Americans act up to their Declaration of Independence,
especially the principle it enunciates concerning the equality of man.
They lay so much importance on this that they do not confine its application
to legal rights, but extend it even to social intercourse. In fact,
I think this doctrine is the basis of the so-called American manners.
All men are deemed socially equal, whether as friend and friend,
as President and citizen, as employer and employee, as master and servant,
or as parent and child. Their relationship may be such
that one is entitled to demand, and the other to render,
certain acts of obedience, and a certain amount of respect,
but outside that they are on the same level. This is doubtless a rebellion
against all the social ideas and prejudices of the old world,
but it is perhaps only what might be looked for in a new country,
full of robust and ambitious manhood, disdainful of all traditions
which in the least savor of monarchy or hierarchy, and eager to blaze
as new a path for itself in the social as it has succeeded
in accomplishing in the political world. Combined with this
is the American characteristic of saving time. Time is precious to all of us,
but to Americans it is particularly so. We all wish to save time,
but the Americans care much more about it than the rest of us.
Then there are different notions about this question of saving time,
different notions of what wastes time and what does not,
and much which the old world regards as politeness and good manners
Americans consider as sheer waste of time.
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