Chapter III: Part 3

We have been told, as though it were no more than a simple truth, that the Yellow Press--the journals owned by Mr Hearst--not merely made the Spanish-American War, but procured the assassination of Mr M'Kinley. The statement seems incredible, because it is difficult to believe that such stuff as this should have any influence either for good or evil. The idle gossip and flagrant scandal which are its daily food do not appear to be efficient leaders of opinion. But it is the Editorial columns which do the work of conviction, and they assume an air of gravity which may easily deceive the unwary. And their gravity is the natural accompaniment of scandal. There is but a slender difference between barbarity and senti-mentalism. The same temper which delights in reading of murder and sudden death weeps with anguish at the mere hint of oppression. No cheek is so easily bedewed by the unnecessary tear as the cheek of the ruffian--and those who compose the "editorials" for Mr Hearst's papers have cynically realised this truth. They rant and they cant and they argue, as though nothing but noble thoughts were permitted to lodge within the poor brains of their readers. Their favourite gospel is the gospel of Socialism. They tell the workers that the world is their inalienable inheritance, that skill and capital are the snares of the evil one, and that nothing is worth a reward save manual toil. They pretend for a moment to look with a kindly eye upon the Trusts, because, when all enterprises and industries are collected into a small compass, the people will have less trouble in laying hands upon them. In brief, they teach the supreme duty of plunder with all the _staccato_ eloquence at their command. For the man whose thrift and energy have helped him to success they have nothing but contempt. They cannot think of the criminal without bursting into tears. And, while they lay upon the rich man the guilty burden of his wealth, they charge the community with the full responsibility for the convict's misfortune. Such doctrines, cunningly taught, and read day after day by the degenerate and unrestrained, can only have one effect, and that effect, no doubt, the "editorials" of the Yellow Press will some day succeed in producing.

The result is, of course, revolution, and revolution is being carefully and insidiously prepared after the common fashion. Not a word is left unsaid that can flatter the criminal or encourage the thriftless. Those who are too idle to work but not too idle to read the Sunday papers are told that it will be the fault of their own inaction, not of the Yellow Press, if they do not some day lay violent hands upon the country's wealth. And when they are tired of politics the Yellow Editors turn to popular philosophy or cheap theology for the solace of their public. To men and women excited by the details of the last murder they discourse of the existence of God in short, crisp sentences,--and I know not which is worse, the triviality of the discourse or its inappositeness. They preface one of their most impassioned exhortations with the words: "If you read this, you will probably think you have wasted time." Though this might with propriety stand for the motto of all the columns of all Mr Hearst's journals, here it is clearly used in the same hope which inspires the sandwichman to carry on his front the classic legend: "Please do not look on my back." But what is dearest to the souls of these editors is a mean commonplace. One leader, which surely had a triumphant success, is headed, "What the Bar-tender Sees." And the exordium is worthy so profound a speculation. "Did you ever stop to think," murmurs the Yellow philosopher, "of all the strange beings that pass before him?" There's profundity for you! There's invention! Is it wonderful that five million men and women read these golden words, or others of a like currency, every day?

And politics, theology, and philosophy are all served up in the same thick sauce of sentiment. The "baby" seems to play a great part in the Yellow morality. One day you are told, "A baby can educate a man"; on another you read, "Last week's baby will surely talk some day," and you are amazed, as at a brilliant discovery. And you cannot but ask: To whom are these exhortations addressed? To children or to idiots? The grown men and women of the United States, can hardly regard such poor twaddle as this with a serious eye. And what of the writers? How can they reconcile their lofty tone, which truly is above suspicion, with the shameful sensationalism of their news-columns? They know not the meaning of sincerity. If they really believed that "a baby can educate a man," they would suppress their reporters. In short, they are either blind or cynical. From these alternatives there is no escape, and for their sakes, as well as for America's, I hope they write with their tongue in their cheeks.

The style of the Yellow Journals is appropriate to their matter. The headlines live on and by the historic present; the text is as bald as a paper of statistics. It is the big type that does the execution. The "story" itself, to use the slang of the newspaper, is seldom either humorous or picturesque. Bare facts and vulgar incidents are enough for the public, which cares as little for wit as for sane writing. One fact only can explain the imbecility of the Yellow Press: it is written for immigrants, who have but an imperfect knowledge of English, who prefer to see their news rather than to read it, and who, if they must read, can best understand words of one syllable and sentences of no more than five words.

For good or evil, America has the sole claim to the invention of the Yellow Press. It came, fully armed, from the head of its first proprietor, It owes nothing to Europe, nothing to the traditions of its own country. It grew out of nothing, and, let us hope, it will soon disappear into nothingness. The real Press of America was rather red than yellow. It had an energy and a character which still exist in some more reputable sheets, and which are the direct antithesis of Yellow sensationalism. The horsewhip and revolver were as necessary to its conduct as the pen and inkpot. If the editors of an older and wiser time insulted their enemies, they were ready to defend themselves, like men. They did not eavesdrop and betray. They would have scorned to reveal the secrets of private citizens, even though they did not refrain their hand from their rivals. Yet, with all their brutality, they were brave and honourable, and you cannot justly measure the degradation of the Yellow Press unless you cast your mind a little further back and contemplate the achievement of another generation.

The tradition of journalism came to America from England. 'The Sun,' 'The Tribune,' and 'The Post,' as wise and trustworthy papers as may be found on the surface of the globe, are still conscious of their origin, though they possess added virtues of their own. 'The New York Herald,' as conducted by James Gordon Bennett the First, modelled its scurrilous energy upon the Press of our eighteenth century. The influence of Junius and the pamphleteers was discernible in its columns, and many of its articles might have been signed by Wilkes himself. But there was something in 'The Herald' which you would seek in vain in Perry's 'Morning Chronicle,' say, or 'The North Briton,' and that was the free-and-easy style of the backwoods. Gordon Bennett grasped as well as any one the value of news. He boarded vessels far out at sea that he might forestall his rivals. In some respects he was as "yellow" as his successor, whose great exploit of employing a man convicted of murder to report the trial of a murderer is not likely to be forgotten. On the other hand, he set before New York the history of Europe and of European thought with appreciation and exactitude. He knew the theatre of England and France more intimately than most of his contemporaries, and he did a great deal to encourage the art of acting in his own country. Above all things he was a fighter, both with pen and fist. He had something of the spirit which in-spired the old mining-camp. "We never saw the man we feared," he once said, "nor the woman we had not some liking for." That healthy, if primitive, sentiment breathes in all his works. And his magnanimity was equal to his courage. "I have no objection to forgive enemies," he wrote, "particularly after I have trampled them under my feet." This principle guided his life and his journal, and, while it gave a superb dash of energy to his style, it put a wholesome fear into the hearts and heads of his antagonists.

One antagonist there was who knew neither fear nor forgetfulness, and he attacked Bennett again and again. Bennett returned his blows, and then made most admirable "copy" of the assault. The last encounter between the two is so plainly characteristic of Bennett's style that I quote his description in his own words. "As I was leisurely pursuing my business yesterday in Wall Street," wrote Bennett, "collecting the information which is daily disseminated in 'The Herald,' James Watson Webb came up to me, on the northern side of the street--said something which I could not hear distinctly, then pushed me down the stone steps leading to one of the brokers' offices, and commenced fighting with a species of brutal and demoniac desperation characteristic of a fury. My damage is a scratch, about three-quarters of an inch in length, on the third finger of the left hand, which I received from the iron railing I was forced against, and three buttons torn from my vest, which my tailor will reinstate for six cents. His loss is a rent from top to bottom of a very beautiful black coat, which cost the ruffian $40, and a blow in the face which may have knocked down his throat some of his infernal teeth for all I know. Balance in my favour $39.94. As to intimidating me, or changing my course, the thing cannot be done. Neither Webb nor any other man shall, or can, intimidate me.... I may be attacked, I may be assailed, I may be killed, I may be murdered, but I will never succumb."

There speaks the true Gordon Bennett, and his voice, though it may be the voice of a ruffian, is also the voice of a man who is certainly courageous and is not without humour. It is not from such a tradition as that, that the Yellow Press emerged. It does not want much pluck to hang about and sneak secrets. It is the pure negation of humour to preach Socialism in the name of the criminal and degenerate. To judge America by this product would be monstrously unfair, but it corresponds perforce to some baser quality in the cosmopolitans of the United States, and it cannot be overlooked. As it stands, it is the heaviest indictment of the popular taste that can be made. There is no vice so mean as impertinent curiosity, and it is upon this curiosity that the Yellow Press meanly lives and meanly thrives.

What is the remedy? There is none, unless time brings with it a natural reaction. It is as desperate a task to touch the Press as to change the Constitution. The odds against reform are too great. A law to check the exuberance of newspapers would never survive the attacks of the newspapers themselves.

Nor is it only in America that reform is necessary. The Press of Europe, also, has strayed so far from its origins as to be a danger to the State. In their inception the newspapers were given freedom, that they might expose and check the corruption and dishonesty of politicians. It was thought that publicity was the best cure for intrigue. For a while the liberty of the Press seemed justified. It is justified no longer. The licence which it assumes has led to far worse evils than those which it was designed to prevent. In other words, the slave has become a tyrant, and where is the statesman who shall rid us of this tyranny? Failure alone can kill what lives only upon popular success, and it is the old-fashioned, self-respecting journals which are facing ruin. Prosperity is with the large circulations, and a large circulation is no test of merit. Success is made neither by honesty nor wisdom. The people will buy what flatters its vanity or appeals to its folly. And the Yellow Press will flourish, with its headlines and its vulgarity, until the mixed population of America has sufficiently mastered the art of life and the English tongue to demand something better wherewith to solace its leisure than scandal and imbecility.

LIBERTY AND PATRIOTISM.

Guarding the entrance to New York there stands, lofty and austere, the statue of Liberty. It is this statue which immigrants, on their way to Ellis Island, are wont to apostrophise. To contemplate it is, we are told, to know the true meaning of life, to taste for the first time the sweets of an untrammelled freedom. No sooner does M. Bartholdi's beneficent matron smile upon you, than you cast off the chains of an ancient slavery. You forget in a moment the years which you have misspent under the intolerable burden of a monarch. Be you Pole or Russ, Briton or Ruthenian, you rejoice at the mere sight of this marvel, in a new hope, in a boundless ambition. Unconscious of what awaits you, you surrender yourself so eagerly to the sway of sentiment that you are unable to observe the perfections of your idol. You see only its vast size. You are content to believe the official statement that 305 feet separate the tip of the lady's torch from low water. You know that you gaze on the largest statue upon earth. And surely it should be the largest, for it symbolises a greater mass of Liberty than ever before was gathered together upon one continent.

For Liberty is a thing which no one in America can escape. The old inhabitant smiles with satisfaction as he murmurs the familiar word. At every turn it is clubbed into the unsuspecting visitor. If an aspirant to the citizenship of the Republic declined to be free, he would doubtless be thrown into a dungeon, fettered and manacled, until he consented to accept the precious boon. You cannot pick up a newspaper without being reminded that Liberty is the exclusive possession of the United States. The word, if not the quality, is the commonplace of American history. It looks out upon you--the word again, not the quality--from every hoarding. It is uttered in every discourse, and though it irks you to listen to the boasting of "Liberty", as it irks you when a man vaunts his honour, you cannot but inquire what is this fetish which distinguishes America from the rest of the habitable globe, and what does it achieve for those who worship it.

In what, then, does the Liberty of America consist? Is it in freedom of opportunity? A career is open to all the talents everywhere. The superstitions of Europe, the old-fashioned titles of effete aristocracies, are walls more easily surmounted than the golden barricades of omnipotent corporations. Does it consist in political freedom? If we are to believe in the pedantry that Liberty is the child of the ballot-box, then America has no monopoly of its blessings. The privilege of voting is almost universal, and the freedom which this poor privilege confers is within the reach of Englishman, German, or Frenchman. Indeed, it is America which sets the worst stumbling-block in the voter's path. The citizen, however high his aspiration after Liberty may be, wages a vain warfare against the cunning of the machine. Where repeaters and fraudulent ballots flourish, it is idle to boast the blessings of the suffrage. Such institutions as Tammany are essentially practical, but they do not help the sacred cause commemorated in M. Bartholdi's statue; and if we would discover the Liberty of America, we must surely look outside the ring of boodlers and politicians who have held the franchise up to ridicule. Is, then, the boasted Liberty a liberty of life? One comes and goes with ease as great in England as in America. There are even certain restrictions imposed in the home of Freedom, of which we know nothing on this side the Atlantic, where we fear the curiosity of the Press as little as we dread the exactions of hungry monopolies. Of many examples, two will suffice to illustrate the hardships of a democratic tyranny. Not long since the most famous actress of our generation was prevented by a trust of all-powerful managers from playing in the theatres of America, and was compelled to take refuge in booths and tents. Being a lady of courage and resource, she filled her new _rôle_ with perfect success, and completely outwitted her envious rivals. The victory was snatched, by the actress's own energy, from the very jaws of Liberty. Far more unfortunate was the fate of M. Gorki, who visited America to preach the gospel of Freedom, as he thought, in willing ears. With the utmost propriety he did all that was expected of him. He apostrophised the statue in a voice tremulous with emotion. He addressed the great Continent, as it loves to be addressed. "America! America!" he exclaimed, "how I have longed for this day, when my foot should tread the soil where despotism cannot live!" Alas for his lost enthusiasm!

A despot, grim and pitiless, was waiting for him round the corner. In other words, the proprietor of his hotel discovered that Mme. Gorki had no right to that name, and amid the cheers of the guests he and his companion were driven shamefully into the street. Were it not for the wanton inconvenience inflicted upon M. Gorki, the comedy of the situation would be priceless. The Friends of Russian Freedom, piously enamoured of assassination, and listening intently for the exquisite reverberation of the deadly bomb, sternly demand of the Apostle his marriage-lines. The Apostle of Revolution, unable to satisfy the demand, is solemnly excommunicated, as if he had apostrophised no statue, as if he had felt no expansion of his lungs, no tingling of his blood, when he first breathed the air of Freedom. O Liberty! Liberty! many follies have been committed in thy name! And now thy voice is hushed in inextinguishable laughter!

The truth is, American Liberty is the mere creature of rhetoric. It is a survival from the time when the natural rights of man inspired a simple faith, when eager citizens declared that kings were the eternal enemies of Freedom. Its only begetter was Thomas Jefferson, and its gospel is preached in the famous Declaration of Independence. The dogmatism and pedantry upon which it is based are easily confuted. Something else than a form of government is necessary to ensure political and personal liberty. Otherwise the Black Republic would be a model to England. But Jefferson, not being a philosopher, and knowing not the rudiments of history, was unable to look beyond the few moral maxims which he had committed to memory. He was sure that the worst republic was better than the noblest tyranny the world had ever seen. He appealed not to experience but to sentiment, and he travelled up and down Europe with his eyes closed and his mind responsive only to the echoes of a vain theory. "If all the evils which can arise among us," said he, "from the republican form of our government, from this day to the Day of Judgment, could be put into a scale against what France suffers from its monarchical form in a week, or England in a month, the latter would preponderate." Thus he said, in sublime ignorance of the past, in perfect misunderstanding of the future. And his empty words echo to-day in the wigwams of Tammany.

All forms of government have their strength and their weakness. They are not equally suitable to all races and to all circumstances. It was this obvious truth that Jefferson tore to shreds before the eyes of his compatriots. He persuaded them to accept his vague generalities as a sober statement of philosophic truth, and he aroused a hatred of kingship in America which was comic in expression and disastrous in result. It was due to his influence that plain citizens hymned the glories of "Guillotina, the Tenth Muse," and fell down in worship before a Phrygian cap. It was due to his influence that in 1793 the death of Louis XVI. was celebrated throughout the American continent with grotesque symbolism and farcical solemnity. A single instance is enough to prove the malign effect of Jefferson's teaching. At Philadelphia the head of a pig was severed from its body, and saluted as an emblem of the murdered king.

"Each one," says the historian, "placing the cap of liberty upon his head, pronounced the word 'tyrant'! and proceeded to mangle with his knife the head of the luckless creature doomed to be served for so unworthy a company." And the voice of Jefferson still speaks in the land. Obedient to his dictate, Americans still take a sentimental view of Liberty. For them Liberty is still an emotion to feel, not a privilege to enjoy. They are willing to believe that a monarch means slavery. America is the greatest republic on earth, they argue, and therefore it is the chosen and solitary home of Freedom.

So, ignoring the peculiar enslavements of democracy, forgetting the temptations to which the noblest republic is exposed, they proclaim a monopoly of the sovereign virtue, and cast a cold eye of disdain upon the tradition of older countries. The author of 'Triumphant Democracy,' for instance, asserts that he "was denied political equality by his native land." We do not know for what offence he was thus heavily punished, and it is consoling to reflect that the beloved Republic has made him "the peer of any man." It has not made any other man his peer. He is separated far more widely by his wealth from the workmen, whom he patronises, than the meanest day-labourer in England from the dukes to whom he is supposed to bend the knee; and if Mr Carnegie's be the fine flower of American Liberty, we need hardly regret that ours is of another kind.

In Jefferson's despite, men are not made free and equal by the frequent repetition of catchwords, and it is by a fine irony that America, which prides itself upon a modern spirit, should still be swayed by a foolish superstition, more than a century old, that the cant of Liberty and Equality, uttered by a slave-owner in 1776, should still warp its intelligence. "I don't know what liberty means," said Lord Byron, "never having seen it;" and it was in candour rather than in experience that Byron differed from his fellows. Nor has any one else seen what eluded Byron. A perfectly free man must be either uncivilised or decivilised--a savage stronger than his fellows or an undetected anarch armed with a bomb, A free society is a plain contradiction, for a society must be controlled by law, and law is an instant curtailment of Liberty. And, if you would pursue this chimera, it is not in a democracy that you are likely to surprise it. Liberty is a prize which will always escape you in a mob. The supremacy of the people means the absolute rule of the majority, in deference to which the mere citizen must lay aside all hope of independence. In life, as in politics, a democratic minority has no rights. It cannot set its own pace; it cannot choose its own route; it must follow the will of others, not its own desire; and it is small comfort to the slave, whose chains gall him, that the slave-driver bears the name of a free man.

Liberty, in brief, is a private, not a public, virtue. It has naught to do with extended franchises or forms of government. The free man may thrive as easily under a tyranny as in a republic. Is it not true Liberty to live in accord with one's temperament or talent? And as the best laws cannot help this enterprise, so the worst cannot hinder it. You will discover Liberty in Russia as in America, in England as in France,--everywhere, indeed, where men refuse to accept the superstitions and doctrines of the mob. But the Americans are not content to possess the Liberty which satisfies the rest of the world. With characteristic optimism they boast the possession of a rare and curious quality. In Europe we strive after Freedom in all humility of spirit, as after a happy state of mind. In America they advertise it--like a patent medicine.

America's view of Patriotism is distinguished by the same ingenious exaggeration as her view of Liberty. She has as little doubt of her Grandeur as of her Freedom. She is, in brief, "God's own country," and in her esteem Columbus was no mere earthly explorer; he was the authentic discoverer of the Promised Land. Neither argument nor experience will ever shake the American's confidence in his noble destiny. On all other questions uncertainty is possible. It is not possible to discuss America's supremacy. In arms as in arts, the United States are unrivalled. They alone enjoy the blessings of civilisation. They alone have been permitted to combine material with moral progress. They alone have solved the intricate problems of life and politics. They have the biggest houses, the best government, and the purest law that the world has ever known. Their universities surpass Oxford and Cambridge, Paris and Leipzig, in learning, as their Churches surpass the Churches of the old world in the proper understanding of theology. In brief, to use their own phrase, America is "It," the sole home of the good and great.

Patriotism such as this, quick in enthusiasm, simple in faith, may prove, if properly handled, a national asset of immeasurable value. And in public the Americans admit no doubt. Though they do not hesitate to condemn the boodlers who prey upon their cities, though they deplore the corrupt practices of their elections, they count all these abuses as but spots upon a brilliant sun. A knowledge of his country's political dishonesty does not depress the true patriot. He is content to think that his ideals are as lofty as their realisation is remote, and that the triumph of graft is as nothing compared with a noble sentiment. The result is that the Americans refuse to weaken their national prestige by the advertised cannibalism which is so popular in England. They are for their country, right or wrong. They do not understand the anti-patriot argument, which was born of the false philosophy of the eighteenth century, and which has left so evil a mark upon our political life. To them the phenomenon which we call Pro-Boerism is not easily intelligible. They take an open pride in their country and their flag, and it seems certain that, when they stand in the presence of an enemy, they will not weaken their national cause by dissension.

This exultant Patriotism is the more remarkable when we reflect upon what it is based. The love of country, as understood in Europe, depends upon identity of race, upon community of history and tradition. It should not be difficult for those whose fathers have lived under the same sky, and breathed the same air, to sacrifice their prosperity or their lives to the profit of the State. In making such a sacrifice they are but repaying the debt of nurture. To the vast majority of Americans this sentiment, grafted on the past, can make no appeal. The only link which binds them to America is their sudden arrival on alien soil. They are akin to the Anglo-Saxons, who first peopled the continent, neither in blood nor in sympathy. They carry with them their national habits and their national tastes. They remain Irish, or German, or Italian, with a difference, though they bear the burden of another State, and assume the privileges of another citizenship. But there is no mistake about their Patriotism. Perhaps those shout loudest who see the Star-spangled Banner unfurled for the first time, and we are confronted in America with the outspoken expression of a sentiment which cannot be paralleled elsewhere on the face of the globe.

They tread the same ground, these vast hordes of patriots, they obey the same laws,--that is all. Are they, then, moved by a spirit of gratitude, or do they feel the same loyalty which animates a hastily gathered football team, which plays not for its honour but for the profit of its manager? Who shall say? One thing only is certain: the Patriotism of the cosmopolites, if it be doubtful in origin, is by no means doubtful in expression. On every Fourth of July the Americans are free to display the love of their Country, and they use this freedom without restraint. From the Atlantic to the Pacific Coast, from Vermont to Mexico, the Eagle screams aloud. She screams from early morn to dewy eve. And there is nothing to silence her screaming save the explosion of innumerable crackers, the firing of countless pistols.

For this day the youth of America is given full licence to shoot his inoffensive neighbours, and, if he will, to commit the happy despatch upon him-self. The next morning the newspapers chronicle the injuries which have been inflicted on and by the boys of New York, for the most part distinguished by foreign names, with the cold accuracy bred of long habit. And while the boys prove their patriotism by the explosion of crackers, their fathers, with equal enthusiasm, devote themselves to the waving of flags. They hold flags in their hands, they carry them in their buttonholes, they stick them in their hats, they wear them behind their ears. Wherever your eye is cast, there are flags to dazzle it, flags large and flags small, an unbroken orgie of stars and stripes. It is, in fact, the Guy Fawkes Day of America. And who is the Guy? None other than George III. of blessed memory. For the Fourth of July has its duties as well as its pleasures, and the chief of its duties is the public reading of the Declaration of Independence. In every town and hamlet Jefferson's burning words are proclaimed in the ears of enthusiastic citizens. It is pointed out to a motley crowd of newly arrived immigrants that George, our king, of whom they had not heard yesterday, was unfit to be the ruler of a free people. And lest the inestimable benefit of Jefferson's eloquence should be lost to one single suddenly imported American, his declaration is translated into Yiddish for the benefit of those to whom English is still an unknown tongue. In a voice trembling with emotion, the orator assures the starving ill-clad Pole and the emaciated Bohemian that all men are free and equal; and so fine is the air of the Great Republic that this proposition, which refutes itself, is firmly believed for the moment by the penniless and hungry. And when the sun sets, and darkness enwraps the happy land, fireworks put a proper finish upon the national joy, and the favourite set-piece represents, as it should, a noble-hearted Yankee boy putting to flight a dozen stout red-jackets of King George.

Humour might suggest that the expression of Patriotism is a trifle overdone. Perhaps also a truce might be made with King George, who, if he be permitted to look from the shades upon a country which his Ministers lost, must surely smile at this immortality of resentment. But to the stranger, who witnesses this amazing carnival for the first time, two reflections occur. In the first place, the stranger cannot but be struck by the perfect adaptation of Jefferson's rodomontade to an expected purpose. Although that eminent Virginian, at the highest point of his exaltation, did not look forward to the inrush of foreigners which is overwhelming his country, there is a peculiar quality in his words, even when translated into Yiddish, which inspires an inexplicable enthusiasm. In the second place, the stranger is astounded at the ingenuity which inspires a crowd, separated by wide differences of race, speech, and education, with a sudden sympathy for a country which is not its own.

And when the last crackers are exploded, and the last flag is waved, what is left? An unreasoning conviction, cherished, as I have said, by a foreign population, that America is the greatest country on earth. What the conviction lacks in sincerity it gains in warmth of expression, and if America be ever confronted by an enemy, the celebrations of the Fourth of July will be found not to have been held in vain. Where there is no just bond of union, a bond must be invented, and Patriotism is the most notable invention of the great Republic. To have knit up all the nations of the earth in a common superstition is no mean achievement, and it is impossible to withhold a fervent admiration from the rhetoric which has thus attained what seemed, before its hour, the unattainable.

But in this cosmopolitan orgie of political excitement the true-born American plays but a small part. He has put the drama on the stage, and is content to watch the result. If a leader be needed in a time of stress, the man of Anglo-Saxon blood will be ready to serve the country, which belongs more intimately to him than to those who sing its praises with a noisy clatter. Meanwhile he lets the politicians do their worst, and watches the game with a careless indifference. Even if he loves his country, his love does not persuade him to self-sacrifice. You may measure his patriotism by the fact that, if he does venture upon a political career, his friends know not which they should do--praise him or condole with him. "Isn't it good of So-and-so?" we constantly hear; "he has gone into politics." And with the approval is mixed a kindly, if contemptuous, sorrow. The truth is, that the young American of gentle birth and leisured ease hates to soil his hands with public affairs. His ambition does not drive him, as it drives his English cousin, into Parliament. He prefers to pursue culture in the capitals of Europe, or to urge an automobile at a furious pace across the sands. And the inaction of the real American is America's heaviest misfortune. So long as politics are left to the amateurs of graft, so long will Freedom be a fiction and Patriotism a piece of mere lip-service. Wealth is not wanting; brains are not wanting; energy is not wanting. Nothing is wanting save the inclination to snatch the control of the country from the hands of professional politicians. And until this control be snatched, it is idle to speak of reform. The Constitution of the United States is, we are told, a perfect Constitution. Its perfection is immaterial so long as Tammany on the one hand and the Trusts on the other conspire to keep it of no effect--a mere paper thing in a museum. The one thing needful is for men with clean hands and wise heads to govern their States, to stand for Congress, to enter the Senate, to defend the municipalities against corruption. And when this is done, the Declaration of Independence may safely be forgotten, in the calm assurance that it is better to spend one day in the service of patriotism than to fire off a thousand crackers and to dazzle the air with stars and stripes innumerable.

THE MILLIONAIRE.

The millionaire, or the multi-millionaire, if the plainer term be inadequate to express his lofty condition, is the hero of democratic America. He has won the allegiance and captured the imagination of the people. His antics are watched with envy, and described with a faithful realism of which statesmen are thought unworthy. He is hourly exposed to the camera; he marches through life attended by a bodyguard of faithful reporters. The trappings of his magnificent, if vulgar, existence are familiar to all the readers of the Sunday papers. His silver cars and marble palaces are the wonder of a continent. If he condescend to play golf, it is a national event. "The Richest Man on Earth drives from, the Tee" is a legend of enthralling interest, not because the hero knows how to drive, but because he is the richest man on earth. Some time since a thoughtless headline described a poor infant as "The Ten-Million-Dollar Baby," and thus made his wealth a dangerous incubus before he was out of the nursery. Everywhere the same tale is told. The dollar has a power of evoking curiosity which neither valour nor lofty station may boast. Plainly, then, the millionaire is not made of common day. Liquid gold flows in his veins. His eyes are made of precious jewels. It is doubtful whether he can do wrong. If by chance he does, it is almost certain that he cannot be punished. The mere sight and touch of him have a virtue far greater than that which kings of old claimed for themselves. He is at once the en-sample and the test of modern grandeur; and if, like a Roman emperor, he could be deified, his admiring compatriots would send him to the skies, and burn perpetual incense before his tomb.

Though all the millionaires of America are animated by the same desire,--the collection of dollars,--they regard their inestimable privileges with very different eyes. Mr Carnegie, for instance, adopts a sentimental view of money. He falls down in humble worship before the golden calf of his own making. He has pompously formulated a gospel of wealth. He piously believes that the millionaire is the greatest of God's creatures, the eloquent preacher of a new evangel. If we are to believe him, there is a sacred virtue in the ceaseless accumulation of riches. It is the first article in his creed, that the millionaire who stands still is going back, from which it follows that to fall behind in the idle conflict is a cardinal sin. A simple man might think that when a manufacturer had made sufficient for the wants of himself and his family for all time he might, without a criminal intent, relax his efforts. The simple man does not understand the cult. A millionaire, oppressed beneath a mountain of gold, would deem it a dishonour to himself and his colleagues if he lost a chance of adding to the weight and substance of the mountain.

Mr Carnegie, then, is inspired not by the romance but by the sentiment of gold. He cannot speak of the enormous benefits conferred upon the human race by the vast inequalities of wealth and poverty without a tear. "Millionaires," he says, "can only grow amid general prosperity." In other words, if there be not millions in the country the millionaire cannot put his hand upon them. That is obvious enough. His second text cannot be so easily accepted. "Their wealth is not made," he asserts dogmatically, "at the expense of their countrymen." At whose expense then is it made? Does Mr Carnegie vouch for the probity of all his colleagues? Does he cover with the aegis of his gospel the magnates of the Standard Oil Company, and that happy firm which, with no other advantage than a service of cars, levies toll upon the fruit-growers of America? Was the Steel Combine established without inflicting hardships upon less wealthy rivals? An answer to these simple questions should be given before Mr Carnegie's second text be inscribed upon the walls of our churches. It is not enough to say with Mr Carnegie that trusts obey "the law of aggregation." You need not be a Socialist to withhold your approval from these dollar-making machines, until you know that they were not established upon ruin and plunder. Even if the millionaire be the self-denying saint of modern times, it is still possible to pay too high a price for his sanctity and sacrifice.

It is the favourite boast of the sentimental millionaire that he holds his wealth in trust for humanity,--in other words, that he has been chosen by an all-wise Providence to be the universal almsgiver of mankind. The arrogance of this boast is unsurpassable. To be rich is within the compass of any man gifted or cursed with an acquisitive temperament. No one may give to another save in humbleness of spirit. And there is not a millionaire in America who does not think that he is fit to perform a delicate duty which has eluded the wise of all ages. In this matter Mr Carnegie is by far the worst offender. He pretends to take his "mission" very seriously. He does not tell us who confided the trust of philanthropy to him, but he is very sure that he has been singled out for special service. It is his modest pleasure to suggest a comparison with William Pitt. "He lived without ostentation and he died poor." These are the words which Mr Carnegie quotes with the greatest relish. How or where Mr Carnegie lives is his own affair; and even if he die poor, he should remember that he has devoted his life, not to the service of his country, but to the amassing of millions which he cannot spend. It is obvious, therefore, that the noble words which Canning dedicated to the memory of Pitt can have no meaning for him, and he would be wisely guided if he left the names of patriots out of the argument.

Mr Carnegie's choice of an epitaph is easily explained. He is wont to assert, without warrant, that "a man who dies rich dies disgraced." He does not tell us how the rich man shall escape disgrace. Not even the master of millions, great and good as he is reputed to be, knows when his hour comes. There is a foresight which even money cannot buy. Death visits the golden palace of the rich and the hovel of the poor with equal and unexpected foot. The fact that Mr Carnegie is still distributing libraries with both hands seems to suggest that, had he been overtaken during the last twenty years, he would not have realised his ideal. There is but one method by which a rich man may die poor, and that is by disencumbering himself of his wealth the very day that it is acquired. And he who is not prepared for this sacrifice does but waste his breath in celebrating the honour of a pauper's grave.

As there is no merit in living rich, so there is no virtue in dying poor. That a millionaire should desert his money-bags at his death is not a reproach to him if they be honestly filled. He has small chance of emptying them while he is on the earth. But Mr Carnegie has a reason for his aphorism. He aspires to be a philosopher as well as a millionaire, and he has decided that a posthumous bequest is of no value, moral or material. "Men who leave vast sums," says he, "may fairly be thought men who would not have left it at all had they been able to take it with them." On such a question as this the authority of Mr Carnegie is not absolute. Let the cobbler stick to his last. The millionaire, no doubt, is more familiar with account-books than with the lessons of history; and the record of a thousand pious benefactors proves the worth of wise legacies. Nor, indeed, need we travel beyond our own generation to find a splendid example of wealth honourably bestowed. The will of Cecil Rhodes remains a tribute to the generosity and to the imagination of a great man, and is enough of itself to brush aside the quibbles of Mr Carnegie.

The sentiment of "doing good" and of controlling great wealth leads rapidly to megalomania, and Mr Carnegie cannot conceal the pride of omniscience. He seems to think that his money-bags give him the right to express a definite opinion upon all things. He has distributed so many books, that perhaps he believes himself master of their contents. Though he has not devoted himself to politics or literature, he is always prepared to advise those who give themselves to these difficult arts. He has discovered that Greek and Latin are of no more practical use than Choctaw--which is perfectly true, if the useless money-bag be our _summum bonum_. With the indisputable authority of a man who keeps a large balance at his bank, he once dismissed the wars of the Greeks as "petty and insignificant skirmishes between savages." Poor Greeks! They did not pay their bills in dollars or buy their steel at Pittsburg. The chief article in his political creed is that monarchy is a crime. In his opinion, it is a degradation to kiss the King's hand. "The first man who feels as he ought to feel," says Mr Carnegie, "will either smile when the hand is extended at the suggestion that he could so demean himself, and give it a good hearty shake, or knock his Royal Highness down." In the same spirit of sturdy "independence" he urged the United States some years since to tax the products of Canada, because she "owes allegiance to a foreign power founded upon monarchical institutions." "I should use the rod," says the moneybag, "not in anger, but in love; but I should use it." Fortunately, it is not his to use; and his opinions are only memorable, since the country which he insults with his words is insulted also by his gifts. We may make too great a sacrifice in self-esteem, even for the boon of free libraries.

And with a hatred of monarchy Mr Carnegie combines a childlike faith in the political power of money. Though his faith by this should be rudely shaken, he clings to it as best he may. Time was when he wished to buy the Philippines, and present them, a free gift, to somebody or other. Now he thinks that he may purchase the peace of the world for a round sum, and sees not the absurdity of his offer. Even his poor attempt to bribe the English-speaking peoples to forget their spelling-books was a happy failure, and he still cherishes an illusion of omnipotence. At the opening of his Institute at Pittsburg he was bold enough to declare that his name would be known to future ages "like the name of Harvard." He might remember that Harvard gave not of his abundance. He bequeathed for the use of scholars a scholar's books and a scholar's slender savings, and he won a gracious immortality. Mr Carnegie, in endowing education, is endowing that which he has publicly condemned. Desiring to teach the youth of his country how to become as wealthy as himself, he has poured contempt upon learning. He has declared that "the college-made" man had "little chance against the boy who swept the office." He is to be found, this victim of an intellectual ambition, in the salaried class, from which the aspiring millionaire is bidden to escape as quickly as possible by the customary methods of bluff and bounce. Why, then, if Mr Carnegie thinks so ill of colleges and universities does he inflict his millions upon them? He has known "few young men intended for business who were not injured by a collegiate education." And yet he has done his best to drive all the youth of Scotland within the gates of the despised universities, and he has forced upon his own Pittsburg the gift of "free education in art and literature." Is it cynicism, or vain inconsequence? Cynicism, probably. The man who, having devoted his whole career to the accumulation of superfluous wealth, yet sings a paean in praise of poverty, is capable of everything. "Abolish luxury, if you please,"--thus he rhapsodises,--"but leave us the soil upon which alone the virtues and all that is precious in human character grow,--poverty, honest poverty!" Has he shed the virtues, I wonder; or is he a peculiarly sanctified vessel, which can hold the poison of wealth without injury?

Of all millionaires, Mr Carnegie is at once the least picturesque and the most dangerous. He is the least picturesque, because he harbours in his heart the middle-class ambition of philanthropy. He would undertake a task for which he is manifestly unfit, in the spirit of provincial culture. For the same reason he is the most dangerous. He is not content to squander his immense wealth in race-horses and champagne. He employs it to interfere with the lives of others. He confers benefits with a ready hand which are benefits only when they are acquired by conquest. Of a very different kind is Mr Thomas W. Lawson. He, too, is a millionaire. He, too, has about him all the appurtenances of wealth. His fur-coats are mythical. He once paid 30,000 dollars for a pink. "He owns a palace in Boston," says his panegyrist, "filled with works of art; he has a six-hundred acre farm in Cape Cod, with seven miles of fences; three hundred horses, each one of whom he can call by name; a hundred and fifty dogs; and a building for training his animals larger than Madison Square Garden." These eloquent lines will prove to you more clearly than pages of argument the native heroism of the man. He was scarce out of his cradle when he began to amass vast sums of money, and he is now, after many years of adventure, a king upon Wall Street. He represents the melodrama of wealth. He seems to live in an atmosphere of mysterious disguises, secret letters, and masked faces. His famous contest with Mr H. H. Rogers, "the wonderful Rogers, the master among pirates, whom you have to salute even when he has the point of his cutlass at the small of your back and you're walking the plank at his order," was conducted, on Mr Lawson's part, in the spirited style of the old Adelphi. "Mr Rogers' eyes snapped just once," we are told, on a famous occasion; but Mr Lawson was not intimidated. "I held myself together," he says proudly, "with closed hands and clinched teeth." Indeed, these two warriors have never met without much snapping of eyes and closing of hands and clinching of teeth. Why they snapped and closed and clinched is uncertain. To follow their operations is impossible for an outsider, but Mr Lawson always succeeds in convincing you that on the pretence of money-making he is attacking some lofty enterprise. He would persuade you that he is a knight-errant of purity. "Tremendous issues" are always at stake. The heroes of Wall Street are engaged in never-ending "battles." They are "fighting" for causes, the splendour of which is not dimmed in Mr Lawson's lurid prose. They have Americanised the language of ancient chivalry, until it fits the operations of the modern market. They talk of honour and of "taking each other's word," as though they had never stooped to dollars in their lives. But of one thing you may be sure--they are always "on hand when a new melon is cut and the juice runs out."

Like the knights of old, they toil not neither do they spin. They make nothing, they produce nothing, they invent nothing. They merely gamble with the savings of others, and find the business infinitely profitable. Yet they, too, must cultivate the language of sentiment. Though the world is spared the incubus of their philanthropy, they must pretend, in phrase at least, that they are doing good, and their satisfaction proves that nothing so swiftly and tranquilly lulls the conscience to sleep as the dollar. But, as the actor of melodrama falls far below the finished tragedian, the heroes of the Street, typified by Mr Lawson, are mere bunglers compared with the greatest millionaire on earth--John D. Rockefeller. We would no more give him the poor title of "Mr" than we would give it to Shakespeare. Even "Rockefeller" seems too formal for his grandeur. Plain "John D." is best suited to express the admiration of his worshippers, the general fame that shines like a halo about his head. He is Plutus in human guise; he is Wealth itself, essential and concrete. A sublime unselfishness has marked his career. He is a true artist, who pursues his art for its own sake. Money has given him nothing. He asks nothing of her. Yet he woos her with the same devotion which a lover shows to his mistress. Like other great men, Rockefeller has concentrated all his thoughts, all his energies, upon the single object of his desire. He has not chattered of things which he does not understand, like Mr Carnegie. He has resolutely refrained from Mr Lawson's melodramatic exaggeration. Money has been the god of his idolatry,--"_Dea Moneta_, Queen Money, to whom he daily offers sacrifice, which steers his heart, hands, affections--all."