America has no Gladstone, no Salisbury, no Bright. Lincoln, Blaine and Sumner are names which impress me as approximating greatness; they made an impression on American history that will be enduring. Then there are Frye, Reed, Garfield, McKinley, Cleveland, who were little great men, and following them a distinguished company, as Hanna, Conkling, Hay, Hayes, and others, who were superior men of affairs. A distinctly great national figure has not appeared in America since Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, and Rufus Choate—all men too great to become President. It appears to be the fate of the republic not to place its greatest men in the White House, and by this I mean great statesmen. General Grant was a great man, a heroic figure, but not a statesman. Lincoln is considered a great man. He is called the "Liberator"; but I can conceive that none but a very crude mind, inspired by a false sentiment, could have made a horde of slaves, the most ignorant people on the globe, the political equals of the American people. A great man in such a crisis would have resisted popular clamor and have refused them suffrage until they had been prepared to receive it by at least some education. Americans are prone to call their great politicians statesmen. Blaine, Reed, Conkling, Harrison were types of statesmen; Hanna, Quay, and others are politicians.
The Lower House was a disappointment to me. There are too many ordinary men there. They do not look great, and at the present time there is not a really great man in the Lower House. There are too many cheap lawyers and third-rate politicians there. Good business men are required, but such men can not afford to take the position. I heard a great captain of industry, who had been before Congress with a committee, say that he never saw "so many asses together in all his life"; but this was an extreme view. The House may not compare intellectually with the House of Commons, but it contains many bright men. A fool could hardly get in, though the labor unions have placed some vicious representatives there. The lack of manners distressed a lady acquaintance of mine, who, in a burst of indignation at seeing a congressman sitting with his feet on his desk, said that there was not a man in Congress who had any social position in Washington or at home, which, let us trust, is not true.
As I came from the White House some days ago I met a delegation of native Indians going in, a sad sight. In Indian affairs occurs a page of national history which the Americans are not proud of. In less than four hundred years they have almost literally been wiped from the face of the earth; the whites have waged a war of extermination, and the pitiful remnant now left is fast disappearing. In no land has the survival of the fittest found a more remarkable illustration. But the Indians are having their revenge. The Americans long ago brought over Africans as slaves; then, as the result of a war of words and war of fact, suddenly released them all, and, at one fell move, in obedience to the hysterical cries of their people, gave these ignorant semisavages and slaves the same political rights as themselves.
Imagine the condition of things! The most ignorant and debased of races suddenly receives rights and privileges and is made the equal of American citizens. So strange a move was never seen or heard of elsewhere, and the result has been relations more than strained and always increasing between the whites and the blacks in the South. As voters the negroes secure many positions in the South above their old masters. I have seen a negro[2] sitting in the Vice-President's chair in the United States Senate; while white Southern senators were pacing the outer corridors in rage and disgust. There are generally one or more black men in Congress, and they are given a few offices as a sop. With one hand the Americans place millions of them on a plane with themselves as free and independent citizens, and with the other refuse them the privileges of such citizenship. They may enter the army as privates, but any attempt to make them officers is a failure—white officers will not associate with them. It is impossible for a negro to graduate from the Naval Academy, though he has the right to do so. I was told that white sailors would shoot him if placed over them. Several negroes have been appointed as students, but none as yet have been able to pass the examination. Here we see the strange and contradictory nature of the Americans. The white master of the South had the black woman nurse his children. Thousands of mulattoes in the country show that the whites took advantage of the women in other ways, marriage between blacks and whites being prohibited. When it comes to according the blacks recognition as social equals, the people North and South resent even the thought. The negro woman may provide the sustenance of life for the white baby, but I venture to say that any Southern man, or Northern one for that matter, would rather see his daughter die than be married to a negro. So strong is this feeling that I believe in the extreme South if a negro persisted in his addresses to a white woman he would be shot, and no jury or judge could be found to convict the white man.
In the North the negro has certain rights. He can ride in the street-cars, go to the theater, enter restaurants, but I doubt if large hotels would entertain him. In the South every train has its separate cars for negroes; every station its waiting-room for them; even on the street-cars they are divided off by a wire rail or screen, and sit beneath a sign, which advertises this free, independent, but black American voter as being not fit to sit by the side of his political brother. This causes a bitter feeling, and the time is coming when the blacks will revolt. Already criminal attacks upon white women are not uncommon, and a virtual reign of terror exists in some portions of the South, where it is said that white women are never left unprotected; and the negro, if he attacks a white woman, is almost invariably burned alive, with the horrible ghastly features that attend an Indian scalping. The crowd carry off bits of skin, hair, finger-nails, and rope as trophies. In fact, these "burnings" are the most extraordinary features in this "enlightened" country. The papers denounce them and compare the people to ghouls; yet these same people accuse the Chinese of being cruel, barbarous, insensible to cruelty, and "pagans." It is true we have pirates and criminals, but the horrible features of the lynchings in America during the last ten years I believe have no counterpart in the history of China in the last five hundred.
In Washington the servants are blacks; irresponsible, childlike, aping the vanities of the white people. They are "niggers"; the mulattoes, the illegitimate offspring of whites, form another and totally distinct class of colored society, and are the aristocracy. Rarely will a mulatto girl marry a black man, and vice versa. They have their clubs and their functions, their professional men, including lawyers and doctors, as have the white people. They present a strange and singular feature. Despised by their fathers, half-sisters, and brothers, denied any social recognition, hating their black ancestry, they are socially "between the devil and the deep sea." The negro question constitutes the gravest one now before the American people. He is increasing rapidly, but in the years since the civil war no pure-blooded negro has given evidence of brilliant attainments. Frederick Douglas, Senator Bruce, and Booker T. Washington rank with many white Americans in authorship, diplomacy, and scholarship; but Douglas and Bruce were mulattoes, and Booker Washington's father was an unknown white man. These men are held in high esteem, but the social line has been drawn against them, though Douglas married a white woman.
Balls are a feature of life in Washington. The women appear in full dress, which means that the arms and neck are exposed, and the men wear evening dress. The dances are mostly "round." The man takes a lady to the ball, and when he dances seizes her in an embrace which would be considered highly improper under ordinary circumstances, but the etiquette of the dance makes it permissible. He places his right arm around her waist, takes her left hand in his, holds her close to him, and both begin to move around to the special music designed for this peculiar motion, which may be a "waltz," or a "two-step," or a "gallop," or a "schottische," all being different and having different music or time, or there may be various kinds of music for each. At times the music is varied, being a gliding, scooping, swooping slide, indescribable. When the dancers feel the approach of giddiness they reverse the whirl or move backward.
Many Washington men have become famous as dancers, and quite outshadow war heroes. All the officers of the army and navy are taught these dances at the Military and Naval Academies, it being a national policy to be agreeable to ladies; at least this must be so, as the men never dance together. To see several hundred people whirling about, as I have seen them at the inaugural of the President, is one of the most remarkable scenes to be observed in America. The man in Washington who can not dance is a "wallflower"—that is, he never leaves the wall. There is a professional champion who has danced eight out of twenty-four hours without stopping. A yearly convention of dancing-school professors is held. These men, with much dignity, meet in various cities and discuss various dances, how to grasp the partner, and other important questions. Some time ago the question was whether the "gent" should hold a handkerchief in the hand he pressed upon the back of the lady, a professor having testified before the convention that he had seen the imprint of a man's hand on the white dress of a lady. The acumen displayed at these conventions is profound and impressive. Here you observe a singular fact. The good dancer may be an officer of high social standing, but the dancing-teacher, even though he be famous as such, is persona non grata, so far as society is concerned. A professional dancer, fighter, wrestler, cook, musician, and a hundred more are not acceptable in society except in the strict line of their profession; but a professional civil or naval engineer, an organist, an artist, a decorator (household), and an architect are received by the elect in Washington.
I have alluded to the craze for joking among young ladies in society. At a dinner a reigning beauty, and daughter of ——, who sat next to me, talked with me on dancing. She told me all about it, and, pointing to a tall, distinguished-looking man near by, said that he had received his degree of D. D. (Doctor of Dancing) from Harvard University, and was extremely proud of it; and, furthermore, it would please him to have me mention it. I did not enlighten the young lady, and allowed her to continue, that I might enjoy her animation and superb "nerve" (this is the American slang word for her attitude). The gentleman was her uncle, a doctor of divinity, who was constitutionally opposed to dancing; and I learned later that he had a cork leg. Such are some of the pitfalls in Washington set for the pagan Oriental by charming Americans.
Dancing parties, in fact, all functions, are seized upon by young men and women who anticipate marriage as especially favorable occasions for "courtship." The parents apparently have absolutely nothing to do with the affair, this being a free country. The girl "falls in love" with some one, and the courtship begins. In the lower classes the girl is said to be "keeping company" with so and so, or he is "her steady company." In higher circles the admirer is "devoted to the lady." This lasts for a year, perhaps longer, the man monopolizing the young lady's time, calling so many times a week, as the case may be, the familiarity between the two increasing until they finally exchange kisses—a popular greeting in America. About now they become affianced or "engaged," and the man is supposed to ask the consent of the parents. In France the latter is supposed to give a dot; in America it is not thought of. In time the wedding occurs, amid much ceremony, the bride's parents bearing all the expense; the groom is relieving them of a future expense, and is naturally not burdened. The married young people then go upon a "honeymoon," the month succeeding the wedding, and this is long or brief, according to the wealth of the parties. When they return they usually live by themselves, the bride resenting any advice or espionage from her husband's mother, who is the mother-in-law, a relation as much joked about in America as revered in China.