“There is some food for reflection in that,” he said. “But—how much do you know of this country?” he added gently—I mean his voice took all sting out of the words.
I told him what I have just written. I added that I was anxious to learn more, and that I had been saturating myself in its press and literature. Here Bertie grunted, and I said something hastily about the delicious speckled trout Mr. Rogers had sent us which we were then eating.
“And you found the same extremes there,” said Mr. Rogers, quite ignoring my diversion, which I am positive he understood. “Nevertheless, we have a very large middle-class, and there are certain sections of the country where the climate is very temperate—California, for instance.”
“I thought that State had perpetual snow in the north and perpetual summer in the south, and eight months of dry weather and four months of rain. A cousin of mine has ranched there for ten years. Surely that bears out the national predilection for violent or sharply drawn contrasts.”
“Well, you rather have me there,” he admitted gracefully. “One gets so in the habit of saying certain things about a country just as one goes on commenting upon a man’s cleverness after one ought to appreciate the fact that a little frank analysis would prick the bubble. Florida is perpetual summer with an occasional blizzard; but even that bears out your theory.”
“As to your middle-class,” I asked, “don’t they all intend to be upper-class some day? Are any of them contented to be middle-class, generation in and generation out?”
“I don’t know much about them,” he said carelessly, “but the American instinct certainly is to progress. You might indeed call progress our watch-word. That is the reason this Bryan hue and cry won’t wash. His democracy is merely a fancy word for plebeianism. The sixteen to one nonsense has not received any more attention from that faction of the press that booms Bryan than his everlasting farmer poor man pose, and his plain homely wife, who sweeps off the veranda as the newspaper correspondents approach the unpretentious mansion. Do they suppose for a moment that any typical American wants an unbarbered shirt-sleeved episode in the White House, with a follower of Dolly Madison, Miss Harriet Lane, or their own popular and irreproachable Mrs. Cleveland, bustling about at six in the morning dusting the White House furniture or making gingerbread in the kitchen? Not for a moment. It would mean retrogression, and they know it. They have no desire to be the laughing-stock of other countries, to have the President of the United States ill at ease and vulgar in the presence of Ambassadors. Just as every American is animated by the desire to better himself, to get ahead of his neighbours, so is he equally ambitious for his country. I should be willing to wager my last dollar that if Bryan did reach the White House, with his malodorous tribe elbowing all decent people out of it, every self-respecting man who had voted for him would read the press reports with a snort of disgust. Backsliding will never work, for we have not reached the summit of our civilisation yet.”
“I don’t think much of the man you’ve got in now,” said Bertie. “He takes an imposing photograph, but I infer that he is a sort of human mask for Mr. Hanna.”
“McKinley is, as yet, the great historical puzzle without a key,” said Mr. Rogers, evasively; “but we do want, now and always, a gentleman in the White House, and with the many men in the country of birth and breeding, education and distinguished ability, it argues a terrible disease in our body politic that we cannot put the right man in the right place and keep him there.”
“Have you ever made the effort?” I asked pointedly, for I had heard things. “You, and all those who think as you do?”