THE GERMANISATION OF AMERICA.
Those who know any part of America, or have even a small acquaintance with Americans, will not have been surprised at the list of names published in the daily papers of the persons who were arrested as the authors of the late disturbance at Chicago. With perhaps one exception, there is not an English name among them; they are all foreign, and to the true American public, must bring home in full force the certain operation of a process hitherto only half apparent—that their country is fast passing through a period of incubation, which, if allowed to continue, will end in the development of a new Germanism, destroying the individuality of the Anglo-Saxon, and flooding the land with theories for the relief of an Old World discontent.
Before steamships and railways had made travel a matter of comparative ease, it was customary to laugh at the peculiarities of our American cousins, in the belief they were the result of the natural growth of transatlantic life; but a wider knowledge of the continent has brought to light the indisputable fact that they are to a very considerable extent the habits and customs of the lower middle class of Germany. The true American, taking into consideration difference of thought, is as much a gentleman, from the English point of view, as the Englishman himself. If there is anything which characterises an Englishman, as distinct from the rest of his species, it is his sensitiveness on the point of similarity to his kind, and his willingness in carrying this out, to submit himself to personal inconvenience, rather than allow any singularity to appear. Where this comes in, the American does not bow to the same strict conventional rule, his constant activity and the dissimilitude of life having of necessity forced him to take circumstances into account. Laying aside the distinction, however, and it is one which does not always intrude itself, making allowance also for a greater conservatism which has retained old English customs and expressions, where is the line to be drawn in cultivated circles between an Englishman and an American? If, also, we look into the great upper middle classes of the two countries, who will grant that the dead level of uniformity in England is more attractive in its outward than its inward form; and who will doubt that for the pleasure of intercourse, the advantage is wholly on the side of America both as regards originality of thought and freedom from restraint?
The juvenile republican of Europe, panting on the outskirts of exclusivism, makes a great mistake when he imagines America is free from ‘class’ prejudice. Let him emigrate to a house on the wrong side of Boston, and we can promise he will have leisure during the remainder of his life to calculate the difference in degree between the descendants of those whose patent of nobility bears the date of the Mayflower and the representatives in the Old World of Norman blood. In the present day, we take it for granted the society of every country is willing to welcome the man of genius or money who is, besides, a gentleman, and does not run his head against established facts. Be that as it may, there is one thing certain—the old idea of Americans, considered typical of the race, and still lingering in some quarters, is entirely an error.
Let us look at a few of the supposed characteristics of our ‘cousins’—one and all taken from the travelling citizen of other days, but who latterly has faded into the background before the true American, and is only now to be seen in second-class hotels or lodgings. Does he ask interminable questions with the curiosity of an inquisitor, till nothing remains but a point-blank demand to know the amount of your income? If so, engage rooms in a German pension, and relate your experiences after a three days’ stay. Does he worry you to death with a skilful display of the knife-trick? Go to a German pastry-cook’s and watch the same performance at four o’clock in the afternoon by a well-dressed young lady on a solid pie. Does he smoke everywhere and spit freely? Enter a Paris tramway car or a second-class German railway carriage, and you will learn that Uncle Sam has not the monopoly of expectorating power. Does his square-cut coat hang upon him like a sack? Does he wear shirt fronts and glazed cuffs, long boots with high heels, and a hat whose style has originated in his inner bosom? If you have observed these things, go to any small German town and see their prototypes. Does he destroy his digestion by drinking iced water as he sits down to dinner? Does he eat a heavy meal in the middle of the day and hurry off as if the table were let? Does he brag like a schoolboy and believe that existence centres in himself? If he does, make the acquaintance of the first German at the nearest watering-place. Does he, in his native town, when aspiring to a higher place in the respect of the citizens, turn himself quite inside out in the effort to be agreeable? Does he take his hat off to the man of distinction with a wide wave, forgetful of his own dignity, eyeing him with suppressed jealousy, and when he dares, endeavouring to patronise, as a means of recommending himself to notice, the realisation of ich empfehl’ mich which is shot out occasionally, more especially in Austria? If so, study the German character in the lower middle class. Is this class, however, making all allowance for humanity, morally sound, and is it the same in the United States? We answer unhesitatingly, ‘Yes;’ though perhaps in Europe it ought to be limited to Northern Germany. We would also affirm that the men in both countries are intellectually decidedly above their customs or their manners; while the women ripen early, and have a natural vivacity added to good appearance, which supplies the want of a corresponding culture.
It would be easy to multiply questions proving the origin of supposed Americanisms; and indeed, the better classes are more tinged with continental ways than they might care to admit, as, for instance, the ‘Pap-a’ and ‘Mam-ma’ of well-born babies; or the Mrs Colonel and Mrs Dr So-and-so, like the Frau Pastor or Frau Doctor of Germany; but we have only desired to show how the foundation has been almost unconsciously laid for the naturalisation of European customs, and, as a consequence, of thought also, so that what is called American is really German. These ideas have been carried to America, of course, by the tide of emigration; and as the population grew out of the emigrants of all nations, native manners were partially lost by the lower orders.
That America should be more Germanised than Irishised or Frenchified, is a tribute to the higher qualities of the Teuton; and that a certain class of Americans could become so transformed from its original type, only tells how completely it has been absorbed, and how far away it already is from the Anglo-Saxon race. That this is a matter of grief to all true Americans, is well known; and it is always said, whenever a case comes up, the man in question is a ‘German American.’ The tenacity of the Teuton has preserved his individuality under foreign conditions, and he now forms a distinctly powerful element in the country, lives the same way as if he were in Germany, thinks the same thoughts, and clings to his language. The American, true to trade instincts, has studied his wants and ministered to them, as, for example, in the consumption of Rio coffee, so that in a way he is responsible for the fostering of nationalities. Societies, too, representing these, formed on philanthropic grounds, everywhere exist; and though the man may call himself American, he is in reality partly Irish, Swiss, or Dutch.
There is, therefore, a hard task before the American people—the necessity to weld into an harmonious whole European elements with long histories of animosity to each other, at all times more or less active, possessing Old World grievances that are inoperative in the United States, and bent upon maintaining their own ideas under the shelter of a common home. That measures will be taken to suppress the disturbances of divers nationalities whenever they occur against the American people, there is no doubt; but it is rather hard upon a new country to have to submit up to fighting-point to the airing of doctrines which do not affect it, and that might create artificial grievances causing endless trouble. In the attempt to banish national distinctions, to develop the Anglo-Saxon race, America has a firm friend here; and just as her truest sons, when desirous of looking beyond themselves, turn for their inspirations to the genius of the British people, so do we in return take a leaf from that chapter of events in the progress of humanity which it seems to be the mission of Americans to arrange.