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Felix von Luckner, Sea Devil Conquers America (1928)
Felix von Luckner was a German naval war-hero who had in 1917 caused havoc to Allied merchant shipping in SMS Seeadler ('Sea-Eagle'), a three-masted sailing ship with two 105mm guns. In all his attacks, only one person had been killed, by accident. When captured, he tried to escape. In 1926 he bought a sailing ship, and set off on what he called 'a goodwill mission' round the world. In America, he was treated like a hero - Ford gave him a motor car, and San Francisco made him an honorary citizen. You can read a translation from his account of the visit, Seeteufel erobert Amerika ('Sea Devil Conquers America') here. America impressed him: “everything here is pitched on a larger scale,” he comments, and he was particularly impressed by the traffic, the subway, the “stupendous” skyscrapers, the “servant problem” (too uppity), the “comfortable and enjoyable” apartments, the great influence of the cinema, the amount of crime, and the “undeniable economic progress” of the Black Community. He is mostly know for his comments on Prohibition, which you can read in full here.
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Some Quotes:“Most imposing of all, however, is the auto traffic. It flows along in four parallel columns, and when the traffic signal changes to a red light it promptly stops to let pass the streams of cross traffic and of pedes-trians. All this takes place without blasts of whistling and without a policeman to wave his arms about like a windmill. A gesture of the hand and a tweet are enough; the whistle is reserved for a chase. A wonderful sort of discipline! Traffic really regulates itself to a large extent.” “To grasp the magnitude of the automobile problem, one must realize that New York alone has more cars than all of Europe. I am told that every fourth person here owns a car. Workers and simple people have their own machines, which they naturally drive themselves. The auto is not a luxury item it is in somewhat the same category as a bicycle among us, a simple means of transportation that makes possible residence outside the city. Those for whom a new vehicle is too expensive can cheaply buy a used car someone has traded in.” “When I first visited New York, years ago, the skyscrapers were few in number and were considered quite exceptional - today they determine the character of the city's physical appearance. Whether they are beautiful or not, I don't know. But they are stupendous and it makes a deep impression to look down from the thirtieth or fortieth story, to see little pointed buildings and then realize that these are churches.” “The servant problem is most serious in America. Servile spirits are rare in the United States and must, therefore, be handled with kid gloves. A cook earns at least $80 a month, has her own room and bath, and condescends to do no heavy work.” “The consequence is that many families arrange to live in apartment houses. These are like pensions, with as many as fifty fiats all prepared alike and each of which often has only two rooms and a bath. This arrangement has the advantage of relieving the resident of all sorts of minor expenses, and of freeing his wife of worries about the household, since all the service is provided by the landlord.” “I must also say a few words of the great influence, even more than with us, of the cinema, or, as they call it, the movies. The external magnificence of these buildings is striking, and by far surpasses that of the theaters.” “In time, I learned that not everything in America was what it seemed to be. I discovered, for instance, that a spare tire could be filled with substances other than air, that one must not look too deeply into certain binoculars, and that the Teddy Bean that suddenly acquired tremendous popularity among the ladies very often had hollow metal stomachs.” “'But', it might be asked, 'where do all these people get the liquor?' Very simple. Prohibition has created a new, a universally respected, a well-beloved, and a very profitable occupation, that of the bootlegger who takes care of the importation of the forbidden liquor. Everyone knows this, even the powers of government. But this profession is beloved because it is essential, and it is respected because its pursuit is clothed with an element of danger and with a sporting risk. Now and then one is caught, that must happen pro form and then he must do time or, if he is wealthy enough. get someone to do time for him.” “Yet it is undeniable that prohibition has in some respects been signally successful. The filthy saloons, the gin mills which formerly flourished on every corner and in which the laborer once drank off half his wages, have disappeared. Now he can instead buy his own car, and ride off for a weekend or a few days with his wife and children in the country or at the sea. But, on the other hand, a great deal of poison and methyl alcohol has taken the place of the good old pure whiskey. The number of crimes and misdemeanors that originated in drunkenness has declined. But by contrast, a large part of the population has become accustomed to disregard and to violate the law without thinking. The worst is, that precisely as a consequence of the law, the taste for alcohol has spread ever more widely among the youth. The sporting attraction of the forbidden and the dangerous leads to violations. My observations have convinced me that many fewer would drink were it not illegal.” “On the way from Pittsburgh to Charleroi by car we passed the spot where, a little earlier, an armored car with a load of gold had been blown into the air with dynamite and robbed. That sort of thing happens here not only in the wild West but also in a highly civilized state like Pennsylvania. The criminals in America prefer to act on a large scale. They don't trouble with trifles; when they take a risk, they prefer it to pay well.” “I was constantly impressed in New York with the extent to which the number of Negroes had grown since my earlier visit. They now take up whole blocks of the city and form a separate Negro district Not less significant is the fact that they are making undeniable economic progress, marked among other things by the establishment of several banks. They have also made a considerable spiritual advance; the schools and universities for Negroes, which open to them the riches of European culture, are good signs. Nevertheless, I have heard many Americans despair of an adequate solution to this problem.”
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Felix von Luckner is an unreliable source on 1920s America. He knew America only as a tourist, and the people he met were largely wealthy and educated..
He is rarely cited by historians:
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