CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

_Aristocratic Tendencies_

In the caricatures of the American which are so gladly drawn by the European, and so innocently believed in, there is generally, beside the shirt-sleeved clown who bawls “equality” and the barbarian who chases the dollar, the rich heiress bent on swapping her millions for a coronet. The longing for bankrupt suitors of undoubted pedigree is supposed to be the one symptom of any social aspiration, which the Yankee exhibits. The American begs leave to differ. He is not surprised that the young American woman of good family, with her fine intellectual freshness and her faculty of adaptation, should be sought out by men of all nations; nor is he filled with awe if there are some suitors of historic lineage among the rest. But the day is long gone in which such marriages are looked on as an enviable piece of good fortune for the daughter of any American citizen. Even the newspapers lightly smile at such marriages to a title, and they are becoming less and less frequent in the really best circles of American society. Besides, no such cheap and superficial aspirations are really indicative of aristocratic tendencies. The American is, by principle, very far from making his way into the international aristocracy of Europe, and he neither does nor will he ever attempt any artificial imitation of aristocratic institutions.

It is a capital mistake to suppose that the American, put face to face with European princedom, forgets or tries to hide his democracy. Aristocratic institutions, particularly those of England, interest him as a bit out of history; he seeks such social contact just as he wanders through quaint castles, without wishing thereby to transfer his own country house on the Hudson into a decaying group of walls and turrets. He takes an æsthetic pleasure in the brilliancy of courts, the pomp of military life, the wealth and colour of symbols; and, quite independently of that, he feels indeed a lively interest in certain fascinating figures of European politics—most of all, perhaps, in the German Kaiser. But whether his interest is historical, æsthetic, or personal, it is never accompanied by any feeling of inferiority to the persons who represent these aristocratic institutions. When Prince Henry, on his visit to the New World, quickly won the hearts of Americans as a man, there was nothing in the tone or accent of the greetings addressed to him which was out of accord with the fundamental key of democracy. The dinner speakers commenced their speeches in the democratic fashion, which is always first to address the presiding host: “Mr. Mayor, your Royal Highness.”

At the same time the peculiarly democratic contempt for things monarchical is disappearing, too; the cultivated American feels increasingly that every form of state has arisen from historic conditions, and that one is not in and for itself better than another. He feels that he is not untrue to his republican fatherland in attesting his respect for crowned heads. He shows most of all his respect, because it is just the friendly, neighbourly intercourse which makes possible a relation of mutual recognition. Democracy is itself the gainer by giving up the absurd pose of looking down on aristocracy. Thus it happens that, of recent years, even native-born Americans have sometimes received European orders. They know well enough that it will not do to wear the button-hole decoration on American soil, but they feel it to be ungracious to decline what is offered in a friendly spirit; unless, indeed, it is a politician who wishes to accentuate and propagate a certain principle. Democracy feels sure enough of itself to be able to accept a courtesy which is offered, with equal courtesy; but nobody supposes, for a moment, that European monarchical decorations have any magic to exalt a man above his democratic equality. Indeed, the feeling of entire equality, and the belief in a mutual recognition of such equality, are almost the presupposition of modern times, and only in Irish mass-meetings do we still hear protests against European tyranny. This much is sure: America shows not the slightest tendency to become aristocratic by imitating the historic aristocracies of Europe.

There are many who seem to believe that, therefore, the only aristocracy of America consists in the clique of multi-millionaires which holds its court in Newport and Fifth Avenue. The whole country observes their follies and eccentricities; their family gatherings are described at length by the press, quite as any court ceremonies are described in European papers; and to be taken into this sacred circle is supposed to be the life ambition of industrious millionaires. Many Americans who are under the influence of the sensational press would probably agree with this; and, judging by outward symptoms, one might in fact suppose that these Crœsuses along the Cliff-walk at Newport were really the responsible social leaders of America. This must seem very contemptible to all who look on from a distance, for everything which the papers tell to the four winds of heaven about these people is an insult to real and sound American feeling. The fountains of perfumery, the dinners on horseback, the cotillons where the favours are sun-bursts of real gems—in short, the senseless throwing away of wealth in the mere interests of rivalry and without even any æsthetic compensations, cannot profoundly impress a nation of pioneers.

On looking more closely, one sees that the facts are not so bad, and that the penny-a-liners rather than the multi-millionaires are responsible for such sensational versions. In fact, in spite of many extravagances, there is a great deal of taste and refinement in those very circles; much good sense, an appreciation of true art, honest pleasure in sport, especially if it is on a grand scale; polished address, accomplished elegance in costume, and at table a hospitality which proudly represents a rich country. In the matter of style and address, these people are in fact leaders, and deserve to be. Their society, it is true, is less interesting than that of many very much more modest circles; but the same is true throughout the world of those people who make pleasure their sole duty in life. Their ostentatious enjoyments display much less individuality, and are more along prescribed lines, than those of European circles which live in a comparable luxury—a fact which is due largely to the universal uniformity of fashion that prevails in every class of Americans, and that is too little tolerant of individual picturesqueness. In spite of all this, neither diplomatic Washington, nor intellectual Boston, nor hospitable Baltimore, nor conservative Philadelphia, nor indomitable Chicago, nor cosmopolitan San Francisco, can point to any collection of persons which, in that world where one is to be amused expensively at any cost, is better qualified to take the lead than just the Four Hundred of New York and Newport.

And yet there is a fundamental error in the whole calculation. It is simply not true that these circles exercise any sort of leadership for the nation, or have become the starting-point of a New World aristocracy. The average American, if he is still the true Puritan, is outraged on reading of a wedding ceremony where more money is spent on decorating the church than the combined yearly salaries of thirty school teachers, or of the sons of great industrial leaders wasting their days in drinking cocktails and racing their automobiles. If, on the other hand, he is a true city-bred man, he takes a considerable pleasure in reading in the newspaper about the design and equipment of the latest yacht, the decorations in the ball-room of the recently built palace, or about the latest divorce doings in those elect circles. The two sorts of readers—that is, the vexed and the amused—agree only in one thing;—neither of them takes all this seriously from the national point of view. The one is outraged that in his large, healthy, and hard-working country, such folderol and licentiousness are gaped at or tolerated. And the other is pleased that his country has become so rich and strong as to be able to afford such luxuriousness and extravagance; he looks on quizzically as at a vaudeville theatre, but even he does not take the actors in this social vaudeville the least bit seriously. The one accounts this clique a sort of moral slum, and the other a quickly passing and interesting froth; and both parties overestimate the eccentric whimsies and underestimate the actual constant influence of these circles in improving the taste for art and in really refining manners. But this clique is accounted a real aristocracy merely by itself and by the tradesmen who purvey to it.

In spite of this, American society is beginning to show important differentiations. It is not a mere sentimental and fanciful aristocracy, trying to imitate European monarchianism, and it is not the pseudo-aristocracy dancing around the golden dinner-set; it is an aristocracy of leading groups of people, which has risen slowly in the social life of the nation, and now affords the starting-point of a steadily increasing individuation of social layers. The influence of wealth is not absent here, but it is not mere wealth as such which exalts these people to the nobility; nor is the historical principle of family inheritance left out of account, although it is not merely the number of one’s identifiable ancestors that counts. It is, most of all, the profounder marks of education and of personal talent. And out of the combination of all these factors and their interpenetration proceed a New World group of leaders, which has in fact a national significance.

If one were to name a single person who should typically represent this new aristocracy, it would be Theodore Roosevelt. In the year 1649, Claes Roosevelt settled in New Netherlands, which is now New York, and from generation to generation his sturdy descendants have worked for the public good. James Roosevelt, the great-grandfather of the President, gave his services without remuneration to the Continental Army in the war for independence; the grandfather left the largest part of his fortune to charitable purposes; and the father was tirelessly active in furthering patriotic undertakings during the Civil War. And as this family inherited its public spirit, so also it inherited substance and a taste for sport and social life.

Now this product of old family traditions has been greatly influenced by the best intellectual culture of New England. Theodore Roosevelt is distinctly a Harvard graduate; all the elements of his nature got new strength from the classic world of Harvard. The history of his nation has been his favourite study, and he has written historical treatises of great breadth of view. Therewith he possesses a strong talent for administration, and has advanced rapidly by reason of his actual achievements. And thus education, public service, wealth, and family traditions have combined to make a character which exalts this man socially much higher than the Presidential office alone could do. McKinley was in some ways greater, perhaps—but in McKinley’s world there was no third dimension of aristocratic differentiation; it was a flat picture, where one might not ask nor expect any diversification in the other dimension. Roosevelt is the first aristocrat since many years, to come into the White House.

Aristocratic shadings can occur in a country that is so firmly grounded in democracy only when the movement goes in both directions, upward and downward, and when it evolves on both sides. If it were a question on the one side of demanding rights and forcing credence in pretentious display, and on the other side of demanding any sort of submission from less favoured persons or assigning them an inferior position, the whole effort would be hopeless. The claim to prerogative which is supported by an ostentation calculated to hypnotize the vulgar and a corresponding obsequiousness of the weak, can do nothing more than perhaps to preserve aristocracy after it has taken deep historic root. But such a degenerate form cannot be the first stage of aristocracy in a new country. When a new aristocracy is formed, it must boast not of prerogatives, but of duties, and the feeling of those not included cannot be one of inferiority, but of confidence. And this is the mood which is growing in America.

Such duties are most clearly recognized by wealth, and wealth has perhaps contributed most to begin the aristocratic differentiation in American society; but it has not been the wealth which goes into extravagant display or other arrogant demonstration, but the wealth which works toward the civilized advance of the nation. However much it may contradict the prejudices of the Old World, wealth alone does not confer a social status in America. Of course, property everywhere makes independence; but so long as it remains merely the power to hire things done, it creates no social differentiation. The American does not regard a man with awe because he stands well with trades-people and stock-brokers, but discriminates sharply between the possessions and the possessor. In his business life he is so accustomed to dealing with impersonal corporations, that the power to dispense large sums of money gives a man no personal dignity in his eyes. Just in the Western cities, where society centres about questions of money much more than in the East, the notion of property differentiation between men is developed least of all so far as it concerns social station. The mere circumstance that one man has speculated fortunately and the other unfortunately, that the real estate of one has appreciated and of the other deteriorated in value, occasions no belief in the inner difference of the two men; the changes are purely economic, and suggest nothing of a social difference.

At most there is a certain curiosity, since property opens up a world of possibilities to a man; and he is considerably scrutinized by his neighbours to see what he will do. In this sense especially in the small and middle-sized cities, the local magnates are the centre of public interest, just as the billionaires are in large cities. But to be the object of such newspaper curiosity does not mean to be elevated in the general respect. The millionaire is in this respect very much like the operatic tenor; or, to put it less graciously, the hero of the last poisoning case. It is the more a question of a mere stimulation to the public fancy, since in reality the differences are surprisingly small.

If one looks away from the extravagant eccentricities of small circles, the difference in general mode of life is on the whole very little in evidence. The many citizens in the large American city who have a property of five to ten million dollars seem to live hardly differently from the unfortunate many who have to get on with only a simple million. On the other hand, the average man with a modest income exerts all his strength to appear in clothing and social habits as rich as possible. He does not take care to store up a dowry for his children, and he lays by little because he does not care to become a bond-holder; he would rather work to his dying day, and teach his children while they are young to stand on their own feet. So it happens that the differences which actually exist are very little in evidence; the banker has his palace and his coach, and his wife wears sealskin; but his shoe-maker has also his own house, his horse and buggy, and his wife wears a very good imitation of seal—which one has to rub against in order to recognize.

But the situation becomes very different when it is a question of wealth, not as a means of actual enjoyment, but as a measure of the personal capacities that have earned it. Then the whole importance of the possession is indeed transferred to the possessor. We must again emphasize the fact that this is the real impulse underlying American economic life—wealth is the criterion of individual achievements, of self-initiative; and since the whole nation stretches every nerve in a restless demonstration of this self-initiative, the person who is more successful than his neighbours gains necessarily their instinctive admiration. The wealth won by lucky gambles in stocks, or inherited, or derived from a merely accidental appreciation of values or by a chance monopoly, is not respected; but the wealth amassed by caution and brilliant foresight, by indomitable energy and tireless initiative, or by fascinating originality and courage, meets with full recognition. The American sees in such a creator of material wealth the model of his pioneer virtues, the born leader of economic progress, and he looks up to him in sincere admiration, and respects him far higher than his neighbour in the next palace who has accidentally fallen heir to a tenfold larger sum. It is not the power which wealth confers, but the power which has conferred wealth, that is respected.

And then there is a more important factor—the respect for that force of mind which puts wealth, even if it is only a modest amount, in the service of higher ends. Men have different tastes; one who builds hospitals may not understand the importance of patronizing the fine arts; one who supports universities may do very little for the church; or another who collects sculptures may have no interest in the education of the negro. But the fundamental dogma of American society is that wealth confers distinction only on a man who works for ideal ends; and perhaps the deepest impulse toward the accumulation of wealth, after the economic power which it confers, is the desire for just this sort of dignity. And this desire is deeper undoubtedly than the wish for pleasure, which anyhow is somewhat limited by the outward uniformity of American life. How far social recognition is gotten by public-spirited activities and how far social recognition incites men to such activity, is in any particular case hard to decide. But as a matter of fact, a social condition has come about in which the _noblesse oblige_ of property is recognized on all sides, and in which public opinion is more discriminating as to the social respect which should be meted out to this or that public deed, than it could be if it were a question of conferring with the greatest nicety orders and titles of different values.

The right of the individual to specialize in various directions, to focus his benefactions on Catholic deaf-mutes or on students of insects, on church windows, or clay cylinders with cuneiform inscriptions, is recognized fully. Confident of the good-will of men of property, so many diverse claims have arisen, that it would be quite impossible for a single man out of mere general sympathy with civilization to lend a helping hand in all directions. The Americans esteem just that carefulness with which the rich man sees to it that his property is applied according to his personal ideas and knowledge. It is only thereby that his gifts have a profound personal significance, and are fundamentally distinguished from sentimental sacrifice or from ostentatious patronage. Giving is a serious matter, to which wealthy men daily and hourly devote conscientious labour. A man like Carnegie, whose useful bequests already amount to more than a hundred million dollars, could dispose at once of his entire property if he were in a single week to respond favourably to all the calls which are made on him. He receives every day hundreds of such letters of request, and gives almost his entire strength to carrying out his benevolent plans.

And the same is true on a smaller scale of all classes. Every true American feels that his wealth puts him in a position of public confidence, and the intensity with which he manifests this conviction decides the social esteem in which his property is held. The real aristocrats of wealth in this part of the world are those men whom public opinion respects both for the gaining and the using of their property; both factors, in a way, have to be united. The admirable personal talents which accumulate large properties, and the lofty ideals which put them to the best uses, may appear to be quite independent matters, and indeed they sometimes do exclude each other, but the aristocratic ideal demands the two together. And the Americans notice when either one is absent; they notice when wealth is amassed in imposing quantities, but then employed trivially or selfishly; or, on the other hand, when it is employed for the very highest ends, but in the opinion of competent men has been accumulated improperly. The public feels more and more inclined to look into the business methods of men who make large gifts. The American does not recognize the _non olet_, and there have often been lively discussions when ill-gotten wealth has been offered in public benefaction.

Wealth gotten by distinguished enterprise and integrity, and employed conscientiously and thoughtfully, confers in fact high social distinction. But it is only one factor among others. A second factor is family tradition, the dignity of a name long respected for civil high-mindedness and refinement. A European has only the barest impression of the great social significance of American genealogies, and would be surprised to see in the large libraries whole walls of book-shelves that contain nothing but works on the lineage of American families. The family tree of the single family of Whitney, of Connecticut, takes up three thick volumes amounting to 2,700 pages; and there even exists a thick and handsome volume with the genealogies of American families of royal extraction. There are not only special papers devoted to the scientific study of genealogies, but even some of the large daily papers have a section devoted to this subject. Much of this is mere curiosity and sport—a fashionable whim, which collects ancestors much like coins or postage stamps. Although the preserving of family traditions and an expansive pride in historic lineage do not contradict democratic principles, yet the interest in pedigree, if it takes real hold on the public mind, very soon leads to a genuine social differentiation.

Such differentiation will be superficial at first. If none but descendants of Puritans who came over in the “Mayflower” are invited to a set of dances, a spirit of exclusiveness is shown which is indeed undemocratic; but this sort of thing is in fact only a playful matter in American society. The large organizations that choose their membership on the ground of peculiar ancestry make no pretence to special privileges, and many of them are nothing but philanthropic societies. On the other hand, if the aristocracy of family were to assume special rights, it would be no innovation on American soil, because in the earliest colonial days many of the social differences of English society were brought over, and the English class spirit did not disappear until after the Revolution, when the younger sons of English gentlemen no longer came over to this country. In the South, a considerable spirit of aristocracy persisted until after the Civil War.

Such superficial differentiation has virtually disappeared to-day. The mere tinsel of family aristocracy has been torn off, but for this reason the real importance and achievements of certain families come out all the more clearly. The representatives of venerable family names are looked on with peculiar public confidence; and the more the American nation becomes acquainted with the history of these families, which have been active on American soil for eight or ten generations, the more it respects their descendants of the present day.

It is true that conditions are still provincial, and that almost no family has a national significance. The names of the first families of Virginia, which are universally revered in the South, are almost unknown in the North; the descendants of Knickerbocker families, whose very name must not be mentioned in New York without a certain air of solemnity, are very much less considered in Baltimore or Philadelphia; and the western part of the country is naturally still too young to have established such traditions at all until recently. But the following is a typical example for the East:

Harvard University is governed by seven men who are chosen to fill this responsible position, solely because the academic community has profound confidence both in their integrity and in their breadth of view. And yet it is no accident that among these seven men, there is not one whose family has not been of service to the State of Massachusetts for seven generations. So that, even in such a model democratic community as Puritan New England, the names of families that have played an important public part in the middle of the seventeenth century are as much respected as the old “märkische Adel” in Prussia. And although they are without the privileges of nobility, the whole dignity of the past is felt by every educated person to be preserved in such family names.

But the most important factor in the aristocratic differentiation of America is higher education and culture, and this becomes more important every day. In speaking of universities, we have carefully explained why higher culture is less closely connected with the learned professions in America than in the European countries. We have seen that the learned professions are fed by professional and very practical schools, which turn out a doctor, lawyer, or preacher without requiring a broad and liberal previous training; and how, on the other hand, the college has been the independent institution for higher culture, and how these two institutions have slowly grown together in the course of time, so that the college course has come at length to be the regular preparation for those who attend professional schools. Now, in considering the social importance of higher individual culture, we have not to consider the learned professions, but rather the general college training; and in this respect we find undoubtedly that common opinion has slowly shifted toward an aristocratic point of view. The social importance ascribed to a college graduate is all the time growing.

It was kept back for a long time by unfortunate prejudices. Because other than intellectual forces had made the nation strong, and everywhere in the foreground of public activity there were vigorous and influential men who had not continued their education beyond the public grammar school, so the masses instinctively believed that insight, real energy, and enterprise were better developed in the school of life than in the world of books. The college student was thought of as a weakling, in a way, who might have many fine theories about things, but who would never take hold to help solve the great national problems—a sort of academic “mugwump,” but not a leader. The banking-house, factory, farm, the mine, the law office, and the political position were all thought better places for the young American man than the college lecture halls. And perhaps the unpractical character of college studies was no more feared than the artificial social atmosphere. It was felt that an ideal atmosphere was created in the college to which the mind in its best period of development too readily adapted itself, so that it came out virtually unprepared for the crude reality of practical life. This has been a dogma in political life ever since the Presidency of Andrew Jackson, and almost equally so in economic life.

This has profoundly changed now, and changes more with every year. It is not a question of identifying the higher culture with the learned professions, as in Germany—there is no reason for this; and such a point of view has developed in Germany only by an accident of history. In America it is still thought that a graduate of one of these colleges—that is, a man who has gone about as far as the German student of philosophy in the third or fourth semester—is equal to anybody in culture, no matter whether he afterward becomes a manufacturer, or banker, or lawyer, or a philologian. The change has taken place in regard to what is expected of the college student; distrust has vanished, and people realize that the intellectual discipline which he has had until his twenty-second year in the artificial and ideal world is after all the best training for the great duties of public life, and that academic training, less by its subject-matter than by its methods, is the best possible preparation for practical activity.

The man of academic training is the only one who sees things in their right perspective, and gives them the right values. Even the large merchant knows to-day that the young man who left college at twenty-two will be, when he is twenty-seven years of age, generally ahead of his contemporaries who left school at seventeen and “went to work.” The great self-made men do indeed say a good deal to comfort those who have had only a school training, but it may be noted that they send their own sons to college. As a matter of fact, the leading positions in the disposal of the nation are almost entirely in the hands of men of academic training, and the mistrust of the theorizing college spirit has given place to a situation in which university presidents and professors have much to say on all practical questions of public life, and the college graduates are the real supporters of every movement toward reform and civilization.

All in all, it can no longer be denied that a class of national leaders has risen above the social life of the masses, and not wholly, as democracy would really require, by reason of their personal talents. A wealthy man has a certain advantage by his wealth, the man of family by his lineage, the man of academic training by the fact that his parents were able to send him to the university. This is neither plutocracy nor hereditary aristocracy, nor intellectual snobbery. We have seen that wealth wins consideration only when well expended, that ancestry brings no privileges or prerogatives with it, and that an academic education is not equivalent to merely technical erudition. The personal factor is not lacking, since we have seen that the rich man must plan his benefactions, the man of family must play his public part, and that academic training is in the reach of every young man who will try for it. The fundamental principles of democracy are therefore not destroyed, but they are modified. The spirit of self-assertion which calls for absolute equality is everywhere brought face to face with men who are superior, whose claims cannot be discounted, and who are tacitly admitted to belong rightfully to an upper class.

Differentiation, once more, works not merely upward, but also downward; the public leader pushes himself ahead, and at the same time the great masses are looking for some one whom they may follow. It is not a matter of subjection, but of confidence—confidence in men who are recognizedly better than many others. There can be no doubt that a reaction is going on throughout America to-day, not against democracy, but against those opinions which have prevailed in the democracy ever since the days of the pioneers. A great many people feel instinctively that the time is ripe to oppose the one-sidedness of domination by the masses; people are forcibly impressed by the fact that in politics, government, literature and art, the great achievements are thwarted by vulgar influences, that the original individual is impressed into the ordinary mould, and that dilettanteism and mediocrity rule triumphant and keep out the best talents from public life. People see the tyranny of greed, the reproach of municipal corruption, the unwholesome influence of a sensational press and of unscrupulous capital. They see how public life becomes blatant, irresponsible, and vulgar; how all authority and respect must disappear if democracy is not to be curbed at any point.

The time has come, a great many feel, in which the moral influence of authority is needed, and the educational influence of those more cultivated persons who will not yield to the æsthetic tastes of the vulgar must be infused into the democracy. The trained man must speak where the masses would otherwise act from mere caprice; the disciplined mind must lead where incompetence is heading for blind alleys; the best minds must have some say and people must be forced to listen, so that other voices and opinions shall have weight than those that make the babel of the streets. The eclectic must prevail over the vulgar taste, and the profound over the superficial, since it is clear that only in that way will America advance beyond her present stage of development. America has created a new political world, and must now turn to æsthetics and culture. Such a reaction has not happened to-day or yesterday, but has been going on steadily in the last few decades, and to-day it is so strong as to overcome all resistance. The desire for the beauty and dignity of culture, for authority and thoroughness, is creeping into every corner of American life.

The time is already passing which would do away with all discipline and submission in school and family life; public life brings the trained expert everywhere into prominence. The disgust at the vulgarity of daily life, as in the visible appearance of city streets, increases rapidly. The sense of beauty is everywhere at work; and men of taste, education, and traditions, rather than the city fathers who are elected by the rabble, are finally being called to positions of leadership. The democratic spirit is not crumbling, and certainly the rights of the masses are not to be displaced by the rights of the better educated and more æsthetic; but democracy is in a way to be perfected, to be brought as high as it can be brought by giving a representation to really all the forces that are in the social organism, and by not permitting the more refined ones to be suppressed by the weight of the masses. The nation has come to that maturity where the public is ready to let itself be led by the best men.

It is true that the public taste still prevails too widely in many branches of social life; there is too much triviality; too many institutions are built on the false principles that everybody knows best what is good for him, and too many undertakings flatter the taste which they should educate. But opposite tendencies are present everywhere. The more the economic development of the country is rounded off, the greater is its demand for social differentiation, for the recognition of certain influences as superior, for subordination, and for finer organization. Just as economic life has long since given up free competition, and the great corporations show admirably that subordination is necessary to great purposes, and the world of labour has become an army with strictest discipline and blind allegiance, so in the non-economic world a tendency toward subordination, individuation, and aristocracy becomes every moment more evident.

To this tendency there is added the new conception of the state. Democracy is, from the outset, individualistic. We have seen everywhere that the fundamental force in this community is the belief of every man in his own personality and that of others. The state has been the sum total of individuals, and the state as something more than the individual has appeared as a bare abstraction. The individual alone has asserted itself, perfected and guided itself, and taken all the initiative. And this belief in the person is no less firm to-day; but another belief has come up. This is a belief in the ethical reality of the state. Public opinion is still afraid that if this belief increases, the old confidence in the value of the individual, and therewith of all the fundamental virtues of American democracy, may be shaken. But the belief spreads from day to day, and produces its change in public opinion. Politics are trending as are so many other branches of life; the emphasis is passing from the individual to the totality. As we have seen that the Americans adorned their houses before their public buildings, quite the opposite of what Europeans have done, so they have given political value to the millions of individuals long before they laid weight on the one collective will of the state. The men who would have sacrificed everything rather than cheat their neighbours have had no conscientious scruples in plundering the state.

It is different to-day. The feeling grows that honour toward the state, sacrifice for it, and confidence in it are even more important than the respect for the totality of individuals. These opinions cannot be spread abroad without having their far-reaching consequences; the state is visible only in symbols, and its representatives get their significance by symbolizing not the population, but the abstract state. The individual representative of government is thus exalted personally above the democratic level. To fill an office means not merely to do work, but to experience a broadening of personality, much as that which the priest feels in his office; it is an enlargement which demands on the other side respect and subordination. This tendency is still in its beginnings, and will never be so strong as in Europe, because the self-assertion of the individual is too lively. Nevertheless, these new notes in the harmony are much louder and more persistent than they were ten years ago.

Thus there are many forces which work to check the spirit of self-assertion; in spite of the liveliest feeling of equality, a social differentiation is practically working itself out in all American life. Differences of occupation are, perhaps, the least significant; a profession which has such a great claim to superiority as, for instance, that of the army officer in Germany, does not exist in the United States. Perhaps the legal profession would be looked on as the most important, and certainly it absorbs a very large proportion of the best strength of the nation. The high position given the jurist is probably in good part because, unlike his Continental colleague, as we have explained at length, he actually takes part in shaping the law. In a different way the preacher is very greatly respected, but his profession decreases slowly in attractiveness for the best talents of the country. The academic professions, on the other hand, have drawn such talent more and more, and will continue to do so as the distinction grows sharper between the college teacher and the real university professor. The pre-eminently reproductive activities are naturally less enticing than those which are creative, and wherever talent is attracted it quickly accomplishes great things, and these work to improve the social status of the profession. The political profession, as such, is far down in the scale; only governors, senators, and the highest ministerial officials play an important social part. Of course, one cannot speak of the especial recognition of mercantile or industrial professions, because these offer too great a variety of attainment; but certainly their most influential representatives are socially inferior to none in the community.

Social differentiation does not rest on a sharp discrimination of profession, and yet it is realized from the highest to the lowest circles of society, and to a degree which fifty years ago would have greatly antagonized at least the entire northern part of the country. In Washington, the exclusive hostess invites only the wives of senators, but not those of representatives, to her table; and in the Bowery, according to the accounts, the children of the peanut vendor do not deign to play with the children of the hurdy-gurdy man, who are vastly more humble. The Four Hundred in the large city quietly but resolutely decline to invite newly made millionaires to dinner; and the seamstress, who comes to the house to sew or mend, refuses to sit down at table with the servants. Already, in the large cities, the children of better families are not sent to public, but to private schools. The railroads have only one class of passenger coach; but the best society declines that, and rides in the Pullman cars. The same distinctions hold everywhere, and not merely as a matter of greater luxury for the rich, but as a real social distinction. At the theatre, the person who socially belongs in the parquet prefers to sit in one of the worst seats there to going into the balcony, where he does not belong, even though he might hear and see better.

The increasing sympathy with badges, costumes, and uniforms—in short, with the symbols of differentiation—is very typical. There was a time in which a free American would have refused to wear a special livery; but to-day nobody objects, from the elevator boy to the judge, to wear the marks of office. The holiday processions of working-men and veterans become gayer and gayer. Those who have seen the recent inaugurations of the presidents of Yale and Columbia have witnessed parades of hundreds of gay and, it seemed, partly fantastic costumes, such as are now worn at every university celebration in America—symbolic emblems which would have seemed impossible in this monotonous democracy twenty years ago.

The inner life of universities gives also lively indication of social cleavage. In Harvard and Yale, there are exclusive clubs of the social leaders among the students. It is true that hundreds of students go through the university without paying any attention to such things; but there are almost as many more whose chief ambition is to be elected into an exclusive circle, and who would feel compensated by no sort of scientific success if they were disappointed in their aspirations for club life. In the same way many families which have become wealthy in the West move to New York or Boston, in the vain hope of breaking into society. The social difference between near-lying residential sections is, indeed, much greater than in Europe; and real estate on a street which comes to be occupied by socially inferior elements rapidly depreciates, because the inhabitants of any residential section must stand on the same plane.

The transformations which the place of the President in public consciousness has gone through are very characteristic. A newly elected President is to-day inaugurated with almost monarchical pomp, and he reviews the Navy, as he never would have thought of doing some years ago. He sits down first at the table and is served first. An invitation to the White House is felt as a command which takes precedence over any other engagement. All this has happened recently. It was not long ago that persons refused an invitation to the White House, because of previous engagements. In social life all men were merely “gentlemen,” regardless of the capacities which they had during business hours, and in matters of invitation one visited the host who was first to invite one. All this is different now.

There is even some indication of the use of titles. Twenty years ago students addressed their professors with a mister, but to-day more often with the title of professor; and the abuse of military titles which goes on in the West amuses the whole country. In the army itself aristocratic tendencies are strongly manifest, but only here and there come to general notice. Contrary to the spirit of official appointments, men are not advanced so rapidly who work up from a socially inferior level, but the social élite is favoured. Etiquette in social life is becoming more complicated; there is more formality, more symbolism in social intercourse. A nation which pays every year more than six million dollars for cut roses and four millions for carnations has certainly learned to decorate social life. There is even more etiquette in professional life. The professional behaviour of lawyers, physicians, and scholars is in some respects, at least in the East, more narrowly prescribed than it is even in Europe.

Looking at the situation as a whole, one sees the power of this new spirit, not so much in these petty symptoms as in the great movements of which we have spoken at length in other connections. There is the spirit of imperialism in foreign politics, and it cannot expand in its pride without working against the old democratic tendencies. There is the spirit of militarism, triumphantly proud of the victorious army and navy, demanding strict discipline and blind obedience to the commander. There is the spirit of racial pride, which persecutes the negro and the Chinese, and hinders the immigration of Eastern and Southern Europeans. There is the spirit of centralization, exalting the power of the state above the conflicting desires of the individual, and in economic matters hoping more from the intelligent initiative of the state as a whole than from the free competition of individuals, and assigning to the Federation tremendous undertakings, such as the irrigation of the West and the cutting of the Panama Canal. There is the spirit of aristocracy, tempting more and more the academically cultured and the wealthy into the political arena. There is the spirit of social differentiation coming into art and science, and bringing to the life of the nation ideals of beauty and of knowledge which are far above the vulgar comprehension. Eclectic taste is winning a victory over popular taste. The judgment of the most learned, the refinement of the most educated, and the wisdom of the most mature are being made prominent before the public mind. We have already seen how this new spirit grows and unfolds, and how the one-sidedness and eccentricities of political, economic, intellectual, and artistic democracy are being outgrown day by day, and how the America of Roosevelt’s time is shaping itself in accordance with the civilizations of Western Europe.

There are some who behold this development with profound concern. That which has made America’s greatness, which seemed to be her mission in the world, was the belief in the ethical worth of the individual. The doctrines of self-determination, self-initiative, and self-assertion, and the civilization which rested on such a foundation, have nothing to hope and much to fear from social differentiation and imperialism. Aristocratic tendencies appear to undermine this ethical democracy, and the imperialistic symbols of our day mock the traditions of the past. There will certainly be many reactions against these aristocratic tendencies; perhaps they will be only small movements working through the press and at the ballot-box against the encroachments on the spirit of the past and against the expansion of office, and hindering those aristocratic tendencies which depart too far from the traditions of the masses. Perhaps, some day, there will be a great reaction. Perhaps the tremendous power possessed by the labouring classes in the country will lead to battles for ethical principles, in which the modern æsthetic development will be reversed; it would not be the first time on American soil that ethical reform has produced social deterioration, for “reform” means always the victory of naked, equalizing logic over the conservative forces which represent historic differentiation. So the Revolution abolished the patrician society of New England, whose aristocratic members survive in the portraits of Copley; and the day may come when trades-unions will be victorious over that aristocracy which Sargent is now painting. Even the reform which emancipated the slaves destroyed a true and chivalrous aristocracy in the South.

But it is more likely that the steady development will go on, and that there will be a harmonious co-operation between the fundamental democratic forces and the lesser aristocratic ones. It cannot be doubted that that democracy of which we have aimed to describe the real intent, will remain the fundamental force under the American Constitution; and however strict military discipline may become, however aristocratic the social differentiations, however imperialistic the politics, however esoteric art and science, undoubtedly the greatest question put by every American to his brother will be: “What do you, purely as an individual, amount to?” The ethical rights and the ethical duties of the individual will be the ultimate standard, and aristocratic pomp will always be suppressed in America whenever it commences to restrain the passion for justice and for self-determination.

The most serious Americans are in the position of Tantalus; they see, in a thousand ways and at a thousand places, that a certain advance could be made if somehow the vulgar masses could be got out of the way; they see how civic and national ends could be attained almost without trouble by the ample means of the country, if as in Europe, the most intelligent minds could be put in control. They want all this most seriously; and yet they cannot have it, because in the bottom of their hearts they really do not wish it. They feel too profoundly that the gain would be only apparent, that the moral force of the nation would be sacrificed if a single citizen should lose the confidence that he himself is responsible for the nation which he helps to guide and to make. The easy attainment of success is only a secondary matter; the purity of the individual will is the main consideration. With this stands or falls American culture. Development is first of all an ethical problem; just because the world is incomplete, is hard, and unbeautiful, and everywhere needs to be transformed by human labour, just on that account human life is inexhaustibly valuable. This is the fundamental thought, and will remain so as long as the New World remains true to its ideals. The finer notes are only an overtone in the great chord; it is only faintly discerned that the world is valuable when it is beautiful—after it has been mastered and completed.

In this opposition between the ethical and the æsthetic, between the democratic and the aristocratic, America will never sacrifice her fundamental conviction, will never follow aristocratic tendencies further than where they are needed to correct the dangerous one-sidedness and the excrescences of democratic individualism; at least, never so far that any danger will threaten the democracy. The pride of the true American is, once and for all, not the American country, nor yet American achievements, but the American personality.

One who seeks the profoundest reality that history has to offer, not in the temporal unfolding of events, but in the interplay of human wills, will agree with the American’s judgment of himself. Looking at the people of the New World even from afar, one will find the fascination, novelty, and greatness of the American world mission, not in what the American has accomplished, but in what he desires and will desire.

Nevertheless, this will not seem strange or foreign to any German. In the depths of his soul, he has himself a similar play of desires. In the course of history, reverence and faithfulness developed in the German soul more strongly than the individualistic craving for self-determination and self-assertion; aristocratic love of beauty and truth developed before the democratic spirit of self-initiative. But to-day, in modern Germany, these very instincts are being aroused, just as in modern America those forces are growing which have long dominated the German soul.

The American still puts the higher value on the personal, the German on the over-personal; the American on the intrinsic value of the creating will, the German on the intrinsic value of the absolute ideal. But every day sees the difference reduced, and brings the two nations nearer to a similar attitude of mind. Moreover, both of these fundamental tendencies are equally idealistic, and both of these nations are therefore destined to understand and to esteem each other, mutually to extend their friendship, to emulate each other, and to work together, so that in the confused play of temporal forces the intrinsically valuable shall be victorious over the temporary and fleeting, the ideal over the accidental. For both nations feel together, in the depths of their being, that in order to give meaning to life man must believe in timeless ideals.

THE END

THE McCLURE PRESS, NEW YORK

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

1. Corrected “Kûnste blûhen” to “Künste blühen” on p. 237. 2. Silently corrected typographical errors. 3. Retained anachronistic and non-standard spellings as printed. 4. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.