Greater America

Front matter

A M E R I C A

ARCHIBALD R. COLQUHOUN iiiiiiiiiiin!!

CopyrightN"

Preface

In calling this book Greater America, the author is aware that he challenges comparison with a far more important, studied, and weighty work. No other title, however, conveys so successfully the main idea of this book.

It is not only the territorial magnitude of Greater America, her innumerable problems of race and policy, and her resources, wealth, and progressive theories which are the motive of this book — it is rather Greater America as a world-power, the American peoples, and the American ideal in the cosmogony of the world.

An attempt is here made — it is believed for the first time — to present American evolution as a whole, to treat her history from the stand-point of its wide national significance, to show to what point she has progressed, to indicate what her future may be. To do this in one comparatively short volume involved an amount of compression and elision which must, perforce, lead to a certain abruptness; it was impossible, in many cases, to do more than indicate a line of thought or suggest a train of ideas.

What does Greater America mean?

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P R E FA C E

If we could answer that question succinctly, if we could estimate the direction in which this huge dynamic force will be exercised, we should be able to take a long look into the future. But America — so it seems to the author — is at a critical period in her history. Very much depends on the spirit infused into her national life, both at home and abroad, during the next few years.

As these lines are written comes the news of the final burst of the war cloud in the Pacific, and although long expected, we are not yet able to estimate what it may mean to the rest of the world. Nearly twenty years ago the writer of these lines predicted the shifting of the centre of gravity* of world affairs from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. ^ Ten years later he embodied the same idea in a book which urged the cutting of an isthmian canal under American auspices.^ Finally, in his last book, published two years ago, he was able from personal knowledge to describe the principal features in that change which already had come over the Pacific'

The three great factors in the transformation of the Pacific are the advance, overland and oversea, of the two great expansive powers, Russia and America, and the regeneration of Japan. We see the embroilment of two of these in a struggle

* R. U. S. Institution, 1885.

^ The Key of the Pacific, 1895.

* The Mastery of the Pacific, 1902.

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which may have far-reaching consequences, not merely for either or both, but for the whole world.

What part will Greater America play in the drama?

It is with intention that the writer has to a certain extent ignored domestic politics in this study of Greater America, and has dealt chiefly with problems of imperial importance, which affect not the United States alone but Greater America as a whole. The questions of foreign relations, of alien peoples, of national defence, of government of dependencies — these are the matters which are of vital importance to the future of a great expansive nation, but on one domestic question — that of efficiency and purity in the administration — so many of these wide questions ultimately depend that it must be given a foremost place. The character of such a work as this is rather critical than descriptive. It is less of a travel-book than any yet attempted by the author, although he has visited, and in some cases revisited, almost every part of Greater America. If he seems, at times, to be bent on picking out weak spots, he asks his reader to believe that it is in no unfriendly spirit. A nation imbued with so many elements of greatness as the Americans, and with so large a measure of success behind them, needs criticism far more than lesser peoples.

In writing both for the British and American

PREFACE

publics, the author was met by a difficulty in avoiding what might, at times, seem unnecessary explanation, since matters which are simple to the one are often cryptic to the other. The American reader must, therefore, exercise indulgence in reading such chapters as that on "How Greater America Is Governed," while the Briton will perhaps forgive the dissertations on our Civil Service and the government of India, when he reflects that these are frequently the subjects of misconception on the part of even enlightened Americans.

Incidentally, it may be mentioned that, in using the term " America " to the exclusion of the qualifying prefix "United States of," the author is not only avoiding circumlocution but is technically correct. The citizens of the United States of America must be called Americans, since they have no other word to express their nationality, whereas the Canadians, Brazilians, or Mexicans, geographically Americans, have a distinct national name. The term United States, so frequently used, might be with equal correctness applied to other than the North American States, but there is no other people who claim the name Americans, and no other country which could be spoken of as America. It may not be out of place to mention here that, although some of the subjects raised in this book are not new to the author, they are all studied afresh in the light of the most recent developments, and that no

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part of the book has appeared previously in any form on either side of the Atlantic.

In conclusion, the author wishes to thank the many friends, British and American, who have assisted him in his task in various ways, and more particularly the courteous officials at Washington, who gave him every assistance in their power in obtaining information.

Contents

PACB

CHAPTBE

Preface • *^^

Chapter I The American People

While it is impossible, in the scope of this book, to deal adequately with a subject so vast and so complex as that of the American people, it is essential, in order to appreciate what "Greater America" means, to glance briefly at the composition and tendencies of the nation.

It is a well-known fact that even the Early English were hardly so mixed in race as the modern Americans, and although the different elements may be politically fused, physically, morally, and socially they are still, to a great extent, distinguishable. This is inevitable when we consider the steady stream of immigration which since 1830 has been pouring into the country. Before that date it was not considerable, nor did it reach its greatest volume for some years. The Irish famine and political conditions in Germany provided a stimulus in the forties, and simultaneously ' came the discovery of gold in California and the beginnings of steam communication. The main stream of immigration until 1880 was from northem Europe, which had suppHed so many of the pre - Revolution colonists, and from the first the bulk of immigrants naturally avoided the South and settled in the Eastern and Northern States. The tendency from that date was to increase the urban population.^

The growth of cities in the last quarter-century has, of course, been infinitely more rapid than in the preceding era. In 1880 only one city — New York — had a population of over one million; in 1900 there were three, and three others had more than half a million each. New York had a population of nearly three and a half millions; Chicago one and three - quarter millions ; Philadelphia one and a quarter millions. After 1880 a fresh element in immigration was introduced. Hungarians, Italians, Armenians, Roumanians, Russians, and Poles began to flock in, until, in 1902, they formed seven- tenths of the total immigration. In 1903 the great bulk of European aliens came from the three countries of Austria-Hungary, Italy, and Russia. The aggregate immigration was 105,000 in excess of that reported for any pre-

* Tn the century between 1790 and 1890 the urban population rose from one-thirty-third of the total to one-third ; and while the total population increased sixteen times, the urban population increased one hundred and thirty - nine times. These figures include the preponderance of the rural population in the South, where agricultural interests still claim 87 per cent, of the population.

vious year. In New York over one-third of the population is foreign-bom. There are over 300,000 Germans, 275,000 Irish, 155,000 Russians, 145,000 ItaHans, 150,000 Austro-Hungarians ; the balance from the other countries of Europe, Asia, Canada, and South America. A great number of these are, of course, Jews expelled from their adopted countries. Others, like the Italians, are Latin people; while the Hungarians, Roumanians, Russians, and Armenians bring a strain of Eastern blood. Hitherto the United States has had no real difficulty in combining all the immigrants into a coherent whole. The admiration with which we view this achievement should not blind us to some of its features. While the bulk of the immigrants belonged to stocks kindred to that of the original Americans, the process of race fusion was in reality little more remarkable than that accomplished in the early history of Britain. With the introduction of Latin and Slavonic elements, however, a serious problem arises. They are not brought in contact with a pure, homogeneous people, but with a nation, one, perhaps, in political principles, but heterogeneous in many other respects. It is usual to speak of American national character as if it were some outside influence which envelops and subdues the immigrant as soon as he becomes an American citizen. The fact is, of course, that immigration has moulded the national character and will continue to do so.

It was recognized from early times that the native-born would have a difficulty in holding his own, not only racially but poHtically. The attempt to found a national party was met with ridicule and the title of "Know-nothings," but it was a sign of a very general desire to perpetuate the influence of the old colonial stock, and finds an echo in the writings of a modern American statesman, Mr. Roosevelt, when he speaks of "communities where the native - American ele^ ments are largest" as most promising from the point of view of social evolution.

It is natural that Americans should be proud of their colonial ancestors. Early colonization provided the United States with a sturdy, steady, and yet enterprising stock, wedded to the principles of hard work and civic liberty. In this element we fail to find the seeds of the social problems of modem America, which chiefly centre round the worship of the golden calf. It is probably true that a purely native^that is, colonial — American community would be free from the most objectionable features of American democracy. But such a community is hard to find after nearly a century of unrestricted immigration, and it is impossible that a country whose resources have made it the rendezvous for the speculators and adventurers of Europe should have failed to show their influence in its pohtical and social development.

If a vague uneasiness was felt concerning peopie of kindred stock, it was certainly justifiable as regards aliens; but as to one class of immigrants, the peculiar circumstances of their coming and their English speech have blinded most people to the fact that they are essentially an alien race. The Irish immigration was a factor in national life which the United States was far from wishing to reject; but as introducing a Celtic people into the midst of a nation largely Teutonic it has been a fateful experiment. The quickness of the Celt, his natural eloquence, vivacity, and love of politics have enabled him to usurp on the American continent a position of much power. The " Irish vote " is more influential in American than in British affairs, and has had frequently a baneful influence on the welfare of the nation. In municipal life especially the Irish element has made for corruption and intrigue, the natural weapons of a people who have never won for themselves, or enjoyed as their birthright, the exercise of national rights. They have also used their influence on many occasions for the redress of their private grievances rather than for the true welfare of the community at large. Altogether, this Celtic element has been fraught with serious consequences, and it has retained its essential peculiarities while developing nominally on the lines of democracy.

But if the less desirable class of Teutonic immigrants from northern Europe and the Irish Celts have proved not unmixed blessings to the land of their adoption, what shall we say of a later stream ? Although it is generally assumed in America that the national digestion is strong enough to enable her to assimilate anything, there are already signs of uneasiness in some quarters, and laws are aimed at regulating this stream, which comes chiefly from southeastern Europe. At a time when unskilled labor is not so much in request, when the whole question of labor is involved in a struggle to maintain the highest standard of remuneration, it is specially undesirable that large numbers of foreigners, with a much lower standard of living, should be admitted. But the racial question is of even graver importance; and with the practical stagnation of the native-bom and the rapid increase among the poorest aliens, it is of the highest moment that steps should be taken to preserve the ascendency of the Anglo-Saxon type of American. In Japan there are two races which have lived so long together that their origin is forgotten. One is aristocratic, the other plebeian. Outwardly they are unmistakable, and yet it is practically impossible to find the actual line of cleavage. One would not desire to see a similar state of affairs in America, nor is it possible under a democracy ; but the conditions might well be similar if the American nation should become superimposed with an alien and inferior stratum.

Strong as is the assimilative power of this young country, which has been turning out young Americans from all sorts of material, she will find the assimilation of her new citizens a difficult task. It is often boasted that the naturaHzed American and his children are more patriotic even than the native-bom — plus royaliste que le roi. This statement the writer has seen justified by a quotation from a speech made by a naturalized German in one of the Western towns. He concluded a fiery oration with the sentiment: "America, our country, against the world! America, right or wrong!" This may, of course, be with some people the idea of patriotism, but it is not enlightened patriotism, and it illustrates most forcibly what a perverted jingoism may lead to. The native-bom, it may be believed, would have too much sense of national honor, too profound a respect for the heroes of his race, and too true an understanding of the country's best interests to utter so shallow and so mischievous a sentiment. However this may be, if unrestricted immigration from southern and eastern Europe continues on a large scale despite the restrictions now established, and if the native-born continues to increase so slowly, an undesirable modification of national character will take place. Already a very considerable change is noticeable, not altogether due to industrial development. This has been chiefly in the direction of quick-wittedness and adaptability. There is nothing in the climate which could affect a race to such an extent; the modification is greatly due to the constant immigration to America of the keenest and most ambitious spirits. This was the land to make money in, and to it flocked those to whom worldly success was an ideal.

It is a fact whose significance has seldom been appreciated that the flowering period of American literature was that immediately before the civil war, preceding the great industrial development and the era of millionaires. It is easy to understand why there should have been little literary life up to this period; but the comparative poverty of American achievement since the New England school died out is hard to explain. There are modem American writers by the score, a few American painters of reputation, and still fewer musicians; but modern America has become the home of mediocrity — she produces talent but not genius — nor is there to be found to-day in any part of the United States that peculiar literary or aesthetic atmosphere which is so often the cradle for genius. It was, and is not.^

The solution lies to a great extent in this question of immigration. Ever since the forties Europe has been pumping in hard-headed men of business, keen, ambitious, inartistic. The compe-

' Unlike any other civilized country, America lacks a national capital, a fact which is undoubtedly contributory to the peculiar condition of her intellectual and aesthetic development. There is a dispersion of intellectual activity, a lack of focus in education and of fixed standards or ideals. Despite this fact, it might have been possible for one or other of the great cities to become the intellectual centre, as Boston was at her best period. At present, however, there is no such concentration, and literary and aesthetic life finds no rally ingground.

tition, under circumstances in which no one is handicapped by birth, territorial possessions, or tradition, as in the Old World, is tremendously keen. There has been a constant sharpening-up of wits and faculties and an ever - increasing acceleration in the pace set, until American life has become one continuous whirl — a never-ceasing struggle to be first in an endless race. The impression given is that every one wants not so much to make money as to make more money than his neighbor; but the truth probably is that to relax would mean to be thrown out altogether. This high tension among business-men has undoubtedly had its origin largely in the fact that a great many of them were, and are, fighting for life in a country foreign to them ; but it has now become a habit — a national characteristic. The man who hasn't made much is absorbed in plans for making more, and the millionaire dies young as the result of overstrain, and leaves his fortune to his children. Here, at last, then, we have a leisured class — a cultured class, too, for most of the millionaires' children enjoy, besides the excellent education of their own country, a polishing process in Europe. Here should be the milieu for literary and artistic life, the cradle for the fine arts, the forcing-bed for the efflorescence of American civilization. But, alas! despite the appreciation of European art, which has led Americans to buy up wholesale the museums of the Continent, it must be confessed that the leisured class of Americans is the very last among which the Muses would be likely to make their home. They do not want a capricious and extravagant patronage, and, indeed, while far from aristocratic in their preferences, they are peculiarly averse to parvenus.

Much the same causes which have led to a certain barrenness in the realms of aesthetic achievement have affected the public life of the nation. While it is generally admitted by all the best Americans that their government leaves much to be desired, very few will sacrifice time and inclination in order to put things right. And yet public service was as traditional with the colonial Americans as it is with us, and in the early days of the nation's history a man of character and talent saw no better way to employ them than in the service of his state. What a distance has been traversed from then to now, when a gentleman will hardly "soil his hands" with politics! This is so much the case that the conditions of public life in England are hardly understood in America. It is almost inconceivable to an average American that there are hundreds of men in England who spend not only their lives but their incomes on a career which offers them practically no material advantages or preferments. Social ambition is a strong incentive to some, but many are placed above even such a temptation. It would, perhaps, seem impossible to an American that a great territorial magnate — a duke or an earl — should spend part of his time in discharging the functions of a provincial mayor; but this does not seem to us a surprising self-sacrifice on his part. We are accustomed to regard devotion to unremunerative public duty as the natural field of energy for any man who can afford it.

The case is, of course, different in a democracy. Owing to circumstances which must be dealt with later, politics have become a trade — and not an honest trade, either; but the natural love of the Anglo-Saxon for plain, straightforward government would have secured the constant co-operation of the best citizens and their devotion to public life but for one factor.

This factor was the constant influx of fresh and turbulent elements. While the business-men began at once that struggle to wrest a fortune from the new land, the political outcasts of Europe— the theorists, demagogues, malcontents — who were assured of complete liberty, and even Hcense, in their new home, became gradually fused into the American democracy and soon learned to control it. Jobbery, intrigue, party tactics of the most unscrupulous kind were weapons which could not have been used to such deadly advantage but for the fact that a low moral standard had been allowed to establish itself. This is not the standard of the countrymen of Washington and Lincoln. It owes its inspiration to the gutters of Europe.

Some American writers point proudly to the ebullition of national feeling — the "birth of the nation" — when first the West made its weight strongly felt in the Union, and Jackson became President, bringing the roughness of frontier life into the polished circles of a government which had been framed by a Washington and a Hamilton. Jackson, however, inaugurated the " spoils system," whose baleful influence has retarded the moral growth of the United States more than anything else. Who knows to what heights of judicial and administrative perfection America might not have attained but for this rude interruption of her settled and ordered development. There was no question of a relapse into hereditary institutions; but there was every question of profiting by the experience of the Old World and of framing society on a model at once fresh and mellowed with borrowed experience. The frontier element proved too strong. It undoubtedly breathed a keener and more belligerent spirit into the Union, but it pervaded the whole political and social life with an element of crudity and unscrupulousness which still remain.

Since the time of Jackson and the earliest incursion of the Westerner into political life a great change has undoubtedly been creeping over the country west of the Alleghanies. The most recent phase of this is the development of the great Mississippi Valley and the rolling of the tide of prosperity and progress southward to New Orleans. The Federalists, anxious to secure the supremacy of the Atlantic States in the Union, opposed the annexation of Louisiana, and their prognostications have been verified, for to-day the West, with a minority of electors, has an overwhelming majority of Senators.^

The Westerners, it must not be forgotten, were not the first type of American, and it may be questioned whether they were the finest. Before the industrial immigration of the thirties most of the immigrants were not absorbed by the Eastern cities, but spread westward into newer districts, settling mainly on the land. They were far rougher and cruder as communities, and intensely democratic. It was a long time before they made themselves heard in the Union, for, during the period of storm and stress, when the East and South were fighting the battles of the young republic, winning her a place in the comity of nations, arranging her internal affairs, and rehabilitating her finances, the West, shut off by mountains, was developing on its own lines. Isolated by its position from the influences of the Old World, the Westerners grew up with a sturdy independence and an entire ignorance of world conditions. The dominant note which they brought into the Union was an aggressive desire for an entire separation from European

' The total population of the United States, according to the twelfth census, is 76,305,387. The population of the fortyfive States is 74,181,336. New York has nearly 10 per cent, of this figure, Pennsylvania about 8 per cent., Illinois about 6^ per cent., Ohio about 5^ per cent., Missouri about 4^ per cent., and Massachusetts over 3^ per cent. These six States have altogether about 38^ per cent, of the total population of the States, but their combined voting strength in the Senate is only twelve out of ninety.

interests, and, with true provincialism, they believed it possible that the American nation could be all sufficient to itself. They joined heartily in — if they did not initiate — a policy of expansion which would eliminate Europe from the American continent. They have ever been in the van in fighting. Size has a natural fascination for a people living in such a vast country, and the Westerner was perhaps the first, though not the last, American to make an ideal of bigness rather than goodness.

With the civil war came a rapprochement between East and West, and in recent years the growth of industrial life has helped to assimilate the South as well as other sections to the dominant type of Americanism. With the growth of cities a change has come to the West. The Western type is no longer that of the frontier-man farmer, but includes the business -man and speculator. A tendency to a cleavage of interests between agriculture and industrialism is showing itself. The former, once the life of the country, feels itself left behind in the promotion of interests. The farmers see themselves supplanted by industrial immigrants and political adventurers, just as they supplanted the colonial American. Physically, the old type of Westerner is superior to any other of the present day, though not to the old colonial stock; mentally and morally, he has advanced considerably since facilities of communication and education gave his civilization an upward turn. It is to a race bred on the soil and in pure air that every nation must look for constant renewal, and this the West supplies; but the evil tendencies of political evolution are so serious in their action on communities still raw and crude that it is to be feared that American national life may be poisoned at the very source from which it should draw its supplies of moral as well as physical renewal. Where in this constant recasting of the national type do we find the true birth of the American people? It is customary to speak of Washington as the first American, but it would be hard to imagine a greater contrast than would be presented were he to stand beside a modern American, whether of the Eastern or Western cities. By right of priority the colonial stock may be regarded as the first Americans, and the country owes to them not only its constitution, but many of its truest elements of greatness. In the shock of contact with the virile West this type lost many characteristics. Traditions and ideals, good or bad, went overboard, and only a few little social backwaters — like Concord, New England — remained for a time. Then to the influence of the stranger from over the mountains was added that of the stranger within the gates, and with the industrial wave which swept over the country the original Americans were either submerged or carried away.*

' Within recent years we have seen the practical elimination of one of the oldest and most forceful of American types. With the migration of the sturdy New England yeomen disappears one of the last strongholds of the native American.

A significant feature of modem Americanism is the wide-spread movement among descendants of colonial times to band together for mutual recognition and support. Ridiculous as may seem in a democratic community the self - conferred distinctions of societies of the Cincinnati, Colonial Dames, Sons and Daughters of the Revolution, and kindred societies; incongruous as may appear the prestige attached to a " Knickerbocker " family — these are all signs of the times which cannot be overlooked.

The fascinating study of sociology in America is altogether outside the scope of this book. It has been treated at length by many abler pens. The writer is inclined to believe, however, that the importance of the modifications in what, for lack of a better term, we may call the national character, which are due to a constant influx of two distinct types of immigrants, has been somewhat overlooked. These modifications are going on under our eyes. The race fusion of which Americans speak with pride has not been a constant assimilation of all elements to the American type, but the steady modification of that type by fresh elements. How else can one account for the heterogeneous nature of American society, the dissimilarity visible between State and State, or even city and city? Americans not infrequently boast that the city from which a man comes is betrayed not only by his clothes and speech, but by his very face and manner. One has only to

z6 read the classic descriptions of De Tocqueville to realize how much more truly homogeneous was the democracy of his time, though even then he saw elements of incongruity and danger. No modem traveller could give an account of the American people which would be at once so simple and convincing. Bryce, who devoted to the task abilities of the highest order, gives us a study marvellous for detail, but leaving the reader who does not know America without a mental picture. The reason is not far to seek. One cannot correctly paint a chameleon; one cannot fix on paper what is forever changing. It might have been possible for a sympathetic observer to catch the spirit of American life, to translate into words the soul of the nation — there are books on other countries which do this without any attempt at social or political dissection — but is there, in truth, any such element in American life ? If it exists it is smothered from sight by the excrescences of an evanescent modernity.