XIICHARACTERISTICS

ITALIANS WORKING WITH THE MIXER ON THE MEADVILLE PIKE

ITALIANS WORKING WITH THE "MIXER" ON THE MEADVILLE PIKE.

Near Cochranton I made the acquaintance of four little girls—Julia, Margaret, Elinor, Cora, and Georgiana—scampering about in bare legs and week-dayfrocks, whilst father and mother, with gauze bags on their heads, were "boxing the bees." It was the first swarm of summer; two lots of bees had been boxed, but the third was giving much trouble. Julia, aged twelve, was a very pretty girl, and when at her mother's recommendation she went indoors, washed her face and put on a Sunday frock, she looked a very smart young lady. She was conscious of that fact, and informed me in course of conversation that she was going to travel when she was grown up. She was dying to see Paris, and she wanted to visit all the European towns!

Some miles north, near Frenchville, I met one of the French colonists of Northern Pennsylvania,—a tall, well-built stripling,—and he told me how the Breton peasants had settled at Boussot and Frenchville, bringing all their French ways of farming and economy, and becoming the admiration of the district round—a little Brittany. The young man's father-in-law had been the first Frenchman to come and settle in the district. After him had come, straight from France, relatives and friends, and relatives of friends and friends of friends in widening circles. They were beginning to speak English well now, but the newcomers were still without the new language. It was interesting for me to realise what a great gain such people were to America—to the American nation in the making. It is good to think of suchagricultural settlements lying in the background of industrial America—the whole villages of Swedes, of Russians, of Danes, Finns, Germans, French. They are ethnic reserves; they mature and improve in the background. They are Capital. If urban America can subsist on the interest, the surplus of the ambitious, how much richer she will be than if the population of whole country-sides is tempted to rushpêle-mêleto the places of fortune-making and body-wasting.

Coming into Meadville, a town of twelve thousand inhabitants, most of the labourers of whom are Italians employed at the great railway works, I was attracted to Nicola Hiagg, a Syrian, sitting outside his ice-cream shop, reading the Syrian paper. Whilst I had a "pine-apple soda," I drew him into talk. It was a matter of pleasing interest to him that I had myself tramped in Syria, and knew the conditions in his native land. Nicola had first left Syria twelve years ago, had come to Philadelphia, and started making his living selling "soft drinks" in the street. After five years he had saved enough to take a holiday and go back to the old land. He and his brother had been merchants in Jerusalem before he set out for America; the brother had had charge of the store, and Nicola had convoyed the merchandise and the train of thirty asses to and from the country. He had many friends in Syria, but it was a poor country. The Turks were bloodsuckers, and drained it of every drop of vital energy.

"I lived in a poor little town between Beyrout and Damascus, not with my brother in Jerusalem. So poor! You cannot start anything new in Syria—the Turk interferes. No bizness! What you think of the war? The Turk is beaten, hey? Now is the time for the Syrians to unite and throw off the Turk. There are Syrians all over the world; they are prosperous everywhere but in Syria.... America is a fine country; but if Syria became independent I'd go back...."

Nicola, when he had his holiday, found a Syrian girl and brought her back to America as his wife. She was not visible now, however; for the Syrian kept her in the background, and he told me he didn't believe in women's rights to public life. A bit of a Turk himself!

He was very proud of his little girl, who is being brought up as an American in the town school. "Already she can write, and when you say to her, 'Write something,' she does not look up at you and say, 'How d'you spell it?' She just writes it."

"She's sharp."

"You bet."

The Turks, the Greeks, and the Syrians, and to some extent the Italians, are engaged in the sweet-stuff and ice-cream business. Turkish Delight, the most characteristic thing of the Levant, seems to be their bond of union. It is a great business inAmerica, for the Americans are, beyond all comparison, fonder of sweet things than we are. I stopped one day at a great candy shop in South Bend, Indiana. It was kept by a Mr. Poledor, who was so pleased that I had been in Greece and knew the habits of the Greek Orthodox, that he gave me the freedom of the shop and bade me order anything I liked—he would "stand treat." There were over a hundred ways of having ice-cream, twenty sorts of ice-cream soda, thirteen sorts of lemonade, twelve frappes, and the menu card was something like a band programme. Mr. Poledor was a man of inventiveness, and the names of some of the dishes were as delicious as the dishes themselves. I transcribe a few:

Merry Widow.Don't Care.John D. (is very rich).Yankee Doodle.Upside down.New Moon.Sweet Smile.Twin Beauties.Nôtre Dame.Lover's Delight.Black-eyed Susan.

A young man could take his girl there and give her anything she asked for, were it the moon itself. The Greek was a magician.

But to return. As I was going out of Meadville, two young men swung out of a saloon and addressed me thus strangely:

"Have you had a benevolent? We're giving them away."

One of them showed me a stylographic pen.

"Wha're you doing?" said the other.

"Oh, I'm travelling," I replied.

"How d'ye get your living?"

"I write in the magazines now and then."

A look of disappointment crept over the faces of the young men. The stylographic pen was replaced in waistcoat pocket.

"Did you say you were working for a magazine? So are we—The Homestead. I was about to ask you to become a subscriber."

"And the benevolent?" I asked.

"Oh, these are given away to subscribers."

I explained that I wasn't a commercial traveller, but one of those who wrote sometimes in magazines.

"You'd be a sort of reporter?"

"Well, not quite."

"A poet?"

"No. I earn my living by writing."

"Better than a poet, I suppose. Well, good-day, wish you luck!"

So I won free of my last big town in mighty Pennsylvania, and set out for the State of Ohio.

I had a "still-creation-day" in quiet country, and towards evening came through the woods to the store and house of Padan-Aram. And just on the border of Ohio an elf-like person skipped out of a large farm and conducted me across, a boy of about twenty years, who cried out to me shrilly as he caught me up:

"I say, you're still in Pennsylvania."

"Yes," said I.

"Yes, but that house over there is in Ohio. Say! Would you like some candy?"

"I thought you were fumbling in your pocket for tobacco," said I.

"No use for it," said the boy. "I've found God. I used to chew it, but I've stopped it."

"That is good. You've a strong will," said I.

"I reckon God can break any will," said the boy. "Once I ran away from home with five hundred dollars. You're walking? I can walk. I walked a hundred miles in five days and five nights. Feet were sore for a week. Five times I ran away. The sixth time I stayed away four years and worked on the steel works."

"Were your parents unkind?" I asked. "Or did you run away to see life?"

"Ran to show them I could," said the boy.

"They lay in to me I can tell you. There were Chinamen and niggers—all sorts. Hit a fellow overthe head with an ice-cream refrigerator—killed him dead."

"Where was this?"

"Poke. At the institution. I showed them I could fight."

"What are you, American?"

"Pennsylvanian Dutch."

"I suppose there is a church about here that you go to?"

"Yes; a Methodist. But I don't go. Family service. We get many blessings."

"Is there a hotel at Padan-Aram?"

"No; but at Leon. If you go there, you'll get a Christian woman. You'll find God. She'll lighten your load. She's a saint. I know her well."

"What's your name? I'll mention you to her."

"Dull."

"I'll tell her I met you."

"Tell her you met Ralph Dillie—she'll know."

"All right," said I.

"Now you're in Ohio," said the boy. "Are you going into the store at Padan-Aram?"

"No."

"Don't you want to buy some candy?"

"No. I don't eat it along the road."

"Buy some for me."

"All right; yes."

"Buy a nickel's worth."

"Yes."

Ralph Dillie rejoiced. We went into the store and ordered a nickel's worth of candy. And directly the boy got it he started back for home on the run. And I watched him re-cross the border once more—into Pennsylvania.

The chief characteristic of America is an immense patriotism, and out of that patriotism spring a thousand minor characteristics, which, taken by themselves, may be considered blemishes by the critical foreigner,—such troublesome little characteristics as national pride and thin-skinnedness, national bluster and cocksureness. But personal annoyance should not blind the critic or appreciator to the fundamental fact of the American's belief in America. This belief is not a narrow partizanship, though it may seem unpleasantly like that to those who listen to the clamour of excited Americans at the Olympic games and other competitions of an international interest. It is not merely the commercial instinct ever on the watch for opportunities for self-advertisement. It is a real, hearty patriotic fervour, the deepest thing in an American. It is something that cannot be shaken.

"It is a sacrament to walk the streets as an American citizen," says a Presbyterian circular. "Being an American is a sacred mission.Our whole life must be enthralled by a holy passion."

You could never hear it said, except in an imperial way, that being a Briton, or being a German, or being a Russian was a sacred mission. In Britain it would be bad form, in Germany absurd, in Russia quite untrue. It is part of the greatness of America that she can come forward unashamed and call herself the handmaiden of the Lord.

Now there is a fine healthy spirit abroad in the land counteracting the more sentimental and sanctimonious self-honour of the Americans. Something more in deeds than in words, a pulse that beats for America, a greater purpose that breathes through myriads of personal acts, done for personal ends. Outside, beyond the degrading commercialism of the nation, there is a feeling that building for a man is building also for America; that buying and selling in the store is buying and selling for the great nation; that writing or singing or painting, though done in self-conceited cities and before limited numbers, is really all consecrated to the idea of the new America.

In several schools of America the children take the following pledge:

I am a citizen of America and an heir to all her greatness and renown. The health and happiness of my own body depend upon each muscle and nerve and drop of blood doing its work in its place. So the health and happiness of my country depend upon each citizen doing his work in his place.I will not fill any post or pursue any business where I can live upon my fellow-citizens without doing them useful service in return; for I plainly see that this must bring suffering and want to some of them. I will do nothing to desecrate the soil of America, or pollute her air or degrade her children, my brothers and sisters.I will try to make her cities beautiful, and her citizens healthy and happy, so that she may be a desired home for myself now, and for her children in days to come.

I will not fill any post or pursue any business where I can live upon my fellow-citizens without doing them useful service in return; for I plainly see that this must bring suffering and want to some of them. I will do nothing to desecrate the soil of America, or pollute her air or degrade her children, my brothers and sisters.

I will try to make her cities beautiful, and her citizens healthy and happy, so that she may be a desired home for myself now, and for her children in days to come.

Teachers are recommended to explain to children that patriotism means love of your own country and not hate of other countries; and that the best mode of patriotism is love and care for the ideals of the fatherland.

The most obvious fields of activity are the school, the building, the yard or playgrounds, and the surrounding streets. Whatsoever is offensive and unsightly, detrimental to health, or in violation of law, is a proper field for action. The litter of papers and refuse; marks on side walks, buildings, and fences; mutilation, vandalism, and damage of any kind to property; cleanliness of the school building and the surrounding streets, door-yards, and pavements; observance of the ordinances for the disposal of garbage by the scavenger and people in the community; protection and care of shade trees; improper advertisements, illegal signs and bill-boards; unnecessary noises in the streets around the school, including cries of street-vendors and barking of dogs and blowing of horns; the display of objectionable pictures and postcards in the windows of stores—all supply opportunities to the teachers to train pupils for good citizenship.

Circulars like the following are scattered broadcast to citizens, and they breathe the patriotism of the American:

Do you approve of your Home City?I mean, do you like her looks, her streets, her schools, her public buildings, her stores, factories, parks, railways, trolleys and all that makes her what she is? Do you approve of these things as they are? Do you think they could be better? Do you think you know how they can be made better?If you do you are unusual. Few take the trouble to approve or disapprove. Many may think they care about the city; but few, very few, act as if they did!When you see something you think can be improved you go straight and find out who is the man who has that something in charge; whatever it is, factories, smoke, stores, saloons, parks, paving, playgrounds, lawns, back-yards, ash-cans, overhead signs, newspapers, bill-boards, side-walks, street cars, street lighting, motor traffic, freight yards, or what not, you find out who is the man who has in charge that thing you dislike; then you talk to him, or write to him, and tell him what you disapprove of, and ask him if he can and will make it better, or tell you why he can't. He wants to make it better. He will if he can. Almost invariably he wants to do his work of looking after that thing better than it was ever done before. He will welcome your complaint; he will explain his handicaps; he will ask your help. Then you give the help.J. C. D.

Do you approve of your Home City?

I mean, do you like her looks, her streets, her schools, her public buildings, her stores, factories, parks, railways, trolleys and all that makes her what she is? Do you approve of these things as they are? Do you think they could be better? Do you think you know how they can be made better?

If you do you are unusual. Few take the trouble to approve or disapprove. Many may think they care about the city; but few, very few, act as if they did!

When you see something you think can be improved you go straight and find out who is the man who has that something in charge; whatever it is, factories, smoke, stores, saloons, parks, paving, playgrounds, lawns, back-yards, ash-cans, overhead signs, newspapers, bill-boards, side-walks, street cars, street lighting, motor traffic, freight yards, or what not, you find out who is the man who has in charge that thing you dislike; then you talk to him, or write to him, and tell him what you disapprove of, and ask him if he can and will make it better, or tell you why he can't. He wants to make it better. He will if he can. Almost invariably he wants to do his work of looking after that thing better than it was ever done before. He will welcome your complaint; he will explain his handicaps; he will ask your help. Then you give the help.

J. C. D.

INGENIOUS PHOTOGRAPHS OF AMERICAN TYPES

INGENIOUS PHOTOGRAPHS OF AMERICAN TYPES.

Making the city beautiful and fostering a love for the home-city, however dingy and dreary that city may at present be, is one of the most potent andattractive expressions of American patriotism, and it is well to note the characteristic. It has great promise for the America of the future, the America which the sons and daughters of the immigrants will inherit. The America of the future is to be one of artistically imagined cities and proud, responsible citizens. Even now, despite the unlovely state of New York and Chicago and the reputation for devastating ugliness which America has in Europe, there are clear signs of the commencement of an era of grace and order. Already the parks of the American cities are the finest in the world, and are worth much study in themselves. American townsmen have loved Nature enough to plant trees so that every decent town on the western continent has become a cluster of shady avenues. Some cities favour limes, some maples; New Haven is known as "The City of Elms"; in Washington alone it is said that there are 78,000 street trees; Cleveland has been called "The City of the Forest." Wherever I tramped in America I found the most delicious shade in the town streets—excepting, of course, the streets of the coaling infernos of Pennsylvania. No idea of the expense of land deters the American from getting space and greenery into the midst of his wilderness of brick and mortar. It is said that the value of the parks in such a city as Newark, for instance, is over two and a quarter millions of pounds (nine million dollars). "Our aim," says a Newarkcircular, "is the city beautiful, and it requires the aid of everyday patriots to make it so. Pericles said, 'Make Athens beautiful, for beauty is now the most victorious power in the world.'"

America has become the place of continuous crusades—against dirt, against municipal corruption, immorality, noise. It would surprise many Europeans to know the fight which is being made against bell-advertisement, steam whistles, organ-grinders' music, shouts of street hawkers, and the exuberance of holiday-makers.

"Don't be ashamed to fight for your city to get it clean and beautiful, to rid it of its sweat-shops and hells," I read in a Chicago paper. "Some folk call our disease Chicagoitis, but that is a thousand times better than Chicagophobia. Those suffering from Chicagophobia are as dangerous to society as those who have hydrophobia."

Then, most potent expression of all in American patriotism is the American's belief in the future of its democracy, the faith which is not shattered by the seeming bad habits of the common people, the flocking to music halls and cinema shows, the reading of the yellow press.

It has been noted in the last few years that there is a distinct falling off in the acceleration of reading at the public libraries. This is attributed to the extraordinary amount of time spent by men and womenat the "movies," when they would otherwise be reading. Such a fact would breed pessimism in Great Britain or Europe were it established. But America has such trust in the hearts and hopes of the common people that it approves of the picture show. "If readers of books go back to the cinema, let them go," says the American; "it is like a child in the third class voluntarily going back to the first class, because the work being done there is more suited to his state of mind." The cinema show is doing the absolutely elementary work among the vast number of immigrants, who are almost illiterate. It is not a be-all and an end-all, but stimulates the mind and sets it moving, thinking, striving. The picture show will bring good readers to the libraries in time. It is the first step in the cultural ladder of the democracy.

Then people of good taste in Europe decry the reading of newspapers; a leader of thought and politics like A. J. Balfour can boast that he never reads the papers. But America says, "You have the newspaper habit. This habit is one of the most beneficial and entertaining habits you have. Few people read too many newspapers. Most people do not read enough." This, of American papers of all papers in the world. But let me go on quoting the most significant words of America's great librarian, J. Cotton Dana:

Readers of newspapers are the best critics of them. The more they are read the wiser the readers; the wiser the readersthe more criticisms, and the more the newspapers are criticised the better they become.Do you say this does not apply to the yellow journal? I would reply that it does. The yellow journal caters all the time to the beginners in reading, who are also the beginners in newspaper reading. A new crop of these beginners in reading is born every year. This new crop likes its reading simply printed, in large letters, and with plenty of pictures. The more of this new crop of readers there are the more the yellow journals flourish; and the more the yellow journals flourish the sooner this new crop is educated by the yellow journals, by the mere process of reading them, and the sooner they get into the habit of reading journals that are not yellow and contain a larger quantity of more reliable information, until at last the yellow journals are overpassed by the readers they have themselves trained.

Do you say this does not apply to the yellow journal? I would reply that it does. The yellow journal caters all the time to the beginners in reading, who are also the beginners in newspaper reading. A new crop of these beginners in reading is born every year. This new crop likes its reading simply printed, in large letters, and with plenty of pictures. The more of this new crop of readers there are the more the yellow journals flourish; and the more the yellow journals flourish the sooner this new crop is educated by the yellow journals, by the mere process of reading them, and the sooner they get into the habit of reading journals that are not yellow and contain a larger quantity of more reliable information, until at last the yellow journals are overpassed by the readers they have themselves trained.

The yellow press is the second rung on the cultural ladder of democracy. America is glad of it, glad also of the princess novelette, the pirate story, glad of Hall Caine and Marie Corelli; all these are, as it were, divining-rods for better things. The American says "Yes" to the novels of Florence Barclay, as indeed most sensible Britons would also.The Rosarywas a most helpful book—so much more helpful to the unformed intellect and young intelligence of the mass of the people than, for instance, Tolstoy's dangerously overpraisedResurrectionor Wells'sNew Machiavelli. America recognises the truth that the ugly has power to make those who look at it ugly like itself; but that the crude and elementary stuff,however poor it may be artistically, is nevertheless most useful to democracy if it speaks in language and sentiment which is common knowledge to the reader. How useful to America is such a book as Churchill'sInside of the Cup.

It is a very true dictum that "reading makes more reading"; and in a young, hopeful nation, striving to divine its own destiny and to visualise its future, "more reading" always meansbetter reading.

Perhaps the cultured ladder of democracy may be seen allegorically as the ladder of Jacob's dream. Religion, which may be thought to have flown from the churches, is in evidence at the libraries. It is a librarian who is able to say inThe Inside of the Cupthat we are on the threshold of a greater religious era than the world has ever seen.

In America to-day we are confronted with two parties,—one the great multifarious, unformed mass of the people, and the other the strong, emancipated, cultured American nation, which is at work shaping the democracy. The aspect of the "rabble," the commercial heathen, and horde of unknowing, unknown immigrants, gives you the first but not the final impression of America. You remark first of all the slouching, blank-eyed, broad-browed immigrant, who indulges still his European vices and craves his European pleasures, flocking into saloons,debauching his body, or at best looking dirty and out of hand, a reproach to the American flag. You see the Jews leaping over one another's backs in the orgy of mean trade. You see the fat American, clever enough to bluff even the Jew—the strange emerging bourgeois type of what I call the "white nigger," low-browed, heavy-cheeked, thick-lipped, huge-bodied, butwhite; men who seem made of rubber so elastic they are; men who seem to get their thoughts from below upward. I've often watched one of these "white negroes" reflecting; he seems to sense his thoughts in his body first of all—you can watch his idea rise up to him from the earth, pass along his body and flicker at last in a true American smile across his lips—a transition type of man I should say. One wonders where these men, who are originally Jews or Anglo-Saxons or Dutch or Germans, got their negro souls. It would almost tempt one to think that there were negro souls floating about, and that they found homes in white babies.

Beside the fat American is the more familiar lean, hatchet-faced type, which is thought to correspond to the Red Indian in physiognomy. Perhaps too much importance is attached to the Darwinian idea that the climate of America is breeding a race of men with physique and types similar to the aborigines. The American is still a long way from the red-skin. Meanwhile, however, one may note with a smile theextraordinary passion of Americans for collecting autographs, curios, snippets of the clothes of famous men, Italian art, British castles,—which seems to be scalp-hunting in disguise. The Americans are great scalp-hunters.

On the whole, the dry, lean Americans are the most trustworthy and honourable among the masses of the people. In England we trust fat men, men "who sleep o' nights," but in America one prefers the lean man. Shakespeare would not have written of Cassius as he did if he had been an American of to-day. Of course too much stress might easily be laid on the unpleasantness of the "white-nigger" type. There are plenty of them who are true gentlemen.

The American populace has also its bad habits. There are those who chew "honest scrap," and those who chew "spearmint." It is astonishing to witness the service of the cuspidor in a hotel, the seven or eight obese, cow-like American men, all sitting round a cuspidor and chewing tobacco; almost equally astonishing to sit in a tramcar full of American girls, and see that every jaw is moving up and down in the mastication of sweet gum.

America suffers terribly from its own success, its vastness, its great resources, its commercial scoops, its wealth, vesteden masseand so vulgarly in the person of lucky or astute business men. This hasbred a tendency to chronic exaggeration in the language of the common people, it has brought on the jaunty airs and tall talk of the man who, however ignorant he may be, thinks that he knows all. But success has also brought kindness and an easy-going temperament. There are no people in the world less disposed to personal ill-temper than the Americans. They are very generous, and in friendship rampageously exuberant. They are not mean, and are disinclined to incur or to collect small debts. They would rather toss who pays for the drinks of a party than pay each his own score. They have even invented little gambling machines in cigar stores and saloons where you can put a nickel over a wheel and run a chance between having five cigars for five cents, or paying twenty-five cents for no cigars at all.

So stands on the one hand the "many-headed," sprung from every country in Europe, an uncouth nation doing what they ought not to do, and leaving undone what they ought to do, but at least having in their hearts, every one of them, the idea that America is a fine thing, a large thing, a wonderful promise. Opposite them stands what may be called the Americanintelligence, ministering as best it can to the wants of young America, and helping to fashion the great desideratum,—a homogeneous nation for the new world.

It seems perhaps a shame to question the significance of any of the phenomena of American life of to-day,to tie what may be likened to a tin can to the end of this chapter; but I feel that this is the most fitting place to put a few notes which I have made of tendencies which are apt to give trouble to the mind of Europeans otherwise very sympathetic to America and America's ideal. They are quite explicable phenomena, and in realising and understanding them for himself the reader will be enabled to get a truer idea of the atmosphere of America.

On my way into Cleveland I read in thePittsburg Postthe following statistics of life at Princeton College, of the students at the College:

184 men smoke.76 began after entering College, but 51 students have stopped smoking since entering College.91 students wear glasses, and 57 began to wear them since entering.15 students chew tobacco.19 students consider dancing immoral.16 students consider card-playing immoral.206 students correspond with a total of 579 girls.203 students claim to have kissed girls in their time.24 students have proposed and been rejected.

184 men smoke.

76 began after entering College, but 51 students have stopped smoking since entering College.

91 students wear glasses, and 57 began to wear them since entering.

15 students chew tobacco.

19 students consider dancing immoral.

16 students consider card-playing immoral.

206 students correspond with a total of 579 girls.

203 students claim to have kissed girls in their time.

24 students have proposed and been rejected.

Another day I read in theNew York Americanthe story of the adventures of Watts's "Love and Life" in America:

The peripatetic painting, "Love and Life," the beautiful allegorical work, by George Frederick Watts, once morereposes in an honoured niche in the White House. The varied career of this painting in regard to White House residence extends over seventeen years.This picture, painted in 1884, was presented to the national Government by Watts as a tribute of his esteem and respect for the United States, and was accepted by virtue of a special act of Congress. This was during the second administration of President Cleveland, and he ordered it hung in his study on the second floor of the White House. Two replicas were made by Watts of the painting, and one was placed by the National Art Gallery, London, and the other in the Louvre, Paris.The two figures of "Love and Life" are entirely nude, and the publication of reproductions awoke the protests of purists who circulated petitions to which they secured hundreds of names to have it removed to an art gallery. Finally, the Clevelands yielded to the force of public opinion, and sent the offending masterpiece to the Corcoran Art Gallery.When Theodore Roosevelt became President he brought the art exile back to the White House. The hue and cry arose again, and he sent it back to the Gallery, only to bring it back again toward the close of his administration to hang in the White House once more.The Tafts, failing to see the artistic side of the painting, had it carried back to the Gallery.There it seemed destined to stay. The other day Mrs. Woodrow Wilson, accompanied by her daughter Eleanor, both artists of merit, toured the Corcoran Art Gallery. They were shown "Love and Life," and told the tragic story of its wanderings.Mrs. Wilson thereupon requested the painting to be returned to the White House. There once more it hangs and tells its immortal lesson of how love can help life up the steepest hills.

This picture, painted in 1884, was presented to the national Government by Watts as a tribute of his esteem and respect for the United States, and was accepted by virtue of a special act of Congress. This was during the second administration of President Cleveland, and he ordered it hung in his study on the second floor of the White House. Two replicas were made by Watts of the painting, and one was placed by the National Art Gallery, London, and the other in the Louvre, Paris.

The two figures of "Love and Life" are entirely nude, and the publication of reproductions awoke the protests of purists who circulated petitions to which they secured hundreds of names to have it removed to an art gallery. Finally, the Clevelands yielded to the force of public opinion, and sent the offending masterpiece to the Corcoran Art Gallery.

When Theodore Roosevelt became President he brought the art exile back to the White House. The hue and cry arose again, and he sent it back to the Gallery, only to bring it back again toward the close of his administration to hang in the White House once more.

The Tafts, failing to see the artistic side of the painting, had it carried back to the Gallery.

There it seemed destined to stay. The other day Mrs. Woodrow Wilson, accompanied by her daughter Eleanor, both artists of merit, toured the Corcoran Art Gallery. They were shown "Love and Life," and told the tragic story of its wanderings.

Mrs. Wilson thereupon requested the painting to be returned to the White House. There once more it hangs and tells its immortal lesson of how love can help life up the steepest hills.

Whilst in New York I visited the charming Fabians, who were the hosts of Maxim Gorky before the American Press took upon itself the rôle of doing the honours of the house to a guest of genius. The story of Gorky need not be repeated. But it is in itself a question-mark raised against the American civilisation.

Tramping through Sandusky I came upon a suburban house all scrawled over with chalk inscriptions:

"Hurrah for the newly-weds.""Oh, you beautiful doll!""Well!Thenwhat?""We should worry.""Home, sweet Home.""May your troubles be little ones! Ha, He!""You thought we wouldn't guess, but we caught you."

"Hurrah for the newly-weds."

"Oh, you beautiful doll!"

"Well!Thenwhat?"

"We should worry."

"Home, sweet Home."

"May your troubles be little ones! Ha, He!"

"You thought we wouldn't guess, but we caught you."

As the house seemed to be empty, I inquired at the nearest store what was the reason for this outburst. The storekeeper told me it was done by the neighbours as a welcome to a newly-married couple coming home from their honeymoon on the morrow. It was a custom to do it, but this was nothing to the way they "tied them up" sometimes.

"Won't they be distressed?"

"Oh no, they'll like it."

"Are the neighbours envious, or what is it?" I asked. The storekeeper began to sing, "Snookeyookums."

"All night long the neighbours shout

(to the newly-married couple whose kisses they hear)

"'Cut it out, cut it out, cut it out.'"

On Independence Day I saw a crowd of roughs assailing a Russian girl who had gone into the water to bathe, dressed in what we in Britain would call "full regulation costume." The crowd cried shame on her because she was not wearing stockings and a skirt in addition to knickers and vest.

In many districts men bathing naked have been arrested as a sort of breach of the peace. Naked statues in public have been clothed or locked away. In several towns women wearing the slashed skirt have had to conform to municipal regulations concerning underwear.

I have noted everywhere mockery on the heels of seriousness.

No doubt these question-marks will be followed by satisfactory answers in the minds of most readers, especially in the light of the statement that "it is a sacrament to walk the streets as an American citizen. Being an American is a sacred mission."

Cleveland exemplifies the characteristics of contemporary America, and points to the future. It has its horde of foreign mercenaries living by alien ethics, and committing every now and then atrocious crimes which shock the American community. But it is a "cleaned-up" town. All the dens of the city have been raided; there is no gambling, little drunkenness and immorality. On my first night in the town I had my supper in a saloon, and as I sat among the beer-drinking couples I listened to an old man who was haranguing us all on the temptations of women and drink. The saloon-keeper had no power to turn him out, and possibly had not even the wish to do so. The passion for cleaning up America overtakes upon occasion even those whose living depends upon America remaining "unclean."

Cleveland is well built, and has fine avenues and broad streets. It is well kept, and in the drawing-room of the town you'd never suspect what was going on in the back kitchen and the yard. But take a turn about and you see that the city is not merelyone of good clothes, white buildings, and upholstery; there are vistas of smoke and sun, bridges and cranes, endless railway tracks and steaming engines. They are working in the background, the Slavs and the Italians and the Hungarians, the Kikes and the Wops and the Hunkies. There is a rumour of Chicago in the air; you can feel the pulse of the hustling West.

Perhaps nothing is more promising than the twelve miles of garden suburb that go westward from the city along Erie Shore. Tchekof, working in his rose-garden in the Crimea, used to say, "I believe that in quite a short time the whole world will be a garden." This growth of Cleveland gives just that promise to the casual observer. How well these middle-class Americans live? Without the advertisement of the fact they have finer arrangements of streets and houses than we have at Golders Green and Letchworth. Nature is kind. There is a grand freshness and a steeping radiance. The people know how to live out-of-doors, and the women are public all day. No railings, fences, bushes, just sweet lawn approaches, verandahs, on the lawns sprinklers and automatic fountains scattering water to the sparrows' delight. The iris is out and the honeysuckle is in bloom.

THE LITHUANIAN WHO SAT BEHIND THE ASPHALT AND COAL-OIL SCATTERER

THE LITHUANIAN WHO SAT BEHIND THE ASPHALT AND COAL-OIL SCATTERER.

I prefer, however, to walk in the sight of wooded hills or great waters, and as soon as I could find a way to the back of the long series of suburban villas I went to the sandbanks of the shore and into thecompany of the great lake. It was just sunset time, and the sun of fire was changing to a sun of blood and sinking into the waters. There was a great suffusion of crimson in the western sky and a reflection of it in the green and placid lake. But the water in the foreground was grey, and it rippled past silver reeds. I stood and listened; the great silence of the vast lake on the one hand and the whizz of automobiles on the other, thepaup-paupof electric-tram signals, the great whoop of the oncoming freight trains on the Lake-Shore railway. Far out on the water there were black dashes on the lit surface and little smokes proceeding from them—steamers. The lake became lucent yellow with blackness in the West and mystery in the East. A steamer in the East seemed fixed as if caught in a spell. Then the blackness of the West came like an intense dye and poured itself into the rest of the sky. The East became still—indigo, very precious and holy, the colour of incense smoke.

I tramped by Clifton through the deep dust of a motor-beaten road towards Lorain. It was night before I found a suitable place for sleeping, for most of the ground was private, and there were many people about. At last I found a deserted plot, where building operations had evidently been taking place during the day, but from which the workmen had gone. There were, however, many tools and covetable properties lying about, and I had hardly settled downbefore I heard the baying of dogs on a chain. About half-past eleven Fedka the watchman came along, singing a Russian song to himself, and he lighted a large lantern, unloosed two dogs, then went into a shed, lay down and went to sleep—a nice watchman! My only consideration was the dogs, a bull-dog and a collie, but they didn't know of my presence. They had expeditions after tramps on the road, after waggons, automobiles, tramcars, trains, but never once sniffed at the stranger sleeping under their noses. However, at about three in the morning the bull-dog spotted me, and no doubt had rather a queer turn. He actually tripped on me as he was prowling about, and my heart stood still. He eyed me, growled low, sniffed at my knees, snorted. "He will spring at my throat in a moment," I thought; "I'll defend myself with that big saw lying so handy beside me!" But no, wonder of wonders! the dog did not attack me, but just lay calmly down beside me and was my gaoler. He dozed and breathed heavily, but every now and then opened one eye and snarled; evidently he took his duties seriously. I forgot him and slept. But I had the consciousness that in the morning I had to get away somehow.

But about half an hour before dawn some one drove a score of cows down the road, causing the collie to go mad—so mad that the bull-dog bestirred himself and followed superciliously, not sure whetherhe were needed or not. Then I swiftly put my things together and decamped—and got away.

I watched the dawn come up out of a rosy mist over Erie. The lake was vast and placid and mud-coloured, but there were vague purple shadows in it. I learned that mud was the real colour at this point, and there was no clear sparkling water to bathe in, but only a sea stirred up.

Down by the shore, just after my dip, I caught a young aureole with red breast and mouth so yellow, and I tried to feed him with sugar and butter; but he was very angry, and from many trees and low bushes round about came the scolding and calling of the parents, who had been rashly giving their progeny his first run.

I tramped to the long settlement of Lorain with its store-factory and many Polish workers, but continued to the place called Vermilion, walking along the grey-black sands of the shore. I came to Crystal Beach. It was a perfect day, the zenith too radiant to look at, the western sky ahead of the road a rising smoke of sapphire, but filled with ineffable sunshine. It was difficult to look otherways but downward, and I needed all the brim of my hat to protect my neck and my eyes. The lake was now blue-grey as the sea, but still not very tempting, though Crystal Beach is a great holiday resort. It seemed to me more than a lake and yet less than a sea—the water had no other shore andyet suggested no infinity. The visitor, however, considered it beautiful. That was clear from the enthusiastic naming of the villas and resorts on the shore. Again, it was strange to pass from the workshop of America to the parlour,—from industrial Lorain to ease-loving Vermilion, and to exchange the vision of unwashed immigrants in slouch hats for dainty girls all in white and smart young men in delicate linen.

I went into the general store and bought butter and sugar and tea, and then to the baker for a loaf of bread and a peach pie. What a delicacy is an eight-penny peach pie when you know you are going to sit on a bank and munch it, drink coffee, and watch your own wood-blaze.

On my way to Sandusky I got several offers of jobs. A road surveyor and his man, trundling and springing along the road in their car, nearly ran me down, and as a compensation for my experience of danger stopped and gave me a lift, offering also to give me work if I wanted it. All the highway from Cleveland to Toledo was to be macadamised by next summer; thousands of men were wanted all along the line, and I could get to work that very afternoon "farming ditches on each side of the road" if I wished.

I jigged along three miles in the automobile and then stepped down to make my dinner. Whilst I was lighting my fire a Bohemian came and had a little chat with me.

"How far ye going?"

"Chicago."

"You should get on a freight train. I come up from New York myself on a freighter and dropped off here two days ago. It's too far to walk; you carry heavy things. Besides, there's a good job here mending the road. I've just been taken on. A mile up the road you'll see a waggon; ask there, they're making up a gang. The work's a bit rough but the pay good."

Then I came on a gang of Wops and Huns loading bridge-props and ribbons and guard-rails on to an electric trolley, and the boss again applied to me.

"No, thanks!"

A man with an asphalt and coal-oil scatterer came past. His was a dirty job. He sat behind a boiler-shaped cistern, which another man was dragging along with a petrol engine. It had a rose like a watering-cart, but instead of water there flowed this dark mixture of asphalt and oil. The man, a Lithuanian, was sitting on the rose, his legs were dangling under it, and it was his task to keep his finger on the tap and regulate the flow of the fast-trickling mixture. Though a Lithuanian by birth he spoke a fair English, and explained that the asphalt and oil laid the dust for the whole summer, and solidified the surface of the road, so that automobiles could go pleasantly along. There was another machine waiting behind, and they hadnot men to work it. If I liked to report myself at the depot I could get a job, it was quite simple, not hard work, and the pay was good. He got two dollars a day.

Then, as I was going through a little town, a Norwegian came running out of a shop and pulled me in, saying, "You're a professional, no doubt, stay here and take photographs"; and he showed me his screens and classical backgrounds. It was interesting to consider the many occasions on which I might have given up Europe and started as a young man in America, entering life afresh, and starting a new series of connections and acquaintances. But I had only come as a make-believe colonist.

As the weather was very hot I took a wayside seat erected by a firm of clothiers to advertise their wares, and it somewhat amused me to think that as I sat in my somewhat ragged and dust-stained attire the seat seemed to say I bought my suit at Clayton's. As I sat there six Boy Scouts came tramping past, walking home from their camping-ground, boys of twelve or thirteen, all carrying saucepans and kettles, one of them a bag of medical appliances and medicines, all with heavy blankets—sun-browned, happy little bodies.

There is all manner of interest on the road. The gleaming, red-headed woodpecker that I watch alights on the side of the telegraph-pole, looks at the wood asat a mirror, and then, to my mild surprise, goes right into the pole. There must be a hole there and a nest. I hear the guzzling of the little woodpeckers within. Upon reflection, I remember that the mother's beak was disparted, and there was something between. Rather amusing, a woodpecker living in a telegraph-pole—Nature taking advantage of civilisation!

Then there are many squirrels in the woods by the road, and they wag their tails when they squeak.

At tea-time, by the lake shore, a beautiful white-breasted but speckled snipe tripped around the sand, showing me his round head, plump body, and dainty legs. He had his worms and water, I my bread and tea; we were equals in a way.

Then after tea I caught a little blind mouse, no bigger than my thumb, held him in my hand, and put him in his probable hole.

As I rested by a railway arch Johnny Kishman, a fat German boy, got off his bicycle to find out what manner of man I was. His chief interest was to find out how much money I made by walking. And I flabbergasted him.

I came into Huron by a road of coal-dust, and left the beautiful countryside once more for another industrial inferno. Here were many cranes, black iron bridges, evil smells, an odorous, green river. There was a continuous noise as of three rolls of thunder in one from the machinery of the port. I stoppeda party of Slavs, who were strolling out of the town to the strains of an accordion, and asked them by what the noise was made. I was informed it was the lading of Pennsylvanian coal and the unlading of Wisconsin and Canadian ore, the tipping of five to ten tons at a time into the holds of coal boats or into trucks of freight trains.

I went into a restaurant in the dreary town, and there, over an ice-cream, chatted with an American, who hoped I would lick Jack London and Gibson and the rest of them "to a frazzle." A girl, who came into the shop, told me that last year she wanted to walk to Chicago and sleep out, but could not get a companion—a chance for me to step in. Mine host was one of these waggish commercial men in whom America abounds, and he had posted above his bar:

ELEVEN MEN WHO ASKEDCREDITLIE DEAD IN MY CELLAR

But he made good ice-cream.

Every one combined to boost the town and advise me to see this and that. The port machinery and lading operations were the wonder of Erie Shore, and provided work for a great number of Hungarians, Italians, and Slavs. Not so many years back there was no such machinery here, and the work was done with buckets and derricks.

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