V
Mr. St. John Ervine complains that we of the provinces lack individuality; that we have been so smoothed out and conform so strictly to the prevailing styles of apparel that the people in one town look exactly like those in the next. This observation may be due in some measure to the alien’s preconceived ideas of what the hapless wights who live west of the Hudson ought to look like, but there is much truth in the remark of this amiable friend from overseas. Even the Indians I have lately seen look quite comfortable in white man’s garb. To a great extent the ready-to-wear industry has standardized our raiment, so that to the unsophisticated masculine eye at least the women of Main Street are indistinguishable from their sisters in the large cities. There is less slouch among the men than there used to be. Mr. Howells said many years ago that in travelling Westward the polish gradually dimmed on the shoes of the native; but the shine-parlors of the sons of Romulus and Achilles have changed all that.
I lean to the idea that it is not well for us all to be tuned to one key. I like to think that the farm folk and country-town people of Georgia and Kansas, Oklahoma and Maine are thinking independently of each other about weighty matters, and that the solidarity of the nation is only the more strikingly demonstrated when, finding themselves stirred (sometimes tardily) by the national consciousness, they act sensibly and with unity and concord. But the interurban trolley and the low-priced motor have dealt a blow to the old smug complacency and indifference. There is less tobacco-juice on the chins of our rural fellow citizens; the native flavor, the raciness and the tang so highly prized by students of local color have in many sections ceased to be. We may yet be confronted by the necessity of preserving specimens of the provincial native in social and ethnological museums.
I should like to believe that the present with its bewildering changes is only a corridor leading, politically and spiritually, toward something more splendid than we have known. We can only hope that this is true, and meanwhile adjust ourselves to the idea that a good many things once prized are gone forever. I am not sure but that a town is better advertised by enlightened sanitary ordinances duly enforced than by the number of its citizens who are acquainted with the writings of Walter Pater. A little while ago I should have looked upon such a thought as blasphemy.
The other evening, in a small college town, I passed under the windows of a hall where a fraternity dance was in progress. I dare say the young gentlemen of the society knew no more of the Greek alphabet than the three letters inscribed over the door of their clubhouse. But this does not trouble me as in “the olden golden glory of the days gone by.” We do not know but that in some far day a prowling New Zealander, turning up a banjo and a trap-drum amid the ruins of some American college, will account them nobler instruments than the lyre and lute.
Evolution brought us down chattering from the trees, and we have no right to assume that we are reverting to the arboreal state. This is no time to lose confidence in democracy; it is too soon to chant the recessional of the race. Much too insistently we have sought to reform, to improve, to plant the seeds of culture, to create moral perfection by act of Congress. If Main Street knows what America is all about, and bathes itself and is kind and considerate of its neighbors, why not leave the rest on the knees of the gods?
What really matters as to Main Street is that it shall be happy. We can’t, merely by taking thought, lift its people to higher levels of aspiration. Main Street is neither blind nor deaf; it knows well enough what is going on in the world; it is not to be jostled or pushed by condescending outsiders eager to bestow sweetness and light upon it. It is not unaware of the desirability of such things; and in its own fashion and at the proper time it will go after them. Meanwhile if it is cheerful and hopeful and continues to vote with reasonable sanity the rest of the world needn’t despair of it. After all, it’s only the remnant of Israel that can be saved. Let Main Street alone!