I made a pilgrimage to Grant’s tomb, on the door of which his exclamation is carved, “Let us have peace!” And I saw the statue of General Sherman, who uttered the famous saying, “War is hell.” The hellish reports of the ten days’ battle raging in eastern Asia—where, at the very time when we in America were discussing the question of peace, the “field of honor” was covered with incredible numbers of the dead,—brought to us every day a confirmation of that utterance of General Sherman’s.
We inspected the famous hotel, the Waldorf-Astoria. It exceeds in size and splendor anything that has thus far been attained in the way of public houses. And yet a new hotel has just been opened in New York, called the St. Regis, which is said to be furnished even more luxuriously, with all sorts of art treasures, old Gobelins, masterpieces of painting, and the like; but it is small—intended only for the upper four hundred; I was told that the lowest price for a room was eight dollars a day.
The ballroom of the Waldorf-Astoria is adorned with a painting proudly proclaimed by the guide as “the biggest canvas in the world.” Not the best-painted but the biggest canvas in the world! This naïve boastfulness is rather characteristic of the worship of the gigantic that prevails there. When our shops announce a sale they call it a “great sale”; the American advertisement invites you to a “mammoth sale.” The cicerone of the hotel called our attention to the fact that there are three thousand gilded chairs in the ballroom and the adjacent drawing-rooms, each with a different hand-painted scene on its cushion. One of our company immediately sat down on one of these artistically glorified chairs, apparently to test whether or not such delightful artistry aroused special sensations. I had a ride on the underground railway, which was to be opened to the public a few days later, but which had been “running” regularly for three months so that its use might be perfected before it was turned over to the public,—maneuver before the real attack!
I had the opportunity in New York of making the acquaintance of Mr. Pulitzer, the owner of the most widely circulated American newspaper, the World. His home (I was invited there to a luncheon) is of the most exquisite splendor, and two tall, wonderfully beautiful daughters are its life. But with all his wealth, all his power, the publisher of the World is a poor man. Two of the greatest blessings of life this otherwise vigorous, young-looking man, not yet sixty, has lost,—his eyesight and sleep. Nevertheless, he works incessantly, dictates his leading articles, watches and regulates the whole course of his great paper,—a paper which does not belong to yellow journalism, but, on the contrary, has long advocated the peace movement. A few years ago, when the relations between the United States and Great Britain were strained to the danger point, the World requested answers to a series of questions, and among the responses was one from the then Prince of Wales, which did much to allay the danger of war.
If I had lunched a day later at the Pulitzer house, I should have made the acquaintance of Roosevelt’s opponent, Mr. Alton B. Parker. The World favors the Democratic party without yielding to the illusion that at the present time the election can be won from the Republicans. Is not that a fortunate country that has only two political parties? Yet even there not everything is rosy in the political arena. They have their brazen-faced practice of corruption, economic battles,—trusts and strikes,—that is to say, capitalism and labor unions in hostile, threatening opposition (and various leaders of the latter bodies are said not to be superior to corruption). Alas! even there, too, there is need of what all politics, domestic and foreign, everywhere fails to possess,—the moral perception.
Philadelphia—after New York and Chicago the largest city of the Union—offered us peace people a very favorable territory. This city, founded by Puritans, to-day still largely inhabited by Friends,—as the war-detesting Quakers are called,—dominated by the statue of William Penn who signed the treaty of peace with the Indians (the statue crowns the tower of the city hall),—this city is, so to speak, permeated with the sap of the peace ideas. Correspondingly cordial, therefore, was the welcome that was accorded the delegates of the Boston Peace Congress. The speakers at the public reception were the governor of Pennsylvania, the mayor of the city, the provost of the university, and the president of the academy. The governor referred to the widespread diffusion of our idea, which was daily gaining ground. The time, he said, could not be far away when collective humanity—the nation, the state—would be subjected to the same laws which enjoin upon individuals an appeal to right instead of violently taking the remedy into their own hands.
One of the great attractions of Philadelphia is its park, through which we were taken on a drive. It really resembles a landscape rather than a park, so enormous, so extensive are all its dimensions. Where we have only a clump of trees, there they have a grove; where we have a grassplot, they have a prairie. At the same time it is carefully tended and richly adorned with flower beds, fountains, and statues, like a prince’s beautiful castle garden.
Washington was not included in the schedule of cities where lectures were to be given; but I ran over there for two days in order to get some idea of the capital city, and especially to meet the President.
Washington has a character very different from that of the other cities of the Union. It is not a city exuberant with trade and business; it has no skyscrapers, no elevated or subterranean railways, no bank or trade palaces,—only very quiet, very broad streets, planted with trees and bordered by villa-like houses. Even the embassies and legations are not housed in palaces but in similar elegant villas. On the other hand, that part of the city where the Capitol, the Congressional Library, and the obelisk rise from amidst wide-stretching grassplots, is of overpowering magnificence. You might think yourself transported to an antique world. But no—it is the new world, the world of the future.
The Public Library is unquestionably one of the most splendid edifices in the world. The private citizen who goes thither to read after his day’s work is accomplished can give himself up to the feelings that are quickened by an environment of harmonious splendor. You seem to be in fairyland, and the paintings and marble columns and stairways have an especially imposing effect when the lofty dome of the central hall is illuminated with electric lights.