As A Chinaman Saw Us | Page 7

On the same grounds an undertaker would not be
admitted to the first society.
With us a gentleman is born; with Americans it is possible to create one,
though rarely. An American gentleman is described as a product of two
generations of college men who have always had association with
gentlemen and the advantages of family standing. Political elevation
can not affect a man's status as a gentleman. I heard a lady of
unquestioned position say that she admired President McKinley, but
regretted that he was not a gentleman. She meant that he was not an
aristocrat, and did not possess the savoir faire, or the family
associations, that completely round out the American or English
gentleman. I asked this lady to indicate the gentlemen Presidents of the
country. There were very few that I recall. There were Washington,
Harrison, Adams, and Arthur. Doubtless there were others, which have
escaped me. Lincoln, the strongest American type, she did not consider
in the gentlemen class, and General Grant, the nation's especial pride,
did not fulfil her ideas of what a gentleman should be.
You will perceive, then, that what some American people consider a
gentleman and what its most exclusive society accepts for one,
comprise two entirely different personages. I found this emphasized
especially in the old society of Washington, which takes its traditions
from Washington's time or even the pre-Revolutionary period. For such
society a self-made man was impossible. Such are the remarkable,
indeed astounding, ramifications of the social system of a people who
cry to heaven of their democracy. "Americans are all equal--this is one
of the gems in our diadem." This epigram I heard drop from the lips of

a senator who was the recognized aristocrat of the chamber; yet a man
of peculiar social reserve, who would have nothing to do with the other
"equals." In a word, all the talk of equality is an absurd figure of speech.
America is at heart as much an aristocracy as England, and the social
divisions are much the same under the surface.
You will understand that social rules and customs are all laid down and
exacted by women and from women. From them I obtained all my
information. No American gentleman would talk (to me at least) on the
subject. Ask one of them if there is an American aristocracy, and he
will pass over the question in an engaging manner, and tell you that his
government is based on the principle of perfect equality--one of the
most transparent farces to be found in this interesting country. I have
outlined to you what I conceived to be the best society in each city, and
in the various sections of the country. In morality and probity I believe
them to stand very high; lapses there may be, but the general tone is
good. The women are charming and refined; the men chivalrous, brave,
well-poised, and highly educated. Unfortunately, the Americans who
compose this "set" are numerically weak. They are not represented to
the extent of being a dominating body, and oddly enough, the common
people, the shopkeepers, the people in the retail trades, do not
understand them as leaders from the fact that they are so completely
aloof that they never meet them. A sort of inner "holy of holies" is the
real aristocracy of America. What goes for society among the people,
the mob, and the press is the set (and a set means a faction, a clique)
known as the Four Hundred, so named because it was supposed to
represent the "blue blood" of New York ten years ago in its perfection.
This Four Hundred has its prototype in all cities, and in some cities is
known as the "fast set." In New York it is made up often of the
descendants of old families, the heads of whom in many instances were
retail traders within one hundred and fifty years ago; but the modern
wealthy representatives endeavor to forget this or skip over it. It is,
however, constantly kept alive by what is termed the "yellow press,"
which delights in picturing the ancestor of one family as a pedler and
an itinerant trader, and the head of another family as a vegetable vender,
and so on, literally venting its spleen upon them.

In my studies in American sociology I asked many questions, and
obtained the most piquant replies from women. One lady, a leader in
New York in what I have termed the exclusive set, informed me with a
laugh that the ancestor of a well-known family of to-day, one which
cuts a commanding figure in society, was an ordinary laborer in the
employ of her grandfather. "Yet you receive them?" I suggested. The
reply was a shrug of charming shoulders, which, translated, meant that
great wealth had here