"Yes, snobs of the worst kind! What respect have we for the laboring man? What do we know or practise of healthy German industry, of the thrift of the French?"
"I thought our industries were our strong point."
"Industries, yes—not our industry. We can establish mills and manufactories, and then get ship-loads of Teutons and of Irish to come over and work them."
"If they'd only be content with that," said Ethan, "but they end by working our municipalities too and running our country."
"They always do," said John Gano, shaking his forefinger in the air. "They always have!" With that he brought his clinched fist down on his knee. "If you can't hoe your row yourself, don't call in a man to help you. He'll end by helping himself. You'll have saved the hoeing and lost the row. But the average American won't do anything himself that he can get another man to do for him."
No wonder, thought Ethan, that the foreign visitor to these shores has such difficulty in classifying American opinion. Here, under the same roof, within the bonds of the closet kinship, were to be heard the old views of "the dominant race" from Mrs. Gano, and here was her own son railing.
"Nobody is content any more to work his own land or learn a trade; everybody must scramble for the big money prizes, the privilege of being an employer of labor."
It was a deed of some daring to interrupt the flow of masculine talk, but Val sat down on the bottom step of the stairs, saying firmly:
"Americans can't help being ambitious. They know there's a great deal to do."
"There is a great deal to be done; but the American has mistaken notions as to what. The American artisan thinks his son must aim at being a boss, if not being President. The farmer thinks he's doing his share when he hires hands and sends his own boys to swell the stream of clerks and town-strugglers. The infection seized on the women about thirty years ago."