as i tramped from village to village i was surprised to see so much stained glass in the churches of the methodists, the congregationalists, and other puritans. until quite modern times stained glass belonged exclusively to the ritualistic denominations. the puritan, believing in simplicity of service, and in spirit rather than in form, put stained glass in the same category as the burning of incense, singing in a minor key, and praying in latin. it partook of the glamour of idolatry; it had a sensuous appeal; it blurred the pure light of understanding. the true puritan meeting-place is one of clear glass windows, hard seats, and a big bible. it seems a pity that a very clear profession of faith should be blurred by picture windows—and, let me add by way of parenthesis, cushioned seats and revivalist preachers.
i examined in detail the coloured glass of a fine "reform church" that i passed on the road. the windows were rather impressive. they were not representations of scenes in holy writ, they contained no pictures of saints or angels, of the saviour, or of the virgin. so they escaped the imputation of idolatry.[pg 104] they were just pictures of symbolical objects or of significant letters. thus, one window was the bird and symbolised freedom, another was an anchor and symbolised hope, another was a crown and symbolised eternal life. in one window the letters c.e. were illuminated—meaning christian endeavour, i presume; on another window was the open bible, symbolising the foundation of belief. in every case the whole window was stained, and the little symbolical picture was set against a brilliant background.
it was all in good taste, and was a pleasant ornament, which made the church look very attractive exteriorly. but it was a compromise with a spirit not its own. my explanation is, some one must have wanted chapels to put in stained glass. some one now has a great interest in making them put in stained glass. he is the manufacturer of that commodity. he has put stained glass on the market in such a way that every church is bound to have it. and he has devised a way of not offending the rigorous puritans. "what is wrong in coloured light?" said he. "nothing. it is only what you use it for. we can use it to show the things in which we believe." if incense could be manufactured in such a way as to make millions of dollars it would find its way somehow into the chapels. i was walking one day with an itinerant preacher, a man who called himself "a creed smasher." he wanted to weld all creeds into one and unify the church[pg 105] of christ. "think of commerce," said he, "already it has stopped the wars of the nations; in time it will calm the wars of the sects. if only the churches were corporations, and methodists could hold shares in roman catholicism, and roman catholics in methodism!"
commerce is exerting an influence that cannot be withstood. to take another instance, it has provided america with rocking-chairs and porch-swings. although the americans are an extremely active people, much more so than the british, yet their houses are all full of rocking-chairs, and on their verandahs they have porch-swings and hammocks. the british have straight-backs.
the americans did not all cry out with one voice for rocking-chairs and swings. the pilgrim fathers did not bring them over. the reason they have them lies in the fact that some manufacturer started making them for the few. then ambition took possession of him and he said, "there's something in rocking-chairs. i'm going to turn them out on a large scale."
"but there aren't the customers to buy them," some one objected.
"never mind, we'll make the customers. we'll put them to the people in such a way that they gotta buy. we'll make 'em feel there's going to be such an opportunity for buyin' 'em as never was and never will be again."
[pg 106]
"you believe you'll succeed?"
"we'll make it so universal that if a man goes into a house and doesn't see a rocking-chair and a porch-swing he'll think, 'my lord, they've had the brokers in!'"
so rocking-chairs and porch-swings came. so, many things have come to humanity—many worse things.
i had just written this note, for i have written most of my book by the road, when i heard the following interesting talk about the town of benton, pennsylvania. i was walking from wilkes barre to williamsport, and benton is on the way. it is a place that has had many fires lately.
"ah reckon ah know wot cleared benton out more'n fires."
"what's that?"
"wy, otomobeeles; mortgaging their farms to get 'em. there's not much in benton. you couldn't raise a hundred dollars. it's the agents and the boosters of the companies that are mos' to blame, no doubt, but they're fools all the same who buy otomobeeles when they cahn pay their bills at the stores."
"what agents?" i asked. "d'you mean commercial travellers?"
"no. the agents in the town. every little town has a man, sometimes two or three men, who are agents for the companies who manufacture the cars; they are just like the insurance agents, and are always talking[pg 107] about their business, comparing makes of car, praising this one and that, and getting folks on to want them."
"i suppose the companies want to make the motor car a domestic necessity, a thing no one can do without," i remarked.
"you're right; they do and they will. they'll fix that in time, you betcher, we'll all be having them. then when we cahn do without 'em they'll raise the prices on us. already they've started it with the gasoline; there's plenty motor spirit in the world, but the company gets possession of it and regulates the prices. an' you cahn make an oto go without gasoline. they can put it on us every time."
i should say society at benton was suffering very badly from the influence of depraved commercialism. some years ago miss ida tarbell exposed what has been called "the arson trust," a company formed for setting fire to insured establishments on a basis of 10 per cent profit on the spoil. benton might have furnished her with some interesting examples. there have been so many fires in the little town of late that tramps are refused the shelter even of barns, as if their match-ends were responsible. on the fourth of july three years ago half the town was burnt down. last year in a gale the shirt factory was gutted; the workmen had banked the fire up for the night, and about twenty minutes after the last man had left the works there was an explosion, and the red[pg 108] coals were scattered over the wooden building. two months ago a large house took fire, and just a week before i reached the settlement the large presbyterian church was consumed. indeed, as i came into the town i remarked with some surprise the charred walls and beams of the church, and read the pathetic printing on the stone of foundation, "this stone was laid in 1903."
i had an interesting account of the church from the wife of a farmer at whose house i stayed a night. the church had been insured for seventeen thousand dollars, and it was twelve thousand dollars in debt. the money borrowed was not secured on the church building, but on the personal estates of many people in the town. consequently, several people were liable to be sold up if the money were not forthcoming. two days before settling day the fire took place, and there was doubtless rejoicing in some hearts. the villagers had tried hard to make the place pay, they had even let a portion of the church building to be used as a bank! bazaars had failed. the debt-raiser had tried "to put a revival over on to them," but had failed. the minister, not receiving his salary, had abandoned them, and at last the bare fact remained of the big white church and the big unpaid debt. then occurred the providential fire.
but the insurance company would not pay the seventeen thousand dollars. the fire had taken place[pg 109] under suspicious circumstances, and it was said there would be a legal fight over it. the conflagration had occurred on the night of a school-opening meeting. choice flowers had been sent from many houses in the town, and it was beautifully decorated. there was, however, nothing obviously inflammable in the church; it was built largely of brick and stone. but about an hour after the people had gone home the fire broke out. next day it was found that the big bible had been soaked in coal oil. oiled newspaper was found, and it was alleged that the fire brigade would have saved the church, but that as fast as they put it out in front somebody else was lighting it up behind. anyhow, the insurance company refused to pay the seventeen thousand dollars. but it cannot refuse absolutely; the advertisement of failure to pay would be too damaging—it will put up a new church instead! the presbyterian church will be resurrected.
"i put benton up against the world for fires," said my hostess. "for a small place, only a thousand people, i reckon there isn't its like."
for my part i felt sorry for the bentonians, even for those who set the fire alight, supposing it was deliberately lighted. when commercial interest is the greatest thing in the world there are opportunities for a few men to feel themselves great and powerful, but that glory of mankind is far overbalanced by the occasions on which it causes man to be mean.[pg 110] commercial tricks bring the holy spirit of man into disrepute. to find oneself mixed up in certain machinations is poignantly humiliating. we have all of us been wounded in that way ere now. the just pride of the soul has been offended, and we have thought how shameful a thing it was to have become mixed up in it at all, by it meaning the world, the whole shady business, call it what you will.
as i went along from village to village in new york and pennsylvania i was struck by the uniformity of the architecture. every church and school and store and farmstead seemed standard size and "as supplied." there seemed to be a passion for having known units. not only in architecture was this evident, but in every utensil, machine, carriage, dress of the people. it was evident in the people themselves. americans have the name of being extremely conventional. i think that is because, under the present domination of the commercial machine, american boys and girls and men and women are all turned into standard sizes. if americans have rigid principles of ethics it is because they believe all the parts of the great machine are standardised, and that when any one part wears out there must always be an accurately fitting other part ready to be fixed where the old one has fallen out. personality itself is standardised; thus the tailor-priest advertises his wear, "preserve your personality in clothes. occasionally you have observed some[pg 111] article of wear that has led you to the mental conclusion—'that's my style—that's me.'"
the tramp's dressing-room
the tramp's dressing-room.
it was strange to me to find that even tramps and outcasts, who fulfil little function in the machine, were expected to conform to type. i was stared at, questioned; my rough tweeds, so suitable to me, were an object of mirth; my action of washing my face and my teeth by the side of the road was a portentous aberration. i remember how astonished a motorist and his wife appeared when they came upon me in the act of drawing a pail of water for a thirsty calf one morning in indiana. the temperature stood at ninety-five in the shade—all nature was parched, and as i came along the highway a calf, fastened by a chain to the steel netting of a field, came up and rubbed his nose on my knees. as calves don't usually take the initiative in this way, i concluded he expected me to do something for him. there was an empty pail beside him. i took it to the farmhouse pump and drew water. as i did so, the farmer and his wife drew up at the farm in their motor, and they looked at me curiously. the calf came bounding towards me and almost upset the pail in his eagerness to drink. then he gulped down all the water, and whilst i went to draw another pailful he executed a sort of war-dance or joy-dance, throwing out his hind legs and bounding about in a way that testified his happiness. the farmer's wife broke silence:
[pg 112]
"wha' yer doing?"
"i'm giving the calf some water."
"nao," said she, and looked at her husband, "giving the calf some water, can—you—beat—that?"
i gave the calf his second bucketful and then started off down the way again, and the farmer and his wife looked after me in blank surprise. in america no tramp has any compassion for thirsty calves, he is not expected to look after the thirst of any one but himself. the farmer and his wife looked at one another, and their eyes seemed to say, "but tramps don't do these things!"
thence it may be surmised that america is no place for individuals as such. originality is a sin. americans hate to give an individual special attention, special notice. even personal salvation is merged in mass salvation. the revivalist, his press agents, and stewards are a means of wholesale salvation. a revival meeting is a machine for saving souls on a large scale. it might be thought that the revivalist himself took his stand as an exceptional individual. not at all: he is only a type. american public opinion does not allow a man to stand out as superior. it is surprising the dearth of noble men in the popular estimate of to-day. mockery follows on the heels of noble action or individual action, and reduces it to type. that is a great function of the american press of to-day, the defaming of men of originality and the[pg 113] explaining away of noble action. i remember a conversation i heard at cleveland. roosevelt had just cleared himself of the press libel of drunkenness.
"wasn't it a good thing to clear the air, so," said one man, "and get clear of the charge once for all?"
"i don't think he got clear of it," said the other. "it's all very well to bring an action against the editor of a provincial paper, but why didn't he take up the cudgels against one of the powerful new york journals, who said the same thing? they had money and could have defended their case."
"i don't think money was needed—except to buy evidence."
"if you ask me," said the other, "it was all a very shrewd electioneering dodge. roosevelt is an expert politician. he knows the value of being in the limelight, and he knows that nothing will fetch more votes in the united states just now than a reputation for sobriety. he was just boosting himself and the home products."
that is a fair example of the way people think of striking personalities and original views.
then every man is considered a booster. boosting is accepted as a national and individual function. towns are placarded: "boost for your own city and its own industries. make a habit of it." in oil city, for instance, i found in every shop a ticket announcing "booster week june 9-16." in that week[pg 114] oil city was going to do all it could to call attention to itself. citizens would pledge themselves to speak of oil city to strangers in the train and when on visits to other towns. the city of newark, new jersey, is always recommending its own people and visitors to "think of newark." whenever you enter into conversation with an american you find him suddenly drifting towards telling you the name of a hotel to stay at, or of an establishment where they sell "dandy cream," or he is praising the bricks turned out by the local brick works, or the conditions of the employment of labour in some silk works on which his native town is dependent for prosperity. in a widely distributed "creed of the american" i read, "i remember always that i am a booster." even fathers refer to their new-born babies as "little boosters." it should be remembered when americans are boasting of their native land and its institutions that they were cradled in boosting. it is a habit that in many ways has profited america. it has attracted the emigrant more than all that has ever been printed about it. it is a great commercial habit. but it is in the end degrading.
what is the name of the fairy who has muttered an incantation over the pilgrim father and changed him into a booster? and is a booster only a pilgrim father who brags about the stuff he manufactures?
it seemed to me that by substituting the idea booster for the idea man you get rid of so many of the [pg 115]weaknesses of flesh and blood. a man who is boosting day in and day out, using his tongue as a sort of living stores' catalogue, is necessarily loyal to the great machine. but loyalty to the machine has its dangers. on my journey to chicago i made some interesting observations in natural history. i got into the train at franklin to go to oil city, some five or six urban miles. what was my astonishment to see that each of the eight or nine passengers in my car had fixed their railway tickets in the ribbons of their hats, and they themselves were deep in their newspapers. the conductor came along and took the tickets from their hats and examined them, collected those that were due to be given up and punched those that were not, and stuck them back in the ribbons of the hats, the wearers reading their newspapers all the time and making not the slightest sign that they noticed what the conductor was doing. the only sign of consciousness i observed was a sort of subtle pleasure in acting so—the sort of mild pleasure which suffuses the faces of lunatics when they are humoured by visitors to the asylum. they were shamming that they were machinery, and in almost the same style as the man who is under the delusion that he is a teapot, one arm being his spout and the other his handle.
thus the elevator man in the department store also thinks himself a bit of machinery. he seems to be trained to act mechanically, and never to alter the[pg 116] staccato patter that comes from his mouth at each floor. he speaks like a human phonograph.
then all waiters, shop-attendants, barbers, and the like try to behave like manikins. most of all, in the language of americans is the mechanical obsession apparent. a man who is confined in a hospital writes: "i'm holding down a bed in the hospital over here." the man who meets another and brings him along, simply "collects" him in america. the baseball team that beats another 6-0 "slips a six-nothing defeat" on them. especially in baseball reports, commercialism and rhythms heard in great "works" abound.
the influence of great machinery gets to the heart of the people. a man when he joins a gang of workmen is taught to co-operate; he has to trim off any original or personal way of doing things, and fit in with the rest of the gang. when the gang is going mechanically and easily, a man quicker than the rest is taken as leader, and the speed of the work is raised. the mechanical action in each individual is intensified, is perfected. cinematograph films are even taken of gangs at work; the pictures are shown before experts, who indicate weak points, recommend discharges or alterations and show how the gangs can be reconstituted to work more smoothly. each man is drilled to act like a machine, and the drilling enters into the fibre of his being to such an extent that when work is over his muscles move habitually in certain directions,[pg 117] and the rhythm of his day's labour controls his language and his thought.
in the factory it is the same. in a vast mechanical contrivance there is just one thing that machinery cannot do; so between two immense complicated engines it is necessary to place a human link. a man goes there, and flesh and blood is grafted into steel and oil. the man performs his function all day, but he also senses the great machine in his mind and his soul; and when he goes out to vote for his president, or talk to men and women about the world in which he lives, he does so more as a standardised bit of mechanism, than as a tender human being.
alas, for the men and women who wear out and cease to be serviceable! they are the old iron, and their place is the scrap-heap. "white trash" is the name by which they go.
bernard shaw, and indeed many others, look forward to the diminution of toil by machinery. the minimising of toil is to them a great blessing. because machinery lessens toil they are on the side of machinery. meanwhile life shows a paradox. the russian peasant who works without machines toils less than the american who takes advantage of every invention. the russian emigrant who comes to america simply does not know what work is, and he stares in amazement at the angry foreman who tells him, when he is at it at his hardest, to "get a move on yer."
[pg 118]
in america the americans slave; they slave for dollars, for more business, for advancement, but in the end for dollars only, i suppose. they will fill up any odd moment with some work that will bring in money. they will make others work, and take the last ounce of energy out of their employees. the machine itself is the size of america, and only in little nooks and corners can anything spring up that is not of the machine. even millionaires know nothing more to do than to go on making millions. yet there is not a feverish anxiety to get money. losses are borne with equanimity. it's just a matter of "the apple tree's loaded with fruit. i'm going up to get another apple."
present experience shows that machinery increases the toil of mankind. it need not increase it, but it does. it might diminish it, but there are many reasons why it does not. for one thing, it increases the standard of living. it makes rocking-chairs, porch-swings, automobiles, and the like indispensable things. first, machinery makes the things, then the things make the machinery duplicate themselves. so it raises the standard of living and increases the toil of mankind. it is going on increasing the standard of living for the rich, for the middle-class aping the rich, and for the working men aping the middle-class.
is it good, then, that the standard of living is being raised? well, no; because the standard of living[pg 119] now means the standard of luxury. i should have used that phrase from the beginning.
i said this to a man on the road, and he asked me what i thought a man should live for, but i could not answer him. each man has his individual destiny to fulfil. destiny is not a matter of the clothes you wear or of the cushions you sit upon. the beggar pilgrim going in rags to jerusalem may be more happy than a pierpont morgan, who writes pathetically at the head of the bequest of his millions that he believes in the blood of jesus.
one thing i noted in america, that the blossom of religion seems to have been pressed between bible leaves, withered and dried long ago. what is called religion is a sort of ethical rampage. the descendants of the puritans are "probing sin" and "whipping vice." the rich are signing cheques, the hospitals are receiving cheques. the women of the upper classes are visiting the poor and adopting the waifs. but seldom did i come in contact with a man or a woman who stood in humble relation to god or the mystery of life. even the great passion to put things right, lift the masses, stop corruption, and build beautiful cities and states is begotten in the sureness of science rather than in the fear of the lord. far from fearing god, preachers announce from their pulpits that they are "working with him," or "co-operating with the inevitable tendencies of the world," or "hastening on the work of[pg 120] evolution." for my part i believe that it is my sacred due to my brother that he be given an opportunity of facing this world, the mystery of its beauty and of his life upon it, that he find out god for himself and learn to pray to him. but that is at once eastern and personal.
the y.m.c.a. informs me as i sit in a car that "the great asset of this town is the young men of this town." must it be put that way? is that the only way in which the people of the town can be got to understand how wonderful is the life and promise of any young man, how tender and gentle and lovable he is personally, how unformed, how fresh from his mother and his creator?
as i go along the road i pick up tracts, sown by the devil, i suppose. here is one of them:
verily i say unto you that each and every one of you may be a count of monte christo, and some day exclaim, "the world is mine!"
the world was made for you, that i know. that you were made for the world goes without saying.
therefore hear me and believe me. if you desire wealth it can be yours. if you desire fame it can be yours.
but you cannot get something for nothing. you must pay for everything worth having. you must pay the price set upon it, and in the coin of the realm.
the coin of the realm is industry—just that. industry and only industry. nothing but industry.
by the side of the highway to michigan
by the side of the highway to michigan: the electric freight train.
[pg 121]
poor immigrant, who thinks it would be grand to be a count of monte christo, or, to bring it nearer home, a john d. rockefeller or an andrew carnegie, and who thinks that honest labour will take him there! even were american success a thing worth striving for it is not won by that means. it is a game of halma. it's not the man who moves all his pieces out one square at a time who wins, but the sagacious player who knows both to plan in advance and to hop over others when the opportunity arises.
but the good american young man, "the greatest asset of the town," believes this gospel, and he gives his body and mind to the great machine, and fills the gap between two otherwise disconnected mechanisms. if he has been brought up "well," he just fits the gap and is standard size. he feels in his soul every throb of the engines, and registers in his integuments every rhythm and rhyme of the great, accurate, definite, circulating, oscillating machine. he behaves like a machine in his leisure hours. he even dances like a mechanical contrivance. on none of the occasions when the fatherland requires his sober human judgment can he stand as a man. he seems spoilt for the true citizenship. what he does understand is the improvement, adjustment, and significance of machinery, and he can look intelligently at america the great machine. perhaps this is his function whilst america is realising the dream of materialism and[pg 122] progress. but america would take care of itself if the american were all right. i could not but have that opinion as i left the cities and walked through the rich country, the new world, as yet scarcely visibly shopsoiled by commercialism.
