The Americans

by Hugo Münsterberg

Men who have so felt have made the nation great, and no American would admit that a man who gave his life to government or to law, to art or science, would be able to make his life at all more significant or valuable for the ends of culture. This is not materialism. Thus it happens that the most favoured youths, the socially most competent talents, go into economic life, and the sons of the best families, after their course at the university, step enthusiastically into the business house. One can see merely from ordinary conversation how thoroughly the value of economic usefulness is impressed on the people. They speak in America of industrial movements with as much general interest as one would find manifested in Europe over politics, science, or art. Men who do not themselves anticipate buying or selling securities in the stock market, nevertheless discuss the rise and fall of various industrial and railroad shares as they would discuss Congressional debates; and any new industrial undertaking in a given city fills the citizens with pride, as may be gathered from their chance conversations.

The central point of this whole activity is, therefore, not greed, nor the thought of money, but the spirit of self-initiative. It is not surprising that this has gone through such a lively development. Just as the spirit of self-determination was the product of Colonial days, so the spirit of self-initiative is the necessary outcome of pioneer life. The men who came over to the New World expected to battle with the natural elements; and even where nature had lavished her treasures, these had still to be conquered; the forests must be felled and the marshes drained. Indeed, the very spot to which the economic world comes to-day to celebrate the hundredth anniversary of the Louisiana Purchase, the city of St. Louis, which has to-day 8,000 factories, it must not be forgotten was three generations ago a wilderness.

From the days when the first pioneers journeyed inland from the coast, to the time, over two hundred years later, when the railroad tracks were carried over the Rocky Mountains from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, the history of the nation has been of a long struggle with nature and of hard-earned conquests; and for many years this fight was carried on by men who toiled single-handed, as it were—by thousands of pioneers working all at once, but far apart. The man who could not hold out under protracted labour was lost; but the difficulty of the task spurred on the energies of the strong and developed the spirit of self-initiative to the utmost. It was fortunate that the men who came over to undertake this work had been in a way selected for it: for only those who had resolution had ventured to leave their native hearth-stones. Only the most energetic risked the voyage across the ocean in those times, and this desire to be up and doing found complete satisfaction in the New World; for, as Emerson said: “America is another name for opportunity.”

The heritage of the pioneer days cannot vanish, even under the present changed conditions. This desire to realize one’s self by being economically busied is indeed augmented to-day by many other considerations. Both the political and the social life of the democracy demand equality, and therefore exclude all social classes, and titles, and all honourary political distinctions. Now, such uniformity would, of course, be unendurable in a society which had no real distinctions, and therefore inevitably such distinguishing factors as are not excluded come to be more and more important. A distinction between classes on the basis of property can be met in monarchial countries by a distinction in title and family, and so made at least very much less important than in democratic nations. And thus it necessarily comes about that, where an official differentiation is objected to on principle, wealth is sought as a means to such discrimination. In the United States, however, wealth has this great significance only because it is felt to measure the individual’s successful initiative; and the simple equation between prosperity and real work is more generally recognized by the popular mind than the actual conditions justify. Thus it happens also that the American sets his standard of life high. He wishes in this way to express the fact that he has passed life’s examination well, that he has been enterprising, and has won the respect of those around him. This desire for a high standard of living which springs from the intense economic enthusiasm works back thereon, and greatly stimulates it once more.

One of the first consequences of this spirit of initiative is, that every sort of true labour is naturally respected, and never involves any disesteem. In fact, one sees continually in this country men who go from one kind of labour to another which, according to European ideals, would be thought less honourable. The American is especially willing to take up a secondary occupation besides his regular calling in order to increase his income, and this leads, sometimes, to striking contrasts. Of course there are some limits to this, and social etiquette is not wholly without influence, although the American will seldom admit it. No one is surprised if a preacher gives up the ministry in order to become an editor or official in an industrial organization; but every one is astonished if he becomes agent for an insurance company; amazed if he goes to selling a patent medicine, and would be positively scandalized if he were to buy a beer-saloon.

It is much the same with avocations. If the student in the university tutors other students, it is quite right; if, during the university vacation, he becomes bell-boy in a summer hotel, or during the school year attends to furnaces in order to continue his studies, people are sorry that he has to do this, but still account him perfectly respectable; but if, on the other hand, he turns barber or artist’s model, he is lost, because being a model is passive—it is not doing anything; and cutting hair is a menial service, not compatible with the dignity of the student. And thus it is that the social feeling in the New World practically corrects the theoretical maxims as to the equal dignity of every kind of labour, although, indeed, such maxims are very much more generally recognized than in the Old World. And everywhere the deciding principle of differentiation is the matter of self-initiative.

The broadly manifest social equality of the country, of which we shall have to speak more minutely in another connection, would be actually impossible if this belief in the equivalence of all kinds of work did not rule the national mind. Whether the work brings much or little, or requires much or little preparation, is thought to be unimportant in determining a man’s status; but it is important that his life involves initiative, or that he not merely passively exists.

A people which places industrial initiative so high must be industrious; and, in fact, there is no profounder impression to be had than that the whole population is busily at work, and that all pleasures and everything which presupposes an idle moment are there merely to refresh people and prepare them for more work. In order to be permanently industrious, a man has to learn best how to utilize his powers; and just in this respect the American nation has gone ahead of every other people. Firstly, it is sober. A man who takes liquor in the early part of the day cannot accomplish the greatest amount of work. When the American is working he does not touch alcohol until the end of the day, and this is as true of the millionaire and bank president as of the labourer or conductor. On the other hand, the American workman knows that only a well-nourished body can do the most work, and what the workman saves by not buying beer and brandy he puts into roast beef. It has often been observed, and especially remarked on by German observers, that in spite of his extraordinary tension, the American never overdoes. The working-man in the factory, for example, seldom perspires at his work. This comes from a knowledge of how to work so as in the end to get out of one’s self the greatest possible amount.

Very much the same may be said of the admirable way in which the Americans make the most of their time. Superficial observers have often supposed the American to be always in a hurry, whereas the opposite is the case. The man who has to hurry has badly disposed of his time, and, therefore, has not the necessary amount to finish any one piece of work. The American is never in a hurry, but he so disposes his precious time that nothing shall be lost. He will not wait nor be a moment idle; one thing follows closely after another, and with admirable precision; each task is finished in its turn; appointments are made and kept on the minute; and the result is, that not only no unseemly haste is necessary, but also there is time for everything. It is astonishing how well-known men in political, economic, or intellectual life, who are loaded with a thousand responsibilities and an apparently unreasonable amount of work, have, by dint of the wonderful disposition of their own time and that of their assistants, really enough for everything and even to spare.

Among the many things for which the American has time, by reason of his economical management of it, are even some which seem unnecessary for a busy man. He expends, for example, an extraordinary large fraction of his time in attending to his costume and person, in sport, and in reading newspapers, so that the notion which is current in Europe that the American is not only always in a hurry, but has time for nothing outside of his work, is entirely wrong.