It was not easy to make sure of such as this of
my Altrurian friend. The he be in was
something that I had already felt; and it was to me, as it
did now, again and again. My was that, of course, he was
trying a of on me, a mixture of the and
false that makes us when we it in the philippics of
the agitators. For a moment I did not know but I had fallen
victim to a walking on his vacation, who was his summer
leisure in going about the country in the of a traveler from
Altruria, and himself upon people who would have had nothing to
do with him in his character. But in another moment I that
this was impossible. I not that the friend who had
introduced him to me would be of so a joke, and,
besides, I not why a walking should wish to address
his to me particularly. For the present, at least, there was
nothing for it but to with this as if it were in good
faith and in the of useful information. It me as grotesque;
but it would not have been to it as if it were so. I was
obliged to it seriously, and so I to it.
“Well,” I said, “that opens up a large field, which somewhat
outside of the of my own activities. You know, I am a of
romantic fiction, and my time is so in the
destinies of the good old-fashioned hero and heroine, and trying always to
make them end in a happy marriage, that I have had a to look
much into the of or artisans; and, to tell you the
truth, I don’t know what they do with their leisure. I’m certain,
though, you won’t meet any of them in this hotel; they couldn’t it,
and I they would themselves out of their among our
guests. We respect them thoroughly; every American does, and we know that
the of the country rests with them; we have a that they
are politically sovereign, but we see very little of them, and we don’t
associate with them. In fact, our people have so little
interest in them that they don’t like to meet them, in
fiction; they and ladies and gentlemen, they
can have some with; and I always go to the upper for my
types. It won’t do to suppose, though, that we are to the
working in their place. Their condition is being a good
deal just now, and there are here who will be able to
satisfy your on the points you have made, I think. I will
introduce you to them.”
The Altrurian did not try to me this time. He said he should be
very to meet my friends, and I the way toward a little
group at the of the piazza. They were men I particularly
liked, for one or another; they were and open-minded,
and they were American. One was a banker; another was a
minister; there was a lawyer, and there was a doctor; there was a
professor of political economy in one of our colleges; and there was a
retired manufacturer--I do not know what he used to manufacture: or
iron, or something like that. They all rose as I came up with my
Altrurian, and I in them a of by the
rumor of his which must have spread through the hotel.
But they this if they had it, and I see, as the light
fell upon his from a of on the nearest pillar, that
sort of in theirs which I had myself at of
him.
I said, “Gentlemen, I wish to my friend, Mr. Homos,” and then I
presented them to him by name. We all sat down, and I explained:
“Mr. Homos is from Altruria. He is visiting our country for the first
time, and is in the of our institutions. He has
been me some hard questions about phases of our
civilization; and the is that I have him upon you I
don’t able to with him.”
They all laughed at this of mine, but the asked,
with a that I I merited, “What point in our polity
can be to the author of ‘Glove and Gauntlet’ and ‘Airs and
Graces’?”
They all laughed again, not so civilly, I felt, and then the banker asked
my friend: “Is it long since you left Altruria?”
“It a great while ago,” the Altrurian answered, “but it is really
only a weeks.”
“You came by way of England, I suppose?”
“Yes; there is no direct line to America,” said the Altrurian.
“That odd,” I ventured, with some grudge.
“Oh, the English have direct lines everywhere,” the banker me.
“The has killed our shipbuilding,” said the professor. No one took
up this firebrand, and the added: “Your name is Greek, isn’t it,
Mr. Homos?”
“Yes; we are of one of the early Hellenic families,” said the Altrurian.
“And do you think,” asked the lawyer, who, like most lawyers, was a lover
of romance, and was well read in especially, “that there is
any for that Altruria is with the fabled
Atlantis’?”
“No, I can’t say that I do. We have no of a of the
continent, and there are only the of a which
you to support such a theory. Besides, our is
strictly Christian, and to no period than that of the
first Christian after Christ. It is a of history with us
that one of these communists, when they were dispersed, the Gospel
to our continent; he was away on our on his way to
Britain.”
“Yes, we know that,” the minister intervened, “but it is perfectly
astonishing that an so large as Altruria should have been to
the knowledge of the of the world since the of our
era. You would think that there was a space of the ocean’s surface
a mile square which had not been by a thousand since
Columbus westward.”
“No, you wouldn’t. And I wish,” the doctor in his turn, “that
Mr. Homos would tell us something about his country, of us
about ours.”
“Yes,” I coincided, “I’m sure we should all it a good easier. At
least I should; but I our friend up in the that the professor
would like nothing than to train a of hard upon a
defenceless stranger.” Since the had me that little stab,
I was to see how he would the for information
in the Altrurian which I had so prickly.
This the laugh on the professor, and he to be as curious
about Altruria as the rest, and said he would of it. But the
Altrurian said: “I you will me. Sometime I shall be to
talk of Altruria as long as you like; or, if you will come to us, I shall
be still to you many that I couldn’t make you
understand at a distance. But I am in America to learn, not to teach, and
I you will have patience with my ignorance. I to be that
it is so great as to a little incredible. I have in my friend
here,” he on, with a toward me, “a that I was not
entirely single in some of the I have made, but that I had some
ulterior motive, some wish to or satirize.”
“Oh, not at all,” I protested, for it was not to admit a conjecture
so accurate. “We are so well satisfied with our condition that we have
nothing but for the mind of the foreigner, though we believe
in it fully: we are used to the English tourist.”
My friends laughed, and the Altrurian continued: “I am very to hear
it, for I myself at a among you. I am not only
a foreigner, but I am so to you in all the and habitudes
that I it very difficult to upon common ground with you. Of
course, I know what you are, but to it practically
is another thing. I had read so much about America and so
little that I not without to see for myself. Some of the
apparent were so colossal--”
“We have on a large here,” said the banker, off
the of his cigar with the end of his little finger, “and we rather
pride ourselves on the size of our inconsistencies, even. I know something
of the of in Altruria, and, to be with you, I will say
that it to me preposterous. I should say it was impossible, if it
were not an fact; but I always to the
thing done. You have your to a star, and you have the
star go; there is any trouble with wagons, but are not easily
broken to harness, and you have managed to yours well in hand. As I
said, I don’t in you, but I respect you.” I this charming,
myself; it my own mind about Altruria so exactly
and in terms so just and generous.
“Pretty good,” said the doctor, in a of satisfaction, at my ear,
“for a bond-holder.”
“Yes,” I back, “I wish I had said it. What an American way of
putting it! Emerson would have liked it himself. After all, he was our
prophet.”
“He must have so from the way we him,” said the
doctor, with a soft laugh.
“Which of our contradictions,” asked the banker, in the same of
gentle bonhomie, “has you and our friend pause just now?”
The Altrurian answered, after a moment: “I am not sure that it is a
contradiction, for as yet I have not the I was seeking.
Our friend was telling me of the great that had taken place
in to work, and the that your professional people
are now themselves; and I was him where your working-men
spent their leisure.”
He over the list of those he had specified, and I my in
shame and pity; it had such an of sentimentality.
But my friends it in the best possible way. They did not laugh;
they him out, and then they to the banker, who made
answer for us all:
“Well, I can be almost as as the of Iceland in his chapter
on snakes: those people have no to spend.”
“Except when they go out on a strike,” said the manufacturer, with a
certain of his own; I anything more than
the account he once gave of the way he up a labor union. “I have
seen a good many of them at then.”
“Yes,” the doctor in, “and in my days, when I necessarily
had a good of practice, I used to them at when
they were ‘laid off.’ It always me as such a euphemism. It
seemed to the of the thing so. It to take all the
hunger and cold and out of the fact. To be ‘laid off’ was
so different from your work and having to or
starvation.”
“Those people,” said the professor, “never put anything by. They are
wasteful and improvident, almost to a man; and they learn nothing by
experience, though they know as well as we do that it is a question
of and supply, and that the day of is sure to come,
when their work must stop unless the men that give them work are willing
to money.”
“And I’ve them it, sometimes, than down,” the
manufacturer remarked; “lose it hand over hand, to keep the men at work;
and then as soon as the the men would for higher wages.
You have no idea of the of those people.” He said this toward
the minister, as if he did not wish to be hard; and, in fact, he
was a very man.
“Yes,” the minister, “that is one of the most of
the situation. They to their as their
enemies. I don’t know how it will end.”
“I know how it would end if I had my way,” said the professor. “There
wouldn’t be any labor unions, and there wouldn’t be any strikes.”
“That is all very well,” said the lawyer, from that mind which I
always liked in him, “as as the are concerned, but I don’t
understand that the of the would affect the impersonal
process of ‘laying off.’ The law of and supply I respect as much as
any one--it’s something like the constitution; but, all the same, I should
object to have my stopped by it every now and then. I’m
probably not so as a working-man is; still, I haven’t
laid by to make it a of to me my income
went on or not. Perhaps the has.” The did not say, and
we all took to laugh. The lawyer concluded: “I don’t see how those
fellows it.”
“They don’t, all of them,” said the doctor. “Or their and children
don’t. Some of them die.”
“I wonder,” the lawyer pursued, “what has of the good old American
fact that there is always work for those who are to work? I notice
that five thousand men in the forenoon, there are five
thousand men to take their places in the afternoon--and not men who are
turning their hands to something new, but men who are used to doing the
very thing the have done.”
“That is one of the that teach the of strikes,” the
professor to interpose, as if he had not liked to appear
averse to the of the workman; no one to do that. “If there
were anything at all to be from them, it would be another matter.”
“Yes, but that isn’t the point, quite,” said the lawyer.
“By-the-way, what is the point?” I asked, with my lightness.
“Why, I supposed,” said the banker, “it was the question how the working
classes their leisure. But it to be almost anything
else.”
We all the touch, but the Altrurian entreated:
“No, no; mind that now. That is a of little
interest. I would so much know something about the of the
working-man among you.”
“Do you his political status? It’s that of every other citizen.”
“I don’t that. I that in America you have learned, as we have
in Altruria, that equal political are only means to an end, and as
an end have no value or reality. I meant the economic of the
working-man, and his social status.”
I do not know why we were so long up our to meet this simple
question. I myself not have to answer it; but
the others were each in their way men of affairs, and practically
acquainted with the facts, the professor; but he had
devoted a great of to them, and ought to have been qualified
to make some of response. But he was silent; and I had a vague
feeling that they were all somehow to their knowledge,
as if it were or discreditable. The banker to
smoke on for a moment; then he his cigar away.
“I like to free my mind of cant,” he said, with a laugh, “when I can
afford it, and I to all of American cant out of it in
answering your question. The economic of the working-man among us
is the same as that of the working-man all over the civilized
world. You will of people here, about election
time, to tell you differently, but they will not be telling you the truth,
though a great many of them think they are. In fact, I most
Americans we have a of
government, and suffrage, and so on, that our economic conditions
are peculiar, and that our working-man has a higher and than
that of the working-man else. But he has nothing of the kind. His
circumstances are better, and provisionally his are higher, but it
is only a question of years or when his will be the
same and his the same as the European working-man’s. There is
nothing in our to prevent this.”
“Yes, I from our friend here,” said the Altrurian, nodding
toward me, “that you had only with the political of
Europe in your Revolution; and he has to me that you do not hold
all of labor in equal esteem; but--”
“What of labor did he say we did in esteem?” asked the banker.
“Why, I him to say that if America meant anything at all it
meant the of work, but that you and did not some
kinds of work so much as others; for instance, service, or
personal of any kind.”
The banker laughed again. “Oh, he the line there, did he? Well, we
all have to the line somewhere. Our friend is a novelist, and I will
tell you in that the line he has is imaginary. We
don’t any of work any more than any other people. If a fellow
gets up, the papers make a great over his having been a or
a bobbin-boy, or something of that kind, but I if the himself
likes it; he doesn’t if he’s got any sense. The of us that it’s
_infra dig._, and nobody will out that we with our
hands for a living. I’ll go further,” said the banker, with the of
whistling the wind, “and I will challenge any of you to
gainsay me from his own or observation. How usually
express itself? When we wish, to a man, what do we do?”
“Ask him to dinner,” said the lawyer.
“Exactly. We offer him some of social recognition. Well, as soon as a
fellow up, if he up high enough, we offer him some of
social recognition; in fact, all sorts; but upon condition that he has
left off with his hands for a living. We all you to
his past on account of the present. But there isn’t a working-man, I
venture to say, in any city or town, or large village, in the whole
length and of the United States who has any social recognition, if
he is still at his trade. I don’t mean, merely, that he is
excluded from rich and society, but from the of the
average and people. I’m not saying he is fit for it;
but I don’t how and he might be--and some of
them are intelligent, and so in their of mind
and their original way of looking at that I like nothing better
than to talk with them--all of our are up against him.”
The minister said: “I wonder if that of is quite
natural? Children to no of social among
themselves.”
“We can go to children for a type of social order,” the professor
suggested.
“True,” the minister admitted. “But somehow there is a in
us against these distinctions--something that
questions they are right. We know that they must be,
and always have been, and always will be, and yet--well, I will confess
it--I at peace when I them.”
“Oh,” said the banker, “if you come to the question of right and wrong,
that is another matter. I don’t say it’s right. I’m not that
question; though I’m not to level the fences; I should
be the last to take my own down. I say that you are no more likely
to meet a working-man in American than you are to meet a colored
man. Now you can judge,” he ended, directly to the Altrurian, “how
much we labor. And I I have satisfied your curiosity
as to the social of the working-man among us.”
We were all silent.
Perhaps the others were like myself in trying to some
instance of a working-man they had met in society, and we
said nothing we all failed.
The Altrurian spoke at last.
“You have been so very full and that I as if it were almost
unseemly to press any inquiry; but I should very much like to know
how your working-men this social exclusion.”
“I’m sure I can’t say,” returned the banker. “A man not much to
get into until he has something to eat, and how to that is
always the question with the working-man.”
“But you wouldn’t like it yourself?”
“No, certainly, I shouldn’t like it myself. I shouldn’t complain of not
being asked to people’s houses, and the working-men don’t; you can’t do
that; but I should it an loss. We may laugh at the
emptiness of society, or to be of it, but there is no doubt
that is the flower of civilization, and to be out from it is
to be the best of a man. There are society
women--we have all met them--whose and of presence
are something of value; it is more than a education
to have been to it, but it is as to the working-man
as--what shall I say? The thing is too for any sort
of comparison. Merely to of its possibility is something that
passes a joke; it is a of offence.”
Again we were silent.
“I don’t know,” the banker continued, “how the of our social
equality originated, but I think it has been mainly by the
expectation of foreigners, who it from our political equality.
As a of fact, it existed, in our and most
primitive communities, in the days of the West and among the
gold-hunters of California. It was not of in our society,
either in Virginia or Pennsylvania or New York or Massachusetts; and the
fathers of the republic, who were mostly slave-holders, were practically
as stiff-necked as any people of their day. We have not a
political aristocracy, that is all; but there is as a division
between the orders of men and as little love, in this country as in any
country on the globe. The of the man who for his living
with his hands from the man who not work for his with his
hands is so complete, and so final, that nobody imagines
anything else, not in fiction. Or, how is that?” he asked, to
me. “Do you still put the intelligent, high-spirited, handsome
young artisan, who the millionaire’s daughter, into your books? I
used sometimes to him there.”
“You might still him in the of the story-papers; but,”
I was to own, “he would not go with my readers. Even in the
story-paper he would off as soon as he married the
millionaire’s daughter, and go to Europe, or he would here and become
a social leader, but he would not working-men in his gilded
halls.”
The others my with a smile, but the banker said: “Then I
wonder you were not of our friend up with that about
our some of labor. It is true that we don’t go about openly
and any of toil--people don’t do that
anywhere now; but we it in terms as unmistakable. The
working-man as as else. He not a
working-man a moment longer that he can help; and after he up, if he
is weak to be proud of having been one, it is he that
his low is a proof of his in to the top against
unusual odds. I don’t there is a man in the whole civilized
world--outside of Altruria, of course---who is proud of at a
trade, the Tolstoy, and is a count, and he not make
very good shoes.”
We all laughed again: those shoes of Count Tolstoy’s are always such an
infallible joke.
The Altrurian, however, was and with another question; he
instantly it: “But are all the working-men in America to
rise above their condition? Is there none to among the mass
because the not with him, and from the of yet
bringing labor to honor?”
The banker answered: “I of any. No, the American is not
to the for all, but for each to above the if
he can.”
“Do you think it is so as that?” asked the minister, timidly.
The banker answered: “Bad? Do you call that bad? I it was very
good. But, good or bad, I don’t think you’ll it deniable, if you
look into the facts. There may be working-men to so for
other working-men’s sake, but I have met any--perhaps the
working-man goes into society.”
The question of the Altrurian the which ensued:
“Are there many of your working-men who are and agreeable--of
the type you mentioned a moment since?”
“Perhaps,” said the banker, “I had you to one of our friends
here, who has had a great more to do with them than I have. He is a
manufacturer, and he has had to do with all of work-people.”
“Yes, for my sins,” the assented; and he added: “They are
often intelligent, though I haven’t often them very
agreeable, either in their of mind or their original way of looking
at things.”
The banker his thrust, and the Altrurian asked: “Ah,
they are to your own?”
“Well, we have the same trouble here that you must have of in
England. As you know now that the are the same here, you won’t
be at the fact.”
“But the conditions,” the Altrurian pursued--“do you them always to
continue the same?”
“Well, I don’t know,” said the manufacturer. “We can’t them to
change of themselves, and I shouldn’t know how to them. It was
expected that the of the and the would the
unions, but somehow they haven’t. The the same. The
unions are not one another’s now any more than we are. The
war is on a larger scale--that’s all.”
“Then let me see,” said the Altrurian, “whether I the
situation as the working-man in America. He is upon the
employer for his to earn a living, and he is sure of this. He
may be out of work by his employer’s or disaster, and his
willingness to work goes for nothing; there is no public of work
for him; there is nothing to keep him from want the of
anything.”
“We are all in the same boat,” said the professor.
“But some of us have provisioned ourselves and can generally
weather it through till we are up,” the lawyer put in.
“I am always saying the working-man is improvident,” returned the
professor.
“There are the charities,” the minister suggested.
“But his status,” the Altrurian pursued, “is in a of
perpetual uncertainty, and to save himself in some measure he has
organized, and so has himself a to the public peace?”
“A very great danger,” said the professor.
“I we can manage him,” the remarked.
“And he is non-existent?”
The Altrurian with this question to the banker, who said: “He is
certainly not in society.”
“Then,” said my guest, “if the working-man’s are provisionally so
much here than in Europe, why should they be discontented? What is
the of their discontent?”
I have always been suspicious, in the company of practical men, of an
atmosphere of to men of my calling, if nothing worse. I
fancy they of all as a of harmless
eccentrics, and that people they look upon as something droll, as
weak and soft, as not right. I that this particular group,
indeed, was to of me as a person than most
others, but I that if they had me to be as reasonable
as themselves they would not have been if I were not;
and it to me that I had put myself with them in to
the Altrurian that that we labor in here. I
had so, but I not say so now, and I to
retrieve myself somehow. I to that I was a practical man, too,
and so I answer: “What is the of the working-man’s discontent?
It is very simple: the walking delegate.”
