CASTE-FEELING IN AMERICA.
AN American writer, Mr. Joseph Edgar Chamberlin, gives in the July Nineteenth Century a moat curious and interesting account of the growth of caste in the United States of America. He repeats, only with more detail and with a certain touch of scientific analysis, what we have all long known as to the exclusiveness of the inner circles of American society. In every American city there is a larger or smaller circle or group of families who consider themselves —and, what is more strange, are generally admitted to be— the social superiors of their fellow-citizens. The " best " group in each urban community differs externally not at all from hundreds of other groups, but nevertheless it is as strictly marked off as if its members belonged to another race,
or indeed to a separate species. There are no titles, of course, and there is no official Golden-book ; but for all that the best social circles are as rigidly kept and are as absolutely exclusive as any aristocracy in the world. In truth, the absence of external differences, such as those of title or of race, tends to intensify rather than diminish the exclusiveness of the American social aristocracy. The desire and the deter- mination to exclude become the badge of superiority. Mr. Chamberlin, like other social observers, finds it
im- possible to define the qualifications which are considered essential for admission into the groups at the top of the social scale in the various American cities. It is not wealth, for many of the richest men in America are completely ignored by the best people in their own cities. It is not a fine descent. Americans very often know their pedigrees extremely well, but the charmed circle is by no means opened to a man because he can claim some of the beat blood in the world. Still less is it talent or distinction. Statesmen, men of letters, men of science, poets, orators, and painters are not considered to have the slightest claim to the special social consideration of which we speak. For example, Oliver Wendell Holmes was treated here almost as if he were royalty. In Boston, however, he in no sense belonged to the best society. Bat there must be something which makes a man or a. family fit for the best society—something which accounts for its presence in the circle—else how could the circles exist and recruit themselves, as they most certainly do P No doubt there is something,—a very paltry thing perhaps, but none the less a reality. We have rather lost sight of it here of late, but the Committee of Almack's knew quite well what it was at the beginning of the reign. They knew who was and who was not in society, and who ought to be admitted as a recruit. They did not allow that wealth or birth or dis- tinction in arms or arts or politics were of themselves sufficient qualifications, but had and maintained a standard of their own. Once it is said they went as near a definition as was possible. They had refused the application of a certain Duchess for tickets, and their refusal led to complaints and pro- tests. Their answer was simple. They quite admitted, they said, that the Duchess of — was a woman of rank and birth, but she was not a woman of fashion, and therefore they were reluctantly, &c., &c. It is by some such standard as this that American citizens are tried when he or she seeks admission into the inner social circle of their city. Probably with the moat exclusive American families it is at bottom a question of manners. We do not of course mean that they want merely good manners in the ordinary sense, for that would flood them at once. What they require and keep up in their own circle, and what they silently insist on before they admit a recruit, is a special manner of life. Men and women who live in small cliques get extraordinarily sensitive about the little things of life, and they soon fancy that they cannot live comfortably unless the smaller ceremonial usages are done in a particular way. In the Greek mysteries you were taught to call things by special names, to pronounce certain words in a special way, to eat or not eat by a rule, and to throw down your offering with this or that gesture. It is the same in all exclusive societies. The best families cultivate these little arts among themselves, value them extremely, and will not admit a recruit unless they have some assurance that he is likely to be able to assimilate and adopt their ceremonial.
One can imagine as exclusive American—say a member of one of the forty families of Chicago—making a very good defence for his exclusiveness. He would, of course, begin by saying that all he wanted to do was to pursue happiness after his own fashion. Then he might go on :—' But in society I like to feel absolutely at my ease. Now such ease is not really to be obtained unless I associate with people who have much the same social habits as I have, and who feel quite at their ease with me. At present I am living in a circle of families who are all addicted to the same habits of life, who obey much the same standards in dress. in ways of eating and drinking, and in their method of talk and intonation. If you ask me as a philosopher, of course I can't say that there is anything wrong in using a different set of social conventions, but I do say that it worries and grates upon me when I find a portion of my habitual associates using what I can realise, even if they cannot, is a. perfectly different ceremonial. There is no harm in a man wearing a short dinner-jacket when I think he ought to wear a
Jong one, or in putting on a black tie and a white waistcoat when I am clearly of opinion that a white tie and a black waistcoat ought to be worn, but as I said, I cannot help feel- ing not quite at my ease when I see a man entering my social world who does not obey the same rules as I do in regard to these little matters. Again, it may be just as virtuous to manage your voice in ore way as in another, but I confess that the way adopted by me and my friends makes me feel at ease while other ways annoy me. Hence I and those who agree with me, though we do not think the least ill of other circles, do not care to admit into our own any persons who do not appear to us either to have the necessary qualification of manner already, or who are not obviously able to acquire it by some small alteration which they will easily learn. No doubt, for admis- sion into our circle we want other qualifications as well. A family must not be too poor to live in our style of living, or too little educated. Again, they must have connections which are at any rate not undesirable, and they must have, as a rule, birth, if not pedigree. These, however, are, as I have tried to show, not enough. Beyond them, a man who is not already one of ns but would like to be, must somehow make it clear that he can learn to lead our special social life exactly in our way. This is the reason,' he might add, why wealth or birth or distinction or genius cannot alone qualify a man for admission into the best society,—or what people call the best society, for I do not wish to pretend it is that, but merely that it is the society which I and my friends like and want to maintain unaltered in its essentials.' If mankind were something quite different from what they are, there would be no sort of reason to object to this attitude. It is merely a plea for choosing one's own friends. Unfortunately, however, one of the strongest impulses in the human mind is to break through exclusions. Hence more or less perfect exclu- sion of outsiders, when practised by a group of men, has the most extraordinary attractive force. Let a hundred men form a circle, and let it be known that none but they and their families are admitted, and maintain their policy of exclusion except in a few cases, and all the world will be trying and scheming and raging to get in. There may be nothing inside the circle, but that does not matter an atom. The one thing worth doing is to get in. But the stronger becomes the desire to get in the stronger also becomes the desire to exclude. Very soon the excluders begin to believe that their circle is as desirable as the outsiders imagine, and with that belief their pride rises and rises until suddenly the old caste spirit springs into being in its strongest form. The "best society" in Chicago or New York or Boston has been made into an aristocracy by pressure from without. First came the association of certain families—two centuries ago in many cases—on what we have called ceremonial grounds,—i.e., on grounds of manners and habits of life. Next this exclusion on cere- monial grounds became apparent. Immediately sprang up the desire to join the circle of exclusion. At this pressure the circle at once hardened and then changed tone, and so in the end was born a well-defined and self-conscious aristocracy. Though these small and extremely exclusive circles have so innocent an origin, we cannot deny that the phenomena of their existence are sufficiently odious. The fierce desire to enter causes cringing and intriguing, and the contemptuous determination to exclude, haughtiness, pride, and pretension of a specially disagreeable kind. Pride of birth, or of status like that of the soldier, or of political power are not good social elements; but they are far better than the pride of mere social position, the pride of a caste of manners. When one part of the richer class is intriguing to get noticed by the other pert, and being snubbed for its pains, the results on the community are not wholesome. We do not, of course, wish to exaggerate the evils, but in an eager, quick-witted community the situation created is socially demoralising.
How is it, we may ask, that we have to so large an extent avoided these evils ? In the first place, we believe it is due to the fact that our richer families have their homes not in the cities but in the country. Now, a rural aristocracy is never so exclusive and so concentrated as an urban. A small urban aristocracy has time and opportunity to organise for itself a form of social exclusiveness impossible in the country. You may talk a good deal about only mixing with the county families, but in practice you cannot escape contact with your humbler neighbours. Vicinity must always count for .as good deal in the country. The next reason is that we possess a capital, and that capital is so large that true exclusiveness is very difficult of attainment. Again, our best society has always been to a considerable extent political. But people who want to keep their finger in the political pie cannot afford to be exclusive in the strict sense. If a Duchess has a political husband he is sure to spoil her parties, from the American point of view, by insisting upon all sorts of "impossible" people being asked. Next, by a piece of good luck, it is not fashionable in London to be really exclusive. The smart thing is never to tolerate bores however well born and bred, and not to be afraid of queer people if they are amusing. Hence it is the thing to mix with people of distinction and notoriety of every sort. Of course men and women make sets, but it would be considered very dowdy to see only people of the irreproachable kind cultivated under the American social ideal. London society is thus a fresh and living thing in which many classes mingle, and the higher you go the less people are anxious to exclude other people. In the last resort the only thing asked for is amusement, interest., and novelty. No doubt embalmed within what is called London society are many little sets which areas perversely exclusive as the best American society. Their members do not want to see or have socially to do with any one outside their circle. They hate politics, they know nothing and care nothing about literature and art, and they are only anxious to keep away from people who are bad form. The adherents of such a set have been known to fly with horror from the presence of a. very distinguished soldier just because he had a little too much manner. His ability, his humour, his great services, his birth counted nothing beside the fact that he sometimes made little speeches to ladies,—and such speeches were bad form. Fortunately these embryo exclusive sets on the American model get little or no attention paid them here. People as a rule do not want to get into them, but into the larger, if humbler, general society which is always open to a combination of distinction, means, and a reasonable amount of good breeding. London society, in truth, is the least exclusive place in the world. If you have either plenty of money, or plenty of brains, or again claims to distinction as artist, or man of letters, or soldier, or sailor, the way of parties is made very easy to you. But though things are now fairly well with us socially, we do not doubt that if once our best families left off taking an interest in politics we should soon begin to approximate to the conditions which obtain in America. It is the devotion of our "best people" to such a very human thing as politics which saves them from combining to admire their own manners. Only as long as our best people are allowed to play a considerable part in public life shall we escape the American system. But though. we dislike the American system, we must be fair, and not talk as if it were all the fault of the best families. In truth we hold it far more the fault of the outsiders who are trying to push in. If they would only refrain from writing and talking and bothering about " people of the highest social rank" we should soon find the beet families forgetting a great deal of their social self-importance. How can the members of the highest circle, say, in Chicago, help becoming proud and politely bumptious if they are eternally being written about and talked about by their fellow-citizens ? If ordinary American men and women could only forget their aristocrats for a year these latter would soon find their true level. But that is too much to hope at present. America has got to witness the deyelopment of an aristocracy of manners, position, and inherited wealth. That is half formed already. When it has set hard it will perhaps begin to crumble away again and to lose its exclusiveness. Two things will tend to produce this. In the first place, the young men of means and ability will get so bored that they will enter politics as a diversion. Next, a change of fashion will drive the rich and cultivated into country life, and country life will break down that cast-iron exclusiveness which belongs to urban aristocracies. Things, that is, will come right in the end; but meantime the States have a provoking little problem to solve. A hundred little aristocracies dotted over the map, filling their neighbours with envy, hatred, and malice, or else with cower- ing adulation, is not an agreeable picture. But according to Mr. Chamberlin it represents American social life at the present moment. Our readers who want to realise to the full how strong is the caste-feeling in the States must, however, read his paper for themselves. He does not confine himself to generalities, but enforces his conclusions by specific statements.
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