The Problem of the Nation
So, it seems to me, in this new crude continental1 commonwealth2, there is going on the same economic process, on a grander scale, indeed, than has gone so far in our own island. There is a great concentration of wealth above, and below, deep and growing is the abyss, that sunken multitude on the margin3 of subsistence which is a characteristic and necessary feature of competitive industrialism, that teeming6 abyss where children have no chance, where men and women dream neither of leisure nor of self-respect. And between this efflorescence of wealth above and spreading degradation7 below, comes the great mass of the population, perhaps fifty millions and more of healthy and active men, women and children (I leave out of count altogether the colored people and the special trouble of the South until a later chapter) who are neither irresponsibly free nor hopelessly bound, who are the living determining substance of America.
[Pg 117]
Collectively they constitute what Mr. Roosevelt calls the "Nation," what an older school of Americans used to write of as the People. The Nation is neither rich nor poor, neither capitalist nor laborer8, neither Republican nor Democrat9; it is a great diversified10 multitude including all these things. It is a comprehensive abstraction; it is the ultimate reality. You may seek for it in America and you cannot find it, as one seeks in vain for the forest among the trees. It has no clear voice; the confused and local utterances11 of a dispersed12 innumerable press, of thousands of public speakers, of books and preachers, evoke14 fragmentary responses or drop rejected into oblivion. I have been told by countless15 people where I shall find the typical American; one says in Maine, one in the Alleghenies, one "farther west," one in Kansas, one in Cleveland. He is indeed nowhere and everywhere. He is an English-speaking person, with extraordinarily16 English traits still, in spite of much good German and Scandinavian and Irish blood he has assimilated. He has a distrust of lucid17 theories, and logic18, and he talks unwillingly19 of ideas. He is preoccupied20, he is busy with his individual affairs, but he is—I can feel it in the air—thinking.
How widely and practically he is thinking that curious product of the last few years, the ten-cent magazine, will show. In England our sixpenny magazines seem all written for boys and careless people; they are nothing but stories and jests and[Pg 118] pictures. The weekly ones achieve an extraordinarily agreeable emptiness. Their American equivalents are full of the studied and remarkably21 well-written discussion of grave public questions. I pick up one magazine and find a masterly exposition of the public aspect of railway rebates22, another and a trust is analyzed23. Then here are some titles of books that all across this continent are being multitudinously read: Parson's Heart of the Railway Problem, Steffens's Shame of the Cities, Lawson's Frenzied24 Finance, Miss Tarbell's Story of Standard Oil, Abbott's Industrial Problem, Spargo's Bitter Cry of the Children, Hunter's Poverty, and, pioneer of them all, Lloyd's Wealth Against Commonwealth. These are titles quoted almost at hap-hazard. Within a remarkably brief space of time the American nation has turned away from all the heady self-satisfaction of the nineteenth century and commenced a process of heart searching quite unparalleled in history. Its egotistical interest in its own past is over and done. While Mr. Upton Sinclair, the youngest, most distinctive25 of recent American novelists, achieved but a secondary success with his admirably conceived romance of the Civil War, Manassas, The Jungle, his book about the beef trust and the soul of the immigrant, the most unflattering picture of America that any one has yet dared to draw, has fired the country.
The American nation, which a few years ago seemed invincibly26 wedded27 to an extreme individu[Pg 119]alism, seemed resolved, as it were, to sit on the safety valves of the economic process and go on to the ultimate catastrophe28, displays itself now alert and questioning. It has roused itself to a grave and extensive consideration of the intricate economic and political problems that close like a net about its future. The essential question for America, as for Europe, is the rescue of her land, her public service, and the whole of her great economic process from the anarchic and irresponsible control of private owners—how dangerous and horrible that control may become the Railway and Beef Trust investigations30 have shown—and the organization of her social life upon the broad, clean, humane31 conceptions of modern science. In every country, however, this huge problem of reconstruction32 which is the alternative to a plutocratic33 decadence34, is enormously complicated by irrelevant35 and special difficulties. In Great Britain, for example, the ever-pressing problem of holding the empire, and the fact that one legislative36 body is composed almost entirely37 of private land-owners, hampers38 every step towards a better order. Upon every country in Europe weighs the armor of war. In America the complications are distinctive and peculiar39. She is free, indeed, now to a large extent from the possibility of any grave military stresses, her one overseas investment in the Philippines she is evidently resolved to forget and be rid of at as early a date as possible. But, on the other[Pg 120] hand, she is confronted by a system of legal entanglements40 of extraordinary difficulty and perplexity, she has the most powerful tradition of individualism in the world, and a degraded political system, and she has in the presence of a vast and increasing proportion of unassimilable aliens in her substance—negroes, south European peasants, Russian Jews and the like—an ever-intensifying complication.
II
Graft41
Now what is called corruption42 in America is a thing not confined to politics; it is a defect of moral method found in every department of American life. I find in big print in every paper I open, "GRAFT." All through my journey in America I have been trying to gauge43 the quality of this corruption, I have been talking to all kinds of people about it, I have had long conversations about it with President Eliot of Harvard, with District-Attorney Jerome, with one leading insurance president, with a number of the City Club people in Chicago, with several East-Siders in New York, with men engaged in public work in every city I have visited, with Senators at Washington, with a Chicago saloon-keeper and his friend, a shepherd of votes, and with a varied44 and casual assortment45 of Americans upon[Pg 121] trains and boats; I read my Ostrogorsky, my Otünsterberg, and my Roosevelt before I came to America, and I find myself going through any American newspaper that comes to hand always with an eye to this. It is to me a most vital issue in the horoscope I contemplate46. All depends upon the answer to this question: Is the average citizen fundamentally dishonest? Is he a rascal47 and humbug48 in grain? If he is, the future can needs be no more than a monstrous49 social disorganization in the face of divine opportunities. Or is he fundamentally honest, but a little confused ethically51?...
The latter, I think, is the truer alternative, but I will confess I have ranged through all the scale between a buoyant optimism and despair. It is extraordinarily difficult to move among the crowded contrasts of this perplexing country and emerge with any satisfactory generalization52. But there is one word I find all too frequently in the American papers, and that is "stealing." They come near calling any profitable, rather unfair bargain with the public a "steal." It's the common journalistic vice29 here always to overstate. Every land has its criminals, no doubt, but the American, I am convinced, is the last man in the world to steal. Nor does he tell you lies to your face, except in the way of business. He's not that sort of man. Nor does he sneak53 bad money into your confiding54 hand. Nor ask a higher price than he means to accept. Nor cheat on exchange. For all the frequency of[Pg 122] "graft" and "stealing" in the press head-lines, I feel the American is pretty distinctly less "mean" than many Europeans in these respects, and much more disposed to be ashamed of meanness.
But he certainly has an ethical50 system of a highly commercial type. If he isn't dishonest he's commercialized. He lives to get, to come out of every transaction with more than he gave.
In the highly imaginative theory that underlies55 the realities of an individualistic society there is such a thing as honest trading. In practice I don't believe there is. Exchangeable things are supposed to have a fixed56 quality called their value, and honest trading is, I am told, the exchange of things of equal value. Nobody gains or loses by honest trading, and therefore nobody can grow rich by it. And nobody would do business except to subsist4 by a profit and attempt to grow rich. The honest merchant in the individualist's dream is a worthy57 and urbane58 person who intervenes between the seller here and the buyer there, fetches from one to another, stores a surplus of goods, takes risks, and indemnifies himself by charging the seller and the buyer a small fee for his waiting and his carrying and his speculative59 hawking60 about. He would be sick and ashamed to undervalue a purchase or overcharge a customer, and it scarcely requires a competitor to reduce his fee to a minimum. He draws a line between customers with whom he deals and competitors with whom he[Pg 123] wouldn't dream of dealing61. And though it seems a little incredible, he grows rich and beautiful in these practices and endows Art, Science, and Literature. Such is the commercial life in a world of economic angels, magic justice and the Individualist's Utopia. In reality flesh and blood cannot resist a bargain, and people trade to get. In reality value is a dream, and the commercial ideal is to buy from the needy62, sell to the urgent need, and get all that can possibly be got out of every transaction. To do anything else isn't business—it's some other sort of game. Let us look squarely into the pretences63 of trading. The plain fact of the case is that in trading for profit there is no natural line at which legitimate64 bargaining ends and cheating begins. The seller wants to get above the value and the buyer below it. The seller seeks to appreciate, the buyer to depreciate65; and where is there room for truth in that contest? In bargaining, overvaluing and undervaluing are not only permissible66 but inevitable67, attempts to increase the desire to buy and willingness to sell. Who can invent a rule to determine what expedients68 are permissible and what not? You may draw an arbitrary boundary—the law does here and there, a little discontinuously—but that is all. For example, consider these questions that follow: Nothing is perfect in this world; all goods are defective69. Are you bound to inform your customer of every defect? Suppose you are, then are you bound to[Pg 124] examine your goods minutely for defects? Grant that. Then if you intrust that duty to an employee ought you to dismiss him for selling defective goods for you? The customer will buy your goods anyhow. Are you bound to spend more upon cleaning and packing them than he demands?—to wrap them in gold-foil gratuitously70, for example? How are you going to answer these questions? Let me suppose that your one dream in life is to grow rich. Suppose you want to grow very rich and found a noble university, let us say?
You answer them in the Roman spirit, with caveat71 emptor. Then can you decently join in the outcry against the Chicago butchers?
Then turn again to the group of problems the Standard Oil history raises. You want the customer to buy your goods and not your competitor's. Naturally you do everything to get your goods to him, to make them seem best to him, to reduce the influx72 of the other man's stuff. You don't lend your competitor your shop-window anyhow. If there's a hoarding73 you don't restrict your advertisements because otherwise there won't be room for him. And if you happen to have a paramount74 interest in the carrying line that bears your goods and his, why shouldn't you see that your own goods arrive first? And at a cheaper rate?...
office
INTERIOR OF A NEW YORK OFFICE BUILDING
You see one has to admit there is always this element of overreaching, of outwitting, of fore-stalling, in all systematic75 trade. It may be refined,[Pg 125] it may be dignified76, but it is there. It differs in degree and not in quality from cheating. A very scrupulous77 man stops at one point, a less scrupulous man at another, an eager, ambitious man may find himself carried by his own impetus78 very far. Too often the least scrupulous wins. In all ages, among all races, this taint79 in trade has been felt. Modern western Europe, led by England, and America have denied it stoutly80, have glorified81 the trader, called him a "merchant prince," wrapped him in the purple of the word "financier," bowed down before him. The trader remains82 a trader, a hand that clutches, an uncreative brain that lays snares83. Occasionally, no doubt, he exceeds his function and is better than his occupations. But it is not he but the maker84 who must be the power and ruler of the great and luminous85 social order that must surely come, that new order I have persuaded myself I find in glimmering86 evasive promises amid the congestions of New York, the sheds and defilements of Niagara, and the Chicago reek87 and grime.... The American, I feel assured, can be a bold and splendid maker. He is not, like the uncreative Parsee or Jew or Armenian, a trader by blood and nature. The architecture I have seen, the finely planned, internally beautiful, and admirably organized office buildings (to step into them from the street is to step up fifty years in the scale of civilization), the business organizations, the industrial skill—I visited a trap and chain factory[Pg 126] at Oneida, right in the heart of New York State, that was like the interior of a well-made clock—above all, the plans for reconstructing his cities show that. Those others make nothing. But nevertheless, since he, more than any man, has subserved the full development of eighteenth and nineteenth century conceptions, he has acquired some of the very worst habits of the trader. Too often he is a gambler. Ever and again I have had glimpses of preoccupied groups of men at green tables in little rooms, playing that dreary88 game poker89, wherein there is no skill, no variety except in the sum at hazard, no orderly development, only a sort of expressionless lying called "bluffing90." Indeed, poker isn't so much a game as a bad habit. Yet the American sits for long hours at it, dispersing92 and accumulating dollars, and he carries its great conception of "bluff91" and a certain experience of kinetic93 physiognomy back with him to his office....
And Americans talk dollars to an astonishing extent....
Now this is the reality of American corruption, a huge exclusive preoccupation with dollar-getting. What is called corruption by the press is really no more than the acute expression in individual cases of this general fault.
Where everybody is getting it is idle to expect a romantic standard of honesty between employers and employed. The official who buys rails for the[Pg 127] big railway company that is professedly squeezing every penny it can out of the public for its shareholders95 as its highest aim, is not likely to display any religious self-abnegation of a share for himself in this great work. The director finds it hard to distinguish between getting for himself and getting for his company, and the duty to one-self of a discreet96 use of opportunity taints97 the whole staff from manager to messenger-boy. The politicians who protect the interests of the same railway in the House of Commons or the Senate, as the case may be, are not going to do it for love either. Nobody will have any mercy for their wives or children if they die poor. The policeman who stands between the property of the company and the irregular enterprise of robbers feels his vigilance merits a special recognition. A position of trust is a position of advantage, and deserves a percentage. Everywhere, as every one knows, in all the modern States, quite as much as in China, there are commissions, there are tips, there are extortions and secret profits, there is, in a word, "graft." It's no American specialty98. Things are very much the same in this matter in Great Britain as in America, but Americans talk more and louder than we do. And indeed all this is no more than an inevitable development of the idea of trading in the mind, that every transaction must leave something behind for the agent. It's not stealing, but nevertheless, the automatic cash-register becomes more[Pg 128] and more of a necessity in this thickening atmosphere of private enterprise.
III
Political Dishonesty
It seems to me that the political corruption that still plays so large a part in the American problem is a natural and necessary underside to a purely99 middle-class organization of society for business. Nobody is left over to watch the politician. And the evil is enormously aggravated100 by the complexities101 of the political machinery102, by the methods of the presidential election that practically prescribes a ticket method of voting, and by the absence of any second ballots103. Moreover, the passion of the simpler minded Americans for aggressive legislation controlling private morality has made the control of the police a main source of party revenue, and dragged the saloon and brothel, essentially104 retiring though these institutions are, into politics. The Constitution ties up political reform in the most extraordinary way, it was planned by devout105 Republicans equally afraid of a dictatorship and the people; it does not so much distribute power as disperse13 it, the machinery falls readily into the hands of professional politicians with no end to secure but their immediate106 profit, and is almost inaccessible107 to poor men who cannot make their[Pg 129] incomes in its working. An increasing number of wealthy young men have followed President Roosevelt into political life—one thinks of such figures as Senator Colby of New Jersey108, but they are but incidental mitigations of a generally vicious scheme. Before the nation, so busy with its diversified private affairs, lies the devious109 and difficult problem of a great reconstruction of its political methods, as a preliminary to any broad change of its social organization....
How vicious things are I have had some inkling in a dozen whispered stories of votes, of ballot-boxes rifled, of votes destroyed, of the violent personation of cowed and ill-treated men. And in Chicago I saw a little of the physical aspect of the system.
I made the acquaintance of Alderman Kenna, who is better known, I found, throughout the States as "Hinky-Dink," saw his two saloons and something of the Chinese quarter about him. He is a compact, upright little man, with iron-gray hair, a clear blue eye, and a dry manner. He wore a bowler110 hat through all our experiences in common, and kept his hands in his jacket-pockets. He filled me with a ridiculous idea, for which I apologize, that had it fallen to the lot of Mr. J.M. Barrie to miss a university education, and keep a saloon in Chicago and organize voters, he would have looked own brother to Mr. Kenna. We commenced in the first saloon, a fine, handsome place, with mirrors and tables and decorations and a con[Pg 130]sumption of mitigated111 mineral waters and beer in bottles; then I was taken over to see the other saloon, the one across the way. We went behind the counter, and while I professed94 a comparative interest in English and American beer-engines, and the Alderman exchanged commonplaces with two or three of the shirt-sleeved barmen, I was able to survey the assembled customers.
It struck me as a pretty tough gathering112.
The first thing that met the eye were the schooners113 of beer. There is nothing quite like the American beer-schooner in England. It would appeal strongly to an unstinted appetite for beer, and I should be curious to try it upon a British agricultural laborer and see how many he could hold. He would, I am convinced, have to be entirely hollowed out to hold two. Those I saw impressed me as being about the size of small fish-globes set upon stems, and each was filled with a very substantial-looking beer indeed. They stood in a careless row all along the length of the saloon counter. Below them, in attitudes of negligent114 proprietorship115, lounged the "crowd" in a haze116 of smoke and conversation. For the most part I should think they were Americanized immigrants. I looked across the counter at them, met their eyes, got the quality of their faces—and it seemed to me I was a very flimsy and unsubstantial intellectual thing indeed. It struck me that I would as soon go to live in a pen in a stock-yard as into American politics.
[Pg 131]
That was my momentary117 impression. But that line of base and coarse faces seen through the reek was only one sample of the great saloon stratum118 of the American population in which resides political power. They have no ideas and they have votes; they are capable, if need be, of meeting violence by violence, and that is the sort of thing American methods demand....
Now Alderman Kenna is a straight man, the sort of man one likes and trusts at sight, and he did not invent his profession. He follows his own ideas of right and wrong, and compared with my ideas of right and wrong, they seem tough, compact, decided119 things. He is very kind to all his crowd. He helps them when they are in trouble, even if it is trouble with the police; he helps them find employment when they are down on their luck; he stands between them and the impacts of an unsympathetic and altogether too-careless social structure in a sturdy and almost parental120 way. I can quite believe what I was told, that in the lives of many of these rough undesirables121 he's almost the only decent influence. He gets wives well treated, and he has an open heart for children. And he tells them how to vote, a duty of citizenship122 they might otherwise neglect, and sees that they do it properly. And whenever you want to do things in Chicago you must reckon carefully with him....
There you have a chip, a hand specimen123, from[Pg 132] the basement structure upon which American politics rest. That is the remarkable124 alternative to private enterprise as things are at present. It is America's only other way. If public services are to be taken out of the hands of such associations of financiers as the Standard Oil group they have to be put into the hands of politicians resting at last upon this sort of basis. Therein resides the impossibility of socialism in America—as the case for socialism is put at present. The third course is the far more complex, difficult and heroic one of creating imaginatively and bringing into being a new state—a feat5 no people in the world has yet achieved, but a feat that any people which aspires125 to lead the future is bound, I think, to attempt.
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continental
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| adj.大陆的，大陆性的，欧洲大陆的 | |
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commonwealth
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margin
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subsist
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feat
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teeming
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degradation
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laborer
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democrat
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diversified
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utterances
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dispersed
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disperse
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evoke
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countless
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extraordinarily
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lucid
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logic
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unwillingly
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preoccupied
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remarkably
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rebates
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| n.退还款( rebate的名词复数 )；回扣；返还（退还的部份货价）；折扣 | |
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analyzed
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frenzied
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distinctive
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invincibly
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wedded
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catastrophe
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vice
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investigations
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humane
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reconstruction
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plutocratic
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decadence
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irrelevant
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legislative
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entirely
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hampers
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peculiar
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entanglements
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graft
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corruption
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gauge
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varied
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assortment
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contemplate
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rascal
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| n.流氓；不诚实的人 | |
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48
humbug
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| n.花招，谎话，欺骗 | |
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49
monstrous
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| adj.巨大的；恐怖的；可耻的，丢脸的 | |
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50
ethical
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| adj.伦理的，道德的，合乎道德的 | |
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51
ethically
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| adv.在伦理上，道德上 | |
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52
generalization
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| n.普遍性，一般性，概括 | |
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53
sneak
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| vt.潜行(隐藏,填石缝)；偷偷摸摸做；n.潜行；adj.暗中进行 | |
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54
confiding
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| adj.相信人的，易于相信的v.吐露（秘密，心事等）( confide的现在分词 )；（向某人）吐露（隐私、秘密等） | |
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55
underlies
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| v.位于或存在于（某物）之下( underlie的第三人称单数 )；构成…的基础（或起因），引起 | |
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56
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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58
urbane
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| adj.温文尔雅的，懂礼的 | |
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59
speculative
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| adj.思索性的，暝想性的，推理的 | |
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60
hawking
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| 利用鹰行猎 | |
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61
dealing
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| n.经商方法，待人态度 | |
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62
needy
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| adj.贫穷的，贫困的，生活艰苦的 | |
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63
pretences
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| n.假装( pretence的名词复数 )；作假；自命；自称 | |
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64
legitimate
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| adj.合法的，合理的，合乎逻辑的；v.使合法 | |
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65
depreciate
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| v.降价，贬值，折旧 | |
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66
permissible
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| adj.可允许的，许可的 | |
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67
inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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68
expedients
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| n.应急有效的，权宜之计的( expedient的名词复数 ) | |
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69
defective
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| adj.有毛病的，有问题的，有瑕疵的 | |
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70
gratuitously
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| 平白 | |
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71
caveat
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| n.警告； 防止误解的说明 | |
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72
influx
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| n.流入，注入 | |
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73
hoarding
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| n.贮藏；积蓄；临时围墙；囤积v.积蓄并储藏（某物）( hoard的现在分词 ) | |
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74
paramount
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| a.最重要的，最高权力的 | |
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75
systematic
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| adj.有系统的，有计划的，有方法的 | |
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dignified
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| a.可敬的，高贵的 | |
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scrupulous
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| adj.审慎的，小心翼翼的，完全的，纯粹的 | |
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impetus
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| n.推动，促进，刺激；推动力 | |
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79
taint
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| n.污点；感染；腐坏；v.使感染；污染 | |
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stoutly
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| adv.牢固地，粗壮的 | |
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81
glorified
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| 美其名的，变荣耀的 | |
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82
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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83
snares
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| n.陷阱( snare的名词复数 )；圈套；诱人遭受失败（丢脸、损失等）的东西；诱惑物v.用罗网捕捉，诱陷，陷害( snare的第三人称单数 ) | |
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84
maker
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| n.制造者，制造商 | |
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luminous
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| adj.发光的，发亮的；光明的；明白易懂的；有启发的 | |
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glimmering
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| n.微光，隐约的一瞥adj.薄弱地发光的v.发闪光，发微光( glimmer的现在分词 ) | |
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87
reek
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| v.发出臭气；n.恶臭 | |
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88
dreary
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| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
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poker
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| n.扑克；vt.烙制 | |
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90
bluffing
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| n. 威吓，唬人 动词bluff的现在分词形式 | |
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bluff
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| v.虚张声势，用假象骗人；n.虚张声势，欺骗 | |
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dispersing
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| adj. 分散的 动词disperse的现在分词形式 | |
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kinetic
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| adj.运动的；动力学的 | |
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94
professed
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| 公开声称的，伪称的，已立誓信教的 | |
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95
shareholders
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| n.股东( shareholder的名词复数 ) | |
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96
discreet
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| adj.(言行)谨慎的；慎重的；有判断力的 | |
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taints
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| n.变质( taint的名词复数 )；污染；玷污；丑陋或腐败的迹象v.使变质( taint的第三人称单数 )；使污染；败坏；被污染，腐坏，败坏 | |
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specialty
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| n.(speciality)特性，特质；专业，专长 | |
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purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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100
aggravated
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| 使恶化( aggravate的过去式和过去分词 )； 使更严重； 激怒； 使恼火 | |
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101
complexities
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| 复杂性(complexity的名词复数)； 复杂的事物 | |
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102
machinery
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| n.(总称)机械，机器；机构 | |
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103
ballots
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| n.投票表决( ballot的名词复数 )；选举；选票；投票总数v.（使）投票表决( ballot的第三人称单数 ) | |
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104
essentially
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| adv.本质上，实质上，基本上 | |
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105
devout
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| adj.虔诚的，虔敬的，衷心的 (n.devoutness) | |
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106
immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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107
inaccessible
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| adj.达不到的，难接近的 | |
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108
jersey
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| n.运动衫 | |
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109
devious
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| adj.不坦率的，狡猾的；迂回的，曲折的 | |
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110
bowler
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| n.打保龄球的人，（板球的）投（球）手 | |
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111
mitigated
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| v.减轻，缓和( mitigate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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112
gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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113
schooners
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| n.（有两个以上桅杆的）纵帆船( schooner的名词复数 ) | |
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114
negligent
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| adj.疏忽的；玩忽的；粗心大意的 | |
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115
proprietorship
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| n.所有（权）；所有权 | |
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116
haze
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| n.霾，烟雾；懵懂，迷糊；vi.(over)变模糊 | |
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117
momentary
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| adj.片刻的，瞬息的；短暂的 | |
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118
stratum
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| n.地层，社会阶层 | |
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119
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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120
parental
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| adj.父母的；父的；母的 | |
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121
undesirables
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| 不受欢迎的人，不良分子( undesirable的名词复数 ) | |
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122
citizenship
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| n.市民权，公民权，国民的义务(身份) | |
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123
specimen
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| n.样本，标本 | |
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124
remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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125
aspires
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| v.渴望，追求( aspire的第三人称单数 ) | |
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