boorstin8

88 Frcrm Trcrueler to Tourist:

“delugeęl with droves of these creatures, for they never sepa-rate, and you see them forty in number pouring along a Street with their director—now in front, now at the rear, circling round them like a sheepdog—and really the process is as like herding as may be. I have~already met three flocks, and any-thing so uncouth I never saw before, the men, mostly elderly, dreary, sad-looking; the women, somewhat younger, travel-tossed, but intensely lively, wide-awake, and facetious.” Cook defended his tours, which he calied “agencies for the advancement of HumjnJrogress.” The attacks on them, he said, were sheer (ąnobbery^The critics belonged in some earlier century. How foolish to “think that places of rare in-terest should be excluded from the gaza of the common peo-ple, and be kept only for the interest of the ‘select’ of society. But it is too late in this day of progress to talk such exclusive nonsense, God’s earth with all its fullness and beauty, is for the people; and railways and steamboats are the result of the common light of science, and are for the people also. . . . The best of men, and the noblest minds, rejoice to see the people follow in their foretrod routes of pleasure.”

Still, in the United States, where everything was suddenly available to everybody, it was far morę profitable to deal in immigrants than in tourists. Mobile, immigrant-filled, primi-tive America saw less glamor in travel, whether at home or abroad. Among Americans, even longer than among English-men, foreign travel remained close to its aristocratic origins. Until early in the twentieth century, Americans who wanted a planned European excursion still relied on Thomas Cook & Son. President Grant used Cook’s. And one of the best testi-monials for Cook’s new foolproof, carefree travel commodity came from Mark Twain:

Cook has madę travel easy and a pleasure. He will sell you a ticket to any place on the globe, or all the places, and give you all the time you need and much morę besides. It provides hotels for you everywhere, if you so desire; and you cannot be oyercharged, for the coupons show just how much you must pay. Cook’s serv-ants at the great stations will attend to your baggage, get you a cab, tell you how much to pay cabmen and por-ters, procure guides for you, and horses, donkeys, cam-els, bicycles, or anything else you want, and make life a comfort and satisfaction to you. Cook is your banker everywhere, and his establishment your shelter when you get caught out in the rain. His clerks will answer all the questions you ask and do it courteously. I recom-mend your Grace to travel on Cook’s tickets; and I do this without embarrassment, for I get no commission. I do not know Cook.

Cook’s has never lost its early leadership. It is still the larg-est travel agency in the world.

The principal competitor in the United States was to be the American Express Company. It grew out of the famous Wells, FargcTancTother agencies which by the mid-nineteenth century were forwarding goods and money across the vast American spaces. In the nineteenth century these agencies profited from the immigrant influx, by going into the business of arranging remittances from successful, recently arrived Americans to their needy families back in Europę. In 1891 the first American Express Travelers Cheque was copy-righted, and in the years sińce it has done much to ease the traveler’s cares. (By 1960 about two billion dollars’ worth were being sold annually.) In 1895 American Express opened its first European office. At first all it offered travel-ing Americans was a mail-forwarding service, help in secur-ing railroad tickets and hotel reservations, and help in finding lost baggage. President James C. Fargo, in charge until 1914, insisted there was no money in the tourist business. American Express, he said, should deal exclusively in freight and express. But the consolidation of the different express services as part of the war effort in World War I inevitably changed the business. Even before the end of the war American Express had begun to develop an extensive travel service,