UBRARY OF CONGRESS 'lll|ll|lllflllllllll|l|llliiiiii|if|;i|||!|^^ D001373fl51fl 4 o •• ^V / »»^ %.^^ '^C^"» \/ ;^'v %,/' -n-o^ .^%- *> ^''^^••'y .0- ^^. •-'• U <,^ •V^:?'^ ■^•^„ c-^* .v^^?N'. ■*.. ,,^ .•„• (■: ,0" c " ° ♦ O <- !^:\'- .^' s ^ .1- .:c. V \,^ ;#^^^- \,^ .. ;;, V -^^ C ■ o J* "t. V .^' ^0^ \ .;^_ ^ ^ ^^ v<>- ./rTt-i ^o ■^0^ "-. .v^. I I HOME LIFE liN AMERICA I BROAD STREET, NEW YORK HOME LIFE IN AMERICA BY KATHERINE G. BUSBEY WITH TWELVE ILLUSTRATIONS NEW YORK THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1910 PREFACE IN presenting these phases of America I have tried to let conscience rule pride in my conception of patriotism, but as a New England conscience has been defined as "nine-tenths bad liver," the view of national life I have given may be condemned as " spleenish." There is as great difficulty in writing with any degree of objectivity, let alone as an impressionist, about one's own country as there is in conceiving your daily-met circle of faces through an impressionalistic blur. It is difficult to give stimulating colour, and to limn super- ficially when well-known details draw the hand to critical judgment. But I hope if what I have written seems less vivid in colour, less startling in form than is gratifying to those who look to America for sensational conditions, it will be granted that it is a sacrifice of the picturesque to verisimilitude. An artist knows instinctively how many details may be obliterated, and his treatment made more direct and convincing thereby. If circumscribed ability has made this picture of American home life more the work of a photographer than an artist, it is only to be hoped that in the interest of truth I have not left too many lines in the face of Uncle Sam. Some of the comment is familiar, some of the anecdote may leave a reminiscent twang, but with all the books being written on America just now, to be strikingly vi HOME LIFE IN AMERICA original would be to write in a lighter and more strident strain than the American Eagle's scream in our nation's early self-consciousness. The scream of the eagle is still heard now and then, but as a nation we no longer hang upon the accents of that rather self-centred bird. No doubt the " muck-rakers " have done something to tone down our triumphant " yawp." American home life has no superlative virtues and no original sins. It is only in the little things that it differs from that of other nations, but — it is, after all, the little things of life that mean so much. It is hoped, as herein set forth, they may be found not uninteresting. K. G. B. CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE PREFACE V I. IN GENERAL . . " * II. THE AMERICAN CHILD 25 III. SCHOOLS, COLLEGES, AND UNIVERSITIES ... 48 IV. TYPES OF THE YOUNG PERSON 7- ^ V. THE AMERICAN WOMAN lOI VI. HOUSEKEEPING EXPENDITURES 1 27 VII. SHOPS AND THE SHOPPERS 147 VIII. THE PEOPLE AT PLAY 173 IX. LIFE AT WASHINGTON I92 X. AMERICAN WAYS 2I9 XI. HOSPITALITY AND HOTELS 246 XII. THE WEST AT HOME 273 XIII. THE NEW ENGLAND OF TO-DAY 29S XIV. SUMMER AND WINTER RESORTS 321 XV. HOUSING THE NATION 349 XVI. A NATION WITHOUT A MIDDLE CLASS . . . -378 INDEX 405 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Broad Street, New York Fro7itispiece From a Photograph by Underwood & Underwood, New York. FACING PAGE President Taft opening the Base-ball Season by TOSSING the First Ball in a Match at Washington 33 From a Photograph by Clinedinst, Washington. A Negro School: the Music Lesson 67 From a Photograph supplied by the London Electrotype Agency, Ltd. Broadway on a Wet Night 99 From a Photograph supplied by the London Electrotype Agency, Ltd. The Bowery, Np:w York, showing the Elevated Rail- way 132 From a Photograph by UNDERWOOD & Underwood, New York. A Common Object in the Country : the Travelling Butcher on his Rounds 164 The House of Representatives, Washington . . .199 From a Photograph by HARRIS & EwiNG, Washington. A Typical American Porch 231 A "Header" at Work in California 265 From a Photograph supplied bv the London Electrotype Agency. Ltd. ix HOME LIFE IN AMERICA FACING PAGE A School Drill at Cincinnati 297 From a Photograph supplied by the London Electrotype Agency, Ltd. A Street Basin in Cincinnati 331 From a Photograph supplied by the London Electrotype Agency, Ltd. A Tenement District of New York 363 From a Photograph by Underwood & Underwood, New York. HOME LIFE IN AMERICA HOME LIFE IN AMERICA CHAPTER I IN GENERAL A FEW years ago, on a first trip through their West, a party of American tourists from Eastern States were commenting upon the relief of leaving behind the foreign population deluging their homes. They had reached the Mammoth Springs Hotel, the first in that chain of surprising hostelries through the Yellowstone National Park, and had found that the waiters were college students from State universities working for funds for the next winter term ; the desk clerk was a health- seeking easterner ; the manager's parents had come West in one of the gold rushes — everybody about the hotel was •'pure American." After dinner the easterners sat on the hotel porch and looked more admiringly at Fort Yellowstone, that symbol of the American army within a stone's throw of the hotel, than at the steaming multi-coloured terrace of the geysers they had come to this nature's wonderland to see. Some of the officers from the garrison came up to call. They were West Point graduates — also representatively American. The tourists experienced a rush of patriotism to the heart. " Life may be rough, but blood is pure out here on the frontier," affirmed the epigram-maker of the party. Next morning their belief in this promised land of pure Ameri- canism seethed again as they arose to reveille, and saw the B I 2 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA Stars and Stripes over the parade ground and found the driver with whom we were to tour the Park to be an old mail-coach pilot, ** American through to his hip-pocket load of six-shooter and tobacco plug," as the epigrammatist said. But one of the party had developed a sore throat, and a trip to the garrison dispensary had to be made before starting. The first sentry of whom directions were asked replied, " Yer'U be afther follerin' this yer booard walk to the building foreninst the barricks, ind 'tis beyondt that ver'll find it." " Irish, in our uniform, too ! " gasped the Boston man, shades of the Celtic political bossism in his own city arising unpleasantly. The next soldier encountered spoke English as it is broken over the Nor- wegian tongue ; the uniformed gentleman who opened the dispensary door was fresher than the first encountered from the Emerald Isle ; the man who handed out the remedies was a German, acting under the direction of a Scotch doctor. The cook, who came in with a scalded hand, was a Frenchman. A coloured boy was watering the colonel's lawn, and further along officers' row two Japanese servants were snatching a word and gesture as they scuttled along on errands. **And we thought that we had discovered *pure America,' " sighed the disheartened enthusiasts. " Re- minds me of the House of Representatives," remarked the Congressman in the party, and he spoke without reckless exaggeration, for the foreign-born, or the man of foreign-born parents, does appear in considerable variety in our national Legislature. In fact, from the East Side district of New York, which is our doorstep, where foundlings of every nationality are laid for Uncle Sam's adoption — to the highest niches in the Government, the foreigner is always with us, and the amalgamation of this citizenship of all races within our gates into the American type is like alchemy. The native American may protest against the foreign IN GENERAL 3 invasion as in the incident given, but the fact that the foreigner's " foreigner-ness " never survives two generations, that distinct American ideals hold supreme in Home life as well as in the Government, should be regarded by him as the real phenomenon. We have our stock-in-trade pleasantries over this forced maturity of citizenship. There is the story of the Irish and German immigrants who quarrelled in the steerage before landing, Max whipping Pat ; but the next week, Pat, as a member of the New York police force, arrested Max, a full-fledged saloon-keeper, for having his place open on Sunday. Likewise the story of a Middle West political meeting of local import when a certain " Michael O'Toole " was nominated for office. " Who's he ? " demanded a hardy opponent. " 'Tis me brother on his way here on the ship from the ould country," calmly avers Michael O'Toole's Americanized relative, and the convention is satisfied. // But, aside from the humorous 'point of view,^tliis constant assimilation of foreign element into a oneness of national life and custom makes a convincing description of everyday life in American homes hard to give. The truth is that from the very beginning we were a composite people, or, rather, a complex people, in the total of which the various elements did not at any time very successfully compose. In New England States there was a nearer approach to uniformity than elsewhere ; but in the Middle States, and to a less degree in the Southern States, each State differed markedly from the others, and the classes in each from one another. These differences rather grew than lessened until the middle of the nineteenth century. They were, curiously enough, largely put in the way of adjustment by the fusing influence of the Civil War, the destruction of slavery, and the reorganization of the South on the basis of labour no longer servile. They were still further and more powerfully affected by the marvellously 4 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA rapid and extensive development of the means of inter- course and by that most subtle and invincible of unifying forces, freedom of trade within our vast territory. It was only when Mr. Bryce came to visit us after the Civil War that it was possible clearly to distinguish the traits of a truly national life, and the existence of a crude but power- ful national consciousness. And then came immigration, and, curiously enough, under that heterogeneous pressure, the welding has progressed more rapidly than ever before. It seems almost incredible, in view of the figures of our foreign population ; and not only statistics but what one sees in our cities, would seem to refute the possibility of distinctively American characteristics and home life. In London and Paris, while there are foreign bits, the general impression is of uniformity. The names on the signs have a national unity with rare exceptions. In New York irregularity alone is regular. London is the capital of the great British Empire — one never forgets that — and in its narrow streets with their low buildings one sees many a barbarian and occasional specimens from all her colonies ; but for actual cosmopolitance of population Paris is perhaps more noteworthy than London. And New York outruns either. In fact, all the large cities in the United States are aggregates of little cities — real cities, not " quarters," and not on the basis of division of means and caste, but of i-ace — little cross sections of the Old World transplanted intact, and steadfast in customs, home life, and traditions as the first English colonists dropped in the new world wilderness. The human wilderness of lower New York is to-day a bundle of distinct foreign cities. The number of native Italians and their children now in New York make a total equal to Rome's present population, or more Italians than Florence and Venice put together. This " Little Italy " with its original centre at " Mulberry Bend," bids fair to be IN GENERAL 5 a " greater Italy." As each of the little cities in New York has its predilection in the matter of stores, Little Italy runs to grocery establishments and clothes emporiums, where previous servitude seems the one essential to inclu- sion in the stock. For squares here one sees only Italian signs and the sleek oily braids of hatlcss women in start- ling-toned petticoats and laced bodices, until the ordinary street scene looks more like an open-air rehearsal of an opera chorus, than even the streets of Old Italy itself do, for in the tenement environment peasantry massed in this way brings an unreal atmosphere. But perhaps the weirdest foreign city in New York is that which has won for the region about the Lower Bowery the nickname of the New Jerusalem. It is said to contain three times as many Hebrews as the Ghetto of London, five times that of Paris, and six times that of Berlin. If there are 1,068,282 Jews in Greater New York, as has been recently estimated, this would be fifteen times more than Syria and Palestine contain, and twenty-five times more than the entire population of Jerusalem itself. And it would seem as if a million of the new world Jews were in the Bowery settlement. In no European country does the Jewish quarter seem so much a world apart. The flower of trade in this city of Jews is dry goods and clothes, with lace establishments for a second choice, and throngs pass busily among the push-carts, elbowing each other in the streets, and their rivals upon the inner pavement edge — the stores. Who walks there passes between a corridor of eyes, and you feel that your weakness and possessions are judged at a glance, for the wisdom of their race is in their eyes, and you feel, above all, a foreigner on this particular spot of American soil. Away from the eternal driving of bargains, seen in their restful moments, in the family life, these people make one feel more the foreigner than ever in their new Canaan. In the after- noons the tribes assemble in the breathing-space of park in 6 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA their congested metropolis. Men with their families come and sit upon the benches in domestic content. One may notice that this people, whatever concession to the new world demand they may make in the articles of trade, is yet most careful of the things which are of itself. While together it speaks only Yiddish — never Russian or English. There is, of course, the difference between the old genera- tion and the new. The younger Jews wear patent leather shoes of the shiniest kind, and their clothes are in the mode, if not in advance, according to the Bowery prophets. But the older people have a patriarchal air. The men dress in black, and beards among them are common. A type which perhaps may be seen only here, but here frequently, is the old Jew dressed in tall silk hat and square frock coat, old too and lustreless and of antique design, but worn with simple and perfect dignity. In the heavy-lidded eyes of this type of patriarch, moving sadly among his commercial people in the midst of the new commercial world, one may read the history of the race. But one sees Jews of every type in this American Jerusalem. The eager chafFerer of extreme gesticulation (the kind of whom it is said, without hands they would be dumb), the ascetic, the student, the dark, the fair and of every degree — they are here, a city by themselves, and this in America. There are several New York daily newspapers which are published in Hebrew. But for that matter, almost all of our foreign-born citizens have their own papers and their own theatres. German, French and Italian papers are found in most of the cities, while periodicals of less frequent appearances are in Spanish, Turkish, Russian, Finnish, Roumanian, Japanese, and Chinese. In the midst of the foundry clang of New York there is a little city of silence. It is Chinatown, and, on entering it from the boiler factory of a business square criss-crossed with elevated trains, you feel you have crossed the Pacific IN GENERAL 7 in one step. In this Chinatown the citizens move noise- lessly on felt-soled shoes, and they have a foreign way of walking in the streets which go in such crocks that one of them describes a semicircle and, with true Oriental polite- ness, eventually leads you back to the street you just left. Chinese women leading their fascinating, incredible, doll- children, patter about, glossy and clean as a whistle, amid one of the most unsanitary combinations of filth in the United States ; while the men in this Celestial city prowl about with stealthy tread until, however harmless they may be, they suggest melodrama of opium dens and high- binders. And when you find one of them silently regarding you from strange crannies of ramshackle structures, you feel yourself the victim of a sinister plan. The fact is, however, that he is merely speculating on your probable value as a prospective customer ; for Chinatown, as all the other foreign cities in America, has been exploited by society folk slumming, until the inhabitants look at you in surprise if you come down after six in anything but evening clothes. But Chinatown is truly a separate world. The town's private affairs are governed by a committee of twelve prominent Chinese merchants and an annually elected mayor. The business of the municipality is drawn partly from curious sight-seers, but largely from native patrons, and many a Chinese woman has lived and borne her children and supplied her diminutive house-keeping and personal wants without ever having set foot beyond the narrow streets of this little silent city in the heart of New York. New York's Chinatown is a mere outpost compared to that of San Francisco and the Chinese quarters in the cities of the North- West. An American writer illumines a phase of America's relation to this utterly unassimilable race. " California, and San Francisco especially, are in a large measure indebted to the Oriental race," he reminds 8 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA us, " who in the early days of the State were the hewers of wood, and drawers of water, and cooks, and the laundry men of the adults, and nurses of the infants. "The newer generation of Californians grew up with baby-loving, devoted Chinese servants about them. The sons and daughters of the Golden West did not, indeed, draw their first sustenance from yellow breasts, as the Southerner has drawn it from black ones. That mystic bond was lacking. But a Chinese man-servant had watched the cradle above most of them, rejoiced with the parents that there was a baby in the house, laughed to see it laugh, hurried like a mother at hearing it cry. A back- yard picture in any of the old Californian mansions include always the Chinese cook, grinning from the doorway on the playing babies. "The Chinese cook was a volunteer nurse. For him the nursery was the soul of the house. He was the con- soler and fairy-tale teller of childhood. He passed on to the children his own nursery tales of flowered princesses and golden dragons ; he taught them to patter in singsong Cantonese ; he saved his frugal nickels to buy them quaint little gifts, and as the better Southerner, despising the race, loves the individual negro through this association of child- hood, so the Californian came to love the Chinaman that he knew. In his ultimate belief, indeed, he outstripped the Southerner, for he came first to a tolerance of the race and then to an admiration." So much for the subtle influence of these aliens in our midst ; to the casual observer the city of these almond- eyed brethren has always been a realm of artistic com- position, subtle colouring, and shadowy suggestion — everything un-American. Since the earthquake, China- town in San Francisco has shown phoenix-like qualities in rising again out of its ashes. The new buildings are all Oriental, not of Western architecture, and while it will probably soon be the care and vexation of boards of health, IN GENERAL 9 as old Chinatown was, it will always be beautiful, falling everywhere into its foreign pictures. You see a balcony, a woman in soft gauzy robes, a window whose blackness suggests mystery and the artist's hand, and these streets, spotted with the multi-coloured banners of gold and green that hang out as sign-boards, form a bewildering contrast to the shops and wholesale houses, and unimaginative rows of American houses. It is a common joke that the Irish own New York and Boston, and run them to suit themselves, and with the Irish population of New York nearly three times as large as that of either Dublin or Belfast and Boston holding second place in the United States as a city of Irishmen, and all of them ambitious, their prominence in politics is as legitimate as it is undeniable. Some one has said that it is astonish- ing how often one finds that a prominent Englishman, in military, literary or political life, is really an Irishman ; and over here one is not astonished at all, because one takes it for granted that any prominent American is of Irish descent until it is disproved. The German supremacy in the Middle Western States marks home life there so thoroughly that a German tourist is said to have remarked that he felt more at home in Milwaukee than in Berlin. One never thinks of the State of Minnesota without a mental image of " Yan Yonson " and " Ole Olscn " and his tribe there, while Norwegians, and Finns, too, have exclusive colonies in the agricultural belt still further west. Even Puritan New England draws its industrial vitality from Scandinavian workers, or from French-Canadian (Cannuck) settlements that have leaked over from the northern border. America is really a congress of nations in permanent session. Other countries are Meccas of interest to tourists, but foreigners who come to America come to live. They may have cherished false hopes of the extent of personal liberty, and of the ease with which money is to be acquired. lo HOME LIFE IN AMERICA but at least they stay. From all of which arises the difficulty in finding a standard mould of home life or of type as yet in America. Certain broad attributes of character have been evolved throughout the country, but the details of the household still vary with the different nationality it represents in direct descent or in marriage crossing. The visiting foreigner does not see these great cross sections of foreign lands in our midst. He is in search of the typical American, and he takes his observations from " Long Acre Square,"— ^hat space included in the irregular widening of one of New York's biggest traffic avenues and its slow crossing of another seething avenue and a small radius of intervening streets — which, if not yet the centre of the world, as the New Yorker believes, by the general consent of the world, certainly, is to America, including Canada and Mexico and most of South America, what the Place de la Concorde is to Europe — the centre of a continent. Within that compact little patch there are twenty-one first-class theatres, about the same number of clubs — America's most famous restaurants — not less than a dozen hotels, any one of which twenty years ago would be observed for its great size and elegance. There are literally hundreds of apartment houses ; there are studios, and there are some houses where people sometimes go hungry. But one mentions such things for the value of contrast, for the characteristic of "The Acre" is gaiety, light, laughter, good dressing, feeding, drinking, and good fellowship ; and if people will crawl into its corners and starve there, they fail to diminish the general tone of the " Acre," which is exceedingly gay. And perhaps the visiting foreigner does well to take his observations here, for here he catches his glimpse of the composite American who bubbles to the top of this huge melting-pot of all nationalities. For outside, and even from the interior of those nuclei IN GENERAL ii of other races, there is going on continually a fusion of bloods, a modification of race characteristics, of physical form as well as habits of living and ways of thinking, until gradually there is a metamorphosis into a distinct American type among persons of European descent. A recent immigration commission, appointed to investi- gate how far American breaks down alien characteristics, has made a comparison of measurements and a study of temperament among foreign-born and their descendants, with the result that most stable racial characteristics were found to change in America. "Racial and physical characteristics," the report concludes, "do not survive under the new social and climatic environment of America. If American environment can bring about an assimilation of the head forms in the first generation, may it not be that other characteristics may be as easily modified, and that there may be a rapid assimilation of widely varying nation- alities and races to something that may be well called an American type ? " Still, that type has not yet evolved. Facially it is slow to make. There is as yet no facial type among our middle and lower classes. So much is said abroad of the American " face " that the foreigner expects to find us in this country all of a mould, from the Bostonian who traces descent to a " May- flower" passenger, to the Italian immigrant who still dreams of Italian skies and poverty, as he sells semi-putrid vegetables at usurious rates in a damp cellar in the new world " Little Italy." It is true there is a type of American face among our comfortably-off classes, or rather a type of expression, that could belong to no other land, and yet a curious physiognomy among prosperous American people. From the very beginning, from the landing of the Puritans, this has been a country of strife. Women as well as men had, in the early days, to fight for their homes. No amount of wealth and ease among later generations seems to have 12 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA been able completely to destroy the atmosphere of virility and strength in which our women once moved. Women became so accustomed to heroic deeds thrust upon them in our colonial and revolutionary days that heredity still insists upon fitting their serious, almost stern, faces upon their luxury-wrapped descendants. It takes more fat to engulf the rugged character outline of the American woman's face than the features of the women of any other race. Many American women who have known only comfort and whose mental exertion is limited to frocks and stage love stories, have the thinker's furrow between the brows, and strength and activity in their rather sharp features. There is a humorous side to this appearance of a sibyline expression and strong cast of features on the exponent of the luxurious habits which come of national wealth. Untouched of longing for independence and activity, mental or physical, the average well-off American woman — that type seen abroad — looks keen and shrewd and as inspired for work and expectant as her Puritan ancestors were. Even in the type of American beauty there is the influence of the pioneer mother. Her firm chin is a trifle square, and has not the roundness nor the dimple of the placid classic type. The expression is earnest, almost tragic, as compared with the calm, benign eyes, bowed lips and aesthetic chin of the accepted European type of beauty. And yet this type of American woman is generally as free from passion and deep emotion as she is removed from the commercial abihty her brow and chin proclaim. But the fact remains that among the lower classes there is no settled type of colouring nor contour as yet ; indeed, we might be considered farther from a type in that strata than we were fifty years ago, for immigration and inter- marriage has run us into many new moulds. That the amalgamation goes on in such complete IN GENERAL 13 subjection to Anglo-Saxon influence ; that we have evolved distinct national points of view, distinct social custom ; that our manners and even our morals or immorals — for of course no European ever overlooks our divorce evil — have become standardized to a certain extent ; that Thanksgiving, New Year's Day, Easter, in church and home, become more and more alike the country over ; that there is " for better or worse " developing a distinctively American home life ; is as if the builders of the Tower of liabel had succeeded in founding a colony without actual dialects, and with the cut of the clothes and even the shape of the hands tending to uniformity — a type. For after we have digested such statistics as those of the dis- tinguished scientist who claims that the people of German origin in the United States numbering 30,000,000 form an absolute majority so far as nationality is concerned, and that in spite of the unimportance to which the German tongue is condemned to-day, America is internally German, and not English ; after we have shuddered properly over the deductions of our own magazine writers, who cry aloud that the Anglo-Saxon race in America is doomed to follow the buffalo and the red man into extinction, and that as a result of the pouring of European hordes into the Western world, and the revival here, through crossing and mixing of blood, of submerged ancestral traits, a mongrel race of humanity may get a footing in our soil, and the American woman of to-day changed to a creature with the feminine characteristics of the age of chipped flints ; after we have beheld ourselves in the newspapers, a degenerating race of pigmy physique and lost ethics, the result of too much rich blood, bolting our meals, fried things, wasting our saliva on the pavements instead of saving it for our digestion, liberty run to license, and other delicately worded charges ; after every form of discouraging prophecy from within and without for the future of America ; it is of some comfort really to look into the homes that make up America and 14 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA mark the overwhelming uniformity on breakfast-table and around the evening lamp at night, and realize that the national diet is not mince pit nor buckwheat cakes (on which point, however, Matthew Arnold, when visiting America, is said to have reassured his wife by remarking, " Try them, my d'yah, they're not half so nahsty as they look "), and that the family is not composed of lank, nervous, dyspeptic, hysterical, frivolous and immoral individuals. On the contrary, I venture to say that in no country does the cosey home-life of the bourgeoisie — the scramble intimate of children and family pets, and elders — so thoroughly permeate its middle and upper classes as in the United States, and that so far from being in a state of dyspeptic, neurasthenic, catarrhal degeneracy, America, like Napoleon's army, '* marches on its stomach." Even the American child, comment upon whose spindled-shanked, pastry-faced, nervous condition we have admitted at times almost apologetically, proves by the measurements of some scores of thousands of American school children and their classification according to nation- ality, parentage, and descent, to have spindled to the extent of becoming from an inch to two and one-half inches taller than the school children of the same or corresponding class in most European countries. He proves to be, too, from three to twelve pounds heavier at all ages than the little John, Pat and Jean in our schools ; Teutonic little Max alone out-weighs him. Moreover, despite the fact, childhood in America is supposed to entail a diet largely of candy and chewing- gum and a sitting up until all hours and no family dis- cipline to speak of, the foreign blood does not seem to have vitiated under the less Spartan regime of infancy, for the second generation of American school children, that is, those of American-born parents, are above the average in both height, weight, and chest measurement of those born before the parents emigrated to America, or representing IN GENERAL 15 the first generation of American-born ; and those from families three generations in America have a still higher average. Figures and measurements, however, will not release us from the charge of a national defect in our home training of the child. A foreigner who had been entertained in the home of the president of one of our universities, while delivering a course of lectures there, told, not without a little awe, but with much anxiety for the next generation in America, of the premature emotions and the dictatorship of the little men and women (he insists there are no children in America) of the household. It seems one small boy had been asked to resign his monopoly of the bathroom, where he was sailing tin swans and fish, that his distinguished father might "tub," and was much incensed over the procedure. He appeared shortly in the guest room with "a sardonic grin spread over his baby face." I (These are the perturbed foreign guest's words.) " Do you want to know something ? " he remarked "The president of this college won't have any bath this \ morning. Do you know why .? Because I've got the plug to the bath-tub in my pocket, and it's going to stay there, see?" "Whatever will become of a race of such ill-bred kiddies ? " the shocked guest concluded. To complete the incident, I feel constrained to add that an American listener made matters worse, first by finding humour in the situation, and then by maintaining that the American youngster is so " infernally ingenious " that he makes the children of other lands look like doughy editions of mechanical toys ; that the boy in question was more than likely to turn out a railroad president, if he did not run to pure intellect and become the ruler in a brain centre of the country like his father ; and that the male 1 adult in America wasn't worrying about the future of the I rising generation, but rather taking serious consideration i6 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA as to what was going to happen to him when they grow up and come into competition with him. This is, I confess, a regrettably general attitude of the American. There is certainly a wrong to be righted in the licensed precocity of the American child, and, until we cease to regard the matter facetiously, we cannot righteously resent foreign criticism of the discomforts of our child-ruled, servantless (in the real sense of the word) home life. Of course the predominant note of our home life so far as records go, is the looseness of our marriage tie. Our critics, friendly and unfriendly, shout a symphonic chorus in the absolute unison of statistics on that point. Yet it might not be a bad idea to recall occasionally that in certain trivial eccentricities affecting the home life — such as wife-beating, burglary, ill-treating children, thiev- ing, and drunkenness — the United States has a much lower average than in corresponding European districts. And it might be added that we have less than a fourth, for the most part less than a twentieth, of the number of paupers and dependants compared with Europe, and nearly four times as many of our foreign-born become paupers as of our native-born population ; but this may be, as an American critic once remarked, " no fault of ours." Our virgin soil and our fierce determination to be rich at all hazards having automatically protected us against this defect without any special intention on our part. Our great resources and material achievement have also been used as a sop to Cerberus by our foreign critics. When they have told us that our country was apparently created by nature in the " full tide of a high Rennaissance," there does not seem to appear to be any reason in the foreign mind why Americans should object to having dear old Uncle Sam commented on as merely " a composite of equally unaesthetic skyscrapers, millionaires and pugilists " ; or after having been assured that we have accomplished IN GENERAL 17 marvels in industry, invention, bridging and mining, who would be ungracious enough to resent the statement that we are regarded as a society (not connected with the human brotherhood society) " pervaded by red-shirts and bad manners, the only exception being the millionaires, who have discarded the former and kept the latter." The average foreigner is willing to proclaim his good- will toward America, but in his ordinary conversation he forgets his philosophy, and remembers disparaging anecdotes about our manners. He dilates upon the possibilities of fortune-making in America, but he never forgets that it was an American millionaire who refused to wear his enormous diamond studs at a dinner because, " VVhat'd be the use ; the napkin covers 'em up any way." If pressed for departing sentiment, he toasts the spirit of liberty in America — " In Italy they are hoping for liberty. In France they are studying about it in their histories. In Germany they are utterly oblivious of it. In England they think they have it. And here in America you have it and you know it," he says ; but he holds as stock episode of his visit the fact that the man whom he had never seen before, riding opposite to him in a railway coach, leaned forward to slap his knee as he exclaimed heartily, *' Going through? I'm on the way out to my old home to my father's funeral. What did you pay for those boots ? cracker-jacks, aren't they ? " The general feeling fifty years ago as summed up in the remark of one of Martin Chuzzlewit's contemporaries, " everything degenerates in America. The lion becomes a puma, the eagle a fish-hawk, and man a Yankee," apparently has veered to an awe of the physical Uncle Sam, but a shudder for his crude force, and in a very recent work an English novelist, after a rapid transit study of the United States, brings one of her characters to Washington, and with him as her mouth-piece, seriously c i8 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA avows, " His English soul was disturbed and affronted by a wholly new realization of the strength of America ; by the giant forces of the new nation, as they are to be felt pulsing in the Federal City. He was up in arms for the Old World, wondering sorely and secretly what the new might do for her in the times to come, and foreseeing an ever-increasing deluge of unlovely things — ideals, prin- ciples, manners — flowing from this Western civilization, under which his own gods were already half buried, and would soon be hidden beyond recovery." I do not think this extreme perturbation affects England as a whole, but I have known English women whose husbands were accredited to the United States as members of the diplomatic corps to sigh with relief when a transfer made it possible to remove their children from the bane- ful influence of " unmannerly street-playing American children," as they might over the removal of their infants from the enervation of India. There are, of course, many good Americans who are as immune to any feeling of deference or awe as, to quote a celebrated Italian visitor, " an egg in the days of its first innocency." For instance, one would think that almost any flippant lawyer would lose his nerve when he faces the Supreme Court. The air is full of dignity and the bar of the court, behind which sit the black-robed and venerable jurists, is about as inviting as the tomb to the young lawyers who appear in their first cases. Not so with a young lawyer who appeared a few days ago. The court has a rule which fixes two hours for oral argument, and is reluctant to grant more time. The novice asked for additional time for his speech. *' How much time does the learned counsel want .'' " asked the Chief Justice. " Just as much time as you folks will give us," answered the lawyer, leaning forward in a confidential way. Every- body laughed except the black-robed justices. IN GENERAL 19 And many of us in our nafve innocence would, indeed, seem to regard culture as obtainable through a sort of innoculation. I met a charmingly fresh young woman from the West whose aunt was introducing her to Wash- ington society, and who had ridden too many years over her father's ranch to be anything but as frank as a prairie landscape. " Oh yes," she beamed, " auntie has brought us on here, and, if the polish takes, she may let us go over to London after she's broken us in here." As an actual fact, however, our material development is insignificant in interest compared with our sociological evolution. We are a suddenly developed people, and have packed into the American all the good and all the bad of the best and the worst from all over the world, and we have been too busy developing our resources to cultivate our sensibilities. We are a young people among the nations of the earth. We have been set in the midst of a virgin continent. Our first task naturally has been the purely material one of conquering the wilderness and producing wealth out of our resources. The natural result of our long complete absorption in this task is to be seen in our characteristic national virtues and vices. We are a people of unsur- passed energies, of unparalleled ingenuity and skill in individual inventions and pursuits. Therein is our charac- teristic strength. But just as naturally, we are more crudely, crassly materialistic in our ideas and ideals only — and this the visiting foreigner cannot be expected to see — while the amenities and finer graces of life seem as yet to have eluded the majority of us underneath the surface in the making of national character, Republicanism has been a success. W^hilc we have not as yet produced a great art, we are actually getting a strong feeling for art and literature, and this in a country where the social elevation of uncultured persons of sudden wealth is an everyday occurrence ; while our servants and children say abruptly " yes " or " no," and the serving-man has not 20 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA " thank you " in his vocabulary, our people do not hate one another as do the people in Europe. It must be remembered that we are just around the corner from the time told of by the Honourable Joseph G. Cannon, Speaker of the House of Representatives, when certain elders of the church, calling upon his mother in her rude Middle West home, saw to their horror, a rag carpet in the parlour, and, after looking at each other and at her sadly for some time, one of them asked : " Do you expect to have this and heaven too ? " Just around the corner we are from a significant incident of our greatest American, Lincoln, whose unconventionality was the confident expression of his greatness. The British Minister accredited to Washington during the Civil War, a diplomat dignified and formal, dining alone with full courses and ceremony, was interrupted by the announce- ment of President Lincoln, who followed the servant into the dining-room and took his seat at the table. Of course the Minister was as astonished as if it had been the King in the countries where he had before served. Formally he urged the President to join him in the dinner, but Lincoln answered, " No, Lyons, I have had my dinner ; if anything comes which is inviting, I'll browse around ; " but before the President departed, the ever-present, dangerously acute situation and fear of Great Britain's recognition of the Confederacy and the means of averting it were under discussion. But we are around the corner from primitive simplicity, and the resolution to be mannerly if we cannot be great would not be out of order for most of us. It is quite useless to say that manners and conventions are a matter of comparative " shockables with each nation " ; to say that the English are aghast at our chaperonless daughters, but that we shudder at the cigarette ; in short, that foreign criticism of our manners is merely a matter of the F*renchman bewailing the lack of sidewalk caf6s or the IN GENERAL 21 Englishman bemoaning the absence of tea shops ; there is something deeper than that in our contempt or hurried disregard of the non-essentials of life. Still recognizing the wonder that we have, in a new country with raw and unstable conditions, acquired the deep-seated impulse for practising the humanities, every American to-day should pause to consider wherein lies the explanation for the crudeness of public manners, observed by even our kindliest critics as an attribute of very much the larger proportion of American people. In the first place, manners in the United States must come as an exponent of our civilization — distinctly as a polish superimposed on a sterling substance of character, not bred in the fibre and intermingled with the instinct of self-preservation or the " bread and butter " problem. For manners are not requisite for success in this Republic. The self-made man is the order of the day, and disregard for the non-essentials of life never kept a man in the United States from riding roughshod to the political front. Society, since it has not the raison d\trc of the court and political circles abroad, is regarded by the average American citizen as applying mainly to the capers cut by certain rich people in their summer diversions. Men in America do not seek the society of women, and there- fore social intercourse is limited. This may be significant of the independence and strength of manhood here ; it may be a sad commentary on the American woman's inability to cross the line of the domestic sphere into the field of camaraderie and mental interests with men ; but the result is a certain lack of culture, a certain crudity of manner in both American men and women. And further down the scale, of course, manners would seem to be shunned as a plague destined to destroy the I-am-as-good-as-you-are principle. A witty Englishman has said of the American that "his dream is to be his neighbour's president," and it is not untrue, but it merely 22 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA takes the place of trying to establish a claim to bluer blood as rises the ambition in older countries. The American is usually a true republican in the sense that he thinks himself as good a man as any, but he also thinks any man as good as himself. Owing to the first of these mental states, he considers courtesy and suavity as denoting servility or inferiority on his part, and, because of the second, he doesn't want the other fellow to " give himself airs," and between the horns of the dilemma is the problem of a national code of manners tossed, and it does not stick. We say in lofty republicanism, " The sweep of the peasant's cap has been measured by the length of the nobleman's sword, and there is as much sincerity in the former as there is force in the latter," but we do not realize that in completely shearing the foreigner landing in this country of his manners by our force of example we are complicating our problem of assimilating him into a desirable citizen. One has but to work among the foreign immigrants settled in any American city to realize this. The metamorphosis of the soft-voiced, obsequious courtesy of the peasant to the independent insolence of a labourer in a country where social equality is preached, does not take a generation. Perhaps the imperfection of finish is perfectly normal in a new Republic — and America is, of course, an ex- perimental station in Republicanism — and perhaps the American would lose value as a national developer if divested of his rugged disregard of social amenities. Perhaps with the nation as with the individual of great mental dimensions, the early personality is somewhat ungainly. Perhaps, as is said of the provincialism of the middle-class French woman, she " has the defect of her greatness " ; the sum total of the American's superficial faults and weakness, and his virtues and strength certainly leaves a substantial balance in his favour. IN GENERAL 23 I ....„,... they have enthroned woman higher and will work longer and harder for happiness of wife or child than any men on the footstool of God. The Frenchman expresses his ever- lasting faculty of wonder and devotion to the " eternal feminine " in an aphorism : " // 7i'a rien de plus important que les damesy But many of them raise this interest to an obsession, which is indisputably detrimental to the race. Even the sedate, middle-aged bourgeois will look back complacently upon a past of which he is proud in direct ratio to its luridity — a feeling mainly traceable to the place women hold in Frenchmen's minds. Now the ** lady-killer " type is exceedingly rare in America. Also club life, as it is known in England, flourishing everywhere and in every walk of life there, has not succeeded in America outside a narrow section in each large city. The American man's life as a rule is a beaten track between his place of business and home. When, by some unavoidable circumstance, he is drawn out of it, you do not find him entertaining, because he has been too busy to allow himself any interest other than his work. " Friendship requires leisure," says Emerson, and certainly manners are not less exacting in that respect, and in the face of necessities of haste the amenities of life give way. Yet in the home of a man who would describe him- self as "just a plain business man" I discovered, pinned up in each of his four boys' rooms, a typewritten slip of paper, put there by the father, with these rules of life thereupon : — " Rule I. — Don't be saucy to your mother ; she's the Queen. " Rule II. — When you get in trouble, come to your dad ; he's your best friend. " Rule III. — Play the game straight." And it seems to be typical of the deference, tendernebs 24 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA and probity in the average outwardly absorbed, brusque American man. The burden of our manners would seem to rest with the American woman. This being a nation of masses, not classes, manners do not come as insignia of a station in life, neither can they be legislated for federally nor by state right; so, if American mannersiare to be mended, it must be through the American woman in the American home. " The permanency of the American Republic," in the opinion of a recent writer, " depends upon the home life of its people," so they who would form an opinion as to what the future has in store for this country, from wealth to manners, should go into the family circles. I cannot hope, beneath a few simple statements and figures, to convey either prophecy or profound analysis ; but I do believe that if the same author's conclusion that " the best American ideal is so noble and good that its triumph would be a blessing to the entire human race," be true, we should gain some appreciation of it in American home life. I CHAPTER II THE AMERICAN CHILD NOTHING illustrates better the way America takes hold of a national fault and tries to remedy it than the remodelling of the type of child among our prosperous classes. A foreigner, asked off-hand to give an example of an imp, will reply unhesitatingly, "An American child a^jed between two and fourteen years"; and in many hotels on the Continent there is a j standing rule never to admit American children. A care- ' ful look-out is kept, and if a family of American tourists accompanied by children presents itself, they are respect- fully directed elsewhere. The American child has a bad reputation abroad. It was Max O'Rell, I believe, who wondered how it was possible that such little demons as the American children became such passable men and women. It used to be hard work to convince the visitor to the United States that the majority of these little demons, tearing about the city streets, playing in " front yards " without a vestige of fence or hedge, and of vast discomfort indoors to every one except their parents, to j whom they were a source of unrestrained satisfaction did not end in prison, were not kidnapped nor molested, I and did, in fact,i:urn out well. I shall never forget the momentary look of horror that swept an Englishman's face when the six-years' old son of his American host, to I whom he was extending, an invitation, jumped up and down, and, pulling his father's coat, demanded shrilly, " Make 25 26 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA him say when, dad ! make him say when ! " or the near approach to collapse of a titled English woman, when the young hopeful of an American household interrupted dinner-table conversation to ask, " How it is, being from England, you don't drop your aitches ? " But this type of American child is happily changing. Some one has said that St. George was particularly fortunate in the moment when he had his picture taken. And the American child has been most unfortunate in this direction, for in America's rebound from the days when life was "more wrestling than dancing," child-culture was a negligible detail. The child, as an expression of the country, was a wild product, a " self-raiser," as they say of patent flour, and emotionally surcharged with the rest of the nation, it presented an independence, an aggression and a strident voice calculated to upset the comfort of a whole dining- room or car or steamship. It was at that period that the mental kodaks focussed upon him and snapped. Now, however, the bringing up of children in America has become a study. Their manners if not remedied, are at least modified; their vivacity put under some control, their voices trained. They are not allowed to eat indigestible food at late hours, and, generally speaking, an intense desire for improvement has been applied to motherhood, nursery, and schools. Of course the American child will always be precocious, though not in a bookish sense. An American boy, who was sent to one of the large Public Schools in England, was deeply impressed with the fact that English boys are much better students. " They act sort of girlish, but they can take Euclid by the back of the neck and shake the change out of his pockets, you bet ! " he vigorously voiced the distinction. The American child has a sense of a com- plete identification with the social group of his environ- ment as the adult has. He developes an alert feeling of security in the midst of life about him, as if he were sitting I THE AMERICAN CHILD 27 at the theatre or " at a party," with the performance for his benefit. Recently, at a political gathering in a Western State where the suffrage has been given to women, a small boy insisted upon joining in the discussion. The child was interrupted, and told that he had no right to vote, so he might as well keep still. " I don't care," replied the young orator, " my mother can vote, so can my sister, and she influences her husband ! " The main cause of the sophistication of the American child lies in the fact that the side walks (pavements) are his playground. It is amusing, after reading some incon- trovertibly statistical article on the decline of the birth- rate, to walk, or to try to make a continuous progress along a residence street in any large American city, for you are surrounded by a continual swirl of children, as if some orphanage or school were having a fire-drill in each square. They dodge about you as a post in chasing each other ; you have to circumnavigate games of hop-scotch and jack-stones, until it seems as if Uncle Sam's miscalcula- tions must be solely because of his inability to count his children. Not long ago a revival of the roller-skating craze filled the streets with hordes of rushing, screaming, catapulting youngsters on wheels. Some citizens, needless to say childless, in one of our large cities, appealed to the autho- rities for protection of Hfe and limb, but were promptly I notified that the streets were the American child's play- ground, and they must " dodge " about as intruders ; and I have seen traffic on a busy street held up more effectively than the police could have achieved, while a band of little girls, well dressed and evidently from comfortable homes, clattered across the car-tracks and drive-way on their roller skates. At the recent historical celebration in New York, the public despotism of American childhood was nobly illustrated. There was a day given over to school children's parade and festivities, and about 500,000 took 28 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA part. After the parade, there were some tableaux given in one of the parks by only a few of the children ; but all the other mites were determined to see their comrades perform, and the space about the young actors grew smaller and smaller as the little ones edged up. The marshals sat down in a ring and tried to hold them back, but the children simply walked over them. Then the police lieutenant and his men tried to handle that juvenile crowd by waving their arms, but those little ones would not be "shooed." They had come there to see, and see they would. They were American children. They wriggled between the legs of the big policemen, who grabbed at them hopelessly. Finally, the police were lost in the depths of the children about them, and folded their arms in despair. I am told that certain citizens, who had been prevented from getting through the lines at the two big parades of that celebration, rolled on the grass in pure joy over the victory of the children. Yet in their homes to-day, the American children of well-to-do parents — children whose mothers are American gentlewomen, and whose fathers are prosperous business and professional men — are gentle mannered, perfectly obedient, outwardly civil, quick to take a hint, and not at all disagreeable companions. It is well, since the child is so much in evidence in the household, that he is interest- ing ; and the American child is interesting, very well read in modern literature, up on the topics of the day (American children are allowed to read the newspapers as regularly as their fathers), and very mature in his point of view, through his continual presence in the elders' family circle. Not having, except in wealthy families, any room, either day or night nursery, that they can call their own, they roam the house at will, and it is a temptation to parody the American poet who wrote of " The Children's Hour," when every one realizes that in the usual American ^ menage, it is twenty-four a day to their account. But it THE AMERICAN CHILD 29 is the exception where the little girls do not curtsey in taking your hand, and the average boy in such a home appears more like the shy English boy on first presenta- tion. I think I am conservative in saying that the " terribly interruptious " boy, as my English friend puts it, is fast disappearing. The American boy is still more of the street gamin in his lack of polish and use of street vernacular than the well brought-up English boy ; but this is attributable to his liberty to rove about the streets, selecting his companions at haphazard, not being sent away to school as the English boy to have manners put in with the same drill as are algebra and Latin and his companionship circumscribed within his own class. The American boy either does not raise his cap to his elders as the English boy does so charmingly, or he does so in a sheepish way with a wary look-out for a chum who shall taunt him with being a " sissy" or a "softy," but the American boy has instilled in him in his home a chivalrous attitude toward his sisters and other little girls. He is, in fact, tyrannized over by these selfish little maids to an ^extent which led one observing Englishman to see in the " giving in " demanded of the average male child the beginning of the so-called slavery of the American man to the American woman. And it has its humorous aspects. [I remember once coming upon a small boy and his sister, when the young lady, for some slight offence, had pre- icipitated herself upon the male offender, and was doing Iconsiderable damage to his countenance. The youngster •made no resistance beyond spreading wide his arms as |a martyr and calling, " Oh, do take her off ! Do take her loff ! I can't hit her, you know." And the general attitude fis expressed by another youngster who said, when a girl (playmate claimed a beloved mechanical toy, " Oh, well, take it. I 'spose you've got to have everything 'cause llyou're the lady." The American parent encourages this attitude in the 30 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA belief that it makes for gallantry and courtesy to women ; and a good word should be said for the continual contact of parents and children in America. If the American boy is kept at home long after the English custom would have him under the hardening regimen, in one of the large schools, the American child gets his physical discipline in his rough-and-tumble experience on the streets, and to a believer in a parent's interest above the best paid guardian- ship in the world, it would seem that, in the absolute devotion of American parents, something might be supplied to the child life in the home that no amount of theory and well-regulated esteem bestowed by boarding schools touches. This intimacy of children with their parents may make for a want of deference toward the father later on, and conduce to the attitude " it's only mother " of the selfish American child as it accepts sacrifices as the air it breathes ; but home life among the middle class in the United States, if not strong in theory, is a national feature for which I think we need not blush. In the average household, the whole family gather about a table in the evening, and the children prepare their lessons for the next day with assistance from either parent. There is a story read aloud before bed-time, and the mother superintends the baths, and always " tucks in " the bed covers about her youngsters, hears their prayers, and turns out the light, until they are big boys and girls. To be sure, when there are visitors, this regime being upset, the children sit about and listen to the conversation of their elders, which assuredly is not pleasant for the visitors. However, visit- ing is not a national system in America. Of course, Americans generally believe that the English parent misses much in the restraint from the tender yearnings over the child in its baby days, while I have heard English mothers refer to the American emotionalism over their infants as the indulgence of primitive instinct. Leaving that controversy for the THE AMERICAN CHILD 31 doctrinaires, I yet am willing to confess that, later on in the child's life, I do most heartily approve of the attitude of the English parent to this extent : when the English parent takes the child into companionship, the parent enters into the spirit of youth most enthusiastically and sympathetically. The parent becomes the child instead of, as in America, the child adopting other ways of his elders. Few American mothers would consider their dignity proof against a game of tennis or a romp with their children ; yet in the tea- time frolic in English homes I have seen mothers of glacial dignity ordinarily make splendid bears to crawl and growl after fat little legs, and the English father in a ' game of cricket with his boys is part of the holiday I programme whenever possible. ' There may be much truth in the charge that American mothers are too nervous to make the best companions for ', their children, and that American fathers are strangely ' weak and invertebrate in their relation to their children, but the troops of American boys and girls on their way * to school every morning are rather noticeable for good physique, and give no evidence of being over-indulged. There are few spindle legs, and, while quite a proportion I wear spectacles, it is because both schools and parents watch for the slightest deficiency and make every effort to correct it. Among the smaller children from the waist up it is hard to tell the sex ; the little girls wearing the regulation sailor blouse — chevron on sleeve, bo's'n whistle- cord and all, called the " Peter Thompson," after the crippled sailor who began the manufacture of seaman's I costume for little folks in America years ago. The little girl's dress terminates in a kilted skirt in place of brother's trousers, but both little boys and girls wear the hair bobbed, or " Dutch " style, and a tam-o'-shanter, cloth sailor cap, jor, in winter, a knit " stocking-cap " pulled down over the ears and tassel dangling brownie-wise, completes the \ 32 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA costume which is so universal as to be almost uniform for school equipment. Girls' coats are now cut on the lines of the brothers', if not purchased from the boys* department in the shops. Half hose are worn by children up to eight and ten years in the warm season, but the movement to continue them through the winter to harden the little legs has never grown popular. On the other hand, the stiff leggings which were worn in the days when American boys had their manhood demeaned with wide ruffled collars and velvet monkey jackets over white lawn blouses, in the era of long curls, have passed, and from the cloth or linen sailor suits he is promoted to the Norfolk suit with close, manlike, or Eton style linen collar. The boy dressed like the picturesque hero of a maudlin child's story, and the little girl dressed like a Christmas-tree fairy of many skirts and ruffles — the two pictures of American children in foreign minds — are exceedingly rare in the United States to-day. Even among the very wealthy the sable and ermine cloaks of the little girls cover exquisite hand-embroidered but severely plain frocks and skirts — even the elaborate French bonnets, at one time such a prominent feature in the outfit of these little dollar princesses, are replaced now by fur and dark velvet hats with ear laps — while little gold-spoon boys wear clothing made by their father's tailor, and as uncompromising in lines as the man's. Plainness in the children's clothing marks a noteworthy step in America's conversion to regard the child as a study of species, not merely an emotional luxury. With child culture developing suddenly as a wide popular movement, it was only natural that it should take on something of shallowness, and this is demonstrated in the case of the American infant and the diversions of American children. First the infant. The young mother in America is possessed of a love-madness for her tiny infant, to an THE AMERICAN CHILD 33 extent I never found in other countries, and which, while it is very poetical and picturesque, is harmful in many ways. The majority of American women nurse their babies, or make every effort to do so, only adopting artificial feeding or a wet nurse as a last resort But as the mother is generally nervous, and her strength drained in many other avenues of household and social duties, the child cannot flourish. It means a vast expenditure of vitality with the reward of a fretful, exacting American baby, that grows into childhood simply because " God is good and the race is strong." Whatever may be the defects of the foster-mother system abroad or, later, of the nursery governess, the American baby, subject to the passionate instincts of alternating love, tears, pride, and frantic despair, which sway the emotional mother in its care, is not to be envied. Our national curse of no servants cannot be accepted as the cause of this obsession of the American mother with the belief that in infancy her constant and unremitting effort for her child is necessary. It is a curious fact that the American mother gives, in the love for her baby, full sway to the emotion and demon- stration of affection she withholds from her husband. The husband and the other children are always I " hushed " when there is a baby in the house ; and the i American father whose inclination is to shed all family responsibility except monetary support, is brought to ' domestic earth when there is a baby, and he is not allowed to feel himself above walking the floor with the infant nor J pushing the perambulator. The other children do not have the baby strapped to their back as Japanese little girls are saddled, but there are "little mothers" in the middle and upper middle classes, as well as among the poor in America. One cannot enter an American home I where a baby reigns without wishing that there could be 'less heart and more mind in the attitude of the average ) American mother toward her new-born. Of course there D 34 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA are a growing number of households where the baby is put into a nursery with a good nurse, fed punctually at stated periods, cries little, and sleeps well — an unobtrusive addition to the household riches. There are even a limited number where modernized Spartan methods are adopted — the baby sleeping even at night on a porch and going without food, covering, or the orthodox flannel next to the skin — and then there is the Southern baby, who is still the special charge of some old coloured " mammie,'* who keeps it covered, downy head and all, for a month, and then gives it a " sugar plum " — a combination of sugar, cracker crumbs, and a raisin tied in a piece of cambric — as a '* pacifier." I have picked up the daintiest of babies, the child of a noted Southern beauty, and found a strong smell of its "mammie's" corn-cob pipe about it; but its mother was only amused at my remonstrance, declaring placidly that no one in the world knew how to care for a child like an old Virginia " mammie." But the average American baby is cared for in abject worship by its mother, and the household is turned topsy-turvy for the benefit of this smallest member. "The doctor brought the baby in a bottle," the other children are told, and on this score, rather than because of any personal grudge for powder or pill ministration, is many a family physician cordially hated and glared at on his visits from behind doors and stairway fastnesses by small rebellious spirits. The American mother shudders over the "paid mother- hood" given the babies of France and Germany; but I think, on the other hand, Continental mothers would be astounded at the way the American child between four and eleven years is turned upon the street playground like a young colt to pasture, for a nurse guardianship after a child is five years old is almost an unheard-of thing with > the middle and even well-to-do classes. As a result of this independence, the American youngster develops an alertness and resourcefulness that makes the children o* THE AMERICAN CHILD 35 other nations seem intellectually asleep. The American thinks that is what the foreigner construes as pertness in his children. An Englishman stood watching some children feeding the squirrels that scamper about many of the parks in American cities. The squirrels were tame enough to try to steal from unguarded bags of nuts, and the children were luring them with empty hands. Other children were about in groups, engaged in the noisy, excitable, ingenious games of strategy and manoeuvre which American children always play. The Englishman surveyed the whole scene : " Very American, those squirrels," he finally said, " really very like your children — not too many scruples, and plenty of cleverness." One spring day I heard a small voice at my front door ask of the maid : " Please may I come in and soap my legs ? " Mistrusting my ears, I investigated, and found it to be the six-year-old daughter of a friend, and I had not misunderstood. She had started for Sunday school, and found to her dismay that her half hose had a persistent tendency toward her low shoes, because, as she explained most earnestly, " They will not stick unless you soap your legs." Very solemnly the maid produced a moistened cake of laundry soap, and there, on the floor of my drawing-room, that infant anointed her chubby limbs, adjusted her socks with a satisfied pat, and, thanking me, started serious and trim for her spiritual instruction. It was merely typical of an American child's ingenuity. The Sunday school of Protestant Churches in America represents the Puritan idea of a religious Sabbath for the young, tinctured with the later laissez-faire policy in religious matters natural to a country without a State Church. There is a shyness with American parents about giving moral instruction to their children, and they rely on the inadequate expositions of these Sunday Schools as a substitute. The classes of younger children are taught by high school misses, who, as an 36 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA American humourist has said, "conscientiously keep the index finger on the question-book for fear they will ask, * What did the Apostles do next ? ' a second time." Yet this is all the spiritual instruction that the child from the average American home receives, and the American parents, after their starched and brushed little brood have started off for " Sunday school," settle down to a morning's devotion to the voluminous American Sunday newspapers, as preparation for the noise and upheaval of the house when the children have returned. There is no religious atmosphere about the average American home, and yet we have not come to making it a fete day for family excursions to amusement parks. These pleasure resorts are generally closed by law on Sunday. The Christ Child story does not permeate the Christmas festivities in America, but a Santa Claus on broad comedy lines. One little girl showed me her birthday book, and among the names of the family and friends before the dates, I perceived that she herself had inscribed, at December 25th, " Santa Claus," and beneath, '' God." Seeing my start, she remarked : " Funny that they both come on the same day ! " The sight of a father going to church with his boys is not common in. America as in England. More American women than men attend church as is true of the theatre; but, in any case, few children accompany them to church. To the theatres American children go, with their mothers or alone, to a surprising extent ; for, as I have intimated, the diversions permitted have as yet escaped child-culture censorship. The foyers of so-called " high- class vaudeville" theatres are thronged on Saturday after- noons with children — well-dressed, well-groomed youngsters — generally unattended. The performance of " turns" and *' comedy skits " that they see does not contain anything immoral, and the occasional innuendo will pass over their nice little heads, but the various " acts " will be permeated THE AMERICAN CHILD 37 with a broad, if not coarse, humour, beside which the slap- stick and clown of the English pantomime is Brovvningesque for subtlety, and this, taken in weekly doses — not once or twice a season, as with the English child — must at least spoil the child's appreciation of intelligent diversion if it does nothing worse. The American child is given the circus and the hippodrome and the " shoot-the-chute " style of entertainment from the time it can be taken in arms, and it becomes so accustomed to amusements that terrify and fascinate that any offering in the line of poetic imaginative child-drama misses fire. I sat next a youngster in the theatre who watched the final descent of the curtain on a Peter Pan performance with a discontented scowl. " Ain't there going to be any moving pictures of a bank robbery?" he asked. The mother sighed; but I think her regret was more over the fact that she might have given her boy more pleasure for a shilling at a "vaude- ville" performance than the eight shillings' worth Mr. Barric had afforded him — not over the question of the youngster's taste. The American parent does not seem to think it possible for a child to enjoy itself unless it is excited. At a lawn fete planned for a children's charity, one of the features was a real life-sized house put up for the occasion, to be set on fire and extinguished by a relay from the city fire department. As the flames shot up, the children danced about in nervous joy, and as the fire-engines dashed in, they screamed in nervous ecstasy. It would not have seemed unnatural to the majority of them if the host of the estate had set his own house on fire for their entertainment. Only one big-eyed tot crept up to put her hand in mine, and ask in an awed whisper : " Were they sure there were no people in it ? " A child's birthday celebration is not considered complete without some spectacular feature, and we have drifted from the ventriloquist and Punch and Judy show to having child actors recite and cake-walk and 3S HOME LIFE IN AMERICA skirt dance for the edification and emulation of a drawing- room full of youngsters who should be playing " King William was" and *'The Mulberry Bush." At one child's party the centre piece of the refreshment-table was a huge black dragon with fire issuing from its eyes, nostrils, and mouth. A tiny youngster gave one look, and then proceeded to scream himself into spasms. I heard a friend console the mother during the removal of the unappreciative infant. " They had a mechanical black man to give the favours last year, and my Eugene acted just that way ; but, you see, he doesn't mind a bit now." This is not among the children of the very rich, but among the representative class in America of comfortably off people, who, believing themselves to be conscientiously devoted to the child's best interests, are, in very excess of their devotion, preparing the way for nerves in the nursery and a suffering from what might be called enlargement of the emotions, which is unknown among English children, brought up under the calm hand of a phlegmatic nurse. Every nation indulges in spasmodic editions of a sort of tract literature on the neglected children of her rich, but my limited experience with the children of American multi-millionaires would lead me to believe them among the best-mannered, healthiest children in America. As a rule, their parents are only a generation removed from the condition when children are the care of the mother for economy's sake, and they still give their personal super- vision as a matter of inherited custom ; but, on the other hand, the formality of living forbids the " mingling of children with drawing-room ornaments," as in the average household, and they are given the secluded training of the best governesses and masters. This combination is good, for no degree of sequestration can quell the individu- ality of American children, and they are given a chance to enter that make-believe world of their own into which so few grown-ups can follow, instead of listening THE AMERICAN CHILD 39 to the conversation of their elders, and it is in this, more than in the luxury of saddle-horse and fine clothes, that they have great advantage over the middle-class child. Of course there are mothers who are club women and bridge whist fiends to the exclusion of thought for the children's v/elfare, and children upon whom the national blight of divorce is bound to fall heaviest ; but if there is anything that convinces me that we in America talk a great deal too much about our degenerate rich, it is the splendid physical condition and the alert mentality of these children from the homes of great wealth ; for, after all, heredity is a pretty sure barometer of national virtue. They may be snobs in the making, these children of our rich, imbibing the frivolities and unworthy tendencies of the age — one hears queer stories of the little girl who refuses to wear a flannel petticoat because it " spoils her figure," and the son of a millionaire who answers a guest's request for a glass of water by indicating the electric bell and suggesting, " We have servants, you know," but I have never found them anything but most democratic youngsters, and splendid specimens of the human race. The children of the tenements loom large in America's problems. These slum communities of America are filled almost entirely with people of foreign birth. New York City is the best illustration. Into that region lying between the Bowery and the East River, the most thickly populated part of this world, there is poured every year a flood of immigrants whose extent is past computing by the casual observer, and here the motley pageant of the streets when children of so many lands are playing in the sun- shine has throughout a rare fascination. The self-con- sciousness of the Anglo-Saxon child is alien to the temperament in the slums, and one sees these foreign children dancing with rare unconscious grace or singing with real melody the street songs. But beneath this 40 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA picturesqueness lies the problem of poverty and over- crowding, looking confidently to the " marvellous alchemy '* of the Republic for solution. The day nurseries, the kindergartens, the free soup-kitchens, and diet and medical dispensaries do much to save the lives of the slum babies, and a recent enterprise in this quarter has proved of great salvation to the type of "tough child." This is the Children's Theatre. Starting as a " class in action and in speech " for these foreign children, their interest is held by disguising the English lesson in the study of the best play which they later produce on the stage of their own. These temperamental New-American children have absorbed this instruction as dry sands absorb rain, and their performance of "Prince and Pauper" and even Shake- spearian roles have been most creditable ; and the youngsters, who one day may be called upon to be star and the next to perform the duties of scene-shifter, are as enthusiastic as any Broadway manager or performer. These are children who work as hard as any adult in the daytime, and the way in which they slough off the drab atmosphere of the sweat-shop and cellar and step into this mimic world of refined manners and speech is most touching. Beneath there goes on the great work of inspiring them with new ideals and inculcating morality, besides teaching them excellent deportment and affording them opportunities, otherwise unattainable, of cultivating literary taste and learning to speak English with precision and flexibility. It is unique rescue work. There is a system of " Settlement Work " carried on among these children of the " melting pot " in American cities — houses dedicated as club-centres and creches, in the midst of tenement districts, the managers living there and taking every way of keeping themselves in touch with the children of the poor. There are " college settlements " where graduates from the women's and men's universities go to live and have their theoretic THE AMERICAN CHILD 41 knowledge of humanitarian work sadly shaken and revised. One can be taught much about the wisdom and unwisdom of sociological enthusiasm by one small citizen. There was one " Ikey," I remember, a reclaimed little vagrant from the East Side (New York's Whitechapel), and in his adoption for the summer by two dear maiden ladies from a small town in New England, Ikey was made to feel him- self an object of as great importance as the returned prodigal. The President was making a political tour of New England that summer, and Ikey was taken by his guardians into the city to hear the great man speak. After\^iard, some well-meaning enthusiast made it possible for the child of the tenements to grasp the hand of the chief executive of the nation, and Ikey's bulletin of the proceeding reached the Settlement House in New York on a post-card as follows : " The President have met me. He don't wear no crown and looks just like a plain clothes man (ununiformed policeman) in our ward." There is held every year at Washington a national Mothers' Congress to discuss the care of children, but of its effectiveness I am not prepared to speak ; the only session I ever witnessed being quite an accidental attend- ance, when, having sought a bachelor senator for interview, I found him sitting up with some score of very elderly ladies, solemnly watching a pretty professional nurse go through the evolutions of infant tubbing with a French doll. But there is a strong effort being made to incorporate a Children's Bureau as a branch of the Federal Government, and if carried out along the suggested line, it should result in the emancipation and the supervision of child labour as effectively as the " Children's Charter " in England. The greatest good that is being done for the children of the poor in America at the present time is through the juvenile courts now established in every large city. America, with the other nations, has come to realize that it is wiser and less expensive to save children than to punish 42 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA criminals, and before this tribunal are brought all the children who require institutional care and custody and discipline, either by reason of physical defect or delinquency. Children are no longer committed for their misdemeanours to the jail with adult criminals to be dragged to their level. They appear before the children's judge and, for first offence, even of stealing, they are on probation ; that is, they are to report to the judge twice a month for a year, six months, or any stated period, and are visited by the " probation officers " in their homes. The judges of these juvenile courts may exercise their personal judgment as in no other court in the United States, and the trials generally consist of a fatherly talk by the judge to the small offender. A morning in one of these courts would bring tears from the stony-hearted ; yet, in contrast to the old police-court scenes, where misguided youth was herded with hardened and brutal law-breakers and the whole swept from the dock to the penitentiary, there is a note of optimism about the children's court, a feeling that the divine fire of youth, however choked with murky criminal tendencies, might be restored to these little prisoners. I recently sat through a session on the bench with one of these judges, who was as surely raised up to help these submerged children fight for honourable citizenship as any general to protect the nation in a righteous cause. Some forty or fifty boys and girls, all under seventeen years — the maximum age for this court's jurisdiction — were called for cases varying from assault upon a parent and petty larceny to the boy who had himself come to appear against a dishonest employer ; for the children's rights are protected by the court as well as their misdeeds judged. It was the saddest band of children I have ever seen. It was not the youth the poets sing of; and a child without buoyancy and innocence is an exquisite painting smeared. But the judge's voice was at once tender and stern as he leaned across his table to question and warn, counsel or sentence THE AMERICAN CHILD 43 each of these forlorn little souls. Some he sent to the reform school, some were dispatched for physical examina- tion — for the physician works with the judge — but most of them he sent paroled " on their honour," and with a hand-clasp which seemed to hearten the cowed youth in these children from the alleys and crowded tenements. One youngster's sole offence lay in a yielding to the ivanderlust. He had wandered from another city, where the head of the Reform School informed the judge he was not wanted back. This judge had discovered in his first confidential talk that the boy longed to be a soldier, to play in a military band. He could play a horn it developed. So the judge had petitioned the commander at the marine barracks that he be given a trial. But the boy had returned this morning. He looked sullenly across the judge's desk. " He won't take me. Says I'm a bad character," he mumbled. " Well, you're not. I'd stake my life on that, John," said the judge. " You've the making of a splendid fighter in you. Now, I'm going to send you to the National Training School — they've got a band there, and if you're good you can play in it, and in a couple of years you can begin as a soldier with a good record." The boy straightened his shoulders as he shook hands with the judge, and it certainly looked as if a vagabond had been transformed into a future defender for Uncle Sam. Germany has recently sent judges to America to investigate this juvenile court system with a view to its adoption, but America may well consider Germany's excellent preventive measures, where, instead of waiting until the boy or girl has broken the law to give them the discipline of the Reform School, youth is controlled by compulsory apprenticeship after the school age. But as America has been sought by a goodly proportion of her present population to avoid just such regulation of indi- vidual rights, the juvenile courts will in all probability 44 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA continue alone to cope with the problem of American minors* conduct and crime. The young children of the poor are saved from the blazing pavements and damp cellar ways in the summer by refuge in the public playgrounds which are established in open spaces throughout large cities. Kindergarten teachers in charge of the swings, sand-piles, ladders, and other paraphernalia of amusement, insure the safety of the little tots, and clay modelling and sewing are taught. The children from these playgrounds at the end of a season will often look as healthy and sun-browned as the army of well-to-do youngsters returning from a summer at the sea- shore or mountains. The average American child, from the homes of the rich or the poor, is stalwart above the average of other nations. One can hardly leave generalizations on the American child without reference to the child in the South, for there are found the most fascinating and the most unfortunate types — the light and shadow of the child problem. The children of the well-to-do household in the South are children of Nature just as far as it is possible in a civilized country. They live an outdoor life much more thoroughly than the children in the North. They are given over as babies to the care of a coloured nurse or " mammie," and she exists for nothing except the cherishing of her particular charge. In many instances she has been nurse to the mother in her baby days and still calls her " Miss Nellie " or " Miss Betty," as the case may be. Coloured nurses work for very little pay in the South, and the " mammie " will generally have assistants if the family of children is large, and it is, as a rule, in the South. These " mammies " tell wonderful stories in which animals talk and bogies stalk (the folk-lore of the Afro-American), and the white children become as imaginative as the negroes who guard them, which is saying that theirs is a Wordsworthian childhood compared to the literalness with which the child in the THE AMERICAN CHILD 45 Northern States views life. The Southern child does not eat at the table with his parents, and if it is true that its diet runs riot under the indulgent *' mammie," the sunshine and freedom of the home " yard " (Southern houses are detached, even when not the centre of an estate, as in the ante-bellum days) would seem to counteract the ill effects of coffee and hot bread. These children are to all appearances wild as March hares, and very shy on first acquaintance, but they have the most charming, quaint manners instilled by the " mammie " — a " mammie " coaching her court of youngsters in fine manners is as funny a sight as one could find — and with their drawling inflection and really poetic, if weird, view of nature, which they get from the negro servants, they are most fascinating little individuals. They run about in pinafores all day — a Southern "mammie" looks askance at the "rompers" or bloomer suits of cotton drilling that Northern children wear, as a garment for her "little ladies " — and are only dressed up in the late "evening" (Southern for afternoon) when they go for a drive and, later, to visit with their parents. One Southern mother told me that she figured hardly at all in her children's lives until they were old enough to be sent away to school. When the last baby was born, it was handed as usual over to the family " mammie," and when it was a few months old, the mother went to Europe with her husband, who was called on business, and did not return until the child had passed its first birthday. The meeting between mother and baby was effusive on the mother's part, but screamingly resent- ful on the part of the infant. " Don't you know mother ? " the parent reproached, as the baby regarded her suspiciously from the haven of its " mammie's " arms. " Lor', Miss Florence," exclaimed the old darkey, propitiatingly, " what dis yer child know about dis yer mother business, anyhow ? " Side by side with these happy little aristocrats under the 46 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA conscientious care of their " mammies," one must regretfully put the picture of the saddest child-life in America, the children of the " poor white trash " as they are designated by even their negro neighbours. Their condition is a blot on Uncle Sam's shield. Formerly living in mountain cabins under most primitive conditions, speaking a sort of Anglo-Saxon dialect with curious survival of certain Elizabethan forms, they have answered the call of the factory owner in the South's industrial revolution, and crowded about the manufactury nucleus, living in rabbit- warren style, too insanitary and indecent for the negro to accept, and sending even the babies to work in the factories. A child of six was recently found holding her snuff stick between her milk teeth as her baby hands cleaned a loom. These "poor white " children are a pitiable sight ; diseased of " hook worm " — what scientists call the " American murderer " — and their " tummies " bloated from a diet of bad fruit and starvation until they almost push their emaci- ated little bodies over backward, it is almost a mercy that they are, as some one has said, " railroaded from the cradle to the grave." One cannot look at a child of the "poor white " class of the South without sinking to one's knees before Uncle Sam in petition for a universal child labour law. Economic fallacy that slavery was, I have it on the unimpeachable testimony of a coloured cook, long in my service, that " black nigger chilluns ain't never ben so happy sence dat War." I know it is a fearful confession that one consults one's cook on anything beyond her ability to prepare certain dishes and the state of the flour barrel, but any one who has an opportunity to listen to an ex-slave tell of life on the plantation in the slave days of America, and of master's ways, and the War in the South, and neglects it, misses something of atmosphere which passes fiction or history. It was a luxurious life, according to her telling, that the little " pickaninnies " of 4 THE AMERICAN CHILD 47 the slave quarters led. They tumbled about the cabin enclosure like happy little animals, stuffing themselves with fried bacon and corn-cake until they were six or eight years old, when they went with the older negroes detailed for domestic service, up to the " big house." " What work could a baby eight years old do ? " I asked. "Why, tic the white chilluns shoes, bresh de white chilluns hair, and fotch and carry fo' em, and den " — she rolled her eyes at the memory — " set with the white chilluns nights twell they went to sleep. Many a night I sat there, too, more scared of the bogie-man than the white chillun," she chuckled, " but powerful proud jus' de same, to be tending de sperrets away from de white chilluns. 'Cos / had a good master," she always finishes, " but I'm tellin' de truf when I declar it would 'a ben a heap better for de black nigger chilluns if slave days were yet." My old coloured cook's words recurred to me on a late trip through the South. In one community at dusk, coloured children were pouring out of a mill and toiling along with the lagging squads of their elders. The little hands were not tying '* white chilluns' " shoes now, nor wide eyes watching for hob-goblins, but in the mill and field they work, little early versions of stunted maturity with the grim message of under-nourishment and pain written on their pinched features. A negro father, himself crippled from an accident in the mill, standing in the doorway of his shack, followed my eyes as they took in the scene, and then he repeated, in that musical, whimsical cadence of the I head de chillun readin' 'Bout de worl' a turnin' roun', Till my head gits sorter dizzy As I Stan' upon de groun' : But let her keep a turnin' Ef 'twill bring a better day, When a man can mek a iivin', While his chillun learn an' play." CHAPTER III SCHOOLS, COLLEGES, AND UNIVERSITIES THERE are, it is estimated, twenty-four million children from 5 to i8 years in the United States, and seventeen million of them are enrolled in the public schools. Each State in the Union has a public school system of its own, supported by funds derived from its own resources, and administered by officers chosen in accordance with its own laws. The value of all school property belonging to the public school system was ;f 171,731,942 in 1909. The revenue for school purposes for the year was ;^7 1,003,23 3, and the expenditure was ^67,339,666. But a glimpse at the streets of any American city between half-past eight and nine in the morning reveals the popularity of public education better than statistics. On five days in the week the streets in the middle class and even the well-to-do sections of our cities are as lively with children as the poorer districts, and all are on their way to " public school." For public schools in America mean elementary common schools, and correspond to the Board schools of Great Britain, except that they draw perhaps half their patronage from the class of children who in England would be sent to private day and boarding schools. 48 SCHOOLS, COLLEGES, AND UNIVERSITIES 49 Everything is free in the American public schools — texL- books, paper, and pencils as well as the instruction, but there is no sense of charity ; the American parent regards free education as much a matter of course as the street lamps and policemen. The son of the President attends public school and the son of an immigrant is entered in a public school, in his section of the city before he can speak English, while between the children from all classes go. From homes of comparative luxury you will see mere toddlers clamber down front steps and scamper off as independent as squirrels, to take their place in the kinder- garten or lowest grades (forms) of the public schools. Young girls, who in European cities would be sent forth in charge of governesses or upper servants, hurry along unattended, swinging a strapful of books in boyish fashion, while boys and girls together (co-education is practically universal in the public schools) whiz by on bicycles chatter- ing like magpies. There may be an automobile or carriage standing before the homes of a fair proportion of these children, but it is to take the father to his place of business, and, later, mother to market and the shops. Their children ignore the family conveyance as they hurry off. f A confirmed bachelor once remarked to me that it inspired him more than a military parade just to stand on a street corner and watch ''the twinkling by of black and brown stockings on the many sturdy legs, or the hobbling 1 of a long line of umbrellas held over the many independent ' little heads of these hardy youngsters as they make their ; transit from comfortable homes to the public schools." 1 " Yes, indeed," I urged enthusiastically, " and think how ' remarkable that the President's son " (this was in Washing- I ton) " is in that school over there, probably sitting between I the boy of a small salaried Government clerk and the I daughter of a seamstress." I " Of course ; why not ? " he replied calmly, being an I American. \ so HOME LIFE IN AMERICA In New York, to be sure, where the residence streets in the better parts so often run down at the heel into squalor at the end of " a square begun in eminent respectability," and the attendance at any school is likely to be rather a trying composite of nationality and even race, private schools are often given preference by families moderately well off. On the other hand, in Boston it is considered a confession of mental backwardness if a child is withdrawn from public education and sent to private school. Through- out the South there are, of course, separate schools for the negroes with coloured teachers, and usually there is a coloured representative on the Board of Education or school board. In the "slum" districts of our large cities, a three cent, lunch of broth, bread, and milk is served, and in New York's " East Side," where it was recently discovered that half the children were sent to school breakfastless, a free meal is given every youngster who presents himself before school hours. But otherwise, there is no distinction wherever these elementary schools are found. Every effort is made to keep the buildings, equipment, method of instruction, and subjects uniform. So similar does the visiting foreigner find whatever number of these 259,355 public schools he happens on in going over the country, that it is a common error to regard us as having a national system of education, at least partly supported by the general Government. But each State is responsible for its public schools. The salaries of teachers in the public schools of the United States, as in all other educational lines here, are disproportionately small compared to the earnings for other work. The average monthly salary of teachers is ;^io, the average for men in those States making a sex classification being £\2, and for women £(^. Naturally the percentage of men in this profession has steadily dropped until the male teachers represent twenty-one per cent, of SCHOOLS, COLLEGES, AND UNIVERSITIES 51 the total number. The young women teaching even the lowest common school grades must have completed a high school course or the equivalent, and had, generally, two years in a Normal School or training school for teachers. I have heard it said that the American passion for ice-cream and candy finds its counterpart in our school- room methods, but this will appear somewhat ironic to any one who has watched the drilling of an average class of from forty to sixty pupils in a public school, presided over by an earnest young woman who knows that the young barbarians in her charge must master the stipulated amount of reading, writing, and arithmetic and do her credit before the supervisor allotted to her school, or her monthly stipend I will cease. There is little time for sugar-coating multiplica- , tion tables and spelling, and in this wholesale training of I the elemental public school young America becomes 1 splendidly grounded in its first studies. I There are eight grades, or forms, in these public schools, 1 the average child entering at six or seven years of age, [ though the kindergartens admit at four. The course does not include any modern foreign language, and the classics ' are not begun before the first grade in the high school. An I average of fifteen years of age is late to introduce the I classics into instruction which is to lead to a university or I college course, and it would seem as if some of the sciences ' — botany and physiology and mineralogy in a diluted form ' are taucrht in the common schools — miirht be omitted in ' favour of Latin and Greek. But the public school course j is of necessity a compromise, since with many of the poorer I pupils education stops at fourteen or fifteen, and the " every- ' day things " are given first choice. There is no universal law of compulsory education in the United States, but I almost every State has crystallized its views on the subject I in regulations requiring school attendance for both sexes ] between the ages of six and fourteen, although six to I twelve is not unusual. 52 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA Better illustrations of the practical in our public educa- tion are found in the cooking-lessons given the girls by special teachers and the manual training provided for the boys. Drawing and water-colour-work are also taught, and of late in the large cities the stereotyped calisthenics in the physical culture classes of the public schools have resolved themselves into the steps of the folk dances of different nationalities. An amusing incident in this con- nexion is given by the young woman at the head of this branch of instruction in New York. '* I saw an announce- ment in a newspaper once," she said, *' that the Hungarians of the East Side were going to give a native feast with native dancing afterward. I thought I might get some points, so I went. And when the feast was over and the dancing was to begin, a group of children, whose teachers I myself had taught, came and did the dance as I myself had taught it. And all the patriarchs sat around and patted their hands in time to the music and nodded approval. Then it turned out that these Hungarian children were the only ones on the East Side who knew their own native folk dance, and they had learned it in an American public school ! While that very morning," she continued, *' I received a note from an * uptown ' matron asking me to superintend a group of folk dances to be given for sweet charity's sake in her drawing-room by her little daughter and other comfort-born small Americans who also had learned to dance in the public schools ! " The lower grades of the public schools are a democracy and a cosmopolis, but in the high schools class distinc- tions are apparent, and there is less co-education. There are in every city " technical high schools " where boys are taught a trade and girls learn dressmaking, millinery, and interior decorating ; " business high schools," where boys and girls are taught stenography, typewriting, business terms, and business methods — as they exist in theory ! — and the "classical high schools," where the four years' SCHOOLS, COLLEGES, AND UNIVERSITIES 53 course includes Latin, Greek, and French or German, rhetoric and mathematics and zoology, botany or chemistry ; and the standard of these schools is acknowledged to the extent of allowing their graduates to enter a majority of colleges and universities on certificate — that is, without examination. This higher education is taken advantage of only by the children of the middle class — the great middle class which constitutes, however much foreign attention focuses on the spectacular contrast of poverty and wealth, the mass of American citizenship. The poor man's family are breadwinners after the elementary grades and the rich man, or even the moderately well-to-do, while he endorses democratic principles in early education, seldom continue the object-lesson beyond his child's tenth birthday. The boys of this class are then entered in a private day school or tutored at home until they are sent away to schools corresponding to the public schools of England, or in many cases they live at home until ready to enter college. The Eton and Harrow, and Rugby and Winchester and Shrewsbury of America, are Phillips-Exeter in New Hampshire and Phillips-Andover in Massachusetts — they have the same founder, and are the keenest rivals among all secondary schools — Groton in Massachusetts, and St. Paul's in New Hampshire, Lawrenceville in New Jersey, and Tome Institute in Maryland. : These are known as " Preparatory Schools " — " prep " i schools — which expresses at once the point of greatest I divergence from their English models, for preparatory schools for the universities they are first and foremost. It is the university course to follow upon which all emphasis I is laid, so that the " prep " school is regarded as a mere j transition phase to be scurried through as fast as possible. I The American boy does not go to these schools until he is I fifteen or sixteen years old, and as he is supposed to be 54 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA ready to enter college at nineteen, his fund of information in the required studies must be a rapid crop. The masters in these schools are there to accomplish this " cramming " process, and the boy regards the course as a means to the great end of becoming a Harvard man or a Yale or Princeton " undergrad." The masters themselves consider their work in these secondary schools as a stepping-stone to positions on some college faculty. The large preparatory schools are beset with applica- tions greatly in excess of their vacancies, and a goodly number of American fathers now turn from the doctor^s announcement that " It is a fine boy " to enter immediately that son's name at the school in which the father made his own college preparation. But to find a third generation representative in any of the well-known " prep " schools is unusual. That certain well-defined and fixed quality of atmosphere into which a boy is thrust when he enters one of the English public schools and the distinctive mark of which is expected to be seen when he leaves the school, has not evolved in the American "prep" school. The youthfulness of America may preclude the possibility, but the desirability is plain. The American boy will have acquired, in alLprobability, more text-book knowledge than the English, but his development otherwise will depend entirely upon the "set" in which he has moved, there being no general traditional standard of conduct about the school, and the cardinal regulations against smoking, drinking, and the " cutting " of recitations are too much on the order of " reform school " rule to make for character, growth and manliness. The American boy runs the hazard of coming out a snob, a molly-coddle, or an immature schoolboy, according to what his small circle of companionship happens to have been, but he will be mentally equipped to take the com- prehensive tests for entrance to his chosen university. The SCHOOLS, COLLEGES, AND UNIVERSITIES 55 English boy leaves the public school, I should say, above all, a man in character and well-drilled in the classics, with a few other studies as side issues. An English boy once said to me, " I like the boys from the States, but I do think they're a little soft, you know." *'Soft" in American vernacular means an excess of manner, an over-evident, effeminate air of culture, and of this the American boy could never be judged guilty, so I questioned further. " Oh, I only meant — well, whipping and birching does a fellow a lot of good, you know," he replied, for he was Eton, and a nice boy. I reflected what the righteous indignation of the American parent would be if caning and birching were introduced as disciplinary measures into our **prep" schools. A whipping administered by a master would undoubtedly result in the withdrawal of many pupils while to have a young boy thrashed by an elder one, perhaps publicly, and with the approval of the masters, is almost beyond American conception. And yet there is our " hazing," more like torture for torture's sake than the almost codified physical discipline of Eton and Harrow, to which the new-comer to our "prep" schools is always subjected. To be sure some of these trials are of a burlesque character, and more likely to test the victim's nerve than do him any real injury. Tipping him blind-folded out of a boat on the school lake after much circuitous paddling in the darkness, with the parting injunction, " Pull for the shore," when, eyes free, he discovers himself to be heroically struggling in three feet of water, is a fair sample. Hoisting him to sit astride an equestrian statue in the town, and then urging his graceful descent while his head remains bound in a cloth bag, is another. A boy who has passed through his initiation into 56 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA "prep" school life will never "squeal," and the masters take care to sleep with their deaf ears uppermost on these nights of stealthy revel, so that unless pneumonia or a broken limb result, the details are unrevealed. I once violated the rule of " no questions asked " in regard to the boy near me, at home for his first holidays, but he extenuated bravely — " It wasn't so bad ! And then I heard a church clock strike two away off somewhere, and I knew it couldn't last much longer because it would be daylight." "Where were you ? " I asked. " Oh, up on the mountain with the * middlers ' " (upper class boys) " making a trained sea-lion of me in the brook ! " he laughed. The " mountain " was over two miles from the school, I knew, and the lautumn frostiness in New England hills is as bone-searching as January fog in London ; but I said nothing, for I had been assured that " hazing " was a sure cure for "freshness" (cheekiness), with which, in a malignant form, every new boy is presupposed to be afflicted ; and who would want the boy dear to them to remain unre- generate in the eyes of his fellows at " prep " ? As at Eton and Harrow, after the new boy has been duly admitted and assigned to his room in a " house " with anywhere from ten to forty other boys, his first task is to learn the school language. The sweet shop is the "jigger store," for there is sold the syrup-flavoured soda water which is a "jigger," or a " double jigger" if a lump of ice- cream is added. The boy who endeavours palpably to shine in the class-room is a " prod " — short for " prodigy " — and a term of deep contempt. To study is " to bone." A boy inclined to favour the society of visiting sisters is called a "fusser." A translation of a classical text is a " trot " ; to use it is " to crib." To be restricted to the school grounds for SCHOOLS, COLLEGES, AND UNIVERSITIES 57 punishment is " to be campussed," and so forth, until it requires a glossary to get in touch with your boys' conversation. Some of the preparatory schools have been lavishly endowed, but most of the endowment would appear to have been confined to the fine buildings and their equip- ment, for the salaries of the professors are not remarkable. A head master receives from ;£'8oo to £1200 a year, while the masters are seldom paid more than ;^32o. The perquisites of the head master vary. In some of the schools he is merely given his house ; in others the house will be handsomely furnished, it will be heated, and his servants paid and a carriage put at his disposal. " In fact," said the wife of the " principal " (head master) of one of these large schools, " we get everything free — except my millinery." A popular variety of the preparatory school is the " Military Academy " ; but it is not, as might be supposed, for the purpose of coaching candidates for West Point — the national Army College, but merely to give the physical advantages and the discipline of a soldier's training to boys regardless of future specialization. They have a daily drill under the direction of an army officer, wear cadet uniforms, go off on long marches, " pitching " and " striking " camp each day, and are given target practice. They arise to the reveill^ and have sham battles and usually manage a big gun or two to salute distinguished visitors. The classroom work is much the same as in the ordinary preparatory school, and a number of the graduates enter college. The majority go back home and into business, while here and there a boy enamoured of the soldier's life will seek an appointment at West Point. In almost every State there are one or two of these private military schools, and there is much to be said for this all-round physical training, in contrast with the 58 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA abnormal local strain of muscles that a boy in training for an " event " in school athletics puts upon his immature young organism. f^^ But the college is the thing in America. Small colleges spring up like wheat, and, like the United States wheat crop, they have flourished. The present epidemic of college education is the subject of much serious con- cern and more humour in our press. You will find it severely stated : " Our educational pyramid has been stood upon its apex, and we have been endeavouring to adorn the attic before the foundations were firmly laid ; the law of supply and demand has been applied to the college and ignored in the preparatory schools." In the same paper, on another page you will not unlikely find a semi-facetious anecdote, which was fastened upon a certain man of wealth, the owner of a great steel plant. A reporter doing the inevitable interview asked — " Of course you are a college man, Mr. Blank ? " " Not me ; but my head porter's a college man, and so's one of my oldest teamsters, and I know all our lady typists are, and I believe our new elevator man is too." i There are in the United States 573 univeTsities and colleges, of which 487 charge for tuition, and 86 are free. Some of these have preparatory departments, and including these with the collegiate graduate and pro- fessional departments, there is a total enrolment of some- thing over 300,000 students. But this, compared to the 85,000,000 population is, after all, not calculated to inspire fear of the "educated proletariat" Bismarck attributed to Germany. Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Columbia Universities are in a class by themselves. They alone can be compared with the universities abroad, and in a generalizing com- parison, I should say that there is less of the Bohemian, the social vagabondage element, in the student life here, and decidedly less maturity of mental attitude. The SCHOOLS, COLLEGES, AND UNIVERSITIES 59 university student in America is a mischievous boy in spirit, who still believes whom the gods hate they make a pedagogue, therefore every conceivable prank for his discomfiture is to be indulged in. No one connected with the university escapes their raillery. Dr. Charles Eliot, recently resigned as president of Harvard, laughingly tells of his failure to live up to his name in the students* estimation. When he was a young tutor in the university, he was starting out one evening on his inspection rounds, and heard some one give the warning : " Here comes old Eliot ! "and a short time ago, when a grey-haired college president of thirty years' standing, he passed a group of students, one of them whispered, '* I wonder where Charlie is bound to-night ! " Yet there is a receptive and uncritical attitude toward the knowledge a professor dispenses in a class-room ; there exists an almost childlike belief in his intellectual authority. The average student is both serious and systematic about his work, but it is the work of industrious mediocrity. The undergraduate life at an English uni- versity seems sadly haphazard to the American college professor, while the active criticism, the original research, and sceptical inquiry of the German student is only found here among graduate scholars. The American student absorbs thoroughly, but he becomes, as some one has said, "a live wire, not a dynamo." We do not as yet seem to have grasped the university calibre in the quality of our work. To Americans the punctilio of the German student duel seems absolutely absurd, yet there is surprising breadth and independence of work done by the individual German student outside the lecture-room. If I may be permitted a very Western bit of slang, the German university student "does his thinking in his own tank" ; the American student faithfully takes the professor's " say so." In athletics, which are as much a part of the university 6o HOME LIFE IN AMERICA as its curriculum, there is as yet a somewhat too feverish atmosphere in our training ; too much regard for the one game or competition and the prize directly ahead of the student, and not enough provision for his ultimate development. The American athlete specializes, and even the position he is to play in the football eleven will be determined and trained for in the " prep " school, so that the all-round athlete is rare in America, and the cases of physical wreckage attributable to over-strain are not as rare as one might pray for. To excel in some athletic event, to win a trophy for his university in the inter-collegiate " meets," or to lead his college team to victory on the football field, is the really absorbing ambition of every student, and the successful athlete is assured of an immediate fame in the eyes of his university mates and in the public eye as well, while the brilliant student can look to the faculty for approval. It is the American choice for worship of the returned naval hero over the ink hermit producing a masterpiece. No matter what of note or notoriety a university athlete may accomplish in after life, his name will always be bracketed with his athletic record. "John Smith, Yale's famous quarter-back " ; *' Eric Hardinger, Harvard's great coach for the '93 crew " ; " William Brown, who held the inter-collegiate record for standing broad jump" — these appear in the newspapers as prefaces to the announcements of legal victories, or election to political office, or even to accounts of suicide or breach of trust. * The annual Yale-Harvard race becomes a more popular occasion every year. The American Henley and Thames are fast reaching a degree of brilliancy worthy of com- parison with the wonderful water pageant of their prototype — the English universities eight-oared race. We have the gala throngs, the bunting-decked observation trains following the course of the boats, the launches and small craft lining the banks aflutter with partisan streamers, and SCHOOLS, COLLEGES, AND UNIVERSITIES 6i women and girls in soft-tinted gowns ; but the house-boat, as an institution, and the punt as a picturesque feature, are not yet fully evolved. There is, of course, a noticeable contingent of wealthy idlers in the large universities in the United States. There are clubs of millionaire students, where the rooms are fitted up with the luxury of suites in the best hotels. Some of , these men bring a man-servant with them, and a great I many have their horses and touring-cars. This, of course, does not make for a plutocracy of letters in the universities, but, on the other hand, it has not, as might have been , expected, materially increased dissipation in student life. ; Occasionally there appears a rich man's son who is j systematic in his aversion to water when champagne is ] available ; but all accounts of drinking at American 1 colleges must be largely discounted by the fact that we I are an iced-water nation, and any variation from this I national beverage is decried with hysterics. The normal ( beer habit of a German university would produce scores of magazine diatribes in this country. I The students live in dormitories, or the chapter-houses i of the inter-collegiate Greek Letter Societies, or at the j "gold spoon" clubs, according to an ascending scale of material backing. The lot of the poor student at these universities grows constantly harder. Simplicity and economy have been on the steady decrease, and the gulf between those who can afford the additional demands and I those who cannot widens. At each university you will have pointed out to you several students who are working their way through ; but you will find that they are remark- ably gifted young men, whose attendance the university considers itself fortunate to have obtained, and whom the student body will receive as their own. But no mute in- glorious Milton need apply and expect to have anything but an ostracized time of it. The average of a student's expenditure at Yale last year was ;£^225 ; but I have been 62 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA assured by students that the least " a fellow can do it on decently " — that is, meet all reasonable demands — is ;^300, while ^looo is not an unusual expenditure. The actual cost of tuition at Yale, as it is at Harvard and Princeton, is only £^0, and forms but a small item in the expense of the college course. At Harvard there are over four thousand students. A " Cosmopolitan Club " was formed for the purpose of bringing together the foreign-born students of Harvard, together with a small percentage of native-born under- graduates who have spent at least two years abroad. At present Ta Chien Yeh of Sungchiaing is president of the club. Last year's most popular football song, sung by Harvard men at all the games, was written by a student from Munich. An Armenian is one of the best debaters, a student from Ouetta is editor-in-chief of the " Harvard Advocate," the most important of the undergraduate publications; and the best billiard-player in the college is Japanese. The salaries paid to the presidents and faculty of Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and Princeton again put those universities in a separate class, for in most of the other colleges the presidency brings from :^700 to ;^iooo and a full professorship often less than ;^240 a year, while the heads of the four great universities receive ;£"3000, and the salary of a full professorship is usually ;^iooo. Below this are associate professors, assistant professors, instructors, fellows, and tutors with a careful gradation of salary ; but an assistant professorship at Harvard will be as re- munerative as a full chair elsewhere. It is not easy for the average professor in a small college to make ends meet, but the real tragedy of the profession is the place his work is ranked in public opinion. Compared with other classes in the community, the German university professor ranks with important legal and administrative officers ; in England there is an SCHOOLS, COLLEGES, AND UNIVERSITIES 63 acknowledged social standing for men engaged in academic pursuits. In the United States the capitalist's scorn for the college professor is proverbial, and professors from some of the smaller universities have told me that even the trustees consider a professor a very poor creature indeed, who has chosen his profession presumably because of a singular mental deficiency which prevents him from setting a proper value on money, and would probably in any case prevent him from achieving financial success. One of these professors, in speaking enviously of what an important personage a professor is in Germany, quoted the pinnacle of haughtiness attained by a member of the faculty at Heidelberg. One day the authorities of the city ordered that the street in front of the professor's house should be paved. " If you don't stop that noise," remarked the professor I to the pavers, " I shall give up my position as a member of the Heidelberg faculty." The pavers stopped work at once. The municipal authorities sent to inquire respectfully of the professor when they might pave the street. " When I take my vacation," he replied ; and then, and only then, was the street paved. " I'd like to see a professor in the United States accorded that consideration," scoffed the American professor at the close of his anecdote. To be attached to the faculty of one of the large Eastern universities carries a certain prestige, and men will rather remain as under professors at Harvard and Yale than accept a chair in less well-known institutions. There is no Government pension system as there is abroad. After long and meritorious service, a professor is at the mercy of the trustees and the finances of the college. He may be retired as professor emeritus on a fraction of his salary, or he may be cast aside like an old glove, unworthy even of mending. '1 64 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA In looking over some questions which had been given in the entrance test at one of the best-known English Public Schools, I was amazed at the knowledge of the Bible expected of the candidates ; for in America the Bible only- enters into education in connexion with the Church and Sunday-school experiences of youth. All study of the Bible as literature or historical narrative is strictly omitted in the elementary and secondary schools, unless the latter are avowedly denominational. The variety of religious creeds throughout the country with conflicting interpre- tations of the Scriptures makes Bible study too delicate a matter except in the sectarian schools ; and outside the parochial schools of the Catholic church there are few of these. The tax-payer whose child goes to the common school, and the parent paying tuition at a private school, alike demand that if the Bible be taught, it must be in absolute accord with his particular orthodoxy. So the Bible is not taught. The Lord's Prayer used to be recited by the pupils in the public schools as an opening exercise ; but Catholic parents objected, and the custom was abandoned. In higher education in the United States, although the larger colleges and universities are non-sectarian, there is no lack of opportunity for the student seeking the atmosphere of his own religious views. Among the 569 registered colleges outside the four large Eastern universities there are colleges founded and supported by every creed — Baptist, Methodist, Episcopalian, Roman Catholic, Lutheran ; there are colleges under the patronage of that quaint sect The Dunkards, and the Quaker Society of Friends ; there is even a " Brigham Young College," in Utah, officially controlled by the Latter-Day Saints. , These sectarian colleges often have a "Theological Seminary " in connexion, and are the propagating grounds for young clergymen of every faith. There is Atlanta SCHOOLS, COLLEGES, AND UNIVERSITIES 65 University, the Harvard or Yale of the negroes ; and Carlisle University, for the higher education of the Indian ; and Hampton Institute, for both Indians and negroes. Then there is the type of university endowed and largely supported by one man, as the University of Chicago, the swaddling clothes of which cost John D. Rockefeller about ;^4,ooo,ooo, with an additional million or two as it grew to provide new outfits in the way of buildings, equipment, and scholarships ; and the Leland Stanford Junior University, that Arabian Nights college town in California. Senator and Mrs. Stanford, desiring to establish a ' memorial to their only child, sought an advisory interview ' with the president of Harvard. I "What has the entire plant of Harvard University ( cost ? " asked Mrs. Stanford. It was explained that it would be difficult, almost impossible, to answer that I question with precision, because the university had , received in two centuries and a half gifts of lands, I buildings, books, and apparatus which were not valued ^ in money either at that time or since ; but he added that ^ ten or twelve million dollars might be a reasonable I valuation. Thereupon Mrs. Stanford said very quietly I to her husband, " Then if we should put in five millions I now and five millions a year hence we could do some- ! thing." Her language and manner was not in the least 1 commercial or boastful. Leland Stanford Junior University I has 1500 students enrolled. It is co-educational to the extent of limiting the attendance of women students to the number of five hundred. Almost all Western and Middle West colleges are co- educational. In fact, of the 564 universities and colleges in the United States, excluding colleges for women alone, I 143 are for men only, and 321 are open to both sexes. I Some of these prescribe separate recitation rooms for the I women students. This is not, however, to prevent the F 66 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA young men and young v/omen from a reasonable kind of association, for, as one college president said, "A fence which could make any pretence of doing that must have its under-pinning in the wet earth, and its pickets in the blue arch of heaven," but to prevent the over-balancing of one sex in certain courses. Some branches of education appeal more to women than to men, and others appeal more to men than women, and the colleges that segregate the sexes have done so to forestall the disadvantage resulting to the minority in the class-room in such cases. But in most of our co-educational colleges, in class- room and socially, the young women and young men have every appearance of being, as the college song relates, "jolly good fellows together." I stood with the president of one of the largest of these Western universities — his undergraduate department offers equal opportunities to 1500 men and 1000 women — surveying a students* dance given in the great hall of the college gymnasium. The polished floor and the pretty frocks of the young women gave it the frivolous air of an ordinary ball-room, and the president nodded approvingly. " There is a lot of sense and not a great deal of foolishness about it all " he said. *' These young people have many of them no social advantages in the homes they come from. The young men wouldn't be profound students anyway. And the life here with the competition of sex has infinitely more incentive and inspiration than a course in a man's small college. This sort of thing saves them from being boors, and in point of intellectual proficiency there is no noticeable preponderance in one sex over the other. The young women are good students, yet there is no blue-stocking element to be found here. Of course romance sometimes will interfere with the work of the lighter-headed ones, but there has never been one serious scandal. On the whole, I believe, these young women are quite as safe in this environment and SCHOOLS, COLLEGES, AND UNIVERSITIES 67 atmosphere as in their own homes. All that this atmo- sphere is doing for them has as much protection in it as the uncertain oversight and slender authority of American fathers and mothers at the age when young manhood and womanhood has arrived.'* "Yes," he added, smiling boyishly, "marriage often follows after college days are over ; but it is seldom that either party gets a stick or a poltroon without being chargeable with notice, for the university sentiment has fixed the status of each student beyond peradventure." Perhaps the most important factor in the enlargement of co-educational college work in America has been the State universities, which, like the public schools, are without sex discrimination. Its " university " is the pride of every State. Westerners adore oratory, and it is no uncommon thing for a State senator, proposing before the legislature some further appropriation for the support of the university, to pro- claim their university " The Athens of America," or " the world-famed centre of culture and intellect," and to believe it. The university town itself usually remembers its share in the ownership of the university, and there is an air of superiority about even the shopkeepers and cab- drivers. The streets swarm with young men and women, almost all of them having come from within the State. In the large State universities, as those of Michigan, Wisconsin, or Minnesota, there are between 2500 and 3000 students ; in the smaller ones, the average is between three and six hundred. The boys at these universities are rarely the sons of the rich men of the State, for those are sent to large Eastern universities. Some of them are the sons of professional and business men, but a large number are sons of farmers. The majority of State universities are I free ; but even when there is a nominal fee charged, a student who can prove his inability to pay is entitled to 6S HOME LIFE IN AMERICA free tuition. As to the rest — the bare necessities of livingf — they cost the student but little in the college town of the State, and there are fires to take care of for the citizens, and other employments of a similar nature. One enterprising youth, after a year of well-paid wood-chopping and fire tending, went away and married. His wife's savings as a school teacher stood them in stead during the summer, and in the autumn she accompanied him to the university — ^not to study with him, but to cook for a club of poor students. Each member of the club allowed a small sum to the caterer, and on that sum the pair lived, and the thrifty husband was able to devote himself single-minded to his studies, with no further interruption in the way of wood-chopping. He graduated, and report says that in a neighbouring town his business sign may now be seen : — JOHN SMITH, Lime, Cement, and Civil Engineering. Many of the prominent professional men in each State are graduates of its university, for it often comprises a school of medicine and of dentistry, a technical school, and sometimes a department of law. And always there is the " Agricultural College." Theoretically, the agricultural college is for the training of scientific farmers, and while the American farmer is as a rule sceptical of any knowledge except what he calls " hard sense " in dealing with his crops, he likes to have his calling recognized as a department in the State university. The title of " agricultural college " commends itself to an agricultural community, and State and national legislators court popularity with their constituents in securing funds and land grants for this branch of the State's educational plant. The agricultural college always has an elaborate and picturesque outfit. There is its experimental farm, its SCHOOLS, COLLEGES, AND UNIVERSITIES 69 dairies, its veterinary department, and its department of domestic science for women. But in practice the agri- cultural college does not have many students in agri- culture. The farmers' sons who go to college rarely count on going back to the farm ; but they accept a course at the agricultural college as a compromise against seeking higher education under the parental ban. So, gradually, duplicate courses of those in the regular classical department of the State university have crept into the curriculum of the agricultural college, and the farmer's son is scanning Horatian metres instead of learning the effect of phosphates on the soil. The faculty of almost every State university contains scholars of surprising worth. Some of the professors will be natives of the State, perhaps a majority of them are Western men by birth, but most of them have been educated according to modern methods. Many, indeed, I are graduates of Eastern colleges and universities, and nearly all have taken their year, or two or three years, in foreign universities. The others come from all parts of \ the country, and; a few from Europe. This is the more surprising, since it is a matter of record that the best a professor may nominally hope to obtain in a State university is, at the age of twenty-eight, a salary of ;£"250 ; j at thirty-one, a salary of ;£"35o ; at thirty. three, a salary of ;f 450, and at thirty-five — at which age the able man will I have gained his professorship — a salary of ;^500. ] The burden of any State university's success rests with 1 its president. Besides discharging his manifold duties as the executive head, he travels about the State making ! addresses at high school commencements, at teachers' associations, at every kind of educational gathering. These journeys are not optional, and they must be made ( out of his slender salary. It is " drumming up trade " for I the university, and forms as much a portion of the work I the president assumes when he accepts his position as 70 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA interviewing angry fathers of suspended students or acting as the medium of communication between the board of regents and his professors. The Methodist bishop has long been the American symbol of itinerant hardship, but the travels of a State university president over a large State resemble in their vicissitudes those of a missionary bishop, with some advantage on the side of the latter. The president and a bishop in a Western State were once comparing notes. "What do you do, bishop, when you have only one sheet to your bed ? " "I double it," replied the bishop, "and get inside." " But suppose they put another man in the same bed ? " " That," said the bishop, " hasn't yet happened to me." As for the women at the State university, what impresses an impartial observer is their extraordinary independence. Here is the free and easiest type of co- education in all chaperonless America. It is rare indeed for a father or mother to come with a daughter to see that she is suitably lodged and properly started in her uni- versity life. In some of the State universities the dormitory system prevails, but quite as generally the students are expected to find lodgings about the town, and usually lodging and boarding are in different houses. So, ordinarily, the girl student finds her own quarters and manages her own affairs — her goings and comings, her hours, her companions are at her own disposal. Sometimes she is a serious student ; frequently she is clever enough to hold her own extremely well in her classes ; but apparently she is more apt than her brother to come to the university for the fun of it. It is true that in spite of her freedom the girl usually escapes without having fallen below her own standard of decorum. But her standard of thoughtlessness, I have sometimes thought, permits a good deal. SCHOOLS, COLLEGES, AND UNIVERSITIES 71 A professor once told me that it was not an infrequent occurrence at his university to meet men and women students on their way to take a row on the river as late as half-past ten at night after a meeting of their literary societies, and as a sample of harmless freedom it seemed to him entirely laudable. But the women in State universities and other co- educational colleges give little idea of the type of American college women in a college town of her own. CHAPTER IV TYPES OF THE YOUNG PERSON BACKFISCH, the colloquial German term for a girl in her earliest teens, would not be applicable to the American young person. For with all her undeni- able charm of health and poise and splendid camaraderie, the American young person suggests not the slightest analogy to a small fresh fish so recently removed from early obscurity that the glistening sheen of the sea-hues is still upon it. In the first place, the average young person in America has no unconscious childhood to emerge from. The close companionship of American fathers and mothers with their children has that unfortunate result. The brains and emotions of the youngsters are stimulated until more or less unconsciously they are expected to think the thoughts and feel the impulses of their parents instead of the natural childlike thoughts and impulses which are mostly instincts. Instead of being allowed to run along on their own level the children are continually being forced up an inclined plane to a higher level, doubtless, but they would reach it in good time without compulsion if they were left alone. We resented it when a well-known English investigator of economic and social conditions left us with the calm declaration : " There are no children in America. You have little women and big women, little men and big men ; but you have no children — not in the English or the 72 TYPES OF THE YOUNG PERSON 73 Continental sense." It must be admitted that, compared with the child abroad, primarily regarded as a healthy little animal, the American child does appear, as they say, " a cute," " smart," business mannikin, charming and clever, and attractive, very, very often, but, from the foreign point of view, abnormal. So, with the bloom of natural childishness brushed off at five or six years by familiar association with the adult members of the family, one could hardly expect to find in the American girl in her teens many traits corresponding with those of the nursery bred, demure, young English girl or t\iQ jetme fille, or the backfisch. "They wear spotted veils and act with the easy sophistication of young widows," an Englishman summed up his impressions as a bevy of young misses from a boarding school entered a street car. " But they have a chaperon," I defended. " You mean the one without quite so many feathers that they treat like a younger sister .? " he queries, a shrewd vinkle in his eyes. It was all quite true. These girls did not represent an ultra-fashionable class. The school they were attending was just an average boarding school, and these schoolgirls, with their feathers, veils, laces, and jewellery, had many of them come from modest homes, where, in most cases, severe sacrifice is being made that the daughter might have her schooling in a large city, and acquire the dress and habits of a rich woman. The American girl from really humble ranks considers herself wretched until she can ape the clothes of a class above her. Indeed, if there is possible one new frock in an American home, the daughter gets it. The sight of a rich American woman raced about the world by her capricious daughter commands such perpetual amazement abroad that I have often wondered what healthy j rage would burn over the very common situation here of a woman on a small income going shabby while her 74 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA daughter is well dressed, or the spectacle of the girl in the average American home who expects her mother to wait on her and sew for her. Yet these things are happening about us everywhere every day, and exceptions to them do not alter the diffused truth that our young womanhood is being transmuted into a mildly anarchical position on her part. With complete botcleversement of the relationship as it is abroad, the American young person wears exactly the same clothes as her mother ; the borrowing is by daughter from mother ; the cast off or second grade of gloves, hats, and even suits, is a handing down from daughter to mother. Except for her youthful face, the American young woman is a replica of her mother of forty-five. After sixteen, girlishness has usually gone from clothes, from carriage, and generally from expression. The young girl in the American home is given very little less than idolatry by her parents. The beautiful creed of American fathers and mothers in regard to the daughter of the house has been stated as follows : — " She is adorable, and I am devoted to her, body and soul. For her I shall sacrifice myself. She is the most important thing in my life — she rules it. I gladly stay back in obscurity that she may shine. I give her my all, and she takes it lightly, as a matter of course ; but as long as I am proud of her, and see her happy, I have all the reward I wish. I believe that nothing can spoil her, so I permit her pictures to be published, permit the press to exploit her, permit her to hear and read adulatory anthems of herself, until she feels, as I do, that she has no peer in the entire world of girls. I want her to associate with boys and men frankly, on the basis of comradeship. Our men understand her, and such companionship is innocent. I want her to be sophisticated theoretically, so that she may the better recognize and beware of any dangers threatening her. Yet, while knowing about life's ugliest and most sorrowful facts, I demand that she be treated as if she knew TYPES OF THE YOUNG PERSON 75 nothing, and that theatre and publisher cater exclusively to this myth of her rose-coloured ignorance and her really immature mind, however inane the result may be to my sturdier mental taste. For no restrictions must be put upon her reading, her theatre-going ; things must be arranged that she may go everywhere, read and see every- thing — her liberty supreme. The restrictions must be placed upon the makers of books and plays, and their liberty restricted for her sake." Unfortunately for such dreams, human beings are not fashioned ideally enough to improve under this idolatry. From such an elevation one must look down, and from her pedestal the American girl looks down on those who have foolishly forced her into an undeserved and harmful prominence. She leads the household. Her mother is too often her worshipful slave. After expressing a vain longing that the American girl might be persuaded to graft on to her spirit of inde- pendence and real attractions the gentle manners, girlish appearance, and endearing courtesy of the young girl of Europe who not only endures her mother's companionship and guidance, but has the appearance of enjoying them — a prominent American woman has sighed — " If the American girl's parents made obedience and not independence the key-note of her training, she might appear less like a youth dressed as a woman of the world, and suggest more a woman at the happy beginning of life. But these reforms can only come when the kneeling, self- effacing American mother gets upon her feet and asserts herself as her daughter's leader and friend instead of her blind worshipper." In her voluble, heedless way the American young girl loves her parents sincerely, and probably is not conscious *< of selfishness nor disrespect toward them. Yet her I manners to them and to her elders generally show indiffer- j ence bordering on discourtesy. 76 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA It is a pity that American girls have been encouraged to carry this spirit of unchaperoned, unrestrained liberty to the extent of assertion and selfishness, for her worst faults are on the surface. Beneath her over-dressing, her emphatic self-possession, is a frank, bright, shrewd, generally unaffected, personality beside whom the French young person, with her pretty deference to elders and charm of manner, which is sometimes too much on the surface, is colourless and mentally anaemic. The groups of young girls on the streets in American cities, the girls on their way to school, strolling about together after school hours, in the shops or at dancing school, coming home unaccompanied after darkness has begun to fall, continually attract the comment of the foreigner. They are almost always pretty and conscious of the fact from the tip of the highest feather on their flamboyant hat to the tips of their sometimes shabby kid gloves. They prattle unceasingly, and use a great deal of slang. In passing them, you hear words like "kid," "corker," "stuck on himself," " in the push " falling from the prettiest lips. They are simply walking editions of a Declaration of Independence — they "are and of right ought to be free and independent states." Their don't-care, " sufficient-unto- myself" way of striding along, their veteran-like com- posure, their indifferent stare, or their casual " Hello ! " and " Howdo ? " as acquaintances pass, is all a little shock- ing to the foreigner. But the American young person is simply reflecting certain of our national theories as clearly as a mirror, and even when moments of doubt assail us, we say cheerfully, " Well, the experiment so far ma}^ be a failure, but the principle remains the same." When we see her prancing and romping through a dance, though the music may be in the most languorous time and the occasion formal, we say, " But she is alive from the points of her dainty shoes TYPES OF THE YOUNG PERSON j^ to the last tiny strand of her premature coiffure, and how absurd the governess-ridden, unawakened young person would be in America." In England, I have noticed, if sacrifices are necessary in the family life, the girls make them for their brothers — here it is the other way. That prettiest brother-hero- worship among the English sisters has no counterpart here. Here the brothers have to fetch and carry and often curtail practical education that the sister may have accomplishments. But we complacently draw forth the stereotyped picture of the European wives hanging on their husbands' lips, timid of thinking, saying and doing anything that might not please the domineering master of the house, and sigh contentedly, ** At least our girls never come to that." The American girls* freedom of intercourse with boys and men all through her life had its birth in a belief that was healthy, simple and beautiful. The little girls play with the little boys of the neighbourhood in the streets — it gives independence and insures the girls entering the rougher games which are supposed to be healthier than "playing mother" alone with their dolls. Then we say : " If boys and girls study and rollick together, there will be no mawkish, sickly sentiment between the sexes. And even when we begin to suspect that this comradeship, permitted without hindrance or guidance, is rubbing the romance out of life for our girls ; is robbing the one sex for the other of that mystery and charm that cannot exist between boon companions apparently of the same sex ; and that con- sciousness of sex — the most beautiful and wonderful thing in life — hangs very thinly, if at all, between the two ; we dismiss the question with our satisfied platitude, "The American girl seldom loses her heart, and never her head." 7^ HOME LIFE IN AMERICA I confess, though, it did strike terror to my heart to have the beautiful young thing I was congratulating upon her engagement (it is always engagement, not betrothal here, and I find a slight significance in the business-like sound) reply radiantly — " It is so nice to have a sweetheart ! He pays for carriages and candy, gives you flowers and presents — he saves you so many petty expenses ! " We seem to be so afraid to curtail the high spirits or liberty of our girls, lest, "if the bud is frostbitten and blighted, the fruit will be sour and shrivelled," that, as a rule, we fail to perceive what an unattractive complexion this happy abandon has taken on ; but recent magazine articles on the subject show that we are not all blind to the facts, if not perils. One arraignment reads as follows : — "When one goes, summer after summer, from one American seaside and mountain place to another, one wonders if parents and guardians are so obsessed in satisfied worship of their children as to be blind to a sense of what is beautiful and becoming. The sands of the sea in particular are turned into a sort of public boudoir, where both sexes, amazingly disrobed, meet on a footing that may well stun a foreigner. The younger set, naturally rushing to thoughtless extremes, takes advantage of the freedom allowed to commit flagrant oflences against taste. Young men in skin-tight, sleeveless, and neckless bathing garments, about a yard in length, and bare-armed girls with skirts and bloomers above the knee, loll together in a sort of abandon, or dive and bathe while screaming and clutching one another like contortionists. Two lie side by side, toasting themselves to the popular russet tint, arms under head, legs crossed, chatting as restfully as if at a five-o'clock tea-table ; or the head of a youth is in a girl's lap, both hidden by a parasol ; in wilder moods, they cover each other with sand which sculptures every outline of TYPES OF THE YOUNG PERSON 79 their bodies ; they do cake-walks and skirt-dances ; they dig up sand with their toes and shower it in each other's faces." They are not children — they are girls in society, from cultivated homes. Parents and guardians, calloused by custom, look on complacently and see nothing ugly in it, no wrong in it. There is no wrong, from one point of view ; there are probably fewer forbidden thoughts and suggestiveness in this turbulent intimacy than in the brief, stolen meetings of young lovers of other countries. But there is a corroding harm of another sort ; a girl loses the exquisite sex-reserve that nature meant her to have, the very kernel of her womanhood. When a young girl can dance and bathe and loll with only an apology for skirts with a possible or positive suitor with as little sensibility as if he were another girl, she is flouting the fundamental reason for her existence. She is something hybrid, and to watch her is saddening. Questions come thickly : have girlishness and simplicity departed from herself as wholly as they have from her externals } Will indifference and sex unconsciousness continue with her ? Into what sort of anomaly will she blanch temperamentally if this pure- minded sexlessness increases ? "Taps" has sounded over Miss Alcott's books and Dickens and Cooper as reading for the American girl. She devours whatever of light reading comes into the house ; all the latest novels, neurotic and otherwise ; all the unnumbered light fiction magazines that flourish like Chinese lily bulbs, nourished on water and springing up to blossom over-night ; all the sensational current history, as revealed in our spectacular and vernacular newspapers ; everything is grist to her fluttering mentality — everything except poetry. I have never known an American young person to read poetry, except under the compulsion of school exercise. She has shrewd, sound opinions on what she reads and sees, however, and she advances them smartly. 8o HOME LIFE IN AMERICA There is a deep-rooted belief in America that the European young person is stupid and badly educated, apparently because she has not the " go " and assurance of the American girl, and sits silent before her elders. It is quite impossible to convince the average American that the European girl's training is thorough, though not in the higher " isms " of the American college girl ; that the demure young thing, who seems half asleep mentally, is often mistress of three or four languages, and always speaks one as well as her own ; that she is well read and observant, and has a critical knowledge of art. But it is no easier task to convince a foreigner that the American girl airily over- riding her seniors in conversation is anything but the embodiment of pert superficiality. The foundation of the American girl's education is laid, however, in the public school system of drilling a large number of minds into one mould — and fit she must or drop behind — and ambition, which is one of her strong characteristics, and the spirit of competition which is, of course, nationally the spirit of the age, keeps her up to the mark. However flippant and forward she may appear outside, in the class- room the average American girl is serious ; and here the really good features of co-education are demonstrated in the sex-rivalry and sex-pride as spurs to excellence. It is not what might be called "polite " education, an education that is available for social parade ; but the American girl is obliged, by the very processes of our universal public education, to be more thoroughly grounded than she likes to appear. Thus it comes that, being a forced plant socially, with none of the graces of education to meet the demand, girlhood in America is prominent for a certain light frivolity which, encouraged by parents, most unfortu- nately often manifests itself in loud and fast manners, when the girl in reality is as innocent as a daisy, and probably quite capable of passing a stiff examination in mathematics, history, or English composition. TYPES OF THE YOUNG PERSON 8i In spite of the once-a-week cooking-classes for the higher forms in the public schools, and the courses in domestic science which are offered in some of the secondary schools, the knowledge does not incorporate itself in the American girl's character, and there is no instinctive air of the home-maker about her as about the young girl in France and Germany. Foreigners reproach us for lack of domestic virtues and accomplishments, and, in a way, it is justified. There is no general love and admiration for household duties in America. An American woman does her own household tasks when necessary, and makes a pretence of supervising them as she ascends the matei^ial scale ; but she always does it in the spirit of a Christian martyr, because it is duty with a big " D," not because, as with the haus frait, it is the sole purpose for which she was created, or, as with the French housekeeper, a glorified ! mission, with cooking nationally admitted to be a fifth fine • art. In America, there is no particular respect paid by I those around her to the possessor of domestic accomplish- ments, and the daughter in a household cannot be uncon- \ sciously trained by the constant contact and example as is, ! for example, the French girl who sees the same spirit of scientific intelligence and well-directed personal energy in her mother's management of the home, as an educated and zealous officer will give to the welfare of his men. House- keeping duties in America are labelled menial, and the American girl sees no reason why she should, against her inclination, cultivate a knowledge over the practical demonstration of which she has always seen her mother shrink and grumble. The English, too, though an older people, are much more primitive in some essentials than the Americans, and nowhere is this demonstrated better than in the point of view of the young person. Marriage in England means children ; and there the woman is led to believe that a family is looked upon as normal, and the bearing of 82 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA children is her normal part of the marriage contract. In America, a squeamish artificiality surrounds the question in the )^oung woman's mind, and she enters marriage with the feeling that maternity must be avoided as hysterically, in fact, as it was debarred from her mother's confidence before. Awaking to the gravity of this increasing artifici- ality, in the view of life of the American girl, and realizing that one cannot retrograde to simplicity ; that our return to natural duties must be by force of will and reason, in default of what comes to the French and English girls by obedience, willingness, and inherited instinct we have tried the experiment of mingling social science, domestic economy, and race and child study with the classical branches in our women's colleges, and these courses are popular. As a rule, however, a knowledge of sociology and general ideas crowds out the conception of small duties, and the college girl comes out little better fitted for the problems of housekeeping than the wild-flower type of the average American girl, or the butterfly type among the wealthy. This study has, though, developed a class of American girls of whom we should be immensely proud ; the attractive young women in our " college settlement " work among the city poor. There are many of these in each large city, putting in practice scientific practical charity, daily performing acts of self-denial, good fellowship, and love toward others less fortunate, and living among them while they do it ; young girls teaching discouraged mothers to get healthy food and a degree of comfort out of the stipend that falls to them, bathing dirty babies, teaching the children of the slums, and keeping the young women of their own age off the streets by evening amusements and classes in the "settlement house." The English girl works with the poor to a considerable extent, but with self-consciousness, and generally in rural parish work, while the French girl contents herself with TYPES OF THE YOUNG PERSON 83 ' giving alms ; but this type of American girl does good with a disclaimer or with a light manner and a sense of humour, which may mislead a stranger into concluding that she is lacking in earnestness. Let no one be deceived in regard to the quality of work accomplished by these young women. They carry it on from a high sense of duty, with splendid enthusiasm and excellent method. It is on a par with the effort in the field of government of English women, who, of course, know a great deal more about public affairs than our women. I doubt whether a better example of splendid self- reliance, independence of body and mind, and self-respect- ing dignity, can be found in any women in any land than I exists among these young women in voluntary exile, living t an absorbed and light-hearted life in the heart of our tenement districts. In other countries there are nuns, 1 but theirs is a life vocation. These are just healthy young .women, with fine records in college course behind them, land marriage and children ahead, who are meantime I having a good time doing good. I have never found a ; more finely poised type of young womanhood. Abroad, I where the young women, as a rule, have had to suffer jfrom either of the two extremes of cultivation — the too I carefully sheltered governess hot-house type, or the utterly I run wild, untaught, garden-patch variety. Work of this kind simply never could fall into the hands of such young I women ; but in America, where so many big, broad practical j interests and privileges are the woman's for the mere desire to come to her own, the success of the young women settlement worker has been possible. She is no less unique among the young person class in America than compared with the girl abroad. She does not shut her j eyes and scream, either for her own rights or over the poverty and vice of the other half She sees clearly and I calmly, and therefore works fearlessly. Any one who 84 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA has considered settlement work a fad or a pastime, should visit one of the settlement houses, and see the college girl in action there. The usual charitable work of conferring a passing benefit on the individual as conducted by organizations is but a drop in the ocean compared with what the American college girl accomplished in living with the conditions she has equipped herself to alleviate, and in coping with the causes, and not merely the conse- quences of poverty and evil. It is among these young women, whose life is behind their words, that the real cause of equality of suffrage in America is advancing ; and they are setting an excellent example to the dis- contented, spoiled married women among the idle rich class, and raw recruits of hysterical others who have recently espoused the cause with spectacular methods. Whatever may be necessary to arouse the lethargy in other countries, America has always given too much liberty, too much justice to her women to give an excuse for anything more than quiet, earnest effort, even in this somewhat problematical matter of her right to govern officially as she always has unofficially. Of course the college settlement worker is a phase of the "bachelor girls," who, owing to the surplusage of women, and the enlarged sphere of women, has made her appearance in all European countries as well. But the " bachelor girl " in America is rather more normal than elsewhere ; girls being given so much liberty in their own homes do not feel the call for a " career " with Bohemian set- ting. The girl who, in the paternal mansion, can go and come and have her own latch-key — may even dabble in genteel self-support if she has become innoculated of hustle and haste — is not likely to consider "flocking by herself" in insanitary studio quarters or in a woman's club, or in a straight-laced woman's hotel, as an inspiring experiment. The truth is that, culpably lax in our rein and judgment for the young person under our roof-tree, we are a nation TYPES OF THE YOUNG PERSON 85 of public prudes once she seeks fortune outside the paternal halls. The American young woman has all the uncensured liberty in the world right in her home ; but a woman's hotel in America resembles a penal institution in its supervision of its guests, and there is little easy club life for young women as in England. The situation, so common in England, of a young woman living in amiable separation from her family that she may ally herself with some high-brow, dilettante cause, or secure independence for pursuing some " career," is much rarer in America. There are, to be sure, some half a million young women in New York City who are living more or less transiently without or away from family ties, and a similar proposition in all our large cities, but these are the bachelor girls of circumstance almost entirely, not of option, including as it does the great bulk of feminine wage-earners and those studying for self-support. The proper housing at reason- able expense of these homeless or away-from-home girls who have answered the call, industrial and otherwise, of the big city, has been one of the problems that America has faced, and which is now being worked out along many lines. In New York there is an interesting tenement colony of self-supporting women on the upper East Side, which is demonstrating that working girls may live in that city in homes of their own at a cost no greater than living in hall bedrooms of a cheap boarding-house demands. Here book-keepers, clerks, newspaper workers, stenographers, trained nurses, shirt-waist makers, social workers, musical students, interior decorators, dressmakers' assistants and students, house in two, three, and four-room flats, tucked in among regular bona fide families, the presence of the latter being expected to retard any atmosphere of Bohemianism such as is likely to prevail in a woman's hotel. At a rental of from $1.37 to $2.75 each a week these residents enjoy complete homes with steam heat, gas ranges, stationary tubes, steam laundry dryers, and other S6 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA modern conveniences. Many of the girls prefer to do their own cooking ; but for those who do not, there is always the co-operative dining-room, where luncheon may be obtained for twenty-five cents and dinner for forty cents. An ingenious device is the receptacle used by many of the girls for carrying cooked food from the dining-room to their own little dining-rooms, there to be served in privacy. This receptacle, porcelain lined, has a place for the hot soup in the bottom, the meat and vegetables coming next, with the dessert on view at the top. The food is good. For private dinner-parties and luncheons there is a special small dining-room, of which the residents may have the use for a nominal sum. Walking into one of these two-room flats in which two girls live, each paying $1.30 a week, the visitor finds him- self apparently in a charming little red study — apparently, because, though the room is undeniably charming and little and red, it is not a study, but a kitchen. The red burlap- hung screen uncloses to reveal the gas range, the chintz- lined glass doors of the book-case open to disclose rows of dishes and cooking utensils, and thus attractively garbed, deceit reigns over the room. The second room, with two couch beds, serves as sitting, living, and sleeping room. Truly " palatial " in this city of hall bedrooms are the |4 80 a week four-room flats — four rooms and a bath — such as is occupied by three girls who have achieved some success, and have found this the best substitute for a home to be had. " It is only J 1.60 a week from each of us ! " exclaimed one of the three. " And just see the home we have." And she proudly led the way through a parlour, a delft living-room — which turned out to be a Dutch kitchen — a sitting-room, and one bona fide bedroom. *' Think of the price of all this ! " she said enthusi- astically. " It is not so much that the price is cheap, but that you get so much for the price ! " TYPES OF THE YOUNG PERSON Zy The remarkable feature is that the American working young person of high and low degree struggles toward a home or co-operative community of interest life, and that there is so little yearning toward Bohemianism among the student class of bachelor girls. The average both of good looks and intelligence is higher among the girls employed in the large shops in America than among those of a similar class abroad ; and in saying this, I am not unmindful of the " Queen of Sheba " type of shop assistant in some of London's smart drapery houses. But it seems as if we recruited our " shop- girls " generally from a class a little more prosperous — if the word is not grotesque applied to any portion of that pathetic class engaged in a hand-to-mouth struggle — than that from which girls in this line of work come abroad ; and then they are paid a little better. They undoubtedly dress better and average good taste ; a gaudy or a slouchy girl behind the counter being rare indeed, though in com- paratively few shops is a uniformity of costume arranged by the management. Just as far as circumstances permit, the American shop-girl patterns herself upon the fashion- able model of the American young person who comes to the shop in her brougham, and she succeeds almost unbeliev- ably. It is astounding, amusing, and pathetic often, to see how far the girl behind the counter has spread her pittance in achieving effects of the latest style in everything, from waist line and neck arrangement to amount of false hair. Everything except the few pence it takes to keep body and soul together goes on her back. But if the shop-girl did have any idea of saving, she would be a lonely type in America. P The American shop-girl is, however, distinguished above her fellows in London and Paris by her contempt for shoppers. In America, every little boy is told that he may be President some day, and every shop-girl finds the assurance 88 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA in the literature she consumes that all haughty shop- girls marry millionaires. American sales-girls have had beauty contests in the daily journals, and one newspaper published a novel, each instalment of which was written by a sales-lady — or at least the paper made this claim. And all this importance is none too subtly conveyed to the waiting customer. She regards your approach with exasperating indifference, and, adjusting her belt buckle or retouching her elaborate coiffure, she continues to chew gum with her eyes toward her fellow clerk, and snatches of conversation float over the counter to you as you make your humble wants known. " He may be making good money, I told Mame, but he's not the classy kind you'd want to be seen at a dance with," and while her friend expresses her approval, she grudgingly pushes toward you the object of your intended purchase, and continues : " I'm going to wear my pink dress. It's simply swell with that new pearl trimming I got at the sale," etc., etc. If you are acquainted with American institutions, or built of the stuff that made the Plymouth Rock landing possible, you break in on this mellifluous stream of con- versation; but if you are an ordinary American citizen, you endure it spinelessly, accept whatever is handed to you dreamily or arrogantly, as the spirit moves the heroine, and go hence realizing that while department stores in every large city of either continent are all more or less alike, the American shop-girl cannot be duplicated in those countries where a caste system places^ servitors instead of " perfect ladies " behind its counters. Hand-in-hand with the foreigner's criticism that our national hustle and haste are reflected in the restless temperament of our young person, stalks the popular opinion that the American girl's ideal is as naively, openly, almost brutally practical as are her father's aims in life ; that for the romantic flutter of the young person abroad TYPES OF THE YOUNG PERSON 89 at the approach of a possible life partner, she has substi- tuted a cold-bloodedness, a desiccation of natural sentiment in her judgment and selection of a suitor. And it would seem as if the shop-girls were cutting their sentiments as well as their clothes to the prevailing style. Not long ago one of them — a very pretty one, — carefully manicuring her nails while I waited, remarked to her " lady friend " — " I ain't ready to marry him yet. Twenty-five is time enough. I'm only twenty-two. I can have a good time just as I am." Perhaps, though, the " good time " is the significant point of the sentiment as well as the keynote of character, or the lack of it, in the American young person. The parents on top of the social scale who, barely able to distinguish between a baron and an archduke, buy a " brilliant alliance " for their daughter with the black sheep of noble families abroad, whom the mothers over there would not want their daughters to marry, are not, though they would probably repudiate the prototype, our only citizens conforming to the European custom of marriage dowry. Down in the social antipodes, down among our foreign population in the large cities, the fiat " no dowry no husband " is almost as inexorable as in the bargaining for a foreign nobleman. The East Side girl herself must provide her own marriage portion. For instance, on the East Side you will hardly find a girl who does not save, or at least attempt to save, money for a dowry. No matter how hard she may work in the sweat shop, she will avail herself of every opportunity to work overtime so as to make this sum as large as possible. The East Side, with all the hot blood of the Latin, and the banked fire temperament of the Teuton and Slav mingling there, is not devoid of romance, nor untouched with the New World freedom, and not every young man expects the girl he marries to have a bank account ; but in 90 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA nine cases out of ten, when the East Side youth has come to the point of courting his Dulciana on a park bench, or mooning with her on the roof of her tenement house, he has found out just how much she has saved to put into his business after marriage, and the amount has appeared satisfactory. It is not the love of money that impels the East Side girl to skimp and worry along on pitifully next to nothing of nourishment and clothing, but to gratify the ambition of her life and get a husband to set up in business. When a girl in another part of the city sings and dreams of love, the East Side girl thinks hard over how to scrape together a dowry to tempt a business husband, whether the business is that of owning a garment factory or a little soda-water stand on a street corner. The custom of saving up a dowry for the husband-to- be often causes tragedies and disappointments which, for all their sordid setting, certainly do suggest something of the glittering fiascos, and unhappiness resulting in many cases from the more subtle barter between dollars on the one side and a title upon the other as the game is played for the young person of wealth. There is not the basic difference one would imagine between these men who expect to be paid for marrying. On the East Side, when, after marriage, the money their wives brought them is spent or lost in some enterprise, or if it turns out that the woman did not have as much money as the man expected, either there follows a life of quarrels or the man deserts the woman, which, in skeleton, represents many an inter- national marriage tragedy. The education of the average American young person is generally good and practical. She goes through the forms in the public schools with the boys of her own age, and keeps pace with them. There is not much attention given to foreign languages, and it is rare that the young person in America masters a speaking knowledge of any, TYPES OF THE YOUNG PERSON 91 wherein she differs from her European sisters ; but, of course, there is no near-by border-land to cross with this knowledge if she had it. A German prince travelling in America, and asked for his impression of American women, drew a long Teutonic sigh of rapture, and proceeded — " In the first place, they have a rare and individual type of beauty. Don't you know the difference in taste between wild strawberries and the cultivated varieties ? How much more delicious the wild ones are ? Well, that is the difference between the beauty of the American woman and her Continental prototype. " When one sees an American girl, one exclaims, ' How beautiful she is ! ' When one sees a lovely lady elsewhere, the remark is, * How beautiful she looks ! ' " But " — and here he came to earth with a directness also Teutonic — " but at one thing I am surprised — that your society ladies are not better educated. You have such wonderful facilities here for the education of women. Yet abroad there is hardly a lady in good social standing who cannot talk French and German, and probably English, with perfect facility. Here I find that many of your women do not even understand French ! Is it, perhaps, that they are — oh, not superficial in their studies, but too intensely interested in too many things to learn a few perfectly ? " It is too true. The rich girl in America does not stand the chance of getting as well educated as the girl abroad, to whom youth is a subdued and thoughtful time, a plant- ing time of the fruits to bloom later, for here the daughter of a wealthy household is really in society long before she is formally launched, which presentation usually takes place at eighteen. " Genevieve began to ' leak out ' to parties, though, when she was barely turned sixteen — she looks so mature," the mother of one of these exotic blooms proudly remarked. So in between her social 92 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA engagements she is given a smattering of languages and music. The rich American girl rarely goes to college. College education is not fashionable : it is useless in the society wherein the rich girl is destined to move. She knows enough if she sing, play piano or mandolin, and command a few foreign idioms, and have had the inevitable trip abroad. Literature and art she knows if she can recite a few French poems, discuss the latest novel, dance fancy dances ; if she has seen the Acropolis, the Louvre, and Westminster Abbey. At eighteen her education ends, and she is ready to enter into the principal phase of her existence. What corresponds to a presentation at court in other lands, 'draws near ; the young person's debut — she is " coming out." Her social fledging is accomplished by two official events — an afternoon reception and a ball. For months, people have known that Miss X. will make her entrance into society during the winter. Her frocks have arrived from Paris. The debutante's wardrobe, as everything else in America, being made public, the busy women reporters from all the newspapers in some mysterious way become apprised of the fabrics of all her frocks and the disposition of every spangle and bit of tulle upon them. When the invitations are issued, the newspapers publish the story of her life, and her photo- graph is given double-column display. All her merits are enumerated and the number of young women who make their debut (in type) with a " perfect classical profile,'* " superb willowy figure," " swan neck," and *' indescribable dreamy expression" might make the ghost of Helen of Troy anxious for her laurels. And, curiously enough, everything about her is read with avidity — by those who move in her gay world and those staid citizens who will never see her. She is in society — on the stage — in the public domains. She is an TYPES OF THE YOUNG PERSON 93 official personage. She is the rich young person in America. The day of the tea, standing beside her mother on the threshold of the drawing-room, dressed in a white frock of bridal richness, known as her "coming-out gown," she receives her guests. She smiles, nods, shakes hands. It is about all American society will ever expect of her. She carries one from the numberless bouquets sent to honour the event ; but frequently she changes, and presents arms with sometimes half a dozen favourites during the course of the afternoon. Her father is generally present ; but he stands about disconsolately, or gathers the few men who come sheepishly in into some retreat or den of his own, where he braces their social courage with Scotch and soda. Even young men are far and few between at these festivities of *' putting the debutante over ; " for, as I have said, American society, like the theatre audiences, the church congregations, and the shops, is thoroughly feminized. The morning after the tea the newspapers again publish the debutante's photograph, the fact that she is the daughter of such-and-such a prominent man in whatever business circle he is prominent in, and the make of the ;£"400O automobile she drives, and interesting details of her splendid furs and jewelry. The same account with slight variations, and possibly a differently posed picture, will follow the second great event in her debutante career — her ball. This generally consists of an hour or so of general dancing before mid- night, when a substantial supper is served, and then the cotillon, which ends some three hours later, when another supper is served. And these debutante's cotillons are given a place in the social programme, which makes foreigners wonder. Take the favours. The cost and beauty of these souvenirs in itself is significant of the royal princesses America makes of the daughters of her rich. 94 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA Not all the people giving these extravagant functions for a " bud " daughter own private yachts and railroad cars. Many strain purse and mind to achieve this liberality and originality in their tribute to the young person. Even her simple favours, such as the effect of a field of waving poppies produced in one ballroom recently, is not exactly inexpensive, for, provide 150 or 200 women each with a cluster of poppies costing only one dollar, say, and offset these with as many boatonnihes of the same flower at half the cost, and it is easily seen that the price in the aggregate of an apparently inexpensive set of favours mounts up. While the opera-hoods from which the debutantes looked bewitchingly forth in another figure were not, as might have been supposed, a fancy arrange- ment of paper and tinsel, but chiffon, silk, and ribbon, so combined in their manufacture that a hundred of them must have footed up to the amount of many a young man's yearly salary. The young girl in America quite takes the place of the young matron in society abroad. The work of securing for her a place to shine in society takes the entire time and brains of her family. The mother of one important bud of this season was heard to say distressingly, recently, that she has had no time for her own and her husband's friends, for she was entertaining so frequently for her debutante daughter, and when she was not doing that she was chaperoning her at some other entertainment, and therefore there was no time left for the older people's functions. At the end of a "first season out" both mother and daughter invariably take a sea voyage for recuperation. The mother of one of the most prominent young girls in the diplomatic circle in Washington has said, the life of intense excitement and unreckoning extravagance accorded the young person there, she feared, would hopelessly spoil her girl, and she thought she would have her spend next TYPES OF THE YOUNG PERSON 95 winter with her grandparents in their home on the Continent, to lead her back into her native customs. The foreign point of view is always interesting, and a French analyst at work on the American young person finds her rather a natural phenomenon. " It is not rare," he says, *' to see a daughter of one of the best families marry an actor or the secretary of her father — a chauffeur, even, or a coachman. She has an instinctive desire for the unforeseen. She loves abductions, elopements, midnight marriages — all those queer things of which the newspapers speak. Even when her parents make no objection to her marriage, she likes to play the part of the persecuted child, of the woman crossed in love. All that is mysterious and secret and dramatic attracts her. In her is a bit of that love of adventure which drove her ancestors to emigrate, to roam as explorers in search of unknown lands." It is this desire for the inaccessible, according to the French analyst, that leads many heiresses to seek titled foreigners as husbands. In a country without a past, among a people without ancestors, it becomes a distinction to have ancestors, even by marriage. The greater the title, the greater the glory of acquiring it. For this reason it is that, a few years ago, French marquises went out of fashion with American millionairesses, yielding their place to the members of the haughtiest group of British nobility. Even among ourselves we are not all blind to the out- ward effect of wealth on the American girl. One of our writers has touched upon it sharply — " The American girl to-day looks out on the world as if she had a diamond for a heart. She suggests what is fine and expensive and hard to get, what is brilliant, what must always bring its price and find its exclusive niche. One will meet in the crowd a pair of the soft, unassertive, temperamental eyes that instantly stir the imagination to 96 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA dreams, and in the same glance one will almost invariably discover that the eyes look out of a foreign face." Of late, however, there has been a re-action of certain daughters among the wealthy leisured class, and they have turned their backs upon the inanity of ballroom existence and taken to practical philanthropy. When a young woman reared in wealth, with inherited millions behind her and countless luxuries about her, makes up her mind deliberately that life without taking the broader scope of humanity into consideration is selfish and purposeless, then the real test of real womanhood has come. And certain American young women of the type have made inspiringly progress toward establishing the fact that the American young person could, if she would, develop a mind and a heart from the rudimentary organs our selfish and foolish regime has foisted upon her. One of these young women bought one of the ferry boats which had formerly plied between New York City and Jersey City, and converted it into a floating hospital for sick babies from the city slums. She equipped and managed the boat herself, and any one who saw it make its daily start from the river pier, its decks filled with little white cribs, each with its tiny, gasping occupant, to whom the fresh air and the heavenly peace meant life ; the mothers of the slums, broken in spirit and frame, holding still tinier babies on their knees and drawing in deep breaths ; the trim nurses in uniforms moving about with food and medicine — could not doubt but that this society girl has successfully launched a ship of hope. Another has established a lunch-room for the operatives in one of our large navy yards, where the men get whole- some food at a nominal cost, and are withheld from the public-house lunch. Another has had a hand in many of the present-day reforms for the working woman. In a recent strike she, with her name and all it represented, gained an audience TYPES OF THE YOUNG PERSON 97 with the official of the company who had steadily refused to see the women workers, and laid the matter before that official so candidly and freely that, in the parlance of the Bowery, " there was something doing," and the company's concessions closed this strike. Another daughter of a house of millions, the head of which has recently died, has taken up her father's many charitable enterprises just where his busy hands were 1 inexorably withdrawn, and the men with whom business brings her in contact declare she is executing his plans , with a master mind for detail and shrewd manipulation. i Cases of this kind are multiplying. Our wealthy, j fashionable young persons are waking up, along with China ! and other sleeping countries, and when they are thoroughly I aroused, why, in this country, with no stone walls of tradition I to storm and a free wilderness of unblazed trails for women i alluringly at hand, things may be going to happen to I make the women parliament members in Denmark and the English suffiragettes look to their halos. 1 But to return from prophecy to facts. One of the j tangible results of the wealthy girl's branching out from < her artificial life is that her interests delay marriage. Some I of them are becoming so absorbed that they are not I marrying at all, and although sociologically this might, j in time, present a peril, their class is so small that it is I far from immediate, and in the meantime they are a I most interesting phase in the development of America's I young person. For the unmarried women in the United j States never have the discomfited sensation and acidu- I lated manner of the European spinster, those " poor neuters for whom unattained maternity has cut the thread of life." The American "old maid" is a special type. A foreigner said recently — " She is .not the resigned woman who has failed to please, nor the sentimental one who has remained faithful to some bygone memory. Americans would consider it 98 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA ridiculous to ruin their lives on account of a reckless love affair. The American old maid has, without question, had several opportunities to marry. In the United States, every nice girl must have had at least one proposal. American men desire to have a wife to * represent ' them in society while they work at the offices. Hence, women who are single remain so voluntarily, through their need of independence. Young girls who are poor marry for money. Those who are rich are at liberty to live alone, if they so desire." In fact, all through the different classes of American girlhood a certain air of joyousness and satisfaction is much more general than with the European girl, whose life, of course, better disciplined as it is, does lack much that the American girl enjoys from babyhood. The young American girl never has the anxious air that seems to be scanning the future at every moment, trying to guess at the fate reserved for her. Personal liberty is a large unit in the American ideal of a life worth living, and we make the young person the strongest exponent of this belief Physically, I think the American girl is over-rated. " The American girl " who has taken her place among the national types of the world, and whose long, flowing lines, small fine features, tea-rose pallor, self-sufficient gaze and veteran-like composure, would make her recognized if chanced upon in Abyssinia or Iceland, does exist, but not in sufficient numbers to justify a nation of young persons otherwise equipped strutting in her reflected glory. The average American girl is taller even than her English sister. She seems to be achieving her height by generations. She is not fabulously pretty as a rule, though perhaps even the average American girl can say with Madame de Stael : " I am not pretty, I am worse," for her vivacity and adaptability go far toward constituting a TYPES OF THE YOUNG PERSON 99 charm more potent than physical perfection or mental advance. She has a good, boyishly slender figure, only running to the voluptuous when foreign blood has had a part in the moulding, and a good carriage when at rest. But the American girl walks badly. She wriggles her hips and she moves her arms, swinging them all the time, even when she carries a muff. She seems to put all her nervous energy into her walk. Walking badly, however, is a national characteristic in America. Magnanimously I yield the last word on the American young person to the French analyst — " Not having been subjected to any traditionalistic education, or kept within any hereditary routine through discipline or prejudice," he says, " she is exactly what she makes herself. She is developed freely, like a young sapling that has never been pruned. Her energy, which cannot assert itself for any definite object, seeks some other channel of activity. She finds the rocking-chair indispen- sable. She has no ease. Even while resting she swings to and fro, and craves for movement even in her moments of immobility. **The power of vitality unemployed creates in the Yankee girl noticeable exuberance. She is a slave of fanaticism, of exaggeration. She seeks all extremes, she delights in superlatives, she loves such adverbs as ' terribly,' * absolutely.' She either hates or adores a person. Every- thing is either wonderful or horrible. She declares that I she is * in love with chocolate,' or ' dotes on her bull pup.' She has no power of deliberation and less of consistency. j She is ready to believe in miracles, and demands that luck decide everything in her favour. This is the reason she so j often marries at the prompting of a sudden caprice. This is the reason she delights to be run away with, to flirt and to get a divorce. "But by frequent visits to Europe they tighten the links that unite the two continents, and create an exchange lOO HOME LIFE IN AMERICA of thought between them, for they are anxious to learn. They return to America to bring home to their country that which it so sorely needs — a little more beauty, some- thing of the easy grace and of the ideal which are found in Europe. It is in this way that the girls of America are rendering good service to their country." CHAPTER V THE AMERICAN WOMAN ** T F I were asked to what the singular prosperity and J[ growing strength of the American people ought mainly to be attributed, I should reply, *To the superiority of their women,' '* de Tocqueville wrote, nearly three-quarters of a century ago ; but an American woman writing to-day, says : " There is probably no one thing that has so limited the growth of the American woman as the delusion concerning not only her position in her own land but her position among women of other nations." Was de Tocqueville right, or did he see qualities in the American woman that Europe has discovered and America is yet to find ? Abroad, the American woman has come to be regarded as a dearly bought illusion of success on the part of some grovelling, striving American man ; while at home her supremacy is an oratorical statement of fact, never seeming to have been questioned by the large plurality of men who have wives, or that totality who have had mothers. But the one is as mythical as the other is theoretic. If I attempt to substitute glimpses of reality and practice, I hope it may not be considered in dis- paragement of my countrywomen, but simply as an attempt to take her from the bill-boards and show-case and regard her through the open door of her home. The show-poster type of femininity was unfortunately our first representative abroad, and the foreign conception lOI 102 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA formed on bold impressionalistic lines. An American, to whom I confided a suspicion that our English cousins had the virtuous air of using a euphemism, in referring to our " new civilization," replied : "How can they help it? First we sent them Buffallo Bill and his Wild West show, then the American woman, who has her own show." However ungallant, there was more truth in this than in most epigrams, I perceived. With the swift emergence of a new rich class, there was of necessity presented the woman who had not been given time to lose all the transmitted energy and personal efficiency of the earlier mode of life, and devoid of imagin- ation, she sought the natural outlet of activity in ostenta- tious waste and conspicuous outlay. Clothes become the outposts of her aesthetic appreciation. This made her peculiarly fitted for performing a great economic function in a triumphant plutocracy such as was arising in America ; for, as an able analyst of American society has pointed out, the first need of the industrial male conqueror is to display his financial power, and, not being able " to perform these rites in his own person, his wife and daughters became instruments of vicarious expenditure of time and money that attest his economic prowess." But it was expecting too much that foreign eyes should perceive the sociological justification of a lot of over-dressed American women. Even at home there is a growing sense that the *' show " type of American woman is not entirely creditable to the management. A successful American comedy of recent production puts into the mouth of the hero attempting to dissuade a millionaire rival for the hand of the heroine of depleted paternal bank account but "old family," words to the effect that a man of his wealth should want a more '* showy " girl, a larger type to *' set off " expensive jewels and frocks ! The ruse succeeds. The American rival pats his THE AMERICAN WOMAN 103 pocket-book, swells out his chest, and, looking for a more " showy " girl, lets the heroine slip through his fingers into the arms of the hero. The audience smiles — but grimly. The expense of not only the wealthy but the average American woman's wardrobe is no joke. The husband who supplies the wherewithal for her adornment knows what it costs, and the wife realizes vaguely that her clothes are too serious a matter for ordinary household economy to touch. Give a Frenchwoman a drop of water, and she will blow a bubble in regard to costume. But the American woman's clothes represent as large an expenditure of money as of thought. Still, while the type of woman who perpetrates to the extent of her husband's pocket-book, and often an algebraically stated margin besides — a sort of Christmas-tree decoration of her person — is by no means extinct. As a nation, we are putting forth about the best- dressed women in the world. The average American woman to-day has good taste ; she buys clothes of affidavit origin, and wears them with the confidence born of the combined force of price-tag and label. The type of American woman who goes abroad simply that she may have an opportunity to display her clothes and her jewels is, fortunately for the comfort of Europe, no less than for the self-respect of Americans, becoming rare. This is partly because the sudden transition from poverty to affluence is not as common in the United States nowadays, with our more stable economic condition ; partly because, with the development of a large system of summer and winter resorts in her own country, she has found a stimulating atmosphere for her wealth-oppressed soul, and here she welcomes the absence of rigorous tradition which affords scope for the proper valuation by unstinted display of worldly goods. Not to slip too far down in the ver- nacular, she finds she can get " more for her money " by staying at home, where she is not forced to the fatiguing effort of attempting to enter society by coming in at the 104 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA back door. Moreover, if daughter is to achieve a foreign marriage, the titled foreigner who would be amenable to such an alliance is more likely to come to the American resort on the same purpose bent than to be coralled on his native heath. But Europe has not only dowered the American woman with qualities which she does not possess, but with a dominion she has not realized. When I try to prove to an Englishman that man is still at the helm of our civil state, and woman not even at the compass ; that public life and culture — including politics, public morality, science, higher education, industry, commerce, law and literature, the newspapers and the church — are still produced, formed, and stamped by man in the United States ; and that he still adheres to the old-fashioned notion that men may meddle with public affairs instead of trusting them to the judgment of women; he replies with an anecdote in which guileless childhood seemed to render an unconscious epitome of the American man's position. The American child stroking its mother's silk frock, asks — "Where did this pretty new dress come from, mother .? " " From the worm, dear," replies the mother. " You mean papa } " suggests the child, mistily. This myth of the down-trodden American man is as insistent as the idea that opulence is so wide-spread as to constitute us a nation of actual and potential millionaires. And neither conception seems to have suffered diminution at the hands of the American tourist. The college educated, middle-aged woman travelling alone ; mother and daughter aimlessly wandering on foreign soil, avowedly to give finish- ing touches to daughter's education ; the group of detached women "personally conducted" — all this seems to fulfil the amiable notion of us as enormously rich ; the surfeited THE AMERICAN WOMAN 105 goddesses of certain good-natured, uncultured providers at home. Most of us are flattered by the implication of wealth, even while we reah'ze that as well compute a labouring man's cost of living by his expenditure on Bank Holiday as to estimate the average bank account on the splurge of the individual excursionist from the United States " doing " Europe in sixty days. And the American has been so far flattered by the foreign estimate of certain characteristics of the American woman that he has pedestalled her as one of the national assets — in the abstract. He talks a great deal about " lovely woman " and "the ladies, God bless them," at his banquets. On the magazine covers he pictures angel-faced Amazons driving a golf ball — presumably into eternity — or wielding the tennis- racket with Boadicean strength. The foreigner finds him- self word-poor before the complimentary epithets he is expected to expend on her. In other countries you may be gently urged for an appreciation of the architecture of galleries ; but the American man will, in nine cases out of ten, make his first question of the visiting foreigner — " Well, what do you think of our women ^ " To pick flaws in the American woman is to disregard the directions of the American man's mental Baedeker, in regard to what one ought to see and admire on this Continent. So the courteous foreigner who is generally I keenest in his wish to know the lengths money will go with the people who seem just now to be making the most j money, and has centred his interest on the millionaire class, is glad to save himself from the pitfalls of confessing that our nationality is as yet somewhat of a pill to his race, and renders unstinted tribute to the jewels, raiment, I and physical equipment of the millionaire's wife — the typical American woman ! There are several types of the American woman at io6 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA home that I have marvelled should have escaped the visiting critic's eyes. Foremost among these are the types resulting from our system of universal education. If any discrimination is made in a family, it is made in favour of the girls, so the American college woman became a new type, like the twenty-four story office building. Abroad she was ardently envied for having attained so easily what women in other countries have fought for, when indeed they were able to get it at all. But this giving a first chance for education to the girls, and perhaps letting the boys shift for themselves, has its disadvantages. The question arises perpetually here, as well as abroad, whether all this higher education open to women really fits them for their work in life. If it has not produced an ideal, it may be held responsible for a type paralleled in no other nation — " the educated American drudge." In what other country would you find a college-education woman doing all of her house work, including washing and ironing, and often turning from presiding over the wash-tub to go into the parlour to help one child in its practice of a difficult passage of Beethoven or Chopin, or who, after ten hours of cooking and cleaning, sits down to tutor her boys in Latin and Greek for their college preparation ? Yet this is no sporadic instance, but a type of wide representation, particularly throughout the West. The majority of college women there are from families of small means ; the daughters of professors, doctors, ministers, small tradesmen, or farmers, where effort has been made to send the young women to the nearest State university. The girls from wealthy families with anything like a social position seldom go to college, the college course interfering with the period of social presentation. The men of fortune and the graduates of large universities seldom marry college women. They prefer the butterfly view of the American woman on parade. So the college woman THE AMERICAN WOMAN 107 returns to the modest surroundings which sent her forth for four years of canned culture and text-book drill. She is a nice girl, only mildly oppressed with the sense of intellectual superiority, not a blue-stocking — her education has not been profound enough for that — and she is after all, in the majority of cases, just of mediocre mind ; that, using her college as a department store, she has decked out in lengths of conjugation, and trappings of political economy. But she feels herself worlds removed from the realm of the kitchen poker, and the darning-needle, or the ungainly sphere where babies have colic. She is an idealist, so she marries a professional man, hoping for the companionship of an intellectual equal, and is plunged into an economic struggle which, while not to be compared with the meagre resources of the poor of other nations, is all the more appalling because hers is an unacknowledged situation. She must remain a gentlewoman, while she readjusts her focus on life from a treatise on " Chaucer's use of the Co-ordinate Conjunctions," to the practical metamorphosis of her husband's worn trousers, to her small son's need, or the applied action of broom and scrubbing brush. She has had no training for this, and the apportionment of time and vitality for house work have to be mastered, if indeed they are ever known to the American women only through the bitter experience of recurring nervous exhaustion. She becomes the educated American drudge, the drudge of the kitchen, a slave to her children, and yet up- holding her own in the club and social world of her com- munity with a nervous frenzy lest the intellectual side of life be closed to her. If she has married a clergyman, she does all the housework, including the ironing of the parson's white ties, takes care of the several children (for she is not the defendant in the national charge of race suicide), makes her own and the children's clothes, looks after the sewing circle, leads the young people's meeting, io8 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA and yet snatches a few minutes a day for reading and is regular in her attendance at the Browning Club. Of course she gets a bent back and strained eyes, and at thirty-five looks forty-five, and when I read in the popular magazines of the "sad-eyed," bored, restless, idle American women, I think of all the American women I know who have that look because they are physically worn out ; for in almost all classes of society women are as reckless with their physical stock as tradition has them with their husbands' bank accounts. Among the wealthy it is often the futile activity of grafting the late hours of recently acquired social opportunities on to the early rising of the meagre, hustling days in the household ; for the American woman has thus far allowed false energy and abnormal ambition to withhold her from the laurel of national poise and an interpretation of luxury that is real and not ostentation. Some one has said of the American woman in Sargent's portraits, " There is no wholesome tendency to loafing, no ease of manner, no sense of physical bien etre ; rather, they stand or sit (in the latter case on the edge of their chairs), like Discoboli, awaiting the signal to whirl and hurl them- selves anywhere — direction being unimportant. The sibylline contortion everything." But to speak of unappropriated leisure in the fate of the middle-class college woman is as grotesque as the letters sent by an ancestor of mine, fighting at the front in revolutionary times, to his wife weathering out a New England winter with seven children in a log house, and the daily necessity of scratching her way on hands and knees through the snow-drifts to succour the barn and chicken- coop inhabitants. He addressed her as " Honoured Madam," and ^' hoped she still sought to improve her mind and uplift her soul in communion with William Shakespeare and God." No, the educated American drudge, who includes THE AMERICAN WOMAN 109 about two-thirds of the college women of the United States, I should judge, forms a curious companion-piece to the " toy and beautiful tyrant ; man her willing slave," as the American woman is conceived abroad. Yet the educated American drudge is a remarkable type, for it must be understood that her marriage is not considered " unfortunate " in the European sense. In fact, you will find no more indignant censorship of foreign marriages than these professionally mated college women, and you will seldom find a woman in all this great class whose attitude towards life is one of disappointment. The husband is devoted to his profession, and, although never brilliant — because, as I have said, successful men in America fight shy of the college woman as mates — he is patient during the period when she is laboriously mixing up the knowledge guaranteed in her diploma with that in the cook-book, and immensely proud of her supervision of her children's education. That she has the strength to withstand physical and mental degeneration strikes me with fresh wonder every time I face the situation of the college-bred drudge. It may be that when this type has, in future generations, attained comfort, some luxury, and softening — perhaps the arriving of a serving class of moderate demands might furnish the god in the car — she will evolve into something very heroic in character ; something of which we may boast as a national type. As it is, scattered through the towns of the North-West, the Middle-West, and the North- East, we find the American drudge in sufficient numbers to afford active refutation to the charge of chronic frivolity in American women as a whole. That she also presents a phase of the universal higher education for women which may challenge argument on the success of that system, is true. Personally, despite the pathetic struggles to keep up appearances in many of the cases known in detail to me, and the violent overstrain of the system in attempting such no HOME LIFE IN AMERICA a combination of physical drudgery and sustained mental attainments, I believe she is working towards a great destiny for her sex in America. America is the first country to exploit woman's right to equal education, and, in watching the experiment, two things should be borne in mind. The American woman did not secure her educational advantages because of any general superiority, or for an insatiable thirst for know- ledge, but because of the good-nature of the American man. It seemed to him the square deal — in a country where freedom in everything, from the fraternity of the glass of iced-water to the office of the chief executive, existed among men — that colleges should be open to and for women. Then it should be remembered how recently that time was, and that the American college woman has not yet had time to make good or bad her type. Why then be surprised that all American college women do not achieve Mrs. Wharton's mould, or that, setting aside the few who have felt the mission of productive work in scholarship, out of the mass of commonplace has come no literary dis- tinction, and that the American college woman, as a type, gives no impression of richness intellectually, nor has the repose of manner that suggests strength and vigour. De Tocqueville wrote : " I am aware that the education of young women in America is not without its danger. I am sensible that it tends to invigorate the judgment at the expense of the imagination, and to make cold and virtuous women instead of affectionate wives and agreeable com- panions for men. Society may be more tranquil and better regulated, but domestic life has often fewer charms. These, however, are secondary evils, which may be braved for the sake of higher interest." But that was assuming only the serious minded would be attracted by the opening of classic doors ; but there are also young women of amazing shallowness and a constitu- tional gaiety of nature who " romp " through the college THE AMERICAN WOMAN iii course these days, giving much more prominence to the social life of the campus than to the mysteries of the curriculum, and who come out hardly distinguishable from the sister of finishing-school production. She has the same faculty of facile, entertaining talk ; she is as nervously charming, as ready to sacrifice real cleverness to the appearance of being clever as the American woman without the college course ; but she has not spent four years within the hailing and chumming I distance of the heavier type of student and within the guidance of professors and charts without coming to show at least respect for trained thought, and abstain from opinions where she is ignorant. It is in the welding of this type with the book-worm college woman that there is hope I of a cultured, poised, and wise womanhood in America. • In the meantime, since the type of college woman is far from perfected evolution, we must submit to certain types I being accepted as products of our national civilization. i The half-educated American woman who knows no I discrimination between the superficial and profound, who \ reads and talks as a decorative function, effusing without ' the slightest hesitation on Greek art or Chinese pottery as j she does over a bit of gossip, is an unhappy topic for our I reflection. Yet she is no negligible quantity. Moreover, I she has been told that such naivete is charming, and is ; convinced that woman, in a word, is the "ishow " in success- j ful America, so that we are only too frequently afforded ] the spectacle of a man of intellect and judgment kept in i silence by the chatter of his commonplace wife and daughter, who deem it their role to entertain the guests. We find another type firm in the conviction that it is the mission of the American woman to become the bearer of the higher inherent culture of the nation by the artificial development of an intellectual superiority over man. This is a growing category in America, and extends from the lady who has attended an art class and learned 112 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA who Botticelli was, and who henceforth looks down upon her husband who may know all about his business but who thinks that Botticelli may be a new kind of pickle, to our platform type of woman in whom the drawing-room manner is lamentably absent. The burden of anxiety expressed by a well-known woman sociologist, writing a few years ago, does not seem to be fulfilled. " The American woman," she says, " is restless, dissatisfied. Society, whether among the highest or lowest classes, has drawn her toward a destiny which is not normal. The factories are full of old maids, the ball- rooms in the worldly centres are full of old maids. For natural obligations are substituted the fictitious duties of clubs, meetings, committees, organizations, professions, a thousand unwomanly occupations." Still, we do not seem to have been manufacturing nuns at a rapid rate. Marrying would seem to have gone along in America in its accustomed proportion, and, so far as the appearance of public-spirited women is concerned, I should say that we are bringing up the rear in our demonstration. It is always a surprise to foreigners that in this country where women enjoy so great a degree of freedom, and where every barrier is removed from the career of a woman of unusual mental development, there are so few women in public life. This is always explained by the paradox that so much has been gained for them already, and they have so many rights, they don't want any more ; but really more than the heralded satiety of power, more than the chivalry of the American man, which is said to cir- cumscribe her career, the utter indifference of the average American woman to any interest outside the first person singular and the third person plural as indicative of children and tradespeople is her chief deterrent from public action. The apathy of the women of the United States in regard to suffrage is due to the fact that the women will THE AMERICAN WOMAN 113 not make the investigation necessary to prove or disprove the larger advantages to themselves and to the community which might result in their possession of suffrage, and to the fact that the American woman at home is entirely adverse to doing anything to make herself appear " queer." And this is a curious condition. Abroad, courting the distinction of independence to the disregard of all con- ventions ; at home, the American woman is the victim of hide-bound conventionality, and would rather appear stupid than be considered " queer." I heard a woman of some distinction as a magazine writer remark to a friend who was going abroad — "Now don't be afraid to let yourself out. Be ready and free of manner and just as * American ' as they expect you to be, and you will get along much better than if you are merely uninterestingly refined." " Why not black up and do a straight character part ? *' replied the friend, somewhat horrified. "Oh, well," ended 1 the woman writer, aggrievedly washing her hands of all responsibility for the American woman traveller, " do as you please, but you can take my word for it, you will get into things much better, and be asked by much more interesting people over there, if you are just a little * freaky.' " And I have since had occasion, in studying my fellow countrywomen abroad, to believe that this magazine woman's code of foreign behaviour was not unique, so that the foreigner naturally comes to believe that in her country the American woman must be not only inde- pendent but anarchical. But, in reality, at home she guards convention as an eleventh commandment ; and the further anomalous development lies in the fact that the deeper into the so-called Wild West of the continent we penetrate, » the more rigid become the laws of custom and costume. I Ihave seen American women trying to enter the dining- ] room of a European hotel for the evening meal in stiff I 114 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA shirt waist and short skirts ; but American women at home in their native towns would not think of appearing at any festivity except in the latest and most exaggerated style of reception-frock which the local dressmaker was able to evolve from a paper pattern ; this being necessary to meet the etiquette of the church social, even when the other women present had earlier in the day seen her doing her work in a cotton Mother Hubbard wrapper. I heard a wealthy woman from a North-Western State boast of diverting an English dinner-company with a "cake-walk," and in the next breath explain that a woman in her town had been dropped socially because she would not pay her tea-calls within the prescribed time limits. Another instance of the American woman's adherence to the conventionalities of her home province occurred when a number of national representatives and their wives were on a cruise along the Alaska coast. Word was brought aboard the ship that a lawn fete was to be given in their honour on reaching Sitka. There was a momentous consultation among the women as to the correct costuming for such an occasion. They were from relatively the same section of the country, and it was unanimously agreed (the month being July) that light, fluffy gowns were the only law-abiding garments. Even July on the Alaska coast is not noticeably balmy. The day turned out to be of a crispness worthy a first autumn frost, but no one dared to deviate from the sartorial mandate. As a consequence, the congressional party trailed off the gang plank in a gay if slightly chilly flutter of soft frocks, only to be met at its end by the wife of the governor and other prominent women from the official life of the settlement, who stood to greet us, each wearing a long seal-skin coat reaching to the hem of her gown. Seal-skin evidently constituted the orthodox gala array in Alaska. As we confronted each other, I have no doubt each group made the instantaneous and THE AMERICAN WOMAN 115 strictly American mental reservation, "What funny clothes ! " Perhaps next to education as the differentiating basis of the American woman's life comes, in the continental conception of her emancipation, the fact that she marries for love. So she does ; and yet the overwhelming romantic love is not the common currency of America, as is popularly supposed. The American woman, I think, could be more correctly stated as marrying the man she likes, and, in case of opposition, being surprisingly obstinate in her likes. But of the superlative, tempera- mental passion, the American woman is untouched. This is betrayed in the national fiction. The innumerable novels that have had their days of favour because the hero risked his life for the heroine, have substituted a stage mechanism as symbolic of the sex-emotion in its more spontaneous and mastering flow, of which we have no \ understanding, except as relegated to the sphere of I immorality. Even the attempts at psychological fiction in America betray entire absence of romance or passion. \ The combustibles are heaped up with reckless extrava- gance, yet no spark is kindled. Hysterical sentimentality, I not passionate love and emotion, result. The heart I struggle of the American woman in fiction rings metallic, I and this because the novelist can find no prototype for j throbbing emotion in the so-called love-match of the j average American woman. Some cause, possibly climatic, , has certainly reduced the intensity of sex-emotion, though 1 this suggestion is of course incapable of proof. Perhaps the independence of girlhood makes for a certain hardness instead of a strength of character ; perhaps living on the surface of their impractical superficial existence before marriage has precluded any deeper appreciation of 'emotion, and makes the selection of a life-partner more jof a cotillon feature than the cataclysmic decision with which she is credited. ii6 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA It may be that de Tocqueville's portrait of the judgment of the American woman holds good to-day. " When the time for choosing a husband is arrived, that cold and stern reasoning power which has been educated and invigorated by the free observation of the world, teaches the American woman that a spirit of levity and independence in the bonds of marriage is a constant subject of annoyance, not pleasure ; it tells her that the amusement of the girl cannot become the recreation of the wife, and that the sources of a married woman's happiness are in the home of a husband. As she clearly discerns beforehand the only road which can lead to domestic happiness, she enters upon it at once, and follows it to the end without seeking to turn back." Whether this is saying in complimentary form or not that lack of temperament more than austerity of virtue keeps the average American woman from flirting or *' poaching " after marriage, we may have suspicions. But on the literal face of it, it would be cruel to present the statistics ;of present-day divorces against it. But the history written in South Dakota and Newport and Reno, Nevada, of the number of cases that have " turned back," does not concern the average American ; woman, who chooses for a husband the man she believes holds the key to her future happiness. Some one has very fairly said, " The average German thinks she will marry any one who will not make her unhappy ; the idealistic German thinks she will marry only the man who will certainly make her happy. The ideal American girl thinks she can marry only the man without whom she will be unhappy, and the average girl approaches this standpoint with an alarming rapidity." In this prerogative she is adjudged of all nations as the most favoured of womankind ; but is she ? In Europe marriage brings great changes in regard to freedom of the woman. Moreover, all her life she has been led to regard THE AMERICAN WOMAN 117 the care of a separate menage as a matter of anticipation. In the United States, on the contrary, no greater freedom of leading her own life could be given the married woman than the unmarried possess, and it is unfortunately true that housekeeping is regarded as a burden. The American woman has been taught to cultivate raillery at the expense of earnestness and sweetness, and, never at a loss for her reply, her retorts are as crushing as they are merciless ; as the young woman, she is piquant and attractive. After marriage, when the European woman more often than not wakes up, she is prone to become gradually dull, almost anaemic, without the slightest effort to pique the interest of or ambition to please the other sex. Still, if marriage in America were sufficiently on a partnership basis, the American wife would be something approaching the idealized portrait of her estate abroad. But the fact is, that the fate of the average American woman who puts into demonstration her ideal of a good husband as the one who will be most indulgent to her material happiness, may be summed up in a paraphrase of the hero of the " Belle Aurore " : " That she asked for and that she got — nothing more ! " The American woman looks upon marriage as a field of selfish pleasure, and not the business of life, and the American husband good-naturedly accepts her point of view. He gives her his bank account as his part of the contract, jand as his means permit, he frees her from the burdens of I work, so she may have more time to amuse herself or instruct her mind as she chooses. "If indulgence were the mark by which women's position could be measured, America would come out jahead. But indulged women, like indulged children, are 'not necessarily the best-treated ones." I While the American man talks volubly about the ii8 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA uplifting influence of a noble woman, and insists upon the tangible support the thought of her beauty and virtue affords him, he never dreams of asking her advice in business affairs nor allowing her to have any knowledge of his standing or progress or ambition in the commercial world. So we have the frequent illustration of the American woman's absolute seclusion from business methods or status of her husband, and her collapse when the husband's career of years of irregularities in transactions is suddenly brought to her notice through newspaper exposure or his suicide, though there had appeared to her no discrepancy in the possession of carriage and livery and the yearly income of £600 — her husband's confessed salary. While, on the other hand, lies the more cheerful yet altogether significant spectacle of the woman discussing her father's will, who says quite simply — '' I did not know that my father had made such a fortune. In fact, I had as little an idea of what he had as I have of what my husband makes ! " And all along the line, on a lower level, we find the evidence of the American husband's injustice to the American wife in refusing to make her an economic partner and delegating to her the role of unquestioning spender. The fact is, it would not please the average American husband to have his wife take an intelligent interest in his pressing affairs. And the American woman is driven to '' puttying " up her life with frivolities and gewgaws. The streets about the great department stores in the cities are a solid moving mass of women, as if packed on an escalator. And a feature found In no other country, I verily believe, Is the young mother pushing the perambu- lator with one hand, while with the other hand she clutches the sweeping skirt of a frock fussy enough for afternoon reception wear. This type forms a fair proportion of American shoppers. On entering the shop, THE AMERICAN WOMAN 119 she checks the baby carnage, and if the infant sleeps she includes that precious burden in the transaction, and goes gaily on to the bargain sales with a metal tag to assure future identification, though more often the long row of perambulators supervised by a half-grown boy attendant are empty, and the toddlers dragged in the wake of their mothers through the bad air and crowds inside the shops. This means that the ideal of love in a cottage has been translated into a life in a small dark flat with a kitchenette as symbolic of the family hearthstone. Even if the woman had been trained as home maker, there is small en- couragement for her zeal here. As it is, she scurries through with her duties, and then, there never having been the slightest suggestion that she keep accounts or read, she bundles her beruffled little cherub into a carriage and, in best clothes herself, sets forth, not for the parks or outlying streets, but for the ever-alluring shops. For she lives in a country where clothes take the place birth does in Europe, and, with all other calling denied her married life, she acknowledges the call of the shops. She has no idea that the foreign eye would find anything remarkably out of harmony with nature in her playing nursemaid on a crowded business street in an extravagant costume. She is going to spend money, not always selfishly, for often she buys for her child and husband with disregard of her personal wants ; but she is expected to spend what her husband gives her, and she does. She is quite happy until she becomes over tired, which is the great curse of the American woman. Always the impossible combination of activities, mistaken or other- wise, and always the nervously tired result. The curious part is that whenever the necessity of grim bread-winning effort confronts the American woman from any class, she does make good. The woman of wealth, whose purposeless idleness has been filled with I20 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA the froth of fancy brands of fiction, reh'gion, and mock philosophy, will, if reduced to the opening fields of penury, convert her dilettantism into steadily clever hack-work, or develop the capacity for trained routine clerkship little suspected in the subliminal self of her former frivolous exterior. There is no class of " reduced gentlewoman," dependent on rich relatives in America. It will be some time before America can evolve a George Eliot or a Madame Curie, but for a successful adaptation under necessity of her talents to the business world the American woman should receive honourable mention at least. On her appearance as an active figure in his commercial world the American man accords her the dignity of making no concessions, and judges her skill by absolute standards, in marked contrast to the maudlin chivalry with which he shrouds her mentality in the home and drawing-room. Still, the success of the American woman in business for herself will be a slow factor in rendering her nationally important. The part which women play in national life in partnership, not as rivals to the men, is what makes them pre-eminently or relatively unimportant. And the American wife as a political helpmeet has not arrived. If the door of custom were held open to her, she would easily come, I believe, and many of the crudities of political campaigning and intriguing would be ameliorated through her influence. Yet, in our present stage, the American politician would as soon think of discussing the political situation with a woman as of converting his " front parlour " into a voting- booth. The average American woman is as nebulously aware of her husband's political conflicts as " Old Caspar " on the " Battle of Blenheim." If he is defeated, they will probably have to cut off their summer trip to pay the election expenses ; if he has won, she will feel called upon to dress more elaborately and to accompany him to the national capital. THE AMERICAN WOMAN 121 Occasionally the wife of a statesman at our republican court presents a pathetic spectacle. She had married her husband as a young man engaged in some commercial pursuit in his home town. His entry into politics marked her retreat farther and farther from his companionship and into the realm of " keeping the covers on the children at night and of shopping and planning clothes by day." By the time he has persuaded his constituency to send him to Congress he is an astute politician, a good " mixer " in a rough-and-ready way, who needs only to have his assurance tested to justify his confidence in his own ability, and he has gained a respect for, if not an intimacy with, certain conventionalities to make him distinctly adequate in his role of statesman ; but the wife has become crustacean in her provincialism. This type of outgrown wife in America is by no means as uncommon as the American sister abroad of brilliant plumage and entirely selfish creed would imply. When the conception of the American man as the dull beast of burden was accepted, the Western mines were only begin- ning to be unlocked, the Chicago hog was in its infancy, and our manufacture running at hand-car rate of speed. But these days of earnest toil-made fortunes have been succeeded by a period when the American man was a little at a loss how to employ them, and in this period of plethoric relaxation the American man has been refining himself. In too many instances to make it anything but a I spectacle for a pessimist to gloat over he has exceeded the wife in adaptation to culture and to the world's conventions. A lawyer, in speaking of these cases, quoted one where the man's individuality had become so aggressive in its development that recourse to legal separation was made necessary, and he told of the scene for the final settlement, which took place in his office. These two had entered married life by the door of guileless penury, and the wife was still grammatically and emotionally of the same calibre. 122 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA while the man had fed his mind and latterly his imagina- tion in his effort to bring himself into the melieu his material success might claim. He supposed he had made her think that she wanted the separation. When the papers were prepared, and she saw the enormous sum to be passed over to her, she gasped, then quavered, yet looking searchingly at the man, said : " It didn't cost that much to get me, Jim, did it ? " It seems almost a shame to let for a moment this reverse side of the shield obscure the flaunting reflection of the American woman as she appears in the American colony abroad, courting the butterfly life of a country where the married woman is accounted an indispensable adjunct in the ball-room, not the wall-flower, as at home, and who, beneath her effervescent, bubbling enthusiasm, need have no serious thought as to the unswerving loyalty of the husband who stands behind the bank-book and waits for her return. But with infinite comfort one withdraws the vision from all these types to the great middle class, stay-at-home Americans. There are millions of these homes where the income is at a point above, or below, or exactly at the gradation " comfortable," and where the children's query as they throw down books in the lower hall after school is, " Where's mother ? " where the lord of the modest brick house or livable apartment has his wife's name on his lips as he enters at night ; where the woman, with all her grandiose neglect of petty economies and her sprightly chatter about nothing above the neighbour's coal supply or a new hat, intuitively catches his half-spoken word without asking, or who, equally restful, can make his everyday knowledge seem to be a thing of importance without bothering him about it ; in fact, the woman who perhaps, from day to day, is a more comfortable companion than the strong-minded, economical helpmeet would be. Later in life her sons call her with deep affection, "The THE AMERICAN WOMAN 123 old lady," and, with a tender irony tell you they all had to have college educations to keep up with the " old lady." The home intercourse is human and intimate. The children turn out healthy and commonplace. In the interval between their full growth and marriage the mother turns mildly to card-parties and church work. When the grand- children appear, she fusses and worries over colic and measles again. Her nerves and digestion stand the strain fairly well. There are millions of her ; the foreigner never sees her, but, like the common soldier who does the mighty execution, her monotonously repeated features stamp the rank and file of American women. Theoretically, there should have developed in the South a poiseful, cultured, Lady Bountiful type of womanhood. With the settlements of black servitors to do her bidding, and a manorial style of living in the early days, one might have looked for an Americanized version of Vere de Vere. After the Civil War and this section of country was despoiled of culture, the Southern bard, the Southern newspaper, and the Southern orator still proclaimed in chivalrous super- latives the charm of radiant Southern womanhood. They flaunted this one tangible illusion of the past days of splendour before the " austere, unsexed, Puritan woman of the North," as they conceived her. Descriptions worthy of Sappho were applied to every individual Southern woman rising slightly above the ordinary. There was heroic pathos in the chant of " lovely woman still trium- phant " from the throats in which the war-cry lay stifled, and something to dim eyes in this " vision of faire women " in a land aesthetically as well as commercially devastated. The uttered ideal of the Southern man may have become more or less perfunctory ; to take a Southerner's compliments seriously is as ridiculous as to translate literally \hQ f agon parley between diplomat and king. Many of them have the reputation of belonging to the class of " Men who have rounded Seraglio's point ; they 124 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA have not yet doubled Cape Turk " ; or, at least, they apparently do not hold the opinion of the Secretary of State who said that the two things in life of which one might not boast of success are diplomacy and love. But the Southern man's admiration for womankind, and her eternal attraction for him, must not be measured by the deviations of man in any other part of the country, for the woman he marries, no matter what age does for her, and despite his devoted attitude toward every other woman he meets, remains the very centre of his heart. At a White House reception I once stood talking to a Southerner. His eye wandered to an uncommonly plain woman clad in a Dolly Varden style of fabric, cut to accentuate cruelly her past-middle-weight contour. It was his wife. He looked at her adoringly. At last he spoke with enough emotion to have carried a Northern man through a ticklish Wall Street deal. "I declar', that woman's just naturally stylish, and that's what she is," he said. This attitude of the Southern man has had a good and bad effect on the Southern woman. She expects from her husband the consideration due to a queen or a baby, and she is girlishly coquettish at sixty. Age does not dull the colour of her frock nor her desire to please. She is of all American women the nearest approach to temperament. She frankly uses cosmetics to enhance her charms. She has been told that she is charming from her cradle, and she believes it with a fervour that makes it true that " a Southern woman dies twice, the day she quits life and the day she ceases to please." She, too, tells of her romantic conquests, and preserves the superb air of a reigning belle even where pinched circumstances have succeeded the luxury of the plantation days. She is a man's woman. I have yet to meet the very young man or the old man that a Southern woman could not captivate. THE AMERICAN WOMAN 125 She knows that while her husband professes a broad- minded, effusively chivalrous admiration for all woman- kind, he really considers the nervous, energetic Northern sisters as " alarm clock women who buzz for a little and run down," and thoroughly believes in his Southern women, who are content with the power of virtue and beauty, without reference to being President or even being on the school board, as a type envied of the whole world. So, as a rule, mentally the Southern woman still adheres to the period of brilliant brocade, and slippers, and "patch," and fan, and fetching smile. With all the immense industrial development of large sections of the South which has brought strength and fulness of life into the whole organism, attained and raised in a way the standard of social existence, yet the sphere of woman's development in the South has remained until recently practically untouched. When nowadays the intellectual type does appear, however, it is much more attractive than most Northern women of that type, so far as grace and polish and the general amenities of life are concerned. According to statistics, moreover, there is less marital unrest in the South than in any other part of the country, and the families are larger than elsewhere. Nietsche has said : " I would have the women dance and bear children, and the men to fight," and who knows ? Perhaps the type of American woman who has effected the most apparent evolution is the farmer's wife. Formerly marooned on a vast acreage with no human companionship during the day, when her husband and the " farm hands " were at work at distances which would equal another township or county in more settled districts, and with nothing more stimulating before her than the preparation of the next meal for the cormorant appetites of the field workers, she contributed more than any other class to the insane asylums of the country. Now, with the telephone, the postman at her door, and 126 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA the various courses of reading conducted by post, she has become an astonishingly well-informed, mentally poised type of woman. The steady pressure of the sober earnest- ness of her daily life does not lend itself to feminine excesses; and yet the farmer class in America is prosperous and wealthy, and she has no difficulty in securing means of developing her inner life in conjunction with the practical. Not long ago the governor of a Western State, who was also a prominent farmer in his community, was ex- pected to make an address to an assembly of delegates from neighbouring States. His train was delayed, and he was unable to reach the conference in time. But his wife, who was in attendance, took his place, and spoke on the needs of the farmers' wives with a crystalline presentation of facts that was most convincing, and received national circulation. There are several large farms in the West where the active proprietor is a woman, and they are successful. The strange quiet of the practical wisdom of the few women of this type I have met contrasts sharply with the fuss and fret and worry of the women who have gleaned from fiction and women's clubs a large assortment of ideas on the American woman's perfection, and who flutter discontentedly away from the family hearth in the hope that superficiality will be construed as subtlety and individuality abroad. It is the fate of a prosperous healthy nation that the women should be idealized out of all proportion to their actual positions, and to the exclusion of a mature re- adjustment to the welfare and perfection of the whole State. A French anthropologist summarizes the historical relation of woman to society as "first a beast of burden, then a domestic animal, then a slave, then a servant, and then a minor." It may be that the American woman's evolution is to be taken up at the last point. The possibilities are as infinite as her present variety. CHAPTER VI HOUSEKEEPING EXPENDITURES AN Englishman travelling in America not long ago, and scorning the usual methods of the diarist, kept a sort of pocket registry, in which he entered his impressions in "credit, doubtful, and debit" columns. To our credit account he put, I remember, ** oysters, water- falls, parlour-cars, shoes, and skyscrapers." Under doubtful came ** newspapers, mincepies, millionaires, furnaces in dwelling-houses, and negroes;" while we were judged as owing an apology, or at least an explanation for, "monuments, spring weather, servants, and housekeeping." American housekeeping has long been under fire from foreign critics, and the American housewife is constantly arraigned for her careless household management and her scorn for economy. America is a place where fortunes are made, not saved. The American man always found it easier to make money than to save it. When a new want develops in the average American family, retrenchment in I other directions is never contemplated as a solution, but a greater income is managed by the male provider to meet \ the increased expenditure. It is not a question of making "a little and spending a little less " in America, but the constant and almost universally successful quest to make much more and to spend it all in the certainty of more to come. The expenditure of the American household depends upon 127 128 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA mental rather than material limitations, so it is expecting a good deal to look to the American housewife, whose vision includes an almost assured rise in her fortunes, for the exactitude in shilling and pence account of the over- sea households where the economic status of the average woman is established at birth, or certainly on the day of her marriage. For instance, the economist tells us that the average English working-man earns about £i 4s. a week. He will probably earn the same all his life, and his son will con- tinue the family fortunes on the same modest scale, and they will each maintain a family, and even save. The average American working-man will earn at least £2 a week, and, with the rapid rise made possible by better industrial conditions and the greater opportunities for earning money, the family should shortly have £'^ a week, with £^ in sight as a stimulus to exertion. From this class of intelligent, self-respecting, industrious persons rises, in the next generation, thanks to free schools and democratic plasticity, a group who are typical Americans whatever their grandfathers were. These are the educated persons in the community, young college graduates in business, clerks, tradesmen, and skilled workmen of the highest type. No class barrier " grooves " them socially. The income of this typical family is from ;£'300 to £600 2l year, and such are the possibilities in the industrial conditions of America that the limit of earning capacity is measured only by intelligence and the power to grasp opportunity. The tendency is almost universally upward, and with a constantly shifting basis of household funds, close calculation on the part of the housewife seems a fruitless and unappreciated task. Accounts are rarely kept in the American family, and the housewife seldom has a chance to become skilled in the use of money on any settled scale of income. This constant readjustment to an increasing scale of HOUSEKEEPING EXPENDITURES 129 income with its attendant temptation to extravagance does not, of course, refer to the very poor nor the very rich, both of which we have always with us, but, as an English writer has said, " paupers and millionaires are alike independent of statistics." It is with expenditures of the middle and working classes that the foreign critic confronts us, and I realize that no amount of generalized explanation of conditions will suffice before the two specific charges : \ First : That the cost of living for the artisan in America is one and a half times dearer than in England, so that the larger earnings in America are offset by expenses out of proportion to the higher wages. Second : That the rich man setting the standard of I prices here, the "comfortably off" have not the essentials ( of comfort to the extent that this class abroad have. ( In the first place, it is the standard of living, not the I cost of the food itself, that is higher among the working class in America. You take the foreign workman coming over here with his " macaroni," or " bologna," or " potato- and-tea " standards of diet, and, in a short time, his food expenditure will be represented approximately by the following four weeks' budget of an Americanized Italian family. The man and wife in this family were born in Italy, but the four children were born in New York. I The man was a stone-cutter, and his income for the year was ^138. It is doubtful whether the same variety in adequate nourishment for a family of six could be obtained at the same cost in any large city abroad. There, among the people of this class, it would not have been sought, but in America the demand comes with the ability to gratify it. If the Italian peasant standard of living had been persisted Jin, there would have been quite munificent savings from jthe American income. No doubt the enlarged diet is made necessary to some K I30 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA extent by the change in climate and conditions of living, but to this exigency can hardly be attributed the gaudy | plush-covered furniture in the " parlour," the lace curtains at the windows and the ubiquitous folding-bed, and re- ligious pictures of the saints, the Virgin Mary or The Sacred Heart, which form the interior of the typical working-man's home of this class, and which became necessities upon adopting the American labourer's standard oi living. Food Expenditures for Four Weeks Kind of Food. Cost. Cost per week. £ s. d. £ S. d. Beef, veal, mutton .... I I Si o 5 41 Ham, pork, bacon O 7 I o I 9i Fish . . o 3 2} o O lO Chicken o 9 lO o 2 5v Butter . o 5 I o I 3 Cheese o 4 o o I o Eggs . o 4 o o I o Milk . o 5 9 o I 5^ Vegetables, fresh o 8 lO^ o „ canned . o 2 3 o o 7 „ dried o 2 8^ o o 8^ Potatoes . o 3 7^- o O II Bread . o 7 o 2 ID Sugar . o 3 or ^2 o o 8i Coffee . . o I 5^ o o 4i Macaroni i o 8 32" o 2 I Cereal (rice and barley 'r) o 2 9i o o 81 Fruit . o 5 o o O 1} Olive Oil . o 2 lO o o 9 Sundries o 2 7 o o 8 Total 5 II 9 I 7 lo The furniture as well as the clothes worn in America by this family would represent a much higher grade of society in the land of their birth. The same clothing qould hardly have been bought cheaper abroad than from HOUSEKEEPING EXPENDITURES 131 the small shop and side-walk (pavement) merchants of lower New York, but in the former peasant state it would not have been aspired to. It amounts to this : that a large proportion of working-men in America, beginning life as peasants, become middle-class citizens in the land of their adoption, and, with the transformation, the peasant's penury and thrift disappears with the peasant's clothes and surroundings. Balancing his cost of living with the comfort obtainable in comparison with the same class abroad, the results would, I think, be decidedly to the advantage of living in the United States. The one item of expenditure which draws heavily upon the workman in America is his drink. Wine and beer are higher here than abroad, and the Americanized foreign workman is obliged to pay a luxury price for what he has been accustomed to consider as a part of his food. To the above budget, for example, should be added £1 9s. 8d., which was spent for wine for family use during the four weeks. The native American household regard "drink" as a luxury, and in hearing of its cheapness abroad it Is reasoned that, as luxuries are cheap so the staples of diet must be cheap, not realizing that while the foreign work- man at home could get his wine cheap, if of very inferior quality, his diet would be black bread, macaroni, and chestnuts. The workman's family in America where butter and meat is not regularly served is rare. I have two budgets from typical American families of the lower middle class in a large city. They lie in the stratum above the very poor, whose struggle is rehearsed in the record of charitable societies, and below the class of highly skilled artisans' families. One point here must be noted. In America, in the large cities, the " black coat " man, the great clerk class, is rather worse off than the artisan in a strongly unionized trade. Counting-room 132 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA clerks, bank clerks, book-keepers, are paid from £2, to £6 a week ; while bricklayers, thanks to their union, earn from a pound to twenty-eight shillings a day ; carpenters, plumbers, electrical workers, and other members of skilled trades from twelve to sixteen, eighteen, and, occasionally, twenty shillings a day. The first family consists of father, mother, and two children. The only source of income is from the father, who is a draftsman in an architect's office, and earns £^ a week. He also makes a few dollars extra in drawing plans and specifications, and this amounts to about £14. a year. The home consists of three rooms, the rent of which is £2 I2S. a month. The sanitary conditions are good, and whileithe bedroom is small, with only one window, the kitchen is conveniently arranged, and the parlour has two large windows. The rooms are well furnished. The furniture cost £/^2, bought " on time " when the man married, and was paid for in two years. The Englishman's reflection on American housekeepers holds particularly true of this class, and this case is typical. The rooms are never in order ; everything is untidy, but not dirty. The wife is pretty, bright, and ambitious, but entirely untrained and without system in her work. She cannot sew — few women in America of this class know how to — so all the clothing is bought " ready-made," and is thrown away when worn out, very little mending being done. She is, however, a devoted wife and mother. Their expenditure for recreation was most carefully estimated. They went regularly once a week to a theatre all winter. This cost about £^ for the season. They also went to six or seven balls (2s. each) as the wife is very fond of dancing. In the summer they take the children several times a week on trolley car (electric tram) rides in the evening besides trips to a near-by resort. Last summer they spent two weeks at the seaside, where they paid £2 for two furnished rooms and boarded themselves. i ^>,V^"' j^ THE BOWERY, NEW YORK, SHOWING THE ELEVATED RAILWAY HOUSEKEEPING EXPENDITURES 133 In all, they have a good deal of pleasure and recreation, and are, I believe, typical of many households of this class — extravagant in some ways and provident in others, with a fair degree of comfort and prosperity, but with very little provision made for the future ; but, it may be repeated, Americans are not a saving nation. Here is the budget — Income £170 £ s. d. Food, including lunch-money for the husband . 72 16 o Rent ;^2 I2S. a month 31 4 o Clothing 13 o o Light and fuel 10 10 5 Insurance 1297 Recreation 10 o o Books and papers . . . . . . 3120 Drink, is. 5d. a week, not more than . . 400 Sundries (tobacco, shaving, etc.) . . . 200 Medical attendance (including dentist, ^6) . 900 Total . . 168 12 o Surplus . . 180 £170 o o Three things in this budget may be noted as characteristic of this class in America. First, in a family of most shiftless procedure in regard to clothing, where the premeditated poverty of patches and darns is foresworn in favour of the impromptu smile of gaping holes, great concern is given to keeping the children's teeth in condition. In this account a large part of the £6 dentist's bill was incident to straightening irregular front teeth for one of the children, and it is not an unusual consideration. The American workman's child has, as a rule, much better teeth than the British child in this class, or even the peasant child abroad, for which, of course, American dentistry must be thanked in part. The second item of significance is the small expenditure 134 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA for drink. The seventeen-pence a week is quite typical of this class, and rather a contrast to the average sum devoted to drink by families of the working classes of England.* The third noteworthy feature is the insurance pay- ment. It is somewhat above the average amount in this budget, but it is rare to find a family in this class without some expenditure for life insurance. And this is due almost entirely to a desire to have a " decent " or even fine funeral. The standard of these people in regard to funerals — the ostentatious display of flowers and the number of carriages — produces a startling and tragically grotesque effect when one considers the humble abode from which the cortege of pomp and circumstances usually starts. Funerals are a form of dissipation among this class. There is no orgy of grief and stimulated cheer before the burial, but in the display of decorative coffin and hearse and stream of attendant coaches the family proclaims its social status to the neighbourhood. A family frequently submits to being dispossessed, or to going on a pinched allowance of food and clothing or fuel, to keep up the insurance ; and the insurance is almost invariably devoted to the funeral, it becoming a ghastly gamble as to which members shall hold a policy. The cost of the average funeral among our working people is ;£"20. Going to funerals of friends is considered an obligation, but at the same time a kind of outing. Each family supplies its own coach, outside the chief mourners, and the usual price is £i 2s. So that when a family has gone several times in the year, the fact will be mentioned with pride among the other recreations the family has had. Yet the knowledge of the insurance held by one of these households fosters a spirit of inde- pendence and the commendable horror of a pauper funeral. * This is estimated at 6s. lod., by B. Seebohm Rowntree, " Poverty," p. 142. HOUSEKEEPING EXPENDITURES 135 My second budget of ;f 273 yearly income is from the family of an assistant shipping clerk, whose income is increased by the earnings of a daughter nineteen years old. There were two children at home, including a son, who died during the year. The working daughter is a fitter in a large clothing shop and earns ^i i6s. a week. She keeps eight shillings a week for her clothing, but turns over the rest into the family treasury. The income, therefore, may be stated — £ s. d. Man 200 o o Daughter 73 o o Total . . 273 o o The expenditures, as nearly as I could gather, were — £ s. d. Rent 48 o o Food 124 o o Clothing for four persons 34 o o Light and fuel 10 o o House furnishings 500 Union (is. a month) 0120 Newspapers (6d. a week) ..... 160 Church 200 Medical attendance 500 Funeral 32 o o Insurance 500 Spending money (man ^7, girl ^5) . . . 12 o o Total . . 278 18 o Income . 273 o o Deficit . . 5 18 o This is an example of a family in the first year of an increased income. Up to that time the father had been a porter in the office where he now works as clerk and received ^160, and the daughter, as an apprentice, was unpaid. 136 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA In this instance the deficit might not have occurred but for the emergency of sickness and the funeral. They are ambitious, fairly educated people, and the father has opportunities still further to advance. The horizon of com- fortable living is broadening. Their wants keep pace and overstep the growing income. The failure to make ends meet is not regarded as ominous. Next year they will have adjusted themselves to their conditions, and expenditures will be less reckless. It is a typical case, and a modest example of the uncertainty of household accounts, through the optimistic transition of fortunes in the United States. The family had moved from a flat, for which they paid £2 6s. a month, to a flat of five good-sized rooms with well-equipped bath-room at £^. The expense for food mounted from £\ 8s. as a weekly average to £2 4s. But their diet was as attractive and abundant as that of families on a much higher income, and to see the mother and daughter on the street, one might easily judge their clothes the expression of a ;f 700 household. The wonder to me was, not that they had failed to save — for the longer you live in the United States the firmer becomes your convic- tion that about the only evidence of saving is in our magazine articles on " household economy " — but that, frankly, they got as much as they did for their money. They had a piano and a sideboard, which must have been purchased even in the poor days, and the furnishings and bric-a-brac gave the atmosphere of a well-to-do family in a small town. Of course, for the same money they could have rented a house in the small town ; but, unless they had their own garden for raising vegetables, table expenditures would have been as high and not as varied as in the crowded sections of New York. The cost of living in the suburbs of a large city is considerably higher than in the city markets. The foreigner seldom fails to express amazement at the HOUSEKEEPING EXPENDITURES 137 income of the skilled artisan in America, which places him materially above the professor in a small college and on an equality with the moderately successful professional man. " Your mechanic's home is merely a cloth-bound edition of the millionaire's edition de luxe," was an Englishman's observation. Free from class distinction, the artisan aspires to the same tastes as the rich man, and his income has become adjusted to gratify this ambition to follow luxurious tastes rather than to meet the actual cost of livingias accepted by his class abroad. The heating of American houses always falls under foreign criticism, and does not entirely escape native comment. It is an open question, on which much can be said on both sides. The American says that his much calumniated method of heating his entire house by a central stove, from which the heat is coaxed into every nook and cranny by steam or hot water circulating in radiators, or by the direct piping of hot air, is the only comfortable condition for an interior from December to well into March. He recalls to you the continual procession of coal- scuttles going upstairs in an English home, and the roasting on one side, freezing on the other, of the open-grate system. He avers there are as bad throat and lung troubles in Old England as in the incubator homes of New England, and that if he must take cold and die, he prefers to do it comfortably. The American woman delights to wear the most summery kind of clothes indoors in winter, and claims that is the tactful way to meet the wintry blasts, with lace in her super-heated house and furs on the street. She will never admit that her house is heated above 70°, although I venture to say more household thermometers register 80° than below, and 80° of artificial heat, even in a lingerie frock, is enervating. This revives the question of the comparative cost and extent of comfort in the moderately well-off families. 138 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA The cost of gas is higher in America, being about four shilh'ngs a looo cubic feet, contrasted with sixpence less for the same quality in London ; but the London gas bills are generally larger, perhaps because a greater use of artificial light is necessary. This does not hold true, of course, of the bills in the families where the cooking is done by gas, the use of which is increasing in the United States. Electric lighting, like the telephone, is much more general, cheaper, and better in America than abroad. Water rates in large American cities are only about half those in London, and in a comfortable home in the United States, there will be two bath-rooms, and the " side walk " (American for front pavement) will be washed with a hose spray every day. Coal, for heating, averages twenty- five shillings a ton. Granite ware kitchen utensils and many conveniences for cooking are very cheap in the United States. Five pounds will buy as complete a kitchen outfit as any fastidious housewife could desire ; but the coarse crockery is dearer, and not nearly so decorative as that on the pantry shelves in England or Germany. Coming to the details of the cost of food, I cannot find warrant for the statement made on both sides of the Atlantic that " everything is cheaper in England." After considerable investigation, I return to the conclusion expressed by a cook in London, who said, " English eats big and hearty. America eats light but terrible fancy," and believe that it holds a balanced equation. The house- keeper in America has a greater choice for the same, even for less money, but variety rules her table to such an extent, and she includes what a coloured servant terms " frivolous cooking " in the daily diet, that the expense is equal to that of the substantial food purchased for an English household of the same circumstances. The American, listening to an Englishwoman's interview with her trades-people, is impressed by the amount that HOUSEKEEPING EXPENDITURES 139 will be ordered for even a small family. The separate ^orders for the children's dinner and the servants' meals seem to her extravagant ; for the roast that she would order for the family dinner in America (children, of course, dine with the elders) would " last so long," as the expression is, if only served at the main table, that, lacking the prodigies of thrifty transformation of the French kitchen, it would be relegated to the waste long before its material \ finish. But when the American sees that everything that is ordered for the English household is used, she is still more amazed. The substantial pudding in England is unknown in the United States, and the English tart — called a "deep-dish ■ pie," to distinguish it from the flat type of pastry supposed ] to have been copyrighted at the board of the Pilgrim ( Fathers — appears but seldom. But the variety of meringues I and ices and puff paste, cream-filled fantasies from the j bakery crowning the usual American dinner, and, above all, ( the infinite variety of the American breakfast, reveals I something of the details which tip the scale of table I expense somewhat toward the lighter-eating nation, i " Coffee is half the breakfast," is the American's verdict, I but only in the sense that, like tea in England, breakfast ! would be nothing without it, not in the literal sense of I the Continental breakfast, for, in place of that coffee and j rolls, or the tea, toast, eggs^ and marmalade of the orthodox I English breakfast, the American breakfast always includes fruit — either oranges, grape-fruit or small melons ; some sort of cereal, for Americans are great consumers of cereals, though not the old-fashioned oatmeal (you could almost reckon the number of Canadians and loyal Scotchmen in New York City by the demand for that), but the " ready-to- serve," " prepared-by-patent-process " varieties of ** break- fast foods " which are, except for the cream and sugar on ]them, about as nourishing as pine shavings ; then follows the main course of cutlet or sweetbreads, or calves' brains, 140 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA or kidney stew, or shad roe, or some fish like the American " smelts," which resemble a foreshortened eel and taste like imitation white bait, with bacon and eggs as the Greek Chorus element in the housekeeper's menus. Also the American breakfast is not complete without '* biscuits " (scones), muffins, or " popovers," and the finishing flourish of "hot cakes " served with butter and maple syrup. Lunch is a negligible item in the American household expense, and dinner corresponds more to a rather elaborate English luncheon than the heavy late dinner as it is known in England, while the so-called " snack " in the way of a supper just before retiring, which is so often looked for in the English household, does not feature in the American regime as yet. Meat, with the exception of fillet and sirloin, which is the same in both countries, is dearer in England than in the United States. The Scotch-fed beef, from which comes the wonderful juicy joint served in London homes, is superior to anything found under the name of Chicago beef, but it is also higher. Poultry is cheaper in the United States. I have a witty Englishwoman's testimony to this : " Oft have I sighed for the flesh-pots of Egypt, as I contrasted the eighteen cents, per pound for prime chicken and turkey in America as against three shillings for a skeleton pullet or twelve shillings for a lean and lanky turkey. The one becomes fact in flesh and the other is bought on hope." Milk, butter, and eggs are the same, but coff"ee and flour cost less in America. Even moderately good tea is 2s. 5d. in the States ; but as cofl"ee, not tea, is used to undermine the nervous system here, that expense is not serious. In regard to fruit, there is nothing in America to compare with the English grapes, strawberries, cherries, currants, and pears. But fruit is much cheaper in America, and there is a greater variety of the ordinary kinds. The " Concord " grapes, with their clusters of deep blue berries HOUSEKEEPING EXPENDITURES 141 (a variety first known in the old New England town that Emerson made famous), can be bought in five-pound baskets for a shilling. As for apples, pears, peaches, and, above all, bananas, they are among the cheap fruits in America, and are quite as good as much higher-priced products in England. For turbot and the unique sole the American market offers oysters that do not taste like sucking a brass key — if I may be pardoned that comparison with the English bivalve — and lobsters which are no more expensive than the English fish. And of course an American will always protest the superiority of terrapin and canvas-back, even of the so-called " puddle " duck, which range in price with game in the English markets. America has a great advantage in the variety and cost of vegetables. The sun never sets on the kitchen garden of America, and with rapid transit and cold storage to revolutionize "local" markets with products from all ends of the continent, there is hardly a noticeable "season" for any one vegetable, for some part of this enormous country is producing it at every season. Truth compels me to add, however, that while we have green peas and asparagus all winter and the distance from the source of these supplies makes a surprisingly small rise in cost, the green peas ripened under the gray skies of England from June to September have no equal for sweetness in the United States. Climate has such an important bearing upon compara- tive household economics that in this connexion I offer again a comment of the witty Englishwoman who evidently knoji^s her America as does Baedeker. " One could live like a lord in Florida on five dollars a week ; vegetables and fruits seemed, like Jonah's gourd, to spring up in the night ; the cow cost nine dollars, and yielded creamy milk ; the rent only ten dollars a month for a good house with the proverbial three acres for the 142 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA cow ; a whole chicken costs twenty cents, and a side of mutton, weighing twelve pounds, only one dollar and fifty cents. Society was charming, and it was bliss to be alive from October to April in bowers of roses, lilies, camellias, and such flowering views as once seen can never be for- gotten. Half the year ! but oh for the other half ! " For our Southern States have a summer season like the climate of Italy or even Northern India. A little farther afield, but still not astray from the subject, comes the question of doctors' bills for the treat- ment of malaria and typhoid fever so sadly familiar to American households — the " co-existent to that sunshine so productive of glorious fruits and vegetables, gifts of a seemingly beneficent climate." And some one has added, "When melons of forty, even sixty pounds are piled high in the markets and luscious peaches are only twenty-five cents for a big basket, many a Rachel is weeping for her children, for the mortality of children in all classes is appalling." In the budget of the professional man which follows there will appear another important bearing of climate upon household expenditure. This is the item which covers board and lodging for the wife and children at the seashore for three months. The summer outing at ;^ioo would be replaced in an English budget of this kind by a few weeks* " holiday " at an expense of £2^ at the outside. But the professional man whose family is allowed to endure an American summer in town is rare, so that the cost of food in a budget here must be stated for nine months. In this case, it is calculated that the head of the family spent £^ a month for his meals while his wife and children were in the country, and this is included in the item of £160 for food. Under sundries were classed the expenditures for wines, liquors, flowers, and cabs, and it will seem disproportionately small on an income of ;^i20o. But wine is not served in HOUSEKEEPING EXPENDITURES 143 this type of American home, except at dinners of ceremony, which are few and far between, and cab hire is so pro- hibitively high as to remove it as an ordinary temptation for indulgence. My chief grumble against London on a recent visit was that it is a wilderness of distances, and though cab-fares are cheap, their sum total became a heavy item. But on reaching New York, I found myself taxed eighteen shillings for a " hack " to carry me and my belongings from steamer to train, a distance not so great as two shillings' worth in London. There are no cab-stands in the residence sections of cities, and a cab ordered from a "livery-stable" (public hiring stable) costs from six to eight shillings. So for most of the goings about the tramway serves, and men take their wives to the theatre in the "street car," and even dining out, except in very bad weather, does not necessitate a cab. As to flowers in the home, be he rich or poor, wise, great, or a hermit, the Englishman will have flowers on his dining-table, but they are far from indispensable to the American. You do not see the " nosegay " stands about the American cities ; there are no great " flower markets," and many months in the year, I venture to state, this home quoted, as many others of its standard, has a candelabrum with coloured candle-shades as a centre piece in the dining- room in place of flowers, and only rarely a bunch of blossoms in the drawing-room. The " dress " item in this budget includes that of the daughter of ten years. The money spent on the dress of an American girl would astound the girl-child of an English household, and no doubt incur the English mother's disapproval. But the little girl is the idol of the American home. Her bedroom is made a frilly bower, and care and taste and money are lavished upon her frocks and lingerie. From the day of her birth she is the pet and pride of the 144 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA household, and, in comparison, the English girl seems dressed and sheltered like a nun — which is no doubt much more wholesome. But there is a daintiness given the little girl in America which generally clings. Any one who would not render tribute to the bein soignee Englishwoman, to her classic charm in a Liberty- flowing simplicity of costume, or the splendid severity of a velvet frock, must be blind. But I have seen an American woman who did not have a single good feature pass for "pretty" and "charming" just because of an ineffable daintiness. Perhaps the little daughter's ruffles and nainsook may not be as unwise an expense as it seems. The clothing for the boy in this family, which is bought ready-made, and the outfit for the master of the house, proportionately cost much less ; but that, too, is quite characteristic of the American division of income, and yet the man always appears well dressed. His " business " suit costs him from £Z to i^io, and for frock-coat, waist- coat, and trousers he pays from £\2 to £i^. The item of *' education " indicates only the music- lessons for the children, as otherwise they are taught in one of the public schools. This budget has been selected, not to illustrate how cheaply one may obtain luxury in the United States, but as typical of what is considered necessary luxury in the "comfortably off" home in a large city. Budget of Professional Man's Family (Father, Mother, and two children) I s. d. Rent 200 o o Water tax i 12 o Fuel and gas 3500 Food 185 8 o Carried forward . 422 o o HOUSEKEEPING EXPENDITURES 145 £ s. d. Brought forward . 422 o o Personal property tax * i 12 o Life insurance 40 o o Fire insurance i o o Railway travel 1500 Christmas and birthday presents . . . . 50 o o Books and periodicals 500 Tobacco . . . . . . . . . 25 o o Boots for family 10 o o Tailor . . . 40 o o Dress 125 o o Ice 700 Church 10 o o Telephone 9 12 o Club 10 o o Summer outing . . . . . . . 100 o o Dentist 600 Physician's service . . . . . . . 20 o o Servants 91 16 o Education 20 o o Sundries 800 Additional furniture. Keeping up linens, china, etc. 79 o o Total expenditure . . 1096 o o Surplus .... 104 o o Total Income . . 1200 o o Every nation has two recurring nightmares — the growth of dangerous forms of luxury among its people, and the decline of the birth rate — and Uncle Sam is no exception. He has periods of being absolutely certain that half of the population of the United States are living beyond their incomes, and with childlike naivete he confesses his fears to the world, and his reiterated groans over " the mad endeavour of persons of moderate income to follow the pace set by the wealthy," has gained us a reputation for high prices and reckless housekeeping which is far from * Household possessions, exceeding ^200 in value, are taxed in, the United States. 146 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA justifiable. The lady who is bent upon seeming richer than she really is is a world-wide type, and while only occasional invectives against the extravagant luxury of its people appear in the press of England or Germany, I doubt whether the stuff Uncle Sam's bad dreams are made of is any different from those that settle about the wise and cautious heads in London or Berlin. CHAPTER VII SHOPS AND THE SHOPPERS FROM a small city up in the State, a mother took her schoolgirl daughter, aged nine, to spend her spring holiday among the sights of New York. The child had been coached on the Art Galleries, the Museum of National History, and the wonders of the Zoo in Central Park, until she knew perfectly the points in the educational programme her parent had arranged for her. Yet after luncheon, the day of their arrival, when they stood on the threshold of their hotel, with the metropolis roar in their ears, and the mother asked, " Well, what shall we see this afternoon ? " the child ignored her cue and responded — " I tell you what let's do, mamma ! Let's go down town to the shops and just spend moneyy The little woman had expressed the acme of attraction of the big city to the American woman. I have yet to meet the woman from Chicago who will not remark, after scant preliminaries of conversation, " Of course, you've seen our Marshall Pleld's store ? " and on your enthusiastic endorsement of this wonder of wonders, or your confession of dark ignorance, are you judged dis- ] cerning or benighted, for this great store is to the Chicago woman the epitome of her city's greatness. I And, by the way, all shops are *' stores'* in America. • There is no such fine distinction, as in London, between 147 148 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA the " shops " and " The Stores," as applied to the " Army and Navy " institution there. Every large city in America has " America's largest and grandest store" in its midst, or perhaps several of them — if one is to accept page advertisements in the daily papers of that city. New York, Chicago, Boston, and Philadelphia, each has its " Whiteley's " and its " Bon Marche " in types that really go the originals one better in lavish display and their elaborate system of bargain sales. ■ Is it any wonder, then, that the average American woman literally " haunts " the shops of her city ? Perhaps nothing betrays the primitive instinct of a nation like shopping. It represents the acquisition instinct, the love of barter, a sense of beauty and the feminine thirst for adornment ; and while the American woman may not excel the normal limits of these characteristics, the element of chance always enlivens the shopping game in America, and shopping becomes a never-ending quest for the thing that is apparently sold for less than its worth. Simple extravagance is curable, but the mania to buy cheap, with desirability of the object a somewhat nebulous quality, is incurable. The watching for the season's sales in England, the French woman's keen eye for the decline of some material she wants into a " remnant," has much of the business capacity and organization faculty in it. But there is nothing so masculine in the American woman's idea of the mission of the shops. The American woman with the shopping habit ; the habit which drives her to a minute perusal of the columns of preposterous reductions, v/hich herald the weekly " bargain day " in her city ; which drives her from the breakfast-table to the shops by the elevated train, subway, or trolley line ; which makes her all day long, stopping only for the hastiest kind of luncheon, a part of the three-deep mob about the SHOPS AND THE SHOPPERS 149 counters and tables on which the bargains from frying- pans to silk waists are tossed — this is the shopping habit reduced almost to a mild aberration. It cannot be said that vanity increases the disease, for among the chronic shoppers which throng our shops, they are comparatively few who are out to cater in excess to their personal ambitions. To many, certainly, " home " is always written at the back of their minds ; but if the " home " needed ordinary dishes, and there should be an advertised sale of jardinieres reduced from ;^i to los., it would be the bargain counter that would receive their patronage. The American woman is as unable to resist the seductions of bargain counters as the English woman her tea-cup. It is the bargain counter that is largely responsible for the great effort necessary in America to live below one's income. The advertising manager employed by each large shop is its impresario, as it were. Advertising has risen to the dignity of a profession in America, and the man who exploits in type the lure of the bargain counter, has a business as honourable and exacting as the man reporting the latest murder trial for a great daily. Large department stores the country over easily devote ;f 50,000 annually to advertising bargains. Monday happens to be " bargain day " in New York, though Boston has Saturday, Philadelphia and Washington Friday, and Chicago lives in a state of continual bargain orgy ; and a New York advertising man spoke modestly and naively of his work in preparation for the conflict. " In writing Sunday advertisements to catch the suburban trade," he began, " we lose sight of our wealthy customers, so to speak. We address ourselves to the thrifty middle class, the class which is the bone and sinew of this country ; which will slave, if necessary, to bring up its children well and dress them in good clothes, which represents an income of from £^ a week up to five or six times that amount, and which, out of town, lives in a 150 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA seven- or eight-roomed house and keeps one * hired girl,' as she used to be called in New England, or no servant at all. These people living out of town, look over the suburban and the New York papers more carefully on Sunday than at any other time, probably because they have more leisure on that day to read, and it rests with the adver- tisers whether or not readers read what makes them want to take an early train to town Monday morning. " Pay-day with this class is generally Saturday, meaning that there is more ready cash on hand Monday morning than usual. How to get some of this cash is the business of the advertising manager, and it can't be done by follow- ing ordinary methods. So to further his campaign the advertising manager conducts it very much as the front pages of newspapers are conducted. What is put on these pages ? The news, the beats, the * scoops.' A newspaper has its reporters, its writers of specials, its editorial writers and managing editor. Well, so has the advertising depart- ment of one of the great stores. For instance, before I send out an advertisement it has passed through five hands. We have reporters, special writers, proof-readers, under a managing editor. It is not enough to offer the public a bargain. The offer must be made convincingly. " Now, as to a * scoop,' which is a never-failing drawer to suburbanites : one of the duties of our reporters is to look up attractions featured by other stores and, finding they are selling briskly, to tell me about them. If we have the same thing in stock or something like it, we can follow suit at the same figure or a trifle lower ; but this is not a * scoop.' What we call a scoop is, suppose we haven't the thing or anything like it in stock, to have a more attractive, a better variety made for us, provided it is a piece of neckwear, a waist, or anything which may be manufactured quickly, and advertise it at a figure which puts it in the bargain class. That one thing may bring us a rush. With dozens of out-of-town readers it may be SHOPS AND THE SHOPPERS 151 the one thing which turns the scale in favour of their coming to town Monday morning." Add to this Napoleonic campaign against the middle class pocket-book the fact that the interiors of American shops have the gayest aspect of any in the world, decorated as they are for every possible holiday of national or local moment, from thousands of caged canary birds and Easter lilies for Easter to streamers and artificial roses for every anniversary of the founding of the business ; and that an electric fountain playing, and automatic pianos operating, and samples of food in free distribution add a perennial air of festival and excitement — and what chance has the call of thrift and a commonplace little home against such allurement ? So our shops are crowded as no other shops in similar civilization, and crowded by women whose type abroad would find visits to the department shop in their large cities of almost historic rarity to them. Here the women of very small means form the staple of custom in almost all the large shops, and clasping handbags firmly by the handle and frequently protesting youngsters by the hand, they sweep on from shop to shop, the eager purpose of the bargain-hunt in every eye. When one watches the return of these victors from the bargain table, one cannot but speculate upon the condition of the homes they have left all day, and upon the probable evening meal to be served there ; but perhaps approxi- mately the same class about London and in France and Germany would have spent the day gossiping away their neighbour's reputation or worse. Perhaps the shopping habit is as innocuous an outlet as possible for national energy and love of chance. As regards the comparative prices, it is undoubtedly possible for the middle class to dress far better and cheaper in America than abroad. Our tariff on kid gloves and fine laces and delicate fabrics make their prices such that the American woman who has bought them in London 152 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA and in Paris for from a half to two-thirds less than the American price, rages and declares that she could save the cost of the trip through buying her clothes abroad. But she couldn't. That is, if she is a woman of moderate means and dresses accordingly. Some one has said that of all the women in the world, the American women look best in the morning, the Parisian in the afternoon, and the English women in the evening, and the shops of each country would seem to reflect this condition. The ready-made, plain walking suit in the American shop for $20, $30, and $40, is comparatively better cut and better designed than those for the same price in European markets. You can get the same type of suit in London, undoubtedly of better woollen material which will wear longer and better, for about £1 less, but the fit will be of the tip-tilted skirt and narrow-chest jacket style in which London ladies' tailors seem to glory, and the American suit will lead in effectivenees and smartness over anything of the price in London or Paris. An American woman remarked that in her experience there were two kinds of made-to-measure suits to be had in London : those that require talcum powder and a shoe- horn to adjust, and those that can be slipped on over your head without unbuttoning — the resulting humiliation alone assures you which type of tailor you have encountered. And while it is perfectly true that a suit made to measure in London for ;^ 10 would cost ;^ 15 if made to order in America, the American suit would have £s worth better shoulders and hang of skirt, and the important fact to the middle-class shoppers remains that you can buy in the American shops a j^io ready-to-wear suit which will compare most favourably with a suit made to measure at £16 in England. The material will be inferior, but the American woman of all classes is a prey to style, and does not wear her clothes as long as the English woman. SHOPS AND THE SHOPPERS 153 When it comes to ready-to-wear evening clothes, the houses in London making a speciality of such frocks, can find no rival in America. Outside of very exclusive shops with " Rue de la Paix " prices and worse, the display of ready-made evening frocks in the American shops is laugh- ably provincial. Evening frocks are not in common use except among the rich here, and so, naturally, there is no type of evening frocks at once in good taste and finish and of moderate price to be found in American shops. After- noon toilettes, as displayed in the American shops, are rarely of the best designs. The comfortably-off woman has hers made by a dressmaker, and, owing to the con- spicuous absence of social occasions when such a soft frock would be worn among the middle-classes, there is little demand, and what lies betv/een the tailor suit and the imported models in formal frocks is an impossible clutter of cheap cashmeres and nets with impossible lace yokes and collars ear-high. The woman who wears Parisian gowns goes abroad often, and prefers to buy them in Paris, and outside of a few French model toilettes, which the buyers frankly admit are for purposes of exhibition to " sweeten " the ordinary stock, there is to be found little in the ready-made costume line except the tailor suits of linen, silk, and cloth, the separate cloaks, and a limited selection of velvets and dressy frocks. And this leads to one distinction that I think should be made clear in a description of our shops. While America's glittering shops display many more good articles at a high price, the best at the highest price has no market in American stores. This is true of women's ready-made clothing. We display more expensive articles than the shops abroad, but we have nothing to compare with the wonderful creations which are stored out of sight from the casual customer in apparently unattractive stores abroad. We say at once that the general standard of expense 154 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA and luxury is less in England than here. The women's clothes, the average entertainment among the rich, do not compare in extravagance with ours. Yet to these generali- zations we must make exceptions. For instance, it is true that the average Englishwoman spends little on her dress ; that the average Englishwoman is badly dressed — twenty-five pounds a year, I have been told, is thought enough for an unmarried woman of good position — and yet there are dresses to be bought, and they are bought by English women, splendid almost spectacular dresses, that can outdo anything the management of our most marvellous department stores ever imagined. Some one has said practically this of English and American beauty: Here you will see more pretty faces in a day than you see in a year in England ! But when you do see a beautiful Englishwoman, you never forget it — she is nobly, healthily, exuberantly beautiful, as our women are not. However true this statement may be in the field of aesthetics, it is undoubtedly true that such things as wines, cigars, and coffee can be bought in London of a quality of which we know nothing, and at prices that even an extravagant American public will not pay. This has been explained by the fact that we have not as yet any great body of connoisseurs ; we have a great number of people who like good things and will pay for them — no great class perfectly drilled in the art of " doing without " as in England and Europe — but in England it is part of a gentleman's education to know the best, so there are certain things with which we cannot provide our guests in perfection because we cannot buy them here ; the best has gone to London. But to come back to the provision for the eternal feminine in our shops. There are certain necessaries of dress in which the American market provides a grade that in quality and price excels every other country. This is SHOPS AND THE SHOPPERS i55 particularly true of our machine-made blouses and under- linens. The fact is, there is no place in the world where such dainty machine-made garments of all sorts can be found at such low prices as in American department stores. For instance, while hand-made articles are high here, and if a woman is able to pay £2, for a dainty and attrac- tive lingerie blouse or £2 for a chemise or night-gown, she can do very much better in London than in New York. The ;^3 blouse will be £2 in London, and lingerie half the American price ; but the woman who is accustomed to paying 6s. each for her dainty surplice-shaped night-gowns and 8s. for her smart machine-made summer blouse should not dream of buying these garments in London. For these prices she cannot find anything she will be willing to wear. I remember going on a persistent hunt for moderate-priced underlinen in London one summer, and as the high-necked and long-sleeved garments of horribly stout material were pressed upon me again and again *' as remarkably good at the cost," I began to appreciate that the patterns in underwear in England have not changed in twenty years. And I was as afraid to state any plea for something a little more modern and coquettish as I had been to ask my stern New England grandmother years ago for ribbons in my small underbody, knowing full well what unmaidenly immodesties she considered them. I saw a sign in London's smart shopping district which announced : " American shirt-waists by American cutters," but, on investigating the product, I came to the conclusion that the cutters had lost their cunning on the trip across. At least the waists did not compare with the tailored lines of the variety I had seen come unheralded into American shops that spring and at half the cost. The bargain counters of American shops are simply frothed with an infinite variety of charmingly cut and 156 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA trimmed garments on which the machine stitching is so cleverly done as to resemble handwork, and the price is not beyond a moderate purse. Of course, they do not wear well, nothing like as well as the indestructible English garments, and there is a tendency to shoddy display in their cheap adornment which, in the recent craze for the "peek-a-boo " blouse, became flagrant. The last abuse of the lingerie blouse was the wearing of a large bow of coloured ribbon on the front beneath these "ostensible bodices," and respectable, middle-class women accepted this demi-monde-ism without a blush. But it was short- lived, and the average American woman who takes thought of her lingerie next to the Frenchwoman, is more blessed than she realises in being able to acquire effective lingerie that has neither the exalted cost of French convent product nor the conservative clumsiness of the machined garments in England and abroad. It is the same with many other articles. If you always wear silk stockings, by all means get them in London. But if you are accustomed to wear cotton or lisle, and want to get the finest and daintiest possible for your shilling or IS. 5d., buy them in New York. If you have only loi". to pay for a pair of pretty little slippers, you can get them better in New York than else- where ; but our shops have nothing to compare with the bead-work and embroidery of the high-grade slippers sold in Vienna or Paris. But the average shoe found in the American shops is better and cheaper than the same grade anywhere else in the world. An Englishwoman seeing the American women bathing at one of our seaside resorts, remarked that after all there did not seem to be such a discrimination of nature against the English woman in the matter of feet as she had believed. " It's your splendidly shaped shoes that make the American woman's feet look so much trimmer and slimmer SHOPS AND THE SHOPPERS 157 They're just as large as ours, you know, without the shoes ! " she concluded. American shoes may " let in the wet and so cost much higher," as an Englishwoman complained to me ; but she who made the objection never wore the traditional iron- bound, water-proof English boots, but affected, as so many Englishwomen do, I find, the thin-soled, high-heeled shoes of English manufacture, and I did not think the objection well sustained. Particularly as a pair of American shoes bought in America, plus the goloshes (which the American woman expects to wear in damp weather and the English- woman does not, possibly because it would take a lightning change artist to make such adaptation to British climate), is no more expensive than the man-o*-war type of boots the Englishwoman is supposed to advocate. Toys are cheaper in England, but as almost all our supply is " made in Germany " our tariff must shoulder the blame for that situation for Santa Claus. All the French toilette preparations and perfumes and soaps are of course much more expensive in the American shops on the same account ; and as the American woman aspires to these from a class where in England the ambition would be unheard of, she feels this expense, and if she ever happens in London, and discovers that the violet powder for which she has been paying 3s. yd. a package is on all the shop counters there for 2s., and the extract for which the American price is 5s. yd, a bottle is offered at 4s., she naturally concludes that she could live and keep house in England for what it takes to fit up her toilet-table at home. If you think this is a hyperbole, I can only refer you to the average countrywoman of mine who has had a few months* trip abroad. " Oh, for an American income and life in England ! " they all say ; and this would undoubtedly work an economic simplification higher up in the scale of wealth, for the wealthy can get more for their wealth in English life and in English shops ; but comparative figures, 158 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA which I have followed with keen curiosity, bear me out in the statement that American shops cater to the middle- class, and that under no other conditions can middle-class comfort and desires be less expensively met than from the output of American shops. Americans who have gone to live in London on a small income have mournfully assured me that this is so. There is little aesthetic merit about the exterior of American stores. In architecture, they are saved by their enormous glass show windows — really glass-enclosed rooms — from the Bastile-like dignity of the Army and Navy Stores in London. But above this first-floor display they are generally of factory architecture. The show windows resemble the various exhibits in the Eden Musee. Instead of the stacked and price-marked display of garments in the unattractive windows of English shops, there will be often furniture arranged in an elaborate series of apartments, like the apartments of a private house, each piece having its appropriate and effective position, and the figures of mistress, maid, and children (sometimes even Monsieur appears, though even in shop windows the male is subordinated in America), are posed about, wearing fetching garments. Then, too, American shops make every effort to render their interiors of palatial effect. "Unsurpassed, magnificent of equipment and decora- tion," "tapestried emporiums," "marbled and painted house of world-wide merchandise," are types of their modest confessions along this line. Some of the lunch rooms, particularly in the Chicago stores, are decorated in amazing luxury and artistic sense, and there are private dining-rooms where luncheon-parties are given as at a fashionable hotel or restaurant. This feature is no doubt a concession to the fact that the moderately well off in America entertain in public instead of by home hospitality as in England. For the want of proper service in the home, a luncheon can be SHOPS AND THE SHOPPERS 159 given in a hotel with less expense and no effort and more show than in the average American home. Women's club houses in America are rareties, and to ask a few^ friends to lunch with you in one of these more elaborate department store lunch-rooms, in a way, takes the place of the club dining-room. While we are touching this corner of entertainments, I should like to notice an English custom which seems to me excellent, and which has never found favour over here. In London there are always a certain number of those large furnished private houses which are rented night after night for the purposes of entertaining. Here we save ourselves trouble by going to one of the large hotels or restaurants, where the giving of such parties is perfectly understood ; yet there is something very delightful about ( the atmosphere of a private house. But the feeling for it j apparently has not come to America yet. Some one I remarked that the Italians in New York's East Side I manifest in short order at least one characteristic of I American civilization — when they want entertainment, I they hire a hall arid give a hall. But this is wandering beyond even the six miles of counters which the typical department store is supposed to have. Back to those six miles of counters and 650 feet I of glass show windows! The average department store, j beside the opportunity to get money value for anything I in the gamut of purchasing, from silks to molasses, and from nails to saddlery, offers to its patrons, free of all j charges, parlours where periodicals and writing materials ^may be had ; a children's nursery, where children may be I left with capable nurses, and entertained with the latest toys and a sand-pile (a perfectly splendid place for the ^ child to get whooping-cough and measles), while the jmother tours the bargain counters ; an emergency hospital jwith a trained nurse ; and always a free art exhibition, jsuch as it is, though sometimes a really noted canvas will i6o HOME LIFE IN AMERICA be on view. There are also sections which resemble the lobby of a hotel, with its tributaries of public telephone booths, telegraph offices, post-office quarters, and theatre tickets and manicuring " parlour " features. Just inside each of the main entrances to New York department stores the shopper discovers, in a conspicuous position, a flat wire basket filled with cards. Having com- plied with the printed invitation to take one, he finds himself provided with a miniature directory of the establish- ment. There are usually from 120 to 130 items in the directory, and as the card is scarcely larger than a woman's visiting card, it should prove all the guide, philosopher, and friend needed, through its compact information ; yet the majestic floor-walker does not seem to have been deprived of any of his prerogatives, and you see him as pompously condescending in his directions here as abroad. A large department store in Chicago has its aisles named as the streets of the town, which is mildly amusing, even to a native, and always courteously noted as " very interesting " by the visiting foreigner. Chicago department stores are larger, more numerous, and transact more business than do those of Eastern cities. But there is an air of naiveU about the Chicago depart- ment stores, no better illustrated, perhaps, than by an incident of the beginning of one of them. These mammoth enterprises do not, as a rule, ever emulate Topsy's un- authenticated growth ; they spring full-armed from some syndicate pocket-book, and when the doors of this fully equipped palace were opened for business, the first person to enter was a newsboy, a ten-year-old street arab — quick-witted, quick-footed, quick-eyed, electric with vitality — typical of his kind. He was seized upon as an omen of good luck by the management, rigged out in new apparel, complete to every detail, submitted to a hair-cut, given a purse containing some silver coin, and then escorted to the place he called home by three ladies in a carriage, all of SHOPS AND THE SHOPPERS i6i which he accepted philosophically with the remark, "Every- thing goes." The Bon Marche is supposed to have been the birth- place of this tremendously consequential system of composite shopkeeping by which, as some one has said, "it was calculated that a bewilderment of customers would result profitably ; " but America did not have to go out of this country for a prototype. For the department store of our cities is only a colossal expansion of the " general merchandise " store which was the centre of life, commercial and social, in our village communities. These country merchants had attained substantial glory, particularly in the Middle-West and West. The develop- ment of the prairies brought rich opportunity to the country merchant. He entered with the fore-front of the tide of emigration from our Eastern homes. He became post-master and " notary public " of the settlement. The " opera house " was in the second story of his store. He (was a provincial merchant prince. Then came the development of our great mail-order department store. To understand the attitude of the small shopkeepers towards the mail-order house, only a few facts concerning this new institution as it has worked out in the mercantile field of America are necessary. In the first place, 10,000,000 Americans shop by mail nowadays, and 1300,000,000 is spent in this way each year. There 'ire two great mail-order houses in Chicago, neither of which will sell a penny's worth to any one living within he city limits, who have no show-cases, and no travelling alesmen, but which represent a cross between a retail apartment store and a wholesale warehouse, with Uncle am's mail for the counters, and an enormous catalogue king the place of display windows, show cases, and array pf well-dressed clerks. Everything is done by mail ; Everything is done on a cash basis. One of these houses received over 18,000,000 letters M i62 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA last year, containing $77,000,000. The business was secured by 4,000,000 catalogues of 1400 pages each. Even the opening of the letters is done by machinery, or the mail could never be kept up with. In the words of the proprietor, they have sent '* talking machines to Persia, wagons to Jerusalem, and trousseaus to Con- stantinople," besides having filled orders for everything imaginable, from breakfast food to parlour furniture, among the 55,000,000 in America living outside our cities. As the firm is now allowed to buy pre-cancelled postage stamps, and fill its own mail-bags, the store is practically its own post-office. It may not be out of place in a book on American characteristics to mention the fact that the proprietor of this house at fourteen was sweeping up shavings in a cooper's shop for one shilling a day, and to-day has 6200 employees to do his bidding. His mail- order store, which began business over a livery stable, now occupies a building that covers a floor space of 50 acres. When a rural patron of one of these mail-order houses visits the cities, and presents himself at the enormous warehouse from which he has been doing his long-distance shopping, he is treated as an honoured guest, and, with a guide, inspects the system from A to Z. In one instance, "tickets to the tower," marked one shilling, are dis- tributed, and the mail constituent given a free ride in the lift, to a point where he can see the city spread in panorama. He cannot purchase anything until he goes back home to the country, but he feels himself a patron of a great establishment, and that he is given all the advantages of selection of any one of the city dwellers. Moreover, the house encourages correspondence from its patrons, and one proprietor in New York told me that they received long letters from lonely ranchers — one of whom made inquiry as to whether the firm could supply him with a wife — or from farmers' wives in serious consultation over purchases and plans. SHOPS AND THE SHOPPERS 163 So this postal commerce has become almost a national habit ; and who can wonder ? Think of the farmer's wife in North Dakota who can buy in New York, and know just as well what she is buying as if she could personally invade the shopping district — thanks to the persuasive eloquence of the mail-order house catalogue. One of these women explained, further, to me that these last year's catalogues — about ten times as voluminous as those from the Bon Marche — supplied her little girls with paper dolls and boys with amusement in reading the description of firearms, while her husband perused the harness and farm implement and fertilizer and poultry food depart- ment by the hour. Such points should not be overlooked in the advantages of the mail-order system. On the other hand, the goods are selected for country people, and the prices are made as low as the buying of immense quantities can force them, so it is often true that articles are sold there for less than the modest country merchants can buy them of his wholesale jobbing houses. And between the lure of buying from the city, and the slight economic advantage of buying by mail, even these articles which might have been purchased at the local store, the local shopkeepers become effectually snuffed. I In a newspaper of a Western town appears the following editorial on the citizens gone mad over mail-shopping : — j " When your baby died, did the mail-order house send j its sympathy ? When your crop failed, did it offer to carry you awhile ? When your daughter married, did it I send a present ? Has it helped build the churches, the school-houses, or the bridges of the community ? Stand by your home merchant, who has done all these things. Help home industries and home people." In anothern Western town a daily paper undertook a movement to compel home buying by publishing each day the names of shoppers who went or sent to a large city I i64 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA forty miles away. It was an heroic measure, since it naturally lost the subscriptions of all the accused ; but it gradually won back patronage, since, in a small community, a citizen cannot afford to have it advertised he is striking at the base of his neighbour's livelihood, even to advantage himself; and the shops of this town are now as well e quipped and prosperous as any but the first-water stores in European cities. Indeed, even with the mail-order rivalry at its keenest, the foreigner always remarks the size and variety of the shops in out-of-the-way towns in the United States. It is amazing to contrast the array of shops in an average American village main street with the paucity in moderate-sized towns of the beaten tourist track abroad. Some way or other — by mail order, by personal tour of bargain tables or by gossip-laden village shop — the American woman must shop. Shopping is a national characteristic. Nine out of every ten women who go abroad, go with shopping as a paramount inspiration, while even the exalted ones who would answer " art galleries " or " sight seeing " to the direct query as to objective points, have bargain tables as a distinct feature in the back-shop of their plans. Even the stout American who has Marienbad or Carlsbad as an objective point, looks beyond to Paris and Vienna shops, where she may effectively adorn the result of her heroic treatment. The utter amazement of the American woman when her foreign guest, who has " come out to see the States/' does not " hot foot " it for our shops, her own prime motive in travel, is very amusing. But the real sufferer from the constant expansion of the scope of department stores is the small shops in the city. This is particularly true in case of the gradual monopoly of the dry grocery trade by the department stores. It is estimated that the average grocery depart- ment in a large shop has a business equal to that of one \ COMMON OBJECT IN THE CUL NTRV ON HIS ROUNDS : THE TRAVELLING BUTCHER SHOPS AND THE SHOPPERS 165 hundred ordinary grocers doing an average business oi £iS per day. Some of the large stores, as in London, are even out- doing the little " greengrocer " in his line of perishable stock, in offering fresh vegetables and meats among their departments. One kind-hearted "greengrocer" loaned £1 to a neighbour in distress, and to whom he had already allowed £$ credit from his stock, and that night saw a department store wagon drive up to her house and deliver groceries bought at the large shop with the money she had borrowed from him. The department store as a labour-supply agency is potent. In the main shopping district of New York there are about thirty thousand girls and women employed in the dry goods and department stores, between two and three thousand being employed in each of the larger shops. And I believe in no other country do employers make such a conscientious effort to preserve the health, happiness, and character of their employees, as the proprietors of America's department stores. In one shop a school is maintained on one of the upper floors for the younger girls, who receive free tuition in the English branches during slack periods of the day and after hours, and promotion in the shop is based partly on the standing in this class-room work. In many department stores lunch-rooms are supported by the management, where healthful and nourishing food is provided the employees at prices which do not nearly cover its cost. "We figure on a loss of about ;£iooo a year in the lunch-room," one manager remarked, quite philosophically. A room is usually fitted up more or less adequately for an emergency hospital, and the doctor, who is paid an annual salary, must give the store calls prefer- ence over all others in his practice, and also hold office hours in the shop every day, when employees may come i66 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA to him for consultation with no charge except for medicines. There is a nurse in attendance. Many, though not all, of the large shops provide a recreation room for the women and girls employed, where there are plenty of comfortable easy chairs, a piano, books and magazines on the tables, and a waxed floor where they may dance or rest and chat when lunch is finished. This is not in those few exotic plants of labour considera- tion like the noted chocolate works in England, and of which we have a few counterparts in America, but rather a common feature in the ordinary department store in our large cities, where every inch of floor space could be turned to commercial advantage. Wealthier stores often maintain summer homes in the country for their girls, who have their vacation of two weeks arranged for them in relays, and they generally pay no board or a nominal sum to take away any sensitiveness over charity they might have. I know of one shop where the wife or daughters of the proprietor are on hand to welcome the sales girls as they arrive at the country home, which is not large enough to suggest an institution, but spacious enough to give every one a chance during the season. I know one large shop in New York where the women and girls are not permitted to leave by the employees' entrance at night, since it opens upon an alley infected with idle men loafing about, but are dismissed through the customers' entrance on to the well-lighted business street where the young girls' safety is assured. Another firm employs detectives to protect attractive young girls in their employ from the machinations of the so-called ** mashers" and young men about town. There is no offensive and defensive organization among shop assistants in America — trades unions not having the legal recognition here as in England — but there is generally a benefit association formed among the employees of each SHOPS AND THE SHOPPERS 167 shop, and the money collected under the fines system, which does prevail here, though, I think, a little more just in execution than in England, is almost always passed over to this employees' benefit fund. The Federal Government cannot, of course, legislate in matters governing the employment of the women and children except in places under federal control, as the district of Columbia, which holds the national capital, and the Territories ; but the States with large cities and large shops have passed laws along this line that are both rigid and comprehensive. The general proviso is that to be a regular clerk in a department shop a girl must be over sixteen, though cash-girls and messengers may be fourteen or fifteen. The employee under sixteen is not allowed by these laws to work more than fifty-four hours a week, or more than nine hours in one day, while, over sixteen, the work is sixty hours for a maximum of work in a week and ten hours in one day, except to make shorter some other day of the week. The shops almost universally close at half-past five in the afternoon, and from forty-five to sixty minutes is allowed for lunch. Work over-time during the rush of Christmas holiday season is permissible, provided there is extra payment. Moreover, New York's example in forming a Con- sumer's League, the work of public spirited and philan- thropic women, is being followed most effectually in other cities. This league drew up a sort of manifesto of the consideration sought for women and girls in the shops called " Standard of a Fair House," which required, among other things, that seats be supplied the sales-women, and "suitable, cleanly, and sanitary retiring-rooms must be provided " ; and while there was no black list published, the shops conforming received public commendation, and, by the process of elimination, the shops refusing the league's demands were known and boycotted. All of which would seem to indicate that the shop i68 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA assistant in New York has *' a place among the angels." But the reverse is almost as near the truth as with the English shop assistants still under the living-in system. Her wages are shamefully low. I believe the ordinary sales-woman receives from five to eight dollars a week, with seven dollars as an average, and the bundle wrappers and cash-girls get from los. to ;^i a week. The general statement from a shop will be that wages range from four to twenty dollars, according to the position occupied and the amount of responsibility assumed ; but the £4 represents what a leading cloak model or the head millinery sales-woman would receive, and the fact remains that mo'-e shop-girls get below eight dollars than above it. And unless the girl is living at home, the keeping of body and soul together on this in New York City is an almost unsolvable problem. There are boarding-houses where a furnished room may be had for los. a week, but this room is a mere box containing an iron bed, combination washstand and dresser, and one chair ; no heating apparatus but a burner on the gas-jet, upon which the girl may also do her cooking — provided the landlady has a cold in her head, or can be persuaded into believing that the aroma of cooking sausage is merely the result of the application of an over- hot curling-iron. But, at any rate, the remainder of the poor child's salary must be made to cover food, clothes, and car-fares. Charitable organizations have established several working- girls' homes, but the shop-girls are not happy there. To a self-respecting young woman, and above all an American young woman, who is working hard to earn her own way in the world, the attitude of patronage and the feeling that she is being partially supported by charity is intoler- able. Then there are endless rules and regulations. The assumption that she is by nature immoral is insulting and humiliating. SHOPS AND THE SHOPPERS 169 These places are cheap, clean, and comfortable, to all appearances ; but the American working-girl will endure privation rather than the institutional feeling. Something of the endless demand for cheap living accommodation for working-women was demonstrated by the rush that was made for rooms on a ship aged out of commission for active service, which two years ago lay at a dock at the foot of a New York business street, and through some philanthropist's zeal, the state-rooms were then opened to self-supporting girls. Here every girl who had a room was supposed to be self-respecting. No watcher was kept, no iron-clad rules were made, but every girl was upon her honour to conduct herself as she would in her own home. The experiment proved a most happy and successful one ; but the dock was needed for other vessels, and the ship was removed. It is frequently intimated that the young and pretty shop-girl need not, or is not expected to, live upon her salary. The story has been told about many a department store — hardly a prominent shop in New York or Chicago or Philadelphia or Boston has escaped — that pathetically romantic narrative of the beautiful, innocent, and homeless girl applying at the department store for employment, and being met with the offer of two dollars and a half or three dollars a week, a suggestive shrug, concluding with, " You have a gentlemen friend, of course ? " And a charity worker reports that when, in despair, she asked one of the well-known women of the city's disreputable quarters what could be done to save the young girls, she received the reply : " Raise their wages." There is, of course, always that pitiful connexion between starvation wages and the demoralization of girls ; but there is also the hard fact to face that it is not the girl on the lowest wages, but the young woman farther up the scale, where vanity can be only half gratified, who proves the moral weakling. And, considering the large I/O HOME LIFE IN AMERICA number of girls at work in every large American city as shop assistants, an excellent grade of morality is main- tained. In one instance a manager, acting upon these current insinuations, chose at hap-hazard a group of girls employed in his shop, and had their lives investigated and their goings and comings shadowed for a period, with the result that, out of 150, just two girls were found to be leading lives, as he put it, " slightly on the diagonal,'* but the offences were indiscretion, not criminality. I have wondered whether an investigation of any equally large group of girls taken from other walks of life could yield a better proportion. The shop-girl's life, even in free-and-easy and wealthy America, runs in a horribly pinched, exhausting groove to make any one with a scrap of sentiment regarding young womanhood groan in spirit. A knowledge of what goes on in one of those hall bedrooms — the after-hour existence of patching up cheap worn finery so dear to the girl heart ; the beating of numbed fingers to make holding the needle possible ; cowering the night through with the clothes worn in the day-time piled on the scanty bed covering ; or, in the heat of an American city summer, lying gasping across the same narrow bed, waiting for the scorching day to follow the sweltering night — this makes one look with over- whelming pity and not annoyance upon the pert con- descension, the exaggerated coiffetcr, and the inattention of the American shop-girl as she is remarked by all foreigners. That she can forget that hall bedroom, with its wash-bowl laundry and its gas-jet cooking, and rise to imagining herself the heroine of the romance she tells to her shop associates while the customer waits, is the wonder that generally — not always — burns the impatience from my heart. And as no good American is without belief in a home-grown Utopia, I have faith that, in time, we will pay our shop assistants better, and perhaps — Utopia of Utopias ! SHOPS AND THE SHOPPERS 171 — evolve a class of young womenhood at work who will instinctively serve a customer promptly and to the best of the resources she dispenses and not become perpetually immersed in the role of a Vere de Vere. Still, even in England, the realm, generally speaking, of flawless service, the supercilious sales-lady does occasionally appear. I have never beheld anything in America that equalled the grand manner of the " leading lady " in an exclusive cloak and suit house in London. I had entered with a friend who had joined me from Paris, and who logically stated her desire to get a rain- coat in London, because it rained more there, and " they naturally would be of better cut." We stated our modest mission, and the pompous floor-walker called " Miss Jane," and there swam toward us a vision in a black silk princess gown, toward the equal in fit of which I hopelessly held any fluttering ambition back. Miss Jane merely fluttered her eyelids as we pleaded our cause, and then swam away to return with a stereotyped rain-coat. She condescended to state the price as six guineas. "But they have them across the street for four guineas," began my tactless friend. " Ah, yes, at Blanks ! " softly and contemptuously con- ceded Miss Jane. "But then nobody buys there, you know. You will notice the lines," she was purring haughtily on ; but my friend simply would not know her place. "If you will watch, you will see people going in and out of Blank's all day, and I can assure you that they are not doing it for exercise, but for the purpose of buying," she snapped, in what I have no doubt she considered biting sarcasm. But Miss Jane's eyelids fluttered wearily. She smiled pityingly— " I see," she sighed, " of course if one wishes to be unsmart I " and she stroked the garment in question as if 1/2 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA it were the only thing in the landscape not too atomic to notice. And my friend bought the six-guinea coat. Perhaps the " Miss Janes " on both sides of the water are a distinct asset to the shops. Perhaps '* the fault is with ourselves," not with our stores — with the shoppers, instead of with the shops. At any rate, I have always contended that we Americans, at least, like to be impressed in our shopping by the exciting bargain element if possible ; but, if not, by superiority in the server. And the fact remains that, as a nation, we are devoted to shopping. CHAPTER VIII THE PEOPLE AT PLAY THE present British ambassador to the United States takes solitary walks out beyond Washington's out- skirts every afternoon, and Washington society, from automobile and victoria, glimpse the return of his spare, often mud-flecked figure, somewhat askance. The ambassador is a man great enough to preclude spoken criticism ; but the American mind is mildly puzzled over this purposeless stroll, when a game of cards, a venture in Wall Street, even a feasting, or a dash in a motor-car, or behind a record trotter on the Speedway, might be sub- stituted for play. If the American man discovers that he is putting on flesh too fast, and the physician prescribes systematic daily exercise in walking, he either disregards the advice as preposterous, or he does it in the grim spirit in which he would snatch the time to gargle his throat, were that treatment imperative. That more people in America know how to work than know how to play seems a national defect. Moreover, we may or may not take our pleasures sadly, as is the customary charge of one nation against another, but we certainly take them strenuously. Action is the essence of American play. We Americans, after the day's work is done, take our rest in further action, our relaxation in excitement. Mere idleness, the cessation of work alone, 173 174 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA opens up for the European, who has eyes to see and a mind to dream, a playground of infinite variety, and the apparently heavy and prosaic Teuton, sitting in his home or on the park bench, with his children crawling over him puppy-like, sitting down to his afternoon beer doing absolutely nothing, is playing in finding quiescent amuse- ment in his imagination. The Englishman is playing when he is strolling off alone for a daily constitutional, or sitting in his scrap of a garden, watching a bumble-bee blunder in and out of the flowers, or punting lazily on the river Sunday afternoons. But there is a general feeling with the masses in America that it is somehow feeble and unmanly to avail one's self of any such rehabilitation. American men and women take rest or purposeless exercise as a necessity, not as play. There is a general failure to perceive that there may be a very satisfactory return in the exercise of observation, in the practice of imagination, when we are not "done out," and relaxed from fatigue. Instead, we want sensational moments, in our work or in our diversions. We want what Miinsterburg has called a continual " optical captivation of the senses," or we are not amused. It would not be possible to convince an American that a man pottering about plants in his garden is playing more profitably than the admired pitcher on a local base-ball nine who strikes out three men in an inning. Amusement that requires merely the automatic effort of the senses is not play to an American. It must be something elaborate, and set apart from the rest of life, and is labelled "play," and almost always it must be something for which he has to pay. Play is not a soul-expanding process in America. The mental attitude towards play is that it must excite some of the senses or it is not play, so it comes that the theatre is the chief diversion for all classes in America. THE PEOPLE AT PLAY 175 Other nations give themselves up readily to playing the minute they cease the actual process of work. Stroll- ing, clinging to a strap in a crowded car or to an omnibus seat, talking to one's neighbour at a cafe table, or on a stool at a lunch counter — about all this there is an attitude of relaxation in other countries for those who perform the somnolent, mechanical labour of office and shop work, listlessly well. But not so in America. The same class in America has had the spirit of play suppressed before it became articulate by the seriousness with which the necessity of hustle and enterprise has been impressed. Diversions are an artificial mental seasoning. The American man thinks v/ork until it is crowded out of his mind by something more exciting. Work is the natural outlet for mind and body in America. The families who spend all day Sundays stretched on the grass in our parks ruminating are almost all foreigners born, or of still fresh alien lineage. Americans emphasize that on work one's very being depends, which is all well and good ; but only a few seem to understand that on play depends their well-being, and that is not good. As a nation, it may save us from the flippancy of middle age one finds abroad, but it means that we never get beyond the seriousness of our youth, into a rounded genial grasp on life. It is not a case of all work and no play, as our foreign critics often picture us, but of much work and the reaction of play of a high pitched, hysterical nature. There is no spirit of playtime in the nation's blood either to produce or appreciate such precious nonsense as that of Edward Lear. Our humour must be a roar, or we do not hear it. Our spirits are absorbed in work, and we do not go to play by easy stages. It takes a farce to coax us to take the jump. As a nation we are devoted to sports and games ; that is, we train our athletes marvellously well, but always 176 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA along lines of strenuous specialization, and we throng to sit on benches and scream ourselves hoarse over base- ball played by professional players who are paid as much for giving us for a few months the glow of vicarious athletes as a successful professional man will make in a year. But in America the real spirit of play — " that art," as some one has said, "of which games, even at their best, are only a crude and imperfect expression " — is unknown. This spirit of play we call " day-dreaming,'* or " thoughts wool-gathering/' and day-dreaming is deplored as leaving a mind untrained, if not diseased. This frees us from such picturesque dawdlers and dreamers as one sees in the cafes in Paris and about the German universities. But also we have as yet produced no Millais nor a Schiller. " Art is," as Zola once expressed it, " a corner of life seen through a temperament," but success and respectability are the natural enemies of temperament, and both are broadcast in America. " I wish," said a physician, '* that we Americans could realize that some men by birth and temperament are fit only for dreams ; some, by circumstances, fit only for action ; but that many more are normally composed, and in these the capacity for each exercise might, if it were permitted, serve to offset and refresh the other." At the suggestion that such a normal point of view might curtail the work of his profession, he added : " Yes. About three-fourths of my patients are people who have shipwrecked because they never learned to let body and mind play normally." Still, one reason why the lack of normal recreation does not more seriously affect the health of the general run of men in this country is that work itself is a source of indulgence, not a penance. '* Americans like to work, and because they have been well trained in methods of work they get perhaps more enjoyment than any other people, except the Japanese, out of the periods of play that work THE PEOPLE AT PLAY 177 itself affords. In work requiring mental initiative or action there are sure to be times of pure delight to the American business man." This springs partly from the consciousness of success in solving the problems on which one is engaged — and in America one has great opportunities with enough unsolved problems to go around — partly from the fact that here, along utilitarian lines, the American imagination awakes to action. Moreover, as has been pointed out by an American, "the attitude of genial congratulation and special affection which, in moments of successful work, one assumes toward one's self, holds a histrionic quality akin to play." Whatever the paucity of self-resource for diversion in America, however, the mechanism for amusement according to our ideal is here in abundance. Take Madison Square Garden in the heart of New York City. England has her Crystal Palace, Olympia, and Wonderland, while Athens has her famous Stadium, and other nations can show places where great crowds gather to see certain kinds of sports and pastimes ; but in her most famous sporting arena — the " Garden " — America has a building in which thousands have gathered, attracted by magnets involving the world's most noteworthy I performances, "both men and beasts." Beginning as merely a big, low-roofed amphitheatre, many and sensa- I tional were the contests held there in which speed, stamina, j skill, and science predominated — from international walk- j ing matches to professional glove fights, that particular form of gentlemanly sport in which America puts more money and interest than any other nation ; and when the modern building of the new Madison Square Garden was [constructed on the same site in 1890, the old amphitheatre plan was retained as the basis of its massive height ending in the slender figure of a gold Diana poised on one foot at the top of its spired tower. 178 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA In the present "Garden" such things have been offered as attractions as prize fights, six-day bicycle races, wrestling matches, fencing, broadsword combats, tugs-of-war, base- ball and inter-collegiate football games, horse shows, dog shows, cat shows, sportsman's shows, canoe races, swimming races, rifle shooting, pistol shooting, fly casting, automobile shows, cycle shows, female bicycle races, horse versus bicycle and horse versus man races, athletic games, short and long distance running matches, hippodrome chariot races, horse races, amateur boxing championships, poultry shows, motor-boat shows, live stock exhibitions, Gaelic football games, bicycle polo games, roller-skating races, lacrosse, billiard championships, and numerous benefits at which all the famous pugilists, wrestlers, and athletes have appeared. In fact, there isn't a branch of sport, either professional or amateur, except yachting and automobile racing, that has not been seen, either on a large or a small scale. The "Garden" — no New Yorker knows it by any other name — is said to be the most New Yorkish thing in that city. It is a compendium of the city's life in one volume. What London would be without St. Paul's, or Paris without the "Arc de Triumphe," said some one, "that is what New York would be without Madison Square Garden." The gilded " Diana," a tip-toe on top of it, is 365 feet above the ground. The amphitheatre is 300 feet long, 200 feet broad, and 8 feet high, and it seats 6000 people, and is lighted by 1000 incandescent lights. Besides the large amphitheatre, the building contains a large theatre where companies play all season and then there is a smaller hall where concerts are given. Incidentally, I understand that it cost ;^6oo,ooo and that it has never paid expenses, though its rental is ;^200 a night, and it receives ;^iooo daily guarantee for six days each fall, when the horse show fills a golden, glorious week. THE PEOPLE AT PLAY 179 The humorist annually makes game of the horse show because the people themselves are the show and the horses only an excuse. A social function and a fashion bazaar it surely is, with its circle of boxes in the garden filled with women dressed for the opera ; and the corridors of the large hotels, too, are a genuine part of the horse show, packed with out-of-town guests, who have come to see the people in town parade their horse-show frocks there for dinner or supper. But it was undoubtedly the " Garden," though the medium of the horse shows, which first gave the New York public a chance to learn what real saddle and carriage horses were like, how they should be ridden and driven, and the sort of equipages that real society should use on state occasions. And though the ! occasion may represent merely a style show to the outside, I New York's best sportsmen are interested in it, and the I exhibits each year grow more and more wonderful — the I parade of pedigreed horse-flesh as well as of pedigreed \ society. I And it is not only the society lights of New York who revel in the horse-show week. Every true New Yorker tries to get to the horse show, and round and round the " Garden " arena moves this pedestrian throng, jostling 1 and being jostled, never looking at the quadruped in the I ring, but frankly staring at the occupants of the boxes. Before a group of society people of more than usual note ] often there gathers a little knot of curious ones who have halted to inspect these personages of whom they have read either good or ill in the newspapers. One catches bits of conversation. Sometimes it is the male, and somewhat " horsey," comment on the good points of the women. " See that wonder in red ! Isn't she the prize filly, though ? '* " And watch the beauty with the blue feather whinney and neigh to that old Methuselah." Or the feminine observers ask each other, " Isn't that Mrs. Struggle-up ? " " Oh, no ; that is Miss Violet Van i8o HOME LIFE IN AMERICA Vanderpbve." And everybody feels as relieved as if an international treaty had been settled, and they move on, only to halt again before the box where a society leader has invited a prominent actor. America is warming up to the fact that actors and actresses are, many of them, interesting men and women, and socially eligible ; but the process is slow, and the crowd still stands gaping at an actor in a horse-show box, as though it would say with some awe and much curiosity : " Why, there's an actor ! " The occupants of the boxes pretend not to see that they are the subjects of inspection. Some of them succeed, but the rest must enjoy fidgeting, for they all appear the next night in yet more striking frocks, prepared to be stared at again. It is all charmingly vulgar and immensely amusing. About the only type of exhibition which does not take at the ** Garden " is the ** gentleman farmer show." It has been attempted several times, and flowers, shrubs, cattle, sheep-shearing, dairy-maids, and other rustic attractions are offered, but the public do not take to this sort of affair. We are not a rural people instinctively, and the pastoral makes no appeal as a sphere for livelihood or for play. But the sportsman's show is always a success. For this event the building becomes a great landscape, with all manner of wild places condensed into one medley. One year one end of the arena was a range of mountains with real trees and real streams of real water. The water turned two old-fashioned wheels, and then cascaded into a big lake in the centre. One end of the lake was thick with all manner of water-fowl, and in another part was a fish- hatchery, where trout went to school from the time of their birth to the day of readiness for a frying-pan diploma. The famous six-days' bicycle race takes place annually in the "Garden," and all night long the benches are crowded with enthusiasts watching the jaded riders pump- ing away on their pedals. At first these gruelling affairs THE PEOPLE AT PLAY i8i permitted one man to ride night and day for 142 hours, and the yellow journalists pictured them as going mad with fatigue ; but legislation finally put an end to that practice, and team races were inaugurated. Law also has barred professional pugilism from the " Garden " in recent years, so that these ghastly and savage contests are now surreptitiously executed in suburban fastnesses or in Western States of less stringent regulation. That they are maintained with undiminished popularity and betting and attendance, is a commentary not more on the national idea of sport than on the national penchant for the individual in play as well as in everything else. It is always the " star " in our theatres, always the individual in athletic competition ; the supporting company and the team work are always of secondary interest to the audience. But back to Hecuba ! The " Garden " does, however, still entertain every other form of athletes. Over a clay \ track, and on a floor covered with that material, all of this nation's great athletes have displayed their speed and skill, and several sensational international athletic meetings have been held in the famous arena, with the recent Dorando- Hayes Marathon race a fitting climax. And what a memory of versatile Madison Square Garden one who has been a child in New York has ! You 1 were taken there to the dog show, where you were deliciously frightened by a thousand dogs leaping and tugging at their chains ; you went then to the cat show, and to see the poultry show, where " the game-cocks and the feather-weight bantams challenge one another to mortal combat all day long in safety." Then every year the ring-masters of the " Greatest Show on Earth " crack their whips in the tan-bark circles under the " Garden's " roof, and the shelving sides of the great building are banked with children, young and old ; for the circus in America takes the place of the Christmas \ i82 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA pantomime in its perennial appeal to the youngster in us all. The " New Garden " includes, too, a famous roof-garden where the most extravagant and spectacular summer shows in the world are produced, and where real-life tragedy took a hand and made it the scene of the fatal shooting of the architect of this home of sport and pleasure. Just as it stands out in the mind of pleasure-hunting New Yorkers, so the " Garden " tower, with its glittering, airy apex, is a mark for the foreigner's eye in the silhouette of the city. An Englishman gives an impression alistic view of it. " There is one picture I shall never forget," he says. " It was at twilight, and the water was red and gold from the wonderful sunset reflection. The tall buildings and the angular outlines were beginning to be softened into blurred edges. Everywhere was the effect of ghosts of colour taking leave of a world of shadows. " As the ferry-boat veered a little, first to one side and then the other, you saw vignettes of buildings, and once, just for a moment, I caught the view of the Madison Square Garden tower, with its beautiful Diana. Venice never offered a more satisfying, exquisite picture than that in colour and form. Suddenly it was blotted out, but I was grateful for the moment. It was one of those impressions that you feel are life-long, and that you will recall perhaps years after at a chance word, or at the suggestion of similar effects perhaps a whole world apart." And one of our critics, commenting upon our futile hypocrisy in labelling " From Paris " all the theatrical attractions of a bold, brazen, or extra-salacious character, sees in the " Garden's " Diana a sinister symbol. " Paris is a wicked city, but New York is presided over by a golden woman who veers as a vane. The man who put her there said she was Diana the Chaste, typical of New York. In time, they came to call the roof beneath THE PEOPLE AT PLAY 183 her tower * Paris by Night/ and there she saw the man who had put her up as Diana lying slain beneath her because of a dancer. And she knew it was not * Paris by Night,' but the ' Heart of New York * ; and she knew she was not gold, but brazen ; and she knew she was not Diana, but Phryne — stark naked." But to emerge from symbolism to fact. Every city in the United States has a big roofed arena, after the pattern of the Madison Square Garden. In Chicago and St. Louis these great halls swing from horse-show head-quarters to auditorium for political conventions, for presidential nominations, with all the ease of " a bed by night, a chest of drawers by day." Denver's enormous auditorium, in which the Democratic National Convention of 1908 was held, has now a municipal theatre with a seating capacity of 3000 within its ample walls, and fairs and automobile shows alternate in this big steel and cement structure, with band concerts and campaign rallies, quite after the manner of its prototype, " The Garden." Somewhere in the books of Horace is recorded a criticism, where it is said that the Romans did not find much pleasure in going to hear fine plays, a beautiful oration or exquisite verse, preferring always to see a great spectacle, or, as we would describe it to-day, to see the " big show." Americans have that, at least, in common with the Romans. If you want to see a typical American audience, go to one of these " big shows," running for a season in the large cities, and touring the country in an undiminished popularity of week stands. Nothing could more eloquently demonstrate the helplessness of the ordinary American when withdrawn from his business, and confronted with the problem of amusing himself, than the vast patronage of these physically and mechanically spectacular exhi- bitions. For the " big show " with absolutely no plot or a weak thread, many degrees less discernible than the i84 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA frail story of legitimate light opera, with meretricious music and shabby humour, occasionally appears as a ''summer show" in the Strand theatres in London, but here it is the perennial Mecca the year round of all middle-class respectability. " I don't want to go to the theatre to think ; I want to be amused. The big show for mine ! " is a stock remark among our men, who otherwise go plodding along with their noses close to the grindstone of practical affairs. So while the problem play attracts smart audiences in the cities, who go, many of them, be it said, in that Puritan spirit of unconscious hypocrisy, that they may later soar to the summit of all righteousness in denouncing what they have really enjoyed ; while the rural play and the dis- tinctly American play of heart interest seldom give managers uneasiness as to a permanent clientele ; while frank .melodrama of the *' Edna, the Pretty Type-writer, or Death before Dishonour " type, forever hold that part of the city and the country where emotions are untarnished of conventions, and the craving for romance untrammelled by sordid intrusion of fact ; still the " big shows," with their thousands of flexible dancing-girls with shrill voices and exquisite figures, thousands of capering effeminate young men, their wonderful effects of scenery and light, their clumsy feeble buffoonery of the inevitable broad comedy parts — these are the preferred theatre attractions with the mass of American people. The audiences are not fashionable, but with every evidence of material success, and, strange to say, with a fair proportion of men. These " big-show " devotees do not correspond to the middle class abroad, because the class that would there correspond to them socially, would be of a thriftiness and frugality, or too much in accord with artistic aspirations towards good music, to squander their money on specta- cular nonsense, while the comparatively sporadic cases THE PEOPLE AT PLAY 185 of middle-class wealth abroad would be struggling to imitate the aristocrats, and shunning the bourgeoisie in entertainment. But here in America we have the great representative class of wealthy bourgeoisie — the natural outcome of the tremendous prosperity of a new nation — and to them the spectacular display of coloured lights and ; cheap music and gorgeous costumes strike a true and ' congruous note of entertainment, with the all-night restaurant and underground grill-room as a climax to ! their respectable dissipation. They are dressed like rich people who are anxious that ' every one should know they are rich. Yet there is a I certain air of earnestness about them, even as pleasure ] seekers, which turns the edge of vulgarity as applied to I them. They are earnestly seeking, as only an American ', can, to be unthinkingly and ostentatiously amused. Cheer- I fulness, or rather the pursuit of cheerfulness, that is perhaps ] slightly exaggerated to counteract the native sombreness ( of a toil-like existence, being a particular feature of ; American pleasure. I A foreigner entering any one of these after-theatre I cafds and grill-rooms for the first time, might suppose j from the free-and-easy attitudes they assume that the women were declasse ; but there is no ground for this when we quite understand that effort at gaiety in I America is universal. 1 One foreigner, however, on taking observation in a certain crowded grill-room in one of our large cities, subtly fathomed the innocence of our smart bourgeoisie. He said : " They have all the appearance of what we might call the gay rich ; not the aristocrats, however. In Europe, rich people do not care for ostentation, and they do not spend much money in restaurants. This place is another evidence of American optimism and greed for pleasure, and more money than they know what to do with. In i86 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA Europe, we should not care to be crowded together for supper underground. "Although there aregrill-rooms underground in Europe, they are not very popular yet. I should judge, from the appearance of these people, that they belong to middle- class lawyers, doctors, merchants, and so on. In Europe, you don't find the middle class in a midnight restaurant. They demand more of their hours of relaxation than those who have evidently money to squander at will ; but among this class they would be pleasure seekers in a normal way in the daytime." America is at heart so moral and so terribly business- like that there is no effort made to avoid the distinction of appearance between the moral and the immoral in pleasure seeking. The American middle-class woman who has attended a performance of a " big show " with her husband is so steeped in domesticity and vanity that she wears her glaring finery and exaggerated millinery with a bravado that courts misconstruing glances. And there is an air of provincial gaiety about our other resorts of forced respectability and mingled wanton- ness when we try to ape the Moulin Rouge or the Folies B^rgere. The attempted replicas of these in every large American city have nothing gay or excusable about them, and are so crude as to shock the foreigner from nations who adorn their motives, of whatever degree of baseness, with some subtlety of outward grace. But just as aimless excitement and cheap sensationalism in amusement is sought by our unlimited middle class as a natural outlet for a people in whose serious natures the impulse to play does not lie, so in the crudity and dullness of all risque attractions in our cities lies the tempera- mental bias that withholds from us that certain quality of intelligent imagination outwardly expressed that is a necessity for the European, no matter what form of pleasure he is seeking. It all comes back to the fact that THE PEOPLE AT PLAY 187 we are too 'moral and too ingenuous to attain an artistic gloss, be it of art or vice. During the summer months the " big show," no less spectacular, no less elaborate of mechanical wizardry or caste and costume, is transferred to our roof-garden theatres, or to the theatres which supplement the attrac- tions at our more famed seashore resorts, and an English- man has remarked in regard to this feature of our amusement : " The French shows are a bubble of champagne and a wink. The German biergartens are a stein and a roar. The English music-halls are tuppeny ale and chuckles. But the New York roof-garden musical performance twinkles and roars and chuckles and laughs from start to finish — with any and all the drinks you want." This is amusement par excellence in America. Of course we have our vaudeville (pronounced "vodeveal"), and the attractions presented at "polite vaudeville " houses are fearfully and wonderfully com- pounded of Parisian cafe charmante features, Hagenbeck specialities, and cross sections of pantomime play with tabloid drama or operetta — "animals and danger and women," as Professor Ferrero has succinctly described the Roman spectacles. Vaudeville is censored as no other amusement field in America. It is considered essentially the people's and the family theatre. It is said that " any young girl can take her mother there with perfect propriety." The management urges that any line or feature offen- sive to the most scrupulous shall be reported to them for instant elimination. And this is not the empty courtesy of the photographer who insists that you shall " pose until perfectly satisfied," and then jerks your head and twitches your draperies vengefully if you present yourself for a second sitting. On the contrary, I know of several instances where a vaudeville act has been cheerfully i88 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA expurgated or even removed on the objection offered by a single person in the audience. A French ballad-singer, after a tour of this country, has announced her disappointment in our "gross public," who enjoy negro minstrels much more than they did her quaint songs of the eighteenth century. That a clever artist, as she surely was, very subtle, full of ironical shadings, full of low-toned almost imperceptible meaning, delicate, civilized in the most ultra-French way, should go over and beyond the head of most good American citizens was inevitable. She was at once too small to hit hard the human heart of things in the American public. f But, on the other hand, it is no disgrace to the public to like negro minstrels. It would, on the contrary, be a disgrace, or rather a limitation, for the American public not to feel the genuine comedy quality, the whimsical pathos of the humour of the negro histrion, and to cultivate and imitate it as an asset in our national amusements. Perhaps the most native and spontaneous, certainly one of the most delicious qualities that we have in expression in America, is the negro quality in temperament, song, droll comedy, amusing psychology, and inspiring good humour. Of course there are many spurious negro minstrel shows on the American stage ; shows where burnt-cork make-up is made to cover atrocities against taste and histrionic ability ; but a real " minstrel show," be the actors genuine Ethiops, or clever imitators, with their plantation songs, their wonderful "wing and buck" and "cake-walk" dances, and the charm of the " coon " humour of antic and dialect — it is no disgrace for the American public to respond to that. And it does. And the packed audiences are curiously middle-aged and sedate, with groups of old men who applaud and whistle the refrains with all the abandon of young " gallery gods."J Light opera has to be very light indeed to attain wide 1 THE PEOPLE AT PLAY 189 popularity in the United States, and a splendour of staging or spiciness of libretto must compensate for the presence of either plot or complicated score, or it does not go at ail. We call it " comic opera " and " musical comedy," and cut the pattern to verge as close as possible to the voluminous specialities of the "big show," before we find it fully acceptable. As for grand opera there is a growing appreciation, due to the infusion of music-loving, understanding blood ; but to the majority of Americans, music, in its deeper expression, is a closed book. New York is gaining the name of being the centre of music-loving people. To her across the ocean come the best artists of all nations. And yet I really believe, in the last analysis, grand opera means about as much as a new style or a course in beauty treatment to the average New Yorker. In the highest-priced seats of the biggest opera house scores of women sit, not listening but posing or preening. Whatever expression there is in their faces speaks of self-satisfaction and self-appreciation and absolute security that they are doing a smart thing properly. If they have any doubt, they have only to cast their eyes to the boxes, and in the jewel-laden, stiffly-posed patrons-in- chief of the grand opera movement in America, have the woodenness of their posing confirmed. An Englishman said of the Metropolitan Opera House — " I am convinced that there cannot be in all the world, within a given space, so much stiffness, posing, and attempt at posing as is noticeable in the otherwise delightful opera house. In other opera houses, American and European, one hears too much chattering, observes too much anima- tion, and wishes one's neighbour would keep quiet about the * story of the opera.' But in the orchestra and boxes of the Metropolitan it is a relief to hear a natural remark such as I heard the other night toward the end of ' La Traviata.' Said a young woman behind me concerning 190 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA Sembrich as the dying Violetta, ' Well, she certainly is a good dier ! ' " Covent Garden Opera House, so near the renowned market ** where they sell at wholesale and retail Brussels sprouts and turnip tops," and with its cold British audiences has yet an air of properly housing and welcoming the wonderful music. The English may not be easily moved, but they know a great moment, even when it may not be in the star's role, and they applaud discriminatingly. The New Yorker at grand opera has an air of commercial appreciation which says : " We are hearing the most expensive artists in the world, and we are quite willing to applaud when the great artists appear and we are sure we are getting our money's worth." And we are so solemn about it ! Going to grand opera is a rite, not a festivity. In comparison with the temperamental passion of an opera audience in Berlin we look, as some one has said, *4ike a grand jury going to dinner." A witty observer puts it : " The Englishwoman trailing her lace gown over the walk along the * Row ' for effect in vanity on parade, and the Paris woman in the Bois de Boulogne holding hers up for effect, present a deliciously funny phase of national posing ; but for posing in the stiffest and most unnatural ways the prize must go to occupants of the boxes and orchestra chairs at grand opera in America." If animation and vivacity are leading characteristics of American women, then it would seem as if one did not see typical American women at the opera. Perhaps they sit in the balcony and gallery ; but the casual observer will never find any softened, " carried away," or fiery apprecia- tive expression at opera in America. The next morning he will find a few lines reviewing the work of the leading artists who appeared in the piece, and three columns of descriptive work on the costumes of " society leaders and others." THE PEOPLE AT PLAY 191 The foreign grand opera stars of late years have given performances in Chicago, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington ; but it is only New York that has a sustained regular " season " of opera. And all efforts to tour the country with secondary opera stars and companies have met with disaster. We are not sure enough of our actual ability to risk being deceived ; and with no hungering for heavy music anyway, we refuse to consider as seriously diverting any but the highest priced. Who shall say we are not discriminating in our art in America ? CHAPTER IX LIFE AT WASHINGTON AMERICAN cities have each their pet boast. San Francisco used to shout confidentially of its wicked- ness, like a callow youth trying to impress a stranger as a man-of-the-world ; whoever meets a Chicagoan endures a review of its "most wonderful stories in the world " ; the pride of a Bostonian in belonging to the nobility of Massachusetts and in being cultured is without limit ; New York is really smiling smugly, for all its yellow press exposures, over the " smartness " and antics of its millionaire society ; Philadelphia talks '' old families " and *' first families," until you wonder whether Willian Penn wasn't another name for Adam, 'and the town he founded the original Garden of Eden ; but the only city with a feature of national vaunting is Washington. The cosmopolitan flavour of Washington society and the impressiveness of official hospitality at the national capital is a subject of awed pride from one end of the continent to the other. Every farmer and every school teacher has as an ambition — the saving of enough money to take a trip to Washington and " see how they do it " there. It is almost a case of see Rome and die. But Washington is really like one of those reversible dolls, the freak of the nursery — a flirt of the skirts, a general topsy-turvy of her dollship, and a different head and costume stand demurely forth. 192 LIFE AT WASHINGTON 193 In the winter Washington is a city of society and politics, and, prcsterea nihil, for the rest of the year it takes on the air of a cross between a deserted village and a rather sleepy Southern town. In the winter season Washington has quite the air of a European capital. There is the great cardboard exchange , of the Diplomatic Corps and officials circles that fills the I streets day after day with every sort of smart calling conveyance ; from two or three houses in every part of the fashionable quarter an awning stretched from curb to entrance announces a more formal reception in progress ; . the millionaire colony give one lavish entertainment after I another. In the mornings the tide of brougham and motor- ( car turns to the Capitol when any exciting phase of legisla- ' tion is promised, and the reserved sections of the diplomatic I and senatorial galleries are as packed on these occasions as ( the great public galleries, where white and black citizenship I illustrate nobly the XVth amendment of our Constitution ; \ the White House glows with functions of more or less I formality almost every night ; the theatres call their crowds in the early part of the night ; and the hotel supper-room bridges the festivity over until the next day — Washington is doing her, best to make Uncle Sam appear a very gay gentleman and host. But as Paris still speaks of royalty playing at Republicanism, so Washington society, striving for a Continental flavour, betrays funny little lapses into democratic crudity. But more of that later. J The fact remains that, once the winter season is over, j Washington as a city is dead. The official world boards up its doors and windows ; the hotels put their furnishings in linen overalls and moth balls and do the chandeliers up in mosquito-bar. The cosmopolitan atmosphere is drawn out as in a forced draught after the "Presidential Special," bearing the chief executive out of the Union Station to his summer home, and the departing trains filled with ] diplomats, cabinet officers, senators, and Congressmen and o 194 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA their families, and the Capitol becomes a small town — a town more southern than northern in its leisurely tenor of life — made up of Government clerks, small shopkeepers, and the negroes. It is as different from the winter and official Washington as the beaming black face and red bandana of one end of the transformation doll, as it is usually made in America, is from the white grande dame at the other. Of course all national capitals have their light and shade of the various quarters and their gay and quiet seasons, socially speaking ; but in London and the other foreign capitals the main character of the city survives, at least to the casual observer, even after society's flight ; the business traffic roars on, the hotels buzz and blare with tourists, the great shops are filled, and the theatres offer spectacular attractions. ' But the European capitals have grown up gradually and naturally. They are not only the seats of government, but great cities where commerce, art, and literature have long flourished, while our American capital, like our Federal Constitution, was " made to order." Washington came into existence with the placing of the Capitol and Government buildings, and, having been created for the special purpose of housing the nation's government, it has kept within the circumscribed lines of that mission, and the social game with its political background forms the business of life in Washington. J There are no large commercial interests, the absence of trade leaving the streets comparatively free from heavy trucks and wagons ; there is practically a dearth of art galleries, museums, and musical opportunities. There are one or two writers of note living in Washington, but no literary coterie worthy the name, so that politics and social intercourse — always important in a capital — are especially so in Washington, since there is so much less to distract than in the great European cities. In a " nation of shopkeepers " here we have a city where there is no LIFE AT WASHINGTON 195 haste and pressure of a commercial scramble for the daily bread. It has been called "a city of leisure and authority," though perhaps leisure is no more literally applicable than the declaration of the wife of a cabinet officer that, after living in the political maelstrom in Washington, life in any other part of the United States looked like a simple problem of " bread-and-butter and love." It does present the anomaly of America not engaged in making its living or its fortune. Leisure from business does exist for the majority who come to Washington for the winter season ; but being, as a nation, vastly uneasy, with leisure on our hands, we turn all our energy to the social conventions and a system of calling, with the result ' that our social life at the capital is of obvious manufacture, exacting as great expenditures of time and strength and hustle as a business career elsewhere. In Washington we literally make a business of society, and hospitality has a commercial flavour instead of the poise and habituated I ease of social intercourse in other capitals. For instance, all personal visits must be paid in person. The sending of cards in place of a call, except in an emergency, is a great breach. There is, let us hope, no city of the same size in the j world in any part where the making of personal calls is I carried on such an immense scale. In the splendid ' courage and vigour of our youth as a nation we are trying j to do what people in Europe, and even in our own com- \ mercial metropolis, New York, have decided cannot be done. We are trying to graft the conventions of society upon the literal genuineness of a simple democratic regime, and so scorn the form of a phantom call by the proxy of a card mailed or delivered without query for the hostess. But, as a demonstration of genuineness, these calls of a few seconds on a hostess, who couldn't recall your name nor recognize you two minutes later, are as farcical as they 196 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA are exhausting. Think of the social programme of a Congressman's wife newly come to Washington. As a new-comer — for in Washington the usual social code is inverted to make the first call incumbent upon the new- comer to the older resident — she must, in the short winter season, call upon the wife of every other representative — the appointment of the last census makes the number of representatives 386 — upon the wives of the senators — the full number of the senate is 90, and upon the wives of the cabinet officers. The calling upon all ambassadors and ministers and at the homes of the justices of the supreme court was formerly included in the social campaign of the Congressman's wife ; but now, perhaps to a happy dis- pensation for both contingents, this is omitted. Now the men who go to Washington as representatives are fair specimens from the products of the whole country, which means, notwithstanding the Continental cry of cor- ruption in politics, and excluding the small coteries of rich and cultured who have managed to slip into Congress despite a general prejudice against them at the local polls, that the majority of Congressmen are conscientious, steady- going individuals, some of the most provincial-looking being men of marked ability, and their wives are often their equals, occasionally their superiors, but very generally the result of an early marriage and a struggling up together. Contrary to the English custom, the election of man to the national legislature pronounces his wife, regardless of other specifications, an element in the social life at the capital. The average American woman knows as much about politics as she does about Babylonian literature ; but in America, with woman never a negligible quantity, she must share the life politics brings to her husband and take her place in the social life in Washington, even when she is in no wise fitted for it, and when the call of the uncom- plicated life before " John took to politics " is upon her. LIFE AT WASHINGTON 197 A society composed of wives of the members of the House of Commons, or of the families of the members of the Chamber de Deputes, would develop a strange and totally impossible consorting ; but whoever hears of the wives of the members of the lower legislative house in either capital ? The Congressional Circle for the exploitation of the wives of representatives is a distinct exponent of our republican court, and also expresses the American man's estimate of woman as the socially " show-off" member of the family. Another curious phase of life at the capital is, that while society is not the hand-maiden of politics as in England, yet society — even that of the wealthy and our foreign guests — is based upon and regulated by the presence of Congress. It really is not Lent but the sessions of Congress that foreclose the social season. Yet the leaders of society are seldom allied to the political circles — it was only under President Roosevelt's administration that the White House assumed a social arbitership to any degree — and the Congressional Circle, numerically the largest in Washington's social life, is the one of no formative power or prestige, though it is the basis of society. There are those who maintain that the Congressman's wife is a decidedly passive element in Washington society of late, and that the growth of the importance of the Diplomatic Corps and the development of a smart set has relegated her to a social reservation of her own, even as the Indian's liberty is bounded by the government reservation ; but while undoubtedly the more exclusive entertainments pass her by, Mrs. Congressman and her calls form a very important feature on the social land- scape. Sometimes she is a very humbly born lady, weighted into premature age and self-effacement by the overwhelm- ing desire to be " a good mother to John's children " — the backbone of the country, but not exactly in training for 198 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA exposure in society. She travels perhaps thousands of miles to transport her little brood to Washington, where her nebulous conception of politics gives her little idea why John has transferred his business. Besides the problem of getting a home which will meet the family requirements and income, putting the children in schools, and engaging servants in the strange city, she has im- pressed upon her the all-important function of a Congress- man's wife's calls. So this new Congressman's wife starts out, her card- case in her hand, probably four days in the week, and between three and six o'clock she makes a round of calls on total strangers, before whom she stands for a second after her name has been announced or she has explained it and her husband's political affiliations ; she is then involuntarily urged forward by the steady stream of other callers, and she may or may not linger for a moment or two beside the refreshment-table ; but, at all events, within ten minutes from entering she is at the outer door again, and wishing very much that John had not gone into politics. I heard three of these congressional wives, tossed by hazard together in a human jam at a Cabinet home, reaching out the tendril of friendship. They looked extremely uncomfortable, and were not versed in society chit-chat, but every syllable spoke of a yearning for the home for which Washington was a mocking substitute, in such an intensely American and pathetically loyal spirit, that I consider it absolutely typical. " I'm from Missouri — from Kansas City. Yes, it is a pleasant city," a first vouchsafed, on an encouraging smile from one of the others. " It has the finest system of bully- vards in the world." " I reckon it's mighty fine out there in the West," concurred a second ; " but I'm from Georgia and the best people in the South — we all are the greatest hands to stay at home. I declar', it seems so strange to be among LIFE AT WASHINGTON 199 strangers. Yes'm, the first families of Georgia are certainly the most clannish folks in the world/' she drawled con- clusively. "Then you've never been in North Dakota, either of you, have you } " contributed the third. " We do have the most wonderful mud I mean," she added as the others started, " for wheat raising, you know. Why, that mud out in Dakota'U raise more wheat to the square inch than " But the wedge in front of them parted, and, recalling duty, they hurried off to the next call. The newsboy who takes his daily stand at the door of the wing of the Capitol where Congress sits, and bawls, " Here you are, gents, all the poipers from your home town," has a large patronage from the Congressmen, who snatch the home sheet and greedily devour the local political news to find whether a rival candidate has arisen, and to take the pulse of their constituency that they may formulate the Washington course accordingly. But the wives of these representatives will have the home papers sent to them for the sole purpose of reading the death and birth and marriage notices, and sigh over this connecting link with the old life from which their husband's political career has lifted them. The winter season at the capital is a great tax on the obscure Congressman's wife. She comes into the glare of a social life she has never dreamed of, and that she acquits herself as well as she does is remarkable. One sees them going about the social round with the cheering subjectivity, " If this be society, make the most of it," reflected in their faces. And at one of the large receptions at the White House a Congressman's wife became so agitated as she approached the President and his receiving line that she passed through snivelling audibly. But these are the inevitable details of a republican court. On the other hand, there is a considerable number of the women in the so-called " Congressional Circle " to 200 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA whom the experience outside the family circle is not altogether new, and who quickly mould their talents to the sinuosities of society at the capital ; women young, strong, social in their tastes, and possessed of leisure, to whom this visiting on a large scale becomes a business which they accomplish with " neatness and dispatch," if not enthusiasm. The adaptability of the American woman is nowhere better illustrated, since often a woman who would rather have gone to the electrical chair than on her first round of official calls will evolve, in a few seasons in Washington, into a well-turned product of social grace. But how a Congressman's wife works out her economic salvation must indeed command admiration. The salary paid a national representative is ;^I500, and not more than a third of the House members have means outside of this. There are a few Congressmen who have made money in business, and who have a large income on which to live in Washington. Then there are, of course, the rising politicians who have married fortunes ; but, as a rule, the Congressmen are entirely dependent on their salaries. To be sure, even that is vastly more than the majority have ever earned before, since the United States Congress is largely recruited from lawyers of moderate practice, doctors, and newspapermen ; but on the government salary the old home out in his district must be maintained, even when he and his family are in Washington, lest his constituents convict him of transferring his allegiance to the capital, and cease to give his name a prominent place in the papers at the next election ; and while his own travelling expenses to and from the congressional sessions are covered by a mileage allowance, the railroad fare of his family — often a heavy item when the width of the continent is between the district he represents and the capital where he does his representing — must be paid, and there is, above all, the living in Washington and the entertaining which his position there necessitates. LIFE AT WASHINGTON 201 Of course there are extreme cases of the way a Congressman may manage his Washington living. One of them, with a small income beyond his government salary and a socially ambitious wife, whose idea of being in Washington society was to live at a large hotel and trail expensive gowns up and down the restaurant corridor, told me, laughingly, that he always handed his salary check over to the hotel clerk, and asked to be notified of the deficit between it and his monthly account. On the other hand, it is possible for members of Congress to go through their term without letting anybody know where they live. They can economize ; they can take small houses in back streets ; they need not have reception days ; and they can live as quietly as they do at home. Tradition even tells of a Congressman and his wife who boarded in an obscure I part of the city, and succeeded in living within the ;^240 allowance for clerk hire which is a congressional perquisite, and saved his entire salary for the years of his public \ service. But, as a rule, a Congressman wants to live in style befitting the dignity of his office, as he conceives it to be, and this problem of living is a hard one for the average Congressman's wife. The cost of everything in Washington is inflated, because of the emergency demand during the congressional season. She finds that a furnished house in the desirable part of the town, even if it be of most moderate size, rents for £^0 to £^0 a month, and fuel and lighting must of course be adided ; the renting and furnishing of an empty house can hardly be thought of in view of the uncertain tenure of her husband's office — with a term of only two years a Congressman must turn from one successful election immediately to face the possibility of [defeat at the next, for few districts in the United States are stable — while an attempt to take a family to live at the large hotel is bankruptcy for the Congressman dependent on his salary, and apartments of six rooms average ;£"20 a month. 202 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA The cost of maintaining the table for even a small family can hardly fall below ;^I5 a month, with the market man's eye upon congressional patronage as an easy prey ; and with entertaining, not only that demanded by the reciprocity of invitations in the Washington circle, but all that is expected by the visiting constituents who never do fail to look up "our Congressman," this is easily raised to ;^30. There must be two or three servants when probably one had been ample in the home town, or perhaps, if the Congressman has come from a district where "help" is scarce, or from particularly straitened circumstances, the wife has been in the habit of " doing her own work," and the Washington outfit of servants will hardly cost less than £g a month, even when coloured, for the servant problem is demoralized at the capital by the fact that this transient political influx will pay almost any price for even inferior service, since it is " anything to get through the season." Then there is the wife's wardrobe, which seldom fails to be an ascending budget as she realizes the social demands of her Washington life and sees the other women's frocks. The bill for cab-hire to attend dinners and receptions, and to help madam through the labyrinth of those official calls, mounts up with the discouraging persistency of a taxi- meter. The children may be put in public school, but more often than not the grades do not coincide with the schools " out home," and private tutoring or tuition in a private school is added to the family expenses. A very cursory survey of these figures would seem to mark the Congressman's household for an algebraic state- ment of income at the end of a Washington season. But such is seldom the case. The wife trains herself to an economy and management that is surprising. The requirements of their position in Washington make the disposition of the family income a problem, whereas before it had been a game without rules in her typically American household, and the " keeping up appearances " without LIFE AT WASHINGTON 203 incurring debt, on the part of the Congressman's wife is perhaps to be weighed against the sweeping statement of woman's negative position in our politics. There has been a recent growth of less expensive family hotels as a feature in Washington life to accom- modate the congressional families. At one of these there were, last season, over seventy guests writing " Honourable " before their husband's names. Their wives received their callers together, and shared the expense of such afternoon's entertainment, and incidentally simplified matters for any one making the Washington round of calls. But I have often thought these afternoon receptions must be rather an astounding sight to the foreigner, who not unnaturally expects to find, at the American capital, something of the court life he has been accustomed to. Entering the hotel on one of these congressional days at home, you are conducted without question up to a mezzanine balcony above the office floor. Just outside i the door of this is a long table, covered with small baskets of every description, each tagged with the name of a Congressman's wife, and in these you deposit your visiting- cards under the surveillance of a terribly serious " buttons." Then a coloured announcer takes you in tow, and you find ' that around the balcony are ranged the seventy hostesses, making an almost closed circle about the court. The matter of precedence in the receiving-line is based on the i congressional husband's length of service in the House. an alcove at one end a refreshment-table is placed, generally presided over by the daughters in this immense congressional family, while it is not an uncommon sight to find a " mammie " nurse with her charges viewing the \ scene from a doorway or corner, and you may occasionally trip over a youngster who, bolder than the rest, has decided j to mingle with the guests. At times a father, facetiously j and proudly inclined, passes down the line, presenting an j infant in arms to the hostesses. All this gives an air of In 1 204 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA "homey" interior, and denies, somewhat humorously, the business-like attempt at social dignity with which your call is dispatched. The coloured announcer bellows (there is no other word) your name at the head of the receiving-line, and you are off! After the start, you are passed on by name from hostess to hostess, and it is a wise caller who recognizes her own name as it is repeated by the last in the circle, for it is like the havoc wrought to the whispered words in the child's game of " gossip." But you may not stop to explain your name or the weather, for the line of callers moves as on an esculator, and you must go with it ; on and on, until, looking back on the advancing line, and the glimpses of the stationary line of congressional hostesses back of it, you feel your vision as confused as if you were one of the figures in a whirling kaleidoscope of childhood's days. But you come away feeling that you have met seventy women to whom their part in the Washington social world is a serious matter, and who are as conscientiously doing their part as the congressional husbands whose eloquence is winding its periodic way about the legislative halls in the capital. But is there any other capital in the world where the political world is given quite this domestic-social turn ? The economic quandary of the senator coming to Washington would be worse than in the representative's family, since the salary is the same, and a great deal more is expected of a senator in the way of entertainment and liberality because of his higher social ranking ; but, now- adays few senators are without a large private income. How hard sledding it would otherwise be is illustrated by the case of a certain senator, recognized as one of the strongest men mentally in the Senate, and yet a poor man among his wealthy colleagues. He pays £600 a year for a residence in Washington, which is not nearly so com- fortable or so elegant as that in which he lives in his small home city of the Middle-west. His servants cost ^120 a LIFE AT WASHINGTON 205 year. He is compelled to keep a horse and carriage, which cost ;^ioo. Last year he paid ;6^8o in chanty. Most of it was spent for railroad tickets to send home citizens of his own state who were stranded in Washington, and knew no other person to whom they could appeal. In the first year of a new administration the number of these ; demands upon senators and representatives is unusually large, because of the presence of so many disappointed office-seekers. The senator gave ;^ioo as a campaign I contribution to the treasury of his party, and his house- ; hold bills were only just covered by the remaining ' £SOO of his salary. He was compelled to borrow £$0 to I pay his travelling expenses while he was " stumping " his ' state for the benefit of the Presidential candidate of his ! party. Some one suggested that a man of his intellect < could afford to live less expensively and trust to his real value I for prestige ; but the rejoinder to this was to the point and I true : " A man may be powerful and learned, but in these \ days, when the United States is taking conventionalities I and society as a serious matter, a statesman cannot live in I a tub like Diogenes, nor in a cave like the Delphic oracle." I A senator's wife receives her friends every Thursday j afternoon during the season, and any one stirred by patriotic or inquisitive reasons may call. Sometimes she 1 invites the wives of the representatives from her state, or 1 the wives of constituents who are visiting, to assist her. It is expected that she will serve a cup of tea, a sandwich, a salad, or a croquette, ice-cream and cakes, salted almonds, and other confectionery, and she must provide for at least 200 people. This will cost from ;£"io to ;£"20, and must be repeated five or six times during the season. While such entertainment is not imperative, it is one of the unwritten laws of official society. There are, of course, a few senatorial families who do not appear in Washington society because they simply cannot afford it. They have children to educate, and, their 2o6 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA means being limited, they are obliged to deny themselves these privileges and pleasures for their constituents ; but their usefulness is thereby impaired. "They don't last long in office," remarked a politician, " for the constituent who isn't asked to dinner in Washington, and with dis- tinguished people invited to meet him too, will turn down his thumb on that senator's return." The wife of a senator may receive in the parlour of a boarding-house, but the majority of her husband's con- stituents will go home with unfavourable reports of her social position and the penuriousness of her husband. People like to have their senators and representatives live as well as those from other states. Jeffersonian simplicity is a beautiful thing in theory, but not in practice. We love to read about the able men of our early history who obtained their education by the light of pine knots, but when we visit our statesmen to-day we prefer electricity. Yet every once in a while America rushes to red print over our "millionaire senators," and weeps whole newspaper columns over our national peril through the exclusive representation of " money interests " at the capital apparently with no realization that it is practically impossible for a man dependent on his salary to live in Washington. When people read in the newspapers that senators have been detected in stock speculations, and have made money in sugar certificates, it is well to remember that their salary is only ;£"i500 a year, and that they cannot live as senators should live upon that income. It has often been suggested that each state should purchase or erect at Washington residences for its representatives in the Senate, which is an admirable idea, but considered by the average politician as more Utopian than the purchase by the government of homes for our ambassadors and ministers in foreign capitals. At present the personnel of the state is most encouraging ; for while there is, in some instances, great wealth represented, it is not inherited wealth, but LIFE AT WASHINGTON 207 expressive of the greatest acumen and ability on the part of the holder ; and men of enormous fortunes in America are not given a political career as a reward. But if Uncle Sam is going to expect to recruit his public servants from the unendowed ranks, and to make a boast of it, he mio-ht at least recompense them adequately. "The statesman and his salary" might make an enlightening tract for cir- culation at home as well as abroad, where our politics are supposed to be an inexhaustible mine to the participant. European governments provide handsome residences for some of their cabinet ministers. Not so in America. The salaries of cabinet officers — the Speaker of the House, and the Vice-President, who has been called "His Superfluous Highness," but is not at all so socially speaking — are ^2400 each. If suitable residences were provided for the cabinet, they might live comfortably upon their salaries ; but, as a rule, it costs twice as much as they receive to keep up appearances. One member of the present cabinet, when he came to Washington to look up a house, was shown a residence as adequate in furnishing and location for his needs, and was told that the rent was ;^2000 a year. " What shall I do with the other ;£"400 of my salary ? " he questioned grimly. As a matter of fact, a cabinet member cannot live in a style becoming his position without paying at least ;£"iooo for a residence and ;£'300 more for servants and horses and carriages. He is expected to give at least one reception a year, which will cost him not less than ;^ioo, eight or ten dinners, which will cost at least £^0 each with the greatest econom.y, and his salary is exhausted. All this is for the benefit of the public, and he is often compelled to appeal to a lean purse for funds to provide the ordinary expenses of his family. I know a member of a recent cabinet who has no private fortune. He has been in public life since he was 208 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA twenty-five years old, and his salary has never been large enough to allow him to save anything. Therefore at his official residence in Washington he was constrained to limit his expenditures to ;£"2400 a year. The women of his family had been trained to economy and had a genius for management ; another cabinet lady said that they could make one dollar go as far as she could make three. But although they did the best they could, and lived as quietly as the requirements of his position would permit, he found himself over £600 in debt at the end of his term, with no immediate prospect of earning anything. And another cabinet hostess whispered to me, in discussing her plans for the coming season, that her husband's aunt was critically ill, and that if the good lady had to die anyway, she wished she might do it promptly, and put them in mourning to save the expenses of a winter's entertaining. " I'm right fond of Aunt Maria too," she sopped her con- science ; " but with Jack at Harvard and the girls at Vassar, we just have to economize ; and a winter in Wash- ington does make our salary look like a Swiss cheese." The American citizen outside the capital has as little idea as the foreigner of the struggle in certain of our statesmen's families to reconcile the demands of the social pace in Washington life with the bank account accompaniment. It costs the Speaker of the House ;^5000 a year to live and entertain in Washington, and, of course, neither as a member of the House before his election to the Speaker- ship nor since has he received half that amount in salary. Yet, coming out of a political meeting in the West not long ago, he overheard two representative citizens passing on his case : " There goes Uncle Joe Cannon ; he's been thirty years in Congress and six years Speaker," said one. " Gee ! He must have a fortune," returned the other enviously. And the speaker smiled sardonically. LIFE AT WASHINGTON 209 The Diplomatic Corps in Washington is more enter- tained than entertaining. There used to be a certain shyness about intercourse with the Diplomatic Corps — the worthy citizens of the capital in the early days of our republicanism feared that a mingling with people reared to arbitrary standards of precedence and social distinction would lead insidiously to our imitating monarchial i institutions. But as the Diplomatic Corps came gradually to form an essential part of Washington society, it has given us an object-lesson which has had its due effect. Hence the manners of Washington have become, in many respects, like those of European capitals. America's I capital is a city of good manners — at least there is a con- I scious effort to make it so — and for this happy result the presence of the Diplomatic Corps is in part responsible. I The Diplomatic Corps certainly contribute an element I of splendour to official occasions at Washington. To our ! rather sombre attempt at society they have imparted \ charm and variety, contributing largely to the brilliancy of I appearance, grace and polish, we are achieving, and the diversity of tongues, giving expression as they must to differences of thought, standards and ideas, have added piquancy to social intercourse and subdued provincialism ; have, in fact, given to Washington her distinction among all other American cities of a cosmopolitan society. Then there is the multi-millionaire colony, composed of men and women who perhaps have failed of social success as mere millionaires in New York or Newport, and who come to batten on the more motley society of the capital. The palaces of these line one of the most beauti- ful avenues in the fashionable section, and this is as near i a Faubourg St. Germain or a Carlton House Terrace as Washington offers. Some of these palaces of the nouvemix riches are fantastically and gaudily tortured in interior j decoration — I can even forgive an expatriated American who remarked, as he entered the great columned and 210 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA aggressively frescoed hall in one of them : " Ah ! a cross between early Pullman and late North German Lloyd " — but most of the fagades are magnificent in purity of outline, for American architects have used the best of foreign architecture as an open book. And beautiful architecture has done much to make Washington the most attractive residence city in the country. There is also the nomadic colony of lesser wealth, attracted by the social advantage of the capital, who spend money freely and contribute to the gaiety of the winter, and who flit off to Europe or to the watering- places when the roses begin to bloom in the parks and the official world disbands. These, of course, merely rent houses for the season, and it may be remarked that there are more handsome houses to rent in Washington than in any other city in this country and in Europe — except London. In other parts of the United States, it is looked upon as a confession of financial straits to offer your furnished home for rent ; but in Washington, as in London, it is good form for prosperous people to have the house occupied while they travel. In the fall of each year the streets and avenues of the most aristocratic sections of Washington are ornamented with sign-boards upon lawns or cards in the windows, informing the transient residents that the permanent population is willing to be replaced for a time if well paid for the condescenion. But these signs are uniform and read : ** This House for Rent. Furnished," which is a startingly bald statement compared with the rhetorical triumphs such as " This Bijou Maisonette," or " An Incom- parable Opportunity for a Palatial Home," or, "This Palatial Residence for Rent," seen in Mayfair. There are, to be sure, with us all the " tricks of the trade " and fine furnishings, bric-a-brac, and pictures often vanish between the time when the lease is signed and the new occupant takes possession ; but, after all, the real estate agent is about LIFE AT WASHINGTON 211 as universal and international a type for guile as Mephisto, and the renting of large furnished houses continues to be one of the most prominent features of Washington life. Most high officials occupy rented houses. There are a number of wealthy senators who own residences in Washington ; but superstition vetoes it, since nearly every public man who has purchased or erected a home at the capital has been retired at the following election, and therefore, when a senator or representative indulges in this luxury, his friends apprehend defeat. The constituents demand show of luxury in the man they send to Congress, but they resent his becoming a property owner at the capital because that savours too strongly of a withdrawal from the home town interests. The "public servant" is so in every sense of the word in this land of individual freedom, and subject to every whim of his constituency as perhaps in no other country. Washington is popularly supposed to be a favourable \ place for marriages, and from the country over come i ambitious mammas to settle during the winter season and offer blushing buds of daughters on the auction-block. But bidders are few, and ineligible. Most of the unmarried men in Washington are officers in the army and navy, whose pay is small ; officials in the departments who have no prospects ; or attaches of the embassies and legations, whose antecedents must be investigated, and, if they are without reproach, are usually waiting for a gold mine or the millions of a railway king or pork baron. The rising men of this new country — those who will control the com- mercial and industrial destinies of the next generation — do not have time to indulge in the pleasures of the capital. But the rich mammas and the pretty debutantes add to the rich fabric and fine feathers of the winter season in Washington. As in most cities, the West is the court end of Wash- ington, and on sunny afternoons in January and February \ 212 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA the flurry of carriages with obsequious coachmen and foot- men, and the wonderful toilettes, the beauty and glitter crowded into the streets of this neighbourhood, almost tempts one to fancy that the orbit of actual court life has transplanted itself in this democratic soil. The comparison so frequently and foolishly drawn between Paris and Washington does really hold some truth on such afternoons when the fashionable world is abroad in its gala attire, giving an animation and sparkle to the street scene which suggests the perennial light-heartedness of the French capital. But society's rule in Washington is over by the early spring. If the session of Congress is prolonged, the society folk and diplomats linger too with entertainments transferred to the country clubs about the city ; but the late spring, the summer, and the fall of Washington belong to the small-salaried, frankly middle-class people who make their living by clerkships in the departments. There are over thirty thousand employees of the Govern- ment, and they and their families constitute the main part of the " other " Washington, Since the reformation of the Civil Service, these minor officials have been given a permanent tenure of office ; and while it has been urged that the former danger of removal and prospect of promotion often inspired efficiency, and that under the present system the clerks in the executive departments in Washington are becoming hacks, hopeless but contented, the fact remains that the assurance of permanent employment has brought better material into the service until, from the vagabond politicians who sought a " government job " to tide over to the opportunity for more political " graft," we have come to the type of man who brings his family to Washington and settles down to a lifetime of faithful clerkship. The " chief" or superintendent of a division of clerks in one of the departments is paid ;£"500 annually, but the LIFE AT WASHINGTON 213 average salary of a Government employe in Washington is about ;£"240, and a man may live comfortably upon that compensation, in that part of the town and from those markets devoted to the needs of the " department people." There is no city in the world that offers so many pleasant and healthful houses at a low rental, and the real estate agencies and building associations afford opportunities for the erection and the purchase of homes upon the payment of small monthly instalments. I know of no city where wage-earners are so secure in the pursuit of happiness or live so well. The schools are free, and as good an educa- tion as any man or woman needs is furnished all comers. The climate for ten months in the year is as favourable as that offered by any city on the globe, and every Govern- ment employe is allowed thirty days' leave of absence each year. With a life insurance policy to secure the loved ones from want in the event of disability or death, and a home paid for, the Government clerk may settle down with a satisfaction that few wage-earners enjoy. A large proportion of the clerks now on the department-pay rolls have been in ofidce many years. Another class of Govern- ment clerks are familiarly known as " sundowners." This term is used to describe men who obtain positions in the Government service in order to support themselves while studying law or medicine, or pursuing an academic course at one of the universities. The recitation and lecture hours of these institutions are arranged to accommodate such students. Instead of going to the class-room at nine in the morning and at three in the afternoon, as is common in ordinary colleges, their classes are called at half-past four or five, and at seven or eight in the evening. Thus a young man may occupy a Government desk from nine until half-past four (office hours in Washington), and devote the rest of his time to the pursuit of knowledge, and in three years receive a physician's degree or a diploma from a law college, or he may have acquired a thorough 214 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA commercial education at a " business college," that dis- tinctly American institution. All these young men expect to resign and enter upon the practice of some profession as soon as they have finished their studies ; but the allurements of official life and the uncertainty of success in a professional career prevent most of them from carrying out their original plans. Many are anxious to get on in the world and make reputations and wealth, but they are too timid to take the plunge. They settle down under the Civil Service law, and are soon firmly rooted for life as public functionaries. They marry the daughters of their associates, buy little houses on the instalment plan, and stifle their ambition. Formerly such clerks were able to add a little to their incomes by practising their profession out of office hours. It was a frequent thing to see signs upon private houses announcing that John Jones, attorney at law, had his office hours from 7.30 to 8.30 a.m., and from 4.39 to 6.30 p.m., or that Peter Smith, M.D., was prepared to receive patients at similar hours. But the bar association and the medical association of the district of Columbia succeeded in persuading Congress to pass laws for the suppression of the " sundown " practitioners, and now no employe of the Government is allowed to engage in other business. Nevertheless, there are many who have money invested in the names of members of their family, in shops, groceries, and other commercial enterprises, and they even practise medicine " on the sly " in their neighbourhoods and among their acquaintances, although their signs have been taken down. I know a Government clerk who owns an extensive nursery, and sends flowers by the car-load to Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York. I know another who manages one of the most popular dairies in the city and has a dozen milk-wagons upon the streets. Another is a partner in the management of a hotel, and the clerks LIFE AT WASHINGTON 215 whose wives keep boarding-houses are legion. And this small army of what might be called wage-earning gentility- is in eclipse during the winter, but blossoms in full in the summer. The open street-cars (trams with seats in file across the car and the sides exposed) are filled with the depart- ment people on summer evenings. The women, whatever part of the country they originally hailed from, seem all to have acquired the Southern woman's aptitude for making a charmingly effective costume out of muslin at a couple of shillings a yard. The sleeves are short, the neck cut a little low — for Washington is tropical in the summer months — and a flower substitutes for hat, and the effect of a carfuU of this summeriness flashing through the purple stillness of a warm night is most alluring. One wonders what becomes of the pretty summer girls in the winter. You never see them then, or perhaps, in their winter clothes, they look so sombre beside the smart- looking young shoppers from the social world returned that you do not notice them. Perhaps many of them are manicures and shop-girls, but they look like veritable butterflies in the summer evening. They go on moon- light excursions down the Potomac River, to a picnic ground with dance pavilion, and dance till the last steamer whistles them back to the city. There are several amuse- ment parks just outside of Washington, and night after night all summer long these organdie-clad summer girls and their escorts try all the death-dealing devices for exciting pleasure with all the coltishness of a village picnic. It is not so different from the summer life in other cities, except that it is the only life in an otherwise extinct community, and is such a metamorphosis from the formality of the winter in the capital. All summer there are bi-weekly concerts by the marine band in the different parks and circles, and here the scene is wonder- fully pretty and singularly tropical. Electric lights are 2i6 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA strung about the band-stand, but the paths taper away into the shadows of the trees and bushes, and up and down these paths the diaphanous frocks flutter as young girls stroll with arms about each other's waist, and casting coquettish glances at the escorts sitting on the turf. Mothers sit on the benches with folded hands, and their youngsters play about. Occasionally a coloured gallant with purple hose and cravat will saunter through, a finely formed " Mandy " in the starchiest of muslins, on his arm. It is no part of hustling America ; it is no part of politico- social Washington ; it is Washington, the village, in the summer-time. You look down the darkened avenues where diplomacy and society played their game a few months before, and try to imagine those big houses aglow, and those streets where now only a stray cat or two scuttles through, as filled with the roll and spurt of carriage and motor-car, of hoarsely called orders, and the banging of brougham doors, but it is difficult indeed to believe that this ever had the air of a national capital. In the winter season one is not sensibly impressed by the presence of a coloured population — at critical moments, when a cook is a momentous want, negro ladies of any description seem exasperatingly rare — but in the summer you can subscribe without reservation to the statistical statement that Washington has the largest coloured population of any white city in civilization — about 150,000 of them, the census figures stand — but, after being in the city on a Sunday afternoon in mid July, I was willing to consider the estimate of 1,000,000 as con- servative. They promenade the streets in an unrelieved procession of dusky faces, they throng the cheap theatres and certain sweet-shops that are open to them, and they even drive about in open carriages, and, at intervals, you see an automobile carrying a party of ebony complexion, and from wondering whether it is the coloured chauffeur LIFE AT WASHINGTON 217 entertaining in his master's absence, or a taxi-driver giving his friends the benefit of an impromptu diversion from business, you begin to wonder whether that dark gentle- man at the wheel may not own the machine himself They are dignified in manner and surprisingly well dressed, these upper-ten negroes, for in this half-northern city the negro population has its carefully defined social strata, reaching from the settlement of coloured doctors, lawyers, and department clerks — some very efficient clerks in the Government service are negroes — which constitute the "nigger Fifth Avenue," down through the butlers employed in large houses, the porters in large shops ; still down to the characters who live in the miserable alleys, the blot on the capital's fair face, and peddle crabs on the streets, and the semi-rural element who live in white- washed cabins on the road-side stretching from Washington off to the Virginia hills. These last appear outside the big market in the city's heart on market-days, offering the products of their tiny garden patch, and in the winter they bring in great masses of Christmas greens, and, squatting about their little charcoal fires in the midst of their wares, the flickering light playing over their shining black faces and glistening the whites of their up-turned eyes, they make, to me, one of the most picturesque details of Washington life. But among their kind they are in- exorably of the unelect, and it is no common thing for your cook to object to the maid you had considered engaging, because, " She don't belong to folks, madam ; her as war raised clar out on de Branch Road." The sense of caste is as strong among the Washing- tonian negroes as among Brahmin. When I interview a certain Julius Alexander Lee, coloured messenger on the Capitol pay roll, in regard to the character of one Blanche Jackson, recommended to me as second maid, I am aware that I am addressing a social arbiter. "Blanche Jackson," he asks, but more in the form of 2i8 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA meditation. " Yes, madam. I know nothing derogatory to her integrity, madam, but she's been working for department people lately." There is an inflection of fine scorn that makes me feel that these words convey some basis for disqualification which the aristocratic Julius Alexander Lee and I must fully understand. "But what difference " I falter, ashamed of my ignorance, yet Blanche had certainly a nice face, and good servants are so rare. " Ah, madam, there is no classiness of service among department folks ; and of course you wouldn't want " He waits, and I feel my own " classiness " in the balance. " No, no, of course not," I interpose. It is a liberal education to live in Washington. Had the head-quarters of our national Government, as those of other countries, been seated in the centre of trade and commerce, the official life might not have been able to assume the dominant social tone it has secured in winter Washington ; but most assuredly we should have had none of the picturesqueness, the uniqueness, of the city built up almost exclusively in the interests of Government institutions. CHAPTER X AMERICAN WAYS THE American stage holds the mirror up to our American ways. We want it to. We want to see ourselves as we believe we are. We want to laugh at our sectional eccentricities, and we want to contemplate economic and social conditions from a distinctly American point of view. The " long run " plays in America are the plays that are so American as to be almost unintelligible when produced in England. Or, when the British public does accept them as interesting in their very provincialism, mistaken generalizations as to American civilizations are apt to ensue. Englishmen who had seen " Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch" played in London seemed to be under the impression that a large part of the United States is populated by just such picturesque caricatures, while after the successful run some years ago of " The Cowboy and the Lady " the most conservative felt that anywhere on the outskirts of Chicago murderous half-breeds or romantic episodes with gentle- manly plainsman might be encountered. It would have been hard to convince those of the English audiences who had never been in the United States that the first was only a pinch off an obscure Southern city, and the other a conjunction of characters that it would be as difficult to find to-day as Bret Harte's vicious, gaudy miners, or Fenimore Cooper's grandiloquent, blood-thirsty chiefs. 219 220 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA For it is provincialism for provincialism's sake ; the result of our eagerness for original, highly coloured, boldly treated "local " material, with the emphasis of exaggera- tion. It is not, as is felt in the work of J. M. Barrie, local colour to give background to universal emotion. Instead, we want our stage to show us what could have happened in America, and, as far as possible, only in America. And, above everything else, it must be optimistic. Americans demand a happy ending, and comedy gets more laurel — otherwise a bigger " business " — than the serious play. Tragedy, however true to nature and circumstance, is debarred. As a theatrical manager has said : " Cassandra was accurate but depressing, while the author of * There's a good time coming, boys ' was as in- accurate as he was inspiring, and he certainly has the American public with him." Moreover, our stage has traditions — and it is almost the only place in America that has — not traditions of art, however, but precedents of make-up and dialect that may not be violated. For instance, a Congressman is a stock figure in our political play, and no one would dare appear in the part of a Congressman without a shiny, out-of-date frock coat, a wide, soft hat, and chewing tobacco, so inseparable are these acquired characteristics with the popular idea of the stage Congressman. Yet many of those who applaud the " rugged honesty," or " pathetic credulity," or " sneaking villainy," as the case may be, of the shabby frock-coated Congressman on the stage, know perfectly well that the House of Representatives to-day presents a well-groomed front of business suits with the occasional appearance of afternoon dress of the latest cut, and generally worn by a member from New York. There was a time when a good many Southern gentlemen of the planter type came to Congress and in frock coats, and, in the hard times following the War, they were allowed a longer lease of public appearance than the fertile pen of AMERICAN WAYS 221 editors of " styles for men " might prescribe. The Con- gressman came into the American drama about that time, and, being adjudged very "American," he has stayed, shabby coat and all. Another tradition is the drawl of the Southern girl. She must drawl interminably and express herself in the . near-negro dialect. A young Southern woman was I recently cast for the leading part in a drama of the South ' on the logic that she could drawl to the playwright's and manager's taste. In a most exciting scene, when pounding upon a closed door and with her lover's life at stake, the i manager insisted that she should say : " Farth-ah, open I th-doah ! " The young actress protested. " Southern I people talk just as fast as any one else when they're ' excited," she urged. But the manager was adamant, and I he was right. Night after night crowded houses waited I tensely for " Farth-ah " to open " th-doah." ] And so it goes. Any Middle-west society lady of the j stage who does not wear too many diamonds, and at the I wrong time, and connive to marry her daughter to the j titled villain of the play, does not last. That is the way Middle-west society ladies have always conducted them- j selves on the stage, and no liberties may be taken with a I role so " American." j Many American plays have ridden to financial success I on a hay wagon filled with real hay, with a male quartet : attired in painstaking rusticity and singing "The Old J Oaken Bucket." Just about as many have hit the mark with a Westerner's six-shooter from the interior of a mining camp-saloon with a Greek chorus of impossible cow- punchers and the one superbly beautiful " wild rose " each community of this sort is supposed to produce. So we have our " Old Homestead " and " Shore Acres " and " Way Down East " with real turkey on the dinner table, and at least two buckets of real water in the property well ; we have " The Girl of the Golden West " and " The 222 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA Heir of the Hurrah " type, with real " likker " and real gunpowder, and they are all great successes, because the American audience sees something it believes to be intensely American and is satisfied. As to the plot, the first requirement of an American play is that it shall be a love story. This is probably due to the fact that the majority of the audience is generally young and unmarried and feminine. A favourite theme is the parvenue daughter living in an artificial atmosphere ; ambitious, wistful, proud, who learns through genuine love- usually for a poor but estimable young man in her father's employ — how to emancipate herself from her condition. The changes on this are innumerable, and the American audience always thrills to them. There is hardly a successful play of city life in which the accession to sudden wealth or the depravation of vast property does not figure in its affect on character and circumstance. This is, of course, a reflection of national psychology, just as is the cold reception in America of plays based on the complications of class distinction. Contrary to the general opinion abroad, the American theatre-going public is far from neurotic in its tastes. Debatable plays, problems, fantasies of character, so dear to the heart of Ibsen and Bernard Shaw, are never of marked financial success in America. Of course, there are special audiences for these and as there is no country in the world where notoriety can be as adroitly achieved through the press, there is much written and much said over such productions. But, despite blazing posters and adroit press notices they do not really set the spark to the grass in the field of popularity. Their run is short if spectacular. Whether it is a simple question of voluntary censorship or of national lack of subtlety which creates this attitude, is difficult to determine. When an American play is reared on the immortal domestic triangle, its construction always depends on the AMERICAN WAYS 223 husband's total absorption in business interests which drives his neglected wife to contemplation of the third angle. The business is always enormously productive and the wife laden with the fruits thereof, yet she is represented as a pathetic figure, pining to be pampered, longing for the limelight of undivided masculine attention. One would hardly consider this a fair view of woman in America, but they it is who applaud these plays most heartily. And plays of this order always succeed, not- withstanding the fact that American dramatic critics have long decried them as specious. A critic, commenting on one such success, has remarked : " Just the same, if some- body would write one little play with a neglected wife who offered some reasonable alternative to ' business ' in her own mentality, who didn't deserve on the whole to play second fiddle, even to a rather small business, it would be very comforting. And what a novelty the play would be ! " French plays, subtle, shrewd, remorseless, and deft as they are, do not furnish any reflection of American life as the theatre public knows it, and they must be so radically altered to get the American atmosphere into the picture that they generally end in a hybrid state ; that is, because the public insists that the characters must be American — not merely dressed like them and talking like them. A foreigner in a play is all very well, but he must be an obvious character part, either in caricature or psychological study. American theatre-goers have no approval for disguised Frenchmen and German people undergoing the trials and tribulations incident to conditions in France and Germany. We have achieved American types, and we like to see them on the stage. Quite indicative of national temperament is it, too, that Americans look for rushing vivacity, hilarious humour, and, above all, rapid sequence in their plays, while the more 224 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA philosophic French and Germans deprecate action at the expense of reflection. But while the American theatre-going public repudiates sex as not the whole of life, it apparently fails to appre- ciate that it is not the whole of vulgarity either. Un- questionably a much broader, coarser humour is honoured on the American stage than would be tolerated in England. Quite recently I saw the same light opera in New York that I had seen during its phenomenal run in London, and I realized that the American audience would have pronounced the English production " deadly slow." Outside the plot and conformity of general staging, there was little in common in the two performances, many of the lines were changed to coarse repartee, and offensive jests were dragged in by every hook and crook, while the dancing in the American production was much more complicated, much more strenuous, and much more suggestive. On the other hand, American vaudeville houses are, generally speaking, above the " beer, baccy and boudoir," atmosphere of the corresponding music-halls in England. Vaudeville in America has the family theatre atmosphere about it. The type of women to whom, in England, it would be something of an adventure to be seen at a London music- hall, patronizes vaudeville quite regularly in America, where this form of entertainment is not given over by any means to the " 'Arry and 'Arriet" class. Children abound at the afternoon and evening performances, for it largely takes the place of the pantomime and fairy play. The programme consists of dancing-dogs, performing monkeys, one-act plays, and freak musicians, and eccentric dancing as in England, but the " coon act," or burnt-cork comedy, is a pre-eminently popular feature in America, showing that the negro has a variety of uses. He is also stock material for the legitimate drama of AMERICAN WAYS 225 war days, or of the type where blood taint is the theme, which have a rhythmic recrudescence on the American stage. Yet a negro can buy a ticket in very few theatres in the United States, no matter what degree of refinement of manner or education he represents, and when he is admitted, it is to a top gallery reserved for his race, and therefore known as " nigger heaven.'* A mingling of coloured and white over these lofty benches brings it under the caption " peanut heaven." Seats in the vaudeville theatre are one-priced, and the first to come gets an orchestra chair ; the last gets "standing room only" for the same price — is. for the afternoon performance, 2s. for the evening, while 3s. gives a seat in a box. Tickets for all the theatres are sold at the theatre at what is known as the " box office." A few tickets are left with the ticket agents over the city, and seats may be obtained at the hotels, but there is no such control of the tickets by manipulation outside the theatre as in London. Seats in the regular theatres are cheaper in America, eight instead of ten shillings being the standard price for the best orchestra chairs in first rank houses. Programmes are free, and they should be. In- deed, there really ought to be a rebate for those who endure them, for they are printed on wretched paper, and inevitably transfer a generous coating of printers' ink to your gloves. I have never grudged the sixpence for the neat English play bill. In some theatres candy is sold between the acts, and in others a mechanical device for acquiring chocolates in response to " a dime in the slot " is attached to the back of each seat. But, as a rule, theatres of the better grade have no suggestion of public refreshment other than the trays of iced water brought about by small boys. I think Americans would as soon adopt women motor- men as women ushers ; but if they did, it is safe to say Q 226 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA that the young woman would not trip up and down the theatre aisles in uniform of cap and apron, however reduced to soubrette coquettishness the articles may be. When I think of the struggle it takes to get a newly landed girl to wear a cap in America, my imagination fails to realize American young women wearing any such " badge of servitude " as they indicated to people of no more independent spirit than theirs where they were to sit. Yet in England, the land of uniforms, led by Highlanders and hotel porters, who compare favourably with an American admiral on dress parade, aproned young women ushers seem most appropriate. They certainly do their work as rapidly and as expeditiously as the young men in conventional evening dress and white gloves do here. A curious detail of the unformulated censorship of the vaudeville stage is that the word " damn "—in other American theatres as valued a stage property as it is on the English stage — must be eliminated from vaudeville boards. But with the same short-sighted literalness that quibbles at the serious sex play, and packs the houses to see a vulgar woman in a vulgar comedy role, the vaudeville patrons seem not to grasp that vulgarity does not reside in verbalism any more than it may in the whole texture of song and scene. So it sometimes happens, while the vocabulary is carefully clipped, the vaudeville will offer a ribald debasing situation or a suggestive balladist as humour, and it will be accorded approval by the same class of audience which would shudder at it in England. Nine-tenths of a vaudeville performance is really of a calibre to miserably corrupt a child's taste, and its appre- ciation of music or acting, even though there be nothing of an absolutely objectionable nature. The wonder of foreigners over the great audiences of children pouring in and out of our vaudeville theatres is justifiable. But because it is merely a *' funny performance," the American parent refuses to see how it can injure his child. AMERICAN WAYS 227 And that, of course, involves an argument of comparison of the national sense of humour. I suppose there are no two nations with a wider difference in the standard of humour than the English and American. Americans can see a French joke or a German one ; I x^merican newspapers reprint French and German humour continually ; but an American reads an English comic paper with a sense of bewildered rage that he is supposed i capable of being amused by such utter vacuity. The I American's nai've foreclosure of the Englishman as a i humorist is humour in itself. When an Englishman fails to understand an American joke, it is because he has no ] sense of humour ; when an American cannot understand an I English one, it is because the joke is not funny. The 1 English are much more credulous and much more polite about the American sense of humour ; but any American I who has beheld the effect your best American-made joke I has of wiping every bit of expression out of an English- ; man's face, knows that whatever of academic honour the ^ nation may have bestowed on the Dean of American ' humour, the individual Englishman wants none of it. ' To the end of time probably the Englishman will > consider the American accrediting himself with a sense of humour as the only joke he ever made, and the American i will refuse to admit that there is any humour in England except, excusing the bull, that of Scotland and Ireland. But the lesson of these cross-charges probably is that you cannot indict the humour of a nation any more than you can indict a nation itself. And, after all, most jokes have their geographical limitations. I What is noticeable about the American joke is the constant use of it. Not the natural ebullition of humour, that growth of nature and accident that the Irish have, but an effort on every side to produce studied^ obvious, strained humour. 228 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA In our earlier political days, men of homely ways used the humorous anecdote in the sense of a parable, and campaign speakers brought the issues and arguments home to the masses in this way. But as the race of spellbinders multiplied, the occupation became entirely that of would-be humorists. The political speech has to be funny — a long chain of breezy anecdotes. As a veteran stumper said to a novice : " Get 'em laughin' and keep 'em laughin' ! You can do more with a fellow in a merry than in a solemn mood." Occasionally an American audience will tolerate a serious speech, if the speaker is of sufficient prominence ; but the public man generally realizes that he may be truth- ful and eloquent in his speeches but he mtist be funny. A foreigner is always surprised at the melodramatic kind of speeches made on the floor of the House of Repre- sentatives, and at the number of apparently professional humorists among the members. There is not the incidental chaffing which occasionally enlivens the debate in the House of Commons — for Americans do not chaff easily nor lightly — nor the somewhat heavy persiflage of the Englishman ; but there will be whole speeches delivered for the purpose of their humour, and throughout which the House will give itself over to a seance of laughter, and applause. "The Congressional Record," that cheering verbatim pamphlet in which every detail — almost the sneezes — of House precedure is embalmed and ready for free distribu- tion only a day behind the performance, has been called " The Congression Joke Book," and certainly a perusal of the bound volumes leads one to believe that the congres- sional version of the noted soliloquy reads thus : " To speak, Aye, 'tis to joke, and then the laugh Must ever follow : 'tis a consummation Devoutly to be wished." AMERICAN WAYS 229 When once a member has established for himself a reputation as a humorist, he can never come down to the heavy, commonplace level of serious argument, because henceforth, if he should rise in his place and recite the Decalogue, his utterances would be punctuated with hearty guffaws from all corners of the chamber and the printed record of his performance bestrewn, as a matter of reflex action on the part of the official stenographer, with such bracketed indications of hilarity as (" great laughter ") and ("renewed laughter and applause"). Quite recently a new member elected to be decidedly witty in his maiden speech, and when, months afterwards, he rose to make a touching plea for a Bill to pension Government clerks, and stood clearing his throat for a preliminary burst of pathos, this new member was surprised to hear a roar of laughter J sweep over the chamber. I " A few days ago, I stood by the side of a bier," he j began in sepulchral key and " Dead March " tempo. But i he was obliged to take his hands off the oratorical stops 1 and give another laugh time to stop. The new member swallowed hard, and, looking severely about, exclaimed, I " No, Mr. Chairman, it was not the kind of * beer * that these gentlemen have in mind. I was about to " " The Congressional Record's " comments of " renewed J laughter " but faintly echoes the veritable howl that disjointed the would-be serious discourse just here. But the new member was mentally nimble, and he grasped the situation. He had branded himself as a humorist at the outset and he must continue to make an effort to supply laugh food in his speeches or be laughed at anyway. So he turned his speech into a chain of uproarious, slightly illustrative anecdotes, and another chronic humorist was added to the American gallery. There are men who have literally joked their way into Congress, a glibness and a story-telling faculty having persuaded their constituency that they had in them the 230 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA material of a national law-maker. The humorous speeches delivered in the House of Representatives do not, however, influence the vote. Working, as the House of Representa- tives does, with permanent committees through which the Bills are presented and considered, the members have their votes arranged before the Bill is offered, and the speeches and humour are blank cartridges discharged for the sole purpose of putting a member's eloquence and point of view before his constituency through " The Congressional Record," or to increase his popularity. This mystifies the foreigner, who naturally thinks the prolonged humour in the American Lower House must have its excuse as a farce. Early in the last session a well-known French journalist came into the Speaker's room. He was enthusi- astic, not to say effervescent. " I have made a great discovery," he said. " It is the joke, the humour, that sways this great 'Chambre des Deputes.' At home they say this legislative body of your Republic is the most undemocratic, the voice of the individual does not count, since no dissenter, no debater, no speechmaker, has any weight after a Bill has been made up hard and fast by a committee of just a few men. But this afternoon I have seen what it is that moves the American Congress. It is the joke, ever the joke, and yet more jokes. A man did it for two hours, and I have never heard such an ovation as was his. He persuaded everybody. It was wonderful." " You did not wait for the vote, I suppose," interposed the Speaker. "What use?" answered the Frenchman. "It would have been unanimous. Everybody was with that man." " No," said the Speaker, " the Bill for which he spoke failed to pass. That two hours of humour did not win a single man. As regards the futility of eloquence, it is true we permit a good deal of oratory that is just about as useless as the buttons on the back of a dress suit. As to AMERICAN WAYS 231 humour on the floor of the House — well, that's a tradition that has to be kept up just like baked beans on Saturday night in New England. They're used to the diet ! " r" The Frenchman looked as if he were murmuring, ^*Kumour, humour everywhere," and one could not be altogether unsympathetic. In the after-dinner speech in America to say more than " that reminds me " between funny stories is to part with the approval of your listeners. The man who really succeeds in that form of entertainment merely rises and repeats joke after joke, some of them as told on Mount Ararat, to be sure, but his listeners will sit with their heads thrown back, tears streaming down their faces, and their mouths wide in the heartiness of their mirth. It is a truly remarkable thing, this American love of a joke. Newspapers in the large cities have a humorist on the staff, just as they have a foreign correspondent, and each week he turns out " funny copy " in the form of facetious articles, which make up, in the opinion of their American readers, for what they lack in spontaneity by the pushful- ness and broad effect of their humour. Current events of serious importance appear as farcical material in these columns. The editorials (leaders) in an American newspaper are followed by a half-column of detached paragraphs, each containing a humorous fling at the policy, personality, or predicament of some public man, an epigrammatic mis- statement of some discussed event, or a sarcastic reflection upon items of news as culled from some " esteemed con- temporary." The tabloid humorist who does this, is known as the " paragrapher," and his place in the news- paper office is that of the actor who travels with a company and draws his salary for giving half a dozen " imitations " at each performance. It is the knack that counts. The " make-up " of English newspapers in much more 232 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA dignified than is popular in America ; still, one hears everywhere in London the expressed regret that *' American methods " are gaining ground in English journalism. But, on picking up one of the London sheets which had been included in this criticism, I found a two-column article on " Historic Doubles," signed by a well-known writer, on the chief news-page ; while in fine print in the corner of a last page I found such items as *' Father and Two Children Drowned," "Fatal Family Feud," "The Alleged Outrage at Torquay." When I reflected how im- possible the first article would have been considered in any daily edition in America, and in what display type news of the latter stamp would have been handled, I came to the conclusion that English papers were not slipping at any alarming rate into " American methods." The sensational newspaper in America is, as has been well said, a "literary highwayman," not only in that it attacks, defames, and plunders character, but in the lack of integrity in handlings news of any character. A veteran in the newspaper field of action gave the following as illustrative of their method, and declares that it is not hyperbole — " Suppose a man registers at a hotel in New York as Hiram K. Wilcox, Sheriff of Cass County, Iowa. The hotel reporter comes in, and reports the fact to the city editor. The city editor pricks up his ears. * What, county sheriff,' says he, * fine ! * Great funny story in that ! I remember when I saw Charley Hoyt's * Temperance Town,' or some such play back in the eighties. There was a comic sheriff in that. All country sheriffs wear long chin whiskers and linen dusters and say, * Wal ' and ' B'gosh.' Smith, send two men out with Sheriff Wilcox, and have them stay with him as long as he is in town. Get up an ' Old Homestead ' story ; report his doings every day — the quaint things he says, the funny dialect he uses, the ways he tries to jump out of the elevator under the AMERICAN WAYS 233 impression that the building is being blown up, and how, when he goes into a barber shop and sees the manicure girls, he says, * Be them actresses rehersin' ? ' And take an artist along and let us have a lot of one-column comics every day. Introduce him to Sheriff Foley, and have them photographed shaking hands." And the next night the reporter comes in and says, "Nothing in it, chief. This sheriff is the author of * Wilcox on the Nebular Hypothesis,' and before he went West he was the head of Wilcox and Goodwin, brokers, of 9, Wall Street. The first thing he asked me was if I had known W. D. Howells. There's no funny story in this." "There isn't, hey?" shrieks the city editor. "Why, man, the pictures are all made. There's got to be a funny story. You sit down and write it, and be sure you get in the * B'gosh ' and the ' Wal,' and don't forget the duster." Naturally, it is only the yellow journals that misrepre- sent things in that fashion. The serious ones, while they do not have these very excellent articles on the " which- ness of the why " which flourish in English dailies, have much more literary form in presenting the actual news than is common in the English papers. This is probably because men of higher ability are employed as reporters (pressmen) in America ; also because the general injunction of an English newspaper office is to " boil it downr Special articles usually are paid for at the meagre rate of £1 a column in American columns, so that no one who could possibly get his work into any of the myriad of American magazines would be a casual contributor to a newspaper. But, on the other hand, men regularly on a newspaper staff are trained to special lines of reporting, and receive good salaries. An average would be about ;f700, while the editorial writers, business managers, or managing editors receive from £ 1000 to £2000. Of course, 234 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA in New York and Chicago there are a few men of national reputation as special writers or newspaper managers who command spectacular salaries. But they are very few. American newspapers pay surprisingly little attention to foreign news. Even the big New York dailies do not give their leading columns to foreign affairs, except for foreign war news, and then it will be topped usually with head- lines that would not be thought suitable in size for an account of a local fire or the elopement of an heiress, or even perhaps a street fight ; for our newspapers are in- credibly provincial in the main. They even sail blissfully ahead, ignoring every part of their country but their own. Very few of them ever take the trouble to get acquainted with sentiment outside of the city in which they publish. But this is far-sighted and not short-sighted policy. Each American public wants to read about itself, and the newspaper is only catering to its particular audience. For instance, there may be a political revolution brewing in our West, a deflection from old party lines of wide- spread contagion, but the average newspaper reader in New York isn't any more interested in the details of it than he is in the details of a controversial British budget. He dismisses the outbreak in the West as a mere excite- ment over the new tariff law, and demands every scrap of information in regard to a scandal investigation going on in the capital of his own state, even to the colour of cravat worn by the accused ; while the latest bulletin of a murder trial in his own city deserves more space, to his thinking, than the news of a railway catastrophe in South Dakota with forty-five lives lost. One point about the American newspaper always strikes English people as ludicrous — the " social column " — in which is printed without charge everything that is sent into the office, and without discrimination as to whether it is from Mrs. Stuyvesant Van Reypen, whose husband has several millions and an old family back of him, or an AMERICAN WAYS 235 announcement of the debut of the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. James Smith, residing somewhere near the outward terminus of the city car-system. The announcements which filled this department when "society's summer plans" or later "snapshots of our summer resorters" are due, betray the youth of our nation as few things could. The public is enlightened to the effect that "Miss Mae I Jones, of Tintown, Penn.," is summering at Atlantic City, where she is the belle of the Board Walk, and a picture , of Miss Mae Jones of Tintown, Penn., in a bathing-suit with half a dozen other pretty young women who have never , been within telephone connection with a social register, I substantiates the statement. Or the '* social column " will I be swollen by the importance of an item like the following : ' " Miss Max Sonsheimer, a prominent society matron of I Harlem, has sailed forEurope on the " Campaignia," accom- 1 panied by her beautiful daughters, the Misses Inez and i Louie," and if the pictures of the " Misses Inez and Louie " ( do not follow, it is because Sonsheimer phe was too busy I in his " wholesale cloak and suit establishment " to attend * to his family parting injunctions. And this is in our metropolitan press. Of course, the goings and comings and costuming of the real social lioness with a roar and a reputation are duly chronicled, as in English papers, j down to the last tea-room appearance and frou-frou and 1 jewel. And a combination of musical criticism and fashion I notes has the same strangle hold on journalism here as in England. But the women reporters on the Washington papers who chronicle society at the capital are easily the stars in their profession. There being only two occupations in ) Washington — politics and society — interest is confined to two things : trying to get a promotion, and trying to create the impression that one is a social lion. And in the latter quest the society reporter is first aid. She goes her rounds among the people in high ofl[icial 236 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA life, having private audiences, when she is furnished lists of dinner guests, plans for the season's campaign, and many surprisingly confidential details of a nature, one of these young women told me, to make the possibility of retiring and writing most saleable memoirs a comforting prospect for old age. ' The daily mail of a head society reporter on a Wash- ington paper rivals that of the Secretary of State. She has cards for teas and receptions of every descrip- tion, where it is hoped the hostess's manner and frock will not escape her attention, and she receives by post all sorts of stories about the affairs of those who wish to spread the idea abroad that they, too, are among the shining ones in the social life of the capital. There is really not much difference between the real article and the climber as far as the ease with which the society reporter gets her copy, for those who are sought are just as eager to contribute as those who blow their horn unurged, so that the melange in the two or three columns in a Washington daily devoted to social news in the height of a season is wonderful to behold. The climbers who have money, and the back- street hostesses who have only ambition — to put it politely — have their lists of " among those invited " sandwiched between an account of a White House Musicale and a dinner at the British Embassy. The wife of an attache at one of the foreign embassies discovers that social herald- ing is free in the United States and the announcements of her " house-guests " ; her own out-of-town visits and her returns there from ; her influenza ; her recovery and fresh plunge into the social whirl ; her frocks and her hospitality, appear with mysterious accuracy and promptness in these social columns. One would think the society reporter a most impertinent, curious individual, if one did not know that she is more often a phonograph than an investigator. This '* open door " policy in our press notices is the one form of American naivett\ it may be remarked, that AMERICAN WAYS 237 foreigners take seriously. To many of our American official circle in Washington the social column may seem laughably like the first piano in a young household ; but there is an inclination to play it early and late. A certain man who says he "sits on the porch and watches the Washington procession go by," has remarked : of this marvellous bureau of social publicity. " The range ' is infinite. I counted the items about the wife of one assistant secretary in one month, when the social season had hardly begun. She was coming, came, hired a house, I opened it, went to New York to see her mother, had her ' mother come to see her, sent her mother back, went to one I or two near-by cities — in all she got her name in the j social column over nineteen times in one jnonth. A very ambitious and resourceful woman, I should say." "^ \ Of course, there are cultured and socially prominent ' people who know how to give a dinner or a dance or a I reception without telephoning to the society reporters or \ writing it out and sending the copy down to the offices. ! There are those who do give functions that are not ] described at length in the papers, but they are not so I numerous that the social columns suffisr at all. Most of I the people at the capital are willing or eager to have their { little personal and social attempts chronicled at full length. I Not long ago I heard a woman of refinement and many years' residence in Washington actually deploring the fact 1 that Washington society was ceasing to be picturesque ; that we were becoming conventionalized at the expense of individuality. As she upheld the view with incidents of early day public receptions at the White House, when carpets and curtains were torn in the turmoil of promiscuous hospitality, and the spectacle of a fireman sitting on a divan at a White House entertainment with his arm about the waist of his best girl excited no comment, I more than suspected her of irony. But I wonder whether a winnow- ing of obscure hostesses and their obscurer guests from 238 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA the official important events would rob our infant prodigy society at our capital of any of its charm. It would certainly rob Washington newspapers of a unique and most popular feature. The Sunday edition of an American newspaper is a vaudeville performance in print. It is the family paper just as the vaudeville is the family theatre, as it contains from twenty to fifty pages, and there is something in it for every member of the family. The comic supplement in colour and the " cut-out " puzzles show how the American child figures even in the newspaper world. Puritanic elders speak disapprovingly of Sunday papers, but suffer their gaudy monopoly of the living-room of a sabbath " because the children so enjoy the pictures." There are patterns and frocks and stamping designs for blouse fronts and table linen, and complexion receipts, and obesity treatments, and symposiums in housekeeping whereby the editor holds his feminine constituency. A separate book supplement of some twenty pages bound with a picture cover in colour, quite like the regular weeklies on American news stands that sell for 2^d., is published each week by a syndicate, and given away with the Sunday edition of some one paper in each of the large cities. This newspaper magazine contains short stories and light (very light) articles, all illustrated, and it is difficult to see how such an elaborate feature can be included under the 2jd. charge for the entire Sunday newspaper and be found profitable. Other forms of magazine supplement give picturesque views of the latest scandals, popularized accounts of scientific discoveries, the fads of the day as seen through a carmine magnifying glass, and all garnished with large illustrations. The American reading public's passion for pictures is pretty nearly its grand passion. Incidentally illustrating pays enormously in America when one has established a vogue for a certain type of feminine beauty AMERICAN WAYS 239 or an eccentric touch. Our advertisement pictures are the work of well-known illustrators. Artists limn from the same models illustrations of the well-dressed lover in the magazine stories, and the live dummies in wholesale clothiers' advertisements, for these same popular magazines. The caption beneath is a help in distinguishing one from the other. If the legend beneath says, " Elinor beheld Jack hurriedly coming over the campus," you will know it is an illustration for one of the magazine instalments of literary fudge, or if the lines beneath say, '*Our Nobby Sophomore Sack Suit — Send for Self-Measurement Instructions," you will know it's the other. You can also, it should be confessed, tell whether the picture has gone into literature i or trade by reason of the fact that the advertisments are in the back. But the first requirement of the illustration in the Sunday newspaper is that it shall be sensational. Some of them, succeed in being startling, but neither the Uext nor the illustration is actually salacious. The typical Sunday newspaper in our large cities is probably not debasing the moral currency so much as it is violating good taste. And, after all, we are faced with the anomaly that the Sunday newspaper offends refinement, but that refinement and the demand for the Sunday newspaper could not exist side by side. And it must be admitted that in America the newspaper editor is an inspired individual on what the public wants. It should be said, too, that there are several New York papers, the Sunday editions of which are dignified and their substance literature. But of course the flamboyant type is always pronounced "very American," just as the use of certain words is supposed to constitute an American dialect. As a matter of fact, many of the words animadverted upon as indefensible Americanisms by British cousins are solidly established in honourable ancestry, and, without 11 b V I 240 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA discourtesy, I would call attention to the fact that while Americanism serves as a term of reproach in the mouth of a British speaker, so does Briticism in the mouths of American speakers. Unfortunately we mutually either glare or laugh at the correlatives in English and American usage. The American uses " brakeman " or ^' trainman " for the English " guard," — Stevenson attempted the Americanism but got it "brakesman" in one of his stories — while our " freight train " stands for ** goods train " in England, "stem winder" for "keyless watch," "elevator" for "lift," and "street organ" or "hand organ" for the British " barrel organ." And so it goes. Certain words are used in both countries but indicate different things. " Corn " in England means " wheat," but in America " corn " is " maize." The English " calico " is plain cotton cloth, the American " calico " is printed cotton cloth. In the matter of university vocabulary America has borrowed " varsity team " and " varsity crew," etc., but "campus," as applied to the open space between college buildings, is our own, and " sophomoric " which has become a most useful epithet to signify an unformed, cubbish mental state, and is in universal application in the United States, is unknown in England. We took the word ** depot" from the French and misused it ; later, attempting to substitute " station," with a slight movement now towards using the British " terminus." On the other hand, the American " caucus " has been taken across the Atlantic by changing its meaning to signify what we are wont to describe as the political ** machine " or the " organization." America fittingly has contributed words of frontier life, such as "blaze" (to mark the trail through the woods by chipping off bits of bark), which is used now figuratively as well as literally in England and America. AMERICAN WAYS 241 An Englishman refers to writers who ** blaze the way '' as readily as an American does ; and " shack " (a cabin of logs driven perpendicularly into the ground) is intelligible in London as well as Australia. " Maverick " (an unbranded steer at Jlarge, to become the property of the first ranch- owner whose men may chance upon it) is known among all English-speaking ranchers. Americans have made a verb out of lumber (timber) and "to lumber" means to deforest a locality to the extent of cutting all the timber on it. Analogous to this in England is the making from " banting " the verb " to bant." We also use the verb " to launder," and " laundry " means not only the place where linen is washed but the linen itself. America is also responsible for " elevator " in the sense of a storehouse for grain, and " ticker " to designate a telegraphic printing machine. Citizens of Uncle Sam's kingdom are guilty of certain disfigurements of speech, such as the prefacing "Well," "Say,"" I tell you," "It's just no use talking," " Mercy," etc., which are heard as futile enforcement of any remark. But if criticism on this comes from England there is sure to be the reply that the oft-recurring, " You know," " Don't cher know," and " I fauncy " of British speech is just as disfiguring. Contrary to the general understanding abroad, there are no dialects in the United States. Even the so-called dialect of the cowboy is not a true ! dialect at all; it is simply carelessly colloquial English with a heavy infusion of fugitive slang. The sectional difference in speech in America is merely a matter of a few localisms and a variation of inflection and pro- nunciation, and this not as marked as between different parts of England. And it is a matter of a few slang phrases and not a dialect between upper and lower class in America. To be sure the geographical curiosity of the letter " r " in the United States never escapes comment. It is the r's which are responsible for the alleged "American brogue'* R 242 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA in the Middle Western and Western states. " The Western girl with her r's," sighs the English tourist. " It makes so many beautiful and accomplished women utterly impossible, 'you know.' Or, after you have proved yourself an Easterner, he confides that Western people are finely American ; yet they do seem to be unable to utter a sentence without setting one's teeth on edge. And yet I doubt whether the average American finds the well-bred English- woman's chromatic inflection of phrases pleasant, let alone intelligible, in his ears. I, myself, never became callous to the jar of hearing England's upper class meet her lower on the common ground of dropping final g's on their " ing " words, or of pronouncing " -ow " like " -er." An American saying " feller " for " fellow " would be relegated to the same class to which " caikes " for " cakes " consigns one in England. But ''just " and " such" on the American tongue are apt to sound like "jest " and " sech " and we have to confess to an inordinate fondness for the use of " guess " (inclined to think) in the Yankee sections and of " reckon " (consider, or deem) in the South. We do say " kind of" and " sort of " in spots — even " kinder " and " sorter " — and there is a shameful abundance of " ain't," " awful," and " mighty " (taken from its high place as an adjective and made an assistant adverb) in the average speech in America, until it is small wonder that cultured Englishmen have protested occasionally against American mangling of the mother tongue. There are, however, other more material things upon which America takes her stand of protest. The English tip is one of these. The American stands in no mute amazement before the fact that skilled artisans, even the small official in England, will accept tips, nay, even depend upon them, as a means of increasing his income. There are situations in America when "to tip or not to tip" may be a question, but apparently in England there is no negative. AMERICAN WAYS 243 Every American visitor to England knows this story ; I am quoting from another telling — The promenade deck of the Atlantic liner just leaving Southampton for New York is crowded with home-going Americans. The steamship pier is crowded with Britons — porters, cabmen, and idle lookers-on — all unmistakably English. The gang-plank is lowered, lines cast off, handkerchiefs waving farewell from pier to deck. Suddenly Smith — Smith of Akron, Illinois, or Keokuk, Kansas; at any rate American, "all wool and a yard wide " — leans over the deck rail and thus apostrophized the crowd on the pier — " Good-bye. I've been all over your country. To the best of my beHef, I've tipped the whole population — includ- ing the policeman. If I've missed anybody, it isn't their fault. In case I've overlooked any of you chaps, excuse me and take what I've got left." And Smith, drawing both hands from his trousers pockets, flung ashore a shower of English coppers. Of course this is an American story and, on the face of it, more a reflection on American manners than facetious criticism on an English custom. For tipping, in the ordinary sense of the term, is of course not an English evil, but a world-wide evil, and I presume it would take a conference of nations — and not of the Peace Conference variety, perhaps — to abolish it ; and the American tourist who goes about England giving tips six times too large to waiters and cabmen is the last person to cry out against the tipping practice ; but it is the different classes to be tipped in England that does confuse the American idea of what he calls the dignity of labour. The distinction of who may be tipped and who mtist not be tipped in the United States is a pretty definite distinction. Any one who serves you personally in a menial capacity you may, you are expected to tip, and at a higher rate than in England, and your tip is generally undeserved, while in England 244 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA it is the small tariff on excellent service. But to offer a tip to any man who tinkers, mends, makes, or trades for a living in America is to offer him an insult. If there is a waiter or a cabman in America who will not take a tip, I have yet to hear of him ; but the telephone mechanic, carpenter, plumber, piano-tuner, shop-girl, plumber, or cabinet-maker who expects a tip is quite as imaginary a character. One tips the grinning negro porter in the " Pullman " car ; but offer an American railway " conductor " in charge of your train a quarter of a dollar, and see what will happen ! He will inform you that he is a self-respecting man, who attends to his business and is paid by his employers, and he wants none of your tips. The Englishman is amused at this, because he notices that this same haughty official will accept the cigars worth far more than the repudiated shilling when offered in jovial camaraderie by the male travellers, and will expect to return in off moments to lean against your seat making friendly comments on scenery and weather. He will enter into whatever general conversation is taking place in the smoking compartment with an attitude of absolute equality. But he resents the coin tip. And the American thinks the European official in the same class is going to be as proud. It does not occur to him that the fine manly-looking guard at his first railway station in England would take a tip. On the way to London, however, at each stop the fine-looking guard comes to his compartment, informing the occupant with admirable dignity that he is the guard and that he has the tourist's luggage with him in the forward van, and gradually it dawns upon the American that the fine-looking, uniformed official not only will accept a tip, but is hinting for it, as a child might for an orange. The American thrusts a shilling into the guard's hand, and immediately feels a loss of respect for him, a shame AMERICAN WAYS 245 for the mankind that had stooped to demand it, not realizing that the man has merely called his attention most courteously to a custom of his nation — that tipping, as everything else in England, is a system, and that his tips represent to the guard quite as commendable a part of his income as the stated wage, which is small because of this very allowance for perquisites. But the American and the Englishman can no more find the same point of view on the working-man's wage or his tip than they can possibly come together over that "strictly illegal proceeding" called the Declaration of Independence. As the ancient German summarizes all futile dis- cussion : " The world may never decide whether it is better to wear night-caps or not ! " CHAPTER XI HOSPITALITY AND HOTELS IN the year 1778, a British patriot, of the Hessian Yager Corps, who were fighting the American rebels, wrote home that, " in America the milk is not rich, as in Germany ; the bread is not so nourishing, and many of the people are mad." There have been other strangers within our gates since then, and perhaps in less justifiable positions for criticism than the hungry mercenary, who have not hesitated to accept American hospitality and then to castigate us for its shortcomings. The masculine critic of this order is not to be feared, because he is generally of the type who comes over here already knowing a great deal about America, because "he has met Henry James at the Authors' Club," and usually discounts his statement that our hospitality is either a barmecide or pie on a railway lunch-counter, eaten with a knife, by some such assertion that " in Pittsburg people's faces get so black with soot that several white men have been lynched by mistake ; " or he waxes epigrammatic, to the effect that "America's sole contribution to humanity is hurry." But as hospitality is largely the expression of woman's sphere, the feat of the titled ladies who lend their superior presence from time to time to American efi"ort at entertain- ment from hearth and hotel must give pause for thought. 246 HOSPITALITY AND HOTELS 247 ' The foolishly sensitive among us sat up rather straight at the parting shot of one of these — " Your social diversions are rather amateur, I think," she confessed to the delighted garnerer of her " American Impressions." " I have been entertained charmingly many times. But so very many of your chiefest events seem as crude as a child's tea-party, where broken glass glitters finely, and there are three tablecloths and all the cookies one wants ; but we know the little hostess is only imitating mamma as well as she knows how. You imitate mamma- society-over-the-water, and you don't always do it as well as you might perhaps." I do not know in what spirit this gentle aspersion found this courteous guest's personal hostesses ; perhaps, calloused by former thrusts, they merely congratulated themselves that they had not been patronized as " warm-hearted," not condoned as " social villagers " ; perhaps they found compensation in the law of mental reservation, and indulged in certain " impressions " of their own. But discourteous, or merely tactless, or truth-proof as we may consider the charge of amateur hospitality, it courts consideration if we are ever going to grow up and disown the faint praise perpetually bestowed on us as a "young nation." And it courts comparison with our next-of-kin " society-over-the-water " with the English "mamma society." Here we touch upon what seems to be the fundamental difference between the English and American society — the foundation of class-consciousness which at once supplies the scheme, and the simplification of all English hospitality. If you are of the aristocracy in England, apparently it does not make any difference how you entertain — nothing can be lost, there is nothing to be achieved in the way of position ; and if you are not of the aristocracy, no matter how you entertain, you deceive no 248 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA one into thinking you of it. There is one thing, and perhaps only one, which can greatly bridge the social gap around the aristocracy, and that is the possession of genius. And there you are. Hospitality in the upper classes supplies a meeting-ground for persons of exclusive interests, and hospitality in the great middle class is merely the working of the inexorable law of a cutlet for a cutlet, between people of fixed social stratum. Hospitality becomes the normal expression of a frank desire for social intercourse. In America the scale of entertainment is the rating of the socially elect. The elaborate menu, the rare musical talent for after-dinner recital, spectacular decorations — these are the lances with which the new-comer must enter the society jousting that is ever in session in America. And so we have sensation-seeking, extravagant hospitality as the requisite of social supremacy, and, there being no acknowledged class barriers, it becomes a universal effort of all classes to eliminate the appearance of material distinctions. The constant effort to make our entertaining represent not ourselves or our income, but the income of a class above us in earthly possessions, honey-combs our hospitality. It gives a hysterical rather than a wholesome atmosphere. The showlness, the lavishness of our hospitality is indisputable, but the personal and affec- tionate note in the hospitality among the middle classes abroad is wanting here. There is no distinction between an effort to " do society " and hospitality. We seldom open the door of our homes to the guest, unless the stage is set for an appearance of greater wealth than we really enjoy, of greater formality than we dream of in our everyday life. There is ambition and pride back of it. If the housewife of a £700 income entertains as handsomely as the woman whose husband is making ;^I500, she will become a "dinner person " on the list of ;f 1500 households, and will have moved up a peg HOSPITALITY AND HOTELS 249 socially. In the meantime, of course, the woman whose social basis is a ;£"i5oo income is trying to entertain as often and as expensively as the hostess with a ^3000, or even ;^4000, annual backing. I recall a situation in point. An Englishwoman, the wife of an attache with the British Embassy in Washington, found herself much entertained. The luncheons of women guests only, where hats are worn, the midday light excluded in favour of colour-shaded candles on the table, and an almost endless array of courses served, drew her first comment. American men, even in Washington, the city of leisure, never went to lunches, she was told, and as for the elaborate menu, it was " what everybody had," governed by an inexorable law of con- vention, which makes it a do-or-die situation for the hostess. Then the dinners, seldom for less than twenty covers — more often between that and thirty — the guests seated at one large table, that generally gave the servants scant moving space, with again the tedious, elaborate menu, and no attempt at conversation beyond the jest and humorous anecdote. The Englishwoman met her engagements perplexedly and unenthusiastically. "But, of course, I can't entertain so elaborately on my husband's pay," she averred philosophically, " it would be absurd. I shall give just little, simple dinners, and have the people I really get on with to Sunday night supper." And she did, to the real entertainment of the favoured few, ^who were charmed to find that a dinner company might be made an occasion for " getting on " in friend- ship, and not a stiff and glittering function monotonously along the conventional lines as defined by a hotel menu. Not that the Englishwoman worked any revolution in Washington entertainment. Indeed, part of her success was because her simplicity struck Washington hostesses as "so delightfully queer" and "very original." The shock of this simplicity can be imagined when it is realized that the simplest dinner deemed "proper" by 250 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA the American hostess in Washington is along the following lines : Grape-fruit or hors d'oeuvre Raw oysters Soup Fish Entree Roast Birds Salad Frozen pudding, cakes, bon-bons, etc. with the liquid accompaniment of — Cocktails Sherry Sauterne Claret Champagne Liqueur. Even at the very modest houses, the guests being absurdly numerous, there is necessary the partner's card on entering the drawing-room, place cards at the table, and very often checks for wraps in the dressing-room. The Englishwoman's Sunday suppers, usually of impromptu inviting, and haphazard advance to the dining- room, consisted of chicken salad, a dish of cold meats, with a sweet and cheese with the coffee. But the Englishwoman's shock came when she learned that several of the homes in which she had attended what she frankly termed "extraordinarily fussy" dinners and luncheons, were on a basis of income no larger, in some cases not as large, as her husband's army pay, which, on assignment to this diplomatic post, had been raised to £(po. Then she learned that hospitality with us is some- what in the nature of social window-dressing; that the woman who gave elaborate dinners on a small income gave HOSPITALITY AND HOTELS 251 only one or two a season in place of the series of informal suppers ; that the service was almost entirely hired for the evening instead of being, as in her case, the work of her parlour-maid and waitress, her children's nurse, and her own cook ; that outside of these few-and-far-between formal dinners the American family lives en dishahilU ; in fact, considers the ceremony of the ordinary English menage as very funny, and that the children are sent to free day schools, avoiding the governess or the tuition fees of the English expense account. So that, while in a country where the type of hospitality is prescribed by classes, the spectacle of a household of ;£"7oo income attempting a formal banquet or two each season, and thereby considering themselves in society,' would be a laughing-stock, the cost is no more than that required to support the normal English house- hold, and in America it is an expression of the national characteristic — ambition. Misapplied, no doubt, for there is very little solid comfort in the city homes of people who have ;f 700 a year, and who find the effort to make the ends of it meet over a waste and foolish hospitality so difficult. But in this apparently shoddy and superficial strain of character, which makes her hospitality all along the line an effort to offer something obviously expensive, and in conventional circumstances, with a false setting of wealth and luxury, lies the reason and explanation of many things American. In the first place, what Hawthorne said may still bear light — " These Englishmen are certainly a franker and simpler people than ourselves, from peer to peasant ; but if we take it as compensatory on our part (which I leave to be considered) that they owe these noble and manly qualities to a coarser grain in their nature, and that with a finer one in ours, we shall ultimately acquire a marble polish of which they are unsusceptible, I believe that this may be the truth." And it is certainly true that Americans, owing perhaps 252 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA to the greater development of their nerves and sensibilities, have left behind much of the unembarrassed directness of the English, as an older but, in a way, much more primitive people. The Englishman, who frankly complains of his "poverty" — not the up-to-date cant of the extenuating method as applied to one's resources, but an open admis- sion that it is a struggle to meet his expenses — has no duplicate in America. It may be a subtlety which has come into the character with the mixed strains, environment, climate — any of the expedients resorted to by national psychologists — but the fact remains that " putting the best foot forward " has reached a high art, if as yet it merely appears as a high crime of hypocrisy, in America. In this lies largely the explanation of why you are rarely invited into a family dinner or Sunday evening supper in American homes. Another reason why hospitality is on a more or less artificial basis here is that the American man abhors social life. He has no small talk for his dinner partners ; he is almost always absorbed in some scheme to make more money, and naturally in no mood to make it a topic of conversation, even with the other men, over his after- dinner cigar ; and then he is, as a rule, too exhausted to look upon any effort of entertainment to which he must contribute as anything but torture. Not long ago I was escorted out to dinner by a man who was absolutely silent as the courses came and went, and responded to all efforts at conversation with a non-committal, though attentive glance. But toward the close of the dinner, a wide-range, feminine remark on current politics, thrown out in despair, caught his attention, and during the next few minutes I learned more than I ever expect to in a similar period again. But the minutes were few, and this drawing of fire a game of remote chance, and while he confessed later to having been more dead than alive when he presented himself before his hostess, of such guests HOSPITALITY AND HOTELS 253 successful social functions are not made. It is an average case The social lion in America is represented by a few men doing light literature, a very few statesmen, the foreign diplomats accredited to Ameriea, and, since our Puritan conscience has somewhat removed the national opprobrium from " play-acting," by the actor of scholarly success. Conversation at the formal dinner in America never becomes general. There is never any topic of common interest in a company assembled by the haphazard sheafing of all invitations the hostesses have received, wholesale reciprocity and not selection being the basis of endeavour where entertainments must be so expensive. One woman unconsciously epitomized American hospitality when she complained : " We cannot ask our friends because we are not indebted to them, and when we do entertain, we try to take in as many as possible to whom we are indebted, and have it over with. It just amounts to doing something you don't want to do for people who don't want you to do it, and it costs ! " The average American man dislikes formality of any sort. Relaxation means reversion to crude manners, and he always suspects that the foreigner who affects society and who prefers a walk on the boulevards to reading the Sunday newspapers with his vest eased, is a " light- weight " or a " lady killer." I met one type on a recent visit in England which would be a seven-days' impossibility in America ; the man, generally youngish, who with most slender income but gentle birth, lives in a round of visits to well-known houses always an acceptable guest, always amiable, often with a fund of clever talk, and guaranteed to simulate mild flirta- tion when the emergency presents. As a rule he keeps small lodgings in London, from whence he sallies forth to his round of dining and lunching during the season ; but the bulk of each year he distributed among the hostesses from whom, to put it boldly, he accepts board and lodging 254 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA in exchange for services as social-utility man. One hostess, explaining the identity of such a guest— with circuitous courtesy, of course — added that she had grown as fond of him as if he were her own son. In this case the man was not strong, and there seemed nothing unmanly about his taking a living out of hospitality, but I could not help reflecting over the difference of the average man in America to whom the acceptance of formal hospitality gives such discomfort that the scratching for a living in the work-a-day competition, with an occasional chance to go to see a " musical show," as the only desired recreation, has a look of heaven-sent alter- native. This comparison is akin to the criticism that our army officers make a poor showing in society when on their diplomatic assignments, and its rebuttal in a recent magazine article, which claimed that the army life in England among its officers was a kind of sporting club, requiring a certain income to belong, and one was expected above all to cultivate a gentleman's tastes ; whereas, in America, the army officer was obliged to look to his profession for his bread and butter. His devotion was, therefore, to his business, first and foremost, and his ideal, the achievement of material advancement, not becoming a social ornament. And the writer off-set the story that an American army officer had responded to an invitation from the Turkish charge d'affaires in Washington, by a type-written note beginning, " My dear Mr. Bey," by the anecdote of a British officer who remarked, on his return from the Boer campaign, that "South Africa was a beastly place. There was weally no amusement there until Lady Fitzdoodle came out and gave afternoon teas. Then it was rather nice ! " But it is with hospitality, as with other matters of comparative excellence between England and America, that we do bigger things better — but that in the higher, finer details of life we are not on a par. The average of HOSPITALITY AND HOTELS 255 intelligence in the United States is far higher than it is in England, but I think we must admit that in the nobler departments of intellectual achievement we are as yet inferior to the English. The standard, both in litera- ture and in the fine arts, is higher in England than it is here. It is the same in respect to oratory. The average of the speaking in the House of Commons is lower than it is in the American House of Representatives, but the best English speakers surpass the best American speakers. Even the judicial opinions of the English judges are better expressed than those of our judges — more racy and spontaneous, more literary. In learning generally, especi- , ally in theology, there can be no question of English I superiority. So it is with hospitality. On a large scale, I in the public entertainment of foreign guests on our ' shores, in the great and tumultuous opening ceremonies of 1 expositions, in the great hotel banquet, we excel. I Foreigners were amazed at the unlimited, dazzling i hospitality offered by the city of New York, on the occasion of a recent historical water-pageant in which battleships from several nations participated. There never has been a foreigner of note or notoriety visiting in the United States who has not been publicly dined and wined to the limit of his physical endurance. But with the retail part of hospitality, with the intimate welcome to vine and fig-tree, we would not have anything to do. At least we have achieved as yet little national grace in that high art of personal hospitality. The guest who dares to " drop in " to an American home unannounced is a very courageous person, and even near relatives are forming the habit of eating at hotels and restaurants rather than, expect a welcome if they happen to be in time for meals but cannot announce their coming. The hostess who uncomplainingly provides wafers and ices and salad for two or three hundred persons at a (so- announced) " small tea " dislikes to have a friend drop in 256 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA without warning at meal time, and few people are guilty of such a thing. More often than not marriages scatter a ' family over the continent so there is not possible the continual visiting between married daughters and sons and the parents. It took the institution of " Old Home Week," with its public celebration and hospitality, to bring about the annual pilgrimage of scattered native element back to their original homes, family reunions being of secondary consideration. Week-end stays are exclusively the indulgence of the very rich in America. There is one thing which militates mightily against private hospitality in the United States, and the development of a poised type of hostess here — that the servant-girl, never a product approaching the demand, is disappearing. On this point the census figures speak plainly. In 1870 there was one servant-girl to every eight families, in 1900 only one to every twelve, and yet, during these thirty years, the number of self-supporting women — that is, the actual labour market — has more than trebled. To put it plainly, forty years ago one woman in two, thrown upon her own resources, would tend to select housework for a living ; thirty years ago only every third woman entered domestic service ; and ten years ago only one woman in four rapped at the kitchen door; while to-day a vast population of housewives turn vain eyes toward the immigrant station in the hope that there will be enough foreign peasants to go around. The various current explanations of this scarcity of servants has been offered elsewhere, but it seems, after all, as if the answer, as formulated by a clever journalist, might be sufficient : " The trouble with the servant-girl in America is that she wants an easy job terminating with an easy husband." However, the fact remains that no cook or an inferior cook in the kitchen cuts off a large class in America where entertainment as an exchange of courtesy is un- known. For, in spite of the fact that there is an annual HOSPITALITY AND HOTELS 257 recrudescence throughout American newspaper offices of symposiums on how to give a luncheon of twelve courses and twenty guests with one servant, it would take a stronger faith than the average maiden lady writer of these columns can inspire to effect a test of this miracle. Among this class of one servant or no servant abroad there is always a neighbourly round of entertainment, but , not so in America, where housework has no status of ! dignity, no pride as an art, and when, as far as possible, the fact that one does one's own cooking is at least a vertebra of the family skeleton. The really prosperous housewife in Germany who invites you to afternoon coffee, [ or supper, or to dinner, and is rather hurt if you do not ask I for the recipes of the cakes and savoury dishes she has I herself prepared, is replaced in America by the young ' housekeeper in a flat with one untrained maid, who I would think it impossible to offer you such entertainment I as her own and the maid's incapable hands could provide, j and who puts the money which might have been diverted I to home hospitality in a new hat, a weekly matinee ticket, I or in taking half a dozen of the people to whom she is ' socially indebted to a restaurant of Bohemian flavour, where, in a private room, she may have an inordinately j spiced delicatessen repast, including vm ordinaire served I for 5s. a cover. j One young woman explained to me what a find she I had made in a Hungarian resort, where the waiters looked [ like " scarey brigands," and amid tinkley *' rag-time " and j many mirrors, she could dine six people for £\^ including I the 2s. tip to her more than satisfied brigand waiter. And when she had explained to me what dinner giving in her flat had formerly cost her in mental anguish, her ; secret anxieties, her long and studied preparations, her j palpitations of fear and hope, her diplomatic differences I with her green cook, and her heart-quakes for the right I going off of things without her supervision after the s 258 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA guests had arrived, I did not blame her that the mock Hungarian Bohemianism seemed a deliverance from genuine hospitality, but I blamed her mother. Whatever may be the significance, however, of the cheap foreign restaurant in regard to our home hospitality, it may not be beside the mark to observe here that most of the Italian and French restaurants serving tables d'h6te in New York City offer you a better meal for a lower price than you would get in Paris or Rome or Naples. There the prevalent ideal is five francs, with neither wine nor coffee included. While I know of a certain Italian place on a good avenue in New York, which I will not locate more definitely, lest I be suspected of being a partner in the enterprise, where a splendid lunch or dinner may be enjoyed for fifty or sixty cents, " vino compreso." The material is excellent, and the treatment artistic, and the company of a simple and self-respecting domesticity — fathers and mothers of families, aunts, cousins, uncles, grandparents. As an American, reviewing the charm of the foreign restaurant in his own country, has said : ** I do not deny a merry widow hat here and there, but the face under it, though often fair and young, is seldom a merry widow face." The same kind and harmless types form circles about the tables in certain restaurants farther down town in the cheaper rental districts, where a French table d'hote is served for fifty cents, but with a bouille baisse added which I should not, but for my actual experiences, have expected to buy for treble the money. But there are plenty of Italian and French tables d'hote for the same price all over New York. If you venture outside the Latin race you pay dearer and you fare worse, unless you happen upon one of those shining halls in which my young hostess friend did her entertaining. If you go to a German place, you get grosser dishes and uncouth manners for more money. I do not know I Jj HOSPITALITY AND HOTELS 259 why that amiable race should be so dear and rude in its American feeding-places, but that is my experience. Still, even those Germans are not so dear as they are in the fatherland, though rude. So will be seen the attraction of the cheap table d'hote for our young couples. If it helps them to do with one maid or with none instead of two, it makes for cheapness of living ; for service, what there is of it, in America, is costly, and it is greedy, and, except in large households, its diet is the same as the family's. So that the young fiat-dweller reasons that anything that reduces service is a saving, the replacing it by ability of her own being only an inspiration of desperate necessity on the part of the American housewife. Of course, the table d'hote which is cheap for entertain- ing, or a regular refuge for one or two, is not cheap as I a family programme for more, and it is not available if there are children. But, as my young hostess friend explains : " Most people of that income have no children. They cannot afford them." But in the way she has noted, they can afford to entertain w^hen they have no children. And such things are in America, in spite of our young and tender conscience, supposedly of Puritan manufacture ! Still, when in England, I waxed sentimental over the little ivy-clad house which always remains to the American as the Englishman's ideal of home-nesting, the English- man to whom I spoke smiled broadly and replied genially : "Ah, yes, the little ivy-covered house which he readily I lets to others, with photographs of his dearest friends, and his knick-knacks, which are souvenirs of birthdays and mournings ! " So perhaps the young couple and the cheap restaurant combination in our large cities are not points from which national hysteria need start. I have always regretted, however, that the hotel and the theatre played such an important part in our hospitality further up the social line ; that our hospitality should 26o HOME LIFE IN AMERICA represent so little outside matter of food and drink. However, there being no art of conversation, the theatre naturally takes its place. From sitting at a formal dinner, with the necessity for keeping up the appearance of conversation, to enjoying the lines of trained talkers or singers, is, of course, a pleasant change. Your hostess is met at the theatre, and a supper-party follows in the palm-room of some large hotel, where there is festive clatter, and fountain splash and insistently struggling orchestra melody until the last guest has seen fit to depart. For although decollete is still uncomfortably rare — for the visiting foreigner who has essayed it — at the theatre or in the hotel restaurant, and American hotels still frown prohibitively upon the feminine cigarette, the average closing hour of these " palm-rooms " is 2 a.m. And matrons high of collar and unimpeachable character may be seen loitering over wine suppers with tired husbands whose business absorption fights with sleep. One un- deniably clever woman told me that she blessed the fashion of hotel hospitality, since she had so many "business friends" of her husband's thrust upon her for diplomatic attention, and she always " tired out " the man and wife at a hotel dinner, this being so much less intimate than the home dinner, and admitting of a withdrawal of friendship if the guests proved impossible. This is a tiny phase of the question, but we cannot help feeling how much better it would be in general if we could establish a regime of simple hospitality in the home. We who are really, in our free-handed way, so far from the Wordsworthian policy of " tea and bread and butter you may have, but if you want meat you must pay for your board," are hiding our impulsive generosity behind ideas of formality and artificiality in the hospitality we offer. Over comparatively simple dinners abroad there is an atmosphere of wit, and of friendly ease, and social grace, and a matter of poetry and art, and intellectual ease in the exchange of comment HOSPITALITY AND HOTELS 261 and conversation. In America, we hide ourselves behind the glitter and distraction of a hotel dining-room, or make a show-case of our homes, in which the guests are expected to conduct themselves with about the animation of lay figures. And the pity of it is that the American woman, who really could develop into a splendid type of hostess, is not having her chance. Some one has said that the Englishwoman receiving a bidden guest is an indescribable combination of warmth and frost. " The London hostess's invariable mode of precedure," writes our humorist, " is a sudden inordinate gush of welcome, followed immediately by an icy stare. By the time you have politely responded to the welcome, your hostess has forgotten your existence." English hostesses always seem to me very like that peculiar kind of flowered chintz with which they cover their furniture — the kind that looks like oil-cloth, and is very cold and shiny, very beautiful, very slippery, and decidedly uncomfortable. The American hostess, on the contrary, is usually too effusive, too anxious to please, to approach poise. But she is sympatica ; and when she can be persuaded to believe that things in the kitchen will progress without a concen- trated effort at absent treatment on her part, she is charming even if, as an Englishman has said, " her mind don't jell." All the average American hostess wants is practice. Outside of dining hospitality, however, the greatest difference of all between the social life in the two countries is in the make-up of society. In the first place, in England it is not, as here, a society of the young, or at least of those who still appear young. Here we regard society, visiting and entertainments as the national but frivolous relaxation \ of youth ; it is arranged for the young. In England it is I looked upon as the necessary meeting-ground of all ages. j The rigid age limits which we draw about our parties are unheard of there. Dancing is only a small part of a ball 262 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA or a reception ; so many of the guests have come with no other idea than to talk to their old friends. Even at dinners in England a girl is never asked without her chaperon. There is something distinctly provincial in our division of youth and age, as if a young man could have nothing to say to a dowager, as if a girl must be bored by a brilliant man merely because he happens to be old enough to be her grandfather. It is a little incongruous to have the younger children of a family one is visiting invading one's privacy at all times, ordinarily dining with one and staying in the drawing-room late at night, but find the young-lady daughter fed in the pantry and dismissed upstairs on the occasion of a " dinner " because she is too young to appear at the elderly function. However, in the South — in the good old Southern families at least — there is no such segregation of youth and middle age, no such hedge of formality in the entertain- ment. In some of the churches in the South one finds lecterns, fonts and communion services presented to the infant churches by the kings and bishops of London in colonial times. And to-day the people in the South throw open their doors to the guest, coming either by heartfelt urging or quite by chance, with all the simple hospitality of the early days of those prosperous, high- living, manorial settlements. The English writer cha- racterizing us as a " nation of villagers " has, nevertheless, said something which may to-day be proudly held as an exposition of Southern hospitality. " When a nation has been newly cleared and settled by casual ambitious colonists," he claims, "without any common industrial traditions or body of custom, socially it is in the village stage." In a glorious village stage of neighbourly de- pendence and prodigal sharing Southern hospitality revels; whatever they have, however they live, the guest shares. They are a law unto themselves, and the law is embodied HOSPITALITY AND HOTELS 263 in the fact that diamond-back terrapin, and baked possum, and sweet potatoes, and fried chicken, and water-melons, and five kinds of hot bread, form a repast fit for a king, and you, the guest, are the king, as far as their efforts to set these marvels before you is concerned. The President, who recently toured this section of the country through continuous banquets of possum and sweet ** 'taters," was accused by the facetious Northern press of trying to steal [ a march on Southern votes through the pantry window. , But any one who knows the spirit of hospitality there : realized the village spirit of home-made entertainment in ' the South that outran, not sealed, political pledge. I When a Northern woman says: "When you are in my part of the country, I shall expect a visit," in nine cases out of ten she would be astounded at a literal i( interpretation. But the Southern woman's, "If you all I don't come and stop at our place next winter, I'll never I speak to you again," means that you are definitely invited ; I and to engage rooms in a hotel anywhere near her home would burst the bounds of etiquette and friendship at I once. If fortune has reversed her family's position in worldly I goods, you may have to listen a good deal to tales of ' former grandeur ; but no one can do otherwise than marvel j that the Southerner still finds it in his heart to be hospit- I able when his section of the country has been invaded and j trampled and devastated by his own countrymen in the I wake of a civil war. As a Northern guest in a Southern home, I heard a Northerner urge her small son not to *' Shermanize " the garden in his play, and realized that that Northern general's name has standardized wanton destruction in the region of his famed march for which the nation crowned him. J And yet in that section of America where civil war 1 destroyed homes and the fabric of living do we find preserved the simplest home hospitality of the land. 264 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA An Englishman complained that he had gone through New England hoping that some one of his hosts would serve him the national dish of " pork and beans," or that he would have "pie for breakfast" offered him in true "Yankee" style. But neither ambition had been satisfied until he stayed overnight in a Maine farmhouse, when the flurried hostess apologized for both facts as not " being citified and proper." I know if he went South he had the local viands from " corn pone " (fiat cakes from corn meal), and bacon, to terrapin and acorn-fed ham and luscious fruit according to the circumstance of his entertainers, offered to him with the easy-going satisfaction of true village hospitality. There is no effort to be " citified " in the hospitality of old Southern families. Manorial hospitahty and gentlemanly leisure are the ideals to which the Southerner chngs — often pathetically — through depletion and poverty and the revolutions of a commercial age. There is an exuberant hospitality in the West, but it is the expression of wonderful prosperity, a new-rich lavishness, a pioneer desire to spend and display, a warm-hearted boy's inclination to invite every one he sees to his party ; while the spirit behind Southern hospitality is to share whatever is at hand, with only a courtly sigh for the times when he might have done more for you. As to the hospitality upon which America puts a price at her hotels, it may be said again that it is more impres- sive, has a more palatial entrance, is more luxurious in general, also more expensive and infinitely less comfort- able in detail for the average sojourner than that dispensed at the English or Continental hostelries. There is in every large city one or more of these enormous hotels ; in New York almost twice as many as in London, varying only in degree as to combinations of architectural features ; in the amount of Russian and Italian marbles in the lobby, the length and decoration of the long first floor corridor, HOSPITALITY AND HOTELS 265 which is always motley with dress parade, and called, on that account, " Peacock Alley " ; in the quality of paintings upon panels and ceiling of the ballrooms ; in the variation of capacity above the one-thousand mark ; and in the ability of its management to " do " its guests to the maximum of charge from boot-polishing to menu eccen- tricities. I am not as sceptical as some who heard the tale in regard to the following : — I " An Oxford professor, one of the quiet, unobtrusive men of learning who live buried in their books and forget to eat their dinners, went over to New York to attend ; the meeting of a distinguished international society, of : which he was one of the most distinguished members. ;' He stopped for the night at a friend's house off Fifth J Avenue, and the next morning took a cab for one of the ( big hotels round the corner. The cabman charged him = $5 for a three-minutes' drive, and then left him in his ■i spectacled, scholastic shyness in the hotel lobby. < "The clerk, seeing the $5 bill go to the cabby, drew his 1 own conclusions, and, with the overwhelming attentions ] which gave no chance for inquiries as to prices, ushered i him into a lightning-conductor lift, and thence into a I magnificent suite of rooms, apparently designed for visiting ! emperors and the pocket-books of multi-millionaires. It I took him some time to recover his equilibrium, and then I his scientific soul was so overwhelmed with curiosity to study the complexities of all the bells and turnspikes that I communicated downstairs, and promised to bring you up [j about everything under the sun — if you could only get ( the hang of the thing — which took him another hour or two, and then his watch told him the evening was too far advanced to change his abode for that night. " So he ordered up his dinner, being afraid to venture down for fear the clerk would hustle him back into greater gorgeousness and multiplicity of bell-signals. " He found that he had a private bath ; but it offered so 266 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA many different kinds of baths that he lay awake all night wondering which he ought to take the next morning, and heartily wishing for the good old-fashioned tub he had left behind him. *' The next morning, wanting his shoes polished, and not yet having solved the mystery of the bell-signals, he caught a passing waiter, who came into the room and shouted through the tube down to the office : * The man in 27 wants a gentleman up here to black his shoes ! ' It brought a grinning darkey, who pocketed a dollar bill with a ' Thankee, sah,' but gave him no change." An Englishman to whom this was retailed remarked that if such an experience of being '' done " (adopting the American vernacular) were to happen in a reputable, first- class hotel in London, the man could sit down the next day and write to " The Times," and the hotel would soon be going out of business. The Americans who listened looked cynically reminiscent. Probably each remembered some instance of having been '' done " in an English hotel. Certainly English hotels do " do " the foreigner. But it is almost always along lines which, after a little experience, you can guard against. And it is only on petty things amounting to petty sums, more exasperating to your temper than hard on your pocket-book, and, after varied experiences, I must agree with the Englishman that it is only the American hotel that is " smart " and nimble enough to act the high-handed thief. An American statesman, in a speech-making tour, arrived at a New York hotel with barely time to make the necessary change for his next appointment. With this in mind, he had brought his evening clothes in his grip, allowing his other luggage to follow him. But his evening vest was discovered by his wife's discriminating eyes to be somewhat soiled. The " hotel valet " whose presence was advertised on a card stuck in each mirror was consulted. Valet protested that he could not clean the vest in time, HOSPITALITY AND HOTELS 267 but would bring one from his stock. The substitute proved to be a shop-worn, cheap article, and the statesman, unable to recall his own from the valet's quarters, was forced to wear it. The value could not have been over 8s., but in the statesman's bill appeared the item " one evening waist- coat £2 8s." At the New York hotel, which is the acknowledged head-quarters of foreign dignitaries coming to this country, and from which has fluttered in compliment the flag of every nation, from the yellow silk dragon to the Black Eagle, the royal suites rent for ;f 100 a day, and the payment of ^20 to £'^0 a day for a suite is not uncommon. The average room with a bath would rent for £2, £1^ or £^ a day, according to location and equipment. At hotels of slightly less world-wide fame the room and bath average ;^i 8s. a day. In London hotels of the same standing, bedroom, sitting-room, and bath would rent for about £\ d. day. American hotels above the first two floors of ornate luxury are a disappointment. The rooms are small and stuffy, and furnished with cumbersome pieces of furniture, which must have been promoted upward on a basis of age without regard to use or appropriateness. All the details for comfort found in even small London hotels are lacking. A night-table at the side of the bed is a rarity ; if there is a bed-lamp, the switch to adjust it is almost invariably across the room. The bed is generally placed to receive the full glare and blast from the windows, while the dressing- table is sequestered in a corner or a pocket alcove. We are a little more conscientious than we used to be about the presence of the waste-paper basket and the number of bath-towels accorded the upper chambers of our large hotels, but the bath-rug, the bath thermometer, the shelf accommodation for toilet articles and bottles — the points one never misses in a London hotel, even when the bath- room is a re-modelled cupboard — are no part of the average 268 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA accommodation in America, where you are paying for the luxury of walking through an onyx lobby. On the other hand, the closet room is generally more than ample and built in — not one of those upright sarcophagi in many London hotel rooms, that vibrate ominously when an extra heavy skirt or cloak is confided to their interior — and there is generally a writing-desk stocked abundantly with paper, bearing the picture and the biography of the hotel as heading, and we cannot avoid the conclusion that advertisements governed this consideration for the patrons' convenience. On each story of many hotels of the first magnitude there is a desk for information and general reference, presided over by a woman clerk, and as there is an arrangement of multiple mirrors reflecting the doorway of almost every room on that particular floor, and the lifts too are thus conveniently kept under surveillance, one has one's suspicion as to the full mission of that institution also. But one is particularly suspicious of being made a free advertisement medium in America. Recently an American impresario of note entered his club and solemnly addressed the smoking-room assembly : " The Great Coquelin," said he, " is dead. He died two days after Rostand had come up to Paris from his hilltop house in Cambo to rehearse * Chanticlere.' Had that happened in America," continued the impresario, striking a long- sufl*ering attitude, "the press would have declared- it to be an advertisement for Rostand's new play." But to return to the American hotel. It is the price that really inconveniences the person of moderate means. On entering an English hotel a slip bearing the price of the room allotted will be handed you as you leave the desk. In America, to ask the price is to court a stony stare or a haughty response of the maximum and minimum cost of accommodation, and you take what the clerk considers your appropriate tariff. The restaurant charges are higher in American hotels. HOSPITALITY AND HOTELS 269 Just before leaving for Europe, I stopped at a New York hotel, which, though large, has no pretensions to being of the ultra-fashionable, and for a very modest dinner of raw oysters, half a chicken, a vegetable, and a small bottle of wine, I paid 19s. 2jd. At a hotel in London for the same meal I paid los. Of course, our protective tariff on wine might be said to account for part of that discrepancy ; but for a breakfast of half a grape fruit, two boiled eggs, and a pot of coffee I paid 4s. in the American hotel, and a more varied and better-served " combination " breakfast can be found in a hotel of the same character in London for 2s. " Combination " breakfasts or other form of table d'hote are not popular in large American hotels. Particularly are we spared, I may say, the temptation of the table d'hote after theatre supper of certain London hotels. That " square meal " in courses, taken late at night and hurriedly, in view of the inexorable turning out of lights in the London restaurants, is always viewed with horror by the Americans, even of the gourmand type, who wants the rarest but least substantial of lunches at that hour. American imagination and ingenuity contrive to offer a greater variety of menu at the big hotels, and if you can pay a dozen prices for it, you can get anything on a cold winter day that most people enjoy eating in the hot summer, and vice versa. But people who know how to live — which most Americans have to go to Europe to learn — find that sort of a thing as a steady diet about as interesting and pleasant as eating sawdust every day. The people about a large New York hotel present interest- ing study. Of the majority you can only say that they all seem to have money and to handle it with a careful care- lessness. There is generally a sprinkling of opulent Westerners, who sit around and stare at one another, and each group believes the other to be New York society people. There is always an element of the parvenus who 2/0 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA have drifted into hotel life in the metropolis with a wild sense of extravagance, and who wear stage clothes and look as if they " expected to put a gold dollar in a slot at every step." Of course, there are always some of the real people among the eddying, dining throng ; but unless there is some gathering of society pre-arranged, they are few, and they usually do not look the part. One American has ventured this diagnosis : " New York society people are like those of every other metropolis ; they are quiet, simple, usually plain and stupid, rather tired of their money, and rather cautious of it, from force of habit and a fear of looking ostentatious." But I do not think the tea-room of certain New York hotels, between five and seven on afternoons in the season, would illustrate this description any more than the night display at the horse show or about the horseshoe of stalls at a grand opera per- formance. Americans have contracted the tea-habit in so far as it admits of public indulgence, and the palm-rooms of American hotels blossom for this observance, as elsewhere, into an even division of those who come to see, and the other half element of gorgeous raiment who trail in to reserved tables to be seen. The large hotels in America miss few points in the game. The second-rate hotels in America seem impossible, and, below second-class rating, unspeakable. Nowhere in America can you find the quiet, unpretentious but dignified hostelries like those century-old little hotels in London off Piccadilly and Bond Street ; or in Paris, in one of the numerous delightful little hotel pensions off the Champs Elysee, where you are as comfortable and quiet, and your wishes as completely catered to, as if the house was your private residence, and every deferential servant there belonged to your personal establishment. In the cheaper hotels here all is bluster, clatter, and noisy ostentation ; for the American does not go to a hotel for old-fashioned HOSPITALITY AND HOTELS 271 comfort and simplicity and refinement. He goes there when he has money in greater or less degree of superfluity, and he wants the impression that he is making a noise spending it. As for the little hotels in the country towns in America, they can only figure as nightmare memories to any one who has had full experience. It really haunts one — the soiled table linen, slatternly, impertinent servants, the guests eating as if the house were on fire or they were fearing a famine ; the uncouth manners ; the ghastly pie and soggy doughnuts at breakfast ; the dinner, with countless little dishes around your place containing various things, but all tasting from the same pot ; and the outrageous bills ! But it must be realized that, in most of the phases of American life, we are dishevelled because we are growing too fast ; that we toss our shortcomings to the surface in the very seething of progress ; that we are still boiling, and not yet ready to be run from plastic into the mould of our established civilization. There is not the false brilliance of the stagnant pool's iridescent surface. Neither are we by nature a phlegmatic nor a bucolic people. We may, therefore, weigh America's all-round veritably active state against the discomfort of the chambermaid who openly examines your clothes that she may have her spring outfit made "just that style " ; of the lack of hot water ; and the hall-boy, who is too intent j on reading an account of the latest prize-fight, or a recent " lucky strike " in Western mineral lands, or even a law text-book, to answer your bell ; in fact, all the discomforts of our small hostelry in its over-ambition to be " citified " and get what comfort as a weary traveller we may therefrom. Any American who has motored or tramped through rural England or France will remember the clean little inns everywhere abounding, with wholesome cooking, respectful servants at one's beck and call any minute. 2/2 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA sweet-smelling bedrooms, looking out upon garden spots, of privacy, comfort, and moderate prices. But few real Americans, after all, would expatiate themselves merely because our automobile roads are bad and we have no bovine servile peasantry, comfortable as such details are. CHAPTER XII THE WEST AT HOME A VETERAN stage-coach driver, the seat of honour beside whom I was granted on a coaching-trip through Yellowstone Park, confided mournfully that automobiles have just been substituted for the old Concord coaches on one of the pioneer routes of the Colorado mining camps. It was the last of the old stage lines, and he expressed fluent sympathy for the " Eastern folk," who had never known the romance of the days when the old stages of egg-shaped bodies went rolling and rocking and plunging through the wilderness, and hold-ups and rob- beries gave an air of interesting danger. Then he told me how, years ago, when he drove the stage over to Boise City from the Union Pacific Line, he had on one trip a single passenger only, a little tenderfoot of a New England schoolma'am going to take charge of a school in that town. She had never before been further from Boston than the Hudson River. Along about dusk one evening, as she sat on the box, the driver and the team wound its way around the shoulder of a bleak mountain, a man suddenly stepped into the middle of the road and held up his hand. A cocked rifle rested easily in the hollow of his arm, and its muzzle pointed straight at the driver's head. He quickly pulled up, since, as he assured me, a " Winchester at ten paces is about as certain death as prussic acid." T 273 274 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA " Throw over the express box," said the man with the gun. The driver reached down and flung the box in the road ; then he started to gather up the reins. " Hold on," the other cried impatiently. " Where's the mail bag } Don't you think I want that } " For reply the driver swiftly kicked it overboard. " All right," said the man on the ground in an affable tone. " You can drive on now." For half a mile they rolled along in silence, school- ma'am and driver. The former seemed to be in deep study. At last, turning to the driver, she said : " I don't know anything about the West, of course, but that certainly does seem to be an awfully lonesome place to have a post office." This maidenly innocence of the West has a counterpart to-day in the curious ignorance of the average Easterner about the true conditions in the West of his country. For the average Easterner, either fed upon Bret Harte's picturesque tales, looks upon the West as a realm of law- lessness and of poverty, except for the gamblers and successful miners, or he accepts the glamour and humorous exaggeration of its more recent literary exploitation, and believes that all Western farmers are plutocrats, their wives riding in automobiles and wearing diamonds, and that as soon as one crosses the Mississippi River one begins to stumble over nuggets the size of New England field rocks and scrape oneself on projecting veins of virgin silver. The possibility of farming within limitations and to the tune of a steady income seems curiously without the Eastern conception of the West. Amusing to the Westerner is this ignorance concerning the West's actual condition. A few weeks before Christmas a Dakota wife, recently married, received from her husband's sister in Massachusetts a letter asking for a list of things they needed, such as potatoes, cabbage, flour, and THE WEST AT HOME 275 necessities to keep them through the winter. " Let me know, and we will send them," it added, " and try to arrange it so that John's feelings may not be hurt. We do not want you to suffer." A sheet of paper, stamp, and envelope were enclosed. The young wife replied on her husband's printed stationery, saying that they were indeed in sore need ; they were then living in a miserable shack that cost only £'joo ; she did not have anything better than Brussels carpet to put on the floors ; their barn was a cramped affair of only 40 by 100 feet, scarcely large enough to shelter the ten horses and three vehicles they had left. She told piteously how she had no other means of reaching town than in a rubber- tired buggy ; the best she had to wear was a dress that cost the pitiful sum of 8s. a yard, and an old fur coat I that she bought for £1^. She hoped they would open I their hearts and assist quickly. The sister in Boston was I not without appreciation. She sent a diamond bracelet, j with the hope that it would add to the warmth of the I coat. Again, a well-known New York writer— the kind of a man to whom it would be difficult to mention a street in Whitechapel or an out-of-the-way village in Europe and not find that he knew the very bricks, or beer, thereof — was introduced a few months ago to a Kansas woman, and learned that she resides in a town of less than two thousand population, nearly two hundred miles west of the Missouri River. After her return home, he sent her " A Tale of Two Cities" and Browning's poems, with the hope that she would find " solace therein for her isolation," evidently commiserating her sad fate. It happens that her dwelling is furnace-heated, lighted with electricity, equipped with hot and cold water ; that she belongs to three clubs ; has a library of several hundred well-selected books ; rides in her own motor-car ; and has travelled almost as extensively as this Eastern man, who, as she says, has the typical 276 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA Eastern attitude toward the Westerner embodied in the couplet — " Of course you can't be like us, But be as like us as it's possible to be." The Westerner, as a rule, knows more about the East, but he is just as convinced, and more so, that his part of the country is the best part ; the only part where " things are done." I like a Westerner's definition when taxed by a foreigner for the exact boundaries of America's West. " The West isn't so much geography," he said. " It's a state of mind. The West is where a man is and hustles ; the East is where his father came from." You can tell a Westerner sometimes by his speech, as you can a Southerner, but always by his attitude toward life, and his boast of the part of the country he hails from. It's a part of our innocent provincialism, and so long as our Fourth of July orators talk perfervidly about "the oneness of America," and the crowds cheer and forget for the time that their post-office address is not just "The United States, care of Uncle Sam," what difference does it make if the South hurls " Yank " at the North, or the West shouts " effete " at the East, between whiles, and if the idea of the West's red shirt and prairie desolation dies hard in the East ? In the Senate wing of the Capitol in Washington there is a great mural canvas bearing the legend : " Westward the course of Empire takes its way." It is a picture of a pioneer caravan, the "prairie schooner" (a sort of gipsy van, but canvas covered), packed with household things, drawn by lean, over-worked horses, and the father and older boy scouting with gun in hand ; the mother on the driver's seat in the shadow of the wagon's tent with an infant clasped to her breast ; and everywhere beyond, the dreary prairie. The artist has tried to paint hope in the faces of the travellers ; but there was only commiseration THE WEST AT HOME 277 in the horrified scrutiny of a lady from rural New England who came upon it in her first visit to Washington not long ago. "My cousin took his family away out West," she gasped. " Think of Etta and the girls having to live like that." [ In a recent trip through the West I had chanced to meet this cousin, and this is what had in reality befallen I him. After selling out a small business for which he was in debt in the tiny New England hamlet, where neither population nor the number of the houses nor the con- veniences therein had increased for nearly a century, the cousin had just enough money to get out to a Western I town, where he secured a position in a store supplying ] farm implements. The family knew no one in the town, I and when they landed, weary from the hundreds of miles I of train-travel, they saw no dwellings that had been homes j for generations, with soft-toned, weather-beaten shingles, such had covered the picturesque, gone-to-seed homestead of their New England village, but instead newly con- structed architectural monstrosities, Corinthian columns joining fret-saw railings, pagoda and Queen Anne gables touching elbows, and the still more characteristic frontier construction of rows of brightly painted, square-front little frame houses as alike as a bunch of theatre tickets. In two days the transplanted New Englanders were stalled in one of the latter, which was furnished with bath and toilet facilities and electric lights. They bought, on the 1 instalment plan, some furniture of the usual florid type sold in small towns East and West, and the local paper announced that they would be "a valuable addition to the social and business life of this hustling metropolis." There were two girls and a boy besides the father and mother, and on the third day after their arrival the father became a member of the commercial club and the girls were invited to a party. In a week the mother's name was proposed for membership in a woman's club, and the 278 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA boy had joined the high school ball-team, and the whole family were an integral part of the community. It was the typical Western attitude toward new-comers, indicative of the hearty comradeship marking a plains community. Nowhere else in the world is there such extraordinary friendliness toward the stranger. In three months the father was running for councilman, and he and his family were practically as much a part of the town as if they had come in with those who, a few years before, staked out the original town site. At the end of a year the local paper announced that the head of this farm implement business had decided to go " where a bigger world can be seen " ; in other words, to establish a new store in a larger town, and that the New England man would be his successor in " the emporium on our hustling little Main Street." / Of all this success I had the pleasure of assuring the maiden New England relative, and of adding the proba- bility that her now Western cousin would be sent to Congress in the near future, and come to look at this picture of the early pioneer into the West as an extinct species. He hadn't written anything of his circumstances or success to his relatives back in the East simply because he had so far imbibed the Western spirit of hustle that he hadn't had the time to write. It is a popular tradition in the East that all Westerners are longing for a return to their ancestral home in the East, but the only case of really pining for the old home I ever heard of was an old lady who had been taken West very late in life, and who used to go out and sit in the midst of a prairie with her eyes closed, because the smell of the loam there revived in her homesick heart the scent of the old wharf on her seaport New England town. But to return to the adopted Western cousin. He had not gone West by "prairie schooner," because the paths of the pioneer have widened into broad highways of rail, and the " tourist sleeper " — a cane-seated edition of the THE WEST AT HOME 279 Pullman car — makes railroad travel on these long trips across the continent fairly comfortable and within the moderate purse. Like the Pullman, it has the long public aisle down the centre, flanked by the sections to be con- verted into sleeping-berths. But the seats are covered with rattan instead of the plush upholstery, and instead of calls to the dining-car the railroad company provides removable tables on which the traveller spreads the food he has brought with him, and there is a stove at the end of each car on which coffee and tea may be made and soup warmed ; for " going tourist " means lunch-baskets great or small, but large enough to last all the long days and nights of the trip. It is a sort of picnic on wheels three times a day. It would do a baker good to see the assortment of cakes, pies, and tarts; a butcher would wear a broad smile at the hams and joints, and a delicatessen man would think he was at home in his own shop with the cheese, noodles, wurst, and tinned things innumerable. There is, on the whole, a cook's nightmare of cold chicken, radishes, kippered herrings, apples, chocolate drops, coffee-pots, tin pans, repeated with variations three times a day. I once saw a German woman, travelling with five fiaxen- haired children, open a market-basket and set forth head cheese, sauerkraut, tinned gooseberries, a large cake with white frosting, a tin of baked beans, and two loaves of bread. She had been out two days, and goodness only knows how much more plunder she had in her hamper. But on the same train there was a stoical Japanese, who nibbled once or twice a day at something he had in a small brown paper package, and four days and nights was he to be on this train, for he had started in at New York. On these trips through the West everybody becomes acquainted more or less. It is as if you went out on any busy street in a large American city (only an American city could give the racial variety), and, selecting the first 28o HOME LIFE IN AMERICA fifty men, women, and children you chanced to meet, packed them off on short notice on a 3500 mile trip, and told them to bring all their food, and their bird- cages, their white mice, their cats, their pet squirrels, and, if so minded, their bandboxes, and, of course, their banjos, their guitars, their mouth-organs, or what they pleased to while away the time; and so whirling over the alkali plains, through tunnels and over steep grades, with landscape varying from an apparently end- less expanse of " sage brush " (furze-like shrub), and prairie dogs (democracy's ermine) peering from their ground labyrinths, to a bird's-eye view of a real city, they read, flirt, argue, chat, laugh, and sing as the mood comes. One summer, during a delay at a way station on a Northern trans-continental route, I left the Pullman where nervous, fidgety travellers were sitting beneath electric fans, watches in hand, and denouncing the company for not keeping its printed schedules to the second, and I walked down the platform to the ''tourist" end of the train. The thermometer on the little eating-shack beside the ticket agent's window registered 117°, and far out over the prairie the heat danced in gaseous riot, but from a tourist car came unmistakable sounds of mirth. I peeped within. A sheep ranchman from Idaho and a real estate broker from San Francisco were telling stories — pistol stories, poker stories, stories of *' Calamity Jane," "Broncho Liz," and other Western characters, and their fellow- travellers were grouped about listening breathlessly or applauding. Suddenly a deep Teutonic bass started a song, and the car took up the chorus with a will ; evidently it had been in stock rehearsal during the trip. " Oh, my German brudder, Come and have a drink with me, with me," The spirit of the West, the stimulus to fellowship, the THE WEST AT HOME 281 indifference to adverse physical conditions, had already gripped that earful. Of course no Englishman could have tolerated this promiscuity and impromptu friendli- ness ; but I give you my word, to an American those rattan seats looked more inviting, and the picturesque qualities of the " tourist traveller " seemed to fit in better with the primitive landscape, than the plush and mahogany 1 and discontent of the passengers I had left, who were enduring in the Pullman car what an American humorist has called, " America's best effort of purveying exclusive- ness to the masses." ; But again, on a Southern railroad line, over which the ! afflicted seeking our South-western tubercular resorts travel, I have looked in a ** tourist " to find tragic sights I that rival Zola's picture of the cure-seekers to Lourdes, i while below the "tourist" is the "immigrant sleeper/* ', where Uncle Sam's embryo citizens are whirled across I to the West, and here, in wooden seats, there is herding I little better than our accommodation for transporting live I stock. The trans-continental lines all have immigration bureaus for placing these foreigners in small farm holdings along their tracks, and many of these settlements composed of foreign peasantry, literally dumped from the immigrant stations on the East coast on to the Western plains, have prospered amazingly. Individuals have gained wealth and I risen to political importance. We have a United States senator from the West who was shipped out there years ago, an immigrant youth with a pack on his back and nothing in his pockets ; and the recent most popular governor of a Western state was the son of immigrant parents who had been sent West direct from landing at Ellis Island. It is unusual to hear the word " farm " in the West ; it is spelt " ranch " out there. All agriculture is " ranching," and a ranch may be anything from the 160 acres of the 282 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA " quarter section " — as the Government land is parcelled out in the great rushes for free homes which Uncle Sam's officials have more or less honestly superintended — to three hundred square miles of wheat fields and cattle ranges. There is a " ranch " in Texas like a small principality with a town and outlying settlement upon it, and another Texas ranch is as large as the state of Rhode Island. It is fifty miles from the front porch to the front gate, and a railroad runs through it for more than a hundred miles. This ranch belongs to a woman. In California there is a ranch so large that it can spare 38,000 acres for an artificial lake. One field of alfalfa (grass not unlike pink clover) is a thousand acres of waving green and yields 5000 tons of hay a year. The wheat on this ranch is grown on such a scale that only leading-machines (veritable Juggernauts as large as the most powerful locomotive, that cut, bind, and stack the grain as it moves over the field) are practicable for its harvesting. It is so far from the kitchen to the outer limits of the field that a dining-car drawn by six horses is a part of the harvesting equipment. But a farm-house with a few acres of fruit trees is also a ranch ; and so is a " soddy " — no one says " sod house " in the real West — with hen-coop capacity for some dozen fowls and an incubator ; and one man in Texas has erected a sort of stockade in which he hoards snakes to gather the poison, and this is known as a "rattle-snake ranch." In fact, there is an infinite variety of ranches, and " ranch " is about the first word the foreign settler learns. They tell the story of an automobilist who, having disabled his car and broken the most valuable implement of repair, tramped across country to a solitary house on the horizon. The owner he recognized as a Scandinavian, and, without wasting words he queried, " Monkey wrench ? " " Na, dis ben no monkey ranch," replied the host. " Dis ben apple ranch. Ma brudder, he hav sheep ranch. Neigh- bour Oslen " (any one within fifty miles is " neighbour ") THE WEST AT HOME 28 **he hav cattle ranch. But I never hear of monkey ranch dese part. I tank too cold for dose," he vouchsafed amiably. Perhaps the view our Easterners share with foreigners that the Western farmers are all plutocrats is not without foundation, for some of the enormous ranches make the farms in the rest of the world look like little experimental plots of an agricultural school ; and certainly, as one Westerner remarked, in looking over a pastoral scene on an English estate, '' Compared with baleing hay on a California ranch this looks like harvesting by the spoonful and feeding it to the cattle with a medicine dropper." Beneath the Westerner's boasting — which is, of course, a marked and natural characteristic of self-reliant and resourceful men who have " made two blades of grass grow where one grew before '" without letting any grow under their feet — there is truth. The alfalfa with its three annual crops grows to the sound of six-footed verse, and is symbolic of the gigantic achievement possible in the West. If all the milk cows and cattle of the Western lands could be placed one behind another, they would extend for a distance of over two million miles ; the line of horses and mules would be even longer ; and this means that certain men have indeed made enormous fortunes out of the product of sunshine, rain, black soil, and hard work ; that certain wives — farmers' wives — have oriental carpets throughout their entire isolated homesteads, have wonderful organs built in and the latest model of motor car, have electric lights — the dynamo being run by a gasolene engine — and are clothed exactly like the wealthy women in the East, who, in fact, travel more than the Eastern woman, and are more of the bigger world in spirit. But most of these Western women have hard lines in their faces, put there in the struggle of fiercer pioneer times, and their present luxury of home surrounding and travel is exceptional among their sisters in the West to-day. 284 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA The average ranchwoman — the woman living usually in a five-room cabin of logs plastered together with yellow mud, set down in the rolling prairie as it were without the relieving graciousness of vine or shrub, with only a small amount of shade of her husband's planting, and while having an abundance of stores, and all the comfortable clothing possible — must sturdily and merrily work out the household problem in independence of ice-boxes, gas- ranges, milkmen, delicatessens, confectioners, fruiterers, and — in utter loneliness ; for with the men in the field, she must, day after day, face hours alone, with everywhere only the strange, moving, thrilling silence — that mysterious, awful silence of our Western plains. The Eastern woman who commiserates them as materially poor is no more mistaken than the writer who heaps encomium, generally poetic, upon the " pioneers who go out into the wilderness and whose brawny arms have transformed dark forests into sunny and smiling farms," and does not mention the women who lived in the sod houses and kept courage in the awful solitude of a Western prairie, and remained cheerful and even interesting. It is very hard to reconcile a foreign mind to the mixture of primitive conditions and advanced civilization of which life in a " soddy " or log-ranch house consists. Twenty miles from a store or post office, there will generally be a telephone connection (the farmers set the poles and put on the wires) with everybody in the county ; letters and magazines are delivered at the gate by the federal official, whose rural free delivery route crosses the plains ; there is almost always a parlour organ or a piano and a phonograph — one firm sold three hundred phono- graphs to small ranches in one season — and yet there is not a servant to be had (the servant problem three hundred miles west of the Mississippi River makes the situation in New York City look like life beneath the bread-fruit tree), and the wife must cook for all the help her husband is able THE WEST AT HOME 285 to employ on the ranch. There is, of course, no water piped to the house, and to do the washing even for a " flannel- shirt " mMage under these conditions supplies all the strenuosity of a course in a flesh reduction sanatorium, and it is a continuous performance of a lifetime for these women. Then in sickness — miles from a physician, trained nurses unobtainable, conveniences in the sick-room that depend upon a near-by chemist lacking — these make suffering hard. And if the end come, the little cemetery on the open prairie is so desolate. Yet these little graves in Western cemeteries make a new tie for those to whom they are a shrine. The transient air which once gave these scattered settlements an effect of gypsying rather than homestead is forsaking the West. Some of the houses now have a grove of trees about them, and, as a Montana ranchwoman said : " Then you know they are going to stay." A new-comer may build a cabin or plough a field or dig a well or a ditch to water his garden and still not be a rooted Westerner, for the ripening of seed is a matter of one summer, but the planting of a tree which is more than the age of a man is considered the seal of permanency to the prairie ranchwoman. I don't know of any way to describe the ranchwoman as well as the popular endorsement that she is " awfully good sort." One of them, though I knew she worked very hard and constantly in the little shack they called home on her husband's cattle-ranch, remarked that " all you have to do is to live and watch the cattle put on flesh and count the dollars." Another told as a joke that, early in their married life, having a Yankee for a husband, she thought to surprise him with a dish of cod-fish, which is supposed to be the terrapin and truffles of the New Englander's palate. Eagerly she watched for the return of the bi- weekly coach that carried the mails and, she hoped, her grocery order. Instead it brought her this letter : — " Dear Madam : Being out of cod-fish, we take the 286 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA liberty of sending you a sample of our new stove polish. Hoping it will meet with your approval, we are, etc., etc. . . ." Ranchwomen are as a rule intelligent and interested partners in their husbands* enterprise. One I know was entertaining a party of Eastern people in her home when one night a bulletin of an approaching cold wave was handed her by one of the ranchmen. Her husband was away, and it was spring and all their fruit trees were in bud. Without a moment's hesitation she went out and, in her dinner dress, superintended the placing of innumerable " smudges " (pots containing smothered coal-fire) through the great orchards of their ranch. Her generalship of this open-air heating, which is Colorado and California's method of first aid to the frost-threatened, saved seventy-five per cent, of a crop valued at hundreds of thousands of dollars. I have some- times wished that our Eastern women who conclude that because gloves are cheaper in Paris, American civilization is a failure, might study the ranchwoman instead of the bargain counter. Accustomed to the Eastern farmer who gets his food supplies from his farm, sells a limited amount in the local market, and handles £60 or £yo cash in a prosperous year, the Western ranch, with its large crops, the ranchowner keeping close tab on the Chicago Board of Trade and buying the latest and best machinery, and the immense profit when crops are sold to advantage out there, was a revelation to me, just as was the store-room that a ranch house-wife in a modest home opened for my inspection. It was a veritable grocery store, all the staple groceries being ordered annually from St. Paul or Chicago, and there was everything imaginable from tinned frankfurters to salted almonds. Americans are beginning to realize that there is a divine prescience in the arrangement of American topography for play, for rest and recreation, as there is in its familiar THE WEST AT HOME 287 adaptation to commercial purposes, and more and more summer travel sends its tide into the West. Indeed, the running of ranches as health retreats or summer resorts is becoming a very profitable feature of life in the West. The owners of these ranches get out prospectuses like! the sea- shore hotel leaflet, assuring you of all the comfort under , heaven, and still they are very assidious in preserving the I picturesque effect of the crudeness of early frontier life. For the Easterner wants to find the cowboys dressed as , they do on the stage, and wants to boast on his return to the East that he has been " roughing it." So there are the [ best hair mattresses and springs but rough-hewn log bed- j steads, and the men about the place wear elaborate I " chaps " (leather breeches with the outer seams decorated ' with slashed leather fringe) and most ostentatious spurs, ( and the perennial " six-shooter " protruding from a rear I pocket with calculated carelessness. I As a fact much of the picturesqueness of costume as of j custom in the West has ceased to exist. In the days I when the settlement of the West was a raid and not a * migration, when the settlers were generally men who had been " crowded out of the herd " in the East either for j knavery or because they had a warp in their natures and I had ceased to fit in with the specifications of civilization, it jwas womanless society for the most part, and vigorous I individuality held sway so prominently as to justify, no I doubt in spots, the lurid literature written with feigned wisdom and unfeigned sensationalism and on which foreign judgment of the West is still based. As some one has said, towns in the West at the time were " eddies in the troubled stream of Western immigra- [tion catching odd bits of driftwood and wreck, the flotsam and jetsam of a chaotic flood," and of course some of the characters from these " cow towns," are still outside of jgrave and jail. I know one " prominent citizen " who is [a gambler, farmer, fighter, and school teacher, while I have a 288 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA seen on a shopkeeper's window the inscription, "Wall Paper and Marriage Licences" — two commodities, for which, to be entirely frank, there seemed to be slight demand in that particular community. But such things can no more fairly be called typically American than the most simian of New Yorkers, whose consuming love of London society has been acquired by observing other Americans imitate English manners in the dining-rooms of the Savoy or Claridge's. And any one who imagines that he will find, every time his train stops in his progress through the West, a board walk between the railroad station and a saloon lined with faro-tables presided over by ladies with golden curls, red cheeks, and pink " Mother Hubbards," or who expects to find Western towns still a mixture of cowboys, half-breeds, gamblers, teamsters, freighters, and dissipated professional men, with the coroner idly sauntering forth at breath of quarrel, and the sheriff an interested spectator at the " shooting-up " of a saloon, and with the usual order of a cowboy entering the eating-house for " a hundred dollars worth of ham and eggs " — is destined to disappointment. The " bad men " of the West were as picturesque, often as criminally inclined, as the wildest fugitive from justice in the African "bush"; but they generally turned into brave men, since courage is much a matter of association and comes partly from habit and after association with scenes of danger and violence, and their elimination has been as much a matter of economic development as of police regulation. The unrestrained freedom of the dance hall in the far West where the cowboys came from fifty miles about, and where a Mexican washerwoman was liable to be the belle of the ball, and the scarce lady partners shared the liquid refreshment of their partners until there arose jealousies, heart-burning, now and then a killing, and some marriages : this was, nevertheless, far from the un- restrained liberty of the beer cellar in Bohemian circles ; THE WEST AT HOME 289 it was the advance guard, not the degeneration of a national type. Bad men and women always go in the early trains to a new country ; but if the country is worth while, men of character and achievement go after them and send the others to their holes. Between the Western type in America to-day and the early Western type there is the ; distinction between the man who moves with his family ' to a new home and the man who goes out alone in the excitement of a new discovery of gold or silver to get his share and to bring it back, or the man and woman , who go out after the hunters after gold to hunt them in ; turn for whatever gold they may find. The day of the I "pioneers" has gone by in most of the Far Western ' country. The men who do the American country good ; are the same in the Far West and in the Middle-west as ( in the East, and there is nothing, it seems to me, more ' interesting in the world of modern effort than the solid I achievement of the men who are now building up the ^ West — who are really making the empire west of the ; Mississippi. J For instance, as a relic of the men who went first to j our Western mines, you still find the prospector type abroad, clad in typical boots, jeans, buckskin, gun, blanket- 1 roll and tools, and aggressively urgent that you let him lead you to " the richest pocket (lode) in the world " ; but he is sporadic. The real Western miner leads a life as unspectacular as the miner in any well-organized mineral deposit district in the world. He goes up to work in an electric car, descends the mine in an electric hoist, works by electric light, drills with electric air-compressers, fires his shot by electricity from an electric switchboard, remote from the scene of his labours. Of course there are strikes, and occasionally the state militia will be called out to quell a riot ; but this also takes place in mines as near the Eastern coast as the few historic mine disturbances have 290 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA been near the Western. The average miner in the West is receiving about ;£^i6 or ;^20 a month, lives in a comfort- able house with his family, and his children are educated in a high school, sometimes even going to the state university. The rough mining "camps" have in many instances been turned into well-organized cities. For instance, those who have fed their imagination on Bret Harte's " The Luck of Roaring Camp," are surprised to find Leadville, Ouray, Butte, etc., well-built, well-paved, adequately lighted cities. The blue-shirted individual, " pickers " on a ** bonanza strike " are now replaced by an immense vista of steel-gallows frames, smoke stacks and concentrators. A few years ago a party of tourists visited one of the newest mining towns where things were still rather raw and sensational developments might be expected. Suddenly on the Main Street there appeared an excited youth brandishing two six-shooters, a well-developed case of running amuck. The street cleared before his charge, the tourists flattening themselves against a wall, and at least one member of the party was frightened within an inch of her life I know, because I was that member, and all subsequently confessed to a sudden loss of interest in the excitement and picturesqueness which as tourists they had been disappointed in not finding. But a woman of good square shoulders and determined mien walked out of a store and briskly up to the youth, took away his pistols, boxed his ears, remarking : " Now, Jack, you little fool, I don't want no more of this. You go down to the house and go to bed at once, and don't you come out till you get plumb sober. Go on now." No Cockney matron could have removed her man from the " pub " with more dignity and aplomb. When a visiting foreigner says that our West is more interesting than the East because it is " more American," THE WEST AT HOME 291 I am more than suspicious that it is the crudities that have been seized upon as typically American, without realizing that crudity is a characteristic of certain classes even in older civilizations, and that in the West of America things are moving so rapidly that one can hardly find a state of society sufficiently settled to furnish definite type. How a man comes out in the West is the problem of \ his own nature, not a matter of fitting into an accepted mould, high or low. He may become a cattle thief or a steady " puncher " (gatherer of wild cattle) ; he may take ' to liquor and gambhng or he may become a politician or , a maker of politicians ; he may pose as a typical cowboy ! nuisance, wear queer clothes, shoot off pistols and strange I oaths to frighten tenderfeet (new-comers from the East) ; ] or he may become a real ranchman — "a builder up of empire," to use one of our newest phrases — but whatever '1 of whim or evil certain individuals may still display, the I tendency of every Western community is toward respecta- I bility, which in a new country means the ability to inspire ^ respect in others by respecting oneself. But far from ; reaching the apotheosis of American type and life in the I unconventionality of the Far West, this must be regarded I as the most transitional phase of the nation, where the I individualism of big traits, of personal administration of I justice and of crude manners (of necessity the marks of j frontier life), are changing into a strong loyalty and respect I for the community and an appreciation that, however irk- some and apparently arbitrary and meaningless the artificial conventions of what the Westerner calls " polite society " may appear, it is great deal better for the community and for the individual that they be observed. Some one has said, "There is no stickler for etiquette like a Western community that has recently got manners." This sometimes leads to extreme sensitiveness on the finer points. A statesman from the East was recently called upon to be the orator of the opening day of an 292 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA exposition in the North-west. The day was extremely hot, and the outdoor platform on which the distinguished guests were placed was covered with a white awning which accentuated the glare. At the close of his oration, the Eastern statesman felt constrained to put his hand in the pitcher of iced water which stood on a table at his side, and, removing a piece of the ice, he applied it to his fore- head and the back of his neck. In the East the act would have been condoned on the score of an emergency measure and the prerogative of distinguished statesmanship, but not so in this Western city. Criticism was rampant. The wife of the mayor of the city left the platform in high dudgeon over the offence offered to the society lights of her city, and the leading newspaper gave a full and sensationally illustrated page to " the statesmen from the East who think any manners good enough for the West." And this community loyalty and jealousy and pride — the paper of one small town will take delight in referring to a neighbour as "that one-eyed, sheep-camp of a foot-hills village " — has produced a broader psychological effect on the West in emphasizing that sectional love and pride in their newer part of America which has been, and is growing to be, still more a matter for political reckoning. The West no longer welcomes the demagogue and the spell-binder from the East to expound the political situation and get their vote. The Western farmer is apt to understand the situation as well as the Eastern politician who used to come West to thunder his well-worn arguments in their school houses. The demagogue is not eliminated — like the poor he is always with us in American politics — but as an element to sway Western opinion to conformity with Eastern views, he is tamed and timid compared with other years. The Westerner is doing his own political reasoning, and he has an eye out that legislation in Washington takes full account of the tribute due that THE WEST AT HOME 293 western half of the country to which he offers an en- thusiastically voiced devotion such as you find in no other part of patriotic America. In a recent campaign, a famous Eastern Congressman came to the prairie states to assist in influencing the voters. At one of the stations a group of farmers stood on the street discussing the event. I " Mighty fine car on the track," remarked one. *' The railroad president in town ? " " No ; the Congressman came out in that — to make speeches to us ! " The farmers laughed, and it was predicted that the ' private car would defeat the ticket for which the Congress- I man was talking. It did not ; indeed, there was little I appreciable effect one way or the other from his visit. But it is remarked that the Westerner is each year less inclined I to be stampeded in his politics. As significant of woman's position in the West, it is 1 to be noted that the two states giving entire suffrage to I women are west of the Mississippi, and that most of the / states giving partial suffrage are Western states. I At present there is no poverty, in the usual acceptance I of the word, in the West. Conditions may be rough, but I this empire — a vast expanse of grain field, orchard, and I pasture, wherein there are no "bread lines," no fresh air 1 funds, and little charity work is necessary — offers a broad, I generously shared property to every one willing to labour. Across its eastern border are pouring hundreds of thousands of immigrants every season ; home-seekers' trains have been crowded every month for five years ; towns show new roofs. Ranches are being broken up into farms ; settlement is getting close. Little wonder that the bigness ] of it all astounds the visitor, who has been taught to I consider the West in a most elementary state of develop- ] ment. Of course there is still throughout the West the pathetic, even tragic, evidences of certain early failures. 294 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA Empty sad houses are plenty, school-houses have no occupants, cattle are stabled in what were once shop- buildings, and whole town sites are deserted. Where towns of boom settlement sought electric lights, water- works, and street improvement that were out of proportion to their ability and size, there has been a reaction, with the necessity of discharging the bonded indebtedness of boom days, and in one or two instances curious property conditions have ensued. I know of several court houses that, through the process of mechanics' liens, and other legal processes, have come to be owned by individuals who have been puzzled to know what to do with them, and one Boston investor owns a college out on the plains — he took it with the foreclosure of a mortgage ; while in a town in western Kansas there is the situation of a house costing ;^4000, and scarcely enough available funds to buy a load of wood, with a handsome fireplace in every office. But almost every thriving city of the West has passed through three stages of development before attaining a state of permanent prosperity : the settlement at high pressure, the period of extravagance, followed by the depression of the inevitable "slump." These transitory phases give rise to a variety in the individual experiences that has done much to make the heroic optimism in the character of the typical Western woman. Back in the nineties, I was in a North-western city, which had reached the depths of bankruptcy. It was worse than a deserted city, for bankrupt people moved shabbily about the shell of their former magnificence. Even from the water front the boarded-up hotel and the neglected residences told the mournful tale of a collapsed boom more graphically than the column account in the Eastern newspapers had done. The men sat about the Chamber of Commerce and bet millions to cheer each other up, knowing that no one of them had a cent. The THE WEST AT HOME 295 wife of a " prominent citizen," to whom I had a letter, called on me. She was dressed in faded, pretty nearly ragged finery, but she had a smile that must have done long service, and still had not worn to an edge. " Look pretty, don't I ?" she exclaimed. " Well, it will be better luck next time. As soon as the men get over being stunned, we've just got to begin over and work the city up again. Why, it's the greatest harbour possible." And there followed a most enthusiastic description of the crumbling city's charms and advantages. She must have seen my amazed admiration. " Well, we haven't money enough to pay our car fare out of town, so we'll just have to stick and work," she ended. As it happened, very shortly after this interview Eastern capital was induced to come to her city, and, once started, its natural advantages and the " hustle " of its people rescued it, and made of it one of the most thriving towns in its exceedingly prosperous Western state. The \ " prominent citizen " has come to Washington as senator, and is known as one of the wealthiest men in the Senate. Last season I met the wife again. The smile was no less cordial, no lest winning. " Wasn't it good we couldn't get out of town that time ? " she said, with simple sincerity. j Yet for all the resources of the West and the specta- I cular rise of fortune for the individual, not for years will I the West approximate the comfort and wealth of the East. A single bank in New York City has larger deposits than the combined banks of a Mid-west state. It takes decades to grow parks and forests ; it requires time to develop lineage ; and the history of the average Western community began day before yesterday, compared with that of "back East" villages. As regards society in the West, it is difficult to confine comment on that within the bounds of uncontradictory adjectives. Certain 296 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA it is that democracy is more real, more impressive there to those who like democracy, but it may be more oppressive to those who do not. Professional society people do not exist in the West, and the average man and woman have not had time to enter the primrose paths of literary and artistic dalliance. The collection of the precious things of the mind or of the hand of the artist is still considered a trifle eccentric. There is a freedom of manners and a lack of social distinction. There is no snobbishness, and less laugh at " the arrogant strut of new wealth " than at a claim of privilege of high birth ; but this is not unnatural, since the time is not remote when the query, " What was your name back in the states ? " was a killing offence, and the former taint means but pride in one's accomplishment, and business and enterprise fill the normally blue atmo- sphere of the West. The East sniffs at the West, socially considered. Every noisy young woman is set down as ** typically Western." She does talk with much r-burring and twanging, but the Yankee has the nasal note in her enunciation. The Southerner's conversation " gets there by freight," as the expression is, and even the most approved British sing-song inflection is a matter of taste. There is a certain breezy bearing about the young person from a Western state ; but that is because she has not been brought up in a community where there was a social pond turtle, nor the perpetual effort to discover whether the visitor knows "the right people," but, more than likely, has never been led to meditate upon a social distinction between herself, as the daughter of a judge, and the sons and daughters of the shopkeepers in the same town. As a matter of fact, the shopkeeper in a Western city is quite likely to be an alumnus of Yale, or even a *' remittance man " of long lineage in England who has, for various reasons (never questioned in a Western city), sought that part of the land where there are, proportionately speaking, fewer strivers and more numerous opportunities. So that THE WEST AT HOME 297 in every way the West socially upsets all our calculations. In the Western cities I think I am right in saying that there is really a larger measure of refinement than is always to be found in similar circles among the further Eastern states, which is saying much or little, according as one is a critic or advocate of American society in general. But as to the future of culture in the West who can doubt ? One feels that a few generations and the resistless energy of the Westerner will develop several Madames de Stael. The echo of the historic reply of a Westerner to a questioner on this subject still rings confidently : " Culture," said he. " We haven't got to that yet, but when we do, we'll make culture hum." In short, the key-notes of character in the Western men and women might be fairly stated as stability, frank- ness, worth, and — a whole lot of conceit ! This has been variously spelt as " bombast," or " blague," by visiting foreigners. Yet, though it must be granted that this conceit of the American in the West is more flamboyant than that of the Oriental, more expressive than that of the English, more aggressive than that of the Frenchman — it has no more magnitude, and it is so based on justifying achievement, and so near akin to a broad patriotism, that even the Easterner of their continent is beginning to accept the Westerner's estimate of his part of the country as conservative, and, if the truth be told, to fear the West as a commercial and political rival. To any one fresh from older society, much that he meets from Chicago westward seems rude and inchoate ; but there is no provincialism like that which smiles at men and women determined to be idealistic ; and that, beyond all the material struggle, is what one feels throbbing in the optimism and the imagination to cope with ever larger areas and vaster combinations and problems of greater magnitude found in the West. (I CHAPTER XIII THE NEW ENGLAND OF TO-DAY FROM the earliest days of American history, New- England, its people, and the life of its people, have held a place in the forefront of American affairs ; and although Oliver Wendell Holmes's comment that " New England is a watershed which drains brains into all the rest of the country" may lack the comparative emphasis which it contained half a century ago, New England still produces a sufficient supply of that article to provide for her own needs, and some of her product in that line still trickles over her borders. About a third of the students at Harvard and Yale have come to those universities from the Middle and Far West, and, returning with them, go a good proportion of the Eastern students who, having completed the course in the scientific schools at Cambridge and New Haven, seek a practical application of their degree work in the resources of the West. This coaxing away of the sturdy and youthful muscle by the apparently limitless fat lands lying to the West, and the response to the siren-call of pioneer adventure and opportunity for fortune in the foot-hills and the frozen hord of Alaska, is supplemented by the calm transfer of capital by older heads to business in the South, to railroad enterprises across the continent, and to establish- ing industries wherever proximity to the source of the 298 THE NEW ENGLAND OF TO-DAY 299 raw material will admit the economy of manufacture over the same work amid New England's limited resources. So it comes that over all this broad land is scattered a people whose lineage, and quite as often whose memory, runs back to an old home in Maine, or Vermont, or Massa- chusetts ; and these people, while transplanted, are rarely alienated. Let a drama of New England be played in the West, and the houses will be packed with a " ready-made " constituency, the majority of whom know the play's lines well enough to recite the scenes backwards, but whose hearts are sent on a homeward journey by the old familiar Yankee settings. Let a company of strolling minstrels sing " The Old Oaken Bucket " in a Western settlement of any type, and the effect will be as electrical as the chanting of the " Marseillaise " in a boulevard cafe. For the New Englander who has gone West throws off the abiding pathos and reserve characteristic of the typical New Englander on his native heath, be he of high or low degree — of Boston or " Tebetts Cross road " — and becomes hot-blooded with the spirit of the newer, less tradition- bound conditions, and he stirs to the ballad of New England rural sentiment as he probably would not have done had he remained on her granitic soil. But what of the New Englander who has stayed and drawn his character from that granitic soil ? — of the New Englander of to-day ? Boston, popularly considered the epitome of New Englandism, is more like London than New York is. Architecturally, because the skyscrapers are still sporadic and the residences, even in the centre, show a diversity in their plain fronts. The commercial part suggests, too, a miniature London, and the social life knows distinctions that are more English than American. The Puritan forbear who thundered against the British nobility of his time as " blind, undistinguishing reproaches against mankind, divisions which nature had not made, 300 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA neither pious nor benevolent, but pernicious as they are false," might or might not feel his volcanic sentiment assuaged could he view the exalted position accorded his descendants in the Boston social estimate to-day, because they are branches of the family tree his iconoclastic soul and his prolific Puritan spouse planted on the " bleak New England coast." Every foreigner is impressed with the republican aristocracy in Boston. But as an Englishman pointed out — not unfairly, it seemed to me — this aristocracy of birth only achieves recognition after some intermediate ancestor or the present generation has supported the claim with a comfortable, trade-made fortune. His hostess in the Back Bay District (Boston's Mayfair) whose husband had made his money through the invention of a shoe-machine, sitting amid her home's furnishings from palaces and collections all over Europe, had assured him that there was something noble about a pride of ancestry planted in poverty ; that whereas the creation of English baronets was a matter of paying King James ;^iooo each for the honour, American nobility consisted of pride in the character of poor pioneer ancestors, and the " culture " which had been applied to the later edition. " But whoever heard of a poor man in America receiving any social consideration because of a puritan ancestor ? " ended the Englishman. It was, of course, open to a retort on the recognized market value of aristocracy abroad ; also to a discussion of the question of the real character of the Puritan settlers as a source of boastful descent ; but being merely of New England fisher folk, I felt unauthorized to speak on either subject. However, the family life in Boston resembles the regime of an Enghsh household. A nursery governess is not an uncommon feature in even the fairly well-off house- hold, and the children's diet is not a matter of test for the survival of the toughest infantile stomach on an adult THE NEW ENGLAND OF TO-DAY 301 regime as it is in the average American family elsewhere. The Boston woman knows as much about housekeeping as the traditional " New England housekeeper," whose name stands for marvellous pies and scrupulous neatness through- out the country ; but the Boston woman has also the better executive hold over her home of the Englishwoman — the ability to have the servant, not the mistress, do the work — that is not found in the middle-class household elsewhere in America. Visitors from other parts of the country find something chilling about the Boston home, just as they do about the English ; but the comfort of a New England guest is un- deniable, and while, compared to the effusiveness of Southern and Western hospitality in the United States, the geniality of your Boston host may seem, like the Boston sunshine, always to have a trace of the north-east wind, as the affection of his Puritan forbears was chilled by the Labrador current of their theology, his children will not be permitted, nay encouraged, so that you may feel " per- fectly at home," to descend upon your bedroom still in their " nighties," and remain conversationally shrill and inquisitively fingering your belongings until, by much diplomacy, you escape with barely time and seclusion for your dressing ; and you will not be expected to seek, with the rest of the family, the^ one lavatory of the house to perform your ablutions, all of which is of ordinary occur- rence in the best-intentioned hospitality in the average small household. I have never met an Englishman or Englishwoman who did not say that they felt more at home in New England than in any other part of America. Parts of rural New England, too, are not unlike the cultivated, cosy scenery of English country. The Connecticut Valley with its farms, its wooded hills, and its villages and towns with shade-tree-arched streets and shingled houses, age- touched to an oxydized silver tone, is as insistently 302 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA picturesque to the traveller as the back-drop in the staging of a rural play. This is the New England, too, of midday dinners, and the centre of the " pie " (tart) belt of the world is evidently situated in the midst of Massachusetts. An old woman, aged seventy, whom I ran across in Pittsfield, Massa- chusetts, claimed the championship of the pie-making fraternity, and offered as her credential that she had recently made seventy-two pies of nine different kinds, and had time to "set a spell on the porch afore dinner." Traditionally, it will be remembered, no Yankee feels his day well spent unless he has eaten pie at three meals. A New Yorker, stopping at an hotel in the midst of New England, asked of the waitress, " Have you any breakfast food ? " and she answered, '' Yes ; apple, peach, custard, and pumpkin." The towns clustered about the omnipresent " academy " or small college in New England are often exotic little centres of narrow bookishness, and striving for " culture " in the midst of a district of toilsome farm-life and whirring factories. For, despite the large class of foreign labour which now practically fills the mills and factories of New England, and which is the basis of New England's in- dustrial prestige, the educational plants of greater or lesser magnitude continue to shine as the most distinct exponent of New Englandism to the rest of the country. Every one who comes in contact with one of these small educational centres in New England must be edu- cated ; it is atmospheric, as the brimstone belief in a sinful one's future life was in the colonial days. The girls in the little shop in Main Street say, " Do you not ? " and " Is it not so ? " and are as careful to keep their infinitives intact as they are the souvenir-cup with a picture of the "college" that you are purchasing. I have found the driver of a station 'bus in one of these towns struggling between trains with Caesar's commentaries, and a well-known THE NEW ENGLAND OF TO-DAY 303 writer tells us as his pet story an experience of the early days in his career when he was working through a circuit of lyceum lecturing among the " academy towns " of Massachusetts. As they approached the town where he was to speak, he saw the male passengers in the railway car gathered together with evident delight over some local event. One of them left the rest, and came to him with the inquiry whether he was to be the lecturer of the even- ing. It was not so alarming a question as if it had come the next day from a dissatisfied auditor, and the writer admitted his identity. Whereupon his fellow-traveller proceeded, "Then, sir, you may like to hear something which pleases us all. The president of our lyceum has I been detained away this evening, and the vice-president, who will introduce you, is the engineer on this very train." In due time the lecturer was introduced to the presiding officer, and was by him presented, with a quiet dignity, to the audience ; and he did more than any other presiding officer had ever done for this particular lecturer by letting him ride back the next morning on the locomotive, the superb beauty of a New England sunrise, and his insight into the work of the literary engineer, giving him a new view, as he says, as to what constitutes a liberal education. Some of the larger small colleges — to speak Celticly — as Darmouth in New Hampshire, Williams and Amherst in Massachusetts, Trinity in Connecticut, and Bowdoin in Maine, are old institutions, as age is reckoned in a new country, and have beautifully aged, vine-covered buildings which stand out with a sort of mild grandeur among the newer Greek Letter Fraternity houses of the students, and the modern dwellings of its enlarging faculty circle ; for, in spite of periodic hard times and the competition of Western universities, this higher educational work in New England emulates Tennyson's brook. Of course, the social life of the professor's row of these towns is as filled with petty jealousies and rivalries as the 304 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA life at an army garrison, and the struggle of reconciling high ideals with a small income leaves its record in the faces of the men and women; but it is surprising the number of advantages the family of a professor on a salary of ;^500 manage to obtain in New England. The children's education is secured at little cost, and the native thrift — the " nighness," as the Yankee expresses it — makes possible domestic economics which surpass those of a French peasant's kitchen, and the keeping up of appearances as gentle-folk is somehow accomplished. Many of these professors* families manage two or three trips to Europe for the education of their children and their own aesthetic uplift, and it is they the foreigner sees rushing about art galleries and inspecting cathedrals with the worried ex- pression of inhalation of that foreign air having a suction effect on their small salary reserve. They have prob- ably subsisted for a year or more on a diet of codfish cakes and baked beans — the acme of Yankee economy, and to a certain extent, it would seem, of taste — in order to make the trip possible, and they absorb an amazing amount in their earnest flights past art and architecture, custom and scenery. Then they come back on the slow, inexpensive steamers and begin the grind over again in their little New England college town ; the trip a matter of a pile of photographs on the parlour table, a memory of cheap restaurants and unsanitary pensions, but a renewed yearning for the beautiful. Any one who visits these communities realizes that there is being carried on the most passionate, exhausting, and really pathetic pursuit of culture in the United States. These households, where the wife, refined to attenuation, has a book-rest arranged to bring a volume of Browning on a level with her eyes as she bends over the dish-washing — one frail little woman with two babies still at the nursery stage told me that she committed to memory all of the " Ring and the Book " in this way — and where the professor stops smoking and THE NEW ENGLAND OF TO-DAY 305 new boots are a memory, to make possible the ownership of the latest scientific work or an old Latin text ; where the daughters wear last summer's muslins to go to the " faculty parties," and talk psychology or astronomy with the unmarried professors as a dissipation ; where meat in the larder is a rarity and a frock must always be turned ; in all this there is an element of mild tragedy in the con- ' trasting setting of a robust industrial country like the United States. But this is New England, and New Englanders, intellectually speaking, are our Argyles. Yet the effect of meagre living and hard work and suppressed emotion in visible in the physique of the New . England woman in every state to-day. Some one I remarked years ago that the bother with the Yankee is I that "he rubs badly at the juncture of the soul and body,'* \ and I know of no better way to describe the New England ( woman of to-day. i There are the exceptions in the dashing athletic type I of young womanhood one sees at the country clubs and I through the suburbs about Boston, but the typical New England woman — the corporate New England woman — the descendant of the " Puritan mother," seems to-day to belong to a people which has spent its physical force and j wants vitality. She is slight, though large of frame. Her I lungs are apt to be weak. Her waist is normal, which j means unconventional, and her hips the same size. The 1 expression of her whole figure is flatness, in marked ! contrast to the distinctly maternal type in the South, I where the full bosom and generous curve at the hips is a ' perceptible charm even in the immature womanhood of I the " belle " days. The New England woman is inclined to be awkward, I too, since her climate has not allowed her relaxation and the ease and curve of motion that more enervating air imparts. She is said to step out at the tilt of "the Cantabrigian man " with elbows set at an angle. X 306 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA Such are some of the changes wrought in the type who, when she landed some three hundred years ago was, in tradition at least, "a hearty, even-minded, rosy-cheeked, full-fledged English lass." It is as if the self-limitation in the colonial days, the subsequent sparseness of wealth in New England, the meagreness of material ideal and, above all else, the hard work of generations of women who arose when it was yet night and sewed, and cooked, and washed, and spun until the evening candles sputtered in their sockets, had withered out all the fine wildings of her nature. Most New England women have a marvellously delicate, finely grained skin with the high colour of their progenitors, but it is more often hectic than like the Englishwoman's colour, so frankly the result of climate and " past genera- tions of health, port, and roast beef, all of the best." The New England woman's expression, even when she lives in a prosperous community, is so serious as to make a German hmisfrau who has discovered waste in kitchen, appear almost jocular, while in farm-life and less fortunate surroundings her face shows a weariness of spirit and a homesickness for heaven that makes your soul ache. Mentally, too, the New England woman is differ- entiated from what is conceded to be characteristic of the American woman. Her loss of grace, facile touch of manner, vivacity and Ughet^, in short, her lack of feminine charm — for there is with the New England women an unfortunate abruptness of manner, even among those travelled and most generously educated — is counter- balanced by a mental sympathy with her husband, an altruism in her domestic life, and a self-devotion passing fabled heroism in case of an emergency in the family life. Her mind is too attached or too self-conscious to allow much of coqitetterie or flirting or the emotional camaraderie with men, such as the more elemental women of Chicago and New York enjoy. She is undeniably frank and THE NEW ENGLAND OF TO-DAY 307 unquestionably truthful, and scorns such lies as the charming Southern woman tell for amusement or petty self-defence. A luxuriant beauty of St. Louis is said to have 2xclaimed, ''You bet, black-jack diamond kind of a time!" when asked whether her social dash in Newport had been enjoyable. The Boston woman would have delivered her opinion with a precise, schoolma'am air, and whatever the degree of her enjoyment, I doubt whether her expression could get beyond "a pleasant time." It was a New England spinster who, looking into a Zoo cage for her first glimpse of the unspeakable hideousness 3f the hippopotamus specimen, remarked mildly, ** Ain't he plain } " j The New England woman is brought up in an atmosphere of repression, and conservatism is instinct in her ; but since \ias Ewig Weibliche must persist even without confession of its existence, there come funny little sidelights on even the most maidenly. The following cautious expression of one bf them, referring to a prince of Austria and a lady of the iVeschera family, I consider altogether characteristic. " I don't see the wickedness of Rudolph," she half whispered. * I don't see why he shouldn't have followed his heart, but I Shouldn't dare say that to any one else in Boston. Most f them think as I do, but they would be shocked to hear e say so." j Still social changes within the last generation have brought a broadening of the conception of the " sphere " of woman even in New England, and while militant Advocates of female suffrage will not abound in New 'England, because New England is, in many ways, more conservative than England itself, it seems as if the opportunity to apply her mind to outside problems were going to prove a godsend to New England's out-of-all- broportion female population. It has been said that the hope of every Englishwoman lover thirty is " a curate ; but even curates are far and few." t 308 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA But the fate of the New England spinster is worse, since there is no Established Church to recruit the matrimonial market ; and though she may be weakly human and intensely feminine under her austere and stoical and aristocratic bearing, she is circumscribed in the develop- ment of all the redeeming weaknesses of a woman's life. The stanch physically yet mental type of New England housewife, who did as much to gain the reputation for culture for that section of our map as the Cambridge coterie in the days of Longfellow, Lowell, and Holmes, is passing, and her passing is due to unnumbered husband- less and the physical attenuation of the married — attenuation resulting, it is claimed, from the spare and meagre diet and from the excessive household labour of their mothers. Among the moderately well-off and the poor in the large cities, the native New England type is fast dying out. Already outnumbered in her old home by women of foreign blood and ampler physique and less exalted ideal of life, intermixtures have followed and racial lines are gradually fading. Boston's artisan class is largely Irish- American and Italians ; Providence and Fall River and other industrial centres teem with Norwegians, Swedish and German peasantry ; while the mills and lumber-camps of the more northern parts look to the French-Canadian, the " Canuck," for their workmen. But the fisher-folk of New England remain, what there is left of them, distinct representatives of the Puritan type. The mark of his stern forbears is written large in the character of these New England fishermen of to-day. There are Norwegian sailormen who drift into these Yankee ports and keep an anchorage there between voyages to the " Banks," and there are settlements of dusky Portuguese among the Yankee fisher-folk ; but they generally work for the native fishermen, and as marriage in the latter case would amount to miscegenation to the THE NEW ENGLAND OF TO-DAY 309 ankee mind, the New England townspeople marry toong themselves until there are only about five different batronymics in each town and everybody is " cousin.'* And since the inexorable laws of nature are not averted |rrom New England, the idiot offspring, softened in the bative vernacular to " children that ain't over and above right," make their sadly regular appearance and grow to 'childlike maturity, as little regarded as objects for regret s the discarded rubbish of spars, anchors, chains, sail- cloth, blocks, and cordage which collects upon their .Wharves. Their monodiet of sea-food, too, leaves its retributive races in the teeth and stunted bodies of the little pine- nots of weather-beaten boyhood one finds " doin' chores " bout the woodshed or helping the fishermen with their nets and boat-mending. 1 The tourist '* seeing America " seldom gets as far away from the cities as the long-swelling sand-dunes of Cape Cod, rolling away in majestic emptiness mile on mile, or ;5the gaunt, grim rocks of Maine, wrinkled as are the sea- gazing faces of the fisher-folk living in settlements in the deep gashes of the coast cliffs or on the little nubbins of harbour islands ; yet here, as nowhere else in the United States, is preserved the stock from whence America sprung — also those universal characteristics developed through a relationship between man and elemental nature — the fisher and the sea. Eminently shrewd, keenly observant, almost clairvoyant, in their estimate of character, these New England fisher- folk are, and with a grim sense of humour which, if as Ruskin puts it "misses the utmost subtleties of natural effect," is at least a relief from the profound melancholy which otherwise broods in their smileless faces. When I remonstrated with an old captain's wife who, bereft of husband and sons, continues to live alone in her isolated cottage, she replied, " Well, there's one thing 310 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA about it, it's s' cold here in the winter thet if I should die, I'd keep," and her beady eyes actually twinkled. " It seems to me you people never die," I once said to another "character." " Waal, 'tis 'baout the larst thing we dew, I swum," he grinned, r One has but to tap for a thoroughly characteristic anecdote. "Half-past six Tucker," so called because he carries his hands joined and hanging straight down in front, confides to me that the trouble with city folks health is that they " et too much," and when I protest the universality of this failing, he looks seaward and delivers himself at length — " I kinder guess we all do et too much, but some's more partial to it than others," he prefaces his story, and I, versed in the ways of New England fisher-folk, await. " Ther was Martha Thorburn, she waste more time to her vittles that a man'd take to dig a bar'l o* clams. One day when they went up to tell her that her husband was drowned, there she set eatin' her dinner. Waal, she heared them all through 'out makin' a sound, and then she says, says she, 'Just you wait until I get through etin' and then there'll be some bellowin' round here.' " My narrator pauses. " You see, she warn't goin' to do nothing on a empty stummick," he finishes with conviction, in which, however, I detect a silent chuckle. For the most part these fishermen live in square frame houses, the tints of the shingles lent by the fingers of salt and wind and water — that is the outline of the main portion of their houses — but they really live and have their cooking and eating in the kangaroo-tail of lean-to addition, of summer kitchen, and woodsheds stretching back from the body. The best rooms in the main house are kept hermetically sealed, and have the musty smell of canned salt-fog and old kid gloves. But they are immaculately kept houses, and the fisher-wives go about their work, THE NEW ENGLAND OF TO-DAY 311 whether it be washing the pots and pans or down on their knees in the cranberry bog picking barrels full of those little red berries for the city market, with the same machine-like orderliness with which their fishermen husbands lay the coils of rope and stow their belongings on schooners or cast their nets or row their flat-bottomed "dories." Even the most sequestered inland villages of New England are not free in these progressive days from the reproach of atrocious architecture, made worse by glaring combinations of the unspeakable commodity known as "enamel paint," and the coast villages have not wholly escaped. In the New England fisher-town as in no other place in America do generation after generation of the same family live on in the same house, and many of these apparently lightly perched, grey-shingled cottages that look as if the first " sou'wester " might have blown them out to sea, have blinked the fan-lights over their front doors and hidden their best rooms behind green blinds for a century or more. And this is the accepted type of fisher-house in New England as surely as the thatched cottage has been the abode of the English farmer. The iron stags and bronze dogs and vases of later-day lawn decoration in rural New England are seldom found near the sea. The real elite there have as favourite orna- ments great whale vertebrae at each side of where the front doorstep and the clam-shell path meet, and an abandoned row-boat filled with earth and brimming with brilliant nasturtiums on a lawn is an insignia of social position of the occupant. If there is a barn or boat-house in connexion with the household, more often than not an old ship's figure-head or the name stripped from the bow of some wreck will adorn its front. I knew one old fellow who had the wheel of his schooner, disabled like his own body, set up on his lawn — 312 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA a great upright affair like a cartwheel it was — and he would hobble out to it each day and stand for hours with his hands upon the spokes, his eyes on the ocean's horizon, far over the heads of his one-time mates passing in their ship's-roll gait along the path just outside. The tendency to day-dream is not foreign to the temperament of the average New England fisherman, quintessence of practicality as he is, which might reason- ably be regarded as the antithesis of romance in its any and every form. Yet almost all the characters in New England fishing-towns have been touched with romance — this woman's lover was lost at sea, and after days of exposure was rescued, a mental wreck, for whom she cares as a child. That man was found in an open boat as a baby, and no one may "guess," as the Yankee says, his parentage. That old, old woman once set fire to her own house to form a beacon for the returning fleet of fisher- boats on one of which she had two sons ; the Government lighthouse was built on the ruins, and one of her sons given charge. And here is a transcript from life — " One day a youth dropped off a coaster and looked about a Maine fishing-village. He stayed long enough to fall desperately in love with a girl whose father owned a Grand Banks smack, and was accordingly in' the upper ranks of village society. The young man, poorly clad and a stranger, was repulsed naturally. When he undertook to explain that he was a runaway from a wealthy English family, he was looked upon with still greater suspicion. " He set to work digging clams for a living and feeding his soul on occasionally fleeting glimpses of the girl he loved. His story had been scoffed at with so great unanimity that he did not make any more revelations regarding his prospects. But one day he appeared at the office of a lawyer in the shire town of the country, and THE NEW ENGLAND OF TO-DAY 313 produced papers just received from England that required only his signature and his oath to yield him ;^3000 from an estate in his native country. He got the money, put it into a bank, bought out the general store in the fishing- village, married the girl, and from the butt became the boss of the place." Of such are the New England fisher-towns. These sequestered Americans take romance in their lives as a birthright of marvel and mystery, like their technical knowledge of sails and tides, or as they accept the fact that each year the sea will claim its tithe, and this comes as no unexpected calamity but as a duly calculated nemesis. Facially they are of the Rembrandt type. They are totally unlike the vividly imaginative, half- superstition-imbued fisher-folk of Brittany and Sicily — contrast the Gloucester and Cape Cod fishermen of Kipling with the realistic poetry of the Breton stories of Pierre Loti — and their fatalistic calm, their total disregard of monotony in the sense of an objection, and the spectacle of generations spinning the same yarns in hours of leisure, contrast them as strangely with the bustling commercialism of the American mercantile and manufacturing centres, so near to them in miles, so distant in every other sense. There is a vast and admirable simplicity about New England fisher-folk. They will tell you perfectly innocuous bits of town gossip in a mysterious, whispered undertone — a relic of the secret necessity of the witch- craft days, perhaps — but there is comparatively little mean gossip about one's neighbours. When a native says to you, " Them Henrys be'n't no good," he says it out loud, and more as a matter of conviction than of maligning criticism. New England fishermen have, moreover, a marvellous strength of pride and an appreciation of duty which is not far from being the chief of our national sinews. The pride and freedom from envy is well illus- trated in their contrast with the "resorters," or summer 314 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA settlers from the cities, who have acquired hundreds of headlands and thousands of islands along the New England coast for hotels and summer cottages. Often a phalanx of summer cottages fronts the sea in front of the native villages as if elbowing the little grey houses back from their inheritance of the sea. But this has meant money for the fisherman, and he does not grumble over his curtailed view of the sea. The more summer people there are in the scenery the fatter grows his hidden hoard. But there is no such relationship as peasant and aris- tocracy. The New England fisherman, whether he sells the produce of his kitchen garden to the city " sojourner," or brings clams and fish to their back doors, or takes out sailing-parties in his " cat-boat," always completes his transaction as man to man, or when he is pilot of an outing he is a recognized member of the party with the other guests and not a courier. I have actually felt sorry for a wealthy woman, summering on the Massachusetts coast, who tried to patronize the native housewife, who was returning her washing by offering an exorbitant price for an old arm- chair seen in the latter's " best room " when the laundry bargain was in progress. " Heavens to Betsy ! What air you talkin' about ! That chair belonged to Jem's great, great Grandfer' Brown. You might's well bid for the baby ! " was the scorching rebuff. Where penury and wealth meet in the cities there are heartburnings. The New England fisherman tossing in his battered " dory " in the swash of the millionaire's yacht neither sighs nor glares. For here is a people living in a world of their own. Materialistic to the extent of desiring to part the summer intruder from as much of his coin as their meagre dreams of avarice can encompass, but not envying the millionaire his greater possessions, and utterly untouched by the fashion and display of the THE NEW ENGLAND OF TO-DAY 315 summer sojourners," all of whom he secretly classifies as " a bit queer," and, above all, in these rugged coast-edges that first received the Puritan, does much of the best and the narrowness of the Puritan philosophy survive. The condition of rural New England where the same stock is supposed to have persisted is entirely different. So many gibes have been written, so many flings taken at the Yankee farmer, that if I seem to wax over-serious in my point of view, it may be attributed to an anxiety to get away from the humour a description of this rural population is supposed to inspire. For the New England farmer to-day, the men and women in obscure New England villages, are tragic figures in a national canvas of material progress and social advance. Add to the gullibility of any rustic type a modicum of dialect, and to dialect add uncouthness of garb, and you have the New England farmer as travestied upon the stage and as lampooned in our press. But such characteristics do not result in him from primitive instinct, as is more or less true of the Dartmoor folk, but from isolation and neglect of a once good stock. The retrograde of life and character in rural New England to-day threatens a " poor white " condition in the North as surely as that deplorable condition exists in Alabama and Tennessee. A superficial view of New England's countryside is discouraging enough ; there are so many abandoned farms ; the face of so many rocky cliffs proclaiming the merits of brands of plug tobacco ; hundreds of mossy and lichened fences having as the sole purpose of their crumbling state to expound the contents of the veterinary materia medica ; so many vacant barns and cattle-sheds, whose emptiness is only emphasized by the glaring coating of old circus posters. The New England " abandoned farm " is really often a bugaboo whose unsightly presence is unduly emphasized 3i6 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA by the newer centres of commercial settlement which have grown up around it. In the first place, the rocky soil of New England never was suited for agriculture, and even an application of the intensive methods by which the soils of England, France, Belgium, and Germany are kept at a maximum fertility, would bring discouraging results in comparison with the easy and enormous production of our great Western farm lands. The land which can no longer be made to produce vegetables and cereals for profitable competition must be diverted to other uses. The farmer who has not money to buy cattle to turn it into a grazing or dairy farm, or the capital and time to turn it into a fruit orchard, or the means or faculty for turning it into a poultry farm, must give in ; and in the transition, when the tide of New England's younger generation has set city- ward — and undoubtedly one of the most serious features in the rural life in New England to-day lies in the drainage of its younger people to the cities — "all the spunkiest ones have up and got out ; it's a skimmed-milk place," an old fellow in a practically deserted village puts it — and, moreover, when the city is approaching the country in the sense of the extension of railroads, and the now more rapid extension of electric lines (a map of the inter-urban lines through New England looks like a diagram of the human nervous system), and the growth of busy mills and factories has given employment to the erstwhile agriculturists, then it is that the scattered acres of abandoned farm land becomes apparent. But the " abandoned farm " itself is not as appealing as the life that still goes on in New England's obscure hill villages, in the so-called "picturesquely quaint New England " of guide-book nomenclature. " Isolation," says Buckle, " is the mother of barbarism " ; and so it would seem to have demonstrated itself in rural New England. " The number of illegitimate children," says a recent writer on the New England village, " is so large that a definite THE NEW ENGLAND OF TO-DAY 317 amount has been fixed by common consent as the proper one to be paid by the putative father to the parents of the unmarried mother — not infrequently men and women take wives and husbands without the formality of a divorce or a marriage — whole families are sunk in a slough of vice and poverty, from which occasionally some enterprising son or daughter will emerge, perhaps only to fall back in a moment of temptation or despair." This is not the erring of a people untouched of civiliza- tion, whose naive ideas of wedlock have not reached out to the fact that a ceremony is necessary. These are, on the contrary, church-going, psalm-singing, Puritan descendants, who considered dancing immoral, but condone the launching of an illegitimate soul as merely material for the tittle-tattle of after-service gossip in the " meetin' house." But, as some one has said, "that is not much more inconsistent than our consecrated Puritan ancestors who never went to the play, bless you, no ! Instead they went to hangings." After their response to the insistent behest of the church bell, and the post-sermon opportunity to talk things over — it has been remarked, "the greater the calamity to community or individual the more worshippers to talk it over " — the New England villagers go home and live for a week on scandal and pork. In a garrison, or in a small frontier town, monotony drives people to extreme sociability, but in rural New England the country people rarely call on one another ; they object strenuously to " visits " ; they have an almost superstitious dread of " takin' anybody into their house," and there is a morbid shrinking into that " white castle with the green blinds," the farmhouse. In not a few of these sequestered communities, as in the fisher-groups, the same families have intermarried until the stock is noticeably weakened, and a brood of deformed and idiot children makes it appearance. An author, 3i8 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA writing of the New England village, comments as follows on the result of this perverted heredity : " It is not nice to have six toes on each foot. It is worse to be hare-lipped. Cross-eyes are none the less disagreeable because they are very common. One of our families is * muffle-chopped.' Another whole family is deaf and dumb. The proprietor of the saw-mill stands three feet two inches with his boots on. One Israel Glenn is a giant, measuring seven feet in height. He has, as the Jesuit Feval said of Dr. Vernon, * A double chin and a triple belly,' and he wears from three to six coats to increase his apparent bulk. Nor is he is less eager to display his muscular prowess. He wields an axe, made especially for him, weighing nine pounds without the helve. He swings a scythe eleven foot long." I do not know of any more depressing experience than to be taken below the surface in one of these New England villages. The foreigner would scarcely believe that he was in America, while the American, who is always protesting his sentimental fondness for " old New England " to the extent of pooh-poohing its perils, will find that a ghost not as easily laid as the " abandoned farm " stalks in the abandoned farmer there. Of course life in these hamlets is not all gloom and poverty. In some of the houses you find high-boys and warming-pans, and gilt-framed, last-century looking-glasses, and spinning-wheels, and blue-and-white china and hundred- year-old clocks that the tourist sleuth for antiquities has not scented yet, and there is an air of tradition and an old couple going down to a reposeful old age as surely as the green mosses on the damp shingles of their abode. The very gables of the houses and the sagging ridge-poles of barns and granaries speak of ancestral interests and family history in a way that is refreshing in a freshly varnished civilization. The vernacular of rural New England is unique, THE NEW ENGLAND OF TO-DAY 319 particularly the expletives. '* Airquakes and apple sauce ! " " Heavens to Betsy ! " " Wall, I vum ! " are the classical standard. Nor is the repartee lacking in point. A " character " in one of these villages, reproved by the minister of the gospel for his habitual profanity, answered : "Waal, parson, here's how it is. You pray and I swear, an' we don't neither on us mean nahthin' by it" After a demonstration by the village choir, one old deacon was asked whether a certain member did not have a cultivated voice. "Dunno 'baout that," retorted the long-suffering deacon, " but saound's if he'd been over it at least once with a harrow." The adjective ^'shrewd " attaches to the Yankee tradi- tionally as the tail to the kite or the trunk to the elephant, ' yet apparently there is in all the world no sort of man so I helpless in the grip of knavery as the New England farmer. Experience is said to teach something, but somehow the I New England farmer never seems to get enough. A I ruralist who escaped the lethargy as a runaway to city life, I returned to his village, observed and wrote, "Travelling oculists, v/ith smug, shaven faces and mysterious gold earnings, do reasonable things to our crystalline lenses ; but we turn no less pliant attention to the representations of the itinerant dentist. That man of science, having extracted our teeth and made off with a ' deposit,' never returns to bring us the finished product that was to emerge, at no distant day, from his remote laboratory. Then, instead of learning that one must seek treatment of a reputable practitioner, or be fraudulently dealt with, we are only thereby made ready to pay tribute to the next * Kickapoo Indian ' who pitches his conical dispensary in our cow-pasture. We still fall prey to book agents ; we still feed tramps, as who would say, ' If you come within a mile of here, drop in ' ; we have implicit faith in the power of* divining rods' to locate springs ; we are even credulous of 'Western loans,' and we have a sensation of glossy, 320 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA satin-like satisfaction when made aware that wealthy investment companies have * heard us well spoken of in the Rockies." But easily as the New England innocents may be " taken in " by the outsider, they are indeed as shrewd as tradition proclaims them among themselves. What Wall Street sharp could have driven such a bargain as the old Vermont farmer in a general store achieved in the following dialogue ? — "You say ye want a dollar fur the boots. Take seventy-five cents ? " *' Yes." " Ye mout throw in one o' them woollen throat-warmers too, hey > " " All right." " Hold on thar. The boots ain got no strings." " I'll give you a pair of strings." " Better make it two pair. One won't last no time." " Very well ; two pair it is." " Can't ye chuck in one o' them paper collars fur good measure ? " " Oh, I guess so, rather than miss a trade." " Look-a-here, when a feller buys a bill o' goods off ye, don't ye set 'em up .? " "Yes. What'U you take?" " Gimme two plugs o' chewin' tobacker ana pound o' scrapple." After all, New England is a new-world area, saturated with three centuries of strenuous life, which has sent its myriad rootlets westward to the shores of the Pacific. The parent stem may bear a few fruitless branches, but New England's cities, as its industries, are still in full and vigorous growth. CHAPTER XIV SUMMER AND WINTER RESORTS ON an occasion when unusual proceedings were antici- pated from the House of Representatives and a throng had filled that wing of the Capitol, I heard I by chance the British Ambassador explaining the division ( of the gallery rights to a fellow-countryman, evidently a stranger to Uncle Sam's way : This was the section reserved for the use of the Diplomatic Corps ; directly across was I the reservation for the wives, daughters, and guests of ' Congressmen, with the front pew gated off for the special privilege of the Speaker's family ; over the clock was the press gallery, etc., etc. The Englishman listened and then, at a pause, waved his arms to include the packed gallery benches, pressing the pre-empted sections on all sides, and exclaimed, *' And are those just all sorts of persons ? " " All sorts of persons." The phrase comes readily to mind now that I want to describe America's largest summer resort. For though Lowell maintained that he " loved to enter pleasure by a postern," and another American man of letters in his inventory of a '* fair capital of manners " includes " quiet ways, low tones of voice, lips that can wait, and eyes that do not wander " ; still, the crowd who go to swell the human bee-hive at Atlantic City on the south-eastern coast of New Jersey do not want to enter by any back door, nor silently nor reposefully. Every one of the 500,000 all " sorts of persons " who stream Y 321 322 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA into this holiday community seems to desire to announce his arrival by three hand-springs to the front of the stage, a grin, and a " Here-we-are-again " shout. The persons who said that Americans only laugh when intoxicated should go to Atlantic City and witness the tremendous capacity for wholesome jollification that America's "all sorts of persons," filled with the carnival spirit of a holiday by the sea, do possess. If the " all sorts of persons " screaming indulgently over the sands, or strutting overdressed on the Board Walk, seem to the foreigner incredibly vulgar, and possessed of crass materialism in its most hopeless form, he should at least realize the innocence of it all, that it is a relaxation of the bonds of custom rather than their breaking. He should remember the old retort, but a good one, which the American girl made to the Englishman who said, " I think your word * nice ' is such a nasty word," when she replied, " Well, do you think your word * nasty * is a nice word ? " Atlantic City may not be in good taste according to conservative standards, but it displays a distinct distaste for gaudy vice. The formalities of life exasperate our " all sorts of people " ; but though complete disregard for con- ventionality crystallized into the phrase " everything goes," is written in the coat-of-arms of Atlantic City, there is a code of behaviour unconsciously sustained by these '* all sorts of people," simply because it is woven in their rough fibre, that makes this summer capital of the people the " straightest," cleanest resort of its kind in the world. It is bourgeois but healthy. For instance, a young girl may walk the beach in the full light of day in the most abbreviated of costumes and no one think any the worse of her, because publicity is her protection, and her every movement is made before a thousand eyes. But after the bathing hour, when night falls, there is a different code, and should she adopt the unconventional in dress, or make herself unduly conspicuous in a hotel or on the Board Walk, SUMMER AND WINTER RESORTS 323 she at once classes herself among the forbidden. And while our middle class will cross the ocean to get a first- hand view of the ostensibly seamy side of Paris, and glory in contact with all that is socially daring and lawless according to their definition of the same, they do not tolerate it on their own playground. The 'American middle class is respectable, to the sacrifice, perhaps, of tempera- ment and imagination, but not to a hilarious good time. The manager of one of the show cafes of half-worldly reputation in Paris once called his concert-hall troupe about him, and remarked, " These Americans have come to hear and to see something devilish. Let them have it to the top of their bent, but do not frighten them away. I They are, after all, very proper, these Americans." I But the foreigner in America is not always so subtle, ( and he easily misinterprets Atlantic City. During an enforced stay there with a small invalid, the discord of the blatant pleasure life against my own anxiety was some- , what relieved by the amusing confusion of a young Englishman who was stopping at the same hotel. He ' was completely mystified with what I knew he inwardly i termed the colossal vulgarity and the unimpeachable I innocence of it all. He looked at these women, dressed ! and jewelled like princesses — their days devoted to chang- j ing and displaying gowns — and gradually came to realize I that underneath this glitter was the self-repression of provincials ; that they talked little, and did not know how I to flirt ; that they were, in a word, thoroughly respectable middle-class matrons out from a ten months' period of hibernation in a small town or a large city, where their husband's rapid rise in fortune did nothing to their social obscurity, but to whom the annual dash to Atlantic City made them, in their own smug estimate, "society ladies." Then, too, at first the English guest regarded askance the antics on the beach of young women in bathing 324 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA costumes, no more concealing than a ballet costume would have eclipsed their fine figures, who raced and tossed ball, and even danced with youths in bathing suits of cinder- track brevity, as the music of a band on one of the piers floated down ; but at last he confided to me, a little crest- fallen, I thought, over what had promised spiced pages for his diary of American impressions, that they were just like " any fellow's sisters, only horribly brought up." " It seems shockingly elemental, you know," he added, "but it's just high jinks, that's all." His first glance at the extravagant outrageousness of gaudy, unconventional Atlantic City had made him expect a real thrilling shock, and, expectant of earth- quakes, he received only the little box of violated con- ventions. The " painted ladies " of his imagination were merely good, healthy, young barbarians with eight-o'clock- in-the-morning complexions. When I told him that a freak of fashion decreed that at Easter-time real society — the Newport, Lenox, and Bar Harbour contingent — should journey to this then deserted Mecca by the sea, and that the Easter parade of Atlantic City is a thing of dignity and peaceful extrava- gance — he looked down from the pier where we stood on the screaming, audaciously clad throng surging over the beach and tried to believe me. I know he did, but I have no doubt he was trying to picture the Mall Sunday parade transferred to the Strand. During July and August, Atlantic City is the paradise of America's great extravagant class of " all sorts of people," and they do have such an extremely good time there. An American once said of it, " If Rudyard Kipling should suddenly go insane, and in the height of his delirium write a poem, he might convey a faint impression of what Atlantic City does to the observer's brain." However, the worth of the medicine for a sick person is altogether independent of the question as to whether he SUMMER AND WINTER RESORTS 325 has a scientific opinion with regard to it, or merely thinks of it as an old woman would do ; and while to the high- strung, Atlantic City may present merely ear-torment and a truly fearful spectacle, the " all sorts of persons " believe in it as a mighty cure, and gravitate there for recuperation and healthy excitement, undoubtedly finding both. These "all sorts of persons" who feel they must go there every year are, too, after all, most characteristically American. If a student of our national characteristics should wish to understand the American people, he ought to look for some typical specimens at Atlantic City. I have often , thought that the foreigner of distinction, the curious Ij investigator or the peripatetic prince, who is always I seeking something extra and vividly American, and who * is usually shown Niagara Falls or Brooklyn Bridge, or I Yellowstone Park, or the Yosemite Valley, or even a ( glimpse of Newport, instead should be hurried to Atlantic ! City in midsummer, for there he would be assured for once I of a genuine sensation. For this great middle-class play- ground is the eighth wonder of the world. Overwhelming in its social crudeness, barbaric and hideous as its various artificial attractions are, yet the student of humanity can bear witness to the whole panorama of American life. Moreover, it has, as one writer puts it, " the fascination of kaleidoscopic multitudinousness." There is a glorious front of seashore, unbroken for miles along the majestic ocean, and all the way a beach of glistening white sand, and then, lining that superb sweep of coast, a frantic, fantastic, lunatic's dream of merry-go- rounds (" carousals," with every beast and bird known to jungle and nightmare to ride), hotels, theatres, moving- picture shows, scenic labyrinths, fortune-teller's booths, exposed candy counters of Joseph's-coat tinting, Chinese laundries. Oriental bazaars, and open alcoves for Japanese games of chance, flower-shops, millinery exhibitions, all of 326 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA every conceivable and inconceivable size and shape and colour — blue, green, scarlet, gold, and purple, and smiling you in the eye beneath the brilliant sunshine ; for Atlantic City is hot, even as the pitiless summer in our cities, except for the rescuing salt sea breeze — until you gasp over its tawdriness and its magnificence in one breath. And between this gaudy planking and the sea runs seven miles of Board Walk, crowded with 50,000 human beings, who strut and swagger, or make what progress they may in the congested parts, or who roll along in basket chairs, propelled by grinning negroes, at every hour of the day or night. I have seen this plank boulevard so crowded that progress was made by a step and then a halt ; and under- neath on the sandy way trudged a procession of nursemaids with their charges, safe out of the way of the army tramp- ing steadily overhead. As a rule though, the children are on dress parades with their mothers, and such exaggeration of dress as both exhibit is sometimes enlightening as to what may be done in caricaturing a prevailing mode. I used to wonder, during the recent craze for upholstered coiffure, how the various phrenologists whose signs dot the promenade manage to practise their art, while small boys in skin-tight velvet suits, and very early editions of womanhood in satin frocks and gorgeous flower-trimmed hats, v/ould command pity if one had not seen them romping in the sand earlier in the day, buying air-balloons, huge pretzels or hokey-pokey (an apology for ice-cream, with all accent removed from the latter word) from the various vendors who derive their trade from the beach at bathing-time. There are, of course, no bathing-machines at Atlantic City. They would be incomprehensible to the goddessy young woman who counts that walk of over a hundred feet from the bath-house, where she has donned her marvellously fitting and strikingly toned costume with all the care of a ball-gown, to the water's edge as a triumphal SUMMER AND WINTER RESORTS 327 entry — not into the ocean, oh no ! but into public view ; for she only bathes, if at all, as a last resort after the beach parade and frolicking are over. Yet some of these gorgeous ballet-girls do go into the water above their ankles ; some venturesome bathers really go into the surf, where they scream and clutch the nearest human being and scream again. This scream is sometimes the prelude to an acquaintanceship, for the historic Englishman who let a drowning man go down because he could not bring himself to rescue him without having been properly introduced is not the model of Atlantic City etiquette. " I didn't know a single young man when I came down here, but I've met a whole lot, just through sister's being saved by that Harvard man. We like it here lots now," a pretty Western girl on her first stay in Atlantic City confided to me. This same girl from the West, who had induced " the folks " to come East for some years, summed up the characteristics of certain American summer resorts in these words : " Asbury Park, too religious ; Long Branch, too stuffy ; Southampton, too respectable ; Lenox, too scattered, too many large country seats ; Bar Harbour, too slow, too many Philadelphians ; Newport, too snobby ; Narragansett Pier, too near Newport, and not ' it ' ; Atlantic City, ' it,' something doing all the time, always on the jump." There is certainly "something doing " all the time. When darkness falls, the whole place leaps out with a full glare of electric light till, seen from a boat outside, the entire coast seems to be a single sheet of fire. Huge iron piers shoot their noses far out into the ocean and blazon forth, in flaring letters twenty feet long, the merits of somebody's pickles and somebody else's cigarettes, and on one a good-sized theatre wakes up for an evening per- formance of some " latest New York success " ; on another the animals of a full-fledged circus roar and bellow and whine restively ; on another the " loop the loops," and the 328 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA " loops of death," thunder and grind ; bands crash dis- cordantly ; scores of orchestras in the different hotels and eating-houses awake, for Atlantic City is the eatingest place in the world ; street pianos plunk away ; concert-halls send forth fragmentary shriekings, apparently of agony ; the " barkers " at the peep-shows along the Board Walk get into action. It is infernal, astonishing, and, it must be confessed, infinitely picturesque. Nothing is omitted from the repertoire to make the American dollar feel at home. And still not all the visitors at Atlantic City are as opulent as they look when on the Board Walk parade-grounds. Many have saved the year through for a two weeks' holiday there, and are staying, not at one of the magnificent hostelries clustering about the water-front, but in a side street in one of the packing-box type of summer hotels — flimsy honeycombs of pine, which look as if they might be pulled to pieces by your fingers — or at a boarding-house back in the city proper. For a sober city of some forty thousand population lies here on the New Jersey coast when the summer guests come not to augment it with a hotel, boarding-house and summer cottage total of never less than two hundred thousand persons. Many of the guests at the large hotels *' are not what they seem " financially, and it lends an element of interest to speculate as to whether the young man, nonchalantly inhaling his cigarette on the piazza of a hotel with the reputation for the most expensive discomfort in the community, is really what he appears — a prosperous Wall Street broker, or a chemist's clerk from Schenectady, N.Y., who is "putting up a front." But, having been stung by that strange summer craving for noise and confusion and show, he will, in either case, get his fill of fun at Atlantic City. Whether he merely tickles his income or scrapes the bottom of his bank account to stay there, the noise is undoubtedly worth the price. For, while in national tariff adjustment it is said that our first rule is to get the most feathers with the SUMMER AND WINTER RESORTS 329 least squawk, in the summer resorts of America the squawk must be loud and public, or we are not sure that we are plucking the feathers of pleasure at all. I have heard Atlantic City referred to as the nether millstone upon which all the graces of life, all the ideality of existence, are ground to atoms ; as a demonstrated con- fession that our people are incapable of self-resourceful enjoyment ; but, on the other hand, I have heard such pessimism described as the twitchings of a dyspeptic philosopher, and the glitter and music and bustle of Atlantic City upheld as an offset to the lack of holiday spirit in our hustling American life. For my part, I think our " all sorts of persons " should be commended for the courage of their native instinct to seek stimulation in sitting in stuccoed grottos and listening to coon songs amid Atlantic City's unending shriek of brass. At least, there is no pretence of a yearning for Ibsen and Wagner among the " all sorts of persons." But, however that may be, we cannot ignore the fact that in most of our summer resorts, even of the better type, there is exploitation of all sorts of fads, and a certain social vulgarity which, in the end, must leave its stamp on the people who frequent them. And the effect of social life at these public resorts is especially disastrous to children who are passing into womanhood and manhood. I To bracket Newport and Atlantic City is to reckon with the ire of both, for Newport is a byword for all I which the strong young social children among our ** all j sorts of persons " disapprove, and Atlantic City means the hoi polloi from which Newport shrinks as Satan from holy I water. Yet Newport, as well as Atlantic City, proclaims I that we are a gregarious people — even a millionaire in ! America does not want to "flock by himself" — and j Newport much more subtly, much more extravagantly, is, nevertheless, looking for sensational entertainment, even as there is a fortune for any one installing a novelty in 330 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA side-shows on Atlantic City's Board Walk. But there is hardly a good middle-class citizen in America who cannot give names and dates of malodorous anecdotes of Newport life ; and while Newport is undoubtedly flattered by being told that it is pursuing later Rome's primrose path to the everlasting bonfire, and at times seems bent on nothing so much as justifying her reputation for rubbing the registered trademarks for conventions off her people, still, she remains the undisputed queen of all watering-places, and the head of the list in America's " social register." Granting that a social freak must arise in the country developing a caste that is neither entirely hypocrisy nor admittedly aristocracy, it is hard to tell what fate picked out as its centre this plain little town at the tip of a minor state ; . for Newport is the most out-of-the-way, annoying place to reach in the East. So far as typography goes, it is almost treeless, and while land and salt water are enchantingly wedded, so are they at a hundred other points along the ocean edge of Massachusetts and New Jersey and Long Island. Her slate cliffs and surf-combed reefs and bathing beaches are no more picturesque than the mammoth granite boulders guarding Cape Ann but a little further north. Narragansett Pier, Newport's next- door neighbour in summer resorts, with all its splendour of public appointment, has never developed into anything but a sort of secondary base in advancing socially on Newport. As some one has said, there is all the differ- ence between the sporting page and the social column. No resort in America has ever rivalled Newport. She is enthroned on the cliffs— the quaint old town backing her up with traditions as in Brighton, England — society is her court, and the sea is at her feet. She holds the trump card, plays the game, and collects the stake in money, nerves or reputation — sometimes one, sometimes the other, and sometimes all three. It is related that one of the Newport leaders, lying desperately ill in her castle there, ■mam SUMMER AND WINTER RESORTS 331 and facing the alternative of an operation or death, demanded of the attending physician, " Couldn't you possibly wait, doctor, until between seasons ? " It is generally conceded that Newport is the one corner of our civilization where the American worldly world quite lives up to its lurid reputation in the provinces. One writer elucidates, " After all, it is the real thing — as real as any community can be that exists solely to amuse itself — and it gratifies the cynic far better than its many imita- tions up and down the coast, with their pose of a moral superiority. No place changes less in years, is so fixed in its standards, and assimilates new-comers more easily, pro- vided they are willing to make the proper sacrifices, and have the heaven-born genius to buckle to Newport's standards. No place clings more ardently to its old gods. You do not hear of Newport's ups and downs. It has a sort of Chinese civilization. Every season is billeted across the land as the most brilliant ever, and last year's as the deadliest dull. Truth to tell, Newport delights in thinking itself dull and in telling outsiders so. Casual observers — any but those who camp outside the social Port Arthur, preparing for a three-year do-or-die siege — do not interest the place. But a family of determined Nogis, their money, origin, the cleverness of their social strategy, become proper types of general talk. The more accept- able the family, the more it is "roasted." That is the Newport way of surrendering. The siege finally becomes a sort of glacial movement, and the outposts parley with the enemy by saying to one another, " They never really tried to get in, you know. Just think ; they've been here three years ! Next season they'll be all right. The children are the very best, even if the old folks are quite impossible. Did you see the aigrettes she had on this morning ? Like a cook ! " And in the allotted three years, the family are over the ramparts and sitting gorgeously in the market-place. But changed, so changed ! 332 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA that, to see and hear its members talk, you would imagine that they had always camped upon Ochre Point ; that they had ordered the forty steps built, or fed the first sack of corn into the old stone mill " (these being the land-marks of primitive Newport, not unlike the Old Manor House at Brighton). And Newport has its permanent residents — old Rhode Island families, dating back to the days of the colowies when letters were addressed "New York, near Newport," and looking upon the occupants of the villas as strangers. " They are amusing enough," was the way one of the old residents put it. Another, more sarcastic, described them as " Our unpaid actors in the drama of fashion." Via Newport is, however, one of the routes to New York society, even if you are a New Yorker, and the progress or failure of so-and-so and such-and-such can be traced by a discerning leader of the summer-resort news, and sometimes quick entries are effected. Lacking bridge, which is literally one of the bridges to span the gap, or a sympathetic friend who has " gotten in " and may throw you a line to pull you up, a fad, if you can make it, is a pretty fair life-raft to float on ; for a Newport season is not complete without its shock. And somehow or other the yellow press always get wind of the shock. The dance in a certain ball-room, with the guests clad in the sketchiest of bathing-costumes ; the young man who appears at a cotillon in dkolleti regalia and pyramidal coijjurey to the utter deception of half the partners ; the young woman who wears live snakes at a reception as a finish to her toilette; the "pet" luncheon where the aristocrats of dogdom are the guests, and served by their fond millionaire owners — all this appears in page illustrations and border illumination of portraits of the leading ladies and heroes of the latest Newport divorces. How these " features " of Newport life reach publicity no one ever knows. The leak in the American cotton market is an A B C mystery in SUMMER AND WINTER RESORTS 333 comparison. One suspects an analogy with the communi- cation received by a Western editor, which read : " Dear Sir : While leaving Casey's saloon last night I was un- fortunate enough to get into a slight discussion with my late friend Buck Jones, and found it necessary to draw on him, which same being the best shot in the county, resulted fatally. I trust you will not allow any young snipe reporter on your paper to give notoriety to this lamentable incident." But whatever may be Newport's career of guile and aberration behind the scenes, any one in search of the spectacular in the outward life there is doomed to dis- appointment. The latest "shriek" in bathing-costumes is not found at Newport. Black silk, dark blue, well- fitting, but nothing startling ; and while many of the young women dress for bathing at home and walk or drive down to the beach — for Bailey's Beach is but a step from their villas — they are always enveloped in long bathing-cloaks of the Irish peasant type. The Casino is one of the centres of Newport life, and has much the appearance of a usual country club. It is one of the traditions of Newport society that when the Casino opens each season you must go there and register, thus officially reporting your presence, although every one who is any one knows that you have been in your villa on the cliffs for weeks. But the custom gives the opening day at the Casino the appearance of a big reception in town, with even the " lady reporter " peering around noting " ecru insertions " and " real Irish lace robes." The pranks of the inner recesses, of tea and whist and ball-rooms, are not here apparent. It is a thoroughly conventional, most expensively clad gathering that streams into the Casino in the morning for playing or watching tennis. Not but that it is lively and picturesque enough. From the villas to the Casino is not quite far enough for aeroplanes ; but if they ever become fashionable as 334 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA vehicles, Newport will have to go in for them and alight at the Casino from above, possibly on the roof. Even for automobiles, the distances to the Casino are absurdly short, which may account for the horse not being wholly unfashionable at the " queen of watering-places." Many of the girls drive up to the Casino in village phaetons, with tops and fringe, and a *' tiger " in the rumble. But for the " tiger " and the shortness of the drive to the Casino, there might be an affectation of simplicity about the phaeton. Under the circumstances it is surprisingly sensible, and the girls as they drive up make a pretty and engaging picture. Tennis, the bathing at Bailey's Beach, the morning chat or bridge over, and the luncheon hour at hand, it is surprising how swiftly society vanishes. It is as if it had been wiped off the scene. Nor does it show up again until about four o'clock, when it reappears in motor-cars and victorias on Bellevue Avenue and the Ocean Drive. This is Newport's daily " parade," but it hardly makes as brave a show as formerly, because the automobiles are out for longer runs. The parade is not a thing of the past, as it is in New York, where every afternoon during the season, Fifth Avenue once had the finest horse show in the world, but some of its glory is dimmed. The national tennis tournament is held at the Newport Casino, and invariably is followed by complaints about the insufficient number of umpires and linesmen. One player of national reputation explained this lack of officials by saying that umpires and linesmen had to be imported, " because," as he cruelly phrased it, " Newport men are so useless." Nevertheless, justice demands the admission that some of the best skill in the country at racquet, saddle, and tiller is represented by the sons and brothers of the wicked foolish ones of Bellevue Avenue, Newport, R.I. It was for tennis that the Newport women invented the marvellous SUMMER AND WINTER RESORTS 335 fashion of reversing their veils, veiling the face from below up, from the chin to the eyes, relying upon the hat-brim to shade the upper part of the face. There are afternoons when society does "the naval training station " at Newport, and especially has this been the case since a commodore of the New York Yacht Club and his fleet of officers reviewed the brigade of apprentice seamen at the station by invitation of the commandant. Sometimes the brigade sings patriotic songs, " The Star Spangled Banner " and " America," and marches to its quarters singing " Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean." Afterwards, the girls and general officers stroll about the grounds or sit on guns, quite as up-to-date as the women themselves. Newport society never seems quite so attractive as when it unbends a bit at the naval training station. For the most part, however, the formal entertainments of the usual Newport sort are of a magnificent monotony — electric lights in the shrubbery, tents built out from the villa for dancing, supper, and decorations, to give all newspapers and the " Florist Gazette " adjectival orgies. Some of the marble palaces of Newport are despoiled of effect by being built without enough ground perspective, " sitting," as some one has said, " on their tiny lots as appropriate as Windsor Castle on a suburban 20 x 20." I know of no better description of these magnificent villas perched on the granite eminences than the suggestion that " if better built, and surrounded with a few olive trees, they would fulfil, for one who had never been there, his idea of the Riveria." But magnificent Newport surely is. There is no resort in the world with as great wealth among the resident clientele, and really it is no more artificial than might be logically expected in a nation with aristocracy's meaning as shifting as the sands of the sea, or, perhaps, the number of commas in figured statements of our rich men's possessions. 336 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA I once met a Westerner who, having made a lucky strike, had taken a holiday and a trip across the continent to seek in his Newport lair the specimen of humanity whom President Roosevelt, in a message to Congress, had described as "that particular kind of a multi-millionaire who is almost the least enviable, and is certainly one of the least admirable, of all our citizens ; a man of whom it has been well said that his face has grown hard and cruel while his body has grown soft ; whose son is a fool, and his daughter a foreign princess ; whose nominal pleasures are, at best, those of a tasteless and extravagant luxury ; and whose real delight, whose real lifework, is the accumula- tion and use of power in its most sordid and least elevating form. In the chaos of an absolutely unrestricted com- mercial individualism under modern conditions this is a type that becomes prominent as inevitably as the marauder baron became prominent in the physical chaos of the Dark Ages." And the Westerner's, " Oh, pshaw ! Their ain't a decent fighter among them. All they seem to want to do is to live and loll and loaf all by themselves," expresses the scorn for Newport which these children of the prairie have sucked from the rich and boundless soil of the un- trammelled West. It is another sidelight on the diversity of social conditions in America. Bar Harbour is one of the more exclusive of the resorts on the Maine coast, and here the feature of the season is the entertainment of the officers of the warship squadron. People at Bar Harbour are not so self-absorbed as at Newport, and the arrival of the ships is a real " event." Here, too, the people are necessarily more thrown upon nature than at Newport, where there is the constant back- ground of the city, with Providence and Boston not far away, and New York fairly accessible. A week-end at Newport is easily managed by a New Yorker ; not so a week-end at Bar Harbour. There, too, the native industries are more in evidence. Every lobster-man and scallop SUMMER AND WINTER RESORTS 337 ' fisherman has his motor-dory, and at one time the early morning chug-chug of the dory fleet was so disturbing to the summer visitors that a movement was started to have every motor-dory equipped with a muffler. Life at Bar Harbour also centres largely around what at other resorts would be a casino, but there, where water sports enter so largely into the entertainment, is the swimming club. Here are tennis-courts, and the game is a favourite diversion. But swimming is the great feature of a Bar Harbour morning. The water along the coast of Maine is intensely cold. The arrangements at the Bar Harbour Swimming Club, however, do away with this disadvantage. A part of the sea has been enclosed by a broad wall of concrete, and the water is not constantly sweeping in from the cold I depths. There is a spring-board for diving, a raft to climb on and rest, and the cement walls are so broad that people who have not gone in bathing can walk out and watch and " jolly " the people in the water. About the tennis-courts there is more freedom than at Newport. Instead of watching the games from verandas or from other substitutes for grand-stands, the spectators take chairs out on the lawn or sit down on the grass. There also is more latitude in choice of costume. Again, to draw a comparison with Newport, where the men go to the casino of a morning in sack or walking suits, the Bar Harbour men are in white flannel, with white canvas shoes. Every one seems to go to Bar Harbour for a genuinely good time. Automobiles are conspicuous by their absence. When the flower show or vaudeville is on there is an un- broken line of carriages at the Building of Art. Probably this is the only arts building at a fashionable American summer resort, and excellent concerts are given there by a fine orchestra. This was the basis of a satirical act in the " home-talent " vaudeville show at Bar Harbour. The curtain rose, disclosing a group of women engaged in loud 338 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA and lively conversation, while the orchestra was trying to make itself heard in a classical selection. Which shows that Americans appreciate a joke on themselves even when engaged in the serious business of summer resorting. But it is in her winter playground that the United States is most fortunate. The European goes to shivery Italy for the winter, and generally finds that every portion of it suffers from the cold, while we have California, Arizona, Texas and Florida, all warmer than Italy, and offering a greater variety of natural attractions and dis- comforts. The winter tourists in our South-western states are, generally speaking, of our sad army of tubercular stricken, for equable hot climate vies with our extreme cold treatment at Saranac, just as Davos and Southern France divide the sorrowful toll abroad. California is at once a summer and winter resort, and the story of snowballing at the top of the mountain on her coast range, picking oranges at its base, and ocean-bathing from the shore of the city it shadows, does not grow any the less true by age. Southern California is a wonderful climate, and in many sections, in answer to the question, " What do these people live on ? " the reply still comes, " On the tourists." But the great Mecca of fashion and wealth in the winter is Florida. In forty-eight hours at the outside any one in New York or Chicago may change his en- vironment from arctic to tropic, winter or summer; zero mercury for one between 60° and 80° above; ice and snow for blue skies and bluer waters, ever-blooming flowers, and singing birds ; and all this without leaving the mainland of the United States ; but all this is avail- able only to that section of population who are looking for a speedy means of consuming money. The traditional Westerner who invaded one of those Florida hotels, the fame of which is almost as wide- spread as the English tongue, and, on leaving, returned his SUMMER AND WINTER RESORTS 339 extortionate bill back to the desk clerk, saying, "Guess again, son, I got more'n that,'* still expresses the last cent expenditure to which your stay at the Ponce de Leon or the Royal Poinciana will tax the moderate income. These are earthly paradises into which none but the rich may enter. And all the tropical wizardry of surrounding has so helped the planning until the " biggest hotel in the world,'* at Palm Beech, is a gem in its setting, not a monstrosity. " Florida is a land of many colours — a rainbow land of green palms, red poincettas, blue waters, white beeches, and orange-groves like green fields sprinkled with gold dust,** begins one writer, who had set himself the task of sober recital of this land of Ponce de Leon ; and he con- tinues, " It is an ' Arabian Night's * dream of Aladdin palaces that gleam in gardens more fantastic than those of Babylon; and of a throng of princes and princesses who appear suddenly as if by magic every January and disappear mysteriously in April. It is a fantasy — a pageant — a new Egypt with more marvels than were ever created by a Pharaoh's fancy." One cannot write of the Florida resorts in anything but superlatives or blank verse. Their founding has the same association with stupendous commercialism and dreamy romance. That part of Florida which twenty - five years ago had nothing but climate and a sandy wilderness, has been transformed to a five-hundred-mile streak of terrestrial paradise by the enterprise and genius of one man. This is Henry M. Flagler. From the moment when he saw it, Florida seized upon Mr. Flagler's imagination. He was then a work-worn millionaire with thirty-five years of business building behind him ; but as he sat under the palm trees he forgot it all, and began a second career fully as romantic as that of Ponce de Leon, and happily much more successful. At the suggestion of a friend in Washington he had 340 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA gone to St. Augustine to escape the seventy of a northern February, and he was so impressed by the unique charm of the place that he ordered a great hotel to be built there. Another friend lured him 260 miles farther south, to Palm Beach, which the delighted millionaire immediately began to transform into a garden of the gods. Palm Beach sprang in two winters full-fledged into the ranks of famous winter playgrounds. It should be stated that he had at first bought a railway that ran south from Jacksonville — a pitiful wire way of rust that lay forlorn and unprofitable. He relaid it as a toy — some say the dream castles at St. Augustine and Palm Beach were created to supply the traffic. But whatever the inspiration, they are dreams come true, while the railroad has stretched farther and farther south, until it now hems the entire east coast of Florida (and this state has, by the way, an area equal to combined New England), with a double thread of steel. Even to Miami, which lies near the extreme southern tip of the mainland of Florida, it is a notable line running through a tropical region which looks much more like Algiers or Egypt than like any other section of the United States. The inclusion of Miami into its chain of great hotel centres was characteristic. At the time of the great freeze in 1895, Mr. Flagler was standing amid the dead plants and flowers at Palm Beach when he was presented with a spray of perfect orange blossoms. He looked over the blackened orchard bloom about him. " Where did they come from ? " he asked. " From Biscayne County, nearly one hundred miles to the southward," came the reply. " What is there ? " " One of the most beautiful salt-water bays of the country." " How large is it ? " " About forty miles long, and from one to ten broad." SUMMER AND WINTER RESORTS 341 " Is there any reason why our road cannot be extended into that country ? " " None at all." " How can one reach it now ? " "By two days' ride over a trail almost hub-deep in sand, and through an unbroken wilderness, or by a night's run down the coast in a yacht." On his immediate visit there, Mr. Flagler found the wonderful amber crystal waters of a bay sheltered by this only rock-bound portion of Florida, and a score or so of houses scattered along the Miami River. In one year his railroad had reached it, and the sixth of the great Florida hotels was in process of construction. There had sprung into existence another fairy-land, where hundreds of American women can now, each winter, trail Paris finery along the verandas and palm-shaded walks ; where tired American millionaires can find every inducement to relaxation in the out-of-door restaurants under the palm trees. From Miami southward the railroad becomes literally sea-going. A word-painter says of it : " As if it could resist the lure of the sea no longer, it leaves the land, and leaps straight out into the grey-blue waters of the Gulf of Mexico, linking a line of green islands together like a string of emeralds. One hundred and fifty miles in length and every mile a marvel ! " Some of the islands are tiny stepping-stones, and some of them are large and dense with tropical foliage — rubber trees draped with flowering ivy, shady lagoons tunnelling under this foliage and giving the lazy alligators a place to hide when the roar of the train frightens them. Immense soaring birds, the original aeroplanes, curve and circle overhead. And in the open sea between the islands, heavy-bodied ducks scurry off to a quieter feeding-ground ; tall white herons, like winged clothes-poles, fly from beside the track on either side ; fishes of many colours jump 342 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA and splash in the water ; and far off on the horizon are the sails of ships which have not yet found out how to go to sea on tracks of steel." This nautical railroad has almost reached Key West — less than ninety miles from Havana — and from there the Pullman cars that have carried the tourist from New York will be floated across to Cuba on huge ferries and the chain of tropical wonderland will be complete. At present it must be confessed the five-hour sail from Key West to Cuba in steamships has much of the turbulence of crossing the English Channel. It is said that when the plans for the sea-going railway were placed before Mr. Flagler he studied them for a time. Finally he turned to his railway manager and asked — " Can you do this ? " " Yes," replied the railway manager. " Then do it," said Flagler. All the American business magnate asks is, that the proposed work shall be possible for human energy and brains to do. He has no fear of incidental difficulties. This empire builder of the South-west is now a remarkably young-old man of 79. Seventy years have passed since he was a country boy in New York state, accepting as a matter of necessity the hardships of the Northern winters ; to-day he lives in a marble castle at Palm Beach, while thousands of tourists are enjoying a semi-tropical winter in the wonderland he has opened to them. But greatly as Americans revel in the climate of this steam-heated state, it is not so much that they enjoy literally basking in the surroundings where Nature plays the tune of life softly and dreamily, as that Palm Beach and Miami have added a new diversion to society. As soon as the Christmas stock in the shops has been disposed of, the great display windows blossom with filmy " Palm Beach frocks." Straw hats displace the felts while there is yet snow on the ground ; tailors announce complete SUMMER AND WINTER RESORTS 343 assortments of " linens, white serges, and pongees and other suitings suitable for the Florida season." Exhibitions of "imported hand-embroidered lingerie frocks and lace robes" are zealously patronized by women swathed in furs, and the modest-pursed outsiders without the circle of Palm Beach possibilities gaze longingly through frosted show windows at the flower-trimmed millinery and chiffon parasols and open-work hose, and console themselves with the assurance that complexions keep a good deal better in a cold winter climate — also there will ,be plenty of bargains after the Palm Beach exodus of city wealth has occurred. But the Florida resorts, if fashion ruled and luxury swathed, are a national asset, for Florida is the one place in America where the climate is absolutely conducive to relaxation. There out-door life, so neglected by nervous Americans, is imperative. Whether it be as far removed from the simple life as the donning in succession of five different and complex costumes a day, or as strenuously executed as tennis and golf — (for when the Northern courses are covered with snow, Florida's glisten as a green velvet quilt) — or bowling or beach automobiling will allow — it is primarily a holiday, a fiesta life so rare with strenuous Americans. The New York stock manipulator who arrives at St. Augustine looking as aged as the fragments of wall about that city dating from the Spanish days in Florida, a week later, in his white trousers and blue serge sack coat — inexorable orthodoxy of morning dress at Florida resorts — might be the grandson of that other care-worn personality. Of course, the gouty and over-weighted dowager type are there pursuing a futile Ponce de Leon quest by way of piazza-rockers and rolling-chairs and massage, but the impression one gets is of charmingly youthful women in their wonderful frocks sitting in dainty tea-houses beneath the feathery palms festooned with the lace scarfs of Spanish 344 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA moss, or dancers gliding over the ball-rooms, which are practically open to the balmy night air ; of bronzed men returning from battling with the tarpon ("silver king " of the finny tribe often tipping the beam at 200 pounds), or subtle casting in fresh-water streams ; of a man and a maid strolling about the paths of the formal gardens, or the more lover-like in shrub- and vine-screened angle of the veranda table-land ; of those groves where the yellow fruit and the scented blooms hang side by side, for oranges ripen in the winter and at the same time the trees cover themselves with fragrant bridal wreaths of the next year's fruitage — in a word, the impression is that the place is magician-touched and that the spirit of youth has been found. "Predatory wealth" it may be, as our newspapers proclaim, but it is surely out of its lair. And to see the American who has slaved for his millions, hunting, fishing, loafing, cruising in a boat-house on summer seas, speeding in an automobile over ocean beaches as hard and smooth as a floor, is a disarming sight. He does not look the monster of worry and vengeance any more than the so- called Florida "cowboy" looks the weapon-bristling, desperate character the name is apt to suggest. The Florida cowboy is as near to inertia as any human type ever created. He himself always confesses that the others of his tribe are " plumb shif'less." And an over-fastidious tourist, objecting to the habits of the biting and stinging insects which naturally in such a semi-tropical climate have colonized every blade of grass with a tendency to incorporate themselves in the passer-by, received this contemptuous reply from his cowboy guide — " What's the use in namin' all them bitin* and stingin' critters, when I've lived here all my life an' hain't run up agin nary one of them ceptin', of cose, red bugs, an' moskitters, an' scorponiums (scorpions), an' sich trash that don' count only ter make a feller scratch an' cus." SUMMER AND WINTER RESORTS 345 A curious feature in this millionaire winter playground is that on one of the line of coral islands at the Southern tip dwell the remnant of the Seminole Indians, among the most warlike and the most picturesque of the American tribe who successfully resisted expatriation to the Far West Government reservations. So Uncle Sam's newly rich children of his mature years have his first primitive sons cowering at the gate of their Hotel Paradise which was once his hunting-ground. While an exclusive villa colony is growing both at Palm Beach and at Miami, the hotel life predominates, and the resorts have not the socially " closed shop " attitude toward new-comers. " The price " is the requisite, and the cHques based on ultra-smartness or family are submerged by the crowds with "mere money" who throng through the doors of the mammoth hotels. At a I recent ball at one of these nearly 2000 people attended. The room, with porportions something like 200 feet long by 75 feet wide, was a huge bower of wistaria and palms through which some 7000 coloured incandescents glistened like jewels. Twice that number of people had that same day witnessed the races at Ormonde, where the beach admits of a score of automobiles running abreast in a straight-away course of nearly 20 miles. So nature and wealth help to while away the winter holiday. But while winter^resorting is the rich man's prerogative, the long summer vacation is interpreted as a necessity in every American family. In June the regular structure of American life is wholly broken up. " Vacation has become a fetish and vacation means family migration," explains one writer, which is quite true of everybody in the family except the husband and father. America fathers are never counted in the summer plans beyond figuring as the source of supply for the campaign. As the prime motive of the vacation seems to be change, not rest, the male stay-at- home population sometimes fares better than his migrated 346 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA family, and I have known American wives coming back from the discomforts of the summer hotel and considering the husband supremely selfish in having absorbed city comforts afforded by fresh fruit and a soft bed in her absence. The interesting thing in this summer exodus is the surprisingly short time in which it has been evolved. Half a century ago it was known only to some of the richest people. A few very old and opulent families had country places on the Hudson ; in Boston the same class had summer homes at Nahant or in Pepperill ; the wealthy planters of the South came North to the hotels of Saratoga, Lake George, and Niagara, whither the vast majority of the fashionable Northern people also resorted. Now everybody goes somewhere. People from the mountains go to the seashore, and vice versa. Eastern people rush to the West. Western people come back Eastward — though it must be admitted that even now Western people do not summer outside their homes to at all the same extent as in the East — Southerners come North. It is a natural hegira, a flux of population and a craze for change. Summering was the primitive joke of the paragrapher and the caricaturist whose diagnosis of it is a disease described as "sestivitis." A few betake themselves to nooks and corners in the mountains, but it is not, as a rule. Nature's vernal call but the restriction of the purse which forms this choice. Good board on a farm can be had for £i 8j. a week, but there is scant love of nature of this serenity in the United States, and, as a rule, every effort will be made to afford the summer stay at a large boarding-house or flimsy hotel. They are all pretty much alike, these mountain and sea- side summer hotels, down to having the same number of feet of piazza, although it is always a little dearer at the seaside, where board at the average hotel is £^ a week, at the large boarding-house £2,. SUMMER AND WINTER RESORTS 347 I have heard it said that there is one gossiper for every three feet of hotel piazza at the usual seaside resort, but I consider the estimate conservative. One wonders that there are not more cases of insanity directly attributable to this summer hotel life, where the feminine routine, day after day, is rocking and talking, and going in bathing and coming out to lie in the sand until the hair is dry ; a little nap, a little bridge, more rocking and talking, and then to bed. The young girl, however — the sun-burned girls in " sneakers " (rubber-soled gymnasium shoes) and woollen sweaters, with sailor necks, play with the college boys, also summering, likewise in these match-box hotels, also with their families, and if the liberty of comradeship does shock European standards of debutante propriety, I sometimes wonder whether any other young woman in the world looks as healthy and as if she were having as good a time. The summer cottage was at one time within the realm of possibility for even the moderate purse, and only the American woman's desire to get completely away from housekeeping voiced in the oft-heard protest, " I don't want to know what I am going to have to dinner until I sit down to it," prevented the average family from acquiring modest summer homes ; but the summer cottage in America, beginning as it did in the slightest and simplest of shanties, progressed toward those simulacra of homes, aptly called " shells," and gradually arrived at those picturesque structures elaborately decorated and furnished with all the modern conveniences in which one may spend two-thirds of the year and more of his income than one has a quiet conscience in doing. So the growth of the summer cottage settlements is slow. But the summer hotels spring up like mush- room growth, and streams of pleasure-seekers from all over the country converge towards each new crop. Incidentally there is no way that the sectional types of the 348 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA United States may be so well studied as when found collected together in some of these popular centres of summer life. Again I urge that the foreigner who would distribute his time among half a dozen wisely selected summer resorts during these annual three months of extraordinary botdeversement, would find more American types flung indiscriminately before him and be saved the arduous pursuit of them when isolated in their natural haunts. As a demonstration of national characteristics, there is nothing in the country like an average summer resort. It is to be recommended above Broadway or the prairie. CHAPTER XV HOUSING THE NATION AN American can always take a joke on himself — if the laugh is sprung by an American. Criticism of America or Americans by an American is generally accepted as a family joke. But when a European waxes critical of his doings and possessions the American pride is stung. Yet we listen avidly for foreign comment, favourable or unfavourable, and the slightest caustic judgment of the foreigner will often bring action when the pounding of domestic arraignment has been smiled at indulgently. This has been particularly true in regard to the evolution and the reform of our architectural heights. Our office buildings, skyscrapers, or " skyscratchers," as Frenchmen call them, now take their place in the architecture of the world ; a place that was not allowed them, however, until the beauty of their real truth was discovered by the art critics of Europe who have visited our shores. It is hard to believe that scarcely a decade has passed since a distinguished American architect was guilty of the absurd remark that a building over seven stories high was not architecture. He was unable to throw off the European influence of low "monumental" architecture and, being exceedingly sensitive to European criticism, he and his imitators held that we should transplant bodily 349 350 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA the European street architecture to our American cities regardless of the fact that it would in no way fulfil our requirements. When, however, it was found impossible to harmonize European architecture to the new conditions of businessf geography of our cities, all ingenuity was exercised for cJ time in disguising the height of our buildings, or, techni-| cally speaking,* in reducing the apparent height, which was) then almost universally admitted to be excessive and contrary to all the canons of high art. One method which was supposed to accomplish this disguise was the exaggeration of established European motives and combinations in the endeavour to suggest by association that the American office building, like the European palace, was only three stories high, when in' reality it was twenty. Another scheme was to assume that each story was but the expression of a one-story European building. So we have in some of our earlier efforts towards height, ibuildings and parts of buildings piled one upon the other, tier after tier, starting, perhaps, with the Grecian temple and crowned with a chateau of Valois. This was followed by a more truthful expression, but still clinging to the monumental idea. Classic forms, such as the arch and column, whose true functions were lost sight of, were aimlessly tossed about the fronts of our buildings ; and we still see this three-quarter-engaged structure clinging to these fronts like painted architecture on the ceiling of foreign cathedrals. Then came the periodical visit of a foreign critic. This time it happened to be a French architect, who told us through his interviews with pressmen, that the facades of our sky-scrapers were nonsensical attempts at Greek, Roman, Gothic and French baroque art, and the average New Yorker, who is, of course, the most modest person on the face of the globe, except, perhaps, his English cousin, HOUSING THE NATION 351 , went about loudly apologizing for the skyscrapers, the , narrow streets and jagged " squares," and high bridges and the overhead street cars. But these things being the necessities of the city's life — great ocean liners demanding an arched way up to the side of New York, and the pressure of people and business giving space in the air a utilitarian value — the condition continued to be met by the high bridges and skyscrapers, and suddenly our architects realized that inasmuch as the skyscraper is a sincere expression of our conditions and needs, it is a true expression of legitimate architecture. They awoke to the value of our invention, but they also awoke to the fact that, not having anything " monu- mental " inside, plastering a so-called " monumental " front on to a building which is a symbol of utility, would not accomplish the effect which we sought. Then we began to set about making our public buildings more truthful expressions on the outside of what was inside. We began to say, " Conditions make a style, and not architects or the architectural fashion-plates of any architectural school. Our conditions in America to-day are different from any that have ever existed before. Why, then, should we be carried off our feet by the waves of the Beaux Arts to the extent of a Roman colonnade against the wall of an office building, or Italian palaces as the basis for shoe-shops, or Spanish cathedrals converted into hippodromes — all of which has been perpetrated in American cities. With this realization of the incongruity of classic ornamentation on utilitarian form, the worst of our illogical public buildings were doomed. Gradually we have worked out to our present general plan of tall office buildings; consisting of an ornamental entrance base, a column whose great height is emphasized by means of vertical lines, and the whole composition monotonously honeycombed with windows lighting offices of the most rentable size. 352 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA We frankly admitted that the corners were constructed of iron, around which masonry was placed for the sole pur- pose of protecting the iron. We made buildings mercantile in their inception ; a sincere expression of our requirements and our practical American needs. We set aside European theories of design when they interfered with a rational and logical solution of our local problems. But we still stood apologetic before European standards. To be sure, we now expressed our doubts not as, " It's pretty, but is it art } " but, " They're ugly, but oh, the amount of business we can do in them, and besides, we had to have them ! " But again came the visiting critics of Europe, and this time they discovered that these big buildings, with their skeletons built on the truth, and from utilitarian impetus were, without in their treatment losing in any degree the appearance of usefulness, expressing in their towering height the lightness and grace so beautifully exemplified by some of the cathedrals of Europe. Next the " famous foreign architects " who came to scoff remained long enough to treat us to rhapsodical approval like the following, which was the spontaneous ebullition of a noted visitor from Italy : " The majestic buildings which mutually challenge each other to grander heights for the conquest of heaven and infinity ; the daring bridges which join Manhattan to Brooklyn, impress and sadden one ; sadden because, before such greatness, we feel how small we are. . . . The famous pyramids of Egypt, these are imposing through a majesty that is not unlike the impression aroused by the * Flatiron Building ' in New York City" Then, even business-absorbed America awoke to the fact that in its own way New York is just as beautiful, just as picturesque, at the present time, as London or Paris, or any other European city ; that its high bridges, the colossal skyscrapers and enormous waterways, the HOUSING THE NATION 353 huge factories, are really pictorial in themselves, that a new sublimity lies in the majesty of mass, in aspiring lines against the upper sky — above all, in the suggested power and energy of American life. We are, moreover, beginning to realize the possibilities of an architectural treatment of the sky-line of these buildings. The flat roofs, with their accumulation of junk, consisting of water tanks, ventilating flues, boiler I flues, etc. (which features for some unknown reason have heretofore been considered invisible), are now being rele- gated to the past ; and instead of being the most glaring eflacement of New York City, have given reason for, and assistance to, the composition of sky-line much more attractive than that of London or Paris, taken as a whole. Other American cities without the geographical pinch of New York's contour, have accepted the skyscraper architecture for their business centres, and while the streets flanked by these mighty cliffs are not as canon-like as the narrow ways of New York, there is always the feeling of a vast human pulsing and roar, which I believe is as much the subjective result of mammoth, congested architecture as it is of objective realities. Englishmen always remark on the deafening roar of Chicago and New York, but except for the rattle and pounding of the overhead trains through the centre of the cities, and the fact that street traffic is not as well disposed of in America as in London, I believe the bulk of sound is less in lower Broadway or on Chicago's State Street than it is along the Strand. But the height of the buildings gives a sense of noise being pressed down on one. Also the thought of the number of people who spend the daylight hours in every one of these enormous buildings is oppressive. The fact that below certain stories in the skyscraper only during certain hours of the day does sunlight penetrate gives hint that not all the nation's ill-health due to con- gested living comes from the tenements. Concerning the 2 A 354 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA enormous tides that sweep in and out of the great down-l town office buildings some interesting figures have beenj gathered. Between eight in the morning and two in the afternoon, 1 1,037 persons entered or left one of the Chicago skyscrapers, while in the fifteen minutes of greatest travel 827 went in or out — an average of fifty-five a minute. In New York it was found that 18,795 persons entered or left a typical office building in the course of a day's business hours, and here between one o'clock and a quarter past precisely 1022 persons passed in or out — an average of sixty-eight to the minute. These sound like figures taken from the gate receipts of an exhibition, instead of the daily flow of workers in one office building. It was learned, too, that for only three- quarters of an hour during the twenty-four does sunlight penetrate into rooms of a building on a north and south street twenty-five feet wide, provided the roof of the opposite building is six stories higher than the rooms thus darkened. If the street be forty feet wide, there is sunshine for two hours in the opposite rooms six stories below the top of the skyscraper, while nine stories from the top the sunlight comes only for an hour. Realizing that direct sun is necessary to kill germs, it is a regrettable conclusion that many of the occupants must pick up the germs of their diseases while at work in these highest expressions of American economic resourcefulness, the modern, perfectly equipped skyscrapers. But, of course, the greatest penalty for congested living is paid in America, as elsewhere, by the poor. The lower East Side of New York is the most densely populated spot in the habitable globe. In the most congested quarter of Bombay the density is computed 434 persons to the acre, in Prague 485, in Paris 434, in London 365, in Glasgow 350, in Calcutta, long considered the prototype of " teeming vermin humanity," it is 204. But in one ward in New York City there are 986 persons to every one of its 32 acres. HOUSING THE NATION 355 In one square of crowded New York there may be found population equal to that of a good-sized village. Lower New York is, in fact, like Whitechapel multiplied by itself, and expressed in terms of many nations and races. Americans are always shocked by the little old ramshackle houses in which the London poor are herded. But I should doubt whether, unspeakable as the conditions of dirt and crowding are in Whitechapel landmarks, the vast tenements, both those facing on the street and the rear tenements, in which the poor of lower New York are housed are not far worse in many essentials. Americans think that a fire-escape and an air-shaft are the only necessary insignia of humanitarian progress in housing the poor, but the fire-escapes on the tenements are always clogged with bedding in the summer, and made into trash-bins in winter, while the air-shaft in the average tenement is closed at top and bottom, a parody on the name. The ** double-decker " tenement house, of which about 2000 were constructed annually in the city of New York until the last few years, was described as follows in the report of the Tenement House Committee, whose recom- mendation ended in prohibiting their further construction — " It is the one hopeless form of tenement house con- struction. It cannot be well ventilated, it cannot be well lighted. It is not safe in case of fire. It is built upon a lot 25 feet wide by 100 or less in depth, with apartments for four families in each story. This necessitates the occupation of from S6 to 90 per cent, of the lot's depth. The stairway made in the centre of the house, and the necessary walls and partitions, reduce the width of the middle rooms (which serve as bedrooms for at least two people each) to nine feet at the most, and a narrow light- and air-shaft, now legally required in the centre of each side wall, will further lessen the floor space of these middle rooms. Direct light is only possible for the rooms at the 356 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA front and rear. The middle rooms must borrow what h'ght they can from dark hallways, the narrow shafts, and the rear rooms. Their air must pass through other rooms or the tiny shafts, and cannot but be contaminated before it reaches them. A five-story house of this character contains apartments for i8 or 20 families — a population frequently amounting to lOO people, and sometimes increased by boarders or lodgers to 150 or more." Laws now fix the percentage of the area of a lot which may be built upon, the height of the building, and the provisions as to fire-proof construction. But laws that look well on paper often are difficult of execution, and while technically in definition many of the newer tenements escape the classification of " double-decked," still, on viewing the existing conditions of life below their roofs, one is vividly reminded of Dante. The average rent paid in the New York tenement is about $4.92 a month, or $1.78 per room. As illustrative of the horror and darkness of this tenement existence take one block or square in the famous East Side. This is by no means the worst block in the city, but it presents a considerable variety of conditions. It is made up of 39 tenement houses, containing 605 different apartments, inhabited by 2781 people, of whom 466 are children under five years of age. There is not a bath in the entire block. There are 441 dark rooms, having no ventilation to the outer air, and no light or air except that derived from other rooms ; 635 rooms get their sole light and air from dark, narrow air-shafts, and there are ten rear tenements. But in another square, where the double-decker type of tenement prevails, there are herded over 4990 people. Under these conditions it can be realized that the mere ordinary processes of living are fraught with social friction at almost every point ; the drawing of a pail of water, the plaything of the children, the simplest and most HOUSING THE NATION 357 ordinary human functions, become the occasions of strife and discord. And so we have the noise of strife and brawl and hysteria continually about our tenements. But in spite of the fact that thousands of people from these tenements throng the streets — an army of poverty that makes them almost impassable ; in spite of the fact that thousands more people are living there than land and atmosphere can safely sustain, that the limits of criminal insanitation are reached and passed ; that thousands of babies each year are defeated in the unequal struggle for existence ; that in the scorching American summer children are kept out in the air until after midnight with all the conditions of nervous tension of distracting sounds and unwholesome sights ; in spite of the fact that our tenement herding renders independence and isolation of family life impossible — despite all this depressing spectacle, there is not, for some reason, about the American tenement house life as in the slums of London or Glasgow, the feeling that these people are " in crime and black ignorance, and in foul conditions of existence, in a life purely animal, forsaken of God and man." An influx of cosmopolitan misery, with its waifs and strays and failures and outcasts from Europe, has filled America with embarrassing problems, but there is not that prevailing sense of resigned, apathetic destitution and degradation among the poor, not the feeling that the vices are in the warp and woof of the low life here as in large European cities. So many do rise from poverty that even the addition of 75,000 foreign paupers to the tenement districts in the last five years cannot kill the subtle spirit of optimism about the most crowded parts of the East Side of New York City as compared with the poor of London's worst area. The poor in American cities do not, as a rule, cherish the freedom of being dirty. Among our tenements, facts disgraceful to civilization are continually brought to light, 358 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA but these are almost always founded on the wretched insanitation of the buildings, and about themselves the poor are unquestionably tidier in America than in England. There was much ironic comment on our tenement people who stored coal in the bath-tubs a philanthropic landlord had installed, but until recently the construction of tenements with unventilated rooms that invited over- crowding, with school sinks and no running water, of rear tenements where living was virtually in a cage, passed uncensured, and the marvel that even in these degenerate conditions there was a general effort to " slick up " the wretched premises and their persons among the American poor is always remarked by those who have investigated the condition of the city poor abroad. Neglect and greed have been at the bottom of all tenement house problems in America. The real relation of the housing problem and its direct bearing upon civic welfare are only just beginning to be appreciated. For we have not been building cities long — not such cities as we now have, and, as some one has said of our civilization in general, "We have been like carpenters, exceedingly busy at hammering and sawing without knowing what we are making. We have the piano in the cellar, the laundry tubs in the front bedroom, and the Persian rug on the dining-room table." And the question of housing our poor has been one of the points we failed in our optimism to give logical proportion to. Many of the earliest efforts at amelioration were philanthropic, and hence the problem became classified in the field of charity rather than in the field of economics and business. Into the breach stepped unscrupulous characters who widened to the utmost the horizon of exploitation in the housing of the poor until tenement house business was long under the shadow of disrepute. Tenements were built as speculation and immediately sold to Shylocks, who in many instances made a rental profit HOUSING THE NATION 359 from these miserable buildings as high as 25 per cent. Christian men of business felt it not entirely respectable to become tenement owners. Now, however, although the recognition of the land problem as fundamental to the housing problem as it is accounted in the earnest effort of England and Continental countries, to acquire tracts of land so cheap that working- men can afford to own or rent sanitary homes, has been almost ignored in America, still, we have come to the real- ization that these tenement homes of our poor should not be allowed to accumulate like bits of driftwood in our slums, but should be made as liveable as it is possible for accommodation for such congested and cheap living to be. While there is no municipal ownership housing in America, there is municipal supervision which is made as effective as political wires may carry the humanitarian current. In New York, Chicago, and other large cities there is a Tenement House Committee appointed to superintend the construction of every tenement erected, from examining the specifications to inspecting the completed building, and tenements already built are repaired and reconstructed as far as possible to conform to new tenement laws, under the action of this committee. In one year 5760 tenements were reported under repair or construction by the Tenement House Committee in New York. A revolution in city building has begun, and the more optimistic claim that before the end we will look upon such tenements as we accepted for years as we look upon the old-fashioned country houses composed of two up- rights, four wings, three " lean-to's," a wood-shed, and a summer kitchen, built a section at a time without the aid of an architect. At least the periodic round-up of tenement horrors and the reports of the tenement house committees would seem to be taking effect, and since truth always could go down four times and still swim ashore, it is quite possible that American cities can really grasp the close 36o HOME LIFE IN AMERICA relation between bad housing and bad health, bad morals and bad citizenship, and that the model tenements will in time supersede entirely the old death-traps with their 6i per cent, death rate. The foreign visitor, if he ventures into the reeking depths of New York's slum life, will no doubt feel that the millennium date is more certain. It. is a curious fact that when the Tenement House Committee offered a special prize for a suitable plan to the typical New York City lots, 25 feet by 100 feet, a French- man who has never seen New York won the prize. One thing should be borne in mind in regard to America's interest in her slums — America finds in them only foreign faces. I suppose it may be accepted as broadly true that the people of East London, notwithstanding a cosmopolitan stream of immigration, are essentially English in character. It is a city of English working-people, and the Englishman sees his fellow-countryman not only in every grade of labour down to the unskilled navvy and the idle, thriftless "casual," but even among such human wrecks from the registered lodging-houses in Dorset Street, or as one sees basking in the sun on the benches about Christ's Church in Spitalfields ; while the great mass of New York's East Side has not been over here one generation and I have an idea that the problem of housing the poor and derelict has not become poignant earlier to America because of this very condition ; that only to an own mother are the individuals in this primary department of society interesting, and America came to her responsibility in the proper housing of this foreign multitude only in the spirit of dutiful guardianship of a foster-parent. Would, for instance, Germany and Austria have been as advanced in their efforts to solve the housing problems for the poor — in making surplus purchases of tracts of land for park purposes in the city slums ; in buying land in outlying districts to control speculation and in all the municipal HOUSING THE NATION 361 building they have done — if their poor as a class had been without native blood and a constantly increasing foreign horde ? As is quite characteristic of American individualism, all the " model tenement " experiments on any large scale have been the work of wealthy men quite independent of municipal control. So are the working-men's hotels scattered over this city, while the unnumbered lodging- houses whose barrack halls with shelf beds in three tiers one [ sees in a monotonous flashing by from the windows of a down-town elevated train, are matters of individual enter prise on the part of gentlemen at the other end of the social scale from the millionaire philanthropist. In Washington, and the cities further south, the tenement is replaced by shacks and cabins in alleys, and while squalor is thus hidden from the casual observer, it is there, and generally coupled with vice. Some of these alley structures are noisome and foul beyond the worst tenement conditions, and while such apologies for shelter are to a great extent occupied by idle and dissolute coloured people, some of the tenants, although ignorant and low in the scale of intelligence, are honest and hard working. Laundresses bring to such places baskets of soiled clothes from the homes of the well-to-do and return them to their owners apparently clean, but possibly soiled with the germs of some infectious disease. A charity worker in Wash- ington, remonstrating with an old negress on the fearful plight of her particular portion of an alley hovel, received the complacent reply, " Ain't it turrible though ! Why, my ole marse wouldn't ha' kep his horse stabled in sich a place.'* Children grow up in such shacks, and a certain proportion of the girls go into domestic service and learn something of civilized methods of living, but the tendency of such surroundings is, of course, in the direction of vice and immorality. Unfortunately, at the national capital, as in many 362 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA other cities, regulations designed to prevent the erection of unsanitary dwellings were not enacted until the city had reached considerable proportions, and neglect had already given rise to conditions discreditable to the city and injurious to the sanitary interests of its inhabitants. In one of her concealed slums, Washington still has rows of dilapidated sheds which were erected during the Civil War as barracks, and have been occupied by coloured people of the lowest class ever since. Americans are always surprised to hear the terms " flat " and "apartment " used interchangeably in England, for in America there is a wide gap of social prestige between them. As the presence of private baths dis- tinguishes a flat from the tenement, so the presence of a passenger lift may be said in a general way to decide when you may say you live in an " apartment," and be offended if any one else refers to it as a " flat." I know an Englishwoman in Washington who sent out cards for a musicale shortly after her arrival in this country, and gave serious offence by directing those to the society folks who prided themselves on putting up at the smartest apart- ment house in town as " such and such flats." In fact, it is safer to call everything that is not a tenement house an " apartment," if you are talking to an occupant, since the dividing line between " flat " and " apartment " wavers at times, distinction being contingent also on the fineness of detail and the position of the house in the city, and the occupants of any " flat " verging to the decorative always want it to be known as '' an apartment." The best apart- ments are arranged in suites of six to fifteen rooms and several baths. In New York an apartment covering a whole floor in the apartment house is sometimes bought outright, just as a house would be to secure a home. Apartments rent from ^120 to ^5000 a year; flats from about £48 to £g6. A young German attach^ looking up quarters in Vs^.v ^- (ffh^^ HOUSING THE NATION 3^3 Washington asked what the significance of the mysterious '' A. M. I. " appearing in all advertisements of apartments was, and when I reported *'all modern improvements," he intimated that it was just like Americans to claim every- thing, but when I asked for the German equivalent in notices of vacant flats he thought a moment, and then replied that the English translation would be "all the comforts of the new time," and he did not see anything humorous in that. The American "all modern improvements" is no empty claim either. In even cheap flats it usually means gas range, steam or hot-water heating, warm and cold water in the bathroom and kitchen, a freight lift to bring supplies from the basement, and finally, what all American flat dwellers bank heavily upon, an ornate entrance to the building. It is a very poor flat that has not a bathroom the size of a small sleeping-room and floored and wainscoted with tiles, with a porcelain lined bath-tub and exposed nickel plumbing. The kitchen is covered with a patent composi- tion warmer than tiles, and there is generally a four-foot wainscoting of wood. In the flat, as elsewhere in America, the fact that trained servants are rare has been taken into account, and the latest labour-saving devices simplify the work for servantless housekeeping. An Englishwoman, in looking over a flat renting for ^10 a month far up town in New York City, complained that it would take a course of instruction before she could master all the "Yankee methods" provided to simplify living there, but six months later, when her husband's business took them to Germany, her letters from Berlin were one long wail for the comfort of her American flat, a description of which caused her German landlady to intimate that she must have discovered some hitherto unpublished chapters of the Grimm Brothers. The rent of flats in America is remarkably moderate 364 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA when one considers the expense of installing these con- veniences. When friends return to tell of the slight drain on the pocket-book of a flat in Berlin or Paris compared with an American apartment, it is a pretty safe deduction that they have been content to live in those cities where they were unknown, in quarters that they would con- sider impossible in their home city, and to eliminate all the luxuries which go with the apartment in America. The American landlord is very lenient and very accommodating. It is taken for granted that the flat or the house will be re-papered for each new tenant, and no strict inventory of the condition of unfurnished premises is made before the tenant takes possession, it being the tenant who takes note and asks for necessary improve- ments. A friend who rented an apartment in Paris was charged one franc for every spot in the parquetry floor during her occupancy, whereas in America there is apparently no redress for the landlord when plumbing is^ disordered by a tenant's carelessness, or holes made in the wall plastering by the American infants terribles. In fact, \ he is expected to repair such damages immediately and no questions asked. The concierge, or janitor, of an ! American apartment house may be, as he is always cartooned in the American joke, a czar in his way, but Europeans look aghast at the arrogance and the pre- rogatives of the tenant under the American house-renting system. In one thing the proprietor has his rights defined. Any improvement made by the tenant to his property, such as a window seat or folding table in the pantry, immediately becomes a part of the property, and any tenant who, on vacating, attempts to remove such additions is liable to prosecution. Nowadays, in most apartments as well as flats the proprietor holds the privilege of inspecting all apartments by the proxy of an expert on verminology — technically known as "the bug man." These inspections are made regularly, and while HOUSING THE NATION 365 esented at times by tenants new to the custom, the result '^^s that enormous apartment houses are kept immune 'rem the pests one careless housekeeper might be re- sponsible for. This may be taken as a reflection on the American housekeeper, or as an expression of up-to-date 'nethods, but it is becoming more and more general, and I aave been in apartments abroad the liveableness of which would have been enhanced by such practice. ! Expensive apartments add to the " modern conveni- fences " of the flat a safe built in the wall, a cold storage toom, connexion with the vacuum-cleaning apparatus, 'electricity for cooking and lighting, filtered water, drying apparatus for the laundry, and a roof garden. There is 'usually a cafe, so that housekeeping is optional. Thirty lyears ago such apartment houses were exotic in America, 'and even now, when they are plentiful enough, and still going up at a remarkable rate, it takes a goodly income to run a manage in one. They are occupied largely by the class whose ambition formerly was to live in one of the rectangular blocks of three-story houses, literal miles of which stretch along our streets. In New York they are brown stone fronts ; in Philadelphia, red brick with solid white shutters ; in both Philadelphia and Baltimore a few glaring white marble steps seem to have represented the acme of elegance in exterior ornamentation ; Washington runs to Roman brick *' stone trimmed " ; and so the monotonous types mark each city. Still, personally, I prefer the monotonous massive brown stone block flanking of a New York street to the groups of houses in London that have individuality but are just odd enough to be ugly. The interior of all older New York houses, however, seems to have been designed by the same man, at the same time, and by a man whose idea of architecture evidently was conformity and uniformity and nothing beyond. I can remember a youth spent in one of a row of thirty 366 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA ,1 block-houses, the interiors of which were as characterless as the exteriors, so that the occupant had to look twice to make sure whether he was in his own black walnut and green dining-room or in his neighbour's. This older "block-house," which still constitutes the main type of individual dwelling in New York, was built with the high " stoop " and the floor on a level with the front door, consisted of two drawing-rooms, or what is known as "double parlours," separated by folding doors, the dining-room and kitchen being below in a sort of sub- basement. As the descent to this basement dining-room was usually through an enclosed stairway of Stygian sug- gestion, and the windows of the room were always covered with heavy ornamental grating and a heavy iron gate guarded the lower entrance outside, the general impres- sion was that of a sunny little breakfast-room in the Bastile. The high stoop is undoubtedly a relic of the Dutch occupancy of New York, but the basement dining-room is a feature of which many older London houses are guilty. The more expensive homes in American cities are now built with what is known as the English basement, the entrance being on the street level and the drawing-room j and dining-room or formal suite given full sway in the floor above the entrance. There is, however, unfortunately, a design for city homes on a cheaper scale which must have come originally from the drawing board of someoverworked speculator's architect, and specious as it is, it has gained ground so as to be an accepted convention in all our cities. It is generally con- structed on an i8 or 20-foot lot and is of the "stoop" variety, but in order to obtain the effect of the foyer or centre hall, as it is found logically in the English basement house, the drawing-room is reduced to a cubby hole at one side of the door. Back of this comes the square hall, which is clear waste of space, since it is too small for a room and HOUSING THE NATION 367 too large to be treated merely as a hall, and behind this is a cramped dining-room. If the family is small, a room in Ithe second story may be used as a sitting-room, but if the bedrooms are all in demand, one of them or the absurd " parlour " is the only gathering place for the family. It is a showy type of cheap house, however, and its popularity is unquestioned, particularly in the cities of secondary size, where rows upon rows of them rise every year, and the " For Rent " signs are all down before the plastering is dry, and the first occupants have put up their curtains while the carpenters are still pounding or gluing the cheap woodwork. Individual homes, even of the shoddy and platitudinous architecture, are, however, preferable to the flat, and while the apartment house has been hailed in America as the solution of the problem in city habitation of housing the greatest number of people at a minimum rental, there is every effort away from the city's centre to obtain in- dependence in living. To this end the two-family house was introduced. Each of these houses is two stories, and each floor consists of an independent flat of five or six rooms. Each flat has a separate entrance from the street, a back garden, a small cellar, and an exit to the alley in the rear. That is, there are two independent homes under one roof, which have nothing in common, with the un- pleasant features of living in a crowded flat or tenement eliminated and yet the same economy of rent and main- tenance possible. Washington has made a notable experiment with two family houses for the day labourer and small artisan. It was found that from £2 to £2 \6s. a month was being paid as rent for the crazy, four-room shacks which stand crookedly along some of the best residence streets and so disfigure the capital, and five years ago a building company put up several hundred two-flat houses to rent for practically the same and gave the tenants a sanitary and convenient 368 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA home in exchange. This was no charitable enterprise, and the business instinct proved so true that in the five years 1748 two-family houses have been added to the experi- ment, thus providing shelter for 3496 families, and invest- ment in two-family houses is now considered as safe as Government bonds. For instance, under the system, one month's rent in each year is devoted to interior repairs. If no repairs are needed a rebate is made of the entire month's rent. The tenant has thus a special inducement to take care of his flat, and when repairs are needed, he has the choice of making them himself or of reporting them to the agent, who has them made and charges the cost against the rebate. The tenant certifies in the bill that the repairs have been made and are satisfactory. At the end of eleven months the agent inspects the flat and causes all necessary repairs to be made ; whatever balance remains after paying for these repairs constitutes the rebate to be deducted from the twelfth month's rent. This method ensures excellent care of the premises, as it is in the interest of the tenant to make the bill for repairs as low as possible, because it comes out of his " rebate." On the other hand, the agent of the company insists that all repairs must be made before the balance, if any, from the twelfth month's rent is paid to the tenant. When Mark Twain exclaimed : " Whoever heard of a man reared in a steam-heated flat amounting to anything ! " there were those who took it seriously. Amateur sociologists, whose outlet of conviction is the anonymous communication to a newspaper, explained that the small flat had rescued many Americans from the boarding-house habit, and that this prevalence of boarding- house life among our married people had been one of the worst symptoms of our anti-domesticity. The humourist, viewing the tempest he had aroused, again spoke : If it could be proved that George Bernard HOUSING THE NATION 369 Shaw had been brought up in an apartment, he would withdraw his criticism. Then even the amateur sociologist subsided. Perhaps, however, one might take seriously the word of our foreign critics who have frequently noted the tendency of American women to consider the care of the household a burden, and who now point to the numerous " apartment hotels," the so-called " family hotels," in our cities as the most dangerous enemy of American domesticity. One critic speaks of them as "big, bold, twentieth-century boarding houses," and of the women who live in them as " sacrificing the dignity of their lives and their effective influence over their husbands and their children." As the first law of the apartment hotel is " no children allowed," this latter danger would seem to be eliminated and the natural transgression of ex-President Roosevelt's anathema substitued. The real menace of the apartment hotel in our housing problem is that a cheap, flimsy type is constantly growing in our large cities, and that they are filled with young married people who seek in this ostentatious, showy style of living to keep up the pace of self-indulgence and the so-called social position each knew before marriage. The architecture of these cheap apartment hotels seems designed in ostentation and pretentiousness. The archi- tecture of the ordinary apartment or flat has come to be an accepted convention expressing the utilitarian, and resulting in something like a type, generally six or seven stories high, with double swells of bow windows up each side and built of light stone and red brick, and, alas, umbrageous tin cornices which the facility and cheapness of the material leads designers to bloat. However, from the " fancy tops " in sheet metal of the tenement houses of the lower East Side to the billionaire district, there is always this tendency in America to translate stone into terms of sheet iron. 2 B 370 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA But egregious and peculiar to itself is the apartment hotel. It has the most dropsical effect proper to sham material ; but it, moreover, lends itself to the expression of all forms and ages of architectural detail. I remember speculating upon the purpose of the architect in placing a tin balustrade parapet on top of a limestone front broken out in a rash of Juliet balconies, but I was told that it was to make it look " Parisian," and, being a woman with due reverence for that magic word, I reasoned no further. Another apartment hotel in New York has a tier of columns, hanging like Mohammed's coffin upon its facade, and a series of minarets like irregular teeth as its crown. There is no architecture in America so abortive as the usual apartment hotel. One point upon which all apartment hotels coincide is the gorgeous entrance hall. Here marble, and mirrors and bizarre furniture (generally of a sort of mistaken Elizabethan type), and tapestries and tin armour, con- sort in weird juxtaposition, and the cheap lace curtains of the reception-room and restaurant always have the monogram and crest (?) of the establishment woven in the centre. As to the interior arrangement, the apartment hotel averages seventy-five apartments to a building, with rooms arranged en suite — usually two rooms and a bath — the furniture brought in by the tenant. The poorest rooms are rented single, and in some of the more expensive apartment hotels there are suites of three, four, and five rooms and several baths. In these, too, instead of the usual public dining-room, the management makes arrange- ments for serving elaborate meals simultaneously in private dining-rooms all over the building. Such an apartment hotel will have for residents people with country places who pass seven or eight months of the year in the country, retaining their quarters in the apart- ment hotel for use when they run up to the city ; also by HOUSING THE NATION 37 1 people well off, who like hotel life but wish to reduce hotel publicity to its lowest terms. These constitute but a small class, however ; and a similar proportion of apartment hotel dwellers are either " business " or " social " Bohemians : the Americans whose business interests keep them constantly moving, and who like to have a feathered nest in the heart of some large city to fall into ; and that type of take-no-thought-of-the- morrow, comfortably-fixed Americans who spend money ireely and want to be situated convenient for pleasure and business without the bugbear of housekeeping — all these find their domestic solution in the apartment hotel. The popular idea concerning many of these apartment hotels is that they are occupied by the class demanding I more licence than the ordinary hotel or bachelor apartment 'can supply, but as an actual fact they rarely shield anything worse than a desire to shirk the servant problem, the price I of coal, or the machinations of the beef trust. The ordinary resident naturally is not a very domestic person. He likes the life in which the restaurant and theatres play leading { parts — and such a class does exist in spite of foreign portraits I of our national life as a prolonged business debauch — but he !is likely to be more domestic than our smug suburbanite j suspects. The menace of the apartment is more insidious than the straightforward question of morals, as the public judges ; it lies in the fact that thousands of tenants are I moving into the shoddiest of apartment hotels, who are neither business nor social Bohemians, but young married I people who take to the life partly because it can be made I cheap, and the trouble of living reduced to a minimum (once a week they sign a cheque ; there, by pressing a button, the manager does the rest), but more because it makes them partners to that gorgeous entrance-hall, and J the general impression (so they think) of living smartly and lavishly. The apartment hotel as it flourishes in our large cities is the consummate flower of domestic co-operation. 372 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA but it is also the consummate flower of domestic irresponsi bility, and it means the sacrifice of " home," for no one could apply the word to two rooms and a bath, approached through an imitation onyx entrance and a multi-mirrored lift. That there are fifteen thousand married people so accommodated in New York City, and a proportionate number in Chicago and Boston, would seem to forbid^ apathy on the part of American sociologists, and to give rise to sensations, even to emotions. At least, it seems contributory testimony to the charge that the native American woman looks upon household duties as ordeals to bring one's halo into premature bloom, but to be side- stepped as often as possible. The suburban and rural housing in America is, of course, that of the individual home, and we have nobly illustrated that it is the right of every man to make his home as ugly and illogical as he pleases. Naturally provincial architecture in America is an architecture of wood, but that is no excuse for its lack of permanent dignity and beauty. Switzerland has an excellent architecture in wood which it has achieved through a Gothic mode of expression ; but to turn from the romantic architecture of the Swiss chalet to the hopelessly sordid and melancholy types of provincial architecture in America is to turn from what is the outcome of centuries of tried and proved development of architecture among a people in whom the sesthetic is innate, to experimental stations conducted by a people in whom taste is an art yet to be acquired. Taste in American architecture disappears in the interest of expediency and commercialism, and withal, when we do venture toward the esthetic we are led, through America's phenomenal disrespect for the superla- tive degree, to adopt the extremes of eccentric modernism. So we have the weird combination of the strictly HOUSING THE NATION 373 utilitarian art of house building with a perfect labyrinth of unreason in grotesque details supposed to represent the " latest styles " in architecture. So we have our aberra- tion in jumbled architecture ; nightmares like the ultra- fashionable " Queen Anne " rage in the eighties, and East Lake gig-saw effects which rendered architecture of that period an absurdity. So we are still achieving in our provincial architecture the flat-headed two-story and attic houses with cellar windows at the top ; the two-story buildings with the so-called French roof; the chuckle- headed gambrel-roofed houses covered from sill to ridge ' pole with an eruption of shingles ; the " Queen Anne " I gables overhanging colonial fronts, and ornate false fronts I hiding the true method of roofing, and with no chimneys I in sight. I A view of a street in a town in England or France I where dwell the middle class or artisans impresses one by 1 the simple dignity of the lines and the natural use of the ' materials in nearly all the houses ; while a view of a i similar district in America is liable to leave one of any ' sensibilities with a feeling that the theory of a continuous harmony in line and colour is but a dream, and apparently impossible of realization. An Italian or Swiss village seen I from a distance seems to nestle among its surrounding j hills with a unity of line and colour that makes it a I simulacrum of Nature's doings rather than something of i man's creation, whereas the average American town I appears from a distance as a meaningless jumble of forms ] and colours like a disarranged interior of a kaleidoscope. A French peasant's cottage or a burgher's house in Holland is soothing to the eyes, and will tempt the artist to stop for a sketch, but the usual house of a similar type in America is at war with its surrounding landscape and a shock to the atmosphere. To one doubting these generalizations I can only urge an inspection for himself of the streets of an average American town. If his sense of humour be keen 374 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA he will find more real entertainment than during an evening at a vaudeville show. He will find human nature reflecting itself in all sorts of queer and vulgar ways just because it can. He will see the means-well-but-don't- know-how, the aggressive and timid types. He will find some that reflect a consciousness of being strictly the thing with an air of haughty disdain. He will find the prudish and the coquettishly lady-like house side by side, and others that are just plain nothing at all. In short, he will see so much of human vanity on their painted fronts that he will be prone to wonder how life within moves along as placidly as it does when each of its dwellings is a jar to its neighbour. It is most rare to find a house that tells a tale of a want satisfied simply and directly with a logical use of materials on good lines and proportions. As a rule, provincial architecture is, of course, in the hands of "home talent" — home-made architects evolved from lazy or ambitious carpenters whose sole qualification for the position is the ability to buy the value of $3 for $2 expenditure. So that when man, as exemplified in the everyday American citizen, objects to the dignified, plain- surface and simple opening in his home and demands an exceedingly active quality in his architecture, and this development is entrusted to an amateur architect, it is not to be marvelled at that the streets of our towns and villages, often the outskirts of cities, present " as weird an aggregation of grotesque forms as the most motley line- up of Chinese soldiery." The English influence in early American architecture brought what is known as the " Colonial type " : an admir- able straight-lined type which was preserved while the element of hardships that interfered with efflorescent architecture, as it did with sentimental reflection, prevailed in the new country. The "colonial" builders played the game strictly according to Hoyle. They essayed no "stunts." It was HOUSING THE NATION 375 rare then for a man to think he knew more and better than his grandfather, which is so customary with later generations in America, and no Englishman in America thought of copying the bewitching hooded edifices which the Dutch tried to introduce as a style. But it was finally discovered that interior discomfort was put at a maximum through the draughty centre hall, the large rooms, and the small house, small rooms, heating stoves and — bad architecture sprang into being. For interior comfort is the keynote of provincial, of almost all, architecture in America. Later on, when our inventiveness and resources made it possible to have candelabra wired for electricity, and uneven floors covered with waxed parquetry and Persian rugs ; when a central heating plant could take the place of warming pans, we again claimed the colonial homestead. We began to build the colonial type again, and while the East Lake has gone, the Victorian Gothic has departed, Romanesque is no more. Queen Anne has waned with the other *' rages" in American architecture, we are still erecting " colonial houses." But it is that the colonial house with up-to-date equipment can be made comfortable as much as an appreciation of their expression in a simple and direct way the manner of construction, that has led to the revival. For whatever may be said of provincial architecture considered aesthetically from exterior view, in interior arrangement and conveniences the American houses of this class rather lead. It is a very small and undeveloped town where there is not a water back attachment in the kitchen for keeping hot water, where there is not concreted floor in the cellars and modern apparatus for heating. Tiled baths and electric lights are no longer rarities. As far as the actual comforts of life go, town and village homes in America run the city houses a close second. In fact, many of the small town houses have features of 376 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA sanitation and modem improvement the installation of which in Continental palaces would not be amiss. There is some compensation in being a new nation, and a fresh well-equipped interior more often than not lurks behind the profanity of our designers whereby they are expressing architecture to their countrymen. I think the characterization of one of our early Presidents is not inapplicable to our architecture, for it certainly shows " great presence of mind, but no delicacy." It would be a sorry outlook for America's future if we must accept in its entirety that article of aesthetic faith which proclaims that architecture is the one art that both reveals and determines the character of its creators and contemporaries, and that it is bound to leave a permanent and conspicuous influence upon national character. But I think a less radical view is justifiable. We are a young people reaching from a period of hardship to the glamour of great prosperity, and architecture has seemed as much a subject of whim as poke-bonnets and hoop-skirts and mutton-leg sleeves, directoire revivals and " moyen age " designs. We do not seem to realize that in architecture the eccentricities and vagaries which result from the prevalence of a passing vogue are obtrusively permanent above ground long after the reason for their existence is dead and buried. Our best architects are bringing over from Europe monumental types not only in actual home design but in the adaptation to environment and the per- spective in placing, and the homes of our wealthy class are becoming more and more really notable examples of the perennially good in architecture. The monuments of ugliness and ignorance which the retired millionaire proprietors of soap and shoe-blacking industries used to erect along Chicago's boulevards are giving way before the copies and modifications of the world's best in home architecture, as seen along Riverside Drive in New York and in the fashionable section of Washington. HOUSING THE NATION 377 Still, it is well that America at large should ponder a bit upon the departing words of one of our foreign critics : " There are two arts that this most progressive people of the globe should cultivate in particular. One is the art of courtesy and the other is architecture. Neither, it seems, is taught in the public schools." CHAPTER XVI A NATION WITHOUT A MIDDLE CLASS " The church bells are ringing, The village is gay, For Lilla's to be married to-day. She's wooed and she's won By the bold baron's son — And now our Lilla's a lady." SO naively have sung humble English subjects for several hundred years, rejoicing over the merry village maiden's conquest of a member of the aristocracy. The song does not, however, say anything about the emotions of the baron's family upon the arrival of the humbly born bride among them, nor to what extent they allowed her to consider herself a "lady." It merely presents the poetic side of class-consciousness. A counter- part of the situation is supposed in America to lie in the oft-repeated newspaper headlines : " Millionaire Marries his Typewriter," or " Heir to Wealth Elopes with Telephone Girl." There really is, however, no counterpart, for the millionaire in all probability began life as an office boy or small clerk, and, in any case, his wealth being the only distinction between his social position and that of the young woman in his employment, there could be no real question of class infringement. There is no class in America on whom by arbitrary decree are conferred 378 A NATION WITHOUT A MIDDLE CLASS 379 material prerogative or prestige ; nor compulsory recogni- tion of superiority of any sort, and having no aristocracy, there is no upper limitation to the so-called masses, and so there is no middle class, corresponding to the term as used in England and abroad. You cannot call it a layer cake unless you have an upper crust placed over the filling. To any one from a country where aristocracy is as deeply rooted as it is in England, it seems incredible that the term " middle class " should be utterly without significance to a large proportion of our population. One summer day, becalmed off the coast of New England in a pleasure boat, an Englishman in the party drifted the conversation to comparative social conditions in the two countries. Afterwards the Yankee native, who had been at the yacht's tiller and overheard the comment, drew up to me curiously. " What'd he mean by all that talk about middle class ? " he asked, and added, " Folks middlin' well fixed, I guess." Even among the Americans who speak of certain of our people as being " middle class," there is a recognition of the futility of it as a generic term in this democracy. " What is this intellectual aristocracy we hear so much about in the United States ? " was asked a college professor. "Like all our aristocracy, it is high-water mark of mediocracy," he replied. If the definition of the middle class is reducible to precise mathematical terms, the assertion that there is a middle class in America is a statement open to no question. Between persons of great wealth, education, and birth traceable to a certain ancestral period, and the hewers of stone and the drawers of water, there is the mass ; but mere numbers do not constitute a middle class in the sense that the term is understood in Europe, where it defines a person's social status almost as precisely as caste does among Mohammedans. In England there is no legal or social roll on which the names of the middle class are 38o HOME LIFE IN AMERICA inscribed any more than there is in France a register of the bourgeoisie, yet in England as well as in France both terms convey exact meaning. It means a class in which " everybody is just nobody," and, socially speaking, by the same token in America, where everybody has a chance of becoming somebody, the term " middle class " means nothing. Though, in order to make comparison at all possible, the term is used throughout this book to indicate what corresponds in size if not in a connotation to the English "middle class," certain phases of American life and its social conditions cannot be appreciated without the re- cognition that we are, in the last analysis, a nation without a middle class. There can be and there is a " lower class," composed of the men who work with their hands as opposed to those who work, more or less, with their brains ; the bricklayer, the carpenter, the iron worker forming the best paid and most intelligent of the sons of Martha ; the hod-carrier, the day labourer, the scavenger constituting the least intellectual and the worst paid. These form a class by themselves, apart from and easily distinguished from what in Europe would be the middle class ; the clerk, the salesman, the petty shopkeeper forming the lower middle class ; the shopkeeper who has risen to the dignity of a ** merchant," and the business and professional man, belonging either to the great middle class or the upper middle class, gauged by culture and wealth. There is no defined middle class in America because there is no boundary separating the middle class from the upper class. Between the "working man," using that term broadly, and the man whom society does not classify as a working man, although there is no exact term to describe him, the social frontier has been as narrowly delimited as the boundaries between nations. The working man betrays his status by his looks, his manners and his dres^ ; the A NATION WITHOUT A MIDDLE CLASS 381 middle class and the upper class have the same superficial polish and wear the same clothes : so far as appearances go it is often difficult to determine whether a man is a floor- walker or a judge. Though we affect in our democratic simplicity to despise the pride of ancestry, love of an ancestor still survives, and there are orders of large membership among the descendants of those who fought in our early wars, were of conspicuous service in colonial times, or, innermost ! circle of all, of those who can boast a remote grandparent among the passengers on the " Mayflower." When you see the insignia of one of these patriotic societies upon bodices or waistcoat, and the " pins " are about the size of a half sovereign, it behoves you to take thought of the number and quality of your grandfathers and speak with due rever- ence to the wearer. The largest of these orders, composed entirely of 1 women, is said to open its annual convention in prayerful intercession with Providence for those of less distinguished ancestry ! These sessions being of such a stormy nature that a Yankee bishop once remarked that he " guessed their claims to revolutionary ancestry were bona fide, for they evidently were lively fighters." However, the societies do much to keep up a sense of tradition, a rare quality in America, and if it does seem at times as if the main activity of the members towards gratifying their pride in the deeds of their fathers lay in teaching kindergartens of foreign children to go through flag drills and sing " The Star Spangled Banner," it should not be overlooked that these stormy meetings, the organization and the parliamentary practice have been a splendid influence in bringing out the American women. Still, those few middle-class English ancestors, whose shades must have felt themselves hard pressed by the claims of a conspicuously numerous posterity, cannot make an American aristocracy. 382 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA Of course, abroad it is not of the slightest consequence whether the founder of a family was a clever scoundrel or an amusing companion, a military genius or a statesman, a passionless man of science or a woman of passion. Admitted into the aristocratic order, whether through brains or beauty, the position of the man or woman is established. Tradition and law and a sovereign have so decreed. The descendants of the women whose portraits were painted by Lely to please his sovereign are to-day among the aristocracy of England. In America, however, the spectacle of a certain set of citizens saying somewhat aggressively, " It is to laugh at ancient forms and superstitions, and so shall we go our own gait and apologize to no one," and still attempting to found an aristocracy of birth out of colonial descent, can hardly be taken more seriously than the formation in every town of a " Ladies' Missionary Society " or a " Literary Circle," to which all the " first families " belong. At best this cannot be an aristocracy. A so-called aristo- cratic class found in a few of the older states of the East, is too small and too widely scattered to form a distinct community or to limit its social intercourse to its own members, and, too, they have no common purpose in life. Indeed, birth means very little to the American. The transitory nature of society in America, the opportunities for fortune, the amazing chances, the feeling every man has that social advancement, and with it wealth, is his if he is shrewd and smart enough, the lamp of Aladdin always at hand, make it impossible that a middle class can exist in America or that reverence shall be paid to an aristocracy of blood. The fact that a man is a grandson of a statesman or great commander entitles him to no particular veneration among a people who respect achieve- ment but who do not practise the cult of ancestor worship. The grandfather played his part and won distinction ; the A NATION WITHOUT A MIDDLE CLASS 383 grandson must stand on his own feet. It is not to be denied that birth helps. It does. Descendants of men who have won fame have their path made easier for them, and to that extent have an advantage over others less fortunate, but it ends there. In America an historical name is to a certain extent capital, but it is, after all, only a minor asset. Not many men would go many miles out of their way to see the great-grandson of a former Pre- sident, but they would make a Sabbath Day's journey to see a living President or a great captain of industry, or any one else who had done something particularly specta- cular or noteworthy, because the object of interest represents power, achievement, success, accomplishment. The son of the great man who has not lived up to the paternal reputation is an object of contempt, but seldom of pity. The American sees that he was given his chance and mis- used it, and he has little sympathy for a man so foolish as not to make the most use of his advantages. Just as estates in America are unentailed, so gratitude does not devolve from father to son. Every generation must begin anew and create its own claims to national recog- nition. The business of government has not been delegated to any one class. There is no such aristocratic institution as a bench of bishops, and to be a bishop does not necessarily imply wealth or family. The army is not officered by the younger sons of rich and aristocratic fathers. The navy is a poor man's profession. Elevation to the judiciary bench does not depend upon social qualifications. The Presidency is not the prize which only men of blood can hope to capture. There have been Presidents of little culture and without descent. These things, one would say, are evidence that there is a middle class, but, on the contrary, they prove that there is no aristocracy, and where there is no aristocracy there can be no middle class ; they prove that there can 384 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA be one great class to which the whole people belong, but no well-defined social divisions. Americans in their moments of despair — and national hypochondriacism is a national weakness — and superficial European writers are prone to indulge in the expression " the aristocracy of wealth," convinced that it is impossible for society to exist without an aristocratic class, and that in America wealth is the sole qualification. But here again the term means nothing. Thenumber of Americans who have inherited wealth from a great-grandfather is fractional compared with those who have inherited from their fathers, and still smaller compared with those who have amassed fortune by their own efforts. Those persons who might be called aristocrats because of blood, station, and means are not always the very wealthy ; in fact, speaking broadly, it is safe to say that the great fortunes are in the possession of men who would be the first to deny the appellation of aristocrat ; their wealth is too recent and their rise has been too rapid not to make it absurd to put them in a class superior to those who are not their equals to the extent only of having a few less millions or wielding a smaller power in the world of finance or business. As I write this chapter there are columns in the newspapers recounting the career of a financier who in his particular line was a genius, who exercised a control over the railways of the country greater than any other man, who had all the despotic power of an Oriental monarch, and could make men rich or impoverish them, who lived in greater style and luxury than many princes, whose actions were of international interest, and who left to his wife a fortune estimated in the tens of millions. Yet no one ever called this man an aristocrat, although during his lifetime he was called many other things not as complimentary, or looked upon him as belonging to the aristocratic order. His fortune and his position were won in the last twelve years of his life. His A NATION WITHOUT A MIDDLE CLASS 385 wealth, his power, and his genius at another time in the world's history and under different social conditions would have made him the founder of an aristocratic family ; but neither his wealth, his power, nor his genius made him an aristocrat in America. Now, this man was not different from hundreds of others, except in having occupied a more spectacular place before the public, and perhaps had more audacity and great prevision. His fortune was not the largest that has been amassed in a decade or two, it was made in the same way as other men had made theirs ; all these men of great fortune who are actively engaged in business are mentally cast in the same mould. They are usually of simple and domestic tastes, devoted to their wives, and fond of their children, who build great houses or acquire estates more to please their wives and children than for their own gratification, who buy pictures or give millions to education or charity as a sort of votive-offering, and as their tithe out of their abundance, who take no active part in politics by aspiring to office, although they are almost always party men and contributors to party funds, and their political indifference is only aroused into action when politics threaten their business, or the success of their ventures depends upon the victory of a political party. There is no universal and profound admiration for the man who has consecrated his whole life to the amassing of wealth. There died about the same time as this great financier a man in one of our Western states who had risen from a destitute immigrant class to be Governor of his state. He had made some money — not much — as he fought his way to the political front, but he had the con- fidence of his state, the regard of his country as a man of political integrity, and as a man whose sympathies were with the people from whom he sprang, until he stood a candidate for national honour. When he died, to his family came from all over the United States ten times the 2 c 386 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA number of messages of sympathy and bereft affection as reached the home from which the railroad millionaire had passed. In the last quarter of a century, not to go back further, hundreds of millionaires — many of whom can reckon their wealth in millions of pounds rather than millions of dollars — have been created. Iron, meat, oil, electricity, railways, real property, have made men rich, so fabulously rich that Croesus is as much out of date as a synonym of wealth as the mail coach is of speed ; the dis- coverer of the Pactolian sands need search no chart of Phrygia, for on the map of New York or Pittsburg or Chicago the quest is found ; the gift of Midas has descended to Americans, who use their power with discretion, and are not starved by their own gold. The opportunities for amassing wealth are so great — and for losing it almost equally as great — that the ascent to the "aristocracy of wealth " — if there is such a thing — is not, as it is in Europe, a matter of generations and a slow and painful process, during which the crude material is rounded off into the finished social product. The Englishman who begins life with nothing except his brains and his courage, and makes a fortune out of trade, and has the ambition to leave a name or title to his children, develops through certain stages, all of which leave their impress upon him, at least superficially. The surest road to gain the honours which he is seeking is through Parliament, and there the contact with men his superior in rank, birth and culture is reflected in his conduct and his manners. There is a standard to which he may aspire, nay, more than that, which he mtist reach if his ambition is to be gratified. This is not to be taken as meaning that the man who has lived a hard, rough, unlettered life is transformed into a man of refine- ment or culture because he has been elected to Parliament, but he is influenced by his surroundings, as every person is, whether for good or evil. A NATION WITHOUT A MIDDLE CLASS 387 In America fortunes come with a rush. The fictional Christopher Vance suggests, in his speculative audacity and rapid rise, the American rather than the Englishman ; but Christopher and his wife can never rise beyond their class, and, despite their money, their proper milieu is Stallwood*s Cottages and not the West End. The American ChristopJier Vance, as his money piled up, would give up the cottage in the outlying suburb, and take a house in one of the less pretentious streets of the city ; with the outlook promising, even although he had no assured income from investments, for he would take chances of that coming later — that is the American temperament — he would either buy or build a house on the fringe of society ; finally, if all his ventures turned out well, he would buy a house in the " best " part of town, he would have his automobiles and his servants, his wife's receptions and bridge parties would be duly chronicled in the social columns of the local newspaper. This change from the cottage to the mansion, from strict economy to lavish expenditure, may, and often has, come in less than ten years. At this point temperament, social institutions and national characteristics mark the difference between the American and the Englishman. During the time they were struggling they were, so to speak, an interchangeable mentality, the Englishman, if accident had cast his lot in America, w^ould have acted in the same way as the American, if chance had put him in England ; which would lead many superficial observers to say that there is no real difference between the Englishman and the American, they are men of the same stock inspired by the same motives ; their variance only emphasizes their likeness, as their minor differences of speech serve to make obvious that they are men of a common stock. Yet when the Englishman has made his fortune, his ambition is social position, and we have seen that there 388 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA are ways by which that ambition can be gratified. To give up business, to retire and live on his income, is, I suppose, the hope of every English tradesman and business man who is the founder of his own fortunes. Or while remaining in control of their business they live the life that is so dear to every Englishman, and custom and habit have made part of himself ; they have their country houses where they spend much of their time, they find employment merely from the fact that they are in the country, there is something in life for them besides " business." But the American who has made his money, speaking broadly, but with sufficient accuracy to give the statement the merit of exactitude, has no other sources within him- self, and no means by which he can gain distinction. He can go on making money, and he can find in it the delight that comes to every man who wins the game that he plays, and all the excitement that comes from hazard, or he can settle down into an aimless, monotonous existence and become a forlorn, almost pathetic figure. He no more thinks of turning to politics than he would build himself an observatory and spend his nights at the telescope, for he instinctively feels that he is as unfitted to legislate as he is to make astronomical discoveries. He has never given any attention to the practical end of politics ; he has no acquaintance with political managers ; he knows his oratorical deficiences, and political life holds no attractions for him. As the House of Lords has been nicknamed affection- ately at times " The Chamber of Horrors," *' Lethal Chamber," or "The Hospital for Incurables," so the United States Senate is known as the " Rich Men's Club," but the thrust merely means ;that there is not in general as total dependence upon the Government salary of ;^I500 for sole income as there is among the members of the Lower House. The fact that a group of men with any A NATION WITHOUT A MIDDLE CLASS 389 money at all going into politics creates opprobrious epithets shows how unaccustomed we are to such a con- dition. There are several men now in the Senate worth a few millions apiece, but the men noteworthy for their wealth alone are not found in the American political field. Political preferment does not come as a reward of wealth, and the most that men of wide-famed possessions can do in the United States is the making of a contribution to the campaign funds for the election of a candidate agreeable to his interests. Even these campaign con- tributions are the subject of political party recriminations and enforced publicity nowadays. The enormously wealthy man is always regarded with suspicion, and any large charitable scheme on his part is accepted as restitu- tion ; not heralded as altruism. Foreigners visiting America find much to marvel at in our humble millionaires. Europe also has its millionaires, many of them, but it rarely hears of them. They work in secret ; they are the real power, but Europe scarcely knows it. In Europe the Press cannot attack a millionaire. It dare not. If it began such an attack it would at once be silenced by the power of money. Such a crusade, for instance, as has been made here against the Standard Oil Company would not have been possible in Europe. The European millionaire gives nothing away. In- deed, he would laugh at the mere suggestion that it is his duty to give away money, or that he holds his money in trust for the people or for society at large. ** What," he would cry, " my money is mine ! I made it or I inherited it. It is mine, mine, my very own to do with as I like." And everybody would agree v/ith him. No one in Europe would suggest that millions entail a duty to society. Yet here such a notion is quite prevalent. It is even put forward gravely by millionaires themselves. One of the men who has made a world-famous fortune in America has taken every occasion to expound 390 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA publicly this theory — to European minds so extra- ordinary — that the community at large has an absolute right to share in a man's millions — that he is merely a trustee of his wealth. A large share of another enormous American fortune has been dedicated to charity recently, the administration of it put in the hand of the son of the magnate, who will devote his life to it. In Europe, when a millionaire dies, if he leaves a trifling sum to charity the general public will exclaim, " How generous." In England, to be sure, this is not so much so as on the Continent, for the British aristocracy, whose wealth is largely inherited from long generations, has always been taught and has generally recognized that it has certain duties to society at large. This is not so on the Continent, where, I understand, even the recent English agitation over pressure on landed estates is regarded as iconoclastic. I can think of only one millionaire in Europe who is public spirited in his munificence, and this is the French Baron Rothschild. Perhaps the American millionaires do not give away their vast sums altogether because they love giving ; yet the fact that public opinion practically coerces such a course from them is sufficient refutation to the charge of an aristocracy of wealth in the United States. We allow a millionaire to found a great university ; to devote his millions to founding and supporting a vast establishment in which the youth of the nation is to acquire its ideals. Such an institution as the Chicago University is unimaginable in any country in Europe, because, as one foreigner exclaimed, "The State would not allow it ! If a millionaire started to do anything of that sort the State would instantly step in and say to him, • No, my dear sir ; do what you like with your money, but leave the training of our youth to me. I, the State, have charge of that. It is for me alone to say how the young men and women are to be brought up ; I will place before t A NATION WITHOUT A MIDDLE CLASS 391 them the ideals that I think they should have. I will have no interference on your part.' " However, although Mr. Rockefeller has founded, endowed and supported this great university, he does not interfere at all in the management ; he does not dictate the professors who shall lecture there nor the curriculum that shall be followed. And the foreigner who shudders over the false ideal that might be set before the youth of America by an unscrupulous millionaire controlling a university through his donations, shudders over a bogey. For with our curiously specialized respect for ability, that is just what does not take place. We debar the man of scholastic attainments from our respect as a virile factor in active public life, but we hold him above the millionaire in controlling the ideals and minutiae of an institution of learning. In Europe, that a man is a professor or lecturer at a university would not disqualify him for political honours or bar him against holding an administrative post ; in America it would be almost fatal to his advancement, for the college professor is generally regarded as a man of little worldly wisdom, too immersed in his books, and too saturated with the petty tyranny of the class-room to take a practical view of life ; too obviously content to get along on a small salary to command the respect that the material age pays to success. Yet the newspapers give much space — very frequently it has seemed to me undue space — to the obiter dicta of university presidents and college professors, and a book on whose title-page appears the name of a college professor will be treated by the reviewers with greater consideration than the work of a layman, without regard to their respective merits. It is, after all, ability for achievement that the American exalts. One of the great captains of industry in the United States, on the occasion of the great coal strike some years 392 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA ago, took the leader of that labour movement into the office of J. Pierpont Morgan, the man at whose beck trans-continental systems of railways went up and at whose nod they came down. John Mitchell, the miner, was earning perhaps $150 a month, yet the man who made the introduction said after- wards that its form sprang involuntarily to his lips — " Mr. Morgan, I should like to make you acquainted with John Mitchell," he said; and added, "he wants to talk to you about conditions in the anthracite regions. I vouch for him in every particular." And there you have it. The banker was presented to the miner, because the miner was the man who knew the facts, who was " doing things," in this instance. Etiquette and money, too, not to mention a reputation which filled the whole of Europe, would have brought Mitchell to J. P. Morgan with pulse beating considerably faster than normal, but the man who introduced them, and he was a man well versed in conventions, involuntarily introduced Morgan to Mitchell, and that is the fine point of the story. What the American respects is achievement. The man who represents the knowledge and the achievement in the matter for the moment under consideration is the man of the hour. It therefore follows that America's idolatry of the "golden calf" is true, to the extent of the worship of wealth as an obvious expression of successful effort. Thus, while it has been the fashion of the past few years to abuse the millionaire and hold him responsible for a great many real and imaginary ills, secretly the American feels toward the millionaire — even for the particular representative of plutocracy then the special target of attack, of whom he knows nothing except what he has wrought — admiration for his ability tinctured by envy. The Americans are a virile people, and with them virility is almost a fetish. It has been said that they are a brutal A NATION WITHOUT A MIDDLE CLASS 393 people, who have no sympathy for the weak or the unfortunate, and that the only god they worship is Success in an eighty-horse-power car smashing through everything at sixty miles an hour. That, of course, is not merely an exaggeration, it is calumny, for while it is true that wealth is always courted — that the one thing the majority of Americans want most is money and plenty of it ; and that accumulated wealth seizes the imagination and makes a dramatic appeal to us — still in no sense do we allow the millionaires with a spectacular rise to fortune to ride furiously into a ruling class. One thing that impresses an American returning from Europe is the difference between our millionaires as Europe imagines them and as they are really found in their homes, their clubs, and their places of business. Europe thinks the American millionaire is a tyrant. It thinks he grinds down the people under his heel. It thinks he is all-powerful. It thinks of America as groaning under his despotic sway. The American millionaire is no such thing. He is less powerful here than his kind in Europe. Least of all is he part of a mail-handed aristocracy. Yet I heard an acute American woman, with our national frankness in talking about ourselves, once remark to an Englishman — " You English dearly love a lord ; we Americans like a millionaire, but we love a ten millionaire, and as for a hundred millionaire, we simply worship him ! There is no aristocracy in this country, but there is a snobocracy. We are a nation of snobs, who reverence only one thing, and that is money. If you have money in America you are somebody ; if you haven't money you are nothing, no matter how many fine qualities you may have." And, quite naturally, the Englishman accepted it without polite disclaimer. This cynical interpretation of national character is perhaps not entirely justified, but it is susceptible of an 394 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA interpretation different from that of its surface indication. In Europe a poor man may be a distinguished man, or he may be the bearer of a name that gives him distinction, but in America his standing is the result of his own endeavours, and the great bulk of Americans are engaged in business. The more money an American has, the greater the presumption of his ability and the proof that he has earned the reward that his industry or genius entitled him to, the greater respect his fellowmen have for him ; just as in England the man who through his own efforts has won his peerage has demonstrated his worth. Sometimes the wrong man is rewarded, sometimes in America the man of no particular ability becomes rich, but striking a general average, merit or ability count for more than pure luck. Moreover, the American millionaire usually has acquired the '* work habit" along with his millions, and it is hard to imagine an aristocracy always in the workshop ! If the American had the Englishman's almost passion- ate love of nature, the American business man who had made his fortune would become a country magnate and breed horses or prize cattle, if he wanted to go into things on a big scale, or potter about a garden, if his tastes were modest ; but Americans have no love for the country. It is the city that the American really loves, for he is gregarious, and feels lost when he is not touching elbows with his fellowman, or, better still, feels some other man's elbows touching his ribs. The American really likes a crowd. It is curious how national traits unconsciously find their expression in words. A popular expression among Americans, especially young men and women who want to have a gay, informal time, is "a crowd." Nothing is more common than to hear colloquially, "We'll get a crowd together," meaning the people who are congenial ; or " Who's going to be in the crowd ? " or " He doesn't belong to our crowd," that is, he is not in our set. An A NATION WITHOUT A MIDDLE CLASS 395 Englishman above the lower class turns up his nose at the thought of a crowd, it is too much promiscuous and too " common " to be pleasant. " Such an awful crowd," expresses an Englishman's disdain ; an American will talk of "the great crowd" with admiration ; numbers are proof of success or popularity. Fashion drives American men and women to the country just as it sends them to sit through an opera in Italian or a five-act tragedy in blank verse, whereas inclination and amusement lead them to light opera and farce comedy. Another reason why the American who has made his fortune still remains a money maker and does not attempt to become an " aristocrat " is that if he should retire and lead a life of ease there would be no one for him to play with. He would be almost solitary. There is in America no retired middle class. The man who frankly does nothing is looked upon almost with suspicion or even with contempt, and unless his " laziness " can be attributed to illness he is regarded as a pretty poor stick of a fellow, and would not be held up as a model for ambitious youth to pattern after. If he has money and has gained a reputation for shrewdness, he is expected to be at the head of a bank or some other business institution ; he must actively manage his property and go to his office with the regularity of a clerk and remain there during the clerks' hours. A wife, no matter how much affection she may have for her husband, does not want him " around the house " during the daytime ; a woman who would drive to her husband's office and take him off to an afternoon concert would be rare enough to cause comment. Con- sequently, there is nothing for the great mass of rich Americans who have made their fortunes in trade except to keep on adding to their fortunes. Custom sanctions that they may take two or three months' holiday in the summer, when they can play golf or go to the seashore or the country or make a foreign trip ; they may without any 396 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA loss of self-respect go to Florida or the West Indies for a few weeks during the winter, but for the remaining eight months or so of the year they are expected to be actively employed. Having dealt with the founder of the family fortunes it will no doubt be asked whether the sons and daughters of this man do not, either by marriage or the advantages which come from education and culture, pass from the middle class about them, and in the second generation turn their backs on "business" and become an aristocratic leisure class. I believe that a leisure class is growing in America, but I feel confident in saying that it has not yet come, and under the present conditions of society it will be a matter of very slow growth. In the first place, the prohibition against entail makes it impossible for a fortune to be handed down intact from father to son, but leads to the distribution of wealth. To a certain extent the law against entail during the last few years has been defied by men creating trusts which, in some States, may endure for " a life or lives in being and twenty-one years thereafter," so that it is possible to prevent the distribution of an estate for nearly a century, and during that time the heirs enjoy the income, but have no power over the principal, nor can they devise it. But while this is a growing practice and will doubtless be corrected, as it is an evasion of the intent if not the spirit of the law of entail, and would eventually create an aristocracy of wealth dangerous to free institutions, at the present time most fathers do not discriminate against their children, unless morally or mentally a child has shown his unfitness, and not only do they share equally in his fortune but, at a suitable age, its care is left to them ; so that the great wealth of the first generation, concentrated in the hands of one man, in the second generation is frequently distributed among half a dozen or more persons. It is perhaps a wise provision of nature that genius or a A NATION WITHOUT A MIDDLE CLASS 397 special faculty for accomplishment is rarely transmitted, or if inherited its force is weakened. The great captain of industry seldom has a son who is his equal in business acumen, and in very few cases only have the fortunes left by Americans been increased by the ability displayed by their children, although the family wealth has grown by the unearned increment or through circumstances in no way dependent upon shrewdness or foresight in its management. Houses in a growing city year by year increase in value, and as leases fall in they are renewed at a higher rate ; stocks and bonds in railway and other companies appreciate with the development of the country ; agricultural lands become urban, and the farm that was bought by the acre is sold by the foot, so that while the combined wealth of the family in the third generation may be greater than it was in the first, it has not been increased by the efforts of its members, and the wealth being distributed instead of concentrated the danger of a plutocracy is less to be feared. There is always, of course, the probability of the spendthrift and the dissolute member of the family, who spends not only his income, but eats into his capital and thus hastens the process of distribution. The children of rich men — speaking now more especially of the sons — are given all the advantages that wealth can buy in the way of education and cultural development, they live in great luxury and are usually provided with generous incomes ; but American fathers, speaking almost without exception, demand that their sons shall have a profession or go into business and shall not content them- selves with simply idling their way through life. If the American father were to reduce his code to precise terms, he would say something to this effect : " I want my son to be a gentleman, and for that reason I send him to Harvard or Yale and give him the money he asks for. I want him to marry well and be in society. He needn't 398 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA worry about money ; I've money enough for both. He has his motor car, yes," — he would add with an amused and tolerant smile — "yes, he was fined the other day for speeding — gad, what would my father have said if I had been hauled up before a police court and fined ! — well, these youngsters must have their fling, and he shall have his good time while he's young — but I don't want the boy to be a * loafer.' I don't know yet what I am going to do with him ; he'll probably come into my office when he gets through college.'* That in all probability is what the boy will do. The father wants his son to have a business training so that he will be able to manage the family fortune when it descends to him, although if he prefers to go to the bar or become an engineer there will be no objection. But fathers have no sympathy with the " loafer," the young man who has no more serious purposes in life than the cut of his clothes or a cotillon figure. Curiously enough, the young woman of this social class holds much the same views. She wants to marry a man who has money, who can give her a motor car and jewelry and the other things that women delight in ; she plays tennis or golf and hunts and drives, and desires a husband who has the same tastes and the means to gratify them, but she has not had enough ancestors who did nothing for it to be in her blood to make it seem proper that her husband shall be his father's pensioner. De Tocqueville's observation — "moreover, as all the large fortunes, which are to be met with in a democratic community, are of commercial growth, many generations must succeed each other before their pos- sessors can have entirely laid aside their habits of business," is as true to-day as when it was written more than a half century ago ; so early were certain basic traits established in the American character, so much have they become a part of the American. The young woman lives in a world of action, a world in which the men do A NATION WITHOUT A MIDDLE CLASS 399 something, a world of achievement, and it is natural she should require that her husband, and therefore herself, shall be part of it and not find their anchorage in a backwater of mere luxury. There is in all this nothing to create an aristocracy or to form a middle class ; on the contrary, the social forces are opposed to an aristocratic order. The girl may be richer than some of her associates or not so rich, but she is still in that class which is as far removed from aristocracy in the European sense as it is from the working class, but which is not the middle class, as the French and the English understand the meaning of the word bourgeoisie. There are not classes in America, but there are sets, which is a very different thing. Every city, every com- munity, has its sets, and the term " best society " as used in one community and applied to one set is meaningless when used in another, so different are the standards of wealth and culture and the requirements that every com- munity imposes upon itself. Mr. Bryce was impressed by the existence of " sets." The nature of a man's occupation, he points out, his education, his manners and breeding, his income, his connexions, all come into view in determin- ing whether he is ** a gentleman." In a Western city like Detroit, Mr. Bryce says, the best people will say of a party that it was " very mixed." In some of the older cities, society is as exclusive as in the more old-fashioned countries, the "best set" considering itself very select indeed. But the foreign investigator is always bewildered at first, and later not unjustifiably amused, by newspaper social classifications. To illustrate these difiiculties. In a Washington newspaper is a telegram from a small place in Maryland telling of the overturning of a boat and the deaths of a pretty young factory girl and a young man, "who moved in the upper circles of society." Reading down you find that the young man who moved in the upper circles of society "formerly conducted a ticket 400 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA broker's office, but about two years ago took a position as foreman in the factory," where the girl worked. To emphasize the social position of the dead youth, the corre- spondent states that " he was the son of " of one of the " first families " of the place where " the young man worked as a foreman in the factory," and that " the family came here about ten years ago from Luray, Va." The tragedy was expected to postpone the wedding of the young man's sister, which " would have been the society event of the season." Now this is not an exceptional illustration, nor is it taken from an obscure newspaper in a Western mining camp. It appears in one of the leading daily newspapers in Washington, the one city in America where society is taken seriously, where there is a cultivated, rich, leisure class ; and the Washington newspapers would as soon think of describing a Washington factory girl and a factory foreman as belonging to society as they would admit a negro's name to their society columns. In Wash- ington, New York, Boston or some other large cities it would be ridiculous for a newspaper to write about a factory foreman as in " society " ; in a small town the man might well be one of the leaders of society, as that town understands the term. It is the old story of being a big frog in a small puddle. Nor is the illustration I have just quoted exceptional. Time and again I have read of the elopement of a "prominent society belle," only to discover that the girl was " the night telephone operator," or the " proprietor of the leading millinery emporium " ; a man gets his name in the paper and is classified as " a leading merchant " and you find he keeps a small retail chemist's shop ; the village Don Juan spreads his snares for his victim because "he inherited a fortune from his father" — fortune so large that the ordinary well paid mechanic would turn up his nose at the income it yields. The climax of the misuse of terms was capped in a telegram A NATION WITHOUT A MIDDLE CLASS 401 recounting the arrest of '' a well-known man about town," who was revealed in his professional capacity as "the night hackman," the driver and proprietor of the one solitary cab of the place plying on the streets at night. By way of digression it may be added that it is not alone social customs that lead to this curious (and one would be inclined to think undemocratic) habit of creating classes, nor is it ignorance, but it is largely because the Americans as a people are deficient in the sense of proportion and hardly less deficient in the sense of humour, that is, in the flavour of humour as opposed to the labled " joke " and funny story, for which their appetite is phenomenal. A people with a sense of proportion and an appreciation of humour would see the absurdity of talking about a cab- driver as a man about town. The American laughs at the flowery phrases of the Latins, and their extravagant compliments, at the mock humility of the Oriental, who magnifies the importance of his guest by depreciating himself and all his possessions ; at the insincerity of the Mexican, who presents to a stranger anything that he may admire, both the donor and the recipient knowing that the " present " is made in merely a Pickwickian sense, but the Latin when he indulges in his compliments, and the Oriental when he proclaims his unworthiness still retain their sense of proportion, and no doubt their humour is tickled by the extravagance in which they indulge for the entertainment of a foreigner. The American, on the other hand, takes his exaggerations seriously, and has become so used to them that he is unable to see they are exaggerations ; he has lost the fine faculty of discrimination, and nicety of expression means no more to him than nuances of sound do to the person with an unmusical ear. The great social unrest in America is less among the working class than it is among that class which corresponds 2 D 402 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA in Europe with the bourgeoisie, for in America these are the people envious of the very rich and who think them- selves wronged because they have little and other men have much, but who are inspired by the example of wealth to endeavour to obtain it for themselves ; who, while denouncing wealth, do their utmost to possess it, and who are encouraged to believe that fortune may be theirs as well as those they envy. Nor is this the gambler's hope. In America prediction is worthless. Shrewdness counts for more in money-making than education, as intuitive knowledge of the growth of a city, so that land can be bought cheap, yields a richer return than a knowledge of the humanities ; audacity is a greater capital than a degree. What corresponds to the European middle class in America is found among the farmers. They constitute the conservative, somewhat stolid, more saving and niggardly element among the people. The farmer belongs distinctly to his class. He regards with disfavour political or economic experiments because he fears they will be more likely to affect his pocket than to benefit him. His occupation makes him careful and saving, and as he sees and handles less money than any other class, money becomes a more important thing to him. Unlike the city man, he is seldom brought in contact with extravagance and luxury, therefore a simple life seems natural. Unlike the urbanite, whether working-man, clerk or shopkeeper, he has practically no chance to make a fortune by a lucky cottp. His crops may be better one year than another or bring him larger prices and make him more comfortable, but his faculties have not been sharpened to improve a machine and sell the patent, he has no opportunities to see where a small investment would bring a tenfold or a hundredfold return. Often an unconscious instinct is more valuable than a carefully reasoned conclusion. Time and again American politicians, in the uncertainty of a political campaign, A NATION WITHOUT A MIDDLE CLASS 403 have expressed anxiety about the "farmer vote," and they have been heard to say that if they knew how the farmers were going to vote they would feel sure about the result. I do not believe that the American politician is psychologist enough to know that middle-class stability is found among the farmers, but by a rule of thumb the politician does know that what will commend itself to the farmer will be approved by men of conservative thought in the cities, so that he has a basis reliable enough on which to make his calculations. The English politician thinks of the "man in the street" when he goes to the country ; the Frenchman, the bourgeoisie— the farmer in America is their antitype. Still, in the sense of looking up to a class inexorably higher than its own life, the American farmer class is as far from representing a " middle class " as any other social group in America. We are apt to vaunt this independence from caste and the fact that, while in other countries there has been a slavish persistence of social distinction, even with increasing political equality, America has unceasingly inoculated with the " free and equal " spirit, even at the immigrant station. Yet the middle class that recognizes itself as such, that is content to belong to its own class, is, at times, a safeguard and bulwark of a nation. Its limitation of intellect ; its deficiency of enterprise and, to a certain extent, courage — the courage of reckless adventure— make it a conservative force, satisfied with a commonplace, eventless existence, clinging tenaciously to what it has and regarding progress with suspicion ; reluctant to adopt anything that is new. It is because there is a great middle class in England that the English have the reputation of being conservative and are slow to make experiments. The absence, the impossibility of a middle-class feeling in America leaves our masses in flux, liable to the white heat 404 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA of hysteria ; to a boiling over, to constant action, to constant readjustment, to ambitious invasion of new environment. It explains so much of American custom and the American point of view that I have ventured upon this elaboration of a negative quality, though I have been obliged in other chapters when tracing analogies between the two countries to adopt the Yankee native's distinction and refer to our great class of " folks middlin' well fixed " as a " middle class." But really democracy, that was the triumph of the people, destroyed the middle class. A foreign visitor has recently summed up his general impressions as follows — "In Europe there is too great a tendency to create an imaginary America, attributing to it vices and virtues which it has not ; exaggerating everything to fantastic and untrue proportion — its materialism, its haste, its luxury, its spirit of innovation, its inclination to the gigantic, its energy. A foreigner who comes here with- out prejudice has little trouble in reducing all these things to more human and real proportions, and in convincing himself that America is neither the inferno described by its European enemies nor the paradise described by its admirers, but just a very interesting bit of the earth, where, in spite of mistakes and imperfections, great things are being and will continue to be accomplished, and where also all the miseries and all the precious things of modern civilization may be found." Perhaps the absence of a hedgerow about a middle class is at once the basis of some of our faults but also the root of some of our highest qualities. INDEX Abandoned farms, 315, 316 Actors, American attitude toward. 180 Advertising, department of, in shops, 149, 150 Agricultural colleges, 68, 69 Alley shacks, 361 ** All modern improvements," 363 *' All sorts of persons," 321 American, affectation, 190 ; arrange- ment of shops, 159 ; carnival spirit, 322 ; charges against things, 13, 95, 246,323 ; child, 14, 15, 16 ; composite character of nation, 3; face, II, 12; fiction, 115; home life, 14 ; hospitality, 255 ; hostesses, 257, 261 ; humour, 175, 227- 231 inclusive ; infant, 33, 34 ; joke, 227-231 inclusive, 349 ; manners, 1 7 - 24 inclusive ; marriage, 16 ; materialism, 19 ; men, 23 ; millionaires, 17, 386- 389 inclusive, 391, 394 ; mongrel race, 13 ; mothers, 31 ; naivete, 18, 19 ; newspapers 232, 233 ; parents' worship of daughter, 33, 75 ; schools, 48-52 inclusive ; school children, 49 ; shops, 159 ; stage, 219; woman, 12, 24, loi et seq.\ workingman, 128; young person, undisciplined, 75 Americanism and Briticisms, 239- 242 inclusive American women and the shops, 147 Apartments, 362, 364, 365 Apartment hotels, 369 ; sociological aspect of, 369-372 inclusive ; types occupying, 370, 371 Architecture, and manners, 377 ; of shops, 158 ; provincial, 372 ; styles in, 373 ; utilitarian, 351 2 D 2 Arenas, roofed, in large cities, 183 Aristocracy, mechanism of, absent, 383 ; of wealth, 384 Army officers, 254 Athletics, specialization in, 175, 176 Atlantic City, 321-329 inclusive ; Board Walk, 326 ; etiquette of, 323 ; types, 323 Audiences, American, 184, 185 B Bachelor girls, 84, 85, 87 Bargains, 149 Bar Harbour, 336, 337 Beauty, English and American, 154 Bible in public schools, 64 " Big shows," the, 183, 184 "Block houses," the, of cities, 366 Blouses and underlinens, 155 Boarding school types, 73 Boston, 299 Boys, American and English, 26, 29, 54, 55 Breakfast, American, the, 139 British ambassador, 173, 321 Budgets of housekeeping expendi- tures, 133, 135 Budget of family of professional man, 144, 145 Budget of labourer's living, 130 Cabinet members, expenses of, 207 Cabs, 143 California in winter, 338 Calling in Washington, 195 Cannon, Hon. Joseph G., 20 Capital, a, made to order, 194 Celebrations, uniformity of, 13 4o6 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA Charitable enterprises, 97 Chicago, department stores of, 147, 160, 161 Chicago University, 65, 390 Child, American, the, 14, 15, 16, 25 et seq. ; alertness, 35 ; anecdotes of, 26, 28, 35, 36, 37, 39, .43, 104 ; at school, 48-52 inclusive ; at theatre, 36 ; costume of, 31, 32 ; entertainment of, 36, 38 ; estimate of, abroad, 25 ; manners of, 29 ; of the tenements, 39 ; of the wealthy, 38, 39 ; Southern, 44, 45 Children's Theatre, the, 40 Chinatown, 6, 7 Chinese in California, 8, 9 Chivalry of boyhood, 29 Children's National Bureau, 41 Christmas, 36 Circus, the, 181 Cities, foreign, within American cities, 4 Civic welfare, birth of, 358 Civil service, 212 Civil war, unifying effect of, 3 Class-consciousness, absence of, 247, 248, 379 Classes in America, 379, 380 Classics in public schools, 53 Coal, cost of, 138 Co-education, in schools, 52 ; in colleges, 65, 66, 67 Colleges in the United States, 58 Colleges, women's, the, 106, 107, no, III " Colonial" houses, 374, 375 Comfort in American homes, 375 Congressional Circle, 197 d seq. Congressmen's wives, 196-204 in- clusive Congress of nations m America, 9 Connecticut Valley, the, 301 Consumer's League, the, 167 Cosmopolitan capital, the, 192 Cost of living, 129 Cost of vacations, 346 Cotillons, 93, 94 Crime in America, 16 Debut, the, 92, 93 Debutante, the, education, 92 Washington, 94 ; launching, 93 ; place in society, 94 Democratic simplicity, 381 Department employees, 212-215 inclusive Descent, value of, in United States, 383 Desserts, English and American, 139 Dialects in United States, 241, 242 Diet of foreign workman, 129 Dinner-giving, 249 Diplomatic Corps, 209 Dress, cost of, in England and America, 151, 152 Drink and the working-class, 131 Early days in West, 287-289 in- clusive Easterner's idea of West, i, 274-278 inclusive East Side of New York, 52, 354 ; working-girls of, 89 Economies of West, 294, 295 Educated American drudge, 106, 107, 108, 109 Education, higher, a phase of, 109, no Employees in stores, 165 Employer's attitude, 165, 166 English and American common stock, variation of, 387 Entertainments, scale of, 248 Facial type, 1 1 Fallacy of wealth rule in United States, 384, 385 Farmer class, 402 Farmer's wife, 125, 126 Farming in East and West, 286 Feminine wage-earners, 85, 86 Fiction, American, 115 Fisher-folk of New England, 308- 315 inclusive Flagler, Henry M., 339 Flats, 362, 363 Florida, 338 Flowers, table decorations, 143 INDEX 407 Food, comparative estimates, 138- 141 inclusive Foreign population in United States, 3 Foreign critics, our, 16, 17, 18; Atlantic City, 323 ; hospitality, 246, 247 J of young person, 95, 99, 100 Fortunes, division of, 396 Furnished houses at capital, 210 Gas, cost of, 138 General store, i6i Germans in United States, 9, 13 Girl, American, the, as home-maker, 81 ; beauty of, 98, 99 ; college type, 82 ; education of, 79, 80, 91 ; idea of marriage, 81, 82 ; in philanthropy, 96 ; physique 98 ; pre-eminence of, 77 ; reading, 79 ; "settlement" work of, 82, 83; walk, 99 Greengrocer, 165 Grill-rooms, 185, 186 Grocery department in stores, 165 H Harvard University, the Cosmo- politan Club of, 62 " Hazing," 55 Heating of houses, 137 Holmes, Oliver Wendell, on New England, 298 Home life of middle class, 14, 24, 30 Horse show, the, 179 Hospitality, 252, 253, 255 ; in restaurants, 259, 260 ; sectional gastronomy, 264 ; Southern, 262, 263 ; week-end stays, 2$6 Hostesses, 257, 261 Hotels, advertising methods of, 268 ; equipment of, 267-271 inclusive ; living in Washington, 203 ; London and New York, 264-266 inclusive ; tariff of, 267 House-keeping expenditures, 127 Humour, American, 175, 349 ; in House of Representatives, 228- 230 inclusive ; English and Ameri- can, 227 ; in speech-making, 228 ; newspaper paragrapher, 231 ; sense of proportion lacking, 401 ; on stage, 223 Immigration, 2, 3, 4, 9, 13, 14; commission, 11 ; and marriage, 12 Immigrants in West, 281 Immigrant to Governor, from, 385 Irish in America, 9 Jews, 5 K Kitchen utensils, cost of, 138 Landlord, American, the, 364 Leland-Stanford Junior University, Lincoln, Abraham, 20 "Little Italy," 4, 5, 6 '* Long Acre Square," 10 Luxury in the United States, 141 Lyons (British ambassador), 20 M Madison Square Garden, 177-183 inclusive Mail order houses, 161, 162, 163 Mammoth Springs Hotel, i " Mammies," Southern, 44, 45 Man, the American, 23 ; at Florida resorts, 343 ; business, 23 ; as father, 345 ; in society, 252, 253 Manners, American, 17-24 inclusive ; in Washington, 209 Marriages, 16; delayed by interests, 97; for love, 11 5-1 19 inclusive; in Washington, 211; Southern, Materialism, 19 4o8 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA Mechanic's income, the, 137 Menu, typical, 250 Metropolitan Opera House, 189 Miami, 345 Middle-class playground, the, 325 Middle-class American woman, 122, 123 Middle class, a, interpretation of, 379 ; value of, 403 Military Academies, 57 Millionaires, American, 1 7 ; 386- 389 inclusive ; European and American, 389 ; limitation in power of, 391 ; our humble, 387, 392, 393 J workshop, 394 *' Millionaire Senators," 206 Miners, wages and living, 290 Mines, 289 Mitchell, John, labour leader, 392 Monotony of New York houses, 365, 366 Morgan, J, Pierpont, 392 Mothers' Congress, 41 Mother, the American, 33, 34 N Nation of villagers, 292 Navy, poor man's profession, 383 Negro, the, and the theatre, 225 ; caste with, 217, 218 ; children, 46, 47; in Washington, 216; minstrels, 188 New England, abandoned farms, 315, 316; agriculture in, 316; college towns, 302-305 inclusive ; fisher- folk, 308-315 inclusive; housekeepers, 301 ; intellectualism, 302-305 inclusive; inter-marriage, 309-317 inclusive ; isolation in, 317; "pie belt," 302; '*poor white," 315; republican aristoc- racy in, 300; rural, 315; senti- ment of, 299 ; small colleges, 302- 305 inclusive ; women, 305-308 inclusive Newport, 329-336 inclusive ; athle- tics, 334 ; casino, 333 ; enter- tainments, 332; villas, 335; Westerner's view of, 336 Newspapers, English and American, 232 ; foreign news in, 234 ; rates, 233 ; salaries, 233 ; social column, 234> 235 ; Sunday editions, 238, 239 Noise of American cities, 353 Nouveaux riches^ the, 209, 210 Nursery, absence of, 28 Office-holders' salaries, 207 Open street-cars, 215 Opera, 188, 189 Palm Beach, 340 Patriotic societies, 381, 382 Paupers, native and foreign born, 16, 357 Pavements as playgrounds, 27 Pioneer mother, 11, 12 Playgrounds, public, 44 Play, meaning of, in United States, 173, 174 Poise, absence of, in American women, 108 Political career and wealth, 207 Politics in the West, 292, 293 Poor, the, 357, 358 " Poor whites," 46 " Prairie schooner," 278 Preparatory schools, 53 Professors' salaries, 62, 69 Psychology of Westerner, 291, 295, 296, 297 Psychology of play, 176, 177 Puritan types in New England, 302- 320 inclusive R Races, variety of, in United States, 2 et seq. Railroads through West, 279, 280 Ranches, 281-283 inclusive; ranch houses, 284; ranch women, 285 Ready-to-wear clothing, 152, 153 Representatives, 196 ; living ex- penses of, in Washington, 200- 202 inclusive Republicanism, 22 Respect for achievement, 392 Restaurants, 257, 258; charges, 268, 269 ; entertaining in, 259, 260 ; in shops, 158, 159 ; foreign, 258, 259 INDEX 409 Riverside Drive, 376 Rockefeller, John D., 65, 391 Roof -gar dens, 187 Rothschild, Baron, :390 Royal Poinciana, 339 Rural, New England, 315 St. Augustine, 340 Scale of income, 128 School children, 49 Schools, public, 48-52 inclusive Sea-going railroad, 341 Sectarian colleges, 64 Sectionalism of speech, 276 Self-resource, lack of, in United States, 177 Senate as " Rich men's club," 388 Senator's salary, a, 204, 205 Senator's wife, duties of, 205 Servants, in the United States, 256, 257 ; in Washington, 202 Settlement work, 40, 41 ; young women engaged in, 82, 83 Shop-girls, 87, 88, 89, 165-172 inclusive; wages, 168, 169; homes of, 168, 169 Shopping, habit of, 148 ; as national characteristic, 164 Sky-line of New York, 353 Skyscrapers, occupants of, 354 Society, American, 21 ; English and American, 261 ; in Washington, 193; people of New York, 270; New York, via Newport, 332 ; young women in, 92 Sons of rich men, 397 South-western resorts, 338 Speaker of the House, 208 Spirit of play, 173-176 inclusive Slums, conditions in, 357 ; foreign faces of, 360 J of Washington, 361, 362 Sportsman's show, 180 South, children in, 44, 45 ; marriage statistics of, 125 Southern man, the, 123, 124 Southern woman, the, 123, 124, 125 Stage, American, the, 219; pro- vincialism of, 220-222 inclusive ; traditions of, 220, 221 Standard of living, 129 Standard of merit in United States, 383; ability, 392-394 inclusive; achievement, 392 Stanford, Senator, 65 State universities, co-education in, 66, 67 ; faculty, 69 ; presidents, 69 ; students from, i ; types of students, 68 ; women students, 70 ; university towns, 67 Steam-heated state, a, 342 Stock in American and English shops, 153 Student life, 59 Suburban housing, 372 Suffrage, women's, apathy toward, 112, 113 Summer hotels, 346, 347 Summer in Washington, 215 Summer migrations, 345, 346 Summer resorts summarized, 327 Sunday schools, 35 " Sundowners," 213, 214 Sunlight and skyscrapers, 353, 354 Taste, dramatic, of public, 222, 223, 224 Teachers' salaries, 50 Tea habit in America, 270 Temperament, English and American, 251-255 inclusive, 387 Tenements, children of, 39 ; " double-decker," 355 ; Tene- ment House Committee, 359 ; occupants of, 356 ; of New York, 355 ; rents, 356 Theatres, children attending, 36 Tipping, 242, 243 Tocqueville de, on American women, loi, no, 116 Tourist "sleeper," 279, 280 Tubercular resorts, 281, 338 Two-family houses, 367, 368 Universities, expenses of course in, 61, 62 ; millionaires' sons in, 61 Unmarried women, 97, 98 410 HOME LIFE IN AMERICA Vacation, the universal, 345 Vaudeville, children in audience of, 37, 187, 188, 224, 225, 226 Vegetables in America, 141 Vernacular of " prep " schools, ,56,57 Vice-President, the, 207 W Walking, American distaste for, 173 ; of young girls, 99 Washington, cost of living in, 201 ; the village, 216; and Paris, 212 ; society reporters in, 235- 237 inclusive Water rates, comparison of, 138 Wealth and politics, 388 Western town, 277 Window displays, 158 Winter playgrounds, 338-345 in- clusive Woman, the American, 13, 20, loi et seq. ; lack of poise, 108 ; con- ventionality, 114, 115; college type of, 106, 107, no, III ; as drudge, 106, 107, 108, 109 ; marriage for love, 115-119 in- clusive ; in Europe, 102, 103, 104, 113; in business, 119, 120; in Western states, 292-297 inclusive ; sociological explanation of, 102 ; Southern 123, 124 ; in public life, 112; wardrobe, 103 Working-man, in America and England, 128 ; hotels, 361 ; wages, 245 Work, pre-eminence of, in America, 175; source of indulgence, 176, 177 Yale-Harvard sheet races, 60 Yankee shrewdness, 319, 320 Yellow journals, 233 Yellowstone National Park, i, 273 PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLESt 1-^ H 36 79 ^^*« o s . . -^ -> ,6* 'o -o . . « A. 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