diff options
Diffstat (limited to '15876.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | 15876.txt | 7511 |
1 files changed, 7511 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/15876.txt b/15876.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..bf87c6a --- /dev/null +++ b/15876.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7511 @@ +Project Gutenberg's The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3, by Various + +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 Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 + +Author: Various + +Release Date: May 22, 2005 [EBook #15876] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE UNPOPULAR REVIEW *** + + + + +Produced by Bill Tozier, Barbara Tozier and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + + +THE UNPOPULAR REVIEW + +VOL. II, NO. 3 + +JULY-SEPTEMBER, 1914 + + +Published Quarterly at 35 West 32d Street, New York, by + +HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY + + + + +CONTENTS + + Unsocial Investments A.S. Johnson + A Stubborn Relic of Feudalism The Editor + An Experiment in Syndicalism Hugh H. Lusk + Labor: "True Demand" and Immigrant Supply Arthur J. Todd + The Way to Flatland Fabian Franklin + The Disfranchisement of Property David McGregor Means + Railway Junctions Clayton Hamilton + Minor Uses of the Middling Rich F.J. Mather, Jr. + Lecturing at Chautauqua Clayton Hamilton + Academic Leadership Paul Elmer More + Hypnotism, Telepathy, and Dreams The Editor + The Muses on the Hearth Mrs F.G. Allinson + The Land of the Sleepless Watchdog David Starr Jordan + En Casserole + Special to our Readers--Philosophy in Fly Time--Setting Bounds + to Laughter (A.S. Johnson)--A Post-Graduate School for Academic + Donors (F.J. Mather, Jr.)--A Suggestion Regarding + Vacations--Advertisement--Simplified Spelling + + + + +UNSOCIAL INVESTMENTS + + +The "new social conscience" is essentially a class phenomenon. While it +pretends to the role of inner monitor and guide to conduct for all +mankind, it interprets good and evil in class terms. It manifests a +special solicitude for the welfare of one social group, and a mute +hostility toward another. Labor is its Esau, Capital its Jacob. Let strife +arise between workingmen and their employers, and you will see the new +social conscience aligning itself with the former, accepting at face value +all the claims of labor, reiterating all labor's formulae. The suggestion +that judgment should be suspended until the facts at issue are established +is repudiated as the prompting of a secret sin. For, to paraphrase a +recent utterance of the _Survey_, one of the foremost organs of the new +conscience, is it not true that the workers are fighting for their +livings, while the employers are fighting only for their profits? It would +appear, then, that there can be no question as to the side to which +justice inclines. A living is more sacred than a profit. + +It is virtually never true, however, that the workers are fighting for +their "living." Contrary to Marx's exploded "iron law" they probably had +that and more before the trouble began. But of course we would not wish to +restrict them to a living, if they can produce more, and want all who +can't produce that much to be provided with it--and something more at the +expense of others. + +It may be urged that the employer's profits also represent the livings of +a number of human beings; but this passes nowadays for a reactionary view. +"We stand for man as against the dollar." If you say that the "dollar" is +metonymy for "the man possessed of a dollar," with rights to defend, and +reasonable expectations to be realized, you convict yourself of reaction. +"These gentry" (I quote from the May _Atlantic_) "suppose themselves to be +discussing the rights of man, when all they are discussing is the rights +of stockholders." The true view, the progressive view, is obviously that +the possessors of the dollar, the recipients of profits and dividends, are +excluded from the communion of humanity. Labor is mankind. + +The present instance is of course not the only instance in human history +of the substitution of class criteria of judgment for social criteria. +Such manifestations of class conscience are doubtless justified in the +large economy of human affairs; an individual must often claim all in +order to gain anything, and the same may be true of a class. Besides, the +ultimate arbitration of the claims of the classes is not a matter for the +rational judgment. What is subject to rational analysis, however, are the +methods of gaining its ends proposed by the new social conscience. Of +these methods one of wide acceptance is that of fixing odium upon certain +property interests, with a view to depriving them immediately of the +respect still granted to property interests in general, and ultimately of +the protection of the laws. It is with the rationality of what may be +called the excommunication and outlawing of special property interests, +that the present paper is concerned. + +In passing, it is worth noting that the same ethical spirit that insists +upon fixing the responsibility for social ills upon particular property +interests--or property owners--insists with equal vehemence upon absolving +the propertyless evil-doer from personal responsibility for his acts. The +Los Angeles dynamiters were but victims: the crime in which they were +implicated was institutional, not personal. Their punishment was rank +injustice; inexpedient, moreover, as provocative of further crime, instead +of a means of repression. On the other hand, when it appears that the +congestion of the slum produces vice and disease, we are not urged by the +spokesmen of this ethical creed, to blame the chain of institutional +causes typified by scarcity of land, high prices of building materials, +the incapacity of a raw immigrant population to pay for better +habitations, or to appreciate the need for light and air. Rather, we are +urged to fix responsibility upon the individual owner who receives rent +from slum tenements. Perhaps we can not imprison him for his misdeeds, but +we can make him an object of public reproach; expel him from social +intercourse (if that, so often talked about, is ever done); fasten his +iniquities upon him if ever he seeks a post of trust or honor; and +ultimately we can deprive him of his property. Let him and his anti-social +interests be forever excommunicate, outlawed. + + +II + +In the country at large the property interests involved in the production +and sale of alcoholic beverages are already excommunicated. The unreformed +"best society" may still tolerate the presence of persons whose fortunes +are derived from breweries or distilleries; but the great mass of the +social-minded would deny them fire and water. In how many districts would +a well organized political machine urge persons thus enriched as +candidates for Congress, the bench or even the school board? In the +prohibition territory excommunication of such property interests has been +followed by outlawry. The saloon in Maine and Kansas exists by the same +title as did Robin Hood: the inefficiency of the law. On the road to +excommunication is private property in the wretched shacks that shelter +the city's poor. Outlawry is not far distant. "These tenements must go." +Will they go? Ask of the police, who pick over the wreckage upon the +subsidence of a wave of reform. Many a rookery, officially abolished, will +be found still tenanted, and yielding not one income, but two, one for the +owner and another for the police. The property represented by enterprises +paying low wages, working men for long hours or under unhealthful +conditions, or employing children, is almost ripe for excommunication. +Pillars of society and the church have already been seen tottering on +account of revelations of working conditions in factories from which they +receive dividends. Property "affected by a public use," that is, +investments in the instrumentalities of public service, is becoming a +compromising possession. We are already somewhat suspicious of the +personal integrity and political honor of those who receive their incomes +from railways or electric lighting plants; and the odor of gas stocks is +unmistakable. Even the land, once the retreat of high birth and serene +dignity, is beginning to exhale a miasma of corruption. "Enriched by +unearned increment"--who wishes such an epitaph? A convention is to be +held in a western city in this very year, to announce to the world that +the delegates and their constituencies--all honest lovers of mankind--will +refuse in future to recognize any private title to land or other natural +resources. Holders of such property, by continuing to be such, will place +themselves beyond the pale of human society, and will forfeit all claim to +sympathy when the day dawns for the universal confiscation of land. + + +III + +The existence of categories of property interests resting under a growing +weight of social disapprobation, is giving rise to a series of problems in +private ethics that seem almost to demand a rehabilitation of the art of +casuistry. A very intelligent and conscientious lady of the writer's +acquaintance became possessed, by inheritance, of a one-fourth interest in +a Minneapolis building the ground floor of which is occupied by a saloon. +Her first endeavor was to persuade her partners to secure a cancellation +of the liquor dealer's lease. This they refused to do, on the ground that +the building in question is, by location, eminently suited to its present +use, but very ill suited to any other; and that, moreover, the lessee +would immediately reopen his business on the opposite corner. To yield to +their partner's desire would therefore result in a reduction of their own +profits, but would advance the public welfare not one whit. Disheartened +by her partners' obstinacy, my friend is seeking to dispose of her +interest in the building. As she is willing to incur a heavy sacrifice in +order to get rid of her complicity in what she considers an unholy +business, the transfer will doubtless soon be made. Her soul will be +lightened of the profits from property put to an anti-social use. But the +property will still continue in such use, and profits from it will still +accrue to someone with a soul to lose or to save. + +In her fascinating book, _Twenty Years at Hull House_, Miss Jane Addams +tells of a visit to a western state where she had invested a sum of money +in farm mortgages. "I was horrified," she says, "by the wretched +conditions among the farmers, which had resulted from a long period of +drought, and one forlorn picture was fairly burned into my mind.... The +farmer's wife [was] a picture of despair, as she stood in the door of the +bare, crude house, and the two children behind her, whom she vainly tried +to keep out of sight, continually thrust forward their faces, almost +covered by masses of coarse, sunburned hair, and their little bare feet so +black, so hard, the great cracks so filled with dust, that they looked +like flattened hoofs. The children could not be compared to anything so +joyous as satyrs, although they appeared but half-human. It seemed to me +quite impossible to receive interest from mortgages upon farms which might +at any season be reduced to such conditions, and with great inconvenience +to my agent and doubtless with hardship to the farmers, as speedily as +possible I withdrew all my investment." And thereby made the supply of +money for such farmers that much less and consequently that much dearer. +This is quite a fair example of much current philanthropy. + +We may safely assume that, however much this action may have lightened +Miss Addams's conscience, it did not lighten the burden of debt upon the +farmer, or make the periodic interest payments less painful, and it +certainly did put them to the trouble and contingent expenses of a new +mortgage. The moral burden was shifted, to the ease of the philanthropist, +and this seems to exhaust the sum of the good results of one well +intentioned deed. Do they outweigh the bad ones? + +So, doubtless, there are among our friends persons who, upon proof that +factories in which they have been interested pay starvation wages, have +withdrawn their investments. And others who, stumbling upon a state +legislature among the productive assets of a railway corporation, have +sold their bonds and invested the proceeds elsewhere. It is a modern way +of obeying the injunction, "Sell all thou hast and follow me." And not a +very painful way, since the irreproachable investments pay almost, if not +quite, as well as those that are suspect. + +It is not, however, impossible to conceive of a property owner driven from +one position to another, in order to satisfy this new requirement of the +social conscience, without ever finding peace. Miss Addams put the money +withdrawn from those hideous farm mortgages into a flock of "innocent +looking sheep." Alas, they were not so innocent as they seemed. "The sight +of two hundred sheep with four rotting hoofs each was not reassuring to +one whose conscience craved economic peace. A fortunate series of sales of +mutton, wool and farm enabled the partners to end the enterprise without +loss." Sales of mutton? Let us hope those eight hundred infected hoofs are +well printed on the butcher's conscience. + +And the net result of all these moral strivings? The evil investments +still continue to be evil, and still yield profits. Doubtless they rest, +in the end, upon less sensitive consciences. Marvellous moral gain! + + +IV + +We are bound to the wheel, say the sociological fatalists. All our efforts +are of no avail; the Wheel revolves as it was destined. Not so. Our +strivings for purity in investments, puny as may be their results in the +individual instance, may compose a sum that is imposing in its +effectiveness. How their influence may be exerted will best appear from an +analogy. + +It is a settled conviction among Americans of Puritan antecedents, and +among all other Americans, native born or alien, that have come under +Puritan influence, that the dispensing of alcoholic beverages is a +degrading function. This conviction has not, to be sure, notably impaired +the performance of the function. But it has none the less produced a +striking effect. It has set apart for the function in question those +elements in the population that place the lowest valuation upon the esteem +of the public, and that are, on the whole, least worthy of it. In +consequence the American saloon is, by common consent, the very worst +institution of its kind in the world. Such is the immediate result of good +intentions working by the method of excommunication of a trade. + +This degradation of the personnel and the institution proceeds at an +accelerated rate as public opinion grows more bitter. In the end the evil +becomes so serious, so intimately associated with all other evils, social +and political, that you hear men over their very cups rise to proclaim, +with husky voices, "The saloon must go!" At this point the community is +ripe for prohibition: accordingly, it would seem that the initial stages +in the process, unpleasant as were their consequences, were not +ill-advised, after all. But prohibition does not come without a political +struggle, in which the enemy, selected for brazenness and schooled in +corruption, employs methods that leave lasting scars upon the body +politic. And even when vanquished, the enemy retreats into the morasses of +"unenforcible laws," to conduct a guerilla warfare that knows no rules. +Let us grant that the ultimate gain is worth all it costs: are we sure +that we have taken the best possible means to achieve our ends? + +In the poorer quarters of most great American cities, there is much +property that it is difficult for a man to hold without losing the respect +of the enlightened. Old battered tenements, dingy and ill lighted +tumbledown shacks, the despair of the city reformer. Let us say that the +proximity of gas tanks or noisy railways or smoky factories consign such +quarters to the habitation of the very poor. Quite possibly, then, the +replacement of the existing buildings by better ones would represent a +heavy financial loss. The increasing social disapprobation of property +vested in such wretched forms leads to the gradual substitution of owners +who hold the social approval in contempt, for those who manifest a certain +degree of sensitiveness. The tenants certainly gain nothing from the +change. What is more likely to happen, is a screwing up of rents, an +increasing promptness of evictions. Public opinion will in the end be +roused against the landlords; the more timid among them will sell their +holdings to others not less ruthless, but bolder and more astute. Attempts +at public regulation will be fought with infinitely greater +resourcefulness than could possibly have been displayed by respectable +owners. Perhaps the final outcome will be that more drastic regulations +are adopted than would have been the case had the shifting in ownership +not taken place. There would still remain the possibility of the evasion +of the law, and it is not at all improbable that the progress in the +technique of evasion would outstrip the progress in regulation, thus +leaving the tenant with a balance of disadvantage from the process as a +whole. + +The most illuminating instance of a business interest subjected first to +excommunication--literally--and then to outlawry, is that of the usurer, +or, in modern parlance, the loan shark. To the mediaeval mind there was +something distinctly immoral in an income from property devoted to the +furnishing of personal loans. We need not stop to defend the mediaeval +position or to attack it; all that concerns us here is that an opportunity +for profit--that is, a potential property interest--was outlawed. In +consequence it became impossible for reputable citizens to engage in the +business. Usury therefore came to be monopolized by aliens, exempt from +the current ethical formulation, who were "protected," for a +consideration, by the prince, just as dubious modern property interests +may be protected by the political boss. + +Let us summarize the results of eight hundred years of experience in this +method of dealing with the usurer's trade. The business shifted from the +control of citizens to that of aliens; from the hands of those who were +aliens merely in a narrow, national sense, to the hands of those who are +alien to our common humanity. Such lawless, tricky, extortionate loan +sharks as now infest our cities were probably not to be found at all in +mediaeval or early modern times. They are a product of a secular process of +selection. Their ability to evade the laws directed against them is +consummate. It is true that from time to time we do succeed in catching +one and fining him, or even imprisoning him. For which risk the small +borrower is forced to pay, at a usurer's rate. + +Social improvement through the excommunication of property interests is +inevitably a disorderly process. Wherever it is in operation we are sure +to find the successive stages indicated in the foregoing examples. First, +a gradual substitution of the conscienceless property holder for the one +responsive to public sentiment. Next, under the threat of hostile popular +action, the timid and resourceless property owner gives way to the +resourceful and the bold. The third stage in the process is a vigorous +political movement towards drastic regulation or abolition, evoking a +desperate attempt on the part of the interests threatened to protect +themselves by political means--that is, by gross corruption; or, if the +menaced interest is a vast one, dominating a defensible territory, by +armed rebellion, as in our own Civil War. If the interest is finally +overwhelmed politically, and placed completely under the ban of the law, +it has been given ample time to develop an unscrupulousness of personnel +and an art of corruption that long enable it to exist illegally, a lasting +reproach to the constituted authorities. + + +V + +Suppression of anti-social interests by the methods in vogue amounts to +little more than their banishment to the underworld. And we can well +imagine the joy with which the denizens of the underworld receive such new +accessions to their numbers and power. For in the nature of the case, it +is inevitable that all varieties of outcasts and outlaws should join +forces. The religious schismatic makes common cause with the pariah; the +political offender with the thief and robber. Such association of elements +vastly increases the difficulty of repressing crime. The band of thieves +and robbers in the cave of Adullam doubtless found their powers of preying +vastly increased through the acquisition of such a leader as David. The +problem of mediaeval vagabondage was rendered well-nigh incapable of +solution by the fact that any beggar's rags might conceal a holy but +excommunicated friar. + +Let us once more review our experience with the usurer. As an outcast he +offers his support to other outcasts, and is in turn supported by them. +The pawnbroker and the pickpocket are closely allied: without the +pawnshop, pocketpicking would offer but a precarious living; without the +picking of pockets, many pawnshops would find it impossible to meet +expenses. The salary loan shark often works hand in glove with the +professional gambler; each procures victims for the other. The +"hole-in-the-wall" or "blind tiger" provides a rendezvous for all the +outcasts of society. "Boot-legging" is a common subsidiary occupation for +the pander, the thief and the cracksman. Where it flourishes, it serves to +bridge over many a period of slack trade. Franchises whose validity is +subject to political attack, bring to the aid of the underworld some of +the most powerful interests in the community. The police are almost +helpless when confronted by a coalition of persons of wealth and +respectability with professional politicians commanding a motley array of +yeggs and thugs, pimps and card-sharpers. + +Let us suppose that the developing social conscience places under the ban +receipt of private income from land and other natural resources, and that +a powerful movement aiming at the confiscation of such resources is under +way. It is superfluous to point out that the vast interests threatened +would offer a desperate resistance. The warfare against an incomparably +lesser interest, the liquor trade, has taxed all the resources of the +modern democratic state--on the whole the most absolute political +organization known. In no instance has the state come out of the struggle +completely victorious; the proscribed interest is yielding ground, if at +all, only very slowly. What, then, would be the outcome of a struggle +against the vastly greater landed interest? Perhaps the state would be +victorious in the end. But for generations the landed interest would +survive, if not by title of common law, at least by title of common +corruption. And in the course of the conflict, we can not doubt that +political disorder would flourish as never before, and that under its +shelter private vice and crime would develop almost unchecked. + +We should disabuse ourselves of the notion that the will of a mere +majority is absolute in the state. The law is a reality only when the +outlawed interests represent an insignificant minority. Arbitrarily to +increase the outlawed interests is to undermine the very foundations of +society. + + +VI + +The trend of the foregoing discussion, it will be said, is reactionary in +the extreme. There are, as all must admit, private interests that are +prejudicial to the public interest. Are they to be left in possession of +the privilege of trading upon the public disaster--entrenching themselves, +rendering still more difficult the future task of the reformer? By no +means. The writer opposes no criticism to the extinction of anti-social +private interests; on the contrary, he would have the state proceed +against them with far greater vigor than it has hitherto displayed. It is +important, however, to be sure first that a private interest is +anti-social. Then the question is merely one of method. It is the author's +contention that the method of excommunication and outlawry is the very +worst conceivable. + +We are wont to hold up to scorn the British method of compensating liquor +sellers for licenses revoked. It is an expensive method. But let us weigh +its corresponding advantages. The licensee does not find himself in a +position in which he must choose between personal destitution and the +public interest. He dares not employ methods of resistance that would +subject him to the risk of forfeiting the right to compensation. He may +resist by fair means, but if he is intelligent, he will keep his skirts +clear of foul. If his establishment is closed, he is not left, a ruined +and desperate man, to project methods for carrying on his trade illicitly. +On the contrary, the act of compensation has placed in his hands funds in +which he might be mulcted if convicted of violation of the law. And if +natural perversity should drive him to illegal practices, he would not +find himself an object of sympathy on the part of that considerable +minority that resent injustice even to those whom they regard as +evil-doers. + +There can be little doubt that by the adoption of the principle of +adequate compensation, an American commonwealth could extinguish any +property interest that majority opinion pronounces anti-social. We may +have industries that menace the public health. Under existing conditions +the interests involved exert themselves to the utmost to suppress +information relative to the dangers of such industries. With the principle +of compensation in operation, these very interests would be the foremost +in exposing the evils in question. It is no hardship to sell your interest +to the public. Does any one feel aggrieved when the public decides to +appropriate his land to a public use? On the contrary, every possessor of +a site at all suited for a public building or playground does everything +in his power to display its advantages in the most favorable light. + +And with this we have admitted a disadvantage of the compensation +principle--over-compensation. We do pay excessively for property rights +extinguished in the public interest. But this is largely because the +principle is employed with such relative infrequency that we have not as +yet developed a technique of compensation. German cities have learned how +to acquire property for public use without either plundering the private +owner or excessively enriching him. The British application of the Small +Holdings Acts has duly protected the interests of the large landholder, +without making of him a vociferous champion of the Acts. + +Progressive public morality readers one private interest after another +indefensible. Let the public extinguish such interests, by all means. But +let the public be moral at its own expense. + +A revolting doctrine, it will be said. Because men have been permitted, +through gross defect in the laws, to build up interests in dealing out +poisons to the public, are they to be compensated, like the purveyors of +wholesome products, when the public decrees that their destructive +activities shall cease? Because a corrupt legislature once gave away +valuable franchises, are we and our children, and our children's children, +forever to pay tribute, in the shape of interest on compensation funds, to +the heirs of the shameless grantees? Because the land of a country was +parcelled out, in a lawless age, among the unworthy retainers of a +predatory prince, must we forever pay rent on every loaf we eat--as we +should do, in fact, even if we transformed great landed estates into +privately held funds? Did we not abolish human slavery, without +compensation, and is there any one to question the justice of the act? + +We did indeed extinguish slavery without compensation to the slave owners. +But if no one had ever conceived of such a policy we should have been a +richer nation and a happier one. We paid for the slaves, in blood and +treasure, many times the sum that would have made every slave owner eager +to part with his slaves. Such enrichment of the slave owner would have +been an act of social injustice, it may be said. The saying would be open +to grave doubt, but the doctrine here advanced runs, not in terms of +justice, but in terms of social expediency. + +And expediency is commonly regarded as a cheap substitute for justice. It +is wrongly so regarded. Social justice, as usually conceived, looks to the +past for its validity. Its preoccupation is the correction of ancient +wrongs. Social expediency looks to the future: its chief concern is the +prevention of future wrongs. As a guide to political action, the +superiority of the claims of social expediency is indisputable. + + +VII + +In the foregoing argument it has been deliberately assumed that the +interests to be extinguished are, for the most part, universally +recognized as anti-social. Slavery, health-destroying adulteration, the +maintenance of tenements that menace life and morals, these at least +represent interests so abominable that all must agree upon the wisdom of +extinguishing them. The only point in dispute must be one of method. It is +the contention of the present writer that when even such interests have +had time to become clothed with an appearance of regularity, the method of +extinction should be through compensation. By its tolerance of such +interests, the public has made itself an accomplice in the mischief to +which they give rise, and accordingly has not even an equitable right to +throw the whole responsibility upon the private persons concerned. + +Interests thus universally recognized to be evil are necessarily few. In +the vast majority of cases the establishment of interests we now seek to +proscribe took place in an epoch in which no evil was imputed to them. At +first a small minority, usually regarded as fanatics, attack the interests +in question. This minority increases, and in the end transforms itself +into a majority. But long after majority opinion has become adverse, there +remains a vigorous minority opinion defending the menaced interests. A +hundred years ago the distilling of spirituous liquors was almost +universally regarded as an entirely legitimate industry. The enemies of +the industry were few and of no political consequence. Today in many +communities the industry is utterly condemned by majority opinion. There +is, however, no community in which a minority honestly defending the +industry is absolutely wanting. Admitting that the majority opinion is +right, it remains none the less true that adherents of the minority +opinion would regard themselves as most grievously wronged if the majority +proceeded to a destruction of their interests. + +Where moral issues alone are involved, we may perhaps accept the view that +the well considered opinion of the majority is as near as may be to +infallibility. But it is very rarely the case that the question of the +legitimacy of a property interest can be reduced to a purely moral issue. +Usually there are also at stake, technical and broad economic issues in +which majority judgment is notoriously fallible. Thus we have at times had +large minorities who believed that the bank as an institution is wholly +evil, and ought to be abolished. This was the majority opinion in one +period of the history of Texas, and in accordance with it, established +banking interests were destroyed by law. It is only within the last +fifteen years that the majority of the citizens of that commonwealth have +admitted the error of the earlier view. + +In the course of the last twenty-five years, notable progress has been +made in the art of preserving perishable foods through refrigeration. +There are differences of opinion as to the effect upon the public health +of food so preserved; and further differences as to the effect of the cold +storage system upon the cost of living. On neither the physiological nor +the economic questions involved is majority opinion worthy of special +consideration. None the less, legislative measures directed against the +storage interests have been seriously considered in a large number of +states, and were it not for the difficulties inherent in the regulation of +interstate commerce, we should doubtless see the practice of cold storage +prohibited in some jurisdictions. Those whose property would thus be +destroyed would accept their losses with much bitterness, in view of the +fact that the weight of expert opinion holds their industry to be in the +public interest. + +What still further exacerbates the feeling of injury on the part of those +whose interests are proscribed, is the fact that the purity of motives of +the persons most active in the campaign of proscription is not always +clear. Not many years ago we had a thriving manufacture of artificial +butter. The persons engaged in the industry claimed that their product was +as wholesome as that produced according to the time-honored process, and +that its cheapness promised an important advance in the adequate +provisioning of the people. We destroyed the industry, very largely +because of our strong bent toward conservatism in all matters pertaining +to the table. But among the influences that were most active in taxing +artificial butter out of existence, was the competing dairymen's interest. + +It is asserted by those who would shift the whole burden of taxation onto +land that they are animated by the most unselfish motives, whereas their +opponents are defending their selfish interests alone. Yet a common Single +Tax appeal to the large manufacturer and the small house-owner takes the +form of a computation demonstrating that those classes would gain more +through the reduction in the burden on improvements than they would lose +through increase in burden on the land. Let it be granted that personal +advantage is not incompatible with purity of motives. The association of +ideas does not, however, inspire confidence, especially in the breasts of +those whose interests are threatened. + +Extinction of property interests without compensation necessarily makes +our legislative bodies the battleground of conflicting interests. Honest +motives are combined with crooked ones in the attack upon an interest; +crooked and honest motives combine in its defense. Out of the disorder +issues a legislative determination that may be in the public interest or +may be prejudicial to it. And most likely the law is inadequately +supported by machinery of enforcement: it is effective in controlling the +scrupulous; to the unscrupulous it is mere paper. In many instances its +net effect is only to increase the risks connected with the conduct of a +business. + +When England prohibited importation of manufactures from France, the +import trade continued none the less, under the form of smuggling. The +risk of seizure was merely added to the risk of fire and flood. Just as +one could insure against the latter risks, so the practice arose of +insuring against seizure. At one time, at any rate, in the French ports +were to be found brokers who would insure the evasion of a cargo of goods +for a premium of fifteen per cent. At the safe distance of a century and a +half, the absurd prohibition and its incompetent administration are +equally comic. At the time, however, there was nothing comic in the +contempt for law and order thus engendered, in the feeling of outrage on +the part of those ruined by seizures, and in the alliance of respectable +merchants with the thieves and footpads enlisted for the smuggling trade. + + +VIII + +It is a common observation of present day social reformers that an +excessive regard is displayed by our governmental organs for security of +property, while security of non-property rights is neglected. And this +would indeed be a serious indictment of the existing order if there were +in fact a natural antithesis between the security of property and security +of the person. There is, however, no such antithesis. In the course of +history the establishment of security of property has, as a rule, preceded +the establishment of personal security, and has provided the conditions in +which personal security becomes possible. Adequate policing is essential +to any form of security. Property can pay for policing; the person can +not. This is a crude and materialistic interpretation of the facts, but it +is essentially sound. + +How much personal security existed in England, five centuries and a half +ago, when it was possible for Richard to carve his way through human flesh +to the throne? The lowly, certainly, enjoyed no greater security than the +high born. How much personal security exists in the late Macedonian +provinces of the Turkish Empire, or in northern Mexico? It is safe to +issue a challenge to all the world to produce an instance, contemporary or +historical, of a country in which property is insecure and in which human +life and human happiness are not still more insecure. On the other hand, +it is difficult to produce an instance of a state in which security of +property has long been established, in which there is not a progressive +sensitiveness about the non-propertied rights of man. It is in the +countries where the sacredness of private property is a fetich, that one +finds recognition of a universal right to education, of a right to +protection against violence and against epidemic disease, of a right to +relief in destitution. These are perhaps meagre rights; but they represent +an expanding category. The right to support in time of illness and in old +age is making rapid progress. The development of such rights is not only +not incompatible with security of property, but it is, in large measure, a +corollary of property security. Personal rights shape themselves upon the +analogy of property rights; they utilize the same channels of thought and +habit. One of the most powerful arguments for "social insurance" is its +very name. Insurance is recognized as an essential to the security of +property; it is therefore easy to make out a case for the application of +the principle to non-propertied claims. + +Some may claim that the security of property has now fulfilled its +mission; that we can safely allow the principle to decay in order to +concentrate our attention upon the task of establishing non-propertied +rights. But let us remember that we are not removed from barbarism by the +length of a universe. The crust of orderly civilization is deep under our +feet: but not six hundred years deep. The primitive fires still smoke on +our Mexican borders and in the Balkans. And blow holes open from time to +time through our own seemingly solid crust--in Colorado, in West Virginia, +in the Copper Country. It is evidently premature to affirm that the +security of property has fulfilled its mission. + + +IX + +The question at issue, is not, however, the rights of property against the +rights of man--or more honestly--the rights of labor. The claims of labor +upon the social income may advance at the expense of the claims of +property. In the institutional struggle between the propertied and the +propertyless, the sympathies of the writer are with the latter party. It +is his hope and belief that an ever increasing share of the social income +will assume the form of rewards for personal effort. + +But this is an altogether different matter from the crushing of one +private property interest after another, in the name of the social welfare +or the social morality. Such detailed attacks upon property interests are, +in the end, to the injury of both social classes. Frequently they amount +to little more than a large loss to one property interest, and a small +gain to another. They increase the element of insecurity in all forms of +property; for who shall say which form is immune from attack? Now it is +the slum tenement, obvious corollary of our social inequalities; next it +may be the marble mansion or gilded hotel, equally obvious corollaries of +the same institutional situation. Now it is the storage of meat that is +under attack; it may next be the storage of flour. The fact is, our mass +of income yielding possessions is essentially an organic whole. The +irreproachable incomes are not exactly what they would be if those subject +to reproach did not exist. If some property incomes are dirty, all +property incomes become turbid. + +The cleansing of property incomes, therefore, is a first obligation of the +institution of property as a whole. The compensation principle throws the +cost of the cleansing upon the whole mass, since, in the last analysis, +any considerable burden of taxation will distribute itself over the mass. +The principle is therefore consonant with justice. What is not less +important, the principle, systematically developed, would go far toward +freeing the legislature from the graceless function of arbitrating between +selfish interests, and the administration from the necessity of putting +down powerful interests outlawed by legislative act. It would give us a +State working smoothly, and therefore an efficient instrument for social +ends. Most important of all, it would promote that security of economic +interests which is essential to social progress. + + + + +A STUBBORN RELIC OF FEUDALISM + + +There is a persistent question regarding the distribution of property +which is of peculiar interest in the season of automobile tours and summer +hotels. Most thinking people acknowledge a good deal of perplexity over +this question, while on most parallel ones they are generally +cock-sure--on whichever is the side of their personal interests. But in +this question the bias of personal interest is not very large, and +therefore it may be considered with more chance of agreement than can the +larger questions of the same class which parade under various disguises. + +The little question is that of tipping. After we have squeezed out of it +such antitoxic serum as we can, we will briefly indicate the application +of it to larger questions. + +Tipping is plainly a survival of the feudal relation, long before the +humbler men had risen from the condition of status to that of contract, +when fixed pay in the ordinary sense was unknown, and where the relation +between servant and master was one of ostensible voluntary service and +voluntary support, was for life, and in its best aspect was a relation of +mutual dependence and kindness. Then the spasmodic payment was, as tips +are now, essential to the upper man's dignity, and very especially to the +dignity of his visitor. This feudal relation survives in England today to +such an extent that poor men refrain from visiting their rich relations +because of the tips. In the great country-houses the tips are expected to +be in gold, at least so I was told some years ago. And in England and out +of it, Don Cesar's bestowal of his last shilling on the man who had served +him, still thrills the audience, at least the tipped portion of it. + +Europe being on the whole less removed from feudal institutions than we +are, tipping is not only more firmly established there, but more +systematized. It is more nearly the rule that servants' places in hotels +are paid for, and they are apt to be dependent entirely upon tips. The +greater wealth of America, on the other hand, and the extravagance of the +_nouveaux riches_, has led in some institutions to more extravagant +tipping than is dreamed of in Europe, and consequently has scattered +through the community a number of servants from Europe who, when here, +receive with gratitude from a foreigner, a tip which they would scorn from +an American. + +In the midst of general relations of contract--of agreed pay for agreed +service, tipping is an anomaly and a constant puzzle. + +It would seem strange, if it were not true of the greater questions of the +same kind, that in the chronic discussion of this one, so little +attention, if any, has been paid to what may be the fundamental line of +division between the two sides--namely, the distinction between ideal +ethics and practical ethics. + +An illustration or two will help explain that distinction: + +First illustration: "Thou shalt not kill" which is ideal ethics in an +ideal world of peace. Practical ethics in the real world are illustrated +in Washington and Lee, who for having killed their thousands, are placed +beside the saints! + +Second illustration: Obey the laws and tell the truth. This is ideal +ethics, which our very legislatures do much to prevent being practical. +For instance; they ignore the fact that in the present state of morality, +taxes on personal property can be collected from virtually nobody but +widows and orphans who have no one to evade the taxes for them. So the +legislatures continue the attempt to tax personal property, and a judge on +the bench says that a man who lies about his personal taxes shall not on +that account be held an unreliable witness in other matters. + +Or to take an illustration less radical: it is not in legal testimony +alone that ideal ethics require everybody to tell the truth, the whole +truth, and nothing but the truth--that the world should have as much truth +as possible; and if the world were perfectly kind, perfectly honest and +perfectly wise (which last involves the first two), that ideal could be +realized. For instance, in our imperfect world a man telling people when +he did not like them, would be constantly giving needless pain and making +needless enemies, whereas in an ideal world--made up of perfect people, +there would be nobody to dislike, or, pardon the Hibernicism, if there +were, the whole truth could be told without causing pain or enmity. Or +again, in a world where there are dishonest people, a man telling +everything about his schemes, would have them run away with by others, +though in an ideal world, where there were no dishonest people, he could +speak freely. In fact, the necessity of reticence in this connection does +not even depend on the existence of dishonesty: for in a world where +people have to look out for themselves, instead of everybody looking out +for everybody else, a man exposing his plans might hurry the execution of +competing plans on the part of perfectly honest people. + +Farther illustration may be sufficiently furnished by the topic in hand. + +In the case of most poor folks other than servants, what to do about it +has lately been pretty distinctly settled: the religion of pauperization +is pretty generally set aside: almsgiving, the authorities on ethics now +generally hold, should be restricted to deserving cases--to people +incapacitated by constitution or circumstance from taking proper care of +themselves. + +Now is tipping almsgiving, and are servants among the deserving classes? + +How many people have asked themselves these simple questions, and how many +who are educated up to habitually refusing alms unless the last of the +questions is affirmatively answered, just as habitually tip servants? + +Is tipping almsgiving? Not in the same sense that alms are given without +any show of anything in return: the servant does something for the tipper. +Yes, but he is paid for it by his employer. True, but only sometimes: at +other times he is only partly paid, depending for the rest on tips; and +sometimes the tips are so valuable that the servant pays his alleged +employer for the opportunity to get them. Yet I know one hotel in Germany, +and probably there are others, there and elsewhere, where the menus and +other stationery bear requests against tipping. But in that one hotel I +know tipping to be as rife as in hotels generally: the customers are not +educated up to the landlord's standard. And here we come to the +fundamental remedy for all questionable practices--the education of the +people beyond them. But this is simply the ideal condition in which ideal +ethics could prevail. Meanwhile we must determine the practical ethics of +the actual world. + +The servant's position is different from that of most other wage-earners, +in that he is in direct contact with the person who is to benefit from his +work. The man who butchers your meat or grinds your flour, you probably +never see; but the man who brushes your clothes or waits on your table, +holds to you a personal relation, and he can do his work so as merely to +meet a necessity, or so as to rise beyond mere necessity into comfort or +luxury. Outside of home servants, the necessity is all that, in the +present state of human nature, his regular stipend is apt to provide; the +comfort or the luxury, the feeling of personal interest, the atmosphere of +promptness and cheerfulness and ease, is apt to respond only to the tip. +Only in the ideal world will it be spontaneous. In the real world it must +be paid for. + +And why should it not be--why is it not as legitimate to pay for having +your wine well cooled or carefully tempered and decanted, as to pay for +the wine itself? The objection apt to be first urged is that it degrades +the servant. But does it? He is not an ideal man in an ideal world, +already doing his best or paid to do his best. You are not degrading him +from any such standard as that, into the lower one of requiring tips: you +are simply taking him as he is. True, if he got no tips, he would not +depend upon them; but without them he would not do all you want him to; +before he will do that, he must be developed into a different man--he must +become a creature of an ideal world. You may in the course of ages develop +him into that, and as you do, he will work better and better, and tips may +grow smaller and smaller, until he does his best spontaneously, and tips +have dwindled to nothing. But to withdraw them now would simply make him +sulky, and lead to his doing worse than now. + +Another objection urged against tips is that they put the rich tipper at +an advantage over the poor one. But the rich man is at an advantage in +nearly everything else, why not here? The idea of depriving him of his +advantages, is rank communism, which destroys the stimulus to energy and +ingenuity that, in the present state of human nature, is needed to keep +the world moving. In an ideal state of human nature, the man with ability +to create wealth may find stimulus enough, as some do to a considerable +extent now, in the delight of distributing wealth for the general good; +but we are considering what is practicable in the present state of human +nature. + +Another aspect of the case, or at least a wider aspect, is the more +sentimental one where the tip is prompted as reciprocation for spontaneous +kindness. + +But in the service of private families, as distinct from service to the +general public or to visitors it is notorious that constant tipping is +ruinous. Occasional holidays and treats and presents at Christmas and on +special occasions are useful, as promoting the general feeling of +reciprocation. But from visitors the tip is generally essential to +ensuring the due meed of respect. Yet we can reasonably imagine a time +when it may not be; and even now, for the casual service of holding a +horse or brushing off the dust, a hearty "thank you" is perhaps on the +whole better than a tip. + +Considering the morality of the question all around--the practical ethics +as well as the ideal, the underlying facts are that no man ought to be a +servant in the servile sense, and indeed no man ought to be poor; and in +an ideal world no man would be one or the other. Just how we are to get a +world without servants or servile people, is perhaps a little more plain +than how we are to get Mr. Bellamy's world without poor people, which, +however, amounts to nearly the same thing. At least we will get a less +servile world, as machinery and organization make service less and less +personal. Bread has long been to a great extent made away from home; much +of the washing is also done away in great laundries, and organizations +have lately been started to call for men's outer clothes, and keep them +cleaned, repaired and pressed. There is a noticeable rise, too, in the +dignity of personal service: witness the college students at the summer +hotels, and the self-respecting Jap in the private family. These +influences are making for the ideal world in relation to service, and +_when_ we get it, no man will take tips, and nobody will offer them. + +But in our stage of evolution, the tip, like the larger prizes, is part of +the general stimulus to the best exertion and the best feeling, and is +therefore legitimate; but it, like every other stimulus, should not be +applied in excess, and the tendency should be to abolish it. The rich man +often is led by good taste and good morals to restrain his expenditure in +many directions, and there are few directions, if any, in which good taste +and good morals more commend the happy medium than in tips. Excess in +them, however, is not always prompted by good nature and generosity and +reciprocation of spontaneous kindness, but often by desire for comfort, +and even by ostentation. But all such promptings require regulation for +the same reason that, it is now becoming generally recognized, the +promptings of even charity itself require regulation. + +The head of one of the leading Fifth Avenue restaurants once said to the +writer, substantially: "We don't like tips: they demoralize our men. But +what can we do about it? We can't stop it, or even keep it within bounds. +Our customers will give them, and people who have too much money or too +little sense, give not only dollar bills or five dollar bills, but fifty +dollar bills and even hundred dollar bills. We have tried to stave off +customers who do such things: we believe that in the long run it would pay +us to; but we can't." + +When all the promptings of liberality or selfishness or ostentation are +well regulated, we will be in the ideal world. Until then, in the actual +world, it is the part of wisdom to regulate ideal ethics by practical +ethics--and tip, but tip temperately. + + * * * * * + +And now to apply our principles to a wider field. + +The ideal is that all men should have what they produce. The ideal is also +that all men should have full shares of the good things of life. These two +ideals inevitably combine into a third--that all men should produce full +shares of the good things of life. But the plain fact is that they +cannot--that no amount of opportunity or appliances will enable the +average day laborer to produce what Mr. Edison or Mr. Hill or even the +average deviser of work and guide of labor does. Then even ideal ethics +cannot say in this actual world: Let both have the same. That would simply +be Robin Hood ethics: rob the man who produces much, and give the plunder +to the man who produces little. Hence comes the disguising of the schemes +to do it, even so that they often deceive their own devisers. What then do +practical ethics say? They can't say anything more than: Help the less +capable to become capable, so that he may produce more. But that is at +least as slow a process as raising the servant beyond the stage of tips. +Meantime the socialists are unwilling to wait, and propose to rob the +present owners of the means of production, and take the control of +industry from the men who manage it now, and put it in the hands of the +men who merely can influence votes. These men certainly are no less +selfish and dishonest than the captains of industry, and are vastly less +able to select the profitable fields of industry, and organize and +economize industry; whatever product they might squeeze out would be +vastly less than now, and it would stick to their own fingers no less than +does what the politicians handle now. Dividing whatever might reach the +people, without reference to those who produced it, could yield the +average man no more than he gets now. That's very simple mathematics. One +of the saddest sights of the day is the number of good people to whom +these facts are not self-evident. + +In no state of human nature that any persons now living, or the grandchild +of any person now living, will witness, could such conditions be +permanent. Their temporary realization might be accomplished; but if it +were, the able men would not be satisfied with either the low grade of +civilization inevitable unless they worked, or with being robbed of the +large share of production that must result from their work. The more +intelligent of the rank and file, too, would rebel against the conditions +inevitably lowering the general prosperity, and they would soon realize +the difference in industrial leadership between "political generals" and +natural generals. Insurrection would follow, and then anarchy, after which +things would start again on their present basis, but some generations +behind. + +But I for one do not expect these experiences, especially in America: for +here probably enough men have already become property holders to make a +sufficient balance of power for the preservation of property. If not, the +first step toward ensuring civilization, is helping enough men to develop +into property holders, and _continue_ property holders, which general +experience declares that they will not unless they develop their property +themselves. + + + + +AN EXPERIMENT IN SYNDICALISM + + +During the last twenty years New Zealand has tried many social and +economic experiments; these experiments have been made by her own +Legislature, and her own people; and as a rule they have been remarkably +successful: during the last few months she has had the experience of a new +one conducted by strangers, and made at her expense. Fortunately there is +reason to believe that this one will be found to have resulted in benefit +to New Zealand and its people, while it may prove of service to older and +larger countries. It is probable that the most widely known of New +Zealand's experiments is that which aimed at doing justice to employers +and employees alike by the substitution for the Industrial strike of a +Court of Arbitration, fairly constituted, on which both Workers and +Employers were equally represented. This law has been branded by the +supporters of the usual Strike policy with the name of "Compulsory +Arbitration," the object being to discredit it in the eyes of the workers, +as an infringement of their liberty. The title is unfair and misleading. +Unlike most laws, it never has been of universal application either to +Workers or Employers, but only to those among them that chose to form +themselves into industrial Unions, and to register those Unions as subject +to the provisions of the Statute. The purpose of the Statute was an appeal +to the common sense of the people, by offering them an alternative method +of settling disputes and securing that fair-play for both parties which +experience had shown could seldom be secured by the strike. The law, which +was first introduced in 1894, had gradually appealed both to workers and +employers, as worth trying, and before the close of the last century it +had rendered the country prosperous, and had attracted the attention of +thoughtful people in many other parts of the world to the "Country Without +Strikes." Efforts were made in several countries to introduce the +principle of the New Zealand Statute, but with very little success, as it +was generally opposed both by workers and employers:--the workers feeling +confident they could obtain greater concessions by the forceful methods of +the strike, and the employers suspecting that any Court of Arbitration +would be likely to give the workers more than, without arbitration, they +could compel the employers to surrender. + +In the mean time the statutory substitute for the strike continued to +succeed in New Zealand. Nearly every class of town workers, and some in +the country, had formed Unions, and registered them under the arbitration +law. With a single trifling exception, that was speedily put an end to by +the punishment of the Union with the alternative of heavy fine or +imprisonment, the country was literally as well as nominally a country +without a strike. And it was something more than that: its prosperity +increased year by year, and its production of goods--agricultural, +pastoral, and manufactured--increased at a pace unequalled elsewhere. Yet +the prosperity was most apparent in its effect on the conditions of the +workers: under the successive awards of the arbitration court, wages had +steadily increased until they had reached a point as high as in similar +trades in America, while the cost of living was very little more than half +the rate in any town in the United States. To all intelligent observers +these facts were evident, and could not be concealed from the workers in +other countries, especially in Australia, as the nearest geographically to +New Zealand and commercially the most closely connected. + +The effect, however, on the workers of Australia was not what might have +been expected. Attempts had been made by some of the State Legislatures to +introduce arbitration laws more or less like the New Zealand statute, but +with very partial success. From the first these laws were opposed by the +leaders of the Labor Unions, who naturally saw a menace to their influence +in the fact that they became subject to punishment if they attempted to +use their accustomed powers over their fellow unionists. The example of +New Zealand was lauded in the Australian Legislatures and newspapers, and +even in the courts, till at last a feeling of strong antagonism was +developed among the more advanced class of socialistic Labor men, and it +was decided by their leaders to undertake a campaign in the neighboring +Dominion against the system of settling industrial questions by courts, +and in favor of substituting the system of strikes, with their attendant +power and profit to the Labor leaders. The first steps taken were sending +men from Australia or England on lecturing tours through New Zealand, to +create dissatisfaction with the Arbitration Courts by representing them as +leaning to the side of the employers, and ignoring the claims of the +workers. When this had gone on for about a year, workers of various +classes were induced to cross from Australia, and join the Unions in New +Zealand, for the purpose of influencing their fellow unionists to +disloyalty towards the system under which they were registered. These men +were generally competent workers and clever agitators, and many of them +soon obtained prominence and official position in the Unions. As was +natural, a good many of these new-comers were miners--either for coal or +gold--and many of them joined the miners' union at the great gold mine +known as the Waihi, from which upwards of thirty million dollars worth of +gold had been dug, and which was still yielding between three and four +million dollars a year. There were nearly a thousand miners employed +there, and all of them were members of a Union that was duly registered +under the Arbitration statute. + +There had been several questions in dispute between the miners and the +owners, and these had been referred to the Arbitration Court some time +before the arrival of the new Australian miners. The result, while it +favored the Union in some respects, favored the Company in others, and +this fact was used by the new-comers to convince the older hands that the +Court had been unfair, and that they could secure much better terms for +themselves if they would cease work, and so inflict immense loss by +permitting the lower levels of the mine to become flooded. After a few +months the Union decided to take advantage of the provision of the law +which enabled any registered Union to withdraw its registration at six +months' notice. When the time had expired, the Union repeated the demand +which had been refused by the Court, and on the refusal of the Company to +agree, a strike was at once declared, and the whole of the miners ceased +work. This had the effect, within a very short time, of rendering all the +deeper levels of the mine unworkable. Close to the mine was a prosperous +little town occupied chiefly by the miners and their families, most of the +houses being the property of the mining company, and the men continued to +occupy the houses while the strike was in progress. Other miners were +found who were ready to take their places, but the men in possession +refused to move out, and threatened with violence any miners that should +attempt to work the mine. The men who had been prepared to work, finding +this to be the position, withdrew. As there was no actual violence shown, +there seemed to be a difficulty in the way of any interference by the +Government: so several months passed, during which the mine lay idle while +the miners on strike continued to occupy the houses and pay the very +moderate rents demanded from employees of the company. This they were able +to do partly from their savings, partly from the sympathetic contributions +from Australia, and partly by some of the miners having scattered over the +country and got work on the farms, and throwing their earnings into the +common fund. + +After repeated appeals by the mine-owners to the Government, an +arrangement was made that the Company should employ miners willing to +become members of a new Union registered under the Arbitration statute, +and that the Government should send a police force sufficient to protect +these in working the mine, and also to enforce the judgment of the local +court in dispossessing the occupants of the houses belonging to the +Company. An attempt was made by the strikers to defy this police force and +prevent the new Union from working the mine; but when most of the new +unionists had been sworn in as special constables, and a number of the +militant strikers had been arrested, the others saw that they could not +continue the struggle, and within a week or two abandoned the district, +giving place to the members of the arbitration Union in both the mine and +town. + +Thus the first strike organized by the "Federation of Labor" in New +Zealand resulted in a failure, but the miners thus defeated and driven +from the little town that had been their home, in many cases for a good +many years, were naturally embittered by their failure, and became an +element of mischief in other districts, and especially in the coal mines, +to which they turned when they found it hard to obtain employment in any +of the gold mines. + +The Australian Federation of Labor and its branch in New Zealand fully +appreciated the fact that their first attempt to establish a system of +Unionism opposed to the one recognized by the law, having proved a +failure, it was necessary either to give up the attempt altogether or to +make it more deliberately and on a much wider scale. The method they +adopted was one that did credit to their foresight and determination. The +Australian Federation is, and has always been, highly socialistic in its +policy, and latterly its leaders have adopted and preached syndicalism, as +promising to give the workers the control of society. New Zealand, alone +among self-governing countries, having struck at the very root of their +policy by trying to substitute a statute and a Court for the will of the +associated workers, was a very tempting country for syndicalism. An island +country which, owing to climate and soil, was specially suited for the +production of all kinds of agricultural wealth beyond the needs of its own +people, must depend on free access to the ports of other countries. This, +it seemed plain, could be prevented by well managed syndicalism. It would +be only necessary to organize the seamen who worked the vessels that kept +the smaller harbors of such a country in touch with the larger ports at +which the ocean going ships loaded and unloaded; and to organize also the +stevedores at the larger ports. The bitterness of feeling that had +followed the destruction of the Waihi Union, and the loss to its members +not only of a good many months of good wages but of the homes they and +their families had occupied for years, was a valuable asset in such a +campaign. At first, of course, some of the working classes blamed the +agents of "The Federation of Labor" who were responsible for the +disastrous strike, but it was not difficult to turn attention from the +past failure of a single strike, to the certain success that must attend a +great syndical strike that would involve all the industries of the +country. Most, indeed nearly all, of the disappointed Waihi strikers were +ready to join with enthusiasm in carrying out the plans of The Federation, +and removed to the places where they could be most effective in preparing +the way for what they looked upon as a great revenge. Thus they either +joined the old Unions at the principal ports, especially Auckland and +Wellington, or formed new Unions, no longer registered under the +Arbitration statute, but openly affiliated to The Federation of Labor, +which had been established in New Zealand, but was really a branch of the +Australian Federation. The four principal ports of New Zealand, indeed the +only ports much frequented by the large export and import vessels, are +Auckland, Wellington, Lyttleton, and Dunedin, the two first named being in +the north island, and the other two in the south. Auckland is considerably +the largest city in The Dominion, containing at least 25,000 more +inhabitants than Wellington, which is not only the capital of the +Dominion, but also the great distributing centre for the South island and +the southern part of the North island, at the southern extremity of which +it is situated. The remarkable situation of Auckland, on a very narrow +isthmus about a hundred and eighty miles from the northern point of the +country, is no doubt largely responsible for the growth of the city, which +is the chief centre of the young manufactures of the Dominion, and the +largest port of export for almost all the country produces, except wool +and mutton, which are mainly raised in the South island. Thus it happens +that Auckland and Wellington are at present the chief shipping ports of +the Dominion, and it was to them that the Federation of Labor turned its +chief attention when its leaders had definitely decided to undertake the +campaign of syndicalism against the system of arbitration which had +prevailed for sixteen years. + +There had already been formed Unions of Waterside Workers and Seamen at +each of these ports; but they were in all cases registered under the +arbitration law, and of course subject to its penalties against both +officials and members in cases of any breach of the statute. The +Federation's agents proceeded to collect the members of these unions who +were in any way dissatisfied with the existing awards of the Arbitration +Courts, and to form them into new Unions outside the statute. They had +little difficulty in persuading the men that the new Unions would be free +to act in many directions that were barred to the members of the old +Unions. A good many of the men were thus persuaded to resign their +membership in the existing Unions, and as they were very often the most +active members, they gradually persuaded others to leave with them. There +was nothing either in the law or custom of the ports to prevent unionists +and non-unionists working together on the wharves or the coasting vessels; +so within a comparatively short time the members of the new Federation +Unions were more numerous than those that clung to the older ones. When +this became the case, the officials of the new Unions approached the +shipping companies with proposals for an agreement between them and the +Federation Unions in some respects more favorable to the employers than +the arbitration award under which the older Unions were working, and in +this way gained a position which enabled them to undermine the old Unions, +till they either died out for want of members or withdrew their +registration, and at the end of their six months' notice merged their +Unions in those of The Federation. The Federation's plans had been so +carefully prepared that there was little or no suspicion on the part of +the employers or of the public generally as to the true meaning of the +movement. It was evident, of course, that it indicated a revolt against +the arbitration law, but as the new unions appeared ready to give the +employers rather better terms than the old ones, many reasons were found +by employers for defending what began to be called the "Free Unions." In +this way things had gone on at the shipping ports for about two years from +the failure of the gold miners' strike at Waihi, before anything happened +to open the eyes of the public to the real meaning of what The Federation +of Labor had been doing. In that time the new Unions at each of the +principal ports of the country had quietly obtained the entire control of +the hands at waterside and local shipping, as well as of the Carters +Unions. The time had arrived when the syndicalists believed themselves +able to compel the public to submit to any demands they might see fit to +make. + +The occasion finally arose, as might have been expected, at Wellington, +where the Federation of Labor had established its head-quarters. There was +no definite dispute between the employers and workers, but for a few weeks +there had been an uneasy feeling in relation to the Waterside Workers who, +it was said, were growing more lazy and slovenly in handling cargo on the +wharves and piers. A meeting had been called by The Federation to discuss +some grievances of the coal miners at Westport, from which most of the +coal landed in Wellington is brought. The meeting was called for the noon +dinner hour, and a number of the waterside workers engaged in discharging +cargo from a steamer about to sail, at once went to the meeting, and did +not return to work in the afternoon. The shipping company at once engaged +other men to finish their work, and when the men came back some hours +later, they found their places filled up. The new men belonged to the same +Union, but the men dispossessed demanded that the new ones should be +dismissed at once. When the company refused the demand, the men appealed +to the Council of the Federation, who at once called on the Waterside +Workers and Seamens Unions at Wellington to cease work. Within a few days +the position looked so serious that the Premier invited both parties to a +conference, at which he presided in person, in the hope of bringing about +an agreement to refer the matters in dispute to an arbitrator to be +mutually agreed upon. The officials of The Federation, however, said there +was nothing to submit to an arbitrator: they had made a demand, and unless +it was complied with by the shipping company and the Union of merchants at +Wellington who were in league with the Company in victimizing the men who +took part in the meeting in aid of the Coal-miners, the strike must go on. +The Merchants and Shipping Company's Unions pointed out that what had been +done was in direct opposition to the terms of the formal agreement signed +less than a year before, and they refused to have anything more to do with +the Federation on any terms. The conference thus ended in an open +declaration of war. The time had evidently come for the Federation of +Labor to make good the assertions so often made by its lecturers and +agitators, of its power to force the rest of the community to submission. +It would be difficult to imagine a more favorable position for carrying +such a policy into effect: New Zealand, it must be borne in mind, is a +country without an army. For some years past, it is true, a system of +military training for all her young men between eighteen and twenty-five +has been enforced by law, but except for training purposes, there is no +military force in the Dominion, either of regulars or militia; and it is +now forty-five years since the last company of British soldiers left its +shores. Law has been maintained, and order enforced, by a police force +under the control of the Government of the Dominion, and while the force +is undoubtedly a good and trustworthy one, its numbers have never been +large in proportion to the population. This year the entire force +throughout the country is very little more than 850, which includes +officers as well as men. It can hardly be wondered at that the officials +of The Federation of Labor were convinced that, if they could arrange a +general strike of the workers, the police force would be powerless to deal +with it. On the failure of the attempt of the Premier to bring about a +settlement between the parties by arbitration, the Federation proclaimed a +general strike of all Unions affiliated to themselves throughout the +country, and of all other Unions that were in sympathy with them in their +policy of giving united Labor the control of society. The order to cease +work was at once obeyed, as a matter of course, by all the Federation +Unions, which practically meant all the workers engaged on vessels +registered in the Dominion and trading on the coast, all workers on +wharves and piers, carters in the cities, and coal miners throughout the +country. The appeal for sympathetic assistance from Unions unconnected +with the Federation was largely successful in the chief centres, though it +was, of course, a direct defiance of the arbitration law under which they +were registered. It has since been discovered that in nearly every case it +was brought about by the unprincipled scheming of the secretaries, +assisted by a few of the officials, who called meetings, of which notice +was given only to a selected minority, and at which the question of +joining a sympathetic strike was settled by a large majority of those +present, but in fact in many cases a small minority of the whole +membership. The sympathetic strike of Arbitration Unions was mainly +confined to the cities, and Auckland, as the largest city, was the most +affected by it. In Auckland the members of practically every Union ceased +work, somewhere about ten thousand persons going on strike simultaneously. + +The result during the first days of the strike seemed likely to confirm +the expectations of the Federation orators. Industry was practically dead. +At every port vessels lay at anchor, having been withdrawn from the +wharves before they were deserted by their crews, and the wharves were in +the possession of the Waterside strikers. The streets of the cities were +empty, and a large proportion of the stores were closed, partly owing to +want of business, and partly from fear of violence in case they kept open. +These first few days in both New Zealand and Australia were days of +triumph for the Federation leaders but the triumph was a short-lived one. +The Government of the Dominion did not interfere, indeed, but the public, +through their municipal authorities, did. The people of New Zealand have +throughout their history been accustomed to manage their own affairs, and +within four days of the declaration of war by the syndical Federation, +steps were taken to meet the emergency. At Auckland and Wellington it had +been evident from the first that the small police force available could +not safely attempt to cope with the main body of strikers, or do more than +prevent acts of aggressive violence to the citizens and their property. +The local authorities, however, had confidence in the general public, and +at Auckland, and afterwards at Wellington, the Mayor of the city appealed +to the public to come forward as volunteers to maintain law and order, by +acting as Special Constables. In both cities the appeal was responded to +readily, nearly two thousand young men coming forward at Auckland in +twenty-four hours, and upwards of a thousand at Wellington. These were at +once sworn in as special constables, and armed with serviceable batons, +while all the fire-arms and ammunition for sale in the city was taken +charge of and withdrawn from sale by the municipal authorities. In this +way the maintenance of order was fairly provided for, and the temporary +closing of all licensed hotels by order of the city magistrates removed +the danger of riot as the result of intemperance. + +There had been some rioting in Wellington, though with little serious +injury, but there was nothing that could be called a riot in Auckland. The +Federation Unions waited, under the impression that time was on their +side, owing to the impossibility of doing anything or getting anything +done without the help of the associated workers. This had been the basis +of their scheme, but like all such schemes it failed to take into account +the instinct of self-preservation on the part of the people outside the +Unions. As long as the strike leaders could point to the fleet of vessels +lying idle in the harbor, the mills silent, and the street railroads +without a moving car, and almost deserted by carts, it was easy for them +to persuade their followers that complete victory was only a matter of +days, or at most of weeks; they had not remembered that there were others +besides themselves and their fellow townsmen interested in the question of +a paralyzed industry. The trade that has been making the people of New +Zealand increasingly rich during the last twenty years has been mainly +derived from the land. Small holdings and close settlement have been the +rule, and the rate of production has been increasingly rapid. The +exports--mainly the produce of the land--have grown in proportions quite +unknown in any other country, and the farmers knew that the prosperity of +the country, and most directly of all the workers on the land, depended on +the freedom and facilities for shipment of their ports. It was the workers +on the land, accordingly, that came to the rescue, and solved the +industrial problem. An offer was made by the President of The Farmers' +Cooperative Union to bring a sufficient number of the members into the +cities to work the shipping and to prevent any interruption of the work by +the men on strike. The offer was at once accepted by the municipal +authorities at Auckland and Wellington, and within two days fully eighteen +hundred mounted farmers rode into Auckland, and nearly a thousand into +Wellington, all prepared to carry on the work and protect the workers. +Their arrival practically settled the question. New Waterside Unions were +formed at every port, and registered under the provisions of the +Arbitration Statute; such of the country workers as were able to do so, +enrolled themselves as members of the new Unions; the wharves and water +fronts were taken possession of and guarded by the special constables +enlisted in the cities, while the streets were patrolled by parties of the +mounted volunteers. Within twenty-four hours of their arrival, some of the +vessels in harbor had been brought to the wharves, and the work of +unloading them was begun. + +At first there were many threats of violent opposition on the part of the +strikers, and crowds assembled in the principal streets and in the +neighborhood of the wharves; but these were dispersed before they became +dangerous, by the mounted constables, and a proclamation having been +issued by the mayor calling attention to the fact that collections of +people that obstructed traffic in the streets were contrary to law, the +police and mounted constables cleared the streets, and forcibly arrested +any persons who attempted opposition. Within two or three days, at each of +the principal cities, new Unions of seamen and of carters had been formed +and registered under the arbitration law, and those members of the old +Federation Unions who were not enthusiastic, and began to see that the +assurances of success were not likely to be realized, began to resign and +apply for admission to the new Unions. After about two weeks the Council +of The Federation of Labor, recognizing the failure of the sympathetic +strike, invited the Unions that were not connected with them to declare +the strike at an end, and tried by confining the strike to their own +members, to maintain a solid front, which, with the help of the Australian +Federation both in money for the strikers and in refusing to handle any +goods either from or for New Zealand, they still hoped would carry them to +at least a compromise, if not to the victory they had expected. The hopes +of the Federation of Labor were not realized. Within a week or two a large +proportion of the members of their own Unions, seeing their places filled, +and their work being done, not by free labor, which they might hope to +deal with, but by new Unions, whose members would be entitled, under the +arbitration law, to preference and many other privileges, began to desert +and to seek admission to the Arbitration Unions that had taken their +place. For a time this was fiercely denied by the Federation officials, +but as the days went on, and business of every kind was resumed in the +cities, the groups of strikers at street corners and around the Federation +head-quarters dwindled away; the hotels were reopened, the shops and +stores were busy, the mills were at work, and even the coastal steamers +were manned and running, and the federationists were forced to admit that +they were hopelessly defeated. For a time they still hoped that the +Australian Boycott might save them from absolute disaster, and the Labor +Ministry of New South Wales tried to help the Federation by making an +appeal to the New Zealand Government to arrange an arbitration to settle +the dispute between The Wellington Waterside Workers and the merchants and +shipping companies. The absolute refusal of the New Zealand Government to +recognize The Federation of Labor, or to interfere with the new Unions +under the Arbitration Act that had taken their place, finally settled the +question, and completed the defeat of the strikers. The officials of the +Federation declared the strike at an end, and the Australian Federation +announced that the boycott was also at an end. + + * * * * * + +At first sight it may seem that, after all, the experiment in syndicalism +was on a small scale, and that its lesson can hardly be of great value to +a country like America. A little consideration may correct such a +misapprehension. New Zealand was deliberately selected by the Syndicalists +as a test case, for two reasons. In the first place it was the only +country that had for years adopted a policy of justice according to law +for both workers and employers, and from the syndicalist's point of view +it was therefore the only country that seriously attacked their own policy +by showing that it was unnecessary. In the second place New Zealand was +the only country with a population of British origin that could be dealt +with practically by itself. With the aid of an Australian boycott it +seemed as if her people must be helpless in the hands of the Federation. +The result proved to be not only the defeat of the principle of lawless +syndicalism, but the destruction of the industrial association that +represented it in the country. No compromise was accepted, and except it +may be in name, no Union attached to the Federation of Labor remains at +work. The question, of course, suggests itself: What was the reason? Minor +reasons may be found, no doubt, to account for failure where success was +so confidently expected; but there can be little doubt that the real cause +is the policy pursued by the Legislature and people of New Zealand for the +last twenty years. Syndicalism, like all plans for the over turn, or +reform, as their advocates would perhaps prefer to call it, of existing +institutions, depends for success on the existence of wrongs by which part +of the people is impoverished, while another, and very small part, has +more than enough. The workers of our own race, at any rate, have enough +common-sense to understand, at least when they are not hysterically +excited, that imaginary wrongs are not a sufficient reason for great +sacrifices. New Zealand's legislation has not created an ideal society, it +is true; but for twenty years it has proceeded step by step in the +direction of righting the wrongs of the past, and giving opportunity to +that part of its people that needed it most, on the single condition that +they would use it, and respect the rights of others. To such a people, +increasing steadily, year by year, in all that makes for well-being, the +wild denunciations, and if possible wilder promises, of paid agitators can +have little attraction. It may be possible by careful generalship to stir +a small section of such a people to the hysterical excitement of an +industrial war, but the mass of the people would be certain to resent it, +and the movement will be doomed to a speedy collapse. + +Other countries have been less enlightened and less fortunate than New +Zealand in their legislation, and perhaps still less fortunate in the +administration of the laws passed for the betterment of the masses of +their people. They have done little to convince the great majority that +they are aware of the wrongs that have been done that majority in the +supposed interest of the small class of the over rich. They have not +provided opportunity for those who hitherto have had none, nor have they +even provided a reasonable alternative for industrial warfare. Had they +done these things in the past, or were they even to begin honestly to +provide for them in the future, they might confidently expect that the +reign of industrial warfare, which exasperates their people, and retards +the prosperity of their nation, would be as easily and effectually +suppressed as the experiment of the Syndicalists has just been in New +Zealand. + + + + +LABOR: "TRUE DEMAND" AND IMMIGRANT SUPPLY + +A RESTATEMENT OF THE ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF IMMIGRATION POLICY + + +Recent historians and economists have been showing that it was anything +but pure and unadulterated sense of brotherhood that prompted many of our +forefathers' fine speeches about opening the doors of America to the +down-trodden and oppressed of Europe. Emerson, fifty years ago, in his +essay on _Fate_ noted the current exploitation of the immigrant: "The +German and Irish millions, like the Negro, have a great deal of guano in +their destiny. They are ferried over the Atlantic, and carted over +America, to ditch and to drudge, to make corn cheap, and then to lie down +prematurely to make a spot of green grass on the prairie." Indeed it would +not be hard to show that there was always a real or potential social +surplus back of our national hospitality to the alien. + +The process began long before our great nineteenth century era of +industrial expansion. Colonial policies with regard to the immigrant +varied according to latitude and longitude. Most of the New England +colonies viewed the foreigner with distrust as a menace to Puritan +theocracy. New York, Pennsylvania, and some of the Southern colonies were +much more hospitable, for economic reasons. That this hospitality +sometimes resembled that of the spider to the fly is evident from +observations of contemporary writers. That it included whites as well as +negroes in its ambiguous welcome is equally evident. + +John Woolman writes in his _Journal_ (1741-2): "In a few months after I +came here my master bought several Scotchmen as servants, from on board a +vessel, and brought them to Mount Holly to sell." Isaac Weld, traveling in +the United States in the last decade of the eighteenth century, noted +methods of securing aliens in the town of York, Pennsylvania: "The +inhabitants of this town as well as those of Lancaster and the adjoining +country consist principally of Dutch and German immigrants and their +descendants. Great numbers of these people emigrate to America every year +and the importation of them forms a very considerable branch of commerce. +They are for the most part brought from the Hanse towns and Rotterdam. The +vessels sail thither from America laden with different kinds of produce +and the masters of them on arriving there entice as many of these people +on board as they can persuade to leave their native country, without +demanding any money for their passages. When the vessel arrives in America +an advertisement is put into the paper mentioning the different kinds of +people on board whether smiths, tailors, carpenters, laborers, or the like +and the people that are in want of such men flock down to the vessel. +These poor Germans are then sold to the highest bidder and the captain of +the vessel or the ship holder puts the money into his pocket." + +These may be, it is true, extreme cases of the economic motive for +immigration. But they are quite in line with eighteenth century +Mercantilist economic philosophy. Josiah Tucker, for example, in his +_Essay on Trade_, 1753, urges the encouragement of immigration from +France, and cites the value of Huguenot refugees. "Great was the outcry +against them at their first coming. Poor England would be ruined! +Foreigners encouraged! And our own people starving! This was the popular +cry of the times. But the looms in Spittle-Fields, and the shops on +Ludgate-Hill have at last sufficiently taught us another lesson ... these +_Hugonots_ have ... partly got, and partly saved, in the space of fifty +years, a balance in our favour of, at least, fifty millions sterling.... +And as England and France are rivals to each other, and competitors in +almost all branches of commerce, every single manufacturer so coming over, +would be our gain, and a double loss to France." + +The obverse side of the case appears in British hindrances to the free +emigration of artisans during the eighteenth and early nineteenth +centuries. Laws forbade any British subject who had been employed in the +manufacture of wool, cotton, iron, brass, steel, or any other metal, of +clocks, watches, etc., or who might come under the general denomination of +artificer or manufacturer, to leave his own country for the purpose of +residing in a foreign country out of the dominion of His Britannic +Majesty. Recall the difficulty early American manufacturers encountered in +introducing new English improvements in cotton manufacture; a virtual +embargo was laid upon the migration of either men or machinery. Recall, +too, an expression of American resentment in our Declaration of +Independence at this English attitude: "He has endeavored to prevent the +population of these states; for that purpose, obstructing the laws for +naturalization of foreigners, refusing to pass others to encourage +migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of +lands." + +On the whole, the economic motive seems to have been uppermost in the +minds of both those who fostered and those who opposed foreign immigration +into the United States, up to, say, 1870. Likewise in perhaps more than +ninety-nine of every hundred cases the economic motive holds in the mind +of the present day immigrant, or his protagonist. Escape from political +tyranny or religious persecution, at least since the revolutionary period +of 1848, has operated only as a secondary motive. The industrial impulse +is all the more striking in the so-called "new immigration" from the +Mediterranean and South-Eastern Europe. The temporary migrant laborer, the +"bird of passage," roams about seeking his fortunes in much the same +spirit that certain Middle Age Knights or Crusades camp followers sought +theirs. This is in no way to his discredit. It is simply a fact that we +are to reckon with when called upon to work out a satisfactory immigration +policy. At least its recognition would eliminate a good deal of wordy +sentimentality from discussions of the immigration problem. + +Professor Fairchild discovered that three things attract the Greek +immigrant. First and foremost, financial opportunities. Second, corollary +to the first, citizenship papers which will enable him to return to +Turkey, there to carry on business under the greater protection which such +citizenship confers. There is a hint here to the effect that mere +naturalization does not mean assimilation and permanent acceptance of the +status and responsibilities of American citizenship. Third, enjoyment of +certain more or less factitious "comforts of civilization." + +But the Greeks are by no means untypical. The conclusion of the +Immigration Commission as to the causes of the new immigration is that +while "social conditions affect the situation in some countries, the +present immigration from Europe to the United States is in the largest +measure due to economic causes. It should be stated, however, that +emigration from Europe is not now an absolute economic necessity, and as a +rule those who emigrate to the United States are impelled by a desire for +betterment rather than by the necessity of escaping intolerable +conditions. This fact should largely modify the natural incentive to treat +the immigration movement from the standpoint of sentiment, and permit its +consideration primarily as an economic problem. In other words, the +economic and social welfare of the United States should now ordinarily be +the determining factor in the immigration policy of the Government." + +This delimitation of the immigration problem to its economic aspects led +the Immigration Commission to recommend a somewhat restrictionist policy. +That they were not without warrant in so delimiting it is evident from the +utterances of such ardent opponents of restriction as Dr. Peter Roberts +and Max J. Kohler. The latter, writing in the _American Economic Review_ +(March, 1912) said: "In fact, the immigrant laborer is indispensable to +our economic progress today, and we can rely upon no one else to build our +houses, railroads and subways, and mine our ores for us." Dr. Roberts' +plea is almost identical. + +What a glaring misconception of the whole economic and social problem is +here involved will appear if we add a clause or two to Mr. Kohler's +sentence. He should have said: "We can rely upon no one else to build our +houses, railroads and subways, and mine our ores for us _at $455 a year; +for workers of native birth but of foreign fathers would cost us $566, and +native born White Americans $666 a year_." (See Abstracts of Rep. of +Immigr. Comm. vol. i., pp. 405-8.) These are the facts. This is the social +situation as it should be stated if a candid discussion of the problem is +sought. + +Now what are the economic arguments for restricting somewhat the tide of +immigration? Several studies of standards of living among American +workingmen within the past ten years have shown that a large proportion of +American wage earners fall below a minimum efficiency standard. Studies of +American wages indicate that only a little over ten per cent of American +wage earners receive enough to maintain an average family in full social +efficiency. The average daily wage for the year ranges from $1.50 to $2. +One-half of all American wage earners get less than $600 a year; +three-quarters less than $750; only one-tenth more than $1,000. + +Take in connection with these wage figures the statistics for +unemployment. The proportion of idleness to work ranges from one-third in +mining industries to one-fifth in other industries. In Massachusetts, +1908, manufacturers were unemployed twelve per cent of the working time. +Professor Streightoff estimated three years ago that the average annual +loss in this country through unemployment is 1,000,000 years of working +time. Perhaps one-tenth of working time might be taken as a very +conservative general average loss. But the worst feature of the whole +problem is that, in certain industries at least, the tendency to seasonal +unemployment is increasing. Ex-Commissioner Neill in his report on the +Lawrence strike said: "... it is a fact that the tendency in many lines of +industry, including textiles, is to become more and more seasonal and to +build to meet maximum demands and competitive trade conditions more +effectively. This necessarily brings it about that a large number of +employes are required for the industry during its period of maximum +activity who are accordingly of necessity left idle during the period of +slackness." (Senate Document 870, 62d Cong., 2d sess., 1912.) + +If we recall still further that the casual laborer, who suffers most from +seasonal unemployment, is the chief stumbling block in the way to a +solution of the problem of poverty; that he furnishes the human power in +"sweated trades:" that immigrants form the majority of unskilled and +sweated laborers; if we remember that there is not a shred of evidence +(except the well-meant enthusiasm of the protagonists of the immigrant) to +show that immigration has "forced-up" the American laborer and his +standard of living, instead of displacing him downward; if we remember +that probably 10,000,000 of our people are in poverty, and that though the +immigrant may not seek charity in any larger proportions than the poor of +native stock, yet he does contribute heavily to our burden of relief for +dependents and defectives: we are justified in assuming that an analysis +of the causes of poverty confirms the evidence from studies of wages and +standards of living as to the depressing effect of the new immigration, in +particular, upon working conditions for the American laborer. + +Consider, too, the question of "social surplus." Several American +economists, among them Professors Hollander, Patten and Devine, agree that +we are creating annually in the United States a substantial social +surplus. But it is evident from the figures of wages and standards of +living quoted above that the American laborer is not participating as he +might expect to participate in this economic advantage. Three factors +conspire against him. First, we have yet no adequate machinery for +determining exactly what the surplus is, or how to distribute it +equitably. Mr. Babson with his "composite statistical charts" has made a +beginning in the mathematical determination of prosperity; but it is only +a beginning. Second, organized labor is not yet sufficiently organized nor +sufficiently self-conscious to perceive and demand its opportunity for a +larger share. The significant point here is that recent immigration has +hampered and hindered the development of labor organizations, and thus +indirectly held back the normal tendency of wages to rise. Third, +inadequate education, particularly economic and social education. The +adult illiterate constitutes a tremendous educational problem. Over 35 per +cent of the "new immigration" of 1913 was illiterate, and this new +immigration included over two-thirds of the total. Ignorance prevents the +laborer from demanding the very education that would give him a better +place in the economic system; it hinders the play of intelligent +self-interest; and it actually prevents effective labor-organization, +which is one of the surest means of labor-education. Jenks and Lauck, +after experience with the Immigration Commission, concluded that "the fact +that recent immigrants are usually of non-English speaking races, and +their high degree of illiteracy, have made their absorption by the labor +organizations very slow and expensive. In many cases, too, the conscious +policy of the employers of mixing the races in different departments and +divisions of labor, in order, by a diversity of tongues, to prevent +concerted action on the part of employes, has made unionization of the +immigrant almost impossible." + +For these reasons, and others, we are driven to the conclusion that future +policies of immigration must be based on sound principles of social +welfare and social economy, and not upon the economic advantage of certain +special industries. Whether we want the brawn of the immigrant must be +determined by what it will contribute to the general social surplus, and +not by what it adds to A's railroads or B's iron mines. + +We are told that the three classes of our population demanding +unrestricted immigration are large employers of unskilled labor, +transportation companies, and revolutionary anarchists. Since this is by +definition an economic and not a philosophical question, we may neglect +the third class. To the other two classes should be directed certain brief +tests of economic good faith. Take at its face value their claim that +European brawn by the ship-load is indispensable to American industry. It +is becoming an accepted maxim that industry should bear its own charges, +should pay its own way. American industry has long fought the +contract-labor exclusion feature in current immigration law. Suppose we +frankly admit that it is much better for the immigrant to come over here +to a definite job than to wander about for weeks after he arrives, a prey +to immigrant banks, fake employment agents, and other sharks. Suppose, +accordingly, we repeal the laws against contract-labor. Let the employer +contract for as many foreign laborers as he likes or says he needs. But +make the contractor liable for support and deportation costs if the +laborers become public charges. Also require him to assume the cost of +unemployment insurance. Exact a bond for the faithful performance of these +terms, guaranteed in somewhat the same way that National Banks are +safeguarded. Immigration authorities now commonly require a bond from the +relatives of admitted aliens who seem likely to become public charges, but +who are allowed to enter with the benefit of the doubt. Customs and +revenue rules admit dutiable goods in bond. Hence the principle of the +bond is perfectly familiar, and its application to contract-immigrants +would be in no sense an untried or dangerous experiment. It would +establish no new precedent: for precedents, and successful ones, are +already established, accepted and approved. It would be understood that +all admissions of aliens can be only provisional, with no time limit on +deportation. It would be understood further--and the plan would work +automatically if the contractor were made such a deeply interested +party--that intending immigrants must be rigidly inspected, that they be +required to produce consular certificates of clean police record, freedom +from chronic disease, insanity, etc. + +The result of such a scheme would probably cut away entirely +contract-labor; for it would not longer pay. But this does not mean +barring the gate to all foreign labor. As an aid to the employer and to +our own native workingman, we must, sooner or later, and the sooner the +better, establish a chain of labor bureaus throughout the Union. The +system must be placed under Federal direction, largely because the +Department of Labor would be charged, _ex officio_, with ascertaining the +"true demand" for immigrant labor, and it could only accomplish this end +effectively through such an employment clearing system. This true demand +would, of course, be based not only upon mere numerical excess of calls +for labor over demands for jobs, but would also take into account the +nature of the work, working conditions, and above all the prevailing level +of wages. According to this true demand the Department would adjust a +sliding scale of admissions of immigrant laborers. + +Much might be said in favor of an absolute embargo upon all immigration +until such a body as the Industrial Relations Commission has time to make +an authoritative economic survey of the whole country, or until the +Unemployment Research Commission recently called for by Miss Kellor could +make the three years' study contemplated by her as the only way out of the +unemployment morass. Twenty years ago men of the type of General Walker +frankly urged that the immigration gates be closed for a flat period of +ten years or so. But the sliding scale plan contemplates no such radical +step. Indeed it is radical in no sense whatever. The proposed immigration +act now before Congress (The Burnett Bill, H.R. 6060) paves the way for +it, and provides a working principle, which apparently is accepted on all +sides. Section 3 includes this clause: "That skilled labor, if otherwise +admissible, may be imported if labor of like kind unemployed can not be +found in this country, and the question of the necessity of importing such +skilled labor in any particular instance may be determined by the +Secretary of Labor...." A really workable test for immigration, superior +by far to the literacy test or any other so far suggested, might easily be +developed by simply enlarging the scope of this clause, making it include +unskilled as well as skilled labor. No machinery other than that +contemplated by the present act would be required. + +The immigration problem can never be satisfactorily handled until we fix +upon some such means of determining just what the economic need is. There +is no danger of hindering legitimate industrial expansion in times of +sudden business prosperity: for the transportation companies may be safely +trusted to supply in three or four weeks aliens enough to fill all the +gaps in the industrial army. Neither would injustice be done to the +immigrant himself. On the contrary, he would be assured of a job and +respectful consideration when he arrived. The "dago" or the "bohunk" would +acquire a new dignity and a more enviable status than he now occupies. The +selective process thus involved would much improve the quality of the +immigrant admitted, and would incidentally render assimilation of the +foreigner all the easier. + +The precise details of selection, and the machinery, are mere matters of +detail. But the consular service, as long ago suggested by Catlin, +Schuyler and others, seems to offer the proper base of operations. We have +already recommended charging consuls with viseing certificates from +police, medical, and poor-relief authorities. We should further require +that declarations of intention to migrate be published (somewhat as +marriage banns are published) at local administrative centers +(arrondissement, Bezirk, etc.) and at United States consular offices; the +consular declaration should be obligatory; perhaps the other might be +optional, though in all probability foreign governments would cooeperate in +demanding it. These validated declarations of intention should be filed in +the consular offices. When notice comes from the United States Department +of Labor that so many laborers will be admitted from such and such +district, the declarations are to be taken up in the order of their +filing, and the proper number of persons certified for admission. The +apportionment of admissions from each country might be calculated on a +basis of its population, also upon the nature of the employment offered, +and upon the desirability of the alien himself, his general +assimilability, his willingness to become naturalized, to adopt the +English language and the American standard of living among efficient +workers, etc.,--all as proved by past experience with his countrymen. This +plan, in so far as it provides for a sliding scale of admissions, is in +line with that proposed by Professor Gulick. He advocates making all +nations eligible for admission and citizenship, but would admit them only +in proportion as they can be readily assimilated. This would admit +annually, say, five per cent of those already naturalized, with their +American children. The principle here seems to be that we can assimilate +from any land in, and only in, proportion to the number already +assimilated from that land. But the difficulty of applying such a test +lies in the complexity of the assimilative process. No measure yet exists +for assimilation. Anthropologists are convinced that various strains in +the populations, for example of France, or Great Britain, which have been +dwelling together for centuries, are not by any means assimilated. Mere +naturalization is not a sufficient test of assimilation; it is only the +expression of a desire to be assimilated; and it may only be a device for +the promotion of business success here or in foreign parts, as we have +already indicated in the case of the Greeks. Hence in working out the +basis of a sound immigration policy, it would seem more practicable to +consider first the question of economic utilization rather than +assimilation. This, of course, does not exclude from the Secretary of +Labor's judgment the category of assimilability as one of the factors in +determining the apportionment of admissions. + +It will appear that the plan outlined above limits immigration policy to +purely national and economic considerations. But it is, as matters now +stand, a national question. And it must remain so for some time to come, +even if we are reproached with a narrow Mercantilist economics. The +admission of aliens is not yet a fundamental international _right_, or +_duty_; it is only an example of _comity_ within the family of nations. +And the matter must rest in this state of limbo until we develop some +institution or method of registering our sentiments of internationalism, +and especially of determining _international surplus_. As it is idle to +talk or dream of abolishing poverty until at least the concept of social +or national surplus is pretty clearly fixed and its realization either +actually at hand or fairly imminent, just so is it vain to expect an +international adjustment of the immigration problem on economic grounds +until the existence of an international surplus is demonstrated, and the +methods of apportioning it worked out. + +How soon we may expect these things it is not our province to predict. It +is too early to pass final judgment on Professor Patten's dictum that +inter-racial cooeperation is impossible without integration, and that races +must therefore stand in hostile relations or finally unite. But it is +perfectly apparent that we have a long way to travel before the path to +integration is cleared. Such assemblages as the First Universal Races +Congress which met in London in 1911 can do much to prepare the way. But +it must not be forgotten that the German representative at that Congress +pleaded for the maintenance of strict racial and national boundaries, and +summed up his plea in the rather ominous sentence: "The brotherhood of man +is a good thing, but the struggle for life is a far better one." Meanwhile +we need not anticipate serious international difficulties in the way of +the sliding-scale plan; for foreign governments are watching the tide of +immigration with mixed feelings. They welcome the two or three hundred +million dollars sent home annually by alien residents in the United +States. But they also resent the dislocations of industry, the fallow +fields, the dodging of military service, and the disturbance of the level +of prices which such wholesale emigrations inflict upon the mother +country. + +Since the protagonists of unrestricted immigration have taken largely an +economic line of argument, it seemed desirable to accept their terms, and +meet them on their own ground. But I should not wish to be misunderstood +as limiting the immigration question to its economic phases. When we have +said that the _latifondisti_ of Southern Italy are in despair at the +scarcity of laborers to work their lands at starvation wages, and that the +railway builders and mine operators of America are equally anxious to have +those selfsame South Italian laborers for their own exploitive +enterprises, we have told a bare half of the tale. There remain all those +cultural, educational, political, religious and domestic variations and +adjustments which make up the general problem of assimilability of the +alien and of the strength of our own national digestion. America had a +giant's undiscriminating appetite in the great days of expansion from 1850 +to 1890. But there are many signs, economic and other, that we can no +longer play Gargantua and continue a healthy nation. An unwise engineer +sometimes over-stokes his boilers, and courts disaster. Is it not equally +possible that national welfare may suffer from an over-dose of human fuel +in our industry? + + + + +THE WAY TO FLATLAND + + +"The next great task of preventive medicine is the inauguration of +universal periodic medical examinations as an indispensable means for the +control of all diseases, whether arising from injurious personal habits, +from congenital or constitutional weakness, or from social and vocational +conditions." That this declaration by the Commissioner of Health of the +city of New York is not the mere expression of an individual opinion, +there is abundant evidence. And no one who has watched the growth of other +movements towards such regulation of life as only a few years ago would +have seemed wholly outside the domain of practical probability can doubt +that the "Life Extension" movement, as thus outlined, will rapidly grow +into prominence. Nor is there much room for doubt that, whether explicitly +contemplated at present or not, compulsion as well as universality is +tacitly implied in the movement. + +I say that the movement is sure to grow into prominence, that it is a +thing which must be seriously reckoned with; I do not say that it will +march straight on to victory, or even that it is sure to prevail in the +end. It is instructive, in this regard, to hark back to a recent +experience in a more special, but yet an extremely important, domain. +Several years ago a report on university efficiency was issued under the +auspices--though, it should be added, without the official endorsement--of +the Carnegie Foundation. The central feature of this report lay in its +advocacy of the application to universities of those principles of system +and of standardization which have been successfully applied on a large +scale to the promotion of industrial efficiency, and are generally +referred to by the catch-word, "scientific management." In spite of the +merits of the report in certain matters of detail, and of the high +standing of the expert who wrote it in his own department of industrial +engineering, the report evoked an almost universal chorus of contemptuous +rejection not only in university circles, but also from those organs of +public opinion which have any claim to be regarded as enlightened judges +in questions of education and culture. The thing seemed to have been +laughed out of court. And yet it turned out that a year or two afterwards +a full-fledged scheme for carrying out some of the crudest and most +objectionable features of this "efficiency" program was presented to the +professors of Harvard University, apparently with the expectation that +they would fall in with its requirements without hesitation or protest. +For some days there seemed to be real danger that this would actually +happen. It turned out to be a false alarm; the faculty of the foremost of +American universities were guilty of no such supineness. The project was +ignominiously shelved, with some sort of explanation that the springing of +it on the professors was due to an error or misunderstanding. But that the +attempt should have been made, and in a manner that argued so total a lack +of any sense of its grossness and crudity, is a significant warning of the +extent to which the notions underlying it have fastened upon the general +mind. + +The story of the eugenics movement in this country affords a striking +illustration at once of the almost startling rapidity with which +innovating ideas as to the regulation of life gain acceptance, and of the +fact that this rapidity is by no means conclusive proof that their +progress will be continuous. The one thing clear is that there is a large, +active, and influential element in the population that is extremely +hospitable to such ideas, and manifests a naive, an almost childish, +readiness to put them into immediate execution. Since, in the nature of +things, this element is lively and active--since, too, what is novel and +in motion is more interesting than what is old and at rest--at first there +is almost sure to be produced a deceptive appearance that the new thing is +sweeping everything before it. Just now there is evidently a lull in the +onward march of legislative eugenics. This is sufficient proof of the +conservatism of the people as a whole; we may be quite sure that anything +beyond a very restricted application of eugenical notions will take a long +time to get itself established in our laws or even in our customs. +Nevertheless, it would be a great mistake to suppose that even the more +extreme forms of eugenical doctrine are not forces to be reckoned with as +affecting practical possibilities of a not distant future. Though no +results may appear on the surface, the leaven is working. It is consonant +with tendencies which in so many directions are becoming more and more +dominant. So long as those tendencies continue in anything like their +present strength, there can be little doubt that the idea of control in +the direction of eugenics, like that of the regulation of human life in +other fundamental respects, will continue to make headway, and may at any +time become one of the central issues of the day. + +To adduce prohibition as an illustration of this same character in the +thought and the tendencies of our immediate time may seem like forcing the +point. It is true, it may be said, that there has been within the past few +years a rapid spread of prohibition in almost every part of the country; +but the thing itself is sixty years old, has had its periods of advance +and recession, and is now, in the fullness of time, reaping the fruits of +two generations of agitation, investigation, and education. But to say +this is to overlook the distinctive feature of the present situation +regarding prohibition in the United States. A Constitutional amendment +providing for the complete prohibition of the sale of liquor throughout +the Union is pending in Congress. A year ago--probably six months +ago--there was hardly a human being in the United States, other than those +in the councils of the Anti-saloon League, who had so much as thought of +national prohibition as a question of present-day practical politics. +Suddenly it is announced that there is a distinct possibility of a +prohibition amendment being passed by Congress in the near future; and one +of the foremost representatives of the Anti-saloon League states, and with +good show of reason, that if the amendment be passed by Congress, its +ratification by the Legislatures of three fourths of the States can be +only a matter of time. What the probabilities actually are, I do not +undertake to say; neither am I concerned at this moment with the merits of +the issue itself. What I _am_ concerned with is the simple fact that in +this situation, brought upon the country with dramatic suddenness, nobody +seems to have been in the least startled, or so much as disturbed in his +equanimity. There will of course be a great struggle over the question, +sooner or later. But neither in Congress nor in the press has there as yet +been any sign of such an assertion of the claims of personal liberty as, +at any time previous to the past ten years, would have been sure to be +made in such a situation. This collective silence, on an issue affecting +so intimately the lives, the habits, the traditions of millions of people, +is, in my judgment, by far the most impressive proof of the degree in +which the public mind has grown accustomed to the inroads of regulation +upon the domain of individuality. + + * * * * * + +A number of years ago, when the mathematical concept of space of more than +three dimensions was attracting great popular interest, an ingenious +writer undertook to make the idea intelligible to "the general" by +picturing the state of mind in regard to three dimensions of a race of +beings whose life and whose sensual experience was limited to space of two +dimensions. He gave his little book the title "Flatland," and it gained +wide attention. In his Commencement address at Columbia last year, +President Butler had the happy thought of applying the term in the +characterization of certain aspects of the intellectual and political life +of our time. He was speaking particularly of that absorption in the +immediate problems of the day which makes almost impossible a true study +and contemplation of the lasting concerns of mankind as embodied in +history and literature. "Every ruling tendency," he said, "is to make life +a Flatland, an affair of two dimensions, with no depth, no background, no +permanent root." That this is a literal truth probably neither Dr. Butler +nor anyone else would contend; but it hits off with great force and with +substantial accuracy the prevailing character of thought in the circles +most active and most influential in almost every department of human +activity at the present time. And the tendency which President Butler +describes as arising out of our absorption in current problems is still +more manifest in the spirit of our actual dealings with those problems +themselves. On every hand we find a surprising readiness to accept views +which explicitly tend to take out of life that which gives it depth and +significance and richness. Each one of the four movements we have +mentioned affords an illustration of this: in following any one of them we +travel straight toward Flatland. They differ very much, one from another; +they have very different degrees and kinds of justification; it may be +difficult in the case of some of them to strike a balance between the gain +and the loss. The remarkable thing--the ominous thing, if we are to +suppose that the present tone of thought will long persist--is that the +loss involved in the flattening of life, as such, apparently almost wholly +fails to get consideration. I say apparently, because there is, no doubt, +a deep and strong undercurrent of opposition which, sooner or later, will +manifest itself; in speaking of "ruling tendencies" we are apt to mean +merely the tendencies that are most in evidence. But after all, it is to +these that criticism of contemporary life and thought must, of necessity, +be chiefly directed. + +As I have already indicated, the attack on individuality and personal +dignity in the universities was met in a spirit that is highly gratifying, +and which is quite out of keeping with the tendency that I am discussing +and deploring. Yet it is doubtful whether, outside the circle of the +universities themselves, and of those individuals who are thoroughly +imbued with the university spirit, there is any true realization of what +it is that constituted the head and front of that offending. If some +bureau of research were to present a formidable array of figures showing +that the "output" of professorial work could be increased by so and so +many per cent. through the adoption of some definitely formulated system +of "scientific management," it is by no means certain that the scheme +would not receive powerful support in the highest quarters of efficiency +propaganda. We should be told just how many millions of dollars a year we +are spending on university education, and just how many of these millions +go needlessly to waste. Even the opponents of the "reform" would probably +find themselves compelled to use as their most powerful argument this and +that example of great practical results which have flowed from letting men +of genius go their own way. It would be pointed out that many an +investigation which, to the authorities of the time, appeared wholly +unpromising, turned out to be of cardinal value. We should be warned that +what we gain in a thousand cases through time-clock and card-catalogue +methods, might be lost ten times over through the shackling of the +initiative of a single man of unrecognized genius. And all this would be +very much to the purpose; but it is not upon any such special pleading +that the case ought to be made to rest. The loss that would be suffered +transcends all these concrete and definable instances of it. It would be +pervasive, fundamental, immeasurable. Grievous as might be the injury +caused by the prevention of specific achievements of exceptional +importance, this would be as nothing in comparison with the intellectual +and spiritual loss entailed by the lowering of the human level, the +devitalizing of the intellectual atmosphere, which must inevitably follow +upon the application of factory methods to university life. + + * * * * * + +The case of the eugenics propaganda is far more complex. In its origin, +and doubtless in some of its present manifestations, it may lay claim to +being directed toward aims which are particularly concerned with the +higher interests of life. The author of "Hereditary Genius" certainly +could not be accused of indifference to the part played in the past, or to +be played in the future, by exceptional minds and characters; nor is it +necessary to charge any of the present promoters of the propaganda with +explicit failure to appreciate the importance of such minds and +characters. The criticism is often made, from this standpoint, that the +hard-and-fast rules which the eugenists propose would, in point of fact, +have put under the ban some of the most illustrious names in the annals of +mankind--men whose genius was accompanied with some of the very traits +which they hold should most positively be prevented from appearing. But, +however weighty this objection to the methods of eugenics may be, it is to +be looked upon rather as an item on the debit side of the reckoning than +as marking an ingrained defect, a fault at the very heart of the matter. +The eugenists may well challenge those who urge merely this kind of +objection to show that the losses thus pointed out are great enough to +offset the gains, in the very same direction, which they regard their +program as promising. Whatever the truth of the matter may be, they can at +least set up the contention that, as a mere affair of quantity, genius +will do better under their system than without it. + +What brings the eugenics movement into the Flatland category is not its +attitude toward the question of genius, or perhaps even of singularity, +but its attitude toward the life of mankind as a whole--if indeed it can +be said to have any attitude toward the life of mankind as a whole. The +profound elements of that life seem not to come at all within the range of +its contemplation. Of course this does not apply to everything that comes +from the eugenics camp, nor to every person that calls himself a eugenist. +But on the other hand it is by no means only of the crude projects of +half-educated reformers, or the outgivings of the prophets of our popular +magazines, that it _is_ true. The agitation has derived much of its +impetus, directly or indirectly, from the teachings of men of high +scientific eminence who have attacked the question without any apparent +realization of its deeper bearings on the whole character of human life. +This influence often comes in the shape of exhortations, or suggestions, +addressed to the public at a time when attention is centered upon some +conspicuous crime or some particular phase of evil in the community; +sweeping and radical regulation of the right of parenthood being urged as +necessary for the prevention of all such distressing phenomena. Thus, +after the attempted assassination of Mayor Gaynor, there was much talk of +a "national campaign for mental hygiene," which should have the effect of +"preventing Czolgoszes and Schranks." Its program was thus indicated by +one of the foremost professors of medicine in the United States: + + Provision must be made for the birth of children whose brains + shall, so far as possible, be innately of good quality; this means + the denial of the privilege of parenthood to those likely to + transmit bad nervous systems to their offsprings. + +What the carrying out of such a programme would mean to mankind at large, +how profoundly it would modify those ideas about life, those standards of +human dignity and human rights, which are so fundamental and so pervasive +that they are taken for granted without express thought in every act and +every feeling of all normal men and women--this does not seem ever to +trouble the mind of the devotee of universal regulation. He sees the +possibility of effecting a certain definite and measurable improvement; +that the means by which this is accomplished must fatally impair those +elemental conceptions of human life whose value transcends all +measurement, he has not the insight or the imagination to recognize. The +distinctions of social class, of wealth, of public honor, leave untouched +the equality of men in the fundamentals of human dignity. They do not go +to the vitals of self-respect; they do not interfere with a man's sense of +what is due to him, and what is due from him, in the primary relations of +life. If nature has been unkind to him in his physical or mental +endowments, he does not therefore feel in the least disqualified, as +regards his family, his friends, his neighbors, the stranger with whom he +chances to come into contact, from receiving the same kind of +consideration, in the essentials of human intercourse, that is accorded to +those who are more fortunate; nor does he feel in any respect absolved +from the duty of playing the full part of a man. Under the regime of +medical classification--and the "mental hygiene" programme can mean +nothing less than that--all this would disappear. Some men would be men, +others would be something less. It is true that, so far as regards the +imbecile, the insane, and the criminal, such a state of things obtains as +it is; but this stands wholly apart from the general life of the race, and +has no influence whatever on the habitual feelings and experiences of +human beings. The normal life of mankind is shot through and through with +the idea that a man's a man; all that is highest in feeling and conduct is +closely bound up with it. Lessen its sway over our feelings and thoughts +and instincts, and how much benefit in the shape of "preventing Czolgoszes +and Schranks" would be required to compensate for the loss in nobleness, +in depth, which human life would suffer? + + * * * * * + +The prohibition movement belongs, in the main, to a wholly different order +of things. The fight against the evils of drink, as it has been carried on +for a century or more, has been animated by a moral fervor which classes +it rather with the fight against slavery, or with the great revivals of +religion, than with those movements which owe their origin to a +calculating and cold-blooded perfectionism. Its leaders have been fired +with the ardor of a war directed against a devastating monster, to whose +ravages was to be ascribed a large part of the misery and wickedness that +afflict mankind. It is true that the economic and physiological aspects of +the drink question were not ignored; the total-abstinence men were glad +enough to have this second string to their bow. But the real fight was not +against alcohol as one of many things concerning which the habits of men +are more or less unwise; it was a fight against the Demon Rum, the ally of +all the powers of darkness. The plea of the moderate drinker was rejected +with scorn, not because there was any objection to moderate drinking in +itself, but because total abstinence was the only true preventive of +drunkenness, and drunkenness must be stamped out if mankind was to be +saved. The moderate drinker was censured not because he was wasting his +money, or failing to "conserve his efficiency," but because for the sake +of a trivial self-indulgence he was giving countenance to a practice which +was consigning millions of his fellow men to wretchedness in this world +and to everlasting damnation in the next. + +Now this remarkable thing about the present extraordinary manifestation of +growth and strength in the prohibition movement is that it is not in the +least due to a strengthening of this sentiment. On the contrary, it is +safe to say that feeling about drunkenness, about the drink evil in the +sense in which it was understood a generation ago, is far less intense +than it was then. The prohibition movement in its present stage is not the +old prohibition movement advancing to triumph through the onward march of +its proselyting zeal; of true prohibitionist zealots the number is +probably less, in proportion to the population, than it was forty years +ago. Its great accession of strength has come from the growth of that +order of ideas which is common to all the "efficiency" movements of the +time. And that growth helps it in two ways. On the one hand, to the little +army of crusaders against the Demon Rum there has come the accession of a +host of men who are not thinking about demons at all, but who calmly hold +that the world would be better off without drinking, and that this is an +all-sufficient reason for prohibiting it. And on the other hand, millions +of persons who, in former days would have cried out against this way of +improving the world--against the impairment of personal liberty and the +sacrifice of social enjoyment and social variety--have no longer the +courage of their convictions. The temper of the time is unfavorable to the +assertion of the value of things so incapable of numerical measurement. +Against the heavy battalions led by the statisticians, and the +experimental psychologists, and the efficiency experts, what chance is +there for successful resistance? On the opposing side can be rallied only +such mere irregulars as are willing to fight for airy nothings--for the +zest and colorfulness of life, for sociability and good fellowship, for +preserving to each man access to those resources of relaxation and +refreshment which, without injury to others, he finds conducive to his own +happiness. + + * * * * * + +It is hardly necessary to say that, in taking up these various movements, +no attempt has been made at anything like comprehensive discussion of +their merits. Whatever may be the balance between good and ill in any of +them, they all have in common one tendency that bodes danger to the +highest and most permanent interests of mankind; and it is with this alone +that I am concerned. What that tendency is has, I trust, been made +sufficiently clear; but it will perhaps be brought out more distinctly by +a consideration of the "Life Extension" propaganda more detailed and +specific than that given to the other three. + +Conspicuous in the literature of this propaganda is the appeal to standard +modern practice in regard to machinery. "Those to whom the care of +delicate mechanical apparatus is entrusted," says the New York +Commissioner of Health, "do not wait until a breakdown occurs, but inspect +and examine the apparatus minutely, at regular intervals, and thus detect +the first signs of damage." "This principle of periodic inspection," says +the prospectus of the Life Extension Institute, "has for many years been +applied to almost every kind of machinery, except the most marvelous and +complex of all,--the human body." To find fault with the drawing of this +comparison, with the utilization of this analogy, would be foolish. That +many persons would be greatly benefited by submitting to these inspections +is certain; it is not impossible that they are desirable for most persons. +And the analogy of the inspection of machinery serves excellently the +purpose of suggesting such desirability. What is objectionable about its +use by the Life Extension propagandists is their evident complacent +satisfaction with the analogy as complete and conclusive. Yet nothing is +more certain than that, even from the strictly medical standpoint, it +ignores an essential distinction between the case of the man and the case +of the machine. The machine is affected only by the measures that may be +taken in consequence of the knowledge arising from the inspection; the man +is affected by that knowledge itself. Whether the possible physical harm +that may come to a man from having his mind disturbed by solicitude about +his health is important or unimportant in comparison with the good that is +likely to be done him by the following of the precautions or remedies +prescribed, is a question of fact to which the answer varies in every +individual case. It may be that in the great majority of cases the harm is +insignificant in comparison with the good. However that may be, the +question is there, and it is of itself fatal to the conclusiveness of the +_argumentum ex machina_. That this is not a captious criticism, that it is +based on substantial facts of life, ordinary experience sufficiently +attests; but it may not be amiss to point to a conspicuous contemporary +phenomenon which throws an interesting light on the matter. The Christian +Scientists regard the _ignoring_ of disease as the primary requisite for +health and longevity. That the Christian Science doctrine is a sheer +absurdity, no one can hold more emphatically than the present writer; but +it cannot be denied that in thousands of cases its acceptance has been of +physical benefit through its subjective effect upon the believer. +Personally, I would not purchase any benefit to my physical life at such +sacrifice of my intellectual integrity; I mention the point only by way of +accentuating the undisputed fact that the presence or absence of concern +about health may have a potent influence on one's bodily welfare. + +Although it is a still further digression from the main purpose of this +paper, I must permit myself a few words on another point relating to the +strictly medical claims of the plan of "universal periodic medical +examination." It is natural that its advocates say nothing about the +danger of errors in diagnosis; everybody knows that this danger exists, +but sensible men do not allow it to deter them from consulting a +physician; in this, as in other affairs of life, they do not cry for the +moon, but do the best they can. But it seems to be wholly overlooked by +the advocates of the propaganda of "universal periodic examination" that +the extent of this danger under present conditions affords no indication +at all of what it would be under the system they contemplate. Its cardinal +virtue, they constantly proclaim, would be the detection of the very +slightest indication of impairment: "The task before us is to discover the +first sign of departure from the normal physiological path, and promptly +and effectually to apply the brake." The consequence must necessarily be +that for one case of false alarm that occurs today there will be a score, +or a hundred, under the new regime. For, in the first place, the +individuals seeking advice will not be, as they now are in the main, +selected cases in which there is some antecedent presumption that there is +something wrong; and secondly, the examiner, bent upon the one great +object of overlooking nothing, however slight, will give warnings which, +whether technically justifiable or not, will in great numbers of cases +have a wholly unjustifiable significance to the mind of the subject. Who +shall say how many persons will thus be made to carry through life a +burden of solicitude about their health from which, if left to their own +devices, they would have been wholly free? + +But it is not my design to find fault with this scheme as a matter of +medical benefit; if I have ventured to point out some drawbacks, it is +only by way of showing that, even from the strictly medical standpoint the +cult of uniformity, of standardization, of mechanical perfection, is not +free from fault. But the great objection against that attitude of mind +which is typified in the appeal to the analogy of machinery is far more +vital. Our only interest in a machine is that we shall get out of it as +much, and as exact, work as possible. Our interest in our bodies is not so +limited. We may deliberately choose to forego the maximum of mechanical +perfection for the sake of living our lives in a way more satisfactory to +us than a constant care for that perfection would permit. Even the most +ardent of health enthusiasts--unless he be an insane fanatic--draws the +line somewhere. What he forgets is that other people prefer to draw the +line somewhere else. They choose to run a certain amount of risk rather +than have their health on their minds. To compel--whether by legal means +or by social pressure--every man to take precautions concerning his own +body which he deliberately prefers not to take; to make impossible, in +this most intimate and personal of all human concerns, the various ways of +acting which the infinite varieties of temperament and desire may +dictate--this would be such an invasion of personal liberty, such a +suppression of individuality, as would strike us all as appalling, had we +not grown so habituated to the mechanical, the statistical, measurement of +human values--to the Flatland view of life. + + * * * * * + +What gives to these movements that I have been discussing the character +which I have been ascribing to them is not so much the specific things +which they severally aim to accomplish, but the spirit in which they are +carried on, and perhaps still more the spirit, or want of spirit, with +which they are met. It is not that a balance is falsely struck between the +benefit of the concrete, circumscribed, measurable improvement aimed at +and the injury done to some deeper, more pervading, and quite immeasurable +element or principle of life; it is that the balance is not struck at all. +The subtler, the less tangible, element is simply ignored. It was not +always so. It was not so in the last generation, or the generation before +that. The phenomenon is one that is closely bound up with the ruling +tendency of thought and action in all directions; it is not an accident of +this or that particular agitation. Perhaps in no direction is it more +convincingly manifested than in the prevailing tone of opinion, or at +least of publicly expressed opinion, in regard to the objects and ideals +of universities. That in the present state of the world's economic and +social development on the one hand, and of the various sciences on the +other, "service"--that is, service directly conducive to the general +good--should be regarded as one of the great objects of universities, is +altogether right; that it should be spoken of as their _only_ object, +which is the ruling fashion, is most deplorable. The object of a +university, said Mill, is to keep philosophy alive; yet it would go hard +with the present generation to point to any one more truly and profoundly +devoted to the service, the uplifting, of the masses of mankind than was +John Stuart Mill. Were he living he would recognize, as thoroughly as the +best efficiency man of them all, that the universities of today have +opportunities and duties which were undreamed of half a century ago. But +he would know, too, that in those activities which are directed to the +promotion of practical efficiency, the university is but one of many +agencies, and that if it were not doing the work some other means would be +found for supplying the demand. Its paramount value he would find now, as +he did then, in the service it renders not to the ordinary needs of the +community but to the higher intellectual interests and strivings of +mankind. That so few of us have the courage clearly to assert a position +even distantly approaching this--such a position as was mere matter of +course among university men in the last generation--is perhaps the most +significant of all the indications of our drift toward Flatland. + + + + +THE DISFRANCHISEMENT OF PROPERTY + + +I + +It is Hawthorne, I think, who tells us that when he was a boy he used once +in a while to go down to the wharves in Salem, and lay his hand on the +rail of some great East India merchantman, redolent of spices, and thus +bring himself in actual touch with the mysterious orient. But there is +nothing strange in this: almost anything that we can feel or see may start +the flight of fancy, and open to us prophetic visions. This is even true +of such dry symbols as figures, for our journalists would never publish +statistics as they do, unless they knew that their readers liked to see +them. Travellers from other parts of the world have often laughed at our +fondness for revelling in the marvellous accounts of our material +dimensions, but they should remember that people who do not have a taste +for poetry may yet have a taste for romance, and that big figures do +appeal to the imagination. + +It is true that there may be something portentous in bigness. "Tom" Reed, +as he was affectionately called, said many wise things in a jesting way. +At a certain crisis in our history he exclaimed: "I don't want Cuba and +Hawaii; I've got more country now than I can love." A foreigner might +suppose that our politicians had similarly become terror-stricken at the +extent of our wealth and the rate at which it was growing. They may well +give the impression that there has been created in the "money power," a +Frankenstein monster, the control of whose murderous propensities has put +them at their wit's end. + +Figures are notorious liars; they may arouse emotion if looked at in any +light, but they must be looked at in many lights if we would get an +emotional effect that is truly worth while. Some very large figures +relating to Savings Banks have lately been published. The deposits in +these banks amount to over four and two-thirds billions of dollars, and +the number of separate accounts is about ten and two-thirds millions. +Savings deposits in all banks are about $7,000,000,000, the number of +accounts being 17,600,000. Probably the interest paid on the savings banks +deposits is 160 millions of dollars a year. I confess that these figures +give me much pleasure. I like to think that so many men have taken pains +to guard their wives and children against miserable want; that so many +women have to some extent made sure of their independence. It would not be +surprising to find that twelve millions of families, possibly half the +people of the country, were in this way protected against extreme penury. +Viewed in this light, the growth of wealth does not seem so terrible. One +might paraphrase Burke and say that such wealth as this loses half its +evil through losing all its grossness. Indeed one might go further and say +that if there were twice as much of this wealth, and every person in the +country had an interest in it, it would lose all of its evil. + +To young people, this is all dry enough. They like to think of spending +money, not of saving it. But it is not at all dry to their elders. It is +what St. Beuve said of literary enjoyment, a "pure delice du gout et du +coeur dans la maturite." It is a "Pleasure of the Imagination" that can be +appreciated only by those like the old Scottish lawyer, who justified his +penurious prudence by saying that he had shaken hands with poverty up to +the elbow when he was young, and had no intention to renew the +acquaintance. We have not, at least in the Northern part of our country, +had the terrible experiences of the people of Europe, who are even now +hiding their money in a vague apprehension of danger, inherited from +centuries of rapine; but there are few of those who have given hostages to +fortune who have not had many hours, and even years, of distressing +anxiety concerning the future of their families. The greater the provision +made against this heart-corroding care by a people, the happier should +that people be. + +It seems so unselfish a luxury to revel in these comfortable statistics, +that one is tempted to broaden his vision, and take in the four or five +billions of assets heaped up by the six or seven millions of people who +have insured their lives, and the one hundred and fifty or two hundred +millions of dollars paid out yearly to lighten the distress attending the +death of husbands and fathers of families,--to say nothing of a much +greater sum repaid policy-holders. In many cases, happily, death causes no +actual want; but against these cases we may offset the stupendous number +of policies insuring against industrial accidents, possibly twenty-five +millions of them, representing one quarter of the people of the +country--for we may be sure that there are few payments made under these +policies that do not actually alleviate suffering. We have here a colossal +aggregate of altruism on the part of the policy-holders, an intangible +national asset grander than all the material wealth which it represents; +for the sordid element in all these savings is necessarily small. There is +a point in the old story of the gambler on the Mississippi steamboat who +listened attentively to the persuasive arguments of a life-insurance +agent; he "allowed" that he was willing to bet on almost any kind of game, +but declined to take a hand in one where he had to die to win. It is +painful to think of the infinity of petty economies, of all the grievous +deprivations, the positive hardships, undergone in so many millions of +families, day by day, and year by year, to secure these policies of +insurance; but, as Plato said, "the good is difficult." There is no +heroism where there is no self-sacrifice. Whoever is disquieted by the +growth of "materialism" may be relieved by reflecting that when so many +millions of people are denying themselves present enjoyments in order that +others may be spared pain in the future, there is such a leaven of high +motive among us as may leaven the whole lump. + + * * * * * + +It would be easy to keep on in this exalted strain, but perhaps it is a +little too much in the style of a life-insurance advertisement. We may +correct any such impression, by changing our point of view. When we +consider the difficulties and the hindrances in the way of laying up these +savings, while the moral effect of the self-sacrifice hitherto involved is +enhanced, the question comes up whether this altruistic exertion can be +maintained in the future. How many of the ten millions of depositors in +the savings banks have considered that their rulers at Washington give +away every year in military pensions a sum equal to all, and more than +all, the income earned by the four billions of dollars in the banks? When +after many years, it seemed that this burden might at last begin to be +lightened, it was suddenly increased by the last Congress perhaps thirty +millions a year. Why should so many people scrimp, year in and year out, +when the equivalent of all the toil and all the self-denial is thus swept +away? + +Senator Aldrich has told the country that its affairs could be carried on +for three hundred millions of dollars a year less than it now pays. He is +a very competent witness, and no one has contradicted him. If the attempt +had been made, he could perhaps have shown--he could certainly show +now--that three hundred millions was an understatement. But this sum is +nearly equal to the income earned by the investments of all the savings +banks and all the life-insurance companies of the country. If our rulers +had borrowed ten billions of dollars at three per cent. and had wasted it +all, the country would be financially about where it is now. They have not +borrowed this ten billions of dollars, but if Mr. Aldrich is right, they +are spending the interest on it. They have in effect mortgaged the wealth +of the people to the extent of all their deposits in the savings banks, +and all their investments in life-insurance companies, and are wasting the +income of these funds faster than it is earned. If anyone thinks this is +stating the case too strongly, he may add the waste of our state and +municipal rulers to that of those at Washington, and Mr. Aldrich's figure +will seem moderate enough. + + * * * * * + +People who are comfortably off will reply to all this that we are getting +on pretty well, and seem to be on the whole doing better from year to +year. There is a well known passage in Macaulay's History which may be +thought to give support to optimism of this kind. "No ordinary +misfortune," he said, "no ordinary misgovernment, will do so much to make +a nation wretched as the constant progress of physical knowledge, and the +constant effort of every man to better his condition will do to make a +nation prosperous." + +No one will deny that the history of England justifies this statement; but +let us remember the reason that Macaulay gave for this insuperable +prosperity. "Every man has felt entire confidence that the State would +protect him in the possession of what had been earned by his diligence and +hoarded by his self-denial." + +It is impossible to maintain that every man now feels this entire +confidence. The income "earned by his diligence" is henceforth to be taxed +at a progressive rate, and the demagogues are already complaining that the +rate is not high enough. The inheritance of his family, "hoarded by his +self-denial," protected by the State until within a few years, now pays +taxes which amount to the interest on a billion of dollars. We are assured +by a railroad officer that three measures of legislation have increased +the expenses of his corporation alone by a sum equal to the interest on +$32,000,000, with no appreciable benefit to the public. The number of such +laws is incalculable, and the cost of complying with them has become an +almost intolerable burden. The income of the railroads declines, while +their taxes increase, in some cases two or three fold. Lawyers and office +holders thrive and are cheerful; investors suffer and tremble. + +The people of New York seem just now to be in a way to find out how the +enormous taxes which their rulers have levied on them are expended; but +New York has no monopoly of corrupt rulers, and the cost of investigating +extravagance is itself extravagant. And yet people wonder at the increased +cost of living! Unfortunately the oppressions of government do worse than +discourage business enterprise; they tend to demoralize society. There are +too many men who hesitate to marry because they do not have confidence in +the future, too many married people who do not dare to have more than one +or two children, if they dare to have any, to make it possible to maintain +that there is now no dread of more than ordinary misgovernment. + + * * * * * + +It is difficult to ascertain the total wealth of the country. The census +bureau is notoriously dilatory. Its latest estimate was for 1904, when +this aggregate was computed to be $107,000,000,000, or about $1,300 _per +caput_. Assuming this ratio, the wealth of our people should now be over +$120,000,000,000; but the figures are largely conjectural. It happens, +however, that we possess some figures that are altogether trustworthy. In +the year 1909 the Federal Government imposed a tax of one per cent. on the +net income of every corporation, joint stock company, or association, +including insurance companies, organized for profit, whenever this net +income is over $5,000. There are some other exemptions, but they are not +sufficient to demand consideration, and may be disregarded. Now we may be +absolutely certain of one thing, and that is that the net income of those +concerns will not be overestimated. Their net income may be more than what +they report for the purposes of taxation, but it surely cannot be less. +For the past year it seems probable that this tax will produce nearly +thirty-five millions of dollars net income, after deducting all expenses, +losses, depreciation, interest on debts and on deposits paid by banks, and +dividends from other companies subject to the tax. + +It may be more, but it cannot be less. Here our certainty ends. Guesses +will vary, but in view of what we know in a general way of the conditions +of business during the past year, we may perhaps venture to assume that +the net income of these concerns is six per cent. of their real wealth. If +this assumption is correct, their total wealth is 60 billions of dollars, +or one half of the total wealth of the nation. + +This estimate may be confirmed to some extent by other statistics. Calling +the physical value of the railroads fourteen billions, their net earnings +at five per cent. would be 700 millions, which corresponds well enough +with the figures of the government, although some railroad men would make +their net earnings much less. We do not know the net income of the untaxed +corporations. Their returns would show its amount, but the government does +not supply the information. As there must be now nearly 250,000 such +corporations, if their average income is only $2,000 a year, the total +could be $500,000,000. If it is $4,000, their income would be almost a +billion dollars. On a 5 per cent. basis, the wealth of these corporations +would be nearly 20 billion dollars. It seems, on the whole, that the +wealth held by corporations is probably more than half our total wealth +rather than less. + + * * * * * + +The bearing of these figures on our subject is now apparent. All of this +property is disfranchised. It is, economically, to a very great extent +disfranchised; politically, it is altogether disfranchised. What I mean by +this is that the owners of this wealth, as owners, have very little to +say, and nothing to do, about its care and management. Probably more than +half of our people are directly or indirectly interested in it as owners. +They have been attracted by a desire to share, however humbly, in big and +famous enterprises, by the freedom from liability of the portion of their +estates outside the particular investments, and by the freedom at death or +withdrawal of associates from appraisals and accountings and probable +closing of the business, as is the inevitable practice in mere +partnerships. Two centuries ago people who saved money could hardly find +ways to invest it. The practice of incorporation has enormously increased +our wealth by putting a stop to hoarding without interest, stimulating +saving, and broadening industry. The number of individual owners of the +bonds and stocks of corporations is incalculable, and their holdings added +to those of savings banks, insurance companies, trust companies and other +fiduciary institutions, churches, hospitals, and colleges, make up a total +of almost fabulous extent. It is true that large sums are loaned to +persons, and on mortgages of real estate; but for most people such +investments are not desirable or convenient, and they are altogether +inadequate to absorb the vast sums that are available. In fact probably +most investments of this character are now made by corporations who gather +the savings of little depositors and premium payers; and it would cost +much more to make them in any other way. + + * * * * * + +Corporations, therefore, are necessary, but they necessarily separate the +ownership of wealth from its management. To invest is generally to entrust +your money to another, and those who invest in corporations, unless they +control them, are economically disfranchised, because the stockholders in +all large corporations almost never influence the management of their +property, and as a rule do not know anything about it. They don't because +they can't. A few years ago a very large number of people were much +worried by the exposure of some scandalous doings by the managers of +certain great life-insurance companies. They would have been very glad to +combine and choose better managers if they could; but they couldn't. Laws +were passed for the purpose of enabling the policy-holders to select their +trustees, but the only result has been a ridiculous and rather expensive +fiasco. As in politics, the rank and file select the managers selected for +them by a few men who understand the situation. When many thousands of +people own stock in a concern, they live all over this continent and in +foreign parts, and it is a physical impossibility to bring them together. +They do not know one another, and very few of them know much about the +affairs of the concern, and if they know anything of the candidates that +may be suggested, it is generally only by hearsay. + +How many of the eighty-eight thousand stockholders in the Pennsylvania +Railroad, for instance, have ever attended a meeting? For that matter, how +many of them have ever studied the report of the railroad? Not one in ten +could spare the time to read it, perhaps not one in a hundred could master +it. The report may be read in a few hours; it would take as many months, +if not years to verify it. Very nearly half these stockholders are women; +the average holding is 120 shares, (par $50), and one-sixth of the +stockholders own less than 10 shares each. Ten thousand of them are +abroad. Much stock is held by trustees, whose beneficiaries are probably +very numerous, and totally incompetent to understand railroad management. +There are also more than twenty thousand holders of stock in subsidiary +corporations controlled by the Pennsylvania Railroad. No one can tell the +number of bondholders; perhaps there are as many as there are employees, +making an aggregate of almost half a million. + + * * * * * + +Sometimes trustees abuse their office; but on the whole they have done +pretty well, and whether they have or not, there is no other way in which +large capitals can be managed. All civilization rests on confidence. Such +a vast fabric could not be built on confidence unless confidence was +deserved. As a matter of fact, a man invests his money just as he invests +in a surgeon. He does not think of directing the surgeon how to operate. +If the operation does not succeed, he tries another surgeon next time--if +there is a next time. + +Of course all this applies chiefly to the large corporations. There are +many thousands of small ones, having few stockholders, who reside where +the business is established. These stockholders know more or less of the +details of the business; they can judge to some extent how it is carried +on, they are often acquainted with the managers, or are the managers +themselves, and if not, they are able sometimes to combine and change the +management. And I will anticipate a little and say here that the property +of such a corporation located in a small town is often to some extent not +politically disfranchised, because the people of the town understand that +they are directly interested in the prosperity of the business. But it +seems almost impossible for the stockholders to change the management of a +large corporation. It has been done a few times. Mr. Harriman notoriously +did it by using the money of one concern to buy the stock of another, and +that is almost the only way in which it has been done. No doubt there has +been an immense deal of combination which has resulted in change of +management, but this has not been because the stockholders combined to +oust their trustees, but because they thought they saw a good chance to +sell their stock to those who would pay high for the control, or to +participate in these combinations. There have been a good many cases where +an enterprising speculator has managed to get hold of a majority of the +stock and change the control, and powerful bankers can sometimes get +proxies enough to put a stop to bad management; but spontaneous movements +of this kind on the part of the mass of the stockholders are extremely +rare. + +Beyond dispute then, the great mass of wealth held by corporations is +almost wholly under the control of their managers, and not the mass of the +owners. Mr. Hill has recently testified that he never knew a stockholder +to attend a meeting except to make trouble; by which he perhaps meant that +when a single stockholder appeared, it was to get paid for not making +trouble. + + * * * * * + +It need hardly be said that no such thing as legitimate representation of +corporate wealth is known in our politics, and the representation of +individual wealth is very limited. The theory of government by manhood +suffrage, so far as there is any theory, is now entirely personal. In +early times the freemen of the town, or little commune, met and legislated +according to their needs. To be a freeman one had to own property; to +"have a stake in the country." Nowadays nearly all the men who have no +property can vote, and some that have property cannot. In England, they +are doing away with "plural voters." Heretofore it was thought just, when +a man owned land in more than one place, that he should have his say in +the government of all; but this is now forbidden. The right was never +recognized in this country, partly because formerly men seldom owned +property in two places, but as transportation improved the conditions +changed. The "commuters" are legion. Their business and their capital are +under one jurisdiction and their dwellings and families under another; but +they can vote in only one. Many thousands of men own houses in both city +and country. They could help in the government of both, but are +disfranchised in one or the other. Under our complicated systems of +registration, they are often disfranchised at both. + +Of course when population increases, the town meeting becomes a physical +impossibility. There is no more direct legislation; it has to be +delegated. The power is transferred to the city councils, and to the state +and national legislatures. In other words, the interests of the owners of +wealth are put in charge of trustees. According to Hamilton, the theory of +our government is that the people will "naturally" choose the wisest of +their number to represent them. There is not much basis for this +assumption. Rousseau scouted it. According to him, the _volonte generale_ +could be ascertained only in the town meeting, and he seriously maintained +that the ideal government for the Roman empire was by the gangs of rioters +that the politicians marshalled in the Forum at Rome under the name of +_comitia_. All that the theory of our government requires, is that our +rulers shall be such men as are designated by the majority of the voters. +That they should be wise and good men may accord with the theory of +aristocracy; it is no part of the theory of democracy, and is certainly a +very small part of the practice. + +When I say that half of the property of this country is disfranchised, I +mean that the nature of this property is such that it is peculiarly +subject to the power of rulers, and that the owners of it have hardly any +legitimate way of defending it against the arbitrary exercise of this +power. The corporation is created by the legislature; men cannot combine +their capitals and avoid unlimited liability for the debts of the +combination, unless the law specifically authorizes the proceeding. Of +course, if the legislature has power to make such grants, it must have +power to alter them. In short, property held by a corporation is held at +the will of the legislature, and in a way and to an extent that property +held by an individual is not. It is not very easy for the legislature to +plunder or blackmail individuals, even when they are disfranchised, +because it has to be done by general laws, and direct methods arouse +direct opposition. But, as we have seen, stockholders as a class cannot +defend their rights, and as things are now, their trustees cannot have +much to say concerning the laws that affect their property. Managers of +large corporations are now commonly denounced as unfit to be legislators, +and are practically excluded from the halls of legislation. In some states +they are even specifically disfranchised, so far as holding office is +concerned, and, under the new despotism, ironically dubbed the new +freedom, every man whose wealth and ability make his aid important to many +enterprises, is to be forbidden to participate in more than one. Yet +property is almost entirely subject to the disposition of the legislature! +not entirely, for the courts afford some protection; but even this is now +threatened: we may "progress" so far as to make it unconstitutional for a +judge to declare any law unconstitutional. + +It goes without saying that half the property of the country will not +submit to spoliation without a struggle. If it cannot have representation +legitimately, it will try to get it illegitimately or extra legitimately. +The managers of corporations have in the past found many ways to influence +legislation. Despite the prejudices against them, some of them have had +themselves chosen as legislators; even as judges. Some have brought about +the election of legislators who would act in their favor, and have even +bribed legislators. Until recently it was not even unlawful for these +managers to use the money of their stockholders in political +contributions; some managers acted on the "Good Lord! Good Devil!" +principle. Probably most of the politicians paid no railroad fares. Many +of them got passes for their families and their friends; and it was +certainly to be expected that they should listen to the requests of those +who granted these favors. The situation became grotesque when a great +ruler, seeking a nomination to office with the proclaimed purpose of +enforcing the laws against rebates and passes, required the railroad +managers to furnish him free transportation on his righteous mission. + +There were obvious objections to these practices, and public opinion +finally compelled our rulers to pass laws prohibiting them. Theoretically +the managers of corporations are now effectually disfranchised. They dare +not offer themselves as candidates for office. They scarcely dare to +favor, even secretly, the choice of rulers who will listen to them. +Fortunately, however, they hardly longer dare to offer bribes. Anyone on +friendly terms with them is politically a suspicious character. Any lawyer +who has been employed by them becomes unavailable as a candidate for +office. Our legislators, as was to be expected, at once showed the effect +of release from restraint. It has been uncharitably said that in revenge +for the loss of their passes and other favors, they attacked the +railroads; but there has been considerable voting of more mileage, and our +congressmen at least voted themselves ample indemnity in larger salaries, +and they opened fire on corporations in general and railroads in +particular, with a broadside of statutes. Against this fire the property +of millions of small holders in the corporations has been almost +defenceless. Some of these statutes are so drawn that the plain business +man does not know whether he is a criminal or not; if he could afford to +consult the best of lawyers it would not help him much. The only safe +course to pursue is to agree with the adversary quickly; to plead guilty +to whatever charge is made, and beg for mercy. That one is innocent is +immaterial. The expense of litigation is nothing to the rulers of the +United States; but it may be ruinous to their subjects. The cost of the +commissions and investigations and prosecutions of the last few years has +been enormous. Only lawyers can contemplate it without consternation. + +True, the managers of large corporations can make their protests heard. +They can publish their pleas in the newspapers, and issue pamphlets, and +they can appear before committees and commissions, and submit arguments. +The managers of small corporations cannot afford such measures. You might +as well refer a servant-girl who couldn't collect her wages, to the Hague +Tribunal, as to send a plain business man to Washington to plead his +cause. + +The animus of these statutes is hostility to great corporations. But it is +impossible to legislate against great corporations without hitting the +small ones. Take the case of the recent corporation income tax; the +244,000 corporations exempt from the tax had to make out their inventories +and keep their books and report their proceedings precisely as if they +were liable to the tax. A fine of from $1,000 to $10,000 and a 50 per +cent. increased assessment were the penalties for failure. But the cost of +complying with all the requirements of the law, for a corporation having +an income of two or three thousand dollars, cannot be figured at much less +than the tax. Many corporations have no net income. The managers of these +concerns are not expert book-keepers, and their returns must be in many +cases so inaccurate as to expose them to prosecution if the game were +worth the candle. If we assume that the average cost of making out the +return is only ten dollars, we have a bill of $2,400,000, which the +stockholders, or the employees, or the customers, must pay for the +privilege of demonstrating that the small corporations are not liable to +pay anything at all. + +The corporation income tax law was really an act of popular dislike of +corporations exercising great monopolies. Grouping all the little +corporations with them was an absurdity and a cruelty. + +Corporations have no feelings. They are not wounded by the hostility of +legislatures. The managers of corporations of large capital have feelings, +and some of them are wounded in their pride by this hostility. But they +need not suffer in their pockets. They are abundantly able to protect +their own property; they know how to make money on the short side of the +market as well as the long side. But the managers of the concerns of small +capital are seldom able to do this. Oppressive laws cause suffering to +them, to the mere holders of stock in all corporations, to the creditors +of all, to the employees, and to the customers. Many of these laws profess +to be meant to favor small people as against big people--to restrain the +rich corporations so that the poor ones may have more liberty. There is no +evidence to show that this result is attained, or that the country would +be better off if it were attained. But there is plenty of evidence to show +that half the people of the country are suffering from these legislative +attacks on their property. The men who manage the great corporations, +whatever their faults, are men of enterprise and courage. They are the +true progressives; the prosperity that they diffuse among the whole people +is ordinarily more than can be destroyed by our progressive politicians. +They are now beginning to feel that their rulers are discriminating +against them as a class, and are uneasy and disheartened, and reluctant to +embark in new enterprises; and the progress of the country is halted by +their apprehension. It is not the rich who suffer most: it is "the +unemployed," and the millions of dumb, helpless, struggling thrifty men +and women whose hard earned savings constitute a large part of the capital +of the corporations; and who are already alarmed at the shrinking value of +these savings. It is, perhaps most of all, the mass of ignorant unthrifty +poor, whose chief wealth is the wages paid them by the corporations which +they are taught to look on as their oppressors. + + + + +RAILWAY JUNCTIONS + + +In his illuminating essay on _The Lantern-Bearers_, Stevenson complains of +the vacuity of that view of life which he finds expressed in the pages of +most realistic writers. "This harping on life's dulness and man's meanness +is a loud profession of incompetence; it is one of two things: the cry of +the blind eye, _I cannot see_, or the complaint of the dumb tongue, _I +cannot utter_." And then, with a fine flourish, he declares:--"If I had no +better hope than to continue to revolve among the dreary and petty +businesses, and to be moved by the paltry hopes and fears with which they +surround and animate their heroes, I declare I would die now. But there +has never an hour of mine gone quite so dully yet; if it were spent +waiting at a railway junction, I would have some scattering thoughts, I +could count some grains of memory, compared to which the whole of one of +these romances seems but dross." + +"If it were spent waiting at a railway junction" ... Here, with his +instinct for the perfect phrase, Stevenson has pointed a finger at the one +experience which is commonly accepted as the acme of imaginable dulness. +This man, who could be happy at a railway junction, could not have found a +prouder way of boasting to posterity that he had never "faltered more or +less in his great task of happiness." + +It is because railway junctions are the most unpopular places in the world +that they have been singled out for praise in THE UNPOPULAR REVIEW. Poor +places, lonely and forlorn, cursed by so many, celebrated by so +few,--surely they have waited over-long for an apologist.... But first of +all, in order to be fair, we must consider the customary view of these +points of punctuation in the text of travel. + +Far up in Vermont, at a point vaguely to the east of Burlington, there is +a place called Essex Junction. It consists of a dismal shed of a station, +a bewildering wilderness of tracks, and an adjacent cemetery, thickly +populated (according to a local legend) with the bodies of people who have +died of old age while waiting for their trains. This elegiac locality was +visited, many years ago, by the Honorable E.J. Phelps, once ambassador of +the United States to the court of St. James's. He was allotted several +hours for the contemplation of the cemetery; and his consequent +meditations moved him to the composition of a poem, in four stanzas, which +is a little classic of its kind. Space is lacking for a quotation of more +than the initial stanza; but the taste of a poem, as of a pie, may +conveniently be judged from a quadrant of the whole.-- + + With saddened face and battered hat + And eye that told of blank despair, + On wooden bench the traveller sat, + Cursing the fate that brought him there. + "Nine hours," he cried, "we've lingered here + With thoughts intent on distant homes, + Waiting for that delusive train + That, always coming, never comes: + Till weary, worn, + Distressed, forlorn, + And paralyzed in every function! + I hope in hell + His soul may dwell + Who first invented Essex Junction!" + +It was apparently the purpose of the writer to convey the impression that +his period of waiting had been passed without pleasure; but yet we may +easily confute him with another quotation from _The Lantern-Bearers_. "One +pleasure at least," says Stevenson, "he tasted to the full--his work is +there to prove it--the keen pleasure of successful literary composition." +Was this honorable author ever moved to such eloquence by an audience with +Queen Victoria? Never; so far as we know. Was not Essex Junction, +therefore, a more inspiring spot than Buckingham Palace? Undeniably. Then, +why complain of Essex Junction? + +For, indeed, the pleasure that we take from places is nothing more nor +less than the pleasure we put into them. A person predisposed to boredom +can be bored in the very nave of Amiens; and a person predisposed to +happiness can be happy even in Camden, New Jersey. I know: for I have +watched American tourists in Amiens; and once, when I had gone to Camden, +to visit Walt Whitman in his granite tomb, I was wakened to a strange +exhilaration, and wandered all about that little dust-heap of a city +amazing the inhabitants with a happiness that required them to smile. "All +architecture," said Whitman, "is what you do to it when you look upon +it;... all music is what awakes from you when you are reminded by the +instruments": and I must have had this passage singing in my blood when I +enjoyed that monstrous courthouse dome which stands up like a mushroom in +the midst of Camden. + +I have never been to Essex Junction; but I should like to go there--just +to see (in Whitman's words) what I could do to it. Imagine it upon a windy +night of winter, when a hundred discommoded passengers are turned out, +grumbling, underneath the stars,--coughing invalids, and kicking infants, +and indignant citizens, scrambling haphazard among tottering trunks, and +picking their way from train to train. Imagine their faces, their voices, +their gesticulations: here, indeed, you will see more than a theatre-full +of characters. Or, if human beings do not interest you, imagine the +mysterious gleam of yellow windows veiled behind a drift of intermingled +smoke and steam. Listen, also, to the clang of bells, the throb and puff +of the engines, and the shrill shriek of their whistles. Or peer into the +station-shed, made stuffy by the breath of many loiterers; and contrast +their death in life with the life in death of those others who loiter +through eternity beneath the gravestones of the cemetery. I can imagine +being happy with all this (and even writing a paragraph about it +afterwards): but, above all, I should like to gather those hundred +discommoded passengers upon the station-platform, and to rehearse and lead +them in a solemn chant of the refrain of Phelps's poem. Imagine a hundred +voices singing lustily in unison, + + "I hope in hell + His soul may dwell + Who first invented Essex Junction," + +under the vast cathedral vaulting of the night, until the adjacent dead +should seem to stand up in their graves and join the anthem of +anathema.... Who is there so bold to tell me that enjoyment is impossible +in such a place as this? + +There is very little difference between places, after all: the true +difference is between the people who regard them. I should rather read a +description of Hoboken by Rudyard Kipling than a description of Florence +by some New England schoolmarm. To the poet, all places are poetical; to +the adventurous, all places are teeming with adventure: and to experience +a lack of joy in any place is merely a sign of sluggish blood in the +beholder. + +So, at least, it seems to me; for not otherwise can I explain the fact +that, like my beloved R.L.S., I have always enjoyed waiting at railway +junctions. I love not merely the marching phrases, but also the commas and +the semi-colons of a journey,--those mystic moments when "we look before +and after" and need not "pine for what is not." I have never done much +waiting in America, which is in the main a country of express trains, that +hurl their lighted windows through the night like what Mr. Kipling calls +"a damned hotel;" but there is scarcely a country of Europe except Russia +whose railway junctions are unknown to me. In many of these little +nameless places I have experienced memorable hours: and because the less +enthusiastic Baedeker has neglected to star and double-star them, I have +always wanted to praise them, in print somewhat larger than his own. Space +is lacking in the present article for a complete guide to all the railway +junctions of Europe; but I should like to commemorate a few, in gratitude +for what befell me there. + +There is a junction in Bavaria whose name I have forgotten; but it is very +near Rothenburg, the most picturesquely medieval of all German cities. It +consists merely of a station and two intersecting tracks. When you enter +the station, you observe what seems to be a lunch-counter; but if you step +up to it and innocently order food, a buxom girl informs you that no food +is ever served there--and then everybody laughs. This pleasant +cachinnation attracts your attention to the assembled company. It consists +of many peasants, in their native costumes (which any painter would be +willing to journey many miles to see), who are enjoying the delicious +experience of travel. They are great travelers, these peasants. Once a +month they take the train to Rothenburg, and once a month they journey +home again, to talk of the experience for thirty days. All of them have +heard of Nuremberg [which is actually less than a hundred miles +away],--that vast and wonderful metropolis, so far, so very far, beyond +the ultimate horizon of their lives. They would like to see it some +day--as I should like to see the Taj Mahal--but meanwhile they content +themselves with the great adventure of going to Rothenburg,--a city that +is really much more interesting, if they could only know. In the very +midst of these congregated travelers, I casually set down a suit-case +which was plastered over with many labels from many lands; and this +suit-case affected them as I might be affected by a messenger from Mars. +They spelled out many unfamiliar languages, and a murmur of amazement +swept through the entire company when one of them discovered that that +suit-case had been to Morocco. Morocco, they assured me, was a place where +black men rode on camels; and I had no heart to tell them that it was a +country where white men rode on mules. Then another of these travelers--an +old man, with a face like one of Albrecht Duerer's drawings--discovered a +label that read "Venezia." "Is that," he said, "Venedig?" with a little +gasp. "Yes; Venedig," I responded, "where the streets are water." Slowly +he removed his hat. "Ach, Venedig!" he sighed; and then he stooped down, +and, with the uttermost solemnity, he kissed the label.... And then I +understood the vast impulsion of that _wanderlust_ which has pushed so +many, many Germans southward, to overrun that golden city that is wedded +to the sea. I have forgotten the name of that junction, as I said before; +but I have never been so happy in Munich as in this lonely station where +there is no food. + +Speaking of food reminds me of Bobadilla, in southern Spain. Bobadilla +sounds as if it ought to be the name of a medieval town, with ghosts of +gaunt imaginative knights riding forth to tilt with windmills; but there +is no town at all at Bobadilla,--merely two railway restaurants set on +either side of several intersecting tracks. For some mysterious reason, +passengers from the four quarters of the compass--that is to say, from +Cordoba, Granada, Algeciras, or Sevilla--are required to alight here, and +eat, and change their trains. I remember Bobadilla as the place where you +spend your counterfeit money. Many of the current coins of southern Spain +are made of silver; and the rest are made of lead. For leaden five-peseta +pieces there is a local name, "Sevillan dollars," which ascribes their +coinage to the crafty artisans of the capital of Andalucia. These pieces, +which are plentiful, are just as good as silver dollars--when you can +persuade anyone to take them. The currency of any coinage, except gold, +depends entirely upon the faith of those who pass and take it and has no +reference to its intrinsic value; and, in southern Spain, the leaden +dollars serve as counters for just as many commercial transactions as the +dollars made of silver. The only difference is that they are commonly +accepted only after protest. In every Spanish shop, a slab of marble is +built into the counter, and on this slab all proffered coins are slapped +before they are accepted by the merchant. The traveler soon learns to +fling his change upon the pavement; and many merry arguments ensue +regarding the _timbre_ of their ring. I remember how once, in the wondrous +town of Ronda, when a beggar had imposed himself upon me as a guide and +led me into a church where High Mass was being chanted, I gave him a +peseta to get rid of him, and at once he flung it upon the pavement of the +church, and chased it, listening, across the nave. Thereafter, he +protested loudly that the piece was lead, and disrupted the intoning of +the priests. "Very well," said I, "it is, in any case, a gift; if you +don't want it, I will take it back": and he accepted it with bows and +smiles, and allowed the weary priests to continue their intonings. But +Bobadilla is the one place in southern Spain where money is never jingled +upon marble. There is no time between trains to quibble over minor +matters; and a "Sevillan dollar" accepted from one passenger is blithely +handed to another who is traveling in the opposite direction. I discovered +this fact on the occasion of my first visit to this interesting junction; +and on subsequent occasions I have eaten my fill at one or another of the +railway restaurants and settled the account with all the leaden money +garnered up from weeks of traveling. There is surely no dishonesty in +observing the custom of a country; and Bobadilla may be treasured by all +travelers as a clearing-house for counterfeit coins. + +Again, in northern France, it was merely by some accident of changing +trains that I discovered the lovely little town of Dol. I found myself in +Saint Malo, for obvious reasons; and I desired to go to Mont Saint-Michel, +for reasons still more obvious--Mother Poulard's omelettes, and +architecture, and the incoming of the tide. Between them--the map told +me--was situated Dol. I made inquiries of the porter in the Saint Malo +hotel. He responded in English,--the English of _Ici on parle anglais_. +"Dol," said he, "is a dull place." He pronounced "Dol" and "dull" in +precisely the same manner, and smiled at his sickly pun. I did not like +that smile; and I alighted at the town that he despised. It was a little +picture-book of a place, with many toy-like medieval houses clustered side +by side around a market-place where peasants twisted the tails of cows. I +strolled to the cathedral--and found myself mysteriously in England. It +was a manly Norman edifice, sane and reticent and strong, set in a +veritable English green, with little houses round about, reminding one of +Salisbury. I entered the Cathedral; and found the nave to be composed in +what is called in England the "decorated" style, and the choir to give +hints of "perpendicular." And then I remembered, with a start, that the +ancestors of all that is most beautiful in England had migrated from +Normandy, and that here I was visiting them in their antecedent home. +"Saxon and Norman and Dane are we;" and all that was Norman in me reached +forth with groping hands to grasp the palms of those old builders who +reared this little sacrosanct cathedral in the far-off times when one +dominion extended to either side of the English Channel. + +It was by a similar accident--desiring to transfer myself from Bourges to +Auxerre--that I discovered the wonderful junction-town of Nevers, which, +despite the guide-books, is more interesting than either of the others. It +possesses a Gothic cathedral with an apse at either end, that looks as if +two churches had collided and telescoped each other. There is also a +Romanesque church at Nevers which is just as simple and as manly as either +of the famous abbeys in Caen; and a chateau with rounded towers, which +once belonged to Mazarin. But the most amusing feature of this town is +that, though Bourges packs itself to bed at ten o'clock, Nevers sits +blithely up till twelve, listening to music in cafes, and watching +moving-pictures; and this amiable incongruity in a medieval town makes you +bless that complication of the time-table which has forced you, against +forethought, to stay there over night. + +It is difficult for me to remember a railway junction in which there was +nothing to do; but perhaps Pyrgos, in Greece, comes nearest to this +description. At this point, you change cars on your way from Patras to +Olympia. The town is made of mud: that is to say, the single-storied +houses are built of unbaked clay. There is nothing to see in Pyrgos. But I +amused myself by addressing the inhabitants, in the English language, with +an eloquent oration that soon gathered them under my control; and +thereafter I set a hundred of them at the pleasant task of trying to push +the train for Olympia on its way to take me to the Hermes of Praxiteles. I +knew no word of their language, nor did they of mine; but they understood +that that train should be started, if human force were sufficient to help +the cars upon their way: and finally, when the engine puffed and snorted +with a tardily awakened sense of duty, the train was cheered by the entire +population as I waved my hand from the rear platform and quoted one of +Daniel Webster's perorations. + + * * * * * + +Is it--I have often wondered--so difficult as people think, to be happy in +an hour "spent waiting at a railway junction"?... The kingdom of happiness +is within us; or else there is no truth in our assumption that the will of +man is free: and I am inclined to pity a man who, being happy in +Amalfi--the loveliest of all the places I have ever seen--cannot also +manage to be happy in Pyrgos--or in Essex Junction--and to communicate his +happiness to his responsive fellow-travelers. + +The true enjoyment of traveling is to enjoy traveling; not to relish +merely the places you are going to, but to relish also the adventure of +the going. The most difficult train-journey I remember is the twenty-hour +trip from Lisbon to Sevilla, with a change of cars in the ghastly early +morning at the border-town of Badajoz and another change at noon at the +sun-baked, parched, and God-forsaken town of Merida; and yet I relish as +red letters on my personal map of Spain a pleasant quarrel over the price +of sandwiches at Badajoz and the way a muleteer of Merida flung a colored +cloak over his shoulder and posed for an unconscious moment like a +painting by Zuloaga. + +And this philosophy has a deeper application to life at large: for all +life may be figured as a journey, and few there are who are natively +equipped for the enjoyment of all the waste and waiting places on the way. +The minds of most people are so fixed upon the storied capitals that are +featured in those works of fiction known as guidebooks that they are +impeded from enjoying the minor stations on their journey. "Hurry me to +Sevilla," cries the traveler--and misses the sight of my muleteer of +Merida. In America, our society is crammed with people who fail to enjoy +life on five thousand a year because their minds are fixed upon that +distant time when they hope to enjoy life on twenty thousand a year. And +if ever they attain that twenty thousand they will not enjoy it either; +but will merely peer forward to a hypothetical enjoyment at fifty thousand +a year. And this is the essence of their tragedy:--they have not learned +to wait with happiness. + +Is there any reason for this inordinate ambition to "get on"? Louis +Stevenson was happier, as a small boy with a bull's-eye lantern at his +belt, than any king upon his throne. The secret of enjoyment is to learn +to look about us, to value what our destiny has given us, to transform it +into magic by some contributory gift of poetry or humor, to consider with +contentment the lilies of the field. The zest of life is in the living of +it; and "to travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive." + +How often, in the roaring and tumultuary tide of life, we meet a man who +sighs, "If only I could have a single day in which there was nothing that +I had to do, nothing even that I had to think of, how happy I should be!" +and yet this self-same man, if set down at a railway junction, will at +once bestir himself to seek something to think of, something to do, and +will spurn the gift of leisure. The incessant hurry of our current life +has tragically lured us to forget the art of loitering. We are no longer +able--like Wordsworth, on his "old gray stone"--to sit upon a trunk at +some railway junction of our lives and listen reverently to the "mighty +sum of things forever speaking." + +One of the loveliest women I have ever known--the late Alison +Cunningham--told me a little anecdote of the author of _The +Lantern-Bearers_ which, so far as I know, has never yet been published. +When little Louis was about five years old, he did something naughty, and +Cummy stood him up in a corner and told him he would have to stay there +for ten minutes. Then she left the room. At the end of the allotted +period, she returned and said, "Time's up, Master Lou: you may come out +now." But the little boy stood motionless in his penitential corner. +"That's enough: time's up," repeated Cummy. And then the child mystically +raised his hand, and with a strange light in his eyes, "Hush...," he said, +"I'm telling myself a story...." + +And, in the _Christian Morals_ of Sir Thomas Browne, we may read the +following passage:--"He who must needs have company, must needs have +sometimes bad company. Be able to be alone. Lose not the advantage of +solitude, and the society of thyself; nor be only content, but delight to +be alone and single with Omnipresency. He who is thus prepared, the day is +not uneasy nor the night black unto him. Darkness may bound his eyes, not +his imagination. In his bed he may lie, like Pompey and his sons, in all +quarters of the earth; may speculate the universe, and enjoy the whole +world in the hermitage of himself." + +Wordsworth sitting quiescent and receptive in a lakeside landscape, little +Louis standing in a corner, Sir Thomas Browne enjoying the whole world in +the hermitage of himself:--what a rebuke is offered by these images to +those who fret and fume away the leisure that is granted them at all the +waiting places of their lives!... These disgruntled travelers _nel mezzo +del cammin di nostra vita_ miss their privilege and duty of enjoying life +merely because they miss the point that life is, in itself, enjoyable. +They are so busy reading guide-books to the vague beyond that they shut +their minds to all that may be going on about them, or within them, at +way-stations. They close their eyes and ears to the immediate. They veto +all perception of the here and now. But life itself is always here and +now; and, truly to enjoy it, we must learn to look forever with +unfaltering eyes into the bright face of immediacy. + + * * * * * + +And there is another point about railway junctions that reveals an +important application to the larger journey of our life. A friend of mine, +who is a great lover of painting, had occasion once (and only once) to +change trains at Basle, in the course of a journey from Lucerne to +Heidelberg. He had to wait two hours at this railway junction; and this +time he pleasantly expended in eating many dishes at a restaurant, and +amusing the lax porters by teaching them a method of economizing energy in +shifting trunks. It should be noted that this friend of mine was not +trying to "kill time;" for, like all genuine humanitarians, he of course +regards that tragic process as the least excusable of murders. He was +entirely happy for two hours in that railway station. But--having packed +his guide-book in a trunk--it was not until he reached Darmstadt, some +days later, that he discovered that several of the very greatest works of +Holbein are now resident in Basle. The two hours that he had spent playing +and eating might have been devoted to an examination of many masterpieces +of that art which, more than any other, he had crossed the seas to seek. +He has never yet been able to return to Basle; but for a sight of those +lost portraits of the most honest and straightforward of all German +painters, he would gladly sell his memories of both Lucerne and +Heidelberg. + +Here we have a record of a great disappointment that was occasioned merely +by the common habit of despising railway junctions, and presuming them to +be inevitably dull. But this same unfortunate presumption, applied to life +at large, leads many people to overlook the nearness of some great +adventure. Interrogate a thousand men, and you will find that none of them +has first set eyes upon his greatest friend in the Mosque of Cordoba or in +Trafalgar Square. Every adventure of lasting consequence has confronted +all of them, without exception, in some hidden nook or cranny of the +world,--some place unknown to fame. Anybody is as likely to meet the woman +who is destined to become his wife, at Essex Junction on a wintry night, +as in the Parthenon by moonlight in the month of May. The most romantic +places in the world are often those that promised, in advance, to be the +least romantic. + +Since this is so, how can anybody ever dare to shut his eyes to that +incalculable imminency of adventure which environs him even when he is +merely changing trains on some island-platform of the New York Subway? In +our daily living we are never safe from destiny; and who can ever know in +what vacuous and sedentary period of his experience he may suddenly be +called upon to entertain an angel unawares? It is best to be prepared for +anything, at any hour of our lives,--even at those moments that must, +perforce, be "spent waiting at a railway junction." + + + + +MINOR USES OF THE MIDDLING RICH + + +To assert today that the rich are for the most part entirely harmless is +to dare much, for the contrary opinion is greatly in favor. Such wholesale +condemnation of the rich assumes a more general and a more specific form. +They are said to be harmful to the body politic simply because they have +more money than the average: their property has been wrongly taken from +persons who have a better right to it, or is withheld from people who need +it more. But aside from being constructively a moral detriment from the +mere possession of wealth, the rich man may do specific harm through +indulging his vices, maintaining an inordinate display, charging too much +for his own services, crushing his weaker competitor, corrupting the +legislature and the judiciary, finally by asserting flagrantly his right +to what he erroneously deems to be his own. Such are the general and +specific charges of modern anti-capitalism against wealth. Like many deep +rooted convictions, these rest less on analysis of particular instances +than upon axioms received without criticism. The word spoliation does +yeoman service in covering with one broad blanket of prejudice the most +diverse cases of wealth. But spoliation is assumed, not proved. My own +conviction that most wealth is quite blameless, whether under the general +or specific accusation, is based on no comprehensive axiom, but simply on +the knowledge of a number of particular fortunes and of their owners. Such +a road towards truth is highly unromantic. The student of particular +phenomena is unable to pose as the champion of the race. But the method +has the modest advantage of resting not on a priori definitions, but on +inductions from actual experience; hence of being relatively scientific. + +Before sketching the line of such an investigation, let me say that in +logic and common sense there is no presumption against the wealthy person. +Ever since civilization began and until yesterday it has been assumed that +wealth was simply ability legitimately funded and transmitted. Even modern +humanitarians, while dallying with the equation wealth = spoliation, have +been unwilling wholly to relinquish the historic view of the case. I have +always admired the courage with which Mr. Howells faced the situation in +one of those charming essays for the Easy Chair of _Harper's_. Driving one +night in a comfortable cab he was suddenly confronted by the long drawn +out misery of the midnight bread line. For a moment the vision of these +hungry fellow men overcame him. He felt guilty on his cushions, and +possibly entertained some St. Martin-like project of dividing his +swallowtail with the nearest unfortunate. Then common sense in the form of +his companion came to his rescue. She remarked "Perhaps we are right and +they are wrong." Why not? At any rate Mr. Howells was not permitted to +condemn in a moment of compassion the career of thrift, industry and +genius, that had led him from a printer's case to a premier position in +American letters, or, more concretely, he received a domestic dispensation +to cab it home in good conscience, though many were waiting in chilly +discomfort for their gift of yesterday's bread. The why so and why not of +this incident are my real subject. For Mr. Howells is merely a +particularly conspicuous instance of the kind of prosperity I have in +mind. We are all too much dazzled by the rare great fortunes. The newly +rich have spectacular ways with them. By dint of frequently passing us in +notorious circumstances, they give the impression of a throng. They are +much in the papers, their steam yachts loom large on the waters, they +divorce quickly and often, they buy the most egregious, old masters. By +such more or less innocent ostentations, a handful stretches into a +procession, much as a dozen sprightly supernumeraries will keep up an +endless defile of Macduff's army on the tragic stage. Let us admit that +some of the great wealth is more or less foolishly and harmfully spent; my +subject is not bank accounts, but people; and very wealthy people +constitute an almost negligible minority of the race. Their influence too +is much less potent than is supposed. A slightly vulgarizing tendency +proceeds from them, but in waves of decreasing intensity. Their vogue is +chiefly a _succes de scandale_. Sensible people will gape at the spectacle +without admiration, and even the reader of the society column in the +sensational newspapers keeps more critical detachment than he is usually +credited with. In any case neither the boisterous nor the shrinking +multimillionaire has any representative standing. He is not what a poor +person means by a rich person. Ask your laundress who is rich in your +neighborhood, and she will name all who live gently and do not have to +worry about next month's bills. True pragmatist, she sees that to be +exempt from any threat of poverty is to all intents and purposes to be +rich. Her classification ignores certain niceties, but corresponds roughly +to the fact, and has the merit of corresponding to government decree. Rich +people, since the income tax, are officially those who pay the tax but not +the surtax. Families with an income not less than four thousand dollars +nor more than twenty thousand comprise the harmless, middling rich. Let us +once for all admit that in the surtaxed classes there are many cases of +quite harmless wealth, while in the lower level of the rich, harmful +wealth will sometimes be found. Such exceptions do not invalidate the +general rule that all but a negligible fraction of the rich are included +in the first class of income taxpayers--on from four to twenty thousand, +that most of the property here held is blamelessly held in good +hands--wealth that in no fair estimate can be regarded as harmful. In +terms of British currency, our category of the middling rich would include +the poorer individuals of the upper classes, the richer persons of the +lower middle class, and the upper middle class as a whole. This comparison +is made not to apply an alien class system which holds very inadequately +here in America, but simply to avow the difficulty of my task of apology. +The bourgeoisie is equally suspect among radicals, reactionaries, and +artists. My middling rich are nothing other than what an European essayist +would quite brazenly call the _haute bourgeoisie_. It is quite a +comprehensive class, made up chiefly of professional men, moderately +successful merchants, manufacturers, and bankers with their more highly +paid employees, but including also many artists, and teachers of all +sorts. Incidentally it is an employing and borrowing class in various +degrees, hence especially subject to the exactions of the labor union at +one end, and of the great capitalist and the Trust at the other. + +The general harmlessness of the wealth of this class rests upon the fact +that it is in small part inherited, but mostly earned by individual +effort, while such effort has usually been honestly and efficiently +rendered and paid for at a moderate rate. In fact the amount of capacity +that can be hired for the slightest rewards is simply amazing. It is the +distinction of this class as compared both with the wage earning and the +capitalist class--both of which agree in overvaluing their services and +extorting payment on their own terms--that it respects its work more than +it regards rewards. Consider the amount of general education and special +training that go to make a capable school superintendent, or college +professor; a good country doctor or clergyman--and it will be felt that no +money is more honestly earned. This is equally true of many lawyers and +magistrates, who are wise counsellors for an entire country side. It is no +less true of hosts of small manufacturers who make a superior product with +conscience. For the wealth, small enough it usually is, that is thus +gained in positions of especial skill and confidence, absolutely no +apology need be made. I sometimes wish that the Socialists for whom any +degree of wealth means spoliation, would go a day's round with a country +doctor, would take the pains to learn of the cases he treats for half his +fee, for a nominal sum, or for nothing; would candidly reckon his normal +fee against the long years of college, medical school and hospital, and +against the service itself; would then deduct the actual expenses of the +day, as represented by apparatus, motor, or horse service--I can only say +that if such an investigator could in any way conceive that physician as a +spoliator, because he earned twice as much as a master brick-layer or five +times as much as a ditch digger--if, I say, before the actual fact, our +Socialist investigator in any way grudges that day's earnings, his mental +and emotional confusion is beyond ordinary remedy. And such a physician's +earnings are merely typical of those of an entire class of devoted +professional men. + +We do well to remind ourselves that the great body of wealth in the +country has been built up slowly and honestly by the most laborious means, +and accumulated and transmitted by self-sacrificing thrift. A rich person +in nine cases out of ten is merely a capable, careful, saving person, +often, too, a person who conducts a difficult calling with a fine sense of +personal honor and a high standard of social obligation. We are too much +dazzled by the occasional apparition of the lawyer who has got rich by +steering guilty clients past the legal reefs, of the surgeon who plays +equally on the fears and the purses of his patients, of the sensational +clergyman who has made full coinage of his charlatanism. All these types +exist, and all are highly exceptional. Most rich persons are +self-respecting, have given ample value received for their wealth, and +have less reason to apologize for it than most poor folks have to +apologize for their poverty. + +Furthermore: for the maintenance of certain humdrum but necessary human +virtues, we are dependent upon these middling rich. It has been frequently +remarked that a lord and a working man are likely to agree, as against a +bourgeois, in generosity, spontaneous fellowship, and all that goes to +make sporting spirit. The right measure of these qualities makes for charm +and genuine fraternity; the excess of these qualities produces an enormous +amount of human waste among the wage earners and the aristocrats +impartially. The great body of self-controlled, that is of reasonably +socialized people, must be sought between these two extremes. In short the +building up of ideals of discipline and of habits of efficiency and of +good manners and of human respect is very largely the task of the middle +classes. Whereas the breaking down of such ideals is, in the present +posture of society, the avowed or unavowed intention of a considerable +portion of laboring men and aristocrats. The scornful retort of the +Socialist is at hand: "Of course the middle classes are shrewd enough to +practice the virtues that pay." Into this familiar moral bog that there +are as many kinds of morality as there are economic conditions of mankind, +I do not consent to plunge. I need only say that the so-called middle +class virtues would pay a workman or a lord quite as well as they do a +bourgeois. Moreover, while workmen and lords are prone to scorn the +calculating virtues of the middle classes, there is no indication that the +_bourgeoisie_ has selfishly tried to keep its virtues to itself. On the +contrary there is positive rejoicing in the middle classes over a workman +who deigns to keep a contract, and an aristocrat who perceives the duty of +paying a debt. In fine we of the middle classes need no more be ashamed of +our highly unpicturesque virtues than we are of our inconspicuous wealth. + +So far from being in danger of suppression, we middling rich people are +likely to last longer than the capitalists who exploit us in practice, and +the workmen who exploit us on principle. Theoretically, and perhaps +practically, the very rich are in danger of expropriation. Theoretically +the course of invention may limit or almost abolish all but the higher +grades of labor. The need of the more skilful sort of service in the +professions, in manufacture, in agency of all sorts, is sure to persist. +The socialists expect to get such service for much less than it at present +brings, that is to make us poor and yet keep us working. Such a scheme +must break down, not through the refusal of the middling rich to keep at +work;--for I think there is loyalty enough to the work itself to keep most +necessary activities going after a fashion, even under the most untoward +conditions;--but because to make us poor is to destroy the conditions +under which we can efficiently render a somewhat exceptional service. Our +wealth is not an extraneous thing that can be readily added or taken away. +It is our possibility of self-education and of professional improvement, +it is the medium in which we can work, it is our hope of children. To take +away our wealth is to maim us. There is nothing humiliating in such an +avowal. It is merely an assertion of the integrity of one's life and work. +As a matter of fact no class is so well fitted to face the threat of a +proletarian revolution as we harmless rich. It is the class that produces +generals, explorers, inventors, statesmen. A social revolution with its +stern attendant regimentation would bear most heavily on the relatively +undisciplined class of working people. The disciplined class of the +middling rich is better prepared to meet such an eventuality. Accordingly +it is no mere selfishness or complacency that leads the middling rich to +oppose the pretensions of proletarianism on one side and of capitalism on +the other. It is rather the assertion of sound middle class morality +against two opposite yet somewhat allied forms of social immorality--the +strength that exaggerates its claims, and the weakness that claims all the +privileges of strength. + +We are useful too as conserving certain valuable ideas. When I mention the +idea of the right of private property, I expect to be laughed at by a +large class of enthusiasts. Yet all of civilization has been built up on +the distinction between _meum_ and _tuum_. Without this idea there is not +the slightest inducement to persistent individual effort nor possibility +of progress for the individual or for the race. The fruitful diversities, +the germinative inequalities between men all depend on this right. And +today the right to one's own is doubly under attack from the violence of +laboring men, and the guile of those in positions of financial trust. The +strikers who offer as an argument the burning of a mine or wrecking of a +mill, and the directors who manipulate corporation accounts to pay +unearned dividends, are both undermining the right of property. Against +such counsels of force and fraud, the representatives of the common sense +and funded wisdom of mankind are the middling rich. It is an unromantic +service--doubtless breaking other people's windows or scaling their bank +accounts is much more thrilling--it is a public service obviously tinged +with self-interest, but none the less a public service of high and timely +importance. The business of keeping the sanity of the world intact as +against the wilder expressions of social discontent, and the uglier +expressions of personal envy and greed, may seem to lack zest and +originality today. History may well take a different view of the matter. +It would not be surprising to find a posthumous aureole of idealism +conferred upon those who amid the trumpeting of money market messiahs, and +the braying of self-appointed remodellers of the race, simply stood +quietly on their own inherited rights and principles. + +Such are some not wholly minor uses for the middling rich. Should they be +abolished, many of the pleasanter facts and appearances of the world would +disappear with them. The other day I whisked in one of their motor cars +through miles of green Philadelphia suburbs dappled with pink magnolia +trees and white fruit blossoms--everywhere charming houses, velvety lawns, +tidy gardens. The establishing of a little paradise like that is of course +a selfish enterprise--a mere meeting of the push and foresight of real +estate operators with the thrift and sentiment of householders, yet it is +an advantage inevitably shared, a benefit to the entire community, an +example in reasonable working, living, and playing. + +On the side of play we should especially miss these harmless rich. The +sleek horses on a thousand bridle paths and meadows are theirs, the +smaller winged craft that still protest against the pollution of the sea +by the reek of coal and the stench of gasoline; of their furnishing are +the graceful and widely shared spectacles not only of the minor yacht +racing but of the field sports generally. They constitute our militia. The +survival in the world of such gentler accomplishments as fencing, +canoeing, and exploration rests with the middling rich. They write our +books and plays, compose our music, paint our pictures, carve our statues. +The pleasanter unconscious pageantry of our life is conducted by their +sons and daughters. To be nice, to indulge in nice occupations, to express +happiness--this is not even today a reproach to any one. Indeed if any +approach to the dreamed socialized state ever be made, it will come less +through regimentation than through imitation of those persons of middle +condition who have managed to be reasonably faithful in their duties, and +moderate in their pleasures. To keep a clean mind in a clean body is the +prerogative of no class, but the lapses from this standard are +unquestionably more frequent among the poor and the very rich. + +It is instructive in this regard to compare with the newspapers that serve +the middling rich, those that address the poor, and those that are owned +in the interest of well understood capitalistic interests. The extremes of +yellow journalism and of avowedly capitalistic journalism, meet in a +preference for salacious or merely shocking news, and in a predilection +for blatant, sophistical, or merely nugatory and time-serving editorial +expressions. Between the two really allied types of newspapers are a few +which exercise a decent censorship over questionable news, and habitually +indulge in the luxury of sincere editorial opinion. There are some +exceptions to the rule. In our own day we have seen a proletarian paper +become a magnificent editorial organ, while somewhat illogically +maintaining a random and sensational policy in its news columns. But +generally the distinction is unmistakable. Imagine the plight of New York +journalism if four papers, which I need not mention, ceased publication. +It would mean a distinct and immediate cheapening of the mentality of the +city. Then observe on any train who are reading these papers. It is plain +enough what class among us makes decent journalism possible. + +Much is to be said for the abolition of poverty, and something for the +reduction of inordinate wealth. Poverty is being much reduced, and will be +farther, the process being limited simply by the degree to which the poor +will educate and discipline themselves. We shall never wholly do away with +bad luck, bad inheritance, wild blood, laziness, and incapacity: so some +poverty we shall always have, but much less than now, and less dire. The +fact that the large class of middling rich has been evolved from a world +where all began poor, is a promise of a future society where poverty shall +be the exception. But such increase of the wealth of the world, and of the +number of the virtually rich, will never be attained by the puerile method +of expropriating the present holders of wealth. That would produce more +poor people beyond doubt--but its effect in enriching the present poor +would be inappreciable. You cannot change a man's character and capacity +simply by giving him the wealth of another. In wholesale expropriations +and bequests the experiment has been many times tried, and always with the +same results. The wealth that could not be assimilated and administered +has always left the receiver or grasper in all essentials poorer than he +was before. Wealth is an attribute of personality. It is not +interchangeable like the parts of a standardized machine. The futility of +dispossessing the middling rich would be as marked as its immorality. + +This essentially personal character of wealth must affect the views of +those who would attack what are called the inordinate fortunes. I hold no +brief for or against the multi-millionaire. In many cases I believe his +wealth is as personal, assimilated and legitimate as is the average +moderate fortune. In many cases too, I know that such gigantic wealth is +in fact the product of unfair craft and favoritism, is to that extent +unassimilated and illegitimate. Yet admitting the worst of great fortunes, +I think a prudent and fair minded man would hesitate before a general +programme of expropriation. He would consider that in many cases the +common weal needs such services as very wealthy people render, he would +reflect on the practical benefits to the world, of the benevolent +enterprises for education, research, invention, hygiene, medicine, which +are founded and supported by great wealth. In our time The Rockefeller +Institute will have stamped out that slow plague of the south, the hook +worm. To the obvious retort that the government ought to do this sort of +thing, the reply is equally obvious, that historically governments have +not done this sort of thing until enlightened private enterprise has shown +the way. Our prudent observer of mankind in general, and of the very rich +in particular, would again reflect that, granting much of the socialist +indictment of capital as illgained, common sense requires a statute of +limitations. At a certain point restitution makes more trouble than the +possession of illegitimate wealth. Debts, interest, and grudges cannot be +indefinitely accumulated and extended. It is the entire disregard of this +simple and generally admitted principle that has marred the socialist +propaganda from the first. From the point of view of fomenting hatred +between classes, to make every workingman regard himself as the residuary +legatee of all the grievances of all workingmen, at all times, may be +clever tactics, it is not a good way of making the workingman see clearly +what his actual grievance and expectancy of redress are in his own day and +time. + +With increasingly heavy income and inheritance taxes, the very rich will +have to reckon. Yet the multi-millionaire's evident utility as the milch +cow of the state, will cause statesmen, even of the anti-capitalistic +stamp, to waver at the point where the cow threatens to dry up from +over-milking. If the case, then, for utterly despoiling the harmful rich, +is by no means clear, the prospect for the harmless rich may be regarded +as fairly favorable. For the moment, caught between the headiness of +working folk, the din of doctrinaires, and the wiles of corporate +activity, the lot of the middling rich is not the most happy imaginable. +But they seem better able to weather these flurries than the windy, +cloud-compelling divinities of the hour. From the survival of the middling +rich, the future common weal will be none the worse, and it may even be +better. + + + + +LECTURING AT CHAUTAUQUA + + +To render any real impression of the Chautauqua Summer Assembly, I must +approach this many-mooded subject from a personal point of view. Others, +more thoroughly informed in the arcana of the Institution, have written +the history of its development from small beginnings to its present +impressive magnitude, have analyzed the theory of its intentions, and have +expounded its extraordinary influence over what may be called the +middle-class culture of our present-day America. It would be beyond the +scope of my equipment to add another solemn treatise to the extensive list +already issued by the tireless Chautauqua Press. My own experience of +Chautauqua was not that of a theoretical investigator, but that of a +surprised and wondering participant. It was the experience of an alien +thrust suddenly into the midst of a new but not unsympathetic world; and, +if the reader will make allowance for the personal equation, some sense of +the human significance of this summer seat of earnest recreation may be +suggested by a mere record of my individual reactions. + +I had heard of Chautauqua only vaguely, until, one sunny summer morning, I +suddenly received a telegram inviting me to lecture at the Institution. I +was a little disconcerted at the moment, because I was enjoying an +amphibious existence in a bathing-suit, and was inclined to shudder at the +thought of putting on a collar in July; but, after an hour or two, I +managed to imagine that telegram as a Summons from the Great Unknown, and +it was in a proper spirit of adventure that I flung together a few books, +and climbed into the only available upper berth on a discomfortable train +that rushed me westward. + +In some sickly hour of the early morning, I was cast out at Westfield, on +Lake Erie,--a town that looked like the back-yard of civilization, with +weeds growing in it. Thence a trolley car, climbing over heightening hills +that became progressively more beautiful, hauled me ultimately to the +entrance of what the cynical conductor called "The Holy City." A fence of +insurmountable palings stretched away on either hand; and, at the little +station, there were turn-stiles, through which pilgrims passed within. +Most people pay money to obtain admittance; but I was met by a very +affable young man from Dartmouth, whose business it was to welcome invited +visitors, and by him I was steered officially through unopposing gates. I +liked this young man for his cheerful clothes and smiling countenance; but +I was rather appalled by the agglomeration of ram-shackle cottages through +which we passed on our way to the hotel. + +I say "the hotel," for the Chautauqua Settlement contains but one such +institution. It carries the classic name of Athenaeum; but the first view +of it occasioned in my sensitive constitution a sinking of the heart. The +edifice dates from the early-gingerbread period of architecture. It +culminates in a horrifying cupola, and is colored a discountenancing +brown. The first glimpse of it reminded me of the poems of A.H. Clough, +whose chief merit was to die and to offer thereby an occasion for a grave +and twilit elegy by Matthew Arnold. Clough's life-work was a continual +asking of the question, "Life being unbearable, why should I not +die?"--while echo, that commonplace and sapient commentator, mildly +answered, "Why?": and this was precisely the impression that I gathered +from my initial vista of the Athenaeum between trees. + +On entering the hotel I was greeted over the desk (with what might be +defined as a left-handed smile) by one of the leading students of the +university with which I am associated as a teacher. He called out, +"Front!" in the manner of an amateur who is amiably aping the +professional, and assigned me to a scarcely comfortable room. + +My first voluntary act in the Chautauqua Community was to take a swim. But +the water was tepid, and brown, and tasteless, and unbuoyant; and I felt, +rather oddly, as if I were swimming in a gigantic cup of tea. From this +initial experience I proceeded, somewhat precipitately, to induce an +analogy; and it seemed to me, at the time, as if I had forsaken the roar +and tumble of the hoarse, tumultuous world, for the inland disassociated +peace of an unaware and loitering backwater. + +With hair still wet and still dishevelled, I was met by the Secretary of +Instruction,--a man (as I discovered later) of wise and humorous +perceptions. By him I was informed that, in an hour or so, I was to +lecture, in the Hall of Philosophy, on (if I remember rightly) Edgar Allan +Poe. I combed my hair, and tried to care for Poe, and made my way to the +Hall of Philosophy. This turned out to be a Greek temple divested of its +walls. An oaken roof, with pediments, was supported by Doric columns; and +under the enlarged umbrella thus devised, about a thousand people were +congregated to greet the new and unknown lecturer. + +I honestly believe that that was the worst lecture I have ever imposed +upon a suffering audience. I had lain awake all night, in an upper berth, +on the hottest day of the year; I had found my swim in inland water +unrefreshing; and, at the moment, I really cared no more for Edgar Allan +Poe than I usually care for the sculptures of Bernini, the paintings of +Bouguereau, or the base-ball playing of the St. Louis "Browns." This +feeling was, of course, unfair to Poe, who is (with all his emptiness of +content) an admirable artist; but I was tired at the time. It pained me +exceedingly to listen, for an hour, to my own dull and unilluminated +lecture. And yet (and here is the pathetic point that touched me deeply) I +perceived gradually that the audience was listening not only attentively +but eagerly. Those people really wanted to hear whatever the lecturer +should say: and I wandered back to the depressing hotel with bowed head, +actuated by a new resolve to tell them something worthy on the morrow. + +That afternoon and evening I strolled about the summer settlement of +Chautauqua; and (in view of my subsequent shift of attitude) I do not mind +confessing that this first aspect of the community depressed me to a +perilous melancholy. I beheld a landscape that reminded me of Wordsworth's +Windermere, except that the lake was broader and the hills less high, +deflowered and defamed by the huddled houses of the Chautauqua settlers. +The lake was lovely; and, with this supreme adjective, I forbear from +further effort at description. Upon the southern shore, a natural grove of +noble and venerable trees had been invaded by a crowded horror of +discomfortable tenements, thrown up by carpenters with a taste for +machine-made architectural details, and colored a sickly green, an acid +yellow, or an angry brown. The Chautauqua Settlement, which is surrounded +by a fence of palings, covers only two or three square miles of territory; +and, in the months of July and August, between fifteen and twenty thousand +people are crowded into this constricted area. Hence a horror of unsightly +dormitories, spawning unpredictable inhabitants upon the ambling, muddy +lanes. + +There have been, in the history of this Assembly, a few salutary +fires,--as a result of which new buildings have been erected which are +comparatively easy on the eyes. The Hall of Philosophy is really +beautiful, and is nobly seated among memorable trees at the summit of a +little hill. The Aula Christi tried to be beautiful, and failed; but at +least the good intention is apparent. The Amphitheatre (which seats six or +seven thousand auditors) is admirably adapted to its uses; and some of the +more recent business buildings, like the Post Office, are inoffensive to +the unexacting observer. A wooded peninsula, which is pleasantly laid out +as a park, projects into the lake; and, at the point of this, has lately +been erected a _campanile_ which is admirable in both color and +proportion. Indeed, when a fanfaronnade of sunset is blown wide behind it, +you suffer a sudden tinge of homesickness for Venice or Ravenna. It is +good enough for that. But beside it is a helter-skelter wooden edifice +which reminds you of Surf Avenue at Coney Island. Indeed, the Settlement +as a whole exhibits still an overwhelmment of the unaesthetic, and appalls +the eye of the new-comer from a more considerative world. + +On the way back from the lovely _campanile_ to the hotel, I stumbled over +a scattering of artificial hillocks surrounding two mud-puddles connected +by a gutter. This monstrosity turned out to be a relief-map of Palestine. +Little children, with uncultivated voices, shouted at each other as they +lightly leaped from Jerusalem to Jericho; and waste-paper soaked itself to +dingy brown in the insanitary Sea of Galilee.--Then I encountered a wooden +edifice with castellated towers and machicolated battlements, which called +itself (with a large label) the Men's Club; and from this I fled, with +almost a sense of relief, to the hotel itself, now sprawling low and dark +beneath its Boston-brown-bread cupola. + +Thus my first impression of Chautauqua was one of melancholy and +resentment. But, in the subsequent few days, this emotion was altered to +one of impressible satiric mirth; and, subsequently still, it was changed +again to an emotion of wondering and humble admiration. I had been assured +at the outset, by one who had already tried it, that, if I stayed long +enough, I should end up by liking Chautauqua; and this is precisely what +happened to me before a week was out. + +But meanwhile I laughed very hard for three days. The thing that made me +laugh most was the unexpected experience of enduring the discomfiture of +fame. Chautauqua is a constricted community; and any one who lectures +there becomes, by that very fact, a famous person in this little backwater +of the world, until he is supplanted (for fame is as fickle as a +ballet-dancer) by the next new-comer to the platform. The Chautauqua Press +publishes a daily paper, a weekly review, a monthly magazine and a +quarterly; and these publications report your lectures, tell the story of +your life, comment upon your views of this and that, advertise your books, +and print your picture. Everybody knows you by sight, and stops you in the +street to ask you questions. Thus, on your way to the Post Office, you are +intercepted by some kindly soul who says: "I am Miss Terwilliger, from +Montgomery, Alabama; and do you think that Bernard Shaw is really an +immoral writer?" or, "I am Mrs. Winterbottom, of Muncie, Indiana; and +where do you think I had better send my boy to school? He is rather a +backward boy for his age--he was ten last April--but I really think that +if, etc." + +Then, when you return to the hotel, you observe that everybody is rocking +vigorously on the veranda, and reading one of your books. This pleases you +a little; for, though an actor may look his audience in the eyes, an +author is seldom privileged to see his readers face to face. Indeed, he +often wonders if anybody ever reads his writings, because he knows that +his best friends never do. But very soon this tender sentiment is +disrupted. There comes a sudden resurrection of the rocking-chair brigade, +a rush of readers with uplifted fountain-pens, and a general request for +the author's autograph upon the flyleaf of his volume. All of this is +rather flattering; but afterward these gracious and well-meaning people +begin to comment on your lectures, and tell you that you have made them +see a great light. And then you find yourself embarrassed. + +It is rather embarrassing to be embarrassed. + +One enthusiastic lady, having told me her name and her address, assaulted +me with the following commentary:--"I heard you lecture on Stevenson the +other day; and ever since then I have been thinking how very much like +Stevenson you are. And today I heard you lecture on Walt Whitman: and all +afternoon I have been thinking how very much like Whitman you are. And +that is rather puzzling--isn't it?--because Stevenson and Whitman weren't +at all like each other,--were they?" + +I smiled, and told the lady the simple truth; but I do not think she +understood me. "Ah, madam," I said, "wait until you hear me lecture about +Hawthorne...." + +For (and now I am freely giving the whole game away) the secret of the art +of lecturing is merely this:--on your way to the rostrum you contrive to +fling yourself into complete sympathy with the man you are to talk about, +so that, when you come to speak, you will give utterance to _his_ message, +in terms that are suggestive of _his_ style. You must guard yourself from +ever attempting to talk about anybody whom you have not (at some time or +other) loved; and, at the moment, you should, for sheer affection, abandon +your own personality in favor of his, so that you may become, as nearly as +possible, the person whom it is your business to represent. Naturally, if +you have any ear at all, your sentences will tend to fall into the rhythm +of his style; and if you have any temperament (whatever that may be) your +imagined mood will diffuse an ineluctable aroma of the author's +personality. + +This at least, is my own theory of lecturing; and, in the instance of my +talk on Hawthorne, I seem to have carried it out successfully in practice. +I must have attained a tone of sombre gray, and seemed for the moment a +meditative Puritan under a shadowy and steepled hat; for, at the close of +the lecture, a silvery-haired and sweet-faced woman asked me if I wouldn't +be so kind as to lead the devotional service in the Baptist House that +evening. I found myself abashed. But a previous engagement saved me; and I +was able to retire, not without honor, though with some discomfiture. + +This previous engagement was a steamboat ride upon the lake. When you want +to give a sure-enough party at Chautauqua, you charter a steamboat and +escape from the enclosure, having seduced a sufficient number of other +people to come along and sing. On this particular evening, the party +consisted of the Chautauqua School of Expression,--a bevy of about thirty +young women who were having their speaking voices cultivated by an admired +friend of mine who is one of the best readers in America; and they sang +with real spirit, so soon as we had churned our way beyond remembrance of +(I mean no disrespect) the Baptist House. But this boat-ride had a curious +effect on the four or five male members of the party. We touched at a +barbarous and outrageous settlement, named (if I remember rightly) Bemus +Point; and hardly had the boat been docked before there ensued a +hundred-yard dash for a pair of swinging doors behind which dazzled lights +splashed gaudily on soapy mirrors. I did not really desire a drink at the +time; but I took two, and the other men did likewise. I understood at once +(for I must always philosophize a little) why excessive drinking is +induced in prohibition states. Tell me that I may not laugh, and I wish at +once to laugh my head off,--though I am at heart a holy person who loves +Keats. This incongruous emotion must have been felt, under this or that +influence of external inhibition, by everyone who is alive enough to like +swimming, and Dante, and Weber and Fields, and Filipino Lippi, and the +view of the valley underneath the sacred stones of Delphi. + +Within the enclosure of Chautauqua one does not drink at all; and I infer +that this regulation is well-advised. I base this inference upon my +gradual discovery that all the regulations of this well-conducted +Institution have been fashioned sanely to contribute to the greatest good +of the greatest number. That is my final, critical opinion. But how we did +dash for the swinging doors at Bemus Point!--we four or five +simple-natured human beings who were not, in any considerable sense, +drinking men at all. + +Then the congregated School of Expression tripped ashore with nimble +ankles; and there ensued a general dance at a pavilion where a tired boy +maltreated a more tired piano, and one paid a dime before, or after, +dancing. One does not dance at Chautauqua, even on moon-silvery summer +evenings:--and again the regulation is right, because the serious-minded +members of the community must have time to read the books of those who +lecture there. + +And this brings me to a consideration of the Chautauqua Sunday. On this +day the gates are closed, and neither ingress nor egress is permitted. +Once more I must admit that the regulation has been sensibly devised. If +admittance were allowed on Sunday, the grounds would be overrun by +picnickers from Buffalo, who would cast the shells of hard-boiled eggs +into the inviting Sea of Galilee; and unless the officers are willing to +let anybody in, they can devise no practicable way of letting anybody out. +Besides, the people who are in already like to rest and meditate. But +alas! (and at this point I think that I begin to disapprove) the row-boats +and canoes are tied up at the dock, the tennis-courts are emptied, and the +simple exercise of swimming is forbidden. This desuetude of natural and +smiling recreation on a day intended for surcease of labor struck me (for +I am in part an ancient Greek, in part a mediaeval Florentine) as strangely +irreligious. All day the organ rumbles in the Amphitheatre (and of this I +approved, because I love the way in which an organ shakes you into +sanctity), and many meetings are held in various sectarian houses, the +mood of which is doubtless reverent--though all the while the rippling +water beckons to the high and dry canoes, and a gathering of many-tinted +clouds is summoned in the windy west to tingle with Olympian laughter and +Universal song. How much more wisely (if I may talk in Greek terms for the +moment) the gods take Sunday, than their followers on this forgetful +earth! + +But we must change the mood if I am to speak again of what amused me in +the pagan days of my initiation at Chautauqua. Life, for instance, at the +ginger-bread hotel amused me oddly. To one who lives in a metropolis +throughout the working months, the map of eating at Chautauqua seems +incongruous. Dinner is served in the middle of the day, at an hour when +one is hardly encouraged to the thought of luncheon; and at six P.M. a +sort of breakfast is set forth, which is denominated _Supper_. This Supper +consists of fruit, followed by buckwheat cakes, followed by meat or eggs; +and to eat one's way through it induces a curious sense of standing on +one's head. After two days I discovered a remedy for this undesired +dizziness. I turned the _menu_ upside down, and ordered a meal in the +reverse order. The Supper itself was a success; but the waitress (who, in +the winter, teaches school in Texas) disapproved of what she deemed my +frivolous proceeding. Her eyes took on an inward look beneath the +pedagogical eye-glasses; and there was a distinct furrowing of her +forehead. Thereafter I did not dare to overturn the _menu_, but ate my way +heroically backward. After all, our prandial prejudices are merely the +result of custom. There is no real reason why stewed prunes should not be +eaten at three A.M. + +But this philosophical reflection reminds me that there is no such hour at +Chautauqua. At ten P.M. a carol of sweet chimes is rung from the Italian +_campanile_; and at that hour all good Chautauquans go to bed. If you are +by profession (let us say) a writer, and are accustomed to be alive at +midnight, you will find the witching hours sad. Vainly you will seek +companionship, and will be reduced at last to reading the base-ball +reports in the newspapers of Cleveland, Ohio. + +At the Athenaeum you are passed about, from meal to meal, like a one-card +draw at poker. The hotel is haunted by Old Chautauquans, who vie with each +other to receive you with traditional cordiality. The head-waitress steers +you for luncheon (I mean Dinner) to one table, for Supper to another, and +so on around the room from day to day. The process reminds you a little of +the procedure at a progressive euchre party. At each meal you meet a new +company of Old Chautauquans, and are expected to converse: but many +(indeed most) of these people are humanly refreshing, and the experience +is not so wearing as it sounds. + +But you must not imagine from all that I have said that the life of the +lecturer at Chautauqua is merely frivolous. Not at all. You get up very +early, and proceed to Higgins Hall, a pleasant little edifice (named after +the late Governor of New York State) set agreeably amid trees upon a +rising knoll of verdure; and there you converse for a time about the +Drama, and for another time about the Novel. In each of these two courses +there were, perhaps, seventy or eighty students,--male and female, elderly +and young. I found them much more eager than the classes I had been +accustomed to in college, and at least as well prepared. They came from +anywhere, and from any previous condition of servitude to the general +cause of learning; but I found them apt, and interested, and alive. + +Now and then it appeared that their sense of humor was a little less +fantastic than my own; but I liked them very much, because they were so +earnest and simple and human and (what is Whitman's adjective?) adhesive. + +And now I come to the point that converted me finally to Chautauqua. I +found myself, after a few days, liking the people very much. In the +afternoons I talked in the Doric Temple about this man or that,--selected +from my company of well-beloved friends among "the famous nations of the +dead"; and the people came in hundreds and listened reverently--not, I am +very glad to know, because of any trick I have of setting words together, +but because of Stevenson and Whitman and the others, and what they meant +by living steadfast lives amid the hurly-burly of this roaring world, and +steering heroically by their stars. Some elderly matrons among the +listeners brought their knitting with them and toiled with busy hands +throughout the lecture; but they listened none the less attentively, and +reduced me to a mood of humble wonderment. + +For I have often wondered (and this is, perhaps, the most intimate of my +confessions) how anybody can endure a lecture,--even a good lecture, for I +am not thinking merely of my own. It is a passive exercise of which I am +myself incapable. I, for one, have always found it very irksome--as +Carlyle has phrased the experience--"to sit as a passive bucket and be +pumped into." I always want to talk back, or rise and remark "But, on the +other hand..."; and, before long, I find myself spiritually itching. This +is, possibly, a reason why I prefer canoeing to listening to sermons. Yet +these admirable Chautauquans submit themselves to this experience hour +after hour, because they earnestly desire to discover some glimmering of +"the best that has been known and thought in the world." + +These fifteen or twenty thousand people have assembled for the pursuit of +culture--a pursuit which the Hellenic-minded Matthew Arnold designated as +the noblest in this life. But from this fact (and here the antithetic +formula asserts itself) we must deduce an inference that they feel +themselves to be uncultured. In this inference I found a taste of the +pathetic. I discovered that many of the colonists at Chautauqua were men +and women well along in life who had had no opportunities for early +education. Their children, rising through the generations, had returned +from the state universities of Texas or Ohio or Mississippi, talking of +Browning, and the binominal theorem, and the survival of the fittest, and +the grandeur and decadence of the Romans, and the _entassus_ of Ionic +columns, and the doctrine of _laissez faire_; and now their elders had set +out to endeavor to catch up with them. This discovery touched me with both +reverence and pathos. An attempt at what may be termed, in the technical +jargon of base-ball, a "delayed steal" of culture, seemed to me little +likely to succeed. Culture, like wisdom, cannot be acquired: it cannot be +passed, like a dollar bill, from one who has it to one who has it not. It +must be absorbed, early in life, through birth or breeding, or be gathered +undeliberately through experience. A child of five with a French governess +will ask for his mug of milk with an easier Gallic grace than a man of +eighty who has puzzled out the pronunciation from a text-book. There is, +apparently, no remedy for this. Love the _Faerie Queene_ at twelve, or you +will never really love it at seventy: or so, at least, it seems to me. And +yet the desire to learn, in gray-haired men and women who in their youth +were battling hard for a mere continuance of life itself, and founding +homesteads in a book-less wilderness, moved me to a quick exhilaration. + +Most of the people at Chautauqua come either from the south or from the +middle west. They pronounce the English language either without any _r_ at +all, or with such excessive emphasis upon the _r_ as to make up for the +deficiency of their fellow-seekers. In other words, these people are +really American, as opposed to cosmopolitan; and to live among them +is--for a world-wandering adventurer--to learn a lesson in Americanism. +Mr. Roosevelt once stated that Chautauqua is the most American institution +in America; and this statement--like many others of his inspired +platitudes--begins to seem meaningful upon reflection. + +At one time or another I have drifted to many different corners of the +world; but my residence at Chautauqua was my only experience of a +democracy. In this community there are no special privileges. If the +President of the Institution had wished to hear me lecture (he never did, +in fact--though we used to play tennis together, at which game he proved +himself easily the better man) he would have been required to come early +and take his chance at getting a front seat; and once, when I ventured to +attend a lecture by one of my colleagues, I found myself seated beside +that very waitress in the Athenaeum who had disapproved of my method of +ordering a meal. All the exercises are open equally to anybody--first +come, first served--and the boy who blacks your boots may turn out to be a +Sophomore at Oberlin. Teachers in Texas high-schools sweep the floors or +shave you, and the raucous newsboy is earning his way toward the +University of Illinois. All this is a little bewildering at first; but in +a day or two you grow to like it. + +This free-for-all spirit that permeates Chautauqua reminds me to speak of +the economic conduct of the Institution. The only charge--except in the +case of certain special courses--is for admission to the grounds. The +visitor pays fifty cents for a franchise of one day, and more for periods +of greater length, until the ultimate charge of seven dollars and fifty +cents for a season ticket is attained. On leaving the grounds, he has to +show his ticket; and if it has expired he is taxed according to the term +of his delinquent lingering. Once free of the grounds, he may avail +himself of any of the privileges of the Assembly. Lectures, on an infinite +variety of subjects, are delivered hour after hour; and a bulletin of +these successive lectures is posted publicly and printed in the daily +paper. Every evening an entertainment of some sort is given in the +Amphitheatre, and this is eagerly attended by swarming thousands. The +Institution owns all the land within the bounding palisades. Private +cottages may be erected by individual builders on lots leased for +ninety-nine years; but the Institution owns and operates the only hotel, +and exercises an absolute empery over the issuance of franchises to +necessary tradesmen. The revenue of the corporation is therefore rich; but +all of it is expended in importing the best lecturers that may be +obtained, and in furthering the general good of the general assembly. The +entire system suggests the theoretic observation that an absolute +democracy can be instituted and maintained only by an absolute monarchy. +If all the people are to be free and equal, the government must have +absolute control of all the revenue. Here is, perhaps, a principle for our +presidential candidates to think about. + +But I do not wish to terminate this summer conversation on a serious note; +and I must revert, in closing, to some of the recreations at Chautauqua. +The first of these is tea. Every afternoon, from four to five o'clock, the +visitor lightly flits from tea to tea,--making his excuses to one hostess +in order to dash onward to another. This is rather hard upon the health, +because it requires the deglutition of innumerable potions. I have always +maintained that tea is an admirable entity if it be considered merely as a +time of day, but that it is insidious if it be considered as a beverage. +At Chautauqua, tea is not only an hour but a drink; and (though I am a +sympathetic soul) I can only say that those who like it like it. For my +part, I preferred the concoction sold at rustic soda-fountains, which is +known locally as a "Chautauqua highball,"--a ribald term devised by +college men who make up the by-no-means-despicable ball-team. This +beverage is compounded out of unfermented grape-juice and foaming +fizz-water; and, if it be taken absent-mindedly, seems to taste like +something. + +But the standard recreation at Chautauqua is the habit of impromptu eating +in the open air. Every one invites you to go upon a picnic. You take a +steamer to some point upon the lake, or take a trolley to a wild and deep +ravine known by the somewhat unpoetic name of the Hog's Back; and then +everybody sits around and eats sandwiches and hard-boiled eggs, and +considers the occasion a debauch. This formality resembles great good +fun,--especially as there are girls who laugh, and play, and threaten to +disconcert you on the morrow when you solemnly arise to lecture on the +Religion of Emerson. But picnic-baskets out of doors are rather hard on +the digestion. + +Perhaps I should record also, as a curious experience, that I was required +to appear as one of the guests of honor at a large reception. This meant +that I had to stand in line, with certain other marionettes, and shake +hands with an apparently endless procession of people who were themselves +as bored as were the guests of honor. I determined then and there that I +should never run for President,--not even in response to an irresistible +appeal from the populace. I had never suspected before that there could be +so many hands without the touch of nature in them. I shook hands +mechanically, chatting all the while with a humorous and human woman who +stood next to me in the line of the attacked--until suddenly I felt the +sensitive and tender grasp of a sure-enough hand, reminding me of friends +and one or two women it has been a holiness to know. My attention was +attracted by the thrill. I turned swiftly--and I looked upon a little bent +old woman who was blind. She had a voice, too, for she spoke to me ... +and,--well, I was very glad that I went to that reception. + +And many other matters I remember fondly,--a certain lonely hill at +sunset, whence you looked over wide water to distant dream-enchanted +shores; the urbanity and humor of the wise directors of the Institution; +the manner of many young students who discerned an unadmitted sanctity +beneath the smiling conversations of those summer hours; my own last +lecture, on "The Importance of Enjoying Life"; the people who walked with +me to the station and whom I was sorry to leave; and the oddly-minded +student behind the desk of the hotel; and an old man from Kentucky who +cared about Walt Whitman after I had talked about his ministrations in the +army hospitals; and the trees, and the reverberating organ, and, beneath a +benison of midnight peace, the hushed moon-silvery surface of the lake. It +is, indeed, a memorable experience to have lectured at Chautauqua. + + + + +ACADEMIC LEADERSHIP + + +Any one who has traveled much about the country of recent years must have +been impressed by the growing uneasiness of mind among thoughtful men. +Whether in the smoking car, or the hotel corridor, or the college hall, +everywhere, if you meet them off their guard and stripped of the optimism +which we wear as a public convention, you will hear them saying in a kind +of sad amazement, "What is to be the end of it all?" They are alarmed at +the unsettlement of property and the difficulties that harass the man of +moderate means in making provision for the future; they are uneasy over +the breaking up of the old laws of decorum, if not of decency, and over +the unrestrained pursuit of excitement at any cost; they feel vaguely that +in the decay of religion the bases of society have been somehow weakened. +Now, much of this sort of talk is as old as history, and has no special +significance. We are prone to forget that civilization has always been a +_tour de force_, so to speak, a little hard-won area of order and +self-subordination amidst a vast wilderness of anarchy and barbarism that +are with difficulty held in check and are continually threatening to +overrun their bounds. But that is equally no reason for over-confidence. +Civilization is like a ship traversing an untamed sea. It is a more +complex machine in our day, with command of greater forces, and might seem +correspondingly safer than in the era of sails. But fresh catastrophes +have shown that the ancient perils of navigation still confront the +largest vessel, when the crew loses its discipline or the officers neglect +their duty; and the analogy is not without its warning. + +Only a year after the sinking of the _Titanic_ I was crossing the ocean, +and it befell by chance that on the anniversary of that disaster we passed +not very far from the spot where the proud ship lay buried beneath the +waves. The evening was calm, and on the lee deck a dance had been hastily +organized to take advantage of the benign weather. Almost alone I stood +for hours at the railing on the windward side, looking out over the +rippling water where the moon had laid upon it a broad street of gold. +Nothing could have been more peaceful; it was as if Nature were smiling +upon earth in sympathy with the strains of music and the sound of laughter +that reached me at intervals from the revelling on the other deck. Yet I +could not put out of my heart an apprehension of some luring treachery in +this scene of beauty--and certainly the world can offer nothing more +wonderfully beautiful than the moon shining from the far East over a +smooth expanse of water. Was it not in such a calm as this that the +unsuspecting vessel, with its gay freight of human lives, had shuddered, +and gone down, forever? I seemed to behold a symbol; and there came into +my mind the words we used to repeat at school, but are, I do not know just +why, a little ashamed of to-day: + + Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State! + Sail on, O Union, strong and great! + Humanity with all its fears, + With all its hopes of future years, + Is hanging breathless on thy fate!... + +Something like this, perhaps, is the feeling of many men--men by no means +given to morbid gusts of panic--amid a society that laughs overmuch in its +amusement and exults in the very lust of change. Nor is their anxiety +quite the same as that which has always disturbed the reflecting +spectator. At other times the apprehension has been lest the combined +forces of order might not be strong enough to withstand the +ever-threatening inroads of those who envy barbarously and desire +recklessly; whereas today the doubt is whether the natural champions of +order themselves shall be found loyal to their trust, for they seem no +longer to remember clearly the word of command that should unite them in +leadership. Until they can rediscover some common ground of strength and +purpose in the first principles of education and law and property and +religion, we are in danger of falling a prey to the disorganizing and +vulgarizing domination of ambitions which should be the servants and not +the masters of society. + +Certainly, in the sphere of education there is a growing belief that some +radical reform is needed; and this dissatisfaction is in itself wholesome. +Boys come into college with no reading and with minds unused to the very +practice of study; and they leave college, too often, in the same state of +nature. There are even those, inside and outside of academic halls, who +protest that our higher institutions of learning simply fail to educate at +all. That is slander; but in sober earnest, you will find few experienced +college professors, apart from those engaged in teaching purely +utilitarian or practical subjects, who are not convinced that the general +relaxation is greater now than it was twenty years ago. It is of +considerable significance that the two student essays which took the +prizes offered by the Harvard _Advocate_ in 1913 were both on this theme. +The first of them posed the question: "How can the leadership of the +intellectual rather than the athletic student be fostered?" and was +virtually a sermon on a text of President Lowell's: "No one in close touch +with American education has failed to notice the lack among the mass of +undergraduates of keen interest in their studies, and the small regard for +scholarly attainment." + +Now, the _Advocate_ prizeman has his specific remedy, and President Lowell +has his, and other men propose other systems and restrictions; but the +evil is too deep-seated to be reached by any superficial scheme of honors +or to be charmed away by insinuating appeals. The other day Mr. William F. +McCombs, chairman of the National Committee which engineered a college +president into the White House, gave this advice to our academic youth: +"The college man must forget--or never let it creep into his head--that +he's a highbrow. If it does creep in, he's out of politics." To which one +might reply in Mr. McCombs's own dialect, that unless a man can make +himself a force in politics (or at least in the larger life of the State) +precisely by virtue of being a "highbrow," he had better spend his four +golden years otherwhere than in college. There it is: the destiny of +education is intimately bound up with the question of social leadership, +and unless the college, as it used to be in the days when the religious +hierarchy it created was a real power, can be made once more a breeding +place for a natural aristocracy, it will inevitably degenerate into a +school for mechanical apprentices or into a pleasure resort for the +_jeunesse doree_ (_sc._ the "gold coasters"). We must get back to a common +understanding of the office of education in the construction of society, +and must discriminate among the subjects that may enter into the +curriculum, by their relative value towards this end. + +A manifest condition is that education should embrace the means of +discipline, for without discipline the mind will remain inefficient, just +as surely as the muscles of the body, without exercise, will be left +flaccid. That should seem to be a self-evident truth. Now it may be +possible to derive a certain amount of discipline out of any study, but it +is a fact, nevertheless, which cannot be gainsaid, that some studies lend +themselves to this use more readily and effectively than others. You may, +for instance, if by extraordinary luck you get the perfect teacher, make +English literature disciplinary by the hard manipulation of ideas; but in +practice it almost inevitably happens that a course in English literature +either degenerates into the dull memorizing of dates and names or, rising +into the O Altitudo, evaporates in romantic gush over beautiful passages. +This does not mean, of course, that no benefit may be obtained from such a +study, but it does preclude English literature generally from being made +the backbone, so to speak, of a sound curriculum. The same may be said of +French and German. The difficulties of these tongues in themselves, and +the effort required of us to enter into their spirit, imply some degree of +intellectual gymnastics, but scarcely enough for our purpose. Of the +sciences it behooves one to speak circumspectly, and undoubtedly +mathematics and physics, at least, demand such close attention and such +firm reasoning as to render them an essential part of any disciplinary +education. But there are good grounds for being sceptical of the effect of +the non-mathematical sciences on the immature mind. Any one who has spent +a considerable portion of his undergraduate time in a chemical laboratory, +for example, as the present writer has done, and has the means of +comparing the results of such elementary and pottering experimentation +with the mental grip required in the humanistic courses, must feel that +the real training obtained therein was almost negligible. If I may draw +further from my own observation I must say frankly that, after dealing for +a number of years with manuscripts prepared for publication by college +professors of the various faculties, I have been forced to the conclusion +that science, in itself, is likely to leave the mind in a state of +relative imbecility. It is not that the writing of men who got their early +drill too exclusively, or even predominantly, in the sciences lacks the +graces of rhetoric--that would be comparatively a small matter--but such +men in the majority of cases, even when treating subjects within their own +field, show a singular inability to think clearly and consecutively, so +soon as they are freed from the restraint of merely describing the process +of an experiment. On the contrary, the manuscript of a classical scholar, +despite the present dry-rot of philology, almost invariably gives signs of +a habit of orderly and well-governed cerebration. + +Here, whatever else may be lacking, is discipline. The sheer difficulty of +Latin and Greek, the highly organized structure of these languages, the +need of scrupulous search to find the nearest equivalents for words that +differ widely in their scope of meaning from their derivatives in any +modern vocabulary, the effort of lifting one's self out of the familiar +rut of ideas into so foreign a world, all these things act as a tonic +exercise to the brain. And it is a demonstrable fact that students of the +classics do actually surpass their unclassical rivals in any field where a +fair test can be made. At Princeton, for instance, Professor West has +shown this superiority by tables of achievements and grades, which he +published in the _Educational Review_ for March, 1913; and a number of +letters from various parts of the country, printed in the _Nation_, tell +the same story in striking fashion. Thus, a letter from Wesleyan +(September 7, 1911) gives statistics to prove that the classical students +in that university outstrip the others in obtaining all sorts of honors, +commonly even honors in the sciences. Another letter (May 8, 1913) shows +that in the first semester in English at the University of Nebraska the +percentage of delinquents among those who entered with four years of Latin +was below 7; among those who had three years of Latin and one or two of a +modern language the percentage rose to 15; two years of Latin and two +years of a modern language, 30 per cent.; one year or less of Latin and +from two to four years of a modern language, 35 per cent. And in the +_Nation_ of April 23, 1914, Prof. Arthur Gordon Webster, the eminent +physicist of Clark University, after speaking of the late B.O. Peirce's +early drill and life-long interest in Greek and Latin, adds these +significant words: "Many of us still believe that such a training makes +the best possible foundation for a scientist." There is reason to think +that this opinion is daily gaining ground among those who are zealous that +the prestige of science should be maintained by men of the best calibre. + +The disagreement in this matter would no doubt be less, were it not for an +ambiguity in the meaning of the word "efficient" itself. There is a kind +of efficiency in managing men, and there also is an intellectual +efficiency, properly speaking, which is quite a different faculty. The +former is more likely to be found in the successful engineer or business +man than in the scholar of secluded habits, and because often such men of +affairs received no discipline at college in the classics, the argument +runs that utilitarian studies are as disciplinary as the humanistic. But +efficiency of this kind is not an academic product at all, and is commonly +developed, and should be developed, in the school of the world. It comes +from dealing with men in matters of large physical moment, and may exist +with a mind utterly undisciplined in the stricter sense of the word. We +have had more than one illustrious example in recent years of men capable +of dominating their fellows, let us say in financial transactions, who +yet, in the grasp of first principles and in the analysis of consequences, +have shown themselves to be as inefficient as children. + +Probably, however, few men who have had experience in education will deny +the value of discipline to the classics, even though they hold that other +studies, less costly from the utilitarian point of view, are equally +educative in this respect. But it is further of prime importance, even if +such an equality, or approach to equality, were granted, that we should +select one group of studies, and unite in making it the core of the +curriculum for the great mass of undergraduates. It is true in education +as in other matters that strength comes from union, and weakness from +division, and if educated men are to work together for a common end, they +must have a common range of ideas, with a certain solidarity in their way +of looking at things. As matters actually are, the educated man feels +terribly his isolation under the scattering of intellectual pursuits, yet +too often lacks the courage to deny the strange popular fallacy that there +is virtue in sheer variety, and that somehow well-being is to be struck +out from the clashing of miscellaneous interests rather than from +concentration. In one of his annual reports some years ago President +Eliot, of Harvard, observed from the figures of registration that the +majority of students still at that time believed the best form of +education for them was in the old humanistic courses, and _therefore_, he +argued, the other courses should be fostered. There was never perhaps a +more extraordinary syllogism since the _argal_ of Shakespeare's +gravedigger. I quote from memory, and may slightly misrepresent the actual +statement of the influential "educationalist," but the spirit of his +words, as indeed of his practice, is surely as I give it. And the working +of this spirit is one of the main causes of the curious fact that scarcely +any other class of men in social intercourse feel themselves, in their +deeper concerns, more severed one from another than those very college +professors who ought to be united in the battle for educational +leadership. This estrangement is sometimes carried to an extreme almost +ludicrous. I remember once, in a small but advanced college, the +consternation that was awakened when an instructor in philosophy went to a +colleague--both of them now associates in a large university--for +information in a question of biology. "What business has he with such +matters," said the irate biologist; "let him stick to his last, and teach +philosophy--if he can!" That was a polite jest, you will say. Perhaps; but +not entirely. Philosophy is indeed taught in one lecture hall, and biology +in another, but of conscious effort to make of education an harmonious +driving force there is next to nothing. And as the teachers, so are the +taught. + +Such criticism does not imply that advanced work in any of the branches of +human knowledge should be curtailed; but it does demand that, as a +background to the professional pursuits, there should be a common +intellectual training through which all students should pass, acquiring +thus a single body of ideas and images in which they could always meet as +brother initiates. + +We shall, then, make a long step forward when we determine that in the +college, as distinguished from the university, it is better to have the +great mass of men, whatever may be the waste in a few unmalleable minds, +go through the discipline of a single group of studies--with, of course, a +considerable freedom of choice in the outlying field. And it will probably +appear in experience that the only practicable group to select is the +classics, with the accompaniment of philosophy and the mathematical +sciences. Latin and Greek are, at least, as disciplinary as any other +subjects; and if it can be further shown that they possess a specific +power of correction for the more disintegrating tendencies of the age, it +ought to be clear that their value as instruments of education outweighs +the service of certain other studies which may seem to be more immediately +utilitarian. + +For it will be pretty generally agreed that efficiency of the individual +scholar and unity of the scholarly class are, properly, only the means to +obtain the real end of education, which is social efficiency. The only +way, in fact, to make the discipline demanded by a severe curriculum and +the sacrifice of particular tastes required for unity seem worth the cost, +is to persuade men that the resulting form of education both meets a +present and serious need of society and promises to serve those +individuals who desire to obtain society's fairer honors. As for the +specific need of society at the present day, it is not my purpose to open +this matter now, for the good reason that the editor of THE UNPOPULAR +REVIEW has already permitted me to argue it at length in my article on +_Natural Aristocracy_. Mr. McCombs, speaking for the "practical" man, +declares that there is no place in politics for the intellectual +aristocrat. A good many of us believe that unless the very reverse of this +is true, unless the educated man can somehow, by virtue of his education, +make of himself a governor of the people in the larger sense, and even to +some extent in the narrow political sense, unless the college can produce +a hierarchy of character and intelligence which shall in due measure +perform the office of the discredited oligarchy of birth, we had better +make haste to divert our enormous collegiate endowments into more useful +channels. + +And here I am glad to find confirmation of my belief in the stalwart old +_Boke Named the Governour_, published by Sir Thomas Elyot in 1531, the +first treatise on education in the English tongue, and still, after all +these years, one of the wisest. It is no waste of time to take account of +the theory held by the humanists when study at Oxford and Cambridge was +shaping itself for its long service in giving to the oligarchic government +of Great Britain whatever elements it possessed of true aristocracy. +Elyot's book is equally a treatise on the education of a gentleman, and on +the ordinance of government; for, as he says elsewhere, he wrote "to +instruct men in such virtues as shall be expedient for them which shall +have authority in a weal public." I quote from various parts of his work +with some abridgment, retaining the quaint spelling of the original, and I +beg the reader not to skip, however long the citation may appear: + + Beholde also the ordre that god hath put generally in al his + creatures, begynning at the moste inferiour or base, and + assendynge upwarde; so that in euery thyng is ordre, and without + ordre may be nothing stable or permanent; and it may nat be called + ordre, excepte it do contayne in it degrees, high and base, + accordynge to the merite or estimation of the thyng that is + ordred. And therfore hit appereth that god gyueth nat to euery man + like gyftes of grace, or of nature, but to some more, some lesse, + as it liketh his diuine maiestie. For as moche as understandyng is + the most excellent gyfte that man can receiue in his creation, it + is therfore congruent, and accordynge that as one excelleth an + other in that influence, as therby beinge next to the similitude + of his maker, so shulde the astate of his persone be auanced in + degree or place where understandynge may profite. Suche oughte to + be set in a more highe place than the residue where they may se + and also be sene; that by the beames of theyr excellent witte, + shewed throughe the glasse of auctorite, other of inferiour + understandynge may be directed to the way of vertue and commodious + liuynge.... + + Thus I conclude that nobilitie is nat after the vulgare opinion of + men, but is only the prayse and surname of vertue; whiche the + lenger it continueth in a name or lignage, the more is nobilitie + extolled and meruailed at.... + + If thou be a gouernour, or haste ouer other soueraygntie, knowe + thy selfe. Knowe that the name of a soueraigne or ruler without + actuall gouernaunce is but a shadowe, that gouernaunce standeth + nat by wordes onely, but principally by acte and example; that by + example of gouernours men do rise or falle in vertue or vice. Ye + shall knowe all way your selfe, if for affection or motion ye do + speke or do nothing unworthy the immortalitie and moste precious + nature of your soule.... + + In semblable maner the inferiour persone or subiecte aught to + consider, that all be it he in the substaunce of soule and body be + equall with his superior, yet for als moche as the powars and + qualities of the soule and body, with the disposition of reason, + be nat in euery man equall, therfore god ordayned a diuersitie or + pre-eminence in degrees to be amonge men for the necessary + derection and preseruation of them in conformitie of lyuinge.... + + Where all thynge is commune, there lacketh ordre; and where ordre + lacketh, there all thynge is odiouse and uncomly. + +Such is the goal which the grave Sir Thomas pointed out to the noble youth +of his land at the beginning of England's greatness, and such, within the +bounds of human frailty, has been the ideal even until now which the two +universities have held before them. Naturally the method of training +prescribed in the sixteenth century for the attainment of this goal is +antiquated in some of its details, but it is no exaggeration, +nevertheless, to speak of the _Boke Named the Governour_ as the very Magna +Charta of our education. The scheme of the humanist might be described in +a word as a disciplining of the higher faculty of the imagination to the +end that the student may behold, as it were in one sublime vision, the +whole scale of being in its range from the lowest to the highest under the +divine decree of order and subordination, without losing sight of the +immutable veracity at the heart of all variation, which "is only the +praise and surname of virtue." This was no new vision, nor has it ever +been quite forgotten. It was the whole meaning of religion to Hooker, from +whom it passed into all that is best and least ephemeral in the Anglican +Church. It was the basis, more modestly expressed, of Blackstone's +conception of the British Constitution and of liberty under law. It was +the kernel of Burke's theory of statecraft. It is the inspiration of the +sublimer science, which accepts the hypothesis of evolution as taught by +Darwin and Spencer, yet bows in reverence before the unnamed and +incommensurable force lodged as a mystical purpose within the unfolding +universe. It was the wisdom of that child of Stratford who, building +better than he knew, gave to our literature its deepest and most +persistent note. If anywhere Shakespeare seems to speak from his heart and +to utter his own philosophy, it is in the person of Ulysses in that +strange satire of life as "still wars and lechery" which forms the theme +of _Troilus and Cressida_. Twice in the course of the play Ulysses +moralizes on the causes of human evil. Once it is in an outburst against +the devastations of disorder: + + Take but degree away, untune that string, + And, hark, what discord follows! each thing meets + In mere oppugnancy: the bounded waters + Should lift their bosoms higher than the shores, + And make a sop of all this solid globe: + Strength should be lord of imbecility, + And the rude son should strike his father dead: + Force should be right; or rather, right and wrong, + Between whose endless jar justice resides, + Should lose their names, and so should justice too. + Then every thing includes itself in power, + Power into will, will into appetite. + +And, in the same spirit, the second tirade of Ulysses is charged with +mockery at the vanity of the present and at man's usurpation of time as +the destroyer instead of the preserver of continuity: + + For time is like a fashionable host + That slightly shakes his parting guest by the hand, + And with his arms outstretch'd, as he would fly, + Grasps in the comer: welcome ever smiles, + And farewell goes out sighing. O, let not virtue seek + Remuneration for the thing it was; + For beauty, wit, + High birth, vigor of bone, desert in service, + Love, friendship, charity, are subjects all + To envious and calumniating time. + +To have made this vision of the higher imagination a true part of our +self-knowledge, in such fashion that the soul is purged of envy for what +is distinguished, and we feel ourselves fellows with the preserving, +rather than the destroying, forces of time, is to be raised into the +nobility of the intellect. To hold this knowledge in a mind trained to +fine efficiency and confirmed by faithful comradeship, is to take one's +place with the rightful governors of the people. Nor is there any narrow +or invidious exclusiveness in such an aristocracy, which differs in its +free hospitality from an oligarchy of artificial prescription. The more +its membership is enlarged, the greater is its power, and the more secure +are the privileges of each individual. Yet, if not exclusive, an academic +aristocracy must by its very nature be exceedingly jealous of any +levelling process which would shape education to the needs of the +intellectual proletariat, and so diminish its own ranks. It cannot admit +that, if education is once levelled downwards, the whole body of men will +of themselves gradually raise the level to the higher range; for its creed +declares that elevation must come from leadership rather than from +self-motion of the mass. It will therefore be opposed to any scheme of +studies which relaxes discipline or destroys intellectual solidarity. It +will look with suspicion on any system which turns out half-educated men +with the same diplomas as the fully educated, thinking that such methods +of slurring over differences are likely to do more harm by discouraging +the ambition to attain what is distinguished than good by spreading wide a +thin veneer of culture. In particular it will distrust the present huge +overgrowth of courses in government and sociology, which send men into the +world skilled in the machinery of statecraft and with minds sharpened to +the immediate demands of special groups, but with no genuine training of +the imagination and no understanding of the longer problems of humanity, +with no hold on the past, "amidst so vast a fluctuation of passions and +opinions, to concentre their thoughts, to ballast their conduct, to +preserve them from being blown about by every wind of fashionable +doctrine." It will set itself against any regular subjection of the +"fierce spirit of liberty," which is the breath of distinction and the +very charter of aristocracy, to the sullen spirit of equality, which +proceeds from envy in the baser sort of democracy. It will regard the +character of education and the disposition of the curriculum as a question +of supreme importance; for its motto is always, _abeunt studia in mores_. + +Now this aristocratic principle has, so to speak, its everlasting +embodiment in Greek literature, from whence it was taken over into Latin +and transmitted, with much mingling of foreign and even contradictory +ideas, to the modern world. From Homer to the last runnings of the +Hellenic spirit you will find it taught by every kind of precept and +enforced by every kind of example; nor was Shakespeare writing at hazard, +but under the instinctive guidance of genius, when he put his aristocratic +creed into the mouth of the hero who to the end remained for the Greeks +the personification of their peculiar wisdom. In no other poetry of the +world is the law of distinction, as springing from a man's perception of +his place in the great hierarchy of privilege and obligation, from the +lowest human being up to the Olympian gods, so copiously and magnificently +set forth as in Pindar's _Odes of Victory_. And AEschylus was the first +dramatist to see with clear vision the primacy of the intellect in the law +of orderly development, seemingly at variance with the divine immutable +will of Fate, yet finally in mysterious accord with it. When the +philosophers of the later period came to the creation of systematic +ethics, they had only the task of formulating what was already latent in +the poets and historians of their land; and it was the recollection of the +fulness of such instruction in the _Nicomachean Ethics_ and the Platonic +Dialogues, with their echo in the _Officia_ of Cicero, as if in them were +stored up all the treasures of antiquity, that raised our Sir Thomas into +wondering admiration: + + Lorde god, what incomparable swetnesse of wordes and mater shall + he finde in the saide warkes of Plato and Cicero; wherin is ioyned + grauitie with dilectation, excellent wysedome with diuine + eloquence, absolute vertue with pleasure incredible, and euery + place is so infarced [crowded] with profitable counsaile, ioyned + with honestie, that those thre bokes be almoste sufficient to make + a perfecte and excellent gouernour. + +There is no need to dwell on this aspect of the classics. He who cares to +follow their full working in this direction, as did our English humanist, +may find it exhibited in Plato's political and ethical scheme of +self-development, or in Aristotle's ideal of the Golden Mean which +combines magnanimity with moderation, and elevation with self-knowledge. +If a single word were used to describe the character and state of life +upheld by Plato and Aristotle, as spokesmen of their people, it would be +_eleutheria_, _liberty_: the freedom to cultivate the higher part of a +man's nature--his intellectual prerogative, his desire of truth, his +refinements of taste--and to hold the baser part of himself in subjection; +the freedom, also, for its own perfection, and indeed for its very +existence, to impose an outer conformity to, or at least respect for, the +laws of this inner government on others who are of themselves ungoverned. +Such liberty is the ground of true distinction; it implies the opposite of +an equalitarianism which reserves its honors and rewards for those who +attain a bastard kind of distinction by the cunning of leadership, without +departing from common standards--the demagogues who rise by flattery. But +it is, on the other hand, by no means dependent on the artificial +distinctions of privilege, and is peculiarly adapted to an age whose +appointed task must be to create a natural aristocracy as a _via media_ +between an equalitarian democracy and a prescriptive oligarchy or +plutocracy. It is a notable fact that, as the real hostility to the +classics in the present day arises from an instinctive suspicion of them +as standing in the way of a downward-levelling mediocrity, so, at other +times, they have fallen under displeasure for their veto on a contrary +excess. Thus, in his savage attack on the Commonwealth, to which he gave +the significant title _Behemoth_, Hobbes lists the reading of classical +history among the chief causes of the rebellion. "There were," he says, +"an exceeding great number of men of the better sort, that had been so +educated as that in their youth, having read the books written by famous +men of the ancient Grecian and Roman commonwealths concerning their polity +and great actions, in which books the popular government was extolled by +that glorious name of liberty, and monarchy disgraced by the name of +tyranny, they became thereby in love with their forms of government; and +out of these men were chosen the greatest part of the House of Commons; or +if they were not the greatest part, yet by advantage of their eloquence +were always able to sway the rest." To this charge Hobbes returns again +and again, even declaring that "the universities have been to this nation +as the Wooden Horse was to the Trojans." And the uncompromising monarchist +of the _Leviathan_, himself a classicist of no mean attainments, as may be +known by his translation of Thucydides, was not deceived in his +accusation. The tyrannicides of Athens and Rome, the Aristogeitons and +Brutuses and others, were the heroes by whose example the leaders of the +French Revolution (rightly, so far as they did not fall into the opposite, +equalitarian extreme) were continually justifying their acts: + + There Brutus starts and stares by midnight taper, + Who all the day enacts--a woollen-draper. + +And again, in the years of the Risorgimento, more than one of the +champions of Italian liberty went to death with those great names on their +lips. + +So runs the law of order and right subordination. But if the classics +offer the best service to education by inculcating an aristocracy of +intellectual distinction, they are equally effective in enforcing the +similar lesson of time. It is a true saying of our ancient humanist that +"the longer it continueth in a name or lineage, the more is nobility +extolled and marvelled at." It is true because in this way our imagination +is working with the great conservative law of growth. Whatever may be in +theory our democratic distaste for the insignia of birth, we cannot get +away from the fact that there is a certain honor of inheritance, and that +we instinctively pay homage to one who represents a noble name. There is +nothing really illogical in this: for, as an English statesman has put it, +"the past is one of the elements of our power." He is the wise democrat +who, with no opposition to such a decree of Nature, endeavors to control +its operation by expecting noble service where the memory of nobility +abides. When last year Oxford bestowed its highest honor on an American, +distinguished not only for his own public acts but for the great tradition +embodied in his name, the Orator of the University did not omit this +legitimate appeal to the imagination, singularly appropriate in its +academic Latin: + + ... Statim succurrit animo antiqua illa Romae condicio, cum non + tam propter singulos cives quam propter singulas gentes nomen + Romanum floreret. Cum enim civis alicujus et avum et proavum + principes civitatis esse creatos, cum patrem legationis munus apud + aulam Britannicam summa cum laude esse exsecutum cognovimus; cum + denique ipsum per totum bellum stipendia equo meritum, summa + pericula "Pulcra pro Libertate" ausum,... Romanae alicujus + gentis--Brutorum vel Deciorum--annales evolvere videmur, qui + testimonium adhibent "fortes creari fortibus," et majorum exemplis + et imaginibus nepotes ad virtutem accendi. + +Is there any man so dull of soul as not to be stirred by that enumeration +of civic services zealously inherited; or is there any one so envious of +the past as not to believe that such memories should be honored in the +present as an incentive to noble emulation? + +Well, we cannot all of us count Presidents and Ambassadors among our +ancestors, but we can, if we will, in the genealogy of the inner life +enroll ourselves among the adopted sons of a family in comparison with +which the Bruti and Decii of old and the Adamses of to-day are veritable +_new men_. We can see what defence against the meaner depredations of the +world may be drawn from the pride of birth, when, as it sometimes happens, +the obligation of a great past is kept as a contract with the present; +shall we forget to measure the enlargement and elevation of mind which +ought to come to a man who has made himself the heir of the ancient Lords +of Wisdom? "To one small people," as Sir Henry Maine has said, in words +often quoted, "it was given to create the principle of Progress. That +people was the Greek. Except the blind forces of Nature, nothing moves in +this world which is not Greek in its origin." That is a hard saying, but +scarcely exaggerated. Examine the records of our art and our science, our +philosophy and the enduring element of our faith, our statecraft and our +notion of liberty, and you will find that they all go back for their +inspiration to that one small people, and strike their roots into the soil +of Greece. What we have added, it is well to know; but he is the +aristocrat of the mind who can display a diploma from the schools of the +Academy and the Lyceum, and from the Theatre of Dionysus. What tradition +of ancestral achievement in the Senate or on the field of battle shall +broaden a man's outlook and elevate his will equally with the +consciousness that his way of thinking and feeling has come down to him by +so long and honorable a descent, or shall so confirm him in his better +judgment against the ephemeral and vulgarizing solicitations of the hour? +Other men are creatures of the visible moment; he is a citizen of the past +and of the future. And such a charter of citizenship it is the first duty +of the college to provide. + +I have limited myself in these pages to a discussion of what may be called +the public side of education, considering the classics in their power to +mould character and foster sound leadership in a society much given to +drifting. Of the inexhaustible joy and consolation they afford to the +individual, only he can have full knowledge who has made the writers of +Greece and Rome his friends and counsellors through many vicissitudes of +life. It is related of Sainte-Beuve, who, according to Renan, read +everything and remembered everything, that one could observe a peculiar +serenity on his face whenever he came down from his study after reading a +book of Homer. The cost of learning the language of Homer is not small; +but so are all fair things difficult, as the Greek proverb runs, and the +reward in this case is precious beyond estimation. + +Nor need we forget another proverb from Greece, with its spirit of +"accommodation"--that the half is sometimes greater than the whole. Even a +moderate acquaintance with the language, helped out by good translations +(especially in such form as the Loeb Classics are now offering, with the +original and the English on opposite pages), will go a surprising length +towards keeping a man, amid the exactions of a professional or otherwise +busy life, in possession of the heritage to which our age has grown so +perilously indifferent. + + + + +HYPNOTISM, TELEPATHY, AND DREAMS + + +A good many good judges find the world more out of joint, and moving with +a more threatening rattling, than at any previous time since the French +Revolution, and think that this is largely because the machine has lost +too much of that regulation it used to get from the religions. Much of the +regulation came from an interest in things wider than those directly +revealed by sense. + +Possibly a revival of such an interest may be promised by the recent +indications of a range of our forces, both physical and psychic, far wider +than previous experience has indicated. This leads us to invite attention +to some unusual psychic phenomena evinced by persons of exceptional +sensibilities not yet as well understood, or even as carefully +investigated, as perhaps they deserve to be. The physical phenomena are +outside of our present purpose. + +There are hundreds of well authenticated reports of super-usual visions. +The vast majority of them, however, were experienced when the percipients +were in bed, but believed themselves awake. But almost everybody has often +believed himself awake in bed, when he was only dreaming. Hence the +probability is overwhelming that most of these super-usual experiences +were had in dreams. + +But it is certain that not all were, at least in dreams as ordinarily +understood; but there seems to be a waking dream state. Foster's visions +virtually all came while he was awake, and they were generally at once +described by him as if he were describing a landscape or a play. At times +he very closely identified himself with some personality of his visions, +and acted out the personality, just as Mrs. Piper has habitually done. The +following is an approximate instance, quoted by Bartlett (_The Salem +Seer_, p. 51 f.): + + Says a writer in the New York _World_, Dec. 27, 1885: + + ... While we were talking one night, Foster and I, there came a + knock at the door. Bartlett arose and opened it, disclosing as he + did so two young men plainly dressed, of marked provincial + aspect.... I saw at once that they were clients, and arose to go. + Foster restrained me. + + "Sit down," he said. "I'll try and get rid of them, for I'm not in + the humor to be disturbed...." + + Foster hinted that he had no particular inclination to gratify + them then and there, but they protested that they had come some + distance, and, with a characteristically good-natured smile, he + gave in.... + + Then follows an account of a fairly good seance--taps on the + marble table, reading pellets, describing persons, etc., until I + thought Foster was tired of the interview and was feigning sleep + to end it. All of a sudden he sprang to his feet with such an + expression of horror and consternation as an actor playing Macbeth + would have given a good deal to imitate. His eyes glared, his + breast heaved, his hands clenched.... + + "Why did you come here?" cried Foster, in a wail that seemed to + come from the bottom of his soul. "Why do you come here to torment + me with such a sight? Oh, God! It's horrible! It's horrible!... It + is your father I see!... He died fearfully! He died fearfully! He + was in Texas--on a horse--with cattle. He was alone. It is the + prairies! Alone! The horse fell! He was under it! His thigh was + broken--horribly broken! The horse ran away and left him! He lay + there stunned! Then he came to his senses! Oh! his thigh was + dreadful! Such agony! My God! Such agony!" + + Foster fairly screamed at this. The younger of the men ... broke + into violent sobs. His companion wept, too, and the pair of them + clasped hands. Bartlett looked on concerned. As for me, I was + astounded. + + "He was four days dying--four days dying--of starvation and + thirst," Foster went on, as if deciphering some terrible + hieroglyphs written on the air. "His thigh swelled to the size of + his body. Clouds of flies settled on him--flies and vermin--and he + chewed his own arm and drank his own blood. He died mad. And my + God! he crawled three miles in those four days! Man! Man! that's + how your father died!" + + So saying, with a great sob, Foster dropped into his chair, his + cheeks purple, and tears running down them in rivers. The younger + man ... burst into a wild cry of grief and sank upon the neck of + his friend. He, too, was sobbing as if his own heart would break. + Bartlett stood over Foster wiping his forehead with a + handkerchief.... + + "It's true," said the younger man's friend; "his father was a + stock-raiser in Texas, and after he had been missing from his + drove for over a week, they found him dead and swollen with his + leg broken. They tracked him a good distance from where he must + have fallen. But nobody ever heard till now how he died." ... + +Now it is hardly to be supposed that the young visitor could ever have had +this scene in his mind as vividly as Foster had. In that case where and +how did Foster get the vividness and emotion? How do we get them in +dreams? He dreamed while he was awake. + +As Bartlett quotes this, and as it declares him to have been present, he +of course attests it by quoting it. So in each of Bartlett's quoted cases, +the original witness is the reporter in the newspaper, and Bartlett, who +was present (he was Foster's traveling companion and business agent) thus +confirms it. We know Mr. Bartlett personally, and have thorough confidence +in his sanity and sincerity. We have also been at the pains to learn that +he commands the confidence and respect of his fellow townsmen in Tolland, +Connecticut, where he is passing a green old age. Moreover, he does not +interpret these phenomena by "spiritism." + +We also had a sitting with Foster, in which he undoubtedly showed abundant +telepathy, and satisfied us that he was fundamentally honest, though not +always discriminating between his involuntary impressions, and his natural +impulses to help out their coherence and interest. + + * * * * * + +Those who explain these things by denying their existence, were at least +excusable thirty, or even twenty, years ago, but since the carefully +sifted and authenticated and recorded evidence of recent years, especially +that gathered by the Society for Psychical Research, the makers of such +explanations simply put themselves in the category of those who, in +Schopenhauer's day, denied the telopsis which is now quite generally +recognized. He said their attitude should not be called skeptical, but +merely ignorant. This brings to mind an excellent very practical friend +who read the first number of this REVIEW, and praised it, but said: "Don't +fool any more with Psychical Research and Simplified Spelling." We +refrained from saying that we had not known that he had ever studied +either, and we would not say it here if we were not confident that his +aversion from the subject will prevent his reading this. + +To return to the manifestations: here are some other cases where Foster +identified himself with a personality of his vision. (Bartlett, _op. +cit._, 93.) + + From Sacramento _Record_, December 8, 1873: + + Foster at one time seized A.'s hand, explaining, "God bless you, + my dear boy, my son. I am thankful I at last may speak to you. I + want you to know I am your father, who loved you in life and loves + you still. I am near to you; a thin veil alone separates us. + Good-by. I am your father, Abijah A----" + + "Good heavens!" exclaimed A----, "that was my father's name, his + tone, his manner, his action." + + "And," said Foster, "it was a good influence; he was a man of + large veneration." + +The above indicates what we will provisionally call Possession. But it is +not possession to the extent of complete expulsion of the original +consciousness, as in the trances of Home, Moses, and Mrs. Piper. + +And which is the following? (Bartlett, _op. cit._, 103): + + [Letter to editor, written Nov. 30, 1874] + + New York _Daily Graphic_: ... He told me he saw the spirit of an + old woman close to me, describing most perfectly my grandmother, + and repeating: "Resodeda, Resodeda is here; she kisses her + grandson." Arising from his chair, Foster embraced and kissed me + in the same peculiar way as my grandmother did when alive. + +But here the Possession seems complete (Bartlett, _op. cit._, 140). From +the Melbourne _Daily Age_: + + Mr. Foster ... in answer to the question, What he died of? + suddenly interrupted, "Stay, this spirit will enter and possess + me," and instantaneously his whole body was seized with quivering + convulsions, the eyes were introverted, the face swelled, and the + mouth and hands were spasmodically agitated. Another change, and + there sat before me the counterpart of the figure of my departed + friend, stricken down with complete paralysis, just as he was on + his death-bed. The transformation was so life-like, if I may use + the expression, that I fancied I could detect the very features + and physiognomical changes that passed across the visage of my + dying friend. The kind of paralysis was exactly represented, with + the palsied hand extended to me to shake, as in the case of the + original. Mr. Foster recovered himself when I touched it, and he + said in reply to one of my companions that he had completely lost + his own identity during the fit, and felt like waves of water + flowing all over his body, from the crown downwards. + +Now for some tentative explanation of these rather unusual proceedings. It +is generally known that a hypnotized person will imagine things and do +things willed by the hypnotizer, that the sensibility of persons to +hypnotism varies, and that persons frequently hypnotized become +increasingly susceptible to the influence. + +Now what is ordinarily called thought transference has all these symptoms, +and the combined indications seem to be that persons who readily +experience thought-transference are specially susceptible to hypnotic +influence, and get the transferred thought from almost anybody, just as +the recognized hypnotic subject gets it from his hypnotizer; and that +persons of excessive sensibility, like Foster, Home, Mrs. Holland, Mrs. +Piper and mediums generally--the genuine ones,--simply get their +impressions hypnotically from their sitters. + +But this explanation (?) by no means covers the whole situation. In the +first place, it does not cover the vividness and the emotional content +often displayed by the sensitive. The sitter is very seldom conscious of +anything approaching it. It comes nearer to, in fact almost seems +identical with, the frequent vividness and intensity of dreams. But where +do dreams come from, whether in sleep, or in a waking "dream state" like +that of Foster and many other sensitives? They don't come from any +assignable "sitter." This present scribe dreams architecture and +bric-a-brac finer than any he ever saw, or than any ever made. Yet he is +no architect, or artist of any kind. Where does it all come from? + +Dreams, moreover, are filled with memories of forgotten things. Where do +they come from? Dreams, too, are by no means devoid of truths not +previously known to the dreamer, or, it would sometimes seem, to anybody +else. Where do they come from? + +Du Prel and his school say they come from a "subliminal self," and Myers +picks up the term and spreads it through Anglo-Saxondom. But those queer +dreams frequently include persons who oppose the self--argue with it, and +even down it, sometimes very much for its information, regeneration and +increased stability. That does not seem like a house divided against +itself; such an one, we have on very high authority, is apt to fall. +James, cornered by his studies in Psychical Research, was inclined to +posit a "cosmic reservoir" of all thoughts and feelings that ever existed, +and of potentialities of all the thoughts and feelings that are ever going +to exist; and under various designations, this cosmic reservoir or,--it +seems a better metaphor--the cosmic soul filling it, and dribbling into +our little souls,--is a guess of virtually all the philosophers from James +back to Plato, and farther still--into the mists. + +Moreover this guess is powerfully backed up by another guess: men's +speculations have been reaching back for the beginning of mind, until they +recognize that a consistent doctrine of evolution finds no beginning, and +demands mind as a constituent of the star-dust, and, when it really comes +down to the scratch, is unable to imagine matter unassociated with mind. +This is admirably expressed by James (Psychology I, 140): + + If evolution is to work smoothly, consciousness in some shape must + have been present at the very origin of things. Accordingly we + find that the more clear-sighted evolutionary philosophers are + beginning to posit it there. Each atom of the nebula, they + suppose, must have had an aboriginal atom of consciousness linked + with it; and, just as the material atoms have formed bodies and + brains by massing themselves together, so the mental atoms, by an + analogous process of aggregation, have fused into those larger + consciousnesses which we know in ourselves and suppose to exist in + our fellow-animals. + +That mind is not limited to this connection with matter, we see proved _a +posteriori_ every day by the appearance from _some_ source, it may be only +from the memories of survivors, of minds whose accompanying matter is long +since dissipated. + +Moreover, in life, the matter is changing constantly and +entirely--"renewed once in seven years." Yet not only does the "plan," the +"idea," of the material man remain the same, but his mind grows for forty, +sixty, sometimes eighty years, while the body begins to go down hill at +twenty-eight. + +Moreover, we never see the sum of matter in the universe increasing, and +we do see the sum of mind increasing every time two old thoughts coalesce +into a new one, or even every time matter assumes a new form before a +perceiving intelligence, not to speak of every time Mr. Bryan or Mr. +Roosevelt opens his mouth. We cite these last as the extreme examples of +increase--in quantity. We see another sort of increase every time Lord +Bryce takes up his pen--the mental treasures of the world are added +to--the contents of the cosmic reservoir worthily increased--the cosmic +soul greater and more significant than before. + +Parts of it farther and farther removed in time and space seem to be +manifesting themselves through the sensitives every day: so the evidence +is increasing that none of it has ever been extinguished. The evidence +that any part has been, is merely the evidence that it has stopped flowing +through each man when he dies. But there are pretty strong indications +that it has welled up occasionally through another man, and yet with the +original individuality apparently even stronger than it was in the first +man--strong enough to make an alien body--Foster's, in the instances +quoted, look and act like the original twin body. + +Yet while the cosmic soul idea seems very illuminating, and even +stimulating, as far as it goes, it soon lands us in the swamp of paradox +surrounding all our knowledge. How reconcile it with our +individuality--the individuality as dear as life itself--virtually +identical with life itself? Well, we can't reconcile them, at least just +yet. But we can pull our feet up from the swamp, and make a step that may +be towards a reconciliation. Each of our brains is a network of channels +through which the cosmic soul flows; and there are no two brains +alike--hence our individuality. + +But those brains perish. Must individuality be conceded at the cost of our +mental continuity? Perhaps not. Grant even the original mind-atom to be a +constituent, or inseparable companion, of an original matter-atom +(wouldn't it be more up to date to say vibration in each case?), mind, as +we have already tried to demonstrate, is not limited, as matter seems to +be, to those primitive atoms. + + * * * * * + +The vague but almost unescapable notion of the cosmic soul also opens up +some hint of an explanation of hypnotism, including, of course, thought +transference. These vague hints or gleams on the borderland of our +knowledge are of course something like what must be such hints of what we +know as color, as go through the pigment spots on the surface of one of +the lower creatures. Such as our limits are, we can express them only in +metaphors. But for that matter all of our language beyond a few material +conceptions, is metaphor from them. Well, on the hypothesis (or facing the +fact, if you prefer) of the cosmic soul, telepathy, hypnotism and all that +sort of thing at once affiliates itself with all our easy conceptions of +interflow--in fluids, gases, sounds, colors, magnetism, electricity, etc. +It's all a vague groping, but there seems something there which, as we +evolve farther, we may get clearer impressions of. + +Well, to return to our sheep. Foster didn't get the clearness and +intensity of his visions from the comparatively indistinct and placid +impressions in his sitters' minds. There must be something more than +hypnotism from the sitter. + + * * * * * + +Now here is a tougher case which opens a new element of the problem. It is +from _The Autobiography of a Journalist_, by W.J. Stillman, Boston, 1901, +Vol. I, pp. 192-4: Not many of our older readers will require any +introduction of Stillman. For the younger ones, we may say that he was a +very eminent art-critic; spent most of the latter half of his life abroad, +being part of the time our consul at Crete; wrote a history of the Cretan +Rebellion, and other books; and was a regular correspondent of _The +Nation_, and of _The London Times_. We never knew his veracity questioned. + +Here is the story: + +A "spiritual medium," Miss A. was "under the control" of Stillman's dead +cousin "Harvey." The "possession" seems to have been throughout free from +trance. Stillman says: + + I asked Harvey if he had seen old Turner, the landscape painter, + since his death, which had taken place not very long before. The + reply was "Yes," and I then asked what he was doing, the reply + being a pantomime of painting. I then asked if Harvey could bring + Turner there, to which the reply was, "I do not know; I will go + and see," upon which Miss A. said, "This influence [Harvey's. + Editor] is going away--it is gone"; and after a short pause added, + "There is another influence coming, in that direction," pointing + over her left shoulder. "I don't like it," and she shuddered + slightly, but presently sat up in her chair with a most + extraordinary personation of the old painter in manner, in the + look out from under the brow, and the pose of the head. It was as + if the ghost of Turner, as I had seen him at Griffiths's, sat in + the chair, and it made my flesh creep to the very tips of my + fingers, as if a spirit sat before me. Miss A. exclaimed, "This + influence has taken complete possession of me, as none of the + others did. I am obliged to do what it wants me to." I asked if + Turner would write his name for me, to which she replied by a + sharp, decided negative sign. I then asked if he would give me + some advice about my painting, remembering Turner's kindly + invitation and manner when I saw him. This proposition was met by + the same decided negative, accompanied by the fixed and sardonic + stare which the girl had put on at the coming of the new + influence. This disconcerted me, and I then explained to my + brother what had been going on, as, the questions being mental, he + had no clue to the pantomime. I said that as an influence which + purported to be Turner was present, and refused to answer any + questions, I supposed there was nothing more to be done. + + But Miss A. still sat unmoved and helpless, so we waited. + Presently she remarked that the influence wanted her to do + something she knew not what, only that she had to get up and go + across the room, which she did with the feeble step of an old man. + She crossed the room and took down from the wall a colored French + lithograph, and, coming to me, laid it on the table before me, and + by gesture called my attention to it. She then went through the + pantomime of stretching a sheet of paper on a drawing-board, then + that of sharpening a lead pencil, following it up by tracing the + outlines of the subject in the lithograph. Then followed in + similar pantomime the choosing of a water-color pencil, noting + carefully the necessary fineness of the point, and then the + washing-in of a drawing, broadly. Miss A. seemed much amused by + all this, but as she knew nothing of drawing she understood + nothing of it. Then with the pencil and her pocket handkerchief + she began taking out the lights, "rubbing-out," as the technical + term is. This seemed to me so contrary to what I conceived to be + the execution of Turner that I interrupted with the question, "Do + you mean to say that Turner rubbed out his lights?" to which she + gave the affirmative sign. I asked further if in a drawing which I + then had in my mind, the well-known "Llanthony Abbey," the central + passage of sunlight and shadow through rain was done in that way, + and she again gave the affirmative reply, emphatically. I was so + firmly convinced to the contrary that I was now persuaded that + there was a simulation of personality, such as was generally the + case with the public mediums, and I said to my brother, who had + not heard any of my questions [He says above that they were + mental. Ed.] that this was another humbug, and then repeated what + had passed, saying that Turner could not have worked in that way. + + Six weeks later I sailed for England, and, on arriving in London, + I went at once to see Ruskin, and told him the whole story. He + declared the contrariness manifested by the medium to be entirely + characteristic of Turner, and had the drawing in question down for + examination. We scrutinized it closely, and both recognized beyond + dispute that the drawing had been executed in the way that Miss A. + indicated. Ruskin advised me to send an account of the affair to + the _Cornhill_, which I did; but it was rejected, as might have + been expected in the state of public opinion at that time, and I + can easily imagine Thackeray putting it into the basket in a rage. + + I offer no interpretation of the facts which I have here recorded, + but I have no hesitation in saying that they completed and fixed + my conviction of the existence of invisible and independent + intelligences to which the phenomena were due. + +To me they seem perhaps the nearest I have come to a communication of +something not known to any earthly intelligence, and yet it _may_ have +been so known. + +When manifestations of this general nature first attracted systematic +study, they were attributed, as already stated, to telepathy from the +sitter. Stillman knew Turner, and as Stillman had an artist's vividness of +impression, the sensitive could have got from him a pretty good idea of +Turner, and have acted it out. But how about the innumerable cases not +unlike the Foster cases quoted, where sensitives get impressions much more +vivid than the sitter appears capable of holding, and act them out with +dramatic verisimilitude of which the sitter is absolutely incapable; and +how about the innumerable cases where the sensitive gets impressions and +memories which the sitter never had? + +These have been accounted for as being picked up from absent persons, by a +kind of wireless telegraphy, for which we have ventured, with the +assistance of a couple of Grecian friends, to suggest the name +teloteropathy. + +Well! In this Turner case, _somebody_ somewhere, _may_ have known what +neither the sensitive nor Stillman knew of Turner's method of work, and +the sensitive's wireless _may_ have picked up all those detailed +impressions and dramatic impressions of them from that unknown _somebody_. +But is that any easier to swallow than that old Turner himself was the +somebody--that his share of the cosmic soul, or a sufficient portion of +his share, flowed into or hypnotized the sensitive, and made her act as +she did? + + * * * * * + +And now let us go on to some of the developments of these phenomena +manifested by Mrs. Piper. Unlike the manifestations already given, hers +are not from waking dreams, but from dreams in trance. Moreover, so far +the sensitives have manifested impressions of but one personality at a +time, but Mrs. Piper has manifested one by speech and, at the same time, +another by writing, the expressions of the two apparent personalities +progressing independently, with full coherence and consistency. Moreover, +in many of her trances she seemed as if surrounded by a crowd of persons +endeavoring, with different degrees of success, to express themselves +through her, or she endeavoring to express them. All this of course, is +counter to the impression prevailing during the early years of her career, +that her soul had left her body, and the body was "possessed" by a +postcarnate soul expressing itself through her. The present aspect of the +facts is more as if she had impressions such as we all have in dreams, of +any number of personalities around her. Some of her typical manifestations +may give still further indications of interflowing of mental impressions. + +The George "Pelham" famous in the annals of Psychical Research was a +friend of the present writer, and his alleged postcarnate self appeared +through Mrs. Piper to the following effect. There could not have been +anything cooked up about it; it was my first and only sitting with Mrs. +Piper, who knew nothing about me or my friends. In fact, the old theories +of some form of fraud, now, in the light of the vast accumulation of later +knowledge, seem ridiculous. However the phenomena have to be explained, +that explanation is out of date. + + G.P. speaks.--"A" [assumed initial. Ed.] "is in a critical state. + He's not himself now. He's terribly depressed." Sitter--"Can you + tell anything [more] about A?" G.P.--"Friend of yours in body." + S.--"Of Hodgson?" [Who was present. This question and the + following were mild "tests": I knew the man well. Ed.] + G.P.--"Yes." S.--"Did I ever know him?" G.P.--"Yes, you knew him + very well. You're connected with him." S.--"Through whom?" + G.P.--"Do you know any B----?" [assumed initial. Ed.] S.--"Are A. + and I connected through B?" G.P.--"Write to B. and he'll tell you + all about it." + +It turned out later that A. actually was low in his mind, and that B., +whom nobody present knew, _was_ trying to get him occupation. I knew +nothing whatever about any such circumstances, nor did Hodgson. To suppose +that Mrs. Piper did, would be absurd. _But_ they were known to other minds +"in the body," and hence the medium's utterance of them is open to the +interpretation of teloteropathy. Similar instances are not rare, but the +interpretation of teloteropathy seems to be rapidly losing probability. + +In this instance, I _was_ "connected with" B., but only so far as he had +become a professor at Yale long after my graduation: I did not know him +personally. But my intimate connection with A. was not only direct, but +through several persons intimate with us both, including G.P. when living. +Mere telepathy, certainly mere telepathy from my mind, would have +"spotted" some one of these connections much more readily than the alleged +one with B., which was hardly a connection at all. + +The _simplest_ solution for the whole business, though perhaps not the +most "scientific," or even probable, is that the spirit of G.P. was +troubled about A. and habitually thinking of me at the University Club as +a Yale man, on my turning up at the seance, was reminded of the solution +of A.'s troubles proposed through B., and wanted me to help. + +And now to this rather commonplace manifestation comes an interesting +sequel illustrating the reach of mind spoken of at the outset. Out of a +perfectly clear sky came to me in New York on April 8, 1894, the message +from G.P., to look out for A., who was low in his mind, and that B. was +trying to get a place for him. On May 29th, Hodgson writes me as follows, +showing that the same thing had come up _through the heteromatic writing +of A.'s wife at Granada in Spain_, and meant nothing to her or to A. + + --You may be interested in the inclosed. Keep private. [This + injunction is of course outlawed by time, but I still conceal the + names of the parties. Ed.] and please return. I am writing from my + den, and haven't copy of your sitting at hand. But I remember that + something was said at your sitting _re_ B. and A. + + (_Copy of Enclosure._) + + "GRANADA, May 6, 1894. + + "Dear H.[odgson]: + + "Those suggestions from Geo. that I write to B. prove interesting + in the light of what I first learned here: that he had been + lamenting my silence and had been urging me to a place as ---- + [at] Yale where he is. I had no notion of this move on his part + till four days ago when I received a letter telling me. Of course + nothing came of it, but anything less known than that cannot be + imagined. The message came once earlier thro' [his wife. Ed.] to + whom George wrote it [heteromatically. Ed.]. George [in life. Ed.] + never heard of B. nor saw him, nor did we ever speak of B. to Geo. + or Phinuit.... Of course I don't want mention made of the effort + of B. to get me the Yale place. What Geo. said was to write to B.; + he is a good friend of yours [_i.e._, of A. Ed.] + + "All send kind messages. Yrs. ever. + + "A----." + +Being intensely busy, and not as much interested in the matter as later +experiences have made me, I did not at the moment catch the full purport +of Hodgson's letter, or write him till June 5th, and did not keep any copy +that I can find of my letter. He wrote me on the 8th: + + "Thanks for yours of June 5th, with return of A.'s letter. I knew + nothing whatever of the circumstances connected with B., neither, + so far as I can tell by cross-questioning, did Mrs. Piper." + +And I, the present scribe, certainly did not. A. did not. B. alone did, +with whatever persons he may have approached on the matter, and Mrs. Piper +had presumably never seen one of the group. So where did Mrs. Piper and +Mrs. A. get it? The only answers that seem possible are that she and Mrs. +A. either got it teloteropathically from one of those absent, or that the +postcarnate George Pelham himself wrote her about it, and also told me of +it through Mrs. Piper's organism in New York, and four days later was +working it into a cross-correspondence through Mrs. A. in Spain. At first +blush the latter seems easier; and I am not sure but that it does on +reflection. + +Hodgson's letter continues: + + "I never knew of any B. connected with Yale. When B. was first + mentioned at the sitting, I had a vague notion that some B. or + other had gone to England or France as United States consul. I + also knew the name of ---- ---- B. [a celebrated author. Ed.], and + met her after she became Mrs. C. two or three years ago. + + "On questioning Mrs. Piper, which I did by referring to books + first, I found that she remembered the name of ---- ---- B. when I + mentioned it, and connected it in some way with [a certain book. + Ed.], which was widely circulated some years ago. This was the + only B. that she seemed to know anything about.... + + "Yours sincerely, + + "R. HODGSON." + +Now does not all this give a strong impression of an interflow among minds +all over--in New York (the place of the sitting), Granada (Mrs. A.'s place +of sojourn), Boston (A.'s home), New Haven (B.'s home), and the universe +in general (G.P.'s apparent home)--of an interflow free from the +limitations of time and space, and independent of all means of +communication known to us? + +This impression tends to grow deeper with farther study. We have had a +cross-correspondence between two incarnate intelligences and one apparently +postcarnate. Mr. Piddington has unearthed a cross-correspondence between +one apparently postcarnate intelligence and seven "living" ones. + +Perhaps the significance of cross-correspondences justifies a little more +specific treatment, and even the repetition of a paragraph from the first +number of this REVIEW. The topic has lately attracted more attention from +the S.P.R. than any other. + +If Mrs. Verrall in London and Mrs. Holland in India both, at about the +same time, write heteromatically about a subject that they both +understand, that is probably coincidence; but if both write about it when +but one of them understands it, that is probably teloteropathy; and if +both write about it when neither understands it, and each of their +respective writings is apparently nonsense, but both make sense when put +together, the only obvious hypothesis is that both were inspired by a +third mind. + +There are many instances of strict cross-correspondence of this type. The +one we have given was perhaps more impressive than a stricter one would be +apt to be. + + * * * * * + +Accounts of sittings generally suggest apparent intercommunication +independent of time and space between postcarnate intelligences: often the +controls say that they will go and find other controls, and, generally, +after a short interval, the new control manifests. It is impossible to +read many of the accounts, whether one regards them as fictitious or not, +without getting an impression--like that given by a good story-teller, if +you please, of a life outside this one, among a host of personalities who +communicate freely with each other and, through difficulties, with us. The +nature of the communication we have already tried to express by +"interflow." But all metaphors are weak beside the impression of the +Cosmic Soul that has been brought to most of those who have persistently +studied the phenomena, as to nearly all those who have speculated _a +priori_ on the nature of mind. + + * * * * * + +Judged by the foregoing specimens, the literature of what we are +provisionally considering as hypnotic telepathy would not be regarded as +very cheerful. As a whole, however, the pictures it presents from an +alleged postcarnate life, are cheerful, and some of them very attractive. + +Below are some from an alleged George Eliot. They are from notes of Piper +sittings kindly placed at our disposal by Professor Newbold. + +To my taste the matter savors _very_ little of the reputed author. And yet +assuming for the moment that our great authors survive in a fuller life, +presumably they would have to communicate under very embarrassing +conditions: for not only would they have to cramp themselves to produce +work comprehensible here, but the System of Things would have to limit +them, lest their competition should upset the whole system of our literary +development, or rather would have involved a different one from the +beginning. + +My first reading of the alleged George Eliot matter inclined me to scout +it entirely. It is certainly not in all particulars what that great soul +would have sent from a better world if she had been permitted to +communicate anything more profound than we have been left to find out for +ourselves, or even if she had had the commonplace chance to revise her +manuscript. But on reflection I realized that, although the matter came +through Mrs. Piper, it could not have come _from_ her, wherever it came +from; and that if George Eliot were communicating tidings naturally within +our comprehension, and merely descriptive of superficial experience as +distinct from reflection, and were communicating, through a poor +telephone, words to be recorded by an indifferent scribe, this material +would not seem absolutely incongruous with its alleged source, and to a +reader knowing that the stuff claimed to be hers, might possibly suggest +the weakest possible dilution or reflection of her. Yet in ways which I +have no space for, it abounds in the sort of anthropomorphism that might +be expected from the average medium or average sitter, but not from George +Eliot. + +And now, since writing the last paragraph and going through the material +half a dozen times more, I have about concluded, or perhaps worked myself +up to the conclusion, that if a judicious blue pencil were to take from it +what could be attributed to imperfect means of communication, and what +could be considered as having slopped over from the medium, there would be +a pretty substantial and not unbeautiful residuum which might, without +straining anything, be taken for a description by George Eliot, of the +heaven she would find if, as begins to seem possible, she and the rest of +us, have or are to have heavens to suit our respective tastes. But what +would have to be taken out is often ludicrously incongruous with George +Eliot, and taking it out would certainly be open to serious question. + +Yet whatever may be the qualities, merits, or demerits of this "George +Eliot" matter, what character it has is its own, and different materially +from any I have seen recorded from any other control. What is vastly more +important, despite the lapses in knowledge, taste, and style, which +negative its being the unmodified production of George Eliot, it +nevertheless presents, _me judice_, the most reasonable, suggestive, and +attractive pictures of a life beyond bodily death that I know of: it is +not a reflection of previous mythologies, it is congruous with the tastes +of what we now consider rational beings, and might well fill their +desires; and it _tallies with our experiences_--in dreams. Yet it is not a +great feat of imagination; but in recent times no great genius has +attacked the subject, and George Eliot would not have been expected to +devote her imagination to it, which raises a slight presumption that what +is told is really told by her from experience. + +If I had to venture a guess as to how it came into existence, I should +guess that somebody within range, hardly Mrs. Piper herself, had been +reading George Eliot, or about George Eliot, and the musk-melon pollen had +affected the cucumbers. Professor Newbold, for instance, was entirely able +involuntarily to create and telepath the stories, and better shaped ones. +Some real George Eliot influence may have flowed in too, but on that my +judgment is in suspense. + +"George Eliot" comes in abruptly to Hodgson, on February 26, 1897. After a +few preliminaries, in response to a remark of Hodgson's on her dislike of +and disbelief in spiritism, she says: + + "... You may have noted the anxiety of such as I to return and + enlighten your fellow men. It is more especially confined to + unbelievers before their departure to this life." + +This remark and the persistent efforts of the alleged G.P. who, living, +was a thorough skeptic, would seem strongly "evidential." + + _March 5, 1897._ + + _Hodgson sitting._ + + [G.E. writes:] "Do you remember me well?... I had a sad life in + many ways, yet in others I was happy, yet I have never known what + real happiness was until I came here.... I was an unbeliever, in + fact almost an agnostic when I left my body, but when I awoke and + found myself alive in another form superior in quality, that is, + my body less gross and heavy, with no pangs of remorse, no + struggling to hold on to the material body, I found it had all + been a dream...." R.H.: "That was your first experience?" G.E.: + "... The moment I had been removed from my body I found at once I + had been thoroughly mistaken in my conjectures. I looked back upon + my whole life in one instant. Every thought, word, or action which + I had ever experienced passed through my mind like a wonderful + panorama as it were before my vision. You cannot begin to imagine + anything so real and extraordinary as this first awakening.... I + awoke in a realm of golden light. I heard the voices of friends + who had gone before calling to me to follow them. At the moment + the thrill of joy was so intense I was like one standing + spellbound before a beautiful panorama. The music which filled my + soul was like a tremendous symphony. I had never heard nor dreamed + of anything half so beautiful.... + + "Another thing which seemed to me beautiful was the tranquillity + of everyone. You will perhaps remember that I had left a state + where no one ever knew what tranquillity meant." + + _March 13, 1807:_ "I was speaking about the songs of our birds. + Then the birds seemed to pass beyond my vision, and I longed for + music of other kinds.... When, to my surprise, my desires were + filled.... Just before me sat the most beautiful bevy of young + girls that eyes ever rested upon. Some playing stringed + instruments, others that sounded and looked like silver bugles, + but they were all in harmony, and I must truly confess that I + never heard such strains of music before. No mortal mind can + possibly realize anything like it. It was not only in this one + thing that my desires were filled, but in all things accordingly. + I had not one desire, but that it was filled without any apparent + act of myself. + + "I longed to see gardens and trees, flowers, etc. I no sooner had + the desire than they appeared.... Such beautiful flowers no human + eye ever gazed upon. It was simply indescribable, yet everything + was real.... I walked and moved along as easily as a fly would + pass through a ray of sunlight in your world. I had no weight, + nothing cumbersome, nothing.... I passed along through this + garden, meeting millions of friends. As they were all friendly to + me, each and every one seemed to be my friend.... I then thought + of different friends I had once known, and my desire was to meet + some one of them, when like every other thought or desire that I + had expressed, the friend of whom I thought instantly appeared." + +How much all this is like dreams! + + _March 27, 1897._ (A good deal of confusion, out of which appears) + "He will insist upon calling me Miss, but let him if he wishes. I + am very much Mrs. Never mind so long as it suits him.... + + "I have a desire for reading, when instantly my whole surrounding + is literally filled with books of all kinds and by many different + authors.... When I touched a book and desired to meet its author, + if he or she were in our world, he or she would instantly appear. + [Is this purely incidental reiterated claim for female authors, by + one of them, 'evidential,' or was Mrs. Piper ingenious enough to + invent it? Ed.]...." + +The change of the instrument below is a specially dreamlike touch. + + _March 30, 1897._ "I wished to see and realize that some of the + mortal world's great musicians really existed, and asked to be + visited by some one or more of them. When this was expressed, + instantly several appeared before me, and Rubinstein stood before + me playing upon an instrument like a harp at first. Then the + instrument was changed and a piano appeared and he played upon it + with the most delightful ease and grace of manner. While he was + playing the whole atmosphere was filled with his strains of + music." + +She wanted to see Rembrandt, and he came, with a quantity of pictures. She +wanted a symphony, and an orchestra "of some thirty musicians" at once +appeared and gave her several, which she enjoyed to the full. + +Now George Eliot was a remarkably good musician. If she wanted an +orchestra, she would have wanted at least sixty, and probably more than a +hundred. Perhaps they do these things with more limited resources in +Heaven? Such an incongruity as this, and the inane dilution of the writing +(which of course does not appear at its worst in the selected passages) +make a genuine George Eliot control hard to predicate, and yet this +control, like virtually every other one, is an individuality, and is less +unlike George Eliot than is any other control I know. Will difficulties of +communication or any other _tertium quid_, make up the difference? I first +read the record with repulsion, and now find in it some elements of +attraction. + +Do you care for a little more? She wanted to see "angels," and gives a +very pretty picture of an experience with a bevy of children. Telepathy +from the sitter will hardly account for the following, especially the +strange turn at the end, which is signally dreamlike. + + "I being fond, very fond of writers of ancient history, etc., felt + a strong desire to see Dante, Aristotle and several others. + Shakespeare if such a spirit existed. [An odd bunch of 'writers of + ancient history'! Ed.] As I stood thinking of him a spirit + instantly appeared who speaking said 'I am Bacon.' ... As Bacon + neared me he began to speak and quoted to me the following words + 'You have questioned my reality. Question it no more. I am + Shakespeare.'" + + _June 4, 1897._ "... Speak to me for a moment and if you have + anything to say in the nature of poetry or prose would you kindly + recite a line or two to me. It will give me strength to remain + longer than I could otherwise do. [R.H. recites a poem of Dowden's + beginning, + + 'I said I will find God and forth I went + To seek him in the clearness of the sky,' etc. Excitement.] + + G.E.: 'I will go and see G. and return presently (R.H.: Who says + that?) I do. (R.H.: I do not understand what you mean by G.) I do. + My husband. Do you not know I had a husband? (R.H.: Do you mean by + G. Mr. George Henry Lewes?) [Hand is writing Lewes while I am + saying George Henry] Lewes. Yes I do. Oh I am so happy. And when I + did not mistake altogether my deeds I am more _happy than tongue + can utter_." + +As bearing on her feeling for Lewes not many months after his death, the +foregoing does not correspond with some widely credited but unpublished +allegations. + +Now does not all this read as if Mrs. Piper were dreaming of George Eliot, +just as any of us might dream? Its quality seems as if it might be a +transcript of one of my own dreams, with the important exceptions that the +dreamer wrote it all out, and that it is made up from a series of dreams, +coming up at intervals for about six months, and apparently only when +Hodgson was present, though there are records of George Eliot appearing to +other sitters at other seances. + + * * * * * + +We have, then, groped our way to a vague notion of a dream-life on the +part of certain sensitives, which seems to participate in another life, in +some ways similar, that is led by intelligences who have passed beyond the +body. + +We are not saying that this interpretation of the phenomena is the correct +one: on the contrary we are constantly haunted by a suspicion that any day +it may be exploded by some new discovery. But we do say, with considerable +confidence, that of all the interpretations yet offered--even including +the pervasive one that "the little boy lied," it surpasses all the others +in the portion of the facts that it fits, and in the weight attached to it +by the most capable students--even by James, who, however, did not accept +it as established, though he gave many indications that he felt himself +likely to. Myers definitely accepted it, not from the impressions of the +sensitives, but from having them capped by a veridical impression of his +own. Through the church service one Sunday morning, he felt an inner voice +assuring him: "Your friend is still with you." Later he found that Gurney, +with whom he had a manifestation-pact, had died the night before. We are +not aware that Myers ever published this, but he told it to the present +writer and presumably to others. The convictions of Hodgson and Sir Oliver +Lodge were interpretations of the phenomena of the sensitives, though +Hodgson, it is now known, was probably mainly influenced by communications +from the alleged postcarnate soul of all possible ones most dear to him. + +But to return to the sensitives. They seem to be somnambulists who talk +out and write out what they see and hear in their dreams. What they see, +and consequently what they say, is a good deal of a jumble. They see and +hear persons they never saw before. Sometimes they identify themselves +more or less with these personalities. Mrs. Piper nearly always does. +Those others say many things, and very often correct things, unknown to +sensitives, to anybody present, or to anybody else that can be found. +Rather unusual among ordinary dreamers, but by no means unprecedented. But +from here on the experiences of the sensitives are more and more unusual. + +Some of the people Mrs. Piper (I speak of her as the representative of a +class) never saw before, and of whom she never saw portraits, she +identifies from photographs. Very few people have done that: perhaps very +few have had the chance. There have been many times when I am sure I +could, if photographs had been presented. + +Her personalities and those of many sensitives are nearly always "dead" +friends, not of the sensitives, but of the sitters, and abound in +indications of genuineness in scope and accuracy of memory, in +distinctness of individual recollections and characteristics, and in all +the dramatic indications that go to demonstrate personalities. She sees +and hears these personalities again and again, and _keeps them distinct_ +in feature and character. + +Now what do we mean by personalities? Is one, after all, anything more or +less than an individualized aggregate of cosmic vibrations, physical and +psychical, with the power of producing on us certain impressions. You and +I know our friends as such aggregates, and nothing more. + +And what do we mean by discarnate personalities? In most minds, the first +answer will probably bear a pretty close resemblance to Fra Angelico's +angels, and very nice angels they are! But to some of the more prosy minds +that have thought on the subject in the light of the best and fullest +information, or misinformation, probably the answer will be more like +this: A personality, incarnate or postcarnate, in the last analysis, is a +manifestation of the Cosmic Soul. From that the raw material is supplied +with the star dust, and later, through our senses, from the earliest +reactions of our protozoic ancestors, up to our dreams; and the material +is worked up into each personality through reactions with the environment. +Thus it becomes an aggregate of capacities to impress another personality +with certain sensations, ideas, emotions. As already said, the incarnate +personality impresses us thru certain vibrations. But after that portion +of the vibrations constituting "the body" disappears, there still abides +somewhere the capacity of impressing us, at least in the dream life. +Perhaps it abides only in the memory of survivors, and gets into our +dreams telepathically, though that is losing probability every day; and, +with our anthropomorphic habits, we want to know "where" this capacity to +impress us abides. The thinkers generally say: In the Cosmic reservoir, +which I would rather express as the psychic ocean, boundless, fathomless, +throbbing eternally. It seems to be made up of the original mind-potential +plus all thoughts and feelings that have ever been. And into this ocean +seem to be constantly passing those currents that we know as +individualities, that can each influence, and even intermingle with, other +individualities, here as well as there: for here really is there. While +each does this, it still retains its own individuality. This is, of +course, a vague string of guesses venturing outward from the borderland of +our knowledge. It may be a little clearer, the more we bear in mind that +the apparent influencings and interminglings seem to be telepathic. + +Now apparently among the accomplishments of a personality, does not +_necessarily_ inhere that of depressing a scale x pounds: for when that +capacity is entirely absent, from the apparent personalities who visit us +in the dream state, they can impress us in every other way, even to all +the reciprocities of sex. But for some reasons not yet understood, with +ordinary dreamers these impressions are not as congruous, persistent, +recurrent, or regulable in the dream life as in the waking life. But with +Mrs. Piper, Hodgson after his death, and especially G.P. and others, were +about as persistent and consistent associates as anybody living, barring +the fact that they could not show themselves over an hour or two at a +time, which was the limit of the medium's psychokinetic power, on which +their manifestations depended. But that these personalities are not in +time to be evolved so that they will be more permanent and consistent with +dreamers generally, would be a contradiction to at least some of the +implications of evolution. + + * * * * * + +Accepting provisionally the identity of a postcarnate life with the life +indicated in dreams, are there any further indications of its nature? +There are some, which may lend some slight confirmation to the theory of +identity. + +It seems to show itself not only in the visions of the sensitives, but in +the dream life of all of us. If Mrs. Piper's dream state (I name her only +as a type) is really one of communication with souls who have passed into +a new life, dream states generally may not extravagantly be supposed to be +foretastes of that life. And so far as concerns their desirability, why +should they not be? Our ordinary dreams are, like the dreams of the +sensitives, superior to time, space, matter and force--to all the trammels +of our waking environment and powers. In dreams we experience unlimited +histories, and pass over unlimited spaces, in an instant; see, hear, feel, +touch, taste, smell, enjoy unlimited things; walk, swim, fly, change +things, with unlimited ease; do things with unlimited power; make what we +will--music, poetry, objects of art, situations, dramas, with unlimited +faculty, and enjoy unlimited society. Unless we have eaten too much, or +otherwise got ourselves out of order in the waking life, in the dream life +we seldom if ever know what it is to be too late for anything, or too far +from anything; we freely fall from chimneys or precipices, and I suppose +it will soon be aeroplanes, with no worse consequences than comfortably +waking up into the everyday world; we sometimes solve the problems which +baffle us here; we see more beautiful things than we see here; and, far +above all, we resume the ties that are broken here. + +The indications seem to be that if we ever get the hang of that life, we +can have pretty much what we like, and eliminate what we don't +like--continue what we enjoy, and stop what we suffer--find no bars to +congeniality, or compulsion to boredom. To good dreamers it is unnecessary +to offer proof of any of these assertions, and to prove them to others is +impossible. + +The dream life contains so much more beauty, so much fuller emotion, and +such wider reaches than the waking life, that one is tempted to regard it +as the real life, to which the waking life is somehow a necessary +preliminary. So orthodox believers regard the life after death as the real +life: yet most of their hopes regarding that life--even the strongest hope +of rejoining lost loved ones--are realized here during the brief throbs of +the dream life. + +There seems to be no happiness from association in our ordinary life which +is not obtainable, by some people at least, from association in the dream +life. And as this appears to exist between incarnate A and postcarnate B, +there is at least a suggestion that it may exist between postcarnate A and +postcarnate B, and to a degree vastly more clear and abiding than during +the present discrepancy between the incarnate and postcarnate conditions? +This of course assumes, that B's appearance in A's dream life, just as he +appeared on earth (though, as I know to be the case, sometimes wiser, +healthier, jollier, and more lovable generally), is something more than a +mild attack of dyspepsia on the part of A. + +Dreams do not seem to abound in work, and are often said not to abound in +morality, but I know that they sometimes do--in morality higher than any +attainable in our waking life. Certainly the scant vague indications from +the dream suggestions of a future life do not necessarily preclude +abundant work and morality, any more than work and sundry self-denials are +precluded on a holiday because one does not happen to perform them. +Moreover, the hoped-for future conditions may not contain the necessities +for either labor or self-restraint that present conditions do: they may +not be the same dangers there as here in the _dolce far niente_, or in +Platonic friendships. + + * * * * * + +Men are not consistent in their attitude regarding dreams. They admit the +dream state to be ideal--constantly use such expressions as "A dream of +loveliness," "Happier than I could even dream," "Surpasses my fondest +dreams," and yet on the other hand they call its experience "but the +baseless vision of a dream." What do they mean by "baseless"? Certainly it +is not lack of vividness or emotional intensity. It is probably the lack +of duration in the happy experiences, and of the possibility of +remembering them, and, still more, of enjoying similar ones at will. Yet +the sensitives do both in recurrent instalments of the dream life, and +like the rest of us, through the intervening waking periods, after the +first hour or so, generally know nothing of the dreams. It is not +vividness of the dream life itself that is lacking, but vividness in our +memories of it. James defines our waking personality as the stream of +consciousness: the dream life gives no such stream. To-night does not +continue last night as to-day continues yesterday. The dream life is not +like a stream, but more like a series, though hardly integral enough to be +a series, of disconnected pools, many of them perhaps more enchanting than +any parts of the waking stream, but not, like that stream, an organic +whole with motion toward definite results, and power to attain them. But +suppose the dream life continues after the body's death, and under +direction toward definite ends, at least so far as the waking life is, and +still free from the trammels of the waking life--suppose us to have at +least as much power to secure its joys and avoid its terrors as we have +regarding those of the waking life; and with all the old intimacies which +it spasmodically restores, restored permanently, and with the discipline +of separation to make them nearer perfect. What more can we manage to +want? + +The suggestion has come to more than one student, that when we enter into +life--as spermatozoa, or star dust if you please--we enter into the +eternal life, but that the physical conditions essential to our +development into appreciating it, are a sort of veil between it and our +consciousness. In our waking life we know it only through the veil; but +when in sleep or trance, the material environment is removed from +consciousness, the veil becomes that much thinner, and we get better +glimpses of the transcendent reality. + +Does it not seem then as if, in dreams, we enter upon our closer relation +with the hyper-phenomenal mind? All sorts of things seem to be in it, from +the veriest trifles and absurdities up to the highest things our minds can +receive, and presumably an infinity of things higher still. They appear to +flow into us in all sorts of ways, presumably depending upon the condition +of the nerve apparatus through which they flow. If that is out of gear +from any disorder or injury, what it receives is not only trifling, but +often grotesque and painful; while if it is in good estate, it often +receives things far surpassing in beauty and wisdom those of our waking +phenomenal world. + +Apparently every dreamer is a medium for this flow, but dreamers vary +immensely in their capacity to receive it--from Hodge, who dreams only +when he has eaten too much, or Professor Gradgrind who never dreams at +all, up to Mrs. Thompson and Mrs. Piper. + +As oft remarked, dreams generally are nonsense, but some dreams, or parts +of some dreams, are perhaps the most significant things we know. Each +vision, waking or sleeping, must have a cause, and as an expression of +that cause, must be veridical. On the one hand, the cause of a trivial +dream is generally too trivial to be ascertained: it may be too much +lobster, or impaired circulation or respiration; while on the other hand +(and here the paradox seems to be explained), the cause of an important +dream must, _ex vi termini_, be some important event. But important events +are rare, and therefore significant dreams are rare; while trivial events +are frequent, and therefore trivial dreams are frequent. + +The important and rare event _may_ be such a conjunction of circumstances +and temperaments as makes it possible for a postcarnate intelligence, +assuming the existence of such, to communicate with an incarnate one. That +such apparent communications are rare tends to indicate their genuineness. + + * * * * * + +Now to develop a little farther the time-honored hypothesis of a cosmic +soul as explaining dreams, and supported by them. + +Admit, provisionally at least, that the medium is merely an extraordinary +dreamer. Does a man do his own dreaming, or is it done for him? Does a man +do his own digesting, circulating, assimilating, or is it done for him? If +he does not do these things himself, who does? About the physical +functions through the sympathetic nerve, we answer unhesitatingly: the +cosmic force. How, then, about the psychic functions? Are they done by the +cosmic psyche? + +Like respiration, they are partly under our control, but that does not +affect the problem. Who runs them when we do not run them, even when we +try to stop them that we may get to sleep? Even when, after they have +yielded to our entreaties to stop, and we are asleep, they begin going +again--without our will. The only probability I can make out is that our +thinking is run by a power not ourselves, as much as our other partly +involuntary functions. + +To hold that a man does his own dreaming--that it is done by a secondary +layer of his own consciousness--is to hold that we are made up of layers +of consciousness, of which the poorest layer is that of what we call our +waking life, and the better layers are at our service only in our +dreams--that when a man is asleep or mad he can solve problems, compose +music, create pictures, to which, when awake and in his sober senses, and +in a condition to profit by his work, and give profit from it, he is +inadequate. + +Nay more, the theory claims that a man's working consciousness--his +self--the only self known to him or the world, will hold and shape his +life by a set of convictions which, in sleep, he will _himself_ prove +wrong, and thereby revolutionize his philosophy and his entire life. +Wouldn't it be more reasonable to attribute all such results--the +solutions of the problems, the music, the pictures, the corrections of the +errors--to a power outside himself? + +I cannot believe that there's anything in my individual consciousness +which my experience or that of my ancestors has not placed there--in raw +material at least; or that in working up that raw material _I_ can exert +any genius in my sometimes chaotic dreams that I cannot exert in my +systematized waking hours. All the people I meet and talk with in my +dreams _may_ have been met and talked with by me or my forebears, though I +don't believe it; but the works of art I see have not been known to me or +my ancestors or any other mortal; nor have I any sign of the genius to +combine whatever elements of them I may have seen, into any such designs. +And when in dreams _other_ persons tell me things contrary to my firmest +convictions, in which things I later discover germs of most important +workable truth, the persons who tell me that, and who are different from +me as far as fairly decent persons can differ from each other, are +certainly not, as the good Du Prel would have us believe, myself. All +these things are not figments of _my_ mind--if they are figments of a +mind, it's a mind bigger than mine. The biggest claim I can make, or +assent to anybody else making, is that my mind is telepathically receptive +of the product of that greater mind. + +Here are some farther evidences of the greater mind, given by Lombroso +(_After Death, What?_, 320 f.): + + It is well known that in his dreams Goethe solved many weighty + scientific problems and put into words many most beautiful verses. + So also La Fontaine (_The Fable of Pleasures_) and Coleridge and + Voltaire. Bernard Palissy had in a dream the inspiration for one + of his most beautiful ceramic pieces.... + + Holde composed while in a dream _La Phantasie_, which reflects in + its harmony its origin; and Nodier created _Lydia_, and at the + same time a whole theory on the future of dreaming. Condillac in + dream finished a lecture interrupted the evening before. Kruger, + Corda, and Maignan solved in dreams mathematical problems and + theorems. Robert Louis Stevenson, in his _Chapters on Dreams_, + confesses that portions of his most original novels were composed + in the dreaming state. Tartini had while dreaming one of his most + portentous musical inspirations. He saw a spectral form + approaching him. It is Beelzebub in person. He holds a magic + violin in his hands, and the sonata begins. It is a divine adagio, + melancholy-sweet, a lament, a dizzy succession of rapid and + intense notes. Tartini rouses himself, leaps out of bed, seizes + his violin, and reproduces all that he had heard played in his + sleep. He names it the _Sonata del Diavolo_,... + + Giovanni Dupre got in a dream the conception of his very beautiful + _Pieta_. One sultry summer day Dupre was lying on a divan thinking + hard on what kind of pose he should choose for the Christ. He fell + asleep, and in dream he saw the entire group at last complete, + with Christ in the very pose he had been aspiring to conceive, but + which his mind had not succeeded in completely realizing. + +It is a quite frequent experience that a person perplexed by a problem at +night finds it solved on waking in the morning. Efforts to remember, which +are unsuccessful before going to sleep, on waking are often found +accomplished. + +A dream is a work of genius, and in many respects, perhaps most, +especially in vividness of imagination, the best example we have. It is +the most spontaneous, constructed with the least effort from fewest +materials, the least restrained, and often immeasurably surpassing all +works of waking genius in the same department. A genius gets a trifling +hint, and being inspired by the gods (anthropomorphic for: flowed in upon +by the cosmic soul?) builds out of the hint a poem or a drama or a +symphony. You and I build dreams surpassing the poem or the drama or the +symphony, but our friends Dryasdust and Myopia inquire into our +experiences, and sometimes find a little hint on which a dream was built, +and then all dreams are demonstrated things unworthy of serious +consideration. Is it not a more rational view that the fact that the soul +can in the dream state elaborate so much from so little, indicates it to +be then already in a life which has no limits? + +Havelock Ellis, in his _World of Dreams_, says (p. 229): + + Our eyes close, our muscles grow slack, the reins fall from our + hands. But it sometimes happens that the horse knows the road home + even better than we know it ourselves. + +He puts "the horse" outside of the dreamer plainly enough here. He further +says (p. 280). + + If we take into account the complete psychic life of dreaming, + subconscious as well as conscious, it is waking, not sleeping, + life which may be said to be limited.... Sleep, Vaschide has said, + is not, as Homer thought, the brother of Death, but of Life, and, + it may be added, the elder brother.... + +He quotes from Bergson (_Revue Philosophique_, December, 1908, p. 574): + + This dream state is the substratum of our normal state. Nothing is + added in waking life; on the contrary, waking life is obtained by + the limitation, concentration, and tension of that diffuse + psychological life which is the life of dreaming.... To be awake + is to will; cease to will, detach yourself from life, become + disinterested: in so doing you pass from the waking ego to the + dreaming ego, which is less _tense_, but more _extended_ than the + other. + +Ellis continues (p. 281): + + I have cultivated, so far as I care to, my garden of dreams, and + it scarcely seems to me that it is a large garden. Yet every path + of it, I sometimes think, might lead at last to the heart of the + universe. + +But with the exception of a few spasmodic inspirations, the records of +dreams, ordinary or from the sensitives, contain nothing new--nothing to +relieve man from the blessed necessity of eating his bread, intellectual +as well as material, in the sweat of his brow; and, perhaps more important +still, little to make the interests or responsibilities of this life +weaker because of any realized inferiority to those of a possible later +life. + +It would apparently be inconsistent in Nature, or God, if you prefer, to +start our evolution under earthly conditions, educating us in knowledge +and character through labor and suffering, but at the same time throwing +open to our perceptions, from another life, a wider range of knowledge and +character attainable without labor or suffering. + +I have no time or space or inclination to argue with those who deny a plan +in Nature. He who does, probably lives away from Nature. It appears to +have been a part of that plan that for a long time past most of us should +"believe in" immortality, and that, at least until very lately, none of us +should know anything about it. Confidence in immortality has been a +dangerous thing. So far we haven't all made a very good use of it. Many of +the people who have had most of it and busied themselves most with it, so +to speak, have largely transferred their interests to the other life, and +neglected and abused this one. "Other-worldliness" is a well-named vice, +and positive evidence of immortality might be more dangerous than mere +confidence in it. + +All this, I think, supports the notion that whatever, if anything, is in +store for us beyond this life, it would be a self-destructive scheme of +things (or Scheme of Things, if you prefer) that would throw the future +life into farther competition with our interests here, at least before we +are farther evolved here. Looking at history by and large, we children +have not generally been trusted with edge tools until we had grown to some +sort of capacity to handle them. If the Mesopotamians or Egyptians or +Greeks or Romans had had gunpowder, it looks as if they would have blown +most of themselves and each other out of existence, and the rest back into +primitive savagery, and stayed there until the use of gunpowder became one +of the lost arts. But the new knowledge of evolution has given the modern +world a new intellectual interest; and the new altruism, a new moral one. +The reasons for doing one's best in this life, and doing it actively, are +so much stronger and clearer than they were when so many good people could +fall into asceticism and other-worldliness, that perhaps we are now fit to +be trusted with proofs of an after life. It is very suggestive that these +apparent proofs came contemporaneously with the new knowledge tending to +make them safe; and equally suggestive that it is when we have begun to +suffer from certain breakdowns in religion, that we have been provided +with new material for bracing it up. + +At the opposite extreme, it also is suggestive that these new indications +that our present life is a petty thing beside a future one, have come just +when modern science has so increased our control over material nature that +we are in peculiar danger of having our interest in higher things buried +beneath material interests, and enervated by over-indulgence in material +delights. + +If it be true that, roughly speaking, we are not entrusted with dangerous +things before we are evolved to the point where we can keep their danger +within bounds, the fact that we have not until very lately, if yet, been +entrusted with any verification of the dream of the survival of bodily +death, would seem to confer upon the spiritistic interpretation of the +recent apparent verifications, a pragmatic sanction--an accidental embryo +pun over which the historic student is welcome to a smile, and which, +since the preceding clause was written, I have seen used in all +seriousness by Professor Giddings. Conclusive or not, that "sanction" is +certainly an addition to the arguments that existed before, including the +general argument from evolution. And, so far as the phenomena go to +establish the spiritistic hypothesis, surely they are not to be lightly +regarded because as yet they do not establish it more conclusively. + + * * * * * + +When during the last century science bowled down the old supports of the +belief in immortality, there grew up a tendency to regard that belief as +an evidence of ignorance, narrowness, and incapacity to face the music. +May not disregard of the possible new supports be rapidly becoming an +evidence of the same characteristics? + +When the majority of those who have really studied the phenomena of the +sensitives, starting with absolute skepticism, have come to a new form of +the old belief; and when, of the remaining minority, the weight of +respectable opinion goes so far as suspense of judgment, how does the +argument look? Isn't it at least one of those cases of new phenomena where +it is well to be on guard against old mental habits, not to say +prejudices? + +Is it not now vastly more _reasonable_ to believe in a future life than it +was a century ago, or half a century, or quarter of a century? Is it not +already more reasonable to believe in it than not to believe in it? Is it +not already appreciably harder _not_ to believe in it than it was a +generation ago? + + * * * * * + +So far as I can see, the dream life, from mine up to Mrs. Piper's, vague +as it is, is an argument for immortality _based on evidence_. + +The sensitives are not among the world's leading thinkers or +moralists--are not more aristocratic founders for a new faith than were a +certain carpenter's son and certain fishermen; and only by implication do +the sensitives suggest any moral truths, but they do offer more facts to +the modern demand for facts. + +Spiritism has a bad name, and it has been in company where it richly +deserved one; but it has been coming into court lately with some very +important-looking testimony from very distinguished witnesses; and some +rather comprehensive minds consider its issues supreme--the principal +issues now upon the horizon, between the gross, luxurious, unthinking, +unaspiring, uncreating life of today, and everything that has, in happier +ages, given us the heritage of the soul--the issues between increasing +comforts and withering ideals--between water-power and Niagara. + +The doubt of immortality is not over the innate reasonableness of it: the +universe is immeasurably more reasonable with it than without it; but over +its practicability after the body is gone. We, in our immeasurable wisdom, +don't see how it can work--we don't see how a universe that we don't begin +to know, which already has given us genius and beauty and love, and which +seems to like to give us all it can--birds, flowers, sunsets, stars, +Vermont, the Himalayas, and the Grand Canyon; which, most of all, has +given us the insatiable soul, can manage to give us immortality. Well! +Perhaps we ought not to be grasping--ought to call all we know and have, +enough, and be thankful--thankful above all, perhaps, that as far as we +can see, the hope of immortality cannot be disappointed--that the worst +answer to it must be oblivion. But on whatever grounds we despair of more +(if we are weak enough to despair), surely the least reasonable ground is +that we cannot see more: the mole might as well swear that there is no +Orion. + + + + +THE MUSES ON THE HEARTH + + +"How to be efficient though incompetent" is the title suggested by a +distinguished psychologist for the vocational appeals of the moment. Among +these raucous calls none is more annoying to the ear of experience than +the one which summons the college girl away from the bounty of the +sciences and the humanities to the grudging concreteness of a domestic +science, a household economy, from which stars and sonnets must perforce +be excluded. We have, indeed, no quarrel with the conspicuous place now +given to the word "home" in all discussions of women's vocations. +Suffragists and anti-suffragists, feminists and anti-feminists have united +to clear a noble term from the mists of sentimentality and to reinstate it +in the vocabulary of sincere and candid speakers. More frankly than a +quarter of a century ago, educated women may now glory in the work +allotted to their sex. The most radical feminist writer of the day has +given perfect expression to the home's demand. Husband and children, she +says, have been able to count on a woman "as they could count on the fire +on the hearth, the cool shade under the tree, the water in the well, the +bread in the sacrament." We may go farther and say that our high emprise +does not depend upon husband and children. Married or unmarried, fruitful +or barren, with a vocation or without, we must make of the world a home +for the race. So far from quarrelling with the hypothesis of the domestic +scientists, we turn it into a confession of faith. It is their conclusions +that will not bear the test of experience. Because women students can +anticipate no more important career than home-making, it is argued that +within their four undergraduate years training should be given in the +practical details of house-keeping. Any woman who has been both a student +and a housekeeper knows that this argument is fallacious. + +Before examining it, however, we must clear away possible +misunderstandings. Our discussion concerns colleges and not elementary +schools. Those who are loudest in denouncing the aristocratic theory of a +college education must admit that colleges contain, even today, incredible +as it sometimes seems, a selected group of young women. It is also true +that the High Schools contain selected groups. Below them are the people's +schools. The girls who do not go beyond these are to be the wives of +working men, in many cases can learn nothing from their mothers, and +before marriage may themselves be caught in the treadmill of daily labor. +It is probable that to these children of impoverished future we should +give the chance to learn in school facts which may make directly for +national health and well-being. But the girls in the most democratic state +university in this country are selected by their own ambition, if by +nothing else, for a higher level of life. Their power and their +opportunities to learn do not end on Commencement Day. The higher we go in +the scale of education, until we reach the graduate professional schools, +the less are we able and the less need we be concerned to anticipate the +specific activities of the future. + +Furthermore, we are discussing colleges of "liberal" studies, not +technical schools. Into the former have strayed many students who belong +in the latter. The tragic thing about their errantry is that presidents +and faculties, instead of setting them in the right path, try to make the +college over to suit them. The rightful heirs to the knowledge of the ages +are despoiled. The most down-trodden students are those who cherish a +passion for the intellectual life. Among these are as many women as men. +If domestic science were confined to separate schools, as all applied +sciences ought to be, we should have nothing but praise for a subject +admirably conceived, and often admirably taught. In these schools it may +be studied by such High School graduates as prefer to deal with practical +rather than with pure science, and, in a larger way, by such college +graduates as wish to supplement theory with practice for professional +purposes. But in liberal colleges domestic science is but dross handed out +to seekers after gold. Against its intrusion into the curriculum no +protest can be too stern. + +Faith in this study seems to rest upon the belief that the actual +experiences of life can be anticipated. This is a fallacy. There is no +dress rehearsal for the role of "wife and mother." It is a question of +experience piled on experience, life piled on life. The only way to +perform the tasks, understand the duties, accept the joys and sorrows of +any given stage of existence is to have performed the tasks, learned the +duties, fought out the joys and sorrows of earlier stages. In so far as +"housekeeping" means the application of principles of nutrition and +sanitation, these principles can be acquired at the proper time by an +active, well-trained mind. The preparation needed is not to have learned +facts three or five or ten years in advance, when theories and appliances +may have been very different, but to have taken up one subject after +another, finding how to master principles and details. This new subject is +not recondite nor are we unconquerably stupid. To learn as we go--_discere +ambulando_--need not turn the home into an experiment station. + +But "every woman knows" that housekeeping, when it is a labor of love and +not a paid profession, goes far deeper than ordering meals or keeping +refrigerators clean, or making an invalid's bed with hospital precision. +We are more than cooks. We furnish power for the day's work of men, and +for the growth of children's souls. We are more than parlor maids. We are +artists, informing material objects with a living spirit. We are more even +than trained nurses. We are companions along the roads of pain, comrades, +it may be, at the gates of death. Back of our willingness to do our full +work must lie something profounder than lectures on bacteria, or interior +decoration, or an invalid's diet or a baby's bath. Specific knowledge can +be obtained in a hurry by a trained student. What cannot be obtained by +any sudden action of the mind is _the habit_ of projecting a task against +the background of human experience as that experience has been revealed in +history and literature, and of throwing into details the enthusiasm born +of this larger vision. She is fortunate who comes to the task of making a +home with this habit already formed. Her student life may have cast no +shadow of the future. When she was reading AEschylus or Berkeley, or +writing reports on the Italian despots, or counting the segments of a +beetle's antennae, she may not have foreseen the hours when the manner of +life and the manner of death of human beings would depend upon her. She +was merely sanely absorbed in the tasks of her present. But in later life +she comes to see that in performing them, she learned to disentangle the +momentary from the permanent, to prefer courage to cowardice, to pay the +price of hard work for values received. Age may bring what youth +withholds, a sense of humor, a mellow sympathy. But only youth can begin +that habitual discipline of mind and will which is the root, if not of all +success, at least of that which blooms in the comfort of other people. +Carry the logic of the vocation-mongers to its extreme. Grant that every +girl in college ought someday to marry, and that we must train her, while +we have her, for this profession. Then let the college insist on honest +work, clear thinking and bright imagination in those great fields in which +successive generations reap their intellectual harvest. Captain Rostron of +the Carpathia once spoke to a body of college students who were on fire +with enthusiasm for the rescuer of the Titanic's survivors. He ended with +some such words as these: "Go back to your classes and work hard. I +scarcely knew that night what orders were coming out when I opened my +mouth to speak, but I can tell you that I had been preparing to give those +orders ever since I was a boy in school." Many a home may be saved from +shipwreck in the future because today girls are doing their duty in their +Greek class rooms and Physics laboratories. + +But this fallacy of domesticity probes deeper than we have yet indicated. +It is, in the last analysis, superficial to ticket ourselves off as +house-keepers or even as women. What are these unplumbed wastes between +housekeepers and teachers, mothers and scholars, civil engineers and +professors of Greek, senators and journalists, bankers and poets, men and +women? A philosopher has pointed out that what we share is vastly greater +than what separates us. We walk upon and must know the same earth. We live +under the same sun and stars. In our bodies we are subject to the same +laws of physics, biology and chemistry. We speak the same language, and +must shape it to our use. We are products of the same past, and must +understand it in order to understand the present. We are vexed by the same +questions about Good and Evil, Will and Destiny. We all bury our dead. We +shall all die ourselves. Back of our vocations lies human life. Back of +the streams in which we dabble is that immortal sea which brought us +hither. To sport upon its shore and hear the roll of its mighty waters is +the divine privilege of youth. + +If any difference is to be made in the education of boys and girls, it +must be with the purpose of giving to future women more that is +"unvocational," "unapplied," "unpractical." As it happens, such studies as +these are the ones which the mother of a family, as well as a teacher or +writer, is most sure to apply practically in her vocation. The last word +on this aspect of the subject was said by a woman in a small Maine town. +Her father had been a day laborer, her husband was a mechanic. She had +five children, and, of course, did all the house-work. She also belonged +to a club which studied French history. To a foolish expression of +surprise that with all her little children she could find time to write a +paper on Louis XVI she retorted angrily: "With all my children! It is for +my children that I do it. I do not mean that they shall have to go out of +their home, as I have had to, for everything interesting." But the larger +truth is that the value of a woman as a mother depends precisely upon her +value as a human being. And it is for that reason that in her youth we +must lead one who is truly thirsty only to fountains pouring from the +heaven's brink. It might seem cruel if it did not merely illustrate the +law of risk involved in any creative process, that the more generously +women fulfil the "function of their sex" the more they are in danger of +losing their souls to furnish a mess of pottage. The risk of life for life +at a child's birth is more dramatic but no truer than the risk of soul for +body as the child grows. In the midst of petty household cares the nervous +system may become a master instead of a servant, a breeder of distempers +rather than a feeder of the imagination. The unhappiness of homes, the +failure of marriage, are due as often to the poverty-stricken minds, the +narrowed vision of women as to the vice of men. + + Their sense is with their senses all mix'd in, + Destroyed by subtleties these women are. + +George Meredith's prayer for us, "more brain, O Lord, more brain!" we +shall still need when "votes for women" has become an outworn slogan. + +No one claims that character is produced only by college training or any +other form of education. There are illiterate women whose wills are so +steady, whose hearts are so generous, and whose spirits seem to be so +continuously refreshed that we look up to them with reverence. They have +their own fountains. It would be a mistake to suppose that because they +are "open at the outlet" they are "closed at the reservoir." But there is +a class of women who are impelled toward knowledge (as still others are +impelled toward music or art) and whose success in anything they do will +depend upon their state of mind. We ought to assume that the girls who go +to college belong to this class, however far from the springs of Helicon +they mean to march in the future. It is a terrible thing that we should +think of taking one hour of their time while they are in college for any +course that does not enrich the intellect and add to the treasury of +thoughts and ideas upon which the woman with a mind will always be +drawing. Spirit is greater than intellect, and may survive it in the +course of a long life. But in the active years, for this kind of woman, +the mental life becomes one with the spiritual. A lusty serviceableness +will issue from their union. If mental interests seem sterile, the cure, +as far as the college is concerned with it, is to deepen, not to lessen +the love of learning. The renewal of sincerity, humility and enthusiasm in +the age-old search for truth is more necessary than the introduction of +new courses, which must be applied to be of value, and which at this time +in a girl's experience, and under these conditions, can give only partial +and superficial data. + +Our lives are subject to a thousand changes. In the home as well as out of +it, we shall meet, face to face, fruition and disappointment, rapture and +pain, hope and despair. In these tests of the soul's health what good will +_domestic_ science do us? Not by sanitation is sanity brought forth. Women +do not gather courage from calories, nor faith from refrigerators. But +every added milestone along the road from youth to age shows us the truth +of Cicero's claim, made after he had borne public care and known private +grief, for the faithful, homely companionship of intellectual studies: +"For other things belong neither to all times and ages nor all places; but +these pursuits feed our growing years, bring charm to ripened age, adorn +prosperity, offer a refuge and solace to adversity, delight us at home, do +not handicap us abroad, abide with us through the watches of the night, go +with us on our travels, make holiday with us in the country." + +Upon women, in crucial hours, may depend the peace of the old, the fortune +of the middle-aged, the hopefulness of the young. In such an hour we do +not wish to be dismissed as were the women of Socrates's family, who had +had no part in the bright life of the Athens of which he was taking leave. +Shall we become the bread in the sacrament of life, ourselves unfed? the +fire on the hearth, ourselves unkindled? + + + + +THE LAND OF THE SLEEPLESS WATCHDOG + + +If from almost any given point in the United States you start out towards +the Southwest, you will reach in time the Land of the Sleepless Watchdog. +On each of the scattered farms, defending it against all intruders, you +will find a band of eager and vociferous dogs--dogs who magnify their +calling because they have no other, and who, by the same token lose all +sense of proportion in life. It is "theirs not to reason why," but to put +up warnings and threats, and to be ready for the fight that never comes. + +If you enter a domain without previous understanding with them, you are +powerless for mischief, for you are in the center of a publicity beside +which any other publicity is that of a hermit's cell. The whole farm knows +where you are, and all are suspicious of your predatory intentions. You +can have none under these conditions. Meanwhile the whole pack voices its +opinion of you and your unworthiness. + +This is supposing that you are actually there. If you are not, it amounts +to the same thing. Every dog knows that you meant to be there, or at any +rate, that to be there was the scheme of someone equally bad. The +slightest rustle of the wind, the call of a bird, the ejaculation +responsive to a flea--any of these, anything to set the pack going. + +And one pack starts the next. And the cries of the two start the third and +the fourth, and each of these reacts on the first. The cry passes along +the line, "We have him at last, the mad invader." There being no other +enemy, they cry out against each other. And of late years, since the +barbed wire choked the cattle ranges, and gave pause to the coyote, there +has been no enemy. But the dogs are there, though their function has +passed away. It is but a tradition--a remembrance. Only to the dogs +themselves does any reality exist. + +Yet, such is the nature of dogs and men, the watchdog was never more +numerous nor more alert than today. He was never in better voice, and +having nothing whatever to do, he does it to the highest artistic +perfection. At least one justification remains. Civilization has not done +away with the moon. In the stillness of night, its great white face peeps +over the hills at intervals no dog has yet determined. Under this weird +light, strange shadowy forms trip across the fields. The watchdogs of each +farm have given warning, and the whole countryside is eager with +vociferation. + +Men say the Sleepless Watchdog's bark is worse than his bite. This may be, +but it is certain that his feed is worse than both bark and bite together. +In the language of economics, the Sleepless Watchdog is an unremunerative +investment. He has "eaten his master out of house and home," and by the +same token, he imagines that he himself is now the master. + + * * * * * + +By this time, the gentle but astute reader has observed that this is no +common "Dog Story," but a parable of the times we live in; and that the +real name of the Land of the Sleepless (but unremunerative) Watchdog is +indeed Europe. + +And because of the noisy and costly futility of the whole system in his own +and other countries, Professor Ottfried Nippold of Frankfort-on-the-Main, +has made a special study of the Watchdogs of Germany. + +The good people of the Fatherland some forty years ago were drawn into a +great struggle with their neighbors beyond the Rhine. To divert his +subjects' attention from their ills at home, the Emperor of France wagered +his Rhine provinces against those of Prussia, in the game of War. The +Emperor lost, and the King of Prussia took the stakes: for in those days +it was a divine right of Kings to deal in flesh and blood. + +The play is finished, the board is cleared, Alsace and Lorraine were added +to Germany, and the mistake is irretrievable. A fact accomplished cannot +be blotted out. But hopeless as it all is, there are watchdogs who, on +moonlight nights, call across the Vosges for revenge--for honor, for War, +War, War. And the German watchdogs cry War, War, War. The word sounds the +same in all languages. The watchdogs bark, but the battle will never +begin. + +It is Professor Nippold's purpose, in his little book _Der Deutsche +Chauvinismus_, to show that the clamor is not all on one side. The +watchdogs of the Paris Boulevards are noisy enough, but those of Berlin +are just the same. And as these are not all of Germany, so the others are +not all of France. A great, thrifty, honest, earnest, cultured nation does +not find its voice in the noises of the street. On the other hand, +Germany, industrious, learned, profound and brave, is busy with her own +affairs. She would harm no one, but mind her own business. But she is +entangled in mediaeval fashions. She has her own band of watchdogs, as +noisy, as futile, as unthinkingly clamorous as ever were those of France. +The "Sleepless Watchdog" in France is known as a Chauvinist, in England as +a Jingo, in Prussia as a Pangermanist. They all bay at the same moon, are +excited over the same fancies; they hear nothing, see nothing but one +another. All alike live in an unreal world, in its essentials a world of +their own creation. With all of them the bark is worse than the bite, and +their "Keep" is more disastrous than both together. + +And as each nation should look after its own, Dr. Nippold +lists--blacklists if you choose--the Chauvinists of Germany. + +At first glance, they make an imposing showing. A long series of +newspapers, dozens of pamphlets, categories of bold and impressive +warnings against the schemes of England and France, a set of appeals in +the name of patriotism, of religion, of force, of violence. A long-drawn +call to hate, to hate whatever is not of our own race or class; and above +all the banding together of the "noblest" profession as against the +encroachments of mere civilians, of men whose hands are soiled with other +stains than blood. + +We have, first and foremost, General Keim, Keim the invincible, Keim the +insatiable, Keim of the Army-League, Keim the arch hater of England and of +Russia and of France, Keim the jewel of the fighting Junker aristocracy of +Prussia--the band of warriors who despise all common soldiers--"white +slave" conscripts, and with them all civilians, who at the best are only +potential common soldiers. "War, war, on both frontiers," is Keim's +obsessing vision. War being inevitable and salutary, it cannot come too +soon. The duty of hate, he urges on all the youth of Germany, maidens as +well as men. It is said that Keim is the only man of the day who can +maintain before an audience of Christians such a proposition as this: "We +must learn to hate, and to hate with method. A man counts little who +cannot hate to a purpose. Bismarck was hate." + +From Gaston Choisy's clever character sketch of General Keim, we learn +that as a soldier or tactician, he was a man of no note. He has no ability +as a thinker or as a speaker, but this he has: "the courage of his +vulgarity." "At the age of 68, suffering from Bright's Disease, he +travelled all Germany, his great head always in ebullition, gathering +everywhere for the war-fire all the news, all the stories and all the lies +susceptible of aiding the Cause." "Without Bismarck's authority, he had +his manner--a mixture of baseness, of atrocious joviality, a studied +cynicism and a lack of conscience." "How generous are circumstances! The +spirit of Von Moltke the silent, with the speech of an _enfant terrible_, +an endless flow of language, an endless course of words." + +To the Chauvinists of France, Keim is indeed Germany. As to his own +country, Von Ferlach sagely remarks: "Keims and Keimlings unfortunately +are all about us. But they are a vanishing minority." The great culture +peoples do not hate one another. ("Die grossen Kultur-volker hassen +einander nicht.") + +Next on the black list, comes General Frederick von Bernhardi, with his +_Germany and the Next War_, the need to obliterate France, while giving +the needed chastisement to England. A retired officer of cavalry, said to +be disgruntled through failure of promotion, a tall, spare, serious, prosy +figure, a writer without inspiration, a speaker without force. Germany has +never taken him seriously; for he lacks even the clown-charm of his rival +Keim, but the mediaeval absurdities and serious extravagances in his +defense of war are well tempered to stir the eager watchdogs in the rival +lands. In spite of his pleas, "historical, biological and philosophical," +for war, he is a man of peace, for which, in the words of General +Eichhorn, "one's own sword is the best and strongest pledge." + +Doubtless other retired officers hold views of the same sort, as do +doubtless many who could not be retired too soon for the welfare of +Germany. Into the nature of their patriotism, the Zabern incident has +thrown a great light. "Other lands may possess an army," a Prussian +officer is quoted as saying, "the army possesses Germany." + +The vanities and follies of Prussian militarism are concentrated in the +movement called Pangermanism. Behind this, there seem to be two moving +forces, the Prussian Junker aristocracy, and the financial interests which +center about the house of Krupp. The purposes of Pangermanism seem to be, +on the one hand, to prevent parliamentary government in Germany; and on +the other, to take part in whatever goes on in the world outside. Just +now, the control of Constantinople is the richest prize in sight, and that +fateful city is fast replacing Alsace in the passive role of "the +nightmare of Europe." The journalists called Conservative find that +"Germany needs a vigorous diplomacy as a supplement to her power on land +and sea, if she is to exercise the influence she deserves." And a vigorous +foreign policy is but another name for the use of the War System as a +means of pushing business. From the daily press of Germany may be culled +many choice examples of idle Jingo talk, but analysis of the papers +containing it shows their affiliation with the "extreme right," a small +minority in German politics, potent only through the indiscretions of the +Crown Prince, and through the fact that the Constitution of Germany gives +its people no control over administrative affairs. The journals of this +sort--the _Taegliche Rundschau_, the _Berliner Post_, the _Deutsche +Tageszeitung_, and the _Berliner Neueste Nachrichten_ are the property of +Junker reactionists, or else, like the _Lokal Anzeiger_, the +_Rheinisch-Westphalische Zeitung_, the organs merely of the War trade +House of Krupp. Out from the ruck of hack writers, there stands a single +imposing figure, Maximilian Harden, the "poet of German politics," who +"casts forth heroic gestures and thinks of politics in terms of aesthetics, +the prophet of a great, strong and saber-rattling nation," whose force +shall be felt everywhere under the sun. + +Bloodthirsty pamphlets in numbers, are listed by Nippold. But the +anonymous writers ("Divinator," "Rhenanus," "Lookout," "Deutscher," +"Politiker," "Activer General" and "Deutscher Officier") count for less +than nothing in personal influence. They do little more than bay at the +moon. + +Impressive as Nippold's list seems at first, and dangerous to the peace of +the world, after all one's final thought is this: How few they are, and +how scant their influence, as compared with the wise, sane, commonsense of +sixty millions of German people. The two great papers that stand for peace +and sanity, the _Berliner Tageblatt_ and the _Frankfurter Zeitung_, with +the _Muenchener Neueste Nachrichten_, are read daily by more Germans than +all the reactionary sheets combined. The Socialist organ _Vorwaerts_, +avowedly opposed to monarchy as well as to militarism, carries farther +than all the organs of Pangermanism of whatever kind. + +We may justly conclude that the war spirit is not the spirit of Germany, a +nation perforce military because the people cannot help themselves. So far +as it goes, it is the spirit of a narrow clique of "sleepless watchdogs" +whose influence is waning, and would be non-existent were it not for the +military organization which holds Germany by the throat, but which has +pushed the German people just as far as it dares. + +A second lesson is that while forms of government, and social traditions, +may differ, the relation of public opinion towards war is practically the +same in all the countries of Western Europe. It is in its way the test of +European civilization. Each nation has its "sleepless watchdogs," and +those of one nation fire the others, when the proper war scares are set in +motion by the great unscrupulous group of those who profit by them. The +war promoters, the apostles of hate, form a brotherhood among themselves, +and their success in frightening one nation reacts to make it easier to +scare another. + +This the reader may remember, as a final lesson. There is no civilized +nation which longs for war. There is nowhere a reckless populace clamoring +for blood. The schools have done away with all that. The spread of +commerce has brought a new Earth with new sympathies and new relations, in +which international war has no place. + +If you are sure that your own nation has no design to use violence on any +other, you may be equally sure that no other has evil designs on you. The +German fleet is not built as a menace to England; whether it be large or +small should concern England very little. Just as little does the size of +the British fleet bear any concern to Germany. The German fleet is built +against the German people. The growth of the British army and navy has in +part the same motive. Armies and navies hold back the waves of populism +and democracy. They seem a bulwark against Socialism. But in the great +manufacturing and commercial nations, they will not be used for war, +because they cannot be. The sacrifice appalls: the wreck of society would +be beyond computation. + +But still the sleepless watchdogs bark. It is all that they can do, and we +should get used to them. In our own country, whatever country it may be, +we have our own share of them, and some of them bear distinguished names. +No other nation has any more, and no nation takes them really seriously, +any more than we do. And one and all, their bark is worse than their bite, +and the cost of feeding them is doubtless worse than either. + + + + +EN CASSEROLE + + +_Special to our Readers_ + +Those of you who have not received your REVIEWS on time will probably now +find a double interest in the article in the last number, on _Our +Government Subvention to Literature_. In conveying periodicals so cheaply, +not only is Uncle Sam engaged in a bad job, but he is doing it cheaply, +and consequently badly, and he has more of it than he can well handle. _He +is at length carrying them as freight_, and most of you know what that +means. We are receiving complaints of delay on all sides, and an +appreciable part of the unwelcome subvention Uncle Sam is giving us, goes +in sending duplicates of lost copies. We don't acknowledge any obligation, +legal or moral, to do this; but we love our subscribers--more or less +disinterestedly--and try to do them all the kinds of good we can. Partly +to enable us to do that, as long as the subvention is given, we follow the +example of the excellent Pooh Bah, and put our pride (and the subvention) +into our pockets. Even if we did not love our subscribers so, we should +have to do the pocketing all the same, because our competitors do. +Competitors are always a very shameless sort of people. + +We wish, however, that Uncle Sam would keep his subvention in his own +pocket, and so lead to a higher plane all competitors in the magazine +business, including some of those who don't want to rise to a higher +plane. The best of such a proceeding on his part would be that he would +also, through the complicated influences described in the article referred +to encourage up to a higher plane those who write for popular magazines. +Those who write for THE UNPOPULAR REVIEW are, of course, on the highest +possible plane already. This remark is made solely for the benefit of +readers taking up the REVIEW for the first time. To others it is +superfluous, and if there is anything we try to avoid, it is, as we have +so many times to tell volunteer contributors, superfluities. Even +popularity we do not try to avoid, but--! + +The foregoing paragraph was written with little thought of what was coming +to be added to it. You and we have something to be proud of. Our REVIEW +has been doing its part in saving all Europe from the waste of hundreds of +millions of money, and the literatures of all Europe from a degradation +like that through which our own is passing. Read the following letter: + + Dear Mr. [Editor]: + + I have already sent a line through ---- thanking you for the copy + of THE UNPOPULAR REVIEW, which you were good enough to send me, + but I should like to repeat my thanks to you again direct, and at + the same time, tell you how the REVIEW has been of service to + European publishers. + + The article in the last number entitled _Our Government Subvention + to Literature_ naturally interested me very much from a personal + point of view, but the statistics you give showing the effect of + second class matter rate on book sales was very valuable to me as + the representative of the English Publishers on the Executive + Committee of the International Publishers Congress. + + At the Congress held at Budapest last June, a resolution was + adopted instructing the Congress to press for a reduced rate of + postage on periodicals, and an international stamp. The steps to + be taken in order to carry out this resolution were discussed at + the meeting of the Committee last week held at Leipzig, when I + produced the copy of your article, and gave the Committee a + summary of the statistics. The result was the unanimous decision + to take no further steps in the matter. + + I tremble to think of what might have happened if I had not had + your article before me, for the point of view which you have put + forward was one that had not occurred to anyone else connected + with the Congress, and if the resolution had not been cut out at + this last meeting of the Executive Committee, it would have gone + before the Postal Conference which is to be held in Madrid this + autumn, backed by practically every European country. + + I feel we all owe you a debt of gratitude for bringing out the + facts so clearly, and believe that you will like to know what has + taken place. + +While we are not slow to take all the credit that our supporters and +ourselves are entitled to in this matter, we should be very slow tacitly +to accept the lion's share of it, which is due to Colonel C.W. Burrows of +Cleveland, who supplied all of the facts and nearly all of the expression +of the article in question, and who has for years, lately as President of +the One Cent Letter Postage League, been devoting himself with unsparing +energy and self-sacrifice to stopping the waste of money and capacity that +the mistaken outbreak of paternalism we are discussing has brought upon +the country. + +Demos is a good fellow--when he behaves himself, and that generally means +when he is not abused or flattered; but how supremely ridiculous, not to +say destructive, he is when he gets to masquerading in the robes of the +scholar or the judge; and how criminal is the demagogue who seeks personal +aggrandisement by dangling those robes before him. + + * * * * * + +Our modesty has been so anesthetized by the preceding letter, that it +permits us to show you, in strict confidence of course, a paragraph from +another. A new subscriber, apparently going it blind on the recommendation +of a friend, writes: + + "I am told it is the best gentleman's magazine in the United + States." + +Now, somehow, "gentleman" is a word that we are very chary of using. We +couldn't put that remark on an advertising page, but perhaps there is no +inconsistency in putting it here, and confessing that we like it--and that +we even suspect that we have always had a subconscious idea that it was +just what we were after--that it includes, or ought to include, about +everything that we are trying to accomplish. In any interpretation, it is +certainly an encouragement to keep pegging away. + + * * * * * + +Most of our readers probably remember a letter on pp. 432-3 of the +_Casserole_ of the April-June number, from an individual who thought we +were trying to humbug the wage-receiving world into a false and dangerous +contentment with existing conditions. This inference was probably drawn +from our insistent promulgation of the belief that a man's fortune depends +more upon himself than upon his conditions. + +As a contrast to that remarkable letter, it is a great pleasure to call +attention to the following still more remarkable one. It is from a +printer--not one in our employ. + + I wish to congratulate you on the excellence of the REVIEW, both + from a literary and mechanical standpoint. As a "worker," "a + member of the Union," it might be inferred that I endorse the + views of the critics given on page 432 of the second number. Not + so. It is such views as his that harm the unthinking--those who + think capital is the emblem of wickedness. + + I believe that individual merit and worth are the only things + worth while. The workman who puts his best efforts into his labor, + and takes a personal pride in making his productions as nearly + perfect as possible, will be recognized, and his individual worth + to his employer will raise him above the "common level." All this + rot about a "ruling oligarchy" "grinding down the poorer class" is + dangerous. The man who has no ambition above ditch digging, and + who endeavors to throw out as little dirt in a day as he possibly + can, will always be one of "the submerged." It lies with each + one--outside of unavoidable physical or mental + infirmities--whether he shall rise or sink. + + Again I must congratulate you on the stand you are taking in THE + UNPOPULAR REVIEW. I "take" and read twenty to twenty-five + magazines and for over forty years have been trying to educate + myself to a right way of thinking, and the result is I believe as + above briefly outlined. + + Especially good is _The Greeks on Religion and Morals_, also _The + Soul of Capitalism, Trust-Busting as a National Pastime_, and _Our + Government Subvention to Literature_. + + * * * * * + +Possibly some of you are disappointed at not finding this number as full +as the daily papers of wisdom on War and the Mexican situation. In one +sense we are disappointed ourselves: for we had made arrangements for at +least one article of that general nature from one of our best qualified +contributors; but when it came time to write it (speaking by the +calendar), he showed the excellence of his qualifications by saying that, +considering the situation and the function of this REVIEW, it was _not_ +time--that the situation had not yet become mature enough or broad enough +for any general conclusions--for any treatment beyond that already well +given by the newspapers and other organs of frequent publication, and that +they were giving all the details called for. We will wait, then, and try +to philosophize when the time comes. + +We find, however, that with little deliberate intention on our part, this +number has turned out "seasonable" in another sense, and hope you will +find it so. Witness the articles on _Chautauqua_, and _Railway Junctions_, +and _Tips_ (entitled _A Stubborn Relic of Feudalism_) and several others. + + +_Philosophy in Fly Time_ + +In the old days, before the destruction of the white pines removed the +chief source of American inventiveness--the universal habit of +whittling--every boy had a jackknife, and also had boxes, sometimes of +wood, sometimes of writing paper, in which he kept flies. Now he has +neither flies nor jackknife. + +Then, when he wanted a fly, nine times out of ten he could catch one with +a sweep of the hand. That was before the fly was charged with an amount of +bad deeds, if they really were as bad as represented, which would have +destroyed the human race long before the plagues of Egypt; or if not +before the fly plague, would have caused that plague to leave no Egyptians +alive to enjoy the later ones. With these new opinions of the fly, began a +crusade against him; and now the boys can't have any more fun with +him--that is, only good boys can--the kind that catch him with illusive +traps, for a cent a hundred. The other kind of boys may occasionally be +sports enough to hunt him with the swatter; but it's pretty poor hunting: +for the game is so shy that generally before you get within reach of him, +he is off: so swatting him is difficult, while catching him by hand, as we +boys used to, is virtually impossible. + +Now for some questions profound enough to befit our pages. (I) Have only a +select group of very alert and quick flies survived? or (II) Have the +flies told each other that that big clumsy brute with only two legs to +walk on, and two aborted ones which do all sorts of foolish things--the +brute with only one lens to an eye (though he sometimes puts a glass one +over it) and a pitifully aborted proboscis--the brute that has no wings, +and can't get ahead more than about once his own length in a second--that +this clumsy brute had at last got so jealous of the six legs, +hundred-lensed eyes, proboscis, wings and speed of the fly, that he had +started a new crusade against him, and must be specially avoided? + +Then, after it is ascertained whether the timidity of the flies is because +this story has been passed around among them, or only because men have +already killed off all but the specially quick and timid ones; we hope our +investigators may find an answer to the farther question: (III) How, if a +tenth of what some folks say against flies is true, the human race has so +long survived? + +To avoid misapprehension, it should be added that despite the +availability, in our boyhood, of flies as playmates, we don't like 'em, +especially when they light on our hands to help us write articles for this +REVIEW. + + +_Setting Bounds to Laughter_ + +That there is even a measure of personal liberty on the earth, is one of +our most pointed proofs that the universe is governed by design. For +liberty is loved neither by the many nor by the few; its defense has +always been unpopular in the extreme, and can be manfully undertaken only +in an age of moral heroism. The present is no heroic age, and hence our +personal rights fall one by one, without defense, and apparently without +regret. The losses thus incurred must be left to future historians to +weigh and to lament. There is, however, one of our natural rights, now +cruelly beset by its enemies, that is too precious to surrender to the +threnodies of the future historians. This is the right to laugh. + +It is scarcely a quarter of a century since the first appearance of +organized efforts to curb the spirit of laughter. All good men and women +were hectored into believing that one should weep, not laugh, over the +absurdities of men in their cups. Next, we were warned that it is unseemly +and unChristian to laugh at a fellow-man's discomfiture--an awkward social +situation, a sermon or a political oration wrecked by stage fright, or a +poem spoilt by a printer's stupidity. Under shelter of the dogma that to +laugh at the ridiculous is unlawful, there have recently grown into vigor +multitudinous anti-laughter alliances, racial, national and professional. +Not many years ago a censorship of Irish jokes was established, and this +was soon followed by an index expurgatorious of Teutonic jokes. Our +colored fellow citizens promptly advanced the claim that jokes at the +expense of their race are "in bad taste"; and country life enthusiasts +solemnly affirmed that the rural and suburban jokes are nothing short of +national disasters. A recent press report informs us that the suffragette +joke has been excluded from the vaudeville circuits throughout the +country. And the movement grows apace. Domestic servants, stenographers, +politicians, college professors, and clergymen are organizing to establish +the right of being ridiculous without exciting laughter. + +But what does it all matter? What is laughter but an old-fashioned aid to +digestion, more or less discredited by current medical authority? It is +time we learned that laughter has a social significance: it is the first +stage in the process of understanding one's fellow man. Professor Bergson +to the contrary notwithstanding, you can not laugh with your intellect +alone. An essential element of your laughter is sympathy. You can not +laugh at an idiot, nor at a superman. You can not laugh at a Hindoo or a +Korean; you can hardly force a smile to your lips over the conduct of a +Bulgar, a Serb, or a Slovak. You are beginning to find something comic in +the Italian, because you are beginning to know him. And all the world +laughs at the Irishman, because all the world knows him and loves him. + +When Benjamin Franklin walked down the streets of Philadelphia, carrying a +book under his arm, and munching a crust of bread, just one person +observed him, a rosy maiden, who laughed merrily at him. As our old school +readers narrated, with naive surprise, this maiden was destined to become +Franklin's faithful wife. And yet psychology should have led us to expect +such a result. The stupidest small boy making faces or turning somersaults +before the eyes of his pig-tailed inamorata, evidences his appreciation of +the sentimental value of the ridiculous. When did we first grant some +small corner in our hearts to the Chinese? It was when we were introduced +to Bret Harte's gambler: + + For ways that are dark and tricks that are vain, + The heathen Chinee is peculiar. + +The natural history of the racial or professional joke is easily written. +At the outset it is crude and cruel, wholly at the expense of the group +represented. In time the world wearies of an unequal contest, and we have +a new order of jokes, in which the intended victim acquits himself well. +This, too, gives way to a higher order, in which race, nationality or +profession is employed merely as a cloak for common humanity. The +successive stages mark the progress in assimilation, induced, in large +measure, by laughter. There is no other social force so potent in creating +mutual understanding and practical fraternity of spirit; in establishing +the essential unity of mankind underneath its phenomenal diversity. +Setting bounds to laughter: why, this is to indenture the angel of charity +to the father of lies and the lord of hate. + + +_A Post Graduate School for Academic Donors_ + +At a recent meeting of an University Montessori Club the case of donors to +colleges and universities was reported on by a special committee. The +majority report drew a pretty heavy indictment. It was shown that the +givers to colleges and universities seldom considered the real needs of +their beneficiaries. Donors liked to give expensive buildings without +endowment for upkeep, liked to give vast athletic fields, rejoiced in +stadiums, affected memorial statuary and stained glass windows, dabbled in +landscape gardening, but seldom were known either to give anything +unconditionally or, specifically, to destine a gift for such uninspiring +needs as more books or professors' pay. The result of giving without first +considering the needs of the benefited college or university, was that +every gift made the beneficiary more lopsided. Certain universities were +almost capsized by their incidental architecture. Others were subsidizing +graduate students to whom the conditions of successful research were +denied. Still others were calling great specialists to the teaching force +without providing the apparatus for the pursuit of these specialties. +Others preferred to offer financial aid to students who were poor--in +every sense. Donors apparently without exception had single-track minds. +They saw plainly enough what they wanted to give, but never took the pains +to see the donation in its relation to the institution as a whole. The +majority report, which was drawn by our famous Latinist, Professor +Claudius Senex, concluded with the despairing note _Timeo Danaos et dona +ferentes_. The minority report was delivered orally by young Simpson Smith +of the department of banking and finance. He "allowed" that everything +alleged by the majority report was true, but saw no use in dwelling on +such truths, since donors always had done and always would do just as they +darned pleased. + +The Club took a more hopeful view of the case, and it was voted that our +Club should resolve itself into the trustees and faculty of a Post +Graduate School for Academic Donors. Our committee recommended that we +qualify our advanced students by conferring the lower degree of Heedless +Donor (H.D.) every year upon all givers who can be shown to have given at +random. No method of instruction seemed more appropriate than the seminar +plan of practical exercises based on concrete instances. The first +laboratory experiment was performed in the presence of a Seminar of seven +H.D.'s. in a specially called meeting of married professors attired only +in bath gowns borrowed from the crews and base ball teams. Into this +assembly the class of H.D.'s was suddenly introduced. They naturally +inquired into the meaning of the spectacle, and were informed that in no +case did the mere salary of these professors enable them to wear clothes +at all. "But you do usually wear clothes?" inquired a student of a +favorite professor. "How do you get them?" "By University extension +lecturing at ten dollars a lecture" was the quiet answer. Another +professor explained that he got his clothes by tutoring dull students, +another by book reviewing. One somewhat shamefacedly said the clothes came +from his wife's money. One declined to answer, and, as a matter of fact, +his clothes are habitually first worn by a more fortunate elder brother. + +On the whole the results of our first seminary exercise were satisfactory. +One student immediately drew a considerable check for the salary fund, +another, who had been planning to give a hockey rink, said he would think +things over. Still a third deposited forty pairs of slightly worn trousers +with the university treasurer, "for whom it might concern." Only one +accepted the demonstration contentedly. He admitted that low pay and extra +work were hard on the Professors, but he also felt that these outside +activities advertised the university and were good business. Of course you +wore out some professors in the process, but you could always get others. + +Our second seminary exercise was of a less spectacular sort. The post +graduate donors were each provided with a bibliography. This in every +instance contained the titles of books that a particular professor or +graduate student in the university would need to consult for his studies +of the ensuing week. It was briefly explained by Professor Senex that +original research could not be successfully accomplished without reference +to all the original sources and to the writings of other scholars. The +bibliographies ran from ten titles or so to nearly a hundred, according to +the nature of the particular research involved. The exercise consisted in +going to the university library and matching these titles of desiderata +with the books actually in the catalogue. After varying intervals, the +post graduate donors returned with their report. Nobody had found more +than half the books sought for: many had found less. + +The effect of this demonstration was interesting. The donor who had tended +towards the hockey rink, instead transferred his $100,000 to the book +purchase fund. He said he guessed the old place needed real books more +than it needed artificial ice. Others followed his example according to +their ability. + +The student who was satisfied with our bath robe faculty meeting, came +back from the library equally pleased. He had not compared his +bibliography with the catalogue, but a brief general inspection had +convinced him that there were already more books in the library than +anybody could read. His intention held firm to give his Alma Mater a tower +higher than any university tower on record and containing a chime of bells +that periodically played the college song. The tower was naturally to bear +his name, which was also his dear mother's. + + +_A Suggestion Regarding Vacations_ + +Why wouldn't it be well for the country colleges to shorten their summer +vacations, and lengthen their winter ones? Then urban students would not, +for so long a period in summer, be put to their trumps to find out what to +do with themselves; and, what is more important, in winter both faculty +and students would have increased opportunity for metropolitan experience. +In the summer vacations, the cities are empty of music, drama, and most +else of what makes them distinctively worth while. Intellectually, the +country needs the city at least as much as, morally, the city needs the +country. + + +_Advertisement_ + +We are disposed to do a little gratuitous advertising for good causes. +Below is the first essay. It is perfectly genuine. Please send us some +more. + +_Help Wanted._ From a young gentleman of education, leisure and energy, +who desires to devote a part of his time, in connection with scholars and +philanthropists, to a reform of world-wide importance. Such a person may +possibly learn of a congenial opportunity by addressing. + +X.T.C. + +Care of THE UNPOPULAR REVIEW. + + +A few hundred persons of the kind whose help is sought by this +advertisement would have the salvation of the republic in their hands. But +somehow those who have the leisure generally lack the desire; and those +who have the desire generally lack the leisure. + + +_Simplified Spelling_ + +After receiving, in answer to the invitation in our first number, a few +bitter objections to simplified spelling, we have felt like apologizing +each time we approached the subject. Perhaps the best apology we can make +is that apparently the majority of our readers are interested in it. +Therefore we hope that the others will tolerate as equably as they can, +the devotion of a little space to it in the interest of the majority. +Perhaps the objectors may ultimately be able to settle the difficulty as +we and our house have settled another unconquerable nuisance--the +dandelions on our lawns--: we have concluded to like them. + +Our recent correspondence regarding Simplified Spelling has developed a +few points which we submit to those who abominate it, those who favor it, +and those who, like the eminent school-superintendent we have already +quoted, and like ourselves for that matter, do both: + +To a leading Professor of Greek: + + I am more hopeful than you that the repetition of a consonant + beginning the second syllable of a dissyllable, to close the + preceding syllable, as in "differ", "fiddle", "gobble", etc., + _wil_ "be generally accepted", especially in view of the fact that + it is _alreddy_ "generally accepted", and needs only to be + extended to a minority of words. + + "Annutther" is not "a fair illustration". On the contrary, it is + an exception that I probably was very injudicious to call any + attention to; and the trouble with you scholars, I find all the + way thru, is that you permit those little exceptions to influence + you too much. If a good simplification is ever effected, it will + be by cutting Gordian knots, and you all of you seem absolutely + incapable of anything of the kind. I don't expect anyhow to make + much out of a man who will spell "peepl" "peopl". Imagine all this + said with a grin, not a frown!! + + You wil never get back to "the old sounds" of the vowels, in God's + world. + + As to the long sounds, I am going in for all I am worth on the + double vowels. I alreddy agree with the English Society on + "faather", "feel" and "scuul", and am going to do all I can for + _niit_, and for spredding the _oo_ in _floor_ and _door_ into + _snore_, _more_, _hole_, _poke_, etc. "Awl", "cow" and "go" are + spelt wel, and their spelling shoud be spred. These seem to be the + lines of least resistance. I find that they work first-rate in my + own riting. + + You make enuf serious objections to diacritical marks, but my + serious objection to them is that they ar obstacles to lerners, + especially forreners. + +From his answer: + + All right; I catch the grin, and cheerfully grin back. The + business of a scholar (Emerson's "man thinking", Plato's [Greek: + philosophos]) is to take as long views as he can; in this case, to + look far beyond the possibilities of my life-time. The more you + people with the shorter views, as I venture to think them, agitate + for and practise each little partial solution, the more you help + on the threshing out which must go on for many years before we can + arrive at any general solution. So, more power to your elbow! + + Meantime my own spelling will continue to be--like the + conventional spelling of the printers of today--a hodge-podge of + inconsistencies, quite indefensible on rational grounds, and + varying with circumstances. Of course the rational way to spell + _people_ is _piipl_, or _pipl_. + +Which we think is an attempt to bolster up a lost cause. + +From another reader: + + Your closing sentence in the first number of THE UNPOPULAR REVIEW + states with a most distressing combination of vowels and + outlandish collocation of consonants that you would like to hear + from your readers on the subject.... Z is not a pretty letter, and + to see it so frequently usurping the place so long held by s is + far from gratifying to the eye.... + + Suppose you establish to your own satisfaction a method for + assigning sound values; how will you reach the differences in + vowel sounds that prevail in the United States? The New + Englander's mouthing of _a_ differs from that of the Northern New + Yorker, and both differ greatly from that of the + Southerner--indeed, in the different Southern States there is + variation.... At first I was interested in simplified spelling, + but the eccentricities developed by its advocates alienated me + long since, so I beg of you, drop it. + +From our answer: + + I delayed thanking you for your letter of the 29th until there + should be time for you to see the April-June number. + + I hope you are feeling better now. + + If you are not, I do not think I can do much to console you, + because when a man has been irritated into that position where the + alleged beauty of a letter counts in so serious a question, he is + probably beyond mortal help. + + I have no desire "to reach the differences in vowel sounds that + prevail in the United States". There is not much difference among + cultivated people. Probably a fair standard would be the + conversation at the Century Club, where there are visitors from + Maine to California, and hardly any noticeable difference in + pronunciation. + + There seems to be no disagreement among authorities that a + simplified spelling would save a great deal of time among + children.... + + Of course I have not been able to answer most of the letters I + have received on the subject. I single yours out because you have + had a fall from grace, and I feel guilty of having had something + to do with it, by presenting stronger meat than was necessary, in + our January number. I have fought on the Executive Committee of + the Spelling Board against publishing anything of the English + S.S.S.'s proposed improvements, for fear of arousing such + prejudice as yours; and yet in our first number, I was insensibly + led into, myself, publishing things that looked just as + outlandish. + + As I said at the outset, I hope you feel better since seeing the + April-June number, and should be glad to know how you do feel. + +From his reply: + + Thank you very much for the courtesy of your letter of 9th April. + I was surprised to receive it, as I did not suppose that your + multifarious duties would permit you to notice my rather feeble + protest. I was somewhat amused that you should think my irritation + so extreme as to call for an effort to console me. I am sure I + appreciate your attempt to do so. But really, I was not so hard + hit as you thought, because I do not expect in my day (I am no + longer a young man) to see the champions of "simplified spelling" + (some of it seems to me the reverse of "simplified") gain such + headway as to materially mar my pleasure in the printed page, for + I do not believe you will allow the atrocities of the last few + pages of your first number to creep into the delightful essays + which render THE UNPOPULAR REVIEW such pleasant and profitable + reading.... + + I do not think any great respect is due the opinion of those who + think that a simplified spelling would save a great deal of time + among children, for it also seems to have its rules which will + present as much difficulty to memorize as do the peculiarities of + our present system.... + + Why _thru_? U does not always have the sound of double _o_--very + rarely in fact. Why not _throo_--if the aim is to make the written + sign correspond to the sound. Thru suggests _huh_. + +From our answer: + + Regarding "thru", you justly say that _u_ does not always have the + sound of _oo_. The only sound of _oo_ worthy of respect, with + which I have an acquaintance, is in "door" and "floor". The idea + of using it to represent a _u_ sound is perhaps the culminating + absurdity of our spelling. + + Your statement that simplified spelling "seems to have its rules + which will present as much difficulty to memorize as do the + peculiarities of our present system" overlooks the advantage that + writing with a phonetic alphabet, like those of Europe, has over + writing with purely conventional characters, as in China. Now + English writing is probably the least phonetic in Europe. + Simplifying it in any of the well-known proposed methods would be + making it more phonetic, and consequently easier. At present it is + a mass of contradictions, and the rules that can be extracted from + it are overburdened with exceptions. Simplification will decrease + both the exceptions and the rules themselves. There are now + several ways of representing each of many sounds, and therefore + several "rules" to be learned for each of such sounds. + Simplification will tend to reduce those rules to one for each + sound, and so far as it succeeds, will _not_ "present as much + difficulty to memorize as do the peculiarities of our present + system." + +All the degrees of reformed spelling now in use are professedly but +transitional. They may gradually advance into a respectable degree of +consistency, but we expect that to be reached quicker by a coherent +survival among the warring elements proposed by the S.S.S., the S.S.B. and +the better individual reformers. Probably there is already more agreement +than disagreement among these elements. + +While the others are fighting it out, the various transition styles will +do something to prepare parents to accept a more nearly perfect style for +their children, and perhaps take an interest in seeing the various +counsels of perfection fight each other. + +A few words have already found their way into advertisements--_tho_, +_thru_, _thoro_ (a damnable way of spelling _thurro_), and the shortened +terminal _gram(me)s_, _og(ue)s_ and _et(te)s_; and these and a few more +have found their way into correspondence on commonplace subjects; and the +interest in the topic, especially among educators, is spreading. But most +of the inconsistencies will probably bother and delay children and +forreners until they are given something with some approach to +consistency. + + * * * * * + +After we fight to something like agreement on a system, how are we to get +it going? + +It does not seem extravagant to expect that as soon as the weight of +scholarly opinion endorses a vocabulary from our present alphabet +consistent enough to afford a base for a reasonable spelling book, +spelling books and readers will be prepared for the schools, and adopted +by advanced teachers. Many are clamoring for such now. When the youngsters +have mastered these, which they will do in a small fraction of the time +wasted on their present books, they will of their own accord pick up +without troubling their teachers a knowledge of the present forms. This +they have always done when their teaching has been by the various phonetic +methods with special letters, and have done both in much less time than +they have needed for learning in the ordinary way. But they will prefer +the reasonable forms, and this demand the publishers will probably not be +slow to supply. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number +3, by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE UNPOPULAR REVIEW *** + +***** This file should be named 15876.txt or 15876.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/5/8/7/15876/ + +Produced by Bill Tozier, Barbara Tozier and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team. + + +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. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +https://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +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 + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +https://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at https://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit https://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including including checks, online payments and credit card +donations. To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + +*** END: FULL LICENSE *** + |