AMERICA[1]
“How do you like America?”
“Oh,” I said, “are we there?”
“Soon will be,” he answered. “How do you pronounce your name?”
I told him. He repeated it louder, for the benefit of the others—some dozen of them, grouped around him. They made a note of it.
“What would you say was the difference between English and American humour?”
A chill north wind was blowing, and I hadn't had my breakfast. I did my best.
“These things,” I said, “are a natural growth, springing from the soil. In England, to go no further back than Chaucer——” Nobody was listening. They were all busy writing. I wondered where they had come from. Out of the sea, apparently. I had been pacing the deck, scanning the horizon for my first sight of New York, and suddenly had found myself in the midst of them. Their spokesman was a thick-set, red-haired gentleman. He had a military manner. The rest were a mixed collection. Some of them looked to me to be mere boys.
“Say, can you tell us a story?” he questioned me.
I stared at him. “A story?” I repeated. “You want me to tell you a story?”
“Why, sure,” he answered.
What on earth did they mean! Did they want me to start off and spin them a yarn, at a quarter to eight in the morning? And if so, was it to be adventure or romance, or just a simple love episode? I had a vision of being, perhaps, expected to sit down in the centre of them, taking the youngest of them on my knee.
He saw I was bewildered. “Anything happened to you on the voyage,” he suggested, “anything interesting or amusing?”
I had the feeling of a condemned prisoner, reprieved at the last moment. In gratitude, I tried to think of something interesting and amusing that really might have happened to me. Given time, I could have done it. But they stood there waiting with their pencils poised, and I had to fall back upon the truth. I told them the only thing that had happened—that, three days out, we had sighted an iceberg. It was a silly little iceberg. I had mistaken it, myself, for a portion of a wreck; and a man who had been looking at it through a telescope had pronounced it to be a polar bear. If it had not been for the bartender, none of us would have known it was an iceberg. I made the most of it, describing how we had “run before it,” and speaking highly of the Captain. It appeared in the evening papers under the heading, “The Ice Queen shows her Teeth.”
We got on better after that. They saw that, at all events, I was trying. I told them how the American woman struck me—or rather how I felt sure she was going to strike me when I saw her; and gave them (by request) my opinion of Christopher Columbus, the American drama, the future of California, President Roosevelt and Elizabeth B. Parker. Who Elizabeth B. Parker was I have never discovered to this day; but that, I take it, is my fault. I gathered her to be one of America's then leading idols (they don't last long); and said that one of my objects in coming to America was to meet her. This seemed to give general satisfaction, and we parted friends.
I make no charge against the American interviewer. One takes the rough with the smooth. I have been described, within the same period of seven months, as a bald-headed elderly gentleman, with a wistful smile; a curly-haired athletic Englishman, remarkable for his youthful appearance; a rickety cigarette-smoking neurotic; and a typical John Bull. Some of them objected to my Oxford drawl; while others catalogued me as a cockney, and invariably quoted me as dropping my aitches. All of them noticed with unfeigned surprise that I spoke English with an English accent. In the city of Prague, I once encountered a Bohemian ruffian who claimed to be a guide—a Czecho-Slovakian, I suppose he would be called to-day. He had learnt English in New York from a Scotchman. Myself, I could not understand him; but the New York interviewer would, I feel sure, have found in him his ideal Englishman. To anyone visiting America for a rest cure, I can see the American interviewer proving a thorn in the flesh. In pursuit of duty, he makes no bones about awakening you at two o'clock in the morning to ascertain your opinion of the local baseball team; and on arriving at your hotel, after a thirty-six hours' journey, you may find him waiting for you in your bedroom, accompanied by a flashlight photographer. But not many people, I take it, go to America for their health. At Pittsburgh, my wife woke with a sick headache, and I had to leave her behind me for a day or two. In the evening, better but still shaky, she dressed herself and slipped down into the lounge. Little black things were running about the floor. She thought they were kittens and tried to make friends with them, but they none of them would come to her. The place was poorly lighted, but there seemed to be about a score of them; sometimes more and sometimes less. The chambermaid looked in. She was an Irish girl. My wife drew her attention to these black kittens, as she thought them, commenting upon their shyness.
“Oh, they're not kittens,” explained the chambermaid, “they're rats.”
It seemed they came up from the kitchen, making use of the air shaft. If you did not interfere with them or tease them, they did you no harm.
It was a slack time and the girl, at my wife's earnestly expressed wish, brought in her sewing. The girl was full of stories about rats, but doubted their being as intelligent as it was said. Otherwise, so the girl argued, you would hardly find them in Pittsburgh.
“But you yourself are in Pittsburgh,” said my wife, “and you told me yesterday you had been here six years.”
The girl explained the seeming riddle. She hoped in another three years to have saved enough to be able to return to Ireland and settle down. She had pigs and a small holding in her mind, not unconnected with one named Dennis. Thousands of Irish girls, she assured my wife, came to America with similar intention. Not all of them, of course, succeeded, but it was long before they lost hope. It is the dream of every “Dago” to return to his native village and open a shop with dollars brought back from America. Nor is it only the hyphenated alien who looks forward to spending abroad money got out of the United States. In travelling about, I have discovered that all the best parts of Europe are inhabited by hundred-per-cent Americans. Sooner or later, it occurs to the English literary man that there is money to be made out of lecturing in America. But without the American interviewer to boom us in advance, and work up the local excitement for us when we arrive, we would return with empty pockets. For what I have received in the way of lecturing fees out of America the Lord make me truly thankful to the American interviewer: and may his sins be forgot.
The most impressive thing in America is New York. Niagara disappointed me. I had some trouble in finding it. The tram conductor promised to let me know when we came to the proper turning, but forgot; and I had to walk back three blocks. I came across it eventually at the bottom of a tea garden, belonging to a big hotel. My tour did not permit me to visit the Yellowstone Park. But I saw the Garden of the Gods in Colorado, and it struck me as neglected. The Rockies are imposing, but lack human interest. The Prairies are depressing. One has the feeling of being a disembodied spirit, travelling through space, and growing doubtful as to one's destination. To the European, what America suffers from is there being too much of it. In Switzerland, one winter, I met a man from Indianapolis. We were looking out of the window on our way to Grindelwald.
“This would be quite an extensive country,” he said, “if it were rolled out flat.”
In America everything seems to have been sacrificed to making an extensive country. In Arizona, they point out to you the mirage; but to the stranger it still looks like salt. The American lakes are seas surrounded by railways. In New Orleans, there are old-world nooks and corners, but these are disappearing. The first thing they do with you in New Orleans is to take you a drive through the cemeteries. There are miles and miles of them. You go in a char-à-banc, and the gentleman with the megaphone draws your attention to the most important tombs. “Seeing New Orleans” they call it.
California is beautiful (one can forget the “movies”). I was in San Francisco the week before the earthquake. My wife and I were the guests of Bancroft, the historian. I shall never forget the kindness of himself and his sweet wife. He took us drives into the country behind two grand grey horses. He was a splendid whip. One afternoon, he proposed an excursion down into the town: “But we will leave your dear little lady to rest herself,” he said. And, later, I understood and was grateful to him. It was a curious experience. During the war, round Verdun, I came across roads that reminded me of that drive. Every few yards we went down into a hole and often it took the horses all their strength to pull us out. I asked if there had been an earthquake; but my host said no. For years the roads had never been repaired, the mayor and corporation (“Grafters” they are termed in America) having found another use for the money.
In Florida, one seems to have dropped back into antediluvian times, or, to be more exact, the third day of the Creation, before God had quite finished separating the dry land from the waters, and creeping things sat about, wondering which they were.
Virginia has an atmosphere and speaks English; but the new towns in the Middle states, with their painted canvas “Broadways,” suggest a Wild West exhibition at Earl's Court. One looks instinctively for the sign-board, pointing to the switchback. Here and there, New England reminds one of the old country. I forget who it was said he would like to come back and see America when it was finished. One has the fancy that, returning in a thousand years or so, one might find there little cottages standing in gay gardens; pleasant rambling houses amid soft lawns and kindly trees. But there will never rise the clustering chimneys with the blue smoke curling upward. America will still be central-heated. I missed the friendly chimneys. Elsewhere in America, there is no country. There are summer resorts, and garden cities, and health centres; and just outside the great towns long avenues of “homes,” each on its parallelogram of land. The larger ones have verandahs and towers and gables; and the smaller ones are painted red. They told me that the reason why all the houses in America are painted red was that the Trust made red paint only. You can paint your house red or leave it alone, according to your taste and fancy. In America, a man who wants to paint his house any other colour than red is called a radical. America never walks. I am told that now every fifth American owns an automobile and the other four crowd in. In my time, you took a surface car. I used to dream of going for a walk, and when I asked my way, they would direct me to go straight on till I came to nine hundred and ninety-ninth street—or some such number—and there I would find the car.
“But I want to walk,” I would explain.
“Well, I'm telling you,” they would reply, “you walk to the end of the block. The car starts from round the corner.”
“But I don't want the car,” I would persist. “I want to walk—all the way.”
Then they would dive into their pocket and press a twenty-five cent piece into my hand and hurry off to catch their own car.
But New York reminds you of nothing, suggests no comparison. New York is America epitomized: fierce, tireless, blatant if you will, but great. Nature stands abashed before it. The sea crawls round it, dwarfed, insignificant. Trees, like waving grasses, spring from its crevices. The clouds are rent upon its pinnacles.
It strikes a new note. Behind the mere bigness is a new idea: something that you feel is tremendously important. You worry for a time, wondering. And then suddenly it springs upon you. In London, Paris, Rome—go where you will in the old world it is the great cathedral, the spires of a hundred churches, the minarets, towers, domes, the theatres and palaces that pierce the sky-line: that rise serene above the market place, the byways of the money-changers. In New York it is Business Triumphant that towers to heaven, dominating, unchallenged. The skyscraper alone is visible. Religion, art: they have their hiding-places, round its feet.
In a town of the middle west, a kind man put me up. He was rich and had one child, a daughter Margaret, who was the apple of his eye. She was twelve years old at the time. She had her own banking account, and drew her own cheques. I remember a conversation between them one evening. He had just returned home from his office; and she had fetched him his house shoes and was sitting on his knee.
“I brought off a good stroke of business to-day, Maggie,” he said to her, while stroking her hair. “So I paid five thousand dollars into your account. How do you propose to invest it?”
The child sat for a while with puckered brows, one arm about his neck.
“Well,” she answered at length, “if, as the papers say, there is going to be a famine in Russia this winter, hadn't I better put it into wheat?”
He kissed her.
“That's right,” he answered. “I'll fix it up for you in the morning.”
I have made three American tours. It was offered to me to make a fourth just after the war. My agent assured me there would be no difficulty about drinks; but there were other reasons also, and I shirked it. The first must be twenty years ago by now. That it was not as profitable to me as it might have been was my own fault. Never in my life have I felt so lost and lonesome as during my first days in New York. Everything was so strange, so appallingly “foreign.” I had never been outside Europe before. Never, so it seemed to me, would I be able to adapt myself to the ways and customs of the country. And then there was the language problem. In Vevey, on Lake Leman, there sits cross-legged—or used to sit—a smiling small Italian shoeblack: behind him on the wall a placard with this wording, “English spoken—American understood.” I thought of him, as I wandered bewildered through the New York streets, and wondered how long it had taken him.
At the end of a fortnight, I cabled what would now be called an S.O.S. to my wife, and she, gallant little lady, came to my help.
And she it was who persuaded me to further extravagance, as is the way of women. Major Pond, or rather his good widow, had booked me a stupendous tour. It took in every state in the Union, together with Canada and British Columbia. Five readings a week, the average worked out; each to last an hour and twenty minutes. I showed my wife the list. She said nothing at the time, but went about behind my back, and got round my agents. Among them, they decided that, to avoid a funeral, I had best have help; and found one Charles Battell Loomis. He was, I think, the ugliest man I have met. But that was only the outside of him. All the rest of him was beautiful; and sad I am to have to speak of him in the past tense. Through him, I came to know the other America—the America of the dreamers, the thinkers, the idealists. He took me to see them in their shabby clubs; to dine with them in their fifty-cent restaurants; to spend fine Sundays with them in their wooden shanties, far away where the tram-lines end. He was a wonderful actor, but had never been able to afford a press agent. His writings, as scattered through the magazines, were mildly amusing, but that was all. Until he stood up before an audience and read them: when at once they became the most humorous stories in American literature. He made no gestures; his face, but for the eyes, might have been carved out of wood; his genius was in his marvellous voice. His least whisper could be heard across the largest hall. He had to be careful when using the telephone. Once, when I was with him, a Hello girl irritated even him after a time and, forgetting himself, he shouted “No, I didn't.” There was no answer. After a while the bell boy knocked at the door to suggest that if we wanted to go on talking we had better come downstairs. For some reason or another, our telephone had suddenly gone out of order.
I envied him. The lecturer through America has to cultivate adaptability. For one night a rich man would hire us to read to his guests in a drawing-room. He was always very kind, and would make us feel part of the party. The next evening we would find ourselves booked to perform in a hall the size of Solomon's Temple, taking Mr. H. G. Wells' figures as correct. There was a “Coliseum,” I think they called it, down South. I forget the name of the town. But I am sure it was down South, because of the cotton that floated on the wind, and turned our hair grey. Even Loomis had found the place difficult. The first few dozen rows must have heard him. Anyhow they laughed. But beyond and above brooded the silence of the grave. By rare chance, we had a few hours to spare the next morning; and coming across the place I stepped in, wondering how it looked in daylight. Men were busy hauling scenery about. It served for all purposes—mass meetings, theatrical performances, religious revivals, prize fights. On one wet fourth of July, a display of fireworks had been given there with great success. A small lady in black was standing just inside the door, likewise inspecting. It was Sarah Bernhardt. She was billed to play there that evening. She was finishing a tour with a few one-night stands, and had been travelling all night. She recognized me, though we had met only once before, at a Lyceum supper in Irving's time.
“My God!” she said, throwing up her arms. “Why, it's as deep as hell. How do they expect me to reach them?”
“They don't,” I told her. “They want to see you, that's all. They are a curious people, these Americans. They paid last night to see me. They must have known they would not hear me.”
“But they will not see her,” she answered. “They will see only a little old woman. I am not Sarah Bernhardt until I act. It would be a swindle.”
“Well, isn't that their affair?” I suggested.
She drew herself up. She was quite tall when she had finished—or looked it.
“No, my friend,” she answered, “it is mine. Sarah Bernhardt is a great artist. And I am her faithful servant. They shall not make a show of her.”
She held out her hand. “Please do not tell anyone that you have seen me,” she said. She drew down her veil and slipped out.
What actually happened I do not know. They were posting notices up when we left, announcing with regret Madame Sarah Bernhardt's sudden indisposition.
I have always found American audiences most kind. Their chief fault is that they see the point before you get there, which is disconcerting. One morning I woke up speechless with a sudden cold. I could not even use the 'phone. I telegraphed to my chairman, explaining, and asking him to call the reading off. In half-an-hour the answer came back: “Sorry you won't be able to read but do come or it will be a real disappointment to us we want to see you and thank you for the pleasure your books have given us as for fee that has been posted to your agent and is too unimportant a matter to be talked about among friends.”
I went and had a delightful evening. They put me in the middle of the room and entertained me. We had music and songs and stories. I whispered a few to my chairman, and he translated them. They turned the whole thing into a joke. At the end, one of them, a doctor, gave me a draught to take in bed. I wish I had asked him what it was. My cold was gone the next morning.
At Salt Lake City, we ought to have arrived with an hour to spare, instead of which our train was three hours late. A deputation met us on the platform with hot coffee and sandwiches. They put us into cabs and took us straight to the platform. An audience of three thousand people had been waiting patiently for two hours. Our chairman, in his opening, apologized to us for the train service; and asked everybody to agree that, as we must be tired, we should be asked to read for only half-an-hour, unless we felt ourselves equal to more. Both Loomis and myself felt bucked up, and gave them the full programme. Not one of them left before the end, which must have been about twelve o'clock; and if they didn't like it they were good actors.
A leading Elder put us up in Salt Lake City. He introduced us to his wife. He noticed I was looking expectant.
“There are no more,” he explained. He put his arm round her. “The modern American woman,” he continued, “has convinced us that one wife is sufficient for any man.”
I was told that domestic establishments on a more generous basis still existed; but they were rare; and later on the law put an end to them.
It is difficult to know what your audience really thinks of you. Even if bored, I feel convinced they would pretend to be enjoying themselves. There are times when hypocrisy can he a virtue. But hidden behind a newspaper in a smoking car, I once overheard praise of myself.
“Were you at the lecture last night?” asked one man of another.
“Yes,” came the answer in a soft, low, drawling voice. “The wife thought she'd like to go. I'd never heard of him myself.”
“What was he like?”
“Well”—there was a pause. I guessed he was fixing a plug of tobacco—“for an Englishman—good.”
Once only—at Chattanooga—did I meet with disagreement: and then I was asking for it. Two negroes had been lynched a few days before my arrival on the usual charge of having assaulted a white woman: proved afterwards (as is generally the case) to have been a trumped-up lie. All through the South, this lynching horror had been following me; and after my reading I asked for permission to speak on a matter about which my conscience was troubling me. I didn't wait to get it, but went straight on. At home, on political platforms, I have often experienced the sensation of stirring up opposition. But this was something different. I do not suggest it was anything more than fancy, but it seemed to me that I could actually visualize the anger of my audience. It looked like a dull, copper-coloured cloud, hovering just above their heads, and growing in size. I sat down amid silence. It was quite a time before anybody moved. And then they all got up at the same moment, and turned towards the door. On my way out, in the lobby, a few people came up to me and thanked me, in a hurried furtive manner. My wife was deadly pale. I had not told her of my intention. But nothing happened, and I cannot help thinking that if the tens of thousands of decent American men and women to whom this thing must be their country's shame, would take their courage in both hands and speak their mind, America might be cleansed from this foul sin.
American hospitality is proverbial. If I had taken the trouble to arrange matters beforehand, I could have travelled all over America without once putting up at an hotel. Had I known what they were like, I would have made the effort. In the larger cities they are generally of palatial appearance. If their cooking and attendance were on a par with their architecture and appointments, there would be no fault to find with them. But often I have thought how gladly I would exchange all the Parian marble in my bathroom, all the silver fittings in my dressing-room, for a steak I could cut with a knife. It appears from the statistics of the Immigration Bureau that there arrive every year in the United States well over four thousand professional cooks. What happens to them is a mystery. They can't all become film stars.
On the great routes, European customs prevail; but in the smaller towns, hotels are still run on what is termed the “American plan.” A few days after landing in New York, I went to Albany to give a reading. I was due on the platform at eight. I did not have any lunch. I thought I would dine early and afterwards sit quiet. I put out my clothes and came downstairs. The dining-room was empty. There didn't seem to be any bell. I found the gentleman who had sent me up to my room. He was sitting in a rocking-chair, reading a newspaper.
“I beg your pardon,” I said. “But are you the hotel clerk?”
“Yup,” he grunted and went on reading.
“I am sorry to disturb you,” I continued, “but I want the head waiter.”
“What do you want him for?” he said. “Friend of yours?”
“No,” I answered, “I want to order dinner.”
He was still reading his newspaper. “You haven't got to order it,” he said. “It will be ready at half-past six.”
“But I want it now,” I said. The time was a little after four.
He put down his paper and looked at me.
“Say, where do you come from?” he asked me.
“I have come from New York,” I answered him.
“You ain't been even there long,” he commented. “Englishman, aren't you?”
I admitted it.
He rose and laid a kindly hand on my shoulder.
“You run along and take a look round the town,” he said. “Interesting city. Anyhow, there's nothing else for you to do, till half-past six.”
I followed his advice. It wasn't really an interesting city. Or maybe I was not in the mood. At six o'clock I came back and dressed. I was feeling hungry. When I saw the “menu” I felt hungrier still. It would have made Lucullus sit up and smile. It covered two closely written pages, and contained, so far as I could judge, every delicacy in and out of season.
I order caviare and clam soup, to open with. I was doubtful about the clam soup, being new to it. But if too rich, I could just toy with it. The waiter, a youthful gentleman who apparently had mislaid his coat, remained standing.
“I'll think of the next thing to follow,” I said, “while you are getting that.”
“Better think of it now,” he said. “We haven't got the time to spare over here that you have in the old country.”
I did not want to antagonize him. I took up the menu again. I ordered whitebait to follow the soup. I told him I liked them crisp. A slice of broiled ham with truffles. Peas in butter. Lamb cutlet with tomatoes. Asparagus. Chicken (I mentioned I preferred the wing). A caramel ice cream. Dessert, assorted. Coffee, of course, to finish up with.
I was sorry to miss all the rest; but I had to think of my lecture. Even as it was I feared I had overdone it.
“That all?” asked the coatless young gentleman.
I thought he meant to be sarcastic, and put a touch of asperity into my tone.
“That is the order,” I said.
He was gone longer than I had expected. When he reappeared he was carrying a sort of butler's tray. He put it down in front of me, straightened out the four sides and left me.
There was everything on it—everything I had ordered, beginning with the caviare and ending with the coffee. All the things (except the soup and the coffee) were on little white saucers, all the same size. The whole thing suggested a doll's tea party. The soup was in a little white pot with a handle. That also might have been part of the furnishing of a doll's house. One drank it out of the pot—about a tablespoonful altogether. There were six whitebait and one shrimp. Thirteen peas. Three ends of asparagus. Five grapes and four nuts (assorted). Two square inches of ham, but no truffle: the thing I took for the truffle turned out to be a dead fly. The lamb cutlet I could not place. I fancy they must have given me the wrong end. The tomato I lost trying to cut it. It rolled off the table and I hadn't the heart to follow it up. For some reason or another they had fried the chicken. I did my best, but had to put it back. It didn't look any different. I wondered afterwards what happened to it.
I suppose it was not having had any lunch. If I had been by myself, I'd have put my head down on the tray and have cried. But three or four other men were feeding near me and I pulled myself together. I started with the coffee. It was still lukewarm. It seemed a pity to let it get quite cold. The caviare did not appeal to me. It may have been the smell. After the coffee, I tackled the ice cream, which by that time was already half melted. I stole a glance at my companions. None of them were bothering about a knife. They were just picking up things with a fork, first from one saucer and then from another. Somehow they suggested the idea of mechanical chickens. But it seemed the simplest plan and I followed their example.
I never got used to it. Natives, to whom occasionally I talked upon the subject, admitted that, considered as an art, the “European plan” of dining might be preferable; but would hasten to explain that America was “too busy”—the spry American citizen had not the time for all these social monkey tricks. I would leave them, settling themselves into their rocking-chairs, ranged round the hotel lounge, preparing to light their cigars and shape their plugs of tobacco. On my return some two or three hours later, they would still be there, smoking and spitting.
America can be proud of her railways. An American train with its majestic engine and its thousand feet of steel cars, is a fine sight. Always, we were glad to get into them, away from the comfortless hotels where one is harassed by the bell boy, bullied by the waiter, and patronized by the clerk. The darky porter welcomes one with a smile, and is not above being courteous. It is only in the dining-car that one can hope for a decently cooked meal. In the sleeping-car there is no telephone over one's bed, no patent improved radiator to go wrong, and keep one awake all night. There are stretches where for miles one can look out of the window without being pestered with advertisements. But one knows one is nearing a town by the hoardings each side of the track. The magnificent approach to San Francisco is spoilt by twenty miles of boards, advertising somebody's stores. “Carter's Little Liver Pills” does the same thing in England, to a lesser degree. I used to find them helpful, but have given up taking them, myself. At a Rotary dinner in London Mr. Carter (not to be personal) made quite a good speech on the subject of how one could best serve God. Anthony Hope suggested that one way might be not to mar God's landscapes with advertisement signs. In New York, I was arrested by a notice in a shop window. It ran: “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” It was an advertisement for somebody's spring mattress. Except on a few main routes, punctuality is rare. There is excuse. The distances are enormous. The permanent ways are still in the making. Nature plays her tricks upon them. One does not bother about time-tables—the “schedule” as they call it. One waits until the message is sent round the town from the depôt that the train is signalled. One day, to my amazement, my train came in on time. It was at a junction. I had just got out of the branch train and was wondering what I would do with myself. The station-master was passing by.
“Any notion when she is likely to turn up,” I asked him—“the 11.33 for Sioux Falls?” It was then a minute past the half hour.
“Hurry up,” he said, “she's coming in now.”
She glided in as he was speaking, and drew up with a soft low sigh as of self-satisfied content. He was a big, genial man. He looked at my face and laughed.
“It's all right,” he said. “To be quite candid, this is yesterday's train.”
Sioux Falls, by the way, is—or was then—the centre of the American divorce trade. The hotels were filled with gorgeous ladies waiting their turn: many of them accompanied by “brothers.” It was a merry crowd. Three ladies, a mother and her two daughters, the younger just seventeen, sat at the table next to us and were friendly. The mother had been divorced before, but the two girls were new to it. They expected to be through by the end of the week.
Roosevelt was President at the time of my first tour; and was kind enough to express a wish to see me. By a curious coincidence, he had received that morning a letter from his son, then at school, talking about my books. He had the letter in his hand when we were shown in. Somewhat the same thing happened the first time I met Lloyd George. A relation had written him, a day or two before, urging him to read my last book. He was then in the middle of it. I couldn't get him to talk about anything else. There was a delightful boyishness about Roosevelt. You were bound to like him if he wanted you to. My wife has still the gloves in which she shook hands with him. They lie in her treasure box, tied with a ribbon and labelled.
Joel Chandler Harris (“Uncle Remus”) lives in my memory. A sweet Christian gentleman; even if he did spit. We spent an afternoon with him at Atlanta. Frank Stanton dropped in, and brought with him a volume of his songs which he had dedicated to me. James Whitcomb Riley was kind and hospitable, but made me envious, talking about the millions his books had brought him in.
I was in America when Maxim Gorky came to lecture upon Russia. He was accompanied by a helpmeet to whom he had not been legally married. America is strict on this point. So was Henry VIII. At a Press lunch in Chicago, I sat next to a man who that morning had published a leader, fiercely demanding the immediate shipping back to Europe of Maxim Gorky and his “concubine.” America must not be contaminated and so forth. A few evenings before he had introduced Loomis and myself to his mistress, a pretty Swedish girl with flaxen hair. His wife was living abroad, the air of Chicago not agreeing with her. I admit the sign-post argument. I have found it useful myself. But in America there would appear to be almost more sign-posts than travellers. I have been about a good deal in America. My business has necessitated my spending much time in smoking-cars and hotel lounges. My curiosity has always prompted me to find out all I could about my fellow human beings wherever I have happened to be. I maintain that the American man, taking him class for class and individual for individual, is no worse than any of the rest of us. I will ask his permission to leave it at that.
The last time I visited America was during the first year of the war. America then was all for keeping out of it. I had friends in big business, and was introduced to others. Their opinion was that America could best serve Humanity in the bulk by reserving herself to act as peace-maker. In the end, she would be the only nation capable of considering the future without passion and without fear. The general feeling was, if anything, pro-German, tempered in the East by traditional sentiment for France. I failed to unearth any enthusiasm for England, in spite of my having been commissioned to discover it. I have sometimes wondered if England and America really do love one another as much as our journalists and politicians say they do. I had an interesting talk with President Wilson, chiefly about literature and the drama. But I did get him, before I left, to say a little about the war; and then he dropped the schoolmaster and became animated.
“We have in America,” he said, “twenty million people of German descent. Almost as many Irish. In New York State alone there are more Italians than in Rome. We have more Scandinavians than there are in Sweden. Here, side by side, dwell Czechs, Roumanians, Slavs, Poles and Dutchmen. We also have some Jews. We have solved the problem of living together without wanting to cut one another's throats. You will have to learn to do the same in Europe. We shall have to teach you.”
Undoubtedly at that time Wilson was intending to remain neutral. Whether his later change of mind brought about good or evil is an arguable point. But for America the war would have ended in stalemate. All Europe would have been convinced of the futility of war. “Peace without Victory”—the only peace containing any possibility of permanence would have resulted.
To the democrat, America is the Great Disappointment. Material progress I rule out. Beyond a certain point, it tends to enslave mankind. For spiritual progress, America seems to have no use. Mr. Ford has pointed out that every purchaser of a Ford car can have it delivered to him, painted any colour he likes, so long as it's black. Mr. Ford expresses in a nutshell the mental attitude of modern America. Every man in America is free to do as he darn well pleases so long as, for twenty-four hours a day, he does what everybody else is doing. Every man in America is free to speak his mind so long as he shouts with the crowd. He has not even Mr. Pickwick's choice of choosing his crowd. In America there is but one crowd. Every man in America has the right to think for himself so long as he thinks what he is told. If not—like the heretics of the middle ages—let him see to it that his chamber door is locked, that his tongue does not betray him. The Ku Klux Klan, with its travelling torture chamber, is but the outward and visible sign of the spirit of modern America. Thought in America is standardized. America is not taking new wine, lest the old bottles be broken.
I ask my American friends—and I have many, I know—to forgive me. Who am I to lecture the American nation?—I feel, myself, the absurdity of it—the impertinence. My plea is that I am growing old. And it comes to me that before long I may be called upon to stand before the Judge of all the earth, and to make answer, concerning the things that I have done and—perhaps of even more importance—the things that I have left undone. The thought I am about to set down keeps ringing in my brain. It will not go away. I am afraid any longer to keep silence. There are many of power and authority who could have spoken it better. I would it had not been left to me. If it make men angry, I am sorry.
The treatment of the negro in America calls to Heaven for redress. I have sat with men who, amid vile jokes and laughter, told of “Buck Niggers” being slowly roasted alive; told how they screamed and writhed and prayed; how their eyes rolled inward as the flames crept up till nothing could be seen but two white balls. They burn mere boys alive and sometimes women. These things are organized by the town's “leading citizens.” Well-dressed women crowd to the show, children are lifted up upon their fathers' shoulders. The Law, represented by grinning policemen, stands idly by. Preachers from their pulpits glorify these things, and tell their congregation that God approves. The Southern press roars its encouragement. Hangings, shootings would be terrible enough. These burnings; these slow grillings of living men, chained down to iron bedsteads; these tearings of live, quivering flesh with red-hot pinchers can be done only to glut some hideous lust of cruelty. The excuse generally given is an insult to human intelligence. Even if true, it would be no excuse. In the majority of cases, it is not even pretended. The history of the Spanish Inquisition unrolls no greater shame upon the human race. The Auto-da-fé at least, was not planned for the purpose of amusing a mob. In the face of this gigantic horror, the lesser sufferings of the negro race in America may look insignificant. But there must be tens of thousands of educated, cultured men and women cursed with the touch of the tar-brush to whom life must be one long tragedy. Shunned, hated, despised, they have not the rights of a dog. From no white man dare they even defend the honour of their women. I have seen them waiting at the ticket offices, the gibe and butt of the crowd, not venturing to approach till the last white man was served. I have known a woman in the pains of childbirth made to travel in the cattle wagon. For no injury at the hands of any white man is there any redress. American justice is not colour blind. Will the wrong never end?