The Californians who fear for the white race because of the presence of the Oriental, whom that fear has made vain, boastful, ungenerous and reckless of the feelings of others, need to know that a greater danger threatens the race—the decay of the democratic spirit, which languishes and perishes unless it permits to all men free access to the best it holds, regardless of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”
Because I had lost my “brag and bluster” and wished to recover them, I took my guests, who were now homeward bound, to the one place which might fitly crown their experiences—the Grand Canyon, where one is apt to forget humanity and its fretting problems.
I must confess that by this time I was quite worn out; for introducing your country to a stranger is wearing business, especially when you are dealing with blasé globe-trotters, who have done all the big things, from the Alps to the Dead Sea, and have had to crowd into a brief month the best which lies between New York and California. To do this with a lover’s adulation, endeavoring more or less skillfully to hide defects and make the bright spots brighter still, may well tax one’s nerves.
I acted as a sort of shock absorber, for I determined that the journey should be a joltless one for my guests; but in that I partially failed; for not only did I receive the shocks myself, I could not keep them from receiving some.
One of the worst of these jolts I suffered at the Grand Canyon of the Colorado. I was very sure of the Canyon itself; I knew it would put a thrill into the Herr Director, and force an expression of it out of him. I never worried about the Frau Directorin. We reached the Canyon in that happy mood gendered by a combination of Harvey meals and Pullman berths, and the sight of the friendly inn at the brink of the big surprise, and the cheer of the big log fire in the raftered room drew an involuntary exclamation of pleasure from the Herr Director. He registered, then asked the clerk for a room fronting the Canyon.
“Yes siree!” said the obliging young man as he attached a number to the Herr Director’s long and illegible signature; “I’ll give you a room so near that you can spit right into it.”
Naturally I received the first shock; a minute later it communicated itself to the Herr Director. It did not reach the Frau Directorin, for her English fortunately was still limited; she kept on looking at the bright Navajo rugs, while the clerk smiled at his own smartness. The Herr Director commanded to have his bags taken to his room, and turning from the desk said: “Young man, I am a German, and I want you to understand that we do not spit in God’s face.”
The next morning the great Canyon was full of mist, and only faint outlines of its titanic architecture were visible. As we stood at the edge of the wondrous chasm, watching the last cloud being driven from the depths as the moisture was absorbed by the dry, desert air, the Frau Directorin was shaken by emotion as she gasped at intervals: “Um Gottes Himmels Willen!” The Herr Director, his feelings better controlled, said nothing; but after a long silence, muttered under his breath: “I should like to throw that clerk down this abyss as a penalty for his desecrating thought.”
Every few minutes I heard him saying, as he shook his head: “Just think of it! Just think of it!”
I did not disturb him or ask him what he thought of it for I knew he could not tell, nor can any one. I think he felt as I felt, that all the cities he had seen were as nothing compared with this wonder of nature; that all the pillared post-offices and libraries which our cunning hands have scattered over this broad land are trifling toys compared with this templed miracle; that all our dreams of what we might paint or fashion or carve, or build, are child’s play compared with this, and that we ourselves are mere nothings in the presence of what God hath wrought here in stone and clay, in color and form.