Daily Traveling
Give a dog a bad name and hang him. Call the custom of daily travel “commuting” and deliver it over to the whips of the scorner. The intransitive verb “to commute” is a barbarous thing; he who is called “commuter” is thereby rudely and ungrammatically taunted with journeying at reduced rates, with being (terrible thought!) the recipient of a railway’s charity.
It is lamentable that so picturesque a habit as daily railway travel should be thus misnamed. That it is a picturesque habit is perceived by anyone who takes the trouble to consider it scientifically, shutting resolutely from his mind the odium brought upon it by its odious name. Suppose, for instance, that you were to go into the tap-room of the Mermaid Tavern some winter evening during the reign of the, so to speak, Good Queen Bess. The venerable Mr. Alfred Noyes would lead you to the table always reserved for Messrs. Shakespeare, Marlowe and Jonson. You would take from your pocket your commutation ticket, and, holding aloft that cabalistically inscribed oblong of colored cardboard, would sonorously declaim:
“By means of this talisman I daily fly across leagues of the New World, from my cottage in a primeval forest to the heart of a mighty city. It enables me to lead two lives; I am on week days urban, sophisticated, a man of commerce; at night and on Sundays I am a smocked yokel, innocent among my innocent vegetables. This little square of cardboard enables me to ride in a splendid vehicle propelled by Nature herself more swiftly than the wind, a vehicle which laughs at time and obliterates space. The masters of romance, bowing in homage, have bestowed upon me the mystic and awful name ‘commuter.’”
Such a tale would draw Marlowe from his Malmsey and thrill the stout heart of mighty Ben. And Avon’s bard, charmed by a fact more golden than all his imaginings, would augustly murmur “Very good, Eddie!”
It is a picturesque thing, this daily trip between the meadows and the pavements. By general consent, a vagabond is the most romantic of men; an allusion to the open road, wandering feet or the starlight on one’s face is sufficient to turn an ordinary rhymer into that radiant being, a “tramp-poet.” Then what glory must cling to those habitual vagabonds, those devotees of the steel highway, whom we call commuters. The common tramp seldom covers more than ten miles from sunrise to sundown; as a rule his pilgrimage is even briefer. Yet he is called a knight of the open road and even the staidest householder has a sneaking admiration for him. The gypsy is no true vagabond, for he takes with him his wife, children, dogs, furniture, and even his canvas-roofed house. Yet our writers, from Borrow to Kipling, delight to urge us to ha’ done with the tents of Shem, dear lass, and follow the Romany patteran. The only authentic vagabond is he who every day goes thirty miles from his rural home to the city and every night thirty miles back, diving through mountains, plunging under rivers; twice on every week-day, a wanderer more free and venturesome than Lavengro himself.
But its picturesqueness is not the sole recommendation of daily railway travel. The greatest of its numerous virtues is that it is democratic, the only absolutely democratic institution in the United States of America. It is the mighty leveler, the irresistible enemy of social subordination.
In a city, town or village in which the citizens remain night and day there can be no true democracy. The intentions of its inhabitants may be excellent, but circumstances will be stronger. There is the minister, there is the banker, there is the doctor, there is the grocer, there is the cobbler, there is the minister’s hired man. If a New England rural community is under observation there will also be noted the village atheist, the village drunkard, and the village Democrat. The population is sharply divided into classes; there may be friendliness among the various grades of humanity, there may be liberty, but there can be no fraternity, no equality.
How different is the community in which people merely dwell, having their business elsewhere! What is their occupation? They go to The City—that is sufficient answer to admit them to fellowship. If curiosity be still unsatisfied, there is the mention of the name of a great firm, and all is well.
The cobbler, you see, keeps his last in the city, away from his home and his neighbors; he does not stick to it, as the unpleasant adage bids him. As he sits on his red velvet chair, enjoying with his neighbors tobacco smoke, rapid travel, and the news of the world, who shall say whether he deals in shoes or in empires? Next to him is Dusenbury, who in addition to going to New York, goes to Wall Street, rumor has it. What does he do in Wall Street? Does he corner the wheat market or clean out waste baskets? Those who know, who say to him, “Sir” or “Hey, you,” are not his companions on the 7.57.
There is a certain charm about what is called, ridiculously enough, a “commuting town,” which is altogether lacking in other communities. A “commuting town” is wholly a place of homes—not of homes diluted with offices, factories and shops. It is therefore the quintessence of domesticity, being domestic with an intensity which no village which is remote from the centers of civilization, which furnishes employment and supplies to its own citizens can hope to approach.
Such a town is daily divided and joined, diminished and completed, thereby keeping in a state of healthy activity. The 7.57 takes away, the 5.24 brings back. These recurrent separations and reunions are not without their ethical and emotional value.