The Americans

by Hugo Münsterberg

Within the circle of ecclesiastical influences, moral concern for the self is everywhere in great evidence—the desire to be sober, temperate, industrious, modest, and God-fearing. It has been said that these centuries of self-mastery are the cause of America’s final triumph. Too many other factors are there left out of account, but undoubtedly the theocratic discipline which held back all immoderation and indulgence, and often intolerantly extinguished the lower instincts, has profoundly influenced national life. And to this all churches have contributed alike. It seems as if the Calvinistic God of severity had been complemented by a God of love; but practically all churches have worked as if it was necessary, first of all, to improve radically evil men, to convert evildoers, and to uproot natural instincts. The American church is to-day what it has always been, whether in or outside of Calvinism, a church militant, strong in its battle against unrighteous desires. To be churchly means to be in the battle-camp of a party; in the camp itself they make merry, but every one is armed against the enemy.

The final result in the great masses of people is an uncommonly high degree of personal purity as compared with the masses of Europe. Here one is not to think of the slums of large cities nor of the masses of still un-Americanized immigrants from Southern Europe, nor of those people who are under the influence of temporary abnormal conditions, such as the adventurers who flock together wherever gold and silver are discovered. One must look at the people in the fields and the work-shops, in the country and the small city, or at the average citizen of the large city, and one will get from these bustling millions an impression of moral earnestness, simplicity, and purity. These people are poor in imagination and vulgar; and yet one feels that, in the humble home where the average man has probably grown up, the family Bible lay on the table. It is not accidental that the zealous Puritans of Colonial times believed not only that man is preserved from hellfire by the special grace of God, but also that the colonists were a chosen people and favoured by God with a remarkably large proportion who enjoyed His grace. They saw a moral rigour everywhere around them, and could not suppose that such Puritan living was the path to everlasting torment. Since then life has become endlessly complicated, the pressure of circumstances has increased, temptations are a thousandfold more numerous, and consequently the general level of morality has shifted. Much is to-day called harmless which was then called sinful; but to-day, as then, the number of those who live above the general level of moral requirements is astonishingly large.

As everywhere in the world, so in America; temptation and distress fill the prisons with unfortunate and mistaken human beings. But this fact belongs in a wholly different social connection. We are thinking here of the life of those who are not amenable to law; for intemperance, envy, incontinence, coarseness, servility, brutality, lack of character and kindness, and vulgarity are, in themselves, not punishable. If we speak of those who are thus within the law, we find that life in America is purer, simpler, and more moral than in Europe. And the average American who lives for some time on the Continent of Europe comes home dismayed at the exaggerated and specious politeness of Europe and rejoiced at the greater humanity of the Americans. The incontinence of France, the intemperance of Germany, the business dishonesty of Southern Europe, are favourite examples in America of European lack of virtue; and aside from all local differences, the Americans believe that they find everywhere in Europe the symptoms of moral decadence and laxity, and on finding the same things in large American cities, they put the blame on Europe.

At first sight it looks as if one who lives in a glass house were throwing stones. The foreigner, on hearing of American Sabbath observance, piety, temperance, continence, benevolence, and honesty, is at once inclined to call up the other side of the situation: he has seen cases of hypocrisy, he knows how many divorces and bank robberies there are; he has heard about benevolence from purely selfish motives, and about corruption.

All this is true, and, nevertheless, false. On examining the situation more closely, the foreigner will see that however many sins there are, the life of the people is intrinsically pure and moral and devout. It is true that there are many divorces, and that these are made extremely easy in some states; but infidelity is seldom the motive. The cause lies in the democratic spirit of self-determination, which wants to loosen bonds that individuals no longer freely recognize. It might be said that this is a higher individual morality which ends marriage when it has lost its inner sanctity. The American divorce does not indicate any lack of marriage fidelity; married life is, throughout the nation, distinctly purer than it is in Europe, and this is still more true of the life of young men. To be sure, it is easy to get material for piquant booklets, as “From Darkest America,” and there is very much vice in Chicago, New Orleans, and San Francisco. The American is no saint, and a large city is a large city the world over. But undoubtedly the sexual tension is incomparably less in American life than in European, as may be seen by comparing the life of American students with that of German students of the same age. This is not due to deficient romantic feeling, for there is nowhere more flirting going on than in America; but a genuine respect of womanhood, without regard to social class, lends purity to the life of the men.

It is true that American temperance does not prevent some men from drinking too much, and the regular prohibition laws of many of the states have not succeeded in suppressing a desire for physiological stimulation; and it may be even affirmed that the legal interdiction of the sale of alcohol in states or communities, unless an overwhelming majority of the population believes in abstinence, has done more harm than good. But it is clear that the fight against alcohol which has been carried on for a hundred years, and notably by the church, has done an infinite amount of good. The whole nation is strongly set against tippling, and only the dregs of society gather in the saloons. And much more has been done by moral than by legislative influence to suppress the unhappy licentious and criminal consequences of drink among the lower classes; and among higher classes the deadening intellectual influence of sitting in beer-houses and so wasting strength, time, and moral vigour, is almost unknown. In good society one does not drink in the presence of ladies except at dinner, and the total abstainer becomes thereby no more conspicuous than the man in Germany who will not smoke; and those who drink at table are content with very little. Evening table gatherings, such as the German Kommerse, are accounted incorrect, and drunkenness is dishonourable. These ideas are making their way among the lower classes; railway companies and other corporations have not the least difficulty in employing only temperance men. The temperance movement, in spite of its mistakes and exaggerations, and aside from its great benefit to the health of the social organism, represents a splendid advance in moral self-control. A nation which accounts as immoral all indulgence in alcohol that interferes with self-control has made thereby a tremendous ethical advance.

It would be still easier to expose the caricatures which are published relative to Sabbath observance. One may say it is hypocritical for the law to forbid theatrical performances on Sunday for which the scenes are changed and the curtain dropped, but to allow several New York theatres to perform the cheapest vaudeville without curtain and without a change of scenes. But the fact is merely that the heavy immigration from Europe has brought about conditions in the metropolis which do not accord with the ideas of the rural majority in the state. In Boston no one would think of evading such a law, because the theatres would remain empty; where the attempt has been made to keep large exhibitions open on Sunday, it has been unsuccessful.

The American people still cling to a quiet Sabbath observance, and the day of rest and meditation is a national institution. No law and no scruples forbid the railway companies to run more trains on Sunday than on other days, as they do in Germany; but instead of this there are fewer railway trains, and these are poorly patronized. People do not travel on Sunday, even if they no longer visit the grave-yard, which was the Puritan idea of a permissible Sunday stroll. Concessions are more and more made to Sunday amusements, it is true; golf is played on Sunday in many places, and in contrast to England the Sunday newspapers have become so voluminous that if one read their fifty or sixty pages through, one would not have time to go to church. But in the main the entire American-born population, without constraint and therefore without hypocrisy, observes Sunday as a day of self-abnegation; and even many men who are not abstainers during the week drink no wine on Sunday.

The masses of the people are to a high degree truthful and honourable. It has been well said that the American has no talent for lying, and mistrust of a man’s word strikes the Yankee as specifically European. From the street urchin to the minister of state, frankness is the predominant trait; and all institutions are arranged for a thorough-going and often exaggerated confidence. We have shown before that in the means of conveyance, such as street cars, the honesty of the public is not watched, that in the country the farm-house door is hardly locked, and that the most important mercantile agreements are concluded by a word of mouth or nod of the head. There are scoundrels who abuse all this, who swindle the street-car companies and circulate false checks; but the present customs could never have arisen if the general public had not justified this blind confidence. It is true that many a bank cashier robs the treasury; but it is much more characteristic to see a newspaper boy, when one gives him five cents by mistake, run after one in order to return the right amount. It is true that many an Irish politician has entered politics in order to steal from the public funds, but it is a more characteristic fact that everywhere letters too large to go in the letter-box are laid on top of it in the confidence that they will not be stolen. A school-boy who lies to the teacher often has, in Europe, the sympathy of the whole class, but not in America; children despise a lie, and in this sense the true American remains a child through life.

As the American education makes for honesty, so it does for self-sacrifice, which is the finest result of the Puritan idea of self-perfection. The ascetic sacrifice for the mere sake of sacrifice goes against the American love of activity, although if the many New England popular tales are really taken from life, even this way of pleasing God is not uncommon in the North-Eastern States. But all classes of the population are willing to make sacrifices for an end, however abstract and impersonal. The spirit of sacrifice is not genuine when it parades itself before the public; it works in secret. But anybody who watches what goes on quietly, who notes the life of the teacher, the minister, and the physician in all country districts, who sees how parents sometimes suffer in order to give their children a better education than they themselves had, will be surprised at the infinite and patient sacrifices which are daily made by hard-working people. The spirit of quiet forbearance, so little noticeable on the surface, is clear to every one who looks somewhat deeply into American life.