Kitabı oku: «The Art of Living», sayfa 7

II

But though the occupation of broker has become less tempting, the promising youth has not ceased to look askance at any calling which does not seem to foreshadow a fortune in a short time. He is only just beginning to appreciate that we are getting down to hard pan, so to speak, and are nearly on a level, as regards the hardships of individual progress, with our old friends the effete civilizations. He finds it difficult to rid himself of the “Arabian Nights’” notion that he has merely to clap his hands to change ten dollars into a thousand in a single year, and to transform his bachelor apartments into a palace beautiful, with a wife, yacht, and horses, before he is thirty-five. He shrinks from the idea of being obliged to take seriously into account anything less than a hundred-dollar bill, and of earning a livelihood by slow yet persistent acceptance of tens and fives. His present ruling ambition is to be a promoter; that is, to be an organizer of schemes, and to let others do the real work and attend to the disgusting details. There are a great many gentry of this kind in the field just at present. Among them is, or rather was, Lewis Pell, as I will call him for the occasion. I don’t know exactly what he is doing now. But he was, until lately, a promoter.

A handsome fellow was Lewis Pell. Tall, gentlemanly, and athletic-looking, with a gracious, imposing presence and manner, which made his rather commonplace conversation seem almost wisdom. He went into a broker’s office after leaving college, like many other promising young men of his time, but he was clever enough either to realize that he was a little late, or that the promoter business offered a more promising scope for his genius, for he soon disappeared from the purlieus of the Stock Exchange, and the next thing we heard of him was as the tenant of an exceedingly elaborate set of offices on the third floor of a most expensive modern monster building. Shortly after I read in the financial columns of the daily press that Mr. Lewis Pell had sold to a syndicate of bankers the first mortgage and the debenture bonds of the Light and Power Traction Company, an electrical corporation organized under the laws of the State of New Jersey. Thirty days later I saw again that he had sailed for Europe in order to interest London capital in a large enterprise, the nature of which was still withheld from the public.

During the next two or three years I ran across Pell on several occasions. He seemed always to be living at the highest pressure, but the brilliancy of his career had not impaired his good manners or attractiveness. I refer to his career as brilliant at this time because both his operations and the consequent style of living which he pursued, as described by him on two different evenings when I dined with him, seemed to me in my capacity of ordinary citizen to savor of the marvellous, if not the supernatural. He frankly gave me to understand that it seemed to him a waste of time for an ambitious man to pay attention to details, and that his business was to originate vast undertakings, made possible only by large combinations of corporate or private capital. The word combination, which was frequently on his lips, seemed to be the corner-stone of his system. I gathered that the part which he sought to play in the battle of life was to breathe the breath, or the apparent breath, of existence into huge schemes, and after having given them a quick but comprehensive squeeze or two for his own pecuniary benefit, to hand them over to syndicates, or other aggregations of capitalists, for the benefit of whom they might concern. He confided to me that he employed eleven typewriters; that he had visited London seven, and Paris three times, in the last three years, on flying trips to accomplish brilliant deals; that though his headquarters were in New York, scarcely a week passed in which he was not obliged to run over to Chicago, Boston, Washington, Denver, Duluth, or Cincinnati, as the case might be. Without being boastful as to his profits, he did not hesitate to acknowledge to me that if he should do as well in the next three years as in the last, he would be able to retire from business with a million or so.

Apart from this confession, his personal extravagance left no room for doubt that he must be very rich. Champagne flowed for him as Croton or Cochituate for most of us, and it was evident from his language that the hiring of special trains from time to time was a rather less serious matter than it would be for the ordinary citizen to take a cab. The account that he gave of three separate entertainments he had tendered to syndicates – of ten, twelve, and seventeen covers respectively, at twenty dollars a cover – fairly made my mouth water and my eyes stick out, so that I felt constrained to murmur, “Your profits must certainly be very large, if you can afford that sort of thing.”

Pell smiled complacently and a little condescendingly. “I could tell you of things which I have done which would make that seem a bagatelle,” he answered, with engaging mystery. Then after a moment’s pause he said, “Do you know, my dear fellow, that when I was graduated I came very near going into the office of a pious old uncle of mine who has been a commission merchant all his life, and is as poor as Job’s turkey in spite of it all – that is, poor as men are rated nowadays. He offered to take me as a clerk at one thousand dollars a year, with the promise of a partnership before I was bald-headed in case I did well. Supposing I had accepted his offer, where should I be to-day? Grubbing at an office-desk and earning barely enough for board and lodging. I remember my dear mother took it terribly to heart because I went into a broker’s office instead. By the way, between ourselves, I’m building a steam-yacht – nothing very wonderful, but a neat, comfortable craft – and I’m looking forward next summer to inviting my pious old uncle to cruise on her just to see him open his eyes.”

That was three years ago, and to-day I have every reason to believe that Lewis Pell is without a dollar in the world, or rather, that every dollar which he has belongs to his creditors. I had heard before his failure was announced that he was short of money, for the reason that several enterprises with which his name was connected had been left on his hands – neither the syndicates nor the public would touch them – so his suspension was scarcely a surprise. He at present, poor fellow, is only one of an army of young men wandering dejectedly through the streets of New York or Chicago in these days of financial depression, vainly seeking for something to promote.

When the promising youth and the general utility man do get rid of the “Arabian Nights’” notion, and recognize that signal success here, in any form, is likely to become more and more difficult to attain, and will be the legitimate reward only of men of real might, of unusual abilities, originality, or dauntless industry, some of the callings which have fallen, as it were, into disrepute through their lack of gambling facilities, are likely to loom up again socially. It may be, however, that modern business methods and devices have had the effect of killing for all time that highly respectable pillar of society of fifty years ago, the old-fashioned merchant, who bought and sold on his own behalf, or on commission, real cargoes of merchandise, and real consignments of cotton, wheat, and corn. The telegraph and the warehouse certificate have worked such havoc that almost everything now is bought and sold over and over again before it is grown or manufactured, and by the time it is on the market there is not a shred of profit in it for anybody but the retail dealer. It remains to be seen whether, as the speculative spirit subsides, the merchant is going to reinstate himself and regain his former prestige. It may already be said that the promising youth does not regard him with quite so much contempt as he did.

We have always professed in this country great theoretical respect for the schoolmaster, but we have been careful, as the nation waxed in material prosperity, to keep his pay down and to shove him into the social background more and more. The promising youth could not afford to spend his manhood in this wise, and we have all really been too busy making money to think very much about those who are doing the teaching. Have we not always heard it stated that our schools and colleges are second to none in the world? And if our schools, of course our schoolmasters. Therefore why bother our heads about them? It is indeed wonderful, considering the little popular interest in the subject until lately, that our schoolmasters and our college professors are so competent as they are, and that the profession has flourished on the whole in spite of indifference and superiority. How can men of the highest class be expected to devote their lives to a profession which yields little more than a pittance when one is thoroughly successful? And yet the education of our children ought to be one of our dearest concerns, and it is difficult to see why the State is satisfied to pay the average instructor or instructress of youth about as much as the city laborer or a horse-car conductor receives.

There are signs that those in charge of our large educational institutions all over the country are beginning to recognize that ripe scholarship and rare abilities as a teacher are entitled to be well recompensed pecuniarily, and that the breed of such men is likely to increase somewhat in proportion to the size and number of the prizes offered. Our college presidents and professors, those at the head of our large schools and seminaries, should receive such salaries as will enable them to live adequately. By this policy not only would our promising young men be encouraged to pursue learning, but those in the highest places would not be forced by poverty to live in comparative retirement, but could become active social figures and leaders. In any profession or calling under present social conditions only those in the foremost rank can hope to earn more than a living, varying in quality according to the degree of success and the rank of the occupation; but it is to be hoped – and there seems some reason to believe – that the great rewards which come to those more able and industrious than their fellows will henceforth, in the process of our national evolution, be more evenly distributed, and not confined so conspicuously to gambling, speculative, or commercial successes. The leaders in the great professions of law and medicine have for some time past declined to serve the free-born community without liberal compensation, and the same community, which for half a century secretly believed that only a business man has the right to grow rich, has begun to recognize that there are even other things besides litigation and health which ought to come high. For instance, although the trained architect still meets serious and depressing competition from those ready-made experimenters in design who pronounce the first c in the word architect as though it were an s, the public is rapidly discovering that a man cannot build an attractive house without special knowledge.

In the same class with the law, medicine, and architecture, and seemingly offering at present a greater scope for an ambitious young man, is engineering in all its branches. The furnaces, mines, manufactories, and the hydraulic, electrical, or other plants connected with the numerous vast mechanical business enterprises of the country are furnishing immediate occupation for hundreds of graduates of the scientific or polytechnic schools at highly respectable salaries. This field of usefulness is certain for a long time to come to offer employment and a fair livelihood to many, and large returns to those who outstrip their contemporaries. More and more is the business man, the manufacturer, and the capitalist likely to be dependent for the economical or successful development and management of undertakings on the judgment of scientific experts in his own employment or called in to advise, and it is only meet that the counsel given should be paid for handsomely.

Those who pursue literature or art in their various branches in this country, and have talents in some degree commensurate with their ambition, are now generally able to make a comfortable livelihood. Indeed the men and women in the very front rank are beginning to receive incomes which would be highly satisfactory to a leading lawyer or physician. Of course original work in literature or art demands special ability and fitness, but the general utility man is beginning to have many opportunities presented to him in connection with what may be called the clerical work of these professions. The great magazines and publishing houses have an increasing need for trained, scholarly men, for capable critics, and discerning advisers in the field both of letter-press and illustration. Another calling which seems to promise great possibilities both of usefulness and income to those who devote themselves to it earnestly is the comparatively new profession of journalism. The reporter, with all his present horrors, is in the process of evolution; but the journalist is sure to remain the high-priest of democracy. His influence is almost certain to increase materially, but it will not increase unless he seeks to lead public thought instead of bowing to it. The newspaper, in order to flourish, must be a moulder of opinion, and to accomplish this those who control its columns must more and more be men of education, force, and high ideals. Competition will winnow here as elsewhere, but those who by ability and industry win the chief places will stand high in the community and command large pay for their services.

An aristocracy of brains – that is to say, an aristocracy composed of individuals successful and prominent in their several callings – seems to be the logical sequence of our institutions under present social and industrial conditions. The only aristocracy which can exist in a democracy is one of honorable success evidenced by wealth or a handsome income, but the character of such an aristocracy will depend on the ambitions and tastes of the nation. The inevitable economic law of supply and demand governs here as elsewhere, and will govern until such a time as society may be reconstructed on an entirely new basis. Only the leaders in any vocation can hope to grow rich, but in proportion as the demands of the nation for what is best increase will the type and characteristics of these leaders improve. The doing away with inherited orders of nobility and deliberate, patented class distinctions, gives the entire field to wealth. We boast proudly that no artificial barriers confine individual social promotion; but we must remember at the same time that those old barriers meant more than the perpetuation of perfumed ladies and idle gentlemen from century to century. We are too apt to forget that the aristocracies of the old world signified in the first place a process of selection. The kings and the nobles, the lords and the barons, the knights who fought and the ladies for whom they died, were the master-spirits of their days and generations, the strong arms and the strong brains of civilized communities. They stood for force, the force of the individual who was more intelligent, more capable, and mightier in soul and body than his neighbors, and who claimed the prerogatives of superiority on that account. These master-spirits, it is true, used these prerogatives in such a manner as to crystallize society into the classes and the masses, so hopelessly for the latter that the gulf between them still is wide as an ocean, notwithstanding that present nobilities have been shorn of their power so that they may be said to exist chiefly by sufferance. And yet the world is still the same in that there are men more intelligent, more capable, and mightier in soul and body than their fellows. The leaders of the past won their spurs by prowess with the battle-axe and spear, by wise counsel in affairs of state, by the sheer force of their superior manhood. The gentleman and lady stood for the best blood of the world, though they so often belied it by their actions.

We, who are accustomed to applaud our civilization as the hope of the world, may well look across the water and take suggestions from the institutions of Great Britain, not with the idea of imitation, but with a view to consider the forces at work there. For nearly a century now the government, though in form a monarchy, has been substantially a constitutional republic, imbued with inherited traditions and somewhat galvanized by class distinctions, but nevertheless a constitutional republic. The nobility still exists as a sort of French roof or Eastern pagoda to give a pleasing appearance to the social edifice. The hereditary meaning of titles has been so largely negatived by the introduction of new blood – the blood of the strongest men of the period – that they have become, what they originally were, badges to distinguish the men most valuable to the State. Their abolition is merely a question of time, and many of the leaders to whom they are proffered reject them as they would a cockade or a yellow satin waistcoat. On the other hand, and here is the point of argument, the real aristocracy of England for the last hundred years has been an aristocracy of the foremost, ablest, and worthiest men of the nation, and with few exceptions the social and pecuniary rewards have been bestowed both by the State and by public appreciation on the master-spirits of the time in the best sense. Brilliant statesmanship, wisdom on the bench, the surgeon’s skill, the banker’s sound discernment, genius in literature and art, when signally contributed by the individual, have won him fame and fortune.

It may be said, perhaps, that the pecuniary rewards of science and literature have been less conspicuous than those accorded to other successes, but that has been due to the inherent practical temperament and artistic limitations of the Englishman, and can scarcely be an argument against the contention that English society in the nineteenth century, with all its social idiosyncrasies, has really been graded on the order of merit.

The tide of democracy has set in across the water and is running strongly, and there can be no doubt that the next century is likely to work great and strange changes in the conditions of society in England as well as here. The same questions practically are presented to each nation, except that there a carefully constructed and in many respects admirable system of society is to be disintegrated. We are a new country, and we have a right to be hopeful that we are sooner or later to outstrip all civilizations. Nor is it a blemish that the astonishing development of our material resources has absorbed the energies of our best blood. But it now remains to be seen whether the standards of pure democracy, without traditions or barriers to point the way, are to justify the experiment and improve the race. The character of our aristocracy will depend on the virtues and tastes of the people, and the struggle is to be between aspiration and contentment with low ambitions. Our original undertaking has been made far more difficult by the infusion of the worst blood in Christendom, the lees of foreign nations; but the result of the experiment will be much more convincing because of this change in conditions.

Who are to be the men of might and heroes of democracy? That will depend on the demands and aspirations of the enfranchised people. With all its imperfections, the civilization of the past has fostered the noble arts and stirred genius to immortalize itself in bronze and marble, in cathedral spires, in masterpieces of painting and literature, in untiring scholarship, in fervent labors in law, medicine, and science. Democracy must care for these things, and encourage the individual to choose worthy occupations, or society will suffer. We hope and believe that, in the long run, the standards of humanity will be raised rather than lowered by the lifting of the flood-gates which divide the privileged classes from the mass; but it behooves us all to remember that while demand and supply must be the leading arbiters in the choice of a vocation, the responsibility of selection is left to each individual. Only by the example of individuals will society be saved from accepting the low, vulgar aims and ambitions of the mass as a desirable weal, and this is the strongest argument against the doctrines of those who would repress individuality for the alleged benefit of mankind as a whole. The past has given us many examples of the legislator who cannot be bribed, of the statesman faithful to principle, of the student who disdains to be superficial, of the gentleman who is noble in thought, and speech and action, and they stand on the roll of the world’s great men. Democracy cannot afford not to continue to add to this list, and either she must steel her countenance against the cheap man and his works, or sooner or later be confounded. Was Marie Antoinette a more dangerous enemy of the people than the newspaper proprietor who acquires fortune by catering to the lowest tastes and prejudices of the public, or the self-made capitalist who argues that every man has his price, and seeks to accomplish legislation by bribery?