A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
MEN, MANNERS AND 
 MORALS IN SOUTH 
 AMERICA. 
 
 DemySvo. Illustrated. 1216 net. 
 "Mr. J. O. P. Bland has 
 never written a dull book, and 
 (D.V.) will not. He brings 
 freshness, humour and irrever 
 ence for pomposity to every 
 subject that he touches. I revel 
 in his happy knack of showing a 
 whole stratum of civilization in 
 a phrase." 
 
 Westminster Gazette. 
 
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 requested that it may be returned to the Library as 
 SOOD as read, 
 
 HAKULvi^ oijo^^^,. 
 
 " We re born to be good friends and so we oughta, 
 In spite of all the fools both sides the water I " 
 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 The Biglow Papers. 
 
 London : William Hcinemann 
 
M 
 never 
 (D.V.) 
 
 freshness, nv. 
 
 ence for pomposity to every 
 subject that he touches. I revel 
 in his happy knack of showing a 
 whole stratum of civilization in 
 a phrase." 
 
 Westminster Gazette. 
 
A Briton in America 
 
 BY 
 
 HAROLD SPENDER 
 
 " We re born to be good friends and so we oughta, 
 In spite of all the fools both sides the water ! " 
 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 The Biglou Papers. 
 
 Lon 
 
 Hcinemanri 
 

 
TO 
 THE TRUE AMERICA 
 
 "THE HOPE OF THOSE WHO SUFFER, 
 THE FEAR OF THOSE WHO WRONG ! " 
 
 (On a War Memorial iu Bloomiugton, Illinois) 
 
 495898 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 A WORD BEFORE II 
 
 I. THE APPROACH . . . .25 
 
 II. NEW YORK CITY TO-DAY ... 38 
 
 III. FROM CHICAGO THROUGH ILLINOIS . 56 
 
 IV. PROHIBITION 68 
 
 V. SPRINGFIELD TO BLOOMINGTON . . 82 
 
 VI. IN KANSAS STATE .... 94 
 
 VII. AWAY FROM EUROPE . . . .105 
 
 VIII. ACROSS MISSOURI . . . . Il8 
 
 IX. IRELAND AGAIN . . . .124 
 
 X. BACK TO NEW YORK . . . .139 
 
 XI. THE WONDERFUL CONTINENT . . 152 
 
 XII. WE VISIT BOSTON CITY AND PLYMOUTH 163 
 
 XIII. NEW ENGLAND 177 
 
 xiv. AMERICA S CAPITAL .... 190 
 
 XV. THE BIG NAVY SCHEME . . .202 
 
 XVI. THE STATES AND JAPAN . . .214 
 
 XVII. IRELAND AND WASHINGTON . . 227 
 
 XVIII. THE BLACK PROBLEM . . . 238 
 
 XIX. THE WOMEN OF AMERICA . . . 249 
 
 XX. THE AMERICAN MAN . . . .260 
 
 XXI. THE ELDER STATESMEN . . . 273 
 
 xxn. GOOD-BYE! 283 
 
 APPENDIX DICKENS AND AMERICA . . 295 
 
A WORD BEFORE 
 
 EVER since the days of Christopher Columbus, 
 America has been the cynosure of Europe. The 
 pricking spur of curiosity which drove that dauntless 
 Genoese across the Atlantic has driven, in his wake, 
 one unbroken line of explorers and observers. I 
 am simply the latest and least along that trail. 
 
 The interest of Europe in America is a healthy 
 curiosity and deserves to be satisfied. For the 
 Old World has much to learn from the New. In 
 her search for Utopia, Europe has looked East 
 and she has not found it, but found decay and 
 death. So she ever turns again to the West, and 
 dreams dreams, as Plato dreamt them of old, of 
 the fabled Atlantis beyond the pillars of Hercules, 
 where the people are always at peace with one 
 another and live a perfect life. 1 Then she goes 
 to find out whether those dreams are true. 
 
 In that spirit, and with such a quest, we still go : 
 and the Americans must pardon us for our errand. 
 They must also ever remember that if European 
 records of these quests sometimes seem a little 
 
 1 See the remarkable picture of the community of Atlantis in 
 the unfinished dialogue of Critias. 
 
 II 
 
12 A WORD BEFORE 
 
 severe in judgment, it is because our dreams have 
 been so golden, and our hopes so high. Perhaps 
 we could scarcely hope to reach to the height of 
 Plato s dream of the Atlantians : 
 
 " They despised everything but virtue, caring 
 little for their present state of life, and thinking 
 lightly of the possession of gold and other pro 
 perty, which seemed only a burden to them ; 
 neither were they intoxicated by luxury ; nor 
 did wealth deprive them of their self-control : 
 but they were sober, and saw clearly that all 
 these goods increased by virtue and friendship 
 with one another. Whereas by too great regard 
 and respect for the goods, the goods are them 
 selves lost and friendship is lost too." * 
 
 It was with such a vision in his mind that de 
 Tocqueville went to America in the early thirties, 
 to help solve the puzzle of European democratic 
 order : returning to write that most brilliant and 
 illuminating of political works, Democracy in 
 America (1835-40). 2 It was even with some shadow 
 of such a vision that our English Charles Dickens 
 voyaged in the forties, and returned to write Martin 
 Chuzzlewit and the American Notes. It was with a 
 mind fully ready for such a vision a mind always 
 ready for what is new and good that Bryce 
 journeyed thither so often in the late nineteenth 
 
 1 Cntias, 120. From Dr. Jowett s Translation (Vol. III. of 
 Dialogues). Clarendon Press. Oxford (slightly varied). 
 
 * Democratic en Amerique (1835). Translated by H. Reeve into 
 Democracy in America (1835 40). 
 
A WORD BEFORE 13 
 
 century and returned to pen his monumental 
 classic. 1 
 
 The people of the United States have shown 
 themselves sensitive to the criticisms that too freely 
 intersperse these English records of American 
 travel the criticisms of Dickens, Matthew Arnold, 
 and other notable visitors of our own day. Perhaps 
 they have reason. The Englishman abroad is 
 too like Diogenes hunting round with his lantern 
 for an honest man, and the honest man he hunts 
 for must always be made in the Englishman s own 
 image. Now, that is not the true spirit of travel 
 literature. We do not want to go abroad to find 
 ourselves. We go abroad to see new men and new 
 things, and to learn from them new lessons. The 
 hatred of new men and new things is a sign not of 
 culture but of barbarism yet it is too often the 
 prevailing spirit of the modern traveller. 
 
 It is even more difficult to appreciate new men 
 when they are clothed, like the Americans, in the 
 familiar dress of our own speech and our own 
 traditions. Notoriously we are apt to quarrel 
 with cousins. But what we British travellers have 
 to remember when we visit America is that the 
 Americans are not merely a type of provincial 
 Englishmen, with strange provincial ways and 
 accents, but that they are now definitely a new 
 nation in a new land, kin to us indeed, but in 
 
 1 The American Commonwealth (Macmillan & Co.). Lord Bryce 
 has lately put the crown to this labour in the chapters of 
 Modern Dtmocracits, which bring his study on America up to 
 date (also Macmillan & Co.). 
 
14 A WORD BEFORE 
 
 customs foreign, producing a new civilisation and 
 a new language in a new climate and on a new 
 continent. 
 
 " Axioms ! " you will say : yes, but axioms 
 which are universally forgotten. 
 
 Perhaps the fault does not lie entirely on one 
 side. Americans, too, have occasionally shown a 
 certain freedom in criticising Englishmen. Mr. 
 Owen Wister has shown in a recent book * how 
 lightly mischief arises. Besides the kindly criticisms 
 of ourselves which we learnt to love in the books of 
 such Americans as Henry James and W. D. Howells, 
 there are other and harsher voices, sounding daily in 
 the great cities of America, representing us in an ogre- 
 like shape which fails to convince, or to correct. 
 
 That being so, I suggest that the will to praise is 
 the proper key-note for the traveller across the 
 Atlantic going either way the courteous desire 
 to appreciate rather than to depreciate, the spirit 
 of the charity that " envieth not." Be polite to one 
 another that is the first law. For it is high time that 
 travellers, if they are not to be muzzled by society, 
 should shew a spirit of greater self-restraint. Too 
 often nowadays do they roam dangerously about 
 the world like "lions roaring after their prey." 
 
 In these letters I have tried to avoid that leonine, 
 predatory touch. They were written from America 
 in the winter of 1920-21 in the intervals of a 
 strenuous public mission undertaken as one of the 
 
 1 A Straight Deal, or The Ancient Grudge, by Owen Wister. 
 (Macmillan & Co., London). 
 
A WORD BEFORE 15 
 
 four British delegates invited by the American 
 " Mayflower " Council, and selected by the British 
 Council for the Interchange of Speakers, in associa 
 tion with The English Speaking Union. That 
 brilliant journalist, Lord Burnham, suggested the 
 scheme of the letters : and they were most of them 
 published at the time in The Daily Telegraph. 
 But I have fully revised them and added nine others 
 written at the time for my private use. 
 
 My endeavour throughout has been to steer a 
 way between the Scylla of prejudice and the 
 Charybdis of flattery. My conviction from the 
 outset has been that these two great English- 
 speaking peoples the Americans and the British 
 have much to learn from one another, much to 
 teach one another. My aim has been to help in 
 that work : and with that object I have been 
 
 persuaded to publish the letters in book form. 
 ***** 
 
 How does this record stand the remorseless 
 shock of time ? Let us see. 
 
 Looking out on America from the vantage 
 ground of a public visitor, who saw many men and 
 many cities, I ventured, as will be seen, on one big 
 forecast. It was that the United States would, 
 on no account, join the League of Nations as shaped 
 in the Versailles Treaty. I dared that forecast in 
 spite of the hopes in America of the Democrats 
 and of the Leaguers in Europe. Since then it has 
 been fulfilled in the speeches of the new American 
 
16 A WORD BEFORE 
 
 President and of the new American Ambassador 
 to the Court of St. James s. Nor could there at 
 any moment be any doubt about it to any open- 
 minded observer. American public opinion had 
 given its decisive judgment : and the one sure 
 thing about America is that public opinion once 
 it has decisively spoken is always supreme. 
 
 I trespassed on another forecast, ignoring George 
 Eliot s warning that " prophecy is the most gratui 
 tous form of human error." I foretold that, 
 nevertheless, by some means or other, by some 
 other approach, the New World would gravitate 
 again towards the Old. We " Pilgrims " were 
 driven to that belief by the force of our impres 
 sions. For we saw the first beginning of that 
 great industrial crisis which has since spread from 
 Europe to America, and involved both Continents. 
 It became clear to us that, in spite of all the loud 
 and assertive claims to political detachment, 
 America would be brought back to Europe by a 
 stern economic law. " Big Business," so we were 
 told, had condemned the League of Nations. 
 " Big Business " was determined that America 
 should have no more to do with Europe. Yes, but 
 it was precisely " Big Business " that was going 
 to suffer most by the depression of Europe. It was 
 exactly through " Big Business " that America 
 was going to be drawn back into the circle of 
 nations. Since then that is precisely what has 
 happened. It is at the command of " Big Busi- 
 
A WORD BEFORE 17 
 
 ness " that the new American Government has 
 since agreed to depute its Ambassador to sit once 
 more in the Council Chamber of Europe, and has 
 now summoned a Disarmament Conference to 
 Washington. 
 
 Thus it may yet prove that when America turned 
 her thumbs down against the League of Nations, 
 that deep and solemn damnation was a decision 
 not quite so tremendous as she imagined. It may 
 turn out that it was a decision not entirely un 
 affected by personal prejudices. On that issue I 
 pass no judgment. But there are often world 
 forces too strong for statesmen and more powerful 
 than politicians; and it sometimes happens that 
 when the statesmen have expelled Nature with a 
 fork from the front-door, she comes flying back 
 through the window. Economics are often stronger 
 
 than politics. 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 What of the outward show ? What of the 
 American people, their society, their pleasures, 
 their occupations ? We saw a nation immensely 
 wealthy, to all appearances practically untouched 
 by the sorrows and exhaustions of the Great War. 
 Coming from Europe, we felt so great was the 
 contrast like men who had passed from the 
 shadow into the light. We blinked at the glare of 
 New York. We could almost dream that the scroll 
 of time had been rolled backwards. We seemed 
 to stand where we did in Europe before the great 
 
 B 
 
18 A WORD BEFORE 
 
 world calamity. Not that we would depreciate 
 the part that America played in those great issues. 
 Her participation in the war was indeed a great 
 and memorable event in her history a supreme 
 act in a great moral upheaval, finely conceived 
 and finely achieved. Her present mood cannot 
 be fully understood unless it is accepted as in part 
 a recoil from that splendid ecstasy. 
 
 Yet the Great War has necessarily meant less 
 to America than to Europe : it was a briefer trial, 
 more distant, less critical, and above all less costly 
 in that most precious asset of young life. She 
 appears before us now as practically the only 
 nation that has emerged without calamitous loss 
 of population. Thus she tends to forget her very 
 heroism. Half ashamed of the great emotion which 
 f will be so great a glory, Business America the 
 grave, diligent, ardent America of commerce now 
 resumes the mundane march, rather like some 
 serious City merchant who is trying to forget that 
 he once fell desperately in love. 
 
 Let me attempt to recover some image of modern 
 America the America of to-day as we saw it in 
 the East and the Middle West. 
 
 We caught a vision of a nation with an eager 
 forward glance, and yet a strange fixity of habit 
 a nation at once attached to her past and intent on 
 her future a nation effervescent in invention, and 
 yet conservative in faith a nation impassioned 
 for new ideas and yet anchored to her own creeds. 
 
A WORD BEFORE 19 
 
 We became conscious of a certain basic solidity in 
 this New World an underlying loyalty to its own 
 high tradition, the central point round which its 
 changeful life circles and bubbles. It was like a 
 cataract flowing over a rocky bed. Beneath us, 
 all the time, the ground was firm and hard, and 
 that seemed to give a fresh and buoyant liberty 
 to the play of that eager, swift, daily life and thought. 
 
 Let us get a firm grip of this new fact of world 
 life on this planet. It is not Europe, let us fully 
 realise, but America which is now the " land of , 
 ordered liberty/ 1 It is not America, but Europe, 
 which is now the sport of rash and random experi 
 ments. It is not Europe, but America, which now 
 holds fast to the faith of its forefathers. 
 
 Perhaps this unique combination of change and 
 faith explains one outstanding feature of American 
 life. That is the atmosphere of serenity, the 
 calmness of outlook, the confidence in survival. 
 We lack that in Europe to-day. For with us the 
 very pillars of Society are shaken. Civilisation 
 itself seems to be on trial. The very security of 
 our lives seems to be in doubt. Our society is 
 suffering from some kind of shell shock. It is that 
 element of shell shock which you leave behind 
 when you cross the Atlantic. 
 
 Many people had told us otherwise. We had 
 been filled with jeremiads about the dulness of 
 that drinkless land. We had been told by many 
 excellent souls who lack a sufficient confidence in 
 
20 A WORD BEFORE 
 
 their own inner sources of gaiety that we should 
 find America a drear and droughty Continent, a 
 dry and dour land where sour Puritans frowned 
 over flagons of iced water, eked out by secret 
 potations of stronger liquid. 
 
 We found a people certainly much brighter and 
 happier than the shadowed folk of Europe a 
 people scintillating with a certain cheerful gaiety 
 of heart, whose keen wit always has a razor edge, 
 and whose brightness of spirit scarcely seemed to 
 need a whetstone. We speak soberly, but also 
 truthfully, when we say that in that land one 
 scarcely seems to miss those artificial aids to 
 human happiness of which Europe still so con 
 fidently preaches the necessity. 
 
 Great, indeed, is our English genius for merri 
 ment warm, indeed, are our English hearts. I 
 remain a most confident believer in the survival of 
 " Merrie England." For there is no kindlier people 
 on earth than our British folk : and the Americans 
 with all their courtesy and hospitality are simply 
 inheriting those qualities and displaying them on 
 a larger field. But in addition to this kindliness 
 the Americans possess a quality of spirit which is 
 more Gallic than Britannic, and which seems to 
 belong to the head rather than to the heart. It 
 is the quality of happiness in the simplest acts 
 of life of " joy in widest commonalty spread." 
 
 This quality is, perhaps, bound up with the 
 American sense of equality. For where men are 
 
A WORD BEFORE 21 
 
 equal and really treat one another as equal, it is 
 amazing how many barriers to happiness fall down 
 of their own accord, like the walls of Jericho at 
 the sound of the trumpet. Perhaps the sense of 
 caste is not altogether a source of happiness to the 
 Englishman. It partly accounts for his shyness and 
 his reticence. At any rate, the absence of caste in 
 America produces a singular freshness and frankness 
 of speech and dealing. It seems to widen the circle 
 of human friendship. It tends to produce a bigger 
 man, more tolerant, less suspicious, less afraid. 
 
 But the difference strikes deeper. For here in 
 England let us confess it we have not yet quite 
 escaped from the quarrel of the seventeenth century. 
 We are still apt to divide up into Puritans and 
 Cavaliers. Our society is still inclined to fall 
 
 asunder in two halves the grossly merry and the 
 
 sourly good. There are still too few Falklands 
 amongst us too many Prynnes and Ruperts. 
 Now one strong impression left by America to-day is 
 that there is more innocent merriment and less sour i 
 goodness. In fact, the spirit of that old " Merrie 
 England " seems to have crossed the Atlantic. 
 
 They have a new phrase for this new type in 
 America. They call him a "real American." In 
 the same way they no longer ask of a man " Does 
 he talk English ? ", but they say" Does he talk 
 United States ? " " Talk United States or quit ! " 
 was the cry at one period of the war, and it expresses 
 the consciousness of a definite, new racial type 
 
22 A WORD BEFORE 
 
 emerging from the fusion of the European races. 
 We have to recognise that consciousness if we are 
 to understand the America of to-day. 
 
 In Kansas City a group of journalists interviewed 
 me for several hours on all the issues of the day. 
 They received my views on the League of Nations 
 with profound indifference. They had decided 
 that matter, although they were too polite to say so. 
 They listened, but their pencils were idle. But when, 
 as a side-thought, I suggested in a playful manner, 
 that the American and English languages were 
 drifting apart, and that we now required, in spite 
 of Webster, separate dictionaries, then at once their 
 pencils began to work. Next morning all the Kansas 
 papers had headlines that ran as follows 
 
 ENGLISH AUTHOR DISCOVERS THE AMERICAN 
 LANGUAGE. 
 
 SPENDER SUGGESTS A NEW DICTIONARY. 
 
 The idea had fallen on fertile ground. Instead of 
 offending them, it was accepted as a tribute to their 
 nationality. The Mid West was pleased. They 
 were proud to be thought of as a new nation with 
 a language of their own, instead of being regarded 
 as employing a linguistic offshoot, a mere corrup 
 tion of the Anglo-Saxon tongue. They were tired 
 of being told that they talked bad English. They 
 were glad to meet a visitor who recognised that they 
 just " talked American." 
 
 That is typical of the spirit of America to-day. 
 
A WORD BEFORE 23 
 
 The war has not weakened, but has increased, her 
 sense of nationality. It has stimulated her pride. 
 Looking back, she sees herself as the balancing 
 factor, the outside arbitrator, the friend in need 
 of world civilisation. She attributes her power to 
 her detachment. She believes that if Europe 
 were to draw her in she would be robbed of her 
 strength. She fears that Europe, like Delilah, 
 would shear away her Samson locks. 
 
 Thus it is she often suspects our advances, and 
 sometimes even fears them. Perhaps, indeed, we 
 are, at times, a little too effusive. We have been 
 creditors for so long that we cannot quickly adopt 
 the pride proper to a debtor. We are suspect of 
 presuming a little too much on our relationship. 
 We talk too often of our brotherhood. We forget 
 that between nations nowadays blood is too inter 
 fused to count for much : blood relationship is 
 almost too common to carry its real value. In 
 future, it would appear, the only brotherhood that 
 will count is the brotherhood of ideas, aims, and 
 
 aspirations. 
 
 ***** 
 
 Thus America, puzzled by all these changes, and 
 sceptical of our affections, still stands at the cross- 
 ways. She remains divided in thought and heart 
 still halting at the fork of the roads uncertain 
 between the road that leads to Europe and the road 
 that leads away. But she cannot stand there for 
 ever. She will find that she must decide. 
 
 September, 1921. H. S. 
 
A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 i 
 
 THE APPROACH 
 
 THE BALTIC, Nov. n, 1920. 
 
 THE great fact about America, as approached 
 from Great Britain, is the Atlantic. That really 
 explains everything. But you do not really under 
 stand why it explains everything until you remind 
 yourself by crossing it. Then, after a week at sea, 
 you begin to realise. You grasp the fact that the 
 Atlantic has been very much under-rated as a 
 factor in the dividing of nations. 
 
 It is all very well to call the Atlantic a " pond/* 
 That expression has the typical, hopeful courage 
 of true American humour. But it deceives us. 
 Just so, it is dangerous to speak too often of the 
 "shrinkage of the world." For the Atlantic is 
 still the Atlantic. It is still the ocean the vast, 
 mysterious, variable, incomprehensible ocean. 
 
 Here we are, on a floating palace a White Star 
 liner of 24,000 tons and more. Here we live, 
 citizens of " no mean city " a moving city a city 
 with a population of over 3,000 with its contrasts 
 of wealth and poverty, with all its divisions of 
 classes, and with more than the usual mixture of 
 
 25 
 
26 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 races and languages. Here, in the first-class, we 
 have luxury such as on land we only dream of now, 
 as a pre-war memory, in our London clubs. Down 
 below, in the second and third class, they cultivate 
 the simpler life. 
 
 The whole thing is a microcosm of our modern 
 order. Here, in the first-class, we travel because 
 we wish to. Down below, in the third-class, they 
 travel because they must. They are fleeing, many 
 of them, from a troubled Europe Irish, Poles, 
 Czecho-Slovaks, Galicians all in search of a " newer 
 and a better world." 
 
 The United States does not seem to want them 
 very much. Every difficulty is put in their way 
 passports with a 3 fee, harryings of sanitary au 
 thorities, searchings of Customs officers. They are 
 winnowed at every port at Danzig, Liverpool, 
 London, New York. But still they come. There 
 are 1,300 on this ship. The first-class is roomy and 
 at ease. The second class is crowded, and the 
 third class is packed tight. 
 
 The restless peoples move uneasily in their bonds. 
 The search for the " Blessed Island " for Atlantis 
 goes on. A year ago the stream was going east, 
 to find a new Europe. Now the stream is going 
 west, to find a new America. Will they succeed ? 
 
 The Irish are going. When we anchored off 
 Queenstown, two tenders could be seen steaming 
 fast out of the inner harbour that wonderful 
 harbour, broad and deep enough to contain the 
 
THE APPROACH 27 
 
 whole British Fleet. Both tenders were packed, 
 and as they came nearer we could see that the 
 crowds on the decks were waving American and 
 Sinn Fein flags. 
 
 Looking down, we could see among those excited, 
 shouting crowds all the Irish types of to-day 
 the black-coated priest, the lean labourer, the white- 
 cowled nun, and, by her side, the colleen, the 
 dark-eyed Rosaleen. Green was the predominant 
 colour vivid green in the head-dresses, on the 
 shawls, the blouses, the flags everywhere green, 
 and nowhere England s red. On the top deck of 
 the foremost tender stood a group of youths with 
 the strong, assertive faces, the dark, defiant eyes, 
 and the longish straggling hair of the new Sinn Fein 
 type. Over the waters came the angry chant of 
 the " Soldier s Song," and as they sang they waved 
 their flags. 
 
 The English stood by the bulwarks of the liner 
 watching these visitors in puzzled silence. The 
 tenders were moored on either side of the big ship, 
 and then, up the gangways, began the long pro 
 cession of Irish emigrants fleeing from their " dis 
 tressful country " not, as of old, poor, ragged 
 fugitives ; but well-dressed, substantial men and 
 women, going to seek a quieter land. Many of 
 them, I am told by those who ought to know, are 
 fleeing from the terror of their own friends. 
 
 The last had come aboard, and now the tender on 
 the port side sheered off and began to move back 
 
28 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 towards Queenstown. Then began a new phase 
 of this dramatic scene. There remained on the 
 tender, as it receded homewards, a certain number 
 of the young men whom we had seen waving the 
 flags so defiantly. But now the defiance had left 
 them. Their mood had quite changed. The ex 
 hilaration had gone ; and there had settled down 
 on them that other mood of their race the mood 
 of deep and tragic melancholy. At first they waved 
 their handkerchiefs in silence. Then there floated 
 back to us the strains of that sweetest and saddest 
 of Irish songs so plaintive, so thrilling the dirge 
 of so many partings the threnody of so many 
 exiles : 
 
 Come back to Erin, Mavourneen, Mavourneen, 
 Come back, Aroon, to the land of thy birth 
 
 It faded across the waters as the tender moved 
 swiftly back hurrying, as if to bring this sad 
 leaving to a close it faded into silence. Long 
 after we ceased to hear anything, we could still see 
 the flash of the white handkerchiefs from the deck 
 of the diminishing ship. That song was the lament 
 of Ireland the cry of Rachel for her children 
 Rachel that will not be comforted. 
 
 Day by day, in this strange modern life of the 
 ocean-going passenger ship, we are presented 
 with a morning newspaper, The Ocean Times, 
 which gives us news from the outer world. Or, 
 rather, it conveys to us a few of those whispers 
 which come through the ether across the vast 
 
THE APPROACH 29 
 
 Atlantic and are caught by our " wireless." Great 
 is Marconi, the King of Ocean ; and greatly has 
 he changed the ship-life from those days when you 
 were utterly cut off from the outer world at the 
 moment you stepped on board until the moment 
 when you stepped ashore on the other side. 
 
 That great silence is now broken by many voices 
 thronging voices from the great, restless, troubled 
 world. Among those voices has come to us the 
 news of the Presidential election in the United 
 States on November 4. 
 
 The victory of Senator Harding was taken as a 
 foregone conclusion. But everyone has been taken 
 aback by the size of the majority. It is accepted 
 as a portent as a great and final decision on the 
 part of a great people. 
 
 I have talked it over with many Americans aboard, 
 and they have given me the frank views of minds 
 detached from the mass opinion of the world 
 ashore. I will give a typical talk with a very 
 enlightened American lady. 
 
 H. S. : " What is the meaning of it all ? " 
 
 A. L. : "It simply means that we want to get 
 back to our beloved Independence." 
 
 H. S. : " And to leave us to stew in the European 
 juice ? " 
 
 A. L. : "I don t know ; but I know that it is 
 the instinct of the American to get back to our 
 own affairs to get home again." 
 
 There it is, expressed with all the simplicity of 
 
30 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 a woman s outlook. And once more the Atlantic 
 gives the answer. I sit here, on the deck of this 
 splendid ship one of the great achievements of 
 the human brain and hand and I look over the 
 waste of tumbling waters. We are passing the 
 Nantucket Lightship, a lonely vessel, but the 
 first outpost of the New World. It is Thursday, 
 November n. We started from Liverpool on 
 Wednesday, November 3. A quick voyage to 
 that of the Mayflower, which occupied nine weeks ! 
 But the impressive fact to me is this : that since 
 we left Liverpool, eight days ago, we have not 
 sighted a single ship. So great a solitude lies 
 between us and America so vast a desert. We 
 belong to different worlds. We are sundered by 
 a continent of water. 
 
 A God, a God their severance ruled, 
 And bade betwixt their shores to be 
 The unplumb d, salt, estranging sea. 
 
 Meanwhile, beneath us, even on this ship, we 
 carry passengers who bring with them a hostile 
 message. To-day is Armistice Day, and we have 
 celebrated it with a service which, in its mingling 
 of majesty and simplicity, must have touched the 
 most seasoned voyager. Last night a message 
 came to us from the King, commanding a silence 
 of two minutes at eleven o clock by local time. 
 It was a thoughtful whisper to the ships at sea, 
 for we had been considerably puzzled as to whether 
 the Armistice silence should take place then or 
 
THE APPROACH 31 
 
 at London time, which would have been two o clock 
 in the morning! As soon as the message was 
 received a service was arranged to open on the 
 deck at 10.45, ending at the moment of silence. 
 This was for the first class. But it was soon found 
 that the second and third classes, being for the 
 most part moved by the same emotion of timely 
 commemoration, also demanded a service. So 
 our little stock of ministers were divided my 
 colleagues and fellow Pilgrims undertaking their 
 respective share Canon Burroughs for the top 
 deck ; Dr. Gillie for the second deck ; and Dr. 
 Alexander Ramsay for the third. 
 
 On the top deck all went well. The service was 
 simple and beautiful. Canon Burroughs addressed 
 us in a few words of simple, thrilling appeal, re 
 calling to us the great moment of three years ago, 
 reminding us of the great vows of that day, bringing 
 us back to its high resolves and purposes. Then, 
 at eleven o clock precisely, the ship s siren sounded ; 
 and there, in the midst of the deep, the whole ship s 
 company stood silent for two full minutes. No 
 sound broke that silence except the rustling whisper 
 of the waves as the great ship, slowing down, 
 gently moved forward. 
 
 What thoughts passed through our minds ! 
 What memories ! What common sorrows knit 
 together, there in the midst of those solitudes, 
 that company of mingled British and Americans ! 
 When the siren sounded the close of that silence 
 
32 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 the eyes of many who looked up were glistening 
 with tears. 
 
 But down below, when the silence ended, another 
 scene was enacted. The Sinn Fein emigrants 
 let it be said in all fairness respected the Service 
 and the Silence. But instantly it ended a voice 
 broke out from a little group that had stood aloof : 
 " Ladies and gentlemen of the Irish people " so 
 began the speech and then, at the end, the group 
 sang " God Save Ireland." 
 
 There you have it ! What is the use of blinking 
 the facts ? We shall not understand the position 
 of the United States unless we have a vision of 
 this ceaseless flow Westward of these enemies of 
 our rule, embittered by exile and the sufferings 
 of the sea. They land, and almost instantly they 
 become voters of the United States. They swell 
 the following of one or other party first of one 
 and then of the other. They grasp the city govern 
 ments. They become a casting vote in the State 
 and the Union. 
 
 Above all, they become the readers of the news 
 papers ; and newspapers to-day cannot ignore 
 their readers. I had a talk last evening with an 
 American advertising agent from Syracuse. He 
 was explaining to me, very delicately, the difficulty 
 which the American newspapers had to face in the 
 attempt to do justice to British visitors. " Of our 
 readers," he said, " nearly 40 per cent, are Irish. 
 They do not want to hear anything said in favour 
 
THE APPROACH 33 
 
 of Great Britain. They will not read anything in 
 favour of Great Britain. On the contrary, they 
 want to hear everything that can be possibly said 
 against her. The result is, that the newspapers, 
 outside a certain number of independents, are flooded 
 with Sinn Fein propaganda. They hear nothing 
 about murdered constables ! They hear a great 
 deal about British atrocities ! " 
 
 So now, before we land, we know what we have 
 to face. But, of course, there is another side. 
 The result of the Presidential election shows it 
 for all the world to see. Cox played up to the Irish 
 vote. He went so far as almost to sell his soul 
 to the Irish vote. But, in the process, he frightened 
 the stable voter, who is, in America as in England, 
 the master of the situation. He alarmed the 
 woman voter, whose rooted fear at present is lest 
 her boy should be called upon again to go to Europe. 
 My agent himself gave me a part answer to his 
 own discontents. He told me of what happened 
 at Syracuse in the elections of the city " School 
 Committee " (our " Education Committee," but 
 elected separately). The Irish combined with the 
 Catholics and ran their own ticket. With what 
 result ? Why, the Protestant Democrats immedi 
 ately shifted over and joined the Republicans, 
 with the consequence that the Democrats were 
 beaten ! 
 
 Dimly, through these sea-mists, I seem to see 
 here a reflex of the situation left behind in the 
 
34 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 United Kingdom. The Sinn Feiner rushes for 
 support to the Roman Catholic Church. He finds 
 there a great machine : the Church, hungry for 
 followers, receives him into the fold, and arms 
 him with all her spiritual weapons. But look 
 at the immediate consequences. The Sinn Feiner 
 alienates the Protestant, the old traditional friend 
 of " nations rightly struggling to be free." The 
 Roman Catholic Church, on her side, offends many 
 of her own flock, who revolt against the methods of 
 Sinn Fein in Ireland. Truly do the " best-laid 
 schemes of mice and men gang aft agley " ! 
 
 We have passed the Nantucket Lightship. We 
 are on the eve of our adventure. 
 
 " Where lies the land to which the ship would go ? 
 Far, far ahead is all her seamen know. 
 And where the land she travels from ? Away, 
 Far, far behind is all that they can say." 
 
 We go to vindicate the cause of our country. 
 It is a great and solemn trust. It cuts one to the 
 heart to hear what some of these people below 
 decks say of the dear old land. They seem to 
 think us a kind of Turk a strange accusation 
 against a race which, whatever its faults, at bottom 
 shares with Americans the qualities of kindliness 
 and humanity. But such is the indictment, now 
 as in the days of Wordsworth s famous sonnet, 
 hurled by the world against England. 
 
 " England 1 all nations in this charge agree." 
 
 It is for those who carry on the British tradition 
 
THE APPROACH 35 
 
 so to direct our policy that they may answer such 
 enemies in the gate. 
 
 Of one thing I feel sure we shall find in America 
 friends of British blood ready to think the best 
 of the British cause. During the voyage we have 
 been reading many books on the voyage of the 
 " Pilgrim Fathers." This morning we passed not 
 far from their course. To-day, Armistice Day, 
 is, by a curious chance, the day on which they 
 landed. This winter is exactly three centuries 
 away from the winter in which half their number 
 including practically all the mothers of families 
 perished on the shores of Cape Cod. 
 
 It is easy for Americans to laugh at some of the 
 claims put forward on behalf of those gallant 
 Pilgrims. It is natural that there should have 
 been some reaction from the days when half the 
 families in New England claimed to be descended 
 from some fifty men. But at the root of it there 
 is a great memory a memory of a great heroism 
 and that a British heroism. The men who voyaged 
 in the Mayflower were typical British yeomen 
 and shopkeepers. The men who followed them 
 to Massachusetts and the other New England 
 colonies were all of the old stout stock. Their 
 descendants have spread Westward, and influenced 
 with their traditions all the States north of the 
 Mason-Dixon line. True, their places in their 
 country of original landing have been largely 
 taken over by Irishmen and Catholics. But all 
 
3 6 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 through the United States the old strain runs, 
 sometimes on the surface and sometimes below it, 
 like the Gulf Stream that flows through this Atlantic 
 Ocean. 
 
 That story explains the seeming paradox of 
 American life. It is easy to show, in figures, the 
 absurdity of calling the American race " Anglo- 
 Saxon." It is not difficult to emphasise that vast 
 immigration of varied European stocks which 
 swept into the United States between 1850 and 
 1910, and to point out the small contribution of 
 Great Britain. The American-Irish do that every 
 day. But in the traditions and origins of races 
 it is not only quantity that counts. The United 
 States now finds itself under the new Census and 
 cutting out the Philippines with a population of 
 105,000,000. If no more than 30,000,000 of those 
 can claim British descent, whether through Virginia 
 or New England, that is far more than those in 
 England itself, the home of the Anglo-Saxon race, 
 who are really descended from Saxon stock. 
 
 At any rate, there are enough British-descended 
 Americans to make a great presumption in favour 
 of friendship between the United States and the 
 United Kingdom. " The British stock," say our 
 candid friends, " is only one of many that have 
 gone to build up the American people." True ; 
 but it happens to be the stock that has given them 
 their language, their dominant religion, and their 
 tradition of orderly self-government. How is it 
 
THE APPROACH 37 
 
 that no other stock has changed these things ? 
 Surely that fact alone gives " furiously to think " ? 
 The more one reflects on the present condition of 
 mankind, the more one becomes convinced that 
 the hope of future well-being rests almost wholly 
 on the prospect of a closer knitting together of 
 these two races. May all the disputes that divide 
 us disappear ! May all those that travel to and fro 
 across this great ocean highway aim not at em- 
 bitterment but at conciliation ! 
 
II 
 
 NEW YORK CITY TO-DAY 
 
 FIRST IMPRESSIONS 
 
 NEW YORK, Nov. 12. 
 
 ALTHOUGH we reached the quarantine island at 
 3 a.m. this morning, it was not until about 8.30 
 that we got up steam again and went slowly up the 
 harbour. The interval was occupied by the process 
 of passing through quarantine, which consists in 
 a doctor strolling through the saloon whilst you are 
 eating your breakfast and looking at the back of 
 your head to be quite sure that you have not got 
 small-pox. So great is the virtue of the first 
 class ! For the comity of nations also permits the 
 American Government to take the third-class 
 passengers back to Ellis Island and pass them 
 through a prolonged stage of inquisition before 
 they are considered to be fit and proper persons 
 to land on the free soil of America. 
 
 When we stepped on to the deck at 6.30 a.m. we 
 found a glorious morning a fresh breeze crisping 
 the steely-blue sea, the crests of the little waves 
 breaking into foam far beneath us. But it was 
 only a harbour ruffle, and the great ship stood 
 steady while a far greater ship an American 
 
 38 
 
NEW YORK CITY TO-DAY 39 
 
 battleship swung by us, moving out to sea, 
 parading past us just as if she meant to display 
 to us the strength and pride of the American Navy. 
 
 Before leaving the ship we were invaded from the 
 tender by a crowd of photographers and journalists. 
 The four Pilgrims were taken up on to the top- 
 deck and photographed in various attitudes. We 
 were then each of us interviewed down in the 
 saloon, and I found myself suggesting various 
 questions to the modest American interviewer. 
 That type has certainly very much changed since 
 the days of Martin Chuzzlewit. These American 
 interviewers are pleasant and delightful fellows, 
 but now lack the dash and spirit of the new European 
 journalist. 
 
 Then we went back to the promenade deck and 
 stood waiting for that glimpse of the Statue of 
 Liberty on her little island at the mouth of the 
 Hudson River, which I have always remembered 
 as one of the most thrilling sights for anyone 
 approaching New York. Soon she appeared before 
 us, holding aloft her lighted torch. But somehow 
 she seemed smaller and less impressive than when 
 I last saw her twenty years ago. For the great 
 New York spectacle now lies away across the 
 harbour, and it was thither that our eyes were 
 turned. That spectacle is the mighty group of 
 sky-climbing buildings which rises on Manhattan 
 Island and gives the first great shock of surprise 
 to the visiting European. 
 
40 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 The tallest of them the " Woolworth "is 
 over five hundred feet high, and so it is something 
 more than a figure of speech to call them mountains 
 created by the hand of man. They give you the 
 impression that you are approaching a land of 
 Titans. Perhaps it is that the nine days you have 
 spent at sea make you ready for some great sur 
 prise. Therefore you exaggerate the meaning and 
 import of these great buildings as they stand 
 there on the verge of the New World, flinging 
 defiance at the spirit of the Old, seeming to typify 
 some new attitude of enterprise and audacity that 
 is not to be confined by the conventions of Europe. 
 
 We glided gently to the White Star Wharf, and 
 there we found our friends, the excellent Dr. 
 Atkinson, Secretary of the Church Peace Union, 
 who is doing so much for the cause of friendship 
 between the two worlds, Old and New, and several 
 other distinguished American ministers, who had 
 so thoughtfully come down to welcome us. They 
 helped us through the Customs, and perhaps it 
 was their friendship that made things easier for 
 us. But although the American Customs House 
 officers are very thorough in their work and insist 
 on opening every bag, I have never in America 
 met with anything but courtesy in this always 
 unpleasant experience. We descended to the street 
 and our baggage was placed on a moving carrier 
 which brought it without bangs and bumps down 
 to the pavement. We were swiftly taken to the 
 
NEW YORK CITY TO-DAY 41 
 
 Prince George Hotel, and there we had our first 
 experience of the splendid food which America 
 is still able to supply. The big oysters, the un 
 limited butter and cream, and the large portions of 
 meat reminded us of our pre-war Europe at its best. 
 
 After lunch we were motored by our friends 
 through New York, down Fifth Avenue to Central 
 Park, and afterwards along the Hudson River. 
 We obtained during this drive an impression of an 
 affluence and luxury such as has become almost 
 mythical to us Europeans. It takes many forms 
 gigantic shops with their splendid displays of wealth 
 and food, well-dressed crowds, with a lavish display 
 of furs and jewellery, and above all teeming motor 
 cars, which at some moments in Broadway are so 
 tightly packed that you could almost jump from 
 roof to roof across the road. 
 
 The immense congestion of this motor traffic on 
 Broadway has compelled the New York authorities 
 to invent some new methods of traffic control. At 
 regular intervals along this great thoroughfare 
 there are high stands with posts like railway signals. 
 At the top of these posts are lights. A red light 
 is a warning, a white light stops the traffic, and a 
 green light allows it to go forward. When a white 
 light is shown the whole traffic is held up for about 
 a dozen " blocks." Meanwhile the street traffic 
 from east to west is allowed through. It is a most 
 ingenious method of traffic control, and is admirably 
 suited to New York, with its long distances and 
 
42 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 broad thoroughfares. I doubt whether it would 
 be of any use in London. New York is now so 
 crowded and dangerous that you witness the 
 curious sight of great crowds of people gathering 
 together on the pavements, like swarms of bees, to 
 cross the street as if the mere solidity of the 
 human mass might provide each individual with a 
 protection against injury. The Irish policemen, 
 who are the sole custodians of New York, shepherd 
 the people across with admirable coolness and 
 good humour, and I am bound to say that the 
 Irishman in power in New York seems to do this 
 sort of thing just as well as the Englishman in 
 London. 
 
 Central Park is a huge open space in the centre 
 of New York, landscaped to imitate as nearly as 
 possible a piece of wild country. There are pools 
 and lakes, hills and valleys. The American grass 
 goes very brown in the winter, and to our European 
 eyes Central Park in November seemed therefore 
 rather arid and barren. Here and there there 
 are outcrops of the rock on which New York is 
 built. These rocks add to the impression of wild- 
 ness. There is an excellent riding track. But 
 London has the supremacy in the matter of parks 
 over New York, as over every other great capital 
 in the world. 
 
 The glory of New York is the Drive along the 
 Hudson River. We came on it just as the sun 
 was setting over the New Jersey bank of the 
 
NEW YORK CITY TO-DAY 43 
 
 Hudson, and we drove along by the river till the 
 orange glow faded to a pale lemon. Halfway down 
 this broad thoroughfare is the colossal tomb erected 
 to General Grant. Over the doorway are written 
 the simple words with which Grant accepted nomina 
 tion for the Presidency in 1868, three years after 
 the close of the Civil War" Let us have peace ! " 
 
 NEW YORK, Nov. 14. 
 
 We have divided our luggage, and now we are 
 going to divide our party. Each one of the Pil 
 grims takes a different itinerary, and my marching 
 orders are for the Mid-West. To-night my wife 
 and I start for Chicago, taking Niagara on the way. 
 
 NIAGARA, Nov. 15. 
 
 We have had a wonderful day at Niagara, which 
 I had not seen for over twenty years. When we 
 arrived at Buffalo at the end of our night journey, 
 early this morning, it was snowing hard. But the 
 beautiful warm station and the hot breakfast 
 made us feel more comfortable than on a European 
 journey. We reached Niagara at 8.50 a.m., and 
 after many debates as to the proper way of seeing 
 the greatest sight in the world we decided to defy 
 the Anti-Waste campaign and, acting as genuine 
 spenders, to take a motor for the day. 5 was 
 the modest fee demanded, and five pounds it was. 
 But it was really worth it. 
 
 Thus relieved of all anxiety and trouble, we 
 
44 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 could give our whole mind to the wonderful FaDs. 
 We did everything there was to be done visited 
 the American Fall and the Canadian, walked about 
 the little islands, went down to see the rapids, 
 travelled in the aero-car across the whirlpool, and 
 descended, clad in mackintoshes, beneath the Fall 
 on the Canadian side, and only did not visit the 
 " Cave of the Winds " because it is at present 
 closed owing to the tragic accident of last year. 
 
 Since twenty years ago I seemed to notice some 
 slight diminution in the water of the American 
 Fall, which is being drawn off now to provide power 
 for a vast number of enterprises and industries 
 electric trams and railways, workshops and factories 
 and the lighting of many towns. Nearly one 
 million horse power is now being drawn off from both 
 Falls, the greater part of it on the American side. 
 This great and splendid force of Nature is being 
 gradually harnessed to the service of man. It is 
 useless to say that this harnessing carries with it 
 no ill effects. The neighbourhood of Niagara is 
 now being more and more defaced by vast works 
 and power houses. But the Falls themselves re 
 main, and I doubt whether the subtraction of force 
 has made any substantial diminution in the volume 
 of falling water. I count the impression of that 
 diminution to be an illusion, drawn from a quarrel 
 between Nature and humanity which is a latent 
 "pathetic fallacy" in every mind. Witnessing 
 the assault of man one takes the side of Nature. 
 
NEW YORK CITY TO-DAY 45 
 
 For Nature always seems to be the offended inno 
 cent, and man the impious aggressor. 
 
 Nearly eighty years ago Charles Dickens stayed 
 for some little time in a house looking right out on 
 the Canadian Fall, and after several days that 
 great master of English speech wrote home in a 
 letter to Charles Forster on May i, 1842, the follow 
 ing description : 
 
 " You can see the Falls rolling and tumbling, 
 and roaring and leaping all day long, with bright 
 rainbows making fiery arches down a hundred 
 feet below us. When the sun is on them, they 
 shine and glow like molten gold. When the day 
 is gloomy, the water falls like snow, or some 
 times it seems to crumble away like the face of 
 a great chalk cliff, or sometimes again to roll 
 along the front of the rock like white smoke. 
 But it all seems gay or gloomy, dark or light, 
 by sun or moon. From the bottom of both 
 Falls there is always rising up a solemn ghostly 
 cloud, which hides the boiling cauldron from 
 human sight, and makes it in its mystery a 
 hundred times more grand than if you could see 
 all the secrets that lie hidden in its tremendous 
 depth." * 
 
 Poor twentieth century writers cannot improve 
 on that ! 
 
 1 The Letters of Charles Dickens (Chapman and Hall), Vol. I., 
 page 70. (See Appendix.) 
 
46 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 We saw the Falls on a dull, grey day, and the 
 sun gave us no help. The winter frost had not yet 
 clutched the cataracts with its icy hand, although 
 on the edge of the banks of the islands we found 
 many ice stalactites. We noticed, like Dickens, 
 that the noise of the Falls had been much exagger 
 ated, and that you hear little until you come quite 
 close. Standing in the cave right behind the 
 Canadian Fall one seems to be looking at a snow- 
 white solid, so continuous and unvaried is the 
 impression of that rush of water. 
 
 Dickens was tremendously impressed with the 
 great ghostly cloud of mist which rises from the 
 depths of the Canadian Fall. He describes it again 
 in another passage 
 
 " From its unfathomable grave arises that 
 tremendous ghost of spray and mist which is 
 never laid, and has been haunting this place with 
 the same dread solemnity, perhaps from the 
 creation of the world." l 
 
 Perhaps we should not quite write like that now, 
 since we have learned more of the tremendous 
 changes that have taken place in the world since 
 the beginning of time. But for my part I do not 
 blame Dickens for his simple awe in the presence 
 of this great fact. It is better than the flippant 
 familiarity of to-day. Dickens was too great a 
 
 Forster s Life of Dickens. Vol. I., page 386. 
 
NEW YORK CITY TO-DAY 47 
 
 man to treat Nature lightly. Being great himself 
 he realised the greatness of things. And this 
 Niagara is a very great thing. 
 
 The trip in the aero-car across the whirlpool is 
 quite worth taking. You pass from bank to bank 
 in a little car running on a cable, and look down 
 over a hundred feet into the restless whirlpool of 
 waters. To this the Rapids come. By some curious 
 freak in the rock the whole river turns back on itself 
 at a sharp angle. The result is that the great 
 mass of water seems to drive round and round in a 
 great pocket for long periods without being able 
 to resume its current and return to its bed. Great 
 logs of wood will voyage round and round in a 
 circle for whole days so we are told before they 
 resume their journey down the river. We could 
 actually see them disappearing beneath the surface 
 and going down into the vortex. We recalled 
 with more wonder than admiration the endeavours 
 of men like Captain Webb who have tried to master 
 these forces. The battle is too unequal to make it 
 even " sporting." 
 
 We descended by the cog-wheel tram to see the 
 Rapids. Standing close to them is like watching 
 the Atlantic on a stormy day. The force which 
 drives the waters on and up comes from within and 
 below. The great waves with their broken crests 
 and their prancing manes are independent of tides 
 and winds. They are agonised by the tremendous 
 power of Niagara itself. 
 
48 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 At first, after falling over Niagara, the waters of 
 the river glide so tranquilly that ships like the 
 Maid of the Mist voyage quite calmly on the great 
 pool beneath the Canadian Fall. The river glides 
 into its gorge, and then, like some tremendous 
 suppressed passion, the terror and volume of that 
 mighty cataclysm come again to the surface and 
 drive all before them. In the " Rapids " Niagara 
 has its catastrophic revenge. 
 
 We had finished with nature by lunch time, thanks 
 to the speed of our motor, and we lunched pleasantly 
 at " Prospect House," a comfortable though expen 
 sive hostelry. Then we wandered round the town 
 of Niagara : and finding it cold, looked for some 
 warm American interior. 
 
 As we wandered along, with the free and easy 
 observation of tourists, our English eyes were 
 attracted by a certain freshness in the shop notices. 
 This, for instance, in front of a small boarding 
 house 
 
 NIAGARA INN. 
 
 REASONABLY 
 
 YOU WOULD NOT 
 
 BELIEVE WE SERVE 
 
 SUCH 
 GOOD THINGS 
 
 TO EAT 
 AS WE DO. 
 
NEW YORK CITY TO-DAY 49 
 
 THAT AND THE USE OF 
 STANDARD GOODS 
 
 HAS BEEN THE SUCCESS 
 OF OUR BUSINESS. 
 
 After this, what can a traveller do but walk in ? 
 
 It is almost as frank as the notice seen in a New 
 York " Store." 
 
 " GOD HELPS THOSE WHO HELP THEMSELVES." 
 BUT GOD HELP THOSE WHO HELP THEMSELVES 
 FROM THIS STORE ! 
 
 We walked a little further and found a big hand 
 some factory devoted to the making of that delect 
 able food, popular in two worlds, " Shredded Wheat." 
 (I shall be suspected of being paid for this as an 
 advertisement, but credit is due to the great food- 
 makers.) On the door was written in big capitals 
 "ALL VISITORS WELCOME!" A new and 
 refreshing notice to the sore eyes of Europeans, 
 accustomed to such charming addresses as " ALL 
 TRESPASSERS PROSECUTED ! " " ALL DOGS 
 SHOT ! " (which I actually saw of late defacing a 
 
 beautiful English landscape). 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 WeD, we just walked in. We found ourselves in 
 a great oblong hall with a marble floor, steam-heated 
 and comfortably furnished with leather arm-chairs. 
 We were greeted by a charming American lady, 
 and then asked to sit and read magazines, profusely 
 
 D 
 
50 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 provided, until the guide returned with the party 
 he was taking round. 
 
 He returned, and then took us through the factory. 
 We witnessed all the diverting and multifarious 
 processes of shredding wheat the storeys of 
 ingenious machinery, the baking of the biscuits, 
 the packing of the product. But we had seen many 
 factories. In all this we were chiefly struck not 
 merely by the cleanliness and light of the great 
 building, but also by the happiness and health of 
 the 400 men and 260 girls employed. They seemed 
 really to sing over their work. 
 
 The mystery of this happiness was soon explained 
 when our guide took us on to the club-rooms pro 
 vided for the employees. There is a fine, large 
 restaurant with tiled walls and floor, so meticu 
 lously clean that one could eat off them : dressing 
 rooms with lockers for each individual : fine bath 
 rooms : and a huge recreation room where there 
 are concerts and " movies " in the summer and 
 basket ball in the winter. A mid-day meal is 
 provided free at noon in the restaurant. The hours 
 are from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. There are ample playing 
 fields outside. The Cadburys and the Rowntrees 
 provide nothing better on our side. I wonder 
 how far this factory is typical ? I am told that 
 there are thousands like it in this country. 
 
 We have spent a quiet evening at Prospect 
 House, and are taking the train for Chicago at 
 8 p.m. 
 
NEW YORK CITY TO-DAY 51 
 
 CHICAGO, Nov. 16. 
 
 We reached Chicago this morning in a heavy 
 snow-storm, and found the great city as dark as 
 London under fog conditions. Coasting along the 
 shore of Lake Michigan before we reached the city 
 we almost seemed to be moving along the shore of 
 a sea, so big were the waves which broke along 
 that coast. 
 
 We took off our baggage from a great trolley 
 at the station and carried it with us on a taxi to 
 the La Salle Hotel. Arrived there, we found the 
 great hall packed with men standing in queues 
 waiting for rooms. There is a Convention going 
 on in Chicago there seems always a Convention 
 everywhere on this Continent and we hear that 
 all the hotels are crowded. But this crowding of 
 hotels is now a common phenomenon of American 
 life. For America has its housing problem as well 
 as Europe, and it is due to the same cause the 
 cessation of building operations for the last two 
 years of the war. There was nothing for it but 
 that we should sit in the hall writing our letters 
 and diaries, waiting till a room was free. 
 
 It is easy to do this sort of thing in America. 
 The hotels are public places, and all the world 
 seems to resort to them. The " Lounge " of the 
 La Salle was like the lobby of the House of Commons 
 on a day of political crisis. Everyone seemed to 
 stand : and everyone seemed to talk at the top 
 
52 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 of his voice. There was a great sense of hustle and 
 exhilaration, combined with an immense sense of 
 discomfort for wearied travellers. 
 
 During the morning we visited one of the great 
 Y.M.C.A. buildings, with their wonderful profusion 
 of facilities for the young life of America libraries, 
 reading-rooms, lecture-rooms, gymnasia and we 
 learned that there are eight similar buildings in 
 Chicago. The superintendent of this particular 
 building told us that the working of Prohibition 
 was proving an immense boon to the young life of 
 the city. 
 
 " It takes away a great temptation," he said, 
 " and the result is that they have more money for 
 books and classes ! " 
 
 He was quite enthusiastic about it. 
 
 We lunched at one of those wonderful food shops 
 which are christened with the beautiful name of 
 " Child s." They are everywhere, full of a profu 
 sion of cheap, good food, an immense boon to the 
 workers of this great city. We fell into conversation 
 with a lady civil servant in the municipal service 
 who was lunching there. She gave us a curious 
 account of the mingled enterprise and graft of the 
 Chicago civic functions. These two sides of life 
 graft and enterprise seem to be strangely 
 intertwined in the public life of America. It 
 seems due to that perpetual change of public servants 
 which still goes on under the system of " spoils 
 to the victors." I am disappointed to find that 
 
NEW YORK CITY TO-DAY 53 
 
 Civil Service Reform has made so little progress in 
 America. 
 
 Then we wandered about the town for a while 
 and realised the tremendous contrast between 
 Chicago and New York. In New York the traffic 
 goes like clockwork. There is not a better regulated 
 city in the world. But in Chicago it seems all 
 confusion. In this part of the city one obtains a 
 fearful impression of chaos and disorder in the noisy, 
 tumultuous vortices of traffic between high buildings 
 which tend to shut out light and air. This old 
 part of Chicago is like a city of Ratcliffe Highways, 
 though Chicago s noble parks go far to redeem the 
 city as a whole. 
 
 During the last twenty-four hours I have been 
 visited by the Editor of the Chicago Daily News, 
 and I have paid a call on the Editor of the Chicago 
 Tribune. I have also bought and read the Hearst 
 papers, and a strange paper called the Chicago 
 Republican, representing the views of Mayor Thomp 
 son, who now rules Chicago. These Chicago papers 
 reflect a political atmosphere quite different from 
 that of New York. They are more remote from 
 Europe, and it now seems to be their vogue to 
 avoid with all possible care any expression of 
 friendliness towards Europe and especially towards 
 Great Britain. The view of the Chicago Republican 
 is that America made her greatest mistake when 
 she came into the war. The view of all these 
 Chicago papers seems to be that Europe is an effete, 
 
54 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 corrupt continent, containing little of interest to so 
 progressive a community as Chicago. 
 
 The American newspapers, of course, are grouped 
 in zones, and the Chicago zone is very different 
 from the New York zone. There is no national 
 Press in the United States at all corresponding 
 to our London Press. The country is too vast. 
 But unhappily, the nearest thing to a national 
 Press is the Hearst Press, which runs right across 
 America and publishes a newspaper in almost every 
 great city with syndicated articles. Thus the Hearst 
 Press is almost the only approach to a national Press. 
 
 Perhaps the most ominous thing between Great 
 Britain and the United States is the virulent and 
 sustained hostility to Great Britain of the whole of 
 
 this gigantic Hearst combine. 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 This evening, however, we have obtained a better 
 impression of this vast community of nearly three 
 million human beings. I was fixed to speak at 
 the North-Western University, twelve miles out 
 from Chicago. The train took us through the 
 suburbs out to Evanston a pleasant township of 
 broad roads and handsome, spacious, detached 
 villas. There I dined with a distinguished company 
 of politicians, professors and journalists, and after 
 dinner I lectured in the University Theatre on the 
 Pilgrim Fathers, illustrated by Newton s slides. 
 
 At the end of the lecture the audience remained 
 seated. I was rather surprised at this, and not 
 
NEW YORK CITY TO-DAY 55 
 
 altogether pleased, as I had done my work and 
 imagined that I deserved some rest. But the chair 
 man then rose and explained to me that though 
 they were very pleased to hear about the Pilgrim 
 Fathers they were not content to let me go at that. 
 Having before them a visitor from Europe they 
 wanted to hear something about that troubled 
 continent, of which the papers now told them far 
 too little. They also wanted to hear about Ireland. 
 In fact, they wanted something " real and actual." 
 
 I told them that I had made a vow on board 
 ship that I would not talk politics in America. 
 But they only laughed, and as it seemed clear 
 that they had no intention of leaving until they 
 were gratified, I had to make them another speech, 
 this time on the events of the day. It seemed 
 rather perilous, as I did not pretend to admire the 
 present foreign policy of the United States. Nor 
 in regard to Ireland did I affect to believe that 
 the American attitude is altogether helpful. I 
 suggested that Ireland, being a common trouble to 
 both nations, might, in the end, bring us together. 
 That seemed such an original and surprising idea 
 that it filled them with enthusiasm. For the 
 Americans love a new idea, almost as much as we 
 dislike one. 
 
 The upshot was that we all parted good friends. 
 We got back to Chicago very late to-night, but on 
 the whole thoroughly pleased and satisfied with 
 our first adventure into American politics. 
 
Ill 
 
 IN THE MID-WEST 
 
 FROM CHICAGO THROUGH ILLINOIS 
 
 SPRINGFIELD, Nov. 17. 
 
 WE started from Chicago early this morning, and 
 travelling in a pleasant Pullman car we have 
 traversed throughout the day the great plains of 
 the Mid-West. We journeyed south-west across 
 the great State of Illinois, one of the most famous 
 vStates of the earlier American Union. It is the 
 country of Abraham Lincoln, and there seems 
 always a touch of that great man s spirit in the 
 little western towns through which we have passed. 
 From the train we get glimpses of the little two- 
 storied houses with large porches and verandahs, 
 standing in their own grounds, rather shabby and 
 badly painted, a little ramshackle like " Uncle 
 Abe " himself, but always with the same sense 
 of space and freedom that marked his character. 
 Though the houses are small, the roads are wide 
 and bordered with trees. The houses stand well 
 back from the thoroughfares, with no railings or 
 fences, and always with a certain genial openness 
 about the appearance of even the smallest home 
 stead a hospitable accessibility, like that of 
 Abraham himself. 
 
 56 
 
FROM CHICAGO THROUGH ILLINOIS 57 
 
 In the train we found ourselves travelling with 
 that distinguished French soldier, General Nivelle, 
 one of the heroes of Verdun. He has been selected 
 by the French Government as the French repre 
 sentative at the Pilgrim Fathers celebrations, 
 and it was ordained at New York that he and I 
 should visit Springfield together. 
 
 We arrived at Springfield in the dark. The 
 railway station was full of friendly faces and 
 welcoming hands. Committees pounced upon us 
 from the gloom and carried us, bag and baggage, 
 to waiting motor-cars. We rolled smoothly through 
 broad thoroughfares to the Leland Hotel. The 
 lounge of the hotel was full of eager crowds, for 
 many things are happening in this city. A Con 
 vention another Convention ! is sitting here in 
 the capital of Illinois to revise the Constitution 
 of the State, and the town is full of important 
 delegates and lawyers. The revising of the State 
 Constitution is a rare and vital event in an American 
 State, and all these men are full of a high exhilara 
 tion and excitement. I noticed again in the 
 lobby of this hotel that few of them sat down, 
 but persisted in standing quite as remorselessly 
 as members of the British Stock Exchange. 
 
 I have talked to many of the members of this 
 Convention Committee, including several Ministers 
 of the State. I am deeply interested to find that this 
 Convention recognises as the basis of its new 
 Constitution all the great documents of English 
 
58 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 freedom Magna Charta, The Petition of Right, 
 The Bill of Rights. Nothing is admitted to their 
 Constitution which is inconsistent with any of 
 these great British standards. The walls of America 
 are built on British foundations, and it is really 
 useless for people to say that British traditions 
 count no more than any other foreign traditions 
 in the making of America. 
 
 For in discussing their new Constitution with these 
 men, I realise instantly that they are bound by 
 the laws of British freedom almost as closely as 
 we are ourselves. They inherit the achievement 
 of British ancestors : they build on the deeds of 
 British heroes. All the time they hark back to 
 British origin and think in terms of British faith. 
 Certainly the best Americans can never forget this 
 aspect of their lives. 
 
 But while talking to these distinguished men we 
 have been witnesses of a pretty spectacle which 
 presented the lighter and gayer aspect of American 
 life. A fashionable wedding took place in the 
 hotel this evening for American weddings always 
 take place in the evening. A great party assembled, 
 including all the rank and fashion of the town and 
 all the beauty of Springfield womanhood. Two 
 things have impressed us. One is the grace and 
 charm of the women ; and the other is the elegance 
 of their dress. The women in this Mid-West 
 capital are as finely dressed as any women in 
 Europe. Thanks to their great wealth, they can 
 
FROM CHICAGO THROUGH ILLINOIS 59 
 
 indulge in this taste freely, and certainly there is 
 no sign of excessive thrift in this matter of dressing. 
 American women are fond of wearing their jewels, 
 and it appears to be a pleasanter habit than that 
 of keeping them in boxes at home. It is surely 
 an amiable thing to share the glitter and delight 
 of your possessions with the world at large ! 
 
 November 18. 
 
 Springfield is indeed the city of Abraham Lincoln. 
 He dominates the place, even in memory. For 
 this is where he lived during that important period 
 of his life between the early Mid-West backwoods 
 experiences and the later grandeur of his Presidency. 
 At Springfield he was something " betwixt and 
 between " not yet the great man of America, 
 but already emerged from the obscurity of his 
 early days. He had become a lawyer and given 
 up the vague, shiftless life of the Mid- West pioneer 
 store-keeper which he had led for so many years. 
 In 1834 he had been elected a member of the Illinois 
 House of Representatives, and in that house he 
 served until 1842. He was elected to Congress 
 in 1846, chosen by the Republicans for the Pre 
 sidency in 1860, and elected on November 4 of that 
 year. During all those years from 1834 to 1860 
 he lived in Springfield, residing in the little house 
 which has since been bought and furnished by the 
 State, and is now kept sacred to his memory. 
 After his tragic death at Washington his body was 
 
60 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 brought to Springfield and buried in the cemetery 
 here. A great monument has been erected over 
 his tomb, and a statue of Abraham Lincoln stands 
 in front of the monument. Another statue is 
 placed in front of the State Capitol, the great 
 white-domed building which here in Springfield, 
 as in all other State capitals of America, represents 
 the majesty of State power. 
 
 During the morning we have been taken in a 
 motor-car loaned to us, with the usual American 
 hospitality, to visit all these great memorials of 
 Abraham Lincoln s life and death. We have 
 journeyed in this way round this beautiful spacious 
 town, now beflagged in our honour with French 
 and British bunting. We have accompanied 
 General Nivelle to the cemetery and laid wreaths 
 in front of the tomb. 
 
 American cemeteries are certainly a great advance 
 on European. In Europe after we die we are laid 
 to rest in great melancholy, flat, walled spaces, 
 deprived of the companionship of trees and streams, 
 and unpleasantly crowded even in death. England 
 is such a congested country that of late years we 
 have been obliged in the great city areas to keep 
 moving our ancestors bodies from one melancholy 
 site to another, the living always pushing the dead 
 further away from their company. In England 
 the tomb itself gives no rest. But America, being 
 more spacious, has more room for its dead ; and 
 consequently there is not the same movement 
 
FROM CHICAGO THROUGH ILLINOIS 61 
 
 towards cremation that has gone so fast in England 
 during the last twenty years. At home we are 
 now obliged to burn our dead because they take 
 the space of the living and after all the living 
 have the first claim. In America there is still 
 room enough both for the living and the dead ; 
 and so on the outskirts of their towns you come 
 across these beautiful undulating, wooded spaces, 
 of which Springfield cemetery is only typical. In 
 these fields of sepulture these "Sleepy Hollows" 
 as they beautifully call them they do not cut 
 down the trees, they do not dam the streams, 
 they do not crowd the tombs. They put man 
 to rest beneath the shade of the weeping willow 
 or the beech tree, giving him softly back to 
 Nature ; they do not attempt to reproduce in 
 the cemetery the crowded conditions of life. 
 The result is soothing and beautiful; death itself 
 is robbed of some of its bitterness. 
 
 In the midst of such a cemetery stands the tomb 
 of Abraham Lincoln, a mighty structure with that 
 tall, sombre, melancholy figure of the grim President 
 guarding the portal, and round him at each corner 
 of the tomb four sculptured groups, episodes in 
 the Civil War, made from the cannon captured 
 from the South. Within this colossal tomb is a 
 chamber tended by a custodian a keen and 
 devoted man, who can remember Abraham Lincoln 
 and can tell you stories from his life. He is a man 
 of the same age as Lincoln s only surviving son. 
 
62 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 It was pleasant to be taken round by such a mentor, 
 who could show us with intelligence the collection 
 of interesting relics hoarded in that chamber 
 memorials of every kind, trivial and important. 
 Pictures, engravings, photographs, letters, and 
 poems the play bill of the actual drama " An 
 English Cousin " which was being performed in 
 the theatre at Washington when he was assassinated. 
 Here are cuttings from contemporary newspapers 
 bringing back to you the immense tragedy of that 
 human eclipse the blow to the North, the appalling 
 shock to the whole American people, just emerged 
 from the bitterness of war. Perhaps the most 
 vivid memento of this event is a small piece of the 
 brocade dress worn by Laura Keene, the actress, 
 and actually stained by Lincoln s blood, which 
 dropped on to the dress when she knelt down and 
 took Lincoln s head on to her lap after he had 
 been shot. "Now he belongs to the ages." So it 
 is that, looking back past the years that intervene, 
 we see that life and that death fall into their proper 
 perspective, and feel that the martyr s end some 
 how or other suited the hero s life. Perhaps after 
 all, as Tacitus said of Agricola, he was happy in 
 the opportunity of his death. " Tu vero felix, 
 Agricola, non vitae tantum claritate sed etiam 
 opportunitate mortis." 
 
 From the tomb we passed to the house, for our 
 time was short. The Lincoln home is in Eighth 
 Street, four blocks from the Courthouse. It is 
 
FROM CHICAGO THROUGH ILLINOIS 63 
 
 open to the public at certain times, and we were 
 most graciously received by the charming lady 
 who now owns it. She is the grand-daughter of 
 the sister of Mrs. Lincoln, and she showed us 
 through the rooms with a loving enthusiasm for 
 the man who had lived there. Like the chamber 
 at the tomb, those rooms are full of mementoes. 
 But the simple furniture best bespeaks the life. 
 One gains the impression of a smooth, middle-class 
 existence, intensely domestic : the life of a man who 
 had passed right beyond his pioneering stage, and 
 had settled down to tranquil ways. One wonders 
 how that gawky, long, lank man was contained in 
 those little rooms. I caught a fancy that he was 
 probably more often to be found on the open 
 verandah outside the house, perhaps sitting there 
 in a long chair on the summer evenings with his 
 feet on the railings, pouring out his unending stream 
 of stories to the mixed crowd which probably sur 
 rounded him there, as all through his life. 
 
 The neighbourhood of the house is full of tales 
 about Abraham Lincoln, many of them bizarre 
 and grotesque. But the one I like best is that 
 which tells how Abraham Lincoln, going down the 
 street outside to an important engagement at the 
 Capitol, passed a little girl who was carrying a very 
 heavy basket. He stopped and insisted on taking 
 the basket from the little girl and carrying it himself 
 all through Springfield. That was characteristic 
 of the man, his indifference to external dignity, 
 
64 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 his unbounded compassion for the weak, his 
 readiness to bear the burdens of others, his essential 
 and fundamental goodness of heart. 
 
 From the house we passed to the Capitol, and 
 there we paused to look at Lincoln s second statue. 
 It is a representation of a younger Abraham, 
 probably during the period of his State political 
 life, and alongside of it stands the statue of his 
 great friend and rival Stephen Douglas a stout, 
 thick-set little man, rather recalling Charles Fox. 
 The interesting fact about this second statue of 
 Lincoln is that it represents him without the goatee 
 beard conspicuous in the statue presented to London 
 by the United States, and now generally associated 
 with his features. Shorn of that ugly appendage, 
 the face is far more interesting. The close-lipped 
 mouth and the square jaw reveals the secret of 
 his strength and determination, hidden from the 
 world afterwards by the straggling beard. 
 
 The story of why he took to growing this beard 
 is interesting and characteristic. In the chamber 
 within the tomb there is a letter from a little girl 
 commenting on his photograph, and telling him 
 that he would look a handsomer man if he grew a 
 beard. It is the solemn fact that Abraham Lincoln 
 brooded over this letter and finally decided to 
 obey this child. It is also the solemn fact that 
 afterwards, having grown the beard, he sought out 
 the child on one of his journeys to Washington and 
 shook her by the hand, thanking her for her advice. 
 
FROM CHICAGO THROUGH ILLINOIS 65 
 
 It is one of those strange, half-foolish stories 
 about Lincoln which make you wonder whether 
 there is not a touch of folly about all great men. 
 At any rate, there seems always a touch of kinship 
 between them and children. 
 
 We now hastened back to the hotel, where we 
 were to be entertained at lunch by the Springfield 
 Luncheon Club. It was a great and enthusiastic 
 gathering, and certainly Springfield did her best to 
 show both England and France what she could do 
 in the way of welcome and hospitality. When I 
 ventured to ask that gathering whether they would, 
 in the end, after they had finished with their politics, 
 come back to the assistance of afflicted Europe, 
 they replied with one unanimous shout " Yes ! 
 We will ! " Whether that shout was merely the 
 exhilaration of the moment, or whether it repre 
 sented the deeper mind of America time alone will 
 show. 
 
 We have spent the afternoon motoring round the 
 suburbs, and paying a series of visits to the homes 
 of hospitable Americans, who have overwhelmed 
 us with invitations. I will not trespass upon their 
 privacy except to note the beauty of their houses. 
 We visited ex-Senator Hays, who possesses one of 
 the finest private libraries that I have yet seen in 
 an American home. Then we visited the villa of 
 a rich business man which seemed the last word in 
 artistic luxury. Every bedroom, including also 
 the servants , has a bath room with a shower bath, 
 s 
 
66 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 The guest s room is the best of all, a happy touch 
 in home-making. It has a marble bath worthy of 
 a Roman Emperor. There are sleeping porches 
 and verandahs all round the house for use in the 
 hot weather. The study of the master of the house 
 is in the basement, and is surrounded with pictures 
 of the American Revolution, showing that no luxury 
 abates the patriotism of the true American. We 
 ended by glimpsing into a house where the hostess 
 was entertaining a bevy of American girls. For in 
 Springfield, as in most other American towns, 
 the women are quite happy with their own company. 
 A prettier set of girls one could not wish to see : 
 their tea frocks exquisite, with short sleeves, but 
 otherwise covering the body in a way that puts 
 the present nudity of Europe to some shame. One 
 more point they were really drinking tea, and 
 not smoking cigarettes ! 
 
 There is no rest for the wicked. This evening 
 General Nivelle and I had to address a great popular 
 audience of 4,000 people in the great Springfield 
 Arsenal. General Nivelle spoke on France, and I 
 tried them with the lantern -lecture on the Pilgrim 
 Fathers. The Arsenal was decorated throughout 
 with French and British flags. The band played 
 and all sang four great patriotic hymns " The 
 Star Spangled Banner," " America," " God Save 
 the King," and the " Marseillaise." 
 
 We spoke with a background of Tricolours and 
 Union Jacks : and there seemed no evidence that 
 
FROM CHICAGO THROUGH ILLINOIS 67 
 
 America is afraid to display British flags. I would 
 commend that fact to those people in Europe who 
 are hysterically declaring that the British flag 
 cannot be shown in America without a riot. 
 
 Looking round that great building, now empty 
 of arms, there came back to mind the mighty poem 
 of peace that Longfellow wrote at the suggestion of 
 his wife " The Arsenal at Springfield." It is still 
 worth remembering at the present moment in the 
 world s history. Here are two stanzas : 
 
 Were half the power that fills the world with terror, 
 
 Were half the wealth bestowed on camps and courts, 
 Given to redeem the human mind from error, 
 There were no need of arsenals nor forts. 
 
 ***** 
 Down the dark future, through long generations, 
 
 The echoing sounds grow fainter, and then cease ; 
 And like a bell, with solemn, sweet vibrations, 
 
 I hear once more the voice of Christ say, Peace ! " 
 
IV 
 PROHIBITION 
 
 DOES IT WORK ? WILL IT LAST ? 
 
 SPRINGFIELD, Nov. 18. 
 
 IN this letter, while we pause at Springfield from 
 our lightning journeys, I propose to take a glance 
 at one of the great features of American life to 
 day a feature that has faced us, with icy glance, 
 in every city and railway station since we landed 
 at New York. 
 
 It is Prohibition. 
 
 Prohibition came into force throughout the 
 United States on January 16 last (1920). The 
 Amendment to the Constitution was declared valid 
 by the Supreme Court on June 7. Thus it has been 
 in full force for five months. 
 
 The saloons are all closed, and the sale of alcohol 
 is absolutely forbidden. A great Federal staff is 
 employed in enforcing the law. You can drink 
 what you possess, or drink on a doctor s certificate 
 those are at present the only two loopholes in the 
 law of absolute abstinence adopted by the whole 
 American people in a majority of three-fourths of 
 the States. 
 
 68 
 
PROHIBITION 69 
 
 Thus Prohibition to-day is the greatest fact on 
 this side of the Atlantic. The League of Nations 
 seems very far off. But Prohibition is here all the 
 time. It is present before us at every meal, as a 
 vast, daring, imperative, challenging social experi 
 ment. It is also a huge essay in the power of 
 a Government. I am not sure that it does not 
 come next to Russian Communism on this planet 
 at present as a matter of vital human interest. 
 
 For whatever its enemies may say and they 
 are legion Prohibition has not failed at any rate, 
 not yet. It holds its head high ; its grip on the 
 United States is strong and firm ; you feel every 
 where the silent pressure of its power. I have now 
 spent nearly a week in the hotels of New York, 
 Niagara, and Chicago, and I am quite certain of 
 one thing. You cannot get a drink to-day in the 
 public resorts of America the hotels, the restaurants 
 the confectioners, and so forth unless you either 
 " know the ropes " very well, or are willing to 
 risk a stay in an American gaol. No doubt the 
 law is broken by persons who have that 
 knowledge or are accustomed to that sinister risk, 
 but not by the ordinary, honest, wayfaring man. 
 
 The first blast of Prohibition comes to you on 
 board ship. A day or two before you reach New 
 York an imperious notice is posted up on every 
 ship, foreign or American, informing you that you 
 must make a statement that you are bringing no 
 liquor in your baggage when you enter New 
 
70 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 York. The gay "sparks" on board celebrate the 
 approach to a " dry " land by an inordinate 
 consumption of wine and liqueurs. It is the last 
 spurt of revolt. Then when you land and settle 
 down in your hotel, and move about the streets 
 with the curiosity of a traveller, you soon realise 
 the mighty change that has come to this land. 
 
 New York was famous for its saloons and bars. 
 Last time I visited New York the saloons dominated 
 social and political life. Now they have all dis 
 appeared, leaving " not a wrack behind." They 
 are " lost in the foray." The breweries and dis 
 tilleries are all closed. The buildings have been 
 turned into factories. The saloons have been 
 converted into ice-cream bars, where you can 
 obtain any temperance drink on earth mixed with 
 ice-cream but no alcohol. 
 
 King Bacchus has been dethroned, and King 
 Ice has taken his place. Iced water, iced ginger 
 beer, iced ginger ale, iced coffee, iced fruit cocktail 
 all these you may have. But in public you may not, 
 for your life and liberty, be seen drinking anything 
 that appertains to spirits, wine, or beer. A whole 
 nation a nation of over 100 millions would seem, 
 if you judged by public appearances only, to have 
 gone teetotal in a few months. From that point 
 of view alone the world has rarely witnessed a more 
 amazing fact. For the great cities of America 
 New York and Chicago in especial were by no 
 means models of sobriety. The saloons played at 
 
PROHIBITION 71 
 
 least as great a part in the national and city life 
 as the " pubs " of London or Manchester. 
 
 We walked one night, after a " dry " dinner at 
 a New York club, down Broadway. The whole 
 world was out to witness that marvellous scheme of 
 Broadway illumination by sky-sign, which is now 
 one of the seven Wonders of the World. The 
 street was a blaze of liquid, moving, flowing, dancing 
 rainbow lights, here rising in fountains of fire, 
 there writ by a moving finger across the black 
 firmament in shifting letters of coloured fire. Above 
 and around us shone in that light all the pomp 
 and wealth of a great city scarcely touched by the 
 maladies and sorrows of Europe. Along with us 
 there moved slowly vast, packed crowds, of every 
 language and nationality. For the first time for 
 five years we were witnessing great masses of 
 humanity at least as prosperous as in the Europe 
 of 1914, and still marked, as our great cities were 
 then, by that great, proud plurality of young man 
 hood which is now a thing of the past in Europe. 
 Amid all those great throngs you could not per 
 ceive a single man or woman in any degree 
 affected by alcohol. I do not say " drunken," 
 for, after all, there are few drunken men or women 
 to be seen now in the open streets of London or 
 Paris. The new fact is the entire absence of that 
 spirit of exhilaration, exaltation, excitement call 
 it what you will, think of it as you will, good or 
 bad, I pass no judgment which you witness among 
 
72 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 the crowds emerging from our restaurants and 
 public-houses. This new sobriety of great crowds 
 of human beings is a strange, new social fact. 
 We felt it not merely in the streets those well- 
 ordered streets of over-crowded New York but 
 also at that vast Capitol Picture Theatre, where 
 we sat afterwards through a very long performance. 
 We felt it walking home afterwards, through the 
 homing street throngs. We felt it especially 
 when near to midnight, we our whole party, ladies 
 and all dropped in to a " bar " and partook sedately 
 of a cooling fruit drink. It really seemed as if 
 drinking the satisfaction of thirst were at last 
 to become respectable. Why not ? 
 
 So much for the outside of the platter the 
 public aspect of Prohibition. What of the inside ? 
 How far is it true as so many will hasten to inform 
 you that drinking has been only driven back 
 beneath the surface, to become more loathsome 
 because of its secrecy ? How far is the compulsory 
 nature of this great change undermining liberty 
 and honesty in this great country ? Take the 
 admitted facts. No attempt has been made to 
 seize or confiscate the privately-owned stocks of 
 alcoholic drinks. There are many stories of rich 
 men who, foreseeing that the Prohibition Law 
 was on the way, bought in great stocks of whisky 
 and wine some say enough to last for several 
 generations and are now inviting favoured guests 
 to drink them. There are stories of men who have 
 
PROHIBITION 73 
 
 very conspicuously retired into private life, and are 
 now rarely to be seen in clubs, where no drink can 
 be obtained. You hear of a new passion for 
 domesticity ! Respect for private property is the 
 bedrock of American politics and social life : so 
 neither the Federal nor the State Governments 
 would yet propose to seize these private stocks. 
 So the contest goes on from day to day a scandal 
 to those who believe in equal treatment, a store 
 of fuel for the merriment of mocking foreigners, a 
 constant supply of ammunition to the Reds and 
 revolutionaries. 
 
 On the other hand, it must be remembered that 
 it is not merely the rich who have an underground 
 access to drink. The gang that rules New York, 
 and whose amazing doings are now being daily 
 unfolded to the American public, are alleged to be 
 not behind in slaking the thirst of their true friends. 
 Tammany is said to be still true to its own. Then 
 there are the foreign ships. What more easy than 
 to slip down to some part of the extensive docks 
 and wharves of New York and pay a sympathetic 
 visit to a friend from a far country ? Then there 
 is the great new industry of home brewing and home 
 distilling. In a newspaper at Buffalo I saw a clever 
 cartoon of a business man glued to his telephone 
 while crowds of clients waited outside. The message 
 he was conveying through the telephone was this : 
 " Say ! How do you make that grape-juice ? " 
 For the ingenious American mind has already 
 
74 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 discovered that the fermentation of grape- juice 
 into wine can be a home industry. Happy homes 
 are now reported to be wine-vats. Fireplaces are 
 said to be becoming popular in America for the 
 first time, because it is found that the domestic 
 hearth is a good wine-maker ! 
 
 Such is the current humour. How far does it 
 go ? Well, my readers can tell for themselves. 
 There are many parts of England and Wales where 
 wines elder wines, gooseberry wines, and so forth 
 are still fermented at home. But it is an innocent 
 industry enough. It cannot go very far to slake 
 the thirst of a great and parched nation. You can 
 make a home-brew of beer which is, at any rate, 
 cheaper than that which used to be sold in the 
 saloons. The stores sell you little packages of 
 hops and malt. But the barber at Chicago who 
 told me this also sighed for English beer and stout, 
 and particularly asked me how it was tasting now 
 in England. Another an Italian bootblack down 
 in the basement of a New York hotel assured me 
 that he intended to go back to the land of wine 
 and liberty as soon as he could get away which 
 did not seem likely to be very soon. An old negro 
 at Niagara mourned over his lost glass of beer. 
 " I liked to take a little at a time not too much ! " 
 For these are the people to talk to not the 
 Government servants and the men at the top, 
 or the philanthropists. It is only in the barber s 
 shop and the boot-blacking saloon that in 
 
PROHIBITION 75 
 
 America you can find out what the masses are 
 thinking. 
 
 Propaganda has now been carried so far as to 
 delude its own operators. You find all the organ 
 isers at the centre blinded with masses of figures 
 and statistics, while " the man in the street " goes 
 on his way thirsty and resentful. 
 
 The great danger, then, of the present law of 
 prohibition appears to me to be that it may lead to 
 a new hypocrisy in this great country. An English 
 whisky merchant told me the other day in London 
 that his trade with the United States had actually 
 increased since prohibition. The only difference 
 was that all the cases had to be marked " For 
 medical consumption only." Yet it is hypocrisy 
 to drink by way of your doctor, and it would be 
 a great pity if that odious quality were to spread in 
 this great free-speaking country. For there is no 
 country less naturally liable to hypocrisy than 
 this land of America no people more open, more 
 direct in their aims, more frank in their address. 
 Even the pursuit of the dollar, which is still carried 
 on with a frenzy which seems madness to the 
 slower European, is open and above-board. It is 
 taken for granted in America that you are after 
 advancing yourself in the world. " On the make " 
 is not a phrase with any tang of reproach, as it is 
 on this side of the water. Why not ? He is a poor 
 creature, so the American argues, who wishes to 
 remain where he stands. That is not the way that 
 
76 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 the United States have been fashioned. Their 
 greatest perplexity about the European their 
 greatest cause for suspecting him, and despising 
 him is that he seems to be, for the most part, a 
 man who does not want to get on. 
 
 But now, in this drink question, has America 
 become a country of hypocrites ? If one judged 
 wholly from what the opponents of Prohibition say, 
 both in Europe and in America, one would have 
 to agree that it has. But I believe that opinion 
 to be exaggerated. Of course, there is a large 
 minority opinion in America against Prohibition. 
 The very facts of the vote showed that. There 
 was the minority of States entirely opposed. There 
 was, in the States that voted for it, the minority 
 vote, often pretty strong, although always under a 
 fourth. You bump constantly up against this 
 minority opinion, especially at Chicago. But if 
 you remember this minority of one-fourth, it is 
 only fair to remember also the great fact of the 
 three-fourths majority in the States and Congress. 
 
 A Federal referendum would probably have been 
 a better way of solving this question. It would 
 have removed the bitter discontent of the minority 
 the sense that they have been scored off by the 
 politicians. But we must always remember in 
 England if we wish to discuss this Prohibition 
 question intelligently that it was no ukase of 
 President Wilson, who was even supposed to be 
 opposed to Prohibition, but the slow result of a 
 
PROHIBITION 77 
 
 prolonged agitation, which had been going on for 
 some thirty years. Lord Bryce refers to it as a 
 formidable movement in his great book, which was 
 published over thirty years ago. 
 
 Nor has it been imposed on the whole country 
 without many trial runs. Prohibition has been 
 the civic law in many American cities for nearly 
 a generation. Detroit, where most working-men 
 now own their own motor-cars, went " dry " in the 
 nineties. From the city it spread to the county, 
 and many counties in America were " dry " long 
 before a single State. Then came the State laws ; 
 and many States were " dry " before the United 
 States as a whole. Then, finally, came the Federal 
 Amendment to the American Constitution, which 
 had to be carried by a three-fourths majority, 
 both in Congress and in the States. 
 
 In the vast majority of the forty-eight American 
 States, therefore, Prohibition had been carried 
 by an immense preponderance of public opinion 
 before the war. That was the first step. Then, 
 after carefully watching the results and comparing 
 with that shrewd, critical eye of theirs the social 
 and industrial results in the " dry " and " wet " 
 States, a great mass of the American public gradu 
 ally shifted over to the theory of " dryness " ; 
 and when America is converted to a theory it leaps 
 forward to the practice of it with the most amazing 
 swiftness of spring. 
 
 But it was not merely the desire for personal 
 
78 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 temperance that converted American opinion. 
 There were other things. One was the passion to 
 purify their city politics, which have lagged so 
 terribly behind their Federal politics. There the 
 saloon was insolently, tyrannically in power. Now 
 its power has gone wholly and irretrievably. The 
 pure forces have for the first time a fair chance. 
 The second was the fact of the negro population 
 now some twelve millions. Everyone in America 
 shrinks with horror from the idea of a drunken 
 negro ; and as a matter of fact the negroes are, and 
 have been, a singularly temperate and steady part of 
 the population. But White America of the Southern 
 States gradually drifted as will also South Africa 
 in the long run to this dilemma either to become 
 " dry " themselves or to let the blacks become 
 increasingly " wet." After the Southern States 
 had fully faced that question the public swung more 
 steadily over. The most notable fact was that 
 the Southern States, though " Democratic " in 
 party politics, went almost wholly Prohibitionist. 
 Then there was the war. That played a great part. 
 The War Time Prohibition Law had so great an 
 effect on the nation that it converted many. There 
 was the immense increase of efficiency, which 
 impressed the doctors and the business men. 
 Then there was the fact so unfortunate for the 
 " wet " interest that most of the brewers and 
 distillers were Germans, or at any rate foreigners 
 of some sort. " Speak United States here, or 
 
PROHIBITION 79 
 
 quit ! " was written over many saloons, and led 
 to their closing. 
 
 Lastly, there was the woman s vote in the States. 
 The American woman has always been an enemy 
 of the drink interest. She was always determined to 
 use her vote against it if ever she should obtain the 
 vote. When she achieved political power the very 
 first thing she did was to put the " Dry " oyster- 
 shell into the urn. That is not because she is a 
 fanatic. It is because the saloon in America set 
 before itself the aim of defeating the woman, and 
 the woman decided to beat the saloon. In that 
 country, far more than in ours, the drink interest 
 got into a close conflict with the suffragist party, 
 and so it was the first fruit of victory that they should 
 strike a blow at the drink interest. There is nothing 
 quite corresponding to that in British life, and there 
 is as yet no absolutely clear sign that the woman s 
 
 vote in Great Britain is a temperance vote. 
 * * * * * 
 
 Thus, so far as any parallel can be established 
 between American and British experience, the 
 American precedent makes very strongly for a 
 start with the application of civic, county and 
 provincial control to the liquor traffic. Mr. Lloyd 
 George has argued strongly of late in favour of 
 applying the federal method to the drink question. 
 He is in favour of a separate " self-determination " 
 of liquor control in the four provinces of the United 
 Kingdom. That is how the United States began. 
 
8o A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 Each State at first had its own liquor laws. It 
 was then up to the " dry " States to convince the 
 " wet/ which they gradually did. We have made 
 a beginning with the Liquor Veto Act in Scotland ; 
 and the vote of this November, indecisive as it has 
 proved, may yet be the first opening of a new era. 
 The parallel would be complete if, after Scotland 
 and Wales had successfully tried a new experi 
 ment, the whole United Kingdom agreed on one 
 common law of whatever kind that might be. 
 
 Meanwhile the Prohibitionists in America are 
 claiming great results in the reduction of crime 
 and the increase of efficiency in the schools and 
 factories. This argument seems to make Labour 
 suspicious, and perhaps explains why Gompers 
 is opposed to Prohibition. But the trade unions in 
 America carry little weight in these matters. The 
 United States, of all countries, is ruled by public 
 opinion as expressed in the ballot-box. Public 
 opinion has spoken in this matter by the strongest 
 measure known to the American Constitution the 
 amendment of that Constitution itself. For that 
 reason the decision is accepted for the moment as 
 final. The threats of overt action on the part of 
 the minority have all died down. " No Drink, no 
 Coal ! " is no longer heard. The grumbling in 
 private goes on. But the issue played little part 
 at the Presidential election, and that for the simple 
 reason that it is no longer considered an open 
 issue. 
 
PROHIBITION 81 
 
 It is an axiom of American politics that next to 
 the actual process of passing an amendment to the 
 American Constitution the most difficult thing an 
 almost impossible thing is to repeal an amend 
 ment. There is no precedent for such a repeal. 
 The most hostile opinion is now therefore, for the 
 present, resigned to the continuance of the law. 
 " It will last our time " is what they say with a 
 deep sigh. 
 
 Amazing as it may seem to British opinion, there 
 is no doubt that that appears to be the probable 
 outcome. The law is practically glued to the 
 Statute Book. Of course, if it becomes sufficiently 
 unpopular, it will be ignored. But it will not be 
 repealed. 
 
V 
 SPRINGFIELD TO BLOOMINGTON 
 
 ROUND THE MID-WEST 
 
 BLOOMINGTON, Nov. 19. 
 
 WE rose this morning at 5 a.m. in the Leland House 
 Hotel at Springfield. In the dim dark we finished 
 that precarious process of packing which " vexes 
 public men " on travel intent. 
 
 We had been promised a five o clock breakfast. 
 But one of the weak spots in these admirable 
 American hotels is the supply of early food. The 
 instructions seem to get handed on from one head 
 of department to another and it is marvellous 
 how many heads of departments there are in the 
 smallest of these Mid- West hotels. The only real 
 " servants " appear to be the negroes. Every white 
 man or woman becomes a " manager " of sorts : 
 and managers don t like early rising. Division of 
 labour leads to efficiency up to a point, but beyond 
 that point it becomes a form of industrial stagnation. 
 
 This morning at Springfield, Illinois, for instance, 
 it shocked up against the earliness of the hour and 
 sank in deep water. 
 
 Compelled at last to make a bolt for our train 
 we had the hungry experience of passing our break- 
 
 82 
 
SPRINGFIELD TO BLOOMINGTON 83 
 
 fast on our descent to the hall we in the lift and 
 the breakfast on the stairs. We climaxed in a 
 game of hide and seek. The breakfast and the 
 negro dodged us. At last, despairing of our quest, 
 we took refuge in the hospitable car of our friend 
 and were whisked breakfastless to the station. 
 
 Then came a glorious relief. For lo ! there 
 stood to hand in the station restaurant a gracious 
 breakfast of fresh fruit apples rosy-red and grape 
 fruit bulging steaming coffee and hot rolls 
 such as one could not dream of in war-worn Europe. 
 Thus refreshed, we quickly forgave and forgot. 
 
 So we started back eastward to this little town of 
 Bloomington in mid-Illinois, where I was booked 
 to address the students of the Wesleyan University 
 at ten o clock. We travelled in an " Observation 
 Car " a car attached to the rear of the train, and 
 provided with " big windows " which gave us 
 an admirable vision of the Mid- West prairies and 
 vast corn fields which used to supply Europe with 
 maize at a time when the exchange permitted it. 
 To-day the country is in its winter dress. The 
 golden maize has been plucked and the fields are 
 a dirty yellow, dotted with bare stalks. But it is 
 all new to us, and we loved every little village that 
 we passed the freedom of the little wooden houses 
 and the pretty thoroughfares. 
 
 At the station we expected the usual committee. 
 But instead we were greeted by an old Oxford 
 friend a contemporary from the eighties who, 
 
84 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 seeing our arrival notified in the Press, had walked 
 down to the station to welcome us. My friend is 
 typical of the American human kaleidoscope. He 
 came to America twenty years ago as a railway 
 manager and remained to become an Episcopalian 
 minister. He is now in charge of the principal 
 church in this little town of Bloomington. Although 
 now a fully equipped American, he remains British 
 in heart and memory. How often throughout 
 this tour we have met this type of British American ! 
 Prosperous and patriotic, true to " The Star Spangled 
 Banner " but still always, with a touch of the exile, 
 eager to see an English face and to hear an English 
 voice ! 
 
 " I just thought I d come and meet someone 
 from the old country," is the way they put it. 
 Or if he is a Yorkshire man then rather wistfully, 
 " And how may they be doing up Bradford way." 
 Or if he be a Lancashire man " Do you happen to 
 have been down Manchester of late ? " Or if he 
 be from Somerset, he grips me with both hands 
 and smiles all over his face when he hears that my 
 native town is Bath. 
 
 It is wonderful how long these memories of the 
 old country survive. It is not only the Irish- 
 Americans who love their old country. 
 * * * * * 
 
 We have been lucky to-day. For these good 
 British-Americans this old Balliol man and his 
 American family have looked after my travel- 
 
SPRINGFIELD TO BLOOMINGTON 85 
 
 weary wife, letting her rest in their house, while I 
 have been lecturing and speaking. 
 
 The sight of the morning was the crowd of eager 
 young faces of the boys and girls at the Wesleyan 
 University a vast hall packed with young men 
 and women allowed to sit as they liked and with 
 whom they liked just left to their own sense of 
 discipline and order. When I looked at these glad 
 and happy faces, and received their joyous welcome, 
 I thought of how differently we order these things 
 at Oxford of the young men and women separated 
 into their flocks and eyeing one another furtively 
 over their books and I wondered which was the 
 better way, the English or the American ! 
 
 They are good listeners, these young Americans. 
 But I think we all enjoyed ourselves best when the 
 lecture was over. Then they told me all about 
 their University, and their happy life there, and 
 they brought out their Kodaks and took photo 
 graphs of me, and made me sign autograph books 
 and do a number of other trivial things, just expres 
 sive of their general pleasure at meeting a visitor 
 from England. At the gates we parted, and I 
 suppose I shall never see again any of that great 
 
 crowd. May they live happy lives ! 
 ***** 
 
 But America leaves one no pause for regret. 
 My guide and guardian immediately switched me 
 off to eat with the inevitable Town Luncheon Club. 
 What I said at that luncheon does not matter, for 
 
86 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 most of the time was occupied by a formidable 
 American orator " spell-binder " is, I believe, 
 the word who was billed to lecture on Abraham 
 Lincoln. It was a gathering of lawyers, well- 
 dressed, prosperous men, and I think I told them 
 that Europe was not quite so prosperous as they 
 were. But my chief recollection of that luncheon 
 is that our speeches were preceded and followed by a 
 band which played jazz music with amazing violence, 
 and comfortably drowned most of our conversation. 
 Listening to this music I was not surprised to hear 
 from my neighbour that many of the melodies were 
 of African origin. A fearful thought then possessed 
 me that possibly the musical tradition of America 
 is destined to be submerged by the aboriginal music 
 of the negro ! 
 
 For it is a curious fact that although America 
 shines in many of the arts especially in painting 
 and sculpture she has, as yet, struck no original 
 line in music except along these semi-barbaric paths. 
 
 Finding it impossible to talk, I spent most of 
 my time watching the keen, mobile, clean-shaven 
 faces of the men sitting around me, and I became 
 conscious of a certain boredom and weariness 
 reflected on their countenances, as if the endurance 
 of these jazz noises were merely accepted as one 
 of the sacrifices of life offered on the altar of con 
 vention. 
 
 Luncheon over and its turmoil abated, we enjoyed 
 a few hours of afternoon rest in the British-American 
 
SPRINGFIELD TO BLOOMINGTON 87 
 
 home of our hosts. We obtained here a vision of 
 that large American class which has procured no 
 increase of wealth during the war, and feel only 
 the incidence of high prices. It is a class that must 
 never be forgotten if we are estimating the com 
 parative well-being of the English-speaking peoples. 
 For it is through the common experiences of that 
 class on both sides of the water that America and 
 Britain have the best chance of being drawn 
 together. 
 
 Here was a household built on an income corre 
 sponding to 400 English sterling with three 
 children ranging from ten to fifteen a small house 
 but no servants. It is a hard life. 
 
 The difference indeed between such a house in 
 America and England is the far ampler supply in 
 America of facilities for cooking, warming and 
 cleaning. Central heating alone saves much work 
 on fires. Shopping is easier and quicker in the 
 wonderful American stores. Holidays are simple 
 and cheap. For such a family in America is freed 
 from the British tribute to the seaside lodging-house 
 keeper. They enjoy an almost free holiday in 
 the vast spaces of this continent. For three months 
 every summer they go camping out on the shores 
 of Lake Michigan, living in tents, fishing, bathing, 
 and renewing their energies in a glorious experience 
 of the simple life. That is one signal advantage 
 to set against the drudgery of the domestic life. 
 
 For an hour or so we have wandered about this 
 
88 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 town, visiting the fine bookshops and other stores, 
 all bespeaking the wonderful wealth and well- 
 being of this Middle- West city. All round you is 
 a sense of national well-being, but perhaps most of 
 all in the multitude of motor-cars which crowd the 
 streets. It is a low estimate to say that one out of 
 three adults in any of these Mid- Western towns 
 possess a motor car. At mid-day you see all the 
 side streets blocked with them. There are practic 
 ally no chauffeurs: nearly everyone drives tjieir 
 own car. 
 
 Our host has been telling us of some glorious 
 examples of the motor-mania which now possesses 
 America. The workmen spend much of their 
 spare cash in purchasing motors, usually on the 
 hire system. A strike crisis recently arose because 
 the workmen engaged on a new building did not 
 consider that sufficient facilities were provided for 
 " parking " their motor cars. Walking around, I 
 expressed a surprise at seeing a number of cars 
 " parked " behind one of the great stores. " You 
 have a rich shopping class here," I ventured to 
 say. My friend laughed. 
 
 " It is not the shopping class," he said. " It s 
 the girls in the stores. That s where they put their 
 cars while they are at work." 
 
 Perhaps not a bad investment ; because, after 
 all, it enables the girls to live out in the fresh air 
 at lower rents instead of being crowded up in 
 expensive lodgings in the centre of the town. But 
 
SPRINGFIELD TO BLOOMINGTON 89 
 
 it all speaks of high wages and a great national 
 reserve of wealth and energy. 
 
 A lady engaging a charwoman recently in one of 
 these American towns, was faced by the charwoman 
 with the following interesting dilemma. 
 
 " Have you room for my car in your garage, or 
 will you fetch me in yours ? " 
 
 Surely a very perplexing question, and likely 
 to add very much to the problems of the modern 
 mistress. 
 
 One last memory of Bloomington. In front of 
 the Capitol there is an Arch of Triumph, on which 
 is recorded all the names of the young Americans 
 from Bloomington who fell in the war. It is a long 
 list, and in thinking of the American war record 
 we must not forget how much these little towns of 
 the Mid-West paid in blood for the saving of the 
 Allies. But what has struck us most is not so 
 much the names, as the little interchange of poetical 
 greeting between the Old World and the New 
 recorded on either side of this triumphal arch. 
 
 On one side is written " Message from Flanders 
 Field," composed, I believe, by a young English 
 man at a bitter crisis of the war, and addressed to 
 America. 
 
 "iMESSAGE FROM FLANDERS FIELD." 
 In Flanders Field 
 The poppies blow 
 Between the crosses 
 Row on row 
 That mark our place. 
 
go A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 And in the sky 
 The larks still bravely 
 Singing fly 
 Scarce heard amid 
 The guns below; 
 We are the dead, 
 Short days ago 
 We lived, felt dawn, 
 Saw sunset glow 
 Loved, and were loved 
 And now we lie 
 In Flanders Field. 
 Take up our quarrel 
 With the foe ! 
 To you from fallen 
 Hands we throw 
 The torch ! Be yours 
 To hold it high ! 
 If ye break faith 
 With us who die 
 We shall not sleep 
 Though poppies blow 
 In Flanders Fields* 
 
 On the other side of the arch is an inscription of 
 a poem entitled, " America Answers," composed 
 by a young Illinois writer, Mr. Villard. Here it is : 
 
 "AMERICA ANSWERS." 
 Rest ye in peace 
 Ye Flanders dead ! 
 The fight that ye 
 So bravely led 
 We ve taken up 
 And we will keep 
 True faith with you 
 Who lie asleep 
 With each a cross 
 To mark the bed 
 
SPRINGFIELD TO BLOOMINGTON 91 
 
 And poppies growing 
 Overhead 
 
 Where once his own 
 Life blood was red ! 
 So let your rest 
 Be sweet and deep, 
 In Flanders Field ! 
 Fear not that ye 
 Have died for naught ! 
 The torch ye threw 
 To us we caught. 
 Ten million hands 
 Will hold it high 
 And Freedom s light 
 Shall never die ! 
 We ve learned the lesson 
 That ye taught 
 In Flanders Field. 
 
 It is well to record these poems, because they 
 express in noble phrase for all time the highest 
 phase of feeling in the relations between the old 
 and the new Worlds. 
 
 TOPEKA, at My. Mulvanes, Nov. 20. 
 
 We mounted into the Pullman at Bloomington 
 last night at 5.30, and we reached Kansas City this 
 morning at seven o clock. The splendid coal-black 
 negro who looked after us in our car glanced at his 
 watch " wrong side up," as he " guessed " to us 
 afterwards. The result was that he woke us all 
 up at five o clock instead of six, and we had to sit 
 and yawn for a whole hour and a half before reach 
 ing Kansas City. The good fellow was very much 
 
92 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 amused at his mistake, and kept chuckling all the 
 time as he passed up and down the gangway between 
 his sleepy passengers. 
 
 " Sure a don t know how a did it ! Think a 
 must a been asleep myself ! " 
 
 Nobody scolded him. Everyone smiled a wintry 
 smile and just endured. For out here in the Mid- 
 West people are very tolerant of the negroes, who 
 indeed have a singularly engaging way with them. 
 They laugh more freely than any other people on 
 this continent. I have been witness of their kind 
 ness from hour to hour both to women and to 
 children on the cars. One gets very fond of them. 
 Yet the Southerners would have us believe that if 
 you scratch a negro you always find a savage ! 
 So one is left puzzled, with just a touch of wonder 
 as to whether all the savagery is on the black side 
 of the fence. 
 
 Kansas City railway station is one of the most 
 splendid of the great " People s Palaces " which 
 the railway corporations provide for the public 
 in America. It is equipped with every resort for 
 the traveller rest-rooms, bath-rooms, hair-dressing 
 saloons, candy stores, tobacco shops, boot stores 
 and information bureaux. The whole place is 
 splendidly warmed and covered in with a vast 
 and beautiful roof which defies all weathers. Above 
 all, the station is provided with a magnificent 
 restaurant which gave us this morning a timely 
 meal, quickly served and splendidly hot. What 
 
SPRINGFIELD TO BLOOMINGTON 93 
 
 a contrast to the railway restaurants of the Old 
 World ! I could not help remembering the grubby 
 fights for food at our railway stations, and the 
 haughty service of slow-moving, beautiful maidens. 
 But once more our time was all too short, and 
 at 9.10 a.m. we started again for Topeka a pleasant 
 journey in sunshine, through rolling country along 
 the banks of the Kansas River. The river ran 
 steely-blue between pale yellow sandbanks, fringed 
 with grey-brown and gold-brown winter trees, 
 while beyond lay great stretches of fields, covered 
 with yellow-brown maize stalks. The sky was 
 bright blue at the zenith, but faded to grey on 
 the horizon, with sharply-outlined clouds scudding 
 along and casting indigo shadows over the faintly 
 tinted landscape. It was a pleasant, cheerful 
 journey, and we were met at Topeka station by 
 a group of kindly American friends who insisted 
 on offering home hospitality, and motored us straight 
 to this house. Here we are permitted to rest for 
 no less than thirty hours, punctuated by no more 
 than two meetings. The prospect seems too good 
 to be true I 
 
VI 
 IN KANSAS STATE 
 
 TOPEKA, NOV. 20. 
 
 TOPEKA is a " capital " the capital of Kansas 
 State and is proud of the fact. It is one of the 
 paradoxes of the Mid-West that Kansas City is 
 not in Kansas but in Missouri. So Topeka has the 
 State Capitol, another of those great white-domed 
 buildings in which the State Assembly sits ; and 
 it has a cathedral and a college and all the State 
 offices. Otherwise it is a smallish country town of 
 some 40,000 inhabitants spread out wide on both 
 banks of the Kansas River, with the broad roads 
 and detached villas of the Mid- West. 
 
 Of course Topeka has a luncheon club run by 
 the Topeka Chamber of Commerce and we had 
 scarcely begun to unpack before we were rushed 
 off to address this club. The club was lunching in 
 a large, low-ceilinged room, full of small tables 
 and crowded with hungry business men. They 
 were all eating hard and making a tremendous clatter 
 with their knives and forks. The chair was taken 
 by Mr. Van Petten, who is suffering from the 
 affliction of blindness, but who has attained to an 
 almost miraculous independence of that calamity. 
 
 94 
 
IN KANSAS STATE 95 
 
 He will always stand out in our memory as a 
 triumph of the human spirit over darkness and 
 tragedy. He passes through life serenely, with 
 the wonderful patience of the blind linked to some 
 thing keener than the perception of vision. In my 
 youth I knew Henry Fawcett : and he, like Sir 
 Arthur Pearson of to-day, was a living miracle of 
 " victory over blindness." But Mr. Van Petten 
 is the equal of those two eminent men. The loss 
 of sight seems to have gifted him with some new 
 sense, keener than that which he has lost. 
 
 In the midst of all the clatter, an American Red 
 Cross lady arose and made a five minutes speech 
 on behalf of the work that the American Red Cross 
 is still doing for the starving children in Central 
 Europe. To my great astonishment the whole 
 room went on clattering : the negroes passed to and 
 fro without any abatement of noise : the rattle 
 and talk scarcely diminished. It was the first 
 scene of discourtesy that we have witnessed since 
 we landed in America, and we were gravely per 
 turbed. The discourtesy seemed to be intended 
 not so much for the lady speaker as for unhappy 
 Europe. For the first time a certain anger began 
 to rise within one. There seemed a touch of the 
 insolence of prosperity about this behaviour. 
 
 The Red Cross ladies took the treatment with 
 inexhaustible serenity, and patiently finished their 
 almost unheard speeches. Then Mr. Van Petten 
 called upon me. I rose and stood standing without 
 
96 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 uttering a word, until from sheer curiosity some of 
 the lunchers began to put down their knives and 
 forks and turned to look towards me. Having 
 thus achieved some slight degree of quiet, I told 
 them very slowly and gently that I could not address 
 them unless they could make a choice between 
 their food and their European visitor. I am sure 
 that they intended no discourtesy, because now 
 they began to be quite attentive. But a certain 
 flaming anger on behalf of Europe still possessed 
 me. Those Red Cross ladies after all had spoken 
 for our Continent, and I could not at once forget 
 the way they had been treated. So very deliber 
 ately I took out my wallet, and slowly extricated a 
 very dirty dollar note which was by a happy chance 
 therein. 
 
 " On the exchange," I said, slowly, " this is worth 
 more to me than to you. But as these ladies have 
 
 remembered us I will give it to them " So I 
 
 stood holding it out till one of the ladies tripped 
 cheerfully across the room and smilingly accepted 
 it for the use of the Red Cross in Central Europe. 
 
 After that I had no trouble with my audience. 
 
 What I said is of little consequence. But for 
 the first and last time in America I spoke my full 
 mind about the behaviour of the United States 
 since the signing of the Treaty of Versailles. I 
 was angry and I spoke frankly. " My heart was 
 hot within me . . . then spake I with my tongue." 
 
 The Topeka Daily Capital gives the speech in 
 
IN KANSAS STATE 97 
 
 full this evening, and these are the headlines with 
 which they preface it 
 
 LONDON VISITOR GIVES TOPEKANS THE 
 BRITISH SENTIMENT 
 
 "WE NEED YOUR ADVICE, NOT YOUR 
 DOLLARS." E. H. SPENDER 
 
 USELESS UNLESS U.S. IS IN 
 
 PRAISES WILSON AS MAN WHO SAVED THE 
 WORLD 
 
 British bluntness and outspokenness," says 
 the journalist too kindly, " marked the speech 
 from start to finish, combined with an eloquence 
 which indicated the deep feeling of the speaker in 
 his subject." I do not know about the eloquence, 
 but I do know that I spoke very bluntly. 
 
 The result was very astonishing. Instead of 
 being annoyed, that audience of Mid- West business 
 men became more and more interested. Gradually 
 they put aside their ice-creams and their iced-water 
 and listened intently. 
 
 There is always one feature about the Americans 
 which continues to puzzle us, and that is their 
 incapacity for resentment. A frank people them 
 selves, they seem to love frankness in others. The 
 plainer and blunter I became at this lunch the better 
 pleased they seemed. I told them that they had 
 deserted us. They beamed back on me. I told 
 G 
 
98 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 them we did not want their money. They sparkled 
 with joy. I told them they would soon feel the 
 shadow of Europe coming across the Atlantic. 
 They were radiant at the prospect. I built up a 
 comparison between them and the Good Samaritan, 
 ending with the remark that they had left us in 
 the Inn and neglected to come back again. They 
 exploded with enthusiasm. 
 
 I thought that I had told them quite enough 
 and meant to tell them no more. But then the 
 Secretary arose and pressed me to say what I 
 thought of their treatment of President Wilson ? 
 I gently hinted that I would rather not say. They 
 pressed me again. I was forced to comply. 
 
 " Well," I said slowly, " we regard his present 
 illness and general treatment by America as one 
 of the five great tragedies of the world." And there 
 I hesitated. But they pressed me further. What 
 were the tragedies ? 
 
 " The death of Socrates," I began, " the killing 
 of Caesar by Brutus, the assassination of Abraham 
 
 Lincoln the cruc " and then I paused, and 
 
 ended " I think that there we will draw the 
 veil ! " 
 
 After that I expected to be picked up there and 
 then and thrown out of the window or tarred 
 and feathered or scalped or treated in one of 
 the numerous ways attributed to this part of the 
 world. Instead of that these good Americans 
 came up one by one very formally and kindly and 
 
IN KANSAS STATE 99 
 
 warmly shook me by the hand. One after another 
 they said " That was fine ! That was fine ! " 
 
 Such are the real humours of the American 
 Mid-West. 
 
 In the afternoon we were motored by the Van 
 Pettens through the country district round Topeka, 
 visiting one of their big farms and handling the 
 grain in the great storehouses. We learned that 
 there is now such a glut of corn owing to the loss 
 of the European markets that the Mid-West 
 farmers are not only using grain for cattle food, 
 but even burning it as fuel. The price has slumped 
 from three dollars a bushel to one, and the farmers 
 are half in anger and half in despair. They meditate 
 a descent upon Washington with a demand for 
 Government action. In our simplicity we took 
 for granted that they were going to ask for freer 
 markets. 
 
 But our friends smiled at the idea. " Then 
 what are they going to ask for ? " we said. 
 
 " Why, higher tariffs, of course ! " they replied. 
 " A tariff against Canada ! " 
 
 That is still the only remedy that the American 
 farmer thinks about ! Higher tariffs at a moment 
 when the whole world is being held up by the 
 difficulties of trade and the want of easy commerce 
 between nations ! 
 
 We ended our ride this afternoon at the Topeka 
 Golf Club, which is laid out not far from a wired 
 piece of prairie which still contains a small herd 
 
ioo A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 of buffaloes the last remnant of those vast herds 
 of these creatures which used to range in such 
 multitudes over this part of America. The buffaloes 
 sustained the Red Man and proved the enemy of 
 the White. So the White Man replied by com 
 bining both in one common doom of destruction. 
 The survivors of both the man and the animal are 
 now herded within reserves, and the White Man 
 possesses the land. 
 
 " May I go in and see them ? " asked one of our 
 party 
 
 " If you did, you wouldn t come out again/ 
 replied Mr. Van Petten, grimly. 
 
 For the buffalo in captivity unlike the Red 
 Indian has acquired the ferocity which he never 
 possessed in freedom. 
 
 The only difficulty of these motor trips through 
 the brown prairie country dotted with villas is 
 the badness of the roads. The American roads 
 of the Mid- West are still shocking. The residents 
 put it down to the softness of the soil. They tell 
 us that macadam is useless in the Mid- West. But 
 I suspect that most of American energy has hitherto 
 been directed to the making of railways. The road 
 period has yet to begin. A great transcontinental 
 high road is already starting so we are told 
 from San Francisco across North America to New 
 York. It is to be built on concrete, and should 
 prove a remarkable achievement. The building 
 of American roads is indeed necessary to complete 
 
IN KANSAS STATE *cfl 
 
 the triumph of the American motor. For at 
 present long distance rides are far less comfortable 
 in America than in England. England still retains 
 her splendid supremacy as a road builder. 
 
 We returned to the hospitable home of Mr. D. W. 
 Mulvane, but an heroic attempt to rest was soon 
 broken by the invasion of an enterprising journalist, 
 who honoured me by mistaking me for my " comrade 
 in arms" the term with which he so graciously 
 honours me General Nivelle of Verdun. Perhaps I 
 ought to have given my visitor a thrilling account of 
 the last days of that immortal combat. But I was 
 taken off my guard. I failed to rise to the occasion. 
 In one fatal moment of candour I confessed to 
 being nothing more than my humble self. 
 
 Allowing for this shock, my interviewer was 
 amazingly kind. This evening he recorded my 
 views in the following headlines eloquent ot 
 much : 
 
 "CALL IT WHAT YOU WILL BUT JOIN 
 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS," SAYS SPENDER. 
 
 ENGLISH JOURNALIST SEES DANGER 
 THAT SHADOW OF EUROPE MAY FALL 
 ACROSS PROSPERITY OF AMERICAN 
 PEOPLE. 
 
 He also recorded some questions of mine which 
 are perhaps worthy of insistence : 
 
 " I want to ask the Americans do they think 
 they can profit in the end by seeing the countries 
 
102. A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 of Europe go down to moral and financial ruin ? 
 Do they think they are safe in having the coun 
 tries of South America in conference with other 
 countries at Geneva where America is not repre 
 sented ? Do they not think that some day 
 Europe may become so self-sustained and self- 
 sufficing that it may not want America s pro 
 ducts ? Are they sure they are not deserting 
 the principles of the boys who lie in that great 
 cemetery in the devastated region of France ? " 
 
 Immediately after the departure of the journalist 
 the admirable negress who attends to all the wants 
 of this household entered softly into the room and 
 leaning familiarly down towards me whispered 
 into my ear the following delicate message : 
 
 " Yo wife think yo ought to come and put yo 
 does on." 
 
 Gathering from this a fresh summons to duty I 
 ascended to prepare myself for the banquet that 
 was lying in wait for us this evening. 
 
 Our entertainers were the members of the local 
 Mayflower Club, and it was their Annual Banquet. 
 All the members of the Club are residents of Topeka, 
 and no resident is admitted to the Club unless he 
 or she can prove their descent from one of the 
 Pilgrim Fathers. This proof is no light affair, for 
 pedigrees have to be obtained from Europe. Yet 
 it is a club of considerable size, and some thirty 
 people sat down to dinner this evening. 
 
IN KANSAS STATE 103 
 
 Just consider the significance of this fact. Here 
 we are, some 1,400 miles from the landing-place of 
 the Pilgrim Fathers and the home of the Puritans. 
 Yet here is a little body of their descendants who 
 have penetrated thus far into the land and settled 
 in Kansas. Their ancestors perhaps came to 
 Kansas during that historic struggle for the soul 
 of the State which took place in the Sixties just 
 before the Civil War when it had to be decided by 
 a majority whether Kansas should be a slave or a 
 free State. The rival invasions which came from 
 the north and the south on that occasion have left 
 Kansas a State mixed in blood and origin. But 
 there came from the North a very large infusion 
 of Puritan blood. Perhaps that is the reason 
 why the Mayflower descendants make such a good 
 show in Topeka. 
 
 Anyhow we found ourselves present this evening 
 at a very bright and charming meal. A committee 
 of the Mayflower ladies had arranged the whole 
 affair between them. Some had supplied the 
 table linen, others the silver : yet others had 
 decorated the dinner-table. It was sunny with 
 yellow chrysanthemums and golden heads of maize ; 
 in the centre was a gorgeous orange pumpkin tied 
 with yellow ribbons. The menu also was quite 
 cheerful. The presence of turkey already fore 
 shadowed the coming of Thanksgiving Day. 
 
 Let me give a record of the luscious food while 
 it is still fresh in a grateful memory 
 
104 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 A mixture of grape fruit and cherries. 
 
 Turkey with sweet potatoes and cauliflower, 
 bread sauce, cranberry jelly and cherry preserve. 
 (All together.} 
 
 A plate of turnip and asparagus salad with butter 
 piled on the top of it all. 
 
 Hot apple pie with vanilla ice sitting on top. 
 
 After dinner began the speeches. The aim of 
 the orations was to celebrate the coming of the 
 Pilgrim Fathers three centuries ago in 1620 
 and this evening at any rate we stuck close to our 
 text. Doctor Kulp, an American Minister of 
 Dutch origin, led off with a resounding oration on 
 the meaning of the Pilgrim Father movement. He 
 displayed a knowledge of the history of British 
 Puritanism which would have astonished a British 
 university. I followed in humbler style, dwelling 
 on the interchange of influences which have passed 
 between the Old and the New World during the 
 last three centuries, and daring to say that when 
 America came to help us in 1918 it was a case of the 
 Mayflower coming back to us . " But then she 
 left us again. When will she return ? " On that 
 note I ended, and as far as that pleasant and 
 hospitable company is concerned I feel sure that 
 they will always vote with both hands for bringing 
 the Mayflower back to Europe. 
 
VII 
 "AWAY FROM EUROPE" 
 
 WHAT THE MID- WEST THINKS 
 
 TOPEKA. Nov. 20 (later). 
 
 WHILE still in the Kansas State, let me pause 
 again in my narrative to consider some questions 
 of serious political and social import. 
 
 Here in Topeka, we are in the heart of the 
 great " Middle West " region of the United 
 States, 5,000 miles away from Europe and 1,200 
 miles away from New York. It is a country of 
 immense wealth and prosperity, drawn from vast 
 numbers of large, rich farms, which produce enough, 
 not merely to feed this State, but also enough, if 
 transport and exchange permitted, to stay the 
 famine of Europe. This State has produced 600,000 
 bushels of corn for export this year, but, as we have 
 seen, they cannot now find an adequate market. 
 
 There is a glut of all good things. Apples are 
 being given away. We live in a land of milk and 
 honey, or, let us say, cream and candy. After 
 five years of scarcity we British feel ourselves over 
 whelmed by the food which is lavished upon us. 
 Here is a prosperity only equalled by the generous 
 
 105 
 
106 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 hospitality of these delightful, large-hearted 
 Westerners. 
 
 But, though they are very kind to us who are 
 present in the flesh, they have ceased to think at 
 all kindly of Europe. The Middle West has regis 
 tered a great decision ; and it would be foolish for 
 Europe to dream that there will, in American public 
 opinion, be any weakening of that decision. 
 
 " Away from Europe " would be a Bismarckian 
 way of expressing the will of this people. The 
 politicians at Washington, who are trained to 
 fool the American people, may perhaps try to get 
 round that decision. But there is no doubt as to 
 the interpretation which is placed upon it by the 
 good people of the Middle West. They believe 
 that they have decided to be quit of Europe and 
 all its works. The overwhelming vote which was 
 given against President Wilson and on behalf of 
 Senator Harding meant, to the West people, one 
 thing, and one thing alone. It was a vote against 
 President Wilson as standing for a European 
 policy. 
 
 Now, I have put the case for Europe very strongly 
 to these good people in the various gatherings with 
 which they have honoured me as a British delegate 
 to the American Mayflower celebrations. So may 
 I, with equal candour and directness, put the case 
 of the American people to Europe ? 
 
 I put aside the purely party Republican case, 
 because it is, like all other party cases, built up 
 
AWAY FROM EUROPE 107 
 
 on a desire to find fault. The Republicans blame 
 President Wilson practically for every act that 
 he has committed since the close of the war. He 
 ought not to have gone to Europe so they say 
 he ought not to have gone alone. He ought not 
 to have pledged his nation and so on, and so on, 
 with endless iteration. It becomes soon painfully 
 clear to the listener that whatever Wilson had 
 done he would have been equally condemned by 
 these people. I ventured to remind them that the 
 British Prime Minister had done precisely the 
 opposite thing acted through a Coalition and 
 had been condemned in precisely the same terms 
 by the same type of party person in his own country. 
 There is no need to say more on that. 
 
 But why has this party spirit waned in England 
 and waxed in America, in a great country at least 
 as patriotic as ours and equally capable of great 
 enthusiasms and sacrifices ? It has waxed because 
 this great American nation had already tired of its 
 great European crusade. " My policy is to get back 
 to the Monroe Doctrine." That is the most fre 
 quent remark of the Mid- Western business man ; 
 and no argument or appeal at this time of day 
 will make him budge very far from it. When you 
 point out that he has incurred great obligations and 
 given great pledges, he remains unmoved. " They 
 weren t our pledges," he will say. " They were 
 only Wilson s you hadn t ought to have believed 
 Wilson ! " If you then ask how, if Europe is not 
 
io8 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 to believe the President of the United States, any 
 country can negotiate with the States, he will shrug 
 his shoulders. " No single man," he will say, 
 " can speak for the United States." 
 
 I sometimes wonder, indeed, whether what I 
 am observing here does not strike much deeper than 
 a mere party victory, or even the revolt against 
 a single towering, perhaps too commanding, per 
 sonality. I seem to get fugitive glimpses of a 
 general revolt against the whole policy of inter 
 vention in the Great War. 
 
 There are two facts about the Presidential 
 Election which strengthen this suspicion. One is 
 that the women s vote a very powerful vote to 
 day was thrown very largely against Wilson on 
 strictly peace grounds. The answer of the women 
 always is, " Because he took my boy." " I didn t 
 raise my boy to be a soldier " is still the prevalent 
 view of the American women. They have not 
 forgiven Wilson for taking their boys. Simple, 
 but profound. 
 
 The second is that the vote of both the German- 
 American and the Irish-American vote was cast 
 against Wilson. The German-Americans, because 
 at bottom they have never forgiven Wilson for 
 going to war with the country of their birth ; the 
 Irish-Americans, because Wilson would not acknow 
 ledge them at Paris as separate negotiators. Since 
 then they have bitterly opposed the League, and 
 as I have described not even Cox s wild promises 
 
AWAY FROM EUROPE 109 
 
 of support in their independence could bring them 
 in. As so often in all crises of their fate, the Irish 
 punished their friends. 
 
 But the Great War is past. The really pas 
 sionate motive has been rather the dread of another 
 war. Here the mothers have come in decisively. 
 They have made up their minds that their boys 
 shall not pay another trip to Europe not if they 
 can help it. It is not merely death and wounds 
 that they fear, these women. They accuse Europe 
 of having polluted their boys with drink and disease. 
 Every time that Europe scoffs at prohibition the 
 resolve of these women against the League of 
 Nations hardens and tightens. It is in part a 
 great moral alienation this drawing away from 
 Europe. 
 
 But of course that is only one contributory cause. 
 No one can fully comprehend the hatred and fear 
 of the League in America who does not also witness 
 and realise the strength of the agitation against it. 
 In this alone of the great war countries, it has been 
 a supreme political issue in a great political cam 
 paign. The whole subject has been closely argued 
 on one side. 
 
 For, owing to President Wilson s tragic and 
 deplorable illness the central human point of 
 human pathos in this great drama the League 
 has had few defenders. He seems to have estab 
 lished no organisation to support it. So much 
 was it a " one man job " that his own supporters 
 
no A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 scarcely understood the League. They were mostly 
 in favour of compromise. But Wilson stood like 
 a rock against compromise. He would not budge 
 an inch on the famous Xth Article. Rightly or 
 wrongly he felt that he had already given away 
 enough. 
 
 Consider the sort of things that were freely 
 said about the League, and are said to-day through 
 out the United States, with little contradiction 
 from anyone. It is said that at any moment, 
 under the League, any American youth might be 
 sent off to Europe to fight in any " silly old war," 
 whether America had an interest in it or not. There 
 is no mention of all the restrictions with which 
 the Covenant of the League has hedged the appeal 
 to force ; of the vote which America would have 
 to give on the Council ; of the alternative of the 
 economic blockade ; of the very pertinent detail 
 that no American army could be sent without the 
 consent of America herself. During the past week 
 Mr. Borah, the fiercest out-and-out opponent of 
 the League, has been pointing to the rumoured 
 proposal to send Spanish troops to Vilna, and 
 exclaiming triumphantly that, but for the recent 
 election, American troops would have been going 
 there also. 1 
 
 Then there is the famous question of the " six 
 to one " votes. The Americans feel very keenly 
 upon this. Their idea seems to be that the innocent 
 
 1 Spain cried of! and did not send any troops. 
 
AWAY FROM EUROPE in 
 
 Mr. Wilson innocent to foreigners, though full 
 of guile towards his own people was entirely 
 fooled by the clever British delegates. They com 
 plain bitterly of the arrangement by which we have 
 secured votes for our principal Dominions as well 
 as for ourselves. 
 
 I have pointed out to them, with all due defer 
 ence, that they have behind them the votes of 
 eleven South American Republics including Hayti, 
 Cuba, and Panama all practically within the 
 American sphere. I have also suggested that the 
 splitting up of the British Empire vote, so far from 
 strengthening the power of the British Imperial 
 vote in the League, divides it. I have even pointed 
 out that Lord Robert Cecil, now representing 
 South Africa, does not sit at Geneva as a friend 
 of the British Government, but distinctly as an 
 independent speaker and voter. But all this is of 
 no avail. It ought to have been said a year ago. 
 It is too late now. The public of the United States 
 have registered their great decision. 
 
 This being so, I was very much astonished to 
 hear, from a powerful owner of newspapers in the 
 Chicago region, that President-Elect Harding had 
 privately informed him, in the middle of the 
 Presidential election, that he intended to come 
 into the League before the end of 1921. The idea 
 seems to prevail that this assurance signified an 
 understanding between the new President and 
 France and Great Britain, by which America 
 
H2 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 should still join the League. If one could say 
 positively that the people of America could now 
 never be fooled all the time or any of the time ! 
 then such an outcome of this election would be 
 impossible. But one has to consider that purely 
 party government has here been carried to the 
 finest point of efficiency that an election pro 
 gramme is largely regarded as an instrument by 
 which a party attains to power. Having attained 
 to power, the President, by becoming the supreme 
 head of the Executive, is from that moment an 
 uncrowned king. Like all kings before him, he 
 tends to plead Divine Right. He grows bigger 
 than his party. Just as President Wilson came 
 into the world war in 1917, after being elected on 
 an anti-war ticket in 1916, so it is still not quite 
 impossible, in spite of everything, that Harding 
 may, after being elected on an anti-League ticket 
 in November, 1920, still slip into the League in 
 some form or other, before he finishes his tenure 
 of power in November, 1924. 
 
 Old students of party politics will notice that 
 Harding has left himself one or two loopholes by 
 which he might find an escape from his present 
 position. He has said that he will not join a 
 " League " ; but he has added that he might join 
 an " Association of Nations." Well, there is no 
 substantial difficulty there. " A rose by any 
 
 other name ." The French call it " The Society 
 
 of Nations." The Germans have another term. 
 
AWAY FROM EUROPE 113 
 
 Let the Americans have still a third if they desire. 
 Then there is the question of " reservations." 
 Switzerland has already come in on the reservation 
 of her neutrality. Let Harding table his reserva 
 tions, and it will be for the League to consider them. 
 The British Government is not, I believe, opposed to 
 reservations. They want to see the American reser 
 vations tabled by a responsible American Govern 
 ment before they pass any judgment on them. 
 
 But the issue is now not with the British Govern 
 ment alone. It is a matter for the whole League 
 of Nations, who are at Geneva obviously becoming 
 daily more confident and self-reliant, and less 
 inclined to wait humbly on the dormant will of the 
 United States. 
 
 Probably it is these rumours of Harding s secret 
 intentions that has produced a new and remarkable 
 movement at Washington among the more resolute 
 Republican Senators. The elder Senators of the 
 United States represent a sort of political aristo 
 cracy, " fathers of the people," patricians in spirit, 
 elected for long periods by great areas, not untouched 
 by a certain fine contempt for the party whirlpool. 
 They are determined that Harding s victory shall 
 mean a defeat of the League of Nations. They are 
 resolute that America shall not be a party to the 
 Treaty of Versailles, which many of them detest 
 on other grounds. So they are pushing forward 
 the policy of " Peace by Resolution." The resolu 
 tion of Senator Knox, declaring peace with Germany 
 
H4 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 without terms, is to be passed again. Instead of 
 being vetoed, as President Wilson vetoed it, it is 
 to be allowed to become final by the new President. 1 
 That is the simple plan foi ending the war that finds 
 favour at Washington. 
 
 This policy will carry with it certain notable 
 results. America will have to give back to Germany 
 all the property, whether in ships or other estate, 
 which is at present only being used under the right 
 of war. She will revert to her ante-war attitude 
 towards Germany. She will have no part or lot 
 in the annexations of German territory either by 
 France or Great Britain. She will not undertake 
 to guarantee anything in the Versailles Treaty, 
 It is, perhaps, a significant fact that the Republican 
 victory in America has been followed by the develop 
 ment of a new German attitude of resistance towards 
 the Allies in Europe. 
 
 One dimly perceives that Harding may come 
 into conflict with this powerful body, the American 
 Senate, almost as acutely as President Wilson. 
 There are all the elements of a new deadlock in the 
 party proportions of that body as it emerges from 
 the elections. The Republicans have a majority of 
 only nine notes. That would not give them the 
 necessary two- thirds majority for a purely Re 
 publican policy. The Republican extremists will 
 almost certainly be unable to secure a two- 
 thirds majority for peace by resolution. If Harding 
 1 This resolution has now been passed (1921). 
 
AWAY FROM EUROPE 115 
 
 becomes a League President, the Democrats in the 
 Senate may support him, if they can forgive the 
 Republican attacks on Wilson. But they, too, 
 will be unable to give him the necessary two-thirds 
 majority. So this great country may drift on, 
 suspended, like Mahomet s coffin, between war and 
 peace, a silent voice in the counsels of the world. 
 
 Such are the shifting aspects of this great drama. 
 Behind them all one gets glimpses of a world tragedy. 
 One seems to be an onlooker at one of the great 
 crimes of history. The slow dying of President 
 Wilson which the Republicans gaze at with an 
 indifference approaching to satisfaction appears 
 to carry with it some sense of doom for the great 
 country that can pass by with so little pity or 
 regard. The Americans will descant to you at 
 great length over the faults and " kinks " in President 
 Wilson s character. Many great men have great 
 faults. To err is human. But do not Wilson s 
 enemies suffer from a greater fault than any of his 
 the fault of not recognising greatness when they 
 see it ? " His great deed was too great," sang Mrs. 
 Browning of another man. President Wilson s 
 character seems to tower above his race and time. 
 Already, like Abraham Lincoln, he " belongs to the 
 ages." And just as America paid a fearful price 
 for the killing of Abraham Lincoln, so sometimes 
 it occurs to an observer of these events that a 
 reckoning for all this lies ahead for this now smiling, 
 prosperous land. 
 
n6 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 Is not the shadow of it already coming ? While 
 I write, the talk of a slump in trade is going on 
 all around me. The farmers of the Mid-West 
 cannot understand why their prices are affected. 
 They have been told for so long that they can stand 
 utterly detached from Europe. They know so little 
 of the new shrinkage of the world. They have 
 taken for granted that there will always be a market 
 for their produce. They have laughed at those 
 who told them that if Europe starved they would 
 suffer. But they are already feeling the wind 
 from the East. Will they realise the meaning of 
 these things before it is too late ? Or will they 
 continue to go on their own course until the shadow 
 from Europe falls across the Atlantic and wraps 
 them also in its gloom ? 
 
 Personally, I still hope that they will realise in 
 time. They are a splendid people, these Western 
 Americans ; a little heady, but generous to a fault, 
 capable of great enthusiasms. Europe has not 
 hitherto spoken to them with a persuasive voice. 
 It has alternately used them for its own ends, and 
 then snarled at them for not continuing to serve. 
 But they will serve no man. They are essentially 
 free and independent. If they are to be drawn 
 back to Europe it must be as equal counsellors. 
 We shall have to give more weight to their advice 
 than we did when last they came. We must let 
 them have a voice proportionate to their numbers, 
 their wealth, and their power. 
 
AWAY FROM EUROPE 117 
 
 If they are once convinced that they will be 
 listened to after that fashion, I believe that they 
 will still come. But they must do their own work 
 of conversion. British propaganda is now suspect 
 here, and will be of little avail. The most hopeful 
 rumour that has reached me of late days is that 
 the Democratic party, now freed from the burden 
 of rule, propose to start over here in America an 
 American League of Nations Union. If that is 
 done, then for the first time we shall see a steady 
 and continuous process of persuasion, based on 
 large and broad principles, such as alone can suffice 
 to convince so great a people of their high duty in 
 this great matter. 
 
 This, at any rate, we can always say of the Ameri 
 can people that if once they see their duty clearly, 
 they always follow it. 
 
VIII 
 ACROSS MISSOURI 
 
 AND BACK TO KANSAS 
 
 KANSAS CITY, Nov. 21. 
 
 WE left Topeka for Kansas City at five o clock this 
 afternoon, and arrived here at eight o clock, going 
 straight to the Muhlen Hotel. It is a first class 
 American hotel, with three lifts, a splendid lounge, 
 and a marvellous restaurant, where we were waited 
 upon by Italian servants. Kansas is the second 
 city of Missouri, with nearly 200,000 inhabitants. 
 It lies on the south bank of the Missouri River. 
 It is less than fifty years old and is now one of the 
 most thriving cities of the Mid-West a great 
 commercial and industrial centre, with wide and 
 splendid streets, magnificent public buildings and 
 surrounded by beautiful suburbs. But what dis 
 tinguishes it from a similar city in Europe is the 
 exuberant, exhilarating spirit of youth and energy 
 which fills the atmosphere. 
 
 We are destined to stop here only for to-night, 
 as we are due at St. Louis to-morrow to speak in 
 the evening. It has been quite an interesting 
 event to dine in the restaurant. It is an " exotic " 
 room, lit with numerous little brightly-coloured 
 
 118 
 
ACROSS MISSOURI 119 
 
 lanterns, their gay colours reflected in the shining 
 marble floors and gleaming from the table glasses, 
 which look as if filled with golden hock, but on 
 closer inspection are found to contain nothing but 
 the usual, inevitable iced- water. The roof is 
 sustained by columns up which creep gaudy artificial 
 nasturtiums, and as we sat there we felt somehow 
 or other the room expressed the audacity and 
 luxuriance of the Wild West. 
 
 After dinner I was waylaid by a band of journ 
 alists who kept me talking for the rest of the evening. 
 I said many wise things about the League of Nations, 
 but I observed that the only utterance of mine 
 that was recorded in their note-books was my 
 venturesome opinion that the American language 
 was drifting rapidly away from the English. 1 
 This seemed to interest them far more than any 
 thing I said on the League of Nations a subject 
 of which they are profoundly fatigued scarcely 
 to be wondered at when one reflects that they 
 have fought a great Presidential election on it 
 throughout the whole of this year ! 
 
 These journalists frankly discussed with me 
 to-night a very extraordinary feature of the present 
 phase here. It is a startling recrudescence of the 
 old spirit of violence, which seemed to have passed 
 away in the Mid- West. 
 
 There have been four murders here in a week 
 all forms of highway robbery. A man slips on to 
 
 1 See page 22 (" A Word Before "). 
 
120 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 the footboard of your motor when you are slowing 
 down at any point, faces you with a revolver, 
 demands your money : and if you hesitate, shoots. 
 A policeman has been shot because he was mistaken 
 for a robber. The Court gave j us tillable homicide, 
 So uncertain is life : so precarious is order. Men 
 and women of means are going about armed : 
 because the possessing class in America, still having 
 the courage of its property, never takes these things 
 " lying down." 
 
 In the opinions of the journalists this is only a 
 passing phase, due to the Great War. I told them 
 that we had experienced similar incidents in Ireland 
 and elsewhere, and were anxious to put them 
 down to the .same cause. 
 
 November 22. 
 
 We breakfasted at the beautiful Kansas City 
 railway station, and after being interviewed and 
 photographed by sundry journalists we started off 
 on a long day trip to St. Louis an eight-hour 
 journey across the State of Missouri, striking the 
 river at Jefferson City where we caught a glimpse 
 of the fine white Capitol of that splendid town. A 
 kindly American who made friends with us on the 
 train took our breath away by inviting us to lunch 
 with him in the restaurant car. There he enter 
 tained us royally, although he had never seen us 
 before. This delightful act of hospitality took the 
 fatigue from our journey, for it made us feel that 
 we were in a friendly land. We found that our 
 
ACROSS MISSOURI 121 
 
 host was a Mr. Graves, the son of the Judge of the 
 Supreme Court in Jefferson City. 
 
 Our experience of St. Louis was brief and light 
 ning-like. We were whisked off in a motor car 
 to the beautiful home of Mrs. Wilkinson. There 
 we dined, and then we were spirited off again to 
 the great Pilgrim Church. I was taken by back 
 ways on to the platform and found myself facing 
 a vast audience of grave American ministers. As 
 we had to leave again at ten I thought it wise to 
 claim the right of first speech. I spoke to them 
 for half an hour, and was most kindly treated. The 
 pleasant roar of their applause had hardly died 
 down when we were called away, thrust back into 
 the motor car and rushed to the station. We had 
 spent precisely five hours in St. Louis, and left 
 with nothing more than a vague, brilliant impres 
 sion of broad thoroughfares, beautiful houses and 
 vast shop fronts showing motor cars of every make 
 and size. 
 
 November 23. 
 
 We breakfasted once more in the great railway 
 station of Kansas City, and we have spent the day 
 in partaking of our friends splendid hospitality. 
 A morning in the hands of the Kansas " Exo- 
 dontist " left me short of two teeth and a consider 
 able amount of blood. But in spite of that 
 such is the spirit one catches from America I 
 managed an hour later to address the City Women s 
 Club a large and prosperous gathering of some 200 
 
122 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 ladies. Mrs. Spender took my place until I had 
 recovered from the Exodontist, and made an 
 admirable debut as a public speaker. In the after 
 noon we were taken by Mr. Sharon, the Chairman 
 of the Chamber of Commerce, for a long motor 
 ride round the suburbs of Kansas City. We 
 motored for two hours, going swiftly all the time 
 through one huge prosperous land of beautiful 
 villas, all of them standing, in their admirable open 
 American way, a little back from the road, without 
 either hedge or fence, and displaying their varied 
 architecture to the passing eye. Nowhere is the 
 prosperous middle class better housed. Would 
 that the housing of the working class was equally 
 satisfactory ! But there I noticed a sad falling 
 off, openly admitted by the best Americans. " Well," 
 they say, in their characteristic slow, humorous 
 way, " I guess that some day we will give our 
 minds to it. We haven t had time yet." 
 
 This evening we were entertained by the Chamber 
 of Commerce at a great banquet. A lighted 
 model of the Mayflower was carried through the 
 room. It was a scene of wealth and luxury, and 
 I spoke a word for poor Europe, and tried to remove 
 a few misconceptions about the League of Nations. 
 I was listened to with profound attention and respect : 
 but I left with the same conviction that out here in 
 the Mid- West the issue had been decided. This 
 part of America it seems to me now regards the 
 League of Nations as something quite remote and 
 
ACROSS MISSOURI 123 
 
 far away, having little relation to their actual 
 concerns. 
 
 After speaking I was abruptly summoned from 
 the room and once more snatched away to the train, 
 which left for Chicago at 10.30 p.m. 
 
IX 
 
 IRELAND AGAIN 
 
 OPINION IN THE MID-WEST 
 
 CHICAGO, Nov. 24. 
 
 HERE we are back in Chicago : and sitting here 
 it may be worth while to say a few more words on 
 the question which overshadows all else in America 
 the relations between Britain and America. 
 
 The terrible events that have occurred in Ireland 
 during the past week 1 have sent a reverberating 
 tremor through the whole United States. All the 
 many newspapers in the great towns through which 
 I have been travelling Topeka, Kansas City, St. 
 Louis have been full of the news from Dublin and 
 Westminster. The news service is full, detailed, 
 and impartial. I have been able to follow events 
 in Ireland quite as easily out in the Western city 
 of Kansas as if I were at home in London. Re 
 member that the eyes of the whole world are on 
 Ireland and our doings there. Britain is being 
 judged aye, and let Irishmen remember, Ireland 
 is being judged also. 
 
 Again comes the echo of that mighty sonnet of 
 Wordsworth, written at the time of the last great 
 Irish Rebellion (1798) : 
 
 1 The slaughter of the officers in Dublin, etc, See file of 
 The Times for November 18-23. 
 
 124 
 
IRELAND AGAIN 125 
 
 England ! all nations in this charge agree. 
 But worse, more ignorant in love and hate, 
 Far far more abject, is thine enemy ! 
 Therefore the wise pray for thee, though the freight 
 Of thy offences be a heavy weight ; 
 Oh, grief that Earth s best hopes rest all with Thee ! " 
 
 America holds her breath at what is happening. 
 There is little comment in the Press outside Chicago, 
 and even there the ravings of last month are moder 
 ated. A Catholic priest denounces England as the 
 " ghoul " among nations, and King George as 
 Nero ; but perhaps the shrewd American public 
 thinks of St. Bartholomew s Day, and passes on. 
 In any case, opinion is strangely silent. The 
 Americans feel instinctively that there is peril in 
 the air. 
 
 So there is. Let me say at once that I find 
 American opinion on Ireland far more steady 
 and far better informed than I had expected. 
 There is here an immense mass of central, solid 
 opinion, essentially conservative in its nature, 
 and wholly unsympathetic with the methods of 
 Sinn Fein. The astonishing thing, after all one 
 has heard, is to find that many Irish Americans 
 side strongly with Great Britain in the present 
 phase of the struggle. They are ashamed of these 
 methods of violence. They are Home Rulers, but 
 opposed to the claim for Irish independence. 
 
 Still, there is peril. How can there fail to be ? 
 Consider the broad, general facts of the situation 
 between these two great countries. America pos- 
 
126 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 sesses an Irish problem scarcely second to our own. 
 Here, in the United States, there live some 20,000,000 
 persons of Irish descent, many of them with bitter 
 memories of eviction and family traditions of 
 famine, all of them descended from those who have 
 come across the sea because they cannot live in 
 their home-land. Now it is a common feature of 
 life here greatly disturbing to the pure American 
 that nearly everyone has a tender place in his 
 heart for that bit of Europe from which he has 
 sprung. I have described how men and women of 
 English stock, now Americans, come up after 
 the meetings everywhere just to clasp an English 
 hand and hear an English voice. Must it not be 
 the same with the Irish ? It is ten times more the 
 case, because the woe of their land keeps her memory 
 always green. Ask the post-offices in the West of 
 Ireland how much money comes across the ocean 
 from America to poor relations in that distressful 
 country ! 
 
 Now 20,000,000 Irish people mean at least 
 5,000,000 voters, men and women. We know how 
 the parties in England play up to the Irish vote. 
 Multiply that vote ten times, intensify the party 
 atmosphere twenty times, and you have the situa 
 tion here. Both great parties play up to the Irish 
 vote. Not so much because they care for Ireland, 
 but simply, like all parties, because they want to 
 score a win and achieve power. None the less, 
 this process may become very dangerous. 
 
IRELAND AGAIN 127 
 
 Take the recent Presidential election. It opened 
 with the knowledge that the Irish vote was going 
 to be cast Republican, because President Wilson 
 had snubbed the Irish envoys at Paris. The Irish 
 were going to vote against the League of Nations 
 because they were not included within it. Now 
 the Irish vote has gone Democratic from the begin 
 ning of things. So the Democrats, foreseeing the 
 terrible disaster which awaited them, played a 
 desperate hand. Governor Cox made a speech 
 in which he hailed the advent of Irish Inde 
 pendence, promised his support to the cause, 
 and, in fact, took a stand which, in the event of 
 his success, might have led to unpleasantness 
 with England. But Governor Cox did not suc 
 ceed ; and always remember to the credit of the 
 Americans that that speech was largely the reason 
 of his failure. 
 
 The Irish still voted Republican. The moderate 
 Democrats, frightened by their candidate s Irish 
 pledges, voted Republican also. Such, as I have 
 said, was that Hibernian result. 
 
 But now the present Administration, having 
 been returned partly by the Irish vote, will have 
 to consider Irish feelings. In the vast shift of 
 officials which will begin next March America is 
 already seething with the prospect Irishmen must 
 be considered both abroad and at home. There is 
 talk to-day of a new " Irish drive." Great sums 
 have been collected in this country to promote 
 
128 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 the Irish cause. The " Irish bonds/ 1 paid up to-day 
 but only to pay interest when Ireland is free, have 
 been taken up by the girls and boys in every part 
 of the country. The money that used to go to the 
 Nationalists now goes to De Valera for what 
 purpose can be clearly gathered from interviews 
 published weekly throughout America, in which 
 De Valera, sitting in the hired Presidential offices 
 of his New York hotel, feeds the flame of Anti- 
 British fury. 
 
 The vast, decent, essentially law-abiding American 
 public disapproves all of this. Their great tolerance 
 makes them slow to act. If they were once satis 
 fied that England was wholly in the right they 
 would instantly stop all this playing with fire. 
 They would remind De Valera that he must not 
 use American hospitality to threaten a friendly 
 State. But the American is not satisfied. There 
 is the rub. He has an uncomfortable feeling that 
 the Irishman has a case. He regards our attitude 
 towards Ireland as our one great moral failure. 
 He takes the whole story of the last fifty years, 
 and he suspends judgment. 
 
 " It would help us over here if you would settle 
 that Irish question of yours," he says, in his slow 
 sing-song. " You see, it gives us a lot of trouble," 
 he goes on apologetically. Then he generally 
 adds, with that passion for fair judgment which 
 sways the American, " Not that I think it is any 
 affair of ours, any more than Hayti or the Philip- 
 
IRELAND AGAIN 129 
 
 pines would be an affair of yours." Then he pauses. 
 " But, of course, you ve sent a lot of them over 
 here, and they don t seem to become real American." 
 For the " real American " here, as I have told you, 
 is the man who thinks first of America, and only in 
 a very second place of the country of his origin. 
 
 To which I often reply, " Then why don t you 
 help us to settle the question ? " Whereat the 
 American, waking up from his easeful dream, fires 
 off at me that disconcerting social pistol-shot of 
 his" What s that ? " So I explain more fully. 
 
 " Why don t you urge moderation on your Irish 
 friends in America and Ireland ? Why not point 
 out to them the folly of crying for independence 
 and so losing Home Rule ? " 
 
 He laughs. " Oh ! It s the politicians ! That 
 cut wouldn t suit the politicians ! " 
 
 There s the red light. America, which thinks 
 itself a self-determining country, is really run by 
 a caste of politicians. Like the condottieri of 
 mediaeval Italy, the American politicians live by 
 fighting. They feed on the country like those 
 estimable gentlemen of old. They are rewarded 
 with the " spoils " a system which still prevails, 
 as we have seen, in State, city, and Washington, 
 in spite of civil service reforms. Now to this caste 
 of politicians, whether Republican or Democrat, 
 all is grist to the mill. The difficulty in a great 
 country like America, where nearly all the big 
 political issues of the Old World are decided, is to 
 i 
 
130 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 get up a real political fight. Ireland has the double 
 feature of providing a political fight for the New 
 World as well as for the Old. That is the peril of 
 Ireland. 
 
 The peculiar advantage of Ireland as a political 
 issue is that it can be used as a stick to beat the 
 League of Nations. It is held up as a supreme 
 illustration of the folly and incompetence of Old 
 Europe. Quite decent papers publish from day to 
 day stories of Irish " atrocities " committed by our 
 troops and police. It is a feature of the American 
 Press, quite as regular as Armenian " atrocities " 
 used to be of our own. A considerable number of 
 Americans seem to get into Ireland, and they come 
 back with fearful stories. Australians return home 
 across America, and they write their experiences 
 on the way. A visit to Ireland now plays the same 
 part in America, as a Press sensation, as is played 
 in England by the visit to Russia of some eminent 
 publicist. So gradually England becomes a 
 " bogey " and all our appeals to America to save 
 the Armenians from the Turks are greeted with 
 irreverent laughter. Why not the Irish from 
 oui selves ? 
 
 The Irish propaganda is violent and penetrating. 
 It is sent to all newspapers and public men. It 
 follows British visitors with a trail of suspicion. 
 Speaking in many places about the " Pilgrim 
 Fathers " to Mayflower audiences, we find that 
 our approach has been preceded by the receipt of 
 
IRELAND AGAIN 131 
 
 leaflets denouncing the whole movement as a 
 British dodge. The poor old " Pilgrim Fathers " 
 are sadly mauled in these leaflets. They betray 
 the touch of religious venom, as well as of race 
 hatred. For I must honestly say that the Irish 
 agitator is often just a stalking-horse for the Catholic 
 priest. 
 
 Then there is another great argument, especially 
 pressed by the Chicago Republican, which attacks 
 equally both the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago 
 Daily News. The Republican simply cries every 
 week, "Yah! What about those Belgian atrocities 
 now ? " Its aim is to undermine what remains of the 
 war sentiment ; to prove that the United States was 
 tricked into the World War ; to show that there is 
 not a pin to choose in moral outlook between any 
 of the effete, corrupt European countries. That 
 is the deliberate aim of the extreme Republican, 
 who is going to fight to the last ditch against 
 joining any form or shape of the League of Nations. 
 
 All this is a great worry to the large body of 
 respectable American opinion. One of the strange 
 side effects is that it ruins their city government. 
 For it is a strange world-paradox that Ireland, 
 being disappointed of governing herself, finds some 
 consolation by running the great cities of America. 
 New York is as I have told at present going 
 through one of her sensational disclosures of 
 Tammany rule, with all its incredible levity, selfish 
 ness, and corruption. Chicago is making a great 
 
132 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 show of draining some of her innumerable human 
 cesspools. But a day or two spent here brings 
 home a conviction that the trouble is not at the 
 bottom so much as at the top. The whole machinery 
 of Tammany with its sale of offices, its municipal 
 blackmailing, its systematic collusion with crime 
 has been introduced into Chicago. 
 
 Very suspiciously, this all goes along with a 
 fierce anti-British propaganda. It is the opinion 
 of the British Government that many of the murders 
 in Ireland have been perpetrated or organised by 
 " gun-men " imported from Chicago. It is difficult 
 to obtain any precise confirmation of this on the 
 spot. But the Americans to whom I have reported 
 the story have simply shrugged their shoulders. 
 It is quite clear that in their opinion no policy of 
 homicide, on whatever scale, is incredible in regard 
 to some of the forces now flourishing in the vast, 
 teeming human jungle of this amazing city. 
 
 But while their hold on the big American cities 
 has given the Irish great advantages in running 
 their propaganda and subsidising the forces of terror 
 in Ireland, it has seriously injured their cause in 
 America. For if there is one thing that the Ameri 
 can is ashamed of it is his city government. The 
 best men keep quite clear of it. Mr. Sharon, the 
 president of the Chamber of Commerce at Kansas 
 City, a splendid type of that class of fine, self- 
 sacrificing, public-spirited men who are quite as 
 numerous in America as in England, described to 
 
IRELAND AGAIN 133 
 
 me his efforts to work with the forces of municipal 
 government at Kansas, and his final retirement 
 in disgust. How can any serious man defend a 
 system of administration where almost every 
 office is just a gift of the political machine, and 
 every official, however painstaking, is liable to 
 dismissal in order to provide a tasty morsel for 
 Democrats or Republicans ? 
 
 The only people who can really work this system 
 are the Irish. But their capacity to do so covers 
 them with grave discredit among the sober Ameri 
 cans. I have been surprised to find how many 
 Americans have begun to doubt whether Ireland 
 is capable of Home Rule although it is only fair 
 to say that there is a class of Irishmen in this country 
 who have kept clear of all this muddiness, and have 
 risen to high posts, both in the State and the nation, 
 with every credit to themselves and their race. 
 
 America is all the less inclined to surrender to 
 the Irish propaganda, because she is at present 
 swept by this wave of crime of her own. Consulting 
 that dentist in Kansas city on Sunday night, I 
 was surprised to see him take from his pocket a 
 beautiful six-shooter, fully loaded. He soon re 
 lieved me of my suspicion that this was a new 
 weapon of dentistry, and bearing out and confirming 
 what had been told me by the Kansas city journal 
 ists, he explained that " hold-ups " of motor-cars 
 were now quite common in Kansas City, and that 
 several of his friends had been robbed that very 
 
134 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 week. A charming girl, one of the most popular 
 in the city, had been ruthlessly shot because her 
 fiance tried to defend her from robbery, and a 
 woman engaged in shopping had been mercilessly 
 slain because she stooped to pick up a boy who had 
 been knocked down by one of these ruffians. After 
 this I watched these crimes in the Press, and I 
 observed an extraordinary lenity on the part of 
 both police and magistrates. The man who shot 
 the girl was allowed to have his dinner in the 
 dining car, and he jumped through a window and 
 escaped when his guard was conveniently turning 
 his back. In regard to his crime, all horror seemed 
 to be submerged in sensationalism. 
 
 Now the true American loathes these crimes. 
 The cities in which they take place are not wild 
 Western towns, but marvellous triumphs of modern 
 civilisation, with wide boulevards, beautiful public 
 buildings, splendid hotels, and homes equipped 
 with so exquisite a machinery of daily living as is 
 not anywhere dreamed of in Europe to-day. The 
 fierce recoil of middle-class opinion the ferocious 
 repression of political offences is a measure of 
 the strength of this society of prosperous workers, 
 in which classes and races all seem to fuse in a 
 general search for well-being. They love the 
 basis of ordered liberty on which it all rests, and the 
 American Government have the full support of the 
 community in expelling back to Russia everyone 
 suspected of attempting to tamper with the Ameri- 
 
IRELAND AGAIN 135 
 
 can State. The sufferings of Eugene Debs draw 
 far more tears from Europe than from any American. 
 
 How, then, explain this amazing tolerance for 
 Irish Sinn Fein and all its works among this essenti 
 ally orderly community ? The answer is that, 
 along with this wave of conservatism that has 
 swept over America since the war, there is also a 
 wave of selfishness a kind of American Sinn 
 Feinism. Irish crime is England s affair ; let her 
 look to it. But this American attitude of neutrality 
 really applies to Ireland as well. While America 
 harbours Irish extremists, she has not the remotest 
 intention of serving them or helping them. " A 
 plague on both your islands " is her attitude. Her 
 politicians will play with them and make a catspaw 
 of them, but you need not have the smallest fear 
 that she will go to war with us about Ireland alone. 
 Her present resolve is that she will not again go 
 to war for any cause whatever ; and certainly 
 Ireland is the least of the causes that might rouse 
 her from that temper. The real peril is that the 
 sore of Ireland, festering all the time, may poison 
 the relations between the two countries to such an 
 extent that they may gradually drift apart. Then, 
 when they have drifted apart, some other matter, 
 such as the Panama tolls, or the Jones Act, or our 
 sea-power, might produce a struggle which, in 
 spite of all appearances, would really have had 
 its origin in the Irish trouble. That is the danger. 
 
 For, after all, 5,000,000 votes working with a 
 
136 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 single eye for one object must always be a serious 
 power in a country of less than 30,000,000 voters. 
 It means that the strength of Ireland cannot be 
 measured by Ireland alone, but must also be taken 
 to include the Ireland beyond the seas. 
 
 It also means that Americans, too, as well as 
 ourselves, have a very serious responsibility in 
 regard to the Irish question. The American 
 Government at Washington are fully conscious of 
 this responsibility, and have acted throughout the 
 last year with a full and due sense of their position. 
 They have carefully avoided all risks of identifying 
 themselves with the Sinn Fein agitation, and they 
 have carefully kept clear of being mixed up with 
 the various demonstrations which De Valera has 
 organised in the cities, the States, and even in 
 Congress. 
 
 Foi when the British public hears of public 
 receptions to Irish leaders, or even of receptions to 
 men like De Valera in the Senate, they must always 
 remember that the American Government has no 
 control whatever over the proceedings of Congress 
 whether the Senate or the House of Representatives 
 and is not therefore in any sense responsible for 
 them. The Government has acted quite strictly. 
 
 But there are other people in America who do 
 not possess the same sense of the gravity of inter 
 fering with the affairs of other nations. Throughout 
 the last few weeks a commission of American citizens 
 has been sitting at Washington and taking evidence 
 
IRELAND AGAIN 137 
 
 about events in Ireland. The papers have been 
 filled with its proceedings every day, and they 
 include the most horrific accounts of the doings of 
 our soldiery. The trouble about the committee 
 is that it cannot get evidence on our side. 
 
 The American is just amused at this Irish Com 
 mission. He extends to it his infinite tolerance and 
 good humour ; but I wonder whether he would be 
 moved with the same tolerance and good humour 
 if a commission of British inquirers began to sit 
 openly in London and to hear evidence on American 
 lynching and Hayti " atrocities," especially if 
 that commission flooded the newspapers with their 
 reports and made their committee-room the centre 
 of a great anti- American propaganda ? I doubt 
 whether the British Government would permit 
 this to go on ; I am sure that British public opinion 
 would rightly disapprove. How, then, is it that 
 America, allows a similar commission to sit in 
 Washington ? 
 
 Once more, because the Irish are a troublesome 
 crowd to repress, and because it seems better to 
 let them talk. Also because the American has a 
 rooted belief in the long-suffering patience of the 
 British people. They have twisted the British 
 lion s tail so long that they do not believe that any 
 resisting power is left. They regard him as a good- 
 natured old animal who understands the American 
 game. I wonder ! 
 
 Other nations have taken the same view in the 
 
138 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 past about Great Britain, and found themselves 
 wrong. I have tried to explain to the Americans 
 that there is a flash-point in British opinion a 
 dangerous flash-point, which, when once fired, 
 becomes a raging furnace. The steady people 
 listen and agree. The newspapers go on sand 
 wiching the proceedings of the Irish Commission 
 with the sensations of the Mid-West murders. 
 
X 
 
 BACK TO NEW YORK 
 
 NEW YORK, Nov. 25. 
 
 WHEN we arrived at Chicago on our way back 
 eastward across the continent we were met with 
 the following refreshing anticipation in the Press 
 of that entertaining city 
 
 SNOW FLURRY ENDS SOON 
 
 SOUTHERN BREEZES DUE TO BRING WARMTH AGAIN 
 TO-MORROW. 
 
 TO-DAY S STORM MORE " FLURRY " AND NOT 
 
 BLIZZARD, EXPERTS EXPLAIN. 
 
 " As you read this, standing ankle deep in 
 snow with the old ear-muffs pulled down well 
 on their way toward your collar and the festive 
 goloshes buckled about your blue ankles, try 
 to remember quickly where you stored your 
 straw hat and beeveedees. 
 
 " For the winter, which somebody delivered 
 without warning at our front door last night, 
 will start back to the factory to-night ahead of a 
 south wind. Take the word of the weather man 
 for it it is to be warmer to-morrow. 
 
140 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 " There is no reason for buying a new ice-book 
 or dusting off the electric fan, however. The 
 official forecast shows that deaths from sunstroke 
 are haidly to be expected. Cold weather will 
 return to us to-morrow night." 
 
 (Chicago Newspaper.) 
 
 Heartened by such breezy forecasts we made the 
 two days trip to New York without foreboding, 
 and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves in the well- 
 warmed cars. Starting from Kansas City on 
 Tuesday night, November 23, we slept well in a 
 reserved compartment, and breakfasted on the train 
 along with a distinguished fellow-Pilgrim from 
 Detroit. We reached Chicago at n am. and spent 
 the few hours allowed to us there in strolling about 
 the streets near the station. We lunched in a 
 little German-American restaurant, where the Ger 
 man was peeping out again on the menus. We 
 learnt there the true hustle and bustle of the Chicago 
 eating-house, combined with the amazing off- 
 handedness of the Chicago caterer. All this is 
 endured by the people with that extraordinary 
 resigned serenity of theirs, which means either 
 strength or exhaustion I am not always sure which. 
 
 We left Chicago again at 1.30, glad to leave its 
 crowded, perilous streets. It was now snowing, 
 and the whole landscape was white. I wrote all 
 the afternoon in the Pullman, and suddenly ran 
 short of paper. Then came an extraordinary 
 
BACK TO NEW YORK 141 
 
 demonstration of the essential kindliness and gener 
 osity of the Americans. The whole of the Pullman 
 personnel conductors, passengers, negroes helped 
 to collect pieces of paper for me to write upon 
 sheets white, sheets grey, sheets yellow. I do 
 not know whether this was inspired by enthusiasm 
 for the Daily Telegraph, that great organ of British 
 public opinion for which I was writing. But 
 certainly each of the people helped in a small way 
 to improve the relationships between the two great 
 English-speaking peoples for how could one write 
 an unfriendly word on sheets of paper so collected ? 
 It was rather a fine confirmation of Wordsworth s 
 belief in the value of 
 
 " Little, nameless, unremembered, acts 
 Of kindness and of love." l 
 
 ***** 
 
 It was still snowing when we woke this morning 
 in the train : but it stopped when we passed Syracuse 
 and as the express sped southwards the country 
 turned from white to grey and brown. We had a 
 very pleasant and delightful journey along the 
 Hudson River, and I am confirmed in my belief 
 that travelling by daylight is essential to seeing 
 and understanding a great country. These mighty 
 rivers are the very arteries of America you cannot 
 understand the framework of this continent without 
 seeing them. They are as broad as lakes and as 
 powerful as seas. 
 
 We arrived in New York at 4 p.m. in the mid-calm 
 1 Tintern Abbty (July i3th, 1798). 
 
142 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 of Thanksgiving Day. It was really an experience 
 of value to see this great American city on what is 
 practically their great Bank Holiday. At times I 
 have thought that America could not rest. But 
 to-day I realise that it can. The very railways are 
 half asleep. As we taxied across New York, we 
 might almost have been in London on Easter 
 Monday. This great city thank God ! is really 
 resting. Contemplating this moment of calm I 
 begin to believe in the future of America. Perhaps, 
 after all, she will not perish untimely as some 
 observers have unkindly predicted of premature 
 senile decay. 
 
 I need not dwell on the hundred and one engage 
 ments luncheons, dinners, speeches in theatres 
 and halls to which I am now consecrated. I will 
 draw a veil over the kindly attempts of these 
 Americans to bring back the age of perpetual motion, 
 and to turn my life into one continuous display of 
 rhetorical pyrotechnics. There is no zest in the 
 further narration of such human megaphonies. 
 
 Let me rather consider on this Thanksgiving 
 Day, during this moment of peace, one of the open 
 questions about America which puzzle the British 
 mind. That is how does the United States to-day 
 " react " to the Labour movement ? How does she 
 compare with Britain in that regard ? What is 
 there to say here to-day about the condition of the 
 great working masses of the American people ? 
 
 Depend upon it, the fortune of America will 
 
BACK TO NEW YORK 143 
 
 largely depend upon the true answer to those great 
 
 questions. 
 
 ***** 
 
 Well, the paradox about the United States to-day 
 is that, despite its abounding prosperity and amaz 
 ing civilisation, the social organisation is right 
 back in the Victorian Age. America does not 
 possess any of the machinery of social assuage 
 ment which we have created for the British people 
 during the last twenty years. She has no pensions 
 for her old people ; no medical benefits for her 
 workers ; no unemployment insurance for any 
 trade. Not only so, but she has not the slightest 
 intention at present of adopting any of these pro 
 visions. 
 
 Socialism, as a theory of political construction, 
 has here little standing. It is as unpopular a creed 
 as it was in England forty years ago. Individualism 
 is taken for granted as a working theory of life. 
 "Getting on/ "self-help," "success in life" 
 all these aims have just as high a vogue as in the 
 days of Benjamin Franklin. They are not only 
 preached by the elders : they are accepted by the 
 young. With the boundless horizons of America 
 in front of him, the young American refuses to 
 accept any limits to his strivings. He will not 
 agree to confine himself within what he regards as 
 the strait-waistcoat of Socialism. 
 
 One result is that Labour holds in America a 
 position very inferior to that which it has attained 
 
144 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 in England. Trade unions are much weaker : 
 the great " middle class " is far bigger, and more 
 assertive. When the miners struck last year in the 
 Middle West, the clerks took off their coats, went 
 down the mines, and fetched enough coal to keep 
 their " home fires burning." The marvellous adapt 
 ability of this race helped them. The American 
 is the least specialised of beings. Most of the 
 Western men have put their shoulders to every 
 wheel during their varied and dazzling lives. A 
 clerk to-day but why not a miner to-morrow ? 
 " Why, certainly, rather than be cold at home ! " 
 
 Then there is the vast tide of immigration. 
 Everyone is talking about the alien immigrant 
 to-day in America. But while they are talking 
 he comes. He arrives at the rate of 40,000 a week. 
 The great human tide still flows into New York 
 Harbour. Ellis Island does its best to hold it 
 back, but with little avail. The immigrants come 
 from hungry lands, with plenty in front of them ; 
 they break their way through all the red tape 
 thrown across their path. It is calculated that 
 they are now about to come again, as before the 
 war, at the rate of a million a year perhaps even, 
 to judge by the present flow of the tide, two millions ! 
 and the astounding thing is that, although America 
 is still at war with Germany, German immigrants 
 somehow get in. Truly this is a wonderful country ! 
 
 These immigrants mean a constant supply of 
 cheap labour, ignorant of the American language 
 
BACK TO NEW YORK 145 
 
 or American customs, and ready to take the places 
 of American workmen if they should go on strike. 
 American labour, therefore, is now drifting into 
 the same hostility towards immigration that has 
 marked the policy of the Australian Labour party. 
 In that hostility it is joined by the patriotic, " All 
 for America " party. The great middle class look 
 on, puzzled and perplexed, hating the alien, but 
 longing just aching ! for " helps." For the prob 
 lem of the domestic servant is far more intense 
 here than in England, and is complicated by the 
 negro problem too. 
 
 One of the ninety-nine reasons given for the defeat 
 of President Wilson apart from the one real 
 reason, that the American people did not like him 
 is that he passed a bill for giving shorter hours 
 to railwaymen. That piece of legislation was 
 deeply resented by the railway " corporations," 
 and by " big business " in general. It was regarded 
 as an unnecessary surrender. There does not seem 
 to be any recognition of the fact that it kept the 
 railways working without friction through the 
 critical years of the war. No one reflects what 
 might have happened if the concession had not 
 been made. The feeling about this measure is 
 symptomatic of the American attitude to Labour 
 problems. 
 
 It is difficult to analyse this attitude of the 
 American well-to-do, who are the backbone of the 
 victorious Republican party. It is not that they 
 K 
 
146 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 are in any degree less humane than other well-to- 
 do classes all the world over. On the contrary, 
 I take the American well-to-do to be the most kindly, 
 courteous, and generous in the whole world. They 
 are wonderful givers. Scarcely a day passes which 
 does not record the event of some great and bountiful 
 donation. This week it was a million sterling from 
 Rockefeller to the Society for the Prevention of 
 Cruelty to Children. Rockefeller s benefactions 
 indeed, are enormous, and set the lead to lesser 
 millionaires. 
 
 They will give, ? but they will not yield. Philan 
 thropy yes, to any amount. But " rights of 
 Labour " " a fair wage for a fair day s work " 
 all that is anathema. They are amazed at our 
 concessions to the coal-miners. " But why didn t 
 you fight em to a frazzle ? " is their wondering 
 question. Yet I have just seen in New York a 
 marvellous building in grey granite, some twenty 
 stories high, a palace for the railwaymen, who 
 come from all parts of the country and have to 
 sleep in New York for a night or two before going 
 back to their homes. There are hundreds of little 
 sleeping rooms, one for each man ; there is a 
 beautiful restaurant ; there are billiard tables 
 and a concert room ; there is even an American 
 skittle-alley. It is run by the Y.M.C.A., and 
 richly endowed by the well-to-do. Even at the 
 present moment, when the cause of Labour stands 
 so badly, you can always get money for good works. 
 
BACK TO NEW YORK 147 
 
 Mr. Samuel Gompers, that most modern of 
 Labour leaders, prophesies bad weather. Mr. 
 Eugene Debs, the Socialist leader, remains in prison 
 with the universal consent of the American well- 
 to-do. Which is very much as if we were now 
 keeping Mr. Ramsay MacDonald in prison because 
 he made violent speeches against the war. If 
 Labour is troublesome then you can call it " Bol 
 shevik " and once you have used that bad name 
 it has less chance than the proverbial dog. You 
 can imprison, deport, or detain. For America is 
 far more united against Bolshevism than we are 
 in England and when once America is united its 
 unity is tremendous and terrible. 
 
 But the big employers are supposed to be con 
 templating something much bigger than the war 
 against Bolshevism. Prices are rattling down 
 and they are kicking every day more fiercely against 
 the high wages. The wages vary enormously. 
 There is little uniformity. In some lines of life 
 they seem to the English visitor extraordinarily 
 high. In others they are very low, and are eked 
 out by extravagant " tips " a system which has 
 grown into a regular octopus since I last visited 
 America (1900). A tip of two shillings is a mere 
 trifle. 
 
 But whatever the variation in wages, the " Big 
 Business " people clearly intimate that they propose 
 to cut wages down as soon and as much as possible. 
 There is also a great deal of talk about the " Open 
 
148 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 House," which is another way of saying that, in 
 one way or another, " Big Business " proposes to 
 drive Labour and trade unionism back under 
 ground. 
 
 I have a feeling sometimes that all this wealth, 
 all these immense palaces of splendour which kiss 
 the skies in New York, are built on very shaky 
 foundations. I seem to hear rumblings from under 
 ground. I do not feel sure or certain that Lenin, 
 that terrible mole with the relentless teeth, may not 
 be at work somewhere down below. But I may 
 be wrong. One must always bear in mind the fact 
 that America is still in the making. If you travel 
 West, as we did, you soon see at its true value all 
 the European talk about the " exhaustion of Ameri 
 can resources." It is true that America uses them 
 with prodigal hand. In the Western towns there 
 are gasoline pumps at every other street corner 
 where you can replenish your " automobile " and, 
 of course, everyone has an " auto." There are 
 over 9,000,000 motor-cars running in the States, 
 and that means a lot of oil. No wonder they write 
 us anxious letters about Mesopotamia ! 
 
 But the American panic about oil has not, I 
 think, much more substance in it than our panics 
 about our coal supply. If they only consent to 
 put more money into prospecting as they shortly 
 will the Americans will probably find in America 
 new wells to take the place of the old. And it is 
 the same with all their other resources land, 
 
BACK TO NEW YORK 149 
 
 lumber, coal, iron. No real shadow of exhaustion 
 lies across this continent. The forty-eight States 
 could probably hold 300 or 400 millions of human 
 beings 1,000 on the scale of our English crowding. 
 Even now, with the great increase recorded in 
 this last census, they have only 105,000,000. There 
 are vacant lands out West still unsettled, waiting 
 for inhabitants. The " Career open to the Talents " 
 is therefore likely to remain a long time the popular 
 creed of this country. Its energy is not ready as 
 yet to be channelled or State-controlled. It is 
 like Milton s eagle, " preening its mighty wings, 
 and sunning itself in the noontide beams. * It needs 
 no strong drink. It is intoxicated with its own 
 prosperity. 
 
 Yet in spite of all this lusty confidence and gay 
 pride, a tiny shadow is just touching these American 
 shores, the shadow from stricken Europe. Great 
 as is the home market, America, with its vast powers 
 of production, depends on the foreign market to 
 sell its surplus goods. It is only " as large as a man s 
 hand " at present, like the shadow thrown by the sun 
 setting behind some very distant peak. But it grows 
 larger every day. It is touching, not merely 
 agriculture, but also steel, motors, and even the 
 banks. The deserted sick man is sending across 
 even that great ocean just a whiff of his infection. 
 I wonder if America can stay the disease ? Can 
 she regain her export trade, and yet continue her 
 present policy of aloofness and detachment from the 
 
150 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 Old World ? That is the supreme question of the 
 future. 
 
 The real trouble is that there is not likely to 
 be any decisive answer at all for the present. In 
 Europe the " moving finger writes/ but here no 
 one pays much attention. After the stress of the 
 election the United States has fallen into a back 
 water. There is a dead calm. It is one of those 
 periods of calm arranged for in the American 
 Constitution to suit the needs of an earlier time. 
 A hundred years ago it took four months to obtain 
 a decision on the Presidency. The pack horse 
 was master of the situation. He is long since dead, 
 and the swift expresses and telegraphs carry deci 
 sions in a breath of time over land and sea. But 
 the habit of the pack horse remains. The new 
 President has been elected, but he does not begin 
 to reign at the White House for another three 
 months till March, 1921. Nay, more. The new 
 Congress has been elected, but it does not begin 
 to sit. The Congress which will assemble at 
 Washington this week will be the old Congress 
 the Congress that has broken Wilson and is still 
 at issue with him. The Americans tell you that 
 this is all as it should be. Well, in that case a 
 European can only bow the head and wonder over 
 the rash precipitancy of the Old World. 
 
 The result is that there is no real Executive 
 with a real mandate ; and therefore no real decisions 
 can be taken. As the State possesses a voice in 
 
BACK TO NEW YORK 151 
 
 all appointments, no new appointments of Ambas 
 sadors or such like can take place till March. In 
 the present deadlock between the President and 
 Congress no American army or navy could be put 
 into motion except by the unanimous impulse of 
 the nation. In a word, America is out of action. 
 An extraordinary result for a decisive election ! 
 But was it a decisive election ? That is the doubt 
 ful point. 
 
 It was certainly a great triumph for the Senate 
 over the Presidency. If one wants an analogy one 
 must go back to the triumph of the House of Lords 
 over Mr. Gladstone in 1893. The Senate is now 
 the dominant power in the United States, and the 
 Senate contains a group of the ablest, richest, 
 most experienced " elder statesmen " of America. 
 President-elect Harding has already made it clear 
 that he proposes to consult with these men, who 
 are indeed the victors in his battle. He proposes, 
 in other words, to reverse the policy of President 
 Wilson, and to run the Presidency in harness with 
 the Senate as, indeed, he must. But then will 
 come the rub. For as I have pointed out, it is 
 doubtful whether he has an effective majority in 
 that body. 
 
XI 
 
 THE WONDERFUL CONTINENT 
 
 MACHINERY SUPREME. 
 
 NEW YORK, Nov. 29. 
 
 WHEN I visited the United States twenty years 
 ago there was already a telephone in every well- 
 to-do house. Now there is one in every room. 
 In addition there is also always one, and generally 
 two or three, motor-cars in the garage. There is 
 now, as then, always a bath-room attached to 
 every substantial bedroom. In those days the 
 houses were well lighted. Now the main streets 
 of the big cities are, in the evenings, almost as light 
 as during the day. 
 
 So this great and brilliant civilisation marches 
 on, with its gigantic energy and resourcefulness, 
 now almost overpowering to the mind and eyes 
 of a poor, war-worn, impoverished European. 
 Twenty years ago I was amazed by the sight of 
 the tall buildings that covered Manhattan Island. 
 But to-day it is not Manhattan Island that they 
 cover it is the sky. Then it was a matter of twenty 
 storeys ; now it is over forty. " Ah ! " said the 
 Belgian Archbishop as he looked up at the Wool- 
 worth Building, " how beautiful it is to see that you 
 
 152 
 
THE WONDERFUL CONTINENT 153 
 
 remember God ! " He thought it was a cathedral. 
 But it is not. The cathedral wilts below, while 
 Woolworth kisses the stars. You ascend to the 
 empyrean. To climb the Woolworth you take 
 a through express elevator, which takes you in one 
 rush up forty-six storeys. Then you change 
 elevators, rest a while on that storey, and take a 
 quick ride to the fifty-sixth. You emerge on to 
 a dizzy balcony, contemplate the great expanse 
 of city, river and sea below you, and cling on. 
 
 The climb of the Insurance Building in Madison- 
 square is equally swift and terrible. Young 
 America loves it. 
 
 At night these buildings look beautiful. With 
 their myriad lights they twinkle up in the firma 
 ment. The Insurance Building marks the hours 
 by the lights red and white in the crown at 
 the top of the tower, white for the quarters, red for 
 the hours. As they twinkle they can be seen for a 
 circuit of twenty miles. Light has taken the 
 place of sound as a messenger and recorder of 
 time. 
 
 Hotel and domestic life is equally adaptive, 
 resourceful, inventive. Name a new want, and the 
 American seeks to supply it. Discover any slightest 
 roughness in the journey of life rub against the 
 smallest friction and some American will invent 
 a way over or a way round. 
 
 But the marvel of America to-day is, after all, 
 the machinery the adding-machines, the stamp- 
 
154 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 machines, the letter-addressing machines, the bank- 
 clerking machines so that you soon have a feeling 
 that you are in a country where man is becoming 
 gradually superfluous. Frankenstein seems to have 
 discovered a new mechanical Humanity not homi 
 cidal this time, but kindly and helpful. The stamp- 
 machine delivers your change with an exactitude 
 more than human. The letter-chute carries your 
 letters down to the hall from your floor without a 
 hitch ; the tel-autograph records your message with 
 a grim and fleshless finger in all parts of your hotel ; 
 or you pass into a house and find that the American 
 householder is meeting his shortage of labour by 
 the adoption of multitudinous labour-saving devices 
 the electric cooker, the oil furnace, the automatic 
 cleaner, the laundry chute. 
 
 All these new inventions are found at their best 
 not in the East, but in the West. It is here, in 
 these new lands, that the new world is in the making. 
 Out at Topeka, in the State of Kansas, I stayed 
 as I have told in a house where there was only 
 one woman, a negress, to " help." Yet everything 
 went with perfect smoothness. All the admirable 
 cooking was done on the one electric stove ; all the 
 excellent heating came from the one oil furnace. 
 The electric stove was cooking all by itself, presided 
 over by a clock, which kept it accurately to time ; 
 the furnace was heated by oil which flowed in 
 steadily from a tank. The negress was really a 
 superfluity ; yet the master and mistress were 
 
THE WONDERFUL CONTINENT 155 
 
 both leaders of local society and busy in all good 
 public works. Then the new shops ! We were taken 
 out shopping at Bloomington, in Illinois, to a grocery 
 store. It was of the kind known in the United 
 States as the " Piggly Wiggly." You enter by 
 a turnstile. You find all the goods set out on 
 various shelves and carefully priced. You take 
 up a shop basket, pick out the articles you desire, 
 and collect them in the basket. No one interferes 
 with you, because you can only emerge from that 
 shop by one exit through another turnstile. 
 There the manager of the " store " checks your 
 purchases, notes down what you owe him, adds it 
 up with his adding-machine, and distils your change 
 from his changing-machine. He is the sole human 
 thing left in that shop ; and you feel as if he were 
 a sort of pathetic relic, soon to give way to a 
 machine that will stand at the door and " strike 
 once and strike no more ! " 
 
 In fact, so far has this process gone, that some 
 times, in the midst of this marvellous network of 
 machinery, you feel as if you were a machine 
 yourself, an auto-motor at the mercy of automata, 
 due to grind out so many speeches per day. Per 
 haps, indeed, this will be the next stage in inter 
 national relations ; and perhaps at the next cele 
 bration of the Mayflower America will prefer to 
 import a group of superior auto-mega-gramophones 
 telling them the simple story of the Pilgrim Fathers 
 in accents of storm. 
 
156 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 I have always greatly admired the " check " 
 system of the American railways, and preferred it 
 to the unutterable chaos of our own luggage system. 
 The war has not improved the American system, 
 and has clogged it with a detestable plague of 
 tipping. The lavishness of American tipping is, 
 I suppose, some measure of the wealth of her 
 travelling class ; but it bears with a crushing force 
 on the visitor from other and poorer lands. A 
 quarter of a dollar is, as I have said, quite a 
 usual tip for a porter. The black boy who 
 carries your " grips " up to your bedroom refuses 
 to leave the room with less than that same sacred 
 coin and so it goes on. A tip is due at every 
 meal, and unless given is direly revenged at the 
 next. This amazing system of daily and hourly 
 extortion to which the American himself submits 
 with his usual good-humoured tolerance has grown 
 to fearful dimensions. 
 
 But, in spite of that, travelling in America is 
 still infinitely easier and more comfortable than in 
 Europe. The hotels are also far more commodious, 
 although the subdivision of function in the great 
 American hotels and railway stations is so meticu 
 lously minute. Seeking some simple service, you 
 are handed on from one counter to another, and 
 from one chief clerk to his neighbour, until, after 
 completing the circuit, you generally end with an 
 honest, good-tempered son or daughter of Africa. 
 In America to-day everyone speaks ill of the negro, 
 
THE WONDERFUL CONTINENT 157 
 
 and everyone employs him. Everyone loads every 
 menial task on to his broad back and woolly head. 
 Everyone says he is lazy, and proceeds to prove it 
 by making him work. And that is not remarkable : 
 
 for he is really the only good servant in America. 
 * * * * * 
 
 For what is it, after all, among the white waiters 
 and hotel servants of the big hotels of America, 
 that the English visitor finds lacking ? Is it just 
 the human touch, the friendly smile of the old 
 English waiter ? Perhaps that English waiter 
 shuffled a little in his gait, and was a little shabby 
 in his dress, but that old waiter rare alas ! now 
 in England also took a human interest in your 
 comfort. He left you less numbed and crushed, 
 feeling less as if you were an atom whirled round 
 on the wheel of soulless forces, less crushed, less 
 overwhelmed. For America is tremendously like 
 Niagara. All feel all the time rushed along by 
 speed and power, your poor old European limbs 
 bruised and shaken, helpless in the cataract and 
 the whirlpool. 
 
 Energy, action, movement those are what the 
 American admires. Sometimes he almost seems 
 to overrate their potency to believe that energy 
 and action will solve any difficulty, unravel any 
 situation. The European is perhaps more reflective. 
 He hesitates to act until he has made up his mind. 
 Sometimes I wonder whether, gradually, the 
 American is not falling into the same position 
 
158 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 towards Europe as Europe has been in towards 
 Asia for the last two thousand years. We despise 
 the slowness of the Oriental. " Better fifty years 
 of Enrope than a cycle of Cathay," cried our great 
 Victorian poet. Is not the American inclined to 
 say the same to-day of ourselves " Better fifty 
 
 years of America than a cycle of Europe " ? 
 ***** 
 
 I am always haunted with the feeling, when I 
 reach America from Europe, that I have landed 
 on a new planet. The change is far deeper than 
 those cheerful variations that one finds in travelling 
 about Europe variations of language, costumes, 
 food. There is here a difference of soul which 
 penetrates everything. This amazingly fertile and 
 facile people does not look at anything quite with 
 our eyes. The impression is all the more striking 
 because the language is or was once the same 
 as ours. The identity of language only brings 
 out more remarkably the difference of outlook. I 
 have been present at Boston at a conference of 
 their Federal Churches a tremendous and pro 
 longed effort after Church Reunion. About the 
 actual task of Church Reunion in America there 
 seems little difficulty ; the only puzzle is how, with 
 such simplicity of outlook, the Christian Churches 
 have managed to remain divided. 
 
 But the fact that has dawned upon some of us is 
 that this American Christianity is quite a different 
 thing from our European Christianity. Doctrine, 
 
THE WONDERFUL CONTINENT 159 
 
 and all the talk about doctrine which falls on our 
 Church conferences, seems to have quite dis 
 appeared. These men, these powerful speakers 
 and perorators, seem to be no " divines," but 
 rather a set of capable, earnest business men met 
 together to organise this great affair of the Christian 
 life. There is less " spirituality " than in Europe. 
 There is the same intentness on action energy 
 as you see in the business life. Christianity here, 
 in all the Churches, has taken on a new phase. 
 It has become subject to this wonderful, magnetic, 
 electric, American spirit. It is a thing of shocks ; 
 it is almost as far different from mediaeval European 
 Christianity, with its silent churches, its chants 
 and incense, its dim aisles and Gothic windows, as 
 our European Christianity is different from the 
 religions of Asia. 
 
 At an Episcopal Church which we attended at 
 Topeka, in the Middle West, the choir made up 
 chiefly of girls in beautiful purple robes literally 
 danced the Processional Hymn to the two-step. 
 They did not mean to. They could not help it. 
 I watched them closely. The heads moved to and 
 fro and the feet fell into the dancing rhythm. It 
 was the spirit of America a dancing, moving spirit, 
 never quite still. You see it especially in the 
 young. For this is the country of the young. All 
 the time it looks forward. 
 
 In all these respects it stands out as the country 
 of the future. That, when all is said and done, is 
 
i6o A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 the secret of its power and fascination. The 
 country of the future and therefore the country 
 of hope. A Dutch professor who was working at 
 Columbia University told me that even if he wished 
 to go back to Europe which he did not seem to 
 his children would not allow him. They had 
 fallen in love with America with their school, with 
 their games, with their work. But I think that 
 what they really loved was the atmosphere not 
 the physical atmosphere only, although that is full 
 of an amazing vitality, but the social and moral 
 atmosphere the spring of eager anticipation that 
 seems to fill all young lives, the sense that nothing 
 is impossible, unachievable. 
 
 All this is bound up, of course, with the feeling 
 of equality that penetrates everywhere. Europeans 
 call it rudeness. Well, that depends on what you 
 mean by the word. If you expect to be treated 
 deferentially, to be called " Sir " or " Madam " all 
 the day, do not go to America. The only American 
 who called me " Sir " in America was an Irishman 
 from Tipperary, and a Sinn Feiner at that. The 
 true American never calls you " Sir." He refers 
 to you in public and private as a "man" not 
 " gentleman " that word is rarely or never heard. 
 Above all, he never, never blacks your boots. 
 That business is done for you after breakfast by an 
 Italian in the basement. The Italian always tells 
 you that he wants to get to London ; and no wonder. 
 For the Americans do not understand Italians. 
 
THE WONDERFUL CONTINENT 161 
 
 The people who treat you with least respect 
 in the whole of America are the boys in the news 
 paper offices. They do not stop chewing candy 
 or gum when you enter ; they do not lift their 
 heads from their arms, or cease playing any game 
 they may be engaged in. " Can t see him he s 
 gone uptown," is the usual reply to the English 
 man s mild suggestion that he has an engagement 
 to see the editor. That and nothing more. But 
 the reason is that their day does not begin till 
 they have left the newspaper office. Then as one 
 kindly explained to me while he was guiding me 
 across the city he goes to evening school then 
 later to college and perhaps, in the end, to uni 
 versity. For the universities are legion, and they 
 are beckoning to all young America to come along. 
 And though they may not teach much universities 
 very rarely do they inspire and stimulate. They 
 turn the newspaper boy into the complete American. 
 
 What is to be said of this same " Complete 
 American " ? He is a new type of human being, 
 quicker, keener, more adaptable than anything the 
 world has seen yet. He is passionately in love 
 with his own continent and his own flag. He is 
 tired of Europe, and wants to have nothing more 
 to do with her. He can talk no language but 
 his own, and is proud of that fact. He is openly, 
 notoriously, avowedly out to make himself rich. 
 He has little sympathy with poverty, and considers 
 that it is generally a man s own fault. He is 
 L 
 
162 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 courteous, considerate to women, and now, 
 in his own country, generally sober. He is silent 
 about negroes and Free Trade, which he classes 
 together as undesirable topics of conversation. 
 In his view it is a waste of time and breath to dis 
 cuss things on which you have made up your mind. 
 He is not really boastful, although he will put his 
 best foot foremost, and cannot for the life of him 
 understand why the Englishman does not do the 
 same. He is essentially humorous, and generally 
 kindly. Not a bad sort, if you get on his right side. 
 But a very formidable person if you get on his 
 wrong side ! 
 
XII 
 
 WE VISIT BOSTON CITY AND NEW 
 PLYMOUTH 
 
 BOSTON, Dec. i. 
 
 WE left New York last night for Boston in one of 
 those beautiful trains of sleeping cars only which 
 connect these two great cities, and make the passage 
 from one to the other so easy and attractive. The 
 really good American, one sometimes suspects, 
 spends very few nights under a roof. For his aim 
 seems to be to make his railway trains so comfort 
 able that we should all acquire this gipsy habit. 
 It is an old joke of the New Yorker, framed I suspect 
 on the model of a famous saying of Dr. Johnson s, 
 that the only good thing about Boston is the railway 
 that takes you to New York. But if I were a 
 Bostonian I should think it could be said with 
 equal facility that the only good thing about New 
 York is the railway which takes you to Boston. 
 The worst of these little jests is that they lend 
 themselves so easily to reprisals. 
 
 We reached Boston at 7 a.m. on this December 
 morning when it was still dark. We drove straight 
 to the Hotel Belle Vue and " registered. But as 
 usual in these crowded American cities we were 
 
 163 
 
164 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 told that we should have to wait in the lobby until 
 ii o clock before we could obtain a room. The 
 delay was quite retrieved by the quality of the room, 
 and we spent most of the pause in consuming an 
 admirable breakfast. Then we went out and ob 
 tained our first impressions of Boston. 
 ***** 
 
 Boston is the most English of the American 
 cities, and the people are the most English of her 
 people. That fact is not altered in the least by 
 the recent capture of her civic government by the 
 Catholic Irishmen, who have swarmed into this 
 city from overseas. Certainly that invasion has 
 not yet made any difference in the appearance of 
 Boston. 
 
 Instead of the methodically ordered avenues of 
 the typical American city, you have a characteristic 
 ally British jumble of houses, intersected by such 
 narrow streets and alleys as are familiar to us in 
 our own cities. In this respect Boston makes an 
 Englishman very much at home, and he feels 
 indeed what is the fact that he has only just 
 come from the Old England to the New. 
 
 The piece of land on which the oldest part of 
 Boston city is built was once almost a peninsula. 
 But now the filling in of the bays and inlets has 
 immensely changed the formation of the town and 
 the harbour. To the historian this is puzzling 
 and disturbing, as he will find it extremely difficult 
 to trace the sites of the tremendous events which 
 
BOSTON CITY AND PLYMOUTH 165 
 
 look place here in 1770-1776. He will go down 
 and find that the spot at which the cases of tea 
 were emptied into Boston Harbour is now dry land, 
 and is marked with a tablet on the wall of a modern 
 warehouse. If he climbs to the summit of Bunker 
 Hill and tries to trace the outline of the famous 
 battle which though called after that hill, really 
 occurred on Breed s Hill he will find that Charles- 
 town is no longer a peninsula connected with the 
 mainland by a narrow causeway, but is really part 
 of the same mainland as Cambridge itself. 
 
 For since the end of the eighteenth century the 
 Americans, with their tremendous energy and indus 
 try, have literally paved the bed of the sea, and 
 have created, like the Venetians of old, new founda 
 tions for a part even of the very streets in Boston. 
 
 But they have so created the new as to interfere 
 little with the old ; and that is the chief charm about 
 Boston this intertwining of the new life with the 
 old. There is, for instance, the great Boston 
 Common, that immense park of nearly fifty acres 
 which lies in the very heart of the city, just beneath 
 the State House. With its pleasant grassy slopes, 
 its lakes, its paths and its statues, this common has 
 belonged to the Boston people for nearly three 
 centuries. That great open meadow has seen 
 the gatherings of multitudes in times of popular 
 emotion. It has seen the drilling of soldiers, and 
 to-day in smoother times the children play around 
 the stately memorials of the great American Wars. 
 
166 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 The great building of the State House stands on 
 Beacon Hill, at the north-east corner of the Common, 
 conspicuous with its huge gilded dome and its 
 great Corinthian portico. In front there stands a 
 remarkable basrelief the Shaw Monument. It 
 is perhaps one of the most successful examples of 
 independent relief work in any great modern city. 
 It commemorates the young and gallant Colonel 
 R. G. Shaw, the idealist young Bostonian, who, in 
 the later stages of the Civil War, undertook the 
 perilous risk of raising a negro regiment and leading 
 it into action. The relief stands by itself, and you 
 see the young officer on horseback leading his men, 
 who follow him with fixed bayonets. The regiment 
 seems to move, and you think of his untimely death 
 while leading his men into the Confederate trenches. 
 There comes back to you the wonderful lines from 
 that great poem of James Russell Lowell, " Memoriae 
 Positum " : 
 
 " Right in the van, 
 
 On the red rampart s slippery swell, 
 
 With heart that beat a charge, he fell 
 
 Foeward, as fits a man ; 
 
 But the high soul burns on to light men s feet 
 Where death for noble ends makes dying sweet." 
 
 You mount the steps of the State House and 
 within its doors you find many precious mementoes 
 of American history. Displayed in the great 
 Memorial Hall there are two brilliant sets of flags, 
 set forth behind plate glass the regimental 
 colours of the Massachusetts Regiments that fought 
 
BOSTON CITY AND PLYMOUTH 167 
 
 in the Civil War, and now added to them on the 
 other side of the hall the flags brought back from 
 Europe after the great World War. These flags 
 make a brilliant and flashing display. Beyond is 
 the great State Library, where at last we found the 
 original copy of the Log of the Mayflower, written 
 in close but clear hand-writing by William Bradford 
 a manuscript which I had been pursuing over 
 two continents. This original copy was once in the 
 Fulham Palace Library, and was presented to 
 America by Dr. Creighton, when he was Bishop of 
 London. Just before starting from England I 
 tracked down a facsimile of it in Southwark, and 
 was shown it with pride by the Librarian of the 
 Free Library, to whom it had been lent by the 
 present Bishop of London. That facsimile was 
 given to us in England by America in exchange 
 for the original, and thus by a happy arrange 
 ment the original of this manuscript has been 
 returned to New England, while the facsimile is 
 retained in Old England. 
 
 There is no more thrilling narrative in the English 
 language than this of Bradford s, and none which, 
 by its simple, heroic story is better calculated to 
 draw together the two English-speaking races. 
 
 Later on we plunged into the crowded streets of 
 the main city of Boston, and following Washington 
 Street we came to the old State House, where the 
 Colonial Assembly used to meet in the days before 
 the revolution of 1776. With a happy generosity 
 
i68 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 the Americans have placed in front of this buiJding 
 the figures of the British Lion and Unicorn, and 
 they have restored the building almost precisely 
 to its old early eighteenth century form, so that 
 you can wander through the rooms and imagine 
 yourself in New England when it was a British 
 Colony. It was in front of this building that there 
 occurred on March 2, 1770, the opening tragedy of 
 the Revolution the first shedding of blood between 
 Englishmen and Americans. It was merely the 
 firing of a few sentries upon a disorderly crowd, and 
 in these later days if it had happened in Dublin 
 for instance we should think little of it. But in 
 those days it was called the " Boston Massacre/ 
 and it inflamed a whole continent. 
 
 Then we passed on to that great meeting place 
 of many democratic memories Faneuil Hall, named 
 after the Huguenot merchant who gave it to the 
 City in 1742. Through nearly two centuries it has 
 been consecrated by many great scenes, both of the 
 Revolution and the Civil War. I could not help 
 mounting the platform of this hall and picturing 
 to myself the great, ardent assemblies that have 
 met here, and hearing again in fancy the many 
 resounding appeals that have been uttered from 
 its boards. But there is little that is dramatic in 
 its appearance. It might be the old Town Hall of 
 any British city borough. Here, indeed, is one 
 of the most truly English things in America. It is 
 part of the irony of history that this intensely 
 
BOSTON CITY AND PLYMOUTH 169 
 
 English hall should have been the scene of the 
 events which led to the separation of the two Eng 
 lish-speaking races. For Faneuil Hall is essentially 
 English of the eighteenth century, with its little 
 conceits and classicisms, its Greek columns and its 
 galleries. I have never felt so much at home as 
 standing on its platform. 
 
 Let us pass on. Not far away, down Milk Street, 
 stands the famous old South Meeting House, another 
 of the original scenes of revolutionary times. It 
 seems to-day nothing more than a little English 
 Nonconformist chapel ; and yet in that building 
 there was hatched and prepared one of the most 
 stirring conspiracies in the world s history. For it 
 was there that on December 16, 1773, forty American 
 " rebels," disguised as Mohawk Indians, assembled 
 together : and from its doors they proceeded to 
 steal down to the harbour, board an innocent 
 trading ship, and throw 342 chests of excellent tea 
 into the depths of the water. The waste of that 
 tea seemed to send a greater thrill through the 
 British world than the Boston Massacre. For it 
 was from that moment that the quarrel between 
 Britain and America became irreparable. 
 
 Hard by this building, standing quite modestly 
 in the middle of a modern street, is a little wooden 
 cottage, such as the Colonials used to inhabit in 
 revolutionary days. This cottage has been happily 
 left untouched by the hand of the restorer. For it 
 is a sacred shrine. Here lived Paul Revere, the 
 
170 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 famous Bostonian rebel who, on the night of April 17, 
 1775, started out on the ride which gave the alarm 
 to the farmers of Lexington, and enabled them to 
 fire that famous shot. 
 
 Longfellow has told the story in one of his Tales 
 of a Wayside Inn how Paul Revere had arranged 
 with a friend on the Charlestown bank to tell him 
 by signal whether the British were going to march 
 by land or by sea 
 
 Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry-arch 
 
 Of the North Church tower as a signal. light 
 
 One, if by land, and two, if by sea ; 
 
 And I .on the opposite shore will be, 
 
 Ready to ride and spread the alarm 
 
 Through every Middlesex village and farm, 
 
 For the country folk to be up and arm." 
 
 Paul Revere waited and waited through the 
 dark hours until the signal came 
 
 " And lo ! as he looks, on the belfry s height 
 A glimmer and then a gleam of light ! 
 He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns, 
 But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight 
 A second lamp in the belfry burns." 
 
 Then Paul Revere knew that the British regulars 
 were going by sea across the harbour and up 
 the river, and he started out on his midnight ride, 
 reaching Lexington by one o clock and Concord by 
 two, arousing the farmers from their beds as he 
 passed. From the point of view of every true 
 American, it was Paul Revere that turned the scales 
 of that war and gained independence for his country. 
 
BOSTON CITY AND PLYMOUTH 171 
 
 December 4. 
 
 To-day we have spent in visiting this town of 
 Plymouth the New England Plymouth the goal 
 of our pilgrimage. For here the Pilgrim Fathers 
 landed this year three centuries ago. It seemed 
 right and fitting that we should stand on that spot 
 before we turn our steps back towards the Old 
 World. So we decided to accept the invitation 
 which reached us yesterday from the Pilgrim Club 
 of Plymouth, urging us to come over and visit their 
 town. 
 
 It is a journey of nearly forty miles from 
 Boston to Plymouth, along the curve of the Massa 
 chusetts Bay, and we took it this time really as 
 true pilgrims, travelling in the ordinary public 
 car, and taking a railway lunch of sandwiches from 
 the restaurant. This latter proved unnecessary, 
 for when we arrived here we found that the Pilgrim 
 Club had prepared a splendid lunch for us, and it 
 became our duty as national pilgrims to eat the 
 public lunch as well as the private. As the time 
 for that banquet had to be snatched from the hour 
 or two which had been allowed us for seeing Ply 
 mouth it required an effort of self-sacrifice to 
 consume it without betraying our eagerness to 
 visit the spots of which we had heard and read so 
 much during the last few weeks. For we Pilgrims 
 are a faithful band, and have read practically 
 every book and pamphlet written on every episode 
 of the Pilgrim Fathers journey. Finally, at the 
 
172 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 end of our six courses, we were allowed to mount 
 the automobile and were taken swiftly round the 
 sacred town. 
 
 We have been allowed to place our hands on the 
 broken piece of the Plymouth Rock a mere 
 fragment of an old granite boulder marked with 
 the date 1620 the year in which the Pilgrim 
 Fathers landed and enclosed by a Renaissance 
 canopy. It was no small relief to us to hear that the 
 Plymouth Pilgrims propose to remove this canopy 
 as soon as possible. 
 
 The really impressive features about this little 
 town are those which have been left untouched 
 by the hand of commemorating man. Running 
 up from the Quay is a street of little old wooden 
 houses, some of which date back to the lifetime 
 of the first founders of the town. Beyond some 
 modern shops is the church called the First Church. 
 This building stands above that original burying 
 place of the early settlers which played such a 
 pathetic and noble part in their early history. For 
 it was just here on " Coles Hill " now so-called 
 opposite the Rock, that the Pilgrim Fathers 
 buried their early dead and sowed their corn on 
 the graves so that the Red Indians around them 
 should not discover how many of the settlers had 
 ceased to live. Above the church you mount in a 
 series of flights of steps to the later burial hill, to 
 which the Fathers transferred some of their dead, 
 and where they buried those who died later. 
 
BOSTON CITY AND PLYMOUTH 173 
 
 Here in this ground we found the grave of one 
 of the noblest men who ever landed on American 
 soil Bradford, the author of the Diary and the 
 Governor of Plymouth Colony from 1621 to 1657. 
 On his tombstone is written in Latin this grave 
 and solemn exhortation to America 
 
 " Quae patres difficillime adepti sunt nolite turpiter 
 relinquere." 
 
 Which may be translated thus : 
 
 " WHAT OUR FATHERS WITH so MUCH DIFFICULTY 
 
 SECURED DO NOT BASELY RELINQUISH." 
 
 Over his grave is a fine obelisk more than eight 
 feet in height, and on the north side is a Hebrew 
 sentence which I am told signifies 
 
 " Jehovah is our Help." 
 
 This mouldered memorial is one of the most 
 impressive things that we have yet seen in America. 
 
 From this old graveyard, where the dead lie 
 scattered beneath the trees in that impressive and 
 restful American fashion, we descended the hill 
 to the Pilgrim Hall a building full of a most 
 interesting collection of Pilgrim relics. Here is 
 the cradle in which was nursed the little Pilgrim 
 baby " Peregrine " that was born on the Atlantic. 
 Here are the little pieces of furniture which these 
 wanderers had brought right through from their 
 Lincolnshire homes, and had kept by them during 
 those ten years of exile in Holland. Looking at 
 
174 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 these little fragments of their lives you begin to 
 realise that these Pilgrim Fathers and Mothers 
 were not eccentric old people with flowing white 
 locks, as they have been so often depicted, but were 
 keen young men and women of prosperous life who 
 left everything and dared everything for their faith. 
 
 Then you go forth from this hall on this December 
 day and look out on the bleak, grey Atlantic and 
 realise how much they risked. It took them nine 
 weeks to cross that Atlantic, a hundred of them 
 packed in a little ship of 140 tons. Half of them 
 died in the first winter, and were buried on that 
 hill. They were in daily peril not only from the 
 sea but also from the Red Indians, who regarded 
 them as intruders without any rights, and treated 
 them as such whenever Miles Standish allowed it. 
 
 It is easy to live here to-day, reaping the fruits 
 of what they suffered. But every person who lives 
 a happy life in this New England to-day owes it to 
 the daring and hardihood of those English pioneers. 
 
 For they were English these people; and they 
 were proud of that fact. Standing here to-day in 
 Plymouth those impressive words written by 
 Governor Bradford in his Diary again and again 
 come back to us 
 
 " May not and ought not the children of these 
 fathers rightly say, OUR FATHERS WERE 
 ENGLISHMEN, which came over the gieat 
 ocean and were ready to perish in this wilder- 
 
BOSTON CITY AND PLYMOUTH 175 
 
 ness : but they cried unto the Lord, and He 
 
 heard their voice, and looked on their adversity ? 
 * * * * * 
 
 Before coming to Plymouth, I was commonly 
 told that the people of Plymouth themselves had 
 sadly departed from the tradition of the Fathers. 
 In fact, it is a current saying in Boston that Ply 
 mouth has been bored back by Puritanism into 
 heathenism. This touch of flippancy is part of 
 the same spirit which rejoices in such amusing 
 after-dinner aphorisms as we have so often heard. 
 
 " We are sorry for the Pilgrim Fathers," says the 
 after-dinner speaker and you generally see it 
 
 coming on his face " We are sorry for the 
 
 Pilgrim Fathers, but we are still more sorry for the 
 Pilgrim Mothers because they had to put up with 
 the Pilgrim Fathers ! " 
 
 This is part of the general good humour of 
 American life, which makes them laugh even at 
 themselves. 
 
 To-day I have been enquiring as to how far that 
 saying is true about Plymouth that all traces of 
 the Pilgrim spirit have disappeared. 
 
 We were gazing at the great national Pilgrim 
 Monument which has been erected by the Americans 
 at the East entrance to Plymouth a colossal figure 
 of a woman standing on a high pedestal crowded 
 with emblematic figures. I remarked that the 
 erection of such a monument did not look like any 
 falling off in the Pilgrim spirit. 
 
176 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 The local Minister with whom I discussed this 
 afterwards made the following interesting reply. 
 
 " Among the people here/ he said, " there are 
 a good many men filled with a remarkable spirit, 
 quite distinct from that of New York, Chicago or 
 Boston. It is a combination of independence and 
 toleration. These people are characterised by a 
 deep spiritual earnestness, but free from any 
 fanaticism. They pursue their own course without 
 condemning others. They stand apart from the 
 common current of American life, and I for my 
 part certainly trace their spirit back to those 
 Pilgrim Fathers who came from Holland and 
 landed on these shores 300 years ago." 
 
 There stands the answer from one who knows 
 these men, and lives among them. If his witness 
 be true, here is a remarkable proof of the long 
 survival of spiritual qualities. 
 
 But we had no time to enquire further. For 
 now we could hear the whistle of our train which 
 was to carry us back to Boston and another public 
 meeting. 
 
XIII 
 NEW ENGLAND 
 
 WHAT TO REMEMBER. 
 
 BOSTON, Dec. 5. 
 
 IN the intervals of public conferences and banquets 
 we have been making a round of those great historical 
 spots which make the environs of Boston one of the 
 great places of European pilgrimage. 
 
 We have motored out and visited Lexington, 
 preserved to-day almost precisely as it was at the 
 time of strife a model little village of old eighteenth- 
 century New England, with the noble statue of the 
 American Minute Man standing proudly on the 
 village green. There the old British claim to 
 exploit the Colonies met its first disastrous check. 
 
 From Lexington we motored on to Concord and 
 visited the bridge where the men of Concord rivalled 
 the men of Lexington in their defiance of the British 
 power. Another statue, equally proud and triumph 
 ant, stands by that bridge this time the statue of 
 an American farmer with his coat off, his rifle in 
 one hand and the other hand on a plough ; marking 
 the spot where 
 
 " The embattled farmers stood 
 And fired the shot heard round the world." 
 * * * * * 
 
 M I 77 
 
178 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 The Americans are frankly astonished that we 
 should wish to see these spots. They have a 
 curious, apologetic air in showing them to us. 
 With their great courtesy, they are almost inclined 
 to make excuses for their ancestors in their rudeness 
 to the British military visitors of that distant day. 
 So far has this been carried in Boston that there 
 exists a school of writers in that happy town which 
 maintains that the whole War of Independence 
 was a great blunder, that the Americans would 
 have been wiser to have accepted the stamp duties 
 and the tea tax, and to have bowed to the beneficent 
 rule of George III. 
 
 I have tried to explain to them that we do not 
 demand this historical penitence ; that English 
 men, as a whole, take the view expressed by Tenny 
 son in that little-known poem, " England and 
 America in 1782 " : 
 
 " What wonder, if in noble heat 
 
 Those men thine arms withstood, 
 Retaught the lesson thou hadst taught, 
 And in thy spirit with thee fought 
 Who sprang from English blood ! " 
 
 In other words, I have suggested that the most 
 enlightened English view of to-day is that those 
 incidents took on from Runnymede the defence of 
 English liberties against despotic aggression. The 
 men who fought against George III. were the direct 
 successors of those who battled with King John. 
 
 I find the Americans pleased with this view, 
 
NEW ENGLAND 179 
 
 although they seem somewhat surprised. It ap 
 pears that many English visitors attempt to go 
 back on the decision of those fateful years, and give 
 the impression to America that they wish to resume 
 the policy of George III. These English people 
 are deceived by the courtesy of the New Englanders 
 into imagining that that reversal of history has a 
 chance of acceptance on American soil. 
 
 It shows how little they know the American 
 mind, which, as a whole, stands precisely where it 
 did in 1782 ; steeped in the spirit of independence, 
 rootedly hostile to any possible return to the con 
 stitutional forms of the Old World. If there is 
 one thing which keeps America aloof from Europe 
 it is the grave suspicion stimulated by such visitors 
 that Europe intends to entice America back into 
 her gilded cage. After four generations America 
 affirms and upholds the judgment of her fore 
 fathers, and she all that is best and strongest in 
 her is as stoutly to-day a believer in the issues of 
 the War of Independence as she was when she 
 broke away from England in 1782. 
 
 What I have been suggesting to the Americans 
 is that they should remember, in writing their 
 history books for the young, that English opinion 
 was, even during the war, divided on the American 
 issue. Their text-books rather tend to suggest 
 that the whole of England was behind George III. 
 Surely they might remind the American youth 
 that there was a large body of British opinion that 
 
i8o A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 favoured the Americans, and that that opinion was 
 strongly upheld by some of the greatest Englishmen 
 of that day. After all, the best statement of the 
 case for the rights of America is still contained in 
 the two famous speeches of Edmund Burke, and 
 in the elder Pitt s passionate and historic appeals 
 to the House of Lords. I have suggested to en 
 lightened Americans that, to the various statues 
 which they have raised to commemorate the 
 independence of America, they might add one to 
 Edmund Burke and another to Lord Chatham. 1 
 
 Nor do I confine these remarks to the War of 
 Independence. For it is also a common impression 
 in America that we took the wrong side in the War 
 of Secession. One is reminded here that Mr. 
 Gladstone was in favour of recognising the Southern 
 States. But there, again, might it not be some 
 advantage for America also to remember that 
 another great Englishman, John Bright, fervently 
 took the side of the North, and that the Manchester 
 cotton-spinners faced starvation on behalf of the 
 Northern arms ? Perhaps a statue of John Bright 
 might be added to those statues of Edmund Burke 
 and Lord Chatham as reminders of what is in 
 common between the two great English-speaking 
 
 nations. 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 The longer one stays in America the more one 
 is impressed with the feeling that these people 
 
 1 This suggestion has since been adopted by the British 
 Sulgrave Institution. 
 
NEW ENGLAND 181 
 
 have two minds towards us one expressed in their 
 daily courtesy and their real love of our literature 
 and our society ; the other expressed in their 
 historical memories and their political achievements. 
 The first unites us, the other divides. The play of 
 these two minds of the American public constantly 
 creates in Englishmen an impression of hypocrisy. 
 We find the American visitor to England enthusi 
 astic over our ancient buildings and our social 
 life. We meet him again in America, and we 
 find him gone back into his shell of independence, 
 brooding over the wrongs that we did him in the 
 past, fearful of our interference in the future. 
 Now the problem before us is to throw a bridge 
 between the real American political attitude and 
 ours. We shall not do that by attempting to abolish 
 the differences by trying to persuade him that he 
 ought to adopt a Monarchy, by talking about the 
 advantages of titles, or by running down his generous 
 plutocracy. Let us realise once and for all that 
 the true American has made up his mind on all 
 these matters, and let us agree to differ. He has 
 decided that for him a Presidency is better than a 
 Monarchy. He is still rootedly of opinion that 
 titles would corrupt his politics. He believes in 
 social equality, and he acts on that belief. It is 
 useless to try to push him off this ground. You 
 will only make him more suspicious and resentful, 
 more inclined to detect a touch of patronage, or 
 even of an ambition to re-annex him. 
 
182 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 There is a far better way than this. It is useless 
 to try to re-write history or to pretend that we 
 have not wronged America in the past. Of course, 
 we have wronged her deeply and bitterly. Did 
 we not let German mercenaries and tomahawking 
 Red Indians loose on her farmers ? It is useless 
 to deny these things. The only real cure in human 
 affairs is to admit our wrongs and to ask for forget- 
 fulness. What nation has not wronged another 
 in the past ? What of the long wars between 
 England and France ? Yet England and France 
 do not argue about these. We simply make up 
 our minds that the more we have quarrelled in the 
 past the more important it is to agree in the future. 
 
 In visiting Concord I saw a monument erected 
 in this very spirit of mutual forgiveness, which seems, 
 after all, the best way of bridging these gulfs. It 
 has been erected by Americans over the graves 
 of the British soldiers who fell in that tragic skirmish. 
 On it are written four lines from an early poem of 
 John Russell Lowell s, " To Two English Soldiers " : 
 
 " They came three thousand miles, and died 
 
 To keep the Past upon its throne ; 
 Unheard, beyond the ocean tide 
 
 Their English mother made her moan." 
 
 That is the true appeal to our common humanity, 
 to the spirit of pity and tears that lies behind all 
 great human events. It might be a great step 
 towards peace if in our monuments and records 
 this tone were to prevail instead of that menacing, 
 
NEW ENGLAND 183 
 
 boastful, triumphant note which mars so many of 
 our national epitaphs. 
 
 For indeed historical memories count a great 
 deal. They are far more important than most of 
 us imagine. Take, for instance, the relations 
 between America and France. Between those two 
 countries there exists a sentimental tie which is 
 entirely due to the fact that France intervened in 
 the later years of the War of Independence, and 
 practically decided the issue. I am not sure that 
 the intervention of America in the final years of 
 the recent Great War was not ultimately due to 
 this subconscious feeling of gratitude towards 
 France for what she did in 1780. 
 
 This has been particularly brought home to me 
 during the last fortnight, because, as I have already 
 told you, we have been travelling around with 
 that splendid soldier, General Nivelle, who helped 
 General Petain to save Verdun, and thereby to 
 save France. General Nivelle is one of those simple, 
 enduring soldiers of France who make a claim upon 
 the homage of all who admire patriotism and valour. 
 But I have been conscious during these days of 
 our joint receptions that the enthusiasm for General 
 Nivelle is not merely for a man, but also for France. 
 
 Of course, the Americans always observe that 
 beautiful rule of courtesy which distinguishes their 
 race. At the great Pilgrim celebration in the 
 great and beautiful Trinity Church here in Boston, 
 for instance, the three flags American, British, 
 
184 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 and French were carried together through the 
 great church and placed in front of the altar. 
 Wherever we have been these three flags have 
 been linked together over our heads. You must not 
 imagine because of a certain incident in New York 
 that the Americans willingly allow any discourtesy 
 to the British flag. We have never demanded that 
 that flag should be displayed, because the question 
 of flags is a matter of manners best left to the 
 host. But never in any case have they failed to 
 display it, although always they have done so at 
 the risk of attack by the Sinn Feiners. 
 
 But I have observed throughout the public street- 
 demonstrations that the French flag takes pre 
 cedence over the British. No one in America is 
 likely to pull down the French flag. No shop is 
 likely to suffer in custom through putting up the 
 French flag. When we visited Springfield the other 
 day the whole town was draped with the tricolour. 
 For it is a strange and notable fact that this senti 
 mental attachment to France exists more in the 
 Middle West than it does in the East of America. 
 The most British section of America is probably 
 that of the upper classes in all the eastern towns, 
 both north and south just as the most anti- 
 British section is probably to be found among the 
 masses of the people in those same towns. Out 
 in the Middle West there is a large class of farmers 
 who were born in Great Biitain, and are still 
 attached to the soil of their birth. But in these 
 
NEW ENGLAND 185 
 
 Middle West towns there is also a strong feeling in 
 favour of pure Americanism. It is very unpopular 
 to be hyphenated, and the tendency is for all 
 classes to concentrate on being good American 
 citizens. That is a thoroughly sound instinct, 
 and I heartily agree with the British Ambassador 
 in deprecating any attempt to create a class of 
 British-Americans. The best service we can per 
 form towards our stock in America is to encourage 
 them to be faithful and loyal to the country of their 
 adoption. They have accepted America with all 
 its institutions. They are sharing in her prosperity, 
 and they are taking advantage of her great defences. 
 Their highest duty is, while never forgetting the 
 land of their birth, still always to be good Americans. 
 
 Happily there is no reason why these men of 
 British stock should feel that they are exiled and 
 forlorn. They are no longer in the British Empire, 
 but it is brought home to them at every turn that 
 they are in a land of kin. 
 
 This kinship is brought home to them not only 
 in social intercourse, but even in the Courts of Law : 
 and there again we have another very remarkable 
 instance of this power of historical tradition. 
 
 The Americans are a nation of lawyers, and they 
 have one great advantage in the fact that all their 
 lawyers are pleaders as well as solicitors. This 
 lawyer class supplies most of the political brains. 
 They possess, indeed, through the Supreme Court, 
 an authority which is actually higher than the 
 
186 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 statutes of Congress. America is a country dom 
 inated by law in a sense unknown to Europe. 
 Now, this law is based entirely on the English 
 common law. Our law is therefore as familiar to 
 American lawyers as to any English lawyer. Thus, 
 the most keen-brained class of the community is 
 constantly brought into familiarity with English 
 traditions. Surely the unhappy quarrel of kings 
 and courts ought not to be powerful enough to 
 prevail over such tremendous influences. 
 
 Or take another great link the link of literature. 
 We motored out to Concord and visited the houses 
 of Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Long 
 fellow. It was really very difficult to remember 
 that we were not in England, so familiar are we all 
 with this literature of Northern America. But 
 were we not in England New England, it is true, 
 but still England ? The very landscape is English 
 the lake by the side of which Thoreau dwelt, 
 the woods and copses that clothe the countryside 
 between the winding streams ; those old colonial 
 wooden houses built to recall the houses they had 
 left behind them in Old England. When we visited 
 Longfellow s house we were met and entertained 
 by Miss Longfellow, the daughter of the poet a 
 beautiful old lady, with silver hair, and leaning on 
 a stick, but mentally still serene and alert, and 
 inheriting from her father his splendid hopefulness 
 and vitality, mellowed by her charming American 
 kindness and good hufnour. She showed us with 
 
NEW ENGLAND 187 
 
 a wonderful pride through the rooms where the 
 poet lived the homely dining room and the ver 
 andah where he sat in the heat of the day, the cosy 
 study where, at " The Children s Hour," he received 
 her and her sisters 
 
 " Grave Alice and laughing Allegra, 
 And Edith with golden hair," 
 
 She was Edith, the golden hair now turned to 
 silver. 
 
 How English it all seemed ! How familiar, how 
 homelike ! How intimately interwoven with all 
 our thoughts and memories ! Whatever we may 
 think of Longfellow to-day and I believe it is 
 common form with the younger generation to 
 admire him quite as little as they read him yet 
 we all regard him as one of ourselves, a member of 
 our British family. So continuous is the golden 
 thread that runs through our literature from 
 Chaucer right across the Atlantic to that little 
 village of Concord. 
 
 Then, on another day, we have visited here the 
 great university of Harvard, where we were enter 
 tained by the distinguished president, the bearer 
 of a mighty name the name of Lowell Lawrence 
 Lowell. Harvard is a great American institution, 
 and here youth is full of that proud American spirit 
 which would not brook interference or patronage 
 from any other nation. I do not pretend for a 
 moment to compare the merits of my own university, 
 Oxford, with the claims of either Harvard or Yale. 
 
i88 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 I do not wish to pit the college system against the 
 hostel system any more than I wish to contrast 
 Rugby football with the American game. Their 
 study of books, like their games, is more eager, 
 more competitive, less regulated than ours. They 
 range more freely, they cover more ground. There, 
 as in other matters, America always faces the future, 
 and if you face the future you cannot possibly give 
 so much attention to the past. True, I have not 
 seen in Europe anything so wonderful as their 
 library, with its marvellous and ingenious arrange 
 ments for easy reading, its warm and well-lighted 
 rooms where the tutor or student can live with 
 his books and by the side of his books, without all 
 the labour of fetching and carrying. Nor have I 
 seen in Europe such bold experiments in training as 
 their Faculty of Modern Business, with its wide- 
 ranging study of modern conditions in commerce 
 and economics. That experiment can only be 
 rivalled by the equally daring College of Journalism 
 at Columbia University, which is training a school 
 of young journalists for the American Press. 
 
 In all these aspects I see a new spirit in these 
 American institutions. But behind and through 
 it all I also perceive the English tradition being 
 carried on the high seriousness of our universities 
 with their true devotion to the spirit of wisdom, 
 the refusal to bow to the specialists and the experts, 
 the idea of the university as really universal in its 
 outlook on human affairs. The very name of 
 
NEW ENGLAND 189 
 
 Cambridge carries on a link between the Old and 
 the New Worlds. 
 
 Let us, then, emphasise all these things that we 
 have in common, whilst casting into oblivion the 
 " old, unhappy, far-off things." It is not always 
 necessary to feed our minds on battles and quarrels 
 of the past. Surely far more enduring are these 
 great things that we have in common language, 
 literature, law, and great memories of great deeds. 
 
 But to-morrow we must get back to New York 
 and then on to Washington. 
 
XIV 
 AMERICA S CAPITAL 
 
 WASHINGTON, Dec. 6. 
 
 TO-DAY we travelled to this beautiful city from 
 New York. 
 
 In the gracious rivalry of welcome which is our 
 happy experience in the United States, the British 
 Embassy has, from the first, been to the fore. 
 Quite early in our stay we received a cordial invita 
 tion from Sir Auckland and Lady Geddes to stay 
 with them at Washington, and it was quite a grief 
 to us to have to refuse a visit to the Capital, owing 
 to the peremptory calls of our Pilgrim errand. But 
 we certainly did not expect that the invitation 
 would be so kindly repeated for a later date, and 
 now that we have returned from Boston we have 
 been at last able to pay the long looked-for visit. 
 
 Washington is one of those towns which every 
 citizen in the world should visit. It represents 
 one of the great daring experiments in human 
 freedom ; and so to-day, when we boarded the train 
 at 8.15 a.m. in the great Pennsylvania railway station 
 another of those vast palaces which the railway 
 corporations have built for the public we started 
 out on this trip with a sense of keen exhilaration 
 and enthusiasm. 
 
 190 
 
AMERICA S CAPITAL 191 
 
 It is well worth while to take the journey by day. 
 For the habit of travelling by night in America 
 really does deprive the visitor of many opportunities 
 of seeing the country. The Pullman car provides 
 you with a convenient and comfortable outlook 
 on the scenery of the New World ; and after all 
 the keen-eyed traveller does learn more than he 
 thinks during the days of cursory observation which 
 he passes in railway trains. The enemy of observa 
 tion in America is the newspaper, and most visitors 
 glue their noses to the news sheet instead of looking 
 out of the windows. That is a great tribute to the 
 brilliant and versatile American Press certainly the 
 most readable Press in the world. But it is a 
 mistake; for the American countryside is well 
 worth looking at. 
 
 One of the great glories of North America is the 
 ample network of rivers that drain this vast country. 
 The Mississippi is the Queen. But on this journey 
 to Washington we have learned the breadth and 
 beauty of the Delaware, which turns Philadelphia 
 a city fifty miles inland as the crow flies into a 
 port, and the glory and majesty of the Susquehanna, 
 which flows into the mighty Chesapeake Bay. The 
 railway takes these great rivers in a kind of easy 
 stride. For the American is a great bridge-builder : 
 and his aim seems to be to make you forget that 
 any rivers lie across your path. The works of man 
 in this country seem to combine to fill you with a 
 sense of his power ; and this journey from New 
 
192 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 York to Washington, taking you so easily across 
 two of the great rivers of the Eastern States, is as 
 well fitted as any to bring home to you this sub 
 ordination of Nature to man. 
 
 We caught glimpses of that great city of Phila 
 delphia, the third city of the United States in area 
 and population such a contrast to New York in 
 the fashion of its building the " City of Two-storied 
 Houses/ as it is called, or more pleasantly, " The 
 City of Homes." "The City of the Quakers" 
 it used to be. But now, in the vast mix-up that 
 has taken place in America, the power of the Quakers 
 is, I fear, waning, and the tradition of William Penn 
 is becoming very dim. These great ports seem 
 to share both in their spirit and in their popu 
 lation, the ebb and flow of the sea. They are 
 never still. 
 
 Then we passed through Baltimore, the chief 
 city of Maryland another of the great ports of 
 America a city of a very different origin from 
 Philadelphia. Baltimore is the capital of a State 
 which represents quite another wave of emigration 
 from the Old World Maryland, the country of 
 Cavaliers, whose founder, the great Lord Baltimore, 
 was a Catholic, and where in point of fact the prin 
 ciple of religious toleration first began. For the 
 Catholics were then a persecuted sect, and, requiring 
 toleration themselves in the New World, they 
 gave it to others. It is not perhaps by a mere 
 chance that Baltimore to-day is the centre of 
 
AMERICA S CAPITAL 193 
 
 Catholicism in America and the home of Cardinal 
 Gibbons. 1 
 
 We breakfasted and lunched very agreeably on 
 the train, which was full of politicians going to 
 Washington for the meeting of Congress. 
 
 We were met at the station by an attache from 
 the Embassy, and driven straight to the spacious, 
 freshly-painted, villa which is the emblem of 
 British power at Washington. Sir Auckland Geddes 
 and his charming wife received us, and their appear 
 ance certainly does credit to America. For when 
 I last saw them in England they were weary and 
 worn. But now both of them look in splendid 
 health and seem in splendid spirits. One after 
 the other their little children came trooping in, 
 and it was indeed a charming experience to find 
 oneself in a typical British home, surrounded with 
 the pleasant frankness and simplicity of one s 
 own race a little Anglo-Saxon island where one 
 talked the same language and thought the same 
 thoughts. 
 
 Knowing that our time was short, our hosts did 
 everything to help us during this visit to Washing 
 ton. At 2.30 p.m. Lady Geddes took us out in 
 her " Auto " and in a few hours showed us all 
 the chief sights of the capital city. In front of 
 us her eldest boy, a lad of some fourteen years, sat 
 next the chauffeur and generally directed affairs. 
 That Embassy chauffeur is certainly a " character." 
 
 1 Died March 25, 1921. 
 
 N 
 
194 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 He has been at the Embassy for sixteen years, 
 and is a power not to be despised. At present 
 he has to go about armed, as the British Embassy 
 has fallen under the disapproval of Sinn Fein. 
 But as he was at the war for a long time, that seems 
 a natural experience to him. The fear of sudden 
 death does not seem to abate in any degree his 
 radiant cheerfulness and his human kindliness 
 to the children. There is always about such 
 Englishmen a touch of Sam Weller, or, let us say, 
 Mark Tapley. They carry their splendid cheerful 
 ness to the ends of the earth. It is our greatest 
 imperial quality ; for I am not sure whether 
 in the long run it is not British amiability 
 rather than British pugnacity that conquers the 
 world. 
 
 Washington is now certainly one of the most 
 beautiful cities in the world Visiting it in 1842 
 Dickens thought that it was going to be a failure. 
 He found it a mere outline " with spacious avenues 
 that begin in nothing and lead nowhere. With 
 streets a mile long that only want houses, roads 
 and inhabitants." He called it a " City of Magni 
 ficent Intentions," and he ventured on this bold 
 prophecy " Such as it is, it is likely to remain." J 
 Happily for us Dickens has proved completely 
 wrong. George Washington s great initiative in 
 town planning has been fully justified. For that 
 great man and Thomas Jefferson were the first 
 
 1 American Notes. See Appendix, pp. 295 et seq. 
 
AMERICA S CAPITAL 195 
 
 men to realise that a town should be laid out before 
 it is built. They boldly committed the planning 
 to a Frenchman Major L Enfant. 
 
 Every European visitor knows the general scheme 
 of Washington. The streets that run east and 
 west are named by the letters of the alphabet. 
 The streets that run north and south are designated 
 by numerals. Vertically across these streets run 
 ning north-west and south-west, are a series of 
 avenues called after the various States New 
 York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, Georgia, 
 Florida and Carolina. These avenues radiate from 
 two great centres the Capitol and the White 
 House. Of late years a Commission has been at 
 work beautifying the city and attempting a return 
 to L Enfant s original plan, which was seriously 
 departed from during some forgotten " An ti- Waste " 
 period in American history. The work of improve 
 ment is now going on rapidly, and Washington is 
 being beautified by parks and gardens on every 
 side. We saw the digging going on. For the 
 Americans take a great pride in this city ; and they 
 seemed to have agreed that here at least they 
 should do some homage to the spirits of beauty 
 and amenity which have been so recklessly sacrificed 
 in other American cities. 
 
 Perhaps it is the entire absence of the com 
 mercial " drive " and the manufacturing ferment 
 that gives to Washington its rare sense of leisure 
 and peace. For it is a city wholly consecrated to 
 
196 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 diplomats and officials. In London the work of 
 government is carried on in the midst of all our 
 other national affairs our business, our law, our 
 literature. But the founders of the United States 
 decided in their wisdom that they would isolate 
 their political centre from all other influences, and 
 so they built this city 185 miles from the Atlantic 
 and nearly 200 miles from New York, turning it 
 into a political district all by itself. They even 
 disfranchised it and gave it a special autocratic 
 regime. Now it stands apart from all the rest of 
 America a city without city government, belonging 
 to no State, possessing no factories and no indus 
 tries, with one trade alone and that the trade of 
 human government. 
 
 During this afternoon we have visited all the 
 chief sights of the city glimpsed into the new 
 Abraham Lincoln Memorial, ascended the Washing 
 ton Obelisk, looked into the Capitol, sat in the 
 Strangers Galleries of the Senate and the House of 
 Representatives, and finally paid a call on the 
 National Library. The only building we have not 
 peeped into is the White House, where the tragic 
 illness of the great President makes the most 
 casual observer pause before he invades that sombre 
 privacy. It is part of the great crisis through 
 which America is passing. 
 
 A curious fancy has brought back to me, while 
 moving about this city, memories of Luxor and 
 Karnak. Egypt somehow or other recurs to the 
 
AMERICA S CAPITAL 197 
 
 mind all the time. It comes back with especial 
 intensity while one is visiting the tombs and 
 memorials of the great Presidents, now occupying 
 so many of the conspicuous spots in this city of 
 Washington. I do not say that America is in 
 danger of worshipping her Presidents. But cer 
 tainly it is a strange thing that in a country where 
 human equality reigns, and the root principle of 
 all life is that " one man is as good as another/ 1 
 to find these mighty monuments erected and being 
 erected to the memory of individual dead Americans. 
 The great new monument to Abraham Lincoln 
 is not yet open to the public, and we were only 
 able to obtain a glimpse. But we saw enough to 
 realise its colossal scale. Externally it is in the 
 form of an immense Greek temple, surrounded by 
 fluted Greek columns. Within, it contains a 
 colossal statue of Lincoln seated. The employment 
 of the form of a temple, with its suggestion of 
 worship and the use of the colossal all these 
 things kept bringing back to my mind those immense 
 statues of the great Rameses which look out over 
 the Nile with their countenances of implacable 
 calm. This is strange, because there is really 
 nothing in common between the position of an 
 American President and an Egyptian Pharaoh. 
 But above and beyond all differences there is the 
 insatiable thirst of the human being for hero- 
 worship, asserting itself on the banks of the Potomac 
 as conspicuously as on the banks of the Nile. 
 
198 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 But if Lincoln already holds this mighty position 
 in the hearts of countrymen, what about George 
 Washington ? Sometimes when I view the multi 
 tudinous portraits and statues of Washington in 
 this land, there comes back to me just a thought of 
 the attitude which the Roman Empire adopted 
 towards Julius Caesar that very human, sinning, 
 striving man whom they turned into a god, to whom 
 every good Roman paid his due of incense, and of 
 whom for many centuries no good Roman spoke 
 except as " the divine Julius." To-day in passing 
 Mount Vernon, the country home of George Wash 
 ington, on the Potomac, fifteen miles from here, 
 all American soldiers have to come to the salute. 
 I know no parallel to that in our European life of 
 to-day. Perhaps in Europe we are too apt to 
 destroy our ancestors, or to forget them. For 
 certainly there is no Englishman not even Glad 
 stone, King Alfred, Milton or Shakespeare whose 
 memory holds the same position in our country as 
 Washington holds in America. 
 
 The Washington Obelisk stands in the midst of 
 the open ground of the Mall, not far from the Poto 
 mac, and rises to a height of over 500 feet. It is 
 a plain erection of white Maryland marble, and the 
 kind Americans supply you with a free elevator 
 to help you ascend it. You mount very slowly, and 
 as you rise you are given time to contemplate the 
 various stone tablets and flags presented by the 
 States of the Union to be deposited on the storeys 
 
AMERICA S CAPITAL 199 
 
 of this monument. Here again is a touch of the 
 religious spirit, and you notice all through that the 
 sacramental word is always, " The Union." For 
 that idea the American people have fought and 
 bled, and to it they return whenever they are in 
 their most solemn moods. Was not this city of 
 Washington the very centre of that great conflict 
 of the Civil War ? Was it not here that, fortified 
 by the memories of their great founder, the Ameri 
 cans of the North rallied and organised for the 
 achievement of victory ? Was it not across 
 that bridge over the Potomac that the Armies 
 marched ? 
 
 From the top of the Obelisk we obtained a most 
 magnificent outlook on Washington, through a 
 series of oblong, horizontal windows. Looked 
 down upon from this height, the city wears a varied 
 aspect. You are tremendously impressed by the 
 method and order of its planning, and the beauty 
 of its position. Looking westward you see the 
 dim shape of the Blue Ridge Mountains : eastward 
 flows the Potomac, which beneath you, its waters 
 joining to those of the Anicostia River, seems to 
 enfold the city as in the bend of an arm. Truly 
 it was a wise choice of site for his capital that 
 made by George Washington. Standing there to-day, 
 one looks back with whole-hearted admiration on 
 the steady resolution and persistence of the Ameri 
 can people in building their great city just here. 
 
 Then we motored along to the Capitol and 
 
200 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 glimpsed into the Chambers of Congress. To-day 
 has been a day of political ferment. Senator 
 Harding has just resigned his seat in the Senate 
 in order to step up into the Presidential chair. He 
 was upstairs talking with his Party, and explaining 
 himself with that inexhaustible genius for amia 
 bility which will become, if I mistake not, the 
 trade mark of his power. For the moment the 
 Chambers below were empty, and we were able 
 to gaze at them at leisure. They have often been 
 described and often depreciated by English visitors. 
 I cannot share the depreciation. The desks in 
 both Chambers are arranged in semi-circular form 
 far and away the most businesslike method for 
 a public chamber. The most striking feature to 
 the European eye is the size of the public galleries, 
 which in both cases seem to overshadow the Chamber 
 itself. This seems emblematic of the immense 
 authority of the public voice in American affairs 
 of the way in which all authority seems to dwindle 
 and shrink before the majesty of public opinion. 
 
 What a city of contrasts the past with its 
 tombs and obelisks, the present with its shy, timid 
 deference to public favour ! Which in the end will 
 dominate this mighty land the spirit displayed 
 in the obelisk, or the spirit displayed in the public 
 gallery ? The power of one man or the power of 
 the multitude ? For the moment the multitude 
 is winning, and the one man of to-day lies sick and 
 broken away there in the White House. But will 
 
AMERICA S CAPITAL 201 
 
 the multitude succeed any better than he ? And 
 what if the multitude fails ? Why, then the spirit 
 of the obelisk and the temple is always there in 
 the background. With all its passion for popular 
 rule America has, at all its great crises, always 
 rallied back to one-man power. 
 
XV 
 THE BIG NAVY SCHEME 
 
 GRAVE OUTLOOK 
 
 WASHINGTON, Dec. 7. 
 
 WHILE I am in Washington, the political capital 
 of the United States, it seems the fit moment to 
 set down on paper such observations as have been 
 possible of certain public questions that are now 
 looming up between Great Britain and America, 
 supremely important for their future and well-being. 
 
 Take first the question of the American and 
 British Navies. 
 
 The party politicians who play their great game 
 for the soul of America seem to have made up their 
 minds that the trump card is a Big Navy. So we 
 have the curious spectacle of Mr. Daniels, the 
 Naval Secretary of the outgoing Democratic Ad 
 ministration, competing with President-elect Hard 
 ing, who, in a recent speech, put the big navy idea 
 to the very forefront. The game cannot be regarded 
 as child s play. For already the submarines are 
 on the stocks, the big ships are in preparation, and 
 the swollen naval estimates are ready to be placed 
 before Congress. 
 
 If you wish to grasp the extraordinary political 
 202 
 
THE BIG NAVY SCHEME 203 
 
 situation which partly accounts for this perilous 
 development, look back to the British political 
 records of the year 1885. In June of that year of 
 grace Mr. Gladstone s Administration had been 
 defeated by Lord Salisbury, but the Liberals still 
 held a majority in the House of Commons. The 
 result was that both parties for a few months com 
 peted with one another along the same line of policy, 
 and for some little time it seemed doubtful which 
 would first take up some form of Irish Home Rule, 
 which loomed ahead as the coming political issue. 
 It was only when Mr. Gladstone plunged definitely 
 for a Home Rule Bill that the other party nailed 
 their flag to the mast of the Union. 
 
 The position at Washington at the present 
 moment is curiously similar. The whole policy 
 of the Democratic Administration has fallen to the 
 ground with an almighty smash. President Wilson 
 has been defeated and humiliated. 
 
 To-day Harding draws the eyes of the country, 
 and it is pathetic to watch how every newspaper 
 gathers his random words like crumbs from the 
 rich man s table. But in the meanwhile President 
 Wilson still remains at White House and the 
 Democrats are still in power. 
 
 But as public opinion really rules America they 
 are totally paralysed in regard to the main points 
 of their policy. They cannot send a single repre 
 sentative to the League meetings or conferences. 
 They may flirt with the idea of protecting Armenia, 
 
204 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 but they cannot move a corporal s guard for the 
 safeguarding of a single Armenian woman. They are 
 discrowned and unrobed; and yet they continue 
 in power. The old Congress is also in power, but 
 it happens to be a Republican Congress just as 
 the British Parliament in 1885, even after Lord 
 Salisbury s victory in June, was still a Liberal 
 Parliament. 
 
 The result is that the only thing left for the 
 Democrats to do is to adopt the Republican policy. 
 So Mr. Daniels is proving to the Americans that if 
 they refuse to be good Democrats he can give them 
 a bit of the true Republican touch. Incidentally, 
 he is also able to demonstrate with a somewhat 
 expensive and dangerous irony the terrible nature 
 of the true alternative to the League of Nations. 
 
 " Won t you have peace on earth ? " he says in 
 effect. " Why then we ll larn you ! " 
 
 There is nothing whatever new about this attitude 
 of the Democrats. President Wilson has always 
 been characterised by a certain remorseless logic, 
 which he seems to have brought into politics from 
 the groves of Academe at Princeton. It is difficult 
 to say how far he influences American politics in 
 his present afflicted state of health. But I gather 
 from Admiral Grayson s accounts that he is able 
 to give a certain portion of every day to public 
 affairs/ and it seems quite likely that this novel 
 policy comes directly from the brain of President 
 Wilson. Nor is there any reason to suppose that 
 
THE BIG NAVY SCHEME 205 
 
 it will be reversed by President-elect Harding. 
 Once more I urge my British readers not to attach 
 any importance to President-elect Harding s platonic 
 flirtations with the idea of the League of Nations. 
 The American people have pronounced definitely 
 against the League of Nations ; and when the 
 American people have pronounced against a thing 
 no President or Congress can reverse the decision. 
 The vague and varying reports of conversations 
 with President-elect Harding which are at present 
 being poured forth by men like Mr. Taft and others 
 must be taken at their face value. Those expres 
 sions of opinion are all essentially political in the 
 narrowest sense of the word. They are merely 
 intended to keep the Republican Leaguers in good 
 temper without losing the support of the Republican 
 Anti-Leaguers. 
 
 If my readers will once more recall another 
 British political analogy they will better under 
 stand this part of the American situation. President 
 elect Harding stands towards his followers precisely 
 as Mr. Balfour stood towards the Unionist Pro 
 tectionists and Free Traders in those difficult years 
 between 1903 and 1906. We all remember how, 
 during that period Mr. Arthur Balfour directed the 
 whole of his great brain to persuade one-half of 
 his party that he was a Free Trader and the other 
 half that he was a Protectionist. He finally failed 
 because the British people hate dialectics. Now 
 President-elect Harding is trying precisely the same 
 
206 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 method with his great Republican party who are 
 really divided at heart on the whole subject of the 
 League of Nations. He is trying to persuade one- 
 half that he is a Leaguer and the other half that 
 he is an anti-Leaguer, and every day he produces 
 a new formula, just as Mr. Balfour every day pro 
 duced a new formula between 1903 and 1906. 
 How long that position will go on I do not know, 
 but Mr. Harding has the immense advantage over 
 Mr. Balfour that he is fixed in power for four years. 
 But meanwhile the world goes on, and if America 
 is not to prepare for peace she must prepare for the 
 only possible alternative. That is the terrible 
 logic of the whole situation, and it is the meaning 
 of the new Big Navy programme now being pushed 
 forward by Mr. Daniels, with the consent and 
 approval of the Republican party. There are 
 thousands of Democrats all over America who 
 regard this prospect with horror. But they are 
 helpless. They represent a crushed party. You 
 meet them at every gathering, and they come and 
 talk to you after every speech you have made. 
 If you say a word in defence of the League of 
 Nations, they smile at you and say : "I see you 
 are a good Democrat ! " just as a Freemason might 
 greet a brother Freemason. But they have the 
 air of being a minority. They keep in the back 
 ground, and they do not flourish their faith in the 
 presence of mankind. It becomes quite clear that 
 the tide is running hard against them. 
 
THE BIG NAVY SCHEME 207 
 
 These Democrats remind you pathetically of the 
 Early Christians during the period of persecution. 
 They seem to have taken to the Catacombs. They 
 meet in secret I mean the real Democrats, not 
 the party bosses, who are, of course, shouting with 
 the crowd and busy adorning themselves in the 
 most gorgeous Republican clothes. The real Demo 
 crats have absorbed President Wilson s faith better 
 than President Wilson himself. They have yearned 
 through these weeks to be present at Geneva, and 
 they feel a sense of shame at the absence of America. 
 But the shout is not with them. The shouting is 
 with the Republicans, who cry : " Look at poor 
 old Europe ! Guess it s a jolly good riddance to be 
 quit of her anyway ! Her troubles are only begin 
 ning, and her wretched old League of Nations is 
 a broke show from the start ! " 
 
 " Is America arming against Japan or against 
 England ? " That is the question frequently put 
 to me by my fellow-travellers. My answer is 
 that she is arming against neither. She is arming 
 to defend the Monroe Doctrine, which automatically 
 becomes her only alternative to the League of 
 Nations. For if she stands outside the League of 
 Nations the League itself becomes a new peril to 
 her. President Wilson is in the tragic position of 
 seeing his own weapon taken out of his hands and 
 arming a possible enemy. That is the full, bitter 
 irony of his position. For if America is not in the 
 League of Nations, then the League becomes a 
 
208 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 League of Europe and Asia, with a possible bias 
 against America. The situation is made even 
 worse for America by the fact that the Republics 
 of South America have come into the League. I 
 see that Mr. Lloyd George has been arguing on 
 behalf of Europe that disarmament is impossible 
 for her unless America comes in. The same thing 
 is true of America on her side. Unless she goes 
 into the League, disarmament is impossible for 
 her also. On the contrary, increased armament 
 becomes necessary, because in case of war the 
 League nations are likely to act together, and, 
 indeed, are expected to act together by President 
 Wilson s own Covenant. The tragedy of the situa 
 tion is that President Wilson, owing to his illness, 
 cannot put this argument clearly to the American 
 people, because even now, in my opinion, it is 
 possible that America might pause on the brink of 
 her desertion of Europe if she fully realised the 
 tremendous and calamitous alternative lying ahead 
 of her and of the world. 
 
 As I write there come from Geneva the messages 
 inspired by Japan, and published extensively in 
 the American Press. It is quite clear that Japan 
 wishes to convey in a friendly way her attitude to 
 the American people, and, indeed, it is far better 
 that the whole case should, at this critical moment, 
 be discussed with the utmost frankness ; for once 
 the world has again entered on this race of arma 
 ments there will be no turning back. Japan states 
 
THE BIG NAVY SCHEME 209 
 
 on her side her reasons for refusing to join in any 
 plan of disarmament, although she is a member of 
 the League of Nations. Japan says quite clearly and 
 definitely that she cannot disarm unless America 
 disarms too. 
 
 Now it is useless for America to regard that 
 attitude as unfriendly on the part of Japan, because 
 it is the exact replica of her own attitude. The only 
 difference is that, as Japan has joined the League 
 of Nations, she has put herself in the right, while 
 America is on the defensive because she has held 
 aloof from the only sincere effort towards general 
 peace that the world has yet made. It is useless 
 for President-elect Harding to talk vaguely about 
 another League and another Association. The 
 League of Nations at present holds the field, and 
 the world is not going to scrap it in order to please 
 the United States. America must make up her 
 mind whether she is going to come in or stay out 
 for reservations are always to be considered, but 
 not destruction. 
 
 How does all this affect Great Britain ? For 
 the present our naval superiority is so overwhelming 
 that we can view with comparative indifference 
 the naval schemes of other nations. Every Euro 
 pean fleet that counted as a possible enemy to us 
 has disappeared during the cataclysm of the Great 
 War not merely the German and Austrian fleets, 
 but the Russian also. The only fleets of importance 
 outside America the fleets of Japan and France 
 o 
 
2io A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 belong to friends. Fortunately for us, we can 
 pause awhile and reason with the Americans before 
 we are drawn into a repetition of that calamitous 
 sea-rivalry which filled the early years of the 
 century and did so much to lead up to the fearful 
 catastrophe of the Great War. At this solemn 
 moment, therefore, I suggest that it will be better 
 for the British Government to hold their hand, to 
 be tolerant and patient with the American situation, 
 and to present every possible alternative to a 
 competition in building warships which would 
 inevitably poison the relations between the two 
 countries. For it is useless to deceive our American 
 friends on that point. The nation that cries 
 " Big Navy ! " to the British people is practically 
 in the position of a man who cries " Rats ! " to a 
 sleeping dog. Armies will not provoke the dormant 
 British lion. But ever since the days of Drake 
 any challenge on the sea has always been a clarion 
 call to that little island in the North Sea. 1 
 
 Crossing the Atlantic, I travelled with an Ameri 
 can admiral, who described to me the wonderful 
 friendship and harmony that grew up between the 
 American and British Navies during the last year 
 of the Great War. At first, he said they were a 
 little suspicious of one another, and inclined to be 
 a little critical. But then they began to take 
 
 1 The White Paper issued on July 26th, 1921, showed that 
 Great Britain had 29 battleships and 8 battle cruisers ; the 
 United States, 36 battleships and n building, 6 battle cruisers 
 building ; while Japan had 15 battleships (3 building) and 9 
 battle cruisers (2 building). 
 
THE BIG NAVY SCHEME 211 
 
 notes from one another, and a friendly rivalry grew 
 up and in the end, when they parted, they parted 
 as brothers. Now it would seem a calamitous affair 
 if that wonderful story should be dashed by the 
 schemings of politicians. For I feel sure that as 
 between two peoples there has been no change since 
 1918, and it is the profound desire of both Americans 
 and British that, as their navies worked as brothers 
 in 1918, so the two nations should go on in brother 
 hood during the coming years. The question is 
 how shall this be brought about, and how shall the 
 alternative be avoided ? 
 
 It appears to me useless for us to gloss over the 
 situation by specious diplomatic promises. It 
 is, of course, possible to argue, as Lord Northcliffe 
 does, that under no conceivable conditions could 
 we join Japan in a possible fight with America. 
 The probabilities are on his side. 
 
 But who can prophesy the future ? After all, 
 we have been allied with Japan all these past 
 years. We have gained immense advantages from 
 that alliance in the Far East. Is it of any use 
 to pretend ? Is it clear that if Japan were in 
 danger of being crushed by America we should be 
 able to stand by inert and indifferent ? 
 
 Who can forecast the possible results of human 
 passion as long as these great armaments go on 
 swelling and increasing ? Have we learned nothing 
 from the last six years ? Have we not seen the 
 futility of trying to build up peace on the basis of 
 
212 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 cross-alliances and cross-ententes all of them 
 certain to wither up in the first blaze of real human 
 passion ? I see no use in attempting to pursue 
 the argument on those lines with the United States. 
 It is better to tell her frankly and plainly that as 
 long as she remains outside the League of Nations 
 disarmament becomes impossible and the world 
 will live on a powder magazine. I am glad to see 
 that Mr. Lloyd George has put that argument so 
 definitely to the American public, because I believe 
 that they are a people who love frank dealing and 
 frank utterance. 
 
 I cannot think that the situation can rest here. 
 It will be clearly useless for us to discuss this matter 
 later on ; and therefore all friends of peace will 
 earnestly hope that the British Government will 
 clearly express its mind before things grow worse. 
 As long as America merely held aloof from Europe 
 it was possible to nurse the dream that she might 
 become the great neutral who would step into 
 the arena at some critical moment and always 
 throw her influence on to the side of peace and 
 justice. But it is already becoming clear that 
 America cannot remain neutral. She belongs to 
 the world. She has great possessions and great 
 interests to safeguard Hawaii, the Philippines, 
 Panama, a sort of hold on Cuba. If Europe 
 revives without her it will be a different matter 
 for her than if Europe revives with her assistance. 
 
 Therefore, by the inevitable logic of events, 
 
THE BIG NAVY SCHEME 213 
 
 America is being already borne on, not towards the 
 League of Nations, but away from it. That is 
 the real crisis and heart of the naval situation. 
 The brain which invented the League of Nations, 
 rinding itself thwarted in that direction is now 
 moving on another course, and all those hosts of 
 Americans who have dreamed of a policy of tranquil 
 detachment are finding themselves swept into a 
 new current. For there is no " slack " tide in 
 human affairs. The ebb already begins. Unless 
 we all look well ahead, the new strife of the nations 
 may be resumed not in the Old World, but in 
 the New. 1 
 
 1 The United States has now summoned a Conference on 
 Disarmaments to Washington for November, 1921. But I 
 leave this letter as it was written in December, 1920, because 
 it sets forth the difficulties and perplexities which have led up 
 to that happy issue. 
 
XVI 
 THE STATES AND JAPAN 
 
 WASHINGTON, Dec. 7. 
 
 FROM the Navies, I pass to another acute and 
 kindred problem which disturbs men s minds here, 
 " Great Britain arms Japan against America." 
 Such is the genial and helpful headline that I 
 perceive to-day in one of the Hearst papers. It is 
 the crude attempt to exploit a fear which now 
 plays a considerable part in the life of America, 
 especially in the Western States. The Pacific 
 Coast thinks far more about Japan than about 
 Europe. Her thoughts fare to the setting sun. 
 The States along that coast look across the great 
 ocean and meditate on the menace of distant Nippon, 
 with its formidable army and navy, and its eager, 
 industrious multitudes, impatient of the limits 
 of the Japanese seas. 
 
 Already a question has arisen which raises 
 definitely the issue of racial limits in the coming 
 age. It is the latest chapter of an old story. The 
 Japanese and Chinese have been for a long time 
 past tending to migrate from their own crowded 
 territories across the Pacific into Western America. 
 In spite of immigration tests and other strong 
 
 214 
 
THE STATES AND JAPAN 215 
 
 administrative efforts to exclude them, many of 
 the Japanese have managed to get in. There are 
 now over 80,000 Japanese residing in California, 
 and so the Californians are becoming acutely con 
 cerned about the future of their country. The 
 remedy that the Californians contemplate, in order 
 to keep the Yellow race from settling down in 
 America, is to pass a law forbidding the Japanese 
 to possess or lease real estate. That law has been 
 submitted to a popular vote in California and 
 approved. 
 
 But the Japanese Government very much objects 
 to that law. So negotiations are going on at Tokio 
 and Washington between Japan and the Federal 
 Government with a view to arriving at an agree 
 ment. But I regret to say that the State of Cali 
 fornia is showing a singular want of deference to 
 wards the Federal Government at Washington. 
 The Californians most clearly intimate that what 
 ever may happen between the United States and 
 Japan, they, the State of California, have every 
 intention of sticking to the law for the prohibition 
 of land-holding in California by Japanese. 
 
 This clash between California and the central 
 Government is interesting in many ways. It 
 shows that the old claim of the States, known as 
 " State rights," is scarcely any weaker now than 
 in the sixties. That latent peril of the United 
 States, that unadjusted conflict, lurks behind every 
 political crisis. 
 
216 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 But a far more important aspect is the evidence 
 given of the bitter and intense race-feeling against 
 the yellow man which penetrates the whole of 
 North America. Here Canada works with Cali 
 fornia ; for the feeling of British Columbia is just 
 as intense as that further south. It is perhaps 
 to be traced to the early struggles against the Red 
 Indians this intense, passionate determination to 
 maintain the white civilisation with all its ideals 
 and principles. It extends even to a positive 
 hostility to any extension of American control over 
 black races. America has no desire to " take up 
 the white man s burden." President Wilson s 
 parting advice to leave the Philippines really 
 expresses the public mind. No one in America 
 really wants to stay in Hayti. 
 
 The clearest proof of this is the treatment of 
 Mexico by the United States. If Hell were let 
 loose again in Mexico, I do not believe that, how 
 ever many Americans were murdered there, the 
 United States would intervene. She desires no 
 " mandate," either in the Old World or the New. 
 She cares neither for Armenia nor for Turkey. 
 That American Sinn Feinism of which I spoke, is 
 steadily growing. All she desires is to be left alone. 
 " Herself for herself." So her message to Japan, 
 through California, is " Hands off ! " America 
 does not want to interfere with Japan. Let Japan 
 not interfere with America. Let each live in their 
 own country the Japanese in Japan and the 
 
THE STATES AND JAPAN 217 
 
 Americans in America and both will be happy and 
 contented. That is the American message to 
 Japan. 
 
 But Japan showed at the Paris Conference that 
 her deepest ambition now is to obtain equal world 
 rights for her citizens. She is deeply mortified by 
 the policy now being pursued by Australia, Canada, 
 and California. She put forward in Paris the claim 
 that her immigrants should be placed on an equality 
 with those from white countries. President Wilson 
 opposed the claim and defeated it. It is all the 
 more serious now that that signal defeat of Japan 
 by America at Paris should be followed by this 
 development in California. 
 
 Very unhappily, this matter is complicated by a 
 grave suspicion of British Policy. A great number 
 of people in the United States are being encouraged, 
 by such methods as we have perceived, to think 
 that Great Britain stands behind Japan in this 
 matter. The argument is very simple. Japan is 
 the British ally. We have promised to fight 
 alongside of Japan in certain cases. That promise 
 so it is argued is encouraging Japan in main 
 taining her claims. It may even, in the long run, 
 involve the two English-speaking countries in a 
 terrible and disastrous quarrel. How does this 
 matter stand on our side ? Our treaty with Japan 
 is at present in a sort of suspense. On July 8 last 
 (1920) both Great Britain and Japan, acting under 
 a clause in the Treaty of 1911, gave notice to the 
 
2i8 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 League of Nations of the approaching termination 
 of the existing Treaty. They jointly submitted to 
 the Council of the League that they desired the 
 Treaty, if it is to be revised in July, 1921, to be 
 more consistent with the forms and spirit of the 
 government of the League. 
 
 Nothing could be more correct. One of the 
 results is that if the United States were to go back 
 into the League to-morrow she could actually 
 claim a voice in the revision of the Anglo- Japanese 
 Treaty. She could probably secure that she should 
 become a party to the Treaty herself. 
 
 But apart from that, and presuming the present 
 provisions to hold, there is another way in which 
 the United States could practically " reinsure " 
 herself against the treaty. The Anglo-Japanese 
 Treaty makes one vital exemption from the clause 
 pledging Britain s help to Japan in a two-Powei 
 war. It exempts any Power with which Great 
 Britain has an arbitration treaty. The United 
 States, therefore, could at any moment guarantee 
 herself against the Japanese Treaty by signing the 
 arbitration treaty which we laid before her in 1912. 
 If she prefers to have no treaty with us, then it 
 follows that she hands over the advantage to 
 Japan. But it is certainly no fault of ours. It is 
 the fault of the Foreign Relations Committee of 
 the Senate, which is now supreme in its own sphere 
 of government. Just after the outbreak of the 
 Great War, Lord Grey actually pressed through 
 
THE STATES AND JAPAN 219 
 
 another Treaty which equally, though less effectu 
 ally, cuts out the United States from being involved 
 in any struggle consequential on the Anglo- Japanese 
 Treaty. 1 
 
 The desire of every peace-loving Englishman is 
 that Americans and Japanese should both be our 
 friends. If we renew our alliance with Japan, it 
 will certainly not be aimed at America. For as 
 recently as 1919 we proposed an alliance with 
 America the Triple Alliance project, which came 
 from Paris and we were rebuffed. It would be 
 quite as easy and possible to take all the sting 
 out of the Japanese Alliance as far as America is 
 concerned by the simple process of carrying through 
 the arbitration treaty between Great Britain and 
 the United States. 
 
 But of course the ultimate desire of the British 
 well-wisher is not merely that both should be our 
 friends. We wish also that our friends should be 
 
 1 In the autumn of 1914 Great Britain and America signed 
 what was then known as a " cooling oft " Treaty. They agreed 
 to submit all disputes to an International Commission consisting 
 of five persons, two British, two American, and one (the Presi 
 dent) chosen from a neutral nation. The British Government 
 informed the Japanese Government that that Treaty would 
 have the force of an Arbitration Treaty in relation to the Anglo- 
 Japanese Treaty, debarring Great Britain from being bound to 
 help Japan in the case of her being at war with two Powers 
 one of them the United States. 
 
 Besides this Treaty, President Wilson, on May sist, 1913, 
 signed a Treaty renewing for five years the Arbitration Con 
 vention of April 4th, 1908 one of the famous Bryan Treaties 
 agreeing to refer to the Hague Court of Arbitration all issues 
 that do not affect the vital interests, the independence, or the 
 honour of the two Contracting Parties. That Convention has 
 since expired, owing to lapse of time (1918). But the Inter 
 national Commission Treaty of 1914 still holds. 
 
220 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 friends with one another. That brings me to the 
 question why is there so little friendship between 
 the Americans and the Japanese ? It is plainly to 
 the interest of both that they should become good 
 friends. It is certainly to our interest. It is equally 
 certain that it is vitally to the interest of the whole 
 world. For it is clear that, in some way or other, 
 a quarrel between Japan and America would in 
 volve the whole world. There are no such things 
 as limited wars nowadays. 
 
 I had the honour some days ago of being the 
 guest of the Cosmopolitan Club, in New York. It 
 is an effort to befriend the " stranger within the 
 gates " similar to that of the Y.M.C.A. Hospitality 
 Committee in London. There I saw Americans and 
 Japanese sitting in friendly colloquy ; and within 
 Columbia Hall that night the great humane side of 
 America the warm heart which is never far away 
 from all her shrewd counsels was doing its best to 
 melt away the great ice barrier which divides the 
 yellow race from the white. Such efforts do much 
 to assuage the bitterness that divides peoples, 
 but alone they are not enough. It is for the 
 American people to decide whether one of her 
 forty-eight States should be allowed to divide two 
 great nations. The vast naval effort into which 
 Mr. Daniels is leading the American people might 
 become as unnecessary as it is unwise if Japan and 
 America could achieve better relationships. 
 
 The danger in all these international matters is 
 
THE STATES AND JAPAN 221 
 
 lest America, finding her States recalcitrant to 
 any settlement, may drift along into perilous seas. 
 The claim that the American continent should be 
 committed to the wardship of the Monroe policy 
 has survived Paris and Versailles. The guardian 
 ship of the United States was even solemnly safe 
 guarded in the Covenant of the League (Article 21), 
 although that triumph of President Wilson availed 
 him little in his dispute with his domestic foes. 
 
 But such doctrines and policies require to be 
 translated into the workaday life of the modern 
 world. It was often wisely said by Lord Cromer 
 that only the fact of the Open Door made the claim 
 of the British Empire tolerable or possible. If the 
 United States is at once to close the door to the 
 Japanese on the Pacific Coast and to the European 
 on the Atlantic, she will create a feeling that will 
 not make for the peace of the world. 
 
 Yet that is a policy which is now popular in 
 Congress. While California is still claiming, as 
 we have seen, to evict eveiy Japanese leaseholder 
 and close her doors to every Japanese settler, at 
 the same time a bill has been presented to Congress 
 to shut out all immigration from Europe for a 
 period of two years. 
 
 Checks and limitations are one thing ; total 
 exclusion is another. Such policies contain ex 
 plosive matter. 
 
 On the other hand, every European must try 
 to realise the American point of view. The United 
 
222 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 States is like a vast water which is never still. 
 There pour into it from day to day multitudes of 
 streams from all over the world. The rate at 
 which the immigrants are coming now from Europe 
 is simply appalling to the Americans. Europe is 
 in flight. The estimates now given to me go to 
 prove that at the present rate of increase rising 
 to 40,000 per week America is faced with the 
 possibility of an annual immigration of some 
 2,000,000 persons. This is about twice the immigra 
 tion that took place before the war ; and it is 
 alarming the steadiest. The worst of this immigra 
 tion is that it is apt to remain in New York, in 
 sufferably crowding that already crowded city, 
 swelling the immense foreign and undigested 
 populations, and creating a problem of non-assimila 
 tion which is growing more alarming every year. 
 
 There is doubtless an element of exaggeration 
 in these immigration figures. The panic-mongers 
 forget to deduct the figures of the exodus from 
 America to Europe. Ever since the war there 
 has been a considerable flow of population back 
 from America to the resurrected States of Poland 
 and Czecho-Slovakia. That population consists 
 of the native Poles and Czecho-Slovakians who are 
 anxious to take their places in the new countries 
 that have sprung from the war. With the failure 
 of the hope of prosperity in Eastern Europe that 
 flow eastward is now diminishing, but it has by 
 no means entirely ceased. On the other hand, the 
 
THE STATES AND JAPAN 223 
 
 flow westward is undoubtedly increasing. It con 
 sists largely of Jews who are flying before the new 
 racial hostilities which are also the result of the 
 national revivals in Eastern Europe. 
 
 The view taken by the average American is that 
 America has quite enough Jews already within her 
 territory. There is an amusing epigram going the 
 rounds in New York at present " New York is a 
 city governed by Irishmen, inhabited by Jews, and 
 occasionally visited by Americans." There is, 
 indeed, a certain amount of truth in that epigram. 
 There are certain streets in New York down which 
 you can walk at mid-day without hearing a single 
 word of the American language. They are the 
 streets of the clothing trades, and of the diamond 
 merchants. At that hour the pavements are 
 blocked with masses of men conversing and trading 
 in the various languages of Eastern Europe. Social 
 workers in New York tell me that one of their chief 
 difficulties in dealing with the poor of New York 
 is this trouble of the language. The children learn 
 to talk American in the schools, but the parents 
 come over too late in life to learn any language 
 but their own. The children are apt to laugh at 
 their parents for their ignorance of the national 
 language, and in that way arise many domestic 
 quarrels and differences. No wonder the American 
 gets a little disturbed when he discovers that his 
 boast of making all citizens talk one language is 
 so seriously imperilled. 
 
224 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 It is indeed not true to-day that America talks 
 only one language. There are many languages 
 talked over this vast continent, and the danger 
 is that those who talk the same language are tending 
 to aggregate and to act together as national 
 units. Some Americans dimly see the possibility 
 that the variations of Europe may be reproduced 
 on their continent, and the United States may 
 break up into fragments which will be echoes of 
 Europe. 
 
 " We have already a League of Nations which is 
 the United States. Why should we destroy that 
 achievement in the search for a dream League ? " 
 That is how some good Americans phrase it. 
 
 Such a feeling finds its sharpest edge in America s 
 attitude towards Asia. Harassed on all sides by 
 fear of invasion by foreign influences, America s 
 anxiety towards Europe is turned into real anger 
 when she looks across the Pacific. She may fear 
 the- Jews, but that fear is turned to frenzy when 
 she contemplates the invasion of the Yellow Race. 
 She has within her frontier already the Red Race 
 
 and the Black : is she to have the Yellow also ? 
 
 *.**..*,* 
 
 If we are to begin to understand the American 
 attitude, we must realise how she is beset on every 
 hand by these new perils of a changing world. She 
 is honestly perplexed as to how she shall meet 
 them. In the first onset of panic, Congress, as 
 I have said, placed during its December session 
 
THE STATES AND JAPAN 225 
 
 an immigration bill in the very forefront of legis 
 lation, and during the last fortnight that measure 
 has been closely discussed at Washington. The 
 first proposal was to exclude all immigrants for 
 two years a plan which would have had grave 
 effects upon both America and Europe. The two 
 years were soon whittled down to one. But even 
 then Congress soon realised that they were up 
 against a very serious proposal, likely to have the 
 most perilous effects both upon their shipping and 
 upon their foreign relations. How about the 
 Irish, for instance ? Their sympathisers soon made 
 it clear that they would not tolerate the blocking 
 of every outlet from Ireland during its present 
 agony. The result has been that the bill has now 
 been sent to a Committee. We shall piobably have 
 a tightening up of all the various restrictions and 
 conditions laid upon immigrants, and a further 
 winnowing out of that vast crowd of unhappy 
 fugitives who are now packed upon Ellis Island. 1 
 
 There, again, we must understand the American 
 point of view. Those who visit the " east side " 
 of New York soon perceive the grave bearings of 
 the immigration problem upon the conditions of 
 life in the great cities of America. Certainly the 
 housing conditions on the " east side " of New 
 
 1 This Bill became law in May, 1921. It restricts the number 
 of aliens admissible into the United States to 3% "of the 
 number of foreign-born persons of such nationality resident in 
 the United States" as determined by the Census of 1910. It 
 remains in operation for one year until June soth, 1922. 
 
226 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 York are far worse than the housing conditions in 
 the East-end of London. There is no restriction 
 of space or rent, and as the masses crowd in from 
 Europe the landlords keep reaping a greater profit 
 out of the insufferable conditions of their tenants. 
 Something of the same sort is going on at San 
 Francisco with the immigrant Japanese and Chinese, 
 and certainly we, with our strict anti-alien laws, 
 have no right to ask America to tolerate these 
 things without any abatement. 
 
 How is it that the United States cannot persuade 
 this population to go westward, where there is 
 unlimited room, instead of blocking up the towns, 
 which are gradually repeating all the worst social 
 conditions of Europe ? That is a difficult question 
 to answer. But it is a strange and ominous fact 
 that all over the world at the present moment 
 there is a general reluctance on the part of masses 
 of people to live on the country-side, and a general 
 desire to flock into vast and crowded towns. Per 
 haps the flashing river of light that runs down 
 Broadway every night may partly supply one of 
 the explanations. 
 
XVII 
 IRELAND AND WASHINGTON 
 
 WASHINGTON, Dec. 7. 
 
 BEFORE leaving Washington, there is another task 
 that I must face. I must squarely look at the 
 Irish question once more this time from the 
 angle of the capital of the United States. 
 
 The peril of the Irish influence here is not, indeed, 
 immediate or direct. No serious American poli 
 tician or citizen sanely contemplates quarrelling 
 with the British Empire about Ireland. The 
 friendship of Ireland is too uncertain a factor, 
 whether for men, parties, or nations, to justify or 
 encourage so great a hazard. On the contrary, 
 the danger of such an issue to the present situation 
 is almost deceptively remote. The typical American 
 laughs at the Irish- American efforts to embroil 
 him with England conscious as he is of his own 
 deep determination never on any account to sur 
 render to such a menace. 
 
 But the Irish-American does not expect that he 
 will succeed in that simple way. He works with 
 far greater subtlety and cunning. He has a longer 
 view. He voted against the Wilson Administra 
 tion in spite of the old and close alliance between 
 
 227 
 
228 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 the Irish voters and the Democratic party. Why ? 
 Because Wilson s foreign policy was friendly to 
 Europe and Great Britain. By the same token the 
 Irish-American voted for the Republicans because 
 their policy was unfriendly to Europe. On a long 
 calculation, it seemed to the Irishmen, who cast 
 their votes now mainly on this question of inde 
 pendence for Ireland, that the Republicans were 
 more likely to embroil America with England than 
 the Democrats. 
 
 The argument was not without its plausibility. 
 To vote for the Republican meant voting against 
 the League of Nations. To vote against the 
 League of Nations was dragging America away 
 from Europe. It meant also the final destruction 
 of the Triple Treaty between America, France, 
 and Great Britain which President W T ilson brought 
 back from Versailles. So complete has been the 
 destruction of this Treaty, so utter the disdain 
 with which the very idea has been received in 
 America, that Mr. Wilson has not even taken it 
 out of his secret despatch box. Its details still 
 remain unrevealed to the American public. The 
 Treaty has not even been reported to the Foreign 
 Relations Committee of the American Senate. 
 
 That was victory number one. But it was a 
 mere skirmish compared with what is contemplated 
 by the advanced Irish-American party, which hopes 
 to pour a lethal poison into the relations between 
 the two great English-speaking peoples. The next 
 
IRELAND AND WASHINGTON 229 
 
 great hope is to capture the Foreign Relations 
 Committee. Now, one very important aspect of 
 the Presidential election is that it is a great victory 
 for the Foreign Relations Committee of the Senate. 
 That Committee took the lead in fighting President 
 Wilson. Now that President Wilson is beaten, 
 the Committee holds the palm of victory. It is 
 significant that, in the discussions going on round 
 the choice of a new Cabinet, many Americans are 
 boldly maintaining that the Foreign Relations 
 Committee is a more important body than the 
 Cabinet. The party, therefore, who can capture 
 the Foreign Relations Committee can control all 
 foreign relations. 
 
 But it is not so very difficult to control the Foreign 
 Relations Committee. For no Treaty, as we all 
 now know, can be carried without a two-thirds 
 majority vote of that Committee. If, therefore, 
 the Irish can influence more than a third of the 
 Committee, they can effectually block the treaty- 
 making power of the United States. The Irish 
 vote is now, probably, powerful enough to block 
 this power. The Irish influence over the members 
 of the two Houses of Congress is probably strong 
 enough to affect 70 per cent, of their voting strength 
 in the new Congress. If that calculation is correct, 
 then we may safely put away all hope of the United 
 States joining the League of Nations in any shape 
 or form, or under any name, whatever Harding 
 may desire or say. For the League of Nations is, 
 
230 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 for some reason the special object of hatred among 
 the Irish- American, as well as among the German- 
 American voters. 
 
 The aim of the Irish-German vote will probably 
 be to secure the defeat of any treaty with Germany 
 that is tarred with the Versailles brush. They 
 will probably support the revival of the Knox plan 
 of declaring peace by resolution. They are not 
 alarmed by the fact I have already pointed out 
 that Germany would be able to claim back her 
 ships from America, and would be able to sue for 
 her property in the American Courts. They are 
 not to be frightened by the idea of the revival of 
 Germany ; for that is one of their special aims. 
 The German- American vote, coalescing with the 
 Irish, has voted for Harding partly to punish Wilson 
 for having come into the war at all, and partly to 
 obtain better terms for Germany in defeat. One 
 of its objects, therefore, will naturally be to prevent 
 the Foreign Relations Committee from agreeing 
 to any of the compromises so dear to the hearts 
 of League Republicans like the Hon. Elihu Root 
 or President Lowell. 
 
 But the new Senate, under the strange provisions 
 of delay which dog American politics, will not 
 come to Washington this beautiful city of 
 the broad avenues and the long vistas until 
 March, 1921. It will not begin to function till 
 December, 1921, unless specially summoned by 
 the new President, who will probably summon 
 
IRELAND AND WASHINGTON 231 
 
 the new Congress for emergency purposes in 
 April, 1 92 1. 1 
 
 The Congress which has just assembled here is 
 the old Congress in a new mood, already worshipping 
 the newly-risen sun, already turning away from the 
 setting sun. No man who has any reverence for 
 fallen greatness can have witnessed unmoved the 
 personal drama of these days the throngs of 
 journalists and Congressmen who surround Harding, 
 the lonely, stricken figure in the White House, the 
 muffled, broken utterance of his farewell address 
 to Congress. 
 
 It is not for a mere visitor to say whether he is 
 looking on at a great crime, or witnessing a great 
 punishment. But the political fact emerging from 
 the situation is the triumph of the Senate. The 
 analogy always bubbling up in my mind is the 
 triumph of the House of Lords over Mr. Gladstone 
 in 1893. From that date until 1910 the House of 
 Lords was supreme in our politics, with such results 
 as we now dimly perceive. The House of Lords 
 was always in those days dominated by an anti- 
 Irish bias. Will the Senate be equally dominated 
 by a pro-Irish bias ? Will the pro-Irish bias always 
 be anti-British ? 
 
 Let us attempt to survey the symptoms. The 
 outstanding fact is that the Foreign Relations 
 Committee of even the old Senate steadily refuses 
 to pass any treaty or agreement helpful to Great 
 
 1 He has done so (1921). 
 
232 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 Britain. The Arbitration Treaty between America 
 and Great Britain, from which so much was hoped 
 before the Great War, is still held up. But even 
 more notable is the refusal to agree in smaller 
 affairs. A fishery agreement immensely desired 
 by Canada was recently submitted to the Foreign 
 Relations Committee. It was discussed, and a 
 number of amendments submitted. The amend 
 ments were accepted by the Canadian Government. 
 The agreement was then submitted again and 
 rejected by the Senate. This incident is typical 
 of the present deadlock. It is partly, of course, 
 due to the long interregnum, which paralyses all 
 political effort in an amazing way. The old Con 
 gress has lost all moral authority, and yet it still 
 occupies the seats of power. The President has 
 received a smashing vote of censure from the 
 people ; and yet he still lives at the White House. 
 He still possesses the power of veto over all measures 
 to come up from Congress. 
 
 The new President is still only " elect," and he 
 spends his time wandering about the American 
 continent, visiting Panama, going home to Marion, 
 and generally making himself supremely amiable 
 to all parties and persons. The sprightly and 
 volatile American Press is already growing tired 
 of recording the universal amiability of their new 
 ruler, and beginning to wonder whether King Log 
 is really, after all, more satisfactory than King 
 Stork. But the United States has got the President 
 
IRELAND AND WASHINGTON 233 
 
 it desired. It was tired of being preached to and 
 dictated to. It was sick of idealism. It asked for 
 a President who would just talk common-sense. 
 Harding talks it by the column. 
 
 Some shrewd tests of the power of this common- 
 sense will now lie ahead of the new President. I 
 have mentioned Mr. Harding s solemn voyage to 
 Panama. Now, one of the most definite pledges 
 given by Mr. Harding in the course of his election 
 campaign is that he will remove the tolls from the 
 American vessels passing through the Panama 
 Canal. His return from Panama has been followed 
 up by an ominous article in the Marion paper, 
 which belongs to him and is his mouth-piece. The 
 argument revives the case put forward by Congress 
 at the beginning of Mr. Wilson s presidency, when 
 Congress passed a law taking off the tolls from 
 American ships, and so placing them in a pre 
 ferential position over other shipping. The Marion 
 oracle pleads that such a removal of tolls does not 
 conflict with the American-British Pauncefote 
 Treaty. But every American knows that the 
 British Government takes the opposite view. All 
 the best elements in America agree with the British 
 view. President Wilson agrees with it, and acted 
 on that view when he opposed and defeated Con 
 gress over this question. But now very soon 
 America will have a President who has pledged 
 himself to the extreme American case on the Panama 
 tolls. That is a serious outlook. 
 
234 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 No sensible man, either in Europe or in America, 
 would hold that the Panama tolls question is worthy 
 of a serious quarrel between the two great English- 
 speaking peoples. At this time of day such a view 
 is repulsive. Nor is there any doubt that under 
 ordinary circumstances such a question, like the 
 Guiana boundary question or the Alaska question, 
 would be submitted to arbitration. But here 
 again comes in the complex of the Irish vote. As 
 long as the pressure from the Irish-Americans is 
 kept up there is no knowing how the new Congress 
 may act. 
 
 A steady and well-organised minority is very 
 powerful in this country. The American capacity 
 for organisation for dossiers and card-indexes, 
 for lobbying and agitating has been carried to a 
 very high scientific point. " Drives " are talked 
 of with great confidence, and the general public 
 seem to grow as frightened when the talk begins 
 as the birds on the day of a great " shoot." It 
 is one of the Irish ideas to concentrate a " Drive " 
 on a question like Panama and influence opinion. 
 In such a design they are helped by the steady 
 and calculated anti-British malignity of the Hearst 
 Press. 
 
 The only adequate reply of the British people 
 is to refuse to be roused to passion by such arts. 
 Forewarned is forearmed ; and the British people 
 will best meet this plan by a determined refusal 
 to lose their coolness or presence of mind. Let 
 
IRELAND AND WASHINGTON 235 
 
 them remember, all the time, the vast mass of 
 Americans who are favourably disposed to them, 
 and who will in the end swing this country back 
 into the paths of rational dealing. 
 
 Meanwhile the self-appointed Commission of 
 Inquiry into Irish affairs goes on meeting here 
 from day to day. Nobody approves, but nobody 
 has the courage to stop it. The latest witness has 
 been Mrs. MacSwiney, who has been allowed to 
 range at large over the whole Irish question and to 
 give her views on the whole question of Irish 
 independence. The other Irish witnesses have 
 been kept to the point, and their evidence is now 
 being sold throughout the United States. The 
 difficulty of the Commission is to obtain any evi 
 dence that will give an appearance of impartiality 
 to the inquiry. The British Embassy severely 
 boycotts the Commission, and has now followed 
 up its refusal to give evidence by a refusal to give 
 vises to the investigators whom the Committee 
 desire to send to Ireland. The result is that the 
 evidence, terrible as it is, bears the ineffaceable 
 stamp of being one-sided. Now the Commissioners 
 are far too able to be blind to the defect of this 
 feature in their evidence. They consist of a picked 
 body of persons selected by some 150 representatives 
 of politics, law, and the Churches. 
 
 Miss Jane Addams is the leading spirit, but close 
 behind her is Mr. Garrison Willard, the gifted editor 
 of the Nation, which is a sort of American twin 
 
236 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 to the British journal of that name. The com 
 mission is a body of serious persons, who genuinely 
 think that they are doing a great work by entering 
 into judgment on the affairs of a friendly nation. 
 They are not in the least degree alarmed by the 
 suggestion that British people might set up an 
 inquiry into " lynching in America." " So much 
 the better," they say ; "we are all guardians of 
 humanity ! " I wonder how long the peace of 
 the world would survive the strain of such a system 
 of international judiciary ? 
 
 The strange thing is that even modern Americans 
 see no harm in the proposal to send American 
 investigators to Ireland, and express great surprise 
 at the action of the British Government in refusing 
 vises. This surprise is characteristic of a certain 
 phase of American politics worth noting at the 
 present moment. Many Americans have got into 
 the way of regarding Ireland as a world affair. 
 They are not in the least surprised at our diffi 
 culties. They express deep sympathy. " Oh, I 
 don t want an Irish Republic ! " said one lady to 
 me. " We ve got one already, in New York City ! " 
 But their sympathy takes the rather embarrassing 
 form of desiring to help. Not that they want 
 Ireland for themselves. "Oh, no ! " shouted an 
 American audience, when a few days ago I jokingly 
 suggested that they should take Ireland for a year, 
 and try their hand at governing it. 
 
 But they are deeply impressed by our failure to 
 
IRELAND AND WASHINGTON 237 
 
 settle the question, and they draw the conclusion 
 that we shall be grateful for a little assistance. 
 They want to be fair, and it seems to them that 
 as an inquiry is being held in Washington, the 
 British case ought to be heard. There is a curious 
 naivete about the way some Americans view inter 
 national politics, and the very impulse that led 
 them to regard Belgium as their affair makes them 
 more inclined to regard Ireland also as their affair. 
 Of course there are a large number of substantial 
 Americans who keep repeating about Ireland : 
 " Oh, it s no affair of ours." But unhappily for 
 us they are very often the same people who said 
 the same thing about Germany and Belgium. 
 That weakens their authority. 
 
 For all these reasons it is very necessary for us 
 to be very patient and tolerant in our attitude 
 towards America about Ireland. Always remem 
 ber that America has an Irish problem, as well as 
 Great Britain. We are both suffering from the 
 same trouble. The task of statesmanship as I 
 have suggested to many American audiences would 
 surely be so to direct matters that this common 
 trouble may not divide us, but may draw us to 
 gether. Is it possible ? 
 
XVIII 
 THE BLACK PROBLEM. 
 
 WASHINGTON, Dec. 7. 
 
 LASTLY, before I leave Washington, I must even 
 approach that most acute and delicate of all 
 American questions The Negro Problem. The 
 American census will probably show a population 
 of over 12,000,000 negroes within the United States 
 meaning that the people of black blood will 
 thus number over one-tenth of the whole popula 
 tion. This population is mainly confined to the 
 States of the south. But during the war, owing 
 to the shortage of labour in the north, there has 
 been a considerable drift of the black population 
 northwards, partly to enjoy the higher wages, and 
 partly to escape from the social and political 
 restrictions of the south. Apart from this, there 
 have always been a considerable number of negro 
 servants and porters employed throughout the 
 States, and thus every visitor to hotels in America 
 immediately comes face to face with the negro 
 problem, even in New York. 
 
 The European finds the negro servant an amiable, 
 talkative person, extremely anxious to please, 
 inaccurate in regard to time and space, but, within 
 
 238 
 
THE BLACK PROBLEM 239 
 
 his powers, obliging and attentive. He compares 
 the negro service favourably with such white service 
 as is still sullenly available, especially in the hotels. 
 He finds that in America the service of the antique 
 world survives chiefly among these dark-faced men 
 and women. The result is that the European feels 
 kindly towards them, and wonders why the Ameri 
 cans are silent when he praises them. 
 
 He is still more surprised when he reads, from 
 time to time in the Press, that one of these black 
 people has been hanged on a lamp-post or frizzled 
 in a fire. 
 
 The real fact is that the very presence of this 
 black race in the heart of America is utterly dis 
 tasteful to the mass of the white Americans. It is 
 the constant reminder of an ancient trouble the 
 recurrent recall of an old crime which seemed to 
 have been expiated in the blood and fire of the 
 Civil War. It was a crime for which we are also 
 largely responsible, for Great Britain made a very 
 good thing out of the slave trade for two centuries. 
 But we have suffered little, while America, even 
 now that she has given freedom to the black man, 
 cannot shake it off. The black spectre dogs America 
 still as it did at the time of de Tocqueville s visit 
 (1832), when that great social observer prophesied 
 that the inevitable emancipation of the black man 
 would create an even more critical and perilous 
 cleavage in American life. That prophecy has come 
 true. Behind all American politics there is a deep- 
 
240 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 rooted fear a fear of the black man in the present, 
 and a still greater dread of him in the future. 
 America fears for her civilisation and for her race. 
 She dreads lest North America should become a 
 Black Man s Continent. 
 
 Those who travel in the north may think this 
 absurd. But in the south the peril is nearer. 
 There are Southern States where the white man 
 is only in a bare majority ; there are States where 
 he is actually outnumbered. 
 
 For all the time the black population is increasing 
 at a great pace. More important still, their am 
 bitions are increasing also. They are no longer 
 content with the policy of wholesale disfranchise- 
 ment and social ostracism which has been so long 
 pursued in the Southern States. There are hundreds 
 of black lawyers and black parsons ; thousands of 
 black teachers. Many of these black men have 
 proved themselves the equals of the whites. Often 
 they work harder. So the claim to white privilege 
 is threatened, and a very serious problem looms 
 ahead. It is not a question of actual slavery ; it 
 is a question of political freedom. The broad fact 
 is that, in spite of the Civil War and the famous 
 fifteenth amendment to the Constitution, the negro 
 has been by one means or another deprived of his 
 political rights and often of his civil rights also 
 throughout the South. 
 
 Now it is open to question whether the North 
 was wise to enfranchise the negro so rapidly after 
 
THE BLACK PROBLEM 241 
 
 the Civil War. There were incidents in the " recon 
 struction " period which cannot be defended ; 
 there were events which are still remembered to-day 
 in the South with an incredible bitterness. But 
 two generations have now passed ; the negro 
 population has shaken off the taint of slavery. 
 The South has had time, if it had so willed, to 
 educate and train its black people. It is not as 
 if the Southerners could do without the negroes. 
 They require them and use them for work on the 
 torrid cotton plantations, where the white man 
 cannot and will not work. Nor is it that the 
 negroes have refused to progress. On the con 
 trary and this is part of the complaint against 
 them the negroes have been keen and eager for 
 education. They have adopted Christianity, often 
 with great zeal and earnestness. They have ac 
 quired the English language. They have fought 
 in the American wars, both against Spain and 
 Germany, with great distinction. All these facts 
 increase the bitterness caused by their disfranchise- 
 ment. 
 
 The " practical disfranchisement " of the negro 
 population is secured by many means, differing in 
 various States, but always attaining the same 
 object. Each State has a Constitution of its own ; 
 and the machinery employed for the disfranchise 
 ment of the negroes is generally an amendment to 
 the State Constitution. The amendment is always 
 unerringly framed to undo the work of that Federal 
 
 Q 
 
242 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 amendment which wholly forbids any distinction of 
 colour or race in the gift of the franchise. There 
 is, for instance, the " Grandfather Clause," which 
 ingeniously disfranchises all illiterate voters except 
 those who are the sons or grandsons of those who 
 voted before January i, 1867 the date of the 
 enfranchisement of the negro. This clause leaves 
 a vote to the illiterate white, but takes it away from 
 the illiterate negro. 
 
 Then there is the " understanding clause " of 
 Mississippi, applying a literary test, which is not con 
 fined to reading and writing ; for after all there are 
 many negroes who can read and write. A further 
 test is therefore added, under which the voter has 
 to explain " any section of the Constitution of the 
 State " or " give a reasonable interpretation thereof." 
 As there are generally some clauses which are 
 liable to various explanations, that test possesses 
 infinite and inexhaustible possibilities. These tests 
 are more humane than the shot-gun of old times ; 
 but they arrive at the same object. The negro is 
 barred from voting. 
 
 Most of these disfranchising State clauses have 
 been sanctioned by the Supreme Federal Court, 
 though the " Grandfather Clause," first invented 
 in 1898, was at last disallowed in 1915. But so 
 slow a veto has had little effect. The negro is in 
 practice still disfranchised in the Southern States. 
 The State franchise fixes the Federal franchise ; 
 and thus, by a curious anomaly of the American 
 
THE BLACK PROBLEM 243 
 
 Constitution, powers are being accumulated which 
 open out some grave political possibilities. For 
 there seems no reason why, with the gradual exten 
 sion of these State limitations on the franchise, 
 the white vote should not also be gradually under 
 mined. It is not outside the scope of future develop 
 ments that the fundamental governing principle of 
 the United States should gradually be changed 
 from that of a democracy to an oligarchy. 
 
 There is already actually a peril of minority 
 rule in the country as a whole. The disfranchise- 
 ment of the negro in the Southern States has not 
 been accompanied by any corresponding diminution 
 in the electoral powers of those States. The Union 
 as a whole does not appear to be strong enough to 
 assert that if a State should disfranchise its black 
 population it should incur a corresponding loss of 
 representation in the House of Representatives and 
 the Electoral College. The representation of the 
 Senate, of course, is fixed at two for each State, 
 whatever the size. But the representation in the 
 House of Representatives is based on recurrent 
 redistribution according to population. The 
 Southern States would probably not be so willing 
 to disfranchise their negroes if they lost a corres 
 ponding number of seats in Congress. But that 
 power is not asserted by the Federal Government. 
 
 The reason for this is, I take it, that in their 
 hearts the men of the North share the dread of the 
 men of the South. Since the spread of the negro 
 
244 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 up North during the war period, there have been 
 serious outbreaks of lynching in districts hitherto 
 immune from that evil. If this transmigration 
 should increase there is always a possibility that the 
 Northern States, which have up to the present 
 allowed their black men and women to vote, may 
 introduce similar powers of disfranchisement into 
 their State Constitutions. The temptation to do 
 this does not arise until the majority power of the 
 white man is threatened. Then an agitation begins 
 which too often proves irresistible. For in spite 
 of the Civil War and of the Fifteenth Amendment, 
 no power seems able to persuade the white American 
 to risk handing over the control of government to 
 any coloured race. The red man is frankly sent 
 into reserved territories and kept outside politics. 
 The black man is equally debarred, although the 
 pretence of political rights is asserted and main 
 tained. Perhaps, on the whole, it would be safer, 
 as well as more honest, to treat the black man like 
 the red. For the resentment growing up among 
 the black race is immensely increased by the 
 apparent hypocrisy of the present situation. The 
 black man feels that he is being cheated of his 
 political rights in the South by a series of tricks. 
 The promise of the mouth is betrayed to the heart. 
 The claims of the Civil War men, the charter of 
 rights laid down by the emancipators and recon- 
 structors, seem to be reduced to dust and ashes. 
 A fair-minded English observer will always 
 
THE BLACK PROBLEM 245 
 
 remember the peculiar difficulties of the American 
 situation. The Northerners of the Civil War period 
 were filled with a high idealism. They passion 
 ately sought some adequate return for their great 
 sacrifices. They found it by adding political rights 
 to emancipation in their gifts to the black people 
 for whose cause so many of them had died. But 
 it is the case of the South that the North cheaply 
 scattered those gifts at the cost of the white men 
 whom they had conquered. The South was left 
 shattered and decimated, often at the mercy of the 
 freed blacks. There are thousands of men still 
 alive in the South to-day who can remember the 
 bad times that came after the war. Up in the 
 Alleghany Mountains west of Carolina there are, 
 I am told, still settlements of people who fled from 
 their own emancipated slaves. The deep resent 
 ment born in those days has not yet by any means 
 passed away. The South has now in part recovered 
 its prosperity. But the negro population has 
 trebled its numbers, while the white will never, in 
 all probability, recover its numerical superiority. 
 The trend of population since the war has been 
 westward, and not southward ; the South does not 
 welcome the Northerner. So the South is left to 
 nurse its resentment, and to stand guard over the 
 threatened leadership of its shattered race. 
 
 Thus those who believe that war cures no evils 
 might find some sombre confirmation of their 
 creed in the present position in the Southern States 
 
246 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 of America. For in spite of the victory of Abraham 
 Lincoln s emancipation policy, the black problem 
 still remains almost as dour and as grim as ever 
 before in history. 
 
 The fearful remedy of lynching has somewhat 
 abated of recent years, after the holocaust of over 
 2,500 coloured people in thirty years (1889-1918). 
 But in spite of President Wilson s noble appeal 
 during the war (July 26, 1918) sixty-three negroes, 
 five of them women, were lynched in 1918. The 
 accusations against these victims were various, 
 and by no means confined to the offence usually 
 associated with these acts. The claim of the South 
 to deal with their own " niggers " in their own way 
 extends far beyond the protection of their women- 
 kind. No Briton has a right to quarrel with the 
 strict laws against inter-marriage by which the 
 Americans protect the purity of the white stock. 
 That is clearly within the rights of the race. But 
 considering the strong and honest condemnation of 
 acts of inhumanity among other peoples which 
 prevails in the United States, I cannot but detect 
 a certain moral weakness in the Press comments on 
 lynching, not only in the South, but also in the 
 North. There are many righteous forces that 
 have still the courage to speak. But they speak 
 fitfully ; l the State authorities make no effort to 
 check the evil ; and the movement on behalf of a 
 Federal law which exists among the churches obtains 
 
 1 The tarring and feathering of a British clergyman in Texas 
 (July, 19.21) may partly explain this. 
 
THE BLACK PROBLEM 247 
 
 little support. The lynching extends to whites as 
 well as to blacks, and only a few days ago three white 
 men were taken from a gaol in California and hanged 
 by a gang which carried them off in their motor-cars. 
 
 Such things cannot go on in America any more 
 than in Ireland without grave corruption of the 
 public conscience and will. The lynchers of to-day 
 are the criminals of to-morrow ; and the weakness 
 of authority invites to crime. A race of lawyers 
 like the Americans fully appreciate these facts, and 
 it is fair to say that the Federal Government of the 
 United States has always steadily set its face against 
 lynching. But the weakness lies in the State 
 authorities, who often actually condone the offence. 
 With all the conservatism of the American people, 
 there is still visible a certain strange laxity about 
 obedience to the law, and I doubt whether the 
 widespread defiance of the law of Prohibition by the 
 richer classes is adding to the strength of authority. 
 
 There is grave danger for America in allowing 
 the black problem to drift. In Great Britain such 
 a trouble would find instant voice in Parliament. 
 There would be frequent questions about lynching 
 episodes. There would be legislative proposals of 
 various kinds, and probably the Government 
 would send the whole question to a Royal Com 
 mission, who would inquire and report. But in 
 America, despite their courage and vigour, there 
 seems a curious reluctance to face the great problems 
 of the future. Neither great party seems to hew out 
 
248 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 a policy and stand by it, after the fashion of our 
 parties in England. The result is that public 
 opinion is left without guidance. It is not faced 
 with a choice of policies. 
 
 Now we Britons have various policies in regard 
 to the black problem in our Empire. South Africa 
 has one and India another. I do not say that they 
 are perfect policies, but they are policies. America 
 has no policy in regard to the black man. It 
 might decide to disfranchise him that would be 
 one policy. But it does not do that. On the 
 contrary, it announces in the Federal Constitution 
 that on no account is he to be disfranchised. Then 
 in the State Constitutions it proceeds to do so. 
 
 On the other hand, it might put the negro under 
 a special law and confine him to special regions, 
 as Botha proposed in South Africa. But it does 
 nothing of the sort. It claims for him the full 
 liberty and protection of an American citizen. 
 Then it proceeds to stand aside while he is hanged 
 and burnt without trial. 
 
 I call that a dangerous policy, because it provokes 
 the greatest possible amount of anger and resent 
 ment, while it places no real restraint on a develop 
 ment which is growing more and more formidable 
 every day. One never knows in great affairs what 
 shape or form will be taken by the genii of revenge 
 and hate. One can only say quite certainly that 
 some day, in some form, they will emerge from 
 the Great Magician s bottle. 
 
XIX 
 
 THE WOMEN OF AMERICA 
 
 NEW YORK, Dec. 8. 
 
 WE are back in New York, and to-day, at the 
 Biltmore Hotel, we were sumptuously entertained 
 at a great banquet provided and attended by some 
 five hundred American ladies, who certainly gave 
 to their visitors from Europe a most charming and 
 courteous reception. There were some six of us, 
 and we each had to speak for about a quarter of an 
 hour on our various topics. 
 
 But it was soon brought home to us that what 
 these ladies had come out to scrutinise was not our 
 views so much as our personalities. They seemed 
 far more interested in what we were than in what 
 we said. 
 
 There is something beautifully humbling about 
 this. For it appears to give the proper position to 
 man s intellectual importance. 
 
 But it gives one furiously to think on the whole 
 subject of this new influence that has come into 
 this New World, as well as into the Old the 
 influence of the woman s point of view. Let me 
 therefore set down a few words at large on the 
 American woman generally greatly daring, and 
 
 249 
 
250 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 without even troubling to take out any insurance 
 policy against the risks at the hands of the American 
 
 men. 
 
 ***** 
 
 These ladies* clubs have now become a most 
 striking feature in American life. They exist in 
 every big city, and they are not confined to the 
 intellectuals. On the contrary, you find yourself 
 faced with the very cream of American beauty and 
 wealth. They do not come to these feasts of the 
 soul dressed timidly or sparingly. They dress as 
 only American women can dress, and they do not 
 leave their jewels in caskets at home, but wear 
 them honestly and frankly in the light of day. 
 They do not smoke at these gatherings, and they 
 drink iced water. They listen intently, and they 
 never interrupt. Nowhere, indeed, do you find 
 audiences more courteous and more kind. But 
 always it is the personal note that interests them. It 
 is not causes they want to hear about so much as men. 
 
 At the present moment, for instance, they are 
 profoundly interested in our Prime Minister. 
 Wherever I have been in America I have been 
 asked to speak about Mr. Lloyd George. I have 
 gently intimated that I came to speak about the 
 Pilgrim Fathers, to which they merely replied, 
 " Make him a Pilgrim Father and go on i " 
 
 What is going to be the effect on the life and 
 politics of the New World of this immense awakening 
 of womanhood ? 
 
THE WOMEN OF AMERICA 251 
 
 Looking at it all from outside, I am somewhat 
 puzzled by certain contradictions. For instance, 
 women evidently have achieved a new place since 
 I was last in America. They have obtained the 
 vote, and they have smashed the saloons. Yet 
 they have not, even now, the public position attained 
 by the women in Great Britain. 
 
 There are many dinners and luncheons in America, 
 for instance, still confined to men. " We are 
 sorry, but you cannot bring your wife. There 
 will be no ladies present." Now in Europe the 
 women are claiming to go everywhere. They are 
 present, for instance, in great numbers at the 
 men s club luncheons in London. 
 
 But I note that in America the men still strongly 
 keep their own preserves and stiffen their upper 
 lip if you suggest that the women should invade 
 them. Perhaps these universal women s clubs 
 form the reply to the American man s policy of 
 excluding women from the male banquets. 
 
 Yet I am doubtful, because it would really appear 
 that the women do not want to go to these men s 
 gatherings. There is in America a real camaraderie 
 of women which seems to be lacking in Europe, 
 They really seem to like to meet one another and 
 to talk to one another. They tell me that in these 
 gatherings the talk is on a higher level than in 
 similar gatherings in Europe, and that there are 
 new departures from the time-honoured, well- 
 trodden topics of children and servants. They tell 
 
252 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 me that women amongst themselves are discussing 
 earnestly the great social questions that are arising 
 in both worlds along with the women s vote. 
 
 Yet here again there is a contradiction. For 
 there are far fewer women speakers in America 
 than in Europe. An English lady speaker is always 
 heard gladly by the American women gladly, 
 and with a certain surprise, such as we experienced 
 in England twenty years ago. What we forget 
 is that America escaped that fearful struggle over 
 the women s suffrage through which we passed in 
 England. But during that struggle, with all its 
 evils, a large number of Englishwomen learned to 
 speak. It developed a new school of feminine 
 oratory, both indoors and without. That school 
 appears to be lacking in America, although the 
 American woman will manage an audience as well 
 as any other person if she is really put to it. But 
 she is not anxious to speak. She holds back with 
 a certain timidity, such as her English sister showed 
 twenty years ago. 
 
 This is all the more surprising as America pos 
 sesses some of the ablest women administrators 
 in the whole world. There are those splendid 
 women who have taken the lead in the various 
 social settlements in New York and Chicago 
 settlements now greatly outnumbering the settle 
 ments in our English towns, and greatly sur 
 passing them in vigour and wealth. These settle 
 ments are generally inspired by women. Then 
 
THE WOMEN OF AMERICA 253 
 
 there are the women who have taken the lead in 
 the prohibition movement women like Mrs. Willard 
 women of heroic quality. For if there is one thing 
 that marks the American woman when she is roused 
 it is always courage. Not without reason has the 
 statue of Mrs. Willard obtained a place at Washing 
 ton. 
 
 Behind all the shifting phases of the women s 
 movement in America there is always the solid 
 fact that on that continent men and women are 
 brought up together, both at home and at school. 
 England is the land of the boarding-school, and 
 America is the land of the day school. That means 
 that brothers and sisters are not separated, as they 
 are in well-to-do English families. But far more 
 important is the fact that in practically all the big 
 secondary schools boys and girls are educated 
 together. The other day we visited a great school 
 of this kind at Bridgeport in Connecticut. It was 
 a vast building, containing 3,000 children. It 
 was provided with the finest equipment, and in 
 the centre was a noble hall, where the whole school 
 could gather for entertainment. All this was 
 provided absolutely free by the town for the towns 
 people. But the most conspicuous fact to our 
 British eyes was that in almost every class-room 
 the boys and girls sat side by side, learning and 
 studying together. 
 
 That fact explains, I think, the atmosphere of 
 the American home. The one prevailing note 
 
254 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 about that home is the equality of the sexes. In 
 England we must all admit that there is, in too 
 many of our homes, a sense of rivalry persisting 
 between man and woman, the boy and the girl. 
 Sometimes it is the brother who rules the roost, 
 sometimes it is the sister. But there is a sense of 
 struggle for mastery in the air. Now I have stayed 
 in many beautiful American homes during the 
 last few weeks, and all the time I have been struck 
 with the absence of this sense of rivalry. It is a 
 common idea in Europe that the American husband 
 is the slave of his wife. That is scarcely a correct 
 reading of the facts. True, he makes a rule of 
 being kind and courteous to his wife. He loves 
 to see her well-dressed. If he can, he will spare 
 nothing to secure that she dresses well. He keeps 
 her out of his business affairs, but he encourages 
 her to live a full life of her own. He is not anxious 
 to restrict her energies, or jealous of her diversions. 
 In short, he treats her as an equal, with equal 
 claims to development and to happiness. At any 
 rate, that is the general standard aimed at among 
 the best people in the American towns. 
 
 But the real check on all this feminine develop 
 ment at present is the question of " helps." Of 
 course, you never use the word " servant/ because 
 such a relationship is not recognised. " Help "is 
 what you cry for, and help is what you rarely get. 
 The wages now being paid in America to domestic 
 helps of every kind to cooks, parlourmaids, 
 
THE WOMEN OF AMERICA 255 
 
 governesses, and so forth seem fabulous to the 
 European ear. I heard of several cases where 
 governesses were receiving 300 a year and " all 
 found." No wonder that the class of well-to-do 
 ladies who find themselves cut off from their 
 amusements by having to cook and to sew, view 
 with a cold eye the movement for restricting 
 immigration. They would like to see immigration 
 carried on in full flood, but restricted to domestic 
 servants imported from Europe if there are any 
 to spare ! 
 
 Face to face with this new situation, the American 
 woman grapples with it with a certain blitheness 
 which is all her own. I have been in several 
 houses where the mistress of the house has had 
 to do all the cooking and the tending. But she 
 rarely grumbles. She keeps up that wonderful 
 gay serenity which appears to be the finest of all 
 American gifts. She annexes every possible mech 
 anical aid. Whenever she can escape from her 
 toil she flies around in her inevitable motor-car, 
 and accomplishes her shopping in about a tithe of 
 the time occupied by the European housekeeper 
 of her standing. In spite of her many cares, she 
 generally manages to keep up her social life and to 
 maintain her interest in public affairs. For the 
 American woman is determined that she is not 
 going to be allowed to drift into a backwater. 
 
 What, then, is the position of the American 
 woman in public affairs ? We have seen that she 
 
256 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 takes a less prominent part than the Englishwoman, 
 and yet she keeps up a vivid interest. The result 
 is that her power in America still closely resembles 
 that of the best type of Frenchwoman at the best 
 period of French history the middle of the eigh 
 teenth century. At that time the Frenchwoman 
 ruled France, not on a platform, but in her salon. 
 So the American woman largely rules America, 
 not from the platform, but from her drawing-room. 
 She is a wonderful talker rather apt to change the 
 subject too often, but always original and stimulat 
 ing, fresh and gay. She keeps herself better 
 informed than the European woman, and so her 
 gaiety has more effect. Often she concentrates 
 her power on certain great social questions 
 especially the questions that concern women and 
 children. At the present moment, while her man 
 kind have turned their backs on Europe, she is still 
 carrying immense offerings of love and help to the 
 starving children of Eastern Europe. In many 
 cities we have discovered that while the men were 
 sullen and indifferent when one spoke of Europe, 
 the women came forward with instant help, and 
 even showered on us gifts for those helpless children 
 of whom we told them, in far-off Vienna. For 
 indeed, these American women have the quickest 
 heart for suffering, and their purses are readily 
 open to those who can touch their heart. 
 , So it is at home in their own country. I attri 
 bute to the women of America very largely the fact 
 
THE WOMEN OF AMERICA 257 
 
 that that country has gone ahead of us on many 
 questions of social reform, using the word in its 
 purely humane sense. Take the children s courts 
 of New York. I spent some hours there yesterday 
 sitting by the side of Judge Hoyt. Like every 
 other visitor, I was filled with overwhelming admira 
 tion for this new humanisation of legal process in 
 dealing with the erring children of the great cities. 
 It is a problem that we have not yet solved, even 
 in London. There in New York, thanks to the 
 women, they have established a system of pro 
 bationary and family courts to deal with the young 
 with a tenderness and justice that should now form 
 a model for the world. 1 
 
 When we think of America we must put these 
 facts against all the stories of graft and corruption 
 that reach us through their own sensational Press. 
 
 Or take the court which they have established 
 for dealing with fallen women. There, again, the 
 new system of justice tempered by tenderness 
 which has been established in New York has pro 
 duced a far-reaching reform of social conditions, 
 and that is, I am told, due to women reformers. 
 
 The same process of social change has been going 
 on in other American cities, and in all these ways 
 the women of America seem to me to have chosen 
 a wiser course than the women of Europe. For 
 while they have left the purely political game to 
 
 1 e.g. The punishment of children by whipping at the order 
 of public courts is unknown in America, 
 
258 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 their menkind, they have concentrated on that 
 side of life on which their peculiar powers of pity 
 and sympathy produce the surest and quickest result. 
 
 Up in Boston I came across a ladies club of a 
 somewhat different type from these large fashion 
 able gatherings of New York. It was a club in 
 which all classes met, and the conditions of food 
 and subscription were adapted to the humblest 
 and the poorest. It was led by a lady of great 
 social gifts, Mrs. Hopkins, a descendant of Stephen 
 Hopkins, one of the Pilgrim Fathers. There the 
 discussion soon led on to the larger political pro 
 blems, and I found myself being heckled with friendly 
 vigour on most of our European sins and errors. 
 In that club I saw a new development beginning 
 in that wonderful town which holds the intellectual 
 leadership of America a development which seemed 
 to indicate that the power of the woman in America 
 is soon likely to stretch beyond those other subjects 
 of social welfare, and is likely to invade politics. 
 But I was agreeably pleased to find that among 
 those women there was far less of the bitterness 
 of party politics than among the American men. 
 That evening seemed to me to open up the hope 
 that the American woman, coming in with her 
 flashing spirit and her serene temper, may abate the 
 bitterness of faction which now desolates the higher 
 places of American political life. So may it be ! 
 
 I come back to the central fact of equality. It 
 penetrates this American atmosphere, with all 
 
THE WOMEN OF AMERICA 259 
 
 its virtues and its defects with the slight insolence 
 of the less worthy to the more worthy, with the 
 heavy burden that it lays on public men, and yet 
 with the perpetual rebuke that it gives to arrogance 
 and insolence in high places. But it is seen at its 
 best in this matter of the relations between men and 
 women, because there, more than anywhere else 
 in life, lies the temptation to the pride of physical 
 force, and this habit of deference to woman has a 
 notably refining effect upon the men. You enter, 
 for instance, into an office in New York. Very 
 often the head of the business introduces you to 
 all the young ladies who are doing his typing, 
 or managing his correspondence. This pleasant 
 custom establishes an easier relationship, and 
 makes their lives far more pleasant and sweet. 
 On their side there is generally an attempt to rise 
 to the situation. These American girls seemed 
 to me to take an interest in the business of the firm, 
 such as one does not often find in the women on 
 the British side of the water. 
 
 In all such symptoms of American life I see the 
 growth of a new idea of partnership between man 
 and woman. It seems to realise our British poet s 
 dream of woman s future development : 
 
 Till at the last she set herself to man, 
 
 Like perfect music unto noble words ; 
 
 And so these twain, upon the skirts of Time, 
 
 Sit side by side full-summ d in all their powers, 
 
 Dispensing harvest, sowing the To-Be, 
 
XX 
 
 THE AMERICAN MAN 
 
 NEW YORK, Dec. 8. 
 
 HAVING ventured to speak of the American woman, 
 I must not now fail in courage, but must, before 
 leaving this country, collect my thoughts on the 
 American man as I have seen him in 1920 and 
 
 then, perhaps, I had better go. 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 Since my last visit to America there has asserted 
 itself a remarkable change in the American man. 
 The older type of American " Uncle Sam " as 
 depicted in all our British cartoons, is a long, lanky, 
 thin man with a goatee beard. The American man 
 of to-day is clean-shaven, of medium height and 
 possessed of a resolute chubby face which gives 
 him the appearance of a formidable cherub. In 
 stead of being lean, he is now substantial in frame : 
 his old languid attitude, with feet on the mantel 
 piece and the long cigar in the side of the mouth 
 has given place to an alert and unresting activity. 
 He smokes little. He no longer chews tobacco 
 but only gum and candy. He drinks not at all to 
 the outward eye and he seems to prefer standing 
 up to sitting down. 
 
 260 
 
THE AMERICAN MAN 261 
 
 His daily habits correspond to this change in 
 his physique. He rises early and goes to work 
 early. The great city of New York is already 
 humming with energy at an hour when London is 
 still breakfasting. Pessimists on the European 
 side of the Atlantic have prophesied that if America 
 gave up drink she would plunge into gluttony. 
 But I notice no signs of such a change. The 
 American eats well, but not greedily. His food at 
 the present moment (December, 1920) is so much 
 better than ours that he cannot fail to be a heartier 
 man. But being deprived of his wine, he does not 
 sit so long at table, and he remains far more attentive 
 and awake after his meals. Strangely enough, I 
 have been very much struck by the improvement in 
 the dinner table conversation that results from the 
 removal of the wine bottle. Such an outcome 
 seems to contradict all the cherished notions of 
 our poets and novelists. But it bears out the con 
 sidered judgment of the American scientists, who 
 now assert that alcohol is a narcotic and not a 
 stimulant. 
 
 Nor is the talk cheerless or melancholic. On 
 the contrary, the American is one of the most 
 humorous men on this planet, and he is certainly 
 one of the best story-tellers. Within a few weeks 
 in America you hear better stories than you would 
 hear in the same number of months in Europe. 
 These stories at the present moment naturally turn 
 very largely round this very question of Prohibition. 
 
262 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 The American smiles over his own Puritanism and 
 laughs at his own heroism. He turns the jest 
 against himself so swiftly that he seems to rob you 
 of your laugh. There is the story I heard in New 
 York of the ardent Prohibitionist who advocated 
 in a speech the policy of carrying all the alcoholic 
 drinks that remain in America right out to sea, 
 and dropping the bottles overboard. To his great 
 surprise a member of his audience cheered enthusi 
 astically. The orator beamed. 
 
 " I am delighted/ he said, " to notice that one 
 American, at least, is in favour of my policy." 
 
 " Of course I am ! " said the man who had 
 cheered. " I m a diver ! " 
 
 There is an element of the unexpected in these 
 American stories which shows the clean fancy of 
 their wit. There is a story of a body of negroes 
 who came to ask exemption from Prohibition on 
 the ground that they wished for some wine for 
 sacramental purposes, which is permitted under 
 the law. 
 
 " Well, what kind of wine would you like ? " 
 asked the official. 
 
 " Well, boss," said the negro spokesman, " I 
 guess we had a difference about that. So we had 
 a meeting about it, and after a lot o talk we come 
 to some sort of agreement." 
 
 " What was the agreement ? " asked the official. 
 
 " Well, sah ! " said the negro, beaming all over, 
 " we all voted for gin ! " 
 
THE AMERICAN MAN 263 
 
 The other day we attended a luncheon in one of 
 the New York hotels, and after lunch we had 
 two minute speeches. It is not very easy to acquit 
 yourself well in a two minutes speech. But the 
 American manages it admirably. Everyone told 
 a story and everyone was delighted. 
 
 The American man is not a cynic. That is where 
 he chiefly differs from the European. The American I 
 is really anxious to enjoy and appreciate. He is 
 intensely inquisitive, especially about things Euro- \ 
 pean. He is really very ignorant about Europe. 
 He knows, for instance, very little about the British 
 Constitution, and is honestly puzzled as to how 
 we manage to have a King that does not rule. 
 The House of Lords especially worries him. The 
 very idea of hereditary legislators puts him into a 
 sort of frigid politeness which dimly obscures his 
 disapproval. It offends his rooted idea, which is 
 that public opinion should always govern. When 
 you explain to him that the House of Lords always 
 claims to represent public opinion, he abruptly 
 changes the subject, as he does when you mention 
 negroes, or Free Trade, or any other subject on 
 which he has formed immovable convictions. For 
 the American dislikes contradicting you, and his 
 way of disagreement is to change the subject. 
 
 The American man is not quite so devoted to his 
 club as is the Englishman. It is not so much that 
 he isjnore domestic, as that he is more considerate 
 of his wife and less willing to leave her so much 
 
264 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 alone. But like his wife, he is much addicted to 
 the habit of the club luncheon. In New York, 
 for instance, there is scarcely a day on which there 
 is not held one of these club functions, and the 
 Americans love to invite the British visitor to 
 attend and address them. There is the Advertising 
 Club, which consists of all the men employed in 
 publicity work, including publishers, editors and 
 advertising managers. There is the Economic 
 Club, containing most of the best business men in 
 New York, all willing to listen for long periods to 
 solemn economic debates. There are the literary 
 clubs, and the artistic clubs. They all have their 
 luncheons, which last just about an hour and 
 then the men stream back to work. This custom 
 has now spread to London by way of Leeds and the 
 Rotary Clubs. But the difference is that in New- 
 York the women are strictly excluded from the 
 men s luncheons. These luncheons are the last 
 preserves of the mere man. 
 
 The American men s clubs are certainly not so 
 homelike as our British clubs. They are more like 
 hotels. You feel less at your ease. But in one 
 respect they are immensely superior. They are 
 far more hospitable to strangers. In London 
 there are clubs, like the Beefsteak, that literally 
 keep the stranger on the pavement. At the 
 Athenaeum they thrust the stranger into a box. 
 At the Travellers they entertain him only in the 
 hall. These outrageous survivals of a barbarous 
 
THE AMERICAN MAN 265 
 
 age surprise and shock the American when he 
 comes to London. Even at the National Liberal, 
 which is the most hospitable club of London, the 
 foreign visitor cannot take up a membership 
 under less than a month. But in the United 
 States you can be introduced to their clubs, if 
 you and they so desire within a day. Your name 
 is put down, and you have the run of the club and 
 are as much a member as if you had lived in America 
 all your life. 
 
 But the American man is not only hospitable 
 in his club. He loves to take you to his home. 
 He is generally proud of his home and of his wife 
 and children, and wishes to show them to you. 
 There he is unlike the Frenchman, who very rarely 
 takes you to his house. In the matter of giving 
 the American is not quite so generous as the Rus 
 sian, who will hand over to you everything that is 
 his including his house and his horse if you 
 express any admiration for it. But he is far more 
 generous than the Englishman, who is a slow giver, 
 partly from shyness and at the present moment 
 partly from poverty. I find in America that it is 
 quite dangerous to express any admiration for a 
 book : it is immediately presented to me. If we 
 arrive in a city where we are pressed for time 
 there are always good Americans who offer us the 
 use of their motor-car for whole days together. 
 As it is in private life, so it is in public. 
 
 The generosity of the American millionaire makes 
 
266 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 "> 
 
 us almost forgive him his wealth. Sir Auckland 
 Geddes, who is a very shrewd observer of American 
 character, contends that it is this generosity of 
 the American millionaire which safeguards the 
 capitalist system in America and makes it stronger 
 than anywhere else in the world. Certainly, 
 examples of it are most dramatic. In England we 
 have one or two big rich men men like Lord 
 Leverhulme, Mr. George Cadbury and the Rown- 
 trees who realise some of the possibilities of fine 
 and generous public action open to the wealthy 
 man. But the thing is far more common in the 
 United States. Those great Universities which 
 are the marvel of modern America, are largely the 
 creation of the successful business man. Then you 
 have men like Mr. Henry Ford, of Detroit, who is 
 always doing striking and surprising things, some 
 times very bizarre, but always with a dash of 
 splendour, such as gives the millionaire in America 
 the mantle of royalty. At the present moment 
 up in the North- West there is a great manufacturer, 
 who is selling his agricultural machinery below the 
 market price at a presumable loss to himself, just 
 in order to help the American fanner out of his 
 troubles. 
 
 The European cynic would probably say that 
 in such a case the American millionaire is dumping 
 his goods in order to obtain a new market. But 
 the American says nothing of the sort. He knows 
 his rich men better than the European. He realises 
 
THE AMERICAN MAN 267 
 
 that they make money largely for the sake of 
 power. Now the greatest power in the world is 
 the power of doing good. The next greatest power 
 is the power of being kind. The American million 
 aire has just enough touch of genius to realise 
 that wealth places within his grasp the immense 
 liberty of being able to exercise these two powers. 
 That alone is what prevents American public 
 opinion from rising up against the power of wealth 
 and smashing it, as they have again and again 
 showed signs of doing. You have bursts of pro 
 tests against the power of the Trusts, as there were 
 under Roosevelt : but those bursts of protest do 
 not last long, for the simple reason that the million 
 aire so often disarms public opinion by becoming 
 the servant of the public. 
 
 This opinion may seem rather surprising to those 
 who have visited the luxurious mansions of the 
 American millionaires in New York. Those man 
 sions form the modern counterpart of the princely 
 palaces of Genoa, Venice and Rome. These mer 
 chant princes of the New World dwell in their 
 castles like the barons of the Rhine. They have 
 even their own private police, like the feudal fol 
 lowers of the mediaeval lords. The Pierpoint 
 Morgan mansion in New York is guarded by its 
 own retainers. We stopped to look at the building 
 the other evening, and we were immediately and 
 firmly rebuked by one. 
 
 My readers may naturally ask how I can say a 
 
268 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 good word for a class that flourishes its wealth so 
 ostentatiously in the public eye, and arrogates 
 such powers. 
 
 But let us reflect. The British rich man can buy 
 great country houses and great estates, with 
 shootings and deer forests and all kinds of surviving 
 feudal powers. If you really want to see how the 
 British wealthy man spends his money you must 
 go down into the shires and the counties of England 
 where he still shines in splendid power. The 
 American has no such outlets for his money. The 
 land laws of America forbid the accumulation of 
 great estates. The United States have no con 
 venient game laws, to make the killing of animals 
 a privileged occupation. This building of sumptu 
 ous city homes is really the only form of personal 
 expenditure left to the American millionaire. 
 
 But a man can only spend a mere fraction of a 
 great fortune on himself and his city home. The 
 result is that families like the Rockefellers and the 
 Vanderbilts have immense resources left for public 
 use. During the short period I have been here 
 there have already been several striking donations 
 to public causes from the millionaires. The Rocke 
 fellers have given a million dollars to the cause of 
 the prevention of cruelty to children. One 
 young millionaire has refused a fortune and given 
 it to the poor. Mr. Henry Ford has distributed 
 7,000,000 dollars in bonuses to his employees. It 
 is all on the Carnegie lines. For that great man s 
 
THE AMERICAN MAN 269 
 
 splendid example has left a great impress on the 
 life of America. But it is also partly because the 
 American rich man has so little to spend his money 
 on. He is now tied in even more closely than ever 
 by sumptuary laws. Public opinion has doomed 
 his wine cellar, and at the table of people like 
 the Rockefellers you drink nothing but iced water. 
 The American home is certainly one of the most 
 delightful and attractive in the world. In most of 
 the cities of the Middle West we have motored 
 round their suburbs and seen the wonderful develop 
 ment of villadom which now surrounds those cities 
 with glorious mansions. In England the public 
 amenity of villas is almost entirely destroyed by 
 the erection of high walls and wooden fences. 
 Thus the very word villadom has attained an 
 odious meaning. At Chiselhurst, for instance, a 
 district of noble villas, you see little of those fine 
 dwellings unless you have the entry. But in 
 America national opinion has condemned the 
 fence and practically destroyed it. All the houses 
 are open to the eye, with nothing to separate them 
 from one another except sunken hahas. Their 
 gardens are exposed to the public view; and their 
 beautiful adventures in architecture in every 
 style of Gothic, Classic, Tudor and Jacobean 
 add immensely to the attractiveness of their 
 suburbs. On the other hand, the Americans have 
 not acquired the cult of flowers, and their gardens 
 are far behind ours. They buy flowers in great 
 
270 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 quantities, but those flowers are grown in market 
 gardens and hothouses. It is quite unusual to 
 see a fine private garden round an American villa. 
 There again the American lacks one great form of 
 personal expenditure which is peculiarly popular 
 with the successful business man in England. It 
 is a matter still requiring explanation why a success 
 ful trader in England almost always develops an 
 inextinguishable passion for growing flowers. Per 
 haps it is simply that all Englishmen have the 
 passion, but he alone has the power of indulging it. 
 
 But let us enter the house, and then we have 
 revealed to us the new and extraordinary facilities 
 of living which America is discovering the marble 
 bathrooms, the shaded verandahs, and the cool 
 basement rooms, built for their summer heats : the 
 ingenious devices of cookery and cleaning which 
 make them so independent of domestic aid : the 
 spacious rooms, the simple and restful decorations, 
 the general air of ease and comfort. Perhaps it 
 is all a question of space. For, after all, space 
 is at the back of all great things in America it is 
 the source of their wealth and the token of their 
 power. 
 
 Yes, after our cramped England these large and 
 roomy houses of America have great charm; they 
 make one almost wish that one had emigrated 
 young. 
 
 No wonder that the American loves his home ! 
 
THE AMERICAN MAN 271 
 
 After the American man I must say just a word 
 on the American child. 
 
 The American child has distinctly improved since 
 my last visit to this country. Twenty years ago 
 he was still an insolent tyrant of the home, spoiled 
 himself, and spoiling the lives of others : the torture 
 of the visitor, and the loved anxiety of his parents. 
 American children are still intensely inquisitive, 
 and far more independent than our English children. 
 But, on the other hand, our English child in the 
 interval has become a little more American, and so 
 the two types tend to grow nearer to one another. 
 Owing to the lack of servants the American child 
 of the richer classes is perhaps less tended than 
 the English, and thus attains independence at a 
 younger age. 
 
 As a whole, the American children are cheerful, 
 jolly little creatures, keen on their school and 
 play. But I do not find that they know so much 
 as I should expect after visiting their schools." 
 It is the opinion of a good many English people 
 living in America that the children are less thor 
 oughly taught than in the great English schools. 
 I do not know how this may be. 
 
 The American child brings me back to the 
 American man. He is a tender father, as he is an 
 indulgent husband. The corporal punishment of 
 children is practically unknown in the United 
 States. It has been abolished in all the children s 
 courts, and it is very rarely used in the homes. 
 
272 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 The result is that the child is on very friendly terms 
 with his father. 
 
 The uppish boy becomes a splendid youth. For 
 I do not think that in the whole world there is a 
 finer young manhood than America possesses. 
 You have only to visit the Universities to realise 
 that and when we have said that, could we give 
 a better tribute to the American man, who is, after 
 all, his father ? 
 
XXI 
 
 THE ELDER STATESMEN 
 
 MY TALKS WITH MR. ROOT AND COLONEL HOUSE 
 SHOULD AMERICA COME BACK TO EUROPE? 
 
 NEW YORK, Dec. 9. 
 
 DURING these last few days in New York, I have 
 been able, by means of kind introductions from 
 friends, to enjoy the privilege of long talks on the 
 situation between America and Europe with several 
 of those distinguished " elder statesmen " whose 
 opinions count for so much in America. 
 
 I saw the Hon. Elihu Root, Ex-American Senator 
 and Judge of the Hague Court, in his office " up 
 town." He received me graciously, but from the 
 moment we entered upon public affairs he became 
 the Roman. As I sat talking with that stern, 
 grizzled man, I recalled an interview of twenty 
 years ago an interview I enjoyed on my last 
 visit to North America with that veteran political 
 thinker, Mr. Gold win Smith. There was the same 
 grim, grey outlook on the world the same harsh 
 judgments on the man who held the reins of power 
 the same proud, obstinate adherence to his own 
 individual views. 
 
 Mr. Elihu Root has held in American public life 
 s 273 
 
274 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 the highest positions possible next to the Presi 
 dency the Secretaryship of War and the Secretary 
 ship of State. He has served his country faithfully 
 and well. He has played a dominating part even 
 in the recent great election. To-day when I saw 
 him it was considered probable that he might play 
 an even more powerful part in the Administration 
 which he has helped to place in power. 
 
 He has held, in the great international con 
 troversy, the key position of a man who intensely 
 believed in the cause of international peace, but 
 has bitterly opposed the Wilson League and 
 Covenant. Not that he has entirely stood aloof 
 from Europe. He has just accomplished the task, 
 as a member of the Commission of International 
 Jurists appointed by the League of Nations, of 
 framing the Permanent Court of International 
 Justice established by the Covenant. All this 
 makes him a singularly interesting figure. 
 
 He bears the burden of his seventy-six years 
 very lightly. He sat bolt upright in his office 
 chair throughout our long two hours conversa 
 tion, speaking clearly and deliberately, and always 
 effectively. He would dismiss a subject in a curt 
 phrase, always rather drily, perhaps with too little 
 humour and geniality. He reminded me of our 
 typical European statesmen, rather than of his own 
 kindly countrymen. Let me set down some of his 
 utterances. 
 
 " The election was not won on political issues 
 
THE ELDER STATESMEN 275 
 
 at all ! " he said. "It was a decision against 
 Wilson." 
 
 " But why ? What was his offence ? " 
 
 Mr. Root was quite clear on that. His offences 
 were many. 
 
 " He ought not to have gone to Europe at all. 
 That was his first blunder. He ought to have 
 stayed in America, and sent someone to speak for 
 him. Then he could have revised the decisions 
 from the American point of view." 
 
 I ventured to point out that the other heads of 
 States had gone to Paris. How could America 
 have been represented by anyone less than its 
 Head of State ? How could she have agreed to any 
 final decisions ? 
 
 " The others would not have gone if Wilson 
 hadn t gone. As he went, so they had to go." 
 
 Mr. Root s next great quarrel with Wilson was 
 that, having gone, he acted as a King and not as a 
 President. 
 
 " He forgot the American Senate ! He for 
 got the American Constitution ! He acted as 
 an autocrat ! America has no place for an 
 autocrat ! " 
 
 I ventured to remind Mr. Root, at this point, 
 that President Wilson had come home before 
 signing the Treaty, and had consulted the leaders 
 of the Parties on the critical questions, and often 
 accepted their advice. 
 
 He ought not to have merely consulted them. 
 
276 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 If he was to go to Paris, he ought to have taken 
 them with him." 
 
 That was the centre of the offending I very well 
 knew that by now. 
 
 Finding it useless to discuss further a conviction 
 which had now struck so deeply into the rocky soil 
 of the veteran s mind, I tried to shift on to the 
 question of the League of Nations itself. 
 
 Here Mr. Root was equally irreconcilable. 
 
 " The League ignores the American Constitution. 
 Article X empowers the government to send troops 
 on the agreement of the League. Sending troops 
 is an act of war. War can only be declared in the 
 United States by Congress. Congress is destroyed 
 by the governing article of the League." 
 
 I suggested, of course, that the League always 
 implied that each government should act according 
 to its own Constitution. I even went so far as to 
 suggest that the whole of the American Con 
 stitution should be added to the League as an 
 appendix. 
 
 Perhaps the old statesman suspected a touch of 
 irony in this. His face darkened. 
 
 " We cannot have Article X. We said so. 
 President Wilson refused to listen. Wilson has 
 gone. We still say the same. We cannot have 
 Article X on any account ! " 
 
 " Why not propose its omission in the form of a 
 Reservation ? Switzerland has come into the 
 League on a Reservation. Lord Grey has made it 
 
THE ELDER STATESMEN 277 
 
 clear that the British Government is willing to 
 consider Reservations. But America presents none. 
 She merely holds aloof ! " 
 
 Mr. Root would not commit himself. Perhaps. 
 He did not know what Harding might do. Harding 
 had asked him to go and consult with him. He 
 was going. He did not know what the result might 
 be. Events had gone very far, and America had 
 other objections to the Covenant. 
 
 What other objections ? 
 
 " We object to the power which it gives to the 
 little States. We cannot permit the possibility that 
 any little South American State should have the 
 right of veto over the foreign policy of the United 
 States." 
 
 There spoke the spirit of the Monroe Doctrine, 
 the Anglo-Saxon pride of the " Predominant 
 Partner " in the New World. There was in it, 
 also, a touch of the imperious insularity of the 
 American Continent. 
 
 There was much else that Mr. Root said, but I 
 think I have given the gist of it. All the time we 
 were talking I was uncomfortably aware that a 
 great Luncheon Club audience of American clergy 
 was waiting for me at the other end of New York. 
 But the clergy had to wait. For as long as that old 
 man talked I had to listen. I felt that I was 
 listening to the historic voice of Old America, with 
 all its grim prejudices against the New World 
 Order. I was in the presence of the Spirit of the 
 
278 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 Past, putting up its last fight against the Spirit of 
 the Future. 
 
 Mr. Root talked long enough for me to realise 
 how formidable this spirit was how hard-set, how 
 self-confident, how contemptuous of sentiment. 
 The world-appeal fell away from this rock like a 
 shattered wave. I did not even attempt any call 
 for pity, any sorrow for a broken Europe. What 
 had Europe to do or say in this austere, remote 
 Court ? Mr. Root, sitting there in his lawyer s 
 office, in the heart of this great pulsing city, was 
 Old America speaking, Old America judging, Old 
 America condemning. 
 
 " He ought not to have gone to Europe. Wilson 
 ought not to have gone." 
 
 That was the burden of the complaint. 
 
 Insensibly the name of the offending President 
 dropped out, and there sounded in my ears this 
 refrain : 
 
 " America ought not to have gone to Europe. She 
 ought not to have gone." 
 
 Perhaps. But having gone, ought she to have 
 
 come back ? 
 
 ***** 
 
 Another morning, in a brief interval between two 
 meetings, I went to see the famous Colonel House 
 in his rooms in the Biltmore Hotel. Mr. Kohlsaat, 
 the Chicago newspaper proprietor, a firm friend and 
 admirer of the Colonel, gave me an introduction. 
 
 Instead of a grim office of the law, I found myself 
 
THE ELDER STATESMEN 279 
 
 in a flat, tastefully furnished, very quiet, very 
 small, very comfortable. But a lonely flat a 
 silent flat a flat that seemed full of secrets. 
 
 I sat for a few minutes in this secret ful silence, 
 and then, very softly, there entered a thin, grizzled 
 man, beautifully dressed, exquisitely courteous, 
 delightfully amiable. 
 
 Colonel House is an entire contrast to ex-Senator 
 Root. He does not sit in judgment. He suggests. 
 He submits. He is persuasive, not judicial. He 
 does not lay down the law. He hints to you a 
 new law. 
 
 As with the man, so with the career. Root s 
 career has been carried on in the open, under con 
 ditions of stress and storm. He has held great 
 offices. He has wielded the power that comes 
 from great popular support. He has lived before 
 the world. 
 
 Colonel House is one of those men who prefer 
 to rule without being seen. He allows others to 
 carry off the prizes. While some ask for the palm 
 without the dust, he is content with the dust 
 without the palm. We have such men in England 
 men like Lord Esher. Democracy does not love 
 such men. When they fall, no dog barks. When 
 they are afflicted, no tears are shed. No hand is 
 lifted to save them. 
 
 But such men are all the more useful to men in 
 power because they do not seek power themselves. 
 
28o A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 At the time of the Great War, for the first time, 
 Colonel House departed from his policy of refusing 
 office. He accepted the post of Wilson s Special 
 War Representative in Europe. He represented 
 the United States on the Supreme War Council of 
 1917, and at the Armistice. 
 
 He played a great part in winning the war. 
 
 So at the Peace Conference he naturally became 
 an American Peace Commissioner : and during the 
 Conference he acted on the League of Nations 
 Committee, and on the Mandates Committee. Now, 
 with Wilson s illness, he has gone silently back 
 into private life. He has taken his eclipse as quietly 
 and as selflessly as he has played every other part 
 in life. He stands aside until he is wanted again 
 by his country. He will surely be wanted : for 
 such men so devoted, so true, so high-minded, are 
 indeed rare in any nation. 
 
 I put to Colonel House the leading political 
 question, and he answered clearly and briefly. 
 
 " Wilson had to go to Paris. But he ought to 
 have taken the leading Republicans with him ! " 
 
 " In fact he ought to have taken a Coalition body 
 of representatives ? " 
 
 " Yes. It would have strengthened him. It 
 might have saved him. In his absence this furious 
 attack developed. It could not have developed 
 if Senator Lodge had been with Wilson in Paris. 
 That would have disarmed the Senate. The 
 Senate would probably have acted with Wilson." 
 
THE ELDER STATESMEN 281 
 
 " But Lloyd George did that, and he is not 
 forgiven for it. He has split the Liberal Party. 
 Would not Wilson have split the Democratic 
 Party ? " 
 
 " Perhaps. Very likely. He might not have 
 succeeded. Party is very strong in this country. 
 The Republicans were hungry. They had been 
 out of office for eight years : a long time for a 
 party which, like your Tories, claims the right to 
 rule. They were hungry and angry. Anyway 
 they would have fought hard. But Wilson ought 
 to have done it. If he had, at any rate, whatever 
 had befallen, he would have done the right thing." 
 
 That was Colonel House s refrain : 
 
 " He would have done the right thing" 
 
 Then he went on. 
 
 " They have broken him. We are in a bad 
 way. But it is no use Europe asking us back 
 yet ! " 
 
 " What should we do ? " said I. 
 
 " Why, just carry on show that you can do 
 without us that is the surest way of bringing us 
 back." 
 
 Colonel House smiled a sad, shrewd smile. He 
 knows his country. 
 
 As to Wilson s conduct since his return to America 
 his obstinacy his treatment of Lansing and 
 of Colonel House himself the Colonel puts it all 
 down to sheer illness. 
 
 " He is a very, very sick man. There is no good 
 
282 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 taking any account of what he is doing. His 
 treatment of Lansing was sheerly a case of sick 
 ness." 
 
 But on the main point of Wilson s policy Colonel 
 House is quite clear. He was right to go to Europe. 
 He was right to propose the League. He ought to 
 have taken his own countrymen along with him 
 that was his only fault. 
 
 " America was right to go to Europe: and America 
 ought to go back." 
 
 That, in a word, was Colonel House s view : and 
 I think that there he expressed more truly than ex- 
 Senator Root the mind of America of the Future. 
 
XXII 
 GOOD-BYE ! 
 
 ON BOARD THE CELTIC, Dec. n, 1920. 
 
 ONCE more we are passing the lightship off Nan- 
 tucket Island. This time we are travelling east 
 ward, and the shores of America have receded 
 from us. All the busy murmur of that great 
 restless continent has fallen silent, and we feel as 
 if our experiences there were part of a wonderful 
 dream. Once more there falls on me the illusion 
 that I have been visiting another planet, and that 
 I am returning to Old Earth away from the blaze 
 and glitter of a distant star. But to-day that 
 feeling is even more vivid, because of the contrast 
 produced by the war. For we are going back to a 
 war-worn continent, darkened, half-fed, disillu 
 sioned, full of discontent and trouble, looking 
 doubtfully into the dim future, distraught by 
 quarrels, no longer confident of its own destiny. 
 
 Such is Europe to-day. We have left a con 
 tinent still in the heyday of its glorious prosperity, 
 glittering with a million lights, glutted with its 
 surplus of food, with no serious trouble except the 
 very excess of its own production. Now that we 
 have left her, and are travelling over the waste of 
 
 283 
 
284 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 waters back to our own island, that contrast comes 
 to us all the more sharply and vividly. It is the 
 one clear-cut impression of our visit to America. 
 
 " Are you sorry to go home ? " said an American 
 to me last night at our farewell banquet in New 
 York. 
 
 " No," I said, " because I do not feel quite 
 happy in a land so prosperous as yours, when I 
 know what my own continent is suffering." 
 
 The American flushed, as if I had delivered a 
 rebuke, and said quickly in reply, " Oh ! we have 
 our own troubles, although we may seem so pros 
 perous to you." 
 
 "Yes," I said, "that is perfectly true. But 
 being a European, I cannot help you in your 
 troubles, or even really feel them. That is the 
 reason why I must go back to my home." 
 
 We both spoke seriously in that moment of 
 parting, and I think that we uttered unconsciously 
 the unspoken thought of all these last weeks. 
 
 Alas ! that it should be so ! But since America 
 has decided to stand apart from our European 
 affairs, there is no doubt that the two continents 
 have gradually drifted away from one another, 
 both in thought and feeling, with less capacity to 
 understand one another s troubles. And yet the 
 American was right. In spite of her apparent 
 prosperity, America has her own troubles already. 
 So, I have no doubt, Dives had his own troubles 
 within his palace. They were different troubles 
 
GOOD-BYE 285 
 
 from the troubles of Lazarus, but they were serious 
 enough to Dives. But the curse of it all was that 
 the troubles of Lazarus were so much more acute 
 and intense in their nature that they shut off from 
 him any feeling for the troubles of Dives. 
 
 So it is with Europe now. It is difficult to 
 persuade her that the troubles of America can be 
 serious. She sees a continent flushed with wealth, 
 drawn very largely from Europe s own disasters. 
 She looks across the ocean and contemplates a 
 country that used to be her debtor and is now her 
 creditor. She finds that her creditor is inclined to 
 adopt the manner of the proverbial rich uncle. 
 
 Looking through the cracks in the door into 
 the blazing light of Dives palace, Lazarus feels 
 bitterly. Yet Dives has a case. I sit here on 
 deck and pass in memory the teeming multitudes 
 through which we have passed in the streets of 
 New York and Chicago, the many languages that 
 we have heard talked in the railway and street 
 cars the many types of people that we have met 
 in the course of our visit. Then it occurs to me 
 that the war has faced America with a new problem. 
 At the very moment when she was absorbing and 
 unifying her various populations, the shock of 
 this great world conflict came upon her as a dividing 
 and disintegrating force. Her Latins once more 
 became Italians. Her Hibernians once more be 
 came Irish. Her Teutons once more became 
 Germans. Even her British once more became 
 
286 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 Anglo-Saxon. She found herself breaking up 
 into nations at the very moment when Europe 
 was appealing to her to be international. The 
 magnet of Europe began to separate and sort 
 out the various races that make up the great 
 American population. Then a great fear came 
 upon America an old elemental fear, drawn 
 unconsciously from her past history. She dreaded 
 that Europe was once more going to pull her back 
 across the Atlantic. So she shrank back from 
 what she feared might be a fatal embrace, and in 
 her panic she cut loose from the League which she 
 herself suggested. That, I think, is the true 
 reading of recent events. 
 
 If that be so, then what is the moral ? The 
 moral appears to be that Europe must invent a 
 new approach to America. The League of Nations 
 has got on America s nerves, and we must avoid 
 both the name and the thing. But even already 
 there are symptoms that events in America will 
 work out a condemnation of her policy of isolation. 
 The course of trade is already correcting American 
 politics. The depression of trade which is falling 
 on the great producing centres is teaching them 
 more than all the speeches of President Wilson. 
 Now the Americans are, above all things, traders. 
 Commerce is to them more than politics. It 
 claims far more of their best brains. Looking back, 
 I seem to see commerce everywhere at the head of 
 all that wonderful energy and splendid originality 
 
GOOD-BYE 287 
 
 which one typifies as America. Well, if American 
 commerce once learns any lesson, it is very swift to 
 apply it. So that if the approach comes to us next 
 not by way of politics, but by way of commerce, 
 let us not be too dainty to accept whatever over 
 tures we may obtain. 
 
 Just before we embarked I learnt that the 
 American bankers were meeting at Chicago, and 
 had resolved to make a combined loan of 25,000,000 
 to European credit. They met last year and refused 
 to contemplate such a loan. On that occasion their 
 view was that American finance would do best to 
 keep itself loose from Europe. They regarded 
 Europe as a bankrupt, from whose affairs they had 
 better keep severely apart. But now they find 
 that the bankruptcy of Europe threatens them 
 also. They are beginning to learn the first lesson 
 of international trade, which has hitherto been 
 hidden from the United States. The banks are 
 the first to learn this lesson, because they are most 
 closely in touch with the outer world. But the 
 traders are learning it too. Henry Ford knows it 
 well enough far away in Detroit, where the shadow of 
 
 Europe has already fallen over the motor industry. 
 * * * * * 
 
 Eight bells ! I count the familiar and cheerful 
 notes as they come, and they fill one with that 
 peculiar sense of rest and tranquillity which the 
 sea brings to those who love it. Here on this great 
 White Star liner this floating palace of comfort 
 
288 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 for the next eight days we shall enjoy a pause in 
 which to reflect. It is about the only rest that 
 comes to some of us in this stormy modern life. 
 True, we have our morning Ocean Times, which 
 brings to us whispers of the outer world. But it 
 does not trouble us with overmuch detail. 
 
 But it is ominous that in this little news sheet 
 the name of Ireland recurs day by day with tragic 
 insistence, and I observe that the Americans on 
 the ship fall very silent when the subject of Ireland 
 comes up in conversation. Ah, there is the great 
 trouble that lies between us ! It is no new thing. 
 If it were, perhaps it would produce little effect. 
 But it is like the rubbing of an old sore, which 
 grows more and more inflamed day by day. 
 
 There is no denying that the American people 
 are intensely troubled about Ireland. I believe 
 that the majority of them would like to hold aloof. 
 But they know that their Irish population will not 
 allow it. They are a little afraid of their Irish 
 population. It is a minority that feels intensely 
 and acts intensely. Such a minority is often like 
 a few wolves among a large number of sheep. The 
 sheep are in a vast majority, and yet the wolves 
 drive them ruthlessly to and fro. Not that the 
 Americans are in the least degree like sheep on 
 any other question. It is only that they do not feel 
 strongly about Ireland, while the Irish-Americans 
 do feel strongly ; and the strength of that feeling 
 gives them a vulpine authority. 
 
GOOD-BYE 289 
 
 Take one incident that occurred while we were 
 in New York. There was a perfectly peaceful 
 evening service at the Methodist Episcopal Church 
 in Madison-avenue. Being asked to speak on 
 Ireland, I ventured some mild Sunday evening 
 exhortations to all countries concerned. Being a 
 Pilgrim I innocently exhorted all parties to follow 
 the Pilgrim spirit. The congregation was suffi 
 ciently gratified to insist upon shaking hands 
 individually with the speaker, and all seemed to 
 pass off quite satisfactorily. But the next morning 
 there appeared a report in the New York Times 
 to the effect that many members of the congrega 
 tion had left, protesting against the speech, and 
 denouncing the speaker as a paid propagandist 
 of the British Government. That detail being 
 deplorably untrue, and all the others mendacious, 
 I discussed the matter with several friends, but I 
 was advised that it was futile to protest, as my 
 protest would be only taken to confirm the state 
 ment. But the matter did not stop there. Down 
 in Philadelphia so I am informed by Commissioner 
 Kitching, of the Salvation Army, who was there 
 and read all the accounts in the Philadelphia papers 
 the news of this meeting took new and monstrous 
 shapes. It was represented as ending in a riot. 
 It was stated that 400 people had been arrested, 
 and that New York was in a turmoil. It 
 was also affirmed that Sir Auckland Geddes 
 had cabled to Mr. Lloyd George demanding 
 
290 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 that the unhappy speaker should be recalled to 
 England. 
 
 Now what was the source of all these amazing 
 inventions ? I take it that the aim and object 
 was to discourage from coming to the United States 
 all British speakers at any rate, all British speakers 
 who retain any spark of affection for their own 
 country. The news was possibly worked up by 
 Sinn Fein journalists. I record this because it is 
 a conspicuous instance of the penetrating influence 
 exercised by the Irish Americans in the United 
 States. But it is only characteristic of many 
 other incidents. I have evidence, for instance, 
 that traders are threatened with loss of custom 
 and newspapers are threatened with loss of adver 
 tisements unless they espouse the Irish cause. 
 The net result is that, while many newspapers 
 show enthusiasm for the Sinn Fein cause, very few 
 show the mildest interest in defending the British 
 cause. Why should they ? The British Govern 
 ment is far away, and how can it protect these great 
 businesses or great newspapers from the evil con 
 sequences which would inevitably fall upon them 
 if they showed an ill-starred desire to shield Great 
 Britain ? So it is that our cause goes by default. 
 
 Nor can I say that such champions as visit this 
 country always assist our cause. The type of 
 speaker sent over to America by the Ulster organisa 
 tions, for instance, offends the sense of religious 
 equality in America by his unwise attacks on the 
 
GOOD-BYE 291 
 
 Roman Catholic Church. Now the Roman Catholic 
 Church in America is a highly respected body, living 
 in friendship with its Protestant neighbours, and 
 neither enjoying undue privilege nor demanding it. 
 Any abuse of any religion jars upon American 
 ears ; for if the Americans have one lesson to teach 
 the world, it is the great lesson of achieved religious 
 toleration. 
 
 Toleration ! Yes, I am not sure that that is 
 not the greatest lesson which America has to teach 
 Europe. It is not merely a toleration of creed, 
 but also a toleration of races. There, in America, 
 all the various races who, in Europe, spend their 
 time thirsting for one another s blood, learn to meet 
 together on an equal plane in a common brotherhood 
 as American citizens. Within the line of white races, 
 in spite of that occasional strain during the war 
 and the making of peace, this toleration still endures. 
 Even the Frenchman and the German have to 
 learn that no human wrath should be implacable ; 
 the Italian and the Austrian have to sit down to 
 meals together ; the Greek and the Bulgarian have 
 to learn that all racial hatreds cease when they 
 pass beyond the Atlantic. For in spite of the 
 various breezes that still come from Europe, the 
 harmony of races within the United States still 
 rests secure. 
 
 What is it that brings these races together ? 
 Is it the pride of a New World ? Is it the common 
 " public school " in which they are educated ? 
 
292 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 Is it the common language which they have to learn ? 
 Or is it the career open to the talents the amazing 
 equality of chance for all men and women which is 
 still the governing law of the United States ? I 
 leave my readers to answer. But it is my impression 
 that such a result would have been impossible 
 except under a democracy securing equal rights 
 and equal justice for all citizens. It is the idea of 
 the State, not as the oppressor, but as the common 
 benefactor, which has really welded together this 
 great composite country, this vast conglomerate 
 of races. 
 
 As some evidence of this, take their immense 
 pride in their flag, with the forty-eight stars repre 
 senting the forty-eight States of to-day, and the 
 thirteen stripes representing the thirteen original 
 colonies. You see the flag everywhere in America. 
 It is far more commonly displayed than ours is 
 with us in Great Britain. It flies over every town 
 on their public buildings. It is displayed in every 
 church. It is common on private houses. The 
 intense passion for this emblem seems to indicate 
 some deep-rooted affection attaching, not to race 
 or to history, but to the very essence of the American 
 State, as conferring some new form of unity on 
 harassed and afflicted humanity. The visitor ob 
 serves the same phenomenon when he hears a gieat 
 American audience sing one of their national hymns 
 " The Star Spangled Banner " or " My country 
 tis of thee." He notices the sudden flush on the 
 
GOOD-BYE 293 
 
 uplifted faces of the multitude, the gleam of pride 
 in their eyes, and the passion with which they sing. 
 
 It is clear that these people love their land with 
 a mighty affection. The strange thing about it 
 all is that some of the most eager Americans are 
 those who have come quite recently away from 
 Europe. When an audience comes to perform the 
 great American ritual of shaking hands with the 
 speaker really a very pleasant and charming 
 ritual ! it is usual for each person to exchange a 
 few words with him. In that way you learn a good 
 deal about your audiences, because they tell you 
 instantly all they can about themselves, and the 
 first thing they generally tell you about is their 
 devotion to America. 
 
 Later. 
 
 Land ahoy ! We crowd to the bulwarks with 
 that eagerness for dry land which comes to people 
 who have been tossing on this uncertain element 
 for seven long days. To the north, on our port 
 side, we can see the long, undulating hills of that 
 beautiful, distressful Island of the Saints. The 
 emerald has darkened to sage green in the evening 
 light. A sad, sombre shadow seems to brood over 
 Ireland. 
 
 For many hours we coast along, looking into 
 bays and inlets where men live who love us not, 
 picking out the white cottages on the hillside, all 
 of us entranced with the beauty of that lovely 
 coast. There it lies, fated to be either a barrier 
 
294 A BRITON IN AMERICA 
 
 or a link between the Old World and the New, 
 a menace or a shield to England s heart, a rampart 
 or a peril. We pay no friendly visit to Queens- 
 town, as in the old days, but we pass her by as if 
 she belonged to an alien Power. The Irishmen down 
 below who are returning to their homes will have to 
 go by way of Liverpool. The Americans who wish 
 to visit old friends in Ireland will have a longer 
 journey. 
 
 Here, on the sea, it is borne vividly home to us, 
 as we look at that coast, that this quarrel weakens 
 and divides all of us English-speaking people here 
 001 board ; throws an apple of discord between 
 races that should not be sundered ; and opens up 
 a vista of danger to the existence of much that now 
 seems firm. Grattan put the whole truth of this 
 matter long ago in unforgettable words : 
 
 " Ireland hears the ocean protesting against 
 Separation, but she hears the sea likewise pro 
 testing against Union." 
 
 When shall we both, on both sides of this sea, 
 finally and fully learn that lesson ? 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 IN contrast and comparison with these notes of an 
 American tour, it may be worth while to add here 
 some account of 
 
 CHARLES DICKENS VISITS IN 1842 AND 1868 r 
 
 The Charles Dickens who felt the call of the 
 " West " in 1842 was a young, slim man of thirty 
 years, with a rich crop of black curly hair, a beard 
 less face, a keen, attractive manner, and an eager, 
 passionate interest in all things human. He was 
 already well on the way towards that giddy pinnacle 
 of fame which he reached in the mid-century. 
 Three of his greatest masterpieces The Pickwick 
 Papers, Oliver Twist, and Nicholas Nickleby 
 had already appeared, and the noise of his achieve 
 ments had already rolled round the world. He had 
 acquired fame not only as a writer, but as one who 
 loved the common people. Pity for the poor and 
 helpless that was the new note that he sounded ; 
 and it was a note that was sure to echo across the 
 Atlantic, where, as de Tocqueville had already 
 
 1 This article is reprinted, by permission, from The Fortnightly 
 Review of March, 1921. 
 
 295 
 
296 APPENDIX 
 
 shown, 1 a new State had arisen dedicated to the 
 idea of the equality of man. 
 
 It is now nearly eighty years since Dickens 
 started from Liverpool on January 4, 1842, in a 
 small paddle steamer of one thousand tons, built 
 by an ingenious man of the name of Cunard, to 
 face a fearful winter crossing of the Atlantic. There 
 is no doubt that the sketches of American life, 
 both in fact and in fiction, given to the world on 
 his return by Dickens largely affected the relations 
 of the two continents to one another for many years 
 after. Dickens s descriptions of American char 
 acters Colonel Diver, Mr. Jefferson Brick, Major 
 Pawkins, General Fladdock and Mr. La Fayette 
 Kettle probably even to-day still colour most 
 British thought and feeling about the United States. 
 For the publishers tell us that the novels of Charles 
 Dickens are still immensely read by the British- 
 speaking folk, and his opinion of men and things 
 is still so much in tune with the British tempera 
 ment that he continues to assert an amazing auth 
 ority over the British world. 
 
 Yet the America of Dickens s first visit has 
 actually vanished into history. The New York 
 which he describes in the American Notes as " a 
 long, flat, straggling city " now towers to heaven 
 in a series of breathless architectural leaps. The 
 Washington which he dismisses as " a city of Mag- 
 
 1 Democratic m Amerique (1835), translated by H. Reeve into 
 Democracy in America (1835-40) and with biography (1875). 
 
DICKENS AND AMERICA 297 
 
 nificent Intentions " has become a great and beauti 
 ful town. " Spacious avenues that begin in nothing 
 and lead nowhere " have now a definite scheme and 
 meaning : and the " streets a mile long that only 
 want houses, roads and inhabitants " are now the 
 finished, inhabited parts of a finely ordered city. 
 His audacious prophecy about Washington : " Such 
 as it is, it is likely to remain," has met the fate of 
 a defeated forecast. For at the present moment 
 1921 Washington, girded by mountains and 
 laved by its mighty river, is one of the most beautiful 
 capitals of the civilised world. 
 
 As with Washington, so with the Far West. 
 The Swamp of Eden, of which Dickens gave us in 
 Martin Chuzzlewit so terrible and gloomy a picture, 
 has now blossomed into a hundred beautiful cities. 
 The morass has gone : the piles have been driven 
 in ; and on that foundation has arisen a mighty 
 and splendid civilisation. 
 
 Dickens happened to visit America at a moment of 
 extreme fever in Western land speculation. Doubt 
 less there was much that was shady in that wild 
 land " ramp." But his description of Eden has 
 the fault of a caricature and the errors of exaggera 
 tion. It was apparently suggested to him by his 
 experiences during an adventurous journey taken 
 by himself and his wife in a canal boat along the 
 Mississippi. He was shocked and scandalised by 
 the spectacle of the new settlements, the forlorn 
 appearance of the cabins in which the settlers lived, 
 
298 APPENDIX 
 
 and the general air of desolation that hung over 
 this country during the winter months. 1 He 
 appears to have forgotten that the American winter 
 is always hard and bitter, and that it is the char 
 acteristic of new settlements to wear an air of 
 disreputable untidiness, which, though it closely 
 resembles the symptoms of decay, is really the rag- 
 gedness and unset tlement of a new and growing life. 
 
 He would be a bold man who denied that such 
 things as the Eden fraud did not happen in the time 
 of this wild land gamble. I have known them 
 happen even in this settled land of England. But 
 in the America of to-day, at any rate, that phase 
 has passed, and, though all offers of land should 
 everywhere always be received with a wise and 
 prudent scepticism, yet we need not suppose that 
 the land speculators of America to-day are any worse 
 than land speculators in any other part of the world. 
 Caveat emptor the purchaser must look after 
 himself must always be the golden rule, both in 
 regard to horses and land. 
 
 As with Eden, so with its inhabitants. 
 
 Since Dickens s visit of 1842 there has been a 
 complete change in American habits and manners. 
 Both in Martin Chuzzlewit and in American Notes, 
 Dickens is never tired of referring to the offensive 
 personal habits of the Americans of that day. 
 We are all familiar with his highly-coloured pictures 
 
 1 See his description in a letter to Forster, Life of Dickens, 
 Vol. I., p. 343. (Chapman and Hall.)] 
 
DICKENS AND AMERICA 299 
 
 of Americans, not so much spitting as emitting 
 continuous streams of liquid into distant spittoons. 
 We remember his doubtful humour about their 
 bad shooting at those receptacles. We caught 
 from him a vision of the Yankee as a man who sat 
 continually with his feet on the mantelpiece chewing 
 endless tobacco. Now all this has gone like a bad 
 dream. The American of to-day spits no more 
 than the European : the notice that " Spitting is 
 strictly prohibited " is quite as common in American 
 tramcars as in British. True, the spittoon still 
 continues to occupy part of the floor space in the 
 American hotels just as it does in certain famous 
 London clubs and houses. But the American of 
 to-day is quite as well behaved as any European 
 and considerably more sober. True, in America 
 there is more equality of mutual courtesy, and per 
 haps less deference. There are fewer who rise above 
 the general level of manners, just as there are fewer 
 who fall below it. 
 
 In the same way, to anyone who has to-day 
 just returned from daily association with American 
 journalists and public men, Dickens s sketches of 
 those types in the forties seem singularly remote. 
 We all remember the editor who met Martin Chuzzle- 
 wit at New York, and on introducing him to his 
 war correspondent, Mr. Jefferson Brick, put this 
 amiable question to Martin : 
 
 " Now let me ask you, sir, which of Mr. 
 
300 APPENDIX 
 
 Brick s articles had become at that time the most 
 obnoxious to the British Parliament and the 
 Court of St. James s ? " 
 
 Or the toast given by the war correspondent 
 himself : 
 
 " I will give you, sir, the Rowdy Journal, and 
 its brethren ; the well of Truth, whose waters are 
 black from being composed of printer s ink, but 
 are quite clear enough for my country to behold 
 the shadow of her Destiny reflected in. 
 
 Now American journalists of to-day do not talk 
 like that. The type has changed, and the style 
 has changed with the type. 
 
 The questions, indeed, which keep recurring the 
 more one reads these pages are : Was Dickens s 
 picture ever true ? Did he give a really faithful 
 description of the America of 1842 ? Or was he 
 blinded by some remnant of deep national aversion, 
 perhaps still traceable to the War of Independence 
 and the war of 1812 ? For, after all, only thirty 
 years had intervened since the two nations had 
 been at war. 
 
 There was, indeed, no personal reason why Dickens 
 should have conceived any actual aversion from 
 the American people. I turn to the volumes of 
 his letters, and I find him writing from Boston 
 on January 31, 1842, in the following terms : 
 
 1 I can give you no conception of my welcome 
 
DICKENS AND AMERICA 301 
 
 here. There never was a king or emperor upon 
 the earth so cheered or followed by crowds, and 
 entertained in public at splendid balls and dinners, 
 and waited on by public bodies and deputations 
 of all kinds. I have had one from the Far West 
 a journey of two thousand miles. If I got out 
 in a carriage the crowd surround it and escort 
 me home ; if I go to the theatre the whole house 
 (crowded to the roof) rises as one man, and the 
 timbers ring again. You cannot imagine what 
 it is. I have five great public dinners on hand 
 at this moment, and invitations from every town 
 and village and city in the States." 1 
 
 It is clear that in the affluence of its hospitable 
 welcomes the America of 1842 was very much like 
 the America of to-day. But as the weeks passed 
 on it is equally clear that the tumultuous side of 
 this reception began to fatigue Dickens, and perhaps 
 to vex him. America has several democratic 
 habits which are not always quite popular with 
 European public men. An American crowd now, 
 as then, not only insists on seeing a visitor, but 
 generally desires to shake hands with him. They 
 also wish to speak to him, and generally refuse to 
 be denied. Now it is possible, with training, to 
 accept these habits with patience and good temper. 
 But the literary temperament is proverbially apt 
 to be irritable at small shocks, and rarely goes 
 
 1 Letters of Charles Dickens (Chapman and Hall), Vol. I., p. 59. 
 There is a similar description in his letter to John Forster. 
 Vol. I., p. 376. 
 
302 APPENDIX 
 
 along with that large, easy geniality which loves the 
 easy access of crowds. Writing from Baltimore on 
 March 22, 1842, Dickens expresses this mood : 
 
 " Think of two hours of this every day, and 
 the people coming in by hundreds, all fresh, 
 and piping hot, and full of questions, when we 
 are literally exhausted and can hardly stand. 
 I really do believe that if I had not a lady with 
 me, I should have been obliged to leave the 
 country and go back to England. But for her 
 they would never leave me alone by day or night, 
 and as it is, a slave comes to me now and then in 
 the middle of the night with a letter, and waits 
 at the bedroom door for an answer." 1 
 
 Students of Dickens will remember how he 
 revenged himself for this experience by the famous 
 description of the great soiree given to Martin 
 Chuzzlewit in the National Hotel before his de 
 parture to Eden. Mark was tremendously puzzled 
 over this soiree. At the last moment, before the 
 ship left the wharf, he ran back to Captain Kedgick 
 and asked him why they had made so much fuss 
 over Martin : 
 
 " What have they been making so much of 
 him for, now ? said Mark slyly. Come ! 
 
 " Our people like ex-citement/ answered 
 Kedgick, sucking his cigar. 
 
 " But how has he excited em ? asked Mark. 
 
 J Letters. Vol. I., p. 66. 
 
DICKENS AND AMERICA 303 
 
 The Captain looked at him as if he were half 
 inclined to unburden his mind of a capital joke. 
 
 " You air a-going ? he said. 
 
 " Going ? cried Mark ; an t every moment 
 precious ? 
 
 " Our people like ex-citement, said the Cap 
 tain, whispering. He an t like emigrants in 
 gin ral ; and he excited em along of this. Scadder 
 is a smart man, and and nobody as goes to 
 Eden ever comes back a-live ! 
 
 In view of the enthusiasm with which America 
 greeted Dickens it really seems a little unkind 
 that he should have taken the soiree and given 
 to it such a sinister ending. 
 
 But as we read these letters, and compare them 
 with American Notes, we begin dimly to perceive 
 that there were several features of American life 
 which were gradually creating the hatred and 
 aversion which found such violent expression in 
 Martin Chuzzlewit. It was not merely their 
 manners that irritated Dickens, or their crowds that 
 crushed him. There was one disease of human 
 character which Charles Dickens profoundly detested, 
 and that was hypocrisy. It was hypocrisy which he 
 had begun to detect beneath the surface of American 
 life. 
 
 It was in Virginia that he first came across the 
 institution of slavery, and it seems to have aroused 
 in him the same horror and hatred as it aroused in 
 
304 APPENDIX 
 
 Abraham Lincoln when he saw it for the first time 
 travelling on the steamboat down the Mississippi 
 to St. Louis. But what shocked Dickens was not 
 merely the institution of slavery. It was the 
 terrible contrast between that institution and all 
 the spread-eagled chatter about rights and liberty 
 which deafened his ears at every turn. For instance, 
 take the talk of Colonel Diver in the office of the 
 Rowdy Journal : 
 
 " In general we have a hold upon our citizens, 
 both in public and in private life, which is as 
 much one of the ennobling institutions of oar 
 happy country as " 
 
 " As nigger slavery itself/ suggested Mr. 
 Brick. 
 
 " En-tirely so/ remarked the Colonel." 
 
 In American Notes Charles Dickens supplied the 
 world with evidences of the horrors of slavery in 
 America which stand for all time as justifications 
 for the Abolition movement, and for the great war 
 which ended that evil. If anyone to-day wishes 
 still to sentimentalise about domestic slavery 
 and there are such people in the world even now 
 I would advise him to read again that terrible 
 and scathing chapter entitled " Slavery " 1 (Chapter 
 XVII.), in which Dickens merely gives the evidence 
 that came to his hand in the course of his journey. 
 
 1 Here Dickens collected instances of atrocity with all the care 
 and method which gives him a claim to be regarded as the 
 greatest of agitators. 
 
DICKENS AND AMERICA 305 
 
 Of course, Dickens could not then foresee that the 
 great American people would, in the end expiate 
 this crime in blood and tears. The extraordinary 
 thing is that, when that great issue of humanity rose 
 in America, Charles Dickens, like so many other 
 Englishmen, took the side of the South and not the 
 North, and threw his influence against those who 
 were fighting for the abolition of that very institu 
 tion which he himself did so much to unveil and 
 expose in all its nakedness and horror. No wonder 
 that even to-day the average American is a little 
 puzzled by the attitude of Europe towards his 
 institutions and his politics. 
 
 There was another issue on which Dickens felt 
 very strongly, and which affected at that time the 
 relations between England and America. It was 
 the question of international copyright. In 1842, 
 and for more than a generation afterwards, there 
 was no law of international copyright in the United 
 States, and every English writer visiting that 
 country enjoyed the questionable experience of 
 seeing his works sold in immense quantities at a 
 mere song, without the smallest power of claiming 
 any fraction of profit for his own pocket. Now 
 Charles Dickens felt very strongly on the subject of 
 copyright. All through his life he was a crusader 
 for the rights of the author, both in this country 
 and abroad. No wonder that when he was in 
 America his deepest indignation was aroused, and 
 in a letter to Henry Austin, written from Niagara 
 
 u 
 
306 APPENDIX 
 
 on May i, 1842, he gave full vent to this 
 fury : 
 
 "Is it not a horrible thing that scoundrel 
 booksellers should grow rich here from publish 
 ing books, the authors of which do not reap 
 one farthing from their issue by scores of 
 thousands ; and that every vile, blackguard, 
 and detestable newspaper, so filthy and bestial 
 that no honest man would admit one into his 
 house for a scullery door mat, should be able 
 to publish those same writings side by side, 
 cheek by jowl, with the coarsest and most obscene 
 companions with which they must become 
 connected, in course of time, in people s minds ? 
 Is it tolerable that besides being robbed and 
 rifled an author should be forced to appear in 
 any form, in any vulgar dress, in any atrocious 
 company ; that he should have no choice of his 
 audience, no control over his own distorted text, 
 and that he should be compelled to jostle out of 
 the course the best men in this country who only 
 ask to live by writing ? I vow before high heaven 
 that my blood so boils at these enormities, that 
 when I speak about them I seem to grow twenty 
 feet high, and to swell out in proporion Robbers 
 that ye are/ I think to myself when I get upon 
 my legs, here goes ! " l 
 
 There is no doubt that much of this fury remained 
 1 Letters. Vol. I., p. 71. 
 
DICKENS AND AMERICA 307 
 
 with Dickens when he returned to England and 
 that it partly inspired the vehement invective of 
 Martin Chuzzlewit. Perhaps it to some extent 
 explains the following remarkable outburst of 
 Martin himself : 
 
 " As Martin ascended to his bedroom his 
 eye was attracted by the Republican banner which 
 had been hoisted from the house-top in honour 
 of the occasion, and was fluttering before a window 
 which he passed. 
 
 " Tut ! said Martin. You re a gay flag 
 in the distance. But let a man be near enough 
 to get the light upon the other side, and see 
 through you, and you are but sorry fustian ! 
 
 Or this other passage, which was Charles Dickens s 
 last parting shot at the United States : 
 
 " Cheerily, lads, cheerily. Anchor weighed. 
 Ship in full sail. Her sturdy bowsprit pointing 
 true to England. America a cloud upon the 
 sea behind them ! 
 
 Why, cook, what are you thinking of so 
 steadily ? said Martin. 
 
 " Why, I was a-thinking, sir, returned Mark, 
 
 that if I was a painter and was called upon to 
 
 paint the American Eagle, how should I do it ? 
 
 Paint it as like an Eagle as you could, I 
 
 suppose ? 
 
 " No, said Mark ; that wouldn t do for me, 
 
308 APPENDIX 
 
 sir. I should want to draw it like a Bat, for its 
 short-sightedness ; like a Bantam, for its bragging ; 
 like a Magpie, for its honesty ; like a Peacock, 
 for its vanity ; like an Ostrich, for its putting 
 its head in the mud, and thinking nobody sees 
 it " 
 
 But at that point Dickens obviously thought 
 that he had gone too far. For he makes Martin 
 interrupt Mark with this assuaging comment : 
 
 " And like a Phoenix, for its power of spring 
 ing up from the ashes of its faults and vices, 
 and soaring up anew into the sky ! said Martin. 
 1 Well, Mark, let us hope so ! " 
 
 It was indeed time that the great author made 
 Martin interrupt his friend, whose famous geniality 
 and good-heartedness had for the moment failed 
 him. For in that correction of Martin s Dickens 
 packed a whole world of insight and observation 
 about the United States. Matthew Arnold practic 
 ally said the same thing at much greater length in 
 his famous speech on " Numbers " which he gave 
 to a New York audience sixty years later ; and all 
 the shrewdest observers of America have noted this 
 same remarkable feature in her life. It is her 
 amazing power of moral recovery, this surprising 
 reserve of national virtue, which again and again 
 draws America back from the brink of ruin, and 
 not once, but many times, in history has surprised 
 
DICKENS AND AMERICA 309 
 
 her best friends by the valour and splendour of 
 her sudden deeds. 
 
 It was twenty-six years later when Dickens 
 paid a second visit to the United States. Nearly a 
 whole generation of human time had intervened, 
 and both America and Dickens himself had passed 
 through great changes. He was now well past 
 middle age bearded and grizzled. He had acquired 
 certain gifts of patience and restraint that come 
 with years. He was less liable to sudden storms, 
 more tolerant of human feelings, with that wider 
 vision that comes to a man who feels that his own 
 pilgrimage is drawing towards a close. On the 
 side of America there had been even greater changes. 
 Slavery had vanished, and Dickens was to see the 
 spectacle of the black man groping his way into 
 freedom like a blind man who has just emerged into 
 light. In spite of the immense losses of the great 
 Civil War, the United States had also practically 
 passed from one stage of civilisation to another. 
 Thanks to her immense energy and resourcefulness, 
 she had already almost repaired the terrific waste 
 of life and substance which had taken place in the 
 earlier sixties. The victory which crowned the 
 efforts of the more progressive North had given to 
 the people of the Northern States a more sober 
 pride and hopefulness. For it was a pride based 
 upon suffering and won by sacrifice. 
 
310 APPENDIX 
 
 We find, therefore, a complete change of judg 
 ment in the letters which Dickens wrote from the 
 United States during this second visit. He is even 
 inclined to retract some of his earlier judgments, 
 and, indeed, before quitting America in 1868 he 
 actually declared his intention to publish in every 
 future edition of his American Notes and Martin 
 Chuzzlewit his testimony to the great and mighty 
 changes that he had witnessed during his second 
 visit to the United States. 
 
 Perhaps in this mood of repentance he forgot 
 that the changes lay not so much in his point of 
 view as in the facts of American life. For he stepped 
 into the first phase of that marvellous new mechanical 
 civilisation which America has since given to the 
 world : the magnificent hotels, the steam-heated 
 houses, the Pullman cars, and all the hundred and 
 one trifles of life which make up together an easier 
 and more adaptable way of living than we know in 
 Europe. The invention of the telegraph was already 
 the first step in that wonderful capture of electricity 
 to the service of man which has now carried America 
 a further stage on her triumph over matter, distance 
 and time. Now Dickens loved all such things. It 
 is the tradition of the Daily News office that, during 
 the brief period of his editorship of that great 
 journal, he filled the rooms with cushioned armchairs 
 and was waited upon by footmen dressed in velvet 
 plush. 
 
 Thus it is clear that Dickens liked a comfortable 
 
DICKENS AND AMERICA 311 
 
 life, and it was indeed to obtain the money for that 
 life that he had set forth on the marvellous and 
 tireless lecturing tour which was the object of his 
 second visit to the United States. He was, there 
 fore, all the more relieved and pleased to find that 
 after the winter rigours of the Atlantic he had landed 
 in a country where the hotels were now well warmed 
 and the railway trains were beginning to be com 
 fortable. 
 
 On March 21, 1868, Dickens wrote from Spring 
 field in Massachusetts a letter to his friend, the 
 actor Macready, which was practically a recantation 
 of the remarkable letter in condemnation of America 
 which he had written to the same correspondent 
 from Baltimore on March 22, 1842. Then he 
 had placed upon paper that famous historic 
 judgment : 
 
 " But however much I like the ingredients of 
 this great dish, I cannot but come back to the 
 point upon which I started, and say that the 
 dish itself goes against the grain with me, and 
 I don t like it." l 
 
 But now, in 1868, he writes to the same corre 
 spondent : 
 
 You will find the general aspect of America 
 and Americans decidedly much improved. You 
 would find immeasurably greater consideration 
 and respect for your privacy than of old. You 
 
 1 Letters. Vol. I., p. 62. 
 
312 APPENDIX 
 
 would find a steady change for the better every 
 where/ l 
 
 Then he gives us a glimpse of what he means by 
 some of these improvements in American life : 
 
 " When the railroad straight away to San 
 Francisco (in six days) shall be opened through, 
 it will not only have drawing-rooms but sleeping- 
 rooms, too ; a bell in every little apartment 
 communicating with a steward s pantry, a 
 restaurant, a staff of servants, marble washing- 
 stands, and a barber s shop ! I looked into one 
 of these cars a day or two ago, and it was very 
 ingeniously arranged and quite complete." x 
 
 Thus did Charles Dickens, far out in that Western 
 world, obtain the first glimpses of that new and 
 wonderful civilisation which is now the marvel of 
 mankind. 
 
 It is not recorded that the American public 
 displayed during this second visit of Charles Dickens 
 any resentment for the criticisms which he had 
 uttered after his return from the first visit. They 
 crowded to his readings in such immense masses 
 that the sale of his tickets became a whirl of specula 
 tion. Thousands were unable to hear him and 
 went away disappointed. They acclaimed him 
 as if he had been a god. Crowds would assemble 
 in the streets to see him pass. He toured through 
 out New England, and then visited Philadelphia, 
 
 * Ibid. Vol. II., p. 374- 
 
DICKENS AND AMERICA 313 
 
 Baltimore and Washington, afterwards travelling 
 up north to Cleveland and Buffalo. His fatigues 
 were immense, and undoubtedly laid the seeds of 
 that fatal seizure which cut short his life only two 
 years later. But he loved this existence, and it 
 brought him gigantic profits. He was the first of 
 that long line of British authors who have gone to 
 America to earn the wealth which is denied to 
 them in their own country. But it was not only 
 dollars that Dickens was after. He loved the 
 applause of the multitude with a great passion. 
 His readings for the first time brought him face to 
 face with that world to whom he always made his 
 appeal. A great wave of affection seemed to pass 
 between him and that great common people whose 
 joys and sorrows he had depicted with such supreme 
 pathos. It was the crown of his career this 
 discovery of that vast store of human affection 
 that he had won by his life s work. Now that the 
 sands of his life were running out we need not 
 grudge him the joys of those last two years. 
 
 This tremendous experience seemed to draw him 
 nearer to the heart of the American people. Perhaps 
 it helped him to understand better that collective 
 side of the American nature which is, if we under 
 stand it rightly, its most impressive feature. 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 It is now fifty years since Charles Dickens 
 returned from this second visit. Unhappily, his life 
 was too far spent for him to place on permanent 
 
314 APPENDIX 
 
 record those changes in his impressions about the 
 American people. He was to produce no second 
 novel on American life which would unwrite the 
 harsh judgments of Martin Chuzzlewit. That was 
 an unhappy accident. For it would have been 
 better for the relations between the two countries 
 if he could have built up into one of his immortal 
 novels the various kindly impressions of the American 
 folk which are now contained only in his Biography 
 and Letters. There is nothing, for instance, in 
 Martin Chuzzlewit to convey the judgment every 
 where recorded by Dickens in his intimate writings, 
 both in 1842 and 1868, as to the amazing courtesy 
 of the Americans towards women. It was in 1842 
 that he wrote from Boston : 
 
 " There is universal deference paid to ladies, 
 and they walk about at all seasons wholly unpro 
 tected." 1 
 
 A remarkable tribute to a rough and early civili 
 sation. Or, again, his description of their habits at 
 the rough meals which he otherwise loved so little : 
 
 " Nobody will sit down to any one of these 
 meals, though the dishes are smoking on the 
 board, until the ladies have appeared and taken 
 their chairs " * 
 
 At the present day in America (1921), if a woman 
 enters an " elevator," every man takes off his hat, 
 and women travellers will tell you that America 
 
 1 These passages are from the letters to Forster contained in 
 his Biography. 
 
DICKENS AND AMERICA 315 
 
 is the safest country in the world for them to wander 
 alone. Throughout that has been the high credit 
 of that country ; and it seems unfair that so little 
 tribute is given to Americans in English fiction for 
 this great quality of chivalry. 
 
 Not that it means that women in America are 
 any less beautiful or attractive than in other coun 
 tries. Here, again, we have Dickens s judgment 
 as early as 1842 : 
 
 " The ladies of America," he says, " are decid 
 edly and unquestionably beautiful." 
 
 And Dickens had a distinct eye for beauty. 
 Everyone who visits America to-day will bear 
 evidence that there is here no falling away. 
 
 But it is even more remarkable to find scattered 
 through Dickens s letters to Forster tributes to 
 American men which certainly do not seem wholly 
 consistent with the sketches contained in Martin 
 Chmzlewit. " Americans," he says, " are friendly, 
 earnest, hospitable, kind, frank, very often accom 
 plished, far less prejudiced than you would suppose. 
 Warm-hearted, fervent, enthusiastic." After that 
 it surely matters little that Dickens goes on to say 
 that he does not want to live in America, because it 
 seems a fitting thing that every man should live in 
 his own country. The great fact is that he gives 
 to Americans this great tribute, and no one who 
 visits that country to-day will say that they have 
 done anything to lose that praise. They are as a 
 
3 i6 APPENDIX 
 
 people still as friendly, hospitable and kindly as 
 they have ever been. Whatever faults they have 
 seem the faults of excess in these admirable virtues. 
 They are still " warm-hearted, fervent, enthusiastic," 
 and if some of these qualities sometimes show them 
 selves in excess, then they ought not to be judged 
 too harshly by those whose hearts are more frigid 
 and whose tempers are less eager. 
 
 But the most remarkable thing is to find in 
 Dickens s letters some very notable tributes to 
 American politicians, the very class which he has 
 so bitterly caricatured in Martin Chuzzlewit. In 
 a letter contained in Forster s Life, and written 
 from Washington in 1842, he thus speaks of the 
 very men whom he was so soon to caricature : 
 
 " There are some very noble specimens out 
 of the West. Splendid men to look on, hard to 
 deceive, prompt to act, lions in energy, Crichtons 
 in varied accomplishments, Indians in quickness 
 of eye and gesture, Americans in affectionate 
 and generous impulse." x 
 
 That is certainly not the impression of these 
 men which he conveys when he draws his pictures 
 of General Cyrus Choke or Mr. Scadder. In those 
 descriptions the men from the West are simply 
 depicted as intriguing scoundrels, distinguished from 
 that type in Europe only by the brassiness of their 
 
 1 Vol. I., p. 330. 
 
DICKENS AND AMERICA 317 
 
 boastings and the insolence of their absurd self- 
 esteem. 
 
 The fact is that the young Dickens of 1842 was 
 essentially pugnacious and impetuous. He loved 
 a fight, but he disliked contradiction. Thus it 
 was that when he bumped into conflict with the 
 America of that day on the questions of slavery and 
 copyright, he met men of very much the same 
 temper as himself, and this aroused in him an amaz 
 ing bitterness. " I believe," he wrote to Forster in a 
 very remarkable letter of February 24, 1842, l 
 " that there is no country on the face of the earth 
 where there is less freedom of opinion on any 
 subject in reference to which there is a broad 
 difference of opinion than in this country." But 
 what Dickens forgot was that he was expressing 
 opinions on definite subjects of acute domestic 
 controversy ; and few countries like to hear such 
 questions discussed by a visiting foreigner. 
 
 That is still the chief danger to-day in the rela 
 tions between Great Britain and the United States. 
 We are both countries in which every man likes to 
 " say the thing he will " and therefore we have 
 always indulged in amazing freedom in our critic 
 ism of one another. A whole line of English 
 writers have followed in the track of Martin 
 Chuzzlewit, and there have been some American 
 writers who have retaliated. But these things do 
 not add to the friendship between nations. It 
 
 1 Life. Vol. I., p. 299. 
 
3i8 APPENDIX 
 
 does not follow that because there is kinship between 
 men criticism is more readily accepted. It is 
 recorded of Dr. Jowett that he said in a sermon to 
 two young people whom he was marrying : " Above 
 all, remember to be polite to one another." The 
 same advice seems to be desirable for two nations 
 of the same speech aiming at a friendship which is 
 often achieved, not on account of kinship, but in 
 spite of it. 
 
 Reflecting on the situation to-day between the 
 two countries, I would suggest some such counsel 
 to those writers and speakers who are now labouring 
 to improve the relationship between Great Britain 
 and the United States. Let them, at all costs, 
 resist the cheap and easy temptation to mutual 
 criticism. Let us remember that the depreciation 
 of kindred peoples is not, as so many imagine, a 
 mark of superior culture, but the common vice 
 of uncultured humanity. Let us mutually learn 
 to select what we can admire in one another 
 " whatsoever things are of good report " and dwell 
 on those. If Dickens had done so, then we might 
 have lost a great satire, but he would have worked 
 better for the things that belong unto our peace. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Addams, Miss Jane, 235 
 
 Advertising Club, N.Y., 264 
 
 Alaska, 234 
 
 Alleghany Mountains, 245 
 
 American Commonwealth, Lord 
 Bryce s, 13 
 
 American Constitution, Fif 
 teenth Amendment, 240 ; 
 and League of Nations, 276 
 
 American Minute Man, statue 
 at Lexington, 177 
 
 American Notes, Dickens , 12, 
 296, 303, 304, 310 
 
 Anglo- Japanese Treaty, 218 
 
 Anglo-Saxons in America, 36 
 
 Anicostia River, 199 
 
 Arbitration Treaty, between 
 G.B. and U.S. unratified, 219, 
 232 
 
 Armenia, 203, 216 
 
 Armistice Day, 30 
 
 Arch of Triumph, at Blooming- 
 ton, 89 
 
 Arnold, Matthew, 13, 308 
 
 " Arsenal at Springfield," Long 
 fellow s poem, 67 
 
 Atkinson, Dr. Henry, 40 
 
 Australia, Anti-Japanese policy, 
 217 
 
 Australian Labour Party, Anti- 
 Immigration policy, 145 
 
 Baliour, Mr. Arthur, 205 
 Baltic, s.s., 25 
 
 Baltimore, 192, 302, 311, 313 
 Beacon Hill, Boston, 166 
 Biltmore Hotel, N.Y., 249 
 Blue Ridge Mountains, 199 
 Bloomington, 82 ff., 155 
 Borah, Senator, 110 
 
 Boston, 163 ff., 177, 258, 300 ; 
 
 Common, 165 
 Botha, General, 248 
 Bradford, William, 167 ; tomb 
 
 of, 173, 174 
 Breed s Hill, 165 
 Bridgeport, 253 
 Bright, John, 180 
 British Columbia, Japanese 
 
 question and, 216 
 British Constitution, American 
 
 view of, 263 
 British Embassy, 193, and Irish 
 
 Commission, 235 
 Broadway, N.Y., 41, 226 
 Bryce, Viscount, 12, 77 
 Buffalo, 43, 73, 313 
 Bunker Hill, 165 
 Burnham, Lord, 15 
 
 Cadbury, Mr. George, 266 
 
 California, Anti-Japanese policy 
 of, 215, 217, 221 
 
 Cambridge, Mass: 189 
 
 Canada, Japan and, 216, 217 J 
 fishery agreement, 232 
 
 Cape Cod, 35 
 
 Carnegie, Mr., 268 
 
 Cecil, Lord Robert, 111 
 
 Celtic, S.S., 283 
 
 Cemeteries, American, 60 
 
 Charlestown, 165 
 
 Chatham, Lord, 180 
 
 Chesapeake Bay, 191 
 
 Chicago, start for, 43 ; Press in,. 
 53 ff . ; sobriety of, 70 ; Pro 
 hibition in, 74-76, and Ireland, 
 123, 124 ; climate, 139, 140 ; 
 spirit of, 176 ; diverse langu 
 ages of, 285 
 
 319 
 
320 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Chicago Daily News, 53, 131 
 Chicago Republican, 53, 131 
 Chicago Tribune, 53, 131 
 Children, American, 271 ; Courts 
 
 for, 257 
 
 Child s restaurants. 52 
 Church Peace Union, U.S.A., 40 
 Civil War, American, Kansas 
 State and, 103 ; English 
 friends of the North, 180 ; 
 the negro and, 239, 240, 244 ; 
 Dickens and, 309 
 Cleveland, 313 
 Coles Hill, 172 
 
 Columbia University, 160, 188 
 Columbus, Christopher, 11 
 Concord, 170, 177, 182, 186 
 Congress, Chambers of, descrip 
 tion of building, 200 ; Presi 
 dent Wilson and, 204 ; Im 
 migration and, 224 ; Irish 
 influence, 229 , President 
 Harding and, 231, 232 ; Irish- 
 American pressure on, 234 ; 
 League of Nations and, 276 
 Cosmopolitan Club, N.Y., 219 
 Cox, Senator, 33, 108, 127 
 Cromer, Lord, 221 
 Cuba, 111, 212 
 
 Daily News, The, 310 
 Daily Telegraph, The, 15, 141 
 Daniels, Mr., 202, 220 
 Debs, Mr. Eugene, 135, 147 
 Delaware, the River, 191 
 Democratic Party, the Ameri 
 can, and the League of 
 Nations, 117 ; and the Irish 
 Vote, 127 ; and the Big 
 Navy scheme, 204 ff . 
 Detroit, 77, 140, 266, 287 
 De Valera, Mr., 128, 136 
 Dickens, Charles, and America, 
 
 12, 45, 46, 194, 294 ff. 
 Douglas, Stephen, 64 
 
 Economic Club, N.Y., 264 
 Ellis Island, 38, 144 
 Emerson, 186 
 Emigrants, on S.S. Baltic, 26 ff. 
 
 English Speaking Union, 15 
 Evanston, 54 
 
 Faneuil Hall, Boston, 168 
 Filth Avenue, N.Y., 41 
 First Church, Plymouth, 172 
 Ford, Henry, 266, 268, 287 
 Foreign Relations Committee, 
 and Japan, 218 ; and Ire 
 land, 228, 230, 231 
 Franklin, Benjamin, 143 
 
 Geddes, Sir Auckland, 185 ; 
 and Lady, 190, 193 : 266, 289 
 
 Germany, attitude of America 
 towards, 114; immigration 
 from, 144: 237, war with, 
 241 
 
 Gibbons, Cardinal, 193 
 
 Gladstone, Mr., triumph over, 
 by the House of Lords, 151 ; 
 in favour of Southern States, 
 180 : 198, and Home Rule, 
 203 ; and House of Lords, 231 
 
 Goldwin Smith, Professor, 273 
 
 Gompers, Samuel, 80,147 
 
 Grant s Tomb, N.Y., 43 
 
 Grayson, Admiral, 204 
 
 Harding, President, 16 ; victory 
 of, 29 ; election of, 106, 107 ; 
 and League of Nations, 111- 
 114/209, 277 ; and Senate, 
 151 ; and big Navy scheme, 
 202, 203 ; and German- 
 American Vote, 230 ; and 
 Ireland, 231-233 
 
 Harvard, University of, 187 
 
 Hawaii, 212 
 
 Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 186 
 
 Hayti, 111, 128, 137, 216 
 
 Hearst Press, influence of, 53, 
 54; and Japan, 214; anti- 
 British policy of, 234 
 
 Hopkins, Mrs. Stephen, 258 
 
 House, Colonel, interview with, 
 278 ff. 
 
 Howells, W. D., 14 
 
 Hoyt, Judge, 257 
 
 Hudson River, 41, 42, 141 
 
INDEX 
 
 Illinois, revision of State Con 
 stitution, 57 
 
 Immigration, American, 144 ff . ; 
 increase of, 222 ; from Ire 
 land, 225 
 
 Insurance Building, N.Y., 153 
 
 Ireland, American attitude to 
 wards, 55, 227 ff. ; coast of, 
 293-294 
 
 Irish Commission, at Washing 
 ton, 137, 235 
 
 Irish Vote, Presidential Election 
 and, 33 ; influence on Wash 
 ington oi, 136 ; effect on 
 treaty making of, 229 
 
 Interchange of speakers, British 
 Council for, 15 
 
 James, Henry, 14 
 
 Japan, America and, 207 ff. ; 
 California and, 215 ; British 
 Columbia and, 216 ; Aus 
 tralia and, 217 
 
 Jefferson, Thomas, 194 
 
 Jefferson City, 120 
 
 Jones Act, the, 135 
 
 Kansas City, journalists of, 22J 
 railway station at, 92 ff. ; 
 stay in, 118-124; crime in, 
 !133; 140 
 
 Keene, Laura, 62 
 
 Knox, Senator, 113, 230 
 
 Kohlsaat, Mr., 278 
 
 Kulp, Dr., at Topeka, 104 
 
 Labour, American, 143 ff. 
 
 Lansing, Secretary, 281 
 
 League of Nations, Big Business i 
 [and, 15-17 ; American in- j 
 difference to, 22 ; remoteness j 
 of, 69 ; strength of agitation I 
 against, 109-111, 112, 113, 
 119, 122; Republicans and, j 
 131 ; alternative to, 204, 205, 
 207-208 ; America borne | 
 away from, 212, 213 ; and j 
 Monroe Doctrine, 221 224 ; 
 no hope of joining, 229 ; Mr. j 
 Root and, 274-276 ; Ameri- ! 
 can trade and. 286 
 
 L Enfant, Major, town planner 
 of Washington, 195 
 
 Lexington, 170, 177 
 
 Liberty Statue, N.Y. Harbour, 
 39 
 
 Lincoln, Abraham, home of, 
 56, 59 ff . ; lecture on, 86 ; 
 assassination of, 98 ; char 
 acter of, 115 ; monument at 
 Washington to, 196-198 ; 246 
 
 Lloyd George, Right Hon. D., 
 and the League of Nations, 
 212 ; American interest in, 
 250 ; Colonel House on, 281 
 
 Longfellow, 67, 170, 186 
 
 Longfellow, Miss, 187 
 
 Lowell, James Russell, 166, 182 
 
 Lowell, President Lawrence, 187, 
 230 
 
 Lynching, 246, 247 
 
 MacSwiney, Mrs., her visit to 
 America, 235 
 
 Manhattan Island, N.Y., 39, 
 152 
 
 Martin Chuzzlewit, 12, 39, 297, 
 299, 302, 303, 307, 310, 314-317 
 
 Maryland, 192 
 
 Mason Dixon line, 35 
 
 Massachusetts, 35 
 
 Mayflower, The, 30, 35, 103, 
 104, 106, 122, 130, 155 ; the 
 Log of the, 167 
 
 Mayflower Council, the, 15 
 
 Michigan, Lake, 51, 87 
 
 Millionaires, American, attri 
 butes of, 267, 268 
 
 Mississippi, the, 297 
 
 Monroe Doctrine, the mid-west 
 and, 107 ; American Navy 
 and, 207 ; League of Nations 
 and, 221 ; Mr. Root and, 277 
 
 Motor-cars, prevalence of, 88, 
 148, 255 
 
 Mount Vernon, near Washing 
 ton, 198 
 
 Nantucket Island, 283 
 Nantucket Lightship, 30, 34 
 
322 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Nation, The, American news- I 
 
 paper, 235 
 
 Navy, the American, 3 , 202 ff. 
 Negro Problem in America, 
 
 238 ff. 
 New York City, 17 ; arrival in, 
 
 38 ff. ; prohibition in, 70-72 ; 
 
 139 ; skyscrapers of, 152 ; 
 
 spirit of, 176 ; languages in, j 
 
 223 ; housing conditions in, ! 
 
 225 ; Irish influence in, 236 ; ! 
 
 249 ff., 285 ; the Press of, 
 
 289 ; Dickens and, 296 
 New York Times, 289 
 Niagara, 43 ff., 74 
 Nicholas Nickleby, 295 
 Nivelle, General, 57, 66, 101, 183 
 North-western University, near 
 
 Chicago, 54 
 
 Pacific Coast, the, 214 
 
 Panama, 111, 135, 212, 232; ! 
 and the Pauncefote Treaty, I 
 233, 234 
 
 Peace Conference, 280 
 
 Penn, William, 192 
 
 Philadelphia, 191, 192, 289, 312 
 
 Philippines, 129, 212 
 
 " Piggly Wiggly " Store, Bloom- 
 ington, 155 
 
 Pilgrim Fathers, descendants 
 of, 35 ; lecture on, 54, 55 ; \ 
 French representative at cele- : 
 brations, 57, 66 ; descendants i 
 in Topeka of, 102-104 ; Irish \ 
 propaganda at meetings, 130 ; i 
 Club at Plymouth, 171, 173 ff., ! 
 250, 258 
 
 Pilgrim Monument, Plymouth, i 
 New England, 175 
 
 Plymouth, New England, 171 j 
 ff. ; the Rock at, 172 
 
 Potomac, the River, at Wash 
 ington, 197, 198, 199 
 
 Presidential Election, American, 
 news of, 29 ; result of, 33 ; 
 prohibition and, 80 ; Wo 
 men s Vote in, 108 ; League i 
 of Nations and, 111 ; Irish 
 Vote in, 127 ; interval before 
 
 assuming office, 150 ; Foreign 
 Relations Committee and, 229 
 
 Princeton, 204 
 
 Prohibition, 68 ff. ; stories 
 about, 201-262 
 
 Queenstown, visit to, on s.s. 
 Baltic, 26 
 
 Red Cross, the American, 95, 96 
 Religion in America, 158, 159 
 Representatives, House of, 196 ; 
 
 basis of, 243 
 
 Republican Party, the Ameri 
 can, and Presidential Elec 
 tion, 127 ; composition of, 
 145 ; and the big Navy 
 scheme, 204 ff. ; and the 
 League of Nations, 228 ; in 
 fluence of Senators of, 113, 
 114 
 Revere, Paul, in Longfellow s 
 
 poem, 169, 170 
 Roads, American, 100 
 Rockefeller, Mr., 146, 268, 269 
 Root, Hon. Elihu, 230, 273 ff. 
 
 St. Louis, 118, 121, 124, 304 
 San Francisco, 100, 226, 312 
 Senate, the, American, 196, 243 
 Servant Question in America, 
 
 254, 255 
 Sharon, Mr., of Kansas City, 
 
 122, 132 
 
 Shaw Monument, Boston, 166 
 Shredded Wheat Factory, at 
 
 Niagara, 49 
 
 Sinn Fein, at Queenstown, 27 
 and Armistice service, 32 ; 
 and American Press, 33, 34, 
 290 ; American opinion and, 
 125, 135 ; British Embassy 
 and, 194 ; American, 216 
 South Meeting House, Boston, 
 
 169 
 
 Springfield, 56 ff., 184 
 Standish, Miles, 174 
 State House, Boston, 166 
 Susquehanna, the River, 191 
 Syracuse, 32, 33, 141 
 
INDEX 
 
 323 
 
 Taft, Mr. W. H., 205 
 Tammany Rule in N.Y., 131 ; 
 
 in Chicago, 132 
 
 Thanksgiving Day, in N.Y., 142 
 Thompson, Mayor, of Chicago, 
 
 53 
 
 Tocqueville, A. de, 12, 239, 295 
 Topeka, 91 ff., 124, 154, 159 
 Topeka Daily Capital, 96, 97 
 Traffic Control, N.Y., 41 
 Trinity Church, Boston, 183 
 
 Vanderbilts, the, 268 
 
 Van Petten, Mr. A. E., of 
 Topeka, 95 ff., 99 
 
 Versailles Treaty, America and, 
 15, 96 ; no guarantees under, 
 114; Monroe Doctrine and, 
 221 ; Secret Triple Treaty 
 and, 228 
 
 Villard, Mr., his poem at Bloom- 
 in gton, 90 
 
 Virginia, 303 
 
 War of Independence, Ameri 
 can, 179, 183, 300 
 
 Washington, City of, 62 ; Ire 
 land and, 129 ; Irish Com 
 mission at, 136, 137, 237 ; 
 description of, 190 ff. ; Irish 
 German influence at, 230 ; 
 Dickens and, 297, 313, 316 
 
 Washington, George, town plan 
 ning of Washington by, 194 ; 
 obelisk to, 196, 198 
 
 Weddings, American, 58 
 Wesleyan University, Bloom- 
 ington, 83, 85 
 
 I White House, the, at Washing 
 ton, 196, 231 
 White Star Line, the, 287 
 Wilkinson, Mrs., of St. Louis, 
 121 
 
 | Willard, Mr. Garrison, 235 
 
 I Willard, Mrs., 253 
 Wilson, President, and prohibi 
 tion, 76 ; Mid- West vote 
 against, 106-108 ; Presiden 
 tial election and, 109-111, 
 112, 114-115; Irish envoys 
 at Paris and, 127 ; reason 
 for defeat of, 145 ; Congress 
 and, 150, 151 ; at White 
 House, 196 ; illness of, 200 ; 
 and big Navy scheme, 203, 
 204 ; and disarmament, 207- 
 208 ; and Japan, 217 ; and 
 Monroe Doctrine, 221 ; and 
 Irish Americans, 227-228, 
 230 ; and Pmama Tolls, 233 ; 
 Mr. Root on, 275 ; Colonel 
 House on, 280, 281 ; and 
 League of Nations, 286 
 
 ! Wister, Owen, 14 
 
 i Woolworth Building, N.Y., 40, 
 152, 153 
 
 ; Yale University, 187 
 1 Y.M.C.A., Chicago, 62 ; New 
 York, 146, 220 
 
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