The Great Republic: Yesterday, To-day and To-morrow
From America at Home by Alfred Maurice Low, 1908.
From: 1776 C.E. To: 1908 C.E.
Location: United States of America
Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.
From America at Home by Alfred Maurice Low, 1908.
In the old days, the days some years behind us, when to Englishmen America was an undiscovered country, before British peers had contracted the habit of marrying American girls, when the American invasion had not swept over Europe, when American goods were not seen in every European shop, and Americans, men and women, were not the mainstay of hotel-keepers, dress makers, and dealers in works of art—in those days it used to be said that when an adventurous Englishman landed in New York, before even he had left the gang way and set his foot on American soil, he was captured by a horde of ravenous reporters who, with wide-open notebooks and pencils poised in the air waiting for his answer to the inevitable question, asked him for his Impressions of the United States: for be it understood once and for all that no true American ever talks about his country as America. It is always the U-nited States.
In those days it used to be said that after an Englishman had taken a stroll up Fifth Avenue, and with all the love of his race for reckless daring penetrated to the wilds of Central Park (which is to New York what Hyde Park is to London), searched vainly for the Indians whom he fondly believed made Central Park their happy hunting grounds, and who in the interval between slaying buffaloes scalped the inoffensive stockbroker on his way to business, or the guileless Tammany politician returning to his virtuous home, with his pockets bulging with the spoils of politics; and with superb courage braved the unknown by going as far West as Niagara Falls, he returned to England and immediately sat himself down to write a book on America.
Allowing for that playful love of humour which vents itself in skilful exaggeration of national foibles, which is an inherent gift of the American, and which is perhaps one of the reasons why he is naturally buoyant and always disposed to look upon the bright side of things, the sarcasm was not unwarranted. Even at a date so recent as a quarter of a century ago the Americans were still, as a people, boyishly young, and they had still to find themselves. They had all the stripling’s enthusiasm and all his self-consciousness. They were like a lusty youth sensible of his great physical strength, of his superb power to battle and to win, and yet aware, although he tried to forget it, that his manners lacked a certain polish, that his hands were uncomfortably large, and his feet entirely too prominent. He wanted to make a good impression. He wanted to be liked. The distinguished Englishman, the traveller, the author, the scientist, must be impressed with the country that he was about to visit, and he was expected, as every guest is, to say pleasant things to his host.
Unfortunately not every Englishman carried his politeness with him across the Atlantic. Sometimes novelty did not appeal to him, sometimes the difference between the old and newer civilisation was too marked to appeal to him. He failed to grasp the significance of Democracy, to be impressed with the resistless energy of a young race only fairly started in the great battle for national supremacy; he even sneered at some things. And then he went back home and wrote his book. Small wonder the majority of Englishmen had curious ideas of America and the Americans, and Americans came to believe that there was little love for their country in England.
Fortunately to-day all that has been changed. Americans and Englishmen now know each other very well, and the more they know of each other the greater admiration each has for the fine qualities of the other. Climate, political and social institutions, methods of work and methods of play, modes of living, these and many other things make the Englishman and the American unlike, and yet unlike as they may be in many respects in so many are they alike that they are the only two great nations that can always meet on common ground.
They speak the same language, and how much that means only one who has lived in the United States can properly appreciate. The men of other races may be foreigners, the Englishman never is. They not only speak the same language, but fundamentally they think the same thoughts. Love of liberty, love of justice, love of right, are expressed in the same terms by the Englishman as by the American. They need no interpreter. They both sought and found their inspiration at the same fountain-head. They sat at the feet of law and were taught by the same teacher. The literature of England is the heritage of America. All those things for which Englishmen battled, all those things which make a people strong and a nation great, belong to America by right; they are part of the inheritance of the race; they are a family possession belonging as much to the younger as to the older brother.
Yesterday a sprawling infant, to-day the United States is a full-grown man. Its progress has been marvellous, the wonder of all the world; it has been so phenomenal that the world still seeks explanation for it and is puzzled to find the true reason. If the past is any guide to the future, what may not one expect of a country so great in all that goes to make greatness, of a people so amazingly energetic and whose ambition is so boundless? They have rounded out little more than a century of national existence, and yet in that century they have done that which other nations and other peoples have done not nearly so well in several centuries.
In the little more than a hundred years which is the history of the American people they have grown from a handful of struggling colonists to a race eighty millions strong; they have become one of the richest and most prosperous people in the world; they have become one of the greatest of commercial nations; they are destined to take a leading part in international politics.
They fought us and they taught us the iron was in their blood; they fought each other, a war compared with which other wars are insignificant, and the iron of the fathers was in the veins of their sons; they fought nature and with iron hand subdued her. From a handful of settlers contending against wild beasts and the even greater savagery of the Indian, they have spread across a mighty continent until one flank rests upon the Atlantic and the other upon the Pacific, typical that Europe as well as Asia must reckon America in all their calculations. Other nations are sobered no less than hampered by tradition.
The civilisation of England as well as the major part of Europe has settled itself into well-established grooves. England is one of the most progressive countries in the world, and yet in England progress which means innovation and improvement, the casting aside of the old for the new, the adoption of modern facilities to meet modern requirements, whether it be in the machinery of society or the machinery of manufacture must first overcome the resistance of conservatism, the objection to accepting the new and the untried for the old and tested.
In America one finds no such obstacles. That a thing or an idea is new is no valid objection to its use; in fact, it is often its strongest argument. It is new, therefore it is assumed to be better than the old; it is American, therefore it is better adapted to American ideas and customs. "We make our precedents," was the reply returned by a great American public man when he was told that a certain thing which he proposed to do was revolutionary and with out the warrant of precedent to sanction it. That is the spirit of the American. Mere age is not sacred. The American refuses to be tied to the past, he lives in the present, and the genius of the day in which he lives may be greater than that of the day of his father. That being so, it is no disrespect to the memory of his father to refuse to be satisfied with those things which satisfied him, but which he knows can be improved upon.
Yet it must not be assumed that the Americans, as a people, are entirely without the saving balance of conservatism, or that they are lacking in self-restraint, or that they delight in innovation simply because they continually seek for change. They are, as a nation and a people, emotional and their feelings are easily reached. Nominally Anglo-Saxons, with the principal characteristics of the Saxon forming a solid foundation, largely influencing them mentally and morally, dominating their social customs and their political institutions, they have become a mixed race, and, like all mixed races, they are a composite of the nationalities they have absorbed.
The raw material, so to speak, the elements which go to make the stock of a nation, has been hammered into shape and fused and moulded into the finished product under the forced draught of a young country, a country with virgin soil, a country with boundless resources, a country where strong men become stronger and even the weakling may find health; where men think for themselves and act for themselves; where everything is in a state of constant flux, almost of unrest; where the stimulus of the ozone in the air, of clear, bright skies, long, hot summers and hard, cold winters, makes men active, alert, vigorous; where competition is very keen, but where the rewards of successful endeavour are very great; where education is more diffused among all classes than it is anywhere else in the world.
All these things not to overlook political institutions, a by no means insignificant factor in the grand total make the American what he is. He can be easily moved, he responds quickly if the right chord is touched, he takes up with a fad or champions a cause with all the enthusiasm of which he is capable, and for the time being believes thoroughly in that which he has espoused; which explains why Americans for the moment have often done things inscrutable to Europeans, why their politics are so intense, why to-day a man is a popular hero and the next week he is the target for malice and cheap wit. The first ebullition is the expression of the emotional American, but under the light layer of emotion is the solid substratum of the Anglo-Saxon conservatism, which always acts as a counterpoise after the first excitement has vented itself.
Often it would seem as if a majority of the American people were the victims of a craze and as if the sanity of a nation lodged in the saving remnant of the minority. But the most vociferous shouting is not always the work of the largest numbers. When the count has been made reason has generally triumphed over emotion; the firm hand of common sense has curbed the recklessness of impetuosity.
Other nations have so nearly completed their social problems that the social structure is well-nigh finished. In America the work is still in course of construction. It is the difference between living in a house to which one has fallen heir, a house in which one’s ancestors lived, which one may not radically change but may only repaint or repaper, and the house which one builds from the ground up, where one can observe bricklayer and stonemason and carpenter at work, where one can alter the plans to suit his fancy while the work is in progress, and where, not satisfied with his house when it is completed, he can pull down a wing and rebuild to suit his newer or more advanced ideas.
The American can watch his civilisation being made, he can see his social advancement going forward, he is a spectator of the evolution of his race. There is no finality in America or American institutions. There is respect for the wisdom of the men whose wisdom has stood the test of time, there is acceptance of that which has proved itself useful for the purpose for which it was intended, but no American makes a vow of perpetual obedience, or relinquishes his right to tear down so that he may upbuild more skilfully. And yet, paradoxical as it may seem, with this tidal flow of national character American institutions remain firmly anchored, basically they remain unshaken by the passing storm of popular passion, they are foundationed in the abiding faith of the people.
The American system of government has endured for one hundred and twenty-five years. It has faced more than one crisis. It has been subjected to more than one supreme test. It has emerged triumphant. It has contended with treason at home and enemies abroad. At the time when the courage of men was most desperately tried that courage never faltered. The Republic has lived because its children believe in the Republic. They may change their laws, they may alter their social institutions, they may modify their policy to keep pace with newer requirements, but the fundamental principles are unchangeable and unalterable.
Yesterday a sprawling infant, to-day a full-grown man; what of the to-morrow? It is an entrancing subject for speculation. The gift of prophecy is given to few men, and yet one need not be endowed with the power of prescience to see what lies ahead of this young giant. If it shall continue to make the same progress during the second century of its existence that it did in its first and there is every reason to believe that its progress will be cumulative it will have a population larger than that of any other country, its wealth will be greater, its commerce more extensive, its material resources more abundant. It is to-day one of the great nations of the world; to-morrow it may well be the greatest. Its wealth, its commerce, its power may dominate the world. To-day its voice in international councils is only infrequently heard; and because other nations are not familiar with it, it is listened to with only a portion of the respect to which it is entitled. Then all nations will treat it with the courtesy that strength exacts. The power of the United States will be as potent at the council table as it will be in the markets of the world.
Come, let us see more of these wonderful people and this marvellous country. I promise you it will not be time wasted, and it will not be a journey without interest. We shall wander a bit farther than Central Park; and although we may see no Indians, and no buffaloes may delight our eyes, we shall see things even more curious and more fascinating we shall see a people at work and at play, a nation in the making.
Low, Alfred Maurice. America at Home. George Newnes, 1908.
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