Care for the People Under Despotism

There is an impression that in a republic the people are better cared for than under despotism; that the new order of things is more favorable to popular enjoyment than the old; that, in a word, people care for themselves better than they are or can be cared for. That such ought to be the case need not be disputed; that it is actually the case is open to doubt. A casual visitor to the Old World sees many things, excellent, democratic, which he cannot find in the New, a difference that age will not account for, and which cannot be ascribed to any supposed advantage of climate, or explained by a designing purpose on the part of government to drag the populace by cheap satisfactions into insensibility to essential injustice. For example, in London, a royal city, where the traditions of nobility prevail, where rank is held supreme, and the commonalty, however independent, are still under the shadow of the crown, — to say nothing of museums, galleries, the Crystal Palace, and other places of popular resort, — there are no less than seven great parks Hyde Park, of three hundred and ninety-five acres; Regent’s Park, of four hundred and fifty acres; Green Park, of sixty acres; St. James’ Park, of ninety-one acres; Battersea Park; Victoria Park; and Kensington Gardens, — all open to the multitude on the easiest conditions, and so distributed over the huge city that the population can find ready access to them. The environs are brought so near by means of steamboat and railroad that Richmond, Hampton Court, and Kew are within reach of all. In Paris, beside the Bois de Boulogne, the Gardens of the Tuileries, the Champs Elysées, the Parc Monceaux, the Buttes de Chaumont, Vincennes, there are the wide Boulevards, the Jardin des Plantes, the Jardin d’Acclimatation, and numberless pleasant places of recreation, which are full of people on holidays. Vienna, a city not much larger than Boston, has its Prater, its Volksgarten, its Burg-Platz, and several open spaces along the river, where nurses and children enjoy themselves, and the laboring classes congregate in leisure hours. Madrid has its Prado, its Plaza Mayor, its Puerta del Sol; Florence, its Cascine, the Boboli Gardens, delightful environs terraced and planted, squares, porticoes, shaded seats, all within easy walking distance of the homes of its hundred or more thousand of inhabitants. The little town of Salzburg, in the Austrian Tyrol, taxes itself to maintain drives, walks, seats, open points of view, terraces on the Mönchsberg, the Capuzinerberg, the Francisci Schlössel, making the heights around the city most attractive to strangers, as well as most charming to its population. Ischl, a town famous for the romantic beauty of its situation, the resort of princes, the favorite watering-place of the Austrian aristocracy, honored by an imperial villa, is yet so beautified and glorified that the poor villager may derive benefit from the ornamentation. Even a place so little known as Gratz, at the foot of the Sömmering Pass, is surrounded by gardens and pleasure-grounds. There is one large, open, pleasant space on a level with the streets, where old gentlemen sit and read, students lounge, and children play, and another enchanting promenade above the little city, the circuit whereof commands delicious views of mountain, valley, and river. At the best points, diagrams painted on stone indicate the distance and the direction of celebrated spots discernible by aid of a glass, or too remote to be visible at all, while frequent benches invite those who are satisfied only to sit and gaze. In fact, there is not a village, whether situated among the hills or in the plain, that is not provided with facilities for popular recreation.

How shall this be explained? Partly, no doubt, by climate, which, if hardly more merciful, is yet more even than with us; the winters being shorter and less severe, the springs less capricious, the summers less torrid, — heat and cold being more fairly distributed through the year. To this is due in great measure the custom of sitting in the air, listening to out-door music, cultivating outdoor exercise and amusement, publicly meeting and chatting, walking abroad, sauntering, loitering in sun or shade, mingling leisure with occupation, and spreading both equably over the twelve-month, instead of sharply separating the seasons as we do, thus making quite useless habits which may be good all the year round. To the same cause may be ascribed the love of nature, which is most remarkable in genial climates; the taste for simple pleasures, such as can be enjoyed in the open air; the custom of wearing clothing suitable to different seasons, depending for heat more on the temperature of the body and less on artificial appliances, like stoves and furnaces. Of course, such amenities as these are enjoyed by the inhabitants of southern rather than of the more northerly European climes, but they are more or less common to them all. No institutions can claim merit for these advantages of nature. They would be the same and would produce the same results under democratic as under despotic government, in the New World as in the Old. We must look elsewhere if we would find a criterion for judging between the two dispensations.

Another cause of the greater number of parks, gardens, promenades, in the Old World than in the New is one from which the New World is happily free, and the Old World is in some measure delivered, — the prevalence of the war spirit. The Parisian Boulevards, the “Rings” of Vienna (wide avenues planted with trees), the walks and drives on the heights above Salzburg, the superb terraces overhanging Gratz, the delightful esplanades and grounds at Nice, the long reaches of glorious view at. Angoulême, are due to the conversion of ramparts, bastions, lines of fortification, walled and castellated elevations, into pleasure-grounds; as if cannon had been melted down to make ornamental bronzes. Modern warfare has no need of antiquated castles, and modern engineering makes light of walls, moats, and draw-bridges. The only way to make the old battlements useful, therefore, was to change them into popular resorts; arid as they always occupied noble positions, they became exceedingly attractive. The Old World is covered with these enchanting spots. The smallest town, so it were romantically situated, was sure to be first occupied, afterward adorned. Often the military power came earliest, the town growing about the castle, so that its beauty was predestined by the bitterness that went before.

To a third cause, from which the New World is fortunately free, the Old World owes much of its apparent humanity, — the possession of large tracts of desirable land by princes and nobles, who, having inherited them, and being unable to enjoy them, throw them open to the people, who thus come late into the enjoyment of property of which their ancestors had been defrauded. Victoria Park in London, which Lady Burdett-Coutts adorned with a fountain, was formed with money that the Duke of Sutherland paid for the crown lease of a house in St. James’ Park. At Vienna the park of Schönbrunn belongs to an imperial villa. The gardens of Prince Schwartzenberg are connected with a palace. At Rome the Borghese, Pallavicini, Corsini, Albani, and countless other villas had extensive grounds connected with them. The visitor is grateful to the generosity that throws them open, but does not think of the means by which they were originally acquired, or the uses to which they were for ages put. Republicanism often steps into privileges which were appropriated by despotism. How few of the admiring thousands who lounge through the splendid rooms of the Louvre recall the history of the building, or of the treasures of art which it contains? The livened attendants, the patient, obliging service, the easy access to precious relics, the relics themselves, no democracy would secure. They were arranged under a very different form of administration. The people enjoy what was erected and gathered when the people were despised; in fact, before the existence of “the people” was regarded, or so much as suspected, by the lords of misrule. Republicanism in Europe has this advantage over republicanism in America, that it is the residuary legatee of feudalism. The opening of galleries on Sunday, a usage to which one is accustomed everywhere on the Continent, is easily sustained by the successors of people who set little value on the day. Even Calvin, a Protestant and a grim one, is said to have played at bowls on the Sabbath. He was a European; so was Luther. Both had behind them the habits of centuries, and did unsuspectingly what an American would feel guilty in doing. The most generous art collector in New York was a German by extraction, and carries in his constitution the indifference to modern prejudices which was native to his forefathers. If traced back to its beginning, this indifference may be subject to criticism, sometimes to rebuke. But in the long run evil becomes tributary to good, and may even be taken for it when age has mellowed its harshness, worn off its roughness, and smoothed away its violence. At all events, it makes a solid pedestal for good to stand upon. Man assists nature in the task of covering ruins with roses. The ruins perform good service when they show off the flowers which need the decay to support them.

So far, the New World need envy the Old World nothing. At least, there is nothing in its institutions to account for advantages which were not enjoyed or comprehended when the characteristic social forms of the old system were in full force, but which first become apparent when the institutions no longer exist, — advantages that are consequently incidental, and may be otherwise compensated for. The beauty which grows from slime may be disregarded by those who can raise loveliness out of a fresh soil; at any rate, can choose the slime from which their beauty shall grow. But is there nothing for the New World to covet as a basis for its democratic humanity? Yes; there are two or three things. which apparently result from European institutions, which may better be furnished by intellectual cultivation and moral refinement, but which in some way must be supplied, in order that the results of a generous humanity may be produced. The first of these is an instinct of order.

An instinct of order: I call it an instinct, for such, in the multitude of people, it practically is. Habits of restraint imposed by society, of acquiescence in the general structure of the world, of obedience to superior powers, have created a mental constitution favorable to respectfulness and quiet. The people are not forth-putting, noisy, turbulent, or destructive. They regard themselves as recipients of favor from spheres outside of them and above them. They think less of rights than of duties. They are scrupulous and considerate, observant of proprieties, circumspect, careful not to trespass beyond bounds, or commit nuisances, or encourage dissipation. They do not defile paths, hack trees, trample on flower beds, pull to pieces shrubbery, ramp and tear through arbors. They require less watching, less supervision, than an equal number of English or Americans, because the watchmen and policemen are inside their breasts. This not only makes easy the task of providing recreation for them, but encourages the authorities to do the utmost possible for their pleasure. The expense of keeping grounds in good condition for them is inconsiderable, and the care bestowed on the preservation and decoration of gardens is much diminished. The municipality of even small towns like Blois in France is not severely taxed by the duty of furnishing seats by the Loire, or trimming the grass by the steps which lead to the cathedral. The people are preservers.

An advantage like this we can ascribe to nothing but the effect of institutions whose pressure is felt gently but powerfully in remote districts. It by no means follows that a firm arrangement must be an oppressive one; that people who are kept in place are held there by demonstration of force. There is a social as there is a natural atmosphere, which acts powerfully but invisibly, compelling objects to maintain their position, yet exerting no violence. Some years ago, at Malvern, I attended a horticultural fair in the public garden. There were prizes to be given for the finest specimens of vegetables and plants. The farmers from the neighboring country were present; the squires and a few of the higher order of gentry were there also, interested in the occasion and in the productions of the garden. There was no visible distinction of ranks; no formal deference on one side, no assumption of superior dignity on the other. All classes mingled, standing or walking, listening to the music of the band, examining the objects on exhibition, or attending to the award of the judges. There was every semblance of mutual courtesy. Yet a feeling of difference kept the ranks apart, and created a natural but not disagreeable distance. There was order and quietness; no crowding or pushing, no unseemly rudeness, no disregard of neighborly convenience. And this was in England, the land where social distinctions are said to be more roughly emphasized than anywhere in Europe. Probably an equal independence of conventional forms would not have been possible near London: still it did exist under aristocratic arrangements; a few miles of space were sufficient to produce it; at a short distance from the centre of authority acerbity disappeared; a soft mellowness of acquiescence took the place of resentment and scorn; it was tacitly acknowledged that existing social arrangements were due to some general appointment to which all must submit, each falling into his sphere and doing his allotted work. The lines of demarkation were, no doubt, somewhat capriciously drawn, but on the whole they represented pretty fairly the finer lines which were indicated by nature, and which will be copied more nicely as the generations move on. The total erasure of the lines is not aimed at or thought of in the Old World, and one result of their existence and their observance is this beneficent limitation which insures docility and gentleness. One may be a good American, a believer in American institutions, an advocate of the American idea in its full significance, and yet envious of this fixed though formal distinction, which renders possible concessions to freedom that cannot be safely made where freedom is all in all.

The great ones, on their part, confess to a feeling of responsibility, which, under other circumstances, they might not be sensible of. Aware that their privileges are inherited, they are the more inclined to make a humane use of them. They are safe against intrusion and overflow. Their position is assured. They can afford to be generous. Their motives are beyond suspicion, and their deed cannot be taken advantage of for any malicious purpose. They do not enter the lists as rivals of the people or contestants for social or political honor. Their daily lives do not run in the same grooves. They are not poor men seeking for employment, or politicians scheming for popularity, or obscure citizens pushing towards distinction, or adventurers looking for opportunity to engross attention, or millionaires eager to display their wealth. They need not think flatteringly of themselves, or struggle to mount upon the shoulders of their inferiors. Their thoughts of others may be disinterested. The Prince of Schwartzenberg throws open to the public his fine gardens, quite indifferent to the effect on public opinion of his generosity. The Emperor of Austria visits the ruins of the Ring theatre, and takes an interest in the victims of the disaster, without once considering the influence of his action on the good-will of his people. No tyrannous, inhuman aristocracy exists in Europe. The nobility of England live to serve the general good. The advance of general education and enlightenment goes on steadily, making head and gaining vigor through the necessity of facing the elements and meeting the demands of an established standard. In the mean time, between the separate stages of progress, an enforced patience keeps each class in place, maintains contentment with actual circumstances, and prevents the destructive restlessness which leads to insubordination and violence. Of course individual moral restraint would be better than this imposed limitation, but so long as the moral restraint does not exist, and is quite as likely to be fostered inside of the barrier as outside of it, the limitation may, as a preliminary arrangement, be an advantage. At all events, whatever may he thought of the more serious questions of social progress, the lighter forms of popular recreation thrive under the care of institutions which excite the rage of the reformer, and even try the patience of the philanthropist. We are not discussing social problems, but æsthetic ones, rather. We are concerned about flowers and gardens and public parks; and here an aristocratic form of society seems to possess an advantage over the republican or democratic, in that it favors orderliness, care, gentleness, gratefulness, on the one side, generosity on the other, a disposition to use without abusing, and to provide without fear of waste. In other respects the republican system is undoubtedly preferable, and how far the sense of personal dignity, private influence, individual independence, may make amends for the loss of public neatness and decoration may be a question; but this much is certain, that parks are not improved by being turned into commons, with foot-tracks running in all directions, a baseball ground established in this corner, a cricket ground in that. The public health may be promoted, but artistic beauty is not. The old order lends itself to the ornamental arts in a manner which the new order has not yet attained, and so far illustrates the idea that the people will not do for themselves what their enemies have been known to do for them. To complain that they will not would be idle. The new order cannot be arrested in its advance; the old order cannot be restored. We must wait till the want is born, and along with the want the disposition to satisfy it. An Englishman at Hombourg, who with his family had been enjoying the noble park and the pleasure it gave to the multitude, wondered why nothing like it could be provided in London. Yet a few weeks later, in London, I observed that the authorities were taking pains to reclaim and adorn Regent’s Park, which was once a vast common, and the people were slowly foregoing their ancient privilege of wandering wherever they chose, and were keeping within the appointed barriers. Republicanism was by degrees bringing beauty in its train, and despotism was becoming human.

How far religion conspires with other forms of social stability to favor popular recreations is too ponderous a subject to be handled here. It may operate as cause, or as effect; in either case, climate and the genius of the people must be taken into account as factors. The established religion of Southern Europe is Catholicism, and it is easily comprehended why this form of Christianity tolerates, if it does not favor, popular diversion. It is, for the mass of people, an external system, an institution the ends whereof are served by a brief attendance at ceremonies. The priests, it may be presumed, would be glad if people would restrain themselves more than they do, would read their Bibles, would observe the Sabbath. A belief in human depravity is fundamental in the theology of the Romish church, which can approve of none of the manifestations of human nature, and logically must applaud asceticism. Still, as nothing can be done to correct the evil, as the large majority of the pleasure-seekers have attended mass, as the pleasures are in the main innocent, as air and sunshine are preferable to close rooms, tobacco fumes, and wine, the church authorities let the matter pass, and even countenance the diversion. For the rest, no small part of the self-restraint that exists may be due to the presence of the priests, representing as they do a church whose dogmas are never doubted, whose rites stand by the ordination of God.

The Protestant faith, on the other hand, is internal, resting on a vital experience of religion in the individual soul; seeking to produce that, and jealous of everything that interferes with it; suspicious, therefore, to say the least, of all kinds of recreation, not merely as leading to vice, but as counteracting, perhaps fatally, the movements of the Spirit. For this reason, among others, in Protestant countries, — such as England and the United States, — every species of diversion is discouraged; all spectacles, shows, dancing, social amusement. The Sabbath-day is held in peculiar veneration as being set apart for religious observance: all books are put aside that the Bible alone may be studied; the multiplication of Sunday trains, affording facilities for getting into the fields, is protested against, and the thronging to places of general resort is disapproved of. All this, it is obvious, tends to the diminution of pleasure-grounds. Parks and gardens will not be laid out or improved when the disposition to frequent them in leisure hours is frowned on by the guides of religious opinion. The discouragements of climate in most Protestant lands are so great as to call for unusual care to foster a taste for such diversion as may be accessible. The care being refused, the taste will inevitably die out. The softening of religious prejudices, for better or worse, is visibly accompanied already by a disposition to increase the number and attractiveness of public resorts; but such a disposition cannot be expected to prevail extensively until a love for nature and natural elements shall expel the ingrained contempt which still holds its ground among Protestant Christians.

In Catholic climes the priesthood are easily persuaded to indulge a taste for trees and flowers and woodland scenery; for the spring is fair, the summer is long, the autumn is enchanting, and the winter is short. But in Protestant countries winter is an ally of narrowness, uncertain skies favor home pursuits, and the brief summer suggests the fleetingness of sunshine. The seasons preach the perishableness of joy, the evanescence of delight, the deceitfulness of pleasure.

The rage for self-satisfaction, self-aggrandizement, self-indulgence, the passion for individual fullness, which is characteristic of democratic institutions is not propitious to the growth of that kind of public spirit which consults the comfort of the people at large. The radical principle of a democracy is faith in the capacity and jealousy for the independence of the separate man, without regard to acquirement or condition. The natural consequence is a development of selfish ambition, which sometimes takes the shape of aspiration, and sometimes of ostentation; oftener, of course, the latter, because the lower propensities are thus far in excess of the higher. In either case, the individual is absorbed in the pursuit of what he considers his private good. To get riches, honors, distinctions, privileges, for himself is the engrossing aim. To build a more superb house than his neighbors, to accumulate land, to multiply capital, to have at call a retinue of servants, to rise by standing on others’ shoulders, and thus exemplify the worst evils of despotism, is the perpetual temptation. The illustrations of public spirit are not frequent in such communities, occurring as they do and must in the case of exceptionally noble and generous minds, who hold their gifts and opportunities as trusts for the benefit of mankind. Even in these few instances, the demand for popular institutions of a substantial, rudimental kind exhausts their power, and would if it were four times as great as it is, leaving them no margin for decorative gifts. The people themselves are too poor to afford embellishments for their meagre existence. The result is semi-barbarous cities and towns destitute of elegance; splendor here and there, squalor prevailing; a few palaces, a multitude of tenement houses; fine gardens fenced off from public view; great estates which the passer-by can only gaze at from afar. The remedy for this (there is a remedy) will he found in settled wealth and an established order of society, that shall reproduce the beneficial effects of the old order, which is European, and is passing away. The settled wealth will give rise to restfulness, leisure, cultivation, humanity. The established order will produce quiet, contentment, docility, a disposition to accept and enjoy.

The amenities of life come last. In the Old World the boulevards were originally ramparts, the gardens were camps, the parks were princely domains or haunts of vice. Violence and profligacy preceded grace and innocence. In the New World selfishness and greed will gradually prepare the way for gentleness and generosity. The type of self-love becomes less inhuman as the generations pass, and in the future we shall have parks, gardens, ornamental walks, and grounds, not on the traces of hate and sorrow, but on spots where land has been reclaimed, and beauty has been earned by industry.

It must not be supposed that the writer has forgotten the stately parks which honor and beautify several of our republican cities, — New York, Philadelphia, Brooklyn, Baltimore, and others of less renown. Too much has not been said, too much cannot be said, in praise of their beauty of situation, the skill of their arrangement, the splendor of their architectural effects, the thoroughness of their practical workmanship, the loveliness of their landscape views. That the Old World presents nothing similar to them may be cheerfully granted. They attest the increasing magnificence of our wealthy towns, and the love of sumptuousness, the ambition to excel in works of display, which is characteristic of young and rapidly augmenting opulence. But these fine pleasure-grounds cannot fairly be called products of the democratic principle. They illustrate the exuberance rather than the sober, established power of the community which makes them; the gushing overflow of a new system rather than the mature strength of an old one. They were not fashioned in the interest of the people, nor for the people’s enjoyment, so much as in the interest of the city and for the recreation of a special class. The public visit them in crowds on Sundays and holidays, but the rest of the time they are used by the leisurely class who keep horses, or can afford to saunter in the glades. Fashion finds them a valuable addition to its stock of pastimes. They are too remote from the homes of the common people to he easily reached on foot. To visit them costs time and trouble, and for more than one—even for one, often—an inconvenient expenditure of money. The poor cannot incur the cost of expeditions; their best clothes are hardly befitting the company they are likely to meet, and the fatigue more than balances the recreation.

Besides this, they are enormously expensive. Taxation must he increased to maintain them, and the money for the taxes is mainly contributed by the poor, who thus pay for what they can seldom enjoy. Over against the superb pleasure-grounds, with lordly avenues, — well drained, hard, and smooth, — charming retreats, bowers, walks, terraces, verandas, must be set the noisome tenement houses, ill drained, ventilated, heated, the foul cellars, the cheerless garrets, where the people herd, ungladdened by sunlight, unblessed by the sweet air. The melancholy truth seems to be that the aristocracy of wealth, like every other semi-barbarous aristocracy, begins its course in disregard of the people, in indifference to popular wants, if not in contempt of them, in selfish regard for its own indulgence, in pursuit of its own pleasure. It does substitute charity for violence; and that is much, as exhibiting an immense stride forward in social ethics. But until the charity shall in turn be superseded by humanity, a noble public spirit, a generous disposition on the part of the very rich to diminish the burdens and increase the joys of those who are not rich, and can never become so, the true democracy will not be inaugurated; the new system will not prove its essential superiority to the old.

Walking through Vienna, with an old resident as guide, I asked him to take me through the lowest quarter, — the “Five Points” of the town, the haunts of the disorderly and criminal. “We have none,” he replied; “our people are quiet, contented, peaceable. The very poor are provided for; the vicious are restrained by the authority of government; the criminal are watched and disposed of; misery and lawlessness are not allowed to fester in streets and breed disaffection.” When, I reflected, can as much be said of any city of equal size in the New World? Meanwhile, as we strolled through the open spaces, the working men and women were resting, a few minutes at a time, on the benches, unaware of the despotic authority to which they were subject. The whole may have been an illusion, but it was a charming one. The apparent humanity of the old system may be only a dim foreshadowing of the genuine humanity of the new, but the future must needs be fair which brings to fruition such wealth of promise; at present we see but rude beginnings of it. The Central Park in New York is fast becoming a fashionable quarter, and in a few years will be surrounded by stately houses, which will virtually exclude the multitude; then where shall the people go? We will hope that the republic will devise a way of doing a great deal better what despotism of recent years has beers doing so well. The rule of laissez faire, each one for himself, and therefore a good providence for all, has not hitherto been productive of either duty or beauty; and it is not probable that it will work differently in the New World from what it has in the Old. Humanity must come in somewhere. In the Old World it is the transformation of an ancient system. In the New World it should be the result of an original social idea, — that the best things are primarily for the people, whether the people are in condition to supply them for themselves or not.