LIBRARY 
 
 CALIFORNIA 
 
 SAN DIEGO 
 

 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 
 IN FOREIGN LANDS. 
 
 Demy 8vo., Art Cloth, Gilt, 7/6 net. 
 
 SOME PRESS APPRECIATIONS. 
 
 Sir Henry Seton-Karr, in reviewing six 
 Books of Sport and Travel in the Pall Mall 
 Gazette says : " IN FOREIGN LANDS is the 
 best written and most interesting of them 
 all." 
 
 The Timet. " Comments of a shrewd, 
 observant, and cultured man of the world." 
 
 The Glasgow Herald. " An unusually 
 wide range of subjects characterises this 
 volume ... It will do much to clear 
 up the misconceptions of the untravelled. 
 Humour and practical philosophy are 
 among the attractive qualities of this de- 
 lightful book." 
 
 Liverpool Courier. " Mr. Fraser is an 
 unusually thoughtful observer. To follow 
 such a traveller is a peculiar pleasure." 
 
 Westminster Gazette. " Mr. Fraser has 
 travelled, and travelled well ... he 
 gives an impressive sketch . . . and is 
 a keen student." 
 
 Nottingham Guardian. " A well-stored 
 volume of travels." 
 
 Liverpool Daily Post. " A remarkable 
 book."
 
 America, Old and New 
 
 Impressions of Six Months 
 in the States 
 
 BY 
 
 ]. NELSON FRASER, 
 
 Of the Indian Education Service, 
 (Author of "In Foreign Lands," S-c.) 
 
 LONDON : JOHN OUSELEY LIMITED 
 
 FLEET STREET, FARRINGDON STREET, E.G.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP. PAG* 
 
 i. Scenery. Wild Life 1 
 
 ii. The Eed Man 16 
 
 hi. Early and Mediaeval America 34 
 
 iv. The Mixture of Origins 64 
 
 v. The Country. Towns. Hotels. Railroads 78 
 
 vi. Business Life. Honesty in Business and Politics 126 
 
 vii. The Political System 153 
 
 viii. Law. Lawyers. Crime 171 
 
 ix. Social Questions and Reforms 184 
 
 x. Fashion 207 
 
 xi. Amusements 216 
 
 xii. Literature. Art 226 
 
 xiii. Woman 246 
 
 xiv. The South. The Negro 257 
 
 xv. Education. Libraries. Museums 279 
 
 xvi. America and the World 306 
 
 xvii. Religion 316 
 
 xviii. The Future 362 
 
 Postscriptum 369
 
 I 
 
 Scenery. Wild Life 
 
 The scenery which Europe has chosen for its type of 
 America is the prairie land of the Middle West. So far 
 as any choice could be made this is not unfair, for there 
 is more of this scenery in the States than of any other, 
 but the impression created is after all a partial one. 
 There are vast regions in America which for better or for 
 worse are very different from the Middle West. 
 
 There are, to begin with, the veritable deserts of the 
 South Coast, the great Sahara of the continent. It 
 stretches hundreds of miles inland from the Rockies, a 
 wilderness of rocks and sands. Few level tracts occur ; 
 ridges and peaks of rock rise everywhere. Vegetation 
 is seldom quite absent; it is vegetation of the classic 
 desert type, thorny bushes, aloes and cactus trees, use- 
 less to man and beast. There is no American camel to 
 crop their dry and bitter foliage; lizards and rattle- 
 snakes are the native inheritors of the wilderness. 
 
 Human eyes may look on the scene with various 
 feelings. It is now the solemn waste of the Egyptian 
 and Arabian sands. It has never been the home of the
 
 2 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 astronomer or philosopher, but to modern science and 
 culture it is not devoid of charm. The vegetation, to 
 such visitors, is novel, it is often beautiful, and the 
 flowers are often marvels of beauty. The scenery of the 
 cliffs is sublime. They rise boldly from the sand, some- 
 times with sheer unbroken walls, sometimes buttressed 
 by huge boulders or flying arches, of fantastic and 
 incredible shapes. They are painted with a wealth of 
 colour beyond words. Rich browns and reds pre- 
 dominate; sometimes they melt into each other by count- 
 less shades and compromises, sometimes exchange 
 defiances of contrast. In the clear desert air there are 
 miles of this natural wealth visible; a life-time would 
 not exhaust it. 
 
 The explorer seeking to cross this desert or the settler 
 in search of a home would hardly find leisure for 
 thoughts like these. The patriotic American to-day may 
 regret that so vast an area of his country is uninhabit- 
 able. True, artesian wells have rescued corners of the 
 waste, and irrigation is spreading, but in no future that 
 we can foresee will the Western States support much 
 agricultural life for many a league from the foot of the 
 Rockies towards the Mississippi valley. Very, very 
 slowly do conditions change as we move Eastwards, till 
 foliage grows more succulent and springs and streams 
 make cattle ranching possible. At last the genuine 
 prairies appear.
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 3 
 
 But we are not yet done with the scenery of the desert, 
 and the Rocky Mountains remain. What should we 
 consider most typical or notable in the whole region ? 
 Not the snow scenery of the higher Rockies, which can- 
 not anywhere be compared with that of Switzerland or 
 India, but these unparalleled formations called 
 canyons. There are such places elsewhere in the world, 
 but nowhere are they so numerous and striking as in 
 North America. A canyon is a valley with sheer, steep 
 walls, very narrow, very deep, and often very long. It 
 may intersect a plateau, and you will see nothing of it 
 till you find it yawning under your feet ; or you may 
 enter it at the mouth where the mountain wall meets the 
 plain, and after travelling up it for miles you may find 
 that the only way out is the way by which you entered. 
 The learned, I believe, are not agreed as to the history 
 of these canyons, whether water wore them away, or 
 their floors sank, or the mountains rose around them. 
 The unlearned visitor sometimes feels that they are 
 valleys with mountains around them, and sometimes that 
 they are cracks in the earth, but this is a mere impression 
 from first appearances. 
 
 The greatest of all canyons is the Grand Arizona 
 Canyon. It intersects an outlying plateau of the 
 Rockies for a distance of two hundred and seventeen 
 miles. The depth is about a mile, its gieatest width 
 about ten miles. The clear atmosphere leaves even
 
 4 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 details visible at that distance. Its walls are formed of 
 escarpments and terraces, all on the grand scale; you 
 have a cliff falling five hundred feet, with a terrace 
 stretching a quarter of a mile below it; then another fall 
 and another terrace, and so on till the river at the 
 bottom, the Colorado river, is reached. It can be seen 
 in places from the rim of the canyon. There is little 
 vegetation ; the terraces are green with grass, but the 
 rocky walls are bare. 
 
 I will not insult the memory of this spectacle by 
 offering it a tribute of grandiose language. Its size is 
 such that the mere power of the eye to command it 
 gratifies the mind; in the way of colouring the whole 
 realm of Nature has nothing more to show. The rocks 
 are chiefly of sandstone or lime; at the bottom by the 
 river, of gneiss or granite. But other formations occur, 
 and though browns and reds predominate, streaks of 
 every colour may be found. The midday sunlight sets 
 all these colours glowing, while below the escarpments 
 and in the many side-canyons banks of blue and purple 
 shadows lie. The canyon is then most striking, but you 
 are fortunate if you see it also disappearing in clouds and 
 storms of rain. I spent three days gazing upon it, full 
 of admiration, and yet full of many doubts and queries. 
 One cannot help noticing what a different thing scenery 
 becomes when it is not associated with any spiritual 
 tradition ; the advertisements try in vain to fix such a
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 5 
 
 character on the Grand Canyon. I sometimes think the 
 true service of such a spectacle to the mind is to release 
 our convictions from the materialism of the Lake poets. 
 Other traditions, however, the river and the canyon 
 possess. In 1540 the undaunted Spaniard halted on its 
 edge; long afterwards Major Powell launched his boat 
 above it, and emerged a living man below the plateau. 
 No other feat of the kind is recorded; this much we 
 knew, that he could neither return nor climb the canyon 
 walls, and it was all unlikely that any boat could live 
 through the unknown rapids of the Colorado river. But 
 the pioneers of the west were men who feared nothing. 
 
 Not far from the Arizona Canyon is the Yosemite 
 Valley. This, too, is a canyon with sheer walls and a 
 flat bottom. It is eight miles long, from a half to two 
 miles wide; many of the cliffs present a front three 
 thousand feet high. A river of clear water flows 
 through it, and it is well wooded, chiefly with pines and 
 cedars, varied by deciduous shrubs and trees. In its 
 union of majestic and graceful elements it surpasses any 
 scene in Europe, one might perhaps say in the world. 
 We might name along with it the Milford track in New 
 Zealand, were it not for the rain and the flies there; the 
 .Yosemite valley has a bracing air, and is not only free 
 from all discomforts, but is actually a very comfortable 
 place. The way to enjoy it is by no means to climb the 
 mountain wall, but to stay down below and look up, just
 
 6 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 as in Arizona you ought to stay up above and look down. 
 The size and splendour of the waterfalls are incredible ; 
 there is one that descends over two thousand feet in 
 three leaps. 
 
 It is strange, however, amid scenes like these how 
 soon the mind passes from ecstacy to indifference, and 
 finally urges us to leave them. This may be due to mere 
 exhaustion, but I think it is often the protest of our 
 creative powers, which find their occupation gone. Inter- 
 course with Nature is a one-sided affair; it is not like 
 intercourse with men. Nature has little to teach us and 
 nothing to learn from us. The freedom which at first 
 we enjoy in her company turns to imprisonment ; we find 
 ourselves bolted and barred from action. Moreover, the 
 apparent charm of Nature's grandest pieces is rather the 
 interest of a very large specimen than the charm of 
 beauty realised. Beauty comes home to us more in 
 familiar than in unfamiliar scenes, and we can sit with 
 them longer than the tourist can enjoy the colossal 
 sights of the Yosemite valley. 
 
 One is often reminded in America how new the 
 country is. When I was in the Yosemite valley the 
 discoverer of the valley was still living in it ; Mr. Clark ; 
 he was 96 years old. 
 
 Not far away are the tallest trees in the world. I did 
 not see them, but I saw a group that rank only just 
 second to them, at Santa Cruz. They are cedars;
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 7 
 
 i 
 
 sequoia sempervirens ; their height about 200 feet. The 
 vigour of the tree is concentrated on a massive trunk ; 
 the foliage is sparse and unimpressive. It is amusing to 
 contrast their habit of growth with that of the banyan 
 (say) at Wyratgart in India, which covers an ?>cre of 
 ground, and has, so to speak, no trunk at all. The 
 American trees are astonishing, but by no means 
 beautiful. They belong to a family common through- 
 out California, and there is nothing to account for their 
 size in this particular place. We must suppose some- 
 thing in the climate fostered them ; if it be true that 
 Nature has always an end in view the end of these trunks 
 is not plain. Moreover, there is a quaint disparity 
 between their size and the insignificant foliage they 
 carry. The seeds are found in tiny little cones. 
 
 Of the higher Rockies I have little to write, nor did I 
 visit the cliff scenery of Denver. The Yellowstone Park 
 lay far to the North; I left it unvisited and paid my 
 homage to the oldest and most classic of America's 
 wonders, Niagara. What shall we say of Niagara, now 
 embosomed in American civilisation ? 
 
 The falls lie in a curve of the stream, and are so placed 
 that while most of the water flows under the American 
 flag, the best view of it belongs to Canada. Both 
 countries have done their best, in recent years, for 
 the surroundings. All points of view have been pur- 
 chased, and the land is beautifully laid out. Everything
 
 8 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 is free, and no nuisances of any kind are allowed. As 
 for the railways, factories, and electric works, they can- 
 not be helped ; they are large enough and ugly enough ; 
 but, on the whole, viewing the scene as a park in a large 
 town, which is now its status, there is a great deal about 
 it to admire and enjoy. Things will not become worse 
 till the falls wear themselves out, as geologists predict, 
 and Niagara becomes one long rapid.* It will not even 
 then have lost its power to fascinate. The broad waters 
 above the falls, dancing down to the brink, are a thing 
 of marvellous beauty ; and the famous rapids below them 
 will perhaps keep the visitor as long as anything in 
 America. The waves are twenty feet high from trough 
 to crest. 
 
 Niagara has gathered many traditions round it. The 
 visitor hears with amazement that a crazy little steamer 
 passed through the rapids years ago, and motor boats 
 have done the same since then. No unaided swimmer 
 has succeeded : Captain Webb is not forgotten. Indeed, 
 he ought not to be, for he is the only man in human 
 history who accomplished a feat that men have not 
 repeated. The opinion concerning his death is that he 
 was suffocated by the broken water flung in his face. 
 
 Much still remains to be said of American scenery. 
 The California coast is the Riviera of the continent. 
 
 * Geological predictions, however, are not more certain than political 
 predictions. Some people think the whole region will tilt the other way, 
 and empty the waters of the Lakes into the Mississippi valley.
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 9 
 
 The cliffs and seas and cypress groves of Monteny recall 
 their Eastern prototypes, but hardly equal them, not 
 though the flowery fields of California be inland, with 
 the snowy peaks of the Rockies beyond. It is, however, 
 a lovely scene, and Point Loma is an inspiring centre for 
 the philosophers who dwell there. But the flowers of 
 California have to compensate for the want of trees, and 
 I did not much care for its barren hills. 
 
 It is to Eastern America we must look for pastoral 
 and woodland beauties. I cannot understand how 
 Europe has paid so little attention to these features of the 
 States. Everywhere East of the Alleghany Mountains 
 the country is glorious. In the North, towards Canada, 
 lakes and streams abound ; the mountains are vast and 
 grand, the woods of the greatest charm. There are 
 stretches of open heath, where ferns and bracken grow 
 luxuriantly wild, and forests which may still be called 
 boundless and trackless. There is no sense of confine- 
 ment, however; the views are wide and open, and 
 Nature is the same mistress who inspired the Lady of 
 the Lake. I saw it all in the halcyon days of summer, 
 when young and old America go forth to play in the hill 
 resorts, and camps of boys and girls fleet away their 
 holidays under canvas. A joyous life ! I will write of 
 it again. Would that I could have stayed in the White 
 Mountains but a few weeks longer, for I should have 
 seen the tints of autumn on the woods, and they are one
 
 io AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 of the unsurpassed glories of Nature. The Virginia 
 creeper on our Oxford cottages is a property stolen from 
 the theatre of the Eastern States. 
 
 If I did not see this, I saw the pastoral beauties of 
 Virginia and of the Eastern States between the moun- 
 tains and the sea. Cultivated land nowhere shows a 
 more smiling face, not even in England. In some 
 points the British Isles lead. There is no grass or turf 
 like our own, whether it be the air or the soil that pro- 
 duces it, and English trees in the meadows have, I 
 think, a certain umbrageous quality that one misses else- 
 where. Moreover, the daisy refuses to grow outside its 
 native land. Buttercups and dandelions and thistles are 
 less patriotic ; and it is a curious fact that even the weeds 
 of Great Britain drive out the natives of other temperate 
 lands. America is not very rich in flowers ; the golden 
 rod has been proposed as her emblem, and she ought to 
 have adopted it. It is a tall, handsome spike of yellow 
 blossoms, something like the meadowsweet of England. 
 
 The climate of the continent is very uniform. It 
 passes everywhere from a rigorous winter to a broiling, 
 sweltering summer. All the world has heard of its 
 blizzards and heat waves. Yet perhaps few realise that 
 the maximum recorded in California is the same as that 
 recorded at Jacobsbad in India, 127 degrees in the shade. 
 Sun helmets are unknown, yet sunstroke is by no means 
 so common as orthodox views would lead us to expect.
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 11 
 
 The winter is not only rigorous, but long; it snowed 
 heavily in Chicago when I was there in May. Yet 
 American cold has not the raw effect of English cold 
 and is more tolerable to an Anglo-Indian. Let no one 
 suppose, however, that wet weather is uncommon in the 
 States ; during three months, from March to June, from 
 San Francisco to Boston, I had scarcely one fine day in 
 seven. 
 
 The effect of the American climate on the human race 
 is a subject to be approached with caution. We know 
 too little of the aborigines to base any views on their 
 character. They suffice, however, to demolish two 
 favourite generalisations, that a temperate climate pro- 
 duces a fair skin, and that the arrested development of 
 savages proceeds from the easy conditions of tropical 
 life. With respect to the white races, we have yet to 
 learn whether it suits them to live so far from the sea or 
 at such altitudes as those of the Western States. Both 
 in America and in Africa I have heard the view that 
 high altitudes affect the nerves. In America, moreover, 
 electrical conditions are different from what they are in 
 England, and perhaps they have something to do with 
 the " nervy ness " of America. One thing is certain, 
 that there is a disquieting amount of ill-health in the 
 States. Catarrh is very common, probably induced by 
 dust. Other complaints may be due to habits of life, of 
 which I will speak presently. It may or may not be 
 
 2
 
 12 
 
 fanciful to connect the volatile quality of the American 
 temperament with the caprices of the weather and the 
 natural convulsions to which some parts of the country 
 are liable. This vein of argument has fallen into dis- 
 credit since the days of Buckle; but it is certain that 
 marvellous incidents are more common than in Europe, 
 and this may have encouraged the undoubted credulity 
 of the race. The freaks of tornados are well attested. 
 We read of a baby being whirled five hundred yards in 
 its cradle, and deposited on the ground safe and asleep. 
 
 The original animal life of the country is almost 
 extinct. Species were never so numerous as in Africa, 
 but life was plentiful and interesting. The most 
 remarkable native of the soil was the beaver. He 
 frequented the banks of streams, living in a burrow with 
 an entrance below the water. To keep the level of the 
 water above this entrance was his chief concern, and this 
 he effected by a dam of sticks and mud. It is not yet 
 certain how much to credit of the beaver's reputed skill ; 
 he vanished before the scientific naturalist came on the 
 scene. The old trappers invented a store of legends 
 concerning him which resemble the animal law of 
 mediaeval Europe; the master beaver, it was said, the 
 superintending engineer of their public works, chas- 
 tised idle workmen with his tail ; the beaver who once 
 escaped from a trap carried a stick which he poked into 
 suspicious places. He was hunted for his fur, once the
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 13 
 
 regular material of a fashionable hat. It was the white 
 man who taught the Indian how to catch him. The 
 cunning of man was too much for the cunning of the 
 beaver ; few of his tribe are left. I saw one in the Bronx 
 Park at New York ; he had been taught to splash about 
 by day, unlike his progenitors, who always worked by 
 night. A merry, humorous buck he seemed. The 
 beaver was once proposed for America's emblem, but 
 she preferred the ravenous eagle, already appropriated 
 by the kings of Europe. To be industrious, intelligent, 
 retiring, and harmless is an ideal which no high-spirited 
 man proposes for himself. 
 
 Even more famous than the beaver is the buffalo, 
 though natural history knows little of his habits. He 
 was a migratory animal, moving across the central 
 prairies in enormous herds. In winter he was covered 
 with shaggy fur, which gradually dropped off him in 
 the summer; at all stages of his life he was an ugly, 
 awkward beast. He was no use to the white man, who 
 replaced him with civilised cattle, more eatable and more 
 manageable. Between 1868 and 1881 $2,500,000 were 
 paid for buffalo bones in Kansas, being the remains of 
 31,000,000 buffaloes. Two thousand are still alive in 
 America, distributed between various parks. 
 
 In these parks are the zoological collections of the 
 country, some of them excellent. That of New York, in 
 the Bronx, is perhaps the most interesting in the world,
 
 i 4 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 owing to the very large space allotted to each animal. 
 I was greatly pleased with its arrangements, especially 
 with the order maintained in it. The public had actually 
 been persuaded, and that by reason alone, to refrain 
 from annoying and feeding the animals. There I saw 
 the skunk at home, and the prairie dog, and above all 
 the race of bears. The grizzly bear and the Alaskan 
 bear are great masterpieces of Nature's hand, not 
 perhaps more wonderful than any of her creatures, but 
 impressive beyond most in their size and dignity, com- 
 peers of the tiger and the elephant, the whale, the 
 Anaconda, and the rhinoceros. Is it impossible to pre- 
 serve a few of them ? Zoological collections alone 
 cannot effect this; even if they could be kept in such 
 places, they would degenerate. 
 
 It is worth observing that India is the only country 
 witH an old civilisation where no animal has become 
 extinct in historic times. Even the lion still lives there, 
 in the Gir forest of Kalhiciar; the rhinoceros in Assam. 
 America has done wonders in the way of extinguishing 
 animal life. Bird hunters have ransacked the in- 
 accessible swamps of Florida; the flamingo has almost 
 vanished. To them their feathers were fatal ; others, 
 like the passenger pigeon, were a nuisance to farmers. 
 The immigrant classes of recent years, especially the 
 Italians, suffer no bird to live, and if America does not 
 bestir herself her fields will soon be as mute as those of
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 15 
 
 Italy. Legions of sparrows haunt her towns, once 
 welcomed, now detested. Insects have profited by the 
 change; caterpillars have given notice that they will 
 destroy every tree on Boston Common. Rabbits find 
 the cold winter injurious to their health, and America, 
 which has to fight so many beetles and weevils, is 
 exempt from the great problem of our Antipodes. 
 
 The rattlesnake holds his own all over the country; 
 centipedes and scorpions in the West. There, too, the 
 coyote or wild dog prospers; he understands traps and 
 has learned the range of modern rifles. The puma still 
 haunts the silent canyons. Alligator breeding in the 
 south is a recognised industry, much as ostrich farming 
 in Africa. Enough now regarding the animal life of 
 America.
 
 II 
 
 The Red Man 
 
 I proceed to the American Indian, who, like the citizen 
 of the Republic, or the subject of the Mikado, has no 
 name by which he can properly be named. Let him be 
 known, therefore, in these pages as the Red Man, 
 though why or by whom he was first so called I cannot 
 say. His true colour is brown ; not quite the brown of 
 India, but a chocolate brown, much the same, however, 
 to the non-scientific eye. 
 
 He cannot any longer be studied as a savage. The 
 few Indians now alive (save the Pueblo Indians), are 
 collected on reserves, where they belong to the philan- 
 thropist rather than the savant. No doubt, some traces 
 of old beliefs and customs linger amongst them, but I 
 doubt if they would still be worth attention. With 
 regard to the Pueblo Indians the case is different. The 
 American Government is collecting information regard- 
 ing these, and during the last twenty years the Bureau 
 of Ethnology has published valuable accounts of their 
 life and manners. The investigation of early sources 
 for the other Indians is also proceeding, but nothing
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 17 
 
 much will ever be known regarding the Indians East of 
 the Alleghanies. 
 
 I visited the Pueblo Indians myself, and in the 
 libraries of Chicago and Boston read many books which 
 are not easily accessible outside America. Partly out of 
 curiosity, and partly because I think our views 
 regarding human life and destiny should take more 
 account than is usual of the fate of the savage races. 
 Save the negro, they have all perished or are perishing ; 
 it is too late to do anything for them; but it is not too 
 late to ask whether anything might have been done, and 
 whether inflexible cruelty is or is not indispensable in a 
 race that is to progress. 
 
 Accounts of the red man's life and morals are, at all 
 epochs, very conflicting. Two generations ago, when 
 the struggle between him and the white man was still 
 acute, these accounts were generally unfavourable, for it 
 is human to malign our enemies; to-day, accounts are 
 generally sympathetic and self-accusing. Two things, 
 however, I have noticed. This hated and hateful type of 
 red man was a type produced by the white man ; a wretch 
 whose social organisation and moral sanction had been 
 knocked to pieces, while his character had been de- 
 bauched by drink. That such people, with undoubted 
 wrongs to revenge, were treacherous and cruel is 
 true and was natural ; we can understand that 
 between them and the whites there were wars of exter-
 
 1 8 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 mination, in which neither side spared man, woman or 
 child. But it is also true that except in the last stages 
 of the conflict, the enemies of the red man made great 
 admissions in his favour. Moreover, I have not read of a 
 single man who actually lived among the Indians for any 
 length of time, as Catlin lived, who was not a warm 
 admirer of them. This may have been due to a loss of 
 principles, but I note that the professed renegade has 
 scarcely been heard of in America. 
 
 The original number of Indians in North America has 
 been very much disputed. It is certain they were 
 scattered all over the continent; present opinion seems to 
 hold, sparsely scattered. It is not certain whether the 
 general features of life everywhere are so far the same as 
 to establish a general identity of race. Some hold that 
 the nomadic Indians of the plains are widely different 
 from the Pueblo Indians and those of Mexico, who built 
 themselves houses. The latter they would rank as 
 civilised, the former as savages. At any rate there is a 
 general resemblance of features everywhere, and I can- 
 not believe that there was any such difference of stock 
 as exists between the European and Mongolian. The 
 varieties of language were innumerable. Their affinities 
 are little known ; materials and motives for exploring 
 them now hardly exist. Written literature there was 
 none; little seems to be known of poetry orally pre- 
 served. Certainly the bard was not the figure that he 
 has been elsewhere In the world.
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 19 
 
 The material surroundings differed according to the 
 circumstances of different tribes. Their clothes in the 
 North were of fur, in the centre of buffalo hide, in the 
 south of wool. Similarly their food varied. The 
 Indians of the centre lived chiefly on buffalo meat, those 
 of the South on porridge of ground acorns. Agriculture 
 was not unknown, though few tribes depended much on 
 it. The chief crop was maize. Implements of all kinds 
 everywhere were rude; the agriculturalist did not get 
 beyond the hoe and the digging stick. Earthern vessels 
 were made in the south-west, and excellent baskets 
 everywhere. The only metal in use was copper. It 
 appears, however, that this was never smelted, but 
 employed only so far as it was found naturally in 
 malleable lumps. There was no domestic animal save 
 the dog, honoured, strange to say, both as a companion 
 and a table dish, and even shorn by some tribes for his 
 wool. 
 
 Trade was by no means absent from the relations of 
 the tribes. Copper, furs, and sandstone were exchanged 
 between remote parts of the continent. Coined money 
 was sufficiently represented by wrampum, or beads of 
 shell, which approached it about as closely as the 
 pictures approached writing. But means of locomotion 
 there were none, save the birch-bark canoes of Canada. 
 Nor had the red man ever anywhere ventured on the 
 sea.
 
 20 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 Thus the North American Indian, though better off 
 than the Maori, who resembled him, rested on so low a 
 plane of material Achievement that we cannot call him 
 civilised. But in Central America, from the confines of 
 Mexico southwards, civilisation seems to appear, till it 
 culminates in the really great system of Peru. The 
 territory of the States includes a few tribes who belonged 
 to the fringe of this civilisation, and as I visited some of 
 them I will speak of them here as I found them. 
 
 They are known as Pueblo Indians, from the Spanish 
 pueblo, a village; the many names of their tribes it 
 would be useless to recall. They live nowadays in 
 desert places to which they were driven partly by the 
 Spaniards, partly by the more warlike Indians of the 
 plains, the Apaches and others, whom the world still 
 remembers. Many of them were cave dwellers, and, 
 though most of the cave dwellings have been deserted, 
 there is no scene in America more interesting. 
 
 The caves will usually be found in a canyon ; one such 
 I visited, the Frijoles Canyon, near Santa Fe. It is a 
 typical canyon ; a long deep fissure in the mountains, 
 with vertical walls of sandstone. Such a place is really a 
 fortification, on lines the opposite of those which men 
 construct. The problem of the invader is not to scale 
 the walls, but to descend cliffs. Down below the 
 besieged are safe enough ; a stream runs through the 
 canyon, and there is plenty of room to raise crops and
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 21 
 
 pasture animals. The modern visitor will not fail to 
 admire the cliffs and the trees, and perhaps he will envy 
 the old denizens of the fastness. It is possible, too, they 
 spent some happy days here, yet it must have been 
 suffering of some kind that drove them away. Anyhow, 
 they are gone. But America, which has come to love 
 her few antiquities, is carefully exploring the site, and 
 justice is being done to the material vestiges of the past. 
 The caves, though mostly small, are very numerous. 
 Some are high up in the cliff ; they are roughly grouped 
 in stories, and for the most part look comfortable and 
 even inviting. Down below are relics of building for 
 ritual purposes. There are many fragments of pottery ; 
 we notice genuine glaze upon them, employed, however 
 solely for decoration ; so near did the Pueblo peoples 
 come to one of the great discoveries of the world. Else- 
 where we find the beginnings of irrigation, quite un- 
 developed till recent years saw an advance. But we are 
 now leaving the cave dwellers and approaching present 
 times. 
 
 The pueblos I commemorate is Ocoma. It stands on 
 a great rock that rises, one might almost say, in the 
 desert. In grandeur of outline and splendour of colour- 
 ing this rock is unsurpassed; its summit is reached by 
 a difficult track between crags and boulders. Once 
 ascended, you find yourself in a square, surrounded by 
 the mud buildings of the settlement. They are three
 
 22 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 stories high, the rooms are three deep on the ground 
 floor, two on the first, and one on the second floor, so 
 that the flat roof of the lower story provides a promenade 
 for the room above it. From this promenade a ladder 
 ascends, which is used with familiar ease by men, 
 women, children, dogs, and poultry. Fronting the 
 buildings is a church, where a priest of the Roman com- 
 munion occasionally holds a service. 
 
 There were few people present when I visited the 
 place, and no one who could speak English. I sat my- 
 self down in a clean but bare little room, furnished with 
 pots and potherbs and one or two stools. The people 
 were stolid, but not unfriendly ; no one, however, had 
 anything to say, and one could only reflect on the ages 
 of history which had passed over Ocoma in vain. In 
 1540 Coronado stood there; the Roman church followed 
 him ; in 1680 the red man rose and seized thirteen priests 
 and stoned them to death in that square. No cruelties 
 go forward now, but life is languid, and no dreams of 
 progress trouble anybody's sleep. Not far away, 
 among the Zunis, the past is still more present with us; 
 old paganism lifts its head, and takes its own time to die. 
 There is no one who wishes to possess this corner of the 
 desert. 
 
 I must not write of Mexico except thus far, that the 
 finest relics of Mexico are on sale in these Western States 
 at Fred Harvey's shops. These relics consist of carpets
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 23 
 
 and blankets ; I cannot understand why there should still 
 be any on sale when there are so many curio hunters in 
 the world. In texture, colour, and design they are equal 
 to anything that weaving has produced. It would be 
 waste of words to say more, except that the green dyes 
 were astonishing. Centuries had passed over some of 
 their pieces; their lustre was still undimmed. They 
 remain to show us what our fathers destroyed in Mexico ; 
 but what will give us back the library of Tezcoco, which 
 the Roman bishop Zumarraga destroyed ? 
 
 Well, of the pueblo Indians, so much. I return from 
 this digression to the red man further north, their less 
 civilised cousins. Let us add, if less civilised, by no 
 means less artistic. Many a museum in America proves 
 this. Barbaric splendour has seldom eclipsed the 
 buffalo robes of the Indian chief ; in his use of the white 
 man's beads he showed more judgment than any other 
 savage. But above all it is by his baskets that the 
 Indian artist will live for ever. Many books and many 
 Government Reports have tried to do him justice. 
 
 Perhaps, however, the first thing to note is that for 
 "he" we should throughout say "she." Indian 
 baskets were entirely made by women, and there is pro- 
 bably no art on so high a plane which has been through- 
 out its history in trie hands of women. The materials 
 employed were very numerous, including many roots 
 and fibres; the technique is most complicated. But
 
 24 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 speaking only of results, we may say that for finish, 
 closeness of texture, and durability, nothing, not even 
 the canework of China, surpasses the Indian basket. 
 The styles are numerous, perhaps those of the far North- 
 West are most striking, but thousands of miles separate 
 the finest examples. The patterns vary indefinitely; 
 there is really no decorative art in which individual taste 
 has had a freer scope. Designs are based on conven- 
 tional treatment of natural objects like birds; there is 
 little naturalism, but it is astonishing how a difficult 
 motion like a steam boat is sometimes rendered. One 
 must not suppose, however, that the art still exists ; it is 
 almost extinct, and a very few years will see it vanish. 
 
 I cannot say why this is so. Good baskets fetch 
 enormous prices, and will soon be unprocurable. It is 
 not the case here that a demand for cheap rubbish has 
 killed good work ; one can only say that when civilisation 
 destroys the taste and morale of the savage he loses both 
 interest in his own art and patience to produce it. It is 
 left for the white man to appreciate the glorious collec- 
 tions of American museums, where one learns with a 
 sigh that civilisation rather loses than finds the prin- 
 ciples of decorative art. The fault is perhaps 
 
 "Vaulting ambition, that o'erleaps itself"; 
 Certainly, in this line, the most ambitious efforts of our 
 age are its worst features. 
 
 The presence or absence of art has, of course, nothing
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 25 
 
 to do with morality; the moral tone of the red man is 
 more a matter of debate than the merit of his art. But 
 careful reading will show that the only charge against 
 him is that of cruelty in war. Now there are serious 
 grounds for this charge. No race ever carried so far the 
 torture of prisoners, and no fact connected with the red 
 man has sunk so deeply into the world's recollection. 
 It has offended the world more than the atrocities of 
 Europe, because of its wanton and unchivalrous 
 character. I do not defend or palliate it ; but we sh'ould 
 remember that the same people sometimes offered the 
 prisoner the choice of death or adoption into their tribe, 
 and more than once even released a white man whose 
 fortitude in the last hour won their respect. These 
 belong to those paradoxes of human nature which at 
 every stage of human history baffle our judgment. 
 Apart from the torture of prisoners, Indian war was in 
 some respects more humane than that of Europe, notably 
 in the general safety of women from outrage. It is 
 foolish for a philosopher to affect much disgust at the 
 scalping of dead enemies, and the so-called " treachery " 
 of Indian warfare was not treachery at all. The red 
 man's object in war was to win without loss of life his 
 principles indeed did not differ from those of Sir Thomas 
 More, who in "Utopia" recommends that we should 
 steal upon our enemies' general and shoot him. So, too, 
 the red man preferred to watch and wait till he could
 
 26 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 spring on his enemy and kill him with a blow. There 
 was nothing Homeric about his battles. There was, on 
 the other hand, the deepest regard for treaties and agree- 
 ments ; and an. enemy was safe who walked into a hostile 
 camp, unarmed, with a proposition. 
 
 In peace trie Indian was usually a man of grave de- 
 meanour, taciturn and dignified, but not morose or 
 unkindly. Women and children were well treated, 
 especially children. They were never beaten lest their 
 spirit should be cowed, but in the case of boys, when 
 puberty and the time of their initiation arrived, their 
 fortitude was tested by rites whose severity is famous.* 
 The race as a whole was chaste, though it appears that 
 ante-nuptial unchastity was in some tribes condoned. 
 I have thought before now that such unchastity may 
 have been a cause retarding the development of savages, 
 especially among the negroes; But on the whole, in the 
 face of what we know about Japan and what we do not 
 know about the civilisation of Europe, the position could 
 not be confidently assumed. Among pleasing traits of 
 the Indians was respect for age. Their chief failing was 
 a passion for games of chance. 
 
 Such were the people whom the white races of Europe 
 found in possession of North America. Of tKe history 
 which ensued I might omit the Southern chapters, were 
 
 * It is curious that the Spartans, with similar objects in view, beat 
 and ill-treated their children from early years.
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 27 
 
 it not that the Spaniard did actually enter the territory of 
 the present States, and his struggle with their power is 
 part of the drama of American development. I refer 
 only in passing to Cortes and Pizarro, as I referred to 
 Mexico, Peru, and Yucatan. But other Spaniards 
 penetrated further North, and the tragedy and problem 
 of Central America belong likewise to history there. 
 They bring with them the same questions, whether in 
 the chaos of human existence morality is really a quality 
 of actions at all, or if it be a quality whether any strong 
 arm exists to support it, whether moral indignation is 
 not futile, and whether language itself is not inadequate 
 for the purposes of the moralist. All these questions 
 are raised by the story of Pizarro and not less by the 
 exploits of the conquistadores further North. We need 
 not deny their virtues, their courage, and their enter- 
 prise, such as we can hardly fathom to-day. But what 
 of the actions to which Destiny hurried them ? It is 
 even a small thing that they shed so much blood and 
 sank countless thousands in misery, but they took away 
 from a whole people the heritage of ages, a civilisation. 
 It is no consolation that in their northern wanderings, 
 they sought in vain a second El Dorado, that many 
 died of hunger and thirst, or were killed by their own 
 treacherous friends. It is no consolation that Spain has 
 been kicked out of America, or even that in the darkest 
 
 hour of her guilt a Las Casas was found to rebuke her ; 
 
 3
 
 28 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW . 
 
 the fact remains that great men stooped to such deeds, 
 that a Christian Church sanctioned them, and we must 
 be blind indeed and blindly self-conceited if we think we 
 are safe from repeating them. 
 
 The issues of this struggle, however, are simple com- 
 pared with those which face us in the Northern States. 
 We have there the problem of the settler and the savage ; 
 it is even more acute and more painful. Let us try, if 
 possible, to see what actually happened. 
 
 First impressions between the white man and the 
 brown man were usually favourable. Thus Columbus 
 reported of the Caribs :" There are not a better people 
 in the world than these, nor more affectionate, affable, 
 and mild." The " red man " seems always, unlike the 
 Maoris, to have recognised in the white man a superior. 
 He often endowed him with divine attributes, and wel- 
 comed his arrival. In many cases the early settlers owed 
 even their lives to the help of the Indians. And need I 
 recall the story of Pocahontas, which, true or false, 
 illustrates the absence of innate racial hostility. 
 
 But in no case, so far as the English and Scotch 
 settlers went, did these halcyon days last. The new- 
 comers multiplied, they needed more room, and appro- 
 priated more land. This in brief is the story of a white 
 age of history. Let one example suffice, that of the 
 Scotch Irish in 1730, who seized 15,000 acres of land at 
 Conestoga, saying : " It was against the laws of Nature
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 29 
 
 and God that so much land should be idle while so many 
 Christians wanted it to labour on." That the Indians 
 needed it for a hunting ground did not occur to them, 
 nor would they have paused had it occurred. Their 
 views were those of Governor Bradford, who led the 
 Mayflower Pilgrims, and writes in his Journal of " The 
 vast and unpeopled countries of America, devoid of all 
 civil inhabitants, where there are only savage and 
 brutish men, who range up and down little otherwise 
 than the wild beasts of the same." 
 
 The Indian wars thus started lasted till our own day, 
 following always much the same course. It is the ver- 
 dict of all the authorities that every aggression came 
 from the whites, and was marked in every case by the 
 violation of a treaty. Col. Inman, a United States 
 officer, whose life was spent in fighting the Indian, tells 
 us that " though having little compassion for the 
 Indians he must admit that durfng more than a third of 
 a century passed on the plains and in the mountains he 
 has never known of a war with the hostile tribes that was 
 not caused by broken faith on the part of the United 
 States Government or its agents." 
 
 The whites had at first the advantages of firearms and 
 horses, but the Indians soon learned to use them, though 
 their own bows and arrows formidable weapons they 
 never quite relinquished. They would have been dan- 
 gerous enemies had they ever learned to unite and sup-
 
 30 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 port each other. Occasionally a chief of political genius 
 achieved this, and the names of King Philip and Pontiac 
 will live in history. Of the Apaches, says Detten- 
 baugh, " It is doubtful if any nation ever made a braver 
 or more determined stand against their enemies and 
 oppressors." 
 
 We seek in vain to discover if any plan could have 
 solved the problem of the case. We may ask if the 
 Indian's territory could not have been delimited from 
 the first, and if the Indians living on it could not have 
 been slowly civilised, till the day when on equal terms 
 they might have joined the whites in a civilised com- 
 munity. Had the whites consented to such self-denial, 
 would the Indians have played the part suggested? 
 There is nothing to make us think so. The Indian 
 refuses, and has always refused, Europeon civilisation. 
 The missionaries of Rome, in Canada, in California, in 
 Paraquay, after generations of heroism, have achieved 
 nothing with him. It is true that in California a 
 "liberal " state policy destroyed their institutions, but 
 in Canada, I believe, they have always had a fair field. 
 The Indian, however, remains to the last a nomad. That 
 indomitable resolution which breathes from the faces of 
 his old chiefs he has never applied to the creation of a 
 new life and a new morale. We rarely read of men like 
 the few Maori chiefs who struggled towards a new age. 
 I have met the name of one, Kicking Bull, who was
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 31 
 
 poisoned by a Mexican woman. The rest were willing 
 to fight and die, but not to reform themselves. The 
 English settlers, though they sent a few missionaries 
 among them, were not so zealous for the Indian as the 
 French. In their defence we must admit that the 
 French failed. Penn's settlement fell into line with the 
 rest, and the red man succumbed. More than once in 
 the long struggle he enjoyed an hour of victory ; between 
 1783 and 1790 fifteen hundred whites were killed or cap- 
 tured by Indians; and there were battles in which whites 
 perished by hundreds even down to the days of Custer. 
 But the end was never doubtful, and the progress of 
 civilisation was never checked. 
 
 Disease, one hardly need say, has played its part in 
 clearing off the Indians. Smallpox has destroyed whole 
 tribes, and consumption is hardly less menacing in the 
 Indian reserves to-day. 
 
 I did not visit these reserves, nor did I see their settle- 
 ments of really prosperous Indians which are said to 
 exist. From the papers I learned that the character of 
 Government agents is not greatly changed; there was 
 during my visit a long series of scandals over the 
 fraudulent sale of Indian lands in Oklahoma. Let it be 
 said, however, that the central Government at Washing- 
 ton is at this moment sincerely desirous to rescue from 
 beggary the few Indians that remain. Large sums are 
 spent on Indian schools, of which I myself visited more
 
 32 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 than one. If a passing verdict on them is justified, I 
 may say they were a queer mixture of good and evil. 
 The buildings were excellent, the equipment so good 
 and comfortable as to be wholly out of relation to the 
 pupils' lives. The sentiments and tone of the teachers 
 were excellent; but none of them understood the 
 children's language. The teaching of English was un- 
 scientific, and the children understood very little of what 
 they heard and were supposed to learn. Religion there 
 was none, save a dry " portion of Scripture " and hymns 
 which meant nothing to their heathen ears. Industries, 
 including agriculture, were taught with genuine vigour; 
 but with what success I could not learn. Indian senti- 
 ment must have changed to make such teaching possible 
 at all ; and one may hope for the best. But I did not see 
 anything in the classroom to stir that spirit of curiosity 
 which the old Indian never felt, the want of which, 
 together with the want of ambition, prevents him from 
 taking a place in America. It must be remembered that 
 Indian blood carries no stigma in America and excludes 
 a man from nothing. 
 
 I should like much to see the ideas of the "Junior 
 Republic " practised on a few young Indians. Will Mr. 
 George ever feel called, or will the nation call him to this 
 task? 
 
 The Indian schools are all boarding schools. I went 
 on a holiday walk with the pupils of one, boys and girls,
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 33 
 
 in the Far West, up a little canyon near the schoolhouse. 
 The children were happy to find themselves at large 
 again, and dug up roots and ate them and scrambled 
 over the rocks like the Indian children of many a century 
 before them. They were frank and affectionate 
 children, on pleasant terms with their teachers, but as 
 one of them said, " What is the use of doing anything 
 with them ? In a few years they will all be dead of 
 consumption." 
 
 The chief superintendent of all Indian schools' in 
 America is a woman. Her salary is $3,000 a year.
 
 Ill 
 
 Early and Mediaeval America 
 
 We turn now to the general history of the States, and 
 I shall begin with a few general remarks on it. 
 
 In the first place, beyond any history on earth, it is a 
 history of romantic passages, of swift developments and 
 vicissitudes. That its details should not be known in 
 Europe is natural enough ; yet the universal ignorance, 
 even in England, of its true character is a little strange. 
 The one fact we have grasped is that some of its chapters 
 are tedious; almost all others we have forgotten. 
 Americans themselves must bear their share of the blame 
 for this ; their own account of themselves in the past has 
 been too often disfigured by prejudice, by pace, and by 
 verbosity. But these defects have now been wonderfully 
 cleared away. Individuals and societies in America are 
 enquiring with great patience into the early records of 
 their country ; their conclusions are accurate and im- 
 partial, and presented to the world with good taste and 
 dignity. It will soon be possible to study the origins of 
 America in full and readable collections of early facts 
 and documents, and it will soon be realised that
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 35 
 
 American history is not only as interesting as any other, 
 but, in one important sense, unique. 
 
 It is the only history which shows us the actual 
 development of a race. What we do not know of Greece 
 or Rome or even very fully of England we shall know 
 of America, the elements which compose its society, 
 their contributions to its ideas and institutions, and the 
 varying complexion of their ideas from age to age. The 
 more we learn, the more we shall be struck with the 
 changes that have passed over them ; and perhaps in the 
 end America may teach us more than any other country 
 how little human nature is subject to law, and whether 
 the word heredity stands for much or little or anything 
 at all. 
 
 These few pages of mine are not even an epitome of 
 American history; they are merely points which have 
 dwelt in the memory of a casual reader, a tourist in the 
 world of books. Let them be suggestive, and that is all 
 they aspire to be. Above all, if they meet the eye of a 
 future visitor to America, let them remind him that 
 America, like other countries, to be understood must be 
 studied both in books and in living men. This may 
 seem a trite saying, yet how rarely is a tourist to be 
 found who has any tincture of the scholar ! There are 
 such in the ranks of correspondents and journalists, but 
 the press requires rather scene-painters than artists, and 
 the correspondent abroad is a politician at home, who
 
 36 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 has other purposes to serve than those of truth. 
 
 Now let us begin with a general glance at the process 
 of the years. Prehistoric America, north of Mexico, is 
 unknown to us. It was not the temperate, but the 
 tropical regions of the country, that gave birth to its 
 civilisations. The refics of geologic ages show us a 
 history of man as long here as elsewhere on the earth, a 
 history to be measured by scores of thousands of years, 
 but they do not show us anywhere between California 
 and New York a culture higher than that of the nomadic 
 Indian. Speculations regarding intercourse between 
 the hemispheres have passed out of fashion. It is recog- 
 nised that beliefs and customs coincide occasionally in 
 the remotest parts of the earth, but that such coinci- 
 dences furnish no foundation for special deductions. 
 The origins and early movements of mankind must 
 remain for ever hidden from science, unless and till 
 occult wisdom lifts the veil. 
 
 Of the red man we have spoken ; the first visitor from 
 the East was the Englishman's ancestor, the Viking. 
 Long doubted, this fact seems now to be proved; one 
 Leif Ericson led an expedition to New England, where 
 he found grapes and self-sown wheat fields. There 
 exists, it is said, a runic inscription near Baffin's Bay* 
 of 1125 A.D. But the Vikings forgot what they dis- 
 covered, and we pass onwards to Columbus. His 
 
 * Archffiology in America is still confused by egregious forgeries.
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 37 
 
 voyage is one of those tales which not only every young- 
 American, but every child of civilisation should read. 
 It wants nothing to make it impressive. His tiny ships, 
 their long struggle with the Atlantic waves, the crisis 
 and the triumph, these may furnish for all time 
 exemplary types of genius and faith and perseverance. 
 The details of the story are by turns amusing and sad- 
 dening. The first fumes of tobacco, the cheroots of the 
 Caribs, the footprints of alligators which they took to 
 be those of gryphons guarding gold, Columbus' faith 
 and hopes and errors what a medley of fancies and 
 ironies ! A few years later saw him walking the streets of 
 Cadiz in chains, " the admiral of mosquito land," whose 
 worthless discoveries had justly provoked his king and 
 countrymen. Vasco da Gama had found the genuine 
 Indies, and the profits of the new trade with Asia were 
 full in view. Yet again a few years and the age of 
 Cortes and Pizarro followed. The gold of America 
 raised to their full height and then ruined for ever the 
 fortunes of Spain. Castile, "which makes men and 
 wastes men," sent her best blood to America, but the 
 States which they founded added nothing to man's 
 record of great feats. Their history in North America 
 has been one long failure. The United States have 
 treated Mexico with contempt, and when the hour came 
 have never hesitated to raise their flag over Mexican 
 territory. California and Texas countries larger than
 
 38 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 Spain were appropriated with as little scruple as stout 
 Cortes felt concerning ihe Incas' rights. I do not say 
 this to condemn the States ; the fact is American citizens 
 could not live comfortably in California and Texas 
 under Spanish rule, and a government which cannot 
 govern has no claim to exist. 
 
 Spain, France, and Britain have all contested North 
 America; the history of France is one of pathetic and 
 unaccountable failure. A famous episode is the 
 massacre of the Huguenot settlement in Florida by the 
 Spaniards, " not as French men, but as Lutherans," 
 which ended the Puritan settlement of France. Had 
 they gone further North, they might have succeeded 
 where they failed, but it seems often in the history of 
 France that some ironic fate has brought her to the verge 
 of success only to hurl her back. In the records of 
 exploration as in all others she has many great names, 
 but none of the greatest, and there is no national 
 am6ition in which she has succeeded. The story of 
 Canada is in many ways a story of wise and well-directed 
 effort. Lassalle, like Dupleix, was a man of intuitions; 
 yet Lassalle perished at the hands of his own followers, 
 a fate which, so far as I remember, overtook no English 
 explorer at any time in any part of the world.* The 
 good will of the French towards the Indians is pleasing 
 to the sentimentalist, yet it bore no fruit, it was probably 
 
 *Were not Hudson's companions Dutchmen?
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 39 
 
 a source of weakness in that it multiplied half-castes, 
 and it would no doubt have been impossible had the 
 French colonists been more numerous or more prolific. 
 Curiously enough, the warlike Iroquois were allies of 
 the English, and served them better than the French 
 Indians served the French. The consolation that a 
 patriotic Frenchman can find in the tale is the effective 
 help which t 1 ranee gave to British colonists in the Revo- 
 lutionary war. France can almost say that as America 
 turned her out of the New World, so she turned out 
 England. She will have to add, however, that the 
 American Revolution did much to promote revolution 
 in France. If the truth were known, we might learn 
 that George Washington's example did something to 
 unnerve the French nobility. 
 
 France has contributed little to American blood, and 
 little to American ideas. Since I did not visit New 
 Orleans, the only trace I saw of France was in New* 
 York, a city which, while only possible in America, is 
 yet hardly American. In the manners and class and the 
 buildings of New York there is something which recalls 
 the extremism of the French temper and is clearly 
 inspired by French models. But this is a local feature 
 of New York ; elsewhere and in all deeper veins France 
 has not influenced America. French ideas regarding 
 woman are abhorred in the States ; so is her nude art, her 
 atheism, no less than such relics of feudal sentiment as
 
 40 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 the duel. The Republican system in America has owed 
 nothing to Rousseau,* nor will socialism in America, if 
 ever it comes, come from France. There is no hostility 
 between the countries, but there is no sympathy. 
 Towards Spain there is a more lively feeling, and 
 strange to say, it is not one of enmity. Americans, of 
 course, have nothing to gain from such enmity, and 
 Spanish America now interests them as an American 
 antiquity. A growing love for antiquities has shown 
 itself in late years, and the old Californian monasteries 
 are visited by hosts of tourists. Magazines and school 
 books do justice to the great qualities of the 
 conquistadores and treat their ferocity as a picturesque 
 advantage of the past. The Cuban War was a genuine 
 product of humane feeling, however much it was 
 engineered by speculators. One cannot doubt that self- 
 interest exploited this feeling somehow, but the fact 
 remains that it did not triumph; the American people 
 would prefer to see Cuba independent, and are making 
 an honest effort to confer this status upon her. 
 
 In the case of Mexico a similar play of forces is at 
 work. The trusts of America control the mines and 
 railways and industries of Mexico; it is probably the 
 case that they would wish to control its government. 
 As a preliminary step, it is asserted, they have paid 
 writers in the States to vilify the Mexican Government, 
 
 * Save Jefferson's "Glittering generality" "all men are born free 
 and equal."
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 41 
 
 in particular on the ground of cruelty to the Indians. 
 The intention, presumably, is to dispose American 
 sentiment towards the annexation of Mexico. But I 
 have no reason to credit these assertions, nor can I judge 
 between the critics of Mexico and its champions. This 
 much alone is certain, that Americans generally would 
 be very unwilling at this moment to admit to the 
 Republic a multitude of mixed Spanish blood, who are 
 almost all unfit for the franchise and almost all Roman 
 Catholics. 
 
 This sentiment I can well understand from the impres- 
 sions of a brief sojourn in Santa Fe. Almost the oldest 
 town in the States, it has been almost the last to move 
 with the times; it was the only town I visited in the 
 States which had not been modernised. A fine Capitol 
 there was, a fine school, and some good houses ; but 
 many of the roads have never been made at all, and 
 many of the houses were little better than the mud huts 
 of India. The surrounding country was bare and poor ; 
 not far away were the spurs of the Rockies. The hotels 
 are of the old American type, and among the visitors 
 lingered the manners of Martin Chuzzlewit. The 
 people were largely " greasers," as the Yankee calls his 
 fellow citizen of mixed Spanish blood ; a dull, heavy- 
 looking type of humanity. I visited the jail (for jails in 
 the States are open to the public) and there, I suppose, I 
 saw the worst of the " greasers " ; a more battered set of
 
 42 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 wretches I have never seen. Now Santa Fe is on the 
 up grade; the place is to be boomed, as a mining centre 
 and a health resort ; education is at work and the Eastern 
 States have sent there both fashionable and cultured 
 people. I cannot doubt that in a few years modern 
 America will assert itself, but it would be a hard matter 
 for America to remodel the whole of Mexico. 
 
 Turning now from the Latin to the Teutonic parts of 
 America, one is struck by the great variety of circum- 
 stances under which the colonies were formed, the many 
 experiments in their early contributions, contrasted with 
 the general agreement on principles at the Revolution 
 and the uniformity of system which succeeded it. Early 
 American history is a difficult study, full of intricate 
 details concerning Church and State, and political 
 relations with England. One is tempted to cut all this 
 in favour of the picturesque side of life, but to miss it is 
 to miss the real greatness of the Revolution as an 
 achievement. 
 
 Though every colony had something special in its 
 circumstances, two types emerge, the proprietary and 
 the free colony. Both were represented even within the 
 circle of New England. The proprietary colony was 
 founded by the aid of capitalists, encouraged by the
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 43 
 
 crown, which "granted" them land. The capitalists 
 retained important rights of exacting revenue, making 
 and executing laws; we may imagine that in these 
 colonies the aristocratic principle might easily have 
 taken root. I can see nothing to explain why this did 
 not occur, except the arrival of many free colonists with 
 insurgent principles from Britain and Holland. Any- 
 how, it did not occur ; during the pre-revolutionary period 
 the proprietors almost everywhere lost their rights. 
 These passed in varying degrees to popular assemblies, 
 and to royal governors sent by the crown. In the free 
 colonies political rights were shared on equal terms by 
 the original settlers, and exercised through courts and 
 assemblies. But here, too, the Crown asserted itself, 
 and royal governors controlled even Massachusetts for a 
 hundred years. 
 
 These years were a stormy period. The colonies were 
 alway feeling their way towards self-government. But 
 they were slow to discover the principles on which the 
 revolution claimed it. We see this even in 
 Massachusetts; the settlers claimed their independence 
 in virtue of their original charter, and the battle was 
 long fought over the interpretation of this charter. Like 
 all such battles, it is tedious, but we watch with interest 
 the pertinacity of the colonies and notice how much 
 irritation culminated in the Declaration of Indepen- 
 dence. Hardly any reader will escape a feeling of relief
 
 44 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 when the decisive language of this paper falls upon his 
 ears. During the earlier period neither side fully claims 
 our sympathy. We can understand the attitude of the 
 Crown, which had granted the charter, and thought 
 itself the sole interpreter of the charter, and, in general, 
 the owner of American soil and the final authority over 
 the colonists. The English Commonwealth took just 
 the same view of its own position. What is harder to 
 understand is the trouble the British Government took to 
 keep the colonies down. They were making little or no 
 profit out of them, and it really seems that their motive 
 was simply to assert their own principles. Clarendon 
 complained in early days that the colonies had " har- 
 dened into a republic," and though it took three 
 generations before the Republic was declared, a dread of 
 its birth was no doubt continually present in Great 
 Britain. 
 
 The material grievances of the colonies were 
 insignificant till the Navigation Acts were enforced. 
 They were protected from France, and were free from 
 any kind of tribute. The attempt to tax them was a new 
 move, which brought things to a head. It is agreed 
 here that the British Government may fairly be blamed 
 for not meeting a new situation more wisely. The fault 
 was not so much that their proposals were harsh or 
 inconsistent with European ideas as that they failed to 
 estimate the forces against them in America and the
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 45 
 
 rallying point they were supplying for those forces. 
 They failed, and their failure was their condemnation, 
 for success is the only thing that justifies the politician. 
 
 We shall find perhaps the most powerful of all causes 
 contributing to the colonists' revolt if we glance at the 
 religious history of the States. We shall return after- 
 wards to survey this from other points of view; at 
 present we have chiefly to notice the feeling of the 
 country towards Episcopacy. Not all the States were 
 equally hostile to this system. It was established in 
 some of them from their foundation, but it was 
 abominated in others, especially in Massachusetts. The 
 Puritans here adopted the Congregational system, and 
 when royal Governors brought with them Episcopalian 
 clergy, and seized their churches, the people of 
 Massachusetts were laid under a galling bondage. They 
 feared, and had reason to fear, and even the Episcopalian 
 States feared that the Bishops of this Church would soon 
 be appointed from England, and that religious freedom 
 would disappear. We must remember that the 
 generation which knew Laud had in 1685 only just 
 passed away, and in 1776 his tyranny was still a recent 
 tradition. Moreover, the States had largely been 
 peopled since his day by exiles from Scotland and the 
 North of Ireland, who had suffered from Bishops every- 
 thing that it is possible for men to suffer. The senti- 
 ment of these Scotch Irish must have been one of the 
 chief forces in the revolt.
 
 46 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 The subject has been fully explored of late years, and 
 much interesting truth brought to light. This truth has 
 dispelled tHe idea that English Puritans alone rose 
 against England. Both English and New English 
 historians long fostered this idea, the latter for obvious 
 reasons, the former because it was some satisfaction to 
 reflect that if England was once humiliated it was by 
 English hands alone that this was or could have been 
 done. Now the leading part in the events was certainly 
 played by English Puritans, but only just second to 
 them in force and purpose were the Scotch-Irish, and, as 
 we shall see later on, other races sent their contingent to 
 the field. The Scotch-Irish emigration to the States 
 took place partly in the seventeenth century, when the 
 Covenanters were persecuted, and partly in the 
 eighteenth century from Northern Ireland. Those who 
 belonged to this detachment had a double grievance 
 against England, a grievance against the Bishops, who, 
 with ingratitude unsurpassed in history, inflicted the 
 Test Act on Protestant Ireland, and a similar grievance 
 against the English Government, which ruined the wool 
 industry of Northern Ireland. If racial and religious 
 hatred can be pardoned it was surely in these men. I 
 can mention no general estimate of their numbers, but in 
 1670 seventeen thousand Covenanters were sent as 
 slaves to the Barbadoes and Virginia; between 1771 and 
 1773 thirty thousand of this stock left North Ireland for
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 47 
 
 America. Of 56 who signed the Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence 34 were English, n Scotch. This Scotch 
 element was scattered through many states, but, strange 
 to say, founded none. Its scions were pioneers and 
 backwoodsmen, hardy in frame, sturdy in character, and 
 parents of many sons and daughters like themselves. 
 
 It is clear now what caused the revolt and the war ; the 
 student of the tale may even wonder that they were 
 deferred so long. The next subject of wonder is that 
 after all England did not win. Distance was against 
 her, but she had organisation, resources, and men, and 
 above all friends in the Colonies. It is estimated by 
 recent enquirers that a third of the population were on 
 her side. Nor were they half-hearted allies. During 
 and after the war many of them suffered the last extremes 
 of misery on behalf of England. Yet she despised and 
 neglected them ; for want of their aid she failed. To my 
 mind it is this which disgraces our country more than 
 anything in her treatment of the Colonies. England is 
 not ungenerous, and our histories of America, in their 
 recognition of American claims, show perhaps a higher 
 tone than any nation has ever taken towards enemies 
 who humbled it, but does this justify our ingratitude to 
 those who stood by us ? Surely not, and had the lesson 
 been better taught in our school histories it would not 
 have needed to be taught again after the South African 
 War, when once more it was forgotten.
 
 48 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 The Revolutionary war is to America what the 
 Elizabethan age is to England; the epoch on which 
 patriotism fixes its eyes as the type and ideal of the 
 country. This illusion is as great in the one case as in 
 the other, and to support it history has been in each case 
 equally falsified. In each case, too, of recent years, 
 sober and critical research has excavated the truth. We 
 have learned that the Elizabethan age has more than one 
 side to it. That not all the piracies of the sea kings 
 redound to our credit, and our energies might perhaps 
 have flowed in a nobler channel. That the long caution 
 of Elizabeth in the Netherlands is certainly not glorious, 
 and perhaps we missed a fame greater than our victory 
 over the Armada deserves. Certainly the choice spirits 
 of Elizabeth's court thought so, and others besides Sir 
 Philip Sydney longed to serve elsewhere than in the 
 court of that mean and selfish and perfidious queen. 
 That so few of them escaped is little to their credit, and 
 Englishmen should blush to think that for two 
 generations their fathers stooped to accord her the 
 flattery she required. 
 
 Now this is still only one side of the tale ; I need not 
 here tell the other, we are not likely to forget it. Nor 
 are Americans likely to forget their own heroic legend, 
 but they, too, lay a quieter set of colours on their palette. 
 They admit that the brutality of the English has been 
 over painted, that their own treatment of the loyalists
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 49 
 
 may be set off against it ; that they are not exempt them- 
 selves from the charge of employing Indians; that the 
 records of their army are sullied by peculation and 
 rapacity, and that finally the help of the French must not 
 be suppressed. I do not say that all Americans admit 
 these charges, or that any much like to be reminded of 
 them, but the evidence for them is there, and is often 
 quietly allowed. Against them may be placed as far 
 more important the courage shown in many fields of 
 battle, the character of Washington, and most of all the 
 wisdom which framed the constitution. 
 
 It is worth pausing here to reflect what America owes 
 merely to the great war. She owes, one might almost 
 say, everything. Her self-respect and her solidarity of 
 feeling are based almost entirely on this glorious and 
 unifying recollection. Without it, one can hardly sup- 
 pose there would have been any United States at all. 
 Had Britain been wiser ; had she judged better the 
 feelings of each of the colonies; had she offered to each 
 in good time and with a good grace the political system 
 which each preferred, what course would events have 
 followed? We need not suppose that the British flag 
 would now float over the whole of the Continent 
 though that, too, is possible but it seems very unlikely 
 that the Stars and Stripes* would have taken their place. 
 Many differences of interest and temper separated the 
 
 * The origin of this flag is unknown. It resembles Washington's 
 coat-of-arms, but some authorities say this is only a coincidence.
 
 50 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 Colonies, and they might have continued separate. In 
 that case, would there have been any such common 
 impulse of feeling as has created American civilisation ? 
 For my part, I cannot think so, and I hold that the new 
 world of America is one of the many steps in progress 
 which humanity owes to war. The friends of peace, so 
 numerous in America, forget this; the historian and 
 philosopher should have better memories and more 
 insight into human character. The humourist may ask 
 himself what Americans would do without a Fourth of 
 July, when the country celebrates its gratitude and 
 animosity to the two Georges, King and president, who 
 created it. 
 
 We may pass now from this review of serious history 
 to a few observations. 
 
 Though Virginia was the oldest English colony and 
 in many ways the most truly English, yet in English 
 recollections of America it is quite overlooked ; the one 
 episode which is remembered in England is the voyage 
 of the Pilgrim Fathers. That voyage and the earlv 
 days of the settlement are recorded in Governor Brad- 
 ford's Diary, the manuscript of which is preserved in the 
 State Capitol at Boston.* I cannot forbear mentioning 
 tthe regular beauty of the handwriting (which resembles 
 
 Till* MS. was long in the Library of the Archbishop of Canterbury 
 titution, a few years ago, may be counted among the circum- 
 
 have mollified American sentiment towards England. 
 Though, indeed the writing of a clerk proves no more the presence 
 governor Bradford s gifts than a good seat on horseback, the peculiar 
 gr the Cavalier, proves the presence of a chivalrous mind.
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 51 
 
 Washington's); it heightens the respect with which so 
 venerable a monument must in any case be approached. 
 It seems to remind us that there is something in the 
 spirit of man proceeding from himself which makes 
 mean surroundings of small consequence. And mean 
 enough were the surroundings of the Plymouth settle- 
 ment. Such few of them as time has spared can be seen 
 in the Plymouth museum, pots and pans, spinning 
 wheels, swords, and not the least important for a 
 colony cradles. Close by is the little cemetery,* on a 
 green slope overlooking the sea, and just below it the 
 rock where the Pilgrims stepped ashore. I saw it in the 
 bright American summer, which makes it so hard to 
 believe in the American winter; the elms and linden trees 
 in full foliage, the sea coquetting with the shore. 
 Even the Pilgrims must have enjoyed their summer 
 days, though they had much else to think about, 
 especially in their first year, when they landed in the 
 beginning of winter. Their sufferings are recorded 
 in the " Log " ; we wonder not that many perished but 
 that any survived t 
 
 * The inscriptions are brief. " Here ended the pilgrimage of John 
 Rowland. . . . He was a godly man and an ancient professor in 
 the wayes of Christ." 1672. 
 
 f From the Journal : " In the time of most distress there were but 
 six or seven sound persons who spared no pains, but with abundance of 
 toil and hazard of their own health fetched them wood, made them fires, 
 dressed their meat, made their beds, washed their loathesome clothes, 
 clothed and unclothed them, in a word did all those necessary offices 
 for them which dainty queasy stomachs cannot endure to hear named, 
 and all this willingly and cheerfully."
 
 52 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 The Plymouth settlement, however, did not grow, and 
 it is elsewhere that we must look for the typical life of 
 Massachusetts.* We will notice first that the settlers 
 were mostly men of some family and some means, and 
 they did not long choose to live on the very humble plane 
 of the Pilgrim Fathers. It seems there were Cavaliers 
 as well as Roundheads in Massachusetts; and even in 
 1634 we find the General Court prohibiting "any slashed 
 clothes other than one slash in each sleeve and another 
 in the back," "all gold or silver girdles, hatt-bands, 
 belts, ruffs, beaver hats, immoderate great sleeves, 
 immoderate great vayles, long wings." Similar laws 
 follow almost every year, women requiring most atten- 
 tion for " their new strange fashions, with naked breasts 
 and arms, or, as it were, pinioned with the addition of 
 superfluous ribbons, both on hair and apparel ;" the men 
 also (especially the students at Harvard) offending in 
 their " longe haire." About 1700 we have lists of 
 domestic furniture, long and ambitious. There is con- 
 stant legislation against extravagant funerals, at which 
 casks of wine were broached and silken gloves and 
 scarves and palls lavishly distributed. Teetotalism, we 
 may observe, was no feature of any rank in life, and one 
 of the first steps taken by the Puritans was to brew good 
 ale. 
 
 This was not consistent with our usual ideas of 
 
 rx*A,?? most of the dctails wh ch follow to The Puritan Republic, by 
 D. W. Howe.
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 53 
 
 Puritan gloom, and a problem obviously arises. My 
 own feeling is that easy generalisations about the 
 Puritans have been far too popular, and are as false of 
 other ages as they would be of our own. Probably the 
 stern morose type of Scotland was always distinct from 
 the English Evangelical, which itself admits or rejects 
 worldly ideals in different degrees in different families. 
 Both again are distinct from the cheerful simplicity of 
 the Quaker, and the simplicity, usually less cheerful, of 
 the English Independent. To the last sect belonged the 
 Pilgrim Fathers ; to the Low Church or Evangelists the 
 body of English in Massachusetts. It is clear that the 
 more serious were in the majority and controlled the 
 Government, but there were many recalcitrant subjects 
 under them. 
 
 The Government in early days was chiefly in the 
 hands of the clergy, who were supported from the public 
 revenue. They had power to deal with any offence 
 against morals, and the code of offences was long. Many 
 were offences against religion ; sleeping in church, 
 carping at sermons, celebrating such pagan observances 
 as Christmas Day were punished in men and women 
 with fines and whipping. In 1656 Captain Kimble, of 
 Boston, was set for two hours in the stocks for his " lewd 
 and unseemly behaviour for kissing his wife publicly on 
 the Sabbath Day, on the door step of his house." It 
 was not considered an excuse that he met her after an 
 absence of three years at sea.
 
 54 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 The punishments of which we read may create an 
 unfavourable impression of the harshness and cruelty 
 even of New England. We must add, therefore, that 
 they did not equal the harshness and cruelty common at 
 that time in England. English books are silent regard- 
 ing this, but the scenes on English scaffolds in the 
 seventeenth century had no parallel in America. And 
 this seventeenth century in England has to be remem- 
 bered when we criticise the Indian wars. In 1679, after 
 Bothwell Brig, " two hundred and fifty Covenanters 
 were placed on board a ship, crowded under decks in a 
 space so narrow that the living had to stand to make 
 room for the dying. The ship sailed on Nov. 27th ; on 
 Dec. loth it was wrecked off Orkney. The crew escaped 
 on a mast laid from the ship to the shore; some of the 
 prisoners burst open the hatches and made their way to 
 the land, but the crew pushed them down into the sea. 
 About forty escaped, who were afterwards sent to New 
 Jersey and Jamaica, where they worked with the negro 
 slaves." When David Hackstone was executed his 
 right hand was cut off, and a little while afterwards his 
 left hand. He was then hanged on a pulley, and when 
 half suffocated taken down. The executioner cut open 
 his breast and tore out his still moving heart." No such 
 scenes were enacted in the New World. 
 
 Life in early days passed rapidly from tranquil and 
 happy passages to desolation and misery. Winter was
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 55 
 
 always rigorous, and on the frontiers the Indian wars 
 never ceased. What shall we consider typical of the 
 times ? The quiet industry of the farm, the evenings 
 round the hearth, or the burning hut and the tomahawk 
 descending on man, woman and child ? Human life at 
 all stages presents such vicissitudes, overlooked by 
 partisans of race or culture, but perplexing to the 
 philosopher. I will illustrate them by one or two 
 extracts from books of a somewhat later period than the 
 seventeenth century, but describing a life continuous 
 with that and quite resembling it. Read, then, this 
 account of what happened once on Cooper's Run, in 
 Bourbon County. Here lived " a family consisting of a 
 mother, two sons of a mature age, a widowed daughter 
 with an infant in her arms, two grown daughters, and a 
 daughter of ten years. The house was a double cabin. 
 The two grown daughters and the smaller girl were in 
 one division and the remainder of the family in the other. 
 At evening twilight a knocking was heard at the door of 
 the latter division asking in the customary phrase, 
 'Who keeps house?' As the sons went to open the 
 door the mother forbade them, affirming that the persons 
 claiming admittance were Indians. The young men 
 sprang to their guns. The Indians, finding themselves 
 refused admittance at that door, burst open the opposite 
 one with a rail, and endeavoured to take the three girls 
 prisoners. The little girl sprang away and might have
 
 5 6 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 escaped from them in the darkness and the woods*, but 
 under the natural impulse of instinct she ran to the other 
 door and cried for help. The brothers wished to go forth 
 and protect her, but the mother, taking a broader view of 
 experience and duty, forbade them. The Indians soon 
 hushed her cries with the merciless tomahawk. While 
 a part of them were murdering her, and another part 
 confining one of the grown girls, the third girl defended 
 herself with a knife which she was using at a loom at the 
 moment of attack. She killed one Indian, and was her- 
 self killed by another. This half of the house the Indians 
 then fired, and stationed themselves in the dark angles of 
 the fence, where by the bright glare of the flames they 
 could see everything and themselves remain unseen. 
 One of the sons took charge of his aged and infirm 
 mother, the other of his widowed sister and infant. They 
 emerged from the burning ruins, separated and endea- 
 voured to spring over the fence. The mother was shot 
 dead, one of the brothers was killed as he was defending 
 his sister. The other, with the widowed sister and her 
 infant escaped, and aroused the settlement. Thirty men 
 arrived the next day ; they came on the expiring body of 
 the young woman, murdered a few moments before their 
 arrival. They overtook and killed two of the Indians 
 that had stayed behind, apparently as voluntary victims 
 to secure the retreat of the rest." 
 
 Almost all Eastern America in early days was a forest, and it is sur- 
 prising how much of it is still covered with woods. The early settlers 
 lived in clearings, but all around them was the sombre erloom of the 
 forest.
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 5? 
 
 Women captured by the Indians were well treated, 
 and sometimes spent many years among them. This is 
 what happened to Mrs. Dennis, after her husband's 
 murder. Finally, in 1763, " she left the Indians under 
 pretext of obtaining medicinal herbs, her object was 
 suspected, and she was pursued. In the speed of her 
 flight she wounded her foot with a sharp stone, but she 
 eluded her pursuers by hiding in a hollow sycamore log. 
 They frequently stepped on the log, and encamped near 
 it for the night. Next morning they proceeded in 
 pursuit of her, and she started in another direction as 
 fast as her lameness would permit, but she was obliged 
 to remain near that place three days. She then set off 
 for the Ohio, over which she rafted on a drift log. She 
 travelled only by night, and subsisted on roots, wild 
 fruits, and the river shell fish. After passing forests, 
 rivers and mountains more than 300 miles she lay down 
 exhausted, and resigned herself to die, when providen- 
 tially she was discovered by some people of a settlement 
 and hospitably treated.* 
 
 Insensibly we are now coming down to later times and 
 later settlements, where the character of the age 
 changes and other aspects than that of religion emerge. 
 We are face to face with the backwoodsman, in whom 
 the element of adventure is strong. This element there 
 
 *As a punishment for this a party of sixty Indians visited the settle- 
 ment, pretending friendship, and in the middle of a feast rose and killed 
 every man in it.
 
 \ 
 
 58 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 must have been at work in the migrations of the white 
 races; we can neither explain nor fully understand it. I 
 remember how the Boers on the Mas Ngishu told me they 
 did not quite know why they left South Africa ; and in 
 the life of Daniel Boone the flow of pioneers to the west 
 is described as "an inexplicable propensity." The 
 movement went steadily on ; not merely new comers to 
 America but old settlers felt the impulse. They revelled 
 in the sense of expansion, and there was born within 
 them a new pride of race and country, which was a 
 different vein from that of the mere insurgent against 
 England or against the feudal ideas of Europe. Daniel 
 Boone, the Kentucky pioneer, caught the eye of the 
 world, as a type of the period ; he lived to 84 years of 
 age, Byron* pourtrayed him for the nineteenth century. 
 Fighting Indians, shooting bears, hewing down trees, 
 he moved ahead of the war of civilisation ; " he warmed 
 both hands over the fire of life." Tall and lithe of form, 
 you will not find a man like him now, except peradven- 
 ture in Virginia, where I think I saw the last of his line. 
 America, which has seen so many things disappear, has 
 seen the last of the great backwoodsmen. Let us hear a 
 voice from the past glorify their generation. " The first 
 settlers of America were originally a noble stock t, their 
 descendants have been reared under circumstances in 
 
 A solitary figure in our literature ; a John Bull to the core, and the 
 only John Bull who has understood and pleased foreign nations, 
 t Largely (in this case) Scotch and German.
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 59 
 
 every way calculated to give them manly beauty and 
 noble forms. They had breathed a free and salubrious air. 
 Field and forest exercise yielded them salutary viands 
 and appetite and digestion corresponding. Life brought 
 them the sensations of high health, herculean vigour, 
 and abundant joy. The virgin soil, as yet friable, un- 
 trodden, not cursed with the blight of politics and feud, 
 yielded with little cultivation 80 to 100 bushels of maize 
 to the acre and other edibles in proportion. Venison 
 and wild turkeys, sweet potatoes and peas smoked on the 
 table ; persimmon and maple beer stood them well 
 instead of the poisonous whiskey of their children." 
 
 Of course, the backwoodsman still exists in America, 
 chiefly as a woodcutter in the Rockies, but the morning 
 of the day is past ; the backwoodsman is no more a 
 pioneer. The last pioneers are gone, so, too, are the 
 generations of free-landers who filled the middle west in 
 the nineteenth century. Methought I caught a glimpse 
 of their new epoch in the waiting rooms of Kansas City, 
 while the train halted there. The rows of wooden seats, 
 and their tired occupants, a certain squalid air about 
 everything, seemed to recall Martin Chuszleivit; it was 
 almost the only scene in America that recalled it. I do 
 not think there is much vestige of this epoch in America, 
 and I do not think much is lost by forgetting it. It was 
 not an era of romance. The last romantic epoch was the 
 
 settlement of California, which was before the gold 
 
 5
 
 60 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 mines had begun to attract the farmer. The persever- 
 ance needed in early days to reach that country is 
 incredible. There were over a thousand miles of desert 
 to be crossed; Indians to be faced, and not improbably 
 the winter. It sometimes happened that the slow 
 waggons of the emigrants failed to cover the hills before 
 the summer closed, and the most dreadful scenes of star- 
 vation and even cannibal repasts ensued. 
 
 Two further episodes in early social history remain, 
 the trappers and the gold miners. I do not know when 
 the trappers came into existence ; their great epoch was 
 the early nineteenth century. In their company we have 
 left far behind us the religious settlements of the East; 
 they belong to the west. I have read nothing about 
 their origin or their race, but much about themselves. 
 Their life, which was solitary and dangerous, needed as 
 much courage, self-sacrifice, and hardihood as man can 
 compass. It seems enough to mention that in a blizzard 
 it was not unknown for them to kill a buffalo and creep 
 inside its carcase for protection ; on one occasion a man 
 was frozen inside his fortress and would have starved to 
 death there if his friends had not heard his shouting. 
 The trapper in many ways became a savage over again, 
 and he beat the savage on his own ground, being at least 
 as good a hunter, no less hardy and a more cunning foe- 
 man. Yet he remained beyond the circle of savage 
 beliefs and rites, and after all the mysterious difference
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 61 
 
 between the savage and the civilised man does not 
 vanish. Allied to the trappers were the guides of old 
 times, who served with the United States Army, men 
 like Kit Carson, who fought and conquered the wilder- 
 ness. Some of these men are still remembered not only 
 lor their dauntless courage and resource, but for their 
 unblemished faith and their influence with the Indian 
 tribes. 
 
 May I record here the feats of the Pony Express, which 
 before the railway carried letters across the continent? 
 They made an average speed of 250 miles a day; 
 Lincoln's message was carried in 7 days n hours from 
 Missouri river to Sacramento. Cody once rode 320 
 miles in one day, and fought two " road-agents " in the 
 course of it. The charge for transmission was $5 for 
 half-an-ounce, which seems cheap enough. 
 
 The history of the gold miners of California has 
 received much attention ; it is not only picturesque, but 
 illustrates many laws of social growth. The early 
 miners were solitary figures, who washed the auriferous 
 sands in pans. They came to California either across 
 the long desert, or by the isthmus of Panama, suffering 
 in either case much discomfort and even misery and 
 death. Their lives were toilsome and very ill-requited; 
 they suffered from scurvy and their bones "ached 
 aloud " with rheumatism, brought on by the exposure to 
 tne rain. A lucky adventurer made two ounces of gold
 
 62 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 a day, but few carried anything away. I cannot doubt 
 that in their hearts ,most of the gold-seekers knew this, 
 and what took them to California was not the desire to 
 " get rich quickly," but a sympathy fetched from the 
 immemorial past for the savage state of life. The pan 
 was followed by the placer* mine, which needed a small 
 company of men to work it. Miners became more of a 
 community, and formed their own customs and laws. 
 Accounts of what these were like, from original sources, 
 differ so much as to dishearten the historian ; perhaps the 
 chief lesson, here as everywhere in the history, is the 
 inevitable falsehood of generalisations. There were 
 moments, especially in early days, when mining camps 
 were scenes not merely of good order, but of generous 
 and affectionate sentiment; there were other times, 
 especially after long trials, when rogues abounded and 
 surly distrust prevailed. Miners long depended on 
 themselves not only for their moral and social tone, but 
 for justice and the execution of justice. The State 
 authorities were distant, their action slow, their officials 
 either corrupt or suspected of corruption. The miners' 
 courts as a rule were brief and stern, but just. Theft 
 was severely punished ; murder was tolerated, conspiracy 
 to murder, never. Frontier morality allowed people to 
 shoot each other in the course of a quarrel ; but ambus- 
 cades and assassination it put down. Duelling was un- 
 known. 
 
 A placer was a deposit of gold in the river bank.
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 63 
 
 There is no more curious difference between England 
 and America than this difference in the administration 
 of mining camps. I have been told it was perceptible in 
 Alaska the moment you crossed from British to 
 American territory. Under the British flag the mur- 
 derer was bound to be executed ; hence, revolver methods 
 disappeared. So, too, in Australia; though the miners 
 were largely convicts, the law made itself respected. It 
 never quitted a criminal till it caught and punished him. 
 For this success of British law we may suggest very 
 different reasons. Perhaps Englishmen, as individuals, 
 felt more their responsibility for supporting the law; 
 perhaps the principle of central authority (ultimately 
 feudal), more alive amongst them, provided law with a 
 stronger arm to enforce it. Possibly both answers would 
 be correct. England admits contradictions more easily 
 than most countries, and possibly she manages to com- 
 bine the apparently inconsistent principles of individual 
 responsibility and central authority. Life in America, 
 certainly, has often suffered from the absence of both.
 
 IV 
 
 The Mixture of Origins 
 
 This rapid glance at American history has shown us 
 at least two things that are often forgotten. The first is 
 the romantic aspect of America. There is no country 
 that possesses more romantic and picturesque traditions 
 just as there is no country that possesses more scenes 
 of natural beauty. Again, America has always been, 
 what she is still, a country of mixed blood ; and not only 
 that, but, from a very early period, this mixed blood has 
 flowed in the veins of a new people. In America we see 
 the origins of a race, and we see how little these origins 
 explain it and how much they fail to explain it. This is 
 indeed the chief theme of my little book, and I neither 
 introduce it nor sum it up here; it will recur and will find 
 new illustrations as long as I go on waiting. So far I 
 have pointed out that the British settlers of America 
 were by no means of our type, that the English and 
 Scotch Irish were very different people, that even the 
 English belonged to different traditions. But now it is 
 time to speak of another element in America, the 
 German.
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 65 
 
 Since the Germans founded no state of their own, their 
 influence in the country was long overlooked, but the 
 industry of German writers* has now brought it fully 
 into the light of day. Already in the Revolutionary 
 epoch one-tenth of the citizens (225,000) were Germans; 
 during the igth century 5,000,000 more arrived, and 
 to-day, of a hundred millions 18,000,000 are of German 
 origin. In the i;th and i8th centuries t they were 
 mostly refugees from war or from the long depression 
 following war; in the early iQth century they were still 
 mostly peasants. Where shall we find their influence on 
 America ? 
 
 First, no doubt, in religion. All of the early 
 immigrants were Protestants, and they helped to make 
 the tone of America, what it always has been, profoundly 
 religious. Their religion was often of a mystic, 
 quietist kind, peculiarly German ; they founded those 
 small religious settlements which are such an interesting 
 though seldom trodden by-patch of American history. 
 These settlements are homes of cheerfulness and peace 
 such as English Puritanism seldom produced. Their 
 creed was that of the Baptists and their kindred 
 Meuronites. To-day it seldom survives in its primitive 
 
 * E.g., The German element in the United States. By A. B. Faust. 
 2 col. 1,200 pp. 
 
 t It is amusing to meet in Germany in the i8th century with an 
 emigration agent's advertisement. In the U.S., we hear, " The maid 
 becomes a lady, the peasant a nobleman, the artisan a baron ; the officers 
 of the Government held their places by the will of the people." Perhaps 
 Mr. Scadder was a descendant of this artist.
 
 66 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 form, but from it are descended important types of 
 religious America to which I shall return. In present 
 day Germany, as everyone knows, philosophy and 
 materialism have ousted religion ; Germany has long 
 since sent to the States a full contingent of Philistines, 
 though I cannot say I have traced her philosophy there. 
 But we must do a little more justice to the early arrivals, 
 before we leave them, noting that many of them became 
 backwoodsmen, along with the English and Scotch. 
 Many fought stoutly in the great war ; Baron Von 
 Steuben drilled Washington's troops, and dissuaded 
 them from stealing their muskets. 
 
 As industrial life in America grew Germans took a 
 leading part in it, especially in engineering, chemical, 
 and steel industries. John Roebling in 1870-80 built 
 the great Brooklyn Bridge; and since his day the Laird 
 of Skibo has made his millions by importing clever 
 young Germans. Viticulture and gardening owe much 
 to Germany, and technical education, like other 
 education, owes almost everything. 
 
 What the American temperament owes is a far more 
 subtle question. Its subtlety only dawns upon us when 
 we contrast the two civilisations, which flourish under 
 such different conditions, aristocratic bureaucratic 
 Prussia and democratic America. In Germany (under 
 the old regime), a cheerful, kindly family life sheltered 
 itself under a strict but paternal government ; in America
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 67 
 
 the same life seems often to have continued its ideals 
 without noticing the absence of that Government. The 
 German settlers have taken little part in public affairs, 
 and their absence has been a mistake and a source of evil. 
 Looking at the struggles of German Liberalism, one 
 might suppose the German settlers would have adorned 
 a new Sparta of their own, but in spite of a few manly 
 examples they missed their opportunities. They cer- 
 tainly preferred the system of their adopted country; 
 even to-day the German American neither thinks nor 
 talks much of Germany. But recent years have seen a 
 revival of mutual interest, professors are exchanged 
 between the universities of the two countries, and points 
 of similarity and difference are noted. But there is no 
 sign of a closer union ; certainly not of any alliance 
 against England. 
 
 German love of music has passed over to America, 
 and I suspect religious music throughout the States owes 
 much to this influence. Even the small, erratic churches 
 have good hymn books, and musical taste in hymn tunes 
 is everywhere excellent. The intellectualism of Germany, 
 so far as I can see, has not crossed the Atlantic; its 
 sentimentalism has. The warmth of the American 
 temper must be largely due to Germany, and American 
 optimism to German optimism. German pessimism, so 
 far, has stayed at home, perhaps finding the German 
 professor a congenial companion. Domestic life owes
 
 68 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 something to Germany ; and a serious interest in cooking 
 is common to the two countries. These judgments may 
 seem capricious, and yet they may be just, for history is 
 always capricious, but general grounds may be rendered 
 for accepting them. German settlers have mostly come 
 from the peasant settler, and they have brought with 
 them a quiet love of home and a respect for industry 
 which has passed into the life of the country. And 
 finally, so far as the American girl has any spiritual 
 ancestors, I think they must be German. The English 
 woman, compared with the German, in every stage of 
 slavery or freedom, has always had about her a touch of 
 the man ; the American woman, even to-day, is surpris- 
 ingly feminine. Possibly this is somehow due to the 
 German tradition. I need hardly add that these judg- 
 ments confess both German and American women to be 
 charming. This is true, though true in different ways 
 of each, and if you care to regard the American woman 
 as the German woman transformed by Liberty, you will 
 find Die Ewige Weibliche a good case for argument 
 between the old world and the new. 
 
 Close beside Germany in that old world is Holland, 
 and this brings up America's debt to the Dutch. It has 
 been discussed by Douglas Campbell in his great work, 
 The Puritan in Holland, England and America. I 
 cannot mention this book without a word of gratitude, 
 for it stands alone, and throws a flood of light on the
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 69 
 
 history both of America and Europe. It deals with a 
 country which in proportion to its achievements has 
 received less attention from the world than any other, 
 especially from England. Yet the relations of England 
 and Holland show in the most striking manner how the 
 play of circumstances transforms the scene of history. 
 Here we have two races united apparently by original 
 ties of blood, by language, by religion, and by many 
 common sentiments, yet nevertheless from age to age 
 irreconcileably hostile. Though we have sheltered Dutch 
 refugees and Holland has sheltered ours, though 
 Holland has given us a king and once at least sought a 
 king from us, as a nation we have always thought of her 
 with cold dislike. It is the only nation that has humbled 
 us on the sea; it is we who have stripped her of her 
 colonies. We are not an ungenerous nation, and I 
 believe we have done justice to all our enemies but 
 Holland. Holland still is, in our common thoughts, a 
 country of Dutch boors ; her public policy is crafty and 
 grasping ; her sons untrustworthy. Her valour is hardly 
 noticed in our histories, nor the voyages of her sailors, 
 nor her art nor her learning, nor the refinement of her 
 life. This is partly due to the blanks in Dutch lite- 
 rature, partly to mere accident. I rejoice to think that 
 in English, at any rate, if not by an Englishman, this 
 wrong has been righted, and Dutch history has been 
 placed in its true light. Douglas Campbell is not as
 
 70 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 just to England as he is generous to Holland; but let 
 that pass; England has received abundant justice else- 
 where. What I shall here place before the readers is, in 
 the first place, a summary of his views. 
 
 He insists, to begin with, that the institutions and 
 guiding ideas of the States are mostly of Dutch origin. 
 Here is his own summary of the case. " First comes 
 the Federal Constitution, a written instrument as 
 opposed to the unwritten English Constitution. Next 
 are the provisions of this instrument, placing checks on 
 the power of the President in declaring war and peace, 
 and in the appointment of judges and all-important 
 executive officers. Then comes the whole organisation 
 of the Senate a mutable and yet a permanent body, 
 representing independent bodies politic, and not caste in 
 Church and State. After these features of the national 
 system, but not less important, follow our State consti- 
 tutions, our freedom of religion, our free press, our wide 
 suffrage, and our written ballot. With these come the 
 free schools, for boys and girls alike, the township 
 system, the independence of the judiciary, the absence 
 of primogeniture, the subjection of land to execution for 
 debt, and the system of recording deeds and mortgages. 
 Added to these are our public prosecutors of crime in 
 every country, the constitutional guarantee that every 
 accused person shall have subpoenas for his witnesses 
 and counsel for his defence, the reforms in our penal and
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 71 
 
 prison system, the emancipation of married women, and 
 the whole organisation of our public charitable and 
 reformatory work." 
 
 The proof that these institutions were drawn from 
 Holland is rendered in a thousand closely reasoned 
 pages, of which I will only say here that they appear to 
 me conclusive. This may seem surprising when we 
 consider how small a part the Dutch took in the actual 
 settlement of America. But we have to remember the 
 close intercourse in the i6th and iyth centuries between 
 England and Holland ; practically all the Puritan settlers 
 were fully acquainted with Holland and Dutch insti- 
 tutions. There is no difficulty in explaining how these 
 found their way there; the argument becomes one of 
 facts, and what has to be shown is that American insti- 
 tutions were posterior to Dutch and prior to English 
 examples in the same kind. This is done in Campbell's 
 book ; and I refer the reader to it. Among interesting 
 details is the parallel between the American and the 
 Dutch Declarations of Independence (1581 A.D.) " All 
 mankind know," say the Dutch, " that a prince is 
 appointed by God to cherish his subjects, even as a 
 shepherd to guard his sheep. When, therefore, a prince 
 does not fulfil his duty as protector, when he oppresses 
 his subjects, destroys their ancient liberties, and treats 
 them as slaves, he is to be considered not a prince but a 
 tyrant. As such, the estates of the land may reasonably
 
 72 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 and lawfully depose him and elect another in his room." 
 Republicanism is, of course, not fully fledged here, but 
 it soon followed ; America, two centuries later, was still 
 following this model. 
 
 Campbell exhibits the growth of American ideas in a 
 very interesting way. He shows how much that is 
 very English lingered in Massachusetts. How, for 
 example, social precedence was carefully organised, even 
 the seats in the Puritan churches being allotted by rank. 
 Social distinctions make themselves felt even in the 
 sumptuary laws. In 1651 the General Court declared 
 " its utter detestation and dislike that men and women of 
 mean condition, education and callings should take on 
 themselves the garbe of gentlemen, by the wearing of 
 gold and silver lace or buttons or points at the knees, or 
 to walk in great boots." Similarly toleration was not a 
 plant of early growth in Massachusetts. In 1685 
 Increase Mather (then President of Harvard) averred 
 that " Sinful toleration is an evil of exceedingly 
 dangerous consequence; indeed, the toleration of all 
 religions and persuasions is the way to have no true 
 religion at all left. I do believe that Anti-Christ hath 
 not at this day a more probable way to advance the 
 Kingdom of Darkness than by a toleration of all 
 religions and persuasions." Toleration as a doctrine and 
 a practice, came first from Holland, and first definitely 
 appears on English lips in 1611 in the Baptist
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 73 
 
 Declaration of Amsterdam : " The magistrate is not to 
 meddle with religion or matters of conscience, nor 
 compel men to this or that form of religion, because 
 Christ is the King and Law-giver of the Church and 
 conscience." This principle made slow but general 
 progress in America; the Puritans in Massachusetts and 
 the Episcopalians in Virginia reluctantly accepted it, 
 and at the Revolution it triumphed. In spite of Locke 
 its triumph was long deferred in England. 
 
 Campbell thinks that not only the institutions but the 
 temper of America are mainly derived from the Dutch. 
 One quotation will show his line of argument: 
 " Guicciardini said, in 1563, of the Dutch inventive 
 faculty : ' They have a special and happy talent for the 
 ready invention of all sorts of machines, ingenious and 
 suitable for facilitating, shortening, and despatching 
 everything they do, even in the matter of cooking.' 
 Here is the Yankee of Europe." Now it is true this 
 quotation does describe the Yankee; yet the period of 
 Yankee inventiveness was so long delayed that it really 
 does not seem to have been a heritage from Holland. 
 And in general, with all respect for Campbell's 
 authority, I incline to think America's debt to them in 
 this matter of temperament should be confined to 
 qualities related to the institutions they borrowed, viz., 
 a spirit of freedom, equality, and toleration, also a broad 
 humanity towards the distressed. In the degree to
 
 74 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 which this sentiment penetrated and pervaded society 
 America was long ahead of England. But it went along 
 with other things typically English, for instance, a per- 
 sonal aggressiveness which is prominent in mediaeval 
 America, and does not seem to be Dutch. 
 
 Little, however, do I know of what really is Dutch, 
 and I should like to have asked Campbell why the Dutch 
 made so little of themselves in South Africa, and 
 whether "slimness " is a failing of theirs, and whether 
 he was willing to trace to it the admiration for the 
 " 'cute " and the " spry " to be found in America. Not 
 in every American, but certainly in our old friend Sam 
 Slick, and the reader will remember that he despised the 
 Canadian for not possessing it. Now the Canadian was 
 an Englishman, and it appears Campbell would have 
 had to go to Holland for it, unless it was a plant of the 
 soil. Personally I do not think it was either German or 
 Scotch, though some forms of disingenuous conduct 
 have always haunted Protestant bodies, and no doubt 
 turned up in the Puritans of Massachusetts. 
 
 But one immigrant race of earlier times now remains 
 to be discussed, the Celtic Irish. They arrived in small 
 numbers in the i8th century and in large numbers in the 
 i gth. What does America owe to them? I should be 
 glad to give this question a reply gratifying to Irish 
 feelings, yet so far as my own knowledge goes that 
 cannot be done. The Irish in America, though they
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 75 
 
 came chiefly from the country, seem to have settled 
 chiefly in the towns. They have prospered there. The 
 Irish labourer has risen in the world, and the Italian 
 labourer has succeeded him. But they have elevated 
 themselves at the cost of America. They have achieved 
 a profitable union of the liquor trade, the police, and 
 politics, and still, throughout the States, the saloon 
 keeper, the policeman, and the political boss will often, 
 in some places usually, be found to be Irish. I need not 
 say, they will usually be corrupt and a source ot 
 corruption. It is one of the ironies of history that the 
 free institutions of America have fallen so largely into 
 the hands of a race least fitted to understand or control 
 them. Though we must not generalise about Irishmen 
 more than about other races, it seems to me they care 
 little for such institutions; the spirit of the clan is still 
 strong in them, and they are happier under personal rule 
 than under the rule of assemblies. They would probably 
 also be better men, if fate sent them better rulers than 
 the political boss, and the best thing that could have 
 happened to them would have been to have found some 
 quarter of the globe where the priests of Rome, Irish, 
 German and even Anglo-Saxon, could have ruled them 
 both in temporal and spiritual concerns. 
 
 To American principles they have contributed nothing 
 except an unforgiving hatred of England. Some of 
 their number are of a curiously wild type, which seems to
 
 76 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 resemble the savage, and cannot exchange ideas with the 
 Saxon. It is amongst them that we meet the only 
 instance of reversion in America. So far back as 1749 a 
 German observed that in Virginia were to be found "a 
 kind of white people who live like savages. Hunting is 
 their chief occupation." The same people are still to be 
 found there, not much changed. Distilling " moon- 
 shine " is their chief occupation ; their ancestral home is 
 Ireland. 
 
 It should be clear now that American blood and ideas 
 have flowed in a mingled stream from the first, and 
 Americans need not be disheartened if the stream is now 
 wider than of yore and the tributaries descend from 
 sources more remote. Lamentations certainly are heard. 
 " No nation has ever come up out of such a splendid 
 pure-blooded homogeneity into such a mixed polyglot 
 life as America. Our old proud colonial blood is 
 diluted, our boasted unity gone, our moral solidarity 
 is broken, our educational average impaired." But this 
 view of the past is false, and it overlooks the true sources 
 of America's greatness and her legitimate sources of 
 pride. Later on, when writing of America as she is 
 to-day, I shall pourtray a nation with many vigorous 
 types of manhood ; while picking up some broken 
 threads of historical continuity I shall insist that 
 America is what she has made herself out of what 
 Destiny has given her, and that new America, while
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 77 
 
 differing much from tHe past, may gain in proportion as 
 she loses and inspire in future generations an affection 
 and pride as deep as that of Patrick Henry and Daniel 
 Webster, but founded on a higher and greater record. 
 
 The Jews have not been a large ingredient in the 
 country though they are increasing, nor have they been 
 a strong one. It is singular that very few of the great 
 banking houses have been Jewish, nor have they 
 emerged into much eminence in other ways. Here 
 North America differs from South Africa. The most 
 notable point in the connection is the steady disappear- 
 ance of Jewish orthodoxy. There really seems to be a 
 chance in America that the Jews will ultimately subside 
 into a minor Unitarian body. It is not predicted that 
 this process will culminate in the next five years, but it 
 is certainly at work.
 
 V 
 
 The Country. Towns. Hotels. 
 Railroads 
 
 Before passing on to the large towns of America let us 
 remind ourselves of a life which I scarcely saw and the 
 tourist generally overlooks, the life of the villages and 
 the small country towns. We hear of it in American 
 novels; it still sends out many characteristic sons of 
 America. It is still primitive in its surroundings; the 
 houses are all wooden, the roads not merely unpaved but 
 unmade. Life moves slowly, especially in the New 
 England States ; the rugged figures of the past still show 
 themselves. Not that people are ever so slow-witted as 
 the peasantry of England, nevertheless they have not 
 moved with the rest of America. In the New England 
 States this makes itself strongly felt, the fact is, the fire 
 and youth of New England have left her for the west. 
 In the west farming life has changed. The telephone 
 and the electric car have livened up the country, and it 
 has regained a power to attract men which it had lost. 
 This has only just happened in time, for the problem of
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 79 
 
 Europe, the drift to the large towns was growing acute 
 even in America. It was due largely to the same cause 
 the " dullness " of the country, and it is fortunate that 
 the progress of invention, which contributed to this 
 cause, is removing it. 
 
 The growing profits of agriculture have also saved the 
 situation. It is actually beginning to be found that the 
 country of America is not producing enough to feed the 
 towns, and prices of country produce are rising. Though 
 much of the rise is intercepted by the trusts, a good deal 
 has found its way to the farmer. This is all the more for- 
 tunate because the farmer had begun to suffer from the 
 improvident methods of American farming. When the 
 pioneers were spreading over the provinces it was 
 naturally their plan to take everything out of the soil and 
 put nothing into it ; the soil was equal to this strain for a 
 few years, and then gave out. This did not matter, as 
 long as fresh land was available ; but all the good land 
 of America is now occupied. There are millions of arid 
 acres in the West, and much of the East is still uncleared 
 forest, but the easy methods of the igth century are not 
 sufficient here. Perceiving this, many Americans have 
 crossed into Canada, where virgin land is still available, 
 and the Republic has lost some scores of thousands of her 
 best citizens.* Public opinion has been disagreeably 
 stirred by this movement ; it was not supposed that a true 
 
 * I read in the papers that, in 1909, 50,000 families went to Canada.
 
 80 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 American could be comfortable under a crowned head 
 and indeed some of them have not been comfortable, 
 and have returned. It has been pointed out that in the 
 East, especially in Virginia, there is room for these 
 wanderers, and some of them have turned their steps 
 there. One cannot help feeling that there must be room 
 for profitable agriculture in the waste lands near New 
 York and Boston ; perhaps things are waiting for some 
 capitalist to prove this. I am told that the poor quality 
 of the soil is a difficulty, that American soil in general is 
 rather poor, and some kinds of produce can hardly be 
 raised there.* The Government, however, is watchful 
 of the progress of agriculture ; it carries out experiments 
 and distributes information on a scale unequalled in 
 Europe, and whatever can be done with American soil 
 will certainly be done. On the whole it seems to me the 
 tide is flowing in favour of country life. In many places 
 the thrifty Italian is introducing the petite culture of 
 Europe, and teaching America a lesson which she 
 refused to learn from the Chinese or Japanese. In Cali- 
 fornia he cultivates fruit prunes olives and oranges ; in 
 the East he is a market gardener. He and his children 
 will have a large share in re-making America. 
 
 The villages of New England are sometimes not with- 
 out charm, though they lack the picturesque grouping 
 of the Old Country; the small towns of the middle west 
 
 F *jf'*".i! he y j eld Of P tatocs is ve 7 poor compared with what it is in 
 turope, though potatoes are indigenous to America.
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 81 
 
 are slatternly, uncomfortable places. They are far from 
 rivalling the small towns of California, which deserve a 
 few words for their bright clean streets and their note of 
 life and progress. They repose on the native wealth 
 around them, above and below the ground, a wealth not 
 won without toil,* but poured into the lap of the toiler 
 with magical profusion. Every one of these little towns 
 pushes its way along with irrepressible energy, every 
 one of its citizens hustling and boosting for it night and 
 day. It has, of course, a local exhibition, where every- 
 one sends the very best specimens of local products, and 
 " literature," full of beautiful illustrations, is showered 
 on the visitor. Immigrants, of course, are streaming into 
 it ; speculation is rife ; but it really seems to be the case 
 that everyone is making money. Heading the race, the 
 millionaires course along ; not one of them is content to 
 drop out of the glorious struggle. A Pasadeno paper 
 tells us that 75 local rnillionairesf sat down there not long 
 ago to feast together. 
 
 * Most of the figs now produced in Fresno County are the White 
 Adriatic, and the annual crop is about 3,000 tons. By a long series of 
 costly experiments Mr. G. C. Roeding, of Fresno, has introduced the 
 cultivation of the genuine Smyrna fig, which is the finest fig in the world. 
 The difficulty that had to be overcome was the fact thaf The Smyrna fig 
 will not mature until fertilised by pollen from the Capri fig. This 
 process is carried on, Mr. Roeding at length discovered, by a microscopic 
 wasp which is born in the Capri fig, emerges from ft covered with Capri 
 pollen, and enters the Smyrna fig. Mr. Roeding has naturalised these 
 wasps, and in 1907 produced 75 tons of the genuine Smyrna fig. 
 
 f Dollar millionaires presumably, and presumably oil.
 
 82 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 As for Pasadeno, where these millionaires toil and 
 feast, it is a Paradise of flowery gardens that the world 
 cannot surpass. No walls surround them; the canine 
 tribe* are not encouraged, and the good sense general in 
 the country prevents people from doing damage. This is 
 real progress in civilisation, even if millionaires have 
 achieved it, and the same progress in the same way 
 makes ^>an Diego delightful. Truly it is not San Diego 
 of the past, for that has vanished. A few fragments of 
 walls date back to Spanish days, a few adobe buildings 
 linger in back streets; and too numerous still are the 
 plain ugly barns of the first American invaders. But 
 Progress is clearing these off. Handsome shops are 
 rising to replace them, with modern hotels and sump- 
 tuous public buildings, most of all schools, for the school 
 buildings of new America lead her architecture almost as 
 much as cathedrals and churches that of old Europe. The 
 normal school of San Diego you might easily mistake for 
 the Capitol of California. 
 
 Will it all last ? One cannot say ; it is a futile ques- 
 tion. When the petroleum wells are dry; when capital 
 is no more flowing into California, when the soil is all she 
 has to draw from, the tide may turn. San Diego's har- 
 bour (the only harbour south of San Francisco) will be no 
 asset if she has nothing to export; nor perhaps will San 
 Francisco or Los Angeles become the world's wonder 
 
 Nowhere in America. It is one point in favour of their streets that 
 are not defiled, like those of England, by hordes of useless dogs.
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 83 
 
 that their supporters imagine. Certainly their past is 
 wonderful even now. Los Angeles had 11,000 inhabit- 
 ants in 1880; it has half-a-million now. It is nearly 
 twenty miles from the coast, and nothing seems to 
 account for its growth. But it is the centre for South 
 California, and its climate brings many visitors and 
 residents with money. The climate is " a perpetual 
 spring," exempt from the fogs and gales of San Fran- 
 cisco, and the fierce heat of inland California. Round it 
 are flowery plains, where the eschscholtsia blooms, and 
 on the horizon the sharp sierras lift their peaks. The city 
 itself has less character than the really great cities of 
 America, and I had better pass on to these. 
 
 San Francisco, Chicago, Boston and New York; I 
 write with my eye on these; Philadelphia is a lesser 
 Chicago ; Richmond will some day be another type. Let 
 us begin with features that are common to all. Almost 
 all American towns are laid out in long streets at right 
 angles to each other. You never see the end or the begin- 
 ning of one of these streets. Children must grow up 
 imagining that these streets encircle the earth ; the visitor 
 will hardly get away from this idea himself. The 
 Britisher finds them overwhelming ; his own preference 
 is illustrated by the new suburbs of London, where the 
 streets are purposely contrived to wind. The San Fran- 
 ciscans would have done better if they had treated their 
 own hilly domain in this way ; as it is, their streets go
 
 84 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 straight up and down the hills, no use made of the views 
 and walking is wearisome. The cars climb the gradients, 
 " like flies on a window pane " ; once in a while some- 
 thing breaks and a car runs back again. The rectilinear 
 system suits Chicago and other towns on flat ground ; it 
 is very convenient for strangers. Old Boston, built long 
 ago by Britishers, is the most confusing city on earth ; 
 its tortuous streets may well be contrasted with those of 
 Philadelphia as types of the old world and the new. 
 
 In many public arrangements the large towns are sadly 
 backward. The names of the streets are never well dis- 
 played; sometimes not at all. Numbers are difficult to 
 find. The paving, though much improved, is often bad ; 
 worst of all in Chicago, where it is atrocious. Lighting 
 at night is poor. These defects are not quite universal ; 
 Boston, for example, is ahead of Chicago or Phila- 
 delphia. The cause at work is public dishonesty, though 
 some services escape this, and I cannot say what deter- 
 mines the particular ways in which the American public 
 consents to be defrauded. In some ways they are well 
 treated. The drinking supply is good and the drainage 
 good; at least one does not hear complaints regarding 
 them. The drainage system of Chicago is perhaps the 
 most remarkable on earth. It has been carried out by 
 reversing the course of a river which flowed into the 
 Lake, and making it flow into a tributary of the Missis- 
 sippi. When I was in Chicago the normal school held an
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 85 
 
 excursion on this river or drainage canal, as it now is 
 which I was permitted to join. We went as far as a 
 power-house, which is built on a fall of the canal and 
 utilises the lead of water to manufacture electricity for 
 Chicago. It is a curious economy to get one's drainage 
 returned in the form of electric light, and the idea does 
 much credit to Chicago. So does the channel of the 
 canal, which is cut in rock, and represents a prodigious 
 outlay of toil and money. 
 
 The vitality of these large towns depends much on 
 their transport system, which (like many things of which 
 I write) would need an expert to criticise it seriously. 
 But this much may be said, it is in general safe, speedy 
 and comfortable, though it does not meet the rush-lovers. 
 New York and Chicago have elevated railroads, which 
 were made in days when tunnelling was not understood 
 as it is now. Both cities would probably be glad to get 
 rid of them. They are nice and airy for passengers, but 
 they ruin the neighbouring property and make the streets 
 dark and noisy. 
 
 Noise is a characteristic of America everywhere. Long 
 before I visited America I was amused by an American 
 lady in an English hotel who said to me one day, un- 
 easily, " I do not like this felt-slippered existence. I feel 
 as though I could scream. I like noise. I like my own 
 noise. I like the noise of other people. Noise is good for 
 us." If she was right, life in Chicago has one thing in 
 its favour, even more than other cities I write of.
 
 86 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 Since my first American city was San Francisco, I will 
 place it first, though it is not or not yet the most 
 striking of them. It stands on a land-locked bay, fifty 
 miles long, with a narrow entrance, the Golden Gate, one 
 mile wide. Behind it is the sky line of the coastal range, 
 a long green wall crowned with a few pines. You lose 
 sight of this in the Golden Gate, the cliffs and hills of 
 San Francisco confront you. Stepping ashore you soon 
 find yourself in Market Street, which will some day be 
 one of the great streets of the world. It would be further 
 advanced to-day were it not that the great fire centred 
 the building energies of San Franciscans on other parts 
 of the city. In these other parts the new blocks are mag- 
 nificent and the shop fronts surpass anything of the kind 
 elsewhere. They are lit up all night long after the doors 
 are closed, and throngs of citizens with small purses 
 gather to admire their contents. There is no display 
 more beautiful or more sumptuous in the fabled maga- 
 sins de Paris. 
 
 I spent so much time in San Francisco over the 
 ordinary sights of an American street that perhaps I 
 neglected a little its lions. Chinatown I left alone, except 
 for a visit to the Chinese telephone exchange. The tele- 
 phone suits China or the Chinese tongue better than the 
 telegraph ; Chinatown in San Francisco has an exchange 
 of its own, where pretty Chinese girls sit before an 
 indicator and make connections between invisible pig-
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 87 
 
 tailed merchants. Each of them is indicated by a dot of 
 electric light, which turns red when his proprietor wants 
 to speak. Not a sound of all the speechification issues 
 from the indicator; the girls work away in quiet 
 mechanical silence. 
 
 The great episode in the town's history was the fire. 
 The inaccurate world confuses this with the earthquake, 
 and imagines the earthquake did the damage; but the 
 earthquake was really slight, in town itself, and what 
 devastated San Francisco was the fire. The water mains 
 were interrupted, and the fire was only checked by 
 destroying a ring of houses round it. Nearly all the city 
 perished. The occasion was in many ways creditable to 
 human nature. When the disaster was at its height a 
 spirit of order and mutual kindliness transformed men 
 into angels; there were soon cases of selfishness or theft, 
 but the heroism which met the crisis was scarcely 
 marred. It was only when the crisis was past that human 
 nature fell, and San Francisco was herself again. For 
 this is a city with a long evil reputation. From early 
 times to the present day its government has been scan- 
 dalously corrupt ; more than once the exasperated citizens 
 have risen against it, but it remains just where it was, 
 and at the very time when I was there its transport 
 arrangements were being made the subject of a 
 fraudulent bargain. It may or may not be true that there 
 is more cynicism here than anywhere ; it seems to be true
 
 88 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 that since the fire there has been less insolent vice. This, 
 too, should be remembered, that the energy which 
 rebuilt San Francisco is conspicuous even in America. 
 Not every one lent a willing hand ; the trade unions kept 
 out labour and forced up wages, but the city was actually 
 rebuilt, with amazing speed and with a splendour that 
 scorned defeat. The insurance companies, or most of 
 them, some willingly, some unwillingly, paid a loss for 
 which they were not really liable, but many private 
 citizens lost everything. No one, however, lost faith in 
 himself or the city, and it is their boast that before the fire 
 ceased they began to rebuild it. The future still is a little 
 uncertain. Some observers think Seattle and San Diego 
 will hang unpleasantly on San Francisco's flanks; but 
 optimists think otherwise. In 1915, no doubt, nothing 
 will be left undone to assure a triumph. 
 
 In San Francisco I first struck the American hotel ; so 
 1 will here digress on this majestic theme. It is not long 
 since the American hotel had a strong flavour of Martin 
 Chuszlewit about it. It was a very plain building, of 
 which every feature seemed intended to repel visitors. 
 Within its portal was a hall with a wooden floor, wooden 
 chairs and spittoons ; also an office, where a clerk with 
 careless incivility assigned you a room. No obsequious 
 porter attended to your baggage; most probably you 
 carried it upstairs yourself. As for the meals, they were 
 served only at fixed hours, in a very unadorned style ; the
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 89 
 
 cooking was harsh and crude. The surroundings were 
 certainly not very clean ; possibly they were dirty. They 
 were always uncomfortable, but complaints were not 
 expected or attended to. Hotels of this type still abound 
 in America, in remote places ; in Virginia even the best 
 belong to it. Does anyone regret their disappearance 
 elsewhere ? Strange to say, there is some reason for such 
 regret. In the first place they were cheap. In the second 
 place they were truly American, and offered the traveller 
 opportunities of making friends. When you sat in one 
 of their wooden chairs you were expected to talk to your 
 neighbours, and it was your own fault if you did not 
 learn something from them. This is all very much 
 changed in the hotel de luxe. 
 
 I forget what genius saw the time was ripe for this 
 innovation ; I think he was a German New Yorker, and 
 the new hotel sprang panoplied, like Pallas, from his 
 brain. Being a philosophic traveller, I felt bound to 
 stay at some institutions of their kind, and thus I visited 
 without staying at them. The spirit of publicity and the 
 purpose of advertisement open many things in America, 
 hotels amongst them, and you are positively invited to 
 inspect the kitchens of billion dollar hotels. There is 
 much also to be inspected, for these establishments as 
 far as possible make and mend everything for them- 
 selves; a book could be filled with facts about them. I 
 must restrain my Muse from the Pindar-flights of their
 
 go AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 advertisements, but they really are marvels of organisa- 
 tion, and they do give the traveller what they pretend to 
 give him, the ne plus ultra of luxury. The old wooden 
 hall is a vast marble " interior," with deep soft carpets 
 and cavernous armchairs. Electric lights supplement the 
 day ; electric fans reinforce the breezes. Ball rooms and 
 banquetting halls; conservatories, lounges and stores; 
 the only thing which they never seem to have is a men's 
 smoking room. The furniture of the bedrooms is lavish 
 and voluptuous; private bath, of course; and I must not 
 forget the lift which whisks you up to it. Scrupulous 
 cleanliness; more towels than you can possibly use. 
 
 Drawbacks? To be sure, there are a few. A long, 
 long purse is wanted. What you get is cheap at the 
 figure, but the figure is not low. I should say, in a first 
 class hotel, of this description, your room would cost 
 from four dollars a day; your meals (three) about seven, 
 and your tips about one. You would not be expected to 
 drink anything, but you would be expected to tip a great 
 many servants, excluding only the one person you 
 always tip in England, the chamber-maid. " Tip as you 
 go" is the maxim; in Europe you shower gratuities 
 when you leave; in America you relinquish a coin the 
 instant anybody does anything for you. Now, like most 
 experienced travellers, I do not object to the tipping 
 system, provided it is regulated by custom, but it has 
 grown up in America so rapidly that custom has never
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 91 
 
 done this; while the ignorance, ostentation and kindly 
 feelings of millionaires have encouraged appalling hopes 
 in menials. 
 
 And, after all, what you really want, as a tourist, you 
 do not get in these hotels. You do not get quiet unless 
 you take the best rooms, for the rooms differ from each 
 other, not in the glory of their appointments, but in their 
 proximity to the noises of the establishment. Moreover, 
 they are all constructed en suite, and nothing separates 
 you from your neighbour but a wooden door. That 
 neighbour belongs too often to the fell tribe of noisy 
 sleepers; how many a night I have spent in a gilded 
 chamber, on a bed endowed with all divine qualities, 
 counting the snores of some millionaire next door. 
 Finally, the sociability of old days is fled. You dine at a 
 small table which just holds yourself; you repose after 
 dinner in a huge armchair which would itself make con- 
 versation impossible, even if it were not as great a 
 solecism to speak to anyone without an introduction as 
 it would be in a London club. Autres temps, autres 
 moeurs. There may have been a time when the words, 
 
 " Well, stranger, ," used to be heard in America, 
 
 but they would not suit the atmosphere of the new hotel. 
 
 It is marvellous with what speed these hotels have 
 sprung up, from San Francisco to New York, all built, I 
 suppose, within the last thirty years. You find them at 
 all shrines of tourist pilgrimages, at El Festal in the
 
 9 2 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 Yosemite valley, at El Tovas on the Grand Canyon. 
 They are masterpieces of cunning architecture, 
 picturesque or splendid, as the case may be, but equally 
 luxurious and well run. They adorn the beach of fashion- 
 able watering places, with flowery gardens stretching 
 round them. I have heard complaints from Americans 
 that the servants are not quite so obsequious as they 
 are in London, but I never found anything much wrong 
 myself. Many of them nowadays are young Germans, 
 who know what is due to their profession. 
 
 These hotels in many cases are great architectural 
 features of their cities, and I may here speak a little of 
 American architecture. Early buildings, from the log 
 cabins onwards, were chiefly of wood, and it is still sur- 
 prising to a stranger how many people live in " frame 
 houses." They have been succeeded in many places by 
 brick and mortar, but in neither style has America much 
 to show that is notable or characteristic. I do not remem- 
 ber anywhere seeing private houses of any interest, 
 except only those of the New York millionaires. These 
 are costly experiments in Renaissance styles, but, as 
 regards the future, I think they only yield a negative 
 result. This spirit of architecture has, however, been 
 very much alive in the country, and its achievements may 
 be seen wherever it has had to work on the grand scale. 
 Even in New York the Renaissance style has an un- 
 doubted triumph in the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel; more
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 93 
 
 recent buildings show in more recent styles conscious 
 strength and dignity. The history of the " skyscrapers " 
 is an episode in fine art as well as engineering. 
 
 It is the fashion among those who have never seen 
 these structures to shudder at them ; if they visited 
 America with open eyes, they would come to feel 
 differently. But first let me remind the reader what a 
 " sky-scraper " is. It is a building with a rivetted steel 
 frame, with walls of brick or stone, which merely fill the 
 spaces between the girders and add nothing to the struc- 
 ture. Such buildings were first erected in New York, 
 where land in the limited business quarter was exceed- 
 ingly valuable. The foundation being rock, there was 
 no fear of subsidence, and it was soon found that the steel 
 structure could be carried up to any height. Elevators 
 make access easy; fire-proof construction limits the 
 ravages of fire. As business quarters, these buildings are 
 quiet, light and airy*; their chief drawback is the 
 immense crowd they bring together in the street. One of 
 them may easily hold the population of a small town. 
 
 These buildings spring up with astonishing speed ; 
 the materials are all brought ready shaped to the spot, 
 and have merely to be fitted together. Machinery hoists 
 the girders and clinches the rivets, a few workmen guide 
 things into their places and the obedient spirits of steam 
 and electricity perform the rest. The workmen's task is 
 
 * Of course, electric lights and fans have made great differences in 
 modern interiors.
 
 94 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 risky, but well paid; it suits the American temper. As 
 soon as the beams are laid, the masons complete the 
 walls, and, fast as the structure rises, the bottom is some- 
 times occupied before it reaches its full height. 
 
 It has often happened that a strict economy left the 
 building unadorned, but in most cases something has 
 been done in the name of art. First attempts, of course, 
 followed precedents, the early " sky-scrapers " repose on 
 buttresses, pillars and arches, as though they were solid 
 stone. But a swift course of progress replaced these by 
 other ideas ; florid ornaments too disappeared ; and the 
 recent buildings show both sincerity and decorative skill. 
 Architects have developed a sense of proportion on the 
 scale required, and posterity will some day recognise 
 their efforts and their triumph. 
 
 The streets of the great cities, though not always 
 narrow, are never broad enough to place the observer at 
 a sufficient distance from the sky-scraper. In Chicago 
 alone, on the lake front, is it possible to step back and 
 examine them, though the massive one of New York can 
 be seen from the harbour. This drawback, however, 
 attends many city buildings of older types, and is not to 
 be imputed as a fault to the sky-scrapers. Of course no 
 single building of this kind is intended to stand or be 
 seen quite by itself. It remains a block amid similar 
 blocks, with some character of its own, but always a unit 
 in a vast assemblage. The general effect of such an
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 95 
 
 assemblage particularly on both sides of a street is diffi- 
 cult to describe. The whole thing is so great as an 
 achievement that the mind is interested and astonished 
 without being quite ready to decide if the spirit of beauty 
 is present. At least this is what I must say for myself. 
 I think the presence of life and power was the chief 
 spiritual imports of these American streets. I did not 
 find them either vulgar or depressing, and in some places 
 they were instinct with wonderful beauty. 
 
 It is time, however, to abandon generalisations, and I 
 propose now to move on to Chicago. Not without one 
 passing remark suggested by San Diego on the general 
 conservatism of American street architecture. In San 
 Diego we have a city in a sub-Tropical climate, like that 
 of Southern Italy, dry, hot and sunny. Here was a 
 chance to invent something more suitable to these con- 
 ditions than the street rows of England ; and yet nothing 
 has been invented. Arcades and verandahs and other 
 devices suggest themselves, but nothing has been 
 attempted. Progress and invention have not gone hand 
 in hand. 
 
 The change from San Francisco to Chicago is highly 
 disagreeable. To begin with, the soft coal of Chicago 
 smothers everything in soot, which not even the winter 
 rains wash off. I suppose there must be some pleasant 
 days in the year there, but they are surely few. There is 
 a furiously hot summer; a long winter, and a spring, as I
 
 96 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 can testify, of howling gales, late blizzards, and 
 incessant rain. The unpaved streets, and the rattle of the 
 elevated subway, make up a discord of jarring sensa- 
 tions ; it is difficult for the most attentive ear to catch any 
 harmony pervading it. Moreover, much of the architec- 
 ture is basely utilitarian. The whole city reminds one of 
 those grimy slatternly engines of the American railways, 
 which no friendly hand ever paints or cleans, which, 
 however, toil with the strength of giants and finish the 
 work they are given to do. So too does Chicago work. 
 Everyone seems to be working there. Perhaps owing to 
 the weather during my stay, I saw no fashionables in the 
 streets, but they were always crowded, and the crowd was 
 less good-humoured than elsewhere in America. 
 Swindlers and sharpers are said to abound; respectable 
 citizens of whom I asked the way entreated me next time 
 I wanted information to consult a policeman. Chicago 
 policemen, however, are less genial than those of 
 London, they rap out curtly, "Two down one over,'* 
 scarcely audible under the elevated, and when you have 
 wriggled back to the pavement, you find yourself no 
 wiser than you were. Even Americans do not much like 
 Chicago unless they are born to the manners of the city. 
 Now, however, for some good sides of Chicago, not 
 always noted by visitors. In the provision of parks and 
 the wise use of them it leads the whole world. The 
 Chicago parks are not large gardens, but playgrounds
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 97 
 
 for the people, and the institutions connected with them 
 are intended to raise and purify the life of the poor. You 
 will find, for example, in one centre the following 
 features: Gymnasiums, covered and uncovered, for 
 boys and girls ; a large playground ; small model gardens 
 for children to cultivate ; a reading room ; a swimming 
 bath ; small baths ; and three hundred lockers with locks 
 attached, which are at the service of families in the neigh- 
 bourhood, to keep a change of clothes in. All this is free, 
 everything is of excellent material, and competent 
 directors are always on hand to keep order and teach the 
 use of things. Here, then, behold, in the heart of com- 
 petitive industrial individualist Chicago growing up 
 unseen the timid flower of Socialism, with excellent 
 results, as everybody allows ; juvenile crime has wonder- 
 fully diminished, and the dirty immigrants who swarm 
 into Chicago are learning to wash and keep themselves 
 clean. These results are all the more striking because not 
 far from this very playground may be seen an example 
 of that old-fashioned charity which the Socialist hates 
 and mistrusts, Hull House. This is a sort of Toynbee 
 Hall, witn all the usual institutions ; it pursues the usual 
 objects, especially, as I thought, trying to give a lift to 
 the cause of artistic workmanship. I called and wandered 
 through it, and sought an interview with Miss Addams, 
 the head of the place, the chief lady philanthropist of 
 America. In America it is a fixed principle that anybody
 
 98 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 may claim an interview; a cat may not only look at a 
 king, but he may call on the king and extend his paw and 
 say, " How do you do, King? I am vurry glad to see 
 you." The king is bound to smile and ask him to sit 
 down and talk to him. So I called on Miss Addams, and 
 as somebody else was already calling on her I sat down 
 and waited, and while I was waiting another professor 
 from another part of the world also called, with just as 
 little right as myself to call. This was too much for me ; 
 I surrendered the interview to him and retreated. But I 
 wandered through Hull House, and watched an enter- 
 tainment in the theatre, a fairy drama, with a moral 
 tendency, in which some delightful children from the 
 neighbouring slums danced and acted delightfully. It 
 was all very pleasing, but somehow I think the Socialists 
 are so far right, that something is wanted on a larger 
 scale than Hull House can supply. In the sixteen free 
 playgrounds of Chicago they seem to have taken a real 
 step forward. Dancing is favoured there too. One 
 evening I saw a " play festival," at which the children 
 performed national dances by electric light. The children 
 were all little foreigners, who brought their dances with 
 them, but America encourages dancing, and it is going 
 to be part of her future. Why not ? Thousands of 
 parents attended this play festival, and witnessed a spec- 
 tacle at once innocent, artistic and cheap ; it is one of my 
 brightest recollections of America.
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 99 
 
 Is not this a recollection of Chicago just as fair as her 
 noise and jostling crowds and savage industries ? I 
 shall come back to these ; let me say again that there is 
 no place in America where the lamp of idealism burns as 
 brightly as in the Chicago schools; her Art Institute 
 testifies not only to a reverence for art, but to a good 
 judgment withal ; in the auditorium, a theatre second to 
 none anywhere for size and beauty, I heard the chief 
 singers of Europe perform Tannhauser and La Boheme. 
 Finally, since I have mentioned the Chicago slums, let 
 me say I saw the worst of them, and they were better 
 than the slums of England. That is to say, so far as a 
 stranger could see; there are always things he misses. 
 
 Old men can still remember when Chicago, now a city 
 of some millions, was little more than a name. Fifty 
 years ago it was a small town, which the citizens on one 
 occasion lifted bodily up seven feet above its early level. 
 The Civil War gave it an impulse, as an emporium for 
 food and supplies; in 1870 it had 300,000 inhabitants. 
 At that date it was burned down, and immediately re- 
 built. Since then manufacturers have gathered there; 
 it is the centre of wheat and beef and railways, and in 
 many ways the centre of America. Certain problems 
 beset its future, especially its right attitude towards the 
 great lake. There is a vast traffic on this lake, and the 
 question arises where the docks should be, and how 
 much of the traffic can or should pass through the city.
 
 ioo AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 Moreover, there is the vision of a waterway to the 
 Mississippi, which seems a flouting of Nature. Never- 
 theless, it may come, but first, let us hope, Chicago 
 will have opened up her crowded centre, as she thinks of 
 doing, and conferred upon herself an eminence in city 
 architecture worthy of her energy and wealth. 
 
 I now propose to mount the cars again and move to 
 Boston ; the opportunity is favourable for a digression 
 on American railways. Owing to the distances of 
 America the tourist inevitably spends much time on the 
 cars, and railroad scenes become prominent in his recol- 
 lections. Moreover, as Americans are themselves much 
 in motion, there is much of them to be seen on the cars ; 
 as a tourist I may say I saw more of the family life of 
 America on the cars than anywhere else. At any rate, 
 I saw families together, and observed the weaker side of 
 the American child. The car is a fine place for children 
 to run about in, screeching like wild Indians, tumbling 
 over each other, pestering and defying their parents. 
 Few people in the country seem able to manage children 
 except the professionals. 
 
 However, let us deal first with the mechanical arrange- 
 ments of the railways. The subject is enormous, its 
 profounder aspects are fit only for experts; in no case 
 does it yield graciously to literary treatment. I may say 
 first that the American railway, though it shrinks from 
 no enterprise on the ground of expense, wastes no money
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 101 
 
 on anything unnecessary. It calculates every working 
 expense to a cent. Its permanent way and its rails are 
 just what will carry the trains ; its bridges are built of 
 logs as long as possible ; nothing is ever spent on finish 
 or decorations. Its depots are mostly squalid wooden 
 structures. There are no platforms, and it is not with- 
 out difficulty that the young and the old and the feeble 
 get in and out of the trains. 
 
 The cars, however, are well built and well finished. 
 Their arrangements I need not describe; I found them 
 very comfortable, except that the luggage racks are too 
 small. Nor has any railway in America more than any 
 in Europe, discovered the average length of the human 
 leg, barring one small line near Santa Fe, where the 
 seats conform to it. The system is, of course, "one 
 man one seat"; you board the train anywhere and 
 wander up and down till you find that seat. It is then 
 yours; no stout passenger can encroach on you. The 
 large interior is restful to the eye ; you escape the gene of 
 a vis-a-vis ; and the cars run smoothly. 
 
 Annoyances there are, no doubt. Your ticket is a 
 long strip of paper, which gives all sorts of information 
 except the one piece you really need, the price of it. On 
 this point you are left to the honesty of the booking- 
 clerk. As you proceed on your journey the conductor, 
 patrolling the train, detaches various sections from the 
 tickets, giving you a bit of cardboard in exchange for
 
 io2 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 each. This, in order to save you trouble and assist his 
 memory, he is apt to stick in your hat; the Britisher, 
 experiencing this method for the first time, resents it as a 
 freedom. It will not do, however, on this or any other 
 point, to quarrel with the conductor; he is a very inde- 
 pendent person, and you may sometimes need his help. 
 You may wish, for instance, to learn the name of a 
 station you have reached, which you suspect to be your 
 own destination. The conductor may be the only 
 repository of this information within reach ; it is seldom 
 to be seen on the station itself. 
 
 Speed is low or moderate except in the case of a few 
 famous trains. These trains have often fancy names, 
 such as " The Owl " (which flies at night), and their 
 merits are set forth in literary advertisements, printed in 
 " dainty " booklets. Their standard, however, is not 
 higher than that of a train de luxe in Europe. In the 
 case of a Pullman car, as arranged for the night, I think 
 America falls behind European ideas. The European 
 night car is for night use alone; its beds are like berths 
 in little cabins, privacy at any rate is secured, and as 
 much comfort as is possible on a train. The Pullman is 
 convertible; when night draws on the coloured porter 
 makes up the beds after the ancient but ill-approved style 
 of the institution . By a transformation full of interest the 
 first time you see it, the car becomes lined with upper 
 and lower berths, longitudinally. Curtains depending
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 103 
 
 from the roof screen the berths and form a central 
 passage. You creep or climb into your own quarters 
 and undress there. This undressing is the prime 
 grievance of American travel ; it has to be done in the 
 dark, sitting or lying on your bed. I suppose everyone 
 gets through it his own way ; I gradually perfected a 
 system. The coloured porter keeps watch during the 
 night and blacks boots, receiving next morning from 
 each passenger a quarter for this service. He is not 
 always successful in baffling thieves, but he is honest 
 himself and fairly civil, though not in the least 
 obsequious. Other porters, by the way, there are none ; 
 what baggage goes with you personally you must tug 
 about yourself. No age or sex or purse is exempt from 
 this necessity. 
 
 Distinctions of class ostensibly do not exist, and in 
 mediaeval America were really absent. The Pullman 
 car has modified this equality, and takes the place of a 
 first-class. A second class night car is also provided by 
 some lines, called "a tourist car." It ought to be called 
 " an emigrant car," for it is apt to look like the steerage 
 of an old emigrant ship. Those who are not satisfied 
 with ordinary Pullmans have private cars or even private 
 trains of tneir own ; this is one way in which the 
 millionaire copes with the growth of his income. Re- 
 freshment rooms are good and reasonably cheap ; 
 restaurant cars very good and very expensive.
 
 104 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 Fares vary a good deal, according to circumstances. 
 They change frequently; the companies are always 
 fighting each other and producing rival combinations of 
 tickets. Return tickets are disproportionately cheap. 
 Hence there is the artful industry of the " scalpers," 
 who buy and sell return halves of long distance tickets. 
 The companies fight them by making you sign your 
 ticket and by other devices, but the scalper flourishes. 
 As a tourist, comparing the competitive system with the 
 State monopolies of Australia, I much prefer the latter. 
 In America, it is the object of each company to capture 
 you and keep you on their own line; you cannot, except 
 at great expense, combine the places of interest on 
 different railroads. 
 
 The safety of American lines is stoutly upheld in the 
 States ; and probably with better reason than appears on 
 the surface. There is nearly the same length of lines in 
 the States as in all the rest of the world, though trains 
 are not so frequent as in England. In this vast area 
 accidents must be continuous at some point or other, and 
 the structure of the trains makes them very fatal to life. 
 The long cars get blocked at each end ; it is difficult to 
 escape, and the wreckage often catches fire. In many 
 parts of the country natural conditions are more dan- 
 gerous than in Europe; during my visit a train was 
 buried under an avalanche in the Rockies. The extreme 
 cold of the plains produces some curious results; the
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 105 
 
 water sometimes freezes in the pipes of the engine, and 
 she has to be laid aside for the rest of the winter. 
 
 No treatment of railroad life would be complete with- 
 out a sketch of the " train boy." This is a youth who 
 keeps a small store on the trains and moves up and down 
 offering articles for sale. Papers, novels, postcards, 
 candy, and pea-nuts, these are his main lines, and he 
 expects to do business with you. Do not suppose that 
 by merely taking no notice of him you will escape his 
 operations. I think you would be safe if you slept 
 steadily throughout the whole journey, but the instant 
 you opened your eyes he would settle on you like a fly, 
 and the only way to get rid of him even for a time is to 
 buy something. He is most annoying in the west, but 
 exists everywhere, and is wonderfully tolerated by the 
 citizens. Nobody is ever rude to a train boy ; Edison 
 was once a train boy, and the vocation has made good its 
 claims to exist. In the train de luxe, however, he is not 
 suffered to molest you. 
 
 Let us close with a more serious word on the great 
 achievements of the American railroads. The speed 
 with which they covered the continent is amazing. 
 Actual engineering difficulties were not in most instances 
 serious, but to penetrate the western desert was a 
 " proposition " needing the very highest courage and 
 ability. You will realise that when you have crossed, 
 day after day, its forbidding tracts. Moreover, it will
 
 io6 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 suggest itself that a wonderful prescience was needed to 
 bring these lines into existence, not merely on the part of 
 engineers, but of capitalists. For a thousand miles 
 from the Rockies there is nothing to make railroads pay ; 
 there are the Rockies themselves to be crossed, and yet 
 company after company has accepted the challenge of 
 the situation, and believing in the destiny of California, 
 has added a new route to the west. There has generally 
 been at work the brain of a single man ; no country 
 shows us the worth of the individual so much as the 
 land of " triumphant democracy." And in no sphere 
 is that worth better than in railways. In judging 
 business, in effecting economies of railroad adminis- 
 tration there is soon a need for the talents of the states- 
 man and general combined; and in a man like Harri- 
 man, perhaps the Napoleon of American railroads, these 
 qualities may be found almost by nature and training as 
 perfect as in the great figures of political history. 
 
 I have made some criticisms, but on the whole bear the 
 impression that I found travel in the States comfortable 
 and amusing. I should add that in respect of " depots" 
 or stations American railways are progressing. While 
 Germany (for example) is far ahead of her in ideas of 
 what an ordinary large town station should be, some of 
 the most recent stations in America equal anything in 
 Germany or the world. The station at Washington is 
 magnificent; the new Pennsylvania line station in New
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 107 
 
 York probably the finest in the world. It was not open 
 when I left America, but I could just get a glimpse of it, 
 and in real majesty of design it seemed to belong to the 
 best efforts of modern architecture. How such buildings 
 will ultimately be viewed in comparison, say, with the 
 Coliseum it is too early to decide. 
 
 We will pass on now to Boston, which succeeds in this 
 book, as it succeeded in my travels, Chicago. The con- 
 trast in first impressions is perhaps too unfavourable to 
 Chicago, but it is undeniable and it lasts to the end. 
 One can only save the situation for Chicago by 
 admitting that there is hardly any city in the English- 
 speaking world that would not lose by comparison with 
 Boston. 
 
 It stands on a large bay ; without being exactly a sea- 
 side town, it has miles of seaside suburbs. It has also 
 miles of inland suburbs, which lose themselves in 
 primeval forests. You need go but a mile or two (say) 
 to the Blue Hills to survey a scene which the Pilgrim 
 Fathers would have recognised, where the great city of 
 Boston almost vanishes from your eyes and thoughts. 
 Yet Boston, if her suburbs were counted in along with 
 her, would be one of the largest cities in the world ; they 
 have kept their independence for local reasons, and the 
 population of the whole settled area is never enumerated. 
 Indeed, I do not know what should determine this area, 
 
 for the state is so thickly sown with little towns that on 
 
 8
 
 io8 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 the cars you pass from one to another in the twinkling of 
 an eye and they all seem to be suburbs of each other. 
 The ground is seldom quite flat, and everywhere between 
 the houses is the same leafy wilderness. Some larger 
 houses have veritable parks surrounding them, where 
 the Englishman, after long wandering in America, starts 
 to find himself once more at home. Then the city itself 
 has large parks of the same type, and finally in the very 
 centre of Boston is the famous Boston Common. It is 
 an undulating tract of about 50 acres, long guarded from 
 appropriation by private or public enterprise. Rows of 
 shady elms line the walks and cast their shadows on the 
 turf and flowers ; it is a very bright and beautiful scene 
 that has witnessed many episodes of Boston life. It wit- 
 nesses some to-day; I saw the companies of Boston 
 volunteers assemble there dressed in the military 
 costumes of past centuries, and I saw the cadets of the 
 Boston schools reviewed there clad in the Federal gray, 
 which has so many associations for citizens of the Union. 
 Not in England alone does the present bear witness to 
 the past, and a keener love of the past is a growing 
 feature in the complex of American character. 
 
 The domestic architecture of Boston is perhaps the 
 best in America. Commonwealth Avenue is a beautiful 
 street. The houses are often covered with the Virginia 
 creeper, which adds a charm even to the commonplace. 
 A curious feature of trie town is the abrupt way in which
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 109 
 
 the fashionable shopping centre is delimited by the 
 fashionable residences. This has for one effect that of 
 making the fashionable streets disagreeably crowded. 
 Beyond them, of course, lies a business centre, by no 
 means fashionable, and then there are poorer quarters 
 degenerating into slums. In fact, it is rather curious 
 how Boston is traversed by invisible partitions and how 
 little one quarter sees of another. 
 
 In public architecture the town has some great 
 triumphs, as almost every large town in America has. 
 In the main these triumphs are achieved in the severer 
 styles, and this is the case in Boston. Trinity Church 
 certainly is in a florid style. It is the masterpiece of 
 Richardson, but I do not care for it myself; it is over- 
 laboured and quite dark inside. The most remarkable 
 buildings in Boston, as I thought, were the Harvard 
 Medical School and Mrs. Eddy's Church. The latter 
 is in the Italian Renaissance, the former in classic Greek 
 style. Now, if there are two styles which I had thought 
 to be dead and buried it was these, and here, behold, 
 they were come to life again. I stepped into the 
 Christian Science offices and asked who designed their 
 church, but though, very obligingly, they telephoned in 
 every direction, they were unable to find out. So his 
 name I do not know, nor the name of the architect of the 
 medical school ; it seems almost impossible they will be 
 forgotten, as the names of architects always have been.
 
 no AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 However, there in Boston are the memorials of their 
 genius. It would be futile to describe them. The 
 Christian Science Church is spoiled by the survival of 
 the "Mother Church" on one side of it; but its own 
 sense of proportion is unerring. The interior, which 
 holds five thousand scientists, is magnificent. Who 
 chose the style, I cannot say. It wisely breaks with the 
 past of Christian architecture, and does not seem to 
 speak of any inspiration, but a certain capaciousness and 
 comfort and dignified ease pervade it. The organ (a 
 most noble instrument), is to the eye as though it were 
 not; you cannot tell where it is; the strains of music 
 rise on the air as though the very building gave them 
 forth. There are plenty of vestibules for diverse pur- 
 poses, all lined with marble, and a sort of crypt, which 
 is filled after service on Sunday with a brilliant, gay 
 chattering throng of scientists. 
 
 From the roof of the Christian Science Church, if you 
 look in a particular direction, you will see at a distance 
 of two miles or so the Harvard Medical School. The 
 full extent of the hostility between the institutions I shall 
 expound hereafter. 1 will only here say that it is the 
 widest possible within the wide limits of human nature, 
 yet both find lavish support in Boston. The medical 
 school comprises three blocks of buildings, which sur- 
 round an oblong stretch of turf. They are built of 
 marble, in the severest classic style, adapted freely to
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW in 
 
 their needs. If you wish to assure yourself that this 
 style, in the most conscientious hands, may yield a tame 
 and frigid result, you have only to visit the art museum, 
 contemporary with the medical school, a few yards away. 
 In the medical school, however, genius is seen at work ; 
 it has created a building which will be visited for its own 
 sake centuries from now. Its success raises a question 
 regarding the future of architecture; one begins to feel 
 it is not so necessary that the future should revolutionise 
 the past. However, we have yet to see what the age of 
 concrete brings forth. 
 
 Imbedded in new Boston are certain payments of old 
 revolutionary Boston much valued by America. Chief 
 is, perhaps, the old State House, headquarters of 
 government in King George's days. It is a plain but 
 dignified brick building, surmounted by the Royal 
 Arms of Britain. There was a restoration, at which 
 American sentiment boggled a little when it was 
 effected, but since the Stars and Stripes float visibly 
 above it, I do not see that much harm was done. History 
 was written there in symbols; that was all. Within the 
 building is a museum, including amongst other things 
 various squibs and verses of the epoch. I was surprised 
 to find so little bitterness in them. In fact, the only 
 bitter words I remember were in another museum, that 
 in the old South Meeting House. This is the building 
 where Franklin was baptised; the British turned it into
 
 i la AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 a riding school, and this profane abuse was much 
 resented. But on the whole the degree of feeling which 
 the age excited is not evinced by anything in these col- 
 lections, and there is nothing in them which a Britisher 
 could consider at all vindictive or unfair. 
 
 It so happened that I spent in Boston the glorious 
 Fourth of June, and I spared no efforts to use the oppor- 
 tunity. But, as so often happens, all my expectations 
 were disappointed. The Fourth of June, 1910, was a 
 very different Fourth from its predecessors. It was a 
 "sane" Fourth. American sentiment, on this as on 
 other points, suddenly self-critical, had decided that 
 another Revolution was called for, and the old Fourth 
 must go. The old Fourth, like the old Scotch Sabbath, 
 began the evening before, and lasted all night, all day, 
 and all the next night. Fireworks and patriotic speeches 
 never ceased ; sleep was impossible by night and every 
 sort of work by day. Yet people found this quite enjoy- 
 able, and it would have lasted at least till 1910 but for 
 the loss of life and property incurred. Scores of children 
 were killed, hundreds maimed, and millions of dollars' 
 worth of property burned down. A change was resolved 
 on, and, as nothing in America is now done by halves, 
 the change was made a drastic one. The mayors of 
 various cities issued edicts, private fireworks were almost 
 forbidden, and public rejoicings regulated. 
 
 I had a friend of old-fashioned ideas, who assured me
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 113 
 
 young America would rebel against this, and he invited 
 me to join him at 3 a.m. on the Fourth and hear things 
 hum. I did so, journeying through streets as silent as 
 the grave, in company with a party of drunken Irishmen, 
 on a trolley car.* He rose, and we sallied forth in search 
 of bonfires, but we found none, nor any procession of 
 Antiques and Horribles, nor anything else. At 9 a.m. 
 a schoolboy read the Declaration from the State House ; 
 at 10 an audience (by no means large) listened to 
 patriotic speeches at Fanent Hall. The chief speaker 
 was a negro, whom I could scarcely follow ; his subject 
 certainly was Freedom, but I heard no echo of the voice, 
 " Give me death or give me liberty." Then followed a 
 procession; soldiers, emblematic cars, and so forth. It 
 was fairly good, but not well managed ; the crowd stood 
 for hours waiting in the streets with that patience which 
 one finds, against all expectations, a strong feature of 
 America. In the evening there was a display of fire- 
 works on the Charles River, a very poor display, for 
 which, according to the papers, the Mayor refused to 
 pay the bill. The crowd must have numbered hundreds 
 of thousands; it was very silent, and orderly in the 
 extreme. 
 
 There is no doubt that the day marked a revulsion of 
 sentiment deep and wide; whether it will last or not I 
 cannot say. Very possibly it may last; there is only a 
 
 * The only drunken people I saw on that day, and almost the only 
 drunken people I saw in America
 
 1 1 4 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 small part of America that can feel now they are com- 
 memorating on the Fourth of July their fathers' heroic 
 deeds. On the other hand, how far does Protestant 
 sentiment in England account for the Fifth of 
 November? Will not the boys of America still need 
 something of the kind? And of course not all America 
 celebrated its Fourth as sanely as Boston. 
 
 Bunker's hill I visited, now a grassy knoll in Boston, 
 with a huge obelisk pointing to the skies. Salem, too, 
 one summer evening, with hurried steps I was foolish 
 enough not to return there. Yet, in the course of a long 
 tour, it is hard to be always wise ; sometimes from mere 
 fatigue one leaves a place unvisited. Now Salem is still 
 an example of the past; its wooden houses belong to 
 middle Colonial days, when some degree of state 
 attended Colonial life, and one is surprised at their 
 dignity and elegance. The streets are shaded by groves 
 of magnificent trees. Salem harbour is a beautiful little 
 bay, lined with old wooden houses and furnished with at 
 least one comfortable inn, where you can sit and eat 
 clams, and revolve the many-sided past. 
 
 One relic of that past at Boston I must not forget, the 
 old Constitution in the Naval Dockyard. It is the boast 
 of America that she lowered the British flag not only on 
 land, but on sea, and fully earned her inde- 
 pendence, I willingly grant the full extent of 
 this boast; not that England failed to score
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 115 
 
 in her turn, but undoubtedly some of the hardest 
 victories went to America. The Constitution was the 
 pride of America's navy ; she was never beaten, and kept 
 the sea for a whole generation. Beside her lay the North 
 Dakota, latest of the Dreadnoughts. 
 
 Enough now of Boston's exterior; more will follow in 
 another place of her sentiment and atmosphere. Sadly I 
 boarded the train one day and moved onwards to New 
 York. The country was very beautiful, the day a bright 
 summer day, and towards its close we reached the great 
 ^Metropolis. Next morning I invited her to show me 
 wherein she could rival the uproar of Chicago or the 
 grace of Boston. In a few days I learned that it is futile 
 to compare her with either. 
 
 New York is an immense city, the second largest in the 
 world, the only real competitor of London. Of her, as of 
 London, the stranger sees only a few striking scenes. I 
 write only of these, which are sharply divided from each 
 other. Her long narrow site is traversed from end to end 
 by the avenues, and diagonally by Broadway; the 
 smaller streets run at right angles to the avenues, except 
 at the very end, where, as in Boston, there is some con- 
 fusion. At this very end is the business quarter, and it 
 is here that the great sky-scrapers rise. The back view of 
 these is from the river. Seen thus at a distance they unite 
 in a mass of incredible grandeur, flecked everywhere with 
 little whiffs of steam, from the machinery of the lifts. I
 
 u6 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 like this hint of life about the effects, and am pleased to 
 think it was the last thing I saw of America. The river 
 scene is itself very brilliant, especially when the large 
 steamers* are departing, one after another, for the old 
 
 world. 
 
 New York is a city of anthracite coal. The fog and 
 smoke of London are absent, so too is the charm of 
 London, the play of light and shadow, the vanishing 
 effects, the mystery. If New York has a prototype it is 
 Paris. Regular lines, a clear hard atmosphere are not 
 objections to her, but part of her ideal. There is some- 
 thing exhilarating about them; I suspect that the 
 exhilaration attributed to American air is partly the effect 
 of New York on visitors. Yet whatever one says or 
 thinks of New York, be it remembered to the last that she 
 is not typical of America. She is a part of America ; she 
 would only be possible in America, yet within America 
 she is in many ways unique. Curiously enough, I think 
 San Francisco is the only American town that at all 
 resembles her. 
 
 Her architecture, I have said before, recalls Paris, yet 
 the nude art of Paris is absent. | I know not whether a 
 certain audacious style in dress should be called Parisian. 
 There it is, however ; the plumage of the New York belle 
 is more striking if not brighter than the fine feathers of 
 
 These steamers are indeed a part of Europe. They are all built 
 there, and all are run and almost all owned by Europeans. 
 
 J There is one cautious experiment in a corner of Wall Street.
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 117 
 
 Boston. Style in dress, however, is everywhere an 
 American ambition. It is set off in New York by the 
 seedy apparel of the loafers. New York has her full 
 share of them, and as you watch them " sitting, lying, 
 languid shapes " in Madison Square, memories of 
 London rise upon your mind. Somehow, too, I felt in 
 New York that a city population has grown up there, 
 such as other towns in America do not possess. 
 
 In this same Madison Square is the Metropolitan Life 
 Assurance building, the last and greatest triumph in the 
 lofty style of architecture. The main part of it is a block 
 eleven stories high, the sky-scraper part is a tower 
 eighty-five feet across, which rises to a height of seven 
 hundred feet. Other figures I omit, but briefly note that 
 it is the highest building in the world. The construction 
 throughout is steel ; the whole building within and with- 
 out is faced with marble. The design of the tower, like 
 that of the Harvard Medical School, has been fetched 
 from the old world; it is adapted from S. Mark's Cam- 
 panile. 
 
 It is well for New York that this great experiment has 
 been a great success. The tower is, of course, visible 
 everywhere, for many miles around, and the whole build- 
 ing can be seen across Madison Square. There is 
 nothing about it to forgive or forget ; some details, as in 
 any building, may be open to argument, but there is no 
 sense of failure anywhere. The final word regarding it
 
 n8 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 must no doubt be left to some other age. At present we 
 are puzzled over the ideals of business architecture, and 
 neither Ruskin nor Whistler is very helpful. In this 
 particular instance we are puzzled all the more because 
 the model of the tower was a religious structure, and such 
 buildings for intrinsic or extrinsic reasons come to 
 symbolise religious sentiments. What sentiments can a 
 business Duilding symbolise? The guild halls of the 
 middle ages may seem entitled to a quasi-religious style, 
 on the ground of the quasi-religious idea and superior 
 morality we attribute to our fathers in business ; but the 
 modern business would seem more prosaic, and size, con- 
 venience, and cheerful ornament seem to be all its pfe- 
 mises can properly aspire to. These, it seems, are not 
 sufficient elements for a really great style. On the other 
 hand, there may be spurious elements in our highly 
 esoteric view of old religious architecture; it is not so 
 essentially devotional as some think, and the devotional 
 sentiment, given time enough, would transform modern 
 styles that seem quite unsuitable for churches. So, too, 
 modern business premises, when they are invested with 
 antiquity, may not be questioned so closely about their 
 inspiration, any more than we question the facades of 
 Venice, to which indeed they are alien. 
 
 I have said before that fine art criticism will some day 
 take a more serious view of city architecture, and will 
 discover that all sky-scrapers are not equally meritorious,
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 119 
 
 any more than all churches. At present, it is interesting 
 to criticise them for one self, entering a field where there 
 is no ready-made opinion. We shall do best to quit any 
 search for symbolic values, and take what we find in the 
 way of grace, mass and ornament as merely enjoyable, 
 leaving sentiments to grow up as love grows up in a 
 girl's heart, unseen, " like a new shoot on a creeper." 
 Having so disposed our minds we shall find the Metro- 
 politan Building truly beautiful, and, whatever else it is 
 or may become, a great ornament to New York. It has a 
 beautiful clock and a set of chimes which enter into all 
 one's impressions of the city.* 
 
 The fashionable avenue is the Fifth, where the 
 millionaires live; no line of cars desecrates it, -j* and in the 
 clear i\ew York air its brilliant mansions form as it were 
 a tiara for the city's brow. At Madison Square it ex- 
 changes compliments with Broadway. Broadway, as it 
 winds along, varies in tone, but mostly it is a street of 
 shops, and near Fifth Avenue of good shops. Further 
 away, the shops grow more popular. As Fifth Avenue 
 looks best by day, so Broadway is most itself by night. 
 It owes everything to its advertisements. The street is 
 one immense blaze of legends and pictures, most of them 
 in motion. Some are wonderfully clever; the climax is 
 
 * Is this general indifference in favour of artistic work or not? It 
 leaves artists unrewarded by fame, but it leaves them, too, a very free 
 hand in design. 
 
 f Not that the New York cars injure any street, for they are all under- 
 ground.
 
 120 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 the galloping ponies with the dust rising under their 
 feet. Countless thousands of people wander up and 
 down enjoying each other's company and staring at the 
 signs. " The Great White Way " New Yorkers call 
 it ; no doubt it is the finest free show in the world. 
 
 A few steps may take us to the tenement quarters, best 
 inspected in the daytime. These are where the very poor 
 live. Most of them are " foreigners," and many of them 
 foreigners in course of distribution to other parts of the 
 States. They come from every country of South and 
 South-Eastern Europe, and naturally associate according 
 to their origin. They live in tall "tenement " buildings, 
 where each has just those three and a half cubits of space 
 which, according to the Hindu poets, is all a living man 
 needs. They belong to the reproductive classes, and the 
 streets between the tenements can hardly hold the 
 children. In the summer holidays, when I was in New 
 York, these children fill the streets all day long; I 
 thought them well dressed and well behaved, and did not 
 observe that general starvation which some alarmists 
 have reported amongst them. But alarmists of every 
 kind abound in America, they are always provided with 
 heaps of facts and figures, and there is always the same 
 difficulty in finding out how far to believe in them. As I 
 said before of Chicago, so I may say of New York that 
 the worst slums I saw there are much better than what I 
 years ago in Liverpool. As to what may be seen in
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 121 
 
 the lowest saloons and brothels I cannot say, but some 
 people need to be reminded that civilisations are not to be 
 judged entirely by the very worst things that can be 
 found in such places. 
 
 In the centre of New York is the huge Central Park, 
 840 acres. Much thought and money has been spent on 
 it, and it is skilfully laid out in a series of little land- 
 scapes. Yet I do not think it is very useful either to the 
 rich or the poor ; the rich do not need parks, and what the 
 poor want can better be seen in Chicago. The really 
 crowded districts of New York are badly off for open 
 spaces. 
 
 The great Brooklyn Bridge is one of the wonders of the 
 world of engineering. To those who know America only 
 by her perishable articles and think her incapable of 
 solid work, the Brooklyn Bridge might with sufficient 
 force be retorted; remembering always it is one of the 
 things she owes to her German immigrants. The 
 arrangements for traffic and for the passage of cars are 
 very ingenious, and the long approach is most impres- 
 sive. From a distance the bridge is light and graceful, 
 the imagination forgets the immense weight and move- 
 ment it sustains, and the fierce activity that throngs its 
 approaches. It commands a view of New York more 
 impressive than the limitless panorama from the Metro- 
 politan Assurance Building. Two hundred feet below us 
 rolls the river, and, beyond, the city rises like a moun-
 
 122 
 
 tain. Few people come on foot, the pathway most of the 
 day is fit for meditative minds. One misses the dome of 
 St. Paul's, with its many suggestions, but the great 
 tower of Madison Square is fully as grand, and there is 
 more breadth about the New York view. 
 
 After New York, Philadelphia must needs be an anti- 
 climax, yet it is the third city of the States and one of the 
 largest in the world. After all our education, how many 
 English people know this? I for one did not know it, 
 and found, with astonishment, that Philadelphia is really 
 another Chicago, only less meteoric. Picture it then as 
 much the same, instinct with the same fierce activity, and 
 then follow me one Sunday to the Friends' Meeting 
 House, where a few spiritual descendants of William 
 Penn still gather. Very few, in summer, when I was 
 there, scarcely any at all ; yet the tradition is alive, and 
 those who addressed the meeting, men and women, were 
 true Quakers. 
 
 Severely contrasted with the modern city is the old 
 brick State House, where the Declaration of Independ- 
 ence was adopted. Like all monuments of America's 
 childhood it is carefully guarded, and though it contains 
 little but portraits and wooden chairs, like a mummy, it 
 provides the spirit of the dead past with a home. America 
 could spare all modern Philadelphia more easily than 
 this old building. It gives the preacher a text; and I 
 have often thought that America is better off than
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 123 
 
 England in having always a lever for the moralist, a 
 vantage ground for thinkers, a clear point of view, a 
 position to attack or defend. The Declaration, the 
 Federalist, the morality of Franklin, provide all these, 
 according as they are used. You can always take up 
 Franklin's morality and decide whether it is enough for 
 1910 or not; if so, you have Franklin's name to support 
 it ; if not, his own clear exposition will help you to show 
 what is wanted. 
 
 Among Philadelphian museums I single; out not that of 
 the University, though its Indian collection is the most 
 striking in America, but one small collection in the Fair- 
 mont Park, showing household appliances in the middle 
 of the iQth century. I have not seen a similar collection 
 in any English-speaking country, though this only 
 shows how easy it is to overlook what is interesting and 
 important. What indeed is more important than to 
 realise the change in men's lives that has taken place 
 within men's memories?* It is a change greater than 
 thousands of years preceding it accomplished, during 
 which the spirit of Invention slept in its ante-natal womb. 
 Do we hear of one single invention during the whole of 
 Greek and Roman history? Scarcely. And Invention, 
 once born, was long ere she busied herself with house- 
 
 * Within the memory, for example, of an old sailor whom I saw in 
 Philadelphia, who was said to have thrown stones at the British in 1812 ! 
 This was not proved to me, even by his own assertions, yet he was no 
 doubt one of the oldest men alive. He lay in bed at the Naval Asylum 
 with a broken hip, roughly but kindly tended by the ward boys and 
 forgotten by the ministering angels of Death. 
 
 9
 
 i2 4 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 hold appliances. The country home of 1850 differed 
 little from that of 1650 ; there were much the same heavy, 
 clumsy tools in use. I marvelled to see them in this 
 Philadelphian museum ; they seemed as far from our own 
 age as the relics of Pompeii. 
 
 Perhaps here I may ask the engineer ; his inventions 
 are rather pieces of mechanical ingenuity, designed 
 chiefly to shorten labour. In this direction America leads 
 the world, and the list I have given below fails to mention 
 a thousand little contrivances (like the vacuum cleanser), 
 which met us everywhere in the States. It is only lately 
 that I met a book dealing with the art of bricklaying, in 
 which it was shown how much might be saved by better 
 co-ordination of the movements this work involves. The 
 best easily say how far the credit of immigrants' inven- 
 tions belongs to them. Thus Edison has part, though 
 not the whole, of the incandescent lamp; while Erics- 
 son's screw propeller, sometimes claimed for the States, 
 was invented by him before he settled there. The actual 
 use of anaesthetics was suggested in the States, but Sir 
 James Simpson introduced chloroform. Conversely the 
 crowning of teeth was invented in England, but was 
 taken up and perfected in the States. On the whole it 
 appears that America is not strong in inventions which 
 proceed on new principles, such as the turbine. 
 We may question how far the Americans are 
 an' inventive people. Their first notable inven-
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 125 
 
 tion seems to have been the cotton gin in the 
 early nineteenth century, and after that the best 
 list I can make out runs as follows : The sewing machine, 
 the typewriter, the reaping machine, cash registers, the 
 steam printing press, the elevator, the revolver, the 
 phonograph, the use of anaesthetics. There can be no 
 finality about such a list, partly because most inventions 
 have such long histories that the chief inventor is hard 
 to fix upon, partly because, in the case of the States, the 
 best brains of America study such topics constantly, 
 and from this study many of their inventions proceed.
 
 VI 
 
 Business Life. Honesty in Business 
 and Politics 
 
 I shall pass on now to a few general aspects of 
 American life, beginning, as least important, with her 
 business life. I do not wish to be paradoxical, but it is 
 time to make a stand against the view that business 
 success is the only thing that interests America or the 
 only form of activity her citizens pursue. It is that of 
 which the old world hears most, it is (just now) the 
 noisiest activity in America; yet it is not so absorbing 
 even there as some people think ; it is not so far ahead of 
 Europe that Europe has much to learn from it ; and what 
 there is to be learned is much less important than what 
 may be learned from America in other directions. 
 
 The accessibility which pervades everybody and every- 
 thing* in the country freely throws open the doors of 
 industrial concerns. Manufacturers seem pleased to 
 think not that they possess secrets, but that they are 
 independent of secrets. Possibly they would not 
 
 * Except the training grounds of College teams just what we throw 
 open in England 1
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 127 
 
 welcome actual rivals*, but you have only to say you are 
 Principal of a Normal School and you will be shown 
 everything. Very likely a special attendant will be placed 
 at your service ; the name of Education is respected in the 
 business concerns of America. I made it my object to 
 visit a few large typical industries, and found no diffi- 
 culty in doing so. 
 
 At Chicago I went over the Illinois Steel Works. 
 There I saw what so many others have seen and 
 described, the Bessemer converters and the rolling mills. 
 Who that has seen them will ever forget their infernal 
 splendour ? They always seem to me attractive scenes of 
 labour, as much as a shed, full of power looms is un- 
 attractive. There is no danger among the power looms, 
 merely the certainty that the dust will shorten your life ; 
 and the noise, which adds a sort of glory to the rolling 
 mills, merely makes the weaving shed more hideous. 
 But this may be a fancy ; the rank and file, perhaps, who 
 have to work in these places do not find the danger of the 
 rolling mills attractive. There is no doubt about its 
 reality, though my guide at the Illinois works assured 
 me that a special apartment with a committee of the men 
 to nelp is charged with the sober function of preventing 
 accidents. This must have been an innovation ; the 
 
 * Yet I read of the satisfaction of the Waltham Watch Co., when, 
 some years ago, they showed the leading English manufacturer of 
 watches over their works, and he told them he recognised that the 
 English system of making watches was dead.
 
 128 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 death roll of the industry in the past has been appalling.* 
 Most of the common workmen are "foreigners"; the 
 native born American citizen has risen above their ranks. 
 The public notices are posted in five Slavonic tongues, 
 each with a different alphabet. 
 
 With far less sympathetic feelings I visited the famous 
 " packing houses," that which I selected being 
 Armour's. Parties are freely taken round them all ; I 
 was kindly allotted a special guide, and this is what I 
 saw. Speaking of pigs, in the first place, the last act of 
 their lives is to walk upstairs to the top of a large build- 
 ing, where a dirty comfortable pen is provided for them. 
 The object in view is to accumulate the force of gravity in 
 their carcases, in virtue of which afterwards they slide 
 down from room to room (one is reminded of Herodotus' 
 humorous remark about the ox cooking himself). The 
 pigs seem very much at ease in their pen, till about 
 twelve of them are driven into another pen, where they 
 soon find that something is wrong. There is a large 
 wheel revolving here. Each pig in turn is chained by his 
 leg to its circumference and raised up till the chain slips 
 on to a rail ; thence he glides down to his doom. The 
 butcher is a quick undemonstrative man with a sharp 
 knife in his hand, he looks thoughtfully at the pig for a 
 moment, and inserts the knife ohne Hast aber ohne 
 
 The Austro-Hungarian Consul explained that 300 to 500 Austrians 
 and Hungarians were killed monthly in the mills of Ohio ; in one mill 
 alone 1,200 had been killed in 9 years.
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 129 
 
 Rast. A few kicks : a torrent of blood, and the pig, dead 
 or alive (probably dead), is plunged into boiling water 
 and automatically scraped. He emerges clean from this 
 purgatory, with a sort of jolly smile on his face ; he takes 
 his place on the rail again and joins a never-ending pro- 
 cession of beautified pigs. Slowly they pass a long file 
 of attendants, each of whom dissects out some part of 
 their anatomy, till they are finally resolved into various 
 joints or otherwise disposed of. Horned kine are treated 
 in the same way, save that they are slaughtered behind 
 the scenes. The dissection may be closely followed, as 
 in the case of the pigs. 
 
 The reader probably knows that the very smallest 
 particle of these deceased animals is turned into some- 
 thing saleable ; probably he has even heard the packing 
 house joke : " We use up everything but the squeal." I 
 need not, therefore, catalogue the glue and fertilisers, the 
 buttons and tooth brushes, the toilet soap, the pepsins 
 and dessicated thyroids enumerated in Armour's pamph- 
 let. And no doubt the reader knows too that the 
 machinery is all perfect, and that such things as cans are 
 all made on the premises in bewildering numbers by 
 automatic machines. It seems only worth while to add 
 that these methods are all new, and elderly men can 
 remember when the butcher's problem was to get rid of 
 his waste products. 
 
 General reflections. Actual pain inflicted on animals
 
 i 3 o AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 is so small as not to count. What they suffer en route is 
 another matter; inside the packers' houses they suffer 
 little. 
 
 There remains the effect of the vocation on men ; my 
 impressions here are not favourable. Perhaps personally 
 I am prejudiced against Chicago because it compares 
 badly with the Gear Company's works which I visited in 
 New Zealand. The Chicago methods are more in- 
 genious; but the Gear Company's premises were light 
 and spacious, while those of Chicago were grimy, dark 
 and mean. Moreover, I saw every inch of the Gear Com- 
 pany, while the worse scenes at Chicago are not shown 
 to the public. I have no doubt that in many cases they 
 are vile. However, of the actual effect on the hands I 
 cannot speak; there may be little difference between 
 Chicago and New Zealand. It is alleged in the " Jungle 
 Book " that the Chicago hands are helpless, low-class 
 foreigners; but my guide insisted that many men 
 spend their lives in the house and their children follow 
 them. One thing is certain, no effort has been made to 
 improve their homes. I note that women are rigidly 
 excluded from the New Zealand works, and largely 
 employed in Chicago. 
 
 But I do not wish too easily to run down the morale of 
 the packer's hands. Visitors are perhaps too prone to 
 take this line. Being unfamiliar with the sights and 
 smells of slaughtering houses (not really worse on a large
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 131 
 
 than on a small scale), they make too much of their own 
 feelings of repulsion, and impute perhaps too much 
 grossness to those engaged in such scenes. Now it is 
 true that the company of animals, about whom so many 
 kindly feelings centre, is in the main degrading to man. 
 Breeding animals coarsens his nature, no less than 
 slaughtering them. But I should not like to say how 
 much butchers are worse than other men, miners for 
 example; their odious surroundings make them look 
 worse. What one really wants before passing judgment 
 is a chance of living with the packer's hands. 
 
 Regarding the product from a consumer's point of 
 view, I felt a confidence in New Zealand that I did not 
 feel in Chicago; no, not though in one room a manicurist 
 sat pompously on a plush throne trimming the girls' 
 nails. In both cases the meat is inspected for disease by 
 Government officials, but so much has been heard in 
 America lately about graft that one wonders what this 
 inspection is worth. This much is certain, that not long 
 ago one of the leading firms was found to have tapped 
 the Chicago water main and to be stealing water from the 
 city. This firm presumably would not suffer its diseased 
 meat to be wasted. 
 
 Near the packing houses are the Union Stock Yards, 
 or distributing agency for sheep and cattle, most of 
 which, though not all, are passed straight on to the 
 butcher. Some four million animals arrive and depart
 
 i 3 2 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 from these premises every year. They come up from the 
 sheep runs and cattle ranches in live stock trains, and are 
 rapidly distributed over the vast area of pens provided for 
 them. It is in the course of these experiences that the 
 animals suffer what they do suffer; I am not able to say 
 if it is much or little. But in general there is little ill- 
 treatment of animals in the country, and it seems prob- 
 able that the whole system is as humane as human nature 
 and bovine porcine nature make possible. It is not pos- 
 sible to drive pigs by moral suasion alone, but at least 
 measures can be taken to feed and water them and keep 
 them clean, and this I believe is done. 
 
 With amusement one meets at these yards the drovers 
 and graziers and cowboys of the plains, a race not very 
 like their fellow citizens of the Chicago streets. They are 
 much what pastoral people have always been : a breed 
 very different from the shepherds and dairymaids of 
 poetry. Curious, how little Literature has to do with 
 Life; idyllic poetry is not such an exception to this rule 
 as some critics suppose. 
 
 At Chicago you can also visit the Pullman Car Works, 
 where no guide is allotted you, and you can wander 
 through the shops as you will. This is a great privilege 
 for the stranger, who learns at his leisure what thought 
 and toil are needed to build up so commonplace a thing 
 as a Pullman Car, and what labour gains by concen- 
 tration and organisation. The Pullman town is well
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 135 
 
 outside Chicago; it is beautifully planned and built 
 (though not so picturesque as Port Sunlight). Here, at 
 any rate, the workers have all that the packers want, and 
 here in 1894 to k place one of the bloodiest riots in the 
 bloodstained history of American industry. 
 
 What is done with metal on the grand scale at the 
 Illinois Steel Works is done on the small scale at 
 Waltham, in the watch works. One sight is not more 
 remarkable than the other. The Waltham works date 
 from 1853. They stand on level ground by a river, in a 
 beautiful grass park ; the very nature of watch-making is 
 such that pure air and a good light are ensured to all 
 engaged in it. The Waltham works are lodged in a fine 
 handsome building, with a frontage of a thousand feet. 
 The staple of the firm is a good watch at a low price ; and 
 this watch has been rendered possible by the incredible 
 development of the Waltham automatic machines. Long 
 rooms are fitted with rows of these machines, cutting, 
 turning or stamping out parts of watch movements. 
 There is nothing too small or too intricate for these 
 machines to handle. They feed themselves by devices 
 that look like actions of human intelligence ; the product 
 they supply is often so small that the naked eye can 
 hardly distinguish what the machine has done. The 
 only part of the watch made by hand is the escapement ; 
 the making of it is the only operation entrusted to men 
 Women have been tried, but the union of speed and
 
 134 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 judgment needed is beyond them. I showed one of these 
 men my own Waltham watch, made twenty years ago. 
 He observed that wages were paid then by time and not 
 by piecework, and watches were better made. 
 
 The concerns I have mentioned were the chief scenes I 
 witnessed in America. I did not much enquire into the 
 methods of distributing houses, though these are no less 
 remarkable for the scale of their operations, their 
 economy of labour and the ingenuity of their methods. 
 There is one immense store in Chicago Montgomery 
 Ward's which does no business except by mail.* It 
 caters for scattered customers in the country, and one 
 thing I remember about its methods is that the mail 
 envelopes are ground open against a stone wheel. In 
 another sphere of commercial life the safe deposits may 
 be mentioned. I saw one in San Francisco. The door 
 was a steel plate of many tons, fitted with time locks, and 
 the locks of the receptacles were all adjustible, so that a 
 new client saw his lock adjusted to a new key. The 
 charge for these receptacles was very small, and I saw no 
 better instance of the way in which civilisation discovers 
 the unfelt wants of people and wills the money from 
 their pockets. 
 
 GENERAL REFLECTIONS. 
 
 In the whole world of business and industry, through 
 
 Yet, strange to say, there is no " Value Payable System " in the 
 Post Office in America, as there is in India. It is alleged that the 
 express companies have prevented government from undertaking this.
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 135 
 
 America we perceive the arrival of the machine. The 
 country is really within sight of an age when the mere 
 muscles of man will be very little used by civilisation. I 
 realised this not only in America, but even more when I 
 reached England; the burly type of British workman, 
 the bricklayer for example, is almost out-of-date across 
 the Atlantic. One consequence of this change is a 
 demand for artificial exercise. Even people like smiths 
 no more grow muscles " like iron bands " occasionally, 
 as they did in Longfellow's days ; they have to join the 
 gymnasia of Young Men's Christian Associations. The 
 question arises whether the muscles of their minds are 
 going to shrink in the same way, and whether men who 
 are always watching machines will keep above the level 
 of machines themselves. I think, in another age, there 
 may be a danger of this, but the danger is not yet present 
 in America. The age has been too living and progres- 
 sive. The machines have all been invented in the last 
 few years, by men and boys who have stood and watched 
 machines. American business methods especially 
 encourage this. Anyone in America who improves or 
 suggests an improvement in a business concern is sure 
 of recognition and promotion. The Patent Office will 
 help him if it is a patent he wants, and if it is a change in 
 his employer's system, his employer will listen to his 
 notions, without prejudice, and should they lead to any 
 saving, he will place him in a position* where the same
 
 i 3 6 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 ingenuity will have a larger scope. Thus the man behind 
 the machine is induced to think over his machine, it 
 becomes a part of his personality and he lives in it. I 
 cannot think that machinery plays the same part in the 
 worker's life in Great Britain. 
 
 It is curious how machinery at some point or other 
 generally involves an appeal to skill. In the Illinois 
 Steel Works, where the converters roar and glow, there 
 stands a man watching through dark spectacles their 
 torrents of flame. From time to time he rings a bell and 
 indicates which converter is ready to be emptied. He 
 judges by the colour of the flame ; if his judgment failed 
 by a few seconds the whole charge of steel would be 
 ruined. So too in the crucible process the state of the 
 steel is tested by fracturing a piece of it and observing 
 the appearance of the fracture. 
 
 As for the " hustle " of business life in America, much 
 talked of, much boasted, and much regretted, I cannot 
 really speak, for I was not behind the scenes anywhere, 
 but I doubt after all if it is greater in America than in 
 London. If I had to express an opinion, I should say 
 on the whole it was less, that English business men 
 work more steadily, and waste less time. This much is 
 certain, that Americans of every class, including business 
 men, are easily led to waste time. They love to expound 
 their views, and explain themselves, and to show how 
 superior their own methods and articles are. Moreover,
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 137 
 
 their sociability does not forsake them even in business 
 hours, and they soon warm to a friendly and inquisitive 
 stranger. This is little understood by some critics of 
 this race. Nevertheless, those very men who think in 
 dollars and dream of dollars are often the very first to 
 fling away all thoughts of dollars when an interesting 
 stranger proposes an interesting subject for a talk. 
 
 Nevertheless, no one disputes that the pressure of 
 business life is often acute, and leads to many nervous 
 troubles. I cannot say in what surroundings it is most 
 felt, in the silent office of the company president or the 
 frenzied arena of the Stock Exchange. Two of these I 
 surveyed, one in Chicago and one in New York, the 
 famous Exchange in Wall Street. The Chicago institu- 
 tion was perhaps the more striking of the two. It was 
 freely open to the public, who have a gallery assigned to 
 them. Beneath is a vast hall, part of which is full of 
 tape machines. Wires, signals and indicators abound; 
 active little boys fly to and fro with telegrams. In the 
 floor are small depressions, with galleries of three or four 
 tiers round them. These are the pits, the W r heat Pit and 
 the Beef Pit, where the operators gather for the glorious 
 strife. How it is conducted, I do not quite know. I 
 imagine that A cries out: " What will you give me for 
 wheat of such-and-such a sort on such-and-such a date, 
 and how much will you take ?" B, C, D and E shout out 
 their answers. A makes such bargains as he thinks
 
 i 3 8 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 proper. But the proceeding is not conducted with the 
 decorum of a chess match. Everyone shouts at the top 
 
 of his voice, and when a king of finance enters the pit the 
 
 I 
 struggle to get near him is terrific. There may be three 
 
 pits in action at once, and meanwhile, the tape machines 
 click away like a million stocking weavers. The tension 
 is extreme, and it is a matter of simple history that for- 
 tunes are made and lost here every day. I scanned the 
 crowd with close interest, yet like most crowds it seemed 
 commonplace on a first view. It was not, as I expected, 
 made up wholly of very young men, and perhaps some 
 people find the life healthy and enjoyable. I did not 
 notice by the way that the rank and file of the packing 
 houses seemed to enjoy their work. 
 
 The scene in Wall Street Exchange was much the 
 same. The famous street is itself, like Downing Streei, 
 an offshoot of a much larger thoroughfare, Broadway. 
 It is not quite straight, as it follows the line of the old 
 Dutch wall ; it is flanked by lofty offices with cheap little 
 restaurants on the ground floor. On one side is J. P. 
 Morgan's bank, surveyed on the other by a statue of 
 George Washington. Next door to this is the Assay 
 Office, a little sanctum whose calm is not ruffled by the 
 storms of Wall Street. There is no machinery in this 
 business yet, and no petticoats have intruded into it. 
 
 A question that arises in connection with American 
 business life is its honesty. The same question arises in
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 139 
 
 other ways in America over the national character, but it 
 may profitably be opened in connection with the business 
 world. A certain cuteness approaching dishonesty has 
 been long and widely alleged against the country. It is 
 not implied that America has been actually much worse 
 than other countries, but that sharp practice has been 
 more openly admired. (Paradoxically, one might claim 
 that a certain honesty was involved in this !) The older 
 type of Yankee*, as conceived by the Englishman, may 
 be found in Sam Slick ; he certainly did not allow that 
 foolish people had any divine right not to be cheated. 
 English people meeting Americans in business do, as a 
 matter of fact and as a rule, respect them, just as they 
 suspect the Japanese. How much justice is there in these 
 ideas ? 
 
 Some readers may think the topic best left alone ; for 
 my own part I shall see if a philosophic treatment of it is 
 possible. I have no experience of the business world to 
 guide me, and nothing that I personally met with in 
 America confirms the views under consideration. More- 
 over it seems certain that great works like the Brooklyn 
 Bridge cannot have been carried through without busi- 
 ness honesty above reproach. But even in earlier days in 
 America there is evidence in many directions of a lax 
 feeling regarding sharp practices especially towards 
 foreigners. Prof. Royce, writing of early days in Cali- 
 
 * This word is said to be an Indian corruption of " English." 
 
 10 

 
 i 4 o AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 fornia, points out the unfair treatment of foreigners at the 
 gold mines. Jowett, a patriotic but very honest 
 American, has levelled some satire at this failing, and it 
 certainly seems to me to date from days preceding trusts 
 and "graft." 
 
 If games are any evidence of popular ideas, the games 
 of America testify to the same conclusion. Her con- 
 tributions to the amusement of mankind are baseball and 
 poker. Now " bluff " is the very essence of poker, and 
 one might almost say, of baseball too. Most English 
 readers know something about poker ; they are less likely 
 to know anything about baseball, and to describe how a 
 game is played must always be waste of time. Perhaps 
 it is enough to say that whether baseball is descended 
 from rounders or not, rounders gives a good idea of it. 
 Though its early history is unknown, as in the case with 
 all games, the last few years have brought it to an in- 
 credible degree of development and popularity. To 
 appreciate it the cricketer must, of course, relinquish 
 every prepossession of cricket and take the game as he 
 finds it. The pitcher does not bowl, but throws the ball ; 
 it is always hit on the full pitch. The leading pitchers 
 throw in a great variety of styles, and they make the ball 
 swerve freely in the air. In the best games the pitcher 
 generally beats the striker, and very few runs or rounds 
 are made; sometimes each side completes many innings 
 before one is scored. When the skill or luck of the striker
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 141 
 
 does fairly catch the ball it flies an immense distance ; the 
 innings side runs and the fielders field with lightning 
 speed. The utmost agility and presence of mind are dis- 
 played ; it can hardly be said there are any such concen- 
 trated moments in cricket. This perhaps is why cricket 
 appeals so little to Americans ; they dislike the monotony 
 of it, just as Mr. George Bernard Shaw dislikes the 
 monotony of the old prize fight. His Irish blood prefers 
 the crack of the shillelagh, and we must remember there 
 are many Irishmen in America. Also, there is no turf, 
 and turf is essential to cricket. 
 
 But we have to point out some further contrasts 
 between baseball and cricket. Cricket is a silent game; 
 baseball is noisy. Part of the game (unwritten in the 
 law !) is the raillery of the opposing sides ; every player 
 seeks to " raffle " the players on the other side by loud 
 provoking sarcasms. I was greatly amazed by this when 
 I heard my first game at San Francisco, and thought of 
 the players much what the Greeks thought of the Trojans 
 when they advanced to battle chattering like a flock of 
 cranes. Then again every sort of feint is permitted ; you 
 may pretend to run or bowl without doing so, you may 
 do practically anything to confuse your opponents. 
 Secret codes of signals are employed, and the captain 
 may consult his professional coach on the field during 
 the game. Amid the hurly-burly stands the umpire, 
 with wide discretionary powers, like the Mayor of an 
 American city.
 
 i 4 2 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 The crowd at a first-rate match is vast and uproarious, 
 A good seat costs a doljar, but the game is expensive ; a 
 good player receives 10,000 dollars a year, and teams 
 travel hundreds of miles to their matches. Games pro- 
 ceed during the season every afternoon ; and I could 
 hardly estimate the money and time and interest wasted 
 on them. Great masses of people talk and think baseball 
 for months together; it fills the papers with unending 
 columns of verbiage. Gambling, of course, is 
 encouraged, and the net result to American character is 
 as damaging as that of football in England. There is 
 still, of course, to be seen the village game in America, 
 where baseball is thoroughly delightful and innocent. 
 The arrangements of the game permit the spectators to 
 stand quite close to the pitch or wicket, behind which the 
 ball is always dead ; and thus everybody is mixed up in a 
 jolly fraternal sort of crowd. 
 
 However, I introduced the game here to found on it 
 an argument that American sentiment somewhat condones 
 sharp practice. The same inference may be drawn from 
 the history of sport in other directions. I do not specially 
 draw it from 'one or two "regrettable incidents" in 
 international contests, but I note that charges of unfair- 
 ness are too common in American sport generally. And 
 it seems to be the case that rules and conditions are often 
 strained against outsiders. Thus I read of an inter- 
 national shorthand competition, in which the matter
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 143 
 
 provided was chiefly legal court matter, familiar only to 
 Americans. Foreigners complained that they did not 
 know that the words " objected to as incompetent, 
 irrelevant and immaterial " were represented in 
 American reporting by 3, and they declared the speed 
 nominally attained by the writer 260 words a minute 
 a sham. This incident will do for a specimen; others 
 occurred during my visit, especially one in connection 
 with an aviation meeting, which occasioned vigorous 
 action by some leading Americans. 
 
 It is a nice question whether one should connect this 
 trait with the corruption of American politics. I am 
 inclined to think it would be a mistake to do so. The 
 class of people who have brought this corruption about 
 have been men of a different type from the old Yankee, 
 and their obliquities have had nothing to do with the 
 over-reaching spirit in trade or sport. This is, of course, 
 a speculation ; the inner history of American politics is 
 unknown to me. It is said, however, that politics 
 remained pure until after the Civil War; at any rate, that 
 municipal scandals began there. But the "spoils 
 system " began before the war, and it must from the very 
 first have tended to corruption. It made every civil 
 office including even that of the postmasters the prizes 
 of the victorious party, and the harm it may or might 
 have done is obvious. But at the present day one hears 
 little of it ; what one does hear of is municipal corruption.
 
 144 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 The extent to which this prevails is amazing. Allowing 
 everything for the exaggerations of alarmist writers, it 
 still appears that there is hardly a city in America where 
 the administration is even passably honest. During my 
 visit to the country there were scandals raging from San 
 Francisco to Philadelphia; in some places, as in Pitts- 
 burg, many leading men were actually punished for their 
 part in them. In general, the mischief takes the forms of 
 selling offices, swindling over public contracts, and 
 bribing judges when cases come into court. What the 
 public has lost through these channels alone is quite 
 beyond conception. I will not repeat here the twice-told 
 tale of Tammany Hall, but I will refer the reader to 
 " The Book of Daniel Drew," which, I believe, is a very 
 romance of rascality. 
 
 The first question that we may ask is how this corrup- 
 tion came into existence. This can, to some extent, be 
 answered. The American cities, since the Civil War, 
 have been swamped by legions of foreigners, dis- 
 organised, alien to each other by temperament, and 
 engrossed in the mere struggle for existence. They have 
 often been densely ignorant and unable to understand 
 the very complicated political system of the country. 
 Such circumstances offered a chance for scoundrels such 
 as the world has never seen before. They have not failed 
 to utilise this chance, organising voters, so far as suited 
 them, on selfish lines, and, with or without their support,
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 145 
 
 plundering the public in every direction. Men of 
 principle who did not join in the game were numerous, 
 but for various reasons they left politics alone. They 
 were often busy with their own affairs ; and they lacked 
 sense of public responsibility. It is curious that this 
 should have been so, but so it was. Moreover, a real 
 pride in American institutions and a delight in the free 
 life of America for more than one generation blinded 
 people to what was growing up in this country. 
 
 To-day the scales have fallen from men's eyes, and 
 complaints and protests fill the air. The change in 
 feeling has been sudden and dramatic. There has never 
 been such an example of a nation sitting in judgment on 
 itself as America of to-day, of this year 1911 (if things 
 have not changed since 1910). Last year, at any rate, it 
 was hardly possible to pick up a paper without reading 
 of a new scandal, together with indignant comments 
 thereon. Distinguished public men, like Governor 
 Hughes of New York, were incessantly making speeches 
 oh corruption in public servants, and issuing appeals to 
 the citizens. How little all this might have been expected 
 from a book like that which I have so often quoted, 
 Campbell's Puritan! Published in 1893, this book 
 evinces nothing but a glowing pride in America, her 
 noble and ennobling institutions, her place in the van of 
 all civilisation. 'The author, too, is no stump orator, but 
 a scholar and a philosopher and no mean observer of
 
 i 4 6 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 human life. Within a few years from his death evils to 
 which he was blind have overwhelmed his country with 
 perplexity and shame. 
 
 There is nothing strange in this, for the wisest men 
 seldom read the present and seldom read the future. The 
 moral for the American citizen is simply to rise and be 
 doing, and justify once more that pride in his country's 
 institutions which Campbell felt, with other writers of his 
 age, and America is no doubt destined to recover. The 
 moral is also not to despair of the future, which would be 
 just as foolish as his own folly in believing it to be 
 assured. But it is quite imperative that the citizens 
 should feel their own responsibilities and should really 
 act in the matter. Have they felt them ? Are they yet 
 prepared to act ? 
 
 I wish I could answer this question with more con- 
 fidence. Some things are changing, but much has yet 
 to be changed. American Society has yet to rise against 
 the successful public thief. The poor, who do not 
 associate with him, of course, reprehend him, but rich 
 anH fashionable Society, as I suspect, tolerates him. This 
 is due partly to the worship of success, and partly to the 
 easy good nature of Americans. Col. Rooseveldt by 
 some determined actions has shown his countrymen what 
 is wanted. He has refused to meet socially bad charac- 
 ters who have escaped the law, and the first step must 
 be for others, at the cost of trouble or violence to their
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 147 
 
 feelings, to follow his lead. Moreover, the mass of 
 respectable American citizens must organise themselves 
 and control their own affairs. It will be, as they say, a 
 long row for them to hoe ; and I do not think, in spite of 
 much grumbling, they have yet set to work. In many 
 places they are looking hopefully to a new system of 
 municipal government, government by comissioners. 
 Instead of handing over (say) the lighting and paving of 
 a town to a committee of the municipality the plan has 
 been tried of selecting one citizen to supervise it, and 
 requiring from him an account of his stewardship at the 
 close of a year. The citizen has, I think, usually been 
 selected by a direct vote. The plan may be compared 
 with the institution of a podesta in the Italian republics. 
 Well, in some cases the experiment has been a success. 
 But I do not believe for one moment the forces of corrup- 
 tion are going to be baffled by so simple an expedient. 
 They will reorganise themselves, and if the citizens do 
 not combine to front them by personal, persistent 
 individual efforts, no lasting advance will have been 
 made. 
 
 I was present in 1910 at the great annual re-union of 
 Harvard men, when a vast assemblage of old graduates 
 listened to speeches by Col. Rooseveldt, Governor 
 Hughes and other leaders of opinion. Almost every one 
 of them dealt with political corruption and the need for 
 personal effort against it. I was led to reflect whether
 
 148 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 the purity of English public life is due to any influence 
 of Oxford and Cambridge, if so, how this influence is 
 exercised, and whether American universities exercise 
 any influence in the same direction. It is certainly the 
 case that in the present day the Oxford or Cambridge 
 man is in a pecuniary sense incorruptible. He seldom 
 gives bribes and never takes them. How long this has 
 been the case I could not say ; it seems very doubtful if 
 the universities of the eighteenth century inhaled or 
 exhaled such an air. Nor at the present day is there in 
 our schools or universities any explicit teaching against 
 dishonesty or corruption. Very little children are taught 
 not to cheat at games, but they soon reach the age at 
 which it is neither necessary nor usual to admonish them 
 on this point; and one can only say that in the public 
 schools and universities dishonesty and corruption are not 
 contemplated. The old University man in public life 
 would either be too proud to take a trifle or embarrassed 
 by a douot if bribery pays. Moreover, in his University 
 career he would have grown accustomed to the discussion 
 of politics, in debating societies and elsewhere, from a 
 disinterested point of view. However much nonsense is 
 talked at debating societies, they do inculcate this point 
 of view. Now, it is difficult for me to say whether the 
 American Universities form principles of the same kind 
 in the young men of America; my impression is, how- 
 ever, that they do not. Perhaps this is less true of some
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 149 
 
 institutions like Harvard, where the sentiment of a liberal 
 education lingers, but it is true of many ordinary colleges 
 in the country, and some reasons why it is true are 
 obvious. College education is often quite utilitarian ; the 
 young man at college is there to learn a vocation, and he 
 is thinking, even at college, of money and success. And 
 the discussion of political principles is not a tradition 
 of American colleges, as it is of Oxford and Cambridge. 
 Here, as in other ways, the political education of the 
 country is imperfect. 
 
 These being the facts, Americans must not complain 
 if they find that, all over the world, their national charac- 
 ter suffers from the suspicion of dishonesty. I have lent 
 support in many ways to this charge, and have not, I 
 think, over-stated anything. It will be a relief now to 
 turn to some counter-considerations. No one who has 
 not actually lived in America can fail to realise the 
 general honesty of the great mass of true* American 
 citizens. In spite of all rascality in certain circles, the 
 impression of which 1 am now speaking is an exceedingly 
 strong and favourable one. I cannot explain the 
 paradox, but it must not be rejected merely as a paradox, 
 for the characters of men and countries are full of 
 paradoxes. 
 
 I have also been much struck by the intellectual 
 honesty of America. There is a great and general wish 
 
 * I mean, of course, citizens born and brought up in America.
 
 i 5 o AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 to look facts squarely in the face. It is partly connected 
 with the old American tradition ; she once looked 
 Monarchy and Feudalism in the face; the great illusion 
 vanished and the free natural man emerged. Hence it 
 behoves all Americans to be true to facts. I think this is 
 really felt as an ideal and pursued. No doubt the country 
 wants the patience and thoroughness of Germany, but it 
 certainly has something of its intellectual honesty. This 
 may be seen even in American travellers; admitting all 
 that may be said of their ignorance and haste, they never- 
 theless seek to carry back an impression of the facts of 
 life in the countries they visit, and this is the topic they 
 generally prefer to talk about. For this reason even such 
 comic books as The Innocents Abroad have a serious 
 value. Underlying their humour may be found a wish to 
 dispel false traditions and see the outside world in its 
 true light and colours. 
 
 Does America, then, I may be asked, look at herself 
 with the same open eyes ? Assuredly the present age has 
 seen a great change on this point. There was, in the 
 childhood of the country, a type of citizen, now vanished, 
 to whom the great republic was in every way nothing 
 short of perfection. I came across a description of one 
 such, Dr. Sample, of Kentucky, who is described in one 
 of Prof. Royce's works. " His vast height, his ready 
 flow of speech, his righteous glowing and empty 
 idealism, his genial assumption of statesmanship, his
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 151 
 
 often highly serviceable cleverness, his sturdy honour 
 and uprightness " receive justice in a vigorous passage, 
 and it is amusing to read his views on the annexation of 
 California : " The gold mines were preserved by Nature 
 for Americans only, who possess noble hearts and are 
 willing to share with their fellow men more than any 
 other race on earth." " If we conquer a country, we have 
 no prince to claim it or to dictate laws for its rule, no 
 tyrant hand is laid upon it, but the glorious American 
 eagle spreads her balmy wings over even a conquered 
 people and affords them protection and freedom." Dr. 
 Sample belonged to the age of spread-eaglism, which, 
 somewhat travestied and misconceived, lives in the pages 
 of Dickens. I should not have been sorry myself, as a 
 tourist, to have met more of it ; for the present, however, 
 it is wonderfully silent. The citizens of the States are in 
 a self-critical, almost a penitent mood. The newspapers 
 exploit this, like everything else, and scatter portentous 
 articles on vice, disease and corruption ; one might some- 
 times imagine from these pages that America had lost all 
 self-respect and belief in her past or future. But news- 
 papers are extremists ; this mood of despair is not really 
 common and the self-depreciation of the time will no 
 doubt pass away. It has led, however, to much honest 
 examination of ideas, ideals and institutions, and, at pre- 
 sent, there is no country more willing to listen to friendly 
 criticism than America.
 
 152 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 A fair interpretation of usages will see the intellectual 
 honesty of the country in some traits which foreigners at 
 first find provoking. One is the tendency to value things 
 outright in dollars. Not only are articles of property so 
 valued, but a singer's voice, a lawyer's brains, even a 
 minister's piety is so appraised. Compared with other 
 ministers' piety, its superiority will be seen from the fact 
 that it brings such and such an income to its possessor 
 or his church. At first sight this is a very materialist, not 
 to say Philistine, criticism, but it is really sounder than it 
 looks and at least very straightforward. 
 
 Another feature of life which is connected with the out- 
 spoken temper of the country is a tendency to rush into 
 print. One day, for example, we have the Chief of the 
 New York Fire Department communicating to the papers 
 his view that sixty per cent, of his men, elected by the 
 Civil Service Commissioners, are inefficient. Perhaps 
 he meant to wipe the eye of the Commissioners, but most 
 probably he merely wished to tell the public the truth as 
 he saw it.
 
 VII 
 
 The Political System 
 
 Some references to politics have been already made ; a 
 few general reflections on the political system may now 
 follow. They do not take the place of a study of the Con- 
 stitution, but merely offer the impressions gained by a 
 tourist and a reader of the daily press. 
 
 The English observer may be warned once more that 
 the American system can only be understood by long and 
 patient study. The first error which English people make 
 about America is to suppose that the constitution on the 
 whole resembles that of England, except in the name of 
 President and the disappearance of hereditary rank. 
 There is no truth in this view. The American constitu- 
 tion is fundamentally different from that of England. 
 The framers of it drew their ideas from many sources in 
 ancient and modern history, notably, as I have said else- 
 where, from Holland, and what they brought into 
 existence was after all a new creation. It is long before 
 the outsider realises the actual provisions of this system, 
 and longer still before he realises its atmosphere and its 
 practical working. In the course of his enquiries he has 

 
 154 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 constantly to guard against premature conclusions. Here 
 one piece of knowledge does not lead to another ; a priori 
 conclusions formed in the light of European experience 
 simply fail. There is nothing safe except actual enquiry 
 into facts. Every system has its own strange compen- 
 sations ; so has that of America. 
 
 Perhaps my own best plan with these reflections is to 
 take them as they present themselves, stating facts, as 
 they seem to be, and pointing morals as far as I can. The 
 first fact then that I will note is one touched on before, 
 the great intricacy of the American system. The Presi- 
 dent, and the members of Congress are chosen by three 
 different methods, two of which require the direct vote 
 of the citizens. In each State there are also three 
 elections for the Governor and Legislation of the State. 
 There are, moreover, the township or municipal elec- 
 tions; and in most States the judges are elective. These 
 incessant elections, all recurring at brief intervals, are a 
 great demand on the time and intelligence of men. The 
 authors of the system no doubt foresaw this, and no doubt 
 thought that the citizens would always be glad to bestow 
 the time demanded. Elections in the glorious days of 
 the Revolution were perhaps a novelty and a privilege. 
 The novelty, however, wore off and the privilege became 
 a burden. Only a few years later, when the " spoils 
 system " grew up, it was defended by the ignoble argu- 
 ment that this was necessary to keep parties together and 

 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 155 
 
 foster interest in politics. Then later on came the foreign 
 invasion, bringing millions of men to whom elective 
 systems were unknown and unintelligible. The intricacy 
 of American politics was beyond them, and so far as they 
 voted, they simply followed political bosses. Every 
 office in America, of course, is paid ; the payment, though 
 fair, is not attractive to first rate ability, and Mr. Bryce, 
 a friend of American institutions, feels obliged to declare 
 that the State legislatures are in the main corrupt and 
 false. 
 
 The whole system tends to discourage eminence. 
 There is a general view among the professional 
 politicians that offices ought to go round, and every one 
 should get his share in their sweets. The framers of these 
 institutions seem to have held the same view for a nobler 
 reason. They believed that one citizen was on the whole 
 as good as another; that, personal integrity being 
 assumed, it was desirable every man, as far as possible, 
 should at some time or other hold office. This was really 
 a democratic sentiment, but in practice it has failed. It 
 has failed in modern times before the expert. In San 
 Francisco I found the Superintendent of Schools was 
 still a politician, who brought nothing to the office but 
 the sound judgment of an honest citizen, but almost 
 everywhere it has been discovered that even in education 
 an expert is needed. And the theory, if it was really a 
 
 theory, has deprived America of leaders. The country 
 
 11
 
 i 5 6 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 is not unwilling to recognise greatness, yet somehow 
 there are few or no great figures in American politics. 
 There are many local figureheads, but each of them is 
 nobody beyond his own locality. Moreover, each of them 
 is liable at any moment to be lost for ever. Custom or 
 statute prevents a man from sitting in any public body 
 except for his own district, and if he loses his seat he has 
 to wait till that particular seat is vacant again. What 
 usually happens is that he drops out of the political race. 
 Thus emerges one of the great points of contrast between 
 British and American politics. There is nothing in 
 America corresponding to the group of leaders on each 
 sfde of our political life. Senators indeed are distin- 
 guished persons, still, even they wear a local character. 
 The truth of this is evinced by the absence of political 
 speeches from the press. In Britain there is a body of 
 men whose speeches are reported in every paper through- 
 out the country, often at full length. No such speeches 
 are either made or reported in America. It is only on the 
 rarest occasions that the text of a speech is printed. This 
 is not due to any want of enterprise in the press, but 
 simply, as I suppose, to the want of interest in any par- 
 ticular man's views. 
 
 Public meetings are not held in America on the same 
 scale or as often or for the same purposes as in Britain. 
 During eight months in the States, though I scanned the 
 papers daily, I never saw one notified within my reach
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 157 
 
 and never attended one. I did see one or two casual 
 notices that meetings had been held, but there was no 
 report of the speeches. What does happen is that the 
 candidate for the President's chair, during a mighty 
 campaign, delivers a series of volcanic harangues, but 
 he devotes no special care to any one of them, and none 
 of them has the force of a set speech by a British Prime 
 Minister. Possibly years ago things were different. 
 I imagine that before the Civil War prepared speeches 
 were common ; they have almost vanished from political 
 life to-day. 
 
 This is unfortunate for the political education of 
 America. Nothing contributes to the political educa- 
 tion of England so much as these same speeches. 
 They are carefully read by voters on both sides, com- 
 pared and contrasted; and this process continued from 
 year to year gives the mass of electors a good working 
 knowledge of the subjects before them. Imperfect, of 
 course, this knowledge remains to the last, especially 
 regarding " Imperial " questions, but it is far ahead of 
 what the electorate of America possesses. No doubt the 
 party meetings of America lead to some ventilation of 
 topics, and I ought not to speak too confidently of scenes 
 at which I was never present, but I cannot help thinking 
 the discussions on such occasions must be very one-sided 
 and uninforming. The newspapers do not assist the 
 situation much. Their tone is certainly good, they are
 
 158 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 not extremist or abusive, but their leading articles are 
 very scrappy, they seldom deal with principles, and their 
 political views concern chiefly the prospects of " tickets " 
 and parties. More may be said for the magazines, which 
 publish excellent articles on the problems of the hour. 
 But on the whole better political education is a great 
 need of America. There is little public discussion of 
 principles and measures. However carefully you keep 
 your ears open, you will hear little of it, though the 
 grumbling abuse of trusts, and the denunciation of 
 " graft " are frequent enough. 
 
 America, like all countries, has its bureaucracy. It is 
 a body of growing numbers and importance as in other 
 democracies of the world, which have all found them- 
 selves obliged to supplement the straightforward 
 instincts of the simple citizen. In different communities 
 this move has been made with different feelings, and has 
 been received with more or less attention. In England, 
 where officials have always existed and are now more 
 powerful than ever, the class is viewed with dislike. 
 They are little removed, it is thought, from being 
 parasites and public enemies. It comes natural to the 
 unofficial to suppose, for instance, that the authorities at 
 the British Museum would not hesitate to burn up a lot 
 of valuable matter to save themselves the trouble of 
 listing it. But officials stand very differently with the 
 public of America. They are popular and honoured*
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 159 
 
 and the sentiment of the hour is in favour of increasing 
 their power. With this sentiment I altogether agree. 
 The American officials are devoted servants of the public, 
 and the country owes much to them. As a body they are 
 most obliging; they listen to public opinion, and make 
 it clear by their manners and actions that they desire to 
 be nothing else than servants of the people. Moreover, 
 in the midst of much corruption they are generally 
 honest. I have heard some complaints ^against the 
 assessors of the property tax, but they do not seem to be 
 general. 
 
 It may be asked, of what officials am I speaking ? Not 
 of the Judiciary, nor the Police, but of such permanent 
 servants as Educational officials, the staffs of Libraries 
 and Museums, and the Agricultural Department at 
 Washington, the Forest Department, and so on. Many 
 of them I met in some way, and I have both a grateful 
 recollection of their courtesy and a very high opinion of 
 the ability general amongst them. This ability America 
 certainly does not secure by extravagant payments. Mr. 
 Gifford Pinchot was till lately in charge of the Forest 
 Department on a pay of four thousand dollars a year. 
 For a standard one may mention that the pay of a good 
 carpenter is about one thousand dollars, and that Mr. 
 Pinchot was in charge of a Department where public 
 interests worth many millions of dollars were at stake. 
 He was said to be a man of large private means, and his
 
 160 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 example in accepting his ill-paid position is worth some- 
 thing to America. It is certain that for some years he 
 refused to sell the forests of Alaska to a syndicate of 
 public enemies, and though much was said about him I 
 really doubt if the country recognised what it owed him. 
 I do not quite see how this problem, of securing honest 
 ability in such very high positions, is to be met. Mere 
 salaries, were they never so large, will not secure it. 
 They must be reinforced by a sense of duty to the State, 
 aided perhaps by the esprit de corps of a service. The 
 sense of duty no particular measures will ensure ; primary 
 education is certainly penetrated by it, University educa- 
 tion, in it's degree, perhaps less so. If the stars are 
 favourable, the general stir of the age may leave its mark 
 in these institutions and elsewhere. As I have said, the 
 body of permanent officials in educative service of 
 various kinds are vigilant arid honest. 
 
 There are many respects in which the political system 
 is difficult to penetrate and altogether beyond the 
 criticism of a casual observer like myself. Thus I cannot 
 see what principle the Senate actually stands for. Each 
 State sends two members to this body ; thus the majority 
 in the Senate theoretically may not correspond to a 
 majority at the polls throughout the Union. I do not 
 know whether this situation has actually ever occurred, 
 though in some measure presumably it has. The Repre- 
 sentatives are changed every two years ; the Senate takes
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 161 
 
 six years to change, one-third of the members going out 
 every year. In a period of transition, therefore, it seems 
 inevitable that the Senate should linger behind the 
 Representatives. Moreover, Senators are usually men 
 of means, though no written provision secures this, and 
 on the whole it is clear that the Senate is a conservative 
 force in the State. This probably was intended by the 
 authors of the Constitution. 
 
 One may here say a word in assent to the praise which 
 posterity throughout the world has bestowed on these 
 men. They united both learning and common sense; 
 they were able to read both history and the signs of their 
 own times. They dismissed all " freakish " suggestions, 
 e.g., the appointment of censors. They provided 
 definitely against certain dangers, e.g., the instability of 
 popular institutions, and the ambition of successful men. 
 They devised a system of compensations which did not 
 lead to deadlocks. And they did not crush the life out of 
 the States by centralising legislation at the capital. 
 
 This last point seems to me more important than all 
 others. The danger of a President becoming a dictator 
 was perhaps not very real, but there was a danger, 
 greater even than 1790 foresaw, of draining the talent 
 of the backward districts to the great centres. Had this 
 occurred, whole States of the Union might have sunk to 
 a lifeless level, while a few which once gained the lead 
 steadily increased it. This has not taken place. The
 
 162 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 ability of America is fairly distributed over the whole 
 country. You will find the most interesting men in 
 places where, on the map, you would hardly think of 
 looking for them. As a matter of fact, this is largely due 
 to the tenacity with which each State insists on its own 
 qualifications for the learned professions. You cannot 
 practise anywhere as a lawyer, doctor or schoolmaster 
 unless you have qualified in that particular State. At 
 first sight this appears a narrow policy, and there cer- 
 tainly is some selfishness mixed up with it, but on the 
 whole it has paid the country immensely. The debt is 
 due to the framers of the Constitution, who left power so 
 liberally in the hands of the States. This has, of course, 
 its drawbacks. State legislations often pass "freak" 
 laws, and sometimes trade is hampered, as when Texas, 
 notable in this respect, insists that every railway which 
 passes through Texas shall have its headquarters in that 
 State. But, on the whole, these drawbacks of the 
 system are far less weighty than its advantages. 
 
 It may, however, be questioned, and it is questioned, 
 whether the conservation of the Constitution is not a little 
 overdone. Those who ask the question are chiefly the 
 Socialists, whose ideal, of course, is not the " freedom " 
 of the past. They find that legislation on the new lines 
 has to pass not only the popular assemblies, but the 
 Courts behind them, which interpret the Constitution. 
 Law in America is a conservative force, and it stands in
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 163 
 
 the way of Socialist legislation. Now Socialist legis- 
 lation, within certain limits, is accepted by the world, 
 and on some points where America has not yet fallen into 
 line she would be willing to do so were it not for the 
 Courts. Thus recently the State of New York passed a 
 Workmen's Compensation Act, modelled on the British 
 Act of 1897 (not a very advanced Act), but the State 
 Court felt obliged to declare it unconstitutional. It con- 
 flicted with the Constitutional provision that nobody 
 should be deprived of his property without due process 
 of law. Everyone agreed that this was unfortunate, 
 though not everyone agrees with the Socialist demand, 
 arising out of it, for some sweeping revision of the Con- 
 stitution. The same legal authorities, we must remem- 
 ber, acting in the same name, have sanctioned measures 
 unmistakably Socialist and directed against the great 
 corporations. I will turn aside here to consider the 
 growth of these corporations and their part in politics. 
 
 The growth of large business concerns is not peculiar 
 to the States, though the centralisation of business is 
 more complete there than elsewhere. No matter how 
 small an article is, no sooner does it appear certain that 
 people will buy it, than some financier takes it up, manu- 
 factures it and drives competitors out of the field. If the 
 field is large enough to invite two financiers, they may 
 perhaps break a lance against each other, for the fun of 
 the thing, but they very soon come to terms and form a
 
 164 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 " trust." This is the great industrial invention of 
 America though I do not see why other countries have 
 not more readily adopted it. The inner working of a 
 trust few people could describe, and none of them are 
 anxious to earn fame in that way as authors. But this 
 much we know, that in a trust production prices are 
 regulated and profits shared by mutual agreement. New- 
 comers are excluded from the field by a " Munroe 
 Doctrine." 
 
 The large firms, and still more the large combinations, 
 are formidable powers in the State. It is clear at once 
 how they are tempted to work mischief. There are many 
 rights which public bodies have to sell, and 
 then they may be bribed to sell too cheaply; there 
 are some rights which they may sell under pressure and 
 ought not to sell at all. There are many cases in which 
 corporations appear before judges, and judges in the 
 States are poorly-paid officials. Can we answer the ques- 
 tion how far public bodies and judges yield to these 
 temptations? As I have said before, in a different con- 
 text, if we listen to the press and public opinion of 
 America, we shall conclude that corruption is gross and 
 universal, that no large business or public body is exempt 
 from it.* 
 
 A famous story is told of Mr. Harriman, that once he needed a piece 
 of land belonging to a certain citizen, and the citizen refused to sell it. 
 Mr. Harriman then threatened to take some step obnoxious to him I 
 forget what; and the victim stammered out, " Why, you'll have to buy 
 Legislators! Have you done so?" "Not yet," replied' the laconic 
 Harriman ; and his insolent assurance greatly incensed America.
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 165 
 
 There is a further and no less serious question how far 
 the trusts control the Tariff. This may be done either by 
 downright bribery or by manipulating the various forces 
 of the political world. That it is actually done there 
 cannot be any doubt; how far by corrupt means, the 
 outsider cannot say. There are many ways in which 
 wealth may gain a foothold in politics, and it is not 
 necessary to suppose that the crude expedient of bribing 
 Legislators to vote for particular measures is often 
 needed. No one knows exactly how far the evil goes. 
 Conclusions are rendered difficult by the delays which 
 attend all enquiries in America, legal or other, and are 
 strange in a people who are reputed to be hasty and 
 decisive in their actions. When I was in Chicago in 
 May, 1910, a Chicago paper brought a charge of bribery 
 against Senator Lorimer, a leading man of the city and 
 as distinguished as a Senator must needs be. This charge 
 was made at great length ; it covered many sheets of the 
 newspaper, and it was followed up with energy for weeks. 
 At first the Senator made no reply ; then he replied ; and 
 finally steps were taken to hold some sort of enquiry. 
 This enquiry was protracted over many months, and the 
 original charge was entirely lost to sight. Finally, this 
 year, in April, comes the news that the proceedings have 
 ended in some sort of fiasco. Probably many people are 
 convinced of Senator Lorimer's guilt, and yet it has not 
 been established. All that can be said is that the great
 
 i66 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 corporations do corrupt American politics, and no one 
 knows for certain how far this corruption goes. This 
 position is discouraging, and many Americans have lost 
 Heart over it. 
 
 The Socialists and other grumblers are ready with the 
 simple but extreme measure of confiscating the pro- 
 perty of the trusts. Let us remember, however, first, that 
 the actual machinery for regulating the trusts is already 
 provided, if people are willing to use it. That is what is 
 necessary. Not long ago, as all the world knows, the 
 Standard Oil Company was actually prosecuted, and 
 fined by a State Legislation six million dollars. This 
 decision, however, was not in the least final, it has been 
 followed by appeals and other proceedings which were 
 not ended when I left America in the fall of 1910*. By 
 that time the mass of the citizens had almost forgotten the 
 case, and had certainly ceased to think about it. This 
 fickleness, characteristic of the country, must be con- 
 sidered one of the reasons why the process of law, to 
 which the trusts are liable, has not been put into force 
 against them. Till its resources have been explored, no 
 one has any right to say that the Constitution is not 
 elastic enough to meet the situation. 
 
 We may close our reflections on American politics with 
 a glance at the two great parties, the Republicans and 
 Democrats. It is the first problem of the British visitor 
 
 * Since these words were written comes the decision of the Supreme 
 Court ordering the trust to be dissolved.
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 167 
 
 to find out the distinction of principles between these, 
 and it is a problem that takes long to master. Discussions 
 of principles are rare in the papers and rarer in the street ; 
 one seems to hear of nothing but a particular man's 
 chance of a particular office. Of course it remains true to 
 the last that this is all the interest many professional 
 politicians have in the matter, but some distinctions of 
 view have to be realised. Speaking broadly, in the past 
 the Republicans have stood for Federal powers, Demo- 
 crats for State rights. The Democrats have been strong 
 in the South the scene of the great State schism ; the 
 Republicans in the North. The Republicans have been 
 allied with the manufacturers and the trusts, and, of 
 course, have had the support of these in the \Vest as well 
 as in the North. The Republicans have stood for a high 
 tariff : the Democrats for a tariff in the narrowest sense 
 protectionist. During 1910 the game was played into a 
 newer hand. The Insurgent Republicans came into 
 being, friends of a lower tariff and a pure administration. 
 They had Rooseveldt's support, but they were not strong 
 enough to control their party, and only succeeded in 
 dividing and weakening it. The Democrats profited by 
 this revolt, but did not join them. In the Southern States 
 they had a personal grievance against Rooseveldt, who 
 had been too warm a friend of the coloured man, and, in 
 any case, seeing victory within their grasp, had no 
 motives to share it with any of their old enemies. The
 
 i68 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 recent elections have given them a majority in the House 
 of Representatives ; it remains to be seen how they will 
 use it. 
 
 The mention of Rooseveldt suggests that I may point 
 out two ways in which his position illustrates the 
 difference between the American and the British systems. 
 He has never sat in either the Senate or the House of 
 Representatives ; American feeling does not demand this 
 of a President. Secondly, when he returned from Africa, 
 it was impossible for him to re-enter politics. I suppose, 
 theoretically, President Taft might have dismissed one 
 of his Cabinet and appointed Rooseveldt to the vacant 
 place; but this was out of the question. He might, 
 eventually, have returned to Congress, if his own district 
 had chosen him, but a seat in Congress would be a very 
 tame affair for an ex-President. What gives life to the 
 British Legislature is largely the hope of defeating the 
 Government and turning them out of office; but Con- 
 gress cannot do this, nor can it criticise the executive ; it 
 can just legislate and nothing else. I suppose this would 
 be a dull programme for one who had been President. In 
 any case American ideals do not sanction the re-entry of 
 an ex-President into Congress. 
 
 In many States of the Union a growing weariness of 
 professional politicians has led to the referendum. It 
 has already been found that this measure brings its own 
 troubles. " Oregon," I read, " next November (1910)
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 169 
 
 will be compelled to attempt legislation by direct voting 
 on 32 measures, 25 of which come from innovators, 
 agitators, or self-seeking groups of citizens, framed with- 
 out regard to the conflicting needs of the body politic or 
 substantive justice for interests involved " (The Presi- 
 dent of Cornell University). This movement, in fact, like 
 the movement for city government by commissioners, 
 proceeds from these who favour the simplification of 
 institutions as a short cut to political reform. Some 
 simplification is probably called for; but in any case a 
 vast country like America cannot carry this very far. 
 The truth is, if Democracy is really to triumph, the great 
 mass of the citizens must put time and trouble into the 
 work of government. 
 
 A few figures may interest the reader. The following 
 
 are from the estimates for 1911 : 
 
 Dollars. 
 
 Salaries of Senators 737>ooo 
 
 Other Expenses of the Senate ... 1,001,197 
 
 Salaries of Representatives 3> I 43>5 
 
 Other Expenses of Representation 1,529,765 
 
 Salary of President 75,000 
 
 War Department ,. ... 2,272,908 
 
 Military Establishment 95,605,147 
 
 Navy Department 841,500 
 
 Naval Establishment 108,106,264 
 
 Agriculture Establishment ... .. I3377 I 36
 
 i 7 o AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 Dollars. 
 
 Judicial Establishment 47,614,205 
 
 Foreign Department 4>i3358i 
 
 Public Works 101,783,632 
 
 Panama Canal 48,063,524 
 
 Pensions, Army and Navy 155,858,000 
 
 Grand total 732,223,075 
 
 The public debt of the States is $925,011,637 ; that of 
 local bodies $1,864,978,483. This latter is a serious total, 
 and it is rapidly increasing. The public debt of Boston, 
 for example, has increased since 1885 from $24,000,000 to 
 $74,000,000. The Socialists assert that the money so 
 borrowed has often been wasted, and that the whole affair 
 is merely another device of the rich to fasten their yoke 
 upon the country.
 
 VIII 
 
 Law. Lawyers. Crime 
 
 The subject of Law in America is one of great interest, 
 but one open only to the expert. Nothing is here 
 attempted that needs the expert's knowledge. I do not 
 try to judge, for instance, how much American law owes 
 to England, how much to the jurists of Continental 
 Europe. Campbell's view has already been quoted that 
 the debt to Europe is the larger of the two. American 
 lawyers generally think differently, and point to the 
 practice of quoting English precedents, which is usual 
 in American courts. I leave the point unsettled, but will 
 ask the broader question, how far American feeling 
 about law resembles British. British feeling, it is 
 generally understood, reverences the name of law. It 
 holds that in every case the law is probably right ; that, 
 in any case, if it needs to be changed the change should 
 be made deliberately and formally, and no one should 
 " take the law into his own hands." This view about 
 British feeling is no doubt in the main correct, though 
 the feeling in its outspoken form is more modern than 
 people suspect, and has always had its exceptions. Out- 
 laws, highwaymen, and smugglers have had their 
 
 12
 
 1 72 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 sympathisers in all classes of English society, an'd the 
 commonsense of uneducated thinkers has often declared 
 that " the law's a hass." In recent times the revo- 
 lutionaries have taken more thorough ground against it, 
 and the legislation of the past has been roundly 
 denounced as mere tyranny from end to end. 
 
 What, now, have been the sentiments of America? 
 We might begin by quoting Abraham Lincoln in a 
 strong and earnest plea for a law-abiding attitude*. Was 
 he not a typical American ? But was he more typical 
 than Walt Whitman, who, in much the same era, 
 declared that the ideal state is one " where the citizens 
 think lightly of the laws?" Which view is really 
 characteristic of the States ? To my mind there can be 
 no doubt that the feeling of the people is that of the poet. 
 American people have no doubt their conservative side ; 
 the principles of the Constitution have always been 
 sacred to them ; but they have always been rather dis- 
 dainful of Law. I cannot see that this feeling was 
 brought across the Atlantic by the older waves of immi- 
 gration ; it sprang into being when the Stars and Stripes 
 were unfolded. The American citizen then became a 
 law unto himself. I remember an American lady who 
 once said to me, " What I mean by religion is following 
 the best impulses of my nature." Perhaps she might 
 have said the same about law. One can see that in the 
 
 * ! regret I cannot find this quotation. It is familiar in America.
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 173 
 
 old bacKwoodsmen days the lonely pioneer owed little to 
 law; and in the frontier lands law has always been a 
 tardy force. This must have helped to create the feeling 
 towards law, which other circumstances have 
 strengthened. 
 
 Law in America has been a conservative force. This 
 perhaps has been generally the case with Law, though 
 we know that in Rome it was a progressive and liberal 
 force, and in revolutionary times there have always been 
 revolutionary lawyers. Much space and much know- 
 ledge of history would be needed to discuss the question 
 raised, but waiving it in the present place, it may be said 
 merely that Law in America has been conservative. 
 Here, too, no doubt it has had its progressive aspect ; it 
 has shown itself willing to regulate the trusts; but 
 speaking in general terms we can only speak of it in one 
 way. In the Criminal Courts it has continued old 
 methods of procedure; old rules for challenging juries, 
 old exceptions to indictments. These once were devised 
 in the name of humanity and progress, but they have 
 now become obstacles in the path. The evasions per- 
 mitted by the American statutes have ended in the 
 victory of money over justice. It has become possible 
 for rich offenders to delay the impanelling of juries, to 
 raise endless questions over evidence, to contrive endless 
 postponements and appeals, and finally to manoeuvre 
 judges into inadequate sentences. The historic example
 
 174 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 of these evils was no doubt the Shaw case, a travesty of 
 justice and procedure as amazing as anything in all the 
 strange annals of mankind. But though the extremism 
 of America is here illustrated in its most exaggerated 
 form, trials only less monstrous are not infrequent. 
 
 The result has been, all over the country, a tendency 
 to supplant law, first by the right hand of the injured 
 party, secondly by lynchings.* Personal vengeance 
 has always been common in many parts of America, 
 notably in the South and West. Many wild and dread- 
 ful tales could be told of it. I pass them over to observe 
 what is more serious, that public opinion in the States is 
 still much in favour of private vengeance. In 1910, for 
 instance, a Mr. C., in the Middle West, catching an 
 adulterer with his wife, chastised him as the lover of 
 Heloise was chastised long ago, and gashed him in the 
 face, so that he would be known for ever afterwards. 
 On this the Spectator (a " journal of progress") observes 
 that " the law which Mr. Cudahy wrote with his knife 
 on the face of his false friend is as strong as any written 
 in the Statute book. J 
 
 According to the press, there have been 3,337 cases of lynching in the 
 last 22 years, 40 of which have been women. 
 
 I The following is a common type of trial and sentence. " Providence, 
 June ist : J. Coyle was given 10 years in the State Prison to-3ay for the 
 robbery of Marmaduke Mason in Bristol on Dec. 22nd last. Coyle was 
 first charged with murder. He broke into Mason's house, beat and 
 robbed him. Mason died shortly after."
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 175 
 
 The following extracts will illustrate the same views : 
 " New Orleans, Aug. 23. Mamie McLoughlin, 18 
 years old, who shot her false lover, Hugh Smith, jr., a 
 wealthy saloon-keeper, as he was walking with her rival, 
 was acquitted by a jury in the district court here to-day. 
 Her plea was the unwritten law. The jury was out 25 
 minutes. The announcement of the verdict was received 
 with cheers by the members of the Era Club, an organi- 
 zation of women, and the spectators who filled the court- 
 room. Miss McLoughlin herself took the stand just 
 before both the defence and the prosecution rested with- 
 out argument.* 
 
 " ' He wronged me,' she sobbed. ' He had promised 
 to marry me, but he did not keep his word. I went to 
 the house of the Blake girl. I saw her come out. I 
 thought that she was going to meet Smith. I followed 
 her. I found that my supposition was correct, for he 
 met her at St. Charles Avenue and Felicity Street. I 
 followed them, and when I got near to them I was so 
 crazed with grief that I did not know what I was doing. 
 Life was worth nothing to me any longer. So I killed 
 him." 
 
 * One may observe that this view is at any rate honest. A little 
 earlier in New Zealand I heard a painful case tried, where an attempt at 
 murder was condoned by a jury. The prisoner's counsel deprecated any 
 appeal to an unwritten law, and put forward an almost improbable 
 theory in defence. I can hardly suppose the jury accepted the theory, 
 but they acquitted the prisoner. British hypocrisy, no doubt foreigners 
 would say.
 
 i 7 6 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 " Ever since the McLoughlin girl killed Smith the 
 women of the Era Club and others throughout the State 
 banded together for her defence. They raised a fund to 
 hire good lawyers and in every way assisted the girl." 
 
 These are examples of private vengeance; there 
 remains to be spoken of the court of Judge Lynch. I 
 defer his proceedings in the case of negroes, but allude 
 here to his summary trials of whites. They are some- 
 times quite orderly, but no one can seriously justify 
 them as a substitute for regular proceedings. What 
 leads to such outbreaks and such want of confidence in 
 the law is not only the delays and evasions of the courts, 
 but sentimentalism. It is rare indeed for a murderer to 
 be actually sentenced and executed in the States. In 
 one way or another his penalty is reduced to imprison- 
 ment, and he spends a period in one of the State gaols. 
 Two of these I visited, one in Santa Fe and one at 
 Elmira.* It cannot be supposed that a casual visitor 
 can judge of conditions under the surface life of 
 prisoners, but on weighing all the evidence it appears 
 certain that the State prisons are healthy and com- 
 
 * British sentiment, regarding imprisonment as a disgrace, takes 
 extreme care to prevent the public from staring at convicts in their cells. 
 It is felt by democracy in England that to add this to the burglar's other 
 trials would be wanton cruelty and might break down his self-respect. 
 American democracy, always humane to prisoners, has never hit on this 
 idea. It regards prisoners as patients under treatment, and is anxious in 
 a sympathetic way to see how they are getting on. Hence American 
 prisons are fully open to the public.
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 177 
 
 fortable institutions. The tales of prison luxury that 
 appear in the press may or may not be true; I do not 
 know whether Mr. Shaw had eventually a suite of rooms 
 and a cook at his disposal. But there was nothing 
 unreasonable at Elmira ; it appeared to me a very honest 
 attempt to unite the deterrent and the reforming in 
 prison discipline. More of it anon ; the smaller city 
 prisons, it appears, are often behind Europe in their 
 methods of arrangements. But the large State prisons 
 are excellent, and the point at present to be made is that 
 life in them fails at times to impress the public as 
 sufficient penalty for murder. This is one of the cir- 
 cumstances that account for lynching.* 
 
 The actual amount of lawlessness in America is still 
 serious. The " Wild West " and Texas I cannot speak 
 from experience of, and I do not know what to make of 
 the evidence. One hears strange tales, and the papers 
 publish brief accounts of pitched battles between the 
 police and " moonshiners," between blacks and whites. 
 It is a matter of figures that during the period of the 
 Boer War the American Republic lost more citizens by 
 homicide than we did in the war, the numbers being 
 about 20,000. To some extent this slaughter is due to 
 
 * One curious case of lynching arose out of a temperance crusade 
 against the saloons in a Western town ; the temperance party employed 
 secret agents to collect evidence against the saloons, and one of these 
 was lynched. On the other side Mrs. Carrie Nation and her followers 
 adopted the plan of smashing unlicensed saloons to pieces. I suppose she 
 was protected from violence by the American respect for women.
 
 178 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 the knife and pistol among barbarous immigrants from 
 Southern Europe, But the greater part is an American 
 institution. Carelessness of life has marked the country 
 from early days. Perhaps Indian massacres accustomed 
 the first generations to it; certainly during the nine- 
 teenth century it was notable everywhere. Industrial 
 life in America has been quite prodigal of life* ; the Civil 
 War was one of the bloodiest in history ; we need not 
 wonder that homicide also has been and remains in 
 many places an ordinary incident of life. 
 
 Of course, there are vast masses of law-abiding 
 people; the ordinary tourist need not expect to witness 
 dramatic scenes. Anyone looking for trouble might 
 easily find it ; if he wished to know what a gaspipe or a 
 sandbag feels like when delivered forcibly on the back 
 of the head he might satisfy himself after nightfall in 
 many of the dark streets of Chicago, or New York. But 
 at the worst, probably, he would be safer in these cities 
 than in Paris just now. Regarding the police, they are 
 more feared than trusted by the public. They are not 
 accused of cowardice ; they face the desperadoes of their 
 country with unflinching courage. In some respects 
 they are better off than their English compeers. Every 
 American policeman carries a revolver, which he uses on 
 the shortest notice. Nor does he scruple to bring down 
 
 The National Association of Manufacturers agreed in 1910 that over 
 500,000 serious industrial accidents occur every year.
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 179 
 
 a fugitive, nor is he forbidden to do so. But force on 
 one side is met by force on the other, and the police of 
 America run many risks. Their general efficiency 
 varies much from city to city ; one is struck by the 
 reforms which now and then one man of character intro- 
 duces in some particular place. They are wanting in 
 good traditions; and, as extremes meet, so here 
 American democracy seems to resemble the personal rule 
 of Asia, where a good ruler achieves so much in a few 
 years and leaves so little permanent mark on things. 
 The police, as one may expect, are much charged with 
 corruption, and are said to blackmail whores and saloon- 
 keepers, but I think many ordinary citizens resent even 
 more their cruelty. The American policeman considers 
 his fellow subjects as "clubbable" persons in quite 
 another light from that intended by Dr. Johnson, and it 
 is always well when a fight arises to keep out of his way. 
 Turning now to another aspect of law and lawyers, 
 one may notice a certain dignity which the profession 
 acquires in the States from the function of the courts as 
 interpreters of the Federal and State Constitutions. This 
 function they do not exercise unless cases arising out of 
 laws are brought before them, but on such occasions they 
 may refuse to recognise laws which conflict with the 
 Constitutions. There is nothing parallel to this in 
 Europe, and one may suppose that the custody of this 
 important right has had a great effect in uplifting the
 
 i8o AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 tone of the profession. While I cannot speak directly of 
 this tone, I note that the newspapers testify to a general 
 respect for it. Complaints of judicial incapacity or dis- 
 honesty are rare. This is not because judges are well 
 paid; the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court receives 
 $8,500 dollars a year, and the School Superintendent of 
 Chicago $10,000. Nevertheless, the dignity of the 
 bench attracts capable and honest men. 
 
 Looking forward to the future, one sees tha't the faults 
 of American procedure are fully recognised by the 
 present generation of lawyers. In 1910 the American 
 Bar Association sent a commission to observe the 
 methods of Great Britain, and they reported in favour of 
 certain changes, designed to simplify and expedite 
 trials. At the same time one or two cases, such as that 
 of Dr. Crippen, attracted notice in America, and the 
 swift and sensible procedure of the British Courts was 
 freely recognised. Changes probably are impending; 
 they may discourage the lynching methods of the South. 
 Nor should it be forgotten that local authorities do make 
 strong efforts to resist mob violence, at the cost of 
 danger and unpopularity. The trouble is that these 
 outbreaks are very sudden, they cannot be foreseen in 
 any particular place, and force is seldom at hand to 
 resist them. Juries often themselves concerned will 
 not convict on prosecutions after the event. Lynching 
 is not likely to disappear in the immediate future, but
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 181 
 
 swift and rigorous justice in the courts is the first step 
 needed towards putting it down. 
 
 To close this topic with one small point, the arrange- 
 ments of the American Courthouse are fairer to the 
 accused than ours. The witness stands next to him, and 
 not next to the judge ; he can hear the evidence against 
 himself, which in a British court it is often hard for him 
 to do. 
 
 A chapter which deals largely with crime may be per- 
 mitted to close with the subject of drink and temperance. 
 It is well known that the general sentiment of America 
 is against drink. Wine and beer seldom appear on 
 tables ; no visitor at a hotel is expected to order them, 
 and in every place of refreshment drinking water is 
 liberally supplied. " Iced water " is, in fact, one of the 
 regular recollections of American travel. In many 
 States, moreover, the sale of intoxicants is severely 
 restricted or totally forbidden especially in the South, 
 where there is a determination to keep drink from the 
 negro. The passing traveller in these places finds he 
 has to abstain, and, speaking generally, the same 
 traveller will seldom see drinking saloons in the streets. 
 If he enters one, when he finds one, he will miss the bar- 
 maid, and he will probably look in vain for a seat. He 
 will just have to stand on his hind legs and swallow his 
 poison and begone. Of course, where Germans abound 
 arrangements for drinking German beer are more com-
 
 182 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 fortable. I visited a "beer garden" in Washington 
 which might have grown up in Munich. But, as a rule, 
 saloons are not only disreputable, but uncomfortable; 
 they are inconspicuous; you might easily pass through 
 America and report that except in a few vicious circles 
 drink was unknown in the country. Figures, however, 
 show that the consumption of drink is larger than this ; 
 whiskey, 123,000,000 gallons, beer 59,000,000 barrels a 
 year. These are Inland Revenue figures; the brewers 
 and distillers assert that they show an increase during 
 the last fifteen years of 50 per cent, per head of the popu- 
 lation. This is due, in their view, to secret drinking, 
 practiced often by the very men who vote, in the name of 
 respectability, for prohibition laws. Such drinking is 
 carried on partly by the purchase of spirits direct from 
 the distillers, partly by visits to illicit saloons. Thus 
 not only is the sale of bad whiskies encouraged, but the 
 morale of local officials, especially police, is undermined. 
 The brewers, therefore, assert that prohibition is not 
 only a failure but menace to the national character, and 
 they press for an open but well-regulated sale of drink. 
 The prohibitionists are not satisfied with this policy, but 
 demand stronger measures, especially the prohibition of 
 the transport of drink. 
 
 It is a little puzzling to me that there actually is a 
 drink problem in America, for I agree with those who 
 say that the climate of America does not encourage
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 183 
 
 drinking. The air is drier, in many places rarer, and 
 perhaps electrically different from that of Britain, and 
 according to many people's experience, drink is not only 
 less of a craving, but more deleterious than in Britain. 
 It appears, however, from the facts, that the problem is 
 present; one cannot predict how or whether it will be 
 solved. Regarding secret drinking in homes, I can say 
 nothing ; regarding American bars, I can say that they 
 seem to me more damaging than those of Britain. Their 
 tone is viler, and those who frequent them are led to 
 contemn the laws and morality of their country. This 
 is the natural result of dissociating the drinking habit 
 from respectable society, and perhaps the plan is the best 
 one. Still, the victims of the system are disagreeably 
 numerous.
 
 IX 
 
 Social Questions and Reforms 
 
 The cause of avowed socialism has not gone far in 
 America, but we must see how far this is, what its 
 progress is due to, and how much unavowed socialism 
 there is in the country. We must begin with some 
 definition of this elusive term, and perhaps few people 
 will be aggrieved if I make it comprehend (i) the public 
 ownership of land and capital, (ii.) the public provision 
 of education and amusement, (iii.) the protection of the 
 weaker members of the community, e.g., by the regu- 
 lation of industrial conditions. 
 
 A glance at very early days will show us that in New 
 England, at any rate, America began with a good deal 
 of socialism. In Massachusetts no sphere of life was 
 exempt from State regulation, and this was often 
 directed against monopolies. In 1639 the Rev. Mr. 
 Cotton (speaking, in those theocratic days, for the State) 
 denounced a number of false principles, among which 
 were " that a man may buy as cheap as he can and sell 
 as dear as he can. . . . that, as a man may take the 
 advantage of his own skill or ability, so he may of
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 185 
 
 another's ignorance or necessity." Some attempts at 
 legislation on these lines proved a failure, and socialism 
 of this kind disappeared. Competition became the 
 general and avowed principle of America. But the 
 public provision of education, also a first care of the 
 infant state, has never been relinquished by her. At an 
 early date it was made free, and it remains to this day, 
 in the main free from the primary school to the 
 university. Thus America has opened her careers to 
 talent, so far as education goes. She holds that this is 
 the main thing. Inequalities of money do not weigh 
 much on the minds of her sons. America, said the chief 
 philosopher, is a name for Opportunity; and it has been 
 the conviction of the past that brains and energy and 
 education will not fail to make their way. The foolish 
 lord of millions will soon lose them ; " from shirt-sleeves 
 to shirt-sleeves it takes but three generations^' said the 
 Past. Thus old America, confronted with the pro- 
 gramme of socialism, says or would have said she 
 was Socialist enough already. 
 
 Moreover, so far as Socialism means care of the weak, 
 America did once in many ways lead the world, and in 
 these same ways she has never fallen beHind it. She has 
 never troubled much about poor-houses, nor are her 
 poor-houses to-day (such as there are) models; but in 
 hospitals, institutions for the blind and deaf, and refor- 
 matories she has spared neither money nor pains to
 
 1 86 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 repair the injustices of Fortune. Her provision of parks 
 and museums is more than liberal : her library sytem by 
 far the most progressive in the world. In Tact, progress 
 has not stood still in any of these directions, and is rapid 
 and continuous everywhere. We may pause awhile to 
 recall some of the institutions here recalled. 
 
 However successful Elmira claims to have been, or, 
 along with similar institutions has actually been, some 
 observers have always remained dissatisfied. They have 
 thought that such places, after all, send out men without 
 vigour and resource, without the social sense, if not even 
 hostile to society. This is the result of training and drill- 
 ing the young in masses and placing them in artificial 
 surroundings under a rule which, even if kindly, is 
 almost bound to be depressing. Can nothing be found 
 to take the place of this system ? 
 
 One man, at any rate, who has answered the question 
 for himself is Mr. George, the founder of the Junior 
 Republic. You will find him and his institution near 
 Freeville in N.Y. State; it is Mr. George's boast that 
 parties of tourists pause at the Republic and ask if it ts 
 Freeville. It does not look like an " institution." It 
 is, in fact, a group of small houses, with one or two 
 small factories and a church. The best way to realise 
 what goes on there is to imagine yourself a " juvenile 
 criminal " of some fourteen years' growth turned over to 
 Mr. George by the police. Mr. George would greet you
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 187 
 
 with a friendly smile and invite you in breezy tones to 
 look around for some work to do. You might perhaps 
 be inclined to sulk and to do no work, but you would 
 soon find yourself starving. No "charity" is allowed 
 in the Republic. Commonsense would then point out 
 the wisdom of working ; you would perceive that every- 
 one else is working, and everyone seems to be enjoying 
 his work. Some are cultivating land; others building 
 houses, others busy in the bakery, the laundry, or the 
 printing press. All are ex-criminals, like yourself, but 
 all have found their places in the social order of the 
 colony. On application, say, to the master baker you 
 would be told off to some simple job, and at night you 
 would get your wages. Not in coin of the Senior 
 Republic, but in coin of the Junior Republic; leather 
 coin, with values stamped on it. You would find this 
 accepted at your own stores, or your own dormitories, 
 and you would begin to understand the place. You 
 would soon see that your future lay in your own hands; 
 that in the Junior Republic, at any rate, honesty and toil 
 are the best policy, and their reward is certain. Should 
 you break the laws, your peers will capture and try and 
 sentence you, and the sentence usually solitary im- 
 prisonment will not be found a light one. Industry, 
 on the other hand, and a wise use of the schools pro- 
 vided, will see you emerge, after some years in the 
 Republic, a college student in the outer world, with all 
 the opportunities of America before you. 
 
 13
 
 i88 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 The system has now been tried long enough to judge 
 of its results, and those results, beyond question, are 
 excellent. I cannot say how far Mr. George takes the 
 worst cases of theft and vice, but much of his material is 
 unpromising, while the young men who leave him are 
 found to be manly and upright citizens. Of course, 
 some years of observation are still needed to assure our- 
 selves of conclusions, for education is a preparation for 
 life, and its value can only be judged in the long run, 
 when our pupils have lived thirty or forty years in the 
 world. Still, Mr. George does seem to have obtained 
 results, and I myself, wandering round the Republic, 
 was struck everywhere with the frank demeanour, 
 modesty, honest pride, and good sense that I met. Even 
 the perilous experiment of free association between the 
 sexes seemed to have succeeded, though I speak with 
 much reserve on this point. But the great mystery that 
 rose up before me everywhere and I left unsolved was 
 the place of Mr. George in his own institution. Mr. 
 George is accustomed to being asked questions about 
 this, and he is fully provided with his answer. He is a 
 true American. He believes in the vitalising power of 
 ideas ; and he ascribes all the success of his system to the 
 responsibility thrown on his charges, to the close and 
 visible connection between work and the results of work, 
 to the social sense created by the manifest benefits of 
 mutual service. He will take credit, if you like, for
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 189 
 
 being the Washington of the Junior Republic, but not 
 for running it. According to him, he has no authority 
 in the State at all. And authority in the Occidental 
 sense he certainly does not wield, for the boys call him 
 " Daddy," and treat him as though he was one of them- 
 selves. Moreover, when they do not agree with him, 
 they sometimes follow their own counsel, and sometimes 
 actually taKe a wiser course than he suggests. Such an 
 episode is a triumph for Mr. George, who can never 
 insist too strongly that human nature and free insti- 
 tutions are equal to all the problems of destiny. 
 
 Now, if I must state an opinion, I can only say that I 
 do not believe Mr. George is merely the watchmaker of 
 Paley's argument, surveying the watch as it left his 
 hands. He is at the best an inspiration can he help 
 being that ? Nor do I doubt that he speaks many words 
 in season and adjusts with an invisible hand some little 
 difficulties over wages and prices. But I grant the most 
 important parts of his position, and trust that the insti- 
 tutions which have sprung up on his lines will further 
 vindicate it*. The Senior Republic might do a worse 
 thing than depute him to try his method with the 
 Indians. 
 
 Elmira was a State institution ; the Junior Republic is 
 not supported by any public funds. (Boys are only sent 
 
 * In America action follows conviction outside politics. As soon as 
 people saw Mr. George succeeding they began to multiply institutions on 
 his lines.
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 there with the consent of their parents.) Still, from my 
 present point of view I put them together as examples of 
 what the social order of America does for the weaker 
 members of society. One could mention many other 
 examples. In Massachusetts practically any blind child 
 will be fed, clothed, lodged from birth to manhood, and 
 will be taught a living. No stigma of pauperism will 
 attach to any child so reared ; what the goodwill of indi- 
 viduals or the humanity or the wisdom of Government 
 undertakes is always bestowed generously. In Boston 
 there is a steamer supported by the city on which sick 
 infants are taken out in summer gratuitously. I have 
 spoken of the Chicago parks and baths; in several cities 
 free meals are provided for underfed school children. I 
 am not familiar with the details of the poor relief system ; 
 they are subject to local arrangement and, I believe, 
 imperfect American sentiment, while holding strongly 
 that everyone should have a fair start in life and equal 
 opportunities, has not much sympathised with the man 
 out of work or the man who at the end of his life finds 
 himself penniless. It has believed that work and wages 
 are always waiting for those who want them, and that 
 laziness and folly ought to suffer their own natural 
 penalties. 
 
 Competition, then, open competition on fair terms, 
 compensated by humanity towards the weak, was the 
 formula of the past, and people thought, as they think
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 191 
 
 of every formula, it could last for ever. But the unfore- 
 seen has occurred, as it always does. Every system 
 when it culminates begins to decline; this has happened 
 in America over the social order, and like the 
 old world which she seemed to have left behind, 
 even she has now to face advanced Socialism. 
 Not that Socialism is altogether new. The prin- 
 ciples are largely those of the old compensations, 
 but now they seek a more thorough application and some 
 fundamental re-arrangements. 
 
 The reasons for this change lie partly on the surface. 
 In the first place the wide horizon of earlier generations 
 has been suddenly contracted. The old advice to tne 
 young men, " Go West," has lost its point; there s no 
 west to go to. Free land has disappeared, and though 
 there are still many openings in Arizona mines and 
 California fruit farms, the sense of boundless possibili- 
 ties has vanished. Nor does the present generation, a 
 town-loving race, value the chances of the West. Their 
 comfort in town-life, moreover, has been rudely shaken 
 by the great rise in prices. More or less, the masses have 
 all felt the pinch of this, and everyone wants to know 
 what is responsible for it. 
 
 I have here reached the point where I ought to con- 
 sider the ratio between incomes and expenses of living 
 in the States. This is one of the most troublesome 
 problems that can be raised in any country, and it is
 
 i 9 2 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 hopeless in a country so large as America. Facts vary 
 enormously in different places, and general conclusions 
 seem to be at the mercy of every one's prepossessions. 
 I will state such general conclusions as I seem able to 
 reach, but I shall not cite many figures, and though I 
 have examined statistics confess that I rely chiefly on 
 impressions. It appears to me that really unskilled 
 labour is badly paid everywhere in the States. It is 
 viewed with contempt, and no one feels any obligations 
 towards it. Apart, however, from recent immigrants, 
 there is little unskilled labour in the country, and though 
 it is badly off it is not growing to be worse off. I read 
 in Pinkerton's* account of the great railway strikes of 
 thirty years ago that the cause of the outbreak was a 
 general reduction of wages below a dollar a day. Prices 
 certainly were lower then, but a dollar a day must have 
 been starvation wages. The recent report of the English 
 Commissioners places the labourers' wages In the States 
 at eight to nine dollars a week ; this is a dreadfully low 
 figure, but the class on this level, as I said, is small, and 
 no intelligent man need stay in it. Women's wages, 
 however, are very small. The immense class of 
 assistants in shops and restaurants get about six or 
 seven dollars a week; office girls more, but not much 
 more; school mistresses and civil servants on the lower 
 grades just enough to live on respectably. Directly, 
 
 The founder of Pinkerton's detective force.
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 193 
 
 however, we pass on to the ranks of skilled workmen 
 wages rise at once ; the average bricklayer makes twenty- 
 two or twenty-three dollars a week. He is actually 
 better off than the mere clerk though the class of mere 
 (masculine) clerks, the unskilled labourers of the 
 mercantile world, is small. Men in responsible 
 positions, in factories or offices, may make anything; 
 there are servants of the great corporations whose 
 salaries exceed that of the President of the States. 
 Teachers, professors, and ministers of religion as a rule 
 are comparatively badly paid. An average salary 
 for a professor would be three thousand dollars a year ; 
 lecturers and assistant professors get much less. 
 
 It is, on the whole, however, my impression that 
 (neglecting recent immigrants) the great majority of 
 American citizens are at least in comfortable circum- 
 stances. The great cities, such as Boston and 
 Philadelphia, are surrounded by endless miles of com- 
 fortable dwellings. They are flanked by places of resort, 
 where countless thousands of people may be seen in 
 summer amusing themselves indeed, amusements of 
 every kind, such as baseball, and picture shows, draw 
 immense crowds of very ordinary citizens. The goods 
 displayed in shop windows seldom evince the penury of 
 France. Ragged clothes I never saw anywhere, not even 
 in the poorest quarters. 
 
 Nevertheless, there is much economic discontent
 
 194 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 abroad. The Socialist orator may be seen on the street 
 corner everywhere, and the comic paper, Life, which 
 caters for the well-to-do*, is bitterly and aggressively 
 Socialist. Whence comes this ? 
 
 Partly, no doubt, from real suffering ; I have admitted 
 its existence. Partly from irritation against certain 
 obvious monopolies and overcharges. For example, the 
 banking interests have prevented America from possess- 
 ing a Government Savings Bank ; the express companies 
 have resisted a Parcels Post. Many small services in 
 America are overcharged for; for example, it costs five 
 times as much as it does in England to deposit your 
 luggage with a railway company for a day. Irritation 
 against these grievances is no doubt real and growing. 
 At the same time there is growing a~ hungry spirit of self- 
 indulgence, an envy of the rich and their pleasures. One 
 of the favourite mottoes of the picture postcards is " Ain't 
 it hell to be poor?", and the whole system of American 
 life is constantly obtruding this notion on men. Business 
 largely consists of inventing wants for people and teasing 
 them into satisfying these wants and making them feel 
 that life is not worth living if they cannot afford to do so. 
 This is the moral of all the demoralising advertisements ; 
 I suppose it is not lost on men. 
 
 Whether suffering or imagining they suffer, people 
 relieve their feelings by abusing the large industries, 
 
 It makes a speciality of advertisements of motor cars.
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 195 
 
 especially the trusts and corporations. They are certainly 
 visible enough to be seen, and perhaps one grievance 
 against them is that they are so tentacular and 
 ubiquitous. Outsiders little realise how much America 
 has passed under their control. Everyone has heard of 
 the Standard Oil Company and the Steel Corporation, 
 but only Americans know that their beef and boots and 
 paper and everything else they eat or wear or want for 
 any purpose whatever has to be taken on the terms 
 granted by a trust. 
 
 The transport and express companies of the various 
 railroads are not trusts, they are still in many cases rivals. 
 But they have often exclusive spheres and they are bodies 
 supremely important to the country. Food-producing 
 America, in the West, is far distant from industrial 
 America in the East, and regular communication between 
 them is as important as communication along the great 
 arteries to human life. The powers that control these 
 lines could at any moment paralyse the civilisation of the 
 country. 
 
 Whether the trusts and corporations overcharge the 
 public for what they supply is a question I cannot 
 answer.* If one looked solely at the figures of large 
 incomes there would be no doubt what to think. But it 
 is probable that as regards the past these figures suggest 
 a false conclusion. The millionaire's income has been 
 
 * Of course, merchants accuse them of the most gross overcharges ; of 
 watering their stock and paying a hundred per cent, on their real capital.
 
 196 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 constantly spent in enlarging his business; it has been 
 added to the capital of the country, and the effect has been 
 just the same as though the State took and spent the 
 money. The millionaire has not diverted labour to 
 supply him with luxuries. In spite of the silver plumbing 
 in millionaires' houses and freakish displays of wealth, I 
 think it very possible that the actual drain on the 
 country's resources in the past has been small. That 
 does not mean that it is going to be small in the future. 
 It is possible that wealthy men's incomes are being more 
 and more wasted, and the waste is perhaps being felt 
 more and more. Only a very close acquaintance with the 
 facts of life could enable one to form an opinion on this 
 point. 
 
 It must be admitted that to estimate the incomes of the 
 American rich is almost impossible. No one can say how 
 far allied interests are in the hands of the same men. 
 Certainly the same men appear before the public at one 
 time as producers, at another as transport magnates, and, 
 further still, as financiers of side-lines and as speculators 
 in real property without disclosing their identity under 
 various names, or acknowledging the vast concentration 
 of interests they have effected. The public suspect, but 
 do not know exactly what or whom to suspect. They feel 
 they are subject to a close conspiracy of masters, by 
 whom they are not only plundered but mystified and 
 humiliated.
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 197 
 
 While understanding their attitude, I feel in many 
 respects the denunciation of the trusts is neither just nor 
 sensible. They belong to the men who have succeeded, 
 whereas the critics of trusts for the most part are simply 
 the men who have failed. Of course this consideration 
 does not justify the winners, but it suggests that the 
 blame for this situation cannot be laid wholly on their 
 backs. Moreover, it must be remembered that the enter- 
 prise of the great financiers has simply created modern 
 America. From the primitive oil well, " kicked down " 
 by two needy adventurers, to the docks of the Standard 
 Oil Company there is a progress not easy and spon- 
 taneous, but only achieved by audacious enterprise, 
 which unearthed chemists from the furthest corners of 
 civilisation and financial experiments in the face of the 
 most unpromising difficulties. Socialism assumes that 
 without the American financiers every home in America 
 would have enjoyed the comforts and luxuries of the 
 present day, but the truth is without them modern 
 America would simply have been impossible. The fruits 
 and vegetables of the Continent would not have been, as 
 they are now, distributed throughout the year over the 
 whole country. In fact, life would have been something 
 like the life of South Africa under the old Boer regime. 
 
 The sanest plan with regard to the past is to recognise 
 what America owes to it, and to share the blame for its 
 social evils among all who, successful or unsuccessful,
 
 198 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 supported the system. With regard to the future, innova- 
 tions must be weighed on their merits. So far as 
 Socialism means regulation, the great companies, which 
 will probably have to submit to it, must allow they have 
 invited it. They have excluded competition, and made 
 themselves monopolies; they have lost, therefore, that 
 right to independence which under a competitive system 
 was at least more plausibly asserted. This regulation the 
 State has already begun to enforce. Some examples of 
 its action have been cited elsewhere ; one may notice, too, 
 that the railway rates are subject to the control of a State 
 Commission, and that in 1900 the companies applied in 
 vain for permission to raise them. The State regulation 
 of prices is another affair; even supposing the courts dis- 
 solve trusts, it is difficult to see how they can really affect 
 these. America is not likely to go in for the State-owned 
 industries of New Zealand (though she has cast curious 
 glances in that direction). She has not even thought 
 seriously of regulating wages and hours of labour, which 
 the Australian Government seems to find practicable. 
 Opinion is far from ripe for such innovations. 
 
 The demand for a lower tariff is quite serious, and for 
 the present men's thoughts are fixed on this. They are 
 not satisfied to pay the present prices for European 
 goods, nor to see their own companies "dumping" 
 American articles in Europe. This practice, apparently, 
 in the near future will go.
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 199 
 
 Another object which will soon be taken up in fact is 
 already in hand is the protection of life in industries. 
 Here, too, we must not lay all the blame on the com- 
 panies; the capitalist is not alone responsible for the 
 death roll of the past. It is characteristic of the American 
 to take a risk, and had labour not despised protection it 
 would have come sooner. It is fully time that it came. 
 
 To make the great companies amenable to law will be 
 a solid gain to American life. They have too often by 
 illegal rebates and otherwise defied it. But once more, it 
 must be asserted, they have not been worse than other 
 citizens ; good and bad motives alike have weakened the 
 whole nation's respect for law. We read of the sugar 
 trust being detected in a vast series of weighing frauds 
 at the Customs; we must not, however, condemn the 
 trust without reflecting that every class of citizen cheats 
 the Customs. They are caught in a vicious circle. They 
 cheat the Customs because the duties represent dishonest 
 laws ; and they weaken the same laws against those who 
 make them and pervert them. 
 
 Avowed Socialists are not very numerous, though they 
 are active and insert many letters in the papers. I was 
 present at their annual conference in Chicago, when a 
 delegate from every State attended, together with one or 
 two incendiaries from England. The proceedings were 
 rather confused, and the president's gavel dfd not lie 
 forgotten on the table. It did not appear that there was
 
 200 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 much ability present, many were " foreigners." It was 
 pleasant to see their faces light up when the band played 
 the International, for they came from the tyranny of 
 Continental Europe, and to their ears the Marseillaise is 
 full of bright predictions : 
 
 Ein neues Lied, ein besseres Lied 
 
 O Volk, will ich euch dichten ; 
 Wir werden jezt auf Erden platz 
 
 Das Himmels reich errichten. 
 
 Their plans are simple; nothing more is needed than 
 a few scratches of the pen to transfer all the property of 
 the trusts to the State. And, indeed, this looks so simple 
 that there will always be people found to support the 
 measure, but they will have to reckon with the sentiment 
 of the past, still strong, with the shareholders in the said 
 companies, and lastly with the Roman Church. That 
 body in America does not try to reason with the Socialist ; 
 it has taken up a line against him, and calls his tribe " an 
 accursed brood." America may yet be the great battle- 
 field of the Red International and the Black Inter- 
 national. 
 
 I do not forget that the present invasion of foreigners 
 (mostly Roman Catholics) may profoundly change the 
 country. Milwaukee, a great German centre, two years 
 ago elected a Socialist Municipality, and adopted a 
 Socialist programme. Its first step was to close many 
 drinking saloons, and to arrange for a free supply of ice
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 201 
 
 for all citizens in the summer. I do not know how matters 
 have gone there since. Avowed Socialism, however, is 
 not the only party that takes summary measures for the 
 public advantage, and perhaps I should earlier in this 
 argument have noticed the varied regulations which the 
 Local Legislatures introduce mostly in the name of 
 health. I read, for example, that the town of Aurora 
 orders its inhabitants to take a bath once a week ; that in 
 Rhode Island bakers are forbidden to smoke or chew or 
 entertain cats in bakeries. The Government departments 
 are not behind Socialists in this solicitude. The Post 
 Office issues an order that stamps shall be sold with the 
 gummed side up (as citizens are prone to lick them when 
 affixing them to letters !) The Agricultural Department 
 at Washington brings out a cookery book instructing 
 people how, in these days of dear beef, to make the best 
 use of the cheaper joints. Much of this activity is very 
 laudable and full of promise, though unfortunately 
 " freak legislation " perpetuates the American contempt 
 for law. 
 
 American moralists might impress on their country 
 more than they do the lessons to be learned from the 
 management of the great firms. Their order, efficiency 
 and economy, their real genius for administration and 
 their wide outlook are things to be admired; they are a 
 perpetual lesson to a country where municipal depart- 
 ments are often so dishonest and inefficient. The
 
 202 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 journalists and the caricaturists teach the young to see 
 nothing but good in them ; this blindness, however, will 
 punish itself. The first thing America has to do is not to 
 start the State ownership of industries, but to, find out 
 why in a country of adult suffrage the affairs of the people 
 are so mismanaged. Nations get the governments they 
 deserve. 
 
 A personal study of the great millionaires of America 
 would be one of our most valuable records, if it were 
 made by the right men. It ought to show exactly what 
 sort of opening each found, how he used it, and what 
 use he made of his money himself. Few writers would be 
 equal to tne task, but I will briefly indicate its scope by 
 pointing out some features of a few careers. 
 
 Among the older millionaires of America the Astors 
 are conspicuous. The founder of the family made his 
 money in fur " skinning skunks," as one of his friends 
 put it. He invested in real property in New York, and 
 created an estate, which, under wise management, has 
 never ceased to grow. It has been the motto of the family 
 tnat " it pays to invest in men." The Astors have never 
 interested themselves in pictures or other works of art, 
 and have led quiet, Puritanical lives. I believe their 
 chief representative now lives in England, to escape the 
 inquisitive American press and the loud tone of some 
 American fashionables. 
 
 Another old family is that of the Vanderbilts; Com-
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 203 
 
 modore Venderbilt, who founded it, was born in 1794. 
 He was the first to see the future of steam navigation, 
 his family invested in railroads. 
 
 The Swifts owe their position to an early perception of 
 the uses of the refrigerating car. They have owed 
 nothing to speculation, and everything to solid cautious 
 work. The Swifts are Methodists and supporters of 
 religious institutions; they are not associated with any 
 interest in art. 
 
 I have not been able to read a life of Jay Gould, but 
 believe he was a financier pure and simple, and a bad 
 type of millionaire. He ruined more than one railway 
 by Stock Exchange operations, and he created nothing. 
 We may contrast with him the great Harriman, who was 
 a creator and actually developed the railways of America. 
 
 Rockefeller rose from poverty by organising and con- 
 trolling the oil industry. This trust system is almost his 
 invention. He is personally a rather solitary man, and 
 his interests, apart from business, are centred in religion 
 and education. He is an evangelical, if I mistake not, of 
 the Baptist persuasion. 
 
 Carnegie, who also rose from poverty, has developed 
 and organised the steel industry. Not himself a chemist, 
 lie was the first to see the possibilities of high chemical 
 knowledge applied to steel processes, and by salaries of 
 unprecedented liberality brought some of the ablest men 
 in the world to his works. He discovered, too, exactly 
 Ptts. 14
 
 204 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 how, when and where to " dump," and is said to have 
 sold his products sometimes 40 per cent, cheaper in 
 Europe than in the States. The value of the property of 
 the Steel Trust is currently put at fourteen thousand 
 million dollars, of which the greater part presumably is 
 his. He has, however, for some years retired from active 
 management of it, and all the world knows how he 
 amuses himself at golf, and what excellent advice he 
 gives to young men who wish to make money. He is an 
 eclectic of the modern type in matters of religion, a 
 humanitarian, and a friend of the peace movement. 
 
 J. P. Morgan is one of the very few millionaires who 
 were born rich. His father was a banker ; he himself has 
 been a banker, financier, and an organiser of railways 
 and other enterprises. I have asked elsewhere a question 
 which the public ask, whether his enterprises have always 
 been loyal to his country but how is the public to learn ? 
 Some articles which I Have read concerning J. P. Morgan 
 assert that his career has been conspicuously honest, that 
 he has never wrecked one industry, nor killed a rival, nor 
 accepted illegal rebates. His interest in art is personal 
 and genuine which many people do not understand. 
 
 Ryan was one of the few Catholics who have made 
 much money ; he was also a Southerner. He bought up 
 small concerns and consolidated them into large ones; 
 he had a great eye for business possibilities, and all sorts 
 of things prospered in his hands tobacco, steel, cold 
 storage, traction and insurance.
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 205 
 
 This list might be made a very long one, yet we can 
 see our way now to philosophise over the matter as well 
 as we ever should. We note that these illustrious men 
 have had nothing in common save the power of making 
 money, a power, like other powers, inscrutable, and 
 inborn. The opportunities they used were various; and 
 they themselves in their own characters not less so. 
 Almost all of them, like many successful soldiers, rose 
 from the ranks. How many were men of principle, one 
 cannot say ; only prejudice could reply, none ; if prejudice 
 is strong against the millionaire at the hour, philosophy 
 is all the more called on to pause. 
 
 No judgment on American millionaires should forget 
 their wise and splendid liberality to their country. 
 Schools, Universities, Museums, art collections, and 
 hospitals from end to end of America testify to this. 
 Chicago owes her University to Rockefeller; Boston her 
 Medical School to J. P. Morgan; a complete pension 
 scheme for American professors has been financed by 
 Carnegie. These are only specimens of what these men 
 have done ; they have done much more, and others have 
 done scarcely less. It seems to me foolish to deny that 
 the really great men among America's millionaires have 
 lived up to their responsibilities. 
 
 I will close this chapter with two casual remarks on 
 the economic situation in the country. There are few 
 Americans who are Free Traders, the feeling of the
 
 2o6 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 country being altogether in favour of some sort of tariff. 
 Nevertheless, it is difficult to see whether America should 
 be quoted by the States in Europe as an argument for one 
 feeling or the other. The United States are the largest 
 area under a free trade system in the world. Every part 
 of the States is content under this system, nor does it 
 seem that any State would wish, even if it had the power, 
 to surround itself with a tariff wall. Shall \ve conclude 
 that the economic unit for free trade is miraculously 
 identical with that covered by the Stars and Stripes? 
 Apparently not; for some Tariffites woukf include 
 Canada. But why stop at Canada ? 
 
 The view is gaining ground in some quarters that the 
 recent rise in prices, especially in food prices, all over the 
 world is due to the growth of town populations. This 
 country, it is said, is really not producing enough to feed 
 tne town. Either the town populations must cease to 
 grow or the country must be re-peopled. The first ten- 
 dency no doubt is already at work ; town populations are 
 marked by a falling birth rate. And possibly in the 
 recent development of Canada we" have a trace of the 
 second.
 
 X 
 
 Fashion 
 
 I remember a picture which caused me some surprise 
 .once in an old print-shop in Chicago, a picture of Mrs. 
 Washington's drawing-room. The inscription beneath 
 made it certain what the picture represented, or one might 
 have supposed it was the Court of Louis XIV. There 
 was the same brilliance of dress and the same artificial 
 mise en scene. Later on in Boston, when I read Howe's 
 Puritan Republic, I learned that the very earliest days of 
 Massachusetts had some social ambitions and fashions. 
 Looking round me finally in the America of to-day I 
 realised that in this respect history has continued itself; 
 if America has not had rank it has always had fashion. 
 With respect to the South this has been more or less 
 known, but it has been true North, East and West. 
 
 A question may be raised how far this sentiment of 
 fashion has been associated with one of birth. The 
 descendants of the earlier settlers and of those who were 
 distinguished in the war have never forgotten their 
 ancestry, and it has sometimes (though not always) hap- 
 pened that these families have possessed means, and
 
 208 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 sometimes too that they have been people of superior 
 education. It may seem that here we witness the birth of 
 an aristocracy, in the very heart of the great American 
 democracy. On the whole, however, such a view would 
 be rather plausible than correct. Some members of these 
 circles may have toyed with the aristocratic idea, but they 
 have never been in earnest about it. Most of them have 
 been very earnest Republicans, and if they have felt 
 proud to be the sons of their fathers, this pride has not 
 made them haughty or inspired them with any idea of 
 claiming privileges. Set this down, as you will, to their 
 candour or their hypocrisy, or be merely content to 
 acknowledge that human nature is full of paradoxes. 
 
 The people we speak of have been rather disquieted by 
 this change of recent years, and in some cases have felt 
 impelled to exploit their antecedents. " Orders " have 
 been founded, suspiciously like European orders, for 
 descendants of Mayflower Pilgrims, of Colonial Gover- 
 nors and so forth. Expensive badges have been prepared 
 for these people to wear, and in some cases one seems to 
 detect that sort of vanity which in Europe we call 
 " snobbishness." In this connection, however, it need 
 at no time excite more than a smile; more dangerous 
 perhaps to the future peace of America are the social 
 ambitions of wealth. 
 
 There was a type of risen man some years ago, the 
 nouveau riche of old caricatures who did not much
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 209 
 
 damage the morals of his country. He was at the worst 
 ostentatious and foolish, but he was usually good natured 
 and remembered the pit he was digged from. Much 
 worse is the educated rich man of modern times, and his 
 educated sons. He is beginning to pick up from 
 Europe presumably the hauteur of birth, and I feel that 
 he is no friend of his country. I ought to write with 
 reserve of a class with which I never mingled, but I seem 
 to have seen them in the great hotels, and do not think 
 America is spiritually richer for their existence. Their 
 extravagance is incredible ; the newspapers are for ever 
 publishing figures of their expenditure on diamonds and 
 motor cars.* This fosters the basest kind of envy and 
 materialism. It is unfortunately the case (as we shall 
 presently see) that the men of these classes are drifting 
 away from the spiritual life of America, and their women 
 are notoriously the most selfish of her women. 
 
 I could wish I had seen more of these people ; I might 
 have found more to admire among them. I should have 
 liked to see something of the club life of the country. 
 Every one of the great cities has splendid and exclusive 
 clubs, still tenanted by ability rather than by birth, and 
 no doubt the scene of many interesting discussions. 
 
 The mention of these clubs brings up the topic of secret 
 societies, a great feature of American social organisation. 
 We must remember that the old principle of contiguity 
 
 * According- to the Press in 1908-9, the States imported diamonds 
 worth 48,000,000 dollars.
 
 210 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 has almost ceased to be a unifying principle in modern 
 society. In America it means hardly anything, even in 
 trade. The supply of all ordinary articles is in the hands 
 of large central firms, local shops are nothing like as 
 important as they are in England. Suburbs consist of 
 miles and miles of residences, the tenants of which are 
 scarcely organised on any local principle.* Swift means 
 of locomotion carry them off for various purposes to 
 centres remote from their residences. These centres may 
 be churches, or caucuses, but in many cases they are the 
 gatherings of secret societies. The full list of these I 
 could net pretend to give ; they are probably headed by 
 the Masons, but there are many other bodies, with 
 hundreds of thousands of members. Almost all of them 
 are open to men only, some to women only; I do not 
 recollect if any (except temperance societies) are open to 
 both sexes. Some of them exist for specific purposes, 
 such as the furtherance of agricultural interests, but most 
 are ostensibly associations for good fellowship. It 
 surprises me to learn, what is apparently the case, that 
 they have nothing to do with politics. j The Roman 
 Church forbids its members to join them ; it has, of 
 course, social and temperance societies under its own 
 direction. The general societies may yet be destined to 
 
 * Except for political purposes, which thus bring- together a crowd of 
 strangers. 
 
 >The Masons did at one time play a part in politics, but this was a 
 passing phase. The Ka Klux Klan was an organisation of the Southern 
 whites after the war, designed to repress the negroes.
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 211 
 
 develop into political and social forces. Should the 
 feminist campaign irritate men, should the Church of 
 Rome take up arms against republican institutions, such 
 a consequence may follow. 
 
 A special variety of the secret societies is the Greek 
 letter fraternities, founded in American Colleges. These 
 bodies, dating from the last generation, are simply social 
 clubs, which extend their numbers, unlike the Masons, 
 by invitation to desirable members. They take two or 
 more Greek letters for their motto, which letters stand 
 for certain words, supposed to be known only to initiates ; 
 thus the Delta Upsilon fraternity has for its motto 
 Dikaia Hypotheka " Just Foundations." Branches of 
 each fraternity exist in almost every large college, and 
 they form a bond between present and past students. 
 They have often funds and fine buildings at their com- 
 mand; they are well managed, and perhaps the only 
 thing that can be said against them is that the wealthy 
 fraternities have begun to cultivate a spirit of social 
 exclusiveness. In schools, however, similar bodies have 
 sometimes developed unpleasant features, such as secret 
 vice, and it is a question if they should not be forbidden. 
 
 American manners strike me as more formal than 
 English in every grade of society. The well-to-do classes 
 pay great attention to etiquette; the tone of the back- 
 woods, if ever it pervaded these circles, has vanished from 
 them. I think in the past social intercourse in their ranks
 
 212 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 has very happily combined a cordial with a dignified 
 manner. The future may perhaps see some of their 
 members imitate the frigid and inaccessible manners of 
 England, while others, by midnight vagaries in New 
 York, spread distorted ideas of America. 
 
 One charge to be brought against the world of fashion 
 is its love of personal advertisement. The newspapers 
 prey on this and minister the most fulsome dishes to their 
 appetite. There is, for example, in California a weekly, 
 called The Taller, really a literary advertisement of the 
 hotels, which chronicles the guests at all these sumptuous 
 hostelries of the West. It empties the butter-boat over 
 each and all of them in the most astounding way, crying 
 up the ladies' good looks, their dresses, their hospitality 
 and their accomplishments, till one would think the most 
 empty-headed amongst them would be thoroughly vexed 
 and ashamed.* Apparently, however, they are all 
 flattered and delighted. Otherwise, presumably, they 
 need only complain to the managers of their hotels to 
 have the publication stopped. It appears to me that in 
 this connection one finds the only vulgarity in America. 
 What this elusive quality consists in, no philosopher can 
 really say, any more than he can answer the old ques- 
 tion, " What is a gentleman?" Vulgarity is not mere 
 
 *cp. the Del Monte Weekly : " Another very charming guest recently 
 was Mrs. Z.C.V., a very beautiful little bride, who, with Mr. Z.C.V., 
 spent part of her honeymoon at the Hotel Del Monte. Mrs. V.'s un- 
 usually perfect features and glorious colouring was (sic) enhanced by 
 perfect gowns and attracted much attention.
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 213 
 
 coarseness ; it is a mixture of coarseness, ostentation and 
 vanity, and, as everybody knows, may accompany wealth 
 and poverty. In its British form, we must, I think, add 
 some ingredient of arrogance, a desire to humble others, 
 and not improbably snobbery, or a cringing to birth. 
 The absence of these ingredients may explain why I feel 
 reluctant to recognise true vulgarity in America, though, 
 certainly, national vanity may be found there together 
 with a coarse judgment. Manners and speech, however, 
 do not separate classes as much as they do in England, 
 servility and arrogance are absent, hence one is never 
 offended in quite the same way as good taste is offended 
 by vulgarity in England. The only exception to this rule 
 is in contact with the parvenu rich, whose manners do too 
 often strike the familiar note. 
 
 American sentiment in every class pays great attention 
 to dress. Amongst the poorest people you will not see 
 the dirt and rags of England ; when I landed there I was 
 struck by the unfavourable impression any American 
 would receive from the street children of Liverpool. The 
 working classes do not wear the rough corduroys of 
 England. They would not like to carry a sort of class 
 badge, nor to wear off duty the dirty clothes of their 
 calling. Their general plan is to dress like other citizens, 
 and to wear cotton overalls at work, which can be thrown 
 off when they go home, and can also be washed when 
 they need it. (This is one reason why one seems to see
 
 2i 4 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 so few of the horny-handed class about). People of 
 means take great interest in the subject of dress: one 
 gathers their views from the psychological advertise- 
 ments: "It's a social obligation, this looking every 
 inch a gentleman." Tailors' views differ slightly from 
 those of Europe; a skilled eye can distinguish an 
 American suit or hat from one of Europe. They are not, 
 however, too enlightened ! As for ladies' hats and 
 dresses, it appears American ladies are very anxious to 
 bring them over from Paris, though whether price or 
 fashion is the main consideration I do not know. 
 
 In care of the person also I think America is ahead of 
 England. The habit of bathing extends further down 
 the social scale, and the schools, as I have said, actually 
 teach it. The attentions of the dentist are appreciated by 
 all ranks. The cult of beauty is practised with sufficient 
 diligence by the women, and they seem to value quite as 
 much as the decadent races of Europe those aids to 
 Nature which used to be known as wigs and pomades, 
 and are now described as transformations and facial 
 creams. 
 
 A word may be added regarding the " American 
 accent." As known to Europe of the past this was the 
 accent of the Yankee, whose drawling nasal intonation so 
 many people in England have tried unsuccessfully to 
 imitate. Where it came from, nobody seems to know. 
 The cold winters of America, and the prevalence of
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 215 
 
 catarrh have been blamed for it, but the history of its 
 origin must for ever remain obscure like the history 
 of its disappearance. For it is certainly disappearing. 
 Mediaeval America stood up for it valiantly, in 
 the face of English ridicule, but I imagine that 
 in its extreme forms it was never much admired in 
 the cultivated circles of Boston, and a few years ago it 
 began quietly to decline. Probably, as the years go by, 
 this " American accent " will mould itself into something 
 which English ears will rather welcome than dislike, just 
 as they welcome at the present day a cultivated Scotch 
 accent. Nobody really wants a dead level of intonation 
 amongst all the English-speaking peoples. There are, 
 of course, nowadays other varieties of " American 
 accent" besides the New England: one of them, least 
 admired, is that of Chicago. The Chicago schools are 
 making attempts to improve it, and no doubt their efforts, 
 combining with other forces, will eventually purify it 
 into an agreeable form. I may note as one of its 
 peculiarities a strong tendency to omit the middle con- 
 sonants of words, turning, for example, " dollar " into 
 " do'ar." It is curious that the large admixture of non- 
 English-speaking peoples has not perceptibly affected 
 the accent or idiom of the country.
 
 XI 
 
 Amusements 
 
 Not many years have passed since a distinguished New 
 Englander wrote of his countrymen : " Amusement, 
 good or bad, remains to the last an external addition to 
 the average American's life." If this was true when he 
 wrote it, how great is the change that these few years 
 have witnessed ! There is not a country in the world now 
 
 more infected with the craze for amusements than 
 America. 
 
 Of some I have written already, of baseball, for 
 example. It is a pure amusement, and has none of those 
 pretensions which cricket makes to forming character 
 and bringing classes together. Profit and loss considera- 
 tions loom largely in connection with it. Prominent 
 players make over ten thousand dollars a year; its 
 followers divide their thoughts between their betting 
 accounts and their local pride. The same may be said, I 
 suppose, of trotting matches, an old institution of the 
 country. I did not witness one; they are confined to 
 certain localities, and no doubt the motor car threatens 
 their future. As for motor car races and motor boat races,
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 and yacht races and aviation meetings, I need not write 
 of them; the world hears enough about them from the 
 newspapers. 
 
 I feel moved, however, to digress awhile on the subject 
 of pugilism, for during my visit to the States the great 
 Jefferies-Johnson contest took place. This amusement, 
 as we know, is an old English one, and in its old English 
 form was uncongenial to the temper of the States. The 
 heroes of the ring practised no scientific art like the 
 ju-jitsu of Japan ; they pounded each other for twenty or 
 thirty rounds till one of them gave in. The quality dis- 
 played was endurance more than anything else, a quality 
 which has always interested English people* much more 
 than Americans. Hence the old prize fight, I believe, 
 did not flourish across the Atlantic, and pugilism only 
 became popular there of recent years, when it took a new 
 turn. With the introduction of gloves it became less 
 bloody, but the knock-out blow made it much livelier. 
 At once it spread to America, and her citizens proceeded 
 to show the way to the Old World. Witness the follow- 
 ing passage from the San Francisco Call, which appeared 
 during my stay there: " Sam Langford fought for the 
 moving picture machines for seven rounds this evening 
 in his scheduled long scrap with Jim F. . Langford 
 
 *The author of Tom Brown's Schooldays, describing the paperchase, 
 speaks of " the delight of holding out against something, of not giving 
 in " as the charm of a paper chase. Curiously enough, Mr. G. B. Shaw, 
 making his Irish prepossessions the standard of everything, declares an 
 old-fashioned prize fight a dull amusement.
 
 218 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 broke F.'s nose in the second round and broke his left 
 jaw in the third round, but his natural gameness kept 
 him going till he was literally half beaten to death." 
 These displays are not allowed in every city in America. 
 In some places a nice distinction is drawn between a 
 sparring exhibition and a prize fight, the amount of the 
 prize determining the character of the show, and " prize 
 fights " being forbidden. 
 
 Well, some time before my arrival the championship 
 of the world was claimed by the dusky hero, Johnson, 
 and certain patrons of the ring induced the great Jefferies 
 to leave his farm and train once more and fight him. 
 What were their motives ? Some people (after the event) 
 said they knew all along Johnson must win, and they 
 meant to make their fortunes by betting against Jefferies. 
 The promised encounter soon attracted great attention, 
 not only on account of its racial aspect, but because it 
 really was, on physical grounds, very interesting. Both 
 men were giants, Jefferies had never been beaten, and the 
 great question was, could he " come back ?" There was 
 also the question of the negro's moral courage. All these 
 questions the newspapers began, months before the con- 
 test, to discuss at length, devoting not merely columns 
 but whole sheets to them. The noise and rumour spread 
 to Europe, and it was reported by the veracious press that 
 Lord Rosebery and a shipload of peers were coming over 
 for the fray. I forget what their seats were to cost them
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 219 
 
 or how many hundreds of thousands of dollars the victor 
 and the promoters were to share. Respectable Americans 
 grew very much annoyed, and even the papers, while 
 publishing full page portraits of the antagonists, and 
 yards of figures about their muscles and special numbers 
 of impressions about their chances, did at the same time 
 in their leaders declare the whole thing ought to be 
 stopped. Eventually, after the arena had been built, 
 stopped it was, as far as San Francisco was concerned, by 
 order of the Mayor, but the promoters, undaunted, flew 
 to Nevada and put things in motion there. Up to the last 
 moment the papers predicted the success of Jefferies, 
 attributing his ill-temper and his gloomy silence to his 
 " primordial " nature. Johnson had few friends, but he 
 did not fail to make himself heard and promised every- 
 one, in his breezy way, to " bring de bacon home." 
 This, of course, in the decisive hour, he did. The fight 
 was a mere farce unaccountably so considering Jefferies' 
 real eminence in the ring. While it went on, the niggers 
 held prayer meetings, and white enthusiasts sat watching 
 its progress by special wire, but the issue was not long 
 doubtful. In the next few days the papers were busy with 
 Johnson's return home, his affectionate greetings to his 
 old mother, and the bloody racial riots which broke out 
 all over the South and elsewhere. 
 
 Many Americans felt that the Fourth of July and the 
 good name of their country were soiled by these events, 
 
 15
 
 220 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 and there was a movement to have such contests put 
 down. Moving pictures of the fight were forbidden in all 
 cities of the East.* Unfortunately this impulse died 
 away. Prize fights continued and continue. It is not 
 long since I saw in the American press a dreadful account 
 of one between women. 
 
 There is a paradoxical contrast between the real 
 humanity of America and the brutality of many of its 
 recreations. American football is notorious. I did not 
 see anything of it, but college magazines, anticipating 
 the football season, were full of discussions how its 
 brutality could be diminished. The adoption of the 
 English game was sometimes supported. Curiously 
 enough, it was at the Berkeley University in San Fran- 
 cisco, in the prize fighting West, that I saw an attempt 
 at the English game. 
 
 Throughout American athletics the result and the 
 record count for more in athletics than they do in 
 England even in England of to-day, when the old- 
 fashioned idea of sport is so much undermined. Sport is 
 a very artificial affair. You pretend you want to beat 
 someone in order to have the pleasure of fighting him. 
 When the fight is over you forget that you ever wanted 
 to beat him. The American temper is too earnest, pos- 
 sibly too honest, to enter easily into the restrictions of 
 sport. 
 
 * English critics imagined that this was because a negro won. But 
 here they were wrong.
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 221 
 
 The popular amusements of America may very well be 
 witnessed on the beach near Boston or at Coney Island, 
 New York; I spent more than one day at these resorts. 
 Throughout the summer, week day and Sunday, they are 
 crowded with inconceivable crowds; Coney Island is 
 visited sometimes by a quarter of a million people in one 
 day. They bathe in the summer sea ; they sit chatting on 
 the sand, and amuse themselves with the shows and 
 entertainments. When I was there I was struck with the 
 good order, good humour, cleanliness and sobriety 
 visible. No liquor is sold on the Boston (Revere) Beach ; 
 if I remember rightly, none is sold at Coney Island. 
 There was some gambling until lately, and some traces of 
 indecency, but a strong Mayor, Mr. Gay nor, repressed 
 all this. So far as frivolity is lawful for men, Coney 
 Island may be viewed without censure. One might sigh 
 over the countless millions of dollars wasted there, and 
 the ages of time that might have been filled with higher 
 thoughts, but at least drunkenness, ribaldry and horse- 
 play seemed to be absent. As for the shows, they were 
 astonishingly good. There was a troupe of villagers 
 from Borneo, blowing darts from sampans; next to them 
 a panorama of the Creation. This strange revival of a 
 religious drama, in the midst of that pagan crowd, was 
 quite impressive. It took place in a huge darkened 
 theatre; chaos, the dawn of light and the gathering of 
 the waters were effectively represented, and a showman
 
 222 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 with a sonorous voice read passages from Genesis, a text 
 otherwise (in all probability) quite unknown to the 
 audience. Adam and Eve appeared, not indeed in the 
 garb of innocence, but sticking out of bushes, if I 
 remember right. They were finally driven forth with 
 thunder and lightning effects, and the show concluded. 
 Outside you found fortune tellers, professional draft 
 players, and artificial babies. There is a company in 
 America which supplies the machinery necessary to 
 bring up infants prematurely born. To advertise this 
 machinery they keep exhibitions going at places like 
 Coney Island, where the unfortunates are nursed for 
 nothing. The public are admitted for a small charge, 
 and perceive the babies each lying in a little case. They 
 are beautifully dressed, and the arrangements for warm- 
 ing, ventilating and feeding them are explained by a 
 hospital nurse. O land of paradox ! So prodigal of life 
 and so thrifty of it ! Where the sex problem is the one 
 thing that parents, pastors and schoolmasters dare not 
 expound to children, and school boys and school girls 
 may nevertheless for five cents stare at the ante-natal 
 slumbers from which they have but just awakened them- 
 selves.* 
 
 America, by long tradition, is the land of circuses. 
 Who has not heard of Phineas T. Barnum ? I mention 
 
 * As I write, comes the news that a fire has destroyed the Dreamland 
 of Coney Island.
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 223 
 
 his name with respect. Take him all in all he was a man ; 
 honest, with all his dodges, good humoured, unwearied, 
 a genius in his own line, and a servant of the public. He 
 belonged to mediaeval America, and he helped to revolu- 
 tionise it; he was one of those who taught America to 
 amuse herself ; whenever he entered a town, he invited the 
 clergy to his show and begged them to mention anything 
 they would like to see altered. Of course there never 
 was anything to object to except the whole thing; and 
 the clergy were manoeuvred into supporting circuses. 
 Circuses nowadays, like other things, have passed under 
 the control of a trust, and, I believe, practically all belong 
 to one firm. They are run on the gigantic scale ; the tent 
 holds ten thousand people, and three rings of performers 
 are kept going at once. The train of followers is enor- 
 mous; and I understand it includes a qualified doctor, a 
 lawyer and a clergyman. 
 
 The most surprising thing to be witnessed is no doubt 
 the animal performances, in which branch America leads 
 the world. The national faith in education views even 
 animals hopefully ; and the attainments of the trained 
 animals are really stupefying. Can I ever forget the 
 elephant orchestra? or the seals which rode round the 
 ring on horseback, tossing torches to each other ? Or the 
 chimpanzees ? The lady chimpanzee threaded a needle, 
 and sewed a patch on her clothes; the gentleman lit a 
 cigarette and smoked it, and when he went to bed,
 
 224 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 in deference to the feeling of the audience, he abstained 
 from taking his trousers off. 
 
 In Philadelphia I had the pleasure of meeting 
 Professor Garner, whose self-denying labours in explor- 
 ing the language of monkeys have become known to the 
 world. His views are far more cautious than some of the 
 papers make out, and his real service to science consists 
 in establishing the negative but tame conclusion that 
 chimpanzees cannot pick up the use of language from 
 man. I witnessed his long and patient attempts to make 
 a chimpanzee understand which compartment of a box to 
 open. The poor creature seemed to realise that there she 
 was listening to a command which she could not under- 
 stand, and the perplexity on her face was quite pathetic. 
 She kept looking from Prof. Garner to the box and back 
 again, but it ended in nothing, and we must conclude 
 that the eternal laws forbid monkeys to learn to talk. 
 
 This, however, is by the way ; I was writing of amuse- 
 ments. One may pass from the circus and the beach to 
 the amusements of educated people, among which one 
 may reckon travel. A love of travel is thoroughly 
 characteristic of the country, and the habit is growing. 
 It takes many people to Europe, for curiosity about 
 Europe is growing, and a European trip is not as expen- 
 sive as it looks. The lower prices in Europe make up 
 for the expense of the voyage ; and one sometimes for- 
 gets that in any case Liverpool is nearer to New York
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 225 
 
 than San Francisco is. Americans are observant 
 travellers, especially as regards the details of manners. 
 Those who come from the educational profession often 
 study the history of countries they visit, but naturally 
 under-estimate the extent of study needed to master it. 
 Their great fault is, of course, haste, which is forced on 
 many by want of time and means. Perhaps the greater 
 part of American travellers in Europe are really people 
 of small means who have saved up just enough for the 
 trip. This may explain the fact that two charges are 
 levelled against American travellers, one of prodigality, 
 the other of parsimony. Both in a measure are true, 
 but parsimony is not characteristic of the country, and 
 may be accounted for in travellers by circumstances. 
 
 One may add that the vogue of European travel takes 
 a great deal of money out of America. Other circum- 
 stances also do this, such as the marriage of heiresses to 
 English and Continental noblemen and the habit formed 
 by Italians of sending money to Italy. Altogether 
 many millions of dollars vanish in these ways every 
 year, and America, without seeing exactly how to pre- 
 vent this, is feeling rather sore about it.
 
 XII 
 
 Literature. Art 
 
 In offering the reader a brief retrospect of American 
 literature, I propose to take as a special standpoint the 
 question, How far has America struck a note of her own 
 in literature? How far has she used her own materials 
 to portray herself? Does the spirit of old scenes live 
 on the pages of her books? If the answer to this 
 question is in some ways disappointing, we must re- 
 member that very little life is left to us anywhere in lite- 
 rature, and the most interesting races and epochs and 
 social orders have often passed away without record. 
 
 Books on the Indians of any interest are mostly scien- 
 tific; literature about them is either poor or dyed in false 
 colours not, indeed, that false colours rob literature of 
 its right to exist; good literature is seldom veracious. 
 Fenimore Cooper is not devoid of force when he is 
 writing about Indians; elsewhere, he is so tedious that 
 he has ceased to be read. Longfellow's Hiawatha be- 
 longs to the class of Virgil's Pastorals. It tells us 
 nothing about the Indians, yet it is beautiful and unique
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 227 
 
 the only white man's poem inspired by the savage. His 
 Courtship of Miles Standish is likewise literature and a 
 fair picture of old times as a modern sees them. Long- 
 fellow seems to me a poet of higher powers than is 
 recognised at this moment. He is the finest interpreter 
 of childhood in English, and he has the rare gift of per- 
 suading the muses to help simple Christianity and 
 commonplace morals. Though he has done his best for 
 American traditions, he is not typically American; his 
 pages do not reflect American scenery or ideals, it is 
 doubtful if he should be called by the equivocal name of 
 "patriot." " The Bells of Mazatlan," his last lines, 
 fairly represents his feeling; he dismisses the Spanish 
 epoch not unkindly, and closes 
 
 " The whole world moves into light." 
 " The whole world " not alone America. 
 
 Early Puritan America has its record in the works of 
 Cotton and Increase Mather; the Colonial period has 
 many such materials, gradually unearthed and printed 
 of late years. Byod's Dividing Line I have mentioned 
 elsewhere. It seems to me easier from such books to 
 picture early America than it is to reconstruct in the 
 same way old England. Good biographies of indi- 
 viduals are available for those who look for them, right 
 through American history. On the other hand, few 
 purely imaginative works survive from mediaeval 
 America. The greatest of them as the world has
 
 228 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 judged is also the last of the epoch, Uncle Tom's 
 Cabin. Like all such books, it may have faults of 
 colouring, but they arise from omissions rather than 
 from any other defect. The characters are all in the 
 highest degree convincing; the story is well told, well 
 proportioned, and maintains its interest. In the field of 
 literature it seems to me the greatest work of art America 
 has produced, and it is at least good evidence of the feel- 
 ings with which the North viewed slavery. 
 
 The Wild West of America has its chronicles, and 
 there are excellent lives of men like Kit Carson. Col. 
 Inman and others have produced notable memoirs. But 
 literature based on these scenes is mostly poor. Bret 
 Harte's tales, to give them their highest praise, are like 
 Dibdin's sea songs; they are literature, but contain too 
 many spurious elements; America has not passed be- 
 yond the Old World in the task of making literature 
 true to life. The one great writer who has really seen 
 this and tried to achieve the impossible is Walt Whit- 
 man. His vogue is now over; one seldom finds an 
 American who cares for him, and some are rather vexed 
 that foreigners take so much interest in him. I never- 
 theless still admire him as a seer and a poet, one who 
 might have been the morning star of a new Refor- 
 mation. He proposed " to see life steadily and see it 
 whole," avoiding neither its good nor its evil, and 
 rejecting equally the romantic and the realist illusions.
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 229 
 
 Admitting all its horrors and failure, he never lost his 
 belief in the average man, and his works are one long 
 appeal to this average man to trust and love his fellows. 
 This trust and love, about which we hesitate so much, 
 are really born in every human heart, and Walt Whit- 
 man believes that with a little prompting every one will 
 be ready to taste their sweetness. It is his mission to 
 America, and America's mission to the world to supply 
 this prompting, and, still more, by lives actually lived to 
 set forth and show the fruits of the fraternal spirit. 
 There is certainly no spread-eaglism in Walt Whit- 
 man, and he is far from contemning Europe, but his 
 eyes are fixed on the glowing future. No doubt, in his 
 day, the day of Western expansion, he must have had 
 sympathisers, and I think it is no credit to his country 
 that men have failed to understand and value him.* 
 Probably the best excuse for them is that Whitman 
 associates himself with no religious views, and all 
 serious thought in America, if not definitely atheistic, is 
 definitely religious. Accordingly, it has not availed 
 Whitman that he preached a spiritual conception of 
 democracy. His rejection of art as a worn-out garment, 
 like feudalism, has also with more justice been found 
 premature, and both Philistines and men of culture may 
 
 * Richardson's Primer of American Literature (1889, 5510 thousand) : 
 " The ' upward look ' is conspicuously absent from Whitman's verse. 
 The world's great poets have been morally in advance of their times^; 
 Whitman lags behind the average sentiment of his day and his country." 
 Alas!
 
 230 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 be pardoned for rinding his catalogues dull. Neverthe- 
 less here, too, a passionate and truly American 
 Honesty is to blame, and Americans should judge them 
 sympathetically. 
 
 It is curious that the great Civil War has left so little 
 mark in literature. One or two poems, (" Barbara 
 Frietchie,") deserve a moment's notice, yet neither in 
 history nor romance is there anything worthy of the 
 struggle. Life since the war is reflected in many novels 
 none of which I have read ; it is perhaps enough to say 
 that the world, which seldom fails to find out good 
 things, has not thought much of them. No doubt 
 American literature long suffered from the piracy per- 
 mitted by the copyright laws. Protectionist America 
 here protected the foreigner, and native literature was 
 depressed by the unequal struggle with Europe. 
 
 In historical writing America has sufficiently 
 honoured her own origins, and the names of Prescott 
 and Motley are familiar on both sides of the Atlantic. 
 Bancroft is too wordy to please the present age, and to- 
 gether with other early historians has somewhat dropped 
 out of sight. Religion and philosophy have produced 
 little that can be called literature, but in morals we have 
 a sort of American Bacon, Benjamin Franklin, whose 
 humour and good sense and shrewd remarks on life are 
 still justly admired. He gives us a pleasant glimpse of 
 the homely New England he lived in. He was also one
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 231 
 
 of the earliest of his country's humourists, and his name 
 may introduce the topic of American humour. 
 
 I wish some one better qualified than myself were 
 writing its history, for I feel that it is America's chief 
 contribution to literature, and its history is obscure. 
 Certainly one seems to trace it continuously from early 
 times, even amongst the Pilgrim Fathers. The Rev. 
 John White, of Scrooby, was "grave, without morose- 
 ness, who would willingly contribute his shot of 
 facetiousness on any just occasion." Later on (1680) 
 the Rev. Nathaniel Ward, denouncing ungodliness in 
 female attire, described a certain lady as "the epitome 
 of nothing, fitter to be kicked, if she were a kickable 
 substance, than to be humoured or honoured." About 
 the same date Judge Sewall that Pepys of New 
 England describing one of his visits to his mistress, 
 writes : "I got my chair in place, had some converse, 
 but very cold and indifferent to what it was before. 
 Asked her to acquit me of Rudeness if I drew off her 
 glove. Enquiring the reason, told her it was great odds 
 between handling a dead Goat and a living lady. Got it 
 off." Many jests of Franklin's are recorded; perhaps 
 none better than his advice to his comrades to band 
 together, for, " if they did not all hang together, they 
 would all hang separately." Franklin's humour, in- 
 fused into business, made the Sam Slick of Judge Hali- 
 burton ; and it spread also among people of all classes
 
 232 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 and became the typical American humour. Many 
 classes of people did not sympathise with it; fervent 
 patriotism of the old type disclaimed it, and religion 
 must in the main have disliked it. American humour 
 is sunny; it is at the very opposite pole from Jonathan 
 Edward's Theology. I know not whether to call it a 
 reaction from such theology, certainly it long continued 
 as an opposite in the American character. Sometimes, 
 too, we find humour and religion in the same character; 
 in Lincoln, for example, who won his way largely by 
 his shrewd but kindly jokes. George Washington 
 was presumably too truthful to be a humourist at least I 
 recall no jest of his. Exaggeration has always been a 
 feature of American humour, for example: 
 
 " He was a weary, thin, and sallow-looking Ameri- 
 can, who had never been so far west before, and when 
 he struck Carson City he hailed the first native he met. 
 
 "Can you tell me, sir, if there are any mineral 
 springs about here?" 
 
 11 From the east?" asked the westerner. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Come here fer yer health ?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 ' Tried everything, I suppose?" 
 "Yes." 
 
 ' Tried sulphur springs?"
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 233 
 
 "Yes. Didn't help me a bit." 
 
 " Been to Arkansas?" 
 
 " Yes, and everywhere else." 
 
 " What kind of water are you looking for now ?" 
 
 " Well, no kind in particular. I was told, though, 
 that I'd find a variety of springs out here." 
 
 " Going to locate?" 
 
 "That depends." 
 
 " Well, stranger, I have got just what you want. 
 A vacant lot in the best part of the city. Finest iron 
 springs in the country. Go and see for yourself." 
 
 "But how do you know it's iron?" queried the 
 easterner. 
 
 " Well, pardner, I drove my horse through it, and he 
 came out with iron shoes on his feet. And that ain't 
 all. I drove some pigs down there to drink. They 
 turned into pig iron, and I sold them to the iron 
 foundry. Just what you want. For sale, cheap. 
 Why, halloa ! Wliat's the matter ?" 
 
 The weary easterner had turned abruptly and was 
 walking off up the road. San Francisco Chronicle. 
 
 In spite, however, of a general love of humour, 
 America had no comic paper till 1876. On the other 
 hand, her serious papers published columns of jokes, as 
 they do to-day, and amongst their leading articles are 
 generally a few humourous paragraphs. This is still the
 
 334 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 case with the gravest journals, and I think myself the 
 happiest efforts of American humour are to be found 
 here. The professed comic papers are disappointing; 
 they lack the spontaneity which is essential to the 
 American joke, and they have not the depth of European 
 humour. With us in Europe there is an after-thought 
 of malice or melancholy in almost all our humour; it is 
 often the refuge of disappointment, and its laughter is 
 one "that maketh not glad the heart." Not so in 
 America ; the American jest is blithe and generous, and 
 almost disproves the view of Hobbes that laughter is a 
 sudden glory to ourselves, arising from the infirmity of 
 others. The infirmity is so lightly handled that it almost 
 disappears. Whose feelings are hurt here? 
 
 PLAYING FOR SAFETY. 
 
 ' Why don't you move up the aisle?" roared the 
 incensed conductor on the Cedar line. " Yes, I mean 
 you ! There's lots of vacant room between you and 
 the lady." 
 
 The little man with the sandy moustache unsteadily 
 shook his head. 
 
 "All the room tha'ss there will sthay there," he 
 called back rather thickly. " I know when I'm well 
 off, besh your life." 
 
 " Nothing's going to hurt you," cried the con- 
 ductor.
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 235 
 
 " Nothing's going to hurt me," the little man 
 repeated. " Whash you call those four hatpins?" 
 And he pointed with an unsteady finger at the 
 woman's hat. 
 
 Of course there were only two pins, but they were 
 long enough to scare a much braver man. Cleveland 
 Plain 
 
 Some people think American humour is declining; and 
 perhaps the troubles of recent years are beginning to 
 sadden life, but this was not yet certain. Of course, all 
 things when they reach their climax tend to vanish, and 
 perhaps the death of Mark Twain, which occurred when 
 I was in Chicago, marks the close of an epoch. I heard 
 Dr. Gunsaulus preach a sermon in his memory, to five 
 thousand auditors in the Chicago Auditorium ; of course 
 he glorified humour and claimed Christ as the greatest 
 of all humourists. It was not very convincing. When 
 anything in art or life is glorified in this way, we may 
 conclude that its best days are over. 
 
 Looking round the literary field in America to-day, 
 the following points seem to strike one. As in Europe, 
 many excellent monographs are appearing, chiefly on 
 historical subjects, but there are no eminent writers. 
 Perhaps this is part of the general truth that we live in 
 an age of science rather than literature. There are no 
 great poets, but there is a steady flow of excellent verse, 
 
 16
 
 236 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 often rising into real poetry. This verse is often found 
 in the magazines of freak religions, and one feels that at 
 any time from some unexpected quarter a great poet or a 
 group of great poets might emerge. The future must 
 prove this. For the present, apart from this lingering 
 love of poetry, the best feature of the time is the appre- 
 ciation, amongst those who do read, of careful and 
 scholarly style. This has to be recognised, though 
 amongst the semi-educated the old fault of verbosity is 
 common enough. The same freak religions that I have 
 spoken of display it amazingly. I do not think, how- 
 ever, that America is by any means a reading country. 
 The men, certainly, do not read much ; their education 
 and their occupation, as we shall see, discourage it. 
 Women read comparatively more than men ; but the 
 reading time of almost all classes is filched from them by 
 journals and magazines. These magazines deserve in 
 their own way much praise. They are not only very 
 cheap, (for they live by their advertisements), and very 
 well printed and illustrated, but very educative. It is 
 they rather than the papers which explain the political 
 situation and the various programmes of reform which 
 lie before the country. I take from a magazine article 
 the following summary of topics lately discussed in 
 magazine articles : 
 
 The Conservation of the Nation's Timber and 
 Water Power.
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 237 
 
 Better Tenements. 
 
 Improved Conditions in Mines. 
 
 Fresh-air Campaigns. 
 
 Education in Tuberculosis and Other Diseases. 
 
 War on Flies and Other Insect Pests. 
 
 Pure Food. 
 
 Doped Medicines. 
 
 White Slavery. 
 
 Workmen's Compensation. 
 
 City Government. 
 
 Rescue of Poor Children. 
 
 Juvenile Courts. 
 
 Agricultural Improvements. 
 
 Police Problems. 
 
 Ocean Commerce. 
 
 The only fault one can find with the magazines is 
 their sensationalism and the want of continuity in their 
 efforts. These are serious drawbacks to their usefulness 
 in a country where progress is effected sometimes by 
 leaps and bounds and sometimes merely by fits and 
 starts. 
 
 The magazines of America are a less important topic 
 than the newspapers, which took me by surprise in many 
 ways. First of all in their price ; in the west you seldom 
 find a paper under five cents. In the East they are 
 cheaper, two cents, being the lowest I remember. The
 
 23 8 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 value received in print and paper is liberal, and every 
 journal has a Sunday number of incredible size. I 
 think 5 cents, is all this Sunday number costs, and it will 
 take you the whole of Sunday to read it. If you read 
 the advertisements, it would take you the rest of the 
 week. I cannot here do justice to the Sunday number, 
 with its comic supplement, and its fashion supplement, 
 and its sporting supplement, and its rousing articles on 
 vice and crime; I just confine myself to the ordinary 
 weekday paper, so bewildering and tantalising to the 
 European visitor. The following are some of its 
 features. 
 
 No arrangement of news. Police court reports, 
 facetiae, and foreign intelligence follow each other in 
 disconnected scraps, interspersed with advertisements; 
 there is nothing to guide you ; if you want the news on 
 any particular topic you must read the whole paper 
 including many advertisements from end to end. This 
 is a plan with some merits of its own ; I cannot say so 
 much for the absence of continuity between the columns 
 on the same page. When you reach the bottom of a 
 column you are briefly bidden to turn to, say, page 5, 
 where, somewhere, you will find the rest of your subject. 
 Type is no guide to the importance of news ; the most 
 trivial incidents are honoured with enormous headlines. 
 The headlines themselves epitomise the paper; you need 
 not read the paper at all if you are in a hurry.
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 239 
 
 What you get to read does not include political 
 speeches or any regular report of political assemblies. 
 Nor does it include long conservative reports of any- 
 thing. There are no such reports of trials as English 
 papers aim at, reports where the wfiole of the evidence is 
 either printed verbatim or summarised for the reader to 
 reflect on. American papers give only little dramatic 
 incidents and devote their space to impressionist pictures 
 of the scene. In this way injury is inflicted on the 
 mental habits of the public. They are not trained to 
 demand a precis of the relevant facts before judging a 
 case, a training which the English press really gives by 
 its solid reports of all trials and enquiries. American 
 papers, moreover, give often great prominence to a topic 
 one day and dismiss it the day following without 
 notice. You read on Tuesday of a " Fierce Racial 
 Riot " in some Southern State proceeding and develop- 
 ing ; on Wednesday you try to keep track of it, but it is 
 already lost to view. These habits of the American 
 paper tend to make its readers inaccurate, fitful, and 
 forgetful. 
 
 It is pleasant, however, to record some points in its 
 favour. Its enterprise is real and so well known that I 
 need hardly dwell on it. This enterprise it willingly 
 exerts on behalf of good causes, and the world at large 
 hardly credits it with this. People hear of the Yellow 
 Press, and they know it has circulated lies about Cuba,
 
 2 4 o AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 about England, and other bugbears, but they hardly 
 know that the American press has fought often and well 
 for good causes. At the present day it is a strong ally of 
 the demand for political reform. I have wondered at 
 this, and have surmised that possibly the press is not 
 very influential, and that capital has not found it worth 
 while to corrupt it. Though instances may be cited of 
 capitalists and politicians controlling papers, this con- 
 clusion is probably on the whole correct, but in any case 
 the American press does in the main support the public 
 demand for purer politics. And its brief leaders are 
 generally sober and sensible ; one wishes often they were 
 longer and more educative. Of course, there are some 
 papers, like the Boston Transcript, which are more solid 
 and careful than the average, but it is of the average I 
 write, and the tourist through America will probably 
 find them as I have written of them. 
 
 It must, unfortunately, be added that an excessive love 
 of the picturesque leads often to an artistic handling of 
 the truth. I will illustrate this by relating a personal 
 experience, the only one in which my obscure move- 
 ments attracted the notice of a reporter. It took place in 
 a certain city, of which I will only say that it is the 
 capital of a state, one of the less important States of the 
 Union. A reporter of the local paper found me out 
 there, and being struck with the immense orb of my 
 wanderings (for Americans respect travellers), he
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 241 
 
 proposed that we should visit the Governor to- 
 gether. This accordingly we did; nothing much 
 occurred in the interview, but it furnished material 
 for a column in the paper next day. My friend the 
 reporter made me the mouthpiece of some views about 
 Pullman cars, which are popular in America, and related 
 that after leaving tHe Governor I exclaimed, " What a 
 splendid man Governor X is, and how fortunate the 
 State of P.Q. is to have such a Governor !" This was 
 entirely his own invention, but, as he sent me a copy of 
 the paper himself, I conceived that I was not meant to 
 take offence. I draw the moral, however, that American 
 papers are not to be taken too seriously.* 
 
 One may add that a vast amount of their space is taken 
 up with personal items. I do not think these are treated 
 in an ill-natured way, but they are certainly not reliable. 
 Considering, however, that libel actions seem to be un- 
 known the papers on the whole are merciful, and one 
 seems to trace, since Dickens' day, an improvement in 
 the tone of their personalities. 
 
 The European is disconcerted by the extremely small 
 amount of European news supplied. Only a few of the 
 best papers pay regular attention to Europe, and the 
 
 *The papers gravely published a telegram from Rome stating that 
 the Vatican had declined to receive Col. Rooseveldt because " it did not 
 wish Mr. Rooseveldt to bracket the Pope with other more or less royal 
 personages he will boast of having hunted in Europe after his African 
 hunt. Cardinal Merry del Val, who perhaps does not understand 
 American newspapers, took some trouble to repudiate this message.
 
 242 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 visitor from the Old World has to realise that he is now 
 in a New World, where people have other things to think 
 of than Trans-Atlantic developments. I was much dis- 
 appointed with this at first, but came afterwards to think 
 it natural and proper. So, too, I grieve to say, I grew 
 used to other features of the American papers, and even 
 became fond of them. They are always bright and 
 lively; they put no strain on the intellect, and are 
 frankly but " the perfume and suppliance of an hour." 
 
 I must add a few words on American advertisements. 
 These have passed the vulgar and blatant stages which 
 we still see in England; there is not so much of the 
 hoarding in America. Here advertisement writing is 
 an art and a trade by itself ; literature and psychology 
 are both pressed into its service. The arguments are 
 lengthy and complete, one might add convincing, if 
 every advertisement were not equally convincing. I am 
 told, however, that they pay, and thus leave little to be 
 said against them. It seems probable that men's sense 
 of truth is silently injured by the constant, even though 
 incredulous, perusal of so many lies, and that the edge is 
 taken off their finer feelings by this vulgar appeal to 
 them. "Sweet as children's laughter; pure as the 
 innocent heart of a child." So runs the advertisement of 
 a brand of chocolate ; of course the worst specimens of all 
 tvould be cited from the prospectus of the Encyclopaedia 
 Britannica. The exploitation of this great book is
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 243 
 
 perhaps the basest thing in the history of literature, and 
 both America and England have had a hand in it. 
 
 Considering America's interest in health and healing 
 professions, one would expect the papers to be full of 
 quack medicine advertisements. Expectations, how- 
 ever, are always wrong, and such advertisements are 
 quite scarce. It believe this is due, for one reason, to 
 a Federal Law, which requires the formula of a patent 
 medicine to be printed on the bottle. 
 
 ART. 
 
 Of Art in general we may say, as already said of 
 Poetry, that she has not yet come into her own, but at 
 any moment she may do so. To be sure, the muses 
 often linger and delay their coming; no one could tell 
 us why a musical country like Wales produces no great 
 musicians ; yet America seems moving towards an 
 artistic outburst. I have spoken of her achievements in 
 architecture, where that outburst is perhaps already 
 upon us. In painting progress is perhaps delayed by 
 the interest which the patrons of art take in acquiring 
 foreign masterpieces. It made me sad in California at 
 the Hotel del Monte to wander through the sale gallery, 
 where so much talent is evinced and so much labour and 
 so many hopes are buried. A crowd of millionaires 
 stays at this hotel, yet the prices of the pictures are 
 piteously low, and nobody buys them. Thus it is all
 
 244 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 over America. Not talent was wanting nor interest in 
 drawing, but patrons. I have read that over a million 
 pounds worth of pictures are bought in Europe every 
 year for America. In the past much of this money has 
 been wasted; it is stated that twenty thousand forged 
 Corots have passed through the American Customs. 
 But the standard of taste is rising; the art collections of 
 Chicago, Boston, and New York will stand any scrutiny, 
 and there will soon not be a centre in America 
 where the young generation can learn what Art is 
 from fine examples. A lamentation is sometimes raised 
 over the masterpieces that leave England for America. 
 But those who have seen with what reverence these 
 masterpieces are received and housed, and what excellent 
 use is made of them, will perhaps rejoice with me that 
 they have been drawn from their useless solitude in 
 English country houses. One thing, however, will 
 have to be watched, that the hot and dry interiors of 
 America do not spoil them. It may be worth while to 
 mention that in no country can reproductions of pictures 
 be bought so good and so cheap as those of the Perry 
 Co. at Boston, and the Cosmos Co. at New York. 
 
 Much the same may be written of music as of painting. 
 The extent to which music is taught in schools, and the 
 good taste in church music are favourable omens for the 
 future. And America has some achievements in the 
 past. As far as inspired tunes go, the country of The
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 245 
 
 Star-Spangled Banner and Dixie-Land yields prece- 
 dence to none. It is curious that this latter tune is so 
 little known in Europe. In stirring power it is hardly 
 second to the Marseillaise, and will surely live as long as 
 anything in the white man's music. As for the 
 " nigger " melodies, a mystery hangs over them which 
 I have not penetrated. I have been assured that the 
 "coon " songs are not in their present form a genuine 
 product of the negro, but have been worked over by 
 Europeans. I regret I cannot give a clear account of 
 these, for they are true and beautiful art ; one would like 
 to know in what sense the credit of them belongs to 
 America.
 
 XIII 
 
 Woman 
 
 I am not at all prepared to write the history ol woman 
 in the States* ; it is a fascinating subject. I have sug- 
 gested before that here the Germans have perhaps helped 
 to create American ideas ; be that as it may, let us now 
 pass on to the present and see how things actually stand. 
 Perhaps the first fact to notice is the economic indepen- 
 dence of women. Though female labour is badly paid, 
 it is paid a living wage, and it is steadily demanded. 
 The rank and file of almost every profession are 
 women}. Offices of all kinds (except banks) are filled 
 with female clerks; almost all primary teachers are 
 women. There is no stigma attached to work of this 
 kind. America is quite free from the British sentiment 
 on this point. Girls do not wish to depend ever on their 
 parents, much less on their brothers ; they are educated 
 to make a living, and prefer to make one. In the main 
 this has not lessened the charm of women, as it some- 
 times seems to do in England. American women, in 
 
 It was a woman Isabella to whom Columbus owed the means of 
 his voyage. 
 
 J There are, however, no barmaids in America, and their presence in 
 England seems to American visitors barbaric.
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 247 
 
 spite of earning their own living, in spite, too, of any 
 "higher culture" they may possess, have plenty of 
 feminine charm. 
 
 This is all to the good; we shall see next, however, 
 that the situation has its troubles. How comes it that 
 in the last twenty years there have been thirteen million 
 cases of divorce in the States? People are not quite 
 agreed on the answer to this question, but here is a 
 suggestion that may be offered. Modern culture makes 
 people keenly impatient of trouble. People demand 
 happiness here and now, and resent every source of 
 unhappiness that cannot be immediately cured. At the 
 same time the greater sensibility of the age is more 
 quickly irritated than of yore and finds itself unhappy 
 over trivial causes. Hence married quarrels, and, since 
 divorce is cheap and easy in most parts of America, 
 divorces. If this diagnosis is correct, education is to 
 blame, but the friends of education will not admit this. 
 I have more than once argued it out with them. 
 American schools are so pleasant and so well managed 
 that they form a poor preparation for a world where 
 there will be no school ma'am to maintain good feeling 
 and where troubles are bound to introduce themselves. 
 This is the argument ; but the friends of education reply 
 that amongst the best educated people there are fewest 
 divorces. I cannot decide the point; it may be true that 
 what is wanted is not less education, but more and
 
 248 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 better education, of this very type that I am complaining 
 of. 
 
 One point, however, may be definitely made, that the 
 higher education of women does bring much unhappi- 
 ness into married life, as things stand. The higher 
 education of men is for the most part utilitarian. Men 
 take up chemical or electrical courses at college ; women 
 take up literature or art. The women are very much in 
 earnest about these things, and often make great 
 sacrifices to " keep them up " after marriage, but the 
 end of it all is that their accomplishments divide them 
 from their husbands. The same division is often 
 effected by religion ; a woman is attracted by some freak 
 religion, her husband cannot follow her, and he takes to 
 drink or vice or runs after some other man's wife. 
 
 This accounts for some of the divorces; others again 
 are due to the conditions of high life. Girls in the upper 
 classes are often petted from their cradles, and become 
 in the end as selfish and capricious as it is possible for 
 women to become. They are often married to hard- 
 working heads of business firms; they see nothing of 
 them day to day, they leave them for holidays, and their 
 marriages end in scandals and divorces. 
 
 In cases before the courts the most curious allegations 
 are sometimes made ; I remember one instance where a 
 wife asserted her husband had improper relations with a 
 spirit. " Mediums " often make mischief in homes.
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 249 
 
 It is plain that the evils of frequent divorce fall heavily 
 on children; and in societies, like those of the West, 
 where divorce is common, married couples avoid parent- 
 age. What this means every one knows; it means a 
 seamy side to married life and the absence of the healthy 
 influence of children on society. I remember that in the 
 joyous streets of San Francisco a cloud fell on my spirits 
 when I observed how few children were visible. 
 
 As to the future, many voices are heard. Some 
 believe in cheap divorce as the only remedy for unhappy 
 marriages and the only condition on which the young 
 generation will consent to be married. Some of this 
 school are Socialists, and would throw the children on 
 the State as soon as they are born ; others vaguely hope 
 to settle the family on a firmer basis. The Roman 
 Church stands where she ever did, and claims that with- 
 out divorce she secures happy marriages and large 
 families. But to those outside her pale she has, of course, 
 only one piece of advice to give " Come inside." So, 
 too, with the Protestant Evangelicals. They warmly 
 assert that amongst good Church-going Christians 
 divorce is rare and happy marriages as common as 
 human happiness ever is. The evil of divorce prevails, 
 say they, amongst the pagan part of America, whether 
 in high life or low life. They, too, do not profess to see 
 how the evils of paganism can be lessened. 
 
 We must, of course, distinguish the frequency of
 
 250 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 i 
 
 divorce from the practice of restricting families, against 
 which Col. Rooseveldt has inveighed. This may be 
 found in circles where divorce is quite uncommon, in the 
 Eastern States, for example. The cause of it is difficult 
 to determine, for we must not confuse the self-respect 
 from which it may possibly proceed with the mere love 
 of pleasure. I think Col. Rooseveldt weakens his 
 argument by dwelling too much on the latter motive. 
 Still, he knows his own country, and it is his verdict that 
 the refusal to multiply is due to selfish and self-indulgent 
 prudence. The evil is, of course, that the wastrel and 
 needy classes, who do not refuse to multiply, assume a 
 growing preponderance in the State, and that " educa- 
 tion " may not always be able to grade up their 
 posterity. 
 
 As I have suggested that education may have some- 
 thing to do with divorce, so I may suggest that it has 
 something to do with the restriction of families. At any 
 rate, one day, while I was watching a crowd of girls 
 hopping, skipping, and jumping in the gymnasium 
 not tiny little girls, but virgins well on in their teens 
 I asked the president of the institution whether girls so 
 brought up would care to face family life, the " long 
 malaise of pregnancy," and so on. He replied with some 
 asperity that they would all be very glad to marry and 
 bear children ; the only difference their education made 
 was that they would not be satisfied with any sort of a
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 251 
 
 husband; they would want good, well-educated men. 
 Such was his view ; I cannot say if he was right. 
 
 Wherever the relation between the sexes goes wrong, 
 there lifts up its head " the most ancient profession in the 
 world," which I shall call, out of the many names by 
 which it is called, that of the whore. Mediaeval America 
 disliked to mention these people, and preferred to believe 
 no doubt rightly that there were few of them in 
 America. There are many more now, however*; it 
 appears there is a strong organisation For distributing 
 them, a sort of trust, in fact. During my year in 
 America there was a loud protest against this situation, 
 especially in Chicago. It appears that fraud and 
 violence play a large part in the capture of young women 
 for the trade. The economic opportunities of America 
 have perhaps had for the present at any rate the 
 results predicted by optimists, and American girls are no 
 longer driven into brothels by distress j. Extreme 
 measures are necessary to supply their place, and besides 
 
 * According to Mrs. Tingley, 15,000 girls are annually sold into " white 
 slavery." 
 
 { At the same time I note this passage in a rescue pamphlet : " . . . 
 the girl of fourteen or fifteen who is just beginning to enter the life that 
 leads to moral degradation. Such cases require much of the visitor's 
 personal interest and time. When a girl of this age is beginning to 
 associate with vicious companions it takes much time, infinite tact, and 
 considerable money to win the girl back to the paths of rectitude. In 
 these cases it is only by means of personal friendship and personal 
 attention, of taking her to concerts and other forms of pure entertain- 
 ment, and an occasional day spent in the country, of frequent visits to 
 the kome, and of personal efforts of the most tactful kind that the visitor 
 can succeed in saving such a girl." 
 
 17
 
 252 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 those above indicated the net is cast all over Continental 
 Europe. To meet this President Taft appropriated a 
 sum of fifty thousand dollars, for the purpose of watch- 
 ing the frontier and arresting baivds souteneurs and th-iJr 
 victims. 
 
 There is no tendency in America, so far as I know, for 
 men to cultivate the demi-monde after the Continental 
 fashion. It would not be possible to duplicate over 
 there Das Tagebuch Einer Verlorenen, or even Sappho. 
 This is the more remarkable because man over there is 
 very sensitive to the influence of woman and the 
 chivalrous tradition (unlike the feudal tradition) is very 
 much alive. I purchased the following poem, printed 
 in art characters, in a Boston shop : 
 
 " I had a friend, a woman friend most dear, 
 
 Who ran upon some little grace in me, 
 And loved me for it ; fostered tenderly 
 
 The grace itself ; then saw my faults grow clear 
 
 On close approach, but bravely drew more near, 
 Believing these were transient ; earnestly 
 I set myself to mend myself, since she 
 
 Did love me still, extending hope and cheer. 
 Once all unconsciously, by one swift move, 
 
 Unstudied as a child's, she let me see 
 The angel in her, standing there to prove 
 
 How close God comes to us invisibly ; 
 And looking in her eyes with reverent awe, 
 I joyed to love the creature that I saw." 
 
 The grovelling self-abasement of this poem* might 
 easily be paralleled in England, but it would surprise us 
 
 * Considering the great output of poetry in America and the attitude of 
 men to women one might expect a good deal of erotic verse from the 
 country. This expectation, however, like others, would be false ; the 
 proportion of erotic verse to other kinds is small. There is far more 
 religious and moral poetry.
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 253 
 
 little there, remembering the long line of ancestry and 
 the confusion of thoughts in which England confessedly 
 lives. In America, however, which has forced the past 
 to defend itself, clearer thinking might be expected; we 
 might expect, perhaps, to find woman treated as a com- 
 rade, but not to find her worshipped. Such worship is, 
 however, quite common, and perhaps the comrade view 
 has made less real progress than in England. Athletics 
 do not bring the sexes together so much as in that 
 country; there are fewer women who play games. If 
 the " doll " type of woman is English so is the 
 "mannish" woman and the "sportswoman"; the 
 American woman, in spite of her economic independence 
 and vivacious manner, has at the bottom more of the 
 clinging tendency left than the advanced English- 
 woman. Here, as in some other ways, we see England 
 making a move ahead of America ; the suffragettes are 
 an English invention. Feminism in America does not 
 greatly covet the vote. The municipal vote, of course, 
 women possess, and in a few States the Congress 
 franchise, but the movement to this end does not make 
 much progress. Socialists in general are suffragettes, 
 but the attitude is not essential ; the Socialist paper, Life, 
 is anti-suffragette. The usual argument advanced is 
 that women would purify politics, and places are pointed 
 out, (like Denver) where they seem to have done good, 
 but it is felt as a rule that this good is not assured, and
 
 254 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 would be dearly bought by the loss of domestic peace. 
 The dignity of women is not bound up with political 
 privileges, as it is felt to be in England ; women know 
 that if they pushed for the vote they could get it, but 
 they would not be more respected or more powerful than 
 they are. Practically all careers are open to them, 
 except that they cannot sit on the bench. They cannot 
 mount the pulpit, in most denominations, but they have 
 no great desire to, and, in some denominations, where 
 this has been tried, it has not been found that women 
 succeed as pastors. The readers in the Christian 
 Science Church are half men and half women, but they 
 have nothing to do except read. 
 
 In fact, the emancipation of woman in America is 
 pretty well complete, and one is tempted to ask what it 
 has proved or brought to light. It is perhaps too early 
 to ask the question, but if it be asked, it can only receive 
 a disappointing answer. There is no direction (but one) 
 in which women have shown any talent whatever. Not 
 a single invention even a domestic invention has 
 proceeded from them, though this has been the inventive 
 age of their country. They have written nothing remark- 
 able, though there are hosts of female writers. They have 
 added nothing to medicine, though there are hosts of 
 lady doctors. Science owes nothing to them; art 
 nothing, except one or two moderate painters. Except 
 in the rarest instances, they have shown no power to
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 255 
 
 organise or run businesses, though this field is fully 
 open to them, and there are thousands of women ift 
 business. In a word, the progress of Arrierica is still 
 due entirely to its men. The reply may be made that 
 the emancipation of women is not more than thirty years 
 old, that they are still hypnotised, and we must wait 
 longer. This, possibly, is true, but if it is also true that 
 race-suicide is due to this same emancipation, what 
 then? 
 
 In passing we may remark that the movement has one 
 side issue, common to America and all modern countries, 
 the disappearance of the domestic servant. Service is 
 regarded as humiliating and irksome, though a 
 thousand ingenious contrivances have minimised the 
 domestic toil which women so much dislike. Servants are 
 simply not to be had, by people of less than millionaire 
 rank. Eventually this may lead to a complete reorganisa- 
 tion of life and the disappearance of the old " home," but 
 the change hangs fire and the institution struggles on. I 
 am convinced that in many cases the struggle is a feeble 
 one. The home is dirty and disorderly. Meals are con- 
 trived extempore or taken at a neighbouring restaurant. 
 It is the most cultured families sometimes that make the 
 most valiant stand ; I remember a Professor whose name 
 is known in three continents explaining to me how to 
 beat the situation by doing without a servant, and 
 crowing over his patent dish-washer. Naturally, it is the
 
 256 
 
 mothers of families who suffer most from the want of 
 help, the very women who need and deserve it most. The 
 whole problem, essentially a woman's problem, illus- 
 trates in many ways the selfish and unprogressive sides 
 of feminine nature. 
 
 It would be tempting perhaps to ascribe to feminine 
 influence that weakening of principle with regard to 
 crime which to-day has infected the whole civilised world. 
 This, however, would be a mistake. What has led to this, 
 are a reaction from brutality, a determined philosophy 
 and Socialism. Thus one of the Socialist papers writes : 
 " Crime is a result of environment and heredity, and civil 
 society, not the individual, is responsible therefor." It 
 has already been remarked that sentiments of this kind 
 colour the administration of justice and encourage violent 
 crime. I have sometimes thought that more feminine 
 influence might even strengthen the arm of the law. Cer- 
 tainly women stand no " nonsense " where sexual crimes 
 are concerned.
 
 XIV 
 
 The South. The Negro 
 
 It is part of the irony of history that the North of the 
 States has so far blotted out the South, and the story of 
 Massachusetts, impressive though it be, has eclipsed the 
 picturesque and pathetic story of Virginia. This chapter 
 will try to do justice to a corner of America now over- 
 looked. Certainly old-fashioned people still think of the 
 country as divided into North and South, though the 
 importance of this division has vanished. But they think 
 only of the Secession War, and the early history of 
 Virginia means little to them. Nor do they often realise 
 that Virginia was the mother not only of Robert Lee, but 
 of George Washington. 
 
 I paid but a flying visit to the State, just long enough 
 to realise its beauty and the glories of its summer. Much 
 of the land is out of cultivation, but the East that once 
 flowed to the West is beginning to flow back, and has 
 already found out Virginia. Surely it must have a future 
 before it. Tobacco and maize grow freely in its sub- 
 tropical summer, and inventive America will no doubt 
 some day discover the best uses for its soil. The winter 
 is cold, but less rigorous than that of New England.
 
 258 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 Virginia witnessed the first English settlement in 
 America. Sir Walter Raleigh sent there more than one 
 colony that failed ; in 1606 James V. granted a charter to 
 an expedition that succeeded; their hopes and motives 
 are told in Drayton's well-known lines. Many of the 
 adventurers styled themselves "gentlemen"; one of 
 their names has survived in people's memories, that of 
 John Smith. From him we learn how the colony fared, 
 how times of plenty alternated with starvation, how 
 quarrels divided them, and they fell in warfare with the 
 Indians. It is a picturesque but painful tale ; the story 
 of Pocahontas lightens the gloom, and humorous 
 episodes are not wanting, but what we read of is mostly 
 mismanagement, failure and misery. One wonders why 
 the colonists stayed in the country at all, and why others 
 came out to join them. No gold mines revealed them- 
 selves, and agriculture was dreary and unprofitable work, 
 especially to the fashionable young men who made up 
 many of the company. However, in their own strange 
 way they persevered ; eventually they made money out of 
 tobacco and Virginia became a civilised and flourishing 
 settlement. 
 
 It was always very English in its ideas. It had an 
 Established Church Episcopalian ; and its large land- 
 owners were something like the magnates of the English 
 counties. But as years went by many Scotch-Irish joined 
 the settlement; Patrick Henry was a Virginian, and the
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 259 
 
 State sent its full contingent to the Revolutionary forces. 
 Its leader at that epoch was the father of his country, 
 George Washington. 
 
 I went to visit his home at Mount Vernon, now main- 
 tained in beautiful order by the women of America, and 
 restored as far as possible to its pristine order. It is a 
 large wooden building on a slope overlooking the James 
 River. Round it are groves of noble trees planted by 
 Washington's own hand; a formal garden; slaves' 
 quarters, and many outhouses. A spinning room and a 
 granary suggest the independence of the old conditions ; 
 the house itself is as complete as a feudal castle. There 
 are many bedrooms; several drawing rooms; a library 
 and a hall. The rooms are not large, nor are they 
 crowded with furniture, but everything is severely 
 aristocratic in its mien. It is an old remark that the age 
 of luxury precedes the age of comfort; Washington's 
 establishment is luxurious and dignified rather than com- 
 fortable. There are no easy chairs in his house ; and you 
 feel that no one except a man of staid manners could have 
 moved safely among the frail pieces of furniture. 
 Washington cannot always have moved about gravely; 
 he was a backwoodsman, a soldier and surveyor, and 
 must have been able to move at the double. But one feels 
 that gravity was born in him ; from his earliest years he 
 was pietate gravis. At the age of thirteen he made out 
 for himself fifty-seven rules of manners; herein he notes
 
 2 6o AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 often his duty to his "superiors," and concludes: 
 " Labour to keep alive in your breast that little spark of 
 celestial fire called conscience." 
 
 His services to his country have not been overrated; I 
 myself will only remark a few points in his career which 
 are seldom recalled in England. He was a good judge of 
 men. It was he who chose for office Hamilton, the 
 greatest political thinker of America; and the services of 
 Lafayette and Von Steuben, if not entirely due to him, 
 were turned by him to the best account. He took no pay- 
 ment from his country except his out-of-pocket expenses, 
 amounting to $160,074 ' in eight years. With a precision 
 engrained in his character he accounted for this sum in 
 detail. When he retired from public life he left his 
 countrymen a farewell address, a chart across the 
 unknown seas they were to sail. It is an act which can 
 hardly be paralleled, though it seems a natural one, and 
 we turn to his words with expectant interest. He shows 
 no rancour towards Britain, indeed he never showed any ; 
 but he cautions his countrymen against " habitual hatred 
 or fondness." He remains religious to the last. " Let 
 us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can 
 be maintained without religion. Whatever may be con- 
 ceded to the influence of refined education on minds of 
 peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us 
 to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion 
 of religious principle." The greatest danger that he fore-
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 261 
 
 saw to the States was disunion, he cautioned them to 
 " frown indignantly upon the first dawning of any 
 attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the 
 rest." This was sound advice, though in the hour when 
 it was most needed it did not much avail America. But 
 this was not Washington's fault. Perhaps his language 
 does not suit modern times, but it is the fault of modern 
 times if they cannot learn from the example of his charac- 
 ter. How much have they to learn ? In Wall Street you 
 may see a statue of George Washington facing Mr. J. P. 
 Morgan's Bank. One can hardly look at the spectacle 
 without certain queries rising on the mind. At Harvard 
 Commencement I beheld Mr. Morgan honoured with a 
 degree, on the ground, according to President Jowett, 
 that he had " twice saved the State." What were the 
 two occasions? I was never able to learn, but one, I 
 believe, was in the financial panic a few years ago, when 
 Mr. Morgan's Bank produced gold enough to restore 
 credit. Was it true, however, as rumour asserts, that 
 Mr. Morgan produced that same panic in order to shake 
 Rooseveldt's attack on the trusts ? And is it true that by 
 private arrangement he lent Grover Cleveland money at 
 85 when the U.S. credit was unimpaired in the market? 
 Rumour asserts this also ; I had no chance to verify it, 
 but wonder very much whether J. P. Morgan's trans- 
 actions do all commend themselves to Washington's 
 statue.
 
 262 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 One word more about Washington. He was the first 
 great American ; may not we of the Old Country claim 
 him without offence as one of our Englishmen? He 
 seems to me very like the Iron Duke, in his industry, his 
 practical sense, his religion, and the balance of his mind. 
 Like him, he was a man of stern manners, yet Welling- 
 ton wept as he entered Cuidad Rodrigo, and Washington 
 broke down when he bade farewell to the army. Valley 
 Forge may parallel the lines of Torres Vedras ; Washing- 
 ton had his Waterloo. Perhaps Washington did more 
 for America; let it then be added to his glory that unlike 
 Wellington he took neither rank nor money from her. 
 
 This, however, is all incidental to the history of 
 Virginia; let us pursue the subject a little further. Old 
 Virginia was no intellectual or religious community like 
 New England; " I thank God," wrote her Governor in 
 1660, " we have no free schools here." They had plenty 
 of taverns and boon companions to fill them. A fine 
 picture of the times may be found in Byrd's Dividing 
 Line, 1726. He tells us that most of the colonists were 
 " Reprobates of good Familys," and some of them even 
 run-a-gates from European society. " While we con- 
 tinued here we were told that on the South Shore dwelt a 
 marooner that modestly called himself a hermit, though 
 he had forfeited the name by suffering a wanton female 
 to cohabit with him. His habitation was a bower covered 
 with bark after the Indian fashion. Like the ravens, he
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 263 
 
 neither ploughed nor sowed, but subsisted upon oysters, 
 which his handmaid gathered from the rocks. But as 
 for raiment he depended mostly upon his beard and she 
 upon her hair, part of which she brought decently for- 
 ward and the rest dangled behind down to her Rump. 
 Thus did these wretches* live in a dirty state of nature, 
 and are mere Adamites, innocence only excepted." Such 
 renegates may still be found on the fringes of civilisation, 
 and Col. Byrd gives a picture little less flattering of the 
 other denizens of Virginia lubber-land. " Idleness is the 
 general character of the men in the South of this Colony, 
 as in North Carolina. The air is so mild and the soil is 
 so fruitful that little labour is required to fill their bellies, 
 especially where the woods afford such plenty of game. 
 So much work as is absolutely necessary falls to the good 
 women's share to provide. They all spin and weave and 
 knit, and thereby reproach their husbands' laziness in the 
 oiost inoffensive way." Co'l. Byrd himself, though a 
 humorous rogue, was a shrewd and industrious man ; he 
 and others like him graded things up, and Virginia 
 became the home of many fine characters. They were 
 men of principle, men of religion and gentlemen ; it was 
 tney who gave strength to the Southern Army in the war. 
 Before I pass on to this let me linger a moment near the 
 estuary of the James River, where the ghost of colonial 
 days haunts the quiet streets and shady groves of 
 Williamsburg. There you may perceive the statue of
 
 264 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 Lord Botetourt, Colonial Governor of 1771, smiling 
 affably upon the scene, while on his pedestal appear the 
 words: " Americans: Behold your friend, who, leav- 
 ing his native country, declined the additional honours 
 which were there in store for him that he might restore 
 tranquility and happiness to this extensive continent. 
 With what zeal and anxiety he pursued these glorious 
 objects Virginia thus bears her grateful testimony." It 
 was about the same time that the Tory wrote ecstatically : 
 ' We were formed by England's laws and religion. We 
 were clothed by her manufactures, and protected by her 
 fleet and armies. Her kings are the umpires of our 
 disputes and the centre of our Union. In a word, the 
 island of Britain is the fortress in which we are sheltered 
 from all the machinations of the powers of Europe." 
 Five years later the statue of Lord Botetourt and the staff 
 of the Tory witnessed a change in the scene. When a 
 system reaches its climax its hour has come, and we in 
 England have yet to see whether the Royalism of the 
 Daily Mail is an omen favourable to the Crown. 
 
 Near Williamsburg is Bouton, where in the Church the 
 curious can see all the arrangements of an old English 
 Church, even better than they would readily see them in 
 England, hor the old Church has been restored as the 
 former generations saw it. The high pews are all 
 unspoiled, with the private pew where Lord Botetourt 
 worshipped, " at ease in Zion." There is a sumptuous
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 265 
 
 Bible presented by King Edward VII. and a lectern 
 presented by Col. Rooseveldt, whereon the Lion and the 
 Lamb allegorically lie down together. Let us hope the 
 good King and President were not far amiss in their 
 pious design. 
 
 What follows next, however, is a note of war the 
 great Civil War, the War of the Secession. Fortunate 
 as the States have been in avoiding civil dissension, the 
 course of their good fortune has been broken once, and 
 of the episode that broke it we are now to speak. Its 
 history has been fully written, and, of course, I do not 
 re-write it, but merely note a few salient points. The 
 scale of me struggle, its character, the issue at stake and 
 the balance of justice between the parties have been mis- 
 taken or forgotten in Europe ; and it is idle to suppose 
 they will ever be studied there. The struggle was one 
 of the longest and bloodiest in history. Military genius 
 was not conspicuous, except in Lee and Jackson, but the 
 courage and tenacity displayed on both sides evoked a 
 feeling which passed beyond admiration into awe. As 
 we contemplate them we realise another of the country's 
 paradoxes, that while in common affairs she it fitful and 
 forgetful she has shown on great occasions a depth of 
 purpose unwavering and invincible. The North gets 
 some credit for this ; the South gets none. Yet the South 
 faced and suffered more than the North. They were few 
 in numbers compared to the North, they had fewer
 
 266 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 resources, and the whole of the war was fought in their 
 country. They saw their houses, farms, villages and 
 towns destroyed, they saw hope disappear, they fought 
 till they had neither clothes nor food nor cartridges, and 
 starvation and overwhelming numbers crushed them. 
 There were battles in which Southern regiments com- 
 pletely disappeared.* The number of Northern soldiers 
 captured by the South exceeded the total number of the 
 Southern troops engaged in the war. 
 
 In some respects the conduct of the war leaves a stain 
 on the North from which the South is free. The Northern 
 troops respected no convention of war except the right of 
 women to life and honour. All sorts of property they 
 plundered and destroyed without mercy. I think it was 
 Staunton, Lincoln's Secretary, who sent instructions to 
 ravage the South so that the very birds of the air might 
 find nothing to live on ; and with this we must compare 
 Lee's stern injunctions, on the one occasion when he 
 entered the North, that all private property was to be 
 respected. Yet it was on this campaign that the Barbara 
 Frietchie episode occurred, celebrated by Whittier in his 
 ungenerous poem, where he calls the Southerners a 
 " rebel horde," and taunts them with their " famished 
 eyes," little reflecting who had starved the South, and 
 
 * At Shiloh, the Sixth Mississippi Regiment lost 300 out of 425 men ; 
 at Gettysburg the North Carolina troops lost 80 per cent. At Vicksburg 
 6 survived out of 123 cadets.
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 267 
 
 "who spared Barbara Frietchie and " the garden of the 
 Lord." 
 
 Victrix causa dels placuit. The South lost. It is idle 
 to defend a cause tainted by slavery, yet I will waste a 
 few words to point out that what they fought for was 
 freedom. Rightly or wrongly, they believed that the 
 Federal Government was intending to enter their terri- 
 tory by force and emancipate the slaves, and they 
 believed slavery was a domestic problem with which it 
 had no right to interfere. We may or may not imagine 
 that explanations could have saved the situation ; such 
 fancies are vain. The South was perhaps hasty; they 
 supposed, as other aristocrats have done, that the 
 mechanics of the North would easily be beaten. But the 
 North came of various hard fighting races, and the South 
 was mistaken. It is a curious fact about the North that 
 the immense majority of their soldiers were under age, 
 and this explains why so many veterans of the war linger 
 on. They have been liberally pensioned. Pensions still 
 cost Uncle Sam a hundred and fifty-five million dollars a 
 year. The Southern veterans received some very small 
 allowance from their States; nothing, of course, from 
 Federal funds. One may add that the army of tramps 
 which infests the country districts of the States dates from 
 the war. 
 
 The North showed itself a stern victor as the United 
 States have ever showed themselves in victory. Neither 
 
 18
 
 2 68 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 the British Loyalists, nor Mexico nor Spain experienced 
 much clemency from them, nor did the South from the 
 North. Jeff Davies was tried by a negro jury, and the 
 negro in general, the ex-slave, became, under Northern 
 protection, the master of the South. A period of great 
 disorder set in, ending with a Commission in 1872, 
 before which the Southern Representatives asserted that 
 " no people have ever been so mercilessly robbed and 
 plundered, so wantonly and ceaselessly humiliated and 
 degraded, so recklessly exposed to the rapacity and lust 
 of the ignorant and vicious portion of their own com- 
 munity as the South have been for the last six years. 
 History till now gives no account of a conqueror so cruel 
 as to place his vanquished foes under the dominion of 
 their former slaves. That was reserved for the radical 
 rulers of the great Republic." One way or another, by 
 force and fraud, the Southern States got rid of their 
 negro assemblies, and drove the negroes from the polls. 
 They began the reconstruction of society, and to-day at 
 last they have emerged from the dark valley where the 
 last generation journeyed. 
 
 This chapter in their fortunes would have been 
 different had Lincoln lived. He was a just and careful 
 man, and he would have dealt more fairly with the 
 vanquished South. Let us spare a few words to com- 
 memorate this second great figure in America's history, 
 a figure nearer to the present age, and perhaps more
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 269 
 
 inspiring than that of Washington. He was a son of the 
 people, a splitter of rails turned into a lawyer and a 
 politician, an honest politician withal, and American to 
 the backbone. He was not chosen President to steer 
 America through the war; he just happened to be 
 President at the crisis, and the theory of the average man 
 for once produced results. (If I were an American and 
 held the theory, I should like to remember that it gave 
 the country (America) Lincoln). He had both the 
 shrewdness and the impulse that are mixed up in the 
 national character, both in their most amiable forms. 
 He would probably have sacrificed the freedom of the 
 negro to the Union, had such a sacrifice been the one 
 thing needed, and he did all that care and self-restraint 
 could do to keep the peace. The story of the struggle 
 shows his firm and far-sighted character, his sense and 
 his judgment of men. It shows, too, how far it is pos- 
 sible to go in the way of ruling men by love. This was 
 Lincoln's plan ; but one wonders how much he owed his 
 success to his harsh lieutenant, Staunton. Men who rule 
 by love often work in a couple with someone who rules 
 by fist; when Nelson had a bad character on board his 
 own ship he sent him off to Collingwood. However, 
 Lincoln must always remain as an ideal and an inspira- 
 tion for his countrymen ; his kindness and humour are 
 not rare in America, his integrity and devotion to the 
 public are less common. Otherwise " Government of
 
 270 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 the people, by the people, for the people " would be more 
 of a success. 
 
 What a lesson in eloquence is this same Gettysburg 
 speech ! "Who would have expected it from the land of 
 Bancroft and Emerson ? 
 
 Lee, the great contemporary of Lincoln, is under a 
 cloud. I have read no life of him, but dimly discern his 
 genius, his serenity of mind, and his humanity. Virginia 
 has placed his statue in that group in the Capital where 
 each State may send her two most distinguished sons. 
 What an irony of fate that Washington and Lee should 
 both be hers ! 
 
 His presence in the capitol, fully accoutred as a Con- 
 federate general, marks the end of the struggle. It is a 
 wonderful thing how all animosity has passed away. I 
 have seen old soldiers on both sides greet each other and 
 exchange recollections with cordiality, even on Southern 
 battlefields. I visited more than one such. The Seven 
 Pines, near Richmond, for instance, where thousands of 
 dead lie under the pines, and you may see the stumps of 
 trees that were cut down by bullets. An old survivor of 
 tne war guides you round and points out where the 
 slaughter culminated. 
 
 There can be no room for doubts that the verdict of the 
 war was fortunate both for America and the world. Had 
 the Union perished not only would the citizens of the 
 States have lost their self-respect, and the American idea
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 271 
 
 its force, but war would have become the outlook of the 
 Continent. It is hardly possible to speculate on the 
 situation, it is indeed painful to do so, and we do so only 
 in order to realise what America owes to those who saved 
 the Union. We may add that the war, in itself so great 
 an evil, did this much good to the country, it made her 
 conscious of her strength. In this respect America has 
 something to set against her loss. 
 
 Memorials abound. The battlefields are all in the South, 
 but in the North the veterans of the Army are formed into 
 Posts, and once a year they meet and commemorate their 
 services and decorate the graves of their comrades. I 
 was present at the meeting in Fremont Hall in Boston ; 
 it was a solemn and dignified scene. The speeches 
 turned mostly on the significance of the Union. The 
 negro and his emancipation were not mentioned by any- 
 body, nor, so far as I remember, was anything said about 
 the South. 
 
 In the South are the battlefields, museums of relics 
 and occasional statues. One such I remember better 
 than any statue in the States, that of a soldier standing 
 by a soldier's grave, in Alexandria. It typifies the 
 feeling at the close of the war, when the South had lost 
 all but honour; unlike most statues in public places it 
 speaks to the heart. And it is impossible to visit the 
 museums of the South without yielding to their spell. 
 The North and West of America, which seldom visit
 
 272 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 Virginia, do not realise this ; though they have forgotten 
 and forgiven, they have never sympathised with the 
 Confederates. 
 
 Richmond of to-day is a flourishing and progressive 
 town, largely in the mediaeval stage. It was here that I 
 stayed in a hotel of antique mould. There are dignified 
 " antebellum " houses, two of which are museums; the 
 usual state buildings; a fine library, and a cemetery. 
 Here is a monument to the Confederate dead, a gn.-at 
 pyramid of unhewn stones, which the Bignonia, self- 
 carried and self-sown, has covered with flowers and 
 trailers. Here, too, one meets the heavy-leaved 
 magnolia, the arboreal emblem of the South. 
 
 Peradventure the reader may wonder why I have said 
 nothing yet of the latent cause of the war, the negro. 
 His turn will come; with him I will finish the topic of 
 the South. His history begins with the history of the 
 white man in America. Even Las Casas suggested that 
 the negro might be brought to replace the Indian in the 
 mines, and the death of the Carib made the negro inevit- 
 able. English slavers soon began to supply the demand, 
 and the slave trade between America and Africa lasted 
 till 1808. There were always voices against it in 
 America; some even assert that England forced slavery 
 on the country. This, however, is not true. It was soon 
 found that slaves, though not wanted in the North, were 
 indispensable to the planter of the South, and he
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 273 
 
 demanded them. When the abolitionist sentiment arose, 
 of course, it was stronger in the North. But those are 
 greatly mistaken who imagine the opinion of either 
 region was solid; there were friends of slavery in the 
 North till the last, and among the thoughtful people in 
 the South there were many who were dissatisfied with 
 the system and anxious to end it. They saw, however, 
 the difficulties which Northerners did not see, and which 
 Mrs. Stowe made it impossible for them to see. Time 
 has justified their hesitation. 
 
 I cannot say how much brutality went on in slave 
 days, but certainly there was a more friendly feeling 
 between the races than there is now.* Little white boys 
 once played with little slaves; they will not now play 
 with " niggers." Grown-up people will not now 
 associate with them anywhere, in cars or in hotels; 
 schools and religious bodies (in the South) are separate 
 for each colour. This is not so in the North ; I have even 
 seen a black negress teaching white children in a public 
 school in Boston. Nevertheless, the negro gets very 
 much the cold shoulder in the North ; nobody wants him, 
 and he is pretty well restricted to such jobs as running 
 
 * One may still see notices in the papers like the following from the 
 Charlottes-ville Progress : " In the sudden death of Lina, for upward 
 of forty years a member of the household of Mr. and Mrs. T. J. 
 Williams there passed away yesterday one of the few remaining domes- 
 tics of the old type. Faithful and loving to a degree rarely approached 
 in these days, she endeared herself to all who had the privilege of her 
 ministrations. Many friends will mourn her loss. The funeral will take 
 place from Mr. Williams 's residence to-morrow morning at n o clock.
 
 274 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 elevators. In the South he is nominally a free man. 
 But he is kept away from the polls, by one dodge or 
 another, and he is left to work out his own salvation. 
 Nobody helps him. The North sent him some mis- 
 sionaries and teachers after the war, but has now dropped 
 him ; the whites of the South do not want to elevate him. 
 In slavery days a talented negro was taught an occupa- 
 tion by his master; at present, no one is interested to 
 teach him, and he becomes a casual labourer. That is a 
 rank nobody respects in the States, not even in a white 
 man. 
 
 Negroes tend to concentrate in their own quarters in 
 the towns, where they do not improve each other's health 
 or morals. In Richmond, according to official figures, 
 over a quarter of the babies born are illegitimate, and 
 over a half die within one year of birth. The cases of 
 homicide and rape are four times as numerous as those 
 amongst the whites. Though proof against alcohol 
 negroes are thinned out by tuberculosis and other 
 diseases ; the best authorities seem to think, at the hour, 
 that the race is declining and will not, as once was feared, 
 expel the white man by force of numbers. In the past 
 their numbers rose rapidly within the States; in 1800 
 there were less than a million of them, in 1860 four 
 millions, at present (I believe) there are between eight and 
 nine millions. As I had seen something of the wild 
 negro in East Africa I was greatly interested to meet the 
 race again in coats and trousers, and to see if I recognised 
 them. The American negro is, of course, West African, 
 and negroes differ, but I thought in America, from the
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 275 
 
 little I saw, the civilised negro is much the same as the 
 inferior sort of savage. Savage chiefs and headmen have 
 a certain dignity which the commonplace " nigger " of 
 civilisation misses. Of course the prosperous and risen 
 negro has dignity too in fact an impressive and 
 ceremonious dignity is an accomplishment the negro 
 readily acquires. Probably it is rather hollow. There 
 seems little evidence that he has learned much from 
 civilisation. I still feel that he is a grown-up child as 
 indeed Englishmen feel about Frenchmen and French- 
 men about Englishmen, and many races about each 
 other, but with less reason than a philosophic enquirer 
 may hold the opinion of the negro. He is neither servile 
 nor cowardly, though he has so often been enslaved, but 
 he is a very simple creature, and cannot take in many 
 ideas. He would be happiest and best off as the slave of 
 a good master, but who is going to arrange this ? Any- 
 how, he has got to be free nowadays. 
 
 Dr. Booker Washington takes a more hopeful view 
 than I have indicated. The question is, how many 
 negroes will follow his lead ? If only they knew it, they 
 have in him the greatest leader Providence has ever 
 raised up for a fallen people ; a man both of words and 
 deeds; sane, generous, practical, and far-sighted. His 
 " Autobiography," modest as it is and all the more on 
 that account is the record of a noble and wonderful life, 
 in its mere language, a most eloquent record, of which 
 black and white America may equally be proud. Two 
 lessons he has sought to teach his race, that recrimina- 
 tions are vain, and that when the negro produces any-
 
 2?6 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 x* 
 
 thing of substantial merit, the white man will be the first 
 to recognise it. Accordingly, he has founded Tuskegee, 
 to train the negro to straightforward toil, and all through 
 the South his voice is heard in favour of the industrial 
 programme. He has critics of his own colour and 
 among the whites. The Socialists despise him as a 
 "self-abasing" slave of capital; ambitious negroes 
 prefer to clamour for equality, and sceptics point to the 
 millions of degraded blacks and ask where are Booker 
 Washington's men ? He answers this question often on 
 public platforms, and produces figures which show pro- 
 gress, and points to agricultural settlements where a new 
 type of negro is growing up.* 
 
 Whether he is right or he deceives himself I cannot 
 say ; but this is certain, that he has told his people what 
 
 * In Virginia, according to him, negroes own 1,517,500 acres of land 
 and pay taxes on property valued at $26,000,000. Compare also the 
 following passage : 
 
 " New York, August 18. An old-fashioned Arkansas darky, one of 
 those proud to call himself ' nigger,' stood up in the second day's session 
 of the Negro Business Men's League here to-day and vowed that he 
 "wouldn't change places with Mr. Theodore Rooseveldt, big a man as 
 he is." 
 
 " Come out with us, you niggers," he told the New York negroes, 
 " where the air is free and God is good, and where, if there is any 
 gumption in you, you can have more in a year than you ever earned in 
 all your life before. If you haven't a dollar I'll give you a farm and a 
 chance. Come out to Arkansas." 
 
 The speaker was introduced by Booker T. Washington, as Scott Bond, 
 of Madison, Ark. " How much are you worth?" asked an inquisitive 
 delegate. Scott Bond grinned. "Well," he said, "down in Arkansas 
 they tax us so^cents on every $1,000. I pay a few dollars less than 
 $2,000 a year." A little arithmetic shows that this tax represents a 
 
 pital appraised at nearly 4,000,000, consisting, Scott Bond said, of his 
 own farm, nineteen farms rented to other negroes, cotton gins, twenty 
 general stores and live stock. 
 
 " What do you raise?" asked a woman delegate. " On my place," 
 was the reply, " I raise mules, corn, cotton, tobacco, and boys and
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 277 
 
 they needed to hear, he has done for them what needed 
 to be done, and many countries and peoples are waiting 
 for a man like him to-day. 
 
 Connected with the negro is the subject of lynching, 
 because most of the lynched though not quite all are 
 coloured men. I have written of it elsewhere in con- 
 nection with crime, pointing out that the slow procedure 
 of the courts and weak sentences are amongst its causes. 
 In the case of the negro we must add a racial hatred 
 which prefers to use its own hands in the cause of ven- 
 geance. The crime which leads to it may be murder, or 
 more often rape though sometimes neither of these 
 offences is in question. The victims of rape are often 
 little girls, and here the feeling of Southern society 
 demands death as the penalty even in the case of white 
 men. The law, of course, does not go so far; society 
 rises up and goes beyond it. Very often it is the whole 
 society of a town that acts, including the most prominent 
 citizens, and the proceedings may be quite orderly. 
 They may end in burning the negro alive*, and America 
 
 *" The lynching of Elmo Curl at Mastadon, Miss., was a most orderly 
 affair, conducted by the bankers, lawyers, farmers, and merchants of that 
 county. The best people of the county, as good as there are anywhere, 
 simply met there and hanged Curl without a sign of rowdyism. There 
 was no drinking, no shooting, no yelling, and not even any loud 
 talking." 
 
 " Rusk, Tex. No arrests were made to-day as the result of the lynch- 
 ing of Leonard Johnson, a negro who was burned to a stake last night 
 after he was reported to have confessed the murder of Miss Maude 
 Redding, a white girl. Sheriff Norwood, from whom the negro was 
 taken, said he did not recognize any of the members of the mob, and no 
 further attempt to discover their identity is expected."
 
 2 ;8 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 is used to reading of such cases in the papers. Nobody 
 quite likes to see them there, and nobody quite knows 
 what is to be done. In many cases the local authorities 
 have fought to save their prisoner sometimes success- 
 fully and sometimes in vain. The worst of it is that the 
 mob often hang or burn the wrong man, and crime is 
 not put down. There is a class of negro loafers and 
 ruffians who need to be over-awed, and lynching does 
 not effect this. A better organisation of society is needed 
 which means doing things that are still left undone, 
 and perhaps, after all, educating the negro. But what 
 is to become of the educated negro? 
 
 I know not whether our West Indian Colonies could 
 supply any answer to this question. We hear neither 
 of rape nor lynching there, but perhaps we have given 
 the negro a position which America is not prepared to 
 give him. We find a Colonial Governor Sir S. Oliver 
 stoutly maintaining that the only way to deal with the 
 racial distinction is to turn our backs on it. One has to 
 travel a long way from the American position to reach 
 this. In most States of the Union it is an offence 
 punishable by law for a white person to marry one of 
 colour.
 
 XV 
 Education. Libraries. Museums 
 
 America points with well-grounded pride to her early 
 and sustained interest in education. Massachusetts saw 
 Harvard founded in 1636; Connecticut, the rise of Yale 
 in 1700. By 1665 there was a common school in every 
 town in Massachusetts ; a hundred years later girls were 
 admitted to the Boston schools. Virginia, as we have 
 seen, did not favour common schools; but she had a 
 University, chartered by the Crown in 1693. Without 
 following the history of education in detail, we may say 
 that every State has followed the lead of Massachusetts, 
 and education almost everywhere and at all times in the 
 country has been a sacred name. 
 
 The type of education long continued to be the old- 
 fashioned English type. The three R's supplied the 
 staple of the common school; high schools and the 
 universities added on Latin. Stimulus was imparted 
 where necessary by the rod and the ferule. Under this 
 system many a good citizen was moulded into shape, 
 and it was not extinct in Tom Sawyer's day. But the 
 forces of progress were then in the field; 1843 saw
 
 280 
 
 Horace Vann make his European tour and write his 
 report on German schools. From this quarter came an 
 impulse which still dominates American education, the 
 impulse of Germany. I suppose it took about a gene- 
 ration to penetrate all the schools of America, and the 
 type it created has now a generation of trial behind it. 
 This does not mean that the schools of America have 
 been all on one pattern for a generation, it is a country 
 of experiments, but some broad principles have been 
 accepted everywhere. 
 
 The first of these is perhaps the view of the school as 
 an extension of the family. This is clearly true of the 
 kindergarten, but the feeling pervades all primary 
 schools. Boys and girls go to them together, the 
 teacher is almost always a woman. The relation 
 between her and her pupils is one of affection, and that 
 is the atmosphere cultivated throughout. There is no 
 jealousy between the children, there are no marks, no 
 prizes. The spirit aimed at is one of mutual help ; the 
 work of the better children assists the laggards, and they 
 are pleased to think that this is so. 
 
 I cannot doubt that American primary schools have 
 gone as far in pursuit of this ideal as it is possible to go. 
 I spent many hours in them all over the Continent, and 
 found everywhere the same Elysian fields. I never saw 
 any rudeness or disorder, though I saw often under the 
 same roof scores of large classes run by young girls,
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 281 
 
 without a man about the place but the janitor. I often 
 asked about discipline and means of punishment, but 
 found that very little was in use. The cane is almost 
 unknown ; there is some detention ; but in the junior 
 classes it is found sufficient to deprive naughty children 
 of the pleasure of their work. The principal is often 
 expert in the art of appealing to refractory specimens. 
 If the worst comes to the worst, in most places, a child 
 may be reported to the authorities and sent to a reforma- 
 tory or a truant school. But such cases are rare. The 
 atmosphere of the school, the good humour and skill of 
 the teachers are irresistible; the children are carried 
 along by them. Then, too, the force of society strongly 
 supports the school. Most schools are open to visitors ; 
 parents come to look at the work, as well as inspectors ; 
 it would be almost impious for a child to misbehave 
 maliciously. 
 
 This public interest in schools has saved America 
 from some ill consequences of universal education. It 
 has made people less sensible of the gulf between the 
 culture of parents and children. What may easily 
 happen, and in some countries does happen, is that the 
 educated children despise their uneducated parents. This 
 is rarely the case in the States. Education is part of the 
 onward sweep of things, which the parents themselves 
 foster and take part in. They do not feel bewildered or 
 humiliated by their children's progress; they are proud
 
 282 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 of it and seem to feel that they participate in it. At the 
 same time it must be allowed that schools are robbing 
 parents of the power to control their families. The 
 school has drawn to itself so much of the love and 
 veneration of the young that in their homes missing its 
 spell they grow unruly. Parents are not experts in the 
 management of children, nor have they the moral weight 
 of an institution to back them up, hence they fail to keep 
 up the smooth ascendancy of the school. This is the 
 only way in which I can explain the paradox that many 
 complaints are heard about the behaviour of children at 
 home, and yet that the relations of parents and children 
 do not seem to me unsympathetic. Of course I saw 
 hardly anything of homes, but I very often saw parents 
 and children out together on holidays. 
 
 Some observers, Dr. Hall, for example, complain that 
 the weak discipline of schools makes boys unruly, and 
 young America includes too many of the scapegrace and 
 criminal types. This he attributes to the want of male 
 teachers, and, I think, but am not sure, of the rod. 
 Now certainly bad boys and gangs of bad boys can be 
 found in cities, but it seems doubtful if the presence of 
 more men in schools would mend this. What Chicago 
 seems to have found is that more playgrounds and more 
 interests for boys are wanted ; this is the remedy that will 
 cure the disease. If I am to mention my own casual 
 impressions in the connection I should say that so far as
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 283 
 
 I met American boys about the city streets they were 
 better mannered and less mischievous than those of 
 England or Australia. 
 
 If the American primary school does any injury to the 
 average boy, it must be sought in another direction ; it 
 makes him tame rather than unruly. This is a criticism 
 not only of women teachers, but of co-educationalists, 
 and thus we have drifted into a discussion of one of the 
 widest and haziest of problems. What is to be said of 
 co-education ? It has its friends and its enemies, 
 though, in primary schools, it is so universal in America 
 that there cannot really be any chance of changing it. 
 Still, on the whole, its critics are rather growing in 
 numbers. It is being felt that the system is not fair to 
 boys. They are often outrun by the girls in earlier 
 years, they grow listless, and are anxious to quit school 
 and join the real world as soon as the primary school 
 course is over. The high school subjects, as taught by 
 women and girls, do not interest them. Manual subjects, 
 (e.g., carpentry), often taught by women, assume a 
 feminine character, and do not change the situation. 
 
 Hence has grown up the movement towards the 
 " vocational school." This is a new name for a 
 technical school, and its sphere and methods are matters 
 of discussion. At present, however, it is mostly a high 
 school, following the primary school, and mostly a high 
 school for boys. In Chicago, a third of the boys in 
 
 19
 
 284 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 high schools are in such institutions, one of which, the 
 Lane High School, I visited. Its size and equipment 
 were quite stupefying, there seemed to be acres of forges 
 and lathes-and other machines, and here young Chicago, 
 of the masculine sex, was visibly going ahead. There 
 were no petticoats in the place. I thought the boys 
 looked as though they meant business, and the Principal 
 seemed glad to hear me say so. He told me he went to 
 the Lane School a supporter of co-education, and had 
 been converted by his experience there, but he told me 
 also that fathers and mothers felt their sons were doing 
 better there. I came across similar schools elsewhere; 
 and even a Training College, near Buffalo, where artisans 
 were being trained as teachers for such schools for 
 America does nothing by halves, and if she goes in for 
 vocational schools she will not starve them. 
 
 This is all very well, but if the movement prospers, 
 especially if it extends to primary schools, America 
 stands to lose something by it. At present, the primary 
 and secondary schools almost all stand for culture, for a 
 liberal education, in the old phrase. Surely this is a 
 good thing, in a country where business and politics 
 swallow up so many human natures. I always felt it, 
 for this reason, delightful to step into an American 
 school, and leave the world outside for a time ; was this 
 feeling a mistake? The reformers answer "Yes"; 
 children will not work at things unless they are
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 285 
 
 "vocational"; their time is wasted; and vocational 
 subjects themselves provide enough culture. I am not 
 fully satisfied with the answer, and apprehend that the 
 change, if it comes off, may make America's schools 
 avowedly Philistine. Boys will disappear from literary 
 high schools altogether as they tend to do now. A 
 later generation may then find that culture, left to 
 women, becomes sickly and unprogressive. I have 
 written of this topic already, and pointed out other evils 
 of the tendency to leave culture to women. But I 
 sympathise, as I have said, with the desire to place 
 growing boys by themselves under men. East of the 
 Alleghanies even literary schools of this character may 
 still be found ; a remote future may see them re-born 
 elsewhere. 
 
 The question, of course, arises, How has co-education 
 affected the feelings of the sexes towards each other ? It 
 might have been argued, a prieri, that familiarity 
 between girls and boys continued from early childhood 
 would expel the grand passion from their breasts and 
 leave them capable of nothing more than flirtations. 
 This, however, has not happened. Perhaps the naivete 
 of the American character protects both sides from such a 
 result. Anyhow, the phenomena of " adolescence " 
 seem to occur across the Atlantic as much as anywhere 
 and to end in marriage just as often. (I do not say, of 
 course, in parentage.)
 
 286 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 We may turn now to the intellectual methods of the 
 schools. No one needs to be told that the general aim 
 is to teach children to think, and not to accumulate 
 knowledge. There are serious complaints in the country 
 that this is overdone, that school children are ignorant 
 and inaccurate. If one judged by the average adult, 
 this complaint would seem to have some grounds, for 
 these are common failings of the average American. 
 Outside America, at any rate, his knowledge stops very 
 short and is often very quaint*. But his field is wide, 
 and his impulse to learn is real. Moreover, as regards 
 the children in schools, while I have found the impulse 
 just as real, I have thought the information sound. Of 
 course I was not an inspector, but the opportunities of 
 American schoolrooms enabled me to test this. For, if 
 visitors in general are welcome there, professional 
 visitors are doubly welcome, and they are speedily made 
 at home. I soon learned that in every school in America 
 the professional visitor, especially if he is a far-travelled 
 one, will be courteously and cordially received, he will 
 be shown everything he wants to see, and his most 
 searching questions fully and candidly answered. 
 Finally, he will be invited to teach the class or talk to 
 them, and the class, you may be sure, if he is at all a 
 speaker, will listen with delight. I used as a rule to 
 
 Thus, in a paper before me, the editor speaks of something being 
 a* round as Giorgone's O."
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 287 
 
 ask questions about India, and above all to ask for 
 questions about India which is a first-rate test of 
 intelligence. I rarely failed to get good questions, and 
 an Australian inspector, who was touring round at the 
 same time as myself, told me the children knew 
 Australia well. I am inclined to think that on the point 
 of accuracy perhaps American schools are on the up- 
 grade. Their treatment of literature, a favourite subject 
 of high schools, I thought too scrappy, and too much 
 inclined to give feeble little answers to ambitious 
 questions. This encourages superficial views, which 
 are also a fault of the country. 
 
 I did not seem to feel any over-pressure in the schools, 
 as one seems to feel it in Germany, and surely this is a 
 proof of wisdom. Sometimes it appears that too much 
 inattention of children, (I do not mean rudeness or 
 noisiness), is tolerated; but the difficulty of fixing a 
 mean is well known. On the other hand, the usual 
 absence of all home lessons kills self-reliance. 
 
 The disappearance of men from the rank and file is 
 due to the low pay; in most cases this is only just 
 enough for a woman to live on. Higher appointments, 
 of course, go increasingly to women ; there is no field of 
 male candidates. The Superintendent of Schools in 
 Chicago is a woman ; the Superintendent of all Indian 
 schools is a woman. I did not, however, hear of any 
 sex jealousy, even of complaints by women that men
 
 288 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 are favoured. There was, I believe, a little feeling over 
 the election of Mrs. Young to the post of President of 
 the National Convention, but it was slight, and dis- 
 appeared with her election. I do not think, however, 
 this predominance of women is going to be a good thing 
 for the future, unless women show a grasp of facts and a 
 power of facing situations which they do not show else- 
 where. Surely it is not satisfactory that the only pro- 
 fession in which they rule should be one where they fill 
 up the ranks because they are cheap. I do not say that 
 in this situation they are bad. Quite the contrary. 
 They are bright, industrious, and sympathetic, most of 
 them are trained, and have taken their training 
 seriously. Most of them leave the profession young 
 and marry, but this in itself is not a bad thing, as women 
 do not wear so well as men. In some places, however, 
 like San Francisco, the procession of girls passes 
 through the schools at an amazing rate, and it is equally 
 amazing what good work they do. But with regard to 
 the higher appointments, the problem will soon be to get 
 men in them at all. A plan that is tried in some places 
 is to push young college graduates directly into appoint- 
 ments as superintendents, but this would only be 
 possible in a country that respects youth as much as 
 America. At the universities, I need hardly say, there 
 are Professors and Lecturers on Education, and 
 specialised courses beyond number.
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 289 
 
 Nor need I say that American schools are democratic 
 to the backbone. They are democratic in their organi- 
 sation, which seems to hold there need be no special 
 bond between individual teachers and individual pupils; 
 the theory of the divine average extends to this sphere, 
 and children constantly pass from set to set and teacher 
 to teacher. Moreover, rich and poor sit side by side, (so 
 far as they live in the same district.) The story of 
 America is told and re-told, and the patriot's duty is 
 constantly brought home. The American flag is never 
 out of sight, and on more than one day in the year it is 
 honoured with national songs. This is not mere 
 exuberance, for the millions of immigrants have to be 
 made into Americans, and the schools have to undertake 
 this. Their vigour and success in the task are astonish- 
 ing. This is perhaps the greatest debt the country owes 
 to its schools ; and the second is that sociability of tone 
 which I referred to at the outset. It has already been 
 questioned whether this is a good preparation for life, 
 and whether the smoothness of school introduces the 
 friction of the world; but, setting aside this speculation, 
 I think the social, amiable, cordial tone of the schools 
 does a great deal for American civilisation. It did not 
 wholly create this, but it continues and develops it. 
 
 We will now glance at some exceptional types of 
 schools. The humanity of America has never neglected 
 the stepchildren of Nature, and the public care for them
 
 290 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 is now greater than ever. There are many schools for 
 defectives; the blind, the deaf, the feeble, and the 
 diseased. Children are examined with more and more 
 care for adverse symptoms, and placed under specialists 
 if these are found. There is, indeed, an opinion audible 
 that this tendency is going too far, that the children of 
 genius now suffer, and that the best teachers are often 
 sent to the least repaying work. But the spirit of the 
 times is still to search out the weak for especial care. 
 In Boston I went to an open-air consumptive school in 
 the beautiful Franklin Park, and also to the Perkins 
 Blind School. I need hardly describe the ingenious 
 arrangements of the Blind School, but I will speak of a 
 brief visit I was permitted to pay to Miss Helen Keller, 
 the blind deaf-mute of Boston. Few who read these 
 lines will fail to know her name, or the story of her 
 education by Miss Sutherland. She lives with Miss 
 Sutherland, now Mrs. Macy, in a suburb of Boston, 
 amid glades and grassy knolls and gardens ; I spent an 
 hour with them there, and for once in my life while I 
 talked to them forgot that time was moving. Mrs. Macy 
 interprets to H.K. in taps on the palms of her hand; 
 it is done very quickly, but one wishes somehow they 
 could have developed telepathic powers and flashed their 
 thoughts to each other. H.K. can speak, but not very 
 clearly ; Mrs. Macy has to repeat the most of what she 
 says. She can talk well and easily on many subjects ;
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 291 
 
 I found she knew much about India and even remoter 
 parts of the world ; she could discuss a subject so full of 
 pitfalls as " materialism." I spoke of the sense of 
 smell, and told her how the ancient Hindus did not kiss 
 their babies, but smelt their heads ; she replied that she 
 was not surprised, for lovers smelt their mistresses' hair. 
 We were greatly amused to find her possessed of this 
 information. No sentence, however complex, was 
 beyond her comprehension. She must have possessed 
 by nature a powerful mind ; it is rarely that a bfind deaf- 
 mute can be taught at all. They succumb to the strain. 
 And, indeed, a man with five senses can hardly imagine 
 what life is like with only two and one of these the least 
 informing of all. Of course, nobody can say exactly 
 what H.K. owes to education. Everything that has 
 gone into her mind has been very carefully chosen, but 
 without her gifts the materials would not have made her. 
 Her philosophy of life is a generous optimism, which 
 the reader will best gather from her own books. Do I 
 end with the feeling that I would like to change places 
 with her ? I cannot say, but if ever you passed an hour 
 in her company you would feel that in her case pity was 
 a foolish if not an impertinent mood. 
 
 From schools for defectives I will pass to schools for 
 the very rich. There are, to begin with, certain private 
 schools in the large cities where these very rich children 
 can have the very best teachers, on the usual lines, for
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 several hundreds of dollars a year. I do not think that 
 social exclusiveness takes them to these schools so much 
 as a desire for the very best teachers and for special 
 personal attention. Of course they get any amount of 
 this, and the teachers are charming. The children, too, 
 are charming at school at any rate, though I really 
 cannot say if the advantages are worth what is paid for 
 tnem. Curious that such schools should arise in demo- 
 cratic America, and should be unknown in aristocratic 
 and intellectual Germany. Then there are schools some- 
 what like these, expensive schools reposing on special 
 foundations ; e.g., in Chicago there is one connected with 
 the University and another called the Franklin School. 
 Much experimentation has been carried on here; 
 children have been brought up on a theory that as they 
 grow they should live through civilisation in miniature, 
 from its earliest stage onwards. Thus they wear baskets 
 (like the Indians) when they are young, and work a 
 printing press when they are older. It is very interest- 
 ing; I cannot say what it all ends in. At least, however, 
 I must recognise the enthusiasm and devotion of the 
 staff. 
 
 Finally, for those who seek other ideas, there are 
 schools like the Public Schools of England. One of 
 these I was permitted to visit Groton. It stands away 
 out in the country in its own grounds, with beautiful 
 buildings in the colonial style and a Gothic chapel.
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 293 
 
 Much money must have been put down to build it; I 
 understand it was a private school at first, but has now a 
 public constitution. This, however, I cannot say, for 
 Groton, following the precedents of Eton and Harrow, 
 puts forth no printed account of itself ; indeed there is no 
 reason why it should invite the attention or satisfy the 
 curiosity of the public. It has its own circle of friends, 
 among the leading men of America; Col. Rooseveldt's 
 sons are being educated there. Its supporters feel that 
 the sons of the rich, in America as in England, should 
 be withdrawn while they are young from the luxuries of 
 their homes; also, that they should be placed where 
 responsibilities and services will be required of them, 
 that is to say in a good boarding school. So far English 
 Ideas are followed perhaps even a little too closely in 
 classrooms and classroom methods ; but the tone of the 
 school remains firmly American. It was interesting to 
 see round the hall autograph letters from all the Presi- 
 dents and famous men of the States. Whether the spirit 
 of democracy can be induced to dwell within its walls is 
 another matter. The authorities intend this, but will 
 they succeed? I am not at all sure but that Noblesse 
 oblige will some day have to be written over the portals 
 of Groton. 
 
 One remarkable school that I visited was the Gerard 
 College, of Philadelphia, founded by the earliest 
 millionaire of America, Stephen Gerard, who died in
 
 294 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 1831, aged eighty-one years, possessed of seven million 
 dollars. This sum he made partly in trade and partly as 
 a banker, by honest enterprise, if we may trust his 
 biographer. He left most of it to found the College, 
 which is really an orphanage for the State of Pennsyl- 
 vania. It provides for eighteen hundred boys. The 
 buildings are handsome and modern ; they were nearly 
 empty when I visited them, as the holidays were on. 
 The grounds are surrounded by a high wall, and I could 
 not help thinking how Mr. George would have 
 denounced that wall, and relegated Gerard College to the 
 class of " institutions." It is true indeed that they tend 
 to become harsh and mechanical, and that fine buildings 
 do not insure a humane or stimulating life. But this is 
 no criticism of the Gerard College, which I am not able 
 to criticise. One thing is very suggestive there, the 
 household furniture of the founder, which is kept in a 
 room by itself. It shows that Stephen Gerard, like many 
 great men, preferred the simple life. One famous para- 
 graph in his will is that which excludes all ministers of 
 religion from the buildings, not merely as teachers, but 
 even as visitors. " I desire to keep the tender minds of 
 the orphans far from the excitement which clashing 
 doctrines and sectarian controversy are so apt to pro- 
 duce." There is, however, a chapel where religious 
 addresses are given by the Principal. 
 
 It will have been seen that America takes care of the 
 

 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 295 
 
 young. In this she is far ahead of England, though 
 English people little know it. One of the most painful 
 sights I saw in my Mother Country was the boys who sit 
 down in the London tube stations selling papers not 
 much unlike those boys who, years ago, opened and shut 
 trap-doors in coal pits. Is it necessary that people should 
 buy newspapers underground ? Is it nothing that these 
 wretched boys waste there the precious hours when they 
 should be gaining health and strength and the know- 
 ledge of some calling? It would not be tolerated in 
 America. Child labour and the " blind alley " employ- 
 ment of youth have vanished there. There are no errand 
 boys; and newspaper boys in many towns (e.g. Boston) 
 are only allowed to sell papers out of school hours. We 
 in England, presumably, what with crowning our King- 
 Emperor and abolishing our House of Lords, are too 
 much occupied to think of our children. 
 
 America, again, has taken the lead in children's 
 courts. I hesitate to believe that the growth of youthful 
 crime has led to them, and would rather believe it is the 
 growth of sympathy with the young. I am not sure if 
 Judge Lindsay of Denver invented them ; he was the first 
 to develop them. Denver seems, according to the judge, 
 to have been a vile city not long ago, and to have treated 
 its young criminals vilely; he bethought himself of this 
 better way. It is simply to hold an informal court, in a 
 place apart from the police court, where informal
 
 296 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 methods will elicit the truth, and good advice may some- 
 times be substituted for punishment. I was present at 
 such a court in Chicago, and heard a lot of boys tried. 
 They were pretty voluble (as guilt often is), and I 
 thought such courts will certainly need a firm judge as 
 well as a humane one. Nor is the informal method 
 always the best method of getting at the truth. But the 
 ideal is good and experience may show the way towards 
 it. 
 
 The boys (and girls) awaiting trial are kept in special 
 houses of detention, that in New York being managed 
 by the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. 
 I was amused to find it entirely in charge of women 
 about thirty unruly boys being assembled in a hall, with 
 no occupation, under the control of a woman. At 
 Chicago they are split up into groups, and schooled and 
 taught modelling and other fine arts. The sleeping 
 arrangements at this institution seemed to me designed 
 to spread the infection of vice. 
 
 I will pass on now to the American Universities, 
 noting, as before, those points which struck a casual 
 visitor. The first is no doubt the splendour of their 
 buildings. I might have made the same point about the 
 schools; their size, their beauty and their convenience 
 can hardly be believed. The very smallest town spares 
 no money over its school, and architecturally we might 
 compare the American school to the parish church of the
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 297 
 
 middle ages in Europe. It occupies almost the same 
 position in men's affections, and is built as carefully. So, 
 too, are the Universities built. It would be a revelation 
 to most Europeans to visit them and to find that what 
 Europe took centuries over America has achieved in a 
 few years. In point of their style I think they are a little 
 disappointing ; though sensible and effective they seldom 
 strike a note of their own. The exception to this, among 
 those winch I saw, is the Leland Stanhope University, 
 in California. The founder was a millionaire, who made 
 ias money by building the first railroad to the Pacific. 
 An only son who should have inherited this money died ; 
 he was a boy of intellectual promise, and his parents 
 resolved to commemorate him by building a University. 
 A few years saw the University built, under the vigorous 
 rule of Dr. Jordan ; an earthquake shook some of it down, 
 but all is now restored except the chapel. The style is 
 founded on the old Spanish architecture of California, 
 the material is a warm brown stone, which under the blue 
 Californian sky glows with a warm inspiriting radiance. 
 The long cloisters have an effect of their own, and 
 altogether the group of buildings is a triumph. The 
 brick quadrangle of Harvard has now antiquity on its 
 side, and is chiefly impressive for that reason; the 
 campus of Cornell, for its glorious view. 
 
 The aims of these Universities vary. Pure scholarship 
 is represented by Yale, east of the Alleghanies ; modern
 
 298 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 and practical subjects have taken complete possession of 
 the West. Harvard, not less scholarly than Yale, has 
 nevertheless given students a much wider option of 
 studies, in accordance with a tendency of late years. This 
 tendency is now questioned; it has been found to 
 encourage desultory and inaccurate work, a fault which 
 infects American Universities; and marks a declension 
 from their German prototypes. Nor do the opuscula of 
 American students and professors compare with those of 
 Germany; there is a tendency (certainly in educational 
 work) to produce endless little papers that signify 
 nothing. American critics, however, have become aware 
 of this. Doubtless the same is not to be said of highly 
 practical subjects, like electricity. 
 
 In the relation of Schools and Universities, west of 
 the Alleghanies, it has been the tail that has wagged the 
 dog. The schools have insisted on the colleges accepting 
 whatever courses they pleased, and matriculating 
 students from their certificates. East of the Alleghanies 
 the Universities have not been so compliant. 
 
 In the student world one is struck by the number of 
 students working their way through college. Sometimes 
 they earn money as waiters, morning, noon and night ; 
 sometimes, in winter, they go round and stoke heating 
 apparatus. In the vacations they pick up various jobs. 
 These students are often boys who left primary schools 
 young, and resolved in after years to go to college ; their
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 299 
 
 self-help is admirable, and they will generally be found 
 sensible and pleasant men, who neither boast of their 
 achievements nor hide them. Their industry loses them 
 nothing in the eyes of university society. 
 
 Women, east of the Alleghanies, are excluded from 
 most University Colleges ; they have institutions of their 
 own. These are very large and well endowed ; time fleets 
 away in them full blithely. The girls work hard, but, 
 judging from the papers, overstrain is not common, 
 much less suicide. Whether the nerve diseases of 
 America proceed at all from women's colleges is perhaps 
 a different question. Their life is a crowded one, and no 
 doubt the life that follows it is often a disappointment. 
 There is room here for various inner discords to arise. 
 I saw Wellesley College, near Boston, one evening, 
 when the students entertained their friends to a " float." 
 That is to say, to the spectacle of all the college boats 
 floating in the lake by moonlight, with the aid of 
 coloured fires and Chinese lanterns. It was very pretty; 
 many girlish trebles filled the air with music, the scene 
 was graceful and delightful. The American summer and 
 the suburbs of Boston suit this sort of thing very well. 
 
 In the West co-education is the rule. I have the 
 pleasantest recollection of the girls I saw trooping about 
 the Californian Universities; bright, sunny, healthy 
 girls they looked. But I should like to know why 
 marriage and parentage are states little sought after in
 
 300 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 the West, and divorce is so common . Perhaps those are 
 right who say not college life but the want of it is to 
 blame. 
 
 Among many new inventions of the age are vacation 
 camps for boys and girls. Boys and girls are found 
 troublesome companions in the hotels where their 
 parents spend the summer holidays, and some years ago 
 teachers conceived the idea of taking the boys away into 
 the woods camping. The boys were found to enjoy this, 
 and philosophers remembered that the boy is still partly 
 savage and wild life suits his savage years. Later on it 
 was thought that the girls would enjoy it too, and girls' 
 camps were founded. Boys' camps and girls' camps 
 now account for thousands of children and youths during 
 the summer holidays. They vary much in size and style, 
 some being cheap and some expensive, with special 
 tutors both for work and games, and horses and fleets of 
 boats. I visited two myself, and spent some delightful 
 days at them. One was at Chocorna in the White Moun- 
 tains and one by Lake Morey; and the latter was the 
 girls' camp. There were girls of all sizes in it, and they 
 seemed to enjoy very well their non-co-educational 
 holiday. They wore bloomers, and climbed trees, and 
 scrambled up Moosi Carke, and swam across Lake 
 Morey. They acted plays and sang heaps of songs 
 written by themselves. 
 
 Girls in America have a way of singing little songs in
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 301 
 
 honour of visitors, which is very pleasing. Here is the 
 Smith College song : 
 
 There's a lass that's known in all parts, 
 
 Her name is , and she's won our hearts. 
 
 Oh ! ! ! We'd like to know 
 
 A girl with more go ; 
 
 We'll stand by her till the end, Oh ! 
 
 Boys and collegians of the male sex have special cheers, 
 which perhaps were once suggested by Indian war- 
 whoops. I am sorry I cannot remember the trans- 
 literation of one. They are practised with assiduity and 
 led on great occasions by a bugleman. 
 
 A point in which the whole world might learn from 
 America is the gratitude of old pupils to schools and 
 colleges, and the careful organisation of college ties. 
 The students of each year keep touch of each other more 
 carefully than they do in England, and meet with more 
 affection. At Harvard every class after attaining its 
 twenty-fifth year from graduation, makes a present to 
 the University. The figures of individual contributions 
 are not made public; but the sum total has exceeded a 
 hundred thousand dollars. I have never heard else- 
 where in the world of any similar instance of generosity 
 and gratitude. 
 
 American children are sometimes run down, and when 
 I went to the country I expected to find them rude and 
 noisy. Now it is true that the quiet, old-fashioned 
 children of our grandfathers' time are not to be found 
 there. I did stumble across two such, little half-caste
 
 302 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 Indian girls, who reminded me of old novels and 
 vanished times. They had the quiet interested view of 
 their surroundings that well bred children used to have, 
 long ago. But though children of this type have 
 vanished, let me say that so far as I met children in 
 America, I thought them a very amiable and innocent 
 race. Nor did I hear those sinister rumours about vice 
 that I heard in Australia. As for boys, there is proof 
 that the American boy, at a boarding school, can be as 
 cruel and mischievous as boys elsewhere. I think it a 
 good thing for the country, on the whole, that such 
 schools are not the rule. American boys will generally 
 be found frank, responsible, sensible, and humane. 
 Their weak points have been indicated elsewhere. 
 
 It must be recognised by all who have studied America 
 that there is a breadth about her views of education not 
 yet attained in England. Education is felt to be a 
 function of society ; society needs to study itself from an 
 educational point of view, to take stock continually of 
 its needs, and to measure its progress. Conditions 
 change, new methods are required, mistakes have to be 
 corrected; all this cannot be done without continual 
 thought on the part of able and honest men. The 
 Universities accept it as part of their duty to produce 
 such men and to devote such thought to the general 
 problem of education ; it can hardly be said even yet that 
 they take up a similar attitude in England.
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 303 
 
 It is, moreover, a strong point of America that 
 education is followed up by the influence of libraries and 
 that the young are taught to use and value them. What 
 a contrast with the England of my youth ! I well 
 remember the reception which boys got in the library at 
 Southport : they were merely tolerated, within very 
 narrow limits, as a nuisance. But go to Chicago or 
 Boston, and you will find one of the best rooms set apart 
 for the young, an excellent choice of books for them on 
 the walls, and a smiling librarian, (a lady, of course), 
 waiting to help them. Then what magnificent buildings 
 the libraries are altogether; light, spacious, and nobly 
 decorated. Library methods have been carefully 
 developed ; there are even colleges which give courses in 
 this subject. Everything is done to induce the public 
 to use the books ; e.g., a circular is sometimes sent round 
 to a particular trade telling them of new books concern- 
 ing that trade added to the library. The " open shelf " 
 system is adopted more in some towns than in others; I 
 did not meet with it myself as much as in Australia. 
 The custodians everywhere are most courteous and 
 painstaking. 
 
 Concerning American museums there is more to write 
 than the world realises. Most people probably think, as 
 I did, that in so new a country museums must needs be 
 slenderly stocked. That may have been the case years 
 ago; now, however, the chief American museums are
 
 30 4 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 approaching those of Europe in the value of their con- 
 tents. The collections of Indian antiquities are, of 
 course, unrivalled; and late years have seen them grow 
 enormously in the departments of physical science and 
 natural history. There are also special collections of 
 great value. In the Metropolitan Museum of New York 
 are Mr. Bishop's jade and crystal carvings, which cannot 
 be equalled elsewhere in the world. This gentleman was 
 a colleague of Jay Gould, who actually left off money- 
 making to pursue a hobby; the hobby was jade and 
 crystal. He struck an hour when other collectors were 
 running after something else, used his money well and 
 made bargains which posterity will never duplicate. 
 Then there are the glass flowers at Harvard ; Europe 
 cannot match them. Nor can Europe easily match the 
 splendour with which the best American museums dis- 
 play their objects. Space, lighting and cases are perfect. 
 Do you think stuffed birds can ever be attractive ? It is 
 worth a journey from Europe to the New York Museum 
 to see the bird-cases alone. 
 
 All American museums are entirely free. No gratuities. 
 European nations (except England and Germany) please 
 notice. 
 
 I find I have said nothing about finances, but I may 
 add, as typical, the following figures about Boston, a city 
 of about 500,000 people (excluding suburbs). Teachers' 
 salaries amount to $2,860,000 a year; new school houses
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 305 
 
 $800,000; and other expenses about $1,000,000. Thirty- 
 four per cent, of the city revenues is devoted to education 
 exclusive of new buildings. 
 
 The following poem, by a humourist of the day, may 
 prove interesting : 
 
 " THE SCHOOLMA'AM." 
 
 4 The teacher in the country school, expounding 
 lesson, sum and rule, and teaching children how to 
 rise to heights where lasting honour lies, deserves 
 a fat and handsome wage, for she's a triumph 
 of this age. No better work than hers is done 
 beneath the good old shining sun ; she builds the 
 future of the state; she guides the youths who will be 
 great ; she gives the childish spirit wings, and points the 
 way to noble things. And we, who do all things so well, 
 and of our ' institooshuns " yell, reward the teacher with 
 a roll that brings a shudder to her soul. We have our 
 coin done up in crates, and gladly hand it to the skates 
 who fuss around in politics and fool us with their time- 
 worn tricks. In congress one cheap common jay will loaf 
 a week, and draw more pay than some tired teacher, 
 toiling near, will ever see in half a year. If I was running 
 this old land, I'd have a lot of statesmen canned; and 
 congressmen, and folks like those, would have to work 
 for board and clothes : I'd put the lid on scores of snaps, 
 and pour into the teachers' lap the wealth that now away 
 is sinned, for words and wigglejaws and wind. "--WALT. 
 MASON.
 
 XVI 
 
 America and the World 
 
 The feeling between England and America has 
 changed more than once in the course of their common 
 history. The earliest days saw friendship on both sides. 
 Even in Massachusetts, so far as I know, the age of the 
 Pilgrim Fathers was not hostile to England. It was 
 during the eighteenth century that a hostility arose; the 
 reasons for it have been already stated. It was not 
 appeased by the War of Independence. I do not think 
 that English feeling resented the American victory ; in 
 any case the Americans, during the struggle, had friends 
 in England. The war of 1812, however, roused England 
 more; it also exasperated America. The burning of 
 Washington (a reprisal for a similar action of the 
 Americans in Canada) was long remembered against 
 England, and during all the nineteenth century the two 
 countries were unfriendly. England thought little about 
 America, bul that little was tinged with contempt. 
 Washington indeed was always mentioned with respect, 
 and school histories treated America fairly over the war, 
 but the attitude of England towards the country, when
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 307 
 
 not indifferent to it, was usually either patronising or 
 disdainful. This, was appreciated and warmly resented 
 in America, where the moral darkness and brutality of 
 England were frequent themes, and school books treated 
 the country as an enemy of mankind. Antipathy cul- 
 minated during the Secession War, when many English- 
 men supported the South though there were Americans 
 who recognised that, English sympathies being what 
 they were, the attitude of the English Government 
 deserved their gratitude. The historian Freeman, a few 
 years later, lecturing in Boston, made a notable attempt 
 to reconcile the nations, proceeding on the ground that 
 both were English in origin and similar in institutions 
 and sympathies. Yet his effort does not seem to have 
 been much appreciated, and he was perhaps the last 
 really able man to imagine that America is English by 
 extraction. The fiction lingers in the columns of our 
 papers, and we still hear of " American cousins " in 
 England; but we do not hear of English cousins in 
 America. 
 
 The immigrant Irish have played^ a great part in 
 keeping the two countries apart. They, are almost to a 
 man, inflexible enemies of England, and it is strange 
 that they have not actually embroiled her with the States. 
 When I was in San Francisco, I went to a meeting of 
 " The Knights of the Red Branch," a Fenian society, 
 who were opening a new hall. The gathering was blithe
 
 3 o8 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 enough, the citizens all of prosperous appearance, and in 
 the chair a priest, of a well marked Irish type, dark, 
 truculent, and bitterly in earnest. The night was 
 Emmett's anniversary; he recalled the hero (whose por- 
 trait looked down on us), denounced the mendicant policy 
 of Irish M.P.'s, and declared that he believed in " the 
 crash of the bullets and the magic gleam of the sword." 
 Did he mean it ? Will the day come ? I do not think so 
 now ; at any rate I do not think America will draw the 
 sword to set Ireland free. The game is played into a 
 newer hand. 
 
 The States and England have drifted together. The 
 event that really changed the feeling of the countries was 
 the English attitude during the Spanish-American War. 
 England might easily have believed (or affected to 
 believe) that America was bullying Cuba out of the feeble 
 monarchy of Spain ; instead of doing so, she accepted the 
 explanation of America and supported her. This led 
 many Americans to see that England is not necessarily 
 the hereditary enemy of America. Many of them, too, 
 began to cling to England for another reason. The vast 
 incursion of South Europeans had begun to change the 
 character o? America, so that New England felt over- 
 whelmed in her own country. She began to look on the 
 English connection as something to be treasured.* This 
 
 * It is remarkable how many Americans have taken the trouble, of late 
 years, to get their English pedigrees furbished up.
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 309 
 
 improved relations, while at the same time these new 
 immigrants themselves had no unfriendly feeling to 
 England. Many of them were Italians or Greeks, whose 
 views of the country were quite favourable. 
 
 Thus varying forces have brought the countries 
 together, and at the time when I visited the States there 
 was throughout the country quite a pro-English wave of 
 sentiment. I was in Chicago when the news of King 
 Edward's death arrived, and I attended a memorial 
 service in the Auditorium Theatre, where about 5,000 
 people listened to a sermon from Chicago's foremost 
 preacher. He passed in review many great Englishmen 
 of the Victorian age, and it was surprising to find that 
 even in a sermon the name of Gladstone evoked involun- 
 tary applause. The estimate of Edward VII. was 
 generous, and to hear it from a Republican speaker in the 
 land of the Monroe doctrine was remarkable. During all 
 my visit to me country, save in one of Mr. Hearst's 
 papers, I did not read a single unfriendly remark on 
 Great Britain. This attitude is reciprocated across the 
 Atlantic, as we may see from the calmness with which the 
 tariff negotiations of the States and Canada have been 
 received. The messages over the Tercentenary of the 
 Bible prove the same cordiality between the peoples, and 
 the question that suggests itself is simply how long it 
 will last and what will come of it. 
 
 Before we try to answer this let us survey briefly the
 
 3 io AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 history of America's relations with the world other than 
 England. We have partly spoken of them, in the case of 
 Spain, in the case of France there is little to be noticed 
 save the episode of Maximilian in Mexico. It would 
 never have taken place had not the Civil War paralysed 
 the States ; at the close of that war the States reasserted 
 the Monroe Doctrine, and politely but firmly turned out 
 the troops of France. The French Republic has long 
 since wiped out the memory of the Third Napoleon's 
 folly. 
 
 During all the nineteenth century the policy of the 
 States was to guard the frontier line of the New World, 
 but, like the tortoise in the famous simile, they have now 
 put their head out of their shell. The acquisition of 
 Hawaii, and the purchase of the Philippines mark a new 
 era in their history. Why this era was inaugurated, no 
 one seems to know. The common citizens of the States 
 do not know. I asked numbers of them, but never 
 received an answer.* Possibly the inner rings of capi- 
 talists may know; the soil and the markets of the Philip- 
 pines may be worth to America what they have cost her. 
 But what have they cost her ? Not merely the money the 
 
 * President McKinley gave the following account of the matter : 
 " The war has brought upon us new duties and responsibilities which we 
 must meet and discharge as becomes a great nation on whose growth 
 and career from the beginning the Ruler of Nations has plainly written 
 the high command and pledge of civilisation. Incidental to our tenure 
 in the Philippines is the commercial opportunity to which American 
 statesmanship cannot be indifferent."
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 31 1 
 
 States have spent on the islands themselves, but all that 
 they have since spent on their fleet, their army, and the 
 Panama Canal. Were it not for the Philippines, where 
 would be the necessity for these things ? Not the greatest 
 alarmist in the States believes that the Japanese are 
 prepared to attack the continent of America. If this view 
 be correct, we may say that the Philippines have cost the 
 States more than they would ever venture to reckon. 
 
 Of course there are other views of the case. "Im- 
 perialism " has made itself felt in the Republic, the desire 
 to enter the Councils of the world, mixed up curiously, 
 but quite sincerely, with a desire to benefit these very 
 Philippines. These motives, however, are repudiated by 
 many Americans. They feel that the right of the Philip- 
 pines to be free takes precedence of any American desire 
 to benefit or control them, and they have never been 
 satisfied by the most convincing explanations, that 
 Aguinaldo was not the George Washington of his 
 islands. For the present their consciences are quieted by 
 the presence of the Philippine deputies in Congress, and 
 they mean, as soon as possible, to give the Philippines 
 independence, as they have given it to Cuba. But it 
 remains to be seen whether this independence will not 
 involve new scandals, and whether America will not be 
 forced to carry the burden she took up. This feeling, too, 
 is present in American minds, and it has induced them to 
 see that the history of England in Ireland and India is
 
 3 i2 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 not the simple affair represented to them by Irish and 
 Indian patriots. 
 
 With respect to Japan, the growth of hostility between 
 her and America is curious and amusing. It was the 
 United States which, in 1853, insisted by force of arms on 
 Japan opening her ports to strangers. I know not how 
 the republican conscience of those days justified this 
 bellicose act ; perhaps on the ground that it was good for 
 the Japanese. Anyhow, for some years the two countries 
 continued friendly, and America became in many ways 
 the instructor of Japan. Things only changed when the 
 Japanese proposed to reverse the position of 1853 and 
 settle in America. The Pacific sea board was not long in 
 resenting this, and the position became strained. A few 
 Japanese the Americans do not mind, nor a few Chinese, 
 but they will not have them in numbers. The objection 
 is partly the white man's objection to cheap labour, and 
 yet not wholly ; it is admitted the Japanese have no desire 
 to remain coolies. A large settlement of Japanese would, 
 however, change the civilisation of California. This the 
 States do not want; and I understand that some private 
 arrangement has been made between the Governments 
 whereby the Japanese restrict their own migration to 
 the States, the States admit them, and the Californians 
 open their schools to Japanese students. This at least is 
 said, I know not with what truth. The position may 
 become acute at any time, but what will probably keep
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 313 
 
 things quiet at present is the Japanese want of money. 
 America is strangely nervous, however. I heard a minis- 
 ter in San Francisco, in one of the principal churches 
 there, pray that if America were to be overwhelmed by 
 the races of Asia they might first be " lifted from their 
 heathenism, cruelty and darkness." 
 
 I think on a general survey of America's relations with 
 the outer world it will be found that she has acted much 
 as other nations have acted towards their neighbours. 
 Americans (like the citizens of other countries) may have 
 cherished the illusion that she is less aggressive, more 
 veracious and generally more virtuous, and they may 
 occasionally have lectured other countries under the 
 influence of this illusion, but it is false after all, and the 
 better sense of America now admits this.* America's 
 wars are all her own ; no country has ever declared war 
 against her. She is not less exclusive than other 
 countries; witness her treatment of Hawaii as an 
 American port. She is not less aggressive, as Mexico 
 could testify. She is not more veracious, as a thousand 
 instances prove. Let me quote only the promise of the 
 open door in the Philippines, which has not been kept, 
 and the non-fortification of the Panama Canal, which, it 
 seems, is about to be broken. In saying this, however, I 
 
 * Of course, not always. During my visit the Congress passed a reso- 
 lution asking the President to remonstrate with Russia against t 
 massacre of Jews. Had the President done so, the Russian Cover 
 might have said something unpleasant about the lynching of negroes.
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 bring no special charges against the States ; if no better 
 they are no worse than other Governments. Only the 
 affectation of republican virtue must not be overdone. 
 
 Certainly, it is not so much forced upon us nowadays. 
 Better acquaintance with Europe has led the States to 
 value more the culture of Europe, and there is a growing 
 desire to live at peace with the old world, with England, 
 with Germany, and with all the Powers of Europe. This 
 Peace Movement has taken a strong hold of the American 
 imagination, and we can now resume the question how 
 far it is likely to carry the world. With many people it 
 is, of course, a pious sentiment; it expresses itself in a 
 strong approval of arbitration, but it provides no means 
 to enforce this. With others, notably with the ex-Presi- 
 dent, the sentiment is accompanied by a determination 
 to use force against force, to establish an international 
 police and put down war by war. It is a paradox of 
 human nature that so bellicose a man should prepare so 
 bellicose a scheme of peace ; I suppose he objects to war 
 not so much in itself as because it interrupts domestic 
 politics. But in other quarters a sentimental objection 
 to war is strong. I remember hearing President Jordan, 
 at Leland Stanford University, denounce war as an 
 " inverse selection," which killed off the best men of the 
 world. To this he attributed the fall of Spain, and much 
 loss of vigour in England. Perhaps, however, he over- 
 looked the fact that war not only destroys men, but makes
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 315 
 
 men. Be this as it may, the sentiments he spoke are 
 common and sincere in America; whether they will 
 endure is another question. My own feeling is that a 
 few years might see them all scattered to the winds. Of 
 the future of the ex-President's plan I am no judge ; it 
 may be the world is going to try his project, but of the 
 instability of the purely pacific sentiment there can be no 
 doubt, not even in America. 
 
 I have little to say of the American Army. You see 
 on the walls advertisements calling for recruits to the 
 Federal forces, and offering " opportunities for travel, 
 education and advancement." These certainly are not 
 the inducements by which England secures her 
 Tommies. Train loads of troops may be seen proceeding 
 to the Philippines a spectacle more natural in Anglo- 
 Indian than in American eyes. I fancy the service is not 
 very popular, though there is a growth of military senti- 
 ment in the States, as well as of pacific. Troops may 
 usually be seen in pageants and processions. The State 
 militia are organised in somewhat the same way as the 
 old British volunteers. There are corps d' elite which 
 have fine headquarters of their own and are careful about 
 admissions. 
 
 21
 
 XVII 
 
 Religion 
 
 There is little in the preceding pages to suggest that 
 this chapter will be a long one, yet it might easily be 
 made the longest, and is probably the most important of 
 all I have to write. The history of religious feeling in 
 America is probably the most instructive part of her 
 history. This will be news to those who think of America 
 as " the land of the dollar," yet it is not said in any per- 
 verse spirit ; there is no doubt that the religious sentiment 
 of the country is deep and widespread, and at least 
 equally real with the democratic sentiment. Its moods 
 are profoundly interesting, especially because, as we 
 shall see, in America we can study the actual foundation 
 and growth of schools of religion. 
 
 The mixture of creeds which we find in the country 
 has been present from its earliest times. The Anglican 
 Episcopalian Church was established in Virginia, the 
 Puritans in New England. The latter were not in their 
 first intention seceders from the Anglican Church, but 
 were soon forced into this position and became the 
 Presbyterians and Independents of later years. The
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 317 
 
 Society of Friends occupied Pennsylvania; the Roman 
 Church Maryland. Thus in religion as in race the 
 origins of America were mixed. 
 
 The States varied at first in the point of Toleration. It 
 was professed by the Roman Maryland and by Pennsyl- 
 vania; it was denounced by Massachusetts. In 1629 the 
 Brownes insisted on using the Anglican Prayer Book, 
 whereupon Governor Endicott told them " New England 
 was no place for such as they," and sent them back to 
 Old England. Seven laws were enacted against " the 
 cursed sect of heretics, lately risen up in the world, which 
 are called Quakers." Several who refused to obey 
 sentences of expulsion were hanged. The moving 
 powers against them were chiefly the ministers, who in 
 those early days controlled the administration. They 
 were men of great character and ability, learned in all the 
 learning of their time, and devoted to the public weal ; 
 whether in the public assemblies or in their own con- 
 gregations their judgment in matters of faith or morals 
 was final. They attained this end in virtue of no office ; 
 their position merely illustrates a fact of all American 
 history, that even in a democratic system, men of weight 
 emerge and rule. Not that the theocracy of early Massa- 
 chusetts could yet be called a democracy, or that the 
 clergy favoured this political development. John Cotton 
 " did not conceyve that God did ever ordeyne democracy 
 as a fitt government either for church or commonwealth."
 
 3 i8 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 The popular assemblies, however, gradually gained in 
 strength and the power of the clergy waned. The inter- 
 ference of the English King postponed the actual founda- 
 tion of the republic, but none the less the theocracy 
 vanished. 
 
 In defence of its intolerance we may say that from the 
 first New England was troubled by " freak " religions, 
 just as it was troubled by the fashionable extravagances 
 of women. In the case of other religions, too, it was 
 largely from women that the trouble came. About 1640 
 Mrs. Hutchinson raised a disturbance, and after a long 
 and weary trial was banished to Rhode Island where 
 the Indians killed her. An enthusiast named David 
 George founded'" the Family of Love," and proclaimed 
 himself Messiah. Between 1637 and 1680 five synods 
 were held " for the preventing of schisms, heresies "and 
 profaneness." 
 
 The belief in witchcraft was held by all devout minds, 
 and in 1692 took place the horrors of the Salem trials. 
 Nineteen persons perished. It is easily understood what 
 a gloom both the belief and the suppression of the belief 
 cast over men. The whole of the Puritan theology was 
 gloomy whatever were the variations in the tone of 
 families or circles. Jonathan Edwards, 1703-1758, is the 
 best-known voice of the age, but many congregations 
 besides his must have listened to pictures of hell not 
 unlike this:
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 319 
 
 The world will probably be converted into a liquid 
 globe of fire, a vast ocean of fire, in which the wicked 
 shall be overwhelmed, which will always be in tempest, 
 in which they shall be tossed to and fro, having no rest 
 day or night ; their hands, their eyes, their tongues, 
 their feet, their loins, their vitals shall for ever be full 
 of a glowing melting fire, fierce enough to melt the 
 very rocks and elements, and also " they shall eter- 
 nally be full of the most quick and lively sense to feel 
 the torments." 
 
 With this we may contrast the serene faith of the 
 Moravians, whom Wesley met in Georgia, and to whom 
 he owed his spiritual conception of faith. This strain 
 continues in the religious life of America to-day, equally 
 with the other. 
 
 I have no materials for a general history of religion in 
 the 1 8th and igth centuries, but so far as the orthodox 
 Protestant bodies are concerned, the progress of ideas 
 seems to have been much the same as in England, until 
 quite recently. There has even been in America a growth 
 of high Anglicanism, a reflection of the Oxford Move- 
 ment. This movement continues to-day; I heard one of 
 its emissaries in Philadelphia giving a cosy talk to a 
 queer mixed audience of prospective converts. It was 
 comical to hear how he represented his small affair as the 
 true Apostolic Church, the golden mean between Pro-
 
 320 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 testantism and Rome. However he seemed to be finding 
 adherents. Of course not all the Episcopalian Church in 
 America is high Anglican. It is a rich and powerful 
 body; if I mistake not, Mr. J. P. Morgan is one of its 
 adherents. It is also, I think, the religion of such schools 
 as Groton. Except, however, in the mere fact of its 
 existence and prosperity it is not specially interesting to 
 the student of American religions.* We must note, how- 
 ever, that the spiritual healing movement of the 
 Emmanuel Church has proceeded from it. 
 
 Of other Protestant Churches, the Baptist, Congrega- 
 tional, Methodist and Presbyterian are the most numer- 
 ous. Their arrangements for worship resemble those 
 of the same bodies in England ; the only detail to which 
 the Englishman is not accustomed is the choir of four 
 paid singers who usually front the congregation. The 
 churches are perhaps less ecclesiastical in style than the 
 English; their interiors are comfortable and in good 
 taste. The clergy are hard-working earnest men, less 
 prone than is supposed in Europe to sensational methods. 
 The share of American ability that enters their ranks is 
 probably the same as that in similar bodies in England. 
 
 The remarkable feature about all their churches is the 
 simple evangelical character of their views. Such views, 
 of course, exist in England, but are growing rare there; 
 in America they are common. No echoes of the higher 
 
 Franklin, Jefferson, Henry, and Washington were all Episcopalians.
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 321 
 
 criticism proceed from the orthodox pulpits ; the simple 
 faith of sixty years ago suffices both minister and con- 
 gregation. Those who find it insufficient leave the 
 church ; those who remain are content with the Gospel as 
 their grandfathers heard it. Nor are their numbers small, 
 despite all the defections of modern times. The first 
 thing that strikes one about American churches is that 
 they are well attended. I have no figures for the country 
 available, but a recent return of Protestant bodies for 
 Chicago shows 854 churches, with 208,242 members, and 
 an expenditure on church work at home of $3,787,000. 
 The congregations, moreover, are largely masculine, 
 more so than those of any country known to me. 
 
 These bodies all take a keen interest in missionary 
 work, for which there are raised in America by Pro- 
 testants about eight million dollars a year. During my 
 visit there was a movement by the laymen of the churches 
 to increase this amount, and a campaign was carried on 
 from one end of the States to the other. The meetings 
 were large, and, like everything of the kind, exceedingly 
 well organised. No one who attended them could doubt 
 that Protestant Evangelical Christianity is a living force 
 in America. It can hardly be said at the moment to have 
 great leaders, but the rank and file are marching on. 
 
 They are in the main people of means. The great mass 
 of working men and the poor generally ignore the 
 orthodox churches. They bring against them the
 
 322 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 familiar charges of dishonesty, and demand from them 
 " social reforms." The question remains why they do 
 not start their own churches, and the answer is probably 
 the same as elsewhere, that the poor in this world have 
 decided to become rich in this world rather than expect 
 the compensations of the next. This is not really an 
 explanation of the Case. Religious sentiment in America 
 being as strong as it actually is, one might expect the 
 poor to have their Christianity as well as the rich, 
 whether of the other-worldly sort or combined with the 
 spirit of the English politico-religious revolutionary. 
 I think, however, this, like the suffragette, is not an 
 American type. 
 
 Nor is the atheist of Col. Ingersoll's type common 
 now, if ever he was. The enemies of Christianity betake 
 themselves either toother religions or to indifference. It 
 is strange, by the way, how little Ingersoll's really able 
 attacks have affected the influence of the Bible. 
 
 A powerful auxiliary of the Protestant Churches is the 
 Young Men's Christian Association. This is a more 
 vigorous institution across the Atlantic than in Britain, 
 and it encourages a manlier type of men. The English 
 branches expect too much of the plaster saint, and 
 encourage too many pious frauds. The American institu- 
 tions do not reject the smoker and the drinker; they 
 require chiefly a clean life and a spirit of friendly co- 
 operation between men. They do an enormous amount
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 323 
 
 of good throughout the country, in providing education, 
 amusement and exercise and smoothing life for young 
 men in great cities. 
 
 Particular churches in America are still notably strong 
 in particular places. Thus the Unitarian Church is 
 strong in Boston. Many Presidents of Harvard have 
 been Unitarians. One of the most curious by-paths of 
 religion in America is the Unitarian Church in Tremont 
 Street, an old endowed church with an old building in 
 the Anglican style ; high pews and a three-decker pulpit. 
 The service is conducted from a prayer book, resembling 
 that of the Church of England ; there is no collection, and 
 the visitor is invited to depart with a cargo of Unitarian 
 pamphlets. These he will find written in classic 
 language, clear and strong, putting forth one point 
 alone excepted the most orthodox Christianity of the 
 past. Unitarianism concedes nothing to the age. It 
 does not sympathise with the demand for '* restrictive 
 laws, a new social mechanism, a better physical environ- 
 ment built up by statute." The mission of the Church 
 is " first to keep the light of the ideal burning clear and 
 bright amid all confusion and storm and darkness, and 
 then, by the glory of that ideal and by the sheer power of 
 its loyalty to itself to inspire men to go about doing good. 
 In this field it stands alone." Clearly, this is the Chris- 
 tianity of the past why is not the Church that so speaks 
 a more powerful agent in the world ? One cannot say.
 
 3 2 4 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 Unitarians would claim that they are an unseen influence, 
 especially among educated men, but they seem, at the 
 hour, to have no mission to the crowd. 
 
 Such a mission the Salvation Army claims, but, 
 apparently, with no striking success in America. This 
 again is strange. Their simple point of view is not un- 
 common, and their methods, one might suppose, have 
 appeared less eccentric in America than elsewhere, but, 
 for some reason, they have not greatly prospered there. 
 I do not think their English origin was against them, but 
 perhaps there is not exactly the same field across the 
 Atlantic. Except in a few centres, there are not the 
 " slums " for them to conquer. Certainly, where these 
 slums exist, they have met with the same kind of success 
 as in England, but not apart from them. One of their 
 developments in New York is an anti-suicide bureau. 
 Here intending suicides are invited to come and be 
 reasoned with; it appears that many are rescued. 
 
 The Society of Friends are silently declining ; modern 
 movements are stealing away their members. Their 
 principles remain unchanged. In some respects they 
 form an interesting contrast with the religious world 
 round them; especially with those bodies which, like 
 them, believe in assemblies of the faithful. They claim 
 no miracles and no pentecostal powers. They seek an 
 illumination that reassures the spirit and prompts to good 
 works and with this they are satisfied.
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 325 
 
 We may pass on now to the unorthodox forms of 
 Christianity, and point out the impulses that have created 
 them. In a country which draws its inspirations from 
 the whole of Europe such bodies are naturally more 
 numerous than the sects of England. First then let us 
 note the Christadelphians. This body, representing 
 views that are really older than itself, took shape in 
 America during the nineteenth century. It follows the 
 impulse, never dead in Christianity, to accept the teach- 
 ing of the New Testament in the plain sense of its own 
 words. This has often been the impulse of unlettered 
 people, but the Christadelphians have had scholars 
 amongst their numbers. They have been able to perceive 
 that historic Christianity has borrowed from pagan 
 systems, and some of these borrowings, which all the 
 Christian world accepts, they have rejected. Thus they 
 hold that the soul is not immortal, but perishes with the 
 body and with the body is recalled to life at the judgment 
 day. Their views are for the orthodox disagreeably 
 hard to refute. Their assemblies possess many of the 
 marks by which the true type of primitive Christianity 
 can be distinguished. They look on the Church as an 
 elect body, bound together by conviction and mutual 
 love. They do not care to see large assemblies of the 
 unbelieving and indifferent brought together by incon- 
 gruous motives ostensibly for Christian worship. They 
 take little interest in politics or worldly affairs ; without
 
 326 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 being ascetic, they prefer the simple life, and they look 
 forward with hope and joy to the Second Coming and 
 the Millenium. They gather no collection at their 
 services and do not want outsiders' money. 
 
 Methods similar to theirs have led other bodies to 
 dwell more on the horrors with which the last day will 
 afflict the mass of wicked and indifferent men. This senti- 
 ment is the lineal descendant of that which animated 
 Jonathan Edwards ; it is not extinct, though confined to 
 small bodies now. Such a body is " The Order of the 
 Holy Ghost and Us," founded some years ago by Mr. 
 F. W. Sandford and now flourishing in New England. 
 It is strongly millenarian in temper, and pays the closest 
 attention to the details of the Apocalypse. That these 
 details will be realised, that the world and all save one 
 hundred and forty-four thousand of mankind will perish 
 is their unwavering faith, and their present task is to 
 search for these elect vessels throughout the world. They 
 are strongly missionary ; they possess* a yacht of their 
 own to transport their preachers, and they have founded 
 a settlement in Jerusalem in anticipation of the end. 
 Their centre is the Bible School at Shiloh, Maine, a large 
 and remarkable building where some three hundred 
 voluntary workers are assembled. They are not com- 
 munist, but, like other similar bodies, give very freely to 
 their own purposes. 
 
 I have seen it stated in tke papers that this vessel has been wrecked.
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 327 
 
 I had unfortunately no opportunity of meeting the 
 founder, Mr. Sandford. Others of their chief speakers I 
 did hear and was struck, deeply struck, with their intense 
 conviction. There was one among their number who 
 possessed a power I have never experienced elsewhere to 
 horrify men. It cannot be doubted that to men accus- 
 tomed to take the Bible seriously, as seriously as the 
 orthodox church, for instance, the full meaning of its 
 words must occasionally break forth, and, if they do not 
 leave Christianity forthwith, they must take the line of 
 Mr. Sandford and his followers. Their tenacity when 
 they have chosen their line is astonishing, and also their 
 ignorance of other views than their own. This is charac- 
 teristic of all the minor bodies of America and no less 
 remarkable is the ignorance of the world, even of the 
 churches, regarding them. They are curtly disposed of, 
 " freak religions," and there is an end of the matter. 
 
 One day, in a respectable Boston paper I read that the 
 " Holy Jumpers " were about to hold a convention at 
 Milford, and knowing very well that this was some mis- 
 representation or other I proceeded to Milford and joined 
 the convention. I found the " Holy Jumpers " were a 
 revivalist movement calling itself the Latter Rain. It 
 is a movement that has migrated from one part of the 
 world to another, from Wales to Australia, from Aus- 
 tralia to Ramabai's Mission in India. It is not closely 
 organise ', and is rather a series of spontaneous meetings
 
 328 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 to which believers come as they have opportunities. The 
 name is taken from the saying of Zechariah : " Ask ye 
 of the Lord, Rain in the time of the Latter Rain." The 
 impulse at work is strongly millenarian, but little atten- 
 tion comparatively is paid to the horrors of the 
 apocalyptic hour, and much more to the bond of love 
 between believers and to the signs by which God shows 
 His presence amongst them.* Such signs and miraculous 
 cures, prophecies, and above all the pentecostal gift of 
 tongues. It is believed that in their assemblies this gift 
 is freely poured out, and that many speak and pray in 
 unknown tongues. What I myself heard was certainly a 
 flow of sounds resembling language, but whether such 
 sounds have ever been identified I cannot say. The 
 methods of worship reminded me of some in use in 
 India; for instance the iteration of the name Jesus, 
 
 Still, their faith in hell is real. " Yes, there is a hell, a literal hell, 
 burning with fire and brimstone. I will give, in a few words, what 
 God has shown me. I speak what I know and testify to that which I 
 have seen. After the Lord had put me in His work, I, for a number of 
 years, preached and taught there was no literal hell, but our passions 
 were what burned us up. The Sunday following my baptism with the 
 Holy Ghost, I was awakened very early in the morning, my body 
 shaking and trembling while a voice, clear and distinct, gave command 
 to arise, so I arose, and kneeling down at the bedside in prayer, I was 
 taken put of the body, and a being, which I did not or could not see, yet 
 very distinctly felt, took hold upon me. Finally, I was let down in what 
 is commonly called Nob Hill, in San Francisco. I heard again a voice 
 saying to me, ' Son of man, speak." I opened my lips and strange 
 sounds I uttered, not understanding their meaning, but the ground under 
 my feet parted and I looked down into an awful fire. It seemed to 
 scorch my skin, and I smelled the brimstone very clearly. I beheld men 
 and women falling and stumbling into the everlasting fire. I saw the 
 splash as of liquid fire and heard the awful fiendish laugh of demons 
 when a poor soul tumbled in."
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 329 
 
 such as the Hindoos understand by japa. It is 
 not to be doubted that these were very sincere people 
 and truly Christian in their humility, faith and mutual 
 goodwill. The workings of the Spirit amongst them I 
 cannot understand; it is certain that miracles of healing 
 occur, but I suspend my judgment as to whether " in 
 Assansol, the Holy Spirit fell upon a Methodist School. 
 Mr. and Mrs. Byers, missionaries from America, had 
 long been praying for this. Mr. Byers was prostrate, 
 lying on the floor of the church, under the power of the 
 Holy Ghost for about three hours. Mrs. Byers saw the 
 tongues of fire sitting on the girls and teachers of the 
 school." The emissaries of the movement go as the 
 Spirit leads them ; I met a little man, consumptive in both 
 lungs, who told me (not without some pressing) that he 
 had walked across Africa from Mombasa to Paul de 
 Loanda. 
 
 These bodies are Christian ; they must, I think, belong 
 to a type that has been present in Christianity since its 
 very earliest days and is conceivably its truest type. As 
 we have seen they fix their thoughts on different aspects 
 of the promises, they are some more and some less 
 ecstatic ; but they all wait upon God for grace, they all 
 expect the second coming, and they regard the number of 
 the saved as small. Some are more, some are less joyful, 
 but on the whole the gloom of Scotch Calvinism is absent 
 from them. We shall now contrast with them the first of
 
 330 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 many bodies whose title to the name of Christian is more 
 doubtful. 
 
 The first of these is the Universalist Church. It differs 
 from the preceding bodies and resembles most of those 
 that follow in taking a deliberate survey of the various 
 sects and deploring sectarianism. It feels the impulse to 
 throw off dogma, but it struggles to remain Christian. 
 It yields to the modern impulse to seek pleasure and joy 
 for their own sakes, and it is effusively optimist. Some 
 people hold that this is the only way to rescue Chris- 
 tianity from death. I said that Dr. Jordan, the well- 
 known President of Leland Stanford, takes this view, 
 but he is an optimist, and believes a change for the better 
 is already being effected: "The church has given up 
 some of its old methods and is taking hold of new things. 
 The world is not a vale of tears and a place of sorrow ; on 
 the contrary it is a place of joy and pleasure. We don't 
 want our ministers of the gospel to teach us only the road 
 to heaven. We want them to carry us through this world 
 in a realm of love." 
 
 However, men of the type that forms the Universalist 
 Church do not as a rule, in America, remain within the 
 Christian pale. Occasionally they join one of the Hindu 
 cults. The hierophants of these are sometimes private 
 adventurers, sometimes missionaries of the Ram 
 Krishna Mission. In San Francisco there is a rather 
 striking building on which an inscription testifies to the
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 331 
 
 fact that it honours "the first Hindu mission to the 
 West." Inside it I heard the Swami Trigunatita dis- 
 course a Madrassi apparently. He seemed an earnest 
 and unaffected man, but the discourse was dry and 
 rambling. It followed familiar lines : " Good and evil 
 are merely conventional ; two opposite aspects of one 
 and the same thing." On his walls were various pictures, 
 one of which represented Christ sitting cross-legged, 
 with a dove and parrot feeding him and a rabbit licking 
 his feet. (I can account for the dove and the parrot, but 
 why a rabbit ?) 
 
 The Los Angeles Swami I did not see, as the meetings 
 held during my visit were only open to esoteric pupils. 
 His circular begins : 
 
 JAVA MA KALEE 
 
 Unto Mother Kalee 
 All Glory. 
 
 In Chicago there was a School of Applied Philosophy 
 and Oriental Psychology. The Principal was a Bombay 
 B.A., and his prospectus denounced " modern occultism, 
 with its heritage of hysteria, self-righteousness, and 
 cranial degeneration," and invited "those who, having 
 had some experience of life have come, at least partially, 
 to recognise the unsatisfying nature of phenomenal 
 existence and are fired by the desire to co-operate for the 
 
 real in the midst of changing shadows." The lecture I 
 
 22
 
 00' 
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 heard was quite on the lines here promised; a creditable 
 lecture of an ordinary college type, which, one would 
 have thought, could not possibly have brought together, 
 the females who attended it. The lecturer was an earnest, 
 prepossessing man. A few days later some Chicago girls 
 accused him of having seduced them under pretence of 
 teaching them Yoga exercises, and a little stir took place. 
 I saw the affidavits of the girls, but can only add that the 
 Swami denied the charges, and the matter rested there. 
 
 Strange scandals came to light in New York during 
 the year in connection with pretended Swamis there. I 
 cannot say if they were real Swamis or not; one called 
 himself "the Tantric Om." His name easily indicates 
 his importance and its object. 
 
 Other Swamis, too, I heard, in Boston and elsewhere. 
 Their audiences seemed to be made up of commonplace 
 but earnest and inquisitive people ; their influence, how- 
 ever, at present, is small, and is not spreading. The 
 pagan movements of America generally follow more 
 original lines, and attempt in some way to reconcile 
 Oriental cults with Christianity. Minor movements of 
 this kind abound, I will mention as an example the 
 Oriental Esoteric Center of Washington. They have, of 
 course, the magazine, the Bulletin ; magazines are even 
 more numerous than organised movements. Their sup- 
 porters are certainly very ill-informed about Eastern
 
 AiMERICA, OLD AND NEW 333 
 
 religions and religious books. They do not distinguish, 
 for instance, between the Vedanta and Buddhism; all 
 things Oriental, save things Mahommedan, they equally 
 revere. Nevertheless, they have correctly caught the 
 tenor of Hindu religious methods (excluding idolatry). 
 They are, in fact, the Gnostics of the age; even more 
 eclectic than the Gnostics of old. They believe in the 
 existence and fatherhood of God, and the power of man, 
 by meditation rather than prayer, to work his way 
 upwards into His presence. They also hold vaguely the 
 doctrines of Kaima and Maya. Some believe in the 
 ascetic practices of Yoga, others do not ; but as a matter 
 of fact no one devotes much time to them ; people of this 
 kind read and write and talk a good deal. The best of 
 them are sincere and aspiring minds, who have been 
 repelled from Christianity partly by the death of Christ, 
 partly by hell, and partly by its want of pretentious 
 explanations of things. Many, I think, have an un- 
 spoken, even unformulated, dislike to the very humble 
 attitude of mind which Christianity requires. They dis- 
 like, too, the " sectarianism " of the churches (not per- 
 ceiving their own). They find a want of honesty in 
 Christian preachers. With all this, however, they respect 
 Christ as a teacher, especially as a teacher of renunciation 
 and the brotherhood of man. 
 
 I add an extract from the Bulletin of the Oriental 
 Esoteric Centre.
 
 334 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 "A MEDITATION. 
 
 I ask for Power, that I may help my Brothers. For 
 Thou knowest, O Father, that this is my great wish in 
 life that my Brothers may universally see the Light. 
 
 But why dost thou wish for this? 
 
 Because, my Father, I see men struggling and un- 
 happy, I see them saddened with the sense of 
 separateness, I see them darkened with ignorance and 
 illusion, yet they are all One the Infinite is indi- 
 visible." 
 
 It is astonishing what beautiful poetry these magazines 
 often contain. 
 
 My wish for thee ! a sympathy divine, 
 
 That with a brother knows not " mine " and " thine," 
 
 But yields in loving service at his cry 
 
 The silent recognition, " This is I." 
 
 My wish for thee? a second, clearer sight, 
 
 That sees, through deepest gloom the inner light, 
 
 The lamp of soul fire glimmering above, 
 
 Thy humblest brother seeing, thou wilt love. 
 
 We are here in touch with a real spiritual life, but I 
 will pause awhile to observe that American curiosity 
 about the East is not always of this lofty type. To begin 
 with the journalists write and publish much nonsense 
 about it, as, for example, this passage about Madame 
 Maeterlinck. 
 
 " In Madame Maeterlinck's eyes is a look that is 
 seen only in the eyes of those who have been permitted 
 to gaze into the occult realms. It is a look of trance-
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 335 
 
 like ecstasy. This look is sometimes seen in the eyes 
 of Professor William James and other great students of 
 Psychology. It is never seen in the common everyday 
 eye. Madame Maeterlinck is a Buddhist, a deep 
 student of Vedanta and Theosophy. She spends hours 
 poring over the Bhaganad Gita. She says that the 
 ancient Greek dictum ' know thyself ' is the concen- 
 trated essence of all the wisdom of the world. But by 
 the self is not meant the objective self, the ego, but the 
 subjective or subliminal self, which is the real self, 
 etc., etc." 
 
 Besides the fools who write this and the fools who read 
 it, there are the countless fools who visit witches and 
 wizards of all kinds. I call them fools, though I 
 expressly assert an opinion that "occult" powers are 
 realities. The mode of their working, however, is so little 
 known and impostors are so numerous that those who 
 trust the opinions of advertising mediums may justly be 
 called fools. Read, if you have patience, the following 
 advertisement from a San Francisco paper : 
 
 AAA ASSURED SUCCESS FOR YOU. 
 HENRY MANSFIELD. 
 
 HENRY MANSFIELD. 
 
 HENRY MANSFIELD. 
 
 500 500 Special Readings 500 500. 
 
 5oc SDC 500 500 500 500 500. 
 $5 Phenomenal Deep Mental Reading for $i. 
 
 Genuine substantial trance readings with full name, age, occupation, 
 spirit messages.
 
 336 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 Advanced ordained spirit medium, world's greatest trance clairvoyant, 
 psychic palmist, astrologer ; adept in occult science, mental telepathist ; 
 mystical power to influence things to be as you wish ; implants a wonder- 
 ful force in you whereby you can secretly control the thoughts, actions, 
 habits or intentions of any one, near or far ; causes speedy and happy 
 marriage to one of your choice ; creates and imparts good luck ; removes 
 evil influence ; brings back lost lover, husband^ wife ; overcomes weak- 
 ness, nervous mental ills ; locates treasures, mines, ores, work, missing 
 ones, business chances ; develops mediums, psychic powers, mental 
 fascination, secret powers of control, personal magnetism ; tells every- 
 thing ; all revealed; whom, when, you marry ; who is true or false; what 
 sickness you have and who can cure you ; full names, dates, secrets, 
 important information ; love, enemies ; secures for you good investments, 
 gains law suits, journeys, changes, buying or selling, all revealed ; advice 
 in troubles; truthful; oldest in exp. ; most reliable; confidential. Those 
 under adverse signs to their highest or best adaptations especially should 
 call and be helped upward and onward. Works through the inner forces 
 with a powerful mysticism that transcends belief. 
 
 1302 FILLMORE ST., 1302., cor. Eddy. 
 
 FOR READINGS BY MAIL SEND $i. 
 
 I had an amusing interview with Mr. Mansfield, which 
 space fails me to relate. I had rather describe how I saw 
 the famous Slater give readings to a huge crowded hall 
 at Los Angeles, undoubtedly genuine and some quite 
 sensational. A schoolgirl sent in the question, " Should 
 she go on with her studies?" Slater replied, "Yes," 
 and added, " Do you know a man named -?" 
 She turned redder than a rose, and faintly indicated that 
 she did know such a man. " Beware of him!" replied 
 Slater. ' We tell you this, little girl, because we want 
 to save your soul." Next morning I repaired to his 
 private rooms, and on payment of three dollars mono- 
 polised five minutes of his time and mystic powers. He 
 told me some curious but useless details of my family 
 history, and assured me that " God had a great work for 
 me to do in India."
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 337 
 
 I have drifted, however, perhaps prematurely, into 
 Spiritualism ; I may perhaps finish a digression concern- 
 ing it. At present, Spiritualism of the old-fashioned kind 
 is rather under a cloud in America. Newer cults have 
 drawn away its followers, and probably many people 
 have found its results disappointing. Still, there are 
 Spiritualist bodies, and regular meetings are held, both 
 in New England and in the West. The spirits 
 who turn up are often Red Indians, and I was 
 amused by one who addressed the audience (through 
 his medium) in a very Indian-like manner, 
 exclaiming: "Huh! Huh! Me Redjacket. Me 
 heap glad to see you all. Me much want to 
 help you all." How strange, that with all the enquiry 
 and experiment of fifty years we should yet be so ignorant 
 what was really happening to this medium, when 
 these words left her lips for that something is happen- 
 ing, very interesting but inscrutable, cannot be doubted. 
 I will not, however, pursue the subject here ; with respect 
 to Spiritualists, I think that they have at present in 
 America no strongly defined character ; they are common- 
 place and materialist. Many of them should be placed 
 with the groups that join a religion for the sake of what 
 they get out of it. In earlier days, I fancy, the body 
 included more truly spiritual members. Actions against 
 fraudulent mediums are not uncommon in the law courts. 
 
 Returning now to the Neo-Pagan movements of the
 
 338 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 country, I will speak of the Universal Brotherhood Move- 
 ment at Point Loma. This is really the lineal descendant 
 of Mrs. Blavatsky's Theosophical movement; it recog- 
 nises the line of William Q. Judge and Mrs. Tingley, 
 the English Theosophists who are represented also in 
 America recognise Col. Olcott and Mrs. Besant, and 
 between the two bodies there is a warm hostility. The 
 secretary at Point Loma has published a plain account 
 of Mr. Leadbetter, the chief medium of the English 
 Theosophists, and, as I dare not speak openly of its con- 
 tents here, I will only recommend the pamphlet to all who 
 are interested in the history of moral ideas. Those who 
 believe the nineteenth and twentieth centuries have wit- 
 nessed progress in these ideas may be referred to the 
 strange cases of Oscar Wilde, Hector Macdonald and 
 Mr. Leadbetter, and their admirers. 
 
 Relinquishing this point, however, one may say of the 
 Universal Brotherhood that it is established in a beautiful 
 home at Point Loma. This headland near San Diego 
 runs out into the blue Pacific under the blue Californian 
 sky ; it is surrounded by glorious cliffs, and breathes the 
 purest air in the world. The Brotherhood, like all 
 religious movements in America, has not found any want 
 of funds impede it, and it possesses many stately build- 
 ings. Here live and work members from all parts of the 
 world, who are being trained as emissaries of the faith; 
 and there is also a school. Visitors are admitted to the
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 339 
 
 gardens, but not to the buildings or the school ; it is the 
 only school in America which declines to receive the 
 public. This, of course, is a matter entirely within the 
 discretion of the authorities, but it prevents me from 
 speaking of the educational principles of this interesting 
 body. As a whole, they borrow from the East the idea of 
 Karma, but are much less given than most of the Neo- 
 Pagans to expanding into metaphysics. Their immediate 
 object is to spread sound morality, and their code is not 
 marked by extravagances. In their writings they evince 
 a great interest in fragments of history and science, and 
 the reconciliation of these with the usual Theosophist 
 theories of vanished worlds. They deprecate all magical 
 rites, and dislike Mrs. Besant's speculations and indul- 
 gence of idolatry. They might, in fact, be described as 
 Buddhist rather than Hindu, just as she is Hindu rather 
 than Buddhist. I was permitted to watch a little enter- 
 tainment by the children in the theatre, dancing, music 
 and a fancy sketch. It was very pretty, and not in the 
 least pervaded by metaphysics. 
 
 I met Mrs. Tingley for a moment, but had no oppor- 
 tunity of forming any opinion of her. Like most leaders 
 of religious movements in America she commands the 
 deep and outspoken veneration of her followers, and her 
 utterances are quoted as authoritative : 
 
 " In every act which partakes of a divine and infinite 
 
 compassion lies concealed the potency of all spheres.
 
 340 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 All nature obeys the command of one whose heart beats 
 constantly for others." 
 
 " The basis of the Raja Yoga system of education is 
 the essential divinity of man." 
 
 The Gnostic tendency I have spoken of before shows 
 itself here. The movement believes that Karma is a 
 full explanation of the problem of evil ; that it lies with 
 man to change himself; that the Golden age is coming. 
 What marks it from the other cults I have dealt with is 
 perhaps better organisation and more instinct for prac- 
 tical work. . , 
 
 Though all these bodies rely chiefly on Hindu sources, 
 the Mahommedans have also their representatives in 
 America; not indeed the orthodox Mohammedans, so far 
 as I know, but an offshoot of the Bal, who lives at Akka. 
 The founder of this movement was a Persian, Baha 
 Ullah, and his Khalifa, now living, is named Abdul 
 Baha. The teaching of Baha Ullah seems to be merely 
 tolerance; he would have all men follow their ancestral 
 religion. " The first command that is given to a Bahai 
 by his leader is this : ' Do not antagonise any reli- 
 gion '." Curiously enough, his Christian adherents find 
 this " strikingly similar to the early Christian faith," 
 evincing once more the conservatism of all these 
 American heresies, where the name of Christ is con- 
 cerned. For those, however, who have left the churches,
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 341 
 
 the Blessed Perfection has teachings of his own. These 
 he puts forth in the Lawh-et-Akdas, The Holy Tablet, 
 revealed by the Blessed Perfection at Bagdad. I tran- 
 scribe a part of it : " Blessed is whosoever is illumined 
 by the Sun of My Word. Blessed is whosoever adorned 
 his head with the Wreath of My Love. Blessed is he who 
 was attracted by My Melodies and tore the coverings by 
 My Power. Blessed is he who cut himself from all other 
 than Me, and soared in the ether of My Love, and entered 
 My Kingdom and perceived the Dominions of My 
 Might, and drank the Kawther of My Favour and the 
 Salsabil of My Grace and was apprised of My Command 
 and of whatsoever was hidden in the Treasuries of My 
 Vvords and shone forth from the Horizon of Inner 
 Significance in My Commemoration and My Praise." 
 The object of the sect seems to be the cultivation of 
 mutual goodwill; they are not much concerned with 
 general oriental studies. They have projected a Mashrak- 
 el-Ozkar (i.e., a central building) in Chicago. It was in 
 Boston I met them ; and for a moment, for a moment only 
 and only on that occasion, did my gravity fail when I 
 heard them singing 
 
 Tell the loving story, 
 
 Tell it near and far, 
 Of our gracious Father, 
 
 Of Baha Ullah. 
 
 However, they struck me as friendly and simple people,
 
 34 a AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 and devout in a way in which Neo-Pagans as a rule are 
 not. 
 
 I now approach a group of bodies which do not seem 
 to me in the strict sense spiritual, bodies which believe 
 that religion pays in the way of worldly blessings. These 
 bodies include both Pagan and Christian sects; I will 
 speak first of the Pagans. The most interesting body 
 here is perhaps the Mazdaznas assembly. I did not find 
 out its precise history, but I believe it was created by its 
 present leader, Dr. O. Z. Hanish, of Chicago. It reposes 
 on a Zoroastrian tradition, communicated to America, I 
 understand, by members of a mysterious white race, who 
 live retired in Persia. It does not, however, interest 
 itself much in the study of Persian or Parsi literature, 
 but depends on the personal writings of the Doctor, who 
 is supposed to be a plenary authority. It is represented 
 to the public by a magazine, which is beautifully printed, 
 called Mazdaznan. From this we learn the metaphysical 
 system of the creed: " Man's entity in the focalisation 
 of God's intelligence manifesting attributes of spirit, soul 
 and mind; we recognise in the body of man the 
 crystallisation of substance, guided through uncountable 
 processes of creations and evolutions, passing through 
 the lower strata of matter as revealed through the 
 elementary, the mineral, the vegetable, the animal, and, 
 lastly, to the form of man, the culminating point of all 
 intelligence and energies, celestial and terrestrial." Maz-
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 343 
 
 daznan has its spiritual methods, including a version of 
 the Lord's Prayer: 
 
 Our Father, who art in Peace, 
 
 Intoned be thy name ; 
 
 Thy realm arise ; 
 
 Thy will incarnate upon the earth as in heaven. 
 
 This day impart thy word, 
 
 And remember not our offences, 
 
 That we may forgive those who offend us. 
 
 Through temptation guide us 
 
 And from error deliver us. Be it so. 
 
 But the methods it prefers are materialist. It attaches 
 the utmost importance to breath control, and holds that 
 the Lord's Prayer is of little use if not uttered " on the 
 breath." The purification of the body is its chosen means 
 for the purification of the soul. Flushing of the colon is 
 recommended, and detailed rules concerning diet are 
 promulgated. The strictest vegetarianism; a special 
 system of cooking; the magazine is full of instructions. 
 " Butter should not be used with cereals, and if using 
 vegetables they should be raw and grated. Instead of 
 salt use for six weeks or more alternately finely ground 
 sage root, orris root, sarsaparilla, charred ash powdered, 
 and rose leaves, cayenne pepper, anise, celery seed and 
 other aromatics." Fruits are only allowed in their own 
 seasons a great restriction for Americans, who are 
 accustomed, thanks to cold storage and railways, to 
 indulge in them all the year round. Careful attention to 
 the body is required:" Prove your admiration for the 
 temple of God by draping it with the finest of linen,
 
 344 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 festooning the outer part with the most appropriate 
 designs, revealing your perfect form in line and 
 symmetry Going to the table to dine, hold yourself as 
 stately as it behoves a hero of the day, etc., etc." The 
 reward of all these measures will be health and poise of 
 mind. Mazdaznan does not, like some religions, promise 
 money ; nor does it heal diseases, as almost all American 
 religions do. It is, in fact, a very curious and original 
 system, and I listened to its founder with great interest. 
 I wish I could have seen more of him ; the founders of 
 religious sects are always interesting people. He was 
 very self-confident and broadly humorous ; certainly not 
 spiritual in the usual sense. His movement is gathering 
 momentum, and has a satisfactory building in Chicago. 
 
 Quasi-religious teachers promising health are quite 
 common in America; Dr. Fetter, of California, for 
 example, prescribing hygienic exercises, writes : 
 " Mentalise upon and partly close the hand, claw-like, 
 then fiercely tense stretch every single nerve, muscle 
 and bone in your body, and while thus tensed with a slow 
 rythmic movement bend as far forwards as you possibly 
 can . . . and you will have daily performed your duty 
 to yourself through the organising principle of God 
 Nature's all-governing natural law." He is also a 
 physician of the mind, and directs his patients each 
 day to breathe deeply and say to themselves: " I can 
 and I will have the most vigorous health, honourable
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 345 
 
 success with money, wealth in the greatest abundance, 
 and the very highest mentally structurally and vitally 
 developed long happy life, which truly embraces all that 
 is worth while to the naturally mentalizing mentality." 
 Sophists of his class are common,* but we may as well go 
 back at once now to their prototype, who is also the father 
 of Christian Science, Dr. Quimby. This was a New 
 England doctor born in 1802, who discovered the art of 
 healing by suggestion. From him are derived many of 
 the thought-healers throughout the States; the chief of 
 them being perhaps the New Thought Movement, whose 
 chief centre is in Washington. This movement, how- 
 ever, advancing upon Quimby, announces itself as 
 Christian " We believe that Jesus meant just what He 
 said, and that everything He taught is not only true, but 
 practical and practicable in daily life." In practice its 
 chief interest is in the restoration of health ; it attains this 
 by affirming the identity of the soul with God and its 
 consequences, the applicant assuring himself that he is 
 one with God through Christ, and therefore free from all 
 illness and destined to all worldly success. It appears 
 material surroundings can be changed in this way : " A 
 lady who was burdened with the oldness and unfit 
 character of her furniture took up this method of blessing 
 
 * Here is the advertisement of one : " The great questions of life are 
 quickly solved, failure turned to success, sorrow to joy, and want 
 affluence by calling into use the power to know oneself. Margaret 
 teaches those who sincerely desire to develop their intuitive powers. . . . 
 Margaret Grahame, permanently located in her own private reside
 
 346 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 and thanksgiving because she saw it was the true attitude 
 of mind, with the result of being able to dispose of all her 
 old furniture, and while moving into a new apartment to 
 get new furnishings throughout, having demonstrated 
 the way and means of procuring these by the Truth to 
 which she was conforming her whole life. And to-day 
 she is a prosperous independent healer, owning her own 
 home, all through living this life." It appears that 
 circles can be formed to impart these assurances 
 mutually, and that distance does not affect the result. 
 
 I am aware that Christians of the severest tvpes hold 
 that God answers prayer with tangible results, that such 
 people may be called spiritual, and the name should not 
 be refused to those of the New Thought school who unite 
 spiritual aspirations to material aims. But the procedure 
 is different ; the New Thought School is self-reliant, and 
 in this diverges from Christianity, though it diverges 
 also from the method of the advertising sophists, which 
 are outspokenly hypnotic. 
 
 The New Thought School, besides objecting to prayer, 
 are fond of the pseudo-scientific: "Going up into a 
 mountain to pray means an elevation of thought and 
 aspiration from the mortal to the spiritual standpoint. 
 The prayer of Understanding, which is founded in unsel- 
 fishness, sends out a very high and pure thought 
 vibration. All mental action radiates rays of light ; they 
 are now called by physical scientists N-rays ... If
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 347 
 
 the thoughts pertain to the things of sense, they are dark 
 and weak; if the affectionate and intellectual nature is 
 active, they become highly coloured and forceful, but 
 when the mind is exalted in prayer, a dazzling light 
 radiates from all parts of the body, especially the head." 
 
 Proceeding now to Mrs. Eddy herself, I may state that 
 I rely chiefly on a careful life by G. Milmine, which con- 
 fines itself almost entirely to facts and quotations from 
 her own writings. I have also read her book or most of 
 it and many articles by her own followers. I shall try 
 to distinguish the few points on which I feel certain from 
 the many where I am hopelessly perplexed about her. 
 
 It is certain then, in the first place, that she owed the 
 idea of mental healing to Quimby, and did at one time 
 practise it on his lines. On his lines, however, it never 
 made, and apparently never would have made, much 
 progress in America. What Mrs. Eddy did to give it 
 force was to ally it with Christianity, just as the New 
 Thought movement does, only with a different jargon 
 and a different metaphysic. Her formula is "the non- 
 existence of evil." Assure yourself that it does not exist, 
 and it ceases to exist. In proportion to the strengh of 
 this assurance is its power ; Mrs. Eddy has made barren 
 trees burst into blossom by asserting to herself that they 
 were in blossom. As men gain the habit of this 
 assurance, not only will all disease vanish and all wicked- 
 ness, but death itself will become impossible, and when 
 
 23
 
 348 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 children are required women will impregnate themselves 
 by direct assurance of pregnancy.* 
 
 Mrs. Eddy's book, even as revised by her literary 
 editor, is unintelligible, and cannot be taken seriously. 
 It is dull and silly and turbid, and signifies nothing.t 
 When you have read it all, you are no nearer under- 
 standing the dark saying that " evil does not exist." In 
 spite of all the allusions to the Bible, it appears to me the 
 New Thought movement is perceptibly nearer to Chris- 
 tianity; and in spite of all Mrs. Eddy's protests she is 
 perceptibly nearer to self-hypnotism than they. I believe 
 that fundamentally, whatever power her system has, is 
 due just to that and nothing else. It is really and truly 
 a materialistic method, and has nothing whatever in 
 common with Christianity. 
 
 It is true that Christ is recorded to have healed 
 diseases ; the secret of His method is not told us. There 
 is some reason to suppose that an unexplained gift of 
 healing has been found in others besides Him ; it may be 
 
 * One of Mrs. Eddy's followers became convinced that she had accom- 
 plished this. The rebuke she received from Mrs. Eddy makes the most 
 amusing episode in the movement. 
 
 t Since I have quoted the Mazdaznan version of the Lord's Prayer, the 
 reader may be amused to compare it with Mrs. Eddy's : 
 " Our Father-Mother God, all-harmonious, adorable one, 
 
 Thy kingdom is come ; thou art ever present. 
 
 Enable us to know as in heaven, so on earth God is omnipotent, 
 supreme. 
 
 Give us grace for to-day ; feed the famished affections ; 
 
 And Love is reflected in Love ; 
 and death. 
 
 And God leadeth us not into temptation, but delivereth from sin, disease 
 
 For God is infinite, all power, all Life, Truth, Love, over All, and All."
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 349 
 
 due, in general terms, to an excess of vitality which some 
 people possess and have the power to direct towards 
 others. This would be an activity quite distinct from the 
 power, which the mind can undoubtedly exercise, of 
 affecting the body, either by direct command or. by self- 
 suggestion. These, of course, are themselves different 
 methods, as when you tell headache to go away, or assure 
 yourself it is not there. The method of Christian Science 
 is the latter. Within what limits it is effective I cannot 
 at all say. The most difficult cases are those in which one 
 person heals another even at a distance and without that 
 person's knowledge by (apparently)* assuring himself 
 that the evil operative in that person's case is unreal. 
 One must suppose that his assurance transfers itself to the 
 patient's mind. But he does not direct the patient to tell 
 himself that the evil is unreal, nor is such faith in the 
 patient considered necessary. 
 
 Controversy over the results is fierce and wholly 
 undecided. But many sceptics and foes of the body 
 admit that real cures are common. We must remember 
 that such cures are reported from almost every religious 
 body in America except the orthodox Protestant 
 Churches, which only admit them as exceptional answers 
 to prayer. The Roman Church announces countless 
 miracles, especially from St. Anne's in Quebec; the 
 
 * The exact mental procedure of a Science healer is not known to nir. 
 The one who treated me merely sat still for ten minutes by my side, wit. 
 closed eyes ; what he was doing with his mind I cannot say.
 
 350 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 enthusiast Protestant sects claim them. I think there can 
 be no doubt they take place, probably through various 
 agencies, but the Christian Science method seems to me 
 the least Christian. It is not on that account illegitimate. 
 The success of its founder is very curious. As we see 
 her in the portrait in Science and Health her face wears a 
 candid and winning air, in the photographs, she looks 
 crafty and suspicious.* So, too, there is a world of 
 difference between her autobiography and that which 
 Milmine supplies. It appears certain, however, from the 
 facts thc*t she was very quarrelsome, and very false, and 
 kept no friends except those who never saw her. She 
 believed in witches and wizards, and spent many years 
 grovelling in abject fear of their practices. She had, 
 however, ingratiating hours, and there must have been 
 something convincing in her manner. In organisation 
 she showed much worldly judgment, especially in put- 
 ting down rivals and prohibiting the growth of a 
 literature that might have eclipsed her. I can only end, 
 however, as I began, by saying her success remains 
 inexplicable. Her book brought her many followers, 
 yet what is there in it to account for its bringing one ? I 
 mean, to lead one person to try its methods ; for, one may 
 admit, the method, once tried, had its successes. One 
 can only say, the general frame of mind, in America and 
 elsewhere, was such that people's thoughts followed in 
 
 * I have seen a parallel difference between rival pictures of Luther.
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 351 
 
 the direction in which she led them. For one thing, her 
 gospel was, in Boston, at any rate, a welcome change 
 from the gloom of the past. It promised health and 
 even wealth to its followers. Yes, though it is not 
 exactly written in the book, " Scientists " believe that 
 Science prospers, and indeed it seems to do so. Mrs. 
 Eddy's followers are all well-to-do people; the collection 
 they take up on Sundays is enormous. Yet they all 
 believe that these gifts return to them in further bless- 
 ings. 
 
 So far- as I met them, I found them not religious, but 
 very nice, kindly, generous people ; very sensible when 
 they were not talking about Christian Science. Shall 
 one rejoice or lament over the turn of fate that has called 
 them into existence ? It seems designed to prove to us 
 how chimerical the world is ; what queer people succeed 
 in it; and how little education in the most educated 
 town in the world achieves for people's intellects. On 
 the other hand, it seems to prove how unimportant the 
 affairs of the intellect are. If the lines of the Scientists 
 are right, what is wrong ? 
 
 Their future will be interesting to watch. I think I see 
 them already throwing off their Scripture, though Mrs. 
 Eddy has made it very hard for them to get rid of it. Now 
 she is gone, other writers are bound to catch the ear of 
 her followers, and they must some day discover what 
 nonsense she wrote.
 
 352 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 Of course, Christianity has not seen without concern 
 this rash defection, and there has even been a counter- 
 movement within the Church to frame a defensive 
 alliance between the Church and mediums. Dr. Worces- 
 ter, of Emmanuel Church, Boston, has given shape to 
 this. I gather that he distinguishes between organic and 
 functional diseases, and hands the former over to doctors. 
 Scientists, of course, smile at him, as a Roman priest 
 smiles at the absolution of an Anglican. Nevertheless, 
 he is successful within his own limits, partly, as I gather, 
 by hypnotic methods and partly by spiritual consolation. 
 One thing I gathered with interest from his writings and 
 those of his colleagues, the amount of mental misery 
 beneath the humour and activity of the States. Statistics 
 show there are some twelve thousand suicides in the year. 
 This is a strange reflection, in the brilliant streets of 
 Boston. 
 
 I will devote here a brief space to the Latter-Day 
 Saints, vulgarly called the Mormons the only American 
 creed which, to my regret, I did not touch personally at 
 any point. My chief authority is W. A. Linn's very 
 careful history of the body. It is to be noted that their 
 founder was a New Englander, born within a few miles 
 of Mrs. Eddy New England having produced both the 
 orthodox and the freak religions of America. There was 
 perhaps a little resemblance between them in another 
 way, for Smith was a clairvoyant and Mrs. Eddy at one
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 353 
 
 time practised as a medium. There, however, the resem- 
 blance ends ; Smith seems to have been a humorous, even 
 a genial sort of rascal. After living by various shifts for 
 some time and gaining vague credit for occult powers, 
 he produced his translation of the Book of Mormon, 
 revealed to him, as he said, by an angel on certain plates 
 of gold. This is ostensibly a history of America from 
 the time of Babel onwards, written by a priest named 
 Mormon. It is different sort of rubbish from Science 
 and Health, having no pretensions to metaphysics and 
 consisting merely of words from the Bible shovelled 
 together in a loose sort of way. It may be represented 
 by the following passage, descriptive of the boats that 
 brought the early Americans over the Atlantic : 
 " They were built after a manner that they were exceed- 
 ing tight, even that they could hold water like unto a 
 dish, and the bottom thereof was tight like unto a dish 
 and the ends thereof were peaked and the top thereof was 
 tight like unto a dish and the length thereof was the 
 length of a tree and the door thereof, when they were 
 shut, was tight like unto a dish." This, as someone 
 has said, leaves no doubt of the dish-like character of the 
 vessels, nor of Joseph Smith's style. His learning may 
 be gathered from the following passage, in which he 
 propounds the etymology of " Mormon " :- " Before I 
 give a definition to the word, let me say that the Bible in 
 its widest sense means 'good,' for the Saviour says,
 
 354 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 according to the gospel of St. John, ' I am the Good 
 Shepherd,' and it will not be beyond the commonsense 
 of terms to say that good is among the most important in 
 use, and though known by various names in various 
 languages, still its meaning is the same and is ever in 
 opposition to bad. We say, from the Saxon, Good, 
 from the Dane, God, the Gothic Goda, the German Gut, 
 the Dutch Goed, the Latin Bonus, the Greek Kalos, the 
 Hebrew tob, the Egyptian, mo. Hence with the 
 addition of more, or the contraction mor, we have the 
 word Mormon, which mean literally more good." 
 
 Smith had no new doctrine to teach ; he was a 
 millenarian ; the settlement he founded does not differ 
 from others founded on similar lines by millenarian 
 preachers. That such a man and such a book should 
 have gained followers is strange, but the history of man- 
 kind is full of strange things, and mediaeval America, on 
 the frontiers, was in places as ignorant and as undiscip- 
 lined in thought as any civilised people have ever been. 
 
 The story of Smith's church I need not repeat; after 
 his murder Brigham Young removed it beyond the 
 desert to Utah, where the enquirer must pursue it if he 
 really wishes to penetrate its mysteries. That will be a 
 hard problem. In books, at any rate, the ethical 
 character of Mormonism eludes us. It is the only 
 religion, since the persecution of the Quakers, that has 
 suffered violence in America. This was the case even
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 355 
 
 before the revelation of polygamy, and the explanation 
 of the Saints, that the world hates virtue, does not seem 
 convincing. Nevertheless, it seems certain that many 
 of their rank and file were simple and industrious people, 
 whose religion was somewhat of the old Jewish type, 
 that believes world blessings wait on devotion*. If this 
 is true, however, then we must suppose they scarcely 
 understand Brigham Young, the Borgia of his time, 
 resembling his great prototype in energy, capacity, and 
 ambition, and contempt for laws human and divine. 
 He died worth an immense fortune, the number of his 
 children being officially admitted at 44. Mormon ethics 
 differed from those of America in various respects. They 
 repressed drinking and encouraged dancing till lately 
 much frowned upon in the country. In 1852 the reve- 
 lation of polygamy was promulgated ; and various subse- 
 quent revelations appropriated particular wives to 
 Joseph Smith. Here is one : " And I command mine 
 handmaid, Emma Smith, to abide and cleave to my 
 servant Joseph and none else. But if she will not abide 
 the command, she shall be destroyed, saith the Lord, for 
 I am the Lord thy God and will destroy her." The 
 necessity for it was explained as twofold, (i.), " as there 
 was no provision made for woman in the Scriptures, their 
 only chance of heaven was to be sealed up to some elder 
 
 * After the Second Coming, said Smith, each of the Saint, would 
 150 acres, " which would be quite enough to raise rnann [ I), fl 
 make robes of, and to have beautiful orchards of fruit trees.
 
 356 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 for time and eternity and to be a star in his crown for 
 ever," (ii.), the multiplication of children, "that the 
 noble spirits who are waiting for tabernacles 
 might be revealed." The Mormons argue that 
 Christ is the author of their faith, and that He 
 Himself set the example of plural marriage by His 
 sexual relations with the women of the New Testament. 
 It is plain that there was much in these teachings which 
 America heard with horror, and the progress of 
 Mormonism placed an alarming future before the West. 
 It is customary now, however, to believe that the worst 
 is over; that Mormonism has dropped its Book of 
 Mormon and become an ordinary sect reposing on the 
 Bible. Mormons themselves loudly proclaim their 
 own virtues, their faith in education, etc., and invite the 
 States to produce a city as beautiful and as godly as that 
 by the Salt Lake. They also assert and Colonel 
 Rooseveldt corroborates the assertion that they have 
 given up polygamy. I note, however, in the papers 
 rumours that they intend to go off to Mexico, where 
 they will be free once more; and altogether I am not 
 quite persuaded that the Mormon problem is settled. 
 The world may have to help America to settle it. 
 
 I might prolong this survey of the free religions of 
 America, but here I intend to close it. It has illustrated 
 so many things that I can only, in closing, draw 
 attention to a few of them. One is the continuity of
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 357 
 
 American history. She has always been, she is still, a 
 religious country and one interested in religion. 
 Another is the difficulty of explaining religious move- 
 ments. Here we have them almost under our eyes in 
 America and yet they are not explicable. Could we 
 dispel the darkness of the Christian era, would the 
 growth of Christianity be any plainer ? Then again, is 
 the growth of a movement any proof of the character or 
 inspiration of its founder ? Must we believe that Joseph 
 Smith and Mary Eddy were great and good because 
 millions of people followed them ? Can we still take the 
 simple view that they and their workers were of the 
 Devil ? Where do we stand, and what becomes of the 
 Christian argument, quod Semper, quod ubique, quod 
 
 ab omnibus ? 
 
 We see the strength of tradition in the way all these 
 religions cling to Christ; yet the name is all. The 
 variations of creeds are infinite, and cannot be predicted. 
 No one can say what shape the next illusion will take. 
 But whatever shape it takes, it will find sensible and 
 good men to follow it. One is bound to remember this ; 
 and to remember, too, that literary finish and accuracy 
 of thought have nothing to do with the presence or 
 absence of the deeper impulses of religion.* These 
 perhaps are the two chief lessons of the whole survey. 
 
 * Non in dialectica complacnit Deo salvum facere populum suum. 
 
 St. Ambrose. 
 
 No TpirTtu'al victory is ever gained by verbal argument.-*** Thought 
 Motto.
 
 358 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 All that I have yet said, however, may, if you please, 
 be considered introductory to the subject of the Roman 
 Church in the country. I have glanced briefly at its 
 history, in Baltimore,in California, where the Mexicans 
 destroyed it and ruined the missions in 1822. Till lately 
 it was not a great power in the States, but immigrants 
 of the last thirty years have been predominantly 
 Catholic, and its adherents now number about 
 14,000,000. It is by far the most powerful single body* 
 in the country, and it often happens that the most strik- 
 ing building in a town is the Roman Chapel or 
 Cathedral. Their influence in the press is very strong, 
 many pressmen in the service of ordinary papers being 
 Catholic. 
 
 It appears to me that the Roman Church has not yet 
 relaxed in the least its doctrines or its attitude towards 
 the believing or unbelieving world. It has not changed 
 the conditions of salvation or its rules of practical life. 
 The American citizen who belongs to it has to live in two 
 environments and to pass from one to the other hourly. 
 As an American citizen he concedes little to authority ; 
 as a Roman he admits the right of authority to prescribe 
 to him every word that he reads. The legislation of his 
 country offers him positions which his Church forbids 
 him to occupy. Divorce she forbids, the State en- 
 
 * Recent figures give : Protestant Communicants, 20,287,742 ; Roman, 
 12,^70,142.
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 359 
 
 courages. State schools and colleges he may only enter 
 if the sternest necessity compels. "The American 
 Universities," says a Catholic paper, "like Lucifer of 
 old, are endeavouring to cast down God, and, like 
 Lucifer, they will find their end is hell." The Church is 
 slowly moving towards Universities of her own ; schools 
 she has already. These schools and their staffs stand 
 outside all the public and semi-public organisations 
 which do so much for American education ; when the 
 National Convention of Teachers meets in Boston, the 
 Roman Convention meets in Detroit. I need hardly add 
 that Roman adherents may not enter the Young Men's 
 Christian Associations, much less the Masons' or other 
 secret fraternities of the country. 
 
 What is to be the future of all this ? There does not 
 seem to be any sign at present of an approach of the 
 Roman and Protestant Churches to each other. The 
 Roman press in America is bitterly anti-Protestant, and 
 daily attacks Luther and the Bible" a vulgar swagger- 
 ing blusterer, of bibulous habits and libidinous appe- 
 tites," "a garbled product of human ingenuity." Nor 
 does it see with any friendly feelings the stirring of 
 " Socialism," which it regards from the Continental 
 point of view. Should Socialism advance, the rift 
 between the Church and the State in America will grow 
 more acute than it is, and the hopes, already very faint, 
 that Catholic education will be aided by the State will
 
 360 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 disappear. Protestants, on the other hand, looking at 
 Canada, are not much disposed to make terms with a 
 Church which requires in the French provinces the 
 sanction of the Bishop for every book that is placed 
 in the public libraries. One may say, in fact, that the 
 expansion ot the States both North and South has been 
 checked by their reluctance to add more Catholic terri- 
 tories to the Union. 
 
 I do not feel that the questions here raised are 
 imminent. Human nature is so flexible and so capable 
 of paradox that many good Americans find it still pos- 
 sible to keep their political and their religious principles 
 apart. The Roman Church at present avoids anything 
 like a conflict with the Republic. But can one suppose 
 this is going to last for ever ? Many things are possible. 
 Rome, after all, may change. Or she may yet think the 
 hour is come to fight her case. It remains to be seen 
 what a few generations make of all those South European 
 immigrants. 
 
 It remains to be seen, too, whether the women of 
 America will always support the Roman Church. They, 
 even more than men, one might suppose, would be 
 embarrassed by a creed which does not recognise their 
 equality with men. At present they scarcely seem to 
 have noticed this. 
 
 What I have granted to all the other religions I grant 
 freely to her her religion is sincere. She, of course, 
 makes no such concessions; the freak religions of 
 America she despises and abhors. Her sons write much 
 beautiful poetry for her, e.g. :
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 361 
 
 THE SACRED HEART. 
 
 REV. JULIAN E. JOHNS-TONE. 
 
 (Written for The Pilot.) 
 
 There in the west when the sun is burning 
 Incense sweet, like a priest in gold, 
 
 I see the Heart of the Saviour yearning 
 With love for His children manifold ; 
 
 But ah ! His lessons of beauty spurning 
 All we give Him is service cold ! 
 
 Rhododendrons, rich in their glory 
 Speak to me of the Heart of Him 
 
 Whose rainbow garlands the headland hoary, 
 Whose golden lamps in the distance dim 
 
 Like tongues of Pentecost tell His story, 
 Who fills the world to creation's rim. 
 
 Never roses of summer blowing 
 But of the Heart of Jesus speak ; 
 
 Offer Him prayers of perfume, glowing, 
 Thrilling with love for the Lord, they seek. 
 
 Poppy and peony, all are flowing 
 With wine of love for the Saviour meek. 
 
 Let my soul to the sunset-altar, 
 
 Red with the crimson flowers of love 
 
 Soar, and there at the shrine, the psalter 
 Sing to the Sacred Heart above. 
 
 Let not shadow of evil halt her, 
 Soaring ever along like a dove ! 
 
 Let my heart be a bed of roses, 
 
 Symbols sweet of the Heart Divine ! 
 
 That when the eye of morn uncloses 
 Its long lashes of summer shine, 
 
 And when day in the west reposes, 
 It may ever be, Jesus, Thine ! 
 
 Sacred Heart, be the Light of Nations, 
 
 Grandly leading Thy people on ! 
 Fill us ever with aspirations 
 
 High and noble, All-Holy One ! 
 Till all men and all generations 
 
 Praise Thy Name and Thy Will be done ! 
 Teach us duty and self-surrender, 
 
 Holy love, as Thou wouldst it were ! 
 Teach us truth in its light and splendor, 
 
 Kindness, sweet as a box of myrrh ! 
 Make us one with Thee, Jesus, tender, 
 
 One with the Word, the worshipper!
 
 XVIII 
 
 The Future 
 
 That America has her problems must be^clear from all 
 the preceding pages; it must also be equally clear that 
 she is not slow to recognise and grapple with them. This 
 has been often illustrated ; let me illustrate it once more. 
 There is a general feeling abroad that the health of the 
 people is not what it ought to be. The journals, per- 
 haps too alarmist, tell us that there are constantly 
 3,000,000 people sick in the States; that adults lose an 
 average of 13 days a year in illness. This idea once 
 afoot, the result is at once a search for remedies. I have 
 spoken of the quasi-medical work of religion ; let me 
 speak here of the spread of hygiene. War has been 
 'declared against the mosquito and the fly effective war 
 in many places, and if the fly is not annihilated, at any 
 rate he is kept out of houses and away from food. The 
 crusade against spitting has been vigorous and effec- 
 tive* ; it is now the turn of the American to be shocked 
 at what he sees in England. Public drinking cups have 
 
 * E.g., the town of Rochester has two policemen whose sole duty it is 
 to enforce the anti-spitting ordinance.
 
 363 
 
 been in many States forbidden ; and their place is being 
 taken by ingenious bubbling fountains, where thirsty 
 mortals sip from an artificial spring. All very expen- 
 sive, but real and effective measures. The scourge of 
 consumption is being fought, and in the slums of New 
 York you may see an exhibition, where the disease is 
 explained and precautions against it inculcated. Let 
 Christian Science, if it will, decide these measures as the 
 cause of disease; not all America is yet Scientist, and 
 hygiene has its army of believers. The clean sweep of 
 Yellow Jack from the ports is an argument in its service 
 not to be forgotten. 
 
 Here we have then one of the great features of 
 America, the spirit of Progress at work. Now Progress 
 makes mistakes, it achieves much less than it purposes, 
 and the philosopher may see through many of its pre- 
 tensions, but after all is it not, when rightly conceived, 
 the right frame of mind? To the American, as yet, it 
 does not mean denouncing other people, or redistribut- 
 ing wealth, but improving the habits of society by 
 energetic concerted action. Be it granted, that, at some 
 times, progress may have to mean social war, these are 
 surely unhappy times and unpromising; I do not think 
 that in spite of all the trusts they have yet arrived in 
 America. Is it a dream to hope that the States may yet 
 avert this war, that the capitalists may take their places 
 as the servants of society by a friendly Evolution, and 
 
 24
 
 3 6 4 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 that Progress in the States may long continue to be the 
 name of a common hope ? 
 
 I suppose that in no country is the spirit of Progress 
 so closely associated with that of Education. No country 
 believes so much in this, or owes so much to it. It is the 
 common schools of America which are moulding her 
 young generation of foreigners into American citizens. 
 In this direction their work is magnificent, and one is 
 glad to see the whole country watches them fondly and 
 gratefully. America believes* in education. 
 
 Of the sentiment of Democracy in the country I have 
 already pointed out, it is not in the main, a faith in 
 
 assemblies. Freeman, with his eyes fixed on the town- 
 
 
 ship meeting, thought it was; but I should say rather 
 
 that the object of the American citizen is to find the 
 best man and trust him. He elects his own kings; his 
 President, once chosen, is a real ruler, and all the execu- 
 tive officers of the States enjoy power. I have pointed 
 this out of the Mayors of cities; it is no less true of Col- 
 lege Professors ; they are each in his own faculty able 
 to grantor withhold certificates from their students. All 
 the great business leaders of America, accessible as they 
 are, are no less dictatorial in their orders ; everywhere 
 the man emerges. The older view was perhaps that the 
 
 Even in the Philippines, to which she has sent 800 teachers, of whom 
 500 are men. The last report observes : " A few more years of effort 
 will demonstrate that the American faith in the power of public schools 
 to affect (sic) the social and spiritual betterment of backward people is 
 not an unpractical delusion, but a vision of the highest statesmanship."
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 365 
 
 average citizen, when placed on his mettle in office, 
 would show himself equal to command ; an age of com- 
 petition and the arrival of the expert have now under- 
 mined this faith. There is, moreover, a revolt against it 
 socially, and one notices with amusement the frequent 
 insistence on the value of personality. The advertise- 
 ments of the Indestructo Trunk tell us that " it has a 
 dignified personality of its own. Its quality proclaims 
 its owner as one who knows, the finished traveller, who 
 demands proper service and receives unusual deference 
 in hotels." This new sentiment is no advantage to 
 American life, but fortunately the old epoch has not yet 
 passed away, and democracy as a social faith is not 
 extinct. It will be a loss to the world if it vanishes. One 
 need not wish to see Europe Americanised, if even the 
 change were possible one may even think that American 
 ideas are sometimes mischievous in Europe, but in their 
 own home their inspiration is not exhausted and we 
 might hope to see an even newer and vaster world 
 formed under their inspiration. Nor do I see what else 
 is to mould the many sections of her people into one. 
 
 It is a danger of the future that classes may arise in 
 the large cities, Philistine, selfish and devoid of all ideas 
 except a surly hostility to the existing order. Young 
 men and women buried in these vast masses of brick and 
 sione, working the long hours which the country works, 
 may easily forget their spiritual heritage, and pass into a
 
 366 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 discontented mood which threatens all social institu- 
 tions. It is partly on this foundation that the schemes 
 of Socialism are built. Other countries besides America 
 have found this, and the remedy, it is thought, lies in 
 borrowing some of the Socialist plans. In America, too, 
 one finds this remedy applied even in Chicago, where, 
 most of all, I noticed the tone I am speaking of. To 
 discuss it would be beyond the scope of these pages. The 
 question is whether a little Socialism means eventually 
 the whole Socialist programme, or whether the courage 
 and enterprise of the competitive system can be saved to 
 the world while its evils are palliated. Various answers 
 are given to this question, but, however the future 
 reveals itself, what is wanted in America is that the 
 bright faith in democracy should not degenerate into a 
 selfish attack on society by the mob. If concessions can 
 secure this, if even the whole programme of Socialism 
 can secure this, it would be worth the price. But in the 
 meantime the spiritual powers of the country will have 
 a hard task to convince men that it is not the material 
 gains of Socialism that may justify it ; the frame of mind 
 is all-important, and mere greed is as bad in the People 
 as in the Trusts. 
 
 Though I have dwelt on the variety of American 
 origins, let there be no mistake as to the solidarity of the 
 States. Differences of interests may sometimes divide 
 the agricultural from the manufacturing or mining
 
 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 367 
 
 centres. Differences of tone may be noticed between 
 East and West, between North and South. But these 
 are all trivial, compared with the strong community of 
 sentiment and manners which, as a whole, unites the 
 country. If we go to extreme cases, to the mining camps 
 or the cattle ranch or the ultra-fashionable quarters of 
 New York, of course differences become pronounced, 
 but this would mean little. In the main the American 
 of San Francisco is the same as the American of Phila- 
 delphia. Nor need this surprise us when we remember 
 the vast and constant movements of population between 
 different parts of the States; it is the East that has 
 created the West. This solidarity, moreover, is in- 
 creased by the many organisations that cover the con- 
 tinent, by the frequent conventions and frequent 
 journeys of secretaries in connection with their 
 organisations. We sometimes smile at these secretaries 
 when they recite in their reports the thousands of miles 
 they have travelled in the year, and wonder if they have 
 not wasted their time in useless bustle. I used to think 
 so, but think so no longer when I see how these journeys 
 keep one end of the States in touch with the other and 
 consolidate the nation. 
 
 My impressions are now drawing to a close, and I feel 
 it is time I should choose one with which to strike a final 
 note. I prefer, then, to dwell on the sociable and 
 amiaole character of American civilisation. It is a
 
 3 68 AMERICA, OLD AND NEW 
 
 country much libelled by its oft association with the 
 dollar; assuredly the man who thinks of nothing but 
 money is not more welcome in American society than in 
 any other. Success is valued, and is measured, for con- 
 venience' sake, like other things, in money ; but what is 
 valued more than success is a warm heart. The people 
 of the States are a sentimental people, and what they 
 esteem in men are the qualities that bring men togther. 
 This national trait is in some ways threatened, but it still 
 prevails, and ennobles the democracy of America. Esto 
 perpetua \
 
 
 Postscriptum 
 
 The foregoing pages were written, the last of them 
 somewhat hastily, in the intervals of office work, on my 
 return to India in 1910. Since they departed to Europe 
 in search of a publisher many points have struck me 
 which I overlooked, and a few of them I should like to 
 make here, trusting the reader, remembering the diffi- 
 culties of an Anglo-Indian author, will pardon the 
 inartistic method of their insertion. 
 
 It is interesting to observe how the American 
 physiognomy has changed in the last fifty years. The 
 Uncle Sam face is rarely to be seen now, unless it be in 
 the old-fashioned Southern States. The classic example 
 of this type is the face of Abraham Lincoln ; the face 
 which has superseded it is that of MacKinley; full, 
 massive, and oftentimes blue-eyed. Like the American 
 national character, it is at once a composite and a new 
 departure, but I suspect that Irish blood has had much 
 to do with its development. Curiously enough, it 
 suggests aplomb to European eyes, a trait which 
 Americans have often admired but do not seem 
 specially to possess. 
 
 In connection with education I should have noticed 
 the very expensive private schools which survive and 
 flourish side by side with the public schools of the 
 country. Some of these are day schools; others are re- 
 productions of the English public school. An example
 
 370 Postscriptum 
 
 of this type is Groton, to which I paid a visit. It stands 
 far away in the country, amid most beautiful scenery, 
 and in spite of its few years of life possesses everything 
 in the way of buildings that any public school in 
 England has to boast of, including a fine Gothic chapel. 
 Obviously its ideals are drawn from the same source, 
 and its classrooms are open to the same criticisms as 
 (probably) those of Winchester or Westminster. One 
 wonders if its sentiment is aristocratic. The authorities, 
 I understand, would deny this ; but if I were an 
 American citizen whose son went to a public school I 
 should find it hard to accept their assurances. The 
 ground taken up is that boys learn public duty in such a 
 school better than they do in a public day school ; but 
 this is just the ground on which the old public schools 
 of England would defend their existence, and their motto 
 is frankly noblesse oblige. As for the private day 
 schools already mentioned, they maintain themselves by 
 the beauty and comfort of their appointments and their 
 close attention to individual boys, who are cultivated 
 with the same care as unique orchids. Their fees run up 
 to $ 1,000 a year. It is curious that these exclusive 
 schools flourish in democratic America rather than in 
 Germany. 
 
 In speaking of the problems of America's future I 
 have said nothing of the preservation of her natural 
 resources. These, which once seemed inexhaustible, 
 have shown many signs of depletion. The woods have 
 been thinned not only by business enterprise but by 
 desolating fires; the rivers have degenerated into dan- 
 gerous and uncertain torrents. America is even now 
 contemplating schemes of forest and river management 
 like those of Europe. At the same time she is greatly
 
 Postscriptum 371 
 
 concerned how to prevent the riches of the earth, its 
 coal, iron and oil, from falling further into the hands of 
 monopolists, and especially the sources of water power 
 which are growing in importance as the uses of elec- 
 tricity develop. These measures are r.mong the vague 
 and complicated issues which affect the present Presi- 
 dential election. Characteristically, there is little before 
 the country in the way of actual programmes, the world 
 seems to hear of nothing but a duel between che 
 protagonists, Taft and " Teddy " ; the chief issue, how- 
 ever, is the longstanding one of the future of the trusts. 
 Another issue is the powers of State Courts, the effects 
 of which I have discussed elsewhere. Rooseveldt claims 
 to stand for really popular measures, but if he attains to 
 power he will still have to mark out lines of action and 
 make action effective. In spite of many commissions 
 and judgments since I left America two years ago the 
 politicians and the trusts seem to stand all of them where 
 they did. 
 
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 keeper, one for the Garden, and full space for the possessor's 
 personal notes. This is not a diary for any particular year 
 but for all time, and makes a novel and useful gift for any 
 season. 
 
 A New Nature-Study Book on Original Lines. 
 FINGER-POSTS TO ANIMAL LIFE. 
 
 (Crown 8vo, Pictorial Art Cloth, Gilt; 300 pp., with Eight 
 Full Page Illustrations in Sepia and numerous Text ditto. 
 
 51- Net 
 R. BROOKS POPHAM, F.R.C.P.E., F.L.S., 
 
 Memb. Haco. Soc., Royal Soc. Med., etc. 
 
 (Author of " Reminiscences of Many Lands," " Zig-Zag 
 Ramblings," " Hither and Thither," etc.) 
 
 A new book on animals for juveniles. Written in an easy, 
 yet terse, style. The book takes the reader through the animal 
 kingdom and points out the origin and development, t 
 national characteristics and temperament, habits and instincts 
 of the beast and bird kingdom.
 
 JOHN OUSELEY LIMITED. 
 
 6/- FICTION. 
 
 Crown 8vo, Art Cloth, Gilt, Pictorial Wrappers in 
 Colours. 
 
 THE MINISTER'S MARRIAGE. 
 
 BY MRS. ALICK FRASER. 
 
 The scene is laid in a garrison town, which makes a vivid 
 and lifelike setting for the love affairs of a young Scottish 
 minister, who attracts the attention and admiration of all by 
 his ability and character. His inamorata, a soldier's daughter, 
 prefers a young subaltern to the minister's own sterner nature. 
 The various characters dominating the story are portrayed 
 with exceptional force. 
 
 IN TIME'S STOREROOMS. 
 
 BY ETHEL BALFOUR. 
 
 (Author of " A Winning Later," etc.) 
 
 Headers of this author's " A Winning Loser," which com- 
 manded some attention three years ago, when first published 
 by the present firm, will hail with pleasure this new novel. 
 
 THE WOMAN DECIDES. 
 
 BY "NOMAD." 
 
 Author of " Concerning a Marriage," " A Railway Foundling," 
 
 "The Milroys," " Penruddock Orange," etc. 
 After a silence of some years " Nomad " re-enters the arena 
 of fiction with a striking novel. -In the old days "Nomad" 
 was a leading writer when many of the popular novelists of 
 the present day were unknown. 
 
 THE TEMPLE OF DEMOS. 
 
 H. M. BOWER. 
 
 This all-absorbing novel is an amusing but trenchant parody 
 of our various political parties and their wranglings. 
 
 THE GLOWING FIRE. 
 
 C. D. MUSGROVE. 
 
 A delightful book, containing an interesting account of 
 Eastern life and love.
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 A 000 678 004 3