Introducing the American Spirit Part 6

"You see I never had a chance to learn just one thing. I can do many things tolerably well, for I had to do them. I can splice a rope, repair a machine, shingle a house and if necessary build a barn. I can play ragtime on the piano, throw a steer or ride a bucking broncho. I can even make soda biscuits. I am the child of the pioneers, and in order to survive, they had to be jacks of all trades.

"I bought a tool in a department store the other day," and he drew it from his pocket. "It can do sixteen things tolerably well, but it isn't worth shucks for any one job, if you want to do it right. That's me."

The Herr Director wanted to know what "shucks" meant, and after I laboriously explained it to him and he had handled the patent tool he said:

"Your travelling men have come over to Germany and tried to sell us this kind of thing, but they found no market. When we want a gimlet, or a saw, or a coat-hanger we want that one thing and want it as good as it can be made. We marvel at your adaptability, but we are too thorough to be adaptable, and we do not need to be. You Americans will never be able to compete with us until you learn to specialize and do one thing well."

We sat long into the night comparing the German and the American Spirit, but there was one phase of the former which the Herr Director clearly demonstrated. There was a religious fervor in his patriotism which the average American lacks. To him his country was not only above himself but beyond everything else on Earth or in Heaven. There often seems something sordid about our patriotism, something connected solely with the individual's well-being. I glory in our sense of liberty, in the opportunity to live unmolested, and in every man's chance to be himself; but I fear we have as yet not learned to value our duty to this country as much as we do our privilege.

I am sure there will be no lack of fighters if the country is in danger; but shall we be able to fight the long, exhausting battle which presupposes discipline and subordination?

The United States gives much to the individual, more, I think, than any other country; but she has not given intelligently, she has nearly pauperized us all by her beneficence, and has demanded nothing in return, nor even taught us common grat.i.tude.

Our children are told that they must love their country, but what that means beyond fighting when it is in danger they know not. That it means to do their work thoroughly, that they must learn to do things well, and exalt the nation by becoming efficient workmen that they may help win their country's battles in the factory, or behind the counter, they do not yet know; and what we have not learned, we cannot teach.

This questioning mood of mine is never gendered as I contemplate the mob, the many who are driven to revolt either by their unbridled pa.s.sions or by the unbearable conditions under which they have to labor; my fear is strongest when I look into the schools and when I face our youth which comes out of them, inefficient, but above all, undisciplined. They do not lack physical courage, nor yet devotion to the country, in a sort of abstract way; they do lack the submission to intelligent authority.

In this latter-day test of different ideals of the state, through the cruel, undecisive test of war, we may learn from Germany to instill this "_Pflichttreue_," this loyalty to the job. We may also learn the more difficult lesson for us individualists--submission to authority which we must make intelligent, as well as conscientious.

Necessity will soon teach us to be thorough, and thoroughness presupposes patience. Add these qualities and this discipline to the enterprise, the love of fair play, the courage, the faith in G.o.d and man, which we possess, and we too may ultimately develop a patriotism which will stand the test of adversity, and emerge from it purified and strengthened.

When we stepped out of the restaurant and its German atmosphere into the unmistakably American Broadway, my German guests felt that my rampant Americanism had been thoroughly subdued. However they had literally "reckoned without their host." My protracted silence had misled them, but I could contain myself no longer.

"We are now walking in the streets of the second largest city in the world, its population thrown together and blown together from every quarter of the globe, and the most of these people, if not the worst of them, have come here in the last thirty-five years. They brought neither love of their new country nor knowledge of its language and inst.i.tutions; they all came to make money, and to-morrow morning four millions of people will begin again the compet.i.tive battle from which they are resting to-night.

"The laws which govern them are illy made, but they have made them, or at least had a chance to select those who did make them. They have not always chosen well; the officers who govern them are often not good men; frequently they are only the most cunning politicians and one has but scant respect for them. Yet in spite of it all, this is a fairly well governed city and it is quite remarkable that these four million people live together in comparative peace and order. Neither is there any ill from which this great city or any group of its individuals suffers for which there is not some help or healing or some attempt to heal.

"If I were an absolute stranger without money, knowing neither the language of the people nor their ways, I would rather be on the streets of the city of New York than anywhere else."

"How do you account for it?" the Frau Directorin ventured to ask, although the Herr Director had been violently expressing his dissent.

"We have several things to count on here, even when conditions seem intolerable. Let me name them.

"We are all human beings; some of us have inherited the Old Testament righteousness and the pa.s.sion for justice, and many of us have the New Testament desire for service. These together make a very effective combination, and go a great way towards the glorious results we shall ultimately achieve."

For once the Herr Director was silent, and as we had reached our hotel, I think I might have slept peacefully that night had not the Nebraskan triumphantly remarked as we were being shot up to the topmost floor: "Say, I did get that lobster a la Milkburgh with pickles and mince pie, didn't I? I always get what I want when I want it."

VI

_The Herr Director and the "Missoury" Spirit_

The anteroom of the editor's office was crowded when the Herr Director and I arrived to meet the men of the staff at luncheon.

The Herr Director is a publicist himself, and has edited one of the best known German newspapers. Having called on him when he was trying to mould an already moulded public opinion I made some interesting comparisons which he did not approve. I could not forbear reminding him how, when I once called on him in his office, I had to wait in a similar anteroom over an hour, that I had to pa.s.s through a number of other rooms with a longer or shorter period of waiting in each, and was finally admitted to his august presence as if he were a king on his throne.

As editor in chief, he was a more or less cloistered mystery, and not the man of affairs one is likely to be over here. Whatever comparisons I made in spite of the Herr Director's protest, were not entirely fair; for editors are scarcely a species anywhere, and the particular one upon whom we were calling was an uncommon editor of an uncommon journal.

Neither he nor it has a counterpart in Germany if anywhere in the world; they are both products of our Spirit and have had no small share in shaping it and giving it expression.

While I was explaining to the Herr Director the functions of this journal and how intelligently it interprets current events, and was extolling the virtues of its editors who, in spite of being persons of national reputation and great importance, have retained their simple, democratic ways, they emerged from the inner sanctum.

After a vigorous hand-shake all around to which the Herr Director visibly braced himself, the first contact was made, and we were taken to a handsomely appointed dining-room in the same building, where luncheon was served.

Beneath all the outer simplicity and democratic demeanor of our host, beneath his smoothly shaven, well groomed, correctly tailored exterior, the Herr Director recognized a dignified reserve and consciousness of power, which made him whisper to me, "His Majesty and suite," at the same time soothing with his left hand his aching right hand, just released from the vise-like grip of the editor.

Although I a.s.sured him that to me they were all just the editors of my favorite journal and after that plain, American citizens, I too am often impressed by that sense of dominance and power emanating from these men and others in similar positions. The feeling is not unrelated to that I have experienced the few times I have been in the presence of royalty.

In our public men of exalted position there may be lacking the mystical element by which monarchs are surrounded; but the sovereign American has more physical energy and force.

Should the thrones of Europe suddenly become vacant, I know dozens of our men who could occupy them, without their subjects becoming conscious of much change; and as far as queens are concerned we could easily furnish a surplus.

The Herr Director and I had been chosen to sit in the places of honor, and we (or at least I) forgot to eat, and spent my time studying these superb types of Americans.

The Herr Director, being more sophisticated, absorbed both the food and the company, and in his lectures on "_Die Leitenden Maenner in Den Vereinigten Staaten_," which he has delivered since returning to Germany, there are evidences that he remembered the minutest details of the _menu_, as well as every word which fell from the lips of the editor in chief.

Of course we spoke of many, if not all, the perplexing problems which vex this problem-ridden age, and each of us had a proprietary interest in one or more of them which we hoped to solve. The editor as a man of affairs knew our particular problems as well as we knew them, and had read all that any of us had written; so the conversation was animated enough, and certainly illuminating.

My specialty being immigration, and having just returned from the Pacific coast where I had studied the problem as it concerns the Oriental, the conversation was finally dominated by that interesting and somewhat delicate theme.

Can we a.s.similate all these varied elements which come to us? Can we make of them one people, and eliminate all those ethnic, national and religious inheritances which are frequently at variance with our own?

The editor believed we can a.s.similate all or most of them with the exception of the Oriental, "Who, having separated from the ethnic root in the Pleistocene period, represents too varied a physical and mental type to be a.s.similated by the Occidental." I think I am quoting him correctly, although not word for word.

As I did not quite agree with him, I expressed my views, and so did the Herr Director. I said I thought I noticed among the Chinese and even among the j.a.panese the influence of this new environment, and could tell of conversations with groups of graduates of our colleges, in which not only the influence of this country was noticeable, but the influence of the particular inst.i.tution from which they graduated. Anecdotes are not easily accepted as scientific proof; but this being an informal luncheon, I ventured a few of them which every one seemed to relish except the Herr Director, and he is not to blame for that, as anecdotes are rarely international. I do blame him, however, for telling me that he had never heard stupider jokes in his life. One of these ethnic anecdotes I told upon the authority of the Bishop of the Yangtsze district. Perhaps like all anecdotes it may have grown in the telling.

The Bishop had picked out an unusually bright Chinese lad to have educated in the United States and then become his curate. When he returned to China, after having attended both a college and a theological seminary, he was a.s.sisting the Bishop. Evidently he had not thoroughly mastered the ritual of the church; for this Oriental, who had "separated himself from the ethnic root," moved close to the Bishop, poked his elbow into the ecclesiastical ribs of his superior and asked: "Say, Bishop, where do I b.u.t.t in?"

Our host wanted to know whether I was sure that he did not say: "Bish"; I thought to reach the point of being able to express himself so briefly and directly the Oriental would need at least another geologic period.

One of the staff asked whether that anecdote was not my invention; to which I took the liberty of replying that if I could invent such good stories he might offer me an editorship. How imperfectly, after all, the Oriental may absorb the spirit of our language, I told in the story which is supposed to have its origin at the University of Michigan; although like all such stories it may be claimed by innumerable birthplaces.

A Hindoo student, who had not quite finished his academic career and had to return home on account of illness in his family, wrote back to his faculty adviser, notifying him of the death of his mother-in-law, in this characteristic, brief, Occidental way: "Alas! the hand which rocked the cradle has kicked the bucket."

The Herr Director thought this anecdote funny enough, but it proved the opposite from that for which I was contending. "Who but an Oriental could invent such highly picturesque figures of speech?"

The conversation drifted into soberer channels when our host took up the question as to what const.i.tutes the American, who after all is hybrid and frequently so mixed that he does not know just how he is ethnically const.i.tuted.

"For instance," he said, "I am part German, part revolutionary Yankee stock" (it seemed to me that he put the emphasis upon the revolutionary), "part French, part Scandinavian, part Irish."

I have forgotten just how many racial strains he said were running in his veins, but a variety large enough to be exceedingly useful to him in claiming kinship with all sorts of folk, and in making political speeches. That the ancestors of the average American belong to the great fighting stocks of humanity may explain if not excuse his love for physical combat. Each guest around the table followed the editor's example and accounted for his ancestry, showing that all but two of the Americans were mixtures, ranging from three to eight more or less greatly differentiated races, using that term in its broadest sense.

One of these unmixed Americans gave the outlines of his family tree, all of it growing out of the rugged New England soil; but every one of his daughters had married a man of foreign birth, or of foreign parentage.

His sons-in-law are German, Polish, French and Jewish. He added: "My German and French sons-in-law are great chums."

The other pure American was myself, although of course my ancestors did not come over in the _Mayflower_, and I have never been in New England long enough for my family tree to take root in its historic soil.