After that we paused. I thought I ought to say something more to the box, but I didn't know just what.
"Is that all you want to know?" it asked.
"Yes," I replied hurriedly. "I'm much obliged. That's all I want to know."
Of course it really wasn't all--not by any means! But I couldn't bring myself to say so then, so I said the easy, obvious thing, and after that it was too late. Oh, how many things there are I want to know! How many things I think of now which I would ask an oracle when there is none to ask! Things about the here and the hereafter; about the human spirit; about practical religion, the brotherhood of man, the inequalities of men, evolution, reform, the enduring mysteries of space, time, eternity, and woman!
A friend of mine--a spiritualist--once told me of a seance in which he thought himself in brief communication with his mother. There were a million things to say. But when the medium requested him to give a message he could only falter: "Are you all right over there?" The answer came: "Yes, all right." Then my friend said: "I'm so glad!" And that was all.
"It is the feeling of awful pressure," he explained to me, "which drives the thoughts out of your head. That is why so many messages from the spirit world sound silly and inconsequential. You have the one great chance to communicate with them, and, because it _is_ your one great chance, you cannot think of anything to say." Somehow I imagine that the feeling must be like the one I had in talking to the dictagraph.
Among the characteristics which give Detroit her individuality is the survival of her oldtime aristocracy; she is one of the few middle-western cities possessing such a social order. As with that of St. Louis, this aristocracy is of French descent, the Sibleys, Campaus, and other old Detroit families tracing their genealogies to forefathers who came out to the New World under the flag of Louis XIV. The early habitants acquired farms, most of them with small frontages on the river and running back for several miles into the woods--an arrangement which permitted farmhouses to be built close together for protection against Indians. These farms, handed down for generations, form the basis of a number of Detroit's older family fortunes.
[Illustration: The automobile has not only changed Detroit from a quiet old town into a rich, active city, but upon the drowsy romance of the old days it has superimposed the romance of modern business]
To-day commerce takes up the downtown portion of the river front, but not far from the center of the city the shore line is still occupied by residences. Along Jefferson Avenue are many homes, surrounded by delightful lawns extending forward to the street and back to the river.
Most of these homes have in their back yards boathouses and docks--some of the latter large enough to berth seagoing steam yachts, of which Detroit boasts a considerable number. Nor is the water front reserved entirely for private use. In Belle Isle, situated in the Detroit River, and accessible by either boat or bridge, the city possesses one of the most unusual and charming public parks to be seen in the entire world.
And there are many other pleasant places near Detroit which may be reached by boat--among them the St. Clair Flats, famous for duck shooting. All these features combine to make the river life active and picturesque. In midstream passes a continual parade of freighters, a little mail boat dodging out to meet each one as it goes by. Huge side-wheel excursion steamers come and go, and in their swell you may see, teetering, all kinds of craft, from proud white yachts with shining brasswork and bowsprits having the expression of haughty turned-up noses, down through the category of schooners, barges, tugs, motor yachts, motor boats, sloops, small sailboats, rowboats, and canoes. You may even catch sight of a hydroplane swiftly skimming the surface of the river like some amphibious, prehistoric animal, or of that natty little gunboat, captured from the Spaniards at the battle of Manila Bay, which now serves as a training ship for the Michigan Naval Reserve.
A good many of the young aristocrats of Detroit have belonged to the Naval Reserve, among them Mr. Truman H. Newberry, former Secretary of the Navy, about whom I heard an amusing story.
According to this tale, as it was told me in Detroit, Mr. Newberry was some years ago a common seaman in the Reserve. It seems that on the occasion of the annual cruise of this body on the Great Lakes, a regular naval officer is sent out to take command of the training ship. One day, when common seaman Newberry was engaged in the maritime occupation of swabbing down the decks abaft the bridge, a large yacht passed majestically by.
"My man," said the regular naval officer on the bridge to common seaman Newberry below, "do you know what yacht that is?"
Newberry saluted. "The _Truant_, sir," he said respectfully, and resumed his work.
"Who owns her?" asked the officer.
Again Newberry straightened and saluted.
"I do, sir," he said.
CHAPTER VI
AUTOMOBILES AND ART
Within the last few years there has come to Detroit a new life. The vast growth of the city, owing to the development of the automobile industry, has brought in many new, active, able business men and their families, whom the old Detroiters have dubbed the "Gasoline Aristocracy." Thus there are in Detroit two fairly distinct social groups--the Grosse Pointe group, of which the old families form the nucleus, and the North Woodward group, largely made up of newcomers.
The automobile has not only changed Detroit from a quiet old town into a rich, active city, but upon the drowsy romance of the old days it has superimposed a new kind of romance--the romance of modern business.
Fiction in its wildest flights hardly rivals the true stories of certain motor moguls of Detroit. Every one can tell you these stories. If you are a novelist all you have to do is go and get them. But, aside from stories which are true, there have developed, in connection with the automobile business, certain fictions more or less picturesque in character. One of these, which has been widely circulated, is that "90 per cent. of the automobile business of Detroit is done in the bar of the Pontchartrain Hotel." The big men of the business resent that yarn.
And, of course, it is preposterously false. Neither 90 per cent. nor 10 per cent. nor any appreciable per cent. of the automobile business is done there. Indeed, you hardly ever see a really important representative of the business in that place. Such men are not given to hanging around bars.
I do not wish the reader to infer that I hung around the bar myself in order to ascertain this fact. Not at all. I had heard the story and was apprised of its untruth by the president of one of the large motor car companies who was generously showing me about. As we bowled along one of the wide streets which passes through that open place at the center of the city called the Campus Martius, I was struck, as any visitor must be, by the spectacle of hundreds upon hundreds of automobiles parked, nose to the curb, tail to the street, in solid rows.
"You could tell that this was an automobile city," I remarked.
"Do you know why you see so many of them?" he asked with a smile.
I said I supposed it was because there were so many automobiles owned in Detroit.
"No," he explained. "In other cities with as many and more cars you will not see this kind of thing. They don't permit it. But our wide streets lend themselves to it, and our Chief of Police, who believes in the automobile business as much as any of the rest of us, also lends himself to it. He lets us leave our cars about the streets because he thinks it a good advertisement for the town."
As he spoke he was forced to draw up at a crossing to let a funeral pass. It was an automobile funeral. The hearse, black and terrible as only a hearse can be, was going at a modest pace for a motor, but an exceedingly rapid pace for a hearse. If I am any judge of speed, the departed was being wafted to his final resting place at the somewhat sprightly clip of twelve or fifteen miles an hour.
Behind the hearse trailed limousines and touring cars. Two humble taxicabs brought up the rear. There was a grim ridiculousness about the procession's progress--pleasure cars throttled down, trying to look solemn--chauffeurs continually throwing out their clutches in a commendable effort to keep a respectful rate of speed.
Is there any other thing in the world which epitomizes our times as does an automobile funeral? Yesterday such a thing would have been deemed indecorous; to-day it is not only decorous, but rather chic, provided that the pace be slow; to-morrow--what will it be then? Will hearses go shooting through the streets at forty miles an hour? Will mourners scorch behind, their horns shrieking signals to the driver of the hearse to get out of the road and let the swiftest pass ahead, where there isn't all that dust? I am afraid a time is close at hand when, if hearses are to maintain that position in the funeral cortege to which convention has in the past assigned them, they will have to hold it by sheer force of superior horsepower!
Detroit is a young man's town. I do not think the stand-pat, sit-tight, go-easy kind of business man exists there. The wheel of commerce has wire spokes and rubber tires, and there is no drag upon the brake band.
Youth is at the steering wheel--both figuratively and literally. The heads of great Detroit industries drive their own cars; and if the fact seems unimportant, consider: do the leading men of your city drive theirs? Or are they driven by chauffeurs? Have they, in other words, reached a time of life and a frame of mind which prohibit their taking the wheel because it is not safe for them to do so, or worse yet, because it is not dignified? Have they that energy which replaces worn-out tires--and methods--and ideas?
I have said that the president of a large automobile company showed me about Detroit. I don't know what his age is, but he is under thirty-five. I don't know what his fortune is, but he is suspected of a million, and whatever he may have, he has made himself. I hope he is a millionaire, for there is in the entire world only one other man who, I feel absolutely certain, deserves a million dollars more than he does--and a native modesty prevents my mentioning this other's name.
Looking at my friend, the president, I am always struck with fresh amazement. I want to say to him: "You can't be the president of that great big company! I know you sit in the president's office, but--look at your hair; it isn't even turning gray! I refuse to believe that you are president until you show me your ticket, or your diploma, or whatever it is that a president has!"
Becoming curious about his exact age, I took up my "Who's Who in America" one evening ("Who's Who" is another valued volume on my one-foot shelf) with a view to finding out. But all I did find out was that his name is not contained therein. That struck me as surprising. I looked up the heads of half a dozen other enormous automobile companies--men of importance, interest, reputation. Of these I discovered the name of but one, and that one was not (as I should have rather expected it to be) Henry Ford. (There is a Henry Ford in my "Who's Who," but he is a professor at Princeton and writes for the _Atlantic Monthly_!)[1]
Now whether this is so because of the newness of the automobile business, or because "Who's Who" turns up its nose at "trade," in contradistinction to the professions and the arts, I cannot say.
Obviously, the compilation of such a work involves tremendous difficulties, and I have always respected the volume for the ability with which it overcomes them; but when a Detroit dentist (who invented, as I recollect, some new kind of filling) is included in "Who's Who,"
and when almost every minor poet who squeaks is in it, and almost every illustrator who makes candy-looking girls for magazine covers, and almost every writer--then it seems to me time to include, as well, the names of men who are in charge of that industry which is not only the greatest in Detroit, but which, more than any industry since the inception of the telephone, has transformed our life.
The fact of the matter is, of course, that writers, in particular, are taken too seriously, not merely by "Who's Who" but by all kinds of publications--especially newspapers. Only opera singers and actors can vie with writers in the amount of undeserved publicity which they receive. If I omit professional baseball players it is by intention; for, as a fan might say, they have to "deliver the goods."
[Footnote 1: "Who's Who" for 1913-1914. The more recent volume, which has come out since, contains a biographical sketch of Mr. Henry Ford of Detroit.]
Baedeker's United States, a third volume in the condensed library I carried in my trunk, sets forth (in small type!) the following: "The finest private art gallery in Detroit is that of Mr. Charles L. Freer.
The gallery contains the largest group of works by Whistler in existence and good examples of Tryon, Dewing, and Abbott Thayer as well as many Oriental paintings and potteries."
But in the case of the Detroit Museum of Art, Baedeker bursts into black-faced type, and even adds an asterisk, his mark of special commendation. Also a considerable reference is made to various collections contained by the museum: the Scripps collection of old masters, the Stearns collection of Oriental curiosities, a painting by Rubens, drawings by Raphael and Michelangelo, and a great many works attributed to ancient Italian and Dutch masters. "The museum also contains," says Baedeker, "modern paintings by Gari Melchers, Munkacsy, Tryon, F. D. Millet, and others."
I have quoted Baedeker as above, because it reveals the bald fact with regard to art in Detroit; also because it reveals the even balder fact that our blessed old friend Baedeker, who has helped us all so much, can, when he cuts loose on art, make himself exquisitely ridiculous.
The truth is, of course, that Mr. Freer's gallery is not merely the "finest private gallery in Detroit"; not merely the finest gallery of any kind in Detroit; but that it is one of the exceedingly important collections of the world, just as Mr. Freer is one of the world's exceedingly important authorities on art. Indeed, any town which contains Mr. Freer--even if he is only stopping overnight in a hotel--becomes by grace of his presence an important art center for the time being. His mere presence is sufficient. For in Mr. Freer's head there is more art than is contained in many a museum. He was the man whom, above all others in Detroit, we wished to see. (And that is no disparagement of Henry Ford.)
Once in a long, long time it is given to the average human being to make contact for a brief space with some other human being far above the average--a man who knows one thing supremely well. I have met six such men: a surgeon, a musician, an author, an actor, a painter, and Mr.
Charles L. Freer.
I do not know much of Mr. Freer's history. He was not born in Detroit, though it was there that he made the fortune which enabled him to retire from business. It is surprising enough to hear of an American business man willing to retire in the prime of life. You expect that in Europe, not here. And it is still more surprising when that American business man begins to devote to art the same energy which made him a success financially. Few would want to do that; fewer could. By the time the average successful man has wrung from the world a few hundred thousand dollars, he is fit for nothing else. He has become a wringer and must remain one always.