Introducing the American Spirit Part 12

Mormonism would have continued to grow in alarming proportions if the missionaries were still offering a husband, or a part of one, to every woman, and to every man as many wives as he cared to take unto himself.

Within the church two forces are working towards its liberalization. The influence of a strong, Gentile population, and the school; while neither of them will destroy Mormonism, our informant believed that ultimately it will prove no more formidable or dangerous to the nation than any other religious denomination, whose government is strongly centralized.

After dinner he took us to his own home, and either from a recently acquired habit, or from renewed curiosity, the Frau Directorin asked the little son of the house, "How much brothers and sisters you are?" and I am not sure she was convinced that his wife whom he introduced to us was the only wife he had.

He was good enough to insist upon taking us into the country in his machine to call on his father, his mother having died some years before; which, however, according to Mormon usage of bygone days did not leave the old man a widower.

His gnarled, wrinkled face shone when we greeted him in his native tongue, and it was as pleasant as it was instructive to hear him tell of the emigration of his people from Switzerland to Missouri, of the stormy days there, the struggles against infuriated mobs, the long, dangerous journey across the desert, and the pioneer days in Utah where he had acquired lands, sheep and oxen, wives and children, in true Old Testament fas.h.i.+on.

The Frau Directorin asked: "How much wives you are?"

When he told her that he had gone beyond the apostolic twelve, although he lived with only a few of the number, she exclaimed: "_Um Gottes Himmels Willen!_"

The Herr Director wanted to know how he managed so many of them when he had difficulty in managing one.

"_Ach!_ in those days," he said, "the wives were subject to their husband, knowing that without him they could not live comfortably here, nor safely hereafter. They were docile enough, and it did not cost so much to keep them as it does now."

With a shrewd smile playing around his almost toothless mouth he added: "You know if polygamy had not been prohibited it would have died out gradually, because these are different times. We couldn't afford it now."

The old man said he had known Joseph Smith and, of course, Brigham Young. He spoke of them with reverence and awe, as men of G.o.d who received revelations and could work wonders. There seemed to be little or nothing of the mystic in his makeup; his religion was of a hard, materialistic, matter-of-fact kind to which he clung most tenaciously.

There was an unmistakable coa.r.s.eness about him which revealed itself in his conversation. It may have been due to his peasant origin, but during all the years, a really ethical religion would have refined him. In a sense he still did not belong to the United States--he was a Mormon first and last, and the government in Was.h.i.+ngton was to him as Pharaoh's rule was to the Jews.

His religion evidently had taught him submission. He paid his t.i.thes ungrudgingly, and had gone on a mission uncomplainingly. He was a cog in a great wheel whose resistless force he did not question.

From his farm we were taken to others, and to neighboring towns. The whole system in all its minute details was explained to us, and the Herr Director was quite fascinated by its efficiency, although I am sure he would not care to be governed by it. Everywhere we found prosperous conditions and outward contentment, but underneath, especially among the young people, a brooding discontent and smouldering rebellion; yet at the same time much stolid ignorance and fanaticism.

Our final visit was to the University, built solidly against the rocks, its great U in purest white marked upon the mountainside, its very existence seeming a menace to the system which supports it.

There was a fine group of students, both Mormons and Gentiles. The library in which I spent some time astonished me. I wondered, as I looked at some of the books, if the church authorities knew what was between the covers. Dynamite under the Temple walls could not be as dangerous as those volumes.

Possibly the students are as ignorant of their contents as the leaders are. There are books on Philosophy and Psychology which do not seem to me so menacing as those on Economics and Sociology; for it is upon these subjects that the questioning will come first, and also the discontent.

After long and confidential conferences with some of the professors who told me their views, and how they are struggling to maintain their academic freedom, and after long talks with bright, energetic boys and girls who expressed themselves freely, I could a.s.sure the Herr Director that some problems, which have so long vexed the United States and have threatened certain ideals of the American Spirit, are in process of solution.

They are being solved by virtue of the broad tolerance of that spirit, than which nothing is so feared by the reactionary forces in the Mormon Church.

One thing which that inst.i.tution desires more than anything else is renewed persecution; not too much of it, but enough to rally the children of the martyrs to face new martyrdom and so perpetuate the waning power of the church.

One must remember that Mormonism is not only a sect, but a strongly knitted society, and that men who have long ago ceased to believe in its doctrines still hold to it with a loyalty born of past suffering, which will be fostered by any future injustice or persecution.

When we left Salt Lake City and were safe in the Pullman on our way to the Pacific Coast, the Frau Directorin put her stock question to the colored porter when he came to make up the berths.

"How much wives you are?"

When I interpreted the question for him he smiled his broadest smile, but looked puzzled. I told him that the lady thought him a Mormon.

"_No, ma'am._ I's a Baptist. But I sho'd like to be one. I likes de ladies poheful."

He was not a Mormon, certainly not a saint, but he rendered us loyal service on that long, dusty journey to the Coast. Perhaps because he "likes de ladies poheful," or it may have been because I gave him half of a generous tip in advance.

XII

_The California Confession of Faith_

Since landing in New York the Herr Director and the Frau Directorin had endured many a formal reception; she with angelic patience, and he with the usual masculine aversion to formal social amenities.

When I announced that a reception was to be tendered us in San Francisco, he cried with uplifted hands, "_Um Gottes Willen!_" He did not object to really meeting people; but to stand in line an hour or two shaking hundreds of outstretched hands, not knowing nor caring much to whom they belonged, seemed to him a profitless exercise; while our wafers and tea, or our punch--without those ingredients which give the "punch" to punch--were gastronomic delusions to one accustomed to the abundant meat and drink attendant upon social occasions in Germany.

This particular reception was to be given us by the Chinese, and a committee of stately, solemn looking gentlemen called for us in carriages; despite the Herr Director's reluctance, I am sure he was delighted to have this chance of giving his jaded social appet.i.te a new sensation.

Chinatown, with its gay coloring, its tempting shops, its stolid-looking men, its quaint women and cunning babies, was made doubly fascinating to us, entering it officially conducted and riding in state.

I do not know to this day to just what facts or virtues or position in life we owe the attentions we received; but it was all recorded upon posters and handbills liberally distributed through Chinatown, announcing our advent. Recorded upon them in those picturesque characters with which the Chinese language puzzles its readers, were the names and eulogies of certain members of our party. The character which stood for the Herr Director looked like a top, a tree and a barrel, while his nativity and manifold virtues were made known in other artistic symbols.

I suspect that the man to blame for it all was a certain young American whose mixed ancestry has created a rare and most effective personality.

He has inherited all the grace of his French ancestors, the tenacity (a virtue in which he excels) of his Dutch or double Dutch progenitors, and I am sure he can claim kins.h.i.+p with the first man who "kissed the Blarney stone." He could pull the latch-string to any foreign colony in that great conglomerate of peoples, and always be greeted as one of them. The Young Men's Christian a.s.sociation, in whose name he served, could not have had a more worthy exponent of its social creed, and America could not have projected against these foreigners a better representative than Charles W. Blanpied.

The reception was held in the Chinese Presbyterian Church, and upon our arrival we found it crowded by a solemn-looking company of Chinese. We were conducted to the platform and introduced to his Excellency the Consul-General, ministers of various denominations, and dignitaries of Chinatown.

This was the first reception we attended where introductions were not followed by vigorous hand-shaking. I am inclined to believe that the softness of the Oriental palm is due to the fact that it is not vigorously pressed every time two men meet each other.

The Herr Director was in ecstasy over the beautiful Chinese girls in the choir. Doubtless he would have preferred sitting among them, rather than where he was, between the Consul-General and the chairman of the evening.

The reception opened with prayer, as if it were a church service; then the choir sang an anthem, followed by four speeches of welcome. The first by his Excellency the Consul-General lasted an hour and seemed much longer, because it was in Chinese and unintelligible to us.

I was asked to respond, and, under the circ.u.mstances, my remarks were brief. The clever interpreter made a good deal of them, judging by the length of time it took him, and the tumultuous applause with which every sentence was greeted.

The Herr Director told me it was the poorest speech he ever heard; but I am inclined to believe that he was a little jealous because he was not asked to speak; or perhaps he was merely trying to keep me humble, a course which he had consistently pursued from the day I met him in New York.

The reception closed with the benediction, and the dignitaries and guests proceeded to a Chinese restaurant which was genuinely Oriental; not one of those nondescript Chop Suey places which serve such varied and often objectionable purposes. The entire establishment was reserved for us. It was gayly decorated with the banners of the Youngest Republic, an orchestra played vigorously and so unmelodiously that the Herr Director was reminded of the ultra modern German compositions.

The menu was the most mysterious thing of the evening, ranging from tea to broiled seaweed, and eggs which looked their age and were not ashamed of it. There was fowl which was made unrecognizable to both the eye and the palate, something which tasted like glue flavored with onion, and something else which to my perverted Occidental palate seemed like stewed Turkish towels. There were sweetmeats before and after and between courses. Beside the mystery, the variety and novelty of the banquet, it had one other virtue; it was not followed by after dinner speeches, that common American practice which is an a.s.sault upon one's digestion, and, not infrequently, upon good taste.

While there were no after dinner speeches, we had a chance to discuss the problem of the Chinese in California, and their brave attempts to become Americanized in thought and feeling, in spite of the unyielding race prejudice they have had to meet; thus renewing our faith in our common origin and destiny, regardless of our apparent differences. Never before had I realized how gentle these Chinese are nor how altogether likeable, and it was no surprise to find that some of the Californians have made the same discovery, and are treating them accordingly.

We visited the Immigrant Station at San Francisco and I wished we had not; for our treatment of the incoming Orientals lacks all those elements of which I had boasted. We are neither humane, nor fair, neither wise, nor decent. We found young Chinese women who had been detained for more than a year, and were left without occupation or suitable companions.h.i.+p or even a hope of early release. There were Chinese boys who were herded with hardened, vicious-looking men, and the station, although ideally situated, was little better than a prison.

What was done or was allowed to be done to make the lot of these people more bearable was accomplished by outsiders. Conditions may have changed since that time, and if they have, it is a cause for profound grat.i.tude.

We also had an unusual opportunity to come in touch with the j.a.panese all along the coast. In one city we met a young j.a.panese, a graduate of my own college. He is now serving his countrymen there as a Buddhist priest. He has brought to his sacred calling much of the practical religion which he absorbed through his contact with the college Y. M.

C. A., and it is his ambition to make Buddhism efficient and serviceable. He has put into the work all his patrimony and is eager to build up an inst.i.tution patterned after the Young Men's Christian a.s.sociation.

We had many a confidential talk, and if the soul of the Oriental is not altogether inscrutable I have had a glimpse of it; although I cannot say that I have fathomed his soul any more than he has mine. He seemed to me to typify his race in a remarkable degree. His is a strong, unyielding, definite kind of ethnos, and while we liked each other and tried to understand one another, there seemed to be a place just before we reached our Holy of Holies where we stood before a barred gate.

When he told me that the American soul is absolutely unemotional in comparison with the j.a.panese, I knew he did not understand us; even as I did not understand the j.a.panese when I told him that his people are cold and unemotional in comparison with us.