america celebrates no "whit-monday," but has decoration day instead; a great national festival, when medals are pinned on to veterans, the soldiers of the war of north against south are remembered, and the graves of heroes are decorated with flags and flowers. on decoration day, and again later, on independence day, the whole populace ceases work in the name of america, and flocks the streets, sings national songs and hymns, goes on procession, fires salutes, listens to speeches. we british are just wildly glad to get free from toil when whit-monday and august bank holiday come round. we have no national or religious fervour on these days. we have even been known to flock happily to hampstead and epping forest to the strains of "england's going down the hill." upon occasion the british can be clamorously patriotic, but only upon occasion. but the american citizen is, to use his own phrase, "crazy about america" all the while. the "days-off" that we get are not only off work, but off everything serious. the american still nurses the hope with which he came[pg 178] across the ocean, and he is enthusiastically attached to the republic he has made and the principles of that republic.
i spent decoration day at clearfield, a little mining and agricultural town on the other side of the alleghanies. i put up at a hotel for two or three days, and just gave myself to the town for the time. early on the festival day i was out to see how the workaday world was taking things. all the shops were closed except the ice-cream soda bars and the fruiterers. there were flags on the banks and loungers on the streets. young men were walking about with flags in their hat ribbons. the cycles and automobiles on the roadway had their wheels swathed with the stars and stripes. there were negroes and negresses standing endimanche's at street corners. now and then a girl in white dress and white boots would trip from a house to a shop and back again. there was an air best expressed by the words of the song:
go along and get yer ready,
get yer glad rags on,
for there's going to be a meeting
in the good old town.
every town in america is a good old town, and on such occasions as decoration day you may always hear the worthies of the place giving their reminiscences in the lounge of a hotel. i sat and listened to many.
[pg 179]
we had a very quiet morning, and it seemed to me there was considerable boredom in the town. there was a fire in the opera house about eleven, and i ran behind the scenes with a crowd of others and stared at the smoking walls. there was a sort of disappointment that the firemen put it out so promptly.
but after dinner the real holiday commenced, and the houses began to empty and the streets began to fill. about four o'clock the "parade" commenced, what we should in england call a procession. every one who owned a car had it out, carrying roses and ferns and flags. there was a continual hooting and coughing of motor-horns, and an increasing buzz of talk. the "eighth regimental band" appeared, and stood with their instruments in the roadway, chatting to passers-by and being admired. the firemen came with new hats on—their work at the opera house happily concluded. they now bore on their shoulders wreaths, which were to be carried to the graves of the heroes in the cemetery outside the town. the high school band formed up. a tall man brought a new-bought banner of the stars and stripes, which hung from a bird-headed pole. boy scouts came in costume—as it were in the rags of the war. the marching order was formed, and then came up what i thought to be the town militia, but which turned out to be the representatives of the mechanics union, with special decorations and medals on their breasts. the[pg 180] bands began to play; the automobiles, full of flowers and flags, began to cough and shoot forward; the flocks of promenaders on the side-walk and in the roadway set themselves to march in step to the festal music. i watched the whole procession, from the eighth regimental band that went first to the eight veterans of the spanish war, who, with muskets on their shoulders, took up the rear. i stopped several people in the procession and asked them who they were, what exactly was their r?le, for what reason were they decorated with medals,—and every one was glad to satisfy my curiosity. i found that the eight veterans considered themselves technically a squad, and their function was to fire a salute over the graves of the "heroes."
the procession marched round the town to the strains of "onward, christian soldiers" and "o come, all ye faithful." all the people of clearfield accompanied—americans, poles, ruthenians, slovaks—for clearfield has its foreign mining population as well as its anglo-saxon urban americans. as i was going alongside, a young boy ran up and put his hand on my shoulder and addressed me in polish.
"what's that you say?" i asked.
"vairy good!" said he, and pointed to the procession. "i like it."
"what are you,—ruthenian, polish?" i asked.
"slavish."
[pg 181]
i spoke to him in russian.
"oh-ho, he-he, da-da, i thought you were a polak."
and now he thought i was a russian! it touched me rather tenderly. i was dressed like an american, and my attire was not like that of a russian at all. how enthusiastic this boy was! it was a real holiday for him. the slav peoples are emotional; they need every now and then a means of publicly expressing their feelings. this procession from the town to the graveyard was a link with the customs of their native land, where at least twice a year the living have a feast among the crosses and mounds of the cemetery, and share their joys and interests with the dear dead, whose bodies have been given back to earth.
among those accompanying the procession were austrian slavs, in soot-coloured, broad-brimmed, broken-crowned hats, not yet cast away; and i noted solemn-faced, placid russian peasants in overalls staring with half-awakened comprehension. i saw a negro attired in faultless black cloth, having a bunchy umbrella in his hand, a heavy gold chain across his waistcoat, a cigar in his mouth, a soft smoky hat on his head. he tried to get to the front, and i heard one white man say to another, "make way for him, it's not your funeral." the negro is a pretty important person—considering that the war was really fought for him. perhaps not many actively remember that now; it is not soothing to do so. it is the american[pg 182] hero who matters more than the cause for which he fell; though of course america, the idea of america, matters more than either the heroes or the cause. it is a pity that on decoration day there is a tendency to decorate the graves of those who fell in the spanish war and to pin medals on the survivors of that conflict rather than to perpetuate the memory of the struggle for the emancipation of the negro. america's great problem is the negro whom she has released; but the spanish war meant no more than that america's arm proved strong enough to defeat a european power inclined to meddle with her civilisation.
it was, however, at the oldest grave in the cemetery that the procession stopped and the people gathered. all the men were uncovered, and there was a feeling of unusual respect and emotion in the crowd. the wreaths were put down and the flags lowered as the little memorial service commenced. we sang an old hymn, slowly, sweetly, and very sadly, so that one's very soul melted. a hymn of the war, i suppose:
let him sleep,
calmly sleep,
while the days and the years roll by.
let him sleep,
sweetly sleep,
till the call of the roll on high.
in the time of the war, in the dark hours of danger and distress, in the times of loss and appalling [pg 183]personal sorrow the americans were very near and dear to god and to one another—nearer than they are to-day in their peace and prosperity.
when the hymn had been sung, an old grey-headed man came to the foot of the grave and read a portion of the speech made by abraham lincoln at the great cemetery at gettysburg:
fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. we are now engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. we are met on a great battlefield ... to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who have given their lives that the nation might live. it is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
but in a larger sense we cannot consecrate this ground. the dead themselves have consecrated it. it is rather for us, the living, to consecrate ourselves to the work they died for, that we resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.
the reading of these words was most impressive. i realised in it the gospel of america—something more national than even the starry flag.
when the reading was accomplished the eight veterans fired their salute, not up at heaven, but across and over the people's heads, as at an unseen enemy. then the old grey-headed man who had read the words of lincoln pronounced the blessing:
[pg 184]
the peace of god, which passeth all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of god....
and we dispersed to wander among the graves and see the decorations, and add decorations of our own if we willed. wherever i went, the haunting air was in my ears:
let him sleep,
sweetly sleep,
till the call of the roll on high.
americans believe very really in the roll-call. they believe that they will answer to their names on a great last day—"when the roll is called up yonder, i'll be there," says a popular hymn. it is all important to the american that he feels he lives and dies for the right, for the moral virtues. the glory of the wars which the americans have fought in their history is not only that they, the americans, were victorious, but that they were morally right before ever they started out to fight.
well, civilisation has approved the abolition of slavery. the great mass of people nowadays consider slavery as something wrong in itself. the north took up its weapons and convinced the south, and the negro was freed. the peculiar horrors of slavery no longer exist—no one man has power of life and death over the african. that much the war has achieved. but it is strange that for the rest the[pg 185] negro seems to have become worse off, and that america feels that she cannot extend the personal privileges of democracy to the blacks. america has brutalised the nigger; has made of a very gentle, loving and lovable if very simple creature, an outcast, a beast, who may not sit beside an ordinary man. it has in its own nervous imagination accused him of hideous crimes which he did not commit, did not even imagine; it has deprived him of the law, tortured him, flayed him, burned him at the stake. it has made a black man a bogey; so that a fluttering white woman, finding herself alone in the presence of a negro, will rush away in terror, crying "murder," "rape," "fire," just because she has seen the whites of his eyes. then the hot-blooded southern crowd comes out....
the war was a healthy war. it did much good, it strengthened the roots of many american families; it gave the nation a criterion for future development; it brought many individuals nearer to reality, brought them to the mystery of life, caused them to say each day their prayers to god. but if a war must be judged by its political effect, then as regards the happiness of the negro the war has not yet proved to be a success. the service by the graveside, and the apt words of abraham lincoln were a reminder to the american people that though they realise to themselves the maximum of prosperity the new world affords, and yet lose their souls, it profits them nothing.[pg 186] america by her unwritten but infallible charter is consecrated to freedom. if america is going to be true to itself it must work for freedom, it must carry out the idea of freedom. the emigrant from europe expects to realise in america the idea of freedom, the opportunity for personal and individual development. he does not expect to find repeated there the caste system and relative industrial slavery of the east.
* * * * * * *
clearfield was much touched by the graveside service. the whole evening after it the men in the hotel lounge talked american sentiment. the lads and lasses crowded into the cinema houses, and watched with much edification the specially instructive set of films which, on the recommendation of the town council, had been specially installed for the occasion,—the perils of life for a young girl going to dance-halls, the soudanese at work, japanese children at play, the ferocious habits of the hundred-legs, a review of troops at tiflis, a portrait of the governor of mississippi wearing a high silk hat, pottery-making in north borneo, the pathé news. it was good to see so many pictures of foreign and dark-skinned people presented in an interesting and sympathetic manner. the americans need to care more for the national life of other races. for they are often strangely contemptuous of the people they conceive to be wasting their time.
[pg 187]
i had a pleasant talk with a doctor who was extremely keen on "temperance." he struck up acquaintance with me by complimenting me on my complexion, and betting i didn't touch spirituous liquors. "the war's still going on," said he. "i wage my part against drink and disease. i'd like to make the medical profession a poor one to enter, yes, sirr. i'd like to uproot disease, and if i could stop the drinking in america i'd do it. never touch liquor and you'll never have gout, live to a good age, and be happy. i am glad to meet you, sir, glad to meet a briton. america will stand shoulder and shoulder with the british in war or peace. they are of the same blood. the only two civilised nations in the world."
all the same, clearfield regarded me with some suspicion, and as i sat at my bedroom window at night a young man called up:
"english gawd: lord salisbury."
