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diff --git a/22831.txt b/22831.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fb68924 --- /dev/null +++ b/22831.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4899 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of As A Chinaman Saw Us, by Anonymous + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: As A Chinaman Saw Us + Passages from his Letters to a Friend at Home + +Author: Anonymous + +Editor: Henry Pearson Gratton + +Release Date: October 2, 2007 [EBook #22831] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AS A CHINAMAN SAW US *** + + + + +Produced by Martin Pettit and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + + ++-------------------------------------------------+ +|Transcriber's note: | +| | +|In this text the breve has been represented with | +| | +|[ua] [ue] [uo]. | ++-------------------------------------------------+ + + +[Illustration: A CHINESE BOOK COVER DECORATION + +Made when the Anglo-Saxon people were living in caves] + + +AS A CHINAMAN + +SAW US + +PASSAGES FROM HIS LETTERS +TO A FRIEND AT HOME + +[Illustration: Publisher's logo] + +NEW YORK AND LONDON +APPLETON AND COMPANY +1916 + + +COPYRIGHT, 1904, BY +D. APPLETON AND COMPANY + +Printed in the United States of America + + + + +PREFACE + + +Since the publication in 1832 of that classic of cynicism, The Domestic +Manners of the Americans, by Mrs. Trollope, perhaps nothing has appeared +that is more caustic or amusing in its treatment of America and the +Americans than the following passages from the letters of a cultivated +and educated Chinaman. The selections have been made from a series of +letters covering a decade spent in America, and were addressed to a +friend in China who had seen few foreigners. The writer was graduated +from a well-known college, after he had attended an English school, and +later took special studies at a German university. Americans have been +informed of the impressions they make on the French, English, and other +people, but doubtless this is the first unreserved and weighty +expression of opinion on a multiplicity of American topics by a Chinaman +of cultivation and grasp of mind. + +It will be difficult for the average American to conceive it possible +that a cultivated Chinaman, of all persons, should have been honestly +amused at our civilization; that he should have considered what Mrs. +Trollope called "our great experiment" in republics a failure, and our +institutions, fashions, literary methods, customs and manners, sports +and pastimes as legitimate fields for wit and unrepressed jollity. Yet +in the unbosoming of this cultivated "heathen" we see our fads and +foibles held up as strange gods, and must confess some of them to be +grotesque when seen in this yellow light. + +It is doubtless true that the masses of Americans do not take the +Chinaman seriously, and an interesting feature of this correspondence is +the attitude of the Chinaman on this very point and his clever satire on +our assumption of perfection and superiority over a nation, the habits +of which have been fixed and settled for many centuries. The writer's +experiences in society, his acquaintance with American women of fashion +and their husbands, all ingeniously set forth, have the hall-mark of +actual novelty, while his loyalty to the traditions of his country and +his egotism, even after the Americanizing process had exercised its +influence over him for years, add to the interest of the recital. + +In revising the correspondence and rearranging it under general heads, +the editor has preserved the salient features of it, with but little +essential change and practically in its original shape. If the reader +misses the peculiar idioms, or the pigeon-English that is usually placed +in the mouth of the Chinaman of the novel or story, he or she should +remember that the writer of the letters, while a "heathen Chinee," was +an educated gentleman in the American sense of the term. This fact +should always be kept in mind because, as the author remarks, to many +Americans whom he met, it was "incomprehensible that a Chinaman can be +educated, refined, and cultivated according to their own standards." + +With pardonable pride he tells how, on one occasion, when a woman in New +York told him she knew her ancestral line as far back as 1200 A. D., he +replied that he himself had "a tree without a break for thirty-two +hundred years." He was sure she did not believe him, but he found her +"indeed!" delightful. The author's name has been withheld for personal +reasons that will be sufficiently obvious to those who read the letters. +The period during which he wrote them is embraced in the ten years from +1892 to 1902. + + HENRY PEARSON GRATTON. + +SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA, + May 10th, 1904. + + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER PAGE + + I. THE AMERICAN, WHO HE IS 1 + + II. THE AMERICAN MAN 16 + + III. AMERICAN CUSTOMS 40 + + IV. THE AMERICAN WOMAN 63 + + V. THE SUPERSTITIONS OF THE AMERICAN 92 + + VI. THE AMERICAN PRESS 99 + + VII. THE AMERICAN DOCTOR 106 + + VIII. PECULIARITIES AND MANNERISMS 118 + + IX. LIFE IN WASHINGTON 131 + + X. THE AMERICAN IN LITERATURE 164 + + XI. THE POLITICAL BOSS 185 + + XII. EDUCATION IN AMERICA 200 + + XIII. THE ARMY AND NAVY 212 + + XIV. ART IN AMERICA 229 + + XV. THE DARK SIDE OF REPUBLICANISM 237 + + XVI. SPORTS AND PASTIMES 261 + + XVII. THE CHINAMAN IN AMERICA 279 + +XVIII. THE RELIGIONS OF THE AMERICANS 303 + + + + +AS A CHINAMAN SAW US + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE AMERICAN--WHO HE IS + + +Many of the great powers believe themselves to be passing through an +evolutionary period leading to civic and national perfection. America, +or the United States, has already reached this state; it is complete and +finished. I have this from the Americans themselves, so there can be no +question about it; hence it requires no little temerity to discuss, let +alone criticize, them. + +Yet I am going to ask you to behold the American as he is, as I honestly +found him--great, small, good, bad, self-glorious, egotistical, +intellectual, supercilious, ignorant, superstitious, vain, and +bombastic. In truth, so very remarkable, so contradictory, so +incongruous have I found the American that I hesitate. Shall I give you +a satire; shall I devote myself to eulogy; shall I tear what they call +the "whitewash" aside and expose them to the winds of excoriation; or +shall I devote myself to an introspective, analytical _divertissement_? +But I do not wish to educate you on the Americans, but to entertain, to +make you laugh by the recital of comical truths; so without system I am +going to tell you of these Americans as I found them, day by day, month +by month, officially, socially; in their homes, in politics, trade, +sorrow, despair, and in their pleasures. + +You will remember when the Evil Spirit is asked by the modest Spirit of +Good to indicate his possessions he tucks the earth under one arm, +drops the sun into one pocket, the moon into another, and the stars into +the folds of his garment. In a word, to use the saying of my friends, he +"claims everything in sight"; and this is certainly a characteristic of +the American: he is all-perspective, he claims to have all the virtues, +and in his ancestry embraces the entire world. At a dinner at the ---- +in Washington during the egg stage of my experience I sat next to a +charming lady; and having been told that it was a custom of the French +to compliment women, I remarked that her cheeks bloomed like our poppy +of the Orient. She laughed, and responded, "Yes, I get that from my +English grandfather." "But your eyes are like black pearls," I +continued, seeing that I was on what a general on my right called the +"right trail." "I got them from my Italian grandmother," she replied. +"And your hair?" I pressed. "Must be Irish," was the answer, "for my +paternal grandmother was Irish and her husband Scotch." It is true that +this charmingly beautiful and composite goddess (at least she would have +been one had she not been naked like a geisha at a men's dinner) was the +product of a dozen nations, and a typical American. + +The original Americans appear to have been English, despite the fact +that the Spaniards discovered the country, though a high official, a +Yankee whom I met at a reception, told me that this was untrue. His +ancestor had discovered North America, and I believe he had written a +book to prove it. (_En passant_, all Americans write books; those who +have not, fully intend to write one.) I listened complacently, then +said, "My dear ----, if I am not mistaken the Chinese discovered +America." I recalled the fact to his mind that the northwestern Eskimos +and the Indians were essentially Asiatic in type; and it is true that he +had never heard of the ethnologic map at his National Museum, which +shows the location of Chinese junks blown to American shores within a +period of three hundred years. I explained that junks had been blown +over to America for the last _three thousand_ years, and that in my +country there were many records of voyages to the Western land, ages +before 1492. + +You see I soon began to be Americanized and to claim things. China +discovered America and gave her the compass as well as gunpowder. The +first Americans were in the nature of emigrants; men and women who did +not succeed well in their own country and so sought new fields, just as +people are doing to-day. They came over in a ship called the +"Mayflower," and were remarkably prolific, as I have met thousands who +hail from this stock. At one time England sent her criminals to +Virginia--one of the United States--and many of the refuse of the home +country were sent to other parts of America in the early days. Younger +sons of good families were also sent over for various reasons. Women of +all classes were sent by the ship-load, and sold for wives. I reminded a +lady of this, who was lamenting the fact that in China some women are +sold for wives. She was absolutely ignorant of this well-known fact in +American history, and forgot the selling of black women. Among the men +were many representatives of old and noble families; but the bulk, I +judge from their colonial histories, were people of low degree. Very +soon other countries began to ship people to America. Italy, Germany, +Russia, Norway, Sweden, and other lands were drawn upon for constantly +increasing numbers as years went by. All tumbled into the American +hopper. Imagine a coffee-grinder into which have been thrown Greek, +Roman, Jew, Gentile, and all the rest, and then let what they call Uncle +Sam--a heroic, paternal, and comical figure, representing the +government--turn the handle and grind out the American who is neither +Jew, Gentile, Greek, Roman, Russe, or Swede, but a new product, _sui +generis_, and mostly Methodist. + +This process has never ceased for an hour. America has been from 1492 to +the present time, in the language of the American "press," the +"dumping-ground" of the nations of the world, the real open door; yet +this grinding assimilation has gone on. It is, perhaps, due to the +climate, perhaps the water, or the air; but the product of these people +born on the soil is described by no other word than American. It may be +Irish-American, very offensive; Dutch-American, very strenuous, like the +Vice-President;[1] Jewish-American, very commercial; Italian-American, +very dirty and reeking with garlic; but it is American, totally unlike +its progenitor, a something into which is blown a tremendous energy, +that is very wearisome, a bombast which is the sum of that of all +nations, and a conceit like that possessed by ---- alone. You see it is +incurable, also offensive--at least to the Oriental mind. Yet I grant +you the American is great; I have it from him and from her; it must be +so. + +You have the spectacle here of the nations of the world pouring a +stream, that is not pactolean, and not perfumed with the gums of Araby, +flowing in and peopling the country. In time they had grievances more +fancied than real, yet grievances. They rose against the home +government, threw off the English yoke, and became a republic with a +division into States, which I will write of when I tell you of the +American politician. This was the first trust--what they call a +merger--but it occurred in politics. They have killed off a fair +percentage of the actual owners of the soil, the Indians, swindling them +out of the balance, and driving them back to a sort of ever-changing +dead-line. Without delay they assumed the form of a dominant nation, and +announced themselves the greatest nation on the earth. + +Immigration was resumed, and all nations again sent their refuse +population to America. I have facts showing that for years English +poorhouses and hospitals were emptied of their inmates and shipped to +America. It was a distinct policy of the anti-home-rule party in Ireland +to encourage the poor Irish to go to America; and now when there are +more Irish in America than in Ireland the fate of Ireland is assured. +Yet the American air takes the fight out of the Irishman, the rose from +his cheek, and makes a natural-born politician out of him. America still +continued to receive immigrants, and not satisfied with the natural flow +of the human current, began to import African slaves to a country +founded for the benefit of those who desired an asylum where they could +enjoy religious and political freedom. The Africans were sold in the +cotton belt, their existence virtually creating two distinct political +parties. America long remained a dumping-ground for nearly all the +nations of the world having an excess of population. Great navigation +companies were built up, to a large extent, on this trade. They sent +agents to every foreign country, issued pamphlets in every European +language, and uncounted thousands were brought over--the scum of the +earth in many instances. There was no restriction to immigration until +the Chinese were barred out. After accepting the outlaws of every +European state, the poor of all lands, they shut the door on our +"coolie" countrymen. + +In this way, briefly, America has grown to her present population of +80,000,000. The remarkable growth and assimilation is still going on--a +menace to the world, but in a constantly decreasing ratio, which has +become so marked that the leading Americans, the class which corresponds +to our scholars, are aghast at the singular conditions which exist. +Non-assimilation shows itself in labor riots, in the murder of two +Presidents--Garfield and Lincoln--in socialistic outbreaks in every +quarter, and in signal outbreaks in various sections, at lynchings, and +other unlawful performances. I am attempting to give you an idea of the +constituents of America to-day; but so interesting is the subject, so +prolific in its warnings and possibilities, that I find myself +wandering. + +To glance at conditions at the present time, about 600,000 aliens are +coming to America yearly. What is the result? I was invited to meet a +distinguished German visiting in New York last month, and at the dinner +a young lady who sat by my side said to me, "I wish I could puzzle him." +"Why?" I asked, in amazement. "Oh," was her reply, "he looks so cram +full of knowledge; I would like to take him down." "Ah," I said. "Ask +him which is the third largest German city in the world. It is New +York; he will never guess it." She did so, and I assure you he was +"puzzled," and would scarcely believe it until a well-known man assured +him it was true. There are more Germans in Chicago than in Leipsic, +Cologne, Dresden, Munich, or a dozen small towns joined in one. Half of +the Chicago Germans speak their own tongue. This city is the third +Swedish city of the world in population. It is the fourth Polish city +and the second Bohemian city. I was informed by a professor in the +University of Chicago that, in that strange city, the number of people +who speak the language of the Bohemians equaled the combined inhabitants +of Richmond, Atlanta, Portland, and Nashville--all large cities. "What +do you think of it?" I asked. "We are up against it," was the reply. I +can not explain this retort so that you would understand it, but it had +great significance. The professor, a distinguished philologist, was +worried, and he looked it. A lady who was a club woman--and by this I do +not mean that she was armed with a club, but merely a member of clubs or +societies for educational advancement and social aggrandizement--said it +was merely his digestion. + +I learned from my friend, the dyspeptic professor, that over forty +dialects are spoken in Chicago. About one-half only of the total +population speak or understand English. There are 500,000 Germans, +125,000 Poles, 100,000 Swedes, 90,000 Bohemians, 50,000 Yiddish, 25,000 +Dutch, 25,000 Italians, 15,000 French, 10,000 Irish, 10,000 Servians, +10,000 Lutherans, 7,000 Russians, and 5,000 Hungarians in Chicago. You +will be surprised to learn that numbers do not count. The 500,000 +Germans are not the dominating power, nor are the 100,000 Swedes. The +10,000 Irish are said absolutely to control the political situation. You +will ask if I believe that this monster foreign element can be reduced +to a homogeneous unit. I reply, yes. Fifty years from to-day they will +all be Americans, and a majority will, doubtless, show you their family +tree, tracing their ancestry back to the Mayflower. + +FOOTNOTE: + +[1] This passage was written just before the assassination of President +McKinley. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +AMERICAN CUSTOMS + + +The American is an interesting, though not always pleasant, study. His +perfect equipoise, his independence, his assumption that he is the best +product of the best soil in the world, comes first as a shock; but when +you find this but one of the many national characteristics it merely +amuses you. One of the extraordinary features of the American is his +attitude toward the Chinese, who are taken on sufferance. The lower +classes absolutely can conceive of no difference between me and the +"coolie." As an example, a boy on the street accosts me with "Hi, John, +you washee, washee?" Even a representative in Congress insisted on +calling me "John." On protesting to another man, he laughed, and said, +"Oh, the man don't know any better." "But," I replied, "if he does not +know any better how is it he is a lawmaker in your lower house?" "I give +it up," was his answer, and he ordered what they term a "high-ball." +After we had tried several, he laughed and asked, "Shall we consider the +matter a closed incident?" Many diplomatic, social, and political +questions are often settled with a "high-ball." + +It is inconceivable to the average American that there can be an +educated Chinese gentleman, a man of real refinement. They know us by +the Cantonese laundrymen, the class which ranks with their lowest +classes. At dinners and receptions I was asked the most atrocious +questions by men and women. One charming young girl, who I was informed +was the relative of a Cabinet officer, asked me if I would not sometime +put up my "pig-tail," as she wished to photograph me. Another asked if +it was really true that we privately considered all Americans as "white +devils." All had an inordinate curiosity to know my "point of view"; +what I thought of them, how their customs differed from my own. Of +course, replies were manifestly impossible. At a dinner a young man, +who, I learned, was a sort of professional diner-out, remarked to a +lady: "None of the American girls will have me for a husband; do you not +think that if I should go to China some pretty Chinese girl would have +me?" This was said before all the company. Every one was silent, waiting +for the response. Looking up, she replied, with charming _naivete_, "No, +I do not think so," which produced much laughter. Now you would have +thought the young man would have been slightly discomfited, but not at +all; he laughed heartily, and plumed himself upon the fact that he had +succeeded in bringing out a reply. + +American men have a variety of costumes for as many occasions. They have +one for the morning, which is called a sack-coat, that is, tailless, and +is of mixed colors. With this they wear a low hat, an abomination called +the derby. After twelve o'clock the frock-coat is used, having long +tails reaching to the knees. Senators often wear this costume in the +morning--why I could not learn, though I imagine they think it is more +dignified than the sack. With the afternoon suit goes a high silk hat, +called a "plug" by the lower classes, who never wear them. After dark +two suits of black are worn: one a sack, being informal, the other with +tails, very formal. They also have a suit for the bath--a robe--and a +sleeping-costume, like a huge bag, with sleeves and neck-hole. This is +the night-shirt, and formerly a "nightcap" was used by some. There is +also a hat to go with the evening costume--a high hat, which crushes in. +You may sit on it without injury to yourself or hat. I know this by a +harrowing experience. + +Many of the customs of the Americans are strange. Their social life +consists of dinners, receptions, balls, card-parties, teas, and smokers. +At all but the last women are present. At the dinner every one is in +evening dress; the men wear black swallowtail coats, following the +English in every way, low white vest, white starched shirt, white collar +and necktie, and black trousers. If the dinner does not include women +the coat-tails are eliminated, and the vest and necktie are black. +Exactly why this is I do not understand, nor do the Americans. The +dinner is begun with the national drink, the "cocktail"; then follow +oysters on the half-shell, which you eat with an object resembling the +trident carried in the ceremony of Ah Dieu at the Triennial. Each course +of the dinner is accompanied by a different wine, an agreeable but +exhilarating custom. The knife and fork are used, the latter to go into +the mouth, the former not, and here you see a singular ethnologic +feature. Class distinctions may at times be recognized by the knife or +fork. Thus I was informed that you could at once recognize a person of +the gentleman class by his use of the knife and fork. "This is +infallible," said my young lady companion. If he is a commoner, he eats +with his knife; if a gentleman, with his fork. This was a very nice +distinction, and I looked carefully for a knife eater, but never saw +one. + +There is a vast amount of ceremony and etiquette about a dinner and +various rules for eating, to break which is a social offense. I heard +that a certain Madam ---- gave lessons in "good form" after the American +fashion, so that one could learn what was expected, and at my first +dinner I regretted that I had not availed myself of the services of the +lady, as at each plate there were nearly a dozen solid silver articles +to be used in the different courses, but I endeavored to escape by +watching my companion and following her example. But here the +impossibility of an American girl resisting a joke caused my downfall. +She at once saw my dilemma, and would take up the wrong implement, and +when I followed suit she dropped it and took another, laughing in her +eyes in a way in which the American girl is a prodigious adept; but +completely deceived by her nearly every time, knowing that she was +amusing herself at my expense, I said nothing. The Americans have a +peculiar term for the mental attitude I had during this trial. I "sawed +wood." The saying was particularly applicable to my situation. My young +companion was most engaging, and presently began to talk of the +superiority of America, her inventions, etc., mentioning the telephone, +printing, and others. "Yes, wonderful," I replied; "but the Chinese had +the telephone ages ago. They invented printing, gunpowder, the mariner's +compass, and it would be difficult," I said, "for you to mention an +object which China has not had for ages." She was amazed that I, a +Chinaman, should "claim everything in sight." + +There is a peculiar etiquette relating to every course in a dinner. The +soup is eaten with a bowl-like spoon, and it is the grossest breach to +place this in your mouth, or approach it, endwise. You approach the +side and suck the soup from it. To make a noise would attract attention. +The etiquette of the fish is to eat it with a fork; to use the knife +even to cut the fish would be unpardonable, or to touch it to take out +the bones; the fork alone must be used. The punch course is often an +embarrassment to the previous wines, and is followed by what the French +call the _entree_. In fact, while the Americans boast that everything +American is the best, French customs are followed at banquets +invariably, this being one of the strange inconsistencies of the +Americans. Their clothes are copied from the English, though they will +claim in the same breath that their tailors are the best in the world. +For wines they claim to be unsurpassed, producing the finest; yet the +wines on their tables are French or bear French labels. Game is +served--a grouse or perhaps a hare, and then a vast roast, possibly +venison, or beef, and there are vegetables, followed by a salad of some +kind. Then comes the dessert--an iced cream, cakes, nuts, raisins, +cheese, and coffee with brandy, and then cigars and vermuth or some +cordial. After such a dinner of three hours a Southern gentleman clapped +me on the back and said, "Great dinner, that; but let's go and get a +drink of something solid," and I saw him take what he termed "two +fingers" of Kentucky Bourbon whisky--a very stiff drink. I often +wondered how the guests could stand so much. + +The dinner has no attendant amusement, no dancing, no professional +entertainers, and rarely lasts over two hours. Some houses have stringed +bands concealed behind barriers of flowers playing soft music, but in +the main the dinner is a jollification, a symposium of stories, where +the guests take a turn at telling tales. Story-tellers can not be hired, +and the guest at the proper moment says (after having prepared himself +beforehand), "That reminds me of a story," and he relates what he has +learned with great _eclat_ and applause, as every American will applaud +a good story, even if he has heard it time and again. At one dinner +which I attended in New York story-telling had been going on for some +time when a well-known man came in late. He was received with applause, +and when called on for a speech told exactly the same story, by a +strange coincidence, that had been told by the last speaker. Not a guest +interfered; he was allowed to proceed, and at the end the point was +greeted with a roar of laughter. This appeared to me to be an excellent +quality in the American character. I was informed that these stories, +forming so important a feature of American dinners, are the product +mainly of drummers and certain prominent men; but why men that drum are +more skilful in story inventing I failed to learn. President Lincoln and +a lawyer named Daniel Webster originated a large percentage of the +current stories. It is difficult to understand exactly what the +Americans mean. + +The American story is incomprehensible to the average foreigner, but it +is good form to laugh. I will relate several as illustrative of American +wit, and I might add that many of these have been published in books for +the benefit of the diner-out. A Cabinet minister told of a prisoner who +was called to the bar and asked his name. The man had some impediment in +his speech, one of the hundred complaints of the tongue, and began to +hiss, uttering a strange stuttering sound like escaping steam. The +judge listened a few moments, then turning to the guard said, "Officer, +what is this man charged with?" "Soda-water, I think, your honor," was +the reply. This was unintelligible to me until my companion explained +it. You must understand that soda-water is a drink that is charged with +gas and makes a hissing, spluttering noise when opened. Hence when the +judge asked what the prisoner was charged with the policeman, an +Irishman, retorted with a joke, the story-teller disregarding the fact +that it was an impertinence. + +A distinguished New York judge told the following: Two tenement +harridans look out of their windows simultaneously. "Good-morning, Mrs. +Moriarity," says one. "Good-morning, Mrs. Gilfillan," says the other, +adding, "not that I care a d----, but just to make conversation." This +was considered wit of the sharpest kind, and was received with applause. +In their stories the Americans spare neither age, sex, nor relatives. +The following was related by a general of the army. He said he took a +friend home to spend the night with him, the guest occupying the best +room. When he came down in the morning he turned to the hostess and +said, "Mrs. ----, that was excellent tooth-powder you placed at my +disposal; can you give me the name of the maker?" The hostess fairly +screamed. "What," she exclaimed, "the powder in the urn?" "Yes," replied +the officer, startled; "was it poison?" "Worse, worse," said she; "you +swallowed Aunt Jane!" Conceive of this wretched taste. The guest had +actually cleaned his teeth with the cremated dust of the general's aunt; +yet he told the story before a dinner assemblage, and it was received +with shouts of laughter. + +I did not hear the intellectual conversation at dinner I had expected. +Art, science, literature, were rarely touched upon, although I +invariably met artists, litterateurs, and scientific men at these +dinners. They all talked small talk or "told stories." I was informed +that if I wished to hear the weighty questions of the day discussed I +must go to the women's clubs, or to Madam ----'s Current Topics Society. +The latter is an extraordinary affair, where society women who have no +time to read the news of the day listen to short lectures on the news of +the preceding week, discussed pro and con, giving these women in a +nutshell material for intelligent conversation when they meet senators +and other men at the various receptions before which they wish to make +an agreeable impression. + +The American has many clubs, but is not entirely at home in them. He +uses them as places in which to play poker or whist, to dine his men +friends, and in a great measure because it is the "proper thing." At +many a room is set apart for the national game of poker--a fascinating +game to the player who wins. Poker was never mentioned in my presence +that some did not make a joke on a supposed Chinaman named Ah Sin; but +the obscurity of the joke and my lack of knowledge regarding American +literature caused the point to elude me at first, which was true of many +jokes. The Americans are preeminently practical jokers, and the ends to +which they go is beyond belief. I heard of jokes which, if perpetrated +in China, would have resulted in the loss of some one's head. To +illustrate this, in the Spanish-American War the camps at Tampa were +besieged with newspaper reporters, and one from a large journal was +constantly trying to secure secret news by entertaining certain officers +with wine and cigars; so they determined to get rid of his +importunities, and what is known as a "job" in America was "put up" on +him. He was told that Colonel ---- had a detailed map of the forthcoming +battle, and if he could get the officer intoxicated he doubtless could +secure the map. This looked very easy to the correspondent, so the story +goes, and he dropped into the colonel's tent one night with a basket of +wine, and began to celebrate its arrival from some friends. Soon the +colonel pretended to become communicative, and the map was brought out +and finally loaned to the correspondent under the promise that it would +not be used. This was sufficient. The correspondent hied him to his +tent, wrote an article and sent the map to his paper in one of the +large cities, where it was duly published. It proved to be what +dressmakers call a "Butterick pattern," a maze of lines for cutting out +dresses for women. The lines looked like roads, and the practical jokers +had merely added towns and forts and bridges here and there. + +The Americans are excellent parents, though small families are general. +The domestic life is charming. The family is denied nothing needed, the +only limit being the purse of the head of the family, so called, the +real head in many cases being the wife, who does not fail to assert +herself if the proper occasion opens. Well-to-do families have every +luxury, and no nation is apparently so well off, so completely supplied +with the necessities of life as the American. One is impressed by their +business sagacity, their cleverness in finance, their complete grasp of +all questions, yet no people are easier gulled or more readily +victimized. An instance will suffice. In making my investigations +regarding methods of managing railroads, I not only obtained information +from the road officials, but questioned the employees whenever it +happened that I was traveling. One day, observing that it was the custom +to "tip" the porters (give money), I asked the conductor what the men +were paid. "Little or nothing," was the reply; "they get from +seventy-five to one hundred dollars a month out of the _passengers_ on a +long run." "But the passengers paid the road for the service?" "Yes, and +they pay the salary of the porter also," said the man. With that in view +the men are poorly paid, and the railroad knows that the people will +make up their salaries, as they do. If you refused you would have no +service. + +This rule holds everywhere, in hotels and restaurants. Servants receive +little pay where the patronage is rich, with the understanding that they +will make it up out of the customers. Thus if you go to a hotel you fee +the bell-boy for bringing you a glass of water. If you order one of the +seductive cocktails you fee the man who brings it; you fee the +chambermaid who attends to your room. Infinite are the resources of +these servants who do not receive a fee. You fee the elevator or lift +boy, or he will take the opportunity to jerk you up as though shot out +of a gun. You fee the porter for taking up your trunk, and give a +special fee for unstrapping it. You fee the head waiter, and when you +fee the table waiter he whispers in your ear that a slight fee will be +acceptable to the cook, who will see that the _Count_ or the _Judge_ +will be cared for as becomes his station. When you leave, the sidewalk +porter expects a fee; if he does not receive it the door of the carriage +may possibly be slammed on the tail of your coat. Then you pay the +cabman two dollars to carry you to the station, and fee him. Arriving at +the station, he hands you over to a red-hatted porter, who carries your +baggage for a fee. He puts you in charge of the railroad porter, who is +feed at the rate of about fifty cents per diem. + +The American submits to this robbery without a murmur; yet he is +sagacious, prudent. I can only explain his gullibility on the ground of +his innate snobbery; he thinks it is the "thing to do," and does it, and +for this reason it is carried to the most merciless lengths. To +illustrate. In the season of 1902, when I was at Newport, Mr. ----, a +conspicuous member of the New York smart set, known as the "Four +Hundred," lost his hat in some way and rode to his home without one. +The ubiquitous reporter saw him, and photographed him, bareheaded, and +his paper, the New York ----, gave a column the following day to a +description of the new fad of going without a hat. Thus the fashion +started, and the amazing spectacle was seen the summer following of men +and women of fashion riding and walking for miles without hats. This is +beyond belief, yet it attracted no attention from the common people, who +perhaps got the cast-off hats. Despite this, the Americans are +hard-fisted, shrewd, and as a nation a match for any in the field of +cunning. + +I can explain it in no way than by assuming that it is due to +overanxiety to do the correct thing. Their own actors satirize them, one +especially taking them off in a jingle which read, "It's English, quite +English, you know." It is said of the men of the "Four Hundred" that +they turn up their trousers when it rains in London, special reports of +the weather being sent to the clubs for the purpose; but I cannot vouch +for this. I have seen the trousers turned up in all weathers, and found +no one who could explain why he did so. What can you make of so +contradictory a people? + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE AMERICAN WOMAN + + +The most remarkable feature of America is the women. Divest your mind of +any woman you know in order to prepare yourself to receive my +impressions. To begin with, the American woman ranks with her husband; +indeed, she is his superior in that all men render her homage and +deference. It is accounted a point of chivalry to stand as the defender +of the weaker sex. The American girl is educated with the boys in the +public school, grows up with them, and studies their studies, that she +may be their intellectual equal, and there is a strong party, led by +masculine women, who contend for complete political rights for women. +In some States they vote, and in nearly all may be elected to boards of +various kinds and to minor offices. The Government departments are +filled with women clerks, and all, from the lowest to the highest, are +equal; hence, it is a difficult matter to find a native-born American +who will become a servant. They all aspire to be ladies, and even aliens +become salesladies, cook ladies, laundry ladies. They are on their +dignity, and able to protect it from any point of attack. + +The lower classes are particularly uninteresting, for they have no +individuality, and ape the class above them, the result being a cheap, +ludicrous imitation of a lady--an absurd abstraction. The women of the +lower classes who are unmarried work in shops, factories, and +restaurants, often in situations the reverse of sanitary; yet prefer +this to good situations in families as servants, service being beneath +their dignity and tending to disturb the balance of equality. I doubt if +a native-born woman would permit herself to be called a servant; indeed, +all the servants are Irish, Swedes, Norwegians, French, German, or +negroes; the American girls fill the factories and the sweat-shops of +the great cities. When I refer these girls to the lower classes it is +merely to classify them, as morally and intellectually they are +sometimes the equal of the higher classes. The middle-class women or +girls are an attractive type, well educated and often beautiful. You +obtain an idea of them in the great shops and bazaars of the great +cities, where they fill every conceivable position and receive from five +to six dollars per week. + +But it is with the higher classes that you will be most interested, and +when I say that the American girl, the product of the first families, +is at once beautiful, refined, cultured, charming physically and +mentally, I have but faintly expressed it; yet the most pronounced +characteristic is their "daring," or temerity. There is no word exactly +to cover it. I frequently met women at dinners. With few exceptions, it +appears impossible for the American girl to take one of our race, an +Oriental, seriously. She can not conceive that he may be a man of +intelligence and education, and I can not better describe her than to +sketch in its detail a dinner to which I was invited by the ---- at +Washington. The invitation was engraved on a small card and read "The +---- and Mrs. ---- request the honor of the presence of the ---- at +dinner on Wednesday at eight o'clock, etc." I immediately sent my valet +with an acceptance and a basket of orchids to the hostess, this being +the mode among the men who are _au fait_. + +A week later I went to the dinner, and was taken up to the dressing-room +for men, where I found a dozen or more, all in the conventional evening +dress I have described--now with tails, it being a ladies' affair. In a +corner was a table, and by it stood a negro, also in a dress suit, +identical with that of the others. I was cordially greeted by a guest, +who said, "Let me introduce you to our American minister to Ijiji and +Zanzibar," and he presented me to the tall negro, who was turning out +some bottled "cocktail." I shook hands with him, and he laughed, showing +a set of teeth like an elephant's tusks, and asked me "what I would +have." He was a servant dealing out "appetizers," and this was an +American joke. The perpetrator of this joke was a minor official in the +State Department, yet the entire party apparently considered it a good +joke. Fortunately, I could disguise my real feeling, and I merely relate +the incident to give you an idea of the sense of the proprieties as +entertained by certain Americans. All that winter the story of the +American minister to Zanzibar was told at my expense without doubt. + +Having been "fortified," and some of the men took two or three +"cocktails" before they became "tuned up," we went down to the +drawing-room, where I paid my respects to the host and hostess, who +stood at the end of a beautiful room. As I approached the lady greeted +me with a charming smile, extending her gloved hand almost on a direct +line with her face, grasping it firmly, not shaking it, saying, "Very +kind of you, ----. Delighted, I am sure. General"--turning to her +husband--"you know the ----, of course," and the general shook my hand +as he would a pump-handle, and whispered, "Our minister to Zanzibar +treated you all right, eh?" and with a wink indescribable, closing the +right eye for a second, passed me on. The story had got down-stairs +before me. Americans of the official class have, as a rule, an absolute +lack of _savoir faire_ and social refinement; lack them so utterly as to +become comical. + +I now joined other groups of officers and officials, there being about +thirty guests, half of whom were ladies. The latter were all in what is +termed full dress. Why "full" I do not know. Here you see one of the +most extraordinary features of American life--the dress of women. The +Americans make claim to being among the most modest, the most religious, +the most proper people in the world, yet the appearance of the ladies +at many public functions is beyond belief. All the women in this house +were beautiful and covered with jewels. They wore gowns in the French +court fashion, with trains a yard or two in length, but the upper part +cut so low that a large portion of the neck and shoulders was exposed. I +was embarrassed beyond expression; such an exhibition in China could +only be made by a certain class. These matrons were of the highest +respectability. This remarkable custom of a strange people, who deluge +China with missionaries from every sect under the sun and at home commit +the grossest solecisms, is universal, and not thought of as improper. +There was not much opportunity for introspective analysis, yet I could +not but believe that such a custom must have its moral effect upon a +nation in the long run. + +It was a mystery to me how the upper part of some of the gowns was +supported. In some instances there was no strap over the shoulders, the +upper third of these alabaster torsos and arms being absolutely naked, +save for a band of pearls, diamonds, or other gems, of a size rarely +seen in the Orient; but I learned later that the bone or steel corset, +which molds the form, constituted the support of the gown. I gradually +became habituated to the custom, and did not notice it. My friend ----, +an artist of repute, explained that it all depends on the point of view. +"Our people are essentially artistic," he said. "There is nothing more +beautiful than the divine female contour; the American women realize +this, and sacrifice themselves at the altar of art." Yet the Americans +are such jokers that exactly what my friend had in mind it was difficult +to arrive at. + +After being presented to these marvelously arrayed ladies we passed +into the dining-room, where I found myself with one of the most charming +of divinities, a woman famous for her wit and literary success. I have +described the typical dinner, so I need not repeat my words. My +companion held the same extraordinary attitude toward me that all +American women do; amused, half laughing, refusing absolutely to take me +seriously, and probing me with so many absurd questions that I was +forced to ask some very pointed ones, which only succeeded in making her +laugh. The conversation proceeded something as follows: "I am charmed +that I have fallen to your Highness." "Equally charmed," I replied; "but +my rank does not admit the adjective you do me the honor to apply." +"No?" was the answer. "Well, I'll wager you anything that when the +butler pours your wine in the first course he will call you Count, and +in the next Prince. You see, they become exhilarated as the dinner +progresses. But tell me, how many wives have you in China, you look +_very_ wicked?" Imagine this! But I rallied, and replied that I had +none--a statement received with incredulity. Her next question was, +"Have you ever been a highbinder?" Ministers of grace! and this from a +people who profess to know more than any nation on earth! I explained +that a highbinder ranked with a professional murderer in this country, +whereupon she again laughed, and, turning to General ----, in a loud +voice said, "General, I have been calling the ---- a highbinder," at +which the company laughed at my expense. In China, as you know, a guest +or a host would have killed himself rather than commit so gross a +solecism; but this is America. + +The second course was oysters served in the shell, and my companion, +assuming that I had never seen an oyster [ignorant that our fathers ate +oysters thousands of years before America was heard of and when the +Anglo-Saxon was living in a cave], in a confidential and engaging +whisper remarked, "This, your 'Highness,' is the only animal we eat +alive." "Why alive?" I asked, looking as innocent as possible; "why not +kill them?" "Oh, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals +will not permit it," was her reply. "You see, if they are swallowed +alive they are immediately suffocated, but if you cut them up they +suffer horribly while the soup is being served. How large a one do you +think you can swallow?" Fancy the daring of a young girl to joke with a +man twice her age in this way! I did not undeceive her, and allowed her +to enlighten me on various subjects of contemporaneous interest. "It's +so strange that the Chinese never study mathematics," she next remarked. +"Why, all our public schools demand higher mathematics, and in the +fourth grade you could not find a child but could square the circle." + +In this manner this volatile young savage entertained me all through the +dinner, utterly superficial herself, yet possessed of a singular +sharpness and wit, mostly at my expense; yet she was so charming I +forgave her. There is no denying that you become enraged, insulted, +chagrined by these women, who, however, by a look, dispel your +annoyance. I do not understand it. I found that while an author of a +novel she was grossly ignorant of the literature of her own country, yet +she possessed that consummate American froth by which she could +convince the average person that she was brilliant to the point of +scintillation. I fancy that any keen, well-educated woman must have seen +that I was laughing at her, yet so inborn was her belief that a Chinaman +must be an imbecile that she was ever joking at my expense. The last +story she told me illustrates the peculiar fancy for joking these women +possess. I had been describing a storm at Manchester-by-the-Sea and the +splendor of the ocean. "Did you see the tea-leaves?" she asked, +solemnly. "No," I replied. "That is strange," she said. "I fear you are +not very observing. After every storm the tea-leaves still wash up all +along Massachusetts Bay," alluding to the fact that loads of tea on +ships were tossed over by the Americans during the quarrel with England +before the Revolution. + +The daring of the American woman impressed me. This same lady asked me +not to remain with the men to smoke but go on the veranda with her, +where _tete-a-tete_ she produced a gold cigarette-case and offered me a +cigarette. This I found not uncommon. American women of the fast sets +drink at the clubs; an insidious drink--the "high-ball"--is a common +one, yet I never saw a woman under the influence of wine or liquor. The +amount of both consumed in America, is amazing. The consumption per head +in the United States for beer alone is ten and a half gallons for each +of the eighty millions. My friend, a prohibitionist, a member of a +political party whose object is to ruin the wine industry of the world, +put it stronger, and, backed by facts, said that if the wine, beer, +whisky, gin, and alcoholic drinks of all kinds and the tea and coffee +drank yearly by the Americans could be collected it would make a lake +two miles square and ten feet deep. The alcoholic drinks alone if +collected would fill a canal one hundred miles long, one hundred feet +wide, and ten feet deep. May their saints propitiate this insatiate +thirst! + +It would amuse you to hear the American women of literary tendency boast +of their schools, yet when educational facilities are considered the +average American is ignorant. They are educated in lines. Thus a girl +graduate will speak French with a good accent, or she will converse in +Milwaukee German. She can prove her statement in conic sections or +algebra, but when it comes to actual knowledge she is deficient. This is +due to the ignorance of the teachers in the public schools and their +lack of inborn culture. No better test of the futility of the American +public-school education can be seen than the average girl product of +the public school of the lower class in a city like Chicago or New York. +Americans affect to despise Chinese methods because the Chinese girl or +boy is not crammed with a thousand thoughts of no relative value. China +has existed thousands of years; her people are happy; happiness and +content are the chief virtues, and if China is ever overthrown it will +be not because, as the Americans put it, she is behind the times, but +because the fever of unrest and the craze for riches has become a +contagion which will react upon her. The development of China is normal, +that of America hysterical. Our growth has been along the line of peace; +that of other nations has been entirely opposed to their own religious +teaching, showing it to be farcical and pure sophistry. + +If I should tell you how many American women asked me why Chinese women +bandage their feet you would be amazed; yet every one of these submitted +to and practised a deformity that has seriously affected the growth and +development of the race. I am no iconoclast, but listen to the story of +the American woman who, with one hand, deforms her waist in the most +barbarous fashion, while waving the other in horror at her Chinese +sister with the bound feet. American women change their fashions twice a +year or more. Fashions are in the hands of the middle classes, and the +highest lady in the land is completely at their mercy; to disobey the +mandates of fashion is to become ridiculous. The fashion is set in Paris +and various cities by men and women who have skilled artists to draw +patterns and paint pictures showing the new mode. These are published in +certain papers and issued by millions, republished in America, and no +woman here would have the temerity to ignore them. The laws of the Medes +and Persians are not more inexorable. + +It is not a suggestion but an order, a fiat, a command, so we see this +free nation really truckling to or dominated by a class of tradesmen. +The object of the change of style is to create a sale for new goods, +give work for laborers, and enable the producer to reach the pocketbook +of the rich man; but the "fashions" have become so fixed, so thoroughly +a national feature, that they affect rich and poor, and we have the +spectacle of every woman studying these guides and conforming to them +with a servility beyond belief. I once said to a lady, "The Chinese lady +dresses richer than the American, but her styles have been very much the +same for thousands of years," but I believe she doubted it. It would be +futile, indeed impossible, for me to explain the extravagances of +American fashion. Their own press and stage use it as a standard butt. +At the present time tablets or plates of fashion insist upon an outline +which shows the form completely, the antipodes of a Chinese woman; and +this is intensified by some of the women who, when in the street, grasp +the skirt and in an ingenious way wrap it about so that the outline of +the American divinity is sufficiently well defined to startle one. Such +a trick in China could but originate with the demimonde, yet it is taken +up by certain of the Americans who are constantly seeking for variety. +There can be no question but that the middle-class fashion designer +revenges himself upon the _beau monde_. They will not receive him +socially, so he forces them to wear his clothes. + +Some years ago women were made to wear "hoops," pictures of which I +have seen in old publications. Imagine, if you can, a bird-cage three +feet high and four feet across, formed of bone of the whale or some +metal. This was worn beneath the dress, expanding it on either side so +that it was difficult to approach a lady. A later order was given to +wear a camel-like "hump" at the base of the vertebral column, which was +called the "bustle"--a contrivance calculated to unnerve the wearer, not +to speak of the looker-on; yet the American woman adopted it, distorted +her body, and aped the gait of the kangaroo, the form being called the +"Grecian bend." This lasted six months or more; first adopted by the +aristocracy, then by the common people, and by the time the latter had +it well in hand the _bon ton_ had cast it aside and were trying +something else. + +A close study of this mad dressing shows that there is always a "hump." +At one time it went all around; later appeared only behind, like an +excrescence on a bilbol-tree. At the present time the designer has drawn +his picture showing it as a pendent bag from the "shirtwaist," like the +pouch of the bird pelican. A few years ago the designer, in a delirium, +placed the humps on the tops of the sleeves, then snatched them away and +tipped them upside down. Finally he appeared to go utterly mad with the +desire to humiliate the woman, and created a fashion that entailed +dragging the skirt on the ground from one to two feet. + +Did the American woman resent the insult; did she refuse to adopt a +custom not only disgusting but really filthy, one that a Chinese lady +would have died rather than have accepted? By no means; she seized upon +it with the ardor of a child with a new toy, and for a year the +side-paths of the great cities of the country were swept by women's +skirts, clouds of dust following them. The press took up the question, +but without effect; the fashion dragged its nauseating and frightful +course from rich and poor, and I was told by an official that it was +impossible to stop it or to force a glimmer of reason into the minds of +these women. Then they gave it up, and passed a law making it a +statutory offense, with heavy fines, for any one to "expectorate" on the +sidewalk or anywhere else where the saliva could be swept up by the +trains of the women of nearly all classes who followed the fashion. The +American woman, as I have said, looks askance at the footgear of the +Chinese--high, warm, dry, sanitary, yet revels in creations which cramp +the feet and distort the anatomy. The shoes are made of leather, +inflexible, pointed; and to enable them to deceive the men into the +belief that they have high insteps (a sign of good blood here) the women +wear stilt-like heels, which throw the foot forward and elevate the heel +from two to three inches above the ground. + +But all this is but a bagatelle to the fashions in deformity which we +find among nearly all American women. There are throughout the country +numbers of large manufactories which make "corsets"--a peculiar waist +and lung compressor, used by nearly every woman in America. These men +are as dogmatic as the designers of the fashion-plates. They also issue +plates or guides showing new changes, and the women, like sheep, adopt +them. The American woman believes that a narrow waist enhances her +beauty, and the corset-maker works upon the national weakness and builds +creations that put to shame and ridicule the bound feet of the +aristocratic Chinese woman. The corset is a lace and ribbon-decorated +armor, made either of steel ribs or whale-bone, which fits the waist and +clings to the hips. It is laced up, and the degree of tightness depends +upon the will or nerve of the wearer. It compresses the heart and lungs, +and wearing it is a most barbarous custom--a telling argument against +the assumption of high intelligence on the part of the Americans, who, +in this respect, rank with the flat-headed Indians of the northwest +American coast, whose heads I have seen in their medical offices side by +side with a diagram showing the abnormal conditions caused by the +corset. + +A year ago the fiat went forth that the American woman must have wide +hips. Presto! there appeared especially devised machinery, advertised in +all the journals, accomplishing the condition for those whom nature had +not well endowed. Now the dressmaker has decided that they must be +narrow-hipped, and half a million dollars in false hips, rubber pads, +and other properties are cast aside. No extravaganza is too absurd for +these people who are abject slaves to the whimsicalities of the +designer, who is a wag in his way, as has been well shown in a story +told to me. The designers for a famous man dressmaker in Paris had a +habit of taking sketches of the latest creations to their club meetings. +One evening a clever caricaturist took a caricature of a fashion showing +a woman with enormous and outlandish sleeves. It created a laugh. "As +impossible as it is," said the artist, "I will wager a dinner that if I +present it seriously to a certain fashion paper they will take it up." +This is said to be the history of the "big-sleeve" fashion that really +amazed the Americans themselves. + +The customs of women here are so at variance with those of China that +they are not readily understood. Our ways are those culled from a +civilization of thousands of years; theirs from one just beginning; yet +they have the temerity to speak of China as effete and behind the times. +In writing, the women affect the English round hand and write across +from left to right, and then beginning at the left of the page again. +They are fond of perfumes, especially the lower classes, and display a +barbaric taste for jewels. It is not uncommon to see the wife of a +wealthy man wear half a million pounds sterling in diamonds or rubies at +the opera. I was told that one lady wore a $5,000 diamond in her garter. +The utterly strange and contradictory customs of these women are best +observed at the beach and bath. In China if a woman is modest she is so +at all times; but this is not true with some Americans, who appear to +have the desire to attract attention, especially that of men, by an +appeal to the beautiful in nature and art; at least this is the +impression the unprejudiced looker-on gains by a sojourn in the great +cities and fashionable resorts. If you happen to be riding horseback, or +walking in the street with a lady, and any accident occurs to her +costume whereby her neck, her leg, or her ankle is exposed, she will be +mortified beyond expression; yet the night previous you might have sat +in the box with her at the opera, when her decollete gown had made her +the mark for hundreds of lorgnettes. Again, this lady the next morning +might bathe with me at the beach and lie on the sand basking in the sun +like a siren in a costume that would arrest the attention of a St. +Anthony. + +Let me describe such a costume: A pair of skin-tight black stockings, +then a pair of tights of black silk and a flimsy black skirt that comes +just to the knee; a black silk waist, armless, and as low in the neck as +the moral law permits, beneath which, to preserve her contour, is a +water-proof corset. Limbs, to expose which an inch on the street were a +crime, are blazoned to the world at Newport, Cape May, Atlantic City, +and other resorts, and often photographed and shown in the papers. To +explain this manifest contradiction would be beyond the powers of an +Oriental, had he the prescience of the immortal Confucius and the +divination of a Mahomet and Hilliel combined. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE SUPERSTITIONS OF THE AMERICANS + + +Among the many topics I have discussed with Americans, our alleged +superstitions, or our belief in so-called dragons, genii, ghosts, etc., +seem to have made the deepest impression. A charming American woman, +whom I met at the ---- Embassy at dinner, told me with seriousness that +our people may be intelligent, but the fact that in San Francisco and +Los Angeles they at certain times drag through the streets a dragon five +hundred feet long to exorcise the evil spirits, showed that the Chinese +were grossly superstitious. If I had told my companion that she was the +victim of a thousand superstitions, she would have taken it as an +affront, because, according to American usage, it is not proper to +dispute with a lady. The Americans are the most superstitious people in +the world. They will not sit down to a dinner-table when there are +thirteen persons. No hostess would attempt such a thing, the belief +being general that some one of the guests would die within a year. I was +a guest at a dinner-party when a lady suddenly remarked, "We are +thirteen." Several of the guests were evidently much annoyed, and the +hostess, a most pleasing woman, apologized, and replied that she had +invited fourteen, but one guest had failed her. It was apparent that +something must be done, and this was cleverly solved by the hostess +sending for her mother, who joined the party, and the dinner proceeded. +I do not think _all_ the guests believed in this absurd superstition, +but they were _all_ very uncomfortable. I do not believe I met a +society woman in Washington or New York who would walk through a +cemetery or graveyard at midnight alone. I asked several ladies if they +would do this, and all were horrified at the idea, though strongly +denying any belief in ghosts or spirits. + +In nearly every American city one or more houses may be found haunted by +ghosts, which Americans believe have made the places so disagreeable +that the houses have been in consequence deserted. So well-defined is +the superstition, and so recurrent are the beliefs in ghosts and +spirits, that the best-educated people have found it necessary to +establish a society, called the Society for Psychical Research, in order +to demonstrate that ghosts are not possible. I believe I am not +overstepping the bounds when I say that this vainglorious people, who +claim to have the finest public-school system in the world, are, +considering their advantages, the most superstitious of all the white +races. Out of perhaps thirty men, whom I asked, not one was willing to +say he could pass through a graveyard at night without fear at heart, an +undefined nervous feeling, due to innate superstition. The middle-class +woman who stumbles upstairs considers it to mean that she will not +marry. To break a mirror, or receive as a present a knife, also means +bad luck. Many people wear amulets, safe-guards, and good-luck stones. +Several millions of the Catholic sect wear a charm, which they think +will save them from sudden death. All Catholics believe that some of +their churches own the bones of saints, which have the power to give +them health and other good things. Many Americans wear the seed of the +horse-chestnut, and many others wear lucky coins. Belief in the luck of +the four-leaf clover, instead of that with three leaves, is so strong +that people will spend hours in hunting for one. They are designed into +pins and certain insignia, and used in a hundred other ways. + +But more remarkable than all is the old horseshoe superstition. I have +seen beautifully gowned ladies stop their driver, descend from the +carriage, and pick up such a shoe and carry it home, telling me that +they never failed to pick up one, as it brought good luck; yet this lady +laughed at our dragon! In the country, horseshoes are commonly seen over +the doors of stables, and even of houses. These same people once hung +women for witchcraft, and slaughtered women for persisting in certain +religious beliefs. I had the pleasure of meeting a well-known man, who +stated that he had the power of the "evil eye." Innumerable people +believe the paw of an animal called the rabbit to contain sovereign good +luck. They carry it about, and can buy it in shops. Indeed, I could fill +a volume, much less a letter, with the absurd superstitions of these +people who send women to China to convert the "Heathen Chinee," who may +be "peculiar," as Mr. Harte states in his poem; but the Chinaman +certainly has not the marvelous variety of superstitions possessed by +the American, who does not allow cats about rooms where there are +infants, fearing that they will suck the child's breath; who believe +that certain snakes milk cows, and that mermen are possible. I stood in +a tent last summer at Atlantic City--a large seaside resort--and watched +a line of middle-class people passing to see a "Chinese mermaid," of the +kind the Japanese manufacture so cleverly. It was to be seen on the +water. All, so far as I could judge, accepted it as real. So much for +the influence of the American public school, where physiology is taught. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE AMERICAN PRESS + + +One feature of American life is so peculiar that I fear I can not +present it to you clearly, as there is nothing like it under the sun. I +refer to the newspapers. If such an institution should appear in any +Oriental country, or even in Russia, many heads would fall to the ground +for treason or gross disrespect to the power of the throne. The American +must not only have the news of his neighbor, but the news of the world +every hour in the day, and the newspapers furnish it. In the villages +they appear weekly, in the towns daily, in the great cities hourly, boys +screaming their names, shouting and yelling like demons. Yesterday +beneath the window a boy screamed, "The Empress of China elopes with +her coachman!" I bought the paper, in which a column was devoted to it. +Fancy this in Pekin. Shades of ----! I can not better describe these +papers than to say they have absolute license as to what to print, this +freedom being a principle, but it is grossly abused by blackmailers. The +papers have no respect for man, woman, or child, the President or the +Deity. The most flagrant attacks are made upon private persons. Rarely +is an editor shot or imprisoned. The President may be called vile names, +his appearance may become the butt of ridicule in opposition papers, and +cartoonists, employed at large salaries, draw insulting pictures of him +and his Cabinet. One would think that the way to obtain patronage of a +person would be to praise him, but this would be considered an +orientalism. The real way to secure readers in America is to abuse, +insult, and outrage private feelings, the argument being that people +will buy the journal to see what is said about them. All the American +press is not founded upon this system of virtual blackmail. There are +respectable papers, conservative and honorable; but I believe I am not +overstating it when I say that every large city has at least one paper +where the secrets of a family and its most sacred traditions are treated +as lawful game. + +The actual heads of papers have often been men of high standing, as +Horace Greeley, Henry J. Raymond, E. L. Godkin, Henry Watterson, the +late Charles A. Dana, James Gordon Bennett, and William Cullen Bryant. +But in the modern newspaper the man in control is a managing editor, +whose tenure of office depends upon his keeping ahead of all others. +The press, then, with its telegraphic connection with the world, with +its thousands of readers, is a power, and in the hands of a man of small +mind becomes a menace to civilization and easily drifts into blackmail. +This is displayed in a thousand ways, especially in politics. The editor +desires to obtain "influence," the power to secure places for his +favorites, and, if he is slighted, he intimates to the men in power, +"Appoint my candidate or I will attack you." This is a virtual threat. +In this way the editor intimidates the office-holder. I was informed by +a good authority of two journals of standing in America which he knew +were started as "blackmailing sheets"; and certainly the license of the +press is in every way diabolical, a result of the American dogma of free +speech. When one arrives in America he is met with dozens of +representatives of the press, who ask a thousand and one personal and +impertinent questions, which, if one does not answer, one is attacked in +some insidious way. One man I know refused to listen to a very +importunate newspaper man, and was congratulating himself on his escape, +when on the following day an article appeared in the paper giving +several libelous pictures of him, the object being to show that he had +nothing to say because he was mentally deficient. He appealed to the +editor, but was told that his only recourse was to sue. As one walks +down the gangplank of a ship he may become the mark for ten or fifteen +cameras, which photograph him without permission, and whose owners will +"poke fun" at his resistance. + +As a news-collecting medium the press of the United States is a +magnificent organization. At breakfast you receive the news of the +whole world--social, diplomatic, criminal, and religious. Meetings of +Congress and stories of private life are alike all served up, fully +illustrated with pictures of the people and events. A corner is devoted +to children, another to women, another to religious Americans, and a +little sermon is preached. Then there are suggestive pictures for the +man about town, recipes for the cook, weather reports for the traveler, +a story for the romancer, perhaps a poem, and an editorial page, where +ideas and theories are promulgated and opinions manufactured on all +subjects, ready made for adoption by the reader, who in many instances +has his thinking done for him. I made a test of this, and asked a number +of men for their opinion on a certain subject, and then guessed the name +of their favorite paper, and in most instances was correct. They all +claimed that they took the paper because it agreed with their political +ideas; but I am confident that the reverse is true, the paper having +insidiously trained them to adopt its view. Here we see where the power +of one man or editor comes in, and worse yet, a nation which acquires +this "newspaper habit," this having some one to think for it by +machinery, as it were, will lose its mental power, its facility in +analysis. I made bold to suggest this to a prominent man, but he merely +laughed. As a whole, the American newspapers are valuable; they are the +real educators of the people, and have a vast influence. For this reason +there should be some restriction imposed on them. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE AMERICAN DOCTOR + + +At a dinner at Manchester in the summer I had as my _vis-a-vis_ a +delightful young American, who, among other things, said to me: "It is +astonishing to me that so many of your people live long, considering the +ignorance of your doctors." I assured her that this was merely her point +of view, and that we were well satisfied with our doctors or physicians. +I wished to retaliate by telling my fair companion a story I had heard +the day previous. An American physician operated upon a man and removed +what he called a "cyst," which he displayed with some pride to a doctor +of another school. "Why, man," said the latter, "that isn't a cyst; +it's the man's kidney!" + +The Americans have made rapid advances in medicine and surgery, and they +have some extraordinary physicians. From two to four years of study +completes the education of some of the doctors, and hundreds are turned +out every year. Some are of the old and regular school of medicine, but +others are called homeopathic, which means that they give small doses of +the more powerful medicines. Then there are those who practise in both +schools. Indeed, in no other field does ignorance, superstition, +credulity, and lack of real education display itself as among the +American doctors or healers. I believe I could fill a volume by the mere +enumeration of the diabolical and absurd nostrums offered by knaves to +heal men who profess to hold in ridicule the Chinese doctors. I mention +but a few, and when I tell you, as a truth beyond cavil, that the most +extraordinary of these healers, the most impossible, have the largest +following, you can see what I mean by the credulity of the people as a +whole. Christian Science doctors have a following of tens of thousands. +They combine so-called science with religion; leave their God to cure +them at long or short range through the medium of so-called agents. The +head of this faction is an ignorant but clever woman, who has turned the +heads of perhaps thirty-three and a third per cent of the American women +whom she has come in contact with. + +Then come the faith curists, who rely upon faith alone. You simply are +to _think_ you will get well. Of course, many die from neglect. As an +illustration of the credulity of the average American, a Christian +Science healer was once treating a sick woman from a distant town, and +finally the patient died. When the bill was presented the husband said, +"You have charged for treatment two weeks after my wife died." It was a +fact that the healer had been treating the woman after she was buried, +the husband having failed to give notice of the death. One would have +expected the "healer" to be thrown into confusion, but far from it; she +merely replied, "I thought I noticed a vacancy." + +Next come the musical curists, who listen to thrills of sound, a big +organ being the doctor. Then there is the psychometric doctor, who cures +by spirits. The spirit doctor cures in the same way. The palmist +professes to point out how to avoid the ills of life. Magnetic healers +have hundreds of victims in every city. Their advertisements in the +journals of all sorts are of countless kinds. Some cure at short hand, +some miles distant from the patient. They are equaled in numbers by the +hypnotists, or hypnotic doctors, who profess to throw their patients +into a trance and cure them by suggestion. I heard of one cure in which +the guileless American is made to lie in an open grave; this is called +"the return to nature." Again, patients are cured by being buried in hot +mud or in hot sand. I have seen a salt-water cure, where patients were +made to remain in the ocean ten hours a day. The plain water cure has +thousands of followers, with hospitals and infirmaries, where the +patient is bathed, soaked, filled, washed, and plunged in water and +charged a high amount. + +Then there is the vegetarian cure, no meat being eaten; and there are +the meat eaters, who use no vegetables. There are over fifty thousand +_masseurs_ and osteopaths in the country, who cure by baths and +rubbing. You may have a bath of milk, water, electricity, or alcohol, or +a bath of any description under the sun, which is guaranteed to cure any +and all ailments. Perhaps the most extraordinary curists are the color +doctors. They have rooms filled with blue and other colors, in whose +rays the patient victim or the victim patient sits, "like Patience on a +monument." I could not begin to give you an enumeration of the various +kinds of electric cures; they are legion. But the most amazing class +comprises the patent-medicine men, who are usually not doctors at all, +but buy from some one a "cure" and then advertise it, spending in one +instance which I investigated one million dollars a year. Every +advantageous wall, stone, or cliff in America will be posted. You see +the name at every turn, and the gullible Americans bite, chew, and +swallow. + +It is not overstating facts when I say that three-fifths of the people +buy some of these patent nostrums, which the real medical men denounce, +showing that the masses of the people are densely ignorant, the victims +of any faker who may shout his wares loud enough. In China such a thing +would be impossible; the block would stop the practise; but, my dear +----, the Americans assure me China is a thousand years behind the +times, for which let us be devoutly thankful! I have not enumerated a +tenth of the kinds of doctors who prey upon these unfortunate people. +There are companies of them, who guarantee to cure anything, and +skilfully mulct the sick of their last penny. There are retreats for the +unfortunate, farms for deserted infants, and homes for unfortunate +women carried on by villains of both sexes. There are traveling doctors +who go from town to town, who cure "while you wait," and give a circus +while talking and selling their cure; and in nine cases out of ten the +nostrum is an alcoholic drink disguised. + +In no land under the sun are there so many ignorant blatant fakers +preying on a people, and in no land do you find so credulous a throng as +in America, yet claiming to represent the cream of the intelligence of +the world; they are so easily led that the most impossible person, if he +be a good talker, can go abroad and by the use of money and audacity +secure a following to drink his salt water, paying a dollar a bottle for +it and sing his praises. Such a doctor can secure the names and pictures +of judges, governors of States, senators, congressmen, prominent men and +women, officers of the volunteer army, artists, actors, singers--in +fact, prominent people of all kinds will provide their pictures and give +testimonials, which are blazonly published. These same people go to +Chinese drug shops and laugh at the "heathen" drugs, and wonder why the +Chinaman is alive. America has a body of physicians and surgeons who are +a credit to the world, modest, conscientious, and with a high sense of +honor, but they are as a dragon's tooth in a multitude to the so-called +"quacks," who take the money of the masses and prey upon them, protected +in many cases by the law. No one profession so demonstrates the abject +credulity of the great mass of Americans as that of medicine. + +One other incident may further illustrate the jokes these so-called +doctors play upon the common people. In a country town was a "quack" +doctor, who professed to be a "head examiner," giving people charts +according to their "bumps," a fad which has many followers. "This, +ladies and gentlemen," said the lecturer, holding out a small skull, "is +the skull of Alexander the Great at the age of six. Note the prominent +brow. This [holding up a larger skull] is the same at the age of ten. +This [holding out another] at the age of twenty-one; [then stepping out +to the front of the stage] this is the _complete_ skull of Alexander at +the time of his death." All of which appeared to be accepted in good +faith. + +Of the best physicians in America one can not say enough in praise. I +was most impressed by their high sense of honor. They have an agreement +which they call their "ethics," by which they will not advertise or call +attention to their learning. Consequently, the lower and ignorant +classes are caught by the blatant chaff of the patent-medicine venders +and the quack doctors. What the word "quack" means in this sense I do +not quite know; literally, it is the cry of the goose. The "regular +doctor" will not take advantage of any medicine he may discover, or any +instrument; all belongs to humanity, and one doctor becomes famous over +another by his success in keeping people from dying. The grateful +patient saved, tells his friends, and so the doctor becomes known. In +all America I never heard of a doctor that acted on the principle which +holds among our doctors, that the best way to cure is to watch the +patient and keep him well, or prevent him from being taken sick. The +Americans, in their conceit, consider Chinese doctors ignorant fakers; +yet, so far as I can learn, the death-rate among the Chinese, city for +city, country for country, is less than among Americans. The Chinese +women are longer lived and less subject to disease. In what is known as +New England, the oldest well-populated section of the country, people +would die out were it not for the constant accession of immigrants. On +the other hand, the Chinese constantly increase, despite a policy of +non-intercourse with foreigners. The Americans have, in a civilization +dating back to 1492, already begun to show signs of decadence, and are +only saved by constant immigration. China has a civilization of +thousands of years, and is increasing in population every day, yet her +doctors and their methods are ridiculed by the Americans. The people +have many sayings here, one of which is, "The proof of the pudding lies +in the eating." It seems applicable to this case. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +PECULIARITIES AND MANNERISMS + + +One finds it difficult to learn the language fluently because of a +peculiar second language called "slang," which is in use even among the +fashionable classes. I despair of conveying any clear idea of it, as we +have no exact equivalent. As near as I can judge, it is first composed +by professional actors on the stage. Some funny remark being constantly +repeated, as a part of a taking song, becomes slang, conveying a certain +meaning, and is at once adopted by the people, especially by a class who +pose as leaders in all towns, but who are not exactly the best, but +charming imitations of the best, we may say. To illustrate this +"jargon," I took a drive with a young lady at Manchester--a seaside +resort. Her father was a man of good family, an official, and she was an +attendant at a fashionable school. The following occurred in the +conversation. Her slang is italicized: + +Heathen Chinee: "It is very dull this week, Miss ----." + +Young lady, sententiously: "_Bum._" + +Heathen Chinee: "I hope it will be less bum soon." + +Young lady: "_It's all off with me all right_, if it don't change soon, +_and don't you forget it_!" + +Heathen Chinee: "I wish I could do something." + +Young lady: "Well, you'll have to _get a move on you_, as I go back to +school to-morrow; then there'll be _something doing_." + +Heathen Chinee: "Have you seen ---- lately?" + +Young lady: "Yes, and isn't he _a peach_? Ah, he's a _peacharina_, and +_don't you forget it_!" + +Young lady (passing a friend): "_Ah, there_! why _so toppy_? _Nay, nay, +Pauline_," this in reply to remarks from a friend; then turning to me, +"Isn't she a _jim dandy_? _Say_, have you any girls in China that can +_top_ her?" + +These are only a few of the slang expressions which occur to me. They +are countless and endless. Such a girl in meeting a friend, instead of +saying good-morning, says, "_Ah, there_," which is the slang for this +salutation. If she wished to express a difference of opinion with you +she would say, "_Oh, come off._" This girl would probably outgrow this +if she moved in the very best circle, but the shop-girl of a common type +lives in a whirl of slang; it becomes second nature, while the young men +of all classes seem to use nothing else, and we often see the jargon of +the lowest class used by some of the best people. There has been +compiled a dictionary of slang; books are written on it, and an adept, +say a "rough" or "hoodlum," it is said can carry on a conversation with +nothing else. Thus, "Hi, cully, what's on?" to which comes in answer, +"Hunki dori." All this means that a man has said, "How do you do, how +are you, and what are you doing?" and thus learned in reply that +everything is all right. A number of gentlemen were posing for a lady +before a camera. "Have you finished?" asked one. "Yes, _it's all off_," +was the reply, "and _a peach_, I think." It is unnecessary to say that +among really refined people this slang is never heard, and would be +considered a gross solecism, which gives me an opportunity to repeat +that the really cultivated Americans, and they are many, are among the +most delightful and charming of people. + +They have strange habits, these Americans. The men chew tobacco, +especially in the South, and in Virginia I have seen men spitting five +or six feet, evidently taking pride in their skill in striking a +"cuspidore." In every hotel, office, or public place are +cuspidores--which become targets for these chewers. This is a national +habit, extraordinary in so enlightened a people. So ridiculous has it +made the Americans, so much has been written about it by such visitors +as Charles Dickens, that the State governments have determined to take +up the "spitting" question, and now there is a fine of from $10 to $100 +for any one spitting in a car or on a hotel floor. Nearly all the +"up-to-date" towns have passed anti-spitting laws. Up to this time, or +even during my college days in America, this habit made walking on the +sidewalk a most disagreeable function, and the interior of cars was a +horror. Is not this remarkable in a people who claim so much? In the +South certain white men and women chew snuff--a gross habit. + +In the North they also have a strange custom, called chewing gum. This +gum is the exudation from certain trees, and is manufactured into plates +and sold in an attractive form, merely to chew like tobacco, and young +and old may be seen chewing with great velocity. The children forget +themselves and chew with great force, their jaws working like those of a +cow chewing her cud, only more rapidly; and to see a party of three or +four chewing frantically is one of the "sights" in America, which +astonishes the Heathen Chinee and convinces him that, in the slang of +the country, "_there are others_" who are peculiar. There are many +manufactories of this stuff, which is harmless, though such constant +chewing can but affect the size of the muscles of the jaw if the theory +of evolution is to be believed; at least there will be no atrophy of +these parts. + +In New England, the northeastern portion of the country, this habit +appeared to be more prevalent, and I asked several scientific persons if +they had made any attempt to trace the history of the habit or to find +anything to attribute it to. One learned man told me that he had made a +special study of the habit, and believed that it was merely the modern +expression in human beings of the cud chewing of ruminating mammals, as +cows, goats, etc. In a word, the gum-chewing Americans are trying to +chew their cud as did their ancestors. Any habit like this is seized +upon by manufacturers for their personal profit, and every expedient is +employed to induce people to chew. The gum is mixed with perfumes, and +sold as a breath purifier; others mix it with pepsin, to aid the +digestion; some with something else, which is sold on ships and +excursion-boats as a cure or preventive for seasickness, all of which +finds a large sale among the credulous Americans, who by a clever leader +can be made to take up any fad or habit. + +The Americans have a peculiar habit of "treating"; that is, one of a +party will "treat" or buy a certain article and distribute it +gratuitously to one or ten people. A young lady may treat her friends to +gum, ice-cream, soda-water, or to a theater party. A matron may treat +her friends to "high-balls" or cocktails at the club. The man confines +his "treats" to drinks and cigars. Thus five or six Americans may meet +in a club or barroom for the sale of liquors. One says, "Come up and +have something;" or "What will you have, gentlemen; this is on me;" or +in some places the treater says, "Let's liquor," and all step up, the +drinks are dispensed, and the treater pays. You might suppose that he +was deserving of some encomium, but not at all; he expects that the +others will take their turn in treating, or at least this is the +assumption; and if the party is engaged in social conversation each in +turn will "treat," the others taking what they wish to drink or smoke. +There is a code of etiquette regarding the treat. Thus, unless you are +invited, it would be bad form among gentlemen to order wine when invited +to drink unless the "treater" asks you to have wine; he means a drink of +whisky, brandy, or a mixed drink, or you may take soda or a cigar, or +you may refuse. It is a gross solecism to accept a cigar and put it in +your pocket; you should not take it unless you smoke it on the spot. + +Drinking to excess is frowned upon by all classes, and a drunkard is +avoided and despised; but the amount an American will drink in a day is +astonishing. A really delightful man told me that he did not drink much, +and this was his daily experience: before breakfast a champagne +cocktail; two or three drinks during the forenoon; a pint of white or +red wine at lunch; two or three cocktails in the afternoon; a cocktail +at dinner, with two glasses of wine; and in the evening at the club +several drinks before bedtime! This man was never drunk, and never +_appeared_ to be under the influence of liquor, yet he was in reality +never actually sober; and he is a type of a large number in the great +cities who constitute what is termed the "man about town." + +The Americans are not a wine-drinking people. Whisky, and of a very +excellent quality, is the national drink, while vast quantities of beer +are consumed, though they make the finest red and white wines. All the +grog-shops are licensed by the Government and State--that is, made to +pay a tax; but in the country there is a political party, the +Prohibitionists, who would drive out all wine and liquor. These, working +with the conservative people, often succeed in preventing saloons from +opening in certain towns; but in large cities there are from one to two +saloons to the block in the districts where they are allowed. + +Taking everything into consideration, I think the Americans a temperate +people. They organize in a thousand directions to fight drinking and +other vices, and millions of dollars are expended yearly in this +direction. A peculiar quality about the American humor is that they joke +about the most serious things. In fact, drink and drinking afford +thousands of stories, the point of which is often very obscure to an +alien. Here is one, told to illustrate the cleverness of a drinker. He +walked into a bar and ordered a "tin-roof cocktail." The barkeeper was +nonplussed, and asked what a tin-roof cocktail was. "Why, it's on the +house." I leave you to figure it out, but the barkeeper paid the bill. +The ingenuity of the Americans is shown in their mixed drinks. They have +cocktails, high-balls, ponies, straights, fizzes, and many other drinks. +Books are written on the subject. I have seen a book devoted entirely to +cocktails. Certain papers offer prizes for the invention of new drinks. +I have told you that, all in all, America is a temperate country, +especially when its composite character is considered; yet if the nation +has a curse, a great moral drawback, it is the habit of drinking at the +public bar. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +LIFE IN WASHINGTON + + +One of the best-known American authors has immortalized the Chinaman in +some of his verses. It was some time before I understood the smile which +went around when some one in my presence suggested a game of poker. I +need not repeat the poem, but the essence of it is that the "Heathen +Chinee is peculiar." Doubtless Mr. Harte is right, but the Chinaman and +his ways are not more peculiar to the American than American customs and +contradictions are to the Chinaman. If there is any race on the earth +that is peculiar, it is the "Heathen Yankee," the good-hearted, +ingenuous product of all the nations of the earth--black, red, white, +brown, all but "yellow." Imagine yourself going out to what they call a +"stag" dinner, and having an officer of the ranking of lieutenant shout, +"Hi, John, pass the wine!" + +Washington can not be said to be a typical American city. It is the +center of _official_ life, and abounds in statesmen of all grades. I +have attended one of the President's receptions, to which the diplomats +went in a body; then followed the army and navy, General Miles, a +good-looking, soldier-like man, leading the former, and Admiral Dewey +the latter, a fine body of men, all in full uniform, unpretentious, and +quiet compared to similar men in other nations. I passed in line, and +found the President, standing with several persons, the center of a +group. The announcement and presentation were made by an officer in full +uniform, and beyond this there was no formality, indeed, an abundance +of republican simplicity; only the uniforms saved it from the +commonplace. + +The President is a man of medium size, thick-set, and inclined to be +fleshy, with an interesting, smooth face, eye clear and glance alert. He +grasped me quickly by the hand, but shook it gingerly, giving the +impression that he was endeavoring to anticipate me, called me by name, +and made a pleasant allusion to ---- of ----. He has a high forehead and +what you would term an intelligent face, but not one you would pick out +as that of a great man; and from a study of his work I should say that +he is of a class of advanced politicians, clever in political intrigue, +quick to grasp the best situation for himself or party; a man of high +moral character, but not a great statesman, only a man with high ideals +and sentiments and the faculty of impressing the masses that he is +great. The really intelligent class regard him as a useful man, and +safe. It is a curious fact that the chief appreciation of President +McKinley, I was informed, came from the masses, who say, "He is so kind +to his wife" (a great invalid); or "He is a model husband." Why there +should be anything remarkable in a man's being kind, attentive, and +loyal to an invalid spouse I could not see. Her influence with him is +said to be remarkable. One day she asked the President to promote a +certain officer, the son of one of the greatest of American generals, to +a very high rank. He did so, despite the fact that, as an officer said, +the army roared with laughter and rage. + +The influence of women is an important factor in Washington life. I was +presented to an officer who obtained his commission in the following +manner: Two very attractive ladies in Washington were discussing their +relative influence with the powers that be, when one remarked, "To show +you what I can do, name a man and I will obtain a commission in the army +for him." The other lady named a private soldier, whose stupidity was a +matter of record, and a few days later he became an officer; but the +story leaked out. + +President McKinley is a popular President with the masses, but the +aristocrats regard him with indifference. It is a singular fact, but the +Vice-President, Mr. Roosevelt, attracts more attention than the +President. He is a type that is appreciated in America, what they term +in the West a "hustler"; active, wide-awake, intense, "strenuous," all +these terms are applied to him. Said an officer in the field service to +me, "Roosevelt is playing on a ninety-nine-year run of luck; he always +lands on his feet at the right time and place." "What they call a man +of destiny," I suggested. "Yes," he replied; "he is the Yankee Oliver +Cromwell. He can't help 'getting there,' and he has a sturdy, evident +honesty of purpose that carries him through. A team of six horses won't +keep him out of the White House." This is the general opinion regarding +the Vice-President, that while he is not a remarkable statesman, he +already overshadows the President in the eyes of the public. I think the +secret is that he is young and a hero, and what the Americans call an +all-around man; not brilliant in any particular line, but a man of +energy, like our ----. + +He looks it. A smooth face, square, determined jaw, with a look about +the eye suggestive that he would ride you down if you stood in the way. +I judge him to be a man of honor, high purpose, as my friend said, of +the Cromwell type, inclined to preach, and who also has what the +Americans call the "get-there" quality. In conversation Vice-President +Roosevelt is hearty and open, a poor diplomat, but a talker who comes to +the point. He says what he thinks, and asks no favor. He acts as though +he wished to clap you on the shoulder and be familiar. It will be +difficult for you to understand that such a man is second in rank in +this great nation. There are no imposing surroundings, no glamor of +attendance, only Roosevelt, strong as a water-ox in a rice-field, +smiling, all on the surface, ready to fight for his friend or his +country. Author, cowboy, stockman, soldier, essayist, historian, +sportsman, clever with the boxing-gloves or saber, hurdle-jumper, crack +revolver and rifle shot, naturalist and aristocrat, such is the +all-around Vice-President of the United States--a man who will make a +strong impression upon the history of the century if he is not shot by +Socialists. + +I have it from those who know, that President McKinley would be killed +in less than a week if the guards about the White House were removed. He +never makes a move without guards or detectives, and the secret-service +men surround him as carefully as possible. It would be an easy matter to +kill him. Like all officials, he is accessible to almost any one with an +apparently legitimate object. Two Presidents have been murdered; all are +threatened continually by half-insane people called "cranks," and by the +professional Socialists, mainly foreigners. Both the President and +Vice-President are well-dressed men. President McKinley, when I was +granted an audience, wore a long-tailed black "frock coat" and vest, +light trousers, and patent leather or varnished shoes, and standing +collar. The Vice-President was similarly dressed, but with a "turn-down" +collar. The two men are said to make a "strong team," and it is a +foregone conclusion that the Vice-President will succeed President +McKinley. This is already talked of by the society people at Newport. +"It is a long time," said a lady at Newport, "since we have had a +President who represented an old and distinguished family. The McKinleys +were from the ordinary ranks of life, but eminently respectable, while +Roosevelt is an old and honored name in New York, identified with the +history of the State; in a word, typical of the American aristocracy, +bearing arms by right of heritage." + +I have frequently met Admiral Dewey, already so well known in China. He +is a small man, with bright eyes, who already shows the effects of +years. Nothing could illustrate the volatile, uncertain character of the +American than the downfall of the admiral as a popular idol. Here a +"peculiarity" of the American is seen. Carried away by political and +public adulation, the old sailor's new wife, the sister of a prominent +politician, became seized with a desire to make him President. Then the +hero lovers raised a large sum and purchased a house for the admiral; +but the politicians ignored him as a candidate, which was a humiliation, +and the donors of the house demanded their money returned when the +admiral placed the gift in the name of his wife; and so for a while the +entire people turned against the gallant sailor, who was criticized, +jeered at, and ridiculed. All he had accomplished in one of the most +remarkable victories in the history of modern warfare was forgotten in +a moment, to the lasting disgrace of his critics. + +One of the interesting places in Washington is the Capitol, perhaps the +most splendid building in any land. Here we see the men whom the +Americans select to make laws for them. The looker-on is impressed with +the singular fact that most of the senators are very wealthy men; and it +is said that they seek the position for the honor and power it confers. +I was told that so many are millionaires that it gave rise to the +suspicion that they bought their way in, and this has been boldly +claimed as to many of them. This may be the treasonable suggestion of +some enemy; but that money plays a part in some elections there is +little doubt. I believe this is so in England, where elections have +often been carried by money. + +The American Senate is a dignified body, and I doubt if it have a peer +in the world. The men are elected by the State legislatures, not by the +people at large, a method which makes it easy for an unprincipled +millionaire or his political manager to buy votes sufficient to seat his +patron. The fact that senators are mainly rich does not imply unfitness, +but quite the contrary. Only a genius can become a multi-millionaire in +America, and hence the senators are in the main bright men. When +observing these men and enabled to look into their records, I was +impressed by the fact that, despite the advantages of education, this +wonderful country has produced few really great men, and there is not at +this time a great man on the horizon. + +America has no Gladstone, no Salisbury, no Bright. Lincoln, Blaine and +Sumner are names which impress me as approximating greatness; they made +an impression on American history that will be enduring. Then there are +Frye, Reed, Garfield, McKinley, Cleveland, who were little great men, +and following them a distinguished company, as Hanna, Conkling, Hay, +Hayes, and others, who were superior men of affairs. A distinctly great +national figure has not appeared in America since Daniel Webster, Henry +Clay, and Rufus Choate--all men too great to become President. It +appears to be the fate of the republic not to place its greatest men in +the White House, and by this I mean great statesmen. General Grant was a +great man, a heroic figure, but not a statesman. Lincoln is considered a +great man. He is called the "Liberator"; but I can conceive that none +but a very crude mind, inspired by a false sentiment, could have made a +horde of slaves, the most ignorant people on the globe, the political +equals of the American people. A great man in such a crisis would have +resisted popular clamor and have refused them suffrage until they had +been prepared to receive it by at least some education. Americans are +prone to call their great politicians statesmen. Blaine, Reed, Conkling, +Harrison were types of statesmen; Hanna, Quay, and others are +politicians. + +The Lower House was a disappointment to me. There are too many ordinary +men there. They do not look great, and at the present time there is not +a really great man in the Lower House. There are too many cheap lawyers +and third-rate politicians there. Good business men are required, but +such men can not afford to take the position. I heard a great captain of +industry, who had been before Congress with a committee, say that he +never saw "so many asses together in all his life"; but this was an +extreme view. The House may not compare intellectually with the House of +Commons, but it contains many bright men. A fool could hardly get in, +though the labor unions have placed some vicious representatives there. +The lack of manners distressed a lady acquaintance of mine, who, in a +burst of indignation at seeing a congressman sitting with his feet on +his desk, said that there was not a man in Congress who had any social +position in Washington or at home, which, let us trust, is not true. + +As I came from the White House some days ago I met a delegation of +native Indians going in, a sad sight. In Indian affairs occurs a page of +national history which the Americans are not proud of. In less than four +hundred years they have almost literally been wiped from the face of the +earth; the whites have waged a war of extermination, and the pitiful +remnant now left is fast disappearing. In no land has the survival of +the fittest found a more remarkable illustration. But the Indians are +having their revenge. The Americans long ago brought over Africans as +slaves; then, as the result of a war of words and war of fact, suddenly +released them all, and, at one fell move, in obedience to the hysterical +cries of their people, gave these ignorant semisavages and slaves the +same political rights as themselves. + +Imagine the condition of things! The most ignorant and debased of races +suddenly receives rights and privileges and is made the equal of +American citizens. So strange a move was never seen or heard of +elsewhere, and the result has been relations more than strained and +always increasing between the whites and the blacks in the South. As +voters the negroes secure many positions in the South above their old +masters. I have seen a negro[2] sitting in the Vice-President's chair in +the United States Senate; while white Southern senators were pacing the +outer corridors in rage and disgust. There are generally one or more +black men in Congress, and they are given a few offices as a sop. With +one hand the Americans place millions of them on a plane with themselves +as free and independent citizens, and with the other refuse them the +privileges of such citizenship. They may enter the army as privates, but +any attempt to make them officers is a failure--white officers will not +associate with them. It is impossible for a negro to graduate from the +Naval Academy, though he has the right to do so. I was told that white +sailors would shoot him if placed over them. Several negroes have been +appointed as students, but none as yet have been able to pass the +examination. Here we see the strange and contradictory nature of the +Americans. The white master of the South had the black woman nurse his +children. Thousands of mulattoes in the country show that the whites +took advantage of the women in other ways, marriage between blacks and +whites being prohibited. When it comes to according the blacks +recognition as social equals, the people North and South resent even the +thought. The negro woman may provide the sustenance of life for the +white baby, but I venture to say that any Southern man, or Northern one +for that matter, would rather see his daughter die than be married to a +negro. So strong is this feeling that I believe in the extreme South if +a negro persisted in his addresses to a white woman he would be shot, +and no jury or judge could be found to convict the white man. + +In the North the negro has certain rights. He can ride in the +street-cars, go to the theater, enter restaurants, but I doubt if large +hotels would entertain him. In the South every train has its separate +cars for negroes; every station its waiting-room for them; even on the +street-cars they are divided off by a wire rail or screen, and sit +beneath a sign, which advertises this free, independent, but black +American voter as being not fit to sit by the side of his political +brother. This causes a bitter feeling, and the time is coming when the +blacks will revolt. Already criminal attacks upon white women are not +uncommon, and a virtual reign of terror exists in some portions of the +South, where it is said that white women are never left unprotected; and +the negro, if he attacks a white woman, is almost invariably burned +alive, with the horrible ghastly features that attend an Indian +scalping. The crowd carry off bits of skin, hair, finger-nails, and rope +as trophies. In fact, these "burnings" are the most extraordinary +features in this "enlightened" country. The papers denounce them and +compare the people to ghouls; yet these same people accuse the Chinese +of being cruel, barbarous, insensible to cruelty, and "pagans." It is +true we have pirates and criminals, but the horrible features of the +lynchings in America during the last ten years I believe have no +counterpart in the history of China in the last five hundred. + +In Washington the servants are blacks; irresponsible, childlike, aping +the vanities of the white people. They are "niggers"; the mulattoes, the +illegitimate offspring of whites, form another and totally distinct +class of colored society, and are the aristocracy. Rarely will a mulatto +girl marry a black man, and _vice versa_. They have their clubs and +their functions, their professional men, including lawyers and doctors, +as have the white people. They present a strange and singular feature. +Despised by their fathers, half-sisters, and brothers, denied any social +recognition, hating their black ancestry, they are socially "between the +devil and the deep sea." The negro question constitutes the gravest one +now before the American people. He is increasing rapidly, but in the +years since the civil war no pure-blooded negro has given evidence of +brilliant attainments. Frederick Douglas, Senator Bruce, and Booker T. +Washington rank with many white Americans in authorship, diplomacy, and +scholarship; but Douglas and Bruce were mulattoes, and Booker +Washington's father was an unknown white man. These men are held in high +esteem, but the social line has been drawn against them, though Douglas +married a white woman. + +Balls are a feature of life in Washington. The women appear in full +dress, which means that the arms and neck are exposed, and the men wear +evening dress. The dances are mostly "round." The man takes a lady to +the ball, and when he dances seizes her in an embrace which would be +considered highly improper under ordinary circumstances, but the +etiquette of the dance makes it permissible. He places his right arm +around her waist, takes her left hand in his, holds her close to him, +and both begin to move around to the special music designed for this +peculiar motion, which may be a "waltz," or a "two-step," or a "gallop," +or a "schottische," all being different and having different music or +time, or there may be various kinds of music for each. At times the +music is varied, being a gliding, scooping, swooping slide, +indescribable. When the dancers feel the approach of giddiness they +reverse the whirl or move backward. + +Many Washington men have become famous as dancers, and quite outshadow +war heroes. All the officers of the army and navy are taught these +dances at the Military and Naval Academies, it being a national policy +to be agreeable to ladies; at least this must be so, as the men never +dance together. To see several hundred people whirling about, as I have +seen them at the inaugural of the President, is one of the most +remarkable scenes to be observed in America. The man in Washington who +can not dance is a "wallflower"--that is, he never leaves the wall. +There is a professional champion who has danced eight out of +twenty-four hours without stopping. A yearly convention of +dancing-school professors is held. These men, with much dignity, meet in +various cities and discuss various dances, how to grasp the partner, and +other important questions. Some time ago the question was whether the +"gent" should hold a handkerchief in the hand he pressed upon the back +of the lady, a professor having testified before the convention that he +had seen the imprint of a man's hand on the white dress of a lady. The +acumen displayed at these conventions is profound and impressive. Here +you observe a singular fact. The good dancer may be an officer of high +social standing, but the dancing-teacher, even though he be famous as +such, is _persona non grata_, so far as society is concerned. A +professional dancer, fighter, wrestler, cook, musician, and a hundred +more are not acceptable in society except in the strict line of their +profession; but a professional civil or naval engineer, an organist, an +artist, a decorator (household), and an architect are received by the +elect in Washington. + +I have alluded to the craze for joking among young ladies in society. At +a dinner a reigning beauty, and daughter of ----, who sat next to me, +talked with me on dancing. She told me all about it, and, pointing to a +tall, distinguished-looking man near by, said that he had received his +degree of D. D. (Doctor of Dancing) from Harvard University, and was +extremely proud of it; and, furthermore, it would please him to have me +mention it. I did not enlighten the young lady, and allowed her to +continue, that I might enjoy her animation and superb "nerve" (this is +the American slang word for her attitude). The gentleman was her uncle, +a doctor of divinity, who was constitutionally opposed to dancing; and I +learned later that he had a cork leg. Such are some of the pitfalls in +Washington set for the pagan Oriental by charming Americans. + +Dancing parties, in fact, all functions, are seized upon by young men +and women who anticipate marriage as especially favorable occasions for +"courtship." The parents apparently have absolutely nothing to do with +the affair, this being a free country. The girl "falls in love" with +some one, and the courtship begins. In the lower classes the girl is +said to be "keeping company" with so and so, or he is "her steady +company." In higher circles the admirer is "devoted to the lady." This +lasts for a year, perhaps longer, the man monopolizing the young lady's +time, calling so many times a week, as the case may be, the familiarity +between the two increasing until they finally exchange kisses--a +popular greeting in America. About now they become affianced or +"engaged," and the man is supposed to ask the consent of the parents. In +France the latter is supposed to give a _dot_; in America it is not +thought of. In time the wedding occurs, amid much ceremony, the bride's +parents bearing all the expense; the groom is relieving them of a future +expense, and is naturally not burdened. The married young people then go +upon a "honeymoon," the month succeeding the wedding, and this is long +or brief, according to the wealth of the parties. When they return they +usually live by themselves, the bride resenting any advice or espionage +from her husband's mother, who is the mother-in-law, a relation as much +joked about in America as revered in China. + +Sometimes the "engaged" couple do not marry. The man perhaps in his +long courtship discovers traits that weary him, and he breaks off the +match. If he is wealthy the average American girl may sue him for +damages, for laceration of the affections. One woman in the State of New +York sued for the value of over two thousand kisses her "steady company" +had taken during a number of years' courtship, and was awarded three +thousand dollars. The journal from which I took this made an estimate +that the kisses had cost the man one dollar and a half each! Sometimes +the girl breaks the engagement, and if presents have been given she +returns them, the man rarely suing; but I have seen record of a case +where the girl refused to return the presents, and the man sued for +them; but no jury could be found to decide in his favor. A distinguished +physician has written a book on falling in love. It is recognized as a +contagious disease; men and women often die of it, and commit the most +extraordinary acts when under its influence. I have observed it, and, +all things considered, it has no advantages over the Chinese method of +attaining the marriage state. The wisdom of some older person is +certainly better than what the American would call the "snap judgment" +of two young people carried away by passion. One might find the chief +cause of divorce in America to lie in this strange custom. + +I was invited by a famous wag last week to meet a man who could claim +that he was the father of fifty-three children and several hundred +grandchildren. I fully expected to see the _Gaikwar of Baroda_, or some +such celebrity, but found a tall, ministerial, typical American, with +long beard, whom ---- introduced to me as a Mormon bishop, who, he +said, had a virtual _conge d'elire_ in the Church, at the same time +referring to me as a Chinese Mormon with "fifty wives." I endeavored to +protest, but ---- explained to the bishop that I was merely modest. The +Mormons are a sect who believe in polygamy. Each man has as many wives +as he can support, and the population increases rapidly where they +settle. The ludicrous feature of Mormonism is that the Government has +failed to stop it, though it has legislated against it; but it is well +known that the Mormon allows nothing to interfere with his +"revelations," which are on "tap" in Utah. + +I was much amused at the bishop's remarks. He said that if the American +politicians who were endeavoring to kill them off would marry their +actual concubines, and _all_ Americans would do the same, the United +States would have a Mormon majority the next day. The bishop had the +frailties and moral lapses of prominent people in all lands at his +fingers' ends, and his claim was that the whole civilized world was +practising polygamy, but doing it illegally, and the Mormons were the +only ones who had the honor to legitimatize it. The joke was on ----, +who was literally bottled up by the flow of facts from the bishop, who +referred to me to substantiate him, which I pretended to do, in order +totally to crush ----, who had tried to make me a party to his joke. The +bishop, who invited me to call upon him in Utah, said that he hoped some +time to be a United States senator, though he supposed the women of the +East could create public sentiment sufficient to defeat him. + +I once stopped over in Utah and visited the great Mormon Temple, and I +must say that the Mormon women are far below the average in +intelligence, that is, if personal appearances count. I understand they +are recruited from the lowest and most ignorant classes in Europe, where +there are thousands of women who would rather have a fifth of a husband +than work in the field. In the language of American slang, I imagine the +Americans are "up against it," as the country avowedly offers an asylum +for all seeking religious liberty, and the Mormons claim polygamy as a +divine revelation and a part of their doctrine. + +The bishop, I believe, was not a bishop, but a proselyting elder, or +something of the kind. The man who introduced me to him was a type +peculiar to America, a so-called "good fellow." People called him by his +first name, and he returned the favor. The second time I met him he +called me Count, and upon my replying that I was not a count he said, +"Well, you look it, anyway," and he has always called me Count. He knows +every one, and every one knows him--a good-hearted man, a spendthrift, +yet a power in politics; a _remarkable_ poker player, a friend worth +knowing, the kind of man you like to meet, and there are many such in +this country. + +FOOTNOTE: + +[2] Probably Senator Bruce. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE AMERICAN IN LITERATURE + + +I have been a guest at the annual dinner of the ----, one of the leading +literary associations in America, and later at a "reception" at the +house of ----, where I met some of the most charming men and delightful +women, possessed of manners that marked the person of culture and the +_savoir faire_ that I have seen so little of among other "sets" of +well-known public people. But what think you of an author of note who +knew absolutely nothing of the literature of our country? There were +Italians, French, and Swedes at the dinner, who were called upon to +respond to toasts on the literature of their country; but was I called +upon? No, indeed. I doubt if in all that _entourage_ there was more than +one or two who were familiar with the splendid literature of China and +its antiquity. + +But to come to the "shock." My immediate companion was a lady with just +a _soupcon_ of the masculine, who, I was told, was a distinguished +novelist, which means that her book had sold to the limit of 30,000 +copies. After a toast and speech in which the literature of Norway and +Sweden had been extolled, this charming lady turned to me and said, "It +is too bad, ----, that you have no literature in China; you miss so much +that is enjoyed by other nations." This was too much, and I broke one of +the American rules of chivalry--I became disputatious with a lady and +slightly cynical; and when I wish to be cynical I always quote Mr. +Harte, which usually "brings down the house." To hear a Chinese heathen +quote the "Heathen Chinee" is supposed to be very funny. + +I said, "My dear madam, I am surprised that you do not know that China +has the finest and oldest literature known in the history of the world. +I assure you, my ancestors were writing books when the Anglo-Saxon was +living in caves."[3] She was astonished and somewhat dismayed, but was +not cast down--the clever American woman never is. I told her of our +classics, of our wonderful Book of Changes, written by my ancestor Wan +Wang in 1150 B. C. I told her of his philosophy. I compared his idea of +the creation to that in the Bible. I explained the loss of many rare +Chinese books by the piratical order of destruction by Emperor Che +Hwang-ti, calling attention to the fact that the burning of the famous +library of Alexandria was a parallel. I asked her if it were possible +that she had never heard of the _Odes of Confucius_, or his _Book of +History_, which was supposed to have been destroyed, but which was found +in the walls of his home one hundred and forty years before Christ, and +so saved to become a part of the literature of China. + +Finally she said, "I have studied literature, but that of China was not +included." "Your history," I continued, "begins in 1492; our written +history begins in the twenty-third century before Christ, and the years +down to 720 B. C. are particularly well covered, while our legends run +back for thousands of years." But my companion had never heard of the +_Shoo-King_. It was so with the _Chun Tsew_[4] of Confucius and the +_Four Books_--_Ta-h[ue]-[uo]_,[5] _Chung-yung_,[6] _Lun-yu_,[7] +_M[ua]ng-tsze_.[8] She had never heard of them. I told her of the +invention of paper by the Marquis Tsae several centuries before Christ, +and she laughingly replied that she supposed that I would claim next +that the Chinese had libraries like those Mr. Carnegie is founding. I +was delighted to assure her that her assumption was correct, and drew a +little picture of a well-known Chinese library, founded two thousand +years ago, the Han Library, with its 3,123 classics, its 2,706 works on +philosophy, its 2,528 books on mathematics, its 790 works on war, its +868 books on medicine, 1,318 on poetry, not to speak of thousands of +essays. + +I could not but wonder as I talked, where were the Americans and their +literature when our fathers were reading these books two thousand years +ago! Even the English people were wild savages, living in caves and +huts, when our people were printing books and encyclopedias of +knowledge. I dwelt upon our poetry, the National Airs, Greater Eulogies, +dating back several thousand years. I told her of the splendors of our +great versifier, _Le-Tai-Pih_; and I might have said that many American +poets, like Walt Whitman, had doubtless read the translations to their +advantage. I had the pleasure at least of commanding this lady's +attention, and I believe she was the first American who deigned to take +a Chinaman seriously. The facts of our literature are available, but +only scholars make a study of it, and so far as I could learn not a word +of Chinese literature is ever taught in American schools, though in the +great universities there are facilities, and the best educated people +are familiar with our history. + +The American authors, especially novelists, who constitute the majority +of authors, are by no means all well educated. Many appear to have a +faculty of "story-telling," which enables them to produce something that +will sell; but that all American authors, and this will surprise you, +are included among the great scholars, is far from true. Some, yes many, +are deplorably ignorant in the sense of broad learning, and I believe +this is a universal, national fault. If one thing Chinese more than +another is ridiculed in America it is our drama. I met a famous +"play-writer" at the ---- dinner, who thought it a huge joke. I heard +that his income was $30,000 per annum from plays alone; yet he had never +heard of our "Hundred Plays of the Yuen Dynasty," which rests in one of +his own city libraries not a mile distant, and he laughed +good-naturedly when I remarked that the modern stage obtained its +initiative in China. + +A listener did me the honor to question my statement that Voltaire's +"_L'Orphelin de la Chine_" was taken from the _Orphan of Chaou_ of this +collection, which I thought every one knew. All the authors whom I met +seemed surprised to learn that I was familiar with their literature and +could not compare it synthetically with that of other nations, and even +more so when I said that all well-educated Chinamen endeavored to +familiarize themselves with the literature of other countries. + +I continually gain the impression that the Americans "size us up," as +they say, and "lump" us with the "coolie." We are "heathen Chinee," and +it is incomprehensible that we should know anything. I am talking now +of the half-educated people as I have met them. Here and there I meet +men and women of the highest culture and knowledge, and this class has +no peer in the world. If I were to live in America I should wish to +consort with her real scholars, culled from the best society of New +York, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington, Baltimore, and other cities. In +a word, the aristocracy of America is her educated class, the education +that comes from association year after year with other cultivated +people. I understand there is more of it in Boston and Philadelphia than +anywhere; but you find it in all towns and cities. This I grant is the +real American, who, in time--several thousand years perhaps--as in our +own case, will demonstrate the wonderful possibilities of the human race +in the West. + +I would like to tell you something about the books of the literary men +and women I have met, but you will be more interested in the things I +have seen and the mannerisms of the people. I was told by a +distinguished writer that America had failed to produce any really great +authors--I mean to compare with other nations--and I agreed with him, +although appreciating what she has done. There is no one to compare with +the great minds of England--Scott, Dickens, Thackeray. There is no +American poet to compare with Tennyson, Milton, and a dozen others in +England, France, Italy, and Germany; indeed, America is far behind in +this respect, yet in the making of books there is nothing to compare +with it. Every American, apparently, aspires to become an author, and I +really think it would be difficult to find a citizen of the republic who +had not been a contributor to some publication at some time, or had not +written a book. The output of books is extraordinary, and covers every +field; but the class is not in all cases such as one might expect. The +people are omnivorous readers, and "stories," "novels," are ground out +by the ton; but I doubt if a book has been produced since the time of +Hawthorne that will really live as a great classic. + +The American authors are mainly collected in New York, where the great +publishing houses are located, and are a fine representative class of +men and women, of whom I have met a number, such as Howells, the author +and editor, and Mark Twain, the latter the most brilliant litterateur in +the United States. This will be discovered when he dies and is safe +beyond receiving all possible benefits from such recognition. Many men +in America make reputations as humorists, and find it impossible to +divest their more serious writings from this "taint," if so it may be +called. They are not taken seriously when they seriously desire it; a +fact I fully appreciate, as I am taken as a joke, my "pigtail," my +"shoes," my "clothes," my way of speaking, all being objects of joking. + +The literary men have several clubs in New York, where they can be +found, and many have marked peculiarities, which are interesting to a +foreigner. Several artists affect a peculiar style of dress to advertise +their wares. One, it is said, lived in a tree at Washington. It is not +so much with the authors as with the methods of making books that I +think you will be interested. I met a rising young author at a dinner in +Washington who confided to me that the "book business" was really ruined +in America by reason of the mad craze of nearly all Americans to become +writers. He said that he as an editor had been offered money to publish +a novel by a society woman who desired to pose as an authoress. This +author said that there were in America a dozen or more of the finest and +most honorable publishing houses in the world, but there were many more +in the various cities which virtually preyed upon this "literary +disease" of the people. No country in the world, said my acquaintance, +produces so many books every year as America; so many, in fact, that the +shops groan with them and the forests of America threaten to give out, +and the supply virtually clogs and ruins the market. So crazy are the +people to be authors and see themselves in print that they will go to +any length to accomplish authorship. + +He cited a case of a carpenter, a man of no education, who was seized +with the desire to write a book, which he did. It was sent to all the +leading publishers, and promptly returned; then he began the rounds of +the second-class houses, of which there are legion. One of the latter +wrote him that they published on the "cooperative" plan, and would pay +_half_ the expenses of publishing if he would pay the other half. Of +course _his_ share paid for the entire edition and gave the clever +"cooperative" publisher a profit, whether the edition sold or not. And +my informant said that at least twenty firms were publishing books for +such authors, and encouraging people to produce manuscripts that were so +much "dead wood" in the real literary field. He later sent me the +prospectus of several such houses which would take any manuscript, if +the author would pay for the publishing, revise it and send it forth. I +was assured that thousands of books are produced yearly by these houses, +who are really "printers," who advertise in various ways and encourage +would-be authors, the idea being to get their money, a species of +literary "graft," according to my literary informant, who assured me I +must not confuse such parasites with the large publishers of America, +who will not produce a book unless their skilled readers consider it a +credit to them and to the country, a high standard which I believe is +maintained. + +Perhaps the most interesting phase of literature in America is found in +the weekly and monthly magazines, of which there is no end. Every sport +has its "organ," every great trade, every society, every religion; even +the missionaries sent to China have their organs, in which is reported +their success in saving _us_ and divorcing us from our ancient beliefs. +The great literary magazines number perhaps a dozen, with a few in the +front rank, such as the Century, Harper's, Scribner's, The Atlantic, +Cosmopolitan, McClure's, Dial, North American Review, Popular Science +Monthly, Bookman, Critic, and Nation. Such magazines I conceive to be +the universities of the people, the great educators in art, literature, +science, etc. Nothing escapes them. They are timely, beautiful, exact, +thorough, scientific, the reflex of the best and most artistic minds in +America; and many are so cheap as to be within the reach of the poor. It +is interesting to know that most of these magazines are sources of +wealth, the money coming from the advertisements, published as a feature +in the front and back. These notices are in bulk often more than the +literary portion, and the rate charged, I was told, from $100 to $1,000 +per page for a single printing. + +The skill with which appeals are made to the weaknesses of readers is +well shown in some of the minor publications not exactly within the same +class as the literary magazines. One that is devoted to women is a most +clever appeal to the idiosyncrasies of the sex: There are articles on +cooking, dinners, luncheons, how to set tables, table manners, etiquette +(one would think they had read Confucius), how to dress for these +functions; and, in fact, every occupation in life possible to a woman is +dealt with by an extraordinary editor who is a man. Whenever I was joked +with about our men acting on the stage as women, I retorted by quoting +Mr. ----, the male editor of the female ----, who is either a consummate +actor or a remarkably composite creature, to so thoroughly anticipate +his audience. The mother, the widow, the orphan, the young maiden, the +"old maid," are all taken into the confidence of this editor, who in +his editorials has what are termed "heart to heart" talks. + +I send you a copy of this paper, which is very clever and very +successful, and a good illustration of the American magazine that, while +claiming to be literature, is a mechanical production, "machine made" in +every sense. One can imagine the introspective editor entering all the +foibles and weaknesses of women in a book and in cold blood forming a +department to appeal to each. I was informed that the editors of such +publications were "not in business for their health," but for money; and +their energies are all expended on projects to hold present readers and +obtain others. The more readers the more they can charge the +"advertiser" in the back or side pages, who here illustrate their deadly +corsets, their new dye for the hair, their beauty doctors, freckle +eradicators, powders for the toilet, bustles, and the thousand and one +things which shrewd dealers are anxious to have women take up. + +The children also have their journals or "magazines." One in New York +deals with fairies and genii, on the ground that it is good for the +imagination. Another, published in Boston, denounces the fairy-story +idea, and gives the children stories by great generals, princes of the +blood, captains of industry, admirals, etc.; briefly, the name of the +writer, not the literary quality of the tale, is the important feature. +There are papers for babes, boys, girls, the sick and the well. + +The most conspicuous literary names before the people are Howells, +Twain, and Harte, though one hears of scores of novelists, who, I +believe, will be forgotten in a decade or so. As I have said +previously, I am always joked with about the "Heathen Chinee." I have +really learned to play "poker," but I seldom if ever sit down to a game +that some one does not joke with me about "Ah Sin." Such is the American +idea of the proprieties and their sense of humor; yet I finally have +come to be so good an American that I can laugh also, for I am confident +the jokers mean it all in the best of feeling. + +There are in America a class of litterateurs who are rarely heard of by +the masses, but to my mind they are among the greatest and most advanced +Americans. They are the astronomers, geologists, zoologists, +ornithologists, and others, authors of papers and articles in the +Government Reports of priceless value. These writers appear to me, an +outsider, to be the real safety-valves, the real backbone of the +literary productions of the day. With them science is but a synonym of +truth; they fling all superstition and ignorance to the winds, and +should be better known. Such names as Edison, Cope, Marsh, Hall, Young, +Field, Baird, Agassiz, and fifty more might be mentioned, all authors +whose books will give them undying fame, men who have devoted a lifetime +to research and the accumulation of knowledge; yet the author of the +last novel, "My Mule from New Jersey," will, for the day, have more +vogue among the people than any of these. But such is fame, at least in +America, where erudition is not appreciated as it is in "pagan" China. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[3] As a frontispiece to this volume, the cover design used on one of +these old Chinese books is shown. + +[4] Spring and Autumn Annals. + +[5] Great Learning. + +[6] Confucian Analects. + +[7] Doctrine of the Mean. + +[8] Works of Mencius. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE POLITICAL BOSS + + +At an assembly-room in New York I met a famous American political +"boss." Many governors in China do not have the same power and +influence. I had letters to him from Senators ---- and ----. I expected +to meet a man of the highest culture, but what was my surprise to see a +huge, overgrown, uneducated Irishman, gross in every particular, who +used the local "slang" so fiercely that I had difficulty in +understanding him. He had been a police officer, and I understand was a +"grafter," but that may have been a report of his enemies, as he +commanded attention at the time of the election. + +This man had a fund of humor, which was displayed in his clapping me on +the back and calling me "John," introducing me to a dozen or so of as +hard-looking men in the garb of gentlemen as I have ever seen. I heard +them described later as "ward beetles," and they looked it, whatever it +meant. The "Boss" appeared much interested in me; said he had heard I +was no "slouch," and knew I must have a "pull" or I would not be where I +am. He wished to know how we run elections on "the Ho-Hang-Ho." When I +told him that a candidate for a governmental office never obtained it +until he passed one of three very difficult literary examinations in our +nine classics, and that there were thousands competing for the office, +he was "paralyzed"--that is, he said he was, and volunteered the +information that "he would not be 'in it' in China." I thought so +myself, but did not say so. + +I told him that the politicians in China were the greatest scholars; +that the policy of the Government was to make all offices competitive, +as we thus secured the brightest, smartest, and most gifted men for +officials. "Smart h----!" retorted the "Boss." "Why, we've got smart +men. Look at our school-teachers. Them guys[9] is crammed with guff,[10] +and passing examinations all the time; but there ain't one in a thousand +that's got sense enough to run a tamale[11] convention. The State +governor would get left here if all the boys that wanted office had to +pass an examination. We've got something like it here," he said, "that +blank Civil Service, that keeps many a natural-born genius out of +office; but it don't 'cut ice with me.' I'm the whole thing in the +ward." + +Despite his rough exterior, ---- was a good-hearted fellow, as they +say, no rougher than his constituents, and I was with him several days +during a local election with a view to studying American politics. Much +of the time was spent in the saloons of the district where the "Boss" +held out, and where I was introduced as a "white Chinee," or as a "white +Chink," and "my friend." I wish I had kept a list of the drinks the +"Boss" took and the cigars he smoked _per diem_. Perhaps it is as well I +did not; you would not believe me. I was always "John" to this crowd, +that was made up of laboring people in the main, of whom Irish and +Germans predominated. The "Boss" was what they called a "bulldozer." If +a man differed with him he tried to talk or drink him down; if it was an +enemy and he became too disputatious, he would knock him out with his +fist. In this way he had acquired a reputation as a "slugger," that +counted for much in such an assemblage, and he confided to me one +evening that it was the easiest way to "stop talk," and that if he "laid +down," the opposition would walk off with all his "people." He was +"Boss" because he was the boss slugger, the best executive, the best +drinker and smoker, the best "persuader," and the best public speaker in +his ward. So you see he had a variety of talents. In China I can imagine +such a man being beheaded as a pirate in a few weeks; this would be as +good an excuse as any; yet men like this have grown and developed into +respectable persons in New York and other cities. + +"For ways that are dark and tricks that are vain, the Heathen Chinee is +peculiar," but I doubt if he is more so than the political system of the +United States, where every man is supposed to be free, but where a few +men in each town own everything and everybody politically. The American +thinks he is free, but he has in reality no more freedom than the +Englishman; in fact, I am inclined to think that the latter is the +freest of them all, and I doubt if too much freedom is good for man. +Politics in America is a profession, a trade, a science, a perfect +system by which one or two men run or control millions. Politics means +the attainment of political power and influence, which mean office. Some +men are in politics for the love of power, some for spoils ("graft" they +call it in slang), and some for the high offices. In America there are +two large parties, the Republican and the Democratic. Then there are the +Labor, Prohibition (non-drinking), and various other parties, which, in +the language of politics, "cut no ice." The real issues of a party are +often lost sight of. The Republicans may be said to favor a high +tariff; the Democrats a low tariff or free trade; and when there is not +sufficient to amuse the people in these, then other reasons for being a +Democrat or a Republican are raised, and a platform is issued. Lately +the Democrats have espoused "free silver," and the Republicans have +"buried" them. The Democrats are now trying to invent some new +"platform"; but the Republicans appear to have included about all the +desirable things in their platform, and hence they win. + +In a small town one or two men are known as "bosses." They control the +situation at the primaries; they manage to get elected and keep before +the people. Generally they are natural leaders, and fill some office. +When the senator comes to town they "escort" him about and advise him as +to the votes he may expect. Sometimes the ward man is the postmaster, +sometimes a national congressman, again a State senator; but he is +always in evidence, and before the people, a good speaker and talker and +the "boss." Every town has its Republican and Democratic "boss," always +striving to increase the vote, always striving for something. The larger +the city, the larger the "boss," until we come to a city like New York, +where we find, or did find, Boss Tweed, who absolutely controlled the +political situation for years. + +This means that he was in politics, and manipulated all the offices in +order to steal for himself and his friends; this is of public record. He +was overthrown or exposed by the citizens, but was followed by others, +who manipulated the affairs of the city for money. Offices were sold; +any one who had a position either bought it or paid a percentage for it. +Gambling-dens and other "resorts" paid large sums to "sub-bosses," who +become rich, and if the full history of some of the "bosses" of New +York, Philadelphia, Chicago, or any great American city could be +exposed, it would show a state of affairs that would display the +American politician in a dark light. Repeatedly the machinations of the +politicians have been exposed, yet they doubtless go on in some form. +And this is true to some extent of the Government. The honor of no +President has been impugned; they are men of integrity, but the enormous +appointing power which they have is a mere form; they do not and could +not appoint many men. The little "boss" in some town desires a position. +He has been a spy for the congressman or senator for years, and now +aspires to office. He obtains the influence of the senator and the +congressman, and is supported by a petition of his friends, and the +President names him for the office, taking the senator for his sponsor. +If the man becomes a grafter or thief, the President is attacked by the +opposition. + +In a large city like New York each ward will have its "boss," who will +report to a supreme "boss," and by this system, often pernicious, the +latter acquires absolute control of the situation. He names the +candidates for office, or most of them, and is all powerful. I have met +a number of "bosses," and all, it happened, were Irish; indeed, the +Irish dominate American politics. One, a leader of Tammany in New York, +was a most preposterous person, well dressed, but not a gentleman from +any standpoint; ignorant so far as education goes, yet supremely sharp +in politics. Such a man could not have led a fire brigade in China, yet +he was the leader of thousands, and controlled Democratic New York for +years. He never held office, I was told, yet grew very rich. + +The Republican "boss" was a tall, thin, United States senator. I was +also introduced to him--a Mephistophelian sort of an individual--to me +utterly without any attraction; but I was informed that he carried the +vote of the Republican party in his pocket. How? that is the mystery. If +you desired office you went to him; without his influence one was +impotent. Thousands of office-holders felt his power, hated him, +perhaps, but did not dare to say it. + +The "boss" controls the situation, gives and "takes," and the other +citizens get the satisfaction of thinking they are a free people. In +reality, they are political slaves, and the "boss," "sub-boss," and the +long line of smaller "bosses" are their masters. Very much the same +situation is seen in national politics. The party is controlled by a +"boss," and at the present this personage is a millionaire, named Hanna, +said to be an honest, upright man, with a genius for political +diplomacy, a puller of wires, a maker of Presidents, having virtually +placed President McKinley where he is. This man I met. Many of the +politicians called him "Uncle Mark." He has a familiar way with +reporters. He is a man of good size, with a face of a rather common +type, with very large and protruding ears, but two bright, gleaming +eyes, that tell of genius, force, intelligence, power, and executive +talents of an exalted order. I recall but one other such pair of eyes, +and those were in the head of Senator James G. Blaine, whom I saw during +my first visit to America. Hanna is famous for his _bonhomie_, and is a +fine story-teller. Indeed, unless a man can tell stories he had better +remain out of politics, or rather he will never get into politics. + +As an outsider I should say that the power of the "boss" was due to the +fact that the best classes will have none of him, as a rule (I refer to +the ordinary "boss"), and as a consequence he and his henchmen control +the situation. I think I am not overstating the truth when I say that +every city in the United States has been looted by the politicians of +various parties. It is of public record that Philadelphia, Chicago, St. +Louis, and New York citizens have repeatedly risen and shown that the +city was being robbed in the most bare-handed manner. Bribery and +corruption have been found to exist to-day in the entire system, and if +the credit of the republic stands on its political _morale_ this vast +union of States is a colossal failure, as it is being pillaged by +politicians. Every "boss" has what are termed "heelers," one function +of whom is to buy votes and do other work in the interest of "reform." A +friend told me that he spent election day in the office of a candidate +for Congress in a certain Western town, and the candidate had his safe +heaped full of silver dollars. All day long men were coming and going, +each taking the dollars to buy votes. By night the supply was exhausted, +and the man defeated. I expressed satisfaction at this, but my friend +laughed; the other fellow who won paid more for votes, he said. I was +told that all the great senatorial battles were merely a question of +dollars; the man with the largest "sack" won. + +On the other hand, there are senators who not only never paid for a vote +but never expressed a wish to be elected. The foreign vote--Italians and +others--are swayed by cash considerations; the negroes are bought and +sold politically. The "bosses" handle the money, and the senators +consider it as "expenses," and doubtless do not know that some of it has +been used to influence legislators. The Americans have a remarkable +network of laws to prevent fraudulent voting. Each candidate in some +States is required to swear to an expense account, yet the wary +politician, with his "ways that are dark," evades the law. The entire +system, the control of the political fortunes of 80,000,000 Americans, +is in the hands of a small army of political "bosses," some of whom, had +they figured as grafters in "effete" China, would have been beheaded +without mercy. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[9] Slang for citizens. + +[10] Slang for information, facts. + +[11] Mexican hash in corn-husk. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +EDUCATION IN AMERICA + + +A fundamental idea with the American is to educate children. This is +carried to the extent of making it an offense not to send those above a +certain age to school, while State or town officers, called "truant +police," are on the alert to arrest all such children who are not in +school. The following was told me by a Government official in +Washington, who had obtained it from a well-known literary man who +witnessed the incident. The literary man was invited to visit a Boston +school of the lower grade, where he found the teacher, an attractive +woman, engaged in teaching a class of "youngsters," the progeny of the +working class. After the visitor had listened to the recitations for +some time, he remarked to the teacher, "How do you account for the +neatness and cleanliness of these children?" "Oh, I insist upon it," was +the reply. "The Board of Education does not anticipate all the +desiderata, but I make them come clean and make it a part of the +course;" then rising and tapping on the table, she said, "Prepare for +the sixth exercise." All the children stood up. "One," said the teacher, +whereupon each pupil took out a clean cloth handkerchief. "Two," counted +the teacher, and with one concerted blast every pupil blew his or her +nose in clarion notes. "Three," came again after a few seconds, and the +handkerchiefs were replaced. At "four" the student body sank back to +their seats without even smiling, or without having "cracked a smile." +You could search the world over and not find a prototype. It goes +without saying that the teacher was a wit and wag, but the lesson of +handkerchiefs and their use was inculcated. + +Education is a part of the scheme to make all Americans equal. A more +splendid _system_ it is impossible to conceive. Every possible facility +is afforded the poorest family to educate their children. Public schools +loom up everywhere, and are increased as rapidly as the children, so +there is no excuse for ignorance. The schools are graded, and there is +no expense or fee. The parents pay a tax, a small sum, those who have no +children being taxed as well as those who have many. There are schools +to train boys to any trade; normal free schools to make teachers; night +schools for working boys; commercial schools to educate clerks; ship +schools to train sailors and engineers. Then come the great +universities, in part free, with all the splendid paraphernalia, some +being State institutions and others memorials of dead millionaires. +Then there are the great technical schools, as well as universities +(where one can study Chinese, if desired). There are schools of art, +law, medicine, nature, forestry, sculpture; schools to teach one how to +write, how to dress, how to eat, and how to keep well; schools to teach +one how to write advertisements, to cultivate the memory, to grow +strong; schools for shooting, boxing, fencing; schools for nurses and +cooks; summer schools; winter schools. + +And yet the American is not profoundly educated. He has too much within +his reach. I have been distinctly surprised at crude specimens I have +met who were graduates of great universities. The well-educated +Englishman, German, and American are different things. The American is +far behind in the best sense, which I am inclined to think is due to +the teachers. Any one can get through a normal school and become a +teacher who can pass the examination, and I have seen some singular +instances. If all the teachers were obliged to pass examinations in +culture, refinement, and the art of _conveying_ knowledge, there would +be a falling of pedagogic heads. The free and over education of the poor +places them at once above their parents. They are free, and the daughter +of a ditch laborer, whose wife is a floor scrubber, upon being educated +is ashamed of her parents, learns to play the piano, apes the rich, and +is at least unhappy. + +The result is, there remains no peasant class. The effect of education +on the country boy is to make him despise the farm and go to the city, +to become a clerk and ape the fashions of the wealthy at six or eight +dollars a week. He has been educated up to the standard of his "boss" +and to be his equal. The overeducation of the poor is a heartless thing. +The women vie with the men, and as a result women graduates, taking +positions at half the price that men demand, crowd them out of the +fields of skilled labor, whereas the man, not crowded out, should, +normally, marry the girl. In power, strength, and progress the American +nation stands first in the world, and all this may be due to splendid +educational facilities. But this is not everything. There result strife, +unhappiness, envy, and a craze for riches. I do not think the Americans +as a race are as happy as the Chinese. Religious denominations try to +have their own schools, so that children shall not be captured by other +denominations. Thus the Roman Catholics have parochial schools, under +priests and sisters, and colleges of various grades. They oppose the use +of the Bible in the public school, and in some States their influence +has helped to suppress its use. The Quakers, with a following of only +eighty thousand, have colleges and schools. The Methodists have +universities, as have the Presbyterians, Episcopalians, and others. All +denominations have institutions of learning. These schools are in the +hands of clergymen, and are often endowed or supported by wealthy +members of the denomination. + +A remarkable feature of American life is the college of correspondence. +A man or firm advertises to teach by correspondence at so much a month. +Many branches are taught, and if the student is in earnest a certain +amount of information can thus be accumulated. Among the people I have +met I have observed a lack of what I term full, broad education, +producing a well-rounded mind, which is rare except among the class +that stands first in America--the refined, cultured, educated man of an +old family, who is the product of many generations. The curriculum of +the high school in America would in China seem sufficient to equip a +student for any position in diplomatic life; but I have found that a +majority of graduates become clerks in a grocery or in other shops, car +conductors, or commercial travelers, where Latin, Greek, and other +higher studies are absolutely useless. The brightest educational sign I +see in America is the attention given to manual training. In schools +boys are taught some trade or are allowed to experiment in the trades in +order to find out their natural bent, so that the boy can be educated +with his future in view. As a result of education, women appear in +nearly every field except that of manual labor on farms, which is +performed in America only by alien women. + +The richest men in America to-day, the multi-millionaires, are not the +product of the universities, but mainly of the public schools. Carnegie, +Rockefeller, Schwab, men of the great steel combine, the oil magnates, +the great railway magnates, the great mine owners, were all men of +limited education at the beginning. Among great merchants, however, the +university man is found, and among the Harvard and Yale graduates, for +example, may be found some of America's most distinguished men. But +Lincoln, the martyred President, had the most limited education, and +among public men the majority have been the product of the public +school, which suggests that great men are natural geniuses, who will +attain prominence despite the lack of education. The best-educated men +in America to my mind are the graduates of West Point and Annapolis, the +military and naval academies. These two institutions are extremely +rigorous, and are open to the most humble citizens. They so transform +men in four years that people would hardly recognize them. The result is +a highly educated, refined, cultivated, practical man, with a high sense +of honor and patriotism. If America would have a school of this kind in +every State there would be no limit to her power in two decades. + +Despite education, the great mass of the people are superficial; they +have a smattering of this and that. An employer of several thousand men +told the Superintendent of Education of the District of Columbia that he +had selected the brightest boy graduate of a high school for a position +which required only a knowledge of simple arithmetic. The graduate +proved to be totally unfit for the position and was discharged. Later he +became the driver of a team of horses. America abounds in thousands of +educational institutions, yet there is not one so well endowed that it +can say to the world we wish no more money. It is singular that some +multi-millionaire does not grasp this opportunity to donate one hundred +millions to a great national school or university, to be placed at +Washington, where the buildings would all be lessons in architecture of +marble after the plans of a world's fair. Instead they leave a few +thousands here and a few there. Carnegie, the leading millionaire, gives +libraries to cities all over the States, each of which bears the name of +the giver. The object is too obvious, and is cheap in conception. In San +Francisco some years ago a citizen tried the same experiment. He +proposed to give the city a large number of fountains. When they were +finished _each_ one was seen to be surmounted by his own statue. A few +were put up, how many I do not recall, but one night some citizens +waited on a statue, fastened a rope to its neck, and hauled it down. So +peculiar are the Americans that I believe if Mr. Carnegie should place +his name on ten thousand libraries, with the object of attaining undying +fame, the people, by a concerted effort, would forget all about him in a +few decades. Such an attempt does not appeal to any side of the American +character. I have known the best Americans, but Mr. Carnegie has not +known the best of his own countrymen or he would not attempt to +perpetuate his memory in this way. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +THE ARMY AND NAVY + + +Among the most delightful people I have met in America are the army and +navy officers, graduates of West Point and Annapolis, well-bred, +cultivated men, patriotic, open-hearted, and chivalrous. They are like +our own class of men who answer to the American term of gentlemen. I am +not going to tell you of their splendid ships, their training or +uniform, but of a few of their idiosyncrasies. There is no dueling in +the army. If two men have trouble at the academies they fight it out +with bare fists, and in the army settle it in some other way, dueling +being forbidden. Owing to the fact that all men are equal in America, +the attitude of the officer to the civilian is entirely different. If a +civilian strikes an officer in Germany the latter will cut him down with +his saber and be protected in it, but here the man would be arrested and +treated as any other criminal; in a word, the officer is a servant of +the people, and stands with them. He has been trained to treat his men +well, and they respect him. But while the officer is the people's +servant and his salary in some part is paid by the humblest grocer's +clerk, laborer, or artisan, the officer has a social position which, in +the eyes of himself and the Government, makes him the social equal of +kings and emperors; and here we see a strange fact in American life. + +When a garrison is ordered to a town or city, people call to pay their +respects. The grocer, who in being taxed aids in paying the officer's +salary, is _persona non grata_. The grocer, milk dealer, shoe dealer, +and retail dealers in general might call, but would not be received on +cordial terms. The wife of the colonel might return the call of the +grocer's wife if she made a good appearance, but the latter would under +no circumstances be invited to a function at the camp or post. The +undertaker, the dentist, the ice-man, the retail shoe man are under the +ban. Certain kinds of business appear to have certain social rights. +Thus a dentist would not be received, but the man who manufactures +dentists' tools may be a leader among the "Four Hundred." + +Strange complications arise. A young officer fell in love with a +sergeant's daughter, and married her, as I learned from a well-known +officer at the Army and Navy Club. This was serious enough, as there +could be no intimacy between a commissioned and non-commissioned +officer. The young man and his bride were ordered to a distant post, +where the story of course followed them. All went well for a time. The +bride sank her social inferiority in the rank of her husband, and the +ladies of the post called on her, not as the sergeant's daughter but as +the officer's wife. The mother of the bride finally decided to visit +her, and thus became the guest of the officer, who was a lieutenant. +Under ordinary circumstances it was the duty of all the ladies to call +on the mother of the lieutenant's wife; but it so happened that she was +the wife of a sergeant, and hence to call was impossible. No one did so. + +The young wife felt herself insulted, and the ubiquitous reporter seized +upon the situation, until it was taken up by every paper in the country. +The pictures of mother, daughter, and sergeant were shown, and columns +were written on the subject. Almost to a man the editors denounced what +they termed the snobbishness of the army, and denounced West Point for +producing snobs, claiming that the ladies of the post, had they been +real ladies, would have called on a respectable laundress even if she +had been the sergeant's wife. I refer to this to show the intricacies of +American etiquette. The point is that nearly all the editors who knew +anything, believed that the ladies were right, but did not dare to say +so on account of the fact that the majority of their readers felt +themselves the equals of the army officer; hence the cry of snobbery +that went whistling over the land. The lieutenant committed a gross +mistake in marrying the girl; he married out of his class. But in +America I am told there are no classes, and I am constantly forgetting +this. + +In the army there are several black regiments (negroes). They have +black chaplains, and attempts have been made to find black officers, +but the social difficulties make this impossible, though the blacks are +free and independent citizens and help pay the salaries of the white +men. It would be impossible to force white soldiers to admit to their +regiment black soldiers. No white man would permit a black officer to be +placed over him, even by inference. + +In the navy we see an entirely different situation. On every ship are +negroes in the crew, sleeping on the same gun-decks with the white men, +and no fault is found; but a negro officer would be an impossibility. +Though several have been sent to the Naval Academy, none have "gone +through." Even in these almost perfect institutions favoritism exists. +To illustrate: the son of a prominent man was about to fail in his +examinations, when the powers that be passed the word that he must +pass, _nolens volens_. The professor in whose class he was and who had +found him deficient resented this, and when he learned that it was the +intention to pass the boy over his head he resigned and was ordered to +his regiment. The young man was graduated, entered the army and, aided +by influence, jumped many of his class men and finally acquired rank at +the request of the wife of one of the Presidents. This was a very +exceptional case, the result of strong national sentiment that favored +the father. + +The management of the army does not seem rational to a foreigner. To +preserve the idea of republican simplicity and equality, army men are +not rewarded with orders, as in other countries, which is a great +injustice. Few officers, though veterans of many wars, wear medals, and +when they do they were not given as rewards for bravery, but are merely +corps badges, showing that the officer belongs to this or that army +corps. But if an officer does a brave deed he may be promoted several +points over his fellows, as brave as he, but who did not have the same +opportunity to show bravery. Ill feeling may be the result. Every man is +expected to be brave, and extraordinary examples of bravery are +recognized in other nations by the presentation of medals, the +possession of which creates no ill feeling. The actual head of the army +is the Secretary of War, a political appointment, an adviser selected by +the President, who, usually, has no military knowledge. This officer +gives all the orders to the general of the army, and, as in a recent +instance, a vast amount of friction has been the result. Intense feeling +was occasioned by the elevation of certain officers, who were supposed +to possess remarkable executive ability. + +Civil war veterans at the Army and Navy Club complained to an +acquaintance of mine that when they arrived at the seat of war in Cuba +they found their superior officers to be, first, General Wheeler, an +ex-Confederate, against whom they had fought in the civil war; second, +Colonel Wood, who had been a contract army surgeon under nearly all of +them; and finally, Lieutenant-Colonel Roosevelt, who was a babe in arms +when they were fighting the battles of the civil war. This story serves +to illustrate the point that political "pulls" and favoritism are +rampant in the service, and are the cause of much disgust among +officers. General Funston affords an illustration that has incensed many +officers. Funston was an unknown man, who captured Aguinaldo by a clever +ruse, a valuable and courageous piece of work, which should have been +rewarded with a decoration and _some_ promotion; but he was jumped over +the heads of hundreds, landing at the top of the army in one "fell +swoop." I judge the policy of the Government to be to promote officers +so soon as they show evidence of extraordinary capability. + +It would be an easy matter for any one to obtain photographs of plans +and sketches of American fortifications. One of my friends hired a +photographer to get up what he called a scrap-book of pictures to take +home to his family in Tokio in order to "entertain his people." The +photographer sent him a wonderful series, showing the forts overlooking +New York harbor, interiors and exteriors; and those in Boston, Portland, +Baltimore, Fort Monroe, Key West, and San Francisco were also obtained. +Photographs of guns and charts, which can be purchased everywhere, were +included, as well as Government reports. If Japan ever goes to war with +the Yankees my friend's scrap-book will be in demand. I do not believe +the American War Department makes any secret of the forts. They are open +to the public. Even if a kodak were not permitted, pictures could be +secured. My friend said his photographer had a kodak which he wore +inside his vest, the opening protruding from a button-hole. All he had +to do was to stand in front of an object and pull a cord. Such a kodak +is known as a "detective camera." There are several designs, all very +clever. I once saw my face reproduced in a paper, and until I heard +about this camera it was a mystery how the original was obtained, as I +had not "posed" for any one. + +The possibility of America going to war with another nation is remote. +From what I see of the people and their tremendous activity they could +not be defeated by any nation or combination of nations. They are like +Senator ----'s Malay game-cock, of which the senator has said that there +is only one trouble with him--the bird never knows when he is licked, +and if he does he does not stay licked. America could raise an army of +ten or twelve millions of the finest fighters in the world for defense +against any combination, and she would win. The senator told me a story, +which illustrates the situation. One of the American men-of-war in a +Malay port had an old American eagle aboard as a mascot and pet. When +the men got liberty they went ashore with the eagle, and showed it as an +"American game-cock." The natives wanted to arrange a match, and finally +one was planned, the eagle cock against a black Malay. When the fight +began, the black cock put its spur into the eagle several times, the +latter doing nothing but eye the cock, first with one eye, and then with +the other. Once more the black cock stabbed the eagle, bringing blood, +whereupon the eagle leaned forward, and as the cock thrust out its head, +seized it with one claw, pressed it to the ground, and with the other +tore off its head and began to eat it. This is what would happen if +almost any nation really and seriously went to war with the United +States. But the country was ill prepared for the war with Spain. If +Cervera had reached the New England coast he could have shelled Boston +and then New York. + +Service in America is not compulsory. It is merely made popular, and as +a result, every part of the country has State militia of splendidly +drilled men, ready to be called on at a moment's notice. They receive no +pay, considering it an honor to be in the militia service. In the +regular army old names are perpetuated. The great generals and admirals +have sent sons into the service. Our Government would do well to send +young men to West Point and Annapolis. The Japanese did this for years, +and received the best of their ideas from those sources. There is but +one thing in the way. Chinamen are _tabooed_ in America, and doubtless +would reach no farther than the port of entry. The only way to get in +now would be for a new minister or diplomat to bring over ten or a dozen +young men as members of the suite and then distribute them among the +schools and universities--a humiliation that China will probably resent. + +Our trade with America is extremely valuable to her. The cotton, flour, +and other commodities we import represent a vast sum, and I believe if +we refused at once to buy anything from America we could make our own +terms in less than two years. This could be accomplished very gradually. +The Americans would find it out first through their consuls, who are all +instructed to report on every possible point of vantage that can be +taken in China by their merchants. They would report a decreased demand. +American merchants would then demand an explanation from the Department +of State, and finally we could announce that we preferred to buy from +our friends, American treatment of the Chinese being inimical to good +feeling. Knowing the American business men as I do, you could count on a +wail coming up from them. An appeal would be made to Congress through +representatives and senators, the American business men demanding that +the "Chinese matter" be arranged upon a "more liberal basis." When you +touch the pocketbook of "Uncle Sam" you reach his earthquake center; yet +for defense, for the preservation of the national honor, this people +will spend untold sums. The American Government bond is the best +security in the world. It is founded on the rock of honor and +patriotism. And there is no repudiation like that of ----, and none like +the pretended one of ----.[12] We have our faults, and it is well to +recognize them; but I never saw them until I mingled with the English +and Americans. + +There is of course a large foreign element in the American +army--thousands of Irish and Germans; but this does not signify, as I +learn that in the State of Massachusetts, the stronghold of Americans, +the Irish hold a third of the official positions, the native-born +Yankees about one-fourth. This is particularly exasperating to old +families in New England, as it is notorious that the Irish come directly +from the very dregs of the poverty-stricken peasantry--the +"bog-trotters." I was much impressed by the high standard of honor in +the army and navy, and am told that it is the rarest of occurrences for +a regular army officer to commit a crime or to default. This is due to +the training received at the military and naval schools, where young men +are placed on their honor. + +FOOTNOTE: + +[12] China has twice repudiated its Government bonds within four +centuries. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +ART IN AMERICA + + +It is seldom that I have been complimented in America, but a lady has +told me that she envied our "art sense." She said the Chinese are +essentially artistic, that the cheapest thing, the most ordinary +article, is artistic or beautiful. I wished that I could return the +compliment, but a strict observance of the truth compels me to say that +the reverse is true in America. If one go into a Chinese shop and ask +for any ordinary article, it will be found artistic. If one go into an +American shop, say a hardware "store," there will not be found an +article that would be considered decorative, while everything in a +Chinese shop of like character would fall under this head. The +conclusion is that the Chinese are artistic, while the Americans are +not. + +The reason lies in the fact that the Chinese are homogeneous, while the +Americans are a mixed race, that is injured by the continual +introduction of baser elements. If immigration could be stopped for +fifty years, and the people have a chance to acquire "oneness," they +might become artistic. The middle class, however, is, from an artistic +standpoint, a horror; they have absolutely no art sense, and the +_nouveaux riches_ are often as bad. The latter sometimes place their +money in the hands of an agent, who buys for them; but all at once a man +may break out and insist upon buying something himself, so that in a +splendid collection of European names will appear some artistic horror +to stamp the owner as a parvenu. + +The Americans have not produced a great painter. By this I mean a +really great artist, nor have they a great sculptor, one who is or has +been an inspiration. But they have thousands of artists, and many poor +ones thrive in selling their wares. You may see a man with an income of +thirty thousand dollars having paintings on his walls that give one the +vertigo. The poor artist has taken him in, or "pulled his leg," to use +the latest American slang. There are some fine paintings in America. I +have visited the great collections in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, +Washington, Chicago, and those in many private galleries, but the best +of the pictures are always from England, France, Germany, and other +European countries. Old masters are particularly revered. Americans pay +enormous sums for them, but sometimes are deceived. + +They have art schools by the hundred, where they study from the nude +and from models of all kinds. There are splendid museums of art, +especially in Boston and New York. The art interests are particularly +active, but not the people; there are a few art lovers only, the people +in the mass being hopeless. Cheap prints, chromos, and other deadly +things are ground out by the million and sold, to clog still deeper the +art sense of an inartistic people. They laugh at our conventional +Chinese art, but the extreme of conventionality is certainly better than +some of the daubs I have seen in American homes. Americans have peculiar +fancies in art. One is called Impressionist Art. As near as I can +understand it, painters claim that while you are looking at an object +you do not really see it all, you merely gain an impression; so they +paint only the impression. In a museum of art I was shown several rooms +full of daubs, having absolutely nothing to commend them, weird colors +being thrown together in the strangest manner, without rhyme or reason, +but over which people went mad. The great masters of Europe appeal to me +strongly. In America, marine painters attract me the most, for example, +Edward Moran, who is a splendid delineator of the sea. Bierstadt is a +noble painter, and so is Thomas Moran. There are half a hundred men who +are fine painters, but half a thousand men and women who think they are +artistic but who are not. + +Americans have developed no individual architecture. You see +semipagoda-like effects in the East, and old English houses in the +South. They steal the latter and call them Colonial. They steal the +architecture of the Moors and call it Mexican. They borrow Roman and +Grecian effects for great public buildings. At one time they went mad +over the French roof, or mansard. Nowhere have I seen purely American +architecture. The race is not possessed of sufficient unity. So all +their art is from abroad, and notably is French and English. They make +broad effects, and give them an American name; but they are copied from +the Dutch or Germans. All the furniture designers in America are +Europeans. You will find a splendid house with a Chinese room, having +teak inlaid with ivory, etc.; a Japanese room, a Moorish room, and an +Italian room, all splendidly decorated; but the family lives in an +"American room," that is commonplace and subversive of all art digestion +and assimilation. The average middle-class American knows absolutely +nothing about art; the lower classes so little that their homes are +hopeless. Knowing this, they are preyed upon by thousands of foreign +swindlers. There are hundreds of articles manufactured in Europe to sell +to the American tourist. I have seen Napoleonic furniture enough to load +a fleet. I can only compare it to the pieces of the true cross and the +holy relics of the Catholics, of which there are enough to fill the +original ark which the Bible tells the Americans landed on Mount Ararat +in a great flood. + +The houses of the best people I have told you about are as far removed +from the commonplace as the equator from the poles. They are rich in +conception, sumptuous in detail, artistic in every way, and filled with +the art gems of the world. But these people have descended from refined +people for several generations. They are the true Americans, but make up +a small number compared to the inartistic whole. I believe America +recognizes this, and with her stupendous energy is doing everything to +educate the masses in art. They are building splendid museums; rich men +give away millions. There are hundreds of art schools, free to all, and +art is taught in all the schools. Fine monuments are placed in public +squares and parks, and beautiful fountains and memorials in these and +other public places. Their buildings, though foreign in design, are +beautiful. In Boston one may see marvelous work in frescoes, etc., and +in the Government buildings at Washington. The Capitol, while not +American in design, is a pile worthy of the great people who erected it. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +THE DARK SIDE OF REPUBLICANISM + + +The questions I know you will wish answered are, Whether this stupendous +aggregation of States is a success? Does it possess advantages beyond +those of the Chinese Empire? Does it fulfil the expectations of its own +people? Frankly, I do not consider myself competent to answer. I have +studied America and the Americans for many years during my visits to +this country and Europe, and while I have seen many accounts of the +country, written after several months of observation, I believe that no +just estimate of the republican form of government can be formed after +such experience. My private impression, however, is that the republic +falls far short of what the men in Washington's time expected, and it +is also my private opinion that it has not so many advantages as a +government like that of England. + +It is too splendid an organization to be lightly denounced. The idea of +the equality of men is noble, and I would not wish to be arraigned among +its critics. There is too much good to offset the bad. I have been +attempting to amuse you by analyzing the Americans, pointing out their +frailties as well as their good qualities. I tell you what I see as I +run, always, I hope, remembering what is good in this spontaneous and +open-hearted people. The characteristic claim of the people is that the +Government offers freedom to its citizens; yet every man is quite as +free in China if he behaves himself, and he can rise if he possesses +brains. + +Any native-born citizen in the United States may become the head of the +nation has he the courage of his convictions, the many accomplishments +which equip the great leader, and should the hour and the man meet +opportunity. This is the one prize which distinguishes America from +England. The latter in other respects offers exactly as much freedom +with half the wear and tear; in fact, to me the freedom of America is +one of her disadvantages. Every one knows, and the American best of all, +that all men are _not equal_, never were and never can be. Yet this +false doctrine is their standard, and they swear by it, though some will +explain that what is meant is political freedom. Freedom accounts for +the gross impertinence of the ignorant and lower classes, the laughable +assumptions of servants, and the illogical pretenses of the _nouveau +riche_, which make America impossible to some people. Cultivated +Americans are as thoroughly aristocratic as the nobility of England. +There are the same classes here as there. A grocer becomes rich and +retires or dies; his children refuse to associate with the families of +other grocers; in a word, the Americans have the aristocratic feeling, +but they have no peasant class; the latter would be, in their own +estimation, as good as any one. One class, the lower and poorer, is +arraigned against the upper and richer, and the gap is growing daily. + +But this would not prove that the republic is a failure. What then? It +is, in the opinion of many of its clergymen, a great moral failure. No +nation in history has lasted many centuries after having developed the +"symptoms" now shown in the United States. I quote their own press, "the +States are morally rotten," and you have but to turn to these organs and +the magazines of the past decade, which make a feature of holding up +the shortcomings of cities and millionaires, to read the details of the +tragedy. Thieves--grafters--have seized upon the vitals of the country. +St. Louis, Philadelphia, New York, Chicago, great representative +cities--what is their history? The story of dishonesty among officials, +of bribery, stealing, and every possible crime that a man can devise to +wring money from the people. This is no secret. It has all been exposed +by the friends of morality. City governments are overthrown, the rascals +are turned out, but in a few months the new officers are caught devising +some new "grafting" operation. + +I have it from a prominent official that there is not an honest State or +city administration in America. What can a nation say when for years it +has known that a large and influential lobby has been maintained to +influence statesmen, a lobby comprising a corps of "persuaders" in the +pay of business men? How do they influence them? The great fights waged +to defeat certain measures are well known, and it is known that money +was used. Certain congressmen have been notoriously receptive. I have +seen the following story in print in many forms. I took the trouble to +ask a well-known man if it was possible that it could be founded on +fact; his reply was, "Certainly it is a fact." A briber entered the +private room of a congressman. "Mr. ----, to come right to the point, I +want the ---- bill to pass, and I will give you five hundred dollars for +the vote and your interest." The congressman rose to his feet, purple +with rage. "You dare to offer me this insulting bribe? You infernal +scoundrel, I will throw you out." "Well, suppose we make it one +thousand," said the imperturbable visitor. "Well," replied the +congressman, cooling down, "that is a little better put. We will talk it +over." + +The American Government had been attempting, since 1859, to build a +canal across the Isthmus. I believe surveys were made earlier than that, +but bribery and corruption and "graft" enabled the friends of +transcontinental railroads to stop the canals. It would be a +disadvantage to the railroads to have a canal across the Isthmus. So in +some mysterious way the canal, which the people wished, has not been +built, and will not be until the people rise and demand it. Corruption +has stood on the Isthmus with a flaming sword and struck down every +attempt to build the canal. The morality of the people is low. Divorce +is rampant, the daily journals are filled with accounts of divorces, and +daily lists of crimes are printed that would seem impossible to a +nation that can raise millions to send to China to convert the +"heathen." If they would only divert these Chinese missionaries from +China to their own heathen and grafters, but they will not. The peculiar +freedom of the country, which is nothing less than the most atrocious +license, tends to drag it down. + +The papers have absolutely no check on their freedom. Men and women are +attacked by them, ruined, held up to scorn and ridicule, and the victim +has no recourse but to shoot the editor and thus embroil himself. That +it is a crime to ridicule a man and make him the butt of a nation or the +world seems never to occur to these men. Certain statesmen have been so +lampooned by the "hired" libelers that they have been ruined. The press +hires a class of men, called cartoonists, usually ill-bred fellows of +no standing, yet clever, in their business, whose duty it is to hold up +public men to ridicule in every possible way and make them infamous +before the people. This is called the freedom of the press, and its +attitude, or the sensational part of it, in presenting crime in an +alluring manner, is having its effect upon the youth of the country. +Young girls and boys become familiar with every feature of bestial crime +through the "yellow journals," so called, and that the republic will +reap sorely from this sowing I venture to prophesy. + +I asked one of the great insurance men why it was that great financial +institutions took so strong an interest in politics. He laughed, and +said, "If I am not mistaken, not long since your country repudiated its +Government bonds, and they are not negotiable to any great extent among +your people." Hearing this I assumed the American attitude and "sawed +wood." "We take an interest in politics," he continued, "to offset the +professional blackmailer and thief. Now in the case of your repudiation +I understand all about it. The Chinese Government was in straits, and +suddenly some seemingly patriotic citizen started a petition, stating to +the Government that the subscribers offered their Government securities +to the Government as a gift. By no means all the bondholders signed, but +enough, I understand, to have justified your Government in repudiating +the bonds--'at the request of the people'--thus destroying the national +credit at home and abroad. Now in America that would be called 'graft.' +The act would be done by a few grafters in the hope of reward, or by +some unscrupulous statesmen to save the Government from bankruptcy +during their term of office. I conceive this to be what was done in +China. If we do not keep eternal watch we shall be bled every day. It is +done in this way: a grafter becomes an assemblyman, and with others lays +a plan of graft. It is to get up a bill, so offensive to our corporation +that it would mean ruin if passed. The grafter has no idea that it will +pass, but it is made much of, and of course reaches our ears, and the +question is how to stop it. We are finally told that we had better see +Mr. ----, in our own city. He is accordingly looked up and found to be a +cheap and ignorant politician, who, if there are no witnesses, tells our +agent plainly that it can be stopped for ten thousand dollars. Perhaps +we beat him down to eight thousand, but we pay it. Hundreds of firms +have been blackmailed in this way. Now we keep an agent in the State +Capitol to attend to our interests, and we take an interest in politics +to head off the election of professional grafters." + +One of the most serious things in this phase of national immorality is +showing itself in what are termed "lynchings"; that is, a negro commits +a crime against a white woman, and instead of permitting the law to run +its course, the people rise, seized with a savage craze for revenge, +batter in the jails, take the criminal, and burn him at the stake. This +burning is sometimes attended by thousands, who display the most +remarkable _abandon_ and savagery. Some African chiefs have sacrificed +more people at one time, but no savage has ever displayed greater +bestiality, gloated over his victim with more real satisfaction, than +these free Americans in numerous instances when shouting and yelling +about the burning body of some unfortunate whose crime has aroused +their ferocity to the point of madness. + +Not one but many clergymen have denounced this. They compare it to the +most brutal acts of savagery, and we have the picture of a country +posing as civilized, with the temerity to point out the sins of others, +giving themselves over to orgies that would disgrace the lowest of +races. I have it from the lips of a clergyman that during the past +twelve years over twenty-five hundred men have been lynched in the +United States. In a single year two hundred and forty men were killed by +mobs in this way, many being burned at the stake. If any excuse is +offered, it is said that most of these were negroes, and the crime was +rape, and the victims white women; but of the number mentioned only +forty-six were charged with this crime and but two-thirds were black. +Many confessed as the torch was applied, many died protesting their +innocence, and in no case was the offense legally proved. This lynching +seems to be a mania with the people. It began with the attack of negroes +on white women. The repetition of similar cases so enraged the whites +that they have become mad upon the subject. The feeling is well +illustrated by the remark of a Southerner to me. "If a woman of my +family was attacked by a negro I must be his executioner. I could not +wait for the law." This man told me that no lynching would ever have +taken place had it not been for the uncertainty of the law. Men who were +known to be guilty of the grossest of crimes had been virtually +protected by the law, and their cases dragged along at great expense to +the State, this occurring so many times that the patience of the people +became exhausted. This man forgot that the law was instigated for the +purpose of justice. + +The negro is an issue in America and a cause of much crime, a vengeance +on the people who held them as slaves. The negro has increased so +rapidly that in forty years he has doubled in number, there now being +over nine millions in the country. At the present rate there will be +twenty-five millions in 1930--a black menace to the white American. + +The negro is a factor in the national unrest. They outnumber the whites +in some localities, and hence vote themselves many offices, while the +few whites pay eighty or eighty-five per cent of the taxes and the +negroes supply from eighty to ninety per cent of the criminals. While +this is going on in the South and the whites are rising and preparing to +disfranchise the blacks in many States, the people of Boston and +Cambridge are discussing the propriety of the whites and blacks +marrying to settle the question of social equality. Such proposals I +have read. Reprinted in the South, they added fuel to the flame. + +Another element of distress in America is the attitude of labor, the +policy of the Government of letting in the lowest of the low from every +nation except the Chinese, against whom the only charge has been that +they are too industrious and thus a menace to the whites. The swarms of +people from the low and criminal classes of Europe have enabled the +anarchists to obtain such a foothold that in this free country the +President of the United States is almost as closely guarded as the +Emperor of Russia. The White House is surrounded and guarded by +detectives of various kinds. The secret-service department is equal in +its equipment to that of many European nations, and millions are spent +in watching criminals and putting down their strikes and riots. The +doctrine of freedom to all appeals so well to the ignorant laborer that +he has decided to control the entire situation, and to this end labor is +divided into "unions," and in many sections business has been ruined. + +The demands of these ignorant men are so preposterous that they can +scarcely be credited. The merchant no longer owns his business or +directs it. The laborer tells him what to pay, how to pay it, when and +how long the hours shall be--in fact, undertakes to usurp entire +control. If the owner protests, the laborers all stop work, strike, +appoint guards, who attack, kill, or intimidate any one who attempts to +take their place. In this way it is said that one billion dollars have +been lost in the last few years. Contracts have been broken, men +ruined, localities and cities placed in the greatest jeopardy, and +hundreds of lives lost. Every branch of trade has its "union," and in so +many cases have the laborers been successful that a national panic comes +almost in sight. Never was there a more farcical illustration of +freedom. Irrational, ignorant Irishmen, who had not the mental capacity +to earn more than a dollar a day, dictated to merchant princes and +millionaire contractors. In New York it was proved that the leaders of +the strikers sold out to employers, and accepted bribes to call off +strikes. + +The question before the American people is, Has an American citizen the +right to conduct his own business to suit himself and employ whom he +wishes? Has the laborer the right to work for whom and what rate he +pleases? The imported socialists, anarchists, and their converts among +Americans say no, and it will require but little to precipitate a +bloody war, when labor, led by red-handed murderers, will enact in New +York and all over the United States the horrors of the French Commune. + +The republic for a great and enlightened country has too many criminals. +I am told by a prohibition clergyman that the curse of drink and license +has its fangs in the heart of the land. He tells me that the Americans +pay yearly $1,172,000,000 for their alcoholic drink; for bread, +$600,000,000; for tobacco, $625,000,000; for education, $197,000,000; +for ministers' salaries, $14,000,000. It has been found that the +downfall of eighty-one per cent of criminals is traceable to drink. He +said: "Our republic is a failure morally, as we have 2,550,000 drunkards +and people addicted to drink. We have 600,000 prostitutes, and many more +doubtless that are not known, and in nine cases out of ten their +downfall can be traced to drink." + +I listen to this side of the story, and then I see wonderful +philanthropy, institutions for the prevention of crime, good men at work +according to their light, millions employed to educate the young, +thousands of churches and societies to aid man in making man better. +When I listen to these men, and see tens of thousands of Christian men +and women living pure lives, building up vast cities, great monuments +for the future, I feel that I can not judge the Americans. They perhaps +expect too much from their freedom and their republican ideas. I shall +never be a republican. I believe that we all have all the freedom we +deserve. It is well to remember that man is an animal. After all his +polish and refinement, he has animal tastes and desires, and if he makes +laws that are in direct opposition to the indulgence which his animal +nature suggests, he certainly must have some method of enforcing the +laws. Like all animals, some men are easily influenced and others not, +and the human animal has not made progress so far but that he needs +watching in order to make him conform to what he has decided or elected +to call right. + +You will expect me to compare the American to the Chinaman, but it is +impossible. Some things which we look upon as right, the American +considers grievous sins. The point of view is entirely at variance, but +I have boundless faith in the brilliant and good men and women I have +met in America. I say this despite my other impressions, which also +hold. + +The great political scheme of the people is poorly devised and crude. It +is so arranged that in some States governors are elected every year or +two and other officers every year, representatives of the people in +Congress every two years, senators every six, Presidents every four +years. Thus the country is constantly in a whirl, and as soon as the +rancor of one national election is over begins the scheming for another. +The people have really little to do with the selection of a President. A +small band of rich and influential schemers generally have the entire +plan or "slate" laid out. A plan, natural in appearance, is _arranged_ +for the public, and at the right time the slated program is sprung. +Senators should be elected by the people, congressmen should be elected +for a longer period, and Presidents should have twice the terms they do. +But it is easy to suggest, and I confess that my suggestions are those +of many American people themselves which I hear reformers cry abroad. + +The vital trouble with America to-day is that she can not assimilate +the 600,000 debased, ignorant, poverty-stricken foreigners who are +coming in every year. They keep out the one peaceful nation. They +exclude the Chinese and take to the national heart the Jew, the +Socialist, the Italian, the Roumanian and others who constitute a nation +of unrest. What America needs is the "rest cure" that you hear so much +about here. She should close her seaports to these aliens for ten years, +allow the people here to assimilate; but they can not do it. The foreign +transportation lines under foreign flags are in the business to load up +America with the dregs of Europe. I know of one family of Jews, four +brothers, who wished to come to America, but found that they would have +to show that they were not paupers. They mustered about one thousand +dollars. One came over, and sent back the money by draft. The second +brought it back as his fortune, then immediately sent it back for +another brother to bring over, and so on until they all arrived, each +proving that he was not a pauper. Yet these same brothers, each with +several children, became an expense to the Government before they were +earners. The children were sent to industrial homes, and later entered +the sweat-shops. In America there is not a Chinaman to-day in a +workhouse, or a pauper[13] at the expense of the Government; yet the +Chinese are not wanted here. + +FOOTNOTE: + +[13] This is doubtful.--EDITOR. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +SPORTS AND PASTIMES + + +I had not been in Washington a month before I received invitations to a +"country club golf" tournament, to a "rowing club," to a "pink tea," to +a "polo game," to a private "boxing" bout between two light-weight +professionals, given in Senator ----'s stable, to a private "cock-fight" +by the brother of ----'s wife, to a gun club "shoot," not to speak of +invitations to several "poker games." From this you may infer that +Americans are fond of sport. The official sport--that is, the game I +heard of most among Government officials, senators, and others--was +"poker," and the sums played for at times I am assured are beyond +belief. There are rules and etiquette for poker, and one of the most +distinguished of American diplomatists of a past generation, General +Schenck, emulated the Marquis of Queensberry in boxing by writing a book +on the national game, that has all the charm claimed for it. It is +seductive, and doubtless has had its influence on the people who employ +the "bluff" in diplomacy, war, business, or poker, with equal tact and +cleverness. + +Middle-class Americans are fond of sport in every way, but the +aristocrats lack sporting spontaneity; they like it, or pretend to like +it, because it is the fashion, and they take up one sport after another +as it becomes the fad. That this is true can be shown by comparing the +Englishman and the American of the fashionable class. The Englishman is +fond of sport because it is in his blood; he does not like golf to-day +and swimming to-morrow, but he likes them all, and always has done so. +He would never give up cricket, golf, or any of his games because they +go out of fashion; he does not allow them to go out of fashion; but with +the American it is different. + +Hence I assume that the average American of the better class is not +imbued with the sporting spirit. He wears it like an ill-fitting coat. I +find a singular feature among the Americans in connection with their +sports. Thus if something is known and recognized as sport, people take +to it with avidity, but if the same thing is called labor or exercise, +it is considered hard work, shirked and avoided. This is very cleverly +illustrated by Mark Twain in one of his books, where a boy makes his +companions believe that white-washing a fence is sport, and so relieves +himself from an arduous duty by pretending to share the great privilege +with them. + +No one would think of walking steadily for six days, yet once this +became sport; dozens of men undertook it, and long walks became a fad. +If a man committed a crime and should be sentenced to play the modern +American game of football every day for thirty days as a punishment, +there are some who might prefer a death sentence and so avoid a +lingering end; but under the title of "sport" all young men play it, and +a number are maimed and killed yearly. + +Sport is in the blood of the common people. Children begin with tops, +marbles, and kites, yet never appreciate our skill with either. I amazed +a boy on the outskirts of Washington one day by asking him why he did +not _irritate_ his kite and make it go through various evolutions. He +had never heard of doing that, and when I took the string and began to +jerk it, and finally made the kite plunge downward or swing in circles, +and always restored it by suddenly slacking off the cord, he was +astonished and delighted. The national game is baseball, a very clever +game. It is nothing to see thousands at a game, each person having paid +twenty-five or fifty cents for the privilege. In summer this game, +played by experts, becomes a most profitable business. Rarely is any one +hurt but the judge or umpire, who is at times hissed by the audience and +mobbed, and at others beaten by either side for unfair decisions; but +this is rare. + +Football is dangerous, but is even more popular than the other. You +might imagine by the name that the ball is kicked. On the contrary the +real action of the game consists in running down, tripping up, smashing +into, and falling on whomever has the ball. As a consequence, men wear a +soft armor. There are fashions in sports which demonstrate the +ephemeral quality of the American love for sport. A while ago "wheeling" +was popular, and everybody wheeled. Books were printed on the etiquette +of the sport; roads were built for it and improved; but suddenly the +working class took it up and fashion dropped it. Then came golf, +imported from Scotland. With this fad millions of dollars were expended +in country clubs and greens all over the United States, as acres of land +were necessary. People seized upon this with a fierceness that warmed +the hearts of dealers in balls and clubs. The men who edited wheel +magazines now changed them to "golf monthlies." This sport began to wane +as the novelty wore off, until golf is now played by comparatively few +experts and lovers. + +Society introduced the automobile, and we have the same thing--more +magazines, the spending of millions, the building of the _garage_, and +the appearance of the _chaufeur_ or driver. Then came the etiquette of +the auto--a German navy cap, rubber coat, and Chinese goggles. This +peculiar uniform is of course only to be worn when racing, but you see +the American going out for a slow ride solemnly attired in rubber coat +and goggles. The moment the auto comes within reach of the poor man it +will be given up; but it is now the fad and a most expensive one, the +best machines costing ten thousand dollars or more, and I have seen +races where the speed exceeded a mile a minute. + +All sports have their ethics and rules and their correct costuming. +Baseball men are in uniform, generally white, with various-colored +stockings. The golfer wears a red coat and has a servant or valet, who +carries his bag of clubs, designed for every possible expediency. To +hear a group of golfers discuss the merits of these tools is one of the +extraordinary experiences one has in America. I have been made fairly +"giddy," as the Englishmen say, by this anemic conversation at country +clubs. The "high-ball" was the saving clause--a remarkable invention +this. Have I explained it? You take a very tall glass, made for the +purpose, and into it pour the contents of a small cut-glass bottle or +decanter of whisky, which must be Scotch, tasting of smoke. On this you +pour seltzer or soda-water, filling up the glass, and if you take enough +you are "high" and feel like a rolling ball. It is the thing to take a +"high-ball" after every nine holes in golf. Then after the game you +bathe, and sit and drink as many as your skin will hold. I got this from +a professional golf-teacher in charge of the ---- links, and hence it +is official. + +The avidity with which the Americans seize upon a sport and the +suddenness with which they drop it, illustrating what I have said about +the lack of a national sporting taste, is well shown by the coming of a +game called "ping pong," a parlor tennis, with our battledores for +rackets. What great mind invented this game, or where it came from, no +one seems to know, but as a wag remarked, "When in doubt lay it to +China." Some suppose it is Chinese, the name suggesting it. So +extraordinary was the early demand for it that it appeared as though +everybody in America was determined to own and play ping pong. The +dealers could not produce it fast enough. Factories were established all +over the country, and the tools were ground out by the ten thousands. +Books were written on the ethics of the game; experts came to the +front; ping pong weeklies and monthlies were founded, to dumfound the +masses, and the very air vibrated with the "ping" and the "pong." + +The old and young, rich and poor, feeble and herculean, all played it. +Doctors advised it, children cried for it, and a fashionable journal +devised the correct ping-pong costume for players. Great matches were +played between the experts of various sections, and this sport, a game +really for small children, after the fashion of battledore and +shuttlecock, ran its course among young and old. Pictures of adult +ping-pong champions were blazoned in the public print; even churchmen +took it up. Public gardens had special ping-pong tables to relieve the +stress. At last the people seized upon ping pong, and it became common. +Then it was dropped like a dead fish. If some cyclonic disturbance had +swept all the ping-pong balls into space, the disappearance could not +have been more complete. Ping pong was put out of fashion. All this to +the alien suggests something, a want of balance, a "youngness" perhaps. + +At the present time the old game of croquet is being revived under +another name, and tennis is the vogue among many. Among the fashionable +and wealthy men polo is the vogue, but among a few everything goes by +fads for a few years. Every one will rush to see or play some game; but +this interest soon dies out, and something new starts up. Such games as +baseball and football, tennis and polo are, in a sense, in a class by +themselves, but among the pastimes of the people a wide vogue belongs to +fishing, and shooting wild fowl and large game. The former is universal, +and the Americans are the most skilled anglers with artificial lures in +the world, due to the abundance of game-fish, trout, and others, and the +perfect Government care exercised to perfect the supply. + +As an illustration, each State considers hunting and fishing a valuable +asset to attract those who will come and spend money. I was told by a +Government official that the State of Maine reckoned its game at five +million dollars per annum, which means that the sport is so good that +sportsmen spend that amount there every year; but I fancy the amount is +overestimated. The Government has perfect fish hatcheries, constantly +supplying young fish to streams, while the business in anglers' supplies +is immense. There are thousands of duck-shooting clubs in the United +States. Men, or a body of men, rent or buy marshes, and keep the poor +man out. Rich men acquire hundreds of acres, and make preserves. +Possibly the sport of hunting wild fowl is the most characteristic of +American sports. This also has its etiquette, its costumes, its +club-houses, and its poker and high-balls. I know of one such club in +which almost all the members are millionaires. A humorous paper stated +that they used "gold shot." + +As a nation the Americans are fond of athletics, which are taught in the +schools. There are splendid gymnasiums, and boys and girls are trained +in athletic exercises. Athletics are all in vogue. It is fashionable to +be a good "fencer." All the young dance. I believe the Americans stand +high as a nation in all-around athletics; at least they are far ahead of +China in this respect. + +I have reserved for mention last the most popular fashion of the people +in sport, which is prize-fighting. Here again you see a strange +contradiction. The people are preeminently religious, and +prize-fighting and football are the sports of brutes; yet the two are +most popular. No public event attracts more attention in America than a +gladiatorial fight to the finish between the champion and some aspirant. +For months the papers are filled with it, and on the day of the event +the streets are thronged with people crowding about the billboards to +receive the news. No national event, save the killing of a President, +attracted more universal attention than the beating of Sullivan by +Corbett and the beating of Corbett by Fitzsimmons, and "Fitz" in turn by +Jeffries. I might add that I joined with the Americans in this, as the +modern prize-fighter is a fine animal. If all boys were taught to +believe that their fists are their natural weapons, there would be fewer +murders and sudden deaths in America. I have seen several of these +prize-fights and many private bouts, all with gloves. They are governed +by rules. Such a combat is by no means as dangerous as football, where +the obvious intention seems to be to break ribs and crush the opponent. + +Rowing is much indulged in, and yachting is a great national maritime +sport, in which the Americans lead and challenge the world. In no sport +is the wealth of the nation so well shown. Every seaside town has its +yacht or boat club, and in this the interest is perpetual. Even in +winter the yacht is rigged into an "ice-boat." I have often wondered +that fashionable people do not take up the romantic sport of falconry, +as they have the birds and every facility. I suggested this to a lady, +who replied, "Ah, that is too barbaric for us." "More barbaric than +cock-fighting?" I asked, knowing that her brother owned the finest +game-cocks in the District of Columbia. Among the Americans there is a +distinct love for fair play, and such sports as "bull-baiting," +"bull-fights," "dog-fights," and "cock-fights" have never attained any +degree of popularity. There are spasmodic instances of such indulgences, +but in no sense can they be included, as in England and Spain, among the +national sports, which leads me to the conclusion that, aside from the +many peculiarities, as taking up and dropping sports, America, all in +all, is the greatest sporting nation of the world. It leads in +fist-fighting, rifle-shooting, in skilful angling, in yachting, in +rowing, in running, in six-day walking, in auto-racing, in trotting and +running horses, and in trap-shooting, and if its champions in all fields +could be lined up it would make a surprising showing. I am free to +confess and quite agree with a vivacious young woman who at the country +club told me that it was very nice of me to uphold my country, but that +we were "not in it" with American sports. + +The Presidents are often sportsmen. President Cleveland and President +Harrison both have been famous, the former as a fisherman, the latter as +well as the former as a duck-shooter. President McKinley has no taste +for sport, but the Vice-President is a promoter of sport of each and +every kind. He is at home in polo or hurdle racing, with the rifle or +revolver. This calls to mind the national weapon--the revolver. +Nine-tenths of all the shooting is done with this weapon, that is +carried in a special pocket on the hips, and I venture to say that a +pair of "trousers" was never made without the pistol pocket. Even the +clergymen have one. I asked an Episcopal clergyman why he had a pistol +pocket. He replied that he carried his prayer-book there. The Southern +people use a long curved knife, called a bowie, after its inventor. Many +people have been cut by this weapon. The negro, for some strange reason, +carries a razor, and in a fight "whips out" this awful weapon and +slashes his enemy. I have asked many negroes to explain this habit or +selection. One replied that it was "none of my d---- business." Nearly +all the others said they did not know why they carried it. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +THE CHINAMAN IN AMERICA + + +The average Irishman whom one meets in America, and he is legion, is a +very different person from the polished gentleman I have met in Belfast, +Dublin, and other cities in Ireland; but I never heard that the American +Irishman, the product of an ignorant peasantry crowded out of Ireland, +had been accepted as a type of the race. Peculiar discrimination is made +in America against the Chinese. Our lower classes, "coolies" from the +Cantonese districts, have flocked to America. Americans "lump" all +Chinese under this head, and can not conceive that in China there are +cultivated men, just as there are cultivated men in Ireland, the +antipodes of the grotesque Irish types seen in America. + +I believe there are seventy-five or eighty thousand Chinamen in America. +They do not assimilate with the Americans. Many are common laborers, +laundrymen, and small merchants. In New York, Chicago, San Francisco, +and other cities there are large settlements of them. In San Francisco +many have acquired wealth. The Chinese quarter is to all intents and +purposes a Chinese city. None of these people, or very few, are +Americanized in the sense of taking an active part in the government; +Americans do not permit it. I was told that the Chinese were among the +best citizens, the percentage of criminals being very small. They are +honest, frugal, and industrious--too industrious, in fact, and for this +very reason the ban has been placed upon them. Red-handed members of the +Italian Mafia--a society of murderers--the most ignorant class in +Ireland, Wales, and England, the scum of Russia, and the human dregs of +Europe generally are welcome, but the clean, hard-working Chinaman is +excluded. + +Millions are spent yearly in keeping him out after he had been invited +to come. He built many American railroads; he opened the door between +the Atlantic and the Pacific; he worked in the mines; he did work that +no one else would or could do, and when it was completed the American +laborer, the product of this scum of all nations, demanded that the +Chinaman be "thrown out" and kept out. America listened to the blatant +demagogues, the "sand-lot orators," and excluded the Chinese. To-day it +is almost impossible for a Chinese gentleman to send his son to America +to travel or study. He will not be distinguished from laundryman +"John," and is thrown back in the teeth of his countrymen; meanwhile +China continues to be raided by American missionaries. The insult is +rarely resented. In the treaty ratified by the United States Senate in +1868 we read: + +"The United States of America and the Empire of China cordially +recognize the inherent right of man to change his home and allegiance, +and also the mutual advantage of the free immigration and emigration of +their citizens and subjects respectively from the one country to the +other for purposes of curiosity, of trade or as permanent residents." + +Again we read, in the treaty ratified under the Hayes administration, +that the Government of the United States, "if its labor interests are +threatened by the incoming Chinese, may regulate or limit such coming, +but may not _absolutely prohibit_ it." The United States Government has +disregarded its solemn treaty obligations. Not only this, our people, +previous to the Exclusion Act, were killed, stoned, and attacked time +and again by "hoodlums." The life of a Chinaman was not safe. The labor +class in America, the lowest and almost always a foreign class, wished +to get rid of the Chinaman so that they could raise the price of labor +and secure all the work. China had reason to go to war with America for +her treatment of her people and for failure to observe a treaty. The +Scott Exclusion Act was a gratuitous insult. I hope our people will +continue to retaliate by refusing to buy anything from the Americans or +sell anything to them. Let us deal with our friends. + +Then came the Geary Bill, which was an outrage, our people being thrown +into jail for a year and then sent back. I might quote some of the +charges made against our people. Mr. Geary, I understand, is an Irish +ex-congressman from the State of California, who, while in Congress, was +the mouthpiece of the worst anti-Chinese faction ever organized in +America. He was ultimately defeated, much to the delight of New England +and many other people in the East. Mr. Geary's chief complaint against +the Chinese was that they work too cheaply, are too industrious, and do +not eat as much as an American. He obtained his information from Consul +Bedloe, of Amoy. He says the average earnings of the Chinese adult +employed as mechanic or laborer (in China) is five dollars per month, +and states that this is ten per cent above the average wages prevailing +throughout China. + +The wages paid, according to his report, per month, to blacksmiths are +$7.25; carpenters, $8.50; cabinet-makers, $9; glass-blowers, $9; +plasterers, $6.25; plumbers, $6.25; machinists, $6; while other classes +of skilled labor are paid from $7.25 to $9 per month, and common +laborers receive $4 per month. In European houses the average wages paid +to servants are from $5 to $6 a month, without board. Clothing costs per +year from 75 cents to $1.50. Out of these incomes large families are +maintained. He says: "The daily fare of an Amoy working man and its cost +are about as follows: 11/2 pounds of rice, 3 cents; 1 ounce of meat, 1 +ounce of fish, 2 ounces of shell-fish, 1 cent; 1 pound of cabbage or +other vegetable, 1 cent; fuel, salt, and oil, 1 cent; total, 6 cents. + +"Here," said Mr. Geary, "is a condition deserving of attention by all +friends of this country, and by all who believe in the protection of the +working classes. Is it fair to subject our laborer to a competitor who +can measure his wants by an expenditure of six cents a day, and who can +live on an income not exceeding five dollars a month? What will become +of the boasted civilization of our country if our toilers are compelled +to compete with this class of labor, with more competitors available +than twice the entire population of France, Germany, Austria, Belgium, +Denmark, Switzerland, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, and Spain? + +"The Chinese laborer brings neither wife nor children, and his wants are +limited to the immediate necessities of the individual, while the +American is compelled to earn income sufficient to maintain the wife and +babies. There can be but one end to this. If this immigration is +permitted to continue, American labor must surely be reduced to the +level of the Chinese competitor--the American's wants measured by his +wants, the American's comforts be made no greater than the comforts of +the Chinaman, and the American laborer, not having been educated to +maintain himself according to this standard, must either meet his +Chinese competitor on his own level, or else take up his pack and leave +his native land. The entire trade of China, if we had it all, is not +worth such a sacrifice." + +Mr. Geary forgets that when Chinamen go to America they adapt themselves +to prevailing conditions. Chinese cooks in the States to-day receive +from $30 to $50 per month and board; Chinese laborers from $20 to $30, +and some of them $2 per day. In China, where there is an enormous +population, prices are lower, people are not wasteful, and the +necessities of life do not cost so much. The Chinaman goes to America to +obtain the benefit of _high_ wages, not to _reduce_ wages. I have never +seen such poverty and wretchedness in China as I have seen in London, +or such vice and poverty as can be seen in any large American city. Mr. +Geary scorns the treaties between his country and China, and laughs at +our commercial relations. He says, "There is nothing in the Chinese +trade, or rather the loss of it, to alarm any American. We would be +better off without any part or portion of it." + +In answer to this I would suggest that China take him at his word, and I +assure you that if every Chinaman could be recalled, if in six months or +less we could take the eighty or one hundred thousand Chinamen out of +the country, the region where they now live would be demoralized. The +Chinese control the vegetable-garden business on the Pacific Coast; they +virtually control the laundry business; and that the Americans want +them, and want cheaper labor than they are getting from the Irish and +Italians, is shown by the fact that they continue to patronize our +people, and that in various lines Chinamen have the monopoly. Even when +the "hoodlums" of San Francisco were fighting the Chinese, the American +women did not withdraw their patronage, and while the men were off +speaking on the sand-lots against employing our people their wives were +buying vegetables from them. + +Why? Because their hypocritical husbands and brothers refused to pay +higher prices. America is suffering not for want of the cheapest labor, +but for a laborer like the Chinese, and until they have him industries +will languish. With American labor and American "union" prices it is +impossible for the American farmer or rancher to make money. The +vineyardist, the orange, lemon, olive, and other fruit raisers can not +compete with Europe. Labor is kept up to such a high rate that the +country is obliged to put on a high tariff to keep out foreign +competition, and in so doing they "cut off the nose to spite the face." +The common people are taxed by the rich. The salvation of industrial +America is a cheap, but not degraded, labor. America desires +house-servants at from $10 to $12 per month; this is all a mere servant +is worth. She wants good cooks at $12 or $15 per month. She wants +fruit-pickers at $10 to $12 per month and board. She wants vineyard men, +hop-pickers, cherry, peach, apricot and berry pickers, and people to +work in canneries at these prices. She wants gardeners, drivers, +railroad laborers at lower rates, and, to quote an American, "wants them +'bad.'" + +When in San Francisco I made a thorough investigation of the +"house-servant" question, and learned that our people as cooks in +private houses were receiving from $30 to $50 per month and board. A +friend tells me there is continued protest against this. Housekeepers on +the Pacific coast are complaining of the lack of "Chinese boys," and +want more to come over so that prices shall go down. The American wants +the Chinaman, but the American _foreign laborer_, the Irishman, the +Italian, the Mexican, and others who dominate American politics, do not +want him and will not have him. As a result of this bending to the alien +vote the Americans find themselves in a most serious and laughable +position in their relations to domestic labor. + +I am not overstating the fact when I say that the "servant-girl" +question is going to be a political issue in the future. The man may +howl against the Chinese, but his wife will demand that "John" be +admitted to relieve a situation that is becoming unbearable. As the +Americans are all equal, there are no servants among them. The poor are +as good as the "boss," and won't be called servants. You read in the +papers, "A lady desires a position as cook in a small family, no +children; wages, $35." "A young lady wishes a position to take care of +children; salary, $30." "A saleslady wants position." "A lady (good +scrubber) will go out by the day; $2." When you meet these "ladies," in +nine cases out of ten they are Irish from the peasant class--untidy, +insolent, often dissipated in the sense of drink. When they apply for a +position they put the employer through a course of questions. Some want +references from the last girl, I am told. Some want one thing, some +another, and all must have time for pleasure. Few have the air of +servants or inferiors, but are often offensive in appearance and +manners. I have never been called "John" by the girls who came to the +door where I called to pay a visit, but I could see that they all wished +so to address me. In England, where classes are acknowledged and a +servant is hired as a servant, and is one, an entirely different state +of affairs holds. They are respectful, having been educated to be +servants, know that they are servants, and as a result are cared for and +treated as old retainers and pensioners of the family. + +The whole story of exclusion is a blot upon the American national honor, +and the most mystifying part of it is that intelligent people, the best +people, are not a party to it. The railroads want the Chinese laborer. +The great ranches of the West need him; people want cooks at $15 and $20 +a month instead of $30 or $50. In a word, America is suffering for what +she must have some time--cheap labor; yet the low elements force the +issue. Congressmen are dominated by labor organizations on the Pacific +slope, and there are hundreds of Dennis Kearneys to-day where there was +one a few years ago. To make the case more exasperating, the Americans, +in their dire necessity, have imported swarms of low Mexicans to take +the place of the Chinese on the railroads, against whom there seems to +be no Irish hand raised. The Irish and Mexicans are of a piece. I know +from inquiry everywhere that the country at large would welcome +thousands of servants and field-workers in vineyards and orchards which +can not be made to pay if worked by expensive labor. + +The Americans try to keep us out, but they also try to convert those who +get in. They have what they call Chinese missions, to which Chinamen go. +To be converted? No. To learn the language? Yes. I am told by an +American friend that here and in China over fifty thousand Chinese have +embraced Christianity. On the Atlantic coast I am assured that eight +hundred Chinamen are Christians, and on the Pacific slope two thousand +have embraced the faith of the Christians. There is a Christian Chinese +evangelist working among our people in the West, Lum Foon, and I have +met the pastor of a Pacific coast church who told me that nearly a third +of his congregation were Chinamen, and he esteemed them highly. But the +most conclusive evidence that the Americans are succeeding in their +proselyting is that in one year a single denomination received as a +donation from Chinamen $6,000. The Americans have a saying, "Money +talks," which is much like one of our own. + +On the other hand, a clergyman told me that it was discouraging work to +some, so few Chinamen were "converted" compared to the great mass of +them. The Chinese of California have sent $1,000 to Canton to build a +Christian church, and the Chinese members of the Presbyterian Church of +California sent $3,000 in one year for the same purpose. I am told that +the Chinese Methodists of one church in California give yearly from +$1,000 to $1,800 for the various purposes of the church. The Christians +have captured some brilliant men, such as Sia Sek Ong, who is a +Methodist; Chan Hon Fan, who ought to be in our army from what I hear; +Rev. Tong Keet Hing, the Baptist, a noted Biblical scholar; Rev. Wong, +of the Presbyterians; Rev. Ng Poon Chiv, famous as a Greek and Hebrew +reader; Gee Gam and Rev. Le Tong Hay, Methodists; and there are many +more, suggestive that our people are interested in Christianity, +against the _moral_ teachings of which no one could seriously object. + +I dined some time ago with a merchants' club, and was much pleased at +the eulogy I heard on the Chinese. A merchant said, "My firm deals +largely with the Chinese and Japanese. When I make a trade with the +Japanese I tie them up with a written contract, but I have always found +that the word of a Chinese merchant was sufficient." This I found to be +the universal feeling, and yet Americans exclude us at the bidding of +"hoodlums," a term applied to the lowest class of young men on the +Pacific coast. In the East he is a "tough" or "rough" or "rowdy." "Tough +nut" and "hard nut" are also applied to such people, the Americans +having numbers of terms like these, which may be called "nicknames," or +false names. Thus a man who is noted for his dress is a "swell," a +"dude," or a "sport." + +The United States Government does not allow the Chinese to vote, yet +tens of thousands of poor Americans, "white trash" in the South, +ignorant negroes, low Irish and Italians who can not speak the tongue, +are welcome and courted by both parties. It is difficult for me to +overlook this insult on the part of America. There is a large settlement +of Chinese in New York, but they are as isolated as if they were in +China. In San Francisco there is the largest settlement, and many fine +merchants live there, and also in Los Angeles. + +In the latter city ---- told me that the best of feeling existed between +the Chinese and Americans; and at the American Festival of the Rose the +Chinese joined in the procession. The dragon was brought out, and all +the Chinese merchants appeared; but these gentlemen are never consulted +by the Americans, never allowed to vote or take any interest in the +growth of the city, and ---- informed me that none of them had ever been +asked to join a board of trade. It is the same everywhere; the only +advances the Americans make is to try and "convert" us to their various +religious denominations. While the Chinese are not allowed to vote or to +have any part in the affairs of government, they are taxed. "Taxation +without representation" was the cause of the war of the American +Revolution, but that is another matter. + +Yet our people have ways of influencing the whites with the "dollar," +for which some officials will do anything, and, I regret to say, all +Chinamen are not above bribing Americans. I have heard that the Chinese +of San Francisco for years were blackmailed by Americans, and obliged +to raise money to fight bills in the Legislature. In 1892 the Six +Companies raised $200,000 to defeat the "Geary Bill." The Chinese +merchants have some influence. Out of the 110,000 Chinamen in America +hardly ten per cent obeyed the iniquitous law and registered. The +Chinese societies contracted to defend all who refused to register. + +Our people have a strong and influential membership in the Sam Yup, Hop +Wo, Yan Wo, Kong Chow, Ning Yeong, and Yeong Wo companies. These +societies practically control everything in America relating to the +Chinese, and they retain American lawyers to fight their battles. I have +met many of the officers of these companies, and China has produced no +more brilliant minds than some, and, _sub rosa_, they have been pitted +against the Americans on more than one occasion and have outwitted them. +Among these men are Yee Ha Chung, Chang Wah Kwan, Chun Ti Chu, Chu Shee +Sum, Lee Cheang Chun, and others. Many of these men have been presidents +of the Six Companies in San Francisco, and rank in intelligence with the +most brilliant American statesmen. I regret to see them in America. + +Chun Ti Chu especially, at one time president of the Sam Yuz, should be +in China. I met this brilliant man some years ago in San Francisco. +After dinner he took me to a place and showed me a placard which was a +reward of $300 for his head. He had obtained the enmity of criminal +Chinamen on the Pacific coast, but when I last heard of him he was still +alive. There are many criminals here who do not dare to return to China, +who left their country for their country's good. These are the cause of +much trouble here, and bring discredit upon the better class of our +people. Our people in America are loyal to the Government. It was +interesting to see at one time a proclamation from the Emperor brought +over by Chew Shu Sum and posted in the streets of an American city: "By +order of his Imperial Majesty, the Emperor of China." The President, the +mayor of San Francisco, was not thought of; China was revered, and is +to-day holding her government over the Chinese in every American city +where they have a stronghold. So much for the loyalty of our people. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +THE RELIGIONS OF THE AMERICANS + + +Thomas J. Geary, the former congressman, is an avowed enemy of the +Chinese and the author of the famous Geary bill, but I condone all he +has said against us for one profound utterance made in a published +address or article, in which he said: "As to the missionaries (in +China), it wouldn't be a national loss if they were required to return +home. If the American missionary would only look about him in the large +cities of the Union he would find enough of misery, enough of suffering, +enough people falling away from the Christian churches, enough of +darkness, enough of vice in all its conditions and all its grades, to +furnish him work for years to come." This is a sentiment Americans may +well think of; but there are "none so blind as those who will not see." +There will always be women and men willing to spend their time in +picturesque China at the expense of foreign missions. China has never +attempted to convert the Americans to her religion, believing she has +all she can do to keep her people within bounds at home. + +In my search for information in America I have had some singular +experiences. I have made an examination of the many religions of the +Americans, and they have been remarkably prolific in this respect. While +we are satisfied with Taoism, Buddhism, but mostly with Confucianism, I +have observed the following sects in America: Baptists of two kinds, +Congregationalists, Methodists, Quakers of three kinds, Catholics, +Unitarians, Universalists, Presbyterians, Swedenborgians, +Spiritualists, Christian Scientists (healers), Episcopalians (high and +low), Jews, Seventh-Day Adventists, and many more. Nearly all are +Christians, as we are nearly all Confucians. Unitarians, Universalists, +Jews, and several others believe in the moral teachings of Christ, but +hold that he was not of divine origin. America was first settled to +supply room for religious liberty, which perhaps explains the remarkable +number of religions. They are constantly increasing. Nearly all of these +denominations hold that their own belief is the right one. Much +proselyting is going on among them, with which one would take no +exception if there was no denouncing of one another. Our religion, +founded in the faith of Confucius, seems satisfying to us. Some of us +believe that at least we are not savages. + +Some American friends once invited me to go to a negro church in +Washington. Upon arriving we were given a seat well down in front. The +pastor was a "visiting evangelist," and in a short time had these +excitable and ignorant people in a frenzy, several being carried out of +the church in a semicataleptic condition. Suddenly the minister began to +pray for the strangers, and especially "for the heathen in our midst," +for the unsaved from pagan lands, that they might be saved; and I could +not but wonder at the conceit and ignorance that would ask a believer in +the splendid philosophy of Confucius to throw it aside for this African +religion. This idea that a Chinaman is a "pagan" and idolator is found +everywhere in America, and every attempt is made to "save" him. + +I very much fear that many of our countrymen go to the American +missions and Sunday-schools merely to learn the language and enjoy the +social life of those who are interested in this special work. I was told +by a well-to-do Chinaman that he knew Chinamen who were both Catholic +and Protestant, and who attended all the Chinese missions without +reference to sect. They were Methodist when at the Methodist mission, +Catholic when at mass, and when they returned to their home slipped back +into Confucianism. Let us hope this is not universal, though I venture +the belief that the witty Americans would see the humor of it. + +I was told by a prominent patron of the Woman's Christian Union that she +felt very sorry I did not have the consolation of religion, coming as I +did from a heathen land. Some "heathens" might have been insulted, but I +had come to know the Americans and was aware that she really felt a +kindly interest in me. I replied that we could find some consolation in +the sayings of our religious teachers, as the great guide of our life +is, "What you do not like when done to yourself do not do to others." + +"Why," said the lady, "that is Christian doctrine, our 'Golden Rule.'" + +"Pardon me," I answered, "this is the golden rule of Confucius, written +four hundred years or so before Christ was born." + +"I think you must be mistaken," she continued; "this is a fundamental +pillar of the Christian belief." + +"True," I retorted; "but none the less Christians obtained it from +Confucius." + +She did not believe me, and we referred the question to Bishop ----, who +sat near us. Much to her confusion he agreed with me, and then quoted +the well-known lines of one of our religious writers who lived twelve +hundred years before Christ: "The great God has conferred on the people +a moral sense, compliance with which would show their nature inevitably +right," and remarked that it was a splendid sentiment. + +"Then you believe in a God," said the lady, turning to me. + +"I trust so," was my answer. + +Now this lady, who believed me to be a "pagan" and unsaved, was a +product of the American school system, yet she had never read a line of +Confucius, having been "brought up" to consider him an infidel writer. + +I have seen many of the great Western nations and observed their +religions. My conclusion is that none make so general and united an +attempt to be what they consider "good and moral" as the Americans; but +the Americans scatter their efforts like shot fired from a gun, and the +result is a multiplicity of religious beliefs beyond belief. I do not +forget that America was settled to afford an asylum for religious +belief, where men could work out their salvation in peace. If Americans +would grant us the same privilege and not send missionaries to fight +over us, all would be well. No one can dispute the fact that the +Americans are in earnest; the greater number believe they are right, and +that they possess true zeal all China knows. + +The impression the convert in China obtains is that the United States is +a sort of paradise, where Christians live in peace and happiness, loving +one another, doing good to those who ill-treat them, turning the cheek +to those who strike them, etc.; but the Chinaman soon finds after +landing in America that this is often "conspicuous by its absence." +These ideas are preached, and doubtless thousands follow them or attempt +to do so, but that they are common practises of the people is not true. +There is great need of Christian missions in America as well as in +China. I told a clergyman that our people believed the Christian +religion was very good for the Americans, and we had no fault to find +with it, nor had we the temerity to insinuate that our own was superior. + +A Roman Catholic young lady whom I met spoke to me about burning our +prayers, our joss-houses, and our dragon, which she had seen carried +about the streets of San Francisco. "Pure symbolism," I answered, and +then told her of the Christian dragon in the Divine Key of the +Revelation of Jesus Christ as Given to John, by a Christian writer, +William Eugene Brown. This dragon had nine heads, while ours has only +one. I believe I had the best of the argument so far as heads went. +This young woman, a graduate of a large college, wore an amulet, which +she believes protects her from accident. She possessed a bottle of water +from a miraculous spring in Canada, which she said would cure any +disease, and she told me that one of the Catholic churches there, Ste. +Anne de Beaupre, had a small piece of the wrist-bone of the mother of +the Virgin, which would heal and had healed thousands. She had a picture +of the church, showing piles of crutches thrown aside by cured and +grateful patients. Can China produce such credulity? I think not. + +All nations may be wrong in their religious beliefs, but certainly +"pagan China" is outdone in religious extravaganza by America or any +European state. Our joss-houses and our feasts are nothing to the +splendors of American churches. An American girl laughed at the bearded +figures in a San Francisco joss-house, but looked solemn when I referred +to the saints in a Catholic cathedral in the same city. If I were "fancy +free" I should like to lecture in America on the inconsistencies of the +Caucasian. They really challenge our own. Instead of having one splendid +church and devoting themselves to the real ethics of Christianity, these +Christians have divided irrevocably, and so lost strength and force. +They are in a sense turned against themselves, and their religious +colleges are graduating men to perpetuate the differences. No more +splendid religion than that expounded by Christ could be imagined if +they would join hands and, like the Confucians, devote their attention +not to rites and theological differences but to the daily conduct of +men. + +The Americans have a saying, "Take care of the pennies and the dollars +will care for themselves." We believe that in taking care of the morals +of the individual the nation will take care of itself. I took the +liberty of commending this Confucian doctrine to a Methodist brother, +but he had never been allowed to read the books of Confucius. They are +classed with those of Mohammed, Voltaire, and others. So what can one do +with such people, who have the conceit of the ages and the ignorance of +all time? Their great scholars see their idiosyncrasies, and I can not +begin to describe them. One sect believes that no one can be saved +unless immersed in water; others believe in sprinkling. Others, as the +Quakers, denounce all this as mummery. One sect, the Shakers, will have +no marriages. Another believes in having as many wives as they can +support--the Mormons. The Jews and Quakers oblige members to marry in +the society; in the latter instance the society is dying out, and the +former from constant intermarriage has resulted in conspicuous and +marked facial peculiarities. These different sects, instead of loving, +despise one another. Episcopalians look down upon the Methodists, and +the latter denounce the former because the priests sometimes smoke and +drink. The Unitarians are not regarded well by the others, yet nearly +all the other bodies contain Unitarians, who for business and other +reasons do not acknowledge the fact. A certain clergyman would not admit +a Catholic priest to his platform. All combine against the poor Jew. + +So strong is the feeling against this people among the best of American +citizens that they are almost completely ostracised, at least socially. +In all the years spent in America I do not recall meeting a Jew at +dinner in Washington, New York, or Newport. They are disliked, and as a +rule associate entirely with themselves, having their own churches, +clubs, etc. Yet they in large degree control the finances of America. +They have almost complete control of the textile-fabric business, +clothing, and many other trades. Why the American Christians dislike the +American Jews is difficult to understand, but the invariable reply to +this question is that their manners are so offensive that Christians +will not associate with them. I doubt if in any of the first circles of +any city you would meet a Jew. In the fashionable circles of New York I +heard that it would be "easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a +needle" than for a Jew to enter these circles. Many hotels will not +receive them. In fact, the ban is on the Jew as completely in America as +in Russia. I was strongly tempted to ask if this was the brotherly love +I heard so much about, but refrained. I heard the following story at a +dinner: A Chinese laundryman received a call from a Jew, who brought +with him his soiled clothing. The Chinaman, glancing at the Jew, refused +to take the package. "But why?" asked the Jew; "here's the money in +advance." "No washee," said the Christian Chinaman; "you killed Melican +man's Joss," meaning that the Jews crucified the Christ. + +The more you delve into the religions of the Americans the more +anomalies you find. I asked a New York lady at Newport if she had ever +met Miss ----, a prominent Chinese missionary. She had never heard of +her, and considered most missionaries very ordinary persons. This same +lady, when some one spoke about laxity of morals, replied, "It is not +morals but manners that we need"; and I can assure you that this +high-church lady, a model of propriety, judged her men acquaintances by +that standard. If their manners were correct, she apparently did not +care what moral lapses they committed when out of her presence. Briefly, +I looked in vain for the religion in everyday life preached by the +missionary. Doubtless many possess it, but the meek and humble follower +of the head of the Christian Church, the American who turned his cheek +for another blow, the one who loved his enemies, or the one who was +anxious to do unto others as he would have them do unto him, all these, +whom I expected to see everywhere, were not found, at least in any +numbers. + +In visiting a certain village I dined with several clergymen. One told +me he was the Catholic priest, and invited me to visit his chapel. Not +long after I met another clergyman. I do not recall his denomination, +but his work he told me was undoing that of the Catholic priest. The +latter converted the people to Catholicism, while the former tried to +reclaim them from Catholicism. I heard much about our joss-houses, but +they fade into insignificance when compared with the splendid religious +palaces of the Americans, and particularly those of the Catholics and +Episcopalians. Their religious customs are beyond belief. As an +illustration, their religion teaches them that the dead, if they have +led a good life, go at once to heaven, though the Catholics believe in a +purgatory, a half-way house, out of which the dead can be bought by the +payment of money. + +Now the simple Chinaman would naturally believe that the relatives +would be pleased at the death of a friend who was _immediately_ +transported to paradise and freed from the worries of life, but not at +all; at the death of a relative the friends are plunged into such grief +that they have been known to hire professional mourners, and instead of +putting on clothes indicative of joy and thanksgiving array themselves +in somber black, the token of woe, and wear it for years. Everything is +black, and the more fashionable the family the deeper the black. The +deepest crape is worn by the women. Writing-paper is inscribed with a +deep band, also visiting cards. Women use jet as jewelry, and white +pearls are replaced by black ones. Even servants are garbed in mourning +for the departed, who, they believe, have gone to the most beautiful +paradise possible to conceive. Contemplating all these inconsistencies +one is amazed, and the amazement is ever increasing as one delves deeper +into the ways of the inconsistent American. + +The credulity of the American is nowhere more singularly shown than in +his susceptibility to religion. At a dinner given by the ---- of ---- in +Washington, conversation turned on religion, and Senator ----, a very +clever man, told me in a burst of confidence, "Our people are easily +led; it merely requires a leader, a bright, audacious man, with plenty +of 'cheek,' to create a following." There are hundreds of examples of +this statement. No matter how idiotic the religion or philosophy may be, +a following can be established among Americans. A man of the name of +Dowie, "ignorant, impertinent, but with a superabundance of cheek" (I +quote an American journal), announced himself as the prophet Elijah, and +obtained a following of thousands, built a large city, and lives upon +the credulity of the public. + +Three different "healers" have appeared within a decade in America, each +by inference claiming to be the Christ and imitating his wanderings and +healing methods. All, even the last, grossest, and most impudent +impostor, who advertised himself in the daily press, the picture showing +him posing after one of the well-known pictures of Christ, had many +followers. I hoped to hear that this fellow had been "tarred and +feathered," a happy American remedy for gross things. This fellow, as +the Americans say, "went beyond the limit." I asked the senator how he +accounted for Americans, well educated as they are, taking up these +strange impostors. "Well," he replied, puffing on a big cigar, "between +you and me and the lamp-post it's on account of the kind of schooling +they get. I didn't get much myself--I'm an old-timer; but I accumulated +a lot of 'horse sense,' that has served me so well that I never have my +leg pulled, and I notice that all these 'suckers' are graduates from +something; but don't take this as gospel, as I'm always getting up +minority reports." + +The religion of the Americans, as diffuse as it is, is one of the most +remarkable factors you meet in the country. Despite its peculiar phases +you can not fail to appreciate a people who make such stupendous +attempts to crush out evil and raise the morals of the masses. We may +differ from them. We may resent their assumption that we are pagans and +heathens, but this colossal series of movements, under the banner of the +Cross, is one of the marvels of the world. Surely it is disinterested. +It comes from the heart. I wish the Americans knew more of Confucius +and his code of morals; they would then see that we are not so "pagan" +as they suppose. + +THE END + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of As A Chinaman Saw Us, by Anonymous + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AS A CHINAMAN SAW US *** + +***** This file should be named 22831.txt or 22831.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/2/8/3/22831/ + +Produced by Martin Pettit and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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