THE AMERICAN OF TO-DAY.*

DR. Nicames MURRAY BUTLER, President of Columbia University in New York, and one of the ablest and most dis- tinguished of American organisers and educationists, delivered three lectures on the United States before the University of Copenhagen last September, and here we have them reprinted m a small neat book. As he says, it is difficult for a man to Speak dispassionately of his own country,—to hold the balance between the strong and the weak. "My task was less ambitious and less difficult," he goes on ; "it was to set out some of the aspects of American life and to draw, in large lines, a picture of that part of present-day civilization which the world knows as American." We do not quite see Why this was "less difficult." If there were no attempt to strike a balance in writing of "present-day civilization," these Papers would be uncritical, and therefore without much value. But of course President Butler's mind is always critical, and, fortunately, he has done what his preface appears to disclaim. He gives us a very interesting axiom to begin with : that to understand the government and the Intellectual and moral temper of Americans to-day one must know thoroughly the writings and speeches of three Americans,—Alexander Hamilton, Lincoln, and Emerson. We wonder how many Americans would have said this of Ramilton a generation ago. The exaltation of his reputation has been very noticeable and rapid lately, and we are glad to think that it is sanctioned by the English-speaking peoples of two worlds. Perhaps we ought to be surprised that the first Place, even so, is given to Hamilton ; but really we find ourselves a little more surprised that Esnerson is named among the three. We do not question his fitness to be there, but We fancied that Matthew Arnold's half-hearted appreoiation represented the modern opinion of Americans about Emerson, and that he would be placed just outside a Het of three. Lists of favourite characters and authors are always fasci- nating, even when they are as futile as lists of "the hundred hest books," because they are a revelation of at least one nian's mind. In the third and last of President Butler's

Papers we come on a list of the ten greatest men of America

"If the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries wore searched for great spirits and great intelligences of the highest rank, America Could furnish perhaps ten,—not altogether a bad showing for a People so new, with economic and political tasks of such magni- tude pressing for accomplishment, which tasks, almost of necessity, drew the highest talent to themselves, and away from science, art, and letters. These ton would, in my judgment, be Jonathan Edwards, philosopher and theologian ; Benjamin Franklin, man of the world; George Washington, father of his country; Alexander Hamilton, statesman and political philosopher ; Thomas Jefferson, leader of the people ; John Marshall, jurist ;

Daniel Webster, orator and publicist ; Abraham Lincoln, whom Lowell significantly called 'the first American ' ; Ralph Waldo Emerson, teacher of religion and morals; and Willard Gibbs, mathematician and physicist. Perhaps two other names should be added : Francis Parkman, historian, and William Dwight Whitney, philologist."

We shall certainly not dispute the list. It is a very sound one, and one also of which both branches of the English- speaking race may feel proud. It is interesting to note how intensely English in origin is every name in the list.

President Butler lays it down that there is a distinct type of American. "A political type," he calls him. If this be so, and we think the statement is reasonable, it is remarkable that a country with over eighty million people (mixed people, too) should have developed a type. In the last few years it has become the fashion to say that Russia could not possibly have a fixed type of character (1) The American as Ile 14. By Nicholas Murray Butler, President of Columbia University. London : Macmillan and Co. [4a. net.]—(2) The Ineter Life of the United States. By Monsignor Count Vay do Vaya and R13 Luskod, Apostolic Protonotary, P.D.,, KC.IC. London John Murray. (126. Data

• because she is so large and the social and climatic conditions are so various. It is true that Russia is a long way off having a type; but if America has one, the existence of one everywhere else is not inconceivable. What is the source of this identity of American feeling amid all the divergent elements .P The chief cause, in President Butler's opinion, and we agree with him, is the Anglo-Saxon impulse, which persists in spite of all dilution of the original stock. America is repeating the history of England in selecting for absorption the better qualities of several contributors to the national character. Out of diversity comes forth strength. President Butler says :

"The English language overrules the immigrant's native tongue, if not in the first generation, certainly in the second and the English common law, with its statutory amendments and additions, displaces the immigrant's customs of life and trade with a rapidity that is truly astonishing."

Another unifying force is inter-State migration :—

" It is no unusual thing in America to find a family of which the grandparents live in New England or New York, the parents in the Middle West, and some or all of the children in the Rocky Mountain States or in Oklahoma or Texas."

As President Butler proceeds, some of the causes he discovers seem to us, we must admit, less sound. They are true

in a way, no doubt, but do they deserve the precise value which cataloguing inevitably assigns to them P This "inter-State migration" which we have just mentioned, for

example, is only another way of saying that railways obliterate old boundaries, and this is true of all modern countries. If the States produce a unity of American feeling by carrying on a general exchange of citizens, they notoriously prevent the accomplishment of complete unity by the jealousy with which they prosecute their "State rights" in antagonism to the Federal laws. Newspapers, again, are said to be a unifying force. In a sense they are so everywhere. But America has more newspapers than any other country, and we are inclined to say that in an imperfect world the more newspapers there are the less unity there is likely to be. France might be cited as an example of an " over-news- paperised " country where every new print excites a new faction. It is rather to the credit of Americans that unity should prevail in spite of the newspapers. Finally, President Butler says that the two great political parties are a unify- ing force. At first sight this seems rather like saying that the Cavaliers and Roundheads were unifying forces.

Of course there is a sorb of unity of policy between the Republicans and the Democrats just now, the latter having stolen Mr. Roosevelt's thunder; but that is not what President Butler means. We suppose that nothing is too fissiparous to become unifying in the long run, if only by force of reaction. President Butler emphasises the masonic-like cordiality with which Republicans and Democrats greet their own political comrades all over the country. If this does not necessarily make national unity, it at all events makes unity in two hostile camps. We remember bearing a great deal a few years ago about the intense jealousy between the West and the East. The East was supposed to disregard Western requirements, and, indeed, to be utterly ignorant of them, besides being supercilious, and so forth. Lotus hope that that is all past, as President Butler does not mention it.

The passages with which we are most inclined to disagree are those in which, though he regrets the divorce between political life and some of the best elements in the country President Butler appears to think of that divorce as in- evitable. At least that seems to be the sense of the following passage :—

" Only occasionally, as in the case of Secretary Root or the late Governor Russell of Massachusetts, or a very few leading members of the Senate and the House of Representatives, do men of the highest intellectual and moral type enter the government service and remain in it. There are many reasons for this regrettable fact, but it is mentioned now only to emphasize the point that in America the words 'governmental' and public' are by no means interchangeable. In America many undertakings, many policies, many men, are in every true sense of the word public, in that they represent the public and rest upon its will, without having any direct relation to the government at all. Great, therefore, as is the unifying and uniting influence of the government of the United States, its policies and its activities, the unifying and uniting forces and influences outside of the government are more numerous and more powerful still. They are educational, social, and economic, and they are ceaselessly and tirelessly at work."

There is a dangerous implication in praising extra-Govern- guantal agencies as though they were among the permanent.

institutions on which the country depended for its salvation.

The United States, as all men know, has prospered and been a noble force in the world in spite of carrying a pack of corruption on her back. But that is one of the fortunate paradoxes of history which cannot be allowed to have the force of a principle. If the best men do not lay upon them- selves the duty of public service in all the offices of Govern- ment, the reputation of America as a benign force will not last indefinitely. Happily there are already signs that social -esteem may at last be won by a political career, and if that is not putting the matter on the highest grounds, it is at least a healthy sign. President Butler is himself, in any case, one of those " voluntary " forces, as be calls them, outside the :Government which preserve and sweeten the life of the whole country.

We cannot do more than mention briefly the book of Monsignor Count Vay de Vaya and Luskod, a Hungarian ecclesiastic who is well known to a good many Americans. It Las not the serious value of President Butler's papers, and yet we may mention it as a readable account of American life for persons who know little about it. We ought to say, however, that the title needs some explanation. The phrase 4' inner life" suggests that the book gives a close or intimate

view of American affairs. Really the book is a broad survey; although it always has the impress of a cultivated

and good-tempered observer, it is necessarily superficial. In the last chapter a good deal of what has been said in previous pages is repeated. Some of the generalisa- tions clash curiously with those of President Butler. 'rake the question of money-making, for example, which strikes the foreigner as one of the obsessions of American life. President Butler exonerates his countrymen, explaining -that the money is, as it were, only an incident in the gratifica- tion of a strong native impulse to work bard. The money -when gained is used as a "toy," or to good ends. In support of this view we may say that Americans certainly lose money with better grace than any nationality we know. But Count Vey de Vaya has a whole chapter on "Money-Making and

Spending." He quotes characteristic money-makers as saying :—

" We knew neither respite nor rest ; we sacrificed our youth, and made our life hard. As the years passed we neglected everything that did not contribute to our material prosperity. .Consequently, our inner selves deteriorated, and we became callous, until now we have no power to enjoy the fruits of our endeavour.' 'Certainly,' said another, 'we Americans :know how to snake more money than you do, but you spend it infinitely better.' I noted these remarks as being uttered in all sincerity. In their simplicity these cris du cow are so many precious documents."