The richest men in America to-day, the multi-millionaires, are not the product of the universities, but mainly of the public schools. Carnegie, Rockefeller, Schwab, men of the great steel combine, the oil magnates, the great railway magnates, the great mine owners, were all men of limited education at the beginning. Among great merchants, however, the university man is found, and among the Harvard and Yale graduates, for example, may be found some of America's most distinguished men. But Lincoln, the martyred President, had the most limited education, and among public men the majority have been the product of the public school, which suggests that great men are natural geniuses, who will attain prominence despite the lack of education. The best-educated men in America to my mind are the graduates of West Point and Annapolis, the military and naval academies. These two institutions are extremely rigorous, and are open to the most humble citizens. They so transform men in four years that people would hardly recognize them. The result is a highly educated, refined, cultivated, practical man, with a high sense of honor and patriotism. If America would have a school of this kind in every State there would be no limit to her power in two decades.

Despite education, the great mass of the people are superficial; they have a smattering of this and that. An employer of several thousand men told the Superintendent of Education of the District of Columbia that he had selected the brightest boy graduate of a high school for a position which required only a knowledge of simple arithmetic. The graduate proved to be totally unfit for the position and was discharged. Later he became the driver of a team of horses. America abounds in thousands of educational institutions, yet there is not one so well endowed that it can say to the world we wish no more money. It is singular that some multi-millionaire does not grasp this opportunity to donate one hundred millions to a great national school or university, to be placed at Washington, where the buildings would all be lessons in architecture of marble after the plans of a world's fair. Instead they leave a few thousands here and a few there. Carnegie, the leading millionaire, gives libraries to cities all over the States, each of which bears the name of the giver. The object is too obvious, and is cheap in conception. In San Francisco some years ago a citizen tried the same experiment. He proposed to give the city a large number of fountains. When they were finished each one was seen to be surmounted by his own statue. A few were put up, how many I do not recall, but one night some citizens waited on a statue, fastened a rope to its neck, and hauled it down. So peculiar are the Americans that I believe if Mr. Carnegie should place his name on ten thousand libraries, with the object of attaining undying fame, the people, by a concerted effort, would forget all about him in a few decades. Such an attempt does not appeal to any side of the American character. I have known the best Americans, but Mr. Carnegie has not known the best of his own countrymen or he would not attempt to perpetuate his memory in this way.



CHAPTER XIII

THE ARMY AND NAVY

Among the most delightful people I have met in America are the army and navy officers, graduates of West Point and Annapolis, well-bred, cultivated men, patriotic, open-hearted, and chivalrous. They are like our own class of men who answer to the American term of gentlemen. I am not going to tell you of their splendid ships, their training or uniform, but of a few of their idiosyncrasies. There is no dueling in the army. If two men have trouble at the academies they fight it out with bare fists, and in the army settle it in some other way, dueling being forbidden. Owing to the fact that all men are equal in America, the attitude of the officer to the civilian is entirely different. If a civilian strikes an officer in Germany the latter will cut him down with his saber and be protected in it, but here the man would be arrested and treated as any other criminal; in a word, the officer is a servant of the people, and stands with them. He has been trained to treat his men well, and they respect him. But while the officer is the people's servant and his salary in some part is paid by the humblest grocer's clerk, laborer, or artisan, the officer has a social position which, in the eyes of himself and the Government, makes him the social equal of kings and emperors; and here we see a strange fact in American life.

When a garrison is ordered to a town or city, people call to pay their respects. The grocer, who in being taxed aids in paying the officer's salary, is persona non grata. The grocer, milk dealer, shoe dealer, and retail dealers in general might call, but would not be received on cordial terms. The wife of the colonel might return the call of the grocer's wife if she made a good appearance, but the latter would under no circumstances be invited to a function at the camp or post. The undertaker, the dentist, the ice-man, the retail shoe man are under the ban. Certain kinds of business appear to have certain social rights. Thus a dentist would not be received, but the man who manufactures dentists' tools may be a leader among the "Four Hundred."

Strange complications arise. A young officer fell in love with a sergeant's daughter, and married her, as I learned from a well-known officer at the Army and Navy Club. This was serious enough, as there could be no intimacy between a commissioned and non-commissioned officer. The young man and his bride were ordered to a distant post, where the story of course followed them. All went well for a time. The bride sank her social inferiority in the rank of her husband, and the ladies of the post called on her, not as the sergeant's daughter but as the officer's wife. The mother of the bride finally decided to visit her, and thus became the guest of the officer, who was a lieutenant. Under ordinary circumstances it was the duty of all the ladies to call on the mother of the lieutenant's wife; but it so happened that she was the wife of a sergeant, and hence to call was impossible. No one did so.

The young wife felt herself insulted, and the ubiquitous reporter seized upon the situation, until it was taken up by every paper in the country. The pictures of mother, daughter, and sergeant were shown, and columns were written on the subject. Almost to a man the editors denounced what they termed the snobbishness of the army, and denounced West Point for producing snobs, claiming that the ladies of the post, had they been real ladies, would have called on a respectable laundress even if she had been the sergeant's wife. I refer to this to show the intricacies of American etiquette. The point is that nearly all the editors who knew anything, believed that the ladies were right, but did not dare to say so on account of the fact that the majority of their readers felt themselves the equals of the army officer; hence the cry of snobbery that went whistling over the land. The lieutenant committed a gross mistake in marrying the girl; he married out of his class. But in America I am told there are no classes, and I am constantly forgetting this.

In the army there are several black regiments (negroes). They have black chaplains, and attempts have been made to find black officers, but the social difficulties make this impossible, though the blacks are free and independent citizens and help pay the salaries of the white men. It would be impossible to force white soldiers to admit to their regiment black soldiers. No white man would permit a black officer to be placed over him, even by inference.

In the navy we see an entirely different situation. On every ship are negroes in the crew, sleeping on the same gun-decks with the white men, and no fault is found; but a negro officer would be an impossibility. Though several have been sent to the Naval Academy, none have "gone through." Even in these almost perfect institutions favoritism exists. To illustrate: the son of a prominent man was about to fail in his examinations, when the powers that be passed the word that he must pass, nolens volens. The professor in whose class he was and who had found him deficient resented this, and when he learned that it was the intention to pass the boy over his head he resigned and was ordered to his regiment. The young man was graduated, entered the army and, aided by influence, jumped many of his class men and finally acquired rank at the request of the wife of one of the Presidents. This was a very exceptional case, the result of strong national sentiment that favored the father.

The management of the army does not seem rational to a foreigner. To preserve the idea of republican simplicity and equality, army men are not rewarded with orders, as in other countries, which is a great injustice. Few officers, though veterans of many wars, wear medals, and when they do they were not given as rewards for bravery, but are merely corps badges, showing that the officer belongs to this or that army corps. But if an officer does a brave deed he may be promoted several points over his fellows, as brave as he, but who did not have the same opportunity to show bravery. Ill feeling may be the result. Every man is expected to be brave, and extraordinary examples of bravery are recognized in other nations by the presentation of medals, the possession of which creates no ill feeling. The actual head of the army is the Secretary of War, a political appointment, an adviser selected by the President, who, usually, has no military knowledge. This officer gives all the orders to the general of the army, and, as in a recent instance, a vast amount of friction has been the result. Intense feeling was occasioned by the elevation of certain officers, who were supposed to possess remarkable executive ability.

Civil war veterans at the Army and Navy Club complained to an acquaintance of mine that when they arrived at the seat of war in Cuba they found their superior officers to be, first, General Wheeler, an ex-Confederate, against whom they had fought in the civil war; second, Colonel Wood, who had been a contract army surgeon under nearly all of them; and finally, Lieutenant-Colonel Roosevelt, who was a babe in arms when they were fighting the battles of the civil war. This story serves to illustrate the point that political "pulls" and favoritism are rampant in the service, and are the cause of much disgust among officers. General Funston affords an illustration that has incensed many officers. Funston was an unknown man, who captured Aguinaldo by a clever ruse, a valuable and courageous piece of work, which should have been rewarded with a decoration and some promotion; but he was jumped over the heads of hundreds, landing at the top of the army in one "fell swoop." I judge the policy of the Government to be to promote officers so soon as they show evidence of extraordinary capability.

It would be an easy matter for any one to obtain photographs of plans and sketches of American fortifications. One of my friends hired a photographer to get up what he called a scrap-book of pictures to take home to his family in Tokio in order to "entertain his people." The photographer sent him a wonderful series, showing the forts overlooking New York harbor, interiors and exteriors; and those in Boston, Portland, Baltimore, Fort Monroe, Key West, and San Francisco were also obtained. Photographs of guns and charts, which can be purchased everywhere, were included, as well as Government reports. If Japan ever goes to war with the Yankees my friend's scrap-book will be in demand. I do not believe the American War Department makes any secret of the forts. They are open to the public. Even if a kodak were not permitted, pictures could be secured. My friend said his photographer had a kodak which he wore inside his vest, the opening protruding from a button-hole. All he had to do was to stand in front of an object and pull a cord. Such a kodak is known as a "detective camera." There are several designs, all very clever. I once saw my face reproduced in a paper, and until I heard about this camera it was a mystery how the original was obtained, as I had not "posed" for any one.

The possibility of America going to war with another nation is remote. From what I see of the people and their tremendous activity they could not be defeated by any nation or combination of nations. They are like Senator ——'s Malay game-cock, of which the senator has said that there is only one trouble with him—the bird never knows when he is licked, and if he does he does not stay licked. America could raise an army of ten or twelve millions of the finest fighters in the world for defense against any combination, and she would win. The senator told me a story, which illustrates the situation. One of the American men-of-war in a Malay port had an old American eagle aboard as a mascot and pet. When the men got liberty they went ashore with the eagle, and showed it as an "American game-cock." The natives wanted to arrange a match, and finally one was planned, the eagle cock against a black Malay. When the fight began, the black cock put its spur into the eagle several times, the latter doing nothing but eye the cock, first with one eye, and then with the other. Once more the black cock stabbed the eagle, bringing blood, whereupon the eagle leaned forward, and as the cock thrust out its head, seized it with one claw, pressed it to the ground, and with the other tore off its head and began to eat it. This is what would happen if almost any nation really and seriously went to war with the United States. But the country was ill prepared for the war with Spain. If Cervera had reached the New England coast he could have shelled Boston and then New York.

Service in America is not compulsory. It is merely made popular, and as a result, every part of the country has State militia of splendidly drilled men, ready to be called on at a moment's notice. They receive no pay, considering it an honor to be in the militia service. In the regular army old names are perpetuated. The great generals and admirals have sent sons into the service. Our Government would do well to send young men to West Point and Annapolis. The Japanese did this for years, and received the best of their ideas from those sources. There is but one thing in the way. Chinamen are tabooed in America, and doubtless would reach no farther than the port of entry. The only way to get in now would be for a new minister or diplomat to bring over ten or a dozen young men as members of the suite and then distribute them among the schools and universities—a humiliation that China will probably resent.

Our trade with America is extremely valuable to her. The cotton, flour, and other commodities we import represent a vast sum, and I believe if we refused at once to buy anything from America we could make our own terms in less than two years. This could be accomplished very gradually. The Americans would find it out first through their consuls, who are all instructed to report on every possible point of vantage that can be taken in China by their merchants. They would report a decreased demand. American merchants would then demand an explanation from the Department of State, and finally we could announce that we preferred to buy from our friends, American treatment of the Chinese being inimical to good feeling. Knowing the American business men as I do, you could count on a wail coming up from them. An appeal would be made to Congress through representatives and senators, the American business men demanding that the "Chinese matter" be arranged upon a "more liberal basis." When you touch the pocketbook of "Uncle Sam" you reach his earthquake center; yet for defense, for the preservation of the national honor, this people will spend untold sums. The American Government bond is the best security in the world. It is founded on the rock of honor and patriotism. And there is no repudiation like that of ——, and none like the pretended one of ——.[12] We have our faults, and it is well to recognize them; but I never saw them until I mingled with the English and Americans.

There is of course a large foreign element in the American army—thousands of Irish and Germans; but this does not signify, as I learn that in the State of Massachusetts, the stronghold of Americans, the Irish hold a third of the official positions, the native-born Yankees about one-fourth. This is particularly exasperating to old families in New England, as it is notorious that the Irish come directly from the very dregs of the poverty-stricken peasantry—the "bog-trotters." I was much impressed by the high standard of honor in the army and navy, and am told that it is the rarest of occurrences for a regular army officer to commit a crime or to default. This is due to the training received at the military and naval schools, where young men are placed on their honor.

FOOTNOTE:

[12] China has twice repudiated its Government bonds within four centuries.



CHAPTER XIV

ART IN AMERICA

It is seldom that I have been complimented in America, but a lady has told me that she envied our "art sense." She said the Chinese are essentially artistic, that the cheapest thing, the most ordinary article, is artistic or beautiful. I wished that I could return the compliment, but a strict observance of the truth compels me to say that the reverse is true in America. If one go into a Chinese shop and ask for any ordinary article, it will be found artistic. If one go into an American shop, say a hardware "store," there will not be found an article that would be considered decorative, while everything in a Chinese shop of like character would fall under this head. The conclusion is that the Chinese are artistic, while the Americans are not.

The reason lies in the fact that the Chinese are homogeneous, while the Americans are a mixed race, that is injured by the continual introduction of baser elements. If immigration could be stopped for fifty years, and the people have a chance to acquire "oneness," they might become artistic. The middle class, however, is, from an artistic standpoint, a horror; they have absolutely no art sense, and the nouveaux riches are often as bad. The latter sometimes place their money in the hands of an agent, who buys for them; but all at once a man may break out and insist upon buying something himself, so that in a splendid collection of European names will appear some artistic horror to stamp the owner as a parvenu.

The Americans have not produced a great painter. By this I mean a really great artist, nor have they a great sculptor, one who is or has been an inspiration. But they have thousands of artists, and many poor ones thrive in selling their wares. You may see a man with an income of thirty thousand dollars having paintings on his walls that give one the vertigo. The poor artist has taken him in, or "pulled his leg," to use the latest American slang. There are some fine paintings in America. I have visited the great collections in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Washington, Chicago, and those in many private galleries, but the best of the pictures are always from England, France, Germany, and other European countries. Old masters are particularly revered. Americans pay enormous sums for them, but sometimes are deceived.

They have art schools by the hundred, where they study from the nude and from models of all kinds. There are splendid museums of art, especially in Boston and New York. The art interests are particularly active, but not the people; there are a few art lovers only, the people in the mass being hopeless. Cheap prints, chromos, and other deadly things are ground out by the million and sold, to clog still deeper the art sense of an inartistic people. They laugh at our conventional Chinese art, but the extreme of conventionality is certainly better than some of the daubs I have seen in American homes. Americans have peculiar fancies in art. One is called Impressionist Art. As near as I can understand it, painters claim that while you are looking at an object you do not really see it all, you merely gain an impression; so they paint only the impression. In a museum of art I was shown several rooms full of daubs, having absolutely nothing to commend them, weird colors being thrown together in the strangest manner, without rhyme or reason, but over which people went mad. The great masters of Europe appeal to me strongly. In America, marine painters attract me the most, for example, Edward Moran, who is a splendid delineator of the sea. Bierstadt is a noble painter, and so is Thomas Moran. There are half a hundred men who are fine painters, but half a thousand men and women who think they are artistic but who are not.

Americans have developed no individual architecture. You see semipagoda-like effects in the East, and old English houses in the South. They steal the latter and call them Colonial. They steal the architecture of the Moors and call it Mexican. They borrow Roman and Grecian effects for great public buildings. At one time they went mad over the French roof, or mansard. Nowhere have I seen purely American architecture. The race is not possessed of sufficient unity. So all their art is from abroad, and notably is French and English. They make broad effects, and give them an American name; but they are copied from the Dutch or Germans. All the furniture designers in America are Europeans. You will find a splendid house with a Chinese room, having teak inlaid with ivory, etc.; a Japanese room, a Moorish room, and an Italian room, all splendidly decorated; but the family lives in an "American room," that is commonplace and subversive of all art digestion and assimilation. The average middle-class American knows absolutely nothing about art; the lower classes so little that their homes are hopeless. Knowing this, they are preyed upon by thousands of foreign swindlers. There are hundreds of articles manufactured in Europe to sell to the American tourist. I have seen Napoleonic furniture enough to load a fleet. I can only compare it to the pieces of the true cross and the holy relics of the Catholics, of which there are enough to fill the original ark which the Bible tells the Americans landed on Mount Ararat in a great flood.

The houses of the best people I have told you about are as far removed from the commonplace as the equator from the poles. They are rich in conception, sumptuous in detail, artistic in every way, and filled with the art gems of the world. But these people have descended from refined people for several generations. They are the true Americans, but make up a small number compared to the inartistic whole. I believe America recognizes this, and with her stupendous energy is doing everything to educate the masses in art. They are building splendid museums; rich men give away millions. There are hundreds of art schools, free to all, and art is taught in all the schools. Fine monuments are placed in public squares and parks, and beautiful fountains and memorials in these and other public places. Their buildings, though foreign in design, are beautiful. In Boston one may see marvelous work in frescoes, etc., and in the Government buildings at Washington. The Capitol, while not American in design, is a pile worthy of the great people who erected it.



CHAPTER XV

THE DARK SIDE OF REPUBLICANISM

The questions I know you will wish answered are, Whether this stupendous aggregation of States is a success? Does it possess advantages beyond those of the Chinese Empire? Does it fulfil the expectations of its own people? Frankly, I do not consider myself competent to answer. I have studied America and the Americans for many years during my visits to this country and Europe, and while I have seen many accounts of the country, written after several months of observation, I believe that no just estimate of the republican form of government can be formed after such experience. My private impression, however, is that the republic falls far short of what the men in Washington's time expected, and it is also my private opinion that it has not so many advantages as a government like that of England.

It is too splendid an organization to be lightly denounced. The idea of the equality of men is noble, and I would not wish to be arraigned among its critics. There is too much good to offset the bad. I have been attempting to amuse you by analyzing the Americans, pointing out their frailties as well as their good qualities. I tell you what I see as I run, always, I hope, remembering what is good in this spontaneous and open-hearted people. The characteristic claim of the people is that the Government offers freedom to its citizens; yet every man is quite as free in China if he behaves himself, and he can rise if he possesses brains.

Any native-born citizen in the United States may become the head of the nation has he the courage of his convictions, the many accomplishments which equip the great leader, and should the hour and the man meet opportunity. This is the one prize which distinguishes America from England. The latter in other respects offers exactly as much freedom with half the wear and tear; in fact, to me the freedom of America is one of her disadvantages. Every one knows, and the American best of all, that all men are not equal, never were and never can be. Yet this false doctrine is their standard, and they swear by it, though some will explain that what is meant is political freedom. Freedom accounts for the gross impertinence of the ignorant and lower classes, the laughable assumptions of servants, and the illogical pretenses of the nouveau riche, which make America impossible to some people. Cultivated Americans are as thoroughly aristocratic as the nobility of England. There are the same classes here as there. A grocer becomes rich and retires or dies; his children refuse to associate with the families of other grocers; in a word, the Americans have the aristocratic feeling, but they have no peasant class; the latter would be, in their own estimation, as good as any one. One class, the lower and poorer, is arraigned against the upper and richer, and the gap is growing daily.

But this would not prove that the republic is a failure. What then? It is, in the opinion of many of its clergymen, a great moral failure. No nation in history has lasted many centuries after having developed the "symptoms" now shown in the United States. I quote their own press, "the States are morally rotten," and you have but to turn to these organs and the magazines of the past decade, which make a feature of holding up the shortcomings of cities and millionaires, to read the details of the tragedy. Thieves—grafters—have seized upon the vitals of the country. St. Louis, Philadelphia, New York, Chicago, great representative cities—what is their history? The story of dishonesty among officials, of bribery, stealing, and every possible crime that a man can devise to wring money from the people. This is no secret. It has all been exposed by the friends of morality. City governments are overthrown, the rascals are turned out, but in a few months the new officers are caught devising some new "grafting" operation.

I have it from a prominent official that there is not an honest State or city administration in America. What can a nation say when for years it has known that a large and influential lobby has been maintained to influence statesmen, a lobby comprising a corps of "persuaders" in the pay of business men? How do they influence them? The great fights waged to defeat certain measures are well known, and it is known that money was used. Certain congressmen have been notoriously receptive. I have seen the following story in print in many forms. I took the trouble to ask a well-known man if it was possible that it could be founded on fact; his reply was, "Certainly it is a fact." A briber entered the private room of a congressman. "Mr. ——, to come right to the point, I want the —— bill to pass, and I will give you five hundred dollars for the vote and your interest." The congressman rose to his feet, purple with rage. "You dare to offer me this insulting bribe? You infernal scoundrel, I will throw you out." "Well, suppose we make it one thousand," said the imperturbable visitor. "Well," replied the congressman, cooling down, "that is a little better put. We will talk it over."

The American Government had been attempting, since 1859, to build a canal across the Isthmus. I believe surveys were made earlier than that, but bribery and corruption and "graft" enabled the friends of transcontinental railroads to stop the canals. It would be a disadvantage to the railroads to have a canal across the Isthmus. So in some mysterious way the canal, which the people wished, has not been built, and will not be until the people rise and demand it. Corruption has stood on the Isthmus with a flaming sword and struck down every attempt to build the canal. The morality of the people is low. Divorce is rampant, the daily journals are filled with accounts of divorces, and daily lists of crimes are printed that would seem impossible to a nation that can raise millions to send to China to convert the "heathen." If they would only divert these Chinese missionaries from China to their own heathen and grafters, but they will not. The peculiar freedom of the country, which is nothing less than the most atrocious license, tends to drag it down.

The papers have absolutely no check on their freedom. Men and women are attacked by them, ruined, held up to scorn and ridicule, and the victim has no recourse but to shoot the editor and thus embroil himself. That it is a crime to ridicule a man and make him the butt of a nation or the world seems never to occur to these men. Certain statesmen have been so lampooned by the "hired" libelers that they have been ruined. The press hires a class of men, called cartoonists, usually ill-bred fellows of no standing, yet clever, in their business, whose duty it is to hold up public men to ridicule in every possible way and make them infamous before the people. This is called the freedom of the press, and its attitude, or the sensational part of it, in presenting crime in an alluring manner, is having its effect upon the youth of the country. Young girls and boys become familiar with every feature of bestial crime through the "yellow journals," so called, and that the republic will reap sorely from this sowing I venture to prophesy.

I asked one of the great insurance men why it was that great financial institutions took so strong an interest in politics. He laughed, and said, "If I am not mistaken, not long since your country repudiated its Government bonds, and they are not negotiable to any great extent among your people." Hearing this I assumed the American attitude and "sawed wood." "We take an interest in politics," he continued, "to offset the professional blackmailer and thief. Now in the case of your repudiation I understand all about it. The Chinese Government was in straits, and suddenly some seemingly patriotic citizen started a petition, stating to the Government that the subscribers offered their Government securities to the Government as a gift. By no means all the bondholders signed, but enough, I understand, to have justified your Government in repudiating the bonds—'at the request of the people'—thus destroying the national credit at home and abroad. Now in America that would be called 'graft.' The act would be done by a few grafters in the hope of reward, or by some unscrupulous statesmen to save the Government from bankruptcy during their term of office. I conceive this to be what was done in China. If we do not keep eternal watch we shall be bled every day. It is done in this way: a grafter becomes an assemblyman, and with others lays a plan of graft. It is to get up a bill, so offensive to our corporation that it would mean ruin if passed. The grafter has no idea that it will pass, but it is made much of, and of course reaches our ears, and the question is how to stop it. We are finally told that we had better see Mr. ——, in our own city. He is accordingly looked up and found to be a cheap and ignorant politician, who, if there are no witnesses, tells our agent plainly that it can be stopped for ten thousand dollars. Perhaps we beat him down to eight thousand, but we pay it. Hundreds of firms have been blackmailed in this way. Now we keep an agent in the State Capitol to attend to our interests, and we take an interest in politics to head off the election of professional grafters."

One of the most serious things in this phase of national immorality is showing itself in what are termed "lynchings"; that is, a negro commits a crime against a white woman, and instead of permitting the law to run its course, the people rise, seized with a savage craze for revenge, batter in the jails, take the criminal, and burn him at the stake. This burning is sometimes attended by thousands, who display the most remarkable abandon and savagery. Some African chiefs have sacrificed more people at one time, but no savage has ever displayed greater bestiality, gloated over his victim with more real satisfaction, than these free Americans in numerous instances when shouting and yelling about the burning body of some unfortunate whose crime has aroused their ferocity to the point of madness.

Not one but many clergymen have denounced this. They compare it to the most brutal acts of savagery, and we have the picture of a country posing as civilized, with the temerity to point out the sins of others, giving themselves over to orgies that would disgrace the lowest of races. I have it from the lips of a clergyman that during the past twelve years over twenty-five hundred men have been lynched in the United States. In a single year two hundred and forty men were killed by mobs in this way, many being burned at the stake. If any excuse is offered, it is said that most of these were negroes, and the crime was rape, and the victims white women; but of the number mentioned only forty-six were charged with this crime and but two-thirds were black. Many confessed as the torch was applied, many died protesting their innocence, and in no case was the offense legally proved. This lynching seems to be a mania with the people. It began with the attack of negroes on white women. The repetition of similar cases so enraged the whites that they have become mad upon the subject. The feeling is well illustrated by the remark of a Southerner to me. "If a woman of my family was attacked by a negro I must be his executioner. I could not wait for the law." This man told me that no lynching would ever have taken place had it not been for the uncertainty of the law. Men who were known to be guilty of the grossest of crimes had been virtually protected by the law, and their cases dragged along at great expense to the State, this occurring so many times that the patience of the people became exhausted. This man forgot that the law was instigated for the purpose of justice.

The negro is an issue in America and a cause of much crime, a vengeance on the people who held them as slaves. The negro has increased so rapidly that in forty years he has doubled in number, there now being over nine millions in the country. At the present rate there will be twenty-five millions in 1930—a black menace to the white American.

The negro is a factor in the national unrest. They outnumber the whites in some localities, and hence vote themselves many offices, while the few whites pay eighty or eighty-five per cent of the taxes and the negroes supply from eighty to ninety per cent of the criminals. While this is going on in the South and the whites are rising and preparing to disfranchise the blacks in many States, the people of Boston and Cambridge are discussing the propriety of the whites and blacks marrying to settle the question of social equality. Such proposals I have read. Reprinted in the South, they added fuel to the flame.

Another element of distress in America is the attitude of labor, the policy of the Government of letting in the lowest of the low from every nation except the Chinese, against whom the only charge has been that they are too industrious and thus a menace to the whites. The swarms of people from the low and criminal classes of Europe have enabled the anarchists to obtain such a foothold that in this free country the President of the United States is almost as closely guarded as the Emperor of Russia. The White House is surrounded and guarded by detectives of various kinds. The secret-service department is equal in its equipment to that of many European nations, and millions are spent in watching criminals and putting down their strikes and riots. The doctrine of freedom to all appeals so well to the ignorant laborer that he has decided to control the entire situation, and to this end labor is divided into "unions," and in many sections business has been ruined.

The demands of these ignorant men are so preposterous that they can scarcely be credited. The merchant no longer owns his business or directs it. The laborer tells him what to pay, how to pay it, when and how long the hours shall be—in fact, undertakes to usurp entire control. If the owner protests, the laborers all stop work, strike, appoint guards, who attack, kill, or intimidate any one who attempts to take their place. In this way it is said that one billion dollars have been lost in the last few years. Contracts have been broken, men ruined, localities and cities placed in the greatest jeopardy, and hundreds of lives lost. Every branch of trade has its "union," and in so many cases have the laborers been successful that a national panic comes almost in sight. Never was there a more farcical illustration of freedom. Irrational, ignorant Irishmen, who had not the mental capacity to earn more than a dollar a day, dictated to merchant princes and millionaire contractors. In New York it was proved that the leaders of the strikers sold out to employers, and accepted bribes to call off strikes.

The question before the American people is, Has an American citizen the right to conduct his own business to suit himself and employ whom he wishes? Has the laborer the right to work for whom and what rate he pleases? The imported socialists, anarchists, and their converts among Americans say no, and it will require but little to precipitate a bloody war, when labor, led by red-handed murderers, will enact in New York and all over the United States the horrors of the French Commune.

The republic for a great and enlightened country has too many criminals. I am told by a prohibition clergyman that the curse of drink and license has its fangs in the heart of the land. He tells me that the Americans pay yearly $1,172,000,000 for their alcoholic drink; for bread, $600,000,000; for tobacco, $625,000,000; for education, $197,000,000; for ministers' salaries, $14,000,000. It has been found that the downfall of eighty-one per cent of criminals is traceable to drink. He said: "Our republic is a failure morally, as we have 2,550,000 drunkards and people addicted to drink. We have 600,000 prostitutes, and many more doubtless that are not known, and in nine cases out of ten their downfall can be traced to drink."

I listen to this side of the story, and then I see wonderful philanthropy, institutions for the prevention of crime, good men at work according to their light, millions employed to educate the young, thousands of churches and societies to aid man in making man better. When I listen to these men, and see tens of thousands of Christian men and women living pure lives, building up vast cities, great monuments for the future, I feel that I can not judge the Americans. They perhaps expect too much from their freedom and their republican ideas. I shall never be a republican. I believe that we all have all the freedom we deserve. It is well to remember that man is an animal. After all his polish and refinement, he has animal tastes and desires, and if he makes laws that are in direct opposition to the indulgence which his animal nature suggests, he certainly must have some method of enforcing the laws. Like all animals, some men are easily influenced and others not, and the human animal has not made progress so far but that he needs watching in order to make him conform to what he has decided or elected to call right.

You will expect me to compare the American to the Chinaman, but it is impossible. Some things which we look upon as right, the American considers grievous sins. The point of view is entirely at variance, but I have boundless faith in the brilliant and good men and women I have met in America. I say this despite my other impressions, which also hold.

The great political scheme of the people is poorly devised and crude. It is so arranged that in some States governors are elected every year or two and other officers every year, representatives of the people in Congress every two years, senators every six, Presidents every four years. Thus the country is constantly in a whirl, and as soon as the rancor of one national election is over begins the scheming for another. The people have really little to do with the selection of a President. A small band of rich and influential schemers generally have the entire plan or "slate" laid out. A plan, natural in appearance, is arranged for the public, and at the right time the slated program is sprung. Senators should be elected by the people, congressmen should be elected for a longer period, and Presidents should have twice the terms they do. But it is easy to suggest, and I confess that my suggestions are those of many American people themselves which I hear reformers cry abroad.

The vital trouble with America to-day is that she can not assimilate the 600,000 debased, ignorant, poverty-stricken foreigners who are coming in every year. They keep out the one peaceful nation. They exclude the Chinese and take to the national heart the Jew, the Socialist, the Italian, the Roumanian and others who constitute a nation of unrest. What America needs is the "rest cure" that you hear so much about here. She should close her seaports to these aliens for ten years, allow the people here to assimilate; but they can not do it. The foreign transportation lines under foreign flags are in the business to load up America with the dregs of Europe. I know of one family of Jews, four brothers, who wished to come to America, but found that they would have to show that they were not paupers. They mustered about one thousand dollars. One came over, and sent back the money by draft. The second brought it back as his fortune, then immediately sent it back for another brother to bring over, and so on until they all arrived, each proving that he was not a pauper. Yet these same brothers, each with several children, became an expense to the Government before they were earners. The children were sent to industrial homes, and later entered the sweat-shops. In America there is not a Chinaman to-day in a workhouse, or a pauper[13] at the expense of the Government; yet the Chinese are not wanted here.

FOOTNOTE:

[13] This is doubtful.—EDITOR.



CHAPTER XVI

SPORTS AND PASTIMES

I had not been in Washington a month before I received invitations to a "country club golf" tournament, to a "rowing club," to a "pink tea," to a "polo game," to a private "boxing" bout between two light-weight professionals, given in Senator ——'s stable, to a private "cock-fight" by the brother of ——'s wife, to a gun club "shoot," not to speak of invitations to several "poker games." From this you may infer that Americans are fond of sport. The official sport—that is, the game I heard of most among Government officials, senators, and others—was "poker," and the sums played for at times I am assured are beyond belief. There are rules and etiquette for poker, and one of the most distinguished of American diplomatists of a past generation, General Schenck, emulated the Marquis of Queensberry in boxing by writing a book on the national game, that has all the charm claimed for it. It is seductive, and doubtless has had its influence on the people who employ the "bluff" in diplomacy, war, business, or poker, with equal tact and cleverness.

Middle-class Americans are fond of sport in every way, but the aristocrats lack sporting spontaneity; they like it, or pretend to like it, because it is the fashion, and they take up one sport after another as it becomes the fad. That this is true can be shown by comparing the Englishman and the American of the fashionable class. The Englishman is fond of sport because it is in his blood; he does not like golf to-day and swimming to-morrow, but he likes them all, and always has done so. He would never give up cricket, golf, or any of his games because they go out of fashion; he does not allow them to go out of fashion; but with the American it is different.

Hence I assume that the average American of the better class is not imbued with the sporting spirit. He wears it like an ill-fitting coat. I find a singular feature among the Americans in connection with their sports. Thus if something is known and recognized as sport, people take to it with avidity, but if the same thing is called labor or exercise, it is considered hard work, shirked and avoided. This is very cleverly illustrated by Mark Twain in one of his books, where a boy makes his companions believe that white-washing a fence is sport, and so relieves himself from an arduous duty by pretending to share the great privilege with them.

No one would think of walking steadily for six days, yet once this became sport; dozens of men undertook it, and long walks became a fad. If a man committed a crime and should be sentenced to play the modern American game of football every day for thirty days as a punishment, there are some who might prefer a death sentence and so avoid a lingering end; but under the title of "sport" all young men play it, and a number are maimed and killed yearly.

Sport is in the blood of the common people. Children begin with tops, marbles, and kites, yet never appreciate our skill with either. I amazed a boy on the outskirts of Washington one day by asking him why he did not irritate his kite and make it go through various evolutions. He had never heard of doing that, and when I took the string and began to jerk it, and finally made the kite plunge downward or swing in circles, and always restored it by suddenly slacking off the cord, he was astonished and delighted. The national game is baseball, a very clever game. It is nothing to see thousands at a game, each person having paid twenty-five or fifty cents for the privilege. In summer this game, played by experts, becomes a most profitable business. Rarely is any one hurt but the judge or umpire, who is at times hissed by the audience and mobbed, and at others beaten by either side for unfair decisions; but this is rare.

Football is dangerous, but is even more popular than the other. You might imagine by the name that the ball is kicked. On the contrary the real action of the game consists in running down, tripping up, smashing into, and falling on whomever has the ball. As a consequence, men wear a soft armor. There are fashions in sports which demonstrate the ephemeral quality of the American love for sport. A while ago "wheeling" was popular, and everybody wheeled. Books were printed on the etiquette of the sport; roads were built for it and improved; but suddenly the working class took it up and fashion dropped it. Then came golf, imported from Scotland. With this fad millions of dollars were expended in country clubs and greens all over the United States, as acres of land were necessary. People seized upon this with a fierceness that warmed the hearts of dealers in balls and clubs. The men who edited wheel magazines now changed them to "golf monthlies." This sport began to wane as the novelty wore off, until golf is now played by comparatively few experts and lovers.

Society introduced the automobile, and we have the same thing—more magazines, the spending of millions, the building of the garage, and the appearance of the chaufeur or driver. Then came the etiquette of the auto—a German navy cap, rubber coat, and Chinese goggles. This peculiar uniform is of course only to be worn when racing, but you see the American going out for a slow ride solemnly attired in rubber coat and goggles. The moment the auto comes within reach of the poor man it will be given up; but it is now the fad and a most expensive one, the best machines costing ten thousand dollars or more, and I have seen races where the speed exceeded a mile a minute.

All sports have their ethics and rules and their correct costuming. Baseball men are in uniform, generally white, with various-colored stockings. The golfer wears a red coat and has a servant or valet, who carries his bag of clubs, designed for every possible expediency. To hear a group of golfers discuss the merits of these tools is one of the extraordinary experiences one has in America. I have been made fairly "giddy," as the Englishmen say, by this anemic conversation at country clubs. The "high-ball" was the saving clause—a remarkable invention this. Have I explained it? You take a very tall glass, made for the purpose, and into it pour the contents of a small cut-glass bottle or decanter of whisky, which must be Scotch, tasting of smoke. On this you pour seltzer or soda-water, filling up the glass, and if you take enough you are "high" and feel like a rolling ball. It is the thing to take a "high-ball" after every nine holes in golf. Then after the game you bathe, and sit and drink as many as your skin will hold. I got this from a professional golf-teacher in charge of the —— links, and hence it is official.

The avidity with which the Americans seize upon a sport and the suddenness with which they drop it, illustrating what I have said about the lack of a national sporting taste, is well shown by the coming of a game called "ping pong," a parlor tennis, with our battledores for rackets. What great mind invented this game, or where it came from, no one seems to know, but as a wag remarked, "When in doubt lay it to China." Some suppose it is Chinese, the name suggesting it. So extraordinary was the early demand for it that it appeared as though everybody in America was determined to own and play ping pong. The dealers could not produce it fast enough. Factories were established all over the country, and the tools were ground out by the ten thousands. Books were written on the ethics of the game; experts came to the front; ping pong weeklies and monthlies were founded, to dumfound the masses, and the very air vibrated with the "ping" and the "pong."

The old and young, rich and poor, feeble and herculean, all played it. Doctors advised it, children cried for it, and a fashionable journal devised the correct ping-pong costume for players. Great matches were played between the experts of various sections, and this sport, a game really for small children, after the fashion of battledore and shuttlecock, ran its course among young and old. Pictures of adult ping-pong champions were blazoned in the public print; even churchmen took it up. Public gardens had special ping-pong tables to relieve the stress. At last the people seized upon ping pong, and it became common. Then it was dropped like a dead fish. If some cyclonic disturbance had swept all the ping-pong balls into space, the disappearance could not have been more complete. Ping pong was put out of fashion. All this to the alien suggests something, a want of balance, a "youngness" perhaps.

At the present time the old game of croquet is being revived under another name, and tennis is the vogue among many. Among the fashionable and wealthy men polo is the vogue, but among a few everything goes by fads for a few years. Every one will rush to see or play some game; but this interest soon dies out, and something new starts up. Such games as baseball and football, tennis and polo are, in a sense, in a class by themselves, but among the pastimes of the people a wide vogue belongs to fishing, and shooting wild fowl and large game. The former is universal, and the Americans are the most skilled anglers with artificial lures in the world, due to the abundance of game-fish, trout, and others, and the perfect Government care exercised to perfect the supply.

As an illustration, each State considers hunting and fishing a valuable asset to attract those who will come and spend money. I was told by a Government official that the State of Maine reckoned its game at five million dollars per annum, which means that the sport is so good that sportsmen spend that amount there every year; but I fancy the amount is overestimated. The Government has perfect fish hatcheries, constantly supplying young fish to streams, while the business in anglers' supplies is immense. There are thousands of duck-shooting clubs in the United States. Men, or a body of men, rent or buy marshes, and keep the poor man out. Rich men acquire hundreds of acres, and make preserves. Possibly the sport of hunting wild fowl is the most characteristic of American sports. This also has its etiquette, its costumes, its club-houses, and its poker and high-balls. I know of one such club in which almost all the members are millionaires. A humorous paper stated that they used "gold shot."

As a nation the Americans are fond of athletics, which are taught in the schools. There are splendid gymnasiums, and boys and girls are trained in athletic exercises. Athletics are all in vogue. It is fashionable to be a good "fencer." All the young dance. I believe the Americans stand high as a nation in all-around athletics; at least they are far ahead of China in this respect.

I have reserved for mention last the most popular fashion of the people in sport, which is prize-fighting. Here again you see a strange contradiction. The people are preeminently religious, and prize-fighting and football are the sports of brutes; yet the two are most popular. No public event attracts more attention in America than a gladiatorial fight to the finish between the champion and some aspirant. For months the papers are filled with it, and on the day of the event the streets are thronged with people crowding about the billboards to receive the news. No national event, save the killing of a President, attracted more universal attention than the beating of Sullivan by Corbett and the beating of Corbett by Fitzsimmons, and "Fitz" in turn by Jeffries. I might add that I joined with the Americans in this, as the modern prize-fighter is a fine animal. If all boys were taught to believe that their fists are their natural weapons, there would be fewer murders and sudden deaths in America. I have seen several of these prize-fights and many private bouts, all with gloves. They are governed by rules. Such a combat is by no means as dangerous as football, where the obvious intention seems to be to break ribs and crush the opponent.

Rowing is much indulged in, and yachting is a great national maritime sport, in which the Americans lead and challenge the world. In no sport is the wealth of the nation so well shown. Every seaside town has its yacht or boat club, and in this the interest is perpetual. Even in winter the yacht is rigged into an "ice-boat." I have often wondered that fashionable people do not take up the romantic sport of falconry, as they have the birds and every facility. I suggested this to a lady, who replied, "Ah, that is too barbaric for us." "More barbaric than cock-fighting?" I asked, knowing that her brother owned the finest game-cocks in the District of Columbia. Among the Americans there is a distinct love for fair play, and such sports as "bull-baiting," "bull-fights," "dog-fights," and "cock-fights" have never attained any degree of popularity. There are spasmodic instances of such indulgences, but in no sense can they be included, as in England and Spain, among the national sports, which leads me to the conclusion that, aside from the many peculiarities, as taking up and dropping sports, America, all in all, is the greatest sporting nation of the world. It leads in fist-fighting, rifle-shooting, in skilful angling, in yachting, in rowing, in running, in six-day walking, in auto-racing, in trotting and running horses, and in trap-shooting, and if its champions in all fields could be lined up it would make a surprising showing. I am free to confess and quite agree with a vivacious young woman who at the country club told me that it was very nice of me to uphold my country, but that we were "not in it" with American sports.

The Presidents are often sportsmen. President Cleveland and President Harrison both have been famous, the former as a fisherman, the latter as well as the former as a duck-shooter. President McKinley has no taste for sport, but the Vice-President is a promoter of sport of each and every kind. He is at home in polo or hurdle racing, with the rifle or revolver. This calls to mind the national weapon—the revolver. Nine-tenths of all the shooting is done with this weapon, that is carried in a special pocket on the hips, and I venture to say that a pair of "trousers" was never made without the pistol pocket. Even the clergymen have one. I asked an Episcopal clergyman why he had a pistol pocket. He replied that he carried his prayer-book there. The Southern people use a long curved knife, called a bowie, after its inventor. Many people have been cut by this weapon. The negro, for some strange reason, carries a razor, and in a fight "whips out" this awful weapon and slashes his enemy. I have asked many negroes to explain this habit or selection. One replied that it was "none of my d—— business." Nearly all the others said they did not know why they carried it.



CHAPTER XVII

THE CHINAMAN IN AMERICA

The average Irishman whom one meets in America, and he is legion, is a very different person from the polished gentleman I have met in Belfast, Dublin, and other cities in Ireland; but I never heard that the American Irishman, the product of an ignorant peasantry crowded out of Ireland, had been accepted as a type of the race. Peculiar discrimination is made in America against the Chinese. Our lower classes, "coolies" from the Cantonese districts, have flocked to America. Americans "lump" all Chinese under this head, and can not conceive that in China there are cultivated men, just as there are cultivated men in Ireland, the antipodes of the grotesque Irish types seen in America.

I believe there are seventy-five or eighty thousand Chinamen in America. They do not assimilate with the Americans. Many are common laborers, laundrymen, and small merchants. In New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and other cities there are large settlements of them. In San Francisco many have acquired wealth. The Chinese quarter is to all intents and purposes a Chinese city. None of these people, or very few, are Americanized in the sense of taking an active part in the government; Americans do not permit it. I was told that the Chinese were among the best citizens, the percentage of criminals being very small. They are honest, frugal, and industrious—too industrious, in fact, and for this very reason the ban has been placed upon them. Red-handed members of the Italian Mafia—a society of murderers—the most ignorant class in Ireland, Wales, and England, the scum of Russia, and the human dregs of Europe generally are welcome, but the clean, hard-working Chinaman is excluded.

Millions are spent yearly in keeping him out after he had been invited to come. He built many American railroads; he opened the door between the Atlantic and the Pacific; he worked in the mines; he did work that no one else would or could do, and when it was completed the American laborer, the product of this scum of all nations, demanded that the Chinaman be "thrown out" and kept out. America listened to the blatant demagogues, the "sand-lot orators," and excluded the Chinese. To-day it is almost impossible for a Chinese gentleman to send his son to America to travel or study. He will not be distinguished from laundryman "John," and is thrown back in the teeth of his countrymen; meanwhile China continues to be raided by American missionaries. The insult is rarely resented. In the treaty ratified by the United States Senate in 1868 we read:

"The United States of America and the Empire of China cordially recognize the inherent right of man to change his home and allegiance, and also the mutual advantage of the free immigration and emigration of their citizens and subjects respectively from the one country to the other for purposes of curiosity, of trade or as permanent residents."

Again we read, in the treaty ratified under the Hayes administration, that the Government of the United States, "if its labor interests are threatened by the incoming Chinese, may regulate or limit such coming, but may not absolutely prohibit it." The United States Government has disregarded its solemn treaty obligations. Not only this, our people, previous to the Exclusion Act, were killed, stoned, and attacked time and again by "hoodlums." The life of a Chinaman was not safe. The labor class in America, the lowest and almost always a foreign class, wished to get rid of the Chinaman so that they could raise the price of labor and secure all the work. China had reason to go to war with America for her treatment of her people and for failure to observe a treaty. The Scott Exclusion Act was a gratuitous insult. I hope our people will continue to retaliate by refusing to buy anything from the Americans or sell anything to them. Let us deal with our friends.

Then came the Geary Bill, which was an outrage, our people being thrown into jail for a year and then sent back. I might quote some of the charges made against our people. Mr. Geary, I understand, is an Irish ex-congressman from the State of California, who, while in Congress, was the mouthpiece of the worst anti-Chinese faction ever organized in America. He was ultimately defeated, much to the delight of New England and many other people in the East. Mr. Geary's chief complaint against the Chinese was that they work too cheaply, are too industrious, and do not eat as much as an American. He obtained his information from Consul Bedloe, of Amoy. He says the average earnings of the Chinese adult employed as mechanic or laborer (in China) is five dollars per month, and states that this is ten per cent above the average wages prevailing throughout China.

The wages paid, according to his report, per month, to blacksmiths are $7.25; carpenters, $8.50; cabinet-makers, $9; glass-blowers, $9; plasterers, $6.25; plumbers, $6.25; machinists, $6; while other classes of skilled labor are paid from $7.25 to $9 per month, and common laborers receive $4 per month. In European houses the average wages paid to servants are from $5 to $6 a month, without board. Clothing costs per year from 75 cents to $1.50. Out of these incomes large families are maintained. He says: "The daily fare of an Amoy working man and its cost are about as follows: 11/2 pounds of rice, 3 cents; 1 ounce of meat, 1 ounce of fish, 2 ounces of shell-fish, 1 cent; 1 pound of cabbage or other vegetable, 1 cent; fuel, salt, and oil, 1 cent; total, 6 cents.

"Here," said Mr. Geary, "is a condition deserving of attention by all friends of this country, and by all who believe in the protection of the working classes. Is it fair to subject our laborer to a competitor who can measure his wants by an expenditure of six cents a day, and who can live on an income not exceeding five dollars a month? What will become of the boasted civilization of our country if our toilers are compelled to compete with this class of labor, with more competitors available than twice the entire population of France, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Switzerland, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, and Spain?

"The Chinese laborer brings neither wife nor children, and his wants are limited to the immediate necessities of the individual, while the American is compelled to earn income sufficient to maintain the wife and babies. There can be but one end to this. If this immigration is permitted to continue, American labor must surely be reduced to the level of the Chinese competitor—the American's wants measured by his wants, the American's comforts be made no greater than the comforts of the Chinaman, and the American laborer, not having been educated to maintain himself according to this standard, must either meet his Chinese competitor on his own level, or else take up his pack and leave his native land. The entire trade of China, if we had it all, is not worth such a sacrifice."

Mr. Geary forgets that when Chinamen go to America they adapt themselves to prevailing conditions. Chinese cooks in the States to-day receive from $30 to $50 per month and board; Chinese laborers from $20 to $30, and some of them $2 per day. In China, where there is an enormous population, prices are lower, people are not wasteful, and the necessities of life do not cost so much. The Chinaman goes to America to obtain the benefit of high wages, not to reduce wages. I have never seen such poverty and wretchedness in China as I have seen in London, or such vice and poverty as can be seen in any large American city. Mr. Geary scorns the treaties between his country and China, and laughs at our commercial relations. He says, "There is nothing in the Chinese trade, or rather the loss of it, to alarm any American. We would be better off without any part or portion of it."

In answer to this I would suggest that China take him at his word, and I assure you that if every Chinaman could be recalled, if in six months or less we could take the eighty or one hundred thousand Chinamen out of the country, the region where they now live would be demoralized. The Chinese control the vegetable-garden business on the Pacific Coast; they virtually control the laundry business; and that the Americans want them, and want cheaper labor than they are getting from the Irish and Italians, is shown by the fact that they continue to patronize our people, and that in various lines Chinamen have the monopoly. Even when the "hoodlums" of San Francisco were fighting the Chinese, the American women did not withdraw their patronage, and while the men were off speaking on the sand-lots against employing our people their wives were buying vegetables from them.

Why? Because their hypocritical husbands and brothers refused to pay higher prices. America is suffering not for want of the cheapest labor, but for a laborer like the Chinese, and until they have him industries will languish. With American labor and American "union" prices it is impossible for the American farmer or rancher to make money. The vineyardist, the orange, lemon, olive, and other fruit raisers can not compete with Europe. Labor is kept up to such a high rate that the country is obliged to put on a high tariff to keep out foreign competition, and in so doing they "cut off the nose to spite the face." The common people are taxed by the rich. The salvation of industrial America is a cheap, but not degraded, labor. America desires house-servants at from $10 to $12 per month; this is all a mere servant is worth. She wants good cooks at $12 or $15 per month. She wants fruit-pickers at $10 to $12 per month and board. She wants vineyard men, hop-pickers, cherry, peach, apricot and berry pickers, and people to work in canneries at these prices. She wants gardeners, drivers, railroad laborers at lower rates, and, to quote an American, "wants them 'bad.'"

When in San Francisco I made a thorough investigation of the "house-servant" question, and learned that our people as cooks in private houses were receiving from $30 to $50 per month and board. A friend tells me there is continued protest against this. Housekeepers on the Pacific coast are complaining of the lack of "Chinese boys," and want more to come over so that prices shall go down. The American wants the Chinaman, but the American foreign laborer, the Irishman, the Italian, the Mexican, and others who dominate American politics, do not want him and will not have him. As a result of this bending to the alien vote the Americans find themselves in a most serious and laughable position in their relations to domestic labor.

I am not overstating the fact when I say that the "servant-girl" question is going to be a political issue in the future. The man may howl against the Chinese, but his wife will demand that "John" be admitted to relieve a situation that is becoming unbearable. As the Americans are all equal, there are no servants among them. The poor are as good as the "boss," and won't be called servants. You read in the papers, "A lady desires a position as cook in a small family, no children; wages, $35." "A young lady wishes a position to take care of children; salary, $30." "A saleslady wants position." "A lady (good scrubber) will go out by the day; $2." When you meet these "ladies," in nine cases out of ten they are Irish from the peasant class—untidy, insolent, often dissipated in the sense of drink. When they apply for a position they put the employer through a course of questions. Some want references from the last girl, I am told. Some want one thing, some another, and all must have time for pleasure. Few have the air of servants or inferiors, but are often offensive in appearance and manners. I have never been called "John" by the girls who came to the door where I called to pay a visit, but I could see that they all wished so to address me. In England, where classes are acknowledged and a servant is hired as a servant, and is one, an entirely different state of affairs holds. They are respectful, having been educated to be servants, know that they are servants, and as a result are cared for and treated as old retainers and pensioners of the family.

The whole story of exclusion is a blot upon the American national honor, and the most mystifying part of it is that intelligent people, the best people, are not a party to it. The railroads want the Chinese laborer. The great ranches of the West need him; people want cooks at $15 and $20 a month instead of $30 or $50. In a word, America is suffering for what she must have some time—cheap labor; yet the low elements force the issue. Congressmen are dominated by labor organizations on the Pacific slope, and there are hundreds of Dennis Kearneys to-day where there was one a few years ago. To make the case more exasperating, the Americans, in their dire necessity, have imported swarms of low Mexicans to take the place of the Chinese on the railroads, against whom there seems to be no Irish hand raised. The Irish and Mexicans are of a piece. I know from inquiry everywhere that the country at large would welcome thousands of servants and field-workers in vineyards and orchards which can not be made to pay if worked by expensive labor.

The Americans try to keep us out, but they also try to convert those who get in. They have what they call Chinese missions, to which Chinamen go. To be converted? No. To learn the language? Yes. I am told by an American friend that here and in China over fifty thousand Chinese have embraced Christianity. On the Atlantic coast I am assured that eight hundred Chinamen are Christians, and on the Pacific slope two thousand have embraced the faith of the Christians. There is a Christian Chinese evangelist working among our people in the West, Lum Foon, and I have met the pastor of a Pacific coast church who told me that nearly a third of his congregation were Chinamen, and he esteemed them highly. But the most conclusive evidence that the Americans are succeeding in their proselyting is that in one year a single denomination received as a donation from Chinamen $6,000. The Americans have a saying, "Money talks," which is much like one of our own.

On the other hand, a clergyman told me that it was discouraging work to some, so few Chinamen were "converted" compared to the great mass of them. The Chinese of California have sent $1,000 to Canton to build a Christian church, and the Chinese members of the Presbyterian Church of California sent $3,000 in one year for the same purpose. I am told that the Chinese Methodists of one church in California give yearly from $1,000 to $1,800 for the various purposes of the church. The Christians have captured some brilliant men, such as Sia Sek Ong, who is a Methodist; Chan Hon Fan, who ought to be in our army from what I hear; Rev. Tong Keet Hing, the Baptist, a noted Biblical scholar; Rev. Wong, of the Presbyterians; Rev. Ng Poon Chiv, famous as a Greek and Hebrew reader; Gee Gam and Rev. Le Tong Hay, Methodists; and there are many more, suggestive that our people are interested in Christianity, against the moral teachings of which no one could seriously object.

I dined some time ago with a merchants' club, and was much pleased at the eulogy I heard on the Chinese. A merchant said, "My firm deals largely with the Chinese and Japanese. When I make a trade with the Japanese I tie them up with a written contract, but I have always found that the word of a Chinese merchant was sufficient." This I found to be the universal feeling, and yet Americans exclude us at the bidding of "hoodlums," a term applied to the lowest class of young men on the Pacific coast. In the East he is a "tough" or "rough" or "rowdy." "Tough nut" and "hard nut" are also applied to such people, the Americans having numbers of terms like these, which may be called "nicknames," or false names. Thus a man who is noted for his dress is a "swell," a "dude," or a "sport."

The United States Government does not allow the Chinese to vote, yet tens of thousands of poor Americans, "white trash" in the South, ignorant negroes, low Irish and Italians who can not speak the tongue, are welcome and courted by both parties. It is difficult for me to overlook this insult on the part of America. There is a large settlement of Chinese in New York, but they are as isolated as if they were in China. In San Francisco there is the largest settlement, and many fine merchants live there, and also in Los Angeles.

In the latter city —— told me that the best of feeling existed between the Chinese and Americans; and at the American Festival of the Rose the Chinese joined in the procession. The dragon was brought out, and all the Chinese merchants appeared; but these gentlemen are never consulted by the Americans, never allowed to vote or take any interest in the growth of the city, and —— informed me that none of them had ever been asked to join a board of trade. It is the same everywhere; the only advances the Americans make is to try and "convert" us to their various religious denominations. While the Chinese are not allowed to vote or to have any part in the affairs of government, they are taxed. "Taxation without representation" was the cause of the war of the American Revolution, but that is another matter.

Yet our people have ways of influencing the whites with the "dollar," for which some officials will do anything, and, I regret to say, all Chinamen are not above bribing Americans. I have heard that the Chinese of San Francisco for years were blackmailed by Americans, and obliged to raise money to fight bills in the Legislature. In 1892 the Six Companies raised $200,000 to defeat the "Geary Bill." The Chinese merchants have some influence. Out of the 110,000 Chinamen in America hardly ten per cent obeyed the iniquitous law and registered. The Chinese societies contracted to defend all who refused to register.

Our people have a strong and influential membership in the Sam Yup, Hop Wo, Yan Wo, Kong Chow, Ning Yeong, and Yeong Wo companies. These societies practically control everything in America relating to the Chinese, and they retain American lawyers to fight their battles. I have met many of the officers of these companies, and China has produced no more brilliant minds than some, and, sub rosa, they have been pitted against the Americans on more than one occasion and have outwitted them. Among these men are Yee Ha Chung, Chang Wah Kwan, Chun Ti Chu, Chu Shee Sum, Lee Cheang Chun, and others. Many of these men have been presidents of the Six Companies in San Francisco, and rank in intelligence with the most brilliant American statesmen. I regret to see them in America.

Chun Ti Chu especially, at one time president of the Sam Yuz, should be in China. I met this brilliant man some years ago in San Francisco. After dinner he took me to a place and showed me a placard which was a reward of $300 for his head. He had obtained the enmity of criminal Chinamen on the Pacific coast, but when I last heard of him he was still alive. There are many criminals here who do not dare to return to China, who left their country for their country's good. These are the cause of much trouble here, and bring discredit upon the better class of our people. Our people in America are loyal to the Government. It was interesting to see at one time a proclamation from the Emperor brought over by Chew Shu Sum and posted in the streets of an American city: "By order of his Imperial Majesty, the Emperor of China." The President, the mayor of San Francisco, was not thought of; China was revered, and is to-day holding her government over the Chinese in every American city where they have a stronghold. So much for the loyalty of our people.



CHAPTER XVIII

THE RELIGIONS OF THE AMERICANS

Thomas J. Geary, the former congressman, is an avowed enemy of the Chinese and the author of the famous Geary bill, but I condone all he has said against us for one profound utterance made in a published address or article, in which he said: "As to the missionaries (in China), it wouldn't be a national loss if they were required to return home. If the American missionary would only look about him in the large cities of the Union he would find enough of misery, enough of suffering, enough people falling away from the Christian churches, enough of darkness, enough of vice in all its conditions and all its grades, to furnish him work for years to come." This is a sentiment Americans may well think of; but there are "none so blind as those who will not see." There will always be women and men willing to spend their time in picturesque China at the expense of foreign missions. China has never attempted to convert the Americans to her religion, believing she has all she can do to keep her people within bounds at home.

In my search for information in America I have had some singular experiences. I have made an examination of the many religions of the Americans, and they have been remarkably prolific in this respect. While we are satisfied with Taoism, Buddhism, but mostly with Confucianism, I have observed the following sects in America: Baptists of two kinds, Congregationalists, Methodists, Quakers of three kinds, Catholics, Unitarians, Universalists, Presbyterians, Swedenborgians, Spiritualists, Christian Scientists (healers), Episcopalians (high and low), Jews, Seventh-Day Adventists, and many more. Nearly all are Christians, as we are nearly all Confucians. Unitarians, Universalists, Jews, and several others believe in the moral teachings of Christ, but hold that he was not of divine origin. America was first settled to supply room for religious liberty, which perhaps explains the remarkable number of religions. They are constantly increasing. Nearly all of these denominations hold that their own belief is the right one. Much proselyting is going on among them, with which one would take no exception if there was no denouncing of one another. Our religion, founded in the faith of Confucius, seems satisfying to us. Some of us believe that at least we are not savages.

Some American friends once invited me to go to a negro church in Washington. Upon arriving we were given a seat well down in front. The pastor was a "visiting evangelist," and in a short time had these excitable and ignorant people in a frenzy, several being carried out of the church in a semicataleptic condition. Suddenly the minister began to pray for the strangers, and especially "for the heathen in our midst," for the unsaved from pagan lands, that they might be saved; and I could not but wonder at the conceit and ignorance that would ask a believer in the splendid philosophy of Confucius to throw it aside for this African religion. This idea that a Chinaman is a "pagan" and idolator is found everywhere in America, and every attempt is made to "save" him.

I very much fear that many of our countrymen go to the American missions and Sunday-schools merely to learn the language and enjoy the social life of those who are interested in this special work. I was told by a well-to-do Chinaman that he knew Chinamen who were both Catholic and Protestant, and who attended all the Chinese missions without reference to sect. They were Methodist when at the Methodist mission, Catholic when at mass, and when they returned to their home slipped back into Confucianism. Let us hope this is not universal, though I venture the belief that the witty Americans would see the humor of it.

I was told by a prominent patron of the Woman's Christian Union that she felt very sorry I did not have the consolation of religion, coming as I did from a heathen land. Some "heathens" might have been insulted, but I had come to know the Americans and was aware that she really felt a kindly interest in me. I replied that we could find some consolation in the sayings of our religious teachers, as the great guide of our life is, "What you do not like when done to yourself do not do to others."

"Why," said the lady, "that is Christian doctrine, our 'Golden Rule.'"

"Pardon me," I answered, "this is the golden rule of Confucius, written four hundred years or so before Christ was born."

"I think you must be mistaken," she continued; "this is a fundamental pillar of the Christian belief."

"True," I retorted; "but none the less Christians obtained it from Confucius."

She did not believe me, and we referred the question to Bishop ——, who sat near us. Much to her confusion he agreed with me, and then quoted the well-known lines of one of our religious writers who lived twelve hundred years before Christ: "The great God has conferred on the people a moral sense, compliance with which would show their nature inevitably right," and remarked that it was a splendid sentiment.

"Then you believe in a God," said the lady, turning to me.

"I trust so," was my answer.

Now this lady, who believed me to be a "pagan" and unsaved, was a product of the American school system, yet she had never read a line of Confucius, having been "brought up" to consider him an infidel writer.

I have seen many of the great Western nations and observed their religions. My conclusion is that none make so general and united an attempt to be what they consider "good and moral" as the Americans; but the Americans scatter their efforts like shot fired from a gun, and the result is a multiplicity of religious beliefs beyond belief. I do not forget that America was settled to afford an asylum for religious belief, where men could work out their salvation in peace. If Americans would grant us the same privilege and not send missionaries to fight over us, all would be well. No one can dispute the fact that the Americans are in earnest; the greater number believe they are right, and that they possess true zeal all China knows.

The impression the convert in China obtains is that the United States is a sort of paradise, where Christians live in peace and happiness, loving one another, doing good to those who ill-treat them, turning the cheek to those who strike them, etc.; but the Chinaman soon finds after landing in America that this is often "conspicuous by its absence." These ideas are preached, and doubtless thousands follow them or attempt to do so, but that they are common practises of the people is not true. There is great need of Christian missions in America as well as in China. I told a clergyman that our people believed the Christian religion was very good for the Americans, and we had no fault to find with it, nor had we the temerity to insinuate that our own was superior.

A Roman Catholic young lady whom I met spoke to me about burning our prayers, our joss-houses, and our dragon, which she had seen carried about the streets of San Francisco. "Pure symbolism," I answered, and then told her of the Christian dragon in the Divine Key of the Revelation of Jesus Christ as Given to John, by a Christian writer, William Eugene Brown. This dragon had nine heads, while ours has only one. I believe I had the best of the argument so far as heads went. This young woman, a graduate of a large college, wore an amulet, which she believes protects her from accident. She possessed a bottle of water from a miraculous spring in Canada, which she said would cure any disease, and she told me that one of the Catholic churches there, Ste. Anne de Beaupre, had a small piece of the wrist-bone of the mother of the Virgin, which would heal and had healed thousands. She had a picture of the church, showing piles of crutches thrown aside by cured and grateful patients. Can China produce such credulity? I think not.

All nations may be wrong in their religious beliefs, but certainly "pagan China" is outdone in religious extravaganza by America or any European state. Our joss-houses and our feasts are nothing to the splendors of American churches. An American girl laughed at the bearded figures in a San Francisco joss-house, but looked solemn when I referred to the saints in a Catholic cathedral in the same city. If I were "fancy free" I should like to lecture in America on the inconsistencies of the Caucasian. They really challenge our own. Instead of having one splendid church and devoting themselves to the real ethics of Christianity, these Christians have divided irrevocably, and so lost strength and force. They are in a sense turned against themselves, and their religious colleges are graduating men to perpetuate the differences. No more splendid religion than that expounded by Christ could be imagined if they would join hands and, like the Confucians, devote their attention not to rites and theological differences but to the daily conduct of men.

The Americans have a saying, "Take care of the pennies and the dollars will care for themselves." We believe that in taking care of the morals of the individual the nation will take care of itself. I took the liberty of commending this Confucian doctrine to a Methodist brother, but he had never been allowed to read the books of Confucius. They are classed with those of Mohammed, Voltaire, and others. So what can one do with such people, who have the conceit of the ages and the ignorance of all time? Their great scholars see their idiosyncrasies, and I can not begin to describe them. One sect believes that no one can be saved unless immersed in water; others believe in sprinkling. Others, as the Quakers, denounce all this as mummery. One sect, the Shakers, will have no marriages. Another believes in having as many wives as they can support—the Mormons. The Jews and Quakers oblige members to marry in the society; in the latter instance the society is dying out, and the former from constant intermarriage has resulted in conspicuous and marked facial peculiarities. These different sects, instead of loving, despise one another. Episcopalians look down upon the Methodists, and the latter denounce the former because the priests sometimes smoke and drink. The Unitarians are not regarded well by the others, yet nearly all the other bodies contain Unitarians, who for business and other reasons do not acknowledge the fact. A certain clergyman would not admit a Catholic priest to his platform. All combine against the poor Jew.

So strong is the feeling against this people among the best of American citizens that they are almost completely ostracised, at least socially. In all the years spent in America I do not recall meeting a Jew at dinner in Washington, New York, or Newport. They are disliked, and as a rule associate entirely with themselves, having their own churches, clubs, etc. Yet they in large degree control the finances of America. They have almost complete control of the textile-fabric business, clothing, and many other trades. Why the American Christians dislike the American Jews is difficult to understand, but the invariable reply to this question is that their manners are so offensive that Christians will not associate with them. I doubt if in any of the first circles of any city you would meet a Jew. In the fashionable circles of New York I heard that it would be "easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle" than for a Jew to enter these circles. Many hotels will not receive them. In fact, the ban is on the Jew as completely in America as in Russia. I was strongly tempted to ask if this was the brotherly love I heard so much about, but refrained. I heard the following story at a dinner: A Chinese laundryman received a call from a Jew, who brought with him his soiled clothing. The Chinaman, glancing at the Jew, refused to take the package. "But why?" asked the Jew; "here's the money in advance." "No washee," said the Christian Chinaman; "you killed Melican man's Joss," meaning that the Jews crucified the Christ.

The more you delve into the religions of the Americans the more anomalies you find. I asked a New York lady at Newport if she had ever met Miss ——, a prominent Chinese missionary. She had never heard of her, and considered most missionaries very ordinary persons. This same lady, when some one spoke about laxity of morals, replied, "It is not morals but manners that we need"; and I can assure you that this high-church lady, a model of propriety, judged her men acquaintances by that standard. If their manners were correct, she apparently did not care what moral lapses they committed when out of her presence. Briefly, I looked in vain for the religion in everyday life preached by the missionary. Doubtless many possess it, but the meek and humble follower of the head of the Christian Church, the American who turned his cheek for another blow, the one who loved his enemies, or the one who was anxious to do unto others as he would have them do unto him, all these, whom I expected to see everywhere, were not found, at least in any numbers.

In visiting a certain village I dined with several clergymen. One told me he was the Catholic priest, and invited me to visit his chapel. Not long after I met another clergyman. I do not recall his denomination, but his work he told me was undoing that of the Catholic priest. The latter converted the people to Catholicism, while the former tried to reclaim them from Catholicism. I heard much about our joss-houses, but they fade into insignificance when compared with the splendid religious palaces of the Americans, and particularly those of the Catholics and Episcopalians. Their religious customs are beyond belief. As an illustration, their religion teaches them that the dead, if they have led a good life, go at once to heaven, though the Catholics believe in a purgatory, a half-way house, out of which the dead can be bought by the payment of money.

Now the simple Chinaman would naturally believe that the relatives would be pleased at the death of a friend who was immediately transported to paradise and freed from the worries of life, but not at all; at the death of a relative the friends are plunged into such grief that they have been known to hire professional mourners, and instead of putting on clothes indicative of joy and thanksgiving array themselves in somber black, the token of woe, and wear it for years. Everything is black, and the more fashionable the family the deeper the black. The deepest crape is worn by the women. Writing-paper is inscribed with a deep band, also visiting cards. Women use jet as jewelry, and white pearls are replaced by black ones. Even servants are garbed in mourning for the departed, who, they believe, have gone to the most beautiful paradise possible to conceive. Contemplating all these inconsistencies one is amazed, and the amazement is ever increasing as one delves deeper into the ways of the inconsistent American.

The credulity of the American is nowhere more singularly shown than in his susceptibility to religion. At a dinner given by the —— of —— in Washington, conversation turned on religion, and Senator ——, a very clever man, told me in a burst of confidence, "Our people are easily led; it merely requires a leader, a bright, audacious man, with plenty of 'cheek,' to create a following." There are hundreds of examples of this statement. No matter how idiotic the religion or philosophy may be, a following can be established among Americans. A man of the name of Dowie, "ignorant, impertinent, but with a superabundance of cheek" (I quote an American journal), announced himself as the prophet Elijah, and obtained a following of thousands, built a large city, and lives upon the credulity of the public.

Three different "healers" have appeared within a decade in America, each by inference claiming to be the Christ and imitating his wanderings and healing methods. All, even the last, grossest, and most impudent impostor, who advertised himself in the daily press, the picture showing him posing after one of the well-known pictures of Christ, had many followers. I hoped to hear that this fellow had been "tarred and feathered," a happy American remedy for gross things. This fellow, as the Americans say, "went beyond the limit." I asked the senator how he accounted for Americans, well educated as they are, taking up these strange impostors. "Well," he replied, puffing on a big cigar, "between you and me and the lamp-post it's on account of the kind of schooling they get. I didn't get much myself—I'm an old-timer; but I accumulated a lot of 'horse sense,' that has served me so well that I never have my leg pulled, and I notice that all these 'suckers' are graduates from something; but don't take this as gospel, as I'm always getting up minority reports."

The religion of the Americans, as diffuse as it is, is one of the most remarkable factors you meet in the country. Despite its peculiar phases you can not fail to appreciate a people who make such stupendous attempts to crush out evil and raise the morals of the masses. We may differ from them. We may resent their assumption that we are pagans and heathens, but this colossal series of movements, under the banner of the Cross, is one of the marvels of the world. Surely it is disinterested. It comes from the heart. I wish the Americans knew more of Confucius and his code of morals; they would then see that we are not so "pagan" as they suppose.

THE END