Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
WheneverIstayedinhotelsIadmiredtheircleanlinessandexcellentservice,alsotheclev-
erly disguised way in which the 'bell-hops' and porters let you know that if you want a drink,
youneed onlyaskthem forit. Morethan once bootleggers hadthe impudence tophoneme up
and to ask me point-blank if I wanted any 'corn' or genuine (?) Scotch delivered at my door,
'just something reliable to entertain callers,' as they put it.
The prohibition law has probably been more discussed than any other; its pros and cons
having been thrashed out in open debate and put on paper by the pens of many writers highly
qualified and otherwise, and I was heartily sick of the subject which was brought up countless
times during my stay in the country.
Although - or because - I am a bachelor, American women have been of unusual interest
tome,notsomuchonaccount oftheir,generally speaking, attractive looksandfinephysique,
but owing to the place they take in society, in business, and in other activities, and on account
of the extraordinary freedom they enjoy. In America, I venture to say, woman enjoys more
freedom than in any other country, and the written, as well as unwritten, laws give her more
protection than it does to man. In China, tradition is said to rule the home, in other countries I
have known it is man, but in the U.S. woman is supreme. American girls particularly fascin-
ated me by their free and easy, yet graceful and essentially feminine manners, Victorian bash-
fulness and false modesty being entirely strange to them. Immediately after speaking to a girl
for the first time, I had the feeling that I had known her for years, and spoke to her as if she
were an old college pal of mine. In Europe and in South America, co-education is practically
unknown after the age of twelve, but in the States boys and girls grow up together, and prob-
ably the free and easy ways that struck me about the girls are due to a better understanding
andabsenceofshynessbetweenthetwosexes.Inspiteofbeingopposedtotheco-educational
system, I must admit that this is one of its important and far-reaching advantages. In business
and industry, the American woman is rapidly catching up with man, and, in spite of that, I ob-
served that home life flourishes, and that the children enjoy all its benefits.
In America no classes of pedigree humanity exist, the American's society pass is his
pocket-book, which, when all is said and done, has the same power where man is man, for
what would be the use of a title anywhere without money?
Americans' independent and democratic spirit can best be detected when one observes
factory hands going to their work. In Europe the average workman and small employee looks
humble and often even depressed, whilst the American swaggers along at an easy, self-pos-
sessed gait, with his shirt-sleeves rolled up and his lunch-can slung over his shoulder; he feels
as 'good' as his employers - and he is. I had the pleasure of visiting many industrial plants,
and whenever the 'bosses' who showed me round stopped to talk to a workman, he answered
them as man to man, and not as serf to feudal lord. This is one of the external manifestations
of social equality.
FromthedayIcrossedtheborder,untilIrodeacrossthetollbridgeovertheRedRiverinto
the State of Oklahoma near Denison, the Texas Rangers were excellent friends to me.
