h
peasant or tradesman is far safer from practical oppression or injustice
than the American farmer or citizen; that an Englishman, whatever his
rank, is far more free to speak his mind, and far more likely to have a
mind worth speaking, than one of the same position in France, or even in
Massachusetts. The lively interest in, the diffused knowledge of,
politics and public matters, found among educated, and even
half-educated men and women throughout the upper and middle classes of
England, evidently impressed Mr. White by the contrast it presented to
the indifference of American 'Society' to State and Federal politics. He
notes particularly the higher tone, the wider knowledge, the freedom
from petty class and personal concerns, the broader range of thought,
the familiarity with subjects of general human interest, which
characterize the conversation of an English dinner-table or
drawing-room, as compared with that of American clubs and parlours. He
speaks, with the bitterness of a man often and deeply bored, of the
limited range of American table-talk, the prominence of the 'shop,' the
professional interests of each chance assemblage; the price of stocks
and railway shares, and the chances and changes of Wall Street; the
inferior tone of thought among men and women alike, in the best or at
least the wealthiest society of New York and Philadelphia. In this he is
incidentally confirmed by so observant and candid a social critic as
Laurence Oliphant. There is an American society of higher cultivation
and loftier interests; but that society, except in Boston, is
necessarily scattered and somewhat exclusive; and, standing wholly aloof
from politics, lacks the knowledge of history, of legislation, of social
and economic interests, of current opinion, of foreign affairs--which is
in itself a sort of liberal, if necessarily superficial, education.
American ladies, and even gentlemen, hardly know who are the Senators
for their State, much less who is the representative of their district;
care nothing for, and know little of, the debates in Congress, still
less in the State Legislature, deeply as these may affect the well-being
of the community, the laws under which they and their children are to
live.

But this lack of interest in public affairs has a deeper and far more
reaching consequence. Everybody's business is nobody's business. In a
community really democratic there are no natural leaders; none bound by
rank, station, a