God, if I was an American I'd bring my children here every day and teach them to throw mud at Washington. It's an insult to his memory to allow these scoundrels even to look at his statue!" I tried to hurry him away with the object of preventing a scene, but he raved on, denouncing Tammany and the country which allowed such a society to exist in vigorous terms. Some of the Tammany men must have heard him, but they took little notice, and at length I dragged him into a "dairy" and gave him a glass of hot milk to cool him off. It was very absurd, and I told him so, and yet I could not but sympathise with the feelings which prompted his outburst. But I doubt whether he was correct in saying that Tammany is the most corrupt society on earth. The Republican Party has run it very close for first place in Philadelphia and other places where it has been in the ascendant. It is unnecessary here to enlarge on the evils arising from the corrupt Party system of the United States. The Americans are becoming as well aware of them as the English observer, and not many months after the scene just related I saw the founding of what were called "Good Government Clubs" in New York. avowed object of these clubs was to separate the municipal from the State and national politics. The movement has been delayed by the anti-English feeling in America, but even then I heard speakers say that the English municipal system was the one best adapted to American needs. Probably the influence of Dr. Albert Shaw has tended to spread this opinion; and now, when the United States are becoming more friendly to England, it is not improbable that the British system may receive a more impartial and favourable investigation than has hitherto been possible. The most useful lesson to be learned from this is that a nation cannot cut itself off from its fellows without deteriorating. The Chinese shut themselves off from the world, and in The their ignorance of what was going on outside their country evolved the idea that they only were civilised and all other people were barbarians. We see something of the same kind happening in America. They have so long believed that their institutions were the best in the world (as they were a half-century or so ago) that they fail to realise that other nations have not remained stationary, and now it comes upon them as a shock to find that, great as the Republic is, it is not as well governed as it should be. AMERICAN AND ENGLISH BOSSES The Americans are very sensitive to English criticism, and resent it unless it is laudatory. They attribute adverse criticism to malice, envy, or jealousy. I think it is far more frequently due to disappointment, and the bitter remarks are generally made more in sorrow than in anger. There is a strong republican sentiment underlying the Imperialism of the average Englishman. Even the most rabid of Tories and Jingoes has a trace of it in his character, and when he visits America he does so in the hope, sometimes unacknowledged even to himself, of seeing how superior a republic can be to a monarchy. His first view of the streets of the American city in which he lands undeceives him, and it gives a shock to his feelings from which he does not recover readily. Having found one palpable defect in a republican country, he is impelled to look for others, and unless he remains in the country long enough to become accustomed to these defects, he is so powerfully influenced by them that he fails to see what is good in the country. The American should therefore blame himself rather than his English critic. When an Englishman does live in the United States for several years, he begins to perceive that, much as there is to find fault with in the American institutions, there is much to admire in them also. The foundation tion laid by the founders of the American Republic did good work. The faults are principally excrescences which have grown up since. That they are grievous faults must be admitted. The Party system having been established long enough for a whole generation to grow up under its influence, has been woven into the national character almost as completely as the caste system has been in England. The people of America believe in the necessity for the existence of their rings and bosses almost as religiously as the English believe in the necessity for their princes, dukes, and lords. The bosses, however firmly they may apparently be established in popular estimation, have not yet succeeded in making the land their special property. Hence their position is weaker than that of the English bosses. The wealthy man of America who has grown up in consequence of the operation of the Latin laws regards politics with disdain. He uses his wealth to bribe the bosses and the parties for his own aggrandisement, but he rarely becomes a boss himself. In England wealth and politics are united. If the American can prevent the union of the millionaire and the boss he will have a far less difficult task in relieving himself from the remnants of Latin rule than the Englishman.. It must be recognised in both England and the United States that the boss "is there for what he can make," and therefore he is opposed to the interests of the many. THE POLITICAL BOSS The American boss appears to me to be the modern representative of the class which founded the Latin aristocracy. Those who attend the political meetings in America may hear him preaching the most devoted patriotism, the highest aspiration for the public good, the desire for honest and efficent government, the love of law and order, the necessity for charity and the liveliest interest in the poor, while at the same time he takes good care to feather his own nest. In a ruder form of society he would no doubt have given himself high-sounding titles, but these are forbidden in the United States and he does very well without them. He is sometimes an orator, generally a fluent speaker, and he professes to have all the virtues just as his prototype in England does; and such is the character of the Latin mind, or the mind of an Anglo-Saxon or a Teuton dominated by the Latin spirit, that he probably believes what he says himself. He measures the public good by his own interest, and honestly—that is, as honestly as is possible to a true Latin-believes that what conduces to his own benefit must necessarily conduce to the public benefit. His ambition for power and his greed for wealth blind him to the mercenary and ambitious aspirations by which he is dominated. He is a true Latin in his desire to govern others, and he is ignorant of his inability to govern himself. He persuades himself that he is actuated by the purest motives, and that being so the end justifies the means. He is utterly unscrupulous because of this belief, and consequently he is the most dangerous element in the population with which the Anglo-Saxon has to deal in all Anglo-Saxon countries. He represents the Latin spirit among us in its worst form-that of the greedy self-seeker for wealth and power. CHAPTER XVII THE AMERICAN CHARACTER AMERICAN EXPANSION IN EARLY TIMES THE desire for expansion and colonisation, which I think is a characteristic of all young and growing races, was in the case of the Americans satisfied by the extent of the continent on which the colonies were situated. Hence we see that, while the populations of the crowded countries of Europe were compelled to seek for homes in far-off lands, the Americans had ample room to spread out westward until the shores of the Pacific were reached. The Americans have annexed the whole of the continent lying south of the St. Lawrence River, the chain of great lakes, and the forty-ninth parallel of north latitude, with the exception of Mexico and what is known as Central America. The greater part of this enormous stretch of country was claimed only by the aboriginal Indians whose rights were not considered. The State of Louisiana was claimed by the French, and these French rights were sold by Napoleon I. to the United States in 1803 for 60,000,000 francs, to prevent the territory from falling into the hands of England and to provide money for his projected invasion of England. In the wild rush of adventurers across the continent the northern territory of Mexico was invaded, and the American settlers there were placed under military rule. Against this they revolted in 1836, and for about eight years Texas was an independent republic. In 1845 it was absorbed into the Union, but not |