My Impressions of America
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Appealing to me, I felt obliged to say I thought they were the most genuine and hospitable of people, but that in spite of being always in a hurry I had found them slow; nor could I honestly say I thought them a free nation, I was heartily supported by the solitary man, who asked the ladies where they had observed either the great men, or the reverence; he said that materialism was sapping the soul of America, that their men of intellect were choked out, and in an aside to me in French, while the photographers were taking flash-lights, begged me to let him stay on after the ladies had departed. I assented, and when the oft repeated enquiry as to what I thought of "flappers" came up, I listened with absent mind and without committing myself to a subject that, while disturbing to the morals of the female questioners, bores me to such an extent that I almost scream when it is mentioned.
After the ladies had gone Mr. Horton returned with "Bruce." He was the most interesting reporter that I have met up till now.
He said he did not know what had happened to the spirit of his fellow-countrymen. Whether it was from temporary restlessness – following the chaos of present conditions – or from a native and ingrained lack of reflection, but that jazz, hustle and headlines were killing the soul of the American people.
"There is a perpetual antagonism between the machine, the press, the money makers, and those who are groping in the darkness to be free. When they see the Light, and know the Truth, it will be as bad over here as it is in Russia to-day, and, Mrs. Asquith," he added, "why should this be? We have men of ideas, and are young and keen; why must what is fine be inarticulate? You won't believe me, but in this very hotel I heard one man say to another:
"'I never read a line that is not going to profit me in commerce.'
"Imagine, after these five years of anguish all over the world, that such a thing could be said! I'm a poor man, never likely to arrive, but I would rather starve than say a thing like that."
"Have you read 'If Winter Comes'?" I asked.
He answered that he had, and told me he had been deeply moved over it; but did I believe that such a man as Mark Sabre could ever exist; did I not think he had emanated from a sensitive and creative power, but was not quite a real being. I replied that it was just because Mark Sabre was so human, and made by God as well as Hutchinson, that the book was great.
"If we cared enough, we all have it in us to develop some of Sabre's qualities, but we must be equally independent of public opinion, equally tolerant and, above all, equally selfless and loving," I said.
"You may be right, but what good, after all, did it do him?"
"Of course," I replied, "if every time we do or say the right thing we expect to succeed, matters would be very simple. It is because we are always meeting with rebuffs that life is so complicated. We must peg away doing what we can; fundamentally humble and despising popular opinion. Believe me, you are not the only country exposed to the temptations you speak of. We can only overcome these eternal inequalities by pity and self-sacrifice, and of this we have been given an immortal example."
He got up, and, shaking me firmly by the hand, said:
"It was just as well that Christ was crucified when He was, for He would not long have survived the hate and antagonism that His ideas provoked among the conventional, the successful, and the governing classes."
In the afternoon I was taken over the Carnegie Buildings. By the kindness of Mr. Church I was rolled about in a chair, and enjoyed the most wonderful institution of its sort that exists. Dr. Holland, who informed me that he was not only acquainted with all my literary friends in England, but with most of the crowned heads of Europe, accompanied us. Stuffed animals in huge glass cases do not usually attract me, but at the Carnegie Institute they are presented with such life-like skill that I begged to be introduced to the man who had arranged them. He was brought down in a lift from his work, and after shaking him warmly by the hand, I told him how proud I was to meet so great an artist.
Dr. Holland, my chairman of that night, was kind enough to give me the rough copy of his introductory speech:
"Ladies and Gentlemen, neighbours, and friends," he said.
"Written history has been called a 'tissue of lies.' Most historians, like portrait painters, feel it to be their duty to impart to the characters whom they are describing a glamour, which in many cases is more or less superhuman or super-diabolical as the case may be, and to represent circumstances as they happened in the light of the preternatural. Now and then there arises a writer who is gifted with the quality to see things as they really are, and who, to use a current phrase, 'calls a spade a spade.' In an age of pretence, it is to many more or less shocking to have such persons take up the pen and, with frankness born of native honesty, tell the truth as he or she may distinctly perceive it. Society is so used to 'diplomatic courtesies' that when the truth-teller arrives, society 'takes a fit,' seeing its illusions vanish. Its would-be idols which have been proclaimed as made of pure gold, are found to be gilded clay, its devils not so devilish after all, and the daring act of the truth-teller is vigorously denounced by an age which calls for nothing but compliments.
"We have all read, at least I have, with great appreciation, coupled with no small degree of amusement, Mrs. Margot Asquith's 'Autobiography.' I particularly enjoyed it because it gave her impressions of many people whom I have met and known.
"Mrs. Asquith is the wife of the great man who was the prime minister of England at the outbreak of the World War. She is here to-day in a city which bears the name of that prime minister of England who held the helm of state during the Napoleonic wars.
"I have the honour of presenting Mrs. Margot Asquith, wife of the Right Honourable Herbert Henry Asquith. She is one of the most famous women of England."
Hampered by the knowledge that we were to catch the night train to Rochester, and inexperienced in timing what I have to say, I found when I sat down that I had cut my lecture short by half an hour. To make up for this, and encouraged by people in the front row reaching up to shake my hand, I invited them to come on to the platform. They trooped up in large numbers and I held an informal reception which met with unexpected success.
We drove in silence to the station. I had a conviction which my secretary did not attempt to contradict that I had been a failure. Mr. Horton said he feared the news of my curtailed lecture might reach the influential press and prejudice those who might want to hear me in the towns in which I was booked to speak. Knowing in my heart that I had on every occasion received more praise than I deserved, and being of a temperament that is not knocked out by failure, I tried to cheer him up while the nigger was arranging my bed, but without the smallest success.
The trains, both in the States and in the Dominion, have every fault; those in Canada being even worse than in the United States. If you travel by day you are one of twenty-four men, women, and children who sit on hard revolving chairs eyeing one another. You cannot stretch your limbs, or smoke a cigarette, and while your ears are deafened by shrieking babies, your legs are scorched by boiling pipes. If you are rich enough, you may get a drawing room, but they do not have them on every train. When you travel by night men and women are on top of one another, buttoned behind an avenue of green cotton curtains. You cannot get your hot water bottles filled, or have tea in the morning. While staggering to your private berth between the leaps of the locomotive you are lucky if you do not fall over the protruding feet of your fellow travellers, or find yourself sitting on the face of a sleeping lady lying perdue behind the hangings. Privacy is unknown, and though I have travelled for thousands of miles I have not yet met the train that, unless you have the balance of a ballet girl, will not give you concussion of the spine or brain.
After a sleepless night we arrived at Rochester where I seized the morning papers. Thanks to a charming reporter, Mr. C. M. Vining, who had come a long way to hear me speak at Pittsburgh, I had an excellent review.
My stay was so short at Rochester, where I lectured under the auspices of the Press Club, that I had no time to form any impressions of the place, but the people were all very good to me.
On the 26th we met Mr. Horton's mother at Buffalo, a refined, charming, old lady, who travelled in the train to Toronto with us.
Meeting Mr. Vining in the passage I thought if I brought him into our drawing room it would give my secretary an opportunity of speaking to his mother, and invited him to join us. We had an excellent talk and I told him that, for the first time in my life, I had seen a "flapper." While waiting in the sunny street outside Buffalo station, I had seen two young, short-skirted giggling girls, walking with their admirers who were armed with kodaks. One of the young men threw a girl over his shoulder who stretched out her legs while the other photographed her. I added that, while praying that I would never again be interviewed upon the subject, I would be in a better position to answer my ardent questioners in the future.
VIII: TORONTO AND MONTREAL
VIII.
TORONTO AND MONTREAL
MARGOT TELLS A MARK TWAIN STORY – CAPTURES TORONTO AUDIENCE; KISSES CHARWOMAN – MONTREAL LADIES QUELLING AND CRITICAL
THAT evening we arrived at Toronto and I lectured on the 29th. My chairman, the Rev. Byron Stauffer, made a wonderful speech, and I was listened to by an attentive and intelligent audience.
I find Prohibition a fruitful topic of discussion.
For the information of anyone who may think, as I did, that drink has decreased, and that in consequence everyone over here is wise, sober and happy, I can only say the reverse is the truth.
I cannot write of the poorer classes, on whom, in any case, the law is hard, but among the rich I do not suppose there was ever so much alcohol concealed and enjoyed as at the present moment in America. Young men and maidens, who before this exaggerated interference would have been content with the lightest of wines, think it smart to break the law every day and night of their lives. I related to my audience that Mr. Clemens, (better known as Mark Twain), had taken me in to dinner many years ago at the house of a namesake of mine (Mrs. Charles Tennant, whose daughter Dorothy married Stanley) and had told me of a great American temperance orator who, having exercised his voice too much, had asked the chairman to provide milk instead of water at his meeting. Turning to the Rev. Byron Stauffer, who is a great temperance preacher – of which I was unaware – I said,
"The chairman – probably a kind man like my own – put rum into the milk, and when the orator, pausing in one of his most dramatic periods, stopped to clear his throat, he drained the glass, and putting it down, exclaimed,
"Gosh! what cows!"
I went on to tell of a lady who was letting her house, and, after instructing the auctioneer as to the value of her chairs, furniture and china, had left him in the dining room where the side-board had several bottles of wine and whiskey on it. She waited for a long time hoping he would return to show her the inventory, but as he did not appear she went into the dining room where she found him drunk upon the floor. She looked at the paper he held in his hand and read,
"To one revolving carpet."
Not wishing to repeat the mistake I had made in Pittsburgh, I spoke for an hour and fifteen minutes, longer than which no one can be expected to endure, and as we had some time before catching a midnight train, I invited my audience on to the stage. At this the platform was stormed, and I was seized by hands and arms, showered with compliments and, never at any time a robust figure, so crowded and crushed that I felt suffocated. My reverend chairman did his best, but it was not until Mr. Horton, in a voice of thunder, begged them not to mob me as I had to catch a train, that I was allowed to move. They all rushed to the stage door shouting,
"We think you are wonderful!" "Why can't you stay with us?" "You must come back!" "You're perfectly lovely!" etc.
We had to lock one of the doors of the green room, but while I was given brandy, and congratulated by my chairman and his family, a very old charwoman peeped in at another entrance, saying with emotional timidity,
"Excuse me, but though I am only a poor old woman who sweeps the stage, I would like to shake hands with you. The last famous person that I spoke to was Mme. Calvé, over whom we were all crazy; I may say she let me kiss her hand."
I turned and kissed the old lady on both her wrinkled cheeks, at which she blest me and burst into tears. I felt like doing the same, but was steadied by the presence of my jolly chairman and his relations. It was with a feeling of tense gratitude that I heard the announcement of our car. Clinging to the arm of my secretary I swayed through an enthusiastic crowd gathered on the pavement. They were cheering, waving handkerchiefs, and throwing up their hats. Half of the audience appeared to have waited and collected round our motor, and we had the greatest difficulty in reaching it. Knowing that this sort of thing will probably never happen to me again, and with a touch of vanity that I seldom feel, I wished my husband had been there to witness my unexpected triumph.
Upon our arrival in Montreal I saw the reporters, and in the afternoon I made my speech.
I was introduced at His Majesty's Theatre, by a delightful woman, a relative of the well known Lady Drummond – Mrs. Huntley Drummond – and spoke to a lady-like assemblage in a blizzard of draughts. To quote my beloved and early friend, Mr. John Hay, "I chill like mutton gravy," and had it not been for my chairwoman who left the stage to bring me my fur boa, I must have contracted a permanent catarrh which would have reduced my voice to a whisper. I was relieved – a feeling which I thought the audience shared – when my lecture was over.
His Majesty's Theatre is an odious place to speak in, and whether from the fatigue of a night journey, or the refinement of my female listeners, I formed an unfavourable impression of the intellectual manners and vitality of Montreal. When I retired to the wings of the stage I pointed out to Mrs. Drummond two women in the front row whose attention and enthusiasm had made all the difference to me during the lecture. One had a masculine face, with an earnest and beautiful expression, and her neighbour was a lovely creature.
"Those," she said, "are Mrs. Hayter Reed and Mrs, Lawford."
Luckily for me they came up to the green room, accompanied by Oswald Balfour – Military Secretary to the Governor General – followed by an old man with a huge bag of golf clubs, and several other friendly people. The old man showed me a photograph of my father given to him on the links at Carnoustie, which touched me deeply; and my friends in the front row, after embracing me on both cheeks, assured me they had been thrilled by all that I had said, and only longed to see more of me. Mrs. Drummond – a woman of rare intellect – joined in this praise, and after Oswald – whose mother, Lady Francis Balfour, is the finest woman speaker in England – said that my voice-production, general manner and delivery were professional, I retired from a quelling and critical company.
My host that night was Sir Frederick Taylor, and I met Lady Drummond and Mr. Charles Hosmer in his beautiful house. He was more than kind to me, and I found that they knew most of my personal friends. When Lady Drummond said that I had a beautiful smile, and the papers that I had a golden voice, I felt less exhausted on my journey to Ottawa.
No one who has not been on tour in America can imagine the fatigue of crowded elevators, shaky trains, and perpetual travelling.
IX: IN CANADA'S CAPITAL
IX.
IN CANADA'S CAPITAL
APATHY AND BREEDING OF OTTAWA'S AUDIENCE – INTIMATE TALK WITH PREMIER MACKENZIE KING – THE STATUE OF "SIR GALAHAD" AND ITS STORY
WE arrived at Ottawa on the first of March and lunched with Sir George Perley and his wife (who had befriended me upon the Carmania). Lady Perley is a treasure of kindness and understanding, and nothing I could ever do will repay her.
At lunch I met Mr. Meighen and the Canadian Premier. In inviting the defeated Minister and Mr. MacKenzie King to meet each other, my hostess reminded me of the early days where in my father's house Mr. Gladstone, Lord Randolph Churchill, and other Cabinet Ministers of rival parties met and discussed politics.
I was grateful to Mr. Meighen for the cordiality with which he greeted me, as the inventive Canadian press had added impromptu reflections of their own to what I had said of him. I sat next to Mr. MacKenzie King, but as we had no opportunity of private conversation, he invited me to go to his house for supper after the lecture.
The capital of the Dominion is a beautiful town, wonderfully situated, and in spite of being covered with snow, was alive and radiant with spangles and sunshine.
A greater contrast to the audiences of New York, Boston, Chicago, Rochester or Toronto, than the one I addressed in Ottawa could hardly be imagined, and I recognised some of the apathy and breeding which had characterised my listeners in Montreal. I was introduced to several select and fashionable people and one gentleman gave me an inventory of our British aristocracy, most of whom he had known and stayed with. I felt like putting my arm on his shoulder and saying with sympathy, "Never mind!" but refrained. When the lecture was over I motored to Mr. King's private apartments.
The Canadian Premier is a man after my own heart; shrewd, straight, modest and cultured. I was surprised to find how much he knew, not only of the political situation in England, but of the chief characters concerned in it. After discussing Mr. Lloyd George, Mr. Churchill, Lord Birkenhead, and Mr. Bonar Law's Canadian friend Lord Beaverbrook, we talked of Sir Wilfred Laurier, President Harding, and Mr. Hughes. He spoke with genuine admiration of Mr. Hughes's speech and the Washington Conference and agreed with me in condemnation of the many futile confabulations that had preceded it.
He asked me about the Irish Free State and Labour conditions in England. As he had settled most of the Canadian strikes he was interested in unemployment.
I told him the "land fit for heroes to live in" was a less fashionable resort than was generally supposed; and that thanks to the policy of "official reprisals" the ground had not been prepared in a manner to encourage either Craig or Collins to place implicit confidence in the Coalition. He told me that reprisals had come as a shock to all thoughtful people; and, pointing to a fine Italian picture of Our Lord hanging on the wall, asked me if His life had captivated me as much as it had him.
I said that following in His steps appeared to me to be the only chance we could ever have of acquiring that purity of heart which would enable us to see God; and walked up to examine the picture.
It does not take a long sojourn in Canada to prophecy that Mr. MacKenzie King will need all his courage and independence if he is to stand up to the hostility of his Conservative and fashionable opponents; but if he can make himself known to thinking men his administration ought to prove successful.
The next day I was again the guest of the premier, and met one of the two sitting members for Ottawa, – Mr. Hal McGiverin; the Hon. Dr. Henri Beland (Minister of Soldiers Civil Re-establishment), who had been a distinguished physician in Belgium when the war broke out. He wrote "A Thousand and One Days in a Berlin Prison" after having been taken prisoner by the Germans and confined for over three years. During his incarceration his wife died in Belgium, and he was not permitted to attend her death-bed or her funeral. The Hon. George Graham, Minister of Militia, whose only son was killed in the War; the Hon. Sir Lomar Gouin, Minister of Justice, and the only other lady, Mrs. G. B. Kennedy, made up our luncheon party. We had general conversation, which my stepson Raymond once described as a series of "ugly rushes and awkward pauses", but on this occasion it was successful, as we discussed among other subjects politics and literature.
I asked my neighbour what the statue was which commanded such a wonderful view near the Houses of Parliament. He said it was "Sir Galahad," and had been erected in memory of a deed of heroism, and had no other inscription upon it. He told me a young man called Henry Albert Harper was skating with a friend when he observed a couple in front of him disappear into the river at a sudden break in the ice. He sent his companion to the shore for help, and lying down, stretched out his walking stick to see if the lady in the water, or her friend, could catch hold of it. Seeing that this was impossible, as they neither of them could reach it, he rose to his feet and took off his coat. The other skaters implored him not to attempt to rescue them as it meant certain death.
"What else can I do?" said young Harper, and plunged into the icy current. Their dead bodies were found the next morning.
Hearing that Mr. MacKenzie King had written a memoir of Harper – who had been his greatest friend – I begged him to give me a copy of it. He sent it to me with his autograph in it, and asked me to sign his volume of my own autobiography. I was truly sorry to say good-bye to the Canadian Premier.
We returned to Montreal the next morning where I found my room a garden of flowers given to me by Mrs. Reed, Mrs. Lawford and Lady Drummond. I addressed a ballroom that night full of empty chairs and chandeliers, but was consoled by my flowers, and the ladies with whom I afterwards went to supper; and I hope and think I have made lasting friendships with Mrs. Hayter Reed and Mrs. Lawford.
Mrs. Reed told me that the little son of friends of hers who had always refused to meet a Jew, had disconcerted them, one day, by saying in a reproachful voice,
"Mother, you never told me Jesus Christ was a Jew."
Seeing a distressed expression upon his mother's face, he added consolingly: "But it doesn't matter, since God was a Presbyterian."
Lying awake that night, I wondered what I would have felt had I married a man who had consented to be either Governor General of Canada or Viceroy of India. I can imagine no career, excepting perhaps that of a minor royalty, that I would have minded as much. Not all the great functions, personal prestige, wonderful scenery, pig-sticking in the East, or skating in the Dominion, would make up to me for friendships without intimacy, and grandeur without gaiety. I came to the conclusion that only men of a certain kind of vanity and ambition, or animated by the highest sense of public duty could ever be found to fill these honourable positions.
X: REFLECTIONS AT LARGE
X.
REFLECTIONS AT LARGE
DRAWBACKS OF AMERICAN JOURNALISM – SENSATIONAL HEADLINES; FEAR OF THE PRESS – CONTROVERSY ON PROHIBITION WITH LORD LEE – IMPRESSIONS OF U. S. SENATE
WE breakfasted at 5.30 a.m. the next morning and arrived at New York at ten that night, to be greeted by a room full of press men. When the female reporters begin by saying to me:
"What, Mrs. Asquith, do you think, with your close acquaintance with the many trends of the working of a woman's mind, of the modern probability etc., etc.," I am reminded of Sir Walter Raleigh's excellent phrase, "Stumbling upwards into vacuity."
One of these eager ladies, checking her more intelligent male companions, said:
"Tell me, Mrs. Asquith, is it not true that you are indifferent to the opinion of any living person and enjoy saying smart and daring things?" I replied:
"Indeed no! I leave that to you."
I told them about MacKenzie King, of whom they had never heard, and what Mr. Horton and I had observed in our travels of the abominable consequences of Prohibition. I said it was a measure of such exaggerated interference with private liberty that no truthful person could call America a free country.