With Poor Immigrants in America. Stephen Graham
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breathed against the American ideal. But in Russia none is looked upon more kindly than the man on the road, the tramp or the pilgrim. There are a million or so of them on the road in the summer. They are characteristic of Russia. In them the Russian confesses that he is a stranger and a pilgrim upon the earth.
The Christianity of Russia is the Christianity of death, of renunciation, of what is called the podvig, the turning away from the empire of "the world" as proposed by Satan on the mountain, the wasting of the ointment rather than the raising of the poor, the giving the lie to Satan, the part of Mary rather than the part of Martha.
But the Christianity of America is the Christianity of Life, of affirmation, of "making good," of accepting "the world" and preparing for Christ's second coming, of obedience to the law, of almsgiving. America is the great almsgiver, appealed to for money from the ends of the earth, and for every object. If Russia can give faith, America can give the rest. It is impossible for America to say with St. Peter, "Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have give I thee." The Americans believe in money, and the pastor of a fashionable church is able to say, "I preach to fifty million dollars every Sunday morning." But as Mme. Novikof, in one of her brilliant conversations, once said, "What is greater than the power of money? Why, contempt of money." There are no people in the world who keep fewer account-books than the Russians. They fling about their wealth or the pennies of their poverty with the generous assurance that the bond of brotherhood is greater than their fear of personal deprivation.
The Americans are great collectors. It may be said collecting is the genius of the West; empty-handedness is the glory of the East.
The Russians are a sad and melancholy people. But they do not want to lose their melancholy or to exchange it for Western self-satisfaction. It is a divine melancholy. As their great contemporary poet Balmont writes:
I know what it is to moan endlessly—
In the long cold Winter to wait in vain for Spring,
But I know also that the nightingale's song is beautiful to us just because of its sadness,
And that the silence of the snowy mountain peaks is more beautiful than the lisping of streams—
which is somewhat of a contrast to a conversation reported in one of Professor Jacks' books:
Passenger, looking out of the train window at the snowy ranges of the Rockies: "What mountains!"
American, puzzled for a moment: "I guess I h'ant got any use for those, but ef you're thinking of buying real estate. … "
The phrase, real estate!
Britain is seated in the mean. Compared with America she is semi-Eastern. Despite the blood-relationship of the American and British peoples they are more than an ocean apart. We receive without much thanks American songs and dances, boxers, Carnegie libraries, and plenty of money for all sorts of purposes. But our backs are to America; we look towards Russia and are all agog about the next Russian book or ballet or music. We are an old nation; as far as the little island is concerned hope has died down. We have explored the island. America will take a long time to explore her territory. No vast tracts and inexhaustible resources and terrific upheavals of Nature reflect themselves in our national mood. The American working man has a true passion for work, for his country, for everything; the British working man does his duty. We have not the belief in life that the American has—we have not yet the Russian's belief in death.
The American breathes full into his lungs the air of life. The American is glad at the sight of the strong, the victorious, the healthful. How often, in novels and in life, does the American woman, returning from a sojourn in the far West, confess to her admiration of the cowboy! She is thrilled by the sight of such strong wild "husky" fellows, each of them equal to four New Yorkers. In England, however, the town girl has no smiles for the strong peasant; he is a country bumpkin, no more. She wants the ideal, the unearthly. In Russia weakness attracts far more than strength; love is towards consumptives, cripples, the half-deranged, the impossibles. The Americans do not want the weak one; England backs the "little un" to win; Russia loves the weak one, feeling he will be eternally beaten, and loves him because he will be beaten. But America loves the strong, the healthy, the pure, because she is tired of Europe and the weakness and disease and sorrow of Europeans.
WITH POOR IMMIGRANTS TO AMERICA
WITH POOR IMMIGRANTS TO AMERICA
I THE VOYAGE
At Easter 1912 I was with seven thousand Russian peasants at the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. On Easter Day 1913 I arrived with Russian emigrants at New York, and so accomplished in two consecutive years two very different kinds of pilgrimage, following up two very significant life-movements in the history of the world of to-day. One of these belongs to the old life of Europe, showing the Middle Ages as it still survives under the conservative regime of the Tsars; the other is fraught with all the possibilities of the future in the making of the New America.
It was in March that I decided to follow up the movements of the people out of the depths of Europe into America, and with that purpose sought out I—— K——, a well-known immigration agent in the East End of London. He transhipped Russians coming via Libau and London, and could tell me just when he expected the next large detachment of them.
"Have you a letter of introduction?" asked the agent.
"I shouldn't have thought any was necessary," I answered. "A Russian friend advised me to go to you. You don't stand to lose anything by telling me what I want to know."
He would do nothing for me without an introduction, without knowing exactly with whom he had to deal. I might be a political spy. The hand of the Tsar was long, and could ruin men's lives even in America. At least so he thought.
I mentioned the name of a revolutionary anarchist, a militant suffragette. He said a letter from her would suffice. I went to Hampstead and explained my predicament to the lady. She wrote me a note to a mysterious revolutionary who was living above Israel's shop, and this missive, when presented, was promptly taken as a full credential. The mysterious revolutionary was on the point of death, and could not see me, but Israel read the letter, and at once agreed that he was ready to be of any service to me he could. There was a large party of Russians coming soon, not Russian Jews, but real Russian peasants, and he would let me know as soon as he could just when they might be expected. I returned to my ordinary avocations, and every now and then rang up "I. K." on the telephone, and asked, "Had the Russians come?" "When were they coming?" At last the intelligence came, "They are just arriving. Hurry down to Hayes wharf at once."
The news took me in the midst of other things, but I dropped all and rushed to London Bridge. There, at Tooley Street, I witnessed one of the happenings you'd never think was going on in London.
A long procession of Russian peasants was just filing out from the miserable steamship Perm. They were in black, white, and brown sheepskins and in astrakhan hats, some in blue blouses and peak-hats, some in brightly embroidered linen shirts; none wore collars, but some had new shiny bowlers, on which the litter and dust of the port was continually falling—bowlers which they had evidently purchased from German hawkers who had come on board at some point in the journey. The women wore sheepskins also, many of them, and their heads were covered with shawls; they had their babies sewn up in little red quilts. Beside them there were pretty town girls and Jewesses dressed in cottons and serges and cheap hats. There were few old people and many young ones, and they carried under their arms clumsy, red-painted wooden boxes and baskets from which kettles and saucepans dangled. On their backs they had sacks, and in their hands several of them had crusts of bread picked up in their hurry as they were hustled from their berths and through the mess-room. Some of the sacks on their backs, as I afterward saw, contained nothing but crusts of white and black bread, on which, perhaps, they trusted to live during the first weeks in America!
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