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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..73d27e7 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #56185 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/56185) diff --git a/old/56185-0.txt b/old/56185-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 6881402..0000000 --- a/old/56185-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,2687 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Abounding American, by -Thomas William Hodgson Crosland - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - -Title: The Abounding American - -Author: Thomas William Hodgson Crosland - -Release Date: December 16, 2017 [EBook #56185] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ABOUNDING AMERICAN *** - - - - -Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at -http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images -generously made available by The Internet Archive) - - - - - - - - - - - THE - ABOUNDING - AMERICAN - - BY - T. W. H. CROSLAND - - Author of - “Lovely Woman” and “The Unspeakable Scot” - - London: - A. F. THOMPSON & CO. - 92 Fleet Street, E.C. - 1907 - - - - -CONTENTS. - - - PAGE - - THE PROPOSITION 7 - - MILLIONAIRES 19 - - HUMOURISTS 29 - - THE AMERICAN WOMAN 37 - - LITERATURE 45 - - THE PRESIDENT 55 - - ADVERTISEMENT 61 - - THE PEA-NUT MIND 71 - - THE DRAMA 81 - - SPORT 91 - - HOGS 101 - - VERDICT 109 - -[Illustration] - - - - - COPYRIGHT 1907 - BY - A. F. THOMPSON - IN - THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA - AND IN - GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND - - All Rights Reserved - - - - -CHAPTER I - -THE PROPOSITION - - -“And what, prithee, hath overtaken Guy?” - -“Guy—why Guy diced and drabbed and ruffled away his inheritance, and to -save his neck took shipping for the tobacco plantations where, they say, -he married a daughter of Lo, the poor Indian, and none hath since heard -of him.” - -This is the kind of talk that one could hear in the clubs of London a -matter of, say, two hundred and fifty years ago. In plain terms, Guy, -poor devil, being a wastrel,—and a broken wastrel at that—had betaken -himself to America, there probably to found one of the “fine old Virginia -families” of which American writers, and particularly American fictional -writers, are so prone to babble. - -America, of course, was really started not by the Indians or Columbus, -but by the Pilgrim Fathers, assisted and backed up by several cargoes -of blue-brained and cleverblooded spirits from the British Isles, whose -minds were full of theology and whose souls were full of tea. I shall be -told that it is unkind of me to make such remarks. - -But, quite apart from all questions of kindness, it is desirable that -you know something of the antecedents of a man before you set about -a proper estimate of him. If you wish to understand him thoroughly, -you must never let sleeping dogs lie nor allow bygones to be bygones. -It is notorious that the average frantic Fourth of July American is -an adept at showing the best side of himself and his institutions to -an admiring world. If you are to believe him the first American was -Christopher Columbus, whose name in this connection I had hoped not to -mention. But Don Columbus made the mistake of “discovering America.” For -the accomplishment of this feat the Americans bestow upon his memory -unqualified pæans. Really, of course, the fact that Columbus steered -his leaky lugger desperately for Coney Island and Long Branch, when he -had the rest of the world—including China and Gozo—before him where to -choose, proves that so far from being a hero and a man of genius, he was -a dull and evilly disposed person. - -According to the bumptious, khaki-tinted gentleman from Indiana too, -the Pilgrim Fathers already referred to were high-minded, blameless, -and entirely disinterested saints, incapable of hurting a fly or -causing butter to melt north of the colour line. They “inaugurated -America for conscience sake, sir, and you can bet your pile that I am -proud to have them for ancestors.” In which connection I shall pass -no rude observation, contenting myself rather with the hint that the -reader who wishes to acquaint himself with the true inwardness of the -Pilgrim Fathers and their doings in America should look up some of the -serious literature on the subject. The Americans, be it noted, read that -literature very privately, and neither in the basket nor in the store. - -I might proceed indefinitely on these lines of disillusion for Master -Phineas B. Flubdub; but as it is not my particular business to amuse him -inordinately, I shall desist. - -In Europe, or at any rate in England, there is a disposition on the part -of the sandblind to look upon the United States and the people who dwell -in them with an eye of amused wonderment, as well as admiration. For -reasons that are not difficult to appreciate America has never been taken -quite seriously by the superior European. In spite of all her boasting -and shouting, in spite of her e-normous population and her equally -e-normous wealth, in spite of the fact that there is a U.S. Army and a -U.S. Navy that can lick creation, and that the U.S. also boasts of a -reeking, shrieking press, together with the most gaudy and scintillating -“Courts of Justice” that ever delighted civilisation, no person in Europe -believes in the back of his mind that the land of hustle and bluff is -a nation of any weight where nations count, or that she is capable of -exercising the smallest direct or indirect influence upon the manners, -customs, tendencies, or destiny of haughty feudal Europe. - -The Americans are hot stuff. They go in for cut-throat finance and -lime-light lynchings, their swindles are beautiful, their fortunes -colossal, and their corruption is picturesque. They have a wonderful -country. It is theirs and not ours, and they are welcome to do as they -like in it. They can never hurt us. Knowing this, the Englishman sleeps -snugly of nights, and when he meets a “Yank” in London or on the Riviera -or in Paris, he smiles to himself, professes to be tickled, tolerates -him if there be occasion for it, grapples him to his bosom with hooks of -steel if there is money in it, and parts from him pretty much in the mood -of a man who has been inspecting a new motor car. - -And, truth to tell, in the guileless, sight-seeing, rush-about American -whom the Englishman encounters on his own midden, there does not appear -to be anything which is either very outrageous or very formidable. All -you see of him is a somewhat undersized, loosely built human biped, with -a fat jowl, straight hair, a nobby suit, a little round white or brown -felt hat—and a guide-book. Of course, there is also the smart swagger -American, accompanied by a feminine entourage of peaches and dreams. But -usually your man from Yankeeland has with him a plain, up-and-down, sad -sort of woman who might have stepped out of Noah’s ark—and that is the -end of it. When he engages you in conversation, which he commonly insists -upon doing, he blows foolishly about his own Country, admits that yours -“hez the bulge in antiques,” says that he is glad that he came over, and -sticking out his finger in the direction of the woman, remarks: “This -is Mrs. Sarah B. Gazabo, my wife.” The real “insides” of the man never -strike you, partly because you are busy loathing his accent and admiring -his ginger, and partly because he has left his vital concerns, his -private essence and sheer Americanisms “way back to hum.” All Americans -imported for us by Thos. Cook & Son and his imitators are of this order. -For them England is a place in which to tread softly and speak low, or -at any rate as low as possible. They visit us in the same spirit that a -prize-fighter might visit a cemetery, and though the casual observer -would scarcely suspect it, their intention is to be subdued, sober, -decorous, and civil. - -Eight times out of nine the American is a fine specimen of a manly -man, but it is the ninth that is such a wonder. We, the obtuse and -effete people of Great Britain, now and again wake up suddenly to the -circumstance that we have been the victims of an American invasion. -Such a ghastly conviction may at any moment overtake the best of us, -for no class of society knows whose turn is likely to be next. There -was an American invasion of the turf a year or two back, and English -sport is sore and poor about it to this day. There have been sundry -social invasions which those most directly concerned find it difficult -to forget, and at the present moment we are in the thick of a theatrical -invasion which is not doing us an appreciable amount of good. The fact -of these invasions and of their always unpleasant consequences so far as -the invaded are involved is, in my judgment, a fact of the most serious -import to Englishmen. - -I shall for a moment drop the American as he seems to be, and regard him -as he actually is. What can one record of him that is to his credit? -Imprimus: He has devoted three hundred years more or less to the frantic -and bloodthirsty pursuit of the Almighty Dollar. Item: During those three -hundred years more or less he has done absolutely nothing but pursue -dollars. Item: He is still pursuing them. Item: But he makes the best -husband in the world, and places woman in the high place to which she is -so amply entitled. I will put so much to the credit side, though I make -no doubt that there are people in the world who will find themselves -unable to commend me for doing it. - -Now for the obverse or discredit side. I shall ask you to note: - -(1) That the Americans are the only nation who are ruled by a bureaucracy -of millionaires and at the same time croon themselves into a state of -vacuous coma to the touching strains of “vox populi, vox dei!” - -(2) That they are the originators of the yelling yellow press, the -pioneers of the New Humour and the apostles of the New Pathos. - -(3) That they are the only civilised people who make a point of exporting -the finest specimens of their womankind to foreign countries, included -in a consignment of cold dollars calculated pro rata with the antiquity, -decay and general worthlessness of the name which the former take in -exchange. - -(4) That having inherited, borrowed or stolen a beautiful language, they -wilfully and of set purpose degrade, distort and misspell it apparently -for the sole purpose of saving money in type-setting. - -(5) That out of twenty-six Presidents of the United States, three have -met death at the hands of the assassin.[1] - -(6) That having by sheer accident or because of the care and forethought, -which Providence has for fools, become possessed of a President who is -a man among men and a ninety horse-power statesman with direct drive on -all speeds, they allow him to be handicapped by a spectacular gang of -undesirable citizens. - -(7) That they consider no function, public or private, sacred or -profane, to be complete without a newspaper correspondent, a lime-light -photographer, and a sky-sign contractor. - -(8) That willingly and of their own unfettered volition they have -thrown back to the customs of their aboriginal ancestors in the matter -of diet, which diet is rapidly reducing them morally, physically and -intellectually to the level of primordial protoplasms. - -(9) That they are the only nation who in civilised times rate noise above -all else, save dollars, and who in their theatres acclaim as the greatest -actor or play the one that in the shortest time makes the greatest uproar -for the smallest reason. - -(10) That they have resolved their sports and pastimes into business -propositions in which the avowed aim and object of every competitor is -the utter destruction of his opponent by any means that can be found, -devised or conceived. - -(11) That they are the only nation who in civilised times have been happy -and content to sink their individuality in an all pervading and evil -smelling atmosphere of hog and by-products. - -The foregoing are merely a few of the main counts in the indictment. -Behind every one of them lies a history of gaiety, graft, dyspepsia, -bossism, fakery, flamboyancy, hysteria, vociferation brain storms -and dementia Americana of the most disconcerting and entertaining -kind. The details are on record, and I do not propose to harrow the -reader’s feelings with examples of them. I shall suggest simply that it -is questionable whether any other known race of men, white or black, -has managed to pack into three centuries such a volume of unthinkable -excitement and picturesque iniquity as can be rightfully and without -exaggeration laid at the door of these abounding Americans. - -A certain Western city has been described by a friendly visitor as “hell -with the lid off.” For the greater part of her existence as a nation that -description might with justice have been applied to all America, and I -am by no means sure that it is not still applicable. It would seem that -under the inspiring ægis of the much-vaunted American constitution the -whole of the vices of civilised man have become grossly and incredibly -intensified. For unscrupulousness, insincerity, cynicism, and the pure -worship of mammon the United States stands without rival among the -nations to-day. - -I believe the man lied who said there is not an institution in the -country—political, social, economic or even religious—that is not based -on a species of ingrained rottenness and not infested with the worm of -corruption and the scrawl of scandal. But there is no national aspiration -that does not have at the back of it the root idea that the sole duty -of an American man is to get rich and to get rich quick. There are few -standards of American life that are not gold standards and few kinds of -American effort that are not directed towards the rapid acquisition of -other people’s money. - -It can be proved out of the history books that, broadly speaking, your -average American is a nondescript and nefarious hybrid composed of -three parts promoter, three parts missionary, three parts slave-driver, -and one part Indian. On this unsavoury soil the worst passions of the -soaring human animal have grown and run hoggishly to seed. Out of such -blood nothing that is honest or of good report could be expected to -rise. And when we in England, as has been the tendency in the past few -years, condescend to the adoption of American methods and American -notions, and applaud rather than rebuke American smartness and American -impudence, there can be no question whatever that we are on the -toboggan. The gradual Americanisation of this grand old country is not -only flattering to American vanity, but gratifying to American greed. As -I shall presently show, America has no more love for England than would -easily cover a threepenny-bit, and her insatiable cry is for markets, -markets, markets—a howl in which she is dulcetly supported by her dear -friend Germany. The causes for alarm in so far as they affect the larger -concrete issues are as yet comparatively slight. But it behoves every -Englishman to meditate on the possibility that Macaulay’s New Zealander -may in the long run turn out to be an American. - -[1] This is a greater percentage than has obtained in the case of the -Czars of Russia, and in America there are no Nihilists or at any rate -none who are actively opposed to the American Presidency. - -[Illustration] - - - - -CHAPTER II - -MILLIONAIRES - - -The population of the United States, according to the last census -returns, is about a hundred millions. Names in American directories -invariably begin with Aarons and end with Zaccharia, and millionaires are -marked with a star—thus *. In a town, or—as the puffed up merchant in -stars and stripes would call it a city—of fifty thousand inhabitants you -will find that the local directory stars quite twenty-five thousand as -millionaires. - -It is pretty certain that fully ninety-nine per cent. of these bloated -plutocrats do not know where the next dollar is coming from. I have it on -the authority of an American that “in introducing a man in high American -society the introducer thinks it proper to say, ‘This is Obadiah S. -Bluggs of Squedunk, Wis.—one of the richest men in the city. He’s worth -his million dollars—ain’t you, Obadiah? And he’s president of a National -Bank and owns a block of buildings on the main street. His wife has the -largest diamonds in the northern part of the State, and his daughter, -Miss Mamie Bluggs, gets her gowns in Paris, and uses lorgnettes.’ -Such words of recommendation, I am told, move Mr. Bluggs to a profound -delight. Within five minutes half the men present—this is true even of -the most exclusive circles—will cluster around Mr. Bluggs to sell things -to him; champagne, a horse, shares in a bogus mining company, or to ask -him if Miss Bluggs is engaged, whether she is a blonde or a brunette, and -whether he, Bluggs, thinks it is worth the questioner’s while to run up -to Squedunk, Wis., take Miss Bluggs out buggy riding and size her up one -afternoon.” - -It is highly probable that Mr. Millionaire Bluggs possesses no ready -cash whatever, though he is prepared to discuss five-million dollar -propositions in the loudest tones and in any quantity, and it is -probable, too, that Miss Bluggs is neither a blonde nor a brunette that -matters, but an ordinary good strong country girl whose principal diet is -pumpkin pie and chewing gum, and whose single go-to-party gown was bought -in Paris truly but fell to the lot of Miss Mamie Bluggs at third hand and -at bed-rock bargain-day price, at the corner store in Squedunk, Wis. - -I have no desire to suggest that the millionaires of America as a body -are in straitened or difficult circumstances, or that an American here -and there has not succeeded in amassing vast sums of money. But I assert -flatly that the great majority of them are not within a mile of being -anything like so rich as they pretend to be, and that, taking millionaire -for millionaire, they are an entirely Brummagem and specious company. -They maintain all the appearances of riches, not on solid bullion or -property, but on a little paper. They come like water and like wind they -go. Since millionairedom became fashionable, New York State alone must -have produced, literally, thousands of them. - -Of the real authentic untraversable American millionaire, one is inclined -to speak with bated breath and whispered humbleness. There are three -men of means in America at the time of writing who will probably be -remembered for the wealth they possess as long as this weary world holds -together. The virginal chaste names of them, need one say, are John D. -Rockefeller, J. Pierpont Morgan, and Andrew Carnegie. No doubt there are -others, such as the Vanderbilts and the Goulds, and Mr. Astor and Mr. -Harriman, and that great patron of the drama, Mr. John Cory, whose wealth -transcends the wealth of Ormuz and of Ind coming in together. But it is -on Messrs. Rockefeller, Morgan and Carnegie that the brunt and burden -and glitter and glory of real unlimited and omnipotent millionairedom -has fallen. Mr. Rockefeller, indeed, is commonly credited with being the -richest and most powerful capitalist in the world. So rich is he, and so -enormous are his accumulations of earned and unearned increment, that -he is rapidly becoming the overlord of all the other millionaires, who -even now are, to a great extent, playing with his money and must, to a -corresponding extent, do his bidding. - -Of Mr. Rockefeller the world knows next to nothing, excepting that he -is fabulously and pitifully rich, that he has absolutely no hirsute -covering for his stupendous brains, that he suffers from indigestion, and -that he plays golf and teaches a Sunday school in a Nonconformist place -of worship. Every other morning he appears to present to this or that -American city a few odd millions “for educational purposes,” the which -millions are promptly spurned by the local authority as “tainted money,” -but ultimately accepted “in the interests of the industrial class.” - -Probably Mr. Rockefeller is the best abused man on this footstool. He has -been variously described as a thief, a ghoul, a bloodsucker, a murderer, -a miser, a cannibal, a wrecker, a tiger, a devastator, a jackal, and a -wolf. All the notice he takes is blandly to play golf and unobtrusively -to dodge the lawyers and officers of the law who desire to bring him to -book for the alleged malpractices of the Standard Oil Trust. Yet you -have to remember that this placid, smiling, hairless old gentleman of -sixty-five, “with a glad hand for everyone,” takes out of the United -States an income greater than the incomes of all the Royal Families of -all Europe, and that, in addition to his controlling interest in the -Standard Oil Trust, which last year paid dividends to the tune of fifty -million dollars, he owns the entire Electric Light and Gas Plants of -New York City, controls the American iron industry, has almost complete -control of the railways and copper mines, and of the largest banks in New -York and throughout the country. The which sad data go to show that he -is at once a wicked man and a foolish, and that the American people are -even wickeder and more foolish. You can never bring an American to see -that there is no conceivable advantage in possessing too much money; and -in spite of his “shattered nerves,” “enfeebled mind,” and “unenviable -reputation,” there is not a man in America who would not jump at the -chance of standing in the shoes of Jawn D. - -As for Mr. Pierpont Morgan, he is chiefly noted as the head and front of -a Steel Trust that is making money at the rate of one hundred and forty -million dollars per year, and as a gentleman who has a pretty taste in -pictures and objects of art. Mr. Morgan is a man with a large and poetic -imagination. It was he who conceived the noble idea of Americanising the -British Transatlantic carrying trade by buying up the principal fleets -engaged in it. In this deal, as in most other American-English deals, -the American came forth to shear and got shorn. The woolly, bleating, -unsuspicious Britisher sold his vessels at inflated figures, snickered -in his sleeve, and built new ones with some of the money. Mr. Morgan is -a frequent and welcome visitor to these shores, and the London picture -dealers and their touts no doubt do very well out of him. But if you say -“Liverpool” to him he goes hot all over. - -For a bonne-bouche I have kept Mr. Andrew Carnegie, of Skibo Castle -and sundry other addresses. Mr. Carnegie has the misfortune to be a -Scotch American—surely the least admirable of the less admirable types -of humanity. He will live in men’s memories as the sturdy, forthright -Scot who managed one of the most desperate strikes that ever took place -in America from the safe vantage ground of his native heath. It must be -remembered that in spite of his ridiculous possessions Mr. Carnegie is -an avowed democrat, and the author of a book that makes him out to be -quite a benevolently minded philosopher. But during all the terrors of -the Homestead lock-out, he lay snug at his shooting box of Rannoch, N.B., -and refused to say a word that would tend to still the storm, although he -knew that blood was being shed at Homestead, and that his own partner, -Mr. Frick, had been seriously wounded. - -Being a Scotchman it is impossible that Mr. Carnegie should have been a -coward. Let me say rather that he was cautious and canny, and indisposed -to take unnecessary risks. When the row was more or less over he told a -representative of the Associated Press that “the deplorable events at -Homestead had burst upon him like a thunderbolt from a clear sky. They -had such a depressing effect upon him that he had to lay his book aside -and resort to the lochs and moors, fishing from morning to night.” Which, -on the face of it, is pawky Scots, and as who should say “the deplorable -news of the death of my wife had such a depressing effect upon me that I -had to go to a fancy dress ball and dance and dance till cock-crow.” - -It will be seen, therefore, that in the main the American millionaires -do not shine with any startling or blinding effulgence. With here and -there an exception, they are common, vulgar, snobbish, undistinguished -men who happen to have come out top-dog in a series of financial bruising -matches in which few persons above the quality of a savage would have -cared to engage. For the possession and administration of even reasonable -wealth their qualification would seem to be of the meagrest. Outside the -dull mechanical reduplication of their mammoth fortunes, their stunted -intellects permit them only two very doubtful joys, namely, sensational -house building and sensational charity. Mr. Morgan may be taken as -the type of the house-proud money-snatcher. Mr. Rockefeller and Mr. -Carnegie are the charity-proud; and they have reaped the reward of the -charity-proud—the colleges of the one being a by-word and a mockery in -America, just as the “Free Libraries” of the other are a by-word and a -nuisance in England. - -I do not believe that in their heart of hearts the Americans -themselves—that is, the great mass of the people—have any feeling -of admiration for the gigantic money-grabbers who rule them. The -American has just perception enough to discern that millionaires are -not altogether the best possible kind of man. On the other hand, if you -take away the country’s millionaires you have robbed her male population -of one of its chief objects of envy and its chief subject of blurring -conversation. - -The shadow of each of the fascinating trinity that I have mentioned -is as the shadow of a Colossus, and is so enormous that it is almost -impossible to pick up an American newspaper or other publication in which -they do not figure and figure prominently. Especially is this the case -with respect to Mr. Rockefeller, upon whose doings or misdoings every -scribbler in America has some comment to offer or some theory to base. -The other day I came across a book of essays published in Boston, which -contained a review of Mr. Alfred Russel Wallace’s “Man’s Place in the -Universe.” And right in the middle of it I found this passage: “When a -little child looks out on the Earth he at first thinks it infinite. He -looks upon it as unorganised and unrelated. Only with increasing age and -understanding can he realise that it is finite and organised. So when -Rockefeller as a lad went into the oil business it seemed to him that -there was infinite scope for the extension of the oil business,” and so -on and so forth. Clearly it is a mighty business to be Rockefeller! - -[Illustration] - - - - -CHAPTER III - -HUMOURISTS - - -American humour has come to be a bugbear in England, pretty much like -American canned meats. - -Twenty years ago, when anybody on this side of the Atlantic wished to -be rather crudely and shockingly amused, he sent to the libraries for -something American. In that day and generation Mark Twain was at the -zenith of his fame and powers, and the names of Artemus Ward and Josh -Billings were names to conjure with. Autres temps autres moeurs. The -popularity of Mark Twain has suffered woeful eclipse, and Artemus Ward -and Mr. Billings have gone clean out of vogue, and are remembered only -as the originators of a very tiresome kind of humour which depends on -phonetic spelling for its more excruciating effects. - -The fact is that America and England alike have been dosed to death -with the lucubrations of handy scribblers who caught something of Mark -Twain’s trick and pretended to something of his gift, and the label -“American humourist” nowadays repels with an even greater insistence than -it formerly attracted. Mr. Twain made desperate and valiant efforts to -retrieve his waning popularity with a book called “A Yankee at the Court -of King Arthur.” If ever there was a piece of writing nicely calculated -to tickle and make purr the fat-necked American here was the article. But -it fizzled in the pan, failed in short to bring ’em on again. And it now -belongs to the category of books that people have forgotten. So much for -Mr. Twain, whom I admire, but of whom, nevertheless, I have taken leave -to speak the truth. - -Artemus Ward and Josh Billings are dead, and their souls, I trust, are -with the saints; so that they will pardon me when I venture on the -opinion that the humour they gave us was of the thinnest sort, and, -taking into account the furore it created, extraordinarily ephemeral. -However any person of sense came to accept the following for humour -passes my comprehension:— - - -EXPERIENCES AS AN EDITOR - -“In the Ortum of 18— my friend, the editor of the Baldissville Bugle, was -obleged to leave perfeshernal dooties & go & dig his taters, & he axed me -to edit for him doorin his absence. Accordinly I ground up his Shears and -commenced. It didn’t take me a grate while to slash out copy enuff from -the xchanges for one issoo, and I thawt I’d ride up to the next town -on a little Jaunt, to rest my Branes which had bin severely rackt by my -mental efforts (This is sorter Ironical) So I went over to the Rale Rood -offiss and axed the Sooprintendent for a pars. - -‘You a editer,’ he axed, evinebtly on the point of snickerin. - -‘Yes, Sir,’ sez I, ‘Don’t I look poor enuff?’ - -‘Just about,’ sed he, ‘but our Road can’t pars you.’ - -‘Can’t hay.’ - -‘No Sir—it can’t.’ - -‘Becauz,’ sez I, looking him full in the face with a Eagle eye, ‘it goes -so darned slow it can’t pars anybody!’ Methink I had him thar. It is the -slowest Rale Road in the West. With a mortified air, he tole me to get -out of his offiss. I pittid him and went.” - -The essence of this excursion into the realms of the Comic Spirit is -about as cheap and small a thing in essences as one is likely to come -across. Mr. Ward had made or heard somebody make a punning retort of -an ultra-feeble quality, and straightway he rushes off to turn it into -humourous lucubration. The Americans believed it was “darned funny,” -it raised “gales of laughter” among them, and they shouted about its -excellences till the English also began to recognise them. At best -Artemus Ward is humour of the “Wot-the-orfis-boy-finks” order, and as -such it has always been eschewed by persons blessed with a trifle more -than the milk-maid order of intellect. - -And lest I be accused of raking up what the Americans themselves choicely -term “dead dog” I will ask your attention for the space of a paragraph or -two to the brand of the New Humour generally consumed by the inhabitants -of the United States in the present era of grace. In this connection -it would be easy for one to take a distinctly bitter line; inasmuch as -the books of humour as distinguished from the humourous periodicals, -nowadays published in America are not really books of humour at all, but -aggregations of acrid and wicked cynicism. The authors of them either -do not intend to be funny or have no conception of the meaning of fun. -Sourness of spirit, meanness of thought, and savageness of expression -are their principal standby. In the humourous periodicals, however, you -discover a well-defined intention to be funny—though the cynicism and the -vitriol are not of course forgotten. - -I believe that these periodicals are nicely adjusted to the public -requirements, for the American is not out to produce even comic papers -“for his health,” and being nothing if not practical, he gives his public -exactly “what they want.” Here are some samples of “exactly what they -want,” published so recently as May of the present year. First as to -verse: - - -IF - - If all the trips I’ve had at sea - Should take effect at once on me, - In one huge, nauseated spell - Gee! wouldn’t I be sick! Well, well! - -But possibly the fault is mine. You see I’m English. Perhaps the above -example of the New Humour is really a choice sample of the New Pathos. - -Again; and this smacks of genius: - - -NOW BIRDIE GETS HIS - - Of all the things that swim or run, - Man beats in easy pace; - He gives big odds to fin and fur, - And wins in every race. - - He hops into his auto-car - And handicaps the horse; - Or takes the greyhound for a try - And licks him even worse. - - Perhaps the whale or shark get gay - And want a little go. - Man dives into his submarine - And does them down below. - - And now the chesty feathered chap - Must close his gay bazoo, - For man puts on his flying gear - And wallops birdie, too. - -As to prose, here you are: - - -WANT TOO MUCH - - “Some time ago two surgeons took a ten-pound tumor out of - Dave Saunders, an’ to-day he got a terrible big bill for the - operation.” - - “Is Dave goin’ to pay it?” - - “No; he sez, ‘they’ve got enough out of him already.’” - - -MONKISH - - Behold the tippler and mark how he tippeth in the streets. - Whoso hath discolouration of the optic? Is it not the - meddler? Yea. He that is a lunkhead condemneth that which he - comprehendeth not. - - Be thou not envious of them that have vacation in time of - influenza. - -I have not gone out of my way to search for these excerpts in the cheaper -class of American comic publication. Nor have I been at special pains -to search for blemishes through the files of the ten cent “high class -journal” which is laid under contribution. In point of fact, I find them -in the first number of that journal which came to my hands, namely, its -latest issue obtainable in London. How really foolish and vulgar these -samples are! The first set of verses is about being sick; the second set -is slangy, ill-expressed and contains a childish mistake in grammar; the -first piece of prose is objectionable because of its reference to “a -ten-pound tumor,” and the second piece is sheer banality, meaning nothing -that is worth a smile. - -The plain fact is that humour in America is the humour of fatty -degeneration of the intellect. America’s funny man was at one time a -fairly clean, healthy creature, with a droll outlook on the facts of -life. That he was a trifle over-devoted to rye whiskey and effusive -practical jokes, and had a tendency to rank irreverence, were among the -defects of his qualities. The great American people speedily learnt -to vote him slow, and into his shoes they hurried the hard-faced, -terrier-toothed, cigarette-smoking, anæmic, fleering decadent. And at -long and last they have set up for their humourous god the sheer hoodlum -or larrikin, whose sense of what is comic is even more degraded than -that of a Chinaman, and whose view of morality is the view of a naughty -parrot. There can be no possible hope for a country whose risible -faculties are exercised only at squalid moments or excited only by -squalid writing. - -No matter how wealthy and hard-headed your man, and no matter how -beautiful or accomplished your woman, they are spiritually and morally -topsy-turvy if they laugh at the wrong things, and I maintain that the -twentieth-century American is consistently laughing at the wrong things, -and quite incapable of appreciating the right and proper humour even when -you have explained it to him. The Scotch cannot see a joke, the Americans -can see only bad jokes. - -Nearly all the vilest and most offensive jokes that creep into the -third-rate English comics are of American origin. The Weary Willie -and Tired Tim business is purely American, so are the Buster Brown -and grinning Pup futilities, so are the idiotcies associated with the -patronymic Newlywed; so are the disgusting buffooneries about whiskers. -The English have learnt that American canned meat is a dubious viand. The -sooner they learn that the current American humour is even more noxious -the better it will be for the English. - - - - -CHAPTER IV - -THE AMERICAN WOMAN - - -The abounding gentleman from Idaho, or Cincinnati, or Nahant, will tell -you that the American woman is a dream of beauty and goodness. If I am -to credit the American he would not take eighty thousand dollars for -her—no, sir! At least, he doesn’t calculate that he would. The American -woman, sir, is a peach. The American man believes in her down to the -soles of his store boots, and has been educated to regard her as a being -of angelic antecedents and destiny. Far be it from a simple scribbler -to pluck from her, unless it were by way of a memento, one single angel -feather. But at time and time I have seen a considerable deal of her, and -I shall venture to put her down here as she seems to me, who am no judge -and do not matter anyway. - -In the first place I shall assert, though it were at the risk of my -life, that the American woman is not always beautiful, and that even the -beautiful American woman is not always beautiful. I shall go further and -say that for one beautiful woman per thousand head of the population in -America we can produce at least three in England and four or five in -Ireland. Furthermore, the English or the Irish beauty will last you three -times as long as the American variety, and in point of fact it seldom -really wanes, whereas, in America, feminine beauty nearly always passes, -and passes quickly. - -It should be clearly understood—and I say it with my hand on my -heart—that this is not the fault of the American woman, with whom I have -no quarrel, and upon whom I desire to pass no aspersion. The vulgar -commentators on the American woman’s physical blemishes and shortcomings -have assured us that they are the direct result of her diet, which -is said to consist of pea-nuts, griddle cakes, oysters, pie, turkey, -stewed terrapin, tinned mushrooms, fat ham, cheese, chocolates, and ice -cream. As is usually the case, however, the vulgar commentators are -entirely wrong. The real enemy of the American woman’s beauty is the -American climate. In the process of time it is climate that makes and -mars everything. It is climate that has made the African black and the -European white. It is climate that is rapidly transforming the American -man into a sort of ignoble red man or Kickapoo Indian, and it is climate -that may eventually make the American woman resemble a squaw. The -American climate produced the American Indian. The American climate is -modifying the physique of the American man and marring and obliterating -the great and undeniable beauty of the American woman. - -Most male Americans that one meets nowadays have a curiously Indianised -cast of figure and countenance. Their blood as we know is hybrid blood, -but somehow you never find an American that looks like an Italian or a -Spaniard or an Englishman. Always and inevitably there is that about -him which reminds you of the Indian. Climate is stronger than blood, or -at any rate, the American climate has proved stronger so far. Roughly -speaking, it may be said to induce in the human male black straight hair, -horse features, a swarthy complexion, inclining to a coppery redness, a -thick neck, large hands and flat feet. Its effects upon women I shall -refrain from rehearsing, but you will not fail to discern them if you -look carefully at the next American woman you happen to come across, that -is if she happens to be anything other than one of those splendid and -alluring peaches for the production of which in such charming numbers all -men should be eternally grateful. - -I have further to reflect that the American woman’s beauty and charm are, -as a rule, very seriously discounted by the circumstance that she talks -through her nose, with that atrocious intonation that is commonly called -the American accent. I should defy Venus herself to impress with her -beauty anybody above the quality of a dollar hunter or a pork-packer if -she could be imagined to speak in the average American way. - -Coming now to the question of goodness, which is a delicate question, it -seems to me more than probable that the American woman is just as good, -and no better, than the rest of womankind. She has been accused of all -sorts of frightfulness—mainly on account of her unfortunate accent and -her free and easy methods of talk. It is certain that she is capable of -the higher forms of devotion and self-sacrifice, even if her views on -divorce are entirely airy and liberal. - -But I do not believe that her heart is wicked, and as women go in the -virtue way, she is unsurpassed. In some other respects I must confess -she is to be forgiven, although she is, so far as mind, disposition, and -outlook are concerned, a great deal too much like her half-civilised -Poppa, and affects a great deal too much of the cheap smartness and -abounding audacity that are the stock-in-trade of her still less -civilised brother. - -If you talk with an American girl for any length of time you will -discover that among other defects she is troubled with what one may term -a statistical, or, perhaps, more correctly, an arithmetical mind. Her -male folk talk dollars and put everything into the terms of dollars. -She, cute little bon-bon head, talks figures. She is as full of dates -as a Scotchman, and as full of heights, depths, widths, dimensions, -aggregations, and general computations as a guide-book. She will pour -into your willing ear particulars as to the population of the city in -which she was “raised,” and the next city to that, and the next. She is -sure to tell you that she came over on such and such a liner, that they -had exactly one thousand three hundred and forty-nine persons aboard, -including three hundred officers and crew, two hundred and seventeen -saloon passengers, and a precise number of second class and steerage -people. “That ship has got eight thousand electric lights, five hundred -portholes, eight thousand seven hundred and twenty-five tons of coal -in her bunkers, when she leaves port; her stores include four thousand -knives, forks, and spoons, and ten thousand bottles of old rye whiskey; -she is an American boat, and there are twenty performers in the band, -and her captain has made the return trip two hundred and seventy-three -times,” and so on, until you begin to feel as if you had fallen into -a ready reckoner, and to wonder whether in some occult way the young -lady receives a commission from the steamship company. Like every other -American man, woman or child, Mark Twain included, she is plagued also -with the “pass-a-given-point” mania. The Americans are literally eaten up -with processions, and the glory of every one of them is determined by the -circumstance that it took so many minutes to pass a given point. Of the -latest records in this connection, the American girl is sure to prattle -to you with amazing zest. In brief, her mind, besides containing much -that is really valuable and certainly interesting, is a storehouse of -unimportant and altogether gratuitous and unnecessary facts. Summed up, -she is pert, provoking, chock full of information, moderately pretty, a -good deal of a bore, and—an obvious peach. - -Then there is the American married woman, who may or who may not have -been married in several different places. If you meet this lady casually -in London or on the Continent, it will take you quite a week to discover -which of the numerous men by whom she is always squired, happens to be -her husband. - -Of course, the Americans consider their women the pink of propriety. -“The ladies of this State, sir,—and I am proud to say of every other -State in the Union—are h—l upon propriety!” I do not doubt it, and I -should not say so if I did. The American woman has her good points and -her good qualities, otherwise American man, dazzler as he is, could not -be so idiotically contented with her, or, as he himself phrases it, “sot -on her.” At the same time she has, on the average, omelettes soufflées -for brains and tenderloin steaks for hearts—and in spite of her charming -curves she exhibits defects of mind, emotions, person, and breeding alike -which, in my opinion, condemn her to obscure, or exalt her to take the -highest, rank in the table of civilised feminine precedence according -to the way you look at her. Always excepting, of course, the obvious -peaches. - -[Illustration] - - - - -CHAPTER V - -LITERATURE - - -Mr. William Dean Howells, who is one of the leaders of that small band of -American authors who have a right to literary consideration in England, -has lately published an entertaining romance which he calls “Through the -Eye of the Needle.” With Mr. Howells’s story as a story I have nothing -to do. In the process of relating it Mr. Howells offers us some candid -criticisms of his countrymen which will serve to illustrate the real -opinion of the cultivated American as to himself, and all that to him -appertains. - -“My hero,” writes Mr. Howells, “visited this country when it was on the -verge of great economic depression extending from 1894 to 1898, but, -after the Spanish War, Providence marked the Divine approval of our -victory in that contest by renewing in unexampled measure the prosperity -of the Republic. With the downfall of the Trusts, and the release of our -industrial and commercial forces to unrestricted activity, the condition -of every form of Labour has been immeasurably improved, and it is now -united with Capital in bonds of the closest affection.” - -Mr. Howells does not mean this passage satirically. He is really of -opinion that Providence marked the Divine approval of America’s victory -over Spain “by renewing in unexampled measure the prosperity of the -Republic.” He believes, good easy man, that the Trusts have been humbled, -and that “Labour is now united with Capital in bonds of the closest -affection.” Isn’t it delicious? Mr. Howells further informs us that the -servant problem in America has been “solved once for all by humanity,” -and that New York is no longer a city of violent and unthinkable noises. - -“The flattened wheel of the trolley,” he says, “banging the track day and -night, and tormenting the waking and sleeping ear, was, oddly enough, -the inspiration of Reforms which have made our city the quietest in -the world. The trolleys now pass unheard; the elevated train glides by -overhead with only a modulated murmur, the subway is a retreat fit for -meditation and prayer, where the passenger can possess his soul in a -peace to be found nowhere else; the automobile whirrs softly through the -most crowded thoroughfare, far below the speed limit, with a sigh of -gentle satisfaction in its own harmlessness, and, ‘like the sweet South, -taking and giving odor.’” It is beside the mark to note that Shakespeare -did not write “taking” but “stealing,” and he certainly did not spell -odour Mr. Howells’s way. - -Our author proceeds to assure us that American men are not now the -intellectual inferiors of American women, “or at least not so much the -inferiors”; that American men have made “a vast advance in the knowledge -and love of literature,” and that “with the multitude of our periodicals, -and the swarm of our fictions selling from a hundred thousand to half a -million each, even our business men cannot wholly escape culture, and -they have become more and more cultured, so that now you frequently hear -them asking what this or that book is all about.” - -Later he says of the New Yorkers: “They are purely commercial, and the -thing that cannot be bought and sold has logically no place in their -life. They applaud one another for their charities, which they measure -by the amount given, rather than by the love which goes with the giving. -The widow’s mite has little credit with them, but the rich man’s million -has an acclaim that reverberates through their newspapers long after his -gift is made. It is only the poor in America who do charity—by giving -help where it is needed; the Americans are mostly too busy, if they are -at all prosperous, to give anything but money; and the more money they -give, the more charitable they esteem themselves. From time to time some -man with twenty or thirty millions gives one of them away, usually to -a public institution of some sort, where it will have no effect with -the people who are under-paid for their work, or cannot get work; and -then his deed is famed throughout the Country as a thing really beyond -praise. Yet anyone who thinks about it must know that he never earned the -millions he kept, or the millions he gave, but somehow made them from the -labours of others; that with all the wealth left him he cannot miss the -fortune that he lavishes, any more than if the check (English, cheque) -which conveyed it were a withered leaf, and not in any wise so much as an -ordinary working man might feel the bestowal of a postage stamp.” - -We have here, as I have said, views on America not by a shouting American -bluffer or dealer in hyperbole, but by a man of recognised literary -parts and judgment. Furthermore, Mr. Howells is plainly not one of those -Americans who affect a contempt for their country. When he speaks -of American success he attributes it to the favour of Providence; he -can perceive a “vast advance” in the American’s knowledge and love of -literature, and while he reproves the American millionaire, he does so -more in sorrow than in anger. So that on the whole his testimony cannot -fairly be traversed. - -And reading between the lines of it, the intelligent observer will not be -slow to discern that it amounts practically to a pretty severe indictment -of the Americans. A man who has no place in his life for a thing that -cannot be bought and sold, is not, after all, the kind of man one can be -expected to admire, even though Providence may appear to smile upon him. -Neither can I express myself violently taken with the man who is “not so -much the intellectual inferior of our women”—and such women—even if you -do frequently hear him asking what this or that book is all about. And -Mr. Howells’s opinion of millionaires and their charity coincides pretty -well with the opinion of Europe. - -Mr. Howells, of course, is a well bred, well mannered and entirely -discreet author; he sets down naught in malice, his tendency being -rather in the direction of a little gentle extenuation. Irony, sarcasm, -reproach, and, least of all, flouts and jeers are not among his literary -weapons. - -It goes without saying, however, that America has been written about -in much harsher tones than those of Mr. Howells. From an American book -published pseudonymously two or three years back, a book that does not -appear to have received anything like its due share of recognition either -in England or America, I cull the following picturesque details:— - - “From the moment he takes his seat in his office, until he - goes home, an American’s business consists of a succession of - swindles. He either picks the pocket of each man he interviews, - or the men pick his.” - - * * * * * - - “The American gloats over his ability as a liar. He prides - himself upon the fact that his lie is a plausible one and - likely to deceive. If it does not come up to the specifications - he regards it and himself as failures, and a shadow is cast - upon his life.” - - * * * * * - - “The American who has just borrowed a dollar immediately rushes - into the nearest bar room and announces that he has raised - 500,000 dollars from a prominent millionaire who has become his - partner, and will back him to any amount in any enterprise, - sane or insane, in which he may agree to embark. Then for the - succeeding three hours he talks about himself so loudly that - the entire neighbourhood throngs around him to join in the - debate.” - - * * * * * - - “The American trader in Europe has created the same feeling - that prevails among a party of honest cardplayers when the - card-sharper appears at the table.” - - * * * * * - - “The American politician never speaks but always ‘orates.’ - If the matter under discussion in the legislative body is a - question whether five cents shall be expended on pencils, or - whether Mrs. Bridget O’Neill, or Mrs. Patrick O’Reilly shall - be appointed scrubwoman of the Senate House, he considers it - beneath his dignity to say anything that will not recall the - diction of Cicero or Demosthenes. If the ceiling is to be - cleaned and a three-and-elevenpenny contract is to be given - out, he takes the floor and with a loud preliminary bellow - announces that he is an American citizen, and anyone who says - that he is not is a confirmed and hereditary liar.” - - * * * * * - - “If an American learns that a man has been bribed he does not - hate him—he envies him.” - - * * * * * - - “In New York society no man is ever referred to as ‘Mr. Jones’ - or ‘Mr. Smith.’ He is always referred to as ‘Mr. Jones, who is - worth two million dollars,’ or ‘Mr. Smith, who is worth four - million dollars and stole every cent of it.’” - - * * * * * - - “The average Chicagoan has not the faintest conception of the - true meaning of right and wrong. Right is the method that - succeeds in getting money. Wrong is the method that does not.” - -I shall beg the reader to observe particularly that I do not myself make -these stinging assertions. In the words of the late Sir William Harcourt, -“I merely quote them.” In a sense, perhaps, they may be most correctly -described as exaggerations. But they are exaggerations of a kind which -have more than a substratum of truth in them. I commend them to the -swaggering rubber-jawed American for what they are worth. - -Did the scope of this book allow, it would be possible to cite numerous -other animadversions upon American manners and customs by other pens. - -No British author of standing has visited the United States and come -back in love with the American people. Dickens loathed them, Thackeray -could not put up with them, Mathew Arnold despised them, and Browning -laughed at them, while as for Tennyson he absolutely refused to go near -them. Even the sensational litterateurs of our own generation, such as -Hall Caine or Bernard Shaw, have failed to find much or anything to -shriek about. The Bishop of London and Father Vaughan are not authors -but diplomats. Rudyard Kipling has been in America more than once, and -remains dumb as to the whole concern. Mr. Zangwill is equally travelled -and equally silent. Mr. Wells, who went out for the purpose, has written -his book and said practically nothing. All of them, and others who -might be named, recognise that what ought to be said would be better -unsaid—unpleasant for the Americans, and consequently likely to provoke -bad feeling. It is gentlest to the Americans to write of them without -paying a preliminary visit to their native air. What would happen if a -person who wields a plain blunt pen were to make a call upon them and set -forth his impressions in good cold type and without fear or pity, no man -may tell. Probably the Americans would shoot him. - -[Illustration] - -[Illustration] - - - - -CHAPTER VI - -THE PRESIDENT - - -It is said that killing a man will not prevent him from going to Chicago, -and you may be certain that nothing will prevent an American from getting -himself elected President of the United States if he can possibly manage -it. - -The United States Presidency is believed by the patriotic American to be -the very finest position that mortal man could possibly desire to occupy, -outshining in glory and honour, if not exactly in importance, all “the -effete thrones of Yurrup” rolled into one paroxysm of purple. Tremendous -and almighty as the United States Presidency may be, however, its real -lustre and attraction for the American imagination lies in the fact that -it is within the possible attainment of any and every United States -citizen who does not happen to be a nigger. Of course, your United States -President has sometimes been a very different affair from the United -States Presidency. But that is neither here nor there; because a man who -can write “President U.S.” after his name is, on the face of it, clearly -entitled to think that he casts a large shadow. And he does. - -Though the history books will tell you otherwise, astute people—which -phrase includes a fair handful of Americans—are of opinion that the -Republic of the United States has had only a matter of three Presidents. -The first of them was George Washington, who, let it be said, set the -fashion of not relishing the job; the second of them was Abraham Lincoln, -rail splitter, lawyer, statesman and martyr; and the third American -President—one blushes with pride to name him—is none other than Theodore -Roosevelt, now more or less happily reigning. - -I am no great hand at either history or biography, so that the reader of -these pages will be spared the usual entertaining biographical details. I -am not even aware if Mr. Roosevelt arrived at the White House by way of -the traditional Log Cabin, or whether he took a pleasanter, less stony -and less circuitous route. It is sufficient for me to have reasonable -hearsay evidence that he is there, and that he has filled up frantically -every hour of his time since he got there. - -For the ruler of a great state Mr. Roosevelt is, to say the least, an -appealing and exciting figure. He may be said fairly to out-rival -anything of the kind that has hitherto been offered us this side of the -Atlantic—with one diverting and rhetorical Teutonic exception. - -In Mr. Roosevelt you have the following popular and captivating elements: - -He is:— - - A Dutchman. - An American. - A Diplomat. - A Soldier. - A Lawn-Tennis Champion. - A Cow-boy. - A Big Game Shooter. - A Strong Man. - An Anti-Malthusian. - A Hand-Shaker-of-All-Comers. - A Stump Orator. - A Spelling Reformer. - An Apostle of the Strenuous Life. - A Husband. - A Father. - A Family Man. - A Deacon. - A Humourist. - A Pugilist. - A Harriman-hunter. - A Hardy Horseman. - A Dog Fancier. - An Author. - A Judge of White Mice. - A San Juan Hero. - A Nobel Prize Winner. - A Statesman of the First Order. - A Hustler; - and - President of the United States of America. - -Probably it has never been possible to compile such an inventory in -favour of any other example of the human species, and when one looks down -its massive proportions one is at no loss to understand why the American -people consider themselves to be the very finest people on earth and -entirely denuded of flies. - -In a comparatively short if variegated career President Roosevelt has -accomplished so much that is extraordinary that one never knows where -he is likely to break out afresh. Before his term of office is out he -may conceivably become many other things besides those I have listed. -It would not surprise me if he turned Vegetarian or King. Nothing -is too high for him, nothing too humble, nothing too exceptional or -unconventional, nothing too imperial. And withal there is a rugged and -stern and solid dignity about him. He wields the big stick throughout -his vast dominions, and spanks down evildoers as a housewife spanks down -wasps. At home he stands no nonsense; abroad he wants peace, perfect -peace, but equally stands no foolery. People of all nations admire him -and wave banners over his head and cheer him to the echo. He is a sort -of quick-firer, strong in the arm and lively in the head, and built by -heaven to rule over the people of the United States. - -In many respects President Roosevelt appears to be a sort of republican -replica of no less a personage than Wilhelm II. of Germany. The parallel -between the two potentates is interesting and diverting and to some -extent disconcerting. That they are friends, that they think together on -certain big subjects, that they have exchanged telegrams, that they love -each other, and that they have both been a trifle flighty at times cannot -be doubted. - -The really interesting point about Mr. Roosevelt is that he may be -reckoned to stand for the finest expression and exemplar of the American -people. A nation that can manufacture such a President must be possessed -of national characteristics altogether out of the common. He is the -absolute personification of the United States. He is absolutely fearless, -he is absolutely honest, he is absolutely magnificent. Someday he may be -absolutely absolute. - -You may be sure that President Roosevelt will go down to posterity as -the beau ideal of American Presidents. In the eye of the Americans he -has made few if any mistakes, and though there is a party in the States -that can be very bitter about him and very rude to him, their bark is -considerably worse than their bite, and secretly they glory in him. -By dint of a good deal of adroitness he has succeeded in keeping his -diplomatic end up in Europe and particularly in England, and nobody -between Tipperary and the Great Wall of China has hard words for him. The -world recognises in him a great genius—unparalleled in modern times. - -If ever an American had sound reason to look back with satisfaction on a -well-spent life, Mr. Roosevelt is the man. And if ever republic had just -cause to thank Providence for its luck in the matter of a President, the -United States is that Republic. - -[Illustration] - - - - -CHAPTER VII - -ADVERTISEMENT - - -“The man who would in business rise must either bust or advertise” is -the American’s article of faith. In civilised countries advertising is -confined to its proper limits, that is to say, it is part of the business -of a tradesman. In America everybody advertises, and advertises through a -megaphone. - -The United States appears to have been created for the pure purpose of -advertising itself and everything that occurs in it. In England of late -we have been a little overtroubled with the persistent and flamboyant -advertiser. His flaring posters, his disconcerting circulars, and -particularly his promises of fabulous prizes if one will but buy his soap -or his half-penny paper or his gaspipe bicycles have jarred upon most of -us. The London hoardings blaze with all sorts of invitations to drink -cocoa, swallow pills, go to the theatre, and demand bottled trouble of -one label or another. - -The plague is upon England, and probably we shall not get rid of it for -a couple of generations or so. In the meantime, however, we may console -ourselves with the knowledge that gaudy and excruciating as London -advertising may be, it is a mere tea-party compared to the orgie of -announcement that is always in progress in every bright American city. -Furthermore, while the English advertiser has admittedly done his best -to destroy for us the mild delights of a railway journey by erecting in -every second meadow funereal signs with the names of liver pills and -cattle foods upon them he has not yet attained to the audacities of his -American confrère who, in his delirium of publicity, paints the names -of nostrums on the sides of innocuous cows and adorns the scenery with -purple and yellow posters that are positively zoo-like in their noise. - -The rocks and hills of America are daubed over with wild entreaties to -the passer-by to fix up his liver with some newly invented mixture, or to -sow someone’s invaluable hair seed on his bald head. Each country barn is -decorated with huge signs bearing disinterested advice as to what sort of -medicine a wayfarer should use in the spring. In no part of any State can -one escape the huge advertisement. If you penetrate into the recesses of -the highest mountain and find there the hut of a bewhiskered hermit, the -chances are that when you approach him he will give you some handbills -containing details of the marvellous cures effected by So-and-So’s -sarsaparilla. The sails of yachts are adorned with statements as to -medicines. Landscapes serve but to promulgate the claims of the quack. -If a man plants a bed of geraniums the chances are that the flowers are -arranged in such a way that they immortalise the fame of somebody’s -ipecachuana. The gardener is induced to do this by a present of free -seeds. - -In the trolley cars of New York one is always in danger of finding a -seat under some such notice as, “The gentleman sitting beneath this sign -is wearing a pair of our inimitable three dollar pants. They fit him -beautifully. Don’t you think they do?” Or, “The gentleman sitting below -has a very yellow complexion this morning. He looks as if he had drunk -too much last night. If he had had proper advice he would have taken a -dose of Green Jackdaw Effervescent before breakfast, then he would feel -very much better than he does now.” - -Pills, potions, pick-me-ups, blood purifiers, liver mixtures, lung -tonics, corn cures, and preparations for tender feet appear to be the -only articles of commerce that half the population of the United States -trade in and manufacture. You cannot move in America without having -these nostrums cast violently into your teeth and shoved down your throat -by every species of reminder that printers’ ink and the ingenuity of the -devil are capable of compassing. - -With a view to the maintenance and upkeep of this extraordinary jumble -of publicity the country is patrolled year in and year out by thousands -of advertising vans, each accompanied by a considerable staff of “old -hands.” American papers commonly contain paragraphs like the following: -“Advertising car No 2 of Pawnee Bill’s Wild West has the following -people: Al Osborn, manager; Doc Ingram, boss billposter; A. Clarkson, -lithographer; J. Dees, banners; N. C. Murray, J. Judge and twelve other -billposters; B. Balke, paste-maker; and R. Richardson, chef.” That the -boss billposter should rank after the manager and the chef after the -paste-maker is a choice American touch. - -When you turn to the question of newspaper advertising you encounter -pretty much the same characteristics, supplemented by a great deal of -top-speed bellowing. In a high-class paper that lies before me as I -write, a gentleman in the wholesale way announces in indecently tall -black type that he is the “only live hardware man on earth,” and that he -has “figured out a way to boost the business of his customers as well -as build a good foundation.” Another dweller in the land of brotherly -love—an artiste this time, if you please—announces himself as “The Death -Defying Daredevil King of the High Wire” and assures us not only that he -has been “the Feature Attraction for Three Seasons in Succession at Luna -Park, Coney Island,” but that his “Reputation Talks for Itself.” - -The tone of these announcements is typical. Every American advertiser -insists that he is the greatest man of business alive, and that the -article he is so anxious to get rid of is the only fine thing in the -world. You note, too, with a certain restrained joy, that every second -advertisement appearing in an American paper or magazine starts off with -the magical words: “It Will Pay You.” Thus if we are to believe the -veracious publicity-monger it will pay you to wear So and So’s Collegian -clothes which “are the only garments made in this entire country with -real dash to them”; it will pay you to buy Thingamy Suspenders because -they will make your boy “comfortable and good-natured”; it will pay you -to go about in Thingamy Shoes because when you pay three dollars for the -Thingamy Shoe “you can know that all of your money goes to the purchase -of protection for your feet”; and it will pay you “to keep step with -nature and tempt the fussy appetite with ‘Ten Liberal Breakfasts for Ten -Cents.’” The authors of these touching suggestions evidently understand -the public with whom they have to deal. They have learnt the sublime -lesson that the American has but a single inducement in his nightmare of -a life, namely—the inducement of money or noise. - -I shall now consider the advertising feats of that class of American -persons who advertise not for financial gain, but for the sweet sake -of notoriety. A great lady of American birth is said to have advised -her sons that if they were to succeed in life they must make a point of -getting their names into the papers at least once a day. The sons of the -lady appear to have taken the hint, with the result that they have made -themselves fairly snug out of very small beginnings. - -In the United States the bare getting of one’s name into the papers is a -comparatively easy matter. Pretty well any American reporter will arrange -that much for you in return for a ten cent drink, while for two such -drinks he will run to a photo-block and a description of yourself as “a -prominent society and club man who made his pile in Wall Street.” - -You must always remember, however, that the accomplished American private -advertiser has a soul vastly above the mere elements of the game. Usually -he is rich and often his life has contained episodes which an ingenious -press can work up into scandals with half a column of sensational -headlines—pin new and piping hot—on the shortest notice. Most wealthy -advertising Americans, and indeed many of those who do not advertise, -have been treated to this beautiful brand of publicity. - -As a matter of fact it is an ancient and over-worn fetich, and as the -newspaper-reading American is no longer to be excited by it, there is -little or nothing in it for anybody. Consequently the American who is -thirsty for advertisement is compelled to have resource to what are -called “stunts.” So far as one is able to make out you are considered by -American society to achieve a “stunt” when you do something that nobody -but a lunatic could possibly have thought of doing. For example, if you -give a dinner party at a big New York hotel and let it be known that -the guests were all of them chimpanzees you have done a “stunt.” And -the reporters of every paper in the city will rush to you as one man to -find out the facts. They will describe you as a multi-millionaire and a -high-life club man whose existence is a sort of perennial grand slam. -They will assert that your notion of bringing together a company of -chimpanzees for dinner is wildly and unprecedentedly clever. They will -go on to explain that the number of chimpanzees present was 47, that -they turned up in the very smartest evening dress, that they ate and -drank off plate of solid gold and that the champagne bottles were studded -with rubies. And they will wind up by announcing that one of the most -distinguished of the chimpanzees, who made his entrance to the dinner -party out of a balloon made of fifty dollar bills, has just found a -$500,000,000 gold-brick mine in a remote district of Omaha, where he was -“raised,” and is as a consequence about to be elected President of the -National Bank. - -Result: your dinner becomes the talk of America for at least a few hours, -and you consider yourself a fortunate and public man. That is, if you -are an ambitious American. Of course, this sort of advertising requires -a good deal of coin to keep up the pace. And while there is not an hotel -keeper in the Union who cannot supply you with a steady succession of -idiotic freak ideas, the cost is a trifle heavy, and you soon find -yourself growing rather tired. - -But the American is nothing if not clever. For a change, perhaps, he -acquires an affinity or elopes with another man’s wife in a series of -gorgeous motor cars and specially reserved steamships. He writes letters -to his own wife explaining in ecstatic language what he has done; and -she, good soul, serves them out to the reporters like so many doughnuts. -Again, he gets his boosting—his roaring, rolling advertisement. Two -months later the whole affair may turn out to have been a merry little -“plant”; but your bright American has had his glad columns in the papers, -and nothing in the world can take them from him. - -Of course, the “stunts” I have here indicated are really of a rather -out-of-the-way sort. The common or garden “stunt” usually takes the shape -of an appendicitis dinner, pies with girls in them, fountains running -champagne, or Adam and Eve suppers. - -American women’s “stunts” are generally giddier still. One lady compassed -social distinction by having her sunshade heavily embroidered with -diamonds, another has tiny musical boxes fitted into the heels of her -shoes that play when ever she puts her feet up—which is often—and a third -wears a live newt in her hair, and has a boudoir full of snakes and lucky -bears. - -But the soul and essence of it all is advertisement. “Be singular and -you will get talked about; get talked about and you will be happy” is -America’s golden rule. - -[Illustration] - - - - -CHAPTER VIII - -THE PEA-NUT MIND - - -I am in the happy position of never having gazed upon a pea-nut in my -life. Therefore my notions of what the pea-nut may be are of the haziest. - -But I gather as the result of some research that it is a species of -provender, and that it is purchased and consumed by the American masses -in pretty much the same spirit and on pretty well the same occasions -that the common Cockney of our own happy British Islands purchases and -devours barcelonas and whelks. In other words, a pea-nut is an inevitable -concomitant of a lower-class American holiday. It is always with them. It -is the one article that you may depend upon obtaining not only at every -American dry goods store, but at every street-fair, park, beach, and -entertainment ground throughout the country. It is a comestible beloved -of old and young alike, and when the American boy or girl’s mouth is not -at work on chewing gum it is working overtime on pea-nuts. - -When a working-class American wants a holiday—and sometimes when he would -rather stay at home—he sets out with his wife and family for the nearest -park. In England, of course, a park means, for the working classes -at any rate, a somewhat decorous and over-laid-out open space where -there is a band-stand, a range of concrete promenades, a Swiss châlet -where bad tea is provided, a policeman, and a number of hard seats. In -America, however, the park is an entirely different affair. It is always -a place in which you can buy pea-nuts. Not only so; it is a place in -which the benevolent American entrepreneurs throw together aggregations -of “attractions” such as are to be seen nowhere else on sea or land. I -find, for example, that for Cream City Park, Lyons, Ill., the following -amusement devices are to be provided during this present summer:— - -“Old Mill, Merry-Go-Rounds, Penny Arcade, Circular Swing, Cave of the -Winds, Billiard and Pool Parlours, Jap Ping-Pong Parlour, Cane Rack, Baby -Rack, Illusion Shows, Baby Incubator, Pony Track, Razzle-Dazzle, and -‘other novelties.’ There are also to be Japanese Tea Gardens, Ice Cream -Stands, Soft Drink Stands, Candy and Pop Corn Stands, and facilities for -the sale of pea-nuts.” - -Another of these parks at Aldoc Beach, near Buffalo, is described as -“running seven days a week” and as possessing “the most magnificent -Pine Grove and Great Lake,” together with “a $100,000 Summer Hotel, a -$15,000 Figure Eight, a $5,000 Rustic Vaudeville Theatre, and a $5,000 -Dance Pavilion,” in addition to a Blinding Array of Restaurants, Chubbuck -Wheels, Houses of Mirth, Box-Ball Alleys, Shooting Galleries, Circle -Swings, and Stands for the sale of Soft Drinks, Tobaccos, Sandwiches, Ice -Creams, Frankfurters—and pea-nuts. - -There are literally thousands of these parks scattered throughout the -United States, and at all and each of them roaring provision is made for -the people’s enjoyment. Compared with our English parks, with their sad, -uncertain County Council bands, they fire the imagination. Practically -they represent the old English fair—which the drab English authorities -have so ruthlessly stamped out—very much modernised, Americanised, -and “notionised.” Here the pea-nut reigns supreme. You chew it on the -Razzle-Dazzle and in the Baby Rack and the Old Mill and the House of -Mirth and the Chubbuck Wheel, and even in the $15,000 Figure Eight and -the $5,000 Rustic Vaudeville. It is pea-nuts, pea-nuts, pea-nuts all the -time, and nobody hopes, and nobody has the least desire to get away from -them—from pea-nuts. - -Now, as the parks are open throughout the year and run seven days a week, -and are all situated within easy distance of large centres of population, -it follows that the consumption of pea-nuts in America is something -enormous. If the yearly supply were to be put into trucks and looped up -into a procession, it would probably take that procession 368 days to -pass a given point. - -The big fact that I wish to bring out is that the Americans are a -pea-nut-fed nation. With this simple statement it is possible to account -for a great deal that is otherwise inexplicable in the American genius -and character. - -Nut-chewing is a habit which has been in vogue on the earth for an -incredible period. Originally developed by the Simian races, it was at -one time the only known dietetic habit that did not involve bloodshed. -It fell into neglect in Europe with the coming of the white man, and -throughout the dark ages which ensued nobody appears to have given it -a thought. It remained for the genius of America to revive it, and -there can be no doubt that the renascence has been brought about in a -thoroughly adequate and successful manner. - -For, as I have shown, all America now chews pea-nuts. As the result, -they are a square-jawed, massy-faced race, martyrs to dyspepsia, fussy in -the matter of appetite, and indiscriminate in the general selection of -viands, their staples under this head consisting of fat pork and beans, -corn mush and jungle-canned beef. Moreover, by dint of the assiduous and -long-continued absorption of pea-nuts, they have acquired what may be -reasonably termed a pea-nut mind. - -If you can imagine the vast hordes of the original nut-chewers of -antiquity suddenly set down in the midst of the machinery and advantages -of twentieth-century civilisation, and imagine what they would proceed -to do in the circumstances, you have gone a great way towards a true -conception of the American people as they really are. Their habits and -manners and aspirations and desires appear in effect to be based entirely -on nut-chewing, which, as every naturalist is aware, tends to render the -chewer acquisitive, cute, tricksome, not given to reflection, tough and -nimble of body, and reasonably devoid of soul. The habit carries with -it, also, an innate love of what is noisy and showy, and a vanity which -passes ordinary human understanding. It is all based on the desire to -dazzle. - -So long as America has parks, so long will she chew pea-nuts, and -so long as she chews pea-nuts, so long will she continue to remain -as artlessly, amazingly and convincingly American as she is at the -present moment. To take a few pertinent instances, you will find that -all American oratory is simply and solely pea-nut oratory. I append an -extract from a speech delivered at the New York Board of Aldermen by a -representative from the Borough of Brooklyn, as reported in an American -paper:— - - “I demand this ordinance to your attention fer the sake of - humanity and fer the cause of freedom. Has introduced two - ordinances on this subject before, and now I am submittin’ this - Bill instead of them two. Maybe I don’t know nuthin’ about how - things is over here on this side of the bridge, but I know just - how it is in Brooklyn. An’ I wanter tell you that them motormen - over in Brooklyn is grinded under the heels of their masters - just as the slaves was drove in the olden times by his masters, - an’ it’s time fer us to interfere in this here matter now. - - “Now you may want to know why them motormen don’t come over - here and speak up to you for their rights. If the is suffering - such outrages as this, you asks, why don’t they come here and - tell us that they is sufferin’ and ast us to life the yoke from - offen them? - - “I’ll tell yer why they don’t come. They dasn’t. That’s why. - - “They’re afraid, because they’re slaves and dasn’t speak up - fer themselves. If they was to come over here and say to this - committee, ‘We want you to protect us in our rights for the - reason that we’re sufferin’ and frozing in the winter,’ what - would happen? - - “Why, before them men got through speakin’ their names would be - taken and telegraphed to their masters, and when they got back - to their cars them masters would tell them they hadn’t no more - use for ’em no more furever.” - -Herein surely one may trace the effects of pea-nuts as easily as white -paint can be seen on a negro. - -Now let us turn to a sample of English “as she is wrote” and apparently -spoken by the American who can read:— - - The story about that fisherman wasn’t so bad. He was an old - guy, and so poor he had a hard time getting three squares a - day, and he had a wife and three kids to support. For some - reason too deep for your uncle, he had a rule to pitch his - nets in the sea only four times a day. One morning he went out - fishing before daylight, and the first drag he made, he copped - out a dead donkey. That made him pretty sore. Dead donks were a - frost, and he was out one throw. He win out a lot of mud, the - next throw, and he was sick, and he makes a howl about fortune. - - “Here I am,” says he, “hustling all day long and every day in - the week; I got no other graft but this; and yet as hard as I - wrestle I can’t pay rent. A poor man has no chance. The smooth - guys get all the tapioca, and the honest citizen nit.” - - Then he throws again, and finds another gold brick—stones, - shells, and stuff. I guess he was pretty wild when he sees - that. Three throws to the bad and nairy fish. - - When the sun came over the hill, he flopped down on his knees - and prayed like all good Mussulmens, and after that gave the - Lord another song. - -English of this description runs very badly to pea-nut. It is distorted -and degraded and entirely ungrammatical. Yet no one will deny that, if -it is not commonly written, it is at least commonly spoken, even in -such centres as New York and Boston. To American ears and eyes there is -nothing about it that can be quarrelled with. Every American knows what -is meant by “guys,” “tapioca,” “nit,” “gold-brick,” “nairy,” “squares,” -“hot-air,” and so forth; and he uses these and similarly squalid words -and phrases in his daily speech and conversation. If you were to tell him -that such a sentence as “he win out a lot of mud, the next throw” was -grammatically unsound and impossible, he would ask you please to be so -kind “as not to pull his leg.” He is mentally incapable of distinguishing -the kind of muss I have quoted from writing of a correct order, and when -it creeps into his newspapers, and fictional publications, as it is -continually doing, he never as much as suspects that there is anything -wrong. - -Such a pea-nutty view of language points its own moral. It is a view that -is universal among Americans, and it can be proved to obtain even among -the best of American authors, who habitually use some of the crudest -Americanisms without knowing it. - -I need scarcely add that the pea-nut flavour predominates in most -American affairs. The advertising of the country is done wholly on -pea-nut principles, its politics are run on pea-nut lines, and its -professional men and financiers indulge in every species of pea-nut -methods. No doubt one should be charitable enough to refrain from blaming -them for it. They are to the manner born, and the pea-nut idiosyncracy -is so firmly implanted in their natures that it would be impossible for -them to shake it out, even if they tried. So that they go on pea-nutting -and pea-nutting from generation to generation, and in spite of the -extraordinary number of colleges, free schools, reading clubs, and -general facilities for culture, they remain clear pea-nut right through. - -As I do not happen to wish them any particular harm, I shall express the -pious hope that they will long continue to pea-nut. - -[Illustration] - - - - -CHAPTER IX - -THE DRAMA - - -The Americans are nothing if not fiercely and incorrigibly theatrical. -It is true that they have only one pose, namely, the pose of being -gloriously and unaffectedly American. Yet in all the large issues of life -they display a strong sense of the stage, they revel in the more obvious -situations, and they have an innate love of a good curtain. - -These facts are strikingly illustrated in the American law courts, -where all small matters are managed on the lines of comedy, and all -large matters on the lines of hot and lurid melodrama. The recent Thaw -trial may be taken as a typical case in point, so far as melodrama is -concerned. The speeches of counsel on both sides might have been written -specially for the Adelphi Theatre, and every gesture of the rival -declaimers would seem to have been modelled on the style of the adipose -itinerant actor who plays “Othello” in penny gaffs. - -So far as the real stage is concerned, the Americans are to be credited -with quite a number of startling innovations. They were the sole -inventors of the Deadwood Dick kind of play, which involves the tooling -on to the stage of an ancient and battered mail coach, accompanied by -feats of unthinkable skill with the shooting irons. I believe, too, -that they were the only begetters of the drama that has for its central -attraction a real set-to between bona-fide bruisers, who fight with the -gloves off and punish one another for all they are worth under American -rules. - -Then, of course, I must not forget to mention the world-renowned “Tank -Drama.” It appears that an American manager happened once upon a time to -find himself in a second-hand galvanised iron store. Here he discovered -an enormous iron tank which he found could be purchased for a song. -In a fit of abstraction, and in pursuance of the American tendency to -buy anything and everything that can be had dirt cheap, he purchased -the tank. And having it on his hands and no particular use for it, he -hired a dramatist to write a play around it. To this woolly genius a -tank of course suggested water and high dives and swimmers, and before -you could say hey, presto! Mr. Manager found himself in possession of a -sensational, if somewhat humid, melodrama, the like of which had never -before been seen on any road. - -The Tank Drama toured the States for years on end, to the approval and -delight of American audiences, and for anything I know to the contrary, -it is still running, the tank itself having by this time, no doubt, grown -a little leaky. - -In England the public is familiar with melodramas in which the principal -part is taken by steam-rollers, circular saws, fire-engines, and other -pieces of mechanism. The Tank Drama, however, was the progenitor of -them all. It was from the Americans, also, that we learnt to grace our -melodramas with the presence on the stage of real live cows, racehorses, -ducks and geese, faithful dogs, dancing bears, blue monkeys, and educated -asses. - -The American public prides itself upon the rapidity with which the -national dramatists, from Clyde Fitch or Augustus Thomas to David Belasco -or Theodore Kremer, can turn out almost any species of dramatic work to -order. On the production of a five-act tragedy recently in New York, -it was announced that the author had written “the whole contraption” -in under the twenty-four hours. I can well believe it. The majority of -American plays that come to us on this side bear unmistakable indications -of having been written in haste, and with a single eye to getting through -with the labour. This is no doubt due to the circumstance that American -managers have a mania for producing new pieces, and that the average run -of such pieces is exceedingly short. Authors do not feel it to be worth -their while to take pains, particularly as the majority of them have to -subsist by dressing up in dramatic guise some new and big mechanical -invention or some cause célèbre or tragedy in real life or some stupid -story, which happens to have caught on, but which they know cannot in the -nature of things keep the stage for more than a few weeks. - -Although one is continually hearing of the triumphs of this or that -American actor or actress in Shakespearean parts, it is a solemn fact -that the average of Shakespearean acting in America is very much below -that of any other country in which Shakespeare is consistently played. I -cannot, of course, forget that America produced the late Mr. Phelps and -gave us Miss Mary Anderson, whom all the world admired. But these are the -exceptions. The rule is that the American actor who plays Shakespeare is -a bull-necked, unlettered mummer who has served his apprenticeship to the -circus business or to the plumbing, and roars out Shakespeare’s lines -with a nasal intonation and an absolute lack of understanding. Nine out -of ten American actors ought to carry a net with them. - -I am aware that it may be contended that the foregoing aspects of the -American drama are things of the past, and that in all essential respects -the theatre in America is nowadays on an equal footing with the theatre -in England. In a considerable measure, this may be so, due, no doubt, -to the mixed beneficence of the blessed brotherhood: Frohman, Klaw and -Erlanger. - -Yet there can be no getting away from the fact that the American plays -and American companies that are from time to time brought to London for -our edification fail woefully to interest us. - -In London, quite lately we have been presented with two plays of American -extraction and rendered by American companies. One of them “Mrs. Wiggs -of the Cabbage Patch” to wit, at Terry’s Theatre, appears to have been -a success, from a monetary point of view, and nobody can witness it -without entertainment. On the other hand, it suffers from that pea-nutty -exuberance and thinness of interest which are so characteristically -American. The sentiment in it is of the floweriest and slobberiest sort, -the comedy forced and jerky, and the setting squalid and depressing to a -degree. It is said to be a transcript of life among the American poorer -classes, and herein conceivably it is instructive if not altogether -uplifting; for it indicates only too plainly that the hackneyed American -talk about “the full dinner-pail” and the general snugness and decency -of the existence of the American poor has precious little foundation in -fact. Of course, Mrs. Wiggs herself is made to exhibit singularly good -qualities of heart, and a certain shrewd and humorous wisdom. But the -rest of the characters—not even excluding the weepily-named Lovey-Mary -and Mrs. Wiggs’s troops of wild-cat children—are the kind of people whom -it sets one’s teeth on edge to meet. If, as I am told, America is full -of Cabbage Patches, I can only say that America should hasten to the -penitent form. - -The other play of which London was adjured to expect great things was -called “Strongheart.” It ran for a couple of weeks or more at the Aldwych -Theatre, and was then taken off. “Strongheart” purported to give us some -highly realistic glimpses of American college life. There was a great -deal of American football in it, and a great deal of ra, ra, ra-ing about -it. There were also unlimited quantities of ra, ra rant. But the plot -exhibited the usual thinness, the construction was slack and loose, -and the characterisation feeble and colourless. If the company which -supported the handsome Robert Edeson in this particular piece is to be -taken as a fair sample, I feel free to conclude that in the lump American -actors and actresses are a reasonably poor crowd. Play as they would, -the men failed to convince us that they were persons of any particular -breeding, and the women said their lines as if they were in pain, and -walked through their parts like so many uninspired clothes horses. Of -course I know America has many gifted actors and actresses such as -William Faversham, James K. Hackett, E. H. Sothern, Julia Merlowe, -Olga Nethersole and Mery Mannering—but, as luck will have it, with the -exception of the second-named, who is a Canadian, they’re all English. -And so is even the inimitable Hap Ward. On the whole, I think America -will have to make some very serious strides in the dramatic art before -she can fairly hope to show England anything that is worth looking at. - -When you turn to the music halls you find the American in equally sad -case. There is no performer of note on the English music-hall stage whose -training and experience have been American. From the other side we get a -few trick bicyclists, wire-walkers, high divers, and comic speech makers -whose pea-nutty witticisms are obviously culled from the comic papers. -They help to fill up the programme, without in any sense helping to fill -up the house. - -It is in this connection that the Americans have made a practical avowal -of their pathetic inferiority; for they are said to have made contracts -with some of the leading English stars for appearances in America, -on terms which plainly indicate that the American managers must be -singularly hard up for talent and quite incapable of finding it in their -own country. - -The fact is, that in this as in a variety of other matters, the -American’s cock-sureness and unblushing faith in his personal beauty -and powers have led him considerably astray. The American really -possesses scarcely any talent. All he can do is to boast and shout and -advertise. And having little or nothing behind him to boast and shout -and advertise about, he is bound in the long run to find himself at a -disadvantage. Half the actresses and female music-hall artists of America -are successful not because they can do anything, but because they have -been “boosted” into fame by the pushful, blatant manager. The sole -accomplishment of many of them is that they can undress prettily in full -view of their audiences. - -For the rest they bolster up their position by extraneous escapades -rather than by art. They are harum-scarum, feather-brained young women -who for the most part would find it exceedingly difficult to get a living -by the exercise of their alleged smartness before an English public. And -as for American actors and music-hall men, the best that can be said of -them is that when they are not vulgar they are deadly dull, and the worst -that their real sphere of life is the American circus. I wish they would -all take to the Tank. - -The average American theatrical man, invariably strikes me as being a -born circus-man, intended by nature to go around in a gaudy procession -by day and to fill up his nights showing off wild beasts and freaks and -Deadwood coaches. Unconsciously he does all his business and manages all -his affairs on circus principles. He is for ever beating the drum and -inviting the crowd to walk up and see the finest show on earth. The ideal -man of his private bosom is the late P. T. Barnum, who was the father of -advertisement and the originator of the fine art of “boosting.” It was -P. T. Barnum who said, or who got somebody to say for him, “When you have -anything good, keep on letting on about it, and you will get rich.” - -The American business man has always considered that saying to be the -extreme height of philosophy. - -[Illustration] - - - - -CHAPTER X - -SPORT - - -The Americans are all “sports.” But to their credit, they are one and -all “dead games.” They have a sporting tradition which extends back to -the time when their great-grandfathers gambled for negresses and went -trailing for Indians in pretty much the same way that an Englishman goes -shooting wild duck. - -It is said, with what truth I know not, that the Americans hunt -the fox in red coats and top-hats, and that they are yachtsmen and -fishermen and big game killers. I have met a considerable number of -Americans—well-to-do and otherwise—but I never yet came across one whom -I could conscientiously figure in any of the latter connections. Of -course, there is the America Cup Race to confound me, and there are the -redoubtable doings of President Roosevelt on the rolling prairie and -in the Rockies, and there is young Mr. Jay Gould’s defeat of our Mr. -Eustace Miles at Rackets or Ping Pong or some such game. All the same, -I will never believe that the modern American is leisurely enough or -uncommercial enough to know much about real sport. - -That they play games in America even as we play games in England appears -to be fairly evident. The game of white man’s games, namely, cricket, -is, however, a game they do not understand. Baseball and football on -the other hand are exercises which they are alleged to have cultivated -out of all recognition. Baseball I know nothing about. And when I come -to consider it closely, I could wish that I knew nothing about American -football. - -Pugilism without the gloves having been forbidden by law in America, -the free and equal inhabitants thereof must e’en look round for a form -of sport which would allow of their “lamming the hides off one another” -without being pulled up short by the police; and they settled on -football. The essence of American football is not to kick or punch the -ball, but to kick, punch, break up, deface and destroy the next man. On -all American football fields a squad of surgeons, bonesetters, and nurses -have to be in continual attendance. The crushing of a player’s ribs, the -gouging out of his eye, or the splitting open of his head are regarded as -trifling matters among American sportsmen, and when the football player -goes forth to the fray, he makes a point of taking a fond farewell of -his relations and friends in case of even more serious accident. Here, -again, you have a distinct instance of the American tendency to outrage -and excess. They have overdone football to such an extent that they -themselves consider it in the light of something which approximates -closely to a murderous affray. So much for games. - -As Indians are no longer shootable, and negroes can no longer be -hunted with dogs, and the buffalo is extinct, and the grizzly a “rare -proposition” and difficult of access, the modern American sport has to be -content with smaller deer, such as possum and bobolink and wild turkey. -And when he goes gunning for these trophies he is a sight to see. Nobody -can rival him in the magnificence of his outfit. He insists upon donning -cow-boy attire and proceeding to the field of action on a fiery mustang, -with a magazine of guns slung all over him, and enough ammunition to take -Port Arthur. The whole of this equipment has been purchased at store -prices, and he acquires it not because it is likely to be useful to him -but because he thinks that it makes him look smart. When it comes to -yachting or fishing or racing you can depend upon him to display an equal -gaiety of demeanour and to “dress” and “swank” the part to perfection. - -For the fox-hunting I shall say nothing. The indigenous American fox does -not run straight, the imported fox has lost some of the best qualities of -his English forbears, and the American variety of foxhound is a romping, -ill-mannered, and indiscreet quadruped. - -The national sport of America is horse racing, qualified with a -considerable dash of trotting. And here, of course, the American -temperament in all its aspects is made to shine. The head quarters -of American horse racing—the Epsom, Ascot and Sandown of the United -States—is a place called Saratoga, where the trunks come from. Here you -find the American horse, the American racing man, and the American sport -in their highest and lowest and most perfect expression. It is said -that a Saratoga horse is poison-proof; being so accustomed to profound -potations of laudanum, bromide, and other sedatives that he can quaff -any quantity of them without turning a hair. The people who live at -Saratoga are all horsey and dishonest. They speak the most degraded form -of Anglo-Saxon—a sort of Americo-Negroid flash talk—and what they do -not know in the way of knavery and brutality has yet to be invented. -It goes without saying that all American racing men do not necessarily -dwell in this sublime spot. But a quite considerable contingent of them -have learnt lessons out of the Saratoga book, and are consequently as -dangerous to deal with as it is possible to conceive that white men could -be. - -The American sportsmen we are privileged to see in England have, with -some notable exceptions, failed signally to secure our confidence. There -are honest men among them—though never by any chance a “jay”—and there -are sheep of a blackness which would do no discredit to the nether pit. -On the whole their connection with the English turf has been unfortunate -for the English turf. We are most of us quite old enough to remember the -unpleasant things that happened when an organised gang of these gentry -descended upon our innocent English rings and racecourses some three -years ago. They got their hands well into the English pockets, depleted -us of much glittering money, raised what they were pleased to consider -“general h—l” in the scandal way, and left us outraged and aghast. Up to -this period in our history the astute English racing-man had regarded -himself as the last word in craft and wariness; but the Americans -despoiled him as easily as if he had been a “tenderfoot,” and when he -discovered it, Mr. Englishman was very shocked. The racing interests of -these realms is still suffering from the shaking it received during the -exciting period to which I refer. The only profit the poor Britishers got -out of the deal was a new-fashioned way of riding, which still remains in -vogue, and a lesson in caution which will last us a good century. - -What the American jockey really means was forcibly borne in upon us by -the vagaries of a Mr. Tod Sloan. By dint of the usual advertising and -bluff, coupled indeed with no ordinary gifts as a horseman, Mr. Sloan -made his early career in England a success at the first blush. He was -soon in receipt of an income of ridiculous dimensions, and hob-nobbing -with the best blood of the country. He got found out, as Americans will, -and ended up feebly by smacking a waiter across the head with a champagne -bottle. Luck does not appear to have looked his way since. He went back -to America a disgraced man, even for America; and took to giving tips -for a New York paper. At the present moment he is said to be engaged -in the gentle art of billiard-marking at a salary running to at least -ten dollars a week. I recite the history of Mr. Sloan to encourage the -others. Our experiences with the American racing-man in this country -justify us in assuming that he is an exceptionally sad dog at home. -America is overrun with him, and while she has done everything that lay -in her power to corral and exterminate him he still continues merrily on -his wicked way. - -It only remains to point out that the Americans as a people are frantic -gamblers, and that they are infatuated enough to regard gambling as a -form of sport. Probably more gambling at cards goes on in the United -States than in the whole of the countries of Europe put together. The -proper American is everlastingly playing at poker, which is a bluffing -game, and which he will assure you trains him for his business. The -American card-sharper has been famous in song and story time out of -mind. For sheer coolness, audacity, and skill at the job, he has never -had an equal. Occasionally he lands on these shores, with a picturesque -entourage, takes a flat in the West End of London, and relieves the -adolescent gentry of the neighbourhood of their little alls. Then he is -up and off, on the wings of the morning. - -Among themselves, too, the Americans play a great deal of roulette, -petit chevaux, and kindred fascinations. They count also amongst the -most enthusiastic patrons of Monte Carlo, where season after season many -of them turn up with very little money and make a fat thing of it. Last -season a long-haired gentleman from Kansas City scooped up between two -and three hundred louis a night for twenty nights running by the simple -process of walking from table to table and backing 17. He told me that he -and his wife were there for a little trip, and that he had hit on the 17 -idea because 17 was the number of their cabin on the liner which brought -them over. Of course 17 can refuse to come up at Monte Carlo for hours at -a time. But whenever this raw-boned large-handed citizen of Kansas chose -to put money on it, up it came inside two or three spins. - -There are American gamblers at Monte Carlo, however, who are not by any -means so consistently lucky as my friend. The money some of them get -through when they are having a bad time would probably astonish the old -folks at home. But it is only fair to them to say that they take their -losses with an unruffled, if rather moist, brow and go off solemnly to -cable for further supplies. - -When a certain sort of American millionaire turns up in the -Mediterranean paradise there are sure to be merry doings. I have seen -such a one mop his wet face after handing the bank a bundle of notes that -would have made a tidy year’s income for a man with a large family, and -remark, a little feebly, “Gee whizz!” Then he was led gently away by a -number of pretty ladies. - -It is in what one may term hard gambles such as he gets at Monte Carlo -that the American shows his most sportsmanlike qualities. At roulette, -or trente et quarente, it is almost impossible for him to cheat, and -consequently he wins or loses more or less calmly and with perfect -honour. But at poker—tut—tut! - -[Illustration] - -[Illustration] - - - - -CHAPTER XI - -HOGS - - -The national peril of the United States is hogs. Of the peculiar and -subtle influences which have driven most Americans into the pig business -I find it impossible to formulate any reasonable account. Of course, -there is the fact that the pig business has large monies in it, and that -America is a country in which it would seem you have only to tickle a -little pig with a hoe to turn him into a fine fat porker. - -There can be no doubt whatever that a very large percentage of Americans -think, talk, and raise pig throughout the whole of their natural lives. -This industry appears to be of such a fascinating character that when -once you have got into it you cannot possibly get out of it. Even if -you wax unrighteously rich and get elected to Congress and move your -family to New York, you still stick to pork and lard as if they were your -brother. I understand that many of the ball-rooms in the big brown stone -mansions in Fifth Avenue are waxed with lard. - -I do not know whether there were any pigs in America before the Pilgrim -Fathers landed. But it is certain that there are millions of them there -now, and that they eat apples and grow wondrous frisky and have a good -time of it—till killing day comes around. And it is precisely here that -the frightful Americanism of the hog begins. For the wicked pig, like the -wicked man, has a knack of finding his way to Chicago—which, as all the -world now knows, is the most bloodthirsty, sultry, and unregenerate city -on the face of the earth. In this place they kill pigs by the thousand -daily. Hoggish shrieks rend all the air, the stores and warehouses groan -with the pig’s dismembered parts, and the odour of his frizzling adipose -tissue is in every nostril. - -It seems to me more than likely that the pig owes the beginnings of his -present supremacy in the United States to the Irish, who are pretty thick -upon the ground there. An Irishman without a pig in one form or another -would in all likelihood take cold, or die of heart-ache. In his own -distressful Island, the Irishman and his pig live on terms of freedom -and fraternity that put the American Constitution to the distinct blush. -Not only does the pig pay the greater proportion of rent that gets paid -in Ireland, but he is the friend and playmate of the family, and is -invariably accorded a cosy corner for himself on the domestic hearth. - -It seems only natural, therefore, that in emigrating to the States, the -Irishman who could manage it would insist on taking with him one or more -pigs, probably as much for company’s sake as for any other reason. And -behold the result! What was a simple and very human foible on the part of -the Irishman, has become, with the American, a raging and soul-consuming -obsession. Pork, pork, pork, pork, pork! That is the cry that rises daily -and hourly to heaven from the greater part of the United-States-half -of North America. Everybody is concerned in it; everybody has money -in it; everybody wants to get more money out of it. The pig is rushed -through his feeds, weighed every morning till he has assumed the right -specific gravity, hurried off by car to his doom, killed and slain on the -no-waiting-here principle, and turned into hams, sides, lard, brawn, and -sausages for the delectation of a hungry world before he has a chance to -say George Washington. - -America as a country, and the Americans as a people, depend upon hogs for -their prosperity to an extent that is appalling. Upon the dead weight -of him in the warehouses, and upon his firmness, or want of it, in the -markets, hangs the stability of all sorts of stocks, shares, bonds, -debentures, and general securities. If pig is “up,” America is a land of -contented households and smiling faces. If pig is “down,” she is plunged -forthwith into the deepest woe and the meanest irritability. - -All of which affords one further striking evidence that the Americans are -really a wonderful people, and that they deserve the generous tributes of -praise that they so consistently and lavishly draw upon themselves. - -A nation whose principal diet is pea-nuts, and whose principal profit is -derived from the sale of pigs, is obviously pretty low down in the scale -of civilisation. A hog tender cannot by any chance be the finest kind of -man, neither can a pork butcher or a wholesale ham merchant. And every -American who is not a member of a trust, or a pastor of a church, or a -boss billposter, or a missionary, or a comic singer, is either a hog -tender, a pork butcher, or a wholesale ham merchant. At any rate, so one -gathers from the authorised reports. - -And just as nut-chewing is responsible for certain grave weaknesses in -the American character, so is pig-dealing. The pig and the potato have -made the Irishman the idlest man in the world. The pig takes no rearing, -and the potato is such a lively and prolific tuber that it will grow -almost without planting. The Irishman has reaped the full disadvantages -incident to these merits in the pig and the potato. And one feels sure -that the American is suffering equally from the effects of the pig. I -have no wish to reopen the box of horrors which was introduced to our -notice some time back by the author of “The Jungle.” That gentleman -did his work thoroughly, and the atmosphere is even yet redolent in -consequence. It does not concern me that Chicago meats, tinned or cured, -are not always entirely fitted for human consumption, or that the Chicago -method of treating such meats are uncleanly, or that the Chicago idea of -industrial efficiency is a perverted one. What does concern me is that -Chicago is an American city, built by Americans, run by Americans, and -made lurid by Americans—on pig. - -To suggest to the American reformer that he should take steps for the -immediate extermination of the pigs in America, steps, in fact, such -as have been taken with a view to the extinction of the rabbit in -Australia, would be to fill him with horror and amazement. He is all for -the amelioration and improvement and cleaning up of Chicago; he does not -see that it is the pig and the great American people who are the root -trouble. Prohibit the breeding and rearing of pigs throughout the United -States, and you will have gone much further towards the cleaning up of -Chicago, and, for that matter, the cleaning up of America, than you are -ever likely to get by dealing simply with Chicago itself. So long as -there are pigs, so long will Chicago reek. Abolish pigs, and you have -abolished the worst features of the world’s foulest city. - -The reformer will find that my suggestion is an impracticable one. He may -even go the length of calling it frivolous and ridiculous. But we shall -see what we shall see. America will one day either have to forsake pig or -come to very bitter grief. She is already in considerable straits as to -the marketing of her porcine staples. She has shoved them down the necks -of her own people till they can no more. She is pushing them down English -throats with all the force that in her lies, and the limit is within a -very little way of being reached. Do as one will, one cannot consume -more than a certain amount of American pig in the course of the day’s -deglutition. Europe is taking far more than is good for her even now, -and yet the American demand is for bigger sales and extended markets, to -prevent the stuff from rotting at home. The position is unfortunate in -quite a number of senses; but it is precisely what any prescient American -ought to have expected. America is overdoing it in the matter of pig, -just as she is overdoing it in most other matters. When you have got the -measure of people’s hunger and purchasing capacity you cannot appreciably -increase them by any amount of advertising or bluff. - -The Americans boast that they can sell everything appertaining to a pig -save and except the squeal. I don’t wish to frighten them, but it would -not surprise me in the least if within the space of a few years the large -accumulation of squeals which they must, by this time, have on hand were -to arise up as it were, and din their ears in a manner which they will -not relish. - -I may remark finally that in spite of everything that Chicago may say -and publish in their praise, there can be no question that American pig -products are of a most inferior and unappetising quality as compared -with the real article. American hog meat exhibits a coarseness of -grain and a crudeness of flavour which will incline any person of -gustatory discrimination to the abstention of the Hebrew. Eggs and bacon -constitute the English national breakfast dish; ham and eggs are the -sure rock and support of our country inns and cheap restaurants. Both -these dishes have, however, fallen into sad disrepute during late years, -and I have no hesitation in attributing this grave and heartrending -circumstance to the fact that the bacon and ham nowadays served are -almost exclusively American. - -The gentlemen from the other side must excuse me if I appear as he would -phrase it, “to tread somewhat too severely on his face”; but I really -mean him no evil. Rather do I wish him all manner of good. - -Besides which it is one’s duty to be patriotic; and charity—even in the -article of pig—should begin at home. - -[Illustration] - - - - -CHAPTER XII - -VERDICT - - -Before I leave the jury of potent, grave and reverend Britishers to their -own reflections on the subject before them, it may be well to indulge in -a little summing-up. - -I have shown that the fiery, untameable American is a creature of more -than doubtful antecedents, and that he conceals beneath a veneer of -smartness and originality several qualities of mind and heart that are -not greatly to his credit. I have shown that his destiny would seem to -lie in the direction of a reversion to a condition of pseudo-barbarism -which will in many respects identify him with the aboriginal possessors -of his country. Already the face, features and body of him are becoming -plainly Red-Indianised. Already his talk contains hints and suggestions -of “war-paint,” the “war-path,” the “tomahawk” and the getting of -“scalps.” If I mistake not the rest is bound soon to follow. - -I have shown also that the American woman, in so far as she is exhibited -to us in London, and on the Continent of Europe, is a somewhat frivolous -female, and not always comely; smart, possibly, and lively, possibly, -but on the whole disposed to be too smart and too lively. I have given -you a peep at the American millionaire, and found him wanting in -everything but money, and not invariably too well provided with that. I -have pointed out that American advertising, whether for the sake of gain -or of notoriety, is a shameless, blatant and undesirable affair. For the -first time in history I have set it on record that the Americans eat too -many pea-nuts. I have run the rule over their painful attempts at the -dramatic art, and proved that in this important connection they have been -responsible for many banalities and futilities, and that their average of -performance is far below that of the rest of the theatre-using world. I -have demonstrated, also, that their real metier is the giddy tenth-rate -circus, ablast with drums and the roaring of wild beasts, the snuffling -of freaks, and the shrieking mirth of the vulgar. I have paid a passing -tribute to the integrity and blamelessness of their sportsmen. And I have -warned them solemnly about pork. What more can be expected of me? - -It is more than likely that I shall be told that I have chosen for the -subject of my remarks a rather stodgy type of American, which is rapidly -giving place to a saner, wholesomer, and pleasanter type, resulting from -the spread of culture and a modification of manners on the best European -plans. To this I reply that I have spoken of the American exactly as he -seems to me to be, and judged him on the numerous samples which have -hitherto come my way. That there must be some residuum of sound and -serious people in the United States seems probable, but I have never been -to the United States. - -Can anyone point to anything in the world that America is accomplishing -which is purely and simply calculated to serve the highest interests of -the human race? Can you look upon her trusts, her general methods of -finance, her social and industrial system, her bosses, her political -parties, the administration of her law, her press, her religious -mountebanks, her quacks and charlatans of all conditions, and pronounce -them to be good? Is it not the fact that these, in common with pretty -well the whole of the remainder of her institutions, are not only -defective, but a great deal more defective than one’s right to expect in -view of the exceptional natural resources of the country and her great -energy and wealth? - -You are at liberty to answer these questions in any way you please; but -the conviction of myself and a by no means inconsiderable number of other -persons will remain the same. - -It is clear that if the Americans are going to take that exalted position -among the nations to which they are for ever laying claim, they will be -compelled to get rid of a great many excrescences of temperament which -they seem now only too busy developing and emphasising by every means in -their power. - -Is it possible for them, in the nature of things, so to disencumber -themselves? - -Will they ever become a really free country, dethrone the millionaire and -the boss and acknowledge honesty as a political virtue? - -Will they ever put silencers on the yellow press and elect a -congressional committee to examine the gangrenous decay of their wit and -the dropsical growth of their emotions? - -Will they ever make a point of keeping their women at home and give -practical proof of their pride in the peaches by marrying them themselves? - -Will they ever learn the English language which was the best thing -imported in the “Mayflower”? - -Will they ever get rid of the climatic influences that compel them to -speak and sing through their noses? - -Will they ever quote their astounding President at anything but a -discount or realise that he is their greatest national asset? - -Will they ever place a prohibitive tariff on noise and lynch -sensation-mongers as they do niggers? - -Will their playwrights ever learn the difference between a phonograph -record and a play and will their audiences ever learn to appreciate -acting when they see it? - -Will they ever discover that sport is not merely a business of record -breaking and that business and football, I class the two together, are -not the sports of the stone age in which the vanquished was not only -overthrown but subsequently utterly consumed? - -Will they ever give up pea-nuts? - -Will they ever cease from the blind cultivation of pork? - -I trow not. - -And as these chapters are intended a great deal more for the English than -for the Americans, I may say here and now that it is the Englishman’s -plain duty to himself and to the race to refrain as far as in him lies -from the easy sin of imitation. In his admiration and envy for the -magical and almost uncanny successes of his American brother, let him not -be carried away with the stupid notion that it is possible for him to go -forth and do likewise. For one thing, he hasn’t got the climate; and for -another he hasn’t got either the pea-nuts or the pork. - -Let the Englishman, therefore, be content to remain unreservedly and -unsophisticatedly English. When he sees an American adaptation or -invasion—whether commercial, social, religious, or otherwise—coming his -way, let him frown it down, pass by it and flee from it. Such things may -seem simple and innocuous and desirable enough in themselves, they may -tickle the imagination, and they may even appear to be for the distinct -betterment of mankind. But in the aggregate they must of necessity tend -to the Americanisation of this Country—and that is an evil which every -Britisher ought to be prepared to make any sacrifice to avoid. - -If any profit worth having is to come out of the present welter it will -come by the Anglicisation of America, and not by the Americanisation of -England. The Americans themselves recognise the weight and importance -of this fact. Some of them are already wearing eye-glasses. They smile -in their sleeves at our readiness to adopt the least admirable of their -multifarious foolish ways. When an American meets an Englishman who is -trying to run his business or his household or other of his affairs after -American models, and particularly when he meets an Englishman who looks -upon the Americans as his superiors and masters at the game of life, he -is sheerly, if unavowedly, amazed. He knows what America is, he knows in -his heart what America means, and if it lay in his power to choose the -place to which he will go when he dies, that place would not be Chicago, -nor would it be even Paris, but a clean, free, un-Americanised England. - -But with all their usually enormous and often brilliant faults—that -amaze, even if they do not stagger humanity—the Americans are a nation -of Cæsars. In every field of activity they have scored many triumphs. -But they are not satisfied with acquisition and conquest on a colossal -scale, they want to surpass all previous records in ancient or modern -times. They are endowed with an inherent genius for arriving at their -destination, and the destination they have set down for themselves in the -national time-table is one in keeping with their vast and great country, -whose mission it seems to be to make Europe and the world sit-up. -Therefore, within the next decade or two, I should not be surprised to -see a very much larger splash of purple on the map of the earth—and to -see it called the American Empire. - -[Illustration] - -UNWIN BROS., LTD., PRINTERS, LONDON AND WOKING. - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Abounding American, by -Thomas William Hodgson Crosland - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ABOUNDING AMERICAN *** - -***** This file should be named 56185-0.txt or 56185-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/6/1/8/56185/ - -Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at -http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images -generously made available by The Internet Archive) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law 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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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. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - -Title: The Abounding American - -Author: Thomas William Hodgson Crosland - -Release Date: December 16, 2017 [EBook #56185] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ABOUNDING AMERICAN *** - - - - -Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at -http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images -generously made available by The Internet Archive) - - - - - - -</pre> - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span></p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> -<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="500" height="725" alt="Cover image" /> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span></p> - -<h1>THE<br /> -ABOUNDING<br /> -AMERICAN</h1> - -<p class="titlepage">BY</p> - -<p class="titlepage larger">T. W. H. CROSLAND</p> - -<p class="center smaller">Author of<br /> -“Lovely Woman” and “The Unspeakable Scot”</p> - -<p class="titlepage">London:<br /> -A. F. THOMPSON & CO.<br /> -92 Fleet Street, E.C.<br /> -1907</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span></p> - -<h2>CONTENTS.</h2> - -<table summary="Contents"> - <tr> - <td></td> - <td class="tdr smaller">PAGE</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td><span class="smcap">The Proposition</span></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">7</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td><span class="smcap">Millionaires</span></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">19</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td><span class="smcap">Humourists</span></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">29</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td><span class="smcap">The American Woman</span></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">37</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td><span class="smcap">Literature</span></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">45</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td><span class="smcap">The President</span></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">55</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td><span class="smcap">Advertisement</span></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">61</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td><span class="smcap">The Pea-nut Mind</span></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">71</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td><span class="smcap">The Drama</span></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">81</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td><span class="smcap">Sport</span></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_X">91</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td><span class="smcap">Hogs</span></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">101</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td><span class="smcap">Verdict</span></td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">109</a></td> - </tr> -</table> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 100px;"> -<img src="images/flower1.jpg" width="100" height="37" alt="(decorative flower image)" /> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span></p> - -<p class="titlepage">COPYRIGHT 1907<br /> -BY<br /> -A. F. THOMPSON<br /> -IN<br /> -THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA<br /> -AND IN<br /> -GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND</p> - -<p class="titlepage">All Rights Reserved</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I<br /> -<span class="smcap">The Proposition</span></h2> - -<p>“And what, prithee, hath overtaken -Guy?”</p> - -<p>“Guy—why Guy diced and -drabbed and ruffled away his inheritance, -and to save his neck took shipping for -the tobacco plantations where, they say, -he married a daughter of Lo, the poor -Indian, and none hath since heard of him.”</p> - -<p>This is the kind of talk that one could -hear in the clubs of London a matter -of, say, two hundred and fifty years -ago. In plain terms, Guy, poor devil, -being a wastrel,—and a broken wastrel -at that—had betaken himself to America, -there probably to found one of the “fine -old Virginia families” of which American -writers, and particularly American fictional -writers, are so prone to babble.</p> - -<p>America, of course, was really started -not by the Indians or Columbus, but by -the Pilgrim Fathers, assisted and backed -up by several cargoes of blue-brained -and cleverblooded spirits from the -British Isles, whose minds were full of -theology and whose souls were full of -tea. I shall be told that it is unkind of -me to make such remarks.</p> - -<p>But, quite apart from all questions of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span> -kindness, it is desirable that you know -something of the antecedents of a man -before you set about a proper estimate -of him. If you wish to understand him -thoroughly, you must never let sleeping -dogs lie nor allow bygones to be bygones. -It is notorious that the average frantic -Fourth of July American is an adept at -showing the best side of himself and -his institutions to an admiring world. -If you are to believe him the first American -was Christopher Columbus, whose -name in this connection I had hoped not -to mention. But Don Columbus made -the mistake of “discovering America.” -For the accomplishment of this feat the -Americans bestow upon his memory -unqualified pæans. Really, of course, -the fact that Columbus steered his leaky -lugger desperately for Coney Island and -Long Branch, when he had the rest of -the world—including China and Gozo—before -him where to choose, proves that -so far from being a hero and a man of -genius, he was a dull and evilly disposed -person.</p> - -<p>According to the bumptious, khaki-tinted -gentleman from Indiana too, -the Pilgrim Fathers already referred to -were high-minded, blameless, and entirely -disinterested saints, incapable of -hurting a fly or causing butter to melt -north of the colour line. They “inaugurated<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span> -America for conscience sake, -sir, and you can bet your pile that I am -proud to have them for ancestors.” In -which connection I shall pass no rude -observation, contenting myself rather -with the hint that the reader who wishes -to acquaint himself with the true inwardness -of the Pilgrim Fathers and -their doings in America should look up -some of the serious literature on the -subject. The Americans, be it noted, -read that literature very privately, and -neither in the basket nor in the store.</p> - -<p>I might proceed indefinitely on these -lines of disillusion for Master Phineas B. -Flubdub; but as it is not my particular -business to amuse him inordinately, I -shall desist.</p> - -<p>In Europe, or at any rate in England, -there is a disposition on the part of the -sandblind to look upon the United States -and the people who dwell in them with -an eye of amused wonderment, as well -as admiration. For reasons that are -not difficult to appreciate America -has never been taken quite seriously -by the superior European. In spite of -all her boasting and shouting, in spite -of her e-normous population and her -equally e-normous wealth, in spite of -the fact that there is a U.S. Army and -a U.S. Navy that can lick creation, -and that the U.S. also boasts of a reeking,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span> -shrieking press, together with the most -gaudy and scintillating “Courts of Justice” -that ever delighted civilisation, no -person in Europe believes in the back of -his mind that the land of hustle and -bluff is a nation of any weight where -nations count, or that she is capable of -exercising the smallest direct or indirect -influence upon the manners, customs, -tendencies, or destiny of haughty feudal -Europe.</p> - -<p>The Americans are hot stuff. They -go in for cut-throat finance and lime-light -lynchings, their swindles are beautiful, -their fortunes colossal, and their -corruption is picturesque. They have -a wonderful country. It is theirs and -not ours, and they are welcome to do -as they like in it. They can never -hurt us. Knowing this, the Englishman -sleeps snugly of nights, and when he -meets a “Yank” in London or on the -Riviera or in Paris, he smiles to himself, -professes to be tickled, tolerates him -if there be occasion for it, grapples him -to his bosom with hooks of steel if there -is money in it, and parts from him pretty -much in the mood of a man who has been -inspecting a new motor car.</p> - -<p>And, truth to tell, in the guileless, -sight-seeing, rush-about American whom -the Englishman encounters on his own -midden, there does not appear to be anything<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span> -which is either very outrageous or -very formidable. All you see of him is -a somewhat undersized, loosely built -human biped, with a fat jowl, straight -hair, a nobby suit, a little round white -or brown felt hat—and a guide-book. -Of course, there is also the smart swagger -American, accompanied by a feminine -entourage of peaches and dreams. But -usually your man from Yankeeland has -with him a plain, up-and-down, sad sort -of woman who might have stepped out -of Noah’s ark—and that is the end of it. -When he engages you in conversation, -which he commonly insists upon doing, -he blows foolishly about his own Country, -admits that yours “hez the bulge in -antiques,” says that he is glad that he -came over, and sticking out his finger -in the direction of the woman, remarks: -“This is Mrs. Sarah B. Gazabo, my -wife.” The real “insides” of the man -never strike you, partly because you are -busy loathing his accent and admiring his -ginger, and partly because he has left his -vital concerns, his private essence and -sheer Americanisms “way back to hum.” -All Americans imported for us by Thos. -Cook & Son and his imitators are of this -order. For them England is a place in -which to tread softly and speak low, or -at any rate as low as possible. They -visit us in the same spirit that a prize-fighter<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span> -might visit a cemetery, and -though the casual observer would scarcely -suspect it, their intention is to be subdued, -sober, decorous, and civil.</p> - -<p>Eight times out of nine the American -is a fine specimen of a manly man, but -it is the ninth that is such a wonder. -We, the obtuse and effete people of -Great Britain, now and again wake -up suddenly to the circumstance that -we have been the victims of an American -invasion. Such a ghastly conviction -may at any moment overtake the best -of us, for no class of society knows -whose turn is likely to be next. There -was an American invasion of the turf -a year or two back, and English sport -is sore and poor about it to this day. -There have been sundry social invasions -which those most directly concerned -find it difficult to forget, and at the -present moment we are in the thick -of a theatrical invasion which is not -doing us an appreciable amount of -good. The fact of these invasions and -of their always unpleasant consequences -so far as the invaded are involved is, in -my judgment, a fact of the most serious -import to Englishmen.</p> - -<p>I shall for a moment drop the American -as he seems to be, and regard him as he -actually is. What can one record of him -that is to his credit? Imprimus: He<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span> -has devoted three hundred years more -or less to the frantic and bloodthirsty -pursuit of the Almighty Dollar. Item: -During those three hundred years more -or less he has done absolutely nothing -but pursue dollars. Item: He is still -pursuing them. Item: But he makes -the best husband in the world, and -places woman in the high place to which -she is so amply entitled. I will put so -much to the credit side, though I make -no doubt that there are people in the -world who will find themselves unable to -commend me for doing it.</p> - -<p>Now for the obverse or discredit side. -I shall ask you to note:</p> - -<p>(1) That the Americans are the only -nation who are ruled by a bureaucracy -of millionaires and at the same time -croon themselves into a state of vacuous -coma to the touching strains of “vox -populi, vox dei!”</p> - -<p>(2) That they are the originators of the -yelling yellow press, the pioneers of the -New Humour and the apostles of the -New Pathos.</p> - -<p>(3) That they are the only civilised -people who make a point of exporting -the finest specimens of their -womankind to foreign countries, included<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span> -in a consignment of cold dollars -calculated pro rata with the antiquity, -decay and general worthlessness of the -name which the former take in exchange.</p> - -<p>(4) That having inherited, borrowed -or stolen a beautiful language, they -wilfully and of set purpose degrade, -distort and misspell it apparently for -the sole purpose of saving money in -type-setting.</p> - -<p>(5) That out of twenty-six Presidents -of the United States, three have met -death at the hands of the assassin.<a name="FNanchor_1" id="FNanchor_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p> - -<p>(6) That having by sheer accident or -because of the care and forethought, -which Providence has for fools, become -possessed of a President who is a man -among men and a ninety horse-power -statesman with direct drive on all -speeds, they allow him to be handicapped -by a spectacular gang of undesirable -citizens.</p> - -<p>(7) That they consider no function, -public or private, sacred or profane, to be -complete without a newspaper correspondent, -a lime-light photographer, and -a sky-sign contractor.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span></p> - -<p>(8) That willingly and of their own -unfettered volition they have thrown -back to the customs of their aboriginal -ancestors in the matter of diet, which -diet is rapidly reducing them morally, -physically and intellectually to the level -of primordial protoplasms.</p> - -<p>(9) That they are the only nation who -in civilised times rate noise above all -else, save dollars, and who in their -theatres acclaim as the greatest actor or -play the one that in the shortest time -makes the greatest uproar for the -smallest reason.</p> - -<p>(10) That they have resolved their -sports and pastimes into business propositions -in which the avowed aim and -object of every competitor is the utter -destruction of his opponent by any -means that can be found, devised or -conceived.</p> - -<p>(11) That they are the only nation -who in civilised times have been happy -and content to sink their individuality -in an all pervading and evil smelling -atmosphere of hog and by-products.</p> - -<p>The foregoing are merely a few of the -main counts in the indictment. Behind -every one of them lies a history of -gaiety, graft, dyspepsia, bossism, fakery,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span> -flamboyancy, hysteria, vociferation -brain storms and dementia Americana -of the most disconcerting and entertaining -kind. The details are on -record, and I do not propose to -harrow the reader’s feelings with examples -of them. I shall suggest simply -that it is questionable whether any -other known race of men, white or -black, has managed to pack into three -centuries such a volume of unthinkable -excitement and picturesque iniquity as -can be rightfully and without exaggeration -laid at the door of these abounding -Americans.</p> - -<p>A certain Western city has been -described by a friendly visitor as “hell -with the lid off.” For the greater part -of her existence as a nation that description -might with justice have been -applied to all America, and I am by no -means sure that it is not still applicable. -It would seem that under the inspiring -ægis of the much-vaunted American -constitution the whole of the vices of -civilised man have become grossly and -incredibly intensified. For unscrupulousness, -insincerity, cynicism, and the -pure worship of mammon the United -States stands without rival among the -nations to-day.</p> - -<p>I believe the man lied who said there -is not an institution in the country—political,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span> -social, economic or even religious—that -is not based on a species -of ingrained rottenness and not infested -with the worm of corruption and the -scrawl of scandal. But there is no -national aspiration that does not have -at the back of it the root idea that the -sole duty of an American man is to get -rich and to get rich quick. There are -few standards of American life that are -not gold standards and few kinds of -American effort that are not directed -towards the rapid acquisition of other -people’s money.</p> - -<p>It can be proved out of the history -books that, broadly speaking, your average -American is a nondescript and -nefarious hybrid composed of three -parts promoter, three parts missionary, -three parts slave-driver, and one -part Indian. On this unsavoury soil -the worst passions of the soaring human -animal have grown and run hoggishly -to seed. Out of such blood nothing that -is honest or of good report could be -expected to rise. And when we in -England, as has been the tendency in -the past few years, condescend to the -adoption of American methods and -American notions, and applaud rather -than rebuke American smartness and -American impudence, there can be no -question whatever that we are on the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span> -toboggan. The gradual Americanisation -of this grand old country is not only -flattering to American vanity, but gratifying -to American greed. As I shall -presently show, America has no more -love for England than would easily cover -a threepenny-bit, and her insatiable cry -is for markets, markets, markets—a -howl in which she is dulcetly supported -by her dear friend Germany. The -causes for alarm in so far as they affect -the larger concrete issues are as yet -comparatively slight. But it behoves -every Englishman to meditate on the -possibility that Macaulay’s New Zealander -may in the long run turn out to -be an American.</p> - -<div class="footnotes"> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_1" id="Footnote_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> This is a greater percentage than has obtained in the case -of the Czars of Russia, and in America there are no Nihilists -or at any rate none who are actively opposed to the American -Presidency.</p> - -</div> - -</div> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 150px;"> -<img src="images/flower2.jpg" width="150" height="100" alt="(decorative flower image)" /> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II<br /> -<span class="smcap">Millionaires</span></h2> - -<p>The population of the United States, -according to the last census returns, is -about a hundred millions. Names in -American directories invariably begin -with Aarons and end with Zaccharia, -and millionaires are marked with a -star—thus *. In a town, or—as the -puffed up merchant in stars and stripes -would call it a city—of fifty thousand -inhabitants you will find that the local -directory stars quite twenty-five thousand -as millionaires.</p> - -<p>It is pretty certain that fully ninety-nine -per cent. of these bloated plutocrats -do not know where the next dollar is -coming from. I have it on the authority -of an American that “in introducing -a man in high American society the -introducer thinks it proper to say, -‘This is Obadiah S. Bluggs of Squedunk, -Wis.—one of the richest men in -the city. He’s worth his million dollars—ain’t -you, Obadiah? And he’s president -of a National Bank and owns a -block of buildings on the main street. -His wife has the largest diamonds in the -northern part of the State, and his -daughter, Miss Mamie Bluggs, gets her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span> -gowns in Paris, and uses lorgnettes.’ -Such words of recommendation, I am -told, move Mr. Bluggs to a profound -delight. Within five minutes half the -men present—this is true even of the -most exclusive circles—will cluster -around Mr. Bluggs to sell things to him; -champagne, a horse, shares in a bogus -mining company, or to ask him if Miss -Bluggs is engaged, whether she is a -blonde or a brunette, and whether he, -Bluggs, thinks it is worth the questioner’s -while to run up to Squedunk, Wis., take -Miss Bluggs out buggy riding and size -her up one afternoon.”</p> - -<p>It is highly probable that Mr. Millionaire -Bluggs possesses no ready cash -whatever, though he is prepared to -discuss five-million dollar propositions -in the loudest tones and in any quantity, -and it is probable, too, that Miss Bluggs -is neither a blonde nor a brunette that -matters, but an ordinary good strong -country girl whose principal diet is -pumpkin pie and chewing gum, and -whose single go-to-party gown was -bought in Paris truly but fell to the -lot of Miss Mamie Bluggs at third hand -and at bed-rock bargain-day price, at -the corner store in Squedunk, Wis.</p> - -<p>I have no desire to suggest that the -millionaires of America as a body are in -straitened or difficult circumstances,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span> -or that an American here and there -has not succeeded in amassing vast -sums of money. But I assert flatly -that the great majority of them are not -within a mile of being anything like so -rich as they pretend to be, and that, -taking millionaire for millionaire, they -are an entirely Brummagem and specious -company. They maintain all the -appearances of riches, not on solid -bullion or property, but on a little paper. -They come like water and like wind -they go. Since millionairedom became -fashionable, New York State alone -must have produced, literally, thousands -of them.</p> - -<p>Of the real authentic untraversable -American millionaire, one is inclined to -speak with bated breath and whispered -humbleness. There are three men of -means in America at the time of writing -who will probably be remembered for -the wealth they possess as long as this -weary world holds together. The -virginal chaste names of them, need one -say, are John D. Rockefeller, J. Pierpont -Morgan, and Andrew Carnegie. -No doubt there are others, such as the -Vanderbilts and the Goulds, and Mr. -Astor and Mr. Harriman, and that great -patron of the drama, Mr. John Cory, -whose wealth transcends the wealth of -Ormuz and of Ind coming in together.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span> -But it is on Messrs. Rockefeller, Morgan -and Carnegie that the brunt and burden -and glitter and glory of real unlimited -and omnipotent millionairedom has -fallen. Mr. Rockefeller, indeed, is commonly -credited with being the richest -and most powerful capitalist in the world. -So rich is he, and so enormous are his -accumulations of earned and unearned -increment, that he is rapidly becoming -the overlord of all the other millionaires, -who even now are, to a great extent, -playing with his money and must, to a -corresponding extent, do his bidding.</p> - -<p>Of Mr. Rockefeller the world knows -next to nothing, excepting that he is -fabulously and pitifully rich, that he -has absolutely no hirsute covering for -his stupendous brains, that he suffers -from indigestion, and that he plays -golf and teaches a Sunday school -in a Nonconformist place of worship. -Every other morning he appears to -present to this or that American city a -few odd millions “for educational purposes,” -the which millions are promptly -spurned by the local authority as -“tainted money,” but ultimately -accepted “in the interests of the industrial -class.”</p> - -<p>Probably Mr. Rockefeller is the best -abused man on this footstool. He has -been variously described as a thief,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span> -a ghoul, a bloodsucker, a murderer, a -miser, a cannibal, a wrecker, a tiger, a -devastator, a jackal, and a wolf. All -the notice he takes is blandly to play -golf and unobtrusively to dodge the -lawyers and officers of the law who -desire to bring him to book for the -alleged malpractices of the Standard -Oil Trust. Yet you have to remember -that this placid, smiling, hairless old -gentleman of sixty-five, “with a glad -hand for everyone,” takes out of the -United States an income greater than -the incomes of all the Royal Families -of all Europe, and that, in addition to -his controlling interest in the Standard -Oil Trust, which last year paid dividends -to the tune of fifty million dollars, he -owns the entire Electric Light and Gas -Plants of New York City, controls the -American iron industry, has almost -complete control of the railways and -copper mines, and of the largest banks -in New York and throughout the country. -The which sad data go to show that he -is at once a wicked man and a foolish, -and that the American people are even -wickeder and more foolish. You can -never bring an American to see that there -is no conceivable advantage in possessing -too much money; and in spite of -his “shattered nerves,” “enfeebled -mind,” and “unenviable reputation,”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span> -there is not a man in America who -would not jump at the chance of -standing in the shoes of Jawn D.</p> - -<p>As for Mr. Pierpont Morgan, he is -chiefly noted as the head and front of a -Steel Trust that is making money at -the rate of one hundred and forty million -dollars per year, and as a gentleman who -has a pretty taste in pictures and objects -of art. Mr. Morgan is a man with a -large and poetic imagination. It was he -who conceived the noble idea of Americanising -the British Transatlantic carrying -trade by buying up the principal -fleets engaged in it. In this deal, as in -most other American-English deals, the -American came forth to shear and got -shorn. The woolly, bleating, unsuspicious -Britisher sold his vessels at inflated -figures, snickered in his sleeve, -and built new ones with some of the -money. Mr. Morgan is a frequent and -welcome visitor to these shores, and the -London picture dealers and their touts -no doubt do very well out of him. But -if you say “Liverpool” to him he goes -hot all over.</p> - -<p>For a bonne-bouche I have kept Mr. -Andrew Carnegie, of Skibo Castle and -sundry other addresses. Mr. Carnegie -has the misfortune to be a Scotch American—surely -the least admirable of the -less admirable types of humanity. He<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span> -will live in men’s memories as the sturdy, -forthright Scot who managed one of -the most desperate strikes that ever took -place in America from the safe vantage -ground of his native heath. It must be -remembered that in spite of his ridiculous -possessions Mr. Carnegie is an -avowed democrat, and the author of a -book that makes him out to be quite a -benevolently minded philosopher. But -during all the terrors of the Homestead -lock-out, he lay snug at his shooting -box of Rannoch, N.B., and refused -to say a word that would tend to -still the storm, although he knew that -blood was being shed at Homestead, and -that his own partner, Mr. Frick, had -been seriously wounded.</p> - -<p>Being a Scotchman it is impossible -that Mr. Carnegie should have been -a coward. Let me say rather that he -was cautious and canny, and indisposed -to take unnecessary risks. When the -row was more or less over he told -a representative of the Associated -Press that “the deplorable events at -Homestead had burst upon him like a -thunderbolt from a clear sky. They had -such a depressing effect upon him that -he had to lay his book aside and resort -to the lochs and moors, fishing from -morning to night.” Which, on the face -of it, is pawky Scots, and as who should<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span> -say “the deplorable news of the death of -my wife had such a depressing effect -upon me that I had to go to a fancy dress -ball and dance and dance till cock-crow.”</p> - -<p>It will be seen, therefore, that in the -main the American millionaires do not -shine with any startling or blinding -effulgence. With here and there an exception, -they are common, vulgar, snobbish, -undistinguished men who happen -to have come out top-dog in a series of -financial bruising matches in which few -persons above the quality of a savage -would have cared to engage. For the -possession and administration of even -reasonable wealth their qualification -would seem to be of the meagrest. Outside -the dull mechanical reduplication of -their mammoth fortunes, their stunted -intellects permit them only two very -doubtful joys, namely, sensational house -building and sensational charity. Mr. -Morgan may be taken as the type of the -house-proud money-snatcher. Mr. Rockefeller -and Mr. Carnegie are the charity-proud; -and they have reaped the reward -of the charity-proud—the colleges of the -one being a by-word and a mockery in -America, just as the “Free Libraries” -of the other are a by-word and a nuisance -in England.</p> - -<p>I do not believe that in their heart of -hearts the Americans themselves—that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span> -is, the great mass of the people—have -any feeling of admiration for the -gigantic money-grabbers who rule them. -The American has just perception enough -to discern that millionaires are not altogether -the best possible kind of man. -On the other hand, if you take away -the country’s millionaires you have -robbed her male population of one of its -chief objects of envy and its chief subject -of blurring conversation.</p> - -<p>The shadow of each of the fascinating -trinity that I have mentioned is as the -shadow of a Colossus, and is so enormous -that it is almost impossible to pick -up an American newspaper or other -publication in which they do not figure -and figure prominently. Especially -is this the case with respect to Mr. -Rockefeller, upon whose doings or -misdoings every scribbler in America -has some comment to offer or some -theory to base. The other day I came -across a book of essays published in -Boston, which contained a review of -Mr. Alfred Russel Wallace’s “Man’s -Place in the Universe.” And right in the -middle of it I found this passage: -“When a little child looks out on the Earth -he at first thinks it infinite. He looks -upon it as unorganised and unrelated. -Only with increasing age and understanding -can he realise that it is finite<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span> -and organised. So when Rockefeller as -a lad went into the oil business it seemed -to him that there was infinite scope for -the extension of the oil business,” and so -on and so forth. Clearly it is a mighty -business to be Rockefeller!</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 150px;"> -<img src="images/flower2.jpg" width="150" height="100" alt="(decorative flower image)" /> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III<br /> -<span class="smcap">Humourists</span></h2> - -<p>American humour has come to be -a bugbear in England, pretty much -like American canned meats.</p> - -<p>Twenty years ago, when anybody on -this side of the Atlantic wished to be -rather crudely and shockingly amused, -he sent to the libraries for something -American. In that day and -generation Mark Twain was at the -zenith of his fame and powers, and -the names of Artemus Ward and -Josh Billings were names to conjure -with. Autres temps autres moeurs. -The popularity of Mark Twain has suffered -woeful eclipse, and Artemus Ward -and Mr. Billings have gone clean out of -vogue, and are remembered only as the -originators of a very tiresome kind of -humour which depends on phonetic -spelling for its more excruciating effects.</p> - -<p>The fact is that America and England -alike have been dosed to death with the -lucubrations of handy scribblers who -caught something of Mark Twain’s trick -and pretended to something of his gift, -and the label “American humourist” -nowadays repels with an even greater -insistence than it formerly attracted.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span> -Mr. Twain made desperate and valiant -efforts to retrieve his waning popularity -with a book called “A Yankee at the -Court of King Arthur.” If ever there -was a piece of writing nicely calculated -to tickle and make purr the fat-necked -American here was the article. But it -fizzled in the pan, failed in short to bring -’em on again. And it now belongs to the -category of books that people have forgotten. -So much for Mr. Twain, whom -I admire, but of whom, nevertheless, -I have taken leave to speak the truth.</p> - -<p>Artemus Ward and Josh Billings are -dead, and their souls, I trust, are with -the saints; so that they will pardon me -when I venture on the opinion that the -humour they gave us was of the thinnest -sort, and, taking into account the furore -it created, extraordinarily ephemeral. -However any person of sense came to -accept the following for humour passes -my comprehension:—</p> - -<h3><span class="smcap">Experiences as an Editor</span></h3> - -<p>“In the Ortum of 18— my friend, the -editor of the Baldissville Bugle, was -obleged to leave perfeshernal dooties -& go & dig his taters, & he axed me to -edit for him doorin his absence. Accordinly -I ground up his Shears and commenced. -It didn’t take me a grate -while to slash out copy enuff from the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span> -xchanges for one issoo, and I thawt -I’d ride up to the next town on a little -Jaunt, to rest my Branes which had bin -severely rackt by my mental efforts -(This is sorter Ironical) So I went over -to the Rale Rood offiss and axed the -Sooprintendent for a pars.</p> - -<p>‘You a editer,’ he axed, evinebtly -on the point of snickerin.</p> - -<p>‘Yes, Sir,’ sez I, ‘Don’t I look poor -enuff?’</p> - -<p>‘Just about,’ sed he, ‘but our Road -can’t pars you.’</p> - -<p>‘Can’t hay.’</p> - -<p>‘No Sir—it can’t.’</p> - -<p>‘Becauz,’ sez I, looking him full in -the face with a Eagle eye, ‘it goes so -darned slow it can’t pars anybody!’ -Methink I had him thar. It is the -slowest Rale Road in the West. With -a mortified air, he tole me to get out of -his offiss. I pittid him and went.”</p> - -<p>The essence of this excursion into -the realms of the Comic Spirit is about -as cheap and small a thing in essences -as one is likely to come across. Mr. -Ward had made or heard somebody -make a punning retort of an ultra-feeble -quality, and straightway he -rushes off to turn it into humourous -lucubration. The Americans believed -it was “darned funny,” it raised “gales -of laughter” among them, and they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span> -shouted about its excellences till the -English also began to recognise them. -At best Artemus Ward is humour of -the “Wot-the-orfis-boy-finks” order, -and as such it has always been -eschewed by persons blessed with a trifle -more than the milk-maid order of intellect.</p> - -<p>And lest I be accused of raking up -what the Americans themselves choicely -term “dead dog” I will ask your attention -for the space of a paragraph or two -to the brand of the New Humour generally -consumed by the inhabitants of the -United States in the present era of grace. -In this connection it would be easy for -one to take a distinctly bitter line; -inasmuch as the books of humour as -distinguished from the humourous -periodicals, nowadays published in -America are not really books of humour -at all, but aggregations of acrid and -wicked cynicism. The authors of them -either do not intend to be funny or -have no conception of the meaning of -fun. Sourness of spirit, meanness of -thought, and savageness of expression -are their principal standby. In the -humourous periodicals, however, you -discover a well-defined intention to be -funny—though the cynicism and the -vitriol are not of course forgotten.</p> - -<p>I believe that these periodicals are<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span> -nicely adjusted to the public requirements, -for the American is not out to -produce even comic papers “for his -health,” and being nothing if not practical, -he gives his public exactly “what -they want.” Here are some samples -of “exactly what they want,” published -so recently as May of the present -year. First as to verse:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<h3><span class="smcap">If</span></h3> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">If all the trips I’ve had at sea</div> -<div class="verse">Should take effect at once on me,</div> -<div class="verse">In one huge, nauseated spell</div> -<div class="verse">Gee! wouldn’t I be sick! Well, well!</div> -</div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>But possibly the fault is mine. You -see I’m English. Perhaps the above -example of the New Humour is really a -choice sample of the New Pathos.</p> - -<p>Again; and this smacks of genius:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<h3><span class="smcap">Now Birdie Gets His</span></h3> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Of all the things that swim or run,</div> -<div class="verse indent1">Man beats in easy pace;</div> -<div class="verse">He gives big odds to fin and fur,</div> -<div class="verse indent1">And wins in every race.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">He hops into his auto-car</div> -<div class="verse indent1">And handicaps the horse;</div> -<div class="verse">Or takes the greyhound for a try</div> -<div class="verse indent1">And licks him even worse.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Perhaps the whale or shark get gay</div> -<div class="verse indent1">And want a little go.</div> -<div class="verse">Man dives into his submarine</div> -<div class="verse indent1">And does them down below.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">And now the chesty feathered chap</div> -<div class="verse indent1">Must close his gay bazoo,</div> -<div class="verse">For man puts on his flying gear</div> -<div class="verse indent1">And wallops birdie, too.</div> -</div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>As to prose, here you are:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<h3><span class="smcap">Want Too Much</span></h3> - -<p>“Some time ago two surgeons took a -ten-pound tumor out of Dave Saunders, -an’ to-day he got a terrible big bill for -the operation.”</p> - -<p>“Is Dave goin’ to pay it?”</p> - -<p>“No; he sez, ‘they’ve got enough -out of him already.’”</p> - -</div> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<h3><span class="smcap">Monkish</span></h3> - -<p>Behold the tippler and mark how he -tippeth in the streets. Whoso hath discolouration -of the optic? Is it not the -meddler? Yea. He that is a lunkhead -condemneth that which he comprehendeth -not.</p> - -<p>Be thou not envious of them that have -vacation in time of influenza.</p> - -</div> - -<p>I have not gone out of my way to -search for these excerpts in the cheaper -class of American comic publication. -Nor have I been at special pains to search -for blemishes through the files of the -ten cent “high class journal” which -is laid under contribution. In point -of fact, I find them in the first number -of that journal which came to my -hands, namely, its latest issue obtainable<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span> -in London. How really foolish and -vulgar these samples are! The first set of -verses is about being sick; the second -set is slangy, ill-expressed and contains -a childish mistake in grammar; -the first piece of prose is objectionable -because of its reference to “a ten-pound -tumor,” and the second piece is sheer -banality, meaning nothing that is worth -a smile.</p> - -<p>The plain fact is that humour in -America is the humour of fatty -degeneration of the intellect. America’s -funny man was at one time a -fairly clean, healthy creature, with a -droll outlook on the facts of life. -That he was a trifle over-devoted to -rye whiskey and effusive practical -jokes, and had a tendency to rank -irreverence, were among the defects of -his qualities. The great American people -speedily learnt to vote him slow, and into -his shoes they hurried the hard-faced, -terrier-toothed, cigarette-smoking, anæmic, -fleering decadent. And at long and -last they have set up for their humourous -god the sheer hoodlum or larrikin, -whose sense of what is comic is even -more degraded than that of a Chinaman, -and whose view of morality is the view -of a naughty parrot. There can be -no possible hope for a country whose -risible faculties are exercised only at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span> -squalid moments or excited only by -squalid writing.</p> - -<p>No matter how wealthy and hard-headed -your man, and no matter how -beautiful or accomplished your woman, -they are spiritually and morally topsy-turvy -if they laugh at the wrong things, -and I maintain that the twentieth-century -American is consistently laughing -at the wrong things, and quite incapable -of appreciating the right and proper -humour even when you have explained -it to him. The Scotch cannot see a joke, -the Americans can see only bad jokes.</p> - -<p>Nearly all the vilest and most offensive -jokes that creep into the third-rate -English comics are of American origin. -The Weary Willie and Tired Tim business -is purely American, so are the Buster -Brown and grinning Pup futilities, so -are the idiotcies associated with the -patronymic Newlywed; so are the disgusting -buffooneries about whiskers. -The English have learnt that American -canned meat is a dubious viand. The -sooner they learn that the current -American humour is even more noxious -the better it will be for the English.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV<br /> -<span class="smcap">The American Woman</span></h2> - -<p>The abounding gentleman from Idaho, -or Cincinnati, or Nahant, will tell you -that the American woman is a dream -of beauty and goodness. If I am to -credit the American he would not take -eighty thousand dollars for her—no, -sir! At least, he doesn’t calculate that -he would. The American woman, sir, -is a peach. The American man believes -in her down to the soles of his store -boots, and has been educated to regard -her as a being of angelic antecedents and -destiny. Far be it from a simple -scribbler to pluck from her, unless it -were by way of a memento, one single -angel feather. But at time and time -I have seen a considerable deal of her, and -I shall venture to put her down here as -she seems to me, who am no judge and -do not matter anyway.</p> - -<p>In the first place I shall assert, -though it were at the risk of my life, -that the American woman is not always -beautiful, and that even the beautiful -American woman is not always beautiful. -I shall go further and say that for one -beautiful woman per thousand head of -the population in America we can produce<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span> -at least three in England and four -or five in Ireland. Furthermore, the -English or the Irish beauty will last -you three times as long as the American -variety, and in point of fact it seldom -really wanes, whereas, in America, -feminine beauty nearly always passes, -and passes quickly.</p> - -<p>It should be clearly understood—and -I say it with my hand on my heart—that -this is not the fault of the American -woman, with whom I have no quarrel, -and upon whom I desire to pass no aspersion. -The vulgar commentators on the -American woman’s physical blemishes -and shortcomings have assured us that -they are the direct result of her diet, -which is said to consist of pea-nuts, -griddle cakes, oysters, pie, turkey, -stewed terrapin, tinned mushrooms, -fat ham, cheese, chocolates, and ice -cream. As is usually the case, however, -the vulgar commentators are entirely -wrong. The real enemy of the American -woman’s beauty is the American climate. -In the process of time it is climate that -makes and mars everything. It is -climate that has made the African black -and the European white. It is climate -that is rapidly transforming the American -man into a sort of ignoble red man -or Kickapoo Indian, and it is climate -that may eventually make the American<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span> -woman resemble a squaw. The American -climate produced the American -Indian. The American climate is modifying -the physique of the American -man and marring and obliterating the -great and undeniable beauty of the -American woman.</p> - -<p>Most male Americans that one meets -nowadays have a curiously Indianised -cast of figure and countenance. Their -blood as we know is hybrid blood, but -somehow you never find an American -that looks like an Italian or a Spaniard -or an Englishman. Always and inevitably -there is that about him which -reminds you of the Indian. Climate -is stronger than blood, or at any rate, -the American climate has proved -stronger so far. Roughly speaking, it -may be said to induce in the human -male black straight hair, horse features, -a swarthy complexion, inclining to a -coppery redness, a thick neck, large -hands and flat feet. Its effects upon -women I shall refrain from rehearsing, -but you will not fail to discern them if -you look carefully at the next American -woman you happen to come across, -that is if she happens to be anything -other than one of those splendid and -alluring peaches for the production of -which in such charming numbers all -men should be eternally grateful.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span></p> - -<p>I have further to reflect that the -American woman’s beauty and charm -are, as a rule, very seriously discounted -by the circumstance that she talks -through her nose, with that atrocious -intonation that is commonly called -the American accent. I should defy -Venus herself to impress with her -beauty anybody above the quality of a -dollar hunter or a pork-packer if she -could be imagined to speak in the average -American way.</p> - -<p>Coming now to the question of goodness, -which is a delicate question, it -seems to me more than probable that the -American woman is just as good, and -no better, than the rest of womankind. -She has been accused of all sorts of -frightfulness—mainly on account of her -unfortunate accent and her free and -easy methods of talk. It is certain -that she is capable of the higher forms -of devotion and self-sacrifice, even if -her views on divorce are entirely airy -and liberal.</p> - -<p>But I do not believe that her heart -is wicked, and as women go in the virtue -way, she is unsurpassed. In some -other respects I must confess she is to -be forgiven, although she is, so far as -mind, disposition, and outlook are concerned, -a great deal too much like her -half-civilised Poppa, and affects a great<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span> -deal too much of the cheap smartness -and abounding audacity that are the -stock-in-trade of her still less civilised -brother.</p> - -<p>If you talk with an American girl -for any length of time you will discover -that among other defects she is troubled -with what one may term a statistical, -or, perhaps, more correctly, an arithmetical -mind. Her male folk talk dollars -and put everything into the terms of -dollars. She, cute little bon-bon head, -talks figures. She is as full of dates as a -Scotchman, and as full of heights, depths, -widths, dimensions, aggregations, and -general computations as a guide-book. -She will pour into your willing ear particulars -as to the population of the city -in which she was “raised,” and the next -city to that, and the next. She is sure -to tell you that she came over on such -and such a liner, that they had exactly -one thousand three hundred and forty-nine -persons aboard, including three -hundred officers and crew, two hundred -and seventeen saloon passengers, and -a precise number of second class and -steerage people. “That ship has got -eight thousand electric lights, five hundred -portholes, eight thousand seven -hundred and twenty-five tons of coal -in her bunkers, when she leaves port; -her stores include four thousand knives,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span> -forks, and spoons, and ten thousand -bottles of old rye whiskey; she is an -American boat, and there are twenty -performers in the band, and her captain -has made the return trip two hundred -and seventy-three times,” and so on, -until you begin to feel as if you had -fallen into a ready reckoner, and to -wonder whether in some occult way the -young lady receives a commission from -the steamship company. Like every -other American man, woman or child, -Mark Twain included, she is plagued -also with the “pass-a-given-point” -mania. The Americans are literally -eaten up with processions, and the -glory of every one of them is determined -by the circumstance that it took so -many minutes to pass a given point. -Of the latest records in this connection, -the American girl is sure to prattle to -you with amazing zest. In brief, her -mind, besides containing much that is -really valuable and certainly interesting, -is a storehouse of unimportant and -altogether gratuitous and unnecessary -facts. Summed up, she is pert, provoking, -chock full of information, moderately -pretty, a good deal of a bore, and—an -obvious peach.</p> - -<p>Then there is the American married -woman, who may or who may not have -been married in several different places.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span> -If you meet this lady casually in London -or on the Continent, it will take you quite -a week to discover which of the numerous -men by whom she is always squired, -happens to be her husband.</p> - -<p>Of course, the Americans consider their -women the pink of propriety. “The -ladies of this State, sir,—and I am proud -to say of every other State in the Union—are -h—l upon propriety!” I do not -doubt it, and I should not say so if I -did. The American woman has her good -points and her good qualities, otherwise -American man, dazzler as he -is, could not be so idiotically contented -with her, or, as he himself phrases it, -“sot on her.” At the same time she has, -on the average, omelettes soufflées for -brains and tenderloin steaks for hearts—and -in spite of her charming curves she -exhibits defects of mind, emotions, -person, and breeding alike which, in -my opinion, condemn her to obscure, -or exalt her to take the highest, rank in -the table of civilised feminine precedence -according to the way you look at her. -Always excepting, of course, the obvious -peaches.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span></p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 100px;"> -<img src="images/flower3.jpg" width="100" height="150" alt="(decorative flower image)" /> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V<br /> -<span class="smcap">Literature</span></h2> - -<p>Mr. William Dean Howells, who -is one of the leaders of that small band -of American authors who have a right -to literary consideration in England, -has lately published an entertaining -romance which he calls “Through the -Eye of the Needle.” With Mr. Howells’s -story as a story I have nothing to do. -In the process of relating it Mr. Howells -offers us some candid criticisms of his -countrymen which will serve to illustrate -the real opinion of the cultivated American -as to himself, and all that to him -appertains.</p> - -<p>“My hero,” writes Mr. Howells, -“visited this country when it was on the -verge of great economic depression -extending from 1894 to 1898, but, after -the Spanish War, Providence marked -the Divine approval of our victory in -that contest by renewing in unexampled -measure the prosperity of the Republic. -With the downfall of the Trusts, and -the release of our industrial and commercial -forces to unrestricted activity, -the condition of every form of Labour -has been immeasurably improved, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span> -it is now united with Capital in bonds of -the closest affection.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Howells does not mean this -passage satirically. He is really of -opinion that Providence marked the -Divine approval of America’s victory -over Spain “by renewing in unexampled -measure the prosperity of the -Republic.” He believes, good easy man, -that the Trusts have been humbled, -and that “Labour is now united with -Capital in bonds of the closest affection.” -Isn’t it delicious? Mr. Howells further -informs us that the servant problem in -America has been “solved once for all -by humanity,” and that New York is -no longer a city of violent and unthinkable -noises.</p> - -<p>“The flattened wheel of the trolley,” -he says, “banging the track day and -night, and tormenting the waking and -sleeping ear, was, oddly enough, the -inspiration of Reforms which have made -our city the quietest in the world. The -trolleys now pass unheard; the elevated -train glides by overhead with only a -modulated murmur, the subway is a -retreat fit for meditation and prayer, -where the passenger can possess his soul -in a peace to be found nowhere else; -the automobile whirrs softly through -the most crowded thoroughfare, far -below the speed limit, with a sigh of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span> -gentle satisfaction in its own harmlessness, -and, ‘like the sweet South, taking -and giving odor.’” It is beside the -mark to note that Shakespeare did not -write “taking” but “stealing,” and he -certainly did not spell odour Mr. -Howells’s way.</p> - -<p>Our author proceeds to assure us that -American men are not now the intellectual -inferiors of American women, -“or at least not so much the inferiors”; -that American men have made “a vast -advance in the knowledge and love of -literature,” and that “with the multitude -of our periodicals, and the swarm of our -fictions selling from a hundred thousand -to half a million each, even our business -men cannot wholly escape culture, and -they have become more and more cultured, -so that now you frequently hear -them asking what this or that book is -all about.”</p> - -<p>Later he says of the New Yorkers: -“They are purely commercial, and the -thing that cannot be bought and sold -has logically no place in their life. They -applaud one another for their charities, -which they measure by the amount -given, rather than by the love which -goes with the giving. The widow’s -mite has little credit with them, but -the rich man’s million has an acclaim -that reverberates through their newspapers<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span> -long after his gift is made. It is -only the poor in America who do charity—by -giving help where it is needed; -the Americans are mostly too busy, -if they are at all prosperous, to give -anything but money; and the more -money they give, the more charitable -they esteem themselves. From time to -time some man with twenty or thirty -millions gives one of them away, usually -to a public institution of some sort, -where it will have no effect with the -people who are under-paid for their work, -or cannot get work; and then his deed is -famed throughout the Country as a -thing really beyond praise. Yet anyone -who thinks about it must know that he -never earned the millions he kept, or the -millions he gave, but somehow made -them from the labours of others; that -with all the wealth left him he cannot -miss the fortune that he lavishes, any -more than if the check (English, cheque) -which conveyed it were a withered leaf, -and not in any wise so much as an -ordinary working man might feel the -bestowal of a postage stamp.”</p> - -<p>We have here, as I have said, views -on America not by a shouting American -bluffer or dealer in hyperbole, but by -a man of recognised literary parts and -judgment. Furthermore, Mr. Howells is -plainly not one of those Americans who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span> -affect a contempt for their country. -When he speaks of American success he -attributes it to the favour of Providence; -he can perceive a “vast advance” in the -American’s knowledge and love of literature, -and while he reproves the American -millionaire, he does so more in sorrow -than in anger. So that on the whole -his testimony cannot fairly be traversed.</p> - -<p>And reading between the lines of it, -the intelligent observer will not be slow -to discern that it amounts practically -to a pretty severe indictment of the -Americans. A man who has no place -in his life for a thing that cannot be -bought and sold, is not, after all, the -kind of man one can be expected to -admire, even though Providence may -appear to smile upon him. Neither -can I express myself violently taken -with the man who is “not so much -the intellectual inferior of our women”—and -such women—even if you do frequently -hear him asking what this or -that book is all about. And Mr. -Howells’s opinion of millionaires and -their charity coincides pretty well with -the opinion of Europe.</p> - -<p>Mr. Howells, of course, is a well bred, -well mannered and entirely discreet -author; he sets down naught in malice, -his tendency being rather in the direction -of a little gentle extenuation. Irony,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span> -sarcasm, reproach, and, least of all, -flouts and jeers are not among his -literary weapons.</p> - -<p>It goes without saying, however, that -America has been written about in -much harsher tones than those of Mr. -Howells. From an American book published -pseudonymously two or three -years back, a book that does not appear -to have received anything like its due -share of recognition either in England -or America, I cull the following picturesque -details:—</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“From the moment he takes his seat -in his office, until he goes home, an American’s -business consists of a succession of -swindles. He either picks the pocket of -each man he interviews, or the men pick -his.”</p> - -</div> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“The American gloats over his ability -as a liar. He prides himself upon the fact -that his lie is a plausible one and likely -to deceive. If it does not come up to the -specifications he regards it and himself as -failures, and a shadow is cast upon his life.”</p> - -</div> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“The American who has just borrowed -a dollar immediately rushes into the -nearest bar room and announces that he -has raised 500,000 dollars from a prominent -millionaire who has become his partner, -and will back him to any amount in any -enterprise, sane or insane, in which he may<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span> -agree to embark. Then for the succeeding -three hours he talks about himself so -loudly that the entire neighbourhood -throngs around him to join in the debate.”</p> - -</div> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“The American trader in Europe has -created the same feeling that prevails -among a party of honest cardplayers when -the card-sharper appears at the table.”</p> - -</div> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“The American politician never speaks -but always ‘orates.’ If the matter under -discussion in the legislative body is a -question whether five cents shall be -expended on pencils, or whether Mrs. -Bridget O’Neill, or Mrs. Patrick O’Reilly -shall be appointed scrubwoman of the -Senate House, he considers it beneath -his dignity to say anything that will not -recall the diction of Cicero or Demosthenes. -If the ceiling is to be cleaned and a three-and-elevenpenny -contract is to be given -out, he takes the floor and with a loud -preliminary bellow announces that he is -an American citizen, and anyone who says -that he is not is a confirmed and hereditary -liar.”</p> - -</div> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“If an American learns that a man has -been bribed he does not hate him—he -envies him.”</p> - -</div> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“In New York society no man is ever -referred to as ‘Mr. Jones’ or ‘Mr. Smith.’ -He is always referred to as ‘Mr. Jones, -who is worth two million dollars,’ or ‘Mr. -Smith, who is worth four million dollars -and stole every cent of it.’”</p> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span></p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“The average Chicagoan has not the -faintest conception of the true meaning of -right and wrong. Right is the method that -succeeds in getting money. Wrong is the -method that does not.”</p></div> - -<p>I shall beg the reader to observe -particularly that I do not myself make -these stinging assertions. In the words -of the late Sir William Harcourt, “I -merely quote them.” In a sense, perhaps, -they may be most correctly -described as exaggerations. But they -are exaggerations of a kind which have -more than a substratum of truth in -them. I commend them to the swaggering -rubber-jawed American for what -they are worth.</p> - -<p>Did the scope of this book allow, -it would be possible to cite numerous -other animadversions upon American -manners and customs by other pens.</p> - -<p>No British author of standing has -visited the United States and come -back in love with the American people. -Dickens loathed them, Thackeray could -not put up with them, Mathew Arnold -despised them, and Browning laughed -at them, while as for Tennyson he -absolutely refused to go near them. -Even the sensational litterateurs of -our own generation, such as Hall Caine -or Bernard Shaw, have failed to find -much or anything to shriek about. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span> -Bishop of London and Father Vaughan -are not authors but diplomats. Rudyard -Kipling has been in America -more than once, and remains dumb as -to the whole concern. Mr. Zangwill -is equally travelled and equally silent. -Mr. Wells, who went out for the purpose, -has written his book and said practically -nothing. All of them, and others who -might be named, recognise that what -ought to be said would be better unsaid—unpleasant -for the Americans, and consequently -likely to provoke bad feeling. -It is gentlest to the Americans to write -of them without paying a preliminary -visit to their native air. What would -happen if a person who wields a plain -blunt pen were to make a call upon them -and set forth his impressions in good -cold type and without fear or pity, no -man may tell. Probably the Americans -would shoot him.</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 150px;"> -<img src="images/flower2.jpg" width="150" height="100" alt="(decorative flower image)" /> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span></p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 100px;"> -<img src="images/flower4.jpg" width="100" height="150" alt="(decorative flower image)" /> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI<br /> -<span class="smcap">The President</span></h2> - -<p>It is said that killing a man will not -prevent him from going to Chicago, -and you may be certain that nothing -will prevent an American from getting -himself elected President of the United -States if he can possibly manage it.</p> - -<p>The United States Presidency is -believed by the patriotic American to -be the very finest position that mortal -man could possibly desire to occupy, -outshining in glory and honour, if not -exactly in importance, all “the effete -thrones of Yurrup” rolled into one -paroxysm of purple. Tremendous and -almighty as the United States Presidency -may be, however, its real lustre -and attraction for the American imagination -lies in the fact that it is within the -possible attainment of any and every -United States citizen who does not -happen to be a nigger. Of course, your -United States President has sometimes -been a very different affair from the -United States Presidency. But that -is neither here nor there; because a -man who can write “President U.S.” after -his name is, on the face of it, clearly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span> -entitled to think that he casts a large -shadow. And he does.</p> - -<p>Though the history books will tell you -otherwise, astute people—which phrase -includes a fair handful of Americans—are -of opinion that the Republic of -the United States has had only a matter -of three Presidents. The first of them -was George Washington, who, let it -be said, set the fashion of not relishing -the job; the second of them was Abraham -Lincoln, rail splitter, lawyer, statesman -and martyr; and the third -American President—one blushes with -pride to name him—is none other than -Theodore Roosevelt, now more or less -happily reigning.</p> - -<p>I am no great hand at either history -or biography, so that the reader of these -pages will be spared the usual entertaining -biographical details. I am not -even aware if Mr. Roosevelt arrived -at the White House by way of the -traditional Log Cabin, or whether he -took a pleasanter, less stony and less -circuitous route. It is sufficient for me -to have reasonable hearsay evidence -that he is there, and that he has filled -up frantically every hour of his time -since he got there.</p> - -<p>For the ruler of a great state Mr. -Roosevelt is, to say the least, an appealing -and exciting figure. He may be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span> -said fairly to out-rival anything of the -kind that has hitherto been offered us -this side of the Atlantic—with one diverting -and rhetorical Teutonic exception.</p> - -<p>In Mr. Roosevelt you have the following -popular and captivating elements:</p> - -<p>He is:—</p> - -<ul> -<li>A Dutchman.</li> -<li>An American.</li> -<li>A Diplomat.</li> -<li>A Soldier.</li> -<li>A Lawn-Tennis Champion.</li> -<li>A Cow-boy.</li> -<li>A Big Game Shooter.</li> -<li>A Strong Man.</li> -<li>An Anti-Malthusian.</li> -<li>A Hand-Shaker-of-All-Comers.</li> -<li>A Stump Orator.</li> -<li>A Spelling Reformer.</li> -<li>An Apostle of the Strenuous Life.</li> -<li>A Husband.</li> -<li>A Father.</li> -<li>A Family Man.</li> -<li>A Deacon.</li> -<li>A Humourist.</li> -<li>A Pugilist.</li> -<li>A Harriman-hunter.</li> -<li>A Hardy Horseman.</li> -<li>A Dog Fancier.</li> -<li>An Author.</li> -<li>A Judge of White Mice.</li> -<li><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span>A San Juan Hero.</li> -<li>A Nobel Prize Winner.</li> -<li>A Statesman of the First Order.</li> -<li>A Hustler;</li> -<li>and</li> -<li>President of the United States of America.</li> -</ul> - -<p>Probably it has never been possible -to compile such an inventory in favour -of any other example of the human -species, and when one looks down its -massive proportions one is at no loss to -understand why the American people -consider themselves to be the very finest -people on earth and entirely denuded of -flies.</p> - -<p>In a comparatively short if variegated -career President Roosevelt has accomplished -so much that is extraordinary -that one never knows where he is likely -to break out afresh. Before his term -of office is out he may conceivably -become many other things besides those -I have listed. It would not surprise -me if he turned Vegetarian or King. -Nothing is too high for him, nothing -too humble, nothing too exceptional -or unconventional, nothing too imperial. -And withal there is a rugged and stern -and solid dignity about him. He wields -the big stick throughout his vast dominions, -and spanks down evildoers as a -housewife spanks down wasps. At home<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span> -he stands no nonsense; abroad he wants -peace, perfect peace, but equally stands -no foolery. People of all nations admire -him and wave banners over his head -and cheer him to the echo. He is a -sort of quick-firer, strong in the arm -and lively in the head, and built by -heaven to rule over the people of the -United States.</p> - -<p>In many respects President Roosevelt -appears to be a sort of republican -replica of no less a personage than -Wilhelm II. of Germany. The parallel -between the two potentates is interesting -and diverting and to some extent -disconcerting. That they are friends, -that they think together on certain big -subjects, that they have exchanged -telegrams, that they love each other, -and that they have both been a trifle -flighty at times cannot be doubted.</p> - -<p>The really interesting point about -Mr. Roosevelt is that he may be reckoned -to stand for the finest expression and -exemplar of the American people. A -nation that can manufacture such a -President must be possessed of national -characteristics altogether out of the -common. He is the absolute personification -of the United States. He is -absolutely fearless, he is absolutely -honest, he is absolutely magnificent. -Someday he may be absolutely absolute.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span></p> - -<p>You may be sure that President -Roosevelt will go down to posterity -as the beau ideal of American Presidents. -In the eye of the Americans he has made -few if any mistakes, and though there -is a party in the States that can be very -bitter about him and very rude to him, -their bark is considerably worse than -their bite, and secretly they glory in -him. By dint of a good deal of adroitness -he has succeeded in keeping his -diplomatic end up in Europe and particularly -in England, and nobody -between Tipperary and the Great Wall -of China has hard words for him. The -world recognises in him a great genius—unparalleled -in modern times.</p> - -<p>If ever an American had sound reason -to look back with satisfaction on a well-spent -life, Mr. Roosevelt is the man. -And if ever republic had just cause -to thank Providence for its luck in the -matter of a President, the United States -is that Republic.</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 150px;"> -<img src="images/flower2.jpg" width="150" height="100" alt="(decorative flower image)" /> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII<br /> -<span class="smcap">Advertisement</span></h2> - -<p>“The man who would in business rise -must either bust or advertise” is the -American’s article of faith. In civilised -countries advertising is confined to -its proper limits, that is to say, it is -part of the business of a tradesman. -In America everybody advertises, and -advertises through a megaphone.</p> - -<p>The United States appears to have -been created for the pure purpose of -advertising itself and everything that -occurs in it. In England of late we -have been a little overtroubled with the -persistent and flamboyant advertiser. -His flaring posters, his disconcerting -circulars, and particularly his promises -of fabulous prizes if one will but buy his -soap or his half-penny paper or his gaspipe -bicycles have jarred upon most of us. -The London hoardings blaze with all -sorts of invitations to drink cocoa, -swallow pills, go to the theatre, and -demand bottled trouble of one label or -another.</p> - -<p>The plague is upon England, and probably -we shall not get rid of it for a couple -of generations or so. In the meantime, -however, we may console ourselves with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span> -the knowledge that gaudy and excruciating -as London advertising may be, -it is a mere tea-party compared to the -orgie of announcement that is always in -progress in every bright American city. -Furthermore, while the English advertiser -has admittedly done his best to -destroy for us the mild delights of a railway -journey by erecting in every second -meadow funereal signs with the names of -liver pills and cattle foods upon them -he has not yet attained to the audacities -of his American confrère who, -in his delirium of publicity, paints the -names of nostrums on the sides of innocuous -cows and adorns the scenery with -purple and yellow posters that are positively -zoo-like in their noise.</p> - -<p>The rocks and hills of America are -daubed over with wild entreaties to the -passer-by to fix up his liver with some -newly invented mixture, or to sow someone’s -invaluable hair seed on his bald -head. Each country barn is decorated -with huge signs bearing disinterested -advice as to what sort of medicine a -wayfarer should use in the spring. In -no part of any State can one escape the -huge advertisement. If you penetrate -into the recesses of the highest mountain -and find there the hut of a bewhiskered -hermit, the chances are that when you -approach him he will give you some<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span> -handbills containing details of the marvellous -cures effected by So-and-So’s -sarsaparilla. The sails of yachts are -adorned with statements as to medicines. -Landscapes serve but to promulgate the -claims of the quack. If a man plants a -bed of geraniums the chances are that -the flowers are arranged in such a way -that they immortalise the fame of -somebody’s ipecachuana. The gardener -is induced to do this by a present of free -seeds.</p> - -<p>In the trolley cars of New York one is -always in danger of finding a seat under -some such notice as, “The gentleman -sitting beneath this sign is wearing a -pair of our inimitable three dollar -pants. They fit him beautifully. -Don’t you think they do?” Or, “The -gentleman sitting below has a very yellow -complexion this morning. He looks -as if he had drunk too much last night. -If he had had proper advice he would -have taken a dose of Green Jackdaw -Effervescent before breakfast, then he -would feel very much better than he -does now.”</p> - -<p>Pills, potions, pick-me-ups, blood purifiers, -liver mixtures, lung tonics, corn -cures, and preparations for tender feet -appear to be the only articles of commerce -that half the population of the United -States trade in and manufacture. You<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span> -cannot move in America without having -these nostrums cast violently into your -teeth and shoved down your throat by -every species of reminder that printers’ -ink and the ingenuity of the devil are -capable of compassing.</p> - -<p>With a view to the maintenance and -upkeep of this extraordinary jumble of -publicity the country is patrolled year -in and year out by thousands of advertising -vans, each accompanied by a considerable -staff of “old hands.” American -papers commonly contain paragraphs -like the following: “Advertising -car No 2 of Pawnee Bill’s Wild West has -the following people: Al Osborn, manager; -Doc Ingram, boss billposter; A. -Clarkson, lithographer; J. Dees, banners; -N. C. Murray, J. Judge and -twelve other billposters; B. Balke, paste-maker; -and R. Richardson, chef.” That -the boss billposter should rank after the -manager and the chef after the paste-maker -is a choice American touch.</p> - -<p>When you turn to the question of newspaper -advertising you encounter pretty -much the same characteristics, supplemented -by a great deal of top-speed bellowing. -In a high-class paper that lies -before me as I write, a gentleman in the -wholesale way announces in indecently -tall black type that he is the “only live -hardware man on earth,” and that he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span> -has “figured out a way to boost the business -of his customers as well as build a -good foundation.” Another dweller in -the land of brotherly love—an artiste -this time, if you please—announces himself -as “The Death Defying Daredevil -King of the High Wire” and assures us -not only that he has been “the Feature -Attraction for Three Seasons in Succession -at Luna Park, Coney Island,” but -that his “Reputation Talks for Itself.”</p> - -<p>The tone of these announcements is -typical. Every American advertiser -insists that he is the greatest man of -business alive, and that the article he is -so anxious to get rid of is the only fine -thing in the world. You note, too, with -a certain restrained joy, that every -second advertisement appearing in an -American paper or magazine starts off -with the magical words: “It Will Pay -You.” Thus if we are to believe the -veracious publicity-monger it will pay -you to wear So and So’s Collegian -clothes which “are the only garments -made in this entire country with real -dash to them”; it will pay you to buy -Thingamy Suspenders because they will -make your boy “comfortable and good-natured”; -it will pay you to go about -in Thingamy Shoes because when you -pay three dollars for the Thingamy -Shoe “you can know that all of your<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span> -money goes to the purchase of protection -for your feet”; and it will pay you “to -keep step with nature and tempt the -fussy appetite with ‘Ten Liberal Breakfasts -for Ten Cents.’” The authors of -these touching suggestions evidently -understand the public with whom they -have to deal. They have learnt the -sublime lesson that the American has -but a single inducement in his nightmare -of a life, namely—the inducement of -money or noise.</p> - -<p>I shall now consider the advertising -feats of that class of American persons -who advertise not for financial gain, but -for the sweet sake of notoriety. A great -lady of American birth is said to have -advised her sons that if they were to -succeed in life they must make a point -of getting their names into the papers -at least once a day. The sons of the lady -appear to have taken the hint, with the -result that they have made themselves -fairly snug out of very small beginnings.</p> - -<p>In the United States the bare getting of -one’s name into the papers is a comparatively -easy matter. Pretty well any -American reporter will arrange that much -for you in return for a ten cent drink, -while for two such drinks he will run to a -photo-block and a description of yourself -as “a prominent society and club -man who made his pile in Wall Street.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span></p> - -<p>You must always remember, however, -that the accomplished American private -advertiser has a soul vastly above the -mere elements of the game. Usually he -is rich and often his life has contained -episodes which an ingenious press can -work up into scandals with half a column -of sensational headlines—pin new and -piping hot—on the shortest notice. -Most wealthy advertising Americans, -and indeed many of those who do not -advertise, have been treated to this beautiful -brand of publicity.</p> - -<p>As a matter of fact it is an ancient -and over-worn fetich, and as the newspaper-reading -American is no longer to -be excited by it, there is little or nothing -in it for anybody. Consequently the -American who is thirsty for advertisement -is compelled to have resource to -what are called “stunts.” So far as one -is able to make out you are considered -by American society to achieve a “stunt” -when you do something that nobody but -a lunatic could possibly have thought of -doing. For example, if you give a dinner -party at a big New York hotel and let it -be known that the guests were all of -them chimpanzees you have done a -“stunt.” And the reporters of every -paper in the city will rush to you as one -man to find out the facts. They will -describe you as a multi-millionaire and a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span> -high-life club man whose existence is a -sort of perennial grand slam. They will -assert that your notion of bringing -together a company of chimpanzees for -dinner is wildly and unprecedentedly -clever. They will go on to explain that the -number of chimpanzees present was 47, -that they turned up in the very smartest -evening dress, that they ate and drank -off plate of solid gold and that the champagne -bottles were studded with rubies. -And they will wind up by announcing -that one of the most distinguished of the -chimpanzees, who made his entrance to -the dinner party out of a balloon made -of fifty dollar bills, has just found a -$500,000,000 gold-brick mine in a remote -district of Omaha, where he was “raised,” -and is as a consequence about to be -elected President of the National Bank.</p> - -<p>Result: your dinner becomes the talk -of America for at least a few hours, and -you consider yourself a fortunate and -public man. That is, if you are an -ambitious American. Of course, this -sort of advertising requires a good deal -of coin to keep up the pace. And while -there is not an hotel keeper in the Union -who cannot supply you with a steady -succession of idiotic freak ideas, the cost -is a trifle heavy, and you soon find yourself -growing rather tired.</p> - -<p>But the American is nothing if not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span> -clever. For a change, perhaps, he -acquires an affinity or elopes with another -man’s wife in a series of gorgeous motor -cars and specially reserved steamships. -He writes letters to his own wife explaining -in ecstatic language what he has -done; and she, good soul, serves them -out to the reporters like so many doughnuts. -Again, he gets his boosting—his -roaring, rolling advertisement. Two -months later the whole affair may turn -out to have been a merry little “plant”; -but your bright American has had his -glad columns in the papers, and nothing -in the world can take them from him.</p> - -<p>Of course, the “stunts” I have here -indicated are really of a rather out-of-the-way -sort. The common or garden -“stunt” usually takes the shape of an -appendicitis dinner, pies with girls in -them, fountains running champagne, or -Adam and Eve suppers.</p> - -<p>American women’s “stunts” are generally -giddier still. One lady compassed -social distinction by having her sunshade -heavily embroidered with diamonds, -another has tiny musical boxes fitted into -the heels of her shoes that play when -ever she puts her feet up—which is -often—and a third wears a live newt in -her hair, and has a boudoir full of snakes -and lucky bears.</p> - -<p>But the soul and essence of it all is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span> -advertisement. “Be singular and you -will get talked about; get talked about -and you will be happy” is America’s -golden rule.</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 150px;"> -<img src="images/flower2.jpg" width="150" height="100" alt="(decorative flower image)" /> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII<br /> -<span class="smcap">The Pea-nut Mind</span></h2> - -<p>I am in the happy position of never -having gazed upon a pea-nut in my -life. Therefore my notions of what the -pea-nut may be are of the haziest.</p> - -<p>But I gather as the result of some research -that it is a species of provender, -and that it is purchased and consumed by -the American masses in pretty much the -same spirit and on pretty well the same -occasions that the common Cockney of -our own happy British Islands purchases -and devours barcelonas and whelks. In -other words, a pea-nut is an inevitable -concomitant of a lower-class American -holiday. It is always with them. It is -the one article that you may depend -upon obtaining not only at every -American dry goods store, but at every -street-fair, park, beach, and entertainment -ground throughout the country. -It is a comestible beloved of old and -young alike, and when the American -boy or girl’s mouth is not at work on -chewing gum it is working overtime on -pea-nuts.</p> - -<p>When a working-class American wants -a holiday—and sometimes when he -would rather stay at home—he sets out<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span> -with his wife and family for the nearest -park. In England, of course, a park -means, for the working classes at any -rate, a somewhat decorous and over-laid-out -open space where there is a -band-stand, a range of concrete promenades, -a Swiss châlet where bad tea is -provided, a policeman, and a number of -hard seats. In America, however, the -park is an entirely different affair. It -is always a place in which you can buy -pea-nuts. Not only so; it is a place in -which the benevolent American entrepreneurs -throw together aggregations of -“attractions” such as are to be seen -nowhere else on sea or land. I find, for -example, that for Cream City Park, -Lyons, Ill., the following amusement -devices are to be provided during this -present summer:—</p> - -<p>“Old Mill, Merry-Go-Rounds, Penny -Arcade, Circular Swing, Cave of the -Winds, Billiard and Pool Parlours, Jap -Ping-Pong Parlour, Cane Rack, Baby -Rack, Illusion Shows, Baby Incubator, -Pony Track, Razzle-Dazzle, and ‘other -novelties.’ There are also to be Japanese -Tea Gardens, Ice Cream Stands, Soft -Drink Stands, Candy and Pop Corn -Stands, and facilities for the sale of -pea-nuts.”</p> - -<p>Another of these parks at Aldoc -Beach, near Buffalo, is described as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span> -“running seven days a week” and as -possessing “the most magnificent Pine -Grove and Great Lake,” together with -“a $100,000 Summer Hotel, a $15,000 -Figure Eight, a $5,000 Rustic Vaudeville -Theatre, and a $5,000 Dance -Pavilion,” in addition to a Blinding -Array of Restaurants, Chubbuck Wheels, -Houses of Mirth, Box-Ball Alleys, -Shooting Galleries, Circle Swings, and -Stands for the sale of Soft Drinks, -Tobaccos, Sandwiches, Ice Creams, -Frankfurters—and pea-nuts.</p> - -<p>There are literally thousands of these -parks scattered throughout the United -States, and at all and each of them -roaring provision is made for the -people’s enjoyment. Compared with our -English parks, with their sad, uncertain -County Council bands, they fire the -imagination. Practically they represent -the old English fair—which the drab -English authorities have so ruthlessly -stamped out—very much modernised, -Americanised, and “notionised.” Here -the pea-nut reigns supreme. You chew -it on the Razzle-Dazzle and in the Baby -Rack and the Old Mill and the House of -Mirth and the Chubbuck Wheel, and -even in the $15,000 Figure Eight and -the $5,000 Rustic Vaudeville. It is -pea-nuts, pea-nuts, pea-nuts all the -time, and nobody hopes, and nobody<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span> -has the least desire to get away from -them—from pea-nuts.</p> - -<p>Now, as the parks are open throughout -the year and run seven days a week, and -are all situated within easy distance of -large centres of population, it follows -that the consumption of pea-nuts in -America is something enormous. If the -yearly supply were to be put into trucks -and looped up into a procession, it -would probably take that procession 368 -days to pass a given point.</p> - -<p>The big fact that I wish to bring out -is that the Americans are a pea-nut-fed -nation. With this simple statement it -is possible to account for a great deal -that is otherwise inexplicable in the -American genius and character.</p> - -<p>Nut-chewing is a habit which has been -in vogue on the earth for an incredible -period. Originally developed by the -Simian races, it was at one time the -only known dietetic habit that did not -involve bloodshed. It fell into neglect -in Europe with the coming of the white -man, and throughout the dark ages -which ensued nobody appears to have -given it a thought. It remained for the -genius of America to revive it, and there -can be no doubt that the renascence -has been brought about in a thoroughly -adequate and successful manner.</p> - -<p>For, as I have shown, all America<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span> -now chews pea-nuts. As the result, -they are a square-jawed, massy-faced -race, martyrs to dyspepsia, fussy in the -matter of appetite, and indiscriminate -in the general selection of viands, their -staples under this head consisting of fat -pork and beans, corn mush and jungle-canned -beef. Moreover, by dint of the -assiduous and long-continued absorption -of pea-nuts, they have acquired what -may be reasonably termed a pea-nut mind.</p> - -<p>If you can imagine the vast hordes of -the original nut-chewers of antiquity -suddenly set down in the midst of the -machinery and advantages of twentieth-century -civilisation, and imagine what -they would proceed to do in the circumstances, -you have gone a great way -towards a true conception of the -American people as they really are. -Their habits and manners and aspirations -and desires appear in effect to be -based entirely on nut-chewing, which, as -every naturalist is aware, tends to -render the chewer acquisitive, cute, -tricksome, not given to reflection, tough -and nimble of body, and reasonably -devoid of soul. The habit carries with -it, also, an innate love of what is noisy -and showy, and a vanity which passes -ordinary human understanding. It is -all based on the desire to dazzle.</p> - -<p>So long as America has parks, so long<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span> -will she chew pea-nuts, and so long as -she chews pea-nuts, so long will she -continue to remain as artlessly, -amazingly and convincingly American -as she is at the present moment. To -take a few pertinent instances, you will -find that all American oratory is simply -and solely pea-nut oratory. I append -an extract from a speech delivered at the -New York Board of Aldermen by a -representative from the Borough of -Brooklyn, as reported in an American -paper:—</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“I demand this ordinance to your -attention fer the sake of humanity and fer -the cause of freedom. Has introduced two -ordinances on this subject before, and now -I am submittin’ this Bill instead of them -two. Maybe I don’t know nuthin’ about -how things is over here on this side of the -bridge, but I know just how it is in Brooklyn. -An’ I wanter tell you that them -motormen over in Brooklyn is grinded -under the heels of their masters just as the -slaves was drove in the olden times by his -masters, an’ it’s time fer us to interfere in -this here matter now.</p> - -<p>“Now you may want to know why them -motormen don’t come over here and speak -up to you for their rights. If the is -suffering such outrages as this, you asks, -why don’t they come here and tell us that -they is sufferin’ and ast us to life the yoke -from offen them?</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span></p> - -<p>“I’ll tell yer why they don’t come. -They dasn’t. That’s why.</p> - -<p>“They’re afraid, because they’re slaves -and dasn’t speak up fer themselves. If -they was to come over here and say to -this committee, ‘We want you to protect -us in our rights for the reason that we’re -sufferin’ and frozing in the winter,’ what -would happen?</p> - -<p>“Why, before them men got through -speakin’ their names would be taken and -telegraphed to their masters, and when -they got back to their cars them masters -would tell them they hadn’t no more use -for ’em no more furever.”</p></div> - -<p>Herein surely one may trace the effects -of pea-nuts as easily as white paint can -be seen on a negro.</p> - -<p>Now let us turn to a sample of English -“as she is wrote” and apparently -spoken by the American who can -read:—</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>The story about that fisherman wasn’t -so bad. He was an old guy, and so poor -he had a hard time getting three squares -a day, and he had a wife and three kids to -support. For some reason too deep for -your uncle, he had a rule to pitch his nets -in the sea only four times a day. One -morning he went out fishing before daylight, -and the first drag he made, he copped -out a dead donkey. That made him -pretty sore. Dead donks were a frost, and -he was out one throw. He win out a lot -of mud, the next throw, and he was sick, -and he makes a howl about fortune.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Here I am,” says he, “hustling all day -long and every day in the week; I got no -other graft but this; and yet as hard as I -wrestle I can’t pay rent. A poor man has -no chance. The smooth guys get all the -tapioca, and the honest citizen nit.”</p> - -<p>Then he throws again, and finds -another gold brick—stones, shells, and -stuff. I guess he was pretty wild when -he sees that. Three throws to the bad -and nairy fish.</p> - -<p>When the sun came over the hill, he -flopped down on his knees and prayed like -all good Mussulmens, and after that gave -the Lord another song.</p></div> - -<p>English of this description runs very -badly to pea-nut. It is distorted and -degraded and entirely ungrammatical. -Yet no one will deny that, if it is not -commonly written, it is at least commonly -spoken, even in such centres as -New York and Boston. To American -ears and eyes there is nothing about it -that can be quarrelled with. Every -American knows what is meant by -“guys,” “tapioca,” “nit,” “gold-brick,” -“nairy,” “squares,” “hot-air,” and so -forth; and he uses these and similarly -squalid words and phrases in his daily -speech and conversation. If you were -to tell him that such a sentence as “he -win out a lot of mud, the next throw” -was grammatically unsound and impossible, -he would ask you please to be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span> -so kind “as not to pull his leg.” He is -mentally incapable of distinguishing the -kind of muss I have quoted from -writing of a correct order, and when it -creeps into his newspapers, and fictional -publications, as it is continually doing, -he never as much as suspects that there -is anything wrong.</p> - -<p>Such a pea-nutty view of language -points its own moral. It is a view that -is universal among Americans, and it -can be proved to obtain even among the -best of American authors, who habitually -use some of the crudest Americanisms -without knowing it.</p> - -<p>I need scarcely add that the pea-nut -flavour predominates in most American -affairs. The advertising of the country -is done wholly on pea-nut principles, its -politics are run on pea-nut lines, and its -professional men and financiers indulge -in every species of pea-nut methods. No -doubt one should be charitable enough -to refrain from blaming them for it. -They are to the manner born, and the -pea-nut idiosyncracy is so firmly implanted -in their natures that it would be -impossible for them to shake it out, -even if they tried. So that they go on -pea-nutting and pea-nutting from generation -to generation, and in spite of the -extraordinary number of colleges, free -schools, reading clubs, and general<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span> -facilities for culture, they remain clear -pea-nut right through.</p> - -<p>As I do not happen to wish them any -particular harm, I shall express the -pious hope that they will long continue -to pea-nut.</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 150px;"> -<img src="images/flower2.jpg" width="150" height="100" alt="(decorative flower image)" /> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX<br /> -<span class="smcap">The Drama</span></h2> - -<p>The Americans are nothing if not -fiercely and incorrigibly theatrical. It -is true that they have only one pose, -namely, the pose of being gloriously and -unaffectedly American. Yet in all the -large issues of life they display a strong -sense of the stage, they revel in the more -obvious situations, and they have an -innate love of a good curtain.</p> - -<p>These facts are strikingly illustrated -in the American law courts, where all -small matters are managed on the lines -of comedy, and all large matters on the -lines of hot and lurid melodrama. The -recent Thaw trial may be taken as a -typical case in point, so far as melodrama -is concerned. The speeches of -counsel on both sides might have been -written specially for the Adelphi Theatre, -and every gesture of the rival declaimers -would seem to have been modelled on -the style of the adipose itinerant actor -who plays “Othello” in penny gaffs.</p> - -<p>So far as the real stage is concerned, -the Americans are to be credited with -quite a number of startling innovations. -They were the sole inventors of the -Deadwood Dick kind of play, which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span> -involves the tooling on to the stage of an -ancient and battered mail coach, accompanied -by feats of unthinkable skill -with the shooting irons. I believe, too, -that they were the only begetters of the -drama that has for its central attraction -a real set-to between bona-fide bruisers, -who fight with the gloves off and punish -one another for all they are worth -under American rules.</p> - -<p>Then, of course, I must not forget to -mention the world-renowned “Tank -Drama.” It appears that an American -manager happened once upon a time to -find himself in a second-hand galvanised -iron store. Here he discovered an enormous -iron tank which he found could -be purchased for a song. In a fit of abstraction, -and in pursuance of the American -tendency to buy anything and -everything that can be had dirt cheap, -he purchased the tank. And having it on -his hands and no particular use for it, he -hired a dramatist to write a play around -it. To this woolly genius a tank of course -suggested water and high dives and -swimmers, and before you could say hey, -presto! Mr. Manager found himself in -possession of a sensational, if somewhat -humid, melodrama, the like of which had -never before been seen on any road.</p> - -<p>The Tank Drama toured the States for -years on end, to the approval and delight<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span> -of American audiences, and for anything -I know to the contrary, it is still running, -the tank itself having by this time, -no doubt, grown a little leaky.</p> - -<p>In England the public is familiar with -melodramas in which the principal part is -taken by steam-rollers, circular saws, -fire-engines, and other pieces of mechanism. -The Tank Drama, however, was -the progenitor of them all. It was from -the Americans, also, that we learnt to -grace our melodramas with the presence -on the stage of real live cows, racehorses, -ducks and geese, faithful dogs, -dancing bears, blue monkeys, and -educated asses.</p> - -<p>The American public prides itself -upon the rapidity with which the national -dramatists, from Clyde Fitch or Augustus -Thomas to David Belasco or Theodore -Kremer, can turn out almost any species -of dramatic work to order. On the -production of a five-act tragedy recently -in New York, it was announced that -the author had written “the whole -contraption” in under the twenty-four -hours. I can well believe it. The -majority of American plays that come -to us on this side bear unmistakable -indications of having been written -in haste, and with a single eye to getting -through with the labour. This is no -doubt due to the circumstance that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span> -American managers have a mania for -producing new pieces, and that the -average run of such pieces is exceedingly -short. Authors do not feel it to be -worth their while to take pains, particularly -as the majority of them have to -subsist by dressing up in dramatic -guise some new and big mechanical -invention or some cause célèbre or -tragedy in real life or some stupid story, -which happens to have caught on, but -which they know cannot in the nature -of things keep the stage for more than -a few weeks.</p> - -<p>Although one is continually hearing of -the triumphs of this or that American -actor or actress in Shakespearean parts, -it is a solemn fact that the average of -Shakespearean acting in America is very -much below that of any other country -in which Shakespeare is consistently -played. I cannot, of course, forget -that America produced the late Mr. -Phelps and gave us Miss Mary Anderson, -whom all the world admired. But these -are the exceptions. The rule is that the -American actor who plays Shakespeare is -a bull-necked, unlettered mummer who -has served his apprenticeship to the -circus business or to the plumbing, and -roars out Shakespeare’s lines with a -nasal intonation and an absolute lack -of understanding. Nine out of ten<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span> -American actors ought to carry a net -with them.</p> - -<p>I am aware that it may be contended -that the foregoing aspects of the -American drama are things of the past, -and that in all essential respects the -theatre in America is nowadays on -an equal footing with the theatre in -England. In a considerable measure, -this may be so, due, no doubt, to the -mixed beneficence of the blessed brotherhood: -Frohman, Klaw and Erlanger.</p> - -<p>Yet there can be no getting away -from the fact that the American plays -and American companies that are from -time to time brought to London for our -edification fail woefully to interest us.</p> - -<p>In London, quite lately we have been -presented with two plays of American -extraction and rendered by American -companies. One of them “Mrs. Wiggs of -the Cabbage Patch” to wit, at Terry’s -Theatre, appears to have been a success, -from a monetary point of view, -and nobody can witness it without -entertainment. On the other hand, it -suffers from that pea-nutty exuberance -and thinness of interest which are so -characteristically American. The sentiment -in it is of the floweriest and slobberiest -sort, the comedy forced and jerky, -and the setting squalid and depressing to -a degree. It is said to be a transcript<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span> -of life among the American poorer -classes, and herein conceivably it is -instructive if not altogether uplifting; -for it indicates only too plainly that the -hackneyed American talk about “the -full dinner-pail” and the general snugness -and decency of the existence of the -American poor has precious little foundation -in fact. Of course, Mrs. Wiggs -herself is made to exhibit singularly -good qualities of heart, and a certain -shrewd and humorous wisdom. But -the rest of the characters—not even -excluding the weepily-named Lovey-Mary -and Mrs. Wiggs’s troops of wild-cat -children—are the kind of people whom -it sets one’s teeth on edge to meet. -If, as I am told, America is full of -Cabbage Patches, I can only say that -America should hasten to the penitent -form.</p> - -<p>The other play of which London -was adjured to expect great things was -called “Strongheart.” It ran for a -couple of weeks or more at the Aldwych -Theatre, and was then taken off. -“Strongheart” purported to give us -some highly realistic glimpses of American -college life. There was a great -deal of American football in it, and a -great deal of ra, ra, ra-ing about it. -There were also unlimited quantities of ra, -ra rant. But the plot exhibited the usual<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span> -thinness, the construction was slack and -loose, and the characterisation feeble -and colourless. If the company which -supported the handsome Robert Edeson -in this particular piece is to be taken -as a fair sample, I feel free to conclude -that in the lump American actors and -actresses are a reasonably poor crowd. -Play as they would, the men failed to -convince us that they were persons -of any particular breeding, and the -women said their lines as if they were -in pain, and walked through their -parts like so many uninspired clothes -horses. Of course I know America has -many gifted actors and actresses such as -William Faversham, James K. Hackett, -E. H. Sothern, Julia Merlowe, Olga -Nethersole and Mery Mannering—but, -as luck will have it, with the exception -of the second-named, who is a Canadian, -they’re all English. And so is even the -inimitable Hap Ward. On the whole, I -think America will have to make some -very serious strides in the dramatic art -before she can fairly hope to show -England anything that is worth looking -at.</p> - -<p>When you turn to the music halls you -find the American in equally sad case. -There is no performer of note on the -English music-hall stage whose training -and experience have been American.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span> -From the other side we get a few trick -bicyclists, wire-walkers, high divers, -and comic speech makers whose pea-nutty -witticisms are obviously culled -from the comic papers. They help to fill -up the programme, without in any sense -helping to fill up the house.</p> - -<p>It is in this connection that the -Americans have made a practical avowal -of their pathetic inferiority; for they -are said to have made contracts with -some of the leading English stars for -appearances in America, on terms which -plainly indicate that the American -managers must be singularly hard up -for talent and quite incapable of finding -it in their own country.</p> - -<p>The fact is, that in this as in a variety -of other matters, the American’s cock-sureness -and unblushing faith in his -personal beauty and powers have led -him considerably astray. The American -really possesses scarcely any talent. -All he can do is to boast and shout and -advertise. And having little or nothing -behind him to boast and shout and -advertise about, he is bound in the long -run to find himself at a disadvantage. -Half the actresses and female music-hall -artists of America are successful not -because they can do anything, but -because they have been “boosted” -into fame by the pushful, blatant<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span> -manager. The sole accomplishment of -many of them is that they can -undress prettily in full view of their -audiences.</p> - -<p>For the rest they bolster up their -position by extraneous escapades rather -than by art. They are harum-scarum, -feather-brained young women who for -the most part would find it exceedingly -difficult to get a living by the exercise -of their alleged smartness before an -English public. And as for American -actors and music-hall men, the best that -can be said of them is that when they -are not vulgar they are deadly dull, -and the worst that their real sphere of -life is the American circus. I wish they -would all take to the Tank.</p> - -<p>The average American theatrical man, -invariably strikes me as being a born -circus-man, intended by nature to go -around in a gaudy procession by day and -to fill up his nights showing off -wild beasts and freaks and Deadwood -coaches. Unconsciously he does all -his business and manages all his affairs -on circus principles. He is for ever -beating the drum and inviting the crowd -to walk up and see the finest show on -earth. The ideal man of his private -bosom is the late P. T. Barnum, who was -the father of advertisement and the -originator of the fine art of “boosting.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span> -It was P. T. Barnum who said, or who -got somebody to say for him, “When -you have anything good, keep on letting -on about it, and you will get rich.”</p> - -<p>The American business man has always -considered that saying to be the extreme -height of philosophy.</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 150px;"> -<img src="images/flower2.jpg" width="150" height="100" alt="(decorative flower image)" /> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X<br /> -<span class="smcap">Sport</span></h2> - -<p>The Americans are all “sports.” But -to their credit, they are one and all -“dead games.” They have a sporting -tradition which extends back to the -time when their great-grandfathers -gambled for negresses and went trailing -for Indians in pretty much the same -way that an Englishman goes shooting -wild duck.</p> - -<p>It is said, with what truth I know -not, that the Americans hunt the fox -in red coats and top-hats, and that they -are yachtsmen and fishermen and big -game killers. I have met a considerable -number of Americans—well-to-do and -otherwise—but I never yet came across -one whom I could conscientiously figure -in any of the latter connections. Of -course, there is the America Cup Race -to confound me, and there are the -redoubtable doings of President Roosevelt -on the rolling prairie and in the -Rockies, and there is young Mr. Jay -Gould’s defeat of our Mr. Eustace Miles -at Rackets or Ping Pong or some such -game. All the same, I will never believe -that the modern American is leisurely<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span> -enough or uncommercial enough to -know much about real sport.</p> - -<p>That they play games in America -even as we play games in England -appears to be fairly evident. The game -of white man’s games, namely, cricket, -is, however, a game they do not understand. -Baseball and football on the -other hand are exercises which they are -alleged to have cultivated out of all -recognition. Baseball I know nothing -about. And when I come to consider -it closely, I could wish that I knew -nothing about American football.</p> - -<p>Pugilism without the gloves having -been forbidden by law in America, the -free and equal inhabitants thereof must -e’en look round for a form of sport which -would allow of their “lamming the hides -off one another” without being pulled -up short by the police; and they settled -on football. The essence of American -football is not to kick or punch the -ball, but to kick, punch, break up, deface -and destroy the next man. On all -American football fields a squad of -surgeons, bonesetters, and nurses have -to be in continual attendance. The -crushing of a player’s ribs, the gouging -out of his eye, or the splitting open of -his head are regarded as trifling matters -among American sportsmen, and when -the football player goes forth to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span> -fray, he makes a point of taking a fond -farewell of his relations and friends in -case of even more serious accident. -Here, again, you have a distinct instance -of the American tendency to outrage -and excess. They have overdone football -to such an extent that they themselves -consider it in the light of something -which approximates closely to -a murderous affray. So much for games.</p> - -<p>As Indians are no longer shootable, -and negroes can no longer be hunted -with dogs, and the buffalo is extinct, -and the grizzly a “rare proposition” and -difficult of access, the modern American -sport has to be content with smaller -deer, such as possum and bobolink and -wild turkey. And when he goes gunning -for these trophies he is a sight to see. -Nobody can rival him in the magnificence -of his outfit. He insists upon donning -cow-boy attire and proceeding to the -field of action on a fiery mustang, with -a magazine of guns slung all over him, -and enough ammunition to take Port -Arthur. The whole of this equipment -has been purchased at store prices, -and he acquires it not because it is likely -to be useful to him but because he thinks -that it makes him look smart. When -it comes to yachting or fishing or racing -you can depend upon him to display -an equal gaiety of demeanour and to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span> -“dress” and “swank” the part to perfection.</p> - -<p>For the fox-hunting I shall say -nothing. The indigenous American fox -does not run straight, the imported fox -has lost some of the best qualities of -his English forbears, and the American -variety of foxhound is a romping, ill-mannered, -and indiscreet quadruped.</p> - -<p>The national sport of America is horse -racing, qualified with a considerable -dash of trotting. And here, of course, -the American temperament in all its -aspects is made to shine. The head -quarters of American horse racing—the -Epsom, Ascot and Sandown of -the United States—is a place called -Saratoga, where the trunks come from. -Here you find the American horse, -the American racing man, and the -American sport in their highest and -lowest and most perfect expression. -It is said that a Saratoga horse is -poison-proof; being so accustomed to -profound potations of laudanum, bromide, -and other sedatives that he can -quaff any quantity of them without -turning a hair. The people who live -at Saratoga are all horsey and dishonest. -They speak the most degraded -form of Anglo-Saxon—a sort of Americo-Negroid -flash talk—and what they do -not know in the way of knavery and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span> -brutality has yet to be invented. It -goes without saying that all American -racing men do not necessarily dwell -in this sublime spot. But a quite considerable -contingent of them have learnt -lessons out of the Saratoga book, and -are consequently as dangerous to deal -with as it is possible to conceive that -white men could be.</p> - -<p>The American sportsmen we are -privileged to see in England have, with -some notable exceptions, failed signally -to secure our confidence. There are -honest men among them—though never -by any chance a “jay”—and there are -sheep of a blackness which would do no -discredit to the nether pit. On the whole -their connection with the English turf has -been unfortunate for the English turf. -We are most of us quite old enough to -remember the unpleasant things that -happened when an organised gang of these -gentry descended upon our innocent -English rings and racecourses some three -years ago. They got their hands well -into the English pockets, depleted us of -much glittering money, raised what -they were pleased to consider “general -h—l” in the scandal way, and left us -outraged and aghast. Up to this period -in our history the astute English racing-man -had regarded himself as the last -word in craft and wariness; but the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span> -Americans despoiled him as easily as if -he had been a “tenderfoot,” and when -he discovered it, Mr. Englishman was -very shocked. The racing interests of -these realms is still suffering from the -shaking it received during the exciting -period to which I refer. The only profit -the poor Britishers got out of the deal -was a new-fashioned way of riding, which -still remains in vogue, and a lesson in -caution which will last us a good century.</p> - -<p>What the American jockey really -means was forcibly borne in upon us -by the vagaries of a Mr. Tod Sloan. -By dint of the usual advertising and -bluff, coupled indeed with no ordinary -gifts as a horseman, Mr. Sloan made -his early career in England a success -at the first blush. He was soon in -receipt of an income of ridiculous dimensions, -and hob-nobbing with the best -blood of the country. He got found -out, as Americans will, and ended up -feebly by smacking a waiter across -the head with a champagne bottle. -Luck does not appear to have looked -his way since. He went back to America -a disgraced man, even for America; -and took to giving tips for a New York -paper. At the present moment he is -said to be engaged in the gentle art of -billiard-marking at a salary running to -at least ten dollars a week. I recite<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span> -the history of Mr. Sloan to encourage -the others. Our experiences with the -American racing-man in this country -justify us in assuming that he is an -exceptionally sad dog at home. America -is overrun with him, and while she has -done everything that lay in her power -to corral and exterminate him he still -continues merrily on his wicked way.</p> - -<p>It only remains to point out that the -Americans as a people are frantic -gamblers, and that they are infatuated -enough to regard gambling as a form of -sport. Probably more gambling at cards -goes on in the United States than in the -whole of the countries of Europe put -together. The proper American is everlastingly -playing at poker, which is a -bluffing game, and which he will assure -you trains him for his business. The -American card-sharper has been famous -in song and story time out of mind. -For sheer coolness, audacity, and skill -at the job, he has never had an equal. -Occasionally he lands on these shores, -with a picturesque entourage, takes a -flat in the West End of London, and -relieves the adolescent gentry of the -neighbourhood of their little alls. Then -he is up and off, on the wings of the -morning.</p> - -<p>Among themselves, too, the Americans -play a great deal of roulette, petit chevaux,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span> -and kindred fascinations. They -count also amongst the most enthusiastic -patrons of Monte Carlo, where -season after season many of them turn -up with very little money and make a -fat thing of it. Last season a long-haired -gentleman from Kansas City -scooped up between two and three -hundred louis a night for twenty nights -running by the simple process of walking -from table to table and backing 17. -He told me that he and his wife were -there for a little trip, and that he had -hit on the 17 idea because 17 was the -number of their cabin on the liner which -brought them over. Of course 17 can -refuse to come up at Monte Carlo for -hours at a time. But whenever this -raw-boned large-handed citizen of Kansas -chose to put money on it, up it -came inside two or three spins.</p> - -<p>There are American gamblers at -Monte Carlo, however, who are not by -any means so consistently lucky as my -friend. The money some of them get -through when they are having a bad -time would probably astonish the old -folks at home. But it is only fair to -them to say that they take their losses -with an unruffled, if rather moist, brow -and go off solemnly to cable for further -supplies.</p> - -<p>When a certain sort of American<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span> -millionaire turns up in the Mediterranean -paradise there are sure to be merry -doings. I have seen such a one mop his -wet face after handing the bank a bundle -of notes that would have made a tidy -year’s income for a man with a large -family, and remark, a little feebly, “Gee -whizz!” Then he was led gently away -by a number of pretty ladies.</p> - -<p>It is in what one may term hard -gambles such as he gets at Monte Carlo -that the American shows his most -sportsmanlike qualities. At roulette, -or trente et quarente, it is almost impossible -for him to cheat, and consequently -he wins or loses more or less -calmly and with perfect honour. But -at poker—tut—tut!</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 150px;"> -<img src="images/flower2.jpg" width="150" height="100" alt="(decorative flower image)" /> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span></p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 100px;"> -<img src="images/flower5.jpg" width="100" height="150" alt="(decorative flower image)" /> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI<br /> -<span class="smcap">Hogs</span></h2> - -<p>The national peril of the United States -is hogs. Of the peculiar and subtle -influences which have driven most -Americans into the pig business I find -it impossible to formulate any reasonable -account. Of course, there is the fact -that the pig business has large monies -in it, and that America is a country -in which it would seem you have only to -tickle a little pig with a hoe to turn him -into a fine fat porker.</p> - -<p>There can be no doubt whatever that -a very large percentage of Americans -think, talk, and raise pig throughout the -whole of their natural lives. This industry -appears to be of such a fascinating -character that when once you have -got into it you cannot possibly get out -of it. Even if you wax unrighteously -rich and get elected to Congress and -move your family to New York, you -still stick to pork and lard as if they were -your brother. I understand that many -of the ball-rooms in the big brown stone -mansions in Fifth Avenue are waxed -with lard.</p> - -<p>I do not know whether there were any -pigs in America before the Pilgrim<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span> -Fathers landed. But it is certain that -there are millions of them there now, and -that they eat apples and grow wondrous -frisky and have a good time of it—till -killing day comes around. And it is -precisely here that the frightful Americanism -of the hog begins. For the -wicked pig, like the wicked man, has -a knack of finding his way to Chicago—which, -as all the world now knows, is the -most bloodthirsty, sultry, and unregenerate -city on the face of the earth. In -this place they kill pigs by the thousand -daily. Hoggish shrieks rend all the air, -the stores and warehouses groan with -the pig’s dismembered parts, and the -odour of his frizzling adipose tissue -is in every nostril.</p> - -<p>It seems to me more than likely that -the pig owes the beginnings of his present -supremacy in the United States to -the Irish, who are pretty thick upon the -ground there. An Irishman without a -pig in one form or another would in all -likelihood take cold, or die of heart-ache. -In his own distressful Island, the Irishman -and his pig live on terms of freedom -and fraternity that put the American -Constitution to the distinct blush. Not -only does the pig pay the greater proportion -of rent that gets paid in Ireland, -but he is the friend and playmate of the -family, and is invariably accorded a cosy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span> -corner for himself on the domestic -hearth.</p> - -<p>It seems only natural, therefore, that -in emigrating to the States, the Irishman -who could manage it would insist on -taking with him one or more pigs, probably -as much for company’s sake as for -any other reason. And behold the -result! What was a simple and very -human foible on the part of the Irishman, -has become, with the American, a raging -and soul-consuming obsession. Pork, -pork, pork, pork, pork! That is the -cry that rises daily and hourly to heaven -from the greater part of the United-States-half -of North America. Everybody -is concerned in it; everybody has -money in it; everybody wants to -get more money out of it. The pig is -rushed through his feeds, weighed every -morning till he has assumed the right -specific gravity, hurried off by car to his -doom, killed and slain on the no-waiting-here -principle, and turned into hams, -sides, lard, brawn, and sausages for the -delectation of a hungry world before he -has a chance to say George Washington.</p> - -<p>America as a country, and the Americans -as a people, depend upon hogs for -their prosperity to an extent that is -appalling. Upon the dead weight of him -in the warehouses, and upon his firmness, -or want of it, in the markets, hangs the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span> -stability of all sorts of stocks, shares, -bonds, debentures, and general securities. -If pig is “up,” America is a land -of contented households and smiling -faces. If pig is “down,” she is plunged -forthwith into the deepest woe and the -meanest irritability.</p> - -<p>All of which affords one further striking -evidence that the Americans are -really a wonderful people, and that they -deserve the generous tributes of praise -that they so consistently and lavishly -draw upon themselves.</p> - -<p>A nation whose principal diet is pea-nuts, -and whose principal profit is -derived from the sale of pigs, is obviously -pretty low down in the scale of civilisation. -A hog tender cannot by any chance be -the finest kind of man, neither can a pork -butcher or a wholesale ham merchant. -And every American who is not a -member of a trust, or a pastor of a -church, or a boss billposter, or a missionary, -or a comic singer, is either a -hog tender, a pork butcher, or a wholesale -ham merchant. At any rate, so one -gathers from the authorised reports.</p> - -<p>And just as nut-chewing is responsible -for certain grave weaknesses in the -American character, so is pig-dealing. -The pig and the potato have made the -Irishman the idlest man in the world. -The pig takes no rearing, and the potato<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span> -is such a lively and prolific tuber that it -will grow almost without planting. The -Irishman has reaped the full disadvantages -incident to these merits in the pig -and the potato. And one feels sure that -the American is suffering equally from -the effects of the pig. I have no wish -to reopen the box of horrors which was -introduced to our notice some time back -by the author of “The Jungle.” That -gentleman did his work thoroughly, and -the atmosphere is even yet redolent in -consequence. It does not concern me -that Chicago meats, tinned or cured, are -not always entirely fitted for human -consumption, or that the Chicago method -of treating such meats are uncleanly, or -that the Chicago idea of industrial efficiency -is a perverted one. What does -concern me is that Chicago is an American -city, built by Americans, run by -Americans, and made lurid by Americans—on -pig.</p> - -<p>To suggest to the American reformer -that he should take steps for the immediate -extermination of the pigs in -America, steps, in fact, such as have been -taken with a view to the extinction of -the rabbit in Australia, would be to fill -him with horror and amazement. He is -all for the amelioration and improvement -and cleaning up of Chicago; he -does not see that it is the pig and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span> -great American people who are the root -trouble. Prohibit the breeding and -rearing of pigs throughout the United -States, and you will have gone much -further towards the cleaning up of -Chicago, and, for that matter, the cleaning -up of America, than you are ever -likely to get by dealing simply with -Chicago itself. So long as there are pigs, -so long will Chicago reek. Abolish pigs, -and you have abolished the worst -features of the world’s foulest city.</p> - -<p>The reformer will find that my suggestion -is an impracticable one. He may -even go the length of calling it frivolous -and ridiculous. But we shall see -what we shall see. America will one day -either have to forsake pig or come to -very bitter grief. She is already in -considerable straits as to the marketing -of her porcine staples. She has shoved -them down the necks of her own people -till they can no more. She is pushing -them down English throats with all the -force that in her lies, and the limit is -within a very little way of being reached. -Do as one will, one cannot consume -more than a certain amount of American -pig in the course of the day’s deglutition. -Europe is taking far more than is good -for her even now, and yet the American -demand is for bigger sales and extended -markets, to prevent the stuff from rotting<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span> -at home. The position is unfortunate -in quite a number of senses; but it is -precisely what any prescient American -ought to have expected. America is -overdoing it in the matter of pig, just -as she is overdoing it in most other -matters. When you have got the -measure of people’s hunger and purchasing -capacity you cannot appreciably -increase them by any amount of -advertising or bluff.</p> - -<p>The Americans boast that they can -sell everything appertaining to a pig -save and except the squeal. I don’t -wish to frighten them, but it would -not surprise me in the least if within -the space of a few years the large -accumulation of squeals which they -must, by this time, have on hand were -to arise up as it were, and din their -ears in a manner which they will not -relish.</p> - -<p>I may remark finally that in spite of -everything that Chicago may say and -publish in their praise, there can be no -question that American pig products -are of a most inferior and unappetising -quality as compared with the real article. -American hog meat exhibits a coarseness -of grain and a crudeness of flavour which -will incline any person of gustatory discrimination -to the abstention of the -Hebrew. Eggs and bacon constitute<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span> -the English national breakfast dish; -ham and eggs are the sure rock and support -of our country inns and cheap -restaurants. Both these dishes have, -however, fallen into sad disrepute during -late years, and I have no hesitation in -attributing this grave and heartrending -circumstance to the fact that the bacon -and ham nowadays served are almost -exclusively American.</p> - -<p>The gentlemen from the other side -must excuse me if I appear as he would -phrase it, “to tread somewhat too -severely on his face”; but I really mean -him no evil. Rather do I wish him all -manner of good.</p> - -<p>Besides which it is one’s duty to be -patriotic; and charity—even in the -article of pig—should begin at home.</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 150px;"> -<img src="images/flower2.jpg" width="150" height="100" alt="(decorative flower image)" /> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII<br /> -<span class="smcap">Verdict</span></h2> - -<p>Before I leave the jury of potent, -grave and reverend Britishers to their -own reflections on the subject before -them, it may be well to indulge in a little -summing-up.</p> - -<p>I have shown that the fiery, untameable -American is a creature of more than -doubtful antecedents, and that he conceals -beneath a veneer of smartness and -originality several qualities of mind and -heart that are not greatly to his credit. I -have shown that his destiny would seem -to lie in the direction of a reversion to -a condition of pseudo-barbarism which -will in many respects identify him with -the aboriginal possessors of his country. -Already the face, features and body of -him are becoming plainly Red-Indianised. -Already his talk contains hints and -suggestions of “war-paint,” the “war-path,” -the “tomahawk” and the getting -of “scalps.” If I mistake not the rest is -bound soon to follow.</p> - -<p>I have shown also that the American -woman, in so far as she is exhibited to us -in London, and on the Continent of -Europe, is a somewhat frivolous female, -and not always comely; smart, possibly,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span> -and lively, possibly, but on the whole -disposed to be too smart and too lively. -I have given you a peep at the American -millionaire, and found him wanting in -everything but money, and not invariably -too well provided with that. I -have pointed out that American advertising, -whether for the sake of gain -or of notoriety, is a shameless, blatant -and undesirable affair. For the first -time in history I have set it on record -that the Americans eat too many pea-nuts. -I have run the rule over their -painful attempts at the dramatic art, and -proved that in this important connection -they have been responsible for -many banalities and futilities, and that -their average of performance is far -below that of the rest of the theatre-using -world. I have demonstrated, also, -that their real metier is the giddy tenth-rate -circus, ablast with drums and the roaring -of wild beasts, the snuffling of freaks, -and the shrieking mirth of the vulgar. I -have paid a passing tribute to the integrity -and blamelessness of their sportsmen. -And I have warned them solemnly -about pork. What more can be expected -of me?</p> - -<p>It is more than likely that I shall be -told that I have chosen for the subject of -my remarks a rather stodgy type of -American, which is rapidly giving place<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span> -to a saner, wholesomer, and pleasanter -type, resulting from the spread of culture -and a modification of manners on the -best European plans. To this I reply -that I have spoken of the American -exactly as he seems to me to be, and -judged him on the numerous samples -which have hitherto come my way. -That there must be some residuum of -sound and serious people in the United -States seems probable, but I have never -been to the United States.</p> - -<p>Can anyone point to anything in the -world that America is accomplishing -which is purely and simply calculated -to serve the highest interests of the human -race? Can you look upon her trusts, -her general methods of finance, her -social and industrial system, her bosses, -her political parties, the administration -of her law, her press, her religious -mountebanks, her quacks and charlatans -of all conditions, and pronounce them -to be good? Is it not the fact that these, -in common with pretty well the whole of -the remainder of her institutions, are -not only defective, but a great deal -more defective than one’s right to expect -in view of the exceptional natural resources -of the country and her great -energy and wealth?</p> - -<p>You are at liberty to answer these -questions in any way you please; but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span> -the conviction of myself and a by no -means inconsiderable number of other -persons will remain the same.</p> - -<p>It is clear that if the Americans are -going to take that exalted position among -the nations to which they are for ever -laying claim, they will be compelled to -get rid of a great many excrescences of -temperament which they seem now only -too busy developing and emphasising -by every means in their power.</p> - -<p>Is it possible for them, in the nature -of things, so to disencumber themselves?</p> - -<p>Will they ever become a really free -country, dethrone the millionaire and -the boss and acknowledge honesty as a -political virtue?</p> - -<p>Will they ever put silencers on the -yellow press and elect a congressional -committee to examine the gangrenous -decay of their wit and the dropsical -growth of their emotions?</p> - -<p>Will they ever make a point of keeping -their women at home and give practical -proof of their pride in the peaches by -marrying them themselves?</p> - -<p>Will they ever learn the English language -which was the best thing imported -in the “Mayflower”?</p> - -<p>Will they ever get rid of the climatic -influences that compel them to speak and -sing through their noses?</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span></p> - -<p>Will they ever quote their astounding -President at anything but a discount or -realise that he is their greatest national -asset?</p> - -<p>Will they ever place a prohibitive tariff -on noise and lynch sensation-mongers -as they do niggers?</p> - -<p>Will their playwrights ever learn the -difference between a phonograph record -and a play and will their audiences ever -learn to appreciate acting when they see -it?</p> - -<p>Will they ever discover that sport is not -merely a business of record breaking and -that business and football, I class the -two together, are not the sports of the -stone age in which the vanquished was -not only overthrown but subsequently -utterly consumed?</p> - -<p>Will they ever give up pea-nuts?</p> - -<p>Will they ever cease from the blind -cultivation of pork?</p> - -<p>I trow not.</p> - -<p>And as these chapters are intended a -great deal more for the English than for -the Americans, I may say here and now -that it is the Englishman’s plain duty to -himself and to the race to refrain as far as -in him lies from the easy sin of imitation. -In his admiration and envy for the -magical and almost uncanny successes of -his American brother, let him not be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span> -carried away with the stupid notion that -it is possible for him to go forth and do -likewise. For one thing, he hasn’t got -the climate; and for another he hasn’t -got either the pea-nuts or the pork.</p> - -<p>Let the Englishman, therefore, be content -to remain unreservedly and unsophisticatedly -English. When he sees an American -adaptation or invasion—whether -commercial, social, religious, or otherwise—coming -his way, let him frown it -down, pass by it and flee from it. Such -things may seem simple and innocuous -and desirable enough in themselves, -they may tickle the imagination, -and they may even appear to be for the -distinct betterment of mankind. But -in the aggregate they must of necessity -tend to the Americanisation of this -Country—and that is an evil which -every Britisher ought to be prepared to -make any sacrifice to avoid.</p> - -<p>If any profit worth having is to come -out of the present welter it will come by -the Anglicisation of America, and not by -the Americanisation of England. The -Americans themselves recognise the -weight and importance of this fact. Some -of them are already wearing eye-glasses. -They smile in their sleeves at our readiness -to adopt the least admirable of their -multifarious foolish ways. When an -American meets an Englishman who is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span> -trying to run his business or his household -or other of his affairs after American -models, and particularly when he meets -an Englishman who looks upon the -Americans as his superiors and masters -at the game of life, he is sheerly, if -unavowedly, amazed. He knows what -America is, he knows in his heart what -America means, and if it lay in his power -to choose the place to which he will go -when he dies, that place would not be -Chicago, nor would it be even Paris, -but a clean, free, un-Americanised -England.</p> - -<p>But with all their usually enormous -and often brilliant faults—that amaze, -even if they do not stagger humanity—the -Americans are a nation of Cæsars. -In every field of activity they have -scored many triumphs. But they are -not satisfied with acquisition and conquest -on a colossal scale, they want to -surpass all previous records in ancient -or modern times. They are endowed -with an inherent genius for arriving -at their destination, and the destination -they have set down for themselves -in the national time-table is one in -keeping with their vast and great -country, whose mission it seems to be -to make Europe and the world sit-up. -Therefore, within the next decade or -two, I should not be surprised to see<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span> -a very much larger splash of purple on -the map of the earth—and to see it -called the American Empire.</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 150px;"> -<img src="images/flower2.jpg" width="150" height="100" alt="(decorative flower image)" /> -</div> - -<p class="titlepage smaller">UNWIN BROS., LTD., PRINTERS, LONDON AND WOKING.</p> - - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Abounding American, by -Thomas William Hodgson Crosland - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ABOUNDING AMERICAN *** - -***** This file should be named 56185-h.htm or 56185-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/6/1/8/56185/ - -Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at -http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images -generously made available by The Internet Archive) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law 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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