The Americans

by Hugo Münsterberg

It is not correct to suppose that inequalities of wealth work directly against this feeling. In spite of all efforts and ambitions toward wealth and the tendencies to ostentation, the American lacks just that which makes the possession of property a distinction of personal worth—the offensive lack of consideration toward inferiors and the envy of superiors. As gladly as the American gets the best and dearest that his purse can buy, he feels no desire to impress the difference on those who are less prosperous. He does not care to outdo the poorer man; his luxury signifies his personal pleasure in expenditure as an indication of his success in the world. But so far as he thinks of those who are looking on, it is of those richer persons whom he would like to imitate, and not of those who can afford less than himself.

Envy was not planted in the American soul. Envy is not directed at the possession, but at the possessor; and therefore, it recognizes that the possessor is made better by what he owns. A person who asserts himself strains every nerve to improve his own condition, but never envies those who are more favoured. And envy would be to him as great a degradation as pure servility. Undoubtedly here is one of the most effective checks to socialism. Socialism may not spring directly from envy, but a people given to envy are very ready to listen to socialism; and in America socialism remains a foreign cult, which is preached to deaf ears. A man who feels himself inferior, and who envies his wealthier fellows, would be glad to bring about an artificial equality by equalizing ownership: whereas the man who accounts himself equal to every one else is ready to concede the external inequality which lends fresh impetus and courageous endeavour to his existence; and this the more as the accumulation of capital becomes an obviously technical matter, not immediately contributory to the enjoyment of life. The billionaire enjoys no more than the millionaire, but merely works with a more complicated and powerful apparatus. Even direct economic dependence does not depress the spirit of self-assertion. We shall have later to speak, indeed, of strong opposite tendencies, and to speak of social differentiation; but this trait remains everywhere. It is much more strongly in evidence in town and country than in the large city, and much more in the West than in the East.

The tokens of greeting are thoroughly characteristic. An American doffs his hat to ladies out of respect to the sex; but men meet one another without that formality, and the finer differences in the nod of the head, expression of the eyes, and movements of the hat indicate the degree of personal familiarity and liking, but not of social position. Position is something technical, professional, and external, which is not in question when two men meet on the street. They greet because they know each other, and in this mutual relation of personal acquaintance they are merely equal human beings, and not the representatives of professional grades. The careful German adjustment of the arc through which the hat is carried and of the angle to which the body bends, in deference to social position, strikes the American as nonsensical. The fundamental disregard of titles and orders is, of course, closely connected with such a feeling. This has two sides, and has particularly its exceptions, which we shall not fail to speak of; but, on the whole, titles and orders are under the ban. The American feels too clearly that every form of exaltation is at the same time a degradation, for it is only when all are equal that no one is inferior, and so soon as some one is distinguished, the principle of the inequality is admitted and he in turn subordinates himself to others.

It would be unfair to draw the conclusion from this that Americans hate every sort of subordination. On the contrary, one who watches American workmen at their labour, or studies the organization of great business houses, or the playing of games under the direction of a captain, knows that for a specific purpose American subordination can become absolute. The much-boasted American talent for organization could not have been so brilliantly confirmed if it had not found everywhere an absolute willingness for conscious subordination. But the foot-ball player does not feel himself inferior to the captain whose directions he follows. The profound objection to subordination comes out only where it is not a question of dividing up labour, but of the real classification and grading of men. It is naturally strongest, therefore, in regard to hereditary titles where the distinction clearly cannot be based on the personal merits of the inheritor.

One of the most interesting consequences of this feeling is very noticeable to a stranger. The American thinks that any kind of work which is honourable is in principle suitable for everybody. To be sure, this looks differently in theory and in practice; the banker does not care to be a commercial traveller, nor the commercial traveller a bar-tender, nor the bar-tender a street-cleaner; and this not merely because he regards his own work as pleasanter, but as more respectable. Nevertheless, it is at once conspicuous with what readiness every useful sort of labour is recognized as honourable; and while the European of the better classes is vexed by the query how one can work and nevertheless remain respectable, the American finds it much harder to understand how one can remain respectable without working. The way in which thousands of young students, both men and women, support themselves during their years of study is typical. The German student would feel that some sort of teaching or writing was the only work suitable to him; at the utmost he would undertake type-writing. But we have seen in connection with the universities that the American student in narrow circumstances is not afraid during the summer vacations to work as porter in a hotel, or as horse-car driver, in order to stay a year longer at the university. Or perhaps, during the student year, he will earn a part of his board by taking care of a furnace. And none of the sons of millionaires who sit beside him in the lecture rooms will look down on him on that account. The thoughtless fellow who heaps up debts is despised, but not the day-labourer’s son, who delivers milk in the early morning in order to devote his day to science.

This is everywhere the background of social conceptions. No honourable work is a discredit, because the real social personality is not touched by the casual role which may be assumed in the economic fabric. Therefore it is quite characteristic that the only labour which is really disliked is such as involves immediate personal dependence, such as that of servants. The chamber-maid has generally much easier work than the shop girl; yet all women flock to the shops and factories, and few care to go into household service. Almost all servants are immigrants from Ireland, Scotland, Sweden, and Germany, except the negroes and the Chinese of the West. Even the first generation of children born in the country decline to become servants. With the single individual, it is of course a matter of imitating his comrades and following general prejudices; but these prejudices have grown logically out of the social ideals. The working-man professionally serves industry and civilization, while the servant appears to have no other end than complying with the will of another person. The working-man adjusts himself to an abstract task, quite as his employer; while the servant sells a part of his free-will and therefore his social equality, to another man.

Most notorious is the fixed idea that blacking shoes is the lowest of all menial services; and this is an hallucination which afflicts not only those born in the country, but even the immigrant from Northern Europe, as soon as he passes the Statue of Liberty in New York harbour. The problem of getting shoes blacked would be serious were it not for the several million negroes in the country and the heavy immigration from Southern Europe which does not get the instant prejudice against shoe-polish. But the theoretical problem of why servants will gladly work very hard, but strike when it comes to blacking shoes, is still not solved. There is possibly some vague idea that blacking shoes is a symbol of grovelling at some one’s feet, and therefore involves the utmost sacrifice of one’s self-respect.

Closely connected with this is the American aversion against giving or accepting fees. Any one giving a fee in a street-car would not be understood, and there are few things so unsympathetic to the American who travels in Europe as the way in which the lower classes look for an obolus in return for every trivial service or attention. A small boy who accompanies a stranger for some distance through a village street in order to point out the way, would feel insulted if he were offered a coin for his kindness. The waiters in the large hotels are less offended by tips, for they have adopted the custom brought over by European waiters; but this custom has not spread much beyond the large cities. It is, in general, still true that the real American will accept pay only in so far as he can justly demand it for his labour. Everything above that makes him dependent on the kindness of some one else, and is therefore not a professional, but a personal matter, and for the moment obliterates social equality.

Just as any sort of work which does not involve the sacrifice of the worker’s free-will is suitable for every one, so the individual is very much less identified with his occupation than he is in Europe. He very often changes his occupation. A clergyman who is tired of the pulpit goes into a mercantile employment, and a merchant who has acquired some new interests proceeds to study until he is proficient in that field; a lawyer enters the industrial field, a manufacturer enters politics, a book dealer undertakes a retail furniture business, and a letter-carrier becomes a restaurant keeper. The American does not feel that a man is made by the accidents of his industrial position, but that the real man puts his professional clothes on or lays them off without being internally affected. The belief in social equality minimizes to the utmost the significance of a change of occupation; and it may be that the well-known versatility and adaptability of the American are mainly due to this fact. For he is so much more conscious than any European that a change of environment in nowise alters his personality, and therefore requires no really new internal adjustment, which would be difficult always, but only an outward change—the mastery of a new technique.

A foreigner is most astonished at these changes of occupation when they come after a sudden reverse of fortune. The readiness and quietness with which an American takes such a thing would be absolutely impossible, if the spirit of self-assertion had not taught him through his whole life that outward circumstances do not make the man. If a millionaire loses his property to-day, his wife is ready to-morrow to open a boarding-house; circumstances have changed, and as it has been her lot in the past to conduct her salon in a palace, it is now her business to provide a good noon-day meal for young clerks. She enjoyed the first a great deal more, and yet it too brought its burdens. The change is one of occupation, and does not change her personality. The onlooker is again and again reminded of actors who play their part; they appear to live in every rôle for the moment that they are playing it, but it is really indifferent to them at bottom whether they are called on to play in a cloak of ermine or in blue-jeans. One is as good as the other, even when the parts require one to swagger about and the other to sweat.