There is another very important sphere of morality in which the general attitude of the United States seems to me very appreciably superior to that of England. It is that to which St. Paul refers when he says, "If a man will not work, neither shall he eat." American public sentiment is distinctly ahead of ours in recognising that a life of idleness is wrong in itself, and that the possibility of leading such a life acts most prejudicially on character. The American answer to the Englishman trying to define what he meant by "gentlemen of leisure" "Ah, we call them tramps in America"—is not merely a jest, but enshrines a deep ethnical and ethical principle. Most Americans would, I think, agree strongly with Mr. Bosanquet's philosophical if somewhat cumbersomely worded definition of legitimate private property, "that things should not come miraculously and be unaffected by your dealings with them, but that you should be in contact with something which in the external world is the definite material representative of yourself" ("Aspects of the Social Problem," p. 313). The British gentleman, aware that his dinner does not agree with him unless he has put forth a certain amount of physical energy, reverts to one of the earliest and most primitive forms of work, viz., hunting. There is a small—a very small—class in the United States in the same predicament; but as a rule the worker there is not only more honoured, but also works more in accordance with the spirit of the age.
The general attitude of Americans towards militarism seems to me also superior to ours; and one of the keenest dreads of the best American citizens during a recent wave of jingoism was that of "the reflex influence of militarism upon the national character, the transformation of a peace-loving people into a nation of swaggerers ever ready to take offence, prone to create difficulties, eager to shed blood, and taking all sorts of occasions to bring the Christian religion to shame under pretence of vindicating the rights of humanity in some other country." The spectacle of a section in the United States apparently ready to step down from its pedestal of honourable neutrality, and run its head into the ignoble web of European complications, was indeed one to make both gods and mortals weep. But I do not believe it expressed the true attitude of the real American people. Perhaps the personal element enters too largely into my ascription of superior morality to the Americans in this matter, because I can never thoroughly enjoy a military pageant, no matter how brilliant, for thinking of the brutal, animal, inhuman element in our nature of which it is, after all, the expression: military pomp is to me merely the surface iridescence of a malarious pool, and the honour paid to our life destroyers would, from my point of view, be infinitely better bestowed on life preservers, such as the noble and intrepid corps of firemen. Sympathisers with this view seem much more numerous in the United States than in England.[11]
The judgment of an uncommercial traveller on commercial morality may well be held as a feather-weight in the balance. Such as mine is, it is gathered mainly from the tone of casual conversation, from which I should conclude that a considerable proportion of Americans read a well-known proverb as "All's fair in love or business." Men—I will not say of a high character and standing, but men of a standing and character who would not have done it in England—told me instances of their sharp practices in business, with an evident expectation of my admiration for their shrewdness, and with no apparent sense of the slightest moral delinquency. Possibly, when the "rules of the game" are universally understood, there is less moral obliquity in taking advantage of them than an outsider imagines. The prevalent belief that America is more sedulous in the worship of the Golden Calf than any other country arises largely, I believe, from the fact that the chances of acquiring wealth are more frequent and easy there than elsewhere. Opportunity makes the thief. Anyhow, the reproach comes with a bad grace from the natives of a country which has in its annals the outbreak of the South Sea Bubble, the railway mania of the Hudson era, and the revelations of Mr. Hooley.
Politics enter so slightly into the scope of this book that a very few words on the question of political morality must suffice. That political corruption exists more commonly in the United States than in Great Britain—especially in municipal government—may be taken as admitted by the most eminent American publicists themselves. A very limited degree of intercourse with "professional politicians" yields ample confirmatory evidence. Thus, to give but one instance, a wealthy citizen of one of the largest Eastern towns told me, with absolute ingenuousness, how he had "dished" the (say) Republican party in a municipal contest, not in the least because he had changed his political sympathies, but simply because the candidates had refused to accede to certain personal demands of his own. He spoke throughout the conversation as if it must be perfectly apparent to me, as to any intelligent person, that the only possible reason for working and voting for a political party must be personal interest. I confess this seemed to me a very significant straw. On the other hand the conclusions usually drawn by stay-at-home English people on these admissions is ludicrously in excess of what is warranted by the facts. "To imagine for a moment that 60,000,000 of people—better educated than any other nation in the world—are openly tolerating universal corruption in all Federal, State, and municipal government is simply assuming that these 60,000,000 are either criminals or fools." Now, "you can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time." A more competent judge[12] than the present writer estimates the morals of the American political "wire-puller" as about on a level with those of our company directors. And before my English readers make their final decision on the American political system let them study Chapter XLVI. of that very fascinating novel, "The Honorable Peter Stirling," by Paul Leicester Ford. It may give them some new light on the subject of "a government of the average," and show them what is meant by the saying, "The boss who does the most things that the people want can do the most things that the people don't want."
We must remember, too, that nothing is hidden from general knowledge in America: every job comes sooner or later into the merciless glare of publicity. And if our political sins are not the same as theirs, they are perhaps equally heinous. Was not the British landlord who voted against the repeal of the corn laws, so that land might continue to bring in a high rent at the expense of the poor man, really acting from just as corrupt a motive of self-interest as the American legislator who accepts a bribe? It does not do to be too superior on this question.
We may end this chapter by a typical instance of the way in which British opinion of America is apt to be formed that comes under my notice at the very moment I write these lines. The Daily Chronicle of March 24, 1896, published a leading article on "Family Life in America," in which it quotes with approval Mme. Blanc's assertion that "the single woman in the United States is infinitely superior to her European sister." In the same issue of the paper is a letter from Mrs. Fawcett relating to a recent very deplorable occurrence in Washington, where the daughter of a well-known resident shot a coloured boy who was robbing her father's orchard. In the Chronicle of March 25th appears a triumphant British letter from "Old-Fashioned," asking satirically whether the habit of using loaded revolvers is a proof of the "infinite superiority" of the American girl. Now this estimable gentleman is making the mistake that nine out of ten of his countrymen constantly make in swooping down on a single outré instance as characteristic of American life. If "Old-Fashioned" has not time to pay a visit to America or to read Mr. Bryce's book, let him at least accept my assurance that the above-mentioned incident seems to the full as extraordinary to the Bostonian as to the Londoner, and that it is just as typical of the habits of the American society girl as the action of Miss Madeleine Smith was of English girls.
"Of all the sarse thet I can call to mind,
England doos make the most onpleasant kind.
It's you're the sinner ollers, she's the saint;
Whot's good's all English, all thet isn't, ain't.
She is all thet's honest, honnable, an' fair.
An' when the vartoos died they made her heir."
FOOTNOTES:
[9] See, e.g., "Ad Familiares," 5, 18.
[10] This was written just after President Cleveland's pronunciamento in regard to Venezuela, and thus long before the outbreak of the war with Spain.