I went to see the Woolworth Building, and I found it something new. It was beautiful. It was even awe-inspiring.
In the evening I asked an American literary man whom I met at a club what he thought was the raison d'être of the Woolworth; was it not simply the desire to build higher than all other houses—the wish to make a distinct commercial hit?
He "put me wise."
"First of all," said he, "New York is built on the little island of Manhattan. The island is all built over, and so, as we cannot expand outward we've got to build upward. Ground rent, too, has become so high that we must build high for economy's sake."
I remarked on the number of men who lost their lives in the building of sky-scrapers. "For every minute of the day there was a man injured in some town or other of the United States," so I had read in an evening paper.
He said the Americans were playing large, and must expect to lose a few men in the game. He expected the America of the future would justify all sacrifices made just now, and he gave me in the course of a long talk his view of the passion of America.
"The Woolworth Building is only an inadequate symbol of our faith," said he. "You British and the Germans and French are working on a different principle, you are playing the small game, and playing it well. You stake your efficiency on the perfection of details. In the German life, for instance, nothing is too small to be thought unmeriting of attention."
I told him the watchword of the old chess champion Steinitz, "I do not vant to vin a pawn; it is enough if I only veakens a pawn."
"You play chess?" said he, laughing. "That's it exactly. He did not care to sacrifice pieces; he was entirely on the defensive in his chess, eh? And in life he would be the same, hoarding his pennies and his dollars, and economising and saving. That's just how the American is different. He doesn't mind taking great risks; he is playing the large game, sacrificing small things, hurrying on, building, destroying, building again, conquering, dreaming. We are always selling out and re-investing. You are concentrating on yourselves as you are; we want to leave our old bodies and conditions behind and jump to a new humanity. If an American youth could inherit the whole world he would not care to improve it if he saw a chance of selling it to some one and getting something better."
"The spirit of business," I suggested.