first town in a wild coaling district, a place of many Austrians,
Poles, and Huns. It was the Sunday evening promenade, and every one
was out of doors, hundreds of miners and labourers in straight-creased
trousers (how soon obtained) and cheap felt hats, a similar number
of dark, interesting-looking Polish girls in their gaudy Sunday
best. We passed a hundred yards of grey coke-ovens glowing at all
their doors and emitting hundreds of fires and flames. Peter seemed
unusually attracted by the coke-ovens or by the Slav population, and
he decided to remain at Helvetia and seek for a job on the morrow. So
I accompanied him into a "boarding-house," and was ready to spend the
night with him. But when I saw the accommodation of coaly beds I cried
off. So the Bulgarian and I parted. I went on to Sykesville and the
Hotel Sykes. Obviously I was in America,--fancy calling a hotel in
England "Hotel Sykes." But I did not stay there, preferring to hasten
up country and get a long step beyond black breaker-towers, the sooty
inclines up which trucks ran from the mines, the coke-ovens, the fields
full of black stumps and rotting grass, the seemingly poverty-stricken
frame-buildings, and more dirt and misery than you would see even in
a bad district in Russia. It surprised me to see the Sunday clothes
of Sykesville, the white collars, the bright red ties, the blue serge
trousers with creases, the bowler hats, and American smiles. Despite
all the dirt, these new-come immigrants say _Yes_ to American life
and American hopes. But to my eyes it was a terrible place in which
to live. It was an astonishing change, moreover, to pass from the
magnificent loveliness of the Susquehanna gorges to this inferno of a
colliery. But I managed to pass out of this region almost as quickly
as I came into it, and next day was in the lovely country about
Reynoldsville; and I tramped through beautiful agricultural or forested
country to the bright towns of Brookville, Clarion, and Shippenville,
clean, new, handsome settlements, with green lawns, shady avenues, fine
houses, and well-stocked shops. In such places I saw America at its
best, just as at Helvetia and Sykesville I saw it at about its worst. I
suppose Sykesville will never be made as beautiful as Brookville; the
one is the coal-cellar, the other is the drawing-room in the house of
modern America.
But I had definitely left the coal region behind, now I was striking
north, for oil. In three days I came into Oil City, so wonderfully
situated on the wide and stately Alleghany river--the river having
brown rings here and there, glimmering with wandering oil. The city
is built up five or six hills, and is only a unity by virtue of its
fine bridges. It is a clean town compared with Scranton, as oil is
cleaner to deal with than coal. But the houses are more ramshackle.
The poor people's dwellings suggest to the eye that they were made in
a great hurry many years ago, and are now falling to bits; they are
set one behind another up the hills, and you climb to them by wooden
stairways. Some seem veritably tumbling down the hill. There were a
fair number of foreign immigrants there, mostly Italians; but the
oil business seems to be worked by Americans, the foreigners being
too stupid to understand. Oil City is a cheap town to live in. I was
boarded at a hotel for a dollar a day; and when I bought provisions for
my next tramp to Erie Shore I found everything cheaper than in Eastern
Pennsylvania. There appeared to be little cultured life, however, no
theatre but the cinema, and little offered for sale in the shape of
books.
I set out for Meadville on the "Meadville Pike." A feature of the new
landscape and of the road and fields was the oil-pump, working all by
itself, the long cables, connecting the pump with the engine, often
coming across the roadway, the _jig, jig, jig_ of the pumping movement,
the _clump, clump, clump, stump_ of the engine--the pulse of the
industrial countryside.
I met a Dutchman. He asked:
"What's on? What is it for?"
I told him I was studying the emerging American, and he told me what a
menace the fecund Slavs were to the barren Americans. According to him
the extinction of the American was a matter of mathematics.
I came upon an enormous gang of Americans, Russians, Slavs, Italians at
work on the highroad, digging it out, laying a bed of mortar, putting
down bricks; some hundreds of workmen, extending over a mile and a half
of closed road. Many of the American workmen were dressed as smartly as
stockbrokers' clerks and city men, and they kept themselves neat and
clean--a new phenomenon in labouring. Americans, however, were working
together, Italians together, and Russians together. A fine-looking
American workman said to me knowingly, "You can photograph me if you
like, but the Guineas won't want to be photographed--most of them shot
some one sometime or other, you bet!"
[Illustration: ITALIANS WORKING WITH THE "MIXER" ON THE MEADVILLE PIKE.]
Near Cochranton I made the acquaintance of four little girls--Julia,
Margaret, Elinor, Cora, and Georgiana--scampering about in bare legs
and week-day frocks, whilst father and mother, with gauze bags on
their heads, were "boxing the bees." It was the first swarm of summer;
two lots of bees had been boxed, but the third was giving much trouble.
Julia, aged twelve, was a very pretty girl, and when at her mother's
recommendation she went indoors, washed her face and put on a Sunday
frock, she looked a very smart young lady. She was conscious of that
fact, and informed me in course of conversation that she was going
to travel when she was grown up. She was dying to see Paris, and she
wanted to visit all the European towns!
Some miles north, near Frenchville, I met one of the French colonists
of Northern Pennsylvania,--a tall, well-built stripling,--and he told
me how the Breton peasants had settled at Boussot and Frenchville,
bringing all their French ways of farming and economy, and becoming
the admiration of the district round--a little Brittany. The young
man's father-in-law had been the first Frenchman to come and settle
in the district. After him had come, straight from France, relatives
and friends, and relatives of friends and friends of friends in
widening circles. They were beginning to speak English well now, but
the newcomers were still without the new language. It was interesting
for me to realise what a great gain such people were to America--to
the American nation in the making. It is good to think of such
agricultural settlements lying in the background of industrial
America--the whole villages of Swedes, of Russians, of Danes, Finns,
Germans, French. They are ethnic reserves; they mature and improve
in the background. They are Capital. If urban America can subsist on
the interest, the surplus of the ambitious, how much richer she will
be than if the population of whole country-sides is tempted to rush
_pêle-mêle_ to the places of fortune-making and body-wasting.
Coming into Meadville, a town of twelve thousand inhabitants, most
of the labourers of whom are Italians employed at the great railway
works, I was attracted to Nicola Hiagg, a Syrian, sitting outside his
ice-cream shop, reading the Syrian paper. Whilst I had a "pine-apple
soda," I drew him into talk. It was a matter of pleasing interest to
him that I had myself tramped in Syria, and knew the conditions in his
native land. Nicola had first left Syria twelve years ago, had come
to Philadelphia, and started making his living selling "soft drinks"
in the street. After five years he had saved enough to take a holiday
and go back to the old land. He and his brother had been merchants in
Jerusalem before he set out for America; the brother had had charge of
the store, and Nicola had convoyed the merchandise and the train of
thirty asses to and from the country. He had many friends in Syria, but
it was a poor country. The Turks were bloodsuckers, and drained it of
every drop of vital energy.
"I lived in a poor little town between Beyrout and Damascus, not with
my brother in Jerusalem. So poor! You cannot start anything new in
Syria--the Turk interferes. No bizness! What you think of the war? The
Turk is beaten, hey? Now is the time for the Syrians to unite and throw
off the Turk. There are Syrians all over the world; they are prosperous
everywhere but in Syria.... America is a fine country; but if Syria
became independent I'd go back...."
Nicola, when he had his holiday, found a Syrian girl and brought her
back to America as his wife. She was not visible now, however; for the
Syrian kept her in the background, and he told me he didn't believe in
women's rights to public life. A bit of a Turk himself!
He was very proud of his little girl, who is being brought up as an
American in the town school. "Already she can write, and when you say
to her, 'Write something,' she does not look up at you and say, 'How
d'you spell it?' She just writes it."
"She's sharp."
"You bet."
The Turks, the Greeks, and the Syrians, and to some extent the
Italians, are engaged in the sweet-stuff and ice-cream business.
Turkish Delight, the most characteristic thing of the Levant, seems to
be their bond of union. It is a great business in America, for the
Americans are, beyond all comparison, fonder of sweet things than we
are. I stopped one day at a great candy shop in South Bend, Indiana. It
was kept by a Mr. Poledor, who was so pleased that I had been in Greece
and knew the habits of the Greek Orthodox, that he gave me the freedom
of the shop and bade me order anything I liked--he would "stand treat."
There were over a hundred ways of having ice-cream, twenty sorts of
ice-cream soda, thirteen sorts of lemonade, twelve frappes, and the
menu card was something like a band programme. Mr. Poledor was a man of
inventiveness, and the names of some of the dishes were as delicious as
the dishes themselves. I transcribe a few:
Merry Widow.
Don't Care.
John D. (is very rich).
Yankee Doodle.
Upside down.
New Moon.
Sweet Smile.
Twin Beauties.
Nôtre Dame.
Lover's Delight.
Black-eyed Susan.
A young man could take his girl there and give her anything she asked
for, were it the moon itself. The Greek was a magician.
But to return. As I was going out of Meadville, two young men swung out
of a saloon and addressed me thus strangely:
"Have you had a benevolent? We're giving them away."
One of them showed me a stylographic pen.
"Wha're you doing?" said the other.
"Oh, I'm travelling," I replied.
"How d'ye get your living?"
"I write in the magazines now and then."
A look of disappointment crept over the faces of the young men. The
stylographic pen was replaced in waistcoat pocket.
"Did you say you were working for a magazine? So are we--_The
Homestead_. I was about to ask you to become a subscriber."
"And the benevolent?" I asked.
"Oh, these are given away to subscribers."
I explained that I wasn't a commercial traveller, but one of those who
wrote sometimes in magazines.
"You'd be a sort of reporter?"
"Well, not quite."
"A poet?"
"No. I earn my living by writing."
"Better than a poet, I suppose. Well, good-day, wish you luck!"
So I won free of my last big town in mighty Pennsylvania, and set out
for the State of Ohio.
I had a "still-creation-day" in quiet country, and towards evening came
through the woods to the store and house of Padan-Aram. And just on
the border of Ohio an elf-like person skipped out of a large farm and
conducted me across, a boy of about twenty years, who cried out to me
shrilly as he caught me up:
"I say, you're still in Pennsylvania."
"Yes," said I.
"Yes, but that house over there is in Ohio. Say! Would you like some
candy?"
"I thought you were fumbling in your pocket for tobacco," said I.
"No use for it," said the boy. "I've found God. I used to chew it, but
I've stopped it."
"That is good. You've a strong will," said I.
"I reckon God can break any will," said the boy. "Once I ran away from
home with five hundred dollars. You're walking? I can walk. I walked a
hundred miles in five days and five nights. Feet were sore for a week.
Five times I ran away. The sixth time I stayed away four years and
worked on the steel works."
"Were your parents unkind?" I asked. "Or did you run away to see life?"
"Ran to show them I could," said the boy.
"They lay in to me I can tell you. There were Chinamen and
niggers--all sorts. Hit a fellow over the head with an ice-cream
refrigerator--killed him dead."
"Where was this?"
"Poke. At the institution. I showed them I could fight."
"What are you, American?"
"Pennsylvanian Dutch."
"I suppose there is a church about here that you go to?"
"Yes; a Methodist. But I don't go. Family service. We get many
blessings."
"Is there a hotel at Padan-Aram?"
"No; but at Leon. If you go there, you'll get a Christian woman. You'll
find God. She'll lighten your load. She's a saint. I know her well."
"What's your name? I'll mention you to her."
"Dull."
"I'll tell her I met you."
"Tell her you met Ralph Dillie--she'll know."
"All right," said I.
"Now you're in Ohio," said the boy. "Are you going into the store at
Padan-Aram?"
"No."
"Don't you want to buy some candy?"
"No. I don't eat it along the road."
"Buy some for me."
"All right; yes."
"Buy a nickel's worth."
"Yes."
Ralph Dillie rejoiced. We went into the store and ordered a nickel's
worth of candy. And directly the boy got it he started back for home
on the run. And I watched him re-cross the border once more--into
Pennsylvania.
XII
CHARACTERISTICS
The chief characteristic of America is an immense patriotism, and out
of that patriotism spring a thousand minor characteristics, which,
taken by themselves, may be considered blemishes by the critical
foreigner,--such troublesome little characteristics as national
pride and thin-skinnedness, national bluster and cocksureness. But
personal annoyance should not blind the critic or appreciator to the
fundamental fact of the American's belief in America. This belief is
not a narrow partizanship, though it may seem unpleasantly like that
to those who listen to the clamour of excited Americans at the Olympic
games and other competitions of an international interest. It is not
merely the commercial instinct ever on the watch for opportunities for
self-advertisement. It is a real, hearty patriotic fervour, the deepest
thing in an American. It is something that cannot be shaken.
"_It is a sacrament to walk the streets as an American citizen_," says
a Presbyterian circular. "_Being an American is a sacred mission._ Our
whole life must be enthralled by a holy passion."
You could never hear it said, except in an imperial way, that being a
Briton, or being a German, or being a Russian was a sacred mission.
In Britain it would be bad form, in Germany absurd, in Russia quite
untrue. It is part of the greatness of America that she can come
forward unashamed and call herself the handmaiden of the Lord.
Now there is a fine healthy spirit abroad in the land counteracting
the more sentimental and sanctimonious self-honour of the Americans.
Something more in deeds than in words, a pulse that beats for America,
a greater purpose that breathes through myriads of personal acts, done
for personal ends. Outside, beyond the degrading commercialism of the
nation, there is a feeling that building for a man is building also for
America; that buying and selling in the store is buying and selling
for the great nation; that writing or singing or painting, though done
in self-conceited cities and before limited numbers, is really all
consecrated to the idea of the new America.
In several schools of America the children take the following pledge:
I am a citizen of America and an heir to all her greatness and
renown. The health and happiness of my own body depend upon each
muscle and nerve and drop of blood doing its work in its place. So
the health and happiness of my country depend upon each citizen
doing his work in his place.
I will not fill any post or pursue any business where I can
live upon my fellow-citizens without doing them useful service
in return; for I plainly see that this must bring suffering and
want to some of them. I will do nothing to desecrate the soil of
America, or pollute her air or degrade her children, my brothers
and sisters.
I will try to make her cities beautiful, and her citizens healthy
and happy, so that she may be a desired home for myself now, and
for her children in days to come.
Teachers are recommended to explain to children that patriotism means
love of your own country and not hate of other countries; and that
the best mode of patriotism is love and care for the ideals of the
fatherland.
The most obvious fields of activity are the school, the building,
the yard or playgrounds, and the surrounding streets. Whatsoever
is offensive and unsightly, detrimental to health, or in violation
of law, is a proper field for action. The litter of papers and
refuse; marks on side walks, buildings, and fences; mutilation,
vandalism, and damage of any kind to property; cleanliness of
the school building and the surrounding streets, door-yards,
and pavements; observance of the ordinances for the disposal of
garbage by the scavenger and people in the community; protection
and care of shade trees; improper advertisements, illegal signs
and bill-boards; unnecessary noises in the streets around the
school, including cries of street-vendors and barking of dogs
and blowing of horns; the display of objectionable pictures and
postcards in the windows of stores--all supply opportunities to
the teachers to train pupils for good citizenship.
Circulars like the following are scattered broadcast to citizens, and
they breathe the patriotism of the American:
_Do you approve of your Home City?_
I mean, do you like her looks, her streets, her schools, her
public buildings, her stores, factories, parks, railways, trolleys
and all that makes her what she is? Do you approve of these things
as they are? Do you think they could be better? Do you think you
know how they can be made better?
If you do you are unusual. Few take the trouble to approve or
disapprove. Many may think they care about the city; but few, very
few, act as if they did!
When you see something you think can be improved you go straight
and find out who is the man who has that something in charge;
whatever it is, factories, smoke, stores, saloons, parks, paving,
playgrounds, lawns, back-yards, ash-cans, overhead signs,
newspapers, bill-boards, side-walks, street cars, street lighting,
motor traffic, freight yards, or what not, you find out who is the
man who has in charge that thing you dislike; then you talk to
him, or write to him, and tell him what you disapprove of, and ask
him if he can and will make it better, or tell you why he can't.
He wants to make it better. He will if he can. Almost invariably
he wants to do his work of looking after that thing better than
it was ever done before. He will welcome your complaint; he will
explain his handicaps; he will ask your help. Then you give the
help.
J. C. D.
[Illustration: INGENIOUS PHOTOGRAPHS OF AMERICAN TYPES.]
Making the city beautiful and fostering a love for the home-city,
however dingy and dreary that city may at present be, is one of the
most potent and attractive expressions of American patriotism, and
it is well to note the characteristic. It has great promise for the
America of the future, the America which the sons and daughters of the
immigrants will inherit. The America of the future is to be one of
artistically imagined cities and proud, responsible citizens. Even now,
despite the unlovely state of New York and Chicago and the reputation
for devastating ugliness which America has in Europe, there are clear
signs of the commencement of an era of grace and order. Already the
parks of the American cities are the finest in the world, and are worth
much study in themselves. American townsmen have loved Nature enough
to plant trees so that every decent town on the western continent has
become a cluster of shady avenues. Some cities favour limes, some
maples; New Haven is known as "The City of Elms"; in Washington alone
it is said that there are 78,000 street trees; Cleveland has been
called "The City of the Forest." Wherever I tramped in America I found
the most delicious shade in the town streets--excepting, of course, the
streets of the coaling infernos of Pennsylvania. No idea of the expense
of land deters the American from getting space and greenery into the
midst of his wilderness of brick and mortar. It is said that the value
of the parks in such a city as Newark, for instance, is over two and a
quarter millions of pounds (nine million dollars). "Our aim," says a
Newark circular, "is the city beautiful, and it requires the aid of
everyday patriots to make it so. Pericles said, 'Make Athens beautiful,
for beauty is now the most victorious power in the world.'"
America has become the place of continuous crusades--against dirt,
against municipal corruption, immorality, noise. It would surprise
many Europeans to know the fight which is being made against
bell-advertisement, steam whistles, organ-grinders' music, shouts of
street hawkers, and the exuberance of holiday-makers.
"Don't be ashamed to fight for your city to get it clean and beautiful,
to rid it of its sweat-shops and hells," I read in a Chicago paper.
"Some folk call our disease Chicagoitis, but that is a thousand times
better than Chicagophobia. Those suffering from Chicagophobia are as
dangerous to society as those who have hydrophobia."
Then, most potent expression of all in American patriotism is the
American's belief in the future of its democracy, the faith which is
not shattered by the seeming bad habits of the common people, the
flocking to music halls and cinema shows, the reading of the yellow
press.
It has been noted in the last few years that there is a distinct
falling off in the acceleration of reading at the public libraries.
This is attributed to the extraordinary amount of time spent by men
and women at the "movies," when they would otherwise be reading.
Such a fact would breed pessimism in Great Britain or Europe were it
established. But America has such trust in the hearts and hopes of the
common people that it approves of the picture show. "If readers of
books go back to the cinema, let them go," says the American; "it is
like a child in the third class voluntarily going back to the first
class, because the work being done there is more suited to his state of
mind." The cinema show is doing the absolutely elementary work among
the vast number of immigrants, who are almost illiterate. It is not
a be-all and an end-all, but stimulates the mind and sets it moving,
thinking, striving. The picture show will bring good readers to the
libraries in time. It is the first step in the cultural ladder of the
democracy.
Then people of good taste in Europe decry the reading of newspapers;
a leader of thought and politics like A. J. Balfour can boast that
he never reads the papers. But America says, "You have the newspaper
habit. This habit is one of the most beneficial and entertaining
habits you have. Few people read too many newspapers. Most people do
not read enough." This, of American papers of all papers in the world.
But let me go on quoting the most significant words of America's great
librarian, J. Cotton Dana:
Readers of newspapers are the best critics of them. The more they
are read the wiser the readers; the wiser the readers the more
criticisms, and the more the newspapers are criticised the better
they become.
Do you say this does not apply to the yellow journal? I would
reply that it does. The yellow journal caters all the time to the
beginners in reading, who are also the beginners in newspaper
reading. A new crop of these beginners in reading is born every
year. This new crop likes its reading simply printed, in large
letters, and with plenty of pictures. The more of this new crop
of readers there are the more the yellow journals flourish; and
the more the yellow journals flourish the sooner this new crop is
educated by the yellow journals, by the mere process of reading
them, and the sooner they get into the habit of reading journals
that are not yellow and contain a larger quantity of more reliable
information, until at last the yellow journals are overpassed by
the readers they have themselves trained.
The yellow press is the second rung on the cultural ladder of
democracy. America is glad of it, glad also of the princess novelette,
the pirate story, glad of Hall Caine and Marie Corelli; all these are,
as it were, divining-rods for better things. The American says "Yes" to
the novels of Florence Barclay, as indeed most sensible Britons would
also. _The Rosary_ was a most helpful book--so much more helpful to the
unformed intellect and young intelligence of the mass of the people
than, for instance, Tolstoy's dangerously overpraised _Resurrection_
or Wells's _New Machiavelli_. America recognises the truth that the
ugly has power to make those who look at it ugly like itself; but that
the crude and elementary stuff, however poor it may be artistically,
is nevertheless most useful to democracy if it speaks in language
and sentiment which is common knowledge to the reader. How useful to
America is such a book as Churchill's _Inside of the Cup_.