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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/1558-h.zip b/1558-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..b838577 --- /dev/null +++ b/1558-h.zip diff --git a/1558-h/1558-h.htm b/1558-h/1558-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..100c860 --- /dev/null +++ b/1558-h/1558-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,10819 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="us-ascii"?> + +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" > + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en"> + <head> + <title> + The Profits of Religion, by Upton Sinclair + </title> + <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> + + body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify} + P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; } + hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;} + .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; } + blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;} + .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;} + .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;} + div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; } + div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; } + .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;} + .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;} + .pagenum {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal; + margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%; + text-align: right;} + pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;} + +</style> + </head> + <body> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Profits of Religion, by Upton Sinclair + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Profits of Religion + +Author: Upton Sinclair + +Release Date: December, 1998 [EBook #1558] +Last Updated: January 9, 2013 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PROFITS OF RELIGION *** + + + + +Produced by Charles Keller and David Widger + + + + + +</pre> + <div style="height: 8em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h1> + THE PROFITS OF RELIGION + </h1> + <h2> + An Essay in Economic Interpretation + </h2> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <h2> + By Upton Sinclair + </h2> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE PROFITS OF RELIGION + </h2> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + OFFERTORY + </h2> + <p> + This book is a study of Supernaturalism from a new point of view—as + a Source of Income and a Shield to Privilege. I have searched the + libraries through, and no one has done it before. If you read it, you will + see that it needed to be done. It has meant twenty-five years of thought + and a year of investigation. It contains the facts. + </p> + <p> + I publish the book myself, so that it may be available at the lowest + possible price. I am giving my time and energy, in return for one thing + which you may give me—the joy of speaking a true word and getting it + heard. + </p> + <p> + The present volume is the first of a series, which will do for Education, + Journalism and Literature what has here been done for the Church: the four + volumes making a work of revolutionary criticism, an Economic + Interpretation of Culture under the general title of "The Dead Hand." + </p> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> <big><b>THE PROFITS OF RELIGION</b></big> </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> OFFERTORY </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> INTRODUCTORY </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> BOOTSTRAP-LIFTING </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> RELIGION </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0006"> <b>BOOK ONE — The Church of the Conquerors</b> + </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0007"> The Priestly Lie </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0008"> The Great Fear </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0009"> Salve Regina! </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0010"> Fresh Meat </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0011"> Priestly Empires </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0012"> Prayer-wheels </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0013"> The Butcher-Gods </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0014"> The Holy Inquisition </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0015"> Hell-Fire </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0016"> <big><b>BOOK TWO — The Church of Good + Society</b></big> </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0017"> The Babylonian Fire-god </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0018"> The Medicine-men </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0019"> The Canonization of Incompetence </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0020"> Gibson's Preservative </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0021"> The Elders </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0022"> Church History </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0023"> Land and Livings </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0024"> Graft in Tail </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0025"> Bishops and Beer </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0026"> Anglicanism and Alcohol </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0027"> Dead Cats </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0028"> Suffer Little Children </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0029"> The Court Circular </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0030"> Horn-blowing </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0031"> Trinity Corporation </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0032"> Spiritual Interpretation </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0033"> <big><b>BOOK THREE — The Church of the + Servant-girls</b></big> </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0034"> Charity </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0035"> God's Armor </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0036"> Thanksgivings </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0037"> The Holy Roman Empire </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0038"> Temporal Power </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0039"> Knights of Slavery </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0040"> Priests and Police </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0041"> The Church Militant </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0042"> The Church Triumphant </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0043"> God in the Schools </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0044"> The Menace </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0045"> King Coal </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0046"> The Unholy Alliance </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0047"> Secret Service </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0048"> Tax Exemption </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0049"> "Holy History" </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0050"> Das Centrum </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0051"> <big><b>BOOK FOUR — The Church of the + Slavers</b></big> </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0052"> Face of Caesar </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0053"> Deutschland ueber Alles </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0054"> Der Tag. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0055"> King Cotton </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0056"> Witches and Women </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0057"> Moth and Rust </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0058"> The Octopus </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0059"> The Industrial Shelley </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0060"> The Outlook for Graft </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0061"> Clerical Camouflage </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0062"> The Jungle </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0063"> <big><b>BOOK FIVE — The Church of the + Merchants</b></big> </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0064"> The Head Merchant </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0065"> "Herr Beeble" </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0066"> Holy Oil </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0067"> Rhetorical Black-hanging </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0068"> The Great American Fraud </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0069"> Riches in Glory </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0070"> Captivating Ideals </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0071"> Spook Hunting </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0072"> Running the Rapids </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0073"> Birth Control </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0074"> Sheep </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0075"> <big><b>BOOK SIX — The Church of the + Quacks</b></big> </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0076"> Tabula Rasa </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0077"> The Book of Mormon </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0078"> Holy Rolling </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0079"> Bible Prophecy </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0080"> Koreshanity </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0081"> Mazdaznan </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0082"> Black Magic </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0083"> Mental Malpractice </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0084"> Science and Wealth </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0085"> New Nonsense </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0086"> "Dollars Want Me" </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0087"> Spiritual Financiering </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0088"> The Graft of Grace </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0089"> <big><b>BOOK SEVEN — The Church of the + Social Revolution</b></big> </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0090"> Christ and Caesar </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0091"> Locusts and Wild Honey </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0092"> Mother Earth </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0093"> The Soap Box </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0094"> The Church Machine </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0095"> The Church Redeemed </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0096"> The Desire of Nations </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0097"> The Knowable </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0098"> Nature's Insurgent Son </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0099"> The New Morality </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0100"> Envoi </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0101"> Reader: </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <h2> + INTRODUCTORY + </h2> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + BOOTSTRAP-LIFTING + </h2> + <h3> + Bootstrap-lifting? says the reader. + </h3> + <p> + It is a vision I have seen: upon a vast plain, men and women are gathered + in dense throngs, crouched in uncomfortable and distressing positions, + their fingers hooked in the straps of their boots. They are engaged in + lifting themselves; tugging and straining until they grow red in the face, + exhausted. The perspiration streams from their foreheads, they show every + symptom of distress; the eyes of all are fixed, not upon each other, nor + upon their boot-straps, but upon the sky above. There is a look of rapture + upon their faces, and now and then, amid grunts and groans, they cry out + with excitement and triumph. + </p> + <p> + I approach one and say to him, "Friend, what is this you are doing?" + </p> + <p> + He answers, without pausing to glance at me, "I am performing spiritual + exercises. See how I rise?" + </p> + <p> + "But," I say, "you are not rising at all!" + </p> + <p> + Whereat he becomes instantly angry. "You are one of the scoffers!" + </p> + <p> + "But, friend," I protest, "don't you feel the earth under your feet?" + </p> + <p> + "You are a materialist!" + </p> + <p> + "But, friend, I can see—" + </p> + <p> + "You are without spiritual vision!" + </p> + <p> + And so I move on among the sweating and groaning hordes. Being of a + sympathetic turn of mind, I cannot help being distressed by the prevalence + of this singular practice among so large a portion of the human race. How + is it possible that none of them should suspect the futility of their + procedure? Or can it really be that I am uncomprehending? That in some way + they are actually getting off the ground, or about to get off the ground? + </p> + <p> + Then I observe a new phenomenon: a man gliding here and there among the + bootstrap-lifters, approaching from the rear and slipping his hands into + their pockets. The position of the spiritual exercisers greatly + facilitates his work; their eyes being cast up to heaven, they do not see + him, their thoughts being occupied, they do not heed him; he goes through + their pockets at leisure, and transfers the contents to a bag he carries, + and then moves on to the next victim. I watch him for a while, and finally + approach and ask, "What are you doing, sir?" + </p> + <p> + He answers, "I am picking pockets." + </p> + <p> + "Oh," I say, puzzled by his matter-of-course tone. "But—I beg pardon—are + you a thief?" + </p> + <p> + "Oh, no," hie answers, smilingly, "I am the agent of the Wholesale + Pickpockets' Association. This is Prosperity." + </p> + <p> + "I see," I reply. "And these people let you—" + </p> + <p> + "It is the law," he says. "It is also the gospel." + </p> + <p> + I turn, following his glance, and observe another person approaching—a + stately figure, clad in scarlet and purple robes, moving with slow + dignity. He gazes about at the sweating and grunting hordes; now and then + he stops and lifts his hands in a gesture of benediction, and proclaims in + rolling tones, "Blessed are the Bootstrap-lifters, for theirs is the + kingdom of Heaven." He moves on, and after a bit stops and announces + again, "Man doth not live by bread alone, but by every word that cometh + out of the mouth of the prophets and priests of Bootstrap-lifting." + </p> + <p> + Watching a while longer, I see this majestic one approach the agent of the + Wholesale Pickpockets' Association. The agent greets him as a friend, and + proceeds to transfer to the pockets of his capacious robes a generous + share of the loot which he has collected. The majestic one does not + cringe, nor does he make any effort to hide what is going on. On the + contrary he cries aloud, "It is more blessed to give than to receive!" And + again he cries, "The laborer is worthy of his hire!" And a third time he + cries, yet more sternly, "Render unto Caesar the things which are + Caesar's!" And the Bootstrap-lifters pause long enough to answer: "Lord + have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep this law!" Then they + renew their straining and tugging. + </p> + <p> + I step up, and in timid tones begin, "Reverend sir, will you tell me by + what right you take this wealth?" + </p> + <p> + Instantly a frown comes upon his face, and he cries in a voice of thunder, + "Blasphemer!" And all the Bootstrap-lifters desist from their lifting, and + menace me with furious looks. There is a general call for a policeman of + the Wholesale Pickpockets' Association; and so I fall silent, and slink + away in the throng, and thereafter keep my thoughts to myself. + </p> + <p> + Over the vast plain I wander, observing a thousand strange and incredible + and terrifying manifestations of the Bootstrap-lifting impulse. There is, + I discover, a regular propaganda on foot; a long time ago—no man can + recall how far back—the Wholesale Pickpockets made the discovery of + the ease with which a man's pockets could be rifled while he was + preoccupied with spiritual exercises, and they began offering prizes for + the best essays in support of the practice. Now their propaganda is + everywhere triumphant, and year by year we see an increase in the rewards + and emoluments of the prophets and priests of the cult. The ground is + covered with stately temples of various designs, all of which I am told + are consecrated to Bootstrap-lifting. I come to where a group of people + are occupied in laying the corner-stone of a new white marble structure; I + inquire and am informed it is the First Church of Bootstrap-lifters, + Scientist. As I stand watching, a card is handed to me, informing me that + a lady will do my Bootstrap-lifting at five dollars per lift. + </p> + <p> + I go on to another building, which I am told is a library containing + volumes in defense of the Bootstrap-lifters, published under the auspices + of the Wholesale Pickpockets. I enter, and find endless vistas of shelves, + also several thousand current magazines and papers. I consult these—for + my legs have given out in the effort to visit and inspect all phases of + the Bootstrap-lifting practice. I discover that hardly a week passes that + some one does not start a new cult, or revive an old one; if I had a + hundred life-times I could not know all the creeds and ceremonies, the + services and rituals, the litanies and liturgies, the hymns, anthems and + offertories of Bootstrap-lifting. There are the Holy Roman + Bootstrap-lifters, whose priests are fed by Transubstantiation; the + established Anglican Bootstrap-lifters, whose priests live by "livings"; + the Baptist Bootstrap-lifters, whose preachers practice total immersion in + Standard Oil. There are Yogi Bootstrap-lifters with flowing robes of + yellow silk; Theosophist Bootstrap-lifters with green and purple auras; + Mormon Bootstrap-lifters, Mazdaznan Bootstrap-lifters, Spiritualist and + Spirit-Fruit, Millerite and Dowieite, Holy Roller and Holy Jumper, + Come-to-glory negro, Billy Sunday base-ball and Salvation Army bass-drum + Bootstrap-lifters. There are the thousand varieties of "New Thought" + Bootstrap-lifters; the mystic and transcendentalist, Swedenborgian and + Jacob Boehme Bootstrap-lifters; the Elbert Hubbard high-art + Bootstrap-lifters with half a million magazinelets at two bits apiece; the + "uplift" and "optimist," the Ralph Waldo Trine and Orison Swett Marden + Bootstrap-lifters with a hundred thousand volumes at one dollar per + volume. There are the Platonist and Hegelian and Kantian professors of + collegiate metaphysical Bootstrap-lifting at several thousand dollars per + year each. There are the Nietzschean Bootstrap-lifters, who lift + themselves to the Superman, and the art-for-art's-sake, neo-Pagan + Bootstrap-lifters, who lift themselves down to the Ape. + </p> + <p> + Excepting possibly the last-mentioned group, the priests of all these + cults, the singers, shouters, prayers and exhorters of Bootstrap-lifting + have as their distinguishing characteristic that they do very little + lifting at their own bootstraps, and less at any other man's. Now and then + you may see one bend and give a delicate tug, of a purely symbolical + character: as when the Supreme Pontiff of the Roman Bootstrap-lifters + comes once a year to wash the feet of the poor; or when the Sunday-school + Superintendent of the Baptist Bootstrap-lifters shakes the hand of one of + his Colorado mine-slaves. But for the most part the priests and preachers + of Bootstrap-lifting walk haughtily erect, many of them being so swollen + with prosperity that they could not reach their bootstraps if they wanted + to. Their role in life is to exhort other men to more vigorous efforts at + self-elevation, that the agents of the Wholesale Pickpockets' Association + may ply their immemorial role with less chance of interference. + </p> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <h1> + RELIGION + </h1> + <p> + The reader, offended by this raillery, asks if I mean to impugn the + sincerity of all who preach the supremacy of the soul. No; I admit the + honesty of the heroes and madmen of history. All I ask of the preacher is + that he shall make an effort to practice his doctrine. Let him be + tormented like Don Quixote; let him go mad like Nietzsche; let him stand + upon a pillar and be devoured by worms like Simeon Stylites—on these + terms I grant to any dreamer the right to hold himself above economic + science. + </p> + <p> + Man is an evasive beast, given to cultivating strange notions about + himself. He is humiliated by his simian ancestry, and tries to deny his + animal nature, to persuade himself that he is not limited by its + weaknesses nor concerned in its fate. And this impulse may be harmless, + when it is genuine. But what are we to say when we see the formulas of + heroic self-deception made use of by unheroic self-indulgence? What are we + to say when we see asceticism preached to the poor by fat and comfortable + retainers of the rich? What are we to say when we see idealism become + hypocrisy, and the moral and spiritual heritage of mankind twisted to the + knavish purposes of class-cruelty and greed? What I say is—Bootstrap-lifting! + </p> + <p> + It is the fate of many abstract words to be used in two senses, one good + and the other bad. Morality means the will to righteousness, or it means + Anthony Comstock; democracy means the rule of the people, or it means + Tammany Hall. And so it is with the word "Religion". In its true sense + Religion is the most fundamental of the soul's impulses, the impassioned + love of life, the feeling of its preciousness, the desire to foster and + further it. In that sense every thinking man must be religious; in that + sense Religion is a perpetually self-renewing force, the very nature of + our being. In that sense I have no thought of assailing it, I would make + clear that I hold it beyond assailment. + </p> + <p> + But we are denied the pleasure of using the word in that honest sense, + because of another which has been given to it. To the ordinary man + "Religion" means, not the soul's longing for growth, the "hunger and + thirst after righteousness", but certain forms in which this hunger has + manifested itself in history, and prevails to-day throughout the world; + that is to say, institutions having fixed dogmas and "revelations", creeds + and rituals, with an administering caste claiming supernatural sanction. + By such institutions the moral strivings of the race, the affections of + childhood and the aspirations of youth are made the prerogatives and stock + in trade of ecclesiastical hierarchies. It is the thesis of this book that + "Religion" in this sense is a source of income to parasites, and the + natural ally of every form of oppression and exploitation. + </p> + <p> + If by my jesting at "Bootstrap-lifting" I have wounded some dear prejudice + of the reader, let me endeavor to speak in a more persuasive voice. I am a + man who has suffered, and has seen the suffering of others; I have devoted + my life to analyzing the causes of the suffering, to find out if it be + necessary and fore-ordained, or if by any chance there be a way of escape + for future generations. I have found that the latter is the case; the + suffering is needless, it can with ease and certainty be banished from the + earth. I know this with the knowledge of science—in the same way + that the navigator of a ship knows his latitude and longitude, and the + point of the compass to which he must steer in order to reach the port. + </p> + <p> + Come, reader, let us put aside prejudice, and the terrors of the cults of + the unknown. The power which made us has given us a mind, and the impulse + to its use; let us see what can be done with it to rid the earth of its + ancient evils. And do not be troubled if at the outset this book seems to + be entirely "destructive". I assure you that I am no crude materialist, I + am not so shallow as to imagine that our race will be satisfied with a + barren rationalism. I know that the old symbols came out of the heart of + man because they corresponded to certain needs of the heart of man. I know + that new symbols will be found, corresponding more exactly to the needs of + our time. If here I set to work to tear down an old and ramshackle + building, it is not from blind destructfulness, but as an architect who + means to put a new and sounder structure in its place. Before we part + company, I shall submit the blue print of that new home of the spirit. + </p> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <h2> + BOOK ONE — The Church of the Conquerors + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + I saw the Conquerors riding by + With trampling feet of horse and men: + Empire on empire like the tide + Flooded the world and ebbed again; + + A thousand banners caught the sun, + And cities smoked along the plain, + And laden down with silk and gold + And heaped up pillage groaned the wain. + Kemp. +</pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + The Priestly Lie + </h2> + <p> + When the first savage saw his hut destroyed by a bolt of lightning, he + fell down upon his face in terror. He had no conception of natural forces, + of laws of electricity; he saw this event as the act of an individual + intelligence. To-day we read about fairies and demons, dryads and fauns + and satyrs, Wotan and Thor and Vulcan, Freie and Flora and Ceres, and we + think of all these as pretty fancies, play-products of the mind; losing + sight of the fact that they were originally meant with entire seriousness—that + not merely did ancient man believe in them, but was forced to believe in + them, because the mind must have an explanation of things that happen, and + an individual intelligence was the only explanation available. The story + of the hero who slays the devouring dragon was not merely a symbol of day + and night, of summer and winter; it was a literal explanation of the + phenomena, it was the science of early times. + </p> + <p> + Men imagined supernatural powers such as they could comprehend. If the + lightning god destroyed a hut, obviously it must be because the owner of + the hut had given offense; so the owner must placate the god, using those + means which would be effective in the quarrels of men—presents of + roast meats and honey and fresh fruits, of wine and gold and jewels and + women, accompanied by friendly words and gestures of submission. And when + in spite of all things the natural evil did not cease, when the people + continued to die of pestilence, then came the opportunity for hysterical + or ambitious persons to discover new ways of penetrating the mind of the + god. There would be dreamers of dreams and seers of visions and hearers of + voices; readers of the entrails of beasts and interpreters of the flight + of birds; there would be burning bushes and stone tablets on + mountain-tops, and inspired words dictated to aged disciples on lonely + islands. There would arise special castes of men and women, learned in + these sacred matters; and these priestly castes would naturally emphasize + the importance of their calling, would hold themselves aloof from the + common herd, endowed with special powers and entitled to special + privileges. They would interpret the oracles in ways favorable to + themselves and their order; they would proclaim themselves friends and + confidants of the god, walking with him in the night-time, receiving his + messengers and angels, acting as his deputies in forgiving offenses, in + dealing punishments and in receiving gifts. They would become makers of + laws and moral codes. They would wear special costumes to distinguish + them, they would go through elaborate ceremonies to impress their + followers, employing all sensuous effects, architecture and sculpture and + painting, music and poetry and dancing, candles and incense and bells and + gongs + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + And storied winnows richly dight, + Casting a dim religious light. + There let the pealing organ blow, + To the full-voiced choir below, + In service high and anthem clear, + As may with sweetness through mine ear + Dissolve me into ecstacies, + And bring all heaven before mine eyes. +</pre> + <p> + So builds itself up, in a thousand complex and complicated forms, the + Priestly Lie. There are a score of great religions in the world, each with + scores or hundreds of sects, each with its priestly orders, its + complicated creed and ritual, its heavens and hells. Each has its + thousands or millions or hundreds of millions of "true believers"; each + damns all the others, with more or less heartiness—and each is a + mighty fortress of Graft. + </p> + <p> + There will be few readers of this book who have not been brought up under + the spell of some one of these systems of Supernaturalism; who have not + been taught to speak with respect of some particular priestly order, to + thrill with awe at some particular sacred rite, to seek respite from + earthly woes in some particular ceremonial spell. These things are woven + into our very fibre in childhood; they are sanctified by memories of joys + and griefs, they are confused with spiritual struggles, they become part + of all that is most vital in our lives. The reader who wishes to + emancipate himself from their thrall will do well to begin with a study of + the beliefs and practices of other sects than his own—a field where + he is free to observe and examine without fear of sacrilege. Let him look + into Madame Blavatsky's "Secret Doctrine", or her "Isis Unveiled"!—encyclopedias + of the fantastic inventions which terror and longing have wrung out of the + tortured soul of man. Here are mysteries and solemnities, charms and + spells, illuminations and transmigrations, angels and demons, guides, + controls and masters—all of which it is permissible to refuse to + support with gifts. Let the reader then go to James Freeman Clarke's "Ten + Great Religions", and realize how many billions of humans have lived and + died in the solemn certainty that their welfare on earth and in heaven + depended upon their accepting certain ideas and practicing certain rites, + all mutually exclusive and incompatible, each damning the others and the + followers of the others. So gradually the realization will come to him + that the test of a doctrine about life and its welfare must be something + else than the fact that one was born to it. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + The Great Fear + </h2> + <p> + It was not the fault of primitive man that he was ignorant, nor that his + ignorance made him a prey to dread. The traces of his mental suffering + will inspire in us only pity and sympathy; for Nature is a grim + school-mistress, and not all her lessons have yet been learned. We have a + right to scorn and anger only when we see this dread being diverted from + its true function, a stimulus to a search for knowledge, and made into a + means of clamping down ignorance upon the mind of the race. That this has + been the deliberate policy of institutionalized Religion no candid student + can deny. + </p> + <p> + The first thing brought forth by the study of any religion, ancient or + modern, is that it is based upon Fear, born of it, fed by it—and + that it cultivates the source from which its nourishment is derived. "The + fear of divine anger", says Prof. Jastrow, "runs as an undercurrent + through the entire religious literature of Babylonia and Assyria." In the + words of Tabi-utul-Enlil, King of ancient Nippur: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Who is there that can grasp the will of the gods in heaven? + The plan of a god is full of mystery—who can understand it? + He who is still alive at evening is dead the next morning. + In an instant he is cast into grief, in a moment he is crushed. +</pre> + <p> + And that cry might be duplicated from almost any page of the Hebrew + scriptures: the only difference being that the Hebrews combined all their + fears into one Great Fear. "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of + wisdom," we are told by Solomon of the thousand wives; and the Psalmist + repeats it. "Dominion and fear are with Him," cries Job. "How then can any + man be just before God? Or how can he be clean that is born of a woman? + Behold, even the moon hath no brightness, and the stars are not pure in + His sight: How much less man, that is a worm? And the son of man, which is + a worm?" He goes on, in his lyrical rapture, "Sheol is naked before Him, + and Destruction hath no covering.... The pillars of heaven tremble and are + astonished at His rebuke.... The thunder of His power who can understand?" + That all this is some of the world's great poetry does not in the least + alter the fact that it is an abasement of the soul, an hysterical + perversion of the facts of life, and a preparation of the mind for the + seeds of Priestcraft. + </p> + <p> + The Book of Job has been called a "Wisdom-drama": and what is the + denouement of this drama, what is ancient Hebrew wisdom's last word about + life? "Wherefore I abhor myself," says Job, "and repent in dust and + ashes." The poor fellow has done nothing; we have been told at the + beginning that he "was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and + eschewed evil." But the Sabeans and the Chaldeans rob him, and "the fire + of God" falls from heaven and burns up his sheep and his servants, and "a + great wind from the wilderness" kills his sons and daughters; and then his + body becomes covered with boils—a phenomenon caused in part by + worry, and the consequent nervous indigestion, but mainly by excess of + starch and deficiency of mineral salts in the diet. Job, however, has + never heard of the fasting cure for disease, and so he takes him a + potsherd to scrape himself withal, and he sits among the ashes—a + highly unsanitary procedure enforced by his religious ritual. So naturally + he feels like a worm, and abhors himself, and cries out: "I know that Thou + canst do all things, and that no purpose of Thine can be restrained." By + which utter, unreasoning humility he succeeds in appeasing the Great Fear, + and his friends make a sacrifice of seven bullocks and seven rams—a + feast for a whole templeful of priests—and then "the Lord gave Job + twice as much as he had before.... And after this Job lived an hundred and + forty years, and saw his sons and his sons' sons, even four generations." + </p> + <p> + You do not have to look very deeply into this "Wisdom-drama" to find out + whose wisdom it is. Confess your own ignorance and your own impotence, + abandon yourself utterly, and then we, the sacred Caste, the Keepers of + the Holy Secrets, will secure you pardon and respite—in exchange for + fresh meat. Here are verses from a psalm of the ancient Babylonians, which + "heathen" chant is identical in spirit and purpose with the utterances of + Job: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + The Sin that I have wrought, I know not; + The unclean that I have eaten, I know not; + The offense into which I have walked, I know not.... + The lord, in the wrath of his heart, hath regarded me; + The god, in the anger of his heart, hath surrounded me; + A goddess, known or unknown, hath wrought me sorrow.... + I sought for help, but no one took my hand; + I wept, but no one harkened to me.... + The feet of my goddess I kiss, I touch them; + To the god, known or unknown, I utter my prayer; + O god, known or unknown, turn thy countenance, accept my + sacrifice; + O goddess, known or unknown, look mercifully on me! accept + my sacrifice! +</pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0009" id="link2H_4_0009"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Salve Regina! + </h2> + <p> + And now let the reader leap three thousand years of human history, of toil + and triumph of the intellect of man; and instead of a Hebrew manuscript or + a Babylonian brick there confronts him a little publication, printed on a + modern rotary press in the capital of the United States of America, + bearing the date of October, 1914, and the title "Salve Regina". In it we + find "a beautiful prayer", composed by the late cardinal Rampolla; we are + told that "Pius X attached to it an indulgence of 100 days, each time it + is piously recited, applicable to the souls in purgatory." + </p> + <p> + O Blessed Virgin, Mother of God, cast a glance from Heaven, where thou + sittest as Queen, upon this poor sinner, your servant. Though conscious of + his unworthiness.... he blesses and exalts thee from his whole heart as + the purest, the most beautiful and the most holy of creatures. He blesses + thy holy name. He blesses thy sublime prerogatives as real Mother of God, + ever Virgin, conceived without stain of sin, as co-Redemptress of the + human race. He blesses the Eternal Father who chose you, etc. He blesses + the Incarnate Word, etc. He blesses the Divine Spirit, etc. He blesses, + exalts and thanks the most august Trinity, etc. O Virgin, holy and + merciful... be pleased to accept this little homage of your servant, and + obtain for him also from your divine Son pardon for his sins, Amen. + </p> + <p> + And then, looking more closely, we discover the purpose of this "beautiful + prayer", and of the neat little paper which prints it. "Salve Regina" is + raising funds for the "National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception", a + home for more priests, and Catholic ladies who desire to collect for it + may receive little books which they are requested to return within three + months. Pius X writes a letter of warm endorsement, and sets an example by + giving four hundred dollars "out of his poverty"—or, to be more + precise, out of the poverty of the pitiful peasantry of Italy. There is + included in the paper a form of bequest for "devoted clients of Our + Blessed Mother", and at the top of the editorial page the most alluring of + all baits for the loving hearts of the flock—that the names of + deceased relatives and friends may be written in the collection books, and + will be transferred to the records of the Shrine, and these persons "will + share in all its spiritual benefits". In the days of Job it was with + threats of boils and poverty that the Priestly Lie maintained itself; but + in the case of this blackest of all Terrors, transplanted to our free + Republic from the heart of the Dark Ages, the wretched victims see before + their eyes the glare of flames, and hear the shrieks of their loved ones + writhing in torment through uncounted ages and eternities. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0010" id="link2H_4_0010"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Fresh Meat + </h2> + <p> + In the days when I was experimenting with vegetarianism, I sought + earnestly for evidence of a non-meat-eating race; but candor compelled me + to admit that man was like the monkey and the pig and the bear—he + was vegetarian when he could not help it. The advocates of the reform + insist that meat as a diet causes muddy brains and dulled nerves; but you + would certainly never suspect this from a study of history. What you find + in history is that all men crave meat, all struggle for it, and the + strongest and cleverest get it. Everywhere you find the subject classes + living in the midst of animals which they tend, but whose flesh they + rarely taste. Even in modern America, sweet land of liberty, our millions + of tenant farmers raise chickens and geese and turkeys, and hardly venture + to consume as much as an egg, but save everything for the summer-boarder + or the buyer from the city. It would not be too much to say of the + cultural records of early man that they all have to do, directly or + indirectly, with the reserving of fresh meat to the masters. In J. T. + Trowbridge's cheerful tale of the adventures of Captain Seaborn, we are + told by the cannibal priest how idol-worship has ameliorated the morals of + the tribe— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + For though some warriors of renown + Continue anthropophagous, + 'Tis rare that human flesh goes down + The low-caste man's aesophagus! +</pre> + <p> + I suspect that we should have to go back to the days of the cave-man to + find the first lover of the flesh-pots who put a taboo upon meat, and + promised supernatural favors to all who would exercise self-control, and + instead of consuming their meat themselves, would bring it and lay it upon + the sacred griddle, or altar, where the god might come in the night-time + and partake of it. Certainly, at any rate, there are few religions of + record in which such devices do not appear. The early laws of the Hebrews + are more concerned with delicatessen for the priests than with any other + subject whatever. Here, for example, is the way to make a Nazarite: + </p> + <p> + He shall offer his offering up to the Lord, one he lamb of the first year + without blemish for a burnt offering, and one ewe lamb of the first year + without blemish for a sin offering, and one ram without blemish for peace + offerings, and a basket of unleavened bread, cakes of fine flour mingled + with oil, and wafers of unleavened bread anointed with oil, and their meat + offerings. + </p> + <p> + And the law goes on to instruct the priests to take certain choice, parts + and "wave them for a wave offering before the Lord: this is holy for the + priest." What was done with the other portions we are not told; but + earlier in this same "Book of Numbers" we find the general law that + </p> + <p> + Every offering of all the holy things of the children of Israel, which + they bring unto the priest, shall be his. And every man's hallowed things + shall be his: whatsoever any man giveth to the priest, it shall be his. + </p> + <p> + In the same way we are told by Viscount Amberley that the priests of + Ceylon first present the gifts to the god, and then eat them. Among the + Parsees, when a man dies, the relatives must bring four new robes to the + priests; if they do this, the priests wear the robes; if they fail to do + it, the dead man appears naked before the judgment-throne. The devotees + are instructed that "he who performs this rite succeeds in both worlds, + and obtains a firm footing in both worlds." Among the Buddhists, the + followers give alms to the monks, and are told specifically what + advantages will thereby accrue to them. In the Aitareyo Brahmairiarn of + the Rig-Veda we read + </p> + <p> + He who, knowing this, sacrifices according to this rite, is born from the + womb of Agni and the offerings, participates in the nature of the Rik, + Yajus, and Saman, the Veda (sacred knowledge), the Brahma (sacred element) + and immortality, and is absorbed into the deity. + </p> + <p> + Among the Parsees the priest eats the bread and drinks the haoma, or juice + of a plant, considered to be both a plant and a god. Among the + Episcopalians, a contemporary Christian sect, the sacred juice is that of + the grape, and the priest is not allowed to throw away what is left of it, + but is ordered "reverently to consume it." In as much as the priest is the + sole judge of how much good sherry wine he shall consecrate previous to + the ceremony, it is to be expected that the priests of this cult should be + lukewarm towards the prohibition movement, and should piously refuse to + administer their sacrament with unfermented and uninteresting grape-juice. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0011" id="link2H_4_0011"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Priestly Empires + </h2> + <p> + In every human society of which we have record there has been one class + which has done the hard and exhausting work, the "hewers of wood and + drawers of water"; and there has been another, much smaller class which + has done the directing. To belong to this latter class is to work also, + but with the head instead of the hands; it is also to enjoy the good + things of life, to live in the best houses, to eat the best food, to have + choice of the most desirable women; it is to have leisure to cultivate the + mind and appreciate the arts, to acquire graces and distinctions, to give + laws and moral codes, to shape fashions and tastes, to be revered and + regarded—in short, to have Power. How to get this Power and to hold + it has been the first object of the thoughts of men from the beginning of + time. + </p> + <p> + The most obvious method is by the sword; but this method is uncertain, for + any man may take up a sword, and some may succeed with it. It will be + found that empires based upon military force alone, however cruel they may + be, are not permanent, and therefore not so dangerous to progress; it is + only when resistance is paralyzed by the agency of Superstition, that the + race can be subjected to systems of exploitation for hundreds and even + thousands of years. The ancient empires were all priestly empires; the + kings ruled because they obeyed the will of the priests, taught to them + from childhood as the word of the gods. + </p> + <p> + Thus, for instance, Prescott tells us: + </p> + <p> + Terror, not love, was the spring of education with the Aztecs.... Such was + the crafty policy of the priests, who, by reserving to themselves the + business of instruction, were enabled to mould the young and plastic mind + according to their own wills, and to train it early to implicit reverence + for religion and its ministers. + </p> + <p> + The historian goes on to indicate the economic harvest of this teaching: + </p> + <p> + To each of the principal temples, lands were annexed for the maintenance + of the priests. The estates were augmented by the policy or devotion of + successive princes, until, under the last Montezuma, they had swollen to + an enormous extent, and covered every district of the empire. + </p> + <p> + And this concerning the frightful system of human sacrifices, whereby the + priestly caste maintained the prestige of its divinities: + </p> + <p> + At the dedication of the temple of Huitzilopochtli, in 1486, the + prisoners, who for some years had been reserved for the purpose, were + ranged in files, forming a procession nearly two miles long. The ceremony + consumed several days, and seventy thousand captives are said to have + perished at the shrine of this terrible deity. + </p> + <p> + The same system appears in Professor Jastrow's account of the priesthood + of Babylonia and Assyria: + </p> + <p> + The ultimate source of all law being the deity himself, the original legal + tribunal was the place where the image or symbol of the god stood. A legal + decision was an oracle or omen, indicative of the will of the god. The + power thus lodged in the priests of Babylonia and Assyria was enormous. + They virtually held in their hands the life and death of the people. + </p> + <p> + And of the business side of this vast religious system: + </p> + <p> + The temples were the natural depositories of the legal archives, which in + the course of centuries grew to veritably enormous proportions. Records + were made of all decisions; the facts were set forth, and duly attested by + witnesses. Business and marriage contracts, loans and deeds of sale were + in like manner drawn up in the presence of official scribes, who were also + priests. In this way all commercial transactions received the written + sanction of the religious organization. The temples themselves—at + least in the large centres—entered into business relations with the + populace. In order to maintain the large household represented by such an + organization as that of the temple of Enlil of Nippur, that of Ningirsu at + Lagash, that of Marduk at Babylon, or that of Shamash at Sippar, large + holdings of land were required which, cultivated by agents for the + priests, or farmed out with stipulations for a goodly share of the + produce, secured an income for the maintenance of the temple officials. + The enterprise of the temples was expanded to the furnishing of loans at + interest—in later periods, at 20%—to barter in slaves, to + dealings in lands, besides engaging labor for work of all kinds directly + needed for the temples. A large quantity of the business documents found + in the temple archives are concerned with the business affairs of the + temple, and we are justified in including the temples in the large centres + as among the most important business institutions of the country. In + financial or monetary transactions the position of the temples was not + unlike that of national banks.... + </p> + <p> + And so on. We may venture the guess that the learned professor said more + in that last sentence than he himself intended, for his lectures were + delivered in that temple of plutocracy, the University of Pennsylvania, + and paid out of an endowment which specifies that "all polemical subjects + shall be positively excluded!" + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0012" id="link2H_4_0012"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Prayer-wheels + </h2> + <p> + These priestly empires exist in the world today. If we wish to find them + we have only to ask ourselves: What countries are making no contribution + to the progress of the race? What countries have nothing to give us, + whether in art, science, or industry? + </p> + <p> + For example, Gervaise tells us of the Talapoins, or priests of Siam, that + "they are exempted from all public charges, they salute nobody, while + everybody prostrates himself before them. They are maintained at the + public expense." In the same way we read of the negroes of the Caribbean + islands that "their priests and priestesses exercise an almost unlimited + power." Miss Kingsley, in her "West African Studies", tells us that if we + desire to understand the institutions of this district, we must study the + native's religion. + </p> + <p> + For his religion has so firm a grasp upon his mind that it influences + everything he does. It is not a thing apart, as the religion of the + Europeans is at times. The African cannot say, "Oh, that is all right from + a religious point of view, but one must be practical." To be practical, to + get on in the world, to live the day and night through, he must be right + in the religious point of view, namely, must be on working terms with the + great world of spirits around him. The knowledge of this spirit world + constitutes the religion of the African, and his customs and ceremonies + arise from his idea of the best way to influence it. + </p> + <p> + Or consider Henry Savage Landor's account of Thibet: + </p> + <p> + In Lhassa and many other sacred places fanatical pilgrims make + circumambulations, sometimes for miles and miles, and for days together, + covering the entire distance lying flat upon their bodies.... From the + ceiling of the temple hang hundreds of long strips, katas, offered by + pilgrims to the temple, and becoming so many flying prayers when hung up—for + mechanical praying in every way is prominent in Thibet.... Thus instead of + having to learn by heart long and varied prayers, all you have to do is to + stuff the entire prayer-book into a prayer-wheel, and revolve it while + repeating as fast as you can four words meaning, "O God, the gem emerging + from the lotus-flower.".... The attention of the pilgrims is directed to a + large box, or often a big bowl, where they may deposit whatever offerings + they can spare, and it must be said that their religious ideas are so + strongly developed that they will dispose of a considerable portion of + their money in this fashion.... The Lamas are very clever in many ways, + and have a great hold over the entire country. They are ninety per cent of + them unscrupulous scamps, depraved in every way and given to every sort of + vice. So are the women Lamas. They live and sponge on the credulity and + ignorance of the crowds; it is to maintain this ignorance, upon which + their luxurious life depends, that foreign influence of every kind is + strictly kept out of the country. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0013" id="link2H_4_0013"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + The Butcher-Gods + </h2> + <p> + In this last sentence we have summed up the fundamental fact about + institutionalized religion. Wherever belief and ritual have become the + means of livelihood of a class, all innovation will of necessity be taken + as an attack upon that class; it will be literally a crime—robbing + the priests of their age-long privileges. And of course they will oppose + the robber—using every weapon of terrorism, both of this world and + the next. They will require the submission, not merely of their own + people, but of their neighbors, and their jealousy of rival priestly + castes will be a cause of wars. The story of the early days of mankind is + a sickening record of torture and slaughter in the name of ten thousand + butcher-gods. + </p> + <p> + Thus, for example, we read in the Hebrew religious records how the priests + were engaged in establishing the prestige of a fetish called "the ark"; + and how the people of one tribe violated this fetish and wakened the wrath + of Jehovah, the god. + </p> + <p> + And he smote the men of Beth-shemesh, because they had looked into the ark + of the Lord, even he smote of the people fifty thousand and three score + and ten men; and the people lamented, because the Lord had smitten many of + the people with a great slaughter. And the men of Beth-shemesh said, Who + is able to stand before this holy Lord God? + </p> + <p> + This terrible old Hebrew divinity said of himself that he was "a jealous + god". Throughout the time of his sway he issued through his ministers + precise instructions for the most revolting cruelties, the extermination + of whole nations of men, women and children, whose sole offense was that + they did not pay tribute to Jehovah's priests. Thus, for example, the + chief of his prophets, Moses, called the people together, and with all + solemnity, and with many warnings, handed down ten commandments graven + upon stone tablets; he went on to set forth how the people were to set + upon and rob their neighbors, and gave them these blood-thirsty + instructions: + </p> + <p> + When the Lord thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to + possess it, and hath cast out many nations before thee, the Hittites, and + the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, + and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier + than thou; And when the Lord thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou + shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant + with them, nor shew mercy unto them:... But thus shall ye deal with them; + ye shall destroy their altars, and break down their images, and cut down + their groves, and burn their graven images with fire. For thou art a holy + people unto the Lord thy God: the Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a + special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of + the earth. + </p> + <p> + The records of this Jehovah are full of similar horrors. He sent his + chosen people out to destroy the Midianites, and they slew all the males, + but this was not sufficient, and Moses was wroth, and commanded them to + kill all the married women, and to take the single women "for themselves". + We are told that sixteen thousand single women were spared, of whom "the + Lord's tribute was thirty and two!" In the Book of Joshua we read that he + had an interview with a supernatural personage called "the captain of the + Lord's host", and how this captain had given to him a magic spell which + would destroy the city of Jericho. The city should be accursed, "even it + and all that are therein, to the Lord"; every living thing except one + traitor-harlot was to be slaughtered, and all the wealth of the city + reserved to the priestly caste. This was carried out to the letter, except + that "Achan, the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah, of the + tribe of Judah, took of the accursed thing"—that is, he hid some + gold and silver in his tent; whereupon the army met with a defeat, and + everybody knew that something was wrong, and Joshua rent his clothes and + fell to the earth upon his face before the ark of the Lord, and got + another message from Jehovah, to the effect that the guilty man should be + burned with fire, "he and all that he hath." + </p> + <p> + And Joshua, and all Israel with him, took Achan the son of Zerah, and the + silver, and the garment, and the wedge of gold, and his sons, and his + daughters, and his oxen, and his asses, and his sheep, and his tent, and + all that he had: and they brought them unto the Valley of Achor. And + Joshua said, Why hast thou troubled us? the Lord shall trouble thee this + day. And all Israel stoned him with stones, and burned them with fire, + after they had stoned him with stones. + </p> + <p> + We have no means of knowing what was the character of the unfortunate + inhabitants of the city of Jericho, nor of the Hittites and the + Girgashites and the Amorites and all the rest of the victims of Jehovah. + To be sure, we are told by the Hebrew priests that they sacrificed their + children to their gods; but then, consider what we should believe about + the Hebrew religion, if we took the word of rival priestly castes! + Consider, for example, that in this twentieth century we saw an orthodox + Jew tried in a Russian court of law for having made a sacrifice of + Christian babies; nevertheless we know that the Jews represent a + considerable part of the intelligence and idealism of Russia. We know in + the same way that the Moors had most of the culture and all of the + scientific knowledge of Spain; that the Huguenots had most of the + conscience and industry of France; and we know that they were massacred or + driven out to death by the priestly castes of the Middle Ages. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0014" id="link2H_4_0014"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + The Holy Inquisition + </h2> + <p> + Let us have one glimpse of the conditions in those mediaeval times, so + that we may know what we ourselves have escaped. In the fifteenth century + there was established in Europe the cult of a three-headed god, whose + priests had won lordship over a continent. They were enormously wealthy, + and unthinkably corrupt; they sold to the rich the license to commit every + possible crime, and they held the poor in ignorance and degradation. Among + the comparatively intelligent and freedom-loving people of Bohemia there + arose a great reformer, John Huss, himself a priest, protesting against + the corruptions of his order. They trapped him into their power by means + of a "safe-conduct"—which they repudiated because no promise to a + heretic could have validity. They found him guilty of having taught the + hateful doctrine that a priest who committed crimes could not give + absolution for the crimes of others; and they held an auto de fe—which + means a "sentence of faith." As we read in Lea's "History of the + Inquisition": + </p> + <p> + The cathedral of Constance was crowded with Sigismund (the Emperor) and + his nobles, the great officers of the empire with their insignia, the + prelates in their splendid robes. While mass was sung, Huss, as an + excommunicate, was kept waiting at the door; when brought in he was placed + on an elevated bench by a table on which stood a coffer containing + priestly vestments. After some preliminaries, including a sermon by the + Bishop of Lodi, in which he assured Sigismund that the events of that day + would confer on him immortal glory, the articles of which Huss was + convicted were recited. In vain he protested that he believed in + transubstantiation and in the validity of the sacrament in polluted hands. + He was ordered to hold his tongue, and on his persisting the beadles were + told to silence him, but in spite of this he continued to utter protests. + The sentence was then read in the name of the council, condemning him both + for his written errors and those which had been proven by witnesses. He + was declared a pertinacious and incorrigible heretic who did not desire to + return to the Church; his books were ordered to be burned, and himself to + be degraded from the priesthood and abandoned to the secular court. Seven + bishops arrayed him in priestly garb and warned him to recant while yet + there was time. He turned to the crowd, and with broken voice declared + that he could not confess the errors which he never entertained, lest he + should lie to God, when the bishops interrupted him, crying that they had + waited long enough, for he was obstinate in his heresy. He was degraded in + the usual manner, stripped of his sacerdotal vestments, his fingers + scraped; but when the tonsure was to be disposed of, an absurd quarrel + arose among the bishops as to whether the head should be shaved with a + razor or the tonsure be destroyed with scissors. Scissors won the day, and + a cross was cut in his hair. Then on his head was placed a conical paper + cap, a cubit in height, adorned with painted devils and the inscription, + "This is the heresiarch." + </p> + <p> + The place of execution was a meadow near the river, to which he was + conducted by two thousand armed men, with Palsgrave Louis at their head, + and a vast crowd, including many nobles, prelates, and cardinals. The + route followed was circuitous, in order that he might be carried past the + episcopal palace, in front of which his books were burning, whereat he + smiled. Pity from man there was none to look for, but he sought comfort on + high, repeating to himself, "Christ Jesus, Son of the living God, have + mercy upon us!" and when he came in sight of the stake he fell on his + knees and prayed. He was asked if he wished to confess, and said that he + would gladly do so if there were space. A wide circle was formed, and + Ulrich Schorand, who, according to custom, had been providently empowered + to take advantage of final weakening, came forward, saying, "Dear sir and + master, if you will recant your unbelief and heresy, for which you must + suffer, I will willingly hear your confession; but if you will not, you + know right well that, according to canon law, no one can administer the + sacrament to a heretic." To this Huss answered, "It is not necessary: I am + not a mortal sinner." His paper crown fell off and he smiled as his guards + replaced it. He desired to take leave of his keepers, and when they were + brought to him he thanked them for their kindness, saying that they had + been to him rather brothers than jailers. Then he commenced to address the + crowd in German, telling them that he suffered for errors which he did not + hold, and he was cut short. When bound to the stake, two cartloads of + fagots and straw were piled up around him, and the palsgrave and vogt for + the last time adjured him to abjure. Even yet he could save himself, but + only repeated that he had been convicted by false witnesses on errors + never entertained by him. They clapped their hands and then withdrew, and + the executioners applied the fire. Twice Huss was heard to exclaim, + "Christ Jesus, Son of the living God, have mercy upon me!" then a wind + springing up and blowing the flames and smoke into his face checked + further utterances, but his head was seen to shake and his lips to move + while one might twice or thrice recite a paternoster. The tragedy was + over; the sorely-tried soul bad escaped from its tormentors, and the + bitterest enemies of the reformer could not refuse to him the praise that + no philosopher of old had faced death with more composure than he had + shown in his dreadful extremity. No faltering of the voice had betrayed an + internal struggle. Palsgrave Louis, seeing Huss's mantle on the arm of one + of the executioners, ordered it thrown into the flames lest it should be + reverenced as a relic, and promised the man to compensate him. With the + same view the body was carefully reduced to ashes and thrown into the + Rhine, and even the earth around the stake was dug up and carted off; yet + the Bohemians long hovered around the spot and carried home fragments of + the neighboring clay, which they reverenced as relies of their martyr. The + next day thanks were returned to God in a solemn procession in which + figured Sigismund and his queen, the princes and nobles, nineteen + cardinals, two patriarchs, seventy-seven bishops, and all the clergy of + the council. A few days later Sigismund, who had delayed his departure for + Spain to see the matter concluded, left Constance, feeling that his work + was done. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0015" id="link2H_4_0015"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Hell-Fire + </h2> + <p> + If such a scene could be witnessed in the world today, it would only be in + some remote and wholly savage place, such as the mountains of Hayti, or + the Solomon Islands. It could no longer happen in any civilized country; + the reason being, not any abatement of the pretensions of the priesthood, + but solely the power of science, embodied in the physical arm of a secular + State. The advance of that arm the church has fought systematically, in + every country, and at every point. To quote Buckle: "A careful study of + the history of religious toleration will prove that in every Christian + country where it has been adopted, it has been forced upon the clergy by + the authority of the secular classes." The wolf of superstition has been + driven into its lair; but it has backed away snarling, and it still + crouches, watching for a chance to spring. The Church which burned John + Huss, which burned Giordano Bruno for teaching that the earth moves round + the sun—that same church, in the name of the same three-headed god, + sent out Francesco Ferrer to the firing-squad; if it does not do the same + thing to the author of this book, it will be solely because of the police. + Not being allowed to burn me here, the clergy will vent their holy + indignation by sentencing me to eternal burning in a future world which + they have created, and which they run to suit themselves. + </p> + <p> + It is a fact, the significance of which cannot be exaggerated, that the + measure of the civilization which any nation has attained is the extent to + which it has curtailed the power of institutionalized religion. Those + peoples which are wholly under the sway of the priesthood, such as + Thibetans and Koreans, Siamese and Caribbeans, are peoples among whom the + intellectual life does not exist. Farther in advance are Hindoos, and + Turks, who are religious, but not exclusively. Still farther on the way + are Spaniards and Irish; here, for example, is a flashlight of the Irish + peasantry, given by one of their number, Patrick MacGill: + </p> + <p> + The merchant was a great friend of the parish priest, who always told the + people if they did not pay their debts they would burn for ever and ever + in hell. "The fires of eternity will make you sorry for the debts that you + did not pay," said the priest. "What is eternity?" he would ask in a + solemn voice from the altar steps. "If a man tried to count the sands on + the sea-shore and took a million years to count every single grain, how + long would it take him to count them all? A long time, you'll say. But + that time is nothing to eternity. Just think of it! Burning in hell while + a man, taking a million years to count a grain of sand, counts all the + sand on the sea-shore. And this because you did not pay Farley McKeown his + lawful debts, his lawful debts within the letter of the law." That + concluding phrase, "within the letter of the law," struck terror into all + who listened, and no one, maybe not even the priest himself, knew what it + meant. + </p> + <p> + There is light in Ireland to-day, and hope for an Irish culture; the thing + to be noted is that it comes from two movements, one for agricultural + co-operation and the other for political independence—both of them + definitely and specifically non-religious. This same thing has been true + of the movements which have helped on happier nations, such as the + republics of France and America, which have put an end to the power of the + priestly caste to take property by force, and to dominate the mind of the + child without its parents' consent. + </p> + <p> + This is as far as any nation has so far gone; it has apparently not yet + occurred to any legislature that the State may owe a duty to the child to + protect its mind from being poisoned, even though it has the misfortune to + be born of poisoned parents. It is still permitted that parents should + terrify their little ones with images of a personal devil and a hell of + eternal brimstone and sulphur; it is permitted to found schools for the + teaching of devil-doctrines; it is permitted to organize gigantic + campaigns and systematically to infect whole cities full of men, women and + children with hell-fire phobias. In the American city where I write one + may see gatherings of people sunk upon their knees, even rolling on the + ground in convulsions, moaning, sobbing, screaming to be delivered from + such torments. I open my morning paper and read of the arrest of five men + and seven women in Los Angeles, members of a sect known as the "Church of + the Living God", upon a charge of having disturbed the peace of their + neighbors. The police officers testified that the accused claimed to be + possessed of the divine spirit, and that as signs of this possession they + "crawled on the floor, grunted like pigs and barked like dogs." There were + "other acts, even more startling", about which the newspapers did not go + into details. And again, a week or two later, I read how a woman has been + heard screaming, and found tied to a bedpost, being whipped by a man. She + belonged to a religious sect which had found her guilty of witchcraft. + Another woman was about to shoot her, but this woman's nerve failed, and + the "high priest" was called in, who decreed a whipping. The victim + explained to the police that she would have deserved to be whipped had she + really been a witch, but a mistake had been made—it was another + woman who was the witch. And again in the Los Angeles "Times" I read a + perfectly serious news item, telling how a certain man awakened one + morning, and found on his pillow where his head had lain a perfect + reproduction of the head of Christ with its crown of thorns. He called in + his neighbors to witness the miracle, and declared that while he was not + superstitious, he knew that such a thing could not have happened by + chance, and he knew what it was intended to signify—he would buy + more Liberty Bonds and be more ardent in his support of the war! + </p> + <p> + And this is the world in which our scientists and men of culture think + that the battle of the intellect is won, and that it is no longer + necessary to spend our energies in fighting "Religion!" + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0016" id="link2H_4_0016"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + BOOK TWO — The Church of Good Society + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Within the House of Mammon his priesthood stands alert + By mysteries attended, by dusk and splendors girt, + Knowing, for faiths departed, his own shall still endure, + And they be found his chosen, untroubled, solemn, sure. + + Within the House of Mammon the golden altar lifts + Where dragon-lamps are shrouded as costly incense drifts— + A dust of old ideals, now fragrant from the coals, + To tell of hopes long-ended, to tell the death of souls + Sterling. +</pre> + <p> + The Rain Makers + </p> + <p> + I begin with the Church of Good Society, because it happens to be the + Church in which I was brought up. Reading this statement, some of my + readers suspected me of snobbish pride. I search my heart; yes, it brings + a hidden thrill that as far back as I can remember I knew this atmosphere + of urbanity, that twice every Sunday those melodious and hypnotizing + incantations were chanted in my childish ears! I take up the book of + ritual, done in aristocratic black leather with gold lettering, and the + old worn volume brings me strange stirrings of recollected awe. But I + endeavor to repress these vestigial emotions and to see the volume—not + as a message from God to Good Society, but as a landmark of man's age-long + struggle against myth and dogma used as a source of income and a shield to + privilege. + </p> + <p> + In the beginning, of course, the priest and the magician ruled the field. + But today, as I examine this "Book of Common Prayer", I discover that + there is at least one spot out of which he has been cleared entirely; + there appears no prayer to planets to stand still, or to comets to go + away. The "Church of Good Society" has discovered astronomy! But if any + astronomer attributes this to his instruments with their marvelous + accuracy, let him at least stop to consider my "economic interpretation" + of the phenomenon—the fact that the heavenly bodies affect the + destinies of mankind so little that there has not been sufficient + emolument to justify the priest in holding on to his job as astrologer. + </p> + <p> + But when you come to the field of meteorology, what a difference! Has any + utmost precision of barometer been able to drive the priest out of his + prerogatives as rainmaker? Not even in the most civilized of countries; + not in that most decorous and dignified of institutions, the Protestant + Episcopal Church of America! I study with care the passage wherein the + clergyman appears as controller of the fate of crops. I note a chastened + caution of phraseology; the church will not repeat the experience of the + sorcerer's apprentice, who set the demons to bringing water, and then + could not make them stop! The spell invokes "moderate rain and showers"; + and as an additional precaution there is a counter-spell against + "excessive rains and floods": the weather-faucet being thus under exact + control. + </p> + <p> + I turn the pages of this "Book of Common Prayer", and note the remnants of + magic which it contains. There are not many of the emergencies of life + with which the priest is not authorized to deal; not many natural + phenomena for which he may not claim the credit. And in case anything + should have been overlooked, there is a blanket order upon Providence: + "Graciously hear us, that those evils which the craft or subtilty of the + devil or man worketh against us, be brought to nought!" I am reminded of + the idea which haunted my childhood, reading fairy-stories about the hero + who was allowed three wishes that would come true. I could never + understand why the hero did not settle the matter once for all—by + wishing that everything he wished might come true! + </p> + <p> + Most of these incantations are harmless, and some are amiable; but now and + then you come upon one which is sinister in its implications. The volume + before me happens to be of the Church of England, which is even more + forthright in its confronting of the Great Magic. Many years ago I + remember talking with an English army officer, asking how he could feel + sure of his soldiers in case of labor strikes; did it never occur to him + that the men had relatives among the workers, and might some time refuse + to shoot them? His answer was that he was aware of it, the military had + worked out its technique with care. He would never think of ordering his + men to fire upon a mob in cold blood; he would first start the spell of + discipline to work, he would march them round the block, and get them in + the swing, get their blood moving to military music; then, when he gave + the order, in they would go. I have never forgotten the gesture, the + animation with which he illustrated their going—I could hear the + grunting of bayonets in the flesh of men. The social system prevailing in + England has made necessary the perfecting of such military technique; + also, you discover, English piety has made necessary the providing of a + religious sanction for it. After the job has been done, and the bayonets + have been wiped clean, the company is marched to church, and the officer + kneels in his family pew, and the privates kneel with the parlor-maids, + and the clergyman raises his hands to heaven and intones: "We bless thy + Holy Name, that it hath pleased Thee to appease the seditious tumults + which have been lately raised up among us!" + </p> + <p> + And sometimes the clergyman does more than bless the killers—he even + takes part in their bloody work. In the Home Office Records of the British + Government I read (vol 40, page 17) how certain miners were on strike + against low wages and the "truck" system, and the Vicar of Abergavenny put + himself at the head of the yeomanry and the Greys. He wrote the Home + Office a lively account of his military operations. All that remained was + to apprehend certain of the strikers, "and then I shall be able to return + to my Clerical duties." Later he wrote of the "sinister influences" which + kept the miners from returning to their work, and how he had put half a + dozen of the most obstinate in prison. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0017" id="link2H_4_0017"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + The Babylonian Fire-god + </h2> + <p> + So we come to the most important of the functions of the tribal god, as an + ally in war, an inspirer to martial valour. When in ancient Babylonia you + wished to overcome your enemies, you went to the shrine of the Firegod, + and with awful rites the priest pronounced incantations, which have been + preserved on bricks and handed down for the use of modern churches. + "Pronounce in a whisper, and have a bronze image therewith," commands the + ancient text, and runs on for many strophes in this fashion: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Let them die, but let me live! + Let them be put under a ban, but let me prosper! + Let them perish, but let me increase! + Let them become weak, but let me wax strong! + O, fire-god, mighty, exalted among the gods, + Thou art the god, thou art my lord, etc. +</pre> + <p> + This was in heathen Babylon, some three thousand years ago. Since then, + the world has moved on— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Three thousand years of war and peace and glory, + Of hope and work and deeds and golden schemes, + Of mighty voices raised in song and story, +Of huge inventions and of splendid dreams— +</pre> + <p> + And in one of the world's leading nations the people stand up and bare + their heads, and sing to their god to save their king and punish those who + oppose him— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + O Lord our God, arise, Scatter his enemies, + And make them fall; + Confound their politics, + Frustrate their knavish tricks, + On him our hopes we fix, + God save us all. +</pre> + <p> + Recently, I understand, it has become the custom to omit this stanza from + the English national anthem; but it is clear that this is because of its + crudity of expression, not because of objection to the idea of praying to + a god to assist one nation and injure others; for the same sentiment is + expressed again and again in the most carefully edited of prayer-books: + </p> + <p> + Abate their pride, assuage their malice, and confound their devices. + Defend us, Thy humble servants, in all assaults of our enemies. Strengthen + him (the King) that he may vanquish and overcome all his enemies. There is + none other that fighteth for us, but only Thou, O God. + </p> + <p> + Prayers such as these are pronounced in every so-called civilized nation + today. Behind every battle-line in Europe you may see the priests of the + Babylonian Fire-god with their bronze images and their ancient + incantations; you may see magic spells being wrought, magic standards + sanctified, magic bread eaten and magic wine drunk, fetishes blessed and + hoodoos lifted, eternity ransacked to find means of inciting soldiers to + the mood where they will "go in". Throughout all civilization, the phobias + and manias of war have thrown the people back into the toils of the + priest, and that church which tortured Galileo in the dungeons of the + Inquisition, and shot Ferrier beneath the walls of the fortress of + Montjuich, is rejoicing in a "rebirth of religion". + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0018" id="link2H_4_0018"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + The Medicine-men + </h2> + <p> + Andrew D. White tells us that + </p> + <p> + It was noted that in the 14th century, after the great plague, the Black + Death, had passed, an immensely increased proportion of the landed and + personal property of every European country was in the hands of the + Church. Well did a great ecclesiastic remark that "pestilences are the + harvests of the ministers of God." + </p> + <p> + And so naturally the clergy hold on to their prerogative as banishers of + epidemics. Who knows what day the Lord may see fit to rebuke the upstart + teachers of impious and atheistical inoculation, and scourge the people + back into His fold as in the good old days of Moses and Aaron? Viscount + Amberley, in his immensely learned and half-suppressed work, "The Analysis + of Religious Belief", quotes some missionaries to the Fiji islanders, + concerning the ideas of these benighted heathen on the subject of a + pestilence. It was the work of a "disease-maker", who was burning images + of the people with incantations; so they blew horns to frighten this + disease-maker from his spells. The missionaries undertook to explain the + true cause of the affliction—and thereby revealed that they stood + upon the same intellectual level as the heathen they were supposed to + instruct! It appeared that the natives had been at war with their + neighbors, and the missionaries had commanded them to desist; they had + refused to obey, and God had sent the epidemic as punishment for savage + presumption! + </p> + <p> + And on precisely this same Fijian level stands the "Book of Common Prayer" + of our most decorous and cultured of churches. I remember as a little + child lying on a bed of sickness, occasioned by the prevalence in our home + of the Southern custom of hot bread three times a day; and there came an + amiable clerical gentleman and recited the service proper to such pastoral + calls: "Take therefore in good part the visitation of the Lord!" And + again, when my mother was ill, I remember how the clergyman read out in + church a prayer for her, specifying all sickness, "in mind, body or + estate". I was thinking only of my mother, and the meaning of these words + passed over my childish head; I did not realize that the elderly plutocrat + in black broadcloth who knelt in the pew in front of me was invoking the + aid of the Almighty so that his tenements might bring in their rentals + promptly; so that his little "flyer" in cotton might prove successful; so + that the children in his mills might work with greater speed. + </p> + <p> + Somebody asked Voltaire if you could kill a cow by incantations, and he + answered, "Yes, if you use a little strychnine with it." And that would + seem to be the attitude of the present-day Anglican church-member; he + calls in the best physician he knows, he makes sure that his plumbing is + sound, and after that he thinks it can do no harm to let the Lord have a + chance. It makes the women happy, and after all, there are a lot of things + we don't yet know about the world. So he repairs to the family pew, and + recites over the venerable prayers, and contributes his mite to the + maintenance of an institution which, fourteen Sundays every year, + proclaims the terrifying menaces of the Athanasian Creed: + </p> + <p> + Whoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the + Catholick faith. Which faith, except one do keep whole and undefiled; + without doubt he shall perish everlastingly. + </p> + <p> + For the benefit of the uninitiated reader, it may be explained that the + "Catholick faith" here referred to is not the Roman Catholic, but that of + the Church of England and the Protestant Episcopal Church of America. This + creed of the ancient Alexandrian lays down the truth with grim and + menacing precision—forty-four paragraphs of metaphysical minutiae, + closing with the final doom: "This is the Catholick faith: which except a + man believe faithfully, he cannot be saved." + </p> + <p> + You see, the founders of this august institution were not content with + cultured complacency; what they believed they believed really, with their + whole hearts, and they were ready to act upon it, even if it meant burning + their own at the stake. Also, they knew the ceaseless impulse of the mind + to grow; the terrible temptation which confronts each new generation to + believe that which is reasonable. They met the situation by setting out + the true faith in words which no one could mistake. They have provided, + not merely the Creed of Athanasius, but also the "Thirty-nine Articles"—which + are thirty-nine separate and binding guarantees that one who holds orders + in the Episcopal Church shall be either a man of inferior mentality, or + else a sophist and hypocrite. How desperate some of them have become in + the face of this cruel dilemma is illustrated by the tale which is told of + Dr. Jowett, of Balliol College, Oxford: that when he was required to + recite the "Apostle's Creed" in public, he would save himself by inserting + the words "used" between the words "I believe", saying the inserted words + under his breath, thus, "I used to believe in the Father, the Son, and the + Holy Ghost." Perhaps the eminent divine never did this; but the fact that + his students told it, and thought it funny, is sufficient indication of + their attitude toward their "Religion." The son of William George Ward + tells in his biography how this leader of the "Tractarian Movement" met + the problem with cynicism which seems almost sublime: "Make yourself clear + that you are justified in deception; and then lie like a trooper!" + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0019" id="link2H_4_0019"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + The Canonization of Incompetence + </h2> + <p> + The supreme crime of the church to-day is that everywhere and in all its + operations and influences it is on the side of sloth of mind; that it + banishes brains, it sanctifies stupidity, it canonizes incompetence. + Consider the power of the Church of England and its favorite daughter here + in America; consider their prestige with the press and in politics, their + hold upon literature and the arts, their control of education and the + minds of children, of charity and the lives of the poor: consider all + this, and then say what it means to society that such a power must be, in + every new issue that arises, on the side of reaction and falsehood. "So it + was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be," runs the church's + formula; and this per se and a priori, of necessity and in the nature of + the case. + </p> + <p> + Turn over the pages of history and read the damning record of the church's + opposition to every advance in every field of science, even the most + remote from theological concern. Here is the Reverend Edward Massey, + preaching in 1772 on "The Dangerous and Sinful Practice of Inoculation"; + declaring that Job's distemper was probably confluent small-pox; that he + had been inoculated doubtless by the devil; that diseases are sent by + Providence for the punishment of sin; and that the proposed attempt to + prevent them is "a diabolical operation". Here are the Scotch clergy of + the middle of the nineteenth century denouncing the use of chloroform in + obstetrics, because it is seeking "to avoid one part of the primeval curse + on woman". Here is Bishop Wilberforce of Oxford anathematizing Darwin: + "The principle of natural selection is absolutely incompatible with the + word of God"; it "contradicts the revealed relation of creation to its + creator"; it "is inconsistent with the fulness of His glory"; it is "a + dishonoring view of nature". And the Bishop settled the matter by asking + Huxley whether he was descended from an ape through his grandmother or + grandfather. + </p> + <p> + Think what it means, friends of progress, that these ecclesiastical + figures should be set up for the reverence of the populace, and that every + time mankind is to make an advance in power over Nature, the pioneers of + thought have to come with crow-bars and derricks and heave these figures + out of the way! And you think that conditions are changed to-day? But + consider syphilis and gonorrhea, about which we know so much, and can do + almost nothing; consider birth-control, which we are sent to jail for so + much as mentioning! Consider the divorce reforms for which the world is + crying—and for which it must wait, because of St. Paul! Realize that + up to date it has proven impossible to persuade the English Church to + permit a man to marry his deceased wife's sister! That when the war broke + upon England the whole nation was occupied with a squabble over the + disestablishment of the church of Wales! Only since 1888 has it been + legally possible for an unbeliever to hold a seat in Parliament; while up + to the present day men are tried for blasphemy and convicted under the + decisions of Lord Hale, to the effect that "it is a crime either to deny + the truth of the fundamental doctrines of the Christian religion or to + hold them up to contempt or ridicule." Said Mr. justice Horridge, at the + West Riding Assizes, 1911: "A man is not free in any public place to use + common ridicule on subjects which are sacred." + </p> + <p> + The purpose, as outlined by the public prosecutor in London, is "to + preserve the standard of outward decency." And you will find that the one + essential to prosecution is always that the victim shall be obscure and + helpless; never by any chance is he a duke in a drawing-room. I will + record an utterance of one of the obscure victims of the British "standard + of outward decency", a teacher of mathematics named Holyoake, who presumed + to discuss in a public hall the starvation of the working classes of the + country. A preacher objected that he had discussed "our duty to our + neighbor" and neglected "our duty to God"; whereupon the lecturer replied: + "Our national Church and general religious institutions cost us, upon + accredited computation, about twenty million pounds annually. Worship + being thus expensive, I appeal to your heads and your pockets whether we + are not too poor to have a God. While our distress lasts, I think it would + be wise to put deity upon half pay." And for that utterance the + unfortunate teacher of mathematics served six months in the common Gaol at + Gloucester! + </p> + <p> + While men were being tried for publishing the "Free-thinker", the Premier + of England was William Ewart Gladstone. And if you wish to know what an + established church can do by way of setting up dullness in high places, + get a volume of this "Grand Old Man's" writings on theological and + religious questions. Read his "Juventus Mundi", in the course of which he + establishes, a mystic connection between the trident of Neptune and the + Christian Trinity! Read his efforts to prove that the writer of Genesis + was an inspired geologist! This writer of Genesis points out in Nature "a + grand, fourfold division, set forth in an orderly succession of times: + First, the water population; secondly, the air population; thirdly, the + land population of animals; fourthly, the land population consummated in + man." And it seems that this division and sequence "is understood to have + been so affirmed in our time by natural science that it may be taken as a + demonstrated conclusion and established fact." Hence we must conclude of + the writer of Genesis that "his knowledge was divine"! Consider that this + was actually published in one of the leading British monthlies, and that + it was necessary for Professor Huxley to answer it, pointing out that so + far is it from being true that "a fourfold division and orderly sequence" + of water, air and land animals "has been affirmed in our time by natural + science", that on the contrary, the assertion is "directly contradictory + to facts known to everyone who is acquainted with the elements of natural + science". The distribution of fossils proves that land animals originated + before sea-animals, and there has been such a mixing of land, sea and air + animals as utterly to destroy the reputation of both Genesis and Gladstone + as possessing a divine knowledge of Geology. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0020" id="link2H_4_0020"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Gibson's Preservative + </h2> + <p> + I have a friend, a well-known "scholar", who permits me the use of his + extensive library. I stand in the middle and look about me, and see in the + dim shadows walls lined from floor to ceiling with decorous and + grave-looking books, bound for the most part in black, many of them fading + to green with age. There are literally thousands of such, and their theme + is the pseudo-science of "divinity". I close my eyes, to make the test + fair, and walk to the shelves and put out my hand and take a book. It + proves to be a modern work, "A History of the English Prayer-book in + Relation to the Doctrine of the Eucharist". I turn the pages and discover + that it is a study of the variations of one minute detail of church + doctrine. This learned divine—he has written many such works, as the + advertisements inform us—fills up the greater part of his pages with + foot-notes from hundreds of authorities, arguments and counter-arguments + over supernatural subtleties. I will give one sample of these footnotes—asking + the reader to be patient: + </p> + <p> + I add the following valuable observation, of Dean Goode: ("On Eucharist", + II p 757. See also Archbishop Ware in Gibson's "Preservative", vol X, Chap + II) "One great point for which our divines have contended, in opposition + to Romish errors, has been the reality of that presence of Christ's Body + and Blood to the soul of the believer which is affected through the + operation of the Holy Spirit notwithstanding the absence of that Body and + Blood in Heaven. Like the Sun, the Body of Christ is both present and + absent; present, really and truly present, in one sense—that is, by + the soul being brought into immediate communion with—but absent in + another sense—that is, as regards the contiguity of its substance to + our bodies. The authors under review, like the Romanists, maintain that + this is not a Real Presence, and assuming their own interpretation of the + phrase to be the only true one, press into their service the testimony of + divines who, though using the phrase, apply it in a sense the reverse of + theirs. The ambiguity of the phrase, and its misapplication by the Church + of Rome, have induced many of our divines to repudiate it, etc." + </p> + <p> + Realize that of the work from which this "valuable observation" is quoted, + there are at least two volumes, the second volume containing not less than + 757 pages! Realize that in Gibson's "Preservative" there are not less than + ten volumes of such writing! Realize that in this twentieth century a + considerable portion of the mental energies of the world's greatest empire + is devoted to that kind of learning! + </p> + <p> + I turn to the date upon the volume, and find that it is 1910. I was in + England within a year of that time, and so I can tell what was the + condition of the English people while printers were making and papers were + reviewing and book-stores were distributing this work of ecclesiastical + research. I walked along the Embankment and saw the pitiful wretches, men, + women and sometimes children, clad in filthy rags, starved white and + frozen blue, soaked in winter rains and shivering in winter winds, + homeless, hopeless, unheeded by the doctors of divinity, unpreserved by + Gibson's "Preservative". I walked on Hampstead Heath on Easter day, when + the population of the slums turns out for its one holiday; I walked, + literally trembling with horror, for I had never seen such sights nor + dreamed of them. These creatures were hardly to be recognized as human + beings; they were some new grotesque race of apes. They could not walk, + they could only shamble; they could not laugh, they could only leer. I saw + a hand-organ playing, and turned away—the things they did in their + efforts to dance were not to be watched. And then I went out into the + beautiful English country; cultured and charming ladies took me in swift, + smooth motor-cars, and I saw the pitiful hovels and the drink-sodden, + starch-poisoned inhabitants—slum-populations everywhere, even on the + land! When the newspaper reporters came to me, I said that I had just come + from Germany, and that if ever England found herself at war with that + country, she would regret that she had let the bodies and the minds of her + people rot; for which expression I was severely taken to task by more than + one British divine. + </p> + <p> + The bodies—and the minds; the rot of the latter being the cause of + the former. All over England in that year of 1910, in thousands of + schools, rich and poor, and in the greatest centres of learning, men like + Dean Goode were teaching boys dead languages and dead sciences and dead + arts; sending them out to life with no more conception of the modern world + than a monk of the Middle Ages; sending them out with minds, made hard and + inflexible, ignorant of science, indifferent to progress, contemptuous of + ideas. And then suddenly, almost overnight, this terrified people finds + itself at war with a nation ruled and disciplined by modern experts, + scientists and technicians. The awful muddle that was in England during + the first two years of the war has not yet been told in print; but + thousands know it, and some day it will be written, and it will finish + forever the prestige of the British ruling caste. They rushed off an + expedition to Gallipoli, and somebody forgot the water-supply, and at one + time they had ninety-five thousand cases of dysentery! + </p> + <p> + They always "muddle through", they tell you; that is the motto of their + ruling caste. But this time they did not "muddle through"—they had + to come to America for help. As I write, our Congress is voting billions + and tens of billions of dollars, and a million of the best of our young + manhood are being taken from their homes—because in 1910 the mind of + England was occupied with Dean Goode "On Eucharist", and the ten volumes + of Gibson's "Preservative". + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0021" id="link2H_4_0021"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + The Elders + </h2> + <p> + What the Church means in human affairs is the rule of the aged. It means + old men in the seats of authority, not merely in the church, but in the + law-courts and in Parliament, even in the army and navy. For a test I look + up the list of bishops of the Church of England in Whitaker's Almanac; it + appears that there are 40 of these functionaries, including the + archbishops, but not the suffragans; and that the total salary paid to + them amounts to more than nine hundred thousand dollars a year. This, it + should be understood, does not include the pay of their assistants, nor + the cost of maintaining their religious establishments; it does not + include any private incomes which they or their wives may possess, as + members of the privileged classes of the Empire. I look up their ages in + Who's Who, and I find that there is only one below fifty-three; the oldest + of them is ninety-one, while the average age of the goodly company is + seventy. There have been men in history who have retained their + flexibility of mind, their ability to adjust themselves to new + circumstances at the age of seventy, but it will always be found that + these men were trained in science and practical affairs, never in dead + languages and theology. One of the oldest of the English prelates, the + Archbishop of Canterbury, recently stated to a newspaper reporter that he + worked seventeen hours a day, and had no time to form an opinion on the + labor question. + </p> + <p> + And now—here is the crux of the argument—do these aged + gentlemen rule of their own power? They do not! They do literally nothing + of their own power; they could not make their own episcopal robes, they + could not even cook their own episcopal dinners. They have to be + maintained in all their comings and goings. Who supports them, and to what + end? + </p> + <p> + The roots of the English Church are in the English land system, which is + one of the infamies of the modern world. It dates from the days of William + the Norman, who took possession of Britain with his sword, and in order to + keep possession for himself and his heirs, distributed the land among his + nobles and prelates. In those days, you understand, a high ecclesiastic + was a man of war, who did not stoop to veil his predatory nature under + pretense of philanthropy; the abbots and archbishops, of William wore + armor and had their troops of knights like the barons and the dukes. + William gave them vast tracts, and at the same time he gave them orders + which they obeyed. Says the English chronicler, "Stark he was. Bishops he + stripped of their bishopricks, abbots of their abbacies". Green tells us + that "the dependencie of the church on the royal power was strictly + enforced. Homage was exacted from bishop as from baron." And what was this + homage? The bishop knelt before William, bareheaded and without arms, and + swore: "Hear my lord, I become liege man of yours for life and limb and + earthly regard, and I will keep faith and loyalty to you for life and + death, God help me." + </p> + <p> + The lands which the church got from William the Norman, she has held, and + always on the same condition—that she shall be "liege man for life + and limb and earthly regard". In this you have the whole story of the + church of England, in the twentieth century as in the eleventh. The + balance of power has shifted from time to time; old families have lost the + land and new families have gotten it; but the loyalty and homage of the + church have been held by the land, as the needle of the compass is held by + a mass of metal. Some two hundred and fifty years ago a popular song gave + the general impression— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + For this is law that I'll maintain + Until my dying day, sir: + That whatsoever king shall reign + I'll still be vicar of Bray, sir! +</pre> + <p> + So, wherever you take the Anglican clergy, they are Tories and Royalists, + conservatives and reactionaries, friends of every injustice that profits + the owning class. And always among themselves you find them intriguing and + squabbling over the dividing of the spoils; always you find them enjoying + leisure and ease, while the people suffer and the rebels complain. One can + pass down the corridor of English history and prove this statement by the + words of Englishmen from every single generation. Take the fourteenth + century; the "Good Parliament" declares that, + </p> + <p> + Unworthy and unlearned caitiffs are appointed to benefices of a thousand + marks, while the poor and learned hardly obtain one of twenty. God gave + the sheep to be pastured, not to be shaven and shorn. + </p> + <p> + And a little later comes the poet of the people, Piers Plowman— + </p> + <p> + But now is Religion a rider, a roamer through the streets, A leader at the + love-day, a buyer of the land, Pricking on a palfrey from manor to manor, + A heap of hounds at his back, as tho he were a lord; And if his servant + kneel not when he brings his cup, He loureth on him asking who taught him + courtesy. Badly have lords done to give their heirs' lands Away to the + Orders that have no pity; Money rains upon their altars. There where such + parsons be living at ease They have no pity on the poor; that is their + "charity". Ye hold you as lords; your lands are too broad, But there shall + come a king and he shall shrive you all And beat you as the bible saith + for breaking of your Rule. + </p> + <p> + Another step through history, and in the early part of the sixteenth + century here is Simon Fish, addressing King Henry the Eighth, in the + "Supplicacyon for the Beggars", complaining of the "strong, puissant and + counterfeit holy and ydell" which "are now increased under your sight, not + only into a great nombre, but ynto a kingdome." + </p> + <p> + They have begged so importunatly that they have gotten ynto their hondes + more than a therd part of all youre Realme. The goodliest lordshippes, + maners, londes, and territories, are theyres. Besides this, they have the + tenth part of all the come, medowe, pasture, grasse, wolle, coltes, + calves, lambes, pigges, gese and chikens. Ye, and they looke so narowly + uppon theyre proufittes, that the poore wyves must be countable to thym of + every tenth eg, or elles she gettith not her rytes at ester, shal be taken + as an heretike.... Is it any merveille that youre people so compleine of + povertie? The Turke nowe, in your tyme, shulde never be abill to get so + moche grounde of christendome... And whate do al these gredy sort of + sturdy, idell, holy theves? These be they that have made an hundredth + thousand idell hores in your realme. These be they that catche the pokkes + of one woman, and here them to an other. + </p> + <p> + The petitioner goes on to tell how they steal wives and all their goods + with them, and if any man protest they make him a heretic, "so that it + maketh him wisshe that he had not done it". Also they take fortunes for + masses and then don't say them. "If the Abbot of westminster shulde sing + every day as many masses for his founders as he is bounde to do by his + foundacion, 1000 monkes were too few." The petitioner suggests that the + king shall "tie these holy idell theves to the cartes, to be whipped naked + about every market towne till they will fall to laboure!" + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0022" id="link2H_4_0022"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Church History + </h2> + <p> + King Henry did not follow this suggestion precisely, but he took away the + property of the religious orders for the expenses of his many wives and + mistresses, and forced the clergy in England to forswear obedience to the + Pope and make his royal self their spiritual head. This was the beginning + of the Anglican Church, as distinguished from the Catholic; a beginning of + which the Anglican clergy are not so proud as they would like to be. When + I was a boy, they taught me what they called "church history", and when + they came to Henry the Eighth they used him as an illustration of the fact + that the Lord is sometimes wont to choose evil men to carry out His + righteous purposes. They did not explain why the Lord should do this + confusing thing, nor just how you were to know, when you saw something + being done by a murderous adulterer, whether it was the will of the Lord + or of Satan; nor did they go into details as to the motives which the Lord + had been at pains to provide, so as to induce his royal agent to found the + Anglican Church. For such details you have to consult another set of + authorities—the victims of the plundering. + </p> + <p> + When I was in college my professor of Latin was a gentleman with bushy + brown whiskers and a thundering voice of which I was often the object—for + even in those early days I had the habit of persisting in embarrassing + questions. This professor was a devout Catholic, and not even in dealing + with ancient Romans could he restrain his propaganda impulses. Later on in + life he became editor of the "Catholic Encyclopedia", and now when I turn + its pages, I imagine that I see the bushy brown whiskers, and hear the + thundering voice: "Mr. Sinclair, it is so because I tell you it is so!" + </p> + <p> + I investigate, and find that my ex-professor knows all about King Henry + the Eighth, and his motives in founding the Church of England; he is ready + with an "economic interpretation", as complete as the most rabid muckraker + could desire! It appears that the king wanted a new wife, and demanded + that the Pope should grant the necessary permission; in his efforts to + browbeat the Pope into such betrayal of duty, King Henry threatened the + withdrawal of the "annates" and the "Peter's pence". Later on he forced + the clergy to declare that the Pope was "only a foreign bishop", and in + order to "stamp out overt expression of disaffection, he embarked upon a + veritable reign of terror". + </p> + <p> + In Anglican histories, you are assured that all this was a work of + religious reform, and that after it the Church was the pure vehicle of + God's grace. There were no more "holy idell theves", holding the land of + England and plundering the poor. But get to know the clergy, and see + things from the inside, and you will meet some one like the Archbishop of + Cashell, who wrote to one of his intimates: + </p> + <p> + I conclude that a good bishop has nothing more to do than to eat, drink + and grow fat, rich and die; which laudable example I propose for the + remainder of my days to follow. + </p> + <p> + If you say that might be a casual jest, hear what Thackeray reports of + that period, the eighteenth century, which he knew with peculiar intimacy: + </p> + <p> + I read that Lady Yarmouth (my most religious and gracious King's favorite) + sold a bishopric to a clergyman for 5000 pounds. (She betted him the 5000 + pounds that he would not be made a bishop, and he lost, and paid her.) Was + he the only prelate of his time led up by such hands for consecration? As + I peep into George II's St. James, I see crowds of cassocks pushing up the + back-stairs of the ladies of the court; stealthy clergy slipping purses + into their laps; that godless old king yawning under his canopy in his + Chapel Royal, as the chaplain before him is discoursing. Discoursing about + what?—About righteousness and judgment? Whilst the chaplain is + preaching, the king is chattering in German and almost as loud as the + preacher; so loud that the clergyman actually burst out crying in his + pulpit, because the defender of the faith and the dispenser of bishoprics + would not listen to him! + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0023" id="link2H_4_0023"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Land and Livings + </h2> + <p> + And how is it in the twentieth century? Have conditions been much + improved? There are great Englishmen who do not think so. I quote Robert + Buchanan, a poet who spoke for the people, and who therefore has still to + be recognized by English critics. He writes of the "New Rome", by which he + means present-day England: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + The gods are dead, but in their name + Humanity is sold to shame, + While (then as now!) the tinsel'd priest + Sitteth with robbers at the feast, + Blesses the laden, blood-stained board, + Weaves garlands round the butcher's sword, + And poureth freely (now as then) + The sacramental blood of Men! +</pre> + <p> + You see, the land system of England remains—the changes having been + for the worse. William the Conqueror wanted to keep the Saxon peasantry + contented, so he left them their "commons"; but in the eighteenth century + these were nearly all filched away. We saw the same thing done within the + last generation in Mexico, and from the same motive—because + developing capitalism needs cheap labor, whereas people who have access to + the land will not slave in mills and mines. In England, from the time of + Queen Anne to that of William and Mary, the parliaments of the landlords + passed some four thousand separate acts, whereby more than seven million + acres of the common land were stolen from the people. It has been + calculated that these acres might have supported a million families; and + ever since then England has had to feed a million paupers all the time. + </p> + <p> + As an old song puts the matter: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Why prosecute the man or woman + Who steals a goose from off the common, + And let the greater felon loose + Who steals the common from the goose? +</pre> + <p> + In our day the land aristocracy is rooted like the native oak in British + soil: some of them direct descendants of the Normans, others children of + the court favorites and panders who grew rich in the days of the Tudors + and the unspeakable Stuarts. Seven men own practically all the land of the + city and county of London, and collect tribute from seven millions of + people. The estates are entailed—that is, handed down from father to + oldest son automatically; you cannot buy any land, but if you want to + build, the landlord gives you a lease, and when the lease is up, he takes + possession of your buildings. The tribute which London pays is more than a + hundred million dollars a year. So absolute is the right of the land-owner + that he can sue for trespass the driver on an aeroplane which flies over + him; he imposes on fishermen a tax upon catches made many hundred of yards + from the shore. + </p> + <p> + And in this graft, of course, the church has its share. Each church owns + land—not merely that upon which it stands, but farms and city lots + from which it derives income. Each cathedral owns large tracts; so do the + schools and universities in which the clergy are educated. The income from + the holdings of a church constitutes what is called a "living"; these + livings, which vary in size, are the prerogatives of the younger sons of + the ruling families, and are intrigued and scrambled for in exactly the + fashion which Thackeray describes in the eighteenth century. + </p> + <p> + About six thousand of these "livings" are in the gift of great land + owners; one noble lord alone disposes of fifty-six such plums; and + needless to say, he does not present them to clergymen who favor radical + land-taxes. He gives them to men like himself—autocratic to the + poor, easy-going to members of his own class, and cynical concerning the + grafts of grace. + </p> + <p> + In one English village which I visited the living was worth seven hundred + pounds, with the use of a fine mansion; as the incumbent had a large + family, he lived there. In another place the living was worth a thousand + pounds, and the incumbent hired a curate, himself appearing twice a year, + on Christmas day and on the King's birthday, to preach a sermon; the rest + of the time he spent in Paris. It is worth noting that in 1808 a law was + proposed compelling absentee pluralists—that is, clergymen holding + more than one "living"—to furnish curates to do their work; it might + be interesting to note that this law met with strenuous clerical + opposition, the house of Bishops voting against it without a division. + Thus we may understand the sharp saying of Karl Marx, that the English + clergy would rather part with thirty-eight of their thirty-nine articles + than with one thirty-ninth of their income. + </p> + <p> + There is always a plentiful supply of curates in England. They are the + sons of the less influential ruling families, and of the clergy; they have + been trained at Oxford or Cambridge, and possess the one essential + qualification, that they are gentlemen. Their average price is two hundred + and fifty pounds a year; their function was made clear to me when I + attended my first English tea-party. There was a wicker table, perhaps a + foot and a half square, having three shelves, one below the other the top + layer the plates and napkins, on the next the muffins, and on the lowest + the cake. Said the hostess, "Will you pass the curate, please?" I looked + puzzled, and she pointed. "We call that the curate, because it does the + work of a curate." + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0024" id="link2H_4_0024"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Graft in Tail + </h2> + <p> + As one of America's head muck-rakers, I found that I was popular with the + British ruling classes; they found my books useful in their campaigns + against democracy, and they were surprised and disconcerted when they + found I did not agree with their interpretation of my writings. I had told + of corruption in American politics; surely I must know that in England + they had no such evils! I explained that they did not have to; their + graft, to use their own legal phrase, was "in tail"; the grafters had, as + a matter of divine right, the things which in America they had to buy. In + America, for instance, we had a Senate, a "Millionaire's Club", for + admission to which the members paid in cash; but in England the same men + came to the same position as their birth-right. Political corruption is + not an end in itself, it is merely a means to exploitation; and of + exploitation England has even more than America. When I explained this, my + popularity with the British ruling classes vanished quickly. + </p> + <p> + As a matter of fact, England is more like America than she realizes; her + British reticence has kept her ignorant about herself. I could not carry + on my business in England, because of the libel laws, which have as their + first principle "the greater the truth, the greater the libel". Englishmen + read with satisfaction what I write about America; but if I should turn my + attention to their own country, they would send me to jail as they sent + Frank Harris. The fact is that the new men in England, the lords of coal + and iron and shipping and beer, have bought their way into the landed + aristocracy for cash, just as our American senators have done; they have + bought the political parties with campaign gifts, precisely as in America; + they have taken over the press, whether by outright purchase like + Northcliffe, or by advertising subsidy—both of which methods we + Americans know. Within the last decade or two another group has been + coming into control; and not merely is this the same class of men as in + America, it frequently consists of the same individuals. These are the big + money-lenders, the international financiers who are the fine and final + flower of the capitalist system. These gentlemen make the world their home—or, + as Shakespeare puts it, their oyster. They know how to fit themselves to + all environments; they are Catholics in Rome and Vienna, country gentlemen + in London, bons vivants in Paris, democrats in Chicago, Socialists in + Petrograd, and Hebrews wherever they are. + </p> + <p> + And of course, in buying the English government, these new classes have + bought the English Church. Skeptics and men of the world as they are, they + know that they must have a Religion. They have read the story of the + French revolution, and the shadow of the guillotine is always over their + thoughts; they see the giant of labor, restless in his torment, groping as + in a nightmare for the throat of his enemy. Who can blind the eyes of this + giant, who can chain him to his couch of slumber? There is but one agent, + without rival—the Keeper of the Holy Secrets, the Deputy of the + Almighty Awfulness, the Giver and Withholder of Eternal Life. Tremble, + slave! Fall down and bow your forehead in the dust! I can see in my memory + the sight that thrilled my childhood—my grim old Bishop, clad in his + gorgeous ceremonial robes, stretching out his hands over the head of the + new priest, and pronouncing that most deadly of all the Christian curses: + </p> + <p> + "Whose sins thou dost forgive, they are forgiven; and whose sins thou dost + retain, they are retained!" + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0025" id="link2H_4_0025"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Bishops and Beer + </h2> + <p> + For example, the International Shylocks wanted the diamond mines of South + Africa—wanted them more firmly governed and less firmly taxed than + could be arranged with the Old Man of the Boers. So the armies of England + were sent to subjugate the country. You might think they would have had + the good taste to leave the lowly Jesus out of this affair—but if + so, you have missed the essential point about established religion. The + bishops, priests, and deacons are set up for the populace to revere, and + when the robber-classes need a blessing upon some enterprise, then is the + opportunity for the bishops, priests and deacons to earn their "living." + During the Boer war the blood-lust of the English clergy was so extreme + that writers in the dignified monthly reviews felt moved to protest + against it. When the pastors of Switzerland issued a collective protest + against cruelties to women and children in the South African + concentration-camps, it was the Right Reverend Bishop of Winchester who + was brought forward to make reply. Nowadays all England is reading + Bernhardi, and shuddering at Prussian glorification of war; but no one + mentions Bishop Welldon of Calcutta, who advocated the Boer war as a means + of keeping the nation "virile"; nor Archbishop Alexander, who said that it + was God's way of making "noble natures". + </p> + <p> + The British God had other ways of improving nations—for example, the + opium traffic. The British traders had been raising the poppy in India and + selling its juice to the Chinese. They had made perhaps a hundred million + "noble natures" by this method; and also they were making a hundred + million dollars a year. The Chinese, moved by their new "virility," + undertook to destroy some opium, and to stop the traffic; whereupon it was + necessary to use British battle-ships to punish and subdue them. Was there + any difficulty in persuading the established church of Jesus to bless this + holy war? There was not! Lord Shaftesbury, himself the most devout of + Anglicans, commented with horror upon the attitude of the clergy, and + wrote in his diary: + </p> + <p> + I rejoice that this cruel and debasing opium war is terminated. We have + triumphed in one of the most lawless, unnecessary, and unfair struggles in + the records of history; and Christians have shed more heathen blood in two + years, than the heathens have shed of Christian blood in two centuries. + </p> + <p> + That was in 1843; for seventy years thereafter pious England continued to + force the opium traffic upon protesting China, and only in the last two or + three years has the infamy been brought to an end. Throughout the long + controversy the attitude of the church was such that Li Hung Chang was + moved to assert in a letter to the Anti-Opium Society: + </p> + <p> + Opium is a subject in the discussion of which England and China can never + meet on a common ground. China views the whole question from a moral + standpoint, England from a fiscal. + </p> + <p> + And just as the Chinese people were poisoned with opium, so the English + people are being poisoned with alcohol. Both in town and country, labor is + sodden with it. Scientists and reformers are clamoring for restriction—and + what prevents? Head and front of the opposition for a century, standing + like a rock, has been the Established Church. The Rev. Dawson Burns, + historian of the early temperance movement, declares that "among its + supporters I cannot recall one Church of England minister of influence." + When Asquith brought in his bill for the restriction of the traffic in + beer, he was confronted with petitions signed by members of the clergy, + protesting against the act. And what was the basis of their protest? That + beer is a food and not a poison? Yes, of course; but also that there was + property invested in brewing it, Three hundred and thirty-two clergy of + the diocese of Peterborough declared: + </p> + <p> + We do strongly protest against the main provisions of the present bill as + creating amongst our people a sense of grave injustice as amounting to a + confiscation of private property, spelling ruin for thousands of quite + innocent people, and provoking deep and widespread resentment, which must + do harm to our cause and hinder our aims. + </p> + <p> + I have come upon references to another and even more plainspoken petition, + signed by 1,280 clergymen; but war-time facilities for research have not + enabled me to find the text. In Prof. Henry C. Vedder's "Jesus Christ and + the Social Question," we read: + </p> + <p> + It was authoritatively stated a short time ago that Mr. Asquith's + temperance bill was defeated in Parliament through the opposition of + clergymen who had invested their savings in brewery stock, the profits of + which might have been lessened by the bill. + </p> + <p> + Also the power of the clergy, combined with the brewer, was sufficient to + put through Parliament a provision that no prohibition legislation should + ever be passed without providing for compensation to the owners of the + industry. Today, all over America, appeals are being made to the people to + eat less grain; the grain is being shipped to England, some of it to be + made into beer; and a high Anglican prelate, his Grace the Archbishop of + York, comes to America to urge us to increased sacrifices, and in his + first newspaper interview takes occasion to declare that his church is not + in favor of prohibition as a measure of war-time economy! + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0026" id="link2H_4_0026"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Anglicanism and Alcohol + </h2> + <p> + This partnership of Bishops and Beer is painfully familiar to British + radicals; they see it at work in every election—the publican + confusing the voters with spirits, while the parson confuses them with + spirituality. There are two powerful societies in England employing this + deadly combination—the "Anti-Socialist Union" and the "Liberty and + Property Defense League." If you scan the lists of the organizers, + directors and subsidizers of these satanic institutions, you find Tory + politicians and landlords, prominent members of the higher clergy, and + large-scale dealers in drunkenness. I attended in London a meeting called + by the "Liberty and Property Defense League," to listen to a denunciation + of Socialism by W. H. Mallock, a master sophist of Roman Catholicism; upon + the platform were a bishop and half a dozen members of the Anglican + clergy, together with the secretary of the Federated Brewers' Association, + the Secretary of the Wine, Spirit, and Beer Trade Association, and three + or four other alcoholic magnates. + </p> + <p> + In every public library in England and many in America you will find an + assortment of pamphlets published by these organizations, and scholarly + volumes endorsed by them, in which the stock misrepresentations of + Socialism are perpetuated. Some of these writings are brutal—setting + forth the ethics of exploitation in the manner of the Rev. Thomas Malthus, + the English clergyman who supplied for capitalist depredation a basis in + pretended natural science. Said this shepherd of Jesus: + </p> + <p> + A man who is born into a world already possessed, if he cannot get + subsistence from his parents, and if society does not want his labor, has + no claim of right to the smallest portion of food, and in fact has no + business to be where he is. At Nature's mighty feast there is no cover for + him. She tells him to be gone, and will quickly execute her own orders. + </p> + <p> + Such was the tone of the ruling classes in the nineteenth century; but it + was found that for some reason this failed to stop the growth of + Socialism, and so in our time the clerical defenders of Privilege have + grown subtle and insinuating. They inform us now that they have a deep + sympathy with our fundamental purposes; they burn with pity for the poor, + and they would really and truly wish happiness to everyone, not merely in + Heaven, but right here and now. However, there are so many complications—and + so they proceed to set out all the anti-Socialist bug-a-boos. Here for + example, is the Rev. James Stalker, D. D., expounding "The Ethics of + Jesus," and admonishing us extremists: + </p> + <p> + Efforts to transfer money and property from one set of hands to another + may be inspired by the same passions as have blinded the present holders + to their own highest good, and may be accompanied with injustice as + extreme as has ever been manifested by the rich and powerful. + </p> + <p> + And again, the Rev. W. Sanday, D. D., an especially popular clerical + author, gives us this sublime utterance of religion on wage-slavery: + </p> + <p> + The world is full of mysteries, but some clear lines run through them, of + which this is one. Where God has been so patient, it is not for us to be + impatient. + </p> + <p> + And again, Professor Robert Flint, of Edinburgh University, a clergyman, + author of a big book attacking Socialism, and bringing us back to the + faith of our fathers: + </p> + <p> + The great bulk of human misery is due, not to social arrangements, but to + personal vices. + </p> + <p> + I study Professor Flint's volume in the effort to find just what, if + anything, he would have the church do about the evils of our time. I find + him praising the sermons of Dr. Westcott, Bishop of Durham, as being the + proper sort for clergymen to preach. Bishop Westcott, whether he is + talking to a high society congregation, or to one of workingmen, shows "an + exquisite sense of knowing always where to stop." So I consulted the + Bishop's volume, "The Social Aspects of Christianity" and I see at once + why he is popular with the anti-Socialist propagandists—neither I or + any other man can possibly discover what he really means, or what he + really wants done. + </p> + <p> + I was fascinated by this Westcott problem; I thought maybe if I kept on + the good Bishop's trail, I might in the end find something a plain man + could understand; so I got the beautiful two-volume "Life of Brooke + Westcott, by his Son"—and there I found an exposition of the social + purposes of bishops! In the year 1892 there was a strike in Durham, which + is in the coal country; the employers tried to make a cut in wages, and + some ten thousand men walked out, and there was a long and bitter + struggle, which wrung the episcopal heart. There was much consultation and + correspondence on episcopal stationery, and at last the masters and men + were got together, with the Bishop as arbitrator, and the dispute was + triumphantly settled—how do you suppose? On the basis of a ten per + cent reduction in wages! + </p> + <p> + I know nothing quainter in the history of English graft than the naivete + with which the Bishop's biographer and son tells the story of this + episcopal venture into reality. The prelate came out from the conference + "all smiles, and well satisfied with the result of his day's work." As for + his followers, they were in ecstacies; they "seized and waltzed one + another around on the carriage drive as madly as ever we danced at a + flower show ball. Hats and caps are thrown into the air, and we cheer + ourselves hoarse." The Bishop proceeds to his palace, and sends one more + communication on episcopal stationery—an order to all his clergy to + "offer their humble and hearty thanks to God for our happy deliverance + from the strife by which the diocese has been long afflicted." Strange to + say, there were a few varlets in Durham who did not appreciate the + services of the bold Bishop, and one of them wrote and circulated some + abusive verses, in which he made reference to the Bishop's comfortable way + of life. The biographer then explains that the Bishop was so + tender-hearted that he suffered for the horses who drew his episcopal + coach, and so ascetic that he would have lived on tea and toast if he had + been permitted to. A curious condition in English society, where the + Bishop would have lived on tea and toast, but was not permitted to; while + the working people, who didn't want to live on tea and toast, were + compelled to! + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0027" id="link2H_4_0027"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Dead Cats + </h2> + <p> + For more than a hundred years the Anglican clergy have been fighting with + every resource at their command the liberal and enlightened men of England + who wished to educate the masses of the people. In 1807 the first measure + for a national school-system was denounced by the Archbishop of Canterbury + as "derogatory to the authority of the Church." As a counte-measure, his + supporters established the "National Society for Promoting the Education + of the Poor in the Doctrines of the Established Church"; and the founder + of the organization, a clergyman, advocated a barn as a good structure for + a school, and insisted that the children of the workers "should not be + taught beyond their station." In 1840 a Committee of the Privy Council of + Education was appointed, but bowed to the will of the Archbishops, setting + forth the decree of "their lordships" that "the first purpose of all + instruction must be the regulation of the thoughts and habits of the + children by the doctrine and precepts of revealed religion." In 1850 a + bill for secular education was denounced as presenting to the country "a + choice between Heaven or Hell, God or the Devil." In 1870, Forster, author + of the still unpassed bill, wrote that while the parsons were disputing, + the children of the poor were "growing into savages." + </p> + <p> + As with Education, so with Social Reform. During the struggle to abolish + slavery in the British colonies, some enthusiasts endeavored to establish + the doctrine that Christian baptism conferred emancipation upon negroes + who accepted it; whereupon the Bishop of London laid down the formula of + exploitation: "Christianity and the embracing of the gospel do not make + the least alteration of civil property." + </p> + <p> + Gladstone, who was a democrat when he was not religious, spoke of the + cultured classes of England: + </p> + <p> + In almost every one, if not every one, of the greatest political + controversies of the last fifty years, whether they affected the + franchise, whether they affected commerce, whether they affected religion, + whether they affected the bad and abominable institution of slavery, or + what subject they touched, these leisured classes, these educated classes, + these titled classes have been in the wrong. + </p> + <p> + The "Great Commoner" did not add "these religious classes," for he + belonged to the religious classes himself; but a study of the record will + supply the gap. The Church opposed all the reform measures which Gladstone + himself put through. It opposed the Reform Bill of 1832. It opposed all + the social reforms of Lord Shaftesbury. This noble-hearted Englishman + complained that at first only a single minister of religion supported him, + and to the end only a few. He expressed himself as distressed and puzzled + "to find support from infidels and non-professors; opposition or coldness + from religionists or declaimers." + </p> + <p> + And to our own day it has been the same. In 1894 the House of Bishops + voted solidly against the Employers' Liability Law. The House of Bishops + opposed Home Rule, and beat it; the House of Bishops opposed Womans' + Suffrage, and voted against it to the end. Concerning this establishment + Lord Shaftesbury, himself the most devout of Englishmen, used the vivid + phrase: "this vast aquarium full of cold-blooded life." He told the + Bishops that he would give up preaching to them about ecclesiastical + reform, because he knew that they would never begin. Another member of the + British aristocracy, the Hon. Geo. Russell, has written of their record + and adventures: + </p> + <p> + They were defenders of absolutism, slavery, and the bloody penal code; + they were the resolute opponents of every political or social reform; and + they had their reward from the nation outside Parliament. The Bishop of + Bristol had his palace sacked and burnt; the Bishop of London could not + keep an engagement to preach lest the congregation should stone him. The + Bishop of Litchfield barely escaped with his life after preaching at St. + Bride's, Fleet Street. Archbishop Howley, entering Canterbury for his + primary visitation, was insulted, spat upon, and only brought by a + circuitous route to the Deanery, amid the execrations of the mob. On the + 5th of November the Bishops of Exeter and Winchester were burnt in effigy + close to their own palace gates. Archbishop Howley's chaplain complained + that a dead cat had been thrown at him, when the Archbishop—a man of + apostolic meekness—replied: "You should be thankful that it was not + a live one." + </p> + <p> + The people had reason for this conduct—as you will always find they + have, if you take the trouble to inquire. Let me quote another member of + the English ruling classes, Mr. Conrad Noel, who gives "an instance of the + procedure of Church and State about this period": + </p> + <p> + In 1832 six agricultural labourers in South Dorsetshire, led by one of + their class, George Loveless, in receipt of 9s. a week each, demanded the + 10s. rate of wages usual in the neighbourhood. The result was a reduction + to 8s. An appeal was made to the chairman of the local bench, who decided + that they must work for whatever their masters chose to pay them. The + parson, who had at first promised his help, now turned against them, and + the masters promptly reduced the wage to 7s., with a threat of further + reduction. Loveless then formed an agricultural union, for which all seven + were arrested, treated as convicts, and committed to the assizes. The + prison chaplain tried to bully them into submission. The judge determined + to convict them, and directed that they should be tried for mutiny under + an act of George III, specially passed to deal with the naval mutiny at + the Nore. The grand jury were landowners, and the petty jury were farmers; + both judge and jury were churchmen of the prevailing type. The judge + summed up as follows: "Not for anything that you have done, or that I can + prove that you intend to do, but for an example to others I consider it my + duty to pass the sentence of seven years' penal transportation across His + Majesty's high seas upon each and every one of you." + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0028" id="link2H_4_0028"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Suffer Little Children + </h2> + <p> + The founder of Christianity was a man who specialized in children. He was + not afraid of having His discourses disturbed by them, He did not consider + them superfluous. "Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven", He said; and His + Church is the inheritor of this tradition—"feed my lambs". There + were children in Great Britain in the early part of the nineteenth + century, and we may see what was done with them by turning to Gibbon's + "Industrial History of England": + </p> + <p> + Sometimes regular traffickers would take the place of the manufacturer, + and transfer a number of children to a factory district, and there keep + them, generally in some dark cellar, till they could hand them over to a + mill owner in want of hands, who would come and examine their height, + strength, and bodily capacities, exactly as did the slave owners in the + American markets. After that the children were simply at the mercy of + their owners, nominally as apprentices, but in reality as mere slaves, who + got no wages, and whom it was not worth while even to feed and clothe + properly, because they were so cheap and their places could be so easily + supplied. It was often arranged by the parish authorities, in order to get + rid of imbeciles, that one idiot should be taken by the mill owner with + every twenty sane children. The fate of these unhappy idiots was even + worse than that of the others. The secret of their final end has never + been disclosed, but we can form some idea of their awful sufferings from + the hardships of the other victims to capitalist greed and cruelty. The + hours of their labor were only limited by exhaustion, after many modes of + torture had been unavailingly applied to force continued work. Children + were often worked sixteen hours a day, by day and by night. + </p> + <p> + In the year 1819 an act of Parliament was proposed limiting the labor of + children nine years of age to four-teen hours a day. This would seem to + have been a reasonable provision, likely to have won the approval of + Christ; yet the bill was violently opposed by Christian employers, backed + by Christian clergymen. It was interfering with freedom of contract, and + therefore with the will of Providence; it was anathema to an established + Church, whose function was in 1819, as it is in 1918, and was in 1918 B. + C., to teach the divine origin and sanction of the prevailing economic + order. "Anu and Baal called me, Hammurabi, the exalted prince, worshipper + of the gods".... so begins the oldest legal code which has come down to + us, from 2250 B. C.; and the coronation service of the English church is + made whole out of the same thesis. The duty of submission, not merely to + divinely chosen King, but to divinely chosen Landlord and divinely chosen + Manufacturer, is implicit in the church's every ceremony, and explicit in + many of its creeds. In the Litany the people petition for increase of + grace to hear meekly "Thy Word"; and here is this "Word," as little + children are made to learn it by heart. If there exists in the world a + more perfect summary of slave ethics, I do not know where to find it. + </p> + <p> + My duty towards my neighbour is..... To honour and obey the King, and all + that are put in authority under him; To submit myself to all my + governours, teachers, spiritual pastors, and masters: To order myself + lowly and reverently to all my betters.... Not to covet nor desire other + men's goods; But to learn and labour truly to get mine own living, and to + do my duty in that state of life, unto which it shall please God to call + me. + </p> + <p> + A hundred years ago one of the most popular of British writers was Hannah + More. She and her sister Martha went to live in the coal-country, to teach + this "catechism" to the children of the starving miners. The "Mendip + Annals" is the title of a book in which they tell of their ten years' + labors in a village popularly known as "Little Hell." In this place two + hundred people were crowded into nineteen houses. "There is not one + creature in it that can give a cup of broth if it would save a life." In + one winter eighteen perished of "a putrid fever", and the clergyman "could + not raise a sixpence to save a life." + </p> + <p> + And what did the pious sisters make of all this? From cover to cover you + find in the "Mendip Annals" no single word of social protest, not even of + social suspicion. That wages of a shilling a day might have anything to do + with moral degeneration was a proposition beyond the mental powers of + England's most popular woman writer. She was perfectly content that a + woman should be sentenced to death for stealing butter from a dealer who + had asked what the woman thought too high a price. When there came a + famine, and the children of these mine-slaves were dying like flies, + Hannah More bade them be happy because God had sent them her pious self. + "In suffering by the scarcity, you have but shared in the common lot, with + the pleasure of knowing the advantage you have had over many villages in + your having suffered no scarcity of religious instruction." And in another + place she explained that the famine was caused by God to teach the poor to + be grateful to the rich! + </p> + <p> + Let me remind you that probably that very scarcity has been permitted by + an all-wise and gracious Providence to unite all ranks of people together, + to show the poor how immediately they are dependent upon the rich, and to + show both rich and poor that they are all dependent upon Himself. It has + also enabled you to see more clearly the advantages you derive from the + government and constitution of this country—to observe the benefits + flowing from the distinction of rank and fortune, which has enabled the + high to so liberally assist the low. + </p> + <p> + It appears that the villagers were entirely convinced by this pious + reasoning; for they assembled one Saturday night and burned an effigy of + Tom Paine! This proceeding led to a tragic consequence, for one of the + "common people," known as Robert, "was overtaken by liquor," and was + unable to appear at Sunday School next day. This fall from grace + occasioned intense remorse in Robert. "It preyed dreadfully upon his mind + for many months," records Martha More, "and despair seemed at length to + take possession of him." Hannah had some conversation with him, and read + him some suitable passages from "The Rise and Progress". "At length the + Almighty was pleased to shine into his heart and give him comfort." + </p> + <p> + Nor should you imagine that this saintly stupidity was in any way unique + in the Anglican establishment. We read in the letters of Shelley how his + father tormented him with Archdeacon Paley's "Evidences" as a cure for + atheism. This eminent churchman wrote a book, which he himself ranked + first among his writings, called "Reasons for Contentment, addressed to + the Labouring Classes of the British Public." In this book he not merely + proved that religion "smooths all inequalities, because it unfolds a + prospect which makes all earthly distinctions nothing"; he went so far as + to prove that, quite apart from religion, the British exploiters were less + fortunate than those to whom they paid a shilling a day. + </p> + <p> + Some of the conditions which poverty (if the condition of the labouring + part of mankind must be so called) imposes, are not hardships, but + pleasures. Frugality itself is a pleasure. It is an exercise of attention + and contrivance, which, whenever it is successful, produces + satisfaction..... This is lost among abundance. + </p> + <p> + And there was William Wilberforce, as sincere a philanthropist as + Anglicanism ever produced, an ardent supporter of Bible societies and + foreign missions, a champion of the anti-slavery movement, and also of the + ruthless "Combination Laws," which denied to British wage-slaves all + chance of bettering their lot. Wilberforce published a "Practical View of + the System of Christianity", in which he told unblushingly what the + Anglican establishment is for. In a chapter which he described as "the + basis of all politics," he explained that the purpose of religion is to + remind the poor: + </p> + <p> + That their more lowly path has been allotted to them by the hand of God; + that it is their part faithfully to discharge its duties, and contentedly + to bear its inconveniences; that the objects about which worldly men + conflict so eagerly are not worth the contest; that the peace of mind, + which Religion offers indiscriminately to all ranks, affords more true + satisfaction than all the expensive pleasures which are beyond the poor + man's reach; that in this view the poor have the advantage; that if their + superiors enjoy more abundant comforts, they are also exposed to many + temptations from which the inferior classes are happily exempted; that, + "having food and raiment, they should be therewith content," since their + situation in life, with all its evils, is better than they have deserved + at the hand of God; and finally, that all human distinctions will soon be + done away, and the true followers of Christ will all, as children of the + same Father, be alike admitted to the possession of the same heavenly + inheritance. Such are the blessed effects of Christianity on the temporal + well-being of political communities. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0029" id="link2H_4_0029"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + The Court Circular + </h2> + <p> + The Anglican system of submission has been transplanted intact to the soil + of America. When King George the Third lost the sovereignty of the + colonies, the bishops of his divinely inspired church lost the control of + the clergy across the seas; but this revolution was purely one of Church + politics—in doctrine and ritual the "Protestant Episcopal Church of + America" remained in every way Anglican. The little children of our free + republic are taught the same slave-catechism, "to order myself lowly and + reverently to all my betters." The only difference is that instead of + being told "to honour and obey the King," they are told "to honour and + obey the civil authority." + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> +It is the Church of Good Society in England, and it is the same in +Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, Charleston. Just +as our ruling classes have provided themselves with imitation English +schools and imitation English manners and imitation English clothes—so +in their Heaven they have provided an imitation English monarch. I +wonder how many Americans realize the treason to democracy they are +committing when they allow their children to be taught a symbolism and +liturgy based upon absolutist ideas. I take up the hymn-book—not the +English, but the sturdy, independent, democratic American hymn-book. +I have not opened it for twenty years, yet the greater part of its +contents is as familiar to me as the syllables of my own name. I read: + + Holy, holy, holy! All the saints adore Thee, Casting down their +golden crowns around the glassy sea; Cherubim and seraphim bowing down +before Thee, Which wert, and art, and ever more shall be! +</pre> + <p> + One might quote a hundred other hymns made thus out of royal imagery. I + turn at random to the part headed "General," and find that there is hardly + one hymn in which there is not "king..... throne," or some image of homage + and flattery. The first hymn begins— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Ancient of days, Who sittest, throned in glory; + To Thee all knees are bent, all voices pray. +</pre> + <p> + And the second— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Christ, whose glory fills the skies—- +</pre> + <p> + And the third— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Lord of all being, throned afar, + Thy glory flames from sun and star. +</pre> + <p> + There is a court in Heaven above, to which all good Britons look up, and + about which they read with exactly the same thrills as they read the Court + Circular. The two courts have the same ethical code and the same manners; + their Sovereigns are jealous, greedy of attention, self-conscious and + profoundly serious, punctilious and precise; their existence consisting of + an endless round of ceremonies, and they being incapable of boredom. No + member of the Royal Family can escape this regime even if he wishes; and + no more can any member of the Holy Family—not even the meek and + lowly Jesus, who chose a carpenter's wife for his mother, and showed all + his earthly days a preference for low society. + </p> + <p> + This unconventional Son lived obscurely; he never carried weapons, he + could not bear to have so much as a human ear cut off in his presence. But + see how he figures in the Court Circular: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + The Son of God goes forth to war, + A kingly crown to gain: + His blood-red banner streams afar: + Who follows in His train? +</pre> + <p> + This carpenter's son was one of the most unpretentious men on earth; + utterly simple and honest—he would not even let anyone praise him. + When some one called him "good Master," he answered, quickly, "Why callest + thou me good? There is none good save one, that is, God." But this + simplicity has been taken with deprecation by his church, which persists + in heaping compliments upon him in conventional, courtly style: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + The company of angels + Are praising Thee on high; + And mortal men, and all things + Created, make reply: All Glory, laud and honour, + To Thee, Redeemer, King..... +</pre> + <p> + The impression a modern man gets from all this is the unutterable boredom + that Heaven must be. Can one imagine a more painful occupation than that + of the saints—casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea—unless + it be that of the Triumvirate itself, compelled to sit through eternity + watching these saints, and listening to their mawkish and superfluous + compliments! + </p> + <p> + But one can understand that such things are necessary in a monarchy; they + are necessary if you are going to have Good Society, and a Good Society + church. For Good Society is precisely the same thing as Heaven; that is, a + place to which only a few can get admission, and those few are bored. They + spend their time going through costly formalities—not because they + enjoy it, but because of its effect upon the populace, which reads about + them and sees their pictures in the papers, and now and then is allowed to + catch a glimpse of their physical Presences, as at the horse-show, or the + opera, or the coaching-parade. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0030" id="link2H_4_0030"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Horn-blowing + </h2> + <p> + I know the Church of Good Society in America, having studied it from the + inside. I was an extraordinarily devout little boy; one of my earliest + recollections—I cannot have been more than four years of age—is + of carrying a dust-brush about the house as the choir-boy carried the + golden cross every Sunday morning. I remember asking if I might say the + "Lord's prayer" in this fascinating play; and my mother's reply: "If you + say it reverently." When I was thirteen, I attended service, of my own + volition and out of my own enthusiasm, every single day during the forty + days of Lent; at the age of fifteen I was teaching Sunday-school. It was + the Church of the Holy Communion, at Sixth Avenue and Twentieth Street, + New York; and those who know the city will understand that this is a + peculiar location—precisely half way between the homes of some of + the oldest and most august of the city's aristocracy, and some of the + vilest and most filthy of the city's slums. The aristocracy were paying + for the church, and occupied the best pews; they came, perfectly clad, aus + dem Ei gegossen, as the Germans say, with the manner they so carefully + cultivate, gracious, yet infinitely aloof. The service was made for them—as + all the rest of the world is made for them; the populace was permitted to + occupy a fringe of vacant seats. + </p> + <p> + The assistant clergyman was an Englishman, and a gentleman; orthodox, yet + the warmest man's heart I have ever known. He could not bear to have the + church remain entirely the church of the rich; he would go persistently + into the homes of the poor, visiting the old slum women in their pitifully + neat little kitchens, and luring their children with entertainments and + Christmas candy. They were corralled into the Sunday-school, where it was + my duty to give them what they needed for the health of their souls. + </p> + <p> + I taught them out of a book of lessons; and one Sunday it would be Moses + in the Bulrushes, and next Sunday it would be Jonah and the Whale, and + next Sunday it would be Joshua blowing down the walls of Jericho. These + stories were reasonably entertaining, but they seemed to me futile, not to + the point. There were little morals tagged to them, but these lacked + relationship to the lives of little slum-boys. Be good and you will be + happy, love the Lord and all will be well with you; which was about as + true and as practical as the procedure of the Fijians, blowing horns to + drive away a pestilence. + </p> + <p> + I had a mind, you see, and I was using it. I was reading the papers, and + watching politics and business. I, followed the fates of my little + slum-boys—and what I saw was that Tammany Hall was getting them. The + liquor-dealers and the brothel-keepers, the panders and the pimps, the + crap-shooters and the petty thieves—all these were paying the + policeman and the politician for a chance to prey upon my boys; and when + the boys got into trouble, as they were continually doing, it was the + clergyman who consoled them in prison—but it was the Tammany leader + who saw the judge and got them out. So these boys got their lesson even + earlier in life than I got mine—that the church was a kind of + amiable fake, a pious horn-blowing; while the real thing was Tammany. + </p> + <p> + I talked about this with the vestrymen and the ladies of Good Society; + they were deeply pained, but I noticed that they did nothing practical + about it; and gradually, as I went on to investigate, I discovered the + reason—that their incomes came from real estate, traction, gas and + other interests, which were contributing the main part of the campaign + expenses of the corrupt Tammany machine, and of its equally corrupt rival. + So it appeared that these immaculate ladies and gentlemen, aus dem Ei + gegossen, were themselves engaged, unconsciously, perhaps, but none the + less effectively, in spreading the pestilence against which they were + blowing their religious horns! + </p> + <p> + So little by little I saw my beautiful church for what it was and is: a + great capitalist interest, an integral and essential part of a gigantic + predatory system. I saw that its ethical and cultural and artistic + features, however sincerely they might be meant by individual clergymen, + were nothing but a bait, a device to lure the poor into the trap of + submission to their exploiters. And as I went on probing into the secret + life of the great Metropolis of Mammon, and laying bare its infamies to + the world, I saw the attitude of the church to such work; I met, not + sympathy and understanding, but sneers and denunciation—until the + venerable institution which had once seemed dignified and noble became to + me as a sepulchre of corruption. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0031" id="link2H_4_0031"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Trinity Corporation + </h2> + <p> + There stands on the corner of Broadway and Wall Street a towering + brown-stone edifice, one of the most beautiful and most famous churches in + America. As a child I have walked through its church yard and read the + quaint and touching inscriptions on its gravestones; when I was a little + older, and knew Wall Street, it seemed to me a sublime thing that here in + the very heart of the world's infamy there should be raised, like a finger + of warning, this symbol of Eternity and Judgment. Its great bell rang at + noon-time, and all the traders and their wage-slaves had to listen, + whether they would or no! Such was Old Trinity to my young soul; and what + is it in reality? + </p> + <p> + The story was told some ten years ago by Charles Edward Russell. Trinity + Corporation is the name of the concern, and it is one of the great + landlords of New York. In the early days it bought a number of farms, and + these it has held, as the city has grown up around them, until in 1908 + their value was estimated at anywhere from forty to a hundred million + dollars. The true amount has never been made public; to quote Russell's + words: + </p> + <p> + The real owners of the property are the communicants of the church. For 94 + years none of the owners has known the extent of the property, nor the + amount of the revenue therefrom, nor what is done with the money. Every + attempt to learn even the simplest fact about these matters has been + baffled. The management is a self perpetuating body, without + responsibility and without supervision. + </p> + <p> + And the writer goes on to describe the business policy of this great + corporation, which is simply the English land system complete. It refuses + to sell the land, but rents it for long periods, and the tenant builds the + house, and then when the lease expires, the Corporation takes over the + house for a nominal sum. Thus it has purchased houses for as low as $200, + and made them into tenements, and rented them to the swarming poor for a + total of fifty dollars a month. The houses were not built for tenements, + they have no conveniences, they are not fit for the habitation of animals. + The article, in Everybody's Magazine for July, 1908, gives pictures of + them, which are horrible beyond belief. To quote the writer again: + </p> + <p> + Decay, neglect and squalor seem to brood wherever Trinity is an owner. + Gladly would I give to such a charitable and benevolent institution all + possible credit for a spirit of improvement manifested anywhere, but I can + find no such manifestation. I have tramped the Eighth Ward day after day + with a list of Trinity properties in my hand, and of all the tenement + houses that stand there on Trinity land, I have not found one that is not + a disgrace to civilization and to the City of New York. + </p> + <p> + It happens that I once knew the stately prelate who presided over this + Corporation of Corruption. I imagine how he would have shivered and turned + pale had some angel whispered to him what devilish utterances were some + day to proceed from the lips of the little cherub with shining face and + shining robes who acted as the bishop's attendant in the stately + ceremonials of the Church! Truly, even into the goodly company of the + elect, even to the most holy places of the temple, Satan makes his + treacherous way! Even under the consecrated hands of the bishop! For while + the bishop was blessing me and taking me into the company of the + sanctified, I was thinking about what the papers had reported, that the + bishop's wife had been robbed of fifty thousand dollars worth of jewels! + It did not seem quite in accordance with the doctrine of Jesus that a + bishop's wife should possess fifty thousand dollars worth of jewels, or + that she should be setting the blood-hounds of the police on the train of + a human being. I asked my clergyman friend about it, and remember his + patient explanation—that the bishop had to know all classes and + conditions of men: his wife had to go among the rich as well as the poor, + and must be able to dress so that she would not be embarrassed. The Bishop + at this time was making it his life-work to raise a million dollars for + the beginning of a great Episcopal cathedral; and this of course compelled + him to spend much time among the rich! + </p> + <p> + The explanation satisfied me; for of course I thought there had to be + cathedrals—despite the fact that both St. Stephen and St. Paul had + declared that "the Lord dwelleth not in temples made with hands." In the + twenty-five years which have passed since that time the good Bishop has + passed to his eternal reward, but the mighty structure which is a monument + to his visitations among the rich towers over the city from its + vantage-point on Morningside Heights. It is called the Cathedral of St. + John the Divine; and knowing what I know about the men who contributed its + funds, and about the general functions of the churches of the Metropolis + of Mammon, it would not seem to me less holy if it were built, like the + monuments of ancient ravagers, out of the skulls of human beings. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0032" id="link2H_4_0032"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Spiritual Interpretation + </h2> + <p> + There remains to say a few words as to the intellectual functions of the + Fifth Avenue clergy. Let us realize at the outset that they do their + preaching in the name of a proletarian rebel, who was crucified as a + common criminal because, as they said, "He stirreth up the people." An + embarrassing "Savior" for the church of Good Society, you might imagine; + but they manage to fix him up and make him respectable. + </p> + <p> + I remember something analogous in my own boyhood. All day Saturday I ran + about with the little street rowdies, I stole potatoes and roasted them in + vacant lots, I threw mud from the roofs of apartment-houses; but on + Saturday night I went into a tub and was lathered and scrubbed, and on + Sunday I came forth in a newly brushed suit, a clean white collar and a + shining tie and a slick derby hat and a pair of tight gloves which made me + impotent for mischief. Thus I was taken and paraded up Fifth Avenue, doing + my part of the duties of Good Society. And all church-members go through + this same performance; the oldest and most venerable of them steal + potatoes and throw mud all week—and then take a hot bath of + repentance and put on the clean clothing of piety. In this same way their + ministers of religion are occupied to scrub and clean and dress up their + disreputable Founder—to turn him from a proletarian rebel into a + stained-glass-window divinity. + </p> + <p> + The man who really lived, the carpenter's son, they take out and crucify + all over again. As a young poet has phrased it, they nail him to a jeweled + cross with cruel nails of gold. Come with me to the New Golgotha and + witness this crucifixion; take the nails of gold in your hands, try the + weight of the jeweled sledges! Here is a sledge, in the form of a + dignified and scholarly volume, published by the exclusive house of + Scribner, and written by the Bishop of my boyhood, the Bishop whose train + I carried in the stately ceremonials: "The Citizen in His Relation to the + Industrial Situation," by the Right Reverend Henry Codman Potter, D. D., + L. L. D., D. C. L.—a course of lectures delivered before the sons of + our predatory classes at Yale University, under the endowment of a + millionaire mining king, founder of the Phelps-Dodge corporation, which + the other day carried out the deportation from their homes of a thousand + striking miners at Bisbee, Arizona. Says my Bishop: + </p> + <p> + Christ did not denounce wealth any more than he denounced pauperism. He + did not abhor money; he used it. He did not abhor the company of rich men; + he sought it. He did not invariably scorn or even resent a certain + profuseness of expenditure. + </p> + <p> + And do you think that the late Bishop of J. P. Morgan and Company stands + alone as an utterer of scholarly blasphemy, a driver of golden nails? In + the course of this book there will march before us a long line of the + clerical retainers of Privilege, on their way to the New Golgotha to + crucify the carpenter's son: the Rector of the Money Trust, the Preacher + of the Coal Trust, the Priest of the Traction Trust, the Archbishop of + Tammany, the Chaplain of the Millionaires' Club, the Pastor of the + Pennsylvania Railroad, the Religious Editor of the New Haven, the + Sunday-school Superintendent of Standard Oil. We shall try the weight of + their jewelled sledges—books, sermons, newspaper-interviews, + after-dinner speeches—wherewith they pound their golden nails of + sophistry into the bleeding hands and feet of the proletarian Christ. + </p> + <p> + Here, for example, is Rev. F. G. Peabody, Professor of Christian Morals at + Harvard University. Prof. Peabody has written several books on the social + teachings of Jesus; he quotes the most rabid of the carpenter's + denunciations of the rich, and says: + </p> + <p> + Is it possible that so obvious and so limited a message as this, a + teaching so slightly distinguished from the curbstone rhetoric of a modern + agitator, can be an adequate reproduction of the scope and power of the + teaching of Jesus? + </p> + <p> + The question answers itself: Of course not! For Jesus was a gentleman; he + is the head of a church attended by gentlemen, of universities where + gentlemen are educated. So the Professor of Christian Morals proceeds to + make a subtle analysis of Jesus' actions; demonstrating therefrom that + there are three proper uses to be made of great wealth: first, for + almsgiving—"The poor ye have always with you!"; second, for beauty + and culture—buying wine for wedding-feasts, and ointment-boxes and + other objets de vertu; and third, "stewardship," "trusteeship"—which + in plain English is "Big Business." + </p> + <p> + I have used the illustration of soap and hot water; one can imagine he is + actually watching the scrubbing process, seeing the proletarian Founder + emerging all new and respectable under the brush of this capitalist + professor. The professor has a rule all his own for reading the + scriptures; he tells us that when there are two conflicting sayings, the + rule of interpretation is that "the more spiritual is to be preferred." + Thus, one gospel makes Jesus say: "Blessed are ye poor." Another puts it: + "Blessed are the poor in spirit." The first one is crude and literal; + obviously the second must be what Jesus meant! In other words, the + professor and his church have made for their economic masters a + treacherous imitation virtue to be taught to wage-slaves, a quality of + submissiveness, impotence and futility, which they call by the name of + "spirituality". This virtue they exalt above all others, and in its name + they cut from the record of Jesus everything which has relation to the + realities of life! + </p> + <p> + So here is our Professor Peabody, sitting in the Plummer chair at Harvard, + writing on "Jesus Christ and the Social Question," and explaining: + </p> + <p> + The fallacy of the Socialist program is not in its radicalism, but in its + externalism. It proposes to accomplish by economic change what can be + attained by nothing less than spiritual regeneration. + </p> + <p> + And here is "The Churchman," organ of the Episcopalians of New York, + warning us: + </p> + <p> + It is necessary to remember that something more than material and temporal + considerations are involved. There are things of more importance to the + purposes of God and to the welfare of humanity than economic readjustments + and social amelioration. + </p> + <p> + And again: + </p> + <p> + Without doubt there is a strong temptation today, bearing upon clergy and + laity alike, to address their religious energies too exclusively to those + tasks whereby human life may be made more abundant and wholesome + materially..... We need constantly to be reminded that spiritual things + come first. + </p> + <p> + There come before my mental eye the elegant ladies and gentlemen for whom + these comfortable sayings are prepared: the vestrymen and pillars of the + Church, with black frock coats and black kid gloves and shiny top-hats; + the ladies of Good Society with their Easter costumes in pastel shades, + their gracious smiles and their sweet intoxicating odors. I picture them + as I have seen them at St. George's, where that aged wild boar, Pierpont + Morgan, the elder, used to pass the collection plate; at Holy Trinity, + where they drove downtown in old-fashioned carriages with grooms and + footmen sitting like twin statues of insolence; at St. Thomas', where you + might see all the "Four Hundred" on exhibition at once; at St. Mary the + Virgin's, where the choir paraded through the aisles, swinging costly + incense into my childish nostrils, the stout clergyman walking alone with + nose upturned, carrying on his back a jewelled robe for which some adoring + female had paid sixty thousand dollars. "Spiritual things come first?" Ah, + yes! "Seek first the kingdom of God, and the jewelled robes shall be added + unto you!" And it is so dreadful about the French and German Socialists, + who, as the "Churchman" reports, "make a creed out of materialism." But + then, what is this I find in one issue of the organ of the "Church of Good + Society"? + </p> + <p> + Business men contribute to the Y. M. C. A. because they realize that if + their employees are well cared for and religiously influenced, they can be + of greater service in business! + </p> + <p> + Who let that material cat out of the spiritual bag? + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0033" id="link2H_4_0033"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + BOOK THREE — The Church of the Servant-girls + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Was it for this—that prayers like these + Should spend themselves about thy feet, + And with hard, over-labored knees + Kneeling, these slaves of men should beat + Bosoms too lean to suckle sons + And fruitless as their orisons? + + Was it for this—that men should make + Thy name a fetter on men's necks, + Poor men made poorer for thy sake, + And women withered out of sex? + Was it for this—that slaves should be— +Thy word was passed to set men free? Swinburne. +</pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0034" id="link2H_4_0034"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Charity + </h2> + <p> + As everyone knows, the "society lady" is not an independent and + self-sustaining phenomenon. For every one of these exquisite, + sweet-smelling creatures that you meet on Fifth Avenue, there must be at + home a large number of other women who live sterile and empty lives, and + devote themselves to cleaning up after their luckier sisters. But these + "domestics" also are human beings; they have emotions—or, in + religious parlance, "souls;" it is necessary to provide a discipline to + keep them from appropriating the property of their mistresses, also to + keep them from becoming enceinte. So it comes about that there are two + cathedrals in New York: one, St. John the Divine, for the society ladies, + and the other, St. Patrick's, for the servant-girls. The latter is located + on Fifth Avenue, where its towering white spires divide with the homes of + the Vanderbilts the interest of the crowds of sight-seers. Now, early + every Sunday morning, before "Good Society" has opened its eyes, you may + see the devotees of the Irish snake-charmer hurrying to their orisons, + each with a little black prayer-book in her hand. What is it they do + inside? What are they taught about life? This is the question to which we + have next to give attention. + </p> + <p> + Some years ago Mr. Thomas F. Ryan, traction and insurance magnate of New + York, favored me with his justification of his own career and activities. + He mentioned his charities, and, speaking as one man of the world to + another, he said: "The reason I put them into the hands of Catholics is + not religious, but because I find they are efficient in such matters. They + don't ask questions, they do what you want them to do, and do it + economically." + </p> + <p> + I made no comment; I was absorbed in the implications of the remark—like + Agassiz when some one gave him a fossil bone, and his mind set to work to + reconstruct the creature. + </p> + <p> + When a man is drunk, the Catholics do not ask if it was long hours and + improper working-conditions which drove him to desperation; they do not + ask if police and politicians are getting a rake-off from the saloon, or + if traction magnates are using it as an agency for the controlling of + votes; they do not plunge into prohibition movements or good government + campaigns—they simply take the man in, at a standard price, and the + patient slave-sisters and attendants get him sober, and then turn him out + for society to make him drunk again. That is "charity," and it is the + special industry of Roman Catholicism. They have been at it for a thousand + years, cleaning up loathsome and unsightly messes—"plague, + pestilence and famine, battle and murder and sudden death." Yet—puzzling + as it would seem to anyone not religious—there were never so many + messes, never so many different kinds of messes, as now at the end of the + thousand years of charitable activity! + </p> + <p> + But the Catholics go on and on; like the patient spider, building and + rebuilding his web across a doorway; like soldiers under the command of a + ruling class with a "muddling through" tradition— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Theirs not to reason why, + Theirs but to do and die. +</pre> + <p> + And so of course all magnates and managers of industry who have messes to + be cleaned up, human garbage-heaps to be carted away quickly and without + fuss, turn to the Catholic Church for this service, no matter what their + personal religious beliefs or lack of beliefs may be. Somewhere in the + neighborhood of every steel-mill, every coal-mine or other place of + industrial danger, you will find a Catholic hospital, with its + slave-sisters and attendants. Once when I was "muck-raking" near + Pittsburgh, I went to one of these places to ask information as to the + frequency of industrial accidents and the fate of the victims. The "Mother + Superior" received me with a look of polite dismay. "These concerns pay + us!" she said. "You must see that as a matter of business it would not do + for us to talk about them." + </p> + <p> + Obey and keep silence: that is the Catholic law. And precisely as it is + with the work of nursing and almsgiving, so it is with the work of + vote-getting, the elaborate system of policemen and saloon-keepers and + ward-heelers which the Catholic machine controls. This industry of + vote-getting is a comparatively new one; but the Church has been handling + the masses for so many centuries that she quickly learned this new way of + "democracy," and has established her supremacy over all rivals. She has + the schools for training the children, the confessional for controlling + the women; she has the intellectual machinery, the purgatory and the code + of slave-ethics. She has the supreme advantage that the rank and file of + her mighty host really believe what she teaches; they do not have to + listen to table-rappings and flounder through swamps of automatic writings + in order to bolster their hope of the survival of personality after death! + </p> + <p> + So it comes about that our captains of industry and finance have been + driven to a more or less reluctant alliance with the Papacy. The Church is + here, and her followers are here, before the war several hundred thousand + of them pouring into the country every year. It is no longer possible to + do without Catholics in America; not merely do ditches have to be dug, + roads graded, coal mined, and dishes washed, but franchises have to be + granted, tariff-schedules adjusted, juries and courts manipulated, police + trained and strikes crushed. Under our native political system, for these + purposes millions of votes are needed; and these votes belong to people of + a score of nationalities—Irish and German and Italian and + French-Canadian and Bohemian and Mexican and Portuguese and Polish and + Hungarian. Who but the Catholic Church can handle these polyglot hordes? + Who can furnish teachers and editors and politicians familiar with all + these languages? + </p> + <p> + Considering how complex is the service, the price is extremely moderate—the + mere actual expenses of the campaign, the cost of red fire and + torch-lights, of liquor and newspaper advertisements. The rest may come + out of the public till, in the form of exemption from taxation of church + buildings and lands, a share of the public funds for charities and + schools, the control of the police for saloon-keepers and district + leaders, the control of police-courts and magistrates, of municipal + administrations and boards of education, of legislatures and governors; + with a few higher offices now and then, to flatter our sacred self-esteem, + a senator or a justice on the Supreme Court Bench; and on state occasions, + to keep up our necessary prestige, some cabinet-members and legislators + and justices to attend High Mass, and be blessed in public by Catholic + prelates and dignitaries. + </p> + <p> + You think this is empty rhetoric—you comfortable, easy-going, + ultra-cultured Americans? You professors in your classic shades, absorbed + in "the passionless pursuit of passionless intelligence"—while the + world about you slides down into the pit! You ladies of Good Society, + practicing your "sweet little charities," pursuing your "dear little + ideals," raising your families of one or two lovely children—while + Irish and French-Canadians and Italians and Portuguese and Hungarians are + breeding their dozens and scores, and preparing to turn you out of your + country! + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0035" id="link2H_4_0035"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + God's Armor + </h2> + <p> + You remember "Bishop Blougram's Apology," Browning's study of the + psychology of a modern Catholic ecclesiastic. He is not unaware of modern + thought, this bishop; he is a man of culture, who wants to have beauty + about him, to be a "cabin passenger": + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + There's power in me and will to dominate + Which I must exercise, they hurt me else; + In many ways I need mankind's respect, + Obedience, and the love that's born of fear. +</pre> + <p> + He wishes that he had faith—faith in anything; he understands that + faith is all-important— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Enthusiasm's the best thing, I repeat. +</pre> + <p> + But you cannot get faith just by wishing for it— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + But paint a fire, it will not therefore burn! +</pre> + <p> + He tries to imagine himself going on a crusade for truth, but he asks what + there would be in it for him— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + State the facts, + Read the text right, emancipate the world— +The emancipated world enjoys itself With scarce a thank-you. + Blougram told it first + It could not owe a farthing,—not to him + More than St. Paul! +</pre> + <p> + So the bishop goes on with his role, but uneasily conscious of the + contempt of intellectual people. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + I pine among my million imbeciles + (You think) aware some dozen men of sense + Eye me and know me, whether I believe + In the last winking virgin as I vow, + And am a fool, or disbelieve in her, + And am a knave. +</pre> + <p> + But, as he says, you have to keep a tight hold upon the chain of faith, + that is what + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Gives all the advantage, makes the difference, + With the rough, purblind mass we seek to rule. + We are their lords, or they are free of us, + Just as we tighten or relax that hold. +</pre> + <p> + So he continues, but not with entire satisfaction, in his role of shepherd + to those whom he calls "King Bomba's lazzaroni," and "ragamuffin saints." + </p> + <p> + I wander into a Catholic bookstore and look to see what Bishop Blougram is + doing with his lazzaroni and his ragamuffin saints here in this new + country of the far West. It is easy to acquire the information, for the + saleswoman is polite and the prices fit my purse. America is going to war, + and Catholic boys are being drafted to be trained for battle; so for ten + cents I obtain a firmly bound little pamphlet called "God's Armor, a + Prayer Book for Soldiers." It is marked "Copyright by the G. R. C. + Central-Verein," and bears the "Nihil Obstat" of the "Censor Theolog." and + the "Imprimatur" of "Johannes Josephus, Archiepiscopus Sti. Ludovici"—which + last you may at first fail to recognize as a well-known city on the + Mississippi River. Do you not feel the spell of ancient things, the magic + of the past creeping over you, as you read those Latin trade-marks? Such + is the Dead Hand, and its cunning, which can make even St. Louis sound + mysterious! + </p> + <p> + In this booklet I get no information as to the commercial causes of war, + nor about the part which the clerical vote may have played throughout + Europe in supporting military systems. I do not even find anything about + the sacred cause of democracy, the resolve of a self-governing people to + put an end to feudal rule. Instead I discover a soldier-boy who obeys and + keeps silent, and who, in his inmost heart, is in the grip of terrors both + of body and soul. Poor, pitiful soldier-boy, marking yourself with + crosses, performing genuflections, mumbling magic formulas in the trenches—how + many billions of you have been led out to slaughter by the greeds and + ambitions of your religious masters, since first this accursed Antichrist + got its grip upon the hearts of men! + </p> + <p> + I quote from this little book: + </p> + <p> + Start this day well by lifting up your heart to God. Offer yourself to + Him, and beg grace to spend the day without sin. Make the sign of the + cross. Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, behold me in Thy + Divine Presence. I adore Thee and give Thee thanks. Grant that all I do + this day be for Thy Glory, and for the salvation of my immortal soul. + </p> + <p> + During the day lift your heart frequently to God. Your prayers need not be + long nor read from a book. Learn a few of these short ejaculations by + heart and frequently repeat them. They will serve to recall God to your + heart and will strengthen you and comfort you. + </p> + <p> + You remember a while back about the prayer-wheels of the Thibetans. The + Catholic religion was founded before the Thibetan, and is less + progressive; it does not welcome mechanical devices for saving labor. You + have to use your own vocal apparatus to keep yourself from hell; but the + process has been made as economical as possible by kindly dispensations of + the Pope. Thus, each time that you say "My God and my all," you get fifty + days indulgence; the same for "My Jesus, mercy," and the same for "Jesus, + my God, I love Thee above all things." For "Jesus, Mary, Joseph," you get + three hundred days—which would seem by all odds the best investment + of your spare breath. + </p> + <p> + And then come prayers for all occasions: "Prayer before Battle"; "Prayer + for a Happy Death"; "Prayer in Temptation"; "Prayer before and after + Meals"; "Prayer when on Guard"; "Prayer before a long March"; "Prayer of + Resignation to Death"; "Prayer for Those in their Agony"—I cannot + bear to read them, hardly to list them. I remember standing in a cathedral + "somewhere in France" during the celebration of some special Big Magic. + There was brilliant white light, and a suffocating strange odor, and the + thunder of a huge organ, and a clamor of voices, high, clear voices of + young boys mounting to heaven, like the hands of men in a pit reaching up, + trying to climb over the top of one another. It sent a shudder into the + depths of my soul. There is nothing left in the modern world which can + carry the mind so far back into the ancient nightmare of anguish and + terror which was once the mental life of mankind, as these Roman Catholic + incantations with their frantic and ceaseless importunity. They have even + brought in the sex-spell; and the poor, frightened soldier-boy, who has + perhaps spent the night with a prostitute, now prostrates himself before a + holy Woman-being who is lifted high above the shames of the flesh, and who + stirs the thrills of awe and affection which his mother brought to him in + early childhood. Read over the phrases of this "Litany of the Blessed + Virgin": + </p> + <p> + Holy Mary, Pray for us. Holy Mother of God. Holy Virgin of Virgins. Mother + of Christ. Mother of divine grace. Mother most pure. Mother most chaste. + Mother inviolate. Mother undefiled. Mother most amiable. Mother most + admirable. Mother of good counsel. Mother of our Creator. Mother of our + Savior. Virgin most prudent. Virgin most venerable. Virgin most renowned. + Virgin most powerful. Virgin most merciful. Virgin most faithful. Mirror + of justice. Seat of wisdom. Cause of our Joy. Spiritual vessel. Vessel of + honor. Singular vessel of devotion. Mystical rose. Tower of David. Tower + of ivory. House of gold. Ark of the covenant. Gate of heaven. Morning + Star. Health of the sick. Refuge of sinners. Comforter of the afflicted. + Help of Christians. Queen of Angels. Queen of Patriarchs. Queen of + Prophets. Queen of Apostles. Queen of Martyrs. Queen of Confessors. Queen + of Virgins. Queen of all Saints. Queen conceived without original sin. + Queen of the most holy Rosary. Queen of Peace, Pray for us. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0036" id="link2H_4_0036"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Thanksgivings + </h2> + <p> + For another five cents—how cheaply a man of insight can obtain + thrills in this fantastic world!—I purchase a copy of the "Messenger + of the Sacred Heart", a magazine published in New York, the issue for + October, 1917. There are pages of advertisements of schools and colleges + with strange titles: "Immaculata Seminary", "Holy Cross Academy", "Holy + Ghost Institute", "Ladycliff", "Academy of Holy Child Jesus". The leading + article is by a Jesuit, on "The Spread of the Apostleship of Prayer among + the Young"; and then "Sister Clarissa" writes a poem telling us "What are + Sorrows"; and then we are given a story called "Prayer for Daddy"; and + then another Jesuit father tells us about "The Hills that Jesus Loved". A + third father tells us about the "Eucharistic Propaganda"; and we learn + that in July, 1917, it distributed 11,699 beads, and caused the + expenditure of 57,714 hours of adoration; and then the faithful are given + a form of letter which they are to write to the Honorable Baker, Secretary + of War, imploring him to intimate to the French government that France + should withdraw from one of her advances in civilization, and join with + mediaeval America in exempting priests from being drafted to fight for + their country. And then there is a "Question Box"—just like the + Hearst newspapers, only instead of asking whether she should allow him to + kiss her before he has told her that he loves her, the reader asks what is + the Pauline Privilege, and what is the heroic Act, and is Robert a saint's + name, and if food remains in the teeth from the night before, would it + break the fast to swallow it before Holy Communion. (No, I am not + inventing this.) + </p> + <p> + I quoted the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer, and pointed out how deftly + the Church has managed to slip in a prayer for worldly prosperity. But the + Catholic Church does not show any squeamishness in dealing with its + "million imbeciles", its "rough, purblind mass". There is a department of + the little magazine entitled "Thanksgiving", and a statement at the top + that "the total number of Thanksgivings for the month is 2,143,911." I am + suspicious of that, as of German reports of prisoners taken; but I give + the statement as it stands, not going through the list and picking out the + crudest, but taking them as they come, classified by states: + </p> + <p> + GENERAL FAVORS: For many of these favors Mass and publication were + promised, for others the Badge of Promoter's Cross was used, for others + the prayers of the Associates had been asked. + </p> + <p> + Alabama—Jewelry found, relief from pain, protection during storm. + </p> + <p> + Alaska—Safe return, goods found. + </p> + <p> + Arizona—Two recoveries, suitable boarding place, illness averted, + safe delivery. + </p> + <p> + British Honduras—Successful operation. + </p> + <p> + California—Seventeen recoveries, six situations, two successful + examinations, house rented, stocks sold, raise in salary, return to + religious duties, sight regained, medal won, Baptism, preservation from + disease, contract obtained, success in business, hearing restored, Easter + duty made, happy death, automobile sold, mind restored, house found, house + rented, successful journey, business sold, quarrel averted, return of + friends, two successful operations. + </p> + <p> + And for all these miraculous performances the Catholic machine is + harvesting the price day by day—harvesting with that ancient fervor + which the Latin poet described as "auri sacra fames". As Christopher + Columbus wrote from Jamaica in 1503: "Gold is a wonderful thing. By means + of gold we can even get souls into Paradise." + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0037" id="link2H_4_0037"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + The Holy Roman Empire + </h2> + <p> + The system thus self-revealed you admit is appalling in its squalor; but + you say that at least it is milder and less perilous than the Church which + burned Giordano Bruno and John Huss. But the very essence of the Catholic + Church is that it does not change; semper eadem is its motto: the same + yesterday, today and forever—the same in Washington as in Rome or + Madrid—the same in a modern democracy as in the Middle Ages. The + Catholic Church is not primarily a religious organization; it is a + political organization, and proclaims the fact, and defies those who would + shut it up in the religious field, The Rev. S. B. Smith, a Catholic doctor + of divinity, explains in his "Elements of Ecclesiastical Law": + </p> + <p> + Protestants contend that the entire power of the Church consists in the + right to teach and exhort, but not in the right to command, rule, or + govern; whence they infer that she is not a perfect society or sovereign + state. This theory is false; for the Church, as was seen, is vested Jure + divino with power, (1) to make laws; (2) to define and apply them + (potestas judicialis); (3) to punish those who violate her laws (potestas + coercitiva). + </p> + <p> + And this is not one scholar's theory, but the formal and repeated + proclamation of infallible popes. Here is the "Syllabus of Errors", issued + by Pope Pius IX, Dec. 8th, 1864, declaring in precise language that, + </p> + <p> + The state has not the right to leave every man free to profess and embrace + whatever religion he shall deem true. + </p> + <p> + It has not the right to enact that the ecclesiastical power shall require + the permission of the civil power in order to the exercise of its + authority. + </p> + <p> + Then in the same Syllabus the rights and powers of the Church are affirmed + thus: + </p> + <p> + She has the right to require the state not to leave every man free to + profess his own religion. + </p> + <p> + She has the right to exercise her power without the permission or consent + of the state. + </p> + <p> + She has the right of perpetuating the union of church and state. + </p> + <p> + She has the right to require that the Catholic religion shall be the only + religion of the state, to the exclusion of all others. + </p> + <p> + She has the right to prevent the state from granting the public exercise + of their own worship to persons immigrating from it. + </p> + <p> + She has the power of requiring the state not to permit free expression of + opinion. + </p> + <p> + You see, the Holy Office is unrepentant and unchastened. You, who think + that liberty of conscience is the basis of civilization, ought at least to + know what the Catholic Church has to say about the matter. Here is Mgr. + Segur, in his "Plain Talk About Protestantism of Today", a book published + in Boston and extensively circulated by American Catholics: + </p> + <p> + Freedom of thought is the soul of Protestantism; it is likewise the soul + of modern rationalism and philosophy. It is one of those impossibilities + which only the levity of a superficial reason can regard as admissible. + But a sound mind, that does not feed on empty words, looks upon this + freedom of thought only as simply absurd, and, what is more, as sinful. + </p> + <p> + You take the liberty of thinking, nevertheless; you feel safe because the + Law will protect you. But do you imagine that this "Law" applies to your + Catholic neighbors? Do you imagine that they are bound by the restraints + that bind you? Here is Pope Leo XIII, in his Encyclical of 1890—and + please remember that Leo XIII was the beau ideal of our capitalist + statesmen and editors, as wise and kind and gentle-souled a pope as ever + roasted a heretic. He says: + </p> + <p> + If the laws of the state are openly at variance with the laws of God—if + they inflict injury upon the Church—or set at naught the authority + of Jesus Christ which is vested in the Supreme Pontiff, then indeed it + becomes a duty to resist them, a sin to render obedience. + </p> + <p> + And consider how many fields there are in which the laws of a democratic + state do and forever must contravene the "laws of God" as interpreted by + the Catholic Church. Consider for example, that the Pope, in his decree Ne + Temere, has declared that all persons who have been married by civil + authorities or by Protestant clergymen are living in "filthy concubinage"! + Consider, in the same way, the problems of education, burial, prison + discipline, blasphemy, poor relief, incorporation, mortmain, religious + endowments, vows of celibacy. To the above list, as given by Gladstone, + one might add many issues, such as birth control, which have arisen since + his time. + </p> + <p> + What the Church means is to rule. Her literature is full of expressions of + that intention, set forth in the boldest and haughtiest and most + uncompromising manner. For example, Cardinal Manning, in the Pro-Cathedral + at Kensington, speaking in the name of the Pope: + </p> + <p> + I acknowledge no civil power; I am the subject of no prince; I claim more + than this—I claim to be the supreme judge and director of the + consciences of men—-of the peasant that tills the field, and of the + prince that sits upon the throne; of the household of privacy, and the + legislator that makes laws for kingdoms; I am the sole, last supreme judge + of what is right and wrong. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0038" id="link2H_4_0038"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Temporal Power + </h2> + <p> + What this means is, that here in our American democracy the Catholic + Church is a rebel; a prisoner of war who bides his time, watching for the + moment to rise in revolt, and meantime making no secret of his intentions. + The pious Leo XIII, addressing all true believers in America, instructed + them as to their attitude in captivity: + </p> + <p> + The Church amongst you, unopposed by the Constitution and government of + your nation, fettered by no hostile legislation, protected against + violence by the common laws and the impartiality of the tribunals, is free + to live and act without hindrance. Yet, though all this is true, it would + be very erroneous to draw the conclusion that in America is to be sought + the type of the most desirable status of the church, or that it would be + universally lawful or expedient for state and church to be, as in America, + dissevered and divorced. The fact that Catholicity with you is in good + condition, nay, is even enjoying a prosperous growth, is by all means to + be attributed to the fecundity with which God has endowed His Church.... + But she would bring forth more abundant fruits if, in addition to liberty, + she enjoyed the favor of the laws and patronage of the public authority. + </p> + <p> + Accordingly, here is Father Phelan of St. Louis, addressing his flock in + the "Western Watchman", June 27, 1913: + </p> + <p> + Tell us we are Catholics first and Americans or Englishmen afterwards; of + course we are. Tell us, in the conflict between the church and the civil + government we take the side of the church; of course we do. Why, if the + government of the United States were at war with the church, we would say + tomorrow, To hell with the government of the United States; and if the + church and all the governments of the world were at war, we would say, To + hell with all the governments of the world.... Why is it that in this + country, where we have only seven per cent of the population, the Catholic + church is so much feared? She is loved by all her children and feared by + everybody. Why is it that the Pope has such tremendous power? Why, the + Pope is the ruler of the world. All the emperors, all the kings, all the + princes, all the presidents of the world, are as these altar boys of mine. + The Pope is the ruler of the world. + </p> + <p> + You recall what I said at the outset about Power; the ability to control + the lives of other men, to give laws and moral codes, to shape fashions + and tastes, to be revered and regarded. Here is a man swollen to bursting + with this Power. Dressed in his holy robes, with his holy incense in his + nostrils, and the faces of the faithful gazing up at him awe-stricken, + hear him proclaim: + </p> + <p> + The Church gives no bonds for her good behavior. She is the judge of her + own rights and duties, and of the rights and duties of the state. + </p> + <p> + And lest you think that an extreme example of ultramontanist arrogance, + listen to the Boston "Pilot", April 6, 1912, speaking for Cardinal + O'Connell, whose official organ it is: + </p> + <p> + It must be borne in mind that even though Cardinals Farley, O'Connell and + Gibbons are at heart patriotic Americans and members of an American + hierarchy, yet they are as cardinals foreign princes of the blood, to whom + the United States, as one of the great powers of the world, is under an + obligation to concede the same honors that they receive abroad. + </p> + <p> + Thus, were Cardinal Farley to visit an American man-of-war, he would be + entitled to the salutes and to naval honors reserved for a foreign royal + personage, and at any official entertainment at Washington the Cardinal + will outrank not merely every cabinet officer, the speaker of the house + and the vice-president, but also the foreign ambassadors, coming + immediately next to the chief magistrate himself. + </p> + <p> + Incidentally, it may be mentioned that when a royal personage not of + sovereign rank visits New York it is his duty to make the first call on + Cardinal Farley. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0039" id="link2H_4_0039"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Knights of Slavery + </h2> + <p> + Such is the worldly station of these apostles of the lowly Jesus. And what + is their attitude towards their brothers in God, the rank and file of the + membership, whose pennies grease the wheels of the ecclesiastical machine? + His Holiness, the Pope, sent over a delegate to represent him in America, + and at a convention of the Federation of Catholic Societies held in New + Orleans in November, 1910, this gentleman, Diomede Falconio, delivered + himself on the subject of Capital and Labor. We have heard the slave-code + of the Anglican disciples of Jesus, the revolutionary carpenter; now let + us hear the slave-code of his Roman disciples: + </p> + <p> + Human society has its origin from God and is constituted of two classes of + people, the rich and the poor, which respectively represent Capital and + Labor. + </p> + <p> + Hence it follows that according to the ordinance of God, human society is + composed of superiors and subjects, masters and servants, learned and + unlettered, rich and poor, nobles and plebeians. + </p> + <p> + And lest this should not be clear enough, the Pope sent a second + representative, Mgr. John Bonzano, who, speaking at a general meeting of + the German Catholic Central-Verein, St. Louis, 1917, declared: + </p> + <p> + One of the worst evils that may grow out of the European war is the + spreading of the doctrine of Socialism, and the Catholic Church must be + ready to counteract such doctrines. We must be ready to prevent the spread + of Socialism and to work against it. As I understand, you have a society + of wealthy people in St. Louis ready for such a campaign. You have + experienced leaders who are masters in their kind of work. They are always + insistent to show that this wealth was and is in close touch with the + Church, and therefore it will not fail. + </p> + <p> + This, you perceive, is the complete thesis of the present book, which + therefore no doubt will be entitled to the "Nihil Obstat" of the "Censor + Theolog.", and the "Imprimatur" of "Johannes Josephus, Archiepiscopus Sti. + Ludovici." No wonder that the "experienced leaders" of America, our + captains of industry and exploiters of labor, are forced, whatever their + own faith may be, to make use of this system of subjection. A few years + ago we read in our papers how a Jewish millionaire of Baltimore was + presenting a fortune to the Catholic Church, to be used in its war upon + Socialism. The late Mark Hanna, the shrewdest and most far-seeing man that + Big Business ever brought into power, said that in twenty years there + would be two parties in America, a capitalist and a socialist; and that it + would be the Catholic church that would save the country from Socialism. + That prophecy was widely quoted, and sank into the souls of our steel and + railway and money magnates; from which time you might see, if you watched + political events, a new tone of deference to the Roman Hierarchy on the + part of our ruling classes. Today you cannot get an expression of opinion + hostile to Catholicism into any newspaper of importance. The Associated + Press does not handle news unfavorable to the Church, and from top to + bottom, the politician takes off his hat when the Sacred Host goes by. + Said Archbishop Quigley, speaking before the children of the Mary + Sodality: + </p> + <p> + I'd like to see the politician who would try to rule against the church in + Chicago. His reign would be short indeed. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0040" id="link2H_4_0040"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Priests and Police + </h2> + <p> + And how is it in our national capital, the palladium of our liberties? As + a means of demonstrating the power of the church and the subservience of + our politicians, the Catholics have invented what they call the + "Cardinal's Day Mass": An elaborate procession of high ecclesiastics, + dressed in gorgeous robes and jewels, through the streets of Washington, + accompanied by a small army of policemen, paid by non-Catholic taxpayers. + The Cardinal seats himself upon a throne, and our political rulers make + obeisance before him. On Sunday, January 14, 1917, there were present at + this political mass the following personages: Four cabinet members and + their wives; the speaker of the House; a large group of senators and + representatives; a general of the army and his wife; an admiral of the + navy and his wife; the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and his wife, + and another Justice of the Supreme Court and his wife. + </p> + <p> + And understand that the church makes no secret of its purpose in + conducting such public exhibitions. Here is the pious Pope Leo XIII again, + in his Encyclical of Nov. 1, 1885: + </p> + <p> + All Catholics must make themselves felt as active elements in daily + political life in the countries where they live. They must penetrate, + wherever possible, in the administration of civil affairs; must constantly + exert the utmost vigilance and energy to prevent the usages of liberty + from going beyond the limits fixed by God's law. All Catholics should do + all in their power to cause the constitutions of states and legislation to + be modeled on the principles of the true Church. + </p> + <p> + And following these instructions, the Catholics are organized for + political work. There are the various Catholic Societies, such as the + Knights of Columbus, secret, oath-bound organizations, the military arm of + the Papal Power. These societies boast some three million members, and + control not less than that many votes. The one thing that you can be + certain about these votes is that on every public question, of whatever + nature, they will be cast on the side of ignorance and reaction. Thus, it + was the influence of the Catholic Societies which put upon our national + statute books the infamous law providing five years imprisonment and five + thousand dollars fine for the sending through the mail of information + about the prevention of conception. It is their influence which keeps upon + the statute-books of New York state the infamous law which permits divorce + only for infidelity, and makes it "collusion" if both parties desire the + divorce. It is these societies which, in every city and town in America, + are pushing and plotting to get Catholics upon library boards, so that the + public may not have a chance to read scientific books; to get Catholics + into the public schools and on school-boards, so that children may not + hear about Galileo, Bruno, and Ferrer; to have Catholics in control of + police and on magistrates benches, so that priests who are caught in + brothels may not be exposed or punished. + </p> + <p> + You are shocked at this, you think it a vulgar jest, perhaps; but during a + period of "vice raids" in New York I was told by a captain of police, + himself a Catholic, that it was a common thing for them to get priests in + their net. "Of course," the official added, good-naturedly, "we let them + slip out." I understood that he had to do that; for the Pope, in his "Motu + Proprio" decree, has forbidden Catholics to bring a priest into court for + any civil crime whatsoever; he has forbidden Catholic policemen to arrest, + Catholic judges to try, and Catholic law-makers to make laws affecting any + priest of the Church of Rome. And of course we know, upon the authority of + a cardinal, that the Pope is "the sole, last, supreme judge of what is + right and wrong." He has held that position for a thousand years and more; + and wherever you consult the police records throughout the thousand years, + you find the same entries concerning Catholic ecclesiastics. I turn to + Riley's "Illustrations of London Life from Original Documents," and I find + in the year 1385 a certain chaplain, whose name is considerately + suppressed, had a breviary stolen from him by a loose woman, because he + has not given her any money, either on that night or the one previous. In + 1320 John de Sloghtre, a priest, is put in the tower "for being found + wandering about the city against the peace", and Richard Heyring, a + priest, is indicted in the ward of Farringdon and in the ward of + Crepelgate "as being a bruiser and nightwalker." That this has been going + on for six hundred years is due, not to any special corruption of the + Catholic heart, but to the practice of clerical celibacy, which is + contrary to nature, a transgression of fundamental instinct. It should be + noted that the purpose of this transgression, which pretends to be + spiritual, is really economic; it was the means whereby the church machine + built up its power through the Middle Ages. The priests had children then, + as they have them today; but these children not being recognized, the + church machine remained the sole heir of the property of its clergy. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0041" id="link2H_4_0041"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + The Church Militant + </h2> + <p> + Knowing what we know today, we marvel that it was possible for Germany to + prepare through so many years for her assault on civilization, and for + England to have slept through it all. In exactly the same way, the + historian of a generation from now will marvel that America should have + slept, while the New Inquisition was planning to strangle her. For we are + told with the utmost explicitness precisely what is to be done. We are to + see wiped out these gains of civilization for which our race has bled and + agonized for many centuries; the very gains are to serve as the means of + their own destruction! Have we not heard Pope Leo tell his faithful how to + take advantage of what they find in America—our easy-going trust, + our quiet certainty of liberty, our open-handed and open-homed and + hail-fellow-well-met democracy? + </p> + <p> + We see the army being organized and drilled under our eyes; and we can + read upon its banners its purpose proclaimed. Just as the Prussian + military caste had its slogan "Deutschland ueber Alles!" so the Knights of + Slavery have their slogan: "Make America Catholic!" + </p> + <p> + Their attitude to democratic institutions is attested by the fact that + none of their conventions ever fails in its resolutions to "deeply deplore + the loss of the temporal power of Our Father, the Pope." Their subjection + to priestly domination is indicated by such resolutions as this, bearing + date of May 13th, 1914: + </p> + <p> + The Knights of Columbus of Texas in annual convention assembled, prostrate + at the feet of Your Holiness, present filial regards with assurances of + loyalty and obedience to the Holy See and request the Papal blessing. + </p> + <p> + On June 10th, 1912, one T. J. Carey of Palestine, Texas, wrote to + Archbishop Bonzano, the Apostolic Delegate: "Must I, as a Catholic, + surrender my political freedom to the Church? And by this I mean the right + to vote for the Democratic, Socialist, or Republican parties when and + where I please?" The answer was: "You should submit to the decisions of + the Church, even at the cost of sacrificing political principles." And to + the same effect Mgr. Preston, In New York City, Jan. 1, 1888: "The man who + says, 'I will take my faith from Peter, but I will not take my politics + from Peter,' is not a true Catholic." + </p> + <p> + Such is the Papal machine; and not a day passes that it does not discover + some new scheme to advance the Papal glory; a "Catholic battle-ship" in + the United States navy; Catholic chaplains on all ships of the navy; + Catholic holidays—-such as Columbus Day—to be celebrated by + all Protestants in America; thirty million dollars worth of church + property exempted from taxation in New York City; mission bells to be set + up at the expense of the state of California; state support for parish + schools—or, if this cannot be had, exemption of Catholics from + taxation for school purposes. So on through the list which might continue + for pages. + </p> + <p> + More than anything else, of course, the Papal machine is concerned with + education, or rather, with the preventing of education. It was in its + childish days that the race fell under the spell of the Priestly Lie; it + is in his childish days that the individual can be most safely snared. + Suffer little children to come unto the Catholic priest, and he will make + upon their sensitive minds an impression which nothing in after life can + eradicate. So the mainstay of the New Inquisition is the parish-school, + and its deadliest enemy is the American school system. Listen to the Rev. + James Conway, of the Society of Jesus, in his book, "The Rights of Our + Little Ones": + </p> + <p> + Catholic parents cannot, in conscience send their children to American + public schools, except for very grave reasons approved by the + ecclesiastical authorities. + </p> + <p> + While state education removes illiteracy and puts a limited amount of + knowledge within the reach of all, it cannot be said to have a beneficial + influence on civilization in general. + </p> + <p> + The state cannot justly enforce compulsory education, even in case of + utter illiteracy, so long as the essential physical and moral education + are sufficiently provided for. + </p> + <p> + And so, at all times and in all places, the Catholic Church is fighting + the public school. Eternal vigilance is necessary; as "America", the organ + of the Jesuits, explains: + </p> + <p> + Sometimes it is a new building code, or an attempt at taxing the school + buildings, which creates hardships to the parochial and other private + schools. Now it is the free text book law that puts a double burden on the + Catholics. Then again it is the unwise extension of the compulsory school + age that forces children to be in school until they are 16 to 18 years + old. + </p> + <p> + And if you wish to know the purpose of the Catholic schools, hear + Archbishop Quigley of Chicago, speaking before the children of the Mary + Sodality in the Holy Name Parish-School: + </p> + <p> + Within twenty years this country is going to rule the world. Kings and + emperors will pass away, and the democracy of the United States will take + their place. The West will dominate the country, and what I have seen of + the Western parochial schools has proved that the generation which follows + us will be exclusively Catholic. When the United States rules the world + the Catholic Church will rule the world. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0042" id="link2H_4_0042"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + The Church Triumphant + </h2> + <p> + The question may be asked, What of it? What if the Church were to rule? + There are not a few Americans who believe that there have to be rich and + poor, and that rule by Roman Catholics might be preferable to rule by + Socialists. Before you decide, at least do not fail to consider what + history has to tell about priestly government. We do not have to use our + imaginations in the matter, for there was once a Golden Age such as + Archbishop Quigley dreams of, when the power of the church was complete, + when emperors and princes paid homage to her, and the civil authority made + haste to carry out her commands. What was the condition of the people in + those times? We are told by Lea, in his "History of the Inquisition" that: + </p> + <p> + The moral condition of the laity was unutterably depraved. Uniformity of + faith had been enforced by the Inquisition and its methods, and so long as + faith was preserved, crime and sin was comparatively unimportant except as + a source of revenue to those who sold absolution. As Theodoric Vrie + tersely puts it, hell and purgatory would be emptied if enough money could + be found. The artificial standard thus created is seen in a revelation of + the Virgin to St. Birgitta, that a Pope who was free from heresy, no + matter how polluted by sin and vice, is not so wicked but that he has the + absolute power to bind and loose souls. There are many wicked popes + plunged in hell, but all their lawful acts on earth are accepted and + confirmed by God, and all priests who are not heretics administer true + sacraments, no matter how depraved they may be. Correctness of belief was + thus the sole essential; virtue was a wholly subordinate consideration. + How completely under such a system religion and morals came to be + dissociated is seen in the remarks of Pius II, that the Franciscans were + excellent theologians, but cared nothing about virtue. + </p> + <p> + This, in fact, was the direct result of the system of persecution embodied + in the Inquisition. Heretics who were admitted to be patterns of virtue + were ruthlessly exterminated in the name of Christ, while in the same holy + name the orthodox could purchase absolution for the vilest of crimes for a + few coins. When the only unpardonable offence was persistence in some + trifling error of belief, such as the poverty of Christ; when men had + before them the example of their spiritual guides as leaders in vice and + debauchery and contempt of sacred things, all the sanctions of morality + were destroyed and the confusion between right and wrong became hopeless. + The world has probably never seen a society more vile than that of Europe + in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The brilliant pages of + Froissart fascinate us with their pictures of the artificial courtesies of + chivalry; the mystic reveries of Rysbroek and of Tauler show us that + spiritual life survived in some rare souls, but the mass of the population + was plunged into the depths of sensuality and the most brutal oblivion of + the moral law. For this Alvaro Pelayo tells us that the priesthood were + accountable, and that, in comparison with them, the laity were holy. What + was that state of comparative holiness he proceeds to describe, blushing + as he writes, for the benefit of confessors, giving a terrible sketch of + universal immorality which nothing could purify but fire and brimstone + from heaven. The chroniclers do not often pause in their narrations to + dwell on the moral aspects of the times, but Meyer, in his annals of + Flanders, under date of 1379, tells us that it would be impossible to + describe the prevalence everywhere of perjuries, blasphemies, adulteries, + hatreds, quarrels, brawls, murder, rapine, thievery, robbery, gambling, + whoredom, debauchery, avarice, oppression of the poor, rape, drunkenness: + and similar vices, and he illustrates his statement with the fact that in + the territory of Ghent, within the space of ten months, there occurred no + less than fourteen hundred murders committed in the bagnios, brothels, + gambling-houses, taverns, and other similar places. When, in 1396, Jean + sans Peur led his Crusaders to destruction at Micopolis, their crimes and + cynical debauchery scandalized even the Turks, and led to the stern rebuke + of Bajazet himself, who as the monk of St. Denis admits was much better + than his Christian foes. The same writer, moralizing over the disaster at + Agincourt, attributes it to the general corruption of the nation. Sexual + relations, he says, were an alternation of disorderly lust and of incest; + commerce was nought but fraud and treachery; avarice withheld from the + Church her tithes, and ordinary conversation was a succession of + blasphemies. The Church, set up by God as a model and protector of the + people, was false to all its obligations. The bishops, through the basest + and most criminal of motives, were habitual accepters of persons; they + anointed themselves with the last essence extracted from their flocks, and + there was in them nothing of holy, of pure, of wise, or even of decent. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0043" id="link2H_4_0043"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + God in the Schools + </h2> + <p> + But that, you may say, was a long time ago. If so, let us take a modern + country in which the Catholic Church has worked its will. Until recently, + Spain was such a country. Now the people are turning against the clerical + machine; and if you ask why, turn to Rafael Shaw's "Spain From Within": + </p> + <p> + On every side the people see the baleful hand of the Church, interfering + or trying to interfere in their domestic life, ordering the conditions of + employment, draining them of their hard-won livelihood by trusts and + monopolies established and maintained in the interest of the Religious + Orders, placing obstacles in the way of their children's education, + hindering them in the exercise of their constitutional rights, and + deliberately ruining those of them who are bold enough to run counter to + priestly dictation. Riots suddenly break out in Barcelona; they are + instigated by the Jesuits. The country goes to war in Morocco; it is + dragged into it solely in defense of the mines owned, actually, if not + ostensibly, by the Jesuits. The consumos cannot be abolished because the + Jesuits are financially interested in their continuance. + </p> + <p> + We have read the statement of a Jesuit father, that "the state cannot + justly enforce compulsory education, even in case of utter illiteracy." + How has that doctrine worked out in Spain? There was an official + investigation of school conditions, the report appearing in the "Heraldo + de Madrid" for November, 1909. In 1857 there had been passed a law + requiring a certain number of schools in each of the 79 provinces: this + requirement being below the very low standards prevailing at that time in + other European countries. Yet in 1909 it was found that only four + provinces had the required number of elementary schools, and at the rate + of increase then prevailing it would have taken 150 years to catch up. + Seventy-five per cent of the population were wholly illiterate, and 30,000 + towns and villages had no government schools at all. The government owed + nearly a million and a half dollars in unpaid salaries to the teachers. + The private schools were nearly all "nuns' schools", which taught only + needle-work and catechism; the punishments prevailing in them were "cruel + and disgusting." + </p> + <p> + As to the location of the schools, a report of the Minister of Education + to the Cortes, the Parliament of Spain, sets forth as follows: + </p> + <p> + More than 10,000 schools are on hired premises, and many of these are + absolutely destitute of hygienic conditions. There are schools mixed up + with hospitals, with cemeteries, with slaughter houses, with stables. One + school forms the entrance to a cemetery, and the corpses are placed on the + master's table while the last responses are being said. There is a school + into which the children cannot enter until the animals have been sent out + to pasture. Some are so small that as soon as the warm weather begins the + boys faint for want of air and ventilation. One school is a manure-heap in + process of fermentation, and one of the local authorities has said that in + this way the children are warmer in winter. One school in Cataluna adjoins + the prison. Another, in Andalusia, is turned into an enclosure for the + bulls when there is a bull-fight in the town. + </p> + <p> + These conditions excited the indignation of a Spanish educator by the name + of Francesco Ferrer. He founded what he called a "modern school", in which + the pupils should be taught science and common sense. He drew, of course, + the bitter hatred of the Catholic hierarchy, which saw in the spread of + his principles the end of their mastery of the people. When the Barcelona + insurrection took place, they had Ferrer seized upon a charge of having + been its instigator; they had him tried in secret before a military + tribunal, convicted upon forged documents, and shot beneath the walls of + the fortress of Montjuich. The case was thoroughly investigated by William + Archer, one of England's leading critics, a man of scrupulous rectitude of + mind. His conclusion is that Ferrer was absolutely innocent of the charges + against him, and that his execution was the result of a clerical plot. Of + Ferrer's character Archer writes: + </p> + <p> + Fragmentary though they be, the utterances which I have quoted form a + pretty complete revelation. From first to last we see in him an ardent, + uncompromising, incorruptible idealist. His ideals are narrow, and his + devotion to them fanatical; but it is devoid, if not of egoism, at any + rate of self-interest and self-seeking. As he shrank from applying the + money entrusted him to ends of personal luxury, so also he shrank from + making his ideas and convictions subserve any personal ambition or vanity. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0044" id="link2H_4_0044"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + The Menace + </h2> + <p> + There are, of course, many people in America who will not rest idle while + their country falls into the condition of Spain. There are anti-Catholic + propaganda societies, which send out lecturers to discuss the Church and + its records; and this is exasperating to devout believers, who regard the + Church as holy, and any criticism of it as blasphemy. So we have + opportunity to observe the working out of the doctrine that the Church is + superior to the civil law. + </p> + <p> + On June 12th, 1913, there came to the little town of Oelwein, Iowa, a + former priest of the Catholic Church, named Jeremiah J. Crowley, to + deliver a lecture exposing the Papal propaganda. The Catholics of the town + made efforts to intimidate the owner of the place in which the lecture was + to be given; the priest of the town, Father O'Connor, preached a sermon + furiously denouncing the lecturer; and after the lecture the unfortunate + Crowley was surrounded by a mob of men, women and boys, and although he + was six feet three in size, he was beaten almost to death. At the trial + which followed it developed that Father O'Connor and also his brother, a + judge on the Superior Bench, were accessories before the fact. + </p> + <p> + Nor is this a solitary instance. The Catholic military societies, with + their uniforms and their armories, are not maintained for nothing. As + Archbishop Quigley declared before the German Catholic Central Verein: + </p> + <p> + We have well ordered and efficient organizations, all at the beck and nod + of the hierarchy and ready to do what the church authorities tell them to + do. With these bodies of loyal Catholics ready to step into the breach at + any time and present an unbroken front to the enemy we may feel secure. + </p> + <p> + And so, on the evening of April 15th, 1914, a group of Catholics entered + the Pierce Hotel in Denver, Colorado, overpowered a police guard and + seized the Rev. Otis L. Spurgeon, an anti-Catholic lecturer. They bound + and gagged him, took him to a lonely woods, and beat him to insensibility. + The same thing happened to the Rev. Augustus Barnett, at Buffalo; the Rev. + William Black was killed at Marshall, Texas. In each case the assailants + avowed themselves Knights of Columbus, and efforts to punish them failed, + because no jury can be got to convict a Catholic, fighting for his Pope + against a godless state. The most pious Leo XIII has laid down: + </p> + <p> + It is an impious deed to break the laws of Jesus Christ for the purpose of + obeying the magistrates, or to transgress the law of the Church under the + pretext of observing the civil law. + </p> + <p> + There are papers published to warn Americans against the plotting of this + political Church. One of them, "The Menace," has a circulation of more + than a million; and naturally the Knights of Slavery do not enjoy reading + it. Year after year they have marshalled their power to have this paper + barred from the mails—so far, in vain. They caused an obscenity + prosecution, which failed; so finally the press rooms of the paper were + blown up with dynamite. At the present time there is a "Catholic Truth + Society" with a publication called "Truth", to oppose the anti-Catholic + campaign; and that is all right, of course—except when the agents + who collect the two-dollar subscriptions to this publication make use of + Untruth in their labors—promising absolution and salvation to the + families, dead and living, of those who "come across" with subscriptions. + In the "Bulletin of the American Federation of Catholic Societies" for + September, 1915, I find a record of the ceaseless plotting to bar + criticism of the Catholic Church from the mails. Fitzgerald, a Tammany + Catholic congressman, proposes a bill in Washington; and Judge St. Paul, + of New Orleans, a member of the Federation's "law committee", points out + the difficulties in the way of such legislation. You cannot pass a law + against ridiculing religion, because the Catholics want to ridicule + Christian Science, Mormonism, and the "Holy Ghost and Us" Society! The + Judge thinks the purpose of the Papal plotters will be accomplished if + they can slip into the present law the words "scurrilous and slanderous"; + he hopes that this much can be done without the American people catching + on! + </p> + <p> + You read these things for the first time, perhaps, and you want to start + an American "Kultur-kampf." I make haste, therefore, to restate the main + thesis of this book. It is not the New Inquisition which is our enemy + today; it is hereditary Privilege. It is not Superstition, but Big + Business which makes use of Superstition as a wolf makes use of sheep's + clothing. + </p> + <p> + You remember how, when Americans first awakened to the universal + corruption of our politics, we used to attribute it to the "ignorant + foreign vote." Turn to Lecky's "Democracy and Liberty" and you will see + how reformers twenty years ago explained our political depravity. But we + probed deeper, and discovered that the purely American communities, such + as Rhode Island, were the most corrupt of all. It dawned upon us that + wherever there was a political boss paying bribes on election day, there + was a captain of industry furnishing the money for the bribes, and taking + some public privilege in return. So we came to realize that political + corruption is merely a by-product of Big Business. + </p> + <p> + And when we come to probe this problem of the spread of Superstition in + America, this amazing renascence of Romanism in a democracy, we find + precisely the same phenomenon. It is not the poor foreigner who troubles + us. Our human magic would win him—our easy-going trust, our quiet + certainty of liberty, our open-handed and open-homed and + hail-fellow-well-met democracy. We should break down the Catholic machine, + and not all the priests in the hierarchy could stop us—were it not + for the Steel Trust and the Coal Trust and the Beef Trust, the Liquor + Trust and the Traction Trust and the Money Trust—those masters of + America who do not want citizens, free and intelligent and self-governing, + but who want the slave-hordes as they come, ignorant, inert, physically, + mentally and morally helpless! + </p> + <p> + No, do not let yourself be lured into a Kultur-kampf. It is not the + pennies of the servant-girls which build the towering cathedrals; it is + not the two-dollar contributions for the salvation of souls which support + the Catholic Truth Society and the Knights of Columbus and the Holy Name + Society and the Mary Sodality and the National Shrine of the Immaculate + Conception and all the rest of the machinery of the Papal propaganda. + These help, of course; but the main sources of growth are, first, the + subsidies of industrial exploiters, the majority of whom are non-Catholic, + and second, the privilege of public plunder granted as payment for votes + by politicians who are creatures and puppets of Big Business. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0045" id="link2H_4_0045"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + King Coal + </h2> + <p> + The proof of these statements is written all over the industrial life of + America. I will stop long enough to present an account of one industry, + asking the reader to accept my statement that if space permitted I could + present the same sort of proof for a dozen other industries which I have + studied—the steel-mills of Western Pennsylvania, the meat-factories + of Chicago, the glass-works of Southern Jersey, the silk-mills of + Paterson, the cotton-mills of North Carolina, the woolen-mills of + Massachusetts, the lumber-camps of Louisiana, the copper-mines of + Michigan, the sweat-shops of New York. + </p> + <p> + In a lonely part of the Rocky Mountains lies a group of enormously + valuable coal-mines owned by the Rockefellers and other Protestant + exploiters. The men who work these mines, some twelve or fifteen thousand + in number, come from all the nations of Europe and Asia, and their fate is + that of the average wage-slave. I do not ask anyone to take my word, but + present sworn testimony, taken by the United States Commission on + Industrial Relations in 1914. Here is the way the Italian miners live, as + described in a doctor's report: + </p> + <p> + Houses up the canyon, so-called, of which eight are habitable, and + forty-six simply awful; they are disreputably disgraceful. I have had to + remove a mother in labor from one part of the shack to another to keep + dry. + </p> + <p> + And here is the testimony of the Rev. Eugene S. Gaddis, former + superintendent of the Sociological Department of the Colorado Fuel and + Iron Company: + </p> + <p> + The C. F. & I. Company now own and rent hovels, shacks and dug-outs + that are unfit for the habitation of human beings and are little removed + from the pig-sty make of dwellings. And the people in them live on the + very level of a pig-sty. Frequently the population is so congested that + whole families are crowded into one room; eight persons in one small room + was reported during the year. + </p> + <p> + And here is what this same clergyman has to say about the bosses whom the + Rockefellers employ: + </p> + <p> + The camp superintendents as a whole impressed me as most uncouth, + ignorant, immoral, and in many instances, the most brutal set of men that + I have ever met. Blasphemous bullies. + </p> + <p> + Sometimes the miner grows tired of being robbed of his weights, and + applies for the protection which the law of the state allows him. What + happens then? + </p> + <p> + "When a man asked for a checkweighman, in the language of the super he was + getting too smart." + </p> + <p> + "And he got what?" + </p> + <p> + "He got it in the neck, generally." + </p> + <p> + And when these wage-slaves, goaded beyond endurance, went on strike, in + the words of the Commission's report: + </p> + <p> + Five strikers, one boy, and thirteen women and children in the strikers' + tent colony were shot to death by militiamen and guards employed by the + coal companies, or suffocated and burned to death when these militiamen + and guards set fire to the tents in which they made their homes. + </p> + <p> + And now, what is the position of education in such camps? The Rev. James + McDonald, a Methodist preacher, testified that the school building was + dilapidated and unfit. One year there were four teachers, the next three, + and the next only two. The teacher of the primary grade had a hundred and + twenty children enrolled, ninety per cent of whom could not speak a word + of English. + </p> + <p> + Every little bench was seated with two or three. It was over-crowded + entirely, and she could hardly get walking room around there. + </p> + <p> + And as to the political use made of this deliberately cultivated + ignorance, former United States Senator Patterson testified that the + companies controlled all elections and all nominations: + </p> + <p> + Election returns from the two or three counties in which the large + companies operate show that in the precincts in which the mining camps are + located the returns are nearly unanimous in favor of the men or measures + approved by the companies, regardless of party. + </p> + <p> + And now comes the all-important question. What of the Catholic Church and + these evils? The majority of these mine-slaves are Catholics, it is this + Church which is charged with their protection. There are priests in every + town, and in nearly every camp. And do we find them lifting their voices + in behalf of the miners, protesting against the starving and torturing of + thirty or forty thousand human beings? Do we find Catholic papers printing + accounts of the Ludlow massacre? Do we find Catholic journalists on the + scene reporting it, Catholic lawyers defending the strikers, Catholic + novelists writing books about their troubles? We do not! + </p> + <p> + Through the long agony of the fourteen months strike, I know of just one + Catholic priest, Father Le Fevre, who had a word to say for the strikers. + One of the first stories I heard when I reached the strike-field was of a + priest who had preached on the text that "Idleness is the root of all + evil," and had been reported as a "scab" and made to shut up. "Who made + him?" I asked, naively, thinking of his church superiors. My informant, a + union miner, laughed. "We made him!" he said. + </p> + <p> + I talked with another priest who was prudently saving souls and could not + be interested in questions of worldly greed. Max Eastman, reporting the + strike in the "Masses", tells of an interview with a Catholic sister. + </p> + <p> + "Has the Church done anything to try to help these people, or to bring + about peace?" we asked. "I consider it the most useless thing in the world + to attempt it," she replied. + </p> + <p> + The investigating committee of Congress came to the scene, and several + clergymen of the Protestant Church appeared and bore testimony to the + outrages which were being committed against the strikers; but of all the + Catholic priests in the district not one appeared—not one! Several + Protestant clergymen testified that they had been driven from the + coal-camps—not because they favored the unions, but because the + companies objected to having their workers educated at all; but no one + ever heard of the Catholic Church having trouble with the operators. To + make sure on this point I wrote to a former clergyman of Trinidad who + watched the whole strike, and is now a first lieutenant in the First New + Mexico Infantry. He answered: + </p> + <p> + The Catholic Church seemed to get along with the companies very cordially. + The Church was permitted in all the camps. The impression was abroad that + this was due to favoritism. I honor what good the Church does, but I know + of no instance, during the Colorado coal-strike or at any other time or + place, when the Catholic Church has taken any special interest in the + cause of the laboring men. Many Catholics, especially the men, quit the + church during the coal-strike. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0046" id="link2H_4_0046"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + The Unholy Alliance + </h2> + <p> + Everywhere throughout America today the ultimate source of all power, + political, social, and religious, is economic exploitation. To all other + powers and all other organizations it speaks in these words: "Help us, and + you will thrive; oppose us, and you will be destroyed." It has spoken to + the Catholic Church, for sixteen hundred years the friend and servant of + every ruling class; and the Church has hastened to fit itself into the + situation, continuing its pastoral role as shepherd to the wage-slave + vote. + </p> + <p> + In New York and Boston and Chicago the Church is "Democratic"; so in the + Blaine campaign it was possible for a Republican clergyman to describe the + issue as "Rum, Romanism and Rebellion." But the Holy Office was shrewd and + socially ambitious, and the Grand Old Party was desperately in need of + votes, so under the regime of Mark Hanna, the President-Maker, there began + a rapprochement between Big Business and the New Inquisition. Under Hanna + the Catholic Church got representation in the Cabinet; under him the + Cardinal's Mass became a government institution, a Catholic College came + to the fore in Washington, and Catholic prelates were introduced in the + role of eminent publicists, their reactionary opinions on important + questions being quoted with grave solemnity by a prostitute press. It was + Mark Hanna himself who founded the National Civic Federation, upon whose + executive committee Catholic cardinals and archbishops might work hand in + glove with Catholic labor-leaders for the chloroforming of the American + working-class. Hanna's biographer naively calls attention to the + President-maker's popularity among Catholics, high and low, and the + support they gave him. "Archbishop Ireland was in frequent correspondence + with him, and used his influence in Mr. Hanna's behalf." + </p> + <p> + And this tradition, begun under Hanna, was continued under Roosevelt, and + reached its finest flower in the days of Taft, the most pliant tool of the + forces of evil who has occupied the White House since the days of the + Slave Power. President Taft was himself a Unitarian; yet it was under his + administration that the Catholic Church achieved one of its dearest + ambitions, and broke into the Supreme Court. Why not? We can imagine the + powers of the time in conference. It is desired to pack the Court against + the possibility of progress; it is desired to find men who will stand like + a rock against change—and who better than those who have been + trained from childhood in the idea of a divine sanction for doctrine and + morals? After all, what is it that Hereditary Privilege wants in America? + A Roman Catholic code of property rights, with a supreme tribunal to play + the part of an infallible Pope! + </p> + <p> + Under this Taft administration the country was governed by the strangest + legislative alliance our history ever saw; a combination of the Old Guard + of the Republican Party with the leaders of the Tammany Democracy of New + York. "Bloody shirt" Foraker, senator from Ohio, voting with the sons of + those Irish Catholic mob-leaders whom the Federal troops shot down in the + draft-riots! By this unholy combination a pledge to reduce the tariff was + carried out by a bill which greatly increased its burdens; by this + combination the public lands and resources of the country were fed to a + gang of vultures by a thievish Secretary of the Interior. And of course + under such an administration the cause of "Religion" made tremendous + strides. Catholic officials were appointed to public office, Catholic + ecclesiastics were accorded public honors, and Catholic favor became a + means to political advancement. You might see a hard-swearing old + political pirate like "Uncle Joe" Cannon, taking his cigar out of the + corner of his blasphemous mouth and betaking himself to the "Cardinal's + Day Mass", to bend his stiff knees and bow his hoary unrepentant head + before a jeweled prelate on a throne. You might see an emissary of the + United States government proceeding to Rome, prostrating himself before + the Pope, and paying over seven million dollars of our taxes for lands + which the filthy and sensual friars of the Philippine Islands had filched + from the wretched serfs of that country and which the wretched serfs had + won back by their blood in a revolution. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0047" id="link2H_4_0047"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Secret Service + </h2> + <p> + This Taft administration, urged on by the Catholic intrigue, made the most + determined efforts to prevent the spread of radical thought. Because the + popular magazines were opposing the plundering of the country, a bill was + introduced into Congress to put them out of business by a prohibitive + postal tax; the President himself devoted all his power to forcing the + passage of this bill. At the same time the Socialist press was handicapped + by every sort of persecution. I was at that time in intimate touch with + the "Appeal to Reason", and I know that scarcely a month passed that the + Post Office Department did not invent some new "regulation" especially + designed to limit its circulation. I recall one occasion when I met the + editor on his way to Washington with a trunkful of letters from + subscribers who complained that their postmasters refused to deliver the + paper to them; and later on this same editor was prosecuted by a Catholic + Attorney General and sentenced to prison for seeking to awaken the people + concerning the Moyer-Haywood case. + </p> + <p> + From my personal knowledge I can say that under the administration of + President Taft the Roman Catholic Church and the Secret Service of the + Federal Government worked hand in hand for the undermining of the radical + movement in America. Catholic lecturers toured the country, pouring into + the ears of the public vile slanders about the private morality of + Socialists; while at the same time government detectives, paid out of + public funds, spent their time seeking evidence for these Catholic + lecturers to use. I know one man, a radical labor-leader, whose morals + happened to approach those of the average capitalist politician, and who + was prevented by threats of exposure and scandal from accepting the + Socialist nomination for President. I know a dozen others who were + shadowed and spied upon; I know one case—myself—a man who was + asking a divorce from his wife, and whose mail was opened for months. + </p> + <p> + This subject is one on which I naturally speak with extreme reluctance. I + will only say that my opponent in the suit made no charge of misconduct + against me; but those in control of our political police evidently thought + it likely that a man who was not living with his wife might have something + to hide; so for months my every move was watched and all my mail + intercepted. In such a case one might at first suspect one's private + opponent; but it soon became evident that this net was cast too wide for + any private agency. Not merely was my own mail opened, but the mail of all + my relatives and friends—people residing in places as far apart as + California and Florida. I recall the bland smile of a government official + to whom I complained about this matter: "If you have nothing to hide you + have nothing to fear." My answer was that a study of many labor cases had + taught me the methods of the agent provocateur. He is quite willing to + take real evidence if he can find it; but if not, he has familiarized + himself with the affairs of his victim, and can make evidence which will + be convincing when exploited by the yellow press. In my own case, the + matter was not brought to a test, for I went abroad to live; when I made + my next attack on Big Business, the Taft administration had been + repudiated at the polls, and the Secret Service of the government was no + longer at the disposal of the Catholic machine. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0048" id="link2H_4_0048"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Tax Exemption + </h2> + <p> + Today the Catholic Church is firmly established and everywhere recognized + as one of the main pillars of American capitalism. It has some fifteen + thousand churches, fourteen million communicants, and property valued at + half a billion dollars. Upon this property it pays no taxes, municipal, + state or national; which means, quite obviously, that you and I, who do + not go to church, but who do pay taxes, furnish the public costs of + Catholicism. We pay to have streets paved and lighted and cleaned in front + of Catholic churches; we pay to have thieves kept away from them, fires + put out in them, records preserved for them—all the services of + civilization given to them gratis, and this in a land whose constitution + provides that Congress (which includes all state and municipal legislative + bodies) "shall make no law respecting a religious establishment." When war + is declared, and our sons are drafted to defend the country, all Catholic + monks and friars, priests and dignitaries are exempted. They are + "ministers of religion"; whereas we Socialists may not even have the + status of "conscientious objectors." We do not teach "religion"; we only + teach justice and humanity, decency and truth. + </p> + <p> + In defense of this tax-exemption graft, the stock answer is that the + property is being used for purposes of "education" or "charity". It is a + school, in which children are being taught that "liberty of conscience is + a most pestiferous error, from which arises revolution, corruption, + contempt of sacred things, holy institutions, and laws." (Pius IX). It is + a "House of Refuge", to which wayward girls are committed by Catholic + magistrates, and in which they are worked twelve hours a day in a laundry + or a clothing sweat-shop. Or it is a "parish-house", in which a celibate + priest lives under the care of an attractive young "house-keeper". Or it + is a nunnery, in which young girls are held against their will and fed + upon the scraps from their sisters' plates to teach them humility, and + taught to lie before the altar, prostrate in the form of a cross, while + their "Superiors" walk upon their bodies to impress the religious virtues. + "I was a teacher in the Catholic schools up to a very recent period," + writes the woman friend who tells me of these customs, "and I know about + the whole awful system which endeavors to throttle every genuine impulse + of the human will." + </p> + <p> + Concerning a large part of this church property, the claim of "religious" + use has not even the shadow of justification. In every large city of + America you will find acres of land owned by the Catholic machine, and + supposed to be the future site of some institution; but as time goes on + and property values increase, the church decides to build on a cheaper + site, and proceeds to cash in the profits of its investment, precisely as + does any other real estate speculator. Everywhere you turn in the history + of Romanism you find it at this same game, doing business under the cloak + of philanthropy and in the holy name of Christ. Read the letter which the + Catholic Bishop of Mexico sent to the Pope in 1647, complaining of the + Jesuit fathers and their boundless graft. In McCabe's "Candid History of + the Jesuits" appears a summary: + </p> + <p> + A remarkable account is given of the worldly property of the fathers. They + hold, it seems, the greater part of the wealth of Mexico. Two of their + colleges own 300,000 sheep, besides cattle and other property. They own + six large sugar refineries, worth from half a million to a million crowns + each, and making an annual profit of 100,000 crowns each, while all the + other monks and clergy of Mexico together own only three small refineries. + They have immense farms, rich silver mines, large shops and butcheries, + and do a vast trade. Yet they continually intrigue for legacies—a + woman has recently left them 70,000 crowns—and they refuse to pay + the appointed tithe on them. It is piquant to add to this authoritative + description that the Jesuit congregation at Rome were still periodically + forbidding the fathers to engage in commerce, and Jesuit writers still + gravely maintain that the society never engaged in commerce. It should be + added that the missionaries were still heavily subsidized by the King of + Spain, that there were (the Bishop says) only five or six Jesuits to each + of their establishments, and that they conducted only ten colleges. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0049" id="link2H_4_0049"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + "Holy History" + </h2> + <p> + And if you think this tax-exemption privilege should be taken away from + the church grafters, let me suggest a course of procedure. Write a letter + about it to your daily newspaper; and if the letter is not published, go + and see the editor and ask why; so you will learn something about the + partnership between Superstition and Big Business! + </p> + <p> + It is not too much to say that today no daily newspaper in any large + American city dares to attack the emoluments of the Catholic Church, or to + advocate restrictions upon the ecclesiastical machine. As I write, they + are making a new Catholic bishop in Los Angeles, and all the newspapers of + that graft-ridden city herald it as an important social event. Each paper + has the picture of the new prelate, with his shepherd's crook upraised, + his empty face crowned with a rhomboidal fool's cap, and enough upholstery + on him to outfit a grand opera company. The Los Angeles "Examiner", the + only paper in the city with a pretense to radicalism, turns loose its + star-writer—one of those journalist virtuosos who will describe you + a Wild West "rodeo" one day, and a society elopement the next, and a G. O. + P. convention the next; and always with his picture, one inch square, at + the head of his effusion. He takes in the Catholic festivity; and does it + phaze him? It does not! He is a newspaper man, and if his city editor sent + him to hell, he would take the assignment and write like the devil. To + read him now you might think he had been reared in a convent; his soul is + uplifted, and he bursts forth in pure spontaneous ecstacy: + </p> + <p> + Solemnly magnificent, every brilliant detail symbolically picturing the + holy history of the Roman Catholic Church in the inexorable progress of + its immense structure, which rises from the rock of Peter, with its + beacons of faith and devotion piercing the fog of doubt and fear which + surround the world and the worldly, was the ceremony yesterday at the + Cathedral of St. Vibiana, whereby Bishop John J. Cantwell was installed in + his diocese of Monterey and Los Angeles. + </p> + <p> + And then, a month later, comes another occasion of state—the + Twenty-third Annual-Banquet of the Merchants' and Manufacturers' + Association of Los Angeles. I should have to write a little essay to make + clear the sociological significance of that function; explaining first, a + nation-wide organization which has been proven by congressional + investigation and by the publication of its secret documents to be a + machine for the corruption of our political life; and then exhibiting our + "City of the Angels", from which all Angels have long since fled; a city + in the first crude stage of land speculation, without order, dignity or + charm; a city of real estate agents, who exist by selling climate to new + arrivals from the East; a city whose intellectual life is "boosting", + whose standards of truth are those of the horse-trade. Its newspapers + publish a table of temperatures, showing the daily contrast between + Southern California and the East. This device is effective in the + winter-time; but last June, when for five days and nights the temperature + was over 110, and several times 114—the Los Angeles space was left + empty! + </p> + <p> + In the same way, there is a rule that our earthquake shocks are never + mentioned, unless they destroy whole towns. On the afternoon of Jan. 26th, + 1918, a cyclone hit Pasadena, of violence sufficient to lift a barn over a + church-steeple and deposit it in the pastor's front yard. That evening a + friend of mine in Los Angeles called up the office of the "Times" to make + inquiry; and although they are only thirteen miles away, and have a branch + office and a special correspondent in Pasadena, the answer was that they + had heard nothing about the cyclone! And next morning I made a careful + search of their columns. On the front page I read: "Fourth Blizzard of + Season Raging in East"; also: "Another Earthquake in Guatemala". But not a + line about the Pasadena cyclone That there was plenty of space in that + issue, you may judge from the fact that there were twenty headlines like + the following—many of them representing full page and half page + illustrated "write-ups": + </p> + <p> + Where Spring is January; Wealth Waits in California; The Bright Side of + Sunshine Land; Come to California: Southland's Arms Outstretched in + Cordial Invitation to the East; Flower Stands Make Gay City Streets; + Southland Climate Big Manufacturing Factor; Joy of Life Demonstrated in + Los Angeles' Beautiful Homes; Nymphs Knit and Bathe at Ocean's Sunny + Beach; etc. + </p> + <p> + Now we are in the War and our business is booming, we are making money + hand over fist. It is all the more delightful, because we are putting our + souls into it, we are lending our money to the government and saving the + world for Democracy! Our labor unionists have been driven to other cities, + and our Mexican agitators and I. W. W.'s are in jail; so, in the gilt + ball-room of our palatial six-dollar-a-day hotel the four hundred masters + of our prosperity meet to pat themselves on the back, and they invite the + new Catholic bishop to come and confer the grace of God upon their eating. + </p> + <p> + The Bishop comes; and I take up the "Times"—the labor-hating, + labor-baiting, fire-and-slaughter-breathing "Times"—and here is the + episcopal picture on the front page, the arms stretched four columns wide + in oratorical beneficence. How the shepherd of Jesus does love the + Merchants and Manufacturers! How his eloquence is poured out upon them! + "You represent, gentlemen, the largest and the most civilizing secular + body in the country. You are the pioneers of American civilization..... I + am glad to be among you; glad that my lines have fallen in this glorious + land by the sunset sea, and honored to meet in intimate acquaintance the + big men who have raised here in a few years a city of metropolitan + proportions." + </p> + <p> + And then, bearing in mind his responsibilities as guardian of + Exploitation, the Bishop goes on to tell them about the coming class-war. + "On the one side a statesman preaching patience and respect for vested + rights, strict observance of public faith; on the other a demagog speaking + about the tyranny of capitalists and usurers." And then, of course, the + inevitable religious tag: "How will men obey you, if they believe not in + God, who is the author of all authority?" At which, according to the + "Times", "prolonged applause and cheers" from the Merchants and + Manufacturers! The editor of the "Times" goes back to his office, and + inspired by this episcopal eloquence writes a "leader" with the statement + that: "We have no proletariat in America!" + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0050" id="link2H_4_0050"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Das Centrum + </h2> + <p> + In order to see clearly the ultimate purpose of this Unholy Alliance, this + union of Superstition and the Merchants' and Manufacturers' Association, + we have to go to Europe, where the arrangement has been working for a + thousand years. In Europe to-day we see the whole world in conflict with a + band of criminals who have been able to master the minds and lives of a + hundred million highly civilized people. As I write, the Junker + aristocracy is at bay, and soon to have its throat cut; but there comes a + Holy Father to its rescue, with the cross of Jesus uplifted, and a series + of pleas for mercy, written in Vienna, edited in Berlin, and sent out from + Rome. The Holy Father loves all mankind with a tender and touching love; + his heart bleeds at the sight of bloodshed and suffering, and he pleads + the sacred cause of peace on earth and good-will toward men. + </p> + <p> + But what was the Holy Father doing through the forty-three years that the + Potsdam gang were preparing for their assault on the world? How was the + Holy Father manifesting his love of peace and good will? He is, you + understand, the "sole, last, supreme judge of what is right and wrong," + and his followers obey him with the utmost promptness and devotion—they + express themselves as "prostrate at his feet." And when the masters of + Prussia came to him and said: "Give us the power to turn this nation into + the world's greatest military empire"—what did the Roman Church + answer? Did it speak boldly for the gentle Jesus, and the cause of peace + on earth and good-will towards men? No, it did not. To Bismarck in Germany + it said, precisely as it said to Mark Hanna in America: "Give us honors + and prestige; give us power over the minds of the young, so that we may + plunder the poor and build our cathedrals and feed fat our greed; and in + return we will furnish you with votes, so that you may rule the state and + do what you will." + </p> + <p> + You think there is exaggeration in that statement? Why, we know the very + names of the prelates with whom the master-cynic of the Junkerthum made + his "deal." He had tried the method of the Kultur-kampf, and had failed; + but before he repealed the anti-Catholic laws, he made sure that the + Church had learned its lesson, and would nevermore oppose the Prussian + ruling caste. We know how this bargain was carried out; we have the record + of the Centrum, the Catholic party of Germany, whose hundred deputies were + the solid rock upon which the military regime of Prussia was erected. Not + a battle-ship nor a Zeppelin was built for which the Black Terror did not + vote the funds; not a school-child was beaten in Posen or Alsace that the + New Inquisition did not shout its "Hoch!" The writer sat in the visitors' + gallery of the Reichstag when the Socialists were protesting against the + torturing of miserable Herreros in Africa, and he heard the deputies of + the Holy Father's political party screaming their rage like jaguars in a + jungle night. All over Europe the Catholic Church organized fake labor + unions, the "yellows," as they were called, to scab upon the workers and + undermine the revolutionary movement. The Holy Father himself issued + precise instructions for the management of these agencies of betrayal. + Hear the most pious and benevolent Leo XIII: + </p> + <p> + "They must pay special and principal attention to piety and morality, and + their internal discipline must be directed precisely by these + considerations; otherwise they entirely lose their special character, and + come to be very little better than those societies which take no account + of Religion at all." + </p> + <p> + It is so hard, you see, to keep a man thinking about piety and morality + while he is starving! I am quoting from the Encyclical Letter on "The + Condition of Labor," issued in 1891, and addressed "to our Venerable + Brethren, all Patriarchs, Primates, Archbishops and Bishops of the + Catholic World in Grace and Communion with the Apostolic See." The purpose + of the letter is "to refute false teaching," and the substance of its + message is: + </p> + <p> + This great labor question cannot be solved except by assuming as a + principle that private property must be held sacred and inviolable. + </p> + <p> + And again, the purpose of churches proclaimed in language as frank as any + used in the present book: + </p> + <p> + The chief thing to be secured is the safe-guarding, by legal enactment and + policy, of private property. Most of all it is essential in these times of + covetous greed, to keep the multitude within the line of duty; for if all + may justly strive to benefit their condition, yet neither justice nor the + common good allows any one to seize that which belongs to another, or, + under the pretext of futile and ridiculous equality, to lay hands on other + peoples' fortunes. + </p> + <p> + And this, you understand, in lands where rapine and conquest, + class-tyranny and priestly domination have been the custom since the dawn + of history; in which no property-right can possibly trace back to any + other basis than force. In Austria, for example—Austria, the leader + and guardian of the Holy Alliance—Austria, which had no Reformation, + no Revolution, no Kultur-kampf—Austria, in which the income of the + Catholic Primate is $625,000 a year! In other words, Austria is still to a + large extent a "Priestly Empire;" and it was Austria which began the war—began + it in a religious quarrel, with a Slav people which does not acknowledge + the Holy Father as the ruler of the world, but persists in adhering to the + Eastern Church. So of course to-day, when Austria is learning the bitter + lesson that they who draw the sword shall perish by the sword, the heart + of the Holy Father is wrung with grief, and he sends out these eloquent + peace-notes, written in Vienna and edited in Berlin. And at the same time + his private chaplain is convicted and sentenced to prison for life as + Austria's Master-Spy in Rome! + </p> + <p> + It is a curious thing to observe—the natural instinct which, all + over the world, draws Superstition and Exploitation together. This war, + which is hailed as a war against autocracy, might almost as accurately be + described as a war against the clerical system. Wherever in the world you + find the Papal power strong, there you find sympathy with the Prussian + infamy and there you find German intrigue. In Spain, for example; in + Ireland and Quebec, and in the Argentine. The treatment of Belgium was a + little too raw—too many priests were shot at the outset, and so + Cardinal Mercier denounces the Germans; but you notice that he pleads in + vain with the Vatican, which stands firm by its beloved Austria, and + against the godless kingdom of Italy. The Kaiser allows the hope of + restoration of the temporal power at the peace settlement; and meantime + the law forbidding the presence of the Jesuits in Germany has been + repealed, and all over the world the propagandists of this order are + working for the Kaiser. Sir Roger Casement was raised a Catholic, and so + also "Jim" Larkin, the Irish labor-leader who is touring America + denouncing the Allies. The Catholic Bishop of Melbourne opposed and beat + conscription in Australia, and it was Catholic propaganda of treachery + among the ignorant peasant-soldiers from Sicily which caused the breaking + of the Italian line at Tolmino. So deeply has this instinct worked that, + in the fall of 1917 while the Socialist party in New York was campaigning + for immediate peace, the Catholic Irish suddenly forgot their ancient + horrors. The Catholic "Freeman's Journal" published nine articles favoring + Socialism in a single issue; while even "The Tablet," the diocesan paper, + began to discover that the Socialists were not such bad fellows after all. + The same "Tablet" which a few years ago allowed Father Belford to declare + that Socialists were mad dogs who should be "stopped with a bullet"! + </p> + <p> + Note to second edition: Since the above was written, the war fervor has + swept America, including even the rank and file of the Catholics, and what + has here been said might seem unfair to persons who have forgotten the + attitude of the Church during the early part of the conflict, and the + struggle it cost to bring the hierarchy into line. It is one of the + ironies of history that the most reactionary organization in the world + should be lending its aid to the destruction of the second most + reactionary. When the Catholic Church marches forth to war for Democracy, + it is not drawing America down into the pit, but is letting America pull + it out of the pit—at least for a time, and the spectacle is one in + which all lovers of progress will rejoice. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0051" id="link2H_4_0051"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + BOOK FOUR — The Church of the Slavers + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + See, underneath the Crown of Thorn, + The eye-balls fierce, the features grim! + And merrily from night to morn + We chaunt his praise and worship him— +Great Christus-Jingo, at whose feet Christian and Jew and Atheist meet! + + A wondrous god! most fit for those + Who cheat on 'Change, then creep to prayer; + Blood on his heavenly altar flows, + Hell's burning incense fills the air, + And Death attests in street and lane + The hideous glory of his reign. +</pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0052" id="link2H_4_0052"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Face of Caesar + </h2> + <p> + The thesis of this book is the effect of fixed dogma in producing mental + paralysis, and the use of this mental paralysis by Economic Exploitation. + From that standpoint the various Protestant sects are better than the + Catholic, but not much better. The Catholics stand upon Tradition, the + Protestants upon an Inspired Word; but since this Word is the entire + literary product, history and biography, science and legislation, poetry, + drama and fiction of a whole people for something like a thousand years, + it is possible by judicious selection of texts to prove anything you wish + to prove and to justify anything you wish to do. The "Holy Book" being + full of polygamy, slavery, rape and wholesale murder, committed by priests + and rulers under the direct orders of God, it was a very simple matter for + the Protestant Slavers to construct a Bible defense of their system. + </p> + <p> + They get poor Jesus because he was given to irony, that most dangerous + form of utterance. If he could come back to life, and see what men have + done with his little joke about the face of Caesar on the Roman coin, I + think he would drop dead. As for Paul, he was a Roman bureaucrat, with no + nonsense in his make-up; when he ordered, "Servants obey your masters," he + meant exactly what he said. The Roman official stamp which he put upon the + gospel of Jesus has been the salvation of the Slavers from the Reformation + on. + </p> + <p> + In the time of Martin Luther, the peasants of Germany were suffering the + most atrocious and awful misery; Luther himself knew about it, he had + denounced the princely robbers and the priestly land-exploiters with that + picturesque violence of which he was a master. But nothing had been done + about it, nothing ever is done about it—until at last the miserable + peasants attempted to organize and win their own rights. Their demands do + not seem to us so very criminal as we read them today; the privilege of + electing their own pastors, the abolition of villeinage, the right to hunt + and fish and cut wood in the forest, the reduction of exorbitant rents, + extra payment for extra labor, and—that universal cry of peasant + communes whether in Russia, England, Mexico or sixteenth century Germany—the + restoration to the village of lands taken by fraud. But Luther would hear + nothing of slaves asserting their own rights, and took refuge in the + Pauline sociology: If they really wished to follow Christ, they would drop + the sword and resort to prayer; the gospel has to do with spiritual, not + temporal, affairs; earthly society cannot exist without inequalities, etc. + </p> + <p> + And when the peasants went on in spite of this, he turned upon them and + denounced them to the princes; he issued proclamations which might have + been the instructions of Mr. John Wanamaker to the police-force of his + "City of Brotherly Love": "One cannot answer a rebel with reason, but the + best answer is to hit him with the fist until blood flows from the nose." + He issued a letter: "Against the Murderous and Thieving Mob of Peasants," + which might have come from the Reverend Woelfkin, Fifth Avenue Pastor of + Standard Oil: "The ass needs to be beaten, and the populace needs to be + controlled with a strong hand. God knew this well, and therefore he gave + the rulers, not a fox's tail, but a sword." He implored these rulers, + after the fashion of Methodist Chancellor Day of the University of + Syracuse: "Do not be troubled about the severity of their repression, for + it will save many souls." With such pious exhortations in their ears the + princes set to work, and slaughtered a hundred thousand of the miserable + wretches; they completely aborted the social hopes of the Reformation, and + cast humanity into the pit of wage-slavery and militarism for four + centuries. As a church scholar, Prof. Rauschenbusch, puts it: + </p> + <p> + The glorious years of the Lutheran Reformation were from 1517 to 1525, + when the whole nation was in commotion, and a great revolutionary tidal + wave seemed to be sweeping every class and every higher interest one step + nearer to its ideal of life.... The Lutheran Reformation had been most + truly religious and creative when it embraced the whole of human life and + enlisted the enthusiasm of all ideal men and movements. When it became + "religious" in the narrow sense, it grew scholastic and spiny, + quarrelsome, and impotent to awaken high enthusiasm and noble life. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0053" id="link2H_4_0053"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Deutschland ueber Alles + </h2> + <p> + As a result of Luther's treason to humanity, his church became the state + church of Prussia, and Bible-worship and Devil-terror played their part, + along with the Mass and the Confessional, in building up the Junker dream. + A court official—the Oberhofprediger—was set up, and from that + time on the Hohenzollerns were the most pious criminals in Europe. + Frederick the Great, the ancestral genius, was an atheist and a scoffer, + but he believed devoutly in religion for his subjects. He said: "If my + soldiers were to begin to think, not one would remain in the ranks." And + Carlyle, instinctive friend of autocrats, tells with jocular approval how + he kept them from thinking: + </p> + <p> + He recognizes the uses of Religion; takes a good deal of pains with his + Preaching Clergy; will suggest texts to them; and for the rest expects to + be obeyed by them, as by his Sergeants and Corporals. Indeed, the reverend + men feel themselves to be a body of Spiritual Sergeants, Corporals, and + Captains, to whom obedience is the rule, and discontent a thing not to be + indulged in by any means. + </p> + <p> + So the soldiers stayed in the ranks, and Frederick raided Silesia and + Poland. His successors ordered all the Protestant sects into one, so that + they might be more easily controlled; from which time the Lutheran Church + has been a department of the Prussian state, in some cases a branch of the + municipal authority. + </p> + <p> + In 1848, when the people of various German states demanded their liberty, + it was an ultra-pious king of Prussia who sent his troops and shot them + down—precisely as Luther had advised to shoot down the peasants. At + this time the future maker of the German Empire rose in the Landtag and + made his bow before the world; a young Prussian land-magnate, Otto von + Bismarck by name, he shook his fist in the face of the new German + liberalism, and incidentally of the new German infidelity: + </p> + <p> + Christianity is the solid basis of Prussia; and no state erected upon any + other foundation can permanently exist. + </p> + <p> + The present Hohenzollern has diligently maintained this tradition of his + line. It was his custom to tour the Empire in a train of blue and white + cars, carrying as many costumes as any stage favorite, most of them + military; with him on the train went the Prussian god, and there was + scarcely a performance at which this god did not appear, also in military + costume. After the failure of the "Kultur-kampf," the official Lutheran + religion was ordered to make friends with its ancient enemy, the Catholic + Church. Said the Kaiser: + </p> + <p> + I make no difference between the adherents of the Catholic and Protestant + creeds. Let them both stand upon the foundation of Christianity, and they + are both bound to be true citizens and obedient subjects. Then the German + people will be the rock of granite upon which our Lord God can build and + complete his work of Kultur in the world. + </p> + <p> + And here is the oath required of the Catholic clergy, upon their admission + to equality of trustworthiness with their Protestant confreres: + </p> + <p> + I will be submissive, faithful and obedient to his Royal Majesty,—and + his lawful successors in the government,—as my most gracious King + and Sovereign; promote his welfare according to my ability; prevent injury + and detriment to him; and particularly endeavor carefully to cultivate in + the minds of the people under my care a sense of reverence and fidelity + towards the King, love for the Fatherland, obedience to the laws, and all + those virtues which in a Christian denote a good citizen; and I will not + suffer any man to teach or act in a contrary spirit. In particular I vow + that I will not support any society or association, either at home or + abroad, which might endanger the public security, and will inform His + Majesty of any proposal made, either in my diocese or elsewhere, which + might prove injurious to the State. + </p> + <p> + And later on this heaven-guided ruler conceived the scheme of a + Berlin-Bagdad railway, for which he needed one religion more; he paid a + visit to Constantinople, and made another debut and produced another god—with + the result that millions of Turks are fighting under the belief that the + Kaiser is a convert to the faith of Mohammed! + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0054" id="link2H_4_0054"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Der Tag. + </h2> + <p> + All this was, of course, in preparation for the great event to which all + good Germans looked forward—to which all German officers drank their + toasts at banquets—the Day. + </p> + <p> + This glorious day came, and the field-gray armies marched forth, and the + Pauline-Lutheran God marched with them. The Kaiser, as usual, acted as + spokesman: + </p> + <p> + Remember that the German people are the chosen of God. On me, the German + emperor, the spirit of God has descended. I am His sword, His weapon and + His viceregent. Woe to the disobedient and death to cowards and + unbelievers. + </p> + <p> + As to the Prussian state religion, its attitude to the war is set forth in + a little book written by a high clerical personage, the Herr + Consistorialrat Dietrich Vorwerk, containing prayers and hymns for the + soldiers, and for the congregations at home. Here is an appeal to the Lord + God of Battles: + </p> + <p> + Though the warrior's bread be scanty, do Thou work daily death and tenfold + woe unto the enemy. Forgive in merciful long-suffering each bullet and + each blow which misses its mark. Lead us not into the temptation of + letting our wrath be too tame in carrying out Thy divine judgment. Deliver + us and our ally from the Infernal Enemy and his servants on earth. Thine + is the kingdom, the German land; may we, by the aid of Thy steel-clad + hand, achieve the fame and the glory. + </p> + <p> + It is this Herr Consistorialrat who has perpetrated the great masterpiece + of humor of the war—the hymn in which he appeals to that God who + keeps guard over Cherubim, Seraphim, and Zeppelins. You have to say over + the German form of these words in order to get the effect of their + delicious melody—"Cherubinen, Seraphinen, Zeppelinen!" And lest you + think that this too-musical clergyman is a rara avis, turn to the little + book which has been published in English under the same title as Herr + Vorwerk's "Hurrah and Hallelujah." Here is the Reverend S. Lehmann: + </p> + <p> + Germany is the center of God's plans for the world. Germany's fight + against the whole world is in reality the battle of the spirit against the + whole world's infamy, falsehood and devilish cunning. + </p> + <p> + And here is Pastor K. Koenig: + </p> + <p> + It was God's will that we should win the war. + </p> + <p> + And Pastor J. Rump: + </p> + <p> + Our defeat would mean the defeat of His Son in humanity. We fight for the + cause of Jesus within mankind. + </p> + <p> + And here is an eminent theological professor: + </p> + <p> + The deepest and most thought-inspiring result of the war is the German + God. Not the national God such as the lower nations worship, but "our + God," who is not ashamed of belonging to us, the peculiar acquirement of + our heart. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0055" id="link2H_4_0055"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + King Cotton + </h2> + <p> + It is a cheap way to gain applause in these days, to denounce the Prussian + system; my only purpose is to show that Bible-worship, precisely as + saint-worship or totem-worship, delivers the worshipper up to the Slavers. + This truth has held in America, precisely as in Prussia. During the middle + of the last century there was fought out a mighty issue in our free + republic; and what was the part played in this struggle by the + Bible-cults? Hear the testimony of William Lloyd Garrison: "American + Christianity is the main pillar of American slavery." Hear Parker + Pillsbury: "We had almost to abolish the Church before we could reach the + dreadful institution at all." + </p> + <p> + In the year 1818 the Presbyterian General Assembly, which represented the + churches of the South as well as of the North, passed by a unanimous vote + a resolution to the effect that "Slavery is utterly inconsistent with the + law of God, which requires us to love our neighbor as ourselves." But in a + generation the views of the entire South, including the Presbyterian + Church, had changed entirely. What was the reason? Had the "law of God" + been altered? Had some new "revelation" been handed down? Nothing of the + kind; it was merely that a Yankee by the name of Eli Whitney had perfected + a machine to take the seeds out of short staple cotton. The cotton crop of + the South increased from four thousand bales in 1791 to four hundred and + fifty thousand in 1820 and five million, four hundred thousand in 1860. + </p> + <p> + There was a new monarch, King Cotton, and his empire depended upon slaves. + According to the custom of monarchs since the dawn of history, he hired + the ministers of God to teach that what he wanted was right and holy. From + one end of the South to the other the pulpits rang with the text: "Cursed + be Canaan; a servant to servants shall he be to his brethren." The learned + Bishop Hopkins, in his "Bible View of Slavery", gave the standard + interpretation of this text: + </p> + <p> + The Almighty, forseeing the total degradation of the Negro race, ordained + them to servitude or slavery under the descendants of Shem and Japheth, + doubtless because he judged it to be their fittest condition. + </p> + <p> + I might fill the balance of this volume with citations from defenses of + the "peculiar institution" in the name of Jesus Christ—and not only + from the South, but from the North. For it must be understood that leading + families of Massachusetts and New York owed their power to Slavery; their + fathers had brought molasses from New Orleans and made it into rum, and + taken it to the coast of Africa to be exchanged for slaves for the + Southern planters. And after this trade was outlawed, the slave-grown + cotton had still to be shipped to the North and spun; so the traders of + the North must have divine sanction for the Fugitive Slave law. Here is + the Bishop of Vermont declaring: "The slavery of the negro race appears to + me to be fully authorized both in the Old and New Testaments." Here in the + "True Presbyterian", of New York, giving the decision of a clerical man of + the world: "There is no debasement in it. It might have existed in + Paradise, and it may continue through the Millenium." + </p> + <p> + And when the slave-holding oligarchy of the South rose in arms against + those who presumed to interfere with this divine institution, the men of + God of the South called down blessings upon their armies in words which, + with the proper change of names, might have been spoken in Berlin in + August, 1914. Thus Dr. Thornwell, one of the leading Presbyterian divines + of the South: "The triumph of Lincoln's principles is the death-knell of + slavery...... Let us crush the serpent in the egg." And the Reverend Dr. + Smythe of Charleston: "The war is a war against slavery, and is therefore + treasonable rebellion against the Word, Providence and Government of God." + I read in the papers, as I am writing, how the clergy of Germany are + thundering against President Wilson's declaration that that country must + become democratic. Here is a manifesto of the German Evangelical League, + made public on the four hundredth anniversary of the Reformation: + </p> + <p> + We especially warn against the heresy, promulgated from America, that + Christianity enjoins democratic institutions, and that they are an + essential condition of the kingdom of God on earth. + </p> + <p> + In exactly the same way the religious bodies of the entire South united in + an address to Christians throughout the world, early in the year 1863: + </p> + <p> + The recent proclamation of the President of the United States, seeking the + emancipation of the slaves of the South, is in our judgment occasion of + solemn protest on the part of the people of God. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0056" id="link2H_4_0056"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Witches and Women + </h2> + <p> + To whatever part of the world you travel, to whatever page of history you + turn, you find the endowed and established clergy using the word of God in + defense of whatever form of slave-driving may then be popular and + profitable. Two or three hundred years ago it was the custom of Protestant + divines in England and America to burn poor old women as witches; only a + hundred and fifty years ago we find John Wesley, founder of Methodism, + declaring that "the giving up of witchcraft is in effect the giving up of + the Bible." And if you investigate this witch-burning, you will find that + it is only one aspect of a blot upon civilization, the Christian Mysogyny. + You see, there were two Hebrew legends—one that woman was made out + of a man's rib, and the other that she ate an apple; therefore in modern + England a wife must be content with a legal status lower than a domestic + servant. + </p> + <p> + Perhaps the most comical of the clerical claims is this—that + Christianity has promoted chivalry and respect for womanhood. In ancient + Greece and Rome the woman was the equal and helpmate of man; we read in + Tacitus about the splendid women of the Germans, who took part in public + councils, and even fought in battles. Two thousand years before the + Christian era we are told by Maspero that the Egyptian woman was the + mistress of her house; she could inherit equally with her brothers, and + had full control of her property. We are told by Paturet that she was + "juridically the equal of man, having the same rights and being treated in + the same fashion." But in present-day England, under the common law, woman + can hold no office of trust or power, and her husband has the sole custody + of her person, and of her children while minors. He can steal her + children, rob her of her clothing, and beat her with a stick provided it + is no thicker than his thumb. While I was in London the highest court + handed down a decision on the law which does not permit a woman to divorce + her husband for infidelity, unless it has been accompanied by cruelty; a + man had brought his mistress into his home and—compelled his wife to + work for and wait upon her, and the decision was that this was not cruelty + in the meaning of the law! + </p> + <p> + And if you say that this enslavement of Woman has nothing to do with + religion—that ancient Hebrew fables do not control modern English + customs—then listen to the Vicar of Crantock, preaching at St. + Crantock's, London, Aug. 27th, 1905, and explaining why women must cover + their heads in church: + </p> + <p> + (1) Man's priority of creation. Adam was first formed, then Eve. + </p> + <p> + (2) The manner of creation. The man is not of the woman, but the woman of + the man. + </p> + <p> + (3) The purport of creation. The man was not created for the woman, but + the woman for the man. + </p> + <p> + (4) Results in creation. The man is the image of the glory of God, but + woman is the glory of man. + </p> + <p> + (5) Woman's priority in the fall. Adam was not deceived; but the woman, + being deceived, was in the transgression. + </p> + <p> + (6) The marriage relation. As the Church is subject to Christ, so let the + wives be to their husbands. + </p> + <p> + (7) The headship of man and woman. The head of every man is Christ, but + the head of the woman is man. + </p> + <p> + I say there is no modern evil which cannot be justified by these ancient + texts; and there is nowhere in Christendom a clergy which cannot be + persuaded to cite them at the demand of ruling classes. In the city where + I write, three clergymen are being sent to jail for six months for + protesting against the use of the name of Jesus in the wholesale slaughter + of men. Now, I am backing this war. I know that it has to be fought, and I + want to see it fought as hard as possible; but I want to leave Jesus out + of it, for I know that Jesus did not believe in war, and never could have + been brought to support a war. I object to clerical cant on the subject; + and I note that an eminent theological authority, "Billy" Sunday, appears + to agree with me; for I find him on the front page of my morning paper, + assailing the three pacifist clergymen, and making his appeal not to + Jesus, but to the blood-thirsty tribal diety of the ancient Hebrews: + </p> + <p> + I suppose they think they know more than God Almighty, who commanded the + sun to stand still while Joshua won the battle for the Lord; more than the + God who made Samson strong so he could slay thousands of his nation's + enemies in a righteous cause. + </p> + <p> + Right you are, Billy! And if the capitalist system continues to develop + unchecked, we shall some day see it dawn upon the masters of the world how + wasteful it is to permit the superannuated workers to perish by slow + starvation. So much more sensible to make use of them! So we shall have a + Bible defense of cannibalism; we shall hear our evangelists quoting + Leviticus: "They shall eat the flesh of their own sons and daughters." Or + perhaps some of our leisure-class ladies might make the discovery that the + flesh of working-class babies is relished by pomeranians and poodles. If + so, the Billy Sundays of the twenty-first century may discover the text: + "Happy shall be he that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the + stones." + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0057" id="link2H_4_0057"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Moth and Rust + </h2> + <p> + It is especially interesting to notice what happens when the Bible texts + work against the interests of the Slavers and their clerical retainers. + Then they are null and void—and no matter how precise and explicit + and unmistakable they may be! Take for example the Sabbath injunction: + "Six days shalt thou labor and do all that thou hast to do." Karl Marx + records of the pious England of his time that, + </p> + <p> + Occasionally in rural districts a day-labourer is condemned to + imprisonment for desecrating the Sabbath by working in his front garden. + The same labourer is punished for breach of contract if he remains away + from his metal, paper or glass works on the Sunday, even if it be from a + religious whim. The orthodox Parliament will hear nothing of + Sabbath-breaking if it occurs in the process of expanding capital. + </p> + <p> + Or consider the attitude of the Church in the matter of usury. Throughout + ancient Hebrew history the money-lender was an outcast; both the law and + the prophets denounced him without mercy, and it was made perfectly clear + that what was meant was, not the taking of high interest, but the taking + of any interest whatsoever. The early church fathers were explicit, and + the Catholic Church for a thousand years consigned money-lenders + unhesitatingly to hell. But then came the modern commercial system, and + the money-lenders became the masters of the world! There is no more + amusing illustration of the perversion of human thought than the efforts + of the Jesuit casuists to escape from the dilemma into which their + Heavenly Guides had trapped them. + </p> + <p> + Here, for example is Alphonso Ligouri, a Spanish Jesuit of the eighteenth + century, a doctor of the Church, now worshipped as St. Alphonsus, + presenting a long and elaborate theory of "mental usury"; concluding that, + if the borrower pay interest of his own free will, the lender may keep it. + In answer to the question whether the lender may keep what the borrower + pays, not out of gratitude, but out of fear that otherwise loans will be + refused to him in future, Ligouri says that "to be usury, it must be paid + by reason of a contract, or as justly due; payment by reason of such a + fear does not cause interest to be paid as an actual price," Again the + great saint and doctor tells us that "it is not usury to exact something + in return for the danger and expense of regaining the principal!" Could + the house of J. P. Morgan and Company ask more of their ecclesiastical + department? + </p> + <p> + The reader may think that such sophistications are now out of date; but he + will find precisely the same knavery in the efforts of present-day Slavers + to fit Jesus Christ into the system of competitive commercialism. Jesus, + as we have pointed out, was a carpenter's son, a thoroughly + class-conscious proletarian. He denounced the exploiters of his own time + with ferocious bitterness, he drove the money-changers out of the temple + with whips, and he finally died the death of a common criminal. If he had + forseen the whole modern cycle of capitalism and wage-slavery, he could + hardly have been more precise in his exortations to his followers to stand + apart from it. But did all this avail him? Not in the least! + </p> + <p> + I place upon the witness-stand an exponent of Bible-Christianity whom all + readers of our newspapers know well: a scholar of learning, a publicist of + renown; once pastor of the most famous church in Brooklyn; now editor of + our most influential religious weekly; a liberal both in theology and + politics; a modernist, an advocate of what he calls industrial democracy. + His name is Lyman Abbott, and he is writing under his own signature in his + own magazine, his subject being "The Ethical Teachings of Jesus". Several + times I have tried to persuade people that the words I am about to quote + were actually written and published by this eminent doctor of divinity, + and people have almost refused to believe me. Therefore I specify that the + article may be found in the "Outlook", the bound volumes of which are in + all large libraries: volume 94, page 576. The words are as follows, the + bold face being Dr. Abbott's, not mine: + </p> + <p> + My radical friend declares that the teachings of Jesus are not + practicable, that we cannot carry them out in life, and that we do not + pretend to do so. Jesus, he reminds us, said, 'Lay not up for yourself + treasures upon earth;' and Christians do universally lay up for themselves + treasures upon earth; every man that owns a house and lot, or a share of + stock in a corporation, or a life insurance policy, or money in a savings + bank, has laid up for himself treasure upon earth. But Jesus did not say, + "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth." He said, "Lay not up for + yourselves treasures upon earth where moth and rust doth corrupt and where + thieves break through and steal." And no sensible American does. Moth and + rust do not get at Mr. Rockefeller's oil wells, nor at the Sugar Trust's + sugar, and thieves do not often break through and steal a railway or an + insurance company or a savings bank. What Jesus condemned was hoarding + wealth. + </p> + <p> + Strange as it may sound to some of the readers of this book, I count + myself among the followers of Jesus of Nazareth. His example has meant + more to me than that of any other man, and all the experiences of my + revolutionary life have brought me nearer to him. Living in the great + Metropolis of Mammon, I have felt the power of Privilege, its scourge upon + my back, its crown of thorns upon my head. When I read that article in the + "Outlook", I felt just as Jesus himself would have felt; and I sat down + and wrote a letter— + </p> + <p> + To Lyman Abbott + </p> + <p> + This discovery of a new method of interpreting the Bible is one of such + very great interest and importance that I cannot forbear to ask space to + comment upon it. May I suggest that Dr. Abbott elaborate this exceedingly + fruitful idea, and write us another article upon the extent to which the + teachings of the Inspired Word are modified by modern conditions, by the + progress of invention and the scientific arts? The point of view which Dr. + Abbott takes is one which had never occurred to me before, and I had + therefore been completely mistaken as to the attitude of Jesus on the + question. Also I have, like Dr. Abbott, many radical friends who are still + laboring under error. + </p> + <p> + Jesus goes on to bid his hearers: "Consider the lilies of the field, how + they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin." What an apt simile is + this for the "great mass of American wealth," in Dr. Abbott's portrayal of + it! "It is serving the community," he tells us; "it is building a railway + to open a new country to settlement by the homeless; it is operating a + railway to carry grain from the harvests of the West to the unfed millions + of the East," etc. Incidentally, it is piling up dividends for its pious + owners; and so everybody is happy—and Jesus, if he should come back + to earth, could never know that he had left the abodes of bliss above. + </p> + <p> + Truly, there should be a new school of Bible interpretation founded upon + this brilliant idea. Jesus says, "Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do + not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues + and in the streets, that they may have glory of men." Verily not; for of + what avail are trumpets, compared with the millions of copies of + newspapers which daily go forth to tell of Mr. Rockefeller's benefactions? + How transitory are they, compared with the graven marble or granite which + Mr. Carnegie sets upon the front of each of his libraries! + </p> + <p> + There is the paragraph, "Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because + thou canst not make one hair white or black." I have several among my + friends who are Quakers; presumably Dr. Abbott has also; and he should not + fail to point out to them the changes which scientific discovery has + wrought in the significance of this command against swearing. We can now + make our hair either white or black, or a combination of both. We can make + it a brilliant peroxide golden; we could, if pushed to an extreme, make it + purple or green. So we are clearly entitled to swear all we please by our + head. + </p> + <p> + Nor should we forget to examine other portions of the Bible according to + this method. "Look not upon the wine when it is red," we are told. Thanks + to the activities of that Capitalism which Dr. Abbott praises so + eloquently, we now make our beverages in the chemical laboratory, and + their color is a matter of choice. Also, it should be pointed out that we + have a number of pleasant drinks which are not wine at all—"high-balls" + and "gin rickeys" and "peppered punches"; also vermouthe and creme de + menthe and absinthe, which I believe, are green in hue, and therefore + entirely safe. + </p> + <p> + Then there are the Ten Commandments. "Thou shalt not make unto thee any + graven image." See how completely our understanding of this command is + changed, so soon as we realize that we are free to make images of molten + metal! And that we may with impunity bow down to them and worship them and + serve them—even, for instance, a Golden Calf! + </p> + <p> + "The seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not + do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy + maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor the stranger that is within thy gates." + This, again, it will be noted, is open to new interpretations. It + specifies maidservants, but does not prevent one's employing as many + married women as he pleases. It also says nothing about the various kinds + of labor-saving machinery which we have now taught to work for us—sail-boats, + naptha launches, yachts, automobiles, and private cars—all of which + may be busily occupied during the seventh day of the week. The men who run + these machines—the guides, boatmen, stokers, pilots, chauffeurs, and + engineers—would all indignantly resent being regarded as "servants", + and so they do not come under the prohibition any more than the machines. + </p> + <p> + "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy + neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor + his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbor's." I read this paragraph over + for the first time in quite a while, and I came with a jolt to its last + words. I had been intending to point out that it said nothing about a + neighbor's automobile, nor a neighbor's oil wells, sugar trusts, insurance + companies and savings banks. The last words, however, stop one off + abruptly. One is almost tempted to imagine that the Divine Intelligence + must have foreseen Dr. Abbott's ingenious method of interpretation, and + taken this precaution against him. And this was a great surprise to me—for, + truly, I had not supposed it possible that such an interpretation could + have been foreseen, even by Omniscience itself. I will conclude this + communication by venturing the assertion that it could not have been + foreseen by any other person or thing, in the heavens above, on the earth + beneath, or the waters under the earth. Dr. Abbott may accept my + congratulations upon having achieved the most ingenious and masterful + exhibition of casuistical legerdemain that it has ever been my fortune to + encounter in my readings in the literatures of some thirty centuries and + seven different languages. + </p> + <p> + And I will also add that I respectfully challenge Dr. Abbott to publish + this letter. And I announce to him in advance that if he refuses to + publish it, I will cause it to be published upon the first page of the + "Appeal to Reason", where it will be read by some five hundred thousand + Socialists, and by them set before several million followers of Jesus + Christ, the world's first and greatest revolutionist, whom Dr. Lyman + Abbott has traduced and betrayed by the most amazing piece of theological + knavery that it has ever been my fortune to encounter. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0058" id="link2H_4_0058"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + The Octopus + </h2> + <p> + Dr. Lyman Abbott published this letter! In his editorial comment thereon + he said that he did not know which of two biblical injunctions to follow: + "Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou be thought like unto + him"; or "Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own + conceit". I replied by pointing out a third text which the Reverend Doctor + had possibly overlooked: "He that calleth his neighbor a fool shall be in + danger of hell-fire." But the Reverend Doctor took refuge in his dignity, + and I bided my time and waited for that revenge which comes sooner or + later to us muck-rakers. In this case it came speedily. The story is such + a perfect illustration of the functions of religion as oil to the + machinery of graft that I ask the reader's permission to recite it at + length. + </p> + <p> + For a couple of decades the political and financial life of New England + has been dominated by a gigantic aggregation of capital, the New York, New + Haven and Hartford Railroad. It is a "Morgan" concern; its popular name, + "The New Haven", stands for all the railroads of six states, nearly all + the trolley-lines and steamship-lines, and a group of the most powerful + banks of Boston and New York. It is controlled by a little group of + insiders, who followed the custom of rail-road-wrecking familiar to + students of American industrial life: buying up new lines, capitalizing + them at fabulous sums, and unloading them on the investing public; paying + dividends out of capital, "passing" dividends as a means of stock + manipulation, accumulating surpluses and cutting "melons" for the + insiders, while at the same time crushing labor unions, squeezing wages, + and permitting rolling-stock and equipment to go to wreck. + </p> + <p> + All these facts were perfectly well known in Wall Street, and could not + have escaped the knowledge of any magazine editor dealing with current + events. In eight years the "New Haven" had increased its capitalization + 1501 per cent; and what that meant, any office boy in "the Street" could + have told. What attitude should a magazine editor take to the matter? + </p> + <p> + At that time there were still two or three free magazines in America. One + of them was Hampton's, and the story of its wrecking by the New Haven + criminals will some day serve in school text-books as the classic + illustration of that financial piracy which brought on the American social + revolution. Ben Hampton had bought the old derelict "Broadway Magazine", + with twelve thousand subscribers, and in four years, by the simple process + of straight truth-telling, had built up for it a circulation of 440,000. + In two years more he would have had a million; but in May, 1911, he + announced a series of articles dealing with the New Haven management. + </p> + <p> + The articles, written by Charles Edward Russell, were so exact that they + read today like the reports of the Interstate Commerce Commission, dated + three years later. A representative of the New Haven called upon the + editor of Hampton's with a proof of the first article—obtained from + the printer by bribery—and was invited to specify the statements to + which he took exception; in the presence of witnesses he went over the + article line by line, and specified two minor errors, which were at once + corrected. At the end of the conference he announced that if the articles + were published, Hampton's Magazine would be "on the rocks in ninety days." + </p> + <p> + Which threat was carried out to the letter. First came a campaign among + the advertisers of the magazine, which lost an income of thousands of + dollars a month, almost over night. And then came a campaign among the + banks—the magazine could not get credit. Anyone familiar with the + publishing business will understand that a magazine which is growing + rapidly has to have advances to meet each month's business. Hampton + undertook to raise the money by selling stock; whereupon a spy was + introduced into his office as bookkeeper, his list of subscribers was + stolen, and a campaign was begun to destroy their confidence. + </p> + <p> + It happened that I was in Hampton's office in the summer of 1911, when the + crisis came. Money had to be had to pay for a huge new edition; and upon a + property worth two millions of dollars, with endorsements worth as much + again, it was impossible to borrow thirty thousand dollars in the city of + New York. Bankers, personal friends of the publisher, stated quite openly + that word had gone out that any one who loaned money to him would be + "broken". I myself sent telegrams to everyone I knew who might by any + chance be able to help; but there was no help, and Hampton retired without + a dollar to his name, and the magazine was sold under the hammer to a + concern which immediately wrecked it and discontinued publication. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0059" id="link2H_4_0059"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + The Industrial Shelley + </h2> + <p> + Such was the fate of an editor who opposed the "New Haven". And now, what + of those editors who supported it? Turn to "The Outlook, a Weekly Journal + of Current Events," edited by Lyman Abbott—the issue of Dec. 25th, + nineteen hundred and nine years after Christ came down to bring peace on + earth and good-will toward Wall Street. You will there find an article by + Sylvester Baxter entitled "The Upbuilding of a Great Railroad." It is the + familiar "slush" article which we professional writers learn to know at a + glance. "Prodigious", Mr. Baxter tells us, has been the progress of the + New Haven; this was "a masterstroke", that was "characteristically + sagacious". The road had made "prodigious expenditures", and to a noble + end: "Transportation efficiency epitomizes the broad aim that animated + these expenditures and other constructive activities." There are + photographs of bridges and stations—"vast terminal improvements", "a + masterpiece of modern engineering", "the highest, greatest and most + architectural of bridges". Of the official under whom these miracles were + being wrought—President Mellen—we read: "Nervously organized, + of delicate sensibility, impulsive in utterance, yet with an + extraordinarily convincing power for vividly logical presentation." An + industrial Shelley, or a Milton, you perceive; and all this prodigious + genius poured out for the general welfare! "To study out the sort of + transportation service best adapted to these ends, and then to provide it + in the most efficient form possible, that is the life-task that President + Mellen has set himself." + </p> + <p> + There was no less than sixteen pages of these raptures—quite a + section of a small magazine like the "Outlook". "The New Haven ramifies to + every spot where industry flourishes, where business thrives." "As a + purveyor of transportation it supplies the public with just the sort + desired." "Here we have the new efficiency in a nutshell." In short, here + we have what Dr. Lyman Abbott means when he glorifies "the great mass of + American wealth". "It is serving the community; it is building a railway + to open a new country to settlement by the homeless; it is operating a + railway to carry grain from the harvests of the West to the unfed millions + of the East," etc. The unfed millions—my typewriter started to write + "underfed millions"—are humbly grateful for these services, and + hasten to buy copies of the pious weekly which tells about them. + </p> + <p> + The "Outlook" runs a column of "current events" in which it tells what is + happening in the world; and sometimes it is compelled to tell of + happenings against the interests of "the great mass of American wealth". + The cynical reader will find amusement in following its narrative of the + affairs of the New Haven during the five years subsequent to the + publication of the Baxter article. + </p> + <p> + First came the collapse of the road's service; a series of accidents so + frightful that they roused even clergymen and chambers of commerce to + protest. A number of the "Outlook's" subscribers are New Haven + "commuters", and the magazine could not fail to refer to their troubles. + In the issue of Jan. 4th, 1913, three years and ten days after the Baxter + rhapsody, we read: + </p> + <p> + The most numerous accidents on a single road since the last fiscal year + have been, we believe, those on the New Haven. In the opinion of the + Connecticut Commission, the Westport wreck would not have occurred if the + railway company had followed the recommendation of the Chief Inspector of + Safety Appliances of the Interstate Commerce Commission in its report on a + similar accident at Bridgeport a year ago. + </p> + <p> + And by June 28th, matters had gone farther yet; we find the "Outlook" + reporting: + </p> + <p> + Within a few hours of the collision at Stamford, the wrecked Pullman car + was taken away and burned. Is this criminal destruction of evidence? + </p> + <p> + This collapse of the railroad service started a clamor for investigation + by the Interstate Commerce Commission, which of course brought terror to + the bosoms of the plunderers. On Dec. 20, 1913, we find the "Outlook" + "putting the soft pedal" on the public indignation. "It must not be + forgotten that such a road as the New Haven is, in fact if not in terms, a + National possession, and as it goes down or up, public interests go down + or up with it," But in spite of all pious admonitions, the Interstate + Commerce Commission yielded to the public clamor, and an investigation was + made—revealing such conditions of rottenness as to shock even the + clerical retainers of Privilege. "Securities were inflated, debt was + heaped upon debt", reports the horrified "Outlook"; and when its hero, Mr. + Mellen—its industrial Shelley, "nervously organized, of delicate + sensibility"—admitted that he had no authority as to the finances of + the road and no understanding of them, but had taken all his orders from + Morgan, the "Outlook" remarks, deeply wounded: "A pitiable position for + the president of a great railway to assume." A little later, when things + got hotter yet, we read: + </p> + <p> + In the search for truth the Commissioners had to overcome many obstacles, + such as the burning of books, letters and documents, and the obstinacy of + witnesses, who declined to testify until criminal proceedings were begun. + The New Haven system has more than three hundred subsidiary corporations + in a web of entangling alliances, many of which were seemingly planned, + created and manipulated by lawyers expressly retained for the purpose of + concealment or deception. + </p> + <p> + But do you imagine even that would sicken the pious jackals of their + offal? If so, you do not know the sturdiness of the pious stomach. A + compromise was patched up between the government and the thieves who were + too big to be prosecuted; this bargain was not kept by the thieves, and + President Wilson declared in a public statement that the New Haven + administration had "broken an agreement deliberately and solemnly entered + into," in a manner to the President "inexplicable and entirely without + justification." Which, of course, seemed to the "Outlook" dreadfully + impolite language to be used concerning a "National possession"; it + hastened to rebuke President Wilson, whose statement was "too severe and + drastic." + </p> + <p> + A new compromise was made between the government and the thieves who were + too big to be prosecuted, and the stealing went on. Now, as I work over + this book, the President takes the railroads for war use, and reads to + Congress a message proposing that the securities based upon the New Haven + swindles, together with all the mass of other railroad swindles, shall be + sanctified and secured by dividends paid out of the Public purse. New + Haven securities take a big jump; and the "Outlook", needless to say, is + enthusiastic for the President's policy. Here is a chance for the big + thieves to baptize themselves—or shall we say to have the water in + their stocks made "holy"? Says our pious editor, for the government to + take property without full compensation "would be contrary to the whole + spirit of America." + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0060" id="link2H_4_0060"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + The Outlook for Graft + </h2> + <p> + Anyone familiar with the magazine world will understand that such crooked + work as this, continued over a long period, is not done for nothing. Any + magazine writer would know, the instant he saw the Baxter article, that + Baxter was paid by the New Haven, and that the "Outlook" also was paid by + the New Haven. Generally he has no way of proving such facts, and has to + sit in silence; but when his board bill falls due and his landlady is + persistent, he experiences a direct and earnest hatred of the crooks of + journalism who thrive at his expense. If he is a Socialist, he looks + forward to the day when he may sit on a Publications' Graft Commission, + with access to all magazine books which have not yet been burned! + </p> + <p> + In the case of the New Haven, we know a part of the price—thanks to + the labors of the Interstate Commerce Commission. Needless to say, you + will not find the facts recorded in the columns of the Outlook; you might + have read it line by line from the palmy days of Mellen to our own, and + you would have got no hint of what the Commission revealed about magazine + and newspaper graft. Nor would you have got much more from the great + metropolitan dailies, which systematically "played down" the expose, + omitting all the really damaging details. You would have to go to the + reports of the Commission—or to the files of "Pearson's Magazine", + which is out of print and not found in libraries! + </p> + <p> + According to the New Haven's books, and by the admission of its own + officials, the road was spending more than four hundred thousand dollars a + year to influence newspapers and magazines in favor of its policies. + (President Mellen stated that this was relatively less than any other + railroad in the country was spending). There was a professor of the + Harvard Law School, going about lecturing to boards of trade, urging in + the name of economic science the repeal of laws against railroad + monopolies—and being paid for his speeches out of railroad funds! + There was a swarm of newspaper reporters, writing on railroad affairs for + the leading papers of New England, and getting twenty-five dollars weekly, + or two or three hundred on special occasions. Sums had been paid directly + to more than a thousand newspapers—$3,000 to the Boston "Republic", + and when the question was asked "Why?" the answer was, "That is Mayor + Fitzgerald's paper." Even the ultra-respectable "Evening Transcript", + organ of the Brahmins of culture, was down for $144 for typing, + mimeographing and sending out "dope" to the country press. There was an + item of $381 for 15,000 "Prayers"; and when asked about that President + Mellen explained that it referred to a pamphlet called "Prayers from the + Hills", embodying the yearnings of the back-country people for + trolley-franchises to be issued to the New Haven. Asked why the pamphlet + was called "Prayers", Mr. Mellen explained that "there was lots of + biblical language in it." + </p> + <p> + And now we come to the "Outlook"; after five years of waiting, we catch + our pious editors with the goods on them! There appears on the pay-roll of + the New Haven, as one of its regular press-agents, getting sums like $500 + now and then—would you think it possible?—Sylvester Baxter! + And worse yet, there appears an item of $938.64 to the "Outlook", for a + total of 9,716 copies of its issue of Dec. 25th, nineteen hundred and nine + years after Christ came to bring peace on earth and good will towards Wall + Street! + </p> + <p> + The writer makes a specialty of fair play, even when dealing with those + who have never practiced it towards him. He wrote a letter to the editor + of the "Outlook", asking what the magazine might have to say upon this + matter. The reply, signed by Lawrence F. Abbott, President of the + "Outlook" Company, was that the "Outlook" did not know that Mr. Baxter had + any salaried connection with the New Haven, and that they had paid him for + the article at the usual rates. Against this statement must be set one + made under oath by the official of the New Haven who had the disbursing of + the corruption fund—that the various papers which used the railroad + material paid nothing for it, and "they all knew where it came from." Mr. + Lawrence Abbott states that "the New Haven Railroad bought copies of the + 'Outlook' without any previous understanding or arrangement as anybody is + entitled to buy copies of the 'Outlook'." I might point out that this does + not really say as much as it seems to; for the President of every magazine + company in America knows without any previous understanding or arrangement + that any time he cares to print an article such as Mr. Baxter's, dealing + with the affairs of a great corporation, he can sell ten thousand copies + to that corporation. The late unlamented Elbert Hubbard wrote a defense of + the Rockefeller slaughter of coal-miners, published it in "The Fra," and + came down to New York and unloaded several tons at 26 Broadway; he did the + same thing in the case of the copper strike in Michigan, and again in the + case of "The Jungle"—and all this without the slightest claim to + divine inspiration or authority! + </p> + <p> + Mr. Abbott answers another question: "We certainly did not return the + amount to the railroad company." Well, a sturdy conscience must be a + comfort to its possessor. The President of the "Outlook" is in the + position of a pawnbroker caught with stolen goods in his establishment. He + had no idea they were stolen; and we might believe it, if the thief were + obscure. But when the thief is the most notorious in the city—when + his picture has been in the paper a thousand times? And when the thief + swears that the broker knew him? And when the broker's shop is full of + other suspicious goods? Why did the "Outlook" practically take back Mr. + Spahr's revelations concerning the Powder barony of Delaware? Why did it + support so vigorously the Standard Oil ticket for the control of the + Mutual Life Insurance Company—and with James Stillman, one of the + heads of Standard Oil, president of Standard Oil's big bank in New York, + secretly one of its biggest stockholders! + </p> + <p> + Also, why does the magazine refuse to give its readers a chance to judge + its conduct? Why is it that a search of its columns reveals no mention of + the revelations concerning Mr. Baxter—not even any mention of the + $400,000 slush fund of its paragon, of transportation virtues? I asked + that question in my letter, and the president of the "Outlook" Company for + some reason failed to notice it. I wrote a second time, courteously + reminding him of the omission; and also of another, equally significant—he + had not informed me whether any of the editors of the "Outlook", or the + officers or directors of the Company, were stockholders in the New Haven. + His final reply was that the questions seem to him "wholly unimportant"; + he does not know whether the "Outlook" published anything about the Baxter + revelations, nor does he know whether any of the editors or officers or + directors of the "Outlook" Company are or ever have been stockholders of + the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad Company. The fact "would not + in the slightest degree affect either favorably or unfavorably our + editorial treatment of that corporation." Caesar's wife, it appears is + above suspicion—even when she is caught in a brothel! + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0061" id="link2H_4_0061"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Clerical Camouflage + </h2> + <p> + I have seen a photograph from "Somewhere in France", showing a wayside + shrine with a statue of the Virgin Mary, innocent and loving, with her + babe in her arms. If you were a hostile aviator, you might sail over and + take pictures to your heart's content, and you would see nothing but a + saintly image; you would have to be on the enemy's side, and behind the + lines, to make the discovery that under the image had been dug a hole for + a machine-gun. When I saw that picture, I thought to myself—there is + capitalist Religion! + </p> + <p> + You see, if cannon and machine-guns are out in the open, they are almost + instantly spotted and put out of action; and so with magazines like + "Leslie's Weekly", or "Munsey's", or the "North American Review", which + are frankly and wholly in the interest of Big Business. If an editor + wishes really to be effective in holding back progress, he must protect + himself with a camouflage of piety and philanthropy, he must have at his + tongue's end the phrases of brotherhood and justice, he must be liberal + and progressive, going a certain cautious distance with the reformers, + indulging in carefully measured fair play—giving a dime with one + hand, while taking back a dollar with the other! + </p> + <p> + Let us have an illustration of this clerical camouflage. Here are the + wives and children of the Colorado coal-miners being shot and burned in + their beds by Rockefeller gun-men, and the press of the entire country in + a conspiracy of silence concerning the matter. In the effort to break down + this conspiracy, Bouck White, Congregational clergyman, author of "The + Call of the Carpenter", goes to the Fifth Avenue Church of Standard Oil + and makes a protest in the name of Jesus. I do not wish to make extreme + statements, but I have read history pretty thoroughly, and I really do not + know where in nineteen hundred years you can find an action more + completely in the spirit and manner of Jesus than that of Bouck White. The + only difference was that whereas Jesus took a real whip and lashed the + money-changers, White politely asked the pastor to discuss with him the + question whether or not Jesus condemned the holding of wealth. He even + took the precaution to write a letter to the clergyman announcing in + advance what he intended to do! And how did the clergyman prepare for him? + With the sword of truth and the armor of the spirit? No—but with two + or three dozen strong-arm men, who flung themselves upon the Socialist + author and hurled him out of the church. So violent were they that several + of White's friends, also one or two casual spectators, were moved to + protest; what happened then, let us read in the New York "Sun", the most + bitterly hostile to radicalism of all the metropolitan newspapers. Says + the "Sun's" report: + </p> + <p> + A police billy came crunching against the bones of Lopez's legs. It struck + him as hard as a man could swing it eight times. A fist planted on Lopez's + jaw knocked out two teeth. His lip was torn open. A blow in the eye made + it swell and blacken instantly. A minute later Lopez was leaning against + the church with blood running to the doorsill. + </p> + <p> + And now, what has the clerical camouflage to say on this proceeding? Does + it approve it? Oh no! It was "a mistake", the "Outlook" protests; it + intensifies the hatred which these extremists feel for the church. The + proper course would have been to turn the disturber aside with a soft + answer; to give him some place, say in a park, where he could talk his + head off to people of his own sort, while good and decent Christians + continued to worship by themselves in peace, and to have the children of + their mine-slaves shot and burned in their beds. Says our pious editor: + </p> + <p> + The true way to repress cranks is not to suppress them; it is to give them + an opportunity to air their theories before any who wish to learn, while + forbidding them to compel those to listen who do not wish to do so. + </p> + <p> + Or take another case. Twelve years ago the writer made an effort to + interest the American people in the conditions of labor in their + packing-plants. It happened that incidentally I gave some facts about the + bedevilment of the public's meat-supply, and the public really did care + about that. As I phrased it at the time, I aimed at the public's heart, + and by accident I hit it in the stomach. There was a terrible clamor, and + Congress was forced to pass a bill to remedy the evils. As a matter of + fact this bill was a farce, but the public was satisfied, and soon forgot + the matter entirely. The point to be noted here is that so far as + concerned the atrocious miseries of the working-people, it was not + necessary even to pretend to do anything. The slaves of Packingtown went + on living and working as they were described as doing in "The Jungle", and + nobody gave a further thought to them. Only the other day I read in my + paper—while we are all making sacrifices in a "War for Democracy"—that + Armour and Company had paid a dividend of twenty-one per cent, and Swift + and Company a dividend of thirty-five per cent. + </p> + <p> + This prosperity they owe in good part to their clerical camouflage. Listen + to our pious "Outlook", engaged in countermining "The Jungle". The + "Outlook" has no doubt that there are genuine evils in the packing-plants; + the conditions of the workers ought of course to be improved; BUT— + </p> + <p> + To disgust the reader by dragging him through every conceivable horror, + physical and moral, to depict with lurid excitement and with offensive + minuteness the life in jail and brothel—all this is to overreach the + object.... Even things actually terrible may become distorted when a + writer screams them out in a sensational way and in a high pitched + key...... More convincing if it were less hysterical. + </p> + <p> + Don't you see what these clerical crooks are for? + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0062" id="link2H_4_0062"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + The Jungle + </h2> + <p> + A four years' war was fought in America, a million men were killed and + half a continent was devastated, in order to abolish chattel slavery and + put wage slavery in its place. I have made a thorough study of both these + industrial systems, and I freely admit that there is one respect in which + the lot of the wage slave is better than that of the chattel slave. The + wage slave is free to think; and by squeezing a few drops of blood from + his starving body, he may possess himself of machinery for the + distribution of his ideas. Taking his chances of the policeman's club and + the jail, he may found revolutionary organizations, and so he has the + candle of hope to light him to his death-bed. But excepting this + consideration, and taking the circumstances of the wage slave from the + material point of view alone, I hold it beyond question that the average + lot of the chattel slave of 1860 was preferable to that of the modern + slave of the Beef Trust, the Steel Trust, or the Coal Trust. It was the + Southern master's real concern, his business interest, that the chattel + slave should be kept physically sound; but it is nobody's business to care + anything about the wage slave. The children of the chattel slave were + valuable property, and so they got plenty to eat, and a happy outdoor + life, and medical attention if they fell ill. But the children of the + sweat-shop or the cotton-mill or the canning-factory are raised in a city + slum, and never know what it is to have enough to eat, never know a + feeling of security or rest— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + We are weary in our cradles + From our mother's toil untold; + We are born to hoarded weariness + As some to hoarded gold. +</pre> + <p> + The system of competitive commercialism, of large-scale capitalist + industry in its final flowering! I quote from "The Jungle": + </p> + <p> + Here in this city tonight, ten thousand women are shut up in foul pens, + and driven by hunger to sell their bodies to live. Tonight in Chicago + there are ten thousand men, homeless and wretched, willing to work and + begging for a chance, yet starving, and fronting with terror the awful + winter cold! Tonight in Chicago there are a hundred thousand children + wearing out their strength and blasting their lives in the effort to earn + their bread! There are a hundred thousand mothers who are living in misery + and squalor, struggling to earn enough to feed their little ones! There + are a hundred thousand old people, cast off and helpless, waiting for + death to take them from their torments! There are a million people, men + and women and children, who share the curse of the wage-slave; who toil + every hour they can stand and see, for just enough to keep them alive; who + are condemned till the end of their days to monotony and weariness, to + hunger and misery, to heat and cold, to dirt and disease, to ignorance and + drunkenness and vice! And then turn over the page with me, and gaze upon + the other side of the picture. There are a thousand—ten thousand, + maybe—who are the masters of these slaves, who own their toil. They + do nothing to earn what they receive, they do not even have to ask for it—-it + comes to them of itself, their only care is to dispose of it. They live in + palaces, they riot in luxury and extravagance—such as no words can + describe, as makes the imagination reel and stagger, makes the soul grow + sick and faint. They spend hundreds of dollars for a pair of shoes, a + handkerchief, a garter; they spend millions for horses and automobiles and + yachts, for palaces and banquets, for little shiny stones with which to + deck their bodies. Their life is a contest among themselves for supremacy + in ostentation and recklessness, in the destroying of useful and necessary + things, in the wasting of the labor and the lives of their + fellow-creatures, the toil and anguish of the nations, the sweat and tears + and blood of the human race! It is all theirs—it comes to them; just + as all the springs pour into streamlets, and the streamlets into rivers, + and the rivers into the ocean—so, automatically and inevitably, all + the wealth of society comes to them. The farmer tills the soil, the miner + digs in the earth, the weaver tends the loom, the mason carves the stone, + the clever man invents, the shrewd man directs, the wise man studies, the + inspired man sings—and all the results, the products of the labor of + brain and muscle, are gathered into one stupendous stream and poured into + their laps! + </p> + <p> + This is the system. It is the crown and culmination of all the wrongs of + the ages; and in proportion to the magnitude of its exploitation, is the + hypocrisy and knavery of the clerical camouflage which has been organized + in its behalf. Beyond all question, the supreme irony of history is the + use which has been made of Jesus of Nazareth as the Head God of this + blood-thirsty system; it is a cruelty beyond all language, a blasphemy + beyond the power of art to express. Read the man's words, furious as those + of any modern agitator that I have heard in twenty years of revolutionary + experience: "Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth!—Sell that + ye have and give alms!—Blessed are ye poor, for yours is the kingdom + of Heaven!—Woe unto you that are rich, for ye have received your + consolation!—Verily, I say unto you, that a rich man shall hardly + enter into the kingdom of Heaven!—Woe unto you also, you lawyers!—Ye + serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of + hell?" + </p> + <p> + "And this man"—I quote from "The Jungle" again—"they have made + into the high-priest of property and smug respectability, a divine + sanction of all the horrors and abominations of modern commercial + civilization! Jewelled images are made of him, sensual priests burn + incense to him, and modern pirates of industry bring their dollars, wrung + from the toil of helpless women and children, and build temples to him, + and sit in cushioned seats and listen to his teachings expounded by + doctors of dusty divinity!" + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0063" id="link2H_4_0063"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + BOOK FIVE — The Church of the Merchants + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Mammon led them on— + Mammon, the least erected spirit that fell + From Heaven; for even in Heaven his looks and + thoughts + Were always downward bent, admiring more + The riches of Heaven's pavement, trodden gold, + Than aught divine or holy else enjoyed + In vision beatific..... + Let none admire + That riches grow in Hell; that soil may best + Deserve the precious bane. + Milton. +</pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0064" id="link2H_4_0064"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + The Head Merchant + </h2> + <p> + Ours is the era of commerce, as its propagandists never weary of telling + us. Business is the basis of our material lives, and consequently of our + culture. Business men control our politics and dictate our laws; business + men own our newspapers and direct their policy; business men sit on our + school boards, and endow and manage our universities. The Reformation was + a revolt of the newly-developing merchant classes against the tyrannies + and abuses of feudal clericalism: so in all Protestant Christianity one + finds the spirit, ideals, and language of Trade. We have shown how the + symbolism of the Anglican Church is of the palace and the throne; in the + same way that of the non-conformist sects may be shown to be of the + counting-house. In the view of the middle-class Britisher, the nexus + between man and man is cent per cent; and so in their Sunday services the + worshippers sing such hymns as this: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Whatever, Lord, we lend to Thee, + Repaid a thousand fold shall be; + Then gladly will we give to Thee, + Who givest all. +</pre> + <p> + The first duty of every man under the competitive system is to secure the + survival of his own business; so on the Sabbath, when he comes to deal + with eternity, he is practical and explicit: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Nothing is worth a thought beneath + But how I may escape the death + That never, never dies; + How make mine own election sure, + And when I fail on earth secure + A mansion in the skies. +</pre> + <p> + Just as the priest of the aristocratic caste figures God as a mighty + Conqueror— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Marching as to war + With the cross of Jesus + Going on before +</pre> + <p> + So the preacher to the trader figures the divinity as a glorified Merchant + keeping books. This Head Merchant has a monopoly in His line; He knows all + His rivals' secrets, so there is no getting ahead of Him, and nothing to + do but obey His Word, as revealed through His clerical staff. The system + is oily with protestations of divine love; but when you read the comments + of Luther upon Calvin and of Calvin upon Luther, you understand that this + love is confined to the inside of each denomination. And even so + restricted, there is not always enough to go around. Recently I met a + Presbyterian clergyman, to whom I remarked, "I see by the papers that you + have just finished a church building." "Yes," he answered; "and I have had + three offers of a new church." I did not see the connection, and asked, + "Because you were so successful with this one?" The reply was, "They + always take it for granted that you want to change when you've finished a + new building, because you make so many enemies!" + </p> + <p> + The business man puts up the money to build the church, he puts up the + money to keep it going; and the first rule of a business man is that when + he puts up the money for a thing he "runs" that thing. Of course he sees + that it spreads his own views of life, it helps to maintain his tradition. + In the days of Anu and Baal we heard the proclamation of the divine right + of Kings; in these days of Mammon we hear the proclamation of the divine + right of Merchants. Some fifteen years ago the head of our Coal Trust + announced during a great strike that the question would be settled "by the + Christian men to whom God in His Infinite Wisdom has given control of the + property interests of this country". And on that declaration all pious + merchants stand; whatever their denominations, Catholic, Episcopalian, + Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian or Hebrew, their Sabbath doctrines are + alike, as their week-day practices are alike; whether it is Rockefeller + shooting his Bayonne oil-workers and burning alive the little children of + his miners; or smooth John Wanamaker, paying starvation wages to + department-store girls and driving them to the streets; or that clergyman + who, at a gathering of society ladies, members of the "Law and Order + League" of Denver, declared in my hearing that if he could have his way he + would blow up the home of every coal-striker with dynamite; or the Rev. R. + A. Torrey, Dean of the Bible institute of Los Angeles, who refused to + employ union labor on the million dollar building of the Institute, + declaring that "the Church cannot afford to have any dealings with a band + of fire-bugs and murderers!" + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0065" id="link2H_4_0065"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + "Herr Beeble" + </h2> + <p> + The business of the Clerical Department of the Merchants' and + Manufacturers' Association is to justify the processes of trade, and to + preach to clerks and employees the slave-virtues of frugality, humility, + and loyalty to the profit system. The depths of sociological depravity to + which some of the agents of this Association have sunk is difficult of + belief. Twelve years ago I was invited to address the book-sellers of New + York, in company with a well-known clergyman of the city, the Reverend + Madison C. Peters. This gentleman's address made such an impression upon + me that I recall it even at this distance: a string of jokes spoken with + an effect of rapid-fire smartness, and simply reeking with commercialism. + I could not describe it better than to say that it was on the ethical + level of the "Letters of a Self-Made Merchant to His Son". Again, I + attended a debate on Socialism, in which the capitalist end was taken by + another famous clergyman, pastor of the Metropolitan Temple, the Rev. J. + Wesley Hill. He was so ignorant that when he wished to prove that + Socialism means free love, he quoted a writer by the name of "Herr + Beeble"; he was so dishonest that he garbled the writings of this "Herr + Beeble", making him say something quite different from what he had meant + to say. I could name several clergymen of various denominations who have + stooped to that device against the Socialists; including the Catholic + Father Belford, who says that we are mad dogs and should be stopped with + bullets. + </p> + <p> + Or consider the Reverend Thomas Dixon. This gentleman's pulpit-slang used + to be the talk of New York when I was a boy; and when I grew up, and came + into the Socialist movement—behold, here he was, chief inquisitor of + the capitalist Holy Office. I had a friend, a man who saved my life at a + time when I was practically starving, and to whom therefore I owe my + survival as a writer; this friend had been a clergyman in a Middle Western + state, and had preached Jesus as he really was, and so was hated and + feared like Jesus. It happened that he was unhappily married, and + permitted his wife to divorce him so that he might marry the woman he + loved; for which unheard of crime the organized hypocrisy of America fell + upon him like a thousand devils with poisoned whips. The Reverend Dixon's + holy rage was fired; he applied his imagination to my friend's story, + producing a novel under the title of "The One Woman"; and it is as if you + were reading the story of Jesus and the Magdalen transmitted through the + personality of a he-goat. Of late years this clerical author has turned + his energies to negrophobia, and militarism, making millions out of + motion-picture incitements to hatred and terror. The pictures were made + here in Southern California, and friends in the business have described to + me the pious propagandist in the position of St. Anthony surrounded by + swarms of cute and playful little movie-girls. + </p> + <p> + Or take the Rev. James Roscoe Day, D. D., S. T. D., L. L. D., D. C. L., L. + H. D., a leading light of the Methodist Episcopal Church, who offers + himself as comic relief in our Clerical Vaudeville. Dr. Day is Chancellor + of Syracuse University, a branch of the Mental Munitions Department of the + Standard Oil Company; his function being to manufacture intellectual + weapons and explosives to be used in defense of the Rockefeller fortune. + It is generally not expected that the makers of ruling-class munitions + should face the dirty and perilous work of the trenches; but ten years + ago, during a raid by an active squad of muckrake-men, Chancellor Day + astonished the world by rushing to the front with both arms full of + star-shells and bombs. He afterwards put the history of this gallant + action into a volume, "The Raid on Prosperity"; and if you want the real + thrill of the class-war, here is where to get it! + </p> + <p> + The Chancellor is a quaint and touching figure; an enthusiast and dreamer, + idealist and martyr, in whom the ordinary human virtues have been fused, + absorbed, transformed and sublimated into a new supreme virtue of loyalty + to Exploitation, patriotism for Profiteering. He began life as a + working-man, he tells us, in the good old American fashion of hustle for + yourself; but he differed from other Americans in that he had an instant, + intuitive recognition of the intellectual and moral excellence of + Plutocracy. The first time he met a rich man, he quivered with rapture, he + burst into a hymn of appreciation. So very quickly he was recognized as a + proper person to have charge of a Mental Munition Works; and the ruling + classes proceeded to pin medals upon the bosom of his academic robes—D. + D., S. T. D., L. L. D., D. C. L., L. H. D. + </p> + <p> + The Chancellor knows the masters of our Profit System, those "consummate + geniuses of manufacture and trade by which the earth has yielded up her + infinite treasures." And having been at the same time in intimate daily + communion with the Almighty, he can tell us the Almighty's attitude + towards these prodigies. "God has made the rich of this world to serve + Him.... He has shown them a way to have this world's goods and to be rich + towards God.... God wants the rich men....Christ's doctrines have made the + world rich, and provide adequate uses for its riches." Also the Chancellor + knows our great corporations, and gives us the Almighty's views about + them; they mean that "the forces with which God built the universe have + been put into the hands of man." Likewise by divine authority we learn + that "the sympathy given to Socialism is appalling. It is insanity." We + learn that the income tax is "a doctrine suited to the dark ages, only no + age ever has been dark enough." Somebody raises the issue of "tainted + money", and the Chancellor disposes of this matter also. As a Deputy of + Divinity, he settles it by Holy Writ: "Paul permitted meat offered to + idols to be eaten in the fear of God." And then, to make assurance doubly + sure, he settles it with plain human logic; and you are astonished to see + how simple, under his handling, the complex problem becomes—how + clear and clean-cut is the distinction he draws for you: + </p> + <p> + Every boy knows that one cannot take stolen goods without being a partaker + with the thief. But the proceeds of recognized business are quite a + different thing. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0066" id="link2H_4_0066"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Holy Oil + </h2> + <p> + And here is Billy Sunday, most conspicuous phenomenon of Protestant + Christianity at the beginning of the twentieth century. For the benefit of + posterity I explain that "Billy" is a baseball player turned Evangelist, + who has brought to the cause of God the crowds and uproar of the diamond; + also the commercial spirit of America's most popular institution. He + travels like a circus, with all the press-agent work and newspaper hurrah; + he conducts what are called "revivals", in an enormous "tabernacle" built + especially for him in each city. I cannot better describe the Billy Sunday + circus than in the words of a certain Sidney C. Tapp, who brought suit + against the evangelist for $100,000 damages for the theft of the ideas of + a book. Says Mr. Tapp in his complaint: + </p> + <p> + The so-called religious awakening or "trail-hitting" is produced by an + appeal to the emotions and in stirring up the senses by a combination of + carrying the United States flag in one hand and the Bible in the other, + singing, trumpeting, organ playing, garrulous and acrobatic feats of + defendant, by defendant in his talk leaping from the rostrum to the top of + the pulpit, lying prone on the floor of the rostrum on his stomach in the + presence of the vast audience and from thence into a pit to shake hands + with the so-called "trail-hitters" and the vulgar use of plaintiff's + thoughts contained in said books. Said harangues and vulgarisms of said + defendant and horns, drums, organs and singing by said choir and vast + audience which are assembled by means of said newspaper advertisements for + the purpose of inducing a habit of free and copious flow of money through + religious and patriotic excitement produced by and through the vulgarisms, + scurrility, buffoonery, obscenity and profanity of defendant pretending to + be in the interest of the cause of religion through what he denominates + "hitting the trail", the real object being to induce a religious frenzy + and enthusiasm which he announces in advance is to result in large + audiences composed of thousands of people generously contributing vast + sums of money on the last day and night of the so-called revival which is + invariably appropriated by the defendant and through which scheme and + device defendant has become enormously wealthy. + </p> + <p> + As I write, the evangelist is in Los Angeles, and twice each day he holds + forth to a crowd of ten or fifteen thousand; in addition the newspapers + print literally pages of his utterances. The entire Protestant clergy for + a score of miles around has been hitched to his triumphal chariot, and + driven captive through the streets. Here in this dignified city of + Pasadena, home of millionaire brewers and chewing-gum kings, all the + churches have been plastered for weeks with cloth signs: "This Church is + Cooperating in the Sunday Campaign." To give a sample of the intellectual + level of the performance, here is what Billy has to say about modern + thought: + </p> + <p> + All this blasphemy against God and Jesus Christ, all this sneering, + highbrow, rotten, loathesome, higher criticism, wriggling its dirty, + filthy, stinking carcass out of a beer-mug in Leipzig or Heidelberg! + </p> + <p> + Whether willingly or reluctantly, the preachers sit upon the platform and + smile while Billy thus slangs the devil; and being themselves, poor + fellows, at their wits end to draw the crowd, they watch and see how he + does it, and then return to their own churches and try the same stunt; so + the manners of the baseball diamond spread like a contagion. I open my + morning paper, and find a picture of an intense-looking clerical + gentleman, the Rev. J. Whitcomb Brougher, pastor of the Baptist Temple. He + is discussing certain slanderous rumors which he has heard about Billy + Sunday, and he offers ten thousand dollars reward to anyone who can prove + these things; though, as he says, + </p> + <p> + The dirty, low-down, contemptible, weazen-brained, impure-hearted, + shrivelled-souled, gossipping devils do not deserve to be noticed..... + Scandal-mongers, gossip-lovers, reputation-destroyers, hypocritical, + black-hearted, green-eyed slanderers..... Corrupt, devil-possessed, vile + debauches..... Immoral, sin-loving, vice-practicing, underhanded + sneaks..... Carrion-loving buzzards and foul-smelling skunks. + </p> + <p> + You will be prepared after this to hear that when the Socialists were near + to carrying Los Angeles, this clergyman preached a sermon in support of + the candidate of "Booze, Gas and Railroads". + </p> + <p> + In so far as Billy Sunday is trying to keep the neglected youth of our + streets from drinking, gambling and whoring, no one could wish him + anything but success; but his besotted ignorance, his childish crudity of + mind, make it impossible that he could have any success except of a + delusive nature. He is utterly devoid of a social sense; utterly unaware + of the existence of the forces of capitalism which are causing depravity + ten times as fast as all the evangelists in creation can remedy it. So he + is precisely like the Catholics with their "charity", cleaning up + loathsome and unsightly messes for a thousand years, and never stopping to + ask why such messes continue to come into existence. + </p> + <p> + More than that, I question whether the spirit of commercialism which he + fosters does not help the development of evil more than his preaching + hinders it. The newspapers always report the cost of the tabernacle, of + the "free-will offering", which amounts to hundreds of thousands of + dollars in each "campaign", In each city the expenses are guaranteed by + men who are generally the most sinister exploiting forces of the + community; they welcome and fete him, and he visits their homes, and is in + every way one of the crowd. After the big strike in Paterson, N. J., the + employers, Jews and Catholics included, all subscribed a fund to bring + Billy Sunday to that city; and it was freely proclaimed that the purpose + was to undermine the radical union movement. This was never denied by + Sunday himself, and his whole campaign was conducted on that basis. + </p> + <p> + Later Billy came to New York, where he met a certain rich young man, + perhaps a thousand times as rich as any that lived in Palestine. This + young man came to Billy and said: "What shall I do to inherit eternal + life?" And Billy told him to keep the commandments—"Do not commit + adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honor thy + father and thy mother." The young man answered; "All these have I kept + from my youth up." And Billy said: "Yet lackest thou one thing; sell all + that thou hast and distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt have treasure + in heaven; and come follow me." And when he heard this he was very + sorrowful, for he was very rich. + </p> + <p> + —No, I have got the story mixed up. That is what happened in + Palestine. What happened in New York is that Billy said, "I am delighted + to meet you, Mr. Rockefeller." And Mr. Rockefeller said, "Come be my guest + at my palace in the Pocantico Hills; and then we will go together and you + may preach submission to my wage-slaves in the oil-factories at Bayonne + and elsewhere." And Billy went to the palace, and went and preached to the + wage-slaves, telling them to beware the "stinking Socialists", and to + concentrate their attention on the saving of their souls; so the rich + young man was delighted, and he sent for all the newspaper reporters to + come to his office at 26 Broadway, and told them what a great and useful + man Billy Sunday is. As the New York "Times" tells about it: + </p> + <p> + Mr. Rockefeller seldom gives interviews and certainly he has never been + charged with having an excess of verbally expressed enthusiasm on any + subject. But he talked for an hour and a half about the evangelist. He was + full of the subject of Billy Sunday. "Billy did New York a lot of good," + he said. He went on to tell of 187 meetings held in 100 different + factories, attended by 50,000 men. "That's good work." And he expressed + his satisfaction with Sunday's theology: "He believes the Bible from cover + to cover and that is good enough for me." The Sunday campaign had cost + $200,000, and "If it had stopped here, if it was not kept up, it would be + poor business; a poor dividend on the $200,000 and the work invested. But + we expect to get dividends in the next year." + </p> + <p> + Again you note the symbolism of the counting-house! + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0067" id="link2H_4_0067"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Rhetorical Black-hanging + </h2> + <p> + It is the duty of the clergy, not merely to defend large-scale merchants + while they live, but to bury them when they die, and to place the seal of + sanctity upon their careers. Concerning this aspect of Bootstrap-lifting I + quote the opinion of an earnest hater of shams, William Makepeace + Thackeray: + </p> + <p> + I think the part which pulpits play in the death of kings is the most + ghastly of all the ceremonial: the lying eulogies, the blinking of + disagreeable truths, the sickening flatteries, the simulated grief, the + falsehood and sycophancies—all uttered in the name of Heaven in our + State churches: these monstrous Threnodies which have been sung from time + immemorial over kings and queens, good, bad, wicked, licentious. The State + parson must bring out his commonplaces; his apparatus of rhetorical + black-hanging...... + </p> + <p> + And this, of course, applies not merely to kings of England, but to kings + of Steel, kings of Coal, kings of Oil, kings of Wall Street. When a + certain king of Western railroads died, a Methodist clergyman, afterwards + Bishop, likened his heir to the boy Christ; a statement which requires for + its appreciation a mention of the fact that this heir died of syphilis. In + the year 1904 there passed from his earthly reward in Pennsylvania a + United States senator who had been throughout his lifetime a notorious and + unblushing corruptionist. Matthew Stanley Quay was his name, and the New + York "Nation", having no clerical connections, was free to state the facts + about him: + </p> + <p> + He bought the organization, bribed or intimidated the press, got his grip + on the public service, including even the courts; imposed his will on + Congress and Cabinet, and upon the last three Presidents—making the + latter provide for the offal of his political machine, which even + Pennsylvania could no longer stomach—and all without identifying his + name with a single measure of public good, without making a speech or + uttering a party watchword, without even pretending to be honest, but + solely because, like Judas, he carried the bag and could buy whom he + would. + </p> + <p> + Such was the lay opinion; and now for the clerical. It was expressed by a + Presbyterian divine, the Reverend Dr. J. S. Ramsey, who stood over the + coffin of "Matt", and without cracking a smile declared that he had been + "a statesman who was always on the right side of every moral question!" + </p> + <p> + In that same year of 1904 died the high priest of our political + corruption, Mark Hanna. He had belonged to no church, but had backed them + all, understanding the main thesis of this book as clearly as the writer + of it. In his home city of Cleveland the eulogy upon him was pronounced by + Bishop Leonard, in St. Paul's Episcopal Church; while in the United States + Senate the service was performed by the Chaplain, the Rev. Edward Everett + Hale. This is a name well-known in American letters, as in American + religious life; it was borne by a benevolent old gentleman, a Unitarian + and a liberal, who organized "Lend-a-Hand Clubs" and such like + amiabilities. "Do You Love This Old Man?" the signs in the street-cars + used to ask when I was a boy; and I promptly answered "Yes"—for my + mother took the "Ladies' Home Journal", and I swallowed the sentimental + dish-water set out for me. But when I read the Rev. Edward's funeral + oration over the Irrev. Mark, I loved neither of them any longer. "This + whole-souled child of God," cried the Rev. Edward, "who believed in + success, and knew how to succeed by using the infinite powers!" You + perceive that the Chaplain of the Millionaires' Club agrees with this + book, that the "infinite powers" in America are the powers that prey! + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0068" id="link2H_4_0068"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + The Great American Fraud + </h2> + <p> + Among the most loathesome products of our native commercial greed is the + patent medicine industry, "The Great American Fraud," as its historian has + called it. In 1907 this historian wrote: + </p> + <p> + Gullible America will spend this year some seventy-five millions of + dollars in the purchase of patent medicines. In consideration of this sum + it will swallow huge quantities of alcohol, an appalling amount of opiates + and narcotics, a wide assortment of varied drugs ranging from powerful and + dangerous heart depressants to insidious liver stimulants; and, far in + excess of all other ingredients, undiluted fraud. For fraud, exploited by + the skillfullest of advertising bunco men, is the basis of the trade. + </p> + <p> + One by one Mr. Adams tells about these medical fakes: habit-forming + laxatives, head-ache powders full of acetanilid, soothing-syrups and + catarrh-cures full of opium and cocaine, cock-tails subtly disguised as + "bitters", "sarsaparillas", and "tonics". He shows how the fake + testimonials are made up and exploited; how the confidential letters, + telling the secret troubles of men and women, are collected by tens and + hundreds of thousands and advertised and sold—so that the victim, as + he begins to lose faith in one fake, finds another at hand, fully informed + as to his weakness. He quotes the amazing "Red Clause" in the contracts + which the patent-medicine makers have with thousands of daily and weekly + papers, whereby the makers are able to control the press of the country + and prevent legislation against the "Great American Fraud." + </p> + <p> + There are a thousand religious papers in America, weekly and monthly; and + what is their attitude on this question? Mr. Adams tells us: + </p> + <p> + Whether because church-going people are more trusting, and therefore more + easily befooled than others, or from some more obscure reason, many of the + religious papers fairly reek with patent medicine fakes. + </p> + <p> + He gives us many pages of specific instances: + </p> + <p> + Dr. Smith belongs to the brood of cancer vampires. He is a patron and prop + of religious journalism. It is his theory that the easiest prey is to be + found among readers of church papers. Moreover he has learned from his + father-in-law (who built a small church out of blood-money) to capitalize + his own sectarian associations, and when confronted recently with a formal + accusation he replied, with an air of injured innocence, that he was a + regular attendant at church, and could produce an endorsement from his + minister. + </p> + <p> + And here is the "Church Advocate", of Harrisburg, Pa., which publishes + quack advertisements disguised as editorials. One of them Mr. Adams + paraphrases: + </p> + <p> + As Dr. Smith is, on the face of his own statements, a self-branded + swindler and rascal, you run no risk in assuming that the Rev. C. H. + Forney, D. D., L. L. D., in acting as his journalistic supporter for pay, + is just such another as himself! + </p> + <p> + And again: + </p> + <p> + Will the editor of the "Baptist Watchman" of Boston explain by what + phenomenon of logic or elasticity of ethics he accepts the lucubrations of + Dr. Bye, of Oren Oneal, of Liquozone, of Actina, that marvelous two-ended + mechanical appliance which "cures" deafness at one terminus and blindness + at the other, and all with a little oil of mustard? + </p> + <p> + And again: + </p> + <p> + The "Christian Observer" of Louisville replied to a protesting subscriber, + suggesting that the "Collier" articles were written in a spirit of + revenge, because "Collier's" could not get patent medicine advertising. + When I asked the Rev. F. Bartlett Converse for his foundation for the + charge, he said that one of the typewriters must have written the letter! + Doubtless also the same highly responsible typewriter imitated the + signature with startling fidelity to Dr. Converse's handwriting! + </p> + <p> + And here is—would you think it possible?—our "Church of Good + Society"! It has an organ in Chicago called the "Living Church", most + dignified and decorous. You have to study quite a while to ascertain what + denomination it belongs to; it will not tell you directly, for the + Anglician pose is that it is the church + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Elect from every nation, + Yet one oer all the earth, + Her charter of salvation, + One Lord, one Faith, one Birth; + One holy name she blesses, + Partakes one holy food, + And toward one Hope she presses, + With every grace endued. +</pre> + <p> + And this one holy institution was found setting at its peak the black flag + of the trader, the "Jolly Roger" of the modern commercial pirate—"Caveat + emptor!" To quote the precise words: + </p> + <p> + The editors and publishers of the "Living Church" assume no responsibility + for the assertions of advertisers. + </p> + <p> + And so it threw open its columns to the claims of America's champion + labor-baiter, the late C. W. Post, that his "Grapenuts" would prevent + appendicitis, and obviate the need of operations in such cases! + </p> + <p> + And here is the "Christian Endeavor World", organ of one of the most + powerful non-sectarian religious bodies in the country. Some one wrote + complaining of its medical advertising, and the answer was: + </p> + <p> + To the best of our knowledge and belief, we are not publishing any + fraudulent or unworthy medical advertising...... Trusting that you will be + able to understand that we are acting according to our best and sincerest + judgment, I remain, yours very truly, The Golden Rule Company, George W. + Coleman, Business Manager. + </p> + <p> + Whereupon the historian of "The Great American Fraud" remarks: + </p> + <p> + Assuming that the business management of the "Christian Endeavor World" + represents normal intelligence, I would like to ask whether it accepts the + statement that a pair of "magic foot drafts" applied to the soles of the + feet will cure any and every kind of rheumatism in any part of the body? + Further, if the advertising department is genuinely interested in + declining "fraudulent and unworthy" copy, I would call their attention to + the ridiculous claims of Dr. Shoop's medicines, which "cure" almost every + disease; to two hair removers, one an "Indian Secret", the other an + "accidental discovery", both either fakes or dangerous; to the lying + claims of Hall's Catarrh Cure, that it is "a positive cure for catarrh", + in all its stages; to "Syrup of Figs", which is not a fig syrup, but a + preparation of senna; to Dr. Kilmer's Swamp Root, of which the principal + medical constituent is alcohol; and, finally, to Dr. Bye's Oil Cure for + cancer, a particularly cruel swindle on unfortunates suffering from an + incurable malady. All of these, with other matter, which for the sake of + decency I do not care to detail in these columns, appear in recent issues + of the "Christian Endeavor World". + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0069" id="link2H_4_0069"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Riches in Glory + </h2> + <p> + There came recently to Los Angeles a "world-famous evangelist", known as + "Gipsy" Smith. There was a shirt-waist strike at the time, and the girls + were starving, and they sent a delegation to this evangelist to ask for + help. They told him how they were mistreated, exposed to insults, driven + to sell their virtue because their wage would not support life; and to + their plea he made answer: "Get Jesus in your hearts, and these questions + will take care of themselves!" + </p> + <p> + So we see the most important of the many services which the churches + perform for the merchants—taking the revolutionary hope of Jesus, + for a kingdom of heaven upon earth, and perverting it into a dream of a + golden harp in an uncertain future. To appreciate the fullness of this + betrayal, take the prayer which Jesus dictated—so simple, direct and + practical: "Give us this day our daily bread", and put it beside the hymns + which the slave-congregations are trained to sing. In my neighborhood is a + one-roomed building with a plate glass front, upon which I observe a + painter inscribing in red, white and blue letters the sign "Glory + Mission". I approach him, and he drops his work and welcomes me with eager + cordiality. Am I "living in grace"? I answer that I am. I have to shout + the good tidings into his ear, as he is very deaf. He presents me with his + card, which shows that he bears the title of "Reverend", also the + sobriquet of "Mountain Missionary". I ask him to permit me to examine the + hymn-book which he uses in his work, and with touching eagerness he + presses upon me a well-worn volume bearing the title "Waves of Glory". I + seat myself and note down a few of the baits it sets out for hungry + wage-slaves: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + O, there's a plenty, O, there's a plenty, + There's a plenty in my Father's bank above! + + Riches in glory, riches in glory, + Royal supply our wants exceed! + + Feasting, I'm feasting, + I'm feasting with my Lord! + + Beautiful robes, beautiful robes, + Beautiful robes we then shall wear! + + Jerusalem the golden, + With milk and honey blest! + + Yes, I'll meet you in the city of the New Jerusalem, + I'll be there, I'll be there! + + Blest Canaan land, bright Canaan land, + I love to be in Canaan land! + + Oh, Beulah land, sweet Beulah land, + As on the highest mount I stand, + I look away across the sea, + Where mansions are prepared for me! + + In the sweet bye and bye + We shall meet on that beautiful shore— +</pre> + <p> + I stopped there, being reminded of Joe Hill, poet of the I. W. W. who was + hanged three or four years ago in Utah, and who used this tune in his + little red book of revolutionary chants: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + You will eat, bye and bye, + In the glorious land above the sky; + Work and pray, live on hay, + You'll get pie in the sky when you die! +</pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0070" id="link2H_4_0070"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Captivating Ideals + </h2> + <p> + In one of the writer's earlier novels, "Prince Hagen", the hero is a + Nibelung out of Wagner's "Rheingold", who leaves his diggings in the + bowels of the earth, and comes up to look into our superior civilization. + The thing that impresses him most is what he calls "the immortality idea". + The person who got that up was a world-genius, he exclaims. "If you can + once get a man to believing in immortality, there is no more left for you + to desire; you can take everything he owns—you can skin him alive if + it pleases you—and he will bear it all with perfect good humor." + </p> + <p> + And is that merely the spiritual deficiency of a Nibelung—or the + effort of a young author to be smart? Would you like to hear that view of + the most vital of Christian doctrines set forth in the language of + scholarship and culture? Would you like to know how an ecclesiastical + authority, equipped with every tool of modern learning, would set about + voicing the idea that the function of the teaching of Heaven is to + chloroform the poor, so that the rich may continue to rob them in + security? + </p> + <p> + Here under my hand is a volume in the newest dress of scholarship, dated + 1912, and written by Professor Georges Chatterton-Hill, of the University + of Geneva. Its title is "The Sociological Value of Christianity", and from + cover to cover it is a warning to the rich of the danger they run in + giving up their religion and ceasing to support its priests. It explains + how "the genius of Christianity has succeeded in making the individual + suffering, the individual sacrifices, which are indispensible for the + welfare of the collectivity, appear as indispensible for the individual + welfare." The learned professor makes plain just what he means by + "individual suffering, individual sacrifices"; he means all the horrors of + capitalism; and the advantage of Christianity is that it makes you think + that by submitting to these horrors, you are profiting your own soul. "By + making individual salvation depend on the acceptance of suffering, on the + voluntary sacrifice of egotistical interests, Christianity adapts the + individual to society". And this, as the professor explains, is not an + easy thing to do, in a world in which so many people are thinking for + themselves. "The only means of causing the rationalized individual to + consent to the sacrifice...... is to captivate him with a sufficiently + powerful idea!" And the professor shows how beautifully Jesus can be used + for this purpose. "Jesus, the so-called humanitarian, never ceased to + insist on the necessity of suffering, the desirableness of suffering—of + that suffering which a weak and sickly humanitarianism would fain suppress + if it could." + </p> + <p> + You get this, you "blanket-stiff", you "husky", or "wop", or whatever you + are—you disinherited of the earth, you proletarians who have only + your labor-power to sell, you weak and sickly ones who are condemned to + elimination? There has come, let us say, a period of "overproduction"; you + have raised too much food, and therefore you are starving, you have woven + too much cloth, and therefore you are naked, you have finished the world + for your masters, and it is time for you to move out of the way. As the + sociologist from Geneva phrases it, "Your suppression imposes itself as an + imperious necessity." And the function of the Christian religion is to + make you enjoy the process, by "captivating you with a sufficiently + powerful ideal"! The priest will fill your nostrils with incense, your + eyes with candle-lights and images, your ears with sweet music and + soothing words; and so you will perish without raising a finger! "Here," + reflects the professor, "we see how magnificently the teaching of Jesus + applies to all classes of society!" + </p> + <p> + Somebody has evidently put up to our Christian sociologist the + embarrassing fact that so many of those who survive under the capitalist + system are godless scoundrels. But do you think that troubles him? Not for + long. Like all religious thinkers, he carries with his scholar's equipment + a pair of metaphysical wings, wherewith at any moment he may soar into the + empyrean, out of reach of vulgar materialists, like you and me. + "Inequality signifies inequality of capacity," he explains; but the + standard whereby we judge this capacity "cannot be the standard of the + moral law." + </p> + <p> + The laws which govern the biological evolution of man are known, but those + which govern his moral nature cannot be known; the moral nature appertains + to the Absolute, and hence is not subject to the law of inequality! + </p> + <p> + As an exhibition of metaphysical wing-power, that is almost as wonderful + as the flight of Cardinal Newman when confronted with the fact that his + divinely guided church had burned men for teaching the Copernican view of + the universe; that infallible popes had again and again condemned this + heresy ex cathedra. Said the eloquent cardinal: + </p> + <p> + Scripture says that the sun moves and the earth is stationary, and science + that the earth moves and the sun is comparatively at rest. How can we + determine which of these opposite statements is the very truth till we + know what motion is? + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0071" id="link2H_4_0071"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Spook Hunting + </h2> + <p> + Do not imagine that it is only in Geneva that Christian professors realize + this peril from the loss of faith. It is never far from the thoughts of + any of them—for, of course, no man can look at the present system + and not wonder how the poor stand it, and more especially why they stand + it. There have been many thinking men who have given up the + miracle-business quite cheerfully, but have stood appalled at the idea of + letting the lower classes find out the truth. You note that idea + continually in the writings of Professor Goldwin Smith, who was a + free-thinker, but also a bourgeois publicist, with a deep sense of + responsibility to the money-masters of the world. He was about as honest a + man as the capitalist system can produce; he was the beau ideal of the New + York "Evening Post", which indicates his point of view. He wrote: + </p> + <p> + It can hardly be doubted that hope of compensation in a future state, for + a short measure of happiness here, has materially helped to reconcile the + less favored members of the community to the inequalities of the existing + order of things. + </p> + <p> + When I was a student in Columbia University, I took a course called + "Practical Ethics", under a professor by the name of Hyslop. The course + differed from most of the forty that I tried, in that it gave evidence + that the professor was accustomed to read the morning paper. He had + learned that American politics were rotten; his idea of "Practical Ethics" + was to outline in elaborate detail a complete scheme of constitutional + changes which would make it impossible for the "boss" to control the + government. I think I must have been born with a charm against bourgeois + thought, for the good professor never fooled me an instant; I remember I + used to smile at the idea of how quickly the "boss" would brush through + his constitutional cobwebs. The reforms required an elaborate campaign of + publicity—and of course long before they could be put into practice, + the politicians would be ready with devices to make them of no effect. + </p> + <p> + Soon after this, my ethical professor resigned and went to hunting spooks. + I don't want to be unfair to him; I know that he is a determined and + courageous man, and it seems possible that he may really have bagged some + spooks. All I wish to point out here is the method he uses in seeking to + persuade the heedless rich to support the spook-hunting industry. The very + same argument as we got from the University of Geneva and the University + of Toronto! Says our head spook-hunter: + </p> + <p> + There has been no belief that exercised so much power upon the poor as + that in a future life. The politicians, men of the world, have known this + so well as to postpone the day of political judgment by it for many years. + </p> + <p> + And again: + </p> + <p> + The Church, having lost all its battles with science, and having abandoned + a strenuous intellectual defense of its fundamental beliefs, has lost its + power over the poor and the laboring classes..... The spiritual ideal of + life has gone out of the masses as well as the classes, and nothing is + left but a venture on a struggle with wealth. + </p> + <p> + And again, more menacingly yet: + </p> + <p> + The rich will learn in the dangers of a social revolution that the poor + will not sacrifice both wealth and immortality. + </p> + <p> + What is to be done about this? The question answers itself: Step up, + ladies and gentlemen, and empty your purses into the Psychical Research + hat! So that we may accumulate statistics as to the cost of milk and honey + in Jerusalem the Golden! + </p> + <p> + You read what I had to say about Bootstrap-lifters, and the Wholesale + Pickpockets' Association making use of their incantations. You admired my + ability to sling language, but not my taste; and you certainly did not + think that I would back my rhetoric with facts. But what do these + quotations mean, unless they mean what I have said? Are not these three + professors men of culture? Are they not as "spiritual" as any men of + learning you can find in our present-day society? + </p> + <p> + And now stop for a moment and put yourself in the position of the young + student of the working-class, who goes to these books and discovers that + truth is not truth, but only a bait for a snare. Who discovers that + professors of ethics, practical or impractical, are not interested in + justice among men, but only in collecting funds for their specialty; that + in order to get funds, they are willing to teach the rich how to paralyze + the minds of the poor! Do you wonder that such young students conclude + that bourgeois thinkers do not know what honesty is, but are prostitutes, + retainers and lackeys, to be kicked out of the temple of truth? + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0072" id="link2H_4_0072"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Running the Rapids + </h2> + <p> + And now, can you form to yourselves a clear concept of what it means to + society that practically all its moral teaching should be in the hands of + men who are incapable of clean, straight thinking? That all the + intellectual prestige of the Church should be lent to the support of + vagueness, futility, and deliberate evasion? Here we are, all of us, + caught in the most terrific social crisis of history; I search for a + metaphor to picture our position, and I recall a canoe-trip in the wilds + of Ontario, hundreds of miles down a long swift river. You sit in the bow + of the canoe, your partner in the stern, watching ahead; and there comes a + slide of smooth green water, and you go over it, and into a torrent of + foaming white, which seizes you and rushes you along with the speed of a + race-horse. With every sense alert, You watch for the rocks, and when you + see one, you dip your paddle on one side or the other and with a quick + motion draw the canoe clear of the danger. If by any chance you fail to do + it, over you go, and your partner with you, and all your belongings go + down-stream, and maybe you are sucked into a whirlpool, and not seen for + several hours afterwards. Precisely like this is the voyage of life, for + the whole of society and for every individual. The paddle which would save + us from the rocks is experimental science; but in most of our canoes we + put a man who has no paddle, but a Holy Book; and he casts up his eyes and + murmurs words in ancient Greek and Hebrew, and now and then, when he sees + an especially formidable obstruction—a war, or the gonococcus, or + the I. W. W.—he casts a holy wafer upon the foaming torrent. + </p> + <p> + And mind you, it isn't as if I could save myself and you could save + yourself; we are all in the same canoe, and we all go overboard together. + You, perhaps, have a son who is drafted into the trenches in winter-time, + and drowned in blood and mud, because in Europe the Catholic party + supported militarism, and kept aristocratic criminals in control of + states. Or you find yourself involved in a marital tragedy, and in order + to free yourself from unendurable misery, you are obliged to go to + law-courts dominated by the tradition of Paul, the Roman bureaucrat, who + despised women, and regarded marriage as a means of gratifying an unclean + animal desire. "It is better to marry than to burn," he said, with + unmatchable brutality; and so of course those who think him a voice of God + can form no conception of the dignity and grace of love, and if you want + sound and wholesome sex-conventions, you will be as apt to find them among + the Ashantees or the Kamchadals as among the followers of the Apostle to + the Gentiles. + </p> + <p> + You go to a so-called "divorce-court," which is dominated by this + Christian taboo, and exists for the purpose of barring you from a second + chance at the gratification of your unclean animal desire. You are not + permitted to tell your own story, for that would be "collusion;" you + listen while your intimate friends recite the pitiful and shameful details + of your domestic misfortune, under the cross-questioning of lawyers who + have suppressed for the time whatever decent instincts they may possess, + and follow blindly the details of a prescribed procedure, at the cost of + all sincerity, humanity and truth. The next morning you find that the + privacy guaranteed you by law has been taken from you by corrupt court + officials, who have sold copies of the testimony to the newspapers, so + that all the intimate details of where you slept and where your wife slept + and what you saw your wife doing have been thrown out to journalistic + jackals, who scream with glee as they rend the carcass of your dead love. + And in the end, perhaps, you find that you have gone through this horror + for nothing—the august court with its Roman Catholic judge throws + out your petition, its suspicions having been excited by the fact that + when you discovered your domestic tragedy, you sought to behave like a + civilized person, with pity and self-restraint, instead of like a sultan + in Turkey, or a basso in an Italian grand opera. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0073" id="link2H_4_0073"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Birth Control + </h2> + <p> + I assert that the control of our thinking on ethical questions by minds + enslaved to tradition and priestcraft is an unmitigated curse to the race. + The armory of science is full of weapons which might be used to slay the + monsters of disease and vice—but these weapons are not allowed to be + employed, sometimes not even to be mentioned. Consider the misery which is + piling itself up in the slams of our great cities—-the degenerate, + the defective, the insane, who are multiplying as never before in history. + There exists a perfectly harmless and painless method of sterilizing the + hopelessly unfit, so that they can not reproduce their hopeless unfitness; + but religion objects to this operation, and so the law does not make use + of this knowledge. There exists a simple, entirely harmless, and + practically costless method of preventing conception, which would enable + us to check the blind and futile fecundity of Nature, and to multiply as + gods instead of as animals. Consider the festering mass of misery in the + slums of our great cities; consider the millions of terrified, + poverty-hounded women, bearing one half-nurtured infant after another, + struggling desperately to feed and care for them, and seeing them drop + into the grave as fast as they are born-until finally the mother, worn out + with the Sisyphean labor, gives up and follows her misbegotten offspring. + Consider how many women, in their agony and despair, make use of the + methods of the primitive savage, to escape from Nature's curse of + fecundity. Dr. Wm. J. Robinson has estimated that in the United States + alone there are a million abortions every year; and consider that all this + hideous mass of suffering—a bloody European war going on + continually, unheeded by any newspaper correspondent—might be + avoided by the use of a simple sterilizing formula, which we are not + permitted to give! The Federation of Catholic Societies have placed a law + upon the statute-books of the nation, and of all the states as well; the + whole power of police and courts and jails is at the service of religious + bigots, and a young girl is sent to prison and forcibly fed with a tube + through the nose for telling poverty-ridden, slum-women how to keep from + becoming pregnant! + </p> + <p> + And go among the sleek, cynical men of the world, the judges and district + attorneys, the commissioners of correction and doctors who perpetrated + this infamy under a so-called "reform" administration in New York City—and + what do you find? The first thing you find is that they themselves, one + and all, practice birth-control with their wives or their mistresses. The + second thing you find is that the statute-books are crowded with other + laws which they make no pretense of enforcing; for example, the law which + forbids the saloons to be open on Sunday—which law they take the + liberty of understanding to mean that the saloons shall not have their + front doors open on Sunday. You will find that they are not at all afraid + of the religious taboos; they are afraid of the religious vote—and + even more they are afraid of the campaign contributions of sweat-shop + manufacturers and landlords, who cannot see what would become of + prosperity if the women of the slums were to cease to breed. So once more + we discover the wolf in sheep's clothing, the trader, making use of + Tradition-worship; hiding behind the skirts of devout old maiden aunts and + grandmothers, who repeat the instructions which God gave to Adam and Eve, + "Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth." As if God were as + blind as a Fifth Avenue preacher, and could see no difference between the + Garden of Eden, full of all fruits that grow and all creatures that run + and fly and swim, and a modern East Side tenement-room, with an oil stove + and no windows and no water-closet, and the price of cabbage seven cents a + pound! + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0074" id="link2H_4_0074"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Sheep + </h2> + <p> + There are more than a hundred thousand Protestant churches in America. + They own more than a billion dollars' worth of property, and in the West + and South they dominate the intellectual life of the country. I do not + wish to be unfair in what I say of them. They are far more democratic than + the Catholic Church; they fight valiantly against the liquor traffic and + those forms of graft which are obvious, or directly derived from vice. + There are among their clergy many men who are honestly seeking light, and + trying to make their institutions a factor for progress. But they are + caught in the spirit of Lutheran scholasticism, narrow and ignorant, + dogmatic and jealous; and they cannot help it, because they are pledged by + their creeds and foundations to Tradition-worship; they have to believe + certain things because their ancestors believed them, they have to act in + certain ways, because of certain facts which existed in the world three + thousand years ago, but which now are known only to historians. + </p> + <p> + You are familiar with the habit of a herd of sheep to follow the example + of their leader; if this leader leaps over a stick, all the rest will leap + when they come to that spot, even though the stick may have been taken + away in the meantime. The scientist explains this seeming-foolishness by + the fact that sheep once lived in high mountains, and fled from their + enemies in swiftly rushing herds; when the leader leaped across an abyss, + the others had to leap, without waiting to see in the dust and confusion. + Now there are no mountains and no enemies, but the sheep still jump. And + in exactly the same way the tailor still sews buttons at the back of your + dress-coat, because a couple of hundred years ago all gentlemen wore + swords; in the same way our railroad builders make cars narrow and + uncomfortable and liable to overturn, because a hundred years ago all cars + were hauled by mules. In the same way the Orthodox Hebrew will eat no + pork, in spite of the fact that the microscope affords him complete + protection against disease; the orthodox Catholic will not eat meat on + Friday, because he thinks Jesus was crucified on that day; the orthodox + Anglican will not marry his deceased wife's sister, because of something + he reads in Leviticus; the orthodox Baptist requires total immersion in a + climate quite different from that of Palestine; the orthodox Methodist + refuses to enjoy fresh air and exercise on the Sabbath. + </p> + <p> + In ancient Judea, you see, the people lived an open-air life, tending + sheep and working the fields; so it was an excellent thing for them to + rest from labor one day of the week, and to gather in temples to hear the + reading of the best literature of their time. But nowadays the city slave + spends his week-days shut up in an office, poring over a ledger, or in a + sweat-shop, chained to a sewing-machine. Obviously, therefore, the thing + to do on the seventh day is to lure him into the open air, and persuade + him to run and play. But do we do that, we human sheep? We write ancient + Hebrew laws upon our modern statute-books, and if the city slave goes into + a vacant lot and tries to play base-ball, we send a policeman and take him + to jail, and next morning he is fined five dollars, and probably loses his + job. + </p> + <p> + In the city where I live, a city supposed to be free and enlightened, but + in reality heavily burdened with churches, there are tennis courts built + and paid for out of public funds, my own included; yet I cannot use these + tennis courts on Sunday, because of the ancient Hebrew taboo. My mail is + not delivered to me, the swimming pool in the park is closed to me, the + library is closed nearly all day. If I enquire about it, I am told that it + is desirable that city employees should have one day's rest a week; but + when I ask why it might not be possible to relay the employees, so that + they might all have one, or even two days' rest a week, and still give the + public their rights on Sunday, there is no answer. But I know the answer, + having probed our politics of hypocrisy. There is a "church vote" at which + all politicians tremble; there are clergymen, humanly jealous when their + peculiar graft is threatened, and hoping that if the law enforces a + general boredom, the public may be more disposed to endure the boredom of + sermons. + </p> + <p> + In New York City the theaters are closed on Sunday; but moving pictures + having come into being since the days of Puritan rule, the picture-shows + are free to keep open. The law permits "sacred concerts"—which, + under the benevolent sway of Tammany, has come to mean any sort of + vaudeville; so what we have is a free rein to the imbecilities of "Mutt + & Jeff" and the obscenities of Anna Held and Gaby Deslys—while + we bar the greatest moralists of our times, such as Ibsen and Brieux. + </p> + <p> + I speak with some crossness of this Sabbath taboo, because of an + experience which once befell me. In the second decade of this century of + enlightenment and progress, in our free American democracy, whose + constitution proclaims religious toleration, and forbids the establishment + by the state of any form of worship, I was made to serve a sentence of + eighteen hours in the state prison of Delaware for playing a game of + tennis on the Sabbath. I was duly arrested upon a warrant, duly sentenced + by a magistrate, duly clad in a prison costume, duly set to work upon a + stone-pile, duly locked up over night in a steel-barred cell full of + vermin—in a building housing some five hundred wretches, black and + white, thirty of them serving life-terms under circumstances which never + permitted them a breath of fresh air nor a glimpse of the sunshine or the + sky. They had no exercise court to their prison, and the inmates were not + permitted to speak to one another, but ate their meals in dead silence, + and walked back to their cells with folded arms, and had their only + occupation working for a sweat-shop contractor; this on the outskirts of + the capital city of Wilmington, with no less than ninety-one churches! The + writer was informed that he would return to this institution regularly + every week unless he abandoned his godless habit of playing tennis on a + private club court on Sunday; he only escaped the painful punishment by + making the discovery that at the Wilmington Country Club it was the custom + of the leading officials of the city and state to play golf every Sunday, + and by threatening to employ detectives and have these mighty ones + arrested and sent to their own prison. Which shows again the importance of + understanding the relationship of Superstition and Big Business! + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0075" id="link2H_4_0075"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + BOOK SIX — The Church of the Quacks + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + They may talk as they please about what they call pelf, + And how one ought never to think of one's self, + And how pleasures of thought surpass eating and drinking— + My pleasure of thought is the pleasure of thinking + How pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho! + How pleasant it is to have money. + Clough. +</pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0076" id="link2H_4_0076"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Tabula Rasa + </h2> + <p> + Nature has given us a virgin continent, a clean slate upon which to write + what we will. And what are we writing? What is our intellectual life? I + came to the far West, which I had been taught by novelists and poets to + think of as a place of freedom. I came, because I like freedom; I am + staying because I like the climate. I find that what freedom means in the + West is the ability of ignorant and fanatical persons to start some new, + fantastical quirk of scriptural interpretation, to build a new cult around + it, and earn a living out of it. + </p> + <p> + My first contact with that sort of thing was when I went to the Battle + Creek Sanitarium to investigate hydrotherapy, and found myself in a nest + of Seventh-day Adventists. Three generations or so ago some odd character + hit upon the discovery that the Christian churches had let the devil snare + them into resting on the first day of the week, whereas the Bible states + distinctly that the Lord "rested on the seventh day". So here is a million + dollar establishment, with a thousand or two patients and employees, and + on Friday at sundown the silence of death settles upon the place, and + stays settled until sundown of Saturday, when everything comes suddenly to + life again, and there is a little celebration, like Easter or New Year's, + with what I used to call "sterilized dancing"—the men pairing with + men and the women with women. + </p> + <p> + They are decent and kindly people, and you learn to put up with their + eccentricities; it is really convenient in some ways, because, as not all + the city shares their delusions, there are some stores open every day of + the week. But then you discover that the Sanitarium is training "medical + missionaries" to send to Africa, and is teaching these + supposed-to-be-scientists that evolution is a doctrine of the devil, and + not proven anyhow! + </p> + <p> + You get the shrewd little doctor who is running this establishment alone + in his office, and he will smile and admit that of course it is not + necessary to take all Bible phrases literally; but you know how it is—there + are different levels of intelligence, and so on. Yes, I know how it is. + You have an institution founded upon a certain dogma, and run by means of + that dogma, and it is hard to change without smashing things. It is + especially convenient when servants and nurses have a religious + upbringing, and do not steal the pocket-books of the patients. People will + come from all over the country, and pay high prices to stay in such a + sanitarium; you can make vegetarians of them, which you think more + important than teaching abstract notions about their being descended from + monkeys. Also you can manufacture vegetarian foods for them, and build up + an enormous business—so obtaining that Power which is the thing + desired of men. + </p> + <p> + This is but one illustration of a sort of thing of which I could cite a + hundred. The city in which I live is headquarters of another sect, the + "Pentecostal Church of the Nazarene"; primitive Methodists, + Bible-worshippers not content with the King James version, but going back + to the Sinaitic MS. They have a "University", located in one of the most + beautiful spots that Nature ever made; an institution with seventy-five + students. A couple of years ago I happened to meet the "president," who + was a preacher with grease on the ample expanse of his black broadcloth + waistcoat, and a speech full of the commonest grammatical errors, such as + "you was" and "I seen". The past year witnessed a split, and the founding + of a brand new church and "University"—because one of the preachers + insisted upon preaching so much that the students got no chance to study; + also because he sent home a rich man's daughter whose shirt-waists + revealed too much of her fleshly nature. + </p> + <p> + And there is an even stranger phenomenon in the locality, taking you back + to the Libyan desert and the time of Thais. A lady friend of mine, + generously blessed with this world's goods, asks me have I seen the + hermit. "Hermit?" I say, and she replies, "Didn't you know there was a + hermit? He lives on a mountain, in a cave, and never has anything to do + with the world. He has no books; he contemplates spiritually." I picture + my friend with her large limousine, a rolling palace full of ladies, + drawing up at the door of this hermit's cave. "He received you?" I ask. + "Yes, he was quite polite." "And what was your impression of him?" "Oh, + how he stank!" I answer that this is the odor of sanctity, and my friend + thinks that I am enormously witty; I have to explain to her that I am not + jesting, but that there are definite physiological phenomena incidental to + the ecstatic life. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0077" id="link2H_4_0077"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + The Book of Mormon + </h2> + <p> + Or let us take a trip to Salt Lake City, the headquarters of a still + stranger cult. + </p> + <p> + On the morning of the 22nd of September, 1827, the Angel of the Lord + delivered unto Joseph Smith, Jr., an ignorant farmer-youth in a + "backwoods" part of New York State, some plates which had "the appearance + of gold". As we know from the scriptures, it is the habit of the Angel of + the Lord to appear in unexpected places and to make miraculous revelations + to men in humble walks of life; so, as devout believers, we hold ourselves + in readiness. In this case the plates were written in "reformed Egyptian"; + but the Angel thoughtfully provided Joseph Smith, Jr., with Urim and + Thummim, two magic stones with which to read the records. They proved to + deal with a mystery which has haunted the minds of Bible students for + centuries—the fate of the "lost ten tribes of Israel", who were now + revealed to have been the ancestors of the American Indians. The Angel + told Smith to found a new religion, and gave him prophecies concerning + things in general; so, on the 6th of April, 1830, in the town of + Manchester, N. Y., there was formally launched the "Church of the Latter + Day Saints." Smith turned over to his followers his translation of the + miraculous plates, called "The Book of Mormon"; obviously genuine, for it + read precisely like the books which we already know are the revealed word + of God. But, on chance that this might not be sufficient, we were offered + in the preface two documents, the "Testimony of Three Witnesses", and the + "Further Testimony of Eight Witnesses". The latter being the shorter, may + be quoted: + </p> + <p> + Be it known unto all nations, kindreds, tongues and people, unto whom this + work shall come: That Joseph Smith Jr., the translator of this work, has + shewn unto us the plates of which hath been spoken, which have the + appearance of gold; and as many of the leaves as the said Smith hath + translated, we did handle with our hands; and we also saw the engravings + there-on, all of which has the appearance of ancient work and of curious + workmanship. And this we bear record with words of soberness, that the + said Smith has shewn unto us, for we have seen and hefted, and know of a + surety that the said Smith hath got the plates of which we have spoken. + And we give our names unto the world, to witness that which we have seen, + and we lie not, God bearing witness of it. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Christian Whitmer + Jacob Whitmer + Peter Whitmer, Jr. + John Whitmer + Hiram Page + Joseph Smith, Sr. + Hyrum Smith + Saml. H. Smith +</pre> + <p> + The subsequent career of the Church of the Latter Day Saints bore out the + Angel's prophesies and proved conclusively its divine origin; it was + persecuted as the saints of old were persecuted, and its followers + proceeded to massacre the nearby unbelieving populations, just as the + divinely guided Hebrews had done. Driven from place to place, they built + at Nauvoo, Ill., a beautiful temple, according to plans revealed in a + vision, exactly like Solomon. Finally they settled in Utah, where they + have a magnificent marble tabernacle, and some 300,000 followers. The + United States government, not being entirely Biblical, objected to their + practice of allowing the patriarchs of the tribe to have as many wives as + they could support; the government confiscated the church's property, and + forced it to conceal the practice of polygamy, as is done by elderly + church members in other parts of the country. Recently the head of the + church, who bears the title of "Prophet, Seer and Revelator", was + persuaded to permit an examination of one of its secret plates, the "Book + of Abraham", by egyptologists, who found that it was ordinary Egyptian + hieroglyphics, not "reformed", but containing prayers to the sun-god. But + this will of course make no difference to the devout followers of Joseph—any + more than it has made to devout Catholics and Episcopalians that German + scholars have proven that the Bible legends and ritual have come from the + Babylonians, and that the four gospels date from the second and third + centuries after Christ. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0078" id="link2H_4_0078"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Holy Rolling + </h2> + <p> + All over America you will find these weird Bible-cults, some of them + pathetic, some of them dangerous, some of them merely grotesque. Thus, for + example, there was John Alexander Dowie, who founded the "Christian + Catholic Church in Zion" and dressed himself up in scarlet and purple + robes with stars on. Through his Zion City Bank and Zion City Realty + Company he became enormously wealthy; he finally announced himself as + "Elijah the Restorer." I remember as a boy how he brought his gospel to + New York, and P. T. Barnum with Tom Thumb and the white elephant never + made such a sensation. The ridicule of the metropolis overwhelmed the old + prophet, and he died and passed on his robes and his tabernacle and his + bank to his son; straightway, according to the rule of all religions, the + followers fell to quarrelling and splitting up, and suing one another in + the law-courts. + </p> + <p> + Also there are the "Holy Rollers" and "Holy Jumpers", ghastly sects which + cultivate the religious hysterias, and have spread like a plague among the + women of our lonely prairie farms and desert ranches. The "Holy Rollers", + who call themselves the "Apostolic Church", have a meeting place here in + Pasadena, and any Sunday evening at nine o'clock you may see the Spirit of + the Lord taking possession of the worshippers, causing moans and shrieks + and convulsions; you may see a woman holding her hands aloft for seventeen + minutes by the watch, making chattering sounds like an ape. This is called + "talking in tongues" and is a sign of the presence of the Holy Spirit. If + you come back at eleven in the evening, you will find the entire + congregation, men and women, prostrate on the floor, or hanging over the + benches; and maybe a child moaning in terror, having a devil cast out. + </p> + <p> + You may be interested, perhaps, to know how to throw yourself into these + convulsions. Here is a paper called "Trust", which is "published Monthly + (D. V.) in the interests of Elim Faith Work and Bible Training School." + Elizabeth Sisson writes on "The Pentecostal Baptism", and tells the story + of her experiences. She "camped on the Word of God," she declares. + </p> + <p> + I went up to Calgary in Canada, and the leader of the mission told me, + "You can go down to the mission and stay there all day. There is plenty of + wood, and you can stay there all night." I went down, and there was plenty + of "let go" in me. I cried, and prayed all I knew, and got wonderfully + loosed..... + </p> + <p> + Then the Lord said to me, "Now, no more praying!" God told me it was mine. + What was there left for me to pray about. He spoiled my praying and I took + up praising. I praised God that He who worked in the Upper Room was + working the same in me. I praised, and I praised, and I praised. The devil + said to me, "That's mechanical." I said, "I'll praise You Lord, and if You + want real praise, You'll have to put the wind in the sails." + </p> + <p> + That's the way I came through. One morning I was just getting out of bed, + "this gibberish, this jargon" as the enemy likes to call it, began to + come. The Lord said, "Let it babble!" I let. The babble increased, and by + night I was up to my neck. I let. I still let. That's all. Someone else + does the work, and it does not tire you. + </p> + <p> + And here is another paper. "Meat in Due Season: published monthly, or as + often as the Lord leads." The editor quotes the Bible, "Call upon the name + of the Lord," and explains that "Call means call." The word appears to + have a special meaning to these pentecostal persons—it means working + yourself into a frenzy of agitation; as the editor puts it, "you must lay + hold of the horns of the altar." He goes on to exhort—the bold face + being his: + </p> + <p> + Pray as if your very life depended upon it! The first few minutes + seemingly all the powers of hell will contend every word, the next few, + relief in a measure will come, more liberty in calling. In a very little + while you will be dead to the room, dead to the chair, dead to everyone + around you, dead to all and tremendously alive to your desperate need and + emptyness; this conviction will grow as you increase calling upon Him. It + maybe you'll weep, it maybe you'll perspire, it maybe your clothing will + be deranged, it, maybe your throat will get sore. Never for a moment let + your mind rest on the condition of your person. Open your mouth and God + has promised to fill it. Ask persistently until the very floor seems to + sink beneath you and the fountains of the deep, of your heart let loose. + Like David, "pour out your soul" like one would pour water out of a + bucket. I have seen hundreds get through right at this point. When + self-thought, reticence, decorum, reserve, propriety and dignity had all + been thrown to the four winds of heaven. Self was then obliterated and + consciousness of person gone. Draw near to God and He will draw near to + you saith the scripture, but you must draw near to Him first. + </p> + <p> + These enthusiasts derive their practices from the Shakers, a sect which + originated in England, but was driven by persecution to the New World. The + Shakers call themselves the "United Society of True Believers in Christ's + Second Coming," and were founded by Ann Lee, who, variously termed herself + the "Female Christ", the "Holy Comforter", and the "God-anointed Woman". + They might be termed the suffragettes of religion, for they pray always to + "Our Father and Mother, which are in heaven." They were taught the + convenient doctrine that their Founder had "spiritual illumination", so + that any evidence of the senses used against her might deceive. She + governed through terror, holding that by her mental powers she could + inflict torment upon any of her followers. Fortunately she taught absolute + celibacy, and so there are now only about a thousand of her disciples. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0079" id="link2H_4_0079"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Bible Prophecy + </h2> + <p> + This far western country swarms with those fanatics who await the return + of Christ, and find in Bible chronology positive evidence that he is + coming on a specified day. Seldom do I give a lecture on Socialism that + some eager old lady does not come up to me and point out how futile are my + hopes, because the Millenium will come before the Revolution. Several + times I have come on an item in the newspapers, telling of a group of + people, sometimes whole villages, selling their goods and going out into + the fields to shout and sing and pray, expecting the vision of the Lord + and His Angels in the skies. I have in my hand a pamphlet entitled + "Shekineh: The Glory of God in Israel, Facts Mathematically Foretold, of + the Soon Coming of Our Blessed Lord." It is earnestly, yearningly written, + in that spirit of feeble-minded affectionateness which the Bible-sects + seem to encourage: + </p> + <p> + Now dear reader you see that these problems tell a wonderful story which I + know are the Eternal Truths of God. Jesus is soon coming. I believe that + from now on we can say, next week perhaps our blessed Lord will return. + Yet the time may not end till the close of the A. M. year, which will be + March 20th, 1897. But let us take up the sickle of God, etc. Oh, my + Christian friends, live near the Blessed Christ, and gain eternal life + through Jesus Our Lord! + </p> + <p> + In the public library I find another pamphlet, entitled "The Our Race," + which proves that the "lost ten tribes of Israel" are not the American + Indians, but the Irish! And here is a publication of the "Watch Tower + Bible and Tract Society," declaring: + </p> + <p> + The great pyramid in Egypt is a witness to all the events of the ages and + of our day. The pyramid's downward passage under "a Draconis" symbolizes + the course of Sin. Its first ascending passage symbolizes the Jewish Age. + Its Grand Gallery symbolizes the Gospel Age. Its upper step symbolizes the + approaching period of tribulation and anarchy, "Judgment" upon + Christendom. + </p> + <p> + It is a Sunday morning, and I sit in the California sunshine revising this + manuscript, when a decorous-looking young man approaches, having a sack + over his shoulder. "From the Bible-students," he says politely, and hands + me a little paper, "The Bible Students' Monthly: an Independent, + Unsectarian Religious Newspaper, Specially devoted to the Forwarding of + the Laymen's Home Missionary Movement for the Glory of God and Good of + Humanity." The leading article is headed "The Fall of Babylon: Ancient + Babylon a Type—Mystic Babylon the Antitype: Why Christendom must + Suffer—the Final Outcome." A note explains: + </p> + <p> + The following article is extracted from Pastor Russell's posthumous volume + entitled "The Finished Mystery," the 7th in the series of his Studies in + the Scriptures and published subsequent to his death. Pastor Russell held + the distinction of being the most fearless and powerful writer of modern + times on ecclesiastical subjects. In this posthumous volume, which is + called "his last legacy to the Christians on earth," is found a thorough + exposition of every verse in the entire book of Revelation and also an + elucidation of the obscure prophecy of Ezekiel. The book contains 608 + pages, handsomely bound in embossed cloth. + </p> + <p> + Pastor Russell used to publish a two-column sermon in some hundreds of + Sunday newspapers, together with a presentment of his features—solemn, + stiff, white-whiskered, set off with a "choker" and a black broadcloth + coat. There are five million such faces in America, but if you have an + impulse to despair for your country, remember that it produced Mark Twain + and Artemus Ward, as well as Pastor Russell and the Moody and Sankey + hymn-book. I quote one passage from "The Finished Mystery", in order that + the reader may know what it means to "hold the distinction of being the + most fearless and powerful writer of modern times on ecclesiastical + subjects." Pastor Russell does not approve of the Methodists, and he + quotes twelve verses of Revelation, line by line and phrase by phrase, + showing how the evil course and downfall of the Wesleyan system were + divinely foretold. Thus: + </p> + <p> + "But that they should be tormented five months."—In symbolic time, + 150 years—5 X 30 = 150. (Ezek. 4:6.) Wesley became the first + Methodist in 1728. (Rev. 9:1.) When the Methodist denomination, with all + the others, was cast off from favor in 1878 (Rev. 3:14) its powers to + torment men by preaching what Presbyterians describe as "Conscious misery, + eternal in duration" came to an end legally, and to a large extent + actually—Rev. 9:10. + </p> + <p> + P. S. A few months pass, and while this book is going to press, "The + Finished Mystery" is suppressed by the government and several score "Bible + Students" are landed in jail for sedition. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0080" id="link2H_4_0080"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Koreshanity + </h2> + <p> + Such are the beliefs built on the Bible. But there are other ancient + writings with strange nomenclature and ritual and symbolism, calculated to + impress the unlettered; also our prophets have imaginations of their own, + and can invent nomenclature and ritual and symbolism never seen in heaven + nor on earth before. Thus there is Dr. Newo Newi New, who called himself + "Archbishop of the Newthot Church," and gathered about him a harem of + devoted females in San Francisco, and was landed in jail for using the + mails to defraud. Or there is "Oahspe, the Cosmic Bible," a work of + brand-new revelation with a brand-new view of the universe and all things + therein: + </p> + <p> + The reader soon discovers that he must radically revise not only his ideas + of celestial Cosmogony, but the order and significance of names and titles + commonly applied to the Transcendental Brethren. The great provinces of + Etheria are presided over by chiefs, chosen for their superior development + in wisdom and love. For our solar system to cross one of these provinces + requires about 3,000 years, and between them are belts of high Etherian + light which take several years to pass over. The passage of each province + is a cycle of earthly history, and the crossings are called Dawns of Dan. + </p> + <p> + And here is Koreshanity, a revelation vouchsafed by the Lord to Dr. C. R. + Teed of Chicago in the year 1889. This new seer took the name of Koresh, + which is Hebrew for Cyrus, "the Shepherd from Joseph, the Stone of Israel, + the Sun-Man; the illuminating center of the Son of man", and went out on + the streets of the city to preach that the earth is a hollow sphere with + the stars inside. The street urchins of the pork-packing metropolis threw + stones at him, and the irreverent newspapers took up his adventures, with + the result that followers gathered, and now there is a flourishing colony + in Florida, with a dignified magazine called "The Flaming Sword", and a + collection of propaganda volumes: "The Cellular Cosmogony, an Exposition + of Koreshan Universology and the New Geodesy"; "The Immortal Manhood, the + Laws and Processes of its Attainment in the Flesh"; "The Great Red Dragon, + by Lord Chester"; "The Coming of the Shepherd from Joseph, The Standing of + the Great Ensign, by Koresh." The "Religio-science" of this Chicago + revelator is based, first upon some precise measurements of the earth + which prove that its surface is concave; and second upon some philological + discoveries very much resembling puns. Thus the "cross of Christ" is + explained in a sense of the word more common among horse-breeders than + among theologians: + </p> + <p> + The highest characteristic of the alchemical law is the cross of Christ + with sensual man. The cross means that the Lord God, in order to + perpetuate his own being, descends into the race of sensuality. + </p> + <p> + And again, when someone asks about meteors: + </p> + <p> + "The word Heaven means things heaved up, that is, heaved up from their + material basis, the earth; thus, the meteors which fall to the earth are + composed of metallic, mineral, and geological substances, being + materialized or actually created in the atmosphere by an alchemico-organic + process from zones or belts periodically open, which precipitate their + contents in the form or shape of meteors." + </p> + <p> + And perhaps I ought also to quote the "Indicia of Human Progress", by + "Berthaldine, Matrona". I don't know what a "Matrona" is—unless it + is a female matron. This female matron tells me that now is the "Time of + Restitution", and explains that "the prolification of the human race has + reached a fruition of the adultery of the truth and good of the Lord with + the fallacies and evils of the mortal hells"..... We have come, it seems, + to the "age of Pisces", which is "one of the greatest radical + prolification"; and what we now need is the "power of polarization", so + that we may join the "White Horse Army of the Most High", which is the + organization of the "Aquarian age", proclaimed by Koresh on January 15th, + 1891. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0081" id="link2H_4_0081"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Mazdaznan + </h2> + <p> + And here is another and even more startling revelation from Chicago, given + to a seer by the name of Dr. Otoman Prince of Adusht Ha'nish, prophet of + the Sun God, Prince of Peace, Manthra Magi of Temple El Katman, Kalantar + of Zoroastrian Breathing and Envoy of Mazdaznan living, Viceroy-Elect and + International Head of Master-Thot. If you had happened to live near the + town of Mendota, Illinois, and had known the German grocer-boy named Otto + Hanisch, you might at first have trouble in recognizing him through this + transmogrification. I have traced his career in the files of the Chicago + newspapers, and find him herding sheep, setting type, preaching + prestidigitation, mesmerism, and fake spiritualism, joining the Mormon + Church, then the "Christian Catholic Church in Zion", and then the cult of + Brighouse, who claimed to be Christ returned. Finally he sets himself up + in Chicago as a Persian Magi, teaching Yogi breathing exercises and occult + sex-lore to the elegant society ladies of the pork-packing metropolis. The + Sun God, worshipped for two score centuries in India, Egypt, Greece and + Rome, has a new shrine on Lake Park Avenue, and the prophet gives + tea-parties at which his disciples are fed on lilac-blossoms—"the + white and pinkish for males, the blue-tinted for females". He wears a long + flowing robe of pale grey cashmere, faced with white, and flexible white + kid shoes, and he sells his lady adorers a book called "Inner Studies", + price five dollars per volume, with information on such subjects as: + </p> + <p> + The Immaculate Conception and its Repetition; The Secrets of Lovers + Unveiled; Our Ideals and Soul Mates; Magnetic Attraction and Electric + Mating. + </p> + <p> + A Grand Jury intervenes, and the Prophet goes to jail for six months; but + that does not harm his cult, which now has a temple in Chicago, presided + over by a lady called Kalantress and Evangelist; also a "Northern + Stronghold" in Montreal, an "Embassy" in London, an "International Aryana" + in Switzerland, and "Centers" all over America. At the moment of going to + press, the prophet himself is in flight, pursued by a warrant charging him + with improper conduct with a number of young boys in a Los Angeles hotel. + </p> + <p> + I have dipped into Ha'nish's revelations, which are a farrago of every + kind of ancient mysticism—paper and binding from the Bible, + illustrations from the Egyptian, names from the Zoroastrian, health rules + from the Hindoos, laws from the Confucians—price ten dollars per + volume. Would you like to discover your seventeen senses, to develop them + according to the Gallama principle, and to share the "expansion of the + magnetic circles"? Here is the way to do it: + </p> + <p> + Inhale through nostrils for four seconds, and upon one exhalation, speak + slowly: + </p> + <p> + Open, O thou world-sustaining Sun, the entrance unto Truth hidden by the + vase of dazzling light. + </p> + <p> + Again inhale for four seconds, and breathe out the following sentence upon + one exhalation as before: + </p> + <p> + Soften the radiation of Thy Illuminating Splendor, that I may behold Thy + True Being. + </p> + <p> + I have a clipping from a Los Angeles newspaper telling of the prophet's + arriving there. He takes the front page with the captivating headline: + "Women Didn't Think Till They Put On Corsets". The interview tells about + his mysteriousness, his aloofness, his bird-like-diet, and his personal + beauty. "Despite his seventy-three years, Ha'nish evidences no sign of + age. His keen blue eyes showed no sign of wavering. There were no wrinkles + on his face, and his walk was that of a man of forty." The humor of this + becomes apparent when we mention that at Ha'nish's trial, three or four + years ago, he was proven to be thirty-five years old! + </p> + <p> + Being thus warned as to the accuracy of American journalism, we shall not + be taken in by the repeated statements that the Mazdaznan prophet is a + millionaire. But there is no doubt that he is wealthy; and as all + Americans wish to be wealthy, I will quote his formula of prosperity, his + method of accomplishing what might be called the Individual Revolution: + </p> + <p> + When hungry and you do not know where to get your next piece of bread, do + not despair. Thy Father, all-loving, has provided you with everything that + will meet all cases of emergency. Place your teeth tightly together, with + tongue pressing against the lower teeth and lips parted. Breathe in, close + lips immediately, exhaling through the nostrils. Breathe again; if saliva + forms in your mouth, hold your breath so you can swallow it first before + you exhale. You thus take out of the air the metal-substance contained + therein; you can even taste the iron which you convert into substance + required for making the blood. Should you feel that, although you have + sufficient iron in the blood, there is a lack of copper and zinc and + silver, place upper teeth over lower, keep lower lip tightly to lower + teeth, now breathe and you can even taste the metals named. Then should + you feel you need more gold element for your brain functions, place your + back teeth together just as if you were to grind the back teeth, taking + short breaths only. You will then learn to know that there is gold and + silver all around us. That our bodies are filled with quite a quantity of + gold. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0082" id="link2H_4_0082"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Black Magic + </h2> + <p> + What all this means is that we have a continent, with a hundred million + half-educated people, materially prosperous, but spiritually starving; so + any man who possesses personality, who looks in any way strange and + impressive, or has hunted up old books in a library, and can pronounce + mysterious words in a thrilling voice—such a man can find followers. + Anybody can do it with any doctrine, from anywhere, Persia or Patagonia, + Pekin or Pompei. I would be willing to wager that if I cared to come out + and announce that I had had a visit from God last night, and to devote + such literary and emotional power as I possess to communicating a new + revelation, I could have a temple, a university, and a million dollars + within five years at the outside. And if at the end of five years I were + to announce that I had played a joke on the world, some one of my + followers would convince the faithful that I had been an agent of God + without knowing it, and that the leadership had now been turned over to + him. + </p> + <p> + I would not be understood as believing that all our cults are undiluted + fakery, for that would be doing injustice to some earnest people. There + are, in this country, many followers of the Persian reformer, Abbas + Effendi, who call themselves Babists, and who have what I am inclined to + think is the purest and most dignified religion in existence. There was a + man named Jacob Beilhardt, who founded a cult in Illinois with the painful + name of "Spirit Fruit Colony", who nevertheless was a man of spiritual + insight, a true mystic; he was honest, and so he failed, and died of a + broken heart. Also there are the Christian Scientists and the + Theosophists, so exasperating that one would like to throw them onto the + rubbish-heap, who yet compel us to sift over their mountains of chaff for + the grains of truth which will bear fruit in future. + </p> + <p> + While we western races have been exploring the natural world and + perfecting the mechanical arts, the Hindoo students have been exploring + the subconscious and its strange powers. What Myers and Lodge and Janet + and Charcot and Freud and Jung are telling us today they had hints of a + long time ago; and doubtless they have hints of other things, upon which + our scientists have not yet come. I have friends, perfectly sane and + competent people, who tell me that they can see auras, and use this + ability as a means of judging character. Shall I say that there are no + auras, simply because I do not happen to have this gift of seeing them? In + the same way, having read Gurney's "Phantasms of the Living," I am not + ready to ridicule the claim of the Yogi adepts, that they are able to + project some kind of astral body, and to communicate with one another from + distant places. But granting such occult powers in a world of economic + strife, what follows? Simply new floods of charlatanism, elaborate and + complicated systems of ritual and metaphysic for the deluding and + plundering of the credulous. + </p> + <p> + I have seen the thing working itself out in one case known to me. A young + man had a gift of mental healing; I know, because I saw it work; but it + did not always work, and that was annoying. He was penniless and had a + taste for power, and to eke out his erratic endowment he got himself books + of Eastern lore, and day by day as I watched him I could see him becoming + more and more impressive, mysterious and forbidding. Today he is a + full-fledged wonder-worker, with the language of a dozen mystic cults at + his tongue's end, and the reverent regard of many wealthy ladies. I have + never tried to break through his guard, but I feel certain that he is a + deliberate charlatan. + </p> + <p> + This is an economic process, automatic and irresistible. Just as the + manufacturer of honest foods is driven out by the adulterator, so the + worker of miracles drives out the sincere investigator. As a result we + have here in America a plague of Eastern cults, with "swamis" using soft + yellow robes and soft brown eyes to win the souls of idle society ladies. + These teachers of ancient Hindoo lore despise us as a race of barbarians; + but they stay—whether because of love of man or woman, I do not + pretend to say. + </p> + <p> + There are the Theosophists of many brands, with schools and institutes and + temples and colonies, and a doctrine as complex and detailed and fantastic + as that of the Roman Catholics. I have already referred to the writings of + Madame Blavatsky, a runaway Russian army officer's daughter, whose career + reads like a tale out of the Arabian Nights. And there is Annie Besant, + who was once an ardent worker in the Social-democratic Federation; H. M. + Hyndman tells of his dismay when she went to India and walked in a + procession between two white bulls! Here in California is Madame Tingley, + with a colony and a host of followers in a miniature paradise. Men work at + money-lending or manufacturing sporting-goods, and when they get old and + tired they make the thrilling discovery that they have souls; the + theosophists cultivate these souls and they leave their money to the + soul-cause, and there are lawsuits and exposes in the newspapers. For, you + see, there is ferocious rivalry in the game of cultivating millionaire + souls; there are slanders and feuds, just as in soulless affairs. "Don't + have anything to do with Madame Tingley," whispers a Theosophist lady to + my wife; and when my wife in all innocence inquires, "Why not?" the + awe-stricken answer comes, "She practices black magic!" + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> +Let me add that I do not say that she practices black magic. I do not +believe that she could practice it, even if she wanted to—I do not +believe in black magic. My purpose is merely to show how theosophists +quarrel: going back to the days of Anu and Baal and the bronze image of +the Babylonian fire-god: + + Let them die, but let me live! Let them be put under a ban, but +let me prosper! Let them perish, but let me increase! Let them become +weak, but let me wax strong! +</pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0083" id="link2H_4_0083"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Mental Malpractice + </h2> + <p> + This is the other side of the fair shield of religious faith. Why, if + there be a power which loves and can be persuaded to aid us, may there not + also be a power which hates, and can be persuaded to destroy? No religion + has ever been able to answer this, and therefore none has ever been able + to escape from devil-terrors. Even Jesus was pursued by Satan, and the + Holy Catholic Church has its ceremonies for the exorcising of demons, and + a most frightful formula for cursing. And here are our friends the + Christian Scientists, proclaiming the unreality of all evil, their ability + to banish disease by convincing themselves that they are perfect in God—yet + tormented by a squalid phobia called "Mental Malpractice", or "Malicious + Animal Magnetism". + </p> + <p> + Christian Science is the most characteristic of American religious + contributions. Just as Billy Sunday is the price we pay for failing to + educate our base-ball players, so Mary Baker Glover Patterson Eddy is the + price we pay for failing to educate our farmer's daughters. + </p> + <p> + That she had a power to cure disease I do not doubt, because I have a + little of it myself. At first my opinion was that her "Science" made its + way by curing the imaginary ailments of the idle rich. If a person has + nothing to do but think that he is sick, you can work easy miracles by + persuading him to think that he is well; and if he has nothing to do but + think that he is well, he will help you to build marble churches and + maintain propaganda societies. But recently I have experimented with + mental healing—enough to satisfy myself that the subconscious mind + which controls our physical functions can be powerfully influenced by the + will. + </p> + <p> + I told the story of some of these experiments in Hearst's Magazine for + April, 1914. Suffice it here to say that if you will lay your hands upon a + sick person, forming a vivid mental picture of the bodily changes you + desire, and concentrating the power of your will upon them, you may be + surprised by the results, especially if you possess anything in the way of + psychic gifts. You do not have to adopt any theories, you do not have to + do it in the name of any divinity, ancient or modern; the only bearing of + such ideas is that they serve to persuade people to make the experiment, + and to make it with persistence and intensity. So it has come about that + "miracles" of healing are associated with "faith"; and so it comes about + that scientists are apt to flout the subject. But read of the work of + Janet and Charcot and their followers at the Salpetriere; they have proven + that all kinds of seeming-organic ailments may be entirely hysterical in + nature, and may be cured by the simplest form of suggestion. Understanding + this, you may find it more easy to credit the fact that cripples do + sometimes throw away their crutches in the grotto of Lourdes. For my part, + I can believe that Jesus performed all the miracles of healing attributed + to him—including the raising up of people pronounced to be dead by + the ignorance of that time. I am convinced that in the new science of + psycho-analysis we have a universe as vast as the universe of the atom or + of the stars. + </p> + <p> + The Christian Scientists have got hold of this power; they have mixed it + up with metaphysic and divinity, and built some four or five hundred + churches, and printed the Mother Church alone knows how many million + pamphlets and books. I once invested three of my hard-earned dollars for a + copy of the Eddy Bible, and let myself be stunned and blinded by the + flapping of metaphysical wings. It is unadulterated moonshine—as the + Platonist and Berkeleyan and Hegelian and other orthodox collegiate + metaphysical magi can prove to you in one minute. What interests me about + the phenomenon is not the slinging of tremendous words, but the strictly + Yankee use which is made of them. There is no nonsense about saving your + soul in Christian Science; what it is for is to remove your wen, to nail + down your floating kidney, and to enable you to hustle and make money. We + saw in our politics the growth of a Party of the Full Dinner-Pail; + contemporaneous therewith, and corresponding thereto, we see in our + religious life the development of a Church of the Full Pocket-Book. + </p> + <p> + It is a strict religion—strictly cash. The heads of the cult do not + issue cheap editions of "Science and Health, With Key to the Scriptures", + to relieve the suffering of the proletariat; no—the work is + copyrighted, in all its varying and contradictory editions, and the price + is from three to seven-fifty, according to binding. Treatments cost from + three dollars to ten, whether you come and get them or take them over the + telephone. And we have no nonsense about charity, we don't worry about the + poor who fester in our city slums; because poverty is a product of Mortal + Mind, and we offer to all men a way to get rich right off the bat. You may + come to our marble churches and hear people testify how through the power + of Divine Mind they were enabled to anticipate a rise in the stock-market. + If you don't avail yourself of the opportunity, the fault is yours, and + yours also the punishment. + </p> + <p> + As to the management of the Church, the Roman Catholic hierarchy is a + Bolshevik democracy in comparison. The Church is controlled by an + absolutely irresponsible self-perpetuating body of five men, who alone + dictate its policy. I have in my hand a letter from a Christian Science + healer who was listed as an "authorized practitioner", and who withdrew + from the Church because of its attitude on public questions. He sends me a + copy of his correspondence with the editors of the "Christian Science + Monitor", containing a detailed analysis of the position of that paper on + such issues as the Ballinger land-frauds. He writes: + </p> + <p> + I am thoroughly convinced now that the policy of the Church is consciously + plutocratic. The only recommendation I have heard of the latest appointee + to the Board of Directors is that he is one of the richest men in the + movement. + </p> + <p> + After the Titanic disaster, Senator La Follette brought in a carefully + drawn bill to compel steamship companies to provide life-boats and trained + crews. The "Christian Science Monitor" opposed this bill; and when my + correspondent cited the fact, he brought out a quaint bit of metaphysical + logic, as follows: + </p> + <p> + One would prefer to travel on a vessel without a single boat, rather than + on some other vessels which were loaded down with life-boats, where the + government of Mind was not understood! + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0084" id="link2H_4_0084"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Science and Wealth + </h2> + <p> + The truth is that the brand of Mammon was on our Yankee religion from the + day of its birth. In the first edition of her new Bible "Mother" Eddy + dropped the hint to her readers: "Men of business have said this science + was of great advantage from a secular point of view." And in her + advertisements she threw aside all pretense, declaring that her work + "Affords an opportunity to acquire a profession by which one can + accumulate a fortune." When her pupils did accumulate, she boasted of + their success; nor did she neglect her own accumulating. + </p> + <p> + It has been a dozen years since I looked into this cult; in order to be + sure that it has not been purified in the interim, I proceed to a street + corner in my home city, where is a stand with a sign: "Christian Science + Literature." I take four sample copies of a magazine, the "Christian + Science Sentinel", published by the Mother Church in Boston, and turn to + the "Testimonials of Healing". In the issue of August 11, 1917, Mary C. + Richards of St. Margarets-on-Thames, England, testifies: "Through a number + of circumstances unnecessary to relate, but proving conclusively that the + result came not from man but from God, employment was found." In the issue + of December 2, 1916, Frances Tuttle of Jersey City, N. J., testifies how + her sister was successfully treated for unemployment by a scientist + practitioner. "Every condition was beautifully met." In the same issue + Fred D. Miller of Los Angeles, Cal., testifies: "Soon after this wonderful + truth came to me, Divine Love led me to a new position with a responsible + firm. The work was new to me, but I have given entire satisfaction, and my + salary has been advanced twice in less than a year." In the issue of + January 27, 1917, Eliza Fryant of Agricola, Miss., testifies how she cured + her little dog of snake-bite and removed two painful corns from her own + foot. In the issue of August 4, 1917, Marcia E. Gaier, of Everett, Wash., + testifies how it suddenly occurred to her that because God is All, she + would drop her planning and outlining in regard to real estate properties, + "upon which for nine months all available material methods were tried to + no effect." The result was a triumph of "Principle". + </p> + <p> + While working in the yard one morning and gratefully communing with God, + the only power, I suddenly felt that I should stop working and prepare for + visitors on their way to look at the property. I obeyed this very distinct + command, and in about an hour I greeted two people who had searched almost + the entire city for just what we had to offer. They had been directed to + our place by what to material sense would seem an accident, but we know it + was the divine law of harmony in its universal operation. + </p> + <p> + After this no one will wonder that John M. Tutt, in a Christian Science + lecture at Kansas City, Mo., should proclaim: + </p> + <p> + My friends, do you know that since the world began Christian Science is + the only system which has intelligently related religion to business? + Christian Science shows that since all ideas belong to Mind, God, + therefore all real business belongs to Him. + </p> + <p> + As I said, these people have the new-old power of mental healing, They + blunder along with it blindly, absurdly, sometimes with tragic + consequences; but meantime the rank and file of the pill-doctors know + nothing about this power, and regard it with contempt mingled with fear; + so of course the hosts of sufferers whom the pill-doctors cannot help + flock to the healers of the "Church of Christ, Scientist". According to + the custom of those who are healed by "faith", they swallow line, hook, + and sinker, creed, ritual, metaphysic and divinity. So we see in + twentieth-century America precisely what we saw in B. C. twentieth-century + Assyria—a host of worshippers, giving their worldly goods without + stint, and a priesthood, made partly of fanatics and partly of charlatans, + conducting a vast enterprise of graft, and harvesting that thing desired + of all men, power over the lives and destinies of others. + </p> + <p> + And of course among themselves they quarrel; they murder one another's + Mortal Minds, they drive one another out, they snarl over the spoils like + a pack of hungry animals. Listen to the Mother, denouncing one of her + students—a perfectly amiable and harmless youth whose only offense + was that he had gone his own way and was healing the sick for the benefit + of his own pocket-book: + </p> + <p> + Behold! thou criminal mental marauder, that would blot out the sunshine of + earth, that would sever friends, destroy virtue, put out Truth, and murder + in secret the innocent, befouling thy track with the trophies of thy guilt—I + say, Behold the "cloud" no bigger than a man's hand already rising on the + horizon of Truth, to pour down upon thy guilty head the hailstones of + doom. + </p> + <p> + And again: + </p> + <p> + The Nero of today, regaling himself through a mental method with the + torture of individuals, is repeating history, and will fall upon his own + sword, and it shall pierce him through. Let him remember this when, in the + dark recesses of thought, he is robbing, committing adultery and killing. + When he is attempting to turn friend away from friend, ruthlessly stabbing + the quivering heart; when he is clipping the thread of life and giving to + the grave youth and its rainbow hues; when he is turning back the reviving + sufferer to his bed of pain, clouding his first morning after years of + night; and the Nemesis of that hour shall point to the tyrant's fate, who + falls at length upon the sword of justice. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0085" id="link2H_4_0085"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + New Nonsense + </h2> + <p> + In a certain city of America is a large building given up entirely to the + whims of pretty ladies. Its floors are not floors but "Promenades", and + have walls of glass, behind which, as you stroll, you see bonnets from + Paris and opera cloaks from London, furs from Alaska and blankets from + Arizona, diamonds from South Africa and beads from the Philippines, grapes + from Spain and cherries from Japan, fortune-tellers from Arabia and + dancing-masters from Petrograd and "naturopaths" from Vienna. There are + seventy-three shops, by actual count, containing everything that could be + imagined or desired by a pretty lady, whether for her body, or for that + vague stream of emotion she calls her "soul". One of the seventy-three + shops is a "Metaphysical Library", having broad windows, and walls in + pastel tints, and pretty vases with pink flowers, and pretty gray wicker + chairs in which the reader will please to be seated, while we probe the + mysteries of an activity widely spread throughout America, called "New + Thought." + </p> + <p> + We begin with a shelf of magazines having mystical titles: Azoth; Master + Mind; Aletheian; Words of Power; Qabalah; Comforter; Adept; Nautilus; True + Word; Astrological Bulletin; Unity; Uplift; Now. And then come shelves of + pretty pamphlets, alluring to the eye and the purse; also shelves of + imposing-looking volumes containing the lore and magic of a score of races + and two score of centuries—together with the very newest + manifestations of Yankee hustle and graft. + </p> + <p> + As in the case of Christian Science, these New Thoughters have a + fundamental truth, which I would by no means wish to depreciate. It is a + fact that the mysterious Source of our being is infinite, and that we are + only at the beginning of our thinking about it. It is a fact that by + appeal to it we can perform seeming miracles of mental and moral + regeneration; we can stimulate the flow of nervous energy and of the + blood, thus furthering the processes of bodily healing. But the fact that + God is Infinite and Omnipotent does not bar the fact that He has certain + ways of working, which He does not vary; and that it is our business to + explore and understand these ways, instead of setting our fancies to work + imagining other ways more agreeable to our sentimentality. + </p> + <p> + Thus, for example, if we want bread, it is God's decree that we shall + plant wheat and harvest it, and grind and bake and distribute it. Under + conditions prevailing at the moment, it appears to be His decree that we + shall store the wheat in elevators, and ship it in freight cars, and buy + it through a grain exchange, with capital borrowed from a national bank; + in other words, that our daily bread shall be the plaything of exploiters + and speculators, until such a time as we have the intelligence to form an + effective political party and establish Industrial Democracy. But when you + come to study the ways of God in the literature of the New Thought, do you + find anything about the Millers' Trust and the Bakers' Trust and how to + expropriate these agencies of starvation? You do not! + </p> + <p> + What you find is Bootstrap-lifting; you find gentlemen and lady + practitioners shutting their eyes and lifting their hands and pronouncing + Incantations in awe-inspiring voices—or in Capital Letters and LARGE + TYPE: "God is infinite, God is All-Loving, GOD WILL PROVIDE. Bread is + coming to you! Bread is coming to you!! BREAD IS COMING TO YOU!!!" + </p> + <p> + You think this is exaggeration? If so, it is because you have never + entered the building of the pretty ladies, and sat in the gray wicker + chairs of the metaphysical library. One of the highest high-priestesses of + the cults of New Nonsense is a lady named Elizabeth Towne, editor of "The + Nautilus"; and Priestess Elizabeth tells you: + </p> + <p> + I believe the idea that money wants you will help you to the right mental + condition. Be a pot of honey and let it come. + </p> + <p> + I look over this Priestess' magazine, and find it full of testimonials and + advertisements for the conjuring of prosperity. "Are you in the success + sphere?" asks one exhorter; the next tells you "How to enter the silence. + How to manifest what you desire. The secret of advancement." Another + tells: "How a Failure at Sixty Won Sudden Success; From Poverty to $40,000 + a year—a Lesson for Old and Young Alike." The lesson, it appears, is + to pay $3.00 for a book called "Power of Will." And here is another book: + </p> + <p> + Master Key: Which can unlock the Secret Chamber of Success, can throw wide + the doors which seem to bar men from the Treasure House of Nature, and + bids those enter and partake who are Wise enough to Understand and broad + enough to Weigh the Evidence, firm enough to Follow their Own Judgment and + Strong enough to Make the Sacrifice Exacted. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0086" id="link2H_4_0086"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + "Dollars Want Me" + </h2> + <p> + I turn to the shelves of pamphlets. Here is a pretty one called "All + Sufficiency in All Things," published by the "Unity School of + Christianity", in Kansas City; it explains that God is God, not merely of + the Soul, but also of the Kansas City stockyards. + </p> + <p> + This divine Substance is ever abiding within us, and stands ready to + manifest itself in whatever form you and I need or wish, just as it did in + Elisha's time. It is the same yesterday, today and forever. Abundant + Supply by the manifestation of the Father within us, from within outward, + is as much a legitimate outcome of the Christ life or spiritual + understanding as is bodily healing..... "Know that I am God—all of + God, Good, all of Good. I am Life. I am Health. I am Supply. I am the + Substance." + </p> + <p> + And here is W. W. Atkinson of Chicago, author of a work called "Mind + Power". Would you like to be an Impressive Personality? Mr. Atkinson will + tell you exactly how to do it; he will give you the secret of the Magnetic + Handclasp, of the Intense, Straight-in-the-eye Look; he will tell you what + to say, he will write out for you Incantations which you may pronounce to + yourself, to convince yourself that you have Power, that the INDWELLING + PRESENCE with all its MIGHT is yours. Mr. Atkinson rebukes mildly the + tendency of some of his fellow Bootstrap-lifters to employ these arts for + money-making; but you notice that his magazine, "Advanced Thought", does + not decline the advertisements of such too-practical practitioners. + </p> + <p> + Next comes a gentleman with the musical name of Wallace Wattles, who tells + in one pamphlet "How to Be a Genius", and in another pamphlet "How to Get + What you Want". The thing for you to do is— + </p> + <p> + Saturate your mentality through and through with the knowledge that YOU + CAN DO WHAT YOU WANT TO DO..... Look upon the peanut-stand merely as the + beginning of the department store, and make it grow; you can. + </p> + <p> + And Mr. Wattles wattles on, in an ecstasy of acquisitiveness: + </p> + <p> + Hold this consciousness and say with deep, earnest feeling: I CAN succeed! + All that is possible to any one is possible to me. I AM success. I do + succeed, for I am full of the Power of Success. + </p> + <p> + Imagine, if you please, a poor devil chained in the treadmill of the + capitalist system—a "soda-jerker", a "counter-jumper", a book-keeper + for the Steel Trust. His chances of rising in life are one in ten + thousand; but he comes to the Metaphysical Library, and pays the price of + his dinner for a pamphlet by Henry Harrison Brown, who was first a + Unitarian clergyman, and then an extra-high Bootstrap-lifter in San + Francisco, an Honorary Vice-President of the International New Nonsense + Alliance. Mr. Brown will tell our soda-jerker or counter-jumper exactly + how to elevate himself by mental machinery. All calculations of + probabilities are delusions of the senses; if you have faith, you can + move, not merely mountains, but Riker-Hegeman's, Macy's, or the Steel + Trust. "How to Promote Yourself" is the title of one of Mr. Brown's + pamphlets, in which he explains that— + </p> + <p> + Your wants are impressed on the Divine Mind only by your faith. A doubt + cuts the connection. + </p> + <p> + A second pamphlet, which we are told is now in its thirtieth edition, + bears the thrilling title of "Dollars Want Me!" In it Mr. Brown lays claim + to being a pioneer: + </p> + <p> + I believe that this little monograph is the first utterance of the thought + that each individual has the ability so to radiate his mental forces that + he can cause the Dollars to feel him, love him, seek him, and thus draw at + will all things needed for his unfoldment from the universal supply. + </p> + <p> + "What are Dollars?" asks our author; and answers: + </p> + <p> + Dollars are manifestations of the One Infinite Substance as you are, but, + unlike you, they are not Self-Conscious. They have no power till you give + them power. Make them feel this through your thought-vibrations as you + feel the importance of your work. They will then come to you to be used. + </p> + <p> + "What is Poverty?" Mr. Brown asks, and answers himself: + </p> + <p> + Poverty is a mental condition. It can be cured only by the Affirmation of + Power to cure: I am a part of the One, and, in the One, I possess all! + Affirm this and patiently wait for the manifestation. You have sown the + thought seed. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> +And our author goes on to hand out packages of these +thought-seeds—"Affirmations" as they are called, in the jargon of the +New Conjuring: + + I desire a deep consciousness of financial freedom. I desire +that the flow of prosperity become equalized. I desire a greater +consciousness of my power to attract the dollar. The Indwelling Power +cares for my purse. I own whatever I desire. I can afford to use dollars +for my happiness. I always have a good bank account. I actually see it. +My one idea of the law is to use, use, USE. +</pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0087" id="link2H_4_0087"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Spiritual Financiering + </h2> + <p> + If the symbolism of the Episcopal Church is of the palace, and that of the + non-conformist sects of the counting-house, that of the International New + Nonsense Alliance is of Wall Street and the "ticker". "What is your rating + in the Spiritual Bradstreet?" asks William Morris Nichols in the + publication of the "'Now' Folk", San Francisco: + </p> + <p> + Is it low or high? Is your credit with the Bank of the Universe good or + poor? If you draw a spiritual draft are you sure of its being honored? + </p> + <p> + If you can answer that last question affirmatively, you are on the road to + become a Master in Spiritual Financiering. + </p> + <p> + Have you an account with the First (and only) Bank of Spirit? If not, then + you should at once open one therewith. For no one can afford to keep less + than a large deposit of spiritual funds with that Bank. + </p> + <p> + And how do you proceed to open your account? It is very simple: + </p> + <p> + Intend the mind in the direction indicated by your desire. Seek for the + Light and Guidance by which you may open up the way for your Spiritual + Substance, which governs material supply, to reach you and make you as + rich as you ought to be, in freedom and happiness. All this you can, and + when in earnest, will do. + </p> + <p> + I turn over the advertisements of this publication of the "'Now' Folk". + One offers "The Business Side of New Thought." Another offers "The Books + Without an If", with your money back IF you are not satisfied! Another + offers land in Bolivia for two dollars an acre. Another quotes + Shakespeare: "'Tis the mind that makes the body rich." Another offers two + copies of the "Phrenological Era" for ten cents. + </p> + <p> + There is apparently no delusion of any age or clime which cannot find + dupes among the readers of this New Nonsense. One notice commands: + </p> + <p> + Stop! A Revelation! A Book has been written entitled "Strands of Gold" or + "From Darkness into Light!" + </p> + <p> + Another announces: + </p> + <p> + The Most Wonderful Book of the Ages: The Acquarian Gospel of Jesus the + Christ, Transcribed from the Book of God's Remembrance, the Akashic + Records. + </p> + <p> + And here is an advertisement published in Mr. Atkinson's paper: + </p> + <p> + Numerology: the Universal Adjuster! Do you know: What you appear to be to + others? What you really are? What you want to be? What would overcome your + present and future difficulties? Write to X, Philosopher. You will receive + full particulars of his personal work which is dedicated to your service. + No problem is too big or too small for Numerology. Understanding awaits + you. + </p> + <p> + And looking in the body of the magazine, you find this Philosopher + imparting some of this Understanding. Would you like, for example, to + understand why America entered the War? Nothing easier. The vowels of the + Words United States of America are uieaeoaeia, which are numbered + 2951561591, which added make 45, or 4 plus 5 equals 9. You might not at + first see what that has to do with the War—until the Philosopher + points out that "9 in the number of completion, indicating the end of a + cosmic cycle." That, of course, explains everything. + </p> + <p> + And here is a work on what you perhaps thought to be a dead science, + Astrology. It is called "Lucky Hours for Everybody: A True System of + Planetary Hours by Prof. John B. Early. Price One Dollar." It teaches you + things like this: + </p> + <p> + Saturn's negative hours are especially good for all matters relating to + gold-mining..... The Sun negative rules the emerald, the musical note D + sharp, and the number four. The lunar hours are a good time to deal in + public commodities, and to hire servants of both sexes..... + </p> + <p> + A recent lady visitor informed me that she had made several vain attempts + to transact important business in the hours ruled by Jupiter, usually held + to be fortunate, while she was nearly always fortunate in what she began + in the hours ruled by Saturn. Upon investigation I found her name was + ruled by the Sun negative, and that she had Capricorn with Saturn therein + as her ascendant at birth, which explains. + </p> + <p> + And finally, here is a London "scientist", reported in the "Weekly Unity" + of Kansas City, who proves his mental power over two-horse power oil + engines which fail to act. "Going a little apart, he came back in a few + minutes and said: 'The engine is all right now and will work + satisfactorily.' and without any further difficulty it did." We are told + how Dr. Rawson gave a demonstration of his method to a newspaper reporter + the other day. Fixing his gaze as though looking into space, he apparently + became absorbed in deep contemplation and said aloud: "There is no danger; + man is surrounded by divine love; there is no matter; all is spirit and + manifestation of spirit." + </p> + <p> + You might at first find difficulty in believing what can be accomplished + by "demonstrations" such as this; not merely are two-horse power oil + engines made to work, but the whole gigantic machine of Prussian + militarism is prevented from working. You may recall how Arthur Machen's + magazine story of the Angels of Mons was taken up and made into a Catholic + legend over-night; now here is a New-Nonsense legend, complete and + perfect, going the rounds of our Nonsense magazines: + </p> + <p> + London, Dec. 14.—Shell-proof and bullet-proof soldiers have been + discovered on the European battle-fronts. Heroes with "charmed lives" are + being made every day, according to Frederick L. Rawson, a London + scientist, who insists he has found the miraculous way by which they are + developed. He calls it "audible treatment". "Practical utilization of the + powers of God by right thinking," is the agency through which Dr. Rawson + declares he can so treat a man that he will not be harmed when hundreds of + men are being shot dead beside him. This amazing treatment includes a new + type of prayer. It is being administered to hundreds of men audibly, and + to hundreds more by letter. Nothing since the war began has aroused so + much talk of modern miracles as have many of the statements of Dr. + Rawson....... + </p> + <p> + At the taking of a wood there were five hundred yards of "No Man's Land" + to be crossed. Our troops could not get across. Then Capt. ————, + who practices this method of prayer, treated them for an hour before they + started, and not a man was knocked out. He was the only officer left out + of eighty in his brigade. He simply held onto the fact that man is + spiritual and perfect and could not be touched. A bullet fired from a + revolver only five yards away hit him over the chest, tore his shirt and + went out at the shoulder. But it never penetrated his chest. He was + frequently in a hail of shells and bullets which did not touch him. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0088" id="link2H_4_0088"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + The Graft of Grace + </h2> + <p> + All this is grotesque; but it is what happens to religions in a world of + commercial competition. It happens not merely to Christian Science and New + Thought religions, Mazdaznan and Zionist, Holy Roller and Mormon + religions, but to Catholic and Episcopalian, Presbyterian and Methodist + and Baptist religions. For you see, when you are with the wolves you must + howl with them; when you are competing with fakirs you must fake. The + ordinary Christian will read the claims of the New Thought fakers with + contempt; but have I not shown the Catholic Church publishing long lists + of money-miracles? Have I not shown the Church of Good Society, our + exclusive and aristocratic Protestant Episcopal communion, pretending to + call rain and to banish pestilence, to protect crops and win wars and heal + those who are "sick in estate"—that is, who are in business trouble? + </p> + <p> + The reader will say that I am a cynic, despising my fellows; but that is + not so. I am an economic scientist, analyzing the forces which operate in + human societies. I blame the prophets and priests and healers for their + fall from idealism; but I blame still more the competitive wage-system, + which presents them with the alternative to swindle or to starve. + </p> + <p> + For, you see, the prophet has to have food. He has frequently got along + with almost none, and with only a rag for clothing; in Palestine and + India, where the climate is warm, a sincere faith has been possible for + short periods. But the modern prophet who expects to influence the minds + of men has to have books and newspapers; he will find a telephone and a + typewriter and postage-stamps hardly to be dispensed with, also in Europe + and America some sort of a roof over his meeting place. So the prophet is + caught, like all the rest of us, in the net of the speculator and the + landlord. He has to get money, and in order to get it he has to impress + those who already have it—people whose minds and souls have been + deformed by the system of parasitism and exploitation. + </p> + <p> + So the prophet becomes a charlatan; or, if he refuses, he becomes a + martyr, and founds a church which becomes a church of charlatans. I care + not how sincere, how passionately proletarian a religious prophet may be, + that is the fate which sooner or later befalls him in a competitive + society—to be the founder of an organization of fools, conducted by + knaves, for the benefit of wolves. That fate befell Buddha and Jesus, it + befell Ignatius Loyola and Francis of Assisi, John Fox and John Calvin and + John Wesley. + </p> + <p> + A friend of mine who has made a study of "Spiritualism" describes to me + the conditions in that field. The mediums are people, mostly women, with a + peculiar gift; whether we believe in the survival of personality, or + whether we call it telepathy, does not alter the fact that they have a + rare and special sensitiveness, a new faculty which science must + investigate. They come, poor people mostly—for the well-to-do will + seldom give their time to exacting and wearisome experiments. They come, + wearing frayed and thin clothing, shivering with cold, obviously + undernourished; and their survival depends upon their producing + "phenomena"—which phenomena are capricious, and will not come at + call. So, what more natural than that mediums should resort to faking? + That the whole field should be reeking with fraud, and science should be + held back from understanding an extraordinary power of the subconscious + mind? + </p> + <p> + Ever since we came to Pasadena, various ladies have been telling us about + the wondrous powers of a mulatto-woman, a manicurist at the city's most + fashionable hotel. The other day, out of curiosity, my wife and I went; + the moment the "medium" opened her mouth my wife recognized her as the + person who has been trying for several months to get me on the telephone + to tell me how the spirit of Jack London is seeking to communicate with + me! The seance was a public one, a gathering composed, half of wealthy and + cultured society-women, and half of confederates, people with the dialect + and manners of a vaudeville troupe. A megaphone was set in the middle of + the floor, the room was made dark, a couple of hymns were sung, and then + the spirit of Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes spoke through the megaphone with a + Bowery accent, and gave communications from relatives and friends of the + various confederates. "Jesus is with us", said Dr. Holmes. "The spirit of + Jesus bids you to study spiritualism." And then came the voice of a child: + "Mamma! Mamma!" "It is little Georgie!" cried Dr. Holmes; and one of the + society ladies started, and answered, and presently burst into tears. A + marvelous piece of evidence—especially when you recall that the + story of this mother's bereavement had been published in all the papers a + couple of months before! + </p> + <p> + And this kind of swindling is going on every night in every city of + America. It goes on wholesale for months every summer at Lily Dale, in New + York State, where the spiritualists hold their combination of Chautauqua + and Coney Island. And the same thing is going on in the field of mental + healing, and of all other "occult" forces and powers, whether real or + imaginary. It is going on with new spiritual fervors, new moral idealisms, + new poetry, new music, new painting, new sculpture. The faker, the + charlatan is everywhere—using the mental and moral and artistic + forces of life as a means of delivering himself from economic servitude. + Everywhere I turn I see it—credulity being exploited, and men of + practical judgment, watching the game and seeing through it, made hard in + their attitude of materialism. How many men I know who sit by in sullen + protest while their wives drift from one new quackery to another, wasting + their income seeking health and happiness in futile emotionalism! How many + kind and sensitive spirits I know—both men and women—who pour + their treasures of faith and admiration into the laps of hierophants who + began by fooling all mankind and ended by fooling themselves! + </p> + <p> + In each one of the cults of what I have called the "Church of the Quacks", + there are thousands, perhaps millions of entirely sincere, + self-sacrificing people. They will read this book—if anyone can + persuade them to read it—with pain and anger; thinking that I am + mocking at their faith, and have no appreciation of their devotion. All + that I can say is that I am trying to show them how they are being + trapped, how their fine and generous qualities are being used by + exploiters of one sort or another; and how this must continue, world + without end, until there is order in the material affairs of the race, + until justice has been established as the law of man's dealing with his + fellows. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0089" id="link2H_4_0089"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + BOOK SEVEN — The Church of the Social Revolution + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + They have taken the tomb of our Comrade Christ— + Infidel hordes that believe not in man; + Stable and stall for his birth sufficed, + But his tomb is built on a kingly plan. + They have hedged him round with pomp and parade, + They have buried him deep under steel and stone— + But we come leading the great Crusade + To give our Comrade back to his own. + Waddell. +</pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0090" id="link2H_4_0090"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Christ and Caesar + </h2> + <p> + In the most deeply significant of the legends concerning Jesus, we are + told how the devil took him up into a high mountain and showed him all the + kingdoms of the world in a moment of time; and the devil said unto him: + "All this power will I give unto thee, and the glory of them, for that is + delivered unto me, and to whomsoever I will, I give it. If thou, + therefore, wilt worship me, all shall be thine." Jesus, as we know, + answered and said "Get thee behind me, Satan!" And he really meant it; he + would have nothing to do with worldly glory, with "temporal power;" he + chose the career of a revolutionary agitator, and died the death of a + disturber of the peace. And for two or three centuries his church followed + in his footsteps, cherishing his proletarian gospel. The early Christians + had "all things in common, except women;" they lived as social outcasts, + hiding in deserted catacombs, and being thrown to lions and boiled in oil. + </p> + <p> + But the devil is a subtle worm; he does not give up at one defeat, for he + knows human nature, and the strength of the forces which battle for him. + He failed to get Jesus, but he came again, to get Jesus' church. He came + when, through the power of the new revolutionary idea, the Church had won + a position of tremendous power in the decaying Roman Empire; and the + subtle worm assumed the guise of no less a person than the Emperor + himself, suggesting that he should become a convert to the new faith, so + that the Church and he might work together for the greater glory of God. + The bishops and fathers of the Church, ambitious for their organization, + fell for this scheme, and Satan went off laughing to himself. He had got + everything he had asked from Jesus three hundred years before; he had got + the world's greatest religion. How complete and swift was his success you + may judge from the fact that fifty years later we find the Emperor + Valentinian compelled to pass an edict limiting the donations of emotional + females to the church in Rome! + </p> + <p> + From that time on Christianity has been what I have shown in this book, + the chief of the enemies of social progress. From the days of Constantine + to the days of Bismarck and Mark Hanna, Christ and Caesar have been one, + and the Church has been the shield and armor of predatory economic might. + With only one qualification to be noted: that the Church has never been + able to suppress entirely the memory of her proletarian Founder. She has + done her best, of course; we have seen how her scholars twist his words + out of their sense, and the Catholic Church even goes so far as to keep to + the use of a dead language, so that her victims may not hear the words of + Jesus in a form they can understand. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + 'Tis well that such seditious songs are sung + Only by priests, and in the Latin tongue! +</pre> + <p> + But in spite of this, the history of the Church has been one incessant + struggle with upstarts and rebels who have filled themselves with the + spirit of the Magnificat and the Sermon on the Mount, and of that bitterly + class-conscious proletarian, James, the brother of Jesus. + </p> + <p> + And here is the thing to be noted, that the factor which has given life to + Christianity, which enables it to keep its hold on the hearts of men + today, is precisely this new wine of faith and fervor which has been + poured into it by generation after generation of poor men who live like + Jesus as outcasts, and die like Jesus as criminals, and are revered like + Jesus as founders and saints. The greatest of the early Church fathers + were bitterly fought by the Church authorities of their own time. St. + Chrysostom, Bishop of Constantinople, was turned out of office, exiled and + practically martyred; St. Basil was persecuted by the Emperor Valens; St. + Ambrose excommunicated the tyrannical Emperor Theodosius; St. Cyprian gave + all his wealth to the poor, and was exiled and finally martyred. In the + same way, most of the heretics whom the Holy Inquisition tortured and + burned were proletarian rebels; the saints whom the Church reveres, the + founders of the orders which gave it life for century after century, were + men who sought to return to the example of the carpenter's son. Let us + hear a Christian scholar on this point, Prof. Rauschenbusch: + </p> + <p> + The movement of Francis of Assisi, of the Waldenses, of the Humiliati and + Bons Hommes, were all inspired by democratic and communistic ideals. + Wiclif was by far the greatest doctrinal reformer before the reformation; + but his eyes, too, were first opened to the doctrinal errors of the Roman + Church by joining in a great national and patriotic movement against the + alien domination and extortion of the Church. The Bohemian revolt made + famous by the name of John Huss, was quite as much political and social as + religious. Savonarola was a great democrat as well as a religious prophet. + In his famous interview with the dying Lorenzo de Medici he made three + demands as a condition for granting absolution. Of the man he demanded a + living faith in God's mercy. Of the millionaire he demanded restitution of + his ill-gotten wealth. Of the political usurper he demanded the + restoration of the liberties of the people of Florence. It is significant + that the dying sinner found it easy to assent to the first, hard to assent + to the second, and impossible to concede the last. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0091" id="link2H_4_0091"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Locusts and Wild Honey + </h2> + <p> + This proletarian strain in Christianity goes back to a time long before + Jesus; it seems to have been inherent in the religious character of the + Jews—that stubborn independence, that stiff-necked insistence on the + right of a man to interview God for himself and to find out what God wants + him to do; also the inclination to find that God wants him to oppose + earthly rulers and their plundering of the poor. What is it that gives to + the Bible the vitality it has today? Its literary style? To say that is to + display the ignorance of the cultured; for elevation of style is a + by-product of passionate conviction; it is what the Jewish writers had to + say, and not the way they said it, that has given them their hold upon + mankind. Was it their insistence upon conscience, their fear of God as the + beginning of wisdom? But that same element appears in the Babylonian + psalms, which are as eloquent and as sincere as those of the Hebrews, yet + are read only by scholars. Was it their sense of the awful presence of + divinity, of the soul immortal in its keeping? The Egyptians had that far + more than the Hebrews, and yet we do not cherish their religious books. Or + was it the love of man for all things living, the lesson of charity upon + which the Catholics lay such stress? The gentle Buddha had that, and had + it long before Christ; also his priests had metaphysical subtlety, greater + than that of John the Apostle or Thomas Aquinas. + </p> + <p> + No, there is one thing and one only which distinguishes the Hebrew sacred + writings from all others, and that is their insistent note of proletarian + revolt, their furious denunciations of exploiters, and of luxury and + wantonness, the vices of the rich. Of that note the Assyrian and Chaldean + and Babylonian writing contain not a trace, and the Egyptian hardly enough + to mention. The Hindoos had a trace of it; but the true, natural-born + rebels of all time were the Hebrews. They were rebels against oppression + in ancient Judea, as they are today in Petrograd and New York; the spirit + of equality and brotherhood which spoke through Ezekiel and Amos and + Isaiah, through John the Baptist and Jesus and James, spoke in the last + century through Marx and Lassalle and Jaures, and speaks today through + Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Kautsky and Israel Zangwill and + Morris Hillquit and Abraham Cahan and Emma Goldman and the Joseph Fels + endowment. + </p> + <p> + The legal rate of interest throughout the Babylonian Empire was 20%; the + laws of Manu permitted 24%, while the laws of the Egyptians only stepped + in to prevent more than 100%. But listen to this Hebrew law: + </p> + <p> + If thy brother be waxen poor, and fallen in decay with thee, then thou + shalt relieve him, yea, though he be a stranger or a sojourner, that he + may live with thee: Take thou no interest of him, or increase; but fear + thy God that thy brother may live with thee. Thou shalt not give him any + money upon usury, nor lend him thy victuals for increase. + </p> + <p> + And so on, forbidding that Hebrews be sold as bond servants, and + commanding that at the end of fifty years All debtors shall have their + debts forgiven and their lands returned to them. And note that this is not + the raving of agitators, the demand of a minority party; it is the law of + the Hebrew land. + </p> + <p> + There has been of late a great deal of new discovery concerning the early + Jews. Conrad Noel summarizes the results as follows: + </p> + <p> + The land-mark law, which sternly forbids encroachment upon peasant rights; + consideration for the foreigner; additional sanitary and food laws; tithe + regulations on behalf of widows, orphans, foreigners, etc.; that those who + have no economic independence should eat and be satisfied; that loans + should be given cheerfully, not only without any interest, but even at the + risk of losing the principal. To withhold a loan because the year of + release is at hand in which the principal is no longer recoverable, is + described as a grave sin. When you are compelled to free your slaves, you + must give them sufficient capital to embark upon some industry which shall + prevent their falling back into slavery. A number of holidays are insisted + upon. There must be no more crushing of the poor out of existence, for God + cares for these people who have been driven to poverty, and they shall + never cease out of the land. Howbeit there shall be no poor with you, for + the Lord will bless you, if you will obey these laws. + </p> + <p> + But then prosperity came, and culture, which meant contact with the + capitalist ideas of the heathen empires. The Jews fell from the stern + justice of their fathers; and so came the prophets, wild-eyed men of the + people, clad in camel's hair and living upon locusts and wild honey, + breaking in upon priests and kings and capitalists with their furious + denunciations. And always they incited to class war and social + disturbance. I quote Conrad Noel again: + </p> + <p> + Nathan and Gad bad been David's political advisers, Abijah had stirred + Jeroboam to revolt, Elijah had resisted Ahab, Elisha had fanned the + rebellion of Jehu, Amos thunders against the misrule of the king of + Israel, Isaiah denounces the landlords and the usurers, Micah charges them + with blood-guiltiness; Jeremiah and the latter prophets, though they + strike a more intimate note of personal repentance, strike it as the + prelude to that national restoration for which they hunger as exiles. + </p> + <p> + The first chapters of Isaiah are typical of the Old Testament point of + view. Just as the prophets of the nineteenth century thundered against the + "Christian" employers of Lancashire, and told them their houses were + cemented with the blood of little children, so Isaiah cries against his + generation: "Your governing classes companion with thieves; behold you + build up Sion with blood." Their ceremonial and their Sabbath keeping are + an abomination to God. "When ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine + eyes from you. Your hands are full of blood." The poor man is robbed. The + rich exact usury. "Woe unto you that lay house to house and field to + field, that ye may dwell alone in the midst of the land." "Wash you, make + you clean, put away the evil of your doing from before mine eyes; cease to + do evil; learn to do well, seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the + fatherless, plead for the widow. Come now, let us reason together, saith + the Lord. Though your sins be blood-colored, they shall be as white as + snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If ye be + willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land. But if ye refuse + and rebel, ye shall be devoured by the sword." + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0092" id="link2H_4_0092"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Mother Earth + </h2> + <p> + And nowadays we have the Socialist and Anarchist agitators, following the + same tradition, possessed by the same dream as the ancient Hebrew + prophets. I have mentioned Emma Goldman; it may be that the reader is not + familiar with her writings, and does not realize how very Biblical she is, + both in point of view and style. Let me quote a few sentences from a + recent issue of her paper, "Mother Earth", on the subject of our ruling + classes and their social responsibility: + </p> + <p> + Yes, you idle rich, you may howl about what we mean to do to you! Your + riches are rotten and your fine clothes are falling from your backs. Your + stocks and bonds are so tainted that the ink on them should turn to acid + and eat holes in your pockets and your skins. You have piled up your dirty + millions, but what wages have you paid to the poor devils of farm hands + you have robbed? And do you imagine they won't remember it when the + revolution comes? You loll on soft couches and amuse yourselves with your + mistresses; you think you are "it" and the world is yours. You send + militiamen and shoot down our organizers, and we are helpless. But wait, + comrades, our time is coming. + </p> + <p> + Doubtless the reader is well satisfied that the author of this tirade is + now in jail, where she can no longer defy the laws of good taste. They + always put the ancient prophets in jail; that is the way to know a prophet + when you meet him. Let me quote another prophet who is now behind bars—Alexander + Berkman, in his "Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist", discussing the same + subject of plutocratic pretension: + </p> + <p> + Tell me, you four hundred, where did you get it? Who gave it to you? Your + grandfather, you say? Your father? Can you go all the way back and show + there is no flaw anywhere in your title? I tell you that the beginning and + the root of your wealth is necessarily in injustice. And why? Because + Nature did not make this man rich and that man poor from the start. Nature + does not intend for one man to have capital and another to be a + wage-slave. Nature made the earth to be cultivated by all. The idea we + Anarchists have of the rich is of highwaymen, standing in the street and + robbing every one that passes. + </p> + <p> + Or take "Big Bill" Haywood, chief of the I. W. W. Hear what he has to say + in a pamphlet addressed to the harvest-hands he is seeking to organize: + </p> + <p> + How much farther do you piutes expect to go with your grabbing? Do you + want to be the only people left on earth? Why else do you drive out the + workers from all share in Nature, and claim everything for yourselves? The + earth was made for all, rich and poor alike; where do you get your title + deeds to it? Nature gave everything for all men to use alike; it is only + your robbery which makes your so-called "ownership". Capital has no + rights. The land belongs to Nature, and we are all Nature's sons. + </p> + <p> + Or take Eugene V. Debs, three times candidate of the Socialist Party for + President. I quote from one of his pamphlets: + </p> + <p> + The propertied classes are like people who go into a public theatre and + refuse to let anyone else come in, treating as private property what is + meant for social use. If each man would take only what he needs, and leave + the balance to those who have nothing, there would be no rich and no poor. + The rich man is a thief. + </p> + <p> + I might go on citing such quotations for many pages; but I know that Emma + Goldman and Alexander Berkman and Bill Haywood and Gene Debs may read this + book, and I don't want them to close it in the middle and throw it at me. + Therefore let me hasten to explain my poor joke; the sentiments I have + been quoting are not those of our modern agitators, but of another group + of ancient ones. The first is not from Emma Goldman, nor did I find it in + "Mother Earth". I found it in the Epistle of James, believed by orthodox + authorities to have been James, the brother of Jesus. It is exactly what + he wrote—save that I have put it into modern phrases, and changed + the swing of the sentences, in order that those familiar with the Bible + might read it without suspicion. The second passage is not in the writings + of Alexander Berkman, but in those of St. John Chrysostom, most famous of + the early fathers, who lived 374-407. The third is not from the pen of + "Big Bill" but from that of St. Ambrose, a father of the Latin Church, + 340-397, and the fourth is not by Comrade Debs, but by St. Basil of the + Greek Church, 329-379. And if the reader objects to my having fooled him + for a minute or two, what will he say to the Christian Church, which has + been fooling him for sixteen hundred years? + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0093" id="link2H_4_0093"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + The Soap Box + </h2> + <p> + This book will be denounced from one end of Christendom to the other as + the work of a blasphemous infidel. Yet it stands in the direct line of the + Christian tradition: written by a man who was brought up in the Church, + and loved it with all his heart and soul, and was driven out by the + formalists and hypocrites in high places; a man who thinks of Jesus more + frequently and with more devotion than he thinks of any other man that + lives or has ever lived on earth; and who has but one purpose in all that + he says and does, to bring into reality the dream that Jesus dreamed of + peace on earth and good will toward men. + </p> + <p> + I will go farther yet and say that not merely is this book written for the + cause of Jesus, but it is written in the manner of Jesus. We read his + bitter railings at the Pharisees, and miss the point entirely, because the + word Pharisee has become to us a word of reproach. But this is due solely + to Jesus; in his time the word was a holy word, it meant the most orthodox + and respectable, the ultra high-church devotees of Jerusalem. The way to + get the spirit of the tirades of Jesus is to do with him what we did with + the early church fathers—translate him into American. This time, + since the reader shares the secret, it will not be necessary to disguise + the Bible style, and we may follow the text exactly. Let me try the + twenty-third chapter of Matthew, omitting seven verses which refer to + subtleties of Hebrew casuistry, for which we should have to go to Lyman + Abbott or St. Alphonsus to find a parallel: + </p> + <p> + Then Jesus mounted upon a soap-box, and began a speech, saying, The + doctors of divinity and Episcopalians fill the Fifth Avenue churches; and + it would be all right if you were to listen to what they preach, and do + that; but don't follow their actions, for they never practice what they + preach. They load the backs of the working-classes with crushing burdens, + but they themselves never move a finger to carry a burden, and everything + they do is for show. They wear frock-coats and silk hats on Sundays, and + they sit at the speakers' table at the banquets of the Civic Federation, + and they occupy the best pews in the churches, and their doings are + reported in all the papers; they are called leading citizens and pillars + of the church. But don't you be called leading citizens, for the only + useful man is the man who produces. (Applause). And whoever exalts himself + shall be abased, and whoever humbles himself shall be exalted. + </p> + <p> + Woe unto you, doctors of divinity and Catholics, hypocrites! for you shut + up the kingdom of Heaven against men; you don't go in yourself and you + don't let others go in. Woe unto you, doctors of divinity and + Presbyterians, hypocrites! for you foreclose mortgages on widows' houses, + and for a pretense you make long prayers. For this you will receive the + greater damnation! Woe unto you, doctors of divinity and Methodists, + hypocrites! for you send missionaries to Africa to make one convert, and + when you have made him, he is twice as much a child of hell as yourselves. + (Applause). Woe unto you, blind guides, with your subtleties of doctrine, + your transubstantiation and consubstantiation and all the rest of it; you + fools and blind! Woe unto you, doctors of divinity and Episcopalians, + hypocrites! for you drop your checks into the collection-plate and you pay + no heed to the really important things in the Bible, which are justice and + mercy and faith in goodness. You blind guides, who strain at a gnat and + swallow a camel! (Laughter). Woe unto you, doctors of divinity and + Anglicans, hypocrites! for you bathe yourselves and dress in immaculate + clothing but within you are full of extortion and excess. You blind high + churchmen, clean first your hearts, so that the clothes you wear may + represent you. Woe unto you, doctors of divinity and Baptists, hypocrites! + for you are like marble tombs which appear beautiful on the outside, but + inside are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. Even so you + appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and + iniquity. (Applause). Woe unto you, doctors of divinity and Unitarians, + hypocrites! because you erect statues to dead reformers, and put wreathes + upon the tombs of old-time martyrs. You say, if we had been alive in those + days, we would not have helped to kill those good men. That ought to show + you how to treat us at present. (Laughter). But you are the children of + those who killed the good men; so go ahead and kill us too! You serpents, + you generation of vipers, how can you escape the damnation of hell? + </p> + <p> + At this point, according to the report published in the Jerusalem "Times", + a police sergeant stepped up to the orator and notified him that he was + under arrest; he submitted quietly, but one of his followers attempted to + use a knife, and was severely clubbed. Jesus was taken to the + station-house followed by a riotous throng, and held upon a charge of + disorderly conduct. Next morning the Rev. Dr. Caiaphas of Old Trinity + appeared against him, and Magistrate Pilate sentenced him to six months on + Blackwell's Island, remarking that from this time on he proposed to make + an example of those soap-box orators who persist in using threatening and + abusive language. Just as the prisoner was being led away, a detective + appeared with a requisition from the Governor, ordering that Jesus be + taken to San Francisco, where he is under indictment for murder in the + first degree, it being charged that his teachings helped to incite the + Preparedness Day explosion. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0094" id="link2H_4_0094"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + The Church Machine + </h2> + <p> + The Catholics of His time came to Jesus and said, "Master, we would have a + sign of Thee"—meaning that they wanted him to do some magic, to + prove to their vulgar minds that his power came from God. He answered by + calling them an evil and adulterous generation—which is exactly what + I have said about the Papal machine. The Baptists and Methodists and + Presbyterians and other book-worshippers of his time accused him of + violating the sacred commands so definitely set down in their ancient + texts, and to them he answered that the Sabbath was made for man and not + man for the Sabbath; he called them hypocrites, and quoted Karl Marx at + them—"This people honoreth me with their lips, but their heart is + far from me." Because he despised the company of the respectables, and + went among the humble and human folk of his own class in the places where + they gathered—the public houses—the churchly scandal-mongers + called him "a man gluttonous and a wine-bibber, a friend of publicans and + sinners"—precisely as in the old days they used to sneer at the + Socialists for having their meetings in the back-rooms of saloons, and + precisely as they still denounce us as free-lovers and atheists. + </p> + <p> + But the longing for justice between man and man, which is the Kingdom of + Heaven on earth, is the deepest instinct of the human heart, and the voice + of the carpenter cannot be confined within the thickest church-walls, nor + drowned by all the pealing organs in Christendom. Even in these days, when + the power of Mammon is more widespread, more concentrated and more + systematized than ever before in history—even in these days of + Morgan and Rockefeller, there are Christian clergymen who dare to preach + as Jesus preached. One by one they are cast out of the Church—Father + McGlynn, George D. Herron, Alexander Irvine, J. Stitt Wilson, Austin + Adams, Algernon Crapsey, Bouck White; but their voices are not silenced + they are like the leaven, to which Jesus compared the kingdom of God—a + woman took it and hid it in three measures of meal till the whole was + leavened. The young theological students read, and some of them + understand; I know three brothers in one family who have just gone into + the Church, and are preaching straight social revolution—and the + scribes and the pharisees have not yet dared to cast them out. + </p> + <p> + In this book I have portrayed the Christian Church as the servant and + henchman of Big Business, a part of the system of Mammon. Every church is + necessarily a money machine, holding and administering property. And it is + not alone the Catholic Church which is in politics, seeking favors from + the state—the exemption of church property from taxation, exemption + of ministers from military service, free transportation for them and their + families on the railroads, the control of charity and education, laws to + deprive people of amusements on Sunday—so on through a long list. As + the churches have to be built with money, you find that in them the rich + possess the control and demand the deference, while the poor are humble, + and in their secret hearts jealous and bitter; in other words, the class + struggle is in the churches, as everywhere else in the world, and the + social revolution is coming in the churches, just as it is coming in + industry. + </p> + <p> + It is a fact of deep significance that the majority of ministers are + proletarians, eking out their existence upon a miserable salary, and + beholden in all their comings and goings to the wealthy holders of + privilege. Even in the Roman Catholic Church that is true. The ordinary + priest is a man of the working class, and knows what working people suffer + and feel. So in the Catholic Church there are proletarian rebellions; + there is many a priest who does not carry out the political orders of his + superiors, but goes to the polls and votes for his class instead of for + his pope. In Ireland, as I write, the young priests are defying their + bishops and joining the Sinn Fein, a non-religious movement for an Irish + Republic. + </p> + <p> + What is it that keeps the average workingman in subjection to the + exploiter? Simply terror, the terror of losing his job. And if you could + get into the inmost soul of Christian ministers, you would find that + precisely the same force is keeping many of them slaves to Tradition. They + are educated men, and thousands of them must resent the dilemma which + compels them to be either fools or hypocrites. They have caught enough of + the spirit of their time not to enjoy having to pose as miracle-mongers, + rain-makers and witch-doctors; they would like to say frankly that they do + not believe that Jonah ever swallowed the whale, and even that they are + dubious about Hercules and Achilles and other demigods. But they are part + of a machine, and the old men and the rich men who run the machine have + laid down the law. Those who find themselves tempted to think, remember + suddenly that they have wives and children; they have only one profession, + they have been unfitted for any other by a life-time of study of dead + things, as well as by the practice of altruism. + </p> + <p> + But now the Social Revolution is coming; coming upon swift wings—it + may be here before this book sees the light. And who knows but then we may + see in America that wonderful sight which we saw in Russia, when Christian + monks assembled and burned their holy books, and petitioned the state to + take them in as citizens and human beings? It is my belief that when the + power of exploitation is broken, we shall see the Dead Hand crumble into + dust, as a mummy crumbles when it is exposed to the air. All those men who + stay in the Church and pretend to believe nonsense, because it affords an + easy way to earn a living, will suddenly realize that it is possible to + earn a living outside; that any man can go into a factory, clean and + well-ventilated and humanly run, and by four hours work can earn the + purchasing power of ten or fifteen dollars. Do you not think that there + may be some who will choose freedom and self-respect on those terms? + </p> + <p> + And what of those thousands and tens of thousands who join the church + because it is a part of the regime of respectability, a way to make the + acquaintance of the rich, to curry favor and obtain promotion, to get + customers if you are a tradesman, to extend your practice if you are a + professional man? And what about the millions who go to church because + they are poor, and because life is a desperate struggle, and this is one + way to keep the favor of the boss, to get a little better chance for the + children, to get charity if you fall into need; in short, to acquire + influence with the well-to-do and powerful, who stand together, and like + to see the poor humble and reverent, contented in that state of life to + which it has pleased God to call them? + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0095" id="link2H_4_0095"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + The Church Redeemed + </h2> + <p> + Do I mean that I expect to see the Church—all churches—perish + and pass away? I do not, for I believe that the Church answers one of the + fundamental needs of man. The Social Revolution will abolish poverty and + parasitism, it will make temptations fewer, and the soul's path through + life much easier; but it will not remove the necessity of struggle for + individual virtue, it will only clear the way for the discovery of newer + and higher types of virtue. Men will gather more than ever in beautiful + places to voice their love of life and of one another; but the places in + which they gather will be places swept clean of superstition and tyranny. + As the Reformation compelled the Catholic Church to cleanse itself and + abolish the grossest of its abuses, so the Social Revolution will compel + it to repudiate its defense of parasitism and exploitation. I will record + the prophecy that by the year 1950 all Catholic authorities will be + denying that the Church ever opposed Socialism—true Socialism; just + as today they deny that the Church ever tortured Galileo, ever burned men + for teaching that the earth moves around the sun, ever sold the right to + commit crime, ever gave away the New World to Spain and Portugal, ever + buried newly-born infants in the cellars of nunneries. + </p> + <p> + The Social Revolution will compel all churches, Christian, Hebrew, + Buddhist, Confucian, or what you will, to drive out their formalists and + traditionalists. If there is any church that refuses so to adapt itself, + the swift progress of enlightenment and freedom will leave it without + followers. But in the great religions, which have a soul of goodness and + sincerity, we may be sure that reformers will arise, prophets and saints + who, as of old, will preach the living word of God. In many churches today + we can see the beginning of that new Counter-Reformation. Even in the + Catholic Church there is a "modernist" rebellion; read the books of the + "Sillon", and Fogazzaro's trilogy of novels, "The Saint", and you will see + a genuine and vital protest against the economic corruption of the Church. + In America, the "Knights of Slavery" have been forced by public pressure + to support a "War for Democracy", and even to compete with the Y. M. C. A. + in the training camps. They are doing good work, I am told. + </p> + <p> + This gradual conquest of the old religiosity by the spirit of modern + common sense is shown most interestingly in the Salvation Army. William + Booth was a man with a great heart, who took his life into his hands and + went out with a bass-drum to save the lost souls of the slums. He was + stoned and jailed, but he persisted, and brought his captives to Jesus— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Vermin-eaten saints with mouldy breath, + Unwashed legions with the ways of death. +</pre> + <p> + Incidentally the "General" learned to know his slum population. He had not + wanted to engage in charity and material activities; he feared hypocrisy + and corruption. But in his writings he lets us see how utterly impossible + it is for a man of real heart to do anything for the souls of the + slum-dwellers without at the same time helping their diseased and + hunger-racked bodies. So the Salvation army was forced into useful work—old + clothes depots, nights lodgings, Christmas dinners, farm colonies—until + today the bare list of the various kinds of enterprises it carries on + fills three printed pages. It is all done with the money of the rich, and + is tainted by subservience to authority, but no one can deny that it is + better than "Gibson's Preservative", and the fox-hunting parsons filling + themselves with port. + </p> + <p> + And in Protestant Churches the advance has been even greater. Here and + there you will find a real rebel, hanging onto his job and preaching the + proletarian Jesus; while even the great Fifth Avenue churches are making + attempts at "missions" and "settlements" in the slums. The more vital + churches are gradually turning themselves into societies for the practical + betterment of their members. Their clergy are running boys clubs and + sewing-schools for girls, food conservation lectures for mothers, social + study clubs for men. You get prayer-meetings and psalm-singing along with + this; but here is the fact that hangs always before the clergyman's face—that + with prayer-meetings and psalm-singing alone he has a hard time, while + with clubs and educational societies and social reforms he thrives. + </p> + <p> + And now the War has broken upon the world, and caught the churches, like + everything else, in its mighty current; the clergy and the congregations + are confronted by pressing national needs, they are forced to take notice + of a thousand new problems, to engage in a thousand practical activities. + No one can see the end of this—any more than he can see the end of + the vast upheaval in politics and industry. But we who are trained in + revolutionary thought can see the main outlines of the future. We see that + in these new church activities the clergy are inspired by things read, not + in ancient Hebrew texts, but in the daily newspapers. They are responding + to the actual, instant needs of their boys in the trenches and the camps; + and this is bound to have an effect upon their psychology. Just as we can + say that an English girl who leaves the narrow circle of her old life, and + goes into a munition factory and joins a union and takes part in its + debates, will never after be a docile home-slave; so we can say that the + clergyman who helps in Y. M. C. A. work in France, or in Red Cross + organization in America, will be less the bigot and formalist forever + after. He will have learned, in spite of himself, to adjust means to ends; + he will have learned co-operation and social solidarity by the method + which modern educators most favor—by doing. Also he will have + absorbed a mass of ideas in news despatches from over the world. He is + forced to read these despatches carefully, because the fate of his own + boys is involved; and we Socialists will see to it that the despatches are + well filled with propaganda! + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0096" id="link2H_4_0096"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + The Desire of Nations + </h2> + <p> + So the churches, like all the rest of the world, are caught in the great + revolutionary current, and swept on towards a goal which they do not + forsee, and from which they would shrink in dismay: the Church of the + future, the Church redeemed by the spirit of Brotherhood, the Church which + we Socialists will join. They call us materialists, and say that we think + about nothing but the belly—and that is true, in a way; because we + are the representatives of a starving class, which thinks about its belly + precisely as does any individual who is ravening with hunger. But give us + what that arrant materialist, James, the brother of Jesus, calls "those + things which are needful to the body," and then we will use our minds, and + even discover that we have souls; whereas at present we are led to despise + the very word "spiritual", which has become the stock-in-trade of + parasites and poseurs. + </p> + <p> + We have children, whom we love, and whose future is precious to us. We + would be glad to have them trained in ways of decency and self-control, of + dignity and grace. It would make us happy if there were in the world + institutions conducted by men and women of consecrated life who would + specialize in teaching a true morality to the young. But it must be a + morality of freedom, not of slavery; a morality founded upon reason, not + upon superstition. The men who teach it must be men who know what truth + is, and the passionate loyalty which the search for truth inspires. They + cannot be the pitiful shufflers and compromisers we see in the churches + today, the Jowetts who say they used to believe in the Father, the Son and + the Holy Ghost. Rather than trust our children to such shameless cynics, + we will make shift to train them ourselves—we amateurs, not knowing + much about children, and absorbed in the desperate struggle against + organized wrong. + </p> + <p> + It is a statement which many revolutionists would resent, yet it is a fact + nevertheless, that we need a new religion, need it just as badly as any of + the rest of our pitifully groping race. That we need it is proven by the + rivalries and quarrels in our midst—the schisms which waste the + greater part of our activities, and which are often the result of personal + jealousies and petty vanities. To lift men above such weakness, to make + them really brothers in a great muse—that is the work of "personal + religion" in the true and vital sense of the words. + </p> + <p> + We pioneers and propagandists may not live to see the birth of the new + Church of Humanity; but our children will see it, and the dream of it is + in our hearts; our poets have sung of it with fervor and conviction. Read + these lines from "The Desire of Nations," by Edwin Markham, in which he + tells of the new Redeemer who is at hand: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + And when he comes into the world gone wrong, + He will rebuild her beauty with a song. + To every heart he will its own dream be: + One moon has many phantoms in the sea. + Out of the North the norns will cry to men: + "Baldur the Beautiful has come again!" + The flutes of Greece will whisper from the dead: + "Apollo has unveiled his sunbright head!" + The stones of Thebes and Memphis will find voice: + "Osiris comes: Oh tribes of Time, rejoice!" + And social architects who build the State, + Serving the Dream at citadel and gate, + Will hail Him coming through the labor-hum. + And glad quick cries will go from man to man: + "Lo, He has come, our Christ the artisan, + The King who loved the lilies, He has come!" +</pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0097" id="link2H_4_0097"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + The Knowable + </h2> + <p> + The new religion will base itself upon the facts of life, as demonstrated + by experience and reason; for to the modern thinker the basis of all + interest is truth, and the wonders of the microscope and the telescope, of + the new psychology and the new sociology are more wonderful than all the + magic recorded in ancient Mythologies. And even if this were not so, the + business of the thinker is to follow the facts. The history of all + philosophy might be summed up in this simile: The infant opens his eyes + and sees the moon, and stretches out his hands and cries for it, but those + in charge do not give it to him, and so after a while the infant tires of + crying, and turns to his mother's breast and takes a drink of milk. + </p> + <p> + Man demands to know the origin of life; it is intolerable for him to be + here, and not know how, or whence, or why. He demands the knowledge + immediately and finally, and invents innumerable systems and creeds. He + makes himself believe them, with fire and torture makes other men believe + them; until finally, in the confusion of a million theories, it occurs to + him to investigate his instruments, and he makes the discovery that his + tools are inadequate, and all their products worthless. His mind is + finite, while the thing he seeks is infinite; his knowledge is relative, + while the First Cause is absolute. + </p> + <p> + This realization we owe to Immanuel Kant, the father of modern philosophy. + In his famous "antinomies", he proved four propositions: first, that the + universe is limitless in time and space; second, that matter is composed + of simple, indivisible elements; third, that free will is impossible; and + fourth, that there must be an absolute or first cause. And having proven + these things, he turned round and proved their opposites, with arguments + exactly as unanswerable. Any one who follows these demonstrations and + understands them, takes all his metaphysical learning and lays it on the + shelf with his astrology and magic. + </p> + <p> + It is a fact, which every one who wishes to think must get clear, that + when you are dealing with absolutes and ultimates, you can prove whatever + you want to prove. Metaphysics is like the fourth dimension; you fly into + it and come back upside down, hindside foremost, inside out; and when you + get tired of this condition, you take another flight, and come back the + way you were before. So metaphysical thinking serves the purpose of + Catholic cheats like Cardinal Newman and Professor Chatterton-Hill; it + serves hysterical women like "Mother" Eddy; it serves the New-thoughters, + who wish to fill their bellies with wind; it serves the charlatans and + mystagogs who wish to befuddle the wits of the populace. Real thinkers + avoid it as they would a bottomless swamp; they avoid, not merely the + idealism of Platonists and Hegelians, but the monism of Haeckel, and the + materialism of Buechner and Jacques Loeb. The simple fact is that it is as + impossible to prove the priority of origin and the ultimate nature of + matter as it is of mind; so that the scientist who lays down a materialist + dogma is exactly as credulous as a Christian. + </p> + <p> + How then are we to proceed? Shall we erect the mystery into an Unknowable, + like Spencer, and call ourselves Agnostics with a capital letter, like + Huxley? Shall we follow Frederic Harrison, making an inadequate divinity + out of our impotence? I have read the books of the "Positivists", and + attended their imitation church in London, but I did not get any + satisfaction from them. In the midst of their dogmatic pronouncements I + found myself remembering how the egg falls apart and reveals a chicken, + how the worm suddenly discovers itself a butterfly. The spirit of man is a + breaker of barriers, and it seems a futile occupation to set limits upon + the future. Our business is not to say what men will know ten thousand + years from now, but to content ourselves with the simple statement of what + men know now. What we know is a procession of phenomena called an + environment; our life being an act of adjustment to its changes, and our + faith being the conviction that this adjustment is possible and worth + while. + </p> + <p> + In the beginning the guide is instinct, and the act of trust is automatic. + But with the dawn of reason the thinker has to justify his faith; to + convince himself that life is sincere, that there is worth-whileness in + being, or in seeking to be; that there is order in creation, laws which + can be discovered, processes which can be applied. Just as the babe trusts + life when it gropes for its mother's breast, so the most skeptical of + scientists trusts it when he declares that water is made of two parts + hydrogen and one part oxygen, and sets it down for a certainty that this + will always be so—that he is not being played with by some sportive + demon, who will today cause H2O to behave like water, and tomorrow like + benzine. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0098" id="link2H_4_0098"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Nature's Insurgent Son + </h2> + <p> + Life has laws, which it is possible to ascertain; and with each bit of + knowledge acquired, the environment is changed, the life becomes a new + thing. Consider, for example, what a different place the world became to + the man who discovered that the force which laid the forest in ashes could + be tamed and made to warm a cave and make wild grains nutritious! In other + words, man can create life, he can make the world and himself into that + which his reason decides it ought to be. The means by which he does this + is the most magical of all the tools he has invented since his arboreal + ancestor made the first club; the tool of experimental science—and + when one considers that this weapon has been understood and deliberately + employed for but two or three centuries, he realizes that we are indeed + only at the beginning of human evolution. + </p> + <p> + To take command of life, to replace instincts by reasoned and deliberate + acts, to make the world a conscious and ordered product—that is the + task of man. Sir Ray Lankester has set this forth with beautiful precision + in his book, "The Kingdom of Man". We are, at this time, in an + uncomfortable and dangerous transition stage, as a child playing with + explosives. This child has found out how to alter his environment in many + startling ways, but he does not yet know why he wishes to alter it, nor to + what purpose. He finds that certain things are uncomfortable, and these he + proceeds immediately to change. Discovering that grain fermented dispels + boredom, he creates a race of drunkards; discovering that foods can be + produced in profusion, and prepared in alluring combinations, he makes + himself so many diseases that it takes an encyclopedia to tell about them. + Discovering that captives taken in war can be made to work, he makes a + procession of empires, which are eaten through with luxury and corruption, + and fall into ruins again. + </p> + <p> + This is Nature's way; she produces without limit, groping blindly, + experimenting ceaselessly, eliminating ruthlessly. It takes a million eggs + to produce one salmon; it has taken a million million men to produce one + idea—algebra, or the bow and arrow, or democracy. Nature's present + impulse appears as a rebellion against her own methods; man, her creature, + will emancipate himself from her law, will save himself from her blindness + and her ruthlessness. He is "Nature's insurgent son"; but, being the child + of his mother, goes at the task in her old blundering way. Some men are + scheduled to elimination because of defective eyesight; they are furnished + with glasses, and the breeding of defective eyes begins. The sickly or + imbecile child would perish at once in the course of Nature; it is saved + in the name of charity, and a new line of degenerates is started. + </p> + <p> + What shall we do? Return to the method of the Spartans, exposing our + sickly infants? We do not have to do anything so wasteful, because we can + replace the killing of the unfit by a scientific breeding which will + prevent the unfit from getting a chance at life. We can replace instinct + by self-discipline. We can substitute for the regime of "Nature red in + tooth and claw with ravin" the regime of man the creator, knowing what he + wishes to be and how to set about to be it. Whether this can happen, + whether the thing which we call civilization is to be the great triumph of + the ages, or whether the human race is to go back into the melting pot, is + a question being determined by an infinitude of contests between + enlightenment and ignorance: precisely such a contest as occurs now, when + you, the reader, encounter a man who has thought his way out to the light, + and comes to urge you to perform the act of self-emancipation, to take up + the marvellous new tools of science, and to make yourself, by means of + exact knowledge, the creator of your own life and in part of the life of + the race. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0099" id="link2H_4_0099"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + The New Morality + </h2> + <p> + Life is a process of expansion, of the unfoldment of new powers; driven by + that inner impulse which the philosophers of Pragmatism call the elan + vital. Whenever this impulse has its way, there is an emotion of joy; + whenever it is balked, there is one of distress. So pleasure and pain are + the guides of life, and the final goal is a condition of free and + constantly accelerating growth, in which joy is enduring. + </p> + <p> + That man will ever reach such a state is more than we can say. It is a + perfectly conceivable thing that tomorrow a comet may fall upon the earth + and wipe out all man's labor's. But on the other hand, it is a conceivable + thing that man may some day learn to control the movements of comets, and + even of starry systems. It seems certain that if he is given time, he will + make himself master of the forces of his immediate environment— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + The untamed giants of nature shall bow down— + The tides, the tempest and the lightning cease + From mockery and destruction, and be turned + Unto the making of the soul of man. +</pre> + <p> + It is a conceivable thing that man may learn to create his food from the + elements without the slow processes of agriculture; it is conceivable that + he may master the bacteria which at present prey upon his body, and so put + an end to death. It is certain that he will ascertain the laws of + heredity, and create human qualities as he has created the spurs of the + fighting-cock and the legs of the greyhound. He will find out what genius + is, and the laws of its being, and the tests whereby it may be recognized. + In the new science of psycho-analysis he has already begun the work of + bringing an infinity of subconsciousness into the light of day; it may be + that in the evidence of telepathy which the psychic researchers are + accumulating, he is beginning to grope his way into a universal + consciousness, which may come to include the joys and griefs of the + inhabitants of Mars, and of the dark stars which the spectroscope and the + telescope are disclosing. + </p> + <p> + All these are fascinating possibilities. What stands in the way of their + realization? Ignorance and superstition, fear and submission, the old + habits of rapine and hatred which man has brought with him from his animal + past. These make him a slave, a victim of himself and of others; to root + them out of the garden of the soul is the task of the modern thinker. + </p> + <p> + The new morality is thus a morality of freedom. It teaches that man is the + master, or shall become so; that there is no law, save the law of his own + being, no check upon his will save that which he himself imposes. + </p> + <p> + The new morality is a morality of joy. It teaches that true pleasure is + the end of being, and the test of all righteousness. + </p> + <p> + The new morality is a morality of reason. It teaches that there is no + authority above reason; no possibility of such authority, because if such + were to appear, reason would have to judge it, and accept or reject it. + </p> + <p> + The new morality is a morality of development. It teaches that there can + no more be an immutable law of conduct, than there can be an immutable + position for the steering-wheel of an aeroplane. The business of the pilot + of an aeroplane is to keep his machine aloft amid shifting currents of + wind. The business of a moralist is to adjust life to a constantly + changing environment. An action which was suicide yesterday becomes + heroism today, and futility or hypocrisy tomorrow. + </p> + <p> + This new morality, like all things in a world of strife, is fighting for + existence, using its own weapons, which are reason and love. Obviously it + can use no others, without self-destruction; yet it has to meet enemies + who fight with the old weapons of force and fraud. Whether it will prevail + is more than any prophet can say. Perhaps it is too much to ask that it + should succeed—this insolent effort of the pigmy man to leap upon + the back of his master and fit a bridle into his mouth. Perhaps it is + nothing but a dream in the minds of a few, the scientists and poets and + inventors, the dreamers of the race. Perhaps the nerve of the pigmy will + fail him at the critical moment, and he will fall from the back of his + master, and under his master's hoofs. + </p> + <p> + The hour of the decision is now; for this we can see plainly, and as + scientists we can proclaim it—the human race is in a swift current + of degeneration, which a new morality alone can check. The struggle is at + its height in our time; if it fails, if the fibre of the race continues to + deteriorate, the soul of the race to be eaten out by poverty and luxury, + by insanity and disease, by prostitution, crime and war—then mankind + will slip back into the abyss, the untamed giants of Nature will resume + their ancient sway, and the tides, the tempest and the lightning will + sweep the earth clean again. I do not believe that this calamity will + befall us. I know that in the diseased social body the forces of + resistance are gathering—the Socialist movement, in the broad sense—the + activities of all who believe in the possibility of reconstructing society + upon a basis of reason, justice and love. To such people this book goes + out: to the truly religious people, those who hunger and thirst after + righteousness here and now, who believe in brotherhood as a reality, and + are willing to bear pain and ridicule and privation for the sake of its + ultimate achievement. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + From the edge of harsh derision, + From discord and defeat, + From doubt and lame division, + We pluck the fruit and eat; + And the mouth finds it bitter, and the spirit sweet.... + O sorrowing hearts of slaves, + We heard you beat from far! + We bring the light that saves, + We bring the morning star; +Freedom's good things we bring you, whence all good things are... +</pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0100" id="link2H_4_0100"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Envoi + </h2> + <p> + I have come to the end of my task; but one question troubles me. I think + of the "young men and maidens meek" who will read this book, and I wonder + what they will make of it. We have had a lark together; we have gone + romping down the vista of the ages, swatting, every venerable head that + showed itself, beating the dust out of ancient delusions. You would like + all your life to be that kind of lark; but you may not find it so, and + perhaps you will suffer disillusionment and vexation. + </p> + <p> + I have known hundreds of young radicals in my life; they have nearly all + been gallant and honest, but they have not all been wise, and therefore + not so happy as they might have been. In the course of time I have + formulated to myself the peril to which young radicals are exposed. We see + so much that is wrong in ancient things, it gets to be a habit with us to + reject them. We have only to know that a thing is old to feel an impulse + of impatient scorn; on the other hand, we are tempted to welcome anything + which can prove itself to be unprecedented. There is a common type of + radical whose aim in life is to be several jumps ahead of mankind; whose + criterion of conduct is that it shocks the bourgeois. If you do not know + that type, you may find him—and her—in the newest of the + Bohemian cafes, drinking the newest red chemicals, smoking the newest + brand of cigarettes, and discussing the newest form of psycopathia + sexualis. After you have watched them a while, you realize that these + ultra-new people have fallen victim to the oldest form of logical fallacy, + the non sequitur, and likewise to the oldest form of slavery, which is + self-indulgence. + </p> + <p> + If it is true that much in the old moral codes is based upon ignorance, + and cultivated by greed, it is also true that much in the old moral codes + is based upon facts which will not change so long as man is what he is—a + creature of impulses, good and bad, wise and foolish, selfish and + generous, and compelled to make choice between these impulses; so long as + he is a material body and a personal consciousness, obliged to live in + society and adjust himself to the rights of others. What I would like to + say to young radicals—if there is any way to say it without seeming + a prig—is that in choosing their own path through life, they will + need not merely enthusiasm and radical fervor, but wisdom and judgment and + hard study. + </p> + <p> + It is our fundamental demand that society shall cease to repeat over and + over the blunders of the past, the blunders of tyranny and slavery, of + luxury and poverty, which wrecked the ancient societies; and surely it is + a poor way to begin by repeating in our own persons the most ancient + blunders of the moral life. To light the fires of lust in our hearts, and + let them smoulder there, and imagine we are trying new experiments in + psychology! Who does not know the radical woman who demonstrates her + emancipation from convention by destroying her nerves with nicotine? Who + does not know the genius of revolt who demonstrates his repudiation of + private property by permitting his lady loves to support him? Who does not + know the man who finds in the phrases of revolution the most effective + devices for the seducing of young girls? + </p> + <p> + You will have read this book to ill purpose if you draw the conclusion + that there is anything in it to spare you the duty of getting yourself + moral standards and holding yourself to them. On the contrary, because + your task is the highest and hardest that man has yet undertaken—for + this reason you will need standards the most exacting ever formulated. Let + me quote some words from a teacher you will not accuse of holding to the + slave-moralities: + </p> + <p> + Free dost thou call thyself? Thy ruling thoughts will I hear, and not that + thou hast escaped a yoke. + </p> + <p> + Art thou such a one that can escape a yoke? + </p> + <p> + Free from what? What is that to Zarathustra! Clear shall your eye tell me: + free to what? + </p> + <p> + Canst thou give to thyself thy good and thine evil, and hang thy will + above thee as thy law? Canst thou be thine own judge, and avenger of thy + law? + </p> + <p> + Fearful it is to be alone with the judge and the avenger of thy law. So is + a stone flung out into empty space and into the icy breath of isolation. + </p> + <p> + Out of the pit of ignorance and despair we emerge into the sunlight of + knowledge, to take control of a world, and to make it over, not according + to the will of any gods, but according to the law in our own hearts. For + that task we have need of all the resources of our being; of courage and + high devotion, of faith in ourselves and our comrades, of clean, straight + thinking, of discipline both of body and mind. We go to this task with a + knowledge as old as the first moral impulse of mankind—the knowledge + that our actions determine the future of life, not merely for ourselves + but for all the race. For this is one of the laws of the ancient Hebrews + which modern science has not repealed, but on the contrary has reinforced + with a thousand confirmations—that the sins of the fathers are + visited upon the children unto the third and fourth generations. + </p> + <p> + I get letters from the readers of my books; nearly always they are young + people, so I feel like the father of a large family. I gather them now + about my knee, and pronounce upon them a benediction in the ancient + patriarchal style. Children and grandchildren of my hopes, for ages men + suffered and fought, so that the world might be turned over to you. Now + the day is coming, the glad, new day which blinds us with the shining of + its wings; it is coming so swiftly that I am afraid of it. I thought we + should have more time to get ready for the taking over of the world! But + the old managers of it went insane, they took to tearing each other's eyes + out, and now they lie dead about us. So, whether we will or not, we have + to take charge of the world; we have to decide what to do with it, even + while we are doing it. Let us not fail, young comrades; let us not write + on the scroll of history that mankind had to go through yet new + generations of wars and tumults and enslavements, because the youth of the + international revolution could not lift themselves above those ancient + personal vices which wrecked the fair hopes of their fathers—bigotry + and intolerance, vindictiveness and vanity, envy, hatred and malice and + all uncharitableness! + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0101" id="link2H_4_0101"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Reader: + </h2> + <p> + For twenty years I have been haunted by the dream that I might some day be + my own publisher. I was waiting till I could afford the luxury; but many a + man has put off a bold action till he died, so I am publishing this book + without being able to afford it. + </p> + <p> + The reason is that I do not want to be a writer for the rich. I want to be + read by working-boys and girls, and by poor students. + </p> + <p> + I offer the book at a low price. In the hope of tempting you to go out and + get your friends to read it, I have made a price in quantities which will + allow no profit at all. A margin has been figured to cover postage, + stationery, circulars, and the cost of a clerical assistant; but nothing + for interest on capital, which is a gift, nor for the rent of an office, + which is my home, nor for the services of manager and press agent, which + is myself. + </p> + <p> + You have read the book, and its fate is yours to decide. If it seems worth + while, pass it on to someone else. If you can afford it, order a number of + copies and give them away. If you can't afford it, give your time and be a + book-agent. + </p> + <div style="height: 6em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Profits of Religion, by Upton Sinclair + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PROFITS OF RELIGION *** + +***** This file should be named 1558-h.htm or 1558-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/5/5/1558/ + +Produced by Charles Keller and David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +Scanned by Charles Keller with OmniPage Professional OCR software + + + + + +THE PROFITS OF RELIGION + +An Essay in Economic Interpretation + +By UPTON SINCLAIR + + + + +The Profits of Religion + + + +OFFERTORY + +This book is a study of Supernaturalism from a new point of +view--as a Source of Income and a Shield to Privilege. I have +searched the libraries through, and no one has done it before. If +you read it, you will see that it needed to be done. It has meant +twenty-five years of thought and a year of investigation. It +contains the facts. + +I publish the book myself, so that it may be available at the +lowest possible price. I am giving my time and energy, in return +for one thing which you may give me--the joy of speaking a true +word and getting it heard. + +The present volume is the first of a series, which will do for +Education, Journalism and Literature what has here been done for +the Church: the four volumes making a work of revolutionary +criticism, an Economic Interpretation of Culture under the +general title of "The Dead Hand." + + + +CONTENTS + +Introductory + Bootstrap-lifting + Religion + +Book One: The Church of the Conquerors + The Priestly Lie + The Great Fear + Salve Regina! + Fresh Meat + Priestly Empires + Prayer-wheels + The Butcher-Gods + The Holy Inquisition + Hell-fire + +Book Two: The Church of Good Society + The Rain Makers + The Babylonian Fire-God + The Medicine-men + The Canonization of Incompetence + Gibson's Preservative + The Elders + Church History + Land and Livings + Graft in Tail + Bishops and Beer + Anglicanism and Alcohol + Dead Cats + "Suffer Little Children" + The Court-circular + Horn-blowing + Trinity Corporation + Spiritual Interpretation + +Book Three: The Church of the Servant Girls + Charity + God's Armor + Thanksgivings + The Holy Roman Empire + Temporal Power + Knights of Slavery + Priests and Police + The Church Militant + The Church Triumphant + God in the Schools + The Menace + King Coal + The Unholy Alliance + Secret Service + Tax Exemption + Holy History + Das Centrum + +Book Four: The Church of the Slavers + The Face of Caesar + Deutschland ueber Alles + Der Tag + King Cotton + Witches and Women + Moth and Rust + To Lyman Abbott + The Octopus + The Industrial Shelley + The Outlook for Graft + Clerical Camouflage + The Jungle + +Book Five: The Church of the Merchants + The Head Merchant + "Herr Beeble" + Holy Oil + Rhetorical Black-hanging + The Great American Fraud + Riches in Glory + Captivating Ideals + Spook Hunting + Running the Rapids + Birth Control + Sheep + +Book Six: The Church of the Quacks + Tabula Rasa + The Book of Mormon + Holy Rolling + Bible Prophecy + Koreshanity + Mazdaznan + Black Magic + Mental Malpractice + Science and Wealth + New Nonsense + "Dollars Want Me!" + Spiritual Financiering + The Graft of Grace + +Book Seven: The Church of the Social Revolution + Christ and Caesar + Locusts and Wild Honey + Mother Earth + The Soap Box + The Church Machine + The Church Redeemed + The Desire of Nations + The Knowable + "Nature's Insurgent Son + The New Morality + Envoi + + + +INTRODUCTORY + +Bootstrap-lifting + +Bootstrap-lifting? says the reader. + +It is a vision I have seen: upon a vast plain, men and women are +gathered in dense throngs, crouched in uncomfortable and +distressing positions, their fingers hooked in the straps of +their boots. They are engaged in lifting themselves; tugging and +straining until they grow red in the face, exhausted. The +perspiration streams from their foreheads, they show every +symptom of distress; the eyes of all are fixed, not upon each +other, nor upon their boot-straps, but upon the sky above. There +is a look of rapture upon their faces, and now and then, amid +grunts and groans, they cry out with excitement and triumph. + +I approach one and say to him, "Friend, what is this you are +doing?" + +He answers, without pausing to glance at me, "I am performing +spiritual exercises. See how I rise?" + +"But," I say, "you are not rising at all!" + +Whereat he becomes instantly angry. "You are one of the +scoffers!" + +"But, friend," I protest, "don't you feel the earth under your +feet?" + +"You are a materialist!" + +"But, friend, I can see--" + +"You are without spiritual vision!" + +And so I move on among the sweating and groaning hordes. Being of +a sympathetic turn of mind, I cannot help being distressed by the +prevalence of this singular practice among so large a portion of +the human race. How is it possible that none of them should +suspect the futility of their procedure? Or can it really be that +I am uncomprehending? That in some way they are actually getting +off the ground, or about to get off the ground? + +Then I observe a new phenomenon: a man gliding here and there +among the bootstrap-lifters, approaching from the rear and +slipping his hands into their pockets. The position of the +spiritual exercisers greatly facilitates his work; their eyes +being cast up to heaven, they do not see him, their thoughts +being occupied, they do not heed him; he goes through their +pockets at leisure, and transfers the contents to a bag he +carries, and then moves on to the next victim. I watch him for a +while, and finally approach and ask, "What are you doing, sir?" + +He answers, "I am picking pockets." + +"Oh," I say, puzzled by his matter-of-course tone. "But--I beg +pardon--are you a thief?" + +"Oh, no," hie answers, smilingly, "I am the agent of the +Wholesale Pickpockets' Association. This is Prosperity." + +"I see," I reply. "And these people let you--" + +"It is the law," he says. "It is also the gospel." + +I turn, following his glance, and observe another person +approaching--a stately figure, clad in scarlet and purple robes, +moving with slow dignity. He gazes about at the sweating and +grunting hordes; now and then he stops and lifts his hands in a +gesture of benediction, and proclaims in rolling tones, "Blessed +are the Bootstrap-lifters, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven." +He moves on, and after a bit stops and announces again, "Man doth +not live by bread alone, but by every word that cometh out of the +mouth of the prophets and priests of Bootstrap-lifting." + +Watching a while longer, I see this majestic one approach the +agent of the Wholesale Pickpockets' Association. The agent greets +him as a friend, and proceeds to transfer to the pockets of his +capacious robes a generous share of the loot which he has +collected. The majestic one does not cringe, nor does he make any +effort to hide what is going on. On the contrary he cries aloud, +"It is more blessed to give than to receive!" And again he cries, +"The laborer is worthy of his hire!" And a third time he cries, +yet more sternly, "Render unto Caesar the things which are +Caesar's!" And the Bootstrap-lifters pause long enough to answer: +"Lord have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep this +law!" Then they renew their straining and tugging. + +I step up, and in timid tones begin, "Reverend sir, will you tell +me by what right you take this wealth?" + +Instantly a frown comes upon his face, and he cries in a voice of +thunder, "Blasphemer!" And all the Bootstrap-lifters desist from +their lifting, and menace me with furious looks. There is a +general call for a policeman of the Wholesale Pickpockets' +Association; and so I fall silent, and slink away in the throng, +and thereafter keep my thoughts to myself. + +Over the vast plain I wander, observing a thousand strange and +incredible and terrifying manifestations of the Bootstrap-lifting +impulse. There is, I discover, a regular propaganda on foot; a +long time ago--no man can recall how far back--the Wholesale +Pickpockets made the discovery of the ease with which a man's +pockets could be rifled while he was preoccupied with spiritual +exercises, and they began offering prizes for the best essays in +support of the practice. Now their propaganda is everywhere +triumphant, and year by year we see an increase in the rewards +and emoluments of the prophets and priests of the cult. The +ground is covered with stately temples of various designs, all of +which I am told are consecrated to Bootstrap-lifting. I come to +where a group of people are occupied in laying the corner-stone +of a new white marble structure; I inquire and am informed it is +the First Church of Bootstrap-lifters, Scientist. As I stand +watching, a card is handed to me, informing me that a lady will +do my Bootstrap-lifting at five dollars per lift. + +I go on to another building, which I am told is a library +containing volumes in defense of the Bootstrap-lifters, published +under the auspices of the Wholesale Pickpockets. I enter, and +find endless vistas of shelves, also several thousand current +magazines and papers. I consult these--for my legs have given out +in the effort to visit and inspect all phases of the +Bootstrap-lifting practice. I discover that hardly a week passes +that some one does not start a new cult, or revive an old one; if +I had a hundred life-times I could not know all the creeds and +ceremonies, the services and rituals, the litanies and liturgies, +the hymns, anthems and offertories of Bootstrap-lifting. There +are the Holy Roman Bootstrap-lifters, whose priests are fed by +Transubstantiation; the established Anglican Bootstrap-lifters, +whose priests live by "livings"; the Baptist Bootstrap-lifters, +whose preachers practice total immersion in Standard Oil. There +are Yogi Bootstrap-lifters with flowing robes of yellow silk; +Theosophist Bootstrap-lifters with green and purple auras; Mormon +Bootstrap-lifters, Mazdaznan Bootstrap-lifters, Spiritualist and +Spirit-Fruit, Millerite and Dowieite, Holy Roller and Holy +Jumper, Come-to-glory negro, Billy Sunday base-ball and Salvation +Army bass-drum Bootstrap-lifters. There are the thousand +varieties of "New Thought" Bootstrap-lifters; the mystic and +transcendentalist, Swedenborgian and Jacob Boehme +Bootstrap-lifters; the Elbert Hubbard high-art Bootstrap-lifters +with half a million magazinelets at two bits apiece; the "uplift" +and "optimist," the Ralph Waldo Trine and Orison Swett Marden +Bootstrap-lifters with a hundred thousand volumes at one dollar +per volume. There are the Platonist and Hegelian and Kantian +professors of collegiate metaphysical Bootstrap-lifting at +several thousand dollars per year each. There are the Nietzschean +Bootstrap-lifters, who lift themselves to the Superman, and the +art-for-art's-sake, neo-Pagan Bootstrap-lifters, who lift +themselves down to the Ape. + +Excepting possibly the last-mentioned group, the priests of all +these cults, the singers, shouters, prayers and exhorters of +Bootstrap-lifting have as their distinguishing characteristic +that they do very little lifting at their own bootstraps, and +less at any other man's. Now and then you may see one bend and +give a delicate tug, of a purely symbolical character: as when +the Supreme Pontiff of the Roman Bootstrap-lifters comes once a +year to wash the feet of the poor; or when the Sunday-school +Superintendent of the Baptist Bootstrap-lifters shakes the hand +of one of his Colorado mine-slaves. But for the most part the +priests and preachers of Bootstrap-lifting walk haughtily erect, +many of them being so swollen with prosperity that they could not +reach their bootstraps if they wanted to. Their role in life is +to exhort other men to more vigorous efforts at self-elevation, +that the agents of the Wholesale Pickpockets' Association may ply +their immemorial role with less chance of interference. + +Religion + +The reader, offended by this raillery, asks if I mean to impugn +the sincerity of all who preach the supremacy of the soul. No; I +admit the honesty of the heroes and madmen of history. All I ask +of the preacher is that he shall make an effort to practice his +doctrine. Let him be tormented like Don Quixote; let him go mad +like Nietzsche; let him stand upon a pillar and be devoured by +worms like Simeon Stylites--on these terms I grant to any dreamer +the right to hold himself above economic science. + +Man is an evasive beast, given to cultivating strange notions +about himself. He is humiliated by his simian ancestry, and tries +to deny his animal nature, to persuade himself that he is not +limited by its weaknesses nor concerned in its fate. And this +impulse may be harmless, when it is genuine. But what are we to +say when we see the formulas of heroic self-deception made use of +by unheroic self-indulgence? What are we to say when we see +asceticism preached to the poor by fat and comfortable retainers +of the rich? What are we to say when we see idealism become +hypocrisy, and the moral and spiritual heritage of mankind +twisted to the knavish purposes of class-cruelty and greed? What +I say is--Bootstrap-lifting! + +It is the fate of many abstract words to be used in two senses, +one good and the other bad. Morality means the will to +righteousness, or it means Anthony Comstock; democracy means the +rule of the people, or it means Tammany Hall. And so it is with +the word "Religion". In its true sense Religion is the most +fundamental of the soul's impulses, the impassioned love of life, +the feeling of its preciousness, the desire to foster and further +it. In that sense every thinking man must be religious; in that +sense Religion is a perpetually self-renewing force, the very +nature of our being. In that sense I have no thought of assailing +it, I would make clear that I hold it beyond assailment. + +But we are denied the pleasure of using the word in that honest +sense, because of another which has been given to it. To the +ordinary man "Religion" means, not the soul's longing for growth, +the "hunger and thirst after righteousness", but certain forms in +which this hunger has manifested itself in history, and prevails +to-day throughout the world; that is to say, institutions having +fixed dogmas and "revelations", creeds and rituals, with an +administering caste claiming supernatural sanction. By such +institutions the moral strivings of the race, the affections of +childhood and the aspirations of youth are made the prerogatives +and stock in trade of ecclesiastical hierarchies. It is the +thesis of this book that "Religion" in this sense is a source of +income to parasites, and the natural ally of every form of +oppression and exploitation. + +If by my jesting at "Bootstrap-lifting" I have wounded some dear +prejudice of the reader, let me endeavor to speak in a more +persuasive voice. I am a man who has suffered, and has seen the +suffering of others; I have devoted my life to analyzing the +causes of the suffering, to find out if it be necessary and +fore-ordained, or if by any chance there be a way of escape for +future generations. I have found that the latter is the case; the +suffering is needless, it can with ease and certainty be banished +from the earth. I know this with the knowledge of science--in the +same way that the navigator of a ship knows his latitude and +longitude, and the point of the compass to which he must steer in +order to reach the port. + +Come, reader, let us put aside prejudice, and the terrors of the +cults of the unknown. The power which made us has given us a +mind, and the impulse to its use; let us see what can be done +with it to rid the earth of its ancient evils. And do not be +troubled if at the outset this book seems to be entirely +"destructive". I assure you that I am no crude materialist, I am +not so shallow as to imagine that our race will be satisfied with +a barren rationalism. I know that the old symbols came out of the +heart of man because they corresponded to certain needs of the +heart of man. I know that new symbols will be found, +corresponding more exactly to the needs of our time. If here I +set to work to tear down an old and ramshackle building, it is +not from blind destructfulness, but as an architect who means to +put a new and sounder structure in its place. Before we part +company, I shall submit the blue print of that new home of the +spirit. + + + +BOOK ONE + +The Church of the Conquerors + + I saw the Conquerors riding by + With trampling feet of horse and men: + Empire on empire like the tide + Flooded the world and ebbed again; + + A thousand banners caught the sun, + And cities smoked along the plain, + And laden down with silk and gold + And heaped up pillage groaned the wain. + Kemp. + + +The Priestly Lie + +When the first savage saw his hut destroyed by a bolt of +lightning, he fell down upon his face in terror. He had no +conception of natural forces, of laws of electricity; he saw this +event as the act of an individual intelligence. To-day we read +about fairies and demons, dryads and fauns and satyrs, Wotan and +Thor and Vulcan, Freie and Flora and Ceres, and we think of all +these as pretty fancies, play-products of the mind; losing sight +of the fact that they were originally meant with entire +seriousness--that not merely did ancient man believe in them, but +was forced to believe in them, because the mind must have an +explanation of things that happen, and an individual intelligence +was the only explanation available. The story of the hero who +slays the devouring dragon was not merely a symbol of day and +night, of summer and winter; it was a literal explanation of the +phenomena, it was the science of early times. + +Men imagined supernatural powers such as they could comprehend. +If the lightning god destroyed a hut, obviously it must be +because the owner of the hut had given offense; so the owner must +placate the god, using those means which would be effective in +the quarrels of men--presents of roast meats and honey and fresh +fruits, of wine and gold and jewels and women, accompanied by +friendly words and gestures of submission. And when in spite of +all things the natural evil did not cease, when the people +continued to die of pestilence, then came the opportunity for +hysterical or ambitious persons to discover new ways of +penetrating the mind of the god. There would be dreamers of +dreams and seers of visions and hearers of voices; readers of the +entrails of beasts and interpreters of the flight of birds; there +would be burning bushes and stone tablets on mountain-tops, and +inspired words dictated to aged disciples on lonely islands. +There would arise special castes of men and women, learned in +these sacred matters; and these priestly castes would naturally +emphasize the importance of their calling, would hold themselves +aloof from the common herd, endowed with special powers and +entitled to special privileges. They would interpret the oracles +in ways favorable to themselves and their order; they would +proclaim themselves friends and confidants of the god, walking +with him in the night-time, receiving his messengers and angels, +acting as his deputies in forgiving offenses, in dealing +punishments and in receiving gifts. They would become makers of +laws and moral codes. They would wear special costumes to +distinguish them, they would go through elaborate ceremonies to +impress their followers, employing all sensuous effects, +architecture and sculpture and painting, music and poetry and +dancing, candles and incense and bells and gongs + + And storied winnows richly dight, + Casting a dim religious light. + There let the pealing organ blow, + To the full-voiced choir below, + In service high and anthem clear, + As may with sweetness through mine ear + Dissolve me into ecstacies, + And bring all heaven before mine eyes. + +So builds itself up, in a thousand complex and complicated forms, +the Priestly Lie. There are a score of great religions in the +world, each with scores or hundreds of sects, each with its +priestly orders, its complicated creed and ritual, its heavens +and hells. Each has its thousands or millions or hundreds of +millions of "true believers"; each damns all the others, with +more or less heartiness--and each is a mighty fortress of Graft. + +There will be few readers of this book who have not been brought +up under the spell of some one of these systems of +Supernaturalism; who have not been taught to speak with respect +of some particular priestly order, to thrill with awe at some +particular sacred rite, to seek respite from earthly woes in some +particular ceremonial spell. These things are woven into our very +fibre in childhood; they are sanctified by memories of joys and +griefs, they are confused with spiritual struggles, they become +part of all that is most vital in our lives. The reader who +wishes to emancipate himself from their thrall will do well to +begin with a study of the beliefs and practices of other sects +than his own--a field where he is free to observe and examine +without fear of sacrilege. Let him look into Madame Blavatsky's +"Secret Doctrine", or her "Isis Unveiled"!--encyclopedias of the +fantastic inventions which terror and longing have wrung out of +the tortured soul of man. Here are mysteries and solemnities, +charms and spells, illuminations and transmigrations, angels and +demons, guides, controls and masters--all of which it is +permissible to refuse to support with gifts. Let the reader then +go to James Freeman Clarke's "Ten Great Religions", and realize +how many billions of humans have lived and died in the solemn +certainty that their welfare on earth and in heaven depended upon +their accepting certain ideas and practicing certain rites, all +mutually exclusive and incompatible, each damning the others and +the followers of the others. So gradually the realization will +come to him that the test of a doctrine about life and its +welfare must be something else than the fact that one was born to +it. + +The Great Fear + +It was not the fault of primitive man that he was ignorant, nor +that his ignorance made him a prey to dread. The traces of his +mental suffering will inspire in us only pity and sympathy; for +Nature is a grim school-mistress, and not all her lessons have +yet been learned. We have a right to scorn and anger only when we +see this dread being diverted from its true function, a stimulus +to a search for knowledge, and made into a means of clamping down +ignorance upon the mind of the race. That this has been the +deliberate policy of institutionalized Religion no candid student +can deny. + +The first thing brought forth by the study of any religion, +ancient or modern, is that it is based upon Fear, born of it, fed +by it--and that it cultivates the source from which its +nourishment is derived. "The fear of divine anger", says Prof. +Jastrow, "runs as an undercurrent through the entire religious +literature of Babylonia and Assyria." In the words of +Tabi-utul-Enlil, King of ancient Nippur: + Who is there that can grasp the will of the gods in heaven? + The plan of a god is full of mystery--who can understand it? + He who is still alive at evening is dead the next morning. +In an instant he is cast into grief, in a moment he is crushed. + +And that cry might be duplicated from almost any page of the +Hebrew scriptures: the only difference being that the Hebrews +combined all their fears into one Great Fear. "The fear of the +Lord is the beginning of wisdom," we are told by Solomon of the +thousand wives; and the Psalmist repeats it. "Dominion and fear +are with Him," cries Job. "How then can any man be just before +God? Or how can he be clean that is born of a woman? Behold, even +the moon hath no brightness, and the stars are not pure in His +sight: How much less man, that is a worm? And the son of man, +which is a worm?" He goes on, in his lyrical rapture, "Sheol is +naked before Him, and Destruction hath no covering. . . . The +pillars of heaven tremble and are astonished at His rebuke. . . . +The thunder of His power who can understand?" That all this is +some of the world's great poetry does not in the least alter the +fact that it is an abasement of the soul, an hysterical +perversion of the facts of life, and a preparation of the mind +for the seeds of Priestcraft. + +The Book of Job has been called a "Wisdom-drama": and what is the +denouement of this drama, what is ancient Hebrew wisdom's last +word about life? "Wherefore I abhor myself," says Job, "and +repent in dust and ashes." The poor fellow has done nothing; we +have been told at the beginning that he "was perfect and upright, +and one that feared God, and eschewed evil." But the Sabeans and +the Chaldeans rob him, and "the fire of God" falls from heaven +and burns up his sheep and his servants, and "a great wind from +the wilderness" kills his sons and daughters; and then his body +becomes covered with boils--a phenomenon caused in part by worry, +and the consequent nervous indigestion, but mainly by excess of +starch and deficiency of mineral salts in the diet. Job, however, +has never heard of the fasting cure for disease, and so he takes +him a potsherd to scrape himself withal, and he sits among the +ashes--a highly unsanitary procedure enforced by his religious +ritual. So naturally he feels like a worm, and abhors himself, +and cries out: "I know that Thou canst do all things, and that no +purpose of Thine can be restrained." By which utter, unreasoning +humility he succeeds in appeasing the Great Fear, and his friends +make a sacrifice of seven bullocks and seven rams--a feast for a +whole templeful of priests--and then "the Lord gave Job twice as +much as he had before. . . . And after this Job lived an hundred +and forty years, and saw his sons and his sons' sons, even four +generations." + +You do not have to look very deeply into this "Wisdom-drama" to +find out whose wisdom it is. Confess your own ignorance and your +own impotence, abandon yourself utterly, and then we, the sacred +Caste, the Keepers of the Holy Secrets, will secure you pardon +and respite--in exchange for fresh meat. Here are verses from a +psalm of the ancient Babylonians, which "heathen" chant is +identical in spirit and purpose with the utterances of Job: + + The Sin that I have wrought, I know not; + The unclean that I have eaten, I know not; + The offense into which I have walked, I know not.... + The lord, in the wrath of his heart, hath regarded me; + The god, in the anger of his heart, hath surrounded me; + A goddess, known or unknown, hath wrought me sorrow.... + I sought for help, but no one took my hand; + I wept, but no one harkened to me.... + The feet of my goddess I kiss, I touch them; + To the god, known or unknown, I utter my prayer; + O god, known or unknown, turn thy countenance, accept my + sacrifice; + O goddess, known or unknown, look mercifully on me! accept + my sacrifice! + + +Salve Regina! + +And now let the reader leap three thousand years of human +history, of toil and triumph of the intellect of man; and instead +of a Hebrew manuscript or a Babylonian brick there confronts him +a little publication, printed on a modern rotary press in the +capital of the United States of America, bearing the date of +October, 1914, and the title "Salve Regina". In it we find "a +beautiful prayer", composed by the late cardinal Rampolla; we are +told that "Pius X attached to it an indulgence of 100 days, each +time it is piously recited, applicable to the souls in +purgatory." + +O Blessed Virgin, Mother of God, cast a glance from Heaven, where +thou sittest as Queen, upon this poor sinner, your servant. +Though conscious of his unworthiness.... he blesses and exalts +thee from his whole heart as the purest, the most beautiful and +the most holy of creatures. He blesses thy holy name. He blesses +thy sublime prerogatives as real Mother of God, ever Virgin, +conceived without stain of sin, as co-Redemptress of the human +race. He blesses the Eternal Father who chose you, etc. He +blesses the Incarnate Word, etc. He blesses the Divine Spirit, +etc. He blesses, exalts and thanks the most august Trinity, etc. +O Virgin, holy and merciful . . . be pleased to accept this +little homage of your servant, and obtain for him also from your +divine Son pardon for his sins, Amen. + +And then, looking more closely, we discover the purpose of this +"beautiful prayer", and of the neat little paper which prints it. +"Salve Regina" is raising funds for the "National Shrine of the +Immaculate Conception", a home for more priests, and Catholic +ladies who desire to collect for it may receive little books +which they are requested to return within three months. Pius X +writes a letter of warm endorsement, and sets an example by +giving four hundred dollars "out of his poverty"--or, to be more +precise, out of the poverty of the pitiful peasantry of Italy. +There is included in the paper a form of bequest for "devoted +clients of Our Blessed Mother", and at the top of the editorial +page the most alluring of all baits for the loving hearts of the +flock--that the names of deceased relatives and friends may be +written in the collection books, and will be transferred to the +records of the Shrine, and these persons "will share in all its +spiritual benefits". In the days of Job it was with threats of +boils and poverty that the Priestly Lie maintained itself; but in +the case of this blackest of all Terrors, transplanted to our +free Republic from the heart of the Dark Ages, the wretched +victims see before their eyes the glare of flames, and hear the +shrieks of their loved ones writhing in torment through uncounted +ages and eternities. + + +Fresh Meat + +In the days when I was experimenting with vegetarianism, I sought +earnestly for evidence of a non-meat-eating race; but candor +compelled me to admit that man was like the monkey and the pig +and the bear--he was vegetarian when he could not help it. The +advocates of the reform insist that meat as a diet causes muddy +brains and dulled nerves; but you would certainly never suspect +this from a study of history. What you find in history is that +all men crave meat, all struggle for it, and the strongest and +cleverest get it. Everywhere you find the subject classes living +in the midst of animals which they tend, but whose flesh they +rarely taste. Even in modern America, sweet land of liberty, our +millions of tenant farmers raise chickens and geese and turkeys, +and hardly venture to consume as much as an egg, but save +everything for the summer-boarder or the buyer from the city. It +would not be too much to say of the cultural records of early man +that they all have to do, directly or indirectly, with the +reserving of fresh meat to the masters. In J. T. Trowbridge's +cheerful tale of the adventures of Captain Seaborn, we are told +by the cannibal priest how idol-worship has ameliorated the +morals of the tribe-- + + For though some warriors of renown + Continue anthropophagous, + 'Tis rare that human flesh goes down + The low-caste man's aesophagus! + +I suspect that we should have to go back to the days of the +cave-man to find the first lover of the flesh-pots who put a +taboo upon meat, and promised supernatural favors to all who +would exercise self-control, and instead of consuming their meat +themselves, would bring it and lay it upon the sacred griddle, or +altar, where the god might come in the night-time and partake of +it. Certainly, at any rate, there are few religions of record in +which such devices do not appear. The early laws of the Hebrews +are more concerned with delicatessen for the priests than with +any other subject whatever. Here, for example, is the way to make +a Nazarite: + +He shall offer his offering up to the Lord, one he lamb of the +first year without blemish for a burnt offering, and one ewe lamb +of the first year without blemish for a sin offering, and one ram +without blemish for peace offerings, and a basket of unleavened +bread, cakes of fine flour mingled with oil, and wafers of +unleavened bread anointed with oil, and their meat offerings. + +And the law goes on to instruct the priests to take certain +choice, parts and "wave them for a wave offering before the Lord: +this is holy for the priest." What was done with the other +portions we are not told; but earlier in this same "Book of +Numbers" we find the general law that + +Every offering of all the holy things of the children of Israel, +which they bring unto the priest, shall be his. And every man's +hallowed things shall be his: whatsoever any man giveth to the +priest, it shall be his. + +In the same way we are told by Viscount Amberley that the priests +of Ceylon first present the gifts to the god, and then eat them. +Among the Parsees, when a man dies, the relatives must bring four +new robes to the priests; if they do this, the priests wear the +robes; if they fail to do it, the dead man appears naked before +the judgment-throne. The devotees are instructed that "he who +performs this rite succeeds in both worlds, and obtains a firm +footing in both worlds." Among the Buddhists, the followers give +alms to the monks, and are told specifically what advantages will +thereby accrue to them. In the Aitareyo Brahmairiarn of the +Rig-Veda we read + +He who, knowing this, sacrifices according to this rite, is born +from the womb of Agni and the offerings, participates in the +nature of the Rik, Yajus, and Saman, the Veda (sacred knowledge), +the Brahma (sacred element) and immortality, and is absorbed into +the deity. + +Among the Parsees the priest eats the bread and drinks the haoma, +or juice of a plant, considered to be both a plant and a god. +Among the Episcopalians, a contemporary Christian sect, the +sacred juice is that of the grape, and the priest is not allowed +to throw away what is left of it, but is ordered "reverently to +consume it." In as much as the priest is the sole judge of how +much good sherry wine he shall consecrate previous to the +ceremony, it is to be expected that the priests of this cult +should be lukewarm towards the prohibition movement, and should +piously refuse to administer their sacrament with unfermented and +uninteresting grape-juice. + + +Priestly Empires + +In every human society of which we have record there has been one +class which has done the hard and exhausting work, the "hewers of +wood and drawers of water"; and there has been another, much +smaller class which has done the directing. To belong to this +latter class is to work also, but with the head instead of the +hands; it is also to enjoy the good things of life, to live in +the best houses, to eat the best food, to have choice of the most +desirable women; it is to have leisure to cultivate the mind and +appreciate the arts, to acquire graces and distinctions, to give +laws and moral codes, to shape fashions and tastes, to be revered +and regarded--in short, to have Power. How to get this Power and +to hold it has been the first object of the thoughts of men from +the beginning of time. + +The most obvious method is by the sword; but this method is +uncertain, for any man may take up a sword, and some may succeed +with it. It will be found that empires based upon military force +alone, however cruel they may be, are not permanent, and +therefore not so dangerous to progress; it is only when +resistance is paralyzed by the agency of Superstition, that the +race can be subjected to systems of exploitation for hundreds and +even thousands of years. The ancient empires were all priestly +empires; the kings ruled because they obeyed the will of the +priests, taught to them from childhood as the word of the gods. + +Thus, for instance, Prescott tells us: + +Terror, not love, was the spring of education with the Aztecs.... +Such was the crafty policy of the priests, who, by reserving to +themselves the business of instruction, were enabled to mould the +young and plastic mind according to their own wills, and to train +it early to implicit reverence for religion and its ministers. + +The historian goes on to indicate the economic harvest of this +teaching: + +To each of the principal temples, lands were annexed for the +maintenance of the priests. The estates were augmented by the +policy or devotion of successive princes, until, under the last +Montezuma, they had swollen to an enormous extent, and covered +every district of the empire. + +And this concerning the frightful system of human sacrifices, +whereby the priestly caste maintained the prestige of its +divinities: + +At the dedication of the temple of Huitzilopochtli, in 1486, the +prisoners, who for some years had been reserved for the purpose, +were ranged in files, forming a procession nearly two miles long. +The ceremony consumed several days, and seventy thousand captives +are said to have perished at the shrine of this terrible deity. + +The same system appears in Professor Jastrow's account of the +priesthood of Babylonia and Assyria: + +The ultimate source of all law being the deity himself, the +original legal tribunal was the place where the image or symbol +of the god stood. A legal decision was an oracle or omen, +indicative of the will of the god. The power thus lodged in the +priests of Babylonia and Assyria was enormous. They virtually +held in their hands the life and death of the people. + +And of the business side of this vast religious system: + +The temples were the natural depositories of the legal archives, +which in the course of centuries grew to veritably enormous +proportions. Records were made of all decisions; the facts were +set forth, and duly attested by witnesses. Business and marriage +contracts, loans and deeds of sale were in like manner drawn up +in the presence of official scribes, who were also priests. In +this way all commercial transactions received the written +sanction of the religious organization. The temples +themselves--at least in the large centres--entered into business +relations with the populace. In order to maintain the large +household represented by such an organization as that of the +temple of Enlil of Nippur, that of Ningirsu at Lagash, that of +Marduk at Babylon, or that of Shamash at Sippar, large holdings +of land were required which, cultivated by agents for the +priests, or farmed out with stipulations for a goodly share of +the produce, secured an income for the maintenance of the temple +officials. The enterprise of the temples was expanded to the +furnishing of loans at interest--in later periods, at 20%--to +barter in slaves, to dealings in lands, besides engaging labor +for work of all kinds directly needed for the temples. A large +quantity of the business documents found in the temple archives +are concerned with the business affairs of the temple, and we are +justified in including the temples in the large centres as among +the most important business institutions of the country. In +financial or monetary transactions the position of the temples +was not unlike that of national banks. . . . + +And so on. We may venture the guess that the learned professor +said more in that last sentence than he himself intended, for his +lectures were delivered in that temple of plutocracy, the +University of Pennsylvania, and paid out of an endowment which +specifies that "all polemical subjects shall be positively +excluded!" + + +Prayer-wheels + +These priestly empires exist in the world today. If we wish to +find them we have only to ask ourselves: What countries are +making no contribution to the progress of the race? What +countries have nothing to give us, whether in art, science, or +industry? + +For example, Gervaise tells us of the Talapoins, or priests of +Siam, that "they are exempted from all public charges, they +salute nobody, while everybody prostrates himself before them. +They are maintained at the public expense." In the same way we +read of the negroes of the Caribbean islands that "their priests +and priestesses exercise an almost unlimited power." Miss +Kingsley, in her "West African Studies", tells us that if we +desire to understand the institutions of this district, we must +study the native's religion. + +For his religion has so firm a grasp upon his mind that it +influences everything he does. It is not a thing apart, as the +religion of the Europeans is at times. The African cannot say, +"Oh, that is all right from a religious point of view, but one +must be practical." To be practical, to get on in the world, to +live the day and night through, he must be right in the religious +point of view, namely, must be on working terms with the great +world of spirits around him. The knowledge of this spirit world +constitutes the religion of the African, and his customs and +ceremonies arise from his idea of the best way to influence it. + +Or consider Henry Savage Landor's account of Thibet: + +In Lhassa and many other sacred places fanatical pilgrims make +circumambulations, sometimes for miles and miles, and for days +together, covering the entire distance lying flat upon their +bodies.... From the ceiling of the temple hang hundreds of long +strips, katas, offered by pilgrims to the temple, and becoming so +many flying prayers when hung up--for mechanical praying in every +way is prominent in Thibet.... Thus instead of having to learn by +heart long and varied prayers, all you have to do is to stuff the +entire prayer-book into a prayer-wheel, and revolve it while +repeating as fast as you can four words meaning, "O God, the gem +emerging from the lotus-flower.". . . . The attention of the +pilgrims is directed to a large box, or often a big bowl, where +they may deposit whatever offerings they can spare, and it must +be said that their religious ideas are so strongly developed that +they will dispose of a considerable portion of their money in +this fashion.... The Lamas are very clever in many ways, and have +a great hold over the entire country. They are ninety per cent of +them unscrupulous scamps, depraved in every way and given to +every sort of vice. So are the women Lamas. They live and sponge +on the credulity and ignorance of the crowds; it is to maintain +this ignorance, upon which their luxurious life depends, that +foreign influence of every kind is strictly kept out of the +country. + + +The Butcher-Gods + +In this last sentence we have summed up the fundamental fact +about institutionalized religion. Wherever belief and ritual have +become the means of livelihood of a class, all innovation will of +necessity be taken as an attack upon that class; it will be +literally a crime--robbing the priests of their age-long +privileges. And of course they will oppose the robber--using +every weapon of terrorism, both of this world and the next. They +will require the submission, not merely of their own people, but +of their neighbors, and their jealousy of rival priestly castes +will be a cause of wars. The story of the early days of mankind +is a sickening record of torture and slaughter in the name of ten +thousand butcher-gods. + +Thus, for example, we read in the Hebrew religious records how +the priests were engaged in establishing the prestige of a fetish +called "the ark"; and how the people of one tribe violated this +fetish and wakened the wrath of Jehovah, the god. + +And he smote the men of Beth-shemesh, because they had looked +into the ark of the Lord, even he smote of the people fifty +thousand and three score and ten men; and the people lamented, +because the Lord had smitten many of the people with a great +slaughter. And the men of Beth-shemesh said, Who is able to stand +before this holy Lord God? + +This terrible old Hebrew divinity said of himself that he was "a +jealous god". Throughout the time of his sway he issued through +his ministers precise instructions for the most revolting +cruelties, the extermination of whole nations of men, women and +children, whose sole offense was that they did not pay tribute to +Jehovah's priests. Thus, for example, the chief of his prophets, +Moses, called the people together, and with all solemnity, and +with many warnings, handed down ten commandments graven upon +stone tablets; he went on to set forth how the people were to set +upon and rob their neighbors, and gave them these blood-thirsty +instructions: + +When the Lord thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou +goest to possess it, and hath cast out many nations before thee, +the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the +Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the +Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than thou; And when +the Lord thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou shalt smite +them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with +them, nor shew mercy unto them: ... But thus shall ye deal with +them; ye shall destroy their altars, and break down their images, +and cut down their groves, and burn their graven images with +fire. For thou art a holy people unto the Lord thy God: the Lord +thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, +above all people that are upon the face of the earth. + +The records of this Jehovah are full of similar horrors. He sent +his chosen people out to destroy the Midianites, and they slew +all the males, but this was not sufficient, and Moses was wroth, +and commanded them to kill all the married women, and to take the +single women "for themselves". We are told that sixteen thousand +single women were spared, of whom "the Lord's tribute was thirty +and two!" In the Book of Joshua we read that he had an interview +with a supernatural personage called "the captain of the Lord's +host", and how this captain had given to him a magic spell which +would destroy the city of Jericho. The city should be accursed, +"even it and all that are therein, to the Lord"; every living +thing except one traitor-harlot was to be slaughtered, and all +the wealth of the city reserved to the priestly caste. This was +carried out to the letter, except that "Achan, the son of Carmi, +the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took +of the accursed thing"--that is, he hid some gold and silver in +his tent; whereupon the army met with a defeat, and everybody +knew that something was wrong, and Joshua rent his clothes and +fell to the earth upon his face before the ark of the Lord, and +got another message from Jehovah, to the effect that the guilty +man should be burned with fire, "he and all that he hath." + +And Joshua, and all Israel with him, took Achan the son of Zerah, +and the silver, and the garment, and the wedge of gold, and his +sons, and his daughters, and his oxen, and his asses, and his +sheep, and his tent, and all that he had: and they brought them +unto the Valley of Achor. And Joshua said, Why hast thou troubled +us? the Lord shall trouble thee this day. And all Israel stoned +him with stones, and burned them with fire, after they had stoned +him with stones. + +We have no means of knowing what was the character of the +unfortunate inhabitants of the city of Jericho, nor of the +Hittites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and all the rest of +the victims of Jehovah. To be sure, we are told by the Hebrew +priests that they sacrificed their children to their gods; but +then, consider what we should believe about the Hebrew religion, +if we took the word of rival priestly castes! Consider, for +example, that in this twentieth century we saw an orthodox Jew +tried in a Russian court of law for having made a sacrifice of +Christian babies; nevertheless we know that the Jews represent a +considerable part of the intelligence and idealism of Russia. We +know in the same way that the Moors had most of the culture and +all of the scientific knowledge of Spain; that the Huguenots had +most of the conscience and industry of France; and we know that +they were massacred or driven out to death by the priestly castes +of the Middle Ages. + + +The Holy Inquisition + +Let us have one glimpse of the conditions in those mediaeval +times, so that we may know what we ourselves have escaped. In the +fifteenth century there was established in Europe the cult of a +three-headed god, whose priests had won lordship over a +continent. They were enormously wealthy, and unthinkably corrupt; +they sold to the rich the license to commit every possible crime, +and they held the poor in ignorance and degradation. Among the +comparatively intelligent and freedom-loving people of Bohemia +there arose a great reformer, John Huss, himself a priest, +protesting against the corruptions of his order. They trapped him +into their power by means of a "safe-conduct"--which they +repudiated because no promise to a heretic could have validity. +They found him guilty of having taught the hateful doctrine that +a priest who committed crimes could not give absolution for the +crimes of others; and they held an auto de fe--which means a +"sentence of faith." As we read in Lea's "History of the +Inquisition": + +The cathedral of Constance was crowded with Sigismund (the +Emperor) and his nobles, the great officers of the empire with +their insignia, the prelates in their splendid robes. While mass +was sung, Huss, as an excommunicate, was kept waiting at the +door; when brought in he was placed on an elevated bench by a +table on which stood a coffer containing priestly vestments. +After some preliminaries, including a sermon by the Bishop of +Lodi, in which he assured Sigismund that the events of that day +would confer on him immortal glory, the articles of which Huss +was convicted were recited. In vain he protested that he believed +in transubstantiation and in the validity of the sacrament in +polluted hands. He was ordered to hold his tongue, and on his +persisting the beadles were told to silence him, but in spite of +this he continued to utter protests. The sentence was then read +in the name of the council, condemning him both for his written +errors and those which had been proven by witnesses. He was +declared a pertinacious and incorrigible heretic who did not +desire to return to the Church; his books were ordered to be +burned, and himself to be degraded from the priesthood and +abandoned to the secular court. Seven bishops arrayed him in +priestly garb and warned him to recant while yet there was time. +He turned to the crowd, and with broken voice declared that he +could not confess the errors which he never entertained, lest he +should lie to God, when the bishops interrupted him, crying that +they had waited long enough, for he was obstinate in his heresy. +He was degraded in the usual manner, stripped of his sacerdotal +vestments, his fingers scraped; but when the tonsure was to be +disposed of, an absurd quarrel arose among the bishops as to +whether the head should be shaved with a razor or the tonsure be +destroyed with scissors. Scissors won the day, and a cross was +cut in his hair. Then on his head was placed a conical paper cap, +a cubit in height, adorned with painted devils and the +inscription, "This is the heresiarch." + +The place of execution was a meadow near the river, to which he +was conducted by two thousand armed men, with Palsgrave Louis at +their head, and a vast crowd, including many nobles, prelates, +and cardinals. The route followed was circuitous, in order that +he might be carried past the episcopal palace, in front of which +his books were burning, whereat he smiled. Pity from man there +was none to look for, but he sought comfort on high, repeating to +himself, "Christ Jesus, Son of the living God, have mercy upon +us!" and when he came in sight of the stake he fell on his knees +and prayed. He was asked if he wished to confess, and said that +he would gladly do so if there were space. A wide circle was +formed, and Ulrich Schorand, who, according to custom, had been +providently empowered to take advantage of final weakening, came +forward, saying, "Dear sir and master, if you will recant your +unbelief and heresy, for which you must suffer, I will willingly +hear your confession; but if you will not, you know right well +that, according to canon law, no one can administer the sacrament +to a heretic." To this Huss answered, "It is not necessary: I am +not a mortal sinner." His paper crown fell off and he smiled as +his guards replaced it. He desired to take leave of his keepers, +and when they were brought to him he thanked them for their +kindness, saying that they had been to him rather brothers than +jailers. Then he commenced to address the crowd in German, +telling them that he suffered for errors which he did not hold, +and he was cut short. When bound to the stake, two cartloads of +fagots and straw were piled up around him, and the palsgrave and +vogt for the last time adjured him to abjure. Even yet he could +save himself, but only repeated that he had been convicted by +false witnesses on errors never entertained by him. They clapped +their hands and then withdrew, and the executioners applied the +fire. Twice Huss was heard to exclaim, "Christ Jesus, Son of the +living God, have mercy upon me!" then a wind springing up and +blowing the flames and smoke into his face checked further +utterances, but his head was seen to shake and his lips to move +while one might twice or thrice recite a paternoster. The tragedy +was over; the sorely-tried soul bad escaped from its tormentors, +and the bitterest enemies of the reformer could not refuse to him +the praise that no philosopher of old had faced death with more +composure than he had shown in his dreadful extremity. No +faltering of the voice had betrayed an internal struggle. +Palsgrave Louis, seeing Huss's mantle on the arm of one of the +executioners, ordered it thrown into the flames lest it should be +reverenced as a relic, and promised the man to compensate him. +With the same view the body was carefully reduced to ashes and +thrown into the Rhine, and even the earth around the stake was +dug up and carted off; yet the Bohemians long hovered around the +spot and carried home fragments of the neighboring clay, which +they reverenced as relies of their martyr. The next day thanks +were returned to God in a solemn procession in which figured +Sigismund and his queen, the princes and nobles, nineteen +cardinals, two patriarchs, seventy-seven bishops, and all the +clergy of the council. A few days later Sigismund, who had +delayed his departure for Spain to see the matter concluded, left +Constance, feeling that his work was done. + + +Hell-Fire + +If such a scene could be witnessed in the world today, it would +only be in some remote and wholly savage place, such as the +mountains of Hayti, or the Solomon Islands. It could no longer +happen in any civilized country; the reason being, not any +abatement of the pretensions of the priesthood, but solely the +power of science, embodied in the physical arm of a secular +State. The advance of that arm the church has fought +systematically, in every country, and at every point. To quote +Buckle: "A careful study of the history of religious toleration +will prove that in every Christian country where it has been +adopted, it has been forced upon the clergy by the authority of +the secular classes." The wolf of superstition has been driven +into its lair; but it has backed away snarling, and it still +crouches, watching for a chance to spring. The Church which +burned John Huss, which burned Giordano Bruno for teaching that +the earth moves round the sun--that same church, in the name of +the same three-headed god, sent out Francesco Ferrer to the +firing-squad; if it does not do the same thing to the author of +this book, it will be solely because of the police. Not being +allowed to burn me here, the clergy will vent their holy +indignation by sentencing me to eternal burning in a future world +which they have created, and which they run to suit themselves. + +It is a fact, the significance of which cannot be exaggerated, +that the measure of the civilization which any nation has +attained is the extent to which it has curtailed the power of +institutionalized religion. Those peoples which are wholly under +the sway of the priesthood, such as Thibetans and Koreans, +Siamese and Caribbeans, are peoples among whom the intellectual +life does not exist. Farther in advance are Hindoos, and Turks, +who are religious, but not exclusively. Still farther on the way +are Spaniards and Irish; here, for example, is a flashlight of +the Irish peasantry, given by one of their number, Patrick +MacGill: + +The merchant was a great friend of the parish priest, who always +told the people if they did not pay their debts they would burn +for ever and ever in hell. "The fires of eternity will make you +sorry for the debts that you did not pay," said the priest. "What +is eternity?" he would ask in a solemn voice from the altar +steps. "If a man tried to count the sands on the sea-shore and +took a million years to count every single grain, how long would +it take him to count them all? A long time, you'll say. But that +time is nothing to eternity. Just think of it! Burning in hell +while a man, taking a million years to count a grain of sand, +counts all the sand on the sea-shore. And this because you did +not pay Farley McKeown his lawful debts, his lawful debts within +the letter of the law." That concluding phrase, "within the +letter of the law," struck terror into all who listened, and no +one, maybe not even the priest himself, knew what it meant. + +There is light in Ireland to-day, and hope for an Irish culture; +the thing to be noted is that it comes from two movements, one +for agricultural co-operation and the other for political +independence--both of them definitely and specifically +non-religious. This same thing has been true of the movements +which have helped on happier nations, such as the republics of +France and America, which have put an end to the power of the +priestly caste to take property by force, and to dominate the +mind of the child without its parents' consent. + +This is as far as any nation has so far gone; it has apparently +not yet occurred to any legislature that the State may owe a duty +to the child to protect its mind from being poisoned, even though +it has the misfortune to be born of poisoned parents. It is still +permitted that parents should terrify their little ones with +images of a personal devil and a hell of eternal brimstone and +sulphur; it is permitted to found schools for the teaching of +devil-doctrines; it is permitted to organize gigantic campaigns +and systematically to infect whole cities full of men, women and +children with hell-fire phobias. In the American city where I +write one may see gatherings of people sunk upon their knees, +even rolling on the ground in convulsions, moaning, sobbing, +screaming to be delivered from such torments. I open my morning +paper and read of the arrest of five men and seven women in Los +Angeles, members of a sect known as the "Church of the Living +God", upon a charge of having disturbed the peace of their +neighbors. The police officers testified that the accused claimed +to be possessed of the divine spirit, and that as signs of this +possession they "crawled on the floor, grunted like pigs and +barked like dogs." There were "other acts, even more startling", +about which the newspapers did not go into details. And again, a +week or two later, I read how a woman has been heard screaming, +and found tied to a bedpost, being whipped by a man. She belonged +to a religious sect which had found her guilty of witchcraft. +Another woman was about to shoot her, but this woman's nerve +failed, and the "high priest" was called in, who decreed a +whipping. The victim explained to the police that she would have +deserved to be whipped had she really been a witch, but a mistake +had been made--it was another woman who was the witch. And again +in the Los Angeles "Times" I read a perfectly serious news item, +telling how a certain man awakened one morning, and found on his +pillow where his head had lain a perfect reproduction of the head +of Christ with its crown of thorns. He called in his neighbors to +witness the miracle, and declared that while he was not +superstitious, he knew that such a thing could not have happened +by chance, and he knew what it was intended to signify--he would +buy more Liberty Bonds and be more ardent in his support of the +war! + +And this is the world in which our scientists and men of culture +think that the battle of the intellect is won, and that it is no +longer necessary to spend our energies in fighting "Religion!" + + + +BOOK TWO + +The Church of Good Society + + Within the House of Mammon his priesthood stands alert + By mysteries attended, by dusk and splendors girt, + Knowing, for faiths departed, his own shall still endure, + And they be found his chosen, untroubled, solemn, sure. + + Within the House of Mammon the golden altar lifts + Where dragon-lamps are shrouded as costly incense drifts-- + A dust of old ideals, now fragrant from the coals, + To tell of hopes long-ended, to tell the death of souls + Sterling. + +The Rain Makers + +I begin with the Church of Good Society, because it happens to be +the Church in which I was brought up. Reading this statement, +some of my readers suspected me of snobbish pride. I search my +heart; yes, it brings a hidden thrill that as far back as I can +remember I knew this atmosphere of urbanity, that twice every +Sunday those melodious and hypnotizing incantations were chanted +in my childish ears! I take up the book of ritual, done in +aristocratic black leather with gold lettering, and the old worn +volume brings me strange stirrings of recollected awe. But I +endeavor to repress these vestigial emotions and to see the +volume--not as a message from God to Good Society, but as a +landmark of man's age-long struggle against myth and dogma used +as a source of income and a shield to privilege. + +In the beginning, of course, the priest and the magician ruled +the field. But today, as I examine this "Book of Common Prayer", +I discover that there is at least one spot out of which he has +been cleared entirely; there appears no prayer to planets to +stand still, or to comets to go away. The "Church of Good +Society" has discovered astronomy! But if any astronomer +attributes this to his instruments with their marvelous accuracy, +let him at least stop to consider my "economic interpretation" of +the phenomenon--the fact that the heavenly bodies affect the +destinies of mankind so little that there has not been sufficient +emolument to justify the priest in holding on to his job as +astrologer. + +But when you come to the field of meteorology, what a difference! +Has any utmost precision of barometer been able to drive the +priest out of his prerogatives as rainmaker? Not even in the most +civilized of countries; not in that most decorous and dignified +of institutions, the Protestant Episcopal Church of America! I +study with care the passage wherein the clergyman appears as +controller of the fate of crops. I note a chastened caution of +phraseology; the church will not repeat the experience of the +sorcerer's apprentice, who set the demons to bringing water, and +then could not make them stop! The spell invokes "moderate rain +and showers"; and as an additional precaution there is a +counter-spell against "excessive rains and floods": the +weather-faucet being thus under exact control. + +I turn the pages of this "Book of Common Prayer", and note the +remnants of magic which it contains. There are not many of the +emergencies of life with which the priest is not authorized to +deal; not many natural phenomena for which he may not claim the +credit. And in case anything should have been overlooked, there +is a blanket order upon Providence: "Graciously hear us, that +those evils which the craft or subtilty of the devil or man +worketh against us, be brought to nought!" I am reminded of the +idea which haunted my childhood, reading fairy-stories about the +hero who was allowed three wishes that would come true. I could +never understand why the hero did not settle the matter once for +all--by wishing that everything he wished might come true! + +Most of these incantations are harmless, and some are amiable; +but now and then you come upon one which is sinister in its +implications. The volume before me happens to be of the Church of +England, which is even more forthright in its confronting of the +Great Magic. Many years ago I remember talking with an English +army officer, asking how he could feel sure of his soldiers in +case of labor strikes; did it never occur to him that the men had +relatives among the workers, and might some time refuse to shoot +them? His answer was that he was aware of it, the military had +worked out its technique with care. He would never think of +ordering his men to fire upon a mob in cold blood; he would first +start the spell of discipline to work, he would march them round +the block, and get them in the swing, get their blood moving to +military music; then, when he gave the order, in they would go. I +have never forgotten the gesture, the animation with which he +illustrated their going--I could hear the grunting of bayonets in +the flesh of men. The social system prevailing in England has +made necessary the perfecting of such military technique; also, +you discover, English piety has made necessary the providing of a +religious sanction for it. After the job has been done, and the +bayonets have been wiped clean, the company is marched to church, +and the officer kneels in his family pew, and the privates kneel +with the parlor-maids, and the clergyman raises his hands to +heaven and intones: "We bless thy Holy Name, that it hath pleased +Thee to appease the seditious tumults which have been lately +raised up among us!" + +And sometimes the clergyman does more than bless the killers--he +even takes part in their bloody work. In the Home Office Records +of the British Government I read (vol 40, page 17) how certain +miners were on strike against low wages and the "truck" system, +and the Vicar of Abergavenny put himself at the head of the +yeomanry and the Greys. He wrote the Home Office a lively account +of his military operations. All that remained was to apprehend +certain of the strikers, "and then I shall be able to return to +my Clerical duties." Later he wrote of the "sinister influences" +which kept the miners from returning to their work, and how he +had put half a dozen of the most obstinate in prison. + + +The Babylonian Fire-god + +So we come to the most important of the functions of the tribal +god, as an ally in war, an inspirer to martial valour. When in +ancient Babylonia you wished to overcome your enemies, you went +to the shrine of the Firegod, and with awful rites the priest +pronounced incantations, which have been preserved on bricks and +handed down for the use of modern churches. "Pronounce in a +whisper, and have a bronze image therewith," commands the ancient +text, and runs on for many strophes in this fashion: + + Let them die, but let me live! + Let them be put under a ban, but let me prosper! + Let them perish, but let me increase! + Let them become weak, but let me wax strong! + O, fire-god, mighty, exalted among the gods, + Thou art the god, thou art my lord, etc. + +This was in heathen Babylon, some three thousand years ago. Since +then, the world has moved on-- + + Three thousand years of war and peace and glory, + Of hope and work and deeds and golden schemes, + Of mighty voices raised in song and story, +Of huge inventions and of splendid dreams-- + +And in one of the world's leading nations the people stand up and +bare their heads, and sing to their god to save their king and +punish those who oppose him-- + + O Lord our God, arise, Scatter his enemies, + And make them fall; + Confound their politics, + Frustrate their knavish tricks, + On him our hopes we fix, + God save us all. + +Recently, I understand, it has become the custom to omit this +stanza from the English national anthem; but it is clear that +this is because of its crudity of expression, not because of +objection to the idea of praying to a god to assist one nation +and injure others; for the same sentiment is expressed again and +again in the most carefully edited of prayer-books: + +Abate their pride, assuage their malice, and confound their +devices. +Defend us, Thy humble servants, in all assaults of our enemies. +Strengthen him (the King) that he may vanquish and overcome +all his enemies. +There is none other that fighteth for us, but only Thou, O God. + +Prayers such as these are pronounced in every so-called civilized +nation today. Behind every battle-line in Europe you may see the +priests of the Babylonian Fire-god with their bronze images and +their ancient incantations; you may see magic spells being +wrought, magic standards sanctified, magic bread eaten and magic +wine drunk, fetishes blessed and hoodoos lifted, eternity +ransacked to find means of inciting soldiers to the mood where +they will "go in". Throughout all civilization, the phobias and +manias of war have thrown the people back into the toils of the +priest, and that church which tortured Galileo in the dungeons of +the Inquisition, and shot Ferrier beneath the walls of the +fortress of Montjuich, is rejoicing in a "rebirth of religion". + +The Medicine-men + + +Andrew D. White tells us that + +It was noted that in the 14th century, after the great plague, +the Black Death, had passed, an immensely increased proportion of +the landed and personal property of every European country was in +the hands of the Church. Well did a great ecclesiastic remark that +"pestilences are the harvests of the ministers of God." + +And so naturally the clergy hold on to their prerogative as +banishers of epidemics. Who knows what day the Lord may see fit +to rebuke the upstart teachers of impious and atheistical +inoculation, and scourge the people back into His fold as in the +good old days of Moses and Aaron? Viscount Amberley, in his +immensely learned and half-suppressed work, "The Analysis of +Religious Belief", quotes some missionaries to the Fiji +islanders, concerning the ideas of these benighted heathen on the +subject of a pestilence. It was the work of a "disease-maker", +who was burning images of the people with incantations; so they +blew horns to frighten this disease-maker from his spells. The +missionaries undertook to explain the true cause of the +affliction--and thereby revealed that they stood upon the same +intellectual level as the heathen they were supposed to instruct! +It appeared that the natives had been at war with their +neighbors, and the missionaries had commanded them to desist; +they had refused to obey, and God had sent the epidemic as +punishment for savage presumption! + +And on precisely this same Fijian level stands the "Book of +Common Prayer" of our most decorous and cultured of churches. I +remember as a little child lying on a bed of sickness, occasioned +by the prevalence in our home of the Southern custom of hot bread +three times a day; and there came an amiable clerical gentleman +and recited the service proper to such pastoral calls: "Take +therefore in good part the visitation of the Lord!" And again, +when my mother was ill, I remember how the clergyman read out in +church a prayer for her, specifying all sickness, "in mind, body +or estate". I was thinking only of my mother, and the meaning of +these words passed over my childish head; I did not realize that +the elderly plutocrat in black broadcloth who knelt in the pew in +front of me was invoking the aid of the Almighty so that his +tenements might bring in their rentals promptly; so that his +little "flyer" in cotton might prove successful; so that the +children in his mills might work with greater speed. + +Somebody asked Voltaire if you could kill a cow by incantations, +and he answered, "Yes, if you use a little strychnine with it." +And that would seem to be the attitude of the present-day +Anglican church-member; he calls in the best physician he knows, +he makes sure that his plumbing is sound, and after that he +thinks it can do no harm to let the Lord have a chance. It makes +the women happy, and after all, there are a lot of things we +don't yet know about the world. So he repairs to the family pew, +and recites over the venerable prayers, and contributes his mite +to the maintenance of an institution which, fourteen Sundays +every year, proclaims the terrifying menaces of the Athanasian +Creed: + +Whoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he +hold the Catholick faith. Which faith, except one do keep whole +and undefiled; without doubt he shall perish everlastingly. + +For the benefit of the uninitiated reader, it may be explained +that the "Catholick faith" here referred to is not the Roman +Catholic, but that of the Church of England and the Protestant +Episcopal Church of America. This creed of the ancient +Alexandrian lays down the truth with grim and menacing +precision--forty-four paragraphs of metaphysical minutiae, +closing with the final doom: "This is the Catholick faith: which +except a man believe faithfully, he cannot be saved." + +You see, the founders of this august institution were not content +with cultured complacency; what they believed they believed +really, with their whole hearts, and they were ready to act upon +it, even if it meant burning their own at the stake. Also, they +knew the ceaseless impulse of the mind to grow; the terrible +temptation which confronts each new generation to believe that +which is reasonable. They met the situation by setting out the +true faith in words which no one could mistake. They have +provided, not merely the Creed of Athanasius, but also the +"Thirty-nine Articles"--which are thirty-nine separate and +binding guarantees that one who holds orders in the Episcopal +Church shall be either a man of inferior mentality, or else a +sophist and hypocrite. How desperate some of them have become in +the face of this cruel dilemma is illustrated by the tale which +is told of Dr. Jowett, of Balliol College, Oxford: that when he +was required to recite the "Apostle's Creed" in public, he would +save himself by inserting the words "used" between the words "I +believe", saying the inserted words under his breath, thus, "I +used to believe in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost." +Perhaps the eminent divine never did this; but the fact that his +students told it, and thought it funny, is sufficient indication +of their attitude toward their "Religion." The son of William +George Ward tells in his biography how this leader of the +"Tractarian Movement" met the problem with cynicism which seems +almost sublime: "Make yourself clear that you are justified in +deception; and then lie like a trooper!" + + +The Canonization of Incompetence + +The supreme crime of the church to-day is that everywhere and in +all its operations and influences it is on the side of sloth of +mind; that it banishes brains, it sanctifies stupidity, it +canonizes incompetence. Consider the power of the Church of +England and its favorite daughter here in America; consider their +prestige with the press and in politics, their hold upon +literature and the arts, their control of education and the minds +of children, of charity and the lives of the poor: consider all +this, and then say what it means to society that such a power +must be, in every new issue that arises, on the side of reaction +and falsehood. "So it was in the beginning, is now, and ever +shall be," runs the church's formula; and this per se and a +priori, of necessity and in the nature of the case. + +Turn over the pages of history and read the damning record of the +church's opposition to every advance in every field of science, +even the most remote from theological concern. Here is the +Reverend Edward Massey, preaching in 1772 on "The Dangerous and +Sinful Practice of Inoculation"; declaring that Job's distemper +was probably confluent small-pox; that he had been inoculated +doubtless by the devil; that diseases are sent by Providence for +the punishment of sin; and that the proposed attempt to prevent +them is "a diabolical operation". Here are the Scotch clergy of +the middle of the nineteenth century denouncing the use of +chloroform in obstetrics, because it is seeking "to avoid one +part of the primeval curse on woman". Here is Bishop Wilberforce +of Oxford anathematizing Darwin: "The principle of natural +selection is absolutely incompatible with the word of God"; it +"contradicts the revealed relation of creation to its creator"; +it "is inconsistent with the fulness of His glory"; it is "a +dishonoring view of nature". And the Bishop settled the matter by +asking Huxley whether he was descended from an ape through his +grandmother or grandfather. + +Think what it means, friends of progress, that these +ecclesiastical figures should be set up for the reverence of the +populace, and that every time mankind is to make an advance in +power over Nature, the pioneers of thought have to come with +crow-bars and derricks and heave these figures out of the way! +And you think that conditions are changed to-day? But consider +syphilis and gonorrhea, about which we know so much, and can do +almost nothing; consider birth-control, which we are sent to jail +for so much as mentioning! Consider the divorce reforms for which +the world is crying--and for which it must wait, because of St. +Paul! Realize that up to date it has proven impossible to +persuade the English Church to permit a man to marry his deceased +wife's sister! That when the war broke upon England the whole +nation was occupied with a squabble over the disestablishment of +the church of Wales! Only since 1888 has it been legally possible +for an unbeliever to hold a seat in Parliament; while up to the +present day men are tried for blasphemy and convicted under the +decisions of Lord Hale, to the effect that "it is a crime either +to deny the truth of the fundamental doctrines of the Christian +religion or to hold them up to contempt or ridicule." Said Mr. +justice Horridge, at the West Riding Assizes, 1911: "A man is not +free in any public place to use common ridicule on subjects which +are sacred." + +The purpose, as outlined by the public prosecutor in London, is +"to preserve the standard of outward decency." And you will find +that the one essential to prosecution is always that the victim +shall be obscure and helpless; never by any chance is he a duke +in a drawing-room. I will record an utterance of one of the +obscure victims of the British "standard of outward decency", a +teacher of mathematics named Holyoake, who presumed to discuss in +a public hall the starvation of the working classes of the +country. A preacher objected that he had discussed "our duty to +our neighbor" and neglected "our duty to God"; whereupon the +lecturer replied: "Our national Church and general religious +institutions cost us, upon accredited computation, about twenty +million pounds annually. Worship being thus expensive, I appeal +to your heads and your pockets whether we are not too poor to +have a God. While our distress lasts, I think it would be wise to +put deity upon half pay." And for that utterance the unfortunate +teacher of mathematics served six months in the common Gaol at +Gloucester! + +While men were being tried for publishing the "Free-thinker", the +Premier of England was William Ewart Gladstone. And if you wish +to know what an established church can do by way of setting up +dullness in high places, get a volume of this "Grand Old Man's" +writings on theological and religious questions. Read his +"Juventus Mundi", in the course of which he establishes, a mystic +connection between the trident of Neptune and the Christian +Trinity! Read his efforts to prove that the writer of Genesis was +an inspired geologist! This writer of Genesis points out in +Nature "a grand, fourfold division, set forth in an orderly +succession of times: First, the water population; secondly, the +air population; thirdly, the land population of animals; +fourthly, the land population consummated in man." And it seems +that this division and sequence "is understood to have been so +affirmed in our time by natural science that it may be taken as a +demonstrated conclusion and established fact." Hence we must +conclude of the writer of Genesis that "his knowledge was +divine"! Consider that this was actually published in one of the +leading British monthlies, and that it was necessary for +Professor Huxley to answer it, pointing out that so far is it +from being true that "a fourfold division and orderly sequence" +of water, air and land animals "has been affirmed in our time by +natural science", that on the contrary, the assertion is +"directly contradictory to facts known to everyone who is +acquainted with the elements of natural science". The +distribution of fossils proves that land animals originated +before sea-animals, and there has been such a mixing of land, sea +and air animals as utterly to destroy the reputation of both +Genesis and Gladstone as possessing a divine knowledge of +Geology. + + +Gibson's Preservative + +I have a friend, a well-known "scholar", who permits me the use +of his extensive library. I stand in the middle and look about +me, and see in the dim shadows walls lined from floor to ceiling +with decorous and grave-looking books, bound for the most part in +black, many of them fading to green with age. There are literally +thousands of such, and their theme is the pseudo-science of +"divinity". I close my eyes, to make the test fair, and walk to +the shelves and put out my hand and take a book. It proves to be +a modern work, "A History of the English Prayer-book in Relation +to the Doctrine of the Eucharist". I turn the pages and discover +that it is a study of the variations of one minute detail of +church doctrine. This learned divine--he has written many such +works, as the advertisements inform us--fills up the greater part +of his pages with foot-notes from hundreds of authorities, +arguments and counter-arguments over supernatural subtleties. I +will give one sample of these footnotes--asking the reader to be +patient: + +I add the following valuable observation, of Dean Goode: ("On +Eucharist", II p 757. See also Archbishop Ware in Gibson's +"Preservative", vol X, Chap II) "One great point for which our +divines have contended, in opposition to Romish errors, has been +the reality of that presence of Christ's Body and Blood to the +soul of the believer which is affected through the operation of +the Holy Spirit notwithstanding the absence of that Body and +Blood in Heaven. Like the Sun, the Body of Christ is both present +and absent; present, really and truly present, in one sense--that +is, by the soul being brought into immediate communion with--but +absent in another sense--that is, as regards the contiguity of +its substance to our bodies. The authors under review, like the +Romanists, maintain that this is not a Real Presence, and +assuming their own interpretation of the phrase to be the only +true one, press into their service the testimony of divines who, +though using the phrase, apply it in a sense the reverse of +theirs. The ambiguity of the phrase, and its misapplication by +the Church of Rome, have induced many of our divines to repudiate +it, etc." + +Realize that of the work from which this "valuable observation" +is quoted, there are at least two volumes, the second volume +containing not less than 757 pages! Realize that in Gibson's +"Preservative" there are not less than ten volumes of such +writing! Realize that in this twentieth century a considerable +portion of the mental energies of the world's greatest empire is +devoted to that kind of learning! + +I turn to the date upon the volume, and find that it is 1910. I +was in England within a year of that time, and so I can tell what +was the condition of the English people while printers were +making and papers were reviewing and book-stores were +distributing this work of ecclesiastical research. I walked along +the Embankment and saw the pitiful wretches, men, women and +sometimes children, clad in filthy rags, starved white and frozen +blue, soaked in winter rains and shivering in winter winds, +homeless, hopeless, unheeded by the doctors of divinity, +unpreserved by Gibson's "Preservative". I walked on Hampstead +Heath on Easter day, when the population of the slums turns out +for its one holiday; I walked, literally trembling with horror, +for I had never seen such sights nor dreamed of them. These +creatures were hardly to be recognized as human beings; they were +some new grotesque race of apes. They could not walk, they could +only shamble; they could not laugh, they could only leer. I saw a +hand-organ playing, and turned away--the things they did in their +efforts to dance were not to be watched. And then I went out into +the beautiful English country; cultured and charming ladies took +me in swift, smooth motor-cars, and I saw the pitiful hovels and +the drink-sodden, starch-poisoned inhabitants--slum-populations +everywhere, even on the land! When the newspaper reporters came +to me, I said that I had just come from Germany, and that if ever +England found herself at war with that country, she would regret +that she had let the bodies and the minds of her people rot; for +which expression I was severely taken to task by more than one +British divine. + +The bodies--and the minds; the rot of the latter being the cause +of the former. All over England in that year of 1910, in +thousands of schools, rich and poor, and in the greatest centres +of learning, men like Dean Goode were teaching boys dead +languages and dead sciences and dead arts; sending them out to +life with no more conception of the modern world than a monk of +the Middle Ages; sending them out with minds, made hard and +inflexible, ignorant of science, indifferent to progress, +contemptuous of ideas. And then suddenly, almost overnight, this +terrified people finds itself at war with a nation ruled and +disciplined by modern experts, scientists and technicians. The +awful muddle that was in England during the first two years of +the war has not yet been told in print; but thousands know it, +and some day it will be written, and it will finish forever the +prestige of the British ruling caste. They rushed off an +expedition to Gallipoli, and somebody forgot the water-supply, +and at one time they had ninety-five thousand cases of dysentery! + +They always "muddle through", they tell you; that is the motto of +their ruling caste. But this time they did not "muddle +through"--they had to come to America for help. As I write, our +Congress is voting billions and tens of billions of dollars, and +a million of the best of our young manhood are being taken from +their homes--because in 1910 the mind of England was occupied +with Dean Goode "On Eucharist", and the ten volumes of Gibson's +"Preservative". + + +The Elders + +What the Church means in human affairs is the rule of the aged. +It means old men in the seats of authority, not merely in the +church, but in the law-courts and in Parliament, even in the army +and navy. For a test I look up the list of bishops of the Church +of England in Whitaker's Almanac; it appears that there are 40 of +these functionaries, including the archbishops, but not the +suffragans; and that the total salary paid to them amounts to +more than nine hundred thousand dollars a year. This, it should +be understood, does not include the pay of their assistants, nor +the cost of maintaining their religious establishments; it does +not include any private incomes which they or their wives may +possess, as members of the privileged classes of the Empire. I +look up their ages in Who's Who, and I find that there is only +one below fifty-three; the oldest of them is ninety-one, while +the average age of the goodly company is seventy. There have been +men in history who have retained their flexibility of mind, their +ability to adjust themselves to new circumstances at the age of +seventy, but it will always be found that these men were trained +in science and practical affairs, never in dead languages and +theology. One of the oldest of the English prelates, the +Archbishop of Canterbury, recently stated to a newspaper reporter +that he worked seventeen hours a day, and had no time to form an +opinion on the labor question. + +And now--here is the crux of the argument--do these aged +gentlemen rule of their own power? They do not! They do literally +nothing of their own power; they could not make their own +episcopal robes, they could not even cook their own episcopal +dinners. They have to be maintained in all their comings and +goings. Who supports them, and to what end? + +The roots of the English Church are in the English land system, +which is one of the infamies of the modern world. It dates from +the days of William the Norman, who took possession of Britain +with his sword, and in order to keep possession for himself and +his heirs, distributed the land among his nobles and prelates. In +those days, you understand, a high ecclesiastic was a man of war, +who did not stoop to veil his predatory nature under pretense of +philanthropy; the abbots and archbishops, of William wore armor +and had their troops of knights like the barons and the dukes. +William gave them vast tracts, and at the same time he gave them +orders which they obeyed. Says the English chronicler, "Stark he +was. Bishops he stripped of their bishopricks, abbots of their +abbacies". Green tells us that "the dependencie of the church on +the royal power was strictly enforced. Homage was exacted from +bishop as from baron." And what was this homage? The bishop knelt +before William, bareheaded and without arms, and swore: "Hear my +lord, I become liege man of yours for life and limb and earthly +regard, and I will keep faith and loyalty to you for life and +death, God help me." + +The lands which the church got from William the Norman, she has +held, and always on the same condition--that she shall be "liege +man for life and limb and earthly regard". In this you have the +whole story of the church of England, in the twentieth century as +in the eleventh. The balance of power has shifted from time to +time; old families have lost the land and new families have +gotten it; but the loyalty and homage of the church have been +held by the land, as the needle of the compass is held by a mass +of metal. Some two hundred and fifty years ago a popular song +gave the general impression-- + + For this is law that I'll maintain + Until my dying day, sir: + That whatsoever king shall reign + I'll still be vicar of Bray, sir! + +So, wherever you take the Anglican clergy, they are Tories and +Royalists, conservatives and reactionaries, friends of every +injustice that profits the owning class. And always among +themselves you find them intriguing and squabbling over the +dividing of the spoils; always you find them enjoying leisure and +ease, while the people suffer and the rebels complain. One can +pass down the corridor of English history and prove this +statement by the words of Englishmen from every single +generation. Take the fourteenth century; the "Good Parliament" +declares that + +Unworthy and unlearned caitiffs are appointed to benefices of a +thousand marks, while the poor and learned hardly obtain one of +twenty. God gave the sheep to be pastured, not to be shaven and +shorn. + +And a little later comes the poet of the people, Piers Plowman-- + + But now is Religion a rider, a roamer through the streets, A +leader at the love-day, a buyer of the land, Pricking on a +palfrey from manor to manor, A heap of hounds at his back, as +tho he were a lord; And if his servant kneel not when he brings +his cup, He loureth on him asking who taught him courtesy. +Badly have lords done to give their heirs' lands Away to the +Orders that have no pity; Money rains upon their altars. There +where such parsons be living at ease They have no pity on the +poor; that is their "charity". Ye hold you as lords; your lands +are too broad, But there shall come a king and he shall shrive +you all And beat you as the bible saith for breaking of your +Rule. + +Another step through history, and in the early part of the +sixteenth century here is Simon Fish, addressing King Henry the +Eighth, in the "Supplicacyon for the Beggars", complaining of the +"strong, puissant and counterfeit holy and ydell" which "are now +increased under your sight, not only into a great nombre, but +ynto a kingdome." + +They have begged so importunatly that they have gotten ynto their +hondes more than a therd part of all youre Realme. The goodliest +lordshippes, maners, londes, and territories, are theyres. +Besides this, they have the tenth part of all the come, medowe, +pasture, grasse, wolle, coltes, calves, lambes, pigges, gese and +chikens. Ye, and they looke so narowly uppon theyre proufittes, +that the poore wyves must be countable to thym of every tenth eg, +or elles she gettith not her rytes at ester, shal be taken as an +heretike. . . . Is it any merveille that youre people so +compleine of povertie? The Turke nowe, in your tyme, shulde never +be abill to get so moche grounde of christendome . . . And whate +do al these gredy sort of sturdy, idell, holy theves? These be +they that have made an hundredth thousand idell hores in your +realme. These be they that catche the pokkes of one woman, and +here them to an other. + +The petitioner goes on to tell how they steal wives and all their +goods with them, and if any man protest they make him a heretic, +"so that it maketh him wisshe that he had not done it". Also they +take fortunes for masses and then don't say them. "If the Abbot +of westminster shulde sing every day as many masses for his +founders as he is bounde to do by his foundacion, 1000 monkes +were too few." The petitioner suggests that the king shall "tie +these holy idell theves to the cartes, to be whipped naked about +every market towne till they will fall to laboure!" + + +Church History + +King Henry did not follow this suggestion precisely, but he took +away the property of the religious orders for the expenses of his +many wives and mistresses, and forced the clergy in England to +forswear obedience to the Pope and make his royal self their +spiritual head. This was the beginning of the Anglican Church, as +distinguished from the Catholic; a beginning of which the +Anglican clergy are not so proud as they would like to be. When I +was a boy, they taught me what they called "church history", and +when they came to Henry the Eighth they used him as an +illustration of the fact that the Lord is sometimes wont to +choose evil men to carry out His righteous purposes. They did not +explain why the Lord should do this confusing thing, nor just how +you were to know, when you saw something being done by a +murderous adulterer, whether it was the will of the Lord or of +Satan; nor did they go into details as to the motives which the +Lord had been at pains to provide, so as to induce his royal +agent to found the Anglican Church. For such details you have to +consult another set of authorities--the victims of the +plundering. + +When I was in college my professor of Latin was a gentleman with +bushy brown whiskers and a thundering voice of which I was often +the object--for even in those early days I had the habit of +persisting in embarrassing questions. This professor was a devout +Catholic, and not even in dealing with ancient Romans could he +restrain his propaganda impulses. Later on in life he became +editor of the "Catholic Encyclopedia", and now when I turn its +pages, I imagine that I see the bushy brown whiskers, and hear +the thundering voice: "Mr. Sinclair, it is so because I tell you +it is so!" + +I investigate, and find that my ex-professor knows all about King +Henry the Eighth, and his motives in founding the Church of +England; he is ready with an "economic interpretation", as +complete as the most rabid muckraker could desire! It appears +that the king wanted a new wife, and demanded that the Pope +should grant the necessary permission; in his efforts to browbeat +the Pope into such betrayal of duty, King Henry threatened the +withdrawal of the "annates" and the "Peter's pence". Later on he +forced the clergy to declare that the Pope was "only a foreign +bishop", and in order to "stamp out overt expression of +disaffection, he embarked upon a veritable reign of terror". + +In Anglican histories, you are assured that all this was a work +of religious reform, and that after it the Church was the pure +vehicle of God's grace. There were no more "holy idell theves", +holding the land of England and plundering the poor. But get to +know the clergy, and see things from the inside, and you will +meet some one like the Archbishop of Cashell, who wrote to one of +his intimates: + +I conclude that a good bishop has nothing more to do than to eat, +drink and grow fat, rich and die; which laudable example I +propose for the remainder of my days to follow. + +If you say that might be a casual jest, hear what Thackeray +reports of that period, the eighteenth century, which he knew +with peculiar intimacy: + +I read that Lady Yarmouth (my most religious and gracious King's +favorite) sold a bishopric to a clergyman for 5000 pounds. (She +betted him the 5000 pounds that he would not be made a bishop, +and he lost, and paid her.) Was he the only prelate of his time +led up by such hands for consecration? As I peep into George II's +St. James, I see crowds of cassocks pushing up the back-stairs of +the ladies of the court; stealthy clergy slipping purses into +their laps; that godless old king yawning under his canopy in his +Chapel Royal, as the chaplain before him is discoursing. +Discoursing about what?--About righteousness and judgment? Whilst +the chaplain is preaching, the king is chattering in German and +almost as loud as the preacher; so loud that the clergyman +actually burst out crying in his pulpit, because the defender of +the faith and the dispenser of bishoprics would not listen to +him! + + +Land and Livings + +And how is it in the twentieth century? Have conditions been much +improved? There are great Englishmen who do not think so. I quote +Robert Buchanan, a poet who spoke for the people, and who +therefore has still to be recognized by English critics. He +writes of the "New Rome", by which he means present-day England: + + The gods are dead, but in their name + Humanity is sold to shame, + While (then as now!) the tinsel'd priest + Sitteth with robbers at the feast, + Blesses the laden, blood-stained board, + Weaves garlands round the butcher's sword, + And poureth freely (now as then) + The sacramental blood of Men! + +You see, the land system of England remains--the changes having +been for the worse. William the Conqueror wanted to keep the +Saxon peasantry contented, so he left them their "commons"; but +in the eighteenth century these were nearly all filched away. We +saw the same thing done within the last generation in Mexico, and +from the same motive--because developing capitalism needs cheap +labor, whereas people who have access to the land will not slave +in mills and mines. In England, from the time of Queen Anne to +that of William and Mary, the parliaments of the landlords passed +some four thousand separate acts, whereby more than seven million +acres of the common land were stolen from the people. It has been +calculated that these acres might have supported a million +families; and ever since then England has had to feed a million +paupers all the time. + +As an old song puts the matter: + + Why prosecute the man or woman + Who steals a goose from off the common, + And let the greater felon loose + Who steals the common from the goose? + +In our day the land aristocracy is rooted like the native oak in +British soil: some of them direct descendants of the Normans, +others children of the court favorites and panders who grew rich +in the days of the Tudors and the unspeakable Stuarts. Seven men +own practically all the land of the city and county of London, +and collect tribute from seven millions of people. The estates +are entailed--that is, handed down from father to oldest son +automatically; you cannot buy any land, but if you want to build, +the landlord gives you a lease, and when the lease is up, he +takes possession of your buildings. The tribute which London pays +is more than a hundred million dollars a year. So absolute is the +right of the land-owner that he can sue for trespass the driver +on an aeroplane which flies over him; he imposes on fishermen a +tax upon catches made many hundred of yards from the shore. + +And in this graft, of course, the church has its share. Each +church owns land--not merely that upon which it stands, but farms +and city lots from which it derives income. Each cathedral owns +large tracts; so do the schools and universities in which the +clergy are educated. The income from the holdings of a church +constitutes what is called a "living"; these livings, which vary +in size, are the prerogatives of the younger sons of the ruling +families, and are intrigued and scrambled for in exactly the +fashion which Thackeray describes in the eighteenth century. + +About six thousand of these "livings" are in the gift of great +land owners; one noble lord alone disposes of fifty-six such +plums; and needless to say, he does not present them to clergymen +who favor radical land-taxes. He gives them to men like +himself--autocratic to the poor, easy-going to members of his own +class, and cynical concerning the grafts of grace. + +In one English village which I visited the living was worth seven +hundred pounds, with the use of a fine mansion; as the incumbent +had a large family, he lived there. In another place the living +was worth a thousand pounds, and the incumbent hired a curate, +himself appearing twice a year, on Christmas day and on the +King's birthday, to preach a sermon; the rest of the time he +spent in Paris. It is worth noting that in 1808 a law was +proposed compelling absentee pluralists--that is, clergymen +holding more than one "living"--to furnish curates to do their +work; it might be interesting to note that this law met with +strenuous clerical opposition, the house of Bishops voting +against it without a division. Thus we may understand the sharp +saying of Karl Marx, that the English clergy would rather part +with thirty-eight of their thirty-nine articles than with one +thirty-ninth of their income. + +There is always a plentiful supply of curates in England. They +are the sons of the less influential ruling families, and of the +clergy; they have been trained at Oxford or Cambridge, and +possess the one essential qualification, that they are gentlemen. +Their average price is two hundred and fifty pounds a year; their +function was made clear to me when I attended my first English +tea-party. There was a wicker table, perhaps a foot and a half +square, having three shelves, one below the other the top layer +the plates and napkins, on the next the muffins, and on the +lowest the cake. Said the hostess, "Will you pass the curate, +please?" I looked puzzled, and she pointed. "We call that the +curate, because it does the work of a curate." + + +Graft in Tail + +As one of America's head muck-rakers, I found that I was popular +with the British ruling classes; they found my books useful in +their campaigns against democracy, and they were surprised and +disconcerted when they found I did not agree with their +interpretation of my writings. I had told of corruption in +American politics; surely I must know that in England they had no +such evils! I explained that they did not have to; their graft, +to use their own legal phrase, was "in tail"; the grafters had, +as a matter of divine right, the things which in America they had +to buy. In America, for instance, we had a Senate, a +"Millionaire's Club", for admission to which the members paid in +cash; but in England the same men came to the same position as +their birth-right. Political corruption is not an end in itself, +it is merely a means to exploitation; and of exploitation England +has even more than America. When I explained this, my popularity +with the British ruling classes vanished quickly. + +As a matter of fact, England is more like America than she +realizes; her British reticence has kept her ignorant about +herself. I could not carry on my business in England, because of +the libel laws, which have as their first principle "the greater +the truth, the greater the libel". Englishmen read with +satisfaction what I write about America; but if I should turn my +attention to their own country, they would send me to jail as +they sent Frank Harris. The fact is that the new men in England, +the lords of coal and iron and shipping and beer, have bought +their way into the landed aristocracy for cash, just as our +American senators have done; they have bought the political +parties with campaign gifts, precisely as in America; they have +taken over the press, whether by outright purchase like +Northcliffe, or by advertising subsidy--both of which methods we +Americans know. Within the last decade or two another group has +been coming into control; and not merely is this the same class +of men as in America, it frequently consists of the same +individuals. These are the big money-lenders, the international +financiers who are the fine and final flower of the capitalist +system. These gentlemen make the world their home--or, as +Shakespeare puts it, their oyster. They know how to fit +themselves to all environments; they are Catholics in Rome and +Vienna, country gentlemen in London, bons vivants in Paris, +democrats in Chicago, Socialists in Petrograd, and Hebrews +wherever they are. + +And of course, in buying the English government, these new +classes have bought the English Church. Skeptics and men of the +world as they are, they know that they must have a Religion. They +have read the story of the French revolution, and the shadow of +the guillotine is always over their thoughts; they see the giant +of labor, restless in his torment, groping as in a nightmare for +the throat of his enemy. Who can blind the eyes of this giant, +who can chain him to his couch of slumber? There is but one +agent, without rival--the Keeper of the Holy Secrets, the Deputy +of the Almighty Awfulness, the Giver and Withholder of Eternal +Life. Tremble, slave! Fall down and bow your forehead in the +dust! I can see in my memory the sight that thrilled my +childhood--my grim old Bishop, clad in his gorgeous ceremonial +robes, stretching out his hands over the head of the new priest, +and pronouncing that most deadly of all the Christian curses: + +"Whose sins thou dost forgive, they are forgiven; and whose sins +thou dost retain, they are retained!" + + +Bishops and Beer + +For example, the International Shylocks wanted the diamond mines +of South Africa--wanted them more firmly governed and less firmly +taxed than could be arranged with the Old Man of the Boers. So +the armies of England were sent to subjugate the country. You +might think they would have had the good taste to leave the lowly +Jesus out of this affair--but if so, you have missed the +essential point about established religion. The bishops, priests, +and deacons are set up for the populace to revere, and when the +robber-classes need a blessing upon some enterprise, then is the +opportunity for the bishops, priests and deacons to earn their +"living." During the Boer war the blood-lust of the English +clergy was so extreme that writers in the dignified monthly +reviews felt moved to protest against it. When the pastors of +Switzerland issued a collective protest against cruelties to +women and children in the South African concentration-camps, it +was the Right Reverend Bishop of Winchester who was brought +forward to make reply. Nowadays all England is reading Bernhardi, +and shuddering at Prussian glorification of war; but no one +mentions Bishop Welldon of Calcutta, who advocated the Boer war +as a means of keeping the nation "virile"; nor Archbishop +Alexander, who said that it was God's way of making "noble +natures". + +The British God had other ways of improving nations--for example, +the opium traffic. The British traders had been raising the poppy +in India and selling its juice to the Chinese. They had made +perhaps a hundred million "noble natures" by this method; and +also they were making a hundred million dollars a year. The +Chinese, moved by their new "virility," undertook to destroy some +opium, and to stop the traffic; whereupon it was necessary to use +British battle-ships to punish and subdue them. Was there any +difficulty in persuading the established church of Jesus to bless +this holy war? There was not! Lord Shaftesbury, himself the most +devout of Anglicans, commented with horror upon the attitude of +the clergy, and wrote in his diary: + +I rejoice that this cruel and debasing opium war is terminated. +We have triumphed in one of the most lawless, unnecessary, and +unfair struggles in the records of history; and Christians have +shed more heathen blood in two years, than the heathens have shed +of Christian blood in two centuries. + +That was in 1843; for seventy years thereafter pious England +continued to force the opium traffic upon protesting China, and +only in the last two or three years has the infamy been brought +to an end. Throughout the long controversy the attitude of the +church was such that Li Hung Chang was moved to assert in a +letter to the Anti-Opium Society: + +Opium is a subject in the discussion of which England and China +can never meet on a common ground. China views the whole question +from a moral standpoint, England from a fiscal. + +And just as the Chinese people were poisoned with opium, so the +English people are being poisoned with alcohol. Both in town and +country, labor is sodden with it. Scientists and reformers are +clamoring for restriction--and what prevents? Head and front of +the opposition for a century, standing like a rock, has been the +Established Church. The Rev. Dawson Burns, historian of the early +temperance movement, declares that "among its supporters I cannot +recall one Church of England minister of influence." When Asquith +brought in his bill for the restriction of the traffic in beer, +he was confronted with petitions signed by members of the clergy, +protesting against the act. And what was the basis of their +protest? That beer is a food and not a poison? Yes, of course; +but also that there was property invested in brewing it, Three +hundred and thirty-two clergy of the diocese of Peterborough +declared: + +We do strongly protest against the main provisions of the present +bill as creating amongst our people a sense of grave injustice as +amounting to a confiscation of private property, spelling ruin +for thousands of quite innocent people, and provoking deep and +widespread resentment, which must do harm to our cause and hinder +our aims. + +I have come upon references to another and even more plainspoken +petition, signed by 1,280 clergymen; but war-time facilities for +research have not enabled me to find the text. In Prof. Henry C. +Vedder's "Jesus Christ and the Social Question," we read: + +It was authoritatively stated a short time ago that Mr. Asquith's +temperance bill was defeated in Parliament through the opposition +of clergymen who had invested their savings in brewery stock, the +profits of which might have been lessened by the bill. + +Also the power of the clergy, combined with the brewer, was +sufficient to put through Parliament a provision that no +prohibition legislation should ever be passed without providing +for compensation to the owners of the industry. Today, all over +America, appeals are being made to the people to eat less grain; +the grain is being shipped to England, some of it to be made into +beer; and a high Anglican prelate, his Grace the Archbishop of +York, comes to America to urge us to increased sacrifices, and in +his first newspaper interview takes occasion to declare that his +church is not in favor of prohibition as a measure of war-time +economy! + + +Anglicanism and Alcohol + +This partnership of Bishops and Beer is painfully familiar to +British radicals; they see it at work in every election--the +publican confusing the voters with spirits, while the parson +confuses them with spirituality. There are two powerful societies +in England employing this deadly combination--the "Anti-Socialist +Union" and the "Liberty and Property Defense League." If you scan +the lists of the organizers, directors and subsidizers of these +satanic institutions, you find Tory politicians and landlords, +prominent members of the higher clergy, and large-scale dealers +in drunkenness. I attended in London a meeting called by the +"Liberty and Property Defense League," to listen to a +denunciation of Socialism by W. H. Mallock, a master sophist of +Roman Catholicism; upon the platform were a bishop and half a +dozen members of the Anglican clergy, together with the secretary +of the Federated Brewers' Association, the Secretary of the Wine, +Spirit, and Beer Trade Association, and three or four other +alcoholic magnates. + +In every public library in England and many in America you will +find an assortment of pamphlets published by these organizations, +and scholarly volumes endorsed by them, in which the stock +misrepresentations of Socialism are perpetuated. Some of these +writings are brutal--setting forth the ethics of exploitation in +the manner of the Rev. Thomas Malthus, the English clergyman who +supplied for capitalist depredation a basis in pretended natural +science. Said this shepherd of Jesus: + +A man who is born into a world already possessed, if he cannot +get subsistence from his parents, and if society does not want +his labor, has no claim of right to the smallest portion of food, +and in fact has no business to be where he is. At Nature's mighty +feast there is no cover for him. She tells him to be gone, and +will quickly execute her own orders. + +Such was the tone of the ruling classes in the nineteenth +century; but it was found that for some reason this failed to +stop the growth of Socialism, and so in our time the clerical +defenders of Privilege have grown subtle and insinuating. They +inform us now that they have a deep sympathy with our fundamental +purposes; they burn with pity for the poor, and they would really +and truly wish happiness to everyone, not merely in Heaven, but +right here and now. However, there are so many complications--and +so they proceed to set out all the anti-Socialist bug-a-boos. +Here for example, is the Rev. James Stalker, D. D., expounding +"The Ethics of Jesus," and admonishing us extremists: + +Efforts to transfer money and property from one set of hands to +another may be inspired by the same passions as have blinded the +present holders to their own highest good, and may be accompanied +with injustice as extreme as has ever been manifested by the rich +and powerful. + +And again, the Rev. W. Sanday, D. D., an especially popular +clerical author, gives us this sublime utterance of religion on +wage-slavery: + +The world is full of mysteries, but some clear lines run through +them, of which this is one. Where God has been so patient, it is +not for us to be impatient. + +And again, Professor Robert Flint, of Edinburgh University, a +clergyman, author of a big book attacking Socialism, and bringing +us back to the faith of our fathers: + +The great bulk of human misery is due, not to social +arrangements, but to personal vices. + +I study Professor Flint's volume in the effort to find just what, +if anything, he would have the church do about the evils of our +time. I find him praising the sermons of Dr. Westcott, Bishop of +Durham, as being the proper sort for clergymen to preach. Bishop +Westcott, whether he is talking to a high society congregation, +or to one of workingmen, shows "an exquisite sense of knowing +always where to stop." So I consulted the Bishop's volume, "The +Social Aspects of Christianity" and I see at once why he is +popular with the anti-Socialist propagandists--neither I or any +other man can possibly discover what he really means, or what he +really wants done. + +I was fascinated by this Westcott problem; I thought maybe if I +kept on the good Bishop's trail, I might in the end find +something a plain man could understand; so I got the beautiful +two-volume "Life of Brooke Westcott, by his Son"--and there I +found an exposition of the social purposes of bishops! In the +year 1892 there was a strike in Durham, which is in the coal +country; the employers tried to make a cut in wages, and some ten +thousand men walked out, and there was a long and bitter +struggle, which wrung the episcopal heart. There was much +consultation and correspondence on episcopal stationery, and at +last the masters and men were got together, with the Bishop as +arbitrator, and the dispute was triumphantly settled--how do you +suppose? On the basis of a ten per cent reduction in wages! + +I know nothing quainter in the history of English graft than the +naivete with which the Bishop's biographer and son tells the +story of this episcopal venture into reality. The prelate came +out from the conference "all smiles, and well satisfied with the +result of his day's work." As for his followers, they were in +ecstacies; they "seized and waltzed one another around on the +carriage drive as madly as ever we danced at a flower show ball. +Hats and caps are thrown into the air, and we cheer ourselves +hoarse." The Bishop proceeds to his palace, and sends one more +communication on episcopal stationery--an order to all his clergy +to "offer their humble and hearty thanks to God for our happy +deliverance from the strife by which the diocese has been long +afflicted." Strange to say, there were a few varlets in Durham +who did not appreciate the services of the bold Bishop, and one +of them wrote and circulated some abusive verses, in which he +made reference to the Bishop's comfortable way of life. The +biographer then explains that the Bishop was so tender-hearted +that he suffered for the horses who drew his episcopal coach, and +so ascetic that he would have lived on tea and toast if he had +been permitted to. A curious condition in English society, where +the Bishop would have lived on tea and toast, but was not +permitted to; while the working people, who didn't want to live +on tea and toast, were compelled to! + + +Dead Cats + +For more than a hundred years the Anglican clergy have been +fighting with every resource at their command the liberal and +enlightened men of England who wished to educate the masses of +the people. In 1807 the first measure for a national +school-system was denounced by the Archbishop of Canterbury as +"derogatory to the authority of the Church." As a counter- +measure, his supporters established the "National Society for +Promoting the Education of the Poor in the Doctrines of the +Established Church"; and the founder of the organization, a +clergyman, advocated a barn as a good structure for a school, and +insisted that the children of the workers "should not be taught +beyond their station." In 1840 a Committee of the Privy Council +of Education was appointed, but bowed to the will of the +Archbishops, setting forth the decree of "their lordships" that +"the first purpose of all instruction must be the regulation of +the thoughts and habits of the children by the doctrine and +precepts of revealed religion." In 1850 a bill for secular +education was denounced as presenting to the country "a choice +between Heaven or Hell, God or the Devil." In 1870, Forster, +author of the still unpassed bill, wrote that while the parsons +were disputing, the children of the poor were "growing into +savages." + +As with Education, so with Social Reform. During the struggle to +abolish slavery in the British colonies, some enthusiasts +endeavored to establish the doctrine that Christian baptism +conferred emancipation upon negroes who accepted it; whereupon +the Bishop of London laid down the formula of exploitation: +"Christianity and the embracing of the gospel do not make the +least alteration of civil property." + +Gladstone, who was a democrat when he was not religious, spoke of +the cultured classes of England: + +In almost every one, if not every one, of the greatest political +controversies of the last fifty years, whether they affected the +franchise, whether they affected commerce, whether they affected +religion, whether they affected the bad and abominable +institution of slavery, or what subject they touched, these +leisured classes, these educated classes, these titled classes +have been in the wrong. + +The "Great Commoner" did not add "these religious classes," for +he belonged to the religious classes himself; but a study of the +record will supply the gap. The Church opposed all the reform +measures which Gladstone himself put through. It opposed the +Reform Bill of 1832. It opposed all the social reforms of Lord +Shaftesbury. This noble-hearted Englishman complained that at +first only a single minister of religion supported him, and to +the end only a few. He expressed himself as distressed and +puzzled "to find support from infidels and non-professors; +opposition or coldness from religionists or declaimers." + +And to our own day it has been the same. In 1894 the House of +Bishops voted solidly against the Employers' Liability Law. The +House of Bishops opposed Home Rule, and beat it; the House of +Bishops opposed Womans' Suffrage, and voted against it to the +end. Concerning this establishment Lord Shaftesbury, himself the +most devout of Englishmen, used the vivid phrase: "this vast +aquarium full of cold-blooded life." He told the Bishops that he +would give up preaching to them about ecclesiastical reform, +because he knew that they would never begin. Another member of +the British aristocracy, the Hon. Geo. Russell, has written of +their record and adventures: + +They were defenders of absolutism, slavery, and the bloody penal +code; they were the resolute opponents of every political or +social reform; and they had their reward from the nation outside +Parliament. The Bishop of Bristol had his palace sacked and +burnt; the Bishop of London could not keep an engagement to +preach lest the congregation should stone him. The Bishop of +Litchfield barely escaped with his life after preaching at St. +Bride's, Fleet Street. Archbishop Howley, entering Canterbury for +his primary visitation, was insulted, spat upon, and only brought +by a circuitous route to the Deanery, amid the execrations of the +mob. On the 5th of November the Bishops of Exeter and Winchester +were burnt in effigy close to their own palace gates. Archbishop +Howley's chaplain complained that a dead cat had been thrown at +him, when the Archbishop--a man of apostolic meekness--replied: +"You should be thankful that it was not a live one." + +The people had reason for this conduct--as you will always find +they have, if you take the trouble to inquire. Let me quote +another member of the English ruling classes, Mr. Conrad Noel, +who gives "an instance of the procedure of Church and State about +this period": + +In 1832 six agricultural labourers in South Dorsetshire, led by +one of their class, George Loveless, in receipt of 9s. a week +each, demanded the 10s. rate of wages usual in the neighbourhood. +The result was a reduction to 8s. An appeal was made to the +chairman of the local bench, who decided that they must work for +whatever their masters chose to pay them. The parson, who had at +first promised his help, now turned against them, and the masters +promptly reduced the wage to 7s., with a threat of further +reduction. Loveless then formed an agricultural union, for which +all seven were arrested, treated as convicts, and committed to +the assizes. The prison chaplain tried to bully them into +submission. The judge determined to convict them, and directed +that they should be tried for mutiny under an act of George III, +specially passed to deal with the naval mutiny at the Nore. The +grand jury were landowners, and the petty jury were farmers; both +judge and jury were churchmen of the prevailing type. The judge +summed up as follows: "Not for anything that you have done, or +that I can prove that you intend to do, but for an example to +others I consider it my duty to pass the sentence of seven years' +penal transportation across His Majesty's high seas upon each and +every one of you." + + +Suffer Little Children + +The founder of Christianity was a man who specialized in +children. He was not afraid of having His discourses disturbed by +them, He did not consider them superfluous. "Of such is the +Kingdom of Heaven", He said; and His Church is the inheritor of +this tradition--"feed my lambs". There were children in Great +Britain in the early part of the nineteenth century, and we may +see what was done with them by turning to Gibbin's "Industrial +History of England": + +Sometimes regular traffickers would take the place of the +manufacturer, and transfer a number of children to a factory +district, and there keep them, generally in some dark cellar, +till they could hand them over to a mill owner in want of hands, +who would come and examine their height, strength, and bodily +capacities, exactly as did the slave owners in the American +markets. After that the children were simply at the mercy of +their owners, nominally as apprentices, but in reality as mere +slaves, who got no wages, and whom it was not worth while even to +feed and clothe properly, because they were so cheap and their +places could be so easily supplied. It was often arranged by the +parish authorities, in order to get rid of imbeciles, that one +idiot should be taken by the mill owner with every twenty sane +children. The fate of these unhappy idiots was even worse than +that of the others. The secret of their final end has never been +disclosed, but we can form some idea of their awful sufferings +from the hardships of the other victims to capitalist greed and +cruelty. The hours of their labor were only limited by +exhaustion, after many modes of torture had been unavailingly +applied to force continued work. Children were often worked +sixteen hours a day, by day and by night. + +In the year 1819 an act of Parliament was proposed limiting the +labor of children nine years of age to four-teen hours a day. +This would seem to have been a reasonable provision, likely to +have won the approval of Christ; yet the bill was violently +opposed by Christian employers, backed by Christian clergymen. It +was interfering with freedom of contract, and therefore with the +will of Providence; it was anathema to an established Church, +whose function was in 1819, as it is in 1918, and was in 1918 B. +C., to teach the divine origin and sanction of the prevailing +economic order. "Anu and Baal called me, Hammurabi, the exalted +prince, worshipper of the gods".... so begins the oldest legal +code which has come down to us, from 2250 B. C.; and the +coronation service of the English church is made whole out of the +same thesis. The duty of submission, not merely to divinely +chosen King, but to divinely chosen Landlord and divinely chosen +Manufacturer, is implicit in the church's every ceremony, and +explicit in many of its creeds. In the Litany the people petition +for increase of grace to hear meekly "Thy Word"; and here is this +"Word," as little children are made to learn it by heart. If +there exists in the world a more perfect summary of slave ethics, +I do not know where to find it. + +My duty towards my neighbour is..... + To honour and obey the King, and all that are put in authority +under him; + To submit myself to all my governours, teachers, spiritual +pastors, and masters: + To order myself lowly and reverently to all my betters .... + Not to covet nor desire other men's goods; + But to learn and labour truly to get mine own living, and to do +my duty in that state of life, unto which it shall please God to +call me. + +A hundred years ago one of the most popular of British writers +was Hannah More. She and her sister Martha went to live in the +coal-country, to teach this "catechism" to the children of the +starving miners. The "Mendip Annals" is the title of a book in +which they tell of their ten years' labors in a village popularly +known as "Little Hell." In this place two hundred people were +crowded into nineteen houses. "There is not one creature in it +that can give a cup of broth if it would save a life." In one +winter eighteen perished of "a putrid fever", and the clergyman +"could not raise a sixpence to save a life." + +And what did the pious sisters make of all this? From cover to +cover you find in the "Mendip Annals" no single word of social +protest, not even of social suspicion. That wages of a shilling a +day might have anything to do with moral degeneration was a +proposition beyond the mental powers of England's most popular +woman writer. She was perfectly content that a woman should be +sentenced to death for stealing butter from a dealer who had +asked what the woman thought too high a price. When there came a +famine, and the children of these mine-slaves were dying like +flies, Hannah More bade them be happy because God had sent them +her pious self. "In suffering by the scarcity, you have but +shared in the common lot, with the pleasure of knowing the +advantage you have had over many villages in your having suffered +no scarcity of religious instruction." And in another place she +explained that the famine was caused by God to teach the poor to +be grateful to the rich! + +Let me remind you that probably that very scarcity has been +permitted by an all-wise and gracious Providence to unite all +ranks of people together, to show the poor how immediately they +are dependent upon the rich, and to show both rich and poor that +they are all dependent upon Himself. It has also enabled you to +see more clearly the advantages you derive from the government +and constitution of this country--to observe the benefits flowing +from the distinction of rank and fortune, which has enabled the +high to so liberally assist the low. + +It appears that the villagers were entirely convinced by this +pious reasoning; for they assembled one Saturday night and burned +an effigy of Tom Paine! This proceeding led to a tragic +consequence, for one of the "common people," known as Robert, +"was overtaken by liquor," and was unable to appear at Sunday +School next day. This fall from grace occasioned intense remorse +in Robert. "It preyed dreadfully upon his mind for many months," +records Martha More, "and despair seemed at length to take +possession of him." Hannah had some conversation with him, and +read him some suitable passages from "The Rise and Progress". "At +length the Almighty was pleased to shine into his heart and give +him comfort." + +Nor should you imagine that this saintly stupidity was in any way +unique in the Anglican establishment. We read in the letters of +Shelley how his father tormented him with Archdeacon Paley's +"Evidences" as a cure for atheism. This eminent churchman wrote a +book, which he himself ranked first among his writings, called +"Reasons for Contentment, addressed to the Labouring Classes of +the British Public." In this book he not merely proved that +religion "smooths all inequalities, because it unfolds a prospect +which makes all earthly distinctions nothing"; he went so far as +to prove that, quite apart from religion, the British exploiters +were less fortunate than those to whom they paid a shilling a +day. + +Some of the conditions which poverty (if the condition of the +labouring part of mankind must be so called) imposes, are not +hardships, but pleasures. Frugality itself is a pleasure. It is +an exercise of attention and contrivance, which, whenever it is +successful, produces satisfaction..... This is lost among +abundance. + +And there was William Wilberforce, as sincere a philanthropist as +Anglicanism ever produced, an ardent supporter of Bible societies +and foreign missions, a champion of the anti-slavery movement, +and also of the ruthless "Combination Laws," which denied to +British wage-slaves all chance of bettering their lot. +Wilberforce published a "Practical View of the System of +Christianity", in which he told unblushingly what the Anglican +establishment is for. In a chapter which he described as "the +basis of all politics," he explained that the purpose of religion +is to remind the poor: + +That their more lowly path has been allotted to them by the hand +of God; that it is their part faithfully to discharge its duties, +and contentedly to bear its inconveniences; that the objects +about which worldly men conflict so eagerly are not worth the +contest; that the peace of mind, which Religion offers +indiscriminately to all ranks, affords more true satisfaction +than all the expensive pleasures which are beyond the poor man's +reach; that in this view the poor have the advantage; that if +their superiors enjoy more abundant comforts, they are also +exposed to many temptations from which the inferior classes are +happily extempted; that, "having food and raiment, they should be +therewith content," since their situation in life, with all its +evils, is better than they have deserved at the hand of God; and +finally, that all human distinctions will soon be done away, and +the true followers of Christ will all, as children of the same +Father, be alike admitted to the possession of the same heavenly +inheritance. Such are the blessed effects of Christianity on the +temporal well-being of political communities. + +The Court Circular + +The Anglican system of submission has been transplanted intact to +the soil of America. When King George the Third lost the +sovereignty of the colonies, the bishops of his divinely inspired +church lost the control of the clergy across the seas; but this +revolution was purely one of Church politics--in doctrine and +ritual the "Protestant Episcopal Church of America" remained in +every way Anglican. The little children of our free republic are +taught the same slave-catechism, "to order myself lowly and +reverently to all my betters." The only difference is that +instead of being told "to honour and obey the King," they are +told "to honour and obey the civil authority." + +It is the Church of Good Society in England, and it is the same +in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, +Charleston. Just as our ruling classes have provided themselves +with imitation English schools and imitation English manners and +imitation English clothes--so in their Heaven they have provided +an imitation English monarch. I wonder how many Americans realize +the treason to democracy they are committing when they allow +their children to be taught a symbolism and liturgy based upon +absolutist ideas. I take up the hymn-book--not the English, but +the sturdy, independent, democratic American hymn-book. I have +not opened it for twenty years, yet the greater part of its +contents is as familiar to me as the syllables of my own name. I +read: + + Holy, holy, holy! All the saints adore Thee, Casting down their +golden crowns around the glassy sea; Cherubim and seraphim +bowing down before Thee, Which wert, and art, and ever more +shall be! + +One might quote a hundred other hymns made thus out of royal +imagery. I turn at random to the part headed "General," and find +that there is hardly one hymn in which there is not "king ... .. +throne," or some image of homage and flattery. The first hymn +begins-- + + Ancient of days, Who sittest, throned in glory; + To Thee all knees are bent, all voices pray. + +And the second-- + + Christ, whose glory fills the skies--- + +And the third-- + + Lord of all being, throned afar, + Thy glory flames from sun and star. + +There is a court in Heaven above, to which all good Britons look +up, and about which they read with exactly the same thrills as +they read the Court Circular. The two courts have the same +ethical code and the same manners; their Sovereigns are jealous, +greedy of attention, self-conscious and profoundly serious, +punctilious and precise; their existence consisting of an endless +round of ceremonies, and they being incapable of boredom. No +member of the Royal Family can escape this regime even if he +wishes; and no more can any member of the Holy Family--not even +the meek and lowly Jesus, who chose a carpenter's wife for his +mother, and showed all his earthly days a preference for low +society. + +This unconventional Son lived obscurely; he never carried +weapons, he could not bear to have so much as a human ear cut off +in his presence. But see how he figures in the Court Circular: + + The Son of God goes forth to war, + A kingly crown to gain: + His blood-red banner streams afar: + Who follows in His train? + +This carpenter's son was one of the most unpretentious men on +earth; utterly simple and honest--he would not even let anyone +praise him. When some one called him "good Master," he answered, +quickly, "Why callest thou me good? There is none good save one, +that is, God." But this simplicity has been taken with +deprecation by his church, which persists in heaping compliments +upon him in conventional, courtly style: + + The company of angels + Are praising Thee on high; + And mortal men, and all things + Created, make reply: All Glory, laud and honour, + To Thee, Redeemer, King. . . . . + +The impression a modern man gets from all this is the unutterable +boredom that Heaven must be. Can one imagine a more painful +occupation than that of the saints--casting down their golden +crowns around the glassy sea--unless it be that of the +Triumvirate itself, compelled to sit through eternity watching +these saints, and listening to their mawkish and superfluous +compliments! + +But one can understand that such things are necessary in a +monarchy; they are necessary if you are going to have Good +Society, and a Good Society church. For Good Society is precisely +the same thing as Heaven; that is, a place to which only a few +can get admission, and those few are bored. They spend their time +going through costly formalities--not because they enjoy it, but +because of its effect upon the populace, which reads about them +and sees their pictures in the papers, and now and then is +allowed to catch a glimpse of their physical Presences, as at the +horse-show, or the opera, or the coaching-parade. + + +Horn-blowing + +I know the Church of Good Society in America, having studied it +from the inside. I was an extraordinarily devout little boy; one +of my earliest recollections--I cannot have been more than four +years of age--is of carrying a dust-brush about the house as the +choir-boy carried the golden cross every Sunday morning. I +remember asking if I might say the "Lord's prayer" in this +fascinating play; and my mother's reply: "If you say it +reverently." When I was thirteen, I attended service, of my own +volition and out of my own enthusiasm, every single day during +the forty days of Lent; at the age of fifteen I was teaching +Sunday-school. It was the Church of the Holy Communion, at Sixth +Avenue and Twentieth Street, New York; and those who know the +city will understand that this is a peculiar location--precisely +half way between the homes of some of the oldest and most august +of the city's aristocracy, and some of the vilest and most filthy +of the city's slums. The aristocracy were paying for the church, +and occupied the best pews; they came, perfectly clad, aus dem Ei +gegossen, as the Germans say, with the manner they so carefully +cultivate, gracious, yet infinitely aloof. The service was made +for them--as all the rest of the world is made for them; the +populace was permitted to occupy a fringe of vacant seats. + +The assistant clergyman was an Englishman, and a gentleman; +orthodox, yet the warmest man's heart I have ever known. He could +not bear to have the church remain entirely the church of the +rich; he would go persistently into the homes of the poor, +visiting the old slum women in their pitifully neat little +kitchens, and luring their children with entertainments and +Christmas candy. They were corralled into the Sunday-school, +where it was my duty to give them what they needed for the health +of their souls. + +I taught them out of a book of lessons; and one Sunday it would +be Moses in the Bulrushes, and next Sunday it would be Jonah and +the Whale, and next Sunday it would be Joshua blowing down the +walls of Jericho. These stories were reasonably entertaining, but +they seemed to me futile, not to the point. There were little +morals tagged to them, but these lacked relationship to the lives +of little slum-boys. Be good and you will be happy, love the Lord +and all will be well with you; which was about as true and as +practical as the procedure of the Fijians, blowing horns to drive +away a pestilence. + +I had a mind, you see, and I was using it. I was reading the +papers, and watching politics and business. I, followed the fates +of my little slum-boys--and what I saw was that Tammany Hall was +getting them. The liquor-dealers and the brothel-keepers, the +panders and the pimps, the crap-shooters and the petty +thieves--all these were paying the policeman and the politician +for a chance to prey upon my boys; and when the boys got into +trouble, as they were continually doing, it was the clergyman who +consoled them in prison--but it was the Tammany leader who saw +the judge and got them out. So these boys got their lesson even +earlier in life than I got mine--that the church was a kind of +amiable fake, a pious horn-blowing; while the real thing was +Tammany. + +I talked about this with the vestrymen and the ladies of Good +Society; they were deeply pained, but I noticed that they did +nothing practical about it; and gradually, as I went on to +investigate, I discovered the reason--that their incomes came +from real estate, traction, gas and other interests, which were +contributing the main part of the campaign expenses of the +corrupt Tammany machine, and of its equally corrupt rival. So it +appeared that these immaculate ladies and gentlemen, aus dem Ei +gegossen, were themselves engaged, unconsciously, perhaps, but +none the less effectively, in spreading the pestilence against +which they were blowing their religious horns! + +So little by little I saw my beautiful church for what it was and +is: a great capitalist interest, an integral and essential part +of a gigantic predatory system. I saw that its ethical and +cultural and artistic features, however sincerely they might be +meant by individual clergymen, were nothing but a bait, a device +to lure the poor into the trap of submission to their exploiters. +And as I went on probing into the secret life of the great +Metropolis of Mammon, and laying bare its infamies to the world, +I saw the attitude of the church to such work; I met, not +sympathy and understanding, but sneers and denunciation--until +the venerable institution which had once seemed dignified and +noble became to me as a sepulchre of corruption. + + +Trinity Corporation + +There stands on the corner of Broadway and Wall Street a towering +brown-stone edifice, one of the most beautiful and most famous +churches in America. As a child I have walked through its church +yard and read the quaint and touching inscriptions on its +gravestones; when I was a little older, and knew Wall Street, it +seemed to me a sublime thing that here in the very heart of the +world's infamy there should be raised, like a finger of warning, +this symbol of Eternity and Judgment. Its great bell rang at +noon-time, and all the traders and their wage-slaves had to +listen, whether they would or no! Such was Old Trinity to my +young soul; and what is it in reality? + +The story was told some ten years ago by Charles Edward Russell. +Trinity Corporation is the name of the concern, and it is one of +the great landlords of New York. In the early days it bought a +number of farms, and these it has held, as the city has grown up +around them, until in 1908 their value was estimated at anywhere +from forty to a hundred million dollars. The true amount has +never been made public; to quote Russell's words: + +The real owners of the property are the communicants of the +church. For 94 years none of the owners has known the extent of +the property, nor the amount of the revenue therefrom, nor what +is done with the money. Every attempt to learn even the simplest +fact about these matters has been baffled. The management is a +self perpetuating body, without responsibility and without +supervision. + +And the writer goes on to describe the business policy of this +great corporation, which is simply the English land system +complete. It refuses to sell the land, but rents it for long +periods, and the tenant builds the house, and then when the lease +expires, the Corporation takes over the house for a nominal sum. +Thus it has purchased houses for as low as $200, and made them +into tenements, and rented them to the swarming poor for a total +of fifty dollars a month. The houses were not built for +tenements, they have no conveniences, they are not fit for the +habitation of animals. The article, in Everybody's Magazine for +July, 1908, gives pictures of them, which are horrible beyond +belief. To quote the writer again: + +Decay, neglect and squalor seem to brood wherever Trinity is an +owner. Gladly would I give to such a charitable and benevolent +institution all possible credit for a spirit of improvement +manifested anywhere, but I can find no such manifestation. I have +tramped the Eighth Ward day after day with a list of Trinity +properties in my hand, and of all the tenement houses that stand +there on Trinity land, I have not found one that is not a +disgrace to civilization and to the City of New York. + +It happens that I once knew the stately prelate who presided over +this Corporation of Corruption. I imagine how he would have +shivered and turned pale had some angel whispered to him what +devilish utterances were some day to proceed from the lips of the +little cherub with shining face and shining robes who acted as +the bishop's attendant in the stately ceremonials of the Church! +Truly, even into the goodly company of the elect, even to the +most holy places of the temple, Satan makes his treacherous way! +Even under the consecrated hands of the bishop! For while the +bishop was blessing me and taking me into the company of the +sanctified, I was thinking about what the papers had reported, +that the bishop's wife had been robbed of fifty thousand dollars +worth of jewels! It did not seem quite in accordance with the +doctrine of Jesus that a bishop's wife should possess fifty +thousand dollars worth of jewels, or that she should be setting +the blood-hounds of the police on the train of a human being. I +asked my clergyman friend about it, and remember his patient +explanation--that the bishop had to know all classes and +conditions of men: his wife had to go among the rich as well as +the poor, and must be able to dress so that she would not be +embarrassed. The Bishop at this time was making it his life-work +to raise a million dollars for the beginning of a great Episcopal +cathedral; and this of course compelled him to spend much time +among the rich! + +The explanation satisfied me; for of course I thought there had +to be cathedrals--despite the fact that both St. Stephen and St. +Paul had declared that "the Lord dwelleth not in temples made +with hands." In the twenty-five years which have passed since +that time the good Bishop has passed to his eternal reward, but +the mighty structure which is a monument to his visitations among +the rich towers over the city from its vantage-point on +Morningside Heights. It is called the Cathedral of St. John the +Divine; and knowing what I know about the men who contributed its +funds, and about the general functions of the churches of the +Metropolis of Mammon, it would not seem to me less holy if it +were built, like the monuments of ancient ravagers, out of the +skulls of human beings. + + +Spiritual Interpretation + +There remains to say a few words as to the intellectual functions +of the Fifth Avenue clergy. Let us realize at the outset that +they do their preaching in the name of a proletarian rebel, who +was crucified as a common criminal because, as they said, "He +stirreth up the people." An embarrassing "Savior" for the church +of Good Society, you might imagine; but they manage to fix him up +and make him respectable. + +I remember something analogous in my own boyhood. All day +Saturday I ran about with the little street rowdies, I stole +potatoes and roasted them in vacant lots, I threw mud from the +roofs of apartment-houses; but on Saturday night I went into a +tub and was lathered and scrubbed, and on Sunday I came forth in +a newly brushed suit, a clean white collar and a shining tie and +a slick derby hat and a pair of tight gloves which made me +impotent for mischief. Thus I was taken and paraded up Fifth +Avenue, doing my part of the duties of Good Society. And all +church-members go through this same performance; the oldest and +most venerable of them steal potatoes and throw mud all week +--and then take a hot bath of repentance and put on the clean +clothing of piety. In this same way their ministers of religion +are occupied to scrub and clean and dress up their disreputable +Founder--to turn him from a proletarian rebel into a +stained-glass-window divinity. + +The man who really lived, the carpenter's son, they take out and +crucify all over again. As a young poet has phrased it, they nail +him to a jeweled cross with cruel nails of gold. Come with me to +the New Golgotha and witness this crucifixion; take the nails of +gold in your hands, try the weight of the jeweled sledges! Here +is a sledge, in the form of a dignified and scholarly volume, +published by the exclusive house of Scribner, and written by the +Bishop of my boyhood, the Bishop whose train I carried in the +stately ceremonials: "The Citizen in His Relation to the +Industrial Situation," by the Right Reverend Henry Codman Potter, +D. D., L. L. D., D. C. L.--a course of lectures delivered before +the sons of our predatory classes at Yale University, under the +endowment of a millionaire mining king, founder of the +Phelps-Dodge corporation, which the other day carried out the +deportation from their homes of a thousand striking miners at +Bisbee, Arizona. Says my Bishop: + +Christ did not denounce wealth any more than he denounced +pauperism. He did not abhor money; he used it. He did not abhor +the company of rich men; he sought it. He did not invariably +scorn or even resent a certain profuseness of expenditure. + +And do you think that the late Bishop of J. P. Morgan and Company +stands alone as an utterer of scholarly blasphemy, a driver of +golden nails? In the course of this book there will march before +us a long line of the clerical retainers of Privilege, on their +way to the New Golgotha to crucify the carpenter's son: the +Rector of the Money Trust, the Preacher of the Coal Trust, the +Priest of the Traction Trust, the Archbishop of Tammany, the +Chaplain of the Millionaires' Club, the Pastor of the +Pennsylvania Railroad, the Religious Editor of the New Haven, the +Sunday-school Superintendent of Standard Oil. We shall try the +weight of their jewelled sledges--books, sermons, +newspaper-interviews, after-dinner speeches--wherewith they pound +their golden nails of sophistry into the bleeding hands and feet +of the proletarian Christ. + +Here, for example, is Rev. F. G. Peabody, Professor of Christian +Morals at Harvard University. Prof. Peabody has written several +books on the social teachings of Jesus; he quotes the most rabid +of the carpenter's denunciations of the rich, and says: + +Is it possible that so obvious and so limited a message as this, +a teaching so slightly distinguished from the curbstone rhetoric +of a modern agitator, can be an adequate reproduction of the +scope and power of the teaching of Jesus? + +The question answers itself: Of course not! For Jesus was a +gentleman; he is the head of a church attended by gentlemen, of +universities where gentlemen are educated. So the Professor of +Christian Morals proceeds to make a subtle analysis of Jesus' +actions; demonstrating therefrom that there are three proper uses +to be made of great wealth: first, for almsgiving--"The poor ye +have always with you!"; second, for beauty and culture--buying +wine for wedding-feasts, and ointment-boxes and other objets de +vertu; and third, "stewardship," "trusteeship"--which in plain +English is "Big Business." + +I have used the illustration of soap and hot water; one can +imagine he is actually watching the scrubbing process, seeing the +proletarian Founder emerging all new and respectable under the +brush of this capitalist professor. The professor has a rule all +his own for reading the scriptures; he tells us that when there +are two conflicting sayings, the rule of interpretation is that +"the more spiritual is to be preferred." Thus, one gospel makes +Jesus say: "Blessed are ye poor." Another puts it: "Blessed are +the poor in spirit." The first one is crude and literal; +obviously the second must be what Jesus meant! In other words, +the professor and his church have made for their economic masters +a treacherous imitation virtue to be taught to wage-slaves, a +quality of submissiveness, impotence and futility, which they +call by the name of "spirituality". This virtue they exalt above +all others, and in its name they cut from the record of Jesus +everything which has relation to the realities of life! + +So here is our Professor Peabody, sitting in the Plummer chair at +Harvard, writing on "Jesus Christ and the Social Question," and +explaining: + +The fallacy of the Socialist program is not in its radicalism, +but in its externalism. It proposes to accomplish by economic +change what can be attained by nothing less than spiritual +regeneration. + +And here is "The Churchman," organ of the Episcopalians of New +York, warning us: + +It is necessary to remember that something more than material and +temporal considerations are involved. There are things of more +importance to the purposes of God and to the welfare of humanity +than economic readjustments and social amelioration. + +And again: + +Without doubt there is a strong temptation today, bearing upon +clergy and laity alike, to address their religious energies too +exclusively to those tasks whereby human life may be made more +abundant and wholesome materially..... We need constantly to be +reminded that spiritual things come first. + +There come before my mental eye the elegant ladies and gentlemen +for whom these comfortable sayings are prepared: the vestrymen +and pillars of the Church, with black frock coats and black kid +gloves and shiny top-hats; the ladies of Good Society with their +Easter costumes in pastel shades, their gracious smiles and their +sweet intoxicating odors. I picture them as I have seen them at +St. George's, where that aged wild boar, Pierpont Morgan, the +elder, used to pass the collection plate; at Holy Trinity, where +they drove downtown in old-fashioned carriages with grooms and +footmen sitting like twin statues of insolence; at St. Thomas', +where you might see all the "Four Hundred" on exhibition at once; +at St. Mary the Virgin's, where the choir paraded through the +aisles, swinging costly incense into my childish nostrils, the +stout clergyman walking alone with nose upturned, carrying on his +back a jewelled robe for which some adoring female had paid sixty +thousand dollars. "Spiritual things come first?" Ah, yes! "Seek +first the kingdom of God, and the jewelled robes shall be added +unto you!" And it is so dreadful about the French and German +Socialists, who, as the "Churchman" reports, "make a creed out of +materialism." But then, what is this I find in one issue of the +organ of the "Church of Good Society"? + +Business men contribute to the Y. M. C. A. because they realize +that if their employes are well cared for and religiously +influenced, they can be of greater service in business! + +Who let that material cat out of the spiritual bag? + + + +BOOK THREE + +The Church of the Servant-girls + + Was it for this--that prayers like these + Should spend themselves about thy feet, + And with hard, overlabored knees + Kneeling, these slaves of men should beat + Bosoms too lean to suckle sons + And fruitless as their orisons? + + Was it for this--that men should make + Thy name a fetter on men's necks, + Poor men made poorer for thy sake, + And women withered out of sex? + Was it for this--that slaves should be-- +Thy word was passed to set men free? + Swinburne. + + +Charity + +As everyone knows, the "society lady" is not an independent and +self-sustaining phenomenon. For every one of these exquisite, +sweet-smelling creatures that you meet on Fifth Avenue, there +must be at home a large number of other women who live sterile +and empty lives, and devote themselves to cleaning up after their +luckier sisters. But these "domestics" also are human beings; +they have emotions--or, in religious parlance, "souls;" it is +necessary to provide a discipline to keep them from appropriating +the property of their mistresses, also to keep them from becoming +enceinte. So it comes about that there are two cathedrals in New +York: one, St. John the Divine, for the society ladies, and the +other, St. Patrick's, for the servant-girls. The latter is +located on Fifth Avenue, where its towering white spires divide +with the homes of the Vanderbilts the interest of the crowds of +sight-seers. Now, early every Sunday morning, before "Good +Society" has opened its eyes, you may see the devotees of the +Irish snake-charmer hurrying to their orisons, each with a little +black prayer-book in her hand. What is it they do inside? What +are they taught about life? This is the question to which we have +next to give attention. + +Some years ago Mr. Thomas F. Ryan, traction and insurance magnate +of New York, favored me with his justification of his own career +and activities. He mentioned his charities, and, speaking as one +man of the world to another, he said: "The reason I put them into +the hands of Catholics is not religious, but because I find they +are efficient in such matters. They don't ask questions, they do +what you want them to do, and do it economically." + +I made no comment; I was absorbed in the implications of the +remark--like Agassiz when some one gave him a fossil bone, and +his mind set to work to reconstruct the creature. + +When a man is drunk, the Catholics do not ask if it was long +hours and improper working-conditions which drove him to +desperation; they do not ask if police and politicians are +getting a rake-off from the saloon, or if traction magnates are +using it as an agency for the controlling of votes; they do not +plunge into prohibition movements or good government +campaigns--they simply take the man in, at a standard price, and +the patient slave-sisters and attendants get him sober, and then +turn him out for society to make him drunk again. That is +"charity," and it is the special industry of Roman Catholicism. +They have been at it for a thousand years, cleaning up loathsome +and unsightly messes--"plague, pestilence and famine, battle and +murder and sudden death." Yet--puzzling as it would seem to +anyone not religious--there were never so many messes, never so +many different kinds of messes, as now at the end of the thousand +years of charitable activity! + +But the Catholics go on and on; like the patient spider, building +and rebuilding his web across a doorway; like soldiers under the +command of a ruling class with a "muddling through" tradition-- + + Theirs not to reason why, + Theirs but to do and die. + +And so of course all magnates and managers of industry who have +messes to be cleaned up, human garbage-heaps to be carted away +quickly and without fuss, turn to the Catholic Church for this +service, no matter what their personal religious beliefs or lack +of beliefs may be. Somewhere in the neighborhood of every +steel-mill, every coal-mine or other place of industrial danger, +you will find a Catholic hospital, with its slave-sisters and +attendants. Once when I was "muck-raking" near Pittsburgh, I went +to one of these places to ask information as to the frequency of +industrial accidents and the fate of the victims. The "Mother +Superior" received me with a look of polite dismay. "These +concerns pay us!" she said. "You must see that as a matter of +business it would not do for us to talk about them." + +Obey and keep silence: that is the Catholic law. And precisely as +it is with the work of nursing and almsgiving, so it is with the +work of vote-getting, the elaborate system of policemen and +saloon-keepers and ward-heelers which the Catholic machine +controls. This industry of vote-getting is a comparatively new +one; but the Church has been handling the masses for so many +centuries that she quickly learned this new way of "democracy," +and has established her supremacy over all rivals. She has the +schools for training the children, the confessional for +controlling the women; she has the intellectual machinery, the +purgatory and the code of slave-ethics. She has the supreme +advantage that the rank and file of her mighty host really +believe what she teaches; they do not have to listen to +table-rappings and flounder through swamps of automatic writings +in order to bolster their hope of the survival of personality +after death! + +So it comes about that our captains of industry and finance have +been driven to a more or less reluctant alliance with the Papacy. +The Church is here, and her followers are here, before the war +several hundred thousand of them pouring into the country every +year. It is no longer possible to do without Catholics in +America; not merely do ditches have to be dug, roads graded, coal +mined, and dishes washed, but franchises have to be granted, +tariff-schedules adjusted, juries and courts manipulated, police +trained and strikes crushed. Under our native political system, +for these purposes millions of votes are needed; and these votes +belong to people of a score of nationalities--Irish and German +and Italian and French-Canadian and Bohemian and Mexican and +Portuguese and Polish and Hungarian. Who but the Catholic Church +can handle these polyglot hordes? Who can furnish teachers and +editors and politicians familiar with all these languages? + +Considering how complex is the service, the price is extremely +moderate--the mere actual expenses of the campaign, the cost of +red fire and torch-lights, of liquor and newspaper +advertisements. The rest may come out of the public till, in the +form of exemption from taxation of church buildings and lands, a +share of the public funds for charities and schools, the control +of the police for saloon-keepers and district leaders, the +control of police-courts and magistrates, of municipal +administrations and boards of education, of legislatures and +governors; with a few higher offices now and then, to flatter our +sacred self-esteem, a senator or a justice on the Supreme Court +Bench; and on state occasions, to keep up our necessary prestige, +some cabinet-members and legislators and justices to attend High +Mass, and be blessed in public by Catholic prelates and +dignitaries. + +You think this is empty rhetoric--you comfortable, easy-going, +ultra-cultured Americans? You professors in your classic shades, +absorbed in "the passionless pursuit of passionless +intelligence"--while the world about you slides down into the +pit! You ladies of Good Society, practicing your "sweet little +charities," pursuing your "dear little ideals," raising your +families of one or two lovely children--while Irish and +French-Canadians and Italians and Portuguese and Hungarians are +breeding their dozens and scores, and preparing to turn you out +of your country! + + +God's Armor + +You remember "Bishop Blougram's Apology," Browning's study of the +psychology of a modern Catholic ecclesiastic. He is not unaware +of modern thought, this bishop; he is a man of culture, who wants +to have beauty about him, to be a "cabin passenger": + + There's power in me and will to dominate + Which I must exercise, they hurt me else; + In many ways I need mankind's respect, + Obedience, and the love that's born of fear. + +He wishes that he had faith--faith in anything; he understands +that faith is all-important-- + + Enthusiasm's the best thing, I repeat. + +But you cannot get faith just by wishing for it-- + + But paint a fire, it will not therefore burn! + +He tries to imagine himself going on a crusade for truth, but he +asks what there would be in it for him-- + + State the facts, + Read the text right, emancipate the world-- +The emancipated world enjoys itself + With scarce a thank-you. + Blougram told it first + It could not owe a farthing,--not to him + More than St. Paul! + +So the bishop goes on with his role, but uneasily conscious of +the contempt of intellectual people. + + I pine among my million imbeciles + (You think) aware some dozen men of sense + Eye me and know me, whether I believe + In the last winking virgin as I vow, + And am a fool, or disbelieve in her, + And am a knave. + +But, as he says, you have to keep a tight hold upon the chain of +faith, that is what + + Gives all the advantage, makes the difference, + With the rough, purblind mass we seek to rule. + We are their lords, or they are free of us, + Just as we tighten or relax that hold. + +So he continues, but not with entire satisfaction, in his role of +shepherd to those whom he calls "King Bomba's lazzaroni," and +"ragamuffin saints." + +I wander into a Catholic bookstore and look to see what Bishop +Blougram is doing with his lazzaroni and his ragamuffin saints +here in this new country of the far West. It is easy to acquire +the information, for the saleswoman is polite and the prices fit +my purse. America is going to war, and Catholic boys are being +drafted to be trained for battle; so for ten cents I obtain a +firmly bound little pamphlet called "God's Armor, a Prayer Book +for Soldiers." It is marked "Copyright by the G. R. C. +Central-Verein," and bears the "Nihil Obstat" of the "Censor +Theolog." and the "Imprimatur" of "Johannes Josephus, +Archiepiscopus Sti. Ludovici"--which last you may at first fail +to recognize as a well-known city on the Mississippi River. Do +you not feel the spell of ancient things, the magic of the past +creeping over you, as you read those Latin trade-marks? Such is +the Dead Hand, and its cunning, which can make even St. Louis +sound mysterious! + +In this booklet I get no information as to the commercial causes +of war, nor about the part which the clerical vote may have +played throughout Europe in supporting military systems. I do not +even find anything about the sacred cause of democracy, the +resolve of a self-governing people to put an end to feudal rule. +Instead I discover a soldier-boy who obeys and keeps silent, and +who, in his inmost heart, is in the grip of terrors both of body +and soul. Poor, pitiful soldier-boy, marking yourself with +crosses, performing genuflexions, mumbling magic formulas in the +trenches--how many billions of you have been led out to slaughter +by the greeds and ambitions of your religious masters, since +first this accursed Antichrist got its grip upon the hearts of +men! + +I quote from this little book: + +Start this day well by lifting up your heart to God. Offer +yourself to Him, and beg grace to spend the day without sin. Make +the sign of the cross. Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy +Ghost, behold me in Thy Divine Presence. I adore Thee and give +Thee thanks. Grant that all I do this day be for Thy Glory, and +for the salvation of my immortal soul. + +During the day lift your heart frequently to God. Your prayers +need not be long nor read from a book. Learn a few of these short +ejaculations by heart and frequently repeat them. They will serve +to recall God to your heart and will strengthen you and comfort +you. + +You remember a while back about the prayer-wheels of the +Thibetans. The Catholic religion was founded before the Thibetan, +and is less progressive; it does not welcome mechanical devices +for saving labor. You have to use your own vocal apparatus to +keep yourself from hell; but the process has been made as +economical as possible by kindly dispensations of the Pope. Thus, +each time that you say "My God and my all," you get fifty days +indulgence; the same for "My Jesus, mercy," and the same for +"Jesus, my God, I love Thee above all things." For "Jesus, Mary, +Joseph," you get three hundred days--which would seem by all odds +the best investment of your spare breath. + +And then come prayers for all occasions: "Prayer before Battle"; +"Prayer for a Happy Death"; "Prayer in Temptation"; "Prayer +before and after Meals"; "Prayer when on Guard"; "Prayer before a +long March"; "Prayer of Resignation to Death"; "Prayer for Those +in their Agony"--I cannot bear to read them, hardly to list them. +I remember standing in a cathedral "somewhere in France" during +the celebration of some special Big Magic. There was brilliant +white light, and a suffocating strange odor, and the thunder of a +huge organ, and a clamor of voices, high, clear voices of young +boys mounting to heaven, like the hands of men in a pit reaching +up, trying to climb over the top of one another. It sent a +shudder into the depths of my soul. There is nothing left in the +modern world which can carry the mind so far back into the +ancient nightmare of anguish and terror which was once the mental +life of mankind, as these Roman Catholic incantations with their +frantic and ceaseless importunity. They have even brought in the +sex-spell; and the poor, frightened soldier-boy, who has perhaps +spent the night with a prostitute, now prostrates himself before +a holy Woman-being who is lifted high above the shames of the +flesh, and who stirs the thrills of awe and affection which his +mother brought to him in early childhood. Read over the phrases +of this "Litany of the Blessed Virgin": + +Holy Mary, Pray for us. Holy Mother of God. Holy Virgin of +Virgins. Mother of Christ. Mother of divine grace. Mother most +pure. Mother most chaste. Mother inviolate. Mother undefiled. +Mother most amiable. Mother most admirable. Mother of good +counsel. Mother of our Creator. Mother of our Savior. Virgin most +prudent. Virgin most venerable. Virgin most renowned. Virgin most +powerful. Virgin most merciful. Virgin most faithful. Mirror of +justice. Seat of wisdom. Cause of our Joy. Spiritual vessel. +Vessel of honor. Singular vessel of devotion. Mystical rose. +Tower of David. Tower of ivory. House of gold. Ark of the +covenant. Gate of heaven. Morning Star. Health of the sick. +Refuge of sinners. Comforter of the afflicted. Help of +Christians. Queen of Angels. Queen of Patriarchs. Queen of +Prophets. Queen of Apostles. Queen of Martyrs. Queen of +Confessors. Queen of Virgins. Queen of all Saints. Queen +conceived without original sin. Queen of the most holy Rosary. +Queen of Peace, Pray for us. + + +Thanksgivings + +For another five cents--how cheaply a man of insight can obtain +thrills in this fantastic world!--I purchase a copy of the +"Messenger of the Sacred Heart", a magazine published in New +York, the issue for October, 1917. There are pages of +advertisements of schools and colleges with strange titles: +"Immaculata Seminary", "Holy Cross Academy", "Holy Ghost +Institute", "Ladycliff", "Academy of Holy Child Jesus". The +leading article is by a Jesuit, on "The Spread of the Apostleship +of Prayer among the Young"; and then "Sister Clarissa" writes a +poem telling us "What are Sorrows"; and then we are given a story +called "Prayer for Daddy"; and then another Jesuit father tells +us about "The Hills that Jesus Loved". A third father tells us +about the "Eucharistic Propaganda"; and we learn that in July, +1917, it distributed 11,699 beads, and caused the expenditure of +57,714 hours of adoration; and then the faithful are given a form +of letter which they are to write to the Honorable Baker, +Secretary of War, imploring him to intimate to the French +government that France should withdraw from one of her advances +in civilization, and join with mediaeval America in exempting +priests from being drafted to fight for their country. And then +there is a "Question Box"--just like the Hearst newspapers, only +instead of asking whether she should allow him to kiss her before +he has told her that he loves her, the reader asks what is the +Pauline Privilege, and what is the heroic Act, and is Robert a +saint's name, and if food remains in the teeth from the night +before, would it break the fast to swallow it before Holy +Communion. (No, I am not inventing this.) + +I quoted the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer, and pointed out how +deftly the Church has managed to slip in a prayer for worldly +prosperity. But the Catholic Church does not show any +squeamishness in dealing with its "million imbeciles", its +"rough, purblind mass". There is a department of the little +magazine entitled "Thanksgiving", and a statement at the top that +"the total number of Thanksgivings for the month is 2,143,911." I +am suspicious of that, as of German reports of prisoners taken; +but I give the statement as it stands, not going through the list +and picking out the crudest, but taking them as they come, +classified by states: + +GENERAL FAVORS: For many of these favors Mass and publication +were promised, for others the Badge of Promoter's Cross was used, +for others the prayers of the Associates had been asked. + +Alabama--Jewelry found, relief from pain, protection during +storm. + +Alaska--Safe return, goods found. + +Arizona--Two recoveries, suitable boarding place, illness +averted, safe delivery. + +British Honduras--Successful operation. + +California--Seventeen recoveries, six situations, two successful +examinations, house rented, stocks sold, raise in salary, return +to religious duties, sight regained, medal won, Baptism, +preservation from disease, contract obtained, success in +business, hearing restored, Easter duty made, happy death, +automobile sold, mind restored, house found, house rented, +successful journey, business sold, quarrel averted, return of +friends, two successful operations. + +And for all these miraculous performances the Catholic machine is +harvesting the price day by day--harvesting with that ancient +fervor which the Latin poet described as "auri sacra fames". As +Christopher Columbus wrote from Jamaica in 1503: "Gold is a +wonderful thing. By means of gold we can even get souls into +Paradise." + + +The Holy Roman Empire + +The system thus self-revealed you admit is appalling in its +squalor; but you say that at least it is milder and less perilous +than the Church which burned Giordano Bruno and John Huss. But +the very essence of the Catholic Church is that it does not +change; semper eadem is its motto: the same yesterday, today and +forever--the same in Washington as in Rome or Madrid--the same in +a modern democracy as in the Middle Ages. The Catholic Church is +not primarily a religious organization; it is a political +organization, and proclaims the fact, and defies those who would +shut it up in the religious field, The Rev. S. B. Smith, a +Catholic doctor of divinity, explains in his "Elements of +Ecclesiastical Law": + +Protestants contend that the entire power of the Church consists +in the right to teach and exhort, but not in the right to +command, rule, or govern; whence they infer that she is not a +perfect society or sovereign state. This theory is false; for the +Church, as was seen, is vested Jure divino with power, (1) to +make laws; (2) to define and apply them (potestas judicialis); +(3) to punish those who violate her laws (potestas coercitiva). + +And this is not one scholar's theory, but the formal and repeated +proclamation of infallible popes. Here is the "Syllabus of +Errors", issued by Pope Pius IX, Dec. 8th, 1864, declaring in +precise language that + +The state has not the right to leave every man free to profess +and embrace whatever religion he shall deem true. + +It has not the right to enact that the ecclesiastical power shall +require the permission of the civil power in order to the +exercise of its authority. + +Then in the same Syllabus the rights and powers of the Church are +affirmed thus: + +She has the right to require the state not to leave every man +free to profess his own religion. + +She has the right to exercise her power without the permission or +consent of the state. + +She has the right of perpetuating the union of church and state. + +She has the right to require that the Catholic religion shall be +the only religion of the state, to the exclusion of all others. + +She has the right to prevent the state from granting the public +exercise of their own worship to persons immigrating from it. + +She has the power of requiring the state not to permit free +expression of opinion. + +You see, the Holy Office is unrepentant and unchastened. You, who +think that liberty of conscience is the basis of civilization, +ought at least to know what the Catholic Church has to say about +the matter. Here is Mgr. Segur, in his "Plain Talk About +Protestantism of Today", a book published in Boston and +extensively circulated by American Catholics: + +Freedom of thought is the soul of Protestantism; it is likewise +the soul of modern rationalism and philosophy. It is one of those +impossibilities which only the levity of a superficial reason can +regard as admissable. But a sound mind, that does not feed on +empty words, looks upon this freedom of thought only as simply +absurd, and, what is more, as sinful. + +You take the liberty of thinking, nevertheless; you feel safe +because the Law will protect you. But do you imagine that this +"Law" applies to your Catholic neighbors? Do you imagine that +they are bound by the restraints that bind you? Here is Pope Leo +XIII, in his Encyclical of 1890--and please remember that Leo +XIII was the beau ideal of our capitalist statesmen and editors, +as wise and kind and gentle-souled a pope as ever roasted a +heretic. He says: + +If the laws of the state are openly at variance with the laws of +God--if they inflict injury upon the Church--or set at naught the +authority of Jesus Christ which is vested in the Supreme Pontiff, +then indeed it becomes a duty to resist them, a sin to render +obedience. + +And consider how many fields there are in which the laws of a +democratic state do and forever must contravene the "laws of God" +as interpreted by the Catholic Church. Consider for example, that +the Pope, in his decree Ne Temere, has declared that all persons +who have been married by civil authorities or by Protestant +clergymen are living in "filthy concubinage"! Consider, in the +same way, the problems of education, burial, prison discipline, +blasphemy, poor relief, incorporation, mortmain, religious +endowments, vows of celibacy. To the above list, as given by +Gladstone, one might add many issues, such as birth control, +which have arisen since his time. + +What the Church means is to rule. Her literature is full of +expressions of that intention, set forth in the boldest and +haughtiest and most uncompromising manner. For example, Cardinal +Manning, in the Pro-Cathedral at Kensington, speaking in the name +of the Pope: + +I acknowledge no civil power; I am the subject of no prince; I +claim more than this--I claim to be the supreme judge and +director of the consciences of men---of the peasant that tills +the field, and of the prince that sits upon the throne; of the +household of privacy, and the legislator that makes laws for +kingdoms; I am the sole, last supreme judge of what is right and +wrong. + + +Temporal Power + +What this means is, that here in our American democracy the +Catholic Church is a rebel; a prisoner of war who bides his time, +watching for the moment to rise in revolt, and meantime making no +secret of his intentions. The pious Leo XIII, addressing all true +believers in America, instructed them as to their attitude in +captivity: + +The Church amongst you, unopposed by the Constitution and +government of your nation, fettered by no hostile legislation, +protected against violence by the common laws and the +impartiality of the tribunals, is free to live and act without +hindrance. Yet, though all this is true, it would be very +erroneous to draw the conclusion that in America is to be sought +the type of the most desirable status of the church, or that it +would be universally lawful or expedient for state and church to +be, as in America, dissevered and divorced. The fact that +Catholicity with you is in good condition, nay, is even enjoying +a prosperous growth, is by all means to be attributed to the +fecundity with which God has endowed His Church .... But she +would bring forth more abundant fruits if, in addition to +liberty, she enjoyed the favor of the laws and patronage of the +public authority. + +Accordingly, here is Father Phelan of St. Louis, addressing his +flock in the "Western Watchman", June 27, 1913: + +Tell us we are Catholics first and Americans or Englishmen +afterwards; of course we are. Tell us, in the conflict between +the church and the civil government we take the side of the +church; of course we do. Why, if the government of the United +States were at war with the church, we would say tomorrow, To +hell with the government of the United States; and if the church +and all the governments of the world were at war, we would say, +To hell with all the governments of the world .... Why is it that +in this country, where we have only seven per cent of the +population, the Catholic church is so much feared? She is loved +by all her children and feared by everybody. Why is it that the +Pope has such tremendous power? Why, the Pope is the ruler of the +world. All the emperors, all the kings, all the princes, all the +presidents of the world, are as these altar boys of mine. The +Pope is the ruler of the world. + +You recall what I said at the outset about Power; the ability to +control the lives of other men, to give laws and moral codes, to +shape fashions and tastes, to be revered and regarded. Here is a +man swollen to bursting with this Power. Dressed in his holy +robes, with his holy incense in his nostrils, and the faces of +the faithful gazing up at him awe-stricken, hear him proclaim: + +The Church gives no bonds for her good behavior. She is the judge +of her own rights and duties, and of the rights and duties of the +state. + +And lest you think that an extreme example of ultramontanist +arrogance, listen to the Boston "Pilot", April 6, 1912, speaking +for Cardinal O'Connell, whose official organ it is: + +It must be borne in mind that even though Cardinals Farley, +O'Connell and Gibbons are at heart patriotic Americans and +members of an American hierachy, yet they are as cardinals +foreign princes of the blood, to whom the United States, as one +of the great powers of the world, is under an obligation to +concede the same honors that they receive abroad. + +Thus, were Cardinal Farley to visit an American man-of-war, he +would be entitled to the salutes and to naval honors reserved for +a foreign royal personage, and at any official entertainment at +Washington the Cardinal will outrank not merely every cabinet +officer, the speaker of the house and the vice-president, but +also the foreign ambassadors, coming immediately next to the +chief magistrate himself. + +Incidentally, it may be mentioned that when a royal personage not +of sovereign rank visits New York it is his duty to make the +first call on Cardinal Farley. + +Knights of Slavery + +Such is the worldly station of these apostles of the lowly Jesus. +And what is their attitude towards their brothers in God, the +rank and file of the membership, whose pennies grease the wheels +of the ecclesiastical machine? His Holiness, the Pope, sent over +a delegate to represent him in America, and at a convention of +the Federation of Catholic Societies held in New Orleans in +November, 1910, this gentleman, Diomede Falconio, delivered +himself on the subject of Capital and Labor. We have heard the +slave-code of the Anglican disciples of Jesus, the revolutionary +carpenter; now let us hear the slave-code of his Roman disciples: + +Human society has its origin from God and is constituted of two +classes of people, the rich and the poor, which respectively +represent Capital and Labor. + +Hence it follows that according to the ordinance of God, human +society is composed of superiors and subjects, masters and +servants, learned and unlettered, rich and poor, nobles and +plebeians. + +And lest this should not be clear enough, the Pope sent a second +representative, Mgr. John Bonzano, who, speaking at a general +meeting of the German Catholic Central-Verein, St. Louis, 1917, +declared: + +One of the worst evils that may grow out of the European war is +the spreading of the doctrine of Socialism, and the Catholic +Church must be ready to counteract such doctrines. We must be +ready to prevent the spread of Socialism and to work against it. +As I understand, you have a society of wealthy people in St. +Louis ready for such a campaign. You have experienced leaders who +are masters in their kind of work. They are always insistent to +show that this wealth was and is in close touch with the Church, +and therefore it will not fail. + +This, you perceive, is the complete thesis of the present book, +which therefore no doubt will be entitled to the "Nihil Obstat" +of the "Censor Theolog.", and the "Imprimatur" of "Johannes +Josephus, Archiepiscopus Sti. Ludovici." No wonder that the +"experienced leaders" of America, our captains of industry and +exploiters of labor, are forced, whatever their own faith may be, +to make use of this system of subjection. A few years ago we read +in our papers how a Jewish millionaire of Baltimore was +presenting a fortune to the Catholic Church, to be used in its +war upon Socialism. The late Mark Hanna, the shrewdest and most +far-seeing man that Big Business ever brought into power, said +that in twenty years there would be two parties in America, a +capitalist and a socialist; and that it would be the Catholic +church that would save the country from Socialism. That prophecy +was widely quoted, and sank into the souls of our steel and +railway and money magnates; from which time you might see, if you +watched political events, a new tone of deference to the Roman +Hierarchy on the part of our ruling classes. Today you cannot get +an expression of opinion hostile to Catholicism into any +newspaper of importance. The Associated Press does not handle +news unfavorable to the Church, and from top to bottom, the +politician takes off his hat when the Sacred Host goes by. Said +Archbishop Quigley, speaking before the children of the Mary +Sodality: + +I'd like to see the politician who would try to rule against the +church in Chicago. His reign would be short indeed. + + +Priests and Police + +And how is it in our national capital, the palladium of our +liberties? As a means of demonstrating the power of the church +and the subservience of our politicians, the Catholics have +invented what they call the "Cardinal's Day Mass": An elaborate +procession of high ecclesiastics, dressed in gorgeous robes and +jewels, through the streets of Washington, accompanied by a small +army of policemen, paid by non-Catholic taxpayers. The Cardinal +seats himself upon a throne, and our political rulers make +obeisance before him. On Sunday, January 14, 1917, there were +present at this political mass the following personages: Four +cabinet members and their wives; the speaker of the House; a +large group of senators and representatives; a general of the +army and his wife; an admiral of the navy and his wife; the Chief +Justice of the Supreme Court and his wife, and another Justice of +the Supreme Court and his wife. + +And understand that the church makes no secret of its purpose in +conducting such public exhibitions. Here is the pious Pope Leo +XIII again, in his Encyclical of Nov. 1, 1885: + +All Catholics must make themselves felt as active elements in +daily political life in the countries where they live. They must +penetrate, wherever possible, in the administration of civil +affairs; must constantly exert the utmost vigilance and energy to +prevent the usages of liberty from going beyond the limits fixed +by God's law. All Catholics should do all in their power to cause +the constitutions of states and legislation to be modeled on the +principles of the true Church. + +And following these instructions, the Catholics are organized for +political work. There are the various Catholic Societies, such as +the Knights of Columbus, secret, oath-bound organizations, the +military arm of the Papal Power. These societies boast some three +million members, and control not less than that many votes. The +one thing that you can be certain about these votes is that on +every public question, of whatever nature, they will be cast on +the side of ignorance and reaction. Thus, it was the influence of +the Catholic Societies which put upon our national statute books +the infamous law providing five years imprisonment and five +thousand dollars fine for the sending through the mail of +information about the prevention of conception. It is their +influence which keeps upon the statute-books of New York state +the infamous law which permits divorce only for infidelity, and +makes it "collusion" if both parties desire the divorce. It is +these societies which, in every city and town in America, are +pushing and plotting to get Catholics upon library boards, so +that the public may not have a chance to read scientific books; +to get Catholics into the public schools and on school-boards, so +that children may not hear about Galileo, Bruno, and Ferrer; to +have Catholics in control of police and on magistrates benches, +so that priests who are caught in brothels may not be exposed or +punished. + +You are shocked at this, you think it a vulgar jest, perhaps; but +during a period of "vice raids" in New York I was told by a +captain of police, himself a Catholic, that it was a common thing +for them to get priests in their net. "Of course," the official +added, good-naturedly, "we let them slip out." I understood that +he had to do that; for the Pope, in his "Motu Proprio" decree, +has forbidden Catholics to bring a priest into court for any +civil crime whatsoever; he has forbidden Catholic policemen to +arrest, Catholic judges to try, and Catholic law-makers to make +laws affecting any priest of the Church of Rome. And of course we +know, upon the authority of a cardinal, that the Pope is "the +sole, last, supreme judge of what is right and wrong." He has +held that position for a thousand years and more; and wherever +you consult the police records throughout the thousand years, you +find the same entries concerning Catholic ecclesiastics. I turn +to Riley's "Illustrations of London Life from Original +Documents," and I find in the year 1385 a certain chaplain, whose +name is considerately suppressed, had a breviary stolen from him +by a loose woman, because he has not given her any money, either +on that night or the one previous. In 1320 John de Sloghtre, a +priest, is put in the tower "for being found wandering about the +city against the peace", and Richard Heyring, a priest, is +indicted in the ward of Farringdon and in the ward of Crepelgate +"as being a bruiser and nightwalker." That this has been going on +for six hundred years is due, not to any special corruption of +the Catholic heart, but to the practice of clerical celibacy, +which is contrary to nature, a transgression of fundamental +instinct. It should be noted that the purpose of this +transgression, which pretends to be spiritual, is really +economic; it was the means whereby the church machine built up +its power through the Middle Ages. The priests had children then, +as they have them today; but these children not being recognized, +the church machine remained the sole heir of the property of its +clergy. + +The Church Militant + +Knowing what we know today, we marvel that it was possible for +Germany to prepare through so many years for her assault on +civilization, and for England to have slept through it all. In +exactly the same way, the historian of a generation from now will +marvel that America should have slept, while the New Inquisition +was planning to strangle her. For we are told with the utmost +explicitness precisely what is to be done. We are to see wiped +out these gains of civilization for which our race has bled and +agonized for many centuries; the very gains are to serve as the +means of their own destruction! Have we not heard Pope Leo tell +his faithful how to take advantage of what they find in +America--our easy-going trust, our quiet certainty of liberty, +our open-handed and open-homed and hail-fellow-well-met +democracy? + +We see the army being organized and drilled under our eyes; and +we can read upon its banners its purpose proclaimed. Just as the +Prussian military caste had its slogan "Deutschland ueber Alles!" +so the Knights of Slavery have their slogan: "Make America +Catholic!" + +Their attitude to democratic institutions is attested by the fact +that none of their conventions ever fails in its resolutions to +"deeply deplore the loss of the temporal power of Our Father, the +Pope." Their subjection to priestly domination is indicated by +such resolutions as this, bearing date of May 13th, 1914: + +The Knights of Columbus of Texas in annual convention assembled, +prostrate at the feet of Your Holiness, present filial regards +with assurances of loyalty and obedience to the Holy See and +request the Papal blessing. + +On June 10th, 1912, one T. J. Carey of Palestine, Texas, wrote to +Archbishop Bonzano, the Apostolic Delegate: "Must I, as a +Catholic, surrender my political freedom to the Church? And by +this I mean the right to vote for the Democratic, Socialist, or +Republican parties when and where I please?" The answer was: "You +should submit to the decisions of the Church, even at the cost of +sacrificing political principles." And to the same effect Mgr. +Preston, In New York City, Jan. 1, 1888: "The man who says, 'I +will take my faith from Peter, but I will not take my politics +from Peter,' is not a true Catholic." + +Such is the Papal machine; and not a day passes that it does not +discover some new scheme to advance the Papal glory; a "Catholic +battle-ship" in the United States navy; Catholic chaplains on all +ships of the navy; Catholic holidays---such as Columbus Day--to +be celebrated by all Protestants in America; thirty million +dollars worth of church property exempted from taxation in New +York City; mission bells to be set up at the expense of the state +of California; state support for parish schools--or, if this +cannot be had, exemption of Catholics from taxation for school +purposes. So on through the list which might continue for pages. + +More than anything else, of course, the Papal machine is +concerned with education, or rather, with the preventing of +education. It was in its childish days that the race fell under +the spell of the Priestly Lie; it is in his childish days that +the individual can be most safely snared. Suffer little children +to come unto the Catholic priest, and he will make upon their +sensitive minds an impression which nothing in after life can +eradicate. So the mainstay of the New Inquisition is the +parish-school, and its deadliest enemy is the American school +system. Listen to the Rev. James Conway, of the Society of Jesus, +in his book, "The Rights of Our Little Ones": + +Catholic parents cannot, in conscience send their children to +American public schools, except for very grave reasons approved +by the ecclesiastical authorities. + +While state education removes illiteracy and puts a limited +amount of knowledge within the reach of all, it cannot be said to +have a beneficial influence on civilization in general. + +The state cannot justly enforce compulsory education, even in +case of utter illiteracy, so long as the essential physical and +moral education are sufficiently provided for. + +And so, at all times and in all places, the Catholic Church is +fighting the public school. Eternal vigilance is necessary; as +"America", the organ of the Jesuits, explains: + +Sometimes it is a new building code, or an attempt at taxing the +school buildings, which creates hardships to the parochial and +other private schools. Now it is the free text book law that puts +a double burden on the Catholics. Then again it is the unwise +extension of the compulsory school age that forces children to be +in school until they are 16 to 18 years old. + +And if you wish to know the purpose of the Catholic schools, hear +Archbishop Quigley of Chicago, speaking before the children of +the Mary Sodality in the Holy Name Parish-School: + +Within twenty years this country is going to rule the world. +Kings and emperors will pass away, and the democracy of the +United States will take their place. The West will dominate the +country, and what I have seen of the Western parochial schools +has proved that the generation which follows us will be +exclusively Catholic. When the United States rules the world the +Catholic Church will rule the world. + + +The Church Triumphant + +The question may be asked, What of it? What if the Church were to +rule? There are not a few Americans who believe that there have +to be rich and poor, and that rule by Roman Catholics might be +preferable to rule by Socialists. Before you decide, at least do +not fail to consider what history has to tell about priestly +government. We do not have to use our imaginations in the matter, +for there was once a Golden Age such as Archbishop Quigley dreams +of, when the power of the church was complete, when emperors and +princes paid homage to her, and the civil authority made haste to +carry out her commands. What was the condition of the people in +those times? We are told by Lea, in his "History of the +Inquisition" that: + +The moral condition of the laity was unutterably depraved. +Uniformity of faith had been enforced by the Inquisition and its +methods, and so long as faith was preserved, crime and sin was +comparatively unimportant except as a source of revenue to those +who sold absolution. As Theodoric Vrie tersely puts it, hell and +purgatory would be emptied if enough money could be found. The +artificial standard thus created is seen in a revelation of the +Virgin to St. Birgitta, that a Pope who was free from heresy, no +matter how polluted by sin and vice, is not so wicked but that he +has the absolute power to bind and loose souls. There are many +wicked popes plunged in hell, but all their lawful acts on earth +are accepted and confirmed by God, and all priests who are not +heretics administer true sacraments, no matter how depraved they +may be. Correctness of belief was thus the sole essential; virtue +was a wholly subordinate consideration. How completely under such +a system religion and morals came to be dissociated is seen in +the remarks of Pius II, that the Franciscans were excellent +theologians, but cared nothing about virtue. + +This, in fact, was the direct result of the system of persecution +embodied in the Inquisition. Heretics who were admitted to be +patterns of virtue were ruthlessly exterminated in the name of +Christ, while in the same holy name the orthodox could purchase +absolution for the vilest of crimes for a few coins. When the +only unpardonable offence was persistence in some trifling error +of belief, such as the poverty of Christ; when men had before +them the example of their spiritual guides as leaders in vice and +debauchery and contempt of sacred things, all the sanctions of +morality were destroyed and the confusion between right and wrong +became hopeless. The world has probably never seen a society more +vile than that of Europe in the fourteenth and fifteenth +centuries. The brilliant pages of Froissart fascinate us with +their pictures of the artificial courtesies of chivalry; the +mystic reveries of Rysbroek and of Tauler show us that spiritual +life survived in some rare souls, but the mass of the population +was plunged into the depths of sensuality and the most brutal +oblivion of the moral law. For this Alvaro Pelayo tells us that +the priesthood were accountable, and that, in comparison with +them, the laity were holy. What was that state of comparative +holiness he proceeds to describe, blushing as he writes, for the +benefit of confessors, giving a terrible sketch of universal +immorality which nothing could purify but fire and brimstone from +heaven. The chroniclers do not often pause in their narrations to +dwell on the moral aspects of the times, but Meyer, in his annals +of Flanders, under date of 1379, tells us that it would be +impossible to describe the prevalence everywhere of perjuries, +blasphemies, adulteries, hatreds, quarrels, brawls, murder, +rapine, thievery, robbery, gambling, whoredom, debauchery, +avarice, oppression of the poor, rape, drunkenness: and similar +vices, and he illustrates his statement with the fact that in the +territory of Ghent, within the space of ten months, there +occurred no less than fourteen hundred murders committed in the +bagnios, brothels, gambling-houses, taverns, and other similar +places. When, in 1396, Jean sans Peur led his Crusaders to +destruction at Micopolis, their crimes and cynical debauchery +scandalized even the Turks, and led to the stern rebuke of +Bajazet himself, who as the monk of St. Denis admits was much +better than his Christian foes. The same writer, moralizing over +the disaster at Agincourt, attributes it to the general +corruption of the nation. Sexual relations, he says, were an +alternation of disorderly lust and of incest; commerce was nought +but fraud and treachery; avarice withheld from the Church her +tithes, and ordinary conversation was a succession of +blasphemies. The Church, set up by God as a model and protector +of the people, was false to all its obligations. The bishops, +through the basest and most criminal of motives, were habitual +accepters of persons; they annointed themselves with the last +essence extracted from their flocks, and there was in them +nothing of holy, of pure, of wise, or even of decent. + + +God in the Schools + +But that, you may say, was a long time ago. If so, let us take a +modern country in which the Catholic Church has worked its will. +Until recently, Spain was such a country. Now the people are +turning against the clerical machine; and if you ask why, turn to +Rafael Shaw's "Spain From Within": + +On every side the people see the baleful hand of the Church, +interfering or trying to interfere in their domestic life, +ordering the conditions of employment, draining them of their +hard-won livelihood by trusts and monopolies established and +maintained in the interest of the Religious Orders, placing +obstacles in the way of their children's education, hindering +them in the exercise of their constitutional rights, and +deliberately ruining those of them who are bold enough to run +counter to priestly dictation. Riots suddenly break out in +Barcelona; they are instigated by the Jesuits. The country goes +to war in Morocco; it is dragged into it solely in defense of the +mines owned, actually, if not ostensibly, by the Jesuits. The +consumos cannot be abolished because the Jesuits are financially +interested in their continuance. + +We have read the statement of a Jesuit father, that "the state +cannot justly enforce compulsory education, even in case of utter +illiteracy." How has that doctrine worked out in Spain? There was +an official investigation of school conditions, the report +appearing in the "Heraldo de Madrid" for November, 1909. In 1857 +there had been passed a law requiring a certain number of schools +in each of the 79 provinces: this requirement being below the +very low standards prevailing at that time in other European +countries. Yet in 1909 it was found that only four provinces had +the required number of elementary schools, and at the rate of +increase then prevailing it would have taken 150 years to catch +up. Seventy-five per cent of the population were wholly +illiterate, and 30,000 towns and villages had no government +schools at all. The government owed nearly a million and a half +dollars in unpaid salaries to the teachers. The private schools +were nearly all "nuns' schools", which taught only needle-work +and catechism; the punishments prevailing in them were "cruel and +disgusting." + +As to the location of the schools, a report of the Minister of +Education to the Cortes, the Parliament of Spain, sets forth as +follows: + +More than 10,000 schools are on hired premises, and many of these +are absolutely destitute of hygienic conditions. There are +schools mixed up with hospitals, with cemeteries, with slaughter +houses, with stables. One school forms the entrance to a +cemetery, and the corpses are placed on the master's table while +the last responses are being said. There is a school into which +the children cannot enter until the animals have been sent out to +pasture. Some are so small that as soon as the warm weather +begins the boys faint for want of air and ventilation. One school +is a manure-heap in process of fermentation, and one of the local +authorities has said that in this way the children are warmer in +winter. One school in Cataluna adjoins the prison. Another, in +Andalusia, is turned into an enclosure for the bulls when there +is a bull-fight in the town. + +These conditions excited the indignation of a Spanish educator by +the name of Francesco Ferrer. He founded what he called a "modern +school", in which the pupils should be taught science and common +sense. He drew, of course, the bitter hatred of the Catholic +hierarchy, which saw in the spread of his principles the end of +their mastery of the people. When the Barcelona insurrection took +place, they had Ferrer seized upon a charge of having been its +instigator; they had him tried in secret before a military +tribunal, convicted upon forged documents, and shot beneath the +walls of the fortress of Montjuich. The case was thoroughly +investigated by William Archer, one of England's leading critics, +a man of scrupulous rectitude of mind. His conclusion is that +Ferrer was absolutely innocent of the charges against him, and +that his execution was the result of a clerical plot. Of Ferrer's +character Archer writes: + +Fragmentary though they be, the utterances which I have quoted +form a pretty complete revelation. From first to last we see in +him an ardent, uncompromising, incorruptible idealist. His ideals +are narrow, and his devotion to them fanatical; but it is devoid, +if not of egoism, at any rate of self-interest and self-seeking. +As he shrank from applying the money entrusted him to ends of +personal luxury, so also he shrank from making his ideas and +convictions subserve any personal ambition or vanity. + + +The Menace + +There are, of course, many people in America who will not rest +idle while their country falls into the condition of Spain. There +are anti-Catholic propaganda societies, which send out lecturers +to discuss the Church and its records; and this is exasperating +to devout believers, who regard the Church as holy, and any +criticism of it as blasphemy. So we have opportunity to observe +the working out of the doctrine that the Church is superior to +the civil law. + +On June 12th, 1913, there came to the little town of Oelwein, +Iowa, a former priest of the Catholic Church, named Jeremiah J. +Crowley, to deliver a lecture exposing the Papal propaganda. The +Catholics of the town made efforts to intimidate the owner of the +place in which the lecture was to be given; the priest of the +town, Father O'Connor, preached a sermon furiously denouncing the +lecturer; and after the lecture the unfortunate Crowley was +surrounded by a mob of men, women and boys, and although he was +six feet three in size, he was beaten almost to death. At the +trial which followed it developed that Father O'Connor and also +his brother, a judge on the Superior Bench, were accessories +before the fact. + +Nor is this a solitary instance. The Catholic military societies, +with their uniforms and their armories, are not maintained for +nothing. As Archbishop Quigley declared before the German +Catholic Central Verein: + +We have well ordered and efficient organizations, all at the beck +and nod of the hierarchy and ready to do what the church +authorities tell them to do. With these bodies of loyal Catholics +ready to step into the breach at any time and present an unbroken +front to the enemy we may feel secure. + +And so, on the evening of April 15th, 1914, a group of Catholics +entered the Pierce Hotel in Denver, Colorado, overpowered a +police guard and seized the Rev. Otis L. Spurgeon, an +anti-Catholic lecturer. They bound and gagged him, took him to a +lonely woods, and beat him to insensibility. The same thing +happened to the Rev. Augustus Barnett, at Buffalo; the Rev. +William Black was killed at Marshall, Texas. In each case the +assailants avowed themselves Knights of Columbus, and efforts to +punish them failed, because no jury can be got to convict a +Catholic, fighting for his Pope against a godless state. The most +pious Leo XIII has laid down: + +It is an impious deed to break the laws of Jesus Christ for the +purpose of obeying the magistrates, or to transgress the law of +the Church under the pretext of observing the civil law. + +There are papers published to warn Americans against the plotting +of this political Church. One of them, "The Menace," has a +circulation of more than a million; and naturally the Knights of +Slavery do not enjoy reading it. Year after year they have +marshalled their power to have this paper barred from the +mails--so far, in vain. They caused an obscenity prosecution, +which failed; so finally the press rooms of the paper were blown +up with dynamite. At the present time there is a "Catholic Truth +Society" with a publication called "Truth", to oppose the +anti-Catholic campaign; and that is all right, of course--except +when the agents who collect the two-dollar subscriptions to this +publication make use of Untruth in their labors--promising +absolution and salvation to the families, dead and living, of +those who "come across" with subscriptions. In the "Bulletin of +the American Federation of Catholic Societies" for September, +1915, I find a record of the ceaseless plotting to bar criticism +of the Catholic Church from the mails. Fitzgerald, a Tammany +Catholic congressman, proposes a bill in Washington; and Judge +St. Paul, of New Orleans, a member of the Federation's "law +committee", points out the difficulties in the way of such +legislation. You cannot pass a law against ridiculing religion, +because the Catholics want to ridicule Christian Science, +Mormonism, and the "Holy Ghost and Us" Society! The Judge thinks +the purpose of the Papal plotters will be accomplished if they +can slip into the present law the words "scurrilous and +slanderous"; he hopes that this much can be done without the +American people catching on! + +You read these things for the first time, perhaps, and you want +to start an American "Kultur-kampf." I make haste, therefore, to +restate the main thesis of this book. It is not the New +Inquisition which is our enemy today; it is hereditary Privilege. +It is not Superstition, but Big Business which makes use of +Superstition as a wolf makes use of sheep's clothing. + +You remember how, when Americans first awakened to the universal +corruption of our politics, we used to attribute it to the +"ignorant foreign vote." Turn to Lecky's "Democracy and Liberty" +and you will see how reformers twenty years ago explained our +political depravity. But we probed deeper, and discovered that +the purely American communities, such as Rhode Island, were the +most corrupt of all. It dawned upon us that wherever there was a +political boss paying bribes on election day, there was a captain +of industry furnishing the money for the bribes, and taking some +public privilege in return. So we came to realize that political +corruption is merely a by-product of Big Business. + +And when we come to probe this problem of the spread of +Supersition in America, this amazing renascence of Romanism in a +democracy, we find precisely the same phenomenon. It is not the +poor foreigner who troubles us. Our human magic would win +him--our easy-going trust, our quiet certainty of liberty, our +open-handed and open-homed and hail-fellow-well-met democracy. We +should break down the Catholic machine, and not all the priests +in the hierarchy could stop us--were it not for the Steel Trust +and the Coal Trust and the Beef Trust, the Liquor Trust and the +Traction Trust and the Money Trust--those masters of America who +do not want citizens, free and intelligent and self-governing, +but who want the slave-hordes as they come, ignorant, inert, +physically, mentally and morally helpless! + +No, do not let yourself be lured into a Kultur-kampf. It is not +the pennies of the servant-girls which build the towering +cathedrals; it is not the two-dollar contributions for the +salvation of souls which support the Catholic Truth Society and +the Knights of Columbus and the Holy Name Society and the Mary +Sodality and the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception and +all the rest of the machinery of the Papal propaganda. These +help, of course; but the main sources of growth are, first, the +subsidies of industrial exploiters, the majority of whom are +non-Catholic, and second, the privilege of public plunder granted +as payment for votes by politicians who are creatures and puppets +of Big Business. + + +King Coal + +The proof of these statements is written all over the industrial +life of America. I will stop long enough to present an account of +one industry, asking the reader to accept my statement that if +space permitted I could present the same sort of proof for a +dozen other industries which I have studied--the steel-mills of +Western Pennsylvania, the meat-factories of Chicago, the +glass-works of Southern Jersey, the silk-mills of Paterson, the +cotton-mills of North Carolina, the woolen-mills of +Massachusetts, the lumber-camps of Louisiana, the copper-mines of +Michigan, the sweat-shops of New York. + +In a lonely part of the Rocky Mountains lies a group of +enormously valuable coal-mines owned by the Rockefellers and +other Protestant exploiters. The men who work these mines, some +twelve or fifteen thousand in number, come from all the nations +of Europe and Asia, and their fate is that of the average +wage-slave. I do not ask anyone to take my word, but present +sworn testimony, taken by the United States Commission on +Industrial Relations in 1914. Here is the way the Italian miners +live, as described in a doctor's report: + +Houses up the canyon, so-called, of which eight are habitable, +and forty-six simply awful; they are disreputably disgraceful. I +have had to remove a mother in labor from one part of the shack +to another to keep dry. + +And here is the testimony of the Rev. Eugene S. Gaddis, former +superintendent of the Sociological Department of the Colorado +Fuel and Iron Company: + +The C. F. & I. Company now own and rent hovels, shacks and +dug-outs that are unfit for the habitation of human beings and +are little removed from the pig-sty make of dwellings. And the +people in them live on the very level of a pig-sty. Frequently +the population is so congested that whole families are crowded +into one room; eight persons in one small room was reported +during the year. + +And here is what this same clergyman has to say about the bosses +whom the Rockefellers employ: + +The camp superintendents as a whole impressed me as most uncouth, +ignorant, immoral, and in many instances, the most brutal set of +men that I have ever met. Blasphemous bullies. + +Sometimes the miner grows tired of being robbed of his weights, +and applies for the protection which the law of the state allows +him. What happens then? + +"When a man asked for a checkweighman, in the language of the +super he was getting too smart." + +"And he got what?" + +"He got it in the neck, generally." + +And when these wage-slaves, goaded beyond endurance, went on +strike, in the words of the Commission's report: + +Five strikers, one boy, and thirteen women and children in the +strikers' tent colony were shot to death by militiamen and guards +employed by the coal companies, or suffocated and burned to death +when these militiamen and guards set fire to the tents in which +they made their homes. + +And now, what is the position of education in such camps? The +Rev. James McDonald, a Methodist preacher, testified that the +school building was dilapidated and unfit. One year there were +four teachers, the next three, and the next only two. The teacher +of the primary grade had a hundred and twenty children enrolled, +ninety per cent of whom could not speak a word of English. + +Every little bench was seated with two or three. It was +over-crowded entirely, and she could hardly get walking room +around there. + +And as to the political use made of this deliberately cultivated +ignorance, former United States Senator Patterson testified that +the companies controlled all elections and all nominations: + +Election returns from the two or three counties in which the +large companies operate show that in the precincts in which the +mining camps are located the returns are nearly unanimous in +favor of the men or measures approved by the companies, +regardless of party. + +And now comes the all-important question. What of the Catholic +Church and these evils? The majority of these mine-slaves are +Catholics, it is this Church which is charged with their +protection. There are priests in every town, and in nearly every +camp. And do we find them lifting their voices in behalf of the +miners, protesting against the starving and torturing of thirty +or forty thousand human beings? Do we find Catholic papers +printing accounts of the Ludlow massacre? Do we find Catholic +journalists on the scene reporting it, Catholic lawyers defending +the strikers, Catholic novelists writing books about their +troubles? We do not! + +Through the long agony of the fourteen months strike, I know of +just one Catholic priest, Father Le Fevre, who had a word to say +for the strikers. One of the first stories I heard when I reached +the strike-field was of a priest who had preached on the text +that "Idleness is the root of all evil," and had been reported as +a "scab" and made to shut up. "Who made him?" I asked, naively, +thinking of his church superiors. My informant, a union miner, +laughed. "We made him!" he said. + +I talked with another priest who was prudently saving souls and +could not be interested in questions of worldly greed. Max +Eastman, reporting the strike in the "Masses", tells of an +interview with a Catholic sister. + +"Has the Church done anything to try to help these people, or to +bring about peace?" we asked. "I consider it the most useless +thing in the world to attempt it," she replied. + +The investigating committee of Congress came to the scene, and +several clergymen of the Protestant Church appeared and bore +testimony to the outrages which were being committed against the +strikers; but of all the Catholic priests in the district not one +appeared--not one! Several Protestant clergymen testified that +they had been driven from the coal-camps--not because they +favored the unions, but because the companies objected to having +their workers educated at all; but no one ever heard of the +Catholic Church having trouble with the operators. To make sure +on this point I wrote to a former clergyman of Trinidad who +watched the whole strike, and is now a first lieutenant in the +First New Mexico Infantry. He answered: + +The Catholic Church seemed to get along with the companies very +cordially. The Church was permitted in all the camps. The +impression was abroad that this was due to favoritism. I honor +what good the Church does, but I know of no instance, during the +Colorado coal-strike or at any other time or place, when the +Catholic Church has taken any special interest in the cause of +the laboring men. Many Catholics, especially the men, quit the +church during the coal-strike. + + +The Unholy Alliance + +Everywhere throughout America today the ultimate source of all +power, political, social, and religious, is economic +exploitation. To all other powers and all other organizations it +speaks in these words: "Help us, and you will thrive; oppose us, +and you will be destroyed." It has spoken to the Catholic Church, +for sixteen hundred years the friend and servant of every ruling +class; and the Church has hastened to fit itself into the +situation, continuing its pastoral role as shepherd to the +wage-slave vote. + +In New York and Boston and Chicago the Church is "Democratic"; so +in the Blaine campaign it was possible for a Republican clergyman +to describe the issue as "Rum, Romanism and Rebellion." But the +Holy Office was shrewd and socially ambitious, and the Grand Old +Party was desperately in need of votes, so under the regime of +Mark Hanna, the President-Maker, there began a rapprochement +between Big Business and the New Inquisition. Under Hanna the +Catholic Church got representation in the Cabinet; under him the +Cardinal's Mass became a government institution, a Catholic +College came to the fore in Washington, and Catholic prelates +were introduced in the role of eminent publicists, their +reactionary opinions on important questions being quoted with +grave solemnity by a prostitute press. It was Mark Hanna himself +who founded the National Civic Federation, upon whose executive +committee Catholic cardinals and archbishops might work hand in +glove with Catholic labor-leaders for the chloroforming of the +American working-class. Hanna's biographer naively calls +attention to the President-maker's popularity among Catholics, +high and low, and the support they gave him. "Archbishop Ireland +was in frequent correspondence with him, and used his influence +in Mr. Hanna's behalf." + +And this tradition, begun under Hanna, was continued under +Roosevelt, and reached its finest flower in the days of Taft, the +most pliant tool of the forces of evil who has occupied the White +House since the days of the Slave Power. President Taft was +himself a Unitarian; yet it was under his administration that the +Catholic Church achieved one of its dearest ambitions, and broke +into the Supreme Court. Why not? We can imagine the powers of the +time in conference. It is desired to pack the Court against the +possibility of progress; it is desired to find men who will stand +like a rock against change--and who better than those who have +been trained from childhood in the idea of a divine sanction for +doctrine and morals? After all, what is it that Hereditary +Privilege wants in America? A Roman Catholic code of property +rights, with a supreme tribunal to play the part of an infallible +Pope! + +Under this Taft administration the country was governed by the +strangest legislative alliance our history ever saw; a +combination of the Old Guard of the Republican Party with the +leaders of the Tammany Democracy of New York. "Bloody shirt" +Foraker, senator from Ohio, voting with the sons of those Irish +Catholic mob-leaders whom the Federal troops shot down in the +draft-riots! By this unholy combination a pledge to reduce the +tariff was carried out by a bill which greatly increased its +burdens; by this combination the public lands and resources of +the country were fed to a gang of vultures by a thievish +Secretary of the Interior. And of course under such an +administration the cause of "Religion" made tremendous strides. +Catholic officials were appointed to public office, Catholic +ecclesiastics were accorded public honors, and Catholic favor +became a means to political advancement. You might see a +hard-swearing old political pirate like "Uncle Joe" Cannon, +taking his cigar out of the corner of his blasphemous mouth and +betaking himself to the "Cardinal's Day Mass", to bend his stiff +knees and bow his hoary unrepentant head before a jeweled prelate +on a throne. You might see an emissary of the United States +government proceeding to Rome, prostrating himself before the +Pope, and paying over seven million dollars of our taxes for +lands which the filthy and sensual friars of the Philippine +Islands had filched from the wretched serfs of that country and +which the wretched serfs had won back by their blood in a +revolution. + + +Secret Service + +This Taft administration, urged on by the Catholic intrigue, made +the most determined efforts to prevent the spread of radical +thought. Because the popular magazines were opposing the +plundering of the country, a bill was introduced into Congress to +put them out of business by a prohibitive postal tax; the +President himself devoted all his power to forcing the passage of +this bill. At the same time the Socialist press was handicapped +by every sort of persecution. I was at that time in intimate +touch with the "Appeal to Reason", and I know that scarcely a +month passed that the Post Office Department did not invent some +new "regulation" especially designed to limit its circulation. I +recall one occasion when I met the editor on his way to +Washington with a trunkful of letters from subscribers who +complained that their postmasters refused to deliver the paper to +them; and later on this same editor was prosecuted by a Catholic +Attorney General and sentenced to prison for seeking to awaken +the people concerning the Moyer-Haywood case. + +From my personal knowledge I can say that under the +administration of President Taft the Roman Catholic Church and +the Secret Service of the Federal Government worked hand in hand +for the undermining of the radical movement in America. Catholic +lecturers toured the country, pouring into the ears of the public +vile slanders about the private morality of Socialists; while at +the same time government detectives, paid out of public funds, +spent their time seeking evidence for these Catholic lecturers to +use. I know one man, a radical labor-leader, whose morals +happened to approach those of the average capitalist politician, +and who was prevented by threats of exposure and scandal from +accepting the Socialist nomination for President. I know a dozen +others who were shadowed and spied upon; I know one +case--myself--a man who was asking a divorce from his wife, and +whose mail was opened for months. + +This subject is one on which I naturally speak with extreme +reluctance. I will only say that my opponent in the suit made no +charge of misconduct against me; but those in control of our +political police evidently thought it likely that a man who was +not living with his wife might have something to hide; so for +months my every move was watched and all my mail intercepted. In +such a case one might at first suspect one's private opponent; +but it soon became evident that this net was cast too wide for +any private agency. Not merely was my own mail opened, but the +mail of all my relatives and friends--people residing in places +as far apart as California and Florida. I recall the bland smile +of a government official to whom I complained about this matter: +"If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear." My answer +was that a study of many labor cases had taught me the methods of +the agent provocateur. He is quite willing to take real evidence +if he can find it; but if not, he has familiarized himself with +the affairs of his victim, and can make evidence which will be +convincing when exploited by the yellow press. In my own case, +the matter was not brought to a test, for I went abroad to live; +when I made my next attack on Big Business, the Taft +administration had been repudiated at the polls, and the Secret +Service of the government was no longer at the disposal of the +Catholic machine. + + +Tax Exemption + +Today the Catholic Church is firmly established and everywhere +recognized as one of the main pillars of American capitalism. It +has some fifteen thousand churches, fourteen million +communicants, and property valued at half a billion dollars. Upon +this property it pays no taxes, municipal, state or national; +which means, quite obviously, that you and I, who do not go to +church, but who do pay taxes, furnish the public costs of +Catholicism. We pay to have streets paved and lighted and cleaned +in front of Catholic churches; we pay to have thieves kept away +from them, fires put out in them, records preserved for them--all +the services of civilization given to them gratis, and this in a +land whose constitution provides that Congress (which includes +all state and municipal legislative bodies) "shall make no law +respecting a religious establishment." When war is declared, and +our sons are drafted to defend the country, all Catholic monks +and friars, priests and dignitaries are exempted. They are +"ministers of religion"; whereas we Socialists may not even have +the status of "conscientious objectors." We do not teach +"religion"; we only teach justice and humanity, decency and +truth. + +In defense of this tax-exemption graft, the stock answer is that +the property is being used for purposes of "education" or +"charity". It is a school, in which children are being taught +that "liberty of conscience is a most pestiferous error, from +which arises revolution, corruption, contempt of sacred things, +holy institutions, and laws." (Pius IX). It is a "House of +Refuge", to which wayward girls are committed by Catholic +magistrates, and in which they are worked twelve hours a day in a +laundry or a clothing sweat-shop. Or it is a "parish-house", in +which a celibate priest lives under the care of an attractive +young "house-keeper". Or it is a nunnery, in which young girls +are held against their will and fed upon the scraps from their +sisters' plates to teach them humility, and taught to lie before +the altar, prostrate in the form of a cross, while their +"Superiors" walk upon their bodies to impress the religious +virtues. "I was a teacher in the Catholic schools up to a very +recent period," writes the woman friend who tells me of these +customs, "and I know about the whole awful system which endeavors +to throttle every genuine impulse of the human will." + +Concerning a large part of this church property, the claim of +"religious" use has not even the shadow of justification. In +every large city of America you will find acres of land owned by +the Catholic machine, and supposed to be the future site of some +institution; but as time goes on and property values increase, +the church decides to build on a cheaper site, and proceeds to +cash in the profits of its investment, precisely as does any +other real estate speculator. Everywhere you turn in the history +of Romanism you find it at this same game, doing business under +the cloak of philanthropy and in the holy name of Christ. Read +the letter which the Catholic Bishop of Mexico sent to the Pope +in 1647, complaining of the Jesuit fathers and their boundless +graft. In McCabe's "Candid History of the Jesuits" appears a +summary: + +A remarkable account is given of the worldly property of the +fathers. They hold, it seems, the greater part of the wealth of +Mexico. Two of their colleges own 300,000 sheep, besides cattle +and other property. They own six large sugar refineries, worth +from half a million to a million crowns each, and making an +annual profit of 100,000 crowns each, while all the other monks +and clergy of Mexico together own only three small refineries. +They have immense farms, rich silver mines, large shops and +butcheries, and do a vast trade. Yet they continually intrigue +for legacies--a woman has recently left them 70,000 crowns--and +they refuse to pay the appointed tithe on them. It is piquant to +add to this authoritative description that the Jesuit +congregation at Rome were still periodically forbidding the +fathers to engage in commerce, and Jesuit writers still gravely +maintain that the society never engaged in commerce. It should be +added that the missionaries were still heavily subsidized by the +King of Spain, that there were (the Bishop says) only five or six +Jesuits to each of their establishments, and that they conducted +only ten colleges. + + +"Holy History" + +And if you think this tax-exemption privilege should be taken +away from the church grafters, let me suggest a course of +procedure. Write a letter about it to your daily newspaper; and +if the letter is not published, go and see the editor and ask +why; so you will learn something about the partnership between +Superstition and Big Business! + +It is not too much to say that today no daily newspaper in any +large American city dares to attack the emoluments of the +Catholic Church, or to advocate restrictions upon the +ecclesiastical machine. As I write, they are making a new +Catholic bishop in Los Angeles, and all the newspapers of that +graft-ridden city herald it as an important social event. Each +paper has the picture of the new prelate, with his shepherd's +crook upraised, his empty face crowned with a rhomboidal fool's +cap, and enough upholstery on him to outfit a grand opera +company. The Los Angeles "Examiner", the only paper in the city +with a pretense to radicalism, turns loose its star-writer--one +of those journalist virtuosos who will describe you a Wild West +"rodeo" one day, and a society elopement the next, and a G. O. P. +convention the next; and always with his picture, one inch +square, at the head of his effusion. He takes in the Catholic +festivity; and does it phaze him? It does not! He is a newspaper +man, and if his city editor sent him to hell, he would take the +assignment and write like the devil. To read him now you might +think he had been reared in a convent; his soul is uplifted, and +he bursts forth in pure spontaneous ecstacy: + +Solemnly magnificent, every brilliant detail symbolically +picturing the holy history of the Roman Catholic Church in the +inexorable progress of its immense structure, which rises from +the rock of Peter, with its beacons of faith and devotion +piercing the fog of doubt and fear which surround the world and +the worldly, was the ceremony yesterday at the Cathedral of St. +Vibiana, whereby Bishop John J. Cantwell was installed in his +diocese of Monterey and Los Angeles. + +And then, a month later, comes another occasion of state--the +Twenty-third Annual-Banquet of the Merchants' and Manufacturers' +Association of Los Angeles. I should have to write a little essay +to make clear the sociological significance of that function; +explaining first, a nation-wide organization which has been +proven by congressional investigation and by the publication of +its secret documents to be a machine for the corruption of our +political life; and then exhibiting our "City of the Angels", +from which all Angels have long since fled; a city in the first +crude stage of land speculation, without order, dignity or charm; +a city of real estate agents, who exist by selling climate to new +arrivals from the East; a city whose intellectual life is +"boosting", whose standards of truth are those of the +horse-trade. Its newspapers publish a table of temperatures, +showing the daily contrast between Southern California and the +East. This device is effective in the winter-time; but last June, +when for five days and nights the temperature was over 110, and +several times 114--the Los Angeles space was left empty! + +In the same way, there is a rule that our earthquake shocks are +never mentioned, unless they destroy whole towns. On the +afternoon of Jan. 26th, 1918, a cyclone hit Pasadena, of violence +sufficient to lift a barn over a church-steeple and deposit it in +the pastor's front yard. That evening a friend of mine in Los +Angeles called up the office of the "Times" to make inquiry; and +although they are only thirteen miles away, and have a branch +office and a special correspondent in Pasadena, the answer was +that they had heard nothing about the cyclone! And next morning I +made a careful search of their columns. On the front page I read: +"Fourth Blizzard of Season Raging in East"; also: "Another +Earthquake in Guatemala". But not a line about the Pasadena +cyclone That there was plenty of space in that issue, you may +judge from the fact that there were twenty headlines like the +following--many of them representing full page and half page +illustrated "write-ups": + +Where Spring is January; Wealth Waits in California; The Bright +Side of Sunshine Land; Come to California: Southland's Arms +Outstretched in Cordial Invitation to the East; Flower Stands +Make Gay City Streets; Southland Climate Big Manufacturing +Factor; Joy of Life Demonstrated in Los Angeles' Beautiful Homes; +Nymphs Knit and Bathe at Ocean's Sunny Beach; etc. + +Now we are in the War and our business is booming, we are making +money hand over fist. It is all the more delightful, because we +are putting our souls into it, we are lending our money to the +government and saving the world for Democracy! Our labor +unionists have been driven to other cities, and our Mexican +agitators and I. W. W.'s are in jail; so, in the gilt ball-room +of our palatial six-dollar-a-day hotel the four hundred masters +of our prosperity meet to pat themselves on the back, and they +invite the new Catholic bishop to come and confer the grace of +God upon their eating. + +The Bishop comes; and I take up the "Times"--the labor-hating, +labor-baiting, fire-and-slaughter-breathing "Times"--and here is +the episcopal picture on the front page, the arms stretched four +columns wide in oratorical beneficence. How the shepherd of Jesus +does love the Merchants and Manufacturers! How his eloquence is +poured out upon them! "You represent, gentlemen, the largest and +the most civilizing secular body in the country. You are the +pioneers of American civilization..... I am glad to be among you; +glad that my lines have fallen in this glorious land by the +sunset sea, and honored to meet in intimate acquaintance the big +men who have raised here in a few years a city of metropolitan +proportions." + +And then, bearing in mind his responsibilities as guardian of +Exploitation, the Bishop goes on to tell them about the coming +class-war. "On the one side a statesman preaching patience and +respect for vested rights, strict observance of public faith; on +the other a demagog speaking about the tyranny of capitalists and +usurers." And then, of course, the inevitable religious tag: "How +will men obey you, if they believe not in God, who is the author +of all authority?" At which, according to the "Times", "prolonged +applause and cheers" from the Merchants and Manufacturers! The +editor of the "Times" goes back to his office, and inspired by +this episcopal eloquence writes a "leader" with the statement +that: "We have no proletariat in America!" + + +Das Centrum + +In order to see clearly the ultimate purpose of this Unholy +Alliance, this union of Superstition and the Merchants' and +Manufacturers' Association, we have to go to Europe, where the +arrangement has been working for a thousand years. In Europe +to-day we see the whole world in conflict with a band of +criminals who have been able to master the minds and lives of a +hundred million highly civilized people. As I write, the Junker +aristocracy is at bay, and soon to have its throat cut; but there +comes a Holy Father to its rescue, with the cross of Jesus +uplifted, and a series of pleas for mercy, written in Vienna, +edited in Berlin, and sent out from Rome. The Holy Father loves +all mankind with a tender and touching love; his heart bleeds at +the sight of bloodshed and suffering, and he pleads the sacred +cause of peace on earth and good-will toward men. + +But what was the Holy Father doing through the forty-three years +that the Potsdam gang were preparing for their assault on the +world? How was the Holy Father manifesting his love of peace and +good will? He is, you understand, the "sole, last, supreme judge +of what is right and wrong," and his followers obey him with the +utmost promptness and devotion--they express themselves as +"prostrate at his feet." And when the masters of Prussia came to +him and said: "Give us the power to turn this nation into the +world's greatest military empire"--what did the Roman Church +answer? Did it speak boldly for the gentle Jesus, and the cause +of peace on earth and good-will towards men? No, it did not. To +Bismarck in Germany it said, precisely as it said to Mark Hanna +in America: "Give us honors and prestige; give us power over the +minds of the young, so that we may plunder the poor and build our +cathedrals and feed fat our greed; and in return we will furnish +you with votes, so that you may rule the state and do what you +will." + +You think there is exaggeration in that statement? Why, we know +the very names of the prelates with whom the master-cynic of the +Junkerthum made his "deal." He had tried the method of the +Kultur-kampf, and had failed; but before he repealed the +anti-Catholic laws, he made sure that the Church had learned its +lesson, and would nevermore oppose the Prussian ruling caste. We +know how this bargain was carried out; we have the record of the +Centrum, the Catholic party of Germany, whose hundred deputies +were the solid rock upon which the military regime of Prussia was +erected. Not a battle-ship nor a Zeppelin was built for which the +Black Terror did not vote the funds; not a school-child was +beaten in Posen or Alsace that the New Inquisition did not shout +its "Hoch!" The writer sat in the visitors' gallery of the +Reichstag when the Socialists were protesting against the +torturing of miserable Herreros in Africa, and he heard the +deputies of the Holy Father's political party screaming their +rage like jaguars in a jungle night. All over Europe the Catholic +Church organized fake labor unions, the "yellows," as they were +called, to scab upon the workers and undermine the revolutionary +movement. The Holy Father himself issued precise instructions for +the management of these agencies of betrayal. Hear the most pious +and benevolent Leo XIII: + +"They must pay special and principal attention to piety and +morality, and their internal discipline must be directed +precisely by these considerations; otherwise they entirely lose +their special character, and come to be very little better than +those societies which take no account of Religion at all." + +It is so hard, you see, to keep a man thinking about piety and +morality while he is starving! I am quoting from the Encyclical +Letter on "The Condition of Labor," issued in 1891, and addressed +"to our Venerable Brethren, all Patriarchs, Primates, Archbishops +and Bishops of the Catholic World in Grace and Communion with the +Apostolic See." The purpose of the letter is "to refute false +teaching," and the substance of its message is: + +This great labor question cannot be solved except by assuming as +a principle that private property must be held sacred and +inviolable. + +And again, the purpose of churches proclaimed in language as +frank as any used in the present book: + +The chief thing to be secured is the safe-guarding, by legal +enactment and policy, of private property. Most of all it is +essential in these times of covetous greed, to keep the multitude +within the line of duty; for if all may justly strive to benefit +their condition, yet neither justice nor the common good allows +any one to seize that which belongs to another, or, under the +pretext of futile and ridiculous equality, to lay hands on other +peoples' fortunes. + +And this, you understand, in lands where rapine and conquest, +class-tyranny and priestly domination have been the custom since +the dawn of history; in which no property-right can possibly +trace back to any other basis than force. In Austria, for +example--Austria, the leader and guardian of the Holy +Alliance--Austria, which had no Reformation, no Revolution, no +Kultur-kampf--Austria, in which the income of the Catholic +Primate is $625,000 a year! In other words, Austria is still to a +large extent a "Priestly Empire;" and it was Austria which began +the war--began it in a religious quarrel, with a Slav people +which does not acknowledge the Holy Father as the ruler of the +world, but persists in adhering to the Eastern Church. So of +course to-day, when Austria is learning the bitter lesson that +they who draw the sword shall perish by the sword, the heart of +the Holy Father is wrung with grief, and he sends out these +eloquent peace-notes, written in Vienna and edited in Berlin. And +at the same time his private chaplain is convicted and sentenced +to prison for life as Austria's Master-Spy in Rome! + +It is a curious thing to observe--the natural instinct which, all +over the world, draws Superstition and Exploitation together. +This war, which is hailed as a war against autocracy, might +almost as accurately be described as a war against the clerical +system. Wherever in the world you find the Papal power strong, +there you find sympathy with the Prussian infamy and there you +find German intrigue. In Spain, for example; in Ireland and +Quebec, and in the Argentine. The treatment of Belgium was a +little too raw--too many priests were shot at the outset, and so +Cardinal Mercier denounces the Germans; but you notice that he +pleads in vain with the Vatican, which stands firm by its beloved +Austria, and against the godless kingdom of Italy. The Kaiser +allows the hope of restoration of the temporal power at the peace +settlement; and meantime the law forbidding the presence of the +Jesuits in Germany has been repealed, and all over the world the +propagandists of this order are working for the Kaiser. Sir Roger +Casement was raised a Catholic, and so also "Jim" Larkin, the +Irish labor-leader who is touring America denouncing the Allies. +The Catholic Bishop of Melbourne opposed and beat conscription in +Australia, and it was Catholic propaganda of treachery among the +ignorant peasant-soldiers from Sicily which caused the breaking +of the Italian line at Tolmino. So deeply has this instinct +worked that, in the fall of 1917 while the Socialist party in New +York was campaigning for immediate peace, the Catholic Irish +suddenly forgot their ancient horrors. The Catholic "Freeman's +Journal" published nine articles favoring Socialism in a single +issue; while even "The Tablet," the diocesan paper, began to +discover that the Socialists were not such bad fellows after all. +The same "Tablet" which a few years ago allowed Father Belford to +declare that Socialists were mad dogs who should be "stopped with +a bullet"! + +Note to second edition: Since the above was written, the war +fervor has swept America, including even the rank and file of the +Catholics, and what has here been said might seem unfair to +persons who have forgotten the attitude of the Church during the +early part of the conflict, and the struggle it cost to bring the +hierarchy into line. It is one of the ironies of history that the +most reactionary organization in the world should be lending its +aid to the destruction of the second most reactionary. When the +Catholic Church marches forth to war for Democracy, it is not +drawing America down into the pit, but is letting America pull it +out of the pit--at least for a time, and the spectacle is one in +which all lovers of progress will rejoice. + + + +BOOK FOUR + +The Church of the Slavers + + See, underneath the Crown of Thorn, + The eye-balls fierce, the features grim! + And merrily from night to morn + We chaunt his praise and worship him-- +Great Christus-Jingo, at whose feet + Christian and Jew and Atheist meet! + + A wondrous god! most fit for those + Who cheat on 'Change, then creep to prayer; + Blood on his heavenly altar flows, + Hell's burning incense fills the air, + And Death attests in street and lane + The hideous glory of his reign. + + +Face of Caesar + +The thesis of this book is the effect of fixed dogma in producing +mental paralysis, and the use of this mental paralysis by +Economic Exploitation. From that standpoint the various +Protestant sects are better than the Catholic, but not much +better. The Catholics stand upon Tradition, the Protestants upon +an Inspired Word; but since this Word is the entire literary +product, history and biography, science and legislation, poetry, +drama and fiction of a whole people for something like a thousand +years, it is possible by judicious selection of texts to prove +anything you wish to prove and to justify anything you wish to +do. The "Holy Book" being full of polygamy, slavery, rape and +wholesale murder, committed by priests and rulers under the +direct orders of God, it was a very simple matter for the +Protestant Slavers to construct a Bible defense of their system. + +They get poor Jesus because he was given to irony, that most +dangerous form of utterance. If he could come back to life, and +see what men have done with his little joke about the face of +Caesar on the Roman coin, I think he would drop dead. As for +Paul, he was a Roman bureaucrat, with no nonsense in his make-up; +when he ordered, "Servants obey your masters," he meant exactly +what he said. The Roman official stamp which he put upon the +gospel of Jesus has been the salvation of the Slavers from the +Reformation on. + +In the time of Martin Luther, the peasants of Germany were +suffering the most atrocious and awful misery; Luther himself +knew about it, he had denounced the princely robbers and the +priestly land-exploiters with that picturesque violence of which +he was a master. But nothing had been done about it, nothing ever +is done about it--until at last the miserable peasants attempted +to organize and win their own rights. Their demands do not seem +to us so very criminal as we read them today; the privilege of +electing their own pastors, the abolition of villeinage, the +right to hunt and fish and cut wood in the forest, the reduction +of exorbitant rents, extra payment for extra labor, and--that +universal cry of peasant communes whether in Russia, England, +Mexico or sixteenth century Germany--the restoration to the +village of lands taken by fraud. But Luther would hear nothing of +slaves asserting their own rights, and took refuge in the Pauline +sociology: If they really wished to follow Christ, they would +drop the sword and resort to prayer; the gospel has to do with +spiritual, not temporal, affairs; earthly society cannot exist +without inequalities, etc. + +And when the peasants went on in spite of this, he turned upon +them and denounced them to the princes; he issued proclamations +which might have been the instructions of Mr. John Wanamaker to +the police-force of his "City of Brotherly Love": "One cannot +answer a rebel with reason, but the best answer is to hit him +with the fist until blood flows from the nose." He issued a +letter: "Against the Murderous and Thieving Mob of Peasants," +which might have come from the Reverend Woelfkin, Fifth Avenue +Pastor of Standard Oil: "The ass needs to be beaten, and the +populace needs to be controlled with a strong hand. God knew this +well, and therefore he gave the rulers, not a fox's tail, but a +sword." He implored these rulers, after the fashion of Methodist +Chancellor Day of the University of Syracuse: "Do not be troubled +about the severity of their repression, for it will save many +souls." With such pious exhortations in their ears the princes +set to work, and slaughtered a hundred thousand of the miserable +wretches; they completely aborted the social hopes of the +Reformation, and cast humanity into the pit of wage-slavery and +militarism for four centuries. As a church scholar, Prof. +Rauschenbusch, puts it: + +The glorious years of the Lutheran Reformation were from 1517 to +1525, when the whole nation was in commotion, and a great +revolutionary tidal wave seemed to be sweeping every class and +every higher interest one step nearer to its ideal of life. . . . +The Lutheran Reformation had been most truly religious and +creative when it embraced the whole of human life and enlisted +the enthusiasm of all ideal men and movements. When it became +"religious" in the narrow sense, it grew scholastic and spiny, +quarrelsome, and impotent to awaken high enthusiasm and noble +life. + + +Deutschland ueber Alles + +As a result of Luther's treason to humanity, his church became +the state church of Prussia, and Bible-worship and Devil-terror +played their part, along with the Mass and the Confessional, in +building up the Junker dream. A court official--the +Oberhofprediger--was set up, and from that time on the +Hohenzollerns were the most pious criminals in Europe. Frederick +the Great, the ancestral genius, was an atheist and a scoffer, +but he believed devoutly in religion for his subjects. He said: +"If my soldiers were to begin to think, not one would remain in +the ranks." And Carlyle, instinctive friend of autocrats, tells +with jocular approval how he kept them from thinking: + +He recognizes the uses of Religion; takes a good deal of pains +with his Preaching Clergy; will suggest texts to them; and for +the rest expects to be obeyed by them, as by his Sergeants and +Corporals. Indeed, the reverend men feel themselves to be a body +of Spiritual Sergeants, Corporals, and Captains, to whom +obedience is the rule, and discontent a thing not to be indulged +in by any means. + +So the soldiers stayed in the ranks, and Frederick raided Silesia +and Poland. His successors ordered all the Protestant sects into +one, so that they might be more easily controlled; from which +time the Lutheran Church has been a department of the Prussian +state, in some cases a branch of the municipal authority. + +In 1848, when the people of various German states demanded their +liberty, it was an ultra-pious king of Prussia who sent his +troops and shot them down--precisely as Luther had advised to +shoot down the peasants. At this time the future maker of the +German Empire rose in the Landtag and made his bow before the +world; a young Prussian land-magnate, Otto von Bismarck by name, +he shook his fist in the face of the new German liberalism, and +incidentally of the new German infidelity: + +Christianity is the solid basis of Prussia; and no state erected +upon any other foundation can permanently exist. + +The present Hohenzollern has diligently maintained this tradition +of his line. It was his custom to tour the Empire in a train of +blue and white cars, carrying as many costumes as any stage +favorite, most of them military; with him on the train went the +Prussian god, and there was scarcely a performance at which this +god did not appear, also in military costume. After the failure +of the "Kultur-kampf," the official Lutheran religion was ordered +to make friends with its ancient enemy, the Catholic Church. Said +the Kaiser: + +I make no difference between the adherents of the Catholic and +Protestant creeds. Let them both stand upon the foundation of +Christianity, and they are both bound to be true citizens and +obedient subjects. Then the German people will be the rock of +granite upon which our Lord God can build and complete his work +of Kultur in the world. + +And here is the oath required of the Catholic clergy, upon their +admission to equality of trustworthiness with their Protestant +confreres: + +I will be submissive, faithful and obedient to his Royal +Majesty,--and his lawful successors in the government,--as my +most gracious King and Sovereign; promote his welfare according +to my ability; prevent injury and detriment to him; and +particularly endeavor carefully to cultivate in the minds of the +people under my care a sense of reverence and fidelity towards +the King, love for the Fatherland, obedience to the laws, and all +those virtues which in a Christian denote a good citizen; and I +will not suffer any man to teach or act in a contrary spirit. In +particular I vow that I will not support any society or +association, either at home or abroad, which might endanger the +public security, and will inform His Majesty of any proposal +made, either in my diocese or elsewhere, which might prove +injurious to the State. + +And later on this heaven-guided ruler conceived the scheme of a +Berlin-Bagdad railway, for which he needed one religion more; he +paid a visit to Constantinople, and made another debut and +produced another god--with the result that millions of Turks are +fighting under the belief that the Kaiser is a convert to the +faith of Mohammed! + + +Der Tag. + +All this was, of course, in preparation for the great event to +which all good Germans looked forward--to which all German +officers drank their toasts at banquets--the Day. + +This glorious day came, and the field-gray armies marched forth, +and the Pauline-Lutheran God marched with them. The Kaiser, as +usual, acted as spokesman: + +Remember that the German people are the chosen of God. On me, the +German emperor, the spirit of God has descended. I am His sword, +His weapon and His viceregent. Woe to the disobedient and death +to cowards and unbelievers. + +As to the Prussian state religion, its attitude to the war is set +forth in a little book written by a high clerical personage, the +Herr Consistorialrat Dietrich Vorwerk, containing prayers and +hymns for the soldiers, and for the congregations at home. Here +is an appeal to the Lord God of Battles: + +Though the warrior's bread be scanty, do Thou work daily death +and tenfold woe unto the enemy. Forgive in merciful +long-suffering each bullet and each blow which misses its mark. +Lead us not into the temptation of letting our wrath be too tame +in carrying out Thy divine judgment. Deliver us and our ally from +the Infernal Enemy and his servants on earth. Thine is the +kingdom, the German land; may we, by the aid of Thy steel-clad +hand, achieve the fame and the glory. + +It is this Herr Consistorialrat who has perpetrated the great +masterpiece of humor of the war--the hymn in which he appeals to +that God who keeps guard over Cherubim, Seraphim, and Zeppelins. +You have to say over the German form of these words in order to +get the effect of their delicious melody--"Cherubinen, +Seraphinen, Zeppelinen!" And lest you think that this too-musical +clergyman is a rara avis, turn to the little book which has been +published in English under the same title as Herr Vorwerk's +"Hurrah and Hallelujah." Here is the Reverend S. Lehmann: + +Germany is the center of God's plans for the world. Germany's +fight against the whole world is in reality the battle of the +spirit against the whole world's infamy, falsehood and devilish +cunning. + +And here is Pastor K. Koenig: + +It was God's will that we should win the war. + +And Pastor J. Rump: + +Our defeat would mean the defeat of His Son in humanity. We fight +for the cause of Jesus within mankind. + +And here is an eminent theological professor: + +The deepest and most thought-inspiring result of the war is the +German God. Not the national God such as the lower nations +worship, but "our God," who is not ashamed of belonging to us, +the peculiar acquirement of our heart. + + +King Cotton + +It is a cheap way to gain applause in these days, to denounce the +Prussian system; my only purpose is to show that Bible-worship, +precisely as saint-worship or totem-worship, delivers the +worshipper up to the Slavers. This truth has held in America, +precisely as in Prussia. During the middle of the last century +there was fought out a mighty issue in our free republic; and +what was the part played in this struggle by the Bible-cults? +Hear the testimony of William Lloyd Garrison: "American +Christianity is the main pillar of American slavery." Hear Parker +Pillsbury: "We had almost to abolish the Church before we could +reach the dreadful institution at all." + +In the year 1818 the Presbyterian General Assembly, which +represented the churches of the South as well as of the North, +passed by a unanimous vote a resolution to the effect that +"Slavery is utterly inconsistent with the law of God, which +requires us to love our neighbor as ourselves." But in a +generation the views of the entire South, including the +Presbyterian Church, had changed entirely. What was the reason? +Had the "law of God" been altered? Had some new "revelation" been +handed down? Nothing of the kind; it was merely that a Yankee by +the name of Eli Whitney had perfected a machine to take the seeds +out of short staple cotton. The cotton crop of the South +increased from four thousand bales in 1791 to four hundred and +fifty thousand in 1820 and five million, four hundred thousand in +1860. + +There was a new monarch, King Cotton, and his empire depended +upon slaves. According to the custom of monarchs since the dawn +of history, he hired the ministers of God to teach that what he +wanted was right and holy. From one end of the South to the other +the pulpits rang with the text: "Cursed be Canaan; a servant to +servants shall he be to his brethren." The learned Bishop +Hopkins, in his "Bible View of Slavery", gave the standard +interpretation of this text: + +The Almighty, forseeing the total degredation of the Negro race, +ordained them to servitude or slavery under the descendants of +Shem and Japheth, doubtless because he judged it to be their +fittest condition. + +I might fill the balance of this volume with citations from +defenses of the "peculiar institution" in the name of Jesus +Christ--and not only from the South, but from the North. For it +must be understood that leading families of Massachusetts and New +York owed their power to Slavery; their fathers had brought +molasses from New Orleans and made it into rum, and taken it to +the coast of Africa to be exchanged for slaves for the Southern +planters. And after this trade was outlawed, the slave-grown +cotton had still to be shipped to the North and spun; so the +traders of the North must have divine sanction for the Fugitive +Slave law. Here is the Bishop of Vermont declaring: "The slavery +of the negro race appears to me to be fully authorized both in +the Old and New Testaments." Here in the "True Presbyterian", of +New York, giving the decision of a clerical man of the world: +"There is no debasement in it. It might have existed in Paradise, +and it may continue through the Millenium." + +And when the slave-holding oligarchy of the South rose in arms +against those who presumed to interfere with this divine +institution, the men of God of the South called down blessings +upon their armies in words which, with the proper change of +names, might have been spoken in Berlin in August, 1914. Thus Dr. +Thornwell, one of the leading Presbyterian divines of the South: +"The triumph of Lincoln's principles is the death-knell of +slavery...... Let us crush the serpent in the egg." And the +Reverend Dr. Smythe of Charleston: "The war is a war against +slavery, and is therefore treasonable rebellion against the Word, +Providence and Government of God." I read in the papers, as I am +writing, how the clergy of Germany are thundering against +President Wilson's declaration that that country must become +democratic. Here is a manifesto of the German Evangelical League, +made public on the four hundredth anniversary of the Reformation: + +We especially warn against the heresy, promulgated from America, +that Christianity enjoins democratic institutions, and that they +are an essential condition of the kingdom of God on earth. + +In exactly the same way the religious bodies of the entire South +united in an address to Christians throughout the world, early in +the year 1863: + +The recent proclamation of the President of the United States, +seeking the emancipation of the slaves of the South, is in our +judgment occasion of solemn protest on the part of the people of +God. + + +Witches and Women + +To whatever part of the world you travel, to whatever page of +history you turn, you find the endowed and established clergy +using the word of God in defense of whatever form of +slave-driving may then be popular and profitable. Two or three +hundred years ago it was the custom of Protestant divines in +England and America to burn poor old women as witches; only a +hundred and fifty years ago we find John Wesley, founder of +Methodism, declaring that "the giving up of witchcraft is in +effect the giving up of the Bible." And if you investigate this +witch-burning, you will find that it is only one aspect of a blot +upon civilization, the Christian Mysogyny. You see, there were +two Hebrew legends--one that woman was made out of a man's rib, +and the other that she ate an apple; therefore in modern England +a wife must be content with a legal status lower than a domestic +servant. + +Perhaps the most comical of the clerical claims is this--that +Christianity has promoted chivalry and respect for womanhood. In +ancient Greece and Rome the woman was the equal and helpmate of +man; we read in Tacitus about the splendid women of the Germans, +who took part in public councils, and even fought in battles. Two +thousand years before the Christian era we are told by Maspero +that the Egyptian woman was the mistress of her house; she could +inherit equally with her brothers, and had full control of her +property. We are told by Paturet that she was "juridically the +equal of man, having the same rights and being treated in the +same fashion." But in present-day England, under the common law, +woman can hold no office of trust or power, and her husband has +the sole custody of her person, and of her children while minors. +He can steal her children, rob her of her clothing, and beat her +with a stick provided it is no thicker than his thumb. While I +was in London the highest court handed down a decision on the law +which does not permit a woman to divorce her husband for +infidelity, unless it has been accompanied by cruelty; a man had +brought his mistress into his home and--compelled his wife to +work for and wait upon her, and the decision was that this was +not cruelty in the meaning of the law! + +And if you say that this enslavement of Woman has nothing to do +with religion--that ancient Hebrew fables do not control modern +English customs--then listen to the Vicar of Crantock, preaching +at St. Crantock's, London, Aug. 27th, 1905, and explaining why +women must cover their heads in church: + +(1) Man's priority of creation. Adam was first formed, then Eve. + +(2) The manner of creation. The man is not of the woman, but the +woman of the man. + +(3) The purport of creation. The man was not created for the +woman, but the woman for the man. + +(4) Results in creation. The man is the image of the glory of +God, but woman is the glory of man. + +(5) Woman's priority in the fall. Adam was not deceived; but the +woman, being deceived, was in the transgression. + +(6) The marriage relation. As the Church is subject to Christ, so +let the wives be to their husbands. + +(7) The headship of man and woman. The head of every man is +Christ, but the head of the woman is man. + +I say there is no modern evil which cannot be justified by these +ancient texts; and there is nowhere in Christendom a clergy which +cannot be persuaded to cite them at the demand of ruling classes. +In the city where I write, three clergymen are being sent to jail +for six months for protesting against the use of the name of +Jesus in the wholesale slaughter of men. Now, I am backing this +war. I know that it has to be fought, and I want to see it fought +as hard as possible; but I want to leave Jesus out of it, for I +know that Jesus did not believe in war, and never could have been +brought to support a war. I object to clerical cant on the +subject; and I note that an eminent theological authority, +"Billy" Sunday, appears to agree with me; for I find him on the +front page of my morning paper, assailing the three pacifist +clergymen, and making his appeal not to Jesus, but to the +blood-thirsty tribal diety of the ancient Hebrews: + +I suppose they think they know more than God Almighty, who +commanded the sun to stand still while Joshua won the battle for +the Lord; more than the God who made Samson strong so he could +slay thousands of his nation's enemies in a righteous cause. + +Right you are, Billy! And if the capitalist system continues to +develop unchecked, we shall some day see it dawn upon the masters +of the world how wasteful it is to permit the superannuated +workers to perish by slow starvation. So much more sensible to +make use of them! So we shall have a Bible defense of +cannibalism; we shall hear our evangelists quoting Leviticus: +"They shall eat the flesh of their own sons and daughters." Or +perhaps some of our leisure-class ladies might make the discovery +that the flesh of working-class babies is relished by pomeranians +and poodles. If so, the Billy Sundays of the twenty-first century +may discover the text: "Happy shall be he that taketh and dasheth +thy little ones against the stones." + + +Moth and Rust + +It is especially interesting to notice what happens when the +Bible texts work against the interests of the Slavers and their +clerical retainers. Then they are null and void--and no matter +how precise and explicit and unmistakable they may be! Take for +example the Sabbath injunction: "Six days shalt thou labor and do +all that thou hast to do." Karl Marx records of the pious England +of his time that + +Occasionally in rural districts a day-labourer is condemned to +imprisonment for desecrating the Sabbath by working in his front +garden. The same labourer is punished for breach of contract if +he remains away from his metal, paper or glass works on the +Sunday, even if it be from a religious whim. The orthodox +Parliament will hear nothing of Sabbath-breaking if it occurs in +the process of expanding capital. + +Or consider the attitude of the Church in the matter of usury. +Throughout ancient Hebrew history the money-lender was an +outcast; both the law and the prophets denounced him without +mercy, and it was made perfectly clear that what was meant was, +not the taking of high interest, but the taking of any interest +whatsoever. The early church fathers were explicit, and the +Catholic Church for a thousand years consigned money-lenders +unhesitatingly to hell. But then came the modern commercial +system, and the money-lenders became the masters of the world! +There is no more amusing illustration of the perversion of human +thought than the efforts of the Jesuit casuists to escape from +the dilemma into which their Heavenly Guides had trapped them. + +Here, for example is Alphonso Ligouri, a Spanish Jesuit of the +eighteenth century, a doctor of the Church, now worshipped as St. +Alphonsus, presenting a long and elaborate theory of "mental +usury"; concluding that, if the borrower pay interest of his own +free will, the lender may keep it. In answer to the question +whether the lender may keep what the borrower pays, not out of +gratitude, but out of fear that otherwise loans will be refused +to him in future, Ligouri says that "to be usury, it must be paid +by reason of a contract, or as justly due; payment by reason of +such a fear does not cause interest to be paid as an actual +price," Again the great saint and doctor tells us that "it is not +usury to exact something in return for the danger and expense of +regaining the principal!" Could the house of J. P. Morgan and +Company ask more of their ecclesiastical department? + +The reader may think that such sophistications are now out of +date; but he will find precisely the same knavery in the efforts +of present-day Slavers to fit Jesus Christ into the system of +competitive commercialism. Jesus, as we have pointed out, was a +carpenter's son, a thoroughly class-conscious proletarian. He +denounced the exploiters of his own time with ferocious +bitterness, he drove the money-changers out of the temple with +whips, and he finally died the death of a common criminal. If he +had forseen the whole modern cycle of capitalism and +wage-slavery, he could hardly have been more precise in his +exortations to his followers to stand apart from it. But did all +this avail him? Not in the least! + +I place upon the witness-stand an exponent of Bible-Christianity +whom all readers of our newspapers know well: a scholar of +learning, a publicist of renown; once pastor of the most famous +church in Brooklyn; now editor of our most influential religious +weekly; a liberal both in theology and politics; a modernist, an +advocate of what he calls industrial democracy. His name is Lyman +Abbott, and he is writing under his own signature in his own +magazine, his subject being "The Ethical Teachings of Jesus". +Several times I have tried to persuade people that the words I am +about to quote were actually written and published by this +eminent doctor of divinity, and people have almost refused to +believe me. Therefore I specify that the article may be found in +the "Outlook", the bound volumes of which are in all large +libraries: volume 94, page 576. The words are as follows, the +bold face being Dr. Abbott's, not mine: + +My radical friend declares that the teachings of Jesus are not +practicable, that we cannot carry them out in life, and that we +do not pretend to do so. Jesus, he reminds us, said, 'Lay not up +for yourself treasures upon earth;' and Christians do universally +lay up for themselves treasures upon earth; every man that owns a +house and lot, or a share of stock in a corporation, or a life +insurance policy, or money in a savings bank, has laid up for +himself treasure upon earth. But Jesus did not say, "Lay not up +for yourselves treasures upon earth." He said, "Lay not up for +yourselves treasures upon earth where moth and rust doth corrupt +and where thieves break through and steal." And no sensible +American does. Moth and rust do not get at Mr. Rockefeller's oil +wells, nor at the Sugar Trust's sugar, and thieves do not often +break through and steal a railway or an insurance company or a +savings bank. What Jesus condemned was hoarding wealth. + +Strange as it may sound to some of the readers of this book, I +count myself among the followers of Jesus of Nazareth. His +example has meant more to me than that of any other man, and all +the experiences of my revolutionary life have brought me nearer +to him. Living in the great Metropolis of Mammon, I have felt the +power of Privilege, its scourge upon my back, its crown of thorns +upon my head. When I read that article in the "Outlook", I felt +just as Jesus himself would have felt; and I sat down and wrote a +letter-- + +To Lyman Abbott + +This discovery of a new method of interpreting the Bible is one +of such very great interest and importance that I cannot forbear +to ask space to comment upon it. May I suggest that Dr. Abbott +elaborate this exceedingly fruitful idea, and write us another +article upon the extent to which the teachings of the Inspired +Word are modified by modern conditions, by the progress of +invention and the scientific arts? The point of view which Dr. +Abbott takes is one which had never occurred to me before, and I +had therefore been completely mistaken as to the attitude of +Jesus on the question. Also I have, like Dr. Abbott, many radical +friends who are still laboring under error. + +Jesus goes on to bid his hearers: "Consider the lilies of the +field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin." What +an apt simile is this for the "great mass of American wealth," in +Dr. Abbott's portrayal of it! "It is serving the community," he +tells us; "it is building a railway to open a new country to +settlement by the homeless; it is operating a railway to carry +grain from the harvests of the West to the unfed millions of the +East," etc. Incidentally, it is piling up dividends for its pious +owners; and so everybody is happy--and Jesus, if he should come +back to earth, could never know that he had left the abodes of +bliss above. + +Truly, there should be a new school of Bible interpretation +founded upon this brilliant idea. Jesus says, "Therefore when +thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the +hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may +have glory of men." Verily not; for of what avail are trumpets, +compared with the millions of copies of newspapers which daily go +forth to tell of Mr. Rockefeller's benefactions? How transitory +are they, compared with the graven marble or granite which Mr. +Carnegie sets upon the front of each of his libraries! + +There is the paragraph, "Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, +because thou canst not make one hair white or black." I have +several among my friends who are Quakers; presumably Dr. Abbott +has also; and he should not fail to point out to them the changes +which scientific discovery has wrought in the significance of +this command against swearing. We can now make our hair either +white or black, or a combination of both. We can make it a +brilliant peroxide golden; we could, if pushed to an extreme, +make it purple or green. So we are clearly entitled to swear all +we please by our head. + +Nor should we forget to examine other portions of the Bible +according to this method. "Look not upon the wine when it is +red," we are told. Thanks to the activities of that Capitalism +which Dr. Abbott praises so eloquently, we now make our beverages +in the chemical laboratory, and their color is a matter of +choice. Also, it should be pointed out that we have a number of +pleasant drinks which are not wine at all--"high-balls" and "gin +rickeys" and "peppered punches"; also vermouthe and creme de +menthe and absinthe, which I believe, are green in hue, and +therefore entirely safe. + +Then there are the Ten Commandments. "Thou shalt not make unto +thee any graven image." See how completely our understanding of +this command is changed, so soon as we realize that we are free +to make images of molten metal! And that we may with impunity bow +down to them and worship them and serve them--even, for instance, +a Golden Calf! + +"The seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou +shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy +manservant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor the +stranger that is within thy gates." This, again, it will be +noted, is open to new interpretations. It specifies maidservants, +but does not prevent one's employing as many married women as he +pleases. It also says nothing about the various kinds of +labor-saving machinery which we have now taught to work for +us--sail-boats, naptha launches, yachts, automobiles, and private +cars--all of which may be busily occupied during the seventh day +of the week. The men who run these machines--the guides, boatmen, +stokers, pilots, chauffeurs, and engineers--would all indignantly +resent being regarded as "servants", and so they do not come +under the prohibition any more than the machines. + +"Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet +thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor +his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbor's." I read +this paragraph over for the first time in quite a while, and I +came with a jolt to its last words. I had been intending to point +out that it said nothing about a neighbor's automobile, nor a +neighbor's oil wells, sugar trusts, insurance companies and +savings banks. The last words, however, stop one off abruptly. +One is almost tempted to imagine that the Divine Intelligence +must have foreseen Dr. Abbott's ingenious method of +interpretation, and taken this precaution against him. And this +was a great surprise to me--for, truly, I had not supposed it +possible that such an interpretation could have been foreseen, +even by Omniscience itself. I will conclude this communication by +venturing the assertion that it could not have been foreseen by +any other person or thing, in the heavens above, on the earth +beneath, or the waters under the earth. Dr. Abbott may accept my +congratulations upon having achieved the most ingenious and +masterful exhibition of casuistical legerdemain that it has ever +been my fortune to encounter in my readings in the literatures of +some thirty centuries and seven different languages. + +And I will also add that I respectfully challenge Dr. Abbott to +publish this letter. And I announce to him in advance that if he +refuses to publish it, I will cause it to be published upon the +first page of the "Appeal to Reason", where it will be read by +some five hundred thousand Socialists, and by them set before +several million followers of Jesus Christ, the world's first and +greatest revolutionist, whom Dr. Lyman Abbott has traduced and +betrayed by the most amazing piece of theological knavery that it +has ever been my fortune to encounter. + + +The Octopus + +Dr. Lyman Abbott published this letter! In his editorial comment +thereon he said that he did not know which of two biblical +injunctions to follow: "Answer not a fool according to his folly, +lest thou be thought like unto him"; or "Answer a fool according +to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit". I replied by +pointing out a third text which the Reverend Doctor had possibly +overlooked: "He that calleth his neighbor a fool shall be in +danger of hell-fire." But the Reverend Doctor took refuge in his +dignity, and I bided my time and waited for that revenge which +comes sooner or later to us muck-rakers. In this case it came +speedily. The story is such a perfect illustration of the +functions of religion as oil to the machinery of graft that I ask +the reader's permission to recite it at length. + +For a couple of decades the political and financial life of New +England has been dominated by a gigantic aggregation of capital, +the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad. It is a "Morgan" +concern; its popular name, "The New Haven", stands for all the +railroads of six states, nearly all the trolley-lines and +steamship-lines, and a group of the most powerful banks of Boston +and New York. It is controlled by a little group of insiders, who +followed the custom of rail-road-wrecking familiar to students of +American industrial life: buying up new lines, capitalizing them +at fabulous sums, and unloading them on the investing public; +paying dividends out of capital, "passing" dividends as a means +of stock manipulation, accumulating surpluses and cutting +"melons" for the insiders, while at the same time crushing labor +unions, squeezing wages, and permitting rolling-stock and +equipment to go to wreck. + +All these facts were perfectly well known in Wall Street, and +could not have escaped the knowledge of any magazine editor +dealing with current events. In eight years the "New Haven" had +increased its capitalization 1501 per cent; and what that meant, +any office boy in "the Street" could have told. What attitude +should a magazine editor take to the matter? + +At that time there were still two or three free magazines in +America. One of them was Hampton's, and the story of its wrecking +by the New Haven criminals will some day serve in school +text-books as the classic illustration of that financial piracy +which brought on the American social revolution. Ben Hampton had +bought the old derelict "Broadway Magazine", with twelve thousand +subscribers, and in four years, by the simple process of straight +truth-telling, had built up for it a circulation of 440,000. In +two years more he would have had a million; but in May, 1911, he +announced a series of articles dealing with the New Haven +management. + +The articles, written by Charles Edward Russell, were so exact +that they read today like the reports of the Interstate Commerce +Commission, dated three years later. A representative of the New +Haven called upon the editor of Hampton's with a proof of the +first article--obtained from the printer by bribery--and was +invited to specify the statements to which he took exception; in +the presence of witnesses he went over the article line by line, +and specified two minor errors, which were at once corrected. At +the end of the conference he announced that if the articles were +published, Hampton's Magazine would be "on the rocks in ninety +days." + +Which threat was carried out to the letter. First came a campaign +among the advertisers of the magazine, which lost an income of +thousands of dollars a month, almost over night. And then came a +campaign among the banks--the magazine could not get credit. +Anyone familiar with the publishing business will understand that +a magazine which is growing rapidly has to have advances to meet +each month's business. Hampton undertook to raise the money by +selling stock; whereupon a spy was introduced into his office as +bookkeeper, his list of subscribers was stolen, and a campaign +was begun to destroy their confidence. + +It happened that I was in Hampton's office in the summer of 1911, +when the crisis came. Money had to be had to pay for a huge new +edition; and upon a property worth two millions of dollars, with +endorsements worth as much again, it was impossible to borrow +thirty thousand dollars in the city of New York. Bankers, +personal friends of the publisher, stated quite openly that word +had gone out that any one who loaned money to him would be +"broken". I myself sent telegrams to everyone I knew who might by +any chance be able to help; but there was no help, and Hampton +retired without a dollar to his name, and the magazine was sold +under the hammer to a concern which immediately wrecked it and +discontinued publication. + + +The Industrial Shelley + +Such was the fate of an editor who opposed the "New Haven". And +now, what of those editors who supported it? Turn to "The +Outlook, a Weekly Journal of Current Events," edited by Lyman +Abbott--the issue of Dec. 25th, nineteen hundred and nine years +after Christ came down to bring peace on earth and good-will +toward Wall Street. You will there find an article by Sylvester +Baxter entitled "The Upbuilding of a Great Railroad." It is the +familiar "slush" article which we professional writers learn to +know at a glance. "Prodigious", Mr. Baxter tells us, has been the +progress of the New Haven; this was "a masterstroke", that was +"characteristically sagacious". The road had made "prodigious +expenditures", and to a noble end: "Transportation efficiency +epitomizes the broad aim that animated these expenditures and +other constructive activities." There are photographs of bridges +and stations--"vast terminal improvements", "a masterpiece of +modern engineering", "the highest, greatest and most +architectural of bridges". Of the official under whom these +miracles were being wrought--President Mellen--we read: +"Nervously organized, of delicate sensibility, impulsive in +utterance, yet with an extraordinarily convincing power for +vividly logical presentation." An industrial Shelley, or a +Milton, you perceive; and all this prodigious genius poured out +for the general welfare! "To study out the sort of transportation +service best adapted to these ends, and then to provide it in the +most efficient form possible, that is the life-task that +President Mellen has set himself." + +There was no less than sixteen pages of these raptures--quite a +section of a small magazine like the "Outlook". "The New Haven +ramifies to every spot where industry flourishes, where business +thrives." "As a purveyor of transportation it supplies the public +with just the sort desired." "Here we have the new efficiency in +a nutshell." In short, here we have what Dr. Lyman Abbott means +when he glorifies "the great mass of American wealth". "It is +serving the community; it is building a railway to open a new +country to settlement by the homeless; it is operating a railway +to carry grain from the harvests of the West to the unfed +millions of the East," etc. The unfed millions--my typewriter +started to write "underfed millions"--are humbly grateful for +these services, and hasten to buy copies of the pious weekly +which tells about them. + +The "Outlook" runs a column of "current events" in which it tells +what is happening in the world; and sometimes it is compelled to +tell of happenings against the interests of "the great mass of +American wealth". The cynical reader will find amusement in +following its narrative of the affairs of the New Haven during +the five years subsequent to the publication of the Baxter +article. + +First came the collapse of the road's service; a series of +accidents so frightful that they roused even clergymen and +chambers of commerce to protest. A number of the "Outlook's" +subscribers are New Haven "commuters", and the magazine could not +fail to refer to their troubles. In the issue of Jan. 4th, 1913, +three years and ten days after the Baxter rhapsody, we read: + +The most numerous accidents on a single road since the last +fiscal year have been, we believe, those on the New Haven. In the +opinion of the Connecticut Commission, the Westport wreck would +not have occurred if the railway company had followed the +recommendation of the Chief Inspector of Safety Appliances of the +Interstate Commerce Commission in its report on a similar +accident at Bridgeport a year ago. + +And by June 28th, matters had gone farther yet; we find the +"Outlook" reporting: + +Within a few hours of the collision at Stamford, the wrecked +Pullman car was taken away and burned. Is this criminal +destruction of evidence? + +This collapse of the railroad service started a clamor for +investigation by the Interstate Commerce Commission, which of +course brought terror to the bosoms of the plunderers. On Dec. +20, 1913, we find the "Outlook" "putting the soft pedal" on the +public indignation. "It must not be forgotten that such a road as +the New Haven is, in fact if not in terms, a National possession, +and as it goes down or up, public interests go down or up with +it," But in spite of all pious admonitions, the Interstate +Commerce Commission yielded to the public clamor, and an +investigation was made--revealing such conditions of rottenness +as to shock even the clerical retainers of Privilege. "Securities +were inflated, debt was heaped upon debt", reports the horrified +"Outlook"; and when its hero, Mr. Mellen--its industrial Shelley, +"nervously organized, of delicate sensibility"--admitted that he +had no authority as to the finances of the road and no +understanding of them, but had taken all his orders from Morgan, +the "Outlook" remarks, deeply wounded: "A pitiable position for +the president of a great railway to assume." A little later, when +things got hotter yet, we read: + +In the search for truth the Commissioners had to overcome many +obstacles, such as the burning of books, letters and documents, +and the obstinacy of witnesses, who declined to testify until +criminal proceedings were begun. The New Haven system has more +than three hundred subsidiary corporations in a web of entangling +alliances, many of which were seemingly planned, created and +manipulated by lawyers expressly retained for the purpose of +concealment or deception. + +But do you imagine even that would sicken the pious jackals of +their offal? If so, you do not know the sturdiness of the pious +stomach. A compromise was patched up between the government and +the thieves who were too big to be prosecuted; this bargain was +not kept by the thieves, and President Wilson declared in a +public statement that the New Haven administration had "broken an +agreement deliberately and solemnly entered into," in a manner to +the President "inexplicable and entirely without justification." +Which, of course, seemed to the "Outlook" dreadfully impolite +language to be used concerning a "National possession"; it +hastened to rebuke President Wilson, whose statement was "too +severe and drastic." + +A new compromise was made between the government and the thieves +who were too big to be prosecuted, and the stealing went on. Now, +as I work over this book, the President takes the railroads for +war use, and reads to Congress a message proposing that the +securities based upon the New Haven swindles, together with all +the mass of other railroad swindles, shall be sanctified and +secured by dividends paid out of the Public purse. New Haven +securities take a big jump; and the "Outlook", needless to say, +is enthusiastic for the President's policy. Here is a chance for +the big thieves to baptize themselves--or shall we say to have +the water in their stocks made "holy"? Says our pious editor, for +the government to take property without full compensation "would +be contrary to the whole spirit of America." + + +The Outlook for Graft + +Anyone familiar with the magazine world will understand that such +crooked work as this, continued over a long period, is not done +for nothing. Any magazine writer would know, the instant he saw +the Baxter article, that Baxter was paid by the New Haven, and +that the "Outlook" also was paid by the New Haven. Generally he +has no way of proving such facts, and has to sit in silence; but +when his board bill falls due and his landlady is persistent, he +experiences a direct and earnest hatred of the crooks of +journalism who thrive at his expense. If he is a Socialist, he +looks forward to the day when he may sit on a Publications' Graft +Commission, with access to all magazine books which have not yet +been burned! + +In the case of the New Haven, we know a part of the price--thanks +to the labors of the Interstate Commerce Commission. Needless to +say, you will not find the facts recorded in the columns of the +Outlook; you might have read it line by line from the palmy days +of Mellen to our own, and you would have got no hint of what the +Commission revealed about magazine and newspaper graft. Nor would +you have got much more from the great metropolitan dailies, which +systematically "played down" the expose, omitting all the really +damaging details. You would have to go to the reports of the +Commission--or to the files of "Pearson's Magazine", which is out +of print and not found in libraries! + +According to the New Haven's books, and by the admission of its +own officials, the road was spending more than four hundred +thousand dollars a year to influence newspapers and magazines in +favor of its policies. (President Mellen stated that this was +relatively less than any other railroad in the country was +spending). There was a professor of the Harvard Law School, going +about lecturing to boards of trade, urging in the name of +economic science the repeal of laws against railroad +monopolies--and being paid for his speeches out of railroad +funds! There was a swarm of newspaper reporters, writing on +railroad affairs for the leading papers of New England, and +getting twenty-fivedollars weekly, or two or three hundred on +special occasions. Sums had been paid directly to more than a +thousand newspapers--$3,000 to the Boston "Republic", and when +the question was asked "Why?" the answer was, "That is Mayor +Fitzgerald's paper." Even the ultra-respectable "Evening +Transcript", organ of the Brahmins of culture, was down for $144 +for typing, mimeographing and sending out "dope" to the country +press. There was an item of $381 for 15,000 "Prayers"; and when +asked about that President Mellen explained that it referred to a +pamphlet called "Prayers from the Hills", embodying the yearnings +of the back-country people for trolley-franchises to be issued to +the New Haven. Asked why the pamphlet was called "Prayers", Mr. +Mellen explained that "there was lots of biblical language in +it." + +And now we come to the "Outlook"; after five years of waiting, we +catch our pious editors with the goods on them! There appears on +the pay-roll of the New Haven, as one of its regular +press-agents, getting sums like $500 now and then--would you +think it possible?--Sylvester Baxter! And worse yet, there +appears an item of $938.64 to the "Outlook", for a total of 9,716 +copies of its issue of Dec. 25th, nineteen hundred and nine years +after Christ came to bring peace on earth and good will towards +Wall Street! + +The writer makes a specialty of fair play, even when dealing with +those who have never practiced it towards him. He wrote a letter +to the editor of the "Outlook", asking what the magazine might +have to say upon this matter. The reply, signed by Lawrence F. +Abbott, President of the "Outlook" Company, was that the +"Outlook" did not know that Mr. Baxter had any salaried +connection with the New Haven, and that they had paid him for the +article at the usual rates. Against this statement must be set +one made under oath by the official of the New Haven who had the +disbursing of the corruption fund--that the various papers which +used the railroad material paid nothing for it, and "they all +knew where it came from." Mr. Lawrence Abbott states that "the +New Haven Railroad bought copies of the 'Outlook' without any +previous understanding or arrangement as anybody is entitled to +buy copies of the 'Outlook'." I might point out that this does +not really say as much as it seems to; for the President of every +magazine company in America knows without any previous +understanding or arrangement that any time he cares to print an +article such as Mr. Baxter's, dealing with the affairs of a great +corporation, he can sell ten thousand copies to that corporation. +The late unlamented Elbert Hubbard wrote a defense of the +Rockefeller slaughter of coal-miners, published it in "The Fra," +and came down to New York and unloaded several tons at 26 +Broadway; he did the same thing in the case of the copper strike +in Michigan, and again in the case of "The Jungle"--and all this +without the slightest claim to divine inspiration or authority! + +Mr. Abbott answers another question: "We certainly did not return +the amount to the railroad company." Well, a sturdy conscience +must be a comfort to its possessor. The President of the +"Outlook" is in the position of a pawnbroker caught with stolen +goods in his establishment. He had no idea they were stolen; and +we might believe it, if the thief were obscure. But when the +thief is the most notorious in the city--when his picture has +been in the paper a thousand times? And when the thief swears +that the broker knew him? And when the broker's shop is full of +other suspicious goods? Why did the "Outlook" practically take +back Mr. Spahr's revelations concerning the Powder barony of +Delaware? Why did it support so vigorously the Standard Oil +ticket for the control of the Mutual Life Insurance Company--and +with James Stillman, one of the heads of Standard Oil, president +of Standard Oil's big bank in New York, secretly one of its +biggest stockholders! + +Also, why does the magazine refuse to give its readers a chance +to judge its conduct? Why is it that a search of its columns +reveals no mention of the revelations concerning Mr. Baxter--not +even any mention of the $400,000 slush fund of its paragon, of +transportation virtues? I asked that question in my letter, and +the president of the "Outlook" Company for some reason failed to +notice it. I wrote a second time, courteously reminding him of +the omission; and also of another, equally significant--he had +not informed me whether any of the editors of the "Outlook", or +the officers or directors of the Company, were stockholders in +the New Haven. His final reply was that the questions seem to him +"wholly unimportant"; he does not know whether the "Outlook" +published anything about the Baxter revelations, nor does he know +whether any of the editors or officers or directors of the +"Outlook" Company are or ever have been stockholders of the New +York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad Company. The fact "would +not in the slightest degree affect either favorably or +unfavorably our editorial treatment of that corporation." +Caesar's wife, it appears is above suspicion--even when she is +caught in a brothel! + + +Clerical Camouflage + +I have seen a photograph from "Somewhere in France", showing a +wayside shrine with a statue of the Virgin Mary, innocent and +loving, with her babe in her arms. If you were a hostile aviator, +you might sail over and take pictures to your heart's content, +and you would see nothing but a saintly image; you would have to +be on the enemy's side, and behind the lines, to make the +discovery that under the image had been dug a hole for a +machine-gun. When I saw that picture, I thought to myself--there +is capitalist Religion! + +You see, if cannon and machine-guns are out in the open, they are +almost instantly spotted and put out of action; and so with +magazines like "Leslie's Weekly", or "Munsey's", or the "North +American Review", which are frankly and wholly in the interest of +Big Business. If an editor wishes really to be effective in +holding back progress, he must protect himself with a camouflage +of piety and philanthropy, he must have at his tongue's end the +phrases of brotherhood and justice, he must be liberal and +progressive, going a certain cautious distance with the +reformers, indulging in carefully measured fair play--giving a +dime with one hand, while taking back a dollar with the other! + +Let us have an illustration of this clerical camouflage. Here are +the wives and children of the Colorado coal-miners being shot and +burned in their beds by Rockefeller gun-men, and the press of the +entire country in a conspiracy of silence concerning the matter. +In the effort to break down this conspiracy, Bouck White, +Congregational clergyman, author of "The Call of the Carpenter", +goes to the Fifth Avenue Church of Standard Oil and makes a +protest in the name of Jesus. I do not wish to make extreme +statements, but I have read history pretty thoroughly, and I +really do not know where in nineteen hundred years you can find +an action more completely in the spirit and manner of Jesus than +that of Bouck White. The only difference was that whereas Jesus +took a real whip and lashed the money-changers, White politely +asked the pastor to discuss with him the question whether or not +Jesus condemned the holding of wealth. He even took the +precaution to write a letter to the clergyman announcing in +advance what he intended to do! And how did the clergyman prepare +for him? With the sword of truth and the armor of the spirit? +No--but with two or three dozen strong-arm men, who flung +themselves upon the Socialist author and hurled him out of the +church. So violent were they that several of White's friends, +also one or two casual spectators, were moved to protest; what +happened then, let us read in the New York "Sun", the most +bitterly hostile to radicalism of all the metropolitan +newspapers. Says the "Sun's" report: + +A police billy came crunching against the bones of Lopez's legs. +It struck him as hard as a man could swing it eight times. A fist +planted on Lopez's jaw knocked out two teeth. His lip was torn +open. A blow in the eye made it swell and blacken instantly. A +minute later Lopez was leaning against the church with blood +running to the doorsill. + +And now, what has the clerical camouflage to say on this +proceeding? Does it approve it? Oh no! It was "a mistake", the +"Outlook" protests; it intensifies the hatred which these +extremists feel for the church. The proper course would have been +to turn the disturber aside with a soft answer; to give him some +place, say in a park, where he could talk his head off to people +of his own sort, while good and decent Christians continued to +worship by themselves in peace, and to have the children of their +mine-slaves shot and burned in their beds. Says our pious editor: + +The true way to repress cranks is not to suppress them; it is to +give them an opportunity to air their theories before any who +wish to learn, while forbidding them to compel those to listen +who do not wish to do so. + +Or take another case. Twelve years ago the writer made an effort +to interest the American people in the conditions of labor in +their packing-plants. It happened that incidentally I gave some +facts about the bedevilment of the public's meat-supply, and the +public really did care about that. As I phrased it at the time, I +aimed at the public's heart, and by accident I hit it in the +stomach. There was a terrible clamor, and Congress was forced to +pass a bill to remedy the evils. As a matter of fact this bill +was a farce, but the public was satisfied, and soon forgot the +matter entirely. The point to be noted here is that so far as +concerned the atrocious miseries of the working-people, it was +not necessary even to pretend to do anything. The slaves of +Packingtown went on living and working as they were described as +doing in "The Jungle", and nobody gave a further thought to them. +Only the other day I read in my paper--while we are all making +sacrifices in a "War for Democracy"--that Armour and Company had +paid a dividend of twenty-one per cent, and Swift and Company a +dividend of thirty-five per cent. + +This prosperity they owe in good part to their clerical +camouflage. Listen to our pious "Outlook", engaged in +countermining "The Jungle". The "Outlook" has no doubt that there +are genuine evils in the packing-plants; the conditions of the +workers ought of course to be improved; BUT-- + +To disgust the reader by dragging him through every conceivable +horror, physical and moral, to depict with lurid excitement and +with offensive minuteness the life in jail and brothel--all this +is to overreach the object .... Even things actually terrible may +become distorted when a writer screams them out in a sensational +way and in a high pitched key...... More convincing if it were +less hysterical. + +Don't you see what these clerical crooks are for? + + +The Jungle + +A four years' war was fought in America, a million men were +killed and half a continent was devastated, in order to abolish +chattel slavery and put wage slavery in its place. I have made a +thorough study of both these industrial systems, and I freely +admit that there is one respect in which the lot of the wage +slave is better than that of the chattel slave. The wage slave is +free to think; and by squeezing a few drops of blood from his +starving body, he may possess himself of machinery for the +distribution of his ideas. Taking his chances of the policeman's +club and the jail, he may found revolutionary organizations, and +so he has the candle of hope to light him to his death-bed. But +excepting this consideration, and taking the circumstances of the +wage slave from the material point of view alone, I hold it +beyond question that the average lot of the chattel slave of 1860 +was preferable to that of the modern slave of the Beef Trust, the +Steel Trust, or the Coal Trust. It was the Southern master's real +concern, his business interest, that the chattel slave should be +kept physically sound; but it is nobody's business to care +anything about the wage slave. The children of the chattel slave +were valuable property, and so they got plenty to eat, and a +happy outdoor life, and medical attention if they fell ill. But +the children of the sweat-shop or the cotton-mill or the +canning-factory are raised in a city slum, and never know what it +is to have enough to eat, never know a feeling of security or +rest-- + + We are weary in our cradles + From our mother's toil untold; + We are born to hoarded weariness + As some to hoarded gold. + +The system of competitive commercialism, of large-scale +capitalist industry in its final flowering! I quote from "The +Jungle": + +Here in this city tonight, ten thousand women are shut up in foul +pens, and driven by hunger to sell their bodies to live. Tonight +in Chicago there are ten thousand men, homeless and wretched, +willing to work and begging for a chance, yet starving, and +fronting with terror the awful winter cold! Tonight in Chicago +there are a hundred thousand children wearing out their strength +and blasting their lives in the effort to earn their bread! There +are a hundred thousand mothers who are living in misery and +squalor, struggling to earn enough to feed their little ones! +There are a hundred thousand old people, cast off and helpless, +waiting for death to take them from their torments! There are a +million people, men and women and children, who share the curse +of the wage-slave; who toil every hour they can stand and see, +for just enough to keep them alive; who are condemned till the +end of their days to monotony and weariness, to hunger and +misery, to heat and cold, to dirt and disease, to ignorance and +drunkenness and vice! And then turn over the page with me, and +gaze upon the other side of the picture. There are a +thousand--ten thousand, maybe--who are the masters of these +slaves, who own their toil. They do nothing to earn what they +receive, they do not even have to ask for it---it comes to them +of itself, their only care is to dispose of it. They live in +palaces, they riot in luxury and extravagance--such as no words +can describe, as makes the imagination reel and stagger, makes +the soul grow sick and faint. They spend hundreds of dollars for +a pair of shoes, a handkerchief, a garter; they spend millions +for horses and automobiles and yachts, for palaces and banquets, +for little shiny stones with which to deck their bodies. Their +life is a contest among themselves for supremacy in ostentation +and recklessness, in the destroying of useful and necessary +things, in the wasting of the labor and the lives of their +fellow-creatures, the toil and anguish of the nations, the sweat +and tears and blood of the human race! It is all theirs--it comes +to them; just as all the springs pour into streamlets, and the +streamlets into rivers, and the rivers into the ocean--so, +automatically and inevitably, all the wealth of society comes to +them. The farmer tills the soil, the miner digs in the earth, the +weaver tends the loom, the mason carves the stone, the clever man +invents, the shrewd man directs, the wise man studies, the +inspired man sings--and all the results, the products of the +labor of brain and muscle, are gathered into one stupendous +stream and poured into their laps! + +This is the system. It is the crown and culmination of all the +wrongs of the ages; and in proportion to the magnitude of its +exploitation, is the hypocrisy and knavery of the clerical +camouflage which has been organized in its behalf. Beyond all +question, the supreme irony of history is the use which has been +made of Jesus of Nazareth as the Head God of this blood-thirsty +system; it is a cruelty beyond all language, a blasphemy beyond +the power of art to express. Read the man's words, furious as +those of any modern agitator that I have heard in twenty years of +revolutionary experience: "Lay not up for yourselves treasures on +earth!--Sell that ye have and give alms!--Blessed are ye poor, +for yours is the kingdom of Heaven!--Woe unto you that are rich, +for ye have received your consolation!--Verily, I say unto you, +that a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of +Heaven!--Woe unto you also, you lawyers!--Ye serpents, ye +generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?" + +"And this man"--I quote from "The Jungle" again--"they have made +into the high-priest of property and smug respectability, a +divine sanction of all the horrors and abominations of modern +commercial civilization! Jewelled images are made of him, sensual +priests burn insense to him, and modern pirates of industry bring +their dollars, wrung from the toil of helpless women and +children, and build temples to him, and sit in cushioned seats +and listen to his teachings expounded by doctors of dusty +divinity!" + + + +BOOK FIVE + +The Church of the Merchants + + Mammon led them on-- + Mammon, the least erected spirit that fell + From Heaven; for even in Heaven his looks and + thoughts + Were always downward bent, admiring more + The riches of Heaven's pavement, trodden gold, + Than aught divine or holy else enjoyed + In vision beatific..... + Let none admire + That riches grow in Hell; that soil may best + Deserve the precious bane. + Milton. + +The Head Merchant + +Ours is the era of commerce, as its propagandists never weary of +telling us. Business is the basis of our material lives, and +consequently of our culture. Business men control our politics +and dictate our laws; business men own our newspapers and direct +their policy; business men sit on our school boards, and endow +and manage our universities. The Reformation was a revolt of the +newly-developing merchant classes against the tyrannies and +abuses of feudal clericalism: so in all Protestant Christianity +one finds the spirit, ideals, and language of Trade. We have +shown how the symbolism of the Anglican Church is of the palace +and the throne; in the same way that of the non-conformist sects +may be shown to be of the counting-house. In the view of the +middle-class Britisher, the nexus between man and man is cent per +cent; and so in their Sunday services the worshippers sing such +hymns as this: + + Whatever, Lord, we lend to Thee, + Repaid a thousand fold shall be; + Then gladly will we give to Thee, + Who givest all. + +The first duty of every man under the competitive system is to +secure the survival of his own business; so on the Sabbath, when +he comes to deal with eternity, he is practical and explicit: + + Nothing is worth a thought beneath + But how I may escape the death + That never, never dies; + How make mine own election sure, + And when I fail on earth secure + A mansion in the skies. + +Just as the priest of the aristocratic caste figures God as a +mighty Conqueror-- + + Marching as to war + With the cross of Jesus + Going on before + +so the preacher to the trader figures the divinity as a glorified +Merchant keeping books. This Head Merchant has a monopoly in His +line; He knows all His rivals' secrets, so there is no getting +ahead of Him, and nothing to do but obey His Word, as revealed +through His clerical staff. The system is oily with protestations +of divine love; but when you read the comments of Luther upon +Calvin and of Calvin upon Luther, you understand that this love +is confined to the inside of each denomination. And even so +restricted, there is not always enough to go around. Recently I +met a Presbyterian clergyman, to whom I remarked, "I see by the +papers that you have just finished a church building." "Yes," he +answered; "and I have had three offers of a new church." I did +not see the connection, and asked, "Because you were so +successful with this one?" The reply was, "They always take it +for granted that you want to change when you've finished a new +building, because you make so many enemies!" + +The business man puts up the money to build the church, he puts +up the money to keep it going; and the first rule of a business +man is that when he puts up the money for a thing he "runs" that +thing. Of course he sees that it spreads his own views of life, +it helps to maintain his tradition. In the days of Anu and Baal +we heard the proclamation of the divine right of Kings; in these +days of Mammon we hear the proclamation of the divine right of +Merchants. Some fifteen years ago the head of our Coal Trust +announced during a great strike that the question would be +settled "by the Christian men to whom God in His Infinite Wisdom +has given control of the property interests of this country". And +on that declaration all pious merchants stand; whatever their +denominations, Catholic, Episcopalian, Baptist, Methodist, +Presbyterian or Hebrew, their Sabbath doctrines are alike, as +their week-day practices are alike; whether it is Rockefeller +shooting his Bayonne oil-workers and burning alive the little +children of his miners; or smooth John Wanamaker, paying +starvation wages to department-store girls and driving them to +the streets; or that clergyman who, at a gathering of society +ladies, members of the "Law and Order League" of Denver, declared +in my hearing that if he could have his way he would blow up the +home of every coal-striker with dynamite; or the Rev. R. A. +Torrey, Dean of the Bible institute of Los Angeles, who refused +to employ union labor on the million dollar building of the +Institute, declaring that "the Church cannot afford to have any +dealings with a band of fire-bugs and murderers!" + + +"Herr Beeble" + +The business of the Clerical Department of the Merchants' and +Manufacturers' Association is to justify the processes of trade, +and to preach to clerks and employees the slave-virtues of +frugality, humility, and loyalty to the profit system. The depths +of sociological depravity to which some of the agents of this +Association have sunk is difficult of belief. Twelve years ago I +was invited to address the book-sellers of New York, in company +with a well-known clergyman of the city, the Reverend Madison C. +Peters. This gentleman's address made such an impression upon me +that I recall it even at this distance: a string of jokes spoken +with an effect of rapid-fire smartness, and simply reeking with +commercialism. I could not describe it better than to say that it +was on the ethical level of the "Letters of a Self-Made Merchant +to His Son". Again, I attended a debate on Socialism, in which +the capitalist end was taken by another famous clergyman, pastor +of the Metropolitan Temple, the Rev. J. Wesley Hill. He was so +ignorant that when he wished to prove that Socialism means free +love, he quoted a writer by the name of "Herr Beeble"; he was so +dishonest that he garbled the writings of this "Herr Beeble", +making him say something quite different from what he had meant +to say. I could name several clergymen of various denominations +who have stooped to that device against the Socialists; including +the Catholic Father Belford, who says that we are mad dogs and +should be stopped with bullets. + +Or consider the Reverend Thomas Dixon. This gentleman's +pulpit-slang used to be the talk of New York when I was a boy; +and when I grew up, and came into the Socialist movement--behold, +here he was, chief inquisitor of the capitalist Holy Office. I +had a friend, a man who saved my life at a time when I was +practically starving, and to whom therefore I owe my survival as +a writer; this friend had been a clergyman in a Middle Western +state, and had preached Jesus as he really was, and so was hated +and feared like Jesus. It happened that he was unhappily married, +and permitted his wife to divorce him so that he might marry the +woman he loved; for which unheard of crime the organized +hypocrisy of America fell upon him like a thousand devils with +poisoned whips. The Reverend Dixon's holy rage was fired; he +applied his imagination to my friend's story, producing a novel +under the title of "The One Woman"; and it is as if you were +reading the story of Jesus and the Magdalen transmitted through +the personality of a he-goat. Of late years this clerical author +has turned his energies to negrophobia, and militarism, making +millions out of motion-picture incitements to hatred and terror. +The pictures were made here in Southern California, and friends +in the business have described to me the pious propagandist in +the position of St. Anthony surrounded by swarms of cute and +playful little movie-girls. + +Or take the Rev. James Roscoe Day, D. D., S. T. D., L. L. D., D. +C. L., L. H. D., a leading light of the Methodist Episcopal +Church, who offers himself as comic relief in our Clerical +Vaudeville. Dr. Day is Chancellor of Syracuse University, a +branch of the Mental Munitions Department of the Standard Oil +Company; his function being to manufacture intellectual weapons +and explosives to be used in defense of the Rockefeller fortune. +It is generally not expected that the makers of ruling-class +munitions should face the dirty and perilous work of the +trenches; but ten years ago, during a raid by an active squad of +muckrake-men, Chancellor Day astonished the world by rushing to +the front with both arms full of star-shells and bombs. He +afterwards put the history of this gallant action into a volume, +"The Raid on Prosperity"; and if you want the real thrill of the +class-war, here is where to get it! + +The Chancellor is a quaint and touching figure; an enthusiast and +dreamer, idealist and martyr, in whom the ordinary human virtues +have been fused, absorbed, transformed and sublimated into a new +supreme virtue of loyalty to Exploitation, patriotism for +Profiteering. He began life as a working-man, he tells us, in the +good old American fashion of hustle for yourself; but he differed +from other Americans in that he had an instant, intuitive +recognition of the intellectual and moral excellence of +Plutocracy. The first time he met a rich man, he quivered with +rapture, he burst into a hymn of appreciation. So very quickly he +was recognized as a proper person to have charge of a Mental +Munition Works; and the ruling classes proceeded to pin medals +upon the bosom of his academic robes--D. D., S. T. D., L. L. D., +D. C. L., L. H. D. + +The Chancellor knows the masters of our Profit System, those +"consummate geniuses of manufacture and trade by which the earth +has yielded up her infinite treasures." And having been at the +same time in intimate daily communion with the Almighty, he can +tell us the Almighty's attitude towards these prodigies. "God has +made the rich of this world to serve Him.... He has shown them a +way to have this world's goods and to be rich towards God .... +God wants the rich men ....Christ's doctrines have made the world +rich, and provide adequate uses for its riches." Also the +Chancellor knows our great corporations, and gives us the +Almighty's views about them; they mean that "the forces with +which God built the universe have been put into the hands of +man." Likewise by divine authority we learn that "the sympathy +given to Socialism is appalling. It is insanity." We learn that +the income tax is "a doctrine suited to the dark ages, only no +age ever has been dark enough." Somebody raises the issue of +"tainted money", and the Chancellor disposes of this matter also. +As a Deputy of Divinity, he settles it by Holy Writ: "Paul +permitted meat offered to idols to be eaten in the fear of God." +And then, to make assurance doubly sure, he settles it with plain +human logic; and you are astonished to see how simple, under his +handling, the complex problem becomes--how clear and clean-cut is +the distinction he draws for you: + +Every boy knows that one cannot take stolen goods without being a +partaker with the thief. But the proceeds of recognized business +are quite a different thing. + + + +Holy Oil + +And here is Billy Sunday, most conspicuous phenomenon of +Protestant Christianity at the beginning of the twentieth +century. For the benefit of posterity I explain that "Billy" is a +baseball player turned Evangelist, who has brought to the cause +of God the crowds and uproar of the diamond; also the commercial +spirit of America's most popular institution. He travels like a +circus, with all the press-agent work and newspaper hurrah; he +conducts what are called "revivals", in an enormous "tabernacle" +built especially for him in each city. I cannot better describe +the Billy Sunday circus than in the words of a certain Sidney C. +Tapp, who brought suit against the evangelist for $100,000 +damages for the theft of the ideas of a book. Says Mr. Tapp in +his complaint: + +The so-called religious awakening or "trail-hitting" is produced +by an appeal to the emotions and in stirring up the senses by a +combination of carrying the United States flag in one hand and +the Bible in the other, singing, trumpeting, organ playing, +garrulous and acrobatic feats of defendant, by defendant in his +talk leaping from the rostrum to the top of the pulpit, lying +prone on the floor of the rostrum on his stomach in the presence +of the vast audience and from thence into a pit to shake hands +with the so-called "trail-hitters" and the vulgar use of +plaintiff's thoughts contained in said books. Said harangues and +vulgarisms of said defendant and horns, drums, organs and singing +by said choir and vast audience which are assembled by means of +said newspaper advertisements for the purpose of inducing a habit +of free and copious flow of money through religious and patriotic +excitement produced by and through the vulgarisms, scurrility, +buffoonery, obscenity and profanity of defendant pretending to be +in the interest of the cause of religion through what he +denominates "hitting the trail", the real object being to induce +a religious frenzy and enthusiasm which he announces in advance +is to result in large audiences composed of thousands of people +generously contributing vast sums of money on the last day and +night of the so-called revival which is invariably appropriated +by the defendant and through which scheme and device defendant +has become enormously wealthy. + +As I write, the evangelist is in Los Angeles, and twice each day +he holds forth to a crowd of ten or fifteen thousand; in addition +the newspapers print literally pages of his utterances. The +entire Protestant clergy for a score of miles around has been +hitched to his triumphal chariot, and driven captive through the +streets. Here in this dignified city of Pasadena, home of +millionaire brewers and chewing-gum kings, all the churches have +been plastered for weeks with cloth signs: "This Church is +Cooperating in the Sunday Campaign." To give a sample of the +intellectual level of the performance, here is what Billy has to +say about modern thought: + +All this blasphemy against God and Jesus Christ, all this +sneering, highbrow, rotten, loathesome, higher criticism, +wriggling its dirty, filthy, stinking carcass out of a beer-mug +in Leipzig or Heidelberg! + +Whether willingly or reluctantly, the preachers sit upon the +platform and smile while Billy thus slangs the devil; and being +themselves, poor fellows, at their wits end to draw the crowd, +they watch and see how he does it, and then return to their own +churches and try the same stunt; so the manners of the baseball +diamond spread like a contagion. I open my morning paper, and +find a picture of an intense-looking clerical gentleman, the Rev. +J. Whitcomb Brougher, pastor of the Baptist Temple. He is +discussing certain slanderous rumors which he has heard about +Billy Sunday, and he offers ten thousand dollars reward to anyone +who can prove these things; though, as he says, + +The dirty, low-down, contemptible, weazen-brained, +impure-hearted, shrivelled-souled, gossipping devils do not +deserve to be noticed..... Scandal-mongers, gossip-lovers, +reputation-destroyers, hypocritical, black-hearted, green-eyed +slanderers..... Corrupt, devil-possessed, vile debauches..... +Immoral, sin-loving, vice-practicing, underhanded sneaks..... +Carrion-loving buzzards and foul-smelling skunks. + +You will be prepared after this to hear that when the Socialists +were near to carrying Los Angeles, this clergyman preached a +sermon in support of the candidate of "Booze, Gas and Railroads". + +In so far as Billy Sunday is trying to keep the neglected youth +of our streets from drinking, gambling and whoring, no one could +wish him anything but success; but his besotted ignorance, his +childish crudity of mind, make it impossible that he could have +any success except of a delusive nature. He is utterly devoid of +a social sense; utterly unaware of the existence of the forces of +capitalism which are causing depravity ten times as fast as all +the evangelists in creation can remedy it. So he is precisely +like the Catholics with their "charity", cleaning up loathsome +and unsightly messes for a thousand years, and never stopping to +ask why such messes continue to come into existence. + +More than that, I question whether the spirit of commercialism +which he fosters does not help the development of evil more than +his preaching hinders it. The newspapers always report the cost +of the tabernacle, of the "free-will offering", which amounts to +hundreds of thousands of dollars in each "campaign", In each city +the expenses are guaranteed by men who are generally the most +sinister exploiting forces of the community; they welcome and +fete him, and he visits their homes, and is in every way one of +the crowd. After the big strike in Paterson, N. J., the +employers, Jews and Catholics included, all subscribed a fund to +bring Billy Sunday to that city; and it was freely proclaimed +that the purpose was to undermine the radical union movement. +This was never denied by Sunday himself, and his whole campaign +was conducted on that basis. + +Later Billy came to New York, where he met a certain rich young +man, perhaps a thousand times as rich as any that lived in +Palestine. This young man came to Billy and said: "What shall I +do to inherit eternal life?" And Billy told him to keep the +commandments--"Do not commit adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal, +Do not bear false witness, Honor thy father and thy mother." The +young man answered; "All these have I kept from my youth up." And +Billy said: "Yet lackest thou one thing; sell all that thou hast +and distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in +heaven; and come follow me." And when he heard this he was very +sorrowful, for he was very rich. + +--No, I have got the story mixed up. That is what happened in +Palestine. What happened in New York is that Billy said, "I am +delighted to meet you, Mr. Rockefeller." And Mr. Rockefeller +said, "Come be my guest at my palace in the Pocantico Hills; and +then we will go together and you may preach submission to my +wage-slaves in the oil-factories at Bayonne and elsewhere." And +Billy went to the palace, and went and preached to the +wage-slaves, telling them to beware the "stinking Socialists", +and to concentrate their attention on the saving of their souls; +so the rich young man was delighted, and he sent for all the +newspaper reporters to come to his office at 26 Broadway, and +told them what a great and useful man Billy Sunday is. As the New +York "Times" tells about it: + +Mr. Rockefeller seldom gives interviews and certainly he has +never been charged with having an excess of verbally expressed +enthusiasm on any subject. But he talked for an hour and a half +about the evangelist. He was full of the subject of Billy Sunday. +"Billy did New York a lot of good," he said. He went on to tell +of 187 meetings held in 100 different factories, attended by +50,000 men. "That's good work." And he expressed his satisfaction +with Sunday's theology: "He believes the Bible from cover to +cover and that is good enough for me." The Sunday campaign had +cost $200,000, and "If it had stopped here, if it was not kept +up, it would be poor business; a poor dividend on the $200,000 +and the work invested. But we expect to get dividends in the next +year." + +Again you note the symbolism of the counting-house! + + +Rhetorical Black-hanging + +It is the duty of the clergy, not merely to defend large-scale +merchants while they live, but to bury them when they die, and to +place the seal of sanctity upon their careers. Concerning this +aspect of Bootstrap-lifting I quote the opinion of an earnest +hater of shams, William Makepeace Thackeray: + +I think the part which pulpits play in the death of kings is the +most ghastly of all the ceremonial: the lying eulogies, the +blinking of disagreeable truths, the sickening flatteries, the +simulated grief, the falsehood and sycophancies--all uttered in +the name of Heaven in our State churches: these monstrous +Threnodies which have been sung from time immemorial over kings +and queens, good, bad, wicked, licentious. The State parson must +bring out his commonplaces; his apparatus of rhetorical +black-hanging...... + +And this, of course, applies not merely to kings of England, but +to kings of Steel, kings of Coal, kings of Oil, kings of Wall +Street. When a certain king of Western railroads died, a +Methodist clergyman, afterwards Bishop, likened his heir to the +boy Christ; a statement which requires for its appreciation a +mention of the fact that this heir died of syphilis. In the year +1904 there passed from his earthly reward in Pennsylvania a +United States senator who had been throughout his lifetime a +notorious and unblushing corruptionist. Matthew Stanley Quay was +his name, and the New York "Nation", having no clerical +connections, was free to state the facts about him: + +He bought the organization, bribed or intimidated the press, got +his grip on the public service, including even the courts; +imposed his will on Congress and Cabinet, and upon the last three +Presidents--making the latter provide for the offal of his +political machine, which even Pennsylvania could no longer +stomach--and all without identifying his name with a single +measure of public good, without making a speech or uttering a +party watchword, without even pretending to be honest, but solely +because, like Judas, he carried the bag and could buy whom he +would. + +Such was the lay opinion; and now for the clerical. It was +expressed by a Presbyterian divine, the Reverend Dr. J. S. +Ramsey, who stood over the coffin of "Matt", and without cracking +a smile declared that he had been "a statesman who was always on +the right side of every moral question!" + +In that same year of 1904 died the high priest of our political +corruption, Mark Hanna. He had belonged to no church, but had +backed them all, understanding the main thesis of this book as +clearly as the writer of it. In his home city of Cleveland the +eulogy upon him was pronounced by Bishop Leonard, in St. Paul's +Episcopal Church; while in the United States Senate the service +was performed by the Chaplain, the Rev. Edward Everett Hale. This +is a name well-known in American letters, as in American +religious life; it was borne by a benevolent old gentleman, a +Unitarian and a liberal, who organized "Lend-a-Hand Clubs" and +such like amiabilities. "Do You Love This Old Man?" the signs in +the street-cars used to ask when I was a boy; and I promptly +answered "Yes"--for my mother took the "Ladies' Home Journal", +and I swallowed the sentimental dish-water set out for me. But +when I read the Rev. Edward's funeral oration over the Irrev. +Mark, I loved neither of them any longer. "This whole-souled +child of God," cried the Rev. Edward, "who believed in success, +and knew how to succeed by using the infinite powers!" You +perceive that the Chaplain of the Millionaires' Club agrees with +this book, that the "infinite powers" in America are the powers +that prey! + + +The Great American Fraud + +Among the most loathesome products of our native commercial greed +is the patent medicine industry, "The Great American Fraud," as +its historian has called it. In 1907 this historian wrote: + +Gullible America will spend this year some seventy-five millions +of dollars in the purchase of patent medicines. In consideration +of this sum it will swallow huge quantities of alcohol, an +appalling amount of opiates and narcotics, a wide assortment of +varied drugs ranging from powerful and dangerous heart +depressants to insidious liver stimulants; and, far in excess of +all other ingredients, undiluted fraud. For fraud, exploited by +the skillfullest of advertising bunco men, is the basis of the +trade. + +One by one Mr. Adams tells about these medical fakes: +habit-forming laxatives, head-ache powders full of acetanilid, +soothing-syrups and catarrh-cures full of opium and cocaine, +cock-tails subtly disguised as "bitters", "sarsaparillas", and +"tonics". He shows how the fake testimonials are made up and +exploited; how the confidential letters, telling the secret +troubles of men and women, are collected by tens and hundreds of +thousands and advertised and sold--so that the victim, as he +begins to lose faith in one fake, finds another at hand, fully +informed as to his weakness. He quotes the amazing "Red Clause" +in the contracts which the patent-medicine makers have with +thousands of daily and weekly papers, whereby the makers are able +to control the press of the country and prevent legislation +against the "Great American Fraud." + +There are a thousand religious papers in America, weekly and +monthly; and what is their attitude on this question? Mr. Adams +tells us: + +Whether because church-going people are more trusting, and +therefore more easily befooled than others, or from some more +obscure reason, many of the religious papers fairly reek with +patent medicine fakes. + +He gives us many pages of specific instances: + +Dr. Smith belongs to the brood of cancer vampires. He is a patron +and prop of religious journalism. It is his theory that the +easiest prey is to be found among readers of church papers. +Moreover he has learned from his father-in-law (who built a small +church out of blood-money) to capitalize his own sectarian +associations, and when confronted recently with a formal +accusation he replied, with an air of injured innocence, that he +was a regular attendant at church, and could produce an +endorsement from his minister. + +And here is the "Church Advocate", of Harrisburg, Pa., which +publishes quack advertisements disguised as editorials. One of +them Mr. Adams paraphrases: + +As Dr. Smith is, on the face of his own statements, a +self-branded swindler and rascal, you run no risk in assuming +that the Rev. C. H. Forney, D. D., L. L. D., in acting as his +journalistic supporter for pay, is just such another as himself! + +And again: + +Will the editor of the "Baptist Watchman" of Boston explain by +what phenomenon of logic or elasticity of ethics he accepts the +lucubrations of Dr. Bye, of Oren Oneal, of Liquozone, of Actina, +that marvelous two-ended mechanical appliance which "cures" +deafness at one terminus and blindness at the other, and all with +a little oil of mustard? + +And again: + +The "Christian Observer" of Louisville replied to a protesting +subscriber, suggesting that the "Collier" articles were written +in a spirit of revenge, because "Collier's" could not get patent +medicine advertising. When I asked the Rev. F. Bartlett Converse +for his foundation for the charge, he said that one of the +typewriters must have written the letter! Doubtless also the same +highly responsible typewriter imitated the signature with +startling fidelity to Dr. Converse's handwriting! + +And here is--would you think it possible?--our "Church of Good +Society"! It has an organ in Chicago called the "Living Church", +most dignified and decorous. You have to study quite a while to +ascertain what denomination it belongs to; it will not tell you +directly, for the Anglician pose is that it is the church + + Elect from every nation, + Yet one oer all the earth, + Her charter of salvation, + One Lord, one Faith, one Birth; + One holy name she blesses, + Partakes one holy food, + And toward one Hope she presses, + With every grace endued. + +And this one holy institution was found setting at its peak the +black flag of the trader, the "Jolly Roger" of the modern +commercial pirate--"Caveat emptor!" To quote the precise words: + +The editors and publishers of the "Living Church" assume no +responsibility for the assertions of advertisers. + +And so it threw open its columns to the claims of America's +champion labor-baiter, the late C. W. Post, that his "Grapenuts" +would prevent appendicitis, and obviate the need of operations in +such cases! + +And here is the "Christian Endeavor World", organ of one of the +most powerful non-sectarian religious bodies in the country. Some +one wrote complaining of its medical advertising, and the answer +was: + +To the best of our knowledge and belief, we are not publishing +any fraudulent or unworthy medical advertising ...... Trusting +that you will be able to understand that we are acting according +to our best and sincerest judgment, I remain, yours very truly, +The Golden Rule Company, George W. Coleman, Business Manager. + +Whereupon the historian of "The Great American Fraud" remarks: + +Assuming that the business management of the "Christian Endeavor +World" represents normal intelligence, I would like to ask +whether it accepts the statement that a pair of "magic foot +drafts" applied to the soles of the feet will cure any and every +kind of rheumatism in any part of the body? Further, if the +advertising department is genuinely interested in declining +"fraudulent and unworthy" copy, I would call their attention to +the ridiculous claims of Dr. Shoop's medicines, which "cure" +almost every disease; to two hair removers, one an "Indian +Secret", the other an "accidental discovery", both either fakes +or dangerous; to the lying claims of Hall's Catarrh Cure, that it +is "a positive cure for catarrh", in all its stages; to "Syrup of +Figs", which is not a fig syrup, but a preparation of senna; to +Dr. Kilmer's Swamp Root, of which the principal medical +constituent is alcohol; and, finally, to Dr. Bye's Oil Cure for +cancer, a particularly cruel swindle on unfortunates suffering +from an incurable malady. All of these, with other matter, which +for the sake of decency I do not care to detail in these columns, +appear in recent issues of the "Christian Endeavor World". + + +Riches in Glory + +There came recently to Los Angeles a "world-famous evangelist", +known as "Gipsy" Smith. There was a shirt-waist strike at the +time, and the girls were starving, and they sent a delegation to +this evangelist to ask for help. They told him how they were +mistreated, exposed to insults, driven to sell their virtue +because their wage would not support life; and to their plea he +made answer: "Get Jesus in your hearts, and these questions will +take care of themselves!" + +So we see the most important of the many services which the +churches perform for the merchants--taking the revolutionary hope +of Jesus, for a kingdom of heaven upon earth, and perverting it +into a dream of a golden harp in an uncertain future. To +appreciate the fullness of this betrayal, take the prayer which +Jesus dictated--so simple, direct and practical: "Give us this +day our daily bread", and put it beside the hymns which the +slave-congregations are trained to sing. In my neighborhood is a +one-roomed building with a plate glass front, upon which I +observe a painter inscribing in red, white and blue letters the +sign "Glory Mission". I approach him, and he drops his work and +welcomes me with eager cordiality. Am I "living in grace"? I +answer that I am. I have to shout the good tidings into his ear, +as he is very deaf. He presents me with his card, which shows +that he bears the title of "Reverend", also the sobriquet of +"Mountain Missionary". I ask him to permit me to examine the +hymn-book which he uses in his work, and with touching eagerness +he presses upon me a well-worn volume bearing the title "Waves of +Glory". I seat myself and note down a few of the baits it sets +out for hungry wage-slaves: + + O, there's a plenty, O, there's a plenty, + There's a plenty in my Father's bank above! + + Riches in glory, riches in glory, + Royal supply our wants exceed! + + Feasting, I'm feasting, + I'm feasting with my Lord! + + Beautiful robes, beautiful robes, + Beautiful robes we then shall wear! + + Jerusalem the golden, + With milk and honey blest! + + Yes, I'll meet you in the city of the New Jerusalem, + I'll be there, I'll be there! + + Blest Canaan land, bright Canaan land, + I love to be in Canaan land! + + Oh, Beulah land, sweet Beulah land, + As on the highest mount I stand, + I look away across the sea, + Where mansions are prepared for me! + + In the sweet bye and bye + We shall meet on that beautiful shore-- + +I stopped there, being reminded of Joe Hill, poet of the I. W. W. +who was hanged three or four years ago in Utah, and who used this +tune in his little red book of revolutionary chants: + + You will eat, bye and bye, + In the glorious land above the sky; + Work and pray, live on hay, + You'll get pie in the sky when you die! + + +Captivating Ideals + +In one of the writer's earlier novels, "Prince Hagen", the hero +is a Nibelung out of Wagner's "Rheingold", who leaves his +diggings in the bowels of the earth, and comes up to look into +our superior civilization. The thing that impresses him most is +what he calls "the immortality idea". The person who got that up +was a world-genius, he exclaims. "If you can once get a man to +believing in immortality, there is no more left for you to +desire; you can take everything he owns--you can skin him alive +if it pleases you--and he will bear it all with perfect good +humor." + +And is that merely the spiritual deficiency of a Nibelung--or the +effort of a young author to be smart? Would you like to hear that +view of the most vital of Christian doctrines set forth in the +language of scholarship and culture? Would you like to know how +an ecclesiastical authority, equipped with every tool of modern +learning, would set about voicing the idea that the function of +the teaching of Heaven is to chloroform the poor, so that the +rich may continue to rob them in security? + +Here under my hand is a volume in the newest dress of +scholarship, dated 1912, and written by Professor Georges +Chatterton-Hill, of the University of Geneva. Its title is "The +Sociological Value of Christianity", and from cover to cover it +is a warning to the rich of the danger they run in giving up +their religion and ceasing to support its priests. It explains +how "the genius of Christianity has succeeded in making the +individual suffering, the individual sacrifices, which are +indispensible for the welfare of the collectivity, appear as +indispensible for the individual welfare." The learned professor +makes plain just what he means by "individual suffering, +individual sacrifices"; he means all the horrors of capitalism; +and the advantage of Christianity is that it makes you think that +by submitting to these horrors, you are profiting your own soul. +"By making individual salvation depend on the acceptance of +suffering, on the voluntary sacrifice of egotistical interests, +Christianity adapts the individual to society". And this, as the +professor explains, is not an easy thing to do, in a world in +which so many people are thinking for themselves. "The only means +of causing the rationalized individual to consent to the +sacrifice...... is to captivate him with a sufficiently powerful +idea!" And the professor shows how beautifully Jesus can be used +for this purpose. "Jesus, the so-called humanitarian, never +ceased to insist on the necessity of suffering, the desirableness +of suffering--of that suffering which a weak and sickly +humanitarianism would fain suppress if it could." + +You get this, you "blanket-stiff", you "husky", or "wop", or +whatever you are--you disinherited of the earth, you proletarians +who have only your labor-power to sell, you weak and sickly ones +who are condemned to elimination? There has come, let us say, a +period of "overproduction"; you have raised too much food, and +therefore you are starving, you have woven too much cloth, and +therefore you are naked, you have finished the world for your +masters, and it is time for you to move out of the way. As the +sociologist from Geneva phrases it, "Your suppression imposes +itself as an imperious necessity." And the function of the +Christian religion is to make you enjoy the process, by +"captivating you with a sufficiently powerful ideal"! The priest +will fill your nostrils with incense, your eyes with +candle-lights and images, your ears with sweet music and soothing +words; and so you will perish without raising a finger! "Here," +reflects the professor, "we see how magnificently the teaching of +Jesus applies to all classes of society!" + +Somebody has evidently put up to our Christian sociologist the +embarrassing fact that so many of those who survive under the +capitalist system are godless scoundrels. But do you think that +troubles him? Not for long. Like all religious thinkers, he +carries with his scholar's equipment a pair of metaphysical +wings, wherewith at any moment he may soar into the empyrean, out +of reach of vulgar materialists, like you and me. "Inequality +signifies inequality of capacity," he explains; but the standard +whereby we judge this capacity "cannot be the standard of the +moral law." + +The laws which govern the biological evolution of man are known, +but those which govern his moral nature cannot be known; the +moral nature appertains to the Absolute, and hence is not subject +to the law of inequality! + +As an exhibition of metaphysical wing-power, that is almost as +wonderful as the flight of Cardinal Newman when confronted with +the fact that his divinely guided church had burned men for +teaching the Copernican view of the universe; that infallible +popes had again and again condemned this heresy ex cathedra. Said +the eloquent cardinal: + +Scripture says that the sun moves and the earth is stationary, +and science that the earth moves and the sun is comparatively at +rest. How can we determine which of these opposite statements is +the very truth till we know what motion is? + + +Spook Hunting + +Do not imagine that it is only in Geneva that Christian +professors realize this peril from the loss of faith. It is never +far from the thoughts of any of them--for, of course, no man can +look at the present system and not wonder how the poor stand it, +and more especially why they stand it. There have been many +thinking men who have given up the miracle-business quite +cheerfully, but have stood appalled at the idea of letting the +lower classes find out the truth. You note that idea continually +in the writings of Professor Goldwin Smith, who was a +free-thinker, but also a bourgeois publicist, with a deep sense +of responsibility to the money-masters of the world. He was about +as honest a man as the capitalist system can produce; he was the +beau ideal of the New York "Evening Post", which indicates his +point of view. He wrote: + +It can hardly be doubted that hope of compensation in a future +state, for a short measure of happiness here, has materially +helped to reconcile the less favored members of the community to +the inequalities of the existing order of things. + +When I was a student in Columbia University, I took a course +called "Practical Ethics", under a professor by the name of +Hyslop. The course differed from most of the forty that I tried, +in that it gave evidence that the professor was accustomed to +read the morning paper. He had learned that American politics +were rotten; his idea of "Practical Ethics" was to outline in +elaborate detail a complete scheme of constitutional changes +which would make it impossible for the "boss" to control the +government. I think I must have been born with a charm against +bourgeois thought, for the good professor never fooled me an +instant; I remember I used to smile at the idea of how quickly +the "boss" would brush through his constitutional cobwebs. The +reforms required an elaborate campaign of publicity--and of +course long before they could be put into practice, the +politicians would be ready with devices to make them of no +effect. + +Soon after this, my ethical professor resigned and went to +hunting spooks. I don't want to be unfair to him; I know that he +is a determined and courageous man, and it seems possible that he +may really have bagged some spooks. All I wish to point out here +is the method he uses in seeking to persuade the heedless rich to +support the spook-hunting industry. The very same argument as we +got from the University of Geneva and the University of Toronto! +Says our head spook-hunter: + +There has been no belief that exercised so much power upon the +poor as that in a future life. The politicians, men of the world, +have known this so well as to postpone the day of political +judgment by it for many years. + +And again: + +The Church, having lost all its battles with science, and having +abandoned a strenuous intellectual defense of its fundamental +beliefs, has lost its power over the poor and the laboring +classes..... The spiritual ideal of life has gone out of the +masses as well as the classes, and nothing is left but a venture +on a struggle with wealth. + +And again, more menacingly yet: + +The rich will learn in the dangers of a social revolution that +the poor will not sacrifice both wealth and immortality. + +What is to be done about this? The question answers itself: Step +up, ladies and gentlemen, and empty your purses into the +Psychical Research hat! So that we may accumulate statistics as +to the cost of milk and honey in Jerusalem the Golden! + +You read what I had to say about Bootstrap-lifters, and the +Wholesale Pickpockets' Association making use of their +incantations. You admired my ability to sling language, but not +my taste; and you certainly did not think that I would back my +rhetoric with facts. But what do these quotations mean, unless +they mean what I have said? Are not these three professors men of +culture? Are they not as "spiritual" as any men of learning you +can find in our present-day society? + +And now stop for a moment and put yourself in the position of the +young student of the working-class, who goes to these books and +discovers that truth is not truth, but only a bait for a snare. +Who discovers that professors of ethics, practical or +impractical, are not interested in justice among men, but only in +collecting funds for their specialty; that in order to get funds, +they are willing to teach the rich how to paralyze the minds of +the poor! Do you wonder that such young students conclude that +bourgeois thinkers do not know what honesty is, but are +prostitutes, retainers and lackeys, to be kicked out of the +temple of truth? + + +Running the Rapids + +And now, can you form to yourselves a clear concept of what it +means to society that practically all its moral teaching should +be in the hands of men who are incapable of clean, straight +thinking? That all the intellectual prestige of the Church should +be lent to the support of vagueness, futility, and deliberate +evasion? Here we are, all of us, caught in the most terrific +social crisis of history; I search for a metaphor to picture our +position, and I recall a canoe-trip in the wilds of Ontario, +hundreds of miles down a long swift river. You sit in the bow of +the canoe, your partner in the stern, watching ahead; and there +comes a slide of smooth green water, and you go over it, and into +a torrent of foaming white, which seizes you and rushes you along +with the speed of a race-horse. With every sense alert, You watch +for the rocks, and when you see one, you dip your paddle on one +side or the other and with a quick motion draw the canoe clear of +the danger. If by any chance you fail to do it, over you go, and +your partner with you, and all your belongings go down-stream, +and maybe you are sucked into a whirlpool, and not seen for +several hours afterwards. Precisely like this is the voyage of +life, for the whole of society and for every individual. The +paddle which would save us from the rocks is experimental +science; but in most of our canoes we put a man who has no +paddle, but a Holy Book; and he casts up his eyes and murmurs +words in ancient Greek and Hebrew, and now and then, when he sees +an especially formidable obstruction--a war, or the gonococcus, +or the I. W. W.--he casts a holy wafer upon the foaming torrent. + +And mind you, it isn't as if I could save myself and you could +save yourself; we are all in the same canoe, and we all go +overboard together. You, perhaps, have a son who is drafted into +the trenches in winter-time, and drowned in blood and mud, +because in Europe the Catholic party supported militarism, and +kept aristocratic criminals in control of states. Or you find +yourself involved in a marital tragedy, and in order to free +yourself from unendurable misery, you are obliged to go to +law-courts dominated by the tradition of Paul, the Roman +bureaucrat, who despised women, and regarded marriage as a means +of gratifying an unclean animal desire. "It is better to marry +than to burn," he said, with unmatchable brutality; and so of +course those who think him a voice of God can form no conception +of the dignity and grace of love, and if you want sound and +wholesome sex-conventions, you will be as apt to find them among +the Ashantees or the Kamchadals as among the followers of the +Apostle to the Gentiles. + +You go to a so-called "divorce-court," which is dominated by this +Christian taboo, and exists for the purpose of barring you from a +second chance at the gratification of your unclean animal desire. +You are not permitted to tell your own story, for that would be +"collusion;" you listen while your intimate friends recite the +pitiful and shameful details of your domestic misfortune, under +the cross-questioning of lawyers who have suppressed for the time +whatever decent instincts they may possess, and follow blindly +the details of a prescribed procedure, at the cost of all +sincerity, humanity and truth. The next morning you find that the +privacy guaranteed you by law has been taken from you by corrupt +court officials, who have sold copies of the testimony to the +newspapers, so that all the intimate details of where you slept +and where your wife slept and what you saw your wife doing have +been thrown out to journalistic jackals, who scream with glee as +they rend the carcass of your dead love. And in the end, perhaps, +you find that you have gone through this horror for nothing--the +august court with its Roman Catholic judge throws out your +petition, its suspicions having been excited by the fact that +when you discovered your domestic tragedy, you sought to behave +like a civilized person, with pity and self-restraint, instead of +like a sultan in Turkey, or a basso in an Italian grand opera. + + +Birth Control + +I assert that the control of our thinking on ethical questions by +minds enslaved to tradition and priestcraft is an unmitigated +curse to the race. The armory of science is full of weapons which +might be used to slay the monsters of disease and vice--but these +weapons are not allowed to be employed, sometimes not even to be +mentioned. Consider the misery which is piling itself up in the +slams of our great cities---the degenerate, the defective, the +insane, who are multiplying as never before in history. There +exists a perfectly harmless and painless method of sterilizing +the hopelessly unfit, so that they can not reproduce their +hopeless unfitness; but religion objects to this operation, and +so the law does not make use of this knowledge. There exists a +simple, entirely harmless, and practically costless method of +preventing conception, which would enable us to check the blind +and futile fecundity of Nature, and to multiply as gods instead +of as animals. Consider the festering mass of misery in the slums +of our great cities; consider the millions of terrified, +poverty-hounded women, bearing one half-nurtured infant after +another, struggling desperately to feed and care for them, and +seeing them drop into the grave as fast as they are born-until +finally the mother, worn out with the Sisyphean labor, gives up +and follows her misbegotten offspring. Consider how many women, +in their agony and despair, make use of the methods of the +primitive savage, to escape from Nature's curse of fecundity. Dr. +Wm. J. Robinson has estimated that in the United States alone +there are a million abortions every year; and consider that all +this hideous mass of suffering--a bloody European war going on +continually, unheeded by any newspaper correspondent--might be +avoided by the use of a simple sterilizing formula, which we are +not permitted to give! The Federation of Catholic Societies have +placed a law upon the statute-books of the nation, and of all the +states as well; the whole power of police and courts and jails is +at the service of religious bigots, and a young girl is sent to +prison and forcibly fed with a tube through the nose for telling +poverty-ridden, slum-women how to keep from becoming pregnant! + +And go among the sleek, cynical men of the world, the judges and +district attorneys, the commissioners of correction and doctors +who perpetrated this infamy under a so-called "reform" +administration in New York City--and what do you find? The first +thing you find is that they themselves, one and all, practice +birth-control with their wives or their mistresses. The second +thing you find is that the statute-books are crowded with other +laws which they make no pretense of enforcing; for example, the +law which forbids the saloons to be open on Sunday--which law +they take the liberty of understanding to mean that the saloons +shall not have their front doors open on Sunday. You will find +that they are not at all afraid of the religious taboos; they are +afraid of the religious vote--and even more they are afraid of +the campaign contributions of sweat-shop manufacturers and +landlords, who cannot see what would become of prosperity if the +women of the slums were to cease to breed. So once more we +discover the wolf in sheep's clothing, the trader, making use of +Tradition-worship; hiding behind the skirts of devout old maiden +aunts and grandmothers, who repeat the instructions which God +gave to Adam and Eve, "Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the +earth." As if God were as blind as a Fifth Avenue preacher, and +could see no difference between the Garden of Eden, full of all +fruits that grow and all creatures that run and fly and swim, and +a modern East Side tenement-room, with an oil stove and no +windows and no water-closet, and the price of cabbage seven cents +a pound! + + +Sheep + +There are more than a hundred thousand Protestant churches in +America. They own more than a billion dollars' worth of property, +and in the West and South they dominate the intellectual life of +the country. I do not wish to be unfair in what I say of them. +They are far more democratic than the Catholic Church; they fight +valiantly against the liquor traffic and those forms of graft +which are obvious, or directly derived from vice. There are among +their clergy many men who are honestly seeking light, and trying +to make their institutions a factor for progress. But they are +caught in the spirit of Lutheran scholasticism, narrow and +ignorant, dogmatic and jealous; and they cannot help it, because +they are pledged by their creeds and foundations to +Tradition-worship; they have to believe certain things because +their ancestors believed them, they have to act in certain ways, +because of certain facts which existed in the world three +thousand years ago, but which now are known only to historians. + +You are familiar with the habit of a herd of sheep to follow the +example of their leader; if this leader leaps over a stick, all +the rest will leap when they come to that spot, even though the +stick may have been taken away in the meantime. The scientist +explains this seeming-foolishness by the fact that sheep once +lived in high mountains, and fled from their enemies in swiftly +rushing herds; when the leader leaped across an abyss, the others +had to leap, without waiting to see in the dust and confusion. +Now there are no mountains and no enemies, but the sheep still +jump. And in exactly the same way the tailor still sews buttons +at the back of your dress-coat, because a couple of hundred years +ago all gentlemen wore swords; in the same way our railroad +builders make cars narrow and uncomfortable and liable to +overturn, because a hundred years ago all cars were hauled by +mules. In the same way the Orthodox Hebrew will eat no pork, in +spite of the fact that the microscope affords him complete +protection against disease; the orthodox Catholic will not eat +meat on Friday, because he thinks Jesus was crucified on that +day; the orthodox Anglican will not marry his deceased wife's +sister, because of something he reads in Leviticus; the orthodox +Baptist requires total immersion in a climate quite different +from that of Palestine; the orthodox Methodist refuses to enjoy +fresh air and exercise on the Sabbath. + +In ancient Judea, you see, the people lived an open-air life, +tending sheep and working the fields; so it was an excellent +thing for them to rest from labor one day of the week, and to +gather in temples to hear the reading of the best literature of +their time. But nowadays the city slave spends his week-days shut +up in an office, poring over a ledger, or in a sweat-shop, +chained to a sewing-machine. Obviously, therefore, the thing to +do on the seventh day is to lure him into the open air, and +persuade him to run and play. But do we do that, we human sheep? +We write ancient Hebrew laws upon our modern statute-books, and +if the city slave goes into a vacant lot and tries to play +base-ball, we send a policeman and take him to jail, and next +morning he is fined five dollars, and probably loses his job. + +In the city where I live, a city supposed to be free and +enlightened, but in reality heavily burdened with churches, there +are tennis courts built and paid for out of public funds, my own +included; yet I cannot use these tennis courts on Sunday, because +of the ancient Hebrew taboo. My mail is not delivered to me, the +swimming pool in the park is closed to me, the library is closed +nearly all day. If I enquire about it, I am told that it is +desirable that city employees should have one day's rest a week; +but when I ask why it might not be possible to relay the +employees, so that they might all have one, or even two days' +rest a week, and still give the public their rights on Sunday, +there is no answer. But I know the answer, having probed our +politics of hypocrisy. There is a "church vote" at which all +politicians tremble; there are clergymen, humanly jealous when +their peculiar graft is threatened, and hoping that if the law +enforces a general boredom, the public may be more disposed to +endure the boredom of sermons. + +In New York City the theaters are closed on Sunday; but moving +pictures having come into being since the days of Puritan rule, +the picture-shows are free to keep open. The law permits "sacred +concerts"--which, under the benevolent sway of Tammany, has come +to mean any sort of vaudeville; so what we have is a free rein to +the imbecilities of "Mutt & Jeff" and the obscenities of Anna +Held and Gaby Deslys--while we bar the greatest moralists of our +times, such as Ibsen and Brieux. + +I speak with some crossness of this Sabbath taboo, because of an +experience which once befell me. In the second decade of this +century of enlightenment and progress, in our free American +democracy, whose constitution proclaims religious toleration, and +forbids the establishment by the state of any form of worship, I +was made to serve a sentence of eighteen hours in the state +prison of Delaware for playing a game of tennis on the Sabbath. I +was duly arrested upon a warrant, duly sentenced by a magistrate, +duly clad in a prison costume, duly set to work upon a +stone-pile, duly locked up over night in a steel-barred cell full +of vermin--in a building housing some five hundred wretches, +black and white, thirty of them serving life-terms under +circumstances which never permitted them a breath of fresh air +nor a glimpse of the sunshine or the sky. They had no exercise +court to their prison, and the inmates were not permitted to +speak to one another, but ate their meals in dead silence, and +walked back to their cells with folded arms, and had their only +occupation working for a sweat-shop contractor; this on the +outskirts of the capital city of Wilmington, with no less than +ninety-one churches! The writer was informed that he would return +to this institution regularly every week unless he abandoned his +godless habit of playing tennis on a private club court on +Sunday; he only escaped the painful punishment by making the +discovery that at the Wilmington Country Club it was the custom +of the leading officials of the city and state to play golf every +Sunday, and by threatening to employ detectives and have these +mighty ones arrested and sent to their own prison. Which shows +again the importance of understanding the relationship of +Superstition and Big Business! + + + +BOOK SIX + +The Church of the Quacks + + They may talk as they please about what they call pelf, + And how one ought never to think of one's self, + And how pleasures of thought surpass eating and drinking-- +My pleasure of thought is the pleasure of thinking + How pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho! + How pleasant it is to have money. + Clough. + + +Tabula Rasa + +Nature has given us a virgin continent, a clean slate upon which +to write what we will. And what are we writing? What is our +intellectual life? I came to the far West, which I had been +taught by novelists and poets to think of as a place of freedom. +I came, because I like freedom; I am staying because I like the +climate. I find that what freedom means in the West is the +ability of ignorant and fanatical persons to start some new, +fantastical quirk of scriptural interpretation, to build a new +cult around it, and earn a living out of it. + +My first contact with that sort of thing was when I went to the +Battle Creek Sanitarium to investigate hydrotherapy, and found +myself in a nest of Seventh-day Adventists. Three generations or +so ago some odd character hit upon the discovery that the +Christian churches had let the devil snare them into resting on +the first day of the week, whereas the Bible states distinctly +that the Lord "rested on the seventh day". So here is a million +dollar establishment, with a thousand or two patients and +employees, and on Friday at sundown the silence of death settles +upon the place, and stays settled until sundown of Saturday, when +everything comes suddenly to life again, and there is a little +celebration, like Easter or New Year's, with what I used to call +"sterilized dancing"--the men pairing with men and the women with +women. + +They are decent and kindly people, and you learn to put up with +their eccentricities; it is really convenient in some ways, +because, as not all the city shares their delusions, there are +some stores open every day of the week. But then you discover +that the Sanitarium is training "medical missionaries" to send to +Africa, and is teaching these supposed-to-be-scientists that +evolution is a doctrine of the devil, and not proven anyhow! + +You get the shrewd little doctor who is running this +establishment alone in his office, and he will smile and admit +that of course it is not necessary to take all Bible phrases +literally; but you know how it is--there are different levels of +intelligence, and so on. Yes, I know how it is. You have an +institution founded upon a certain dogma, and run by means of +that dogma, and it is hard to change without smashing things. It +is especially convenient when servants and nurses have a +religious upbringing, and do not steal the pocket-books of the +patients. People will come from all over the country, and pay +high prices to stay in such a sanitarium; you can make +vegetarians of them, which you think more important than teaching +abstract notions about their being descended from monkeys. Also +you can manufacture vegetarian foods for them, and build up an +enormous business--so obtaining that Power which is the thing +desired of men. + +This is but one illustration of a sort of thing of which I could +cite a hundred. The city in which I live is headquarters of +another sect, the "Pentecostal Church of the Nazarene"; primitive +Methodists, Bible-worshippers not content with the King James +version, but going back to the Sinaitic MS. They have a +"University", located in one of the most beautiful spots that +Nature ever made; an institution with seventy-five students. A +couple of years ago I happened to meet the "president," who was a +preacher with grease on the ample expanse of his black broadcloth +waistcoat, and a speech full of the commonest grammatical errors, +such as "you was" and "I seen". The past year witnessed a split, +and the founding of a brand new church and "University"--because +one of the preachers insisted upon preaching so much that the +students got no chance to study; also because he sent home a rich +man's daughter whose shirt-waists revealed too much of her +fleshly nature. + +And there is an even stranger phenomenon in the locality, taking +you back to the Libyan desert and the time of Thais. A lady +friend of mine, generously blessed with this world's goods, asks +me have I seen the hermit. "Hermit?" I say, and she replies, +"Didn't you know there was a hermit? He lives on a mountain, in a +cave, and never has anything to do with the world. He has no +books; he contemplates spiritually." I picture my friend with her +large limousine, a rolling palace full of ladies, drawing up at +the door of this hermit's cave. "He received you?" I ask. "Yes, +he was quite polite." "And what was your impression of him?" "Oh, +how he stank!" I answer that this is the odor of sanctity, and my +friend thinks that I am enormously witty; I have to explain to +her that I am not jesting, but that there are definite +physiological phenomena incidental to the ecstatic life. + + +The Book of Mormon + +Or let us take a trip to Salt Lake City, the headquarters of a +still stranger cult. + +On the morning of the 22nd of September, 1827, the Angel of the +Lord delivered unto Joseph Smith, Jr., an ignorant farmer-youth +in a "backwoods" part of New York State, some plates which had +"the appearance of gold". As we know from the scriptures, it is +the habit of the Angel of the Lord to appear in unexpected places +and to make miraculous revelations to men in humble walks of +life; so, as devout believers, we hold ourselves in readiness. In +this case the plates were written in "reformed Egyptian"; but the +Angel thoughtfully provided Joseph Smith, Jr., with Urim and +Thummim, two magic stones with which to read the records. They +proved to deal with a mystery which has haunted the minds of +Bible students for centuries--the fate of the "lost ten tribes +of Israel", who were now revealed to have been the ancestors of +the American Indians. The Angel told Smith to found a new +religion, and gave him prophecies concerning things in general; +so, on the 6th of April, 1830, in the town of Manchester, N. Y., +there was formally launched the "Church of the Latter Day +Saints." Smith turned over to his followers his translation of +the miraculous plates, called "The Book of Mormon"; obviously +genuine, for it read precisely like the books which we already +know are the revealed word of God. But, on chance that this might +not be sufficient, we were offered in the preface two documents, +the "Testimony of Three Witnesses", and the "Further Testimony of +Eight Witnesses". The latter being the shorter, may be quoted: + +Be it known unto all nations, kindreds, tongues and people, unto +whom this work shall come: That Joseph Smith Jr., the translator +of this work, has shewn unto us the plates of which hath been +spoken, which have the appearance of gold; and as many of the +leaves as the said Smith hath translated, we did handle with our +hands; and we also saw the engravings there-on, all of which has +the appearance of ancient work and of curious workmanship. And +this we bear record with words of soberness, that the said Smith +has shewn unto us, for we have seen and hefted, and know of a +surety that the said Smith hath got the plates of which we have +spoken. And we give our names unto the world, to witness that +which we have seen, and we lie not, God bearing witness of it. + + Christian Whitmer + Jacob Whitmer + Peter Whitmer, Jr. + John Whitmer + Hiram Page + Joseph Smith, Sr. + Hyrum Smith + Saml. H. Smith + +The subsequent career of the Church of the Latter Day Saints bore +out the Angel's prophesies and proved conclusively its divine +origin; it was persecuted as the saints of old were persecuted, +and its followers proceeded to massacre the nearby unbelieving +populations, just as the divinely guided Hebrews had done. Driven +from place to place, they built at Nauvoo, Ill., a beautiful +temple, according to plans revealed in a vision, exactly like +Solomon. Finally they settled in Utah, where they have a +magnificent marble tabernacle, and some 300,000 followers. The +United States government, not being entirely Biblical, objected +to their practice of allowing the patriarchs of the tribe to have +as many wives as they could support; the government confiscated +the church's property, and forced it to conceal the practice of +polygamy, as is done by elderly church members in other parts of +the country. Recently the head of the church, who bears the title +of "Prophet, Seer and Revelator", was persuaded to permit an +examination of one of its secret plates, the "Book of Abraham", +by egyptologists, who found that it was ordinary Egyptian +hieroglyphics, not "reformed", but containing prayers to the +sun-god. But this will of course make no difference to the devout +followers of Joseph--any more than it has made to devout +Catholics and Episcopalians that German scholars have proven that +the Bible legends and ritual have come from the Babylonians, and +that the four gospels date from the second and third centuries +after Christ. + + +Holy Rolling + +All over America you will find these weird Bible-cults, some of +them pathetic, some of them dangerous, some of them merely +grotesque. Thus, for example, there was John Alexander Dowie, who +founded the "Christian Catholic Church in Zion" and dressed +himself up in scarlet and purple robes with stars on. Through his +Zion City Bank and Zion City Realty Company he became enormously +wealthy; he finally announced himself as "Elijah the Restorer." I +remember as a boy how he brought his gospel to New York, and P. +T. Barnum with Tom Thumb and the white elephant never made such a +sensation. The ridicule of the metropolis overwhelmed the old +prophet, and he died and passed on his robes and his tabernacle +and his bank to his son; straightway, according to the rule of +all religions, the followers fell to quarrelling and splitting +up, and suing one another in the law-courts. + +Also there are the "Holy Rollers" and "Holy Jumpers", ghastly +sects which cultivate the religious hysterias, and have spread +like a plague among the women of our lonely prairie farms and +desert ranches. The "Holy Rollers", who call themselves the +"Apostolic Church", have a meeting place here in Pasadena, and +any Sunday evening at nine o'clock you may see the Spirit of the +Lord taking possession of the worshippers, causing moans and +shrieks and convulsions; you may see a woman holding her hands +aloft for seventeen minutes by the watch, making chattering +sounds like an ape. This is called "talking in tongues" and is a +sign of the presence of the Holy Spirit. If you come back at +eleven in the evening, you will find the entire congregation, men +and women, prostrate on the floor, or hanging over the benches; +and maybe a child moaning in terror, having a devil cast out. + +You may be interested, perhaps, to know how to throw yourself +into these convulsions. Here is a paper called "Trust", which is +"published Monthly (D. V.) in the interests of Elim Faith Work +and Bible Training School." Elizabeth Sisson writes on "The +Pentecostal Baptism", and tells the story of her experiences. She +"camped on the Word of God," she declares. + +I went up to Calgary in Canada, and the leader of the mission +told me, "You can go down to the mission and stay there all day. +There is plenty of wood, and you can stay there all night." I +went down, and there was plenty of "let go" in me. I cried, and +prayed all I knew, and got wonderfully loosed..... + +Then the Lord said to me, "Now, no more praying!" God told me it +was mine. What was there left for me to pray about. He spoiled my +praying and I took up praising. I praised God that He who worked +in the Upper Room was working the same in me. I praised, and I +praised, and I praised. The devil said to me, "That's +mechanical." I said, "I'll praise You Lord, and if You want real +praise, You'll have to put the wind in the sails." + +That's the way I came through. One morning I was just getting out +of bed, "this gibberish, this jargon" as the enemy likes to call +it, began to come. The Lord said, "Let it babble!" I let. The +babble increased, and by night I was up to my neck. I let. I +still let. That's all. Someone else does the work, and it does +not tire you. + +And here is another paper. "Meat in Due Season: published +monthly, or as often as the Lord leads." The editor quotes the +Bible, "Call upon the name of the Lord," and explains that "Call +means call." The word appears to have a special meaning to these +pentecostal persons--it means working yourself into a frenzy of +agitation; as the editor puts it, "you must lay hold of the horns +of the altar." He goes on to exhort--the bold face being his: + +Pray as if your very life depended upon it! The first few minutes +seemingly all the powers of hell will contend every word, the +next few, relief in a measure will come, more liberty in calling. +In a very little while you will be dead to the room, dead to the +chair, dead to everyone around you, dead to all and tremendously +alive to your desperate need and emptyness; this conviction will +grow as you increase calling upon Him. It maybe you'll weep, it +maybe you'll perspire, it maybe your clothing will be deranged, +it, maybe your throat will get sore. Never for a moment let your +mind rest on the condition of your person. Open your mouth and +God has promised to fill it. Ask persistently until the very +floor seems to sink beneath you and the fountains of the deep, of +your heart let loose. Like David, "pour out your soul" like one +would pour water out of a bucket. I have seen hundreds get +through right at this point. When self-thought, reticence, +decorum, reserve, propriety and dignity had all been thrown to +the four winds of heaven. Self was then obliterated and +consciousness of person gone. Draw near to God and He will draw +near to you saith the scripture, but you must draw near to Him +first. + +These enthusiasts derive their practices from the Shakers, a sect +which originated in England, but was driven by persecution to the +New World. The Shakers call themselves the "United Society of +True Believers in Christ's Second Coming," and were founded by +Ann Lee, who, variously termed herself the "Female Christ", the +"Holy Comforter", and the "God-anointed Woman". They might be +termed the suffragettes of religion, for they pray always to "Our +Father and Mother, which are in heaven." They were taught the +convenient doctrine that their Founder had "spiritual +illumination", so that any evidence of the senses used against +her might deceive. She governed through terror, holding that by +her mental powers she could inflict torment upon any of her +followers. Fortunately she taught absolute celibacy, and so there +are now only about a thousand of her disciples. + + +Bible Prophecy + +This far western country swarms with those fanatics who await the +return of Christ, and find in Bible chronology positive evidence +that he is coming on a specified day. Seldom do I give a lecture +on Socialism that some eager old lady does not come up to me and +point out how futile are my hopes, because the Millenium will +come before the Revolution. Several times I have come on an item +in the newspapers, telling of a group of people, sometimes whole +villages, selling their goods and going out into the fields to +shout and sing and pray, expecting the vision of the Lord and His +Angels in the skies. I have in my hand a pamphlet entitled +"Shekineh: The Glory of God in Israel, Facts Mathematically +Foretold, of the Soon Coming of Our Blessed Lord." It is +earnestly, yearningly written, in that spirit of feeble-minded +affectionateness which the Bible-sects seem to encourage: + +Now dear reader you see that these problems tell a wonderful +story which I know are the Eternal Truths of God. Jesus is soon +coming. I believe that from now on we can say, next week perhaps +our blessed Lord will return. Yet the time may not end till the +close of the A. M. year, which will be March 20th, 1897. But let +us take up the sickle of God, etc. Oh, my Christian friends, live +near the Blessed Christ, and gain eternal life through Jesus Our +Lord! + +In the public library I find another pamphlet, entitled "The Our +Race," which proves that the "lost ten tribes of Israel" are not +the American Indians, but the Irish! And here is a publication of +the "Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society," declaring: + +The great pyramid in Egypt is a witness to all the events of the +ages and of our day. The pyramid's downward passage under "a +Draconis" symbolizes the course of Sin. Its first ascending +passage symbolizes the Jewish Age. Its Grand Gallery symbolizes +the Gospel Age. Its upper step symbolizes the approaching period +of tribulation and anarchy, "Judgment" upon Christendom. + +It is a Sunday morning, and I sit in the California sunshine +revising this manuscript, when a decorous-looking young man +approaches, having a sack over his shoulder. "From the +Bible-students," he says politely, and hands me a little paper, +"The Bible Students' Monthly: an Independent, Unsectarian +Religious Newspaper, Specially devoted to the Forwarding of the +Laymen's Home Missionary Movement for the Glory of God and Good +of Humanity." The leading article is headed "The Fall of Babylon: +Ancient Babylon a Type--Mystic Babylon the Antitype: Why +Christendom must Suffer--the Final Outcome." A note explains: + +The following article is extracted from Pastor Russell's +posthumous volume entitled "The Finished Mystery," the 7th in the +series of his Studies in the Scriptures and published subsequent +to his death. Pastor Russell held the distinction of being the +most fearless and powerful writer of modern times on +ecclesiastical subjects. In this posthumous volume, which is +called "his last legacy to the Christians on earth," is found a +thorough exposition of every verse in the entire book of +Revelation and also an elucidation of the obscure prophecy of +Ezekiel. The book contains 608 pages, handsomely bound in +embossed cloth. + +Pastor Russell used to publish a two-column sermon in some +hundreds of Sunday newspapers, together with a presentment of his +features--solemn, stiff, white-whiskered, set off with a "choker" +and a black broadcloth coat. There are five million such faces in +America, but if you have an impulse to despair for your country, +remember that it produced Mark Twain and Artemus Ward, as well as +Pastor Russell and the Moody and Sankey hymn-book. I quote one +passage from "The Finished Mystery", in order that the reader may +know what it means to "hold the distinction of being the most +fearless and powerful writer of modern times on ecclesiastical +subjects." Pastor Russell does not approve of the Methodists, and +he quotes twelve verses of Revelation, line by line and phrase by +phrase, showing how the evil course and downfall of the Wesleyan +system were divinely foretold. Thus: + +"But that they should be tormented five months."--In symbolic +time, 150 years--5 X 30 = 150. (Ezek. 4:6.) Wesley became the +first Methodist in 1728. (Rev. 9:1.) When the Methodist +denomination, with all the others, was cast off from favor in +1878 (Rev. 3:14) its powers to torment men by preaching what +Presbyterians describe as "Conscious misery, eternal in duration" +came to an end legally, and to a large extent actually--Rev. +9:10. + +P. S. A few months pass, and while this book is going to press, +"The Finished Mystery" is suppressed by the government and +several score "Bible Students" are landed in jail for sedition. + + +Koreshanity + +Such are the beliefs built on the Bible. But there are other +ancient writings with strange nomenclature and ritual and +symbolism, calculated to impress the unlettered; also our +prophets have imaginations of their own, and can invent +nomenclature and ritual and symbolism never seen in heaven nor on +earth before. Thus there is Dr. Newo Newi New, who called himself +"Archbishop of the Newthot Church," and gathered about him a +harem of devoted females in San Francisco, and was landed in jail +for using the mails to defraud. Or there is "Oahspe, the Cosmic +Bible," a work of brand-new revelation with a brand-new view of +the universe and all things therein: + +The reader soon discovers that he must radically revise not only +his ideas of celestial Cosmogony, but the order and significance +of names and titles commonly applied to the Transcendental +Brethren. The great provinces of Etheria are presided over by +chiefs, chosen for their superior development in wisdom and love. +For our solar system to cross one of these provinces requires +about 3,000 years, and between them are belts of high Etherian +light which take several years to pass over. The passage of each +province is a cycle of earthly history, and the crossings are +called Dawns of Dan. + +And here is Koreshanity, a revelation vouchsafed by the Lord to +Dr. C. R. Teed of Chicago in the year 1889. This new seer took +the name of Koresh, which is Hebrew for Cyrus, "the Shepherd from +Joseph, the Stone of Israel, the Sun-Man; the illuminating center +of the Son of man", and went out on the streets of the city to +preach that the earth is a hollow sphere with the stars inside. +The street urchins of the pork-packing metropolis threw stones at +him, and the irreverent newspapers took up his adventures, with +the result that followers gathered, and now there is a +flourishing colony in Florida, with a dignified magazine called +"The Flaming Sword", and a collection of propaganda volumes: "The +Cellular Cosmogony, an Exposition of Koreshan Universology and +the New Geodesy"; "The Immortal Manhood, the Laws and Processes +of its Attainment in the Flesh"; "The Great Red Dragon, by Lord +Chester"; "The Coming of the Shepherd from Joseph, The Standing +of the Great Ensign, by Koresh." The "Religio-science" of this +Chicago revelator is based, first upon some precise measurements +of the earth which prove that its surface is concave; and second +upon some philological discoveries very much resembling puns. +Thus the "cross of Christ" is explained in a sense of the word +more common among horse-breeders than among theologians: + +The highest characteristic of the alchemical law is the cross of +Christ with sensual man. The cross means that the Lord God, in +order to perpetuate his own being, descends into the race of +sensuality. + +And again, when someone asks about meteors: + +"The word Heaven means things heaved up, that is, heaved up from +their material basis, the earth; thus, the meteors which fall to +the earth are composed of metallic, mineral, and geological +substances, being materialized or actually created in the +atmosphere by an alchemico-organic process from zones or belts +periodically open, which precipitate their contents in the form +or shape of meteors." + +And perhaps I ought also to quote the "Indicia of Human +Progress", by "Berthaldine, Matrona". I don't know what a +"Matrona" is--unless it is a female matron. This female matron +tells me that now is the "Time of Restitution", and explains that +"the prolification of the human race has reached a fruition of +the adultery of the truth and good of the Lord with the fallacies +and evils of the mortal hells"..... We have come, it seems, to +the "age of Pisces", which is "one of the greatest radical +prolification"; and what we now need is the "power of +polarization", so that we may join the "White Horse Army of the +Most High", which is the organization of the "Aquarian age", +proclaimed by Koresh on January 15th, 1891. + + +Mazdaznan + +And here is another and even more startling revelation from +Chicago, given to a seer by the name of Dr. Otoman Prince of +Adusht Ha'nish, prophet of the Sun God, Prince of Peace, Manthra +Magi of Temple El Katman, Kalantar of Zoroastrian Breathing and +Envoy of Mazdaznan living, Viceroy-Elect and International Head +of Master-Thot. If you had happened to live near the town of +Mendota, Illinois, and had known the German grocer-boy named Otto +Hanisch, you might at first have trouble in recognizing him +through this transmogrification. I have traced his career in the +files of the Chicago newspapers, and find him herding sheep, +setting type, preaching prestidigitation, mesmerism, and fake +spiritualism, joining the Mormon Church, then the "Christian +Catholic Church in Zion", and then the cult of Brighouse, who +claimed to be Christ returned. Finally he sets himself up in +Chicago as a Persian Magi, teaching Yogi breathing exercises and +occult sex-lore to the elegant society ladies of the pork-packing +metropolis. The Sun God, worshipped for two score centuries in +India, Egypt, Greece and Rome, has a new shrine on Lake Park +Avenue, and the prophet gives tea-parties at which his disciples +are fed on lilac-blossoms--"the white and pinkish for males, the +blue-tinted for females". He wears a long flowing robe of pale +grey cashmere, faced with white, and flexible white kid shoes, +and he sells his lady adorers a book called "Inner Studies", +price five dollars per volume, with information on such subjects +as: + +The Immaculate Conception and its Repetition; The Secrets of +Lovers Unveiled; Our Ideals and Soul Mates; Magnetic Attraction +and Electric Mating. + +A Grand Jury intervenes, and the Prophet goes to jail for six +months; but that does not harm his cult, which now has a temple +in Chicago, presided over by a lady called Kalantress and +Evangelist; also a "Northern Stronghold" in Montreal, an +"Embassy" in London, an "International Aryana" in Switzerland, +and "Centers" all over America. At the moment of going to press, +the prophet himself is in flight, pursued by a warrant charging +him with improper conduct with a number of young boys in a Los +Angeles hotel. + +I have dipped into Ha'nish's revelations, which are a farrago of +every kind of ancient mysticism--paper and binding from the +Bible, illustrations from the Egyptian, names from the +Zoroastrian, health rules from the Hindoos, laws from the +Confucians--price ten dollars per volume. Would you like to +discover your seventeen senses, to develop them according to the +GaLlama principle, and to share the "expansion of the magnetic +circles"? Here is the way to do it: + +Inhale through nostrils for four seconds, and upon one +exhalation, speak slowly: + +Open, O thou world-sustaining Sun, the entrance unto Truth hidden +by the vase of dazzling light. + +Again inhale for four seconds, and breathe out the following +sentence upon one exhalation as before: + +Soften the radiation of Thy Illuminating Splendor, that I may +behold Thy True Being. + +I have a clipping from a Los Angeles newspaper telling of the +prophet's arriving there. He takes the front page with the +captivating headline: "Women Didn't Think Till They Put On +Corsets". The interview tells about his mysteriousness, his +aloofness, his bird-like-diet, and his personal beauty. "Despite +his seventy-three years, Ha'nish evidences no sign of age. His +keen blue eyes showed no sign of wavering. There were no wrinkles +on his face, and his walk was that of a man of forty." The humor +of this becomes apparent when we mention that at Ha'nish's trial, +three or four years ago, he was proven to be thirty-five years +old! + +Being thus warned as to the accuracy of American journalism, we +shall not be taken in by the repeated statements that the +Mazdaznan prophet is a millionaire. But there is no doubt that he +is wealthy; and as all Americans wish to be wealthy, I will quote +his formula of prosperity, his method of accomplishing what might +be called the Individual Revolution: + +When hungry and you do not know where to get your next piece of +bread, do not despair. Thy Father, all-loving, has provided you +with everything that will meet all cases of emergency. Place your +teeth tightly together, with tongue pressing against the lower +teeth and lips parted. Breathe in, close lips immediately, +exhaling through the nostrils. Breathe again; if saliva forms in +your mouth, hold your breath so you can swallow it first before +you exhale. You thus take out of the air the metal-substance +contained therein; you can even taste the iron which you convert +into substance required for making the blood. Should you feel +that, although you have sufficient iron in the blood, there is a +lack of copper and zinc and silver, place upper teeth over lower, +keep lower lip tightly to lower teeth, now breathe and you can +even taste the metals named. Then should you feel you need more +gold element for your brain functions, place your back teeth +together just as if you were to grind the back teeth, taking +short breaths only. You will then learn to know that there is +gold and silver all around us. That our bodies are filled with +quite a quantity of gold. + + +Black Magic + +What all this means is that we have a continent, with a hundred +million half-educated people, materially prosperous, but +spiritually starving; so any man who possesses personality, who +looks in any way strange and impressive, or has hunted up old +books in a library, and can pronounce mysterious words in a +thrilling voice--such a man can find followers. Anybody can do it +with any doctrine, from anywhere, Persia or Patagonia, Pekin or +Pompei. I would be willing to wager that if I cared to come out +and announce that I had had a visit from God last night, and to +devote such literary and emotional power as I possess to +communicating a new revelation, I could have a temple, a +university, and a million dollars within five years at the +outside. And if at the end of five years I were to announce that +I had played a joke on the world, some one of my followers would +convince the faithful that I had been an agent of God without +knowing it, and that the leadership had now been turned over to +him. + +I would not be understood as believing that all our cults are +undiluted fakery, for that would be doing injustice to some +earnest people. There are, in this country, many followers of the +Persian reformer, Abbas Effendi, who call themselves Babists, and +who have what I am inclined to think is the purest and most +dignified religion in existence. There was a man named Jacob +Beilhardt, who founded a cult in Illinois with the painful name +of "Spirit Fruit Colony", who nevertheless was a man of spiritual +insight, a true mystic; he was honest, and so he failed, and died +of a broken heart. Also there are the Christian Scientists and +the Theosophists, so exasperating that one would like to throw +them onto the rubbish-heap, who yet compel us to sift over their +mountains of chaff for the grains of truth which will bear fruit +in future. + +While we western races have been exploring the natural world and +perfecting the mechanical arts, the Hindoo students have been +exploring the subconscious and its strange powers. What Myers and +Lodge and Janet and Charcot and Freud and Jung are telling us +today they had hints of a long time ago; and doubtless they have +hints of other things, upon which our scientists have not yet +come. I have friends, perfectly sane and competent people, who +tell me that they can see auras, and use this ability as a means +of judging character. Shall I say that there are no auras, simply +because I do not happen to have this gift of seeing them? In the +same way, having read Gurney's "Phantasms of the Living," I am +not ready to ridicule the claim of the Yogi adepts, that they are +able to project some kind of astral body, and to communicate with +one another from distant places. But granting such occult powers +in a world of economic strife, what follows? Simply new floods of +charlatanism, elaborate and complicated systems of ritual and +metaphysic for the deluding and plundering of the credulous. + +I have seen the thing working itself out in one case known to me. +A young man had a gift of mental healing; I know, because I saw +it work; but it did not always work, and that was annoying. He +was penniless and had a taste for power, and to eke out his +erratic endowment he got himself books of Eastern lore, and day +by day as I watched him I could see him becoming more and more +impressive, mysterious and forbidding. Today he is a full-fledged +wonder-worker, with the language of a dozen mystic cults at his +tongue's end, and the reverent regard of many wealthy ladies. I +have never tried to break through his guard, but I feel certain +that he is a deliberate charlatan. + +This is an economic process, automatic and irresistible. Just as +the manufacturer of honest foods is driven out by the +adulterator, so the worker of miracles drives out the sincere +investigator. As a result we have here in America a plague of +Eastern cults, with "swamis" using soft yellow robes and soft +brown eyes to win the souls of idle society ladies. These +teachers of ancient Hindoo lore despise us as a race of +barbarians; but they stay--whether because of love of man or +woman, I do not pretend to say. + +There are the Theosophists of many brands, with schools and +institutes and temples and colonies, and a doctrine as complex +and detailed and fantastic as that of the Roman Catholics. I have +already referred to the writings of Madame Blavatsky, a runaway +Russian army officer's daughter, whose career reads like a tale +out of the Arabian Nights. And there is Annie Besant, who was +once an ardent worker in the Social-democratic Federation; H. M. +Hyndman tells of his dismay when she went to India and walked in +a procession between two white bulls! Here in California is +Madame Tingley, with a colony and a host of followers in a +miniature paradise. Men work at money-lending or manufacturing +sporting-goods, and when they get old and tired they make the +thrilling discovery that they have souls; the theosophists +cultivate these souls and they leave their money to the +soul-cause, and there are lawsuits and exposes in the newspapers. +For, you see, there is ferocious rivalry in the game of +cultivating millionaire souls; there are slanders and feuds, just +as in soulless affairs. "Don't have anything to do with Madame +Tingley," whispers a Theosophist lady to my wife; and when my +wife in all innocence inquires, "Why not?" the awe-stricken +answer comes, "She practices black magic!" + +Let me add that I do not say that she practices black magic. I do +not believe that she could practice it, even if she wanted to--I +do not believe in black magic. My purpose is merely to show how +theosophists quarrel: going back to the days of Anu and Baal and +the bronze image of the Babylonian fire-god: + + Let them die, but let me live! Let them be put under a ban, but +let me prosper! Let them perish, but let me increase! Let them +become weak, but let me wax strong! + + +Mental Malpractice + +This is the other side of the fair shield of religious faith. +Why, if there be a power which loves and can be persuaded to aid +us, may there not also be a power which hates, and can be +persuaded to destroy? No religion has ever been able to answer +this, and therefore none has ever been able to escape from +devil-terrors. Even Jesus was pursued by Satan, and the Holy +Catholic Church has its ceremonies for the exorcising of demons, +and a most frightful formula for cursing. And here are our +friends the Christian Scientists, proclaiming the unreality of +all evil, their ability to banish disease by convincing +themselves that they are perfect in God--yet tormented by a +squalid phobia called "Mental Malpractice", or "Malicious Animal +Magnetism". + +Christian Science is the most characteristic of American +religious contributions. Just as Billy Sunday is the price we pay +for failing to educate our base-ball players, so Mary Baker +Glover Patterson Eddy is the price we pay for failing to educate +our farmer's daughters. + +That she had a power to cure disease I do not doubt, because I +have a little of it myself. At first my opinion was that her +"Science" made its way by curing the imaginary ailments of the +idle rich. If a person has nothing to do but think that he is +sick, you can work easy miracles by persuading him to think that +he is well; and if he has nothing to do but think that he is +well, he will help you to build marble churches and maintain +propaganda societies. But recently I have experimented with +mental healing--enough to satisfy myself that the subconscious +mind which controls our physical functions can be powerfully +influenced by the will. + +I told the story of some of these experiments in Hearst's +Magazine for April, 1914. Suffice it here to say that if you will +lay your hands upon a sick person, forming a vivid mental picture +of the bodily changes you desire, and concentrating the power of +your will upon them, you may be surprised by the results, +especially if you possess anything in the way of psychic gifts. +You do not have to adopt any theories, you do not have to do it +in the name of any divinity, ancient or modern; the only bearing +of such ideas is that they serve to persuade people to make the +experiment, and to make it with persistence and intensity. So it +has come about that "miracles" of healing are associated with +"faith"; and so it comes about that scientists are apt to flout +the subject. But read of the work of Janet and Charcot and their +followers at the Salpetriere; they have proven that all kinds of +seeming-organic ailments may be entirely hysterical in nature, +and may be cured by the simplest form of suggestion. +Understanding this, you may find it more easy to credit the fact +that cripples do sometimes throw away their crutches in the +grotto of Lourdes. For my part, I can believe that Jesus +performed all the miracles of healing attributed to him +--including the raising up of people pronounced to be dead by the +ignorance of that time. I am convinced that in the new science of +psycho-analysis we have a universe as vast as the universe of the +atom or of the stars. + +The Christian Scientists have got hold of this power; they have +mixed it up with metaphysic and divinity, and built some four or +five hundred churches, and printed the Mother Church alone knows +how many million pamphlets and books. I once invested three of my +hard-earned dollars for a copy of the Eddy Bible, and let myself +be stunned and blinded by the flapping of metaphysical wings. It +is unadulterated moonshine--as the Platonist and Berkeleyan and +Hegelian and other orthodox collegiate metaphysical magi can +prove to you in one minute. What interests me about the +phenomenon is not the slinging of tremendous words, but the +strictly Yankee use which is made of them. There is no nonsense +about saving your soul in Christian Science; what it is for is to +remove your wen, to nail down your floating kidney, and to enable +you to hustle and make money. We saw in our politics the growth +of a Party of the Full Dinner-Pail; contemporaneous therewith, +and corresponding thereto, we see in our religious life the +development of a Church of the Full Pocket-Book. + +It is a strict religion--strictly cash. The heads of the cult do +not issue cheap editions of "Science and Health, With Key to the +Scriptures", to relieve the suffering of the proletariat; no--the +work is copyrighted, in all its varying and contradictory +editions, and the price is from three to seven-fifty, according +to binding. Treatments cost from three dollars to ten, whether +you come and get them or take them over the telephone. And we +have no nonsense about charity, we don't worry about the poor who +fester in our city slums; because poverty is a product of Mortal +Mind, and we offer to all men a way to get rich right off the +bat. You may come to our marble churches and hear people testify +how through the power of Divine Mind they were enabled to +anticipate a rise in the stock-market. If you don't avail +yourself of the opportunity, the fault is yours, and yours also +the punishment. + +As to the management of the Church, the Roman Catholic hierarchy +is a Bolshevik democracy in comparison. The Church is controlled +by an absolutely irresponsible self-perpetuating body of five +men, who alone dictate its policy. I have in my hand a letter +from a Christian Science healer who was listed as an "authorized +practitioner", and who withdrew from the Church because of its +attitude on public questions. He sends me a copy of his +correspondence with the editors of the "Christian Science +Monitor", containing a detailed analysis of the position of that +paper on such issues as the Ballinger land-frauds. He writes: + +I am thoroughly convinced now that the policy of the Church is +consciously plutocratic. The only recommendation I have heard of +the latest appointee to the Board of Directors is that he is one +of the richest men in the movement. + +After the Titanic disaster, Senator La Follette brought in a +carefully drawn bill to compel steamship companies to provide +life-boats and trained crews. The "Christian Science Monitor" +opposed this bill; and when my correspondent cited the fact, he +brought out a quaint bit of metaphysical logic, as follows: + +One would prefer to travel on a vessel without a single boat, +rather than on some other vessels which were loaded down with +life-boats, where the government of Mind was not understood! + + +Science and Wealth + +The truth is that the brand of Mammon was on our Yankee religion +from the day of its birth. In the first edition of her new Bible +"Mother" Eddy dropped the hint to her readers: "Men of business +have said this science was of great advantage from a secular +point of view." And in her advertisements she threw aside all +pretense, declaring that her work "Affords an opportunity to +acquire a profession by which one can accumulate a fortune." When +her pupils did accumulate, she boasted of their success; nor did +she neglect her own accumulating. + +It has been a dozen years since I looked into this cult; in order +to be sure that it has not been purified in the interim, I +proceed to a street corner in my home city, where is a stand with +a sign: "Christian Science Literature." I take four sample +copies of a magazine, the "Christian Science Sentinel", published +by the Mother Church in Boston, and turn to the "Testimonials of +Healing". In the issue of August 11, 1917, Mary C. Richards of +St. Margarets-on-Thames, England, testifies: "Through a number of +circumstances unnecessary to relate, but proving conclusively +that the result came not from man but from God, employment was +found." In the issue of December 2, 1916, Frances Tuttle of +Jersey City, N. J., testifies how her sister was successfully +treated for unemployment by a scientist practitioner. "Every +condition was beautifully met." In the same issue Fred D. Miller +of Los Angeles, Cal., testifies: "Soon after this wonderful truth +came to me, Divine Love led me to a new position with a +responsible firm. The work was new to me, but I have given entire +satisfaction, and my salary has been advanced twice in less than +a year." In the issue of January 27, 1917, Eliza Fryant of +Agricola, Miss., testifies how she cured her little dog of +snake-bite and removed two painful corns from her own foot. In +the issue of August 4, 1917, Marcia E. Gaier, of Everett, Wash., +testifies how it suddenly occurred to her that because God is +All, she would drop her planning and outlining in regard to real +estate properties, "upon which for nine months all available +material methods were tried to no effect." The result was a +triumph of "Principle". + +While working in the yard one morning and gratefully communing +with God, the only power, I suddenly felt that I should stop +working and prepare for visitors on their way to look at the +property. I obeyed this very distinct command, and in about an +hour I greeted two people who had searched almost the entire city +for just what we had to offer. They had been directed to our +place by what to material sense would seem an accident, but we +know it was the divine law of harmony in its universal operation. + +After this no one will wonder that John M. Tutt, in a Christian +Science lecture at Kansas City, Mo., should proclaim: + +My friends, do you know that since the world began Christian +Science is the only system which has intelligently related +religion to business? Christian Science shows that since all +ideas belong to Mind, God, therefore all real business belongs to +Him. + +As I said, these people have the new-old power of mental healing, +They blunder along with it blindly, absurdly, sometimes with +tragic consequences; but meantime the rank and file of the +pill-doctors know nothing about this power, and regard it with +contempt mingled with fear; so of course the hosts of sufferers +whom the pill-doctors cannot help flock to the healers of the +"Church of Christ, Scientist". According to the custom of those +who are healed by "faith", they swallow line, hook, and sinker, +creed, ritual, metaphysic and divinity. So we see in +twentieth-century America precisely what we saw in B. C. +twentieth-century Assyria--a host of worshippers, giving their +worldly goods without stint, and a priesthood, made partly of +fanatics and partly of charlatans, conducting a vast enterprise +of graft, and harvesting that thing desired of all men, power +over the lives and destinies of others. + +And of course among themselves they quarrel; they murder one +another's Mortal Minds, they drive one another out, they snarl +over the spoils like a pack of hungry animals. Listen to the +Mother, denouncing one of her students--a perfectly amiable and +harmless youth whose only offense was that he had gone his own +way and was healing the sick for the benefit of his own +pocket-book: + +Behold! thou criminal mental marauder, that would blot out the +sunshine of earth, that would sever friends, destroy virtue, put +out Truth, and murder in secret the innocent, befouling thy track +with the trophies of thy guilt--I say, Behold the "cloud" no +bigger than a man's hand already rising on the horizon of Truth, +to pour down upon thy guilty head the hailstones of doom. + +And again: + +The Nero of today, regaling himself through a mental method with +the torture of individuals, is repeating history, and will fall +upon his own sword, and it shall pierce him through. Let him +remember this when, in the dark recesses of thought, he is +robbing, committing adultery and killing. When he is attempting +to turn friend away from friend, ruthlessly stabbing the +quivering heart; when he is clipping the thread of life and +giving to the grave youth and its rainbow hues; when he is +turning back the reviving sufferer to his bed of pain, clouding +his first morning after years of night; and the Nemesis of that +hour shall point to the tyrant's fate, who falls at length upon +the sword of justice. + + +New Nonsense + +In a certain city of America is a large building given up +entirely to the whims of pretty ladies. Its floors are not floors +but "Promenades", and have walls of glass, behind which, as you +stroll, you see bonnets from Paris and opera cloaks from London, +furs from Alaska and blankets from Arizona, diamonds from South +Africa and beads from the Philippines, grapes from Spain and +cherries from Japan, fortune-tellers from Arabia and +dancing-masters from Petrograd and "naturopaths" from Vienna. +There are seventy-three shops, by actual count, containing +everything that could be imagined or desired by a pretty lady, +whether for her body, or for that vague stream of emotion she +calls her "soul". One of the seventy-three shops is a +"Metaphysical Library", having broad windows, and walls in pastel +tints, and pretty vases with pink flowers, and pretty gray wicker +chairs in which the reader will please to be seated, while we +probe the mysteries of an activity widely spread throughout +America, called "New Thought." + +We begin with a shelf of magazines having mystical titles: Azoth; +Master Mind; Aletheian; Words of Power; Qabalah; Comforter; +Adept; Nautilus; True Word; Astrological Bulletin; Unity; Uplift; +Now. And then come shelves of pretty pamphlets, alluring to the +eye and the purse; also shelves of imposing-looking volumes +containing the lore and magic of a score of races and two score +of centuries--together with the very newest manifestations of +Yankee hustle and graft. + +As in the case of Christian Science, these New Thoughters have a +fundamental truth, which I would by no means wish to depreciate. +It is a fact that the mysterious Source of our being is infinite, +and that we are only at the beginning of our thinking about it. +It is a fact that by appeal to it we can perform seeming miracles +of mental and moral regeneration; we can stimulate the flow of +nervous energy and of the blood, thus furthering the processes of +bodily healing. But the fact that God is Infinite and Omnipotent +does not bar the fact that He has certain ways of working, which +He does not vary; and that it is our business to explore and +understand these ways, instead of setting our fancies to work +imagining other ways more agreeable to our sentimentality. + +Thus, for example, if we want bread, it is God's decree that we +shall plant wheat and harvest it, and grind and bake and +distribute it. Under conditions prevailing at the moment, it +appears to be His decree that we shall store the wheat in +elevators, and ship it in freight cars, and buy it through a +grain exchange, with capital borrowed from a national bank; in +other words, that our daily bread shall be the plaything of +exploiters and speculators, until such a time as we have the +intelligence to form an effective political party and establish +Industrial Democracy. But when you come to study the ways of God +in the literature of the New Thought, do you find anything about +the Millers' Trust and the Bakers' Trust and how to expropriate +these agencies of starvation? You do not! + +What you find is Bootstrap-lifting; you find gentlemen and lady +practitioners shutting their eyes and lifting their hands and +pronouncing Incantations in awe-inspiring voices--or in Capital +Letters and LARGE TYPE: "God is infinite, God is All-Loving, GOD +WILL PROVIDE. Bread is coming to you! Bread is coming to you!! +BREAD IS COMING TO YOU!!!" + +You think this is exaggeration? If so, it is because you have +never entered the building of the pretty ladies, and sat in the +gray wicker chairs of the metaphysical library. One of the +highest high-priestesses of the cults of New Nonsense is a lady +named Elizabeth Towne, editor of "The Nautilus"; and Priestess +Elizabeth tells you: + +I believe the idea that money wants you will help you to the +right mental condition. Be a pot of honey and let it come. + +I look over this Priestess' magazine, and find it full of +testimonials and advertisements for the conjuring of prosperity. +"Are you in the success sphere?" asks one exhorter; the next +tells you "How to enter the silence. How to manifest what you +desire. The secret of advancement." Another tells: "How a Failure +at Sixty Won Sudden Success; From Poverty to $40,000 a year--a +Lesson for Old and Young Alike." The lesson, it appears, is to +pay $3.00 for a book called "Power of Will." And here is another +book: + +Master Key: Which can unlock the Secret Chamber of Success, can +throw wide the doors which seem to bar men from the Treasure +House of Nature, and bids those enter and partake who are Wise +enough to Understand and broad enough to Weigh the Evidence, firm +enough to Follow their Own Judgment and Strong enough to Make the +Sacrifice Exacted. + + +"Dollars Want Me" + +I turn to the shelves of pamphlets. Here is a pretty one called +"All Sufficiency in All Things," published by the "Unity School +of Christianity", in Kansas City; it explains that God is God, +not merely of the Soul, but also of the Kansas City stockyards. + +This divine Substance is ever abiding within us, and stands ready +to manifest itself in whatever form you and I need or wish, just +as it did in Elisha's time. It is the same yesterday, today and +forever. Abundant Supply by the manifestation of the Father +within us, from within outward, is as much a legitimate outcome +of the Christ life or spiritual understanding as is bodily +healing..... "Know that I am God--all of God, Good, all of Good. +I am Life. I am Health. I am Supply. I am the Substance." + +And here is W. W. Atkinson of Chicago, author of a work called +"Mind Power". Would you like to be an Impressive Personality? Mr. +Atkinson will tell you exactly how to do it; he will give you the +secret of the Magnetic Handclasp, of the Intense, +Straight-in-the-eye Look; he will tell you what to say, he will +write out for you Incantations which you may pronounce to +yourself, to convince yourself that you have Power, that the +INDWELLING PRESENCE with all its MIGHT is yours. Mr. Atkinson +rebukes mildly the tendency of some of his fellow +Bootstrap-lifters to employ these arts for money-making; but you +notice that his magazine, "Advanced Thought", does not decline +the advertisements of such too-practical practitioners. + +Next comes a gentleman with the musical name of Wallace Wattles, +who tells in one pamphlet "How to Be a Genius", and in another +pamphlet "How to Get What you Want". The thing for you to do is-- + +Saturate your mentality through and through with the knowledge +that YOU CAN DO WHAT YOU WANT TO DO..... Look upon the +peanut-stand merely as the beginning of the department store, and +make it grow; you can. + +And Mr. Wattles wattles on, in an ecstasy of acquisitiveness: + +Hold this consciousness and say with deep, earnest feeling: I CAN +succeed! All that is possible to any one is possible to me. I AM +success. I do succeed, for I am full of the Power of Success. + +Imagine, if you please, a poor devil chained in the treadmill of +the capitalist system--a "soda-jerker", a "counter-jumper", a +book-keeper for the Steel Trust. His chances of rising in life +are one in ten thousand; but he comes to the Metaphysical +Library, and pays the price of his dinner for a pamphlet by Henry +Harrison Brown, who was first a Unitarian clergyman, and then an +extra-high Bootstrap-lifter in San Francisco, an Honorary +Vice-President of the International New Nonsense Alliance. Mr. +Brown will tell our soda-jerker or counter-jumper exactly how to +elevate himself by mental machinery. All calculations of +probabilities are delusions of the senses; if you have faith, you +can move, not merely mountains, but Riker-Hegeman's, Macy's, or +the Steel Trust. "How to Promote Yourself " is the title of one +of Mr. Brown's pamphlets, in which he explains that-- + +Your wants are impressed on the Divine Mind only by your faith. A +doubt cuts the connection. + +A second pamphlet, which we are told is now in its thirtieth +edition, bears the thrilling title of "Dollars Want Me!" In it +Mr. Brown lays claim to being a pioneer: + +I believe that this little monograph is the first utterance of +the thought that each individual has the ability so to radiate +his mental forces that he can cause the Dollars to feel him, love +him, seek him, and thus draw at will all things needed for his +unfoldment from the universal supply. + +"What are Dollars?" asks our author; and answers: + +Dollars are manifestations of the One Infinite Substance as you +are, but, unlike you, they are not Self-Conscious. They have no +power till you give them power. Make them feel this through your +thought-vibrations as you feel the importance of your work. They +will then come to you to be used. + +"What is Poverty?" Mr. Brown asks, and answers himself: + +Poverty is a mental condition. It can be cured only by the +Affirmation of Power to cure: I am a part of the One, and, in the +One, I possess all! Affirm this and patiently wait for the +manifestation. You have sown the thought seed. + +And our author goes on to hand out packages of these +thought-seeds--"Affirmations" as they are called, in the jargon +of the New Conjuring: + + I desire a deep consciousness of financial freedom. I desire +that the flow of prosperity become equalized. I desire a greater +consciousness of my power to attract the dollar. The Indwelling +Power cares for my purse. I own whatever I desire. I can afford +to use dollars for my happiness. I always have a good bank +account. I actually see it. My one idea of the law is to use, +use, USE. + + +Spiritual Financiering + +If the symbolism of the Episcopal Church is of the palace, and +that of the non-conformist sects of the counting-house, that of +the International New Nonsense Alliance is of Wall Street and the +"ticker". "What is your rating in the Spiritual Bradstreet?" asks +William Morris Nichols in the publication of the " 'Now' Folk", +San Francisco: + +Is it low or high? Is your credit with the Bank of the Universe +good or poor? If you draw a spiritual draft are you sure of its +being honored? + +If you can answer that last question affirmatively, you are on +the road to become a Master in Spiritual Financiering. + +Have you an account with the First (and only) Bank of Spirit? If +not, then you should at once open one therewith. For no one can +afford to keep less than a large deposit of spiritual funds with +that Bank. + +And how do you proceed to open your account? It is very simple: + +Intend the mind in the direction indicated by your desire. Seek +for the Light and Guidance by which you may open up the way for +your Spiritual Substance, which governs material supply, to reach +you and make you as rich as you ought to be, in freedom and +happiness. All this you can, and when in earnest, will do. + +I turn over the advertisements of this publication of the " 'Now' +Folk". One offers "The Business Side of New Thought." Another +offers "The Books Without an If", with your money back IF you are +not satisfied! Another offers land in Bolivia for two dollars an +acre. Another quotes Shakespeare: " 'Tis the mind that makes the +body rich." Another offers two copies of the "Phrenological Era" +for ten cents. + +There is apparently no delusion of any age or clime which cannot +find dupes among the readers of this New Nonsense. One notice +commands: + +Stop! A Revelation! A Book has been written entitled "Strands of +Gold" or "From Darkness into Light!" + +Another announces: + +The Most Wonderful Book of the Ages: The Acquarian Gospel of +Jesus the Christ, Transcribed from the Book of God's Remembrance, +the Akashic Records. + +And here is an advertisement published in Mr. Atkinson's paper: + +Numerology: the Universal Adjuster! Do you know: What you appear +to be to others? What you really are? What you want to be? What +would overcome your present and future difficulties? Write to X, +Philosopher. You will receive full particulars of his personal +work which is dedicated to your service. No problem is too big or +too small for Numerology. Understanding awaits you. + +And looking in the body of the magazine, you find this +Philosopher imparting some of this Understanding. Would you like, +for example, to understand why America entered the War? Nothing +easier. The vowels of the Words United States of America are +uieaeoaeia, which are numbered 2951561591, which added make 45, +or 4 plus 5 equals 9. You might not at first see what that has to +do with the War--until the Philosopher points out that "9 in the +number of completion, indicating the end of a cosmic cycle." +That, of course, explains everything. + +And here is a work on what you perhaps thought to be a dead +science, Astrology. It is called "Lucky Hours for Everybody: A +True System of Planetary Hours by Prof. John B. Early. Price One +Dollar." It teaches you things like this: + +Saturn's negative hours are especially good for all matters +relating to gold-mining..... The Sun negative rules the emerald, +the musical note D sharp, and the number four. The lunar hours +are a good time to deal in public commodities, and to hire +servants of both sexes..... + +A recent lady visitor informed me that she had made several vain +attempts to transact important business in the hours ruled by +Jupiter, usually held to be fortunate, while she was nearly +always fortunate in what she began in the hours ruled by Saturn. +Upon investigation I found her name was ruled by the Sun +negative, and that she had Capricorn with Saturn therein as her +ascendant at birth, which explains. + +And finally, here is a London "scientist", reported in the +"Weekly Unity" of Kansas City, who proves his mental power over +two-horse power oil engines which fail to act. "Going a little +apart, he came back in a few minutes and said: 'The engine is all +right now and will work satisfactorily.' and without any further +difficulty it did." We are told how Dr. Rawson gave a +demonstration of his method to a newspaper reporter the other +day. Fixing his gaze as though looking into space, he apparently +became absorbed in deep contemplation and said aloud: "There is +no danger; man is surrounded by divine love; there is no matter; +all is spirit and manifestation of spirit." + +You might at first find difficulty in believing what can be +accomplished by "demonstrations" such as this; not merely are +two-horse power oil engines made to work, but the whole gigantic +machine of Prussian militarism is prevented from working. You may +recall how Arthur Machen's magazine story of the Angels of Mons +was taken up and made into a Catholic legend over-night; now here +is a New-Nonsense legend, complete and perfect, going the rounds +of our Nonsense magazines: + +London, Dec. 14.--Shell-proof and bullet-proof soldiers have been +discovered on the European battle-fronts. Heroes with "charmed +lives" are being made every day, according to Frederick L. +Rawson, a London scientist, who insists he has found the +miraculous way by which they are developed. He calls it "audible +treatment". "Practical utilization of the powers of God by right +thinking," is the agency through which Dr. Rawson declares he can +so treat a man that he will not be harmed when hundreds of men +are being shot dead beside him. This amazing treatment includes a +new type of prayer. It is being administered to hundreds of men +audibly, and to hundreds more by letter. Nothing since the war +began has aroused so much talk of modern miracles as have many of +the statements of Dr. Rawson....... + +At the taking of a wood there were five hundred yards of "No +Man's Land" to be crossed. Our troops could not get across. Then +Capt. --------, who practices this method of prayer, treated them +for an hour before they started, and not a man was knocked out. +He was the only officer left out of eighty in his brigade. He +simply held onto the fact that man is spiritual and perfect and +could not be touched. A bullet fired from a revolver only five +yards away hit him over the chest, tore his shirt and went out at +the shoulder. But it never penetrated his chest. He was +frequently in a hail of shells and bullets which did not touch +him. + + +The Graft of Grace + +All this is grotesque; but it is what happens to religions in a +world of commercial competition. It happens not merely to +Christian Science and New Thought religions, Mazdaznan and +Zionist, Holy Roller and Mormon religions, but to Catholic and +Episcopalian, Presbyterian and Methodist and Baptist religions. +For you see, when you are with the wolves you must howl with +them; when you are competing with fakirs you must fake. The +ordinary Christian will read the claims of the New Thought fakers +with contempt; but have I not shown the Catholic Church +publishing long lists of money-miracles? Have I not shown the +Church of Good Society, our exclusive and aristocratic Protestant +Episcopal communion, pretending to call rain and to banish +pestilence, to protect crops and win wars and heal those who are +"sick in estate"--that is, who are in business trouble? + +The reader will say that I am a cynic, despising my fellows; but +that is not so. I am an economic scientist, analyzing the forces +which operate in human societies. I blame the prophets and +priests and healers for their fall from idealism; but I blame +still more the competitive wage-system, which presents them with +the alternative to swindle or to starve. + +For, you see, the prophet has to have food. He has frequently got +along with almost none, and with only a rag for clothing; in +Palestine and India, where the climate is warm, a sincere faith +has been possible for short periods. But the modern prophet who +expects to influence the minds of men has to have books and +newspapers; he will find a telephone and a typewriter and +postage-stamps hardly to be dispensed with, also in Europe and +America some sort of a roof over his meeting place. So the +prophet is caught, like all the rest of us, in the net of the +speculator and the landlord. He has to get money, and in order to +get it he has to impress those who already have it--people whose +minds and souls have been deformed by the system of parasitism +and exploitation. + +So the prophet becomes a charlatan; or, if he refuses, he becomes +a martyr, and founds a church which becomes a church of +charlatans. I care not how sincere, how passionately proletarian +a religious prophet may be, that is the fate which sooner or +later befalls him in a competitive society--to be the founder of +an organization of fools, conducted by knaves, for the benefit of +wolves. That fate befell Buddha and Jesus, it befell Ignatius +Loyola and Francis of Assisi, John Fox and John Calvin and John +Wesley. + +A friend of mine who has made a study of "Spiritualism" describes +to me the conditions in that field. The mediums are people, +mostly women, with a peculiar gift; whether we believe in the +survival of personality, or whether we call it telepathy, does +not alter the fact that they have a rare and special +sensitiveness, a new faculty which science must investigate. They +come, poor people mostly--for the well-to-do will seldom give +their time to exacting and wearisome experiments. They come, +wearing frayed and thin clothing, shivering with cold, obviously +undernourished; and their survival depends upon their producing +"phenomena"--which phenomena are capricious, and will not come at +call. So, what more natural than that mediums should resort to +faking? That the whole field should be reeking with fraud, and +science should be held back from understanding an extraordinary +power of the subconscious mind? + +Ever since we came to Pasadena, various ladies have been telling +us about the wondrous powers of a mulatto-woman, a manicurist at +the city's most fashionable hotel. The other day, out of +curiosity, my wife and I went; the moment the "medium" opened her +mouth my wife recognized her as the person who has been trying +for several months to get me on the telephone to tell me how the +spirit of Jack London is seeking to communicate with me! The +seance was a public one, a gathering composed, half of wealthy +and cultured society-women, and half of confederates, people with +the dialect and manners of a vaudeville troupe. A megaphone was +set in the middle of the floor, the room was made dark, a couple +of hymns were sung, and then the spirit of Dr. Oliver Wendell +Holmes spoke through the megaphone with a Bowery accent, and gave +communications from relatives and friends of the various +confederates. "Jesus is with us", said Dr. Holmes. "The spirit of +Jesus bids you to study spiritualism." And then came the voice of +a child: "Mamma! Mamma!" "It is little Georgie!" cried Dr. +Holmes; and one of the society ladies started, and answered, and +presently burst into tears. A marvelous piece of +evidence--especially when you recall that the story of this +mother's bereavement had been published in all the papers a +couple of months before! + +And this kind of swindling is going on every night in every city +of America. It goes on wholesale for months every summer at Lily +Dale, in New York State, where the spiritualists hold their +combination of Chautauqua and Coney Island. And the same thing is +going on in the field of mental healing, and of all other +"occult" forces and powers, whether real or imaginary. It is +going on with new spiritual fervors, new moral idealisms, new +poetry, new music, new painting, new sculpture. The faker, the +charlatan is everywhere--using the mental and moral and artistic +forces of life as a means of delivering himself from economic +servitude. Everywhere I turn I see it--credulity being exploited, +and men of practical judgment, watching the game and seeing +through it, made hard in their attitude of materialism. How many +men I know who sit by in sullen protest while their wives drift +from one new quackery to another, wasting their income seeking +health and happiness in futile emotionalism! How many kind and +sensitive spirits I know--both men and women--who pour their +treasures of faith and admiration into the laps of hierophants +who began by fooling all mankind and ended by fooling themselves! + +In each one of the cults of what I have called the "Church of the +Quacks", there are thousands, perhaps millions of entirely +sincere, self-sacrificing people. They will read this book--if +anyone can persuade them to read it--with pain and anger; +thinking that I am mocking at their faith, and have no +appreciation of their devotion. All that I can say is that I am +trying to show them how they are being trapped, how their fine +and generous qualities are being used by exploiters of one sort +or another; and how this must continue, world without end, until +there is order in the material affairs of the race, until justice +has been established as the law of man's dealing with his +fellows. + + + +BOOK SEVEN + +The Church of the Social Revolution + + They have taken the tomb of our Comrade Christ-- + Infidel hordes that believe not in man; + Stable and stall for his birth sufficed, + But his tomb is built on a kingly plan. + They have hedged him round with pomp and parade, + They have buried him deep under steel and stone-- +But we come leading the great Crusade + To give our Comrade back to his own. + Waddell. + + +Christ and Caesar + +In the most deeply significant of the legends concerning Jesus, +we are told how the devil took him up into a high mountain and +showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time; and +the devil said unto him: "All this power will I give unto thee, +and the glory of them, for that is delivered unto me, and to +whomsoever I will, I give it. If thou, therefore, wilt worship +me, all shall be thine." Jesus, as we know, answered and said +"Get thee behind me, Satan!" And he really meant it; he would +have nothing to do with worldly glory, with "temporal power;" he +chose the career of a revolutionary agitator, and died the death +of a disturber of the peace. And for two or three centuries his +church followed in his footsteps, cherishing his proletarian +gospel. The early Christians had "all things in common, except +women;" they lived as social outcasts, hiding in deserted +catacombs, and being thrown to lions and boiled in oil. + +But the devil is a subtle worm; he does not give up at one +defeat, for he knows human nature, and the strength of the forces +which battle for him. He failed to get Jesus, but he came again, +to get Jesus' church. He came when, through the power of the new +revolutionary idea, the Church had won a position of tremendous +power in the decaying Roman Empire; and the subtle worm assumed +the guise of no less a person than the Emperor himself, +suggesting that he should become a convert to the new faith, so +that the Church and he might work together for the greater glory +of God. The bishops and fathers of the Church, ambitious for +their organization, fell for this scheme, and Satan went off +laughing to himself. He had got everything he had asked from +Jesus three hundred years before; he had got the world's greatest +religion. How complete and swift was his success you may judge +from the fact that fifty years later we find the Emperor +Valentinian compelled to pass an edict limiting the donations of +emotional females to the church in Rome! + +From that time on Christianity has been what I have shown in this +book, the chief of the enemies of social progress. From the days +of Constantine to the days of Bismarck and Mark Hanna, Christ and +Caesar have been one, and the Church has been the shield and +armor of predatory economic might. With only one qualification to +be noted: that the Church has never been able to suppress +entirely the memory of her proletarian Founder. She has done her +best, of course; we have seen how her scholars twist his words +out of their sense, and the Catholic Church even goes so far as +to keep to the use of a dead language, so that her victims may +not hear the words of Jesus in a form they can understand. + + 'Tis well that such seditious songs are sung + Only by priests, and in the Latin tongue! + +But in spite of this, the history of the Church has been one +incessant struggle with upstarts and rebels who have filled +themselves with the spirit of the Magnificat and the Sermon on +the Mount, and of that bitterly class-conscious proletarian, +James, the brother of Jesus. + +And here is the thing to be noted, that the factor which has +given life to Christianity, which enables it to keep its hold on +the hearts of men today, is precisely this new wine of faith and +fervor which has been poured into it by generation after +generation of poor men who live like Jesus as outcasts, and die +like Jesus as criminals, and are revered like Jesus as founders +and saints. The greatest of the early Church fathers were +bitterly fought by the Church authorities of their own time. St. +Chrysostom, Bishop of Constantinople, was turned out of office, +exiled and practically martyred; St. Basil was persecuted by the +Emperor Valens; St. Ambrose excommunicated the tyrannical Emperor +Theodosius; St. Cyprian gave all his wealth to the poor, and was +exiled and finally martyred. In the same way, most of the +heretics whom the Holy Inquisition tortured and burned were +proletarian rebels; the saints whom the Church reveres, the +founders of the orders which gave it life for century after +century, were men who sought to return to the example of the +carpenter's son. Let us hear a Christian scholar on this point, +Prof. Rauschenbusch: + +The movement of Francis of Assisi, of the Waldenses, of the +Humiliati and Bons Hommes, were all inspired by democratic and +communistic ideals. Wiclif was by far the greatest doctrinal +reformer before the reformation; but his eyes, too, were first +opened to the doctrinal errors of the Roman Church by joining in +a great national and patriotic movement against the alien +domination and extortion of the Church. The Bohemian revolt made +famous by the name of John Huss, was quite as much political and +social as religious. Savonarola was a great democrat as well as a +religious prophet. In his famous interview with the dying Lorenzo +de Medici he made three demands as a condition for granting +absolution. Of the man he demanded a living faith in God's mercy. +Of the millionaire he demanded restitution of his ill-gotten +wealth. Of the political usurper he demanded the restoration of +the liberties of the people of Florence. It is significant that +the dying sinner found it easy to assent to the first, hard to +assent to the second, and impossible to concede the last. + + +Locusts and Wild Honey + +This proletarian strain in Christianity goes back to a time long +before Jesus; it seems to have been inherent in the religious +character of the Jews--that stubborn independence, that +stiff-necked insistence on the right of a man to interview God +for himself and to find out what God wants him to do; also the +inclination to find that God wants him to oppose earthly rulers +and their plundering of the poor. What is it that gives to the +Bible the vitality it has today? Its literary style? To say that +is to display the ignorance of the cultured; for elevation of +style is a by-product of passionate conviction; it is what the +Jewish writers had to say, and not the way they said it, that has +given them their hold upon mankind. Was it their insistence upon +conscience, their fear of God as the beginning of wisdom? But +that same element appears in the Babylonian psalms, which are as +eloquent and as sincere as those of the Hebrews, yet are read +only by scholars. Was it their sense of the awful presence of +divinity, of the soul immortal in its keeping? The Egyptians had +that far more than the Hebrews, and yet we do not cherish their +religious books. Or was it the love of man for all things living, +the lesson of charity upon which the Catholics lay such stress? +The gentle Buddha had that, and had it long before Christ; also +his priests had metaphysical subtlety, greater than that of John +the Apostle or Thomas Aquinas. + +No, there is one thing and one only which distinguishes the +Hebrew sacred writings from all others, and that is their +insistent note of proletarian revolt, their furious denunciations +of exploiters, and of luxury and wantonness, the vices of the +rich. Of that note the Assyrian and Chaldean and Babylonian +writing contain not a trace, and the Egyptian hardly enough to +mention. The Hindoos had a trace of it; but the true, +natural-born rebels of all time were the Hebrews. They were +rebels against oppression in ancient Judea, as they are today in +Petrograd and New York; the spirit of equality and brotherhood +which spoke through Ezekiel and Amos and Isaiah, through John the +Baptist and Jesus and James, spoke in the last century through +Marx and Lassalle and Jaures, and speaks today through Liebknecht +and Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Kautsky and Israel Zangwill and +Morris Hillquit and Abraham Cahan and Emma Goldman and the Joseph +Fels endowment. + +The legal rate of interest throughout the Babylonian Empire was +20%; the laws of Manu permitted 24%, while the laws of the +Egyptians only stepped in to prevent more than 100%. But listen +to this Hebrew law: + +If thy brother be waxen poor, and fallen in decay with thee, then +thou shalt relieve him, yea, though he be a stranger or a +sojourner, that he may live with thee: Take thou no interest of +him, or increase; but fear thy God that thy brother may live with +thee. Thou shalt not give him any money upon usury, nor lend him +thy victuals for increase. + +And so on, forbidding that Hebrews be sold as bond servants, and +commanding that at the end of fifty years All debtors shall have +their debts forgiven and their lands returned to them. And note +that this is not the raving of agitators, the demand of a +minority party; it is the law of the Hebrew land. + +There has been of late a great deal of new discovery concerning +the early Jews. Conrad Noel summarizes the results as follows: + +The land-mark law, which sternly forbids encroachment upon +peasant rights; consideration for the foreigner; additional +sanitary and food laws; tithe regulations on behalf of widows, +orphans, foreigners, etc.; that those who have no economic +independence should eat and be satisfied; that loans should be +given cheerfully, not only without any interest, but even at the +risk of losing the principal. To withhold a loan because the year +of release is at hand in which the principal is no longer +recoverable, is described as a grave sin. When you are compelled +to free your slaves, you must give them sufficient capital to +embark upon some industry which shall prevent their falling back +into slavery. A number of holidays are insisted upon. There must +be no more crushing of the poor out of existence, for God cares +for these people who have been driven to poverty, and they shall +never cease out of the land. Howbeit there shall be no poor with +you, for the Lord will bless you, if you will obey these laws. + +But then prosperity came, and culture, which meant contact with +the capitalist ideas of the heathen empires. The Jews fell from +the stern justice of their fathers; and so came the prophets, +wild-eyed men of the people, clad in camel's hair and living upon +locusts and wild honey, breaking in upon priests and kings and +capitalists with their furious denunciations. And always they +incited to class war and social disturbance. I quote Conrad Noel +again: + +Nathan and Gad bad been David's political advisers, Abijah had +stirred Jeroboam to revolt, Elijah had resisted Ahab, Elisha had +fanned the rebellion of Jehu, Amos thunders against the misrule +of the king of Israel, Isaiah denounces the landlords and the +usurers, Micah charges them with blood-guiltiness; Jeremiah and +the latter prophets, though they strike a more intimate note of +personal repentance, strike it as the prelude to that national +restoration for which they hunger as exiles. + +The first chapters of Isaiah are typical of the Old Testament +point of view. Just as the prophets of the nineteenth century +thundered against the "Christian" employers of Lancashire, and +told them their houses were cemented with the blood of little +children, so Isaiah cries against his generation: "Your governing +classes companion with thieves; behold you build up Sion with +blood." Their ceremonial and their Sabbath keeping are an +abomination to God. "When ye spread forth your hands, I will hide +mine eyes from you. Your hands are full of blood." The poor man +is robbed. The rich exact usury. "Woe unto you that lay house to +house and field to field, that ye may dwell alone in the midst of +the land." "Wash you, make you clean, put away the evil of your +doing from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do well, +seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead +for the widow. Come now, let us reason together, saith the Lord. +Though your sins be blood-colored, they shall be as white as +snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If +ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land. +But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured by the sword." + + +Mother Earth + +And nowadays we have the Socialist and Anarchist agitators, +following the same tradition, possessed by the same dream as the +ancient Hebrew prophets. I have mentioned Emma Goldman; it may be +that the reader is not familiar with her writings, and does not +realize how very Biblical she is, both in point of view and +style. Let me quote a few sentences from a recent issue of her +paper, "Mother Earth", on the subject of our ruling classes and +their social responsibility: + +Yes, you idle rich, you may howl about what we mean to do to you! +Your riches are rotten and your fine clothes are falling from +your backs. Your stocks and bonds are so tainted that the ink on +them should turn to acid and eat holes in your pockets and your +skins. You have piled up your dirty millions, but what wages have +you paid to the poor devils of farm hands you have robbed? And do +you imagine they won't remember it when the revolution comes? You +loll on soft couches and amuse yourselves with your mistresses; +you think you are "it" and the world is yours. You send +militiamen and shoot down our organizers, and we are helpless. +But wait, comrades, our time is coming. + +Doubtless the reader is well satisfied that the author of this +tirade is now in jail, where she can no longer defy the laws of +good taste. They always put the ancient prophets in jail; that is +the way to know a prophet when you meet him. Let me quote another +prophet who is now behind bars--Alexander Berkman, in his "Prison +Memoirs of an Anarchist", discussing the same subject of +plutocratic pretension: + +Tell me, you four hundred, where did you get it? Who gave it to +you? Your grandfather, you say? Your father? Can you go all the +way back and show there is no flaw anywhere in your title? I tell +you that the beginning and the root of your wealth is necessarily +in injustice. And why? Because Nature did not make this man rich +and that man poor from the start. Nature does not intend for one +man to have capital and another to be a wage-slave. Nature made +the earth to be cultivated by all. The idea we Anarchists have of +the rich is of highwaymen, standing in the street and robbing +every one that passes. + +Or take "Big Bill" Haywood, chief of the I. W. W. Hear what he +has to say in a pamphlet addressed to the harvest-hands he is +seeking to organize: + +How much farther do you plutes expect to go with your grabbing? +Do you want to be the only people left on earth? Why else do you +drive out the workers from all share in Nature, and claim +everything for yourselves? The earth was made for all, rich and +poor alike; where do you get your title deeds to it? Nature gave +everything for all men to use alike; it is only your robbery +which makes your so-called "ownership". Capital has no rights. +The land belongs to Nature, and we are all Nature's sons. + +Or take Eugene V. Debs, three times candidate of the Socialist +Party for President. I quote from one of his pamphlets: + +The propertied classes are like people who go into a public +theatre and refuse to let anyone else come in, treating as +private property what is meant for social use. If each man would +take only what he needs, and leave the balance to those who have +nothing, there would be no rich and no poor. The rich man is a +thief. + +I might go on citing such quotations for many pages; but I know +that Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman and Bill Haywood and Gene +Debs may read this book, and I don't want them to close it in the +middle and throw it at me. Therefore let me hasten to explain my +poor joke; the sentiments I have been quoting are not those of +our modern agitators, but of another group of ancient ones. The +first is not from Emma Goldman, nor did I find it in "Mother +Earth". I found it in the Epistle of James, believed by orthodox +authorities to have been James, the brother of Jesus. It is +exactly what he wrote--save that I have put it into modern +phrases, and changed the swing of the sentences, in order that +those familiar with the Bible might read it without suspicion. +The second passage is not in the writings of Alexander Berkman, +but in those of St. John Chrysostom, most famous of the early +fathers, who lived 374-407. The third is not from the pen of "Big +Bill" but from that of St. Ambrose, a father of the Latin Church, +340-397, and the fourth is not by Comrade Debs, but by St. Basil +of the Greek Church, 329-379. And if the reader objects to my +having fooled him for a minute or two, what will he say to the +Christian Church, which has been fooling him for sixteen hundred +years? + + +The Soap Box + +This book will be denounced from one end of Christendom to the +other as the work of a blasphemous infidel. Yet it stands in the +direct line of the Christian tradition: written by a man who was +brought up in the Church, and loved it with all his heart and +soul, and was driven out by the formalists and hypocrites in high +places; a man who thinks of Jesus more frequently and with more +devotion than he thinks of any other man that lives or has ever +lived on earth; and who has but one purpose in all that he says +and does, to bring into reality the dream that Jesus dreamed of +peace on earth and good will toward men. + +I will go farther yet and say that not merely is this book +written for the cause of Jesus, but it is written in the manner +of Jesus. We read his bitter railings at the Pharisees, and miss +the point entirely, because the word Pharisee has become to us a +word of reproach. But this is due solely to Jesus; in his time +the word was a holy word, it meant the most orthodox and +respectable, the ultra high-church devotees of Jerusalem. The way +to get the spirit of the tirades of Jesus is to do with him what +we did with the early church fathers--translate him into +American. This time, since the reader shares the secret, it will +not be necessary to disguise the Bible style, and we may follow +the text exactly. Let me try the twenty-third chapter of Matthew, +omitting seven verses which refer to subtleties of Hebrew +casuistry, for which we should have to go to Lyman Abbott or St. +Alphonsus to find a parallel: + +Then Jesus mounted upon a soap-box, and began a speech, saying, +The doctors of divinity and Episcopalians fill the Fifth Avenue +churches; and it would be all right if you were to listen to what +they preach, and do that; but don't follow their actions, for +they never practice what they preach. They load the backs of the +working-classes with crushing burdens, but they themselves never +move a finger to carry a burden, and everything they do is for +show. They wear frock-coats and silk hats on Sundays, and they +sit at the speakers' table at the banquets of the Civic +Federation, and they occupy the best pews in the churches, and +their doings are reported in all the papers; they are called +leading citizens and pillars of the church. But don't you be +called leading citizens, for the only useful man is the man who +produces. (Applause). And whoever exalts himself shall be abased, +and whoever humbles himself shall be exalted. + +Woe unto you, doctors of divinity and Catholics, hypocrites! for +you shut up the kingdom of Heaven against men; you don't go in +yourself and you don't let others go in. Woe unto you, doctors of +divinity and Presbyterians, hypocrites! for you foreclose +mortgages on widows' houses, and for a pretense you make long +prayers. For this you will receive the greater damnation! Woe +unto you, doctors of divinity and Methodists, hypocrites! for you +send missionaries to Africa to make one convert, and when you +have made him, he is twice as much a child of hell as yourselves. +(Applause). Woe unto you, blind guides, with your subtleties of +doctrine, your transubstantiation and consubstantiation and all +the rest of it; you fools and blind! Woe unto you, doctors of +divinity and Episcopalians, hypocrites! for you drop your checks +into the collection-plate and you pay no heed to the really +important things in the Bible, which are justice and mercy and +faith in goodness. You blind guides, who strain at a gnat and +swallow a camel! (Laughter). Woe unto you, doctors of divinity +and Anglicans, hypocrites! for you bathe yourselves and dress in +immaculate clothing but within you are full of extortion and +excess. You blind high churchmen, clean first your hearts, so +that the clothes you wear may represent you. Woe unto you, +doctors of divinity and Baptists, hypocrites! for you are like +marble tombs which appear beautiful on the outside, but inside +are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. Even so you +appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and +iniquity. (Applause). Woe unto you, doctors of divinity and +Unitarians, hypocrites! because you erect statues to dead +reformers, and put wreathes upon the tombs of old-time martyrs. +You say, if we had been alive in those days, we would not have +helped to kill those good men. That ought to show you how to +treat us at present. (Laughter). But you are the children of +those who killed the good men; so go ahead and kill us too! You +serpents, you generation of vipers, how can you escape the +damnation of hell? + +At this point, according to the report published in the Jerusalem +"Times", a police sergeant stepped up to the orator and notified +him that he was under arrest; he submitted quietly, but one of +his followers attempted to use a knife, and was severely clubbed. +Jesus was taken to the station-house followed by a riotous +throng, and held upon a charge of disorderly conduct. Next +morning the Rev. Dr. Caiaphas of Old Trinity appeared against +him, and Magistrate Pilate sentenced him to six months on +Blackwell's Island, remarking that from this time on he proposed +to make an example of those soap-box orators who persist in using +threatening and abusive language. Just as the prisoner was being +led away, a detective appeared with a requisition from the +Governor, ordering that Jesus be taken to San Francisco, where he +is under indictment for murder in the first degree, it being +charged that his teachings helped to incite the Preparedness Day +explosion. + + +The Church Machine + +The Catholics of His time came to Jesus and said, "Master, we +would have a sign of Thee"--meaning that they wanted him to do +some magic, to prove to their vulgar minds that his power came +from God. He answered by calling them an evil and adulterous +generation--which is exactly what I have said about the Papal +machine. The Baptists and Methodists and Presbyterians and other +book-worshippers of his time accused him of violating the sacred +commands so definitely set down in their ancient texts, and to +them he answered that the Sabbath was made for man and not man +for the Sabbath; he called them hypocrites, and quoted Karl Marx +at them--"This people honoreth me with their lips, but their +heart is far from me." Because he despised the company of the +respectables, and went among the humble and human folk of his own +class in the places where they gathered--the public houses--the +churchly scandal-mongers called him "a man gluttonous and a +wine-bibber, a friend of publicans and sinners"--precisely as in +the old days they used to sneer at the Socialists for having +their meetings in the back-rooms of saloons, and precisely as +they still denounce us as free-lovers and atheists. + +But the longing for justice between man and man, which is the +Kingdom of Heaven on earth, is the deepest instinct of the human +heart, and the voice of the carpenter cannot be confined within +the thickest church-walls, nor drowned by all the pealing organs +in Christendom. Even in these days, when the power of Mammon is +more widespread, more concentrated and more systematized than +ever before in history--even in these days of Morgan and +Rockefeller, there are Christian clergymen who dare to preach as +Jesus preached. One by one they are cast out of the +Church--Father McGlynn, George D. Herron, Alexander Irvine, J. +Stitt Wilson, Austin Adams, Algernon Crapsey, Bouck White; but +their voices are not silenced they are like the leaven, to which +Jesus compared the kingdom of God--a woman took it and hid it in +three measures of meal till the whole was leavened. The young +theological students read, and some of them understand; I know +three brothers in one family who have just gone into the Church, +and are preaching straight social revolution--and the scribes and +the pharisees have not yet dared to cast them out. + +In this book I have portrayed the Christian Church as the servant +and henchman of Big Business, a part of the system of Mammon. +Every church is necessarily a money machine, holding and +administering property. And it is not alone the Catholic Church +which is in politics, seeking favors from the state--the +exemption of church property from taxation, exemption of +ministers from military service, free transportation for them and +their families on the railroads, the control of charity and +education, laws to deprive people of amusements on Sunday--so on +through a long list. As the churches have to be built with money, +you find that in them the rich possess the control and demand the +deference, while the poor are humble, and in their secret hearts +jealous and bitter; in other words, the class struggle is in the +churches, as everywhere else in the world, and the social +revolution is coming in the churches, just as it is coming in +industry. + +It is a fact of deep significance that the majority of ministers +are proletarians, eking out their existence upon a miserable +salary, and beholden in all their comings and goings to the +wealthy holders of privilege. Even in the Roman Catholic Church +that is true. The ordinary priest is a man of the working class, +and knows what working people suffer and feel. So in the Catholic +Church there are proletarian rebellions; there is many a priest +who does not carry out the political orders of his superiors, but +goes to the polls and votes for his class instead of for his +pope. In Ireland, as I write, the young priests are defying their +bishops and joining the Sinn Fein, a non-religious movement for +an Irish Republic. + +What is it that keeps the average workingman in subjection to the +exploiter? Simply terror, the terror of losing his job. And if +you could get into the inmost soul of Christian ministers, you +would find that precisely the same force is keeping many of them +slaves to Tradition. They are educated men, and thousands of them +must resent the dilemma which compels them to be either fools or +hypocrites. They have caught enough of the spirit of their time +not to enjoy having to pose as miracle-mongers, rain-makers and +witch-doctors; they would like to say frankly that they do not +believe that Jonah ever swallowed the whale, and even that they +are dubious about Hercules and Achilles and other demigods. But +they are part of a machine, and the old men and the rich men who +run the machine have laid down the law. Those who find themselves +tempted to think, remember suddenly that they have wives and +children; they have only one profession, they have been unfitted +for any other by a life-time of study of dead things, as well as +by the practice of altruism. + +But now the Social Revolution is coming; coming upon swift +wings--it may be here before this book sees the light. And who +knows but then we may see in America that wonderful sight which +we saw in Russia, when Christian monks assembled and burned their +holy books, and petitioned the state to take them in as citizens +and human beings? It is my belief that when the power of +exploitation is broken, we shall see the Dead Hand crumble into +dust, as a mummy crumbles when it is exposed to the air. All +those men who stay in the Church and pretend to believe nonsense, +because it affords an easy way to earn a living, will suddenly +realize that it is possible to earn a living outside; that any +man can go into a factory, clean and well-ventilated and humanly +run, and by four hours work can earn the purchasing power of ten +or fifteen dollars. Do you not think that there may be some who +will choose freedom and self-respect on those terms? + +And what of those thousands and tens of thousands who join the +church because it is a part of the regime of respectability, a +way to make the acquaintance of the rich, to curry favor and +obtain promotion, to get customers if you are a tradesman, to +extend your practice if you are a professional man? And what +about the millions who go to church because they are poor, and +because life is a desperate struggle, and this is one way to keep +the favor of the boss, to get a little better chance for the +children, to get charity if you fall into need; in short, to +acquire influence with the well-to-do and powerful, who stand +together, and like to see the poor humble and reverent, contented +in that state of life to which it has pleased God to call them? + + +The Church Redeemed + +Do I mean that I expect to see the Church--all churches--perish +and pass away? I do not, for I believe that the Church answers +one of the fundamental needs of man. The Social Revolution will +abolish poverty and parasitism, it will make temptations fewer, +and the soul's path through life much easier; but it will not +remove the necessity of struggle for individual virtue, it will +only clear the way for the discovery of newer and higher types of +virtue. Men will gather more than ever in beautiful places to +voice their love of life and of one another; but the places in +which they gather will be places swept clean of superstition and +tyranny. As the Reformation compelled the Catholic Church to +cleanse itself and abolish the grossest of its abuses, so the +Social Revolution will compel it to repudiate its defense of +parasitism and exploitation. I will record the prophecy that by +the year 1950 all Catholic authorities will be denying that the +Church ever opposed Socialism--true Socialism; just as today they +deny that the Church ever tortured Galileo, ever burned men for +teaching that the earth moves around the sun, ever sold the right +to commit crime, ever gave away the New World to Spain and +Portugal, ever buried newly-born infants in the cellars of +nunneries. + +The Social Revolution will compel all churches, Christian, +Hebrew, Buddhist, Confucian, or what you will, to drive out their +formalists and traditionalists. If there is any church that +refuses so to adapt itself, the swift progress of enlightenment +and freedom will leave it without followers. But in the great +religions, which have a soul of goodness and sincerity, we may be +sure that reformers will arise, prophets and saints who, as of +old, will preach the living word of God. In many churches today +we can see the beginning of that new Counter-Reformation. Even in +the Catholic Church there is a "modernist" rebellion; read the +books of the "Sillon", and Fogazzaro's trilogy of novels, "The +Saint", and you will see a genuine and vital protest against the +economic corruption of the Church. In America, the "Knights of +Slavery" have been forced by public pressure to support a "War +for Democracy", and even to compete with the Y. M. C. A. in the +training camps. They are doing good work, I am told. + +This gradual conquest of the old religiosity by the spirit of +modern common sense is shown most interestingly in the Salvation +Army. William Booth was a man with a great heart, who took his +life into his hands and went out with a bass-drum to save the +lost souls of the slums. He was stoned and jailed, but he +persisted, and brought his captives to Jesus-- + + Vermin-eaten saints with mouldy breath, + Unwashed legions with the ways of death. + +Incidentally the "General" learned to know his slum population. +He had not wanted to engage in charity and material activities; +he feared hypocrisy and corruption. But in his writings he lets +us see how utterly impossible it is for a man of real heart to do +anything for the souls of the slum-dwellers without at the same +time helping their diseased and hunger-racked bodies. So the +Salvation army was forced into useful work--old clothes depots, +nights lodgings, Christmas dinners, farm colonies--until today +the bare list of the various kinds of enterprises it carries on +fills three printed pages. It is all done with the money of the +rich, and is tainted by subservience to authority, but no one can +deny that it is better than "Gibson's Preservative", and the +fox-hunting parsons filling themselves with port. + +And in Protestant Churches the advance has been even greater. +Here and there you will find a real rebel, hanging onto his job +and preaching the proletarian Jesus; while even the great Fifth +Avenue churches are making attempts at "missions" and +"settlements" in the slums. The more vital churches are gradually +turning themselves into societies for the practical betterment of +their members. Their clergy are running boys clubs and +sewing-schools for girls, food conservation lectures for mothers, +social study clubs for men. You get prayer-meetings and +psalm-singing along with this; but here is the fact that hangs +always before the clergyman's face--that with prayer-meetings and +psalm-singing alone he has a hard time, while with clubs and +educational societies and social reforms he thrives. + +And now the War has broken upon the world, and caught the +churches, like everything else, in its mighty current; the clergy +and the congregations are confronted by pressing national needs, +they are forced to take notice of a thousand new problems, to +engage in a thousand practical activities. No one can see the end +of this--any more than he can see the end of the vast upheaval in +politics and industry. But we who are trained in revolutionary +thought can see the main outlines of the future. We see that in +these new church activities the clergy are inspired by things +read, not in ancient Hebrew texts, but in the daily newspapers. +They are responding to the actual, instant needs of their boys in +the trenches and the camps; and this is bound to have an effect +upon their psychology. Just as we can say that an English girl +who leaves the narrow circle of her old life, and goes into a +munition factory and joins a union and takes part in its debates, +will never after be a docile home-slave; so we can say that the +clergyman who helps in Y. M. C. A. work in France, or in Red +Cross organization in America, will be less the bigot and +formalist forever after. He will have learned, in spite of +himself, to adjust means to ends; he will have learned +co-operation and social solidarity by the method which modern +educators most favor--by doing. Also he will have absorbed a mass +of ideas in news despatches from over the world. He is forced to +read these despatches carefully, because the fate of his own boys +is involved; and we Socialists will see to it that the despatches +are well filled with propaganda! + + +The Desire of Nations + +So the churches, like all the rest of the world, are caught in +the great revolutionary current, and swept on towards a goal +which they do not forsee, and from which they would shrink in +dismay: the Church of the future, the Church redeemed by the +spirit of Brotherhood, the Church which we Socialists will join. +They call us materialists, and say that we think about nothing +but the belly--and that is true, in a way; because we are the +representatives of a starving class, which thinks about its belly +precisely as does any individual who is ravening with hunger. But +give us what that arrant materialist, James, the brother of +Jesus, calls "those things which are needful to the body," and +then we will use our minds, and even discover that we have souls; +whereas at present we are led to despise the very word +"spiritual", which has become the stock-in-trade of parasites and +poseurs. + +We have children, whom we love, and whose future is precious to +us. We would be glad to have them trained in ways of decency and +self-control, of dignity and grace. It would make us happy if +there were in the world institutions conducted by men and women +of consecrated life who would specialize in teaching a true +morality to the young. But it must be a morality of freedom, not +of slavery; a morality founded upon reason, not upon +superstition. The men who teach it must be men who know what +truth is, and the passionate loyalty which the search for truth +inspiries. They cannot be the pitiful shufflers and compromisers +we see in the churches today, the Jowetts who say they used to +believe in the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. Rather than +trust our children to such shameless cynics, we will make shift +to train them ourselves--we amateurs, not knowing much about +children, and absorbed in the desperate struggle against +organized wrong. + +It is a statement which many revolutionists would resent, yet it +is a fact nevertheless, that we need a new religion, need it just +as badly as any of the rest of our pitifully groping race. That +we need it is proven by the rivalries and quarrels in our +midst--the schisms which waste the greater part of our +activities, and which are often the result of personal jealousies +and petty vanities. To lift men above such weakness, to make them +really brothers in a great muse--that is the work of "personal +religion" in the true and vital sense of the words. + +We pioneers and propagandists may not live to see the birth of +the new Church of Humanity; but our children will see it, and the +dream of it is in our hearts; our poets have sung of it with +fervor and conviction. Read these lines from "The Desire of +Nations," by Edwin Markham, in which he tells of the new Redeemer +who is at hand: + + And when he comes into the world gone wrong, + He will rebuild her beauty with a song. + To every heart he will its own dream be: + One moon has many phantoms in the sea. + Out of the North the norns will cry to men: + "Baldur the Beautiful has come again!" + The flutes of Greece will whisper from the dead: + "Apollo has unveiled his sunbright head!" + The stones of Thebes and Memphis will find voice: + "Osiris comes: Oh tribes of Time, rejoice!" + And social architects who build the State, + Serving the Dream at citadel and gate, + Will hail Him coming through the labor-hum. + And glad quick cries will go from man to man: + "Lo, He has come, our Christ the artisan, + The King who loved the lilies, He has come!" + + +The Knowable + +The new religion will base itself upon the facts of life, as +demonstrated by experience and reason; for to the modern thinker +the basis of all interest is truth, and the wonders of the +microscope and the telescope, of the new psychology and the new +sociology are more wonderful than all the magic recorded in +ancient Mythologies. And even if this were not so, the business +of the thinker is to follow the facts. The history of all +philosophy might be summed up in this simile: The infant opens +his eyes and sees the moon, and stretches out his hands and cries +for it, but those in charge do not give it to him, and so after a +while the infant tires of crying, and turns to his mother's +breast and takes a drink of milk. + +Man demands to know the origin of life; it is intolerable for him +to be here, and not know how, or whence, or why. He demands the +knowledge immediately and finally, and invents innumerable +systems and creeds. He makes himself believe them, with fire and +torture makes other men believe them; until finally, in the +confusion of a million theories, it occurs to him to investigate +his instruments, and he makes the discovery that his tools are +inadequate, and all their products worthless. His mind is finite, +while the thing he seeks is infinite; his knowledge is relative, +while the First Cause is absolute. + +This realization we owe to Immanuel Kant, the father of modern +philosophy. In his famous "antinomies", he proved four +propositions: first, that the universe is limitless in time and +space; second, that matter is composed of simple, indivisible +elements; third, that free will is impossible; and fourth, that +there must be an absolute or first cause. And having proven these +things, he turned round and proved their opposites, with +arguments exactly as unanswerable. Any one who follows these +demonstrations and understands them, takes all his metaphysical +learning and lays it on the shelf with his astrology and magic. + +It is a fact, which every one who wishes to think must get clear, +that when you are dealing with absolutes and ultimates, you can +prove whatever you want to prove. Metaphysics is like the fourth +dimension; you fly into it and come back upside down, hindside +foremost, inside out; and when you get tired of this condition, +you take another flight, and come back the way you were before. +So metaphysical thinking serves the purpose of Catholic cheats +like Cardinal Newman and Professor Chatterton-Hill; it serves +hysterical women like "Mother" Eddy; it serves the +New-thoughters, who wish to fill their bellies with wind; it +serves the charlatans and mystagogs who wish to befuddle the wits +of the populace. Real thinkers avoid it as they would a +bottomless swamp; they avoid, not merely the idealism of +Platonists and Hegelians, but the monism of Haeckel, and the +materialism of Buechner and Jacques Loeb. The simple fact is that +it is as impossible to prove the priority of origin and the +ultimate nature of matter as it is of mind; so that the scientist +who lays down a materialist dogma is exactly as credulous as a +Christian. + +How then are we to proceed? Shall we erect the mystery into an +Unknowable, like Spencer, and call ourselves Agnostics with a +capital letter, like Huxley? Shall we follow Frederic Harrison, +making an inadequate divinity out of our impotence? I have read +the books of the "Positivists", and attended their imitation +church in London, but I did not get any satisfaction from them. +In the midst of their dogmatic pronouncements I found myself +remembering how the egg falls apart and reveals a chicken, how +the worm suddenly discovers itself a butterfly. The spirit of man +is a breaker of barriers, and it seems a futile occupation to set +limits upon the future. Our business is not to say what men will +know ten thousand years from now, but to content ourselves with +the simple statement of what men know now. What we know is a +procession of phenomena called an environment; our life being an +act of adjustment to its changes, and our faith being the +conviction that this adjustment is possible and worth while. + +In the beginning the guide is instinct, and the act of trust is +automatic. But with the dawn of reason the thinker has to justify +his faith; to convince himself that life is sincere, that there +is worth-whileness in being, or in seeking to be; that there is +order in creation, laws which can be discovered, processes which +can be applied. Just as the babe trusts life when it gropes for +its mother's breast, so the most skeptical of scientists trusts +it when he declares that water is made of two parts hydrogen and +one part oxygen, and sets it down for a certainty that this will +always be so--that he is not being played with by some sportive +demon, who will today cause H2O to behave like water, and +tomorrow like benzine. + + +Nature's Insurgent Son + +Life has laws, which it is possible to ascertain; and with each +bit of knowledge acquired, the environment is changed, the life +becomes a new thing. Consider, for example, what a different +place the world became to the man who discovered that the force +which laid the forest in ashes could be tamed and made to warm a +cave and make wild grains nutritious! In other words, man can +create life, he can make the world and himself into that which +his reason decides it ought to be. The means by which he does +this is the most magical of all the tools he has invented since +his arboreal ancestor made the first club; the tool of +experimental science--and when one considers that this weapon has +been understood and deliberately employed for but two or three +centuries, he realizes that we are indeed only at the beginning +of human evolution. + +To take command of life, to replace instincts by reasoned and +deliberate acts, to make the world a conscious and ordered +product--that is the task of man. Sir Ray Lankester has set this +forth with beautiful precision in his book, "The Kingdom of Man". +We are, at this time, in an uncomfortable and dangerous +transition stage, as a child playing with explosives. This child +has found out how to alter his environment in many startling +ways, but he does not yet know why he wishes to alter it, nor to +what purpose. He finds that certain things are uncomfortable, and +these he proceeds immediately to change. Discovering that grain +fermented dispels boredom, he creates a race of drunkards; +discovering that foods can be produced in profusion, and prepared +in alluring combinations, he makes himself so many diseases that +it takes an encyclopedia to tell about them. Discovering that +captives taken in war can be made to work, he makes a procession +of empires, which are eaten through with luxury and corruption, +and fall into ruins again. + +This is Nature's way; she produces without limit, groping +blindly, experimenting ceaselessly, eliminating ruthlessly. It +takes a million eggs to produce one salmon; it has taken a +million million men to produce one idea--algebra, or the bow and +arrow, or democracy. Nature's present impulse appears as a +rebellion against her own methods; man, her creature, will +emancipate himself from her law, will save himself from her +blindness and her ruthlessness. He is "Nature's insurgent son"; +but, being the child of his mother, goes at the task in her old +blundering way. Some men are scheduled to elimination because of +defective eyesight; they are furnished with glasses, and the +breeding of defective eyes begins. The sickly or imbecile child +would perish at once in the course of Nature; it is saved in the +name of charity, and a new line of degenerates is started. + +What shall we do? Return to the method of the Spartans, exposing +our sickly infants? We do not have to do anything so wasteful, +because we can replace the killing of the unfit by a scientific +breeding which will prevent the unfit from getting a chance at +life. We can replace instinct by self-discipline. We can +substitute for the regime of "Nature red in tooth and claw with +ravin" the regime of man the creator, knowing what he wishes to +be and how to set about to be it. Whether this can happen, +whether the thing which we call civilization is to be the great +triumph of the ages, or whether the human race is to go back into +the melting pot, is a question being determined by an infinitude +of contests between enlightenment and ignorance: precisely such a +contest as occurs now, when you, the reader, encounter a man who +has thought his way out to the light, and comes to urge you to +perform the act of self-emancipation, to take up the marvellous +new tools of science, and to make yourself, by means of exact +knowledge, the creator of your own life and in part of the life +of the race. + + +The New Morality + +Life is a process of expansion, of the unfoldment of new powers; +driven by that inner impulse which the philosophers of Pragmatism +call the elan vital. Whenever this impulse has its way, there is +an emotion of joy; whenever it is balked, there is one of +distress. So pleasure and pain are the guides of life, and the +final goal is a condition of free and constantly accelerating +growth, in which joy is enduring. + +That man will ever reach such a state is more than we can say. It +is a perfectly conceivable thing that tomorrow a comet may fall +upon the earth and wipe out all man's labor's. But on the other +hand, it is a conceivable thing that man may some day learn to +control the movements of comets, and even of starry systems. It +seems certain that if he is given time, he will make himself +master of the forces of his immediate environment-- + + The untamed giants of nature shall bow down-- + The tides, the tempest and the lightning cease + From mockery and destruction, and be turned + Unto the making of the soul of man. + +It is a conceivable thing that man may learn to create his food +from the elements without the slow processes of agriculture; it +is conceivable that he may master the bacteria which at present +prey upon his body, and so put an end to death. It is certain +that he will ascertain the laws of heredity, and create human +qualities as he has created the spurs of the fighting-cock and +the legs of the greyhound. He will find out what genius is, and +the laws of its being, and the tests whereby it may be +recognized. In the new science of psycho-analysis he has already +begun the work of bringing an infinity of subconsciousness into +the light of day; it may be that in the evidence of telepathy +which the psychic researchers are accumulating, he is beginning +to grope his way into a universal consciousness, which may come +to include the joys and griefs of the inhabitants of Mars, and of +the dark stars which the spectroscope and the telescope are +disclosing. + +All these are fascinating possibilities. What stands in the way +of their realization? Ignorance and superstition, fear and +submission, the old habits of rapine and hatred which man has +brought with him from his animal past. These make him a slave, a +victim of himself and of others; to root them out of the garden +of the soul is the task of the modern thinker. + +The new morality is thus a morality of freedom. It teaches that +man is the master, or shall become so; that there is no law, save +the law of his own being, no check upon his will save that which +he himself imposes. + +The new morality is a morality of joy. It teaches that true +pleasure is the end of being, and the test of all righteousness. + +The new morality is a morality of reason. It teaches that there +is no authority above reason; no possibility of such authority, +because if such were to appear, reason would have to judge it, +and accept or reject it. + +The new morality is a morality of development. It teaches that +there can no more be an immutable law of conduct, than there can +be an immutable position for the steering-wheel of an aeroplane. +The business of the pilot of an aeroplane is to keep his machine +aloft amid shifting currents of wind. The business of a moralist +is to adjust life to a constantly changing environment. An action +which was suicide yesterday becomes heroism today, and futility +or hypocrisy tomorrow. + +This new morality, like all things in a world of strife, is +fighting for existence, using its own weapons, which are reason +and love. Obviously it can use no others, without +self-destruction; yet it has to meet enemies who fight with the +old weapons of force and fraud. Whether it will prevail is more +than any prophet can say. Perhaps it is too much to ask that it +should succeed--this insolent effort of the pigmy man to leap +upon the back of his master and fit a bridle into his mouth. +Perhaps it is nothing but a dream in the minds of a few, the +scientists and poets and inventors, the dreamers of the race. +Perhaps the nerve of the pigmy will fail him at the critical +moment, and he will fall from the back of his master, and under +his master's hoofs. + +The hour of the decision is now; for this we can see plainly, and +as scientists we can proclaim it--the human race is in a swift +current of degeneration, which a new morality alone can check. +The struggle is at its height in our time; if it fails, if the +fibre of the race continues to deteriorate, the soul of the race +to be eaten out by poverty and luxury, by insanity and disease, +by prostitution, crime and war--then mankind will slip back into +the abyss, the untamed giants of Nature will resume their ancient +sway, and the tides, the tempest and the lightning will sweep the +earth clean again. I do not believe that this calamity will +befall us. I know that in the diseased social body the forces of +resistance are gathering--the Socialist movement, in the broad +sense--the activities of all who believe in the possibility of +reconstructing society upon a basis of reason, justice and love. +To such people this book goes out: to the truly religious people, +those who hunger and thirst after righteousness here and now, who +believe in brotherhood as a reality, and are willing to bear pain +and ridicule and privation for the sake of its ultimate +achievement. + + From the edge of harsh derision, + From discord and defeat, + From doubt and lame division, + We pluck the fruit and eat; + And the mouth finds it bitter, and the spirit sweet.... + O sorrowing hearts of slaves, + We heard you beat from far! + We bring the light that saves, + We bring the morning star; +Freedom's good things we bring you, whence all good things are... + + +Envoi + +I have come to the end of my task; but one question troubles me. +I think of the "young men and maidens meek" who will read this +book, and I wonder what they will make of it. We have had a lark +together; we have gone romping down the vista of the ages, +swatting*, every venerable head that showed itself, beating the +dust out of ancient delusions. You would like all your life to be +that kind of lark; but you may not find it so, and perhaps you +will suffer disillusionment and vexation. + +I have known hundreds of young radicals in my life; they have +nearly all been gallant and honest, but they have not all been +wise, and therefore not so happy as they might have been. In the +course of time I have formulated to myself the peril to which +young radicals are exposed. We see so much that is wrong in +ancient things, it gets to be a habit with us to reject them. We +have only to know that a thing is old to feel an impulse of +impatient scorn; on the other hand, we are tempted to welcome +anything which can prove itself to be unprecedented. There is a +common type of radical whose aim in life is to be several jumps +ahead of mankind; whose criterion of conduct is that it shocks +the bourgeois. If you do not know that type, you may find +him--and her--in the newest of the Bohemian cafes, drinking the +newest red chemicals, smoking the newest brand of cigarettes, and +discussing the newest form of psycopathia sexualis. After you +have watched them a while, you realize that these ultra-new +people have fallen victim to the oldest form of logical fallacy, +the non sequitur, and likewise to the oldest form of slavery, +which is self-indulgence. + +If it is true that much in the old moral codes is based upon +ignorance, and cultivated by greed, it is also true that much in +the old moral codes is based upon facts which will not change so +long as man is what he is--a creature of impulses, good and bad, +wise and foolish, selfish and generous, and compelled to make +choice between these impulses; so long as he is a material body +and a personal consciousness, obliged to live in society and +adjust himself to the rights of others. What I would like to say +to young radicals--if there is any way to say it without seeming +a prig--is that in choosing their own path through life, they +will need not merely enthusiasm and radical fervor, but wisdom +and judgment and hard study. + +It is our fundamental demand that society shall cease to repeat +over and over the blunders of the past, the blunders of tyranny +and slavery, of luxury and poverty, which wrecked the ancient +societies; and surely it is a poor way to begin by repeating in +our own persons the most ancient blunders of the moral life. To +light the fires of lust in our hearts, and let them smoulder +there, and imagine we are trying new experiments in psychology! +Who does not know the radical woman who demonstrates her +emancipation from convention by destroying her nerves with +nicotine? Who does not know the genius of revolt who demonstrates +his repudiation of private property by permitting his lady loves +to support him? Who does not know the man who finds in the +phrases of revolution the most effective devices for the seducing +of young girls? + +You will have read this book to ill purpose if you draw the +conclusion that there is anything in it to spare you the duty of +getting yourself moral standards and holding yourself to them. On +the contrary, because your task is the highest and hardest that +man has yet undertaken--for this reason you will need standards +the most exacting ever formulated. Let me quote some words from a +teacher you will not accuse of holding to the slave-moralities: + +Free dost thou call thyself? Thy ruling thoughts will I hear, and +not that thou hast escaped a yoke. + +Art thou such a one that can escape a yoke? + +Free from what? What is that to Zarathustra! Clear shall your eye +tell me: free to what? + +Canst thou give to thyself thy good and thine evil, and hang thy +will above thee as thy law? Canst thou be thine own judge, and +avenger of thy law? + +Fearful it is to be alone with the judge and the avenger of thy +law. So is a stone flung out into empty space and into the icy +breath of isolation. + +Out of the pit of ignorance and despair we emerge into the +sunlight of knowledge, to take control of a world, and to make it +over, not according to the will of any gods, but according to the +law in our own hearts. For that task we have need of all the +resources of our being; of courage and high devotion, of faith in +ourselves and our comrades, of clean, straight thinking, of +discipline both of body and mind. We go to this task with a +knowledge as old as the first moral impulse of mankind--the +knowledge that our actions determine the future of life, not +merely for ourselves but for all the race. For this is one of the +laws of the ancient Hebrews which modern science has not +repealed, but on the contrary has reinforced with a thousand +confirmations--that the sins of the fathers are visited upon the +children unto the third and fourth generations. + +I get letters from the readers of my books; nearly always they +are young people, so I feel like the father of a large family. I +gather them now about my knee, and pronounce upon them a +benediction in the ancient patriarchal style. Children and +grandchildren of my hopes, for ages men suffered and fought, so +that the world might be turned over to you. Now the day is +coming, the glad, new day which blinds us with the shining of its +wings; it is coming so swiftly that I am afraid of it. I thought +we should have more time to get ready for the taking over of the +world! But the old managers of it went insane, they took to +tearing each other's eyes out, and now they lie dead about us. +So, whether we will or not, we have to take charge of the world; +we have to decide what to do with it, even while we are doing it. +Let us not fail, young comrades; let us not write on the scroll +of history that mankind had to go through yet new generations of +wars and tumults and enslavements, because the youth of the +international revolution could not lift themselves above those +ancient personal vices which wrecked the fair hopes of their +fathers--bigotry and intolerance, vindictiveness and vanity, +envy, hatred and malice and all uncharitableness! + + + +Reader: + +For twenty years I have been haunted by the dream that I might +some day be my own publisher. I was waiting till I could afford +the luxury; but many a man has put off a bold action till he +died, so I am publishing this book without being able to afford +it. + +The reason is that I do not want to be a writer for the rich. I +want to be read by working-boys and girls, and by poor students. + +I offer the book at a low price. In the hope of tempting you to +go out and get your friends to read it, I have made a price in +quantities which will allow no profit at all. A margin has been +figured to cover postage, stationery, circulars, and the cost of +a clerical assistant; but nothing for interest on capital, which +is a gift, nor for the rent of an office, which is my home, nor +for the services of manager and press agent, which is myself. + +You have read the book, and its fate is yours to decide. If it +seems worth while, pass it on to someone else. If you can afford +it, order a number of copies and give them away. If you can't +afford it, give your time and be a book-agent. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg Etext of The Profits of Religion, by Sinclair + diff --git a/1558.zip b/1558.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..f08350e --- /dev/null +++ b/1558.zip diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +Scanned by Charles Keller with OmniPage Professional OCR software + + + + + +THE PROFITS OF RELIGION + +An Essay in Economic Interpretation + +By UPTON SINCLAIR + + + + +The Profits of Religion + + + +OFFERTORY + +This book is a study of Supernaturalism from a new point of +view--as a Source of Income and a Shield to Privilege. I have +searched the libraries through, and no one has done it before. If +you read it, you will see that it needed to be done. It has meant +twenty-five years of thought and a year of investigation. It +contains the facts. + +I publish the book myself, so that it may be available at the +lowest possible price. I am giving my time and energy, in return +for one thing which you may give me--the joy of speaking a true +word and getting it heard. + +The present volume is the first of a series, which will do for +Education, Journalism and Literature what has here been done for +the Church: the four volumes making a work of revolutionary +criticism, an Economic Interpretation of Culture under the +general title of "The Dead Hand." + + + +CONTENTS + +Introductory + Bootstrap-lifting + Religion + +Book One: The Church of the Conquerors + The Priestly Lie + The Great Fear + Salve Regina! + Fresh Meat + Priestly Empires + Prayer-wheels + The Butcher-Gods + The Holy Inquisition + Hell-fire + +Book Two: The Church of Good Society + The Rain Makers + The Babylonian Fire-God + The Medicine-men + The Canonization of Incompetence + Gibson's Preservative + The Elders + Church History + Land and Livings + Graft in Tail + Bishops and Beer + Anglicanism and Alcohol + Dead Cats + "Suffer Little Children" + The Court-circular + Horn-blowing + Trinity Corporation + Spiritual Interpretation + +Book Three: The Church of the Servant Girls + Charity + God's Armor + Thanksgivings + The Holy Roman Empire + Temporal Power + Knights of Slavery + Priests and Police + The Church Militant + The Church Triumphant + God in the Schools + The Menace + King Coal + The Unholy Alliance + Secret Service + Tax Exemption + Holy History + Das Centrum + +Book Four: The Church of the Slavers + The Face of Caesar + Deutschland ueber Alles + Der Tag + King Cotton + Witches and Women + Moth and Rust + To Lyman Abbott + The Octopus + The Industrial Shelley + The Outlook for Graft + Clerical Camouflage + The Jungle + +Book Five: The Church of the Merchants + The Head Merchant + "Herr Beeble" + Holy Oil + Rhetorical Black-hanging + The Great American Fraud + Riches in Glory + Captivating Ideals + Spook Hunting + Running the Rapids + Birth Control + Sheep + +Book Six: The Church of the Quacks + Tabula Rasa + The Book of Mormon + Holy Rolling + Bible Prophecy + Koreshanity + Mazdaznan + Black Magic + Mental Malpractice + Science and Wealth + New Nonsense + "Dollars Want Me!" + Spiritual Financiering + The Graft of Grace + +Book Seven: The Church of the Social Revolution + Christ and Caesar + Locusts and Wild Honey + Mother Earth + The Soap Box + The Church Machine + The Church Redeemed + The Desire of Nations + The Knowable + "Nature's Insurgent Son + The New Morality + Envoi + + + +INTRODUCTORY + +Bootstrap-lifting + +Bootstrap-lifting? says the reader. + +It is a vision I have seen: upon a vast plain, men and women are +gathered in dense throngs, crouched in uncomfortable and +distressing positions, their fingers hooked in the straps of +their boots. They are engaged in lifting themselves; tugging and +straining until they grow red in the face, exhausted. The +perspiration streams from their foreheads, they show every +symptom of distress; the eyes of all are fixed, not upon each +other, nor upon their boot-straps, but upon the sky above. There +is a look of rapture upon their faces, and now and then, amid +grunts and groans, they cry out with excitement and triumph. + +I approach one and say to him, "Friend, what is this you are +doing?" + +He answers, without pausing to glance at me, "I am performing +spiritual exercises. See how I rise?" + +"But," I say, "you are not rising at all!" + +Whereat he becomes instantly angry. "You are one of the +scoffers!" + +"But, friend," I protest, "don't you feel the earth under your +feet?" + +"You are a materialist!" + +"But, friend, I can see--" + +"You are without spiritual vision!" + +And so I move on among the sweating and groaning hordes. Being of +a sympathetic turn of mind, I cannot help being distressed by the +prevalence of this singular practice among so large a portion of +the human race. How is it possible that none of them should +suspect the futility of their procedure? Or can it really be that +I am uncomprehending? That in some way they are actually getting +off the ground, or about to get off the ground? + +Then I observe a new phenomenon: a man gliding here and there +among the bootstrap-lifters, approaching from the rear and +slipping his hands into their pockets. The position of the +spiritual exercisers greatly facilitates his work; their eyes +being cast up to heaven, they do not see him, their thoughts +being occupied, they do not heed him; he goes through their +pockets at leisure, and transfers the contents to a bag he +carries, and then moves on to the next victim. I watch him for a +while, and finally approach and ask, "What are you doing, sir?" + +He answers, "I am picking pockets." + +"Oh," I say, puzzled by his matter-of-course tone. "But--I beg +pardon--are you a thief?" + +"Oh, no," hie answers, smilingly, "I am the agent of the +Wholesale Pickpockets' Association. This is Prosperity." + +"I see," I reply. "And these people let you--" + +"It is the law," he says. "It is also the gospel." + +I turn, following his glance, and observe another person +approaching--a stately figure, clad in scarlet and purple robes, +moving with slow dignity. He gazes about at the sweating and +grunting hordes; now and then he stops and lifts his hands in a +gesture of benediction, and proclaims in rolling tones, "Blessed +are the Bootstrap-lifters, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven." +He moves on, and after a bit stops and announces again, "Man doth +not live by bread alone, but by every word that cometh out of the +mouth of the prophets and priests of Bootstrap-lifting." + +Watching a while longer, I see this majestic one approach the +agent of the Wholesale Pickpockets' Association. The agent greets +him as a friend, and proceeds to transfer to the pockets of his +capacious robes a generous share of the loot which he has +collected. The majestic one does not cringe, nor does he make any +effort to hide what is going on. On the contrary he cries aloud, +"It is more blessed to give than to receive!" And again he cries, +"The laborer is worthy of his hire!" And a third time he cries, +yet more sternly, "Render unto Caesar the things which are +Caesar's!" And the Bootstrap-lifters pause long enough to answer: +"Lord have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep this +law!" Then they renew their straining and tugging. + +I step up, and in timid tones begin, "Reverend sir, will you tell +me by what right you take this wealth?" + +Instantly a frown comes upon his face, and he cries in a voice of +thunder, "Blasphemer!" And all the Bootstrap-lifters desist from +their lifting, and menace me with furious looks. There is a +general call for a policeman of the Wholesale Pickpockets' +Association; and so I fall silent, and slink away in the throng, +and thereafter keep my thoughts to myself. + +Over the vast plain I wander, observing a thousand strange and +incredible and terrifying manifestations of the Bootstrap-lifting +impulse. There is, I discover, a regular propaganda on foot; a +long time ago--no man can recall how far back--the Wholesale +Pickpockets made the discovery of the ease with which a man's +pockets could be rifled while he was preoccupied with spiritual +exercises, and they began offering prizes for the best essays in +support of the practice. Now their propaganda is everywhere +triumphant, and year by year we see an increase in the rewards +and emoluments of the prophets and priests of the cult. The +ground is covered with stately temples of various designs, all of +which I am told are consecrated to Bootstrap-lifting. I come to +where a group of people are occupied in laying the corner-stone +of a new white marble structure; I inquire and am informed it is +the First Church of Bootstrap-lifters, Scientist. As I stand +watching, a card is handed to me, informing me that a lady will +do my Bootstrap-lifting at five dollars per lift. + +I go on to another building, which I am told is a library +containing volumes in defense of the Bootstrap-lifters, published +under the auspices of the Wholesale Pickpockets. I enter, and +find endless vistas of shelves, also several thousand current +magazines and papers. I consult these--for my legs have given out +in the effort to visit and inspect all phases of the +Bootstrap-lifting practice. I discover that hardly a week passes +that some one does not start a new cult, or revive an old one; if +I had a hundred life-times I could not know all the creeds and +ceremonies, the services and rituals, the litanies and liturgies, +the hymns, anthems and offertories of Bootstrap-lifting. There +are the Holy Roman Bootstrap-lifters, whose priests are fed by +Transubstantiation; the established Anglican Bootstrap-lifters, +whose priests live by "livings"; the Baptist Bootstrap-lifters, +whose preachers practice total immersion in Standard Oil. There +are Yogi Bootstrap-lifters with flowing robes of yellow silk; +Theosophist Bootstrap-lifters with green and purple auras; Mormon +Bootstrap-lifters, Mazdaznan Bootstrap-lifters, Spiritualist and +Spirit-Fruit, Millerite and Dowieite, Holy Roller and Holy +Jumper, Come-to-glory negro, Billy Sunday base-ball and Salvation +Army bass-drum Bootstrap-lifters. There are the thousand +varieties of "New Thought" Bootstrap-lifters; the mystic and +transcendentalist, Swedenborgian and Jacob Boehme +Bootstrap-lifters; the Elbert Hubbard high-art Bootstrap-lifters +with half a million magazinelets at two bits apiece; the "uplift" +and "optimist," the Ralph Waldo Trine and Orison Swett Marden +Bootstrap-lifters with a hundred thousand volumes at one dollar +per volume. There are the Platonist and Hegelian and Kantian +professors of collegiate metaphysical Bootstrap-lifting at +several thousand dollars per year each. There are the Nietzschean +Bootstrap-lifters, who lift themselves to the Superman, and the +art-for-art's-sake, neo-Pagan Bootstrap-lifters, who lift +themselves down to the Ape. + +Excepting possibly the last-mentioned group, the priests of all +these cults, the singers, shouters, prayers and exhorters of +Bootstrap-lifting have as their distinguishing characteristic +that they do very little lifting at their own bootstraps, and +less at any other man's. Now and then you may see one bend and +give a delicate tug, of a purely symbolical character: as when +the Supreme Pontiff of the Roman Bootstrap-lifters comes once a +year to wash the feet of the poor; or when the Sunday-school +Superintendent of the Baptist Bootstrap-lifters shakes the hand +of one of his Colorado mine-slaves. But for the most part the +priests and preachers of Bootstrap-lifting walk haughtily erect, +many of them being so swollen with prosperity that they could not +reach their bootstraps if they wanted to. Their role in life is +to exhort other men to more vigorous efforts at self-elevation, +that the agents of the Wholesale Pickpockets' Association may ply +their immemorial role with less chance of interference. + +Religion + +The reader, offended by this raillery, asks if I mean to impugn +the sincerity of all who preach the supremacy of the soul. No; I +admit the honesty of the heroes and madmen of history. All I ask +of the preacher is that he shall make an effort to practice his +doctrine. Let him be tormented like Don Quixote; let him go mad +like Nietzsche; let him stand upon a pillar and be devoured by +worms like Simeon Stylites--on these terms I grant to any dreamer +the right to hold himself above economic science. + +Man is an evasive beast, given to cultivating strange notions +about himself. He is humiliated by his simian ancestry, and tries +to deny his animal nature, to persuade himself that he is not +limited by its weaknesses nor concerned in its fate. And this +impulse may be harmless, when it is genuine. But what are we to +say when we see the formulas of heroic self-deception made use of +by unheroic self-indulgence? What are we to say when we see +asceticism preached to the poor by fat and comfortable retainers +of the rich? What are we to say when we see idealism become +hypocrisy, and the moral and spiritual heritage of mankind +twisted to the knavish purposes of class-cruelty and greed? What +I say is--Bootstrap-lifting! + +It is the fate of many abstract words to be used in two senses, +one good and the other bad. Morality means the will to +righteousness, or it means Anthony Comstock; democracy means the +rule of the people, or it means Tammany Hall. And so it is with +the word "Religion". In its true sense Religion is the most +fundamental of the soul's impulses, the impassioned love of life, +the feeling of its preciousness, the desire to foster and further +it. In that sense every thinking man must be religious; in that +sense Religion is a perpetually self-renewing force, the very +nature of our being. In that sense I have no thought of assailing +it, I would make clear that I hold it beyond assailment. + +But we are denied the pleasure of using the word in that honest +sense, because of another which has been given to it. To the +ordinary man "Religion" means, not the soul's longing for growth, +the "hunger and thirst after righteousness", but certain forms in +which this hunger has manifested itself in history, and prevails +to-day throughout the world; that is to say, institutions having +fixed dogmas and "revelations", creeds and rituals, with an +administering caste claiming supernatural sanction. By such +institutions the moral strivings of the race, the affections of +childhood and the aspirations of youth are made the prerogatives +and stock in trade of ecclesiastical hierarchies. It is the +thesis of this book that "Religion" in this sense is a source of +income to parasites, and the natural ally of every form of +oppression and exploitation. + +If by my jesting at "Bootstrap-lifting" I have wounded some dear +prejudice of the reader, let me endeavor to speak in a more +persuasive voice. I am a man who has suffered, and has seen the +suffering of others; I have devoted my life to analyzing the +causes of the suffering, to find out if it be necessary and +fore-ordained, or if by any chance there be a way of escape for +future generations. I have found that the latter is the case; the +suffering is needless, it can with ease and certainty be banished +from the earth. I know this with the knowledge of science--in the +same way that the navigator of a ship knows his latitude and +longitude, and the point of the compass to which he must steer in +order to reach the port. + +Come, reader, let us put aside prejudice, and the terrors of the +cults of the unknown. The power which made us has given us a +mind, and the impulse to its use; let us see what can be done +with it to rid the earth of its ancient evils. And do not be +troubled if at the outset this book seems to be entirely +"destructive". I assure you that I am no crude materialist, I am +not so shallow as to imagine that our race will be satisfied with +a barren rationalism. I know that the old symbols came out of the +heart of man because they corresponded to certain needs of the +heart of man. I know that new symbols will be found, +corresponding more exactly to the needs of our time. If here I +set to work to tear down an old and ramshackle building, it is +not from blind destructfulness, but as an architect who means to +put a new and sounder structure in its place. Before we part +company, I shall submit the blue print of that new home of the +spirit. + + + +BOOK ONE + +The Church of the Conquerors + + I saw the Conquerors riding by + With trampling feet of horse and men: + Empire on empire like the tide + Flooded the world and ebbed again; + + A thousand banners caught the sun, + And cities smoked along the plain, + And laden down with silk and gold + And heaped up pillage groaned the wain. + Kemp. + + +The Priestly Lie + +When the first savage saw his hut destroyed by a bolt of +lightning, he fell down upon his face in terror. He had no +conception of natural forces, of laws of electricity; he saw this +event as the act of an individual intelligence. To-day we read +about fairies and demons, dryads and fauns and satyrs, Wotan and +Thor and Vulcan, Freie and Flora and Ceres, and we think of all +these as pretty fancies, play-products of the mind; losing sight +of the fact that they were originally meant with entire +seriousness--that not merely did ancient man believe in them, but +was forced to believe in them, because the mind must have an +explanation of things that happen, and an individual intelligence +was the only explanation available. The story of the hero who +slays the devouring dragon was not merely a symbol of day and +night, of summer and winter; it was a literal explanation of the +phenomena, it was the science of early times. + +Men imagined supernatural powers such as they could comprehend. +If the lightning god destroyed a hut, obviously it must be +because the owner of the hut had given offense; so the owner must +placate the god, using those means which would be effective in +the quarrels of men--presents of roast meats and honey and fresh +fruits, of wine and gold and jewels and women, accompanied by +friendly words and gestures of submission. And when in spite of +all things the natural evil did not cease, when the people +continued to die of pestilence, then came the opportunity for +hysterical or ambitious persons to discover new ways of +penetrating the mind of the god. There would be dreamers of +dreams and seers of visions and hearers of voices; readers of the +entrails of beasts and interpreters of the flight of birds; there +would be burning bushes and stone tablets on mountain-tops, and +inspired words dictated to aged disciples on lonely islands. +There would arise special castes of men and women, learned in +these sacred matters; and these priestly castes would naturally +emphasize the importance of their calling, would hold themselves +aloof from the common herd, endowed with special powers and +entitled to special privileges. They would interpret the oracles +in ways favorable to themselves and their order; they would +proclaim themselves friends and confidants of the god, walking +with him in the night-time, receiving his messengers and angels, +acting as his deputies in forgiving offenses, in dealing +punishments and in receiving gifts. They would become makers of +laws and moral codes. They would wear special costumes to +distinguish them, they would go through elaborate ceremonies to +impress their followers, employing all sensuous effects, +architecture and sculpture and painting, music and poetry and +dancing, candles and incense and bells and gongs + + And storied winnows richly dight, + Casting a dim religious light. + There let the pealing organ blow, + To the full-voiced choir below, + In service high and anthem clear, + As may with sweetness through mine ear + Dissolve me into ecstacies, + And bring all heaven before mine eyes. + +So builds itself up, in a thousand complex and complicated forms, +the Priestly Lie. There are a score of great religions in the +world, each with scores or hundreds of sects, each with its +priestly orders, its complicated creed and ritual, its heavens +and hells. Each has its thousands or millions or hundreds of +millions of "true believers"; each damns all the others, with +more or less heartiness--and each is a mighty fortress of Graft. + +There will be few readers of this book who have not been brought +up under the spell of some one of these systems of +Supernaturalism; who have not been taught to speak with respect +of some particular priestly order, to thrill with awe at some +particular sacred rite, to seek respite from earthly woes in some +particular ceremonial spell. These things are woven into our very +fibre in childhood; they are sanctified by memories of joys and +griefs, they are confused with spiritual struggles, they become +part of all that is most vital in our lives. The reader who +wishes to emancipate himself from their thrall will do well to +begin with a study of the beliefs and practices of other sects +than his own--a field where he is free to observe and examine +without fear of sacrilege. Let him look into Madame Blavatsky's +"Secret Doctrine", or her "Isis Unveiled"!--encyclopedias of the +fantastic inventions which terror and longing have wrung out of +the tortured soul of man. Here are mysteries and solemnities, +charms and spells, illuminations and transmigrations, angels and +demons, guides, controls and masters--all of which it is +permissible to refuse to support with gifts. Let the reader then +go to James Freeman Clarke's "Ten Great Religions", and realize +how many billions of humans have lived and died in the solemn +certainty that their welfare on earth and in heaven depended upon +their accepting certain ideas and practicing certain rites, all +mutually exclusive and incompatible, each damning the others and +the followers of the others. So gradually the realization will +come to him that the test of a doctrine about life and its +welfare must be something else than the fact that one was born to +it. + +The Great Fear + +It was not the fault of primitive man that he was ignorant, nor +that his ignorance made him a prey to dread. The traces of his +mental suffering will inspire in us only pity and sympathy; for +Nature is a grim school-mistress, and not all her lessons have +yet been learned. We have a right to scorn and anger only when we +see this dread being diverted from its true function, a stimulus +to a search for knowledge, and made into a means of clamping down +ignorance upon the mind of the race. That this has been the +deliberate policy of institutionalized Religion no candid student +can deny. + +The first thing brought forth by the study of any religion, +ancient or modern, is that it is based upon Fear, born of it, fed +by it--and that it cultivates the source from which its +nourishment is derived. "The fear of divine anger", says Prof. +Jastrow, "runs as an undercurrent through the entire religious +literature of Babylonia and Assyria." In the words of +Tabi-utul-Enlil, King of ancient Nippur: + Who is there that can grasp the will of the gods in heaven? + The plan of a god is full of mystery--who can understand it? + He who is still alive at evening is dead the next morning. +In an instant he is cast into grief, in a moment he is crushed. + +And that cry might be duplicated from almost any page of the +Hebrew scriptures: the only difference being that the Hebrews +combined all their fears into one Great Fear. "The fear of the +Lord is the beginning of wisdom," we are told by Solomon of the +thousand wives; and the Psalmist repeats it. "Dominion and fear +are with Him," cries Job. "How then can any man be just before +God? Or how can he be clean that is born of a woman? Behold, even +the moon hath no brightness, and the stars are not pure in His +sight: How much less man, that is a worm? And the son of man, +which is a worm?" He goes on, in his lyrical rapture, "Sheol is +naked before Him, and Destruction hath no covering. . . . The +pillars of heaven tremble and are astonished at His rebuke. . . . +The thunder of His power who can understand?" That all this is +some of the world's great poetry does not in the least alter the +fact that it is an abasement of the soul, an hysterical +perversion of the facts of life, and a preparation of the mind +for the seeds of Priestcraft. + +The Book of Job has been called a "Wisdom-drama": and what is the +denouement of this drama, what is ancient Hebrew wisdom's last +word about life? "Wherefore I abhor myself," says Job, "and +repent in dust and ashes." The poor fellow has done nothing; we +have been told at the beginning that he "was perfect and upright, +and one that feared God, and eschewed evil." But the Sabeans and +the Chaldeans rob him, and "the fire of God" falls from heaven +and burns up his sheep and his servants, and "a great wind from +the wilderness" kills his sons and daughters; and then his body +becomes covered with boils--a phenomenon caused in part by worry, +and the consequent nervous indigestion, but mainly by excess of +starch and deficiency of mineral salts in the diet. Job, however, +has never heard of the fasting cure for disease, and so he takes +him a potsherd to scrape himself withal, and he sits among the +ashes--a highly unsanitary procedure enforced by his religious +ritual. So naturally he feels like a worm, and abhors himself, +and cries out: "I know that Thou canst do all things, and that no +purpose of Thine can be restrained." By which utter, unreasoning +humility he succeeds in appeasing the Great Fear, and his friends +make a sacrifice of seven bullocks and seven rams--a feast for a +whole templeful of priests--and then "the Lord gave Job twice as +much as he had before. . . . And after this Job lived an hundred +and forty years, and saw his sons and his sons' sons, even four +generations." + +You do not have to look very deeply into this "Wisdom-drama" to +find out whose wisdom it is. Confess your own ignorance and your +own impotence, abandon yourself utterly, and then we, the sacred +Caste, the Keepers of the Holy Secrets, will secure you pardon +and respite--in exchange for fresh meat. Here are verses from a +psalm of the ancient Babylonians, which "heathen" chant is +identical in spirit and purpose with the utterances of Job: + + The Sin that I have wrought, I know not; + The unclean that I have eaten, I know not; + The offense into which I have walked, I know not.... + The lord, in the wrath of his heart, hath regarded me; + The god, in the anger of his heart, hath surrounded me; + A goddess, known or unknown, hath wrought me sorrow.... + I sought for help, but no one took my hand; + I wept, but no one harkened to me.... + The feet of my goddess I kiss, I touch them; + To the god, known or unknown, I utter my prayer; + O god, known or unknown, turn thy countenance, accept my + sacrifice; + O goddess, known or unknown, look mercifully on me! accept + my sacrifice! + + +Salve Regina! + +And now let the reader leap three thousand years of human +history, of toil and triumph of the intellect of man; and instead +of a Hebrew manuscript or a Babylonian brick there confronts him +a little publication, printed on a modern rotary press in the +capital of the United States of America, bearing the date of +October, 1914, and the title "Salve Regina". In it we find "a +beautiful prayer", composed by the late cardinal Rampolla; we are +told that "Pius X attached to it an indulgence of 100 days, each +time it is piously recited, applicable to the souls in +purgatory." + +O Blessed Virgin, Mother of God, cast a glance from Heaven, where +thou sittest as Queen, upon this poor sinner, your servant. +Though conscious of his unworthiness.... he blesses and exalts +thee from his whole heart as the purest, the most beautiful and +the most holy of creatures. He blesses thy holy name. He blesses +thy sublime prerogatives as real Mother of God, ever Virgin, +conceived without stain of sin, as co-Redemptress of the human +race. He blesses the Eternal Father who chose you, etc. He +blesses the Incarnate Word, etc. He blesses the Divine Spirit, +etc. He blesses, exalts and thanks the most august Trinity, etc. +O Virgin, holy and merciful . . . be pleased to accept this +little homage of your servant, and obtain for him also from your +divine Son pardon for his sins, Amen. + +And then, looking more closely, we discover the purpose of this +"beautiful prayer", and of the neat little paper which prints it. +"Salve Regina" is raising funds for the "National Shrine of the +Immaculate Conception", a home for more priests, and Catholic +ladies who desire to collect for it may receive little books +which they are requested to return within three months. Pius X +writes a letter of warm endorsement, and sets an example by +giving four hundred dollars "out of his poverty"--or, to be more +precise, out of the poverty of the pitiful peasantry of Italy. +There is included in the paper a form of bequest for "devoted +clients of Our Blessed Mother", and at the top of the editorial +page the most alluring of all baits for the loving hearts of the +flock--that the names of deceased relatives and friends may be +written in the collection books, and will be transferred to the +records of the Shrine, and these persons "will share in all its +spiritual benefits". In the days of Job it was with threats of +boils and poverty that the Priestly Lie maintained itself; but in +the case of this blackest of all Terrors, transplanted to our +free Republic from the heart of the Dark Ages, the wretched +victims see before their eyes the glare of flames, and hear the +shrieks of their loved ones writhing in torment through uncounted +ages and eternities. + + +Fresh Meat + +In the days when I was experimenting with vegetarianism, I sought +earnestly for evidence of a non-meat-eating race; but candor +compelled me to admit that man was like the monkey and the pig +and the bear--he was vegetarian when he could not help it. The +advocates of the reform insist that meat as a diet causes muddy +brains and dulled nerves; but you would certainly never suspect +this from a study of history. What you find in history is that +all men crave meat, all struggle for it, and the strongest and +cleverest get it. Everywhere you find the subject classes living +in the midst of animals which they tend, but whose flesh they +rarely taste. Even in modern America, sweet land of liberty, our +millions of tenant farmers raise chickens and geese and turkeys, +and hardly venture to consume as much as an egg, but save +everything for the summer-boarder or the buyer from the city. It +would not be too much to say of the cultural records of early man +that they all have to do, directly or indirectly, with the +reserving of fresh meat to the masters. In J. T. Trowbridge's +cheerful tale of the adventures of Captain Seaborn, we are told +by the cannibal priest how idol-worship has ameliorated the +morals of the tribe-- + + For though some warriors of renown + Continue anthropophagous, + 'Tis rare that human flesh goes down + The low-caste man's aesophagus! + +I suspect that we should have to go back to the days of the +cave-man to find the first lover of the flesh-pots who put a +taboo upon meat, and promised supernatural favors to all who +would exercise self-control, and instead of consuming their meat +themselves, would bring it and lay it upon the sacred griddle, or +altar, where the god might come in the night-time and partake of +it. Certainly, at any rate, there are few religions of record in +which such devices do not appear. The early laws of the Hebrews +are more concerned with delicatessen for the priests than with +any other subject whatever. Here, for example, is the way to make +a Nazarite: + +He shall offer his offering up to the Lord, one he lamb of the +first year without blemish for a burnt offering, and one ewe lamb +of the first year without blemish for a sin offering, and one ram +without blemish for peace offerings, and a basket of unleavened +bread, cakes of fine flour mingled with oil, and wafers of +unleavened bread anointed with oil, and their meat offerings. + +And the law goes on to instruct the priests to take certain +choice, parts and "wave them for a wave offering before the Lord: +this is holy for the priest." What was done with the other +portions we are not told; but earlier in this same "Book of +Numbers" we find the general law that + +Every offering of all the holy things of the children of Israel, +which they bring unto the priest, shall be his. And every man's +hallowed things shall be his: whatsoever any man giveth to the +priest, it shall be his. + +In the same way we are told by Viscount Amberley that the priests +of Ceylon first present the gifts to the god, and then eat them. +Among the Parsees, when a man dies, the relatives must bring four +new robes to the priests; if they do this, the priests wear the +robes; if they fail to do it, the dead man appears naked before +the judgment-throne. The devotees are instructed that "he who +performs this rite succeeds in both worlds, and obtains a firm +footing in both worlds." Among the Buddhists, the followers give +alms to the monks, and are told specifically what advantages will +thereby accrue to them. In the Aitareyo Brahmairiarn of the +Rig-Veda we read + +He who, knowing this, sacrifices according to this rite, is born +from the womb of Agni and the offerings, participates in the +nature of the Rik, Yajus, and Saman, the Veda (sacred knowledge), +the Brahma (sacred element) and immortality, and is absorbed into +the deity. + +Among the Parsees the priest eats the bread and drinks the haoma, +or juice of a plant, considered to be both a plant and a god. +Among the Episcopalians, a contemporary Christian sect, the +sacred juice is that of the grape, and the priest is not allowed +to throw away what is left of it, but is ordered "reverently to +consume it." In as much as the priest is the sole judge of how +much good sherry wine he shall consecrate previous to the +ceremony, it is to be expected that the priests of this cult +should be lukewarm towards the prohibition movement, and should +piously refuse to administer their sacrament with unfermented and +uninteresting grape-juice. + + +Priestly Empires + +In every human society of which we have record there has been one +class which has done the hard and exhausting work, the "hewers of +wood and drawers of water"; and there has been another, much +smaller class which has done the directing. To belong to this +latter class is to work also, but with the head instead of the +hands; it is also to enjoy the good things of life, to live in +the best houses, to eat the best food, to have choice of the most +desirable women; it is to have leisure to cultivate the mind and +appreciate the arts, to acquire graces and distinctions, to give +laws and moral codes, to shape fashions and tastes, to be revered +and regarded--in short, to have Power. How to get this Power and +to hold it has been the first object of the thoughts of men from +the beginning of time. + +The most obvious method is by the sword; but this method is +uncertain, for any man may take up a sword, and some may succeed +with it. It will be found that empires based upon military force +alone, however cruel they may be, are not permanent, and +therefore not so dangerous to progress; it is only when +resistance is paralyzed by the agency of Superstition, that the +race can be subjected to systems of exploitation for hundreds and +even thousands of years. The ancient empires were all priestly +empires; the kings ruled because they obeyed the will of the +priests, taught to them from childhood as the word of the gods. + +Thus, for instance, Prescott tells us: + +Terror, not love, was the spring of education with the Aztecs.... +Such was the crafty policy of the priests, who, by reserving to +themselves the business of instruction, were enabled to mould the +young and plastic mind according to their own wills, and to train +it early to implicit reverence for religion and its ministers. + +The historian goes on to indicate the economic harvest of this +teaching: + +To each of the principal temples, lands were annexed for the +maintenance of the priests. The estates were augmented by the +policy or devotion of successive princes, until, under the last +Montezuma, they had swollen to an enormous extent, and covered +every district of the empire. + +And this concerning the frightful system of human sacrifices, +whereby the priestly caste maintained the prestige of its +divinities: + +At the dedication of the temple of Huitzilopochtli, in 1486, the +prisoners, who for some years had been reserved for the purpose, +were ranged in files, forming a procession nearly two miles long. +The ceremony consumed several days, and seventy thousand captives +are said to have perished at the shrine of this terrible deity. + +The same system appears in Professor Jastrow's account of the +priesthood of Babylonia and Assyria: + +The ultimate source of all law being the deity himself, the +original legal tribunal was the place where the image or symbol +of the god stood. A legal decision was an oracle or omen, +indicative of the will of the god. The power thus lodged in the +priests of Babylonia and Assyria was enormous. They virtually +held in their hands the life and death of the people. + +And of the business side of this vast religious system: + +The temples were the natural depositories of the legal archives, +which in the course of centuries grew to veritably enormous +proportions. Records were made of all decisions; the facts were +set forth, and duly attested by witnesses. Business and marriage +contracts, loans and deeds of sale were in like manner drawn up +in the presence of official scribes, who were also priests. In +this way all commercial transactions received the written +sanction of the religious organization. The temples +themselves--at least in the large centres--entered into business +relations with the populace. In order to maintain the large +household represented by such an organization as that of the +temple of Enlil of Nippur, that of Ningirsu at Lagash, that of +Marduk at Babylon, or that of Shamash at Sippar, large holdings +of land were required which, cultivated by agents for the +priests, or farmed out with stipulations for a goodly share of +the produce, secured an income for the maintenance of the temple +officials. The enterprise of the temples was expanded to the +furnishing of loans at interest--in later periods, at 20%--to +barter in slaves, to dealings in lands, besides engaging labor +for work of all kinds directly needed for the temples. A large +quantity of the business documents found in the temple archives +are concerned with the business affairs of the temple, and we are +justified in including the temples in the large centres as among +the most important business institutions of the country. In +financial or monetary transactions the position of the temples +was not unlike that of national banks. . . . + +And so on. We may venture the guess that the learned professor +said more in that last sentence than he himself intended, for his +lectures were delivered in that temple of plutocracy, the +University of Pennsylvania, and paid out of an endowment which +specifies that "all polemical subjects shall be positively +excluded!" + + +Prayer-wheels + +These priestly empires exist in the world today. If we wish to +find them we have only to ask ourselves: What countries are +making no contribution to the progress of the race? What +countries have nothing to give us, whether in art, science, or +industry? + +For example, Gervaise tells us of the Talapoins, or priests of +Siam, that "they are exempted from all public charges, they +salute nobody, while everybody prostrates himself before them. +They are maintained at the public expense." In the same way we +read of the negroes of the Caribbean islands that "their priests +and priestesses exercise an almost unlimited power." Miss +Kingsley, in her "West African Studies", tells us that if we +desire to understand the institutions of this district, we must +study the native's religion. + +For his religion has so firm a grasp upon his mind that it +influences everything he does. It is not a thing apart, as the +religion of the Europeans is at times. The African cannot say, +"Oh, that is all right from a religious point of view, but one +must be practical." To be practical, to get on in the world, to +live the day and night through, he must be right in the religious +point of view, namely, must be on working terms with the great +world of spirits around him. The knowledge of this spirit world +constitutes the religion of the African, and his customs and +ceremonies arise from his idea of the best way to influence it. + +Or consider Henry Savage Landor's account of Thibet: + +In Lhassa and many other sacred places fanatical pilgrims make +circumambulations, sometimes for miles and miles, and for days +together, covering the entire distance lying flat upon their +bodies.... From the ceiling of the temple hang hundreds of long +strips, katas, offered by pilgrims to the temple, and becoming so +many flying prayers when hung up--for mechanical praying in every +way is prominent in Thibet.... Thus instead of having to learn by +heart long and varied prayers, all you have to do is to stuff the +entire prayer-book into a prayer-wheel, and revolve it while +repeating as fast as you can four words meaning, "O God, the gem +emerging from the lotus-flower.". . . . The attention of the +pilgrims is directed to a large box, or often a big bowl, where +they may deposit whatever offerings they can spare, and it must +be said that their religious ideas are so strongly developed that +they will dispose of a considerable portion of their money in +this fashion.... The Lamas are very clever in many ways, and have +a great hold over the entire country. They are ninety per cent of +them unscrupulous scamps, depraved in every way and given to +every sort of vice. So are the women Lamas. They live and sponge +on the credulity and ignorance of the crowds; it is to maintain +this ignorance, upon which their luxurious life depends, that +foreign influence of every kind is strictly kept out of the +country. + + +The Butcher-Gods + +In this last sentence we have summed up the fundamental fact +about institutionalized religion. Wherever belief and ritual have +become the means of livelihood of a class, all innovation will of +necessity be taken as an attack upon that class; it will be +literally a crime--robbing the priests of their age-long +privileges. And of course they will oppose the robber--using +every weapon of terrorism, both of this world and the next. They +will require the submission, not merely of their own people, but +of their neighbors, and their jealousy of rival priestly castes +will be a cause of wars. The story of the early days of mankind +is a sickening record of torture and slaughter in the name of ten +thousand butcher-gods. + +Thus, for example, we read in the Hebrew religious records how +the priests were engaged in establishing the prestige of a fetish +called "the ark"; and how the people of one tribe violated this +fetish and wakened the wrath of Jehovah, the god. + +And he smote the men of Beth-shemesh, because they had looked +into the ark of the Lord, even he smote of the people fifty +thousand and three score and ten men; and the people lamented, +because the Lord had smitten many of the people with a great +slaughter. And the men of Beth-shemesh said, Who is able to stand +before this holy Lord God? + +This terrible old Hebrew divinity said of himself that he was "a +jealous god". Throughout the time of his sway he issued through +his ministers precise instructions for the most revolting +cruelties, the extermination of whole nations of men, women and +children, whose sole offense was that they did not pay tribute to +Jehovah's priests. Thus, for example, the chief of his prophets, +Moses, called the people together, and with all solemnity, and +with many warnings, handed down ten commandments graven upon +stone tablets; he went on to set forth how the people were to set +upon and rob their neighbors, and gave them these blood-thirsty +instructions: + +When the Lord thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou +goest to possess it, and hath cast out many nations before thee, +the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the +Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the +Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than thou; And when +the Lord thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou shalt smite +them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with +them, nor shew mercy unto them: ... But thus shall ye deal with +them; ye shall destroy their altars, and break down their images, +and cut down their groves, and burn their graven images with +fire. For thou art a holy people unto the Lord thy God: the Lord +thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, +above all people that are upon the face of the earth. + +The records of this Jehovah are full of similar horrors. He sent +his chosen people out to destroy the Midianites, and they slew +all the males, but this was not sufficient, and Moses was wroth, +and commanded them to kill all the married women, and to take the +single women "for themselves". We are told that sixteen thousand +single women were spared, of whom "the Lord's tribute was thirty +and two!" In the Book of Joshua we read that he had an interview +with a supernatural personage called "the captain of the Lord's +host", and how this captain had given to him a magic spell which +would destroy the city of Jericho. The city should be accursed, +"even it and all that are therein, to the Lord"; every living +thing except one traitor-harlot was to be slaughtered, and all +the wealth of the city reserved to the priestly caste. This was +carried out to the letter, except that "Achan, the son of Carmi, +the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took +of the accursed thing"--that is, he hid some gold and silver in +his tent; whereupon the army met with a defeat, and everybody +knew that something was wrong, and Joshua rent his clothes and +fell to the earth upon his face before the ark of the Lord, and +got another message from Jehovah, to the effect that the guilty +man should be burned with fire, "he and all that he hath." + +And Joshua, and all Israel with him, took Achan the son of Zerah, +and the silver, and the garment, and the wedge of gold, and his +sons, and his daughters, and his oxen, and his asses, and his +sheep, and his tent, and all that he had: and they brought them +unto the Valley of Achor. And Joshua said, Why hast thou troubled +us? the Lord shall trouble thee this day. And all Israel stoned +him with stones, and burned them with fire, after they had stoned +him with stones. + +We have no means of knowing what was the character of the +unfortunate inhabitants of the city of Jericho, nor of the +Hittites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and all the rest of +the victims of Jehovah. To be sure, we are told by the Hebrew +priests that they sacrificed their children to their gods; but +then, consider what we should believe about the Hebrew religion, +if we took the word of rival priestly castes! Consider, for +example, that in this twentieth century we saw an orthodox Jew +tried in a Russian court of law for having made a sacrifice of +Christian babies; nevertheless we know that the Jews represent a +considerable part of the intelligence and idealism of Russia. We +know in the same way that the Moors had most of the culture and +all of the scientific knowledge of Spain; that the Huguenots had +most of the conscience and industry of France; and we know that +they were massacred or driven out to death by the priestly castes +of the Middle Ages. + + +The Holy Inquisition + +Let us have one glimpse of the conditions in those mediaeval +times, so that we may know what we ourselves have escaped. In the +fifteenth century there was established in Europe the cult of a +three-headed god, whose priests had won lordship over a +continent. They were enormously wealthy, and unthinkably corrupt; +they sold to the rich the license to commit every possible crime, +and they held the poor in ignorance and degradation. Among the +comparatively intelligent and freedom-loving people of Bohemia +there arose a great reformer, John Huss, himself a priest, +protesting against the corruptions of his order. They trapped him +into their power by means of a "safe-conduct"--which they +repudiated because no promise to a heretic could have validity. +They found him guilty of having taught the hateful doctrine that +a priest who committed crimes could not give absolution for the +crimes of others; and they held an auto de fe--which means a +"sentence of faith." As we read in Lea's "History of the +Inquisition": + +The cathedral of Constance was crowded with Sigismund (the +Emperor) and his nobles, the great officers of the empire with +their insignia, the prelates in their splendid robes. While mass +was sung, Huss, as an excommunicate, was kept waiting at the +door; when brought in he was placed on an elevated bench by a +table on which stood a coffer containing priestly vestments. +After some preliminaries, including a sermon by the Bishop of +Lodi, in which he assured Sigismund that the events of that day +would confer on him immortal glory, the articles of which Huss +was convicted were recited. In vain he protested that he believed +in transubstantiation and in the validity of the sacrament in +polluted hands. He was ordered to hold his tongue, and on his +persisting the beadles were told to silence him, but in spite of +this he continued to utter protests. The sentence was then read +in the name of the council, condemning him both for his written +errors and those which had been proven by witnesses. He was +declared a pertinacious and incorrigible heretic who did not +desire to return to the Church; his books were ordered to be +burned, and himself to be degraded from the priesthood and +abandoned to the secular court. Seven bishops arrayed him in +priestly garb and warned him to recant while yet there was time. +He turned to the crowd, and with broken voice declared that he +could not confess the errors which he never entertained, lest he +should lie to God, when the bishops interrupted him, crying that +they had waited long enough, for he was obstinate in his heresy. +He was degraded in the usual manner, stripped of his sacerdotal +vestments, his fingers scraped; but when the tonsure was to be +disposed of, an absurd quarrel arose among the bishops as to +whether the head should be shaved with a razor or the tonsure be +destroyed with scissors. Scissors won the day, and a cross was +cut in his hair. Then on his head was placed a conical paper cap, +a cubit in height, adorned with painted devils and the +inscription, "This is the heresiarch." + +The place of execution was a meadow near the river, to which he +was conducted by two thousand armed men, with Palsgrave Louis at +their head, and a vast crowd, including many nobles, prelates, +and cardinals. The route followed was circuitous, in order that +he might be carried past the episcopal palace, in front of which +his books were burning, whereat he smiled. Pity from man there +was none to look for, but he sought comfort on high, repeating to +himself, "Christ Jesus, Son of the living God, have mercy upon +us!" and when he came in sight of the stake he fell on his knees +and prayed. He was asked if he wished to confess, and said that +he would gladly do so if there were space. A wide circle was +formed, and Ulrich Schorand, who, according to custom, had been +providently empowered to take advantage of final weakening, came +forward, saying, "Dear sir and master, if you will recant your +unbelief and heresy, for which you must suffer, I will willingly +hear your confession; but if you will not, you know right well +that, according to canon law, no one can administer the sacrament +to a heretic." To this Huss answered, "It is not necessary: I am +not a mortal sinner." His paper crown fell off and he smiled as +his guards replaced it. He desired to take leave of his keepers, +and when they were brought to him he thanked them for their +kindness, saying that they had been to him rather brothers than +jailers. Then he commenced to address the crowd in German, +telling them that he suffered for errors which he did not hold, +and he was cut short. When bound to the stake, two cartloads of +fagots and straw were piled up around him, and the palsgrave and +vogt for the last time adjured him to abjure. Even yet he could +save himself, but only repeated that he had been convicted by +false witnesses on errors never entertained by him. They clapped +their hands and then withdrew, and the executioners applied the +fire. Twice Huss was heard to exclaim, "Christ Jesus, Son of the +living God, have mercy upon me!" then a wind springing up and +blowing the flames and smoke into his face checked further +utterances, but his head was seen to shake and his lips to move +while one might twice or thrice recite a paternoster. The tragedy +was over; the sorely-tried soul bad escaped from its tormentors, +and the bitterest enemies of the reformer could not refuse to him +the praise that no philosopher of old had faced death with more +composure than he had shown in his dreadful extremity. No +faltering of the voice had betrayed an internal struggle. +Palsgrave Louis, seeing Huss's mantle on the arm of one of the +executioners, ordered it thrown into the flames lest it should be +reverenced as a relic, and promised the man to compensate him. +With the same view the body was carefully reduced to ashes and +thrown into the Rhine, and even the earth around the stake was +dug up and carted off; yet the Bohemians long hovered around the +spot and carried home fragments of the neighboring clay, which +they reverenced as relies of their martyr. The next day thanks +were returned to God in a solemn procession in which figured +Sigismund and his queen, the princes and nobles, nineteen +cardinals, two patriarchs, seventy-seven bishops, and all the +clergy of the council. A few days later Sigismund, who had +delayed his departure for Spain to see the matter concluded, left +Constance, feeling that his work was done. + + +Hell-Fire + +If such a scene could be witnessed in the world today, it would +only be in some remote and wholly savage place, such as the +mountains of Hayti, or the Solomon Islands. It could no longer +happen in any civilized country; the reason being, not any +abatement of the pretensions of the priesthood, but solely the +power of science, embodied in the physical arm of a secular +State. The advance of that arm the church has fought +systematically, in every country, and at every point. To quote +Buckle: "A careful study of the history of religious toleration +will prove that in every Christian country where it has been +adopted, it has been forced upon the clergy by the authority of +the secular classes." The wolf of superstition has been driven +into its lair; but it has backed away snarling, and it still +crouches, watching for a chance to spring. The Church which +burned John Huss, which burned Giordano Bruno for teaching that +the earth moves round the sun--that same church, in the name of +the same three-headed god, sent out Francesco Ferrer to the +firing-squad; if it does not do the same thing to the author of +this book, it will be solely because of the police. Not being +allowed to burn me here, the clergy will vent their holy +indignation by sentencing me to eternal burning in a future world +which they have created, and which they run to suit themselves. + +It is a fact, the significance of which cannot be exaggerated, +that the measure of the civilization which any nation has +attained is the extent to which it has curtailed the power of +institutionalized religion. Those peoples which are wholly under +the sway of the priesthood, such as Thibetans and Koreans, +Siamese and Caribbeans, are peoples among whom the intellectual +life does not exist. Farther in advance are Hindoos, and Turks, +who are religious, but not exclusively. Still farther on the way +are Spaniards and Irish; here, for example, is a flashlight of +the Irish peasantry, given by one of their number, Patrick +MacGill: + +The merchant was a great friend of the parish priest, who always +told the people if they did not pay their debts they would burn +for ever and ever in hell. "The fires of eternity will make you +sorry for the debts that you did not pay," said the priest. "What +is eternity?" he would ask in a solemn voice from the altar +steps. "If a man tried to count the sands on the sea-shore and +took a million years to count every single grain, how long would +it take him to count them all? A long time, you'll say. But that +time is nothing to eternity. Just think of it! Burning in hell +while a man, taking a million years to count a grain of sand, +counts all the sand on the sea-shore. And this because you did +not pay Farley McKeown his lawful debts, his lawful debts within +the letter of the law." That concluding phrase, "within the +letter of the law," struck terror into all who listened, and no +one, maybe not even the priest himself, knew what it meant. + +There is light in Ireland to-day, and hope for an Irish culture; +the thing to be noted is that it comes from two movements, one +for agricultural co-operation and the other for political +independence--both of them definitely and specifically +non-religious. This same thing has been true of the movements +which have helped on happier nations, such as the republics of +France and America, which have put an end to the power of the +priestly caste to take property by force, and to dominate the +mind of the child without its parents' consent. + +This is as far as any nation has so far gone; it has apparently +not yet occurred to any legislature that the State may owe a duty +to the child to protect its mind from being poisoned, even though +it has the misfortune to be born of poisoned parents. It is still +permitted that parents should terrify their little ones with +images of a personal devil and a hell of eternal brimstone and +sulphur; it is permitted to found schools for the teaching of +devil-doctrines; it is permitted to organize gigantic campaigns +and systematically to infect whole cities full of men, women and +children with hell-fire phobias. In the American city where I +write one may see gatherings of people sunk upon their knees, +even rolling on the ground in convulsions, moaning, sobbing, +screaming to be delivered from such torments. I open my morning +paper and read of the arrest of five men and seven women in Los +Angeles, members of a sect known as the "Church of the Living +God", upon a charge of having disturbed the peace of their +neighbors. The police officers testified that the accused claimed +to be possessed of the divine spirit, and that as signs of this +possession they "crawled on the floor, grunted like pigs and +barked like dogs." There were "other acts, even more startling", +about which the newspapers did not go into details. And again, a +week or two later, I read how a woman has been heard screaming, +and found tied to a bedpost, being whipped by a man. She belonged +to a religious sect which had found her guilty of witchcraft. +Another woman was about to shoot her, but this woman's nerve +failed, and the "high priest" was called in, who decreed a +whipping. The victim explained to the police that she would have +deserved to be whipped had she really been a witch, but a mistake +had been made--it was another woman who was the witch. And again +in the Los Angeles "Times" I read a perfectly serious news item, +telling how a certain man awakened one morning, and found on his +pillow where his head had lain a perfect reproduction of the head +of Christ with its crown of thorns. He called in his neighbors to +witness the miracle, and declared that while he was not +superstitious, he knew that such a thing could not have happened +by chance, and he knew what it was intended to signify--he would +buy more Liberty Bonds and be more ardent in his support of the +war! + +And this is the world in which our scientists and men of culture +think that the battle of the intellect is won, and that it is no +longer necessary to spend our energies in fighting "Religion!" + + + +BOOK TWO + +The Church of Good Society + + Within the House of Mammon his priesthood stands alert + By mysteries attended, by dusk and splendors girt, + Knowing, for faiths departed, his own shall still endure, + And they be found his chosen, untroubled, solemn, sure. + + Within the House of Mammon the golden altar lifts + Where dragon-lamps are shrouded as costly incense drifts-- + A dust of old ideals, now fragrant from the coals, + To tell of hopes long-ended, to tell the death of souls + Sterling. + +The Rain Makers + +I begin with the Church of Good Society, because it happens to be +the Church in which I was brought up. Reading this statement, +some of my readers suspected me of snobbish pride. I search my +heart; yes, it brings a hidden thrill that as far back as I can +remember I knew this atmosphere of urbanity, that twice every +Sunday those melodious and hypnotizing incantations were chanted +in my childish ears! I take up the book of ritual, done in +aristocratic black leather with gold lettering, and the old worn +volume brings me strange stirrings of recollected awe. But I +endeavor to repress these vestigial emotions and to see the +volume--not as a message from God to Good Society, but as a +landmark of man's age-long struggle against myth and dogma used +as a source of income and a shield to privilege. + +In the beginning, of course, the priest and the magician ruled +the field. But today, as I examine this "Book of Common Prayer", +I discover that there is at least one spot out of which he has +been cleared entirely; there appears no prayer to planets to +stand still, or to comets to go away. The "Church of Good +Society" has discovered astronomy! But if any astronomer +attributes this to his instruments with their marvelous accuracy, +let him at least stop to consider my "economic interpretation" of +the phenomenon--the fact that the heavenly bodies affect the +destinies of mankind so little that there has not been sufficient +emolument to justify the priest in holding on to his job as +astrologer. + +But when you come to the field of meteorology, what a difference! +Has any utmost precision of barometer been able to drive the +priest out of his prerogatives as rainmaker? Not even in the most +civilized of countries; not in that most decorous and dignified +of institutions, the Protestant Episcopal Church of America! I +study with care the passage wherein the clergyman appears as +controller of the fate of crops. I note a chastened caution of +phraseology; the church will not repeat the experience of the +sorcerer's apprentice, who set the demons to bringing water, and +then could not make them stop! The spell invokes "moderate rain +and showers"; and as an additional precaution there is a +counter-spell against "excessive rains and floods": the +weather-faucet being thus under exact control. + +I turn the pages of this "Book of Common Prayer", and note the +remnants of magic which it contains. There are not many of the +emergencies of life with which the priest is not authorized to +deal; not many natural phenomena for which he may not claim the +credit. And in case anything should have been overlooked, there +is a blanket order upon Providence: "Graciously hear us, that +those evils which the craft or subtilty of the devil or man +worketh against us, be brought to nought!" I am reminded of the +idea which haunted my childhood, reading fairy-stories about the +hero who was allowed three wishes that would come true. I could +never understand why the hero did not settle the matter once for +all--by wishing that everything he wished might come true! + +Most of these incantations are harmless, and some are amiable; +but now and then you come upon one which is sinister in its +implications. The volume before me happens to be of the Church of +England, which is even more forthright in its confronting of the +Great Magic. Many years ago I remember talking with an English +army officer, asking how he could feel sure of his soldiers in +case of labor strikes; did it never occur to him that the men had +relatives among the workers, and might some time refuse to shoot +them? His answer was that he was aware of it, the military had +worked out its technique with care. He would never think of +ordering his men to fire upon a mob in cold blood; he would first +start the spell of discipline to work, he would march them round +the block, and get them in the swing, get their blood moving to +military music; then, when he gave the order, in they would go. I +have never forgotten the gesture, the animation with which he +illustrated their going--I could hear the grunting of bayonets in +the flesh of men. The social system prevailing in England has +made necessary the perfecting of such military technique; also, +you discover, English piety has made necessary the providing of a +religious sanction for it. After the job has been done, and the +bayonets have been wiped clean, the company is marched to church, +and the officer kneels in his family pew, and the privates kneel +with the parlor-maids, and the clergyman raises his hands to +heaven and intones: "We bless thy Holy Name, that it hath pleased +Thee to appease the seditious tumults which have been lately +raised up among us!" + +And sometimes the clergyman does more than bless the killers--he +even takes part in their bloody work. In the Home Office Records +of the British Government I read (vol 40, page 17) how certain +miners were on strike against low wages and the "truck" system, +and the Vicar of Abergavenny put himself at the head of the +yeomanry and the Greys. He wrote the Home Office a lively account +of his military operations. All that remained was to apprehend +certain of the strikers, "and then I shall be able to return to +my Clerical duties." Later he wrote of the "sinister influences" +which kept the miners from returning to their work, and how he +had put half a dozen of the most obstinate in prison. + + +The Babylonian Fire-god + +So we come to the most important of the functions of the tribal +god, as an ally in war, an inspirer to martial valour. When in +ancient Babylonia you wished to overcome your enemies, you went +to the shrine of the Firegod, and with awful rites the priest +pronounced incantations, which have been preserved on bricks and +handed down for the use of modern churches. "Pronounce in a +whisper, and have a bronze image therewith," commands the ancient +text, and runs on for many strophes in this fashion: + + Let them die, but let me live! + Let them be put under a ban, but let me prosper! + Let them perish, but let me increase! + Let them become weak, but let me wax strong! + O, fire-god, mighty, exalted among the gods, + Thou art the god, thou art my lord, etc. + +This was in heathen Babylon, some three thousand years ago. Since +then, the world has moved on-- + + Three thousand years of war and peace and glory, + Of hope and work and deeds and golden schemes, + Of mighty voices raised in song and story, +Of huge inventions and of splendid dreams-- + +And in one of the world's leading nations the people stand up and +bare their heads, and sing to their god to save their king and +punish those who oppose him-- + + O Lord our God, arise, Scatter his enemies, + And make them fall; + Confound their politics, + Frustrate their knavish tricks, + On him our hopes we fix, + God save us all. + +Recently, I understand, it has become the custom to omit this +stanza from the English national anthem; but it is clear that +this is because of its crudity of expression, not because of +objection to the idea of praying to a god to assist one nation +and injure others; for the same sentiment is expressed again and +again in the most carefully edited of prayer-books: + +Abate their pride, assuage their malice, and confound their +devices. +Defend us, Thy humble servants, in all assaults of our enemies. +Strengthen him (the King) that he may vanquish and overcome +all his enemies. +There is none other that fighteth for us, but only Thou, O God. + +Prayers such as these are pronounced in every so-called civilized +nation today. Behind every battle-line in Europe you may see the +priests of the Babylonian Fire-god with their bronze images and +their ancient incantations; you may see magic spells being +wrought, magic standards sanctified, magic bread eaten and magic +wine drunk, fetishes blessed and hoodoos lifted, eternity +ransacked to find means of inciting soldiers to the mood where +they will "go in". Throughout all civilization, the phobias and +manias of war have thrown the people back into the toils of the +priest, and that church which tortured Galileo in the dungeons of +the Inquisition, and shot Ferrier beneath the walls of the +fortress of Montjuich, is rejoicing in a "rebirth of religion". + +The Medicine-men + + +Andrew D. White tells us that + +It was noted that in the 14th century, after the great plague, +the Black Death, had passed, an immensely increased proportion of +the landed and personal property of every European country was in +the hands of the Church. Well did a great ecclesiastic remark that +"pestilences are the harvests of the ministers of God." + +And so naturally the clergy hold on to their prerogative as +banishers of epidemics. Who knows what day the Lord may see fit +to rebuke the upstart teachers of impious and atheistical +inoculation, and scourge the people back into His fold as in the +good old days of Moses and Aaron? Viscount Amberley, in his +immensely learned and half-suppressed work, "The Analysis of +Religious Belief", quotes some missionaries to the Fiji +islanders, concerning the ideas of these benighted heathen on the +subject of a pestilence. It was the work of a "disease-maker", +who was burning images of the people with incantations; so they +blew horns to frighten this disease-maker from his spells. The +missionaries undertook to explain the true cause of the +affliction--and thereby revealed that they stood upon the same +intellectual level as the heathen they were supposed to instruct! +It appeared that the natives had been at war with their +neighbors, and the missionaries had commanded them to desist; +they had refused to obey, and God had sent the epidemic as +punishment for savage presumption! + +And on precisely this same Fijian level stands the "Book of +Common Prayer" of our most decorous and cultured of churches. I +remember as a little child lying on a bed of sickness, occasioned +by the prevalence in our home of the Southern custom of hot bread +three times a day; and there came an amiable clerical gentleman +and recited the service proper to such pastoral calls: "Take +therefore in good part the visitation of the Lord!" And again, +when my mother was ill, I remember how the clergyman read out in +church a prayer for her, specifying all sickness, "in mind, body +or estate". I was thinking only of my mother, and the meaning of +these words passed over my childish head; I did not realize that +the elderly plutocrat in black broadcloth who knelt in the pew in +front of me was invoking the aid of the Almighty so that his +tenements might bring in their rentals promptly; so that his +little "flyer" in cotton might prove successful; so that the +children in his mills might work with greater speed. + +Somebody asked Voltaire if you could kill a cow by incantations, +and he answered, "Yes, if you use a little strychnine with it." +And that would seem to be the attitude of the present-day +Anglican church-member; he calls in the best physician he knows, +he makes sure that his plumbing is sound, and after that he +thinks it can do no harm to let the Lord have a chance. It makes +the women happy, and after all, there are a lot of things we +don't yet know about the world. So he repairs to the family pew, +and recites over the venerable prayers, and contributes his mite +to the maintenance of an institution which, fourteen Sundays +every year, proclaims the terrifying menaces of the Athanasian +Creed: + +Whoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he +hold the Catholick faith. Which faith, except one do keep whole +and undefiled; without doubt he shall perish everlastingly. + +For the benefit of the uninitiated reader, it may be explained +that the "Catholick faith" here referred to is not the Roman +Catholic, but that of the Church of England and the Protestant +Episcopal Church of America. This creed of the ancient +Alexandrian lays down the truth with grim and menacing +precision--forty-four paragraphs of metaphysical minutiae, +closing with the final doom: "This is the Catholick faith: which +except a man believe faithfully, he cannot be saved." + +You see, the founders of this august institution were not content +with cultured complacency; what they believed they believed +really, with their whole hearts, and they were ready to act upon +it, even if it meant burning their own at the stake. Also, they +knew the ceaseless impulse of the mind to grow; the terrible +temptation which confronts each new generation to believe that +which is reasonable. They met the situation by setting out the +true faith in words which no one could mistake. They have +provided, not merely the Creed of Athanasius, but also the +"Thirty-nine Articles"--which are thirty-nine separate and +binding guarantees that one who holds orders in the Episcopal +Church shall be either a man of inferior mentality, or else a +sophist and hypocrite. How desperate some of them have become in +the face of this cruel dilemma is illustrated by the tale which +is told of Dr. Jowett, of Balliol College, Oxford: that when he +was required to recite the "Apostle's Creed" in public, he would +save himself by inserting the words "used" between the words "I +believe", saying the inserted words under his breath, thus, "I +used to believe in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost." +Perhaps the eminent divine never did this; but the fact that his +students told it, and thought it funny, is sufficient indication +of their attitude toward their "Religion." The son of William +George Ward tells in his biography how this leader of the +"Tractarian Movement" met the problem with cynicism which seems +almost sublime: "Make yourself clear that you are justified in +deception; and then lie like a trooper!" + + +The Canonization of Incompetence + +The supreme crime of the church to-day is that everywhere and in +all its operations and influences it is on the side of sloth of +mind; that it banishes brains, it sanctifies stupidity, it +canonizes incompetence. Consider the power of the Church of +England and its favorite daughter here in America; consider their +prestige with the press and in politics, their hold upon +literature and the arts, their control of education and the minds +of children, of charity and the lives of the poor: consider all +this, and then say what it means to society that such a power +must be, in every new issue that arises, on the side of reaction +and falsehood. "So it was in the beginning, is now, and ever +shall be," runs the church's formula; and this per se and a +priori, of necessity and in the nature of the case. + +Turn over the pages of history and read the damning record of the +church's opposition to every advance in every field of science, +even the most remote from theological concern. Here is the +Reverend Edward Massey, preaching in 1772 on "The Dangerous and +Sinful Practice of Inoculation"; declaring that Job's distemper +was probably confluent small-pox; that he had been inoculated +doubtless by the devil; that diseases are sent by Providence for +the punishment of sin; and that the proposed attempt to prevent +them is "a diabolical operation". Here are the Scotch clergy of +the middle of the nineteenth century denouncing the use of +chloroform in obstetrics, because it is seeking "to avoid one +part of the primeval curse on woman". Here is Bishop Wilberforce +of Oxford anathematizing Darwin: "The principle of natural +selection is absolutely incompatible with the word of God"; it +"contradicts the revealed relation of creation to its creator"; +it "is inconsistent with the fulness of His glory"; it is "a +dishonoring view of nature". And the Bishop settled the matter by +asking Huxley whether he was descended from an ape through his +grandmother or grandfather. + +Think what it means, friends of progress, that these +ecclesiastical figures should be set up for the reverence of the +populace, and that every time mankind is to make an advance in +power over Nature, the pioneers of thought have to come with +crow-bars and derricks and heave these figures out of the way! +And you think that conditions are changed to-day? But consider +syphilis and gonorrhea, about which we know so much, and can do +almost nothing; consider birth-control, which we are sent to jail +for so much as mentioning! Consider the divorce reforms for which +the world is crying--and for which it must wait, because of St. +Paul! Realize that up to date it has proven impossible to +persuade the English Church to permit a man to marry his deceased +wife's sister! That when the war broke upon England the whole +nation was occupied with a squabble over the disestablishment of +the church of Wales! Only since 1888 has it been legally possible +for an unbeliever to hold a seat in Parliament; while up to the +present day men are tried for blasphemy and convicted under the +decisions of Lord Hale, to the effect that "it is a crime either +to deny the truth of the fundamental doctrines of the Christian +religion or to hold them up to contempt or ridicule." Said Mr. +justice Horridge, at the West Riding Assizes, 1911: "A man is not +free in any public place to use common ridicule on subjects which +are sacred." + +The purpose, as outlined by the public prosecutor in London, is +"to preserve the standard of outward decency." And you will find +that the one essential to prosecution is always that the victim +shall be obscure and helpless; never by any chance is he a duke +in a drawing-room. I will record an utterance of one of the +obscure victims of the British "standard of outward decency", a +teacher of mathematics named Holyoake, who presumed to discuss in +a public hall the starvation of the working classes of the +country. A preacher objected that he had discussed "our duty to +our neighbor" and neglected "our duty to God"; whereupon the +lecturer replied: "Our national Church and general religious +institutions cost us, upon accredited computation, about twenty +million pounds annually. Worship being thus expensive, I appeal +to your heads and your pockets whether we are not too poor to +have a God. While our distress lasts, I think it would be wise to +put deity upon half pay." And for that utterance the unfortunate +teacher of mathematics served six months in the common Gaol at +Gloucester! + +While men were being tried for publishing the "Free-thinker", the +Premier of England was William Ewart Gladstone. And if you wish +to know what an established church can do by way of setting up +dullness in high places, get a volume of this "Grand Old Man's" +writings on theological and religious questions. Read his +"Juventus Mundi", in the course of which he establishes, a mystic +connection between the trident of Neptune and the Christian +Trinity! Read his efforts to prove that the writer of Genesis was +an inspired geologist! This writer of Genesis points out in +Nature "a grand, fourfold division, set forth in an orderly +succession of times: First, the water population; secondly, the +air population; thirdly, the land population of animals; +fourthly, the land population consummated in man." And it seems +that this division and sequence "is understood to have been so +affirmed in our time by natural science that it may be taken as a +demonstrated conclusion and established fact." Hence we must +conclude of the writer of Genesis that "his knowledge was +divine"! Consider that this was actually published in one of the +leading British monthlies, and that it was necessary for +Professor Huxley to answer it, pointing out that so far is it +from being true that "a fourfold division and orderly sequence" +of water, air and land animals "has been affirmed in our time by +natural science", that on the contrary, the assertion is +"directly contradictory to facts known to everyone who is +acquainted with the elements of natural science". The +distribution of fossils proves that land animals originated +before sea-animals, and there has been such a mixing of land, sea +and air animals as utterly to destroy the reputation of both +Genesis and Gladstone as possessing a divine knowledge of +Geology. + + +Gibson's Preservative + +I have a friend, a well-known "scholar", who permits me the use +of his extensive library. I stand in the middle and look about +me, and see in the dim shadows walls lined from floor to ceiling +with decorous and grave-looking books, bound for the most part in +black, many of them fading to green with age. There are literally +thousands of such, and their theme is the pseudo-science of +"divinity". I close my eyes, to make the test fair, and walk to +the shelves and put out my hand and take a book. It proves to be +a modern work, "A History of the English Prayer-book in Relation +to the Doctrine of the Eucharist". I turn the pages and discover +that it is a study of the variations of one minute detail of +church doctrine. This learned divine--he has written many such +works, as the advertisements inform us--fills up the greater part +of his pages with foot-notes from hundreds of authorities, +arguments and counter-arguments over supernatural subtleties. I +will give one sample of these footnotes--asking the reader to be +patient: + +I add the following valuable observation, of Dean Goode: ("On +Eucharist", II p 757. See also Archbishop Ware in Gibson's +"Preservative", vol X, Chap II) "One great point for which our +divines have contended, in opposition to Romish errors, has been +the reality of that presence of Christ's Body and Blood to the +soul of the believer which is affected through the operation of +the Holy Spirit notwithstanding the absence of that Body and +Blood in Heaven. Like the Sun, the Body of Christ is both present +and absent; present, really and truly present, in one sense--that +is, by the soul being brought into immediate communion with--but +absent in another sense--that is, as regards the contiguity of +its substance to our bodies. The authors under review, like the +Romanists, maintain that this is not a Real Presence, and +assuming their own interpretation of the phrase to be the only +true one, press into their service the testimony of divines who, +though using the phrase, apply it in a sense the reverse of +theirs. The ambiguity of the phrase, and its misapplication by +the Church of Rome, have induced many of our divines to repudiate +it, etc." + +Realize that of the work from which this "valuable observation" +is quoted, there are at least two volumes, the second volume +containing not less than 757 pages! Realize that in Gibson's +"Preservative" there are not less than ten volumes of such +writing! Realize that in this twentieth century a considerable +portion of the mental energies of the world's greatest empire is +devoted to that kind of learning! + +I turn to the date upon the volume, and find that it is 1910. I +was in England within a year of that time, and so I can tell what +was the condition of the English people while printers were +making and papers were reviewing and book-stores were +distributing this work of ecclesiastical research. I walked along +the Embankment and saw the pitiful wretches, men, women and +sometimes children, clad in filthy rags, starved white and frozen +blue, soaked in winter rains and shivering in winter winds, +homeless, hopeless, unheeded by the doctors of divinity, +unpreserved by Gibson's "Preservative". I walked on Hampstead +Heath on Easter day, when the population of the slums turns out +for its one holiday; I walked, literally trembling with horror, +for I had never seen such sights nor dreamed of them. These +creatures were hardly to be recognized as human beings; they were +some new grotesque race of apes. They could not walk, they could +only shamble; they could not laugh, they could only leer. I saw a +hand-organ playing, and turned away--the things they did in their +efforts to dance were not to be watched. And then I went out into +the beautiful English country; cultured and charming ladies took +me in swift, smooth motor-cars, and I saw the pitiful hovels and +the drink-sodden, starch-poisoned inhabitants--slum-populations +everywhere, even on the land! When the newspaper reporters came +to me, I said that I had just come from Germany, and that if ever +England found herself at war with that country, she would regret +that she had let the bodies and the minds of her people rot; for +which expression I was severely taken to task by more than one +British divine. + +The bodies--and the minds; the rot of the latter being the cause +of the former. All over England in that year of 1910, in +thousands of schools, rich and poor, and in the greatest centres +of learning, men like Dean Goode were teaching boys dead +languages and dead sciences and dead arts; sending them out to +life with no more conception of the modern world than a monk of +the Middle Ages; sending them out with minds, made hard and +inflexible, ignorant of science, indifferent to progress, +contemptuous of ideas. And then suddenly, almost overnight, this +terrified people finds itself at war with a nation ruled and +disciplined by modern experts, scientists and technicians. The +awful muddle that was in England during the first two years of +the war has not yet been told in print; but thousands know it, +and some day it will be written, and it will finish forever the +prestige of the British ruling caste. They rushed off an +expedition to Gallipoli, and somebody forgot the water-supply, +and at one time they had ninety-five thousand cases of dysentery! + +They always "muddle through", they tell you; that is the motto of +their ruling caste. But this time they did not "muddle +through"--they had to come to America for help. As I write, our +Congress is voting billions and tens of billions of dollars, and +a million of the best of our young manhood are being taken from +their homes--because in 1910 the mind of England was occupied +with Dean Goode "On Eucharist", and the ten volumes of Gibson's +"Preservative". + + +The Elders + +What the Church means in human affairs is the rule of the aged. +It means old men in the seats of authority, not merely in the +church, but in the law-courts and in Parliament, even in the army +and navy. For a test I look up the list of bishops of the Church +of England in Whitaker's Almanac; it appears that there are 40 of +these functionaries, including the archbishops, but not the +suffragans; and that the total salary paid to them amounts to +more than nine hundred thousand dollars a year. This, it should +be understood, does not include the pay of their assistants, nor +the cost of maintaining their religious establishments; it does +not include any private incomes which they or their wives may +possess, as members of the privileged classes of the Empire. I +look up their ages in Who's Who, and I find that there is only +one below fifty-three; the oldest of them is ninety-one, while +the average age of the goodly company is seventy. There have been +men in history who have retained their flexibility of mind, their +ability to adjust themselves to new circumstances at the age of +seventy, but it will always be found that these men were trained +in science and practical affairs, never in dead languages and +theology. One of the oldest of the English prelates, the +Archbishop of Canterbury, recently stated to a newspaper reporter +that he worked seventeen hours a day, and had no time to form an +opinion on the labor question. + +And now--here is the crux of the argument--do these aged +gentlemen rule of their own power? They do not! They do literally +nothing of their own power; they could not make their own +episcopal robes, they could not even cook their own episcopal +dinners. They have to be maintained in all their comings and +goings. Who supports them, and to what end? + +The roots of the English Church are in the English land system, +which is one of the infamies of the modern world. It dates from +the days of William the Norman, who took possession of Britain +with his sword, and in order to keep possession for himself and +his heirs, distributed the land among his nobles and prelates. In +those days, you understand, a high ecclesiastic was a man of war, +who did not stoop to veil his predatory nature under pretense of +philanthropy; the abbots and archbishops, of William wore armor +and had their troops of knights like the barons and the dukes. +William gave them vast tracts, and at the same time he gave them +orders which they obeyed. Says the English chronicler, "Stark he +was. Bishops he stripped of their bishopricks, abbots of their +abbacies". Green tells us that "the dependencie of the church on +the royal power was strictly enforced. Homage was exacted from +bishop as from baron." And what was this homage? The bishop knelt +before William, bareheaded and without arms, and swore: "Hear my +lord, I become liege man of yours for life and limb and earthly +regard, and I will keep faith and loyalty to you for life and +death, God help me." + +The lands which the church got from William the Norman, she has +held, and always on the same condition--that she shall be "liege +man for life and limb and earthly regard". In this you have the +whole story of the church of England, in the twentieth century as +in the eleventh. The balance of power has shifted from time to +time; old families have lost the land and new families have +gotten it; but the loyalty and homage of the church have been +held by the land, as the needle of the compass is held by a mass +of metal. Some two hundred and fifty years ago a popular song +gave the general impression-- + + For this is law that I'll maintain + Until my dying day, sir: + That whatsoever king shall reign + I'll still be vicar of Bray, sir! + +So, wherever you take the Anglican clergy, they are Tories and +Royalists, conservatives and reactionaries, friends of every +injustice that profits the owning class. And always among +themselves you find them intriguing and squabbling over the +dividing of the spoils; always you find them enjoying leisure and +ease, while the people suffer and the rebels complain. One can +pass down the corridor of English history and prove this +statement by the words of Englishmen from every single +generation. Take the fourteenth century; the "Good Parliament" +declares that + +Unworthy and unlearned caitiffs are appointed to benefices of a +thousand marks, while the poor and learned hardly obtain one of +twenty. God gave the sheep to be pastured, not to be shaven and +shorn. + +And a little later comes the poet of the people, Piers Plowman-- + + But now is Religion a rider, a roamer through the streets, A +leader at the love-day, a buyer of the land, Pricking on a +palfrey from manor to manor, A heap of hounds at his back, as +tho he were a lord; And if his servant kneel not when he brings +his cup, He loureth on him asking who taught him courtesy. +Badly have lords done to give their heirs' lands Away to the +Orders that have no pity; Money rains upon their altars. There +where such parsons be living at ease They have no pity on the +poor; that is their "charity". Ye hold you as lords; your lands +are too broad, But there shall come a king and he shall shrive +you all And beat you as the bible saith for breaking of your +Rule. + +Another step through history, and in the early part of the +sixteenth century here is Simon Fish, addressing King Henry the +Eighth, in the "Supplicacyon for the Beggars", complaining of the +"strong, puissant and counterfeit holy and ydell" which "are now +increased under your sight, not only into a great nombre, but +ynto a kingdome." + +They have begged so importunatly that they have gotten ynto their +hondes more than a therd part of all youre Realme. The goodliest +lordshippes, maners, londes, and territories, are theyres. +Besides this, they have the tenth part of all the come, medowe, +pasture, grasse, wolle, coltes, calves, lambes, pigges, gese and +chikens. Ye, and they looke so narowly uppon theyre proufittes, +that the poore wyves must be countable to thym of every tenth eg, +or elles she gettith not her rytes at ester, shal be taken as an +heretike. . . . Is it any merveille that youre people so +compleine of povertie? The Turke nowe, in your tyme, shulde never +be abill to get so moche grounde of christendome . . . And whate +do al these gredy sort of sturdy, idell, holy theves? These be +they that have made an hundredth thousand idell hores in your +realme. These be they that catche the pokkes of one woman, and +here them to an other. + +The petitioner goes on to tell how they steal wives and all their +goods with them, and if any man protest they make him a heretic, +"so that it maketh him wisshe that he had not done it". Also they +take fortunes for masses and then don't say them. "If the Abbot +of westminster shulde sing every day as many masses for his +founders as he is bounde to do by his foundacion, 1000 monkes +were too few." The petitioner suggests that the king shall "tie +these holy idell theves to the cartes, to be whipped naked about +every market towne till they will fall to laboure!" + + +Church History + +King Henry did not follow this suggestion precisely, but he took +away the property of the religious orders for the expenses of his +many wives and mistresses, and forced the clergy in England to +forswear obedience to the Pope and make his royal self their +spiritual head. This was the beginning of the Anglican Church, as +distinguished from the Catholic; a beginning of which the +Anglican clergy are not so proud as they would like to be. When I +was a boy, they taught me what they called "church history", and +when they came to Henry the Eighth they used him as an +illustration of the fact that the Lord is sometimes wont to +choose evil men to carry out His righteous purposes. They did not +explain why the Lord should do this confusing thing, nor just how +you were to know, when you saw something being done by a +murderous adulterer, whether it was the will of the Lord or of +Satan; nor did they go into details as to the motives which the +Lord had been at pains to provide, so as to induce his royal +agent to found the Anglican Church. For such details you have to +consult another set of authorities--the victims of the +plundering. + +When I was in college my professor of Latin was a gentleman with +bushy brown whiskers and a thundering voice of which I was often +the object--for even in those early days I had the habit of +persisting in embarrassing questions. This professor was a devout +Catholic, and not even in dealing with ancient Romans could he +restrain his propaganda impulses. Later on in life he became +editor of the "Catholic Encyclopedia", and now when I turn its +pages, I imagine that I see the bushy brown whiskers, and hear +the thundering voice: "Mr. Sinclair, it is so because I tell you +it is so!" + +I investigate, and find that my ex-professor knows all about King +Henry the Eighth, and his motives in founding the Church of +England; he is ready with an "economic interpretation", as +complete as the most rabid muckraker could desire! It appears +that the king wanted a new wife, and demanded that the Pope +should grant the necessary permission; in his efforts to browbeat +the Pope into such betrayal of duty, King Henry threatened the +withdrawal of the "annates" and the "Peter's pence". Later on he +forced the clergy to declare that the Pope was "only a foreign +bishop", and in order to "stamp out overt expression of +disaffection, he embarked upon a veritable reign of terror". + +In Anglican histories, you are assured that all this was a work +of religious reform, and that after it the Church was the pure +vehicle of God's grace. There were no more "holy idell theves", +holding the land of England and plundering the poor. But get to +know the clergy, and see things from the inside, and you will +meet some one like the Archbishop of Cashell, who wrote to one of +his intimates: + +I conclude that a good bishop has nothing more to do than to eat, +drink and grow fat, rich and die; which laudable example I +propose for the remainder of my days to follow. + +If you say that might be a casual jest, hear what Thackeray +reports of that period, the eighteenth century, which he knew +with peculiar intimacy: + +I read that Lady Yarmouth (my most religious and gracious King's +favorite) sold a bishopric to a clergyman for 5000 pounds. (She +betted him the 5000 pounds that he would not be made a bishop, +and he lost, and paid her.) Was he the only prelate of his time +led up by such hands for consecration? As I peep into George II's +St. James, I see crowds of cassocks pushing up the back-stairs of +the ladies of the court; stealthy clergy slipping purses into +their laps; that godless old king yawning under his canopy in his +Chapel Royal, as the chaplain before him is discoursing. +Discoursing about what?--About righteousness and judgment? Whilst +the chaplain is preaching, the king is chattering in German and +almost as loud as the preacher; so loud that the clergyman +actually burst out crying in his pulpit, because the defender of +the faith and the dispenser of bishoprics would not listen to +him! + + +Land and Livings + +And how is it in the twentieth century? Have conditions been much +improved? There are great Englishmen who do not think so. I quote +Robert Buchanan, a poet who spoke for the people, and who +therefore has still to be recognized by English critics. He +writes of the "New Rome", by which he means present-day England: + + The gods are dead, but in their name + Humanity is sold to shame, + While (then as now!) the tinsel'd priest + Sitteth with robbers at the feast, + Blesses the laden, blood-stained board, + Weaves garlands round the butcher's sword, + And poureth freely (now as then) + The sacramental blood of Men! + +You see, the land system of England remains--the changes having +been for the worse. William the Conqueror wanted to keep the +Saxon peasantry contented, so he left them their "commons"; but +in the eighteenth century these were nearly all filched away. We +saw the same thing done within the last generation in Mexico, and +from the same motive--because developing capitalism needs cheap +labor, whereas people who have access to the land will not slave +in mills and mines. In England, from the time of Queen Anne to +that of William and Mary, the parliaments of the landlords passed +some four thousand separate acts, whereby more than seven million +acres of the common land were stolen from the people. It has been +calculated that these acres might have supported a million +families; and ever since then England has had to feed a million +paupers all the time. + +As an old song puts the matter: + + Why prosecute the man or woman + Who steals a goose from off the common, + And let the greater felon loose + Who steals the common from the goose? + +In our day the land aristocracy is rooted like the native oak in +British soil: some of them direct descendants of the Normans, +others children of the court favorites and panders who grew rich +in the days of the Tudors and the unspeakable Stuarts. Seven men +own practically all the land of the city and county of London, +and collect tribute from seven millions of people. The estates +are entailed--that is, handed down from father to oldest son +automatically; you cannot buy any land, but if you want to build, +the landlord gives you a lease, and when the lease is up, he +takes possession of your buildings. The tribute which London pays +is more than a hundred million dollars a year. So absolute is the +right of the land-owner that he can sue for trespass the driver +on an aeroplane which flies over him; he imposes on fishermen a +tax upon catches made many hundred of yards from the shore. + +And in this graft, of course, the church has its share. Each +church owns land--not merely that upon which it stands, but farms +and city lots from which it derives income. Each cathedral owns +large tracts; so do the schools and universities in which the +clergy are educated. The income from the holdings of a church +constitutes what is called a "living"; these livings, which vary +in size, are the prerogatives of the younger sons of the ruling +families, and are intrigued and scrambled for in exactly the +fashion which Thackeray describes in the eighteenth century. + +About six thousand of these "livings" are in the gift of great +land owners; one noble lord alone disposes of fifty-six such +plums; and needless to say, he does not present them to clergymen +who favor radical land-taxes. He gives them to men like +himself--autocratic to the poor, easy-going to members of his own +class, and cynical concerning the grafts of grace. + +In one English village which I visited the living was worth seven +hundred pounds, with the use of a fine mansion; as the incumbent +had a large family, he lived there. In another place the living +was worth a thousand pounds, and the incumbent hired a curate, +himself appearing twice a year, on Christmas day and on the +King's birthday, to preach a sermon; the rest of the time he +spent in Paris. It is worth noting that in 1808 a law was +proposed compelling absentee pluralists--that is, clergymen +holding more than one "living"--to furnish curates to do their +work; it might be interesting to note that this law met with +strenuous clerical opposition, the house of Bishops voting +against it without a division. Thus we may understand the sharp +saying of Karl Marx, that the English clergy would rather part +with thirty-eight of their thirty-nine articles than with one +thirty-ninth of their income. + +There is always a plentiful supply of curates in England. They +are the sons of the less influential ruling families, and of the +clergy; they have been trained at Oxford or Cambridge, and +possess the one essential qualification, that they are gentlemen. +Their average price is two hundred and fifty pounds a year; their +function was made clear to me when I attended my first English +tea-party. There was a wicker table, perhaps a foot and a half +square, having three shelves, one below the other the top layer +the plates and napkins, on the next the muffins, and on the +lowest the cake. Said the hostess, "Will you pass the curate, +please?" I looked puzzled, and she pointed. "We call that the +curate, because it does the work of a curate." + + +Graft in Tail + +As one of America's head muck-rakers, I found that I was popular +with the British ruling classes; they found my books useful in +their campaigns against democracy, and they were surprised and +disconcerted when they found I did not agree with their +interpretation of my writings. I had told of corruption in +American politics; surely I must know that in England they had no +such evils! I explained that they did not have to; their graft, +to use their own legal phrase, was "in tail"; the grafters had, +as a matter of divine right, the things which in America they had +to buy. In America, for instance, we had a Senate, a +"Millionaire's Club", for admission to which the members paid in +cash; but in England the same men came to the same position as +their birth-right. Political corruption is not an end in itself, +it is merely a means to exploitation; and of exploitation England +has even more than America. When I explained this, my popularity +with the British ruling classes vanished quickly. + +As a matter of fact, England is more like America than she +realizes; her British reticence has kept her ignorant about +herself. I could not carry on my business in England, because of +the libel laws, which have as their first principle "the greater +the truth, the greater the libel". Englishmen read with +satisfaction what I write about America; but if I should turn my +attention to their own country, they would send me to jail as +they sent Frank Harris. The fact is that the new men in England, +the lords of coal and iron and shipping and beer, have bought +their way into the landed aristocracy for cash, just as our +American senators have done; they have bought the political +parties with campaign gifts, precisely as in America; they have +taken over the press, whether by outright purchase like +Northcliffe, or by advertising subsidy--both of which methods we +Americans know. Within the last decade or two another group has +been coming into control; and not merely is this the same class +of men as in America, it frequently consists of the same +individuals. These are the big money-lenders, the international +financiers who are the fine and final flower of the capitalist +system. These gentlemen make the world their home--or, as +Shakespeare puts it, their oyster. They know how to fit +themselves to all environments; they are Catholics in Rome and +Vienna, country gentlemen in London, bons vivants in Paris, +democrats in Chicago, Socialists in Petrograd, and Hebrews +wherever they are. + +And of course, in buying the English government, these new +classes have bought the English Church. Skeptics and men of the +world as they are, they know that they must have a Religion. They +have read the story of the French revolution, and the shadow of +the guillotine is always over their thoughts; they see the giant +of labor, restless in his torment, groping as in a nightmare for +the throat of his enemy. Who can blind the eyes of this giant, +who can chain him to his couch of slumber? There is but one +agent, without rival--the Keeper of the Holy Secrets, the Deputy +of the Almighty Awfulness, the Giver and Withholder of Eternal +Life. Tremble, slave! Fall down and bow your forehead in the +dust! I can see in my memory the sight that thrilled my +childhood--my grim old Bishop, clad in his gorgeous ceremonial +robes, stretching out his hands over the head of the new priest, +and pronouncing that most deadly of all the Christian curses: + +"Whose sins thou dost forgive, they are forgiven; and whose sins +thou dost retain, they are retained!" + + +Bishops and Beer + +For example, the International Shylocks wanted the diamond mines +of South Africa--wanted them more firmly governed and less firmly +taxed than could be arranged with the Old Man of the Boers. So +the armies of England were sent to subjugate the country. You +might think they would have had the good taste to leave the lowly +Jesus out of this affair--but if so, you have missed the +essential point about established religion. The bishops, priests, +and deacons are set up for the populace to revere, and when the +robber-classes need a blessing upon some enterprise, then is the +opportunity for the bishops, priests and deacons to earn their +"living." During the Boer war the blood-lust of the English +clergy was so extreme that writers in the dignified monthly +reviews felt moved to protest against it. When the pastors of +Switzerland issued a collective protest against cruelties to +women and children in the South African concentration-camps, it +was the Right Reverend Bishop of Winchester who was brought +forward to make reply. Nowadays all England is reading Bernhardi, +and shuddering at Prussian glorification of war; but no one +mentions Bishop Welldon of Calcutta, who advocated the Boer war +as a means of keeping the nation "virile"; nor Archbishop +Alexander, who said that it was God's way of making "noble +natures". + +The British God had other ways of improving nations--for example, +the opium traffic. The British traders had been raising the poppy +in India and selling its juice to the Chinese. They had made +perhaps a hundred million "noble natures" by this method; and +also they were making a hundred million dollars a year. The +Chinese, moved by their new "virility," undertook to destroy some +opium, and to stop the traffic; whereupon it was necessary to use +British battle-ships to punish and subdue them. Was there any +difficulty in persuading the established church of Jesus to bless +this holy war? There was not! Lord Shaftesbury, himself the most +devout of Anglicans, commented with horror upon the attitude of +the clergy, and wrote in his diary: + +I rejoice that this cruel and debasing opium war is terminated. +We have triumphed in one of the most lawless, unnecessary, and +unfair struggles in the records of history; and Christians have +shed more heathen blood in two years, than the heathens have shed +of Christian blood in two centuries. + +That was in 1843; for seventy years thereafter pious England +continued to force the opium traffic upon protesting China, and +only in the last two or three years has the infamy been brought +to an end. Throughout the long controversy the attitude of the +church was such that Li Hung Chang was moved to assert in a +letter to the Anti-Opium Society: + +Opium is a subject in the discussion of which England and China +can never meet on a common ground. China views the whole question +from a moral standpoint, England from a fiscal. + +And just as the Chinese people were poisoned with opium, so the +English people are being poisoned with alcohol. Both in town and +country, labor is sodden with it. Scientists and reformers are +clamoring for restriction--and what prevents? Head and front of +the opposition for a century, standing like a rock, has been the +Established Church. The Rev. Dawson Burns, historian of the early +temperance movement, declares that "among its supporters I cannot +recall one Church of England minister of influence." When Asquith +brought in his bill for the restriction of the traffic in beer, +he was confronted with petitions signed by members of the clergy, +protesting against the act. And what was the basis of their +protest? That beer is a food and not a poison? Yes, of course; +but also that there was property invested in brewing it, Three +hundred and thirty-two clergy of the diocese of Peterborough +declared: + +We do strongly protest against the main provisions of the present +bill as creating amongst our people a sense of grave injustice as +amounting to a confiscation of private property, spelling ruin +for thousands of quite innocent people, and provoking deep and +widespread resentment, which must do harm to our cause and hinder +our aims. + +I have come upon references to another and even more plainspoken +petition, signed by 1,280 clergymen; but war-time facilities for +research have not enabled me to find the text. In Prof. Henry C. +Vedder's "Jesus Christ and the Social Question," we read: + +It was authoritatively stated a short time ago that Mr. Asquith's +temperance bill was defeated in Parliament through the opposition +of clergymen who had invested their savings in brewery stock, the +profits of which might have been lessened by the bill. + +Also the power of the clergy, combined with the brewer, was +sufficient to put through Parliament a provision that no +prohibition legislation should ever be passed without providing +for compensation to the owners of the industry. Today, all over +America, appeals are being made to the people to eat less grain; +the grain is being shipped to England, some of it to be made into +beer; and a high Anglican prelate, his Grace the Archbishop of +York, comes to America to urge us to increased sacrifices, and in +his first newspaper interview takes occasion to declare that his +church is not in favor of prohibition as a measure of war-time +economy! + + +Anglicanism and Alcohol + +This partnership of Bishops and Beer is painfully familiar to +British radicals; they see it at work in every election--the +publican confusing the voters with spirits, while the parson +confuses them with spirituality. There are two powerful societies +in England employing this deadly combination--the "Anti-Socialist +Union" and the "Liberty and Property Defense League." If you scan +the lists of the organizers, directors and subsidizers of these +satanic institutions, you find Tory politicians and landlords, +prominent members of the higher clergy, and large-scale dealers +in drunkenness. I attended in London a meeting called by the +"Liberty and Property Defense League," to listen to a +denunciation of Socialism by W. H. Mallock, a master sophist of +Roman Catholicism; upon the platform were a bishop and half a +dozen members of the Anglican clergy, together with the secretary +of the Federated Brewers' Association, the Secretary of the Wine, +Spirit, and Beer Trade Association, and three or four other +alcoholic magnates. + +In every public library in England and many in America you will +find an assortment of pamphlets published by these organizations, +and scholarly volumes endorsed by them, in which the stock +misrepresentations of Socialism are perpetuated. Some of these +writings are brutal--setting forth the ethics of exploitation in +the manner of the Rev. Thomas Malthus, the English clergyman who +supplied for capitalist depredation a basis in pretended natural +science. Said this shepherd of Jesus: + +A man who is born into a world already possessed, if he cannot +get subsistence from his parents, and if society does not want +his labor, has no claim of right to the smallest portion of food, +and in fact has no business to be where he is. At Nature's mighty +feast there is no cover for him. She tells him to be gone, and +will quickly execute her own orders. + +Such was the tone of the ruling classes in the nineteenth +century; but it was found that for some reason this failed to +stop the growth of Socialism, and so in our time the clerical +defenders of Privilege have grown subtle and insinuating. They +inform us now that they have a deep sympathy with our fundamental +purposes; they burn with pity for the poor, and they would really +and truly wish happiness to everyone, not merely in Heaven, but +right here and now. However, there are so many complications--and +so they proceed to set out all the anti-Socialist bug-a-boos. +Here for example, is the Rev. James Stalker, D. D., expounding +"The Ethics of Jesus," and admonishing us extremists: + +Efforts to transfer money and property from one set of hands to +another may be inspired by the same passions as have blinded the +present holders to their own highest good, and may be accompanied +with injustice as extreme as has ever been manifested by the rich +and powerful. + +And again, the Rev. W. Sanday, D. D., an especially popular +clerical author, gives us this sublime utterance of religion on +wage-slavery: + +The world is full of mysteries, but some clear lines run through +them, of which this is one. Where God has been so patient, it is +not for us to be impatient. + +And again, Professor Robert Flint, of Edinburgh University, a +clergyman, author of a big book attacking Socialism, and bringing +us back to the faith of our fathers: + +The great bulk of human misery is due, not to social +arrangements, but to personal vices. + +I study Professor Flint's volume in the effort to find just what, +if anything, he would have the church do about the evils of our +time. I find him praising the sermons of Dr. Westcott, Bishop of +Durham, as being the proper sort for clergymen to preach. Bishop +Westcott, whether he is talking to a high society congregation, +or to one of workingmen, shows "an exquisite sense of knowing +always where to stop." So I consulted the Bishop's volume, "The +Social Aspects of Christianity" and I see at once why he is +popular with the anti-Socialist propagandists--neither I or any +other man can possibly discover what he really means, or what he +really wants done. + +I was fascinated by this Westcott problem; I thought maybe if I +kept on the good Bishop's trail, I might in the end find +something a plain man could understand; so I got the beautiful +two-volume "Life of Brooke Westcott, by his Son"--and there I +found an exposition of the social purposes of bishops! In the +year 1892 there was a strike in Durham, which is in the coal +country; the employers tried to make a cut in wages, and some ten +thousand men walked out, and there was a long and bitter +struggle, which wrung the episcopal heart. There was much +consultation and correspondence on episcopal stationery, and at +last the masters and men were got together, with the Bishop as +arbitrator, and the dispute was triumphantly settled--how do you +suppose? On the basis of a ten per cent reduction in wages! + +I know nothing quainter in the history of English graft than the +naivete with which the Bishop's biographer and son tells the +story of this episcopal venture into reality. The prelate came +out from the conference "all smiles, and well satisfied with the +result of his day's work." As for his followers, they were in +ecstacies; they "seized and waltzed one another around on the +carriage drive as madly as ever we danced at a flower show ball. +Hats and caps are thrown into the air, and we cheer ourselves +hoarse." The Bishop proceeds to his palace, and sends one more +communication on episcopal stationery--an order to all his clergy +to "offer their humble and hearty thanks to God for our happy +deliverance from the strife by which the diocese has been long +afflicted." Strange to say, there were a few varlets in Durham +who did not appreciate the services of the bold Bishop, and one +of them wrote and circulated some abusive verses, in which he +made reference to the Bishop's comfortable way of life. The +biographer then explains that the Bishop was so tender-hearted +that he suffered for the horses who drew his episcopal coach, and +so ascetic that he would have lived on tea and toast if he had +been permitted to. A curious condition in English society, where +the Bishop would have lived on tea and toast, but was not +permitted to; while the working people, who didn't want to live +on tea and toast, were compelled to! + + +Dead Cats + +For more than a hundred years the Anglican clergy have been +fighting with every resource at their command the liberal and +enlightened men of England who wished to educate the masses of +the people. In 1807 the first measure for a national +school-system was denounced by the Archbishop of Canterbury as +"derogatory to the authority of the Church." As a counter- +measure, his supporters established the "National Society for +Promoting the Education of the Poor in the Doctrines of the +Established Church"; and the founder of the organization, a +clergyman, advocated a barn as a good structure for a school, and +insisted that the children of the workers "should not be taught +beyond their station." In 1840 a Committee of the Privy Council +of Education was appointed, but bowed to the will of the +Archbishops, setting forth the decree of "their lordships" that +"the first purpose of all instruction must be the regulation of +the thoughts and habits of the children by the doctrine and +precepts of revealed religion." In 1850 a bill for secular +education was denounced as presenting to the country "a choice +between Heaven or Hell, God or the Devil." In 1870, Forster, +author of the still unpassed bill, wrote that while the parsons +were disputing, the children of the poor were "growing into +savages." + +As with Education, so with Social Reform. During the struggle to +abolish slavery in the British colonies, some enthusiasts +endeavored to establish the doctrine that Christian baptism +conferred emancipation upon negroes who accepted it; whereupon +the Bishop of London laid down the formula of exploitation: +"Christianity and the embracing of the gospel do not make the +least alteration of civil property." + +Gladstone, who was a democrat when he was not religious, spoke of +the cultured classes of England: + +In almost every one, if not every one, of the greatest political +controversies of the last fifty years, whether they affected the +franchise, whether they affected commerce, whether they affected +religion, whether they affected the bad and abominable +institution of slavery, or what subject they touched, these +leisured classes, these educated classes, these titled classes +have been in the wrong. + +The "Great Commoner" did not add "these religious classes," for +he belonged to the religious classes himself; but a study of the +record will supply the gap. The Church opposed all the reform +measures which Gladstone himself put through. It opposed the +Reform Bill of 1832. It opposed all the social reforms of Lord +Shaftesbury. This noble-hearted Englishman complained that at +first only a single minister of religion supported him, and to +the end only a few. He expressed himself as distressed and +puzzled "to find support from infidels and non-professors; +opposition or coldness from religionists or declaimers." + +And to our own day it has been the same. In 1894 the House of +Bishops voted solidly against the Employers' Liability Law. The +House of Bishops opposed Home Rule, and beat it; the House of +Bishops opposed Womans' Suffrage, and voted against it to the +end. Concerning this establishment Lord Shaftesbury, himself the +most devout of Englishmen, used the vivid phrase: "this vast +aquarium full of cold-blooded life." He told the Bishops that he +would give up preaching to them about ecclesiastical reform, +because he knew that they would never begin. Another member of +the British aristocracy, the Hon. Geo. Russell, has written of +their record and adventures: + +They were defenders of absolutism, slavery, and the bloody penal +code; they were the resolute opponents of every political or +social reform; and they had their reward from the nation outside +Parliament. The Bishop of Bristol had his palace sacked and +burnt; the Bishop of London could not keep an engagement to +preach lest the congregation should stone him. The Bishop of +Litchfield barely escaped with his life after preaching at St. +Bride's, Fleet Street. Archbishop Howley, entering Canterbury for +his primary visitation, was insulted, spat upon, and only brought +by a circuitous route to the Deanery, amid the execrations of the +mob. On the 5th of November the Bishops of Exeter and Winchester +were burnt in effigy close to their own palace gates. Archbishop +Howley's chaplain complained that a dead cat had been thrown at +him, when the Archbishop--a man of apostolic meekness--replied: +"You should be thankful that it was not a live one." + +The people had reason for this conduct--as you will always find +they have, if you take the trouble to inquire. Let me quote +another member of the English ruling classes, Mr. Conrad Noel, +who gives "an instance of the procedure of Church and State about +this period": + +In 1832 six agricultural labourers in South Dorsetshire, led by +one of their class, George Loveless, in receipt of 9s. a week +each, demanded the 10s. rate of wages usual in the neighbourhood. +The result was a reduction to 8s. An appeal was made to the +chairman of the local bench, who decided that they must work for +whatever their masters chose to pay them. The parson, who had at +first promised his help, now turned against them, and the masters +promptly reduced the wage to 7s., with a threat of further +reduction. Loveless then formed an agricultural union, for which +all seven were arrested, treated as convicts, and committed to +the assizes. The prison chaplain tried to bully them into +submission. The judge determined to convict them, and directed +that they should be tried for mutiny under an act of George III, +specially passed to deal with the naval mutiny at the Nore. The +grand jury were landowners, and the petty jury were farmers; both +judge and jury were churchmen of the prevailing type. The judge +summed up as follows: "Not for anything that you have done, or +that I can prove that you intend to do, but for an example to +others I consider it my duty to pass the sentence of seven years' +penal transportation across His Majesty's high seas upon each and +every one of you." + + +Suffer Little Children + +The founder of Christianity was a man who specialized in +children. He was not afraid of having His discourses disturbed by +them, He did not consider them superfluous. "Of such is the +Kingdom of Heaven", He said; and His Church is the inheritor of +this tradition--"feed my lambs". There were children in Great +Britain in the early part of the nineteenth century, and we may +see what was done with them by turning to Gibbin's "Industrial +History of England": + +Sometimes regular traffickers would take the place of the +manufacturer, and transfer a number of children to a factory +district, and there keep them, generally in some dark cellar, +till they could hand them over to a mill owner in want of hands, +who would come and examine their height, strength, and bodily +capacities, exactly as did the slave owners in the American +markets. After that the children were simply at the mercy of +their owners, nominally as apprentices, but in reality as mere +slaves, who got no wages, and whom it was not worth while even to +feed and clothe properly, because they were so cheap and their +places could be so easily supplied. It was often arranged by the +parish authorities, in order to get rid of imbeciles, that one +idiot should be taken by the mill owner with every twenty sane +children. The fate of these unhappy idiots was even worse than +that of the others. The secret of their final end has never been +disclosed, but we can form some idea of their awful sufferings +from the hardships of the other victims to capitalist greed and +cruelty. The hours of their labor were only limited by +exhaustion, after many modes of torture had been unavailingly +applied to force continued work. Children were often worked +sixteen hours a day, by day and by night. + +In the year 1819 an act of Parliament was proposed limiting the +labor of children nine years of age to four-teen hours a day. +This would seem to have been a reasonable provision, likely to +have won the approval of Christ; yet the bill was violently +opposed by Christian employers, backed by Christian clergymen. It +was interfering with freedom of contract, and therefore with the +will of Providence; it was anathema to an established Church, +whose function was in 1819, as it is in 1918, and was in 1918 B. +C., to teach the divine origin and sanction of the prevailing +economic order. "Anu and Baal called me, Hammurabi, the exalted +prince, worshipper of the gods".... so begins the oldest legal +code which has come down to us, from 2250 B. C.; and the +coronation service of the English church is made whole out of the +same thesis. The duty of submission, not merely to divinely +chosen King, but to divinely chosen Landlord and divinely chosen +Manufacturer, is implicit in the church's every ceremony, and +explicit in many of its creeds. In the Litany the people petition +for increase of grace to hear meekly "Thy Word"; and here is this +"Word," as little children are made to learn it by heart. If +there exists in the world a more perfect summary of slave ethics, +I do not know where to find it. + +My duty towards my neighbour is..... + To honour and obey the King, and all that are put in authority +under him; + To submit myself to all my governours, teachers, spiritual +pastors, and masters: + To order myself lowly and reverently to all my betters .... + Not to covet nor desire other men's goods; + But to learn and labour truly to get mine own living, and to do +my duty in that state of life, unto which it shall please God to +call me. + +A hundred years ago one of the most popular of British writers +was Hannah More. She and her sister Martha went to live in the +coal-country, to teach this "catechism" to the children of the +starving miners. The "Mendip Annals" is the title of a book in +which they tell of their ten years' labors in a village popularly +known as "Little Hell." In this place two hundred people were +crowded into nineteen houses. "There is not one creature in it +that can give a cup of broth if it would save a life." In one +winter eighteen perished of "a putrid fever", and the clergyman +"could not raise a sixpence to save a life." + +And what did the pious sisters make of all this? From cover to +cover you find in the "Mendip Annals" no single word of social +protest, not even of social suspicion. That wages of a shilling a +day might have anything to do with moral degeneration was a +proposition beyond the mental powers of England's most popular +woman writer. She was perfectly content that a woman should be +sentenced to death for stealing butter from a dealer who had +asked what the woman thought too high a price. When there came a +famine, and the children of these mine-slaves were dying like +flies, Hannah More bade them be happy because God had sent them +her pious self. "In suffering by the scarcity, you have but +shared in the common lot, with the pleasure of knowing the +advantage you have had over many villages in your having suffered +no scarcity of religious instruction." And in another place she +explained that the famine was caused by God to teach the poor to +be grateful to the rich! + +Let me remind you that probably that very scarcity has been +permitted by an all-wise and gracious Providence to unite all +ranks of people together, to show the poor how immediately they +are dependent upon the rich, and to show both rich and poor that +they are all dependent upon Himself. It has also enabled you to +see more clearly the advantages you derive from the government +and constitution of this country--to observe the benefits flowing +from the distinction of rank and fortune, which has enabled the +high to so liberally assist the low. + +It appears that the villagers were entirely convinced by this +pious reasoning; for they assembled one Saturday night and burned +an effigy of Tom Paine! This proceeding led to a tragic +consequence, for one of the "common people," known as Robert, +"was overtaken by liquor," and was unable to appear at Sunday +School next day. This fall from grace occasioned intense remorse +in Robert. "It preyed dreadfully upon his mind for many months," +records Martha More, "and despair seemed at length to take +possession of him." Hannah had some conversation with him, and +read him some suitable passages from "The Rise and Progress". "At +length the Almighty was pleased to shine into his heart and give +him comfort." + +Nor should you imagine that this saintly stupidity was in any way +unique in the Anglican establishment. We read in the letters of +Shelley how his father tormented him with Archdeacon Paley's +"Evidences" as a cure for atheism. This eminent churchman wrote a +book, which he himself ranked first among his writings, called +"Reasons for Contentment, addressed to the Labouring Classes of +the British Public." In this book he not merely proved that +religion "smooths all inequalities, because it unfolds a prospect +which makes all earthly distinctions nothing"; he went so far as +to prove that, quite apart from religion, the British exploiters +were less fortunate than those to whom they paid a shilling a +day. + +Some of the conditions which poverty (if the condition of the +labouring part of mankind must be so called) imposes, are not +hardships, but pleasures. Frugality itself is a pleasure. It is +an exercise of attention and contrivance, which, whenever it is +successful, produces satisfaction..... This is lost among +abundance. + +And there was William Wilberforce, as sincere a philanthropist as +Anglicanism ever produced, an ardent supporter of Bible societies +and foreign missions, a champion of the anti-slavery movement, +and also of the ruthless "Combination Laws," which denied to +British wage-slaves all chance of bettering their lot. +Wilberforce published a "Practical View of the System of +Christianity", in which he told unblushingly what the Anglican +establishment is for. In a chapter which he described as "the +basis of all politics," he explained that the purpose of religion +is to remind the poor: + +That their more lowly path has been allotted to them by the hand +of God; that it is their part faithfully to discharge its duties, +and contentedly to bear its inconveniences; that the objects +about which worldly men conflict so eagerly are not worth the +contest; that the peace of mind, which Religion offers +indiscriminately to all ranks, affords more true satisfaction +than all the expensive pleasures which are beyond the poor man's +reach; that in this view the poor have the advantage; that if +their superiors enjoy more abundant comforts, they are also +exposed to many temptations from which the inferior classes are +happily extempted; that, "having food and raiment, they should be +therewith content," since their situation in life, with all its +evils, is better than they have deserved at the hand of God; and +finally, that all human distinctions will soon be done away, and +the true followers of Christ will all, as children of the same +Father, be alike admitted to the possession of the same heavenly +inheritance. Such are the blessed effects of Christianity on the +temporal well-being of political communities. + +The Court Circular + +The Anglican system of submission has been transplanted intact to +the soil of America. When King George the Third lost the +sovereignty of the colonies, the bishops of his divinely inspired +church lost the control of the clergy across the seas; but this +revolution was purely one of Church politics--in doctrine and +ritual the "Protestant Episcopal Church of America" remained in +every way Anglican. The little children of our free republic are +taught the same slave-catechism, "to order myself lowly and +reverently to all my betters." The only difference is that +instead of being told "to honour and obey the King," they are +told "to honour and obey the civil authority." + +It is the Church of Good Society in England, and it is the same +in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, +Charleston. Just as our ruling classes have provided themselves +with imitation English schools and imitation English manners and +imitation English clothes--so in their Heaven they have provided +an imitation English monarch. I wonder how many Americans realize +the treason to democracy they are committing when they allow +their children to be taught a symbolism and liturgy based upon +absolutist ideas. I take up the hymn-book--not the English, but +the sturdy, independent, democratic American hymn-book. I have +not opened it for twenty years, yet the greater part of its +contents is as familiar to me as the syllables of my own name. I +read: + + Holy, holy, holy! All the saints adore Thee, Casting down their +golden crowns around the glassy sea; Cherubim and seraphim +bowing down before Thee, Which wert, and art, and ever more +shall be! + +One might quote a hundred other hymns made thus out of royal +imagery. I turn at random to the part headed "General," and find +that there is hardly one hymn in which there is not "king ... .. +throne," or some image of homage and flattery. The first hymn +begins-- + + Ancient of days, Who sittest, throned in glory; + To Thee all knees are bent, all voices pray. + +And the second-- + + Christ, whose glory fills the skies--- + +And the third-- + + Lord of all being, throned afar, + Thy glory flames from sun and star. + +There is a court in Heaven above, to which all good Britons look +up, and about which they read with exactly the same thrills as +they read the Court Circular. The two courts have the same +ethical code and the same manners; their Sovereigns are jealous, +greedy of attention, self-conscious and profoundly serious, +punctilious and precise; their existence consisting of an endless +round of ceremonies, and they being incapable of boredom. No +member of the Royal Family can escape this regime even if he +wishes; and no more can any member of the Holy Family--not even +the meek and lowly Jesus, who chose a carpenter's wife for his +mother, and showed all his earthly days a preference for low +society. + +This unconventional Son lived obscurely; he never carried +weapons, he could not bear to have so much as a human ear cut off +in his presence. But see how he figures in the Court Circular: + + The Son of God goes forth to war, + A kingly crown to gain: + His blood-red banner streams afar: + Who follows in His train? + +This carpenter's son was one of the most unpretentious men on +earth; utterly simple and honest--he would not even let anyone +praise him. When some one called him "good Master," he answered, +quickly, "Why callest thou me good? There is none good save one, +that is, God." But this simplicity has been taken with +deprecation by his church, which persists in heaping compliments +upon him in conventional, courtly style: + + The company of angels + Are praising Thee on high; + And mortal men, and all things + Created, make reply: All Glory, laud and honour, + To Thee, Redeemer, King. . . . . + +The impression a modern man gets from all this is the unutterable +boredom that Heaven must be. Can one imagine a more painful +occupation than that of the saints--casting down their golden +crowns around the glassy sea--unless it be that of the +Triumvirate itself, compelled to sit through eternity watching +these saints, and listening to their mawkish and superfluous +compliments! + +But one can understand that such things are necessary in a +monarchy; they are necessary if you are going to have Good +Society, and a Good Society church. For Good Society is precisely +the same thing as Heaven; that is, a place to which only a few +can get admission, and those few are bored. They spend their time +going through costly formalities--not because they enjoy it, but +because of its effect upon the populace, which reads about them +and sees their pictures in the papers, and now and then is +allowed to catch a glimpse of their physical Presences, as at the +horse-show, or the opera, or the coaching-parade. + + +Horn-blowing + +I know the Church of Good Society in America, having studied it +from the inside. I was an extraordinarily devout little boy; one +of my earliest recollections--I cannot have been more than four +years of age--is of carrying a dust-brush about the house as the +choir-boy carried the golden cross every Sunday morning. I +remember asking if I might say the "Lord's prayer" in this +fascinating play; and my mother's reply: "If you say it +reverently." When I was thirteen, I attended service, of my own +volition and out of my own enthusiasm, every single day during +the forty days of Lent; at the age of fifteen I was teaching +Sunday-school. It was the Church of the Holy Communion, at Sixth +Avenue and Twentieth Street, New York; and those who know the +city will understand that this is a peculiar location--precisely +half way between the homes of some of the oldest and most august +of the city's aristocracy, and some of the vilest and most filthy +of the city's slums. The aristocracy were paying for the church, +and occupied the best pews; they came, perfectly clad, aus dem Ei +gegossen, as the Germans say, with the manner they so carefully +cultivate, gracious, yet infinitely aloof. The service was made +for them--as all the rest of the world is made for them; the +populace was permitted to occupy a fringe of vacant seats. + +The assistant clergyman was an Englishman, and a gentleman; +orthodox, yet the warmest man's heart I have ever known. He could +not bear to have the church remain entirely the church of the +rich; he would go persistently into the homes of the poor, +visiting the old slum women in their pitifully neat little +kitchens, and luring their children with entertainments and +Christmas candy. They were corralled into the Sunday-school, +where it was my duty to give them what they needed for the health +of their souls. + +I taught them out of a book of lessons; and one Sunday it would +be Moses in the Bulrushes, and next Sunday it would be Jonah and +the Whale, and next Sunday it would be Joshua blowing down the +walls of Jericho. These stories were reasonably entertaining, but +they seemed to me futile, not to the point. There were little +morals tagged to them, but these lacked relationship to the lives +of little slum-boys. Be good and you will be happy, love the Lord +and all will be well with you; which was about as true and as +practical as the procedure of the Fijians, blowing horns to drive +away a pestilence. + +I had a mind, you see, and I was using it. I was reading the +papers, and watching politics and business. I, followed the fates +of my little slum-boys--and what I saw was that Tammany Hall was +getting them. The liquor-dealers and the brothel-keepers, the +panders and the pimps, the crap-shooters and the petty +thieves--all these were paying the policeman and the politician +for a chance to prey upon my boys; and when the boys got into +trouble, as they were continually doing, it was the clergyman who +consoled them in prison--but it was the Tammany leader who saw +the judge and got them out. So these boys got their lesson even +earlier in life than I got mine--that the church was a kind of +amiable fake, a pious horn-blowing; while the real thing was +Tammany. + +I talked about this with the vestrymen and the ladies of Good +Society; they were deeply pained, but I noticed that they did +nothing practical about it; and gradually, as I went on to +investigate, I discovered the reason--that their incomes came +from real estate, traction, gas and other interests, which were +contributing the main part of the campaign expenses of the +corrupt Tammany machine, and of its equally corrupt rival. So it +appeared that these immaculate ladies and gentlemen, aus dem Ei +gegossen, were themselves engaged, unconsciously, perhaps, but +none the less effectively, in spreading the pestilence against +which they were blowing their religious horns! + +So little by little I saw my beautiful church for what it was and +is: a great capitalist interest, an integral and essential part +of a gigantic predatory system. I saw that its ethical and +cultural and artistic features, however sincerely they might be +meant by individual clergymen, were nothing but a bait, a device +to lure the poor into the trap of submission to their exploiters. +And as I went on probing into the secret life of the great +Metropolis of Mammon, and laying bare its infamies to the world, +I saw the attitude of the church to such work; I met, not +sympathy and understanding, but sneers and denunciation--until +the venerable institution which had once seemed dignified and +noble became to me as a sepulchre of corruption. + + +Trinity Corporation + +There stands on the corner of Broadway and Wall Street a towering +brown-stone edifice, one of the most beautiful and most famous +churches in America. As a child I have walked through its church +yard and read the quaint and touching inscriptions on its +gravestones; when I was a little older, and knew Wall Street, it +seemed to me a sublime thing that here in the very heart of the +world's infamy there should be raised, like a finger of warning, +this symbol of Eternity and Judgment. Its great bell rang at +noon-time, and all the traders and their wage-slaves had to +listen, whether they would or no! Such was Old Trinity to my +young soul; and what is it in reality? + +The story was told some ten years ago by Charles Edward Russell. +Trinity Corporation is the name of the concern, and it is one of +the great landlords of New York. In the early days it bought a +number of farms, and these it has held, as the city has grown up +around them, until in 1908 their value was estimated at anywhere +from forty to a hundred million dollars. The true amount has +never been made public; to quote Russell's words: + +The real owners of the property are the communicants of the +church. For 94 years none of the owners has known the extent of +the property, nor the amount of the revenue therefrom, nor what +is done with the money. Every attempt to learn even the simplest +fact about these matters has been baffled. The management is a +self perpetuating body, without responsibility and without +supervision. + +And the writer goes on to describe the business policy of this +great corporation, which is simply the English land system +complete. It refuses to sell the land, but rents it for long +periods, and the tenant builds the house, and then when the lease +expires, the Corporation takes over the house for a nominal sum. +Thus it has purchased houses for as low as $200, and made them +into tenements, and rented them to the swarming poor for a total +of fifty dollars a month. The houses were not built for +tenements, they have no conveniences, they are not fit for the +habitation of animals. The article, in Everybody's Magazine for +July, 1908, gives pictures of them, which are horrible beyond +belief. To quote the writer again: + +Decay, neglect and squalor seem to brood wherever Trinity is an +owner. Gladly would I give to such a charitable and benevolent +institution all possible credit for a spirit of improvement +manifested anywhere, but I can find no such manifestation. I have +tramped the Eighth Ward day after day with a list of Trinity +properties in my hand, and of all the tenement houses that stand +there on Trinity land, I have not found one that is not a +disgrace to civilization and to the City of New York. + +It happens that I once knew the stately prelate who presided over +this Corporation of Corruption. I imagine how he would have +shivered and turned pale had some angel whispered to him what +devilish utterances were some day to proceed from the lips of the +little cherub with shining face and shining robes who acted as +the bishop's attendant in the stately ceremonials of the Church! +Truly, even into the goodly company of the elect, even to the +most holy places of the temple, Satan makes his treacherous way! +Even under the consecrated hands of the bishop! For while the +bishop was blessing me and taking me into the company of the +sanctified, I was thinking about what the papers had reported, +that the bishop's wife had been robbed of fifty thousand dollars +worth of jewels! It did not seem quite in accordance with the +doctrine of Jesus that a bishop's wife should possess fifty +thousand dollars worth of jewels, or that she should be setting +the blood-hounds of the police on the train of a human being. I +asked my clergyman friend about it, and remember his patient +explanation--that the bishop had to know all classes and +conditions of men: his wife had to go among the rich as well as +the poor, and must be able to dress so that she would not be +embarrassed. The Bishop at this time was making it his life-work +to raise a million dollars for the beginning of a great Episcopal +cathedral; and this of course compelled him to spend much time +among the rich! + +The explanation satisfied me; for of course I thought there had +to be cathedrals--despite the fact that both St. Stephen and St. +Paul had declared that "the Lord dwelleth not in temples made +with hands." In the twenty-five years which have passed since +that time the good Bishop has passed to his eternal reward, but +the mighty structure which is a monument to his visitations among +the rich towers over the city from its vantage-point on +Morningside Heights. It is called the Cathedral of St. John the +Divine; and knowing what I know about the men who contributed its +funds, and about the general functions of the churches of the +Metropolis of Mammon, it would not seem to me less holy if it +were built, like the monuments of ancient ravagers, out of the +skulls of human beings. + + +Spiritual Interpretation + +There remains to say a few words as to the intellectual functions +of the Fifth Avenue clergy. Let us realize at the outset that +they do their preaching in the name of a proletarian rebel, who +was crucified as a common criminal because, as they said, "He +stirreth up the people." An embarrassing "Savior" for the church +of Good Society, you might imagine; but they manage to fix him up +and make him respectable. + +I remember something analogous in my own boyhood. All day +Saturday I ran about with the little street rowdies, I stole +potatoes and roasted them in vacant lots, I threw mud from the +roofs of apartment-houses; but on Saturday night I went into a +tub and was lathered and scrubbed, and on Sunday I came forth in +a newly brushed suit, a clean white collar and a shining tie and +a slick derby hat and a pair of tight gloves which made me +impotent for mischief. Thus I was taken and paraded up Fifth +Avenue, doing my part of the duties of Good Society. And all +church-members go through this same performance; the oldest and +most venerable of them steal potatoes and throw mud all week +--and then take a hot bath of repentance and put on the clean +clothing of piety. In this same way their ministers of religion +are occupied to scrub and clean and dress up their disreputable +Founder--to turn him from a proletarian rebel into a +stained-glass-window divinity. + +The man who really lived, the carpenter's son, they take out and +crucify all over again. As a young poet has phrased it, they nail +him to a jeweled cross with cruel nails of gold. Come with me to +the New Golgotha and witness this crucifixion; take the nails of +gold in your hands, try the weight of the jeweled sledges! Here +is a sledge, in the form of a dignified and scholarly volume, +published by the exclusive house of Scribner, and written by the +Bishop of my boyhood, the Bishop whose train I carried in the +stately ceremonials: "The Citizen in His Relation to the +Industrial Situation," by the Right Reverend Henry Codman Potter, +D. D., L. L. D., D. C. L.--a course of lectures delivered before +the sons of our predatory classes at Yale University, under the +endowment of a millionaire mining king, founder of the +Phelps-Dodge corporation, which the other day carried out the +deportation from their homes of a thousand striking miners at +Bisbee, Arizona. Says my Bishop: + +Christ did not denounce wealth any more than he denounced +pauperism. He did not abhor money; he used it. He did not abhor +the company of rich men; he sought it. He did not invariably +scorn or even resent a certain profuseness of expenditure. + +And do you think that the late Bishop of J. P. Morgan and Company +stands alone as an utterer of scholarly blasphemy, a driver of +golden nails? In the course of this book there will march before +us a long line of the clerical retainers of Privilege, on their +way to the New Golgotha to crucify the carpenter's son: the +Rector of the Money Trust, the Preacher of the Coal Trust, the +Priest of the Traction Trust, the Archbishop of Tammany, the +Chaplain of the Millionaires' Club, the Pastor of the +Pennsylvania Railroad, the Religious Editor of the New Haven, the +Sunday-school Superintendent of Standard Oil. We shall try the +weight of their jewelled sledges--books, sermons, +newspaper-interviews, after-dinner speeches--wherewith they pound +their golden nails of sophistry into the bleeding hands and feet +of the proletarian Christ. + +Here, for example, is Rev. F. G. Peabody, Professor of Christian +Morals at Harvard University. Prof. Peabody has written several +books on the social teachings of Jesus; he quotes the most rabid +of the carpenter's denunciations of the rich, and says: + +Is it possible that so obvious and so limited a message as this, +a teaching so slightly distinguished from the curbstone rhetoric +of a modern agitator, can be an adequate reproduction of the +scope and power of the teaching of Jesus? + +The question answers itself: Of course not! For Jesus was a +gentleman; he is the head of a church attended by gentlemen, of +universities where gentlemen are educated. So the Professor of +Christian Morals proceeds to make a subtle analysis of Jesus' +actions; demonstrating therefrom that there are three proper uses +to be made of great wealth: first, for almsgiving--"The poor ye +have always with you!"; second, for beauty and culture--buying +wine for wedding-feasts, and ointment-boxes and other objets de +vertu; and third, "stewardship," "trusteeship"--which in plain +English is "Big Business." + +I have used the illustration of soap and hot water; one can +imagine he is actually watching the scrubbing process, seeing the +proletarian Founder emerging all new and respectable under the +brush of this capitalist professor. The professor has a rule all +his own for reading the scriptures; he tells us that when there +are two conflicting sayings, the rule of interpretation is that +"the more spiritual is to be preferred." Thus, one gospel makes +Jesus say: "Blessed are ye poor." Another puts it: "Blessed are +the poor in spirit." The first one is crude and literal; +obviously the second must be what Jesus meant! In other words, +the professor and his church have made for their economic masters +a treacherous imitation virtue to be taught to wage-slaves, a +quality of submissiveness, impotence and futility, which they +call by the name of "spirituality". This virtue they exalt above +all others, and in its name they cut from the record of Jesus +everything which has relation to the realities of life! + +So here is our Professor Peabody, sitting in the Plummer chair at +Harvard, writing on "Jesus Christ and the Social Question," and +explaining: + +The fallacy of the Socialist program is not in its radicalism, +but in its externalism. It proposes to accomplish by economic +change what can be attained by nothing less than spiritual +regeneration. + +And here is "The Churchman," organ of the Episcopalians of New +York, warning us: + +It is necessary to remember that something more than material and +temporal considerations are involved. There are things of more +importance to the purposes of God and to the welfare of humanity +than economic readjustments and social amelioration. + +And again: + +Without doubt there is a strong temptation today, bearing upon +clergy and laity alike, to address their religious energies too +exclusively to those tasks whereby human life may be made more +abundant and wholesome materially..... We need constantly to be +reminded that spiritual things come first. + +There come before my mental eye the elegant ladies and gentlemen +for whom these comfortable sayings are prepared: the vestrymen +and pillars of the Church, with black frock coats and black kid +gloves and shiny top-hats; the ladies of Good Society with their +Easter costumes in pastel shades, their gracious smiles and their +sweet intoxicating odors. I picture them as I have seen them at +St. George's, where that aged wild boar, Pierpont Morgan, the +elder, used to pass the collection plate; at Holy Trinity, where +they drove downtown in old-fashioned carriages with grooms and +footmen sitting like twin statues of insolence; at St. Thomas', +where you might see all the "Four Hundred" on exhibition at once; +at St. Mary the Virgin's, where the choir paraded through the +aisles, swinging costly incense into my childish nostrils, the +stout clergyman walking alone with nose upturned, carrying on his +back a jewelled robe for which some adoring female had paid sixty +thousand dollars. "Spiritual things come first?" Ah, yes! "Seek +first the kingdom of God, and the jewelled robes shall be added +unto you!" And it is so dreadful about the French and German +Socialists, who, as the "Churchman" reports, "make a creed out of +materialism." But then, what is this I find in one issue of the +organ of the "Church of Good Society"? + +Business men contribute to the Y. M. C. A. because they realize +that if their employes are well cared for and religiously +influenced, they can be of greater service in business! + +Who let that material cat out of the spiritual bag? + + + +BOOK THREE + +The Church of the Servant-girls + + Was it for this--that prayers like these + Should spend themselves about thy feet, + And with hard, overlabored knees + Kneeling, these slaves of men should beat + Bosoms too lean to suckle sons + And fruitless as their orisons? + + Was it for this--that men should make + Thy name a fetter on men's necks, + Poor men made poorer for thy sake, + And women withered out of sex? + Was it for this--that slaves should be-- +Thy word was passed to set men free? + Swinburne. + + +Charity + +As everyone knows, the "society lady" is not an independent and +self-sustaining phenomenon. For every one of these exquisite, +sweet-smelling creatures that you meet on Fifth Avenue, there +must be at home a large number of other women who live sterile +and empty lives, and devote themselves to cleaning up after their +luckier sisters. But these "domestics" also are human beings; +they have emotions--or, in religious parlance, "souls;" it is +necessary to provide a discipline to keep them from appropriating +the property of their mistresses, also to keep them from becoming +enceinte. So it comes about that there are two cathedrals in New +York: one, St. John the Divine, for the society ladies, and the +other, St. Patrick's, for the servant-girls. The latter is +located on Fifth Avenue, where its towering white spires divide +with the homes of the Vanderbilts the interest of the crowds of +sight-seers. Now, early every Sunday morning, before "Good +Society" has opened its eyes, you may see the devotees of the +Irish snake-charmer hurrying to their orisons, each with a little +black prayer-book in her hand. What is it they do inside? What +are they taught about life? This is the question to which we have +next to give attention. + +Some years ago Mr. Thomas F. Ryan, traction and insurance magnate +of New York, favored me with his justification of his own career +and activities. He mentioned his charities, and, speaking as one +man of the world to another, he said: "The reason I put them into +the hands of Catholics is not religious, but because I find they +are efficient in such matters. They don't ask questions, they do +what you want them to do, and do it economically." + +I made no comment; I was absorbed in the implications of the +remark--like Agassiz when some one gave him a fossil bone, and +his mind set to work to reconstruct the creature. + +When a man is drunk, the Catholics do not ask if it was long +hours and improper working-conditions which drove him to +desperation; they do not ask if police and politicians are +getting a rake-off from the saloon, or if traction magnates are +using it as an agency for the controlling of votes; they do not +plunge into prohibition movements or good government +campaigns--they simply take the man in, at a standard price, and +the patient slave-sisters and attendants get him sober, and then +turn him out for society to make him drunk again. That is +"charity," and it is the special industry of Roman Catholicism. +They have been at it for a thousand years, cleaning up loathsome +and unsightly messes--"plague, pestilence and famine, battle and +murder and sudden death." Yet--puzzling as it would seem to +anyone not religious--there were never so many messes, never so +many different kinds of messes, as now at the end of the thousand +years of charitable activity! + +But the Catholics go on and on; like the patient spider, building +and rebuilding his web across a doorway; like soldiers under the +command of a ruling class with a "muddling through" tradition-- + + Theirs not to reason why, + Theirs but to do and die. + +And so of course all magnates and managers of industry who have +messes to be cleaned up, human garbage-heaps to be carted away +quickly and without fuss, turn to the Catholic Church for this +service, no matter what their personal religious beliefs or lack +of beliefs may be. Somewhere in the neighborhood of every +steel-mill, every coal-mine or other place of industrial danger, +you will find a Catholic hospital, with its slave-sisters and +attendants. Once when I was "muck-raking" near Pittsburgh, I went +to one of these places to ask information as to the frequency of +industrial accidents and the fate of the victims. The "Mother +Superior" received me with a look of polite dismay. "These +concerns pay us!" she said. "You must see that as a matter of +business it would not do for us to talk about them." + +Obey and keep silence: that is the Catholic law. And precisely as +it is with the work of nursing and almsgiving, so it is with the +work of vote-getting, the elaborate system of policemen and +saloon-keepers and ward-heelers which the Catholic machine +controls. This industry of vote-getting is a comparatively new +one; but the Church has been handling the masses for so many +centuries that she quickly learned this new way of "democracy," +and has established her supremacy over all rivals. She has the +schools for training the children, the confessional for +controlling the women; she has the intellectual machinery, the +purgatory and the code of slave-ethics. She has the supreme +advantage that the rank and file of her mighty host really +believe what she teaches; they do not have to listen to +table-rappings and flounder through swamps of automatic writings +in order to bolster their hope of the survival of personality +after death! + +So it comes about that our captains of industry and finance have +been driven to a more or less reluctant alliance with the Papacy. +The Church is here, and her followers are here, before the war +several hundred thousand of them pouring into the country every +year. It is no longer possible to do without Catholics in +America; not merely do ditches have to be dug, roads graded, coal +mined, and dishes washed, but franchises have to be granted, +tariff-schedules adjusted, juries and courts manipulated, police +trained and strikes crushed. Under our native political system, +for these purposes millions of votes are needed; and these votes +belong to people of a score of nationalities--Irish and German +and Italian and French-Canadian and Bohemian and Mexican and +Portuguese and Polish and Hungarian. Who but the Catholic Church +can handle these polyglot hordes? Who can furnish teachers and +editors and politicians familiar with all these languages? + +Considering how complex is the service, the price is extremely +moderate--the mere actual expenses of the campaign, the cost of +red fire and torch-lights, of liquor and newspaper +advertisements. The rest may come out of the public till, in the +form of exemption from taxation of church buildings and lands, a +share of the public funds for charities and schools, the control +of the police for saloon-keepers and district leaders, the +control of police-courts and magistrates, of municipal +administrations and boards of education, of legislatures and +governors; with a few higher offices now and then, to flatter our +sacred self-esteem, a senator or a justice on the Supreme Court +Bench; and on state occasions, to keep up our necessary prestige, +some cabinet-members and legislators and justices to attend High +Mass, and be blessed in public by Catholic prelates and +dignitaries. + +You think this is empty rhetoric--you comfortable, easy-going, +ultra-cultured Americans? You professors in your classic shades, +absorbed in "the passionless pursuit of passionless +intelligence"--while the world about you slides down into the +pit! You ladies of Good Society, practicing your "sweet little +charities," pursuing your "dear little ideals," raising your +families of one or two lovely children--while Irish and +French-Canadians and Italians and Portuguese and Hungarians are +breeding their dozens and scores, and preparing to turn you out +of your country! + + +God's Armor + +You remember "Bishop Blougram's Apology," Browning's study of the +psychology of a modern Catholic ecclesiastic. He is not unaware +of modern thought, this bishop; he is a man of culture, who wants +to have beauty about him, to be a "cabin passenger": + + There's power in me and will to dominate + Which I must exercise, they hurt me else; + In many ways I need mankind's respect, + Obedience, and the love that's born of fear. + +He wishes that he had faith--faith in anything; he understands +that faith is all-important-- + + Enthusiasm's the best thing, I repeat. + +But you cannot get faith just by wishing for it-- + + But paint a fire, it will not therefore burn! + +He tries to imagine himself going on a crusade for truth, but he +asks what there would be in it for him-- + + State the facts, + Read the text right, emancipate the world-- +The emancipated world enjoys itself + With scarce a thank-you. + Blougram told it first + It could not owe a farthing,--not to him + More than St. Paul! + +So the bishop goes on with his role, but uneasily conscious of +the contempt of intellectual people. + + I pine among my million imbeciles + (You think) aware some dozen men of sense + Eye me and know me, whether I believe + In the last winking virgin as I vow, + And am a fool, or disbelieve in her, + And am a knave. + +But, as he says, you have to keep a tight hold upon the chain of +faith, that is what + + Gives all the advantage, makes the difference, + With the rough, purblind mass we seek to rule. + We are their lords, or they are free of us, + Just as we tighten or relax that hold. + +So he continues, but not with entire satisfaction, in his role of +shepherd to those whom he calls "King Bomba's lazzaroni," and +"ragamuffin saints." + +I wander into a Catholic bookstore and look to see what Bishop +Blougram is doing with his lazzaroni and his ragamuffin saints +here in this new country of the far West. It is easy to acquire +the information, for the saleswoman is polite and the prices fit +my purse. America is going to war, and Catholic boys are being +drafted to be trained for battle; so for ten cents I obtain a +firmly bound little pamphlet called "God's Armor, a Prayer Book +for Soldiers." It is marked "Copyright by the G. R. C. +Central-Verein," and bears the "Nihil Obstat" of the "Censor +Theolog." and the "Imprimatur" of "Johannes Josephus, +Archiepiscopus Sti. Ludovici"--which last you may at first fail +to recognize as a well-known city on the Mississippi River. Do +you not feel the spell of ancient things, the magic of the past +creeping over you, as you read those Latin trade-marks? Such is +the Dead Hand, and its cunning, which can make even St. Louis +sound mysterious! + +In this booklet I get no information as to the commercial causes +of war, nor about the part which the clerical vote may have +played throughout Europe in supporting military systems. I do not +even find anything about the sacred cause of democracy, the +resolve of a self-governing people to put an end to feudal rule. +Instead I discover a soldier-boy who obeys and keeps silent, and +who, in his inmost heart, is in the grip of terrors both of body +and soul. Poor, pitiful soldier-boy, marking yourself with +crosses, performing genuflexions, mumbling magic formulas in the +trenches--how many billions of you have been led out to slaughter +by the greeds and ambitions of your religious masters, since +first this accursed Antichrist got its grip upon the hearts of +men! + +I quote from this little book: + +Start this day well by lifting up your heart to God. Offer +yourself to Him, and beg grace to spend the day without sin. Make +the sign of the cross. Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy +Ghost, behold me in Thy Divine Presence. I adore Thee and give +Thee thanks. Grant that all I do this day be for Thy Glory, and +for the salvation of my immortal soul. + +During the day lift your heart frequently to God. Your prayers +need not be long nor read from a book. Learn a few of these short +ejaculations by heart and frequently repeat them. They will serve +to recall God to your heart and will strengthen you and comfort +you. + +You remember a while back about the prayer-wheels of the +Thibetans. The Catholic religion was founded before the Thibetan, +and is less progressive; it does not welcome mechanical devices +for saving labor. You have to use your own vocal apparatus to +keep yourself from hell; but the process has been made as +economical as possible by kindly dispensations of the Pope. Thus, +each time that you say "My God and my all," you get fifty days +indulgence; the same for "My Jesus, mercy," and the same for +"Jesus, my God, I love Thee above all things." For "Jesus, Mary, +Joseph," you get three hundred days--which would seem by all odds +the best investment of your spare breath. + +And then come prayers for all occasions: "Prayer before Battle"; +"Prayer for a Happy Death"; "Prayer in Temptation"; "Prayer +before and after Meals"; "Prayer when on Guard"; "Prayer before a +long March"; "Prayer of Resignation to Death"; "Prayer for Those +in their Agony"--I cannot bear to read them, hardly to list them. +I remember standing in a cathedral "somewhere in France" during +the celebration of some special Big Magic. There was brilliant +white light, and a suffocating strange odor, and the thunder of a +huge organ, and a clamor of voices, high, clear voices of young +boys mounting to heaven, like the hands of men in a pit reaching +up, trying to climb over the top of one another. It sent a +shudder into the depths of my soul. There is nothing left in the +modern world which can carry the mind so far back into the +ancient nightmare of anguish and terror which was once the mental +life of mankind, as these Roman Catholic incantations with their +frantic and ceaseless importunity. They have even brought in the +sex-spell; and the poor, frightened soldier-boy, who has perhaps +spent the night with a prostitute, now prostrates himself before +a holy Woman-being who is lifted high above the shames of the +flesh, and who stirs the thrills of awe and affection which his +mother brought to him in early childhood. Read over the phrases +of this "Litany of the Blessed Virgin": + +Holy Mary, Pray for us. Holy Mother of God. Holy Virgin of +Virgins. Mother of Christ. Mother of divine grace. Mother most +pure. Mother most chaste. Mother inviolate. Mother undefiled. +Mother most amiable. Mother most admirable. Mother of good +counsel. Mother of our Creator. Mother of our Savior. Virgin most +prudent. Virgin most venerable. Virgin most renowned. Virgin most +powerful. Virgin most merciful. Virgin most faithful. Mirror of +justice. Seat of wisdom. Cause of our Joy. Spiritual vessel. +Vessel of honor. Singular vessel of devotion. Mystical rose. +Tower of David. Tower of ivory. House of gold. Ark of the +covenant. Gate of heaven. Morning Star. Health of the sick. +Refuge of sinners. Comforter of the afflicted. Help of +Christians. Queen of Angels. Queen of Patriarchs. Queen of +Prophets. Queen of Apostles. Queen of Martyrs. Queen of +Confessors. Queen of Virgins. Queen of all Saints. Queen +conceived without original sin. Queen of the most holy Rosary. +Queen of Peace, Pray for us. + + +Thanksgivings + +For another five cents--how cheaply a man of insight can obtain +thrills in this fantastic world!--I purchase a copy of the +"Messenger of the Sacred Heart", a magazine published in New +York, the issue for October, 1917. There are pages of +advertisements of schools and colleges with strange titles: +"Immaculata Seminary", "Holy Cross Academy", "Holy Ghost +Institute", "Ladycliff", "Academy of Holy Child Jesus". The +leading article is by a Jesuit, on "The Spread of the Apostleship +of Prayer among the Young"; and then "Sister Clarissa" writes a +poem telling us "What are Sorrows"; and then we are given a story +called "Prayer for Daddy"; and then another Jesuit father tells +us about "The Hills that Jesus Loved". A third father tells us +about the "Eucharistic Propaganda"; and we learn that in July, +1917, it distributed 11,699 beads, and caused the expenditure of +57,714 hours of adoration; and then the faithful are given a form +of letter which they are to write to the Honorable Baker, +Secretary of War, imploring him to intimate to the French +government that France should withdraw from one of her advances +in civilization, and join with mediaeval America in exempting +priests from being drafted to fight for their country. And then +there is a "Question Box"--just like the Hearst newspapers, only +instead of asking whether she should allow him to kiss her before +he has told her that he loves her, the reader asks what is the +Pauline Privilege, and what is the heroic Act, and is Robert a +saint's name, and if food remains in the teeth from the night +before, would it break the fast to swallow it before Holy +Communion. (No, I am not inventing this.) + +I quoted the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer, and pointed out how +deftly the Church has managed to slip in a prayer for worldly +prosperity. But the Catholic Church does not show any +squeamishness in dealing with its "million imbeciles", its +"rough, purblind mass". There is a department of the little +magazine entitled "Thanksgiving", and a statement at the top that +"the total number of Thanksgivings for the month is 2,143,911." I +am suspicious of that, as of German reports of prisoners taken; +but I give the statement as it stands, not going through the list +and picking out the crudest, but taking them as they come, +classified by states: + +GENERAL FAVORS: For many of these favors Mass and publication +were promised, for others the Badge of Promoter's Cross was used, +for others the prayers of the Associates had been asked. + +Alabama--Jewelry found, relief from pain, protection during +storm. + +Alaska--Safe return, goods found. + +Arizona--Two recoveries, suitable boarding place, illness +averted, safe delivery. + +British Honduras--Successful operation. + +California--Seventeen recoveries, six situations, two successful +examinations, house rented, stocks sold, raise in salary, return +to religious duties, sight regained, medal won, Baptism, +preservation from disease, contract obtained, success in +business, hearing restored, Easter duty made, happy death, +automobile sold, mind restored, house found, house rented, +successful journey, business sold, quarrel averted, return of +friends, two successful operations. + +And for all these miraculous performances the Catholic machine is +harvesting the price day by day--harvesting with that ancient +fervor which the Latin poet described as "auri sacra fames". As +Christopher Columbus wrote from Jamaica in 1503: "Gold is a +wonderful thing. By means of gold we can even get souls into +Paradise." + + +The Holy Roman Empire + +The system thus self-revealed you admit is appalling in its +squalor; but you say that at least it is milder and less perilous +than the Church which burned Giordano Bruno and John Huss. But +the very essence of the Catholic Church is that it does not +change; semper eadem is its motto: the same yesterday, today and +forever--the same in Washington as in Rome or Madrid--the same in +a modern democracy as in the Middle Ages. The Catholic Church is +not primarily a religious organization; it is a political +organization, and proclaims the fact, and defies those who would +shut it up in the religious field, The Rev. S. B. Smith, a +Catholic doctor of divinity, explains in his "Elements of +Ecclesiastical Law": + +Protestants contend that the entire power of the Church consists +in the right to teach and exhort, but not in the right to +command, rule, or govern; whence they infer that she is not a +perfect society or sovereign state. This theory is false; for the +Church, as was seen, is vested Jure divino with power, (1) to +make laws; (2) to define and apply them (potestas judicialis); +(3) to punish those who violate her laws (potestas coercitiva). + +And this is not one scholar's theory, but the formal and repeated +proclamation of infallible popes. Here is the "Syllabus of +Errors", issued by Pope Pius IX, Dec. 8th, 1864, declaring in +precise language that + +The state has not the right to leave every man free to profess +and embrace whatever religion he shall deem true. + +It has not the right to enact that the ecclesiastical power shall +require the permission of the civil power in order to the +exercise of its authority. + +Then in the same Syllabus the rights and powers of the Church are +affirmed thus: + +She has the right to require the state not to leave every man +free to profess his own religion. + +She has the right to exercise her power without the permission or +consent of the state. + +She has the right of perpetuating the union of church and state. + +She has the right to require that the Catholic religion shall be +the only religion of the state, to the exclusion of all others. + +She has the right to prevent the state from granting the public +exercise of their own worship to persons immigrating from it. + +She has the power of requiring the state not to permit free +expression of opinion. + +You see, the Holy Office is unrepentant and unchastened. You, who +think that liberty of conscience is the basis of civilization, +ought at least to know what the Catholic Church has to say about +the matter. Here is Mgr. Segur, in his "Plain Talk About +Protestantism of Today", a book published in Boston and +extensively circulated by American Catholics: + +Freedom of thought is the soul of Protestantism; it is likewise +the soul of modern rationalism and philosophy. It is one of those +impossibilities which only the levity of a superficial reason can +regard as admissable. But a sound mind, that does not feed on +empty words, looks upon this freedom of thought only as simply +absurd, and, what is more, as sinful. + +You take the liberty of thinking, nevertheless; you feel safe +because the Law will protect you. But do you imagine that this +"Law" applies to your Catholic neighbors? Do you imagine that +they are bound by the restraints that bind you? Here is Pope Leo +XIII, in his Encyclical of 1890--and please remember that Leo +XIII was the beau ideal of our capitalist statesmen and editors, +as wise and kind and gentle-souled a pope as ever roasted a +heretic. He says: + +If the laws of the state are openly at variance with the laws of +God--if they inflict injury upon the Church--or set at naught the +authority of Jesus Christ which is vested in the Supreme Pontiff, +then indeed it becomes a duty to resist them, a sin to render +obedience. + +And consider how many fields there are in which the laws of a +democratic state do and forever must contravene the "laws of God" +as interpreted by the Catholic Church. Consider for example, that +the Pope, in his decree Ne Temere, has declared that all persons +who have been married by civil authorities or by Protestant +clergymen are living in "filthy concubinage"! Consider, in the +same way, the problems of education, burial, prison discipline, +blasphemy, poor relief, incorporation, mortmain, religious +endowments, vows of celibacy. To the above list, as given by +Gladstone, one might add many issues, such as birth control, +which have arisen since his time. + +What the Church means is to rule. Her literature is full of +expressions of that intention, set forth in the boldest and +haughtiest and most uncompromising manner. For example, Cardinal +Manning, in the Pro-Cathedral at Kensington, speaking in the name +of the Pope: + +I acknowledge no civil power; I am the subject of no prince; I +claim more than this--I claim to be the supreme judge and +director of the consciences of men---of the peasant that tills +the field, and of the prince that sits upon the throne; of the +household of privacy, and the legislator that makes laws for +kingdoms; I am the sole, last supreme judge of what is right and +wrong. + + +Temporal Power + +What this means is, that here in our American democracy the +Catholic Church is a rebel; a prisoner of war who bides his time, +watching for the moment to rise in revolt, and meantime making no +secret of his intentions. The pious Leo XIII, addressing all true +believers in America, instructed them as to their attitude in +captivity: + +The Church amongst you, unopposed by the Constitution and +government of your nation, fettered by no hostile legislation, +protected against violence by the common laws and the +impartiality of the tribunals, is free to live and act without +hindrance. Yet, though all this is true, it would be very +erroneous to draw the conclusion that in America is to be sought +the type of the most desirable status of the church, or that it +would be universally lawful or expedient for state and church to +be, as in America, dissevered and divorced. The fact that +Catholicity with you is in good condition, nay, is even enjoying +a prosperous growth, is by all means to be attributed to the +fecundity with which God has endowed His Church .... But she +would bring forth more abundant fruits if, in addition to +liberty, she enjoyed the favor of the laws and patronage of the +public authority. + +Accordingly, here is Father Phelan of St. Louis, addressing his +flock in the "Western Watchman", June 27, 1913: + +Tell us we are Catholics first and Americans or Englishmen +afterwards; of course we are. Tell us, in the conflict between +the church and the civil government we take the side of the +church; of course we do. Why, if the government of the United +States were at war with the church, we would say tomorrow, To +hell with the government of the United States; and if the church +and all the governments of the world were at war, we would say, +To hell with all the governments of the world .... Why is it that +in this country, where we have only seven per cent of the +population, the Catholic church is so much feared? She is loved +by all her children and feared by everybody. Why is it that the +Pope has such tremendous power? Why, the Pope is the ruler of the +world. All the emperors, all the kings, all the princes, all the +presidents of the world, are as these altar boys of mine. The +Pope is the ruler of the world. + +You recall what I said at the outset about Power; the ability to +control the lives of other men, to give laws and moral codes, to +shape fashions and tastes, to be revered and regarded. Here is a +man swollen to bursting with this Power. Dressed in his holy +robes, with his holy incense in his nostrils, and the faces of +the faithful gazing up at him awe-stricken, hear him proclaim: + +The Church gives no bonds for her good behavior. She is the judge +of her own rights and duties, and of the rights and duties of the +state. + +And lest you think that an extreme example of ultramontanist +arrogance, listen to the Boston "Pilot", April 6, 1912, speaking +for Cardinal O'Connell, whose official organ it is: + +It must be borne in mind that even though Cardinals Farley, +O'Connell and Gibbons are at heart patriotic Americans and +members of an American hierachy, yet they are as cardinals +foreign princes of the blood, to whom the United States, as one +of the great powers of the world, is under an obligation to +concede the same honors that they receive abroad. + +Thus, were Cardinal Farley to visit an American man-of-war, he +would be entitled to the salutes and to naval honors reserved for +a foreign royal personage, and at any official entertainment at +Washington the Cardinal will outrank not merely every cabinet +officer, the speaker of the house and the vice-president, but +also the foreign ambassadors, coming immediately next to the +chief magistrate himself. + +Incidentally, it may be mentioned that when a royal personage not +of sovereign rank visits New York it is his duty to make the +first call on Cardinal Farley. + +Knights of Slavery + +Such is the worldly station of these apostles of the lowly Jesus. +And what is their attitude towards their brothers in God, the +rank and file of the membership, whose pennies grease the wheels +of the ecclesiastical machine? His Holiness, the Pope, sent over +a delegate to represent him in America, and at a convention of +the Federation of Catholic Societies held in New Orleans in +November, 1910, this gentleman, Diomede Falconio, delivered +himself on the subject of Capital and Labor. We have heard the +slave-code of the Anglican disciples of Jesus, the revolutionary +carpenter; now let us hear the slave-code of his Roman disciples: + +Human society has its origin from God and is constituted of two +classes of people, the rich and the poor, which respectively +represent Capital and Labor. + +Hence it follows that according to the ordinance of God, human +society is composed of superiors and subjects, masters and +servants, learned and unlettered, rich and poor, nobles and +plebeians. + +And lest this should not be clear enough, the Pope sent a second +representative, Mgr. John Bonzano, who, speaking at a general +meeting of the German Catholic Central-Verein, St. Louis, 1917, +declared: + +One of the worst evils that may grow out of the European war is +the spreading of the doctrine of Socialism, and the Catholic +Church must be ready to counteract such doctrines. We must be +ready to prevent the spread of Socialism and to work against it. +As I understand, you have a society of wealthy people in St. +Louis ready for such a campaign. You have experienced leaders who +are masters in their kind of work. They are always insistent to +show that this wealth was and is in close touch with the Church, +and therefore it will not fail. + +This, you perceive, is the complete thesis of the present book, +which therefore no doubt will be entitled to the "Nihil Obstat" +of the "Censor Theolog.", and the "Imprimatur" of "Johannes +Josephus, Archiepiscopus Sti. Ludovici." No wonder that the +"experienced leaders" of America, our captains of industry and +exploiters of labor, are forced, whatever their own faith may be, +to make use of this system of subjection. A few years ago we read +in our papers how a Jewish millionaire of Baltimore was +presenting a fortune to the Catholic Church, to be used in its +war upon Socialism. The late Mark Hanna, the shrewdest and most +far-seeing man that Big Business ever brought into power, said +that in twenty years there would be two parties in America, a +capitalist and a socialist; and that it would be the Catholic +church that would save the country from Socialism. That prophecy +was widely quoted, and sank into the souls of our steel and +railway and money magnates; from which time you might see, if you +watched political events, a new tone of deference to the Roman +Hierarchy on the part of our ruling classes. Today you cannot get +an expression of opinion hostile to Catholicism into any +newspaper of importance. The Associated Press does not handle +news unfavorable to the Church, and from top to bottom, the +politician takes off his hat when the Sacred Host goes by. Said +Archbishop Quigley, speaking before the children of the Mary +Sodality: + +I'd like to see the politician who would try to rule against the +church in Chicago. His reign would be short indeed. + + +Priests and Police + +And how is it in our national capital, the palladium of our +liberties? As a means of demonstrating the power of the church +and the subservience of our politicians, the Catholics have +invented what they call the "Cardinal's Day Mass": An elaborate +procession of high ecclesiastics, dressed in gorgeous robes and +jewels, through the streets of Washington, accompanied by a small +army of policemen, paid by non-Catholic taxpayers. The Cardinal +seats himself upon a throne, and our political rulers make +obeisance before him. On Sunday, January 14, 1917, there were +present at this political mass the following personages: Four +cabinet members and their wives; the speaker of the House; a +large group of senators and representatives; a general of the +army and his wife; an admiral of the navy and his wife; the Chief +Justice of the Supreme Court and his wife, and another Justice of +the Supreme Court and his wife. + +And understand that the church makes no secret of its purpose in +conducting such public exhibitions. Here is the pious Pope Leo +XIII again, in his Encyclical of Nov. 1, 1885: + +All Catholics must make themselves felt as active elements in +daily political life in the countries where they live. They must +penetrate, wherever possible, in the administration of civil +affairs; must constantly exert the utmost vigilance and energy to +prevent the usages of liberty from going beyond the limits fixed +by God's law. All Catholics should do all in their power to cause +the constitutions of states and legislation to be modeled on the +principles of the true Church. + +And following these instructions, the Catholics are organized for +political work. There are the various Catholic Societies, such as +the Knights of Columbus, secret, oath-bound organizations, the +military arm of the Papal Power. These societies boast some three +million members, and control not less than that many votes. The +one thing that you can be certain about these votes is that on +every public question, of whatever nature, they will be cast on +the side of ignorance and reaction. Thus, it was the influence of +the Catholic Societies which put upon our national statute books +the infamous law providing five years imprisonment and five +thousand dollars fine for the sending through the mail of +information about the prevention of conception. It is their +influence which keeps upon the statute-books of New York state +the infamous law which permits divorce only for infidelity, and +makes it "collusion" if both parties desire the divorce. It is +these societies which, in every city and town in America, are +pushing and plotting to get Catholics upon library boards, so +that the public may not have a chance to read scientific books; +to get Catholics into the public schools and on school-boards, so +that children may not hear about Galileo, Bruno, and Ferrer; to +have Catholics in control of police and on magistrates benches, +so that priests who are caught in brothels may not be exposed or +punished. + +You are shocked at this, you think it a vulgar jest, perhaps; but +during a period of "vice raids" in New York I was told by a +captain of police, himself a Catholic, that it was a common thing +for them to get priests in their net. "Of course," the official +added, good-naturedly, "we let them slip out." I understood that +he had to do that; for the Pope, in his "Motu Proprio" decree, +has forbidden Catholics to bring a priest into court for any +civil crime whatsoever; he has forbidden Catholic policemen to +arrest, Catholic judges to try, and Catholic law-makers to make +laws affecting any priest of the Church of Rome. And of course we +know, upon the authority of a cardinal, that the Pope is "the +sole, last, supreme judge of what is right and wrong." He has +held that position for a thousand years and more; and wherever +you consult the police records throughout the thousand years, you +find the same entries concerning Catholic ecclesiastics. I turn +to Riley's "Illustrations of London Life from Original +Documents," and I find in the year 1385 a certain chaplain, whose +name is considerately suppressed, had a breviary stolen from him +by a loose woman, because he has not given her any money, either +on that night or the one previous. In 1320 John de Sloghtre, a +priest, is put in the tower "for being found wandering about the +city against the peace", and Richard Heyring, a priest, is +indicted in the ward of Farringdon and in the ward of Crepelgate +"as being a bruiser and nightwalker." That this has been going on +for six hundred years is due, not to any special corruption of +the Catholic heart, but to the practice of clerical celibacy, +which is contrary to nature, a transgression of fundamental +instinct. It should be noted that the purpose of this +transgression, which pretends to be spiritual, is really +economic; it was the means whereby the church machine built up +its power through the Middle Ages. The priests had children then, +as they have them today; but these children not being recognized, +the church machine remained the sole heir of the property of its +clergy. + +The Church Militant + +Knowing what we know today, we marvel that it was possible for +Germany to prepare through so many years for her assault on +civilization, and for England to have slept through it all. In +exactly the same way, the historian of a generation from now will +marvel that America should have slept, while the New Inquisition +was planning to strangle her. For we are told with the utmost +explicitness precisely what is to be done. We are to see wiped +out these gains of civilization for which our race has bled and +agonized for many centuries; the very gains are to serve as the +means of their own destruction! Have we not heard Pope Leo tell +his faithful how to take advantage of what they find in +America--our easy-going trust, our quiet certainty of liberty, +our open-handed and open-homed and hail-fellow-well-met +democracy? + +We see the army being organized and drilled under our eyes; and +we can read upon its banners its purpose proclaimed. Just as the +Prussian military caste had its slogan "Deutschland ueber Alles!" +so the Knights of Slavery have their slogan: "Make America +Catholic!" + +Their attitude to democratic institutions is attested by the fact +that none of their conventions ever fails in its resolutions to +"deeply deplore the loss of the temporal power of Our Father, the +Pope." Their subjection to priestly domination is indicated by +such resolutions as this, bearing date of May 13th, 1914: + +The Knights of Columbus of Texas in annual convention assembled, +prostrate at the feet of Your Holiness, present filial regards +with assurances of loyalty and obedience to the Holy See and +request the Papal blessing. + +On June 10th, 1912, one T. J. Carey of Palestine, Texas, wrote to +Archbishop Bonzano, the Apostolic Delegate: "Must I, as a +Catholic, surrender my political freedom to the Church? And by +this I mean the right to vote for the Democratic, Socialist, or +Republican parties when and where I please?" The answer was: "You +should submit to the decisions of the Church, even at the cost of +sacrificing political principles." And to the same effect Mgr. +Preston, In New York City, Jan. 1, 1888: "The man who says, 'I +will take my faith from Peter, but I will not take my politics +from Peter,' is not a true Catholic." + +Such is the Papal machine; and not a day passes that it does not +discover some new scheme to advance the Papal glory; a "Catholic +battle-ship" in the United States navy; Catholic chaplains on all +ships of the navy; Catholic holidays---such as Columbus Day--to +be celebrated by all Protestants in America; thirty million +dollars worth of church property exempted from taxation in New +York City; mission bells to be set up at the expense of the state +of California; state support for parish schools--or, if this +cannot be had, exemption of Catholics from taxation for school +purposes. So on through the list which might continue for pages. + +More than anything else, of course, the Papal machine is +concerned with education, or rather, with the preventing of +education. It was in its childish days that the race fell under +the spell of the Priestly Lie; it is in his childish days that +the individual can be most safely snared. Suffer little children +to come unto the Catholic priest, and he will make upon their +sensitive minds an impression which nothing in after life can +eradicate. So the mainstay of the New Inquisition is the +parish-school, and its deadliest enemy is the American school +system. Listen to the Rev. James Conway, of the Society of Jesus, +in his book, "The Rights of Our Little Ones": + +Catholic parents cannot, in conscience send their children to +American public schools, except for very grave reasons approved +by the ecclesiastical authorities. + +While state education removes illiteracy and puts a limited +amount of knowledge within the reach of all, it cannot be said to +have a beneficial influence on civilization in general. + +The state cannot justly enforce compulsory education, even in +case of utter illiteracy, so long as the essential physical and +moral education are sufficiently provided for. + +And so, at all times and in all places, the Catholic Church is +fighting the public school. Eternal vigilance is necessary; as +"America", the organ of the Jesuits, explains: + +Sometimes it is a new building code, or an attempt at taxing the +school buildings, which creates hardships to the parochial and +other private schools. Now it is the free text book law that puts +a double burden on the Catholics. Then again it is the unwise +extension of the compulsory school age that forces children to be +in school until they are 16 to 18 years old. + +And if you wish to know the purpose of the Catholic schools, hear +Archbishop Quigley of Chicago, speaking before the children of +the Mary Sodality in the Holy Name Parish-School: + +Within twenty years this country is going to rule the world. +Kings and emperors will pass away, and the democracy of the +United States will take their place. The West will dominate the +country, and what I have seen of the Western parochial schools +has proved that the generation which follows us will be +exclusively Catholic. When the United States rules the world the +Catholic Church will rule the world. + + +The Church Triumphant + +The question may be asked, What of it? What if the Church were to +rule? There are not a few Americans who believe that there have +to be rich and poor, and that rule by Roman Catholics might be +preferable to rule by Socialists. Before you decide, at least do +not fail to consider what history has to tell about priestly +government. We do not have to use our imaginations in the matter, +for there was once a Golden Age such as Archbishop Quigley dreams +of, when the power of the church was complete, when emperors and +princes paid homage to her, and the civil authority made haste to +carry out her commands. What was the condition of the people in +those times? We are told by Lea, in his "History of the +Inquisition" that: + +The moral condition of the laity was unutterably depraved. +Uniformity of faith had been enforced by the Inquisition and its +methods, and so long as faith was preserved, crime and sin was +comparatively unimportant except as a source of revenue to those +who sold absolution. As Theodoric Vrie tersely puts it, hell and +purgatory would be emptied if enough money could be found. The +artificial standard thus created is seen in a revelation of the +Virgin to St. Birgitta, that a Pope who was free from heresy, no +matter how polluted by sin and vice, is not so wicked but that he +has the absolute power to bind and loose souls. There are many +wicked popes plunged in hell, but all their lawful acts on earth +are accepted and confirmed by God, and all priests who are not +heretics administer true sacraments, no matter how depraved they +may be. Correctness of belief was thus the sole essential; virtue +was a wholly subordinate consideration. How completely under such +a system religion and morals came to be dissociated is seen in +the remarks of Pius II, that the Franciscans were excellent +theologians, but cared nothing about virtue. + +This, in fact, was the direct result of the system of persecution +embodied in the Inquisition. Heretics who were admitted to be +patterns of virtue were ruthlessly exterminated in the name of +Christ, while in the same holy name the orthodox could purchase +absolution for the vilest of crimes for a few coins. When the +only unpardonable offence was persistence in some trifling error +of belief, such as the poverty of Christ; when men had before +them the example of their spiritual guides as leaders in vice and +debauchery and contempt of sacred things, all the sanctions of +morality were destroyed and the confusion between right and wrong +became hopeless. The world has probably never seen a society more +vile than that of Europe in the fourteenth and fifteenth +centuries. The brilliant pages of Froissart fascinate us with +their pictures of the artificial courtesies of chivalry; the +mystic reveries of Rysbroek and of Tauler show us that spiritual +life survived in some rare souls, but the mass of the population +was plunged into the depths of sensuality and the most brutal +oblivion of the moral law. For this Alvaro Pelayo tells us that +the priesthood were accountable, and that, in comparison with +them, the laity were holy. What was that state of comparative +holiness he proceeds to describe, blushing as he writes, for the +benefit of confessors, giving a terrible sketch of universal +immorality which nothing could purify but fire and brimstone from +heaven. The chroniclers do not often pause in their narrations to +dwell on the moral aspects of the times, but Meyer, in his annals +of Flanders, under date of 1379, tells us that it would be +impossible to describe the prevalence everywhere of perjuries, +blasphemies, adulteries, hatreds, quarrels, brawls, murder, +rapine, thievery, robbery, gambling, whoredom, debauchery, +avarice, oppression of the poor, rape, drunkenness: and similar +vices, and he illustrates his statement with the fact that in the +territory of Ghent, within the space of ten months, there +occurred no less than fourteen hundred murders committed in the +bagnios, brothels, gambling-houses, taverns, and other similar +places. When, in 1396, Jean sans Peur led his Crusaders to +destruction at Micopolis, their crimes and cynical debauchery +scandalized even the Turks, and led to the stern rebuke of +Bajazet himself, who as the monk of St. Denis admits was much +better than his Christian foes. The same writer, moralizing over +the disaster at Agincourt, attributes it to the general +corruption of the nation. Sexual relations, he says, were an +alternation of disorderly lust and of incest; commerce was nought +but fraud and treachery; avarice withheld from the Church her +tithes, and ordinary conversation was a succession of +blasphemies. The Church, set up by God as a model and protector +of the people, was false to all its obligations. The bishops, +through the basest and most criminal of motives, were habitual +accepters of persons; they annointed themselves with the last +essence extracted from their flocks, and there was in them +nothing of holy, of pure, of wise, or even of decent. + + +God in the Schools + +But that, you may say, was a long time ago. If so, let us take a +modern country in which the Catholic Church has worked its will. +Until recently, Spain was such a country. Now the people are +turning against the clerical machine; and if you ask why, turn to +Rafael Shaw's "Spain From Within": + +On every side the people see the baleful hand of the Church, +interfering or trying to interfere in their domestic life, +ordering the conditions of employment, draining them of their +hard-won livelihood by trusts and monopolies established and +maintained in the interest of the Religious Orders, placing +obstacles in the way of their children's education, hindering +them in the exercise of their constitutional rights, and +deliberately ruining those of them who are bold enough to run +counter to priestly dictation. Riots suddenly break out in +Barcelona; they are instigated by the Jesuits. The country goes +to war in Morocco; it is dragged into it solely in defense of the +mines owned, actually, if not ostensibly, by the Jesuits. The +consumos cannot be abolished because the Jesuits are financially +interested in their continuance. + +We have read the statement of a Jesuit father, that "the state +cannot justly enforce compulsory education, even in case of utter +illiteracy." How has that doctrine worked out in Spain? There was +an official investigation of school conditions, the report +appearing in the "Heraldo de Madrid" for November, 1909. In 1857 +there had been passed a law requiring a certain number of schools +in each of the 79 provinces: this requirement being below the +very low standards prevailing at that time in other European +countries. Yet in 1909 it was found that only four provinces had +the required number of elementary schools, and at the rate of +increase then prevailing it would have taken 150 years to catch +up. Seventy-five per cent of the population were wholly +illiterate, and 30,000 towns and villages had no government +schools at all. The government owed nearly a million and a half +dollars in unpaid salaries to the teachers. The private schools +were nearly all "nuns' schools", which taught only needle-work +and catechism; the punishments prevailing in them were "cruel and +disgusting." + +As to the location of the schools, a report of the Minister of +Education to the Cortes, the Parliament of Spain, sets forth as +follows: + +More than 10,000 schools are on hired premises, and many of these +are absolutely destitute of hygienic conditions. There are +schools mixed up with hospitals, with cemeteries, with slaughter +houses, with stables. One school forms the entrance to a +cemetery, and the corpses are placed on the master's table while +the last responses are being said. There is a school into which +the children cannot enter until the animals have been sent out to +pasture. Some are so small that as soon as the warm weather +begins the boys faint for want of air and ventilation. One school +is a manure-heap in process of fermentation, and one of the local +authorities has said that in this way the children are warmer in +winter. One school in Cataluna adjoins the prison. Another, in +Andalusia, is turned into an enclosure for the bulls when there +is a bull-fight in the town. + +These conditions excited the indignation of a Spanish educator by +the name of Francesco Ferrer. He founded what he called a "modern +school", in which the pupils should be taught science and common +sense. He drew, of course, the bitter hatred of the Catholic +hierarchy, which saw in the spread of his principles the end of +their mastery of the people. When the Barcelona insurrection took +place, they had Ferrer seized upon a charge of having been its +instigator; they had him tried in secret before a military +tribunal, convicted upon forged documents, and shot beneath the +walls of the fortress of Montjuich. The case was thoroughly +investigated by William Archer, one of England's leading critics, +a man of scrupulous rectitude of mind. His conclusion is that +Ferrer was absolutely innocent of the charges against him, and +that his execution was the result of a clerical plot. Of Ferrer's +character Archer writes: + +Fragmentary though they be, the utterances which I have quoted +form a pretty complete revelation. From first to last we see in +him an ardent, uncompromising, incorruptible idealist. His ideals +are narrow, and his devotion to them fanatical; but it is devoid, +if not of egoism, at any rate of self-interest and self-seeking. +As he shrank from applying the money entrusted him to ends of +personal luxury, so also he shrank from making his ideas and +convictions subserve any personal ambition or vanity. + + +The Menace + +There are, of course, many people in America who will not rest +idle while their country falls into the condition of Spain. There +are anti-Catholic propaganda societies, which send out lecturers +to discuss the Church and its records; and this is exasperating +to devout believers, who regard the Church as holy, and any +criticism of it as blasphemy. So we have opportunity to observe +the working out of the doctrine that the Church is superior to +the civil law. + +On June 12th, 1913, there came to the little town of Oelwein, +Iowa, a former priest of the Catholic Church, named Jeremiah J. +Crowley, to deliver a lecture exposing the Papal propaganda. The +Catholics of the town made efforts to intimidate the owner of the +place in which the lecture was to be given; the priest of the +town, Father O'Connor, preached a sermon furiously denouncing the +lecturer; and after the lecture the unfortunate Crowley was +surrounded by a mob of men, women and boys, and although he was +six feet three in size, he was beaten almost to death. At the +trial which followed it developed that Father O'Connor and also +his brother, a judge on the Superior Bench, were accessories +before the fact. + +Nor is this a solitary instance. The Catholic military societies, +with their uniforms and their armories, are not maintained for +nothing. As Archbishop Quigley declared before the German +Catholic Central Verein: + +We have well ordered and efficient organizations, all at the beck +and nod of the hierarchy and ready to do what the church +authorities tell them to do. With these bodies of loyal Catholics +ready to step into the breach at any time and present an unbroken +front to the enemy we may feel secure. + +And so, on the evening of April 15th, 1914, a group of Catholics +entered the Pierce Hotel in Denver, Colorado, overpowered a +police guard and seized the Rev. Otis L. Spurgeon, an +anti-Catholic lecturer. They bound and gagged him, took him to a +lonely woods, and beat him to insensibility. The same thing +happened to the Rev. Augustus Barnett, at Buffalo; the Rev. +William Black was killed at Marshall, Texas. In each case the +assailants avowed themselves Knights of Columbus, and efforts to +punish them failed, because no jury can be got to convict a +Catholic, fighting for his Pope against a godless state. The most +pious Leo XIII has laid down: + +It is an impious deed to break the laws of Jesus Christ for the +purpose of obeying the magistrates, or to transgress the law of +the Church under the pretext of observing the civil law. + +There are papers published to warn Americans against the plotting +of this political Church. One of them, "The Menace," has a +circulation of more than a million; and naturally the Knights of +Slavery do not enjoy reading it. Year after year they have +marshalled their power to have this paper barred from the +mails--so far, in vain. They caused an obscenity prosecution, +which failed; so finally the press rooms of the paper were blown +up with dynamite. At the present time there is a "Catholic Truth +Society" with a publication called "Truth", to oppose the +anti-Catholic campaign; and that is all right, of course--except +when the agents who collect the two-dollar subscriptions to this +publication make use of Untruth in their labors--promising +absolution and salvation to the families, dead and living, of +those who "come across" with subscriptions. In the "Bulletin of +the American Federation of Catholic Societies" for September, +1915, I find a record of the ceaseless plotting to bar criticism +of the Catholic Church from the mails. Fitzgerald, a Tammany +Catholic congressman, proposes a bill in Washington; and Judge +St. Paul, of New Orleans, a member of the Federation's "law +committee", points out the difficulties in the way of such +legislation. You cannot pass a law against ridiculing religion, +because the Catholics want to ridicule Christian Science, +Mormonism, and the "Holy Ghost and Us" Society! The Judge thinks +the purpose of the Papal plotters will be accomplished if they +can slip into the present law the words "scurrilous and +slanderous"; he hopes that this much can be done without the +American people catching on! + +You read these things for the first time, perhaps, and you want +to start an American "Kultur-kampf." I make haste, therefore, to +restate the main thesis of this book. It is not the New +Inquisition which is our enemy today; it is hereditary Privilege. +It is not Superstition, but Big Business which makes use of +Superstition as a wolf makes use of sheep's clothing. + +You remember how, when Americans first awakened to the universal +corruption of our politics, we used to attribute it to the +"ignorant foreign vote." Turn to Lecky's "Democracy and Liberty" +and you will see how reformers twenty years ago explained our +political depravity. But we probed deeper, and discovered that +the purely American communities, such as Rhode Island, were the +most corrupt of all. It dawned upon us that wherever there was a +political boss paying bribes on election day, there was a captain +of industry furnishing the money for the bribes, and taking some +public privilege in return. So we came to realize that political +corruption is merely a by-product of Big Business. + +And when we come to probe this problem of the spread of +Supersition in America, this amazing renascence of Romanism in a +democracy, we find precisely the same phenomenon. It is not the +poor foreigner who troubles us. Our human magic would win +him--our easy-going trust, our quiet certainty of liberty, our +open-handed and open-homed and hail-fellow-well-met democracy. We +should break down the Catholic machine, and not all the priests +in the hierarchy could stop us--were it not for the Steel Trust +and the Coal Trust and the Beef Trust, the Liquor Trust and the +Traction Trust and the Money Trust--those masters of America who +do not want citizens, free and intelligent and self-governing, +but who want the slave-hordes as they come, ignorant, inert, +physically, mentally and morally helpless! + +No, do not let yourself be lured into a Kultur-kampf. It is not +the pennies of the servant-girls which build the towering +cathedrals; it is not the two-dollar contributions for the +salvation of souls which support the Catholic Truth Society and +the Knights of Columbus and the Holy Name Society and the Mary +Sodality and the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception and +all the rest of the machinery of the Papal propaganda. These +help, of course; but the main sources of growth are, first, the +subsidies of industrial exploiters, the majority of whom are +non-Catholic, and second, the privilege of public plunder granted +as payment for votes by politicians who are creatures and puppets +of Big Business. + + +King Coal + +The proof of these statements is written all over the industrial +life of America. I will stop long enough to present an account of +one industry, asking the reader to accept my statement that if +space permitted I could present the same sort of proof for a +dozen other industries which I have studied--the steel-mills of +Western Pennsylvania, the meat-factories of Chicago, the +glass-works of Southern Jersey, the silk-mills of Paterson, the +cotton-mills of North Carolina, the woolen-mills of +Massachusetts, the lumber-camps of Louisiana, the copper-mines of +Michigan, the sweat-shops of New York. + +In a lonely part of the Rocky Mountains lies a group of +enormously valuable coal-mines owned by the Rockefellers and +other Protestant exploiters. The men who work these mines, some +twelve or fifteen thousand in number, come from all the nations +of Europe and Asia, and their fate is that of the average +wage-slave. I do not ask anyone to take my word, but present +sworn testimony, taken by the United States Commission on +Industrial Relations in 1914. Here is the way the Italian miners +live, as described in a doctor's report: + +Houses up the canyon, so-called, of which eight are habitable, +and forty-six simply awful; they are disreputably disgraceful. I +have had to remove a mother in labor from one part of the shack +to another to keep dry. + +And here is the testimony of the Rev. Eugene S. Gaddis, former +superintendent of the Sociological Department of the Colorado +Fuel and Iron Company: + +The C. F. & I. Company now own and rent hovels, shacks and +dug-outs that are unfit for the habitation of human beings and +are little removed from the pig-sty make of dwellings. And the +people in them live on the very level of a pig-sty. Frequently +the population is so congested that whole families are crowded +into one room; eight persons in one small room was reported +during the year. + +And here is what this same clergyman has to say about the bosses +whom the Rockefellers employ: + +The camp superintendents as a whole impressed me as most uncouth, +ignorant, immoral, and in many instances, the most brutal set of +men that I have ever met. Blasphemous bullies. + +Sometimes the miner grows tired of being robbed of his weights, +and applies for the protection which the law of the state allows +him. What happens then? + +"When a man asked for a checkweighman, in the language of the +super he was getting too smart." + +"And he got what?" + +"He got it in the neck, generally." + +And when these wage-slaves, goaded beyond endurance, went on +strike, in the words of the Commission's report: + +Five strikers, one boy, and thirteen women and children in the +strikers' tent colony were shot to death by militiamen and guards +employed by the coal companies, or suffocated and burned to death +when these militiamen and guards set fire to the tents in which +they made their homes. + +And now, what is the position of education in such camps? The +Rev. James McDonald, a Methodist preacher, testified that the +school building was dilapidated and unfit. One year there were +four teachers, the next three, and the next only two. The teacher +of the primary grade had a hundred and twenty children enrolled, +ninety per cent of whom could not speak a word of English. + +Every little bench was seated with two or three. It was +over-crowded entirely, and she could hardly get walking room +around there. + +And as to the political use made of this deliberately cultivated +ignorance, former United States Senator Patterson testified that +the companies controlled all elections and all nominations: + +Election returns from the two or three counties in which the +large companies operate show that in the precincts in which the +mining camps are located the returns are nearly unanimous in +favor of the men or measures approved by the companies, +regardless of party. + +And now comes the all-important question. What of the Catholic +Church and these evils? The majority of these mine-slaves are +Catholics, it is this Church which is charged with their +protection. There are priests in every town, and in nearly every +camp. And do we find them lifting their voices in behalf of the +miners, protesting against the starving and torturing of thirty +or forty thousand human beings? Do we find Catholic papers +printing accounts of the Ludlow massacre? Do we find Catholic +journalists on the scene reporting it, Catholic lawyers defending +the strikers, Catholic novelists writing books about their +troubles? We do not! + +Through the long agony of the fourteen months strike, I know of +just one Catholic priest, Father Le Fevre, who had a word to say +for the strikers. One of the first stories I heard when I reached +the strike-field was of a priest who had preached on the text +that "Idleness is the root of all evil," and had been reported as +a "scab" and made to shut up. "Who made him?" I asked, naively, +thinking of his church superiors. My informant, a union miner, +laughed. "We made him!" he said. + +I talked with another priest who was prudently saving souls and +could not be interested in questions of worldly greed. Max +Eastman, reporting the strike in the "Masses", tells of an +interview with a Catholic sister. + +"Has the Church done anything to try to help these people, or to +bring about peace?" we asked. "I consider it the most useless +thing in the world to attempt it," she replied. + +The investigating committee of Congress came to the scene, and +several clergymen of the Protestant Church appeared and bore +testimony to the outrages which were being committed against the +strikers; but of all the Catholic priests in the district not one +appeared--not one! Several Protestant clergymen testified that +they had been driven from the coal-camps--not because they +favored the unions, but because the companies objected to having +their workers educated at all; but no one ever heard of the +Catholic Church having trouble with the operators. To make sure +on this point I wrote to a former clergyman of Trinidad who +watched the whole strike, and is now a first lieutenant in the +First New Mexico Infantry. He answered: + +The Catholic Church seemed to get along with the companies very +cordially. The Church was permitted in all the camps. The +impression was abroad that this was due to favoritism. I honor +what good the Church does, but I know of no instance, during the +Colorado coal-strike or at any other time or place, when the +Catholic Church has taken any special interest in the cause of +the laboring men. Many Catholics, especially the men, quit the +church during the coal-strike. + + +The Unholy Alliance + +Everywhere throughout America today the ultimate source of all +power, political, social, and religious, is economic +exploitation. To all other powers and all other organizations it +speaks in these words: "Help us, and you will thrive; oppose us, +and you will be destroyed." It has spoken to the Catholic Church, +for sixteen hundred years the friend and servant of every ruling +class; and the Church has hastened to fit itself into the +situation, continuing its pastoral role as shepherd to the +wage-slave vote. + +In New York and Boston and Chicago the Church is "Democratic"; so +in the Blaine campaign it was possible for a Republican clergyman +to describe the issue as "Rum, Romanism and Rebellion." But the +Holy Office was shrewd and socially ambitious, and the Grand Old +Party was desperately in need of votes, so under the regime of +Mark Hanna, the President-Maker, there began a rapprochement +between Big Business and the New Inquisition. Under Hanna the +Catholic Church got representation in the Cabinet; under him the +Cardinal's Mass became a government institution, a Catholic +College came to the fore in Washington, and Catholic prelates +were introduced in the role of eminent publicists, their +reactionary opinions on important questions being quoted with +grave solemnity by a prostitute press. It was Mark Hanna himself +who founded the National Civic Federation, upon whose executive +committee Catholic cardinals and archbishops might work hand in +glove with Catholic labor-leaders for the chloroforming of the +American working-class. Hanna's biographer naively calls +attention to the President-maker's popularity among Catholics, +high and low, and the support they gave him. "Archbishop Ireland +was in frequent correspondence with him, and used his influence +in Mr. Hanna's behalf." + +And this tradition, begun under Hanna, was continued under +Roosevelt, and reached its finest flower in the days of Taft, the +most pliant tool of the forces of evil who has occupied the White +House since the days of the Slave Power. President Taft was +himself a Unitarian; yet it was under his administration that the +Catholic Church achieved one of its dearest ambitions, and broke +into the Supreme Court. Why not? We can imagine the powers of the +time in conference. It is desired to pack the Court against the +possibility of progress; it is desired to find men who will stand +like a rock against change--and who better than those who have +been trained from childhood in the idea of a divine sanction for +doctrine and morals? After all, what is it that Hereditary +Privilege wants in America? A Roman Catholic code of property +rights, with a supreme tribunal to play the part of an infallible +Pope! + +Under this Taft administration the country was governed by the +strangest legislative alliance our history ever saw; a +combination of the Old Guard of the Republican Party with the +leaders of the Tammany Democracy of New York. "Bloody shirt" +Foraker, senator from Ohio, voting with the sons of those Irish +Catholic mob-leaders whom the Federal troops shot down in the +draft-riots! By this unholy combination a pledge to reduce the +tariff was carried out by a bill which greatly increased its +burdens; by this combination the public lands and resources of +the country were fed to a gang of vultures by a thievish +Secretary of the Interior. And of course under such an +administration the cause of "Religion" made tremendous strides. +Catholic officials were appointed to public office, Catholic +ecclesiastics were accorded public honors, and Catholic favor +became a means to political advancement. You might see a +hard-swearing old political pirate like "Uncle Joe" Cannon, +taking his cigar out of the corner of his blasphemous mouth and +betaking himself to the "Cardinal's Day Mass", to bend his stiff +knees and bow his hoary unrepentant head before a jeweled prelate +on a throne. You might see an emissary of the United States +government proceeding to Rome, prostrating himself before the +Pope, and paying over seven million dollars of our taxes for +lands which the filthy and sensual friars of the Philippine +Islands had filched from the wretched serfs of that country and +which the wretched serfs had won back by their blood in a +revolution. + + +Secret Service + +This Taft administration, urged on by the Catholic intrigue, made +the most determined efforts to prevent the spread of radical +thought. Because the popular magazines were opposing the +plundering of the country, a bill was introduced into Congress to +put them out of business by a prohibitive postal tax; the +President himself devoted all his power to forcing the passage of +this bill. At the same time the Socialist press was handicapped +by every sort of persecution. I was at that time in intimate +touch with the "Appeal to Reason", and I know that scarcely a +month passed that the Post Office Department did not invent some +new "regulation" especially designed to limit its circulation. I +recall one occasion when I met the editor on his way to +Washington with a trunkful of letters from subscribers who +complained that their postmasters refused to deliver the paper to +them; and later on this same editor was prosecuted by a Catholic +Attorney General and sentenced to prison for seeking to awaken +the people concerning the Moyer-Haywood case. + +From my personal knowledge I can say that under the +administration of President Taft the Roman Catholic Church and +the Secret Service of the Federal Government worked hand in hand +for the undermining of the radical movement in America. Catholic +lecturers toured the country, pouring into the ears of the public +vile slanders about the private morality of Socialists; while at +the same time government detectives, paid out of public funds, +spent their time seeking evidence for these Catholic lecturers to +use. I know one man, a radical labor-leader, whose morals +happened to approach those of the average capitalist politician, +and who was prevented by threats of exposure and scandal from +accepting the Socialist nomination for President. I know a dozen +others who were shadowed and spied upon; I know one +case--myself--a man who was asking a divorce from his wife, and +whose mail was opened for months. + +This subject is one on which I naturally speak with extreme +reluctance. I will only say that my opponent in the suit made no +charge of misconduct against me; but those in control of our +political police evidently thought it likely that a man who was +not living with his wife might have something to hide; so for +months my every move was watched and all my mail intercepted. In +such a case one might at first suspect one's private opponent; +but it soon became evident that this net was cast too wide for +any private agency. Not merely was my own mail opened, but the +mail of all my relatives and friends--people residing in places +as far apart as California and Florida. I recall the bland smile +of a government official to whom I complained about this matter: +"If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear." My answer +was that a study of many labor cases had taught me the methods of +the agent provocateur. He is quite willing to take real evidence +if he can find it; but if not, he has familiarized himself with +the affairs of his victim, and can make evidence which will be +convincing when exploited by the yellow press. In my own case, +the matter was not brought to a test, for I went abroad to live; +when I made my next attack on Big Business, the Taft +administration had been repudiated at the polls, and the Secret +Service of the government was no longer at the disposal of the +Catholic machine. + + +Tax Exemption + +Today the Catholic Church is firmly established and everywhere +recognized as one of the main pillars of American capitalism. It +has some fifteen thousand churches, fourteen million +communicants, and property valued at half a billion dollars. Upon +this property it pays no taxes, municipal, state or national; +which means, quite obviously, that you and I, who do not go to +church, but who do pay taxes, furnish the public costs of +Catholicism. We pay to have streets paved and lighted and cleaned +in front of Catholic churches; we pay to have thieves kept away +from them, fires put out in them, records preserved for them--all +the services of civilization given to them gratis, and this in a +land whose constitution provides that Congress (which includes +all state and municipal legislative bodies) "shall make no law +respecting a religious establishment." When war is declared, and +our sons are drafted to defend the country, all Catholic monks +and friars, priests and dignitaries are exempted. They are +"ministers of religion"; whereas we Socialists may not even have +the status of "conscientious objectors." We do not teach +"religion"; we only teach justice and humanity, decency and +truth. + +In defense of this tax-exemption graft, the stock answer is that +the property is being used for purposes of "education" or +"charity". It is a school, in which children are being taught +that "liberty of conscience is a most pestiferous error, from +which arises revolution, corruption, contempt of sacred things, +holy institutions, and laws." (Pius IX). It is a "House of +Refuge", to which wayward girls are committed by Catholic +magistrates, and in which they are worked twelve hours a day in a +laundry or a clothing sweat-shop. Or it is a "parish-house", in +which a celibate priest lives under the care of an attractive +young "house-keeper". Or it is a nunnery, in which young girls +are held against their will and fed upon the scraps from their +sisters' plates to teach them humility, and taught to lie before +the altar, prostrate in the form of a cross, while their +"Superiors" walk upon their bodies to impress the religious +virtues. "I was a teacher in the Catholic schools up to a very +recent period," writes the woman friend who tells me of these +customs, "and I know about the whole awful system which endeavors +to throttle every genuine impulse of the human will." + +Concerning a large part of this church property, the claim of +"religious" use has not even the shadow of justification. In +every large city of America you will find acres of land owned by +the Catholic machine, and supposed to be the future site of some +institution; but as time goes on and property values increase, +the church decides to build on a cheaper site, and proceeds to +cash in the profits of its investment, precisely as does any +other real estate speculator. Everywhere you turn in the history +of Romanism you find it at this same game, doing business under +the cloak of philanthropy and in the holy name of Christ. Read +the letter which the Catholic Bishop of Mexico sent to the Pope +in 1647, complaining of the Jesuit fathers and their boundless +graft. In McCabe's "Candid History of the Jesuits" appears a +summary: + +A remarkable account is given of the worldly property of the +fathers. They hold, it seems, the greater part of the wealth of +Mexico. Two of their colleges own 300,000 sheep, besides cattle +and other property. They own six large sugar refineries, worth +from half a million to a million crowns each, and making an +annual profit of 100,000 crowns each, while all the other monks +and clergy of Mexico together own only three small refineries. +They have immense farms, rich silver mines, large shops and +butcheries, and do a vast trade. Yet they continually intrigue +for legacies--a woman has recently left them 70,000 crowns--and +they refuse to pay the appointed tithe on them. It is piquant to +add to this authoritative description that the Jesuit +congregation at Rome were still periodically forbidding the +fathers to engage in commerce, and Jesuit writers still gravely +maintain that the society never engaged in commerce. It should be +added that the missionaries were still heavily subsidized by the +King of Spain, that there were (the Bishop says) only five or six +Jesuits to each of their establishments, and that they conducted +only ten colleges. + + +"Holy History" + +And if you think this tax-exemption privilege should be taken +away from the church grafters, let me suggest a course of +procedure. Write a letter about it to your daily newspaper; and +if the letter is not published, go and see the editor and ask +why; so you will learn something about the partnership between +Superstition and Big Business! + +It is not too much to say that today no daily newspaper in any +large American city dares to attack the emoluments of the +Catholic Church, or to advocate restrictions upon the +ecclesiastical machine. As I write, they are making a new +Catholic bishop in Los Angeles, and all the newspapers of that +graft-ridden city herald it as an important social event. Each +paper has the picture of the new prelate, with his shepherd's +crook upraised, his empty face crowned with a rhomboidal fool's +cap, and enough upholstery on him to outfit a grand opera +company. The Los Angeles "Examiner", the only paper in the city +with a pretense to radicalism, turns loose its star-writer--one +of those journalist virtuosos who will describe you a Wild West +"rodeo" one day, and a society elopement the next, and a G. O. P. +convention the next; and always with his picture, one inch +square, at the head of his effusion. He takes in the Catholic +festivity; and does it phaze him? It does not! He is a newspaper +man, and if his city editor sent him to hell, he would take the +assignment and write like the devil. To read him now you might +think he had been reared in a convent; his soul is uplifted, and +he bursts forth in pure spontaneous ecstacy: + +Solemnly magnificent, every brilliant detail symbolically +picturing the holy history of the Roman Catholic Church in the +inexorable progress of its immense structure, which rises from +the rock of Peter, with its beacons of faith and devotion +piercing the fog of doubt and fear which surround the world and +the worldly, was the ceremony yesterday at the Cathedral of St. +Vibiana, whereby Bishop John J. Cantwell was installed in his +diocese of Monterey and Los Angeles. + +And then, a month later, comes another occasion of state--the +Twenty-third Annual-Banquet of the Merchants' and Manufacturers' +Association of Los Angeles. I should have to write a little essay +to make clear the sociological significance of that function; +explaining first, a nation-wide organization which has been +proven by congressional investigation and by the publication of +its secret documents to be a machine for the corruption of our +political life; and then exhibiting our "City of the Angels", +from which all Angels have long since fled; a city in the first +crude stage of land speculation, without order, dignity or charm; +a city of real estate agents, who exist by selling climate to new +arrivals from the East; a city whose intellectual life is +"boosting", whose standards of truth are those of the +horse-trade. Its newspapers publish a table of temperatures, +showing the daily contrast between Southern California and the +East. This device is effective in the winter-time; but last June, +when for five days and nights the temperature was over 110, and +several times 114--the Los Angeles space was left empty! + +In the same way, there is a rule that our earthquake shocks are +never mentioned, unless they destroy whole towns. On the +afternoon of Jan. 26th, 1918, a cyclone hit Pasadena, of violence +sufficient to lift a barn over a church-steeple and deposit it in +the pastor's front yard. That evening a friend of mine in Los +Angeles called up the office of the "Times" to make inquiry; and +although they are only thirteen miles away, and have a branch +office and a special correspondent in Pasadena, the answer was +that they had heard nothing about the cyclone! And next morning I +made a careful search of their columns. On the front page I read: +"Fourth Blizzard of Season Raging in East"; also: "Another +Earthquake in Guatemala". But not a line about the Pasadena +cyclone That there was plenty of space in that issue, you may +judge from the fact that there were twenty headlines like the +following--many of them representing full page and half page +illustrated "write-ups": + +Where Spring is January; Wealth Waits in California; The Bright +Side of Sunshine Land; Come to California: Southland's Arms +Outstretched in Cordial Invitation to the East; Flower Stands +Make Gay City Streets; Southland Climate Big Manufacturing +Factor; Joy of Life Demonstrated in Los Angeles' Beautiful Homes; +Nymphs Knit and Bathe at Ocean's Sunny Beach; etc. + +Now we are in the War and our business is booming, we are making +money hand over fist. It is all the more delightful, because we +are putting our souls into it, we are lending our money to the +government and saving the world for Democracy! Our labor +unionists have been driven to other cities, and our Mexican +agitators and I. W. W.'s are in jail; so, in the gilt ball-room +of our palatial six-dollar-a-day hotel the four hundred masters +of our prosperity meet to pat themselves on the back, and they +invite the new Catholic bishop to come and confer the grace of +God upon their eating. + +The Bishop comes; and I take up the "Times"--the labor-hating, +labor-baiting, fire-and-slaughter-breathing "Times"--and here is +the episcopal picture on the front page, the arms stretched four +columns wide in oratorical beneficence. How the shepherd of Jesus +does love the Merchants and Manufacturers! How his eloquence is +poured out upon them! "You represent, gentlemen, the largest and +the most civilizing secular body in the country. You are the +pioneers of American civilization..... I am glad to be among you; +glad that my lines have fallen in this glorious land by the +sunset sea, and honored to meet in intimate acquaintance the big +men who have raised here in a few years a city of metropolitan +proportions." + +And then, bearing in mind his responsibilities as guardian of +Exploitation, the Bishop goes on to tell them about the coming +class-war. "On the one side a statesman preaching patience and +respect for vested rights, strict observance of public faith; on +the other a demagog speaking about the tyranny of capitalists and +usurers." And then, of course, the inevitable religious tag: "How +will men obey you, if they believe not in God, who is the author +of all authority?" At which, according to the "Times", "prolonged +applause and cheers" from the Merchants and Manufacturers! The +editor of the "Times" goes back to his office, and inspired by +this episcopal eloquence writes a "leader" with the statement +that: "We have no proletariat in America!" + + +Das Centrum + +In order to see clearly the ultimate purpose of this Unholy +Alliance, this union of Superstition and the Merchants' and +Manufacturers' Association, we have to go to Europe, where the +arrangement has been working for a thousand years. In Europe +to-day we see the whole world in conflict with a band of +criminals who have been able to master the minds and lives of a +hundred million highly civilized people. As I write, the Junker +aristocracy is at bay, and soon to have its throat cut; but there +comes a Holy Father to its rescue, with the cross of Jesus +uplifted, and a series of pleas for mercy, written in Vienna, +edited in Berlin, and sent out from Rome. The Holy Father loves +all mankind with a tender and touching love; his heart bleeds at +the sight of bloodshed and suffering, and he pleads the sacred +cause of peace on earth and good-will toward men. + +But what was the Holy Father doing through the forty-three years +that the Potsdam gang were preparing for their assault on the +world? How was the Holy Father manifesting his love of peace and +good will? He is, you understand, the "sole, last, supreme judge +of what is right and wrong," and his followers obey him with the +utmost promptness and devotion--they express themselves as +"prostrate at his feet." And when the masters of Prussia came to +him and said: "Give us the power to turn this nation into the +world's greatest military empire"--what did the Roman Church +answer? Did it speak boldly for the gentle Jesus, and the cause +of peace on earth and good-will towards men? No, it did not. To +Bismarck in Germany it said, precisely as it said to Mark Hanna +in America: "Give us honors and prestige; give us power over the +minds of the young, so that we may plunder the poor and build our +cathedrals and feed fat our greed; and in return we will furnish +you with votes, so that you may rule the state and do what you +will." + +You think there is exaggeration in that statement? Why, we know +the very names of the prelates with whom the master-cynic of the +Junkerthum made his "deal." He had tried the method of the +Kultur-kampf, and had failed; but before he repealed the +anti-Catholic laws, he made sure that the Church had learned its +lesson, and would nevermore oppose the Prussian ruling caste. We +know how this bargain was carried out; we have the record of the +Centrum, the Catholic party of Germany, whose hundred deputies +were the solid rock upon which the military regime of Prussia was +erected. Not a battle-ship nor a Zeppelin was built for which the +Black Terror did not vote the funds; not a school-child was +beaten in Posen or Alsace that the New Inquisition did not shout +its "Hoch!" The writer sat in the visitors' gallery of the +Reichstag when the Socialists were protesting against the +torturing of miserable Herreros in Africa, and he heard the +deputies of the Holy Father's political party screaming their +rage like jaguars in a jungle night. All over Europe the Catholic +Church organized fake labor unions, the "yellows," as they were +called, to scab upon the workers and undermine the revolutionary +movement. The Holy Father himself issued precise instructions for +the management of these agencies of betrayal. Hear the most pious +and benevolent Leo XIII: + +"They must pay special and principal attention to piety and +morality, and their internal discipline must be directed +precisely by these considerations; otherwise they entirely lose +their special character, and come to be very little better than +those societies which take no account of Religion at all." + +It is so hard, you see, to keep a man thinking about piety and +morality while he is starving! I am quoting from the Encyclical +Letter on "The Condition of Labor," issued in 1891, and addressed +"to our Venerable Brethren, all Patriarchs, Primates, Archbishops +and Bishops of the Catholic World in Grace and Communion with the +Apostolic See." The purpose of the letter is "to refute false +teaching," and the substance of its message is: + +This great labor question cannot be solved except by assuming as +a principle that private property must be held sacred and +inviolable. + +And again, the purpose of churches proclaimed in language as +frank as any used in the present book: + +The chief thing to be secured is the safe-guarding, by legal +enactment and policy, of private property. Most of all it is +essential in these times of covetous greed, to keep the multitude +within the line of duty; for if all may justly strive to benefit +their condition, yet neither justice nor the common good allows +any one to seize that which belongs to another, or, under the +pretext of futile and ridiculous equality, to lay hands on other +peoples' fortunes. + +And this, you understand, in lands where rapine and conquest, +class-tyranny and priestly domination have been the custom since +the dawn of history; in which no property-right can possibly +trace back to any other basis than force. In Austria, for +example--Austria, the leader and guardian of the Holy +Alliance--Austria, which had no Reformation, no Revolution, no +Kultur-kampf--Austria, in which the income of the Catholic +Primate is $625,000 a year! In other words, Austria is still to a +large extent a "Priestly Empire;" and it was Austria which began +the war--began it in a religious quarrel, with a Slav people +which does not acknowledge the Holy Father as the ruler of the +world, but persists in adhering to the Eastern Church. So of +course to-day, when Austria is learning the bitter lesson that +they who draw the sword shall perish by the sword, the heart of +the Holy Father is wrung with grief, and he sends out these +eloquent peace-notes, written in Vienna and edited in Berlin. And +at the same time his private chaplain is convicted and sentenced +to prison for life as Austria's Master-Spy in Rome! + +It is a curious thing to observe--the natural instinct which, all +over the world, draws Superstition and Exploitation together. +This war, which is hailed as a war against autocracy, might +almost as accurately be described as a war against the clerical +system. Wherever in the world you find the Papal power strong, +there you find sympathy with the Prussian infamy and there you +find German intrigue. In Spain, for example; in Ireland and +Quebec, and in the Argentine. The treatment of Belgium was a +little too raw--too many priests were shot at the outset, and so +Cardinal Mercier denounces the Germans; but you notice that he +pleads in vain with the Vatican, which stands firm by its beloved +Austria, and against the godless kingdom of Italy. The Kaiser +allows the hope of restoration of the temporal power at the peace +settlement; and meantime the law forbidding the presence of the +Jesuits in Germany has been repealed, and all over the world the +propagandists of this order are working for the Kaiser. Sir Roger +Casement was raised a Catholic, and so also "Jim" Larkin, the +Irish labor-leader who is touring America denouncing the Allies. +The Catholic Bishop of Melbourne opposed and beat conscription in +Australia, and it was Catholic propaganda of treachery among the +ignorant peasant-soldiers from Sicily which caused the breaking +of the Italian line at Tolmino. So deeply has this instinct +worked that, in the fall of 1917 while the Socialist party in New +York was campaigning for immediate peace, the Catholic Irish +suddenly forgot their ancient horrors. The Catholic "Freeman's +Journal" published nine articles favoring Socialism in a single +issue; while even "The Tablet," the diocesan paper, began to +discover that the Socialists were not such bad fellows after all. +The same "Tablet" which a few years ago allowed Father Belford to +declare that Socialists were mad dogs who should be "stopped with +a bullet"! + +Note to second edition: Since the above was written, the war +fervor has swept America, including even the rank and file of the +Catholics, and what has here been said might seem unfair to +persons who have forgotten the attitude of the Church during the +early part of the conflict, and the struggle it cost to bring the +hierarchy into line. It is one of the ironies of history that the +most reactionary organization in the world should be lending its +aid to the destruction of the second most reactionary. When the +Catholic Church marches forth to war for Democracy, it is not +drawing America down into the pit, but is letting America pull it +out of the pit--at least for a time, and the spectacle is one in +which all lovers of progress will rejoice. + + + +BOOK FOUR + +The Church of the Slavers + + See, underneath the Crown of Thorn, + The eye-balls fierce, the features grim! + And merrily from night to morn + We chaunt his praise and worship him-- +Great Christus-Jingo, at whose feet + Christian and Jew and Atheist meet! + + A wondrous god! most fit for those + Who cheat on 'Change, then creep to prayer; + Blood on his heavenly altar flows, + Hell's burning incense fills the air, + And Death attests in street and lane + The hideous glory of his reign. + + +Face of Caesar + +The thesis of this book is the effect of fixed dogma in producing +mental paralysis, and the use of this mental paralysis by +Economic Exploitation. From that standpoint the various +Protestant sects are better than the Catholic, but not much +better. The Catholics stand upon Tradition, the Protestants upon +an Inspired Word; but since this Word is the entire literary +product, history and biography, science and legislation, poetry, +drama and fiction of a whole people for something like a thousand +years, it is possible by judicious selection of texts to prove +anything you wish to prove and to justify anything you wish to +do. The "Holy Book" being full of polygamy, slavery, rape and +wholesale murder, committed by priests and rulers under the +direct orders of God, it was a very simple matter for the +Protestant Slavers to construct a Bible defense of their system. + +They get poor Jesus because he was given to irony, that most +dangerous form of utterance. If he could come back to life, and +see what men have done with his little joke about the face of +Caesar on the Roman coin, I think he would drop dead. As for +Paul, he was a Roman bureaucrat, with no nonsense in his make-up; +when he ordered, "Servants obey your masters," he meant exactly +what he said. The Roman official stamp which he put upon the +gospel of Jesus has been the salvation of the Slavers from the +Reformation on. + +In the time of Martin Luther, the peasants of Germany were +suffering the most atrocious and awful misery; Luther himself +knew about it, he had denounced the princely robbers and the +priestly land-exploiters with that picturesque violence of which +he was a master. But nothing had been done about it, nothing ever +is done about it--until at last the miserable peasants attempted +to organize and win their own rights. Their demands do not seem +to us so very criminal as we read them today; the privilege of +electing their own pastors, the abolition of villeinage, the +right to hunt and fish and cut wood in the forest, the reduction +of exorbitant rents, extra payment for extra labor, and--that +universal cry of peasant communes whether in Russia, England, +Mexico or sixteenth century Germany--the restoration to the +village of lands taken by fraud. But Luther would hear nothing of +slaves asserting their own rights, and took refuge in the Pauline +sociology: If they really wished to follow Christ, they would +drop the sword and resort to prayer; the gospel has to do with +spiritual, not temporal, affairs; earthly society cannot exist +without inequalities, etc. + +And when the peasants went on in spite of this, he turned upon +them and denounced them to the princes; he issued proclamations +which might have been the instructions of Mr. John Wanamaker to +the police-force of his "City of Brotherly Love": "One cannot +answer a rebel with reason, but the best answer is to hit him +with the fist until blood flows from the nose." He issued a +letter: "Against the Murderous and Thieving Mob of Peasants," +which might have come from the Reverend Woelfkin, Fifth Avenue +Pastor of Standard Oil: "The ass needs to be beaten, and the +populace needs to be controlled with a strong hand. God knew this +well, and therefore he gave the rulers, not a fox's tail, but a +sword." He implored these rulers, after the fashion of Methodist +Chancellor Day of the University of Syracuse: "Do not be troubled +about the severity of their repression, for it will save many +souls." With such pious exhortations in their ears the princes +set to work, and slaughtered a hundred thousand of the miserable +wretches; they completely aborted the social hopes of the +Reformation, and cast humanity into the pit of wage-slavery and +militarism for four centuries. As a church scholar, Prof. +Rauschenbusch, puts it: + +The glorious years of the Lutheran Reformation were from 1517 to +1525, when the whole nation was in commotion, and a great +revolutionary tidal wave seemed to be sweeping every class and +every higher interest one step nearer to its ideal of life. . . . +The Lutheran Reformation had been most truly religious and +creative when it embraced the whole of human life and enlisted +the enthusiasm of all ideal men and movements. When it became +"religious" in the narrow sense, it grew scholastic and spiny, +quarrelsome, and impotent to awaken high enthusiasm and noble +life. + + +Deutschland ueber Alles + +As a result of Luther's treason to humanity, his church became +the state church of Prussia, and Bible-worship and Devil-terror +played their part, along with the Mass and the Confessional, in +building up the Junker dream. A court official--the +Oberhofprediger--was set up, and from that time on the +Hohenzollerns were the most pious criminals in Europe. Frederick +the Great, the ancestral genius, was an atheist and a scoffer, +but he believed devoutly in religion for his subjects. He said: +"If my soldiers were to begin to think, not one would remain in +the ranks." And Carlyle, instinctive friend of autocrats, tells +with jocular approval how he kept them from thinking: + +He recognizes the uses of Religion; takes a good deal of pains +with his Preaching Clergy; will suggest texts to them; and for +the rest expects to be obeyed by them, as by his Sergeants and +Corporals. Indeed, the reverend men feel themselves to be a body +of Spiritual Sergeants, Corporals, and Captains, to whom +obedience is the rule, and discontent a thing not to be indulged +in by any means. + +So the soldiers stayed in the ranks, and Frederick raided Silesia +and Poland. His successors ordered all the Protestant sects into +one, so that they might be more easily controlled; from which +time the Lutheran Church has been a department of the Prussian +state, in some cases a branch of the municipal authority. + +In 1848, when the people of various German states demanded their +liberty, it was an ultra-pious king of Prussia who sent his +troops and shot them down--precisely as Luther had advised to +shoot down the peasants. At this time the future maker of the +German Empire rose in the Landtag and made his bow before the +world; a young Prussian land-magnate, Otto von Bismarck by name, +he shook his fist in the face of the new German liberalism, and +incidentally of the new German infidelity: + +Christianity is the solid basis of Prussia; and no state erected +upon any other foundation can permanently exist. + +The present Hohenzollern has diligently maintained this tradition +of his line. It was his custom to tour the Empire in a train of +blue and white cars, carrying as many costumes as any stage +favorite, most of them military; with him on the train went the +Prussian god, and there was scarcely a performance at which this +god did not appear, also in military costume. After the failure +of the "Kultur-kampf," the official Lutheran religion was ordered +to make friends with its ancient enemy, the Catholic Church. Said +the Kaiser: + +I make no difference between the adherents of the Catholic and +Protestant creeds. Let them both stand upon the foundation of +Christianity, and they are both bound to be true citizens and +obedient subjects. Then the German people will be the rock of +granite upon which our Lord God can build and complete his work +of Kultur in the world. + +And here is the oath required of the Catholic clergy, upon their +admission to equality of trustworthiness with their Protestant +confreres: + +I will be submissive, faithful and obedient to his Royal +Majesty,--and his lawful successors in the government,--as my +most gracious King and Sovereign; promote his welfare according +to my ability; prevent injury and detriment to him; and +particularly endeavor carefully to cultivate in the minds of the +people under my care a sense of reverence and fidelity towards +the King, love for the Fatherland, obedience to the laws, and all +those virtues which in a Christian denote a good citizen; and I +will not suffer any man to teach or act in a contrary spirit. In +particular I vow that I will not support any society or +association, either at home or abroad, which might endanger the +public security, and will inform His Majesty of any proposal +made, either in my diocese or elsewhere, which might prove +injurious to the State. + +And later on this heaven-guided ruler conceived the scheme of a +Berlin-Bagdad railway, for which he needed one religion more; he +paid a visit to Constantinople, and made another debut and +produced another god--with the result that millions of Turks are +fighting under the belief that the Kaiser is a convert to the +faith of Mohammed! + + +Der Tag. + +All this was, of course, in preparation for the great event to +which all good Germans looked forward--to which all German +officers drank their toasts at banquets--the Day. + +This glorious day came, and the field-gray armies marched forth, +and the Pauline-Lutheran God marched with them. The Kaiser, as +usual, acted as spokesman: + +Remember that the German people are the chosen of God. On me, the +German emperor, the spirit of God has descended. I am His sword, +His weapon and His viceregent. Woe to the disobedient and death +to cowards and unbelievers. + +As to the Prussian state religion, its attitude to the war is set +forth in a little book written by a high clerical personage, the +Herr Consistorialrat Dietrich Vorwerk, containing prayers and +hymns for the soldiers, and for the congregations at home. Here +is an appeal to the Lord God of Battles: + +Though the warrior's bread be scanty, do Thou work daily death +and tenfold woe unto the enemy. Forgive in merciful +long-suffering each bullet and each blow which misses its mark. +Lead us not into the temptation of letting our wrath be too tame +in carrying out Thy divine judgment. Deliver us and our ally from +the Infernal Enemy and his servants on earth. Thine is the +kingdom, the German land; may we, by the aid of Thy steel-clad +hand, achieve the fame and the glory. + +It is this Herr Consistorialrat who has perpetrated the great +masterpiece of humor of the war--the hymn in which he appeals to +that God who keeps guard over Cherubim, Seraphim, and Zeppelins. +You have to say over the German form of these words in order to +get the effect of their delicious melody--"Cherubinen, +Seraphinen, Zeppelinen!" And lest you think that this too-musical +clergyman is a rara avis, turn to the little book which has been +published in English under the same title as Herr Vorwerk's +"Hurrah and Hallelujah." Here is the Reverend S. Lehmann: + +Germany is the center of God's plans for the world. Germany's +fight against the whole world is in reality the battle of the +spirit against the whole world's infamy, falsehood and devilish +cunning. + +And here is Pastor K. Koenig: + +It was God's will that we should win the war. + +And Pastor J. Rump: + +Our defeat would mean the defeat of His Son in humanity. We fight +for the cause of Jesus within mankind. + +And here is an eminent theological professor: + +The deepest and most thought-inspiring result of the war is the +German God. Not the national God such as the lower nations +worship, but "our God," who is not ashamed of belonging to us, +the peculiar acquirement of our heart. + + +King Cotton + +It is a cheap way to gain applause in these days, to denounce the +Prussian system; my only purpose is to show that Bible-worship, +precisely as saint-worship or totem-worship, delivers the +worshipper up to the Slavers. This truth has held in America, +precisely as in Prussia. During the middle of the last century +there was fought out a mighty issue in our free republic; and +what was the part played in this struggle by the Bible-cults? +Hear the testimony of William Lloyd Garrison: "American +Christianity is the main pillar of American slavery." Hear Parker +Pillsbury: "We had almost to abolish the Church before we could +reach the dreadful institution at all." + +In the year 1818 the Presbyterian General Assembly, which +represented the churches of the South as well as of the North, +passed by a unanimous vote a resolution to the effect that +"Slavery is utterly inconsistent with the law of God, which +requires us to love our neighbor as ourselves." But in a +generation the views of the entire South, including the +Presbyterian Church, had changed entirely. What was the reason? +Had the "law of God" been altered? Had some new "revelation" been +handed down? Nothing of the kind; it was merely that a Yankee by +the name of Eli Whitney had perfected a machine to take the seeds +out of short staple cotton. The cotton crop of the South +increased from four thousand bales in 1791 to four hundred and +fifty thousand in 1820 and five million, four hundred thousand in +1860. + +There was a new monarch, King Cotton, and his empire depended +upon slaves. According to the custom of monarchs since the dawn +of history, he hired the ministers of God to teach that what he +wanted was right and holy. From one end of the South to the other +the pulpits rang with the text: "Cursed be Canaan; a servant to +servants shall he be to his brethren." The learned Bishop +Hopkins, in his "Bible View of Slavery", gave the standard +interpretation of this text: + +The Almighty, forseeing the total degredation of the Negro race, +ordained them to servitude or slavery under the descendants of +Shem and Japheth, doubtless because he judged it to be their +fittest condition. + +I might fill the balance of this volume with citations from +defenses of the "peculiar institution" in the name of Jesus +Christ--and not only from the South, but from the North. For it +must be understood that leading families of Massachusetts and New +York owed their power to Slavery; their fathers had brought +molasses from New Orleans and made it into rum, and taken it to +the coast of Africa to be exchanged for slaves for the Southern +planters. And after this trade was outlawed, the slave-grown +cotton had still to be shipped to the North and spun; so the +traders of the North must have divine sanction for the Fugitive +Slave law. Here is the Bishop of Vermont declaring: "The slavery +of the negro race appears to me to be fully authorized both in +the Old and New Testaments." Here in the "True Presbyterian", of +New York, giving the decision of a clerical man of the world: +"There is no debasement in it. It might have existed in Paradise, +and it may continue through the Millenium." + +And when the slave-holding oligarchy of the South rose in arms +against those who presumed to interfere with this divine +institution, the men of God of the South called down blessings +upon their armies in words which, with the proper change of +names, might have been spoken in Berlin in August, 1914. Thus Dr. +Thornwell, one of the leading Presbyterian divines of the South: +"The triumph of Lincoln's principles is the death-knell of +slavery...... Let us crush the serpent in the egg." And the +Reverend Dr. Smythe of Charleston: "The war is a war against +slavery, and is therefore treasonable rebellion against the Word, +Providence and Government of God." I read in the papers, as I am +writing, how the clergy of Germany are thundering against +President Wilson's declaration that that country must become +democratic. Here is a manifesto of the German Evangelical League, +made public on the four hundredth anniversary of the Reformation: + +We especially warn against the heresy, promulgated from America, +that Christianity enjoins democratic institutions, and that they +are an essential condition of the kingdom of God on earth. + +In exactly the same way the religious bodies of the entire South +united in an address to Christians throughout the world, early in +the year 1863: + +The recent proclamation of the President of the United States, +seeking the emancipation of the slaves of the South, is in our +judgment occasion of solemn protest on the part of the people of +God. + + +Witches and Women + +To whatever part of the world you travel, to whatever page of +history you turn, you find the endowed and established clergy +using the word of God in defense of whatever form of +slave-driving may then be popular and profitable. Two or three +hundred years ago it was the custom of Protestant divines in +England and America to burn poor old women as witches; only a +hundred and fifty years ago we find John Wesley, founder of +Methodism, declaring that "the giving up of witchcraft is in +effect the giving up of the Bible." And if you investigate this +witch-burning, you will find that it is only one aspect of a blot +upon civilization, the Christian Mysogyny. You see, there were +two Hebrew legends--one that woman was made out of a man's rib, +and the other that she ate an apple; therefore in modern England +a wife must be content with a legal status lower than a domestic +servant. + +Perhaps the most comical of the clerical claims is this--that +Christianity has promoted chivalry and respect for womanhood. In +ancient Greece and Rome the woman was the equal and helpmate of +man; we read in Tacitus about the splendid women of the Germans, +who took part in public councils, and even fought in battles. Two +thousand years before the Christian era we are told by Maspero +that the Egyptian woman was the mistress of her house; she could +inherit equally with her brothers, and had full control of her +property. We are told by Paturet that she was "juridically the +equal of man, having the same rights and being treated in the +same fashion." But in present-day England, under the common law, +woman can hold no office of trust or power, and her husband has +the sole custody of her person, and of her children while minors. +He can steal her children, rob her of her clothing, and beat her +with a stick provided it is no thicker than his thumb. While I +was in London the highest court handed down a decision on the law +which does not permit a woman to divorce her husband for +infidelity, unless it has been accompanied by cruelty; a man had +brought his mistress into his home and--compelled his wife to +work for and wait upon her, and the decision was that this was +not cruelty in the meaning of the law! + +And if you say that this enslavement of Woman has nothing to do +with religion--that ancient Hebrew fables do not control modern +English customs--then listen to the Vicar of Crantock, preaching +at St. Crantock's, London, Aug. 27th, 1905, and explaining why +women must cover their heads in church: + +(1) Man's priority of creation. Adam was first formed, then Eve. + +(2) The manner of creation. The man is not of the woman, but the +woman of the man. + +(3) The purport of creation. The man was not created for the +woman, but the woman for the man. + +(4) Results in creation. The man is the image of the glory of +God, but woman is the glory of man. + +(5) Woman's priority in the fall. Adam was not deceived; but the +woman, being deceived, was in the transgression. + +(6) The marriage relation. As the Church is subject to Christ, so +let the wives be to their husbands. + +(7) The headship of man and woman. The head of every man is +Christ, but the head of the woman is man. + +I say there is no modern evil which cannot be justified by these +ancient texts; and there is nowhere in Christendom a clergy which +cannot be persuaded to cite them at the demand of ruling classes. +In the city where I write, three clergymen are being sent to jail +for six months for protesting against the use of the name of +Jesus in the wholesale slaughter of men. Now, I am backing this +war. I know that it has to be fought, and I want to see it fought +as hard as possible; but I want to leave Jesus out of it, for I +know that Jesus did not believe in war, and never could have been +brought to support a war. I object to clerical cant on the +subject; and I note that an eminent theological authority, +"Billy" Sunday, appears to agree with me; for I find him on the +front page of my morning paper, assailing the three pacifist +clergymen, and making his appeal not to Jesus, but to the +blood-thirsty tribal diety of the ancient Hebrews: + +I suppose they think they know more than God Almighty, who +commanded the sun to stand still while Joshua won the battle for +the Lord; more than the God who made Samson strong so he could +slay thousands of his nation's enemies in a righteous cause. + +Right you are, Billy! And if the capitalist system continues to +develop unchecked, we shall some day see it dawn upon the masters +of the world how wasteful it is to permit the superannuated +workers to perish by slow starvation. So much more sensible to +make use of them! So we shall have a Bible defense of +cannibalism; we shall hear our evangelists quoting Leviticus: +"They shall eat the flesh of their own sons and daughters." Or +perhaps some of our leisure-class ladies might make the discovery +that the flesh of working-class babies is relished by pomeranians +and poodles. If so, the Billy Sundays of the twenty-first century +may discover the text: "Happy shall be he that taketh and dasheth +thy little ones against the stones." + + +Moth and Rust + +It is especially interesting to notice what happens when the +Bible texts work against the interests of the Slavers and their +clerical retainers. Then they are null and void--and no matter +how precise and explicit and unmistakable they may be! Take for +example the Sabbath injunction: "Six days shalt thou labor and do +all that thou hast to do." Karl Marx records of the pious England +of his time that + +Occasionally in rural districts a day-labourer is condemned to +imprisonment for desecrating the Sabbath by working in his front +garden. The same labourer is punished for breach of contract if +he remains away from his metal, paper or glass works on the +Sunday, even if it be from a religious whim. The orthodox +Parliament will hear nothing of Sabbath-breaking if it occurs in +the process of expanding capital. + +Or consider the attitude of the Church in the matter of usury. +Throughout ancient Hebrew history the money-lender was an +outcast; both the law and the prophets denounced him without +mercy, and it was made perfectly clear that what was meant was, +not the taking of high interest, but the taking of any interest +whatsoever. The early church fathers were explicit, and the +Catholic Church for a thousand years consigned money-lenders +unhesitatingly to hell. But then came the modern commercial +system, and the money-lenders became the masters of the world! +There is no more amusing illustration of the perversion of human +thought than the efforts of the Jesuit casuists to escape from +the dilemma into which their Heavenly Guides had trapped them. + +Here, for example is Alphonso Ligouri, a Spanish Jesuit of the +eighteenth century, a doctor of the Church, now worshipped as St. +Alphonsus, presenting a long and elaborate theory of "mental +usury"; concluding that, if the borrower pay interest of his own +free will, the lender may keep it. In answer to the question +whether the lender may keep what the borrower pays, not out of +gratitude, but out of fear that otherwise loans will be refused +to him in future, Ligouri says that "to be usury, it must be paid +by reason of a contract, or as justly due; payment by reason of +such a fear does not cause interest to be paid as an actual +price," Again the great saint and doctor tells us that "it is not +usury to exact something in return for the danger and expense of +regaining the principal!" Could the house of J. P. Morgan and +Company ask more of their ecclesiastical department? + +The reader may think that such sophistications are now out of +date; but he will find precisely the same knavery in the efforts +of present-day Slavers to fit Jesus Christ into the system of +competitive commercialism. Jesus, as we have pointed out, was a +carpenter's son, a thoroughly class-conscious proletarian. He +denounced the exploiters of his own time with ferocious +bitterness, he drove the money-changers out of the temple with +whips, and he finally died the death of a common criminal. If he +had forseen the whole modern cycle of capitalism and +wage-slavery, he could hardly have been more precise in his +exortations to his followers to stand apart from it. But did all +this avail him? Not in the least! + +I place upon the witness-stand an exponent of Bible-Christianity +whom all readers of our newspapers know well: a scholar of +learning, a publicist of renown; once pastor of the most famous +church in Brooklyn; now editor of our most influential religious +weekly; a liberal both in theology and politics; a modernist, an +advocate of what he calls industrial democracy. His name is Lyman +Abbott, and he is writing under his own signature in his own +magazine, his subject being "The Ethical Teachings of Jesus". +Several times I have tried to persuade people that the words I am +about to quote were actually written and published by this +eminent doctor of divinity, and people have almost refused to +believe me. Therefore I specify that the article may be found in +the "Outlook", the bound volumes of which are in all large +libraries: volume 94, page 576. The words are as follows, the +bold face being Dr. Abbott's, not mine: + +My radical friend declares that the teachings of Jesus are not +practicable, that we cannot carry them out in life, and that we +do not pretend to do so. Jesus, he reminds us, said, 'Lay not up +for yourself treasures upon earth;' and Christians do universally +lay up for themselves treasures upon earth; every man that owns a +house and lot, or a share of stock in a corporation, or a life +insurance policy, or money in a savings bank, has laid up for +himself treasure upon earth. But Jesus did not say, "Lay not up +for yourselves treasures upon earth." He said, "Lay not up for +yourselves treasures upon earth where moth and rust doth corrupt +and where thieves break through and steal." And no sensible +American does. Moth and rust do not get at Mr. Rockefeller's oil +wells, nor at the Sugar Trust's sugar, and thieves do not often +break through and steal a railway or an insurance company or a +savings bank. What Jesus condemned was hoarding wealth. + +Strange as it may sound to some of the readers of this book, I +count myself among the followers of Jesus of Nazareth. His +example has meant more to me than that of any other man, and all +the experiences of my revolutionary life have brought me nearer +to him. Living in the great Metropolis of Mammon, I have felt the +power of Privilege, its scourge upon my back, its crown of thorns +upon my head. When I read that article in the "Outlook", I felt +just as Jesus himself would have felt; and I sat down and wrote a +letter-- + +To Lyman Abbott + +This discovery of a new method of interpreting the Bible is one +of such very great interest and importance that I cannot forbear +to ask space to comment upon it. May I suggest that Dr. Abbott +elaborate this exceedingly fruitful idea, and write us another +article upon the extent to which the teachings of the Inspired +Word are modified by modern conditions, by the progress of +invention and the scientific arts? The point of view which Dr. +Abbott takes is one which had never occurred to me before, and I +had therefore been completely mistaken as to the attitude of +Jesus on the question. Also I have, like Dr. Abbott, many radical +friends who are still laboring under error. + +Jesus goes on to bid his hearers: "Consider the lilies of the +field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin." What +an apt simile is this for the "great mass of American wealth," in +Dr. Abbott's portrayal of it! "It is serving the community," he +tells us; "it is building a railway to open a new country to +settlement by the homeless; it is operating a railway to carry +grain from the harvests of the West to the unfed millions of the +East," etc. Incidentally, it is piling up dividends for its pious +owners; and so everybody is happy--and Jesus, if he should come +back to earth, could never know that he had left the abodes of +bliss above. + +Truly, there should be a new school of Bible interpretation +founded upon this brilliant idea. Jesus says, "Therefore when +thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the +hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may +have glory of men." Verily not; for of what avail are trumpets, +compared with the millions of copies of newspapers which daily go +forth to tell of Mr. Rockefeller's benefactions? How transitory +are they, compared with the graven marble or granite which Mr. +Carnegie sets upon the front of each of his libraries! + +There is the paragraph, "Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, +because thou canst not make one hair white or black." I have +several among my friends who are Quakers; presumably Dr. Abbott +has also; and he should not fail to point out to them the changes +which scientific discovery has wrought in the significance of +this command against swearing. We can now make our hair either +white or black, or a combination of both. We can make it a +brilliant peroxide golden; we could, if pushed to an extreme, +make it purple or green. So we are clearly entitled to swear all +we please by our head. + +Nor should we forget to examine other portions of the Bible +according to this method. "Look not upon the wine when it is +red," we are told. Thanks to the activities of that Capitalism +which Dr. Abbott praises so eloquently, we now make our beverages +in the chemical laboratory, and their color is a matter of +choice. Also, it should be pointed out that we have a number of +pleasant drinks which are not wine at all--"high-balls" and "gin +rickeys" and "peppered punches"; also vermouthe and creme de +menthe and absinthe, which I believe, are green in hue, and +therefore entirely safe. + +Then there are the Ten Commandments. "Thou shalt not make unto +thee any graven image." See how completely our understanding of +this command is changed, so soon as we realize that we are free +to make images of molten metal! And that we may with impunity bow +down to them and worship them and serve them--even, for instance, +a Golden Calf! + +"The seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou +shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy +manservant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor the +stranger that is within thy gates." This, again, it will be +noted, is open to new interpretations. It specifies maidservants, +but does not prevent one's employing as many married women as he +pleases. It also says nothing about the various kinds of +labor-saving machinery which we have now taught to work for +us--sail-boats, naptha launches, yachts, automobiles, and private +cars--all of which may be busily occupied during the seventh day +of the week. The men who run these machines--the guides, boatmen, +stokers, pilots, chauffeurs, and engineers--would all indignantly +resent being regarded as "servants", and so they do not come +under the prohibition any more than the machines. + +"Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet +thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor +his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbor's." I read +this paragraph over for the first time in quite a while, and I +came with a jolt to its last words. I had been intending to point +out that it said nothing about a neighbor's automobile, nor a +neighbor's oil wells, sugar trusts, insurance companies and +savings banks. The last words, however, stop one off abruptly. +One is almost tempted to imagine that the Divine Intelligence +must have foreseen Dr. Abbott's ingenious method of +interpretation, and taken this precaution against him. And this +was a great surprise to me--for, truly, I had not supposed it +possible that such an interpretation could have been foreseen, +even by Omniscience itself. I will conclude this communication by +venturing the assertion that it could not have been foreseen by +any other person or thing, in the heavens above, on the earth +beneath, or the waters under the earth. Dr. Abbott may accept my +congratulations upon having achieved the most ingenious and +masterful exhibition of casuistical legerdemain that it has ever +been my fortune to encounter in my readings in the literatures of +some thirty centuries and seven different languages. + +And I will also add that I respectfully challenge Dr. Abbott to +publish this letter. And I announce to him in advance that if he +refuses to publish it, I will cause it to be published upon the +first page of the "Appeal to Reason", where it will be read by +some five hundred thousand Socialists, and by them set before +several million followers of Jesus Christ, the world's first and +greatest revolutionist, whom Dr. Lyman Abbott has traduced and +betrayed by the most amazing piece of theological knavery that it +has ever been my fortune to encounter. + + +The Octopus + +Dr. Lyman Abbott published this letter! In his editorial comment +thereon he said that he did not know which of two biblical +injunctions to follow: "Answer not a fool according to his folly, +lest thou be thought like unto him"; or "Answer a fool according +to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit". I replied by +pointing out a third text which the Reverend Doctor had possibly +overlooked: "He that calleth his neighbor a fool shall be in +danger of hell-fire." But the Reverend Doctor took refuge in his +dignity, and I bided my time and waited for that revenge which +comes sooner or later to us muck-rakers. In this case it came +speedily. The story is such a perfect illustration of the +functions of religion as oil to the machinery of graft that I ask +the reader's permission to recite it at length. + +For a couple of decades the political and financial life of New +England has been dominated by a gigantic aggregation of capital, +the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad. It is a "Morgan" +concern; its popular name, "The New Haven", stands for all the +railroads of six states, nearly all the trolley-lines and +steamship-lines, and a group of the most powerful banks of Boston +and New York. It is controlled by a little group of insiders, who +followed the custom of rail-road-wrecking familiar to students of +American industrial life: buying up new lines, capitalizing them +at fabulous sums, and unloading them on the investing public; +paying dividends out of capital, "passing" dividends as a means +of stock manipulation, accumulating surpluses and cutting +"melons" for the insiders, while at the same time crushing labor +unions, squeezing wages, and permitting rolling-stock and +equipment to go to wreck. + +All these facts were perfectly well known in Wall Street, and +could not have escaped the knowledge of any magazine editor +dealing with current events. In eight years the "New Haven" had +increased its capitalization 1501 per cent; and what that meant, +any office boy in "the Street" could have told. What attitude +should a magazine editor take to the matter? + +At that time there were still two or three free magazines in +America. One of them was Hampton's, and the story of its wrecking +by the New Haven criminals will some day serve in school +text-books as the classic illustration of that financial piracy +which brought on the American social revolution. Ben Hampton had +bought the old derelict "Broadway Magazine", with twelve thousand +subscribers, and in four years, by the simple process of straight +truth-telling, had built up for it a circulation of 440,000. In +two years more he would have had a million; but in May, 1911, he +announced a series of articles dealing with the New Haven +management. + +The articles, written by Charles Edward Russell, were so exact +that they read today like the reports of the Interstate Commerce +Commission, dated three years later. A representative of the New +Haven called upon the editor of Hampton's with a proof of the +first article--obtained from the printer by bribery--and was +invited to specify the statements to which he took exception; in +the presence of witnesses he went over the article line by line, +and specified two minor errors, which were at once corrected. At +the end of the conference he announced that if the articles were +published, Hampton's Magazine would be "on the rocks in ninety +days." + +Which threat was carried out to the letter. First came a campaign +among the advertisers of the magazine, which lost an income of +thousands of dollars a month, almost over night. And then came a +campaign among the banks--the magazine could not get credit. +Anyone familiar with the publishing business will understand that +a magazine which is growing rapidly has to have advances to meet +each month's business. Hampton undertook to raise the money by +selling stock; whereupon a spy was introduced into his office as +bookkeeper, his list of subscribers was stolen, and a campaign +was begun to destroy their confidence. + +It happened that I was in Hampton's office in the summer of 1911, +when the crisis came. Money had to be had to pay for a huge new +edition; and upon a property worth two millions of dollars, with +endorsements worth as much again, it was impossible to borrow +thirty thousand dollars in the city of New York. Bankers, +personal friends of the publisher, stated quite openly that word +had gone out that any one who loaned money to him would be +"broken". I myself sent telegrams to everyone I knew who might by +any chance be able to help; but there was no help, and Hampton +retired without a dollar to his name, and the magazine was sold +under the hammer to a concern which immediately wrecked it and +discontinued publication. + + +The Industrial Shelley + +Such was the fate of an editor who opposed the "New Haven". And +now, what of those editors who supported it? Turn to "The +Outlook, a Weekly Journal of Current Events," edited by Lyman +Abbott--the issue of Dec. 25th, nineteen hundred and nine years +after Christ came down to bring peace on earth and good-will +toward Wall Street. You will there find an article by Sylvester +Baxter entitled "The Upbuilding of a Great Railroad." It is the +familiar "slush" article which we professional writers learn to +know at a glance. "Prodigious", Mr. Baxter tells us, has been the +progress of the New Haven; this was "a masterstroke", that was +"characteristically sagacious". The road had made "prodigious +expenditures", and to a noble end: "Transportation efficiency +epitomizes the broad aim that animated these expenditures and +other constructive activities." There are photographs of bridges +and stations--"vast terminal improvements", "a masterpiece of +modern engineering", "the highest, greatest and most +architectural of bridges". Of the official under whom these +miracles were being wrought--President Mellen--we read: +"Nervously organized, of delicate sensibility, impulsive in +utterance, yet with an extraordinarily convincing power for +vividly logical presentation." An industrial Shelley, or a +Milton, you perceive; and all this prodigious genius poured out +for the general welfare! "To study out the sort of transportation +service best adapted to these ends, and then to provide it in the +most efficient form possible, that is the life-task that +President Mellen has set himself." + +There was no less than sixteen pages of these raptures--quite a +section of a small magazine like the "Outlook". "The New Haven +ramifies to every spot where industry flourishes, where business +thrives." "As a purveyor of transportation it supplies the public +with just the sort desired." "Here we have the new efficiency in +a nutshell." In short, here we have what Dr. Lyman Abbott means +when he glorifies "the great mass of American wealth". "It is +serving the community; it is building a railway to open a new +country to settlement by the homeless; it is operating a railway +to carry grain from the harvests of the West to the unfed +millions of the East," etc. The unfed millions--my typewriter +started to write "underfed millions"--are humbly grateful for +these services, and hasten to buy copies of the pious weekly +which tells about them. + +The "Outlook" runs a column of "current events" in which it tells +what is happening in the world; and sometimes it is compelled to +tell of happenings against the interests of "the great mass of +American wealth". The cynical reader will find amusement in +following its narrative of the affairs of the New Haven during +the five years subsequent to the publication of the Baxter +article. + +First came the collapse of the road's service; a series of +accidents so frightful that they roused even clergymen and +chambers of commerce to protest. A number of the "Outlook's" +subscribers are New Haven "commuters", and the magazine could not +fail to refer to their troubles. In the issue of Jan. 4th, 1913, +three years and ten days after the Baxter rhapsody, we read: + +The most numerous accidents on a single road since the last +fiscal year have been, we believe, those on the New Haven. In the +opinion of the Connecticut Commission, the Westport wreck would +not have occurred if the railway company had followed the +recommendation of the Chief Inspector of Safety Appliances of the +Interstate Commerce Commission in its report on a similar +accident at Bridgeport a year ago. + +And by June 28th, matters had gone farther yet; we find the +"Outlook" reporting: + +Within a few hours of the collision at Stamford, the wrecked +Pullman car was taken away and burned. Is this criminal +destruction of evidence? + +This collapse of the railroad service started a clamor for +investigation by the Interstate Commerce Commission, which of +course brought terror to the bosoms of the plunderers. On Dec. +20, 1913, we find the "Outlook" "putting the soft pedal" on the +public indignation. "It must not be forgotten that such a road as +the New Haven is, in fact if not in terms, a National possession, +and as it goes down or up, public interests go down or up with +it," But in spite of all pious admonitions, the Interstate +Commerce Commission yielded to the public clamor, and an +investigation was made--revealing such conditions of rottenness +as to shock even the clerical retainers of Privilege. "Securities +were inflated, debt was heaped upon debt", reports the horrified +"Outlook"; and when its hero, Mr. Mellen--its industrial Shelley, +"nervously organized, of delicate sensibility"--admitted that he +had no authority as to the finances of the road and no +understanding of them, but had taken all his orders from Morgan, +the "Outlook" remarks, deeply wounded: "A pitiable position for +the president of a great railway to assume." A little later, when +things got hotter yet, we read: + +In the search for truth the Commissioners had to overcome many +obstacles, such as the burning of books, letters and documents, +and the obstinacy of witnesses, who declined to testify until +criminal proceedings were begun. The New Haven system has more +than three hundred subsidiary corporations in a web of entangling +alliances, many of which were seemingly planned, created and +manipulated by lawyers expressly retained for the purpose of +concealment or deception. + +But do you imagine even that would sicken the pious jackals of +their offal? If so, you do not know the sturdiness of the pious +stomach. A compromise was patched up between the government and +the thieves who were too big to be prosecuted; this bargain was +not kept by the thieves, and President Wilson declared in a +public statement that the New Haven administration had "broken an +agreement deliberately and solemnly entered into," in a manner to +the President "inexplicable and entirely without justification." +Which, of course, seemed to the "Outlook" dreadfully impolite +language to be used concerning a "National possession"; it +hastened to rebuke President Wilson, whose statement was "too +severe and drastic." + +A new compromise was made between the government and the thieves +who were too big to be prosecuted, and the stealing went on. Now, +as I work over this book, the President takes the railroads for +war use, and reads to Congress a message proposing that the +securities based upon the New Haven swindles, together with all +the mass of other railroad swindles, shall be sanctified and +secured by dividends paid out of the Public purse. New Haven +securities take a big jump; and the "Outlook", needless to say, +is enthusiastic for the President's policy. Here is a chance for +the big thieves to baptize themselves--or shall we say to have +the water in their stocks made "holy"? Says our pious editor, for +the government to take property without full compensation "would +be contrary to the whole spirit of America." + + +The Outlook for Graft + +Anyone familiar with the magazine world will understand that such +crooked work as this, continued over a long period, is not done +for nothing. Any magazine writer would know, the instant he saw +the Baxter article, that Baxter was paid by the New Haven, and +that the "Outlook" also was paid by the New Haven. Generally he +has no way of proving such facts, and has to sit in silence; but +when his board bill falls due and his landlady is persistent, he +experiences a direct and earnest hatred of the crooks of +journalism who thrive at his expense. If he is a Socialist, he +looks forward to the day when he may sit on a Publications' Graft +Commission, with access to all magazine books which have not yet +been burned! + +In the case of the New Haven, we know a part of the price--thanks +to the labors of the Interstate Commerce Commission. Needless to +say, you will not find the facts recorded in the columns of the +Outlook; you might have read it line by line from the palmy days +of Mellen to our own, and you would have got no hint of what the +Commission revealed about magazine and newspaper graft. Nor would +you have got much more from the great metropolitan dailies, which +systematically "played down" the expose, omitting all the really +damaging details. You would have to go to the reports of the +Commission--or to the files of "Pearson's Magazine", which is out +of print and not found in libraries! + +According to the New Haven's books, and by the admission of its +own officials, the road was spending more than four hundred +thousand dollars a year to influence newspapers and magazines in +favor of its policies. (President Mellen stated that this was +relatively less than any other railroad in the country was +spending). There was a professor of the Harvard Law School, going +about lecturing to boards of trade, urging in the name of +economic science the repeal of laws against railroad +monopolies--and being paid for his speeches out of railroad +funds! There was a swarm of newspaper reporters, writing on +railroad affairs for the leading papers of New England, and +getting twenty-fivedollars weekly, or two or three hundred on +special occasions. Sums had been paid directly to more than a +thousand newspapers--$3,000 to the Boston "Republic", and when +the question was asked "Why?" the answer was, "That is Mayor +Fitzgerald's paper." Even the ultra-respectable "Evening +Transcript", organ of the Brahmins of culture, was down for $144 +for typing, mimeographing and sending out "dope" to the country +press. There was an item of $381 for 15,000 "Prayers"; and when +asked about that President Mellen explained that it referred to a +pamphlet called "Prayers from the Hills", embodying the yearnings +of the back-country people for trolley-franchises to be issued to +the New Haven. Asked why the pamphlet was called "Prayers", Mr. +Mellen explained that "there was lots of biblical language in +it." + +And now we come to the "Outlook"; after five years of waiting, we +catch our pious editors with the goods on them! There appears on +the pay-roll of the New Haven, as one of its regular +press-agents, getting sums like $500 now and then--would you +think it possible?--Sylvester Baxter! And worse yet, there +appears an item of $938.64 to the "Outlook", for a total of 9,716 +copies of its issue of Dec. 25th, nineteen hundred and nine years +after Christ came to bring peace on earth and good will towards +Wall Street! + +The writer makes a specialty of fair play, even when dealing with +those who have never practiced it towards him. He wrote a letter +to the editor of the "Outlook", asking what the magazine might +have to say upon this matter. The reply, signed by Lawrence F. +Abbott, President of the "Outlook" Company, was that the +"Outlook" did not know that Mr. Baxter had any salaried +connection with the New Haven, and that they had paid him for the +article at the usual rates. Against this statement must be set +one made under oath by the official of the New Haven who had the +disbursing of the corruption fund--that the various papers which +used the railroad material paid nothing for it, and "they all +knew where it came from." Mr. Lawrence Abbott states that "the +New Haven Railroad bought copies of the 'Outlook' without any +previous understanding or arrangement as anybody is entitled to +buy copies of the 'Outlook'." I might point out that this does +not really say as much as it seems to; for the President of every +magazine company in America knows without any previous +understanding or arrangement that any time he cares to print an +article such as Mr. Baxter's, dealing with the affairs of a great +corporation, he can sell ten thousand copies to that corporation. +The late unlamented Elbert Hubbard wrote a defense of the +Rockefeller slaughter of coal-miners, published it in "The Fra," +and came down to New York and unloaded several tons at 26 +Broadway; he did the same thing in the case of the copper strike +in Michigan, and again in the case of "The Jungle"--and all this +without the slightest claim to divine inspiration or authority! + +Mr. Abbott answers another question: "We certainly did not return +the amount to the railroad company." Well, a sturdy conscience +must be a comfort to its possessor. The President of the +"Outlook" is in the position of a pawnbroker caught with stolen +goods in his establishment. He had no idea they were stolen; and +we might believe it, if the thief were obscure. But when the +thief is the most notorious in the city--when his picture has +been in the paper a thousand times? And when the thief swears +that the broker knew him? And when the broker's shop is full of +other suspicious goods? Why did the "Outlook" practically take +back Mr. Spahr's revelations concerning the Powder barony of +Delaware? Why did it support so vigorously the Standard Oil +ticket for the control of the Mutual Life Insurance Company--and +with James Stillman, one of the heads of Standard Oil, president +of Standard Oil's big bank in New York, secretly one of its +biggest stockholders! + +Also, why does the magazine refuse to give its readers a chance +to judge its conduct? Why is it that a search of its columns +reveals no mention of the revelations concerning Mr. Baxter--not +even any mention of the $400,000 slush fund of its paragon, of +transportation virtues? I asked that question in my letter, and +the president of the "Outlook" Company for some reason failed to +notice it. I wrote a second time, courteously reminding him of +the omission; and also of another, equally significant--he had +not informed me whether any of the editors of the "Outlook", or +the officers or directors of the Company, were stockholders in +the New Haven. His final reply was that the questions seem to him +"wholly unimportant"; he does not know whether the "Outlook" +published anything about the Baxter revelations, nor does he know +whether any of the editors or officers or directors of the +"Outlook" Company are or ever have been stockholders of the New +York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad Company. The fact "would +not in the slightest degree affect either favorably or +unfavorably our editorial treatment of that corporation." +Caesar's wife, it appears is above suspicion--even when she is +caught in a brothel! + + +Clerical Camouflage + +I have seen a photograph from "Somewhere in France", showing a +wayside shrine with a statue of the Virgin Mary, innocent and +loving, with her babe in her arms. If you were a hostile aviator, +you might sail over and take pictures to your heart's content, +and you would see nothing but a saintly image; you would have to +be on the enemy's side, and behind the lines, to make the +discovery that under the image had been dug a hole for a +machine-gun. When I saw that picture, I thought to myself--there +is capitalist Religion! + +You see, if cannon and machine-guns are out in the open, they are +almost instantly spotted and put out of action; and so with +magazines like "Leslie's Weekly", or "Munsey's", or the "North +American Review", which are frankly and wholly in the interest of +Big Business. If an editor wishes really to be effective in +holding back progress, he must protect himself with a camouflage +of piety and philanthropy, he must have at his tongue's end the +phrases of brotherhood and justice, he must be liberal and +progressive, going a certain cautious distance with the +reformers, indulging in carefully measured fair play--giving a +dime with one hand, while taking back a dollar with the other! + +Let us have an illustration of this clerical camouflage. Here are +the wives and children of the Colorado coal-miners being shot and +burned in their beds by Rockefeller gun-men, and the press of the +entire country in a conspiracy of silence concerning the matter. +In the effort to break down this conspiracy, Bouck White, +Congregational clergyman, author of "The Call of the Carpenter", +goes to the Fifth Avenue Church of Standard Oil and makes a +protest in the name of Jesus. I do not wish to make extreme +statements, but I have read history pretty thoroughly, and I +really do not know where in nineteen hundred years you can find +an action more completely in the spirit and manner of Jesus than +that of Bouck White. The only difference was that whereas Jesus +took a real whip and lashed the money-changers, White politely +asked the pastor to discuss with him the question whether or not +Jesus condemned the holding of wealth. He even took the +precaution to write a letter to the clergyman announcing in +advance what he intended to do! And how did the clergyman prepare +for him? With the sword of truth and the armor of the spirit? +No--but with two or three dozen strong-arm men, who flung +themselves upon the Socialist author and hurled him out of the +church. So violent were they that several of White's friends, +also one or two casual spectators, were moved to protest; what +happened then, let us read in the New York "Sun", the most +bitterly hostile to radicalism of all the metropolitan +newspapers. Says the "Sun's" report: + +A police billy came crunching against the bones of Lopez's legs. +It struck him as hard as a man could swing it eight times. A fist +planted on Lopez's jaw knocked out two teeth. His lip was torn +open. A blow in the eye made it swell and blacken instantly. A +minute later Lopez was leaning against the church with blood +running to the doorsill. + +And now, what has the clerical camouflage to say on this +proceeding? Does it approve it? Oh no! It was "a mistake", the +"Outlook" protests; it intensifies the hatred which these +extremists feel for the church. The proper course would have been +to turn the disturber aside with a soft answer; to give him some +place, say in a park, where he could talk his head off to people +of his own sort, while good and decent Christians continued to +worship by themselves in peace, and to have the children of their +mine-slaves shot and burned in their beds. Says our pious editor: + +The true way to repress cranks is not to suppress them; it is to +give them an opportunity to air their theories before any who +wish to learn, while forbidding them to compel those to listen +who do not wish to do so. + +Or take another case. Twelve years ago the writer made an effort +to interest the American people in the conditions of labor in +their packing-plants. It happened that incidentally I gave some +facts about the bedevilment of the public's meat-supply, and the +public really did care about that. As I phrased it at the time, I +aimed at the public's heart, and by accident I hit it in the +stomach. There was a terrible clamor, and Congress was forced to +pass a bill to remedy the evils. As a matter of fact this bill +was a farce, but the public was satisfied, and soon forgot the +matter entirely. The point to be noted here is that so far as +concerned the atrocious miseries of the working-people, it was +not necessary even to pretend to do anything. The slaves of +Packingtown went on living and working as they were described as +doing in "The Jungle", and nobody gave a further thought to them. +Only the other day I read in my paper--while we are all making +sacrifices in a "War for Democracy"--that Armour and Company had +paid a dividend of twenty-one per cent, and Swift and Company a +dividend of thirty-five per cent. + +This prosperity they owe in good part to their clerical +camouflage. Listen to our pious "Outlook", engaged in +countermining "The Jungle". The "Outlook" has no doubt that there +are genuine evils in the packing-plants; the conditions of the +workers ought of course to be improved; BUT-- + +To disgust the reader by dragging him through every conceivable +horror, physical and moral, to depict with lurid excitement and +with offensive minuteness the life in jail and brothel--all this +is to overreach the object .... Even things actually terrible may +become distorted when a writer screams them out in a sensational +way and in a high pitched key...... More convincing if it were +less hysterical. + +Don't you see what these clerical crooks are for? + + +The Jungle + +A four years' war was fought in America, a million men were +killed and half a continent was devastated, in order to abolish +chattel slavery and put wage slavery in its place. I have made a +thorough study of both these industrial systems, and I freely +admit that there is one respect in which the lot of the wage +slave is better than that of the chattel slave. The wage slave is +free to think; and by squeezing a few drops of blood from his +starving body, he may possess himself of machinery for the +distribution of his ideas. Taking his chances of the policeman's +club and the jail, he may found revolutionary organizations, and +so he has the candle of hope to light him to his death-bed. But +excepting this consideration, and taking the circumstances of the +wage slave from the material point of view alone, I hold it +beyond question that the average lot of the chattel slave of 1860 +was preferable to that of the modern slave of the Beef Trust, the +Steel Trust, or the Coal Trust. It was the Southern master's real +concern, his business interest, that the chattel slave should be +kept physically sound; but it is nobody's business to care +anything about the wage slave. The children of the chattel slave +were valuable property, and so they got plenty to eat, and a +happy outdoor life, and medical attention if they fell ill. But +the children of the sweat-shop or the cotton-mill or the +canning-factory are raised in a city slum, and never know what it +is to have enough to eat, never know a feeling of security or +rest-- + + We are weary in our cradles + From our mother's toil untold; + We are born to hoarded weariness + As some to hoarded gold. + +The system of competitive commercialism, of large-scale +capitalist industry in its final flowering! I quote from "The +Jungle": + +Here in this city tonight, ten thousand women are shut up in foul +pens, and driven by hunger to sell their bodies to live. Tonight +in Chicago there are ten thousand men, homeless and wretched, +willing to work and begging for a chance, yet starving, and +fronting with terror the awful winter cold! Tonight in Chicago +there are a hundred thousand children wearing out their strength +and blasting their lives in the effort to earn their bread! There +are a hundred thousand mothers who are living in misery and +squalor, struggling to earn enough to feed their little ones! +There are a hundred thousand old people, cast off and helpless, +waiting for death to take them from their torments! There are a +million people, men and women and children, who share the curse +of the wage-slave; who toil every hour they can stand and see, +for just enough to keep them alive; who are condemned till the +end of their days to monotony and weariness, to hunger and +misery, to heat and cold, to dirt and disease, to ignorance and +drunkenness and vice! And then turn over the page with me, and +gaze upon the other side of the picture. There are a +thousand--ten thousand, maybe--who are the masters of these +slaves, who own their toil. They do nothing to earn what they +receive, they do not even have to ask for it---it comes to them +of itself, their only care is to dispose of it. They live in +palaces, they riot in luxury and extravagance--such as no words +can describe, as makes the imagination reel and stagger, makes +the soul grow sick and faint. They spend hundreds of dollars for +a pair of shoes, a handkerchief, a garter; they spend millions +for horses and automobiles and yachts, for palaces and banquets, +for little shiny stones with which to deck their bodies. Their +life is a contest among themselves for supremacy in ostentation +and recklessness, in the destroying of useful and necessary +things, in the wasting of the labor and the lives of their +fellow-creatures, the toil and anguish of the nations, the sweat +and tears and blood of the human race! It is all theirs--it comes +to them; just as all the springs pour into streamlets, and the +streamlets into rivers, and the rivers into the ocean--so, +automatically and inevitably, all the wealth of society comes to +them. The farmer tills the soil, the miner digs in the earth, the +weaver tends the loom, the mason carves the stone, the clever man +invents, the shrewd man directs, the wise man studies, the +inspired man sings--and all the results, the products of the +labor of brain and muscle, are gathered into one stupendous +stream and poured into their laps! + +This is the system. It is the crown and culmination of all the +wrongs of the ages; and in proportion to the magnitude of its +exploitation, is the hypocrisy and knavery of the clerical +camouflage which has been organized in its behalf. Beyond all +question, the supreme irony of history is the use which has been +made of Jesus of Nazareth as the Head God of this blood-thirsty +system; it is a cruelty beyond all language, a blasphemy beyond +the power of art to express. Read the man's words, furious as +those of any modern agitator that I have heard in twenty years of +revolutionary experience: "Lay not up for yourselves treasures on +earth!--Sell that ye have and give alms!--Blessed are ye poor, +for yours is the kingdom of Heaven!--Woe unto you that are rich, +for ye have received your consolation!--Verily, I say unto you, +that a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of +Heaven!--Woe unto you also, you lawyers!--Ye serpents, ye +generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?" + +"And this man"--I quote from "The Jungle" again--"they have made +into the high-priest of property and smug respectability, a +divine sanction of all the horrors and abominations of modern +commercial civilization! Jewelled images are made of him, sensual +priests burn insense to him, and modern pirates of industry bring +their dollars, wrung from the toil of helpless women and +children, and build temples to him, and sit in cushioned seats +and listen to his teachings expounded by doctors of dusty +divinity!" + + + +BOOK FIVE + +The Church of the Merchants + + Mammon led them on-- + Mammon, the least erected spirit that fell + From Heaven; for even in Heaven his looks and + thoughts + Were always downward bent, admiring more + The riches of Heaven's pavement, trodden gold, + Than aught divine or holy else enjoyed + In vision beatific..... + Let none admire + That riches grow in Hell; that soil may best + Deserve the precious bane. + Milton. + +The Head Merchant + +Ours is the era of commerce, as its propagandists never weary of +telling us. Business is the basis of our material lives, and +consequently of our culture. Business men control our politics +and dictate our laws; business men own our newspapers and direct +their policy; business men sit on our school boards, and endow +and manage our universities. The Reformation was a revolt of the +newly-developing merchant classes against the tyrannies and +abuses of feudal clericalism: so in all Protestant Christianity +one finds the spirit, ideals, and language of Trade. We have +shown how the symbolism of the Anglican Church is of the palace +and the throne; in the same way that of the non-conformist sects +may be shown to be of the counting-house. In the view of the +middle-class Britisher, the nexus between man and man is cent per +cent; and so in their Sunday services the worshippers sing such +hymns as this: + + Whatever, Lord, we lend to Thee, + Repaid a thousand fold shall be; + Then gladly will we give to Thee, + Who givest all. + +The first duty of every man under the competitive system is to +secure the survival of his own business; so on the Sabbath, when +he comes to deal with eternity, he is practical and explicit: + + Nothing is worth a thought beneath + But how I may escape the death + That never, never dies; + How make mine own election sure, + And when I fail on earth secure + A mansion in the skies. + +Just as the priest of the aristocratic caste figures God as a +mighty Conqueror-- + + Marching as to war + With the cross of Jesus + Going on before + +so the preacher to the trader figures the divinity as a glorified +Merchant keeping books. This Head Merchant has a monopoly in His +line; He knows all His rivals' secrets, so there is no getting +ahead of Him, and nothing to do but obey His Word, as revealed +through His clerical staff. The system is oily with protestations +of divine love; but when you read the comments of Luther upon +Calvin and of Calvin upon Luther, you understand that this love +is confined to the inside of each denomination. And even so +restricted, there is not always enough to go around. Recently I +met a Presbyterian clergyman, to whom I remarked, "I see by the +papers that you have just finished a church building." "Yes," he +answered; "and I have had three offers of a new church." I did +not see the connection, and asked, "Because you were so +successful with this one?" The reply was, "They always take it +for granted that you want to change when you've finished a new +building, because you make so many enemies!" + +The business man puts up the money to build the church, he puts +up the money to keep it going; and the first rule of a business +man is that when he puts up the money for a thing he "runs" that +thing. Of course he sees that it spreads his own views of life, +it helps to maintain his tradition. In the days of Anu and Baal +we heard the proclamation of the divine right of Kings; in these +days of Mammon we hear the proclamation of the divine right of +Merchants. Some fifteen years ago the head of our Coal Trust +announced during a great strike that the question would be +settled "by the Christian men to whom God in His Infinite Wisdom +has given control of the property interests of this country". And +on that declaration all pious merchants stand; whatever their +denominations, Catholic, Episcopalian, Baptist, Methodist, +Presbyterian or Hebrew, their Sabbath doctrines are alike, as +their week-day practices are alike; whether it is Rockefeller +shooting his Bayonne oil-workers and burning alive the little +children of his miners; or smooth John Wanamaker, paying +starvation wages to department-store girls and driving them to +the streets; or that clergyman who, at a gathering of society +ladies, members of the "Law and Order League" of Denver, declared +in my hearing that if he could have his way he would blow up the +home of every coal-striker with dynamite; or the Rev. R. A. +Torrey, Dean of the Bible institute of Los Angeles, who refused +to employ union labor on the million dollar building of the +Institute, declaring that "the Church cannot afford to have any +dealings with a band of fire-bugs and murderers!" + + +"Herr Beeble" + +The business of the Clerical Department of the Merchants' and +Manufacturers' Association is to justify the processes of trade, +and to preach to clerks and employees the slave-virtues of +frugality, humility, and loyalty to the profit system. The depths +of sociological depravity to which some of the agents of this +Association have sunk is difficult of belief. Twelve years ago I +was invited to address the book-sellers of New York, in company +with a well-known clergyman of the city, the Reverend Madison C. +Peters. This gentleman's address made such an impression upon me +that I recall it even at this distance: a string of jokes spoken +with an effect of rapid-fire smartness, and simply reeking with +commercialism. I could not describe it better than to say that it +was on the ethical level of the "Letters of a Self-Made Merchant +to His Son". Again, I attended a debate on Socialism, in which +the capitalist end was taken by another famous clergyman, pastor +of the Metropolitan Temple, the Rev. J. Wesley Hill. He was so +ignorant that when he wished to prove that Socialism means free +love, he quoted a writer by the name of "Herr Beeble"; he was so +dishonest that he garbled the writings of this "Herr Beeble", +making him say something quite different from what he had meant +to say. I could name several clergymen of various denominations +who have stooped to that device against the Socialists; including +the Catholic Father Belford, who says that we are mad dogs and +should be stopped with bullets. + +Or consider the Reverend Thomas Dixon. This gentleman's +pulpit-slang used to be the talk of New York when I was a boy; +and when I grew up, and came into the Socialist movement--behold, +here he was, chief inquisitor of the capitalist Holy Office. I +had a friend, a man who saved my life at a time when I was +practically starving, and to whom therefore I owe my survival as +a writer; this friend had been a clergyman in a Middle Western +state, and had preached Jesus as he really was, and so was hated +and feared like Jesus. It happened that he was unhappily married, +and permitted his wife to divorce him so that he might marry the +woman he loved; for which unheard of crime the organized +hypocrisy of America fell upon him like a thousand devils with +poisoned whips. The Reverend Dixon's holy rage was fired; he +applied his imagination to my friend's story, producing a novel +under the title of "The One Woman"; and it is as if you were +reading the story of Jesus and the Magdalen transmitted through +the personality of a he-goat. Of late years this clerical author +has turned his energies to negrophobia, and militarism, making +millions out of motion-picture incitements to hatred and terror. +The pictures were made here in Southern California, and friends +in the business have described to me the pious propagandist in +the position of St. Anthony surrounded by swarms of cute and +playful little movie-girls. + +Or take the Rev. James Roscoe Day, D. D., S. T. D., L. L. D., D. +C. L., L. H. D., a leading light of the Methodist Episcopal +Church, who offers himself as comic relief in our Clerical +Vaudeville. Dr. Day is Chancellor of Syracuse University, a +branch of the Mental Munitions Department of the Standard Oil +Company; his function being to manufacture intellectual weapons +and explosives to be used in defense of the Rockefeller fortune. +It is generally not expected that the makers of ruling-class +munitions should face the dirty and perilous work of the +trenches; but ten years ago, during a raid by an active squad of +muckrake-men, Chancellor Day astonished the world by rushing to +the front with both arms full of star-shells and bombs. He +afterwards put the history of this gallant action into a volume, +"The Raid on Prosperity"; and if you want the real thrill of the +class-war, here is where to get it! + +The Chancellor is a quaint and touching figure; an enthusiast and +dreamer, idealist and martyr, in whom the ordinary human virtues +have been fused, absorbed, transformed and sublimated into a new +supreme virtue of loyalty to Exploitation, patriotism for +Profiteering. He began life as a working-man, he tells us, in the +good old American fashion of hustle for yourself; but he differed +from other Americans in that he had an instant, intuitive +recognition of the intellectual and moral excellence of +Plutocracy. The first time he met a rich man, he quivered with +rapture, he burst into a hymn of appreciation. So very quickly he +was recognized as a proper person to have charge of a Mental +Munition Works; and the ruling classes proceeded to pin medals +upon the bosom of his academic robes--D. D., S. T. D., L. L. D., +D. C. L., L. H. D. + +The Chancellor knows the masters of our Profit System, those +"consummate geniuses of manufacture and trade by which the earth +has yielded up her infinite treasures." And having been at the +same time in intimate daily communion with the Almighty, he can +tell us the Almighty's attitude towards these prodigies. "God has +made the rich of this world to serve Him.... He has shown them a +way to have this world's goods and to be rich towards God .... +God wants the rich men ....Christ's doctrines have made the world +rich, and provide adequate uses for its riches." Also the +Chancellor knows our great corporations, and gives us the +Almighty's views about them; they mean that "the forces with +which God built the universe have been put into the hands of +man." Likewise by divine authority we learn that "the sympathy +given to Socialism is appalling. It is insanity." We learn that +the income tax is "a doctrine suited to the dark ages, only no +age ever has been dark enough." Somebody raises the issue of +"tainted money", and the Chancellor disposes of this matter also. +As a Deputy of Divinity, he settles it by Holy Writ: "Paul +permitted meat offered to idols to be eaten in the fear of God." +And then, to make assurance doubly sure, he settles it with plain +human logic; and you are astonished to see how simple, under his +handling, the complex problem becomes--how clear and clean-cut is +the distinction he draws for you: + +Every boy knows that one cannot take stolen goods without being a +partaker with the thief. But the proceeds of recognized business +are quite a different thing. + + + +Holy Oil + +And here is Billy Sunday, most conspicuous phenomenon of +Protestant Christianity at the beginning of the twentieth +century. For the benefit of posterity I explain that "Billy" is a +baseball player turned Evangelist, who has brought to the cause +of God the crowds and uproar of the diamond; also the commercial +spirit of America's most popular institution. He travels like a +circus, with all the press-agent work and newspaper hurrah; he +conducts what are called "revivals", in an enormous "tabernacle" +built especially for him in each city. I cannot better describe +the Billy Sunday circus than in the words of a certain Sidney C. +Tapp, who brought suit against the evangelist for $100,000 +damages for the theft of the ideas of a book. Says Mr. Tapp in +his complaint: + +The so-called religious awakening or "trail-hitting" is produced +by an appeal to the emotions and in stirring up the senses by a +combination of carrying the United States flag in one hand and +the Bible in the other, singing, trumpeting, organ playing, +garrulous and acrobatic feats of defendant, by defendant in his +talk leaping from the rostrum to the top of the pulpit, lying +prone on the floor of the rostrum on his stomach in the presence +of the vast audience and from thence into a pit to shake hands +with the so-called "trail-hitters" and the vulgar use of +plaintiff's thoughts contained in said books. Said harangues and +vulgarisms of said defendant and horns, drums, organs and singing +by said choir and vast audience which are assembled by means of +said newspaper advertisements for the purpose of inducing a habit +of free and copious flow of money through religious and patriotic +excitement produced by and through the vulgarisms, scurrility, +buffoonery, obscenity and profanity of defendant pretending to be +in the interest of the cause of religion through what he +denominates "hitting the trail", the real object being to induce +a religious frenzy and enthusiasm which he announces in advance +is to result in large audiences composed of thousands of people +generously contributing vast sums of money on the last day and +night of the so-called revival which is invariably appropriated +by the defendant and through which scheme and device defendant +has become enormously wealthy. + +As I write, the evangelist is in Los Angeles, and twice each day +he holds forth to a crowd of ten or fifteen thousand; in addition +the newspapers print literally pages of his utterances. The +entire Protestant clergy for a score of miles around has been +hitched to his triumphal chariot, and driven captive through the +streets. Here in this dignified city of Pasadena, home of +millionaire brewers and chewing-gum kings, all the churches have +been plastered for weeks with cloth signs: "This Church is +Cooperating in the Sunday Campaign." To give a sample of the +intellectual level of the performance, here is what Billy has to +say about modern thought: + +All this blasphemy against God and Jesus Christ, all this +sneering, highbrow, rotten, loathesome, higher criticism, +wriggling its dirty, filthy, stinking carcass out of a beer-mug +in Leipzig or Heidelberg! + +Whether willingly or reluctantly, the preachers sit upon the +platform and smile while Billy thus slangs the devil; and being +themselves, poor fellows, at their wits end to draw the crowd, +they watch and see how he does it, and then return to their own +churches and try the same stunt; so the manners of the baseball +diamond spread like a contagion. I open my morning paper, and +find a picture of an intense-looking clerical gentleman, the Rev. +J. Whitcomb Brougher, pastor of the Baptist Temple. He is +discussing certain slanderous rumors which he has heard about +Billy Sunday, and he offers ten thousand dollars reward to anyone +who can prove these things; though, as he says, + +The dirty, low-down, contemptible, weazen-brained, +impure-hearted, shrivelled-souled, gossipping devils do not +deserve to be noticed..... Scandal-mongers, gossip-lovers, +reputation-destroyers, hypocritical, black-hearted, green-eyed +slanderers..... Corrupt, devil-possessed, vile debauches..... +Immoral, sin-loving, vice-practicing, underhanded sneaks..... +Carrion-loving buzzards and foul-smelling skunks. + +You will be prepared after this to hear that when the Socialists +were near to carrying Los Angeles, this clergyman preached a +sermon in support of the candidate of "Booze, Gas and Railroads". + +In so far as Billy Sunday is trying to keep the neglected youth +of our streets from drinking, gambling and whoring, no one could +wish him anything but success; but his besotted ignorance, his +childish crudity of mind, make it impossible that he could have +any success except of a delusive nature. He is utterly devoid of +a social sense; utterly unaware of the existence of the forces of +capitalism which are causing depravity ten times as fast as all +the evangelists in creation can remedy it. So he is precisely +like the Catholics with their "charity", cleaning up loathsome +and unsightly messes for a thousand years, and never stopping to +ask why such messes continue to come into existence. + +More than that, I question whether the spirit of commercialism +which he fosters does not help the development of evil more than +his preaching hinders it. The newspapers always report the cost +of the tabernacle, of the "free-will offering", which amounts to +hundreds of thousands of dollars in each "campaign", In each city +the expenses are guaranteed by men who are generally the most +sinister exploiting forces of the community; they welcome and +fete him, and he visits their homes, and is in every way one of +the crowd. After the big strike in Paterson, N. J., the +employers, Jews and Catholics included, all subscribed a fund to +bring Billy Sunday to that city; and it was freely proclaimed +that the purpose was to undermine the radical union movement. +This was never denied by Sunday himself, and his whole campaign +was conducted on that basis. + +Later Billy came to New York, where he met a certain rich young +man, perhaps a thousand times as rich as any that lived in +Palestine. This young man came to Billy and said: "What shall I +do to inherit eternal life?" And Billy told him to keep the +commandments--"Do not commit adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal, +Do not bear false witness, Honor thy father and thy mother." The +young man answered; "All these have I kept from my youth up." And +Billy said: "Yet lackest thou one thing; sell all that thou hast +and distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in +heaven; and come follow me." And when he heard this he was very +sorrowful, for he was very rich. + +--No, I have got the story mixed up. That is what happened in +Palestine. What happened in New York is that Billy said, "I am +delighted to meet you, Mr. Rockefeller." And Mr. Rockefeller +said, "Come be my guest at my palace in the Pocantico Hills; and +then we will go together and you may preach submission to my +wage-slaves in the oil-factories at Bayonne and elsewhere." And +Billy went to the palace, and went and preached to the +wage-slaves, telling them to beware the "stinking Socialists", +and to concentrate their attention on the saving of their souls; +so the rich young man was delighted, and he sent for all the +newspaper reporters to come to his office at 26 Broadway, and +told them what a great and useful man Billy Sunday is. As the New +York "Times" tells about it: + +Mr. Rockefeller seldom gives interviews and certainly he has +never been charged with having an excess of verbally expressed +enthusiasm on any subject. But he talked for an hour and a half +about the evangelist. He was full of the subject of Billy Sunday. +"Billy did New York a lot of good," he said. He went on to tell +of 187 meetings held in 100 different factories, attended by +50,000 men. "That's good work." And he expressed his satisfaction +with Sunday's theology: "He believes the Bible from cover to +cover and that is good enough for me." The Sunday campaign had +cost $200,000, and "If it had stopped here, if it was not kept +up, it would be poor business; a poor dividend on the $200,000 +and the work invested. But we expect to get dividends in the next +year." + +Again you note the symbolism of the counting-house! + + +Rhetorical Black-hanging + +It is the duty of the clergy, not merely to defend large-scale +merchants while they live, but to bury them when they die, and to +place the seal of sanctity upon their careers. Concerning this +aspect of Bootstrap-lifting I quote the opinion of an earnest +hater of shams, William Makepeace Thackeray: + +I think the part which pulpits play in the death of kings is the +most ghastly of all the ceremonial: the lying eulogies, the +blinking of disagreeable truths, the sickening flatteries, the +simulated grief, the falsehood and sycophancies--all uttered in +the name of Heaven in our State churches: these monstrous +Threnodies which have been sung from time immemorial over kings +and queens, good, bad, wicked, licentious. The State parson must +bring out his commonplaces; his apparatus of rhetorical +black-hanging...... + +And this, of course, applies not merely to kings of England, but +to kings of Steel, kings of Coal, kings of Oil, kings of Wall +Street. When a certain king of Western railroads died, a +Methodist clergyman, afterwards Bishop, likened his heir to the +boy Christ; a statement which requires for its appreciation a +mention of the fact that this heir died of syphilis. In the year +1904 there passed from his earthly reward in Pennsylvania a +United States senator who had been throughout his lifetime a +notorious and unblushing corruptionist. Matthew Stanley Quay was +his name, and the New York "Nation", having no clerical +connections, was free to state the facts about him: + +He bought the organization, bribed or intimidated the press, got +his grip on the public service, including even the courts; +imposed his will on Congress and Cabinet, and upon the last three +Presidents--making the latter provide for the offal of his +political machine, which even Pennsylvania could no longer +stomach--and all without identifying his name with a single +measure of public good, without making a speech or uttering a +party watchword, without even pretending to be honest, but solely +because, like Judas, he carried the bag and could buy whom he +would. + +Such was the lay opinion; and now for the clerical. It was +expressed by a Presbyterian divine, the Reverend Dr. J. S. +Ramsey, who stood over the coffin of "Matt", and without cracking +a smile declared that he had been "a statesman who was always on +the right side of every moral question!" + +In that same year of 1904 died the high priest of our political +corruption, Mark Hanna. He had belonged to no church, but had +backed them all, understanding the main thesis of this book as +clearly as the writer of it. In his home city of Cleveland the +eulogy upon him was pronounced by Bishop Leonard, in St. Paul's +Episcopal Church; while in the United States Senate the service +was performed by the Chaplain, the Rev. Edward Everett Hale. This +is a name well-known in American letters, as in American +religious life; it was borne by a benevolent old gentleman, a +Unitarian and a liberal, who organized "Lend-a-Hand Clubs" and +such like amiabilities. "Do You Love This Old Man?" the signs in +the street-cars used to ask when I was a boy; and I promptly +answered "Yes"--for my mother took the "Ladies' Home Journal", +and I swallowed the sentimental dish-water set out for me. But +when I read the Rev. Edward's funeral oration over the Irrev. +Mark, I loved neither of them any longer. "This whole-souled +child of God," cried the Rev. Edward, "who believed in success, +and knew how to succeed by using the infinite powers!" You +perceive that the Chaplain of the Millionaires' Club agrees with +this book, that the "infinite powers" in America are the powers +that prey! + + +The Great American Fraud + +Among the most loathesome products of our native commercial greed +is the patent medicine industry, "The Great American Fraud," as +its historian has called it. In 1907 this historian wrote: + +Gullible America will spend this year some seventy-five millions +of dollars in the purchase of patent medicines. In consideration +of this sum it will swallow huge quantities of alcohol, an +appalling amount of opiates and narcotics, a wide assortment of +varied drugs ranging from powerful and dangerous heart +depressants to insidious liver stimulants; and, far in excess of +all other ingredients, undiluted fraud. For fraud, exploited by +the skillfullest of advertising bunco men, is the basis of the +trade. + +One by one Mr. Adams tells about these medical fakes: +habit-forming laxatives, head-ache powders full of acetanilid, +soothing-syrups and catarrh-cures full of opium and cocaine, +cock-tails subtly disguised as "bitters", "sarsaparillas", and +"tonics". He shows how the fake testimonials are made up and +exploited; how the confidential letters, telling the secret +troubles of men and women, are collected by tens and hundreds of +thousands and advertised and sold--so that the victim, as he +begins to lose faith in one fake, finds another at hand, fully +informed as to his weakness. He quotes the amazing "Red Clause" +in the contracts which the patent-medicine makers have with +thousands of daily and weekly papers, whereby the makers are able +to control the press of the country and prevent legislation +against the "Great American Fraud." + +There are a thousand religious papers in America, weekly and +monthly; and what is their attitude on this question? Mr. Adams +tells us: + +Whether because church-going people are more trusting, and +therefore more easily befooled than others, or from some more +obscure reason, many of the religious papers fairly reek with +patent medicine fakes. + +He gives us many pages of specific instances: + +Dr. Smith belongs to the brood of cancer vampires. He is a patron +and prop of religious journalism. It is his theory that the +easiest prey is to be found among readers of church papers. +Moreover he has learned from his father-in-law (who built a small +church out of blood-money) to capitalize his own sectarian +associations, and when confronted recently with a formal +accusation he replied, with an air of injured innocence, that he +was a regular attendant at church, and could produce an +endorsement from his minister. + +And here is the "Church Advocate", of Harrisburg, Pa., which +publishes quack advertisements disguised as editorials. One of +them Mr. Adams paraphrases: + +As Dr. Smith is, on the face of his own statements, a +self-branded swindler and rascal, you run no risk in assuming +that the Rev. C. H. Forney, D. D., L. L. D., in acting as his +journalistic supporter for pay, is just such another as himself! + +And again: + +Will the editor of the "Baptist Watchman" of Boston explain by +what phenomenon of logic or elasticity of ethics he accepts the +lucubrations of Dr. Bye, of Oren Oneal, of Liquozone, of Actina, +that marvelous two-ended mechanical appliance which "cures" +deafness at one terminus and blindness at the other, and all with +a little oil of mustard? + +And again: + +The "Christian Observer" of Louisville replied to a protesting +subscriber, suggesting that the "Collier" articles were written +in a spirit of revenge, because "Collier's" could not get patent +medicine advertising. When I asked the Rev. F. Bartlett Converse +for his foundation for the charge, he said that one of the +typewriters must have written the letter! Doubtless also the same +highly responsible typewriter imitated the signature with +startling fidelity to Dr. Converse's handwriting! + +And here is--would you think it possible?--our "Church of Good +Society"! It has an organ in Chicago called the "Living Church", +most dignified and decorous. You have to study quite a while to +ascertain what denomination it belongs to; it will not tell you +directly, for the Anglician pose is that it is the church + + Elect from every nation, + Yet one oer all the earth, + Her charter of salvation, + One Lord, one Faith, one Birth; + One holy name she blesses, + Partakes one holy food, + And toward one Hope she presses, + With every grace endued. + +And this one holy institution was found setting at its peak the +black flag of the trader, the "Jolly Roger" of the modern +commercial pirate--"Caveat emptor!" To quote the precise words: + +The editors and publishers of the "Living Church" assume no +responsibility for the assertions of advertisers. + +And so it threw open its columns to the claims of America's +champion labor-baiter, the late C. W. Post, that his "Grapenuts" +would prevent appendicitis, and obviate the need of operations in +such cases! + +And here is the "Christian Endeavor World", organ of one of the +most powerful non-sectarian religious bodies in the country. Some +one wrote complaining of its medical advertising, and the answer +was: + +To the best of our knowledge and belief, we are not publishing +any fraudulent or unworthy medical advertising ...... Trusting +that you will be able to understand that we are acting according +to our best and sincerest judgment, I remain, yours very truly, +The Golden Rule Company, George W. Coleman, Business Manager. + +Whereupon the historian of "The Great American Fraud" remarks: + +Assuming that the business management of the "Christian Endeavor +World" represents normal intelligence, I would like to ask +whether it accepts the statement that a pair of "magic foot +drafts" applied to the soles of the feet will cure any and every +kind of rheumatism in any part of the body? Further, if the +advertising department is genuinely interested in declining +"fraudulent and unworthy" copy, I would call their attention to +the ridiculous claims of Dr. Shoop's medicines, which "cure" +almost every disease; to two hair removers, one an "Indian +Secret", the other an "accidental discovery", both either fakes +or dangerous; to the lying claims of Hall's Catarrh Cure, that it +is "a positive cure for catarrh", in all its stages; to "Syrup of +Figs", which is not a fig syrup, but a preparation of senna; to +Dr. Kilmer's Swamp Root, of which the principal medical +constituent is alcohol; and, finally, to Dr. Bye's Oil Cure for +cancer, a particularly cruel swindle on unfortunates suffering +from an incurable malady. All of these, with other matter, which +for the sake of decency I do not care to detail in these columns, +appear in recent issues of the "Christian Endeavor World". + + +Riches in Glory + +There came recently to Los Angeles a "world-famous evangelist", +known as "Gipsy" Smith. There was a shirt-waist strike at the +time, and the girls were starving, and they sent a delegation to +this evangelist to ask for help. They told him how they were +mistreated, exposed to insults, driven to sell their virtue +because their wage would not support life; and to their plea he +made answer: "Get Jesus in your hearts, and these questions will +take care of themselves!" + +So we see the most important of the many services which the +churches perform for the merchants--taking the revolutionary hope +of Jesus, for a kingdom of heaven upon earth, and perverting it +into a dream of a golden harp in an uncertain future. To +appreciate the fullness of this betrayal, take the prayer which +Jesus dictated--so simple, direct and practical: "Give us this +day our daily bread", and put it beside the hymns which the +slave-congregations are trained to sing. In my neighborhood is a +one-roomed building with a plate glass front, upon which I +observe a painter inscribing in red, white and blue letters the +sign "Glory Mission". I approach him, and he drops his work and +welcomes me with eager cordiality. Am I "living in grace"? I +answer that I am. I have to shout the good tidings into his ear, +as he is very deaf. He presents me with his card, which shows +that he bears the title of "Reverend", also the sobriquet of +"Mountain Missionary". I ask him to permit me to examine the +hymn-book which he uses in his work, and with touching eagerness +he presses upon me a well-worn volume bearing the title "Waves of +Glory". I seat myself and note down a few of the baits it sets +out for hungry wage-slaves: + + O, there's a plenty, O, there's a plenty, + There's a plenty in my Father's bank above! + + Riches in glory, riches in glory, + Royal supply our wants exceed! + + Feasting, I'm feasting, + I'm feasting with my Lord! + + Beautiful robes, beautiful robes, + Beautiful robes we then shall wear! + + Jerusalem the golden, + With milk and honey blest! + + Yes, I'll meet you in the city of the New Jerusalem, + I'll be there, I'll be there! + + Blest Canaan land, bright Canaan land, + I love to be in Canaan land! + + Oh, Beulah land, sweet Beulah land, + As on the highest mount I stand, + I look away across the sea, + Where mansions are prepared for me! + + In the sweet bye and bye + We shall meet on that beautiful shore-- + +I stopped there, being reminded of Joe Hill, poet of the I. W. W. +who was hanged three or four years ago in Utah, and who used this +tune in his little red book of revolutionary chants: + + You will eat, bye and bye, + In the glorious land above the sky; + Work and pray, live on hay, + You'll get pie in the sky when you die! + + +Captivating Ideals + +In one of the writer's earlier novels, "Prince Hagen", the hero +is a Nibelung out of Wagner's "Rheingold", who leaves his +diggings in the bowels of the earth, and comes up to look into +our superior civilization. The thing that impresses him most is +what he calls "the immortality idea". The person who got that up +was a world-genius, he exclaims. "If you can once get a man to +believing in immortality, there is no more left for you to +desire; you can take everything he owns--you can skin him alive +if it pleases you--and he will bear it all with perfect good +humor." + +And is that merely the spiritual deficiency of a Nibelung--or the +effort of a young author to be smart? Would you like to hear that +view of the most vital of Christian doctrines set forth in the +language of scholarship and culture? Would you like to know how +an ecclesiastical authority, equipped with every tool of modern +learning, would set about voicing the idea that the function of +the teaching of Heaven is to chloroform the poor, so that the +rich may continue to rob them in security? + +Here under my hand is a volume in the newest dress of +scholarship, dated 1912, and written by Professor Georges +Chatterton-Hill, of the University of Geneva. Its title is "The +Sociological Value of Christianity", and from cover to cover it +is a warning to the rich of the danger they run in giving up +their religion and ceasing to support its priests. It explains +how "the genius of Christianity has succeeded in making the +individual suffering, the individual sacrifices, which are +indispensible for the welfare of the collectivity, appear as +indispensible for the individual welfare." The learned professor +makes plain just what he means by "individual suffering, +individual sacrifices"; he means all the horrors of capitalism; +and the advantage of Christianity is that it makes you think that +by submitting to these horrors, you are profiting your own soul. +"By making individual salvation depend on the acceptance of +suffering, on the voluntary sacrifice of egotistical interests, +Christianity adapts the individual to society". And this, as the +professor explains, is not an easy thing to do, in a world in +which so many people are thinking for themselves. "The only means +of causing the rationalized individual to consent to the +sacrifice...... is to captivate him with a sufficiently powerful +idea!" And the professor shows how beautifully Jesus can be used +for this purpose. "Jesus, the so-called humanitarian, never +ceased to insist on the necessity of suffering, the desirableness +of suffering--of that suffering which a weak and sickly +humanitarianism would fain suppress if it could." + +You get this, you "blanket-stiff", you "husky", or "wop", or +whatever you are--you disinherited of the earth, you proletarians +who have only your labor-power to sell, you weak and sickly ones +who are condemned to elimination? There has come, let us say, a +period of "overproduction"; you have raised too much food, and +therefore you are starving, you have woven too much cloth, and +therefore you are naked, you have finished the world for your +masters, and it is time for you to move out of the way. As the +sociologist from Geneva phrases it, "Your suppression imposes +itself as an imperious necessity." And the function of the +Christian religion is to make you enjoy the process, by +"captivating you with a sufficiently powerful ideal"! The priest +will fill your nostrils with incense, your eyes with +candle-lights and images, your ears with sweet music and soothing +words; and so you will perish without raising a finger! "Here," +reflects the professor, "we see how magnificently the teaching of +Jesus applies to all classes of society!" + +Somebody has evidently put up to our Christian sociologist the +embarrassing fact that so many of those who survive under the +capitalist system are godless scoundrels. But do you think that +troubles him? Not for long. Like all religious thinkers, he +carries with his scholar's equipment a pair of metaphysical +wings, wherewith at any moment he may soar into the empyrean, out +of reach of vulgar materialists, like you and me. "Inequality +signifies inequality of capacity," he explains; but the standard +whereby we judge this capacity "cannot be the standard of the +moral law." + +The laws which govern the biological evolution of man are known, +but those which govern his moral nature cannot be known; the +moral nature appertains to the Absolute, and hence is not subject +to the law of inequality! + +As an exhibition of metaphysical wing-power, that is almost as +wonderful as the flight of Cardinal Newman when confronted with +the fact that his divinely guided church had burned men for +teaching the Copernican view of the universe; that infallible +popes had again and again condemned this heresy ex cathedra. Said +the eloquent cardinal: + +Scripture says that the sun moves and the earth is stationary, +and science that the earth moves and the sun is comparatively at +rest. How can we determine which of these opposite statements is +the very truth till we know what motion is? + + +Spook Hunting + +Do not imagine that it is only in Geneva that Christian +professors realize this peril from the loss of faith. It is never +far from the thoughts of any of them--for, of course, no man can +look at the present system and not wonder how the poor stand it, +and more especially why they stand it. There have been many +thinking men who have given up the miracle-business quite +cheerfully, but have stood appalled at the idea of letting the +lower classes find out the truth. You note that idea continually +in the writings of Professor Goldwin Smith, who was a +free-thinker, but also a bourgeois publicist, with a deep sense +of responsibility to the money-masters of the world. He was about +as honest a man as the capitalist system can produce; he was the +beau ideal of the New York "Evening Post", which indicates his +point of view. He wrote: + +It can hardly be doubted that hope of compensation in a future +state, for a short measure of happiness here, has materially +helped to reconcile the less favored members of the community to +the inequalities of the existing order of things. + +When I was a student in Columbia University, I took a course +called "Practical Ethics", under a professor by the name of +Hyslop. The course differed from most of the forty that I tried, +in that it gave evidence that the professor was accustomed to +read the morning paper. He had learned that American politics +were rotten; his idea of "Practical Ethics" was to outline in +elaborate detail a complete scheme of constitutional changes +which would make it impossible for the "boss" to control the +government. I think I must have been born with a charm against +bourgeois thought, for the good professor never fooled me an +instant; I remember I used to smile at the idea of how quickly +the "boss" would brush through his constitutional cobwebs. The +reforms required an elaborate campaign of publicity--and of +course long before they could be put into practice, the +politicians would be ready with devices to make them of no +effect. + +Soon after this, my ethical professor resigned and went to +hunting spooks. I don't want to be unfair to him; I know that he +is a determined and courageous man, and it seems possible that he +may really have bagged some spooks. All I wish to point out here +is the method he uses in seeking to persuade the heedless rich to +support the spook-hunting industry. The very same argument as we +got from the University of Geneva and the University of Toronto! +Says our head spook-hunter: + +There has been no belief that exercised so much power upon the +poor as that in a future life. The politicians, men of the world, +have known this so well as to postpone the day of political +judgment by it for many years. + +And again: + +The Church, having lost all its battles with science, and having +abandoned a strenuous intellectual defense of its fundamental +beliefs, has lost its power over the poor and the laboring +classes..... The spiritual ideal of life has gone out of the +masses as well as the classes, and nothing is left but a venture +on a struggle with wealth. + +And again, more menacingly yet: + +The rich will learn in the dangers of a social revolution that +the poor will not sacrifice both wealth and immortality. + +What is to be done about this? The question answers itself: Step +up, ladies and gentlemen, and empty your purses into the +Psychical Research hat! So that we may accumulate statistics as +to the cost of milk and honey in Jerusalem the Golden! + +You read what I had to say about Bootstrap-lifters, and the +Wholesale Pickpockets' Association making use of their +incantations. You admired my ability to sling language, but not +my taste; and you certainly did not think that I would back my +rhetoric with facts. But what do these quotations mean, unless +they mean what I have said? Are not these three professors men of +culture? Are they not as "spiritual" as any men of learning you +can find in our present-day society? + +And now stop for a moment and put yourself in the position of the +young student of the working-class, who goes to these books and +discovers that truth is not truth, but only a bait for a snare. +Who discovers that professors of ethics, practical or +impractical, are not interested in justice among men, but only in +collecting funds for their specialty; that in order to get funds, +they are willing to teach the rich how to paralyze the minds of +the poor! Do you wonder that such young students conclude that +bourgeois thinkers do not know what honesty is, but are +prostitutes, retainers and lackeys, to be kicked out of the +temple of truth? + + +Running the Rapids + +And now, can you form to yourselves a clear concept of what it +means to society that practically all its moral teaching should +be in the hands of men who are incapable of clean, straight +thinking? That all the intellectual prestige of the Church should +be lent to the support of vagueness, futility, and deliberate +evasion? Here we are, all of us, caught in the most terrific +social crisis of history; I search for a metaphor to picture our +position, and I recall a canoe-trip in the wilds of Ontario, +hundreds of miles down a long swift river. You sit in the bow of +the canoe, your partner in the stern, watching ahead; and there +comes a slide of smooth green water, and you go over it, and into +a torrent of foaming white, which seizes you and rushes you along +with the speed of a race-horse. With every sense alert, You watch +for the rocks, and when you see one, you dip your paddle on one +side or the other and with a quick motion draw the canoe clear of +the danger. If by any chance you fail to do it, over you go, and +your partner with you, and all your belongings go down-stream, +and maybe you are sucked into a whirlpool, and not seen for +several hours afterwards. Precisely like this is the voyage of +life, for the whole of society and for every individual. The +paddle which would save us from the rocks is experimental +science; but in most of our canoes we put a man who has no +paddle, but a Holy Book; and he casts up his eyes and murmurs +words in ancient Greek and Hebrew, and now and then, when he sees +an especially formidable obstruction--a war, or the gonococcus, +or the I. W. W.--he casts a holy wafer upon the foaming torrent. + +And mind you, it isn't as if I could save myself and you could +save yourself; we are all in the same canoe, and we all go +overboard together. You, perhaps, have a son who is drafted into +the trenches in winter-time, and drowned in blood and mud, +because in Europe the Catholic party supported militarism, and +kept aristocratic criminals in control of states. Or you find +yourself involved in a marital tragedy, and in order to free +yourself from unendurable misery, you are obliged to go to +law-courts dominated by the tradition of Paul, the Roman +bureaucrat, who despised women, and regarded marriage as a means +of gratifying an unclean animal desire. "It is better to marry +than to burn," he said, with unmatchable brutality; and so of +course those who think him a voice of God can form no conception +of the dignity and grace of love, and if you want sound and +wholesome sex-conventions, you will be as apt to find them among +the Ashantees or the Kamchadals as among the followers of the +Apostle to the Gentiles. + +You go to a so-called "divorce-court," which is dominated by this +Christian taboo, and exists for the purpose of barring you from a +second chance at the gratification of your unclean animal desire. +You are not permitted to tell your own story, for that would be +"collusion;" you listen while your intimate friends recite the +pitiful and shameful details of your domestic misfortune, under +the cross-questioning of lawyers who have suppressed for the time +whatever decent instincts they may possess, and follow blindly +the details of a prescribed procedure, at the cost of all +sincerity, humanity and truth. The next morning you find that the +privacy guaranteed you by law has been taken from you by corrupt +court officials, who have sold copies of the testimony to the +newspapers, so that all the intimate details of where you slept +and where your wife slept and what you saw your wife doing have +been thrown out to journalistic jackals, who scream with glee as +they rend the carcass of your dead love. And in the end, perhaps, +you find that you have gone through this horror for nothing--the +august court with its Roman Catholic judge throws out your +petition, its suspicions having been excited by the fact that +when you discovered your domestic tragedy, you sought to behave +like a civilized person, with pity and self-restraint, instead of +like a sultan in Turkey, or a basso in an Italian grand opera. + + +Birth Control + +I assert that the control of our thinking on ethical questions by +minds enslaved to tradition and priestcraft is an unmitigated +curse to the race. The armory of science is full of weapons which +might be used to slay the monsters of disease and vice--but these +weapons are not allowed to be employed, sometimes not even to be +mentioned. Consider the misery which is piling itself up in the +slams of our great cities---the degenerate, the defective, the +insane, who are multiplying as never before in history. There +exists a perfectly harmless and painless method of sterilizing +the hopelessly unfit, so that they can not reproduce their +hopeless unfitness; but religion objects to this operation, and +so the law does not make use of this knowledge. There exists a +simple, entirely harmless, and practically costless method of +preventing conception, which would enable us to check the blind +and futile fecundity of Nature, and to multiply as gods instead +of as animals. Consider the festering mass of misery in the slums +of our great cities; consider the millions of terrified, +poverty-hounded women, bearing one half-nurtured infant after +another, struggling desperately to feed and care for them, and +seeing them drop into the grave as fast as they are born-until +finally the mother, worn out with the Sisyphean labor, gives up +and follows her misbegotten offspring. Consider how many women, +in their agony and despair, make use of the methods of the +primitive savage, to escape from Nature's curse of fecundity. Dr. +Wm. J. Robinson has estimated that in the United States alone +there are a million abortions every year; and consider that all +this hideous mass of suffering--a bloody European war going on +continually, unheeded by any newspaper correspondent--might be +avoided by the use of a simple sterilizing formula, which we are +not permitted to give! The Federation of Catholic Societies have +placed a law upon the statute-books of the nation, and of all the +states as well; the whole power of police and courts and jails is +at the service of religious bigots, and a young girl is sent to +prison and forcibly fed with a tube through the nose for telling +poverty-ridden, slum-women how to keep from becoming pregnant! + +And go among the sleek, cynical men of the world, the judges and +district attorneys, the commissioners of correction and doctors +who perpetrated this infamy under a so-called "reform" +administration in New York City--and what do you find? The first +thing you find is that they themselves, one and all, practice +birth-control with their wives or their mistresses. The second +thing you find is that the statute-books are crowded with other +laws which they make no pretense of enforcing; for example, the +law which forbids the saloons to be open on Sunday--which law +they take the liberty of understanding to mean that the saloons +shall not have their front doors open on Sunday. You will find +that they are not at all afraid of the religious taboos; they are +afraid of the religious vote--and even more they are afraid of +the campaign contributions of sweat-shop manufacturers and +landlords, who cannot see what would become of prosperity if the +women of the slums were to cease to breed. So once more we +discover the wolf in sheep's clothing, the trader, making use of +Tradition-worship; hiding behind the skirts of devout old maiden +aunts and grandmothers, who repeat the instructions which God +gave to Adam and Eve, "Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the +earth." As if God were as blind as a Fifth Avenue preacher, and +could see no difference between the Garden of Eden, full of all +fruits that grow and all creatures that run and fly and swim, and +a modern East Side tenement-room, with an oil stove and no +windows and no water-closet, and the price of cabbage seven cents +a pound! + + +Sheep + +There are more than a hundred thousand Protestant churches in +America. They own more than a billion dollars' worth of property, +and in the West and South they dominate the intellectual life of +the country. I do not wish to be unfair in what I say of them. +They are far more democratic than the Catholic Church; they fight +valiantly against the liquor traffic and those forms of graft +which are obvious, or directly derived from vice. There are among +their clergy many men who are honestly seeking light, and trying +to make their institutions a factor for progress. But they are +caught in the spirit of Lutheran scholasticism, narrow and +ignorant, dogmatic and jealous; and they cannot help it, because +they are pledged by their creeds and foundations to +Tradition-worship; they have to believe certain things because +their ancestors believed them, they have to act in certain ways, +because of certain facts which existed in the world three +thousand years ago, but which now are known only to historians. + +You are familiar with the habit of a herd of sheep to follow the +example of their leader; if this leader leaps over a stick, all +the rest will leap when they come to that spot, even though the +stick may have been taken away in the meantime. The scientist +explains this seeming-foolishness by the fact that sheep once +lived in high mountains, and fled from their enemies in swiftly +rushing herds; when the leader leaped across an abyss, the others +had to leap, without waiting to see in the dust and confusion. +Now there are no mountains and no enemies, but the sheep still +jump. And in exactly the same way the tailor still sews buttons +at the back of your dress-coat, because a couple of hundred years +ago all gentlemen wore swords; in the same way our railroad +builders make cars narrow and uncomfortable and liable to +overturn, because a hundred years ago all cars were hauled by +mules. In the same way the Orthodox Hebrew will eat no pork, in +spite of the fact that the microscope affords him complete +protection against disease; the orthodox Catholic will not eat +meat on Friday, because he thinks Jesus was crucified on that +day; the orthodox Anglican will not marry his deceased wife's +sister, because of something he reads in Leviticus; the orthodox +Baptist requires total immersion in a climate quite different +from that of Palestine; the orthodox Methodist refuses to enjoy +fresh air and exercise on the Sabbath. + +In ancient Judea, you see, the people lived an open-air life, +tending sheep and working the fields; so it was an excellent +thing for them to rest from labor one day of the week, and to +gather in temples to hear the reading of the best literature of +their time. But nowadays the city slave spends his week-days shut +up in an office, poring over a ledger, or in a sweat-shop, +chained to a sewing-machine. Obviously, therefore, the thing to +do on the seventh day is to lure him into the open air, and +persuade him to run and play. But do we do that, we human sheep? +We write ancient Hebrew laws upon our modern statute-books, and +if the city slave goes into a vacant lot and tries to play +base-ball, we send a policeman and take him to jail, and next +morning he is fined five dollars, and probably loses his job. + +In the city where I live, a city supposed to be free and +enlightened, but in reality heavily burdened with churches, there +are tennis courts built and paid for out of public funds, my own +included; yet I cannot use these tennis courts on Sunday, because +of the ancient Hebrew taboo. My mail is not delivered to me, the +swimming pool in the park is closed to me, the library is closed +nearly all day. If I enquire about it, I am told that it is +desirable that city employees should have one day's rest a week; +but when I ask why it might not be possible to relay the +employees, so that they might all have one, or even two days' +rest a week, and still give the public their rights on Sunday, +there is no answer. But I know the answer, having probed our +politics of hypocrisy. There is a "church vote" at which all +politicians tremble; there are clergymen, humanly jealous when +their peculiar graft is threatened, and hoping that if the law +enforces a general boredom, the public may be more disposed to +endure the boredom of sermons. + +In New York City the theaters are closed on Sunday; but moving +pictures having come into being since the days of Puritan rule, +the picture-shows are free to keep open. The law permits "sacred +concerts"--which, under the benevolent sway of Tammany, has come +to mean any sort of vaudeville; so what we have is a free rein to +the imbecilities of "Mutt & Jeff" and the obscenities of Anna +Held and Gaby Deslys--while we bar the greatest moralists of our +times, such as Ibsen and Brieux. + +I speak with some crossness of this Sabbath taboo, because of an +experience which once befell me. In the second decade of this +century of enlightenment and progress, in our free American +democracy, whose constitution proclaims religious toleration, and +forbids the establishment by the state of any form of worship, I +was made to serve a sentence of eighteen hours in the state +prison of Delaware for playing a game of tennis on the Sabbath. I +was duly arrested upon a warrant, duly sentenced by a magistrate, +duly clad in a prison costume, duly set to work upon a +stone-pile, duly locked up over night in a steel-barred cell full +of vermin--in a building housing some five hundred wretches, +black and white, thirty of them serving life-terms under +circumstances which never permitted them a breath of fresh air +nor a glimpse of the sunshine or the sky. They had no exercise +court to their prison, and the inmates were not permitted to +speak to one another, but ate their meals in dead silence, and +walked back to their cells with folded arms, and had their only +occupation working for a sweat-shop contractor; this on the +outskirts of the capital city of Wilmington, with no less than +ninety-one churches! The writer was informed that he would return +to this institution regularly every week unless he abandoned his +godless habit of playing tennis on a private club court on +Sunday; he only escaped the painful punishment by making the +discovery that at the Wilmington Country Club it was the custom +of the leading officials of the city and state to play golf every +Sunday, and by threatening to employ detectives and have these +mighty ones arrested and sent to their own prison. Which shows +again the importance of understanding the relationship of +Superstition and Big Business! + + + +BOOK SIX + +The Church of the Quacks + + They may talk as they please about what they call pelf, + And how one ought never to think of one's self, + And how pleasures of thought surpass eating and drinking-- +My pleasure of thought is the pleasure of thinking + How pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho! + How pleasant it is to have money. + Clough. + + +Tabula Rasa + +Nature has given us a virgin continent, a clean slate upon which +to write what we will. And what are we writing? What is our +intellectual life? I came to the far West, which I had been +taught by novelists and poets to think of as a place of freedom. +I came, because I like freedom; I am staying because I like the +climate. I find that what freedom means in the West is the +ability of ignorant and fanatical persons to start some new, +fantastical quirk of scriptural interpretation, to build a new +cult around it, and earn a living out of it. + +My first contact with that sort of thing was when I went to the +Battle Creek Sanitarium to investigate hydrotherapy, and found +myself in a nest of Seventh-day Adventists. Three generations or +so ago some odd character hit upon the discovery that the +Christian churches had let the devil snare them into resting on +the first day of the week, whereas the Bible states distinctly +that the Lord "rested on the seventh day". So here is a million +dollar establishment, with a thousand or two patients and +employees, and on Friday at sundown the silence of death settles +upon the place, and stays settled until sundown of Saturday, when +everything comes suddenly to life again, and there is a little +celebration, like Easter or New Year's, with what I used to call +"sterilized dancing"--the men pairing with men and the women with +women. + +They are decent and kindly people, and you learn to put up with +their eccentricities; it is really convenient in some ways, +because, as not all the city shares their delusions, there are +some stores open every day of the week. But then you discover +that the Sanitarium is training "medical missionaries" to send to +Africa, and is teaching these supposed-to-be-scientists that +evolution is a doctrine of the devil, and not proven anyhow! + +You get the shrewd little doctor who is running this +establishment alone in his office, and he will smile and admit +that of course it is not necessary to take all Bible phrases +literally; but you know how it is--there are different levels of +intelligence, and so on. Yes, I know how it is. You have an +institution founded upon a certain dogma, and run by means of +that dogma, and it is hard to change without smashing things. It +is especially convenient when servants and nurses have a +religious upbringing, and do not steal the pocket-books of the +patients. People will come from all over the country, and pay +high prices to stay in such a sanitarium; you can make +vegetarians of them, which you think more important than teaching +abstract notions about their being descended from monkeys. Also +you can manufacture vegetarian foods for them, and build up an +enormous business--so obtaining that Power which is the thing +desired of men. + +This is but one illustration of a sort of thing of which I could +cite a hundred. The city in which I live is headquarters of +another sect, the "Pentecostal Church of the Nazarene"; primitive +Methodists, Bible-worshippers not content with the King James +version, but going back to the Sinaitic MS. They have a +"University", located in one of the most beautiful spots that +Nature ever made; an institution with seventy-five students. A +couple of years ago I happened to meet the "president," who was a +preacher with grease on the ample expanse of his black broadcloth +waistcoat, and a speech full of the commonest grammatical errors, +such as "you was" and "I seen". The past year witnessed a split, +and the founding of a brand new church and "University"--because +one of the preachers insisted upon preaching so much that the +students got no chance to study; also because he sent home a rich +man's daughter whose shirt-waists revealed too much of her +fleshly nature. + +And there is an even stranger phenomenon in the locality, taking +you back to the Libyan desert and the time of Thais. A lady +friend of mine, generously blessed with this world's goods, asks +me have I seen the hermit. "Hermit?" I say, and she replies, +"Didn't you know there was a hermit? He lives on a mountain, in a +cave, and never has anything to do with the world. He has no +books; he contemplates spiritually." I picture my friend with her +large limousine, a rolling palace full of ladies, drawing up at +the door of this hermit's cave. "He received you?" I ask. "Yes, +he was quite polite." "And what was your impression of him?" "Oh, +how he stank!" I answer that this is the odor of sanctity, and my +friend thinks that I am enormously witty; I have to explain to +her that I am not jesting, but that there are definite +physiological phenomena incidental to the ecstatic life. + + +The Book of Mormon + +Or let us take a trip to Salt Lake City, the headquarters of a +still stranger cult. + +On the morning of the 22nd of September, 1827, the Angel of the +Lord delivered unto Joseph Smith, Jr., an ignorant farmer-youth +in a "backwoods" part of New York State, some plates which had +"the appearance of gold". As we know from the scriptures, it is +the habit of the Angel of the Lord to appear in unexpected places +and to make miraculous revelations to men in humble walks of +life; so, as devout believers, we hold ourselves in readiness. In +this case the plates were written in "reformed Egyptian"; but the +Angel thoughtfully provided Joseph Smith, Jr., with Urim and +Thummim, two magic stones with which to read the records. They +proved to deal with a mystery which has haunted the minds of +Bible students for centuries--the fate of the "lost ten tribes +of Israel", who were now revealed to have been the ancestors of +the American Indians. The Angel told Smith to found a new +religion, and gave him prophecies concerning things in general; +so, on the 6th of April, 1830, in the town of Manchester, N. Y., +there was formally launched the "Church of the Latter Day +Saints." Smith turned over to his followers his translation of +the miraculous plates, called "The Book of Mormon"; obviously +genuine, for it read precisely like the books which we already +know are the revealed word of God. But, on chance that this might +not be sufficient, we were offered in the preface two documents, +the "Testimony of Three Witnesses", and the "Further Testimony of +Eight Witnesses". The latter being the shorter, may be quoted: + +Be it known unto all nations, kindreds, tongues and people, unto +whom this work shall come: That Joseph Smith Jr., the translator +of this work, has shewn unto us the plates of which hath been +spoken, which have the appearance of gold; and as many of the +leaves as the said Smith hath translated, we did handle with our +hands; and we also saw the engravings there-on, all of which has +the appearance of ancient work and of curious workmanship. And +this we bear record with words of soberness, that the said Smith +has shewn unto us, for we have seen and hefted, and know of a +surety that the said Smith hath got the plates of which we have +spoken. And we give our names unto the world, to witness that +which we have seen, and we lie not, God bearing witness of it. + + Christian Whitmer + Jacob Whitmer + Peter Whitmer, Jr. + John Whitmer + Hiram Page + Joseph Smith, Sr. + Hyrum Smith + Saml. H. Smith + +The subsequent career of the Church of the Latter Day Saints bore +out the Angel's prophesies and proved conclusively its divine +origin; it was persecuted as the saints of old were persecuted, +and its followers proceeded to massacre the nearby unbelieving +populations, just as the divinely guided Hebrews had done. Driven +from place to place, they built at Nauvoo, Ill., a beautiful +temple, according to plans revealed in a vision, exactly like +Solomon. Finally they settled in Utah, where they have a +magnificent marble tabernacle, and some 300,000 followers. The +United States government, not being entirely Biblical, objected +to their practice of allowing the patriarchs of the tribe to have +as many wives as they could support; the government confiscated +the church's property, and forced it to conceal the practice of +polygamy, as is done by elderly church members in other parts of +the country. Recently the head of the church, who bears the title +of "Prophet, Seer and Revelator", was persuaded to permit an +examination of one of its secret plates, the "Book of Abraham", +by egyptologists, who found that it was ordinary Egyptian +hieroglyphics, not "reformed", but containing prayers to the +sun-god. But this will of course make no difference to the devout +followers of Joseph--any more than it has made to devout +Catholics and Episcopalians that German scholars have proven that +the Bible legends and ritual have come from the Babylonians, and +that the four gospels date from the second and third centuries +after Christ. + + +Holy Rolling + +All over America you will find these weird Bible-cults, some of +them pathetic, some of them dangerous, some of them merely +grotesque. Thus, for example, there was John Alexander Dowie, who +founded the "Christian Catholic Church in Zion" and dressed +himself up in scarlet and purple robes with stars on. Through his +Zion City Bank and Zion City Realty Company he became enormously +wealthy; he finally announced himself as "Elijah the Restorer." I +remember as a boy how he brought his gospel to New York, and P. +T. Barnum with Tom Thumb and the white elephant never made such a +sensation. The ridicule of the metropolis overwhelmed the old +prophet, and he died and passed on his robes and his tabernacle +and his bank to his son; straightway, according to the rule of +all religions, the followers fell to quarrelling and splitting +up, and suing one another in the law-courts. + +Also there are the "Holy Rollers" and "Holy Jumpers", ghastly +sects which cultivate the religious hysterias, and have spread +like a plague among the women of our lonely prairie farms and +desert ranches. The "Holy Rollers", who call themselves the +"Apostolic Church", have a meeting place here in Pasadena, and +any Sunday evening at nine o'clock you may see the Spirit of the +Lord taking possession of the worshippers, causing moans and +shrieks and convulsions; you may see a woman holding her hands +aloft for seventeen minutes by the watch, making chattering +sounds like an ape. This is called "talking in tongues" and is a +sign of the presence of the Holy Spirit. If you come back at +eleven in the evening, you will find the entire congregation, men +and women, prostrate on the floor, or hanging over the benches; +and maybe a child moaning in terror, having a devil cast out. + +You may be interested, perhaps, to know how to throw yourself +into these convulsions. Here is a paper called "Trust", which is +"published Monthly (D. V.) in the interests of Elim Faith Work +and Bible Training School." Elizabeth Sisson writes on "The +Pentecostal Baptism", and tells the story of her experiences. She +"camped on the Word of God," she declares. + +I went up to Calgary in Canada, and the leader of the mission +told me, "You can go down to the mission and stay there all day. +There is plenty of wood, and you can stay there all night." I +went down, and there was plenty of "let go" in me. I cried, and +prayed all I knew, and got wonderfully loosed..... + +Then the Lord said to me, "Now, no more praying!" God told me it +was mine. What was there left for me to pray about. He spoiled my +praying and I took up praising. I praised God that He who worked +in the Upper Room was working the same in me. I praised, and I +praised, and I praised. The devil said to me, "That's +mechanical." I said, "I'll praise You Lord, and if You want real +praise, You'll have to put the wind in the sails." + +That's the way I came through. One morning I was just getting out +of bed, "this gibberish, this jargon" as the enemy likes to call +it, began to come. The Lord said, "Let it babble!" I let. The +babble increased, and by night I was up to my neck. I let. I +still let. That's all. Someone else does the work, and it does +not tire you. + +And here is another paper. "Meat in Due Season: published +monthly, or as often as the Lord leads." The editor quotes the +Bible, "Call upon the name of the Lord," and explains that "Call +means call." The word appears to have a special meaning to these +pentecostal persons--it means working yourself into a frenzy of +agitation; as the editor puts it, "you must lay hold of the horns +of the altar." He goes on to exhort--the bold face being his: + +Pray as if your very life depended upon it! The first few minutes +seemingly all the powers of hell will contend every word, the +next few, relief in a measure will come, more liberty in calling. +In a very little while you will be dead to the room, dead to the +chair, dead to everyone around you, dead to all and tremendously +alive to your desperate need and emptyness; this conviction will +grow as you increase calling upon Him. It maybe you'll weep, it +maybe you'll perspire, it maybe your clothing will be deranged, +it, maybe your throat will get sore. Never for a moment let your +mind rest on the condition of your person. Open your mouth and +God has promised to fill it. Ask persistently until the very +floor seems to sink beneath you and the fountains of the deep, of +your heart let loose. Like David, "pour out your soul" like one +would pour water out of a bucket. I have seen hundreds get +through right at this point. When self-thought, reticence, +decorum, reserve, propriety and dignity had all been thrown to +the four winds of heaven. Self was then obliterated and +consciousness of person gone. Draw near to God and He will draw +near to you saith the scripture, but you must draw near to Him +first. + +These enthusiasts derive their practices from the Shakers, a sect +which originated in England, but was driven by persecution to the +New World. The Shakers call themselves the "United Society of +True Believers in Christ's Second Coming," and were founded by +Ann Lee, who, variously termed herself the "Female Christ", the +"Holy Comforter", and the "God-anointed Woman". They might be +termed the suffragettes of religion, for they pray always to "Our +Father and Mother, which are in heaven." They were taught the +convenient doctrine that their Founder had "spiritual +illumination", so that any evidence of the senses used against +her might deceive. She governed through terror, holding that by +her mental powers she could inflict torment upon any of her +followers. Fortunately she taught absolute celibacy, and so there +are now only about a thousand of her disciples. + + +Bible Prophecy + +This far western country swarms with those fanatics who await the +return of Christ, and find in Bible chronology positive evidence +that he is coming on a specified day. Seldom do I give a lecture +on Socialism that some eager old lady does not come up to me and +point out how futile are my hopes, because the Millenium will +come before the Revolution. Several times I have come on an item +in the newspapers, telling of a group of people, sometimes whole +villages, selling their goods and going out into the fields to +shout and sing and pray, expecting the vision of the Lord and His +Angels in the skies. I have in my hand a pamphlet entitled +"Shekineh: The Glory of God in Israel, Facts Mathematically +Foretold, of the Soon Coming of Our Blessed Lord." It is +earnestly, yearningly written, in that spirit of feeble-minded +affectionateness which the Bible-sects seem to encourage: + +Now dear reader you see that these problems tell a wonderful +story which I know are the Eternal Truths of God. Jesus is soon +coming. I believe that from now on we can say, next week perhaps +our blessed Lord will return. Yet the time may not end till the +close of the A. M. year, which will be March 20th, 1897. But let +us take up the sickle of God, etc. Oh, my Christian friends, live +near the Blessed Christ, and gain eternal life through Jesus Our +Lord! + +In the public library I find another pamphlet, entitled "The Our +Race," which proves that the "lost ten tribes of Israel" are not +the American Indians, but the Irish! And here is a publication of +the "Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society," declaring: + +The great pyramid in Egypt is a witness to all the events of the +ages and of our day. The pyramid's downward passage under "a +Draconis" symbolizes the course of Sin. Its first ascending +passage symbolizes the Jewish Age. Its Grand Gallery symbolizes +the Gospel Age. Its upper step symbolizes the approaching period +of tribulation and anarchy, "Judgment" upon Christendom. + +It is a Sunday morning, and I sit in the California sunshine +revising this manuscript, when a decorous-looking young man +approaches, having a sack over his shoulder. "From the +Bible-students," he says politely, and hands me a little paper, +"The Bible Students' Monthly: an Independent, Unsectarian +Religious Newspaper, Specially devoted to the Forwarding of the +Laymen's Home Missionary Movement for the Glory of God and Good +of Humanity." The leading article is headed "The Fall of Babylon: +Ancient Babylon a Type--Mystic Babylon the Antitype: Why +Christendom must Suffer--the Final Outcome." A note explains: + +The following article is extracted from Pastor Russell's +posthumous volume entitled "The Finished Mystery," the 7th in the +series of his Studies in the Scriptures and published subsequent +to his death. Pastor Russell held the distinction of being the +most fearless and powerful writer of modern times on +ecclesiastical subjects. In this posthumous volume, which is +called "his last legacy to the Christians on earth," is found a +thorough exposition of every verse in the entire book of +Revelation and also an elucidation of the obscure prophecy of +Ezekiel. The book contains 608 pages, handsomely bound in +embossed cloth. + +Pastor Russell used to publish a two-column sermon in some +hundreds of Sunday newspapers, together with a presentment of his +features--solemn, stiff, white-whiskered, set off with a "choker" +and a black broadcloth coat. There are five million such faces in +America, but if you have an impulse to despair for your country, +remember that it produced Mark Twain and Artemus Ward, as well as +Pastor Russell and the Moody and Sankey hymn-book. I quote one +passage from "The Finished Mystery", in order that the reader may +know what it means to "hold the distinction of being the most +fearless and powerful writer of modern times on ecclesiastical +subjects." Pastor Russell does not approve of the Methodists, and +he quotes twelve verses of Revelation, line by line and phrase by +phrase, showing how the evil course and downfall of the Wesleyan +system were divinely foretold. Thus: + +"But that they should be tormented five months."--In symbolic +time, 150 years--5 X 30 = 150. (Ezek. 4:6.) Wesley became the +first Methodist in 1728. (Rev. 9:1.) When the Methodist +denomination, with all the others, was cast off from favor in +1878 (Rev. 3:14) its powers to torment men by preaching what +Presbyterians describe as "Conscious misery, eternal in duration" +came to an end legally, and to a large extent actually--Rev. +9:10. + +P. S. A few months pass, and while this book is going to press, +"The Finished Mystery" is suppressed by the government and +several score "Bible Students" are landed in jail for sedition. + + +Koreshanity + +Such are the beliefs built on the Bible. But there are other +ancient writings with strange nomenclature and ritual and +symbolism, calculated to impress the unlettered; also our +prophets have imaginations of their own, and can invent +nomenclature and ritual and symbolism never seen in heaven nor on +earth before. Thus there is Dr. Newo Newi New, who called himself +"Archbishop of the Newthot Church," and gathered about him a +harem of devoted females in San Francisco, and was landed in jail +for using the mails to defraud. Or there is "Oahspe, the Cosmic +Bible," a work of brand-new revelation with a brand-new view of +the universe and all things therein: + +The reader soon discovers that he must radically revise not only +his ideas of celestial Cosmogony, but the order and significance +of names and titles commonly applied to the Transcendental +Brethren. The great provinces of Etheria are presided over by +chiefs, chosen for their superior development in wisdom and love. +For our solar system to cross one of these provinces requires +about 3,000 years, and between them are belts of high Etherian +light which take several years to pass over. The passage of each +province is a cycle of earthly history, and the crossings are +called Dawns of Dan. + +And here is Koreshanity, a revelation vouchsafed by the Lord to +Dr. C. R. Teed of Chicago in the year 1889. This new seer took +the name of Koresh, which is Hebrew for Cyrus, "the Shepherd from +Joseph, the Stone of Israel, the Sun-Man; the illuminating center +of the Son of man", and went out on the streets of the city to +preach that the earth is a hollow sphere with the stars inside. +The street urchins of the pork-packing metropolis threw stones at +him, and the irreverent newspapers took up his adventures, with +the result that followers gathered, and now there is a +flourishing colony in Florida, with a dignified magazine called +"The Flaming Sword", and a collection of propaganda volumes: "The +Cellular Cosmogony, an Exposition of Koreshan Universology and +the New Geodesy"; "The Immortal Manhood, the Laws and Processes +of its Attainment in the Flesh"; "The Great Red Dragon, by Lord +Chester"; "The Coming of the Shepherd from Joseph, The Standing +of the Great Ensign, by Koresh." The "Religio-science" of this +Chicago revelator is based, first upon some precise measurements +of the earth which prove that its surface is concave; and second +upon some philological discoveries very much resembling puns. +Thus the "cross of Christ" is explained in a sense of the word +more common among horse-breeders than among theologians: + +The highest characteristic of the alchemical law is the cross of +Christ with sensual man. The cross means that the Lord God, in +order to perpetuate his own being, descends into the race of +sensuality. + +And again, when someone asks about meteors: + +"The word Heaven means things heaved up, that is, heaved up from +their material basis, the earth; thus, the meteors which fall to +the earth are composed of metallic, mineral, and geological +substances, being materialized or actually created in the +atmosphere by an alchemico-organic process from zones or belts +periodically open, which precipitate their contents in the form +or shape of meteors." + +And perhaps I ought also to quote the "Indicia of Human +Progress", by "Berthaldine, Matrona". I don't know what a +"Matrona" is--unless it is a female matron. This female matron +tells me that now is the "Time of Restitution", and explains that +"the prolification of the human race has reached a fruition of +the adultery of the truth and good of the Lord with the fallacies +and evils of the mortal hells"..... We have come, it seems, to +the "age of Pisces", which is "one of the greatest radical +prolification"; and what we now need is the "power of +polarization", so that we may join the "White Horse Army of the +Most High", which is the organization of the "Aquarian age", +proclaimed by Koresh on January 15th, 1891. + + +Mazdaznan + +And here is another and even more startling revelation from +Chicago, given to a seer by the name of Dr. Otoman Prince of +Adusht Ha'nish, prophet of the Sun God, Prince of Peace, Manthra +Magi of Temple El Katman, Kalantar of Zoroastrian Breathing and +Envoy of Mazdaznan living, Viceroy-Elect and International Head +of Master-Thot. If you had happened to live near the town of +Mendota, Illinois, and had known the German grocer-boy named Otto +Hanisch, you might at first have trouble in recognizing him +through this transmogrification. I have traced his career in the +files of the Chicago newspapers, and find him herding sheep, +setting type, preaching prestidigitation, mesmerism, and fake +spiritualism, joining the Mormon Church, then the "Christian +Catholic Church in Zion", and then the cult of Brighouse, who +claimed to be Christ returned. Finally he sets himself up in +Chicago as a Persian Magi, teaching Yogi breathing exercises and +occult sex-lore to the elegant society ladies of the pork-packing +metropolis. The Sun God, worshipped for two score centuries in +India, Egypt, Greece and Rome, has a new shrine on Lake Park +Avenue, and the prophet gives tea-parties at which his disciples +are fed on lilac-blossoms--"the white and pinkish for males, the +blue-tinted for females". He wears a long flowing robe of pale +grey cashmere, faced with white, and flexible white kid shoes, +and he sells his lady adorers a book called "Inner Studies", +price five dollars per volume, with information on such subjects +as: + +The Immaculate Conception and its Repetition; The Secrets of +Lovers Unveiled; Our Ideals and Soul Mates; Magnetic Attraction +and Electric Mating. + +A Grand Jury intervenes, and the Prophet goes to jail for six +months; but that does not harm his cult, which now has a temple +in Chicago, presided over by a lady called Kalantress and +Evangelist; also a "Northern Stronghold" in Montreal, an +"Embassy" in London, an "International Aryana" in Switzerland, +and "Centers" all over America. At the moment of going to press, +the prophet himself is in flight, pursued by a warrant charging +him with improper conduct with a number of young boys in a Los +Angeles hotel. + +I have dipped into Ha'nish's revelations, which are a farrago of +every kind of ancient mysticism--paper and binding from the +Bible, illustrations from the Egyptian, names from the +Zoroastrian, health rules from the Hindoos, laws from the +Confucians--price ten dollars per volume. Would you like to +discover your seventeen senses, to develop them according to the +GaLlama principle, and to share the "expansion of the magnetic +circles"? Here is the way to do it: + +Inhale through nostrils for four seconds, and upon one +exhalation, speak slowly: + +Open, O thou world-sustaining Sun, the entrance unto Truth hidden +by the vase of dazzling light. + +Again inhale for four seconds, and breathe out the following +sentence upon one exhalation as before: + +Soften the radiation of Thy Illuminating Splendor, that I may +behold Thy True Being. + +I have a clipping from a Los Angeles newspaper telling of the +prophet's arriving there. He takes the front page with the +captivating headline: "Women Didn't Think Till They Put On +Corsets". The interview tells about his mysteriousness, his +aloofness, his bird-like-diet, and his personal beauty. "Despite +his seventy-three years, Ha'nish evidences no sign of age. His +keen blue eyes showed no sign of wavering. There were no wrinkles +on his face, and his walk was that of a man of forty." The humor +of this becomes apparent when we mention that at Ha'nish's trial, +three or four years ago, he was proven to be thirty-five years +old! + +Being thus warned as to the accuracy of American journalism, we +shall not be taken in by the repeated statements that the +Mazdaznan prophet is a millionaire. But there is no doubt that he +is wealthy; and as all Americans wish to be wealthy, I will quote +his formula of prosperity, his method of accomplishing what might +be called the Individual Revolution: + +When hungry and you do not know where to get your next piece of +bread, do not despair. Thy Father, all-loving, has provided you +with everything that will meet all cases of emergency. Place your +teeth tightly together, with tongue pressing against the lower +teeth and lips parted. Breathe in, close lips immediately, +exhaling through the nostrils. Breathe again; if saliva forms in +your mouth, hold your breath so you can swallow it first before +you exhale. You thus take out of the air the metal-substance +contained therein; you can even taste the iron which you convert +into substance required for making the blood. Should you feel +that, although you have sufficient iron in the blood, there is a +lack of copper and zinc and silver, place upper teeth over lower, +keep lower lip tightly to lower teeth, now breathe and you can +even taste the metals named. Then should you feel you need more +gold element for your brain functions, place your back teeth +together just as if you were to grind the back teeth, taking +short breaths only. You will then learn to know that there is +gold and silver all around us. That our bodies are filled with +quite a quantity of gold. + + +Black Magic + +What all this means is that we have a continent, with a hundred +million half-educated people, materially prosperous, but +spiritually starving; so any man who possesses personality, who +looks in any way strange and impressive, or has hunted up old +books in a library, and can pronounce mysterious words in a +thrilling voice--such a man can find followers. Anybody can do it +with any doctrine, from anywhere, Persia or Patagonia, Pekin or +Pompei. I would be willing to wager that if I cared to come out +and announce that I had had a visit from God last night, and to +devote such literary and emotional power as I possess to +communicating a new revelation, I could have a temple, a +university, and a million dollars within five years at the +outside. And if at the end of five years I were to announce that +I had played a joke on the world, some one of my followers would +convince the faithful that I had been an agent of God without +knowing it, and that the leadership had now been turned over to +him. + +I would not be understood as believing that all our cults are +undiluted fakery, for that would be doing injustice to some +earnest people. There are, in this country, many followers of the +Persian reformer, Abbas Effendi, who call themselves Babists, and +who have what I am inclined to think is the purest and most +dignified religion in existence. There was a man named Jacob +Beilhardt, who founded a cult in Illinois with the painful name +of "Spirit Fruit Colony", who nevertheless was a man of spiritual +insight, a true mystic; he was honest, and so he failed, and died +of a broken heart. Also there are the Christian Scientists and +the Theosophists, so exasperating that one would like to throw +them onto the rubbish-heap, who yet compel us to sift over their +mountains of chaff for the grains of truth which will bear fruit +in future. + +While we western races have been exploring the natural world and +perfecting the mechanical arts, the Hindoo students have been +exploring the subconscious and its strange powers. What Myers and +Lodge and Janet and Charcot and Freud and Jung are telling us +today they had hints of a long time ago; and doubtless they have +hints of other things, upon which our scientists have not yet +come. I have friends, perfectly sane and competent people, who +tell me that they can see auras, and use this ability as a means +of judging character. Shall I say that there are no auras, simply +because I do not happen to have this gift of seeing them? In the +same way, having read Gurney's "Phantasms of the Living," I am +not ready to ridicule the claim of the Yogi adepts, that they are +able to project some kind of astral body, and to communicate with +one another from distant places. But granting such occult powers +in a world of economic strife, what follows? Simply new floods of +charlatanism, elaborate and complicated systems of ritual and +metaphysic for the deluding and plundering of the credulous. + +I have seen the thing working itself out in one case known to me. +A young man had a gift of mental healing; I know, because I saw +it work; but it did not always work, and that was annoying. He +was penniless and had a taste for power, and to eke out his +erratic endowment he got himself books of Eastern lore, and day +by day as I watched him I could see him becoming more and more +impressive, mysterious and forbidding. Today he is a full-fledged +wonder-worker, with the language of a dozen mystic cults at his +tongue's end, and the reverent regard of many wealthy ladies. I +have never tried to break through his guard, but I feel certain +that he is a deliberate charlatan. + +This is an economic process, automatic and irresistible. Just as +the manufacturer of honest foods is driven out by the +adulterator, so the worker of miracles drives out the sincere +investigator. As a result we have here in America a plague of +Eastern cults, with "swamis" using soft yellow robes and soft +brown eyes to win the souls of idle society ladies. These +teachers of ancient Hindoo lore despise us as a race of +barbarians; but they stay--whether because of love of man or +woman, I do not pretend to say. + +There are the Theosophists of many brands, with schools and +institutes and temples and colonies, and a doctrine as complex +and detailed and fantastic as that of the Roman Catholics. I have +already referred to the writings of Madame Blavatsky, a runaway +Russian army officer's daughter, whose career reads like a tale +out of the Arabian Nights. And there is Annie Besant, who was +once an ardent worker in the Social-democratic Federation; H. M. +Hyndman tells of his dismay when she went to India and walked in +a procession between two white bulls! Here in California is +Madame Tingley, with a colony and a host of followers in a +miniature paradise. Men work at money-lending or manufacturing +sporting-goods, and when they get old and tired they make the +thrilling discovery that they have souls; the theosophists +cultivate these souls and they leave their money to the +soul-cause, and there are lawsuits and exposes in the newspapers. +For, you see, there is ferocious rivalry in the game of +cultivating millionaire souls; there are slanders and feuds, just +as in soulless affairs. "Don't have anything to do with Madame +Tingley," whispers a Theosophist lady to my wife; and when my +wife in all innocence inquires, "Why not?" the awe-stricken +answer comes, "She practices black magic!" + +Let me add that I do not say that she practices black magic. I do +not believe that she could practice it, even if she wanted to--I +do not believe in black magic. My purpose is merely to show how +theosophists quarrel: going back to the days of Anu and Baal and +the bronze image of the Babylonian fire-god: + + Let them die, but let me live! Let them be put under a ban, but +let me prosper! Let them perish, but let me increase! Let them +become weak, but let me wax strong! + + +Mental Malpractice + +This is the other side of the fair shield of religious faith. +Why, if there be a power which loves and can be persuaded to aid +us, may there not also be a power which hates, and can be +persuaded to destroy? No religion has ever been able to answer +this, and therefore none has ever been able to escape from +devil-terrors. Even Jesus was pursued by Satan, and the Holy +Catholic Church has its ceremonies for the exorcising of demons, +and a most frightful formula for cursing. And here are our +friends the Christian Scientists, proclaiming the unreality of +all evil, their ability to banish disease by convincing +themselves that they are perfect in God--yet tormented by a +squalid phobia called "Mental Malpractice", or "Malicious Animal +Magnetism". + +Christian Science is the most characteristic of American +religious contributions. Just as Billy Sunday is the price we pay +for failing to educate our base-ball players, so Mary Baker +Glover Patterson Eddy is the price we pay for failing to educate +our farmer's daughters. + +That she had a power to cure disease I do not doubt, because I +have a little of it myself. At first my opinion was that her +"Science" made its way by curing the imaginary ailments of the +idle rich. If a person has nothing to do but think that he is +sick, you can work easy miracles by persuading him to think that +he is well; and if he has nothing to do but think that he is +well, he will help you to build marble churches and maintain +propaganda societies. But recently I have experimented with +mental healing--enough to satisfy myself that the subconscious +mind which controls our physical functions can be powerfully +influenced by the will. + +I told the story of some of these experiments in Hearst's +Magazine for April, 1914. Suffice it here to say that if you will +lay your hands upon a sick person, forming a vivid mental picture +of the bodily changes you desire, and concentrating the power of +your will upon them, you may be surprised by the results, +especially if you possess anything in the way of psychic gifts. +You do not have to adopt any theories, you do not have to do it +in the name of any divinity, ancient or modern; the only bearing +of such ideas is that they serve to persuade people to make the +experiment, and to make it with persistence and intensity. So it +has come about that "miracles" of healing are associated with +"faith"; and so it comes about that scientists are apt to flout +the subject. But read of the work of Janet and Charcot and their +followers at the Salpetriere; they have proven that all kinds of +seeming-organic ailments may be entirely hysterical in nature, +and may be cured by the simplest form of suggestion. +Understanding this, you may find it more easy to credit the fact +that cripples do sometimes throw away their crutches in the +grotto of Lourdes. For my part, I can believe that Jesus +performed all the miracles of healing attributed to him +--including the raising up of people pronounced to be dead by the +ignorance of that time. I am convinced that in the new science of +psycho-analysis we have a universe as vast as the universe of the +atom or of the stars. + +The Christian Scientists have got hold of this power; they have +mixed it up with metaphysic and divinity, and built some four or +five hundred churches, and printed the Mother Church alone knows +how many million pamphlets and books. I once invested three of my +hard-earned dollars for a copy of the Eddy Bible, and let myself +be stunned and blinded by the flapping of metaphysical wings. It +is unadulterated moonshine--as the Platonist and Berkeleyan and +Hegelian and other orthodox collegiate metaphysical magi can +prove to you in one minute. What interests me about the +phenomenon is not the slinging of tremendous words, but the +strictly Yankee use which is made of them. There is no nonsense +about saving your soul in Christian Science; what it is for is to +remove your wen, to nail down your floating kidney, and to enable +you to hustle and make money. We saw in our politics the growth +of a Party of the Full Dinner-Pail; contemporaneous therewith, +and corresponding thereto, we see in our religious life the +development of a Church of the Full Pocket-Book. + +It is a strict religion--strictly cash. The heads of the cult do +not issue cheap editions of "Science and Health, With Key to the +Scriptures", to relieve the suffering of the proletariat; no--the +work is copyrighted, in all its varying and contradictory +editions, and the price is from three to seven-fifty, according +to binding. Treatments cost from three dollars to ten, whether +you come and get them or take them over the telephone. And we +have no nonsense about charity, we don't worry about the poor who +fester in our city slums; because poverty is a product of Mortal +Mind, and we offer to all men a way to get rich right off the +bat. You may come to our marble churches and hear people testify +how through the power of Divine Mind they were enabled to +anticipate a rise in the stock-market. If you don't avail +yourself of the opportunity, the fault is yours, and yours also +the punishment. + +As to the management of the Church, the Roman Catholic hierarchy +is a Bolshevik democracy in comparison. The Church is controlled +by an absolutely irresponsible self-perpetuating body of five +men, who alone dictate its policy. I have in my hand a letter +from a Christian Science healer who was listed as an "authorized +practitioner", and who withdrew from the Church because of its +attitude on public questions. He sends me a copy of his +correspondence with the editors of the "Christian Science +Monitor", containing a detailed analysis of the position of that +paper on such issues as the Ballinger land-frauds. He writes: + +I am thoroughly convinced now that the policy of the Church is +consciously plutocratic. The only recommendation I have heard of +the latest appointee to the Board of Directors is that he is one +of the richest men in the movement. + +After the Titanic disaster, Senator La Follette brought in a +carefully drawn bill to compel steamship companies to provide +life-boats and trained crews. The "Christian Science Monitor" +opposed this bill; and when my correspondent cited the fact, he +brought out a quaint bit of metaphysical logic, as follows: + +One would prefer to travel on a vessel without a single boat, +rather than on some other vessels which were loaded down with +life-boats, where the government of Mind was not understood! + + +Science and Wealth + +The truth is that the brand of Mammon was on our Yankee religion +from the day of its birth. In the first edition of her new Bible +"Mother" Eddy dropped the hint to her readers: "Men of business +have said this science was of great advantage from a secular +point of view." And in her advertisements she threw aside all +pretense, declaring that her work "Affords an opportunity to +acquire a profession by which one can accumulate a fortune." When +her pupils did accumulate, she boasted of their success; nor did +she neglect her own accumulating. + +It has been a dozen years since I looked into this cult; in order +to be sure that it has not been purified in the interim, I +proceed to a street corner in my home city, where is a stand with +a sign: "Christian Science Literature." I take four sample +copies of a magazine, the "Christian Science Sentinel", published +by the Mother Church in Boston, and turn to the "Testimonials of +Healing". In the issue of August 11, 1917, Mary C. Richards of +St. Margarets-on-Thames, England, testifies: "Through a number of +circumstances unnecessary to relate, but proving conclusively +that the result came not from man but from God, employment was +found." In the issue of December 2, 1916, Frances Tuttle of +Jersey City, N. J., testifies how her sister was successfully +treated for unemployment by a scientist practitioner. "Every +condition was beautifully met." In the same issue Fred D. Miller +of Los Angeles, Cal., testifies: "Soon after this wonderful truth +came to me, Divine Love led me to a new position with a +responsible firm. The work was new to me, but I have given entire +satisfaction, and my salary has been advanced twice in less than +a year." In the issue of January 27, 1917, Eliza Fryant of +Agricola, Miss., testifies how she cured her little dog of +snake-bite and removed two painful corns from her own foot. In +the issue of August 4, 1917, Marcia E. Gaier, of Everett, Wash., +testifies how it suddenly occurred to her that because God is +All, she would drop her planning and outlining in regard to real +estate properties, "upon which for nine months all available +material methods were tried to no effect." The result was a +triumph of "Principle". + +While working in the yard one morning and gratefully communing +with God, the only power, I suddenly felt that I should stop +working and prepare for visitors on their way to look at the +property. I obeyed this very distinct command, and in about an +hour I greeted two people who had searched almost the entire city +for just what we had to offer. They had been directed to our +place by what to material sense would seem an accident, but we +know it was the divine law of harmony in its universal operation. + +After this no one will wonder that John M. Tutt, in a Christian +Science lecture at Kansas City, Mo., should proclaim: + +My friends, do you know that since the world began Christian +Science is the only system which has intelligently related +religion to business? Christian Science shows that since all +ideas belong to Mind, God, therefore all real business belongs to +Him. + +As I said, these people have the new-old power of mental healing, +They blunder along with it blindly, absurdly, sometimes with +tragic consequences; but meantime the rank and file of the +pill-doctors know nothing about this power, and regard it with +contempt mingled with fear; so of course the hosts of sufferers +whom the pill-doctors cannot help flock to the healers of the +"Church of Christ, Scientist". According to the custom of those +who are healed by "faith", they swallow line, hook, and sinker, +creed, ritual, metaphysic and divinity. So we see in +twentieth-century America precisely what we saw in B. C. +twentieth-century Assyria--a host of worshippers, giving their +worldly goods without stint, and a priesthood, made partly of +fanatics and partly of charlatans, conducting a vast enterprise +of graft, and harvesting that thing desired of all men, power +over the lives and destinies of others. + +And of course among themselves they quarrel; they murder one +another's Mortal Minds, they drive one another out, they snarl +over the spoils like a pack of hungry animals. Listen to the +Mother, denouncing one of her students--a perfectly amiable and +harmless youth whose only offense was that he had gone his own +way and was healing the sick for the benefit of his own +pocket-book: + +Behold! thou criminal mental marauder, that would blot out the +sunshine of earth, that would sever friends, destroy virtue, put +out Truth, and murder in secret the innocent, befouling thy track +with the trophies of thy guilt--I say, Behold the "cloud" no +bigger than a man's hand already rising on the horizon of Truth, +to pour down upon thy guilty head the hailstones of doom. + +And again: + +The Nero of today, regaling himself through a mental method with +the torture of individuals, is repeating history, and will fall +upon his own sword, and it shall pierce him through. Let him +remember this when, in the dark recesses of thought, he is +robbing, committing adultery and killing. When he is attempting +to turn friend away from friend, ruthlessly stabbing the +quivering heart; when he is clipping the thread of life and +giving to the grave youth and its rainbow hues; when he is +turning back the reviving sufferer to his bed of pain, clouding +his first morning after years of night; and the Nemesis of that +hour shall point to the tyrant's fate, who falls at length upon +the sword of justice. + + +New Nonsense + +In a certain city of America is a large building given up +entirely to the whims of pretty ladies. Its floors are not floors +but "Promenades", and have walls of glass, behind which, as you +stroll, you see bonnets from Paris and opera cloaks from London, +furs from Alaska and blankets from Arizona, diamonds from South +Africa and beads from the Philippines, grapes from Spain and +cherries from Japan, fortune-tellers from Arabia and +dancing-masters from Petrograd and "naturopaths" from Vienna. +There are seventy-three shops, by actual count, containing +everything that could be imagined or desired by a pretty lady, +whether for her body, or for that vague stream of emotion she +calls her "soul". One of the seventy-three shops is a +"Metaphysical Library", having broad windows, and walls in pastel +tints, and pretty vases with pink flowers, and pretty gray wicker +chairs in which the reader will please to be seated, while we +probe the mysteries of an activity widely spread throughout +America, called "New Thought." + +We begin with a shelf of magazines having mystical titles: Azoth; +Master Mind; Aletheian; Words of Power; Qabalah; Comforter; +Adept; Nautilus; True Word; Astrological Bulletin; Unity; Uplift; +Now. And then come shelves of pretty pamphlets, alluring to the +eye and the purse; also shelves of imposing-looking volumes +containing the lore and magic of a score of races and two score +of centuries--together with the very newest manifestations of +Yankee hustle and graft. + +As in the case of Christian Science, these New Thoughters have a +fundamental truth, which I would by no means wish to depreciate. +It is a fact that the mysterious Source of our being is infinite, +and that we are only at the beginning of our thinking about it. +It is a fact that by appeal to it we can perform seeming miracles +of mental and moral regeneration; we can stimulate the flow of +nervous energy and of the blood, thus furthering the processes of +bodily healing. But the fact that God is Infinite and Omnipotent +does not bar the fact that He has certain ways of working, which +He does not vary; and that it is our business to explore and +understand these ways, instead of setting our fancies to work +imagining other ways more agreeable to our sentimentality. + +Thus, for example, if we want bread, it is God's decree that we +shall plant wheat and harvest it, and grind and bake and +distribute it. Under conditions prevailing at the moment, it +appears to be His decree that we shall store the wheat in +elevators, and ship it in freight cars, and buy it through a +grain exchange, with capital borrowed from a national bank; in +other words, that our daily bread shall be the plaything of +exploiters and speculators, until such a time as we have the +intelligence to form an effective political party and establish +Industrial Democracy. But when you come to study the ways of God +in the literature of the New Thought, do you find anything about +the Millers' Trust and the Bakers' Trust and how to expropriate +these agencies of starvation? You do not! + +What you find is Bootstrap-lifting; you find gentlemen and lady +practitioners shutting their eyes and lifting their hands and +pronouncing Incantations in awe-inspiring voices--or in Capital +Letters and LARGE TYPE: "God is infinite, God is All-Loving, GOD +WILL PROVIDE. Bread is coming to you! Bread is coming to you!! +BREAD IS COMING TO YOU!!!" + +You think this is exaggeration? If so, it is because you have +never entered the building of the pretty ladies, and sat in the +gray wicker chairs of the metaphysical library. One of the +highest high-priestesses of the cults of New Nonsense is a lady +named Elizabeth Towne, editor of "The Nautilus"; and Priestess +Elizabeth tells you: + +I believe the idea that money wants you will help you to the +right mental condition. Be a pot of honey and let it come. + +I look over this Priestess' magazine, and find it full of +testimonials and advertisements for the conjuring of prosperity. +"Are you in the success sphere?" asks one exhorter; the next +tells you "How to enter the silence. How to manifest what you +desire. The secret of advancement." Another tells: "How a Failure +at Sixty Won Sudden Success; From Poverty to $40,000 a year--a +Lesson for Old and Young Alike." The lesson, it appears, is to +pay $3.00 for a book called "Power of Will." And here is another +book: + +Master Key: Which can unlock the Secret Chamber of Success, can +throw wide the doors which seem to bar men from the Treasure +House of Nature, and bids those enter and partake who are Wise +enough to Understand and broad enough to Weigh the Evidence, firm +enough to Follow their Own Judgment and Strong enough to Make the +Sacrifice Exacted. + + +"Dollars Want Me" + +I turn to the shelves of pamphlets. Here is a pretty one called +"All Sufficiency in All Things," published by the "Unity School +of Christianity", in Kansas City; it explains that God is God, +not merely of the Soul, but also of the Kansas City stockyards. + +This divine Substance is ever abiding within us, and stands ready +to manifest itself in whatever form you and I need or wish, just +as it did in Elisha's time. It is the same yesterday, today and +forever. Abundant Supply by the manifestation of the Father +within us, from within outward, is as much a legitimate outcome +of the Christ life or spiritual understanding as is bodily +healing..... "Know that I am God--all of God, Good, all of Good. +I am Life. I am Health. I am Supply. I am the Substance." + +And here is W. W. Atkinson of Chicago, author of a work called +"Mind Power". Would you like to be an Impressive Personality? Mr. +Atkinson will tell you exactly how to do it; he will give you the +secret of the Magnetic Handclasp, of the Intense, +Straight-in-the-eye Look; he will tell you what to say, he will +write out for you Incantations which you may pronounce to +yourself, to convince yourself that you have Power, that the +INDWELLING PRESENCE with all its MIGHT is yours. Mr. Atkinson +rebukes mildly the tendency of some of his fellow +Bootstrap-lifters to employ these arts for money-making; but you +notice that his magazine, "Advanced Thought", does not decline +the advertisements of such too-practical practitioners. + +Next comes a gentleman with the musical name of Wallace Wattles, +who tells in one pamphlet "How to Be a Genius", and in another +pamphlet "How to Get What you Want". The thing for you to do is-- + +Saturate your mentality through and through with the knowledge +that YOU CAN DO WHAT YOU WANT TO DO..... Look upon the +peanut-stand merely as the beginning of the department store, and +make it grow; you can. + +And Mr. Wattles wattles on, in an ecstasy of acquisitiveness: + +Hold this consciousness and say with deep, earnest feeling: I CAN +succeed! All that is possible to any one is possible to me. I AM +success. I do succeed, for I am full of the Power of Success. + +Imagine, if you please, a poor devil chained in the treadmill of +the capitalist system--a "soda-jerker", a "counter-jumper", a +book-keeper for the Steel Trust. His chances of rising in life +are one in ten thousand; but he comes to the Metaphysical +Library, and pays the price of his dinner for a pamphlet by Henry +Harrison Brown, who was first a Unitarian clergyman, and then an +extra-high Bootstrap-lifter in San Francisco, an Honorary +Vice-President of the International New Nonsense Alliance. Mr. +Brown will tell our soda-jerker or counter-jumper exactly how to +elevate himself by mental machinery. All calculations of +probabilities are delusions of the senses; if you have faith, you +can move, not merely mountains, but Riker-Hegeman's, Macy's, or +the Steel Trust. "How to Promote Yourself " is the title of one +of Mr. Brown's pamphlets, in which he explains that-- + +Your wants are impressed on the Divine Mind only by your faith. A +doubt cuts the connection. + +A second pamphlet, which we are told is now in its thirtieth +edition, bears the thrilling title of "Dollars Want Me!" In it +Mr. Brown lays claim to being a pioneer: + +I believe that this little monograph is the first utterance of +the thought that each individual has the ability so to radiate +his mental forces that he can cause the Dollars to feel him, love +him, seek him, and thus draw at will all things needed for his +unfoldment from the universal supply. + +"What are Dollars?" asks our author; and answers: + +Dollars are manifestations of the One Infinite Substance as you +are, but, unlike you, they are not Self-Conscious. They have no +power till you give them power. Make them feel this through your +thought-vibrations as you feel the importance of your work. They +will then come to you to be used. + +"What is Poverty?" Mr. Brown asks, and answers himself: + +Poverty is a mental condition. It can be cured only by the +Affirmation of Power to cure: I am a part of the One, and, in the +One, I possess all! Affirm this and patiently wait for the +manifestation. You have sown the thought seed. + +And our author goes on to hand out packages of these +thought-seeds--"Affirmations" as they are called, in the jargon +of the New Conjuring: + + I desire a deep consciousness of financial freedom. I desire +that the flow of prosperity become equalized. I desire a greater +consciousness of my power to attract the dollar. The Indwelling +Power cares for my purse. I own whatever I desire. I can afford +to use dollars for my happiness. I always have a good bank +account. I actually see it. My one idea of the law is to use, +use, USE. + + +Spiritual Financiering + +If the symbolism of the Episcopal Church is of the palace, and +that of the non-conformist sects of the counting-house, that of +the International New Nonsense Alliance is of Wall Street and the +"ticker". "What is your rating in the Spiritual Bradstreet?" asks +William Morris Nichols in the publication of the " 'Now' Folk", +San Francisco: + +Is it low or high? Is your credit with the Bank of the Universe +good or poor? If you draw a spiritual draft are you sure of its +being honored? + +If you can answer that last question affirmatively, you are on +the road to become a Master in Spiritual Financiering. + +Have you an account with the First (and only) Bank of Spirit? If +not, then you should at once open one therewith. For no one can +afford to keep less than a large deposit of spiritual funds with +that Bank. + +And how do you proceed to open your account? It is very simple: + +Intend the mind in the direction indicated by your desire. Seek +for the Light and Guidance by which you may open up the way for +your Spiritual Substance, which governs material supply, to reach +you and make you as rich as you ought to be, in freedom and +happiness. All this you can, and when in earnest, will do. + +I turn over the advertisements of this publication of the " 'Now' +Folk". One offers "The Business Side of New Thought." Another +offers "The Books Without an If", with your money back IF you are +not satisfied! Another offers land in Bolivia for two dollars an +acre. Another quotes Shakespeare: " 'Tis the mind that makes the +body rich." Another offers two copies of the "Phrenological Era" +for ten cents. + +There is apparently no delusion of any age or clime which cannot +find dupes among the readers of this New Nonsense. One notice +commands: + +Stop! A Revelation! A Book has been written entitled "Strands of +Gold" or "From Darkness into Light!" + +Another announces: + +The Most Wonderful Book of the Ages: The Acquarian Gospel of +Jesus the Christ, Transcribed from the Book of God's Remembrance, +the Akashic Records. + +And here is an advertisement published in Mr. Atkinson's paper: + +Numerology: the Universal Adjuster! Do you know: What you appear +to be to others? What you really are? What you want to be? What +would overcome your present and future difficulties? Write to X, +Philosopher. You will receive full particulars of his personal +work which is dedicated to your service. No problem is too big or +too small for Numerology. Understanding awaits you. + +And looking in the body of the magazine, you find this +Philosopher imparting some of this Understanding. Would you like, +for example, to understand why America entered the War? Nothing +easier. The vowels of the Words United States of America are +uieaeoaeia, which are numbered 2951561591, which added make 45, +or 4 plus 5 equals 9. You might not at first see what that has to +do with the War--until the Philosopher points out that "9 in the +number of completion, indicating the end of a cosmic cycle." +That, of course, explains everything. + +And here is a work on what you perhaps thought to be a dead +science, Astrology. It is called "Lucky Hours for Everybody: A +True System of Planetary Hours by Prof. John B. Early. Price One +Dollar." It teaches you things like this: + +Saturn's negative hours are especially good for all matters +relating to gold-mining..... The Sun negative rules the emerald, +the musical note D sharp, and the number four. The lunar hours +are a good time to deal in public commodities, and to hire +servants of both sexes..... + +A recent lady visitor informed me that she had made several vain +attempts to transact important business in the hours ruled by +Jupiter, usually held to be fortunate, while she was nearly +always fortunate in what she began in the hours ruled by Saturn. +Upon investigation I found her name was ruled by the Sun +negative, and that she had Capricorn with Saturn therein as her +ascendant at birth, which explains. + +And finally, here is a London "scientist", reported in the +"Weekly Unity" of Kansas City, who proves his mental power over +two-horse power oil engines which fail to act. "Going a little +apart, he came back in a few minutes and said: 'The engine is all +right now and will work satisfactorily.' and without any further +difficulty it did." We are told how Dr. Rawson gave a +demonstration of his method to a newspaper reporter the other +day. Fixing his gaze as though looking into space, he apparently +became absorbed in deep contemplation and said aloud: "There is +no danger; man is surrounded by divine love; there is no matter; +all is spirit and manifestation of spirit." + +You might at first find difficulty in believing what can be +accomplished by "demonstrations" such as this; not merely are +two-horse power oil engines made to work, but the whole gigantic +machine of Prussian militarism is prevented from working. You may +recall how Arthur Machen's magazine story of the Angels of Mons +was taken up and made into a Catholic legend over-night; now here +is a New-Nonsense legend, complete and perfect, going the rounds +of our Nonsense magazines: + +London, Dec. 14.--Shell-proof and bullet-proof soldiers have been +discovered on the European battle-fronts. Heroes with "charmed +lives" are being made every day, according to Frederick L. +Rawson, a London scientist, who insists he has found the +miraculous way by which they are developed. He calls it "audible +treatment". "Practical utilization of the powers of God by right +thinking," is the agency through which Dr. Rawson declares he can +so treat a man that he will not be harmed when hundreds of men +are being shot dead beside him. This amazing treatment includes a +new type of prayer. It is being administered to hundreds of men +audibly, and to hundreds more by letter. Nothing since the war +began has aroused so much talk of modern miracles as have many of +the statements of Dr. Rawson....... + +At the taking of a wood there were five hundred yards of "No +Man's Land" to be crossed. Our troops could not get across. Then +Capt. --------, who practices this method of prayer, treated them +for an hour before they started, and not a man was knocked out. +He was the only officer left out of eighty in his brigade. He +simply held onto the fact that man is spiritual and perfect and +could not be touched. A bullet fired from a revolver only five +yards away hit him over the chest, tore his shirt and went out at +the shoulder. But it never penetrated his chest. He was +frequently in a hail of shells and bullets which did not touch +him. + + +The Graft of Grace + +All this is grotesque; but it is what happens to religions in a +world of commercial competition. It happens not merely to +Christian Science and New Thought religions, Mazdaznan and +Zionist, Holy Roller and Mormon religions, but to Catholic and +Episcopalian, Presbyterian and Methodist and Baptist religions. +For you see, when you are with the wolves you must howl with +them; when you are competing with fakirs you must fake. The +ordinary Christian will read the claims of the New Thought fakers +with contempt; but have I not shown the Catholic Church +publishing long lists of money-miracles? Have I not shown the +Church of Good Society, our exclusive and aristocratic Protestant +Episcopal communion, pretending to call rain and to banish +pestilence, to protect crops and win wars and heal those who are +"sick in estate"--that is, who are in business trouble? + +The reader will say that I am a cynic, despising my fellows; but +that is not so. I am an economic scientist, analyzing the forces +which operate in human societies. I blame the prophets and +priests and healers for their fall from idealism; but I blame +still more the competitive wage-system, which presents them with +the alternative to swindle or to starve. + +For, you see, the prophet has to have food. He has frequently got +along with almost none, and with only a rag for clothing; in +Palestine and India, where the climate is warm, a sincere faith +has been possible for short periods. But the modern prophet who +expects to influence the minds of men has to have books and +newspapers; he will find a telephone and a typewriter and +postage-stamps hardly to be dispensed with, also in Europe and +America some sort of a roof over his meeting place. So the +prophet is caught, like all the rest of us, in the net of the +speculator and the landlord. He has to get money, and in order to +get it he has to impress those who already have it--people whose +minds and souls have been deformed by the system of parasitism +and exploitation. + +So the prophet becomes a charlatan; or, if he refuses, he becomes +a martyr, and founds a church which becomes a church of +charlatans. I care not how sincere, how passionately proletarian +a religious prophet may be, that is the fate which sooner or +later befalls him in a competitive society--to be the founder of +an organization of fools, conducted by knaves, for the benefit of +wolves. That fate befell Buddha and Jesus, it befell Ignatius +Loyola and Francis of Assisi, John Fox and John Calvin and John +Wesley. + +A friend of mine who has made a study of "Spiritualism" describes +to me the conditions in that field. The mediums are people, +mostly women, with a peculiar gift; whether we believe in the +survival of personality, or whether we call it telepathy, does +not alter the fact that they have a rare and special +sensitiveness, a new faculty which science must investigate. They +come, poor people mostly--for the well-to-do will seldom give +their time to exacting and wearisome experiments. They come, +wearing frayed and thin clothing, shivering with cold, obviously +undernourished; and their survival depends upon their producing +"phenomena"--which phenomena are capricious, and will not come at +call. So, what more natural than that mediums should resort to +faking? That the whole field should be reeking with fraud, and +science should be held back from understanding an extraordinary +power of the subconscious mind? + +Ever since we came to Pasadena, various ladies have been telling +us about the wondrous powers of a mulatto-woman, a manicurist at +the city's most fashionable hotel. The other day, out of +curiosity, my wife and I went; the moment the "medium" opened her +mouth my wife recognized her as the person who has been trying +for several months to get me on the telephone to tell me how the +spirit of Jack London is seeking to communicate with me! The +seance was a public one, a gathering composed, half of wealthy +and cultured society-women, and half of confederates, people with +the dialect and manners of a vaudeville troupe. A megaphone was +set in the middle of the floor, the room was made dark, a couple +of hymns were sung, and then the spirit of Dr. Oliver Wendell +Holmes spoke through the megaphone with a Bowery accent, and gave +communications from relatives and friends of the various +confederates. "Jesus is with us", said Dr. Holmes. "The spirit of +Jesus bids you to study spiritualism." And then came the voice of +a child: "Mamma! Mamma!" "It is little Georgie!" cried Dr. +Holmes; and one of the society ladies started, and answered, and +presently burst into tears. A marvelous piece of +evidence--especially when you recall that the story of this +mother's bereavement had been published in all the papers a +couple of months before! + +And this kind of swindling is going on every night in every city +of America. It goes on wholesale for months every summer at Lily +Dale, in New York State, where the spiritualists hold their +combination of Chautauqua and Coney Island. And the same thing is +going on in the field of mental healing, and of all other +"occult" forces and powers, whether real or imaginary. It is +going on with new spiritual fervors, new moral idealisms, new +poetry, new music, new painting, new sculpture. The faker, the +charlatan is everywhere--using the mental and moral and artistic +forces of life as a means of delivering himself from economic +servitude. Everywhere I turn I see it--credulity being exploited, +and men of practical judgment, watching the game and seeing +through it, made hard in their attitude of materialism. How many +men I know who sit by in sullen protest while their wives drift +from one new quackery to another, wasting their income seeking +health and happiness in futile emotionalism! How many kind and +sensitive spirits I know--both men and women--who pour their +treasures of faith and admiration into the laps of hierophants +who began by fooling all mankind and ended by fooling themselves! + +In each one of the cults of what I have called the "Church of the +Quacks", there are thousands, perhaps millions of entirely +sincere, self-sacrificing people. They will read this book--if +anyone can persuade them to read it--with pain and anger; +thinking that I am mocking at their faith, and have no +appreciation of their devotion. All that I can say is that I am +trying to show them how they are being trapped, how their fine +and generous qualities are being used by exploiters of one sort +or another; and how this must continue, world without end, until +there is order in the material affairs of the race, until justice +has been established as the law of man's dealing with his +fellows. + + + +BOOK SEVEN + +The Church of the Social Revolution + + They have taken the tomb of our Comrade Christ-- + Infidel hordes that believe not in man; + Stable and stall for his birth sufficed, + But his tomb is built on a kingly plan. + They have hedged him round with pomp and parade, + They have buried him deep under steel and stone-- +But we come leading the great Crusade + To give our Comrade back to his own. + Waddell. + + +Christ and Caesar + +In the most deeply significant of the legends concerning Jesus, +we are told how the devil took him up into a high mountain and +showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time; and +the devil said unto him: "All this power will I give unto thee, +and the glory of them, for that is delivered unto me, and to +whomsoever I will, I give it. If thou, therefore, wilt worship +me, all shall be thine." Jesus, as we know, answered and said +"Get thee behind me, Satan!" And he really meant it; he would +have nothing to do with worldly glory, with "temporal power;" he +chose the career of a revolutionary agitator, and died the death +of a disturber of the peace. And for two or three centuries his +church followed in his footsteps, cherishing his proletarian +gospel. The early Christians had "all things in common, except +women;" they lived as social outcasts, hiding in deserted +catacombs, and being thrown to lions and boiled in oil. + +But the devil is a subtle worm; he does not give up at one +defeat, for he knows human nature, and the strength of the forces +which battle for him. He failed to get Jesus, but he came again, +to get Jesus' church. He came when, through the power of the new +revolutionary idea, the Church had won a position of tremendous +power in the decaying Roman Empire; and the subtle worm assumed +the guise of no less a person than the Emperor himself, +suggesting that he should become a convert to the new faith, so +that the Church and he might work together for the greater glory +of God. The bishops and fathers of the Church, ambitious for +their organization, fell for this scheme, and Satan went off +laughing to himself. He had got everything he had asked from +Jesus three hundred years before; he had got the world's greatest +religion. How complete and swift was his success you may judge +from the fact that fifty years later we find the Emperor +Valentinian compelled to pass an edict limiting the donations of +emotional females to the church in Rome! + +From that time on Christianity has been what I have shown in this +book, the chief of the enemies of social progress. From the days +of Constantine to the days of Bismarck and Mark Hanna, Christ and +Caesar have been one, and the Church has been the shield and +armor of predatory economic might. With only one qualification to +be noted: that the Church has never been able to suppress +entirely the memory of her proletarian Founder. She has done her +best, of course; we have seen how her scholars twist his words +out of their sense, and the Catholic Church even goes so far as +to keep to the use of a dead language, so that her victims may +not hear the words of Jesus in a form they can understand. + + 'Tis well that such seditious songs are sung + Only by priests, and in the Latin tongue! + +But in spite of this, the history of the Church has been one +incessant struggle with upstarts and rebels who have filled +themselves with the spirit of the Magnificat and the Sermon on +the Mount, and of that bitterly class-conscious proletarian, +James, the brother of Jesus. + +And here is the thing to be noted, that the factor which has +given life to Christianity, which enables it to keep its hold on +the hearts of men today, is precisely this new wine of faith and +fervor which has been poured into it by generation after +generation of poor men who live like Jesus as outcasts, and die +like Jesus as criminals, and are revered like Jesus as founders +and saints. The greatest of the early Church fathers were +bitterly fought by the Church authorities of their own time. St. +Chrysostom, Bishop of Constantinople, was turned out of office, +exiled and practically martyred; St. Basil was persecuted by the +Emperor Valens; St. Ambrose excommunicated the tyrannical Emperor +Theodosius; St. Cyprian gave all his wealth to the poor, and was +exiled and finally martyred. In the same way, most of the +heretics whom the Holy Inquisition tortured and burned were +proletarian rebels; the saints whom the Church reveres, the +founders of the orders which gave it life for century after +century, were men who sought to return to the example of the +carpenter's son. Let us hear a Christian scholar on this point, +Prof. Rauschenbusch: + +The movement of Francis of Assisi, of the Waldenses, of the +Humiliati and Bons Hommes, were all inspired by democratic and +communistic ideals. Wiclif was by far the greatest doctrinal +reformer before the reformation; but his eyes, too, were first +opened to the doctrinal errors of the Roman Church by joining in +a great national and patriotic movement against the alien +domination and extortion of the Church. The Bohemian revolt made +famous by the name of John Huss, was quite as much political and +social as religious. Savonarola was a great democrat as well as a +religious prophet. In his famous interview with the dying Lorenzo +de Medici he made three demands as a condition for granting +absolution. Of the man he demanded a living faith in God's mercy. +Of the millionaire he demanded restitution of his ill-gotten +wealth. Of the political usurper he demanded the restoration of +the liberties of the people of Florence. It is significant that +the dying sinner found it easy to assent to the first, hard to +assent to the second, and impossible to concede the last. + + +Locusts and Wild Honey + +This proletarian strain in Christianity goes back to a time long +before Jesus; it seems to have been inherent in the religious +character of the Jews--that stubborn independence, that +stiff-necked insistence on the right of a man to interview God +for himself and to find out what God wants him to do; also the +inclination to find that God wants him to oppose earthly rulers +and their plundering of the poor. What is it that gives to the +Bible the vitality it has today? Its literary style? To say that +is to display the ignorance of the cultured; for elevation of +style is a by-product of passionate conviction; it is what the +Jewish writers had to say, and not the way they said it, that has +given them their hold upon mankind. Was it their insistence upon +conscience, their fear of God as the beginning of wisdom? But +that same element appears in the Babylonian psalms, which are as +eloquent and as sincere as those of the Hebrews, yet are read +only by scholars. Was it their sense of the awful presence of +divinity, of the soul immortal in its keeping? The Egyptians had +that far more than the Hebrews, and yet we do not cherish their +religious books. Or was it the love of man for all things living, +the lesson of charity upon which the Catholics lay such stress? +The gentle Buddha had that, and had it long before Christ; also +his priests had metaphysical subtlety, greater than that of John +the Apostle or Thomas Aquinas. + +No, there is one thing and one only which distinguishes the +Hebrew sacred writings from all others, and that is their +insistent note of proletarian revolt, their furious denunciations +of exploiters, and of luxury and wantonness, the vices of the +rich. Of that note the Assyrian and Chaldean and Babylonian +writing contain not a trace, and the Egyptian hardly enough to +mention. The Hindoos had a trace of it; but the true, +natural-born rebels of all time were the Hebrews. They were +rebels against oppression in ancient Judea, as they are today in +Petrograd and New York; the spirit of equality and brotherhood +which spoke through Ezekiel and Amos and Isaiah, through John the +Baptist and Jesus and James, spoke in the last century through +Marx and Lassalle and Jaures, and speaks today through Liebknecht +and Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Kautsky and Israel Zangwill and +Morris Hillquit and Abraham Cahan and Emma Goldman and the Joseph +Fels endowment. + +The legal rate of interest throughout the Babylonian Empire was +20%; the laws of Manu permitted 24%, while the laws of the +Egyptians only stepped in to prevent more than 100%. But listen +to this Hebrew law: + +If thy brother be waxen poor, and fallen in decay with thee, then +thou shalt relieve him, yea, though he be a stranger or a +sojourner, that he may live with thee: Take thou no interest of +him, or increase; but fear thy God that thy brother may live with +thee. Thou shalt not give him any money upon usury, nor lend him +thy victuals for increase. + +And so on, forbidding that Hebrews be sold as bond servants, and +commanding that at the end of fifty years All debtors shall have +their debts forgiven and their lands returned to them. And note +that this is not the raving of agitators, the demand of a +minority party; it is the law of the Hebrew land. + +There has been of late a great deal of new discovery concerning +the early Jews. Conrad Noel summarizes the results as follows: + +The land-mark law, which sternly forbids encroachment upon +peasant rights; consideration for the foreigner; additional +sanitary and food laws; tithe regulations on behalf of widows, +orphans, foreigners, etc.; that those who have no economic +independence should eat and be satisfied; that loans should be +given cheerfully, not only without any interest, but even at the +risk of losing the principal. To withhold a loan because the year +of release is at hand in which the principal is no longer +recoverable, is described as a grave sin. When you are compelled +to free your slaves, you must give them sufficient capital to +embark upon some industry which shall prevent their falling back +into slavery. A number of holidays are insisted upon. There must +be no more crushing of the poor out of existence, for God cares +for these people who have been driven to poverty, and they shall +never cease out of the land. Howbeit there shall be no poor with +you, for the Lord will bless you, if you will obey these laws. + +But then prosperity came, and culture, which meant contact with +the capitalist ideas of the heathen empires. The Jews fell from +the stern justice of their fathers; and so came the prophets, +wild-eyed men of the people, clad in camel's hair and living upon +locusts and wild honey, breaking in upon priests and kings and +capitalists with their furious denunciations. And always they +incited to class war and social disturbance. I quote Conrad Noel +again: + +Nathan and Gad bad been David's political advisers, Abijah had +stirred Jeroboam to revolt, Elijah had resisted Ahab, Elisha had +fanned the rebellion of Jehu, Amos thunders against the misrule +of the king of Israel, Isaiah denounces the landlords and the +usurers, Micah charges them with blood-guiltiness; Jeremiah and +the latter prophets, though they strike a more intimate note of +personal repentance, strike it as the prelude to that national +restoration for which they hunger as exiles. + +The first chapters of Isaiah are typical of the Old Testament +point of view. Just as the prophets of the nineteenth century +thundered against the "Christian" employers of Lancashire, and +told them their houses were cemented with the blood of little +children, so Isaiah cries against his generation: "Your governing +classes companion with thieves; behold you build up Sion with +blood." Their ceremonial and their Sabbath keeping are an +abomination to God. "When ye spread forth your hands, I will hide +mine eyes from you. Your hands are full of blood." The poor man +is robbed. The rich exact usury. "Woe unto you that lay house to +house and field to field, that ye may dwell alone in the midst of +the land." "Wash you, make you clean, put away the evil of your +doing from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do well, +seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead +for the widow. Come now, let us reason together, saith the Lord. +Though your sins be blood-colored, they shall be as white as +snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If +ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land. +But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured by the sword." + + +Mother Earth + +And nowadays we have the Socialist and Anarchist agitators, +following the same tradition, possessed by the same dream as the +ancient Hebrew prophets. I have mentioned Emma Goldman; it may be +that the reader is not familiar with her writings, and does not +realize how very Biblical she is, both in point of view and +style. Let me quote a few sentences from a recent issue of her +paper, "Mother Earth", on the subject of our ruling classes and +their social responsibility: + +Yes, you idle rich, you may howl about what we mean to do to you! +Your riches are rotten and your fine clothes are falling from +your backs. Your stocks and bonds are so tainted that the ink on +them should turn to acid and eat holes in your pockets and your +skins. You have piled up your dirty millions, but what wages have +you paid to the poor devils of farm hands you have robbed? And do +you imagine they won't remember it when the revolution comes? You +loll on soft couches and amuse yourselves with your mistresses; +you think you are "it" and the world is yours. You send +militiamen and shoot down our organizers, and we are helpless. +But wait, comrades, our time is coming. + +Doubtless the reader is well satisfied that the author of this +tirade is now in jail, where she can no longer defy the laws of +good taste. They always put the ancient prophets in jail; that is +the way to know a prophet when you meet him. Let me quote another +prophet who is now behind bars--Alexander Berkman, in his "Prison +Memoirs of an Anarchist", discussing the same subject of +plutocratic pretension: + +Tell me, you four hundred, where did you get it? Who gave it to +you? Your grandfather, you say? Your father? Can you go all the +way back and show there is no flaw anywhere in your title? I tell +you that the beginning and the root of your wealth is necessarily +in injustice. And why? Because Nature did not make this man rich +and that man poor from the start. Nature does not intend for one +man to have capital and another to be a wage-slave. Nature made +the earth to be cultivated by all. The idea we Anarchists have of +the rich is of highwaymen, standing in the street and robbing +every one that passes. + +Or take "Big Bill" Haywood, chief of the I. W. W. Hear what he +has to say in a pamphlet addressed to the harvest-hands he is +seeking to organize: + +How much farther do you plutes expect to go with your grabbing? +Do you want to be the only people left on earth? Why else do you +drive out the workers from all share in Nature, and claim +everything for yourselves? The earth was made for all, rich and +poor alike; where do you get your title deeds to it? Nature gave +everything for all men to use alike; it is only your robbery +which makes your so-called "ownership". Capital has no rights. +The land belongs to Nature, and we are all Nature's sons. + +Or take Eugene V. Debs, three times candidate of the Socialist +Party for President. I quote from one of his pamphlets: + +The propertied classes are like people who go into a public +theatre and refuse to let anyone else come in, treating as +private property what is meant for social use. If each man would +take only what he needs, and leave the balance to those who have +nothing, there would be no rich and no poor. The rich man is a +thief. + +I might go on citing such quotations for many pages; but I know +that Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman and Bill Haywood and Gene +Debs may read this book, and I don't want them to close it in the +middle and throw it at me. Therefore let me hasten to explain my +poor joke; the sentiments I have been quoting are not those of +our modern agitators, but of another group of ancient ones. The +first is not from Emma Goldman, nor did I find it in "Mother +Earth". I found it in the Epistle of James, believed by orthodox +authorities to have been James, the brother of Jesus. It is +exactly what he wrote--save that I have put it into modern +phrases, and changed the swing of the sentences, in order that +those familiar with the Bible might read it without suspicion. +The second passage is not in the writings of Alexander Berkman, +but in those of St. John Chrysostom, most famous of the early +fathers, who lived 374-407. The third is not from the pen of "Big +Bill" but from that of St. Ambrose, a father of the Latin Church, +340-397, and the fourth is not by Comrade Debs, but by St. Basil +of the Greek Church, 329-379. And if the reader objects to my +having fooled him for a minute or two, what will he say to the +Christian Church, which has been fooling him for sixteen hundred +years? + + +The Soap Box + +This book will be denounced from one end of Christendom to the +other as the work of a blasphemous infidel. Yet it stands in the +direct line of the Christian tradition: written by a man who was +brought up in the Church, and loved it with all his heart and +soul, and was driven out by the formalists and hypocrites in high +places; a man who thinks of Jesus more frequently and with more +devotion than he thinks of any other man that lives or has ever +lived on earth; and who has but one purpose in all that he says +and does, to bring into reality the dream that Jesus dreamed of +peace on earth and good will toward men. + +I will go farther yet and say that not merely is this book +written for the cause of Jesus, but it is written in the manner +of Jesus. We read his bitter railings at the Pharisees, and miss +the point entirely, because the word Pharisee has become to us a +word of reproach. But this is due solely to Jesus; in his time +the word was a holy word, it meant the most orthodox and +respectable, the ultra high-church devotees of Jerusalem. The way +to get the spirit of the tirades of Jesus is to do with him what +we did with the early church fathers--translate him into +American. This time, since the reader shares the secret, it will +not be necessary to disguise the Bible style, and we may follow +the text exactly. Let me try the twenty-third chapter of Matthew, +omitting seven verses which refer to subtleties of Hebrew +casuistry, for which we should have to go to Lyman Abbott or St. +Alphonsus to find a parallel: + +Then Jesus mounted upon a soap-box, and began a speech, saying, +The doctors of divinity and Episcopalians fill the Fifth Avenue +churches; and it would be all right if you were to listen to what +they preach, and do that; but don't follow their actions, for +they never practice what they preach. They load the backs of the +working-classes with crushing burdens, but they themselves never +move a finger to carry a burden, and everything they do is for +show. They wear frock-coats and silk hats on Sundays, and they +sit at the speakers' table at the banquets of the Civic +Federation, and they occupy the best pews in the churches, and +their doings are reported in all the papers; they are called +leading citizens and pillars of the church. But don't you be +called leading citizens, for the only useful man is the man who +produces. (Applause). And whoever exalts himself shall be abased, +and whoever humbles himself shall be exalted. + +Woe unto you, doctors of divinity and Catholics, hypocrites! for +you shut up the kingdom of Heaven against men; you don't go in +yourself and you don't let others go in. Woe unto you, doctors of +divinity and Presbyterians, hypocrites! for you foreclose +mortgages on widows' houses, and for a pretense you make long +prayers. For this you will receive the greater damnation! Woe +unto you, doctors of divinity and Methodists, hypocrites! for you +send missionaries to Africa to make one convert, and when you +have made him, he is twice as much a child of hell as yourselves. +(Applause). Woe unto you, blind guides, with your subtleties of +doctrine, your transubstantiation and consubstantiation and all +the rest of it; you fools and blind! Woe unto you, doctors of +divinity and Episcopalians, hypocrites! for you drop your checks +into the collection-plate and you pay no heed to the really +important things in the Bible, which are justice and mercy and +faith in goodness. You blind guides, who strain at a gnat and +swallow a camel! (Laughter). Woe unto you, doctors of divinity +and Anglicans, hypocrites! for you bathe yourselves and dress in +immaculate clothing but within you are full of extortion and +excess. You blind high churchmen, clean first your hearts, so +that the clothes you wear may represent you. Woe unto you, +doctors of divinity and Baptists, hypocrites! for you are like +marble tombs which appear beautiful on the outside, but inside +are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. Even so you +appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and +iniquity. (Applause). Woe unto you, doctors of divinity and +Unitarians, hypocrites! because you erect statues to dead +reformers, and put wreathes upon the tombs of old-time martyrs. +You say, if we had been alive in those days, we would not have +helped to kill those good men. That ought to show you how to +treat us at present. (Laughter). But you are the children of +those who killed the good men; so go ahead and kill us too! You +serpents, you generation of vipers, how can you escape the +damnation of hell? + +At this point, according to the report published in the Jerusalem +"Times", a police sergeant stepped up to the orator and notified +him that he was under arrest; he submitted quietly, but one of +his followers attempted to use a knife, and was severely clubbed. +Jesus was taken to the station-house followed by a riotous +throng, and held upon a charge of disorderly conduct. Next +morning the Rev. Dr. Caiaphas of Old Trinity appeared against +him, and Magistrate Pilate sentenced him to six months on +Blackwell's Island, remarking that from this time on he proposed +to make an example of those soap-box orators who persist in using +threatening and abusive language. Just as the prisoner was being +led away, a detective appeared with a requisition from the +Governor, ordering that Jesus be taken to San Francisco, where he +is under indictment for murder in the first degree, it being +charged that his teachings helped to incite the Preparedness Day +explosion. + + +The Church Machine + +The Catholics of His time came to Jesus and said, "Master, we +would have a sign of Thee"--meaning that they wanted him to do +some magic, to prove to their vulgar minds that his power came +from God. He answered by calling them an evil and adulterous +generation--which is exactly what I have said about the Papal +machine. The Baptists and Methodists and Presbyterians and other +book-worshippers of his time accused him of violating the sacred +commands so definitely set down in their ancient texts, and to +them he answered that the Sabbath was made for man and not man +for the Sabbath; he called them hypocrites, and quoted Karl Marx +at them--"This people honoreth me with their lips, but their +heart is far from me." Because he despised the company of the +respectables, and went among the humble and human folk of his own +class in the places where they gathered--the public houses--the +churchly scandal-mongers called him "a man gluttonous and a +wine-bibber, a friend of publicans and sinners"--precisely as in +the old days they used to sneer at the Socialists for having +their meetings in the back-rooms of saloons, and precisely as +they still denounce us as free-lovers and atheists. + +But the longing for justice between man and man, which is the +Kingdom of Heaven on earth, is the deepest instinct of the human +heart, and the voice of the carpenter cannot be confined within +the thickest church-walls, nor drowned by all the pealing organs +in Christendom. Even in these days, when the power of Mammon is +more widespread, more concentrated and more systematized than +ever before in history--even in these days of Morgan and +Rockefeller, there are Christian clergymen who dare to preach as +Jesus preached. One by one they are cast out of the +Church--Father McGlynn, George D. Herron, Alexander Irvine, J. +Stitt Wilson, Austin Adams, Algernon Crapsey, Bouck White; but +their voices are not silenced they are like the leaven, to which +Jesus compared the kingdom of God--a woman took it and hid it in +three measures of meal till the whole was leavened. The young +theological students read, and some of them understand; I know +three brothers in one family who have just gone into the Church, +and are preaching straight social revolution--and the scribes and +the pharisees have not yet dared to cast them out. + +In this book I have portrayed the Christian Church as the servant +and henchman of Big Business, a part of the system of Mammon. +Every church is necessarily a money machine, holding and +administering property. And it is not alone the Catholic Church +which is in politics, seeking favors from the state--the +exemption of church property from taxation, exemption of +ministers from military service, free transportation for them and +their families on the railroads, the control of charity and +education, laws to deprive people of amusements on Sunday--so on +through a long list. As the churches have to be built with money, +you find that in them the rich possess the control and demand the +deference, while the poor are humble, and in their secret hearts +jealous and bitter; in other words, the class struggle is in the +churches, as everywhere else in the world, and the social +revolution is coming in the churches, just as it is coming in +industry. + +It is a fact of deep significance that the majority of ministers +are proletarians, eking out their existence upon a miserable +salary, and beholden in all their comings and goings to the +wealthy holders of privilege. Even in the Roman Catholic Church +that is true. The ordinary priest is a man of the working class, +and knows what working people suffer and feel. So in the Catholic +Church there are proletarian rebellions; there is many a priest +who does not carry out the political orders of his superiors, but +goes to the polls and votes for his class instead of for his +pope. In Ireland, as I write, the young priests are defying their +bishops and joining the Sinn Fein, a non-religious movement for +an Irish Republic. + +What is it that keeps the average workingman in subjection to the +exploiter? Simply terror, the terror of losing his job. And if +you could get into the inmost soul of Christian ministers, you +would find that precisely the same force is keeping many of them +slaves to Tradition. They are educated men, and thousands of them +must resent the dilemma which compels them to be either fools or +hypocrites. They have caught enough of the spirit of their time +not to enjoy having to pose as miracle-mongers, rain-makers and +witch-doctors; they would like to say frankly that they do not +believe that Jonah ever swallowed the whale, and even that they +are dubious about Hercules and Achilles and other demigods. But +they are part of a machine, and the old men and the rich men who +run the machine have laid down the law. Those who find themselves +tempted to think, remember suddenly that they have wives and +children; they have only one profession, they have been unfitted +for any other by a life-time of study of dead things, as well as +by the practice of altruism. + +But now the Social Revolution is coming; coming upon swift +wings--it may be here before this book sees the light. And who +knows but then we may see in America that wonderful sight which +we saw in Russia, when Christian monks assembled and burned their +holy books, and petitioned the state to take them in as citizens +and human beings? It is my belief that when the power of +exploitation is broken, we shall see the Dead Hand crumble into +dust, as a mummy crumbles when it is exposed to the air. All +those men who stay in the Church and pretend to believe nonsense, +because it affords an easy way to earn a living, will suddenly +realize that it is possible to earn a living outside; that any +man can go into a factory, clean and well-ventilated and humanly +run, and by four hours work can earn the purchasing power of ten +or fifteen dollars. Do you not think that there may be some who +will choose freedom and self-respect on those terms? + +And what of those thousands and tens of thousands who join the +church because it is a part of the regime of respectability, a +way to make the acquaintance of the rich, to curry favor and +obtain promotion, to get customers if you are a tradesman, to +extend your practice if you are a professional man? And what +about the millions who go to church because they are poor, and +because life is a desperate struggle, and this is one way to keep +the favor of the boss, to get a little better chance for the +children, to get charity if you fall into need; in short, to +acquire influence with the well-to-do and powerful, who stand +together, and like to see the poor humble and reverent, contented +in that state of life to which it has pleased God to call them? + + +The Church Redeemed + +Do I mean that I expect to see the Church--all churches--perish +and pass away? I do not, for I believe that the Church answers +one of the fundamental needs of man. The Social Revolution will +abolish poverty and parasitism, it will make temptations fewer, +and the soul's path through life much easier; but it will not +remove the necessity of struggle for individual virtue, it will +only clear the way for the discovery of newer and higher types of +virtue. Men will gather more than ever in beautiful places to +voice their love of life and of one another; but the places in +which they gather will be places swept clean of superstition and +tyranny. As the Reformation compelled the Catholic Church to +cleanse itself and abolish the grossest of its abuses, so the +Social Revolution will compel it to repudiate its defense of +parasitism and exploitation. I will record the prophecy that by +the year 1950 all Catholic authorities will be denying that the +Church ever opposed Socialism--true Socialism; just as today they +deny that the Church ever tortured Galileo, ever burned men for +teaching that the earth moves around the sun, ever sold the right +to commit crime, ever gave away the New World to Spain and +Portugal, ever buried newly-born infants in the cellars of +nunneries. + +The Social Revolution will compel all churches, Christian, +Hebrew, Buddhist, Confucian, or what you will, to drive out their +formalists and traditionalists. If there is any church that +refuses so to adapt itself, the swift progress of enlightenment +and freedom will leave it without followers. But in the great +religions, which have a soul of goodness and sincerity, we may be +sure that reformers will arise, prophets and saints who, as of +old, will preach the living word of God. In many churches today +we can see the beginning of that new Counter-Reformation. Even in +the Catholic Church there is a "modernist" rebellion; read the +books of the "Sillon", and Fogazzaro's trilogy of novels, "The +Saint", and you will see a genuine and vital protest against the +economic corruption of the Church. In America, the "Knights of +Slavery" have been forced by public pressure to support a "War +for Democracy", and even to compete with the Y. M. C. A. in the +training camps. They are doing good work, I am told. + +This gradual conquest of the old religiosity by the spirit of +modern common sense is shown most interestingly in the Salvation +Army. William Booth was a man with a great heart, who took his +life into his hands and went out with a bass-drum to save the +lost souls of the slums. He was stoned and jailed, but he +persisted, and brought his captives to Jesus-- + + Vermin-eaten saints with mouldy breath, + Unwashed legions with the ways of death. + +Incidentally the "General" learned to know his slum population. +He had not wanted to engage in charity and material activities; +he feared hypocrisy and corruption. But in his writings he lets +us see how utterly impossible it is for a man of real heart to do +anything for the souls of the slum-dwellers without at the same +time helping their diseased and hunger-racked bodies. So the +Salvation army was forced into useful work--old clothes depots, +nights lodgings, Christmas dinners, farm colonies--until today +the bare list of the various kinds of enterprises it carries on +fills three printed pages. It is all done with the money of the +rich, and is tainted by subservience to authority, but no one can +deny that it is better than "Gibson's Preservative", and the +fox-hunting parsons filling themselves with port. + +And in Protestant Churches the advance has been even greater. +Here and there you will find a real rebel, hanging onto his job +and preaching the proletarian Jesus; while even the great Fifth +Avenue churches are making attempts at "missions" and +"settlements" in the slums. The more vital churches are gradually +turning themselves into societies for the practical betterment of +their members. Their clergy are running boys clubs and +sewing-schools for girls, food conservation lectures for mothers, +social study clubs for men. You get prayer-meetings and +psalm-singing along with this; but here is the fact that hangs +always before the clergyman's face--that with prayer-meetings and +psalm-singing alone he has a hard time, while with clubs and +educational societies and social reforms he thrives. + +And now the War has broken upon the world, and caught the +churches, like everything else, in its mighty current; the clergy +and the congregations are confronted by pressing national needs, +they are forced to take notice of a thousand new problems, to +engage in a thousand practical activities. No one can see the end +of this--any more than he can see the end of the vast upheaval in +politics and industry. But we who are trained in revolutionary +thought can see the main outlines of the future. We see that in +these new church activities the clergy are inspired by things +read, not in ancient Hebrew texts, but in the daily newspapers. +They are responding to the actual, instant needs of their boys in +the trenches and the camps; and this is bound to have an effect +upon their psychology. Just as we can say that an English girl +who leaves the narrow circle of her old life, and goes into a +munition factory and joins a union and takes part in its debates, +will never after be a docile home-slave; so we can say that the +clergyman who helps in Y. M. C. A. work in France, or in Red +Cross organization in America, will be less the bigot and +formalist forever after. He will have learned, in spite of +himself, to adjust means to ends; he will have learned +co-operation and social solidarity by the method which modern +educators most favor--by doing. Also he will have absorbed a mass +of ideas in news despatches from over the world. He is forced to +read these despatches carefully, because the fate of his own boys +is involved; and we Socialists will see to it that the despatches +are well filled with propaganda! + + +The Desire of Nations + +So the churches, like all the rest of the world, are caught in +the great revolutionary current, and swept on towards a goal +which they do not forsee, and from which they would shrink in +dismay: the Church of the future, the Church redeemed by the +spirit of Brotherhood, the Church which we Socialists will join. +They call us materialists, and say that we think about nothing +but the belly--and that is true, in a way; because we are the +representatives of a starving class, which thinks about its belly +precisely as does any individual who is ravening with hunger. But +give us what that arrant materialist, James, the brother of +Jesus, calls "those things which are needful to the body," and +then we will use our minds, and even discover that we have souls; +whereas at present we are led to despise the very word +"spiritual", which has become the stock-in-trade of parasites and +poseurs. + +We have children, whom we love, and whose future is precious to +us. We would be glad to have them trained in ways of decency and +self-control, of dignity and grace. It would make us happy if +there were in the world institutions conducted by men and women +of consecrated life who would specialize in teaching a true +morality to the young. But it must be a morality of freedom, not +of slavery; a morality founded upon reason, not upon +superstition. The men who teach it must be men who know what +truth is, and the passionate loyalty which the search for truth +inspiries. They cannot be the pitiful shufflers and compromisers +we see in the churches today, the Jowetts who say they used to +believe in the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. Rather than +trust our children to such shameless cynics, we will make shift +to train them ourselves--we amateurs, not knowing much about +children, and absorbed in the desperate struggle against +organized wrong. + +It is a statement which many revolutionists would resent, yet it +is a fact nevertheless, that we need a new religion, need it just +as badly as any of the rest of our pitifully groping race. That +we need it is proven by the rivalries and quarrels in our +midst--the schisms which waste the greater part of our +activities, and which are often the result of personal jealousies +and petty vanities. To lift men above such weakness, to make them +really brothers in a great muse--that is the work of "personal +religion" in the true and vital sense of the words. + +We pioneers and propagandists may not live to see the birth of +the new Church of Humanity; but our children will see it, and the +dream of it is in our hearts; our poets have sung of it with +fervor and conviction. Read these lines from "The Desire of +Nations," by Edwin Markham, in which he tells of the new Redeemer +who is at hand: + + And when he comes into the world gone wrong, + He will rebuild her beauty with a song. + To every heart he will its own dream be: + One moon has many phantoms in the sea. + Out of the North the norns will cry to men: + "Baldur the Beautiful has come again!" + The flutes of Greece will whisper from the dead: + "Apollo has unveiled his sunbright head!" + The stones of Thebes and Memphis will find voice: + "Osiris comes: Oh tribes of Time, rejoice!" + And social architects who build the State, + Serving the Dream at citadel and gate, + Will hail Him coming through the labor-hum. + And glad quick cries will go from man to man: + "Lo, He has come, our Christ the artisan, + The King who loved the lilies, He has come!" + + +The Knowable + +The new religion will base itself upon the facts of life, as +demonstrated by experience and reason; for to the modern thinker +the basis of all interest is truth, and the wonders of the +microscope and the telescope, of the new psychology and the new +sociology are more wonderful than all the magic recorded in +ancient Mythologies. And even if this were not so, the business +of the thinker is to follow the facts. The history of all +philosophy might be summed up in this simile: The infant opens +his eyes and sees the moon, and stretches out his hands and cries +for it, but those in charge do not give it to him, and so after a +while the infant tires of crying, and turns to his mother's +breast and takes a drink of milk. + +Man demands to know the origin of life; it is intolerable for him +to be here, and not know how, or whence, or why. He demands the +knowledge immediately and finally, and invents innumerable +systems and creeds. He makes himself believe them, with fire and +torture makes other men believe them; until finally, in the +confusion of a million theories, it occurs to him to investigate +his instruments, and he makes the discovery that his tools are +inadequate, and all their products worthless. His mind is finite, +while the thing he seeks is infinite; his knowledge is relative, +while the First Cause is absolute. + +This realization we owe to Immanuel Kant, the father of modern +philosophy. In his famous "antinomies", he proved four +propositions: first, that the universe is limitless in time and +space; second, that matter is composed of simple, indivisible +elements; third, that free will is impossible; and fourth, that +there must be an absolute or first cause. And having proven these +things, he turned round and proved their opposites, with +arguments exactly as unanswerable. Any one who follows these +demonstrations and understands them, takes all his metaphysical +learning and lays it on the shelf with his astrology and magic. + +It is a fact, which every one who wishes to think must get clear, +that when you are dealing with absolutes and ultimates, you can +prove whatever you want to prove. Metaphysics is like the fourth +dimension; you fly into it and come back upside down, hindside +foremost, inside out; and when you get tired of this condition, +you take another flight, and come back the way you were before. +So metaphysical thinking serves the purpose of Catholic cheats +like Cardinal Newman and Professor Chatterton-Hill; it serves +hysterical women like "Mother" Eddy; it serves the +New-thoughters, who wish to fill their bellies with wind; it +serves the charlatans and mystagogs who wish to befuddle the wits +of the populace. Real thinkers avoid it as they would a +bottomless swamp; they avoid, not merely the idealism of +Platonists and Hegelians, but the monism of Haeckel, and the +materialism of Buechner and Jacques Loeb. The simple fact is that +it is as impossible to prove the priority of origin and the +ultimate nature of matter as it is of mind; so that the scientist +who lays down a materialist dogma is exactly as credulous as a +Christian. + +How then are we to proceed? Shall we erect the mystery into an +Unknowable, like Spencer, and call ourselves Agnostics with a +capital letter, like Huxley? Shall we follow Frederic Harrison, +making an inadequate divinity out of our impotence? I have read +the books of the "Positivists", and attended their imitation +church in London, but I did not get any satisfaction from them. +In the midst of their dogmatic pronouncements I found myself +remembering how the egg falls apart and reveals a chicken, how +the worm suddenly discovers itself a butterfly. The spirit of man +is a breaker of barriers, and it seems a futile occupation to set +limits upon the future. Our business is not to say what men will +know ten thousand years from now, but to content ourselves with +the simple statement of what men know now. What we know is a +procession of phenomena called an environment; our life being an +act of adjustment to its changes, and our faith being the +conviction that this adjustment is possible and worth while. + +In the beginning the guide is instinct, and the act of trust is +automatic. But with the dawn of reason the thinker has to justify +his faith; to convince himself that life is sincere, that there +is worth-whileness in being, or in seeking to be; that there is +order in creation, laws which can be discovered, processes which +can be applied. Just as the babe trusts life when it gropes for +its mother's breast, so the most skeptical of scientists trusts +it when he declares that water is made of two parts hydrogen and +one part oxygen, and sets it down for a certainty that this will +always be so--that he is not being played with by some sportive +demon, who will today cause H2O to behave like water, and +tomorrow like benzine. + + +Nature's Insurgent Son + +Life has laws, which it is possible to ascertain; and with each +bit of knowledge acquired, the environment is changed, the life +becomes a new thing. Consider, for example, what a different +place the world became to the man who discovered that the force +which laid the forest in ashes could be tamed and made to warm a +cave and make wild grains nutritious! In other words, man can +create life, he can make the world and himself into that which +his reason decides it ought to be. The means by which he does +this is the most magical of all the tools he has invented since +his arboreal ancestor made the first club; the tool of +experimental science--and when one considers that this weapon has +been understood and deliberately employed for but two or three +centuries, he realizes that we are indeed only at the beginning +of human evolution. + +To take command of life, to replace instincts by reasoned and +deliberate acts, to make the world a conscious and ordered +product--that is the task of man. Sir Ray Lankester has set this +forth with beautiful precision in his book, "The Kingdom of Man". +We are, at this time, in an uncomfortable and dangerous +transition stage, as a child playing with explosives. This child +has found out how to alter his environment in many startling +ways, but he does not yet know why he wishes to alter it, nor to +what purpose. He finds that certain things are uncomfortable, and +these he proceeds immediately to change. Discovering that grain +fermented dispels boredom, he creates a race of drunkards; +discovering that foods can be produced in profusion, and prepared +in alluring combinations, he makes himself so many diseases that +it takes an encyclopedia to tell about them. Discovering that +captives taken in war can be made to work, he makes a procession +of empires, which are eaten through with luxury and corruption, +and fall into ruins again. + +This is Nature's way; she produces without limit, groping +blindly, experimenting ceaselessly, eliminating ruthlessly. It +takes a million eggs to produce one salmon; it has taken a +million million men to produce one idea--algebra, or the bow and +arrow, or democracy. Nature's present impulse appears as a +rebellion against her own methods; man, her creature, will +emancipate himself from her law, will save himself from her +blindness and her ruthlessness. He is "Nature's insurgent son"; +but, being the child of his mother, goes at the task in her old +blundering way. Some men are scheduled to elimination because of +defective eyesight; they are furnished with glasses, and the +breeding of defective eyes begins. The sickly or imbecile child +would perish at once in the course of Nature; it is saved in the +name of charity, and a new line of degenerates is started. + +What shall we do? Return to the method of the Spartans, exposing +our sickly infants? We do not have to do anything so wasteful, +because we can replace the killing of the unfit by a scientific +breeding which will prevent the unfit from getting a chance at +life. We can replace instinct by self-discipline. We can +substitute for the regime of "Nature red in tooth and claw with +ravin" the regime of man the creator, knowing what he wishes to +be and how to set about to be it. Whether this can happen, +whether the thing which we call civilization is to be the great +triumph of the ages, or whether the human race is to go back into +the melting pot, is a question being determined by an infinitude +of contests between enlightenment and ignorance: precisely such a +contest as occurs now, when you, the reader, encounter a man who +has thought his way out to the light, and comes to urge you to +perform the act of self-emancipation, to take up the marvellous +new tools of science, and to make yourself, by means of exact +knowledge, the creator of your own life and in part of the life +of the race. + + +The New Morality + +Life is a process of expansion, of the unfoldment of new powers; +driven by that inner impulse which the philosophers of Pragmatism +call the elan vital. Whenever this impulse has its way, there is +an emotion of joy; whenever it is balked, there is one of +distress. So pleasure and pain are the guides of life, and the +final goal is a condition of free and constantly accelerating +growth, in which joy is enduring. + +That man will ever reach such a state is more than we can say. It +is a perfectly conceivable thing that tomorrow a comet may fall +upon the earth and wipe out all man's labor's. But on the other +hand, it is a conceivable thing that man may some day learn to +control the movements of comets, and even of starry systems. It +seems certain that if he is given time, he will make himself +master of the forces of his immediate environment-- + + The untamed giants of nature shall bow down-- + The tides, the tempest and the lightning cease + From mockery and destruction, and be turned + Unto the making of the soul of man. + +It is a conceivable thing that man may learn to create his food +from the elements without the slow processes of agriculture; it +is conceivable that he may master the bacteria which at present +prey upon his body, and so put an end to death. It is certain +that he will ascertain the laws of heredity, and create human +qualities as he has created the spurs of the fighting-cock and +the legs of the greyhound. He will find out what genius is, and +the laws of its being, and the tests whereby it may be +recognized. In the new science of psycho-analysis he has already +begun the work of bringing an infinity of subconsciousness into +the light of day; it may be that in the evidence of telepathy +which the psychic researchers are accumulating, he is beginning +to grope his way into a universal consciousness, which may come +to include the joys and griefs of the inhabitants of Mars, and of +the dark stars which the spectroscope and the telescope are +disclosing. + +All these are fascinating possibilities. What stands in the way +of their realization? Ignorance and superstition, fear and +submission, the old habits of rapine and hatred which man has +brought with him from his animal past. These make him a slave, a +victim of himself and of others; to root them out of the garden +of the soul is the task of the modern thinker. + +The new morality is thus a morality of freedom. It teaches that +man is the master, or shall become so; that there is no law, save +the law of his own being, no check upon his will save that which +he himself imposes. + +The new morality is a morality of joy. It teaches that true +pleasure is the end of being, and the test of all righteousness. + +The new morality is a morality of reason. It teaches that there +is no authority above reason; no possibility of such authority, +because if such were to appear, reason would have to judge it, +and accept or reject it. + +The new morality is a morality of development. It teaches that +there can no more be an immutable law of conduct, than there can +be an immutable position for the steering-wheel of an aeroplane. +The business of the pilot of an aeroplane is to keep his machine +aloft amid shifting currents of wind. The business of a moralist +is to adjust life to a constantly changing environment. An action +which was suicide yesterday becomes heroism today, and futility +or hypocrisy tomorrow. + +This new morality, like all things in a world of strife, is +fighting for existence, using its own weapons, which are reason +and love. Obviously it can use no others, without +self-destruction; yet it has to meet enemies who fight with the +old weapons of force and fraud. Whether it will prevail is more +than any prophet can say. Perhaps it is too much to ask that it +should succeed--this insolent effort of the pigmy man to leap +upon the back of his master and fit a bridle into his mouth. +Perhaps it is nothing but a dream in the minds of a few, the +scientists and poets and inventors, the dreamers of the race. +Perhaps the nerve of the pigmy will fail him at the critical +moment, and he will fall from the back of his master, and under +his master's hoofs. + +The hour of the decision is now; for this we can see plainly, and +as scientists we can proclaim it--the human race is in a swift +current of degeneration, which a new morality alone can check. +The struggle is at its height in our time; if it fails, if the +fibre of the race continues to deteriorate, the soul of the race +to be eaten out by poverty and luxury, by insanity and disease, +by prostitution, crime and war--then mankind will slip back into +the abyss, the untamed giants of Nature will resume their ancient +sway, and the tides, the tempest and the lightning will sweep the +earth clean again. I do not believe that this calamity will +befall us. I know that in the diseased social body the forces of +resistance are gathering--the Socialist movement, in the broad +sense--the activities of all who believe in the possibility of +reconstructing society upon a basis of reason, justice and love. +To such people this book goes out: to the truly religious people, +those who hunger and thirst after righteousness here and now, who +believe in brotherhood as a reality, and are willing to bear pain +and ridicule and privation for the sake of its ultimate +achievement. + + From the edge of harsh derision, + From discord and defeat, + From doubt and lame division, + We pluck the fruit and eat; + And the mouth finds it bitter, and the spirit sweet.... + O sorrowing hearts of slaves, + We heard you beat from far! + We bring the light that saves, + We bring the morning star; +Freedom's good things we bring you, whence all good things are... + + +Envoi + +I have come to the end of my task; but one question troubles me. +I think of the "young men and maidens meek" who will read this +book, and I wonder what they will make of it. We have had a lark +together; we have gone romping down the vista of the ages, +swatting*, every venerable head that showed itself, beating the +dust out of ancient delusions. You would like all your life to be +that kind of lark; but you may not find it so, and perhaps you +will suffer disillusionment and vexation. + +I have known hundreds of young radicals in my life; they have +nearly all been gallant and honest, but they have not all been +wise, and therefore not so happy as they might have been. In the +course of time I have formulated to myself the peril to which +young radicals are exposed. We see so much that is wrong in +ancient things, it gets to be a habit with us to reject them. We +have only to know that a thing is old to feel an impulse of +impatient scorn; on the other hand, we are tempted to welcome +anything which can prove itself to be unprecedented. There is a +common type of radical whose aim in life is to be several jumps +ahead of mankind; whose criterion of conduct is that it shocks +the bourgeois. If you do not know that type, you may find +him--and her--in the newest of the Bohemian cafes, drinking the +newest red chemicals, smoking the newest brand of cigarettes, and +discussing the newest form of psycopathia sexualis. After you +have watched them a while, you realize that these ultra-new +people have fallen victim to the oldest form of logical fallacy, +the non sequitur, and likewise to the oldest form of slavery, +which is self-indulgence. + +If it is true that much in the old moral codes is based upon +ignorance, and cultivated by greed, it is also true that much in +the old moral codes is based upon facts which will not change so +long as man is what he is--a creature of impulses, good and bad, +wise and foolish, selfish and generous, and compelled to make +choice between these impulses; so long as he is a material body +and a personal consciousness, obliged to live in society and +adjust himself to the rights of others. What I would like to say +to young radicals--if there is any way to say it without seeming +a prig--is that in choosing their own path through life, they +will need not merely enthusiasm and radical fervor, but wisdom +and judgment and hard study. + +It is our fundamental demand that society shall cease to repeat +over and over the blunders of the past, the blunders of tyranny +and slavery, of luxury and poverty, which wrecked the ancient +societies; and surely it is a poor way to begin by repeating in +our own persons the most ancient blunders of the moral life. To +light the fires of lust in our hearts, and let them smoulder +there, and imagine we are trying new experiments in psychology! +Who does not know the radical woman who demonstrates her +emancipation from convention by destroying her nerves with +nicotine? Who does not know the genius of revolt who demonstrates +his repudiation of private property by permitting his lady loves +to support him? Who does not know the man who finds in the +phrases of revolution the most effective devices for the seducing +of young girls? + +You will have read this book to ill purpose if you draw the +conclusion that there is anything in it to spare you the duty of +getting yourself moral standards and holding yourself to them. On +the contrary, because your task is the highest and hardest that +man has yet undertaken--for this reason you will need standards +the most exacting ever formulated. Let me quote some words from a +teacher you will not accuse of holding to the slave-moralities: + +Free dost thou call thyself? Thy ruling thoughts will I hear, and +not that thou hast escaped a yoke. + +Art thou such a one that can escape a yoke? + +Free from what? What is that to Zarathustra! Clear shall your eye +tell me: free to what? + +Canst thou give to thyself thy good and thine evil, and hang thy +will above thee as thy law? Canst thou be thine own judge, and +avenger of thy law? + +Fearful it is to be alone with the judge and the avenger of thy +law. So is a stone flung out into empty space and into the icy +breath of isolation. + +Out of the pit of ignorance and despair we emerge into the +sunlight of knowledge, to take control of a world, and to make it +over, not according to the will of any gods, but according to the +law in our own hearts. For that task we have need of all the +resources of our being; of courage and high devotion, of faith in +ourselves and our comrades, of clean, straight thinking, of +discipline both of body and mind. We go to this task with a +knowledge as old as the first moral impulse of mankind--the +knowledge that our actions determine the future of life, not +merely for ourselves but for all the race. For this is one of the +laws of the ancient Hebrews which modern science has not +repealed, but on the contrary has reinforced with a thousand +confirmations--that the sins of the fathers are visited upon the +children unto the third and fourth generations. + +I get letters from the readers of my books; nearly always they +are young people, so I feel like the father of a large family. I +gather them now about my knee, and pronounce upon them a +benediction in the ancient patriarchal style. Children and +grandchildren of my hopes, for ages men suffered and fought, so +that the world might be turned over to you. Now the day is +coming, the glad, new day which blinds us with the shining of its +wings; it is coming so swiftly that I am afraid of it. I thought +we should have more time to get ready for the taking over of the +world! But the old managers of it went insane, they took to +tearing each other's eyes out, and now they lie dead about us. +So, whether we will or not, we have to take charge of the world; +we have to decide what to do with it, even while we are doing it. +Let us not fail, young comrades; let us not write on the scroll +of history that mankind had to go through yet new generations of +wars and tumults and enslavements, because the youth of the +international revolution could not lift themselves above those +ancient personal vices which wrecked the fair hopes of their +fathers--bigotry and intolerance, vindictiveness and vanity, +envy, hatred and malice and all uncharitableness! + + + +Reader: + +For twenty years I have been haunted by the dream that I might +some day be my own publisher. I was waiting till I could afford +the luxury; but many a man has put off a bold action till he +died, so I am publishing this book without being able to afford +it. + +The reason is that I do not want to be a writer for the rich. I +want to be read by working-boys and girls, and by poor students. + +I offer the book at a low price. In the hope of tempting you to +go out and get your friends to read it, I have made a price in +quantities which will allow no profit at all. A margin has been +figured to cover postage, stationery, circulars, and the cost of +a clerical assistant; but nothing for interest on capital, which +is a gift, nor for the rent of an office, which is my home, nor +for the services of manager and press agent, which is myself. + +You have read the book, and its fate is yours to decide. If it +seems worth while, pass it on to someone else. If you can afford +it, order a number of copies and give them away. If you can't +afford it, give your time and be a book-agent. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg Etext of The Profits of Religion, by Sinclair + diff --git a/old/1998-12-prfrl10.zip b/old/1998-12-prfrl10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..69f0a8a --- /dev/null +++ b/old/1998-12-prfrl10.zip |