America of to-morrow

Front matter

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

AN AMERICAN STUDENT IN FRANCE.

Authorized translation. Illustrated and

Chapter I Page

America on Board ...... i

" New York or the Country ? " — An Ambitious Title — Twelve Hundred Immigrants: the Great Number of Jews ; the General Problem of Assimilation — Good Average Americans — A Lawyer, a Colonel, a Clergyman, a Doctor — First Thoughts on the Japanese Question — A National Holiday at Sea.

Chapter II

In New York and by the Great Lakes. Night

Schools and Summer Schools . . .26 My " Seminarist's " 5,000 Miles — Melancholy Quickly Dissipated — At the Paulists'; Father McMillan — A Young High School Girl — Visiting on Board Train — Evening Schools: 75 per cent of Students Jews — The Catholic Summer School — Comedy, Camping, Base-ball, Lecture, and Supper — On Lake Champlain and Lake George — In the Land of the Mohicans.

CHAPTER III Chautauqua 52

The Dream of a Summer's 'Day — An American Salentum — Chautauqua Institute — An Academic City of 12,000 Inhabitants — Its Origin, Programme, Spirit, and Christian Character — The Thirst for Knowledge.

vi CONTENTS

Chapter IV

Impressions of Chicago. The New Work of Catholic Extension ...... 65

View of Lake Michigan — Ugliness and Beauty of Chicago — An Optimistic Doctor and Chauffeur — In the Belgian Colony — A Gallic-Canadian Sermon — The Suburbs — National Grouping — How a Parish is Founded — A Great and Rich Diocese — The American Clergy — A New Work of Catholic Propaganda, the Extension — Its Necessity, Its Origin, Its Rapid Progress — The Home Missions of Protestants and Catholics — Encouraging Perspectives.

Chapter V

The University of Chicago , . . . .86 Intellectual Life — History of the University of Chicago

— John D. Rockefeller's Twenty Millions, and the Eight Millions of Other Founders — Resources and Buildings — An Outline of the Regular Courses — The Extension Department — The Summer Term — Sermon of a Catholic Priest at the University — The Common Creed of Christians — Social and Religious Sciences — Professor Henderson — University Settlements — Dormitories — An Original Institution : The Greek Letter Fraternities — Delta Upsilon — The Daily Maroon, a Students' Newspaper — The University Press.

Chapter VI

Visits TO Peoria AND Omaha . . . . .115 Peoria for Four Years — The Illness of Mgr. Spalding

— His Philosophy of Pain — Country Club — All My Plans Upset by Mr, Petry — Twenty-five Hundred Miles More — Vain Protests of My " Seminarist " —

CONTENTS vii

Omaha, one of the " Meat Cities " — Commerce and Prosperity — $8,000,000,000 Crops — Creighton University— A Stained-glass Saint in a Rocking Chair — Springing Up of Cathedrals.

Chapter VII

A Celebrated Man who does not Suffer by being Seen at Close Range — Simplicity and Activity — A Prosperous Church — French Missionaries to Minnesota in the Seventeenth Century — Origin of the Town and Diocese of St. Paul — The Jubilee of 1901: Fifty Years of Catholicism in the Northwest — Laying the Cornerstone of the Cathedral (1907): Religious and Civic Fetes — Model Separation — Freedom and Religion Natural Allies — Visit to a Survivor of Heroic Times — The Real Self-made Man.

CHAPTER VIII Western Canada . . . . . . .161

A Property of 360,000 Square Miles — Winnipeg and St. Boniface — Religion in Western Canada — Great Distances and Great Delays — The Endless Prairie — A City More Serious Than Elegant: Calgary — Advice to Young Colonists — Banff — The Rocky Mountains

— First Asiatics — Dialogue with a Japanese — The Race Question — At Vancouver — Landscape and Park

— In Chinatown and the Japanese Quarter — White Against Yellow Race — A Serious Newspaper.

Chapter IX

The Most American of American Cities: Seattle . 197 A Fortunate Corner of the Globe: The State of Washington— Its Chief City, Seattle — Material and Moral Prosperity — Disconcerting Activity — A Busy viii CONTENTS

Bishop — Moving of Churches and Monuments — How a Hastily Built City is Made Regular — A Hill by the Sea — American Push — French Business — Soundness of the Wealth of Seattle — A Privileged Situation — One of the Sovereigns of the Pacific.

Chapter X

The Northwest — Tacoma — Puget Sound . . 213 The Importance of the Northwest — Audacious Railroads — Prosperity of the Young State of Washington

— The City of Tacoma: Origins, Development, Description — A Missionary of Prehistoric Times — Alpinesque Horizons — An Interview a l' Ajnericaine

— Excursion on Puget Sound — The Bremerton Navy Yards — Naval Religion — Well-paid Crews — A Sunset.

CHAPTER XI Activity of the Port of Seattle — Delayed Departure

— A Falsely Pacific Sea — Meetings on Board : Little Japs; Students of Both Sexes — "Europe, if You Wish, but America First " — Alaska, the Norway of America — Uncle Sam's Good Investment — The Excellent Captain — Story of a Fire at Sea — Cordial Simplicity of Westerners — A Word on the Jewish Question — On Moonbeams.

Chapter XII

Invitation to a Destroyed City — San Francisco After the Earthquake — Catastrophe and Resurrection — A Californian Monk — Too Many Lectures — The French Colony — Catholic Secret Society; The Knights of Columbus — At the University of Cali-

CONTENTS ix

fornia — Religion and Public Instruction — The Environs of San Francisco — San Rafael and Menlo Park — Municipal Corruption — Arrest of the Mayor and the Chief of Police — Labor Organization — Labor Day — Employers and the Unions — Socialism in the United States.

CHAPTER XIII The Real Problem of To-morrow: The Japanese

Difficulties; the Greatest of All — Deceitful Calm — The School Question in 1906; Temporary Arrangement — Friendly Governments and Hostile Peoples : The Agreements of 1908 and the Disagreements of 1909 — The Real Causes of the Conflict — The Question of Salaries and of the Standard of Life — The Democratic Ideal and the Necessity of Assimilation — The Importance of the Yellow Immigration — Ineffectual Solutions: That the Governments do not Wish for War, and that it would Solve Nothing — Of the Rapprochement that would be brought about by the Conversion of the Japanese to Christianity — The Slowness and Difficulties of Evangelization — Some Hopeful Signs — A Partial Solution: The Increase in the Number of Whites on the Pacific Coast — Californian Wealth — The Real Strength of the United States: An Optimistic and Free People.

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

\ FEW years ago a letter of introduction from -^*' Archbishop Ireland made me acquainted with Abbe Felix Klein, then a Professor in the Catholic Institute at Paris, and from that day the French capital has been to me another city. The French people can understand us, and sincere Catholics there can open their hearts to sincere Protestants. The gay, gentle, delicate, and refined scholar banters us cheerfully but he really likes us. He interprets for us the inner motives of the leaders of the ancient Church, and he believes that true religion thrives best in an atmosphere of political freedom. In outer form this prophecy of To-morrow appears to be a jest, a merry notebook of a holiday recreation; in essence it is an affectionate revelation of a man's soul who believes in liberty and the triumph of truth ; it is an interpretation of momentous events which are too near us to be seen in a true perspective. Here is one who is admitted to the evening councils of Paulist fathers, to the private offices of distinguished bishops, to the committee rooms of missionary priests, and American Protestants are taught what immense plans are formed and steadily developed in action.

xi

"xii INTRODUCTORY NOTE

It is also wholesome for us to welcome a reporter who is at once shrewd and learned; who has read widely and conversed with scholars, authors, statesmen, reformers; and whose own soul has been the theatre of a modern intellectual revolution, until he has learned to be patient even with heretics like the one he has invited to write this preface. His style is so honest and transparent that you can see his soul in his works, and it is one of the purest, gentlest, noblest souls of our generation. Read his message, and you will discover a reverent scholar whose style is so brilliant and charming that you may think him a man of the world; and he is, — a man of our best world.

Charles Richmond Henderson.

Chapter I America On Board

"new YORK OR THE COUNTRY*?" AN AMBITIOUS

TITLE TWELVE HUNDRED IMMIGRANTS: THE

GREAT NUMBER OF JEWS; THE GENERAL PROBLEM

OF ASSIMILATION GOOD AVERAGE AMERICANS A

LAWYER, A COLONEL, A CLERGYMAN, A DOCTOR

FIRST THOUGHTS ON THE JAPANESE QUESTION A

NATIONAL HOLIDAY AT SEA.

A CERTAIN lady is said to have asked an Ameri- '^^' can when he was presented to her, "You are from the United States: do you live in New York or the country*?" This sort of kindly ignorance is becoming more and more rare, and I am inclined to believe there are not many readers who will ask me why, having already visited America and written about the country, I should have made up my mind to take a second trip there and again to write it up. Four years ago I visited New York and even some of the big

I

2 AiMERICA OF TO-MORROW

towns of five hundred thousand or two million inhabitants that lie on the banks of the Potomac and the Delaware, the Great Lakes and the Mississippi; but there still remained a good deal of "country" to see, and very interesting country, too, such as the summits of the Rocky Mountains, the coast of California, the Arizona deserts, and the plateaux of New Mexico.

It was not the thought of seeing new country that urged me most to take my way to America again and to remain there more than twice as long as I had stayed the first time, nor was it even my eager wish to see once more the friends I had left there: one meets one's American friends every two years in Paris ! This time, in scouring the country through its length and breadth, — and what length, and what breadth I — my desire was to inform myself as much as possible on the questions, even the unsolvable ones, now before Americans regarding the immediate future of their country. Hence the title, "America of To-morrow," which these travel notes will bear. To those who judge it too ambitious to give them such a name, I reply that it might be so were I to call them America of the Day after ^o-morroiv^ or did they aspire to deal with a remote future; but they do not, and I will add that even for America of to-morrow they do not pretend to do more than seek out the hopes, the warnings, and the promises that are pending. In brief, then, it is not the reply of the oracle, but only the terms of the riddle that need be sought for here. Furthermore, I believe that these very terms themselves richly repay investigation; and if it is true as Brunetiere says, that the United States constitutes the finest field for experience that has ever been offered to humanity, then the reader will understand, will perhaps even share, the curiosity which induced me to return there, and will enjoy with me a glimpse at the combinations open for study in this gigantic laboratory.

He may rest assured, however, that he has not to deal with a savant by profession, but rather with a tourist who treats of questions as they come up, apparently at haphazard: I say "apparently" for I am obliged to confess that my travelling was usually directed toward those spots where I knew interesting problems were most likely to be encountered; where, for instance, I should have the chance to see by what methods of training immigrants were turned into Americans; but above all, to those distant shores of the Pacific, where, amid new surroundings and natural wealth, the yellow race and the white race meet, vie with each other, and threaten to come to blows in a conflict on the outcome of which the fate of the world for many centuries may depend.

This time I sail from Boulogne-sur-mer by the Dutch Line. It will not be a fast voyage, — ten days on the Atlantic, — but this is an advantage when one has the leisure and the sea is calm, as it usually is in June. On these sluggish crossings the boat seems to glide along without jolts or throbs, and one can rest better than anywhere else in the world. Besides, the

Frenchman who is travelling for study can begin his observation here on board ; he will meet no compatriots, and the Americans who come under his notice are, as will be seen, of the less known varieties.

From the deck of the tender, the Holland^ which is to take us to the Noordam^ we already see in rough outline one of the most serious difficulties with which the United States has to cope, that of raising and assimilating the immigrants of all races and from all countries who are now arriving yearly in crowds over a million strong. On the wharf a flock of human beings is manoeuvring, headed by a leader who makes signs to them with a staff. They advance, they retreat; and without seeking to understand, they follow the contradictory injunctions which are given them. Four or five times according to the orders of the police and of the ship's steward, transmitted to them by their leader, they come, they go, as unresisting as inanimate objects; and we have plenty of time to contemplate them.

What strange and savage faces, but what stoic energy is portrayed on most ! Their features show the fatigue of the long days and longer nights passed on the trains coming from the south and east of Europe. By the costumes and the faces one recognizes Italians, Russians, Turks, and Hungarian and Roumanian Jews. Their clothes are poor and scarcely clean, and hardly any have stockings. The men are in working clothes with a cap of cloth or fur; the women are bareheaded, or wearing a sort of mantilla, and dressed in gaudy colors. Some carry babies in their arms; and the contrast is painful between these ragged children and the fine doll which an American child near me is holding. Happily a recollection turns my mind from this comparison. I remember that it is little more than sixty years ago that two poor little urchins went to America under these same conditions, one from Ireland and the other from Scotland, two poor little urchins named John Ireland and Andrew Carnegie.

The most interesting of the band are the young men from fifteen to thirty years of age, looking confident and determined. I like the initiative which two among them show, as, slowly and with some difficulty, the gang-plank is being lowered, they leave the ranks and lend a helping hand to the sailors : those two will make good Americans I Humanity progresses only through those who offer themselves when there is a deed to be done, a word to be said, an initiative to be taken, and who do not stop to think what they will gain by it, nor why it falls to them rather than to another.

The passengers proper having all gone on board, the emigrants are called, one by one. They come laden down with cardboard valises, baskets, great canvas bags, and strange-looking blankets. They keep all their luggage with them. So do I, as far as that goes, but I have left something at home. They carry everything with them except the land of their forefathers, and they will forget that. Perhaps they have already forgotten it. One can read nothing in their faces. They abandon themselves to the unknown, to the incomprehensible, to destiny.

At last our tender leaves the wharf and we steam out toward the Noordam, which, riding slackly at anchor, awaits us outside the harbor. As we approach, her band salutes us with the bars of the "Marseillaise," and this welcome thrills me. It is patriotism reviving as it always does far from home — far from our stupid quarrels and our cruel separations. Of our France, who calls herself anti-religious, the last landmarks lingering on the horizon are the black dome of a basilica and a great crucifix on the cliff.

The coast of France has disappeared. We are in foreign parts, quite in foreign parts. The ship's people speak Dutch to each other and English to us. Of the seventy-four first-class passengers all are Americans except a few Dutch and Germans. Among the two hundred and forty-five second-class passengers the last two nationalities are more largely represented. As to the twelve hundred and nine third-class passengers, they can count but fourteen Americans among them. The rest are emigrants from all lands. The countries of their extraction prove instructive nevertheless : 40 come from Holland, 45 from Germany, 48 from Italy, 93 from Austria, 186 from Hungary, 2 from Bulgaria, 14 from Roumania, 51 from Greece, 131 from Turkey, 585 from Russia. Almost all the Russians and all the Hungarians are Jews.

Israel has therefore sent forth one-half this crowd! In 1907 of Jews alone 149,182 emigrants went to the United States, of whom 93,397 remained in the State of New York. The city itself shelters more than

800,000, and they are beginning to take up a great deal of room. Restricted originally to a poor section of the town, at the time of my first trip they were invading the shopping district, but it is now the turn of the wealthy quarters. The Jewish question, if it come up at all, will come up in New York first, but it is a question that interests the whole United States. The Jews here are sufficiently free and sufficiently numerous (there being very nearly two million of them) to show what they are capable of under a regime of real tolerance. Though there exists against them some social prejudice,* no one would dream of excluding them from their civil rights.

The Jewish question is only one phase of the greater problem of immigration. Whereas from 1776 to about 1820, only 250,000 foreigners came to settle in the United States, from 1820 to 1907 not less than 25,318,067 have arrived. At the beginning of the nineteenth century their number did not amount to ten thousand annually ; they now far exceed a million, being, for example 1,100,735 i^ 1906, and 1,285,349

*This social prejudice is, as a matter of fact, stronger in the United States than in western Europe. Jews are excluded from most clubs, and are looked at askance at schools, and even at hotels. I was told that a very rich Jew. a friend of President Cleveland's, wishing to stay with his family at a fashionable hotel at some watering-place, was informed that no persons of his race were admitted: No Jeivs taken. He forthwith bought, just opposite, a vacant lot and built a finer hotel with lower prices and placarded the notice: No Jeivs taken. The older hotel, half ruined and obliged to accept any guests presenting themselves, was soon filled with Jews refused admittance at the new hotel.

in 1907.* Furthermore^ the increase follows a regular course, although it is interrupted and suffers a falling off in the periods of financial crises such as those following the years 1854, 1873, 1882, and 1892. The recent panic could not fail to bring in its train the usual lack of work and consequent decrease in immigration; but the recovery has already set in.

It is not, however, the great number of immigrants which is disquieting; neither the room nor, usually, the work is lacking. The difficulty lies in the origin and extraction of the present day immigrants. Formerly the great majority were of the same races as, or similar to, those of the first colonists ; they came from England, Scotland, Ireland, the Scandinavian countries, Germany, or France; they differed but slightly from the Americans in character, customs, and ideals, and were therefore easy to assimilate rapidly. In 1906, 67 per cent belonged to races occupying the southeast of Europe, even Asia Minor. Whereas southern Italians represented 22 per cent of this total, and Jews (almost all from Russia) 14 per cent, the percentage of Germans had fallen to 8, that of Scandinavians to 5, and of the English, Scotch, and Irish together to 9.3. The official statistics for this same year gave 408,903 individuals of Slavonic race; 283,540 of Iberian; 213,904 of Teutonic, and 116,454 of Celtic. In the first division all coming from the east of Europe are in-

*One must nevertheless take into account that during this same year, 1907, about 310,000 foreigners of whom two-thirds were immigrants, left the United States. The increase by immigration is consequently brought back to 1,075,000.

AMERICA ON BOARD g

eluded, even the Jews; in the second, those coming from the south (Portugal, Spain, southern Italy, Greece, and Syria) ; in the third, those from northern Europe and England; in the fourth, the people of Ireland, Scotland, Wales, France, and northern Italy. To these must be added 61,795 individuals of other races: Hispano-Americans, Turks, Armenians, Chinese, Japanese, and negroes.

And not only are the immigrants recruited principally from second-rate countries, but from the least desirable elements in these countries. Formerly the north and west of Europe sent to the United States a select number of ambitious men, eager for more progress and greater liberty; at present, the south and east send out men, a large part of whom are ignorant,* discontented, and miserable, knowing not what will become of them, and most of whom are enrolled like a flock of sheep by different transport agencies. The Government at Washington has indeed ordered the steamship companies to post the immigration laws in their offices, and has also put a stop to any advertising other than the announcement of sailings and conditions of immigration ; and Congress, in the new Immigration Act of February 20, 1907, has increased the severity of the measures excluding foreigners brought over by labor contracts, more or less explicit, and has extended this exclusion to those whose passage was paid by any association, municipality, or government. But all these

*The number of illiterate persons received in 1907 was 337,573 ; and of the remainder 5,829 could read, but not write.

measures prove insufficient. At present, in order to render them efficacious, it is under consideration either to increase the penalties against delinquent companies, to institute American inspectors at all the ports of embarkation, or, with a view to other remedies, to convoke an international conference. In the meantime the newcomers are examined as strictly as possible. But how can crowds often numbering more than five thousand a day be properly dealt with"? Sometimes twenty thousand immigrants may be seen at one time awaiting the medical examination. In 1907 no less than 13,064 were refused admittance as against 12,432 in 1906; and all these, feeble in mind or in body, should have been sent back to their own countries at the expense of the companies who brought them over. But a great many of them, driven from New York, seek to evade the law by entering across the immense frontiers of Canada and Mexico, which are more difficult of supervision, the latter especially, than the seaports.

Even were this throng to be distributed normally over the whole country, the service they could render certain districts would compensate for the perils with which they threaten the whole. But neither the Southern nor the Western States, which are short of labor hands, receive more than 4 per cent of the total immigration; 22 per cent go to the Middle West; while 68 per cent remain on the Atlantic seaboard, of which half stay in the somewhat over-populated State of New York. These percentages are those of the fiscal

AMERICA ON BOARD ii

year 1905-1906. In 1906-1907, 386,244 immigrants gave New York State as their destination; 230,906 gave Pennsylvania; 104,156, Illinois; 85,583, Massachusetts; and 70,665, New Jersey.

To this irregular distribution is due the greatest disadvantage of immigration, namely the congestion of the foreign element in the big cities, as in New York, Chicago, Boston, and Philadelphia, and its isolation there in certain quarters, thus forming a sort of colony, difficult for the American influence to penetrate.* Everything possible is being done, however, to remedy this evil, through an office established in New York, whose business it is to direct the newcomers to those districts where they can make themselves most useful and will find the greatest demand for labor.

How is it possible to assimilate such multitudes'? And will not the United States under this barbarian invasion compromise their civilization, or at least lose their characteristics'? This is one of the first questions I put to the Americans on board, but they seemed in no way moved by the consideration.

"We need more labor hands," they reply, "especially in the South and out West, and there is still room for the newcomers. We owe to immigration alone the fact that we have become the most populous

*Apropos of this distribution, some interest may be attached to the fact that the 9,731 French admitted in 1907 settled principally in the States of New York and California. The Japanese generally stop in Hawaii, California, Washington, and Oregon. The Jews usually choose the big eastern cities.

nation after China and Russia, and we don't compare ourselves with them ! Were we now to be reduced to our own resources we should see Canada, Argentina, and Brazil gaining on us at our expense; and our industrial, commercial, and agricultural development would advance so slowly as to amount practically to a falling off.

If it is true that many immigrants do not succeed in amalgamating with us, their children, or at least their grandchildren do. Above all, the very patriotic teachings of our schools, and also the influence of the churches, tend to Americanize them quickly. Furthermore, we have observed that the crossing of the white races is very favorable to the progress of the species: the children are larger, stronger, and more intelligent than their parents; they form a sort of new race uniting the qualities of both." And the way has been opened to an enthusiastic vindication of the United States.

In sooth, I really believe, the danger is not so great as might be imagined. Enormous as is the annual immigration, it amounts to only one-eightieth of the total population, and the foreign-born are but as one in six to the native-born.* Only a few, when they arrive, are beyond the age when they can adopt new customs; and quite a number, one-eighth, are children under fourteen who will retain hardly anything of their origin. Finally in this, as in everything, the invincible optimism of Americans is manifest: if immigration

*In I9CX3 they numbered 10,460,085 as against 65,843,302.

increases too fast and becomes a real danger, it can always be restricted, or, if necessary, put a stop to.*

I discuss very freely this and several other problems with my fellow passengers. At the end of two or three days a fine spirit of comradeship is established among us, I might almost say a family spirit. There is no German heaviness, nor English stiffness, none of that class feeling that is always present among a group of Frenchmen, nor any of the haughtiness nor magnificent indifference of the ultra rich of the New World. These would disdain the Hoi land- American Line; there is nothing lacking to render the voyage comfortable and agreeable, but neither is there any social distinction gained in travelling by it, as it does not publish the list of passengers in the newspapers. Although liberal with their money (as was evidenced by the collection taken up at the concert given for the benefit of life-savers) the passengers of the No or dam nevertheless prefer the substantial to the tawdry. We are here face to face with good, average Americans, a class but little known abroad and therefore all the more instructive. One notices with pleasure, what indeed one might expect, but which cannot be gleaned from books, that all

*The ages of the 1,285,349 immigrants for 1907 fall into the following divisions: 138,344 under 14; 1,100,771 between 14 and 44; 46,234 over 44. Other details of the statistics may offer some interest. The immense majority, 1,135,551, arrive from Europe. The males number 929,976, the females 355,373: 873,923 persons possess or declare only $50, and 107,502 have more. The arrivals are most numerous in May, April, March, and June; and fewest in January, February, August, and July (maximum in May, 1509^7; minimum in January, 51,127).

Americans are not nervous and eccentric, nor even millionaires.

Among them are some excellent folk who have been to Europe for a holiday and do not attempt to disguise their delight at getting home again. I see families whose members do not treat one another like strangers, children who come to kiss their father good-night, girls talking with their mothers. I see a touching group of four grown sisters between twenty and thirty-five years of age, a brother of thirty, and a mother of sixty, all six almost inseparable. The father died a year ago ; his widow, unable to overcome her grief, was sent to Europe by her physician. She passed the winter in Florence with her four daughters ; in the month of May the son, an architect, left Paris to join them and together they visited Rome, Venice, and the Italian Lakes. They are returning home with great emotion, and the children are wondering how the return to the house of mourning will affect their mother. They talk to her of their married brother who remained at home, and of his little family all of whom they will be so glad to see again.