, an interesting spectacle to the student,
showing that the downfall of the American Republic would come sooner
than that of Rome if the "fast set" were a dominating force, which it is
not.
In the great middle class of the American men I find much to admire;
half educated, despite their boasted school system, they put up, to
quote one of them, "a splendid bluff" of respectability and morality,
yet their statistics give the lie to it. Their divorces are phenomenal,
and they are obtained on the slightest cause. If a man or woman becomes
weary of the other they are divorced on the ground of incompatibility of
temper.
A lady, a descendant of one of the oldest families, desired to marry her
friend's husband. He charged his wife with various vague acts, one of
which, according to the press, was that she did not wear "corsets"--a
sort of steel frame which the American women wear to compress the waist.
This was not accepted by the learned judge, and the wife then left her
husband and went away on a six or eight months' visit. This enabled the
husband to put in a claim of desertion, and the decree of divorce was
granted. A quicker method is to pretend to throw the breakfast dishes at
your wife, who makes a charge of "extreme incompatibility," and a
divorce is at once obtained. Certain Territories bank on their divorce
laws, and the mismated have but to go there and live a few months to
obtain a separation on almost any claim. Many of the most distinguished
statesmen have been charged with certain moral lapses in the heat of
political fights, which, in almost every instance, are ignored by the
victims, their silence being significant to some, illogical to others;
yet the fact remains that the press goes to the greatest extremes. No
family secret is considered sacred to the American politician in the
heat of a campaign; to win, he would sacrifice the husband, father,
mother, and children of his enemy. So remarkable is the rage for divorce
that many of the great religious denominations have taken up arms
against it. Catholics forbid it. Episcopalians resent it by ostracism if
the cause is trivial, and a "separation" is denounced in the pulpit.