Domestic strife is as bitter here as in Germany or Britain or France.
I watch from my housetop men marching in processions of protest; I
read of strikes; I hear of an infinity of rude wranglings, of senators
battling on the floor of the forum, of disputes in the sacred halls of
Tammany. Not yet has the Irish lamb lain down with the Virginian lion.
It were strange were it otherwise in a land where the city man has
destroyed the home. The American has shown no great genius for the
domestic virtues. He has hauled down the homes of his ancestors, has
builded in their stead vast apartment-houses and tenement
buildings--steam-heated Towers of Babel. Into each of these he has
packed the population of a European market-town, has left the children
to grow up on the roofs and staircases, the babies to find a blessed
release through rickety fire-escapes. When a fit of reform has touched
him, he has stirred up the garbage of the Tenderloin and the Red Light
District, has spread it broadcast over his cities to poison his wife
and his daughter.
No, the American has still much to learn of domestic politics. Let him
sit with me here any night on my housetop and he will see the sad
effects of sectarian reform and newspaper hysteria. He will see the
creatures of the Tenderloin at home on Broadway and Fifth Avenue
where, twelve months ago, their presence was unknown.
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