Part 10

That night as we were leaving the city a delegation met us at the station to complete their Oriental hospitality by presenting us with beautiful and valuable souvenirs.

After such brief and friendly relationships with these people it is easy to come to very one-sided conclusions about the problem they present to the people of California. The situation is serious, but not so serious that, in order to try to meet it, we must cease to be gentlemanly in our relation to them.

It is the peculiarity of all people who face race problems, to face them irrationally and to think that in order to maintain racial dignity one must insult, demean, and humble other races; and the people of the United States in general, and those of the Pacific Coast in particular, have not yet learned a better and more rational way.

Strong race prejudice is not necessarily a sign of race superiority, and the people who constantly proclaim their superiority by humiliating and persecuting others have a hard time proving it.

If what I was frequently told is true, that California "wants no immigrants unless they are something between a mule and a man," then I can understand their animosity towards the Japanese; for they are altogether human and want to be so treated.

Beside the many racial varieties with which we came in contact on the Pacific Coast, we found there all the types produced in the United States, and while neither the Herr Director nor myself was able to differentiate them by external variation, we discovered them by different and contending ideals. From that standpoint they were even more interesting than the Orientals. Every shade of political and religious opinion, every kind of economic doctrine, every variety of social standards we found, besides currents and cross currents not easily discerned or classified. In spite of the difference in race, class, religion and politics, we found three well defined ideas expressed, upon which there is such an agreement that they might be called the California Confession of Faith.

First and foremost is the belief in the climate and the resources of the state. There is no religious doctrine in existence unless it be the monotheism of the Jews, which is so dogmatically held as this faith, that California is unsurpassed in climate, productiveness, in all those opportunities for a leisurely existence (provided you have worked hard elsewhere to get the necessary money) as are offered by its mountains and sea, its luxuriant homes and all other factors which contribute to the health and happiness of mankind. The only possible rival to California is Heaven itself, and just because in these unbelieving and unregenerate days so many people are not sure that there is such a place, or if there is, are in doubt that they will have a mansion reserved for them, they are leaving the farms and towns of the more mundane Middle West and prosperous East to get a taste of Heaven in California before they go to that "bourne from which no" wanderer has returned.

The people of California forgive any heresy or unbelief except a doubt, however faint, about its climate and resources. From the shadow of Mount Shasta to the deepest depth of the Imperial Valley, whether we were so cold in summer as to need furs, or were hot enough to melt, or were choking from dust when we travelled through miles of unredeemed desert, we found this faith in the climate and resources of California unshaken.

The Herr Director asked why there were so many cemeteries in the midst of the most crowded streets, and only a nearer look convinced him that they were "for sale" signs of rival real estate agents, who flourish equally with the sage-brush and cactus.

The second idea upon which there is a common agreement is, that while California in particular is perfect as to climate and resources, the world in general is a dire place, and its wrongs need to be righted.

In spite of the fact that the climate invites to leisure, it has not as yet tamed the fighting spirit of this fine, manly race, which is never so happy as when it has something to do and dare. This state has admitted women to the duties of citizenship, that all may have an equal share in the fight. The issues at stake are worth battling for, and nowhere else is the struggle more intense and dramatic. Organized labor and capital have crippled each other in the desperate conflict, fierce always, and often brutal. Protestantism, unorganized and frequently inefficient, faces the Roman Catholic hierarchy, defending, as it believes, the public schools and democratic government itself: awakening, purified democracy is in deadly conflict with the demagogue entrenched by special privilege while the prohibitionists are engaged in most desperate conflict with the vinous industry of the state.

The third doctrine of the California Confession of Faith is, that here on the Pacific Coast the white race has been providentially placed to defend this country against the encroachment of the "Yellow Peril." It was illuminating though painful to find that race prejudice is as intense here as in the South, and as unreasoning, and that one is as helpless against it as against a flood or fire. All one seems to be able to do is to accept it as a fact, and treat it like a contagious disease.

If there is any danger to the white race at the Pacific Coast, it is not the presence of the Japanese or Chinese in limited numbers; it is the attitude of mind which has been created among Americans there, and that may bring its own vengeance.

It was a great joy to introduce my guests to California, its orange groves and vineyards, its marvellous cities and palatial homes. It is a state to glory in; but strange to say I was somewhat depressed when I left it. The Herr Director said he missed my "brag and bluster."

Everything was beautiful and bountiful, even as the real estate agents have advertised; yet there were some things I found and some things I missed which took the "brag and bluster" out of me.

Its pioneer spirit is weakened by the accession of a large, leisure class, and how or where the next generation will find a grappling place for vigor of body, mind and spirit, is still a great question. To eat one's bread by the sweat of some ancestor's brow, to be challenged daily by the luxury of a limousine rather than by the hardships of the prairie schooner, to have as the end and aim of one's day the winning of a Polo match, or the making of a golf score, must ultimately bring about a decadence of spirit, even though one retains for a while litheness of body and activity of mind.

The boasted democracy of California is threatened, not only by the presence of a large leisure class and the necessary serving if not servant class, but also by a lack of faith in humanity, without which no democracy is safe and enduring. To California has been transferred all that unfaith gendered by the advent of the negro, and if there were ever a chance to revive the institution of slavery, that state might offer some hope for its revival.

The Californians who fear for the white race because of the presence of the Oriental, whom that fear has made vain, boastful, ungenerous and reckless of the feelings of others, need to know that a greater danger threatens the race--the decay of the democratic spirit, which languishes and perishes unless it permits to all men free access to the best it holds, regardless of "race, color, or previous condition of servitude."

Because I had lost my "brag and bluster" and wished to recover them, I took my guests, who were now homeward bound, to the one place which might fitly crown their experiences--the Grand Canyon, where one is apt to forget humanity and its fretting problems.

I must confess that by this time I was quite worn out; for introducing your country to a stranger is wearing business, especially when you are dealing with _blasé_ globe-trotters, who have done all the big things, from the Alps to the Dead Sea, and have had to crowd into a brief month the best which lies between New York and California. To do this with a lover's adulation, endeavoring more or less skillfully to hide defects and make the bright spots brighter still, may well tax one's nerves.

I acted as a sort of shock absorber, for I determined that the journey should be a joltless one for my guests; but in that I partially failed; for not only did I receive the shocks myself, I could not keep them from receiving some.

One of the worst of these jolts I suffered at the Grand Canyon of the Colorado. I was very sure of the Canyon itself; I knew it would put a thrill into the Herr Director, and force an expression of it out of him. I never worried about the Frau Directorin. We reached the Canyon in that happy mood gendered by a combination of Harvey meals and Pullman berths, and the sight of the friendly inn at the brink of the big surprise, and the cheer of the big log fire in the raftered room drew an involuntary exclamation of pleasure from the Herr Director. He registered, then asked the clerk for a room fronting the Canyon.

"Yes siree!" said the obliging young man as he attached a number to the Herr Director's long and illegible signature; "I'll give you a room so near that you can spit right into it."

Naturally I received the first shock; a minute later it communicated itself to the Herr Director. It did not reach the Frau Directorin, for her English fortunately was still limited; she kept on looking at the bright Navajo rugs, while the clerk smiled at his own smartness. The Herr Director commanded to have his bags taken to his room, and turning from the desk said: "Young man, I am a German, and I want you to understand that we do not spit in God's face."

The next morning the great Canyon was full of mist, and only faint outlines of its titanic architecture were visible. As we stood at the edge of the wondrous chasm, watching the last cloud being driven from the depths as the moisture was absorbed by the dry, desert air, the Frau Directorin was shaken by emotion as she gasped at intervals: "_Um Gottes Himmels Willen!_" The Herr Director, his feelings better controlled, said nothing; but after a long silence, muttered under his breath: "I should like to throw that clerk down this abyss as a penalty for his desecrating thought."

Every few minutes I heard him saying, as he shook his head: "Just think of it! Just think of it!"

I did not disturb him or ask him what he thought of it for I knew he could not tell, nor can any one. I think he felt as I felt, that all the cities he had seen were as nothing compared with this wonder of nature; that all the pillared post-offices and libraries which our cunning hands have scattered over this broad land are trifling toys compared with this templed miracle; that all our dreams of what we might paint or fashion or carve, or build, are child's play compared with this, and that we ourselves are mere nothings in the presence of what God hath wrought here in stone and clay, in color and form.

Never before had I so wished that I could rearrange the geography of the United States as when we turned eastward from the Grand Canyon. If I had the power of Him who shaped this earth I would have put it within a mile of the Atlantic Ocean and within a stone's throw of the Hoboken dock, and having shown my guests the Canyon, I would have put them on board their home-bound steamer, and as they sailed away I would have cried out with ancient Simeon: "Now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace!"

XIII

_The Grinnell Spirit_

Between the Grand Canyon and the ship there might be "many a slip," especially as I was to conclude my guardianship of the travellers in my own town, prosaically placed in the great Mississippi Valley, which consists of two plains--one at the top and the other at the bottom, filled with corn and hogs, and most prosperous and contented people.

The place towards which we journeyed holds two things which are the biggest, most beautiful, and best things in the world--my home and my work, both of which my guests wished to see. I was anxious that they should; for there, if anywhere, they could come close to that I gloried in most, the American Spirit.

After the barren plains, the monotonous miles of sage-brush, and the long, straight stretches of railroad tracks, it was good to look upon green meadows and commodious farmhouses sheltered by groves of maple and elm, and surrounded by great fields of young corn just peeping above the black, rich clods.

During the last few hours of the trip the Herr Director thought every station at which the train stopped was our destination, and began gathering his various belongings. When finally we reached it he jumped out almost before the train stopped, so eager was he to see the place where he was to spend at least a fortnight, and really see the American home from the inside.

Again fortune favored me. It was early June. The air was soft from recent rains, the grassy lawns were wonderfully green; peonies were opening their buds, adding touches of color, snowballs hung thick upon the bushes, and blooming roses filled the air with sweet odors.

It seemed as if our neighbors had conspired to make the town ready for my distinguished visitors, and I could see that they enjoyed the peace of it, the friendliness of the park-like streets, the sight of well-kept homes set in gardens, and the cordial greetings of the people we met.

Their appreciation of all they saw before reaching the house, and their evident delight in the rooms prepared for them, not to mention their astonishment at finding their trunks awaiting them there, afforded me not only pleasure, but a great sense of relief; I felt that the race was won. I had faith to believe that they would be happy in our town of six thousand inhabitants, which is not unlike other places of the same size. It has its public park, two or three shopping streets, churches, schoolhouses, a few factories large and small, clubs, lodges, and all the things of which like towns may legitimately boast; yet it has a background peculiarly its own.

It was founded by an intrepid pioneer who brought a colony of New Englanders from the hills of Massachusetts to this treeless prairie, and with the imperious will of his race said: "Let there be a town!" And lumber was carted over miles of deep mud, cabins were built and there was a town.

And again he said: "Let there be a railroad!" And he diverted the course of a great railroad system miles out of its way, and there was a railroad.

And he said: "There must be no saloon in this place!" So more than half a century before strong drink was acknowledged to be a social and physical foe, he had seen its true nature and put prohibition into every deed of real estate, thus making it impossible for liquor to gain a foothold.

Years passed and he said: "Let there be a college!" and he brought one across the state, and there was a college; a young, infant thing just started by Christian missionaries who had come from the East, each of them to plant a church, all of them to plant a college.

This infant educational institution was put into its rude cradle in the midst of an unshaded campus, and when it had grown to generous size, with buildings to house it and trees to shade it, a cyclone swept the campus bare, and instead of a joyous Commencement, which was but a few days distant, there were funerals and desolation, wreck and ruin.

On a pile of débris sat the same pioneer with a determined smile playing upon his face, and at once, while the tears upon the mourners' cheeks were still wet, he and others like him began rebuilding the town and the college.

Those men now "rest from their labor" in that bit of rolling prairie saved from the plowmen and the harvester, and consecrated to hold our dead until the great day.

The morning after our arrival in Grinnell, the Herr Director and the Frau Directorin, who, during our travels, had little opportunity to indulge their fondness for exercise, walked out to the cemetery. It is a beautiful, well-kept spot, but half spoiled by crowding headstones. From it can be seen church steeples peeping through the elm trees which shelter the town; the ugly stand-pipe and the tall chimney of our one big factory. At our feet lay the little artificial lake where much fishing is done, and sometimes fish are caught. As far as we could see were prosperous farms with their comfortable homes, generous barns, turreted silos, and wide meadows where calves and colts grazed.

One of our virtues, the Herr Director thought, was that we do not boast about our dead. Whatever boasting we do, and we do not boast too much, it ceases when the earth covers us. He saw no fulsome eulogies carved upon the headstones; often nothing but a name and the two dates of birth and death.

In the face of that great and last achievement we are very humble and honest; although in our little cemetery lie buried men and women of whom I should like to boast. They were the great, real Americans who worked diligently, honestly and humbly, who left no huge fortunes to curse the next generation; but built their modest homes, and before the roof tree was lifted, had built a church and a schoolhouse. They put their tithes into the Lord's treasury before they put money into a bank, and while they were still wading through mud, anchored the college upon a rock, making its growth and permanence their great extravagance.

They believed in an austere Christ, but believed in Him implicitly, followed Him consistently and left a legacy of simplicity, temperance and frugality.

Yes, I boasted of our dead to my guests. I boasted of that grim, fighting man whose name the town bears, who was the personification of the determined, American pioneer, the conqueror of mere circumstances.

I boasted of that firm, unyielding, controversial Calvinist, George F. Magoun, who ruled the college in his own stern way. He was the last, but not the least of his kind, who built deep and strong and straight upon the foundations of morality and religion; so that others could build loftily and boldly.

I led them to the grave where rests the body of his successor, the two differing from one another in opinions and method at every point; for the younger man was the forerunner of a new dispensation, its prophet, disciple and martyr. Yet both men were made of the same stern, unyielding stuff, and both rested their lives and the hope of life's better things to come, upon the same foundation.

When the names of those Americans who prophesied the day of the Kingdom, who worked for it and suffered for it, shall be placed upon the honor roll, the name of George A. Gates, now carved upon a modest monument, will be found imperishably written there.

Near by, under the shade of slender white birches, we saw the simple shaft which marks the resting place of one of the Iowa Band, James J. Hill, who holds his place in the annals of the college, not only because he gave the first dollar to help found it, but because of the continued loyalty of his sons.

I wished my guests could have come to us before we buried the man whose life spanned the old and the new--the white-haired, ever youthful, eloquent teacher, Leonard F. Parker, who smiled benignly upon us all until his eyes closed forever, and with their closing, a benediction was gone. He was the type of missionary teacher who began his career in a log cabin, who, whether he taught in a country school or in a great State University, taught with a passion for men. The impress of his personality remained with his pupils long after they had forgotten his erudite lore.

As great as these great Americans were their wives, and no one can ever think of them as less than the equals of their husbands.

If the American woman occupies a unique place in the world, it is not only because the American man has been more generous than his European brother, but because she has proved her equality. She has attained the measure of rights and privileges still denied to most of her sisters elsewhere because she earned and deserved them.

We, the living, sons and daughters of these great teachers by birth and by adoption, cannot hold in too high esteem the legacy they left us. We do not know with as firm an assurance as we ought to know, how much we owe to them, and that, if we waste our inheritance, we waste spiritual forces which we cannot generate.

They were all, in the true sense, provincial, narrow men. They thought of America and of the world and of the world to come, in the terms of their creed, their town and their college; while we who have circled the globe and think in world terms first, and boast of wider vision and larger faith, may be in danger of overlooking the fact that in our small place and places like it may be decided the fate of America, and through America, the fate of the world.

The Herr Director was astonished and the Frau Directorin pained to find that we lived in a servantless house and in practically a servantless town; that we were our own cooks and housemaids, butlers and gardeners. When the Herr Director saw me mowing my lawn in broad daylight he wondered that I did not lose caste among my fellows.

The Frau Directorin was remarkably adaptable. She delighted in wielding the dustless mop (to reduce "the meat"), she dusted the bric-à-brac, and out of the kindness of her heart and in spite of our protests, became "first aid" to my wife.

One morning, just as I was waking, I heard the rattle of a lawn-mower under my window; not the quick, sharp, sustained noise which usually arouses the neighborhood, but a slow, measured sound, by fits and starts. In between I could hear puffing and panting, like that of a small steam engine. When I looked out of the window I saw something which my eyes could not believe. The Herr Director had begun mowing the lawn, and I let him finish it. It pretty nearly finished him; but after his bath and a generous American breakfast, he glowed from health and happiness.

"I never knew," he said, "the elevating power of physical labor. I think I will take a lawn-mower home with me."

The Frau Directorin put a damper upon his enthusiasm by reminding him that he would have to take a lawn home with him too, and more than that, the town itself; for in their environment he would not dare use the lawn-mower even if he had one.

I am quite sure now that the Herr Director would have liked to take my little town home with him, with the lawn-mower and the lawn. If he could have done so, he might have changed the course of empires.

I urged him, if he really wished to annex us, to do it soon; for there is no little danger that we, too, shall lose faith in the redemptive power of labor, the sufficiency of little things, the grandeur of plain living and high thinking, the exaltation of the humble, the inheritance for the meek and the reward of the righteous. When we lose those, we have lost that which, in our proud, provincial way, we call "The Grinnell Spirit"--an integral part of the American--the World-spirit.

XIV

_The Commencement and The End_

There are some aspects of our American life which I tried to hide from my guests. I kept as many of our national family skeletons as possible in their closets, and made sure that the doors were securely locked.