Part 6

And if you ask what the Harvard man is doing, what he is talking about, while these activities are being ruined before his eyes, the answer is not merely as Mr. Stearns gave it, that the Harvard man talks smut. So do most other men. The terrible thing is that the Harvard man talks very little else that is worth listening to. Lectures, cuts, assignments, exams, and shows; baseball, daily news (a mere “Did you see that?” conversation), steam engines; girls, parties, class elections, piffling nonsense—that is the roster of the college man. I am terribly conscious of the intolerable stupidity of “intellectual” conversation; I do not wish that conversation at college should consist of nothing but considerations of the Fourfold Root. But it does seem rather unfortunate that the men who are, theoretically, to be the leaders of the next generation, should never talk or think about art, should have _no_ interest in ideas, should be ignorant of philosophy and impatient of fine thinking, should use their own tongue as a barbarous instrument, should be loud and vulgar of speech, commonplace in manner, entirely lacking in distinction of spirit and mind.

The college has failed to make intelligent activity the basis of democracy; there is no community of interest in things of the mind or spirit and that is why artificial means, with the peril they bring to the individual, are resorted to. How far President Lowell is responsible for that which has happened in his administration is a question I cannot answer. He has seen the signs of his time; he has warned Harvard of the terrible danger which has come to it with the decadence of individual study and independent reading. He is trying to make intellectual activity the basis of Harvard’s democracy at the very moment when he is the ablest of those who in reality help to sustain all that I have here ventured to criticise.

It has been in no reactionary spirit. I have not intended to say that Harvard actually produces the type I have described. The truth is that it does so little to refine what it gets. The care of the superior individual, which always results in the greatest benefit to all, has ceased to engross the college. The new order will not be of the same heterogeneous excellence. That change all suffer, and all resent. Granted that the new Harvard will be glorious and great, was there not room, besides all the State colleges and the technical schools, for its intransigeant detachment, its hopeless struggle for a “useless” culture? It will be said that for such a training men should go to smaller colleges, like Amherst, where they will receive the special attention they may deserve. But I think of what William James said once of Harvard, and I wonder what Harvard men, and what the country, will do when they realize that it can never be said again:

“The true Church was always the invisible Church. The true Harvard is the invisible Harvard in the souls of her more truth-seeking and independent and often very solitary sons…. As a nursery for independent and lonely thinkers … Harvard still is in the van…. Our undisciplinables are our proudest product!”

THE NEW STEERAGE

FRANCIS BYRNE HACKETT

Eleven hundred of us, perhaps twelve hundred, were booked steerage from Liverpool to New York. We had been brought to the dock at noon, away from our friends, though we heard the vessel was not to leave till five. On the other side of a stone pier rose the huge _Lusitania_ with her four funnels. Everyone on our tender moved expectantly forward. There was an official cry: “Britishers first!” The chosen of the Lord! But the horde of ignorant foreigners came surging ahead. Miscellaneously we crowded up the gangway. Another gangway sloped for us on to the _Lusitania_. Several British policemen and stewards faced us to keep us in line. At so many guardian angels we began to feel depressed.

Medical inspection. The instant we put foot on the deck of the _Lusitania_, this was our first business.

“Have your Inspection Tickets ready.” Before we could inquire what was going to happen, it was happening. We were passed in a slow trickle between two officials. “Take off your hat.” “Take off your glasses.” I stood blinking while the doctor deftly plucked up my eyelids. He waved me ahead, my ungranulated eyelids made harsh by the handling. Hundreds were before us on the deck, and those from behind began to press on our heels with the inevitable “myself first” impulse of human beings. We were a medley of races, Swedes, Greek, English and Welsh, Irish, Russian Jews, Poles, mute Lithuanian peasants, and men from a Northern race who turned out to be Finns. It was almost as cosmopolitan as the Third Avenue Elevated. We advanced with repeated hesitations and conscious slowness. A woman turned white in the crush and had to be helped to a seat near an open porthole. In front of me, a 12-year-old boy, dead beat, leaned against his big brother—and under his arm, if you please, wearily hugged a camp stool. “Why doesn’t he sit on the stool?” The mother, a thin, strained, admirable creature, whose face showed the fine wrinkles of a life too intent, allowed me to open the stool for him. From his low seat he rewarded me more than once with a look of confidence and smiling good-nature. They had travelled by rail all night, the mother volunteered, from a town in Wales. They were on their way at last to join the father in California. “I have two more in California”—the mother pointed to her children, who cheerfully smiled.

Women and children. During that weary wait I observed them here and there, standing submissively for three-quarters of an hour. At length, after the long halt, the tension was relieved, and we moved again, this time past another doctor. “Take off your hat.” The doctor had apparently to inspect the unnaturalized polls on which that morning we had paid a four dollar tax. He was a man of great perception, the doctor, and the actual examination was an affair of split seconds. On completing the circuit of the deck our yellow Inspection Tickets (given to us at the office in the morning when we had paid our $37.50 for the passage) received their first stamp. The Cunard Line accepted us as healthy live stock.

My Inspection Ticket said Room H 22, and a steward took me there. There were seven other occupants. Most of them were taking their ease in their berths and smoking. They were all English or American. I responded to their cheery hello, but their carbonic gas was strong, and the portholes proved to be immovable. I sat down on a lower berth, bumped my head against the top one, and had hardly room for my knees in the aisle. My carbonic gas did not improve the air. I felt discouraged, and went out. Nearby I saw a most capacious 4-berth room, and there was a vacancy in it. Henri Bergson says that “life proceeds by insinuation.” I felt less gloomy. I found the bedroom steward and asked him whether I could be changed. He was amicable but not quite concrete, a bit of a Jesuit. About this time word flashed by that we were back at the Landing Stage for the cabin passengers: deferring the affairs of moment, I went on deck.

We all pushed aft for a good view, only to find a rope stretched across the deck, and a grim sailor guarding it. “That’s all the scope you get.” We flattened back against one another. And they let down a beautiful canopied gangway for the upper classes.

Braided officers stood in a row to receive, on a nice clear deck. All the stewards were lined up in fresh white coats. Against the sky line we studied the new angles of hat plumes. On they stepped with leisured gait, with an air of distinguished fatigue. “The daughters of Zion are haughty and walk with stretched forth necks, walking and mincing as they go.” Indifferently they handed their light burdens to the now demure stewards. I looked around at my comrades back of the rope. A child in arms next to me chortled as he bandaged his mother’s eyes. She gently removed the bandage, only to be blinded again. Behind me, a buxom Swede looked open-eyed at her feathered sisters abaft. Everywhere the interest was intense and simple. I turned again to envisage the daughters of Zion. As in another world they moved—a world where policemen are unnecessary, where stewards are spring-heeled, where officers stand in line, where eyelids are not officially scrutinized nor polls inspected, where the gangway has a canopy and weariness is consoled. I admired “the bravery of their anklets, and the cauls and the crescents; the pendants, and the bracelets and the mufflers.” Must it not be delightful, said I to myself, to merit so much attention from everyone, and to be so prettily arrayed? Must it not be pleasant to have eyelids so immune, and to have a quite uninspected poll?

The last piece of first-class baggage rolled aboard. Giant hawsers strained, and were released. It was departure. From my coign at a deck porthole the Landing Stage came into focus. I confess I exclaimed. As far as the eye could reach, on the water and street levels, the glance of thousands on thousands was rivetted on the vessel as she cautiously edged away. It was a beautiful afternoon, the sky innocently blue. All indifferent to us in the background stood the massive city of Liverpool, concentrated on affairs, but no less indifferent to the city itself ranged this childlike, almost awestruck, army of curiosity, silently intent on us as we receded into the river. From our porthole (I was joined by a Syrian) we could not help a glow of pride. My companion was not able to vent his feelings in English, but he was quite moved. His was an Indian-like head—high cheekbones, thin lips, hard, beady eyes. He dwelt on the vast crowd, ejaculating “ah-ye-ye-ye,” and clucking his tongue. I smiled at his solid wonderment. Then he craned out of the porthole to view the water far, far below. I followed suit. He pointed down, and gave a significant, cheerfully reckless laugh. I laughed, too. We were in for it, and no mistake.

The steamer’s first evening was spent, doing nothing, out in the Mersey. The tide was in some way blameworthy. It seemed inefficient of nature, but as we lay opposite Liverpool the night-lights came out, definite and serene and friendly, and I took out my mental clutch.

Time came for supper. I reserved for the morning the mysteries of the cuisine. I had earlier gone below to the pantry, after some talk with a humane steward, and to my surprise I had been allowed to help myself to a cup of tea.

The first evening was one of extraordinary activity. Still in their best clothes, around our half of the entire deck poured streams and streams of passengers. It was almost impossible to tread one’s way. And in several places these streams turned themselves into dancing whorls, where volunteers with a concertina had appeared. I happen to like the concertina, and I enjoyed it during five entire days, though not so much the concertina as the movement of life which it promoted. There were never any deck sports, nor games, nor organized distraction. But, except for one awful seasick period, there was endless dancing and singing. On this first evening I stood in the rings that framed the waltzers, and my blood raced with their pleasure. The Swedes in particular took part much and well. They occasionally ventured on those new forms, but only for dancing reasons. When Swedes really want to hug each other, they do it openly and for its own sake.

To increase the friendliness of the evening, everyone was willing to talk a little. I chatted with a Russian, a Greek, an Englishwoman and an Englishman. He was a young and unhappy Englishman, and in disgust at the ignorant foreigner. I later learned that he made up the difference and was allowed to go second class.

At 9 p.m., tired of repeated searches for my bedroom steward (he was dishing out in the pantry most of the time), I went to the assistant chief steward of the third class to see if I could be transferred to the 4-berth room. He’d see, he said in a serious bass voice, he’d let me know. At 9.30 p.m. he again told me he’d see. Whether he has yet seen or not I have no means of discovering. At 10 p.m. I took the berth, with the consent of the other men in the cabin. I gave my tip to the bedroom steward, as I guessed he was the less Tammanyized. The assistant chief steward was a strong character, free from numerical superstition. He asked 13 cents for five penny stamps.

In my room the bedding proved simple—a coarse white bag of straw for mattress, and one dark blue horse blanket for clothing. A small pouch of straw served as pillow. No linen, of course, and no frills of any kind. There was an iron spring frame. I found it ascetic but clean. The single blanket was not enough. I used my rug, and my fellow passengers used overcoats and rugs, too. The mattresses, I was told, serve just one trip. They are dumped overboard as soon as the steamer is out to sea on the return voyage. In my bed I was the only living creature present.

Those who rose early had advantages. They had first use of the tin basin in their own room, or of the bowls in the general washing room. They had a bid for the solitary bath tub in male steerage. They were up in time to be allowed to walk all the way aft, and look down the wide lane of jade and white in the wake of the _Lusitania_. And they were in time for the first sitting.

Those who did not rise early had to listen to the tramplings that began long before sunrise. Despite this, I got up late. Fifty of us waited over half an hour outside an iron grill at the head of the dining room stairs. The dining room is quite inadequate, so there had to be four sittings—first come, first served. When we reached below we took seats where we could. There was an understanding, however, by which Britishers were grouped together. This was made effectual by stewards who stood where the ways parted, and thrust Jews and Poles and mid-Europeans to one side, and Britishers and Scandinavians to the other.

On the whole, the food during the trip was edible. I could not eat the bacon or the beef. I did not try the eggs. The tea was vile and usually not very hot. The coffee was vile. But the bread, served in individual loaves, was most palatable. The Swedish bread was excellent. The oatmeal was edible, even with the wretchedly thin condensed or dried milk. We had herrings and at another time sausages, and both were fair. The potatoes were always excellently boiled and good of their kind, but the browned potatoes were invariably overcooked and not fit to serve. The cold meats for supper could be eaten. The boiled rice was insipid. The stewed prunes and stewed apricots were palatable. I had very good baked beans and navy beans, good pea soup and fair broth. I had no complaints to make of the food. I never decided whether it was butter or margarine, but I ate it willingly. It certainly had not that callously metallic taste that margarine used to have.

The service was on bold, wholesale lines. Twenty sat at each table, and there were two equipments of bread and butter, sugar, salt, pepper and vinegar. A disconsolate plant decorated each table. One steward took charge of each ten people. I sat at a different table practically every time, and most of my companions were delightfully obliging and unaggressive. Only those who so wished had to stand up and harpoon their bread roll. There were a few tiresome people who damned the food and failed to pass the salt. The stewards were elusive, or rather that one-tenth part of a steward who was your share. I regretted on one occasion to discover egg shells in my dessert, and the next day I was pained to find a knob of beef in my stewed apples. My sympathetic steward remarked: “Puts you a bit off, don’t it?” It do.

From about five in the morning till eleven at night these stewards are working. Work is a good thing. It is strange that the stewards look unhealthy and fatigued. It is due to the inherent inferiority of stewards.

Queenstown was the distraction for several hours on the first day out. The Cunard and White Star Lines have just discerned that the harbor is unsafe for big boats. At what point of profit, I wondered, would Queenstown harbor suddenly and miraculously become safe again?

As we left the coast of Ireland there came an unctuous swell upon the sea. You would not think it could upset anyone, but when I ascended after dinner I was horrified. Rows of passengers lay where they were stricken, all too evidently ill, ghosts of their braver selves. The stewards were in the dining room and could not come, and did not come, for well over an hour. For well over an hour no effort at all was made to clean the decks. I now understood this grave disadvantage of third class, to which the company itself contributes. But there was much kindness to the decimated, and much tolerance. Later I admired immensely the work of the matrons. I seldom met three more splendid, capable, sympathetic women. There were superior passengers who despised the childishness with which simpler people gave in. I myself laughed when I saw a girl lying with complete abandon plumb on top of another girl. The grim sailor heard me and muttered: “Only an ignorant person’d laugh at anyone was seasick.”

During this distressing hour a Russian came flying to the master at arms. “The doctor! the doctor!” “You can’t have the doctor,” said the man in blue, not unkindly. “We can’t help seasickness. It’s got to be expected.” “The doctor! Not seaseek! dead!” He made a ghastly face. “Oh, all right,” said the master-at-arms, and we went straight below.

Terrific pleading calls shook the cabin. “Sonya! Sonya!” The master-at-arms walked right in, and emerged supporting a sack-like girl, very white and inert. “You could cut the air with a knife,” murmured the weary master-at-arms. He assisted her on deck, and she was wooed to consciousness.

At this time, on the enclosed deck, there was much commotion. A striking red-haired Jewess, clad in green, had fainted and was put sitting on a bench. A venerable Jew appealed to her excitedly while an earnest young soul at the other side cried for water. It made me furious to see the limp woman propped up, but they were evidently playing according to the rules of a different league. The water at last came and much to my surprise the earnest soul put it to her own lips. But not to drink it. In her the Chinese laundryman had an efficient rival. She was the most active geyser I ever saw. After a time there was a feeble motion of protest, to the regret of the delighted spectators.

On the open deck during this weather the Jews monopolized one corner. I counted thirty of them huddled inseparably together in their misery, like snakes coiled in the cold. As they began to recover, a leg would wiggle from under one blanket, and a head be thrust out from under another. Later they sat up and drank their tea out of glasses, nibbling the sugar. They soon littered the place with apple peels and orange peels. After generations of inhibition they probably needed to be told that they were permitted by a merciful dispensation to use the sea as a waste basket.

As the sea fell slumberously still, life recovered its audacity. Again the decks became clamorous, multitudinous. People thronged the promenade, or swarmed on the benches that do duty for deck chairs. They began smoking everywhere again, and out came the stewards and the Black Crowd to enjoy a sociable cigarette. There was little to do but talk, until the dancing began. The grim sailor looked pityingly on Babel, as he patrolled the Second Class partition. He was for smaller ships. “On a smaller ship,” he deigned to remark, “you can come up and throw your weight around.”

Differences in manners obtruded. The third day out a youth emerged whom I took to be a swineherd from the beech forests of Croatia. He was not handsome. His fringe encroached upon his little eyes. His chin was unformed. Up over his trousers, as if he had just waded through the piggery, his socks were drawn. There he stood, plastic youth, a hand in his pocket, pivotting a heel, surveying the world through his own hirsute thatch. Suddenly, deliberately, he blew his nose Adam-like. A Swedish woman next me turned livid. “De dirty pig.” I felt myself the brother of a Swede. The Croatian saw us but beheld us not. His mouth ajar, he ruminated afresh on the fleshpots of Croatia. Raw material, simple even to the verge of our ancestral slime. I prayed “God be with thee,” and looked elsewhere.

That evening amid the throng which waited for admittance to the dining room appeared a Greek. The glaring electric light concentrated on that swart face, flung-out chest, and bared neck. He was incredibly blasphemous and incredibly self-important. “Seventy-five dollars, see. American money!” He showed his money to us, and gave a chuckle. His lip curled. “They only Hunkies,” indicating his companions who connected themselves with him by slavish eyes. “I in America before, Christ, yes!” His eye roved boldly, and he showed his white teeth. “I got more money still, you bet your life. When I get over I marry no Hunkie. I marry Henglish girl. Yeh, Christ, you bet!” He antagonized us, and yet we watched him eagerly. He lapped up our interest. Overcome with the savor of attention, he incontinently spat. I drew away. “It’s a’ right,” he said half-obsequiously, “I know what I do. I no’ spit on American.” He felt too much kinship to spit on an American.

So things happen, but only in the steerage. At the door of the café below, you will not find a Polish count informing the steward: “I marry a Henglish girl. No penniless Hunkie for me.” Nor will the first-class steward answer: “Who cares? Who’ll buy a beer?”

In all these days, among all these peoples, there was no friction. Some youths did start to make boisterous fun of two barefooted Italian women, walking up and down in bright petticoat and kerchief. But the Italians smiled and skipped back and sat down, and there was no more “fun.” Between congruous people intercourse was easy and frank. The fresh-hued Scandinavians were exceptionally lively. A little English group revolved quietly together, with a private afternoon teapot for central sun. Another little group, including two girls in service, a cotton spinner and a grocery clerk, often sat in the prow and talked amiably about anything from the food on board to their notion of a God. They say that “sociability proceeds from weakness.” Steerage, at any rate, is highly sociable. In some cases it was also frankly amatory. The attractive girls, so soon well known, seemed to have no fear of the predatory males. They took each other lightly. But at 9.30 p.m., all the feminine kind, even the rebellious, had to leave their conquests and go below. This rule was enforced to the letter.