The land of promise; an account of the material and spiritual unity of America

Preface

The need of a change of scene to recover from the effects of a breakdown during studies took me for several years away from home to some of the less bustling scenes of life in the United States.

I also undertook duties for a while in the dry and sunny climate of the Rocky Mountain area, and subsequently visited the Pacific Coast and New England. Before leaving America I spent a rather adventurous year in New York.

This book is the result of an attempt to write of these scenes, and of the people and their ideals, in that perspective of the history of mankind in which the United States are the Romance of a New World, associating new faiths and ideals and experiences with a new material occupation of territory.

A New World here mostly means a new experience in the attempt to solve problems of life common to all the world, but here adventured upon in a new civic faith, with the aid of new ideals, and, in a civic sense, thus, with the inspiration of a new religion.

With this thought in mind I have sketched the

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perspective of American scenes as it unfolds in the gradual filling-in of the territorial expanse of the western continent. I have then noted the spiritual culture which has accompanied, or followed upon, the material occupation of the banks of great waterways, of wide plains, of prairies, and of mountain regions.

America comes before Europe masked under the form of that brilliant American society which we all know. But behind conventional manners there has necessarily been a great spiritual experience and growth, which cannot well be known without a visit to the home-circles which are its sacred shrine and place of birth. Casual visitors to America are, moreover, too habitually impressed with certain salient notes of American activities to gain a truly-proportioned view of America and its national life as a whole.

I have purposely made little allusion in these pages to these more obvious appearances of life which are the common subject of knowledge to everyday observers of American visitors to Europe, and to readers of current periodicals, or to casual visitors to America.

I have aimed chiefly at showing what inner and spiritual forces unite all Americans in a certain community of thought, feeling, and action. I have noted

PREFACE vii

especially strivings in which we feel that the triumph of the best ideal of America would be a triumph in which the human race would itself partake. To this union of spiritual forces I should be glad to give the name of the * civic religion of America ' ; but it is necessary to say I do not mean this * civic religion ' in a rival sense of the words to the Christian religion of the Churches in the United States.

The chapters which deal with the territorial environment of American life are mostly in the first portion of the book. I have begun with a chapter on New York, for the purpose of order in the narrative ; although, as a traveller, I had seen the other chief scenes of America from Los Angeles to Boston before I had gained sight of that commercial cosmopolis.

The allusion to America as the ^ Land of Promise ' in the title is made in recognition of the American faith in the dogma of perfectibility, a faith which is a motive power astir amid all the activities of the nation. The handing-down of this faith is a sort of spiritual testament which the idealist Pilgrim Fathers left after them to modern America. There would be no such political and social self-scrutiny, as is now occupying the mind of America, without that profound American belief that there are ideal American standards of life from which, as by a true viii THE LAND OF PROMISE

criterion, the nation should choose constantly to judge itself. This, too, must be my excuse for any occasional allusion to * evils,' or 'corruptions' (so called) in civics or politics, for without noting them the real goodness and greatness of the national life could in no sense be set forth.

In the long-run the ideal nation of the future is likely to be that nation among all others which shall have criticised its own shortcomings more joyously, more seriously, and more perseveringly than have any other people criticised their own civic trespasses and sins.

R. DE B.

CHAPTER I The Site and Meaning of New York

city circumvallated by wild nature— Sand and water wildernesses — The belt of pleasure resorts — Colossal architecture — Manhattan, a ship-like island — Growth and expansion — The seat of the controlling activities of America — Moral order impressed by commercial autocracy — Unique responsibilities of American lawyers — The gathering-place of the supreme producers of America — America's great art bazaar — Shipping and railway terminals — National intelligence organisation — Press and publishers — Commercial hierarchic unity — Government and population — '.Napoleons of commerce' — Curtailment of speculative ventures — New Yorkers seen under a commercial mask — Hard-headed utilitarianism — New Yorkers at home — Humour and good spirits — Commercial education of beginners, . . . . p. i

Chapter II

Prospects to the south-west — The northern opening to the Central States and New England— A threefold junction — Dutch and English forced into home development by barriers — Conservative aspect of the War of Independence — First common sentiment of a native land— Americans become one people beyond the AUeghanies — The first gatherings on the middle plains — A new commercial outlook — Filling in the Mississippi Valley — Northern industrialists —

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Kentucky as a relic of old America — Central colonisation — Portable elements of American constitutionalism — Railways, ranchemen, and farmers, . . . . p. 26

CHAPTER III A Visit to the Central States

The approach from Canada — Continental vistas from Niagara — The idyllic life of All-America — Chicago as a capital of capitals — Chicago's co-ordination of mid-western industries — The great American exchange and mart — The belt of cities around Chicago — The wheat pit and its speculators — Social and financial derelicts — Chicago a reform centre — A Chicago scene — Crudities inevitably disappearing, . . p. 44

CHAPTER IV The Prairie World

The Mississippi and Missouri rivers — The vast area of the Missouri basin — Inter-relation of bison, Indians, and railways — A journey to the plains— Cause of undulations — Drawbacks to farming — Atmospheric mysteries — An autumn in the Republican River Valley— Winter— Catholics and Schools — Democratic society — The anti-saloon party — The aristocracy of children — The local Press — A visit from President Roosevelt — Sudden arrival of spring — A journey to the Rockies, P- 59

CHAPTER V Comparative Study of American Nationalism

America as an inter-racial ideal— Paucity of the Anglo-Saxon elements — Submergence of racialism — ' Colour ' the permanent social cleavage — Europe's adherence to blood-racialism—America limited to a commonwealth for white men —

CONTENTS xi

Europeanised 'Huns' — America's inter-racial ideal is unique — Alexander's inter-racial Hellenistic world — Roman and American citizenship compared — Mediaeval internationalism — The Papal Temporal Power and Puritan Democracy — The British Empire as a unit — The United States as a 'civic theocracy' — Influence of Republican France in America — Compromise in the American Constitution — The union created by the Civil War — New Crises in the social structure — Hopeful outlook, P- 79

CHAPTER VI The Centennial State of Colorado

Colorado as an epitome of America — A State of vistas — The mountain, the plain, and the dried-up sea — The multicoloured sedimentary rocks — The canyon openings to the Front Range of the Cordilleras— The forest area— Denver, the capital — Civic idealism — Optimistic citizens and ' grafters ' — President Roosevelt in Denver — Civic militancy — Need of a 'peoples' constable' — The fortune-building of the State — Mining and agriculture — Ranching and sport — Visits to Buena Vista and Evergreen — Camp Neosho and its library — Visit to the head of the Front Range — Old rancheman's story — Clear Creek — Crossing the timber-line — Climbing Torrey's Peak — Visions of Western America — Between the Atlantic and the Pacific slopes — Mountain views, . p. 99

Chapter VII

Limitation of the outlook and resume — The subject studied from the Coloradan viewpoint — American sense of comradeship for its child-world — Magic effect of respect for children — Comrade Man and Comrade Thing — The coming of assurance — The American child moulds the school, not the school the child — Arousing interest in young minds — The American xii THE LAND OF PROMISE

meaning of history, geography, and mechanics — The Chatauqua movement — Serious attitude towards education — The educational gradus — Colorado's universities — Greeley Agricultural College — Golden Mining College — The colleges and state-building — The ideal and the practical, . p. 124

CHAPTER VIII The Women of America

The status of women in the West— Domestic habits and rarity of servants — Housework and culture — Playmate, not thoughtmate — Feminine freemasonry — Literary clubs in mining camps — The travelling girl-visionary — Matronly prophetesses — Emancipation as an aid to womanliness — Ideals and environments — Devolution of property to women — Economic freedom — Working out the details of women's suffrage — Friendly family divisions in politics — Ruskin's picture of domestic economy applied to State rule — The women's model city charter for Denver — Women's influence in city and State — Criticism and answers . . . . p- 141

CHAPTER IX The Mountain and Desert Empire

All-America's proprietary interest in the West — Land, not water, to be obtained gratis — The myths of the book world — Personnel of Western stories — The Great Inland Basin — 'Air-line' to Leadville — Approach to Salt Lake City — Mormonism as a parody on Americanism — Mormon authority over religion and industry — The momentum of the Mormon civic religion — Southern Utah and Nevada — A belt of land-locked lakes — The Sierra Nevadas — The tree world — Yellowstone Park — Entrance to the Mohave Desert — The Grand Canyon of the Colorado River — Origin of the geometrical cuttings — Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, . P- 159

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CHAPTER X San Francisco and its Worship of Spontaneity

Cortez and Queen Califia — The California of the Spaniards — The Pacific Coast and its Ranges — The land of perpetual spring — The site of San Francisco — The Pacific metropolis — The arboreum of Golden Gate Park — Effect of the Great Fire of 1906 — The soul of the city — Exclusion of 'killjoys' — Catholics and Puritans — Comparison with mediaeval Florence, p. 180

CHAPTER XI New England and the American Civic Religion

Contrasts between East and West — Approach from the West in autumn — The Connecticut Valley — Springfield — Education and National religious experience — Providence defined in American history — 'Development of doctrine' — A humanised theocracy — 'Eternity sanctioned' civics — The Unitarian revolt, and Congregationalism — Civic religion positive, but not sectional — The commercialist Higher Critics — Materialism would keep religion as its ornament — The controlling power of finance — Religion as the true social science, . p. 197

CHAPTER XII The Originality of American Thought

The limited influence of New England — The cult of civic perfectibility — Thought as embodied in institutions — An epitome of the thoughts of the world — Political independence forces spiritual reconstruction — Man's social duty to his individuality — The ordinary man — Tammany Hall primitive but not immoral— American hatred of the dilettante — Roosevelt and the people's mind — Vague optimism — Individualism — Practical science of the universities — The American Palpablists, P- 213 xiv THE LAND OF PROMISE

CHAPTER XIII The 'Canonical Books' of Civic Religion

American and British literature — Contrasting mentality — Mythic background of America — The cultus myth and its literature — Popular manuals of American mentality — The cultus usage of some classics — The ' truly sweet,' and the ' sweetly true ' — Linking the ideal with the actual — A ' supreme spirit ' of geniality — The immigrant's sense of pardon — Cultured worship of high spirits — The danger of exaggerated optimism — Sociability of the 'wicked' — Devotees of good-humour — Geniality of all classes — Imagination in business undertakings — Money a mere social implement, . . p. 232

CHAPTER XIV The American Press

The medium of social intercourse — An incident of a newsless week — The tribal lays of America — Newspapers regarded as records of a modern American 'Sentimental Journey' — A comparison with the British Press — The ' Shakespearean ' address to mankind — The humour of the American Press — The Sunday magazine — Contents of a Sunday Denver Republican — The more serious papers — The national weeklies, p. 250

CHAPTER XV A Common Christianity in America

Sectional considerations excluded — A Frenchman on the social trend of American Christianity — Three Baptists in Colorado — A 'Holy Society' — Calvinism as a social religion — Modern social Protestantism — Prophetic judgment — A Divine Atonement in social integration — New religiousness not Altruism — Reason for the dislike of abstractions — Voluntary system

CONTENTS XV

requires self-denial— Doctrinal conservatism persists — The Institutional Church — Institutionalism concurs with piety — Architectural requirements of the Institutional Church — Service and Sermons — Sunday Schools — The Institutional Church as a social club — A social type of modernism without doctrinal innovation, p. 265

Chapter XVI

Belief in social resurgence — The American conception of heredity — The latent princeliness of man — Humanity immutable — Environment the opportunity for growth — Reputed evil heredity arising from malnutrition — Social sins due to rapid growth — Exaggerations and contortions — Social union to follow political union — Journalists, economists, and social seers — The 'Educational President' of New America — Captains from the Churches — Millionaires as reformers — Universities and social strategy — Evangelical federation and the democratic brotherly covenant, ... p. 286

Index, P- 301

Acknowledgment is due to Mr. Dudley Walton for valuable collaboration over some technical details, on which, as a journalist returned after residence of four years in New York City, he is an authority. Acknowledgment is also due to the Homiletic Review for permission to use information supplied me by Mr. Walton about the ' Institutional Church,' the substance of which is appearing also in the columns of that periodical.