: As A Chinaman Saw Us: Passages from His Letters to a Friend at Home by Gratton Henry Pearson Editor - United States Description and travel; United States Social life and customs

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in America than in Ireland the fate of Ireland is assured. Yet the American air takes the fight out of the Irishman, the rose from his cheek, and makes a natural-born politician out of him. America still continued to receive immigrants, and not satisfied with the natural flow of the human current, began to import African slaves to a country founded for the benefit of those who desired an asylum where they could enjoy religious and political freedom. The Africans were sold in the cotton belt, their existence virtually creating two distinct political parties. America long remained a dumping-ground for nearly all the nations of the world having an excess of population. Great navigation companies were built up, to a large extent, on this trade. They sent agents to every foreign country, issued pamphlets in every European language, and uncounted thousands were brought over--the scum of the earth in many instances. There was no restriction to immigration until the Chinese were barred out. After accepting the outlaws of every European state, the poor of all lands, they shut the door on our "coolie" countrymen.

In this way, briefly, America has grown to her present population of 80,000,000. The remarkable growth and assimilation is still going on--a menace to the world, but in a constantly decreasing ratio, which has become so marked that the leading Americans, the class which corresponds to our scholars, are aghast at the singular conditions which exist. Non-assimilation shows itself in labor riots, in the murder of two Presidents--Garfield and Lincoln--in socialistic outbreaks in every quarter, and in signal outbreaks in various sections, at lynchings, and other unlawful performances. I am attempting to give you an idea of the constituents of America to-day; but so interesting is the subject, so prolific in its warnings and possibilities, that I find myself wandering.

To glance at conditions at the present time, about 600,000 aliens are coming to America yearly. What is the result? I was invited to meet a distinguished German visiting in New York last month, and at the dinner a young lady who sat by my side said to me, "I wish I could puzzle him." "Why?" I asked, in amazement. "Oh," was her reply, "he looks so cram full of knowledge; I would like to take him down." "Ah," I said. "Ask him which is the third largest German city in the world. It is New York; he will never guess it." She did so, and I assure you he was "puzzled," and would scarcely believe it until a well-known man assured him it was true. There are more Germans in Chicago than in Leipsic, Cologne, Dresden, Munich, or a dozen small towns joined in one. Half of the Chicago Germans speak their own tongue. This city is the third Swedish city of the world in population. It is the fourth Polish city and the second Bohemian city. I was informed by a professor in the University of Chicago that, in that strange city, the number of people who speak the language of the Bohemians equaled the combined inhabitants of Richmond, Atlanta, Portland, and Nashville--all large cities. "What do you think of it?" I asked. "We are up against it," was the reply. I can not explain this retort so that you would understand it, but it had great significance. The professor, a distinguished philologist, was worried, and he looked it. A lady who was a club woman--and by this I do not mean that she was armed with a club, but merely a member of clubs or societies for educational advancement and social aggrandizement--said it was merely his digestion.

I learned from my friend, the dyspeptic professor, that over forty dialects are spoken in Chicago. About one-half only of the total population speak or understand English. There are 500,000 Germans, 125,000 Poles, 100,000 Swedes, 90,000 Bohemians, 50,000 Yiddish, 25,000 Dutch, 25,000 Italians, 15,000 French, 10,000 Irish, 10,000 Servians, 10,000 Lutherans, 7,000 Russians, and 5,000 Hungarians in Chicago. You will be surprised to learn that numbers do not count. The 500,000 Germans are not the dominating power, nor are the 100,000 Swedes. The 10,000 Irish are said absolutely to control the political situation. You will ask if I believe that this monster foreign element can be reduced to a homogeneous unit. I reply, yes. Fifty years from to-day they will all be Americans, and a majority will, doubtless, show you their family tree, tracing their ancestry back to the Mayflower.

FOOTNOTE:

This passage was written just before the assassination of President McKinley.

THE AMERICAN MAN

Among the most charming and delightfully cultured people I met in America were Philadelphians of old families. The New Yorker is more cosmopolitan, while the Southern men, to a certain extent, have caught the inflection of the negro, who is the nurse in the South for all white children. The Americans are taught that the principal and chief end of man is to make a fortune and get married; but to accomplish this it is necessary first to "sow wild oats," become familiar with the vices of drink, smoking, and other forms of dissipation, a sort of test of endurance possibly, such as is found among many native races; yet one scarcely expects to find it among the latest and highest exponents of perfection in the human race.

The American pretends to be democratic; scoffs at England and other European lands, but at heart he is an aristocrat. His tastes are only limited by his means, and not always then. Any American, especially a politician, will tell you that there is but one class--the people, and that all are born equal. In point of fact, there are as many classes as there are grades of pronounced individuality, and all are very unequal, as every one knows. They are included in a general way in three classes: the upper class ; the middle class ; and last, the rest. The cream of society will be found in all the cities to be among the professional men, clergymen, presidents of colleges, long-rich wholesale merchants, judges, authors, etc.

There is a leisure class, the sons of wealthy men, who devote their time to hunting and other sports; but in the recent war this class surged to the front as private soldiers and fought the country's battles. I admire the American gentleman of the select society class I have described. He is modest, intelligent, learned in the best sense, magnanimous, a type of chivalry, bold, vigorous, charming as a host, and the soul of honor. It is a regret that this is not the dominating and best-known class in America, but it is not; and the alien, the stranger coming without letters of introduction, would fall into other hands. A man might live a lifetime in Philadelphia or Boston and never meet these people, unless he had been introduced by some one who was of the same class in some other city. Such strange social customs make strange bedfellows. Thus, if you came to America to-day and had letters to the Vice-President, you would, without doubt, if properly accredited, see the very best society. If, on the other hand, you had letters to the President at his home in the State of Ohio you would doubtless meet an entirely different class, eminently respectable, yet not the same. It would be impossible to ignore the inference from this. The Vice-President is in society ; the President is not. Where else could this hold? Nowhere but in America.

The Americans affect to scorn caste and sect, yet no nation has more of them. Sets or classes, even among men, are found in all towns where there is any display of wealth. The best society of a small town consists of its bank presidents, its clergymen, its physicians, its authors, its lawyers. No matter how educated the grocer may be, he will not be received, nor the retail shoe dealer, though the shoe manufacturer, the dealer in many shoes, may be the virtual leader, at least among the men. Each town will have its clubs, the members ranging according to their class; and while it seems a paradox, it is true that this classification is mainly based upon the refinement, culture, and family of the man. A well-known man once engaged me in conversation with a view to finding out some facts regarding our social customs, and I learned from him that a dentist in America would scarcely be received in the best society. He argued, that to a man of refinement and culture, such a profession, which included the cleaning of teeth, would be impossible; consequently, you would not be likely to find a really cultivated man who was a dentist. On the same grounds an undertaker would not be admitted to the first society.

You will perceive, then, that what some American people consider a gentleman and what its most exclusive society accepts for one, comprise two entirely different personages. I found this emphasized especially in the old society of Washington, which takes its traditions from Washington's time or even the pre-Revolutionary period. For such society a self-made man was impossible. Such are the remarkable, indeed astounding, ramifications of the social system of a people who cry to heaven of their democracy. "Americans are all equal--this is one of the gems in our diadem." This epigram I heard drop from the lips of a senator who was the recognized aristocrat of the chamber; yet a man of peculiar social reserve, who would have nothing to do with the other "equals." In a word, all the talk of equality is an absurd figure of speech. America is at heart as much an aristocracy as England, and the social divisions are much the same under the surface.

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