"Stop!" Mr. Adams cried suddenly.
The machine stopped.
"Gentlemen," he said solemnly, "do you want to know what is America?"
"We do," we replied.
"In that case, look!"
And Mr. Adams pointed to a bill-board we had almost passed.
We saw a large picture, exceedingly touching in content. On it was portrayed a fine young mother of the type of Greta Garbo with a fine young girl (of the type of Shirley Temple) in her arms. Behind them stood a wonderful guardian angel with the face of a Hollywood motion-picture lieutenant and with outspread wings.
"The signature!" cried Mr. Adams. "The signature! Do you know what this guardian angel is telling the good mother? He advises her to place money in a bank to the credit of her child. The angel is so kind that he even explains to her in which particular bank she should place her money. Seriously, gentlemen, you don't want to understand what America is!"
As we were driving into Washington the speedometer of our car showed exactly ten thousand miles.
For the last time we shouted " Hurrah!"
45 American Democracy
ON A RAINY winter day a small freight boat came to the shores of England. A hatless man came down the wet gangplank to the pier. With one hand he held his wife and with the other he pressed his child to him. He was attacked from all sides by photographers, motion-picture operators, and journalists. The man walked right through, paying no heed to anyone. Only after he took his place in a taxi did he turn to look back at the crowd that followed him, and in his look was reflected hatred and fear.
That man had fled from America. He abandoned America at night, when the country was asleep, after eluding the vigilance of New York's fleetest reporters. In order to avoid persecution, he departed not on a comfortable passenger ship, but on an old shabby freighter, where there was not even a convenient cabin. And this man who had abandoned his native land was happy to be on a foreign shore.
That was Charles Lindbergh, one of the most famous men in the world, and his native land was the United States of America, the country of the greatest democracy, as Americans firmly believe.
All know, of course, the reasons that drove Lindbergh to the necessity of undertaking the most serious step in the life of any man—to abandon his native land. America was not able to protect the inviolability of personality of its national hero. It was unable to defend his domicile from the intrusion of bandits. It was unable to protect his family.
There is no doubt that Lindbergh loves America and that Americans adore Lindbergh. And if one will read carefully the text of the American Constitution, it is easy to discover there grandiose and equitable sections which would seem to guarantee the general welfare. Nevertheless, Lindbergh fled, while the Constitution in the capitalist country is merely a bronze tablet or a no less beautiful parchment preserved in the vault of a lawmaking institution.
From the story of the famous man let us pass to the story of an ordinary woman for whom as much as for Lindbergh were written the sonorous words of the Constitution of the United States.
That American woman had a seventeen-year-old daughter and a grown-up son. On one occasion the daughter did not return home. She did not come back all through the night, nor did she return the next day. The girl disappeared. The police looked for her and did not find her. The mother regarded her daughter as lost. A year passed. Then, in one way or another, a friend of her son's told him a horrible bit of news. He had seen the girl whom they all regarded as lost in a. secret brothel. (Officially, there is no prostitution in America. As a matter of fact, there are any number of secret brothels there.) At once the brother, pretending to be a client, went to this den of iniquity. There he actually saw his sister. He recognized her with difficulty, so frightfully had the young girl changed. What she told him was even more horrible. She had been kidnapped and sold.
"I'm lost," said the girl, "and don't try to save me. The people who abducted me are so powerful that nobody can fight them. They will not hesitate to kill you or Mother."
Nevertheless, the fight began. The mother went to the police. But nothing came of it. Behind the backs of the bandits stood some unknown but extraordinarily powerful people. The mother appealed to the courts. The lawyer of the bandits proved that the girl was an old prostitute, and the menace to society were not the bandits who had abducted her but she herself. The superior court of the state likewise decided the case in favour of the bandits. A trip to Washington did not help the mother. Washington simply has no power over the court of the state. That's all there was to it. The girl remained in the brothel.
This happened in a country which has freedom of the press. The girl's mother had complete freedom, not only to speak but even to shout. She shouted, but no one heard her.
This happened in a country where freedom of the press has been declared. Yet not a single newspaper wrote a thing about this case. Where were all the resourceful, tireless, fleet-footed reporters from whose penetrating gaze not a single robbery can escape, or a single wealthy wedding, or a single step of a motion-picture star of even the fourth magnitude ?
This happened in a country where inviolability of person exists. But a poor person sat in a brothel, and no power could free her from it. It seems to us that if Abraham Lincoln himself were able to rise from his grave, even he could not do anything about it. Not even the cannons of General Grant could help him!
For some reason, every time one begins to sift in his memory the elements of which American life is composed, one recalls bandits, and if not bandits, then racketeers, and if not racketeers, then bankers, which as a matter of fact is one and the same thing. One recalls all this human garbage which has polluted an excellent, freedom-loving, and industrious country.
What could be gladder tidings than free elections in a democratic country whose citizens according to the Constitution are guaranteed all the rights to "liberty and the pursuit of happiness"? In their Sunday best the electors go to the ballot boxes and gently drop into them ballots with the names of their favourite candidates.
As a matter of fact, what happens was what our Chicago doctor told us—racketeer politicians come and by means of blackmail or threats force a good man to vote for some crook.
And so, the right to liberty and to the pursuit of happiness is undoubtedly there, but the possibility of actually enjoying that right is exceedingly dubious. This right is in too dangerous proximity with the money vaults of Wall Street.
But, to make up for that, the outer forms of democracy are preserved by Americans with extraordinary metkulousness. And that, one must say in truth, is rather impressive.
Henry Ford, by virtue of his position in American society, is a figure almost unapproachable. Yet on one occasion he walked into one of the buildings of his plant where several engineers happened to be, shook hands with all of them, and began to talk about the business on which he came. Throughout the conversation old Henry looked very worried. A certain thought tormented him. He stopped several times in the middle of a word, evidently trying to recall something. Finally, he excused himself, interrupted the conversation, and walked up to a young engineer who was sitting in a far corner of the room.
"I am very sorry, Mr. Smith," said Mr. Ford, "but I think I forgot to say hello to you."
An extra handshake will not lie as a heavy burden on the balance sheet of the Ford automobile plants, while the impression produced was tremendous. Ford will never invite that young engineer to his home, but they are equals on the job, they make automobiles together. Ford knows many old workers in his plant and calls them by their first names —" Hello, Mike!" or " Hello, John!" And Mike and John address him: " Hello, Henry!" Here they seem to be equals; they make automobiles together. But old Henry alone will be selling them. And old Mike or old John, after they've worked themselves out, will be thrown out into the street, just as worn-out bearings are thrown out.