Chapter V: Part III: Europe and America (1)

I

THE AMERICAN DEFINITION OF PROGRESS

The two visits I paid to South and North America between 1907 and 1909 were the result of a lucky chance, not of a prearranged plan. In 1906, after having been plunged for ten years in the study of Roman history, I had no idea of crossing the Atlantic, much less of writing a book on America and Europe. I had never dreamt that my long researches in the great cemetery of the ancient world might start me suddenly one day along the road which leads to the New World. But destiny willed it so. In November of 1906, by invitation of the Collège de France, I delivered in Paris a course of lectures on the history of Augustus, in which I summarised the fourth and fifth volumes of my _Greatness and Decline of Rome_. There happened to be at Paris at that time a distinguished Argentine, Señor Emilio Mitré, son of that General Mitré who was one of the Republic’s most conspicuous politicians during the second half of the nineteenth century. He himself was a man of importance in the political world, and proprietor of the _Nacion_, which is not only the biggest, most serious, and most authoritative newspaper in Latin America, but one of the leading newspapers of the world. I had contributed to this paper for years, so I called on Mitré in Paris. He came to hear my lectures, and the day before the concluding one, November 29th,—he was due to sail for Buenos Aires on December 1st,—he came to me with a proposal that I should go to Argentina and there deliver some lectures. I accepted, impelled chiefly by curiosity to see that vast and rich country which, for the last ten years, had been so much talked about in Italy, and to which during the last half-century so many Italians had emigrated. I accordingly prepared my lectures, and on June 7, 1907, I sailed from Genoa for Buenos Aires with my wife and little boy. Every European who crosses the Atlantic and can wield his pen with any sort of effect writes his impressions when he gets back. Naturally, therefore, I too had promised several reviews and one publisher to bring back with me a volume of “Impressions of Argentina.”

At six P.M. on June 8th, we put in to Barcelona. Directly the steamer came alongside, the Brazilian consul came on board in search of me. He handed me a despatch from Baron di Rio Branco, the Brazilian Minister of Foreign affairs, who invited me in the name of the Brazilian Academy to stop at Rio, and read a paper there. I begged the consul to telegraph to Baron di Rio Branco that I could not stop on my voyage out, as I was expected at Buenos Aires; but that on my return I should be delighted to accept his kind invitation. As the steamer was to put in at Rio, I could arrange matters with him _en route_. As the steamer resumed her journey, and passed out of the Mediterranean into the vast wilderness of the ocean, I busied myself with some books of philosophy which I had brought along, amongst them, some of Buddha’s discourses, which had just been published in an Italian translation.

On June 24th, at 5 P.M., we reached the bay of Rio, one of the most marvellous spots in the world. But while we were gazing from the deck in admiration at the gloomy mountains standing round about and the woods which covered them, at the city rising from the sea towards the mountains, and the roseate glow of the setting sun upon the bay, we descried a steam launch laden with people coming towards us. It was a deputation from the Brazilian Academy and from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which was coming to take us for a motor tour through the city, and afterwards to take us to dinner at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where Baron di Rio Branco was expecting us. We hastened ashore, and found some motors waiting for us at the Pharoux jetty. We jumped in, and were off.

As long as life lasts, I shall never forget that drive at sunset, between the dying light of evening and the first gleams of the electric lamps, which were just beginning to light up the marvellous city built in the midst of the remains of the primeval forest on the borders of the sea, on the hills, and on the mountains. I shall never forget our dash through endless streets, with hurried glimpses of multi-coloured houses, sumptuous palaces half hidden in superb gardens, avenues of gigantic palms which stretched far away into the night, glorious promenades along the seashore, and mountain peaks which beetled above the city. I longed to stop the car. But time pressed, and after having hurriedly traversed the whole city, we reached, about 7.30 P.M., Itamaraty (as the palace of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is called), where a select company of men and women were awaiting us in rooms ablaze with light. As soon as we had been introduced, dinner was served; a most sumptuous dinner, into which, among the most luscious ragoûts of the French cuisine, the thoughtful Minister of Foreign Affairs had introduced several Brazilian dishes. I remember the _palmiti_, a dish of palm-pith, cooked as we cook asparagus, and really delicious; and _bakury_, a white fruit from the equator, preserved in syrup, which reminded me strongly of the smell of magnolia and gave me the illusion of eating marvellous flowers.

Speeches followed the dinner, whereupon we returned on shipboard, but before doing so I had arranged in a corner of the drawing-room with Baron di Rio Branco, Giuseppe Graça Aranha, now Brazilian Minister at the Hague, and a distinguished writer, who was then the Minister’s secretary, and Machado de Assis, the great writer who was then President of the Brazilian Academy, that I would stop a couple of months in Brazil on my way back, repeat my Buenos Aires lectures, and visit the country. At 11 P.M., the steamer weighed anchor and left the dark bay, in which there was nothing now to be seen but the glitter of an infinite number of tiny lights.

That night, however, I did not sleep, so stunned and dazzled was I by that first fantastic glimpse of America, which will remain one of the most singular experiences of my life, though, so far, my life has not been devoid of strange and curious chances. I had started from Europe with no, or practically no, knowledge of the two Americas, excepting the little I had picked up here and there in books and papers which I happened to read. Consequently, my opinion of America was the same as that formed by other Europeans: that it was the country of material realities, of business, of fortunes made rapidly, of wealth stripped of every ornament, poetry, beauty, and ideal refinement; that rude and bustling America with which all cultured Europeans love to contrast Europe as the continent of the Ideal, where beauty, wisdom, and every refinement of civil life flourish. And behold! my first impression of America was as of a strip of India, and the first American city I had seen reminded me of the East, and especially, for some reason or other, of Bagdad, or rather, of the somewhat fantastic idea of Bagdad which I had conceived in the days when I read more often and more ardently than I do now, the _Orientales_ of Victor Hugo, and the other romantic poets of the middle of the nineteenth century. And in that city, I had been present at a succulent and magnificent banquet, at which, amidst the refinements of the old civilisation of Europe, I had tasted the unknown rarities of the tropics, in the company of elegant, cultured, and refined guests, with whom I had discussed in French the latest literary and artistic novelties, as if we had been on the banks of the Seine. Was it a reality or a dream?

Quite other surprises were, however, in store for me on my wanderings in America. Four days later, on June 27th, we reached Buenos Aires, where we were joyfully welcomed by a number of kind folk, who had spared neither trouble nor care to make our stay agreeable to us. Then began four months of really strenuous life, to borrow Theodore Roosevelt’s favourite expression. Conferences, receptions, banquets, visits to hospitals, schools, factories, workshops, and ranches; trips by boat, train, and motor-car. It was a real _moto perpetuo_. I passed the month of July at Buenos Aires. In August, I plunged into the interior, visiting successively Rosario, Mendoza, Cordova, Tucuman, Santiago, dell ’Estero, Santa Fé, Paraná, and penetrating right up to the foot of the Andes. I travelled about ten thousand kilometres in the railway train, observing, collecting documents, asking and answering questions, and discussing problems. All these, however, were labours less tiring than another, which became by degrees the principal preoccupation of my mind during those two months: the endeavour to put to flight a demon which kept obstinately springing up before my eyes, in conversations, on journeys, during visits, during dinner-parties, notwithstanding all the efforts I made to keep it at a distance; and which seemed determined to reappear at every moment and wound me in the inmost recesses of my European pride and in my most touchy European susceptibilities. What was this demon? It was American progress. Every day I had pointed out to me on my rapid journeys, immense and marvellous ranches, herds of many thousand head, markets overflowing with wealth, magnificent schools, and superb hospitals. I was given descriptions and demonstrations, in figures and in fact, of the rapid spread of cultivation, the increase of production, the bewildering prosperity of the banks, the expansion of Buenos Aires, now become the second city of the Latin world in wealth and population, after Paris. They were all interesting things to observe and study. Nevertheless, too many of those who showed them to me implicitly or explicitly established comparisons between this rapid increase and transformation in everything Argentine, and the more deliberate advance of the great nations of Europe, and deduced the conclusion that Argentina was a more progressive and advanced country.

The word “progress” is one of those which is much misused in Europe. I had no sooner landed in Argentina, however, than I recognised that the word had quite a different sound and significance on that side of the water from what it has in Europe. The standard by which my new transatlantic friends were unanimous in measuring progress was the rapidity of transformation and the magnitude of the results. New, modern, larger, were to them synonyms of progress and of improvement. Consequently, they had only to cast their eyes round their own country to find reasons for self-satisfaction. But this conception of progress at first somewhat amused and somewhat irritated me, just as the naïve touches of vanity in the young often amuse and irritate grown men. Many a time, when we were discussing the progress of Argentina and the comparisons, tacit or explicit, which were made with Europe, have I said to my Argentine friends:

“Undoubtedly the effort which you are making is a noble one, and a paying one. In thirty years, you have increased your wealth ten-, twenty-, even thirty-fold. You have been wonderfully quick in extending cultivation, railways, and population over the vast territory which Fortune has given you. You are now flooding the world with riches, and, profiting by the experience of others, you can transform, reshape, and make perfect your public services, your institutions, and your whole mode of living in the smallest number of years.

“You make a great mistake, however, if you think that the contrast between the rapidity of your growth and your changes and the slowness and immutability of Europe is any proof of your own nearer approach to perfection. That rapidity is a phenomenon of youth. A child’s weight and height double themselves every six months, year, two years, or three years in the first years of its life; while an adult stops growing or grows so slowly as to be hardly aware that he is doing so. Would you deduce from this that a boy of six years of age is superior to a man of forty? No. Childhood and manhood are two phases of life. Each has its own necessity, its own function, its own advantages and disadvantages. It is no more possible to compare them than it is to compare day and night, dawn and twilight, winter and summer; I can see no essential difference between the countries of Europe and your own. We are all children of the same civilisation; we have been nursed at the same breast. We are all like one to the other, though we may differ one from the other as brothers, or, if you prefer it, as cousins do. So an American progress, different from European progress, does not exist, though there are countries whose transformation, owing to external circumstances, may be retarded or accelerated. You have political institutions and social orders of less antiquity, and, therefore, of less rigidity and less strength than those of Europe. You also have a territory to exploit which is vaster, very much vaster, and much more easy to exploit, because civilisation supplies you, ready to hand, with almost perfect instruments for such exploitation. There you have the real difference between us.”

Though these arguments were listened to with courteous attention, they made but a slight impression on my hearers. I very soon realised that American progress, the rapid increase, that is to say, of the wealth of Argentina and the incessant modernisation of the customs and institutions of the country, were a sort of national religion, which was accepted by most people with a blind credence. So in the end, I was persuaded that this ardent faith in progress must be attributed to the preponderating influence of Buenos Aires, that immense city, almost half the population of which is composed of European immigrants in search of wealth. For it is the largest port, the principal emporium, and the financial centre of the Republic, through which passes most of the export and import trade, nearly all the great stream of wealth which flows out from the vast territory over the world, and from the world ebbs back to it again: a rich American city, after the European picture of such. It is only natural that a city whose wealth and size are being multiplied by the rapid development of the country should have adopted American progress as its religion, and should, through its influence, have imposed that religion on the whole country. The conclusion of the matter was, however, that the Argentine conception of progress was not and could not be anything but the passing exaltation of a fortunate country which, profiting by circumstances unusually favourable, could watch its wealth growing round it with bewildering rapidity. That, at any rate, was the conclusion I came to, and I thought it both reasonable and justifiable.

With this idea in my head, after a laborious, agreeable, and instructive stay of two months in Argentina, I sailed for Rio, making on my way thither a brief halt at Montevideo. I expected to find in Rio another American city like Buenos Aires. I was, however, mistaken. Brazil is not, like Argentina, a single body with one enormous head. Its economic activity is more diffuse and centres in different cities,—for coffee, in São Paulo; for rubber, in Manaos; for each one of the other great articles of production, in other cities scattered over the vast territory. Rio de Janeiro, though the chief political and intellectual centre of the Confederation, cannot, therefore, be called either the emporium or the port, or the economic capital _par excellence_. Consequently, it differs widely from Buenos Aires. It is less crowded, noisy, and busy. It lives, I might almost say, in the shade of its gardens and between the forest and the sea, quietly and reposedly. It is the only great American city I have visited in which people walk at a leisurely pace and not at headlong speed; and it not only lives reposedly, but it thinks, and even dreams a little.

While at Buenos Aires, we had lived surrounded by men of action; we found at Rio a coterie composed almost exclusively of intellectuals—literary men, journalists, historians, philosophers, and jurists. Most of them were state officials and members of the Brazilian Academy,—an academy founded about ten years ago and modelled exactly on the lines of the Académie Française,—composed, like it, of forty members, elected in the same way, and admitted with the same ceremonial. In a small inn situated on the slopes of Corcovado, on the outskirts of the town and the forest, whose roads were shaded by secular trees, we lived for six weeks, just as Plato and his friends lived in the gardens of the Academy; discussing art, literature, philosophy, right, and morality with the friends whom Graça Aranha, the diplomatist and man of letters chosen by Baron di Rio Branco to do us the honours of Brazil, gathered round us almost daily. At no moment of my life have I felt myself so much detached from, and so superior to, the accustomed preoccupations which form the groundwork of ordinary existence in the modern world. And when I found myself living amongst persons for whom the culture of Europe represented the supreme blessing of life, the greatest pride of civilisation, for a moment I believed myself freed from that demon of American progress which had dogged me in Argentina.

It was an illusion, however, which did not last long. Brazil is a country slightly older than Argentina. Owing to this reason, to its much greater size, to the variety of its climates and lands, which make it impossible to concentrate in a single city the direction of the whole of national life, and to other contingent reasons which it would take too long to enumerate here, Brazil has not developed in the last twenty years so rapidly as has Argentina. It has, however, developed much more quickly than any European country. I speedily saw that the rapidity of this progress was the great national pride of the Brazilians, even of those men of letters, philosophers, and writers, who professed to be such devoted disciples and admirers of Europe. In the same way the great national preoccupation was the acceleration, as far as possible, of the progress and increase of riches, and the exploiting and modernisation of the country, so that Brazil might not appear inferior in this particular to the other great states of America. An energetic administration had just finished the resanitation of Rio de Janeiro, destroying, at the cost of vast public works, all the breeding-places of yellow fever which up till then had infested it. The administration was then renovating it from top to bottom, opening streets and squares in the middle of the old quarters, constructing spacious promenades and gardens, and sumptuous public edifices, in a word, giving air and light and splendour and beauty to a city which was already beautiful in addition to being placed in a unique situation. I think there must be very few cities which in a few years have managed to destroy and rebuild, according to new plans, so large a part of themselves. Naturally the work has cost millions; but on the few occasions on which I timidly dared to make a remark to this effect, I received the laughing answer: “We are optimists; and we believe in progress!” This ædilitian transformation of Rio de Janeiro filled with pride all Brazilians, including my lettered and philosophical friends, on account of its rapidity and grandeur; and their pride was swelled by the thought that no European states, but perhaps the United States of North America alone, their great elder brother, could have done so much.

Everybody thought, moreover, that the whole of Brazil ought to be modernised just like Rio, from top to bottom. I visited São Paulo, the great coffee-producing state. I traversed from end to end Minas Gerães, the great agricultural and mineral state which, as a symbol, as it were, of its intention to modernise itself entirely, has recently constructed a smiling and graceful new capitol, Bello Horizonte, in a most picturesque position crowning the hoary Ouro Preto. Everywhere I found politicians, officials, professors, literary men, commercial men, bankers, Brazilian and European immigrants, united in the same thought: that railways must be built, machinery bought, able engineers engaged, mines explored, cultivation extended, and industries founded to increase the country’s rate of progress by modernising it entirely. It was useless for me to try to prove even to those of my Rio acquaintances who were endowed with the highest and finest intellectual culture, that this conception of progress was too simple and material; that real progress is not to make new or to make quickly, but to make better; that it is not enough to augment wealth, but that it is necessary also to put it to good use, a more difficult problem than the producing of it. I tried to convince my friends that if so simple and material a notion of progress acquired a strong hold on the popular mind, the public would infallibly be impelled to create, not a lofty and noble civilisation, but a sort of opulent barbarism. In Brazil, as much as in Argentina, my arguments beat harmlessly against a faith and a passion which demands no proofs. “American Progress” for the Brazilians too was the great historical force of the future, which is going to create the new world, and the new civilisation whose dim foreshadowing seems to be agitating the masses at the present time.

We returned to Italy in November. I recrossed the ocean from Rio de Janeiro to Genoa in fifteen days, during which I reread my books of philosophy. But the pages of Bergson, Kant, and Comte, which I read in mid-ocean, no longer riveted my attention as they had on the way out. For in the time for thought afforded me by the crossing, far from the world and its troubles, I plunged day by day in a more intense meditation on American progress, which, of all the things and phenomena I had witnessed, was that which had left on me the liveliest impressions. It was clear that it was not a theoretical idea, but a passion, a faith, a religion fervently embraced by nearly everybody. All the arguments which I had advanced to subject it to criticism had been fruitless; and not only ignorant men, and those eager to make money, but the most highly cultivated minds, the very intellectual élite of America, were blind to the contradictions and logical shortcomings of this conception. Nevertheless, was not this but an additional reason for studying this phenomenon thoroughly? It is not ideas which move and transform the world, but passions; and a passion, even if it be absurd, is a thousand times more powerful than a wise idea.

Now it was not difficult to see what would happen if this religion of American progress spread through the world. Europe would lose, so to speak, her rights of historical primogeniture, and all her ancient civilisation would lose a great part of its value. If the rapid increase of riches is the supreme measure of civilisation, and if, in consequence, the efforts of a people must be concentrated on everything which can accelerate this increase, it is clear that the most ancient, populous, and glorious countries of Europe will not be able to keep pace with the young countries and with the nations which are masters of vast territories; and that, bit by bit, the most glorious civilisations of Europe will come to be regarded by the eyes of the rising generations as relics and fossils of another age. This danger no longer appeared to me so distant and hypothetical as to many other Europeans. After what I had seen in America, many facts and thoughts and tendencies to which I had hitherto paid scarcely any attention in Europe, seemed to me to acquire a new significance. I saw everywhere, even in the ancient world, traces and proofs of the rapid spread of the American idea of progress, especially among the nations like Germany, which have developed industry to a great, perhaps a too great, extent; and in all the countries, classes, and professions which have identified their interests most completely with those of industry. So the enemy who threatened the destruction of the ancient civilisation of Europe had already invaded the Old World.

It was while I was meditating on these thoughts in mid-ocean that the idea occurred to me of writing something different from a book of impressions on Argentina and Brazil. Too many books of impressions of the two Americas are written in Europe; and literature of this sort, as copious as it is useless, has justly satiated the public. Inasmuch as this idea of progress implies a great conflict of tendencies, from which may arise a profound upheaval of our civilisation, why should I not contrast in a book the two conceptions of progress, that which America has created and is trying to impose on the world, and that which is even now professed in Europe by the classes most faithful to tradition, and which they ought to seek to defend? If I succeeded in giving a vivid representation of this conflict, should I not have described a living part of America better than if I had merely accumulated thousands of detached impressions and observations? And so the idea flashed across my mind of writing a dialogue introducing some Europeans and Americans who on board a steamer in mid-ocean discussed Europe and America, that is to say, progress, in the sense proper to the word as well as in the sense given to it by the Americans. Is not the dialogue an ancient and glorious literary form? It is true that for many reasons it has lately been neglected, one particular reason being, that in modern life, busy and exhausting as it is, it is difficult to find a scene which will give verisimilitude to a conversation lasting several days. Modern civilisation is a civilisation of much action and little discussion. However, there is still one scene left in modern life on which one can stage with artistic verisimilitude a discussion lasting several days: a transatlantic liner. A liner is perhaps the only spot in the modern world where one may find discussion holding the field. Usually discussions on board ship deal with frivolous and empty topics. Why might not a writer suppose, however, that for once in a way, four or five serious-minded persons met on board a liner and began a casual talk which later developed into a discussion of one of the gravest of the problems which oppress our own generation, no less than every one of its predecessors?

Among the persons whose acquaintance I had made during the voyage, some appeared to me to lend themselves to the rôle of interlocutor in the dialogue. So, directly I got back, I began to sketch out my dialogue. It was then that I experienced a curious phenomenon. With every fresh attempt I made to embody in certain characteristic personages the American idea of progress, as I had observed it in so many of my friends on that side, and the European idea, as I had many times defended it, both ideas seemed to me to evaporate, and to lose consistency and colour. That conflict of tendencies, ideas, and passions which had seemed to me so lively and so profound in my meditations in mid-ocean appeared to have melted away after I had touched the soil of old Europe. The dialogue which I was writing seemed to me cold, dead, and academic.

I was torn in two directions by these difficulties, uncertain whether to abandon the enterprise, and asking myself whether American progress had not been a passing hallucination of the voyage; when towards the middle of February, 1908, I received from North America a new surprise of a still greater and more agreeable nature, in the shape of a letter from Baron Eduardo Mayor de Planches, at that time Italian Ambassador at Washington, in which he told me that President Roosevelt at his last diplomatic reception had expressed to him his wish to see me in the United States, and to have me as his guest for a few days at the White House before his presidential term ended. At any time, so courteous an invitation from a man for whose culture, intellect, and statesmanlike qualities I had so great an admiration, would have given me much pleasure. My joy was much increased, however, by the fact of its having arrived two months after my return from South America. A visit to the United States directly after one to South America was a rare stroke of luck. For, to tell the truth, in visiting Brazil and Argentina, I had seen only a fragment of the New World. But to come to know that great New-World State which by itself personifies America in the eyes of all, and to come to know the two largest states of South America into the bargain, was equivalent to saying that I had studied at least what was most important, characteristic, and deserving of study in the boundless continent which Columbus discovered. All the curiosity to which the rumours and legends current in Europe about the United States had given birth in me, and which was dominant in the recesses of my mind, awoke to life. I forgot the problem of progress, the doubts which tormented me, and the problems which I had posed to myself on my travels in Argentina, as well as the dialogue I intended to write, in my preparation for my fresh journey and for the lectures in Roman history which I was scheduled to give at the Lowell Institute, at Columbia University, and at the University of Chicago. I set to work to read as many books as I could about North America. I resumed the mantle of Roman historian to prepare my course of lectures and gave no further thought to the book on America which I had promised to write.

On November 1, 1908, I sailed for New York, and a three months’ course of the intense life began again for me; rapid journeys, incessant visits, interviews with journalists, hundreds of conversations, banquets, receptions, speeches, and inquiries. I visited schools, hospitals, universities, prisons, law-courts, factories, banks, and co-operative enterprises. I made the acquaintance of millionaires and artisans, industrialists and professors, lawyers and journalists. I managed to get a peep into the wealthy abodes of the rich families of the great cities of the East, and into the little houses in which the middle classes drag out a crowded and pinched existence. I witnessed the frenzy for work, the incessant activity, the unending agitation which wears out every class in America. Most important of all, however, I saw reappear before me—and this time in gigantic form, monstrous, unrestrained, almost sublime in its savage energy—that demon of American progress which had impressed me so much in Brazil and Argentina, comparatively small though it had there appeared to me, and which in Europe seemed to me to have almost melted away. Was it not this which imbued everything American with that startling air of novelty, extravagance, and grandeur, which stunned and almost frightened me? So I devoted myself not only to the accumulation of impressions, informations, and recollections in profusion; I also set to work in the tumult of American life to think again about American progress. I made an effort to dive deeper down into the nature of this strange phenomenon, to guard against its melting away from before me when I got back to Europe. And at last, one day, I really thought I had found the clue.

My wife and I had been invited to luncheon with a cultured and clever author, who knew three languages, had received an extensive and liberal education, and lived by her pen, writing for newspapers, translating, and giving lessons. She belonged, in fact, to what one might call the intellectual middle class. She lived with a sister in a street of old New York, occupying a little flat of the kind in which many middle-class New Yorkers live. One reached it by a little wooden staircase, and entered it by a little door, opening on to a little corridor, which gave access to four tiny rooms, whose floors creaked under foot and whose walls let the voices and noises of the neighbours and co-lodgers be clearly heard. Outside the windows and extending to the court-yard, the fire-escapes reminded one that the house, partly constructed of wood, might at any moment catch fire like a match. Naturally there were no servants in the house. With her sister’s help the charming author, when she returned home, laid down the pen and became cook and chambermaid. The luncheon, considered from an artistic point of view, gave us clearly to understand, that the hands which had prepared it did not possess any very considerable technical skill. That did not prevent us, however, from enjoying ourselves mightily, so interesting and pleasant was the company.

Now, while I was eating my luncheon, and looking round me, I thought that America must certainly be much wealthier than the wealthiest of European countries. A woman as richly endowed with intellect and culture as my kind hostess, who lived by her pen in Paris, Rome, or London, would certainly earn less than she. And yet the foreign woman could live in better style, keep a servant to relieve her of the most troublesome and humble of her domestic duties, live in a large and less inflammable house, and have fresher and better prepared food to eat. If she married a man of her own station, she could more easily and with less stint, bring into the world, rear, and educate a family.

From my hostess, I passed on to think of all the other persons of the same station in life, of those middle classes which are everywhere the support and foundation of democratic institutions and the great reserve of energy of modern civilisation. In New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, the great cities of the East, I had seen several families belonging to this class. I had even been the recipient of their confidences and complaints. At that moment, I realised clearly how much more difficult and laborious, owing to the greater cost of food and lodging, the extreme difficulty of finding servants, and the enormous expense of rearing, and still more of educating, children must be the life of those middle classes in the great cities of the United States than in the great cities of Europe. Like my hostess, a business clerk, a humble employé, or an artisan in the most select industries, though he gains less in Paris or in London than in New York, can live much better in the former towns. He can eat better, lodge more comfortably, employ someone to help in the household, and rear his family without excessive drudgery.

Then I asked myself: “But what is the use of wealth, then, if it is not a means of living better, of securing some extra ease, comfort, or pleasure? What is the reason for this startling paradox, of riches turning from a blessing into a torment? How comes it that America, which has shown such energy in the exploitation of the immense wealth hidden in her boundless territory, has not followed up her conquests by converting these riches to the benefit of the whole population? How is it that, in this fortunate country, it is these middle classes who suffer most who yet have an influence on the Government such as they have in no European country? Why can we find in poorer countries individuals and classes who are happier because they are better satisfied with their condition?”

It was by reflecting on this problem that I at last arrived at a comprehension of the real nature of American progress, and that I finally lighted on the subject, the frame, and the key of the dialogue over which I had so long worried. How and in what way, I shall recount in the following chapter.

II

FACTS AND MOTIVES IN THE MODERN WORLD

Like every other European, I had gone to North America with the fixed idea that it was the country of the practical spirit _par excellence_, and that the Americans were all men who did not lose themselves in dreams, but lived in reality, intent on shaping it to their own ends, and acquiring by the most rapid means the tangible and sure blessings of life—riches, prosperity, power, and the mastery over nature. I was convinced that they knew better than anyone else the art of increasing the comforts, and diminishing the difficulties, of life by the intelligent use of the means furnished by nature, fortune, and preceding generations. I expected, therefore, to find in America, many facts and few ideas; an intelligent and vigorous egoism omnipresent; scanty traces of idealism, and but little faith in the transcendent principles which so often lead dreamers—individuals and nations—to toil and fight for fair but unreal chimeras, in the vain hope of distant glory or grandeur.

So my first surprise, and a very great one it was, arose from my examination at close quarters, of the policy pursued by the United States in dealing with the immense herds of immigrants, who yearly pour into their harbours from all parts of the Old World. In South America, I had closely observed the cautious prudence and really practical sagacity with which the republics try to prevent the continual immigration of foreigners from disturbing too profoundly the political balance of the State, by reserving the government to small oligarchies born and educated in the country, and therefore capable of directing public affairs with a certain continuity of projects and of national spirit. This policy of the South American republics is, I know, severely criticised in Europe, and especially in Italy, by too many persons who judge the affairs of the New World by the standard of the ideas of the Old. But to a historian of Rome, like myself, to whom history has taught the great internal difficulties which were caused in every ancient state by the μέτοιχοι or _peregrini_, this policy seemed practical and reasonable, at least if it be granted that the principal task of every state is that of solving in the best possible way the problems of the hour and leaving to the future its own problems.

To grant every year citizenship in a new state to a great number of men born and educated in distant lands, who come stuffed with ideas and tendencies, opinions which correspond in no wise with the utterly different situation they find in the new country; to give them political rights which they do not want or give a thought to; to make them, almost by force, the pillars of a political constitution which they generally do not understand; to hope to transform them in a flash from subjects of ancient European monarchies into citizens of young American republics—is not all this to do violence to the practical ideas of government, and to multiply the already great difficulties among which every representative régime works, without any compensating advantage, not even that of planting the immigrants firmly in the new country? The vast multitudes which are to-day crossing from Europe to America no longer go, as they did once, in search of liberty beyond the ocean. They go in search of higher salaries, an easier and larger existence, and greater probability of bettering themselves. To open to the children of immigrants on the same terms as to home-born children the high schools, the professions, and the public offices—in short, all the roads by which the son of a peasant or artisan can climb to the higher _bourgeoisie_—is a surer means of planting firmly in the country the crowds carried to America on the wave of emigration than the concession to them of electoral rights. And that is just what the states of South America, with their practical spirit, have done and are doing.

With these impressions and opinions, I arrived from South America in the America which symbolises in the eyes of the world the practical spirit. And in this America, to my no small surprise, I found the opposite policy to this in actual operation, with all the effects which I imagined must follow it; in particular, the growing difficulty of making democratic institutions work smoothly, with an electoral body so swollen, so enormous, and so varied and heterogeneous. I often had occasion, when speaking or writing in the United States, to remember that the cosmopolitan electoral body which is the base of the democracy of the United States recalls that of Rome, where the freedmen—the immigrants of the time—became citizens, and were inscribed in the electoral lists, whatever their national origin, and even if they were all foreigners, barbarians some of them, uncivilised the rest. Nevertheless, there is between the United States and Ancient Rome one essential difference; and that is, that in the Roman Republic, the electoral operations were concentrated in the capital, so that the number of persons who took part in them, the really active electoral body, was extremely small; while in the United States, the electors are numbered by millions, and are scattered over a continent. Do not most of the difficulties and inconveniences of which I have heard America complain in connection with its internal politics arise from the enormous size of the electoral body and from its heterogeneity? For both of these are unique phenomena in the history of the world, as until now every democracy has governed small, and often the tiniest of, states. So this experiment, which America is making, without being compelled to do so by any historical necessity, is a new and bold one, the final result of which it is difficult to foretell. As a matter of fact, the ancient national oligarchies, which governed North America, for so many years after it had gained its independence, did not open the doors of the constitution to the immigrant multitudes who threatened, if admitted, to swamp them. It would have been easy to keep at least the first Europe-born generation out of politics, because—as I have already said—the greater number of immigrants arrive in America without the vaguest idea, much less ambition, of obtaining what, in a democracy, are the political rights of a citizen, and only want big salaries.

How, then, has the United States come to this pass? Certainly historical accidents have contributed to set the Union in this direction. Historical accidents would, however, not have sufficed, if they had not been helped by that conception of democracy, not practical but mystical, so to speak, which I have found obtains among so many Americans. The rights of the people are not in America a political doctrine, to be employed by the nation and its governors in compassing certain ends of general utility, and to be applied only in the measure and with the limitations and qualifications which make it fruitful of good results and prevent it from giving rise to inconveniences. It is a transcendent principle, an article of faith, as it were, to be applied and developed without too much regard to the immediate consequences, which must be endured with patience if they are for the moment unpleasant or dangerous, in the conviction that the principle, being just and true, must finally produce beneficial effects.

So, little by little, I was led to ask myself whether by chance, in politics at any rate, the South Americans and the Europeans were not more practical than the North Americans, and whether the North Americans, on the other hand, were not great idealists; at least, if by the practical spirit is understood the art of solving present difficulties by the quickest and simplest devices with only an immediately realisable benefit in view, instead of multiplying difficulties with future benefits in view or for love of an idea or a principle. The amazement and uncertainty caused by this preliminary survey of the very foundations of the American constitution were increased, however, by my subsequent observation of the numberless philanthropic works, educational institutions, intellectual, political, or social foundations which owe their existence to the inexhaustible generosity of the American upper classes. For though Europeans may think that every American thinks only of making money, a few weeks of travel and of observation were enough to convince me that America is quite as richly, perhaps more richly endowed than Europe with wealthy men whose only thought it is to spend their money for the good of their fellows, for the progress of the nation, in a word, for objects of public utility.

However, though American philanthropic works may equal and often exceed those of Europe in number and in value, I have often had occasion to notice one difference between those of the two continents: and that is, that the American works are not unusually inspired by a more intense, I might almost say a more ingenuous faith in the power of man over the miseries and difficulties of life. The American often addresses himself with fervour, energy, and great intellectual and pecuniary effort to the eradication of ills which the European regards as incurable and irresponsive to treatment. And this American faith in the power to rectify, revive, and purify nature often struck me, no less than many other Europeans, as fringing on the chimerical. In short, even in what are called social works, the American often seemed to me more idealist, more of a dreamer, and less practical than the European; more ready, that is to say, to venture on a struggle against the innumerable ills of life without being quite sure of possessing adequate means for conquering them, at the summons of a mystical faith in the progress of the world.

As the result of all my observations, I kept asking myself whether by chance the United States, notwithstanding their great practical activity, might not be a much more mystical, idealistic, and visionary people than the European gives them credit for. But I did not dare answer the question with a resolute Yes or No. I could not answer No, because that would have involved ignoring facts which were daily obtruding themselves on my notice. On the other hand, I dared not answer Yes, because I was afraid of being accused of excessive fondness for paradoxes, and of wishing to do violence to current opinions at every opportunity and at all costs. So I went groping around for a truth which so far I conjectured rather than saw.

I had reached this point in my reflections and observations when I was invited to luncheon by our friend the author and journalist whom I have mentioned in the preceding chapter. When I saw her home and mode of life, I could not help asking myself: For what reason is the general standard of wealth higher, while that of living is no higher, in America than in Europe? Why are dwellings in the great American cities so small, the distances so great, the communications so difficult, provisions so dear, that notwithstanding the vast riches of the country, life is for the masses and the middle classes more expensive and difficult than in many much less wealthy cities of Europe? The primary answer was not difficult: Because the cities have become too big and populous, because their growth has been too rapid in comparison with the progress of agriculture, and because a section at least of their inhabitants has contracted too expensive habits and is accustomed to a life of too great luxury. This primary answer, however, gave rise to a second question: Why have the cities grown so rapidly, and with the cities the luxury of every class? This too was easily explained: Because of the rapid development of industries. America is a vast continent of great natural wealth, where capital accumulates rapidly. Owing to her ability to accumulate capital readily, and to find work for the numberless hands which the overcrowded districts of Europe have been supplying for the last hundred years to those American countries which have need of them, America has been able, not only to extend her agriculture rapidly and to exploit her mines, but also, and in particular, to multiply her industries to the point of packing her larger cities with so dense a crowd of inhabitants that life has become difficult for the majority of the town populations.

At this point, however, one conclusion seemed to emerge from the preceding observations. Suppose North America, instead of employing all the capital at her disposal in her many industries, as well as the capital borrowed from European countries poorer than herself, had done as France is doing in Europe, namely, had invested part of her capital in foreign countries, in loans to governments, cities, railways, industries, trades, and agricultural enterprises, what would have happened? The demand for labour would doubtless have been less in America, and therefore the emigration to it would not have been so startling. Her industries would have developed less, and her cities would not have increased so rapidly. The United States would now have a smaller population to support, and one better distributed between the cities and the country; would have fewer cities, and those smaller. The band of fortunates who have made huge wealth out of the rapid and prodigious development of the cities would be smaller, but the middle and lower classes would enjoy a more comfortable and easier existence. Their condition would resemble much more closely that of the middle and lower classes in Europe. They would earn lower wages, but those wages, though numerically less, would procure them greater comforts and pleasures.

It was now that, after my many discussions with others, and my extended solitary meditation on the difficult problem, I thought that I had finally confuted the troublesome doctrine of American progress. What is that progress of which the Americans are so proud but the unbridled rush of enterprise which has so rapidly multiplied the industries, enlarged the cities, and increased the population and wealth of the United States? But in that case it was clear that American progress contradicted itself. By inciting the American people to gather together capital and workers, to open their gates to millions of European emigrants, to invest their gains in new enterprises or in the enlargement of old enterprises, to redouble and multiply in every direction efforts and enterprises, so as to form of them a mountain with which to scale the heavens, the spirit of progress had created in America an opulence which teemed with difficulties, contradictions, and embarrassments, and which meant for a large part of the population a condition somewhat resembling that of King Midas: seeing riches all round him, and not being able to enjoy them. But to produce riches with no prospect of enjoying them is an absurdity. Much wiser, therefore, was old Europe, which, taught by the experience of centuries, refused to let herself be dazzled by this idea of progress, and instead of heaping up riches at top speed as does the New World, was more careful in her choice of new riches to create so that she might enjoy them; so that she might make of them a fount of well-being, not a cause of difficulty for mankind.

This was the moment at which I was inclined to think that all the ideas of America and the optimistic spirit which animates them, beginning with the idea of progress, could only be a passing ebullition and the merry madness of youth. This nation, I said to myself, favoured as it is at the moment by unusual facilities for the creation of wealth, has been so much carried away by its success as to make of riches, which are and can be only a means, an end in themselves. A longer experience of history will convince America of its mistake. One day, however, as I was again pondering intently over the facts I had observed, which seemed to prove that the Americans were often dreamers, idealists, almost mystics in matters in which the Europeans show themselves eminently practical, an idea flashed across my mind. What if American progress, which to me had seemed up to then to be but a youthful madness, should prove, if thoroughly analysed, to be only an idealistic and semi-mystical conception of wealth itself? What if this nation, accused of desiring only the immediate possession of worldly goods, was wearing itself out in an unbridled and diabolical activity from dawn till sundown, not with the object of increasing its happiness and pleasure, but for a distant end, transcending the egoism and even the consciousness of the individual? What if all, without knowing it, or impelled as it were by a superior, if not directly mystical force, were labouring and even suffering for this end—a new end, to which history can show us no parallel; the conquest of an immense continent from one sea to the other, by means of a new instrument unknown to our forefathers: steam- or electricity-driven machinery?

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