XXVI
When I first visited the United States in 1919, the whole nation was seething with a conflict of opinion between pro-Wilsonites and anti-Wilsonites.
It was not a mere academic controversy which people could discuss hotly but without passion. It divided families. It caused quarrels among lifelong friends. The mere mention of the name of Wilson spoilt the amenities of any dinner party and transformed it into a political meeting.
In my first article for The New York Times, recording my impressions of America, I slipped out the phrase that “I was all for Wilson.” I received, without exaggeration, hundreds of letters from all parts of the United States, “putting me wise” to the thousand and one reasons why Wilson’s doings in Paris would be utterly repudiated by the Senate and people. He had violated the Constitution. He had acted without authority. He had tried to commit the United States to his scheme of the League of Nations against their convictions and consent. On the other hand, there were many people who still regarded him as the greatest leader in the world and the noblest idealist.
Ignorant, like most Englishmen, of the parties and personalities of American politics, at that time, I kept my ears open to all this, but couldn’t avoid falling into pitfalls. I made a delightful “gaffe,” as the French would say, by turning to one gentleman in the Union Club before he acted as my chairman to the lecture I was giving there, and asked him to tell me something of Wilson’s character and history. It was Mr. Charles Hughes, ex-governor of New York, and defeated candidate for the Presidency against Wilson himself.
It was the last question which I ought to have asked, as people explained to me later. But I shall never forget the fine and thoughtful way in which Mr. Hughes answered my question and the subtlety with which he analyzed Wilson’s character, without a touch of personal animosity or a trace of meanness. I was aware that I was in the presence of a great intellect, and a great gentleman.
I had the opportunity of talking to Mr. Hughes in each of my three visits, and when he was Secretary of Foreign Affairs in Washington, and each time I was more impressed with the conviction that he was likely to become one of the greatest statesmen of the world, and, unlike many great statesmen, had a fine and delicate sense of honor, and a desire for the well-being, not only of the United States but of the human race.
Between my first and second visits Wilson’s tragedy had happened, and the United States had refused to enter the League of Nations. The Republican party had swept the country, inspired by general disgust and disillusionment with the Peace of Versailles, by a tidal wave of public opinion against any administration which would involve the United States in the jungle of Europe’s racial passions, and by a general desire to be rid of a government associated with all the restrictions, orders, annoyances, petty injustice, extravagance, and fever of the War régime. As a friend of mine said, the question put to the electors was not “Are you in favor of the League of Nations?” but “Are you sick and tired of the present administration?” And the answer was, “By God, we are!”
President Harding reigned in place of President Wilson. Owing to the kindness of a brilliant American journalist named Lowell Mellett who had acted for a time as war correspondent on the Western front, and who seemed to have the liberty of the White House, the Senate, Congress, and every office, drawing-room, and assembly at Washington, I was received by the President, and had a little conversation with him which ended in a message to the British people through The Review of Reviews, of which I had become editor. It was a message of affection and esteem for the nation which, he said, all Americans of the old stock regarded still as the Mother Country—a generous and almost dangerous thing to be said by a President of the United States.
A tall, heavy, handsome man, with white hair and ruddy face, the new President seemed to me kind-hearted, honest and well-meaning, without any great gifts of genius or leadership, and a little timid of the enormous responsibility that had come to him. A year later I saw him again, and had the honor of introducing my son Tony. He was surprised that I had a son of that height and age, and it reminded him instantly of an anecdote referring to Chief Justice White and a little lawyer who introduced a tall, husky son to him. “Ah,” said the Chief Justice, “a block of the old chip, I see!”
It was due to my friend Mellett again that I had the opportunity, and very extraordinary honor, for a foreign journalist, of giving evidence before the House Committee on Naval Disarmament. It was a Committee appointed to report on the possibility of calling the Washington Conference. I was summoned to give evidence in the House of Congress without any time to prepare notes or a speech, and when I took my place like a mouse in a hole in the center of a horseshoe of raised seats occupied by about twenty-five members of the Committee, I was in a state of high tension which I masked by a supreme effort of nerve control. For I was, to some extent, speaking not only on behalf of Great Britain, and taking upon myself the responsibility of expressing the views of my own people, but on behalf of all idealists in all nations who looked to the United States for leadership in the way of international peace. I knew that I must be right in my facts and figures, that I must say nothing that could give offense to the United States, and nothing that would seem like disloyalty to England, while telling the truth, as far as I knew it, without reserve, regarding England’s naval and military burdens, the dangers existing in Europe, and the sentiment of the British people.
After a preliminary statement lasting ten minutes or so, to which the Committee listened in absolute silence, I was closely and shrewdly cross-examined by various members, and had to answer very difficult and searching questions. It was one of my lucky mornings. I came through the ordeal better than I could have hoped. I was warmly congratulated afterward by members of the British Embassy who told me I had said the right things, and I honestly believe I did a tiny bit of good to England and the world that day. The New York Times and other papers published my address verbatim and it went on to the records of Congress. Anyhow, it did no harm, and I was thankful enough for that.
My lectures on the second visit had nothing to do with the War, except in its effects, and I spoke entirely on the subject of European conditions, always with a strong plea to the United States to come in boldly and throw her moral and economic influence on the side of international peace and reconstruction. From the very first I took the line, which I held with absolute conviction, that Germany would be unable, after the exhaustion of war, to pay the enormous indemnities demanded by the Peace of Versailles, and that if Germany were thrust into the mire and went the way of Austria, Europe would not recover from financial ruin. At the same time I pointed out the rights and justice of France, and gave her view fairly and generously, as I was bound to do, because of my illimitable admiration of French heroism, my enormous pity for French sacrifice, my certain knowledge of French danger. My argument was for economic co-operation between the peoples of Europe, as the only means of saving that civilization, with demobilization of hatreds as well as armies, and a new brotherhood of peoples after the agony and folly of the war.
I risked my popularity with the American people in making speeches like that. I could have got easy applause by calling upon the old god of vengeance against the Germans for at that time in the United States there was less forgiveness than in England for all the evil and suffering caused by Germany, less tolerance of “pacifists,” as much brutality in the average mob. But though I aroused some suspicion, some hostility, on the whole American audiences listened to my argument with wonderful enthusiasm and generosity.
I saw a distinct change of opinion after my first visit (I am not pretending that I had anything to do with it), in favor of closer friendship with Great Britain, and economic co-operation with Europe. In every city to which I went I found at least two or three thousand people according to the size of my place of lecture, quickly and ardently responsive to the idea that America and Great Britain, acting together, might lift the world out of its ruined state and lead civilization to a higher plane. In city clubs, women’s clubs, private dinner parties, drawing-room meetings, I found great numbers of people desperately anxious about the responsibility of the United States toward European nations, eager to do the right thing though doubtful what to do, poignantly desirous of getting some lead higher than that of self-interest (though not conflicting with it), and with a generous warm-hearted sympathy for the British folk. Doubtless these groups were insignificant in numbers to the mass of citizens with whom I never came in touch, among whom there was an old strain of suspicion and hostility to England, and all sorts of currents of prejudice, ill will, hatred, even, among Irish, German, and foreign stocks, in addition to the narrow nationalism, the vulgar selfishness of many others. That is true, but the people I met, and to whom I lectured, were the intelligentsia, the leaders of social life, and business life, the wives, mothers, and daughters of the “leading citizens,” the arbiters and, to some extent, the creators of public opinion. Their hopes, ideals, visions, must, sooner or later, be reflected in national tendencies and acts. Only blind observers would now say that the United States has not revealed in recent acts and influence that broadening of outlook which I perceived at work below the surface in 1921, and did something, perhaps—not much—to help, by a simple and truthful report of facts from this side of the world.
In the United States I had, strange as it may seem, a certain authority as an economic expert! This may surprise my intimate friends, and most of all my wife, who knows that I have never been able to count my change, that I have not as much head for figures as a new-born lamb, and that I have never succeeded in making out a list of expenses for journalistic work without gross errors which have put me abominably out of pocket. Yet many of the greatest financiers in the United States—men like the brothers Warburg, and Mr. Mitchell of the National City Bank—invited me to address them on the economic situation in Europe, and agreed with my arguments and conclusions. I remember one dinner at which I expounded my views on that subject to no less than sixty of the leading financial experts in New York, afterward being subjected to a fire of questions which, to my own amazement, I was able to answer. The truth is, as I quickly perceived, that a few very simple laws underlie the whole complicated system of international trade and finance. As long as one held on to those laws, which I did, like grim death, one could not go wrong in one’s analysis of the European situation, and all facts and figures adjusted themselves to these elementary principles.
Money, for example, is only a symbol for the reality of values behind it—in grain, cattle, mineral wealth, labor and credit.
When paper money is issued in advance of a nation’s real values, it is merely a promissory note on future industry and production.
France, Germany, and most European nations were issuing vast quantities of these promissory notes which were not supported, for the most part, by actual wealth.
The prosperity of a country like Germany increased the prosperity of all other countries. Its poverty would lead to less prosperity in all other countries.
Commercial prosperity depends upon the interchange of goods between one country and another, and not upon the possession of money tokens. And so on.
By keeping these facts firmly in my mind, I was able to keep a straight line of common sense in the wild labyrinth of our European problems. But I had also seen the actual life and conditions of many countries of Europe, and could tell what I had seen in a simple, straight way to the business men of the United States. It was what they wanted to know, beyond all other things, and I think they believed my accounts more than those of more important men, because I was not a Government official, or propagandist, but a simple reporter, without an ax to grind, and an eyewitness of the conditions I described.
Among the men who asked me to tell them a few things they wanted to know, or the things they knew (better than I did) but wanted to discuss, was Mr. Herbert Hoover, for whom I have the deepest admiration and respect, like all who have met him. He came into my room at the Lotus Club one day, unannounced except for a tap at the door by his friend and assistant, Barr Baker. I had just returned from a journey, and my room was littered with shirts, socks, collars, and the contents of my bags. He paid no heed to all that but sat back in an arm chair and after some questions, talked gravely of world affairs. I need not record here that conversation I had with him—the gist of it is in my book of American impressions, “People of Destiny,” but I was glad and proud to sit in the presence of a man—so simple, so frank, so utterly truthful—who organized the greatest work of rescue for suffering humanity ever achieved in the history of the world—the American Relief Administration. But for that work, many millions of men, women, and children in the nations most stricken by war would have died of starvation, and Europe would have been swept from end to end by the scourge of pestilence which follows famine.
I seem to have been bragging a little in what I have lately written, making myself out to be an important person, with unusual gifts. That is not my intention, or my idea. The fact is that the people of the United States give any visitor who arrives with decent credentials a sense of importance, and elevate him for a while above his usual state of insignificance. They herald him with an exaggeration of his virtues, his achievements, his reputation. Any goose is made to believe himself a stately swan, by the warmth of courtesy shown toward him, by the boosting of his publicity agent, and by the genuine desire of American citizens to make a guest “feel good” with himself.
This has a strange and exhilarating effect upon the visitor. It gives him self-confidence. It actually does develop virtues in him. His goose quills actually change into something like swansdown, and his neck distinctly elongates. There is something in the very atmosphere of New York—electric, sparkling, a little intoxicating—which gives a man courage, makes him feel bigger, and not only feel bigger, but be bigger! This is no fantasy, but actual fact. In the United States I was a more distinguished person than ever I could be in England. I spoke more boldly than ever I could in England. I was rather a brave fellow for those few weeks each year, because so many people believed in my quality of character, in my intelligence, in my powers of truth-telling, whereas in England no one believes in anybody.
So I do not boast or preen myself at all when I write about the wonderful times I have had in the United States. It happens to everybody who does not go out of his way (or hers) as some do, to insult a great-hearted people, to put on “side” in American drawing-rooms, to say with an air of superiority “We don’t do that in England, you know!”
I visited many American colleges, and with solemn ceremony was initiated into the sacred brotherhood of a Greek letter society which is the highest honor that can be given to a foreign visitor by the youth of America.
In Canada—at Winnipeg—I was made a Veteran of the Great War by a gathering of old soldiers.
At Salt Lake City I lectured to 6,000 Mormons—most moral and admirable people—in their Tabernacle, and was received on the platform by a Hallelujah Chorus from sixty Mormon maidens.
In Detroit, where I began my first speech of the day at 9.30 in the morning, I spoke down a funnel on the subject of the Russian Famine, which was “broadcast” to millions of people late that night.
I traveled thousands of miles, and in every smoking carriage talked with groups of men who told me thousands of anecdotes and put me wise to every aspect of American life from the inside.
I was entertained at luncheon, dinner, and supper by the “leading citizens” of scores of cities, and made friends with numbers of charming, courteous, cultured people.
I was interviewed by battalions of reporters who received me as a brother of their craft, and never once let me down by putting into my mouth words I did not wish to say. They were mostly young college men and, though I hate to say it, a keener, better-educated crowd, on the whole, than the average of their kind in English journalism.
I will record only one more of the wonderful things that happened to me as a representative of English journalism in New York.
On the eve of my departure, after my second visit, a dinner was given in my honor at the Biltmore. It was organized by Mrs. MacVickar, who has the organizing genius of a lady Napoleon, and a committee of ladies, and a thousand people were there. They included all the most distinguished people in New York, many of the most distinguished in America, and they were there to testify their friendship to England. They were there also to express their friendship, if I may dare say so, to me, as a man who had tried to serve England, and America, too, in speaking, and in writing, the simple truth. They wrote all their names in a book that was given to me at the dinner, and I keep it as a great treasure, holding the token of a nation’s kindness.
What added a little sauce piquante to the proceedings was the delivery from time to time during the dinner of notes from Sinn Feins parading outside the hotel. The first message I read was not flattering. “You are a dirty English rat. You ought to be deported.” Another informed me that I was a paid agent of the British Government. Another was a general indictment informing all American citizens that it was a disgrace to dine with me, and an act of treachery to their own nation. Another little missive described me as a typical blackguard in a nation of cutthroats. So they followed each other to the high table, where I was the guest of honor....
I had a great time in the United States on each of my three visits, but notwithstanding all I have said, I shall never make another lecture tour in that country. The fatigue of it demands the physique of an Arctic explorer combined with that of an African lion tamer. Several times I nearly succumbed to tinned tomato soup. Twice did I lose my voice in a wind forty below zero, and regain it by doses of medicine which destroyed my digestive organs. Nightly was I roasted alive in sleeping berths. Daily did my head swell to unusual proportions, not in conceit, but in a central heating system which is a terror to Englishmen. Visibly did I wither away as I traveled from city to city, received by deputations of leading citizens on arrival, after a sleep-disturbed night, with the duty ahead of keeping bright and intelligent through a long day’s programme, saying the right thing to the gracious ladies who entertained me at lunch, the bright thing to the City Club which entertained me to dinner, the true thing to all the questions asked about Europe, England, Lloyd George, Prohibition, Mrs. Asquith, the American flapper, Bolshevism, France, and the biological necessity of war, to business men, professors, journalists, poets, financiers, bishops, society leaders in Kansas City, or Grand Rapids, the President of the Mormon church, the editors of the local newspapers, the organizers of my lecture that evening, and the unknown visitors who called on me at the hotel all through the day, and every day.
One can’t keep that sort of thing up. It’s wearing....
I remember that in the Copley Plaza Hotel at Boston, a little old gentleman carrying a black bag tapped at my door and introduced himself by the name of Doctor Gibbs. He said that his hobby in life was to search out Gibbs in the United States, and he found thousands! He presented me with a copy of the Gibbs Family Bulletin, and opening his black bag produced a photograph of his great-grandfather.
It was my son Tony who called my attention to the fact that I was amazingly like that venerable man, who was toothless (he lived before the era of American dentistry) and with hair that had worn thin as the sere and yellow leaf. I decided that I should become exactly like him, “sans hair, sans teeth,” if I continued this career as an English lecturer in America. In order to avoid premature old age, I made a resolve (which I shall probably break) not to make another lecture tour in the United States.
But of all my journalistic adventures, I count these American experiences as my most splendid time, and for the American people I have a deep gratitude and affection. I can only try to repay their kindness by using my pen whenever possible to increase the friendship between our countries, to kill prejudice and slander, and to advocate that unwritten alliance between our two peoples which I believe will one day secure the peace of the world.
THE END
Transcriber’s Note:
A Table of Contents has been added.
Obvious typographic errors have been corrected.