The Americans

by Hugo Münsterberg

Any person who optimistically believes that a problem has only to be discovered in order to be solved, will be sure to develop that intellectual quality which has always characterized the American: the spirit of invention. There is no other country in the world where so much is invented. This is shown not merely in the fact that an enormous number of patents is granted every year, but also where there is nothing to patent, the Yankee exercises his ingenuity every day. From the simplest tool up to the most complicated machine, American invention has improved and perfected, and made the theoretically correct practically serviceable as well. To be sure, the cost of human labour in a thinly settled country has had a great influence on this development; but a special talent also has lain in this direction—a real genius for solving practical problems. Every one knows how much the American has contributed to the perfection of the telegraph, telephone, incandescent light, phonograph and sewing-machine, to watch-making machinery, to the steamboat and locomotive, the printing-press and typewriter, to machinery for mining and engineering, and to all sorts of agricultural and manufacturing devices. Invention and enterprise are seen working together in the fact that every new machine, with all its improvements, goes at once to every part of the country. Every farmer in the farthest West wants the latest agricultural machinery; every artisan adopts the newest improvements; in every office the newest and most approved telegraphic and telephonic appliances are used; in short, every man appropriates the very latest devices to further his own success. Of course, in this way the commercial value of every improvement is greatly increased, and this encourages the inventor to still further productiveness. It so happens that larger sums of money are lavished in perfect good faith in order to solve certain problems than any European could imagine. If an inventor can convince a company that his principle is sound, the company is ready to advance millions of dollars for new experiments until the machine is perfected.

The extraordinarily wide adoption of every invention does not mean that most inventions are made by such men as Edison and Bell and their colleagues. Every factory workman is quite as much concerned to improve the tools which his nation uses, and every artisan at his bench is busy thinking out this or that little change in a process or method; and many of them, after their work, frequent the public libraries in order to work through technical books and the Patent Reports. It is no wonder that an American manufacturer, on hearing that a new machine had been discovered in Europe, conservatively declared that he did not know what the machine was, but knew for sure that America would improve on it.

Only one consequence of the spirit of self-initiative remains to be spoken of—the absolute demand for open competition. In order to exercise initiative, a man must have absolutely free play; and if he believes in the intrinsic value of economic culture, he will be convinced that free play for the development of industrial power is abstractly and entirely right. This does not wholly exclude an artificial protection of certain economic institutions which are weak—as, for instance, the protection of certain industries by means of a high tariff—so long as in every line all men are free to compete with one another. Monopoly is the only thing—because it strangles competition—which offends the instinct of the American; and in this respect American law goes further than a European would expect. One might suppose that, believing as they do in free initiative, Americans would claim the right of making such industrial combinations as they liked. When several parallel railroads, which traverse several states and compete severely with one another, finally make a common agreement to maintain prices, they seem at first sight to be exercising a natural privilege. The traffic which suffers no longer by competition is handled at a less expense by this consolidation, and so the companies themselves and the travelling public are both benefited. But the law of the United States takes a different point of view. The average American is suspicious of a monopoly, even when it is owned by the state or city; he is convinced from the beginning that the service will in some way or other be inferior to what it would be under free competition; and most of all, he dislikes to see any industrial province hedged in so that competitors are no longer free to come in. The reason why the trusts have angered and excited the American to an often exaggerated degree is, that they approach perilously near to being monopolies.

This spirit of self-initiative under free competition exists, of course, not alone in individuals. Towns, cities, counties, and states evince collectively just the same attitude; the same optimism and spirit of invention and initiative, and the same pioneer courage, inspire the collective will of city and state. Especially in the West, various cities and communities do things in a sportsmanlike way. It is as if one city or state were playing foot-ball against another, and exerting every effort to win: and here once more there is no petty jealousy. It was from such an optimistic spirit of enterprise, certainly, that the city of St. Louis resolved to invite all the world to its exposition, and that the State of Missouri gave its enthusiastic approval and support to its capital city. The sums to be laid out on such bold undertakings are put at a generous figure, and no one asks anxiously whether he is ready or able to undertake such a thing, but he is fascinated by the thought that such an industrial festival around the cascades of Forest Park, near the City of St. Louis, will stimulate the whole industrial life of the Mississippi Valley. One already sees that Missouri is disposed to become a Pennsylvania of the West, and to develop her rich resources into a great industry.

We must not suppose, in all this, that such a spirit of initiative involves no risk, or that no disadvantages follow into the bargain. It may be easily predicted that, just by reason of the energy which is so intrinsic to it, self-initiative will sometime overstep the bounds of peace and harmony. Initiative will become recklessness, carelessness of nature, carelessness of one’s neighbour, and, finally, carelessness of one’s self.

A reckless treatment of nature has, in fact, characterized the American pioneer from the first. The wealth of nature has seemed so inexhaustible, that the pioneers found it natural to draw on their principal instead of living on their income. Everywhere they used only the best which they found; they cut down the finest forests first, and sawed up only the best parts of the best logs. The rest was wasted. The farmers tilled only the best soil, and nature was dismantled and depleted in a way which a European, who is accustomed to precaution, finds positively sinful. And the time is now passed when this can go on safely. Good, arable land can nowhere be had for nothing to-day; the cutting down of huge forests has already had a bad effect on the rainfall and water supply, and many efforts are now being made to atone for the sins of the past by protecting and replanting. Intensive methods are being introduced in agriculture; but the work of thoughtful minds meets with a good deal of resistance in the recklessness of the masses, who, so far as nature is in question, think very little of their children’s children, but are greedy for instant profits.

The man, moreover, who ardently desires to play an important part in industry is easily tempted to be indifferent of his fellows. We have shown that an American is not jealous or distrustful of them, that he gives and expects frankness, and that he respects their rights. But when he once begins to play, he wants to win at any cost; and then, so long as he observes the rules of the game, he considers nothing else; he has no pity, and will never let his undertaking be interfered with by sentimental reasons. There is no doubt at all that the largest American industrial enterprises have ruined many promising lives; no doubt that the very men who give freely to public ends have driven their chariots over many industrial corpses. The American, who is so incomparably good-natured, amiable, obliging, and high-minded, admits himself that he is sharp in trade, and that the American industrial spirit requires a sort of military discipline and must be brutal. If the captain of industry were anxiously considerate of persons’ feelings, he would never have achieved industrial success any more than a compassionate and tearful army would win a victory.

But the American is harder on himself than on any one else. We have shown how, in his work, he conserves his powers and utilizes them economically; but he sets no bounds to the intellectual strain, the intensity of his nervous activities, and only too often he ruins his health in the too great strain which brings his success. The bodies of thousands have fertilized the soil for this great industrial tree—men who have exhausted their power in their exaggerated commercial ambitions. The real secret of American success is that, more than any other country in the world, she works with the young men and uses them up. Young men are in all the important positions where high intellectual tension is required.

In other directions, too, the valuable spirit of self-initiative shows great weaknesses and dangers. The confidence which the American gives his neighbour in business often comes to be inexcusable carelessness. In reading the exposures made of the Ship-Building Trust, one sees how, without a dishonest intent, crimes can actually be committed merely through thoughtless confidence. One sees that each one of the great capitalists here involved relied on the other, while no one really investigated for himself.

There is another evil arising from the same intense activity, although, to be sure, it is more a matter of the past than of the future. This is the vulgar display of wealth. When economic usefulness is the main ambition, and the only measure of success is the money which is won, it is natural that under more or less primitive social conditions every one should wish to attest his merits by displaying wealth. Large diamonds have then much the same function as titles and orders; they are the symbols of successful endeavour. In its vulgar form all such display is now virtually relegated to undeveloped sections of the country. In the parts where culture is older, where wealth is in its second or third generation, every one knows that his property is more useful in the bank than on his person.