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Page 17
As we jogged along, the idea entered my mind that I would, when I
returned home, write a treatise on "American Manners and Customs." "No
doubt," I said to myself, "I can in the next few minutes procure from
Bainbridge enough facts to make quite a book." I afterward abandoned the
intention; but at that moment my mind was filled with it. So I decided
to ask my companion a few leading questions, noting well his replies.
"And I will first," I determined within myself, "inquire into the mooted
point concerning the existence of an aristocratic feeling in the United
States. Some of our English writers on 'American Manners and Customs,'
and our most acute analysts of American character, say that the
Americans are great snobs, and are only too glad to claim the possession
of even the most distant aristocratic connection;" so I broached the
subject to Bainbridge.
"It interests me to convince you," he began, in reply, "that in the
United States there is scarcely a vestige of aristocratic feeling. In
fact as in theory, there is in this country but one class of people.
Such supposed barriers as wealth and political position are only
partitions of paper--relative nothings. I do not mention heredity,
because in the United States all attempts to establish a family line
result in the family rotting before it gets ripe. The only pretence to
hereditary pride which we have here, exists in two States; in one of
them some four or five hundred persons cannot forget that their
forefathers got to shore before somebody else; and in the other a few
families still dispute over the threadbare question of whose
great-great-grandmother cost the most pounds of tobacco. Now,
candidly--is this sufficient to justify a reproach from Europe that we
are striving to claim or to create an aristocracy?
"And then there is that other reproach--we're such outrageous
tuft-hunters. I shall not deny having seen an American run himself out
of breath to get a peep at a duke, but I never knew an American spend
money to see one, unless the American was too beastly rich to care for
money at all. And then, hereditary nobles do not wear well here. Let a
visiting duke be followed within a year by anything less than a king,
and the visitor will fail to excite anybody out of a walk. You must not
in England judge of this subject from the effect on our people of a
certain not remote visit; for the people of the United States have a
feeling of respect and affection for the present royal family of Great
Britain which no other royal family or individual, past or present, has
ever produced. Hum, hum! Our people mean well; but curiosity and
imitation will not die out of the human race till an inch or two more of
the spinal column drops off."
Still with a view to the gathering of facts for my intended treatise, I
asked Bainbridge to explain in what distinctive manner the people of the
United States were benefited by a republican form of government. He
replied that he knew nothing worth mentioning of the science of
government, and had never been outside of the United States.
"But," he continued, "I can tell you something of what the whole people
of this country enjoy. And to begin with, there is, as I have intimated,
in the United States but one class of people, aside from the criminal
class common to all lands, and that vicious but not relatively numerous
element which lives on the borderland between respectability and actual
crime. This truth seems sometimes to be questioned in Europe--why, I can
but guess. Who would attempt to enter the nurseries and schoolrooms of
our land today, and, by inquiring as to the parentage of the children,
select from among them any approximation to those from whom are to come,
in twenty or thirty years, the men that shall then govern our States,
sit in our National Congress, direct our army and navy, and control our
commerce? I have heard that in Europe it is rather the exception for a
son to reach exalted position when the father has earned a living by
manual labor. In the United States this is not the exception, but the
rule. At this moment the positions alluded to are here filled by the
sons of poor fathers. With us, inherited wealth appears to be rather a
detriment than an aid to political advancement of more than a petty
kind. 'And yet,' you may say, 'your people are not always satisfied.' No
advancing, upward-looking people is ever satisfied. With such a people,
too, the demagogue is a natural product; and the demagogue period of
this country is at hand. But there will never be a tom-fool revolution
in this fair land. The people here know that when they have universal
suffrage and majority rule they've pulled the last hair out of the end
of the cat's tail for them."
I made a remark, to which Bainbridge replied:
"Yes, we managed to finish up a pretty fair revolution here some twelve
years ago; but that revolution was caused by a disagreement about the R.
of B. Now----"
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