diff options
| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:24:32 -0700 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:24:32 -0700 |
| commit | b07230d4ceaa98e697ee18fc8546b4da4597dd2c (patch) | |
| tree | 68fef5611fbd36fa7b8133fc7d9b64d0b5610fec | |
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 3 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 4953-h.zip | bin | 0 -> 137354 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 4953-h/4953-h.htm | 5661 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 4953.txt | 5810 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 4953.zip | bin | 0 -> 135201 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/rvlt10.txt | 6033 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/rvlt10.zip | bin | 0 -> 134852 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/rvlt10h.htm | 5999 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/rvlt10h.zip | bin | 0 -> 135857 bytes |
11 files changed, 23519 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/4953-h.zip b/4953-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..59eafe3 --- /dev/null +++ b/4953-h.zip diff --git a/4953-h/4953-h.htm b/4953-h/4953-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8908857 --- /dev/null +++ b/4953-h/4953-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,5661 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>Revolution and Other Essays</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4 { + text-align: left; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + table { border-collapse: collapse; } + td { vertical-align: top; border: 1px solid black;} + td p { margin: 0.2em; } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + color: gray;} + + .citation {vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: none;} + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<h2> +<a href="#startoftext">Revolution and Other Essays, by Jack London</a> +</h2> +<pre> +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Revolution and Other Essays, by Jack London + + +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: Revolution and Other Essays + + +Author: Jack London + + + +Release Date: July 11, 2007 [eBook #4953] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK REVOLUTION AND OTHER ESSAYS*** +</pre> +<p><a name="startoftext"></a></p> +<p>Transcribed from the 1910 Mills and Boon edition by David Price, email +ccx074@pglaf.org</p> +<h1>REVOLUTION AND OTHER ESSAYS</h1> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">by</span><br /> +JACK LONDON</p> +<blockquote> +<p>“History warns us that it is the customary fate of new truths to +begin as heresies and to end as superstitions.”</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Huxley</span>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p style="text-align: center">MILLS & BOON, LIMITED<br /> +49 RUPERT STREET<br /> +LONDON, W.1</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>Copyright in the United States of +America</i>, 1910, <i>by The Macmillan Company</i>.</p> +<p>Contents:</p> +<p> Revolution<br /> + The Somnambulists<br /> + The Dignity of Dollars<br /> + Goliah<br /> + The Golden Poppy<br /> + The Shrinkage of the Planet<br /> + The House Beautiful<br /> + The Gold Hunters of the North<br /> + Fomá Gordyéeff<br /> + These Bones shall Rise Again<br /> + The Other Animals<br /> + The Yellow Peril<br /> + What Life Means to Me</p> +<h2>REVOLUTION</h2> +<blockquote> +<p>“The present is enough for common souls,<br /> +Who, never looking forward, are indeed<br /> +Mere clay, wherein the footprints of their age<br /> +Are petrified for ever.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>I received a letter the other day. It was from a man in +Arizona. It began, “Dear Comrade.” It ended, +“Yours for the Revolution.” I replied to the letter, and +my letter began, “Dear Comrade.” It ended, “Yours +for the Revolution.” In the United States there are 400,000 +men, of men and women nearly 1,000,000, who begin their letters “Dear +Comrade,” and end them “Yours for the Revolution.” +In Germany there are 3,000,000 men who begin their letters “Dear +Comrade” and end them “Yours for the Revolution”; in +France, 1,000,000 men; in Austria, 800,000 men; in Belgium, 300,000 men; in +Italy, 250,000 men; in England, 100,000 men; in Switzerland, 100,000 men; +in Denmark, 55,000 men; in Sweden, 50,000 men; in Holland, 40,000 men; in +Spain, 30,000 men—comrades all, and revolutionists.</p> +<p>These are numbers which dwarf the grand armies of Napoleon and +Xerxes. But they are numbers not of conquest and maintenance of the +established order, but of conquest and revolution. They compose, when +the roll is called, an army of 7,000,000 men, who, in accordance with the +conditions of to-day, are fighting with all their might for the conquest of +the wealth of the world and for the complete overthrow of existing +society.</p> +<p>There has never been anything like this revolution in the history of the +world. There is nothing analogous between it and the American +Revolution or the French Revolution. It is unique, colossal. +Other revolutions compare with it as asteroids compare with the sun. +It is alone of its kind, the first world-revolution in a world whose +history is replete with revolutions. And not only this, for it is the +first organized movement of men to become a world movement, limited only by +the limits of the planet.</p> +<p>This revolution is unlike all other revolutions in many respects. +It is not sporadic. It is not a flame of popular discontent, arising +in a day and dying down in a day. It is older than the present +generation. It has a history and traditions, and a martyr-roll only +less extensive possibly than the martyr-roll of Christianity. It has +also a literature a myriad times more imposing, scientific, and scholarly +than the literature of any previous revolution.</p> +<p>They call themselves “comrades,” these men, comrades in the +socialist revolution. Nor is the word empty and meaningless, coined +of mere lip service. It knits men together as brothers, as men should +be knit together who stand shoulder to shoulder under the red banner of +revolt. This red banner, by the way, symbolizes the brotherhood of +man, and does not symbolize the incendiarism that instantly connects itself +with the red banner in the affrighted bourgeois mind. The comradeship +of the revolutionists is alive and warm. It passes over geographical +lines, transcends race prejudice, and has even proved itself mightier than +the Fourth of July, spread-eagle Americanism of our forefathers. The +French socialist working-men and the German socialist working-men forget +Alsace and Lorraine, and, when war threatens, pass resolutions declaring +that as working-men and comrades they have no quarrel with each +other. Only the other day, when Japan and Russia sprang at each +other’s throats, the revolutionists of Japan addressed the following +message to the revolutionists of Russia: “Dear Comrades—Your +government and ours have recently plunged into war to carry out their +imperialistic tendencies, but for us socialists there are no boundaries, +race, country, or nationality. We are comrades, brothers, and +sisters, and have no reason to fight. Your enemies are not the +Japanese people, but our militarism and so-called patriotism. +Patriotism and militarism are our mutual enemies.”</p> +<p>In January 1905, throughout the United States the socialists held +mass-meetings to express their sympathy for their struggling comrades, the +revolutionists of Russia, and, more to the point, to furnish the sinews of +war by collecting money and cabling it to the Russian leaders. The +fact of this call for money, and the ready response, and the very wording +of the call, make a striking and practical demonstration of the +international solidarity of this world-revolution:</p> +<p>“Whatever may be the immediate results of the present revolt in +Russia, the socialist propaganda in that country has received from it an +impetus unparalleled in the history of modern class wars. The heroic +battle for freedom is being fought almost exclusively by the Russian +working-class under the intellectual leadership of Russian socialists, thus +once more demonstrating the fact that the class-conscious working-men have +become the vanguard of all liberating movements of modern times.”</p> +<p>Here are 7,000,000 comrades in an organized, international, world-wide, +revolutionary movement. Here is a tremendous human force. It +must be reckoned with. Here is power. And here is +romance—romance so colossal that it seems to be beyond the ken of +ordinary mortals. These revolutionists are swayed by great +passion. They have a keen sense of personal right, much of reverence +for humanity, but little reverence, if any at all, for the rule of the +dead. They refuse to be ruled by the dead. To the bourgeois +mind their unbelief in the dominant conventions of the established order is +startling. They laugh to scorn the sweet ideals and dear moralities +of bourgeois society. They intend to destroy bourgeois society with +most of its sweet ideals and dear moralities, and chiefest among these are +those that group themselves under such heads as private ownership of +capital, survival of the fittest, and patriotism—even patriotism.</p> +<p>Such an army of revolution, 7,000,000 strong, is a thing to make rulers +and ruling classes pause and consider. The cry of this army is, +“No quarter! We want all that you possess. We will be +content with nothing less than all that you possess. We want in our +hands the reins of power and the destiny of mankind. Here are our +hands. They are strong hands. We are going to take your +governments, your palaces, and all your purpled ease away from you, and in +that day you shall work for your bread even as the peasant in the field or +the starved and runty clerk in your metropolises. Here are our +hands. They are strong hands.”</p> +<p>Well may rulers and ruling classes pause and consider. This is +revolution. And, further, these 7,000,000 men are not an army on +paper. Their fighting strength in the field is 7,000,000. +To-day they cast 7,000,000 votes in the civilized countries of the +world.</p> +<p>Yesterday they were not so strong. To-morrow they will be still +stronger. And they are fighters. They love peace. They +are unafraid of war. They intend nothing less than to destroy +existing capitalist society and to take possession of the whole +world. If the law of the land permits, they fight for this end +peaceably, at the ballot-box. If the law of the land does not permit, +and if they have force meted out to them, they resort to force +themselves. They meet violence with violence. Their hands are +strong and they are unafraid. In Russia, for instance, there is no +suffrage. The government executes the revolutionists. The +revolutionists kill the officers of the government. The +revolutionists meet legal murder with assassination.</p> +<p>Now here arises a particularly significant phase which it would be well +for the rulers to consider. Let me make it concrete. I am a +revolutionist. Yet I am a fairly sane and normal individual. I +speak, and I <i>think</i>, of these assassins in Russia as “my +comrades.” So do all the comrades in America, and all the +7,000,000 comrades in the world. Of what worth an organized, +international, revolutionary movement if our comrades are not backed up the +world over! The worth is shown by the fact that we do back up the +assassinations by our comrades in Russia. They are not disciples of +Tolstoy, nor are we. We are revolutionists.</p> +<p>Our comrades in Russia have formed what they call “The Fighting +Organization.” This Fighting Organization accused, tried, found +guilty, and condemned to death, one Sipiaguin, Minister of Interior. +On April 2 he was shot and killed in the Maryinsky Palace. Two years +later the Fighting Organization condemned to death and executed another +Minister of Interior, Von Plehve. Having done so, it issued a +document, dated July 29, 1904, setting forth the counts of its indictment +of Von Plehve and its responsibility for the assassination. Now, and +to the point, this document was sent out to the socialists of the world, +and by them was published everywhere in the magazines and newspapers. +The point is, not that the socialists of the world were unafraid to do it, +not that they dared to do it, but that they did it as a matter of routine, +giving publication to what may be called an official document of the +international revolutionary movement.</p> +<p>These are high lights upon the revolution—granted, but they are +also facts. And they are given to the rulers and the ruling classes, +not in bravado, not to frighten them, but for them to consider more deeply +the spirit and nature of this world-revolution. The time has come for +the revolution to demand consideration. It has fastened upon every +civilized country in the world. As fast as a country becomes +civilized, the revolution fastens upon it. With the introduction of +the machine into Japan, socialism was introduced. Socialism marched +into the Philippines shoulder to shoulder with the American soldiers. +The echoes of the last gun had scarcely died away when socialist locals +were forming in Cuba and Porto Rico. Vastly more significant is the +fact that of all the countries the revolution has fastened upon, on not one +has it relaxed its grip. On the contrary, on every country its grip +closes tighter year by year. As an active movement it began obscurely +over a generation ago. In 1867, its voting strength in the world was +30,000. By 1871 its vote had increased to 1,000,000. Not till +1884 did it pass the half-million point. By 1889 it had passed the +million point, it had then gained momentum. In 1892 the socialist +vote of the world was 1,798,391; in 1893, 2,585,898; in 1895, 3,033,718; in +1898, 4,515,591; in 1902, 5,253,054; in 1903, 6,285,374; and in the year of +our Lord 1905 it passed the seven-million mark.</p> +<p>Nor has this flame of revolution left the United States untouched. +In 1888 there were only 2,068 socialist votes. In 1902 there were +127,713 socialist votes. And in 1904 435,040 socialist votes were +cast. What fanned this flame? Not hard times. The first +four years of the twentieth century were considered prosperous years, yet +in that time more than 300,000 men added themselves to the ranks of the +revolutionists, flinging their defiance in the teeth of bourgeois society +and taking their stand under the blood-red banner. In the state of +the writer, California, one man in twelve is an avowed and registered +revolutionist.</p> +<p>One thing must be clearly understood. This is no spontaneous and +vague uprising of a large mass of discontented and miserable people—a +blind and instinctive recoil from hurt. On the contrary, the +propaganda is intellectual; the movement is based upon economic necessity +and is in line with social evolution; while the miserable people have not +yet revolted. The revolutionist is no starved and diseased slave in +the shambles at the bottom of the social pit, but is, in the main, a +hearty, well-fed working-man, who sees the shambles waiting for him and his +children and recoils from the descent. The very miserable people are +too helpless to help themselves. But they are being helped, and the +day is not far distant when their numbers will go to swell the ranks of the +revolutionists.</p> +<p>Another thing must be clearly understood. In spite of the fact +that middle-class men and professional men are interested in the movement, +it is nevertheless a distinctly working-class revolt. The world over, +it is a working-class revolt. The workers of the world, as a class, +are fighting the capitalists of the world, as a class. The so-called +great middle class is a growing anomaly in the social struggle. It is +a perishing class (wily statisticians to the contrary), and its historic +mission of buffer between the capitalist and working-classes has just about +been fulfilled. Little remains for it but to wail as it passes into +oblivion, as it has already begun to wail in accents Populistic and +Jeffersonian-Democratic. The fight is on. The revolution is +here now, and it is the world’s workers that are in revolt.</p> +<p>Naturally the question arises: Why is this so? No mere whim of the +spirit can give rise to a world-revolution. Whim does not conduce to +unanimity. There must be a deep-seated cause to make 7,000,000 men of +the one mind, to make them cast off allegiance to the bourgeois gods and +lose faith in so fine a thing as patriotism. There are many counts of +the indictment which the revolutionists bring against the capitalist class, +but for present use only one need be stated, and it is a count to which +capital has never replied and can never reply.</p> +<p>The capitalist class has managed society, and its management has +failed. And not only has it failed in its management, but it has +failed deplorably, ignobly, horribly. The capitalist class had an +opportunity such as was vouchsafed no previous ruling class in the history +of the world. It broke away from the rule of the old feudal +aristocracy and made modern society. It mastered matter, organized +the machinery of life, and made possible a wonderful era for mankind, +wherein no creature should cry aloud because it had not enough to eat, and +wherein for every child there would be opportunity for education, for +intellectual and spiritual uplift. Matter being mastered, and the +machinery of life organized, all this was possible. Here was the +chance, God-given, and the capitalist class failed. It was blind and +greedy. It prattled sweet ideals and dear moralities, rubbed its eyes +not once, nor ceased one whit in its greediness, and smashed down in a +failure as tremendous only as was the opportunity it had ignored.</p> +<p>But all this is like so much cobwebs to the bourgeois mind. As it +was blind in the past, it is blind now and cannot see nor understand. +Well, then, let the indictment be stated more definitely, in terms sharp +and unmistakable. In the first place, consider the caveman. He +was a very simple creature. His head slanted back like an +orang-outang’s, and he had but little more intelligence. He +lived in a hostile environment, the prey of all manner of fierce +life. He had no inventions nor artifices. His natural +efficiency for food-getting was, say, 1. He did not even till the +soil. With his natural efficiency of 1, he fought off his carnivorous +enemies and got himself food and shelter. He must have done all this, +else he would not have multiplied and spread over the earth and sent his +progeny down, generation by generation, to become even you and me.</p> +<p>The caveman, with his natural efficiency of 1, got enough to eat most of +the time, and no caveman went hungry all the time. Also, he lived a +healthy, open-air life, loafed and rested himself, and found plenty of time +in which to exercise his imagination and invent gods. That is to say, +he did not have to work all his waking moments in order to get enough to +eat. The child of the caveman (and this is true of the children of +all savage peoples) had a childhood, and by that is meant a happy childhood +of play and development.</p> +<p>And now, how fares modern man? Consider the United States, the +most prosperous and most enlightened country of the world. In the +United States there are 10,000,000 people living in poverty. By +poverty is meant that condition in life in which, through lack of food and +adequate shelter, the mere standard of working efficiency cannot be +maintained. In the United States there are 10,000,000 people who have +not enough to eat. In the United States, because they have not enough +to eat, there are 10,000,000 people who cannot keep the ordinary 1 measure +of strength in their bodies. This means that these 10,000,000 people +are perishing, are dying, body and soul, slowly, because they have not +enough to eat. All over this broad, prosperous, enlightened land, are +men, women, and children who are living miserably. In all the great +cities, where they are segregated in slum ghettos by hundreds of thousands +and by millions, their misery becomes beastliness. No caveman ever +starved as chronically as they starve, ever slept as vilely as they sleep, +ever festered with rottenness and disease as they fester, nor ever toiled +as hard and for as long hours as they toil.</p> +<p>In Chicago there is a woman who toiled sixty hours per week. She +was a garment worker. She sewed buttons on clothes. Among the +Italian garment workers of Chicago, the average weekly wage of the +dressmakers is 90 cents, but they work every week in the year. The +average weekly wage of the pants finishers is $1.31, and the average number +of weeks employed in the year is 27.85. The average yearly earnings +of the dressmakers is $37; of the pants finishers, $42.41. Such wages +means no childhood for the children, beastliness of living, and starvation +for all.</p> +<p>Unlike the caveman, modern man cannot get food and shelter whenever he +feels like working for it. Modern man has first to find the work, and +in this he is often unsuccessful. Then misery becomes acute. +This acute misery is chronicled daily in the newspapers. Let several +of the countless instances be cited.</p> +<blockquote> +<p>In New York City lived a woman, Mary Mead. She had three children: +Mary, one year old; Johanna, two years old; Alice, four years old. +Her husband could find no work. They starved. They were evicted +from their shelter at 160 Steuben Street. Mary Mead strangled her +baby, Mary, one year old; strangled Alice, four years old; failed to +strangle Johanna, two years old, and then herself took poison. Said +the father to the police: “Constant poverty had driven my wife +insane. We lived at No. 160 Steuben Street until a week ago, when we +were dispossessed. I could get no work. I could not even make +enough to put food into our mouths. The babies grew ill and +weak. My wife cried nearly all the time.”</p> +<p>“So overwhelmed is the Department of Charities with tens of +thousands of applications from men out of work that it finds itself unable +to cope with the situation.”—<i>New York Commercial</i>, +January 11, 1905.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>In a daily paper, because he cannot get work in order to get something +to eat, modern man advertises as follows:</p> +<blockquote> +<p>“Young man, good education, unable to obtain employment, will sell +to physician and bacteriologist for experimental purposes all right and +title to his body. Address for price, box 3466, +<i>Examiner</i>.”</p> +<p>“Frank A. Mallin went to the central police station Wednesday +night and asked to be locked up on a charge of vagrancy. He said he +had been conducting an unsuccessful search for work for so long that he was +sure he must be a vagrant. In any event, he was so hungry he must be +fed. Police Judge Graham sentenced him to ninety days’ +imprisonment.”—<i>San Francisco Examiner</i>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>In a room at the Soto House, 32 Fourth Street, San Francisco, was found +the body of W. G. Robbins. He had turned on the gas. Also was +found his diary, from which the following extracts are made</p> +<blockquote> +<p>“<i>March</i> 3.—No chance of getting anything here. +What will I do?</p> +<p>“<i>March</i> 7.—Cannot find anything yet.</p> +<p>“<i>March</i> 8.—Am living on doughnuts at five cents a +day.</p> +<p>“<i>March</i> 9.—My last quarter gone for room rent.</p> +<p>“<i>March</i> 10.—God help me. Have only five cents +left. Can get nothing to do. What next? Starvation +or—? I have spent my last nickel to-night. What shall I +do? Shall it be steal, beg, or die? I have never stolen, +begged, or starved in all my fifty years of life, but now I am on the +brink—death seems the only refuge.</p> +<p>“<i>March</i> 11.—Sick all day—burning fever this +afternoon. Had nothing to eat to-day or since yesterday noon. +My head, my head. Good-bye, all.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>How fares the child of modern man in this most prosperous of +lands? In the city of New York 50,000 children go hungry to school +every morning. From the same city on January 12, a press despatch was +sent out over the country of a case reported by Dr. A. E. Daniel, of the +New York Infirmary for Women and Children. The case was that of a +babe, eighteen months old, who earned by its labour fifty cents per week in +a tenement sweat-shop.</p> +<blockquote> +<p>“On a pile of rags in a room bare of furniture and freezing cold, +Mrs. Mary Gallin, dead from starvation, with an emaciated baby four months +old crying at her breast, was found this morning at 513 Myrtle Avenue, +Brooklyn, by Policeman McConnon of the Flushing Avenue Station. +Huddled together for warmth in another part of the room were the father, +James Gallin, and three children ranging from two to eight years of +age. The children gazed at the policeman much as ravenous animals +might have done. They were famished, and there was not a vestige of +food in their comfortless home.”—<i>New York Journal</i>, +January 2, 1902.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>In the United States 80,000 children are toiling out their lives in the +textile mills alone. In the South they work twelve-hour shifts. +They never see the day. Those on the night shift are asleep when the +sun pours its life and warmth over the world, while those on the day shift +are at the machines before dawn and return to their miserable dens, called +“homes,” after dark. Many receive no more than ten cents +a day. There are babies who work for five and six cents a day. +Those who work on the night shift are often kept awake by having cold water +dashed in their faces. There are children six years of age who have +already to their credit eleven months’ work on the night shift. +When they become sick, and are unable to rise from their beds to go to +work, there are men employed to go on horseback from house to house, and +cajole and bully them into arising and going to work. Ten per cent of +them contract active consumption. All are puny wrecks, distorted, +stunted, mind and body. Elbert Hubbard says of the child-labourers of +the Southern cotton-mills:</p> +<blockquote> +<p>“I thought to lift one of the little toilers to ascertain his +weight. Straightaway through his thirty-five pounds of skin and bones +there ran a tremor of fear, and he struggled forward to tie a broken +thread. I attracted his attention by a touch, and offered him a +silver dime. He looked at me dumbly from a face that might have +belonged to a man of sixty, so furrowed, tightly drawn, and full of pain it +was. He did not reach for the money—he did not know what it +was. There were dozens of such children in this particular +mill. A physician who was with me said that they would all be dead +probably in two years, and their places filled by others—there were +plenty more. Pneumonia carries off most of them. Their systems +are ripe for disease, and when it comes there is no rebound—no +response. Medicine simply does not act—nature is whipped, +beaten, discouraged, and the child sinks into a stupor and dies.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>So fares modern man and the child of modern man in the United States, +most prosperous and enlightened of all countries on earth. It must be +remembered that the instances given are instances only, but they can be +multiplied myriads of times. It must also be remembered that what is +true of the United States is true of all the civilized world. Such +misery was not true of the caveman. Then what has happened? Has +the hostile environment of the caveman grown more hostile for his +descendants? Has the caveman’s natural efficiency of 1 for +food-getting and shelter-getting diminished in modern man to one-half or +one-quarter?</p> +<p>On the contrary, the hostile environment of the caveman has been +destroyed. For modern man it no longer exists. All carnivorous +enemies, the daily menace of the younger world, have been killed off. +Many of the species of prey have become extinct. Here and there, in +secluded portions of the world, still linger a few of man’s fiercer +enemies. But they are far from being a menace to mankind. +Modern man, when he wants recreation and change, goes to the secluded +portions of the world for a hunt. Also, in idle moments, he wails +regretfully at the passing of the “big game,” which he knows in +the not distant future will disappear from the earth.</p> +<p>Nor since the day of the caveman has man’s efficiency for +food-getting and shelter-getting diminished. It has increased a +thousandfold. Since the day of the caveman, matter has been +mastered. The secrets of matter have been discovered. Its laws +have been formulated. Wonderful artifices have been made, and +marvellous inventions, all tending to increase tremendously man’s +natural efficiency of in every food-getting, shelter-getting exertion, in +farming, mining, manufacturing, transportation, and communication.</p> +<p>From the caveman to the hand-workers of three generations ago, the +increase in efficiency for food- and shelter-getting has been very +great. But in this day, by machinery, the efficiency of the +hand-worker of three generations ago has in turn been increased many +times. Formerly it required 200 hours of human labour to place 100 +tons of ore on a railroad car. To-day, aided by machinery, but two +hours of human labour is required to do the same task. The United +States Bureau of Labour is responsible for the following table, showing the +comparatively recent increase in man’s food- and shelter-getting +efficiency:</p> +<table> +<tr> +<td> +<p></p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Machine Hours</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>Hand Hours</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Barley (100 bushels)</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>9</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>211</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Corn (50 bushels shelled, stalks, husks and blades cut into fodder)</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>34</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>228</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Oats (160 bushels)</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>28</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>265</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Wheat (50 bushels)</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>7</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>160</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Loading ore (loading 100 tons iron ore on cars)</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>2</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>200</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Unloading coal (transferring 200 tons from canal-boats to bins 400 feet +distant)</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>20</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>240</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Pitchforks (50 pitchforks, 12-inch tines)</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>12</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>200</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> +<p>Plough (one landside plough, oak beams and handles)</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>3</p> +</td> +<td> +<p>118</p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<p>According to the same authority, under the best conditions for +organization in farming, labour can produce 20 bushels of wheat for 66 +cents, or 1 bushel for 3½ cents. This was done on a bonanza +farm of 10,000 acres in California, and was the average cost of the whole +product of the farm. Mr. Carroll D. Wright says that to-day 4,500,000 +men, aided by machinery, turn out a product that would require the labour +of 40,000,000 men if produced by hand. Professor Herzog, of Austria, +says that 5,000,000 people with the machinery of to-day, employed at +socially useful labour, would be able to supply a population of 20,000,000 +people with all the necessaries and small luxuries of life by working +1½ hours per day.</p> +<p>This being so, matter being mastered, man’s efficiency for food- +and shelter-getting being increased a thousandfold over the efficiency of +the caveman, then why is it that millions of modern men live more miserably +than lived the caveman? This is the question the revolutionist asks, +and he asks it of the managing class, the capitalist class. The +capitalist class does not answer it. The capitalist class cannot +answer it.</p> +<p>If modern man’s food- and shelter-getting efficiency is a +thousandfold greater than that of the caveman, why, then, are there +10,000,000 people in the United States to-day who are not properly +sheltered and properly fed? If the child of the caveman did not have +to work, why, then, to-day, in the United States, are 80,000 children +working out their lives in the textile factories alone? If the child +of the caveman did not have to work, why, then, to-day, in the United +States, are there 1,752,187 child-labourers?</p> +<p>It is a true count in the indictment. The capitalist class has +mismanaged, is to-day mismanaging. In New York City 50,000 children +go hungry to school, and in New York City there are 1,320 +millionaires. The point, however, is not that the mass of mankind is +miserable because of the wealth the capitalist class has taken to +itself. Far from it. The point really is that the mass of +mankind is miserable, not for want of the wealth taken by the capitalist +class, <i>but for want of the wealth that was never created</i>. This +wealth was never created because the capitalist class managed too +wastefully and irrationally. The capitalist class, blind and greedy, +grasping madly, has not only not made the best of its management, but made +the worst of it. It is a management prodigiously wasteful. This +point cannot be emphasized too strongly.</p> +<p>In face of the facts that modern man lives more wretchedly than the +caveman, and that modern man’s food- and shelter-getting efficiency +is a thousandfold greater than the caveman’s, no other solution is +possible than that the management is prodigiously wasteful.</p> +<p>With the natural resources of the world, the machinery already invented, +a rational organization of production and distribution, and an equally +rational elimination of waste, the able-bodied workers would not have to +labour more than two or three hours per day to feed everybody, clothe +everybody, house everybody, educate everybody, and give a fair measure of +little luxuries to everybody. There would be no more material want +and wretchedness, no more children toiling out their lives, no more men and +women and babes living like beasts and dying like beasts. Not only +would matter be mastered, but the machine would be mastered. In such +a day incentive would be finer and nobler than the incentive of to-day, +which is the incentive of the stomach. No man, woman, or child, would +be impelled to action by an empty stomach. On the contrary, they +would be impelled to action as a child in a spelling match is impelled to +action, as boys and girls at games, as scientists formulating law, as +inventors applying law, as artists and sculptors painting canvases and +shaping clay, as poets and statesmen serving humanity by singing and by +statecraft. The spiritual, intellectual, and artistic uplift +consequent upon such a condition of society would be tremendous. All +the human world would surge upward in a mighty wave.</p> +<p>This was the opportunity vouchsafed the capitalist class. Less +blindness on its part, less greediness, and a rational management, were all +that was necessary. A wonderful era was possible for the human +race. But the capitalist class failed. It made a shambles of +civilization. Nor can the capitalist class plead not guilty. It +knew of the opportunity. Its wise men told of the opportunity, its +scholars and its scientists told it of the opportunity. All that they +said is there to-day in the books, just so much damning evidence against +it. It would not listen. It was too greedy. It rose up +(as it rises up to-day), shamelessly, in our legislative halls, and +declared that profits were impossible without the toil of children and +babes. It lulled its conscience to sleep with prattle of sweet ideals +and dear moralities, and allowed the suffering and misery of mankind to +continue and to increase, in short, the capitalist class failed to take +advantage of the opportunity.</p> +<p>But the opportunity is still here. The capitalist class has been +tried and found wanting. Remains the working-class to see what it can +do with the opportunity. “But the working-class is +incapable,” says the capitalist class. “What do you know +about it?” the working-class replies. “Because you have +failed is no reason that we shall fail. Furthermore, we are going to +have a try at it, anyway. Seven millions of us say so. And what +have you to say to that?”</p> +<p>And what can the capitalist class say? Grant the incapacity of the +working-class. Grant that the indictment and the argument of the +revolutionists are all wrong. The 7,000,000 revolutionists +remain. Their existence is a fact. Their belief in their +capacity, and in their indictment and their argument, is a fact. +Their constant growth is a fact. Their intention to destroy +present-day society is a fact, as is also their intention to take +possession of the world with all its wealth and machinery and +governments. Moreover, it is a fact that the working-class is vastly +larger than the capitalist class.</p> +<p>The revolution is a revolution of the working-class. How can the +capitalist class, in the minority, stem this tide of revolution? What +has it to offer? What does it offer? Employers’ +associations, injunctions, civil suits for plundering of the treasuries of +the labour-unions, clamour and combination for the open shop, bitter and +shameless opposition to the eight-hour day, strong efforts to defeat all +reform, child-labour bills, graft in every municipal council, strong +lobbies and bribery in every legislature for the purchase of capitalist +legislation, bayonets, machine-guns, policemen’s clubs, professional +strike-breakers and armed Pinkertons—these are the things the +capitalist class is dumping in front of the tide of revolution, as though, +forsooth, to hold it back.</p> +<p>The capitalist class is as blind to-day to the menace of the revolution +as it was blind in the past to its own God-given opportunity. It +cannot see how precarious is its position, cannot comprehend the power and +the portent of the revolution. It goes on its placid way, prattling +sweet ideals and dear moralities, and scrambling sordidly for material +benefits.</p> +<p>No overthrown ruler or class in the past ever considered the revolution +that overthrew it, and so with the capitalist class of to-day. +Instead of compromising, instead of lengthening its lease of life by +conciliation and by removal of some of the harsher oppressions of the +working-class, it antagonizes the working-class, drives the working-class +into revolution. Every broken strike in recent years, every legally +plundered trades-union treasury, every closed shop made into an open shop, +has driven the members of the working-class directly hurt over to socialism +by hundreds and thousands. Show a working-man that his union fails, +and he becomes a revolutionist. Break a strike with an injunction or +bankrupt a union with a civil suit, and the working-men hurt thereby listen +to the siren song of the socialist and are lost for ever to the +<i>political capitalist</i> parties.</p> +<p>Antagonism never lulled revolution, and antagonism is about all the +capitalist class offers. It is true, it offers some few antiquated +notions which were very efficacious in the past, but which are no longer +efficacious. Fourth-of-July liberty in terms of the Declaration of +Independence and of the French Encyclopædists is scarcely apposite +to-day. It does not appeal to the working-man who has had his head +broken by a policeman’s club, his union treasury bankrupted by a +court decision, or his job taken away from him by a labour-saving +invention. Nor does the Constitution of the United States appear so +glorious and constitutional to the working-man who has experienced a +bull-pen or been unconstitutionally deported from Colorado. Nor are +this particular working-man’s hurt feelings soothed by reading in the +newspapers that both the bull-pen and the deportation were pre-eminently +just, legal, and constitutional. “To hell, then, with the +Constitution!” says he, and another revolutionist has been +made—by the capitalist class.</p> +<p>In short, so blind is the capitalist class that it does nothing to +lengthen its lease of life, while it does everything to shorten it. +The capitalist class offers nothing that is clean, noble, and alive. +The revolutionists offer everything that is clean, noble, and alive. +They offer service, unselfishness, sacrifice, martyrdom—the things +that sting awake the imagination of the people, touching their hearts with +the fervour that arises out of the impulse toward good and which is +essentially religious in its nature.</p> +<p>But the revolutionists blow hot and blow cold. They offer facts +and statistics, economics and scientific arguments. If the +working-man be merely selfish, the revolutionists show him, mathematically +demonstrate to him, that his condition will be bettered by the +revolution. If the working-man be the higher type, moved by impulses +toward right conduct, if he have soul and spirit, the revolutionists offer +him the things of the soul and the spirit, the tremendous things that +cannot be measured by dollars and cents, nor be held down by dollars and +cents. The revolutionist cries out upon wrong and injustice, and +preaches righteousness. And, most potent of all, he sings the eternal +song of human freedom—a song of all lands and all tongues and all +time.</p> +<p>Few members of the capitalist class see the revolution. Most of +them are too ignorant, and many are too afraid to see it. It is the +same old story of every perishing ruling class in the world’s +history. Fat with power and possession, drunken with success, and +made soft by surfeit and by cessation of struggle, they are like the drones +clustered about the honey vats when the worker-bees spring upon them to end +their rotund existence.</p> +<p>President Roosevelt vaguely sees the revolution, is frightened by it, +and recoils from seeing it. As he says: “Above all, we need to +remember that any kind of class animosity in the political world is, if +possible, even more wicked, even more destructive to national welfare, than +sectional, race, or religious animosity.”</p> +<p>Class animosity in the political world, President Roosevelt maintains, +is wicked. But class animosity in the political world is the +preachment of the revolutionists. “Let the class wars in the +industrial world continue,” they say, “but extend the class war +to the political world.” As their leader, Eugene V. Debs says: +“So far as this struggle is concerned, there is no good capitalist +and no bad working-man. Every capitalist is your enemy and every +working-man is your friend.”</p> +<p>Here is class animosity in the political world with a vengeance. +And here is revolution. In 1888 there were only 2,000 revolutionists +of this type in the United States; in 1900 there were 127,000 +revolutionists; in 1904, 435,000 revolutionists. Wickedness of the +President Roosevelt definition evidently flourishes and increases in the +United States. Quite so, for it is the revolution that flourishes and +increases.</p> +<p>Here and there a member of the capitalist class catches a clear glimpse +of the revolution, and raises a warning cry. But his class does not +heed. President Eliot of Harvard raised such a cry:</p> +<p>“I am forced to believe there is a present danger of socialism +never before so imminent in America in so dangerous a form, because never +before imminent in so well organized a form. The danger lies in the +obtaining control of the trades-unions by the socialists.” And +the capitalist employers, instead of giving heed to the warnings, are +perfecting their strike-breaking organization and combining more strongly +than ever for a general assault upon that dearest of all things to the +trades-unions—the closed shop. In so far as this assault +succeeds, by just that much will the capitalist class shorten its lease of +life. It is the old, old story, over again and over again. The +drunken drones still cluster greedily about the honey vats.</p> +<p>Possibly one of the most amusing spectacles of to-day is the attitude of +the American press toward the revolution. It is also a pathetic +spectacle. It compels the onlooker to be aware of a distinct loss of +pride in his species. Dogmatic utterance from the mouth of ignorance +may make gods laugh, but it should make men weep. And the American +editors (in the general instance) are so impressive about it! The old +“divide-up,” +“men-are-<i>not</i>-born-free-and-equal,” propositions are +enunciated gravely and sagely, as things white-hot and new from the forge +of human wisdom. Their feeble vapourings show no more than a +schoolboy’s comprehension of the nature of the revolution. +Parasites themselves on the capitalist class, serving the capitalist class +by moulding public opinion, they, too, cluster drunkenly about the honey +vats.</p> +<p>Of course, this is true only of the large majority of American +editors. To say that it is true of all of them would be to cast too +great obloquy upon the human race. Also, it would be untrue, for here +and there an occasional editor does see clearly—and in his case, +ruled by stomach-incentive, is usually afraid to say what he thinks about +it. So far as the science and the sociology of the revolution are +concerned, the average editor is a generation or so behind the facts. +He is intellectually slothful, accepts no facts until they are accepted by +the majority, and prides himself upon his conservatism. He is an +instinctive optimist, prone to believe that what ought to be, is. The +revolutionist gave this up long ago, and believes not that what ought to +be, is, but what is, is, and that it may not be what it ought to be at +all.</p> +<p>Now and then, rubbing his eyes, vigorously, an editor catches a sudden +glimpse of the revolution and breaks out in naïve volubility, as, for +instance, the one who wrote the following in the <i>Chicago Chronicle</i>: +“American socialists are revolutionists. They know that they +are revolutionists. It is high time that other people should +appreciate the fact.” A white-hot, brand-new discovery, and he +proceeded to shout it out from the housetops that we, forsooth, were +revolutionists. Why, it is just what we have been doing all these +years—shouting it out from the housetops that we are revolutionists, +and stop us who can.</p> +<p>The time should be past for the mental attitude: “Revolution is +atrocious. Sir, there is no revolution.” Likewise should +the time be past for that other familiar attitude: “Socialism is +slavery. Sir, it will never be.” It is no longer a +question of dialectics, theories, and dreams. There is no question +about it. The revolution is a fact. It is here now. Seven +million revolutionists, organized, working day and night, are preaching the +revolution—that passionate gospel, the Brotherhood of Man. Not +only is it a cold-blooded economic propaganda, but it is in essence a +religious propaganda with a fervour in it of Paul and Christ. The +capitalist class has been indicted. It has failed in its management +and its management is to be taken away from it. Seven million men of +the working-class say that they are going to get the rest of the +working-class to join with them and take the management away. The +revolution is here, now. Stop it who can.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Sacramento River</span>.<br /> +<i>March</i> 1905.</p> +<h2>THE SOMNAMBULISTS</h2> +<blockquote> +<p>“’Tis only fools speak evil of the clay—<br /> +The very stars are made of clay like mine.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The mightiest and absurdest sleep-walker on the planet! Chained in +the circle of his own imaginings, man is only too keen to forget his origin +and to shame that flesh of his that bleeds like all flesh and that is good +to eat. Civilization (which is part of the circle of his imaginings) +has spread a veneer over the surface of the soft-shelled animal known as +man. It is a very thin veneer; but so wonderfully is man constituted +that he squirms on his bit of achievement and believes he is garbed in +armour-plate.</p> +<p>Yet man to-day is the same man that drank from his enemy’s skull +in the dark German forests, that sacked cities, and stole his women from +neighbouring clans like any howling aborigine. The flesh-and-blood +body of man has not changed in the last several thousand years. Nor +has his mind changed. There is no faculty of the mind of man to-day +that did not exist in the minds of the men of long ago. Man has +to-day no concept that is too wide and deep and abstract for the mind of +Plato or Aristotle to grasp. Give to Plato or Aristotle the same fund +of knowledge that man to-day has access to, and Plato and Aristotle would +reason as profoundly as the man of to-day and would achieve very similar +conclusions.</p> +<p>It is the same old animal man, smeared over, it is true, with a veneer, +thin and magical, that makes him dream drunken dreams of self-exaltation +and to sneer at the flesh and the blood of him beneath the smear. The +raw animal crouching within him is like the earthquake monster pent in the +crust of the earth. As he persuades himself against the latter till +it arouses and shakes down a city, so does he persuade himself against the +former until it shakes him out of his dreaming and he stands undisguised, a +brute like any other brute.</p> +<p>Starve him, let him miss six meals, and see gape through the veneer the +hungry maw of the animal beneath. Get between him and the female of +his kind upon whom his mating instinct is bent, and see his eyes blaze like +an angry cat’s, hear in his throat the scream of wild stallions, and +watch his fists clench like an orang-outang’s. Maybe he will +even beat his chest. Touch his silly vanity, which he exalts into +high-sounding pride—call him a liar, and behold the red animal in him +that makes a hand clutching that is quick like the tensing of a +tiger’s claw, or an eagle’s talon, incarnate with desire to rip +and tear.</p> +<p>It is not necessary to call him a liar to touch his vanity. Tell a +plains Indian that he has failed to steal horses from the neighbouring +tribe, or tell a man living in bourgeois society that he has failed to pay +his bills at the neighbouring grocer’s, and the results are the +same. Each, plains Indian and bourgeois, is smeared with a slightly +different veneer, that is all. It requires a slightly different stick +to scrape it off. The raw animals beneath are identical.</p> +<p>But intrude not violently upon man, leave him alone in his somnambulism, +and he kicks out from under his feet the ladder of life up which he has +climbed, constitutes himself the centre of the universe, dreams sordidly +about his own particular god, and maunders metaphysically about his own +blessed immortality.</p> +<p>True, he lives in a real world, breathes real air, eats real food, and +sleeps under real blankets, in order to keep real cold away. And +there’s the rub. He has to effect adjustments with the real +world and at the same time maintain the sublimity of his dream. The +result of this admixture of the real and the unreal is confusion thrice +confounded. The man that walks the real world in his sleep becomes +such a tangled mass of contradictions, paradoxes, and lies that he has to +lie to himself in order to stay asleep.</p> +<p>In passing, it may be noted that some men are remarkably constituted in +this matter of self-deception. They excel at deceiving +themselves. They believe, and they help others to believe. It +becomes their function in society, and some of them are paid large salaries +for helping their fellow-men to believe, for instance, that they are not as +other animals; for helping the king to believe, and his parasites and +drudges as well, that he is God’s own manager over so many square +miles of earth-crust; for helping the merchant and banking classes to +believe that society rests on their shoulders, and that civilization would +go to smash if they got out from under and ceased from their exploitations +and petty pilferings.</p> +<p>Prize-fighting is terrible. This is the dictum of the man who +walks in his sleep. He prates about it, and writes to the papers +about it, and worries the legislators about it. There is nothing of +the brute about <i>him</i>. He is a sublimated soul that treads the +heights and breathes refined ether—in self-comparison with the +prize-fighter. The man who walks in his sleep ignores the flesh and +all its wonderful play of muscle, joint, and nerve. He feels that +there is something godlike in the mysterious deeps of his being, denies his +relationship with the brute, and proceeds to go forth into the world and +express by deeds that something godlike within him.</p> +<p>He sits at a desk and chases dollars through the weeks and months and +years of his life. To him the life godlike resolves into a problem +something like this: <i>Since the great mass of men toil at producing +wealth</i>, <i>how best can he get between the great mass of men and the +wealth they produce</i>, <i>and get a slice for himself</i>? With +tremendous exercise of craft, deceit, and guile, he devotes his life +godlike to this purpose. As he succeeds, his somnambulism grows +profound. He bribes legislatures, buys judges, “controls” +primaries, and then goes and hires other men to tell him that it is all +glorious and right. And the funniest thing about it is that this +arch-deceiver believes all that they tell him. He reads only the +newspapers and magazines that tell him what he wants to be told, listens +only to the biologists who tell him that he is the finest product of the +struggle for existence, and herds only with his own kind, where, like the +monkey-folk, they teeter up and down and tell one another how great they +are.</p> +<p>In the course of his life godlike he ignores the flesh—until he +gets to table. He raises his hands in horror at the thought of the +brutish prize-fighter, and then sits down and gorges himself on roast beef, +rare and red, running blood under every sawing thrust of the implement +called a knife. He has a piece of cloth which he calls a napkin, with +which he wipes from his lips, and from the hair on his lips, the greasy +juices of the meat.</p> +<p>He is fastidiously nauseated at the thought of two prize-fighters +bruising each other with their fists; and at the same time, because it will +cost him some money, he will refuse to protect the machines in his factory, +though he is aware that the lack of such protection every year mangles, +batters, and destroys out of all humanness thousands of working-men, women, +and children. He will chatter about things refined and spiritual and +godlike like himself, and he and the men who herd with him will calmly +adulterate the commodities they put upon the market and which annually kill +tens of thousands of babies and young children.</p> +<p>He will recoil at the suggestion of the horrid spectacle of two men +confronting each other with gloved hands in the roped arena, and at the +same time he will clamour for larger armies and larger navies, for more +destructive war machines, which, with a single discharge, will disrupt and +rip to pieces more human beings than have died in the whole history of +prize-fighting. He will bribe a city council for a franchise or a +state legislature for a commercial privilege; but he has never been known, +in all his sleep-walking history, to bribe any legislative body in order to +achieve any moral end, such as, for instance, abolition of prize-fighting, +child-labour laws, pure food bills, or old age pensions.</p> +<p>“Ah, but we do not stand for the commercial life,” object +the refined, scholarly, and professional men. They are also +sleep-walkers. They do not stand for the commercial life, but neither +do they stand against it with all their strength. They submit to it, +to the brutality and carnage of it. They develop classical economists +who announce that the only possible way for men and women to get food and +shelter is by the existing method. They produce university +professors, men who claim the <i>rôle</i> of teachers, and who at the +same time claim that the austere ideal of learning is passionless pursuit +of passionless intelligence. They serve the men who lead the +commercial life, give to their sons somnambulistic educations, preach that +sleep-walking is the only way to walk, and that the persons who walk +otherwise are atavisms or anarchists. They paint pictures for the +commercial men, write books for them, sing songs for them, act plays for +them, and dose them with various drugs when their bodies have grown gross +or dyspeptic from overeating and lack of exercise.</p> +<p>Then there are the good, kind somnambulists who don’t prize-fight, +who don’t play the commercial game, who don’t teach and preach +somnambulism, who don’t do anything except live on the dividends that +are coined out of the wan, white fluid that runs in the veins of little +children, out of mothers’ tears, the blood of strong men, and the +groans and sighs of the old. The receiver is as bad as the +thief—ay, and the thief is finer than the receiver; he at least has +the courage to run the risk. But the good, kind people who +don’t do anything won’t believe this, and the assertion will +make them angry—for a moment. They possess several magic +phrases, which are like the incantations of a voodoo doctor driving devils +away. The phrases that the good, kind people repeat to themselves and +to one another sound like “abstinence,” +“temperance,” “thrift,” “virtue.” +Sometimes they say them backward, when they sound like +“prodigality,” “drunkenness,” +“wastefulness,” and “immorality.” They do not +really know the meaning of these phrases, but they think they do, and that +is all that is necessary for somnambulists. The calm repetition of +such phrases invariably drives away the waking devils and lulls to +slumber.</p> +<p>Our statesmen sell themselves and their country for gold. Our +municipal servants and state legislators commit countless treasons. +The world of graft! The world of betrayal! The world of +somnambulism, whose exalted and sensitive citizens are outraged by the +knockouts of the prize-ring, and who annually not merely knock out, but +kill, thousands of babies and children by means of child labour and +adulterated food. Far better to have the front of one’s face +pushed in by the fist of an honest prize-fighter than to have the lining of +one’s stomach corroded by the embalmed beef of a dishonest +manufacturer.</p> +<p>In a prize-fight men are classed. A lightweight fights with a +light-weight; he never fights with a heavy-weight, and foul blows are not +allowed. Yet in the world of the somnambulists, where soar the +sublimated spirits, there are no classes, and foul blows are continually +struck and never disallowed. Only they are not called foul +blows. The world of claw and fang and fist and club has passed +away—so say the somnambulists. A rebate is not an elongated +claw. A Wall Street raid is not a fang slash. Dummy boards of +directors and fake accountings are not foul blows of the fist under the +belt. A present of coal stock by a mine operator to a railroad +official is not a claw rip to the bowels of a rival mine operator. +The hundred million dollars with which a combination beats down to his +knees a man with a million dollars is not a club. The man who walks +in his sleep says it is not a club. So say all of his kind with which +he herds. They gather together and solemnly and gloatingly make and +repeat certain noises that sound like “discretion,” +“acumen,” “initiative,” +“enterprise.” These noises are especially gratifying when +they are made backward. They mean the same things, but they sound +different. And in either case, forward or backward, the spirit of the +dream is not disturbed.</p> +<p>When a man strikes a foul blow in the prize-ring the fight is +immediately stopped, he is declared the loser, and he is hissed by the +audience as he leaves the ring. But when a man who walks in his sleep +strikes a foul blow he is immediately declared the victor and awarded the +prize; and amid acclamations he forthwith turns his prize into a seat in +the United States Senate, into a grotesque palace on Fifth Avenue, and into +endowed churches, universities and libraries, to say nothing of subsidized +newspapers, to proclaim his greatness.</p> +<p>The red animal in the somnambulist will out. He decries the carnal +combat of the prize-ring, and compels the red animal to spiritual +combat. The poisoned lie, the nasty, gossiping tongue, the brutality +of the unkind epigram, the business and social nastiness and treachery of +to-day—these are the thrusts and scratches of the red animal when the +somnambulist is in charge. They are not the upper cuts and short arm +jabs and jolts and slugging blows of the spirit. They are the foul +blows of the spirit that have never been disbarred, as the foul blows of +the prize-ring have been disbarred. (Would it not be preferable for a +man to strike one full on the mouth with his fist than for him to tell a +lie about one, or malign those that are nearest and dearest?)</p> +<p>For these are the crimes of the spirit, and, alas! they are so much more +frequent than blows on the mouth. And whosoever exalts the spirit +over the flesh, by his own creed avers that a crime of the spirit is vastly +more terrible than a crime of the flesh. Thus stand the somnambulists +convicted by their own creed—only they are not real men, alive and +awake, and they proceed to mutter magic phrases that dispel all doubt as to +their undiminished and eternal gloriousness.</p> +<p>It is well enough to let the ape and tiger die, but it is hardly fair to +kill off the natural and courageous apes and tigers and allow the spawn of +cowardly apes and tigers to live. The prize-fighting apes and tigers +will die all in good time in the course of natural evolution, but they will +not die so long as the cowardly, somnambulistic apes and tigers club and +scratch and slash. This is not a brief for the prize-fighter. +It is a blow of the fist between the eyes of the somnambulists, teetering +up and down, muttering magic phrases, and thanking God that they are not as +other animals.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Glen Ellen</span>, <span +class="smcap">California</span>.<br /> +<i>June</i> 1900.</p> +<h2>THE DIGNITY OF DOLLARS</h2> +<p>Man is a blind, helpless creature. He looks back with pride upon +his goodly heritage of the ages, and yet obeys unwittingly every mandate of +that heritage; for it is incarnate with him, and in it are embedded the +deepest roots of his soul. Strive as he will, he cannot escape +it—unless he be a genius, one of those rare creations to whom alone +is granted the privilege of doing entirely new and original things in +entirely new and original ways. But the common clay-born man, +possessing only talents, may do only what has been done before him. +At the best, if he work hard, and cherish himself exceedingly, he may +duplicate any or all previous performances of his kind; he may even do some +of them better; but there he stops, the composite hand of his whole +ancestry bearing heavily upon him.</p> +<p>And again, in the matter of his ideas, which have been thrust upon him, +and which he has been busily garnering from the great world ever since the +day when his eyes first focussed and he drew, startled, against the warm +breast of his mother—the tyranny of these he cannot shake off. +Servants of his will, they at the same time master him. They may not +coerce genius, but they dictate and sway every action of the +clay-born. If he hesitate on the verge of a new departure, they whip +him back into the well-greased groove; if he pause, bewildered, at sight of +some unexplored domain, they rise like ubiquitous finger-posts and direct +him by the village path to the communal meadow. And he permits these +things, and continues to permit them, for he cannot help them, and he is a +slave. Out of his ideas he may weave cunning theories, beautiful +ideals; but he is working with ropes of sand. At the slightest +stress, the last least bit of cohesion flits away, and each idea flies +apart from its fellows, while all clamour that he do this thing, or think +this thing, in the ancient and time-honoured way. He is only a +clay-born; so he bends his neck. He knows further that the clay-born +are a pitiful, pitiless majority, and that he may do nothing which they do +not do.</p> +<p>It is only in some way such as this that we may understand and explain +the dignity which attaches itself to dollars. In the watches of the +night, we may assure ourselves that there is no such dignity; but jostling +with our fellows in the white light of day, we find that it does exist, and +that we ourselves measure ourselves by the dollars we happen to +possess. They give us confidence and carriage and dignity—ay, a +personal dignity which goes down deeper than the garments with which we +hide our nakedness. The world, when it knows nothing else of him, +measures a man by his clothes; but the man himself, if he be neither a +genius nor a philosopher, but merely a clay-born, measures himself by his +pocket-book. He cannot help it, and can no more fling it from him +than can the bashful young man his self-consciousness when crossing a +ballroom floor.</p> +<p>I remember once absenting myself from civilization for weary +months. When I returned, it was to a strange city in another +country. The people were but slightly removed from my own breed, and +they spoke the same tongue, barring a certain barbarous accent which I +learned was far older than the one imbibed by me with my mother’s +milk. A fur cap, soiled and singed by many camp-fires, half sheltered +the shaggy tendrils of my uncut hair. My foot-gear was of walrus +hide, cunningly blended with seal gut. The remainder of my dress was +as primal and uncouth. I was a sight to give merriment to gods and +men. Olympus must have roared at my coming. The world, knowing +me not, could judge me by my clothes alone. But I refused to be so +judged. My spiritual backbone stiffened, and I held my head high, +looking all men in the eyes. And I did these things, not that I was +an egotist, not that I was impervious to the critical glances of my +fellows, but because of a certain hogskin belt, plethoric and +sweat-bewrinkled, which buckled next the skin above the hips. Oh, +it’s absurd, I grant, but had that belt not been so circumstanced, +and so situated, I should have shrunk away into side streets and back +alleys, walking humbly and avoiding all gregarious humans except those who +were likewise abroad without belts. Why? I do not know, save +that in such way did my fathers before me.</p> +<p>Viewed in the light of sober reason, the whole thing was +preposterous. But I walked down the gang-plank with the mien of a +hero, of a barbarian who knew himself to be greater than the civilization +he invaded. I was possessed of the arrogance of a Roman +governor. At last I knew what it was to be born to the purple, and I +took my seat in the hotel carriage as though it were my chariot about to +proceed with me to the imperial palace. People discreetly dropped +their eyes before my proud gaze, and into their hearts I know I forced the +query, What manner of man can this mortal be? I was superior to +convention, and the very garb which otherwise would have damned me tended +toward my elevation. And all this was due, not to my royal lineage, +nor to the deeds I had done and the champions I had overthrown, but to a +certain hogskin belt buckled next the skin. The sweat of months was +upon it, toil had defaced it, and it was not a creation such as would +appeal to the æsthetic mind; but it was plethoric. There was +the arcanum; each yellow grain conduced to my exaltation, and the sum of +these grains was the sum of my mightiness. Had they been less, just +so would have been my stature; more, and I should have reached the sky.</p> +<p>And this was my royal progress through that most loyal city. I +purchased a host of things from the tradespeople, and bought me such +pleasures and diversions as befitted one who had long been denied. I +scattered my gold lavishly, nor did I chaffer over prices in mart or +exchange. And, because of these things I did, I demanded +homage. Nor was it refused. I moved through wind-swept groves +of limber backs; across sunny glades, lighted by the beaming rays from a +thousand obsequious eyes; and when I tired of this, basked on the +greensward of popular approval. Money was very good, I thought, and +for the time was content. But there rushed upon me the words of +Erasmus, “When I get some money I shall buy me some Greek books, and +afterwards some clothes,” and a great shame wrapped me around. +But, luckily for my soul’s welfare, I reflected and was saved. +By the clearer vision vouchsafed me, I beheld Erasmus, fire-flashing, +heaven-born, while I—I was merely a clay-born, a son of earth. +For a giddy moment I had forgotten this, and tottered. And I rolled +over on my greensward, caught a glimpse of a regiment of undulating backs, +and thanked my particular gods that such moods of madness were passing +brief.</p> +<p>But on another day, receiving with kingly condescension the service of +my good subjects’ backs, I remembered the words of another man, long +since laid away, who was by birth a nobleman, by nature a philosopher and a +gentleman, and who by circumstance yielded up his head upon the +block. “That a man of lead,” he once remarked, “who +has no more sense than a log of wood, and is as bad as he is foolish, +should have many wise and good men to serve him, only because he has a +great heap of that metal; and that if, by some accident or trick of law +(which sometimes produces as great changes as chance itself), all this +wealth should pass from the master to the meanest varlet of his whole +family, he himself would very soon become one of his servants, as if he +were a thing that belonged to his wealth, and so was bound to follow its +fortune.”</p> +<p>And when I had remembered this much, I unwisely failed to pause and +reflect. So I gathered my belongings together, cinched my hogskin +belt tight about me, and went away to my own country. It was a very +foolish thing to do. I am sure it was. But when I had recovered +my reason, I fell upon my particular gods and berated them mightily, and as +penance for their watchlessness placed them away amongst dust and +cobwebs. Oh no, not for long. They are again enshrined, as +bright and polished as of yore, and my destiny is once more in their +keeping.</p> +<p>It is given that travail and vicissitude mark time to man’s +footsteps as he stumbles onward toward the grave; and it is well. +Without the bitter one may not know the sweet. The other +day—nay, it was but yesterday—I fell before the rhythm of +fortune. The inexorable pendulum had swung the counter direction, and +there was upon me an urgent need. The hogskin belt was flat as +famine, nor did it longer gird my loins. From my window I could +descry, at no great distance, a very ordinary mortal of a man, working +industriously among his cabbages. I thought: Here am I, capable of +teaching him much concerning the field wherein he labours—the +nitrogenic—why of the fertilizer, the alchemy of the sun, the +microscopic cell-structure of the plant, the cryptic chemistry of root and +runner—but thereat he straightened his work-wearied back and +rested. His eyes wandered over what he had produced in the sweat of +his brow, then on to mine. And as he stood there drearily, he became +reproach incarnate. “Unstable as water,” he said (I am +sure he did)—“unstable as water, thou shalt not excel. +Man, where are <i>your</i> cabbages?”</p> +<p>I shrank back. Then I waxed rebellious. I refused to answer +the question. He had no right to ask it, and his presence was an +affront upon the landscape. And a dignity entered into me, and my +neck was stiffened, my head poised. I gathered together certain +certificates of goods and chattels, pointed my heel towards him and his +cabbages, and journeyed townward. I was yet a man. There was +naught in those certificates to be ashamed of. But alack-a-day! +While my heels thrust the cabbage-man beyond the horizon, my toes were +drawing me, faltering, like a timid old beggar, into a roaring spate of +humanity—men, women, and children without end. They had no +concern with me, nor I with them. I knew it; I felt it. Like +She, after her fire-bath in the womb of the world, I dwindled in my own +sight. My feet were uncertain and heavy, and my soul became as a meal +sack, limp with emptiness and tied in the middle. People looked upon +me scornfully, pitifully, reproachfully. (I can swear they +did.) In every eye I read the question, Man, where are your +cabbages?</p> +<p>So I avoided their looks, shrinking close to the kerbstone and by +furtive glances directing my progress. At last I came hard by the +place, and peering stealthily to the right and left that none who knew +might behold me, I entered hurriedly, in the manner of one committing an +abomination. ‘Fore God! I had done no evil, nor had I +wronged any man, nor did I contemplate evil; yet was I aware of evil. +Why? I do not know, save that there goes much dignity with dollars, +and being devoid of the one I was destitute of the other. The person +I sought practised a profession as ancient as the oracles but far more +lucrative. It is mentioned in Exodus; so it must have been created +soon after the foundations of the world; and despite the thunder of +ecclesiastics and the mailed hand of kings and conquerors, it has endured +even to this day. Nor is it unfair to presume that the accounts of +this most remarkable business will not be closed until the Trumps of Doom +are sounded and all things brought to final balance.</p> +<p>Wherefore it was in fear and trembling, and with great modesty of +spirit, that I entered the Presence. To confess that I was shocked +were to do my feelings an injustice. Perhaps the blame may be +shouldered upon Shylock, Fagin, and their ilk; but I had conceived an +entirely different type of individual. This man—why, he was +clean to look at, his eyes were blue, with the tired look of scholarly +lucubrations, and his skin had the normal pallor of sedentary +existence. He was reading a book, sober and leather-bound, while on +his finely moulded, intellectual head reposed a black skull-cap. For +all the world his look and attitude were those of a college +professor. My heart gave a great leap. Here was hope! But +no; he fixed me with a cold and glittering eye, searching with the chill of +space till my financial status stood before him shivering and +ashamed. I communed with myself: By his brow he is a thinker, but his +intellect has been prostituted to a mercenary exaction of toll from +misery. His nerve centres of judgment and will have not been employed +in solving the problems of life, but in maintaining his own solvency by the +insolvency of others. He trades upon sorrow and draws a livelihood +from misfortune. He transmutes tears into treasure, and from +nakedness and hunger garbs himself in clean linen and develops the round of +his belly. He is a bloodsucker and a vampire. He lays unholy +hands on heaven and hell at cent. per cent., and his very existence is a +sacrilege and a blasphemy. And yet here am I, wilting before him, an +arrant coward, with no respect for him and less for myself. Why +should this shame be? Let me rouse in my strength and smite him, and, +by so doing, wipe clean one offensive page.</p> +<p>But no. As I said, he fixed me with a cold and glittering eye, and +in it was the aristocrat’s undisguised contempt for the +<i>canaille</i>. Behind him was the solid phalanx of a bourgeois +society. Law and order upheld him, while I titubated, cabbageless, on +the ragged edge. Moreover, he was possessed of a formula whereby to +extract juice from a flattened lemon, and he would do business with me.</p> +<p>I told him my desires humbly, in quavering syllables. In return, +he craved my antecedents and residence, pried into my private life, +insolently demanded how many children had I and did I live in wedlock, and +asked divers other unseemly and degrading questions. Ay, I was +treated like a thief convicted before the act, till I produced my +certificates of goods and chattels aforementioned. Never had they +appeared so insignificant and paltry as then, when he sniffed over them +with the air of one disdainfully doing a disagreeable task. It is +said, “Thou shalt not lend upon usury to thy brother; usury of money, +usury of victuals, usury of anything that is lent upon usury”; but he +evidently was not my brother, for he demanded seventy per cent. I put +my signature to certain indentures, received my pottage, and fled from his +presence.</p> +<p>Faugh! I was glad to be quit of it. How good the outside air +was! I only prayed that neither my best friend nor my worst enemy +should ever become aware of what had just transpired. Ere I had gone +a block I noticed that the sun had brightened perceptibly, the street +become less sordid, the gutter mud less filthy. In people’s +eyes the cabbage question no longer brooded. And there was a spring +to my body, an elasticity of step as I covered the pavement. Within +me coursed an unwonted sap, and I felt as though I were about to burst out +into leaves and buds and green things. My brain was clear and +refreshed. There was a new strength to my arm. My nerves were +tingling and I was a-pulse with the times. All men were my +brothers. Save one—yes, save one. I would go back and +wreck the establishment. I would disrupt that leather-bound volume, +violate that black skullcap, burn the accounts. But before fancy +could father the act, I recollected myself and all which had passed. +Nor did I marvel at my new-horn might, at my ancient dignity which had +returned. There was a tinkling chink as I ran the yellow pieces +through my fingers, and with the golden music rippling round me I caught a +deeper insight into the mystery of things.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Oakland</span>, <span +class="smcap">California</span>.<br /> +<i>February</i> 1900.</p> +<h2>GOLIAH</h2> +<p>In 1924—to be precise, on the morning of January 3—the city +of San Francisco awoke to read in one of its daily papers a curious letter, +which had been received by Walter Bassett and which had evidently been +written by some crank. Walter Bassett was the greatest captain of +industry west of the Rockies, and was one of the small group that +controlled the nation in everything but name. As such, he was the +recipient of lucubrations from countless cranks; but this particular +lucubration was so different from the average ruck of similar letters that, +instead of putting it into the waste-basket, he had turned it over to a +reporter. It was signed “Goliah,” and the superscription +gave his address as “Palgrave Island.” The letter was as +follows:</p> +<blockquote> +<p>“<span class="smcap">Mr. Walter Bassett</span>,<br /> +“<span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span>:</p> +<p>“I am inviting you, with nine of your fellow-captains of industry, +to visit me here on my island for the purpose of considering plans for the +reconstruction of society upon a more rational basis. Up to the +present, social evolution has been a blind and aimless, blundering +thing. The time has come for a change. Man has risen from the +vitalized slime of the primeval sea to the mastery of matter; but he has +not yet mastered society. Man is to-day as much the slave to his +collective stupidity, as a hundred thousand generations ago he was a slave +to matter.</p> +<p>“There are two theoretical methods whereby man may become the +master of society, and make of society an intelligent and efficacious +device for the pursuit and capture of happiness and laughter. The +first theory advances the proposition that no government can be wiser or +better than the people that compose that government; that reform and +development must spring from the individual; that in so far as the +individuals become wiser and better, by that much will their government +become wiser and better; in short, that the majority of individuals must +become wiser and better, before their government becomes wiser and +better. The mob, the political convention, the abysmal brutality and +stupid ignorance of all concourses of people, give the lie to this +theory. In a mob the collective intelligence and mercy is that of the +least intelligent and most brutal members that compose the mob. On +the other hand, a thousand passengers will surrender themselves to the +wisdom and discretion of the captain, when their ship is in a storm on the +sea. In such matter, he is the wisest and most experienced among +them.</p> +<p>“The second theory advances the proposition that the majority of +the people are not pioneers, that they are weighted down by the inertia of +the established; that the government that is representative of them +represents only their feebleness, and futility, and brutishness; that this +blind thing called government is not the serf of their wills, but that they +are the serfs of it; in short, speaking always of the great mass, that they +do not make government, but that government makes them, and that government +is and has been a stupid and awful monster, misbegotten of the glimmerings +of intelligence that come from the inertia-crushed mass.</p> +<p>“Personally, I incline to the second theory. Also, I am +impatient. For a hundred thousand generations, from the first social +groups of our savage forbears, government has remained a monster. +To-day, the inertia-crushed mass has less laughter in it than ever +before. In spite of man’s mastery of matter, human suffering +and misery and degradation mar the fair world.</p> +<p>“Wherefore I have decided to step in and become captain of this +world-ship for a while. I have the intelligence and the wide vision +of the skilled expert. Also, I have the power. I shall be +obeyed. The men of all the world shall perform my bidding and make +governments so that they shall become laughter-producers. These +modelled governments I have in mind shall not make the people happy, wise, +and noble by decree; but they shall give opportunity for the people to +become happy, wise, and noble.</p> +<p>“I have spoken. I have invited you, and nine of your +fellow-captains, to confer with me. On March third the yacht +<i>Energon</i> will sail from San Francisco. You are requested to be +on board the night before. This is serious. The affairs of the +world must be handled for a time by a strong hand. Mine is that +strong hand. If you fail to obey my summons, you will die. +Candidly, I do not expect that you will obey. But your death for +failure to obey will cause obedience on the part of those I subsequently +summon. You will have served a purpose. And please remember +that I have no unscientific sentimentality about the value of human +life. I carry always in the background of my consciousness the +innumerable billions of lives that are to laugh and be happy in future +æons on the earth.</p> +<p>“Yours for the reconstruction of society,</p> +<p style="text-align: right">“<span +class="smcap">Goliah</span>.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The publication of this letter did not cause even local amusement. +Men might have smiled to themselves as they read it, but it was so palpably +the handiwork of a crank that it did not merit discussion. Interest +did not arouse till next morning. An Associated Press despatch to the +Eastern states, followed by interviews by eager-nosed reporters, had +brought out the names of the other nine captains of industry who had +received similar letters, but who had not thought the matter of sufficient +importance to be made public. But the interest aroused was mild, and +it would have died out quickly had not Gabberton cartooned a chronic +presidential aspirant as “Goliah.” Then came the song +that was sung hilariously from sea to sea, with the refrain, “Goliah +will catch you if you don’t watch out.”</p> +<p>The weeks passed and the incident was forgotten. Walter Bassett +had forgotten it likewise; but on the evening of February 22, he was called +to the telephone by the Collector of the Port. “I just wanted +to tell you,” said the latter, “that the yacht <i>Energon</i> +has arrived and gone to anchor in the stream off Pier Seven.”</p> +<p>What happened that night Walter Bassett has never divulged. But it +is known that he rode down in his auto to the water front, chartered one of +Crowley’s launches, and was put aboard the strange yacht. It is +further known that when he returned to the shore, three hours later, he +immediately despatched a sheaf of telegrams to his nine fellow-captains of +industry who had received letters from Goliah. These telegrams were +similarly worded, and read: “The yacht <i>Energon</i> has +arrived. There is something in this. I advise you to +come.”</p> +<p>Bassett was laughed at for his pains. It was a huge laugh that +went up (for his telegrams had been made public), and the popular song on +Goliah revived and became more popular than ever. Goliah and Bassett +were cartooned and lampooned unmercifully, the former, as the Old Man of +the Sea, riding on the latter’s neck. The laugh tittered and +rippled through clubs and social circles, was restrainedly merry in the +editorial columns, and broke out in loud guffaws in the comic +weeklies. There was a serious side as well, and Bassett’s +sanity was gravely questioned by many, and especially by his business +associates.</p> +<p>Bassett had ever been a short-tempered man, and after he sent the second +sheaf of telegrams to his brother captains, and had been laughed at again, +he remained silent. In this second sheaf he had said: “Come, I +implore you. As you value your life, come.” He arranged +all his business affairs for an absence, and on the night of March 2 went +on board the <i>Energon</i>. The latter, properly cleared, sailed +next morning. And next morning the newsboys in every city and town +were crying “Extra.”</p> +<p>In the slang of the day, Goliah had delivered the goods. The nine +captains of industry who had failed to accept his invitation were +dead. A sort of violent disintegration of the tissues was the report +of the various autopsies held on the bodies of the slain millionaires; yet +the surgeons and physicians (the most highly skilled in the land had +participated) would not venture the opinion that the men had been +slain. Much less would they venture the conclusion, “at the +hands of parties unknown.” It was all too mysterious. +They were stunned. Their scientific credulity broke down. They +had no warrant in the whole domain of science for believing that an +anonymous person on Palgrave Island had murdered the poor gentlemen.</p> +<p>One thing was quickly learned, however; namely, that Palgrave Island was +no myth. It was charted and well known to all navigators, lying on +the line of 160 west longitude, right at its intersection by the tenth +parallel north latitude, and only a few miles away from Diana Shoal. +Like Midway and Fanning, Palgrave Island was isolated, volcanic and coral +in formation. Furthermore, it was uninhabited. A survey ship, +in 1887, had visited the place and reported the existence of several +springs and of a good harbour that was very dangerous of approach. +And that was all that was known of the tiny speck of land that was soon to +have focussed on it the awed attention of the world.</p> +<p>Goliah remained silent till March 24. On the morning of that day, +the newspapers published his second letter, copies of which had been +received by the ten chief politicians of the United States—ten +leading men in the political world who were conventionally known as +“statesmen.” The letter, with the same superscription as +before, was as follows:</p> +<blockquote> +<p>“<span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span>:</p> +<p>“I have spoken in no uncertain tone. I must be obeyed. +You may consider this an invitation or a summons; but if you still wish to +tread this earth and laugh, you will be aboard the yacht <i>Energon</i>, in +San Francisco harbour, not later than the evening of April 5. It is +my wish and my will that you confer with me here on Palgrave Island in the +matter of reconstructing society upon some rational basis.</p> +<p>“Do not misunderstand me, when I tell you that I am one with a +theory. I want to see that theory work, and therefore I call upon +your cooperation. In this theory of mine, lives are but pawns; I deal +with quantities of lives. I am after laughter, and those that stand +in the way of laughter must perish. The game is big. There are +fifteen hundred million human lives to-day on the planet. What is +your single life against them? It is as naught, in my theory. +And remember that mine is the power. Remember that I am a scientist, +and that one life, or one million of lives, mean nothing to me as arrayed +against the countless billions of billions of the lives of the generations +to come. It is for their laughter that I seek to reconstruct society +now; and against them your own meagre little life is a paltry thing +indeed.</p> +<p>“Whoso has power can command his fellows. By virtue of that +military device known as the phalanx, Alexander conquered his bit of the +world. By virtue of that chemical device, gunpowder, Cortes with his +several hundred cut-throats conquered the empire of the Montezumas. +Now I am in possession of a device that is all my own. In the course +of a century not more than half a dozen fundamental discoveries or +inventions are made. I have made such an invention. The +possession of it gives me the mastery of the world. I shall use this +invention, not for commercial exploitation, but for the good of +humanity. For that purpose I want help—willing agents, obedient +hands; and I am strong enough to compel the service. I am taking the +shortest way, though I am in no hurry. I shall not clutter my speed +with haste.</p> +<p>“The incentive of material gain developed man from the savage to +the semi-barbarian he is to-day. This incentive has been a useful +device for the development of the human; but it has now fulfilled its +function and is ready to be cast aside into the scrap-heap of rudimentary +vestiges such as gills in the throat and belief in the divine right of +kings. Of course you do not think so; but I do not see that that will +prevent you from aiding me to fling the anachronism into the +scrap-heap. For I tell you now that the time has come when mere food +and shelter and similar sordid things shall be automatic, as free and easy +and involuntary of access as the air. I shall make them automatic, +what of my discovery and the power that discovery gives me. And with +food and shelter automatic, the incentive of material gain passes away from +the world for ever. With food and shelter automatic, the higher +incentives will universally obtain—the spiritual, æsthetic, and +intellectual incentives that will tend to develop and make beautiful and +noble body, mind, and spirit. Then all the world will be dominated by +happiness and laughter. It will be the reign of universal +laughter.</p> +<p>“Yours for that day,</p> +<p style="text-align: right">“<span +class="smcap">Goliah</span>.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Still the world would not believe. The ten politicians were at +Washington, so that they did not have the opportunity of being convinced +that Bassett had had, and not one of them took the trouble to journey out +to San Francisco to make the opportunity. As for Goliah, he was +hailed by the newspapers as another Tom Lawson with a panacea; and there +were specialists in mental disease who, by analysis of Goliah’s +letters, proved conclusively that he was a lunatic.</p> +<p>The yacht <i>Energon</i> arrived in the harbour of San Francisco on the +afternoon of April 5, and Bassett came ashore. But the <i>Energon</i> +did not sail next day, for not one of the ten summoned politicians had +elected to make the journey to Palgrave Island. The newsboys, +however, called “Extra” that day in all the cities. The +ten politicians were dead. The yacht, lying peacefully at anchor in +the harbour, became the centre of excited interest. She was +surrounded by a flotilla of launches and rowboats, and many tugs and +steamboats ran excursions to her. While the rabble was firmly kept +off, the proper authorities and even reporters were permitted to board +her. The mayor of San Francisco and the chief of police reported that +nothing suspicious was to be seen upon her, and the port authorities +announced that her papers were correct and in order in every detail. +Many photographs and columns of descriptive matter were run in the +newspapers.</p> +<p>The crew was reported to be composed principally of +Scandinavians—fair-haired, blue-eyed Swedes, Norwegians afflicted +with the temperamental melancholy of their race, stolid Russian Finns, and +a slight sprinkling of Americans and English. It was noted that there +was nothing mercurial and flyaway about them. They seemed weighty +men, oppressed by a sad and stolid bovine-sort of integrity. A sober +seriousness and enormous certitude characterized all of them. They +appeared men without nerves and without fear, as though upheld by some +overwhelming power or carried in the hollow of some superhuman hand. +The captain, a sad-eyed, strong-featured American, was cartooned in the +papers as “Gloomy Gus” (the pessimistic hero of the comic +supplement).</p> +<p>Some sea-captain recognized the <i>Energon</i> as the yacht <i>Scud</i>, +once owned by Merrivale of the New York Yacht Club. With this clue it +was soon ascertained that the <i>Scud</i> had disappeared several years +before. The agent who sold her reported the purchaser to be merely +another agent, a man he had seen neither before nor since. The yacht +had been reconstructed at Duffey’s Shipyard in New Jersey. The +change in her name and registry occurred at that time and had been legally +executed. Then the <i>Energon</i> had disappeared in the shroud of +mystery.</p> +<p>In the meantime, Bassett was going crazy—at least his friends and +business associates said so. He kept away from his vast business +enterprises and said that he must hold his hands until the other masters of +the world could join with him in the reconstruction of society—proof +indubitable that Goliah’s bee had entered his bonnet. To +reporters he had little to say. He was not at liberty, he said, to +relate what he had seen on Palgrave Island; but he could assure them that +the matter was serious, the most serious thing that had ever +happened. His final word was that, the world was on the verge of a +turnover, for good or ill he did not know, but, one way or the other, he +was absolutely convinced that the turnover was coming. As for +business, business could go hang. He had seen things, he had, and +that was all there was to it.</p> +<p>There was a great telegraphing, during this period, between the local +Federal officials and the state and war departments at Washington. A +secret attempt was made late one afternoon to board the <i>Energon</i> and +place the captain under arrest—the Attorney-General having given the +opinion that the captain could be held for the murder of the ten +“statesmen.” The government launch was seen to leave +Meigg’s Wharf and steer for the <i>Energon</i>, and that was the last +ever seen of the launch and the men on board of it. The government +tried to keep the affair hushed up, but the cat was slipped out of the bag +by the families of the missing men, and the papers were filled with +monstrous versions of the affair.</p> +<p>The government now proceeded to extreme measures. The battleship +<i>Alaska</i> was ordered to capture the strange yacht, or, failing that, +to sink her. These were secret instructions; but thousands of eyes, +from the water front and from the shipping in the harbour, witnessed what +happened that afternoon. The battleship got under way and steamed +slowly toward the <i>Energon</i>. At half a mile distant the +battleship blew up—simply blew up, that was all, her shattered frame +sinking to the bottom of the bay, a riff-raff of wreckage and a few +survivors strewing the surface. Among the survivors was a young +lieutenant who had had charge of the wireless on board the +<i>Alaska</i>. The reporters got hold of him first, and he +talked. No sooner had the <i>Alaska</i> got under way, he said, than +a message was received from the <i>Energon</i>. It was in the +international code, and it was a warning to the <i>Alaska</i> to come no +nearer than half a mile. He had sent the message, through the +speaking tube, immediately to the captain. He did not know anything +more, except that the <i>Energon</i> twice repeated the message and that +five minutes afterward the explosion occurred. The captain of the +<i>Alaska</i> had perished with his ship, and nothing more was to be +learned.</p> +<p>The <i>Energon</i>, however, promptly hoisted anchor and cleared out to +sea. A great clamour was raised by the papers; the government was +charged with cowardice and vacillation in its dealings with a mere pleasure +yacht and a lunatic who called himself “Goliah,” and immediate +and decisive action was demanded. Also, a great cry went up about the +loss of life, especially the wanton killing of the ten +“statesmen.” Goliah promptly replied. In fact, so +prompt was his reply that the experts in wireless telegraphy announced +that, since it was impossible to send wireless messages so great a +distance, Goliah was in their very midst and not on Palgrave Island. +Goliah’s letter was delivered to the Associated Press by a messenger +boy who had been engaged on the street. The letter was as +follows:</p> +<blockquote> +<p>“What are a few paltry lives? In your insane wars you +destroy millions of lives and think nothing of it. In your +fratricidal commercial struggle you kill countless babes, women, and men, +and you triumphantly call the shambles ‘individualism.’ I +call it anarchy. I am going to put a stop to your wholesale +destruction of human beings. I want laughter, not slaughter. +Those of you who stand in the way of laughter will get slaughter.</p> +<p>“Your government is trying to delude you into believing that the +destruction of the <i>Alaska</i> was an accident. Know here and now +that it was by my orders that the <i>Alaska</i> was destroyed. In a +few short months, all battleships on all seas will be destroyed or flung to +the scrap-heap, and all nations shall disarm; fortresses shall be +dismantled, armies disbanded, and warfare shall cease from the earth. +Mine is the power. I am the will of God. The whole world shall +be in vassalage to me, but it shall be a vassalage of peace.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">“I am<br /> +“<span class="smcap">Goliah</span>.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>“Blow Palgrave Island out of the water!” was the head-line +retort of the newspapers. The government was of the same frame of +mind, and the assembling of the fleets began. Walter Bassett broke +out in ineffectual protest, but was swiftly silenced by the threat of a +lunacy commission. Goliah remained silent. Against Palgrave +Island five great fleets were hurled—the Asiatic Squadron, the South +Pacific Squadron, the North Pacific Squadron, the Caribbean Squadron, and +half of the North Atlantic Squadron, the two latter coming through the +Panama Canal.</p> +<p>“I have the honour to report that we sighted Palgrave Island on +the evening of April 29,” ran the report of Captain Johnson, of the +battleship <i>North Dakota</i>, to the Secretary of the Navy. +“The Asiatic Squadron was delayed and did not arrive until the +morning of April 30. A council of the admirals was held, and it was +decided to attack early next morning. The destroyer, <i>Swift +VII</i>, crept in, unmolested, and reported no warlike preparations on the +island. It noted several small merchant steamers in the harbour, and +the existence of a small village in a hopelessly exposed position that +could be swept by our fire.</p> +<p>“It had been decided that all the vessels should rush in, +scattered, upon the island, opening fire at three miles, and continuing to +the edge of the reef, there to retain loose formation and engage. +Palgrave Island repeatedly warned us, by wireless, in the international +code, to keep outside the ten-mile limit; but no heed was paid to the +warnings.</p> +<p>“The <i>North Dakota</i> did not take part in the movement of the +morning of May 1. This was due to a slight accident of the preceding +night that temporarily disabled her steering-gear. The morning of May +1 broke clear and calm. There was a slight breeze from the south-west +that quickly died away. The <i>North Dakota</i> lay twelve miles off +the island. At the signal the squadrons charged in upon the island, +from all sides, at full speed. Our wireless receiver continued to +tick off warnings from the island. The ten-mile limit was passed, and +nothing happened. I watched through my glasses. At five miles +nothing happened; at four miles nothing happened; at three miles, the +<i>New York</i>, in the lead on our side of the island, opened fire. +She fired only one shot. Then she blew up. The rest of the +vessels never fired a shot. They began to blow up, everywhere, before +our eyes. Several swerved about and started back, but they failed to +escape. The destroyer, <i>Dart XXX</i>, nearly made the ten-mile +limit when she blew up. She was the last survivor. No harm came +to the <i>North Dakota</i>, and that night, the steering-gear being +repaired, I gave orders to sail for San Francisco.”</p> +<p>To say that the United States was stunned is but to expose the +inadequacy of language. The whole world was stunned. It +confronted that blight of the human brain, the unprecedented. Human +endeavour was a jest, a monstrous futility, when a lunatic on a lonely +island, who owned a yacht and an exposed village, could destroy five of the +proudest fleets of Christendom. And how had he done it? Nobody +knew. The scientists lay down in the dust of the common road and +wailed and gibbered. They did not know. Military experts +committed suicide by scores. The mighty fabric of warfare they had +fashioned was a gossamer veil rent asunder by a miserable lunatic. It +was too much for their sanity. Mere human reason could not withstand +the shock. As the savage is crushed by the sleight-of-hand of the +witch doctor, so was the world crushed by the magic of Goliah. How +did he do it? It was the awful face of the Unknown upon which the +world gazed and by which it was frightened out of the memory of its +proudest achievements.</p> +<p>But all the world was not stunned. There was the invariable +exception—the Island Empire of Japan. Drunken with the wine of +success deep-quaffed, without superstition and without faith in aught but +its own ascendant star, laughing at the wreckage of science and mad with +pride of race, it went forth upon the way of war. America’s +fleets had been destroyed. From the battlements of heaven the +multitudinous ancestral shades of Japan leaned down. The opportunity, +God-given, had come. The Mikado was in truth a brother to the +gods.</p> +<p>The war-monsters of Japan were loosed in mighty fleets. The +Philippines were gathered in as a child gathers a nosegay. It took +longer for the battleships to travel to Hawaii, to Panama, and to the +Pacific Coast. The United States was panic-stricken, and there arose +the powerful party of dishonourable peace. In the midst of the +clamour the <i>Energon</i> arrived in San Francisco Bay and Goliah spoke +once more. There was a little brush as the <i>Energon</i> came in, +and a few explosions of magazines occurred along the war-tunnelled hills as +the coast defences went to smash. Also, the blowing up of the +submarine mines in the Golden Gate made a remarkably fine display. +Goliah’s message to the people of San Francisco, dated as usual from +Palgrave Island, was published in the papers. It ran:</p> +<blockquote> +<p>“Peace? Peace be with you. You shall have peace. +I have spoken to this purpose before. And give you me peace. +Leave my yacht <i>Energon</i> alone. Commit one overt act against her +and not one stone in San Francisco shall stand upon another.</p> +<p>“To-morrow let all good citizens go out upon the hills that slope +down to the sea. Go with music and laughter and garlands. Make +festival for the new age that is dawning. Be like children upon your +hills, and witness the passing of war. Do not miss the +opportunity. It is your last chance to behold what henceforth you +will be compelled to seek in museums of antiquities.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">“I promise you a merry day,<br /> +“<span class="smcap">Goliah</span>.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The madness of magic was in the air. With the people it was as if +all their gods had crashed and the heavens still stood. Order and law +had passed away from the universe; but the sun still shone, the wind still +blew, the flowers still bloomed—that was the amazing thing about +it. That water should continue to run downhill was a miracle. +All the stabilities of the human mind and human achievement were +crumbling. The one stable thing that remained was Goliah, a madman on +an island. And so it was that the whole population of San Francisco +went forth next day in colossal frolic upon the hills that overlooked the +sea. Brass bands and banners went forth, brewery wagons and +Sunday-school picnics—all the strange heterogeneous groupings of +swarming metropolitan life.</p> +<p>On the sea-rim rose the smoke from the funnels of a hundred hostile +vessels of war, all converging upon the helpless, undefended Golden +Gate. And not all undefended, for out through the Golden Gate moved +the <i>Energon</i>, a tiny toy of white, rolling like a straw in the stiff +sea on the bar where a strong ebb-tide ran in the teeth of the summer +sea-breeze. But the Japanese were cautious. Their thirty- and +forty-thousand-ton battleships slowed down half a dozen miles offshore and +manoeuvred in ponderous evolutions, while tiny scout-boats (lean, +six-funnelled destroyers) ran in, cutting blackly the flashing sea like so +many sharks. But, compared with the <i>Energon</i>, they were +leviathans. Compared with them, the <i>Energon</i> was as the sword +of the arch-angel Michael, and they the forerunners of the hosts of +hell.</p> +<p>But the flashing of the sword, the good people of San Francisco, +gathered on her hills, never saw. Mysterious, invisible, it cleaved +the air and smote the mightiest blows of combat the world had ever +witnessed. The good people of San Francisco saw little and understood +less. They saw only a million and a half tons of brine-cleaving, +thunder-flinging fabrics hurled skyward and smashed back in ruin to sink +into the sea. It was all over in five minutes. Remained upon +the wide expanse of sea only the <i>Energon</i>, rolling white and toylike +on the bar.</p> +<p>Goliah spoke to the Mikado and the Elder Statesmen. It was only an +ordinary cable message, despatched from San Francisco by the captain of the +<i>Energon</i>, but it was of sufficient moment to cause the immediate +withdrawal of Japan from the Philippines and of her surviving fleets from +the sea. Japan the sceptical was converted. She had felt the +weight of Goliah’s arm. And meekly she obeyed when Goliah +commanded her to dismantle her war vessels and to turn the metal into +useful appliances for the arts of peace. In all the ports, +navy-yards, machine-shops, and foundries of Japan tens of thousands of +brown-skinned artisans converted the war-monsters into myriads of useful +things, such as ploughshares (Goliah insisted on ploughshares), gasolene +engines, bridge-trusses, telephone and telegraph wires, steel rails, +locomotives, and rolling stock for railways. It was a world-penance +for a world to see, and paltry indeed it made appear that earlier penance, +barefooted in the snow, of an emperor to a pope for daring to squabble over +temporal power.</p> +<p>Goliah’s next summons was to the ten leading scientists of the +United States. This time there was no hesitancy in obeying. The +savants were ludicrously prompt, some of them waiting in San Francisco for +weeks so as not to miss the scheduled sailing-date. They departed on +the <i>Energon</i> on June 15; and while they were on the sea, on the way +to Palgrave Island, Goliah performed another spectacular feat. +Germany and France were preparing to fly at each other’s +throats. Goliah commanded peace. They ignored the command, +tacitly agreeing to fight it out on land where it seemed safer for the +belligerently inclined. Goliah set the date of June 19 for the +cessation of hostile preparations. Both countries mobilized their +armies on June 18, and hurled them at the common frontier. And on +June 19, Goliah struck. All generals, war-secretaries, and +jingo-leaders in the two countries died on that day; and that day two vast +armies, undirected, like strayed sheep, walked over each other’s +frontiers and fraternized. But the great German war lord had +escaped—it was learned, afterward, by hiding in the huge safe where +were stored the secret archives of his empire. And when he emerged he +was a very penitent war lord, and like the Mikado of Japan he was set to +work beating his sword-blades into ploughshares and pruning-hooks.</p> +<p>But in the escape of the German Emperor was discovered a great +significance. The scientists of the world plucked up courage, got +back their nerve. One thing was conclusively +evident—Goliah’s power was not magic. Law still reigned +in the universe. Goliah’s power had limitations, else had the +German Emperor not escaped by secretly hiding in a steel safe. Many +learned articles on the subject appeared in the magazines.</p> +<p>The ten scientists arrived back from Palgrave Island on July 6. +Heavy platoons of police protected them from the reporters. No, they +had not see Goliah, they said in the one official interview that was +vouchsafed; but they had talked with him, and they had seen things. +They were not permitted to state definitely all that they had seen and +heard, but they could say that the world was about to be +revolutionized. Goliah was in the possession of a tremendous +discovery that placed all the world at his mercy, and it was a good thing +for the world that Goliah was merciful. The ten scientists proceeded +directly to Washington on a special train, where, for days, they were +closeted with the heads of government, while the nation hung breathless on +the outcome.</p> +<p>But the outcome was a long time in arriving. From Washington the +President issued commands to the masters and leading figures of the +nation. Everything was secret. Day by day deputations of +bankers, railway lords, captains of industry, and Supreme Court justices +arrived; and when they arrived they remained. The weeks dragged on, +and then, on August 25, began the famous issuance of proclamations. +Congress and the Senate co-operated with the President in this, while the +Supreme Court justices gave their sanction and the money lords and the +captains of industry agreed. War was declared upon the capitalist +masters of the nation. Martial law was declared over the whole United +States. The supreme power was vested in the President.</p> +<p>In one day, child-labour in the whole country was abolished. It +was done by decree, and the United States was prepared with its army to +enforce its decrees. In the same day all women factory workers were +dismissed to their homes, and all the sweat-shops were closed. +“But we cannot make profits!” wailed the petty +capitalists. “Fools!” was the retort of Goliah. +“As if the meaning of life were profits! Give up your +businesses and your profit-mongering.” “But there is +nobody to buy our business!” they wailed. “Buy and +sell—is that all the meaning life has for you?” replied +Goliah. “You have nothing to sell. Turn over your little +cut-throating, anarchistic businesses to the government so that they may be +rationally organized and operated.” And the next day, by +decree, the government began taking possession of all factories, shops, +mines, ships, railroads, and producing lands.</p> +<p>The nationalization of the means of production and distribution went on +apace. Here and there were sceptical capitalists of moment. +They were made prisoners and haled to Palgrave Island, and when they +returned they always acquiesced in what the government was doing. A +little later the journey to Palgrave Island became unnecessary. When +objection was made, the reply of the officials was “Goliah has +spoken”—which was another way of saying, “He must be +obeyed.”</p> +<p>The captains of industry became heads of departments. It was found +that civil engineers, for instance, worked just as well in government +employ as before, they had worked in private employ. It was found +that men of high executive ability could not violate their nature. +They could not escape exercising their executive ability, any more than a +crab could escape crawling or a bird could escape flying. And so it +was that all the splendid force of the men who had previously worked for +themselves was now put to work for the good of society. The +half-dozen great railway chiefs co-operated in the organizing of a national +system of railways that was amazingly efficacious. Never again was +there such a thing as a car shortage. These chiefs were not the Wall +Street railway magnates, but they were the men who formerly had done the +real work while in the employ of the Wall Street magnates.</p> +<p>Wall Street was dead. There was no more buying and selling and +speculating. Nobody had anything to buy or sell. There was +nothing in which to speculate. “Put the stock gamblers to +work,” said Goliah; “give those that are young, and that so +desire, a chance to learn useful trades.” “Put the +drummers, and salesmen, and advertising agents, and real estate agents to +work,” said Goliah; and by hundreds of thousands the erstwhile +useless middlemen and parasites went into useful occupations. The +four hundred thousand idle gentlemen of the country who had lived upon +incomes were likewise put to work. Then there were a lot of helpless +men in high places who were cleared out, the remarkable thing about this +being that they were cleared out by their own fellows. Of this class +were the professional politicians, whose wisdom and power consisted of +manipulating machine politics and of grafting. There was no longer +any graft. Since there were no private interests to purchase special +privileges, no bribes were offered to legislators, and legislators for the +first time legislated for the people. The result was that men who +were efficient, not in corruption, but in direction, found their way into +the legislatures.</p> +<p>With this rational organization of society amazing results were brought +about. The national day’s work was eight hours, and yet +production increased. In spite of the great permanent improvements +and of the immense amount of energy consumed in systematizing the +competitive chaos of society, production doubled and tripled upon +itself. The standard of living increased, and still consumption could +not keep up with production. The maximum working age was decreased to +fifty years, to forty-nine years, and to forty-eight years. The +minimum working age went up from sixteen years to eighteen years. The +eight-hour day became a seven-hour day, and in a few months the national +working day was reduced to five hours.</p> +<p>In the meantime glimmerings were being caught, not of the identity of +Goliah, but of how he had worked and prepared for his assuming control of +the world. Little things leaked out, clues were followed up, +apparently unrelated things were pieced together. Strange stories of +blacks stolen from Africa were remembered, of Chinese and Japanese contract +coolies who had mysteriously disappeared, of lonely South Sea Islands +raided and their inhabitants carried away; stories of yachts and merchant +steamers, mysteriously purchased, that had disappeared and the descriptions +of which remotely tallied with the crafts that had carried the Orientals +and Africans and islanders away. Where had Goliah got the sinews of +war? was the question. And the surmised answer was: By exploiting +these stolen labourers. It was they that lived in the exposed village +on Palgrave Island. It was the product of their toil that had +purchased the yachts and merchant steamers and enabled Goliah’s +agents to permeate society and carry out his will. And what was the +product of their toil that had given Goliah the wealth necessary to realize +his plans? Commercial radium, the newspapers proclaimed; and radiyte, +and radiosole, and argatium, and argyte, and the mysterious golyte (that +had proved so valuable in metallurgy). These were the new compounds, +discovered in the first decade of the twentieth century, the commercial and +scientific use of which had become so enormous in the second decade.</p> +<p>The line of fruit boats that ran from Hawaii to San Francisco was +declared to be the property of Goliah. This was a surmise, for no +other owner could be discovered, and the agents who handled the shipments +of the fruit boats were only agents. Since no one else owned the +fruit boats, then Goliah must own them. The point of which is: +<i>that it leaked out that the major portion of the world’s supply in +these precious compounds was brought to San Francisco by those very fruit +boats</i>. That the whole chain of surmise was correct was proved in +later years when Goliah’s slaves were liberated and honourably +pensioned by the international government of the world. It was at +that time that the seal of secrecy was lifted from the lips of his agents +and higher emissaries, and those that chose revealed much of the mystery of +Goliah’s organization and methods. His destroying angels, +however, remained for ever dumb. Who the men were who went forth to +the high places and killed at his bidding will be unknown to the end of +time—for kill they did, by means of that very subtle and +then-mysterious force that Goliah had discovered and named +“Energon.”</p> +<p>But at that time Energon, the little giant that was destined to do the +work of the world, was unknown and undreamed of. Only Goliah knew, +and he kept his secret well. Even his agents, who were armed with it, +and who, in the case of the yacht <i>Energon</i>, destroyed a mighty fleet +of war-ships by exploding their magazines, knew not what the subtle and +potent force was, nor how it was manufactured. They knew only one of +its many uses, and in that one use they had been instructed by +Goliah. It is now well known that radium, and radiyte, and radiosole, +and all the other compounds, were by-products of the manufacture of Energon +by Goliah from the sunlight; but at that time nobody knew what Energon was, +and Goliah continued to awe and rule the world.</p> +<p>One of the uses of Energon was in wireless telegraphy. It was by +its means that Goliah was able to communicate with his agents all over the +world. At that time the apparatus required by an agent was so clumsy +that it could not be packed in anything less than a fair-sized steamer +trunk. To-day, thanks to the improvements of Hendsoll, the perfected +apparatus can be carried in a coat pocket.</p> +<p>It was in December, 1924, that Goliah sent out his famous +“Christmas Letter,” part of the text of which is here +given:</p> +<blockquote> +<p>“So far, while I have kept the rest of the nations from each +other’s throats, I have devoted myself particularly to the United +States. Now I have not given to the people of the United States a +rational social organization. What I have done has been to compel +them to make that organization themselves. There is more laughter in +the United States these days, and there is more sense. Food and +shelter are no longer obtained by the anarchistic methods of so-called +individualism but are now wellnigh automatic. And the beauty of it is +that the people of the United States have achieved all this for +themselves. I did not achieve it for them. I repeat, they +achieved it for themselves. All that I did was to put the fear of +death in the hearts of the few that sat in the high places and obstructed +the coming of rationality and laughter. The fear of death made those +in the high places get out of the way, that was all, and gave the +intelligence of man a chance to realize itself socially.</p> +<p>“In the year that is to come I shall devote myself to the rest of +the world. I shall put the fear of death in the hearts of all that +sit in the high places in all the nations. And they will do as they +have done in the United States—get down out of the high places and +give the intelligence of man a chance for social rationality. All the +nations shall tread the path the United States is now on.</p> +<p>“And when all the nations are well along on that path, I shall +have something else for them. But first they must travel that path +for themselves. They must demonstrate that the intelligence of +mankind to-day, with the mechanical energy now at its disposal, is capable +of organizing society so that food and shelter be made automatic, labour be +reduced to a three-hour day, and joy and laughter be made universal. +And when that is accomplished, not by me but by the intelligence of +mankind, then I shall make a present to the world of a new mechanical +energy. This is my discovery. This Energon is nothing more nor +less than the cosmic energy that resides in the solar rays. When it +is harnessed by mankind it will do the work of the world. There will +be no more multitudes of miners slaving out their lives in the bowels of +the earth, no more sooty firemen and greasy engineers. All may dress +in white if they so will. The work of life will have become play and +young and old will be the children of joy, and the business of living will +become joy; and they will compete, one with another, in achieving ethical +concepts and spiritual heights, in fashioning pictures and songs, and +stories, in statecraft and beauty craft, in the sweat and the endeavour of +the wrestler and the runner and the player of games—all will compete, +not for sordid coin and base material reward, but for the joy that shall be +theirs in the development and vigour of flesh and in the development and +keenness of spirit. All will be joy-smiths, and their task shall be +to beat out laughter from the ringing anvil of life.</p> +<p>“And now one word for the immediate future. On New +Year’s Day all nations shall disarm, all fortresses and war-ships +shall be dismantled, and all armies shall be disbanded.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">“<span +class="smcap">Goliah</span>.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>On New Year’s Day all the world disarmed. The millions of +soldiers and sailors and workmen in the standing armies, in the navies, and +in the countless arsenals, machine-shops, and factories for the manufacture +of war machinery, were dismissed to their homes. These many millions +of men, as well as their costly war machinery, had hitherto been supported +on the back of labour. They now went into useful occupations, and the +released labour giant heaved a mighty sigh of relief. The policing of +the world was left to the peace officers and was purely social, whereas war +had been distinctly anti-social.</p> +<p>Ninety per cent. of the crimes against society had been crimes against +private property. With the passing of private property, at least in +the means of production, and with the organization of industry that gave +every man a chance, the crimes against private property practically +ceased. The police forces everywhere were reduced repeatedly and +again and again. Nearly all occasional and habitual criminals ceased +voluntarily from their depredations. There was no longer any need for +them to commit crime. They merely changed with changing +conditions. A smaller number of criminals was put into hospitals and +cured. And the remnant of the hopelessly criminal and degenerate was +segregated. And the courts in all countries were likewise decreased +in number again and again. Ninety-five per cent. of all civil cases +had been squabbles over property, conflicts of property-rights, lawsuits, +contests of wills, breaches of contract, bankruptcies, etc. With the +passing of private property, this ninety-five per cent. of the cases that +cluttered the courts also passed. The courts became shadows, +attenuated ghosts, rudimentary vestiges of the anarchistic times that had +preceded the coming of Goliah.</p> +<p>The year 1925 was a lively year in the world’s history. +Goliah ruled the world with a strong hand. Kings and emperors +journeyed to Palgrave Island, saw the wonders of Energon, and went away, +with the fear of death in their hearts, to abdicate thrones and crowns and +hereditary licenses. When Goliah spoke to politicians (so-called +“statesmen”), they obeyed . . . or died. He dictated +universal reforms, dissolved refractory parliaments, and to the great +conspiracy that was formed of mutinous money lords and captains of industry +he sent his destroying angels. “The time is past for +fooling,” he told them. “You are anachronisms. You +stand in the way of humanity. To the scrap-heap with +you.” To those that protested, and they were many, he said: +“This is no time for logomachy. You can argue for +centuries. It is what you have done in the past. I have no time +for argument. Get out of the way.”</p> +<p>With the exception of putting a stop to war, and of indicating the broad +general plan, Goliah did nothing. By putting the fear of death into +the hearts of those that sat in the high places and obstructed progress, +Goliah made the opportunity for the unshackled intelligence of the best +social thinkers of the world to exert itself. Goliah left all the +multitudinous details of reconstruction to these social thinkers. He +wanted them to prove that they were able to do it, and they proved +it. It was due to their initiative that the white plague was stamped +out from the world. It was due to them, and in spite of a deal of +protesting from the sentimentalists, that all the extreme hereditary +inefficients were segregated and denied marriage.</p> +<p>Goliah had nothing whatever to do with the instituting of the colleges +of invention. This idea originated practically simultaneously in the +minds of thousands of social thinkers. The time was ripe for the +realization of the idea, and everywhere arose the splendid institutions of +invention. For the first time the ingenuity of man was loosed upon +the problem of simplifying life, instead of upon the making of +money-earning devices. The affairs of life, such as house-cleaning, +dish and window-washing, dust-removing, and scrubbing and clothes-washing, +and all the endless sordid and necessary details, were simplified by +invention until they became automatic. We of to-day cannot realize +the barbarously filthy and slavish lives of those that lived prior to +1925.</p> +<p>The international government of the world was another idea that sprang +simultaneously into the minds of thousands. The successful +realization of this idea was a surprise to many, but as a surprise it was +nothing to that received by the mildly protestant sociologists and +biologists when irrefutable facts exploded the doctrine of Malthus. +With leisure and joy in the world; with an immensely higher standard of +living; and with the enormous spaciousness of opportunity for recreation, +development, and pursuit of beauty and nobility and all the higher +attributes, the birth-rate fell, and fell astoundingly. People ceased +breeding like cattle. And better than that, it was immediately +noticeable that a higher average of children was being born. The +doctrine of Malthus was knocked into a cocked hat—or flung to the +scrap-heap, as Goliah would have put it.</p> +<p>All that Goliah had predicted that the intelligence of mankind could +accomplish with the mechanical energy at its disposal, came to pass. +Human dissatisfaction practically disappeared. The elderly people +were the great grumblers; but when they were honourably pensioned by +society, as they passed the age limit for work, the great majority ceased +grumbling. They found themselves better off in their idle old days +under the new regime, enjoying vastly more pleasure and comforts than they +had in their busy and toilsome youth under the old regime. The +younger generation had easily adapted itself too the changed order, and the +very young had never known anything else. The sum of human happiness +had increased enormously. The world had become gay and sane. +Even the old fogies of professors of sociology, who had opposed with might +and main the coming of the new regime, made no complaint. They were a +score of times better remunerated than in the old days, and they were not +worked nearly so hard. Besides, they were busy revising sociology and +writing new text-books on the subject. Here and there, it is true, +there were atavisms, men who yearned for the flesh-pots and cannibal-feasts +of the old alleged “individualism,” creatures long of teeth and +savage of claw who wanted to prey upon their fellow-men; but they were +looked upon as diseased, and were treated in hospitals. A small +remnant, however, proved incurable, and was confined in asylums and denied +marriage. Thus there was no progeny to inherit their atavistic +tendencies.</p> +<p>As the years went by, Goliah dropped out of the running of the +world. There was nothing for him to run. The world was running +itself, and doing it smoothly and beautifully. In 1937, Goliah made +his long-promised present of Energon to the world. He himself had +devised a thousand ways in which the little giant should do the work of the +world—all of which he made public at the same time. But +instantly the colleges of invention seized upon Energon and utilized it in +a hundred thousand additional ways. In fact, as Goliah confessed in +his letter of March 1938, the colleges of invention cleared up several +puzzling features of Energon that had baffled him during the preceding +years. With the introduction of the use of Energon the two-hour +work-day was cut down almost to nothing. As Goliah had predicted, +work indeed became play. And, so tremendous was man’s +productive capacity, due to Energon and the rational social utilization of +it, that the humblest citizen enjoyed leisure and time and opportunity for +an immensely greater abundance of living than had the most favoured under +the old anarchistic system.</p> +<p>Nobody had ever seen Goliah, and all peoples began to clamour for their +saviour to appear. While the world did not minimize his discovery of +Energon, it was decided that greater than that was his wide social +vision. He was a superman, a scientific superman; and the curiosity +of the world to see him had become wellnigh unbearable. It was in +1941, after much hesitancy on his part, that he finally emerged from +Palgrave Island. He arrived on June 6 in San Francisco, and for the +first time, since his retirement to Palgrave Island, the world looked upon +his face. And the world was disappointed. Its imagination had +been touched. An heroic figure had been made out of Goliah. He +was the man, or the demi-god, rather, who had turned the planet over. +The deeds of Alexander, Cæsar, Genghis Khan, and Napoleon were as the +play of babes alongside his colossal achievements.</p> +<p>And ashore in San Francisco and through its streets stepped and rode a +little old man, sixty-five years of age, well preserved, with a +pink-and-white complexion and a bald spot on his head the size of an +apple. He was short-sighted and wore spectacles. But when the +spectacles were removed, his were quizzical blue eyes like a child’s, +filled with mild wonder at the world. Also his eyes had a way of +twinkling, accompanied by a screwing up of the face, as if he laughed at +the huge joke he had played upon the world, trapping it, in spite of +itself, into happiness and laughter.</p> +<p>For a scientific superman and world tyrant, he had remarkable +weaknesses. He loved sweets, and was inordinately fond of salted +almonds and salted pecans, especially of the latter. He always +carried a paper bag of them in his pocket, and he had a way of saying +frequently that the chemism of his nature demanded such fare. Perhaps +his most astonishing failing was cats. He had an ineradicable +aversion to that domestic animal. It will be remembered that he +fainted dead away with sudden fright, while speaking in Brotherhood Palace, +when the janitor’s cat walked out upon the stage and brushed against +his legs.</p> +<p>But no sooner had he revealed himself to the world than he was +identified. Old-time friends had no difficulty in recognizing him as +Percival Stultz, the German-American who, in 1898, had worked in the Union +Iron Works, and who, for two years at that time, had been secretary of +Branch 369 of the International Brotherhood of Machinists. It was in +1901, then twenty-five years of age, that he had taken special scientific +courses at the University of California, at the same time supporting +himself by soliciting what was then known as “life +insurance.” His records as a student are preserved in the +university museum, and they are unenviable. He is remembered by the +professors he sat under chiefly for his absent-mindedness. +Undoubtedly, even then, he was catching glimpses of the wide visions that +later were to be his.</p> +<p>His naming himself “Goliah” and shrouding himself in mystery +was his little joke, he later explained. As Goliah, or any other +thing like that, he said, he was able to touch the imagination of the world +and turn it over; but as Percival Stultz, wearing side-whiskers and +spectacles, and weighing one hundred and eighteen pounds, he would have +been unable to turn over a pecan—“not even a salted +pecan.”</p> +<p>But the world quickly got over its disappointment in his personal +appearance and antecedents. It knew him and revered him as the +master-mind of the ages; and it loved him for himself, for his quizzical +short-sighted eyes and the inimitable way in which he screwed up his face +when he laughed; it loved him for his simplicity and comradeship and warm +humanness, and for his fondness for salted pecans and his aversion to +cats. And to-day, in the wonder-city of Asgard, rises in awful beauty +that monument to him that dwarfs the pyramids and all the monstrous +blood-stained monuments of antiquity. And on that monument, as all +know, is inscribed in imperishable bronze the prophecy and the fulfilment: +“<span class="smcap">All will be joy-smiths</span>, <span +class="smcap">and their task shall be to beat out laughter from the ringing +anvil of life</span>.”</p> +<p>[<span class="smcap">Editorial Note</span>.—This remarkable +production is the work of Harry Beckwith, a student in the Lowell High +School of San Francisco, and it is here reproduced chiefly because of the +youth of its author. Far be it from our policy to burden our readers +with ancient history; and when it is known that Harry Beckwith was only +fifteen when the fore-going was written, our motive will be +understood. “Goliah” won the Premier for high school +composition in 2254, and last year Harry Beckwith took advantage of the +privilege earned, by electing to spend six months in Asgard. The +wealth of historical detail, the atmosphere of the times, and the mature +style of the composition are especially noteworthy in one so young.]</p> +<h2>THE GOLDEN POPPY</h2> +<p>I have a poppy field. That is, by the grace of God and the +good-nature of editors, I am enabled to place each month divers gold pieces +into a clerical gentleman’s hands, and in return for said gold pieces +I am each month reinvested with certain proprietary-rights in a poppy +field. This field blazes on the rim of the Piedmont Hills. +Beneath lies all the world. In the distance, across the silver sweep +of bay, San Francisco smokes on her many hills like a second Rome. +Not far away, Mount Tamalpais thrusts a rugged shoulder into the sky; and +midway between is the Golden Gate, where sea mists love to linger. +From the poppy field we often see the shimmering blue of the Pacific +beyond, and the busy ships that go for ever out and in.</p> +<p>“We shall have great joy in our poppy field,” said +Bess. “Yes,” said I; “how the poor city folk will +envy when they come to see us, and how we will make all well again when we +send them off with great golden armfuls!”</p> +<p>“But those things will have to come down,” I added, pointing +to numerous obtrusive notices (relics of the last tenant) displayed +conspicuously along the boundaries, and bearing, each and all, this +legend:</p> +<blockquote> +<p>“<i>Private Grounds</i>. <i>No Trespassing</i>.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>“Why should we refuse the poor city folk a ramble over our field, +because, forsooth, they have not the advantage of our +acquaintance?”</p> +<p>“How I abhor such things,” said Bess; “the arrogant +symbols of power.”</p> +<p>“They disgrace human nature,” said I.</p> +<p>“They shame the generous landscape,” she said, “and +they are abominable.”</p> +<p>“Piggish!” quoth I, hotly. “Down with +them!”</p> +<p>We looked forward to the coming of the poppies, did Bess and I, looked +forward as only creatures of the city may look who have been long +denied. I have forgotten to mention the existence of a house above +the poppy field, a squat and wandering bungalow in which we had elected to +forsake town traditions and live in fresher and more vigorous ways. +The first poppies came, orange-yellow and golden in the standing grain, and +we went about gleefully, as though drunken with their wine, and told each +other that the poppies were there. We laughed at unexpected moments, +in the midst of silences, and at times grew ashamed and stole forth +secretly to gaze upon our treasury. But when the great wave of +poppy-flame finally spilled itself down the field, we shouted aloud, and +danced, and clapped our hands, freely and frankly mad.</p> +<p>And then came the Goths. My face was in a lather, the time of the +first invasion, and I suspended my razor in mid-air to gaze out on my +beloved field. At the far end I saw a little girl and a little boy, +their arms filled with yellow spoil. Ah, thought I, an unwonted +benevolence burgeoning, what a delight to me is their delight! It is +sweet that children should pick poppies in my field. All summer shall +they pick poppies in my field. But they must be little children, I +added as an afterthought, and they must pick from the lower end—this +last prompted by a glance at the great golden fellows nodding in the wheat +beneath my window. Then the razor descended. Shaving was always +an absorbing task, and I did not glance out of the window again until the +operation was completed. And then I was bewildered. Surely this +was not my poppy field. No—and yes, for there were the tall +pines clustering austerely together on one side, the magnolia tree burdened +with bloom, and the Japanese quinces splashing the driveway hedge with +blood. Yes, it was the field, but no wave of poppy-flame spilled down +it, nor did the great golden fellows nod in the wheat beneath my +window. I rushed into a jacket and out of the house. In the far +distance were disappearing two huge balls of colour, orange and yellow, for +all the world like perambulating poppies of cyclopean breed.</p> +<p>“Johnny,” said I to the nine-year-old son of my sister, +“Johnny, whenever little girls come into our field to pick poppies, +you must go down to them, and in a very quiet and gentlemanly manner, tell +them it is not allowed.”</p> +<p>Warm days came, and the sun drew another blaze from the free-bosomed +earth. Whereupon a neighbour’s little girl, at the behest of +her mother, duly craved and received permission from Bess to gather a few +poppies for decorative purposes. But of this I was uninformed, and +when I descried her in the midst of the field I waved my arms like a +semaphore against the sky.</p> +<p>“Little girl!” called I. “Little +girl!”</p> +<p>The little girl’s legs blurred the landscape as she fled, and in +high elation I sought Bess to tell of the potency of my voice. Nobly +she came to the rescue, departing forthwith on an expedition of +conciliation and explanation to the little girl’s mother. But +to this day the little girl seeks cover at sight of me, and I know the +mother will never be as cordial as she would otherwise have been.</p> +<p>Came dark, overcast days, stiff, driving winds, and pelting rains, day +on day, without end, and the city folk cowered in their dwelling-places +like flood-beset rats; and like rats, half-drowned and gasping, when the +weather cleared they crawled out and up the green Piedmont slopes to bask +in the blessed sunshine. And they invaded my field in swarms and +droves, crushing the sweet wheat into the earth and with lustful hands +ripping the poppies out by the roots.</p> +<p>“I shall put up the warnings against trespassing,” I +said.</p> +<p>“Yes,” said Bess, with a sigh. “I’m afraid +it is necessary.”</p> +<p>The day was yet young when she sighed again:</p> +<p>“I’m afraid, O Man, that your signs are of no avail. +People have forgotten how to read, these days.”</p> +<p>I went out on the porch. A city nymph, in cool summer gown and +picture hat, paused before one of my newly reared warnings and read it +through with care. Profound deliberation characterized her +movements. She was statuesquely tall, but with a toss of the head and +a flirt of the skirt she dropped on hands and knees, crawled under the +fence, and came to her feet on the inside with poppies in both her +hands. I walked down the drive and talked ethically to her, and she +went away. Then I put up more signs.</p> +<p>At one time, years ago, these hills were carpeted with poppies. As +between the destructive forces and the will “to live,” the +poppies maintained an equilibrium with their environment. But the +city folk constituted a new and terrible destructive force, the equilibrium +was overthrown, and the poppies wellnigh perished. Since the city +folk plucked those with the longest stems and biggest bowls, and since it +is the law of kind to procreate kind, the long-stemmed, big-bowled poppies +failed to go to seed, and a stunted, short-stemmed variety remained to the +hills. And not only was it stunted and short-stemmed, but sparsely +distributed as well. Each day and every day, for years and years, the +city folk swarmed over the Piedmont Hills, and only here and there did the +genius of the race survive in the form of miserable little flowers, +close-clinging and quick-blooming, like children of the slums dragged +hastily and precariously through youth to a shrivelled and futile +maturity.</p> +<p>On the other hand, the poppies had prospered in my field; and not only +had they been sheltered from the barbarians, but also from the birds. +Long ago the field was sown in wheat, which went to seed unharvested each +year, and in the cool depths of which the poppy seeds were hidden from the +keen-eyed songsters. And further, climbing after the sun through the +wheat stalks, the poppies grew taller and taller and more royal even than +the primordial ones of the open.</p> +<p>So the city folk, gazing from the bare hills to my blazing, burning +field, were sorely tempted, and, it must be told, as sorely fell. But +no sorer was their fall than that of my beloved poppies. Where the +grain holds the dew and takes the bite from the sun the soil is moist, and +in such soil it is easier to pull the poppies out by the roots than to +break the stalk. Now the city folk, like other folk, are inclined to +move along the line of least resistance, and for each flower they gathered, +there were also gathered many crisp-rolled buds and with them all the +possibilities and future beauties of the plant for all time to come.</p> +<p>One of the city folk, a middle-aged gentleman, with white hands and +shifty eyes, especially made life interesting for me. We called him +the “Repeater,” what of his ways. When from the porch we +implored him to desist, he was wont slowly and casually to direct his steps +toward the fence, simulating finely the actions of a man who had not heard, +but whose walk, instead, had terminated of itself or of his own +volition. To heighten this effect, now and again, still casually and +carelessly, he would stoop and pluck another poppy. Thus did he +deceitfully save himself the indignity of being put out, and rob us of the +satisfaction of putting him out, but he came, and he came often, each time +getting away with an able-bodied man’s share of plunder.</p> +<p>It is not good to be of the city folk. Of this I am +convinced. There is something in the mode of life that breeds an +alarming condition of blindness and deafness, or so it seems with the city +folk that come to my poppy field. Of the many to whom I have talked +ethically not one has been found who ever saw the warnings so conspicuously +displayed, while of those called out to from the porch, possibly one in +fifty has heard. Also, I have discovered that the relation of city +folk to country flowers is quite analogous to that of a starving man to +food. No more than the starving man realizes that five pounds of meat +is not so good as an ounce, do they realize that five hundred poppies +crushed and bunched are less beautiful than two or three in a free cluster, +where the green leaves and golden bowls may expand to their full +loveliness.</p> +<p>Less forgivable than the unæsthetic are the mercenary. +Hordes of young rascals plunder me and rob the future that they may stand +on street corners and retail “California poppies, only five cents a +bunch!” In spite of my precautions some of them made a dollar a +day out of my field. One horde do I remember with keen regret. +Reconnoitring for a possible dog, they applied at the kitchen door for +“a drink of water, please.” While they drank they were +besought not to pick any flowers. They nodded, wiped their mouths, +and proceeded to take themselves off by the side of the bungalow. +They smote the poppy field beneath my windows, spread out fan-shaped six +wide, picking with both hands, and ripped a swath of destruction through +the very heart of the field. No cyclone travelled faster or destroyed +more completely. I shouted after them, but they sped on the wings of +the wind, great regal poppies, broken-stalked and mangled, trailing after +them or cluttering their wake—the most high-handed act of piracy, I +am confident, ever committed off the high seas.</p> +<p>One day I went a-fishing, and on that day a woman entered the +field. Appeals and remonstrances from the porch having no effect upon +her, Bess despatched a little girl to beg of her to pick no more +poppies. The woman calmly went on picking. Then Bess herself +went down through the heat of the day. But the woman went on picking, +and while she picked she discussed property and proprietary rights, denying +Bess’s sovereignty until deeds and documents should be produced in +proof thereof. And all the time she went on picking, never once +overlooking her hand. She was a large woman, belligerent of aspect, +and Bess was only a woman and not prone to fisticuffs. So the invader +picked until she could pick no more, said “Good-day,” and +sailed majestically away.</p> +<p>“People have really grown worse in the last several years, I +think,” said Bess to me in a tired sort of voice that night, as we +sat in the library after dinner.</p> +<p>Next day I was inclined to agree with her. “There’s a +woman and a little girl heading straight for the poppies,” said May, +a maid about the bungalow. I went out on the porch and waited their +advent. They plunged through the pine trees and into the fields, and +as the roots of the first poppies were pulled I called to them. They +were about a hundred feet away. The woman and the little girl turned +to the sound of my voice and looked at me. “Please do not pick +the poppies,” I pleaded. They pondered this for a minute; then +the woman said something in an undertone to the little girl, and both backs +jack-knifed as the slaughter recommenced. I shouted, but they had +become suddenly deaf. I screamed, and so fiercely that the little +girl wavered dubiously. And while the woman went on picking I could +hear her in low tones heartening the little girl.</p> +<p>I recollected a siren whistle with which I was wont to summon Johnny, +the son of my sister. It was a fearsome thing, of a kind to wake the +dead, and I blew and blew, but the jack-knifed backs never unclasped. +I do not mind with men, but I have never particularly favoured physical +encounters with women; yet this woman, who encouraged a little girl in +iniquity, tempted me.</p> +<p>I went into the bungalow and fetched my rifle. Flourishing it in a +sanguinary manner and scowling fearsomely, I charged upon the +invaders. The little girl fled, screaming, to the shelter of the +pines, but the woman calmly went on picking. She took not the least +notice. I had expected her to run at sight of me, and it was +embarrassing. There was I, charging down the field like a wild bull +upon a woman who would not get out of the way. I could only slow +down, supremely conscious of how ridiculous it all was. At a distance +of ten feet she straightened up and deigned to look at me. I came to +a halt and blushed to the roots of my hair. Perhaps I really did +frighten her (I sometimes try to persuade myself that this is so), or +perhaps she took pity on me; but, at any rate, she stalked out of my field +with great composure, nay, majesty, her arms brimming with orange and +gold.</p> +<p>Nevertheless, thenceforward I saved my lungs and flourished my +rifle. Also, I made fresh generalizations. To commit robbery +women take advantage of their sex. Men have more respect for property +than women. Men are less insistent in crime than women. And +women are less afraid of guns than men. Likewise, we conquer the +earth in hazard and battle by the virtues of our mothers. We are a +race of land-robbers and sea-robbers, we Anglo-Saxons, and small wonder, +when we suckle at the breasts of a breed of women such as maraud my poppy +field.</p> +<p>Still the pillage went on. Sirens and gun-flourishings were +without avail. The city folk were great of heart and undismayed, and +I noted the habit of “repeating” was becoming general. +What booted it how often they were driven forth if each time they were +permitted to carry away their ill-gotten plunder? When one has turned +the same person away twice and thrice an emotion arises somewhat akin to +homicide. And when one has once become conscious of this sanguinary +feeling his whole destiny seems to grip hold of him and drag him into the +abyss. More than once I found myself unconsciously pulling the rifle +into position to get a sight on the miserable trespassers. In my +sleep I slew them in manifold ways and threw their carcasses into the +reservoir. Each day the temptation to shoot them in the legs became +more luring, and every day I felt my fate calling to me imperiously. +Visions of the gallows rose up before me, and with the hemp about my neck I +saw stretched out the pitiless future of my children, dark with disgrace +and shame. I became afraid of myself, and Bess went about with +anxious face, privily beseeching my friends to entice me into taking a +vacation. Then, and at the last gasp, came the thought that saved me: +<i>Why not confiscate</i>? If their forays were bootless, in the +nature of things their forays would cease.</p> +<p>The first to enter my field thereafter was a man.</p> +<p>I was waiting for him—And, oh joy! it was the +“Repeater” himself, smugly complacent with knowledge of past +success. I dropped the rifle negligently across the hollow of my arm +and went down to him.</p> +<p>“I am sorry to trouble you for those poppies,” I said in my +oiliest tones; “but really, you know, I must have them.”</p> +<p>He regarded me speechlessly. It must have made a great +picture. It surely was dramatic. With the rifle across my arm +and my suave request still ringing in my ears, I felt like Black Bart, and +Jesse James, and Jack Sheppard, and Robin Hood, and whole generations of +highwaymen.</p> +<p>“Come, come,” I said, a little sharply and in what I +imagined was the true fashion; “I am sorry to inconvenience you, +believe me, but I must have those poppies.”</p> +<p>I absently shifted the gun and smiled. That fetched him. +Without a word he passed them over and turned his toes toward the fence, +but no longer casual and careless was his carriage, I nor did he stoop to +pick the occasional poppy by the way. That was the last of the +“Repeater.” I could see by his eyes that he did not like +me, and his back reproached me all the way down the field and out of +sight.</p> +<p>From that day the bungalow has been flooded with poppies. Every +vase and earthen jar is filled with them. They blaze on every mantel +and run riot through all the rooms. I present them to my friends in +huge bunches, and still the kind city folk come and gather more for +me. “Sit down for a moment,” I say to the departing +guest. And there we sit in the shade of the porch while aspiring city +creatures pluck my poppies and sweat under the brazen sun. And when +their arms are sufficiently weighted with my yellow glories, I go down with +the rifle over my arm and disburden them. Thus have I become +convinced that every situation has its compensations.</p> +<p>Confiscation was successful, so far as it went; but I had forgotten one +thing; namely, the vast number of the city folk. Though the old +transgressors came no more, new ones arrived every day, and I found myself +confronted with the titanic task of educating a whole cityful to the +inexpediency of raiding my poppy field. During the process of +disburdening them I was accustomed to explaining my side of the case, but I +soon gave this over. It was a waste of breath. They could not +understand. To one lady, who insinuated that I was miserly, I +said:</p> +<p>“My dear madam, no hardship is worked upon you. Had I not +been parsimonious yesterday and the day before, these poppies would have +been picked by the city hordes of that day and the day before, and your +eyes, which to-day have discovered this field, would have beheld no poppies +at all. The poppies you may not pick to-day are the poppies I did not +permit to be picked yesterday and the day before. Therefore, believe +me, you are denied nothing.”</p> +<p>“But the poppies are here to-day,” she said, glaring +carnivorously upon their glow and splendour.</p> +<p>“I will pay you for them,” said a gentleman, at another +time. (I had just relieved him of an armful.) I felt a sudden +shame, I know not why, unless it be that his words had just made clear to +me that a monetary as well as an æsthetic value was attached to my +flowers. The apparent sordidness of my position overwhelmed me, and I +said weakly: “I do not sell my poppies. You may have what you +have picked.” But before the week was out I confronted the same +gentleman again. “I will pay you for them,” he +said. “Yes,” I said, “you may pay me for +them. Twenty dollars, please.” He gasped, looked at me +searchingly, gasped again, and silently and sadly put the poppies +down. But it remained, as usual, for a woman to attain the sheerest +pitch of audacity. When I declined payment and demanded my plucked +beauties, she refused to give them up. “I picked these +poppies,” she said, “and my time is worth money. When you +have paid me for my time you may have them.” Her cheeks flamed +rebellion, and her face, withal a pretty one, was set and determined. +Now, I was a man of the hill tribes, and she a mere woman of the city folk, +and though it is not my inclination to enter into details, it is my +pleasure to state that that bunch of poppies subsequently glorified the +bungalow and that the woman departed to the city unpaid. Anyway, they +were my poppies.</p> +<p>“They are God’s poppies,” said the Radiant Young +Radical, democratically shocked at sight of me turning city folk out of my +field. And for two weeks she hated me with a deathless hatred. +I sought her out and explained. I explained at length. I told +the story of the poppy as Maeterlinck has told the life of the bee. I +treated the question biologically, psychologically, and sociologically, I +discussed it ethically and æsthetically. I grew warm over it, +and impassioned; and when I had done, she professed conversion, but in my +heart of hearts I knew it to be compassion. I fled to other friends +for consolation. I retold the story of the poppy. They did not +appear supremely interested. I grew excited. They were +surprised and pained. They looked at me curiously. “It +ill-befits your dignity to squabble over poppies,” they said. +“It is unbecoming.”</p> +<p>I fled away to yet other friends. I sought vindication. The +thing had become vital, and I needs must put myself right. I felt +called upon to explain, though well knowing that he who explains is +lost. I told the story of the poppy over again. I went into the +minutest details. I added to it, and expanded. I talked myself +hoarse, and when I could talk no more they looked bored. Also, they +said insipid things, and soothful things, and things concerning other +things, and not at all to the point. I was consumed with anger, and +there and then I renounced them all.</p> +<p>At the bungalow I lie in wait for chance visitors. Craftily I +broach the subject, watching their faces closely the while to detect first +signs of disapprobation, whereupon I empty long-stored vials of wrath upon +their heads. I wrangle for hours with whosoever does not say I am +right. I am become like Guy de Maupassant’s old man who picked +up a piece of string. I am incessantly explaining, and nobody will +understand. I have become more brusque in my treatment of the +predatory city folk. No longer do I take delight in their +disburdenment, for it has become an onerous duty, a wearisome and +distasteful task. My friends look askance and murmur pityingly on the +side when we meet in the city. They rarely come to see me now. +They are afraid. I am an embittered and disappointed man, and all the +light seems to have gone out of my life and into my blazing field. So +one pays for things.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Piedmont</span>, <span +class="smcap">California</span>.<br /> +<i>April</i> 1902.</p> +<h2>THE SHRINKAGE OF THE PLANET</h2> +<p>What a tremendous affair it was, the world of Homer, with its +indeterminate boundaries, vast regions, and immeasurable distances. +The Mediterranean and the Euxine were illimitable stretches of ocean waste +over which years could be spent in endless wandering. On their +mysterious shores were the improbable homes of impossible peoples. +The Great Sea, the Broad Sea, the Boundless Sea; the Ethiopians, +“dwelling far away, the most distant of men,” and the +Cimmerians, “covered with darkness and cloud,” where +“baleful night is spread over timid mortals.” +Phœnicia was a sore journey, Egypt simply unattainable, while the +Pillars of Hercules marked the extreme edge of the universe. Ulysses +was nine days in sailing from Ismarus the city of the Ciconians, to the +country of the Lotus-eaters—a period of time which to-day would breed +anxiety in the hearts of the underwriters should it be occupied by the +slowest tramp steamer in traversing the Mediterranean and Black Seas from +Gibraltar to Sebastopol.</p> +<p>Homer’s world, restricted to less than a drummer’s circuit, +was nevertheless immense, surrounded by a thin veneer of universe—the +Stream of Ocean. But how it has shrunk! To-day, precisely +charted, weighed, and measured, a thousand times larger than the world of +Homer, it is become a tiny speck, gyrating to immutable law through a +universe the bounds of which have been pushed incalculably back. The +light of Algol shines upon it—a light which travels at one hundred +and ninety thousand miles per second, yet requires forty-seven years to +reach its destination. And the denizens of this puny ball have come +to know that Algol possesses an invisible companion, three and a quarter +millions of miles away, and that the twain move in their respective orbits +at rates of fifty-five and twenty-six miles per second. They also +know that beyond it are great chasms of space, innumerable worlds, and vast +star systems.</p> +<p>While much of the shrinkage to which the planet has been subjected is +due to the increased knowledge of mathematics and physics, an equal, if not +greater, portion may be ascribed to the perfection of the means of +locomotion and communication. The enlargement of stellar space, +demonstrating with stunning force the insignificance of the earth, has been +negative in its effect; but the quickening of travel and intercourse, by +making the earth’s parts accessible and knitting them together, has +been positive.</p> +<p>The advantage of the animal over the vegetable kingdom is obvious. +The cabbage, should its environment tend to become worse, must live it out, +or die; the rabbit may move on in quest of a better. But, after all, +the swift-footed creatures are circumscribed in their wanderings. The +first large river almost inevitably bars their way, and certainly the first +salt sea becomes an impassable obstacle. Better locomotion may be +classed as one of the prime aims of the old natural selection; for in that +primordial day the race was to the swift as surely as the battle to the +strong. But man, already pre-eminent in the common domain because of +other faculties, was not content with the one form of locomotion afforded +by his lower limbs. He swam in the sea, and, still better, becoming +aware of the buoyant virtues of wood, learned to navigate its +surface. Likewise, from among the land animals he chose the more +likely to bear him and his burdens. The next step was the +domestication of these useful aids. Here, in its organic +significance, natural selection ceased to concern itself with +locomotion. Man had displayed his impatience at her tedious methods +and his own superiority in the hastening of affairs. Thenceforth he +must depend upon himself, and faster-swimming or faster-running men ceased +to be bred. The one, half-amphibian, breasting the water with +muscular arms, could not hope to overtake or escape an enemy who propelled +a fire-hollowed tree trunk by means of a wooden paddle; nor could the +other, trusting to his own nimbleness, compete with a foe who careered +wildly across the plain on the back of a half-broken stallion.</p> +<p>So, in that dim day, man took upon himself the task of increasing his +dominion over space and time, and right nobly has he acquitted +himself. Because of it he became a road builder and a bridge builder; +likewise, he wove clumsy sails of rush and matting. At a very remote +period he must also have recognized that force moves along the line of +least resistance, and in virtue thereof, placed upon his craft rude keels +which enabled him to beat to windward in a seaway. As he excelled in +these humble arts, just so did he add to his power over his less +progressive fellows and lay the foundations for the first glimmering +civilizations—crude they were beyond conception, sporadic and +ephemeral, but each formed a necessary part of the groundwork upon which +was to rise the mighty civilization of our latter-day world.</p> +<p>Divorced from the general history of man’s upward climb, it would +seem incredible that so long a time should elapse between the moment of his +first improvements over nature in the matter of locomotion and that of the +radical changes he was ultimately to compass. The principles which +were his before history was, were his, neither more nor less, even to the +present century. He utilized improved applications, but the +principles of themselves were ever the same, whether in the war chariots of +Achilles and Pharaoh or the mail-coach and diligence of the European +traveller, the cavalry of the Huns or of Prince Rupert, the triremes and +galleys of Greece and Rome or the East India-men and clipper ships of the +last century. But when the moment came to alter the methods of +travel, the change was so sweeping that it may be safely classed as a +revolution. Though the discovery of steam attaches to the honour of +the last century, the potency of the new power was not felt till the +beginning of this. By 1800 small steamers were being used for +coasting purposes in England; 1830 witnessed the opening of the Liverpool +and Manchester Railway; while it was not until 1838 that the Atlantic was +first crossed by the steamships <i>Great Western</i> and +<i>Sirius</i>. In 1869 the East was made next-door neighbour to the +West. Over almost the same ground where had toiled the caravans of a +thousand generations, the Suez Canal was dug. Clive, during his first +trip, was a year and a half <i>en route</i> from England to India; were he +alive to-day he could journey to Calcutta in twenty-two days. After +reading De Quincey’s hyperbolical description of the English +mail-coach, one cannot down the desire to place that remarkable man on the +pilot of the White Mail or of the Twentieth Century.</p> +<p>But this tremendous change in the means of locomotion meant far more +than the mere rapid transit of men from place to place. Until then, +though its influence and worth cannot be overestimated, commerce had eked +out a precarious and costly existence. The fortuitous played too +large a part in the trade of men. The mischances by land and sea, the +mistakes and delays, were adverse elements of no mean proportions. +But improved locomotion meant improved carrying, and commerce received an +impetus as remarkable as it was unexpected. In his fondest fancies +James Watt could not have foreseen even the approximate result of his +invention, the Hercules which was to spring from the puny child of his +brain and hands. An illuminating spectacle, were it possible, would +be afforded by summoning him from among the Shades to a place in the +engine-room of an ocean greyhound. The humblest trimmer would treat +him with the indulgence of a child; while an oiler, a greasy nimbus about +his head and in his hand, as sceptre, a long-snouted can, would indeed +appear to him a demigod and ruler of forces beyond his ken.</p> +<p>It has ever been the world’s dictum that empire and commerce go +hand in hand. In the past the one was impossible without the +other. Rome gathered to herself the wealth of the Mediterranean +nations, and it was only by an unwise distribution of it that she became +emasculated and lost both power and trade. With a just system of +economics it is highly probable that for centuries she could have held back +the welling tide of the Germanic peoples. When upon her ruins rose +the institutions of the conquering Teutons, commerce slipped away, and with +it empire. In the present, empire and commerce have become +interdependent. Such wonders has the industrial revolution wrought in +a few swift decades, and so great has been the shrinkage of the planet, +that the industrial nations have long since felt the imperative demand for +foreign markets. The favoured portions of the earth are +occupied. From their seats in the temperate zones the militant +commercial nations proceed to the exploitation of the tropics, and for the +possession of these they rush to war hot-footed. Like wolves at the +end of a gorge, they wrangle over the fragments. There are no more +planets, no more fragments, and they are yet hungry. There are no +longer Cimmerians and Ethiopians, in wide-stretching lands, awaiting +them. On either hand they confront the naked poles, and they recoil +from unnavigable space to an intenser struggle among themselves. And +all the while the planet shrinks beneath their grasp.</p> +<p>Of this struggle one thing may be safely predicated; a commercial power +must be a sea power. Upon the control of the sea depends the control +of trade. Carthage threatened Rome till she lost her navy; and then +for thirteen days the smoke of her burning rose to the skies, and the +ground was ploughed and sown with salt on the site of her most splendid +edifices. The cities of Italy were the world’s merchants till +new trade routes were discovered and the dominion of the sea passed on to +the west and fell into other hands. Spain and Portugal, inaugurating +an era of maritime discovery, divided the new world between them, but gave +way before a breed of sea-rovers, who, after many generations of attachment +to the soil, had returned to their ancient element. With the +destruction of her Armada Spain’s colossal dream of colonial empire +passed away. Against the new power Holland strove in vain, and when +France acknowledged the superiority of the Briton upon the sea, she at the +same time relinquished her designs upon the world. Hampered by her +feeble navy, her contest for supremacy upon the land was her last effort +and with the passing of Napoleon she retired within herself to struggle +with herself as best she might. For fifty years England held +undisputed sway upon the sea, controlled markets, and domineered trade, +laying, during that period, the foundations of her empire. Since then +other naval powers have arisen, their attitudes bearing significantly upon +the future; for they have learned that the mastery of the world belongs to +the masters of the sea.</p> +<p>That many of the phases of this world shrinkage are pathetic, goes +without question. There is much to condemn in the rise of the +economic over the imaginative spirit, much for which the energetic +Philistine can never atone. Perhaps the deepest pathos of all may be +found in the spectacle of John Ruskin weeping at the profanation of the +world by the vandalism of the age. Steam launches violate the +sanctity of the Venetian canals; where Xerxes bridged the Hellespont ply +the filthy funnels of our modern shipping; electric cars run in the shadow +of the pyramids; and it was only the other day that Lord Kitchener was in a +railroad wreck near the site of ancient Luxor. But there is always +the other side. If the economic man has defiled temples and despoiled +nature, he has also preserved. He has policed the world and parked +it, reduced the dangers of life and limb, made the tenure of existence less +precarious, and rendered a general relapse of society impossible. +There can never again be an intellectual holocaust, such as the burning of +the Alexandrian library. Civilizations may wax and wane, but the +totality of knowledge cannot decrease. With the possible exception of +a few trade secrets, arts and sciences may be discarded, but they can never +be lost. And these things must remain true until the end of +man’s time upon the earth.</p> +<p>Up to yesterday communication for any distance beyond the sound of the +human voice or the sight of the human eye was bound up with +locomotion. A letter presupposed a carrier. The messenger +started with the message, and he could not but avail himself of the +prevailing modes of travel. If the voyage to Australia required four +months, four months were required for communication; by no known means +could this time be lessened. But with the advent of the telegraph and +telephone, communication and locomotion were divorced. In a few +hours, at most, there could be performed what by the old way would have +required months. In 1837 the needle telegraph was invented, and nine +years later the Electric Telegraph Company was formed for the purpose of +bringing it into general use. Government postal systems also came +into being, later to consolidate into an international union and to group +the nations of the earth into a local neighbourhood. The effects of +all this are obvious, and no fitter illustration may be presented than the +fact that to-day, in the matter of communication, the Klondike is virtually +nearer to Boston than was Bunker Hill in the time of Warren.</p> +<p>A contemporaneous and remarkable shrinkage of a vast stretch of +territory may be instanced in the Northland. From its rise at Lake +Linderman the Yukon runs twenty-five hundred miles to Bering Sea, +traversing an almost unknown region, the remote recesses of which had never +felt the moccasined foot of the pathfinder. At occasional intervals +men wallowed into its dismal fastnesses, or emerged gaunt and +famine-worn. But in the fall of 1896 a great gold strike was +made—greater than any since the days of California and Australia; +yet, so rude were the means of communication, nearly a year elapsed before +the news of it reached the eager ear of the world. Passionate +pilgrims disembarked their outfits at Dyea. Over the terrible +Chilcoot Pass the trail led to the lakes, thirty miles away. Carriage +was yet in its most primitive stage, the road builder and bridge builder +unheard of. With heavy packs upon their backs men plunged waist-deep +into hideous quagmires, bridged mountain torrents by felling trees across +them, toiled against the precipitous slopes of the ice-worn mountains, and +crossed the dizzy faces of innumerable glaciers. When, after +incalculable toil they reached the lakes, they went into the woods, sawed +pine trees into lumber by hand, and built it into boats. In these, +overloaded, unseaworthy, they battled down the long chain of lakes. +Within the memory of the writer there lingers the picture of a sheltered +nook on the shores of Lake Le Barge, in which half a thousand gold seekers +lay storm-bound. Day after day they struggled against the seas in the +teeth of a northerly gale, and night after night returned to their camps, +repulsed but not disheartened. At the rapids they ran their boats +through, hit or miss, and after infinite toil and hardship, on the breast +of a jarring ice flood, arrived at the Klondike. From the beach at +Dyea to the eddy below the Barracks at Dawson, they had paid for their +temerity the tax of human life demanded by the elements. A year +later, so greatly had the country shrunk, the tourist, on disembarking from +the ocean steamship, took his seat in a modern railway coach. A few +hours later, at Lake Bennet, he stepped aboard a commodious river +steamer. At the rapids he rode around on a tramway to take passage on +another steamer below. And in a few hours more he was in Dawson, +without having once soiled the lustre of his civilized foot-gear. Did +he wish to communicate with the outside world, he strolled into the +telegraph office. A few short months before he would have written a +letter and deemed himself favoured above mortals were it delivered within +the year.</p> +<p>From man’s drawing the world closer and closer together, his own +affairs and institutions have consolidated. Concentration may typify +the chief movement of the age—concentration, classification, order; +the reduction of friction between the parts of the social organism. +The urban tendency of the rural populations led to terrible congestion in +the great cities. There was stifling and impure air, and lo, rapid +transit at once attacked the evil. Every great city has become but +the nucleus of a greater city which surrounds it; the one the seat of +business, the other the seat of domestic happiness. Between the two, +night and morning, by electric road, steam railway, and bicycle path, ebbs +and flows the middle-class population. And in the same direction lies +the remedy for the tenement evil. In the cleansing country air the +slum cannot exist. Improvement in road-beds and the means of +locomotion, a tremor of altruism, a little legislation, and the city by day +will sleep in the country by night.</p> +<p>What a play-ball has this planet of ours become! Steam has made +its parts accessible and drawn them closer together. The telegraph +annihilates space and time. Each morning every part knows what every +other part is thinking, contemplating, or doing. A discovery in a +German laboratory is being demonstrated in San Francisco within twenty-four +hours. A book written in South Africa is published by simultaneous +copyright in every English-speaking country, and on the following day is in +the hands of the translators. The death of an obscure missionary in +China, or of a whisky smuggler in the South Seas, is served up, the world +over, with the morning toast. The wheat output of Argentine or the +gold of Klondike is known wherever men meet and trade. Shrinkage or +centralization has been such that the humblest clerk in any metropolis may +place his hand on the pulse of the world. And because of all this, +everywhere is growing order and organization. The church, the state; +men, women, and children; the criminal and the law, the honest man and the +thief, industry and commerce, capital and labour, the trades and the +professions, the arts and the sciences—all are organizing for +pleasure, profit, policy, or intellectual pursuit. They have come to +know the strength of numbers, solidly phalanxed and driving onward with +singleness of purpose. These purposes may be various and many, but +one and all, ever discovering new mutual interests and objects, obeying a +law which is beyond them, these petty aggregations draw closer together, +forming greater aggregations and congeries of aggregations. And +these, in turn, vaguely merging each into each, present glimmering +adumbrations of the coming human solidarity which shall be man’s +crowning glory.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Oakland</span>, <span +class="smcap">California</span>.<br /> +<i>January</i> 1900.</p> +<h2>THE HOUSE BEAUTIFUL</h2> +<p>Speaking of homes, I am building one now, and I venture to assert that +very few homes have received more serious thought in the planning. +Let me tell you about it. In the first place, there will be no +grounds whatever, no fences, lawns, nor flowers. Roughly, the +dimensions will be forty-five feet by fifteen. That is, it will be +fifteen feet wide at its widest—and, if you will pardon the bull, it +will be narrower than it is wide.</p> +<p>The details must submit to the general plan of economy. There will +be no veranda, no porch entrances, no grand staircases. I’m +ashamed to say how steep the stairways are going to be. The bedrooms +will be seven by seven, and one will be even smaller. A bedroom is +only good to sleep in, anyway. There will be no hallway, thank +goodness. Rooms were made to go through. Why a separate passage +for traffic?</p> +<p>The bath-room will be a trifle larger than the size of the smallest +bath-tub—it won’t require so much work to keep in order. +The kitchen won’t be very much larger, but this will make it easy for +the cook. In place of a drawing-room, there will be a large +living-room—fourteen by six. The walls of this room will be +covered with books, and it can serve as library and smoking-room as +well. Then, the floor-space not being occupied, we shall use the room +as a dining-room. Incidentally, such a room not being used after +bedtime, the cook and the second boy can sleep in it. One thing that +I am temperamentally opposed to is waste, and why should all this splendid +room be wasted at night when we do not occupy it?</p> +<p>My ideas are cramped, you say?—Oh, I forgot to tell you that this +home I am describing is to be a floating home, and that my wife and I are +to journey around the world in it for the matter of seven years or +more. I forgot also to state that there will be an engine-room in it +for a seventy-horse-power engine, a dynamo, storage batteries, etc.; tanks +for water to last long weeks at sea; space for fifteen hundred gallons of +gasolene, fire extinguishers, and life-preservers; and a great store-room +for food, spare sails, anchors, hawsers, tackles, and a thousand and one +other things.</p> +<p>Since I have not yet built my land house, I haven’t got beyond a +few general ideas, and in presenting them I feel as cocksure as the +unmarried woman who writes the column in the Sunday supplement on how to +rear children. My first idea about a house is that it should be built +to live in. Throughout the house, in all the building of it, this +should be the paramount idea. It must be granted that this idea is +lost sight of by countless persons who build houses apparently for every +purpose under the sun except to live in them.</p> +<p>Perhaps it is because of the practical life I have lived that I worship +utility and have come to believe that utility and beauty should be one, and +that there is no utility that need not be beautiful. What finer +beauty than strength—whether it be airy steel, or massive masonry, or +a woman’s hand? A plain black leather strap is beautiful. +It is all strength and all utility, and it is beautiful. It +efficiently performs work in the world, and it is good to look upon. +Perhaps it is because it is useful that it is beautiful. I do not +know. I sometimes wonder.</p> +<p>A boat on the sea is beautiful. Yet it is not built for +beauty. Every graceful line of it is a utility, is designed to +perform work. It is created for the express purpose of dividing the +water in front of it, of gliding over the water beneath it, of leaving the +water behind it—and all with the least possible wastage of stress and +friction. It is not created for the purpose of filling the eye with +beauty. It is created for the purpose of moving through the sea and +over the sea with the smallest resistance and the greatest stability; yet, +somehow, it does fill the eye with its beauty. And in so far as a +boat fails in its purpose, by that much does it diminish in beauty.</p> +<p>I am still a long way from the house I have in my mind some day to +build, yet I have arrived somewhere. I have discovered, to my own +satisfaction at any rate, that beauty and utility should be one. In +applying this general idea to the building of a house, it may be stated, in +another and better way; namely, construction and decoration must be +one. This idea is more important than the building of the house, for +without the idea the house so built is certain to be an insult to +intelligence and beauty-love.</p> +<p>I bought a house in a hurry in the city of Oakland some time ago. +I do not live in it. I sleep in it half a dozen times a year. I +do not love the house. I am hurt every time I look at it. No +drunken rowdy or political enemy can insult me so deeply as that house +does. Let me tell you why. It is an ordinary two-storey frame +house. After it was built, the criminal that constructed it nailed +on, at the corners perpendicularly, some two-inch fluted planks. +These planks rise the height of the house, and to a drunken man have the +appearance of fluted columns. To complete the illusion in the eyes of +the drunken man, the planks are topped with wooden Ionic capitals, nailed +on, and in, I may say, bas-relief.</p> +<p>When I analyze the irritation these fluted planks cause in me, I find +the reason in the fact that the first rule for building a house has been +violated. These decorative planks are no part of the +construction. They have no use, no work to perform. They are +plastered gawds that tell lies that nobody believes. A column is made +for the purpose of supporting weight; this is its use. A column, when +it is a utility, is beautiful. The fluted wooden columns nailed on +outside my house are not utilities. They are not beautiful. +They are nightmares. They not only support no weight, but they +themselves are a weight that drags upon the supports of the house. +Some day, when I get time, one of two things will surely happen. +Either I’ll go forth and murder the man who perpetrated the atrocity, +or else I’ll take an axe and chop off the lying, fluted planks.</p> +<p>A thing must be true, or it is not beautiful, any more than a painted +wanton is beautiful, any more than a sky-scraper is beautiful that is +intrinsically and structurally light and that has a false massiveness of +pillars plastered on outside. The true sky-scraper <i>is</i> +beautiful—and this is the reluctant admission of a man who dislikes +humanity-festering cities. The true sky-scraper is beautiful, and it +is beautiful in so far as it is true. In its construction it is light +and airy, therefore in its appearance it must be light and airy. It +dare not, if it wishes to be beautiful, lay claim to what it is not. +And it should not bulk on the city-scape like Leviathan; it should rise and +soar, light and airy and fairylike.</p> +<p>Man is an ethical animal—or, at least, he is more ethical than any +other animal. Wherefore he has certain yearnings for honesty. +And in no way can these yearnings be more thoroughly satisfied than by the +honesty of the house in which he lives and passes the greater part of his +life.</p> +<p>They that dwelt in San Francisco were dishonest. They lied and +cheated in their business life (like the dwellers in all cities), and +because they lied and cheated in their business life, they lied and cheated +in the buildings they erected. Upon the tops of the simple, severe +walls of their buildings they plastered huge projecting cornices. +These cornices were not part of the construction. They made believe +to be part of the construction, and they were lies. The earth +wrinkled its back for twenty-eight seconds, and the lying cornices crashed +down as all lies are doomed to crash down. In this particular +instance, the lies crashed down upon the heads of the people fleeing from +their reeling habitations, and many were killed. They paid the +penalty of dishonesty.</p> +<p>Not alone should the construction of a house be truthful and honest, but +the material must be honest. They that lived in San Francisco were +dishonest in the material they used. They sold one quality of +material and delivered another quality of material. They always +delivered an inferior quality. There is not one case recorded in the +business history of San Francisco where a contractor or builder delivered a +quality superior to the one sold. A seven-million-dollar city hall +became thirty cents in twenty-eight seconds. Because the mortar was +not honest, a thousand walls crashed down and scores of lives were snuffed +out. There is something, after all, in the contention of a few +religionists that the San Francisco earthquake was a punishment for +sin. It was a punishment for sin; but it was not for sin against +God. The people of San Francisco sinned against themselves.</p> +<p>An honest house tells the truth about itself. There is a house +here in Glen Ellen. It stands on a corner. It is built of +beautiful red stone. Yet it is not beautiful. On three sides +the stone is joined and pointed. The fourth side is the rear. +It faces the back yard. The stone is not pointed. It is all a +smudge of dirty mortar, with here and there bricks worked in when the stone +gave out. The house is not what it seems. It is a lie. +All three of the walls spend their time lying about the fourth wall. +They keep shouting out that the fourth wall is as beautiful as they. +If I lived long in that house I should not be responsible for my +morals. The house is like a man in purple and fine linen, who +hasn’t had a bath for a month. If I lived long in that house I +should become a dandy and cut out bathing—for the same reason, I +suppose, that an African is black and that an Eskimo eats +whale-blubber. I shall not build a house like that house.</p> +<p>Last year I started to build a barn. A man who was a liar +undertook to do the stonework and concrete work for me. He could not +tell the truth to my face; he could not tell the truth in his work. I +was building for posterity. The concrete foundations were four feet +wide and sunk three and one-half feet into the earth. The stone walls +were two feet thick and nine feet high. Upon them were to rest the +great beams that were to carry all the weight of hay and the forty tons of +the roof. The man who was a liar made beautiful stone walls. I +used to stand alongside of them and love them. I caressed their +massive strength with my hands. I thought about them in bed, before I +went to sheep. And they were lies.</p> +<p>Came the earthquake. Fortunately the rest of the building of the +barn had been postponed. The beautiful stone walls cracked in all +directions. I started, to repair, and discovered the whole enormous +lie. The walls were shells. On each face were beautiful, +massive stones—on edge. The inside was hollow. This +hollow in some places was filled with clay and loose gravel. In other +places it was filled with air and emptiness, with here and there a piece of +kindling-wood or dry-goods box, to aid in the making of the shell. +The walls were lies. They were beautiful, but they were not +useful. Construction and decoration had been divorced. The +walls were all decoration. They hadn’t any construction in +them. “As God lets Satan live,” I let that lying man +live, but—I have built new walls from the foundation up.</p> +<p>And now to my own house beautiful, which I shall build some seven or ten +years from now. I have a few general ideas about it. It must be +honest in construction, material, and appearance. If any feature of +it, despite my efforts, shall tell lies, I shall remove that feature. +Utility and beauty must be indissolubly wedded. Construction and +decoration must be one. If the particular details keep true to these +general ideas, all will be well.</p> +<p>I have not thought of many details. But here are a few. Take +the bath-room, for instance. It shall be as beautiful as any room in +the house, just as it will be as useful. The chance is, that it will +be the most expensive room in the house. Upon that we are +resolved—even if we are compelled to build it first, and to live in a +tent till we can get more money to go on with the rest of the house. +In the bath-room no delights of the bath shall be lacking. Also, a +large part of the expensiveness will be due to the use of material that +will make it easy to keep the bathroom clean and in order. Why should +a servant toil unduly that my body may be clean? On the other hand, +the honesty of my own flesh, and the square dealing I give it, are more +important than all the admiration of my friends for expensive decorative +schemes and magnificent trivialities. More delightful to me is a body +that sings than a stately and costly grand staircase built for show. +Not that I like grand staircases less, but that I like bath-rooms more.</p> +<p>I often regret that I was born in this particular period of the +world. In the matter of servants, how I wish I were living in the +golden future of the world, where there will be no servants—naught +but service of love. But in the meantime, living here and now, being +practical, understanding the rationality and the necessity of the division +of labour, I accept servants. But such acceptance does not justify me +in lack of consideration for them. In my house beautiful their rooms +shall not be dens and holes. And on this score I foresee a fight with +the architect. They shall have bath-rooms, toilet conveniences, and +comforts for their leisure time and human life—if I have to work +Sundays to pay for it. Even under the division of labour I recognize +that no man has a right to servants who will not treat them as humans +compounded of the same clay as himself, with similar bundles of nerves and +desires, contradictions, irritabilities, and lovablenesses. Heaven in +the drawing-room and hell in the kitchen is not the atmosphere for a +growing child to breathe—nor an adult either. One of the great +and selfish objections to chattel slavery was the effect on the masters +themselves.</p> +<p>And because of the foregoing, one chief aim in the building of my house +beautiful will be to have a house that will require the minimum of trouble +and work to keep clean and orderly. It will be no spick and span and +polished house, with an immaculateness that testifies to the tragedy of +drudge. I live in California where the days are warm. I’d +prefer that the servants had three hours to go swimming (or hammocking) +than be compelled to spend those three hours in keeping the house spick and +span. Therefore it devolves upon me to build a house that can be kept +clean and orderly without the need of those three hours.</p> +<p>But underneath the spick and span there is something more dreadful than +the servitude of the servants. This dreadful thing is the philosophy +of the spick and span. In Korea the national costume is white. +Nobleman and coolie dress alike in white. It is hell on the women who +do the washing, but there is more in it than that. The coolie cannot +keep his white clothes clean. He toils and they get dirty. The +dirty white of his costume is the token of his inferiority. The +nobleman’s dress is always spotless white. It means that he +doesn’t have to work. But it means, further, that somebody else +has to work for him. His superiority is not based upon song-craft nor +state-craft, upon the foot-races he has run nor the wrestlers he has +thrown. His superiority is based upon the fact that he doesn’t +have to work, and that others are compelled to work for him. And so +the Korean drone flaunts his clean white clothes, for the same reason that +the Chinese flaunts his monstrous finger-nails, and the white man and woman +flaunt the spick-and-spanness of their spotless houses.</p> +<p>There will be hardwood floors in my house beautiful. But these +floors will not be polished mirrors nor skating-rinks. They will be +just plain and common hardwood floors. Beautiful carpets are not +beautiful to the mind that knows they are filled with germs and +bacilli. They are no more beautiful than the hectic flush of fever, +or the silvery skin of leprosy. Besides, carpets enslave. A +thing that enslaves is a monster, and monsters are not beautiful.</p> +<p>The fireplaces in my house will be many and large. Small fires and +cold weather mean hermetically-sealed rooms and a jealous cherishing of +heated and filth-laden air. With large fire-places and generous heat, +some windows may be open all the time, and without hardship all the windows +can be opened every little while and the rooms flushed with clean pure +air. I have nearly died in the stagnant, rotten air of other +people’s houses—especially in the Eastern states. In +Maine I have slept in a room with storm-windows immovable, and with one +small pane five inches by six, that could be opened. Did I say +slept? I panted with my mouth in the opening and blasphemed till I +ruined all my chances of heaven.</p> +<p>For countless thousands of years my ancestors have lived and died and +drawn all their breaths in the open air. It is only recently that we +have begun to live in houses. The change is a hardship, especially on +the lungs. I’ve got only one pair of lungs, and I haven’t +the address of any repair-shop. Wherefore I stick by the open air as +much as possible. For this reason my house will have large verandas, +and, near to the kitchen, there will be a veranda dining-room. Also, +there will be a veranda fireplace, where we can breathe fresh air and be +comfortable when the evenings are touched with frost.</p> +<p>I have a plan for my own bedroom. I spend long hours in bed, +reading, studying, and working. I have tried sleeping in the open, +but the lamp attracts all the creeping, crawling, butting, flying, +fluttering things to the pages of my book, into my ears and blankets, and +down the back of my neck. So my bedroom shall be indoors.</p> +<p>But it will be, not be of, indoors. Three sides of it will be +open. The fourth side will divide it from the rest of the +house. The three sides will be screened against the creeping, +fluttering things, but not against the good fresh air and all the breezes +that blow. For protection against storm, to keep out the driving +rain, there will be a sliding glass, so made that when not in use it will +occupy small space and shut out very little air.</p> +<p>There is little more to say about this house. I am to build seven +or ten years from now. There is plenty of time in which to work up +all the details in accord with the general principles I have laid +down. It will be a usable house and a beautiful house, wherein the +æsthetic guest can find comfort for his eyes as well as for his +body. It will be a happy house—or else I’ll burn it +down. It will be a house of air and sunshine and laughter. +These three cannot be divorced. Laughter without air and sunshine +becomes morbid, decadent, demoniac. I have in me a thousand +generations. Laughter that is decadent is not good for these thousand +generations.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Glen Ellen</span>, <span +class="smcap">California</span>.<br /> +<i>July</i> 1906.</p> +<h2>THE GOLD HUNTERS OF THE NORTH</h2> +<blockquote> +<p>“Where the Northern Lights come down a’ nights to dance on +the houseless snow.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>“Ivan, I forbid you to go farther in this undertaking. Not a +word about this, or we are all undone. Let the Americans and the +English know that we have gold in these mountains, then we are +ruined. They will rush in on us by thousands, and crowd us to the +wall—to the death.”</p> +<p>So spoke the old Russian governor, Baranov, at Sitka, in 1804, to one of +his Slavonian hunters, who had just drawn from his pocket a handful of +golden nuggets. Full well Baranov, fur trader and autocrat, +understood and feared the coming of the sturdy, indomitable gold hunters of +Anglo-Saxon stock. And thus he suppressed the news, as did the +governors that followed him, so that when the United States bought Alaska +in 1867, she bought it for its furs and fisheries, without a thought of its +treasures underground.</p> +<p>No sooner, however, had Alaska become American soil than thousands of +our adventurers were afoot and afloat for the north. They were the +men of “the days of gold,” the men of California, Fraser, +Cassiar, and Cariboo. With the mysterious, infinite faith of the +prospector, they believed that the gold streak, which ran through the +Americas from Cape Horn to California, did not “peter out” in +British Columbia. That it extended farther north, was their creed, +and “Farther North” became their cry. No time was lost, +and in the early seventies, leaving the Treadwell and the Silver Bow Basin +to be discovered by those who came after, they went plunging on into the +white unknown. North, farther north, they struggled, till their picks +rang in the frozen beaches of the Arctic Ocean, and they shivered by +driftwood fires on the ruby sands of Nome.</p> +<p>But first, in order that this colossal adventure may be fully grasped, +the recentness and the remoteness of Alaska must be emphasized. The +interior of Alaska and the contiguous Canadian territory was a vast +wilderness. Its hundreds of thousands of square miles were as dark +and chartless as Darkest Africa. In 1847, when the first Hudson Bay +Company agents crossed over the Rockies from the Mackenzie to poach on the +preserves of the Russian Bear, they thought that the Yukon flowed north and +emptied into the Arctic Ocean. Hundreds of miles below, however, were +the outposts of the Russian traders. They, in turn, did not know +where the Yukon had its source, and it was not till later that Russ and +Saxon learned that it was the same mighty stream they were occupying. +And a little over ten years later, Frederick Whymper voyaged up the Great +Bend to Fort Yukon under the Arctic Circle.</p> +<p>From fort to fort, from York Factory on Hudson’s Bay to Fort Yukon +in Alaska, the English traders transported their goods—a round trip +requiring from a year to a year and a half. It was one of their +deserters, in 1867, escaping down the Yukon to Bering Sea, who was the +first white man to make the North-west Passage by land from the Atlantic to +the Pacific. It was at this time that the first accurate description +of a fair portion of the Yukon was given by Dr. W. H. Ball, of the +Smithsonian Institution. But even he had never seen its source, and +it was not given him to appreciate the marvel of that great natural +highway.</p> +<p>No more remarkable river in this one particular is there in the world; +taking its rise in Crater Lake, thirty miles from the ocean, the Yukon +flows for twenty-five hundred miles, through the heart of the continent, +ere it empties into the sea. A portage of thirty miles, and then a +highway for traffic one tenth the girth of the earth!</p> +<p>As late as 1869, Frederick Whymper, fellow of the Royal Geographical +Society, stated on hearsay that the Chilcat Indians were believed +occasionally to make a short portage across the Coast Range from salt water +to the head-reaches of the Yukon. But it remained for a gold hunter, +questing north, ever north, to be first of all white men to cross the +terrible Chilcoot Pass, and tap the Yukon at its head. This happened +only the other day, but the man has become a dim legendary hero. Holt +was his name, and already the mists of antiquity have wrapped about the +time of his passage. 1872, 1874, and 1878 are the dates variously +given—a confusion which time will never clear.</p> +<p>Holt penetrated as far as the Hootalinqua, and on his return to the +coast reported coarse gold. The next recorded adventurer is one +Edward Bean, who in 1880 headed a party of twenty-five miners from Sitka +into the uncharted land. And in the same year, other parties (now +forgotten, for who remembers or ever hears the wanderings of the gold +hunters?) crossed the Pass, built boats out of the standing timber, and +drifted down the Yukon and farther north.</p> +<p>And then, for a quarter of a century, the unknown and unsung heroes +grappled with the frost, and groped for the gold they were sure lay +somewhere among the shadows of the Pole. In the struggle with the +terrifying and pitiless natural forces, they returned to the primitive, +garmenting themselves in the skins of wild beasts, and covering their feet +with the walrus <i>mucluc</i> and the moosehide moccasin. They forgot +the world and its ways, as the world had forgotten them; killed their meat +as they found it; feasted in plenty and starved in famine, and searched +unceasingly for the yellow lure. They crisscrossed the land in every +direction, threaded countless unmapped rivers in precarious birch-bark +canoes, and with snowshoes and dogs broke trail through thousands of miles +of silent white, where man had never been. They struggled on, under +the aurora borealis or the midnight sun, through temperatures that ranged +from one hundred degrees above zero to eighty degrees below, living, in the +grim humour of the land, on “rabbit tracks and salmon +bellies.”</p> +<p>To-day, a man may wander away from the trail for a hundred days, and +just as he is congratulating himself that at last he is treading virgin +soil, he will come upon some ancient and dilapidated cabin, and forget his +disappointment in wonder at the man who reared the logs. Still, if +one wanders from the trail far enough and deviously enough, he may chance +upon a few thousand square miles which he may have all to himself. On +the other hand, no matter how far and how deviously he may wander, the +possibility always remains that he may stumble, not alone upon a deserted +cabin, but upon an occupied one.</p> +<p>As an instance of this, and of the vastness of the land, no better case +need be cited than that of Harry Maxwell. An able seaman, hailing +from New Bedford, Massachusetts, his ship, the brig <i>Fannie E. Lee</i>, +was pinched in the Arctic ice. Passing from whaleship to whaleship, +he eventually turned up at Point Barrow in the summer of 1880. He was +<i>north</i> of the Northland, and from this point of vantage he determined +to pull south of the interior in search of gold. Across the mountains +from Fort Macpherson, and a couple of hundred miles eastward from the +Mackenzie, he built a cabin and established his headquarters. And +here, for nineteen continuous years, he hunted his living and +prospected. He ranged from the never opening ice to the north as far +south as the Great Slave Lake. Here he met Warburton Pike, the author +and explorer—an incident he now looks back upon as chief among the +few incidents of his solitary life.</p> +<p>When this sailor-miner had accumulated $20,000 worth of dust he +concluded that civilization was good enough for him, and proceeded +“to pull for the outside.” From the Mackenzie he went up +the Little Peel to its headwaters, found a pass through the mountains, +nearly starved to death on his way across to the Porcupine Hills, and +eventually came out on the Yukon River, where he learned for the first time +of the Yukon gold hunters and their discoveries. Yet for twenty years +they had been working there, his next-door neighbours, virtually, in a land +of such great spaces. At Victoria, British Columbia, previous to his +going east over the Canadian Pacific (the existence of which he had just +learned), he pregnantly remarked that he had faith in the Mackenzie +watershed, and that he was going back after he had taken in the +World’s Fair and got a whiff or two of civilization.</p> +<p>Faith! It may or may not remove mountains, but it has certainly +made the Northland. No Christian martyr ever possessed greater faith +than did the pioneers of Alaska. They never doubted the bleak and +barren land. Those who came remained, and more ever came. They +could not leave. They “knew” the gold was there, and they +persisted. Somehow, the romance of the land and the quest entered +into their blood, the spell of it gripped hold of them and would not let +them go. Man after man of them, after the most terrible privation and +suffering, shook the muck of the country from his moccasins and departed +for good. But the following spring always found him drifting down the +Yukon on the tail of the ice jams.</p> +<p>Jack McQuestion aptly vindicates the grip of the North. After a +residence of thirty years he insists that the climate is delightful, and +declares that whenever he makes a trip to the States he is afflicted with +home-sickness. Needless to say, the North still has him and will keep +tight hold of him until he dies. In fact, for him to die elsewhere +would be inartistic and insincere. Of three of the +“pioneer” pioneers, Jack McQuestion alone survives. In +1871, from one to seven years before Holt went over Chilcoot, in the +company of Al Mayo and Arthur Harper, McQuestion came into the Yukon from +the North-west over the Hudson Bay Company route from the Mackenzie to Fort +Yukon. The names of these three men, as their lives, are bound up in +the history of the country, and so long as there be histories and charts, +that long will the Mayo and McQuestion rivers and the Harper and Ladue town +site of Dawson be remembered. As an agent of the Alaska Commercial +Company, in 1873, McQuestion built Fort Reliance, six miles below the +Klondike River. In 1898 the writer met Jack McQuestion at Minook, on +the Lower Yukon. The old pioneer, though grizzled, was hale and +hearty, and as optimistic as when he first journeyed into the land along +the path of the Circle. And no man more beloved is there in all the +North. There will be great sadness there when his soul goes questing +on over the Last Divide—“farther north,” +perhaps—who can tell?</p> +<p>Frank Dinsmore is a fair sample of the men who made the Yukon +country. A Yankee, born, in Auburn, Maine, the <i>Wanderlust</i> +early laid him by the heels, and at sixteen he was heading west on the +trail that led “farther north.” He prospected in the +Black Hills, Montana, and in the Coeur d’Alene, then heard a whisper +of the North, and went up to Juneau on the Alaskan Panhandle. But the +North still whispered, and more insistently, and he could not rest till he +went over Chilcoot, and down into the mysterious Silent Land. This +was in 1882, and he went down the chain of lakes, down the Yukon, up the +Pelly, and tried his luck on the bars of McMillan River. In the fall, +a perambulating skeleton, he came back over the Pass in a blizzard, with a +rag of shirt, tattered overalls, and a handful of raw flour.</p> +<p>But he was unafraid. That winter he worked for a grubstake in +Juneau, and the next spring found the heels of his moccasins turned towards +salt water and his face toward Chilcoot. This was repeated the next +spring, and the following spring, and the spring after that, until, in +1885, he went over the Pass for good. There was to be no return for +him until he found the gold he sought.</p> +<p>The years came and went, but he remained true to his resolve. For +eleven long years, with snow-shoe and canoe, pickaxe and gold-pan, he wrote +out his life on the face of the land. Upper Yukon, Middle Yukon, +Lower Yukon—he prospected faithfully and well. His bed was +anywhere. Winter or summer he carried neither tent nor stove, and his +six-pound sleeping-robe of Arctic hare was the warmest covering he was ever +known to possess. Rabbit tracks and salmon bellies were his diet with +a vengeance, for he depended largely on his rifle and fishing-tackle. +His endurance equalled his courage. On a wager he lifted thirteen +fifty-pound sacks of flour and walked off with them. Winding up a +seven-hundred-mile trip on the ice with a forty-mile run, he came into camp +at six o’clock in the evening and found a “squaw dance” +under way. He should have been exhausted. Anyway, his +<i>muclucs</i> were frozen stiff. But he kicked them off and danced +all night in stocking-feet.</p> +<p>At the last fortune came to him. The quest was ended, and he +gathered up his gold and pulled for the outside. And his own end was +as fitting as that of his quest. Illness came upon him down in San +Francisco, and his splendid life ebbed slowly out as he sat in his big +easy-chair, in the Commercial Hotel, the “Yukoner’s +home.” The doctors came, discussed, consulted, the while he +matured more plans of Northland adventure; for the North still gripped him +and would not let him go. He grew weaker day by day, but each day he +said, “To-morrow I’ll be all right.” Other +old-timers, “out on furlough,”, came to see him. They +wiped their eyes and swore under their breaths, then entered and talked +largely and jovially about going in with him over the trail when spring +came. But there in the big easy-chair it was that his Long Trail +ended, and the life passed out of him still fixed on “farther +north.”</p> +<p>From the time of the first white man, famine loomed black and gloomy +over the land. It was chronic with the Indians and Eskimos; it became +chronic with the gold hunters. It was ever present, and so it came +about that life was commonly expressed in terms of +“grub”—was measured by cups of flour. Each winter, +eight months long, the heroes of the frost faced starvation. It +became the custom, as fall drew on, for partners to cut the cards or draw +straws to determine which should hit the hazardous trail for salt water, +and which should remain and endure the hazardous darkness of the Arctic +night.</p> +<p>There was never food enough to winter the whole population. The A. +C. Company worked hard to freight up the grub, but the gold hunters came +faster and dared more audaciously. When the A. C. Company added a new +stern-wheeler to its fleet, men said, “Now we shall have +plenty.” But more gold hunters poured in over the passes to the +south, more <i>voyageurs</i> and fur traders forced a way through the +Rockies from the east, more seal hunters and coast adventurers poled up +from Bering Sea on the west, more sailors deserted from the whale-ships to +the north, and they all starved together in right brotherly fashion. +More steamers were added, but the tide of prospectors welled always in +advance. Then the N. A. T. & T. Company came upon the +scene, and both companies added steadily to their fleets. But it was +the same old story; famine would not depart. In fact, famine grew +with the population, till, in the winter of 1897-1898, the United States +government was forced to equip a reindeer relief expedition. As of +old, that winter partners cut the cards and drew straws, and remained or +pulled for salt water as chance decided. They were wise of old time, +and had learned never to figure on relief expeditions. They had heard +of such things, but no mortal man of them had ever laid eyes on one.</p> +<p>The hard luck of other mining countries pales into insignificance before +the hard luck of the North. And as for the hardship, it cannot be +conveyed by printed page or word of mouth. No man may know who has +not undergone. And those who have undergone, out of their knowledge, +claim that in the making of the world God grew tired, and when He came to +the last barrowload, “just dumped it anyhow,” and that was how +Alaska happened to be. While no adequate conception of the life can +be given to the stay-at-home, yet the men themselves sometimes give a clue +to its rigours. One old Minook miner testified thus: +“Haven’t you noticed the expression on the faces of us +fellows? You can tell a new-comer the minute you see him; he looks +alive, enthusiastic, perhaps jolly. We old miners are always grave, +unless were drinking.”</p> +<p>Another old-timer, out of the bitterness of a “home-mood,” +imagined himself a Martian astronomer explaining to a friend, with the aid +of a powerful telescope, the institutions of the earth. “There +are the continents,” he indicated; “and up there near the polar +cap is a country, frigid and burning and lonely and apart, called +Alaska. Now, in other countries and states there are great insane +asylums, but, though crowded, they are insufficient; so there is Alaska +given over to the worst cases. Now and then some poor insane creature +comes to his senses in those awful solitudes, and, in wondering joy, +escapes from the land and hastens back to his home. But most cases +are incurable. They just suffer along, poor devils, forgetting their +former life quite, or recalling it like a dream.” Again the +grip of the North, which will not let one go—for “<i>most cases +are incurable</i>.”</p> +<p>For a quarter of a century the battle with frost and famine went +on. The very severity of the struggle with Nature seemed to make the +gold hunters kindly toward one another. The latch-string was always +out, and the open hand was the order of the day. Distrust was +unknown, and it was no hyperbole for a man to take the last shirt off his +back for a comrade. Most significant of all, perhaps, in this +connection, was the custom of the old days, that when August the first came +around, the prospectors who had failed to locate “pay dirt” +were permitted to go upon the ground of their more fortunate comrades and +take out enough for the next year’s grub-stake.</p> +<p>In 1885 rich bar-washing was done on the Stewart River, and in 1886 +Cassiar Bar was struck just below the mouth of the Hootalinqua. It +was at this time that the first moderate strike was made on Forty Mile +Creek, so called because it was judged to be that distance below Fort +Reliance of Jack McQuestion fame. A prospector named Williams started +for the outside with dogs and Indians to carry the news, but suffered such +hardship on the summit of Chilcoot that he was carried dying into the store +of Captain John Healy at Dyea. But he had brought the news +through—<i>coarse gold</i>! Within three months more than two +hundred miners had passed in over Chilcoot, stampeding for Forty +Mile. Find followed find—Sixty Mile, Miller, Glacier, Birch, +Franklin, and the Koyokuk. But they were all moderate discoveries, +and the miners still dreamed and searched for the fabled stream, “Too +Much Gold,” where gold was so plentiful that gravel had to be +shovelled into the sluice-boxes in order to wash it.</p> +<p>And all the time the Northland was preparing to play its own huge +joke. It was a great joke, albeit an exceeding bitter one, and it has +led the old-timers to believe that the land is left in darkness the better +part of the year because God goes away and leaves it to itself. After +all the risk and toil and faithful endeavour, it was destined that few of +the heroes should be in at the finish when Too Much Gold turned its +yellow-treasure to the stars.</p> +<p>First, there was Robert Henderson—and this is true history. +Henderson had faith in the Indian River district. For three years, by +himself, depending mainly on his rifle, living on straight meat a large +portion of the time, he prospected many of the Indian River tributaries, +just missed finding the rich creeks, Sulphur and Dominion, and managed to +make grub (poor grub) out of Quartz Creek and Australia Creek. Then +he crossed the divide between Indian River and the Klondike, and on one of +the “feeders” of the latter found eight cents to the pan. +This was considered excellent in those simple days. Naming the creek +“Gold Bottom,” he recrossed the divide and got three men, +Munson, Dalton, and Swanson, to return with him. The four took out +$750. And be it emphasized, and emphasized again, <i>that this was +the first Klondike gold ever shovelled in and washed out</i>. And be +it also emphasized, <i>that Robert Henderson was the discoverer of +Klondike</i>, <i>all lies and hearsay tales to the contrary</i>.</p> +<p>Running out of grub, Henderson again recrossed the divide, and went down +the Indian River and up the Yukon to Sixty Mile. Here Joe Ladue ran +the trading post, and here Joe Ladue had originally grub-staked +Henderson. Henderson told his tale, and a dozen men (all it +contained) deserted the Post for the scene of his find. Also, +Henderson persuaded a party of prospectors bound for Stewart River, to +forgo their trip and go down and locate with him. He loaded his boat +with supplies, drifted down the Yukon to the mouth of the Klondike, and +towed and poled up the Klondike to Gold Bottom. But at the mouth of +the Klondike he met George Carmack, and thereby hangs the tale.</p> +<p>Carmack was a squawman. He was familiarly known as +“Siwash” George—a derogatory term which had arisen out of +his affinity for the Indians. At the time Henderson encountered him +he was catching salmon with his Indian wife and relatives on the site of +what was to become Dawson, the Golden City of the Snows. Henderson, +bubbling over with good-will, open-handed, told Carmack of his +discovery. But Carmack was satisfied where he was. He was +possessed by no overweening desire for the strenuous life. Salmon +were good enough for him. But Henderson urged him to come on and +locate, until, when he yielded, he wanted to take the whole tribe +along. Henderson refused to stand for this, said that he must give +the preference over Siwashes to his old Sixty Mile friends, and, it is +rumoured, said some things about Siwashes that were not nice.</p> +<p>The next morning Henderson went on alone up the Klondike to Gold +Bottom. Carmack, by this time aroused, took a short cut afoot for the +same place. Accompanied by his two Indian brothers-in-law, Skookum +Jim and Tagish Charley, he went up Rabbit Creek (now Bonanza), crossed into +Gold Bottom, and staked near Henderson’s discovery. On the way +up he had panned a few shovels on Rabbit Creek, and he showed Henderson +“colours” he had obtained. Henderson made him promise, if +he found anything on the way back, that he would send up one of the Indians +with the news. Henderson also agreed to pay for his service, for he +seemed to feel that they were on the verge of something big, and he wanted +to make sure.</p> +<p>Carmack returned down Rabbit Creek. While he was taking a sleep on +the bank about half a mile below the mouth of what was to be known as +Eldorado, Skookum Jim tried his luck, and from surface prospects got from +ten cents to a dollar to the pan. Carmack and his brother-in-law +staked and hit “the high places” for Forty Mile, where they +filed on the claims before Captain Constantine, and renamed the creek +Bonanza. And Henderson was forgotten. No word of it reached +him. Carmack broke his promise.</p> +<p>Weeks afterward, when Bonanza and Eldorado were staked from end to end +and there was no more room, a party of late comers pushed over the divide +and down to Gold Bottom, where they found Henderson still at work. +When they told him they were from Bonanza, he was nonplussed. He had +never heard of such a place. But when they described it, he +recognized it as Rabbit Creek. Then they told him of its marvellous +richness, and, as Tappan Adney relates, when Henderson realized what he had +lost through Carmack’s treachery, “he threw down his shovel and +went and sat on the bank, so sick at heart that it was some time before he +could speak.”</p> +<p>Then there were the rest of the old-timers, the men of Forty Mile and +Circle City. At the time of the discovery, nearly all of them were +over to the west at work in the old diggings or prospecting for new +ones. As they said of themselves, they were the kind of men who are +always caught out with forks when it rains soup. In the stampede that +followed the news of Carmack’s strike very few old miners took +part. They were not there to take part. But the men who did go +on the stampede were mainly the worthless ones, the new-comers, and the +camp hangers on. And while Bob Henderson plugged away to the east, +and the heroes plugged away to the west, the greenhorns and rounders went +up and staked Bonanza.</p> +<p>But the Northland was not yet done with its joke. When fall came +on and the heroes returned to Forty Mile and to Circle City, they listened +calmly to the up-river tales of Siwash discoveries and loafers’ +prospects, and shook their heads. They judged by the calibre of the +men interested, and branded it a bunco game. But glowing reports +continued to trickle down the Yukon, and a few of the old-timers went up to +see. They looked over the ground—the unlikeliest place for gold +in all their experience—and they went down the river again, +“leaving it to the Swedes.”</p> +<p>Again the Northland turned the tables. The Alaskan gold hunter is +proverbial, not so much for his unveracity, as for his inability to tell +the precise truth. In a country of exaggerations, he likewise is +prone to hyperbolic description of things actual. But when it came to +Klondike, he could not stretch the truth as fast as the truth itself +stretched. Carmack first got a dollar pan. He lied when he said +it was two dollars and a half. And when those who doubted him did get +two-and-a-half pans, they said they were getting an ounce, and lo! ere the +lie had fairly started on its way, they were getting, not one ounce, but +five ounces. This they claimed was six ounces; but when they filled a +pan of dirt to prove the lie, they washed out twelve ounces. And so +it went. They continued valiantly to lie, but the truth continued to +outrun them.</p> +<p>But the Northland’s hyperborean laugh was not yet ended. +When Bonanza was staked from mouth to source, those who had failed to +“get in,” disgruntled and sore, went up the “pups” +and feeders. Eldorado was one of these feeders, and many men, after +locating on it, turned their backs upon their claims and never gave them a +second thought. One man sold a half-interest in five hundred feet of +it for a sack of flour. Other owners wandered around trying to bunco +men into buying them out for a song. And then Eldorado “showed +up.” It was far, far richer than Bonanza, with an average value +of a thousand dollars a foot to every foot of it.</p> +<p>A Swede named Charley Anderson had been at work on Miller Creek the year +of the strike, and arrived in Dawson with a few hundred dollars. Two +miners, who had staked No. 29 Eldorado, decided that he was the proper man +upon whom to “unload.” He was too canny to approach +sober, so at considerable expense they got him drunk. Even then it +was hard work, but they kept him befuddled for several days, and finally, +inveigled him into buying No. 29 for $750. When Anderson sobered up, +he wept at his folly, and pleaded to have his money back. But the men +who had duped him were hard-hearted. They laughed at him, and kicked +themselves for not having tapped him for a couple of hundred more. +Nothing remained for Anderson but to work the worthless ground. This +he did, and out of it he took over three-quarters of a million of +dollars.</p> +<p>It was not till Frank Dinsmore, who already had big holdings on Birch +Creek, took a hand, that the old-timers developed faith in the new +diggings. Dinsmore received a letter from a man on the spot, calling +it “the biggest thing in the world,” and harnessed his dogs and +went up to investigate. And when he sent a letter back, saying that +he had never seen “anything like it,” Circle City for the first +time believed, and at once was precipitated one of the wildest stampedes +the country had ever seen or ever will see. Every dog was taken, many +went without dogs, and even the women and children and weaklings hit the +three hundred miles of ice through the long Arctic night for the biggest +thing in the world. It is related that but twenty people, mostly +cripples and unable to travel, were left in Circle City when the smoke of +the last sled disappeared up the Yukon.</p> +<p>Since that time gold has been discovered in all manner of places, under +the grass roots of the hill-side benches, in the bottom of Monte Cristo +Island, and in the sands of the sea at Nome. And now the gold hunter +who knows his business shuns the “favourable looking” spots, +confident in his hard-won knowledge that he will find the most gold in the +least likely place. This is sometimes adduced to support the theory +that the gold hunters, rather than the explorers, are the men who will +ultimately win to the Pole. Who knows? It is in their blood, +and they are capable of it.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Piedmont</span>, <span +class="smcap">California</span>.<br /> +<i>February</i> 1902.</p> +<h2>FOMÁ GORDYÉEFF</h2> +<blockquote> +<p>“What, without asking, hither hurried <i>Whence</i>?<br /> +And, without asking, <i>Whither</i> hurried hence!<br /> +Oh, many a Cup of this forbidden Wine<br /> +Must drown the memory of that insolence!”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>“Fomá Gordyéeff” is a big book—not only +is the breadth of Russia in it, but the expanse of life. Yet, though +in each land, in this world of marts and exchanges, this age of trade and +traffic, passionate figures rise up and demand of life what its fever is, +in “Fomá Gordyéeff” it is a Russian who so rises +up and demands. For Górky, the Bitter One, is essentially a +Russian in his grasp on the facts of life and in his treatment. All +the Russian self-analysis and insistent introspection are his. And, +like all his brother Russians, ardent, passionate protest impregnates his +work. There is a purpose to it. He writes because he has +something to say which the world should hear. From that clenched fist +of his, light and airy romances, pretty and sweet and beguiling, do not +flow, but realities—yes, big and brutal and repulsive, but real.</p> +<p>He raises the cry of the miserable and the despised, and in a masterly +arraignment of commercialism, protests against social conditions, against +the grinding of the faces of the poor and weak, and the self-pollution of +the rich and strong, in their mad lust for place and power. It is to +be doubted strongly if the average bourgeois, smug and fat and prosperous, +can understand this man Fomá Gordyéeff. The rebellion +in his blood is something to which their own does not thrill. To them +it will be inexplicable that this man, with his health and his millions, +could not go on living as his class lived, keeping regular hours at desk +and stock exchange, driving close contracts, underbidding his competitors, +and exulting in the business disasters of his fellows. It would +appear so easy, and, after such a life, well appointed and eminently +respectable, he could die. “Ah,” Fomá will +interrupt rudely—he is given to rude interruptions—“if to +die and disappear is the end of these money-grubbing years, why +money-grub?” And the bourgeois whom he rudely interrupted will +not understand. Nor did Mayákin understand as he laboured +holily with his wayward godson.</p> +<p>“Why do you brag?” Fomá, bursts out upon +him. “What have you to brag about? Your son—where +is he? Your daughter—what is she? Ekh, you manager of +life! Come, now, you’re clever, you know everything—tell +me, why do you live? Why do you accumulate money? Aren’t +you going to die? Well, what then?” And Mayákin +finds himself speechless and without answer, but unshaken and +unconvinced.</p> +<p>Receiving by heredity the fierce, bull-like nature of his father plus +the passive indomitableness and groping spirit of his mother, Fomá, +proud and rebellious, is repelled by the selfish, money-seeking environment +into which he is born. Ignát, his father, and Mayákin, +the godfather, and all the horde of successful merchants singing the +pæan of the strong and the praises of merciless, remorseless +<i>laissez faire</i>, cannot entice him. Why? he demands. This +is a nightmare, this life! It is without significance! What +does it all mean? What is there underneath? What is the meaning +of that which is underneath?</p> +<p>“You do well to pity people,” Ignát tells +Fomá, the boy, “only you must use judgment with your +pity. First consider the man, find out what he is like, what use can +be made of him; and if you see that he is a strong and capable man, help +him if you like. But if a man is weak, not inclined to +work—spit upon him and go your way. And you must know that when +a man complains about everything, and cries out and groans—he is not +worth more than two kopéks, he is not worthy of pity, and will be of +no use to you if you do help him.”</p> +<p>Such the frank and militant commercialism, bellowed out between glasses +of strong liquor. Now comes Mayákin, speaking softly and +without satire:</p> +<p>“Eh, my boy, what is a beggar? A beggar is a man who is +forced, by fate, to remind us of Christ; he is Christ’s brother; he +is the bell of the Lord, and rings in life for the purpose of awakening our +conscience, of stirring up the satiety of man’s flesh. He +stands under the window and sings, ‘For Christ’s sa-ake!’ +and by that chant he reminds us of Christ, of His holy command to help our +neighbour. But men have so ordered their lives that it is utterly +impossible for them to act in accordance with Christ’s teaching, and +Jesus Christ has become entirely superfluous to us. Not once, but, in +all probability, a thousand times, we have given Him over to be crucified, +but still we cannot banish Him from our lives so long as His poor brethren +sing His name in the streets and remind us of Him. And so now we have +hit upon the idea of shutting up the beggars in such special buildings, so +that they may not roam about the streets and stir up our +consciences.”</p> +<p>But Fomá will have none of it. He is neither to be enticed +nor cajoled. The cry of his nature is for light. He must have +light. And in burning revolt he goes seeking the meaning of +life. “His thoughts embraced all those petty people who toiled +at hard labour. It was strange—why did they live? What +satisfaction was it to them to live on the earth? All they did was to +perform their dirty, arduous toil, eat poorly; they were miserably clad, +addicted to drunkenness. One was sixty years old, but he still toiled +side by side with young men. And they all presented themselves to +Fomá’s imagination as a huge heap of worms, who were swarming +over the earth merely to eat.”</p> +<p>He becomes the living interrogation of life. He cannot begin +living until he knows what living means, and he seeks its meaning +vainly. “Why should I try to live life when I do not know what +life is?” he objects when Mayákin strives with him to return +and manage his business. Why should men fetch and carry for him? be +slaves to him and his money?</p> +<p>“Work is not everything to a man,” he says; “it is not +true that justification lies in work . . . Some people never do any work at +all, all their lives long—yet they live better than the +toilers. Why is that? And what justification have I? And +how will all the people who give their orders justify themselves? +What have they lived for? But my idea is that everybody ought, +without fail, to know solidly what he is living for. Is it possible +that a man is born to toil, accumulate money, build a house, beget +children, and—die? No; life means something in itself. . . +. A man has been born, has lived, has died—why? All of us +must consider why we are living, by God, we must! There is no sense +in our life—there is no sense at all. Some are rich—they +have money enough for a thousand men all to themselves—and they live +without occupation; others bow their backs in toil all their life, and they +haven’t a penny.”</p> +<p>But Fomá can only be destructive. He is not +constructive. The dim groping spirit of his mother and the curse of +his environment press too heavily upon him, and he is crushed to debauchery +and madness. He does not drink because liquor tastes good in his +mouth. In the vile companions who purvey to his baser appetites he +finds no charm. It is all utterly despicable and sordid, but thither +his quest leads him and he follows the quest. He knows that +everything is wrong, but he cannot right it, cannot tell why. He can +only attack and demolish. “What justification have you all in +the sight of God? Why do you live?” he demands of the conclave +of merchants, of life’s successes. “You have not +constructed life—you have made a cesspool! You have +disseminated filth and stifling exhalations by your deeds. Have you +any conscience? Do you remember God? A five-kopék +piece—that is your God! But you have expelled your +conscience!”</p> +<p>Like the cry of Isaiah, “Go to, now, ye rich men, weep and howl +for your misfortunes that shall come upon you,” is +Fomá’s: “You blood-suckers! You live on other +people’s strength; you work with other people’s hands! +For all this you shall be made to pay! You shall perish—you +shall be called to account for all! For all—to the last little +tear-drop!”</p> +<p>Stunned by this puddle of life, unable to make sense of it, Fomá +questions, and questions vainly, whether of Sófya Medynsky in her +drawing-room of beauty, or in the foulest depths of the first chance +courtesan’s heart. Linboff, whose books contradict one another, +cannot help him; nor can the pilgrims on crowded steamers, nor the verse +writers and harlots in dives and boozingkens. And so, wondering, +pondering, perplexed, amazed, whirling through the mad whirlpool of life, +dancing the dance of death, groping for the nameless, indefinite something, +the magic formula, the essence, the intrinsic fact, the flash of light +through the murk and dark—the rational sanction for existence, in +short—Fomá Gordyéeff goes down to madness and +death.</p> +<p>It is not a pretty book, but it is a masterful interrogation of +life—not of life universal, but of life particular, the social life +of to-day. It is not nice; neither is the social life of to-day +nice. One lays the book down sick at heart—sick for life with +all its “lyings and its lusts.” But it is a healthy +book. So fearful is its portrayal of social disease, so ruthless its +stripping of the painted charms from vice, that its tendency cannot but be +strongly for good. It is a goad, to prick sleeping human consciences +awake and drive them into the battle for humanity.</p> +<p>But no story is told, nothing is finished, some one will object. +Surely, when Sásha leaped overboard and swam to Fomá, +something happened. It was pregnant with possibilities. Yet it +was not finished, was not decisive. She left him to go with the son +of a rich vodka-maker. And all that was best in Sófya Medynsky +was quickened when she looked upon Fomá with the look of the +Mother-Woman. She might have been a power for good in his life, she +might have shed light into it and lifted him up to safety and honour and +understanding. Yet she went away next day, and he never saw her +again. No story is told, nothing is finished.</p> +<p>Ah, but surely the story of Fomá Gordyéeff is told; his +life is finished, as lives are being finished each day around us. +Besides, it is the way of life, and the art of Górky is the art of +realism. But it is a less tedious realism than that of Tolstoy or +Turgenev. It lives and breathes from page to page with a swing and +dash and go that they rarely attain. Their mantle has fallen on his +young shoulders, and he promises to wear it royally.</p> +<p>Even so, but so helpless, hopeless, terrible is this life of Fomá +Gordyéeff that we would be filled with profound sorrow for +Górky did we not know that he has come up out of the Valley of +Shadow. That he hopes, we know, else would he not now be festering in +a Russian prison because he is brave enough to live the hope he +feels. He knows life, why and how it should be lived. And in +conclusion, this one thing is manifest: Fomá Gordyéeff is no +mere statement of an intellectual problem. For as he lived and +interrogated living, so in sweat and blood and travail has Górky +lived.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Piedmont</span>, <span +class="smcap">California</span>.<br /> +<i>November</i> 1901.</p> +<h2>THESE BONES SHALL RISE AGAIN</h2> +<p>Rudyard Kipling, “prophet of blood and vulgarity, prince of +ephemerals and idol of the unelect”—as a Chicago critic +chortles—is dead. It is true. He is dead, dead and +buried. And a fluttering, chirping host of men, little men and +unseeing men, have heaped him over with the uncut leaves of <i>Kim</i>, +wrapped him in <i>Stalky & Co.</i>, for winding sheet, and for +headstone reared his unconventional lines, <i>The Lesson</i>. It was +very easy. The simplest thing in the world. And the fluttering, +chirping gentlemen are rubbing their hands in amaze and wondering why they +did not do it long ago, it was so very, very simple.</p> +<p>But the centuries to come, of which the fluttering, chirping gentlemen +are prone to talk largely, will have something to say in the matter. +And when they, the future centuries, quest back to the nineteenth century +to find what manner of century it was—to find, not what the people of +the nineteenth century thought they thought, but what they really thought, +not what they thought they ought to do, but what they really did do, then a +certain man, Kipling, will be read—and read with understanding. +“They thought they read him with understanding, those people of the +nineteenth century,” the future centuries will say; “and then +they thought there was no understanding in him, and after that they did not +know what they thought.”</p> +<p>But this is over-severe. It applies only to that class which +serves a function somewhat similar to that served by the populace of old +time in Rome. This is the unstable, mob-minded mass, which sits on +the fence, ever ready to fall this side or that and indecorously clamber +back again; which puts a Democratic administration into office one +election, and a Republican the next; which discovers and lifts up a prophet +to-day that it may stone him to-morrow; which clamours for the book +everybody else is reading, for no reason under the sun save that everybody +else is reading it. This is the class of whim and caprice, of fad and +vogue, the unstable, incoherent, mob-mouthed, mob-minded mass, the +“monkey-folk,” if you please, of these latter days. Now +it may be reading <i>The Eternal City</i>. Yesterday it was reading +<i>The Master Christian</i>, and some several days before that it was +reading Kipling. Yes, almost to his shame be it, these folk were +reading him. But it was not his fault. If he depended upon them +he well deserves to be dead and buried and never to rise again. But +to them, let us be thankful, he never lived. They thought he lived, +but he was as dead then as he is now and as he always will be.</p> +<p>He could not help it because he became the vogue, and it is easily +understood. When he lay ill, fighting with close grapples with death, +those who knew him were grieved. They were many, and in many voices, +to the rim of the Seven Seas, they spoke their grief. Whereupon, and +with celerity, the mob-minded mass began to inquire as to this man whom so +many mourned. If everybody else mourned, it were fit that they mourn +too. So a vast wail went up. Each was a spur to the +other’s grief, and each began privately to read this man they had +never read and publicly to proclaim this man they had always read. +And straightaway next day they drowned their grief in a sea of historical +romance and forgot all about him. The reaction was inevitable. +Emerging from the sea into which they had plunged, they became aware that +they had so soon forgotten him, and would have been ashamed, had not the +fluttering, chirping men said, “Come, let us bury him.” +And they put him in a hole, quickly, out of their sight.</p> +<p>And when they have crept into their own little holes, and smugly laid +themselves down in their last long sleep, the future centuries will roll +the stone away and he will come forth again. For be it known: <i>That +man of us is imperishable who makes his century imperishable</i>. +That man of us who seizes upon the salient facts of our life, who tells +what we thought, what we were, and for what we stood—that man shall +be the mouthpiece to the centuries, and so long as they listen he shall +endure.</p> +<p>We remember the caveman. We remember him because he made his +century imperishable. But, unhappily, we remember him dimly, in a +collective sort of way, because he memorialized his century dimly, in a +collective sort of way. He had no written speech, so he left us rude +scratchings of beasts and things, cracked marrow-bones, and weapons of +stone. It was the best expression of which he was capable. Had +he scratched his own particular name with the scratchings of beasts and +things, stamped his cracked marrowbones with his own particular seal, +trade-marked his weapons of stone with his own particular device, that +particular man would we remember. But he did the best he could, and +we remember him as best we may.</p> +<p>Homer takes his place with Achilles and the Greek and Trojan +heroes. Because he remembered them, we remember him. Whether he +be one or a dozen men, or a dozen generations of men, we remember +him. And so long as the name of Greece is known on the lips of men, +so long will the name of Homer be known. There are many such names, +linked with their times, which have come down to us, many more which will +yet go down; and to them, in token that we have lived, must we add some few +of our own.</p> +<p>Dealing only with the artist, be it understood, only those artists will +go down who have spoken true of us. Their truth must be the deepest +and most significant, their voices clear and strong, definite and +coherent. Half-truths and partial-truths will not do, nor will thin +piping voices and quavering lays. There must be the cosmic quality in +what they sing. They must seize upon and press into enduring +art-forms the vital facts of our existence. They must tell why we +have lived, for without any reason for living, depend upon it, in the time +to come, it will be as though we had never lived. Nor are the things +that were true of the people a thousand years or so ago true of us +to-day. The romance of Homer’s Greece is the romance of +Homer’s Greece. That is undeniable. It is not our +romance. And he who in our time sings the romance of Homer’s +Greece cannot expect to sing it so well as Homer did, nor will he be +singing about us or our romance at all. A machine age is something +quite different from an heroic age. What is true of rapid-fire guns, +stock-exchanges, and electric motors, cannot possibly be true of hand-flung +javelins and whirring chariot wheels. Kipling knows this. He +has been telling it to us all his life, living it all his life in the work +he has done.</p> +<p>What the Anglo-Saxon has done, he has memorialized. And by +Anglo-Saxon is not meant merely the people of that tight little island on +the edge of the Western Ocean. Anglo-Saxon stands for the +English-speaking people of all the world, who, in forms and institutions +and traditions, are more peculiarly and definitely English than anything +else. This people Kipling has sung. Their sweat and blood and +toil have been the motives of his songs; but underlying all the motives of +his songs is the motive of motives, the sum of them all and something more, +which is one with what underlies all the Anglo-Saxon sweat and blood and +toil; namely, the genius of the race. And this is the cosmic +quality. Both that which is true of the race for all time, and that +which is true of the race for all time applied to this particular time, he +has caught up and pressed into his art-forms. He has caught the +dominant note of the Anglo-Saxon and pressed it into wonderful rhythms +which cannot be sung out in a day and which will not be sung out in a +day.</p> +<p>The Anglo-Saxon is a pirate, a land robber and a sea robber. +Underneath his thin coating of culture, he is what he was in Morgan’s +time, in Drake’s time, in William’s time, in Alfred’s +time. The blood and the tradition of Hengist and Horsa are in his +veins. In battle he is subject to the blood-lusts of the Berserkers +of old. Plunder and booty fascinate him immeasurably. The +schoolboy of to-day dreams the dream of Clive and Hastings. The +Anglo-Saxon is strong of arm and heavy of hand, and he possesses a +primitive brutality all his own. There is a discontent in his blood, +an unsatisfaction that will not let him rest, but sends him adventuring +over the sea and among the lands in the midst of the sea. He does not +know when he is beaten, wherefore the term “bulldog” is +attached to him, so that all may know his unreasonableness. He has +“some care as to the purity of his ways, does not wish for strange +gods, nor juggle with intellectual phantasmagoria.” He loves +freedom, but is dictatorial to others, is self-willed, has boundless +energy, and does things for himself. He is also a master of matter, +an organizer of law, and an administrator of justice.</p> +<p>And in the nineteenth century he has lived up to his reputation. +Being the nineteenth century and no other century, and in so far different +from all other centuries, he has expressed himself differently. But +blood will tell, and in the name of God, the Bible, and Democracy, he has +gone out over the earth, possessing himself of broad lands and fat +revenues, and conquering by virtue of his sheer pluck and enterprise and +superior machinery.</p> +<p>Now the future centuries, seeking to find out what the nineteenth +century Anglo-Saxon was and what were his works, will have small concern +with what he did not do and what he would have liked to do. These +things he did do, and for these things will he be remembered. His +claim on posterity will be that in the nineteenth century he mastered +matter; his twentieth-century claim will be, in the highest probability, +that he organized life—but that will be sung by the twentieth-century +Kiplings or the twenty-first-century Kiplings. Rudyard Kipling of the +nineteenth century has sung of “things as they are.” He +has seen life as it is, “taken it up squarely,” in both his +hands, and looked upon it. What better preachment upon the +Anglo-Saxon and what he has done can be had than <i>The Bridge +Builders</i>? what better appraisement than <i>The White Man’s +Burden</i>? As for faith and clean ideals—not of +“children and gods, but men in a world of men”—who has +preached them better than he?</p> +<p>Primarily, Kipling has stood for the doer as opposed to the +dreamer—the doer, who lists not to idle songs of empty days, but who +goes forth and does things, with bended back and sweated brow and +work-hardened hands. The most characteristic thing about Kipling is +his lover of actuality, his intense practicality, his proper and necessary +respect for the hard-headed, hard-fisted fact. And, above all, he has +preached the gospel of work, and as potently as Carlyle ever +preached. For he has preached it not only to those in the high +places, but to the common men, to the great sweating thong of common men +who hear and understand yet stand agape at Carlyle’s turgid +utterance. Do the thing to your hand, and do it with all your +might. Never mind what the thing is; so long as it is +something. Do it. Do it and remember Tomlinson, sexless and +soulless Tomlinson, who was denied at Heaven’s gate.</p> +<p>The blundering centuries have perseveringly pottered and groped through +the dark; but it remained for Kipling’s century to roll in the sun, +to formulate, in other words, the reign of law. And of the artists in +Kipling’s century, he of them all has driven the greater measure of +law in the more consummate speech:</p> +<blockquote> +<p>Keep ye the Law—be swift in all obedience.<br /> +Clear the land of evil, drive the road and bridge the ford.<br /> + Make ye sure to each his own<br /> + That he reap what he hath sown;<br /> +By the peace among Our peoples let men know we serve the Lord.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>—And so it runs, from McAndrew’s <i>Law</i>, <i>Order</i>, +<i>Duty</i>, <i>and Restraint</i>, to his last least line, whether of +<i>The Vampire</i> or <i>The Recessional</i>. And no prophet out of +Israel has cried out more loudly the sins of the people, nor called them +more awfully to repent.</p> +<p>“But he is vulgar, he stirs the puddle of life,” object the +fluttering, chirping gentlemen, the Tomlinsonian men. Well, and +isn’t life vulgar? Can you divorce the facts of life? +Much of good is there, and much of ill; but who may draw aside his garment +and say, “I am none of them”? Can you say that the part +is greater than the whole? that the whole is more or less than the sum of +the parts? As for the puddle of life, the stench is offensive to +you? Well, and what then? Do you not live in it? Why do +you not make it clean? Do you clamour for a filter to make clean only +your own particular portion? And, made clean, are you wroth because +Kipling has stirred it muddy again? At least he has stirred it +healthily, with steady vigour and good-will. He has not brought to +the surface merely its dregs, but its most significant values. He has +told the centuries to come of our lyings and our lusts, but he has also +told the centuries to come of the seriousness which is underneath our +lyings and our lusts. And he has told us, too, and always has he told +us, to be clean and strong and to walk upright and manlike.</p> +<p>“But he has no sympathy,” the fluttering gentlemen +chirp. “We admire his art and intellectual brilliancy, we all +admire his art and intellectual brilliancy, his dazzling technique and rare +rhythmical sense; but . . . he is totally devoid of sympathy.” +Dear! Dear! What is to be understood by this? Should he +sprinkle his pages with sympathetic adjectives, so many to the paragraph, +as the country compositor sprinkles commas? Surely not. The +little gentlemen are not quite so infinitesimal as that. There have +been many tellers of jokes, and the greater of them, it is recorded, never +smiled at their own, not even in the crucial moment when the audience +wavered between laughter and tears.</p> +<p>And so with Kipling. Take <i>The Vampire</i>, for instance. +It has been complained that there is no touch of pity in it for the man and +his ruin, no sermon on the lesson of it, no compassion for the human +weakness, no indignation at the heartlessness. But are we +kindergarten children that the tale be told to us in words of one +syllable? Or are we men and women, able to read between the lines +what Kipling intended we should read between the lines? “For +some of him lived, but the most of him died.” Is there not here +all the excitation in the world for our sorrow, our pity, our +indignation? And what more is the function of art than to excite +states of consciousness complementary to the thing portrayed? The +colour of tragedy is red. Must the artist also paint in the watery +tears and wan-faced grief? “For some of him lived, but the most +of him died”—can the heartache of the situation be conveyed +more achingly? Or were it better that the young man, some of him +alive but most of him dead, should come out before the curtain and deliver +a homily to the weeping audience?</p> +<p>The nineteenth century, so far as the Anglo-Saxon is concerned, was +remarkable for two great developments: the mastery of matter and the +expansion of the race. Three great forces operated in it: +nationalism, commercialism, democracy—the marshalling of the races, +the merciless, remorseless <i>laissez faire</i> of the dominant +bourgeoisie, and the practical, actual working government of men within a +very limited equality. The democracy of the nineteenth century is not +the democracy of which the eighteenth century dreamed. It is not the +democracy of the Declaration, but it is what we have practised and lived +that reconciles it to the fact of the “lesser breeds without the +Law.”</p> +<p>It is of these developments and forces of the nineteenth century that +Kipling has sung. And the romance of it he has sung, that which +underlies and transcends objective endeavour, which deals with race +impulses, race deeds, and race traditions. Even into the steam-laden +speech of his locomotives has he breathed our life, our spirit, our +significance. As he is our mouthpiece, so are they his +mouthpieces. And the romance of the nineteenth-century man as he has +thus expressed himself in the nineteenth century, in shaft and wheel, in +steel and steam, in far journeying and adventuring, Kipling has caught up +in wondrous songs for the future centuries to sing.</p> +<p>If the nineteenth century is the century of the Hooligan, then is +Kipling the voice of the Hooligan as surely as he is the voice of the +nineteenth century. Who is more representative? Is <i>David +Harum</i> more representative of the nineteenth century? Is Mary +Johnston, Charles Major, or Winston Churchill? Is Bret Harte? +William Dean Howells? Gilbert Parker? Who of them all is as +essentially representative of nineteenth-century life? When Kipling +is forgotten, will Robert Louis Stevenson be remembered for his <i>Dr. +Jekyll and Mr. Hyde</i>, his <i>Kidnapped</i> and his <i>David +Balfour</i>? Not so. His <i>Treasure Island</i> will be a +classic, to go down with <i>Robinson Crusoe</i>, <i>Through the +Looking-Glass</i>, and <i>The Jungle Books</i>. He will be remembered +for his essays, for his letters, for his philosophy of life, for +himself. He will be the well beloved, as he has been the well +beloved. But his will be another claim upon posterity than what we +are considering. For each epoch has its singer. As Scott sang +the swan song of chivalry and Dickens the burgher-fear of the rising +merchant class, so Kipling, as no one else, has sung the hymn of the +dominant bourgeoisie, the war march of the white man round the world, the +triumphant pæan of commercialism and imperialism. For that will +he be remembered.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Oakland</span>, <span +class="smcap">California</span>.<br /> +<i>October</i> 1901.</p> +<h2>THE OTHER ANIMALS</h2> +<p>American journalism has its moments of fantastic hysteria, and when it +is on the rampage the only thing for a rational man to do is to climb a +tree and let the cataclysm go by. And so, some time ago, when the +word <i>nature-faker</i> was coined, I, for one, climbed into my tree and +stayed there. I happened to be in Hawaii at the time, and a Honolulu +reporter elicited the sentiment from me that I thanked God I was not an +authority on anything. This sentiment was promptly cabled to America +in an Associated Press despatch, whereupon the American press (possibly +annoyed because I had not climbed down out of my tree) charged me with +paying for advertising by cable at a dollar per word—the very human +way of the American press, which, when a man refuses to come down and be +licked, makes faces at him.</p> +<p>But now that the storm is over, let us come and reason together. I +have been guilty of writing two animal-stories—two books about +dogs. The writing of these two stories, on my part, was in truth a +protest against the “humanizing” of animals, of which it seemed +to me several “animal writers” had been profoundly +guilty. Time and again, and many times, in my narratives, I wrote, +speaking of my dog-heroes: “He did not think these things; he merely +did them,” etc. And I did this repeatedly, to the clogging of +my narrative and in violation of my artistic canons; and I did it in order +to hammer into the average human understanding that these dog-heroes of +mine were not directed by abstract reasoning, but by instinct, sensation, +and emotion, and by simple reasoning. Also, I endeavoured to make my +stories in line with the facts of evolution; I hewed them to the mark set +by scientific research, and awoke, one day, to find myself bundled neck and +crop into the camp of the nature-fakers.</p> +<p>President Roosevelt was responsible for this, and he tried to condemn me +on two counts. (1) I was guilty of having a big, fighting bull-dog +whip a wolf-dog. (2) I was guilty of allowing a lynx to kill a +wolf-dog in a pitched battle. Regarding the second count, President +Roosevelt was wrong in his field observations taken while reading my +book. He must have read it hastily, for in my story I had the +wolf-dog kill the lynx. Not only did I have my wolf-dog kill the +lynx, but I made him eat the body of the lynx as well. Remains only +the first count on which to convict me of nature-faking, and the first +count does not charge me with diverging from ascertained facts. It is +merely a statement of a difference of opinion. President Roosevelt +does not think a bull-dog can lick a wolf-dog. I think a bull-dog can +lick a wolf-dog. And there we are. Difference of opinion may +make, and does make, horse-racing. I can understand that difference +of opinion can make dog-fighting. But what gets me is how difference +of opinion regarding the relative fighting merits of a bull-dog and a +wolf-dog makes me a nature-faker and President Roosevelt a vindicated and +triumphant scientist.</p> +<p>Then entered John Burroughs to clinch President Roosevelt’s +judgments. In this alliance there is no difference of opinion. +That Roosevelt can do no wrong is Burroughs’s opinion; and that +Burroughs is always right is Roosevelt’s opinion. Both are +agreed that animals do not reason. They assert that all animals below +man are automatons and perform actions only of two sorts—mechanical +and reflex—and that in such actions no reasoning enters at all. +They believe that man is the only animal capable of reasoning and that ever +does reason. This is a view that makes the twentieth-century +scientist smile. It is not modern at all. It is distinctly +mediaeval. President Roosevelt and John Burroughs, in advancing such +a view, are homocentric in the same fashion that the scholastics of earlier +and darker centuries were homocentric. Had the world not been +discovered to be round until after the births of President Roosevelt and +John Burroughs, they would have been geocentric as well in their theories +of the Cosmos. They could not have believed otherwise. The +stuff of their minds is so conditioned. They talk the argot of +evolution, while they no more understand the essence and the import of +evolution than does a South Sea Islander or Sir Oliver Lodge understand the +noumena of radio-activity.</p> +<p>Now, President Roosevelt is an amateur. He may know something of +statecraft and of big-game shooting; he may be able to kill a deer when he +sees it and to measure it and weigh it after he has shot it; he may be able +to observe carefully and accurately the actions and antics of tomtits and +snipe, and, after he has observed it, definitely and coherently to convey +the information of when the first chipmunk, in a certain year and a certain +latitude and longitude, came out in the spring and chattered and +gambolled—but that he should be able, as an individual observer, to +analyze all animal life and to synthetize and develop all that is known of +the method and significance of evolution, would require a vaster credulity +for you or me to believe than is required for us to believe the biggest +whopper ever told by an unmitigated nature-faker. No, President +Roosevelt does not understand evolution, and he does not seem to have made +much of an attempt to understand evolution.</p> +<p>Remains John Burroughs, who claims to be a thorough-going +evolutionist. Now, it is rather hard for a young man to tackle an old +man. It is the nature of young men to be more controlled in such +matters, and it is the nature of old men, presuming upon the wisdom that is +very often erroneously associated with age, to do the tackling. In +this present question of nature-faking, the old men did the tackling, while +I, as one young man, kept quiet a long time. But here goes at +last. And first of all let Mr. Burroughs’s position be stated, +and stated in his words.</p> +<p>“Why impute reason to an animal if its behaviour can be explained +on the theory of instinct?” Remember these words, for they will +be referred to later. “A goodly number of persons seem to have +persuaded themselves that animals do reason.” “But +instinct suffices for the animals . . . they get along very well without +reason.” “Darwin tried hard to convince himself that +animals do at times reason in a rudimentary way; but Darwin was also a much +greater naturalist than psychologist.” The preceding quotation +is tantamount, on Mr. Burroughs’s part, to a flat denial that animals +reason even in a rudimentary way. And when Mr. Burrough denies that +animals reason even in a rudimentary way, it is equivalent to affirming, in +accord with the first quotation in this paragraph, that instinct will +explain every animal act that might be confounded with reason by the +unskilled or careless observer.</p> +<p>Having bitten off this large mouthful, Mr. Burroughs proceeds with +serene and beautiful satisfaction to masticate it in the following +fashion. He cites a large number of instances of purely instinctive +actions on the part of animals, and triumphantly demands if they are acts +of reason. He tells of the robin that fought day after day its +reflected image in a window-pane; of the birds in South America that were +guilty of drilling clear through a mud wall, which they mistook for a solid +clay bank: of the beaver that cut down a tree four times because it was +held at the top by the branches of other trees; of the cow that licked the +skin of her stuffed calf so affectionately that it came apart, whereupon +she proceeded to eat the hay with which it was stuffed. He tells of +the phœbe-bird that betrays her nest on the porch by trying to hide +it with moss in similar fashion to the way all phœbe-birds hide their +nests when they are built among rocks. He tells of the highhole that +repeatedly drills through the clap-boards of an empty house in a vain +attempt to find a thickness of wood deep enough in which to build its +nest. He tells of the migrating lemmings of Norway that plunge into +the sea and drown in vast numbers because of their instinct to swim lakes +and rivers in the course of their migrations. And, having told a few +more instances of like kidney, he triumphantly demands: “Where now is +your much-vaunted reasoning of the lower animals?”</p> +<p>No schoolboy in a class debate could be guilty of unfairer +argument. It is equivalent to replying to the assertion that 2+2=4, +by saying: “No; because 12/4=3; I have demonstrated my honourable +opponent’s error.” When a man attacks your ability as a +foot-racer, promptly prove to him that he was drunk the week before last, +and the average man in the crowd of gaping listeners will believe that you +have convincingly refuted the slander on your fleetness of foot. On +my honour, it will work. Try it some time. It is done every +day. Mr. Burroughs has done it himself, and, I doubt not, pulled the +sophistical wool over a great many pairs of eyes. No, no, Mr. +Burroughs; you can’t disprove that animals reason by proving that +they possess instincts. But the worst of it is that you have at the +same time pulled the wool over your own eyes. You have set up a straw +man and knocked the stuffing out of him in the complacent belief that it +was the reasoning of lower animals you were knocking out of the minds of +those who disagreed with you. When the highhole perforated the +icehouse and let out the sawdust, you called him a lunatic . . .</p> +<p>But let us be charitable—and serious. What Mr. Burroughs +instances as acts of instinct certainly are acts of instincts. By the +same method of logic one could easily adduce a multitude of instinctive +acts on the part of man and thereby prove that man is an unreasoning +animal. But man performs actions of both sorts. Between man and +the lower animals Mr. Burroughs finds a vast gulf. This gulf divides +man from the rest of his kin by virtue of the power of reason that he alone +possesses. Man is a voluntary agent. Animals are +automatons. The robin fights its reflection in the window-pane +because it is his instinct to fight and because he cannot reason out the +physical laws that make this reflection appear real. An animal is a +mechanism that operates according to fore-ordained rules. Wrapped up +in its heredity, and determined long before it was born, is a certain +limited capacity of ganglionic response to eternal stimuli. These +responses have been fixed in the species through adaptation to +environment. Natural selection has compelled the animal automatically +to respond in a fixed manner and a certain way to all the usual external +stimuli it encounters in the course of a usual life. Thus, under +usual circumstances, it does the usual thing. Under unusual +circumstances it still does the usual thing, wherefore the highhole +perforating the ice-house is guilty of lunacy—of unreason, in +short. To do the unusual thing under unusual circumstances, +successfully to adjust to a strange environment for which his heredity has +not automatically fitted an adjustment, Mr. Burroughs says is +impossible. He says it is impossible because it would be a +non-instinctive act, and, as is well known animals act only through +instinct. And right here we catch a glimpse of Mr. Burroughs’s +cart standing before his horse. He has a thesis, and though the +heavens fall he will fit the facts to the thesis. Agassiz, in his +opposition to evolution, had a similar thesis, though neither did he fit +the facts to it nor did the heavens fall. Facts are very disagreeable +at times.</p> +<p>But let us see. Let us test Mr. Burroughs’s test of reason +and instinct. When I was a small boy I had a dog named Rollo. +According to Mr. Burroughs, Rollo was an automaton, responding to external +stimuli mechanically as directed by his instincts. Now, as is well +known, the development of instinct in animals is a dreadfully slow +process. There is no known case of the development of a single +instinct in domestic animals in all the history of their +domestication. Whatever instincts they possess they brought with them +from the wild thousands of years ago. Therefore, all Rollo’s +actions were ganglionic discharges mechanically determined by the instincts +that had been developed and fixed in the species thousands of years +ago. Very well. It is clear, therefore, that in all his play +with me he would act in old-fashioned ways, adjusting himself to the +physical and psychical factors in his environment according to the rules of +adjustment which had obtained in the wild and which had become part of his +heredity.</p> +<p>Rollo and I did a great deal of rough romping. He chased me and I +chased him. He nipped my legs, arms, and hands, often so hard that I +yelled, while I rolled him and tumbled him and dragged him about, often so +strenuously as to make him yelp. In the course of the play many +variations arose. I would make believe to sit down and cry. All +repentance and anxiety, he would wag his tail and lick my face, whereupon I +would give him the laugh. He hated to be laughed at, and promptly he +would spring for me with good-natured, menacing jaws, and the wild romp +would go on. I had scored a point. Then he hit upon a +trick. Pursuing him into the woodshed, I would find him in a far +corner, pretending to sulk. Now, he dearly loved the play, and never +got enough of it. But at first he fooled me. I thought I had +somehow hurt his feelings and I came and knelt before him, petting him, and +speaking lovingly. Promptly, in a wild outburst, he was up and away, +tumbling me over on the floor as he dashed out in a mad skurry around the +yard. He had scored a point.</p> +<p>After a time, it became largely a game of wits. I reasoned my +acts, of course, while his were instinctive. One day, as he pretended +to sulk in the corner, I glanced out of the woodshed doorway, simulated +pleasure in face, voice, and language, and greeted one of my schoolboy +friends. Immediately Rollo forgot to sulk, rushed out to see the +newcomer, and saw empty space. The laugh was on him, and he knew it, +and I gave it to him, too. I fooled him in this way two or three +times; then be became wise. One day I worked a variation. +Suddenly looking out the door, making believe that my eyes had been +attracted by a moving form, I said coldly, as a child educated in turning +away bill-collectors would say: “No my father is not at +home.” Like a shot, Rollo was out the door. He even ran +down the alley to the front of the house in a vain attempt to find the man +I had addressed. He came back sheepishly to endure the laugh and +resume the game.</p> +<p>And now we come to the test. I fooled Rollo, but how was the +fooling made possible? What precisely went on in that brain of +his? According to Mr. Burroughs, who denies even rudimentary +reasoning to the lower animals, Rollo acted instinctively, mechanically +responding to the external stimulus, furnished by me, which led him to +believe that a man was outside the door.</p> +<p>Since Rollo acted instinctively, and since all instincts are very +ancient, tracing back to the pre-domestication period, we can conclude only +that Rollo’s wild ancestors, at the time this particular instinct was +fixed into the heredity of the species, must have been in close, +long-continued, and vital contact with man, the voice of man, and the +expressions on the face of man. But since the instinct must have been +developed during the pre-domestication period, how under the sun could his +wild, undomesticated ancestors have experienced the close, long-continued, +and vital contact with man?</p> +<p>Mr. Burroughs says that “instinct suffices for the animals,” +that “they get along very well without reason.” But I +say, what all the poor nature-fakers will say, that Rollo reasoned. +He was born into the world a bundle of instincts and a pinch of +brain-stuff, all wrapped around in a framework of bone, meat, and +hide. As he adjusted to his environment he gained experiences. +He remembered these experiences. He learned that he mustn’t +chase the cat, kill chickens, nor bite little girls’ dresses. +He learned that little boys had little boy playmates. He learned that +men came into back yards. He learned that the animal man, on meeting +with his own kind, was given to verbal and facial greeting. He +learned that when a boy greeted a playmate he did it differently from the +way he greeted a man. All these he learned and remembered. They +were so many observations—so many propositions, if you please. +Now, what went on behind those brown eyes of his, inside that pinch of +brain-stuff, when I turned suddenly to the door and greeted an imaginary +person outside? Instantly, out of the thousands of observations +stored in his brain, came to the front of his consciousness the particular +observations connected with this particular situation. Next, he +established a relation between these observations. This relation was +his conclusion, achieved, as every psychologist will agree, by a definite +cell-action of his grey matter. From the fact that his master turned +suddenly toward the door, and from the fact that his master’s voice, +facial expression, and whole demeanour expressed surprise and delight, he +concluded that a friend was outside. He established a relation +between various things, and the act of establishing relations between +things is an act of reason—of rudimentary reason, granted, but none +the less of reason.</p> +<p>Of course Rollo was fooled. But that is no call for us to throw +chests about it. How often has every last one of us been fooled in +precisely similar fashion by another who turned and suddenly addressed an +imaginary intruder? Here is a case in point that occurred in the +West. A robber had held up a railroad train. He stood in the +aisle between the seats, his revolver presented at the head of the +conductor, who stood facing him. The conductor was at his mercy.</p> +<p>But the conductor suddenly looked over the robber’s shoulder, at +the same time saying aloud to an imaginary person standing at the +robber’s back: “Don’t shoot him.” Like a +flash the robber whirled about to confront this new danger, and like a +flash the conductor shot him down. Show me, Mr. Burroughs, where the +mental process in the robber’s brain was a shade different from the +mental processes in Rollo’s brain, and I’ll quit nature-faking +and join the Trappists. Surely, when a man’s mental process and +a dog’s mental process are precisely similar, the much-vaunted gulf +of Mr. Burroughs’s fancy has been bridged.</p> +<p>I had a dog in Oakland. His name was Glen. His father was +Brown, a wolf-dog that had been brought down from Alaska, and his mother +was a half-wild mountain shepherd dog. Neither father nor mother had +had any experience with automobiles. Glen came from the country, a +half-grown puppy, to live in Oakland. Immediately he became +infatuated with an automobile. He reached the culmination of +happiness when he was permitted to sit up in the front seat alongside the +chauffeur. He would spend a whole day at a time on an automobile +debauch, even going without food. Often the machine started directly +from inside the barn, dashed out the driveway without stopping, and was +gone. Glen got left behind several times. The custom was +established that whoever was taking the machine out should toot the horn +before starting. Glen learned the signal. No matter where he +was or what he was doing, when that horn tooted he was off for the barn and +up into the front seat.</p> +<p>One morning, while Glen was on the back porch eating his breakfast of +mush and milk, the chauffeur tooted. Glen rushed down the steps, into +the barn, and took his front seat, the mush and milk dripping down his +excited and happy chops. In passing, I may point out that in thus +forsaking his breakfast for the automobile he was displaying what is called +the power of choice—a peculiarly lordly attribute that, according to +Mr. Burroughs, belongs to man alone. Yet Glen made his choice between +food and fun.</p> +<p>It was not that Glen wanted his breakfast less, but that he wanted his +ride more. The toot was only a joke. The automobile did not +start. Glen waited and watched. Evidently he saw no signs of an +immediate start, for finally he jumped out of the seat and went back to his +breakfast. He ate with indecent haste, like a man anxious to catch a +train. Again the horn tooted, again he deserted his breakfast, and +again he sat in the seat and waited vainly for the machine to go.</p> +<p>They came close to spoiling Glen’s breakfast for him, for he was +kept on the jump between porch and barn. Then he grew wise. +They tooted the horn loudly and insistently, but he stayed by his breakfast +and finished it. Thus once more did he display power of choice, +incidentally of control, for when that horn tooted it was all he could do +to refrain from running for the barn.</p> +<p>The nature-faker would analyze what went on in Glen’s brain +somewhat in the following fashion. He had had, in his short life, +experiences that not one of all his ancestors had ever had. He had +learned that automobiles went fast, that once in motion it was impossible +for him to get on board, that the toot of the horn was a noise that was +peculiar to automobiles. These were so many propositions. Now +reasoning can be defined as the act or process of the brain by which, from +propositions known or assumed, new propositions are reached. Out of +the propositions which I have shown were Glen’s, and which had become +his through the medium of his own observation of the phenomena of life, he +made the new proposition that when the horn tooted it was time for him to +get on board.</p> +<p>But on the morning I have described, the chauffeur fooled Glen. +Somehow and much to his own disgust, his reasoning was erroneous. The +machine did not start after all. But to reason incorrectly is very +human. The great trouble in all acts of reasoning is to include all +the propositions in the problem. Glen had included every proposition +but one, namely, the human proposition, the joke in the brain of the +chauffeur. For a number of times Glen was fooled. Then he +performed another mental act. In his problem he included the human +proposition (the joke in the brain of the chauffeur), and he reached the +new conclusion that when the horn tooted the automobile was <i>not</i> +going to start. Basing his action on this conclusion, he remained on +the porch and finished his breakfast. You and I, and even Mr. +Burroughs, perform acts of reasoning precisely similar to this every day in +our lives. How Mr. Burroughs will explain Glen’s action by the +instinctive theory is beyond me. In wildest fantasy, even, my brain +refuses to follow Mr. Burroughs into the primeval forest where Glen’s +dim ancestors, to the tooting of automobile horns, were fixing into the +heredity of the breed the particular instinct that would enable Glen, a few +thousand years later, capably to cope with automobiles.</p> +<p>Dr. C. J. Romanes tells of a female chimpanzee who was taught to count +straws up to five. She held the straws in her hand, exposing the ends +to the number requested. If she were asked for three, she held up +three. If she were asked for four, she held up four. All this +is a mere matter of training. But consider now, Mr. Burroughs, what +follows. When she was asked for five straws and she had only four, +she doubled one straw, exposing both its ends and thus making up the +required number. She did not do this only once, and by +accident. She did it whenever more straws were asked for than she +possessed. Did she perform a distinctly reasoning act? or was her +action the result of blind, mechanical instinct? If Mr. Burroughs +cannot answer to his own satisfaction, he may call Dr. Romanes a +nature-faker and dismiss the incident from his mind.</p> +<p>The foregoing is a trick of erroneous human reasoning that works very +successfully in the United States these days. It is certainly a trick +of Mr. Burroughs, of which he is guilty with distressing frequency. +When a poor devil of a writer records what he has seen, and when what he +has seen does not agree with Mr. Burroughs’s mediaeval theory, he +calls said writer a nature-faker. When a man like Mr. Hornaday comes +along, Mr. Burroughs works a variation of the trick on him. Mr. +Hornaday has made a close study of the orang in captivity and of the orang +in its native state. Also, he has studied closely many other of the +higher animal types. Also, in the tropics, he has studied the lower +types of man. Mr. Hornaday is a man of experience and +reputation. When he was asked if animals reasoned, out of all his +knowledge on the subject he replied that to ask him such a question was +equivalent to asking him if fishes swim. Now Mr. Burroughs has not +had much experience in studying the lower human types and the higher animal +types. Living in a rural district in the state of New York, and +studying principally birds in that limited habitat, he has been in contact +neither with the higher animal types nor the lower human types. But +Mr. Hornaday’s reply is such a facer to him and his homocentric +theory that he has to do something. And he does it. He retorts: +“I suspect that Mr. Hornaday is a better naturalist than he is a +comparative psychologist.” Exit Mr. Hornaday. Who the +devil is Mr. Hornaday, anyway? The sage of Slabsides has +spoken. When Darwin concluded that animals were capable of reasoning +in a rudimentary way, Mr. Burroughs laid him out in the same fashion by +saying: “But Darwin was also a much greater naturalist than +psychologist”—and this despite Darwin’s long life of +laborious research that was not wholly confined to a rural district such as +Mr. Burroughs inhabits in New York. Mr. Burroughs’s method of +argument is beautiful. It reminds one of the man whose pronunciation +was vile, but who said: “Damn the dictionary; ain’t I +here?”</p> +<p>And now we come to the mental processes of Mr. Burroughs—to the +psychology of the ego, if you please. Mr. Burroughs has troubles of +his own with the dictionary. He violates language from the standpoint +both of logic and science. Language is a tool, and definitions +embodied in language should agree with the facts and history of life. +But Mr. Burroughs’s definitions do not so agree. This, in turn, +is not the fault of his education, but of his ego. To him, despite +his well-exploited and patronizing devotion to them, the lower animals are +disgustingly low. To him, affinity and kinship with the other animals +is a repugnant thing. He will have none of it. He is too +glorious a personality not to have between him and the other animals a vast +and impassable gulf. The cause of Mr. Burroughs’s mediaeval +view of the other animals is to be found, not in his knowledge of those +other animals, but in the suggestion of his self-exalted ego. In +short, Mr. Burroughs’s homocentric theory has been developed out of +his homocentric ego, and by the misuse of language he strives to make the +facts of life agree with his theory.</p> +<p>After the instances I have cited of actions of animals which are +impossible of explanation as due to instinct, Mr. Burroughs may reply: +“Your instances are easily explained by the simple law of +association.” To this I reply, first, then why did you deny +rudimentary reason to animals? and why did you state flatly that +“instinct suffices for the animals”? And, second, with +great reluctance and with overwhelming humility, because of my youth, I +suggest that you do not know exactly what you do mean by that phrase +“the simple law of association.” Your trouble, I repeat, +is with definitions. You have grasped that man performs what is +called <i>abstract</i> reasoning, you have made a definition of abstract +reason, and, betrayed by that great maker of theories, the ego, you have +come to think that all reasoning is abstract and that what is not abstract +reason is not reason at all. This is your attitude toward rudimentary +reason. Such a process, in one of the other animals, must be either +abstract or it is not a reasoning process. Your intelligence tells +you that such a process is not abstract reasoning, and your homocentric +thesis compels you to conclude that it can be only a mechanical, +instinctive process.</p> +<p>Definitions must agree, not with egos, but with life. Mr. +Burroughs goes on the basis that a definition is something hard and fast, +absolute and eternal. He forgets that all the universe is in flux; +that definitions are arbitrary and ephemeral; that they fix, for a fleeting +instant of time, things that in the past were not, that in the future will +be not, that out of the past become, and that out of the present pass on to +the future and become other things. Definitions cannot rule +life. Definitions cannot be made to rule life. Life must rule +definitions or else the definitions perish.</p> +<p>Mr. Burroughs forgets the evolution of reason. He makes a +definition of reason without regard to its history, and that definition is +of reason purely abstract. Human reason, as we know it to-day, is not +a creation, but a growth. Its history goes back to the primordial +slime that was quick with muddy life; its history goes back to the first +vitalized inorganic. And here are the steps of its ascent from the +mud to man: simple reflex action, compound reflex action, memory, habit, +rudimentary reason, and abstract reason. In the course of the climb, +thanks to natural selection, instinct was evolved. Habit is a +development in the individual. Instinct is a race-habit. +Instinct is blind, unreasoning, mechanical. This was the dividing of +the ways in the climb of aspiring life. The perfect culmination of +instinct we find in the ant-heap and the beehive. Instinct proved a +blind alley. But the other path, that of reason, led on and on even +to Mr. Burroughs and you and me.</p> +<p>There are no impassable gulfs, unless one chooses, as Mr. Burroughs +does, to ignore the lower human types and the higher animal types, and to +compare human mind with bird mind. It was impossible for life to +reason abstractly until speech was developed. Equipped with swords, +with tools of thought, in short, the slow development of the power to +reason in the abstract went on. The lowest human types do little or +no reasoning in the abstract. With every word, with every increase in +the complexity of thought, with every ascertained fact so gained, went on +action and reaction in the grey matter of the speech discoverer, and +slowly, step by step, through hundreds of thousands of years, developed the +power of reason.</p> +<p>Place a honey-bee in a glass bottle. Turn the bottom of the bottle +toward a lighted lamp so that the open mouth is away from the lamp. +Vainly, ceaselessly, a thousand times, undeterred by the bafflement and the +pain, the bee will hurl himself against the bottom of the bottle as he +strives to win to the light. That is instinct. Place your dog +in a back yard and go away. He is your dog. He loves you. +He yearns toward you as the bee yearns toward the light. He listens +to your departing footsteps. But the fence is too high. Then he +turns his back upon the direction in which you are departing, and runs +around the yard. He is frantic with affection and desire. But +he is not blind. He is observant. He is looking for a hole +under the fence, or through the fence, or for a place where the fence is +not so high. He sees a dry-goods box standing against the +fence. Presto! He leaps upon it, goes over the barrier, and +tears down the street to overtake you. Is that instinct?</p> +<p>Here, in the household where I am writing this, is a little Tahitian +“feeding-child.” He believes firmly that a tiny dwarf +resides in the box of my talking-machine and that it is the tiny dwarf who +does the singing and the talking. Not even Mr. Burroughs will affirm +that the child has reached this conclusion by an instinctive process. +Of course, the child reasons the existence of the dwarf in the box. +How else could the box talk and sing? In that child’s limited +experience it has never encountered a single instance where speech and song +were produced otherwise than by direct human agency. I doubt not that +the dog is considerably surprised when he hears his master’s voice +coming out of a box.</p> +<p>The adult savage, on his first introduction to a telephone, rushes +around to the adjoining room to find the man who is talking through the +partition. Is this act instinctive? No. Out of his +limited experience, out of his limited knowledge of physics, he reasons +that the only explanation possible is that a man is in the other room +talking through the partition.</p> +<p>But that savage cannot be fooled by a hand-mirror. We must go +lower down in the animal scale, to the monkey. The monkey swiftly +learns that the monkey it sees is not in the glass, wherefore it reaches +craftily behind the glass. Is this instinct? No. It is +rudimentary reasoning. Lower than the monkey in the scale of brain is +the robin, and the robin fights its reflection in the window-pane. +Now climb with me for a space. From the robin to the monkey, where is +the impassable gulf? and where is the impassable gulf between the monkey +and the feeding-child? between the feeding-child and the savage who seeks +the man behind the partition? ay, and between the savage and the astute +financiers Mrs. Chadwick fooled and the thousands who were fooled by the +Keeley Motor swindle?</p> +<p>Let us be very humble. We who are so very human are very +animal. Kinship with the other animals is no more repugnant to Mr. +Burroughs than was the heliocentric theory to the priests who compelled +Galileo to recant. Not correct human reason, not the evidence of the +ascertained fact, but pride of ego, was responsible for the repugnance.</p> +<p>In his stiff-necked pride, Mr. Burroughs runs a hazard more humiliating +to that pride than any amount of kinship with the other animals. When +a dog exhibits choice, direction, control, and reason; when it is shown +that certain mental processes in that dog’s brain are precisely +duplicated in the brain of man; and when Mr. Burroughs convincingly proves +that every action of the dog is mechanical and automatic—then, by +precisely the same arguments, can it be proved that the similar actions of +man are mechanical and automatic. No, Mr. Burroughs, though you stand +on the top of the ladder of life, you must not kick out that ladder from +under your feet. You must not deny your relatives, the other +animals. Their history is your history, and if you kick them to the +bottom of the abyss, to the bottom of the abyss you go yourself. By +them you stand or fall. What you repudiate in them you repudiate in +yourself—a pretty spectacle, truly, of an exalted animal striving to +disown the stuff of life out of which it is made, striving by use of the +very reason that was developed by evolution to deny the possession of +evolution that developed it. This may be good egotism, but it is not +good science.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Papeete</span>, <span +class="smcap">Tahiti</span>.<br /> +<i>March</i> 1908.</p> +<h2>THE YELLOW PERIL</h2> +<p>No more marked contrast appears in passing from our Western land to the +paper houses and cherry blossoms of Japan than appears in passing from +Korea to China. To achieve a correct appreciation of the Chinese the +traveller should first sojourn amongst the Koreans for several months, and +then, one fine day, cross over the Yalu into Manchuria. It would be +of exceptional advantage to the correctness of appreciation did he cross +over the Yalu on the heels of a hostile and alien army.</p> +<p>War is to-day the final arbiter in the affairs of men, and it is as yet +the final test of the worth-whileness of peoples. Tested thus, the +Korean fails. He lacks the nerve to remain when a strange army +crosses his land. The few goods and chattels he may have managed to +accumulate he puts on his back, along with his doors and windows, and away +he heads for his mountain fastnesses. Later he may return, sans +goods, chattels, doors, and windows, impelled by insatiable curiosity for a +“look see.” But it is curiosity merely—a timid, +deerlike curiosity. He is prepared to bound away on his long legs at +the first hint of danger or trouble.</p> +<p>Northern Korea was a desolate land when the Japanese passed +through. Villages and towns were deserted. The fields lay +untouched. There was no ploughing nor sowing, no green things +growing. Little or nothing was to be purchased. One carried +one’s own food with him and food for horses and servants was the +anxious problem that waited at the day’s end. In many a lonely +village not an ounce nor a grain of anything could be bought, and yet there +might be standing around scores of white-garmented, stalwart Koreans, +smoking yard-long pipes and chattering, chattering—ceaselessly +chattering. Love, money, or force could not procure from them a +horseshoe or a horseshoe nail.</p> +<p>“Upso,” was their invariable reply. +“Upso,” cursed word, which means “Have not +got.”</p> +<p>They had tramped probably forty miles that day, down from their +hiding-places, just for a “look see,” and forty miles back they +would cheerfully tramp, chattering all the way over what they had +seen. Shake a stick at them as they stand chattering about your +camp-fire, and the gloom of the landscape will be filled with tall, +flitting ghosts, bounding like deer, with great springy strides which one +cannot but envy. They have splendid vigour and fine bodies, but they +are accustomed to being beaten and robbed without protest or resistance by +every chance foreigner who enters their country.</p> +<p>From this nerveless, forsaken Korean land I rode down upon the sandy +islands of the Yalu. For weeks these islands had been the dread +between-the-lines of two fighting armies. The air above had been rent +by screaming projectiles. The echoes of the final battle had scarcely +died away. The trains of Japanese wounded and Japanese dead were +trailing by.</p> +<p>On the conical hill, a quarter of a mile away, the Russian dead were +being buried in their trenches and in the shell holes made by the +Japanese. And here, in the thick of it all, a man was +ploughing. Green things were growing—young onions—and the +man who was weeding them paused from his labour long enough to sell me a +handful. Near by was the smoke-blackened ruin of the farmhouse, fired +by the Russians when they retreated from the riverbed. Two men were +removing the debris, cleaning the confusion, preparatory to +rebuilding. They were clad in blue. Pigtails hung down their +backs. I was in China!</p> +<p>I rode to the shore, into the village of Kuelian-Ching. There were +no lounging men smoking long pipes and chattering. The previous day +the Russians had been there, a bloody battle had been fought, and to-day +the Japanese were there—but what was that to talk about? +Everybody was busy. Men were offering eggs and chickens and fruit for +sale upon the street, and bread, as I live, bread in small round loaves or +buns. I rode on into the country. Everywhere a toiling +population was in evidence. The houses and walls were strong and +substantial. Stone and brick replaced the mud walls of the Korean +dwellings. Twilight fell and deepened, and still the ploughs went up +and down the fields, the sowers following after. Trains of +wheelbarrows, heavily loaded, squeaked by, and Pekin carts, drawn by from +four to six cows, horses, mules, ponies, or jackasses—cows even with +their newborn calves tottering along on puny legs outside the traces. +Everybody worked. Everything worked. I saw a man mending the +road. I was in China.</p> +<p>I came to the city of Antung, and lodged with a merchant. He was a +grain merchant. Corn he had, hundreds of bushels, stored in great +bins of stout matting; peas and beans in sacks, and in the back yard his +millstones went round and round, grinding out meal. Also, in his back +yard, were buildings containing vats sunk into the ground, and here the +tanners were at work making leather. I bought a measure of corn from +mine host for my horses, and he overcharged me thirty cents. I was in +China. Antung was jammed with Japanese troops. It was the thick +of war. But it did not matter. The work of Antung went on just +the same. The shops were wide open; the streets were lined with +pedlars. One could buy anything; get anything made. I dined at +a Chinese restaurant, cleansed myself at a public bath in a private tub +with a small boy to assist in the scrubbing. I bought condensed milk, +bitter, canned vegetables, bread, and cake. I repeat it, +cake—good cake. I bought knives, forks, and spoons, +granite-ware dishes and mugs. There were horseshoes and +horseshoers. A worker in iron realized for me new designs of mine for +my tent poles. My shoes were sent out to be repaired. A barber +shampooed my hair. A servant returned with corn-beef in tins, a +bottle of port, another of cognac, and beer, blessed beer, to wash out from +my throat the dust of an army. It was the land of Canaan. I was +in China.</p> +<p>The Korean is the perfect type of inefficiency—of utter +worthlessness. The Chinese is the perfect type of industry. For +sheer work no worker in the world can compare with him. Work is the +breath of his nostrils. It is his solution of existence. It is +to him what wandering and fighting in far lands and spiritual adventure +have been to other peoples. Liberty to him epitomizes itself in +access to the means of toil. To till the soil and labour interminably +with rude implements and utensils is all he asks of life and of the powers +that be. Work is what he desires above all things, and he will work +at anything for anybody.</p> +<p>During the taking of the Takú forts he carried scaling ladders at +the heads of the storming columns and planted them against the walls. +He did this, not from a sense of patriotism, but for the invading foreign +devils because they paid him a daily wage of fifty cents. He is not +frightened by war. He accepts it as he does rain and sunshine, the +changing of the seasons, and other natural phenomena. He prepares for +it, endures it, and survives it, and when the tide of battle sweeps by, the +thunder of the guns still reverberating in the distant canyons, he is seen +calmly bending to his usual tasks. Nay, war itself bears fruits +whereof he may pick. Before the dead are cold or the burial squads +have arrived he is out on the field, stripping the mangled bodies, +collecting the shrapnel, and ferreting in the shell holes for slivers and +fragments of iron.</p> +<p>The Chinese is no coward. He does not carry away his doors amid +windows to the mountains, but remains to guard them when alien soldiers +occupy his town. He does not hide away his chickens and his eggs, nor +any other commodity he possesses. He proceeds at once to offer them +for sale. Nor is he to be bullied into lowering his price. What +if the purchaser be a soldier and an alien made cocky by victory and +confident by overwhelming force? He has two large pears saved over +from last year which he will sell for five sen, or for the same price three +small pears. What if one soldier persist in taking away with him +three large pears? What if there be twenty other soldiers jostling +about him? He turns over his sack of fruit to another Chinese and +races down the street after his pears and the soldier responsible for their +flight, and he does not return till he has wrenched away one large pear +from that soldier’s grasp.</p> +<p>Nor is the Chinese the type of permanence which he has been so often +designated. He is not so ill-disposed toward new ideas and new +methods as his history would seem to indicate. True, his forms, +customs, and methods have been permanent these many centuries, but this has +been due to the fact that his government was in the hands of the learned +classes, and that these governing scholars found their salvation lay in +suppressing all progressive ideas. The ideas behind the Boxer +troubles and the outbreaks over the introduction of railroad and other +foreign devil machinations have emanated from the minds of the literati, +and been spread by their pamphlets and propagandists.</p> +<p>Originality and enterprise have been suppressed in the Chinese for +scores of generations. Only has remained to him industry, and in this +has he found the supreme expression of his being. On the other hand, +his susceptibility to new ideas has been well demonstrated wherever he has +escaped beyond the restrictions imposed upon him by his government. +So far as the business man is concerned he has grasped far more clearly the +Western code of business, the Western ethics of business, than has the +Japanese. He has learned, as a matter of course, to keep his word or +his bond. As yet, the Japanese business man has failed to understand +this. When he has signed a time contract and when changing conditions +cause him to lose by it, the Japanese merchant cannot understand why he +should live up to his contract. It is beyond his comprehension and +repulsive to his common sense that he should live up to his contract and +thereby lose money. He firmly believes that the changing conditions +themselves absolve him. And in so far adaptable as he has shown +himself to be in other respects, he fails to grasp a radically new idea +where the Chinese succeeds.</p> +<p>Here we have the Chinese, four hundred millions of him, occupying a vast +land of immense natural resources—resources of a twentieth-century +age, of a machine age; resources of coal and iron, which are the backbone +of commercial civilization. He is an indefatigable worker. He +is not dead to new ideas, new methods, new systems. Under a capable +management he can be made to do anything. Truly would he of himself +constitute the much-heralded Yellow Peril were it not for his present +management. This management, his government, is set, +crystallized. It is what binds him down to building as his fathers +built. The governing class, entrenched by the precedent and power of +centuries and by the stamp it has put upon his mind, will never free +him. It would be the suicide of the governing class, and the +governing class knows it.</p> +<p>Comes now the Japanese. On the streets of Antung, of +Feng-Wang-Chang, or of any other Manchurian city, the following is a +familiar scene: One is hurrying home through the dark of the unlighted +streets when he comes upon a paper lantern resting on the ground. On +one side squats a Chinese civilian on his hams, on the other side squats a +Japanese soldier. One dips his forefinger in the dust and writes +strange, monstrous characters. The other nods understanding, sweeps +the dust slate level with his hand, and with his forefinger inscribes +similar characters. They are talking. They cannot speak to each +other, but they can write. Long ago one borrowed the other’s +written language, and long before that, untold generations ago, they +diverged from a common root, the ancient Mongol stock.</p> +<p>There have been changes, differentiations brought about by diverse +conditions and infusions of other blood; but down at the bottom of their +being, twisted into the fibres of them, is a heritage in common—a +sameness in kind which time has not obliterated. The infusion of +other blood, Malay, perhaps, has made the Japanese a race of mastery and +power, a fighting race through all its history, a race which has always +despised commerce and exalted fighting.</p> +<p>To-day, equipped with the finest machines and systems of destruction the +Caucasian mind has devised, handling machines and systems with remarkable +and deadly accuracy, this rejuvenescent Japanese race has embarked on a +course of conquest the goal of which no man knows. The head men of +Japan are dreaming ambitiously, and the people are dreaming blindly, a +Napoleonic dream. And to this dream the Japanese clings and will +cling with bull-dog tenacity. The soldier shouting “Nippon, +Banzai!” on the walls of Wiju, the widow at home in her paper house +committing suicide so that her only son, her sole support, may go to the +front, are both expressing the unanimity of the dream.</p> +<p>The late disturbance in the Far East marked the clashing of the dreams, +for the Slav, too, is dreaming greatly. Granting that the Japanese +can hurl back the Slav and that the two great branches of the Anglo-Saxon +race do not despoil him of his spoils, the Japanese dream takes on +substantiality. Japan’s population is no larger because her +people have continually pressed against the means of subsistence. But +given poor, empty Korea for a breeding colony and Manchuria for a granary, +and at once the Japanese begins to increase by leaps and bounds.</p> +<p>Even so, he would not of himself constitute a Brown Peril. He has +not the time in which to grow and realize the dream. He is only +forty-five millions, and so fast does the economic exploitation of the +planet hurry on the planet’s partition amongst the Western peoples +that, before he could attain the stature requisite to menace, he would see +the Western giants in possession of the very stuff of his dream.</p> +<p>The menace to the Western world lies, not in the little brown man, but +in the four hundred millions of yellow men should the little brown man +undertake their management. The Chinese is not dead to new ideas; he +is an efficient worker; makes a good soldier, and is wealthy in the +essential materials of a machine age. Under a capable management he +will go far. The Japanese is prepared and fit to undertake this +management. Not only has he proved himself an apt imitator of Western +material progress, a sturdy worker, and a capable organizer, but he is far +more fit to manage the Chinese than are we. The baffling enigma of +the Chinese character is no baffling enigma to him. He understands as +we could never school ourselves nor hope to understand. Their mental +processes are largely the same. He thinks with the same +thought-symbols as does the Chinese, and he thinks in the same peculiar +grooves. He goes on where we are balked by the obstacles of +incomprehension. He takes the turning which we cannot perceive, +twists around the obstacle, and, presto! is out of sight in the +ramifications of the Chinese mind where we cannot follow.</p> +<p>The Chinese has been called the type of permanence, and well he has +merited it, dozing as he has through the ages. And as truly was the +Japanese the type of permanence up to a generation ago, when he suddenly +awoke and startled the world with a rejuvenescence the like of which the +world had never seen before. The ideas of the West were the leaven +which quickened the Japanese; and the ideas of the West, transmitted by the +Japanese mind into ideas Japanese, may well make the leaven powerful enough +to quicken the Chinese.</p> +<p>We have had Africa for the Afrikander, and at no distant day we shall +hear “Asia for the Asiatic!” Four hundred million +indefatigable workers (deft, intelligent, and unafraid to die), aroused and +rejuvenescent, managed and guided by forty-five million additional human +beings who are splendid fighting animals, scientific and modern, constitute +that menace to the Western world which has been well named the +“Yellow Peril.” The possibility of race adventure has not +passed away. We are in the midst of our own. The Slav is just +girding himself up to begin. Why may not the yellow and the brown +start out on an adventure as tremendous as our own and more strikingly +unique?</p> +<p>The ultimate success of such an adventure the Western mind refuses to +consider. It is not the nature of life to believe itself weak. +There is such a thing as race egotism as well as creature egotism, and a +very good thing it is. In the first place, the Western world will not +permit the rise of the yellow peril. It is firmly convinced that it +will not permit the yellow and the brown to wax strong and menace its peace +and comfort. It advances this idea with persistency, and delivers +itself of long arguments showing how and why this menace will not be +permitted to arise. To-day, far more voices are engaged in denying +the yellow peril than in prophesying it. The Western world is warned, +if not armed, against the possibility of it.</p> +<p>In the second place, there is a weakness inherent in the brown man which +will bring his adventure to naught. From the West he has borrowed all +our material achievement and passed our ethical achievement by. Our +engines of production and destruction he has made his. What was once +solely ours he now duplicates, rivalling our merchants in the commerce of +the East, thrashing the Russian on sea and land. A marvellous +imitator truly, but imitating us only in things material. Things +spiritual cannot be imitated; they must be felt and lived, woven into the +very fabric of life, and here the Japanese fails.</p> +<p>It required no revolution of his nature to learn to calculate the range +and fire a field gun or to march the goose-step. It was a mere matter +of training. Our material achievement is the product of our +intellect. It is knowledge, and knowledge, like coin, is +interchangeable. It is not wrapped up in the heredity of the new-born +child, but is something to be acquired afterward. Not so with our +soul stuff, which is the product of an evolution which goes back to the raw +beginnings of the race. Our soul stuff is not a coin to be pocketed +by the first chance comer. The Japanese cannot pocket it any more +than he can thrill to short Saxon words or we can thrill to Chinese +hieroglyphics. The leopard cannot change its spots, nor can the +Japanese, nor can we. We are thumbed by the ages into what we are, +and by no conscious inward effort can we in a day rethumb ourselves. +Nor can the Japanese in a day, or a generation, rethumb himself in our +image.</p> +<p>Back of our own great race adventure, back of our robberies by sea and +land, our lusts and violences and all the evil things we have done, there +is a certain integrity, a sternness of conscience, a melancholy +responsibility of life, a sympathy and comradeship and warm human feel, +which is ours, indubitably ours, and which we cannot teach to the Oriental +as we would teach logarithms or the trajectory of projectiles. That +we have groped for the way of right conduct and agonized over the soul +betokens our spiritual endowment. Though we have strayed often and +far from righteousness, the voices of the seers have always been raised, +and we have harked back to the bidding of conscience. The colossal +fact of our history is that we have made the religion of Jesus Christ our +religion. No matter how dark in error and deed, ours has been a +history of spiritual struggle and endeavour. We are pre-eminently a +religious race, which is another way of saying that we are a right-seeking +race.</p> +<p>“What do you think of the Japanese?” was asked an American +woman after she had lived some time in Japan. “It seems to me +that they have no soul,” was her answer.</p> +<p>This must not be taken to mean that the Japanese is without soul. +But it serves to illustrate the enormous difference between their souls and +this woman’s soul. There was no feel, no speech, no +recognition. This Western soul did not dream that the Eastern soul +existed, it was so different, so totally different.</p> +<p>Religion, as a battle for the right in our sense of right, as a yearning +and a strife for spiritual good and purity, is unknown to the Japanese.</p> +<p>Measured by what religion means to us, the Japanese is a race without +religion. Yet it has a religion, and who shall say that it is not as +great a religion as ours, nor as efficacious? As one Japanese has +written:</p> +<p>“Our reflection brought into prominence not so much the moral as +the national consciousness of the individual. . . . To us the country is +more than land and soil from which to mine gold or reap grain—it is +the sacred abode of the gods, the spirit of our forefathers; to us the +Emperor is more than the Arch Constable of a Reichsstaat, or even the +Patron of a Kulturstaat; he is the bodily representative of heaven on +earth, blending in his person its power and its mercy.”</p> +<p>The religion of Japan is practically a worship of the State +itself. Patriotism is the expression of this worship. The +Japanese mind does not split hairs as to whether the Emperor is Heaven +incarnate or the State incarnate. So far as the Japanese are +concerned, the Emperor lives, is himself deity. The Emperor is the +object to live for and to die for. The Japanese is not an +individualist. He has developed national consciousness instead of +moral consciousness. He is not interested in his own moral welfare +except in so far as it is the welfare of the State. The honour of the +individual, <i>per se</i>, does not exist. Only exists the honour of +the State, which is his honour. He does not look upon himself as a +free agent, working out his own personal salvation. Spiritual +agonizing is unknown to him. He has a “sense of calm trust in +fate, a quiet submission to the inevitable, a stoic composure in sight of +danger or calamity, a disdain of life and friendliness with +death.” He relates himself to the State as, amongst bees, the +worker is related to the hive; himself nothing, the State everything; his +reasons for existence the exaltation and glorification of the State.</p> +<p>The most admired quality to-day of the Japanese is his patriotism. +The Western world is in rhapsodies over it, unwittingly measuring the +Japanese patriotism by its own conceptions of patriotism. “For +God, my country, and the Czar!” cries the Russian patriot; but in the +Japanese mind there is no differentiation between the three. The +Emperor is the Emperor, and God and country as well. The patriotism +of the Japanese is blind and unswerving loyalty to what is practically an +absolutism. The Emperor can do no wrong, nor can the five ambitious +great men who have his ear and control the destiny of Japan.</p> +<p>No great race adventure can go far nor endure long which has no deeper +foundation than material success, no higher prompting than conquest for +conquest’s sake and mere race glorification. To go far and to +endure, it must have behind it an ethical impulse, a sincerely conceived +righteousness. But it must be taken into consideration that the above +postulate is itself a product of Western race-egotism, urged by our belief +in our own righteousness and fostered by a faith in ourselves which may be +as erroneous as are most fond race fancies. So be it. The world +is whirling faster to-day than ever before. It has gained +impetus. Affairs rush to conclusion. The Far East is the point +of contact of the adventuring Western people as well as of the +Asiatic. We shall not have to wait for our children’s time nor +our children’s children. We shall ourselves see and largely +determine the adventure of the Yellow and the Brown.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Feng-Wang-Cheng</span>, <span +class="smcap">Manchuria</span>.<br /> +<i>June</i> 1904,</p> +<h2>WHAT LIFE MEANS TO ME</h2> +<p>I was born in the working-class. Early I discovered enthusiasm, +ambition, and ideals; and to satisfy these became the problem of my +child-life. My environment was crude and rough and raw. I had +no outlook, but an uplook rather. My place in society was at the +bottom. Here life offered nothing but sordidness and wretchedness, +both of the flesh and the spirit; for here flesh and spirit were alike +starved and tormented.</p> +<p>Above me towered the colossal edifice of society, and to my mind the +only way out was up. Into this edifice I early resolved to +climb. Up above, men wore black clothes and boiled shirts, and women +dressed in beautiful gowns. Also, there were good things to eat, and +there was plenty to eat. This much for the flesh. Then there +were the things of the spirit. Up above me, I knew, were +unselfishnesses of the spirit, clean and noble thinking, keen intellectual +living. I knew all this because I read “Seaside Library” +novels, in which, with the exception of the villains and adventuresses, all +men and women thought beautiful thoughts, spoke a beautiful tongue, and +performed glorious deeds. In short, as I accepted the rising of the +sun, I accepted that up above me was all that was fine and noble and +gracious, all that gave decency and dignity to life, all that made life +worth living and that remunerated one for his travail and misery.</p> +<p>But it is not particularly easy for one to climb up out of the +working-class—especially if he is handicapped by the possession of +ideals and illusions. I lived on a ranch in California, and was hard +put to find the ladder whereby to climb. I early inquired the rate of +interest on invested money, and worried my child’s brain into an +understanding of the virtues and excellences of that remarkable invention +of man, compound interest. Further, I ascertained the current rates +of wages for workers of all ages, and the cost of living. From all +this data I concluded that if I began immediately and worked and saved +until I was fifty years of age, I could then stop working and enter into +participation in a fair portion of the delights and goodnesses that would +then be open to me higher up in society. Of course, I resolutely +determined not to marry, while I quite forgot to consider at all that great +rock of disaster in the working-class world—sickness.</p> +<p>But the life that was in me demanded more than a meagre existence of +scraping and scrimping. Also, at ten years of age, I became a newsboy +on the streets of a city, and found myself with a changed uplook. All +about me were still the same sordidness and wretchedness, and up above me +was still the same paradise waiting to be gained; but the ladder whereby to +climb was a different one. It was now the ladder of business. +Why save my earnings and invest in government bonds, when, by buying two +newspapers for five cents, with a turn of the wrist I could sell them for +ten cents and double my capital? The business ladder was the ladder +for me, and I had a vision of myself becoming a bald-headed and successful +merchant prince.</p> +<p>Alas for visions! When I was sixteen I had already earned the +title of “prince.” But this title was given me by a gang +of cut-throats and thieves, by whom I was called “The Prince of the +Oyster Pirates.” And at that time I had climbed the first rung +of the business ladder. I was a capitalist. I owned a boat and +a complete oyster-pirating outfit. I had begun to exploit my +fellow-creatures. I had a crew of one man. As captain and owner +I took two-thirds of the spoils, and gave the crew one-third, though the +crew worked just as hard as I did and risked just as much his life and +liberty.</p> +<p>This one rung was the height I climbed up the business ladder. One +night I went on a raid amongst the Chinese fishermen. Ropes and nets +were worth dollars and cents. It was robbery, I grant, but it was +precisely the spirit of capitalism. The capitalist takes away the +possessions of his fellow-creatures by means of a rebate, or of a betrayal +of trust, or by the purchase of senators and supreme-court judges. I +was merely crude. That was the only difference. I used a +gun.</p> +<p>But my crew that night was one of those inefficients against whom the +capitalist is wont to fulminate, because, forsooth, such inefficients +increase expenses and reduce dividends. My crew did both. What +of his carelessness he set fire to the big mainsail and totally destroyed +it. There weren’t any dividends that night, and the Chinese +fishermen were richer by the nets and ropes we did not get. I was +bankrupt, unable just then to pay sixty-five dollars for a new +mainsail. I left my boat at anchor and went off on a bay-pirate boat +on a raid up the Sacramento River. While away on this trip, another +gang of bay pirates raided my boat. They stole everything, even the +anchors; and later on, when I recovered the drifting hulk, I sold it for +twenty dollars. I had slipped back the one rung I had climbed, and +never again did I attempt the business ladder.</p> +<p>From then on I was mercilessly exploited by other capitalists. I +had the muscle, and they made money out of it while I made but a very +indifferent living out of it. I was a sailor before the mast, a +longshoreman, a roustabout; I worked in canneries, and factories, and +laundries; I mowed lawns, and cleaned carpets, and washed windows. +And I never got the full product of my toil. I looked at the daughter +of the cannery owner, in her carriage, and knew that it was my muscle, in +part, that helped drag along that carriage on its rubber tyres. I +looked at the son of the factory owner, going to college, and knew that it +was my muscle that helped, in part, to pay for the wine and good fellowship +he enjoyed.</p> +<p>But I did not resent this. It was all in the game. They were +the strong. Very well, I was strong. I would carve my way to a +place amongst them and make money out of the muscles of other men. I +was not afraid of work. I loved hard work. I would pitch in and +work harder than ever and eventually become a pillar of society.</p> +<p>And just then, as luck would have it, I found an employer that was of +the same mind. I was willing to work, and he was more than willing +that I should work. I thought I was learning a trade. In +reality, I had displaced two men. I thought he was making an +electrician out of me; as a matter of fact, he was making fifty dollars per +month out of me. The two men I had displaced had received forty +dollars each per month; I was doing the work of both for thirty dollars per +month.</p> +<p>This employer worked me nearly to death. A man may love oysters, +but too many oysters will disincline him toward that particular diet. +And so with me. Too much work sickened me. I did not wish ever +to see work again. I fled from work. I became a tramp, begging +my way from door to door, wandering over the United States and sweating +bloody sweats in slums and prisons.</p> +<p>I had been born in the working-class, and I was now, at the age of +eighteen, beneath the point at which I had started. I was down in the +cellar of society, down in the subterranean depths of misery about which it +is neither nice nor proper to speak. I was in the pit, the abyss, the +human cesspool, the shambles and the charnel-house of our +civilization. This is the part of the edifice of society that society +chooses to ignore. Lack of space compels me here to ignore it, and I +shall say only that the things I there saw gave me a terrible scare.</p> +<p>I was scared into thinking. I saw the naked simplicities of the +complicated civilization in which I lived. Life was a matter of food +and shelter. In order to get food and shelter men sold things. +The merchant sold shoes, the politician sold his manhood, and the +representative of the people, with exceptions, of course, sold his trust; +while nearly all sold their honour. Women, too, whether on the street +or in the holy bond of wedlock, were prone to sell their flesh. All +things were commodities, all people bought and sold. The one +commodity that labour had to sell was muscle. The honour of labour +had no price in the marketplace. Labour had muscle, and muscle alone, +to sell.</p> +<p>But there was a difference, a vital difference. Shoes and trust +and honour had a way of renewing themselves. They were imperishable +stocks. Muscle, on the other hand, did not renew. As the shoe +merchant sold shoes, he continued to replenish his stock. But there +was no way of replenishing the labourer’s stock of muscle. The +more he sold of his muscle, the less of it remained to him. It was +his one commodity, and each day his stock of it diminished. In the +end, if he did not die before, he sold out and put up his shutters. +He was a muscle bankrupt, and nothing remained to him but to go down into +the cellar of society and perish miserably.</p> +<p>I learned, further, that brain was likewise a commodity. It, too, +was different from muscle. A brain seller was only at his prime when +he was fifty or sixty years old, and his wares were fetching higher prices +than ever. But a labourer was worked out or broken down at forty-five +or fifty. I had been in the cellar of society, and I did not like the +place as a habitation. The pipes and drains were unsanitary, and the +air was bad to breathe. If I could not live on the parlour floor of +society, I could, at any rate, have a try at the attic. It was true, +the diet there was slim, but the air at least was pure. So I resolved +to sell no more muscle, and to become a vendor of brains.</p> +<p>Then began a frantic pursuit of knowledge. I returned to +California and opened the books. While thus equipping myself to +become a brain merchant, it was inevitable that I should delve into +sociology. There I found, in a certain class of books, scientifically +formulated, the simple sociological concepts I had already worked out for +myself. Other and greater minds, before I was born, had worked out +all that I had thought and a vast deal more. I discovered that I was +a socialist.</p> +<p>The socialists were revolutionists, inasmuch as they struggled to +overthrow the society of the present, and out of the material to build the +society of the future. I, too, was a socialist and a +revolutionist. I joined the groups of working-class and intellectual +revolutionists, and for the first time came into intellectual living. +Here I found keen-flashing intellects and brilliant wits; for here I met +strong and alert-brained, withal horny-handed, members of the +working-class; unfrocked preachers too wide in their Christianity for any +congregation of Mammon-worshippers; professors broken on the wheel of +university subservience to the ruling class and flung out because they were +quick with knowledge which they strove to apply to the affairs of +mankind.</p> +<p>Here I found, also, warm faith in the human, glowing idealism, +sweetnesses of unselfishness, renunciation, and martyrdom—all the +splendid, stinging things of the spirit. Here life was clean, noble, +and alive. Here life rehabilitated itself, became wonderful and +glorious; and I was glad to be alive. I was in touch with great souls +who exalted flesh and spirit over dollars and cents, and to whom the thin +wail of the starved slum child meant more than all the pomp and +circumstance of commercial expansion and world empire. All about me +were nobleness of purpose and heroism of effort, and my days and nights +were sunshine and starshine, all fire and dew, with before my eyes, ever +burning and blazing, the Holy Grail, Christ’s own Grail, the warm +human, long-suffering and maltreated, but to be rescued and saved at the +last.</p> +<p>And I, poor foolish I, deemed all this to be a mere foretaste of the +delights of living I should find higher above me in society. I had +lost many illusions since the day I read “Seaside Library” +novels on the California ranch. I was destined to lose many of the +illusions I still retained.</p> +<p>As a brain merchant I was a success. Society opened its portals to +me. I entered right in on the parlour floor, and my disillusionment +proceeded rapidly. I sat down to dinner with the masters of society, +and with the wives and daughters of the masters of society. The women +were gowned beautifully, I admit; but to my naïve surprise I +discovered that they were of the same clay as all the rest of the women I +had known down below in the cellar. “The colonel’s lady +and Judy O’Grady were sisters under their skins”—and +gowns.</p> +<p>It was not this, however, so much as their materialism, that shocked +me. It is true, these beautifully gowned, beautiful women prattled +sweet little ideals and dear little moralities; but in spite of their +prattle the dominant key of the life they lived was materialistic. +And they were so sentimentally selfish! They assisted in all kinds of +sweet little charities, and informed one of the fact, while all the time +the food they ate and the beautiful clothes they wore were bought out of +dividends stained with the blood of child labour, and sweated labour, and +of prostitution itself. When I mentioned such facts, expecting in my +innocence that these sisters of Judy O’Grady would at once strip off +their blood-dyed silks and jewels, they became excited and angry, and read +me preachments about the lack of thrift, the drink, and the innate +depravity that caused all the misery in society’s cellar. When +I mentioned that I couldn’t quite see that it was the lack of thrift, +the intemperance, and the depravity of a half-starved child of six that +made it work twelve hours every night in a Southern cotton mill, these +sisters of Judy O’Grady attacked my private life and called me an +“agitator”—as though that, forsooth, settled the +argument.</p> +<p>Nor did I fare better with the masters themselves. I had expected +to find men who were clean, noble, and alive, whose ideals were clean, +noble, and alive. I went about amongst the men who sat in the high +places—the preachers, the politicians, the business men, the +professors, and the editors. I ate meat with them, drank wine with +them, automobiled with them, and studied them. It is true, I found +many that were clean and noble; but with rare exceptions, they were not +<i>alive</i>. I do verily believe I could count the exceptions on the +fingers of my two hands. Where they were not alive with rottenness, +quick with unclean life, there were merely the unburied dead—clean +and noble, like well-preserved mummies, but not alive. In this +connection I may especially mention the professors I met, the men who live +up to that decadent university ideal, “the passionless pursuit of +passionless intelligence.”</p> +<p>I met men who invoked the name of the Prince of Peace in their diatribes +against war, and who put rifles in the hands of Pinkertons with which to +shoot down strikers in their own factories. I met men incoherent with +indignation at the brutality of prize-fighting, and who, at the same time, +were parties to the adulteration of food that killed each year more babies +than even red-handed Herod had killed.</p> +<p>I talked in hotels and clubs and homes and Pullmans, and steamer-chairs +with captains of industry, and marvelled at how little travelled they were +in the realm of intellect. On the other hand, I discovered that their +intellect, in the business sense, was abnormally developed. Also, I +discovered that their morality, where business was concerned, was nil.</p> +<p>This delicate, aristocratic-featured gentleman, was a dummy director and +a tool of corporations that secretly robbed widows and orphans. This +gentleman, who collected fine editions and was an especial patron of +literature, paid blackmail to a heavy-jowled, black-browed boss of a +municipal machine. This editor, who published patent medicine +advertisements and did not dare print the truth in his paper about said +patent medicines for fear of losing the advertising, called me a +scoundrelly demagogue because I told him that his political economy was +antiquated and that his biology was contemporaneous with Pliny.</p> +<p>This senator was the tool and the slave, the little puppet of a gross, +uneducated machine boss; so was this governor and this supreme court judge; +and all three rode on railroad passes. This man, talking soberly and +earnestly about the beauties of idealism and the goodness of God, had just +betrayed his comrades in a business deal. This man, a pillar of the +church and heavy contributor to foreign missions, worked his shop girls ten +hours a day on a starvation wage and thereby directly encouraged +prostitution. This man, who endowed chairs in universities, perjured +himself in courts of law over a matter of dollars and cents. And this +railroad magnate broke his word as a gentleman and a Christian when he +granted a secret rebate to one of two captains of industry locked together +in a struggle to the death.</p> +<p>It was the same everywhere, crime and betrayal, betrayal and +crime—men who were alive, but who were neither clean nor noble, men +who were clean and noble, but who were not alive. Then there was a +great, hopeless mass, neither noble nor alive, but merely clean. It +did not sin positively nor deliberately; but it did sin passively and +ignorantly by acquiescing in the current immorality and profiting by +it. Had it been noble and alive it would not have been ignorant, and +it would have refused to share in the profits of betrayal and crime.</p> +<p>I discovered that I did not like to live on the parlour floor of +society. Intellectually I was as bored. Morally and spiritually +I was sickened. I remembered my intellectuals and idealists, my +unfrocked preachers, broken professors, and clean-minded, class-conscious +working-men. I remembered my days and nights of sunshine and +starshine, where life was all a wild sweet wonder, a spiritual paradise of +unselfish adventure and ethical romance. And I saw before me, ever +blazing and burning, the Holy Grail.</p> +<p>So I went back to the working-class, in which I had been born and where +I belonged. I care no longer to climb. The imposing edifice of +society above my head holds no delights for me. It is the foundation +of the edifice that interests me. There I am content to labour, +crowbar in hand, shoulder to shoulder with intellectuals, idealists, and +class-conscious working-men, getting a solid pry now and again and setting +the whole edifice rocking. Some day, when we get a few more hands and +crowbars to work, we’ll topple it over, along with all its rotten +life and unburied dead, its monstrous selfishness and sodden +materialism. Then we’ll cleanse the cellar and build a new +habitation for mankind, in which there will be no parlour floor, in which +all the rooms will be bright and airy, and where the air that is breathed +will be clean, noble, and alive.</p> +<p>Such is my outlook. I look forward to a time when man shall +progress upon something worthier and higher than his stomach, when there +will be a finer incentive to impel men to action than the incentive of +to-day, which is the incentive of the stomach. I retain my belief in +the nobility and excellence of the human. I believe that spiritual +sweetness and unselfishness will conquer the gross gluttony of +to-day. And last of all, my faith is in the working-class. As +some Frenchman has said, “The stairway of time is ever echoing with +the wooden shoe going up, the polished boot descending.”</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Newton</span>, <span class="smcap">Iowa</span>.<br +/> +<i>November</i> 1905.</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK REVOLUTION AND OTHER ESSAYS***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 4953-h.htm or 4953-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/4/9/5/4953 + + + +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 +http://www.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 http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/pglaf. + + +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. 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 http://www.gutenberg.org/about/contact + +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 http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate + +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 checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: +http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is 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: + + http://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. + +</pre></body> +</html> diff --git a/4953.txt b/4953.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1e23d61 --- /dev/null +++ b/4953.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5810 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Revolution and Other Essays, by Jack London + + +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: Revolution and Other Essays + + +Author: Jack London + + + +Release Date: July 11, 2007 [eBook #4953] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK REVOLUTION AND OTHER ESSAYS*** + + + +Transcribed from the 1910 Mills and Boon edition by David Price, email +ccx074@pglaf.org + + + + + +REVOLUTION AND OTHER ESSAYS + + + BY + JACK LONDON + + "History warns us that it is the customary fate of new truths to + begin as heresies and to end as superstitions." + + HUXLEY. + + MILLS & BOON, LIMITED + 49 RUPERT STREET + LONDON, W.1 + + _Copyright in the United States of America_, 1910, _by The Macmillan + Company_. + +Contents: + + Revolution + The Somnambulists + The Dignity of Dollars + Goliah + The Golden Poppy + The Shrinkage of the Planet + The House Beautiful + The Gold Hunters of the North + Foma Gordyeeff + These Bones shall Rise Again + The Other Animals + The Yellow Peril + What Life Means to Me + + + + +REVOLUTION + + + "The present is enough for common souls, + Who, never looking forward, are indeed + Mere clay, wherein the footprints of their age + Are petrified for ever." + +I received a letter the other day. It was from a man in Arizona. It +began, "Dear Comrade." It ended, "Yours for the Revolution." I replied +to the letter, and my letter began, "Dear Comrade." It ended, "Yours for +the Revolution." In the United States there are 400,000 men, of men and +women nearly 1,000,000, who begin their letters "Dear Comrade," and end +them "Yours for the Revolution." In Germany there are 3,000,000 men who +begin their letters "Dear Comrade" and end them "Yours for the +Revolution"; in France, 1,000,000 men; in Austria, 800,000 men; in +Belgium, 300,000 men; in Italy, 250,000 men; in England, 100,000 men; in +Switzerland, 100,000 men; in Denmark, 55,000 men; in Sweden, 50,000 men; +in Holland, 40,000 men; in Spain, 30,000 men--comrades all, and +revolutionists. + +These are numbers which dwarf the grand armies of Napoleon and Xerxes. +But they are numbers not of conquest and maintenance of the established +order, but of conquest and revolution. They compose, when the roll is +called, an army of 7,000,000 men, who, in accordance with the conditions +of to-day, are fighting with all their might for the conquest of the +wealth of the world and for the complete overthrow of existing society. + +There has never been anything like this revolution in the history of the +world. There is nothing analogous between it and the American Revolution +or the French Revolution. It is unique, colossal. Other revolutions +compare with it as asteroids compare with the sun. It is alone of its +kind, the first world-revolution in a world whose history is replete with +revolutions. And not only this, for it is the first organized movement +of men to become a world movement, limited only by the limits of the +planet. + +This revolution is unlike all other revolutions in many respects. It is +not sporadic. It is not a flame of popular discontent, arising in a day +and dying down in a day. It is older than the present generation. It +has a history and traditions, and a martyr-roll only less extensive +possibly than the martyr-roll of Christianity. It has also a literature +a myriad times more imposing, scientific, and scholarly than the +literature of any previous revolution. + +They call themselves "comrades," these men, comrades in the socialist +revolution. Nor is the word empty and meaningless, coined of mere lip +service. It knits men together as brothers, as men should be knit +together who stand shoulder to shoulder under the red banner of revolt. +This red banner, by the way, symbolizes the brotherhood of man, and does +not symbolize the incendiarism that instantly connects itself with the +red banner in the affrighted bourgeois mind. The comradeship of the +revolutionists is alive and warm. It passes over geographical lines, +transcends race prejudice, and has even proved itself mightier than the +Fourth of July, spread-eagle Americanism of our forefathers. The French +socialist working-men and the German socialist working-men forget Alsace +and Lorraine, and, when war threatens, pass resolutions declaring that as +working-men and comrades they have no quarrel with each other. Only the +other day, when Japan and Russia sprang at each other's throats, the +revolutionists of Japan addressed the following message to the +revolutionists of Russia: "Dear Comrades--Your government and ours have +recently plunged into war to carry out their imperialistic tendencies, +but for us socialists there are no boundaries, race, country, or +nationality. We are comrades, brothers, and sisters, and have no reason +to fight. Your enemies are not the Japanese people, but our militarism +and so-called patriotism. Patriotism and militarism are our mutual +enemies." + +In January 1905, throughout the United States the socialists held +mass-meetings to express their sympathy for their struggling comrades, +the revolutionists of Russia, and, more to the point, to furnish the +sinews of war by collecting money and cabling it to the Russian leaders. +The fact of this call for money, and the ready response, and the very +wording of the call, make a striking and practical demonstration of the +international solidarity of this world-revolution: + +"Whatever may be the immediate results of the present revolt in Russia, +the socialist propaganda in that country has received from it an impetus +unparalleled in the history of modern class wars. The heroic battle for +freedom is being fought almost exclusively by the Russian working-class +under the intellectual leadership of Russian socialists, thus once more +demonstrating the fact that the class-conscious working-men have become +the vanguard of all liberating movements of modern times." + +Here are 7,000,000 comrades in an organized, international, world-wide, +revolutionary movement. Here is a tremendous human force. It must be +reckoned with. Here is power. And here is romance--romance so colossal +that it seems to be beyond the ken of ordinary mortals. These +revolutionists are swayed by great passion. They have a keen sense of +personal right, much of reverence for humanity, but little reverence, if +any at all, for the rule of the dead. They refuse to be ruled by the +dead. To the bourgeois mind their unbelief in the dominant conventions +of the established order is startling. They laugh to scorn the sweet +ideals and dear moralities of bourgeois society. They intend to destroy +bourgeois society with most of its sweet ideals and dear moralities, and +chiefest among these are those that group themselves under such heads as +private ownership of capital, survival of the fittest, and +patriotism--even patriotism. + +Such an army of revolution, 7,000,000 strong, is a thing to make rulers +and ruling classes pause and consider. The cry of this army is, "No +quarter! We want all that you possess. We will be content with nothing +less than all that you possess. We want in our hands the reins of power +and the destiny of mankind. Here are our hands. They are strong hands. +We are going to take your governments, your palaces, and all your purpled +ease away from you, and in that day you shall work for your bread even as +the peasant in the field or the starved and runty clerk in your +metropolises. Here are our hands. They are strong hands." + +Well may rulers and ruling classes pause and consider. This is +revolution. And, further, these 7,000,000 men are not an army on paper. +Their fighting strength in the field is 7,000,000. To-day they cast +7,000,000 votes in the civilized countries of the world. + +Yesterday they were not so strong. To-morrow they will be still +stronger. And they are fighters. They love peace. They are unafraid of +war. They intend nothing less than to destroy existing capitalist +society and to take possession of the whole world. If the law of the +land permits, they fight for this end peaceably, at the ballot-box. If +the law of the land does not permit, and if they have force meted out to +them, they resort to force themselves. They meet violence with violence. +Their hands are strong and they are unafraid. In Russia, for instance, +there is no suffrage. The government executes the revolutionists. The +revolutionists kill the officers of the government. The revolutionists +meet legal murder with assassination. + +Now here arises a particularly significant phase which it would be well +for the rulers to consider. Let me make it concrete. I am a +revolutionist. Yet I am a fairly sane and normal individual. I speak, +and I _think_, of these assassins in Russia as "my comrades." So do all +the comrades in America, and all the 7,000,000 comrades in the world. Of +what worth an organized, international, revolutionary movement if our +comrades are not backed up the world over! The worth is shown by the +fact that we do back up the assassinations by our comrades in Russia. +They are not disciples of Tolstoy, nor are we. We are revolutionists. + +Our comrades in Russia have formed what they call "The Fighting +Organization." This Fighting Organization accused, tried, found guilty, +and condemned to death, one Sipiaguin, Minister of Interior. On April 2 +he was shot and killed in the Maryinsky Palace. Two years later the +Fighting Organization condemned to death and executed another Minister of +Interior, Von Plehve. Having done so, it issued a document, dated July +29, 1904, setting forth the counts of its indictment of Von Plehve and +its responsibility for the assassination. Now, and to the point, this +document was sent out to the socialists of the world, and by them was +published everywhere in the magazines and newspapers. The point is, not +that the socialists of the world were unafraid to do it, not that they +dared to do it, but that they did it as a matter of routine, giving +publication to what may be called an official document of the +international revolutionary movement. + +These are high lights upon the revolution--granted, but they are also +facts. And they are given to the rulers and the ruling classes, not in +bravado, not to frighten them, but for them to consider more deeply the +spirit and nature of this world-revolution. The time has come for the +revolution to demand consideration. It has fastened upon every civilized +country in the world. As fast as a country becomes civilized, the +revolution fastens upon it. With the introduction of the machine into +Japan, socialism was introduced. Socialism marched into the Philippines +shoulder to shoulder with the American soldiers. The echoes of the last +gun had scarcely died away when socialist locals were forming in Cuba and +Porto Rico. Vastly more significant is the fact that of all the +countries the revolution has fastened upon, on not one has it relaxed its +grip. On the contrary, on every country its grip closes tighter year by +year. As an active movement it began obscurely over a generation ago. +In 1867, its voting strength in the world was 30,000. By 1871 its vote +had increased to 1,000,000. Not till 1884 did it pass the half-million +point. By 1889 it had passed the million point, it had then gained +momentum. In 1892 the socialist vote of the world was 1,798,391; in +1893, 2,585,898; in 1895, 3,033,718; in 1898, 4,515,591; in 1902, +5,253,054; in 1903, 6,285,374; and in the year of our Lord 1905 it passed +the seven-million mark. + +Nor has this flame of revolution left the United States untouched. In +1888 there were only 2,068 socialist votes. In 1902 there were 127,713 +socialist votes. And in 1904 435,040 socialist votes were cast. What +fanned this flame? Not hard times. The first four years of the +twentieth century were considered prosperous years, yet in that time more +than 300,000 men added themselves to the ranks of the revolutionists, +flinging their defiance in the teeth of bourgeois society and taking +their stand under the blood-red banner. In the state of the writer, +California, one man in twelve is an avowed and registered revolutionist. + +One thing must be clearly understood. This is no spontaneous and vague +uprising of a large mass of discontented and miserable people--a blind +and instinctive recoil from hurt. On the contrary, the propaganda is +intellectual; the movement is based upon economic necessity and is in +line with social evolution; while the miserable people have not yet +revolted. The revolutionist is no starved and diseased slave in the +shambles at the bottom of the social pit, but is, in the main, a hearty, +well-fed working-man, who sees the shambles waiting for him and his +children and recoils from the descent. The very miserable people are too +helpless to help themselves. But they are being helped, and the day is +not far distant when their numbers will go to swell the ranks of the +revolutionists. + +Another thing must be clearly understood. In spite of the fact that +middle-class men and professional men are interested in the movement, it +is nevertheless a distinctly working-class revolt. The world over, it is +a working-class revolt. The workers of the world, as a class, are +fighting the capitalists of the world, as a class. The so-called great +middle class is a growing anomaly in the social struggle. It is a +perishing class (wily statisticians to the contrary), and its historic +mission of buffer between the capitalist and working-classes has just +about been fulfilled. Little remains for it but to wail as it passes +into oblivion, as it has already begun to wail in accents Populistic and +Jeffersonian-Democratic. The fight is on. The revolution is here now, +and it is the world's workers that are in revolt. + +Naturally the question arises: Why is this so? No mere whim of the +spirit can give rise to a world-revolution. Whim does not conduce to +unanimity. There must be a deep-seated cause to make 7,000,000 men of +the one mind, to make them cast off allegiance to the bourgeois gods and +lose faith in so fine a thing as patriotism. There are many counts of +the indictment which the revolutionists bring against the capitalist +class, but for present use only one need be stated, and it is a count to +which capital has never replied and can never reply. + +The capitalist class has managed society, and its management has failed. +And not only has it failed in its management, but it has failed +deplorably, ignobly, horribly. The capitalist class had an opportunity +such as was vouchsafed no previous ruling class in the history of the +world. It broke away from the rule of the old feudal aristocracy and +made modern society. It mastered matter, organized the machinery of +life, and made possible a wonderful era for mankind, wherein no creature +should cry aloud because it had not enough to eat, and wherein for every +child there would be opportunity for education, for intellectual and +spiritual uplift. Matter being mastered, and the machinery of life +organized, all this was possible. Here was the chance, God-given, and +the capitalist class failed. It was blind and greedy. It prattled sweet +ideals and dear moralities, rubbed its eyes not once, nor ceased one whit +in its greediness, and smashed down in a failure as tremendous only as +was the opportunity it had ignored. + +But all this is like so much cobwebs to the bourgeois mind. As it was +blind in the past, it is blind now and cannot see nor understand. Well, +then, let the indictment be stated more definitely, in terms sharp and +unmistakable. In the first place, consider the caveman. He was a very +simple creature. His head slanted back like an orang-outang's, and he +had but little more intelligence. He lived in a hostile environment, the +prey of all manner of fierce life. He had no inventions nor artifices. +His natural efficiency for food-getting was, say, 1. He did not even +till the soil. With his natural efficiency of 1, he fought off his +carnivorous enemies and got himself food and shelter. He must have done +all this, else he would not have multiplied and spread over the earth and +sent his progeny down, generation by generation, to become even you and +me. + +The caveman, with his natural efficiency of 1, got enough to eat most of +the time, and no caveman went hungry all the time. Also, he lived a +healthy, open-air life, loafed and rested himself, and found plenty of +time in which to exercise his imagination and invent gods. That is to +say, he did not have to work all his waking moments in order to get +enough to eat. The child of the caveman (and this is true of the +children of all savage peoples) had a childhood, and by that is meant a +happy childhood of play and development. + +And now, how fares modern man? Consider the United States, the most +prosperous and most enlightened country of the world. In the United +States there are 10,000,000 people living in poverty. By poverty is +meant that condition in life in which, through lack of food and adequate +shelter, the mere standard of working efficiency cannot be maintained. +In the United States there are 10,000,000 people who have not enough to +eat. In the United States, because they have not enough to eat, there +are 10,000,000 people who cannot keep the ordinary 1 measure of strength +in their bodies. This means that these 10,000,000 people are perishing, +are dying, body and soul, slowly, because they have not enough to eat. +All over this broad, prosperous, enlightened land, are men, women, and +children who are living miserably. In all the great cities, where they +are segregated in slum ghettos by hundreds of thousands and by millions, +their misery becomes beastliness. No caveman ever starved as chronically +as they starve, ever slept as vilely as they sleep, ever festered with +rottenness and disease as they fester, nor ever toiled as hard and for as +long hours as they toil. + +In Chicago there is a woman who toiled sixty hours per week. She was a +garment worker. She sewed buttons on clothes. Among the Italian garment +workers of Chicago, the average weekly wage of the dressmakers is 90 +cents, but they work every week in the year. The average weekly wage of +the pants finishers is $1.31, and the average number of weeks employed in +the year is 27.85. The average yearly earnings of the dressmakers is +$37; of the pants finishers, $42.41. Such wages means no childhood for +the children, beastliness of living, and starvation for all. + +Unlike the caveman, modern man cannot get food and shelter whenever he +feels like working for it. Modern man has first to find the work, and in +this he is often unsuccessful. Then misery becomes acute. This acute +misery is chronicled daily in the newspapers. Let several of the +countless instances be cited. + + In New York City lived a woman, Mary Mead. She had three children: + Mary, one year old; Johanna, two years old; Alice, four years old. + Her husband could find no work. They starved. They were evicted + from their shelter at 160 Steuben Street. Mary Mead strangled her + baby, Mary, one year old; strangled Alice, four years old; failed to + strangle Johanna, two years old, and then herself took poison. Said + the father to the police: "Constant poverty had driven my wife + insane. We lived at No. 160 Steuben Street until a week ago, when we + were dispossessed. I could get no work. I could not even make + enough to put food into our mouths. The babies grew ill and weak. + My wife cried nearly all the time." + + "So overwhelmed is the Department of Charities with tens of thousands + of applications from men out of work that it finds itself unable to + cope with the situation."--_New York Commercial_, January 11, 1905. + +In a daily paper, because he cannot get work in order to get something to +eat, modern man advertises as follows: + + "Young man, good education, unable to obtain employment, will sell to + physician and bacteriologist for experimental purposes all right and + title to his body. Address for price, box 3466, _Examiner_." + + "Frank A. Mallin went to the central police station Wednesday night + and asked to be locked up on a charge of vagrancy. He said he had + been conducting an unsuccessful search for work for so long that he + was sure he must be a vagrant. In any event, he was so hungry he + must be fed. Police Judge Graham sentenced him to ninety days' + imprisonment."--_San Francisco Examiner_. + +In a room at the Soto House, 32 Fourth Street, San Francisco, was found +the body of W. G. Robbins. He had turned on the gas. Also was found his +diary, from which the following extracts are made + + "_March_ 3.--No chance of getting anything here. What will I do? + + "_March_ 7.--Cannot find anything yet. + + "_March_ 8.--Am living on doughnuts at five cents a day. + + "_March_ 9.--My last quarter gone for room rent. + + "_March_ 10.--God help me. Have only five cents left. Can get + nothing to do. What next? Starvation or--? I have spent my last + nickel to-night. What shall I do? Shall it be steal, beg, or die? + I have never stolen, begged, or starved in all my fifty years of + life, but now I am on the brink--death seems the only refuge. + + "_March_ 11.--Sick all day--burning fever this afternoon. Had + nothing to eat to-day or since yesterday noon. My head, my head. + Good-bye, all." + +How fares the child of modern man in this most prosperous of lands? In +the city of New York 50,000 children go hungry to school every morning. +From the same city on January 12, a press despatch was sent out over the +country of a case reported by Dr. A. E. Daniel, of the New York Infirmary +for Women and Children. The case was that of a babe, eighteen months +old, who earned by its labour fifty cents per week in a tenement +sweat-shop. + + "On a pile of rags in a room bare of furniture and freezing cold, + Mrs. Mary Gallin, dead from starvation, with an emaciated baby four + months old crying at her breast, was found this morning at 513 Myrtle + Avenue, Brooklyn, by Policeman McConnon of the Flushing Avenue + Station. Huddled together for warmth in another part of the room + were the father, James Gallin, and three children ranging from two to + eight years of age. The children gazed at the policeman much as + ravenous animals might have done. They were famished, and there was + not a vestige of food in their comfortless home."--_New York + Journal_, January 2, 1902. + +In the United States 80,000 children are toiling out their lives in the +textile mills alone. In the South they work twelve-hour shifts. They +never see the day. Those on the night shift are asleep when the sun +pours its life and warmth over the world, while those on the day shift +are at the machines before dawn and return to their miserable dens, +called "homes," after dark. Many receive no more than ten cents a day. +There are babies who work for five and six cents a day. Those who work +on the night shift are often kept awake by having cold water dashed in +their faces. There are children six years of age who have already to +their credit eleven months' work on the night shift. When they become +sick, and are unable to rise from their beds to go to work, there are men +employed to go on horseback from house to house, and cajole and bully +them into arising and going to work. Ten per cent of them contract +active consumption. All are puny wrecks, distorted, stunted, mind and +body. Elbert Hubbard says of the child-labourers of the Southern +cotton-mills: + + "I thought to lift one of the little toilers to ascertain his weight. + Straightaway through his thirty-five pounds of skin and bones there + ran a tremor of fear, and he struggled forward to tie a broken + thread. I attracted his attention by a touch, and offered him a + silver dime. He looked at me dumbly from a face that might have + belonged to a man of sixty, so furrowed, tightly drawn, and full of + pain it was. He did not reach for the money--he did not know what it + was. There were dozens of such children in this particular mill. A + physician who was with me said that they would all be dead probably + in two years, and their places filled by others--there were plenty + more. Pneumonia carries off most of them. Their systems are ripe + for disease, and when it comes there is no rebound--no response. + Medicine simply does not act--nature is whipped, beaten, discouraged, + and the child sinks into a stupor and dies." + +So fares modern man and the child of modern man in the United States, +most prosperous and enlightened of all countries on earth. It must be +remembered that the instances given are instances only, but they can be +multiplied myriads of times. It must also be remembered that what is +true of the United States is true of all the civilized world. Such +misery was not true of the caveman. Then what has happened? Has the +hostile environment of the caveman grown more hostile for his +descendants? Has the caveman's natural efficiency of 1 for food-getting +and shelter-getting diminished in modern man to one-half or one-quarter? + +On the contrary, the hostile environment of the caveman has been +destroyed. For modern man it no longer exists. All carnivorous enemies, +the daily menace of the younger world, have been killed off. Many of the +species of prey have become extinct. Here and there, in secluded +portions of the world, still linger a few of man's fiercer enemies. But +they are far from being a menace to mankind. Modern man, when he wants +recreation and change, goes to the secluded portions of the world for a +hunt. Also, in idle moments, he wails regretfully at the passing of the +"big game," which he knows in the not distant future will disappear from +the earth. + +Nor since the day of the caveman has man's efficiency for food-getting +and shelter-getting diminished. It has increased a thousandfold. Since +the day of the caveman, matter has been mastered. The secrets of matter +have been discovered. Its laws have been formulated. Wonderful +artifices have been made, and marvellous inventions, all tending to +increase tremendously man's natural efficiency of in every food-getting, +shelter-getting exertion, in farming, mining, manufacturing, +transportation, and communication. + +From the caveman to the hand-workers of three generations ago, the +increase in efficiency for food- and shelter-getting has been very great. +But in this day, by machinery, the efficiency of the hand-worker of three +generations ago has in turn been increased many times. Formerly it +required 200 hours of human labour to place 100 tons of ore on a railroad +car. To-day, aided by machinery, but two hours of human labour is +required to do the same task. The United States Bureau of Labour is +responsible for the following table, showing the comparatively recent +increase in man's food- and shelter-getting efficiency: + + Machine Hours Hand Hours +Barley (100 bushels) 9 211 +Corn (50 bushels 34 228 +shelled, stalks, +husks and blades cut +into fodder) +Oats (160 bushels) 28 265 +Wheat (50 bushels) 7 160 +Loading ore (loading 2 200 +100 tons iron ore on +cars) +Unloading coal 20 240 +(transferring 200 +tons from canal-boats +to bins 400 feet +distant) +Pitchforks (50 12 200 +pitchforks, 12-inch +tines) +Plough (one landside 3 118 +plough, oak beams and +handles) + +According to the same authority, under the best conditions for +organization in farming, labour can produce 20 bushels of wheat for 66 +cents, or 1 bushel for 3.5 cents. This was done on a bonanza farm of +10,000 acres in California, and was the average cost of the whole product +of the farm. Mr. Carroll D. Wright says that to-day 4,500,000 men, aided +by machinery, turn out a product that would require the labour of +40,000,000 men if produced by hand. Professor Herzog, of Austria, says +that 5,000,000 people with the machinery of to-day, employed at socially +useful labour, would be able to supply a population of 20,000,000 people +with all the necessaries and small luxuries of life by working 1.5 hours +per day. + +This being so, matter being mastered, man's efficiency for food- and +shelter-getting being increased a thousandfold over the efficiency of the +caveman, then why is it that millions of modern men live more miserably +than lived the caveman? This is the question the revolutionist asks, and +he asks it of the managing class, the capitalist class. The capitalist +class does not answer it. The capitalist class cannot answer it. + +If modern man's food- and shelter-getting efficiency is a thousandfold +greater than that of the caveman, why, then, are there 10,000,000 people +in the United States to-day who are not properly sheltered and properly +fed? If the child of the caveman did not have to work, why, then, +to-day, in the United States, are 80,000 children working out their lives +in the textile factories alone? If the child of the caveman did not have +to work, why, then, to-day, in the United States, are there 1,752,187 +child-labourers? + +It is a true count in the indictment. The capitalist class has +mismanaged, is to-day mismanaging. In New York City 50,000 children go +hungry to school, and in New York City there are 1,320 millionaires. The +point, however, is not that the mass of mankind is miserable because of +the wealth the capitalist class has taken to itself. Far from it. The +point really is that the mass of mankind is miserable, not for want of +the wealth taken by the capitalist class, _but for want of the wealth +that was never created_. This wealth was never created because the +capitalist class managed too wastefully and irrationally. The capitalist +class, blind and greedy, grasping madly, has not only not made the best +of its management, but made the worst of it. It is a management +prodigiously wasteful. This point cannot be emphasized too strongly. + +In face of the facts that modern man lives more wretchedly than the +caveman, and that modern man's food- and shelter-getting efficiency is a +thousandfold greater than the caveman's, no other solution is possible +than that the management is prodigiously wasteful. + +With the natural resources of the world, the machinery already invented, +a rational organization of production and distribution, and an equally +rational elimination of waste, the able-bodied workers would not have to +labour more than two or three hours per day to feed everybody, clothe +everybody, house everybody, educate everybody, and give a fair measure of +little luxuries to everybody. There would be no more material want and +wretchedness, no more children toiling out their lives, no more men and +women and babes living like beasts and dying like beasts. Not only would +matter be mastered, but the machine would be mastered. In such a day +incentive would be finer and nobler than the incentive of to-day, which +is the incentive of the stomach. No man, woman, or child, would be +impelled to action by an empty stomach. On the contrary, they would be +impelled to action as a child in a spelling match is impelled to action, +as boys and girls at games, as scientists formulating law, as inventors +applying law, as artists and sculptors painting canvases and shaping +clay, as poets and statesmen serving humanity by singing and by +statecraft. The spiritual, intellectual, and artistic uplift consequent +upon such a condition of society would be tremendous. All the human +world would surge upward in a mighty wave. + +This was the opportunity vouchsafed the capitalist class. Less blindness +on its part, less greediness, and a rational management, were all that +was necessary. A wonderful era was possible for the human race. But the +capitalist class failed. It made a shambles of civilization. Nor can +the capitalist class plead not guilty. It knew of the opportunity. Its +wise men told of the opportunity, its scholars and its scientists told it +of the opportunity. All that they said is there to-day in the books, +just so much damning evidence against it. It would not listen. It was +too greedy. It rose up (as it rises up to-day), shamelessly, in our +legislative halls, and declared that profits were impossible without the +toil of children and babes. It lulled its conscience to sleep with +prattle of sweet ideals and dear moralities, and allowed the suffering +and misery of mankind to continue and to increase, in short, the +capitalist class failed to take advantage of the opportunity. + +But the opportunity is still here. The capitalist class has been tried +and found wanting. Remains the working-class to see what it can do with +the opportunity. "But the working-class is incapable," says the +capitalist class. "What do you know about it?" the working-class +replies. "Because you have failed is no reason that we shall fail. +Furthermore, we are going to have a try at it, anyway. Seven millions of +us say so. And what have you to say to that?" + +And what can the capitalist class say? Grant the incapacity of the +working-class. Grant that the indictment and the argument of the +revolutionists are all wrong. The 7,000,000 revolutionists remain. +Their existence is a fact. Their belief in their capacity, and in their +indictment and their argument, is a fact. Their constant growth is a +fact. Their intention to destroy present-day society is a fact, as is +also their intention to take possession of the world with all its wealth +and machinery and governments. Moreover, it is a fact that the +working-class is vastly larger than the capitalist class. + +The revolution is a revolution of the working-class. How can the +capitalist class, in the minority, stem this tide of revolution? What +has it to offer? What does it offer? Employers' associations, +injunctions, civil suits for plundering of the treasuries of the +labour-unions, clamour and combination for the open shop, bitter and +shameless opposition to the eight-hour day, strong efforts to defeat all +reform, child-labour bills, graft in every municipal council, strong +lobbies and bribery in every legislature for the purchase of capitalist +legislation, bayonets, machine-guns, policemen's clubs, professional +strike-breakers and armed Pinkertons--these are the things the capitalist +class is dumping in front of the tide of revolution, as though, forsooth, +to hold it back. + +The capitalist class is as blind to-day to the menace of the revolution +as it was blind in the past to its own God-given opportunity. It cannot +see how precarious is its position, cannot comprehend the power and the +portent of the revolution. It goes on its placid way, prattling sweet +ideals and dear moralities, and scrambling sordidly for material +benefits. + +No overthrown ruler or class in the past ever considered the revolution +that overthrew it, and so with the capitalist class of to-day. Instead +of compromising, instead of lengthening its lease of life by conciliation +and by removal of some of the harsher oppressions of the working-class, +it antagonizes the working-class, drives the working-class into +revolution. Every broken strike in recent years, every legally plundered +trades-union treasury, every closed shop made into an open shop, has +driven the members of the working-class directly hurt over to socialism +by hundreds and thousands. Show a working-man that his union fails, and +he becomes a revolutionist. Break a strike with an injunction or +bankrupt a union with a civil suit, and the working-men hurt thereby +listen to the siren song of the socialist and are lost for ever to the +_political capitalist_ parties. + +Antagonism never lulled revolution, and antagonism is about all the +capitalist class offers. It is true, it offers some few antiquated +notions which were very efficacious in the past, but which are no longer +efficacious. Fourth-of-July liberty in terms of the Declaration of +Independence and of the French Encyclopaedists is scarcely apposite +to-day. It does not appeal to the working-man who has had his head +broken by a policeman's club, his union treasury bankrupted by a court +decision, or his job taken away from him by a labour-saving invention. +Nor does the Constitution of the United States appear so glorious and +constitutional to the working-man who has experienced a bull-pen or been +unconstitutionally deported from Colorado. Nor are this particular +working-man's hurt feelings soothed by reading in the newspapers that +both the bull-pen and the deportation were pre-eminently just, legal, and +constitutional. "To hell, then, with the Constitution!" says he, and +another revolutionist has been made--by the capitalist class. + +In short, so blind is the capitalist class that it does nothing to +lengthen its lease of life, while it does everything to shorten it. The +capitalist class offers nothing that is clean, noble, and alive. The +revolutionists offer everything that is clean, noble, and alive. They +offer service, unselfishness, sacrifice, martyrdom--the things that sting +awake the imagination of the people, touching their hearts with the +fervour that arises out of the impulse toward good and which is +essentially religious in its nature. + +But the revolutionists blow hot and blow cold. They offer facts and +statistics, economics and scientific arguments. If the working-man be +merely selfish, the revolutionists show him, mathematically demonstrate +to him, that his condition will be bettered by the revolution. If the +working-man be the higher type, moved by impulses toward right conduct, +if he have soul and spirit, the revolutionists offer him the things of +the soul and the spirit, the tremendous things that cannot be measured by +dollars and cents, nor be held down by dollars and cents. The +revolutionist cries out upon wrong and injustice, and preaches +righteousness. And, most potent of all, he sings the eternal song of +human freedom--a song of all lands and all tongues and all time. + +Few members of the capitalist class see the revolution. Most of them are +too ignorant, and many are too afraid to see it. It is the same old +story of every perishing ruling class in the world's history. Fat with +power and possession, drunken with success, and made soft by surfeit and +by cessation of struggle, they are like the drones clustered about the +honey vats when the worker-bees spring upon them to end their rotund +existence. + +President Roosevelt vaguely sees the revolution, is frightened by it, and +recoils from seeing it. As he says: "Above all, we need to remember that +any kind of class animosity in the political world is, if possible, even +more wicked, even more destructive to national welfare, than sectional, +race, or religious animosity." + +Class animosity in the political world, President Roosevelt maintains, is +wicked. But class animosity in the political world is the preachment of +the revolutionists. "Let the class wars in the industrial world +continue," they say, "but extend the class war to the political world." +As their leader, Eugene V. Debs says: "So far as this struggle is +concerned, there is no good capitalist and no bad working-man. Every +capitalist is your enemy and every working-man is your friend." + +Here is class animosity in the political world with a vengeance. And +here is revolution. In 1888 there were only 2,000 revolutionists of this +type in the United States; in 1900 there were 127,000 revolutionists; in +1904, 435,000 revolutionists. Wickedness of the President Roosevelt +definition evidently flourishes and increases in the United States. +Quite so, for it is the revolution that flourishes and increases. + +Here and there a member of the capitalist class catches a clear glimpse +of the revolution, and raises a warning cry. But his class does not +heed. President Eliot of Harvard raised such a cry: + +"I am forced to believe there is a present danger of socialism never +before so imminent in America in so dangerous a form, because never +before imminent in so well organized a form. The danger lies in the +obtaining control of the trades-unions by the socialists." And the +capitalist employers, instead of giving heed to the warnings, are +perfecting their strike-breaking organization and combining more strongly +than ever for a general assault upon that dearest of all things to the +trades-unions--the closed shop. In so far as this assault succeeds, by +just that much will the capitalist class shorten its lease of life. It +is the old, old story, over again and over again. The drunken drones +still cluster greedily about the honey vats. + +Possibly one of the most amusing spectacles of to-day is the attitude of +the American press toward the revolution. It is also a pathetic +spectacle. It compels the onlooker to be aware of a distinct loss of +pride in his species. Dogmatic utterance from the mouth of ignorance may +make gods laugh, but it should make men weep. And the American editors +(in the general instance) are so impressive about it! The old +"divide-up," "men-are-_not_-born-free-and-equal," propositions are +enunciated gravely and sagely, as things white-hot and new from the forge +of human wisdom. Their feeble vapourings show no more than a schoolboy's +comprehension of the nature of the revolution. Parasites themselves on +the capitalist class, serving the capitalist class by moulding public +opinion, they, too, cluster drunkenly about the honey vats. + +Of course, this is true only of the large majority of American editors. +To say that it is true of all of them would be to cast too great obloquy +upon the human race. Also, it would be untrue, for here and there an +occasional editor does see clearly--and in his case, ruled by +stomach-incentive, is usually afraid to say what he thinks about it. So +far as the science and the sociology of the revolution are concerned, the +average editor is a generation or so behind the facts. He is +intellectually slothful, accepts no facts until they are accepted by the +majority, and prides himself upon his conservatism. He is an instinctive +optimist, prone to believe that what ought to be, is. The revolutionist +gave this up long ago, and believes not that what ought to be, is, but +what is, is, and that it may not be what it ought to be at all. + +Now and then, rubbing his eyes, vigorously, an editor catches a sudden +glimpse of the revolution and breaks out in naive volubility, as, for +instance, the one who wrote the following in the _Chicago Chronicle_: +"American socialists are revolutionists. They know that they are +revolutionists. It is high time that other people should appreciate the +fact." A white-hot, brand-new discovery, and he proceeded to shout it +out from the housetops that we, forsooth, were revolutionists. Why, it +is just what we have been doing all these years--shouting it out from the +housetops that we are revolutionists, and stop us who can. + +The time should be past for the mental attitude: "Revolution is +atrocious. Sir, there is no revolution." Likewise should the time be +past for that other familiar attitude: "Socialism is slavery. Sir, it +will never be." It is no longer a question of dialectics, theories, and +dreams. There is no question about it. The revolution is a fact. It is +here now. Seven million revolutionists, organized, working day and +night, are preaching the revolution--that passionate gospel, the +Brotherhood of Man. Not only is it a cold-blooded economic propaganda, +but it is in essence a religious propaganda with a fervour in it of Paul +and Christ. The capitalist class has been indicted. It has failed in +its management and its management is to be taken away from it. Seven +million men of the working-class say that they are going to get the rest +of the working-class to join with them and take the management away. The +revolution is here, now. Stop it who can. + +SACRAMENTO RIVER. +_March_ 1905. + + + + +THE SOMNAMBULISTS + + + "'Tis only fools speak evil of the clay-- + The very stars are made of clay like mine." + +The mightiest and absurdest sleep-walker on the planet! Chained in the +circle of his own imaginings, man is only too keen to forget his origin +and to shame that flesh of his that bleeds like all flesh and that is +good to eat. Civilization (which is part of the circle of his +imaginings) has spread a veneer over the surface of the soft-shelled +animal known as man. It is a very thin veneer; but so wonderfully is man +constituted that he squirms on his bit of achievement and believes he is +garbed in armour-plate. + +Yet man to-day is the same man that drank from his enemy's skull in the +dark German forests, that sacked cities, and stole his women from +neighbouring clans like any howling aborigine. The flesh-and-blood body +of man has not changed in the last several thousand years. Nor has his +mind changed. There is no faculty of the mind of man to-day that did not +exist in the minds of the men of long ago. Man has to-day no concept +that is too wide and deep and abstract for the mind of Plato or Aristotle +to grasp. Give to Plato or Aristotle the same fund of knowledge that man +to-day has access to, and Plato and Aristotle would reason as profoundly +as the man of to-day and would achieve very similar conclusions. + +It is the same old animal man, smeared over, it is true, with a veneer, +thin and magical, that makes him dream drunken dreams of self-exaltation +and to sneer at the flesh and the blood of him beneath the smear. The +raw animal crouching within him is like the earthquake monster pent in +the crust of the earth. As he persuades himself against the latter till +it arouses and shakes down a city, so does he persuade himself against +the former until it shakes him out of his dreaming and he stands +undisguised, a brute like any other brute. + +Starve him, let him miss six meals, and see gape through the veneer the +hungry maw of the animal beneath. Get between him and the female of his +kind upon whom his mating instinct is bent, and see his eyes blaze like +an angry cat's, hear in his throat the scream of wild stallions, and +watch his fists clench like an orang-outang's. Maybe he will even beat +his chest. Touch his silly vanity, which he exalts into high-sounding +pride--call him a liar, and behold the red animal in him that makes a +hand clutching that is quick like the tensing of a tiger's claw, or an +eagle's talon, incarnate with desire to rip and tear. + +It is not necessary to call him a liar to touch his vanity. Tell a +plains Indian that he has failed to steal horses from the neighbouring +tribe, or tell a man living in bourgeois society that he has failed to +pay his bills at the neighbouring grocer's, and the results are the same. +Each, plains Indian and bourgeois, is smeared with a slightly different +veneer, that is all. It requires a slightly different stick to scrape it +off. The raw animals beneath are identical. + +But intrude not violently upon man, leave him alone in his somnambulism, +and he kicks out from under his feet the ladder of life up which he has +climbed, constitutes himself the centre of the universe, dreams sordidly +about his own particular god, and maunders metaphysically about his own +blessed immortality. + +True, he lives in a real world, breathes real air, eats real food, and +sleeps under real blankets, in order to keep real cold away. And there's +the rub. He has to effect adjustments with the real world and at the +same time maintain the sublimity of his dream. The result of this +admixture of the real and the unreal is confusion thrice confounded. The +man that walks the real world in his sleep becomes such a tangled mass of +contradictions, paradoxes, and lies that he has to lie to himself in +order to stay asleep. + +In passing, it may be noted that some men are remarkably constituted in +this matter of self-deception. They excel at deceiving themselves. They +believe, and they help others to believe. It becomes their function in +society, and some of them are paid large salaries for helping their +fellow-men to believe, for instance, that they are not as other animals; +for helping the king to believe, and his parasites and drudges as well, +that he is God's own manager over so many square miles of earth-crust; +for helping the merchant and banking classes to believe that society +rests on their shoulders, and that civilization would go to smash if they +got out from under and ceased from their exploitations and petty +pilferings. + +Prize-fighting is terrible. This is the dictum of the man who walks in +his sleep. He prates about it, and writes to the papers about it, and +worries the legislators about it. There is nothing of the brute about +_him_. He is a sublimated soul that treads the heights and breathes +refined ether--in self-comparison with the prize-fighter. The man who +walks in his sleep ignores the flesh and all its wonderful play of +muscle, joint, and nerve. He feels that there is something godlike in +the mysterious deeps of his being, denies his relationship with the +brute, and proceeds to go forth into the world and express by deeds that +something godlike within him. + +He sits at a desk and chases dollars through the weeks and months and +years of his life. To him the life godlike resolves into a problem +something like this: _Since the great mass of men toil at producing +wealth_, _how best can he get between the great mass of men and the +wealth they produce_, _and get a slice for himself_? With tremendous +exercise of craft, deceit, and guile, he devotes his life godlike to this +purpose. As he succeeds, his somnambulism grows profound. He bribes +legislatures, buys judges, "controls" primaries, and then goes and hires +other men to tell him that it is all glorious and right. And the +funniest thing about it is that this arch-deceiver believes all that they +tell him. He reads only the newspapers and magazines that tell him what +he wants to be told, listens only to the biologists who tell him that he +is the finest product of the struggle for existence, and herds only with +his own kind, where, like the monkey-folk, they teeter up and down and +tell one another how great they are. + +In the course of his life godlike he ignores the flesh--until he gets to +table. He raises his hands in horror at the thought of the brutish +prize-fighter, and then sits down and gorges himself on roast beef, rare +and red, running blood under every sawing thrust of the implement called +a knife. He has a piece of cloth which he calls a napkin, with which he +wipes from his lips, and from the hair on his lips, the greasy juices of +the meat. + +He is fastidiously nauseated at the thought of two prize-fighters +bruising each other with their fists; and at the same time, because it +will cost him some money, he will refuse to protect the machines in his +factory, though he is aware that the lack of such protection every year +mangles, batters, and destroys out of all humanness thousands of +working-men, women, and children. He will chatter about things refined +and spiritual and godlike like himself, and he and the men who herd with +him will calmly adulterate the commodities they put upon the market and +which annually kill tens of thousands of babies and young children. + +He will recoil at the suggestion of the horrid spectacle of two men +confronting each other with gloved hands in the roped arena, and at the +same time he will clamour for larger armies and larger navies, for more +destructive war machines, which, with a single discharge, will disrupt +and rip to pieces more human beings than have died in the whole history +of prize-fighting. He will bribe a city council for a franchise or a +state legislature for a commercial privilege; but he has never been +known, in all his sleep-walking history, to bribe any legislative body in +order to achieve any moral end, such as, for instance, abolition of +prize-fighting, child-labour laws, pure food bills, or old age pensions. + +"Ah, but we do not stand for the commercial life," object the refined, +scholarly, and professional men. They are also sleep-walkers. They do +not stand for the commercial life, but neither do they stand against it +with all their strength. They submit to it, to the brutality and carnage +of it. They develop classical economists who announce that the only +possible way for men and women to get food and shelter is by the existing +method. They produce university professors, men who claim the _role_ of +teachers, and who at the same time claim that the austere ideal of +learning is passionless pursuit of passionless intelligence. They serve +the men who lead the commercial life, give to their sons somnambulistic +educations, preach that sleep-walking is the only way to walk, and that +the persons who walk otherwise are atavisms or anarchists. They paint +pictures for the commercial men, write books for them, sing songs for +them, act plays for them, and dose them with various drugs when their +bodies have grown gross or dyspeptic from overeating and lack of +exercise. + +Then there are the good, kind somnambulists who don't prize-fight, who +don't play the commercial game, who don't teach and preach somnambulism, +who don't do anything except live on the dividends that are coined out of +the wan, white fluid that runs in the veins of little children, out of +mothers' tears, the blood of strong men, and the groans and sighs of the +old. The receiver is as bad as the thief--ay, and the thief is finer +than the receiver; he at least has the courage to run the risk. But the +good, kind people who don't do anything won't believe this, and the +assertion will make them angry--for a moment. They possess several magic +phrases, which are like the incantations of a voodoo doctor driving +devils away. The phrases that the good, kind people repeat to themselves +and to one another sound like "abstinence," "temperance," "thrift," +"virtue." Sometimes they say them backward, when they sound like +"prodigality," "drunkenness," "wastefulness," and "immorality." They do +not really know the meaning of these phrases, but they think they do, and +that is all that is necessary for somnambulists. The calm repetition of +such phrases invariably drives away the waking devils and lulls to +slumber. + +Our statesmen sell themselves and their country for gold. Our municipal +servants and state legislators commit countless treasons. The world of +graft! The world of betrayal! The world of somnambulism, whose exalted +and sensitive citizens are outraged by the knockouts of the prize-ring, +and who annually not merely knock out, but kill, thousands of babies and +children by means of child labour and adulterated food. Far better to +have the front of one's face pushed in by the fist of an honest +prize-fighter than to have the lining of one's stomach corroded by the +embalmed beef of a dishonest manufacturer. + +In a prize-fight men are classed. A lightweight fights with a +light-weight; he never fights with a heavy-weight, and foul blows are not +allowed. Yet in the world of the somnambulists, where soar the +sublimated spirits, there are no classes, and foul blows are continually +struck and never disallowed. Only they are not called foul blows. The +world of claw and fang and fist and club has passed away--so say the +somnambulists. A rebate is not an elongated claw. A Wall Street raid is +not a fang slash. Dummy boards of directors and fake accountings are not +foul blows of the fist under the belt. A present of coal stock by a mine +operator to a railroad official is not a claw rip to the bowels of a +rival mine operator. The hundred million dollars with which a +combination beats down to his knees a man with a million dollars is not a +club. The man who walks in his sleep says it is not a club. So say all +of his kind with which he herds. They gather together and solemnly and +gloatingly make and repeat certain noises that sound like "discretion," +"acumen," "initiative," "enterprise." These noises are especially +gratifying when they are made backward. They mean the same things, but +they sound different. And in either case, forward or backward, the +spirit of the dream is not disturbed. + +When a man strikes a foul blow in the prize-ring the fight is immediately +stopped, he is declared the loser, and he is hissed by the audience as he +leaves the ring. But when a man who walks in his sleep strikes a foul +blow he is immediately declared the victor and awarded the prize; and +amid acclamations he forthwith turns his prize into a seat in the United +States Senate, into a grotesque palace on Fifth Avenue, and into endowed +churches, universities and libraries, to say nothing of subsidized +newspapers, to proclaim his greatness. + +The red animal in the somnambulist will out. He decries the carnal +combat of the prize-ring, and compels the red animal to spiritual combat. +The poisoned lie, the nasty, gossiping tongue, the brutality of the +unkind epigram, the business and social nastiness and treachery of +to-day--these are the thrusts and scratches of the red animal when the +somnambulist is in charge. They are not the upper cuts and short arm +jabs and jolts and slugging blows of the spirit. They are the foul blows +of the spirit that have never been disbarred, as the foul blows of the +prize-ring have been disbarred. (Would it not be preferable for a man to +strike one full on the mouth with his fist than for him to tell a lie +about one, or malign those that are nearest and dearest?) + +For these are the crimes of the spirit, and, alas! they are so much more +frequent than blows on the mouth. And whosoever exalts the spirit over +the flesh, by his own creed avers that a crime of the spirit is vastly +more terrible than a crime of the flesh. Thus stand the somnambulists +convicted by their own creed--only they are not real men, alive and +awake, and they proceed to mutter magic phrases that dispel all doubt as +to their undiminished and eternal gloriousness. + +It is well enough to let the ape and tiger die, but it is hardly fair to +kill off the natural and courageous apes and tigers and allow the spawn +of cowardly apes and tigers to live. The prize-fighting apes and tigers +will die all in good time in the course of natural evolution, but they +will not die so long as the cowardly, somnambulistic apes and tigers club +and scratch and slash. This is not a brief for the prize-fighter. It is +a blow of the fist between the eyes of the somnambulists, teetering up +and down, muttering magic phrases, and thanking God that they are not as +other animals. + +GLEN ELLEN, CALIFORNIA. +_June_ 1900. + + + + +THE DIGNITY OF DOLLARS + + +Man is a blind, helpless creature. He looks back with pride upon his +goodly heritage of the ages, and yet obeys unwittingly every mandate of +that heritage; for it is incarnate with him, and in it are embedded the +deepest roots of his soul. Strive as he will, he cannot escape +it--unless he be a genius, one of those rare creations to whom alone is +granted the privilege of doing entirely new and original things in +entirely new and original ways. But the common clay-born man, possessing +only talents, may do only what has been done before him. At the best, if +he work hard, and cherish himself exceedingly, he may duplicate any or +all previous performances of his kind; he may even do some of them +better; but there he stops, the composite hand of his whole ancestry +bearing heavily upon him. + +And again, in the matter of his ideas, which have been thrust upon him, +and which he has been busily garnering from the great world ever since +the day when his eyes first focussed and he drew, startled, against the +warm breast of his mother--the tyranny of these he cannot shake off. +Servants of his will, they at the same time master him. They may not +coerce genius, but they dictate and sway every action of the clay-born. +If he hesitate on the verge of a new departure, they whip him back into +the well-greased groove; if he pause, bewildered, at sight of some +unexplored domain, they rise like ubiquitous finger-posts and direct him +by the village path to the communal meadow. And he permits these things, +and continues to permit them, for he cannot help them, and he is a slave. +Out of his ideas he may weave cunning theories, beautiful ideals; but he +is working with ropes of sand. At the slightest stress, the last least +bit of cohesion flits away, and each idea flies apart from its fellows, +while all clamour that he do this thing, or think this thing, in the +ancient and time-honoured way. He is only a clay-born; so he bends his +neck. He knows further that the clay-born are a pitiful, pitiless +majority, and that he may do nothing which they do not do. + +It is only in some way such as this that we may understand and explain +the dignity which attaches itself to dollars. In the watches of the +night, we may assure ourselves that there is no such dignity; but +jostling with our fellows in the white light of day, we find that it does +exist, and that we ourselves measure ourselves by the dollars we happen +to possess. They give us confidence and carriage and dignity--ay, a +personal dignity which goes down deeper than the garments with which we +hide our nakedness. The world, when it knows nothing else of him, +measures a man by his clothes; but the man himself, if he be neither a +genius nor a philosopher, but merely a clay-born, measures himself by his +pocket-book. He cannot help it, and can no more fling it from him than +can the bashful young man his self-consciousness when crossing a ballroom +floor. + +I remember once absenting myself from civilization for weary months. +When I returned, it was to a strange city in another country. The people +were but slightly removed from my own breed, and they spoke the same +tongue, barring a certain barbarous accent which I learned was far older +than the one imbibed by me with my mother's milk. A fur cap, soiled and +singed by many camp-fires, half sheltered the shaggy tendrils of my uncut +hair. My foot-gear was of walrus hide, cunningly blended with seal gut. +The remainder of my dress was as primal and uncouth. I was a sight to +give merriment to gods and men. Olympus must have roared at my coming. +The world, knowing me not, could judge me by my clothes alone. But I +refused to be so judged. My spiritual backbone stiffened, and I held my +head high, looking all men in the eyes. And I did these things, not that +I was an egotist, not that I was impervious to the critical glances of my +fellows, but because of a certain hogskin belt, plethoric and +sweat-bewrinkled, which buckled next the skin above the hips. Oh, it's +absurd, I grant, but had that belt not been so circumstanced, and so +situated, I should have shrunk away into side streets and back alleys, +walking humbly and avoiding all gregarious humans except those who were +likewise abroad without belts. Why? I do not know, save that in such +way did my fathers before me. + +Viewed in the light of sober reason, the whole thing was preposterous. +But I walked down the gang-plank with the mien of a hero, of a barbarian +who knew himself to be greater than the civilization he invaded. I was +possessed of the arrogance of a Roman governor. At last I knew what it +was to be born to the purple, and I took my seat in the hotel carriage as +though it were my chariot about to proceed with me to the imperial +palace. People discreetly dropped their eyes before my proud gaze, and +into their hearts I know I forced the query, What manner of man can this +mortal be? I was superior to convention, and the very garb which +otherwise would have damned me tended toward my elevation. And all this +was due, not to my royal lineage, nor to the deeds I had done and the +champions I had overthrown, but to a certain hogskin belt buckled next +the skin. The sweat of months was upon it, toil had defaced it, and it +was not a creation such as would appeal to the aesthetic mind; but it was +plethoric. There was the arcanum; each yellow grain conduced to my +exaltation, and the sum of these grains was the sum of my mightiness. +Had they been less, just so would have been my stature; more, and I +should have reached the sky. + +And this was my royal progress through that most loyal city. I purchased +a host of things from the tradespeople, and bought me such pleasures and +diversions as befitted one who had long been denied. I scattered my gold +lavishly, nor did I chaffer over prices in mart or exchange. And, +because of these things I did, I demanded homage. Nor was it refused. I +moved through wind-swept groves of limber backs; across sunny glades, +lighted by the beaming rays from a thousand obsequious eyes; and when I +tired of this, basked on the greensward of popular approval. Money was +very good, I thought, and for the time was content. But there rushed +upon me the words of Erasmus, "When I get some money I shall buy me some +Greek books, and afterwards some clothes," and a great shame wrapped me +around. But, luckily for my soul's welfare, I reflected and was saved. +By the clearer vision vouchsafed me, I beheld Erasmus, fire-flashing, +heaven-born, while I--I was merely a clay-born, a son of earth. For a +giddy moment I had forgotten this, and tottered. And I rolled over on my +greensward, caught a glimpse of a regiment of undulating backs, and +thanked my particular gods that such moods of madness were passing brief. + +But on another day, receiving with kingly condescension the service of my +good subjects' backs, I remembered the words of another man, long since +laid away, who was by birth a nobleman, by nature a philosopher and a +gentleman, and who by circumstance yielded up his head upon the block. +"That a man of lead," he once remarked, "who has no more sense than a log +of wood, and is as bad as he is foolish, should have many wise and good +men to serve him, only because he has a great heap of that metal; and +that if, by some accident or trick of law (which sometimes produces as +great changes as chance itself), all this wealth should pass from the +master to the meanest varlet of his whole family, he himself would very +soon become one of his servants, as if he were a thing that belonged to +his wealth, and so was bound to follow its fortune." + +And when I had remembered this much, I unwisely failed to pause and +reflect. So I gathered my belongings together, cinched my hogskin belt +tight about me, and went away to my own country. It was a very foolish +thing to do. I am sure it was. But when I had recovered my reason, I +fell upon my particular gods and berated them mightily, and as penance +for their watchlessness placed them away amongst dust and cobwebs. Oh +no, not for long. They are again enshrined, as bright and polished as of +yore, and my destiny is once more in their keeping. + +It is given that travail and vicissitude mark time to man's footsteps as +he stumbles onward toward the grave; and it is well. Without the bitter +one may not know the sweet. The other day--nay, it was but yesterday--I +fell before the rhythm of fortune. The inexorable pendulum had swung the +counter direction, and there was upon me an urgent need. The hogskin +belt was flat as famine, nor did it longer gird my loins. From my window +I could descry, at no great distance, a very ordinary mortal of a man, +working industriously among his cabbages. I thought: Here am I, capable +of teaching him much concerning the field wherein he labours--the +nitrogenic--why of the fertilizer, the alchemy of the sun, the +microscopic cell-structure of the plant, the cryptic chemistry of root +and runner--but thereat he straightened his work-wearied back and rested. +His eyes wandered over what he had produced in the sweat of his brow, +then on to mine. And as he stood there drearily, he became reproach +incarnate. "Unstable as water," he said (I am sure he did)--"unstable as +water, thou shalt not excel. Man, where are _your_ cabbages?" + +I shrank back. Then I waxed rebellious. I refused to answer the +question. He had no right to ask it, and his presence was an affront +upon the landscape. And a dignity entered into me, and my neck was +stiffened, my head poised. I gathered together certain certificates of +goods and chattels, pointed my heel towards him and his cabbages, and +journeyed townward. I was yet a man. There was naught in those +certificates to be ashamed of. But alack-a-day! While my heels thrust +the cabbage-man beyond the horizon, my toes were drawing me, faltering, +like a timid old beggar, into a roaring spate of humanity--men, women, +and children without end. They had no concern with me, nor I with them. +I knew it; I felt it. Like She, after her fire-bath in the womb of the +world, I dwindled in my own sight. My feet were uncertain and heavy, and +my soul became as a meal sack, limp with emptiness and tied in the +middle. People looked upon me scornfully, pitifully, reproachfully. (I +can swear they did.) In every eye I read the question, Man, where are +your cabbages? + +So I avoided their looks, shrinking close to the kerbstone and by furtive +glances directing my progress. At last I came hard by the place, and +peering stealthily to the right and left that none who knew might behold +me, I entered hurriedly, in the manner of one committing an abomination. +'Fore God! I had done no evil, nor had I wronged any man, nor did I +contemplate evil; yet was I aware of evil. Why? I do not know, save +that there goes much dignity with dollars, and being devoid of the one I +was destitute of the other. The person I sought practised a profession +as ancient as the oracles but far more lucrative. It is mentioned in +Exodus; so it must have been created soon after the foundations of the +world; and despite the thunder of ecclesiastics and the mailed hand of +kings and conquerors, it has endured even to this day. Nor is it unfair +to presume that the accounts of this most remarkable business will not be +closed until the Trumps of Doom are sounded and all things brought to +final balance. + +Wherefore it was in fear and trembling, and with great modesty of spirit, +that I entered the Presence. To confess that I was shocked were to do my +feelings an injustice. Perhaps the blame may be shouldered upon Shylock, +Fagin, and their ilk; but I had conceived an entirely different type of +individual. This man--why, he was clean to look at, his eyes were blue, +with the tired look of scholarly lucubrations, and his skin had the +normal pallor of sedentary existence. He was reading a book, sober and +leather-bound, while on his finely moulded, intellectual head reposed a +black skull-cap. For all the world his look and attitude were those of a +college professor. My heart gave a great leap. Here was hope! But no; +he fixed me with a cold and glittering eye, searching with the chill of +space till my financial status stood before him shivering and ashamed. I +communed with myself: By his brow he is a thinker, but his intellect has +been prostituted to a mercenary exaction of toll from misery. His nerve +centres of judgment and will have not been employed in solving the +problems of life, but in maintaining his own solvency by the insolvency +of others. He trades upon sorrow and draws a livelihood from misfortune. +He transmutes tears into treasure, and from nakedness and hunger garbs +himself in clean linen and develops the round of his belly. He is a +bloodsucker and a vampire. He lays unholy hands on heaven and hell at +cent. per cent., and his very existence is a sacrilege and a blasphemy. +And yet here am I, wilting before him, an arrant coward, with no respect +for him and less for myself. Why should this shame be? Let me rouse in +my strength and smite him, and, by so doing, wipe clean one offensive +page. + +But no. As I said, he fixed me with a cold and glittering eye, and in it +was the aristocrat's undisguised contempt for the _canaille_. Behind him +was the solid phalanx of a bourgeois society. Law and order upheld him, +while I titubated, cabbageless, on the ragged edge. Moreover, he was +possessed of a formula whereby to extract juice from a flattened lemon, +and he would do business with me. + +I told him my desires humbly, in quavering syllables. In return, he +craved my antecedents and residence, pried into my private life, +insolently demanded how many children had I and did I live in wedlock, +and asked divers other unseemly and degrading questions. Ay, I was +treated like a thief convicted before the act, till I produced my +certificates of goods and chattels aforementioned. Never had they +appeared so insignificant and paltry as then, when he sniffed over them +with the air of one disdainfully doing a disagreeable task. It is said, +"Thou shalt not lend upon usury to thy brother; usury of money, usury of +victuals, usury of anything that is lent upon usury"; but he evidently +was not my brother, for he demanded seventy per cent. I put my signature +to certain indentures, received my pottage, and fled from his presence. + +Faugh! I was glad to be quit of it. How good the outside air was! I +only prayed that neither my best friend nor my worst enemy should ever +become aware of what had just transpired. Ere I had gone a block I +noticed that the sun had brightened perceptibly, the street become less +sordid, the gutter mud less filthy. In people's eyes the cabbage +question no longer brooded. And there was a spring to my body, an +elasticity of step as I covered the pavement. Within me coursed an +unwonted sap, and I felt as though I were about to burst out into leaves +and buds and green things. My brain was clear and refreshed. There was +a new strength to my arm. My nerves were tingling and I was a-pulse with +the times. All men were my brothers. Save one--yes, save one. I would +go back and wreck the establishment. I would disrupt that leather-bound +volume, violate that black skullcap, burn the accounts. But before fancy +could father the act, I recollected myself and all which had passed. Nor +did I marvel at my new-horn might, at my ancient dignity which had +returned. There was a tinkling chink as I ran the yellow pieces through +my fingers, and with the golden music rippling round me I caught a deeper +insight into the mystery of things. + +OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA. +_February_ 1900. + + + + +GOLIAH + + +In 1924--to be precise, on the morning of January 3--the city of San +Francisco awoke to read in one of its daily papers a curious letter, +which had been received by Walter Bassett and which had evidently been +written by some crank. Walter Bassett was the greatest captain of +industry west of the Rockies, and was one of the small group that +controlled the nation in everything but name. As such, he was the +recipient of lucubrations from countless cranks; but this particular +lucubration was so different from the average ruck of similar letters +that, instead of putting it into the waste-basket, he had turned it over +to a reporter. It was signed "Goliah," and the superscription gave his +address as "Palgrave Island." The letter was as follows: + + "MR. WALTER BASSETT, + "DEAR SIR: + + "I am inviting you, with nine of your fellow-captains of industry, to + visit me here on my island for the purpose of considering plans for + the reconstruction of society upon a more rational basis. Up to the + present, social evolution has been a blind and aimless, blundering + thing. The time has come for a change. Man has risen from the + vitalized slime of the primeval sea to the mastery of matter; but he + has not yet mastered society. Man is to-day as much the slave to his + collective stupidity, as a hundred thousand generations ago he was a + slave to matter. + + "There are two theoretical methods whereby man may become the master + of society, and make of society an intelligent and efficacious device + for the pursuit and capture of happiness and laughter. The first + theory advances the proposition that no government can be wiser or + better than the people that compose that government; that reform and + development must spring from the individual; that in so far as the + individuals become wiser and better, by that much will their + government become wiser and better; in short, that the majority of + individuals must become wiser and better, before their government + becomes wiser and better. The mob, the political convention, the + abysmal brutality and stupid ignorance of all concourses of people, + give the lie to this theory. In a mob the collective intelligence + and mercy is that of the least intelligent and most brutal members + that compose the mob. On the other hand, a thousand passengers will + surrender themselves to the wisdom and discretion of the captain, + when their ship is in a storm on the sea. In such matter, he is the + wisest and most experienced among them. + + "The second theory advances the proposition that the majority of the + people are not pioneers, that they are weighted down by the inertia + of the established; that the government that is representative of + them represents only their feebleness, and futility, and brutishness; + that this blind thing called government is not the serf of their + wills, but that they are the serfs of it; in short, speaking always + of the great mass, that they do not make government, but that + government makes them, and that government is and has been a stupid + and awful monster, misbegotten of the glimmerings of intelligence + that come from the inertia-crushed mass. + + "Personally, I incline to the second theory. Also, I am impatient. + For a hundred thousand generations, from the first social groups of + our savage forbears, government has remained a monster. To-day, the + inertia-crushed mass has less laughter in it than ever before. In + spite of man's mastery of matter, human suffering and misery and + degradation mar the fair world. + + "Wherefore I have decided to step in and become captain of this + world-ship for a while. I have the intelligence and the wide vision + of the skilled expert. Also, I have the power. I shall be obeyed. + The men of all the world shall perform my bidding and make + governments so that they shall become laughter-producers. These + modelled governments I have in mind shall not make the people happy, + wise, and noble by decree; but they shall give opportunity for the + people to become happy, wise, and noble. + + "I have spoken. I have invited you, and nine of your + fellow-captains, to confer with me. On March third the yacht + _Energon_ will sail from San Francisco. You are requested to be on + board the night before. This is serious. The affairs of the world + must be handled for a time by a strong hand. Mine is that strong + hand. If you fail to obey my summons, you will die. Candidly, I do + not expect that you will obey. But your death for failure to obey + will cause obedience on the part of those I subsequently summon. You + will have served a purpose. And please remember that I have no + unscientific sentimentality about the value of human life. I carry + always in the background of my consciousness the innumerable billions + of lives that are to laugh and be happy in future aeons on the earth. + + "Yours for the reconstruction of society, + + "GOLIAH." + +The publication of this letter did not cause even local amusement. Men +might have smiled to themselves as they read it, but it was so palpably +the handiwork of a crank that it did not merit discussion. Interest did +not arouse till next morning. An Associated Press despatch to the +Eastern states, followed by interviews by eager-nosed reporters, had +brought out the names of the other nine captains of industry who had +received similar letters, but who had not thought the matter of +sufficient importance to be made public. But the interest aroused was +mild, and it would have died out quickly had not Gabberton cartooned a +chronic presidential aspirant as "Goliah." Then came the song that was +sung hilariously from sea to sea, with the refrain, "Goliah will catch +you if you don't watch out." + +The weeks passed and the incident was forgotten. Walter Bassett had +forgotten it likewise; but on the evening of February 22, he was called +to the telephone by the Collector of the Port. "I just wanted to tell +you," said the latter, "that the yacht _Energon_ has arrived and gone to +anchor in the stream off Pier Seven." + +What happened that night Walter Bassett has never divulged. But it is +known that he rode down in his auto to the water front, chartered one of +Crowley's launches, and was put aboard the strange yacht. It is further +known that when he returned to the shore, three hours later, he +immediately despatched a sheaf of telegrams to his nine fellow-captains +of industry who had received letters from Goliah. These telegrams were +similarly worded, and read: "The yacht _Energon_ has arrived. There is +something in this. I advise you to come." + +Bassett was laughed at for his pains. It was a huge laugh that went up +(for his telegrams had been made public), and the popular song on Goliah +revived and became more popular than ever. Goliah and Bassett were +cartooned and lampooned unmercifully, the former, as the Old Man of the +Sea, riding on the latter's neck. The laugh tittered and rippled through +clubs and social circles, was restrainedly merry in the editorial +columns, and broke out in loud guffaws in the comic weeklies. There was +a serious side as well, and Bassett's sanity was gravely questioned by +many, and especially by his business associates. + +Bassett had ever been a short-tempered man, and after he sent the second +sheaf of telegrams to his brother captains, and had been laughed at +again, he remained silent. In this second sheaf he had said: "Come, I +implore you. As you value your life, come." He arranged all his +business affairs for an absence, and on the night of March 2 went on +board the _Energon_. The latter, properly cleared, sailed next morning. +And next morning the newsboys in every city and town were crying "Extra." + +In the slang of the day, Goliah had delivered the goods. The nine +captains of industry who had failed to accept his invitation were dead. +A sort of violent disintegration of the tissues was the report of the +various autopsies held on the bodies of the slain millionaires; yet the +surgeons and physicians (the most highly skilled in the land had +participated) would not venture the opinion that the men had been slain. +Much less would they venture the conclusion, "at the hands of parties +unknown." It was all too mysterious. They were stunned. Their +scientific credulity broke down. They had no warrant in the whole domain +of science for believing that an anonymous person on Palgrave Island had +murdered the poor gentlemen. + +One thing was quickly learned, however; namely, that Palgrave Island was +no myth. It was charted and well known to all navigators, lying on the +line of 160 west longitude, right at its intersection by the tenth +parallel north latitude, and only a few miles away from Diana Shoal. +Like Midway and Fanning, Palgrave Island was isolated, volcanic and coral +in formation. Furthermore, it was uninhabited. A survey ship, in 1887, +had visited the place and reported the existence of several springs and +of a good harbour that was very dangerous of approach. And that was all +that was known of the tiny speck of land that was soon to have focussed +on it the awed attention of the world. + +Goliah remained silent till March 24. On the morning of that day, the +newspapers published his second letter, copies of which had been received +by the ten chief politicians of the United States--ten leading men in the +political world who were conventionally known as "statesmen." The +letter, with the same superscription as before, was as follows: + + "DEAR SIR: + + "I have spoken in no uncertain tone. I must be obeyed. You may + consider this an invitation or a summons; but if you still wish to + tread this earth and laugh, you will be aboard the yacht _Energon_, + in San Francisco harbour, not later than the evening of April 5. It + is my wish and my will that you confer with me here on Palgrave + Island in the matter of reconstructing society upon some rational + basis. + + "Do not misunderstand me, when I tell you that I am one with a + theory. I want to see that theory work, and therefore I call upon + your cooperation. In this theory of mine, lives are but pawns; I + deal with quantities of lives. I am after laughter, and those that + stand in the way of laughter must perish. The game is big. There + are fifteen hundred million human lives to-day on the planet. What + is your single life against them? It is as naught, in my theory. + And remember that mine is the power. Remember that I am a scientist, + and that one life, or one million of lives, mean nothing to me as + arrayed against the countless billions of billions of the lives of + the generations to come. It is for their laughter that I seek to + reconstruct society now; and against them your own meagre little life + is a paltry thing indeed. + + "Whoso has power can command his fellows. By virtue of that military + device known as the phalanx, Alexander conquered his bit of the + world. By virtue of that chemical device, gunpowder, Cortes with his + several hundred cut-throats conquered the empire of the Montezumas. + Now I am in possession of a device that is all my own. In the course + of a century not more than half a dozen fundamental discoveries or + inventions are made. I have made such an invention. The possession + of it gives me the mastery of the world. I shall use this invention, + not for commercial exploitation, but for the good of humanity. For + that purpose I want help--willing agents, obedient hands; and I am + strong enough to compel the service. I am taking the shortest way, + though I am in no hurry. I shall not clutter my speed with haste. + + "The incentive of material gain developed man from the savage to the + semi-barbarian he is to-day. This incentive has been a useful device + for the development of the human; but it has now fulfilled its + function and is ready to be cast aside into the scrap-heap of + rudimentary vestiges such as gills in the throat and belief in the + divine right of kings. Of course you do not think so; but I do not + see that that will prevent you from aiding me to fling the + anachronism into the scrap-heap. For I tell you now that the time + has come when mere food and shelter and similar sordid things shall + be automatic, as free and easy and involuntary of access as the air. + I shall make them automatic, what of my discovery and the power that + discovery gives me. And with food and shelter automatic, the + incentive of material gain passes away from the world for ever. With + food and shelter automatic, the higher incentives will universally + obtain--the spiritual, aesthetic, and intellectual incentives that + will tend to develop and make beautiful and noble body, mind, and + spirit. Then all the world will be dominated by happiness and + laughter. It will be the reign of universal laughter. + + "Yours for that day, + + "GOLIAH." + +Still the world would not believe. The ten politicians were at +Washington, so that they did not have the opportunity of being convinced +that Bassett had had, and not one of them took the trouble to journey out +to San Francisco to make the opportunity. As for Goliah, he was hailed +by the newspapers as another Tom Lawson with a panacea; and there were +specialists in mental disease who, by analysis of Goliah's letters, +proved conclusively that he was a lunatic. + +The yacht _Energon_ arrived in the harbour of San Francisco on the +afternoon of April 5, and Bassett came ashore. But the _Energon_ did not +sail next day, for not one of the ten summoned politicians had elected to +make the journey to Palgrave Island. The newsboys, however, called +"Extra" that day in all the cities. The ten politicians were dead. The +yacht, lying peacefully at anchor in the harbour, became the centre of +excited interest. She was surrounded by a flotilla of launches and +rowboats, and many tugs and steamboats ran excursions to her. While the +rabble was firmly kept off, the proper authorities and even reporters +were permitted to board her. The mayor of San Francisco and the chief of +police reported that nothing suspicious was to be seen upon her, and the +port authorities announced that her papers were correct and in order in +every detail. Many photographs and columns of descriptive matter were +run in the newspapers. + +The crew was reported to be composed principally of +Scandinavians--fair-haired, blue-eyed Swedes, Norwegians afflicted with +the temperamental melancholy of their race, stolid Russian Finns, and a +slight sprinkling of Americans and English. It was noted that there was +nothing mercurial and flyaway about them. They seemed weighty men, +oppressed by a sad and stolid bovine-sort of integrity. A sober +seriousness and enormous certitude characterized all of them. They +appeared men without nerves and without fear, as though upheld by some +overwhelming power or carried in the hollow of some superhuman hand. The +captain, a sad-eyed, strong-featured American, was cartooned in the +papers as "Gloomy Gus" (the pessimistic hero of the comic supplement). + +Some sea-captain recognized the _Energon_ as the yacht _Scud_, once owned +by Merrivale of the New York Yacht Club. With this clue it was soon +ascertained that the _Scud_ had disappeared several years before. The +agent who sold her reported the purchaser to be merely another agent, a +man he had seen neither before nor since. The yacht had been +reconstructed at Duffey's Shipyard in New Jersey. The change in her name +and registry occurred at that time and had been legally executed. Then +the _Energon_ had disappeared in the shroud of mystery. + +In the meantime, Bassett was going crazy--at least his friends and +business associates said so. He kept away from his vast business +enterprises and said that he must hold his hands until the other masters +of the world could join with him in the reconstruction of society--proof +indubitable that Goliah's bee had entered his bonnet. To reporters he +had little to say. He was not at liberty, he said, to relate what he had +seen on Palgrave Island; but he could assure them that the matter was +serious, the most serious thing that had ever happened. His final word +was that, the world was on the verge of a turnover, for good or ill he +did not know, but, one way or the other, he was absolutely convinced that +the turnover was coming. As for business, business could go hang. He +had seen things, he had, and that was all there was to it. + +There was a great telegraphing, during this period, between the local +Federal officials and the state and war departments at Washington. A +secret attempt was made late one afternoon to board the _Energon_ and +place the captain under arrest--the Attorney-General having given the +opinion that the captain could be held for the murder of the ten +"statesmen." The government launch was seen to leave Meigg's Wharf and +steer for the _Energon_, and that was the last ever seen of the launch +and the men on board of it. The government tried to keep the affair +hushed up, but the cat was slipped out of the bag by the families of the +missing men, and the papers were filled with monstrous versions of the +affair. + +The government now proceeded to extreme measures. The battleship +_Alaska_ was ordered to capture the strange yacht, or, failing that, to +sink her. These were secret instructions; but thousands of eyes, from +the water front and from the shipping in the harbour, witnessed what +happened that afternoon. The battleship got under way and steamed slowly +toward the _Energon_. At half a mile distant the battleship blew +up--simply blew up, that was all, her shattered frame sinking to the +bottom of the bay, a riff-raff of wreckage and a few survivors strewing +the surface. Among the survivors was a young lieutenant who had had +charge of the wireless on board the _Alaska_. The reporters got hold of +him first, and he talked. No sooner had the _Alaska_ got under way, he +said, than a message was received from the _Energon_. It was in the +international code, and it was a warning to the _Alaska_ to come no +nearer than half a mile. He had sent the message, through the speaking +tube, immediately to the captain. He did not know anything more, except +that the _Energon_ twice repeated the message and that five minutes +afterward the explosion occurred. The captain of the _Alaska_ had +perished with his ship, and nothing more was to be learned. + +The _Energon_, however, promptly hoisted anchor and cleared out to sea. +A great clamour was raised by the papers; the government was charged with +cowardice and vacillation in its dealings with a mere pleasure yacht and +a lunatic who called himself "Goliah," and immediate and decisive action +was demanded. Also, a great cry went up about the loss of life, +especially the wanton killing of the ten "statesmen." Goliah promptly +replied. In fact, so prompt was his reply that the experts in wireless +telegraphy announced that, since it was impossible to send wireless +messages so great a distance, Goliah was in their very midst and not on +Palgrave Island. Goliah's letter was delivered to the Associated Press +by a messenger boy who had been engaged on the street. The letter was as +follows: + + "What are a few paltry lives? In your insane wars you destroy + millions of lives and think nothing of it. In your fratricidal + commercial struggle you kill countless babes, women, and men, and you + triumphantly call the shambles 'individualism.' I call it anarchy. + I am going to put a stop to your wholesale destruction of human + beings. I want laughter, not slaughter. Those of you who stand in + the way of laughter will get slaughter. + + "Your government is trying to delude you into believing that the + destruction of the _Alaska_ was an accident. Know here and now that + it was by my orders that the _Alaska_ was destroyed. In a few short + months, all battleships on all seas will be destroyed or flung to the + scrap-heap, and all nations shall disarm; fortresses shall be + dismantled, armies disbanded, and warfare shall cease from the earth. + Mine is the power. I am the will of God. The whole world shall be + in vassalage to me, but it shall be a vassalage of peace. + + "I am + "GOLIAH." + +"Blow Palgrave Island out of the water!" was the head-line retort of the +newspapers. The government was of the same frame of mind, and the +assembling of the fleets began. Walter Bassett broke out in ineffectual +protest, but was swiftly silenced by the threat of a lunacy commission. +Goliah remained silent. Against Palgrave Island five great fleets were +hurled--the Asiatic Squadron, the South Pacific Squadron, the North +Pacific Squadron, the Caribbean Squadron, and half of the North Atlantic +Squadron, the two latter coming through the Panama Canal. + +"I have the honour to report that we sighted Palgrave Island on the +evening of April 29," ran the report of Captain Johnson, of the +battleship _North Dakota_, to the Secretary of the Navy. "The Asiatic +Squadron was delayed and did not arrive until the morning of April 30. A +council of the admirals was held, and it was decided to attack early next +morning. The destroyer, _Swift VII_, crept in, unmolested, and reported +no warlike preparations on the island. It noted several small merchant +steamers in the harbour, and the existence of a small village in a +hopelessly exposed position that could be swept by our fire. + +"It had been decided that all the vessels should rush in, scattered, upon +the island, opening fire at three miles, and continuing to the edge of +the reef, there to retain loose formation and engage. Palgrave Island +repeatedly warned us, by wireless, in the international code, to keep +outside the ten-mile limit; but no heed was paid to the warnings. + +"The _North Dakota_ did not take part in the movement of the morning of +May 1. This was due to a slight accident of the preceding night that +temporarily disabled her steering-gear. The morning of May 1 broke clear +and calm. There was a slight breeze from the south-west that quickly +died away. The _North Dakota_ lay twelve miles off the island. At the +signal the squadrons charged in upon the island, from all sides, at full +speed. Our wireless receiver continued to tick off warnings from the +island. The ten-mile limit was passed, and nothing happened. I watched +through my glasses. At five miles nothing happened; at four miles +nothing happened; at three miles, the _New York_, in the lead on our side +of the island, opened fire. She fired only one shot. Then she blew up. +The rest of the vessels never fired a shot. They began to blow up, +everywhere, before our eyes. Several swerved about and started back, but +they failed to escape. The destroyer, _Dart XXX_, nearly made the +ten-mile limit when she blew up. She was the last survivor. No harm +came to the _North Dakota_, and that night, the steering-gear being +repaired, I gave orders to sail for San Francisco." + +To say that the United States was stunned is but to expose the inadequacy +of language. The whole world was stunned. It confronted that blight of +the human brain, the unprecedented. Human endeavour was a jest, a +monstrous futility, when a lunatic on a lonely island, who owned a yacht +and an exposed village, could destroy five of the proudest fleets of +Christendom. And how had he done it? Nobody knew. The scientists lay +down in the dust of the common road and wailed and gibbered. They did +not know. Military experts committed suicide by scores. The mighty +fabric of warfare they had fashioned was a gossamer veil rent asunder by +a miserable lunatic. It was too much for their sanity. Mere human +reason could not withstand the shock. As the savage is crushed by the +sleight-of-hand of the witch doctor, so was the world crushed by the +magic of Goliah. How did he do it? It was the awful face of the Unknown +upon which the world gazed and by which it was frightened out of the +memory of its proudest achievements. + +But all the world was not stunned. There was the invariable +exception--the Island Empire of Japan. Drunken with the wine of success +deep-quaffed, without superstition and without faith in aught but its own +ascendant star, laughing at the wreckage of science and mad with pride of +race, it went forth upon the way of war. America's fleets had been +destroyed. From the battlements of heaven the multitudinous ancestral +shades of Japan leaned down. The opportunity, God-given, had come. The +Mikado was in truth a brother to the gods. + +The war-monsters of Japan were loosed in mighty fleets. The Philippines +were gathered in as a child gathers a nosegay. It took longer for the +battleships to travel to Hawaii, to Panama, and to the Pacific Coast. +The United States was panic-stricken, and there arose the powerful party +of dishonourable peace. In the midst of the clamour the _Energon_ +arrived in San Francisco Bay and Goliah spoke once more. There was a +little brush as the _Energon_ came in, and a few explosions of magazines +occurred along the war-tunnelled hills as the coast defences went to +smash. Also, the blowing up of the submarine mines in the Golden Gate +made a remarkably fine display. Goliah's message to the people of San +Francisco, dated as usual from Palgrave Island, was published in the +papers. It ran: + + "Peace? Peace be with you. You shall have peace. I have spoken to + this purpose before. And give you me peace. Leave my yacht + _Energon_ alone. Commit one overt act against her and not one stone + in San Francisco shall stand upon another. + + "To-morrow let all good citizens go out upon the hills that slope + down to the sea. Go with music and laughter and garlands. Make + festival for the new age that is dawning. Be like children upon your + hills, and witness the passing of war. Do not miss the opportunity. + It is your last chance to behold what henceforth you will be + compelled to seek in museums of antiquities. + + "I promise you a merry day, + "GOLIAH." + +The madness of magic was in the air. With the people it was as if all +their gods had crashed and the heavens still stood. Order and law had +passed away from the universe; but the sun still shone, the wind still +blew, the flowers still bloomed--that was the amazing thing about it. +That water should continue to run downhill was a miracle. All the +stabilities of the human mind and human achievement were crumbling. The +one stable thing that remained was Goliah, a madman on an island. And so +it was that the whole population of San Francisco went forth next day in +colossal frolic upon the hills that overlooked the sea. Brass bands and +banners went forth, brewery wagons and Sunday-school picnics--all the +strange heterogeneous groupings of swarming metropolitan life. + +On the sea-rim rose the smoke from the funnels of a hundred hostile +vessels of war, all converging upon the helpless, undefended Golden Gate. +And not all undefended, for out through the Golden Gate moved the +_Energon_, a tiny toy of white, rolling like a straw in the stiff sea on +the bar where a strong ebb-tide ran in the teeth of the summer +sea-breeze. But the Japanese were cautious. Their thirty- and +forty-thousand-ton battleships slowed down half a dozen miles offshore +and manoeuvred in ponderous evolutions, while tiny scout-boats (lean, +six-funnelled destroyers) ran in, cutting blackly the flashing sea like +so many sharks. But, compared with the _Energon_, they were leviathans. +Compared with them, the _Energon_ was as the sword of the arch-angel +Michael, and they the forerunners of the hosts of hell. + +But the flashing of the sword, the good people of San Francisco, gathered +on her hills, never saw. Mysterious, invisible, it cleaved the air and +smote the mightiest blows of combat the world had ever witnessed. The +good people of San Francisco saw little and understood less. They saw +only a million and a half tons of brine-cleaving, thunder-flinging +fabrics hurled skyward and smashed back in ruin to sink into the sea. It +was all over in five minutes. Remained upon the wide expanse of sea only +the _Energon_, rolling white and toylike on the bar. + +Goliah spoke to the Mikado and the Elder Statesmen. It was only an +ordinary cable message, despatched from San Francisco by the captain of +the _Energon_, but it was of sufficient moment to cause the immediate +withdrawal of Japan from the Philippines and of her surviving fleets from +the sea. Japan the sceptical was converted. She had felt the weight of +Goliah's arm. And meekly she obeyed when Goliah commanded her to +dismantle her war vessels and to turn the metal into useful appliances +for the arts of peace. In all the ports, navy-yards, machine-shops, and +foundries of Japan tens of thousands of brown-skinned artisans converted +the war-monsters into myriads of useful things, such as ploughshares +(Goliah insisted on ploughshares), gasolene engines, bridge-trusses, +telephone and telegraph wires, steel rails, locomotives, and rolling +stock for railways. It was a world-penance for a world to see, and +paltry indeed it made appear that earlier penance, barefooted in the +snow, of an emperor to a pope for daring to squabble over temporal power. + +Goliah's next summons was to the ten leading scientists of the United +States. This time there was no hesitancy in obeying. The savants were +ludicrously prompt, some of them waiting in San Francisco for weeks so as +not to miss the scheduled sailing-date. They departed on the _Energon_ +on June 15; and while they were on the sea, on the way to Palgrave +Island, Goliah performed another spectacular feat. Germany and France +were preparing to fly at each other's throats. Goliah commanded peace. +They ignored the command, tacitly agreeing to fight it out on land where +it seemed safer for the belligerently inclined. Goliah set the date of +June 19 for the cessation of hostile preparations. Both countries +mobilized their armies on June 18, and hurled them at the common +frontier. And on June 19, Goliah struck. All generals, war-secretaries, +and jingo-leaders in the two countries died on that day; and that day two +vast armies, undirected, like strayed sheep, walked over each other's +frontiers and fraternized. But the great German war lord had escaped--it +was learned, afterward, by hiding in the huge safe where were stored the +secret archives of his empire. And when he emerged he was a very +penitent war lord, and like the Mikado of Japan he was set to work +beating his sword-blades into ploughshares and pruning-hooks. + +But in the escape of the German Emperor was discovered a great +significance. The scientists of the world plucked up courage, got back +their nerve. One thing was conclusively evident--Goliah's power was not +magic. Law still reigned in the universe. Goliah's power had +limitations, else had the German Emperor not escaped by secretly hiding +in a steel safe. Many learned articles on the subject appeared in the +magazines. + +The ten scientists arrived back from Palgrave Island on July 6. Heavy +platoons of police protected them from the reporters. No, they had not +see Goliah, they said in the one official interview that was vouchsafed; +but they had talked with him, and they had seen things. They were not +permitted to state definitely all that they had seen and heard, but they +could say that the world was about to be revolutionized. Goliah was in +the possession of a tremendous discovery that placed all the world at his +mercy, and it was a good thing for the world that Goliah was merciful. +The ten scientists proceeded directly to Washington on a special train, +where, for days, they were closeted with the heads of government, while +the nation hung breathless on the outcome. + +But the outcome was a long time in arriving. From Washington the +President issued commands to the masters and leading figures of the +nation. Everything was secret. Day by day deputations of bankers, +railway lords, captains of industry, and Supreme Court justices arrived; +and when they arrived they remained. The weeks dragged on, and then, on +August 25, began the famous issuance of proclamations. Congress and the +Senate co-operated with the President in this, while the Supreme Court +justices gave their sanction and the money lords and the captains of +industry agreed. War was declared upon the capitalist masters of the +nation. Martial law was declared over the whole United States. The +supreme power was vested in the President. + +In one day, child-labour in the whole country was abolished. It was done +by decree, and the United States was prepared with its army to enforce +its decrees. In the same day all women factory workers were dismissed to +their homes, and all the sweat-shops were closed. "But we cannot make +profits!" wailed the petty capitalists. "Fools!" was the retort of +Goliah. "As if the meaning of life were profits! Give up your +businesses and your profit-mongering." "But there is nobody to buy our +business!" they wailed. "Buy and sell--is that all the meaning life has +for you?" replied Goliah. "You have nothing to sell. Turn over your +little cut-throating, anarchistic businesses to the government so that +they may be rationally organized and operated." And the next day, by +decree, the government began taking possession of all factories, shops, +mines, ships, railroads, and producing lands. + +The nationalization of the means of production and distribution went on +apace. Here and there were sceptical capitalists of moment. They were +made prisoners and haled to Palgrave Island, and when they returned they +always acquiesced in what the government was doing. A little later the +journey to Palgrave Island became unnecessary. When objection was made, +the reply of the officials was "Goliah has spoken"--which was another way +of saying, "He must be obeyed." + +The captains of industry became heads of departments. It was found that +civil engineers, for instance, worked just as well in government employ +as before, they had worked in private employ. It was found that men of +high executive ability could not violate their nature. They could not +escape exercising their executive ability, any more than a crab could +escape crawling or a bird could escape flying. And so it was that all +the splendid force of the men who had previously worked for themselves +was now put to work for the good of society. The half-dozen great +railway chiefs co-operated in the organizing of a national system of +railways that was amazingly efficacious. Never again was there such a +thing as a car shortage. These chiefs were not the Wall Street railway +magnates, but they were the men who formerly had done the real work while +in the employ of the Wall Street magnates. + +Wall Street was dead. There was no more buying and selling and +speculating. Nobody had anything to buy or sell. There was nothing in +which to speculate. "Put the stock gamblers to work," said Goliah; "give +those that are young, and that so desire, a chance to learn useful +trades." "Put the drummers, and salesmen, and advertising agents, and +real estate agents to work," said Goliah; and by hundreds of thousands +the erstwhile useless middlemen and parasites went into useful +occupations. The four hundred thousand idle gentlemen of the country who +had lived upon incomes were likewise put to work. Then there were a lot +of helpless men in high places who were cleared out, the remarkable thing +about this being that they were cleared out by their own fellows. Of +this class were the professional politicians, whose wisdom and power +consisted of manipulating machine politics and of grafting. There was no +longer any graft. Since there were no private interests to purchase +special privileges, no bribes were offered to legislators, and +legislators for the first time legislated for the people. The result was +that men who were efficient, not in corruption, but in direction, found +their way into the legislatures. + +With this rational organization of society amazing results were brought +about. The national day's work was eight hours, and yet production +increased. In spite of the great permanent improvements and of the +immense amount of energy consumed in systematizing the competitive chaos +of society, production doubled and tripled upon itself. The standard of +living increased, and still consumption could not keep up with +production. The maximum working age was decreased to fifty years, to +forty-nine years, and to forty-eight years. The minimum working age went +up from sixteen years to eighteen years. The eight-hour day became a +seven-hour day, and in a few months the national working day was reduced +to five hours. + +In the meantime glimmerings were being caught, not of the identity of +Goliah, but of how he had worked and prepared for his assuming control of +the world. Little things leaked out, clues were followed up, apparently +unrelated things were pieced together. Strange stories of blacks stolen +from Africa were remembered, of Chinese and Japanese contract coolies who +had mysteriously disappeared, of lonely South Sea Islands raided and +their inhabitants carried away; stories of yachts and merchant steamers, +mysteriously purchased, that had disappeared and the descriptions of +which remotely tallied with the crafts that had carried the Orientals and +Africans and islanders away. Where had Goliah got the sinews of war? was +the question. And the surmised answer was: By exploiting these stolen +labourers. It was they that lived in the exposed village on Palgrave +Island. It was the product of their toil that had purchased the yachts +and merchant steamers and enabled Goliah's agents to permeate society and +carry out his will. And what was the product of their toil that had +given Goliah the wealth necessary to realize his plans? Commercial +radium, the newspapers proclaimed; and radiyte, and radiosole, and +argatium, and argyte, and the mysterious golyte (that had proved so +valuable in metallurgy). These were the new compounds, discovered in the +first decade of the twentieth century, the commercial and scientific use +of which had become so enormous in the second decade. + +The line of fruit boats that ran from Hawaii to San Francisco was +declared to be the property of Goliah. This was a surmise, for no other +owner could be discovered, and the agents who handled the shipments of +the fruit boats were only agents. Since no one else owned the fruit +boats, then Goliah must own them. The point of which is: _that it leaked +out that the major portion of the world's supply in these precious +compounds was brought to San Francisco by those very fruit boats_. That +the whole chain of surmise was correct was proved in later years when +Goliah's slaves were liberated and honourably pensioned by the +international government of the world. It was at that time that the seal +of secrecy was lifted from the lips of his agents and higher emissaries, +and those that chose revealed much of the mystery of Goliah's +organization and methods. His destroying angels, however, remained for +ever dumb. Who the men were who went forth to the high places and killed +at his bidding will be unknown to the end of time--for kill they did, by +means of that very subtle and then-mysterious force that Goliah had +discovered and named "Energon." + +But at that time Energon, the little giant that was destined to do the +work of the world, was unknown and undreamed of. Only Goliah knew, and +he kept his secret well. Even his agents, who were armed with it, and +who, in the case of the yacht _Energon_, destroyed a mighty fleet of +war-ships by exploding their magazines, knew not what the subtle and +potent force was, nor how it was manufactured. They knew only one of its +many uses, and in that one use they had been instructed by Goliah. It is +now well known that radium, and radiyte, and radiosole, and all the other +compounds, were by-products of the manufacture of Energon by Goliah from +the sunlight; but at that time nobody knew what Energon was, and Goliah +continued to awe and rule the world. + +One of the uses of Energon was in wireless telegraphy. It was by its +means that Goliah was able to communicate with his agents all over the +world. At that time the apparatus required by an agent was so clumsy +that it could not be packed in anything less than a fair-sized steamer +trunk. To-day, thanks to the improvements of Hendsoll, the perfected +apparatus can be carried in a coat pocket. + +It was in December, 1924, that Goliah sent out his famous "Christmas +Letter," part of the text of which is here given: + + "So far, while I have kept the rest of the nations from each other's + throats, I have devoted myself particularly to the United States. + Now I have not given to the people of the United States a rational + social organization. What I have done has been to compel them to + make that organization themselves. There is more laughter in the + United States these days, and there is more sense. Food and shelter + are no longer obtained by the anarchistic methods of so-called + individualism but are now wellnigh automatic. And the beauty of it + is that the people of the United States have achieved all this for + themselves. I did not achieve it for them. I repeat, they achieved + it for themselves. All that I did was to put the fear of death in + the hearts of the few that sat in the high places and obstructed the + coming of rationality and laughter. The fear of death made those in + the high places get out of the way, that was all, and gave the + intelligence of man a chance to realize itself socially. + + "In the year that is to come I shall devote myself to the rest of the + world. I shall put the fear of death in the hearts of all that sit + in the high places in all the nations. And they will do as they have + done in the United States--get down out of the high places and give + the intelligence of man a chance for social rationality. All the + nations shall tread the path the United States is now on. + + "And when all the nations are well along on that path, I shall have + something else for them. But first they must travel that path for + themselves. They must demonstrate that the intelligence of mankind + to-day, with the mechanical energy now at its disposal, is capable of + organizing society so that food and shelter be made automatic, labour + be reduced to a three-hour day, and joy and laughter be made + universal. And when that is accomplished, not by me but by the + intelligence of mankind, then I shall make a present to the world of + a new mechanical energy. This is my discovery. This Energon is + nothing more nor less than the cosmic energy that resides in the + solar rays. When it is harnessed by mankind it will do the work of + the world. There will be no more multitudes of miners slaving out + their lives in the bowels of the earth, no more sooty firemen and + greasy engineers. All may dress in white if they so will. The work + of life will have become play and young and old will be the children + of joy, and the business of living will become joy; and they will + compete, one with another, in achieving ethical concepts and + spiritual heights, in fashioning pictures and songs, and stories, in + statecraft and beauty craft, in the sweat and the endeavour of the + wrestler and the runner and the player of games--all will compete, + not for sordid coin and base material reward, but for the joy that + shall be theirs in the development and vigour of flesh and in the + development and keenness of spirit. All will be joy-smiths, and + their task shall be to beat out laughter from the ringing anvil of + life. + + "And now one word for the immediate future. On New Year's Day all + nations shall disarm, all fortresses and war-ships shall be + dismantled, and all armies shall be disbanded. + + "GOLIAH." + +On New Year's Day all the world disarmed. The millions of soldiers and +sailors and workmen in the standing armies, in the navies, and in the +countless arsenals, machine-shops, and factories for the manufacture of +war machinery, were dismissed to their homes. These many millions of +men, as well as their costly war machinery, had hitherto been supported +on the back of labour. They now went into useful occupations, and the +released labour giant heaved a mighty sigh of relief. The policing of +the world was left to the peace officers and was purely social, whereas +war had been distinctly anti-social. + +Ninety per cent. of the crimes against society had been crimes against +private property. With the passing of private property, at least in the +means of production, and with the organization of industry that gave +every man a chance, the crimes against private property practically +ceased. The police forces everywhere were reduced repeatedly and again +and again. Nearly all occasional and habitual criminals ceased +voluntarily from their depredations. There was no longer any need for +them to commit crime. They merely changed with changing conditions. A +smaller number of criminals was put into hospitals and cured. And the +remnant of the hopelessly criminal and degenerate was segregated. And +the courts in all countries were likewise decreased in number again and +again. Ninety-five per cent. of all civil cases had been squabbles over +property, conflicts of property-rights, lawsuits, contests of wills, +breaches of contract, bankruptcies, etc. With the passing of private +property, this ninety-five per cent. of the cases that cluttered the +courts also passed. The courts became shadows, attenuated ghosts, +rudimentary vestiges of the anarchistic times that had preceded the +coming of Goliah. + +The year 1925 was a lively year in the world's history. Goliah ruled the +world with a strong hand. Kings and emperors journeyed to Palgrave +Island, saw the wonders of Energon, and went away, with the fear of death +in their hearts, to abdicate thrones and crowns and hereditary licenses. +When Goliah spoke to politicians (so-called "statesmen"), they obeyed . . . +or died. He dictated universal reforms, dissolved refractory +parliaments, and to the great conspiracy that was formed of mutinous +money lords and captains of industry he sent his destroying angels. "The +time is past for fooling," he told them. "You are anachronisms. You +stand in the way of humanity. To the scrap-heap with you." To those +that protested, and they were many, he said: "This is no time for +logomachy. You can argue for centuries. It is what you have done in the +past. I have no time for argument. Get out of the way." + +With the exception of putting a stop to war, and of indicating the broad +general plan, Goliah did nothing. By putting the fear of death into the +hearts of those that sat in the high places and obstructed progress, +Goliah made the opportunity for the unshackled intelligence of the best +social thinkers of the world to exert itself. Goliah left all the +multitudinous details of reconstruction to these social thinkers. He +wanted them to prove that they were able to do it, and they proved it. +It was due to their initiative that the white plague was stamped out from +the world. It was due to them, and in spite of a deal of protesting from +the sentimentalists, that all the extreme hereditary inefficients were +segregated and denied marriage. + +Goliah had nothing whatever to do with the instituting of the colleges of +invention. This idea originated practically simultaneously in the minds +of thousands of social thinkers. The time was ripe for the realization +of the idea, and everywhere arose the splendid institutions of invention. +For the first time the ingenuity of man was loosed upon the problem of +simplifying life, instead of upon the making of money-earning devices. +The affairs of life, such as house-cleaning, dish and window-washing, +dust-removing, and scrubbing and clothes-washing, and all the endless +sordid and necessary details, were simplified by invention until they +became automatic. We of to-day cannot realize the barbarously filthy and +slavish lives of those that lived prior to 1925. + +The international government of the world was another idea that sprang +simultaneously into the minds of thousands. The successful realization +of this idea was a surprise to many, but as a surprise it was nothing to +that received by the mildly protestant sociologists and biologists when +irrefutable facts exploded the doctrine of Malthus. With leisure and joy +in the world; with an immensely higher standard of living; and with the +enormous spaciousness of opportunity for recreation, development, and +pursuit of beauty and nobility and all the higher attributes, the +birth-rate fell, and fell astoundingly. People ceased breeding like +cattle. And better than that, it was immediately noticeable that a +higher average of children was being born. The doctrine of Malthus was +knocked into a cocked hat--or flung to the scrap-heap, as Goliah would +have put it. + +All that Goliah had predicted that the intelligence of mankind could +accomplish with the mechanical energy at its disposal, came to pass. +Human dissatisfaction practically disappeared. The elderly people were +the great grumblers; but when they were honourably pensioned by society, +as they passed the age limit for work, the great majority ceased +grumbling. They found themselves better off in their idle old days under +the new regime, enjoying vastly more pleasure and comforts than they had +in their busy and toilsome youth under the old regime. The younger +generation had easily adapted itself too the changed order, and the very +young had never known anything else. The sum of human happiness had +increased enormously. The world had become gay and sane. Even the old +fogies of professors of sociology, who had opposed with might and main +the coming of the new regime, made no complaint. They were a score of +times better remunerated than in the old days, and they were not worked +nearly so hard. Besides, they were busy revising sociology and writing +new text-books on the subject. Here and there, it is true, there were +atavisms, men who yearned for the flesh-pots and cannibal-feasts of the +old alleged "individualism," creatures long of teeth and savage of claw +who wanted to prey upon their fellow-men; but they were looked upon as +diseased, and were treated in hospitals. A small remnant, however, +proved incurable, and was confined in asylums and denied marriage. Thus +there was no progeny to inherit their atavistic tendencies. + +As the years went by, Goliah dropped out of the running of the world. +There was nothing for him to run. The world was running itself, and +doing it smoothly and beautifully. In 1937, Goliah made his +long-promised present of Energon to the world. He himself had devised a +thousand ways in which the little giant should do the work of the +world--all of which he made public at the same time. But instantly the +colleges of invention seized upon Energon and utilized it in a hundred +thousand additional ways. In fact, as Goliah confessed in his letter of +March 1938, the colleges of invention cleared up several puzzling +features of Energon that had baffled him during the preceding years. +With the introduction of the use of Energon the two-hour work-day was cut +down almost to nothing. As Goliah had predicted, work indeed became +play. And, so tremendous was man's productive capacity, due to Energon +and the rational social utilization of it, that the humblest citizen +enjoyed leisure and time and opportunity for an immensely greater +abundance of living than had the most favoured under the old anarchistic +system. + +Nobody had ever seen Goliah, and all peoples began to clamour for their +saviour to appear. While the world did not minimize his discovery of +Energon, it was decided that greater than that was his wide social +vision. He was a superman, a scientific superman; and the curiosity of +the world to see him had become wellnigh unbearable. It was in 1941, +after much hesitancy on his part, that he finally emerged from Palgrave +Island. He arrived on June 6 in San Francisco, and for the first time, +since his retirement to Palgrave Island, the world looked upon his face. +And the world was disappointed. Its imagination had been touched. An +heroic figure had been made out of Goliah. He was the man, or the +demi-god, rather, who had turned the planet over. The deeds of +Alexander, Caesar, Genghis Khan, and Napoleon were as the play of babes +alongside his colossal achievements. + +And ashore in San Francisco and through its streets stepped and rode a +little old man, sixty-five years of age, well preserved, with a +pink-and-white complexion and a bald spot on his head the size of an +apple. He was short-sighted and wore spectacles. But when the +spectacles were removed, his were quizzical blue eyes like a child's, +filled with mild wonder at the world. Also his eyes had a way of +twinkling, accompanied by a screwing up of the face, as if he laughed at +the huge joke he had played upon the world, trapping it, in spite of +itself, into happiness and laughter. + +For a scientific superman and world tyrant, he had remarkable weaknesses. +He loved sweets, and was inordinately fond of salted almonds and salted +pecans, especially of the latter. He always carried a paper bag of them +in his pocket, and he had a way of saying frequently that the chemism of +his nature demanded such fare. Perhaps his most astonishing failing was +cats. He had an ineradicable aversion to that domestic animal. It will +be remembered that he fainted dead away with sudden fright, while +speaking in Brotherhood Palace, when the janitor's cat walked out upon +the stage and brushed against his legs. + +But no sooner had he revealed himself to the world than he was +identified. Old-time friends had no difficulty in recognizing him as +Percival Stultz, the German-American who, in 1898, had worked in the +Union Iron Works, and who, for two years at that time, had been secretary +of Branch 369 of the International Brotherhood of Machinists. It was in +1901, then twenty-five years of age, that he had taken special scientific +courses at the University of California, at the same time supporting +himself by soliciting what was then known as "life insurance." His +records as a student are preserved in the university museum, and they are +unenviable. He is remembered by the professors he sat under chiefly for +his absent-mindedness. Undoubtedly, even then, he was catching glimpses +of the wide visions that later were to be his. + +His naming himself "Goliah" and shrouding himself in mystery was his +little joke, he later explained. As Goliah, or any other thing like +that, he said, he was able to touch the imagination of the world and turn +it over; but as Percival Stultz, wearing side-whiskers and spectacles, +and weighing one hundred and eighteen pounds, he would have been unable +to turn over a pecan--"not even a salted pecan." + +But the world quickly got over its disappointment in his personal +appearance and antecedents. It knew him and revered him as the +master-mind of the ages; and it loved him for himself, for his quizzical +short-sighted eyes and the inimitable way in which he screwed up his face +when he laughed; it loved him for his simplicity and comradeship and warm +humanness, and for his fondness for salted pecans and his aversion to +cats. And to-day, in the wonder-city of Asgard, rises in awful beauty +that monument to him that dwarfs the pyramids and all the monstrous +blood-stained monuments of antiquity. And on that monument, as all know, +is inscribed in imperishable bronze the prophecy and the fulfilment: "ALL +WILL BE JOY-SMITHS, AND THEIR TASK SHALL BE TO BEAT OUT LAUGHTER FROM THE +RINGING ANVIL OF LIFE." + +[EDITORIAL NOTE.--This remarkable production is the work of Harry +Beckwith, a student in the Lowell High School of San Francisco, and it is +here reproduced chiefly because of the youth of its author. Far be it +from our policy to burden our readers with ancient history; and when it +is known that Harry Beckwith was only fifteen when the fore-going was +written, our motive will be understood. "Goliah" won the Premier for +high school composition in 2254, and last year Harry Beckwith took +advantage of the privilege earned, by electing to spend six months in +Asgard. The wealth of historical detail, the atmosphere of the times, +and the mature style of the composition are especially noteworthy in one +so young.] + + + + +THE GOLDEN POPPY + + +I have a poppy field. That is, by the grace of God and the good-nature +of editors, I am enabled to place each month divers gold pieces into a +clerical gentleman's hands, and in return for said gold pieces I am each +month reinvested with certain proprietary-rights in a poppy field. This +field blazes on the rim of the Piedmont Hills. Beneath lies all the +world. In the distance, across the silver sweep of bay, San Francisco +smokes on her many hills like a second Rome. Not far away, Mount +Tamalpais thrusts a rugged shoulder into the sky; and midway between is +the Golden Gate, where sea mists love to linger. From the poppy field we +often see the shimmering blue of the Pacific beyond, and the busy ships +that go for ever out and in. + +"We shall have great joy in our poppy field," said Bess. "Yes," said I; +"how the poor city folk will envy when they come to see us, and how we +will make all well again when we send them off with great golden +armfuls!" + +"But those things will have to come down," I added, pointing to numerous +obtrusive notices (relics of the last tenant) displayed conspicuously +along the boundaries, and bearing, each and all, this legend: + + "_Private Grounds_. _No Trespassing_." + +"Why should we refuse the poor city folk a ramble over our field, +because, forsooth, they have not the advantage of our acquaintance?" + +"How I abhor such things," said Bess; "the arrogant symbols of power." + +"They disgrace human nature," said I. + +"They shame the generous landscape," she said, "and they are abominable." + +"Piggish!" quoth I, hotly. "Down with them!" + +We looked forward to the coming of the poppies, did Bess and I, looked +forward as only creatures of the city may look who have been long denied. +I have forgotten to mention the existence of a house above the poppy +field, a squat and wandering bungalow in which we had elected to forsake +town traditions and live in fresher and more vigorous ways. The first +poppies came, orange-yellow and golden in the standing grain, and we went +about gleefully, as though drunken with their wine, and told each other +that the poppies were there. We laughed at unexpected moments, in the +midst of silences, and at times grew ashamed and stole forth secretly to +gaze upon our treasury. But when the great wave of poppy-flame finally +spilled itself down the field, we shouted aloud, and danced, and clapped +our hands, freely and frankly mad. + +And then came the Goths. My face was in a lather, the time of the first +invasion, and I suspended my razor in mid-air to gaze out on my beloved +field. At the far end I saw a little girl and a little boy, their arms +filled with yellow spoil. Ah, thought I, an unwonted benevolence +burgeoning, what a delight to me is their delight! It is sweet that +children should pick poppies in my field. All summer shall they pick +poppies in my field. But they must be little children, I added as an +afterthought, and they must pick from the lower end--this last prompted +by a glance at the great golden fellows nodding in the wheat beneath my +window. Then the razor descended. Shaving was always an absorbing task, +and I did not glance out of the window again until the operation was +completed. And then I was bewildered. Surely this was not my poppy +field. No--and yes, for there were the tall pines clustering austerely +together on one side, the magnolia tree burdened with bloom, and the +Japanese quinces splashing the driveway hedge with blood. Yes, it was +the field, but no wave of poppy-flame spilled down it, nor did the great +golden fellows nod in the wheat beneath my window. I rushed into a +jacket and out of the house. In the far distance were disappearing two +huge balls of colour, orange and yellow, for all the world like +perambulating poppies of cyclopean breed. + +"Johnny," said I to the nine-year-old son of my sister, "Johnny, whenever +little girls come into our field to pick poppies, you must go down to +them, and in a very quiet and gentlemanly manner, tell them it is not +allowed." + +Warm days came, and the sun drew another blaze from the free-bosomed +earth. Whereupon a neighbour's little girl, at the behest of her mother, +duly craved and received permission from Bess to gather a few poppies for +decorative purposes. But of this I was uninformed, and when I descried +her in the midst of the field I waved my arms like a semaphore against +the sky. + +"Little girl!" called I. "Little girl!" + +The little girl's legs blurred the landscape as she fled, and in high +elation I sought Bess to tell of the potency of my voice. Nobly she came +to the rescue, departing forthwith on an expedition of conciliation and +explanation to the little girl's mother. But to this day the little girl +seeks cover at sight of me, and I know the mother will never be as +cordial as she would otherwise have been. + +Came dark, overcast days, stiff, driving winds, and pelting rains, day on +day, without end, and the city folk cowered in their dwelling-places like +flood-beset rats; and like rats, half-drowned and gasping, when the +weather cleared they crawled out and up the green Piedmont slopes to bask +in the blessed sunshine. And they invaded my field in swarms and droves, +crushing the sweet wheat into the earth and with lustful hands ripping +the poppies out by the roots. + +"I shall put up the warnings against trespassing," I said. + +"Yes," said Bess, with a sigh. "I'm afraid it is necessary." + +The day was yet young when she sighed again: + +"I'm afraid, O Man, that your signs are of no avail. People have +forgotten how to read, these days." + +I went out on the porch. A city nymph, in cool summer gown and picture +hat, paused before one of my newly reared warnings and read it through +with care. Profound deliberation characterized her movements. She was +statuesquely tall, but with a toss of the head and a flirt of the skirt +she dropped on hands and knees, crawled under the fence, and came to her +feet on the inside with poppies in both her hands. I walked down the +drive and talked ethically to her, and she went away. Then I put up more +signs. + +At one time, years ago, these hills were carpeted with poppies. As +between the destructive forces and the will "to live," the poppies +maintained an equilibrium with their environment. But the city folk +constituted a new and terrible destructive force, the equilibrium was +overthrown, and the poppies wellnigh perished. Since the city folk +plucked those with the longest stems and biggest bowls, and since it is +the law of kind to procreate kind, the long-stemmed, big-bowled poppies +failed to go to seed, and a stunted, short-stemmed variety remained to +the hills. And not only was it stunted and short-stemmed, but sparsely +distributed as well. Each day and every day, for years and years, the +city folk swarmed over the Piedmont Hills, and only here and there did +the genius of the race survive in the form of miserable little flowers, +close-clinging and quick-blooming, like children of the slums dragged +hastily and precariously through youth to a shrivelled and futile +maturity. + +On the other hand, the poppies had prospered in my field; and not only +had they been sheltered from the barbarians, but also from the birds. +Long ago the field was sown in wheat, which went to seed unharvested each +year, and in the cool depths of which the poppy seeds were hidden from +the keen-eyed songsters. And further, climbing after the sun through the +wheat stalks, the poppies grew taller and taller and more royal even than +the primordial ones of the open. + +So the city folk, gazing from the bare hills to my blazing, burning +field, were sorely tempted, and, it must be told, as sorely fell. But no +sorer was their fall than that of my beloved poppies. Where the grain +holds the dew and takes the bite from the sun the soil is moist, and in +such soil it is easier to pull the poppies out by the roots than to break +the stalk. Now the city folk, like other folk, are inclined to move +along the line of least resistance, and for each flower they gathered, +there were also gathered many crisp-rolled buds and with them all the +possibilities and future beauties of the plant for all time to come. + +One of the city folk, a middle-aged gentleman, with white hands and +shifty eyes, especially made life interesting for me. We called him the +"Repeater," what of his ways. When from the porch we implored him to +desist, he was wont slowly and casually to direct his steps toward the +fence, simulating finely the actions of a man who had not heard, but +whose walk, instead, had terminated of itself or of his own volition. To +heighten this effect, now and again, still casually and carelessly, he +would stoop and pluck another poppy. Thus did he deceitfully save +himself the indignity of being put out, and rob us of the satisfaction of +putting him out, but he came, and he came often, each time getting away +with an able-bodied man's share of plunder. + +It is not good to be of the city folk. Of this I am convinced. There is +something in the mode of life that breeds an alarming condition of +blindness and deafness, or so it seems with the city folk that come to my +poppy field. Of the many to whom I have talked ethically not one has +been found who ever saw the warnings so conspicuously displayed, while of +those called out to from the porch, possibly one in fifty has heard. +Also, I have discovered that the relation of city folk to country flowers +is quite analogous to that of a starving man to food. No more than the +starving man realizes that five pounds of meat is not so good as an +ounce, do they realize that five hundred poppies crushed and bunched are +less beautiful than two or three in a free cluster, where the green +leaves and golden bowls may expand to their full loveliness. + +Less forgivable than the unaesthetic are the mercenary. Hordes of young +rascals plunder me and rob the future that they may stand on street +corners and retail "California poppies, only five cents a bunch!" In +spite of my precautions some of them made a dollar a day out of my field. +One horde do I remember with keen regret. Reconnoitring for a possible +dog, they applied at the kitchen door for "a drink of water, please." +While they drank they were besought not to pick any flowers. They +nodded, wiped their mouths, and proceeded to take themselves off by the +side of the bungalow. They smote the poppy field beneath my windows, +spread out fan-shaped six wide, picking with both hands, and ripped a +swath of destruction through the very heart of the field. No cyclone +travelled faster or destroyed more completely. I shouted after them, but +they sped on the wings of the wind, great regal poppies, broken-stalked +and mangled, trailing after them or cluttering their wake--the most +high-handed act of piracy, I am confident, ever committed off the high +seas. + +One day I went a-fishing, and on that day a woman entered the field. +Appeals and remonstrances from the porch having no effect upon her, Bess +despatched a little girl to beg of her to pick no more poppies. The +woman calmly went on picking. Then Bess herself went down through the +heat of the day. But the woman went on picking, and while she picked she +discussed property and proprietary rights, denying Bess's sovereignty +until deeds and documents should be produced in proof thereof. And all +the time she went on picking, never once overlooking her hand. She was a +large woman, belligerent of aspect, and Bess was only a woman and not +prone to fisticuffs. So the invader picked until she could pick no more, +said "Good-day," and sailed majestically away. + +"People have really grown worse in the last several years, I think," said +Bess to me in a tired sort of voice that night, as we sat in the library +after dinner. + +Next day I was inclined to agree with her. "There's a woman and a little +girl heading straight for the poppies," said May, a maid about the +bungalow. I went out on the porch and waited their advent. They plunged +through the pine trees and into the fields, and as the roots of the first +poppies were pulled I called to them. They were about a hundred feet +away. The woman and the little girl turned to the sound of my voice and +looked at me. "Please do not pick the poppies," I pleaded. They +pondered this for a minute; then the woman said something in an undertone +to the little girl, and both backs jack-knifed as the slaughter +recommenced. I shouted, but they had become suddenly deaf. I screamed, +and so fiercely that the little girl wavered dubiously. And while the +woman went on picking I could hear her in low tones heartening the little +girl. + +I recollected a siren whistle with which I was wont to summon Johnny, the +son of my sister. It was a fearsome thing, of a kind to wake the dead, +and I blew and blew, but the jack-knifed backs never unclasped. I do not +mind with men, but I have never particularly favoured physical encounters +with women; yet this woman, who encouraged a little girl in iniquity, +tempted me. + +I went into the bungalow and fetched my rifle. Flourishing it in a +sanguinary manner and scowling fearsomely, I charged upon the invaders. +The little girl fled, screaming, to the shelter of the pines, but the +woman calmly went on picking. She took not the least notice. I had +expected her to run at sight of me, and it was embarrassing. There was +I, charging down the field like a wild bull upon a woman who would not +get out of the way. I could only slow down, supremely conscious of how +ridiculous it all was. At a distance of ten feet she straightened up and +deigned to look at me. I came to a halt and blushed to the roots of my +hair. Perhaps I really did frighten her (I sometimes try to persuade +myself that this is so), or perhaps she took pity on me; but, at any +rate, she stalked out of my field with great composure, nay, majesty, her +arms brimming with orange and gold. + +Nevertheless, thenceforward I saved my lungs and flourished my rifle. +Also, I made fresh generalizations. To commit robbery women take +advantage of their sex. Men have more respect for property than women. +Men are less insistent in crime than women. And women are less afraid of +guns than men. Likewise, we conquer the earth in hazard and battle by +the virtues of our mothers. We are a race of land-robbers and +sea-robbers, we Anglo-Saxons, and small wonder, when we suckle at the +breasts of a breed of women such as maraud my poppy field. + +Still the pillage went on. Sirens and gun-flourishings were without +avail. The city folk were great of heart and undismayed, and I noted the +habit of "repeating" was becoming general. What booted it how often they +were driven forth if each time they were permitted to carry away their +ill-gotten plunder? When one has turned the same person away twice and +thrice an emotion arises somewhat akin to homicide. And when one has +once become conscious of this sanguinary feeling his whole destiny seems +to grip hold of him and drag him into the abyss. More than once I found +myself unconsciously pulling the rifle into position to get a sight on +the miserable trespassers. In my sleep I slew them in manifold ways and +threw their carcasses into the reservoir. Each day the temptation to +shoot them in the legs became more luring, and every day I felt my fate +calling to me imperiously. Visions of the gallows rose up before me, and +with the hemp about my neck I saw stretched out the pitiless future of my +children, dark with disgrace and shame. I became afraid of myself, and +Bess went about with anxious face, privily beseeching my friends to +entice me into taking a vacation. Then, and at the last gasp, came the +thought that saved me: _Why not confiscate_? If their forays were +bootless, in the nature of things their forays would cease. + +The first to enter my field thereafter was a man. + +I was waiting for him--And, oh joy! it was the "Repeater" himself, smugly +complacent with knowledge of past success. I dropped the rifle +negligently across the hollow of my arm and went down to him. + +"I am sorry to trouble you for those poppies," I said in my oiliest +tones; "but really, you know, I must have them." + +He regarded me speechlessly. It must have made a great picture. It +surely was dramatic. With the rifle across my arm and my suave request +still ringing in my ears, I felt like Black Bart, and Jesse James, and +Jack Sheppard, and Robin Hood, and whole generations of highwaymen. + +"Come, come," I said, a little sharply and in what I imagined was the +true fashion; "I am sorry to inconvenience you, believe me, but I must +have those poppies." + +I absently shifted the gun and smiled. That fetched him. Without a word +he passed them over and turned his toes toward the fence, but no longer +casual and careless was his carriage, I nor did he stoop to pick the +occasional poppy by the way. That was the last of the "Repeater." I +could see by his eyes that he did not like me, and his back reproached me +all the way down the field and out of sight. + +From that day the bungalow has been flooded with poppies. Every vase and +earthen jar is filled with them. They blaze on every mantel and run riot +through all the rooms. I present them to my friends in huge bunches, and +still the kind city folk come and gather more for me. "Sit down for a +moment," I say to the departing guest. And there we sit in the shade of +the porch while aspiring city creatures pluck my poppies and sweat under +the brazen sun. And when their arms are sufficiently weighted with my +yellow glories, I go down with the rifle over my arm and disburden them. +Thus have I become convinced that every situation has its compensations. + +Confiscation was successful, so far as it went; but I had forgotten one +thing; namely, the vast number of the city folk. Though the old +transgressors came no more, new ones arrived every day, and I found +myself confronted with the titanic task of educating a whole cityful to +the inexpediency of raiding my poppy field. During the process of +disburdening them I was accustomed to explaining my side of the case, but +I soon gave this over. It was a waste of breath. They could not +understand. To one lady, who insinuated that I was miserly, I said: + +"My dear madam, no hardship is worked upon you. Had I not been +parsimonious yesterday and the day before, these poppies would have been +picked by the city hordes of that day and the day before, and your eyes, +which to-day have discovered this field, would have beheld no poppies at +all. The poppies you may not pick to-day are the poppies I did not +permit to be picked yesterday and the day before. Therefore, believe me, +you are denied nothing." + +"But the poppies are here to-day," she said, glaring carnivorously upon +their glow and splendour. + +"I will pay you for them," said a gentleman, at another time. (I had +just relieved him of an armful.) I felt a sudden shame, I know not why, +unless it be that his words had just made clear to me that a monetary as +well as an aesthetic value was attached to my flowers. The apparent +sordidness of my position overwhelmed me, and I said weakly: "I do not +sell my poppies. You may have what you have picked." But before the +week was out I confronted the same gentleman again. "I will pay you for +them," he said. "Yes," I said, "you may pay me for them. Twenty +dollars, please." He gasped, looked at me searchingly, gasped again, and +silently and sadly put the poppies down. But it remained, as usual, for +a woman to attain the sheerest pitch of audacity. When I declined +payment and demanded my plucked beauties, she refused to give them up. +"I picked these poppies," she said, "and my time is worth money. When +you have paid me for my time you may have them." Her cheeks flamed +rebellion, and her face, withal a pretty one, was set and determined. +Now, I was a man of the hill tribes, and she a mere woman of the city +folk, and though it is not my inclination to enter into details, it is my +pleasure to state that that bunch of poppies subsequently glorified the +bungalow and that the woman departed to the city unpaid. Anyway, they +were my poppies. + +"They are God's poppies," said the Radiant Young Radical, democratically +shocked at sight of me turning city folk out of my field. And for two +weeks she hated me with a deathless hatred. I sought her out and +explained. I explained at length. I told the story of the poppy as +Maeterlinck has told the life of the bee. I treated the question +biologically, psychologically, and sociologically, I discussed it +ethically and aesthetically. I grew warm over it, and impassioned; and +when I had done, she professed conversion, but in my heart of hearts I +knew it to be compassion. I fled to other friends for consolation. I +retold the story of the poppy. They did not appear supremely interested. +I grew excited. They were surprised and pained. They looked at me +curiously. "It ill-befits your dignity to squabble over poppies," they +said. "It is unbecoming." + +I fled away to yet other friends. I sought vindication. The thing had +become vital, and I needs must put myself right. I felt called upon to +explain, though well knowing that he who explains is lost. I told the +story of the poppy over again. I went into the minutest details. I +added to it, and expanded. I talked myself hoarse, and when I could talk +no more they looked bored. Also, they said insipid things, and soothful +things, and things concerning other things, and not at all to the point. +I was consumed with anger, and there and then I renounced them all. + +At the bungalow I lie in wait for chance visitors. Craftily I broach the +subject, watching their faces closely the while to detect first signs of +disapprobation, whereupon I empty long-stored vials of wrath upon their +heads. I wrangle for hours with whosoever does not say I am right. I am +become like Guy de Maupassant's old man who picked up a piece of string. +I am incessantly explaining, and nobody will understand. I have become +more brusque in my treatment of the predatory city folk. No longer do I +take delight in their disburdenment, for it has become an onerous duty, a +wearisome and distasteful task. My friends look askance and murmur +pityingly on the side when we meet in the city. They rarely come to see +me now. They are afraid. I am an embittered and disappointed man, and +all the light seems to have gone out of my life and into my blazing +field. So one pays for things. + +PIEDMONT, CALIFORNIA. +_April_ 1902. + + + + +THE SHRINKAGE OF THE PLANET + + +What a tremendous affair it was, the world of Homer, with its +indeterminate boundaries, vast regions, and immeasurable distances. The +Mediterranean and the Euxine were illimitable stretches of ocean waste +over which years could be spent in endless wandering. On their +mysterious shores were the improbable homes of impossible peoples. The +Great Sea, the Broad Sea, the Boundless Sea; the Ethiopians, "dwelling +far away, the most distant of men," and the Cimmerians, "covered with +darkness and cloud," where "baleful night is spread over timid mortals." +Phoenicia was a sore journey, Egypt simply unattainable, while the +Pillars of Hercules marked the extreme edge of the universe. Ulysses was +nine days in sailing from Ismarus the city of the Ciconians, to the +country of the Lotus-eaters--a period of time which to-day would breed +anxiety in the hearts of the underwriters should it be occupied by the +slowest tramp steamer in traversing the Mediterranean and Black Seas from +Gibraltar to Sebastopol. + +Homer's world, restricted to less than a drummer's circuit, was +nevertheless immense, surrounded by a thin veneer of universe--the Stream +of Ocean. But how it has shrunk! To-day, precisely charted, weighed, +and measured, a thousand times larger than the world of Homer, it is +become a tiny speck, gyrating to immutable law through a universe the +bounds of which have been pushed incalculably back. The light of Algol +shines upon it--a light which travels at one hundred and ninety thousand +miles per second, yet requires forty-seven years to reach its +destination. And the denizens of this puny ball have come to know that +Algol possesses an invisible companion, three and a quarter millions of +miles away, and that the twain move in their respective orbits at rates +of fifty-five and twenty-six miles per second. They also know that +beyond it are great chasms of space, innumerable worlds, and vast star +systems. + +While much of the shrinkage to which the planet has been subjected is due +to the increased knowledge of mathematics and physics, an equal, if not +greater, portion may be ascribed to the perfection of the means of +locomotion and communication. The enlargement of stellar space, +demonstrating with stunning force the insignificance of the earth, has +been negative in its effect; but the quickening of travel and +intercourse, by making the earth's parts accessible and knitting them +together, has been positive. + +The advantage of the animal over the vegetable kingdom is obvious. The +cabbage, should its environment tend to become worse, must live it out, +or die; the rabbit may move on in quest of a better. But, after all, the +swift-footed creatures are circumscribed in their wanderings. The first +large river almost inevitably bars their way, and certainly the first +salt sea becomes an impassable obstacle. Better locomotion may be +classed as one of the prime aims of the old natural selection; for in +that primordial day the race was to the swift as surely as the battle to +the strong. But man, already pre-eminent in the common domain because of +other faculties, was not content with the one form of locomotion afforded +by his lower limbs. He swam in the sea, and, still better, becoming +aware of the buoyant virtues of wood, learned to navigate its surface. +Likewise, from among the land animals he chose the more likely to bear +him and his burdens. The next step was the domestication of these useful +aids. Here, in its organic significance, natural selection ceased to +concern itself with locomotion. Man had displayed his impatience at her +tedious methods and his own superiority in the hastening of affairs. +Thenceforth he must depend upon himself, and faster-swimming or +faster-running men ceased to be bred. The one, half-amphibian, breasting +the water with muscular arms, could not hope to overtake or escape an +enemy who propelled a fire-hollowed tree trunk by means of a wooden +paddle; nor could the other, trusting to his own nimbleness, compete with +a foe who careered wildly across the plain on the back of a half-broken +stallion. + +So, in that dim day, man took upon himself the task of increasing his +dominion over space and time, and right nobly has he acquitted himself. +Because of it he became a road builder and a bridge builder; likewise, he +wove clumsy sails of rush and matting. At a very remote period he must +also have recognized that force moves along the line of least resistance, +and in virtue thereof, placed upon his craft rude keels which enabled him +to beat to windward in a seaway. As he excelled in these humble arts, +just so did he add to his power over his less progressive fellows and lay +the foundations for the first glimmering civilizations--crude they were +beyond conception, sporadic and ephemeral, but each formed a necessary +part of the groundwork upon which was to rise the mighty civilization of +our latter-day world. + +Divorced from the general history of man's upward climb, it would seem +incredible that so long a time should elapse between the moment of his +first improvements over nature in the matter of locomotion and that of +the radical changes he was ultimately to compass. The principles which +were his before history was, were his, neither more nor less, even to the +present century. He utilized improved applications, but the principles +of themselves were ever the same, whether in the war chariots of Achilles +and Pharaoh or the mail-coach and diligence of the European traveller, +the cavalry of the Huns or of Prince Rupert, the triremes and galleys of +Greece and Rome or the East India-men and clipper ships of the last +century. But when the moment came to alter the methods of travel, the +change was so sweeping that it may be safely classed as a revolution. +Though the discovery of steam attaches to the honour of the last century, +the potency of the new power was not felt till the beginning of this. By +1800 small steamers were being used for coasting purposes in England; +1830 witnessed the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway; while +it was not until 1838 that the Atlantic was first crossed by the +steamships _Great Western_ and _Sirius_. In 1869 the East was made +next-door neighbour to the West. Over almost the same ground where had +toiled the caravans of a thousand generations, the Suez Canal was dug. +Clive, during his first trip, was a year and a half _en route_ from +England to India; were he alive to-day he could journey to Calcutta in +twenty-two days. After reading De Quincey's hyperbolical description of +the English mail-coach, one cannot down the desire to place that +remarkable man on the pilot of the White Mail or of the Twentieth +Century. + +But this tremendous change in the means of locomotion meant far more than +the mere rapid transit of men from place to place. Until then, though +its influence and worth cannot be overestimated, commerce had eked out a +precarious and costly existence. The fortuitous played too large a part +in the trade of men. The mischances by land and sea, the mistakes and +delays, were adverse elements of no mean proportions. But improved +locomotion meant improved carrying, and commerce received an impetus as +remarkable as it was unexpected. In his fondest fancies James Watt could +not have foreseen even the approximate result of his invention, the +Hercules which was to spring from the puny child of his brain and hands. +An illuminating spectacle, were it possible, would be afforded by +summoning him from among the Shades to a place in the engine-room of an +ocean greyhound. The humblest trimmer would treat him with the +indulgence of a child; while an oiler, a greasy nimbus about his head and +in his hand, as sceptre, a long-snouted can, would indeed appear to him a +demigod and ruler of forces beyond his ken. + +It has ever been the world's dictum that empire and commerce go hand in +hand. In the past the one was impossible without the other. Rome +gathered to herself the wealth of the Mediterranean nations, and it was +only by an unwise distribution of it that she became emasculated and lost +both power and trade. With a just system of economics it is highly +probable that for centuries she could have held back the welling tide of +the Germanic peoples. When upon her ruins rose the institutions of the +conquering Teutons, commerce slipped away, and with it empire. In the +present, empire and commerce have become interdependent. Such wonders +has the industrial revolution wrought in a few swift decades, and so +great has been the shrinkage of the planet, that the industrial nations +have long since felt the imperative demand for foreign markets. The +favoured portions of the earth are occupied. From their seats in the +temperate zones the militant commercial nations proceed to the +exploitation of the tropics, and for the possession of these they rush to +war hot-footed. Like wolves at the end of a gorge, they wrangle over the +fragments. There are no more planets, no more fragments, and they are +yet hungry. There are no longer Cimmerians and Ethiopians, in +wide-stretching lands, awaiting them. On either hand they confront the +naked poles, and they recoil from unnavigable space to an intenser +struggle among themselves. And all the while the planet shrinks beneath +their grasp. + +Of this struggle one thing may be safely predicated; a commercial power +must be a sea power. Upon the control of the sea depends the control of +trade. Carthage threatened Rome till she lost her navy; and then for +thirteen days the smoke of her burning rose to the skies, and the ground +was ploughed and sown with salt on the site of her most splendid +edifices. The cities of Italy were the world's merchants till new trade +routes were discovered and the dominion of the sea passed on to the west +and fell into other hands. Spain and Portugal, inaugurating an era of +maritime discovery, divided the new world between them, but gave way +before a breed of sea-rovers, who, after many generations of attachment +to the soil, had returned to their ancient element. With the destruction +of her Armada Spain's colossal dream of colonial empire passed away. +Against the new power Holland strove in vain, and when France +acknowledged the superiority of the Briton upon the sea, she at the same +time relinquished her designs upon the world. Hampered by her feeble +navy, her contest for supremacy upon the land was her last effort and +with the passing of Napoleon she retired within herself to struggle with +herself as best she might. For fifty years England held undisputed sway +upon the sea, controlled markets, and domineered trade, laying, during +that period, the foundations of her empire. Since then other naval +powers have arisen, their attitudes bearing significantly upon the +future; for they have learned that the mastery of the world belongs to +the masters of the sea. + +That many of the phases of this world shrinkage are pathetic, goes +without question. There is much to condemn in the rise of the economic +over the imaginative spirit, much for which the energetic Philistine can +never atone. Perhaps the deepest pathos of all may be found in the +spectacle of John Ruskin weeping at the profanation of the world by the +vandalism of the age. Steam launches violate the sanctity of the +Venetian canals; where Xerxes bridged the Hellespont ply the filthy +funnels of our modern shipping; electric cars run in the shadow of the +pyramids; and it was only the other day that Lord Kitchener was in a +railroad wreck near the site of ancient Luxor. But there is always the +other side. If the economic man has defiled temples and despoiled +nature, he has also preserved. He has policed the world and parked it, +reduced the dangers of life and limb, made the tenure of existence less +precarious, and rendered a general relapse of society impossible. There +can never again be an intellectual holocaust, such as the burning of the +Alexandrian library. Civilizations may wax and wane, but the totality of +knowledge cannot decrease. With the possible exception of a few trade +secrets, arts and sciences may be discarded, but they can never be lost. +And these things must remain true until the end of man's time upon the +earth. + +Up to yesterday communication for any distance beyond the sound of the +human voice or the sight of the human eye was bound up with locomotion. +A letter presupposed a carrier. The messenger started with the message, +and he could not but avail himself of the prevailing modes of travel. If +the voyage to Australia required four months, four months were required +for communication; by no known means could this time be lessened. But +with the advent of the telegraph and telephone, communication and +locomotion were divorced. In a few hours, at most, there could be +performed what by the old way would have required months. In 1837 the +needle telegraph was invented, and nine years later the Electric +Telegraph Company was formed for the purpose of bringing it into general +use. Government postal systems also came into being, later to +consolidate into an international union and to group the nations of the +earth into a local neighbourhood. The effects of all this are obvious, +and no fitter illustration may be presented than the fact that to-day, in +the matter of communication, the Klondike is virtually nearer to Boston +than was Bunker Hill in the time of Warren. + +A contemporaneous and remarkable shrinkage of a vast stretch of territory +may be instanced in the Northland. From its rise at Lake Linderman the +Yukon runs twenty-five hundred miles to Bering Sea, traversing an almost +unknown region, the remote recesses of which had never felt the +moccasined foot of the pathfinder. At occasional intervals men wallowed +into its dismal fastnesses, or emerged gaunt and famine-worn. But in the +fall of 1896 a great gold strike was made--greater than any since the +days of California and Australia; yet, so rude were the means of +communication, nearly a year elapsed before the news of it reached the +eager ear of the world. Passionate pilgrims disembarked their outfits at +Dyea. Over the terrible Chilcoot Pass the trail led to the lakes, thirty +miles away. Carriage was yet in its most primitive stage, the road +builder and bridge builder unheard of. With heavy packs upon their backs +men plunged waist-deep into hideous quagmires, bridged mountain torrents +by felling trees across them, toiled against the precipitous slopes of +the ice-worn mountains, and crossed the dizzy faces of innumerable +glaciers. When, after incalculable toil they reached the lakes, they +went into the woods, sawed pine trees into lumber by hand, and built it +into boats. In these, overloaded, unseaworthy, they battled down the +long chain of lakes. Within the memory of the writer there lingers the +picture of a sheltered nook on the shores of Lake Le Barge, in which half +a thousand gold seekers lay storm-bound. Day after day they struggled +against the seas in the teeth of a northerly gale, and night after night +returned to their camps, repulsed but not disheartened. At the rapids +they ran their boats through, hit or miss, and after infinite toil and +hardship, on the breast of a jarring ice flood, arrived at the Klondike. +From the beach at Dyea to the eddy below the Barracks at Dawson, they had +paid for their temerity the tax of human life demanded by the elements. +A year later, so greatly had the country shrunk, the tourist, on +disembarking from the ocean steamship, took his seat in a modern railway +coach. A few hours later, at Lake Bennet, he stepped aboard a commodious +river steamer. At the rapids he rode around on a tramway to take passage +on another steamer below. And in a few hours more he was in Dawson, +without having once soiled the lustre of his civilized foot-gear. Did he +wish to communicate with the outside world, he strolled into the +telegraph office. A few short months before he would have written a +letter and deemed himself favoured above mortals were it delivered within +the year. + +From man's drawing the world closer and closer together, his own affairs +and institutions have consolidated. Concentration may typify the chief +movement of the age--concentration, classification, order; the reduction +of friction between the parts of the social organism. The urban tendency +of the rural populations led to terrible congestion in the great cities. +There was stifling and impure air, and lo, rapid transit at once attacked +the evil. Every great city has become but the nucleus of a greater city +which surrounds it; the one the seat of business, the other the seat of +domestic happiness. Between the two, night and morning, by electric +road, steam railway, and bicycle path, ebbs and flows the middle-class +population. And in the same direction lies the remedy for the tenement +evil. In the cleansing country air the slum cannot exist. Improvement +in road-beds and the means of locomotion, a tremor of altruism, a little +legislation, and the city by day will sleep in the country by night. + +What a play-ball has this planet of ours become! Steam has made its +parts accessible and drawn them closer together. The telegraph +annihilates space and time. Each morning every part knows what every +other part is thinking, contemplating, or doing. A discovery in a German +laboratory is being demonstrated in San Francisco within twenty-four +hours. A book written in South Africa is published by simultaneous +copyright in every English-speaking country, and on the following day is +in the hands of the translators. The death of an obscure missionary in +China, or of a whisky smuggler in the South Seas, is served up, the world +over, with the morning toast. The wheat output of Argentine or the gold +of Klondike is known wherever men meet and trade. Shrinkage or +centralization has been such that the humblest clerk in any metropolis +may place his hand on the pulse of the world. And because of all this, +everywhere is growing order and organization. The church, the state; +men, women, and children; the criminal and the law, the honest man and +the thief, industry and commerce, capital and labour, the trades and the +professions, the arts and the sciences--all are organizing for pleasure, +profit, policy, or intellectual pursuit. They have come to know the +strength of numbers, solidly phalanxed and driving onward with singleness +of purpose. These purposes may be various and many, but one and all, +ever discovering new mutual interests and objects, obeying a law which is +beyond them, these petty aggregations draw closer together, forming +greater aggregations and congeries of aggregations. And these, in turn, +vaguely merging each into each, present glimmering adumbrations of the +coming human solidarity which shall be man's crowning glory. + +OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA. +_January_ 1900. + + + + +THE HOUSE BEAUTIFUL + + +Speaking of homes, I am building one now, and I venture to assert that +very few homes have received more serious thought in the planning. Let +me tell you about it. In the first place, there will be no grounds +whatever, no fences, lawns, nor flowers. Roughly, the dimensions will be +forty-five feet by fifteen. That is, it will be fifteen feet wide at its +widest--and, if you will pardon the bull, it will be narrower than it is +wide. + +The details must submit to the general plan of economy. There will be no +veranda, no porch entrances, no grand staircases. I'm ashamed to say how +steep the stairways are going to be. The bedrooms will be seven by +seven, and one will be even smaller. A bedroom is only good to sleep in, +anyway. There will be no hallway, thank goodness. Rooms were made to go +through. Why a separate passage for traffic? + +The bath-room will be a trifle larger than the size of the smallest +bath-tub--it won't require so much work to keep in order. The kitchen +won't be very much larger, but this will make it easy for the cook. In +place of a drawing-room, there will be a large living-room--fourteen by +six. The walls of this room will be covered with books, and it can serve +as library and smoking-room as well. Then, the floor-space not being +occupied, we shall use the room as a dining-room. Incidentally, such a +room not being used after bedtime, the cook and the second boy can sleep +in it. One thing that I am temperamentally opposed to is waste, and why +should all this splendid room be wasted at night when we do not occupy +it? + +My ideas are cramped, you say?--Oh, I forgot to tell you that this home I +am describing is to be a floating home, and that my wife and I are to +journey around the world in it for the matter of seven years or more. I +forgot also to state that there will be an engine-room in it for a +seventy-horse-power engine, a dynamo, storage batteries, etc.; tanks for +water to last long weeks at sea; space for fifteen hundred gallons of +gasolene, fire extinguishers, and life-preservers; and a great store-room +for food, spare sails, anchors, hawsers, tackles, and a thousand and one +other things. + +Since I have not yet built my land house, I haven't got beyond a few +general ideas, and in presenting them I feel as cocksure as the unmarried +woman who writes the column in the Sunday supplement on how to rear +children. My first idea about a house is that it should be built to live +in. Throughout the house, in all the building of it, this should be the +paramount idea. It must be granted that this idea is lost sight of by +countless persons who build houses apparently for every purpose under the +sun except to live in them. + +Perhaps it is because of the practical life I have lived that I worship +utility and have come to believe that utility and beauty should be one, +and that there is no utility that need not be beautiful. What finer +beauty than strength--whether it be airy steel, or massive masonry, or a +woman's hand? A plain black leather strap is beautiful. It is all +strength and all utility, and it is beautiful. It efficiently performs +work in the world, and it is good to look upon. Perhaps it is because it +is useful that it is beautiful. I do not know. I sometimes wonder. + +A boat on the sea is beautiful. Yet it is not built for beauty. Every +graceful line of it is a utility, is designed to perform work. It is +created for the express purpose of dividing the water in front of it, of +gliding over the water beneath it, of leaving the water behind it--and +all with the least possible wastage of stress and friction. It is not +created for the purpose of filling the eye with beauty. It is created +for the purpose of moving through the sea and over the sea with the +smallest resistance and the greatest stability; yet, somehow, it does +fill the eye with its beauty. And in so far as a boat fails in its +purpose, by that much does it diminish in beauty. + +I am still a long way from the house I have in my mind some day to build, +yet I have arrived somewhere. I have discovered, to my own satisfaction +at any rate, that beauty and utility should be one. In applying this +general idea to the building of a house, it may be stated, in another and +better way; namely, construction and decoration must be one. This idea +is more important than the building of the house, for without the idea +the house so built is certain to be an insult to intelligence and +beauty-love. + +I bought a house in a hurry in the city of Oakland some time ago. I do +not live in it. I sleep in it half a dozen times a year. I do not love +the house. I am hurt every time I look at it. No drunken rowdy or +political enemy can insult me so deeply as that house does. Let me tell +you why. It is an ordinary two-storey frame house. After it was built, +the criminal that constructed it nailed on, at the corners +perpendicularly, some two-inch fluted planks. These planks rise the +height of the house, and to a drunken man have the appearance of fluted +columns. To complete the illusion in the eyes of the drunken man, the +planks are topped with wooden Ionic capitals, nailed on, and in, I may +say, bas-relief. + +When I analyze the irritation these fluted planks cause in me, I find the +reason in the fact that the first rule for building a house has been +violated. These decorative planks are no part of the construction. They +have no use, no work to perform. They are plastered gawds that tell lies +that nobody believes. A column is made for the purpose of supporting +weight; this is its use. A column, when it is a utility, is beautiful. +The fluted wooden columns nailed on outside my house are not utilities. +They are not beautiful. They are nightmares. They not only support no +weight, but they themselves are a weight that drags upon the supports of +the house. Some day, when I get time, one of two things will surely +happen. Either I'll go forth and murder the man who perpetrated the +atrocity, or else I'll take an axe and chop off the lying, fluted planks. + +A thing must be true, or it is not beautiful, any more than a painted +wanton is beautiful, any more than a sky-scraper is beautiful that is +intrinsically and structurally light and that has a false massiveness of +pillars plastered on outside. The true sky-scraper _is_ beautiful--and +this is the reluctant admission of a man who dislikes humanity-festering +cities. The true sky-scraper is beautiful, and it is beautiful in so far +as it is true. In its construction it is light and airy, therefore in +its appearance it must be light and airy. It dare not, if it wishes to +be beautiful, lay claim to what it is not. And it should not bulk on the +city-scape like Leviathan; it should rise and soar, light and airy and +fairylike. + +Man is an ethical animal--or, at least, he is more ethical than any other +animal. Wherefore he has certain yearnings for honesty. And in no way +can these yearnings be more thoroughly satisfied than by the honesty of +the house in which he lives and passes the greater part of his life. + +They that dwelt in San Francisco were dishonest. They lied and cheated +in their business life (like the dwellers in all cities), and because +they lied and cheated in their business life, they lied and cheated in +the buildings they erected. Upon the tops of the simple, severe walls of +their buildings they plastered huge projecting cornices. These cornices +were not part of the construction. They made believe to be part of the +construction, and they were lies. The earth wrinkled its back for +twenty-eight seconds, and the lying cornices crashed down as all lies are +doomed to crash down. In this particular instance, the lies crashed down +upon the heads of the people fleeing from their reeling habitations, and +many were killed. They paid the penalty of dishonesty. + +Not alone should the construction of a house be truthful and honest, but +the material must be honest. They that lived in San Francisco were +dishonest in the material they used. They sold one quality of material +and delivered another quality of material. They always delivered an +inferior quality. There is not one case recorded in the business history +of San Francisco where a contractor or builder delivered a quality +superior to the one sold. A seven-million-dollar city hall became thirty +cents in twenty-eight seconds. Because the mortar was not honest, a +thousand walls crashed down and scores of lives were snuffed out. There +is something, after all, in the contention of a few religionists that the +San Francisco earthquake was a punishment for sin. It was a punishment +for sin; but it was not for sin against God. The people of San Francisco +sinned against themselves. + +An honest house tells the truth about itself. There is a house here in +Glen Ellen. It stands on a corner. It is built of beautiful red stone. +Yet it is not beautiful. On three sides the stone is joined and pointed. +The fourth side is the rear. It faces the back yard. The stone is not +pointed. It is all a smudge of dirty mortar, with here and there bricks +worked in when the stone gave out. The house is not what it seems. It +is a lie. All three of the walls spend their time lying about the fourth +wall. They keep shouting out that the fourth wall is as beautiful as +they. If I lived long in that house I should not be responsible for my +morals. The house is like a man in purple and fine linen, who hasn't had +a bath for a month. If I lived long in that house I should become a +dandy and cut out bathing--for the same reason, I suppose, that an +African is black and that an Eskimo eats whale-blubber. I shall not +build a house like that house. + +Last year I started to build a barn. A man who was a liar undertook to +do the stonework and concrete work for me. He could not tell the truth +to my face; he could not tell the truth in his work. I was building for +posterity. The concrete foundations were four feet wide and sunk three +and one-half feet into the earth. The stone walls were two feet thick +and nine feet high. Upon them were to rest the great beams that were to +carry all the weight of hay and the forty tons of the roof. The man who +was a liar made beautiful stone walls. I used to stand alongside of them +and love them. I caressed their massive strength with my hands. I +thought about them in bed, before I went to sheep. And they were lies. + +Came the earthquake. Fortunately the rest of the building of the barn +had been postponed. The beautiful stone walls cracked in all directions. +I started, to repair, and discovered the whole enormous lie. The walls +were shells. On each face were beautiful, massive stones--on edge. The +inside was hollow. This hollow in some places was filled with clay and +loose gravel. In other places it was filled with air and emptiness, with +here and there a piece of kindling-wood or dry-goods box, to aid in the +making of the shell. The walls were lies. They were beautiful, but they +were not useful. Construction and decoration had been divorced. The +walls were all decoration. They hadn't any construction in them. "As +God lets Satan live," I let that lying man live, but--I have built new +walls from the foundation up. + +And now to my own house beautiful, which I shall build some seven or ten +years from now. I have a few general ideas about it. It must be honest +in construction, material, and appearance. If any feature of it, despite +my efforts, shall tell lies, I shall remove that feature. Utility and +beauty must be indissolubly wedded. Construction and decoration must be +one. If the particular details keep true to these general ideas, all +will be well. + +I have not thought of many details. But here are a few. Take the +bath-room, for instance. It shall be as beautiful as any room in the +house, just as it will be as useful. The chance is, that it will be the +most expensive room in the house. Upon that we are resolved--even if we +are compelled to build it first, and to live in a tent till we can get +more money to go on with the rest of the house. In the bath-room no +delights of the bath shall be lacking. Also, a large part of the +expensiveness will be due to the use of material that will make it easy +to keep the bathroom clean and in order. Why should a servant toil +unduly that my body may be clean? On the other hand, the honesty of my +own flesh, and the square dealing I give it, are more important than all +the admiration of my friends for expensive decorative schemes and +magnificent trivialities. More delightful to me is a body that sings +than a stately and costly grand staircase built for show. Not that I +like grand staircases less, but that I like bath-rooms more. + +I often regret that I was born in this particular period of the world. +In the matter of servants, how I wish I were living in the golden future +of the world, where there will be no servants--naught but service of +love. But in the meantime, living here and now, being practical, +understanding the rationality and the necessity of the division of +labour, I accept servants. But such acceptance does not justify me in +lack of consideration for them. In my house beautiful their rooms shall +not be dens and holes. And on this score I foresee a fight with the +architect. They shall have bath-rooms, toilet conveniences, and comforts +for their leisure time and human life--if I have to work Sundays to pay +for it. Even under the division of labour I recognize that no man has a +right to servants who will not treat them as humans compounded of the +same clay as himself, with similar bundles of nerves and desires, +contradictions, irritabilities, and lovablenesses. Heaven in the +drawing-room and hell in the kitchen is not the atmosphere for a growing +child to breathe--nor an adult either. One of the great and selfish +objections to chattel slavery was the effect on the masters themselves. + +And because of the foregoing, one chief aim in the building of my house +beautiful will be to have a house that will require the minimum of +trouble and work to keep clean and orderly. It will be no spick and span +and polished house, with an immaculateness that testifies to the tragedy +of drudge. I live in California where the days are warm. I'd prefer +that the servants had three hours to go swimming (or hammocking) than be +compelled to spend those three hours in keeping the house spick and span. +Therefore it devolves upon me to build a house that can be kept clean and +orderly without the need of those three hours. + +But underneath the spick and span there is something more dreadful than +the servitude of the servants. This dreadful thing is the philosophy of +the spick and span. In Korea the national costume is white. Nobleman +and coolie dress alike in white. It is hell on the women who do the +washing, but there is more in it than that. The coolie cannot keep his +white clothes clean. He toils and they get dirty. The dirty white of +his costume is the token of his inferiority. The nobleman's dress is +always spotless white. It means that he doesn't have to work. But it +means, further, that somebody else has to work for him. His superiority +is not based upon song-craft nor state-craft, upon the foot-races he has +run nor the wrestlers he has thrown. His superiority is based upon the +fact that he doesn't have to work, and that others are compelled to work +for him. And so the Korean drone flaunts his clean white clothes, for +the same reason that the Chinese flaunts his monstrous finger-nails, and +the white man and woman flaunt the spick-and-spanness of their spotless +houses. + +There will be hardwood floors in my house beautiful. But these floors +will not be polished mirrors nor skating-rinks. They will be just plain +and common hardwood floors. Beautiful carpets are not beautiful to the +mind that knows they are filled with germs and bacilli. They are no more +beautiful than the hectic flush of fever, or the silvery skin of leprosy. +Besides, carpets enslave. A thing that enslaves is a monster, and +monsters are not beautiful. + +The fireplaces in my house will be many and large. Small fires and cold +weather mean hermetically-sealed rooms and a jealous cherishing of heated +and filth-laden air. With large fire-places and generous heat, some +windows may be open all the time, and without hardship all the windows +can be opened every little while and the rooms flushed with clean pure +air. I have nearly died in the stagnant, rotten air of other people's +houses--especially in the Eastern states. In Maine I have slept in a +room with storm-windows immovable, and with one small pane five inches by +six, that could be opened. Did I say slept? I panted with my mouth in +the opening and blasphemed till I ruined all my chances of heaven. + +For countless thousands of years my ancestors have lived and died and +drawn all their breaths in the open air. It is only recently that we +have begun to live in houses. The change is a hardship, especially on +the lungs. I've got only one pair of lungs, and I haven't the address of +any repair-shop. Wherefore I stick by the open air as much as possible. +For this reason my house will have large verandas, and, near to the +kitchen, there will be a veranda dining-room. Also, there will be a +veranda fireplace, where we can breathe fresh air and be comfortable when +the evenings are touched with frost. + +I have a plan for my own bedroom. I spend long hours in bed, reading, +studying, and working. I have tried sleeping in the open, but the lamp +attracts all the creeping, crawling, butting, flying, fluttering things +to the pages of my book, into my ears and blankets, and down the back of +my neck. So my bedroom shall be indoors. + +But it will be, not be of, indoors. Three sides of it will be open. The +fourth side will divide it from the rest of the house. The three sides +will be screened against the creeping, fluttering things, but not against +the good fresh air and all the breezes that blow. For protection against +storm, to keep out the driving rain, there will be a sliding glass, so +made that when not in use it will occupy small space and shut out very +little air. + +There is little more to say about this house. I am to build seven or ten +years from now. There is plenty of time in which to work up all the +details in accord with the general principles I have laid down. It will +be a usable house and a beautiful house, wherein the aesthetic guest can +find comfort for his eyes as well as for his body. It will be a happy +house--or else I'll burn it down. It will be a house of air and sunshine +and laughter. These three cannot be divorced. Laughter without air and +sunshine becomes morbid, decadent, demoniac. I have in me a thousand +generations. Laughter that is decadent is not good for these thousand +generations. + +GLEN ELLEN, CALIFORNIA. +_July_ 1906. + + + + +THE GOLD HUNTERS OF THE NORTH + + + "Where the Northern Lights come down a' nights to dance on the + houseless snow." + +"Ivan, I forbid you to go farther in this undertaking. Not a word about +this, or we are all undone. Let the Americans and the English know that +we have gold in these mountains, then we are ruined. They will rush in +on us by thousands, and crowd us to the wall--to the death." + +So spoke the old Russian governor, Baranov, at Sitka, in 1804, to one of +his Slavonian hunters, who had just drawn from his pocket a handful of +golden nuggets. Full well Baranov, fur trader and autocrat, understood +and feared the coming of the sturdy, indomitable gold hunters of +Anglo-Saxon stock. And thus he suppressed the news, as did the governors +that followed him, so that when the United States bought Alaska in 1867, +she bought it for its furs and fisheries, without a thought of its +treasures underground. + +No sooner, however, had Alaska become American soil than thousands of our +adventurers were afoot and afloat for the north. They were the men of +"the days of gold," the men of California, Fraser, Cassiar, and Cariboo. +With the mysterious, infinite faith of the prospector, they believed that +the gold streak, which ran through the Americas from Cape Horn to +California, did not "peter out" in British Columbia. That it extended +farther north, was their creed, and "Farther North" became their cry. No +time was lost, and in the early seventies, leaving the Treadwell and the +Silver Bow Basin to be discovered by those who came after, they went +plunging on into the white unknown. North, farther north, they +struggled, till their picks rang in the frozen beaches of the Arctic +Ocean, and they shivered by driftwood fires on the ruby sands of Nome. + +But first, in order that this colossal adventure may be fully grasped, +the recentness and the remoteness of Alaska must be emphasized. The +interior of Alaska and the contiguous Canadian territory was a vast +wilderness. Its hundreds of thousands of square miles were as dark and +chartless as Darkest Africa. In 1847, when the first Hudson Bay Company +agents crossed over the Rockies from the Mackenzie to poach on the +preserves of the Russian Bear, they thought that the Yukon flowed north +and emptied into the Arctic Ocean. Hundreds of miles below, however, +were the outposts of the Russian traders. They, in turn, did not know +where the Yukon had its source, and it was not till later that Russ and +Saxon learned that it was the same mighty stream they were occupying. +And a little over ten years later, Frederick Whymper voyaged up the Great +Bend to Fort Yukon under the Arctic Circle. + +From fort to fort, from York Factory on Hudson's Bay to Fort Yukon in +Alaska, the English traders transported their goods--a round trip +requiring from a year to a year and a half. It was one of their +deserters, in 1867, escaping down the Yukon to Bering Sea, who was the +first white man to make the North-west Passage by land from the Atlantic +to the Pacific. It was at this time that the first accurate description +of a fair portion of the Yukon was given by Dr. W. H. Ball, of the +Smithsonian Institution. But even he had never seen its source, and it +was not given him to appreciate the marvel of that great natural highway. + +No more remarkable river in this one particular is there in the world; +taking its rise in Crater Lake, thirty miles from the ocean, the Yukon +flows for twenty-five hundred miles, through the heart of the continent, +ere it empties into the sea. A portage of thirty miles, and then a +highway for traffic one tenth the girth of the earth! + +As late as 1869, Frederick Whymper, fellow of the Royal Geographical +Society, stated on hearsay that the Chilcat Indians were believed +occasionally to make a short portage across the Coast Range from salt +water to the head-reaches of the Yukon. But it remained for a gold +hunter, questing north, ever north, to be first of all white men to cross +the terrible Chilcoot Pass, and tap the Yukon at its head. This happened +only the other day, but the man has become a dim legendary hero. Holt +was his name, and already the mists of antiquity have wrapped about the +time of his passage. 1872, 1874, and 1878 are the dates variously +given--a confusion which time will never clear. + +Holt penetrated as far as the Hootalinqua, and on his return to the coast +reported coarse gold. The next recorded adventurer is one Edward Bean, +who in 1880 headed a party of twenty-five miners from Sitka into the +uncharted land. And in the same year, other parties (now forgotten, for +who remembers or ever hears the wanderings of the gold hunters?) crossed +the Pass, built boats out of the standing timber, and drifted down the +Yukon and farther north. + +And then, for a quarter of a century, the unknown and unsung heroes +grappled with the frost, and groped for the gold they were sure lay +somewhere among the shadows of the Pole. In the struggle with the +terrifying and pitiless natural forces, they returned to the primitive, +garmenting themselves in the skins of wild beasts, and covering their +feet with the walrus _mucluc_ and the moosehide moccasin. They forgot +the world and its ways, as the world had forgotten them; killed their +meat as they found it; feasted in plenty and starved in famine, and +searched unceasingly for the yellow lure. They crisscrossed the land in +every direction, threaded countless unmapped rivers in precarious +birch-bark canoes, and with snowshoes and dogs broke trail through +thousands of miles of silent white, where man had never been. They +struggled on, under the aurora borealis or the midnight sun, through +temperatures that ranged from one hundred degrees above zero to eighty +degrees below, living, in the grim humour of the land, on "rabbit tracks +and salmon bellies." + +To-day, a man may wander away from the trail for a hundred days, and just +as he is congratulating himself that at last he is treading virgin soil, +he will come upon some ancient and dilapidated cabin, and forget his +disappointment in wonder at the man who reared the logs. Still, if one +wanders from the trail far enough and deviously enough, he may chance +upon a few thousand square miles which he may have all to himself. On +the other hand, no matter how far and how deviously he may wander, the +possibility always remains that he may stumble, not alone upon a deserted +cabin, but upon an occupied one. + +As an instance of this, and of the vastness of the land, no better case +need be cited than that of Harry Maxwell. An able seaman, hailing from +New Bedford, Massachusetts, his ship, the brig _Fannie E. Lee_, was +pinched in the Arctic ice. Passing from whaleship to whaleship, he +eventually turned up at Point Barrow in the summer of 1880. He was +_north_ of the Northland, and from this point of vantage he determined to +pull south of the interior in search of gold. Across the mountains from +Fort Macpherson, and a couple of hundred miles eastward from the +Mackenzie, he built a cabin and established his headquarters. And here, +for nineteen continuous years, he hunted his living and prospected. He +ranged from the never opening ice to the north as far south as the Great +Slave Lake. Here he met Warburton Pike, the author and explorer--an +incident he now looks back upon as chief among the few incidents of his +solitary life. + +When this sailor-miner had accumulated $20,000 worth of dust he concluded +that civilization was good enough for him, and proceeded "to pull for the +outside." From the Mackenzie he went up the Little Peel to its +headwaters, found a pass through the mountains, nearly starved to death +on his way across to the Porcupine Hills, and eventually came out on the +Yukon River, where he learned for the first time of the Yukon gold +hunters and their discoveries. Yet for twenty years they had been +working there, his next-door neighbours, virtually, in a land of such +great spaces. At Victoria, British Columbia, previous to his going east +over the Canadian Pacific (the existence of which he had just learned), +he pregnantly remarked that he had faith in the Mackenzie watershed, and +that he was going back after he had taken in the World's Fair and got a +whiff or two of civilization. + +Faith! It may or may not remove mountains, but it has certainly made the +Northland. No Christian martyr ever possessed greater faith than did the +pioneers of Alaska. They never doubted the bleak and barren land. Those +who came remained, and more ever came. They could not leave. They +"knew" the gold was there, and they persisted. Somehow, the romance of +the land and the quest entered into their blood, the spell of it gripped +hold of them and would not let them go. Man after man of them, after the +most terrible privation and suffering, shook the muck of the country from +his moccasins and departed for good. But the following spring always +found him drifting down the Yukon on the tail of the ice jams. + +Jack McQuestion aptly vindicates the grip of the North. After a +residence of thirty years he insists that the climate is delightful, and +declares that whenever he makes a trip to the States he is afflicted with +home-sickness. Needless to say, the North still has him and will keep +tight hold of him until he dies. In fact, for him to die elsewhere would +be inartistic and insincere. Of three of the "pioneer" pioneers, Jack +McQuestion alone survives. In 1871, from one to seven years before Holt +went over Chilcoot, in the company of Al Mayo and Arthur Harper, +McQuestion came into the Yukon from the North-west over the Hudson Bay +Company route from the Mackenzie to Fort Yukon. The names of these three +men, as their lives, are bound up in the history of the country, and so +long as there be histories and charts, that long will the Mayo and +McQuestion rivers and the Harper and Ladue town site of Dawson be +remembered. As an agent of the Alaska Commercial Company, in 1873, +McQuestion built Fort Reliance, six miles below the Klondike River. In +1898 the writer met Jack McQuestion at Minook, on the Lower Yukon. The +old pioneer, though grizzled, was hale and hearty, and as optimistic as +when he first journeyed into the land along the path of the Circle. And +no man more beloved is there in all the North. There will be great +sadness there when his soul goes questing on over the Last +Divide--"farther north," perhaps--who can tell? + +Frank Dinsmore is a fair sample of the men who made the Yukon country. A +Yankee, born, in Auburn, Maine, the _Wanderlust_ early laid him by the +heels, and at sixteen he was heading west on the trail that led "farther +north." He prospected in the Black Hills, Montana, and in the Coeur +d'Alene, then heard a whisper of the North, and went up to Juneau on the +Alaskan Panhandle. But the North still whispered, and more insistently, +and he could not rest till he went over Chilcoot, and down into the +mysterious Silent Land. This was in 1882, and he went down the chain of +lakes, down the Yukon, up the Pelly, and tried his luck on the bars of +McMillan River. In the fall, a perambulating skeleton, he came back over +the Pass in a blizzard, with a rag of shirt, tattered overalls, and a +handful of raw flour. + +But he was unafraid. That winter he worked for a grubstake in Juneau, +and the next spring found the heels of his moccasins turned towards salt +water and his face toward Chilcoot. This was repeated the next spring, +and the following spring, and the spring after that, until, in 1885, he +went over the Pass for good. There was to be no return for him until he +found the gold he sought. + +The years came and went, but he remained true to his resolve. For eleven +long years, with snow-shoe and canoe, pickaxe and gold-pan, he wrote out +his life on the face of the land. Upper Yukon, Middle Yukon, Lower +Yukon--he prospected faithfully and well. His bed was anywhere. Winter +or summer he carried neither tent nor stove, and his six-pound +sleeping-robe of Arctic hare was the warmest covering he was ever known +to possess. Rabbit tracks and salmon bellies were his diet with a +vengeance, for he depended largely on his rifle and fishing-tackle. His +endurance equalled his courage. On a wager he lifted thirteen +fifty-pound sacks of flour and walked off with them. Winding up a +seven-hundred-mile trip on the ice with a forty-mile run, he came into +camp at six o'clock in the evening and found a "squaw dance" under way. +He should have been exhausted. Anyway, his _muclucs_ were frozen stiff. +But he kicked them off and danced all night in stocking-feet. + +At the last fortune came to him. The quest was ended, and he gathered up +his gold and pulled for the outside. And his own end was as fitting as +that of his quest. Illness came upon him down in San Francisco, and his +splendid life ebbed slowly out as he sat in his big easy-chair, in the +Commercial Hotel, the "Yukoner's home." The doctors came, discussed, +consulted, the while he matured more plans of Northland adventure; for +the North still gripped him and would not let him go. He grew weaker day +by day, but each day he said, "To-morrow I'll be all right." Other +old-timers, "out on furlough,", came to see him. They wiped their eyes +and swore under their breaths, then entered and talked largely and +jovially about going in with him over the trail when spring came. But +there in the big easy-chair it was that his Long Trail ended, and the +life passed out of him still fixed on "farther north." + +From the time of the first white man, famine loomed black and gloomy over +the land. It was chronic with the Indians and Eskimos; it became chronic +with the gold hunters. It was ever present, and so it came about that +life was commonly expressed in terms of "grub"--was measured by cups of +flour. Each winter, eight months long, the heroes of the frost faced +starvation. It became the custom, as fall drew on, for partners to cut +the cards or draw straws to determine which should hit the hazardous +trail for salt water, and which should remain and endure the hazardous +darkness of the Arctic night. + +There was never food enough to winter the whole population. The A. C. +Company worked hard to freight up the grub, but the gold hunters came +faster and dared more audaciously. When the A. C. Company added a new +stern-wheeler to its fleet, men said, "Now we shall have plenty." But +more gold hunters poured in over the passes to the south, more +_voyageurs_ and fur traders forced a way through the Rockies from the +east, more seal hunters and coast adventurers poled up from Bering Sea on +the west, more sailors deserted from the whale-ships to the north, and +they all starved together in right brotherly fashion. More steamers were +added, but the tide of prospectors welled always in advance. Then the N. +A. T. & T. Company came upon the scene, and both companies added +steadily to their fleets. But it was the same old story; famine would +not depart. In fact, famine grew with the population, till, in the +winter of 1897-1898, the United States government was forced to equip a +reindeer relief expedition. As of old, that winter partners cut the +cards and drew straws, and remained or pulled for salt water as chance +decided. They were wise of old time, and had learned never to figure on +relief expeditions. They had heard of such things, but no mortal man of +them had ever laid eyes on one. + +The hard luck of other mining countries pales into insignificance before +the hard luck of the North. And as for the hardship, it cannot be +conveyed by printed page or word of mouth. No man may know who has not +undergone. And those who have undergone, out of their knowledge, claim +that in the making of the world God grew tired, and when He came to the +last barrowload, "just dumped it anyhow," and that was how Alaska +happened to be. While no adequate conception of the life can be given to +the stay-at-home, yet the men themselves sometimes give a clue to its +rigours. One old Minook miner testified thus: "Haven't you noticed the +expression on the faces of us fellows? You can tell a new-comer the +minute you see him; he looks alive, enthusiastic, perhaps jolly. We old +miners are always grave, unless were drinking." + +Another old-timer, out of the bitterness of a "home-mood," imagined +himself a Martian astronomer explaining to a friend, with the aid of a +powerful telescope, the institutions of the earth. "There are the +continents," he indicated; "and up there near the polar cap is a country, +frigid and burning and lonely and apart, called Alaska. Now, in other +countries and states there are great insane asylums, but, though crowded, +they are insufficient; so there is Alaska given over to the worst cases. +Now and then some poor insane creature comes to his senses in those awful +solitudes, and, in wondering joy, escapes from the land and hastens back +to his home. But most cases are incurable. They just suffer along, poor +devils, forgetting their former life quite, or recalling it like a +dream." Again the grip of the North, which will not let one go--for +"_most cases are incurable_." + +For a quarter of a century the battle with frost and famine went on. The +very severity of the struggle with Nature seemed to make the gold hunters +kindly toward one another. The latch-string was always out, and the open +hand was the order of the day. Distrust was unknown, and it was no +hyperbole for a man to take the last shirt off his back for a comrade. +Most significant of all, perhaps, in this connection, was the custom of +the old days, that when August the first came around, the prospectors who +had failed to locate "pay dirt" were permitted to go upon the ground of +their more fortunate comrades and take out enough for the next year's +grub-stake. + +In 1885 rich bar-washing was done on the Stewart River, and in 1886 +Cassiar Bar was struck just below the mouth of the Hootalinqua. It was +at this time that the first moderate strike was made on Forty Mile Creek, +so called because it was judged to be that distance below Fort Reliance +of Jack McQuestion fame. A prospector named Williams started for the +outside with dogs and Indians to carry the news, but suffered such +hardship on the summit of Chilcoot that he was carried dying into the +store of Captain John Healy at Dyea. But he had brought the news +through--_coarse gold_! Within three months more than two hundred miners +had passed in over Chilcoot, stampeding for Forty Mile. Find followed +find--Sixty Mile, Miller, Glacier, Birch, Franklin, and the Koyokuk. But +they were all moderate discoveries, and the miners still dreamed and +searched for the fabled stream, "Too Much Gold," where gold was so +plentiful that gravel had to be shovelled into the sluice-boxes in order +to wash it. + +And all the time the Northland was preparing to play its own huge joke. +It was a great joke, albeit an exceeding bitter one, and it has led the +old-timers to believe that the land is left in darkness the better part +of the year because God goes away and leaves it to itself. After all the +risk and toil and faithful endeavour, it was destined that few of the +heroes should be in at the finish when Too Much Gold turned its +yellow-treasure to the stars. + +First, there was Robert Henderson--and this is true history. Henderson +had faith in the Indian River district. For three years, by himself, +depending mainly on his rifle, living on straight meat a large portion of +the time, he prospected many of the Indian River tributaries, just missed +finding the rich creeks, Sulphur and Dominion, and managed to make grub +(poor grub) out of Quartz Creek and Australia Creek. Then he crossed the +divide between Indian River and the Klondike, and on one of the "feeders" +of the latter found eight cents to the pan. This was considered +excellent in those simple days. Naming the creek "Gold Bottom," he +recrossed the divide and got three men, Munson, Dalton, and Swanson, to +return with him. The four took out $750. And be it emphasized, and +emphasized again, _that this was the first Klondike gold ever shovelled +in and washed out_. And be it also emphasized, _that Robert Henderson +was the discoverer of Klondike_, _all lies and hearsay tales to the +contrary_. + +Running out of grub, Henderson again recrossed the divide, and went down +the Indian River and up the Yukon to Sixty Mile. Here Joe Ladue ran the +trading post, and here Joe Ladue had originally grub-staked Henderson. +Henderson told his tale, and a dozen men (all it contained) deserted the +Post for the scene of his find. Also, Henderson persuaded a party of +prospectors bound for Stewart River, to forgo their trip and go down and +locate with him. He loaded his boat with supplies, drifted down the +Yukon to the mouth of the Klondike, and towed and poled up the Klondike +to Gold Bottom. But at the mouth of the Klondike he met George Carmack, +and thereby hangs the tale. + +Carmack was a squawman. He was familiarly known as "Siwash" George--a +derogatory term which had arisen out of his affinity for the Indians. At +the time Henderson encountered him he was catching salmon with his Indian +wife and relatives on the site of what was to become Dawson, the Golden +City of the Snows. Henderson, bubbling over with good-will, open-handed, +told Carmack of his discovery. But Carmack was satisfied where he was. +He was possessed by no overweening desire for the strenuous life. Salmon +were good enough for him. But Henderson urged him to come on and locate, +until, when he yielded, he wanted to take the whole tribe along. +Henderson refused to stand for this, said that he must give the +preference over Siwashes to his old Sixty Mile friends, and, it is +rumoured, said some things about Siwashes that were not nice. + +The next morning Henderson went on alone up the Klondike to Gold Bottom. +Carmack, by this time aroused, took a short cut afoot for the same place. +Accompanied by his two Indian brothers-in-law, Skookum Jim and Tagish +Charley, he went up Rabbit Creek (now Bonanza), crossed into Gold Bottom, +and staked near Henderson's discovery. On the way up he had panned a few +shovels on Rabbit Creek, and he showed Henderson "colours" he had +obtained. Henderson made him promise, if he found anything on the way +back, that he would send up one of the Indians with the news. Henderson +also agreed to pay for his service, for he seemed to feel that they were +on the verge of something big, and he wanted to make sure. + +Carmack returned down Rabbit Creek. While he was taking a sleep on the +bank about half a mile below the mouth of what was to be known as +Eldorado, Skookum Jim tried his luck, and from surface prospects got from +ten cents to a dollar to the pan. Carmack and his brother-in-law staked +and hit "the high places" for Forty Mile, where they filed on the claims +before Captain Constantine, and renamed the creek Bonanza. And Henderson +was forgotten. No word of it reached him. Carmack broke his promise. + +Weeks afterward, when Bonanza and Eldorado were staked from end to end +and there was no more room, a party of late comers pushed over the divide +and down to Gold Bottom, where they found Henderson still at work. When +they told him they were from Bonanza, he was nonplussed. He had never +heard of such a place. But when they described it, he recognized it as +Rabbit Creek. Then they told him of its marvellous richness, and, as +Tappan Adney relates, when Henderson realized what he had lost through +Carmack's treachery, "he threw down his shovel and went and sat on the +bank, so sick at heart that it was some time before he could speak." + +Then there were the rest of the old-timers, the men of Forty Mile and +Circle City. At the time of the discovery, nearly all of them were over +to the west at work in the old diggings or prospecting for new ones. As +they said of themselves, they were the kind of men who are always caught +out with forks when it rains soup. In the stampede that followed the +news of Carmack's strike very few old miners took part. They were not +there to take part. But the men who did go on the stampede were mainly +the worthless ones, the new-comers, and the camp hangers on. And while +Bob Henderson plugged away to the east, and the heroes plugged away to +the west, the greenhorns and rounders went up and staked Bonanza. + +But the Northland was not yet done with its joke. When fall came on and +the heroes returned to Forty Mile and to Circle City, they listened +calmly to the up-river tales of Siwash discoveries and loafers' +prospects, and shook their heads. They judged by the calibre of the men +interested, and branded it a bunco game. But glowing reports continued +to trickle down the Yukon, and a few of the old-timers went up to see. +They looked over the ground--the unlikeliest place for gold in all their +experience--and they went down the river again, "leaving it to the +Swedes." + +Again the Northland turned the tables. The Alaskan gold hunter is +proverbial, not so much for his unveracity, as for his inability to tell +the precise truth. In a country of exaggerations, he likewise is prone +to hyperbolic description of things actual. But when it came to +Klondike, he could not stretch the truth as fast as the truth itself +stretched. Carmack first got a dollar pan. He lied when he said it was +two dollars and a half. And when those who doubted him did get +two-and-a-half pans, they said they were getting an ounce, and lo! ere +the lie had fairly started on its way, they were getting, not one ounce, +but five ounces. This they claimed was six ounces; but when they filled +a pan of dirt to prove the lie, they washed out twelve ounces. And so it +went. They continued valiantly to lie, but the truth continued to outrun +them. + +But the Northland's hyperborean laugh was not yet ended. When Bonanza +was staked from mouth to source, those who had failed to "get in," +disgruntled and sore, went up the "pups" and feeders. Eldorado was one +of these feeders, and many men, after locating on it, turned their backs +upon their claims and never gave them a second thought. One man sold a +half-interest in five hundred feet of it for a sack of flour. Other +owners wandered around trying to bunco men into buying them out for a +song. And then Eldorado "showed up." It was far, far richer than +Bonanza, with an average value of a thousand dollars a foot to every foot +of it. + +A Swede named Charley Anderson had been at work on Miller Creek the year +of the strike, and arrived in Dawson with a few hundred dollars. Two +miners, who had staked No. 29 Eldorado, decided that he was the proper +man upon whom to "unload." He was too canny to approach sober, so at +considerable expense they got him drunk. Even then it was hard work, but +they kept him befuddled for several days, and finally, inveigled him into +buying No. 29 for $750. When Anderson sobered up, he wept at his folly, +and pleaded to have his money back. But the men who had duped him were +hard-hearted. They laughed at him, and kicked themselves for not having +tapped him for a couple of hundred more. Nothing remained for Anderson +but to work the worthless ground. This he did, and out of it he took +over three-quarters of a million of dollars. + +It was not till Frank Dinsmore, who already had big holdings on Birch +Creek, took a hand, that the old-timers developed faith in the new +diggings. Dinsmore received a letter from a man on the spot, calling it +"the biggest thing in the world," and harnessed his dogs and went up to +investigate. And when he sent a letter back, saying that he had never +seen "anything like it," Circle City for the first time believed, and at +once was precipitated one of the wildest stampedes the country had ever +seen or ever will see. Every dog was taken, many went without dogs, and +even the women and children and weaklings hit the three hundred miles of +ice through the long Arctic night for the biggest thing in the world. It +is related that but twenty people, mostly cripples and unable to travel, +were left in Circle City when the smoke of the last sled disappeared up +the Yukon. + +Since that time gold has been discovered in all manner of places, under +the grass roots of the hill-side benches, in the bottom of Monte Cristo +Island, and in the sands of the sea at Nome. And now the gold hunter who +knows his business shuns the "favourable looking" spots, confident in his +hard-won knowledge that he will find the most gold in the least likely +place. This is sometimes adduced to support the theory that the gold +hunters, rather than the explorers, are the men who will ultimately win +to the Pole. Who knows? It is in their blood, and they are capable of +it. + +PIEDMONT, CALIFORNIA. +_February_ 1902. + + + + +FOMA GORDYEEFF + + + "What, without asking, hither hurried _Whence_? + And, without asking, _Whither_ hurried hence! + Oh, many a Cup of this forbidden Wine + Must drown the memory of that insolence!" + +"Foma Gordyeeff" is a big book--not only is the breadth of Russia in it, +but the expanse of life. Yet, though in each land, in this world of +marts and exchanges, this age of trade and traffic, passionate figures +rise up and demand of life what its fever is, in "Foma Gordyeeff" it is a +Russian who so rises up and demands. For Gorky, the Bitter One, is +essentially a Russian in his grasp on the facts of life and in his +treatment. All the Russian self-analysis and insistent introspection are +his. And, like all his brother Russians, ardent, passionate protest +impregnates his work. There is a purpose to it. He writes because he +has something to say which the world should hear. From that clenched +fist of his, light and airy romances, pretty and sweet and beguiling, do +not flow, but realities--yes, big and brutal and repulsive, but real. + +He raises the cry of the miserable and the despised, and in a masterly +arraignment of commercialism, protests against social conditions, against +the grinding of the faces of the poor and weak, and the self-pollution of +the rich and strong, in their mad lust for place and power. It is to be +doubted strongly if the average bourgeois, smug and fat and prosperous, +can understand this man Foma Gordyeeff. The rebellion in his blood is +something to which their own does not thrill. To them it will be +inexplicable that this man, with his health and his millions, could not +go on living as his class lived, keeping regular hours at desk and stock +exchange, driving close contracts, underbidding his competitors, and +exulting in the business disasters of his fellows. It would appear so +easy, and, after such a life, well appointed and eminently respectable, +he could die. "Ah," Foma will interrupt rudely--he is given to rude +interruptions--"if to die and disappear is the end of these +money-grubbing years, why money-grub?" And the bourgeois whom he rudely +interrupted will not understand. Nor did Mayakin understand as he +laboured holily with his wayward godson. + +"Why do you brag?" Foma, bursts out upon him. "What have you to brag +about? Your son--where is he? Your daughter--what is she? Ekh, you +manager of life! Come, now, you're clever, you know everything--tell me, +why do you live? Why do you accumulate money? Aren't you going to die? +Well, what then?" And Mayakin finds himself speechless and without +answer, but unshaken and unconvinced. + +Receiving by heredity the fierce, bull-like nature of his father plus the +passive indomitableness and groping spirit of his mother, Foma, proud and +rebellious, is repelled by the selfish, money-seeking environment into +which he is born. Ignat, his father, and Mayakin, the godfather, and all +the horde of successful merchants singing the paean of the strong and the +praises of merciless, remorseless _laissez faire_, cannot entice him. +Why? he demands. This is a nightmare, this life! It is without +significance! What does it all mean? What is there underneath? What is +the meaning of that which is underneath? + +"You do well to pity people," Ignat tells Foma, the boy, "only you must +use judgment with your pity. First consider the man, find out what he is +like, what use can be made of him; and if you see that he is a strong and +capable man, help him if you like. But if a man is weak, not inclined to +work--spit upon him and go your way. And you must know that when a man +complains about everything, and cries out and groans--he is not worth +more than two kopeks, he is not worthy of pity, and will be of no use to +you if you do help him." + +Such the frank and militant commercialism, bellowed out between glasses +of strong liquor. Now comes Mayakin, speaking softly and without satire: + +"Eh, my boy, what is a beggar? A beggar is a man who is forced, by fate, +to remind us of Christ; he is Christ's brother; he is the bell of the +Lord, and rings in life for the purpose of awakening our conscience, of +stirring up the satiety of man's flesh. He stands under the window and +sings, 'For Christ's sa-ake!' and by that chant he reminds us of Christ, +of His holy command to help our neighbour. But men have so ordered their +lives that it is utterly impossible for them to act in accordance with +Christ's teaching, and Jesus Christ has become entirely superfluous to +us. Not once, but, in all probability, a thousand times, we have given +Him over to be crucified, but still we cannot banish Him from our lives +so long as His poor brethren sing His name in the streets and remind us +of Him. And so now we have hit upon the idea of shutting up the beggars +in such special buildings, so that they may not roam about the streets +and stir up our consciences." + +But Foma will have none of it. He is neither to be enticed nor cajoled. +The cry of his nature is for light. He must have light. And in burning +revolt he goes seeking the meaning of life. "His thoughts embraced all +those petty people who toiled at hard labour. It was strange--why did +they live? What satisfaction was it to them to live on the earth? All +they did was to perform their dirty, arduous toil, eat poorly; they were +miserably clad, addicted to drunkenness. One was sixty years old, but he +still toiled side by side with young men. And they all presented +themselves to Foma's imagination as a huge heap of worms, who were +swarming over the earth merely to eat." + +He becomes the living interrogation of life. He cannot begin living +until he knows what living means, and he seeks its meaning vainly. "Why +should I try to live life when I do not know what life is?" he objects +when Mayakin strives with him to return and manage his business. Why +should men fetch and carry for him? be slaves to him and his money? + +"Work is not everything to a man," he says; "it is not true that +justification lies in work . . . Some people never do any work at all, +all their lives long--yet they live better than the toilers. Why is +that? And what justification have I? And how will all the people who +give their orders justify themselves? What have they lived for? But my +idea is that everybody ought, without fail, to know solidly what he is +living for. Is it possible that a man is born to toil, accumulate money, +build a house, beget children, and--die? No; life means something in +itself. . . . A man has been born, has lived, has died--why? All of us +must consider why we are living, by God, we must! There is no sense in +our life--there is no sense at all. Some are rich--they have money +enough for a thousand men all to themselves--and they live without +occupation; others bow their backs in toil all their life, and they +haven't a penny." + +But Foma can only be destructive. He is not constructive. The dim +groping spirit of his mother and the curse of his environment press too +heavily upon him, and he is crushed to debauchery and madness. He does +not drink because liquor tastes good in his mouth. In the vile +companions who purvey to his baser appetites he finds no charm. It is +all utterly despicable and sordid, but thither his quest leads him and he +follows the quest. He knows that everything is wrong, but he cannot +right it, cannot tell why. He can only attack and demolish. "What +justification have you all in the sight of God? Why do you live?" he +demands of the conclave of merchants, of life's successes. "You have not +constructed life--you have made a cesspool! You have disseminated filth +and stifling exhalations by your deeds. Have you any conscience? Do you +remember God? A five-kopek piece--that is your God! But you have +expelled your conscience!" + +Like the cry of Isaiah, "Go to, now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your +misfortunes that shall come upon you," is Foma's: "You blood-suckers! +You live on other people's strength; you work with other people's hands! +For all this you shall be made to pay! You shall perish--you shall be +called to account for all! For all--to the last little tear-drop!" + +Stunned by this puddle of life, unable to make sense of it, Foma +questions, and questions vainly, whether of Sofya Medynsky in her +drawing-room of beauty, or in the foulest depths of the first chance +courtesan's heart. Linboff, whose books contradict one another, cannot +help him; nor can the pilgrims on crowded steamers, nor the verse writers +and harlots in dives and boozingkens. And so, wondering, pondering, +perplexed, amazed, whirling through the mad whirlpool of life, dancing +the dance of death, groping for the nameless, indefinite something, the +magic formula, the essence, the intrinsic fact, the flash of light +through the murk and dark--the rational sanction for existence, in +short--Foma Gordyeeff goes down to madness and death. + +It is not a pretty book, but it is a masterful interrogation of life--not +of life universal, but of life particular, the social life of to-day. It +is not nice; neither is the social life of to-day nice. One lays the +book down sick at heart--sick for life with all its "lyings and its +lusts." But it is a healthy book. So fearful is its portrayal of social +disease, so ruthless its stripping of the painted charms from vice, that +its tendency cannot but be strongly for good. It is a goad, to prick +sleeping human consciences awake and drive them into the battle for +humanity. + +But no story is told, nothing is finished, some one will object. Surely, +when Sasha leaped overboard and swam to Foma, something happened. It was +pregnant with possibilities. Yet it was not finished, was not decisive. +She left him to go with the son of a rich vodka-maker. And all that was +best in Sofya Medynsky was quickened when she looked upon Foma with the +look of the Mother-Woman. She might have been a power for good in his +life, she might have shed light into it and lifted him up to safety and +honour and understanding. Yet she went away next day, and he never saw +her again. No story is told, nothing is finished. + +Ah, but surely the story of Foma Gordyeeff is told; his life is finished, +as lives are being finished each day around us. Besides, it is the way +of life, and the art of Gorky is the art of realism. But it is a less +tedious realism than that of Tolstoy or Turgenev. It lives and breathes +from page to page with a swing and dash and go that they rarely attain. +Their mantle has fallen on his young shoulders, and he promises to wear +it royally. + +Even so, but so helpless, hopeless, terrible is this life of Foma +Gordyeeff that we would be filled with profound sorrow for Gorky did we +not know that he has come up out of the Valley of Shadow. That he hopes, +we know, else would he not now be festering in a Russian prison because +he is brave enough to live the hope he feels. He knows life, why and how +it should be lived. And in conclusion, this one thing is manifest: Foma +Gordyeeff is no mere statement of an intellectual problem. For as he +lived and interrogated living, so in sweat and blood and travail has +Gorky lived. + +PIEDMONT, CALIFORNIA. +_November_ 1901. + + + + +THESE BONES SHALL RISE AGAIN + + +Rudyard Kipling, "prophet of blood and vulgarity, prince of ephemerals +and idol of the unelect"--as a Chicago critic chortles--is dead. It is +true. He is dead, dead and buried. And a fluttering, chirping host of +men, little men and unseeing men, have heaped him over with the uncut +leaves of _Kim_, wrapped him in _Stalky & Co._, for winding sheet, and +for headstone reared his unconventional lines, _The Lesson_. It was very +easy. The simplest thing in the world. And the fluttering, chirping +gentlemen are rubbing their hands in amaze and wondering why they did not +do it long ago, it was so very, very simple. + +But the centuries to come, of which the fluttering, chirping gentlemen +are prone to talk largely, will have something to say in the matter. And +when they, the future centuries, quest back to the nineteenth century to +find what manner of century it was--to find, not what the people of the +nineteenth century thought they thought, but what they really thought, +not what they thought they ought to do, but what they really did do, then +a certain man, Kipling, will be read--and read with understanding. "They +thought they read him with understanding, those people of the nineteenth +century," the future centuries will say; "and then they thought there was +no understanding in him, and after that they did not know what they +thought." + +But this is over-severe. It applies only to that class which serves a +function somewhat similar to that served by the populace of old time in +Rome. This is the unstable, mob-minded mass, which sits on the fence, +ever ready to fall this side or that and indecorously clamber back again; +which puts a Democratic administration into office one election, and a +Republican the next; which discovers and lifts up a prophet to-day that +it may stone him to-morrow; which clamours for the book everybody else is +reading, for no reason under the sun save that everybody else is reading +it. This is the class of whim and caprice, of fad and vogue, the +unstable, incoherent, mob-mouthed, mob-minded mass, the "monkey-folk," if +you please, of these latter days. Now it may be reading _The Eternal +City_. Yesterday it was reading _The Master Christian_, and some several +days before that it was reading Kipling. Yes, almost to his shame be it, +these folk were reading him. But it was not his fault. If he depended +upon them he well deserves to be dead and buried and never to rise again. +But to them, let us be thankful, he never lived. They thought he lived, +but he was as dead then as he is now and as he always will be. + +He could not help it because he became the vogue, and it is easily +understood. When he lay ill, fighting with close grapples with death, +those who knew him were grieved. They were many, and in many voices, to +the rim of the Seven Seas, they spoke their grief. Whereupon, and with +celerity, the mob-minded mass began to inquire as to this man whom so +many mourned. If everybody else mourned, it were fit that they mourn +too. So a vast wail went up. Each was a spur to the other's grief, and +each began privately to read this man they had never read and publicly to +proclaim this man they had always read. And straightaway next day they +drowned their grief in a sea of historical romance and forgot all about +him. The reaction was inevitable. Emerging from the sea into which they +had plunged, they became aware that they had so soon forgotten him, and +would have been ashamed, had not the fluttering, chirping men said, +"Come, let us bury him." And they put him in a hole, quickly, out of +their sight. + +And when they have crept into their own little holes, and smugly laid +themselves down in their last long sleep, the future centuries will roll +the stone away and he will come forth again. For be it known: _That man +of us is imperishable who makes his century imperishable_. That man of +us who seizes upon the salient facts of our life, who tells what we +thought, what we were, and for what we stood--that man shall be the +mouthpiece to the centuries, and so long as they listen he shall endure. + +We remember the caveman. We remember him because he made his century +imperishable. But, unhappily, we remember him dimly, in a collective +sort of way, because he memorialized his century dimly, in a collective +sort of way. He had no written speech, so he left us rude scratchings of +beasts and things, cracked marrow-bones, and weapons of stone. It was +the best expression of which he was capable. Had he scratched his own +particular name with the scratchings of beasts and things, stamped his +cracked marrowbones with his own particular seal, trade-marked his +weapons of stone with his own particular device, that particular man +would we remember. But he did the best he could, and we remember him as +best we may. + +Homer takes his place with Achilles and the Greek and Trojan heroes. +Because he remembered them, we remember him. Whether he be one or a +dozen men, or a dozen generations of men, we remember him. And so long +as the name of Greece is known on the lips of men, so long will the name +of Homer be known. There are many such names, linked with their times, +which have come down to us, many more which will yet go down; and to +them, in token that we have lived, must we add some few of our own. + +Dealing only with the artist, be it understood, only those artists will +go down who have spoken true of us. Their truth must be the deepest and +most significant, their voices clear and strong, definite and coherent. +Half-truths and partial-truths will not do, nor will thin piping voices +and quavering lays. There must be the cosmic quality in what they sing. +They must seize upon and press into enduring art-forms the vital facts of +our existence. They must tell why we have lived, for without any reason +for living, depend upon it, in the time to come, it will be as though we +had never lived. Nor are the things that were true of the people a +thousand years or so ago true of us to-day. The romance of Homer's +Greece is the romance of Homer's Greece. That is undeniable. It is not +our romance. And he who in our time sings the romance of Homer's Greece +cannot expect to sing it so well as Homer did, nor will he be singing +about us or our romance at all. A machine age is something quite +different from an heroic age. What is true of rapid-fire guns, +stock-exchanges, and electric motors, cannot possibly be true of +hand-flung javelins and whirring chariot wheels. Kipling knows this. He +has been telling it to us all his life, living it all his life in the +work he has done. + +What the Anglo-Saxon has done, he has memorialized. And by Anglo-Saxon +is not meant merely the people of that tight little island on the edge of +the Western Ocean. Anglo-Saxon stands for the English-speaking people of +all the world, who, in forms and institutions and traditions, are more +peculiarly and definitely English than anything else. This people +Kipling has sung. Their sweat and blood and toil have been the motives +of his songs; but underlying all the motives of his songs is the motive +of motives, the sum of them all and something more, which is one with +what underlies all the Anglo-Saxon sweat and blood and toil; namely, the +genius of the race. And this is the cosmic quality. Both that which is +true of the race for all time, and that which is true of the race for all +time applied to this particular time, he has caught up and pressed into +his art-forms. He has caught the dominant note of the Anglo-Saxon and +pressed it into wonderful rhythms which cannot be sung out in a day and +which will not be sung out in a day. + +The Anglo-Saxon is a pirate, a land robber and a sea robber. Underneath +his thin coating of culture, he is what he was in Morgan's time, in +Drake's time, in William's time, in Alfred's time. The blood and the +tradition of Hengist and Horsa are in his veins. In battle he is subject +to the blood-lusts of the Berserkers of old. Plunder and booty fascinate +him immeasurably. The schoolboy of to-day dreams the dream of Clive and +Hastings. The Anglo-Saxon is strong of arm and heavy of hand, and he +possesses a primitive brutality all his own. There is a discontent in +his blood, an unsatisfaction that will not let him rest, but sends him +adventuring over the sea and among the lands in the midst of the sea. He +does not know when he is beaten, wherefore the term "bulldog" is attached +to him, so that all may know his unreasonableness. He has "some care as +to the purity of his ways, does not wish for strange gods, nor juggle +with intellectual phantasmagoria." He loves freedom, but is dictatorial +to others, is self-willed, has boundless energy, and does things for +himself. He is also a master of matter, an organizer of law, and an +administrator of justice. + +And in the nineteenth century he has lived up to his reputation. Being +the nineteenth century and no other century, and in so far different from +all other centuries, he has expressed himself differently. But blood +will tell, and in the name of God, the Bible, and Democracy, he has gone +out over the earth, possessing himself of broad lands and fat revenues, +and conquering by virtue of his sheer pluck and enterprise and superior +machinery. + +Now the future centuries, seeking to find out what the nineteenth century +Anglo-Saxon was and what were his works, will have small concern with +what he did not do and what he would have liked to do. These things he +did do, and for these things will he be remembered. His claim on +posterity will be that in the nineteenth century he mastered matter; his +twentieth-century claim will be, in the highest probability, that he +organized life--but that will be sung by the twentieth-century Kiplings +or the twenty-first-century Kiplings. Rudyard Kipling of the nineteenth +century has sung of "things as they are." He has seen life as it is, +"taken it up squarely," in both his hands, and looked upon it. What +better preachment upon the Anglo-Saxon and what he has done can be had +than _The Bridge Builders_? what better appraisement than _The White +Man's Burden_? As for faith and clean ideals--not of "children and gods, +but men in a world of men"--who has preached them better than he? + +Primarily, Kipling has stood for the doer as opposed to the dreamer--the +doer, who lists not to idle songs of empty days, but who goes forth and +does things, with bended back and sweated brow and work-hardened hands. +The most characteristic thing about Kipling is his lover of actuality, +his intense practicality, his proper and necessary respect for the +hard-headed, hard-fisted fact. And, above all, he has preached the +gospel of work, and as potently as Carlyle ever preached. For he has +preached it not only to those in the high places, but to the common men, +to the great sweating thong of common men who hear and understand yet +stand agape at Carlyle's turgid utterance. Do the thing to your hand, +and do it with all your might. Never mind what the thing is; so long as +it is something. Do it. Do it and remember Tomlinson, sexless and +soulless Tomlinson, who was denied at Heaven's gate. + +The blundering centuries have perseveringly pottered and groped through +the dark; but it remained for Kipling's century to roll in the sun, to +formulate, in other words, the reign of law. And of the artists in +Kipling's century, he of them all has driven the greater measure of law +in the more consummate speech: + + Keep ye the Law--be swift in all obedience. + Clear the land of evil, drive the road and bridge the ford. + Make ye sure to each his own + That he reap what he hath sown; + By the peace among Our peoples let men know we serve the Lord. + +--And so it runs, from McAndrew's _Law_, _Order_, _Duty_, _and +Restraint_, to his last least line, whether of _The Vampire_ or _The +Recessional_. And no prophet out of Israel has cried out more loudly the +sins of the people, nor called them more awfully to repent. + +"But he is vulgar, he stirs the puddle of life," object the fluttering, +chirping gentlemen, the Tomlinsonian men. Well, and isn't life vulgar? +Can you divorce the facts of life? Much of good is there, and much of +ill; but who may draw aside his garment and say, "I am none of them"? +Can you say that the part is greater than the whole? that the whole is +more or less than the sum of the parts? As for the puddle of life, the +stench is offensive to you? Well, and what then? Do you not live in it? +Why do you not make it clean? Do you clamour for a filter to make clean +only your own particular portion? And, made clean, are you wroth because +Kipling has stirred it muddy again? At least he has stirred it +healthily, with steady vigour and good-will. He has not brought to the +surface merely its dregs, but its most significant values. He has told +the centuries to come of our lyings and our lusts, but he has also told +the centuries to come of the seriousness which is underneath our lyings +and our lusts. And he has told us, too, and always has he told us, to be +clean and strong and to walk upright and manlike. + +"But he has no sympathy," the fluttering gentlemen chirp. "We admire his +art and intellectual brilliancy, we all admire his art and intellectual +brilliancy, his dazzling technique and rare rhythmical sense; but . . . +he is totally devoid of sympathy." Dear! Dear! What is to be +understood by this? Should he sprinkle his pages with sympathetic +adjectives, so many to the paragraph, as the country compositor sprinkles +commas? Surely not. The little gentlemen are not quite so infinitesimal +as that. There have been many tellers of jokes, and the greater of them, +it is recorded, never smiled at their own, not even in the crucial moment +when the audience wavered between laughter and tears. + +And so with Kipling. Take _The Vampire_, for instance. It has been +complained that there is no touch of pity in it for the man and his ruin, +no sermon on the lesson of it, no compassion for the human weakness, no +indignation at the heartlessness. But are we kindergarten children that +the tale be told to us in words of one syllable? Or are we men and +women, able to read between the lines what Kipling intended we should +read between the lines? "For some of him lived, but the most of him +died." Is there not here all the excitation in the world for our sorrow, +our pity, our indignation? And what more is the function of art than to +excite states of consciousness complementary to the thing portrayed? The +colour of tragedy is red. Must the artist also paint in the watery tears +and wan-faced grief? "For some of him lived, but the most of him +died"--can the heartache of the situation be conveyed more achingly? Or +were it better that the young man, some of him alive but most of him +dead, should come out before the curtain and deliver a homily to the +weeping audience? + +The nineteenth century, so far as the Anglo-Saxon is concerned, was +remarkable for two great developments: the mastery of matter and the +expansion of the race. Three great forces operated in it: nationalism, +commercialism, democracy--the marshalling of the races, the merciless, +remorseless _laissez faire_ of the dominant bourgeoisie, and the +practical, actual working government of men within a very limited +equality. The democracy of the nineteenth century is not the democracy +of which the eighteenth century dreamed. It is not the democracy of the +Declaration, but it is what we have practised and lived that reconciles +it to the fact of the "lesser breeds without the Law." + +It is of these developments and forces of the nineteenth century that +Kipling has sung. And the romance of it he has sung, that which +underlies and transcends objective endeavour, which deals with race +impulses, race deeds, and race traditions. Even into the steam-laden +speech of his locomotives has he breathed our life, our spirit, our +significance. As he is our mouthpiece, so are they his mouthpieces. And +the romance of the nineteenth-century man as he has thus expressed +himself in the nineteenth century, in shaft and wheel, in steel and +steam, in far journeying and adventuring, Kipling has caught up in +wondrous songs for the future centuries to sing. + +If the nineteenth century is the century of the Hooligan, then is Kipling +the voice of the Hooligan as surely as he is the voice of the nineteenth +century. Who is more representative? Is _David Harum_ more +representative of the nineteenth century? Is Mary Johnston, Charles +Major, or Winston Churchill? Is Bret Harte? William Dean Howells? +Gilbert Parker? Who of them all is as essentially representative of +nineteenth-century life? When Kipling is forgotten, will Robert Louis +Stevenson be remembered for his _Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_, his +_Kidnapped_ and his _David Balfour_? Not so. His _Treasure Island_ will +be a classic, to go down with _Robinson Crusoe_, _Through the +Looking-Glass_, and _The Jungle Books_. He will be remembered for his +essays, for his letters, for his philosophy of life, for himself. He +will be the well beloved, as he has been the well beloved. But his will +be another claim upon posterity than what we are considering. For each +epoch has its singer. As Scott sang the swan song of chivalry and +Dickens the burgher-fear of the rising merchant class, so Kipling, as no +one else, has sung the hymn of the dominant bourgeoisie, the war march of +the white man round the world, the triumphant paean of commercialism and +imperialism. For that will he be remembered. + +OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA. +_October_ 1901. + + + + +THE OTHER ANIMALS + + +American journalism has its moments of fantastic hysteria, and when it is +on the rampage the only thing for a rational man to do is to climb a tree +and let the cataclysm go by. And so, some time ago, when the word +_nature-faker_ was coined, I, for one, climbed into my tree and stayed +there. I happened to be in Hawaii at the time, and a Honolulu reporter +elicited the sentiment from me that I thanked God I was not an authority +on anything. This sentiment was promptly cabled to America in an +Associated Press despatch, whereupon the American press (possibly annoyed +because I had not climbed down out of my tree) charged me with paying for +advertising by cable at a dollar per word--the very human way of the +American press, which, when a man refuses to come down and be licked, +makes faces at him. + +But now that the storm is over, let us come and reason together. I have +been guilty of writing two animal-stories--two books about dogs. The +writing of these two stories, on my part, was in truth a protest against +the "humanizing" of animals, of which it seemed to me several "animal +writers" had been profoundly guilty. Time and again, and many times, in +my narratives, I wrote, speaking of my dog-heroes: "He did not think +these things; he merely did them," etc. And I did this repeatedly, to +the clogging of my narrative and in violation of my artistic canons; and +I did it in order to hammer into the average human understanding that +these dog-heroes of mine were not directed by abstract reasoning, but by +instinct, sensation, and emotion, and by simple reasoning. Also, I +endeavoured to make my stories in line with the facts of evolution; I +hewed them to the mark set by scientific research, and awoke, one day, to +find myself bundled neck and crop into the camp of the nature-fakers. + +President Roosevelt was responsible for this, and he tried to condemn me +on two counts. (1) I was guilty of having a big, fighting bull-dog whip +a wolf-dog. (2) I was guilty of allowing a lynx to kill a wolf-dog in a +pitched battle. Regarding the second count, President Roosevelt was +wrong in his field observations taken while reading my book. He must +have read it hastily, for in my story I had the wolf-dog kill the lynx. +Not only did I have my wolf-dog kill the lynx, but I made him eat the +body of the lynx as well. Remains only the first count on which to +convict me of nature-faking, and the first count does not charge me with +diverging from ascertained facts. It is merely a statement of a +difference of opinion. President Roosevelt does not think a bull-dog can +lick a wolf-dog. I think a bull-dog can lick a wolf-dog. And there we +are. Difference of opinion may make, and does make, horse-racing. I can +understand that difference of opinion can make dog-fighting. But what +gets me is how difference of opinion regarding the relative fighting +merits of a bull-dog and a wolf-dog makes me a nature-faker and President +Roosevelt a vindicated and triumphant scientist. + +Then entered John Burroughs to clinch President Roosevelt's judgments. +In this alliance there is no difference of opinion. That Roosevelt can +do no wrong is Burroughs's opinion; and that Burroughs is always right is +Roosevelt's opinion. Both are agreed that animals do not reason. They +assert that all animals below man are automatons and perform actions only +of two sorts--mechanical and reflex--and that in such actions no +reasoning enters at all. They believe that man is the only animal +capable of reasoning and that ever does reason. This is a view that +makes the twentieth-century scientist smile. It is not modern at all. +It is distinctly mediaeval. President Roosevelt and John Burroughs, in +advancing such a view, are homocentric in the same fashion that the +scholastics of earlier and darker centuries were homocentric. Had the +world not been discovered to be round until after the births of President +Roosevelt and John Burroughs, they would have been geocentric as well in +their theories of the Cosmos. They could not have believed otherwise. +The stuff of their minds is so conditioned. They talk the argot of +evolution, while they no more understand the essence and the import of +evolution than does a South Sea Islander or Sir Oliver Lodge understand +the noumena of radio-activity. + +Now, President Roosevelt is an amateur. He may know something of +statecraft and of big-game shooting; he may be able to kill a deer when +he sees it and to measure it and weigh it after he has shot it; he may be +able to observe carefully and accurately the actions and antics of +tomtits and snipe, and, after he has observed it, definitely and +coherently to convey the information of when the first chipmunk, in a +certain year and a certain latitude and longitude, came out in the spring +and chattered and gambolled--but that he should be able, as an individual +observer, to analyze all animal life and to synthetize and develop all +that is known of the method and significance of evolution, would require +a vaster credulity for you or me to believe than is required for us to +believe the biggest whopper ever told by an unmitigated nature-faker. +No, President Roosevelt does not understand evolution, and he does not +seem to have made much of an attempt to understand evolution. + +Remains John Burroughs, who claims to be a thorough-going evolutionist. +Now, it is rather hard for a young man to tackle an old man. It is the +nature of young men to be more controlled in such matters, and it is the +nature of old men, presuming upon the wisdom that is very often +erroneously associated with age, to do the tackling. In this present +question of nature-faking, the old men did the tackling, while I, as one +young man, kept quiet a long time. But here goes at last. And first of +all let Mr. Burroughs's position be stated, and stated in his words. + +"Why impute reason to an animal if its behaviour can be explained on the +theory of instinct?" Remember these words, for they will be referred to +later. "A goodly number of persons seem to have persuaded themselves +that animals do reason." "But instinct suffices for the animals . . . +they get along very well without reason." "Darwin tried hard to convince +himself that animals do at times reason in a rudimentary way; but Darwin +was also a much greater naturalist than psychologist." The preceding +quotation is tantamount, on Mr. Burroughs's part, to a flat denial that +animals reason even in a rudimentary way. And when Mr. Burrough denies +that animals reason even in a rudimentary way, it is equivalent to +affirming, in accord with the first quotation in this paragraph, that +instinct will explain every animal act that might be confounded with +reason by the unskilled or careless observer. + +Having bitten off this large mouthful, Mr. Burroughs proceeds with serene +and beautiful satisfaction to masticate it in the following fashion. He +cites a large number of instances of purely instinctive actions on the +part of animals, and triumphantly demands if they are acts of reason. He +tells of the robin that fought day after day its reflected image in a +window-pane; of the birds in South America that were guilty of drilling +clear through a mud wall, which they mistook for a solid clay bank: of +the beaver that cut down a tree four times because it was held at the top +by the branches of other trees; of the cow that licked the skin of her +stuffed calf so affectionately that it came apart, whereupon she +proceeded to eat the hay with which it was stuffed. He tells of the +phoebe-bird that betrays her nest on the porch by trying to hide it with +moss in similar fashion to the way all phoebe-birds hide their nests when +they are built among rocks. He tells of the highhole that repeatedly +drills through the clap-boards of an empty house in a vain attempt to +find a thickness of wood deep enough in which to build its nest. He +tells of the migrating lemmings of Norway that plunge into the sea and +drown in vast numbers because of their instinct to swim lakes and rivers +in the course of their migrations. And, having told a few more instances +of like kidney, he triumphantly demands: "Where now is your much-vaunted +reasoning of the lower animals?" + +No schoolboy in a class debate could be guilty of unfairer argument. It +is equivalent to replying to the assertion that 2+2=4, by saying: "No; +because 12/4=3; I have demonstrated my honourable opponent's error." +When a man attacks your ability as a foot-racer, promptly prove to him +that he was drunk the week before last, and the average man in the crowd +of gaping listeners will believe that you have convincingly refuted the +slander on your fleetness of foot. On my honour, it will work. Try it +some time. It is done every day. Mr. Burroughs has done it himself, +and, I doubt not, pulled the sophistical wool over a great many pairs of +eyes. No, no, Mr. Burroughs; you can't disprove that animals reason by +proving that they possess instincts. But the worst of it is that you +have at the same time pulled the wool over your own eyes. You have set +up a straw man and knocked the stuffing out of him in the complacent +belief that it was the reasoning of lower animals you were knocking out +of the minds of those who disagreed with you. When the highhole +perforated the icehouse and let out the sawdust, you called him a lunatic +. . . + +But let us be charitable--and serious. What Mr. Burroughs instances as +acts of instinct certainly are acts of instincts. By the same method of +logic one could easily adduce a multitude of instinctive acts on the part +of man and thereby prove that man is an unreasoning animal. But man +performs actions of both sorts. Between man and the lower animals Mr. +Burroughs finds a vast gulf. This gulf divides man from the rest of his +kin by virtue of the power of reason that he alone possesses. Man is a +voluntary agent. Animals are automatons. The robin fights its +reflection in the window-pane because it is his instinct to fight and +because he cannot reason out the physical laws that make this reflection +appear real. An animal is a mechanism that operates according to +fore-ordained rules. Wrapped up in its heredity, and determined long +before it was born, is a certain limited capacity of ganglionic response +to eternal stimuli. These responses have been fixed in the species +through adaptation to environment. Natural selection has compelled the +animal automatically to respond in a fixed manner and a certain way to +all the usual external stimuli it encounters in the course of a usual +life. Thus, under usual circumstances, it does the usual thing. Under +unusual circumstances it still does the usual thing, wherefore the +highhole perforating the ice-house is guilty of lunacy--of unreason, in +short. To do the unusual thing under unusual circumstances, successfully +to adjust to a strange environment for which his heredity has not +automatically fitted an adjustment, Mr. Burroughs says is impossible. He +says it is impossible because it would be a non-instinctive act, and, as +is well known animals act only through instinct. And right here we catch +a glimpse of Mr. Burroughs's cart standing before his horse. He has a +thesis, and though the heavens fall he will fit the facts to the thesis. +Agassiz, in his opposition to evolution, had a similar thesis, though +neither did he fit the facts to it nor did the heavens fall. Facts are +very disagreeable at times. + +But let us see. Let us test Mr. Burroughs's test of reason and instinct. +When I was a small boy I had a dog named Rollo. According to Mr. +Burroughs, Rollo was an automaton, responding to external stimuli +mechanically as directed by his instincts. Now, as is well known, the +development of instinct in animals is a dreadfully slow process. There +is no known case of the development of a single instinct in domestic +animals in all the history of their domestication. Whatever instincts +they possess they brought with them from the wild thousands of years ago. +Therefore, all Rollo's actions were ganglionic discharges mechanically +determined by the instincts that had been developed and fixed in the +species thousands of years ago. Very well. It is clear, therefore, that +in all his play with me he would act in old-fashioned ways, adjusting +himself to the physical and psychical factors in his environment +according to the rules of adjustment which had obtained in the wild and +which had become part of his heredity. + +Rollo and I did a great deal of rough romping. He chased me and I chased +him. He nipped my legs, arms, and hands, often so hard that I yelled, +while I rolled him and tumbled him and dragged him about, often so +strenuously as to make him yelp. In the course of the play many +variations arose. I would make believe to sit down and cry. All +repentance and anxiety, he would wag his tail and lick my face, whereupon +I would give him the laugh. He hated to be laughed at, and promptly he +would spring for me with good-natured, menacing jaws, and the wild romp +would go on. I had scored a point. Then he hit upon a trick. Pursuing +him into the woodshed, I would find him in a far corner, pretending to +sulk. Now, he dearly loved the play, and never got enough of it. But at +first he fooled me. I thought I had somehow hurt his feelings and I came +and knelt before him, petting him, and speaking lovingly. Promptly, in a +wild outburst, he was up and away, tumbling me over on the floor as he +dashed out in a mad skurry around the yard. He had scored a point. + +After a time, it became largely a game of wits. I reasoned my acts, of +course, while his were instinctive. One day, as he pretended to sulk in +the corner, I glanced out of the woodshed doorway, simulated pleasure in +face, voice, and language, and greeted one of my schoolboy friends. +Immediately Rollo forgot to sulk, rushed out to see the newcomer, and saw +empty space. The laugh was on him, and he knew it, and I gave it to him, +too. I fooled him in this way two or three times; then be became wise. +One day I worked a variation. Suddenly looking out the door, making +believe that my eyes had been attracted by a moving form, I said coldly, +as a child educated in turning away bill-collectors would say: "No my +father is not at home." Like a shot, Rollo was out the door. He even +ran down the alley to the front of the house in a vain attempt to find +the man I had addressed. He came back sheepishly to endure the laugh and +resume the game. + +And now we come to the test. I fooled Rollo, but how was the fooling +made possible? What precisely went on in that brain of his? According +to Mr. Burroughs, who denies even rudimentary reasoning to the lower +animals, Rollo acted instinctively, mechanically responding to the +external stimulus, furnished by me, which led him to believe that a man +was outside the door. + +Since Rollo acted instinctively, and since all instincts are very +ancient, tracing back to the pre-domestication period, we can conclude +only that Rollo's wild ancestors, at the time this particular instinct +was fixed into the heredity of the species, must have been in close, +long-continued, and vital contact with man, the voice of man, and the +expressions on the face of man. But since the instinct must have been +developed during the pre-domestication period, how under the sun could +his wild, undomesticated ancestors have experienced the close, +long-continued, and vital contact with man? + +Mr. Burroughs says that "instinct suffices for the animals," that "they +get along very well without reason." But I say, what all the poor +nature-fakers will say, that Rollo reasoned. He was born into the world +a bundle of instincts and a pinch of brain-stuff, all wrapped around in a +framework of bone, meat, and hide. As he adjusted to his environment he +gained experiences. He remembered these experiences. He learned that he +mustn't chase the cat, kill chickens, nor bite little girls' dresses. He +learned that little boys had little boy playmates. He learned that men +came into back yards. He learned that the animal man, on meeting with +his own kind, was given to verbal and facial greeting. He learned that +when a boy greeted a playmate he did it differently from the way he +greeted a man. All these he learned and remembered. They were so many +observations--so many propositions, if you please. Now, what went on +behind those brown eyes of his, inside that pinch of brain-stuff, when I +turned suddenly to the door and greeted an imaginary person outside? +Instantly, out of the thousands of observations stored in his brain, came +to the front of his consciousness the particular observations connected +with this particular situation. Next, he established a relation between +these observations. This relation was his conclusion, achieved, as every +psychologist will agree, by a definite cell-action of his grey matter. +From the fact that his master turned suddenly toward the door, and from +the fact that his master's voice, facial expression, and whole demeanour +expressed surprise and delight, he concluded that a friend was outside. +He established a relation between various things, and the act of +establishing relations between things is an act of reason--of rudimentary +reason, granted, but none the less of reason. + +Of course Rollo was fooled. But that is no call for us to throw chests +about it. How often has every last one of us been fooled in precisely +similar fashion by another who turned and suddenly addressed an imaginary +intruder? Here is a case in point that occurred in the West. A robber +had held up a railroad train. He stood in the aisle between the seats, +his revolver presented at the head of the conductor, who stood facing +him. The conductor was at his mercy. + +But the conductor suddenly looked over the robber's shoulder, at the same +time saying aloud to an imaginary person standing at the robber's back: +"Don't shoot him." Like a flash the robber whirled about to confront +this new danger, and like a flash the conductor shot him down. Show me, +Mr. Burroughs, where the mental process in the robber's brain was a shade +different from the mental processes in Rollo's brain, and I'll quit +nature-faking and join the Trappists. Surely, when a man's mental +process and a dog's mental process are precisely similar, the +much-vaunted gulf of Mr. Burroughs's fancy has been bridged. + +I had a dog in Oakland. His name was Glen. His father was Brown, a +wolf-dog that had been brought down from Alaska, and his mother was a +half-wild mountain shepherd dog. Neither father nor mother had had any +experience with automobiles. Glen came from the country, a half-grown +puppy, to live in Oakland. Immediately he became infatuated with an +automobile. He reached the culmination of happiness when he was +permitted to sit up in the front seat alongside the chauffeur. He would +spend a whole day at a time on an automobile debauch, even going without +food. Often the machine started directly from inside the barn, dashed +out the driveway without stopping, and was gone. Glen got left behind +several times. The custom was established that whoever was taking the +machine out should toot the horn before starting. Glen learned the +signal. No matter where he was or what he was doing, when that horn +tooted he was off for the barn and up into the front seat. + +One morning, while Glen was on the back porch eating his breakfast of +mush and milk, the chauffeur tooted. Glen rushed down the steps, into +the barn, and took his front seat, the mush and milk dripping down his +excited and happy chops. In passing, I may point out that in thus +forsaking his breakfast for the automobile he was displaying what is +called the power of choice--a peculiarly lordly attribute that, according +to Mr. Burroughs, belongs to man alone. Yet Glen made his choice between +food and fun. + +It was not that Glen wanted his breakfast less, but that he wanted his +ride more. The toot was only a joke. The automobile did not start. +Glen waited and watched. Evidently he saw no signs of an immediate +start, for finally he jumped out of the seat and went back to his +breakfast. He ate with indecent haste, like a man anxious to catch a +train. Again the horn tooted, again he deserted his breakfast, and again +he sat in the seat and waited vainly for the machine to go. + +They came close to spoiling Glen's breakfast for him, for he was kept on +the jump between porch and barn. Then he grew wise. They tooted the +horn loudly and insistently, but he stayed by his breakfast and finished +it. Thus once more did he display power of choice, incidentally of +control, for when that horn tooted it was all he could do to refrain from +running for the barn. + +The nature-faker would analyze what went on in Glen's brain somewhat in +the following fashion. He had had, in his short life, experiences that +not one of all his ancestors had ever had. He had learned that +automobiles went fast, that once in motion it was impossible for him to +get on board, that the toot of the horn was a noise that was peculiar to +automobiles. These were so many propositions. Now reasoning can be +defined as the act or process of the brain by which, from propositions +known or assumed, new propositions are reached. Out of the propositions +which I have shown were Glen's, and which had become his through the +medium of his own observation of the phenomena of life, he made the new +proposition that when the horn tooted it was time for him to get on +board. + +But on the morning I have described, the chauffeur fooled Glen. Somehow +and much to his own disgust, his reasoning was erroneous. The machine +did not start after all. But to reason incorrectly is very human. The +great trouble in all acts of reasoning is to include all the propositions +in the problem. Glen had included every proposition but one, namely, the +human proposition, the joke in the brain of the chauffeur. For a number +of times Glen was fooled. Then he performed another mental act. In his +problem he included the human proposition (the joke in the brain of the +chauffeur), and he reached the new conclusion that when the horn tooted +the automobile was _not_ going to start. Basing his action on this +conclusion, he remained on the porch and finished his breakfast. You and +I, and even Mr. Burroughs, perform acts of reasoning precisely similar to +this every day in our lives. How Mr. Burroughs will explain Glen's +action by the instinctive theory is beyond me. In wildest fantasy, even, +my brain refuses to follow Mr. Burroughs into the primeval forest where +Glen's dim ancestors, to the tooting of automobile horns, were fixing +into the heredity of the breed the particular instinct that would enable +Glen, a few thousand years later, capably to cope with automobiles. + +Dr. C. J. Romanes tells of a female chimpanzee who was taught to count +straws up to five. She held the straws in her hand, exposing the ends to +the number requested. If she were asked for three, she held up three. +If she were asked for four, she held up four. All this is a mere matter +of training. But consider now, Mr. Burroughs, what follows. When she +was asked for five straws and she had only four, she doubled one straw, +exposing both its ends and thus making up the required number. She did +not do this only once, and by accident. She did it whenever more straws +were asked for than she possessed. Did she perform a distinctly +reasoning act? or was her action the result of blind, mechanical +instinct? If Mr. Burroughs cannot answer to his own satisfaction, he may +call Dr. Romanes a nature-faker and dismiss the incident from his mind. + +The foregoing is a trick of erroneous human reasoning that works very +successfully in the United States these days. It is certainly a trick of +Mr. Burroughs, of which he is guilty with distressing frequency. When a +poor devil of a writer records what he has seen, and when what he has +seen does not agree with Mr. Burroughs's mediaeval theory, he calls said +writer a nature-faker. When a man like Mr. Hornaday comes along, Mr. +Burroughs works a variation of the trick on him. Mr. Hornaday has made a +close study of the orang in captivity and of the orang in its native +state. Also, he has studied closely many other of the higher animal +types. Also, in the tropics, he has studied the lower types of man. Mr. +Hornaday is a man of experience and reputation. When he was asked if +animals reasoned, out of all his knowledge on the subject he replied that +to ask him such a question was equivalent to asking him if fishes swim. +Now Mr. Burroughs has not had much experience in studying the lower human +types and the higher animal types. Living in a rural district in the +state of New York, and studying principally birds in that limited +habitat, he has been in contact neither with the higher animal types nor +the lower human types. But Mr. Hornaday's reply is such a facer to him +and his homocentric theory that he has to do something. And he does it. +He retorts: "I suspect that Mr. Hornaday is a better naturalist than he +is a comparative psychologist." Exit Mr. Hornaday. Who the devil is Mr. +Hornaday, anyway? The sage of Slabsides has spoken. When Darwin +concluded that animals were capable of reasoning in a rudimentary way, +Mr. Burroughs laid him out in the same fashion by saying: "But Darwin was +also a much greater naturalist than psychologist"--and this despite +Darwin's long life of laborious research that was not wholly confined to +a rural district such as Mr. Burroughs inhabits in New York. Mr. +Burroughs's method of argument is beautiful. It reminds one of the man +whose pronunciation was vile, but who said: "Damn the dictionary; ain't I +here?" + +And now we come to the mental processes of Mr. Burroughs--to the +psychology of the ego, if you please. Mr. Burroughs has troubles of his +own with the dictionary. He violates language from the standpoint both +of logic and science. Language is a tool, and definitions embodied in +language should agree with the facts and history of life. But Mr. +Burroughs's definitions do not so agree. This, in turn, is not the fault +of his education, but of his ego. To him, despite his well-exploited and +patronizing devotion to them, the lower animals are disgustingly low. To +him, affinity and kinship with the other animals is a repugnant thing. +He will have none of it. He is too glorious a personality not to have +between him and the other animals a vast and impassable gulf. The cause +of Mr. Burroughs's mediaeval view of the other animals is to be found, +not in his knowledge of those other animals, but in the suggestion of his +self-exalted ego. In short, Mr. Burroughs's homocentric theory has been +developed out of his homocentric ego, and by the misuse of language he +strives to make the facts of life agree with his theory. + +After the instances I have cited of actions of animals which are +impossible of explanation as due to instinct, Mr. Burroughs may reply: +"Your instances are easily explained by the simple law of association." +To this I reply, first, then why did you deny rudimentary reason to +animals? and why did you state flatly that "instinct suffices for the +animals"? And, second, with great reluctance and with overwhelming +humility, because of my youth, I suggest that you do not know exactly +what you do mean by that phrase "the simple law of association." Your +trouble, I repeat, is with definitions. You have grasped that man +performs what is called _abstract_ reasoning, you have made a definition +of abstract reason, and, betrayed by that great maker of theories, the +ego, you have come to think that all reasoning is abstract and that what +is not abstract reason is not reason at all. This is your attitude +toward rudimentary reason. Such a process, in one of the other animals, +must be either abstract or it is not a reasoning process. Your +intelligence tells you that such a process is not abstract reasoning, and +your homocentric thesis compels you to conclude that it can be only a +mechanical, instinctive process. + +Definitions must agree, not with egos, but with life. Mr. Burroughs goes +on the basis that a definition is something hard and fast, absolute and +eternal. He forgets that all the universe is in flux; that definitions +are arbitrary and ephemeral; that they fix, for a fleeting instant of +time, things that in the past were not, that in the future will be not, +that out of the past become, and that out of the present pass on to the +future and become other things. Definitions cannot rule life. +Definitions cannot be made to rule life. Life must rule definitions or +else the definitions perish. + +Mr. Burroughs forgets the evolution of reason. He makes a definition of +reason without regard to its history, and that definition is of reason +purely abstract. Human reason, as we know it to-day, is not a creation, +but a growth. Its history goes back to the primordial slime that was +quick with muddy life; its history goes back to the first vitalized +inorganic. And here are the steps of its ascent from the mud to man: +simple reflex action, compound reflex action, memory, habit, rudimentary +reason, and abstract reason. In the course of the climb, thanks to +natural selection, instinct was evolved. Habit is a development in the +individual. Instinct is a race-habit. Instinct is blind, unreasoning, +mechanical. This was the dividing of the ways in the climb of aspiring +life. The perfect culmination of instinct we find in the ant-heap and +the beehive. Instinct proved a blind alley. But the other path, that of +reason, led on and on even to Mr. Burroughs and you and me. + +There are no impassable gulfs, unless one chooses, as Mr. Burroughs does, +to ignore the lower human types and the higher animal types, and to +compare human mind with bird mind. It was impossible for life to reason +abstractly until speech was developed. Equipped with swords, with tools +of thought, in short, the slow development of the power to reason in the +abstract went on. The lowest human types do little or no reasoning in +the abstract. With every word, with every increase in the complexity of +thought, with every ascertained fact so gained, went on action and +reaction in the grey matter of the speech discoverer, and slowly, step by +step, through hundreds of thousands of years, developed the power of +reason. + +Place a honey-bee in a glass bottle. Turn the bottom of the bottle +toward a lighted lamp so that the open mouth is away from the lamp. +Vainly, ceaselessly, a thousand times, undeterred by the bafflement and +the pain, the bee will hurl himself against the bottom of the bottle as +he strives to win to the light. That is instinct. Place your dog in a +back yard and go away. He is your dog. He loves you. He yearns toward +you as the bee yearns toward the light. He listens to your departing +footsteps. But the fence is too high. Then he turns his back upon the +direction in which you are departing, and runs around the yard. He is +frantic with affection and desire. But he is not blind. He is +observant. He is looking for a hole under the fence, or through the +fence, or for a place where the fence is not so high. He sees a +dry-goods box standing against the fence. Presto! He leaps upon it, +goes over the barrier, and tears down the street to overtake you. Is +that instinct? + +Here, in the household where I am writing this, is a little Tahitian +"feeding-child." He believes firmly that a tiny dwarf resides in the box +of my talking-machine and that it is the tiny dwarf who does the singing +and the talking. Not even Mr. Burroughs will affirm that the child has +reached this conclusion by an instinctive process. Of course, the child +reasons the existence of the dwarf in the box. How else could the box +talk and sing? In that child's limited experience it has never +encountered a single instance where speech and song were produced +otherwise than by direct human agency. I doubt not that the dog is +considerably surprised when he hears his master's voice coming out of a +box. + +The adult savage, on his first introduction to a telephone, rushes around +to the adjoining room to find the man who is talking through the +partition. Is this act instinctive? No. Out of his limited experience, +out of his limited knowledge of physics, he reasons that the only +explanation possible is that a man is in the other room talking through +the partition. + +But that savage cannot be fooled by a hand-mirror. We must go lower down +in the animal scale, to the monkey. The monkey swiftly learns that the +monkey it sees is not in the glass, wherefore it reaches craftily behind +the glass. Is this instinct? No. It is rudimentary reasoning. Lower +than the monkey in the scale of brain is the robin, and the robin fights +its reflection in the window-pane. Now climb with me for a space. From +the robin to the monkey, where is the impassable gulf? and where is the +impassable gulf between the monkey and the feeding-child? between the +feeding-child and the savage who seeks the man behind the partition? ay, +and between the savage and the astute financiers Mrs. Chadwick fooled and +the thousands who were fooled by the Keeley Motor swindle? + +Let us be very humble. We who are so very human are very animal. +Kinship with the other animals is no more repugnant to Mr. Burroughs than +was the heliocentric theory to the priests who compelled Galileo to +recant. Not correct human reason, not the evidence of the ascertained +fact, but pride of ego, was responsible for the repugnance. + +In his stiff-necked pride, Mr. Burroughs runs a hazard more humiliating +to that pride than any amount of kinship with the other animals. When a +dog exhibits choice, direction, control, and reason; when it is shown +that certain mental processes in that dog's brain are precisely +duplicated in the brain of man; and when Mr. Burroughs convincingly +proves that every action of the dog is mechanical and automatic--then, by +precisely the same arguments, can it be proved that the similar actions +of man are mechanical and automatic. No, Mr. Burroughs, though you stand +on the top of the ladder of life, you must not kick out that ladder from +under your feet. You must not deny your relatives, the other animals. +Their history is your history, and if you kick them to the bottom of the +abyss, to the bottom of the abyss you go yourself. By them you stand or +fall. What you repudiate in them you repudiate in yourself--a pretty +spectacle, truly, of an exalted animal striving to disown the stuff of +life out of which it is made, striving by use of the very reason that was +developed by evolution to deny the possession of evolution that developed +it. This may be good egotism, but it is not good science. + +PAPEETE, TAHITI. +_March_ 1908. + + + + +THE YELLOW PERIL + + +No more marked contrast appears in passing from our Western land to the +paper houses and cherry blossoms of Japan than appears in passing from +Korea to China. To achieve a correct appreciation of the Chinese the +traveller should first sojourn amongst the Koreans for several months, +and then, one fine day, cross over the Yalu into Manchuria. It would be +of exceptional advantage to the correctness of appreciation did he cross +over the Yalu on the heels of a hostile and alien army. + +War is to-day the final arbiter in the affairs of men, and it is as yet +the final test of the worth-whileness of peoples. Tested thus, the +Korean fails. He lacks the nerve to remain when a strange army crosses +his land. The few goods and chattels he may have managed to accumulate +he puts on his back, along with his doors and windows, and away he heads +for his mountain fastnesses. Later he may return, sans goods, chattels, +doors, and windows, impelled by insatiable curiosity for a "look see." +But it is curiosity merely--a timid, deerlike curiosity. He is prepared +to bound away on his long legs at the first hint of danger or trouble. + +Northern Korea was a desolate land when the Japanese passed through. +Villages and towns were deserted. The fields lay untouched. There was +no ploughing nor sowing, no green things growing. Little or nothing was +to be purchased. One carried one's own food with him and food for horses +and servants was the anxious problem that waited at the day's end. In +many a lonely village not an ounce nor a grain of anything could be +bought, and yet there might be standing around scores of white-garmented, +stalwart Koreans, smoking yard-long pipes and chattering, +chattering--ceaselessly chattering. Love, money, or force could not +procure from them a horseshoe or a horseshoe nail. + +"Upso," was their invariable reply. "Upso," cursed word, which means +"Have not got." + +They had tramped probably forty miles that day, down from their +hiding-places, just for a "look see," and forty miles back they would +cheerfully tramp, chattering all the way over what they had seen. Shake +a stick at them as they stand chattering about your camp-fire, and the +gloom of the landscape will be filled with tall, flitting ghosts, +bounding like deer, with great springy strides which one cannot but envy. +They have splendid vigour and fine bodies, but they are accustomed to +being beaten and robbed without protest or resistance by every chance +foreigner who enters their country. + +From this nerveless, forsaken Korean land I rode down upon the sandy +islands of the Yalu. For weeks these islands had been the dread +between-the-lines of two fighting armies. The air above had been rent by +screaming projectiles. The echoes of the final battle had scarcely died +away. The trains of Japanese wounded and Japanese dead were trailing by. + +On the conical hill, a quarter of a mile away, the Russian dead were +being buried in their trenches and in the shell holes made by the +Japanese. And here, in the thick of it all, a man was ploughing. Green +things were growing--young onions--and the man who was weeding them +paused from his labour long enough to sell me a handful. Near by was the +smoke-blackened ruin of the farmhouse, fired by the Russians when they +retreated from the riverbed. Two men were removing the debris, cleaning +the confusion, preparatory to rebuilding. They were clad in blue. +Pigtails hung down their backs. I was in China! + +I rode to the shore, into the village of Kuelian-Ching. There were no +lounging men smoking long pipes and chattering. The previous day the +Russians had been there, a bloody battle had been fought, and to-day the +Japanese were there--but what was that to talk about? Everybody was +busy. Men were offering eggs and chickens and fruit for sale upon the +street, and bread, as I live, bread in small round loaves or buns. I +rode on into the country. Everywhere a toiling population was in +evidence. The houses and walls were strong and substantial. Stone and +brick replaced the mud walls of the Korean dwellings. Twilight fell and +deepened, and still the ploughs went up and down the fields, the sowers +following after. Trains of wheelbarrows, heavily loaded, squeaked by, +and Pekin carts, drawn by from four to six cows, horses, mules, ponies, +or jackasses--cows even with their newborn calves tottering along on puny +legs outside the traces. Everybody worked. Everything worked. I saw a +man mending the road. I was in China. + +I came to the city of Antung, and lodged with a merchant. He was a grain +merchant. Corn he had, hundreds of bushels, stored in great bins of +stout matting; peas and beans in sacks, and in the back yard his +millstones went round and round, grinding out meal. Also, in his back +yard, were buildings containing vats sunk into the ground, and here the +tanners were at work making leather. I bought a measure of corn from +mine host for my horses, and he overcharged me thirty cents. I was in +China. Antung was jammed with Japanese troops. It was the thick of war. +But it did not matter. The work of Antung went on just the same. The +shops were wide open; the streets were lined with pedlars. One could buy +anything; get anything made. I dined at a Chinese restaurant, cleansed +myself at a public bath in a private tub with a small boy to assist in +the scrubbing. I bought condensed milk, bitter, canned vegetables, +bread, and cake. I repeat it, cake--good cake. I bought knives, forks, +and spoons, granite-ware dishes and mugs. There were horseshoes and +horseshoers. A worker in iron realized for me new designs of mine for my +tent poles. My shoes were sent out to be repaired. A barber shampooed +my hair. A servant returned with corn-beef in tins, a bottle of port, +another of cognac, and beer, blessed beer, to wash out from my throat the +dust of an army. It was the land of Canaan. I was in China. + +The Korean is the perfect type of inefficiency--of utter worthlessness. +The Chinese is the perfect type of industry. For sheer work no worker in +the world can compare with him. Work is the breath of his nostrils. It +is his solution of existence. It is to him what wandering and fighting +in far lands and spiritual adventure have been to other peoples. Liberty +to him epitomizes itself in access to the means of toil. To till the +soil and labour interminably with rude implements and utensils is all he +asks of life and of the powers that be. Work is what he desires above +all things, and he will work at anything for anybody. + +During the taking of the Taku forts he carried scaling ladders at the +heads of the storming columns and planted them against the walls. He did +this, not from a sense of patriotism, but for the invading foreign devils +because they paid him a daily wage of fifty cents. He is not frightened +by war. He accepts it as he does rain and sunshine, the changing of the +seasons, and other natural phenomena. He prepares for it, endures it, +and survives it, and when the tide of battle sweeps by, the thunder of +the guns still reverberating in the distant canyons, he is seen calmly +bending to his usual tasks. Nay, war itself bears fruits whereof he may +pick. Before the dead are cold or the burial squads have arrived he is +out on the field, stripping the mangled bodies, collecting the shrapnel, +and ferreting in the shell holes for slivers and fragments of iron. + +The Chinese is no coward. He does not carry away his doors amid windows +to the mountains, but remains to guard them when alien soldiers occupy +his town. He does not hide away his chickens and his eggs, nor any other +commodity he possesses. He proceeds at once to offer them for sale. Nor +is he to be bullied into lowering his price. What if the purchaser be a +soldier and an alien made cocky by victory and confident by overwhelming +force? He has two large pears saved over from last year which he will +sell for five sen, or for the same price three small pears. What if one +soldier persist in taking away with him three large pears? What if there +be twenty other soldiers jostling about him? He turns over his sack of +fruit to another Chinese and races down the street after his pears and +the soldier responsible for their flight, and he does not return till he +has wrenched away one large pear from that soldier's grasp. + +Nor is the Chinese the type of permanence which he has been so often +designated. He is not so ill-disposed toward new ideas and new methods +as his history would seem to indicate. True, his forms, customs, and +methods have been permanent these many centuries, but this has been due +to the fact that his government was in the hands of the learned classes, +and that these governing scholars found their salvation lay in +suppressing all progressive ideas. The ideas behind the Boxer troubles +and the outbreaks over the introduction of railroad and other foreign +devil machinations have emanated from the minds of the literati, and been +spread by their pamphlets and propagandists. + +Originality and enterprise have been suppressed in the Chinese for scores +of generations. Only has remained to him industry, and in this has he +found the supreme expression of his being. On the other hand, his +susceptibility to new ideas has been well demonstrated wherever he has +escaped beyond the restrictions imposed upon him by his government. So +far as the business man is concerned he has grasped far more clearly the +Western code of business, the Western ethics of business, than has the +Japanese. He has learned, as a matter of course, to keep his word or his +bond. As yet, the Japanese business man has failed to understand this. +When he has signed a time contract and when changing conditions cause him +to lose by it, the Japanese merchant cannot understand why he should live +up to his contract. It is beyond his comprehension and repulsive to his +common sense that he should live up to his contract and thereby lose +money. He firmly believes that the changing conditions themselves +absolve him. And in so far adaptable as he has shown himself to be in +other respects, he fails to grasp a radically new idea where the Chinese +succeeds. + +Here we have the Chinese, four hundred millions of him, occupying a vast +land of immense natural resources--resources of a twentieth-century age, +of a machine age; resources of coal and iron, which are the backbone of +commercial civilization. He is an indefatigable worker. He is not dead +to new ideas, new methods, new systems. Under a capable management he +can be made to do anything. Truly would he of himself constitute the +much-heralded Yellow Peril were it not for his present management. This +management, his government, is set, crystallized. It is what binds him +down to building as his fathers built. The governing class, entrenched +by the precedent and power of centuries and by the stamp it has put upon +his mind, will never free him. It would be the suicide of the governing +class, and the governing class knows it. + +Comes now the Japanese. On the streets of Antung, of Feng-Wang-Chang, or +of any other Manchurian city, the following is a familiar scene: One is +hurrying home through the dark of the unlighted streets when he comes +upon a paper lantern resting on the ground. On one side squats a Chinese +civilian on his hams, on the other side squats a Japanese soldier. One +dips his forefinger in the dust and writes strange, monstrous characters. +The other nods understanding, sweeps the dust slate level with his hand, +and with his forefinger inscribes similar characters. They are talking. +They cannot speak to each other, but they can write. Long ago one +borrowed the other's written language, and long before that, untold +generations ago, they diverged from a common root, the ancient Mongol +stock. + +There have been changes, differentiations brought about by diverse +conditions and infusions of other blood; but down at the bottom of their +being, twisted into the fibres of them, is a heritage in common--a +sameness in kind which time has not obliterated. The infusion of other +blood, Malay, perhaps, has made the Japanese a race of mastery and power, +a fighting race through all its history, a race which has always despised +commerce and exalted fighting. + +To-day, equipped with the finest machines and systems of destruction the +Caucasian mind has devised, handling machines and systems with remarkable +and deadly accuracy, this rejuvenescent Japanese race has embarked on a +course of conquest the goal of which no man knows. The head men of Japan +are dreaming ambitiously, and the people are dreaming blindly, a +Napoleonic dream. And to this dream the Japanese clings and will cling +with bull-dog tenacity. The soldier shouting "Nippon, Banzai!" on the +walls of Wiju, the widow at home in her paper house committing suicide so +that her only son, her sole support, may go to the front, are both +expressing the unanimity of the dream. + +The late disturbance in the Far East marked the clashing of the dreams, +for the Slav, too, is dreaming greatly. Granting that the Japanese can +hurl back the Slav and that the two great branches of the Anglo-Saxon +race do not despoil him of his spoils, the Japanese dream takes on +substantiality. Japan's population is no larger because her people have +continually pressed against the means of subsistence. But given poor, +empty Korea for a breeding colony and Manchuria for a granary, and at +once the Japanese begins to increase by leaps and bounds. + +Even so, he would not of himself constitute a Brown Peril. He has not +the time in which to grow and realize the dream. He is only forty-five +millions, and so fast does the economic exploitation of the planet hurry +on the planet's partition amongst the Western peoples that, before he +could attain the stature requisite to menace, he would see the Western +giants in possession of the very stuff of his dream. + +The menace to the Western world lies, not in the little brown man, but in +the four hundred millions of yellow men should the little brown man +undertake their management. The Chinese is not dead to new ideas; he is +an efficient worker; makes a good soldier, and is wealthy in the +essential materials of a machine age. Under a capable management he will +go far. The Japanese is prepared and fit to undertake this management. +Not only has he proved himself an apt imitator of Western material +progress, a sturdy worker, and a capable organizer, but he is far more +fit to manage the Chinese than are we. The baffling enigma of the +Chinese character is no baffling enigma to him. He understands as we +could never school ourselves nor hope to understand. Their mental +processes are largely the same. He thinks with the same thought-symbols +as does the Chinese, and he thinks in the same peculiar grooves. He goes +on where we are balked by the obstacles of incomprehension. He takes the +turning which we cannot perceive, twists around the obstacle, and, +presto! is out of sight in the ramifications of the Chinese mind where we +cannot follow. + +The Chinese has been called the type of permanence, and well he has +merited it, dozing as he has through the ages. And as truly was the +Japanese the type of permanence up to a generation ago, when he suddenly +awoke and startled the world with a rejuvenescence the like of which the +world had never seen before. The ideas of the West were the leaven which +quickened the Japanese; and the ideas of the West, transmitted by the +Japanese mind into ideas Japanese, may well make the leaven powerful +enough to quicken the Chinese. + +We have had Africa for the Afrikander, and at no distant day we shall +hear "Asia for the Asiatic!" Four hundred million indefatigable workers +(deft, intelligent, and unafraid to die), aroused and rejuvenescent, +managed and guided by forty-five million additional human beings who are +splendid fighting animals, scientific and modern, constitute that menace +to the Western world which has been well named the "Yellow Peril." The +possibility of race adventure has not passed away. We are in the midst +of our own. The Slav is just girding himself up to begin. Why may not +the yellow and the brown start out on an adventure as tremendous as our +own and more strikingly unique? + +The ultimate success of such an adventure the Western mind refuses to +consider. It is not the nature of life to believe itself weak. There is +such a thing as race egotism as well as creature egotism, and a very good +thing it is. In the first place, the Western world will not permit the +rise of the yellow peril. It is firmly convinced that it will not permit +the yellow and the brown to wax strong and menace its peace and comfort. +It advances this idea with persistency, and delivers itself of long +arguments showing how and why this menace will not be permitted to arise. +To-day, far more voices are engaged in denying the yellow peril than in +prophesying it. The Western world is warned, if not armed, against the +possibility of it. + +In the second place, there is a weakness inherent in the brown man which +will bring his adventure to naught. From the West he has borrowed all +our material achievement and passed our ethical achievement by. Our +engines of production and destruction he has made his. What was once +solely ours he now duplicates, rivalling our merchants in the commerce of +the East, thrashing the Russian on sea and land. A marvellous imitator +truly, but imitating us only in things material. Things spiritual cannot +be imitated; they must be felt and lived, woven into the very fabric of +life, and here the Japanese fails. + +It required no revolution of his nature to learn to calculate the range +and fire a field gun or to march the goose-step. It was a mere matter of +training. Our material achievement is the product of our intellect. It +is knowledge, and knowledge, like coin, is interchangeable. It is not +wrapped up in the heredity of the new-born child, but is something to be +acquired afterward. Not so with our soul stuff, which is the product of +an evolution which goes back to the raw beginnings of the race. Our soul +stuff is not a coin to be pocketed by the first chance comer. The +Japanese cannot pocket it any more than he can thrill to short Saxon +words or we can thrill to Chinese hieroglyphics. The leopard cannot +change its spots, nor can the Japanese, nor can we. We are thumbed by +the ages into what we are, and by no conscious inward effort can we in a +day rethumb ourselves. Nor can the Japanese in a day, or a generation, +rethumb himself in our image. + +Back of our own great race adventure, back of our robberies by sea and +land, our lusts and violences and all the evil things we have done, there +is a certain integrity, a sternness of conscience, a melancholy +responsibility of life, a sympathy and comradeship and warm human feel, +which is ours, indubitably ours, and which we cannot teach to the +Oriental as we would teach logarithms or the trajectory of projectiles. +That we have groped for the way of right conduct and agonized over the +soul betokens our spiritual endowment. Though we have strayed often and +far from righteousness, the voices of the seers have always been raised, +and we have harked back to the bidding of conscience. The colossal fact +of our history is that we have made the religion of Jesus Christ our +religion. No matter how dark in error and deed, ours has been a history +of spiritual struggle and endeavour. We are pre-eminently a religious +race, which is another way of saying that we are a right-seeking race. + +"What do you think of the Japanese?" was asked an American woman after +she had lived some time in Japan. "It seems to me that they have no +soul," was her answer. + +This must not be taken to mean that the Japanese is without soul. But it +serves to illustrate the enormous difference between their souls and this +woman's soul. There was no feel, no speech, no recognition. This +Western soul did not dream that the Eastern soul existed, it was so +different, so totally different. + +Religion, as a battle for the right in our sense of right, as a yearning +and a strife for spiritual good and purity, is unknown to the Japanese. + +Measured by what religion means to us, the Japanese is a race without +religion. Yet it has a religion, and who shall say that it is not as +great a religion as ours, nor as efficacious? As one Japanese has +written: + +"Our reflection brought into prominence not so much the moral as the +national consciousness of the individual. . . . To us the country is more +than land and soil from which to mine gold or reap grain--it is the +sacred abode of the gods, the spirit of our forefathers; to us the +Emperor is more than the Arch Constable of a Reichsstaat, or even the +Patron of a Kulturstaat; he is the bodily representative of heaven on +earth, blending in his person its power and its mercy." + +The religion of Japan is practically a worship of the State itself. +Patriotism is the expression of this worship. The Japanese mind does not +split hairs as to whether the Emperor is Heaven incarnate or the State +incarnate. So far as the Japanese are concerned, the Emperor lives, is +himself deity. The Emperor is the object to live for and to die for. +The Japanese is not an individualist. He has developed national +consciousness instead of moral consciousness. He is not interested in +his own moral welfare except in so far as it is the welfare of the State. +The honour of the individual, _per se_, does not exist. Only exists the +honour of the State, which is his honour. He does not look upon himself +as a free agent, working out his own personal salvation. Spiritual +agonizing is unknown to him. He has a "sense of calm trust in fate, a +quiet submission to the inevitable, a stoic composure in sight of danger +or calamity, a disdain of life and friendliness with death." He relates +himself to the State as, amongst bees, the worker is related to the hive; +himself nothing, the State everything; his reasons for existence the +exaltation and glorification of the State. + +The most admired quality to-day of the Japanese is his patriotism. The +Western world is in rhapsodies over it, unwittingly measuring the +Japanese patriotism by its own conceptions of patriotism. "For God, my +country, and the Czar!" cries the Russian patriot; but in the Japanese +mind there is no differentiation between the three. The Emperor is the +Emperor, and God and country as well. The patriotism of the Japanese is +blind and unswerving loyalty to what is practically an absolutism. The +Emperor can do no wrong, nor can the five ambitious great men who have +his ear and control the destiny of Japan. + +No great race adventure can go far nor endure long which has no deeper +foundation than material success, no higher prompting than conquest for +conquest's sake and mere race glorification. To go far and to endure, it +must have behind it an ethical impulse, a sincerely conceived +righteousness. But it must be taken into consideration that the above +postulate is itself a product of Western race-egotism, urged by our +belief in our own righteousness and fostered by a faith in ourselves +which may be as erroneous as are most fond race fancies. So be it. The +world is whirling faster to-day than ever before. It has gained impetus. +Affairs rush to conclusion. The Far East is the point of contact of the +adventuring Western people as well as of the Asiatic. We shall not have +to wait for our children's time nor our children's children. We shall +ourselves see and largely determine the adventure of the Yellow and the +Brown. + +FENG-WANG-CHENG, MANCHURIA. +_June_ 1904, + + + + +WHAT LIFE MEANS TO ME + + +I was born in the working-class. Early I discovered enthusiasm, +ambition, and ideals; and to satisfy these became the problem of my +child-life. My environment was crude and rough and raw. I had no +outlook, but an uplook rather. My place in society was at the bottom. +Here life offered nothing but sordidness and wretchedness, both of the +flesh and the spirit; for here flesh and spirit were alike starved and +tormented. + +Above me towered the colossal edifice of society, and to my mind the only +way out was up. Into this edifice I early resolved to climb. Up above, +men wore black clothes and boiled shirts, and women dressed in beautiful +gowns. Also, there were good things to eat, and there was plenty to eat. +This much for the flesh. Then there were the things of the spirit. Up +above me, I knew, were unselfishnesses of the spirit, clean and noble +thinking, keen intellectual living. I knew all this because I read +"Seaside Library" novels, in which, with the exception of the villains +and adventuresses, all men and women thought beautiful thoughts, spoke a +beautiful tongue, and performed glorious deeds. In short, as I accepted +the rising of the sun, I accepted that up above me was all that was fine +and noble and gracious, all that gave decency and dignity to life, all +that made life worth living and that remunerated one for his travail and +misery. + +But it is not particularly easy for one to climb up out of the +working-class--especially if he is handicapped by the possession of +ideals and illusions. I lived on a ranch in California, and was hard put +to find the ladder whereby to climb. I early inquired the rate of +interest on invested money, and worried my child's brain into an +understanding of the virtues and excellences of that remarkable invention +of man, compound interest. Further, I ascertained the current rates of +wages for workers of all ages, and the cost of living. From all this +data I concluded that if I began immediately and worked and saved until I +was fifty years of age, I could then stop working and enter into +participation in a fair portion of the delights and goodnesses that would +then be open to me higher up in society. Of course, I resolutely +determined not to marry, while I quite forgot to consider at all that +great rock of disaster in the working-class world--sickness. + +But the life that was in me demanded more than a meagre existence of +scraping and scrimping. Also, at ten years of age, I became a newsboy on +the streets of a city, and found myself with a changed uplook. All about +me were still the same sordidness and wretchedness, and up above me was +still the same paradise waiting to be gained; but the ladder whereby to +climb was a different one. It was now the ladder of business. Why save +my earnings and invest in government bonds, when, by buying two +newspapers for five cents, with a turn of the wrist I could sell them for +ten cents and double my capital? The business ladder was the ladder for +me, and I had a vision of myself becoming a bald-headed and successful +merchant prince. + +Alas for visions! When I was sixteen I had already earned the title of +"prince." But this title was given me by a gang of cut-throats and +thieves, by whom I was called "The Prince of the Oyster Pirates." And at +that time I had climbed the first rung of the business ladder. I was a +capitalist. I owned a boat and a complete oyster-pirating outfit. I had +begun to exploit my fellow-creatures. I had a crew of one man. As +captain and owner I took two-thirds of the spoils, and gave the crew +one-third, though the crew worked just as hard as I did and risked just +as much his life and liberty. + +This one rung was the height I climbed up the business ladder. One night +I went on a raid amongst the Chinese fishermen. Ropes and nets were +worth dollars and cents. It was robbery, I grant, but it was precisely +the spirit of capitalism. The capitalist takes away the possessions of +his fellow-creatures by means of a rebate, or of a betrayal of trust, or +by the purchase of senators and supreme-court judges. I was merely +crude. That was the only difference. I used a gun. + +But my crew that night was one of those inefficients against whom the +capitalist is wont to fulminate, because, forsooth, such inefficients +increase expenses and reduce dividends. My crew did both. What of his +carelessness he set fire to the big mainsail and totally destroyed it. +There weren't any dividends that night, and the Chinese fishermen were +richer by the nets and ropes we did not get. I was bankrupt, unable just +then to pay sixty-five dollars for a new mainsail. I left my boat at +anchor and went off on a bay-pirate boat on a raid up the Sacramento +River. While away on this trip, another gang of bay pirates raided my +boat. They stole everything, even the anchors; and later on, when I +recovered the drifting hulk, I sold it for twenty dollars. I had slipped +back the one rung I had climbed, and never again did I attempt the +business ladder. + +From then on I was mercilessly exploited by other capitalists. I had the +muscle, and they made money out of it while I made but a very indifferent +living out of it. I was a sailor before the mast, a longshoreman, a +roustabout; I worked in canneries, and factories, and laundries; I mowed +lawns, and cleaned carpets, and washed windows. And I never got the full +product of my toil. I looked at the daughter of the cannery owner, in +her carriage, and knew that it was my muscle, in part, that helped drag +along that carriage on its rubber tyres. I looked at the son of the +factory owner, going to college, and knew that it was my muscle that +helped, in part, to pay for the wine and good fellowship he enjoyed. + +But I did not resent this. It was all in the game. They were the +strong. Very well, I was strong. I would carve my way to a place +amongst them and make money out of the muscles of other men. I was not +afraid of work. I loved hard work. I would pitch in and work harder +than ever and eventually become a pillar of society. + +And just then, as luck would have it, I found an employer that was of the +same mind. I was willing to work, and he was more than willing that I +should work. I thought I was learning a trade. In reality, I had +displaced two men. I thought he was making an electrician out of me; as +a matter of fact, he was making fifty dollars per month out of me. The +two men I had displaced had received forty dollars each per month; I was +doing the work of both for thirty dollars per month. + +This employer worked me nearly to death. A man may love oysters, but too +many oysters will disincline him toward that particular diet. And so +with me. Too much work sickened me. I did not wish ever to see work +again. I fled from work. I became a tramp, begging my way from door to +door, wandering over the United States and sweating bloody sweats in +slums and prisons. + +I had been born in the working-class, and I was now, at the age of +eighteen, beneath the point at which I had started. I was down in the +cellar of society, down in the subterranean depths of misery about which +it is neither nice nor proper to speak. I was in the pit, the abyss, the +human cesspool, the shambles and the charnel-house of our civilization. +This is the part of the edifice of society that society chooses to +ignore. Lack of space compels me here to ignore it, and I shall say only +that the things I there saw gave me a terrible scare. + +I was scared into thinking. I saw the naked simplicities of the +complicated civilization in which I lived. Life was a matter of food and +shelter. In order to get food and shelter men sold things. The merchant +sold shoes, the politician sold his manhood, and the representative of +the people, with exceptions, of course, sold his trust; while nearly all +sold their honour. Women, too, whether on the street or in the holy bond +of wedlock, were prone to sell their flesh. All things were commodities, +all people bought and sold. The one commodity that labour had to sell +was muscle. The honour of labour had no price in the marketplace. +Labour had muscle, and muscle alone, to sell. + +But there was a difference, a vital difference. Shoes and trust and +honour had a way of renewing themselves. They were imperishable stocks. +Muscle, on the other hand, did not renew. As the shoe merchant sold +shoes, he continued to replenish his stock. But there was no way of +replenishing the labourer's stock of muscle. The more he sold of his +muscle, the less of it remained to him. It was his one commodity, and +each day his stock of it diminished. In the end, if he did not die +before, he sold out and put up his shutters. He was a muscle bankrupt, +and nothing remained to him but to go down into the cellar of society and +perish miserably. + +I learned, further, that brain was likewise a commodity. It, too, was +different from muscle. A brain seller was only at his prime when he was +fifty or sixty years old, and his wares were fetching higher prices than +ever. But a labourer was worked out or broken down at forty-five or +fifty. I had been in the cellar of society, and I did not like the place +as a habitation. The pipes and drains were unsanitary, and the air was +bad to breathe. If I could not live on the parlour floor of society, I +could, at any rate, have a try at the attic. It was true, the diet there +was slim, but the air at least was pure. So I resolved to sell no more +muscle, and to become a vendor of brains. + +Then began a frantic pursuit of knowledge. I returned to California and +opened the books. While thus equipping myself to become a brain +merchant, it was inevitable that I should delve into sociology. There I +found, in a certain class of books, scientifically formulated, the simple +sociological concepts I had already worked out for myself. Other and +greater minds, before I was born, had worked out all that I had thought +and a vast deal more. I discovered that I was a socialist. + +The socialists were revolutionists, inasmuch as they struggled to +overthrow the society of the present, and out of the material to build +the society of the future. I, too, was a socialist and a revolutionist. +I joined the groups of working-class and intellectual revolutionists, and +for the first time came into intellectual living. Here I found +keen-flashing intellects and brilliant wits; for here I met strong and +alert-brained, withal horny-handed, members of the working-class; +unfrocked preachers too wide in their Christianity for any congregation +of Mammon-worshippers; professors broken on the wheel of university +subservience to the ruling class and flung out because they were quick +with knowledge which they strove to apply to the affairs of mankind. + +Here I found, also, warm faith in the human, glowing idealism, +sweetnesses of unselfishness, renunciation, and martyrdom--all the +splendid, stinging things of the spirit. Here life was clean, noble, and +alive. Here life rehabilitated itself, became wonderful and glorious; +and I was glad to be alive. I was in touch with great souls who exalted +flesh and spirit over dollars and cents, and to whom the thin wail of the +starved slum child meant more than all the pomp and circumstance of +commercial expansion and world empire. All about me were nobleness of +purpose and heroism of effort, and my days and nights were sunshine and +starshine, all fire and dew, with before my eyes, ever burning and +blazing, the Holy Grail, Christ's own Grail, the warm human, +long-suffering and maltreated, but to be rescued and saved at the last. + +And I, poor foolish I, deemed all this to be a mere foretaste of the +delights of living I should find higher above me in society. I had lost +many illusions since the day I read "Seaside Library" novels on the +California ranch. I was destined to lose many of the illusions I still +retained. + +As a brain merchant I was a success. Society opened its portals to me. +I entered right in on the parlour floor, and my disillusionment proceeded +rapidly. I sat down to dinner with the masters of society, and with the +wives and daughters of the masters of society. The women were gowned +beautifully, I admit; but to my naive surprise I discovered that they +were of the same clay as all the rest of the women I had known down below +in the cellar. "The colonel's lady and Judy O'Grady were sisters under +their skins"--and gowns. + +It was not this, however, so much as their materialism, that shocked me. +It is true, these beautifully gowned, beautiful women prattled sweet +little ideals and dear little moralities; but in spite of their prattle +the dominant key of the life they lived was materialistic. And they were +so sentimentally selfish! They assisted in all kinds of sweet little +charities, and informed one of the fact, while all the time the food they +ate and the beautiful clothes they wore were bought out of dividends +stained with the blood of child labour, and sweated labour, and of +prostitution itself. When I mentioned such facts, expecting in my +innocence that these sisters of Judy O'Grady would at once strip off +their blood-dyed silks and jewels, they became excited and angry, and +read me preachments about the lack of thrift, the drink, and the innate +depravity that caused all the misery in society's cellar. When I +mentioned that I couldn't quite see that it was the lack of thrift, the +intemperance, and the depravity of a half-starved child of six that made +it work twelve hours every night in a Southern cotton mill, these sisters +of Judy O'Grady attacked my private life and called me an "agitator"--as +though that, forsooth, settled the argument. + +Nor did I fare better with the masters themselves. I had expected to +find men who were clean, noble, and alive, whose ideals were clean, +noble, and alive. I went about amongst the men who sat in the high +places--the preachers, the politicians, the business men, the professors, +and the editors. I ate meat with them, drank wine with them, automobiled +with them, and studied them. It is true, I found many that were clean +and noble; but with rare exceptions, they were not _alive_. I do verily +believe I could count the exceptions on the fingers of my two hands. +Where they were not alive with rottenness, quick with unclean life, there +were merely the unburied dead--clean and noble, like well-preserved +mummies, but not alive. In this connection I may especially mention the +professors I met, the men who live up to that decadent university ideal, +"the passionless pursuit of passionless intelligence." + +I met men who invoked the name of the Prince of Peace in their diatribes +against war, and who put rifles in the hands of Pinkertons with which to +shoot down strikers in their own factories. I met men incoherent with +indignation at the brutality of prize-fighting, and who, at the same +time, were parties to the adulteration of food that killed each year more +babies than even red-handed Herod had killed. + +I talked in hotels and clubs and homes and Pullmans, and steamer-chairs +with captains of industry, and marvelled at how little travelled they +were in the realm of intellect. On the other hand, I discovered that +their intellect, in the business sense, was abnormally developed. Also, +I discovered that their morality, where business was concerned, was nil. + +This delicate, aristocratic-featured gentleman, was a dummy director and +a tool of corporations that secretly robbed widows and orphans. This +gentleman, who collected fine editions and was an especial patron of +literature, paid blackmail to a heavy-jowled, black-browed boss of a +municipal machine. This editor, who published patent medicine +advertisements and did not dare print the truth in his paper about said +patent medicines for fear of losing the advertising, called me a +scoundrelly demagogue because I told him that his political economy was +antiquated and that his biology was contemporaneous with Pliny. + +This senator was the tool and the slave, the little puppet of a gross, +uneducated machine boss; so was this governor and this supreme court +judge; and all three rode on railroad passes. This man, talking soberly +and earnestly about the beauties of idealism and the goodness of God, had +just betrayed his comrades in a business deal. This man, a pillar of the +church and heavy contributor to foreign missions, worked his shop girls +ten hours a day on a starvation wage and thereby directly encouraged +prostitution. This man, who endowed chairs in universities, perjured +himself in courts of law over a matter of dollars and cents. And this +railroad magnate broke his word as a gentleman and a Christian when he +granted a secret rebate to one of two captains of industry locked +together in a struggle to the death. + +It was the same everywhere, crime and betrayal, betrayal and crime--men +who were alive, but who were neither clean nor noble, men who were clean +and noble, but who were not alive. Then there was a great, hopeless +mass, neither noble nor alive, but merely clean. It did not sin +positively nor deliberately; but it did sin passively and ignorantly by +acquiescing in the current immorality and profiting by it. Had it been +noble and alive it would not have been ignorant, and it would have +refused to share in the profits of betrayal and crime. + +I discovered that I did not like to live on the parlour floor of society. +Intellectually I was as bored. Morally and spiritually I was sickened. +I remembered my intellectuals and idealists, my unfrocked preachers, +broken professors, and clean-minded, class-conscious working-men. I +remembered my days and nights of sunshine and starshine, where life was +all a wild sweet wonder, a spiritual paradise of unselfish adventure and +ethical romance. And I saw before me, ever blazing and burning, the Holy +Grail. + +So I went back to the working-class, in which I had been born and where I +belonged. I care no longer to climb. The imposing edifice of society +above my head holds no delights for me. It is the foundation of the +edifice that interests me. There I am content to labour, crowbar in +hand, shoulder to shoulder with intellectuals, idealists, and +class-conscious working-men, getting a solid pry now and again and +setting the whole edifice rocking. Some day, when we get a few more +hands and crowbars to work, we'll topple it over, along with all its +rotten life and unburied dead, its monstrous selfishness and sodden +materialism. Then we'll cleanse the cellar and build a new habitation +for mankind, in which there will be no parlour floor, in which all the +rooms will be bright and airy, and where the air that is breathed will be +clean, noble, and alive. + +Such is my outlook. I look forward to a time when man shall progress +upon something worthier and higher than his stomach, when there will be a +finer incentive to impel men to action than the incentive of to-day, +which is the incentive of the stomach. I retain my belief in the +nobility and excellence of the human. I believe that spiritual sweetness +and unselfishness will conquer the gross gluttony of to-day. And last of +all, my faith is in the working-class. As some Frenchman has said, "The +stairway of time is ever echoing with the wooden shoe going up, the +polished boot descending." + +NEWTON, IOWA. +_November_ 1905. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK REVOLUTION AND OTHER ESSAYS*** + + +******* This file should be named 4953.txt or 4953.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/4/9/5/4953 + + + +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 +http://www.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 http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/pglaf. + + +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. 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 http://www.gutenberg.org/about/contact + +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 http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate + +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 checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: +http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is 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: + + http://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. + diff --git a/4953.zip b/4953.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..908f1cd --- /dev/null +++ b/4953.zip diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..60ba1fc --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #4953 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4953) diff --git a/old/rvlt10.txt b/old/rvlt10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b85b8bf --- /dev/null +++ b/old/rvlt10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6033 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Revolution and Other Essays, by Jack London +(#110 in our series by Jack London) + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Revolution and Other Essays + +Author: Jack London + +Release Date: January, 2004 [EBook #4953] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on April 3, 2002] +[Most recently updated: April 3, 2002] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, REVOLUTION AND OTHER ESSAYS *** + + + + +Transcribed from the 1910 Mills and Boon edition by David Price, +email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk. + + + + +REVOLUTION AND OTHER ESSAYS + + + + +Contents: + Revolution + The Somnambulists + The Dignity of Dollars + Goliah + The Golden Poppy + The Shrinkage of the Planet + The House Beautiful + The Gold Hunters of the North + Foma Gordyeeff + These Bones shall Rise Again + The Other Animals + The Yellow Peril + What Life Means to Me + + + + +REVOLUTION + + + +"The present is enough for common souls, +Who, never looking forward, are indeed +Mere clay, wherein the footprints of their age +Are petrified for ever." + +I received a letter the other day. It was from a man in Arizona. It +began, "Dear Comrade." It ended, "Yours for the Revolution." I +replied to the letter, and my letter began, "Dear Comrade." It +ended, "Yours for the Revolution." In the United States there are +400,000 men, of men and women nearly 1,000,000, who begin their +letters "Dear Comrade," and end them "Yours for the Revolution." In +Germany there are 3,000,000 men who begin their letters "Dear +Comrade" and end them "Yours for the Revolution"; in France, +1,000,000 men; in Austria, 800,000 men; in Belgium, 300,000 men; in +Italy, 250,000 men; in England, 100,000 men; in Switzerland, 100,000 +men; in Denmark, 55,000 men; in Sweden, 50,000 men; in Holland, +40,000 men; in Spain, 30,000 men--comrades all, and revolutionists. + +These are numbers which dwarf the grand armies of Napoleon and +Xerxes. But they are numbers not of conquest and maintenance of the +established order, but of conquest and revolution. They compose, +when the roll is called, an army of 7,000,000 men, who, in accordance +with the conditions of to-day, are fighting with all their might for +the conquest of the wealth of the world and for the complete +overthrow of existing society. + +There has never been anything like this revolution in the history of +the world. There is nothing analogous between it and the American +Revolution or the French Revolution. It is unique, colossal. Other +revolutions compare with it as asteroids compare with the sun. It is +alone of its kind, the first world-revolution in a world whose +history is replete with revolutions. And not only this, for it is +the first organized movement of men to become a world movement, +limited only by the limits of the planet. + +This revolution is unlike all other revolutions in many respects. It +is not sporadic. It is not a flame of popular discontent, arising in +a day and dying down in a day. It is older than the present +generation. It has a history and traditions, and a martyr-roll only +less extensive possibly than the martyr-roll of Christianity. It has +also a literature a myriad times more imposing, scientific, and +scholarly than the literature of any previous revolution. + +They call themselves "comrades," these men, comrades in the socialist +revolution. Nor is the word empty and meaningless, coined of mere +lip service. It knits men together as brothers, as men should be +knit together who stand shoulder to shoulder under the red banner of +revolt. This red banner, by the way, symbolizes the brotherhood of +man, and does not symbolize the incendiarism that instantly connects +itself with the red banner in the affrighted bourgeois mind. The +comradeship of the revolutionists is alive and warm. It passes over +geographical lines, transcends race prejudice, and has even proved +itself mightier than the Fourth of July, spread-eagle Americanism of +our forefathers. The French socialist working-men and the German +socialist working-men forget Alsace and Lorraine, and, when war +threatens, pass resolutions declaring that as working-men and +comrades they have no quarrel with each other. Only the other day, +when Japan and Russia sprang at each other's throats, the +revolutionists of Japan addressed the following message to the +revolutionists of Russia: "Dear Comrades--Your government and ours +have recently plunged into war to carry out their imperialistic +tendencies, but for us socialists there are no boundaries, race, +country, or nationality. We are comrades, brothers, and sisters, and +have no reason to fight. Your enemies are not the Japanese people, +but our militarism and so-called patriotism. Patriotism and +militarism are our mutual enemies." + +In January 1905, throughout the United States the socialists held +mass-meetings to express their sympathy for their struggling +comrades, the revolutionists of Russia, and, more to the point, to +furnish the sinews of war by collecting money and cabling it to the +Russian leaders. The fact of this call for money, and the ready +response, and the very wording of the call, make a striking and +practical demonstration of the international solidarity of this +world-revolution: + +"Whatever may be the immediate results of the present revolt in +Russia, the socialist propaganda in that country has received from it +an impetus unparalleled in the history of modern class wars. The +heroic battle for freedom is being fought almost exclusively by the +Russian working-class under the intellectual leadership of Russian +socialists, thus once more demonstrating the fact that the class- +conscious working-men have become the vanguard of all liberating +movements of modern times." + +Here are 7,000,000 comrades in an organized, international, world- +wide, revolutionary movement. Here is a tremendous human force. It +must be reckoned with. Here is power. And here is romance--romance +so colossal that it seems to be beyond the ken of ordinary mortals. +These revolutionists are swayed by great passion. They have a keen +sense of personal right, much of reverence for humanity, but little +reverence, if any at all, for the rule of the dead. They refuse to +be ruled by the dead. To the bourgeois mind their unbelief in the +dominant conventions of the established order is startling. They +laugh to scorn the sweet ideals and dear moralities of bourgeois +society. They intend to destroy bourgeois society with most of its +sweet ideals and dear moralities, and chiefest among these are those +that group themselves under such heads as private ownership of +capital, survival of the fittest, and patriotism--even patriotism. + +Such an army of revolution, 7,000,000 strong, is a thing to make +rulers and ruling classes pause and consider. The cry of this army +is, "No quarter! We want all that you possess. We will be content +with nothing less than all that you possess. We want in our hands +the reins of power and the destiny of mankind. Here are our hands. +They are strong hands. We are going to take your governments, your +palaces, and all your purpled ease away from you, and in that day you +shall work for your bread even as the peasant in the field or the +starved and runty clerk in your metropolises. Here are our hands. +They are strong hands." + +Well may rulers and ruling classes pause and consider. This is +revolution. And, further, these 7,000,000 men are not an army on +paper. Their fighting strength in the field is 7,000,000. To-day +they cast 7,000,000 votes in the civilized countries of the world. + +Yesterday they were not so strong. Tomorrow they will be still +stronger. And they are fighters. They love peace. They are +unafraid of war. They intend nothing less than to destroy existing +capitalist society and to take possession of the whole world. If the +law of the land permits, they fight for this end peaceably, at the +ballot-box. If the law of the land does not permit, and if they have +force meted out to them, they resort to force themselves. They meet +violence with violence. Their hands are strong and they are +unafraid. In Russia, for instance, there is no suffrage. The +government executes the revolutionists. The revolutionists kill the +officers of the government. The revolutionists meet legal murder +with assassination. + +Now here arises a particularly significant phase which it would be +well for the rulers to consider. Let me make it concrete. I am a +revolutionist. Yet I am a fairly sane and normal individual. I +speak, and I THINK, of these assassins in Russia as "my comrades." +So do all the comrades in America, and all the 7,000,000 comrades in +the world. Of what worth an organized, international, revolutionary +movement if our comrades are not backed up the world over! The worth +is shown by the fact that we do back up the assassinations by our +comrades in Russia. They are not disciples of Tolstoy, nor are we. +We are revolutionists. + +Our comrades in Russia have formed what they call "The Fighting +Organization." This Fighting Organization accused, tried, found +guilty, and condemned to death, one Sipiaguin, Minister of Interior. +On April 2 he was shot and killed in the Maryinsky Palace. Two years +later the Fighting Organization condemned to death and executed +another Minister of Interior, Von Plehve. Having done so, it issued +a document, dated July 29, 1904, setting forth the counts of its +indictment of Von Plehve and its responsibility for the +assassination. Now, and to the point, this document was sent out to +the socialists of the world, and by them was published everywhere in +the magazines and newspapers. The point is, not that the socialists +of the world were unafraid to do it, not that they dared to do it, +but that they did it as a matter of routine, giving publication to +what may be called an official document of the international +revolutionary movement. + +These are high lights upon the revolution--granted, but they are also +facts. And they are given to the rulers and the ruling classes, not +in bravado, not to frighten them, but for them to consider more +deeply the spirit and nature of this world-revolution. The time has +come for the revolution to demand consideration. It has fastened +upon every civilized country in the world. As fast as a country +becomes civilized, the revolution fastens upon it. With the +introduction of the machine into Japan, socialism was introduced. +Socialism marched into the Philippines shoulder to shoulder with the +American soldiers. The echoes of the last gun had scarcely died away +when socialist locals were forming in Cuba and Porto Rico. Vastly +more significant is the fact that of all the countries the revolution +has fastened upon, on not one has it relaxed its grip. On the +contrary, on every country its grip closes tighter year by year. As +an active movement it began obscurely over a generation ago. In +1867, its voting strength in the world was 30,000. By 1871 its vote +had increased to 1,000,000. Not till 1884 did it pass the half- +million point. By 1889 it had passed the million point, it had then +gained momentum. In 1892 the socialist vote of the world was +1,798,391; in 1893, 2,585,898; in 1895, 3,033,718; in 1898, +4,515,591; in 1902, 5,253,054; in 1903, 6,285,374; and in the year of +our Lord 1905 it passed the seven-million mark. + +Nor has this flame of revolution left the United States untouched. +In 1888 there were only 2,068 socialist votes. In 1902 there were +127,713 socialist votes. And in 1904 435,040 socialist votes were +cast. What fanned this flame? Not hard times. The first four years +of the twentieth century were considered prosperous years, yet in +that time more than 300,000 men added themselves to the ranks of the +revolutionists, flinging their defiance in the teeth of bourgeois +society and taking their stand under the blood-red banner. In the +state of the writer, California, one man in twelve is an avowed and +registered revolutionist. + +One thing must be clearly understood. This is no spontaneous and +vague uprising of a large mass of discontented and miserable people-- +a blind and instinctive recoil from hurt. On the contrary, the +propaganda is intellectual; the movement is based upon economic +necessity and is in line with social evolution; while the miserable +people have not yet revolted. The revolutionist is no starved and +diseased slave in the shambles at the bottom of the social pit, but +is, in the main, a hearty, well-fed working-man, who sees the +shambles waiting for him and his children and recoils from the +descent. The very miserable people are too helpless to help +themselves. But they are being helped, and the day is not far +distant when their numbers will go to swell the ranks of the +revolutionists. + +Another thing must be clearly understood. In spite of the fact that +middle-class men and professional men are interested in the movement, +it is nevertheless a distinctly working-class revolt. The world +over, it is a working-class revolt. The workers of the world, as a +class, are fighting the capitalists of the world, as a class. The +so-called great middle class is a growing anomaly in the social +struggle. It is a perishing class (wily statisticians to the +contrary), and its historic mission of buffer between the capitalist +and working-classes has just about been fulfilled. Little remains +for it but to wail as it passes into oblivion, as it has already +begun to wail in accents Populistic and Jeffersonian-Democratic. The +fight is on. The revolution is here now, and it is the world's +workers that are in revolt. + +Naturally the question arises: Why is this so? No mere whim of the +spirit can give rise to a world-revolution. Whim does not conduce to +unanimity. There must be a deep-seated cause to make 7,000,000 men +of the one mind, to make them cast off allegiance to the bourgeois +gods and lose faith in so fine a thing as patriotism. There are many +counts of the indictment which the revolutionists bring against the +capitalist class, but for present use only one need be stated, and it +is a count to which capital has never replied and can never reply. + +The capitalist class has managed society, and its management has +failed. And not only has it failed in its management, but it has +failed deplorably, ignobly, horribly. The capitalist class had an +opportunity such as was vouchsafed no previous ruling class in the +history of the world. It broke away from the rule of the old feudal +aristocracy and made modern society. It mastered matter, organized +the machinery of life, and made possible a wonderful era for mankind, +wherein no creature should cry aloud because it had not enough to +eat, and wherein for every child there would be opportunity for +education, for intellectual and spiritual uplift. Matter being +mastered, and the machinery of life organized, all this was possible. +Here was the chance, God-given, and the capitalist class failed. It +was blind and greedy. It prattled sweet ideals and dear moralities, +rubbed its eyes not once, nor ceased one whit in its greediness, and +smashed down in a failure as tremendous only as was the opportunity +it had ignored. + +But all this is like so much cobwebs to the bourgeois mind. As it +was blind in the past, it is blind now and cannot see nor understand. +Well, then, let the indictment be stated more definitely, in terms +sharp and unmistakable. In the first place, consider the caveman. +He was a very simple creature. His head slanted back like an orang- +outang's, and he had but little more intelligence. He lived in a +hostile environment, the prey of all manner of fierce life. He had +no inventions nor artifices. His natural efficiency for food-getting +was, say, 1. He did not even till the soil. With his natural +efficiency of 1, he fought off his carnivorous enemies and got +himself food and shelter. He must have done all this, else he would +not have multiplied and spread over the earth and sent his progeny +down, generation by generation, to become even you and me. + +The caveman, with his natural efficiency of 1, got enough to eat most +of the time, and no caveman went hungry all the time. Also, he lived +a healthy, open-air life, loafed and rested himself, and found plenty +of time in which to exercise his imagination and invent gods. That +is to say, he did not have to work all his waking moments in order to +get enough to eat. The child of the caveman (and this is true of the +children of all savage peoples) had a childhood, and by that is meant +a happy childhood of play and development. + +And now, how fares modern man? Consider the United States, the most +prosperous and most enlightened country of the world. In the United +States there are 10,000,000 people living in poverty. By poverty is +meant that condition in life in which, through lack of food and +adequate shelter, the mere standard of working efficiency cannot be +maintained. In the United States there are 10,000,000 people who +have not enough to eat. In the United States, because they have not +enough to eat, there are 10,000,000 people who cannot keep the +ordinary 1 measure of strength in their bodies. This means that +these 10,000,000 people are perishing, are dying, body and soul, +slowly, because they have not enough to eat. All over this broad, +prosperous, enlightened land, are men, women, and children who are +living miserably. In all the great cities, where they are segregated +in slum ghettos by hundreds of thousands and by millions, their +misery becomes beastliness. No caveman ever starved as chronically +as they starve, ever slept as vilely as they sleep, ever festered +with rottenness and disease as they fester, nor ever toiled as hard +and for as long hours as they toil. + +In Chicago there is a woman who toiled sixty hours per week. She was +a garment worker. She sewed buttons on clothes. Among the Italian +garment workers of Chicago, the average weekly wage of the +dressmakers is 90 cents, but they work every week in the year. The +average weekly wage of the pants finishers is $1.31, and the average +number of weeks employed in the year is 27.85. The average yearly +earnings of the dressmakers is $37; of the pants finishers, $42.4l. +Such wages means no childhood for the children, beastliness of +living, and starvation for all. + +Unlike the caveman, modern man cannot get food and shelter whenever +he feels like working for it. Modern man has first to find the work, +and in this he is often unsuccessful. Then misery becomes acute. +This acute misery is chronicled daily in the newspapers. Let several +of the countless instances be cited. + +In New York City lived a woman, Mary Mead. She had three children: +Mary, one year old; Johanna, two years old; Alice, four years old. +Her husband could find no work. They starved. They were evicted +from their shelter at 160 Steuben Street. Mary Mead strangled her +baby, Mary, one year old; strangled Alice, four years old; failed to +strangle Johanna, two years old, and then herself took poison. Said +the father to the police: "Constant poverty had driven my wife +insane. We lived at No. 160 Steuben Street until a week ago, when we +were dispossessed. I could get no work. I could not even make +enough to put food into our mouths. The babies grew ill and weak. +My wife cried nearly all the time." + +"So overwhelmed is the Department of Charities with tens of thousands +of applications from men out of work that it finds itself unable to +cope with the situation."--New York Commercial, January 11, 1905. + +In a daily paper, because he cannot get work in order to get +something to eat, modern man advertises as follows: + +"Young man, good education, unable to obtain employment, will sell to +physician and bacteriologist for experimental purposes all right and +title to his body. Address for price, box 3466, Examiner." + +"Frank A. Mallin went to the central police station Wednesday night +and asked to be locked up on a charge of vagrancy. He said he had +been conducting an unsuccessful search for work for so long that he +was sure he must be a vagrant. In any event, he was so hungry he +must be fed. Police Judge Graham sentenced him to ninety days' +imprisonment."--San Francisco Examiner. + +In a room at the Soto House, 32 Fourth Street, San Francisco, was +found the body of W. G. Robbins. He had turned on the gas. Also was +found his diary, from which the following extracts are made + +"March 3.--No chance of getting anything here. What will I do? + +"March 7.--Cannot find anything yet. + +"March 8.--Am living on doughnuts at five cents a day. + +"March 9.--My last quarter gone for room rent. + +"March 10.--God help me. Have only five cents left. Can get nothing +to do. What next? Starvation or--? I have spent my last nickel to- +night. What shall I do? Shall it be steal, beg, or die? I have +never stolen, begged, or starved in all my fifty years of life, but +now I am on the brink--death seems the only refuge. + +"March 11.--Sick all day--burning fever this afternoon. Had nothing +to eat to-day or since yesterday noon. My head, my head. Good-bye, +all." + +How fares the child of modern man in this most prosperous of lands? +In the city of New York 50,000 children go hungry to school every +morning. From the same city on January 12, a press despatch was sent +out over the country of a case reported by Dr. A. E. Daniel, of the +New York Infirmary for Women and Children. The case was that of a +babe, eighteen months old, who earned by its labour fifty cents per +week in a tenement sweat-shop. + +"On a pile of rags in a room bare of furniture and freezing cold, +Mrs. Mary Gallin, dead from starvation, with an emaciated baby four +months old crying at her breast, was found this morning at 513 Myrtle +Avenue, Brooklyn, by Policeman McConnon of the Flushing Avenue +Station. Huddled together for warmth in another part of the room +were the father, James Gallin, and three children ranging from two to +eight years of age. The children gazed at the policeman much as +ravenous animals might have done. They were famished, and there was +not a vestige of food in their comfortless home."--New York Journal, +January 2, 1902. + +In the United States 80,000 children are toiling out their lives in +the textile mills alone. In the South they work twelve-hour shifts. +They never see the day. Those on the night shift are asleep when the +sun pours its life and warmth over the world, while those on the day +shift are at the machines before dawn and return to their miserable +dens, called "homes," after dark. Many receive no more than ten +cents a day. There are babies who work for five and six cents a day. +Those who work on the night shift are often kept awake by having cold +water dashed in their faces. There are children six years of age who +have already to their credit eleven months' work on the night shift. +When they become sick, and are unable to rise from their beds to go +to work, there are men employed to go on horseback from house to +house, and cajole and bully them into arising and going to work. Ten +per cent of them contract active consumption. All are puny wrecks, +distorted, stunted, mind and body. Elbert Hubbard says of the child- +labourers of the Southern cotton-mills: + +"I thought to lift one of the little toilers to ascertain his weight. +Straightaway through his thirty-five pounds of skin and bones there +ran a tremor of fear, and he struggled forward to tie a broken +thread. I attracted his attention by a touch, and offered him a +silver dime. He looked at me dumbly from a face that might have +belonged to a man of sixty, so furrowed, tightly drawn, and full of +pain it was. He did not reach for the money--he did not know what it +was. There were dozens of such children in this particular mill. A +physician who was with me said that they would all be dead probably +in two years, and their places filled by others--there were plenty +more. Pneumonia carries off most of them. Their systems are ripe +for disease, and when it comes there is no rebound--no response. +Medicine simply does not act--nature is whipped, beaten, discouraged, +and the child sinks into a stupor and dies." + +So fares modern man and the child of modern man in the United States, +most prosperous and enlightened of all countries on earth. It must +be remembered that the instances given are instances only, but they +can be multiplied myriads of times. It must also be remembered that +what is true of the United States is true of all the civilized world. +Such misery was not true of the caveman. Then what has happened? +Has the hostile environment of the caveman grown more hostile for his +descendants? Has the caveman's natural efficiency of 1 for food- +getting and shelter-getting diminished in modern man to one-half or +one-quarter? + +On the contrary, the hostile environment of the caveman has been +destroyed. For modern man it no longer exists. All carnivorous +enemies, the daily menace of the younger world, have been killed off. +Many of the species of prey have become extinct. Here and there, in +secluded portions of the world, still linger a few of man's fiercer +enemies. But they are far from being a menace to mankind. Modern +man, when he wants recreation and change, goes to the secluded +portions of the world for a hunt. Also, in idle moments, he wails +regretfully at the passing of the "big game," which he knows in the +not distant future will disappear from the earth. + +Nor since the day of the caveman has man's efficiency for food- +getting and shelter-getting diminished. It has increased a +thousandfold. Since the day of the caveman, matter has been +mastered. The secrets of matter have been discovered. Its laws have +been formulated. Wonderful artifices have been made, and marvellous +inventions, all tending to increase tremendously man's natural +efficiency of in every food-getting, shelter-getting exertion, in +farming, mining, manufacturing, transportation, and communication. + +From the caveman to the hand-workers of three generations ago, the +increase in efficiency for food- and shelter-getting has been very +great. But in this day, by machinery, the efficiency of the hand- +worker of three generations ago has in turn been increased many +times. Formerly it required 200 hours of human labour to place 100 +tons of ore on a railroad car. To-day, aided by machinery, but two +hours of human labour is required to do the same task. The United +States Bureau of Labour is responsible for the following table, +showing the comparatively recent increase in man's food- and shelter- +getting efficiency: + + Machine Hand + Hours Hours +Barley (100 bushels) 9 211 +Corn (50 bushels shelled, stalks, husks and + blades cut into fodder) 34 228 +Oats (160 bushels) 28 265 +Wheat (50 bushels) 7 160 +Loading ore (loading 100 tons iron ore on cars) 2 200 +Unloading coal (transferring 200 tons from + canal-boats to bins 400 feet distant) 20 240 +Pitchforks (50 pitchforks, 12-inch tines) 12 200 +Plough (one landside plough, oak beams and + handles) 3 118 + +According to the same authority, under the best conditions for +organization in farming, labour can produce 20 bushels of wheat for +66 cents, or 1 bushel for 3.5 cents. This was done on a bonanza farm +of 10,000 acres in California, and was the average cost of the whole +product of the farm. Mr. Carroll D. Wright says that to-day +4,500,000 men, aided by machinery, turn out a product that would +require the labour of 40,000,000 men if produced by hand. Professor +Herzog, of Austria, says that 5,000,000 people with the machinery of +to-day, employed at socially useful labour, would be able to supply a +population of 20,000,000 people with all the necessaries and small +luxuries of life by working 1.5 hours per day. + +This being so, matter being mastered, man's efficiency for food- and +shelter-getting being increased a thousandfold over the efficiency of +the caveman, then why is it that millions of modern men live more +miserably than lived the caveman? This is the question the +revolutionist asks, and he asks it of the managing class, the +capitalist class. The capitalist class does not answer it. The +capitalist class cannot answer it. + +If modern man's food- and shelter-getting efficiency is a +thousandfold greater than that of the caveman, why, then, are there +10,000,000 people in the United States to-day who are not properly +sheltered and properly fed? If the child of the caveman did not have +to work, why, then, to-day, in the United States, are 80,000 children +working out their lives in the textile factories alone? If the child +of the caveman did not have to work, why, then, to-day, in the United +States, are there 1,752,187 child-labourers? + +It is a true count in the indictment. The capitalist class has +mismanaged, is to-day mismanaging. In New York City 50,000 children +go hungry to school, and in New York City there are 1,320 +millionaires. The point, however, is not that the mass of mankind is +miserable because of the wealth the capitalist class has taken to +itself. Far from it. The point really is that the mass of mankind +is miserable, not for want of the wealth taken by the capitalist +class, BUT FOR WANT OF THE WEALTH THAT WAS NEVER CREATED. This +wealth was never created because the capitalist class managed too +wastefully and irrationally. The capitalist class, blind and greedy, +grasping madly, has not only not made the best of its management, but +made the worst of it. It is a management prodigiously wasteful. +This point cannot be emphasized too strongly. + +In face of the facts that modern man lives more wretchedly than the +caveman, and that modern man's food- and shelter-getting efficiency +is a thousandfold greater than the caveman's, no other solution is +possible than that the management is prodigiously wasteful. + +With the natural resources of the world, the machinery already +invented, a rational organization of production and distribution, and +an equally rational elimination of waste, the able-bodied workers +would not have to labour more than two or three hours per day to feed +everybody, clothe everybody, house everybody, educate everybody, and +give a fair measure of little luxuries to everybody. There would be +no more material want and wretchedness, no more children toiling out +their lives, no more men and women and babes living like beasts and +dying like beasts. Not only would matter be mastered, but the +machine would be mastered. In such a day incentive would be finer +and nobler than the incentive of to-day, which is the incentive of +the stomach. No man, woman, or child, would be impelled to action by +an empty stomach. On the contrary, they would be impelled to action +as a child in a spelling match is impelled to action, as boys and +girls at games, as scientists formulating law, as inventors applying +law, as artists and sculptors painting canvases and shaping clay, as +poets and statesmen serving humanity by singing and by statecraft. +The spiritual, intellectual, and artistic uplift consequent upon such +a condition of society would be tremendous. All the human world +would surge upward in a mighty wave. + +This was the opportunity vouchsafed the capitalist class. Less +blindness on its part, less greediness, and a rational management, +were all that was necessary. A wonderful era was possible for the +human race. But the capitalist class failed. It made a shambles of +civilization. Nor can the capitalist class plead not guilty. It +knew of the opportunity. Its wise men told of the opportunity, its +scholars and its scientists told it of the opportunity. All that +they said is there to-day in the books, just so much damning evidence +against it. It would not listen. It was too greedy. It rose up (as +it rises up to-day), shamelessly, in our legislative halls, and +declared that profits were impossible without the toil of children +and babes. It lulled its conscience to sleep with prattle of sweet +ideals and dear moralities, and allowed the suffering and misery of +mankind to continue and to increase, in short, the capitalist class +failed to take advantage of the opportunity. + +But the opportunity is still here. The capitalist class has been +tried and found wanting. Remains the working-class to see what it +can do with the opportunity. "But the working-class is incapable," +says the capitalist class. "What do you know about it?" the working- +class replies. "Because you have failed is no reason that we shall +fail. Furthermore, we are going to have a try at it, anyway. Seven +millions of us say so. And what have you to say to that?" + +And what can the capitalist class say? Grant the incapacity of the +working-class. Grant that the indictment and the argument of the +revolutionists are all wrong. The 7,000,000 revolutionists remain. +Their existence is a fact. Their belief in their capacity, and in +their indictment and their argument, is a fact. Their constant +growth is a fact. Their intention to destroy present-day society is +a fact, as is also their intention to take possession of the world +with all its wealth and machinery and governments. Moreover, it is a +fact that the working-class is vastly larger than the capitalist +class. + +The revolution is a revolution of the working-class. How can the +capitalist class, in the minority, stem this tide of revolution? +What has it to offer? What does it offer? Employers' associations, +injunctions, civil suits for plundering of the treasuries of the +labour-unions, clamour and combination for the open shop, bitter and +shameless opposition to the eight-hour day, strong efforts to defeat +all reform, child-labour bills, graft in every municipal council, +strong lobbies and bribery in every legislature for the purchase of +capitalist legislation, bayonets, machine-guns, policemen's clubs, +professional strike-breakers and armed Pinkertons--these are the +things the capitalist class is dumping in front of the tide of +revolution, as though, forsooth, to hold it back. + +The capitalist class is as blind to-day to the menace of the +revolution as it was blind in the past to its own God-given +opportunity. It cannot see how precarious is its position, cannot +comprehend the power and the portent of the revolution. It goes on +its placid way, prattling sweet ideals and dear moralities, and +scrambling sordidly for material benefits. + +No overthrown ruler or class in the past ever considered the +revolution that overthrew it, and so with the capitalist class of to- +day. Instead of compromising, instead of lengthening its lease of +life by conciliation and by removal of some of the harsher +oppressions of the working-class, it antagonizes the working-class, +drives the working-class into revolution. Every broken strike in +recent years, every legally plundered trades-union treasury, every +closed shop made into an open shop, has driven the members of the +working-class directly hurt over to socialism by hundreds and +thousands. Show a working-man that his union fails, and he becomes a +revolutionist. Break a strike with an injunction or bankrupt a union +with a civil suit, and the working-men hurt thereby listen to the +siren song of the socialist and are lost for ever to the POLITICAL +CAPITALIST parties. + +Antagonism never lulled revolution, and antagonism is about all the +capitalist class offers. It is true, it offers some few antiquated +notions which were very efficacious in the past, but which are no +longer efficacious. Fourth-of-July liberty in terms of the +Declaration of Independence and of the French Encyclopaedists is +scarcely apposite to-day. It does not appeal to the working-man who +has had his head broken by a policeman's club, his union treasury +bankrupted by a court decision, or his job taken away from him by a +labour-saving invention. Nor does the Constitution of the United +States appear so glorious and constitutional to the working-man who +has experienced a bull-pen or been unconstitutionally deported from +Colorado. Nor are this particular working-man's hurt feelings +soothed by reading in the newspapers that both the bull-pen and the +deportation were pre-eminently just, legal, and constitutional. "To +hell, then, with the Constitution!" says he, and another +revolutionist has been made--by the capitalist class. + +In short, so blind is the capitalist class that it does nothing to +lengthen its lease of life, while it does everything to shorten it. +The capitalist class offers nothing that is clean, noble, and alive. +The revolutionists offer everything that is clean, noble, and alive. +They offer service, unselfishness, sacrifice, martyrdom--the things +that sting awake the imagination of the people, touching their hearts +with the fervour that arises out of the impulse toward good and which +is essentially religious in its nature. + +But the revolutionists blow hot and blow cold. They offer facts and +statistics, economics and scientific arguments. If the working-man +be merely selfish, the revolutionists show him, mathematically +demonstrate to him, that his condition will be bettered by the +revolution. If the working-man be the higher type, moved by impulses +toward right conduct, if he have soul and spirit, the revolutionists +offer him the things of the soul and the spirit, the tremendous +things that cannot be measured by dollars and cents, nor be held down +by dollars and cents. The revolutionist cries out upon wrong and +injustice, and preaches righteousness. And, most potent of all, he +sings the eternal song of human freedom--a song of all lands and all +tongues and all time. + +Few members of the capitalist class see the revolution. Most of them +are too ignorant, and many are too afraid to see it. It is the same +old story of every perishing ruling class in the world's history. +Fat with power and possession, drunken with success, and made soft by +surfeit and by cessation of struggle, they are like the drones +clustered about the honey vats when the worker-bees spring upon them +to end their rotund existence. + +President Roosevelt vaguely sees the revolution, is frightened by it, +and recoils from seeing it. As he says: "Above all, we need to +remember that any kind of class animosity in the political world is, +if possible, even more wicked, even more destructive to national +welfare, than sectional, race, or religious animosity." + +Class animosity in the political world, President Roosevelt +maintains, is wicked. But class animosity in the political world is +the preachment of the revolutionists. "Let the class wars in the +industrial world continue," they say, "but extend the class war to +the political world." As their leader, Eugene V. Debs says: "So far +as this struggle is concerned, there is no good capitalist and no bad +working-man. Every capitalist is your enemy and every working-man is +your friend." + +Here is class animosity in the political world with a vengeance. And +here is revolution. In 1888 there were only 2,000 revolutionists of +this type in the United States; in 1900 there were 127,000 +revolutionists; in 1904, 435,000 revolutionists. Wickedness of the +President Roosevelt definition evidently flourishes and increases in +the United States. Quite so, for it is the revolution that +flourishes and increases. + +Here and there a member of the capitalist class catches a clear +glimpse of the revolution, and raises a warning cry. But his class +does not heed. President Eliot of Harvard raised such a cry: + +"I am forced to believe there is a present danger of socialism never +before so imminent in America in so dangerous a form, because never +before imminent in so well organized a form. The danger lies in the +obtaining control of the trades-unions by the socialists." And the +capitalist employers, instead of giving heed to the warnings, are +perfecting their strike-breaking organization and combining more +strongly than ever for a general assault upon that dearest of all +things to the trades-unions--the closed shop. In so far as this +assault succeeds, by just that much will the capitalist class shorten +its lease of life. It is the old, old story, over again and over +again. The drunken drones still cluster greedily about the honey +vats. + +Possibly one of the most amusing spectacles of to-day is the attitude +of the American press toward the revolution. It is also a pathetic +spectacle. It compels the onlooker to be aware of a distinct loss of +pride in his species. Dogmatic utterance from the mouth of ignorance +may make gods laugh, but it should make men weep. And the American +editors (in the general instance) are so impressive about it! The +old "divide-up," "men-are-NOT-born-free-and-equal," propositions are +enunciated gravely and sagely, as things white-hot and new from the +forge of human wisdom. Their feeble vapourings show no more than a +schoolboy's comprehension of the nature of the revolution. Parasites +themselves on the capitalist class, serving the capitalist class by +moulding public opinion, they, too, cluster drunkenly about the honey +vats. + +Of course, this is true only of the large majority of American +editors. To say that it is true of all of them would be to cast too +great obloquy upon the human race. Also, it would be untrue, for +here and there an occasional editor does see clearly--and in his +case, ruled by stomach-incentive, is usually afraid to say what he +thinks about it. So far as the science and the sociology of the +revolution are concerned, the average editor is a generation or so +behind the facts. He is intellectually slothful, accepts no facts +until they are accepted by the majority, and prides himself upon his +conservatism. He is an instinctive optimist, prone to believe that +what ought to be, is. The revolutionist gave this up long ago, and +believes not that what ought to be, is, but what is, is, and that it +may not be what it ought to be at all. + +Now and then, rubbing his eyes, vigorously, an editor catches a +sudden glimpse of the revolution and breaks out in naive volubility, +as, for instance, the one who wrote the following in the Chicago +Chronicle: "American socialists are revolutionists. They know that +they are revolutionists. It is high time that other people should +appreciate the fact." A white-hot, brand-new discovery, and he +proceeded to shout it out from the housetops that we, forsooth, were +revolutionists. Why, it is just what we have been doing all these +years--shouting it out from the housetops that we are revolutionists, +and stop us who can. + +The time should be past for the mental attitude: "Revolution is +atrocious. Sir, there is no revolution." Likewise should the time +be past for that other familiar attitude: "Socialism is slavery. +Sir, it will never be." It is no longer a question of dialectics, +theories, and dreams. There is no question about it. The revolution +is a fact. It is here now. Seven million revolutionists, organized, +working day and night, are preaching the revolution--that passionate +gospel, the Brotherhood of Man. Not only is it a cold-blooded +economic propaganda, but it is in essence a religious propaganda with +a fervour in it of Paul and Christ. The capitalist class has been +indicted. It has failed in its management and its management is to +be taken away from it. Seven million men of the working-class say +that they are going to get the rest of the working-class to join with +them and take the management away. The revolution is here, now. +Stop it who can. + +SACRAMENTO RIVER. +March 1905. + + + +THE SOMNAMBULISTS + + + +"'Tis only fools speak evil of the clay - +The very stars are made of clay like mine." + +The mightiest and absurdest sleep-walker on the planet! Chained in +the circle of his own imaginings, man is only too keen to forget his +origin and to shame that flesh of his that bleeds like all flesh and +that is good to eat. Civilization (which is part of the circle of +his imaginings) has spread a veneer over the surface of the soft- +shelled animal known as man. It is a very thin veneer; but so +wonderfully is man constituted that he squirms on his bit of +achievement and believes he is garbed in armour-plate. + +Yet man to-day is the same man that drank from his enemy's skull in +the dark German forests, that sacked cities, and stole his women from +neighbouring clans like any howling aborigine. The flesh-and-blood +body of man has not changed in the last several thousand years. Nor +has his mind changed. There is no faculty of the mind of man to-day +that did not exist in the minds of the men of long ago. Man has to- +day no concept that is too wide and deep and abstract for the mind of +Plato or Aristotle to grasp. Give to Plato or Aristotle the same +fund of knowledge that man to-day has access to, and Plato and +Aristotle would reason as profoundly as the man of to-day and would +achieve very similar conclusions. + +It is the same old animal man, smeared over, it is true, with a +veneer, thin and magical, that makes him dream drunken dreams of +self-exaltation and to sneer at the flesh and the blood of him +beneath the smear. The raw animal crouching within him is like the +earthquake monster pent in the crust of the earth. As he persuades +himself against the latter till it arouses and shakes down a city, so +does he persuade himself against the former until it shakes him out +of his dreaming and he stands undisguised, a brute like any other +brute. + +Starve him, let him miss six meals, and see gape through the veneer +the hungry maw of the animal beneath. Get between him and the female +of his kind upon whom his mating instinct is bent, and see his eyes +blaze like an angry cat's, hear in his throat the scream of wild +stallions, and watch his fists clench like an orang-outang's. Maybe +he will even beat his chest. Touch his silly vanity, which he exalts +into high-sounding pride--call him a liar, and behold the red animal +in him that makes a hand clutching that is quick like the tensing of +a tiger's claw, or an eagle's talon, incarnate with desire to rip and +tear. + +It is not necessary to call him a liar to touch his vanity. Tell a +plains Indian that he has failed to steal horses from the +neighbouring tribe, or tell a man living in bourgeois society that he +has failed to pay his bills at the neighbouring grocer's, and the +results are the same. Each, plains Indian and bourgeois, is smeared +with a slightly different veneer, that is all. It requires a +slightly different stick to scrape it off. The raw animals beneath +are identical. + +But intrude not violently upon man, leave him alone in his +somnambulism, and he kicks out from under his feet the ladder of life +up which he has climbed, constitutes himself the centre of the +universe, dreams sordidly about his own particular god, and maunders +metaphysically about his own blessed immortality. + +True, he lives in a real world, breathes real air, eats real food, +and sleeps under real blankets, in order to keep real cold away. And +there's the rub. He has to effect adjustments with the real world +and at the same time maintain the sublimity of his dream. The result +of this admixture of the real and the unreal is confusion thrice +confounded. The man that walks the real world in his sleep becomes +such a tangled mass of contradictions, paradoxes, and lies that he +has to lie to himself in order to stay asleep. + +In passing, it may be noted that some men are remarkably constituted +in this matter of self-deception. They excel at deceiving +themselves. They believe, and they help others to believe. It +becomes their function in society, and some of them are paid large +salaries for helping their fellow-men to believe, for instance, that +they are not as other animals; for helping the king to believe, and +his parasites and drudges as well, that he is God's own manager over +so many square miles of earth-crust; for helping the merchant and +banking classes to believe that society rests on their shoulders, and +that civilization would go to smash if they got out from under and +ceased from their exploitations and petty pilferings. + +Prize-fighting is terrible. This is the dictum of the man who walks +in his sleep. He prates about it, and writes to the papers about it, +and worries the legislators about it. There is nothing of the brute +about HIM. He is a sublimated soul that treads the heights and +breathes refined ether--in self-comparison with the prize-fighter. +The man who walks in his sleep ignores the flesh and all its +wonderful play of muscle, joint, and nerve. He feels that there is +something godlike in the mysterious deeps of his being, denies his +relationship with the brute, and proceeds to go forth into the world +and express by deeds that something godlike within him. + +He sits at a desk and chases dollars through the weeks and months and +years of his life. To him the life godlike resolves into a problem +something like this: SINCE THE GREAT MASS OF MEN TOIL AT PRODUCING +WEALTH, HOW BEST CAN HE GET BETWEEN THE GREAT MASS OF MEN AND THE +WEALTH THEY PRODUCE, AND GET A SLICE FOR HIMSELF? With tremendous +exercise of craft, deceit, and guile, he devotes his life godlike to +this purpose. As he succeeds, his somnambulism grows profound. He +bribes legislatures, buys judges, "controls" primaries, and then goes +and hires other men to tell him that it is all glorious and right. +And the funniest thing about it is that this arch-deceiver believes +all that they tell him. He reads only the newspapers and magazines +that tell him what he wants to be told, listens only to the +biologists who tell him that he is the finest product of the struggle +for existence, and herds only with his own kind, where, like the +monkey-folk, they teeter up and down and tell one another how great +they are. + +In the course of his life godlike he ignores the flesh--until he gets +to table. He raises his hands in horror at the thought of the +brutish prize-fighter, and then sits down and gorges himself on roast +beef, rare and red, running blood under every sawing thrust of the +implement called a knife. He has a piece of cloth which he calls a +napkin, with which he wipes from his lips, and from the hair on his +lips, the greasy juices of the meat. + +He is fastidiously nauseated at the thought of two prize-fighters +bruising each other with their fists; and at the same time, because +it will cost him some money, he will refuse to protect the machines +in his factory, though he is aware that the lack of such protection +every year mangles, batters, and destroys out of all humanness +thousands of working-men, women, and children. He will chatter about +things refined and spiritual and godlike like himself, and he and the +men who herd with him will calmly adulterate the commodities they put +upon the market and which annually kill tens of thousands of babies +and young children. + +He will recoil at the suggestion of the horrid spectacle of two men +confronting each other with gloved hands in the roped arena, and at +the same time he will clamour for larger armies and larger navies, +for more destructive war machines, which, with a single discharge, +will disrupt and rip to pieces more human beings than have died in +the whole history of prize-fighting. He will bribe a city council +for a franchise or a state legislature for a commercial privilege; +but he has never been known, in all his sleep-walking history, to +bribe any legislative body in order to achieve any moral end, such +as, for instance, abolition of prize-fighting, child-labour laws, +pure food bills, or old age pensions. + +"Ah, but we do not stand for the commercial life," object the +refined, scholarly, and professional men. They are also sleep- +walkers. They do not stand for the commercial life, but neither do +they stand against it with all their strength. They submit to it, to +the brutality and carnage of it. They develop classical economists +who announce that the only possible way for men and women to get food +and shelter is by the existing method. They produce university +professors, men who claim the role of teachers, and who at the same +time claim that the austere ideal of learning is passionless pursuit +of passionless intelligence. They serve the men who lead the +commercial life, give to their sons somnambulistic educations, preach +that sleep-walking is the only way to walk, and that the persons who +walk otherwise are atavisms or anarchists. They paint pictures for +the commercial men, write books for them, sing songs for them, act +plays for them, and dose them with various drugs when their bodies +have grown gross or dyspeptic from overeating and lack of exercise. + +Then there are the good, kind somnambulists who don't prize-fight, +who don't play the commercial game, who don't teach and preach +somnambulism, who don't do anything except live on the dividends that +are coined out of the wan, white fluid that runs in the veins of +little children, out of mothers' tears, the blood of strong men, and +the groans and sighs of the old. The receiver is as bad as the +thief--ay, and the thief is finer than the receiver; he at least has +the courage to run the risk. But the good, kind people who don't do +anything won't believe this, and the assertion will make them angry-- +for a moment. They possess several magic phrases, which are like the +incantations of a voodoo doctor driving devils away. The phrases +that the good, kind people repeat to themselves and to one another +sound like "abstinence," "temperance," "thrift," "virtue." Sometimes +they say them backward, when they sound like "prodigality," +"drunkenness," "wastefulness," and "immorality." They do not really +know the meaning of these phrases, but they think they do, and that +is all that is necessary for somnambulists. The calm repetition of +such phrases invariably drives away the waking devils and lulls to +slumber. + +Our statesmen sell themselves and their country for gold. Our +municipal servants and state legislators commit countless treasons. +The world of graft! The world of betrayal! The world of +somnambulism, whose exalted and sensitive citizens are outraged by +the knockouts of the prize-ring, and who annually not merely knock +out, but kill, thousands of babies and children by means of child +labour and adulterated food. Far better to have the front of one's +face pushed in by the fist of an honest prize-fighter than to have +the lining of one's stomach corroded by the embalmed beef of a +dishonest manufacturer. + +In a prize-fight men are classed. A lightweight fights with a light- +weight; he never fights with a heavy-weight, and foul blows are not +allowed. Yet in the world of the somnambulists, where soar the +sublimated spirits, there are no classes, and foul blows are +continually struck and never disallowed. Only they are not called +foul blows. The world of claw and fang and fist and club has passed +away--so say the somnambulists. A rebate is not an elongated claw. +A Wall Street raid is not a fang slash. Dummy boards of directors +and fake accountings are not foul blows of the fist under the belt. +A present of coal stock by a mine operator to a railroad official is +not a claw rip to the bowels of a rival mine operator. The hundred +million dollars with which a combination beats down to his knees a +man with a million dollars is not a club. The man who walks in his +sleep says it is not a club. So say all of his kind with which he +herds. They gather together and solemnly and gloatingly make and +repeat certain noises that sound like "discretion," "acumen," +"initiative," "enterprise." These noises are especially gratifying +when they are made backward. They mean the same things, but they +sound different. And in either case, forward or backward, the spirit +of the dream is not disturbed. + +When a man strikes a foul blow in the prize-ring the fight is +immediately stopped, he is declared the loser, and he is hissed by +the audience as he leaves the ring. But when a man who walks in his +sleep strikes a foul blow he is immediately declared the victor and +awarded the prize; and amid acclamations he forthwith turns his prize +into a seat in the United States Senate, into a grotesque palace on +Fifth Avenue, and into endowed churches, universities and libraries, +to say nothing of subsidized newspapers, to proclaim his greatness. + +The red animal in the somnambulist will out. He decries the carnal +combat of the prize-ring, and compels the red animal to spiritual +combat. The poisoned lie, the nasty, gossiping tongue, the brutality +of the unkind epigram, the business and social nastiness and +treachery of to-day--these are the thrusts and scratches of the red +animal when the somnambulist is in charge. They are not the upper +cuts and short arm jabs and jolts and slugging blows of the spirit. +They are the foul blows of the spirit that have never been disbarred, +as the foul blows of the prize-ring have been disbarred. (Would it +not be preferable for a man to strike one full on the mouth with his +fist than for him to tell a lie about one, or malign those that are +nearest and dearest?) + +For these are the crimes of the spirit, and, alas! they are so much +more frequent than blows on the mouth. And whosoever exalts the +spirit over the flesh, by his own creed avers that a crime of the +spirit is vastly more terrible than a crime of the flesh. Thus stand +the somnambulists convicted by their own creed--only they are not +real men, alive and awake, and they proceed to mutter magic phrases +that dispel all doubt as to their undiminished and eternal +gloriousness. + +It is well enough to let the ape and tiger die, but it is hardly fair +to kill off the natural and courageous apes and tigers and allow the +spawn of cowardly apes and tigers to live. The prize-fighting apes +and tigers will die all in good time in the course of natural +evolution, but they will not die so long as the cowardly, +somnambulistic apes and tigers club and scratch and slash. This is +not a brief for the prize-fighter. It is a blow of the fist between +the eyes of the somnambulists, teetering up and down, muttering magic +phrases, and thanking God that they are not as other animals. + +GLEN ELLEN, CALIFORNIA. +June 1900. + + + +THE DIGNITY OF DOLLARS + + + +Man is a blind, helpless creature. He looks back with pride upon his +goodly heritage of the ages, and yet obeys unwittingly every mandate +of that heritage; for it is incarnate with him, and in it are +embedded the deepest roots of his soul. Strive as he will, he cannot +escape it--unless he be a genius, one of those rare creations to whom +alone is granted the privilege of doing entirely new and original +things in entirely new and original ways. But the common clay-born +man, possessing only talents, may do only what has been done before +him. At the best, if he work hard, and cherish himself exceedingly, +he may duplicate any or all previous performances of his kind; he may +even do some of them better; but there he stops, the composite hand +of his whole ancestry bearing heavily upon him. + +And again, in the matter of his ideas, which have been thrust upon +him, and which he has been busily garnering from the great world ever +since the day when his eyes first focussed and he drew, startled, +against the warm breast of his mother--the tyranny of these he cannot +shake off. Servants of his will, they at the same time master him. +They may not coerce genius, but they dictate and sway every action of +the clay-born. If he hesitate on the verge of a new departure, they +whip him back into the well-greased groove; if he pause, bewildered, +at sight of some unexplored domain, they rise like ubiquitous finger- +posts and direct him by the village path to the communal meadow. And +he permits these things, and continues to permit them, for he cannot +help them, and he is a slave. Out of his ideas he may weave cunning +theories, beautiful ideals; but he is working with ropes of sand. At +the slightest stress, the last least bit of cohesion flits away, and +each idea flies apart from its fellows, while all clamour that he do +this thing, or think this thing, in the ancient and time-honoured +way. He is only a clay-born; so he bends his neck. He knows further +that the clay-born are a pitiful, pitiless majority, and that he may +do nothing which they do not do. + +It is only in some way such as this that we may understand and +explain the dignity which attaches itself to dollars. In the watches +of the night, we may assure ourselves that there is no such dignity; +but jostling with our fellows in the white light of day, we find that +it does exist, and that we ourselves measure ourselves by the dollars +we happen to possess. They give us confidence and carriage and +dignity--ay, a personal dignity which goes down deeper than the +garments with which we hide our nakedness. The world, when it knows +nothing else of him, measures a man by his clothes; but the man +himself, if he be neither a genius nor a philosopher, but merely a +clay-born, measures himself by his pocket-book. He cannot help it, +and can no more fling it from him than can the bashful young man his +self-consciousness when crossing a ballroom floor. + +I remember once absenting myself from civilization for weary months. +When I returned, it was to a strange city in another country. The +people were but slightly removed from my own breed, and they spoke +the same tongue, barring a certain barbarous accent which I learned +was far older than the one imbibed by me with my mother's milk. A +fur cap, soiled and singed by many camp-fires, half sheltered the +shaggy tendrils of my uncut hair. My foot-gear was of walrus hide, +cunningly blended with seal gut. The remainder of my dress was as +primal and uncouth. I was a sight to give merriment to gods and men. +Olympus must have roared at my coming. The world, knowing me not, +could judge me by my clothes alone. But I refused to be so judged. +My spiritual backbone stiffened, and I held my head high, looking all +men in the eyes. And I did these things, not that I was an egotist, +not that I was impervious to the critical glances of my fellows, but +because of a certain hogskin belt, plethoric and sweat-bewrinkled, +which buckled next the skin above the hips. Oh, it's absurd, I +grant, but had that belt not been so circumstanced, and so situated, +I should have shrunk away into side streets and back alleys, walking +humbly and avoiding all gregarious humans except those who were +likewise abroad without belts. Why? I do not know, save that in +such way did my fathers before me. + +Viewed in the light of sober reason, the whole thing was +preposterous. But I walked down the gang-plank with the mien of a +hero, of a barbarian who knew himself to be greater than the +civilization he invaded. I was possessed of the arrogance of a Roman +governor. At last I knew what it was to be born to the purple, and I +took my seat in the hotel carriage as though it were my chariot about +to proceed with me to the imperial palace. People discreetly dropped +their eyes before my proud gaze, and into their hearts I know I +forced the query, What manner of man can this mortal be? I was +superior to convention, and the very garb which otherwise would have +damned me tended toward my elevation. And all this was due, not to +my royal lineage, nor to the deeds I had done and the champions I had +overthrown, but to a certain hogskin belt buckled next the skin. The +sweat of months was upon it, toil had defaced it, and it was not a +creation such as would appeal to the aesthetic mind; but it was +plethoric. There was the arcanum; each yellow grain conduced to my +exaltation, and the sum of these grains was the sum of my mightiness. +Had they been less, just so would have been my stature; more, and I +should have reached the sky. + +And this was my royal progress through that most loyal city. I +purchased a host of things from the tradespeople, and bought me such +pleasures and diversions as befitted one who had long been denied. I +scattered my gold lavishly, nor did I chaffer over prices in mart or +exchange. And, because of these things I did, I demanded homage. +Nor was it refused. I moved through wind-swept groves of limber +backs; across sunny glades, lighted by the beaming rays from a +thousand obsequious eyes; and when I tired of this, basked on the +greensward of popular approval. Money was very good, I thought, and +for the time was content. But there rushed upon me the words of +Erasmus, "When I get some money I shall buy me some Greek books, and +afterwards some clothes," and a great shame wrapped me around. But, +luckily for my soul's welfare, I reflected and was saved. By the +clearer vision vouchsafed me, I beheld Erasmus, fire-flashing, +heaven-born, while I--I was merely a clay-born, a son of earth. For +a giddy moment I had forgotten this, and tottered. And I rolled over +on my greensward, caught a glimpse of a regiment of undulating backs, +and thanked my particular gods that such moods of madness were +passing brief. + +But on another day, receiving with kingly condescension the service +of my good subjects' backs, I remembered the words of another man, +long since laid away, who was by birth a nobleman, by nature a +philosopher and a gentleman, and who by circumstance yielded up his +head upon the block. "That a man of lead," he once remarked, "who +has no more sense than a log of wood, and is as bad as he is foolish, +should have many wise and good men to serve him, only because he has +a great heap of that metal; and that if, by some accident or trick of +law (which sometimes produces as great changes as chance itself), all +this wealth should pass from the master to the meanest varlet of his +whole family, he himself would very soon become one of his servants, +as if he were a thing that belonged to his wealth, and so was bound +to follow its fortune." + +And when I had remembered this much, I unwisely failed to pause and +reflect. So I gathered my belongings together, cinched my hogskin +belt tight about me, and went away to my own country. It was a very +foolish thing to do. I am sure it was. But when I had recovered my +reason, I fell upon my particular gods and berated them mightily, and +as penance for their watchlessness placed them away amongst dust and +cobwebs. Oh no, not for long. They are again enshrined, as bright +and polished as of yore, and my destiny is once more in their +keeping. + +It is given that travail and vicissitude mark time to man's footsteps +as he stumbles onward toward the grave; and it is well. Without the +bitter one may not know the sweet. The other day--nay, it was but +yesterday--I fell before the rhythm of fortune. The inexorable +pendulum had swung the counter direction, and there was upon me an +urgent need. The hogskin belt was flat as famine, nor did it longer +gird my loins. From my window I could descry, at no great distance, +a very ordinary mortal of a man, working industriously among his +cabbages. I thought: Here am I, capable of teaching him much +concerning the field wherein he labours--the nitrogenic--why of the +fertilizer, the alchemy of the sun, the microscopic cell-structure of +the plant, the cryptic chemistry of root and runner--but thereat he +straightened his work-wearied back and rested. His eyes wandered +over what he had produced in the sweat of his brow, then on to mine. +And as he stood there drearily, he became reproach incarnate. +"Unstable as water," he said (I am sure he did)--"unstable as water, +thou shalt not excel. Man, where are YOUR cabbages?" + +I shrank back. Then I waxed rebellious. I refused to answer the +question. He had no right to ask it, and his presence was an affront +upon the landscape. And a dignity entered into me, and my neck was +stiffened, my head poised. I gathered together certain certificates +of goods and chattels, pointed my heel towards him and his cabbages, +and journeyed townward. I was yet a man. There was naught in those +certificates to be ashamed of. But alack-a-day! While my heels +thrust the cabbage-man beyond the horizon, my toes were drawing me, +faltering, like a timid old beggar, into a roaring spate of humanity- +-men, women, and children without end. They had no concern with me, +nor I with them. I knew it; I felt it. Like She, after her fire- +bath in the womb of the world, I dwindled in my own sight. My feet +were uncertain and heavy, and my soul became as a meal sack, limp +with emptiness and tied in the middle. People looked upon me +scornfully, pitifully, reproachfully. (I can swear they did.) In +every eye I read the question, Man, where are your cabbages? + +So I avoided their looks, shrinking close to the kerbstone and by +furtive glances directing my progress. At last I came hard by the +place, and peering stealthily to the right and left that none who +knew might behold mc, I entered hurriedly, in the manner of one +committing an abomination. 'Fore God! I had done no evil, nor had I +wronged any man, nor did I contemplate evil; yet was I aware of evil. +Why? I do not know, save that there goes much dignity with dollars, +and being devoid of the one I was destitute of the other. The person +I sought practised a profession as ancient as the oracles but far +more lucrative. It is mentioned in Exodus; so it must have been +created soon after the foundations of the world; and despite the +thunder of ecclesiastics and the mailed hand of kings and conquerors, +it has endured even to this day. Nor is it unfair to presume that +the accounts of this most remarkable business will not be closed +until the Trumps of Doom are sounded and all things brought to final +balance. + +Wherefore it was in fear and trembling, and with great modesty of +spirit, that I entered the Presence. To confess that I was shocked +were to do my feelings an injustice. Perhaps the blame may be +shouldered upon Shylock, Fagin, and their ilk; but I had conceived an +entirely different type of individual. This man--why, he was clean +to look at, his eyes were blue, with the tired look of scholarly +lucubrations, and his skin had the normal pallor of sedentary +existence. He was reading a book, sober and leather-bound, while on +his finely moulded, intellectual head reposed a black skull-cap. For +all the world his look and attitude were those of a college +professor. My heart gave a great leap. Here was hope! But no; he +fixed me with a cold and glittering eye, searching with the chill of +space till my financial status stood before him shivering and +ashamed. I communed with myself: By his brow he is a thinker, but +his intellect has been prostituted to a mercenary exaction of toll +from misery. His nerve centres of judgment and will have not been +employed in solving the problems of life, but in maintaining his own +solvency by the insolvency of others. He trades upon sorrow and +draws a livelihood from misfortune. He transmutes tears into +treasure, and from nakedness and hunger garbs himself in clean linen +and develops the round of his belly. He is a bloodsucker and a +vampire. He lays unholy hands on heaven and hell at cent. per cent., +and his very existence is a sacrilege and a blasphemy. And yet here +am I, wilting before him, an arrant coward, with no respect for him +and less for myself. Why should this shame be? Let me rouse in my +strength and smite him, and, by so doing, wipe clean one offensive +page. + +But no. As I said, he fixed me with a cold and glittering eye, and +in it was the aristocrat's undisguised contempt for the canaille. +Behind him was the solid phalanx of a bourgeois society. Law and +order upheld him, while I titubated, cabbageless, on the ragged edge. +Moreover, he was possessed of a formula whereby to extract juice from +a flattened lemon, and he would do business with me. + +I told him my desires humbly, in quavering syllables. In return, he +craved my antecedents and residence, pried into my private life, +insolently demanded how many children had I and did I live in +wedlock, and asked divers other unseemly and degrading questions. +Ay, I was treated like a thief convicted before the act, till I +produced my certificates of goods and chattels aforementioned. Never +had they appeared so insignificant and paltry as then, when he +sniffed over them with the air of one disdainfully doing a +disagreeable task. It is said, "Thou shalt not lend upon usury to +thy brother; usury of money, usury of victuals, usury of anything +that is lent upon usury"; but he evidently was not my brother, for he +demanded seventy per cent. I put my signature to certain indentures, +received my pottage, and fled from his presence. + +Faugh! I was glad to be quit of it. How good the outside air was! +I only prayed that neither my best friend nor my worst enemy should +ever become aware of what had just transpired. Ere I had gone a +block I noticed that the sun had brightened perceptibly, the street +become less sordid, the gutter mud less filthy. In people's eyes the +cabbage question no longer brooded. And there was a spring to my +body, an elasticity of step as I covered the pavement. Within me +coursed an unwonted sap, and I felt as though I were about to burst +out into leaves and buds and green things. My brain was clear and +refreshed. There was a new strength to my arm. My nerves were +tingling and I was a-pulse with the times. All men were my brothers. +Save one--yes, save one. I would go back and wreck the +establishment. I would disrupt that leather-bound volume, violate +that black skullcap, burn the accounts. But before fancy could +father the act, I recollected myself and all which had passed. Nor +did I marvel at my new-horn might, at my ancient dignity which had +returned. There was a tinkling chink as I ran the yellow pieces +through my fingers, and with the golden music rippling round me I +caught a deeper insight into the mystery of things. + +OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA. +February 1900. + + + +GOLIAH + + + +In 1924--to be precise, on the morning of January 3--the city of San +Francisco awoke to read in one of its daily papers a curious letter, +which had been received by Walter Bassett and which had evidently +been written by some crank. Walter Bassett was the greatest captain +of industry west of the Rockies, and was one of the small group that +controlled the nation in everything but name. As such, he was the +recipient of lucubrations from countless cranks; but this particular +lucubration was so different from the average ruck of similar letters +that, instead of putting it into the waste-basket, he had turned it +over to a reporter. It was signed "Goliah," and the superscription +gave his address as "Palgrave Island." The letter was as follows: + + +"MR. WALTER BASSETT, +"DEAR SIR: + +"I am inviting you, with nine of your fellow-captains of industry, to +visit me here on my island for the purpose of considering plans for +the reconstruction of society upon a more rational basis. Up to the +present, social evolution has been a blind and aimless, blundering +thing. The time has come for a change. Man has risen from the +vitalized slime of the primeval sea to the mastery of matter; but he +has not yet mastered society. Man is to-day as much the slave to his +collective stupidity, as a hundred thousand generations ago he was a +slave to matter. + +"There are two theoretical methods whereby man may become the master +of society, and make of society an intelligent and efficacious device +for the pursuit and capture of happiness and laughter. The first +theory advances the proposition that no government can be wiser or +better than the people that compose that government; that reform and +development must spring from the individual; that in so far as the +individuals become wiser and better, by that much will their +government become wiser and better; in short, that the majority of +individuals must become wiser and better, before their government +becomes wiser and better. The mob, the political convention, the +abysmal brutality and stupid ignorance of all concourses of people, +give the lie to this theory. In a mob the collective intelligence +and mercy is that of the least intelligent and most brutal members +that compose the mob. On the other hand, a thousand passengers will +surrender themselves to the wisdom and discretion of the captain, +when their ship is in a storm on the sea. In such matter, he is the +wisest and most experienced among them. + +"The second theory advances the proposition that the majority of the +people are not pioneers, that they are weighted down by the inertia +of the established; that the government that is representative of +them represents only their feebleness, and futility, and brutishness; +that this blind thing called government is not the serf of their +wills, but that they are the serfs of it; in short, speaking always +of the great mass, that they do not make government, but that +government makes them, and that government is and has been a stupid +and awful monster, misbegotten of the glimmerings of intelligence +that come from the inertia-crushed mass. + +"Personally, I incline to the second theory. Also, I am impatient. +For a hundred thousand generations, from the first social groups of +our savage forbears, government has remained a monster. To-day, the +inertia-crushed mass has less laughter in it than ever before. In +spite of man's mastery of matter, human suffering and misery and +degradation mar the fair world. + +"Wherefore I have decided to step in and become captain of this +world-ship for a while. I have the intelligence and the wide vision +of the skilled expert. Also, I have the power. I shall be obeyed. +The men of all the world shall perform my bidding and make +governments so that they shall become laughter-producers. These +modelled governments I have in mind shall not make the people happy, +wise, and noble by decree; but they shall give opportunity for the +people to become happy, wise, and noble. + +"I have spoken. I have invited you, and nine of your fellow- +captains, to confer with me. On March third the yacht Energon will +sail from San Francisco. You are requested to be on board the night +before. This is serious. The affairs of the world must be handled +for a time by a strong hand. Mine is that strong hand. If you fail +to obey my summons, you will die. Candidly, I do not expect that you +will obey. But your death for failure to obey will cause obedience +on the part of those I subsequently summon. You will have served a +purpose. And please remember that I have no unscientific +sentimentality about the value of human life. I carry always in the +background of my consciousness the innumerable billions of lives that +are to laugh and be happy in future aeons on the earth. + +"Yours for the reconstruction of society, + +"GOLIAH." + + +The publication of this letter did not cause even local amusement. +Men might have smiled to themselves as they read it, but it was so +palpably the handiwork of a crank that it did not merit discussion. +Interest did not arouse till next morning. An Associated Press +despatch to the Eastern states, followed by interviews by eager-nosed +reporters, had brought out the names of the other nine captains of +industry who had received similar letters, but who had not thought +the matter of sufficient importance to be made public. But the +interest aroused was mild, and it would have died out quickly had not +Gabberton cartooned a chronic presidential aspirant as "Goliah." +Then came the song that was sung hilariously from sea to sea, with +the refrain, "Goliah will catch you if you don't watch out." + +The weeks passed and the incident was forgotten. Walter Bassett had +forgotten it likewise; but on the evening of February 22, he was +called to the telephone by the Collector of the Port. "I just wanted +to tell you," said the latter, "that the yacht Energon has arrived +and gone to anchor in the stream off Pier Seven." + +What happened that night Walter Bassett has never divulged. But it +is known that he rode down in his auto to the water front, chartered +one of Crowley's launches, and was put aboard the strange yacht. It +is further known that when he returned to the shore, three hours +later, he immediately despatched a sheaf of telegrams to his nine +fellow-captains of industry who had received letters from Goliah. +These telegrams were similarly worded, and read: "The yacht Energon +has arrived. There is something in this. I advise you to come." + +Bassett was laughed at for his pains. It was a huge laugh that went +up (for his telegrams had been made public), and the popular song on +Goliah revived and became more popular than ever. Goliah and Bassett +were cartooned and lampooned unmercifully, the former, as the Old Man +of the Sea, riding on the latter's neck. The laugh tittered and +rippled through clubs and social circles, was restrainedly merry in +the editorial columns, and broke out in loud guffaws in the comic +weeklies. There was a serious side as well, and Bassett's sanity was +gravely questioned by many, and especially by his business +associates. + +Bassett had ever been a short-tempered man, and after he sent the +second sheaf of telegrams to his brother captains, and had been +laughed at again, he remained silent. In this second sheaf he had +said: "Come, I implore you. As you value your life, come." He +arranged all his business affairs for an absence, and on the night of +March 2 went on board the Energon. The latter, properly cleared, +sailed next morning. And next morning the newsboys in every city and +town were crying "Extra." + +In the slang of the day, Goliah had delivered the goods. The nine +captains of industry who had failed to accept his invitation were +dead. A sort of violent disintegration of the tissues was the report +of the various autopsies held on the bodies of the slain +millionaires; yet the surgeons and physicians (the most highly +skilled in the land had participated) would not venture the opinion +that the men had been slain. Much less would they venture the +conclusion, "at the hands of parties unknown." It was all too +mysterious. They were stunned. Their scientific credulity broke +down. They had no warrant in the whole domain of science for +believing that an anonymous person on Palgrave Island had murdered +the poor gentlemen. + +One thing was quickly learned, however; namely, that Palgrave Island +was no myth. It was charted and well known to all navigators, lying +on the line of 160 west longitude, right at its intersection by the +tenth parallel north latitude, and only a few miles away from Diana +Shoal. Like Midway and Fanning, Palgrave Island was isolated, +volcanic and coral in formation. Furthermore, it was uninhabited. A +survey ship, in 1887, had visited the place and reported the +existence of several springs and of a good harbour that was very +dangerous of approach. And that was all that was known of the tiny +speck of land that was soon to have focussed on it the awed attention +of the world. + +Goliah remained silent till March 24. On the morning of that day, +the newspapers published his second letter, copies of which had been +received by the ten chief politicians of the United States--ten +leading men in the political world who were conventionally known as +"statesmen." The letter, with the same superscription as before, was +as follows: + + +"DEAR SIR: + +"I have spoken in no uncertain tone. I must be obeyed. You may +consider this an invitation or a summons; but if you still wish to +tread this earth and laugh, you will be aboard the yacht Energon, in +San Francisco harbour, not later than the evening of April 5. It is +my wish and my will that you confer with me here on Palgrave Island +in the matter of reconstructing society upon some rational basis. + +"Do not misunderstand me, when I tell you that I am one with a +theory. I want to see that theory work, and therefore I call upon +your cooperation. In this theory of mine, lives are but pawns; I +deal with quantities of lives. I am after laughter, and those that +stand in the way of laughter must perish. The game is big. There +are fifteen hundred million human lives to-day on the planet. What +is your single life against them? It is as naught, in my theory. +And remember that mine is the power. Remember that I am a scientist, +and that one life, or one million of lives, mean nothing to me as +arrayed against the countless billions of billions of the lives of +the generations to come. It is for their laughter that I seek to +reconstruct society now; and against them your own meagre little life +is a paltry thing indeed. + +"Whoso has power can command his fellows. By virtue of that military +device known as the phalanx, Alexander conquered his bit of the +world. By virtue of that chemical device, gunpowder, Cortes with his +several hundred cut-throats conquered the empire of the Montezumas. +Now I am in possession of a device that is all my own. In the course +of a century not more than half a dozen fundamental discoveries or +inventions are made. I have made such an invention. The possession +of it gives me the mastery of the world. I shall use this invention, +not for commercial exploitation, but for the good of humanity. For +that purpose I want help--willing agents, obedient hands; and I am +strong enough to compel the service. I am taking the shortest way, +though I am in no hurry. I shall not clutter my speed with haste. + +"The incentive of material gain developed man from the savage to the +semi-barbarian he is today. This incentive has been a useful device +for the development of the human; but it has now fulfilled its +function and is ready to be cast aside into the scrap-heap of +rudimentary vestiges such as gills in the throat and belief in the +divine right of kings. Of course you do not think so; but I do not +see that that will prevent you from aiding me to fling the +anachronism into the scrap-heap. For I tell you now that the time +has come when mere food and shelter and similar sordid things shall +be automatic, as free and easy and involuntary of access as the air. +I shall make them automatic, what of my discovery and the power that +discovery gives me. And with food and shelter automatic, the +incentive of material gain passes away from the world for ever. With +food and shelter automatic, the higher incentives will universally +obtain--the spiritual, aesthetic, and intellectual incentives that +will tend to develop and make beautiful and noble body, mind, and +spirit. Then all the world will be dominated by happiness and +laughter. It will be the reign of universal laughter. + +"Yours for that day, + +"GOLIAH." + + +Still the world would not believe. The ten politicians were at +Washington, so that they did not have the opportunity of being +convinced that Bassett had had, and not one of them took the trouble +to journey out to San Francisco to make the opportunity. As for +Goliah, he was hailed by the newspapers as another Tom Lawson with a +panacea; and there were specialists in mental disease who, by +analysis of Goliah's letters, proved conclusively that he was a +lunatic. + +The yacht Energon arrived in the harbour of San Francisco on the +afternoon of April 5, and Bassett came ashore. But the Energon did +not sail next day, for not one of the ten summoned politicians had +elected to make the journey to Palgrave Island. The newsboys, +however, called "Extra" that day in all the cities. The ten +politicians were dead. The yacht, lying peacefully at anchor in the +harbour, became the centre of excited interest. She was surrounded +by a flotilla of launches and rowboats, and many tugs and steamboats +ran excursions to her. While the rabble was firmly kept off, the +proper authorities and even reporters were permitted to board her. +The mayor of San Francisco and the chief of police reported that +nothing suspicious was to be seen upon her, and the port authorities +announced that her papers were correct and in order in every detail. +Many photographs and columns of descriptive matter were run in the +newspapers. + +The crew was reported to be composed principally of Scandinavians-- +fair-haired, blue-eyed Swedes, Norwegians afflicted with the +temperamental melancholy of their race, stolid Russian Finns, and a +slight sprinkling of Americans and English. It was noted that there +was nothing mercurial and flyaway about them. They seemed weighty +men, oppressed by a sad and stolid bovine-sort of integrity. A sober +seriousness and enormous certitude characterized all of them. They +appeared men without nerves and without fear, as though upheld by +some overwhelming power or carried in the hollow of some superhuman +hand. The captain, a sad-eyed, strong-featured American, was +cartooned in the papers as "Gloomy Gus" (the pessimistic hero of the +comic supplement). + +Some sea-captain recognized the Energon as the yacht Scud, once owned +by Merrivale of the New York Yacht Club. With this clue it was soon +ascertained that the Scud had disappeared several years before. The +agent who sold her reported the purchaser to be merely another agent, +a man he had seen neither before nor since. The yacht had been +reconstructed at Duffey's Shipyard in New Jersey. The change in her +name and registry occurred at that time and had been legally +executed. Then the Energon had disappeared in the shroud of mystery. + +In the meantime, Bassett was going crazy--at least his friends and +business associates said so. He kept away from his vast business +enterprises and said that he must hold his hands until the other +masters of the world could join with him in the reconstruction of +society--proof indubitable that Goliah's bee had entered his bonnet. +To reporters he had little to say. He was not at liberty, he said, +to relate what he had seen on Palgrave Island; but he could assure +them that the matter was serious, the most serious thing that had +ever happened. His final word was that, the world was on the verge +of a turnover, for good or ill he did not know, but, one way or the +other, he was absolutely convinced that the turnover was coming. As +for business, business could go hang. He had seen things, he had, +and that was all there was to it. + +There was a great telegraphing, during this period, between the local +Federal officials and the state and war departments at Washington. A +secret attempt was made late one afternoon to board the Energon and +place the captain under arrest--the Attorney-General having given the +opinion that the captain could be held for the murder of the ten +"statesmen." The government launch was seen to leave Meigg's Wharf +and steer for the Energon, and that was the last ever seen of the +launch and the men on board of it. The government tried to keep the +affair hushed up, but the cat was slipped out of the bag by the +families of the missing men, and the papers were filled with +monstrous versions of the affair. + +The government now proceeded to extreme measures. The battleship +Alaska was ordered to capture the strange yacht, or, failing that, to +sink her. These were secret instructions; but thousands of eyes, +from the water front and from the shipping in the harbour, witnessed +what happened that afternoon. The battleship got under way and +steamed slowly toward the Energon. At half a mile distant the +battleship blew up--simply blew up, that was all, her shattered frame +sinking to the bottom of the bay, a riff-raff of wreckage and a few +survivors strewing the surface. Among the survivors was a young +lieutenant who had had charge of the wireless on board the Alaska. +The reporters got hold of him first, and he talked. No sooner had +the Alaska got under way, he said, than a message was received from +the Energon. It was in the international code, and it was a warning +to the Alaska to come no nearer than half a mile. He had sent the +message, through the speaking tube, immediately to the captain. He +did not know anything more, except that the Energon twice repeated +the message and that five minutes afterward the explosion occurred. +The captain of the Alaska had perished with his ship, and nothing +more was to be learned. + +The Energon, however, promptly hoisted anchor and cleared out to sea. +A great clamour was raised by the papers; the government was charged +with cowardice and vacillation in its dealings with a mere pleasure +yacht and a lunatic who called himself "Goliah," and immediate and +decisive action was demanded. Also, a great cry went up about the +loss of life, especially the wanton killing of the ten "statesmen." +Goliah promptly replied. In fact, so prompt was his reply that the +experts in wireless telegraphy announced that, since it was +impossible to send wireless messages so great a distance, Goliah was +in their very midst and not on Palgrave Island. Goliah's letter was +delivered to the Associated Press by a messenger boy who had been +engaged on the street. The letter was as follows: + + +"What are a few paltry lives? In your insane wars you destroy +millions of lives and think nothing of it. In your fratricidal +commercial struggle you kill countless babes, women, and men, and you +triumphantly call the shambles 'individualism.' I call it anarchy. +I am going to put a stop to your wholesale destruction of human +beings. I want laughter, not slaughter. Those of you who stand in +the way of laughter will get slaughter. + +"Your government is trying to delude you into believing that the +destruction of the Alaska was an accident. Know here and now that it +was by my orders that the Alaska was destroyed. In a few short +months, all battleships on all seas will be destroyed or flung to the +scrap-heap, and all nations shall disarm; fortresses shall be +dismantled, armies disbanded, and warfare shall cease from the earth. +Mine is the power. I am the will of God. The whole world shall be +in vassalage to me, but it shall be a vassalage of peace. + +"I am + +GOLIAH." + + +"Blow Palgrave Island out of the water!" was the head-line retort of +the newspapers. The government was of the same frame of mind, and +the assembling of the fleets began. Walter Bassett broke out in +ineffectual protest, but was swiftly silenced by the threat of a +lunacy commission. Goliah remained silent. Against Palgrave Island +five great fleets were hurled--the Asiatic Squadron, the South +Pacific Squadron, the North Pacific Squadron, the Caribbean Squadron, +and half of the North Atlantic Squadron, the two latter coming +through the Panama Canal. + +"I have the honour to report that we sighted Palgrave Island on the +evening of April 29," ran the report of Captain Johnson, of the +battleship North Dakota, to the Secretary of the Navy. "The Asiatic +Squadron was delayed and did not arrive until the morning of April +30. A council of the admirals was held, and it was decided to attack +early next morning. The destroyer, Swift VII, crept in, unmolested, +and reported no warlike preparations on the island. It noted several +small merchant steamers in the harbour, and the existence of a small +village in a hopelessly exposed position that could be swept by our +fire. + +"It had been decided that all the vessels should rush in, scattered, +upon the island, opening fire at three miles, and continuing to the +edge of the reef, there to retain loose formation and engage. +Palgrave Island repeatedly warned us, by wireless, in the +international code, to keep outside the ten-mile limit; but no heed +was paid to the warnings. + +"The North Dakota did not take part in the movement of the morning of +May 1. This was due to a slight accident of the preceding night that +temporarily disabled her steering-gear. The morning of May 1 broke +clear and calm. There was a slight breeze from the south-west that +quickly died away. The North Dakota lay twelve miles off the island. +At the signal the squadrons charged in upon the island, from all +sides, at full speed. Our wireless receiver continued to tick off +warnings from the island. The ten-mile limit was passed, and nothing +happened. I watched through my glasses. At five miles nothing +happened; at four miles nothing happened; at three miles, the New +York, in the lead on our side of the island, opened fire. She fired +only one shot. Then she blew up. The rest of the vessels never +fired a shot. They began to blow up, everywhere, before our eyes. +Several swerved about and started back, but they failed to escape. +The destroyer, Dart XXX, nearly made the ten-mile limit when she blew +up. She was the last survivor. No harm came to the North Dakota, +and that night, the steering-gear being repaired, I gave orders to +sail for San Francisco." + +To say that the United States was stunned is but to expose the +inadequacy of language. The whole world was stunned. It confronted +that blight of the human brain, the unprecedented. Human endeavour +was a jest, a monstrous futility, when a lunatic on a lonely island, +who owned a yacht and an exposed village, could destroy five of the +proudest fleets of Christendom. And how had he done it? Nobody +knew. The scientists lay down in the dust of the common road and +wailed and gibbered. They did not know. Military experts committed +suicide by scores. The mighty fabric of warfare they had fashioned +was a gossamer veil rent asunder by a miserable lunatic. It was too +much for their sanity. Mere human reason could not withstand the +shock. As the savage is crushed by the sleight-of-hand of the witch +doctor, so was the world crushed by the magic of Goliah. How did he +do it? It was the awful face of the Unknown upon which the world +gazed and by which it was frightened out of the memory of its +proudest achievements. + +But all the world was not stunned. There was the invariable +exception--the Island Empire of Japan. Drunken with the wine of +success deep-quaffed, without superstition and without faith in aught +but its own ascendant star, laughing at the wreckage of science and +mad with pride of race, it went forth upon the way of war. America's +fleets had been destroyed. From the battlements of heaven the +multitudinous ancestral shades of Japan leaned down. The +opportunity, God-given, had come. The Mikado was in truth a brother +to the gods. + +The war-monsters of Japan were loosed in mighty fleets. The +Philippines were gathered in as a child gathers a nosegay. It took +longer for the battleships to travel to Hawaii, to Panama, and to the +Pacific Coast. The United States was panic-stricken, and there arose +the powerful party of dishonourable peace. In the midst of the +clamour the Energon arrived in San Francisco Bay and Goliah spoke +once more. There was a little brush as the Energon came in, and a +few explosions of magazines occurred along the war-tunnelled hills as +the coast defences went to smash. Also, the blowing up of the +submarine mines in the Golden Gate made a remarkably fine display. +Goliah's message to the people of San Francisco, dated as usual from +Palgrave Island, was published in the papers. It ran: + + +"Peace? Peace be with you. You shall have peace. I have spoken to +this purpose before. And give you me peace. Leave my yacht Energon +alone. Commit one overt act against her and not one stone in San +Francisco shall stand upon another. + +"To-morrow let all good citizens go out upon the hills that slope +down to the sea. Go with music and laughter and garlands. Make +festival for the new age that is dawning. Be like children upon your +hills, and witness the passing of war. Do not miss the opportunity. +It is your last chance to behold what henceforth you will be +compelled to seek in museums of antiquities. + +"I promise you a merry day, + +"GOLIAH." + + +The madness of magic was in the air. With the people it was as if +all their gods had crashed and the heavens still stood. Order and +law had passed away from the universe; but the sun still shone, the +wind still blew, the flowers still bloomed--that was the amazing +thing about it. That water should continue to run downhill was a +miracle. All the stabilities of the human mind and human achievement +were crumbling. The one stable thing that remained was Goliah, a +madman on an island. And so it was that the whole population of San +Francisco went forth next day in colossal frolic upon the hills that +overlooked the sea. Brass bands and banners went forth, brewery +wagons and Sunday-school picnics--all the strange heterogeneous +groupings of swarming metropolitan life. + +On the sea-rim rose the smoke from the funnels of a hundred hostile +vessels of war, all converging upon the helpless, undefended Golden +Gate. And not all undefended, for out through the Golden Gate moved +the Energon, a tiny toy of white, rolling like a straw in the stiff +sea on the bar where a strong ebb-tide ran in the teeth of the summer +sea-breeze. But the Japanese were cautious. Their thirty- and +forty-thousand-ton battleships slowed down half a dozen miles +offshore and manoeuvred in ponderous evolutions, while tiny scout- +boats (lean, six-funnelled destroyers) ran in, cutting blackly the +flashing sea like so many sharks. But, compared with the Energon, +they were leviathans. Compared with them, the Energon was as the +sword of the arch-angel Michael, and they the forerunners of the +hosts of hell. + +But the flashing of the sword, the good people of San Francisco, +gathered on her hills, never saw. Mysterious, invisible, it cleaved +the air and smote the mightiest blows of combat the world had ever +witnessed. The good people of San Francisco saw little and +understood less. They saw only a million and a half tons of brine- +cleaving, thunder-flinging fabrics hurled skyward and smashed back in +ruin to sink into the sea. It was all over in five minutes. +Remained upon the wide expanse of sea only the Energon, rolling white +and toylike on the bar. + +Goliah spoke to the Mikado and the Elder Statesmen. It was only an +ordinary cable message, despatched from San Francisco by the captain +of the Energon, but it was of sufficient moment to cause the +immediate withdrawal of Japan from the Philippines and of her +surviving fleets from the sea. Japan the sceptical was converted. +She had felt the weight of Goliah's arm. And meekly she obeyed when +Goliah commanded her to dismantle her war vessels and to turn the +metal into useful appliances for the arts of peace. In all the +ports, navy-yards, machine-shops, and foundries of Japan tens of +thousands of brown-skinned artisans converted the war-monsters into +myriads of useful things, such as ploughshares (Goliah insisted on +ploughshares), gasolene engines, bridge-trusses, telephone and +telegraph wires, steel rails, locomotives, and rolling stock for +railways. It was a world-penance for a world to see, and paltry +indeed it made appear that earlier penance, barefooted in the snow, +of an emperor to a pope for daring to squabble over temporal power. + +Goliah's next summons was to the ten leading scientists of the United +States. This time there was no hesitancy in obeying. The savants +were ludicrously prompt, some of them waiting in San Francisco for +weeks so as not to miss the scheduled sailing-date. They departed on +the Energon on June 15; and while they were on the sea, on the way to +Palgrave Island, Goliah performed another spectacular feat. Germany +and France were preparing to fly at each other's throats. Goliah +commanded peace. They ignored the command, tacitly agreeing to fight +it out on land where it seemed safer for the belligerently inclined. +Goliah set the date of June 19 for the cessation of hostile +preparations. Both countries mobilized their armies on June 18, and +hurled them at the common frontier. And on June 19, Goliah struck. +All generals, war-secretaries, and jingo-leaders in the two countries +died on that day; and that day two vast armies, undirected, like +strayed sheep, walked over each other's frontiers and fraternized. +But the great German war lord had escaped--it was learned, afterward, +by hiding in the huge safe where were stored the secret archives of +his empire. And when he emerged he was a very penitent war lord, and +like the Mikado of Japan he was set to work beating his sword-blades +into ploughshares and pruning-hooks. + +But in the escape of the German Emperor was discovered a great +significance. The scientists of the world plucked up courage, got +back their nerve. One thing was conclusively evident--Goliah's power +was not magic. Law still reigned in the universe. Goliah's power +had limitations, else had the German Emperor not escaped by secretly +hiding in a steel safe. Many learned articles on the subject +appeared in the magazines. + +The ten scientists arrived back from Palgrave Island on July 6. +Heavy platoons of police protected them from the reporters. No, they +had not see Goliah, they said in the one official interview that was +vouchsafed; but they had talked with him, and they had seen things. +They were not permitted to state definitely all that they had seen +and heard, but they could say that the world was about to be +revolutionized. Goliah was in the possession of a tremendous +discovery that placed all the world at his mercy, and it was a good +thing for the world that Goliah was merciful. The ten scientists +proceeded directly to Washington on a special train, where, for days, +they were closeted with the heads of government, while the nation +hung breathless on the outcome. + +But the outcome was a long time in arriving. From Washington the +President issued commands to the masters and leading figures of the +nation. Everything was secret. Day by day deputations of bankers, +railway lords, captains of industry, and Supreme Court justices +arrived; and when they arrived they remained. The weeks dragged on, +and then, on August 25, began the famous issuance of proclamations. +Congress and the Senate co-operated with the President in this, while +the Supreme Court justices gave their sanction and the money lords +and the captains of industry agreed. War was declared upon the +capitalist masters of the nation. Martial law was declared over the +whole United States. The supreme power was vested in the President. + +In one day, child-labour in the whole country was abolished. It was +done by decree, and the United States was prepared with its army to +enforce its decrees. In the same day all women factory workers were +dismissed to their homes, and all the sweat-shops were closed. "But +we cannot make profits!" wailed the petty capitalists. "Fools!" was +the retort of Goliah. "As if the meaning of life were profits! Give +up your businesses and your profit-mongering." "But there is nobody +to buy our business!" they wailed. "Buy and sell--is that all the +meaning life has for you?" replied Goliah. "You have nothing to +sell. Turn over your little cut-throating, anarchistic businesses to +the government so that they may be rationally organized and +operated." And the next day, by decree, the government began taking +possession of all factories, shops, mines, ships, railroads, and +producing lands. + +The nationalization of the means of production and distribution went +on apace. Here and there were sceptical capitalists of moment. They +were made prisoners and haled to Palgrave Island, and when they +returned they always acquiesced in what the government was doing. A +little later the journey to Palgrave Island became unnecessary. When +objection was made, the reply of the officials was "Goliah has +spoken"--which was another way of saying, "He must be obeyed." + +The captains of industry became heads of departments. It was found +that civil engineers, for instance, worked just as well in government +employ as before, they had worked in private employ. It was found +that men of high executive ability could not violate their nature. +They could not escape exercising their executive ability, any more +than a crab could escape crawling or a bird could escape flying. And +so it was that all the splendid force of the men who had previously +worked for themselves was now put to work for the good of society. +The half-dozen great railway chiefs co-operated in the organizing of +a national system of railways that was amazingly efficacious. Never +again was there such a thing as a car shortage. These chiefs were +not the Wall Street railway magnates, but they were the men who +formerly had done the real work while in the employ of the Wall +Street magnates. + +Wall Street was dead. There was no more buying and selling and +speculating. Nobody had anything to buy or sell. There was nothing +in which to speculate. "Put the stock gamblers to work," said +Goliah; "give those that are young, and that so desire, a chance to +learn useful trades." "Put the drummers, and salesmen, and +advertising agents, and real estate agents to work," said Goliah; and +by hundreds of thousands the erstwhile useless middlemen and +parasites went into useful occupations. The four hundred thousand +idle gentlemen of the country who had lived upon incomes were +likewise put to work. Then there were a lot of helpless men in high +places who were cleared out, the remarkable thing about this being +that they were cleared out by their own fellows. Of this class were +the professional politicians, whose wisdom and power consisted of +manipulating machine politics and of grafting. There was no longer +any graft. Since there were no private interests to purchase special +privileges, no bribes were offered to legislators, and legislators +for the first time legislated for the people. The result was that +men who were efficient, not in corruption, but in direction, found +their way into the legislatures. + +With this rational organization of society amazing results were +brought about. The national day's work was eight hours, and yet +production increased. In spite of the great permanent improvements +and of the immense amount of energy consumed in systematizing the +competitive chaos of society, production doubled and tripled upon +itself. The standard of living increased, and still consumption +could not keep up with production. The maximum working age was +decreased to fifty years, to forty-nine years, and to forty-eight +years. The minimum working age went up from sixteen years to +eighteen years. The eight-hour day became a seven-hour day, and in a +few months the national working day was reduced to five hours. + +In the meantime glimmerings were being caught, not of the identity of +Goliah, but of how he had worked and prepared for his assuming +control of the world. Little things leaked out, clues were followed +up, apparently unrelated things were pieced together. Strange +stories of blacks stolen from Africa were remembered, of Chinese and +Japanese contract coolies who had mysteriously disappeared, of lonely +South Sea Islands raided and their inhabitants carried away; stories +of yachts and merchant steamers, mysteriously purchased, that had +disappeared and the descriptions of which remotely tallied with the +crafts that had carried the Orientals and Africans and islanders +away. Where had Goliah got the sinews of war? was the question. And +the surmised answer was: By exploiting these stolen labourers. It +was they that lived in the exposed village on Palgrave Island. It +was the product of their toil that had purchased the yachts and +merchant steamers and enabled Goliah's agents to permeate society and +carry out his will. And what was the product of their toil that had +given Goliah the wealth necessary to realize his plans? Commercial +radium, the newspapers proclaimed; and radiyte, and radiosole, and +argatium, and argyte, and the mysterious golyte (that had proved so +valuable in metallurgy). These were the new compounds, discovered in +the first decade of the twentieth century, the commercial and +scientific use of which had become so enormous in the second decade. + +The line of fruit boats that ran from Hawaii to San Francisco was +declared to be the property of Goliah. This was a surmise, for no +other owner could be discovered, and the agents who handled the +shipments of the fruit boats were only agents. Since no one else +owned the fruit boats, then Goliah must own them. The point of which +is: THAT IT LEAKED OUT THAT THE MAJOR PORTION of THE WORLD'S SUPPLY +IN THESE PRECIOUS COMPOUNDS WAS BROUGHT TO SAN FRANCISCO BY THOSE +VERY FRUIT BOATS. That the whole chain of surmise was correct was +proved in later years when Goliah's slaves were liberated and +honourably pensioned by the international government of the world. +It was at that time that the seal of secrecy was lifted from the lips +of his agents and higher emissaries, and those that chose revealed +much of the mystery of Goliah's organization and methods. His +destroying angels, however, remained for ever dumb. Who the men were +who went forth to the high places and killed at his bidding will be +unknown to the end of time--for kill they did, by means of that very +subtle and then-mysterious force that Goliah had discovered and named +"Energon." + +But at that time Energon, the little giant that was destined to do +the work of the world, was unknown and undreamed of. Only Goliah +knew, and he kept his secret well. Even his agents, who were armed +with it, and who, in the case of the yacht Energon, destroyed a +mighty fleet of war-ships by exploding their magazines, knew not what +the subtle and potent force was, nor how it was manufactured. They +knew only one of its many uses, and in that one use they had been +instructed by Goliah. It is now well known that radium, and radiyte, +and radiosole, and all the other compounds, were by-products of the +manufacture of Energon by Goliah from the sunlight; but at that time +nobody knew what Energon was, and Goliah continued to awe and rule +the world. + +One of the uses of Energon was in wireless telegraphy. It was by its +means that Goliah was able to communicate with his agents all over +the world. At that time the apparatus required by an agent was so +clumsy that it could not be packed in anything less than a fair-sized +steamer trunk. To-day, thanks to the improvements of Hendsoll, the +perfected apparatus can be carried in a coat pocket. + +It was in December, 1924, that Goliah sent out his famous "Christmas +Letter," part of the text of which is here given: + + +"So far, while I have kept the rest of the nations from each other's +throats, I have devoted myself particularly to the United States. +Now I have not given to the people of the United States a rational +social organization. What I have done has been to compel them to +make that organization themselves. There is more laughter in the +United States these days, and there is more sense. Food and shelter +are no longer obtained by the anarchistic methods of so-called +individualism but are now wellnigh automatic. And the beauty of it +is that the people of the United States have achieved all this for +themselves. I did not achieve it for them. I repeat, they achieved +it for themselves. All that I did was to put the fear of death in +the hearts of the few that sat in the high places and obstructed the +coming of rationality and laughter. The fear of death made those in +the high places get out of the way, that was all, and gave the +intelligence of man a chance to realize itself socially. + +"In the year that is to come I shall devote myself to the rest of the +world. I shall put the fear of death in the hearts of all that sit +in the high places in all the nations. And they will do as they have +done in the United States--get down out of the high places and give +the intelligence of man a chance for social rationality. All the +nations shall tread the path the United States is now on. + +"And when all the nations are well along on that path, I shall have +something else for them. But first they must travel that path for +themselves. They must demonstrate that the intelligence of mankind +to-day, with the mechanical energy now at its disposal, is capable of +organizing society so that food and shelter be made automatic, labour +be reduced to a three-hour day, and joy and laughter be made +universal. And when that is accomplished, not by me but by the +intelligence of mankind, then I shall make a present to the world of +a new mechanical energy. This is my discovery. This Energon is +nothing more nor less than the cosmic energy that resides in the +solar rays. When it is harnessed by mankind it will do the work of +the world. There will be no more multitudes of miners slaving out +their lives in the bowels of the earth, no more sooty firemen and +greasy engineers. All may dress in white if they so will. The work +of life will have become play and young and old will be the children +of joy, and the business of living will become joy; and they will +compete, one with another, in achieving ethical concepts and +spiritual heights, in fashioning pictures and songs, and stories, in +statecraft and beauty craft, in the sweat and the endeavour of the +wrestler and the runner and the player of games--all will compete, +not for sordid coin and base material reward, but for the joy that +shall be theirs in the development and vigour of flesh and in the +development and keenness of spirit. All will be joy-smiths, and +their task shall be to beat out laughter from the ringing anvil of +life. + +"And now one word for the immediate future. On New Year's Day all +nations shall disarm, all fortresses and war-ships shall be +dismantled, and all armies shall be disbanded. + +GOLIAH." + + +On New Year's Day all the world disarmed. The millions of soldiers +and sailors and workmen in the standing armies, in the navies, and in +the countless arsenals, machine-shops, and factories for the +manufacture of war machinery, were dismissed to their homes. These +many millions of men, as well as their costly war machinery, had +hitherto been supported on the back of labour. They now went into +useful occupations, and the released labour giant heaved a mighty +sigh of relief. The policing of the world was left to the peace +officers and was purely social, whereas war had been distinctly anti- +social. + +Ninety per cent. of the crimes against society had been crimes +against private property. With the passing of private property, at +least in the means of production, and with the organization of +industry that gave every man a chance, the crimes against private +property practically ceased. The police forces everywhere were +reduced repeatedly and again and again. Nearly all occasional and +habitual criminals ceased voluntarily from their depredations. There +was no longer any need for them to commit crime. They merely changed +with changing conditions. A smaller number of criminals was put into +hospitals and cured. And the remnant of the hopelessly criminal and +degenerate was segregated. And the courts in all countries were +likewise decreased in number again and again. Ninety-five per cent. +of all civil cases had been squabbles over property, conflicts of +property-rights, lawsuits, contests of wills, breaches of contract, +bankruptcies, etc. With the passing of private property, this +ninety-five per cent. of the cases that cluttered the courts also +passed. The courts became shadows, attenuated ghosts, rudimentary +vestiges of the anarchistic times that had preceded the coming of +Goliah. + +The year 1925 was a lively year in the world's history. Goliah ruled +the world with a strong hand. Kings and emperors journeyed to +Palgrave Island, saw the wonders of Energon, and went away, with the +fear of death in their hearts, to abdicate thrones and crowns and +hereditary licenses. When Goliah spoke to politicians (so-called +"statesmen"), they obeyed . . . or died. He dictated universal +reforms, dissolved refractory parliaments, and to the great +conspiracy that was formed of mutinous money lords and captains of +industry he sent his destroying angels. "The time is past for +fooling," he told them. "You are anachronisms. You stand in the way +of humanity. To the scrap-heap with you." To those that protested, +and they were many, he said: "This is no time for logomachy. You +can argue for centuries. It is what you have done in the past. I +have no time for argument. Get out of the way." + +With the exception of putting a stop to war, and of indicating the +broad general plan, Goliah did nothing. By putting the fear of death +into the hearts of those that sat in the high places and obstructed +progress, Goliah made the opportunity for the unshackled intelligence +of the best social thinkers of the world to exert itself. Goliah +left all the multitudinous details of reconstruction to these social +thinkers. He wanted them to prove that they were able to do it, and +they proved it. It was due to their initiative that the white plague +was stamped out from the world. It was due to them, and in spite of +a deal of protesting from the sentimentalists, that all the extreme +hereditary inefficients were segregated and denied marriage. + +Goliah had nothing whatever to do with the instituting of the +colleges of invention. This idea originated practically +simultaneously in the minds of thousands of social thinkers. The +time was ripe for the realization of the idea, and everywhere arose +the splendid institutions of invention. For the first time the +ingenuity of man was loosed upon the problem of simplifying life, +instead of upon the making of money-earning devices. The affairs of +life, such as house-cleaning, dish and window-washing, dust-removing, +and scrubbing and clothes-washing, and all the endless sordid and +necessary details, were simplified by invention until they became +automatic. We of to-day cannot realize the barbarously filthy and +slavish lives of those that lived prior to 1925. + +The international government of the world was another idea that +sprang simultaneously into the minds of thousands. The successful +realization of this idea was a surprise to many, but as a surprise it +was nothing to that received by the mildly protestant sociologists +and biologists when irrefutable facts exploded the doctrine of +Malthus. With leisure and joy in the world; with an immensely higher +standard of living; and with the enormous spaciousness of opportunity +for recreation, development, and pursuit of beauty and nobility and +all the higher attributes, the birth-rate fell, and fell +astoundingly. People ceased breeding like cattle. And better than +that, it was immediately noticeable that a higher average of children +was being born. The doctrine of Malthus was knocked into a cocked +hat--or flung to the scrap-heap, as Goliah would have put it. + +All that Goliah had predicted that the intelligence of mankind could +accomplish with the mechanical energy at its disposal, came to pass. +Human dissatisfaction practically disappeared. The elderly people +were the great grumblers; but when they were honourably pensioned by +society, as they passed the age limit for work, the great majority +ceased grumbling. They found themselves better off in their idle old +days under the new regime, enjoying vastly more pleasure and comforts +than they had in their busy and toilsome youth under the old regime. +The younger generation had easily adapted itself too the changed +order, and the very young had never known anything else. The sum of +human happiness had increased enormously. The world had become gay +and sane. Even the old fogies of professors of sociology, who had +opposed with might and main the coming of the new regime, made no +complaint. They were a score of times better remunerated than in the +old days, and they were not worked nearly so hard. Besides, they +were busy revising sociology and writing new text-books on the +subject. Here and there, it is true, there were atavisms, men who +yearned for the flesh-pots and cannibal-feasts of the old alleged +"individualism," creatures long of teeth and savage of claw who +wanted to prey upon their fellow-men; but they were looked upon as +diseased, and were treated in hospitals. A small remnant, however, +proved incurable, and was confined in asylums and denied marriage. +Thus there was no progeny to inherit their atavistic tendencies. + +As the years went by, Goliah dropped out of the running of the world. +There was nothing for him to run. The world was running itself, and +doing it smoothly and beautifully. In 1937, Goliah made his long- +promised present of Energon to the world. He himself had devised a +thousand ways in which the little giant should do the work of the +world--all of which he made public at the same time. But instantly +the colleges of invention seized upon Energon and utilized it in a +hundred thousand additional ways. In fact, as Goliah confessed in +his letter of March 1938, the colleges of invention cleared up +several puzzling features of Energon that had baffled him during the +preceding years. With the introduction of the use of Energon the +two-hour work-day was cut down almost to nothing. As Goliah had +predicted, work indeed became play. And, so tremendous was man's +productive capacity, due to Energon and the rational social +utilization of it, that the humblest citizen enjoyed leisure and time +and opportunity for an immensely greater abundance of living than had +the most favoured under the old anarchistic system. + +Nobody had ever seen Goliah, and all peoples began to clamour for +their saviour to appear. While the world did not minimize his +discovery of Energon, it was decided that greater than that was his +wide social vision. He was a superman, a scientific superman; and +the curiosity of the world to see him had become wellnigh unbearable. +It was in 1941, after much hesitancy on his part, that he finally +emerged from Palgrave Island. He arrived on June 6 in San Francisco, +and for the first time, since his retirement to Palgrave Island, the +world looked upon his face. And the world was disappointed. Its +imagination had been touched. An heroic figure had been made out of +Goliah. He was the man, or the demi-god, rather, who had turned the +planet over. The deeds of Alexander, Caesar, Genghis Khan, and +Napoleon were as the play of babes alongside his colossal +achievements. + +And ashore in San Francisco and through its streets stepped and rode +a little old man, sixty-five years of age, well preserved, with a +pink-and-white complexion and a bald spot on his head the size of an +apple. He was short-sighted and wore spectacles. But when the +spectacles were removed, his were quizzical blue eyes like a child's, +filled with mild wonder at the world. Also his eyes had a way of +twinkling, accompanied by a screwing up of the face, as if he laughed +at the huge joke he had played upon the world, trapping it, in spite +of itself, into happiness and laughter. + +For a scientific superman and world tyrant, he had remarkable +weaknesses. He loved sweets, and was inordinately fond of salted +almonds and salted pecans, especially of the latter. He always +carried a paper bag of them in his pocket, and he had a way of saying +frequently that the chemism of his nature demanded such fare. +Perhaps his most astonishing failing was cats. He had an +ineradicable aversion to that domestic animal. It will be remembered +that he fainted dead away with sudden fright, while speaking in +Brotherhood Palace, when the janitor's cat walked out upon the stage +and brushed against his legs. + +But no sooner had he revealed himself to the world than he was +identified. Old-time friends had no difficulty in recognizing him as +Percival Stultz, the German-American who, in 1898, had worked in the +Union Iron Works, and who, for two years at that time, had been +secretary of Branch 369 of the International Brotherhood of +Machinists. It was in 1901, then twenty-five years of age, that he +had taken special scientific courses at the University of California, +at the same time supporting himself by soliciting what was then known +as "life insurance." His records as a student are preserved in the +university museum, and they are unenviable. He is remembered by the +professors he sat under chiefly for his absent-mindedness. +Undoubtedly, even then, he was catching glimpses of the wide visions +that later were to be his. + +His naming himself "Goliah" and shrouding himself in mystery was his +little joke, he later explained. As Goliah, or any other thing like +that, he said, he was able to touch the imagination of the world and +turn it over; but as Percival Stultz, wearing side-whiskers and +spectacles, and weighing one hundred and eighteen pounds, he would +have been unable to turn over a pecan--"not even a salted pecan." + +But the world quickly got over its disappointment in his personal +appearance and antecedents. It knew him and revered him as the +master-mind of the ages; and it loved him for himself, for his +quizzical short-sighted eyes and the inimitable way in which he +screwed up his face when he laughed; it loved him for his simplicity +and comradeship and warm humanness, and for his fondness for salted +pecans and his aversion to cats. And to-day, in the wonder-city of +Asgard, rises in awful beauty that monument to him that dwarfs the +pyramids and all the monstrous blood-stained monuments of antiquity. +And on that monument, as all know, is inscribed in imperishable +bronze the prophecy and the fulfilment: "ALL WILL BE JOY-SMITHS, AND +THEIR TASK SHALL BE TO BEAT OUT LAUGHTER FROM THE RINGING ANVIL OF +LIFE." + +[EDITORIAL NOTE.--This remarkable production is the work of Harry +Beckwith, a student in the Lowell High School of San Francisco, and +it is here reproduced chiefly because of the youth of its author. +Far be it from our policy to burden our readers with ancient history; +and when it is known that Harry Beckwith was only fifteen when the +fore-going was written, our motive will be understood. "Goliah" won +the Premier for high school composition in 2254, and last year Harry +Beckwith took advantage of the privilege earned, by electing to spend +six months in Asgard. The wealth of historical detail, the +atmosphere of the times, and the mature style of the composition are +especially noteworthy in one so young.] + + + +THE GOLDEN POPPY + + + +I have a poppy field. That is, by the grace of God and the good- +nature of editors, I am enabled to place each month divers gold +pieces into a clerical gentleman's hands, and in return for said gold +pieces I am each month reinvested with certain proprietary-rights in +a poppy field. This field blazes on the rim of the Piedmont Hills. +Beneath lies all the world. In the distance, across the silver sweep +of bay, San Francisco smokes on her many hills like a second Rome. +Not far away, Mount Tamalpais thrusts a rugged shoulder into the sky; +and midway between is the Golden Gate, where sea mists love to +linger. From the poppy field we often see the shimmering blue of the +Pacific beyond, and the busy ships that go for ever out and in. + +"We shall have great joy in our poppy field," said Bess. "Yes," said +I; "how the poor city folk will envy when they come to see us, and +how we will make all well again when we send them off with great +golden armfuls!" + +"But those things will have to come down," I added, pointing to +numerous obtrusive notices (relics of the last tenant) displayed +conspicuously along the boundaries, and bearing, each and all, this +legend: + + +"PRIVATE GROUNDS. NO TRESPASSING." + + +"Why should we refuse the poor city folk a ramble over our field, +because, forsooth, they have not the advantage of our acquaintance?" + +"How I abhor such things," said Bess; "the arrogant symbols of +power." + +"They disgrace human nature," said I. + +"They shame the generous landscape," she said, "and they are +abominable." + +"Piggish!" quoth I, hotly. "Down with them!" + +We looked forward to the coming of the poppies, did Bess and I, +looked forward as only creatures of the city may look who have been +long denied. I have forgotten to mention the existence of a house +above the poppy field, a squat and wandering bungalow in which we had +elected to forsake town traditions and live in fresher and more +vigorous ways. The first poppies came, orange-yellow and golden in +the standing grain, and we went about gleefully, as though drunken +with their wine, and told each other that the poppies were there. We +laughed at unexpected moments, in the midst of silences, and at times +grew ashamed and stole forth secretly to gaze upon our treasury. But +when the great wave of poppy-flame finally spilled itself down the +field, we shouted aloud, and danced, and clapped our hands, freely +and frankly mad. + +And then came the Goths. My face was in a lather, the time of the +first invasion, and I suspended my razor in mid-air to gaze out on my +beloved field. At the far end I saw a little girl and a little boy, +their arms filled with yellow spoil. Ah, thought I, an unwonted +benevolence burgeoning, what a delight to me is their delight! It is +sweet that children should pick poppies in my field. All summer +shall they pick poppies in my field. But they must be little +children, I added as an afterthought, and they must pick from the +lower end--this last prompted by a glance at the great golden fellows +nodding in the wheat beneath my window. Then the razor descended. +Shaving was always an absorbing task, and I did not glance out of the +window again until the operation was completed. And then I was +bewildered. Surely this was not my poppy field. No--and yes, for +there were the tall pines clustering austerely together on one side, +the magnolia tree burdened with bloom, and the Japanese quinces +splashing the driveway hedge with blood. Yes, it was the field, but +no wave of poppy-flame spilled down it, nor did the great golden +fellows nod in the wheat beneath my window. I rushed into a jacket +and out of the house. In the far distance were disappearing two huge +balls of colour, orange and yellow, for all the world like +perambulating poppies of cyclopean breed. + +"Johnny," said I to the nine-year-old son of my sister, "Johnny, +whenever little girls come into our field to pick poppies, you must +go down to them, and in a very quiet and gentlemanly manner, tell +them it is not allowed." + +Warm days came, and the sun drew another blaze from the free-bosomed +earth. Whereupon a neighbour's little girl, at the behest of her +mother, duly craved and received permission from Bess to gather a few +poppies for decorative purposes. But of this I was uninformed, and +when I descried her in the midst of the field I waved my arms like a +semaphore against the sky. + +"Little girl!" called I. "Little girl!" + +The little girl's legs blurred the landscape as she fled, and in high +elation I sought Bess to tell of the potency of my voice. Nobly she +came to the rescue, departing forthwith on an expedition of +conciliation and explanation to the little girl's mother. But to +this day the little girl seeks cover at sight of me, and I know the +mother will never be as cordial as she would otherwise have been. + +Came dark, overcast days, stiff, driving winds, and pelting rains, +day on day, without end, and the city folk cowered in their dwelling- +places like flood-beset rats; and like rats, half-drowned and +gasping, when the weather cleared they crawled out and up the green +Piedmont slopes to bask in the blessed sunshine. And they invaded my +field in swarms and droves, crushing the sweet wheat into the earth +and with lustful hands ripping the poppies out by the roots. + +"I shall put up the warnings against trespassing," I said. + +"Yes," said Bess, with a sigh. "I'm afraid it is necessary." + +The day was yet young when she sighed again: + +"I'm afraid, O Man, that your signs are of no avail. People have +forgotten how to read, these days." + +I went out on the porch. A city nymph, in cool summer gown and +picture hat, paused before one of my newly reared warnings and read +it through with care. Profound deliberation characterized her +movements. She was statuesquely tall, but with a toss of the head +and a flirt of the skirt she dropped on hands and knees, crawled +under the fence, and came to her feet on the inside with poppies in +both her hands. I walked down the drive and talked ethically to her, +and she went away. Then I put up more signs. + +At one time, years ago, these hills were carpeted with poppies. As +between the destructive forces and the will "to live," the poppies +maintained an equilibrium with their environment. But the city folk +constituted a new and terrible destructive force, the equilibrium was +overthrown, and the poppies wellnigh perished. Since the city folk +plucked those with the longest stems and biggest bowls, and since it +is the law of kind to procreate kind, the long-stemmed, big-bowled +poppies failed to go to seed, and a stunted, short-stemmed variety +remained to the hills. And not only was it stunted and short- +stemmed, but sparsely distributed as well. Each day and every day, +for years and years, the city folk swarmed over the Piedmont Hills, +and only here and there did the genius of the race survive in the +form of miserable little flowers, close-clinging and quick-blooming, +like children of the slums dragged hastily and precariously through +youth to a shrivelled and futile maturity. + +On the other hand, the poppies had prospered in my field; and not +only had they been sheltered from the barbarians, but also from the +birds. Long ago the field was sown in wheat, which went to seed +unharvested each year, and in the cool depths of which the poppy +seeds were hidden from the keen-eyed songsters. And further, +climbing after the sun through the wheat stalks, the poppies grew +taller and taller and more royal even than the primordial ones of the +open. + +So the city folk, gazing from the bare hills to my blazing, burning +field, were sorely tempted, and, it must be told, as sorely fell. +But no sorer was their fall than that of my beloved poppies. Where +the grain holds the dew and takes the bite from the sun the soil is +moist, and in such soil it is easier to pull the poppies out by the +roots than to break the stalk. Now the city folk, like other folk, +are inclined to move along the line of least resistance, and for each +flower they gathered, there were also gathered many crisp-rolled buds +and with them all the possibilities and future beauties of the plant +for all time to come. + +One of the city folk, a middle-aged gentleman, with white hands and +shifty eyes, especially made life interesting for me. We called him +the "Repeater," what of his ways. When from the porch we implored +him to desist, he was wont slowly and casually to direct his steps +toward the fence, simulating finely the actions of a man who had not +heard, but whose walk, instead, had terminated of itself or of his +own volition. To heighten this effect, now and again, still casually +and carelessly, he would stoop and pluck another poppy. Thus did he +deceitfully save himself the indignity of being put out, and rob us +of the satisfaction of putting him out, but he came, and he came +often, each time getting away with an able-bodied man's share of +plunder. + +It is not good to be of the city folk. Of this I am convinced. +There is something in the mode of life that breeds an alarming +condition of blindness and deafness, or so it seems with the city +folk that come to my poppy field. Of the many to whom I have talked +ethically not one has been found who ever saw the warnings so +conspicuously displayed, while of those called out to from the porch, +possibly one in fifty has heard. Also, I have discovered that the +relation of city folk to country flowers is quite analogous to that +of a starving man to food. No more than the starving man realizes +that five pounds of meat is not so good as an ounce, do they realize +that five hundred poppies crushed and bunched are less beautiful than +two or three in a free cluster, where the green leaves and golden +bowls may expand to their full loveliness. + +Less forgivable than the unaesthetic are the mercenary. Hordes of +young rascals plunder me and rob the future that they may stand on +street corners and retail "California poppies, only five cents a +bunch!" In spite of my precautions some of them made a dollar a day +out of my field. One horde do I remember with keen regret. +Reconnoitring for a possible dog, they applied at the kitchen door +for "a drink of water, please." While they drank they were besought +not to pick any flowers. They nodded, wiped their mouths, and +proceeded to take themselves off by the side of the bungalow. They +smote the poppy field beneath my windows, spread out fan-shaped six +wide, picking with both hands, and ripped a swath of destruction +through the very heart of the field. No cyclone travelled faster or +destroyed more completely. I shouted after them, but they sped on +the wings of the wind, great regal poppies, broken-stalked and +mangled, trailing after them or cluttering their wake--the most high- +handed act of piracy, I am confident, ever committed off the high +seas. + +One day I went a-fishing, and on that day a woman entered the field. +Appeals and remonstrances from the porch having no effect upon her, +Bess despatched a little girl to beg of her to pick no more poppies. +The woman calmly went on picking. Then Bess herself went down +through the heat of the day. But the woman went on picking, and +while she picked she discussed property and proprietary rights, +denying Bess's sovereignty until deeds and documents should be +produced in proof thereof. And all the time she went on picking, +never once overlooking her hand. She was a large woman, belligerent +of aspect, and Bess was only a woman and not prone to fisticuffs. So +the invader picked until she could pick no more, said "Good-day," and +sailed majestically away. + +"People have really grown worse in the last several years, I think," +said Bess to me in a tired sort of voice that night, as we sat in the +library after dinner. + +Next day I was inclined to agree with her. "There's a woman and a +little girl heading straight for the poppies," said May, a maid about +the bungalow. I went out on the porch and waited their advent. They +plunged through the pine trees and into the fields, and as the roots +of the first poppies were pulled I called to them. They were about a +hundred feet away. The woman and the little girl turned to the sound +of my voice and looked at me. "Please do not pick the poppies," I +pleaded. They pondered this for a minute; then the woman said +something in an undertone to the little girl, and both backs jack- +knifed as the slaughter recommenced. I shouted, but they had become +suddenly deaf. I screamed, and so fiercely that the little girl +wavered dubiously. And while the woman went on picking I could hear +her in low tones heartening the little girl. + +I recollected a siren whistle with which I was wont to summon Johnny, +the son of my sister. It was a fearsome thing, of a kind to wake the +dead, and I blew and blew, but the jack-knifed backs never unclasped. +I do not mind with men, but I have never particularly favoured +physical encounters with women; yet this woman, who encouraged a +little girl in iniquity, tempted me. + +I went into the bungalow and fetched my rifle. Flourishing it in a +sanguinary manner and scowling fearsomely, I charged upon the +invaders. The little girl fled, screaming, to the shelter of the +pines, but the woman calmly went on picking. She took not the least +notice. I had expected her to run at sight of me, and it was +embarrassing. There was I, charging down the field like a wild bull +upon a woman who would not get out of the way. I could only slow +down, supremely conscious of how ridiculous it all was. At a +distance of ten feet she straightened up and deigned to look at me. +I came to a halt and blushed to the roots of my hair. Perhaps I +really did frighten her (I sometimes try to persuade myself that this +is so), or perhaps she took pity on me; but, at any rate, she stalked +out of my field with great composure, nay, majesty, her arms brimming +with orange and gold. + +Nevertheless, thenceforward I saved my lungs and flourished my rifle. +Also, I made fresh generalizations. To commit robbery women take +advantage of their sex. Men have more respect for property than +women. Men are less insistent in crime than women. And women are +less afraid of guns than men. Likewise, we conquer the earth in +hazard and battle by the virtues of our mothers. We are a race of +land-robbers and sea-robbers, we Anglo-Saxons, and small wonder, when +we suckle at the breasts of a breed of women such as maraud my poppy +field. + +Still the pillage went on. Sirens and gun-flourishings were without +avail. The city folk were great of heart and undismayed, and I noted +the habit of "repeating" was becoming general. What booted it how +often they were driven forth if each time they were permitted to +carry away their ill-gotten plunder? When one has turned the same +person away twice and thrice an emotion arises somewhat akin to +homicide. And when one has once become conscious of this sanguinary +feeling his whole destiny seems to grip hold of him and drag him into +the abyss. More than once I found myself unconsciously pulling the +rifle into position to get a sight on the miserable trespassers. In +my sleep I slew them in manifold ways and threw their carcasses into +the reservoir. Each day the temptation to shoot them in the legs +became more luring, and every day I felt my fate calling to me +imperiously. Visions of the gallows rose up before me, and with the +hemp about my neck I saw stretched out the pitiless future of my +children, dark with disgrace and shame. I became afraid of myself, +and Bess went about with anxious face, privily beseeching my friends +to entice me into taking a vacation. Then, and at the last gasp, +came the thought that saved me: WHY NOT CONFISCATE? If their forays +were bootless, in the nature of things their forays would cease. + +The first to enter my field thereafter was a man. + +I was waiting for him And, oh joy! it was the "Repeater" himself, +smugly complacent with knowledge of past success. I dropped the +rifle negligently across the hollow of my arm and went down to him. + +"I am sorry to trouble you for those poppies," I said in my oiliest +tones; "but really, you know, I must have them." + +He regarded me speechlessly. It must have made a great picture. It +surely was dramatic. With the rifle across my arm and my suave +request still ringing in my ears, I felt like Black Bart, and Jesse +James, and Jack Sheppard, and Robin Hood, and whole generations of +highwaymen. + +"Come, come," I said, a little sharply and in what I imagined was the +true fashion; "I am sorry to inconvenience you, believe me, but I +must have those poppies." + +I absently shifted the gun and smiled. That fetched him. Without a +word he passed them over and turned his toes toward the fence, but no +longer casual and careless was his carriage, I nor did he stoop to +pick the occasional poppy by the way. That was the last of the +"Repeater." I could see by his eyes that he did not like me, and his +back reproached me all the way down the field and out of sight. + +From that day the bungalow has been flooded with poppies. Every vase +and earthen jar is filled with them. They blaze on every mantel and +run riot through all the rooms. I present them to my friends in huge +bunches, and still the kind city folk come and gather more for me. +"Sit down for a moment," I say to the departing guest. And there we +sit in the shade of the porch while aspiring city creatures pluck my +poppies and sweat under the brazen sun. And when their arms are +sufficiently weighted with my yellow glories, I go down with the +rifle over my arm and disburden them. Thus have I become convinced +that every situation has its compensations. + +Confiscation was successful, so far as it went; but I had forgotten +one thing; namely, the vast number of the city folk. Though the old +transgressors came no more, new ones arrived every day, and I found +myself confronted with the titanic task of educating a whole cityful +to the inexpediency of raiding my poppy field. During the process of +disburdening them I was accustomed to explaining my side of the case, +but I soon gave this over. It was a waste of breath. They could not +understand. To one lady, who insinuated that I was miserly, I said: + +"My dear madam, no hardship is worked upon you. Had I not been +parsimonious yesterday and the day before, these poppies would have +been picked by the city hordes of that day and the day before, and +your eyes, which to-day have discovered this field, would have beheld +no poppies at all. The poppies you may not pick to-day are the +poppies I did not permit to be picked yesterday and the day before. +Therefore, believe me, you are denied nothing." + +"But the poppies are here to-day," she said, glaring carnivorously +upon their glow and splendour. + +"I will pay you for them," said a gentleman, at another time. (I had +just relieved him of an armful.) I felt a sudden shame, I know not +why, unless it be that his words had just made clear to me that a +monetary as well as an aesthetic value was attached to my flowers. +The apparent sordidness of my position overwhelmed me, and I said +weakly: "I do not sell my poppies. You may have what you have +picked." But before the week was out I confronted the same gentleman +again. "I will pay you for them," he said. "Yes," I said, "you may +pay me for them. Twenty dollars, please." He gasped, looked at me +searchingly, gasped again, and silently and sadly put the poppies +down. But it remained, as usual, for a woman to attain the sheerest +pitch of audacity. When I declined payment and demanded my plucked +beauties, she refused to give them up. "I picked these poppies," she +said, "and my time is worth money. When you have paid me for my time +you may have them." Her cheeks flamed rebellion, and her face, +withal a pretty one, was set and determined. Now, I was a man of the +hill tribes, and she a mere woman of the city folk, and though it is +not my inclination to enter into details, it is my pleasure to state +that that bunch of poppies subsequently glorified the bungalow and +that the woman departed to the city unpaid. Anyway, they were my +poppies. + +"They are God's poppies," said the Radiant Young Radical, +democratically shocked at sight of me turning city folk out of my +field. And for two weeks she hated me with a deathless hatred. I +sought her out and explained. I explained at length. I told the +story of the poppy as Maeterlinck has told the life of the bee. I +treated the question biologically, psychologically, and +sociologically, I discussed it ethically and aesthetically. I grew +warm over it, and impassioned; and when I had done, she professed +conversion, but in my heart of hearts I knew it to be compassion. I +fled to other friends for consolation. I retold the story of the +poppy. They did not appear supremely interested. I grew excited. +They were surprised and pained. They looked at me curiously. "It +ill-befits your dignity to squabble over poppies," they said. "It is +unbecoming." + +I fled away to yet other friends. I sought vindication. The thing +had become vital, and I needs must put myself right. I felt called +upon to explain, though well knowing that he who explains is lost. I +told the story of the poppy over again. I went into the minutest +details. I added to it, and expanded. I talked myself hoarse, and +when I could talk no more they looked bored. Also, they said insipid +things, and soothful things, and things concerning other things, and +not at all to the point. I was consumed with anger, and there and +then I renounced them all. + +At the bungalow I lie in wait for chance visitors. Craftily I broach +the subject, watching their faces closely the while to detect first +signs of disapprobation, whereupon I empty long-stored vials of wrath +upon their heads. I wrangle for hours with whosoever does not say I +am right. I am become like Guy de Maupassant's old man who picked up +a piece of string. I am incessantly explaining, and nobody will +understand. I have become more brusque in my treatment of the +predatory city folk. No longer do I take delight in their +disburdenment, for it has become an onerous duty, a wearisome and +distasteful task. My friends look askance and murmur pityingly on +the side when we meet in the city. They rarely come to see me now. +They are afraid. I am an embittered and disappointed man, and all +the light seems to have gone out of my life and into my blazing +field. So one pays for things. + +PIEDMONT, CALIFORNIA. +April 1902. + + + +THE SHRINKAGE OF THE PLANET + + + +What a tremendous affair it was, the world of Homer, with its +indeterminate boundaries, vast regions, and immeasurable distances. +The Mediterranean and the Euxine were illimitable stretches of ocean +waste over which years could be spent in endless wandering. On their +mysterious shores were the improbable homes of impossible peoples. +The Great Sea, the Broad Sea, the Boundless Sea; the Ethiopians, +"dwelling far away, the most distant of men," and the Cimmerians, +"covered with darkness and cloud," where "baleful night is spread +over timid mortals." Phonicia was a sore journey, Egypt simply +unattainable, while the Pillars of Hercules marked the extreme edge +of the universe. Ulysses was nine days in sailing from Ismarus the +city of the Ciconians, to the country of the Lotus-eaters--a period +of time which to-day would breed anxiety in the hearts of the +underwriters should it be occupied by the slowest tramp steamer in +traversing the Mediterranean and Black Seas from Gibraltar to +Sebastopol. + +Homer's world, restricted to less than a drummer's circuit, was +nevertheless immense, surrounded by a thin veneer of universe--the +Stream of Ocean. But how it has shrunk! To-day, precisely charted, +weighed, and measured, a thousand times larger than the world of +Homer, it is become a tiny speck, gyrating to immutable law through a +universe the bounds of which have been pushed incalculably back. The +light of Algol shines upon it--a light which travels at one hundred +and ninety thousand miles per second, yet requires forty-seven years +to reach its destination. And the denizens of this puny ball have +come to know that Algol possesses an invisible companion, three and a +quarter millions of miles away, and that the twain move in their +respective orbits at rates of fifty-five and twenty-six miles per +second. They also know that beyond it are great chasms of space, +innumerable worlds, and vast star systems. + +While much of the shrinkage to which the planet has been subjected is +due to the increased knowledge of mathematics and physics, an equal, +if not greater, portion may be ascribed to the perfection of the +means of locomotion and communication. The enlargement of stellar +space, demonstrating with stunning force the insignificance of the +earth, has been negative in its effect; but the quickening of travel +and intercourse, by making the earth's parts accessible and knitting +them together, has been positive. + +The advantage of the animal over the vegetable kingdom is obvious. +The cabbage, should its environment tend to become worse, must live +it out, or die; the rabbit may move on in quest of a better. But, +after all, the swift-footed creatures are circumscribed in their +wanderings. The first large river almost inevitably bars their way, +and certainly the first salt sea becomes an impassable obstacle. +Better locomotion may be classed as one of the prime aims of the old +natural selection; for in that primordial day the race was to the +swift as surely as the battle to the strong. But man, already pre- +eminent in the common domain because of other faculties, was not +content with the one form of locomotion afforded by his lower limbs. +He swam in the sea, and, still better, becoming aware of the buoyant +virtues of wood, learned to navigate its surface. Likewise, from +among the land animals he chose the more likely to bear him and his +burdens. The next step was the domestication of these useful aids. +Here, in its organic significance, natural selection ceased to +concern itself with locomotion. Man had displayed his impatience at +her tedious methods and his own superiority in the hastening of +affairs. Thenceforth he must depend upon himself, and faster- +swimming or faster-running men ceased to be bred. The one, half- +amphibian, breasting the water with muscular arms, could not hope to +overtake or escape an enemy who propelled a fire-hollowed tree trunk +by means of a wooden paddle; nor could the other, trusting to his own +nimbleness, compete with a foe who careered wildly across the plain +on the back of a half-broken stallion. + +So, in that dim day, man took upon himself the task of increasing his +dominion over space and time, and right nobly has he acquitted +himself. Because of it he became a road builder and a bridge +builder; likewise, he wove clumsy sails of rush and matting. At a +very remote period he must also have recognized that force moves +along the line of least resistance, and in virtue thereof, placed +upon his craft rude keels which enabled him to beat to windward in a +seaway. As he excelled in these humble arts, just so did he add to +his power over his less progressive fellows and lay the foundations +for the first glimmering civilizations--crude they were beyond +conception, sporadic and ephemeral, but each formed a necessary part +of the groundwork upon which was to rise the mighty civilization of +our latter-day world. + +Divorced from the general history of man's upward climb, it would +seem incredible that so long a time should elapse between the moment +of his first improvements over nature in the matter of locomotion and +that of the radical changes he was ultimately to compass. The +principles which were his before history was, were his, neither more +nor less, even to the present century. He utilized improved +applications, but the principles of themselves were ever the same, +whether in the war chariots of Achilles and Pharaoh or the mail-coach +and diligence of the European traveller, the cavalry of the Huns or +of Prince Rupert, the triremes and galleys of Greece and Rome or the +East India-men and clipper ships of the last century. But when the +moment came to alter the methods of travel, the change was so +sweeping that it may be safely classed as a revolution. Though the +discovery of steam attaches to the honour of the last century, the +potency of the new power was not felt till the beginning of this. By +1800 small steamers were being used for coasting purposes in England; +1830 witnessed the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway; +while it was not until 1838 that the Atlantic was first crossed by +the steamships Great Western and Sirius. In 1869 the East was made +next-door neighbour to the West. Over almost the same ground where +had toiled the caravans of a thousand generations, the Suez Canal was +dug. Clive, during his first trip, was a year and a half en route +from England to India; were he alive to-day he could journey to +Calcutta in twenty-two days. After reading De Quincey's hyperbolical +description of the English mail-coach, one cannot down the desire to +place that remarkable man on the pilot of the White Mail or of the +Twentieth Century. + +But this tremendous change in the means of locomotion meant far more +than the mere rapid transit of men from place to place. Until then, +though its influence and worth cannot be overestimated, commerce had +eked out a precarious and costly existence. The fortuitous played +too large a part in the trade of men. The mischances by land and +sea, the mistakes and delays, were adverse elements of no mean +proportions. But improved locomotion meant improved carrying, and +commerce received an impetus as remarkable as it was unexpected. In +his fondest fancies James Watt could not have foreseen even the +approximate result of his invention, the Hercules which was to spring +from the puny child of his brain and hands. An illuminating +spectacle, were it possible, would be afforded by summoning him from +among the Shades to a place in the engine-room of an ocean greyhound. +The humblest trimmer would treat him with the indulgence of a child; +while an oiler, a greasy nimbus about his head and in his hand, as +sceptre, a long-snouted can, would indeed appear to him a demigod and +ruler of forces beyond his ken. + +It has ever been the world's dictum that empire and commerce go hand +in hand. In the past the one was impossible without the other. Rome +gathered to herself the wealth of the Mediterranean nations, and it +was only by an unwise distribution of it that she became emasculated +and lost both power and trade. With a just system of economics it is +highly probable that for centuries she could have held back the +welling tide of the Germanic peoples. When upon her ruins rose the +institutions of the conquering Teutons, commerce slipped away, and +with it empire. In the present, empire and commerce have become +interdependent. Such wonders has the industrial revolution wrought +in a few swift decades, and so great has been the shrinkage of the +planet, that the industrial nations have long since felt the +imperative demand for foreign markets. The favoured portions of the +earth are occupied. From their seats in the temperate zones the +militant commercial nations proceed to the exploitation of the +tropics, and for the possession of these they rush to war hot-footed. +Like wolves at the end of a gorge, they wrangle over the fragments. +There are no more planets, no more fragments, and they are yet +hungry. There are no longer Cimmerians and Ethiopians, in wide- +stretching lands, awaiting them. On either hand they confront the +naked poles, and they recoil from unnavigable space to an intenser +struggle among themselves. And all the while the planet shrinks +beneath their grasp. + +Of this struggle one thing may be safely predicated; a commercial +power must be a sea power. Upon the control of the sea depends the +control of trade. Carthage threatened Rome till she lost her navy; +and then for thirteen days the smoke of her burning rose to the +skies, and the ground was ploughed and sown with salt on the site of +her most splendid edifices. The cities of Italy were the world's +merchants till new trade routes were discovered and the dominion of +the sea passed on to the west and fell into other hands. Spain and +Portugal, inaugurating an era of maritime discovery, divided the new +world between them, but gave way before a breed of sea-rovers, who, +after many generations of attachment to the soil, had returned to +their ancient element. With the destruction of her Armada Spain's +colossal dream of colonial empire passed away. Against the new power +Holland strove in vain, and when France acknowledged the superiority +of the Briton upon the sea, she at the same time relinquished her +designs upon the world. Hampered by her feeble navy, her contest for +supremacy upon the land was her last effort and with the passing of +Napoleon she retired within herself to struggle with herself as best +she might. For fifty years England held undisputed sway upon the +sea, controlled markets, and domineered trade, laying, during that +period, the foundations of her empire. Since then other naval powers +have arisen, their attitudes bearing significantly upon the future; +for they have learned that the mastery of the world belongs to the +masters of the sea. + +That many of the phases of this world shrinkage are pathetic, goes +without question. There is much to condemn in the rise of the +economic over the imaginative spirit, much for which the energetic +Philistine can never atone. Perhaps the deepest pathos of all may be +found in the spectacle of John Ruskin weeping at the profanation of +the world by the vandalism of the age. Steam launches violate the +sanctity of the Venetian canals; where Xerxes bridged the Hellespont +ply the filthy funnels of our modern shipping; electric cars run in +the shadow of the pyramids; and it was only the other day that Lord +Kitchener was in a railroad wreck near the site of ancient Luxor. +But there is always the other side. If the economic man has defiled +temples and despoiled nature, he has also preserved. He has policed +the world and parked it, reduced the dangers of life and limb, made +the tenure of existence less precarious, and rendered a general +relapse of society impossible. There can never again be an +intellectual holocaust, such as the burning of the Alexandrian +library. Civilizations may wax and wane, but the totality of +knowledge cannot decrease. With the possible exception of a few +trade secrets, arts and sciences may be discarded, but they can never +be lost. And these things must remain true until the end of man's +time upon the earth. + +Up to yesterday communication for any distance beyond the sound of +the human voice or the sight of the human eye was bound up with +locomotion. A letter presupposed a carrier. The messenger started +with the message, and he could not but avail himself of the +prevailing modes of travel. If the voyage to Australia required four +months, four months were required for communication; by no known +means could this time be lessened. But with the advent of the +telegraph and telephone, communication and locomotion were divorced. +In a few hours, at most, there could be performed what by the old way +would have required months. In 1837 the needle telegraph was +invented, and nine years later the Electric Telegraph Company was +formed for the purpose of bringing it into general use. Government +postal systems also came into being, later to consolidate into an +international union and to group the nations of the earth into a +local neighbourhood. The effects of all this are obvious, and no +fitter illustration may be presented than the fact that to-day, in +the matter of communication, the Klondike is virtually nearer to +Boston than was Bunker Hill in the time of Warren. + +A contemporaneous and remarkable shrinkage of a vast stretch of +territory may be instanced in the Northland. From its rise at Lake +Linderman the Yukon runs twenty-five hundred miles to Bering Sea, +traversing an almost unknown region, the remote recesses of which had +never felt the moccasined foot of the pathfinder. At occasional +intervals men wallowed into its dismal fastnesses, or emerged gaunt +and famine-worn. But in the fall of 1896 a great gold strike was +made--greater than any since the days of California and Australia; +yet, so rude were the means of communication, nearly a year elapsed +before the news of it reached the eager ear of the world. Passionate +pilgrims disembarked their outfits at Dyea. Over the terrible +Chilcoot Pass the trail led to the lakes, thirty miles away. +Carriage was yet in its most primitive stage, the road builder and +bridge builder unheard of. With heavy packs upon their backs men +plunged waist-deep into hideous quagmires, bridged mountain torrents +by felling trees across them, toiled against the precipitous slopes +of the ice-worn mountains, and crossed the dizzy faces of innumerable +glaciers. When, after incalculable toil they reached the lakes, they +went into the woods, sawed pine trees into lumber by hand, and built +it into boats. In these, overloaded, unseaworthy, they battled down +the long chain of lakes. Within the memory of the writer there +lingers the picture of a sheltered nook on the shores of Lake Le +Barge, in which half a thousand gold seekers lay storm-bound. Day +after day they struggled against the seas in the teeth of a northerly +gale, and night after night returned to their camps, repulsed but not +disheartened. At the rapids they ran their boats through, hit or +miss, and after infinite toil and hardship, on the breast of a +jarring ice flood, arrived at the Klondike. From the beach at Dyea +to the eddy below the Barracks at Dawson, they had paid for their +temerity the tax of human life demanded by the elements. A year +later, so greatly had the country shrunk, the tourist, on +disembarking from the ocean steamship, took his seat in a modern +railway coach. A few hours later, at Lake Bennet, he stepped aboard +a commodious river steamer. At the rapids he rode around on a +tramway to take passage on another steamer below. And in a few hours +more he was in Dawson, without having once soiled the lustre of his +civilized foot-gear. Did he wish to communicate with the outside +world, he strolled into the telegraph office. A few short months +before he would have written a letter and deemed himself favoured +above mortals were it delivered within the year. + +From man's drawing the world closer and closer together, his own +affairs and institutions have consolidated. Concentration may typify +the chief movement of the age--concentration, classification, order; +the reduction of friction between the parts of the social organism. +The urban tendency of the rural populations led to terrible +congestion in the great cities. There was stifling and impure air, +and lo, rapid transit at once attacked the evil. Every great city +has become but the nucleus of a greater city which surrounds it; the +one the seat of business, the other the seat of domestic happiness. +Between the two, night and morning, by electric road, steam railway, +and bicycle path, ebbs and flows the middle-class population. And in +the same direction lies the remedy for the tenement evil. In the +cleansing country air the slum cannot exist. Improvement in road- +beds and the means of locomotion, a tremor of altruism, a little +legislation, and the city by day will sleep in the country by night. + +What a play-ball has this planet of ours become! Steam has made its +parts accessible and drawn them closer together. The telegraph +annihilates space and time. Each morning every part knows what every +other part is thinking, contemplating, or doing. A discovery in a +German laboratory is being demonstrated in San Francisco within +twenty-four hours. A book written in South Africa is published by +simultaneous copyright in every English-speaking country, and on the +following day is in the hands of the translators. The death of an +obscure missionary in China, or of a whisky smuggler in the South +Seas, is served up, the world over, with the morning toast. The +wheat output of Argentine or the gold of Klondike is known wherever +men meet and trade. Shrinkage or centralization has been such that +the humblest clerk in any metropolis may place his hand on the pulse +of the world. And because of all this, everywhere is growing order +and organization. The church, the state; men, women, and children; +the criminal and the law, the honest man and the thief, industry and +commerce, capital and labour, the trades and the professions, the +arts and the sciences--all are organizing for pleasure, profit, +policy, or intellectual pursuit. They have come to know the strength +of numbers, solidly phalanxed and driving onward with singleness of +purpose. These purposes may be various and many, but one and all, +ever discovering new mutual interests and objects, obeying a law +which is beyond them, these petty aggregations draw closer together, +forming greater aggregations and congeries of aggregations. And +these, in turn, vaguely merging each into each, present glimmering +adumbrations of the coming human solidarity which shall be man's +crowning glory. + +OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA. +January 1900. + + + +THE HOUSE BEAUTIFUL + + + +Speaking of homes, I am building one now, and I venture to assert +that very few homes have received more serious thought in the +planning. Let me tell you about it. In the first place, there will +be no grounds whatever, no fences, lawns, nor flowers. Roughly, the +dimensions will be forty-five feet by fifteen. That is, it will be +fifteen feet wide at its widest--and, if you will pardon the bull, it +will be narrower than it is wide. + +The details must submit to the general plan of economy. There will +be no veranda, no porch entrances, no grand staircases. I'm ashamed +to say how steep the stairways are going to be. The bedrooms will be +seven by seven, and one will be even smaller. A bedroom is only good +to sleep in, anyway. There will be no hallway, thank goodness. +Rooms were made to go through. Why a separate passage for traffic? + +The bath-room will be a trifle larger than the size of the smallest +bath-tub--it won't require so much work to keep in order. The +kitchen won't be very much larger, but this will make it easy for the +cook. In place of a drawing-room, there will be a large living-room- +-fourteen by six. The walls of this room will be covered with books, +and it can serve as library and smoking-room as well. Then, the +floor-space not being occupied, we shall use the room as a dining- +room. Incidentally, such a room not being used after bedtime, the +cook and the second boy can sleep in it. One thing that I am +temperamentally opposed to is waste, and why should all this splendid +room be wasted at night when we do not occupy it? + +My ideas are cramped, you say?--Oh, I forgot to tell you that this +home I am describing is to be a floating home, and that my wife and I +are to journey around the world in it for the matter of seven years +or more. I forgot also to state that there will be an engine-room in +it for a seventy-horse-power engine, a dynamo, storage batteries, +etc.; tanks for water to last long weeks at sea; space for fifteen +hundred gallons of gasolene, fire extinguishers, and life-preservers; +and a great store-room for food, spare sails, anchors, hawsers, +tackles, and a thousand and one other things. + +Since I have not yet built my land house, I haven't got beyond a few +general ideas, and in presenting them I feel as cocksure as the +unmarried woman who writes the column in the Sunday supplement on how +to rear children. My first idea about a house is that it should be +built to live in. Throughout the house, in all the building of it, +this should be the paramount idea. It must be granted that this idea +is lost sight of by countless persons who build houses apparently for +every purpose under the sun except to live in them. + +Perhaps it is because of the practical life I have lived that I +worship utility and have come to believe that utility and beauty +should be one, and that there is no utility that need not be +beautiful. What finer beauty than strength--whether it be airy +steel, or massive masonry, or a woman's hand? A plain black leather +strap is beautiful. It is all strength and all utility, and it is +beautiful. It efficiently performs work in the world, and it is good +to look upon. Perhaps it is because it is useful that it is +beautiful. I do not know. I sometimes wonder. + +A boat on the sea is beautiful. Yet it is not built for beauty. +Every graceful line of it is a utility, is designed to perform work. +It is created for the express purpose of dividing the water in front +of it, of gliding over the water beneath it, of leaving the water +behind it--and all with the least possible wastage of stress and +friction. It is not created for the purpose of filling the eye with +beauty. It is created for the purpose of moving through the sea and +over the sea with the smallest resistance and the greatest stability; +yet, somehow, it does fill the eye with its beauty. And in so far as +a boat fails in its purpose, by that much does it diminish in beauty. + +I am still a long way from the house I have in my mind some day to +build, yet I have arrived somewhere. I have discovered, to my own +satisfaction at any rate, that beauty and utility should be one. In +applying this general idea to the building of a house, it may be +stated, in another and better way; namely, construction and +decoration must be one. This idea is more important than the +building of the house, for without the idea the house so built is +certain to be an insult to intelligence and beauty-love. + +I bought a house in a hurry in the city of Oakland some time ago. I +do not live in it. I sleep in it half a dozen times a year. I do +not love the house. I am hurt every time I look at it. No drunken +rowdy or political enemy can insult me so deeply as that house does. +Let me tell you why. It is an ordinary two-storey frame house. +After it was built, the criminal that constructed it nailed on, at +the corners perpendicularly, some two-inch fluted planks. These +planks rise the height of the house, and to a drunken man have the +appearance of fluted columns. To complete the illusion in the eyes +of the drunken man, the planks are topped with wooden Ionic capitals, +nailed on, and in, I may say, bas-relief. + +When I analyze the irritation these fluted planks cause in me, I find +the reason in the fact that the first rule for building a house has +been violated. These decorative planks are no part of the +construction. They have no use, no work to perform. They are +plastered gawds that tell lies that nobody believes. A column is +made for the purpose of supporting weight; this is its use. A +column, when it is a utility, is beautiful. The fluted wooden +columns nailed on outside my house are not utilities. They are not +beautiful. They are nightmares. They not only support no weight, +but they themselves are a weight that drags upon the supports of the +house. Some day, when I get time, one of two things will surely +happen. Either I'll go forth and murder the man who perpetrated the +atrocity, or else I'll take an axe and chop off the lying, fluted +planks. + +A thing must be true, or it is not beautiful, any more than a painted +wanton is beautiful, any more than a sky-scraper is beautiful that is +intrinsically and structurally light and that has a false massiveness +of pillars plastered on outside. The true sky-scraper IS beautiful-- +and this is the reluctant admission of a man who dislikes humanity- +festering cities. The true sky-scraper is beautiful, and it is +beautiful in so far as it is true. In its construction it is light +and airy, therefore in its appearance it must be light and airy. It +dare not, if it wishes to be beautiful, lay claim to what it is not. +And it should not bulk on the city-scape like Leviathan; it should +rise and soar, light and airy and fairylike. + +Man is an ethical animal--or, at least, he is more ethical than any +other animal. Wherefore he has certain yearnings for honesty. And +in no way can these yearnings be more thoroughly satisfied than by +the honesty of the house in which he lives and passes the greater +part of his life. + +They that dwelt in San Francisco were dishonest. They lied and +cheated in their business life (like the dwellers in all cities), and +because they lied and cheated in their business life, they lied and +cheated in the buildings they erected. Upon the tops of the simple, +severe walls of their buildings they plastered huge projecting +cornices. These cornices were not part of the construction. They +made believe to be part of the construction, and they were lies. The +earth wrinkled its back for twenty-eight seconds, and the lying +cornices crashed down as all lies are doomed to crash down. In this +particular instance, the lies crashed down upon the heads of the +people fleeing from their reeling habitations, and many were killed. +They paid the penalty of dishonesty. + +Not alone should the construction of a house be truthful and honest, +but the material must be honest. They that lived in San Francisco +were dishonest in the material they used. They sold one quality of +material and delivered another quality of material. They always +delivered an inferior quality. There is not one case recorded in the +business history of San Francisco where a contractor or builder +delivered a quality superior to the one sold. A seven-million-dollar +city hall became thirty cents in twenty-eight seconds. Because the +mortar was not honest, a thousand walls crashed down and scores of +lives were snuffed out. There is something, after all, in the +contention of a few religionists that the San Francisco earthquake +was a punishment for sin. It was a punishment for sin; but it was +not for sin against God. The people of San Francisco sinned against +themselves. + +An honest house tells the truth about itself. There is a house here +in Glen Ellen. It stands on a corner. It is built of beautiful red +stone. Yet it is not beautiful. On three sides the stone is joined +and pointed. The fourth side is the rear. It faces the back yard. +The stone is not pointed. It is all a smudge of dirty mortar, with +here and there bricks worked in when the stone gave out. The house +is not what it seems. It is a lie. All three of the walls spend +their time lying about the fourth wall. They keep shouting out that +the fourth wall is as beautiful as they. If I lived long in that +house I should not be responsible for my morals. The house is like a +man in purple and fine linen, who hasn't had a bath for a month. If +I lived long in that house I should become a dandy and cut out +bathing--for the same reason, I suppose, that an African is black and +that an Eskimo eats whale-blubber. I shall not build a house like +that house. + +Last year I started to build a barn. A man who was a liar undertook +to do the stonework and concrete work for me. He could not tell the +truth to my face; he could not tell the truth in his work. I was +building for posterity. The concrete foundations were four feet wide +and sunk three and one-half feet into the earth. The stone walls +were two feet thick and nine feet high. Upon them were to rest the +great beams that were to carry all the weight of hay and the forty +tons of the roof. The man who was a liar made beautiful stone walls. +I used to stand alongside of them and love them. I caressed their +massive strength with my hands. I thought about them in bed, before +I went to sheep. And they were lies. + +Came the earthquake. Fortunately the rest of the building of the +barn had been postponed. The beautiful stone walls cracked in all +directions. I started, to repair, and discovered the whole enormous +lie. The walls were shells. On each face were beautiful, massive +stones--on edge. The inside was hollow. This hollow in some places +was filled with clay and loose gravel. In other places it was filled +with air and emptiness, with here and there a piece of kindling-wood +or dry-goods box, to aid in the making of the shell. The walls were +lies. They were beautiful, but they were not useful. Construction +and decoration had been divorced. The walls were all decoration. +They hadn't any construction in them. "As God lets Satan live," I +let that lying man live, but--I have built new walls from the +foundation up. + +And now to my own house beautiful, which I shall build some seven or +ten years from now. I have a few general ideas about it. It must be +honest in construction, material, and appearance. If any feature of +it, despite my efforts, shall tell lies, I shall remove that feature. +Utility and beauty must be indissolubly wedded. Construction and +decoration must be one. If the particular details keep true to these +general ideas, all will be well. + +I have not thought of many details. But here are a few. Take the +bath-room, for instance. It shall be as beautiful as any room in the +house, just as it will be as useful. The chance is, that it will be +the most expensive room in the house. Upon that we are resolved-- +even if we are compelled to build it first, and to live in a tent +till we can get more money to go on with the rest of the house. In +the bath-room no delights of the bath shall be lacking. Also, a +large part of the expensiveness will be due to the use of material +that will make it easy to keep the bathroom clean and in order. Why +should a servant toil unduly that my body may be clean? On the other +hand, the honesty of my own flesh, and the square dealing I give it, +are more important than all the admiration of my friends for +expensive decorative schemes and magnificent trivialities. More +delightful to me is a body that sings than a stately and costly grand +staircase built for show. Not that I like grand staircases less, but +that I like bath-rooms more. + +I often regret that I was born in this particular period of the +world. In the matter of servants, how I wish I were living in the +golden future of the world, where there will be no servants--naught +but service of love. But in the meantime, living here and now, being +practical, understanding the rationality and the necessity of the +division of labour, I accept servants. But such acceptance does not +justify me in lack of consideration for them. In my house beautiful +their rooms shall not be dens and holes. And on this score I foresee +a fight with the architect. They shall have bath-rooms, toilet +conveniences, and comforts for their leisure time and human life--if +I have to work Sundays to pay for it. Even under the division of +labour I recognize that no man has a right to servants who will not +treat them as humans compounded of the same clay as himself, with +similar bundles of nerves and desires, contradictions, +irritabilities, and lovablenesses. Heaven in the drawing-room and +hell in the kitchen is not the atmosphere for a growing child to +breathe--nor an adult either. One of the great and selfish +objections to chattel slavery was the effect on the masters +themselves. + +And because of the foregoing, one chief aim in the building of my +house beautiful will be to have a house that will require the minimum +of trouble and work to keep clean and orderly. It will be no spick +and span and polished house, with an immaculateness that testifies to +the tragedy of drudge. I live in California where the days are warm. +I'd prefer that the servants had three hours to go swimming (or +hammocking) than be compelled to spend those three hours in keeping +the house spick and span. Therefore it devolves upon me to build a +house that can be kept clean and orderly without the need of those +three hours. + +But underneath the spick and span there is something more dreadful +than the servitude of the servants. This dreadful thing is the +philosophy of the spick and span. In Korea the national costume is +white. Nobleman and coolie dress alike in white. It is hell on the +women who do the washing, but there is more in it than that. The +coolie cannot keep his white clothes clean. He toils and they get +dirty. The dirty white of his costume is the token of his +inferiority. The nobleman's dress is always spotless white. It +means that he doesn't have to work. But it means, further, that +somebody else has to work for him. His superiority is not based upon +song-craft nor state-craft, upon the foot-races he has run nor the +wrestlers he has thrown. His superiority is based upon the fact that +he doesn't have to work, and that others are compelled to work for +him. And so the Korean drone flaunts his clean white clothes, for +the same reason that the Chinese flaunts his monstrous finger-nails, +and the white man and woman flaunt the spick-and-spanness of their +spotless houses. + +There will be hardwood floors in my house beautiful. But these +floors will not be polished mirrors nor skating-rinks. They will be +just plain and common hardwood floors. Beautiful carpets are not +beautiful to the mind that knows they are filled with germs and +bacilli. They are no more beautiful than the hectic flush of fever, +or the silvery skin of leprosy. Besides, carpets enslave. A thing +that enslaves is a monster, and monsters are not beautiful. + +The fireplaces in my house will be many and large. Small fires and +cold weather mean hermetically-sealed rooms and a jealous cherishing +of heated and filth-laden air. With large fire-places and generous +heat, some windows may be open all the time, and without hardship all +the windows can be opened every little while and the rooms flushed +with clean pure air. I have nearly died in the stagnant, rotten air +of other people's houses--especially in the Eastern states. In Maine +I have slept in a room with storm-windows immovable, and with one +small pane five inches by six, that could be opened. Did I say +slept? I panted with my mouth in the opening and blasphemed till I +ruined all my chances of heaven. + +For countless thousands of years my ancestors have lived and died and +drawn all their breaths in the open air. It is only recently that we +have begun to live in houses. The change is a hardship, especially +on the lungs. I've got only one pair of lungs, and I haven't the +address of any repair-shop. Wherefore I stick by the open air as +much as possible. For this reason my house will have large verandas, +and, near to the kitchen, there will be a veranda dining-room. Also, +there will be a veranda fireplace, where we can breathe fresh air and +be comfortable when the evenings are touched with frost. + +I have a plan for my own bedroom. I spend long hours in bed, +reading, studying, and working. I have tried sleeping in the open, +but the lamp attracts all the creeping, crawling, butting, flying, +fluttering things to the pages of my book, into my ears and blankets, +and down the back of my neck. So my bedroom shall be indoors. + +But it will be, not be of, indoors. Three sides of it will be open. +The fourth side will divide it from the rest of the house. The three +sides will be screened against the creeping, fluttering things, but +not against the good fresh air and all the breezes that blow. For +protection against storm, to keep out the driving rain, there will be +a sliding glass, so made that when not in use it will occupy small +space and shut out very little air. + +There is little more to say about this house. I am to build seven or +ten years from now. There is plenty of time in which to work up all +the details in accord with the general principles I have laid down. +It will be a usable house and a beautiful house, wherein the +aesthetic guest can find comfort for his eyes as well as for his +body. It will be a happy house--or else I'll burn it down. It will +be a house of air and sunshine and laughter. These three cannot be +divorced. Laughter without air and sunshine becomes morbid, +decadent, demoniac. I have in me a thousand generations. Laughter +that is decadent is not good for these thousand generations. + +GLEN ELLEN, CALIFORNIA. +July 1906. + + + +THE GOLD HUNTERS OF THE NORTH + + + +"Where the Northern Lights come down a' nights to dance on the +houseless snow." + + +"Ivan, I forbid you to go farther in this undertaking. Not a word +about this, or we are all undone. Let the Americans and the English +know that we have gold in these mountains, then we are ruined. They +will rush in on us by thousands, and crowd us to the wall--to the +death." + +So spoke the old Russian governor, Baranov, at Sitka, in 1804, to one +of his Slavonian hunters, who had just drawn from his pocket a +handful of golden nuggets. Full well Baranov, fur trader and +autocrat, understood and feared the coming of the sturdy, indomitable +gold hunters of Anglo-Saxon stock. And thus he suppressed the news, +as did the governors that followed him, so that when the United +States bought Alaska in 1867, she bought it for its furs and +fisheries, without a thought of its treasures underground. + +No sooner, however, had Alaska become American soil than thousands of +our adventurers were afoot and afloat for the north. They were the +men of "the days of gold," the men of California, Fraser, Cassiar, +and Cariboo. With the mysterious, infinite faith of the prospector, +they believed that the gold streak, which ran through the Americas +from Cape Horn to California, did not "peter out" in British +Columbia. That it extended farther north, was their creed, and +"Farther North" became their cry. No time was lost, and in the early +seventies, leaving the Treadwell and the Silver Bow Basin to be +discovered by those who came after, they went plunging on into the +white unknown. North, farther north, they struggled, till their +picks rang in the frozen beaches of the Arctic Ocean, and they +shivered by driftwood fires on the ruby sands of Nome. + +But first, in order that this colossal adventure may be fully +grasped, the recentness and the remoteness of Alaska must be +emphasized. The interior of Alaska and the contiguous Canadian +territory was a vast wilderness. Its hundreds of thousands of square +miles were as dark and chartless as Darkest Africa. In 1847, when +the first Hudson Bay Company agents crossed over the Rockies from the +Mackenzie to poach on the preserves of the Russian Bear, they thought +that the Yukon flowed north and emptied into the Arctic Ocean. +Hundreds of miles below, however, were the outposts of the Russian +traders. They, in turn, did not know where the Yukon had its source, +and it was not till later that Russ and Saxon learned that it was the +same mighty stream they were occupying. And a little over ten years +later, Frederick Whymper voyaged up the Great Bend to Fort Yukon +under the Arctic Circle. + +From fort to fort, from York Factory on Hudson's Bay to Fort Yukon in +Alaska, the English traders transported their goods--a round trip +requiring from a year to a year and a half. It was one of their +deserters, in 1867, escaping down the Yukon to Bering Sea, who was +the first white man to make the North-west Passage by land from the +Atlantic to the Pacific. It was at this time that the first accurate +description of a fair portion of the Yukon was given by Dr. W. H. +Ball, of the Smithsonian Institution. But even he had never seen its +source, and it was not given him to appreciate the marvel of that +great natural highway. + +No more remarkable river in this one particular is there in the +world; taking its rise in Crater Lake, thirty miles from the ocean, +the Yukon flows for twenty-five hundred miles, through the heart of +the continent, ere it empties into the sea. A portage of thirty +miles, and then a highway for traffic one tenth the girth of the +earth! + +As late as 1869, Frederick Whymper, fellow of the Royal Geographical +Society, stated on hearsay that the Chilcat Indians were believed +occasionally to make a short portage across the Coast Range from salt +water to the head-reaches of the Yukon. But it remained for a gold +hunter, questing north, ever north, to be first of all white men to +cross the terrible Chilcoot Pass, and tap the Yukon at its head. +This happened only the other day, but the man has become a dim +legendary hero. Holt was his name, and already the mists of +antiquity have wrapped about the time of his passage. 1872, 1874, +and 1878 are the dates variously given--a confusion which time will +never clear. + +Holt penetrated as far as the Hootalinqua, and on his return to the +coast reported coarse gold. The next recorded adventurer is one +Edward Bean, who in 1880 headed a party of twenty-five miners from +Sitka into the uncharted land. And in the same year, other parties +(now forgotten, for who remembers or ever hears the wanderings of the +gold hunters?) crossed the Pass, built boats out of the standing +timber, and drifted down the Yukon and farther north. + +And then, for a quarter of a century, the unknown and unsung heroes +grappled with the frost, and groped for the gold they were sure lay +somewhere among the shadows of the Pole. In the struggle with the +terrifying and pitiless natural forces, they returned to the +primitive, garmenting themselves in the skins of wild beasts, and +covering their feet with the walrus mucluc and the moosehide +moccasin. They forgot the world and its ways, as the world had +forgotten them; killed their meat as they found it; feasted in plenty +and starved in famine, and searched unceasingly for the yellow lure. +They crisscrossed the land in every direction, threaded countless +unmapped rivers in precarious birch-bark canoes, and with snowshoes +and dogs broke trail through thousands of miles of silent white, +where man had never been. They struggled on, under the aurora +borealis or the midnight sun, through temperatures that ranged from +one hundred degrees above zero to eighty degrees below, living, in +the grim humour of the land, on "rabbit tracks and salmon bellies." + +To-day, a man may wander away from the trail for a hundred days, and +just as he is congratulating himself that at last he is treading +virgin soil, he will come upon some ancient and dilapidated cabin, +and forget his disappointment in wonder at the man who reared the +logs. Still, if one wanders from the trail far enough and deviously +enough, he may chance upon a few thousand square miles which he may +have all to himself. On the other hand, no matter how far and how +deviously he may wander, the possibility always remains that he may +stumble, not alone upon a deserted cabin, but upon an occupied one. + +As an instance of this, and of the vastness of the land, no better +case need be cited than that of Harry Maxwell. An able seaman, +hailing from New Bedford, Massachusetts, his ship, the brig Fannie E. +Lee, was pinched in the Arctic ice. Passing from whaleship to +whaleship, he eventually turned up at Point Barrow in the summer of +1880. He was NORTH of the Northland, and from this point of vantage +he determined to pull south of the interior in search of gold. +Across the mountains from Fort Macpherson, and a couple of hundred +miles eastward from the Mackenzie, he built a cabin and established +his headquarters. And here, for nineteen continuous years, he hunted +his living and prospected. He ranged from the never opening ice to +the north as far south as the Great Slave Lake. Here he met +Warburton Pike, the author and explorer--an incident he now looks +back upon as chief among the few incidents of his solitary life. + +When this sailor-miner had accumulated $20,000 worth of dust he +concluded that civilization was good enough for him, and proceeded +"to pull for the outside." From the Mackenzie he went up the Little +Peel to its headwaters, found a pass through the mountains, nearly +starved to death on his way across to the Porcupine Hills, and +eventually came out on the Yukon River, where he learned for the +first time of the Yukon gold hunters and their discoveries. Yet for +twenty years they had been working there, his next-door neighbours, +virtually, in a land of such great spaces. At Victoria, British +Columbia, previous to his going east over the Canadian Pacific (the +existence of which he had just learned), he pregnantly remarked that +he had faith in the Mackenzie watershed, and that he was going back +after he had taken in the World's Fair and got a whiff or two of +civilization. + +Faith! It may or may not remove mountains, but it has certainly made +the Northland. No Christian martyr ever possessed greater faith than +did the pioneers of Alaska. They never doubted the bleak and barren +land. Those who came remained, and more ever came. They could not +leave. They "knew" the gold was there, and they persisted. Somehow, +the romance of the land and the quest entered into their blood, the +spell of it gripped hold of them and would not let them go. Man +after man of them, after the most terrible privation and suffering, +shook the muck of the country from his moccasins and departed for +good. But the following spring always found him drifting down the +Yukon on the tail of the ice jams. + +Jack McQuestion aptly vindicates the grip of the North. After a +residence of thirty years he insists that the climate is delightful, +and declares that whenever he makes a trip to the States he is +afflicted with home-sickness. Needless to say, the North still has +him and will keep tight hold of him until he dies. In fact, for him +to die elsewhere would be inartistic and insincere. Of three of the +"pioneer" pioneers, Jack McQuestion alone survives. In 1871, from +one to seven years before Holt went over Chilcoot, in the company of +Al Mayo and Arthur Harper, McQuestion came into the Yukon from the +North-west over the Hudson Bay Company route from the Mackenzie to +Fort Yukon. The names of these three men, as their lives, are bound +up in the history of the country, and so long as there be histories +and charts, that long will the Mayo and McQuestion rivers and the +Harper and Ladue town site of Dawson be remembered. As an agent of +the Alaska Commercial Company, in 1873, McQuestion built Fort +Reliance, six miles below the Klondike River. In 1898 the writer met +Jack McQuestion at Minook, on the Lower Yukon. The old pioneer, +though grizzled, was hale and hearty, and as optimistic as when he +first journeyed into the land along the path of the Circle. And no +man more beloved is there in all the North. There will be great +sadness there when his soul goes questing on over the Last Divide-- +"farther north," perhaps--who can tell? + +Frank Dinsmore is a fair sample of the men who made the Yukon +country. A Yankee, born, in Auburn, Maine, the Wanderlust early laid +him by the heels, and at sixteen he was heading west on the trail +that led "farther north." He prospected in the Black Hills, Montana, +and in the Coeur d'Alene, then heard a whisper of the North, and went +up to Juneau on the Alaskan Panhandle. But the North still +whispered, and more insistently, and he could not rest till he went +over Chilcoot, and down into the mysterious Silent Land. This was in +1882, and he went down the chain of lakes, down the Yukon, up the +Pelly, and tried his luck on the bars of McMillan River. In the +fall, a perambulating skeleton, he came back over the Pass in a +blizzard, with a rag of shirt, tattered overalls, and a handful of +raw flour. + +But he was unafraid. That winter he worked for a grubstake in +Juneau, and the next spring found the heels of his moccasins turned +towards salt water and his face toward Chilcoot. This was repeated +the next spring, and the following spring, and the spring after that, +until, in 1885, he went over the Pass for good. There was to be no +return for him until he found the gold he sought. + +The years came and went, but he remained true to his resolve. For +eleven long years, with snow-shoe and canoe, pickaxe and gold-pan, he +wrote out his life on the face of the land. Upper Yukon, Middle +Yukon, Lower Yukon--he prospected faithfully and well. His bed was +anywhere. Winter or summer he carried neither tent nor stove, and +his six-pound sleeping-robe of Arctic hare was the warmest covering +he was ever known to possess. Rabbit tracks and salmon bellies were +his diet with a vengeance, for he depended largely on his rifle and +fishing-tackle. His endurance equalled his courage. On a wager he +lifted thirteen fifty-pound sacks of flour and walked off with them. +Winding up a seven-hundred-mile trip on the ice with a forty-mile +run, he came into camp at six o'clock in the evening and found a +"squaw dance" under way. He should have been exhausted. Anyway, his +muclucs were frozen stiff. But he kicked them off and danced all +night in stocking-feet. + +At the last fortune came to him. The quest was ended, and he +gathered up his gold and pulled for the outside. And his own end was +as fitting as that of his quest. Illness came upon him down in San +Francisco, and his splendid life ebbed slowly out as he sat in his +big easy-chair, in the Commercial Hotel, the "Yukoner's home." The +doctors came, discussed, consulted, the while he matured more plans +of Northland adventure; for the North still gripped him and would not +let him go. He grew weaker day by day, but each day he said, "To- +morrow I'll be all right." Other old-timers, "out on furlough,", +came to see him. They wiped their eyes and swore under their +breaths, then entered and talked largely and jovially about going in +with him over the trail when spring came. But there in the big easy- +chair it was that his Long Trail ended, and the life passed out of +him still fixed on "farther north." + +From the time of the first white man, famine loomed black and gloomy +over the land. It was chronic with the Indians and Eskimos; it +became chronic with the gold hunters. It was ever present, and so it +came about that life was commonly expressed in terms of "grub"--was +measured by cups of flour. Each winter, eight months long, the +heroes of the frost faced starvation. It became the custom, as fall +drew on, for partners to cut the cards or draw straws to determine +which should hit the hazardous trail for salt water, and which should +remain and endure the hazardous darkness of the Arctic night. + +There was never food enough to winter the whole population. The A. +C. Company worked hard to freight up the grub, but the gold hunters +came faster and dared more audaciously. When the A. C. Company added +a new stern-wheeler to its fleet, men said, "Now we shall have +plenty." But more gold hunters poured in over the passes to the +south, more voyageurs and fur traders forced a way through the +Rockies from the east, more seal hunters and coast adventurers poled +up from Bering Sea on the west, more sailors deserted from the whale- +ships to the north, and they all starved together in right brotherly +fashion. More steamers were added, but the tide of prospectors +welled always in advance. Then the N. A. T. & T. Company came upon +the scene, and both companies added steadily to their fleets. But it +was the same old story; famine would not depart. In fact, famine +grew with the population, till, in the winter of 1897-1898, the +United States government was forced to equip a reindeer relief +expedition. As of old, that winter partners cut the cards and drew +straws, and remained or pulled for salt water as chance decided. +They were wise of old time, and had learned never to figure on relief +expeditions. They had heard of such things, but no mortal man of +them had ever laid eyes on one. + +The hard luck of other mining countries pales into insignificance +before the hard luck of the North. And as for the hardship, it +cannot be conveyed by printed page or word of mouth. No man may know +who has not undergone. And those who have undergone, out of their +knowledge, claim that in the making of the world God grew tired, and +when He came to the last barrowload, "just dumped it anyhow," and +that was how Alaska happened to be. While no adequate conception of +the life can be given to the stay-at-home, yet the men themselves +sometimes give a clue to its rigours. One old Minook miner testified +thus: "Haven't you noticed the expression on the faces of us +fellows? You can tell a new-comer the minute you see him; he looks +alive, enthusiastic, perhaps jolly. We old miners are always grave, +unless were drinking." + +Another old-timer, out of the bitterness of a "home-mood," imagined +himself a Martian astronomer explaining to a friend, with the aid of +a powerful telescope, the institutions of the earth. "There are the +continents," he indicated; "and up there near the polar cap is a +country, frigid and burning and lonely and apart, called Alaska. +Now, in other countries and states there are great insane asylums, +but, though crowded, they are insufficient; so there is Alaska given +over to the worst cases. Now and then some poor insane creature +comes to his senses in those awful solitudes, and, in wondering joy, +escapes from the land and hastens back to his home. But most cases +are incurable. They just suffer along, poor devils, forgetting their +former life quite, or recalling it like a dream." Again the grip of +the North, which will not let one go--for "MOST CASES ARE INCURABLE." + +For a quarter of a century the battle with frost and famine went on. +The very severity of the struggle with Nature seemed to make the gold +hunters kindly toward one another. The latch-string was always out, +and the open hand was the order of the day. Distrust was unknown, +and it was no hyperbole for a man to take the last shirt off his back +for a comrade. Most significant of all, perhaps, in this connection, +was the custom of the old days, that when August the first came +around, the prospectors who had failed to locate "pay dirt" were +permitted to go upon the ground of their more fortunate comrades and +take out enough for the next year's grub-stake. + +In 1885 rich bar-washing was done on the Stewart River, and in 1886 +Cassiar Bar was struck just below the mouth of the Hootalinqua. It +was at this time that the first moderate strike was made on Forty +Mile Creek, so called because it was judged to be that distance below +Fort Reliance of Jack McQuestion fame. A prospector named Williams +started for the outside with dogs and Indians to carry the news, but +suffered such hardship on the summit of Chilcoot that he was carried +dying into the store of Captain John Healy at Dyea. But he had +brought the news through--COARSE GOLD! Within three months more than +two hundred miners had passed in over Chilcoot, stampeding for Forty +Mile. Find followed find--Sixty Mile, Miller, Glacier, Birch, +Franklin, and the Koyokuk. But they were all moderate discoveries, +and the miners still dreamed and searched for the fabled stream, "Too +Much Gold," where gold was so plentiful that gravel had to be +shovelled into the sluice-boxes in order to wash it. + +And all the time the Northland was preparing to play its own huge +joke. It was a great joke, albeit an exceeding bitter one, and it +has led the old-timers to believe that the land is left in darkness +the better part of the year because God goes away and leaves it to +itself. After all the risk and toil and faithful endeavour, it was +destined that few of the heroes should be in at the finish when Too +Much Gold turned its yellow-treasure to the stars. + +First, there was Robert Henderson--and this is true history. +Henderson had faith in the Indian River district. For three years, +by himself, depending mainly on his rifle, living on straight meat a +large portion of the time, he prospected many of the Indian River +tributaries, just missed finding the rich creeks, Sulphur and +Dominion, and managed to make grub (poor grub) out of Quartz Creek +and Australia Creek. Then he crossed the divide between Indian River +and the Klondike, and on one of the "feeders" of the latter found +eight cents to the pan. This was considered excellent in those +simple days. Naming the creek "Gold Bottom," he recrossed the divide +and got three men, Munson, Dalton, and Swanson, to return with him. +The four took out $750. And be it emphasized, and emphasized again, +THAT THIS WAS THE FIRST KLONDIKE GOLD EVER SHOVELLED IN AND WASHED +OUT. And be it also emphasized, THAT ROBERT HENDERSON WAS THE +DISCOVERER OF KLONDIKE, ALL LIES AND HEARSAY TALES TO THE CONTRARY. + +Running out of grub, Henderson again recrossed the divide, and went +down the Indian River and up the Yukon to Sixty Mile. Here Joe Ladue +ran the trading post, and here Joe Ladue had originally grub-staked +Henderson. Henderson told his tale, and a dozen men (all it +contained) deserted the Post for the scene of his find. Also, +Henderson persuaded a party of prospectors bound for Stewart River, +to forgo their trip and go down and locate with him. He loaded his +boat with supplies, drifted down the Yukon to the mouth of the +Klondike, and towed and poled up the Klondike to Gold Bottom. But at +the mouth of the Klondike he met George Carmack, and thereby hangs +the tale. + +Carmack was a squawman. He was familiarly known as "Siwash" George-- +a derogatory term which had arisen out of his affinity for the +Indians. At the time Henderson encountered him he was catching +salmon with his Indian wife and relatives on the site of what was to +become Dawson, the Golden City of the Snows. Henderson, bubbling +over with good-will, open-handed, told Carmack of his discovery. But +Carmack was satisfied where he was. He was possessed by no +overweening desire for the strenuous life. Salmon were good enough +for him. But Henderson urged him to come on and locate, until, when +he yielded, he wanted to take the whole tribe along. Henderson +refused to stand for this, said that he must give the preference over +Siwashes to his old Sixty Mile friends, and, it is rumoured, said +some things about Siwashes that were not nice. + +The next morning Henderson went on alone up the Klondike to Gold +Bottom. Carmack, by this time aroused, took a short cut afoot for +the same place. Accompanied by his two Indian brothers-in-law, +Skookum Jim and Tagish Charley, he went up Rabbit Creek (now +Bonanza), crossed into Gold Bottom, and staked near Henderson's +discovery. On the way up he had panned a few shovels on Rabbit +Creek, and he showed Henderson "colours" he had obtained. Henderson +made him promise, if he found anything on the way back, that he would +send up one of the Indians with the news. Henderson also agreed to +pay for his service, for he seemed to feel that they were on the +verge of something big, and he wanted to make sure. + +Carmack returned down Rabbit Creek. While he was taking a sleep on +the bank about half a mile below the mouth of what was to be known as +Eldorado, Skookum Jim tried his luck, and from surface prospects got +from ten cents to a dollar to the pan. Carmack and his brother-in- +law staked and hit "the high places" for Forty Mile, where they filed +on the claims before Captain Constantine, and renamed the creek +Bonanza. And Henderson was forgotten. No word of it reached him. +Carmack broke his promise. + +Weeks afterward, when Bonanza and Eldorado were staked from end to +end and there was no more room, a party of late comers pushed over +the divide and down to Gold Bottom, where they found Henderson still +at work. When they told him they were from Bonanza, he was +nonplussed. He had never heard of such a place. But when they +described it, he recognized it as Rabbit Creek. Then they told him +of its marvellous richness, and, as Tappan Adney relates, when +Henderson realized what he had lost through Carmack's treachery, "he +threw down his shovel and went and sat on the bank, so sick at heart +that it was some time before he could speak." + +Then there were the rest of the old-timers, the men of Forty Mile and +Circle City. At the time of the discovery, nearly all of them were +over to the west at work in the old diggings or prospecting for new +ones. As they said of themselves, they were the kind of men who are +always caught out with forks when it rains soup. In the stampede +that followed the news of Carmack's strike very few old miners took +part. They were not there to take part. But the men who did go on +the stampede were mainly the worthless ones, the new-comers, and the +camp hangers on. And while Bob Henderson plugged away to the east, +and the heroes plugged away to the west, the greenhorns and rounders +went up and staked Bonanza. + +But the Northland was not yet done with its joke. When fall came on +and the heroes returned to Forty Mile and to Circle City, they +listened calmly to the up-river tales of Siwash discoveries and +loafers' prospects, and shook their heads. They judged by the +calibre of the men interested, and branded it a bunco game. But +glowing reports continued to trickle down the Yukon, and a few of the +old-timers went up to see. They looked over the ground--the +unlikeliest place for gold in all their experience--and they went +down the river again, "leaving it to the Swedes." + +Again the Northland turned the tables. The Alaskan gold hunter is +proverbial, not so much for his unveracity, as for his inability to +tell the precise truth. In a country of exaggerations, he likewise +is prone to hyperbolic description of things actual. But when it +came to Klondike, he could not stretch the truth as fast as the truth +itself stretched. Carmack first got a dollar pan. He lied when he +said it was two dollars and a half. And when those who doubted him +did get two-and-a-half pans, they said they were getting an ounce, +and lo! ere the lie had fairly started on its way, they were getting, +not one ounce, but five ounces. This they claimed was six ounces; +but when they filled a pan of dirt to prove the lie, they washed out +twelve ounces. And so it went. They continued valiantly to lie, but +the truth continued to outrun them. + +But the Northland's hyperborean laugh was not yet ended. When +Bonanza was staked from mouth to source, those who had failed to "get +in," disgruntled and sore, went up the "pups" and feeders. Eldorado +was one of these feeders, and many men, after locating on it, turned +their backs upon their claims and never gave them a second thought. +One man sold a half-interest in five hundred feet of it for a sack of +flour. Other owners wandered around trying to bunco men into buying +them out for a song. And then Eldorado "showed up." It was far, far +richer than Bonanza, with an average value of a thousand dollars a +foot to every foot of it. + +A Swede named Charley Anderson had been at work on Miller Creek the +year of the strike, and arrived in Dawson with a few hundred dollars. +Two miners, who had staked No. 29 Eldorado, decided that he was the +proper man upon whom to "unload." He was too canny to approach +sober, so at considerable expense they got him drunk. Even then it +was hard work, but they kept him befuddled for several days, and +finally, inveigled him into buying No. 29 for $750. When Anderson +sobered up, he wept at his folly, and pleaded to have his money back. +But the men who had duped him were hard-hearted. They laughed at +him, and kicked themselves for not having tapped him for a couple of +hundred more. Nothing remained for Anderson but to work the +worthless ground. This he did, and out of it he took over three- +quarters of a million of dollars. + +It was not till Frank Dinsmore, who already had big holdings on Birch +Creek, took a hand, that the old-timers developed faith in the new +diggings. Dinsmore received a letter from a man on the spot, calling +it "the biggest thing in the world," and harnessed his dogs and went +up to investigate. And when he sent a letter back, saying that he +had never seen "anything like it," Circle City for the first time +believed, and at once was precipitated one of the wildest stampedes +the country had ever seen or ever will see. Every dog was taken, +many went without dogs, and even the women and children and weaklings +hit the three hundred miles of ice through the long Arctic night for +the biggest thing in the world. It is related that but twenty +people, mostly cripples and unable to travel, were left in Circle +City when the smoke of the last sled disappeared up the Yukon. + +Since that time gold has been discovered in all manner of places, +under the grass roots of the hill-side benches, in the bottom of +Monte Cristo Island, and in the sands of the sea at Nome. And now +the gold hunter who knows his business shuns the "favourable looking" +spots, confident in his hard-won knowledge that he will find the most +gold in the least likely place. This is sometimes adduced to support +the theory that the gold hunters, rather than the explorers, are the +men who will ultimately win to the Pole. Who knows? It is in their +blood, and they are capable of it. + +PIEDMONT, CALIFORNIA. +February 1902. + + + +FOMA GORDYEEFF + + + +"What, without asking, hither hurried WHENCE? +And, without asking, WHITHER hurried hence! +Oh, many a Cup of this forbidden Wine +Must drown the memory of that insolence!" + +"Foma Gordyeeff" is a big book--not only is the breadth of Russia in +it, but the expanse of life. Yet, though in each land, in this world +of marts and exchanges, this age of trade and traffic, passionate +figures rise up and demand of life what its fever is, in "Foma +Gordyeeff" it is a Russian who so rises up and demands. For Gorky, +the Bitter One, is essentially a Russian in his grasp on the facts of +life and in his treatment. All the Russian self-analysis and +insistent introspection are his. And, like all his brother Russians, +ardent, passionate protest impregnates his work. There is a purpose +to it. He writes because he has something to say which the world +should hear. From that clenched fist of his, light and airy +romances, pretty and sweet and beguiling, do not flow, but realities- +-yes, big and brutal and repulsive, but real. + +He raises the cry of the miserable and the despised, and in a +masterly arraignment of commercialism, protests against social +conditions, against the grinding of the faces of the poor and weak, +and the self-pollution of the rich and strong, in their mad lust for +place and power. It is to be doubted strongly if the average +bourgeois, smug and fat and prosperous, can understand this man Foma +Gordyeeff. The rebellion in his blood is something to which their +own does not thrill. To them it will be inexplicable that this man, +with his health and his millions, could not go on living as his class +lived, keeping regular hours at desk and stock exchange, driving +close contracts, underbidding his competitors, and exulting in the +business disasters of his fellows. It would appear so easy, and, +after such a life, well appointed and eminently respectable, he could +die. "Ah," Foma will interrupt rudely--he is given to rude +interruptions--"if to die and disappear is the end of these money- +grubbing years, why money-grub?" And the bourgeois whom he rudely +interrupted will not understand. Nor did Mayakin understand as he +laboured holily with his wayward godson. + +"Why do you brag?" Foma, bursts out upon him. "What have you to +brag about? Your son--where is he? Your daughter--what is she? +Ekh, you manager of life! Come, now, you're clever, you know +everything--tell me, why do you live? Why do you accumulate money? +Aren't you going to die? Well, what then?" And Mayakin finds +himself speechless and without answer, but unshaken and unconvinced. + +Receiving by heredity the fierce, bull-like nature of his father plus +the passive indomitableness and groping spirit of his mother, Foma, +proud and rebellious, is repelled by the selfish, money-seeking +environment into which he is born. Ignat, his father, and Mayakin, +the godfather, and all the horde of successful merchants singing the +paean of the strong and the praises of merciless, remorseless laissez +faire, cannot entice him. Why? he demands. This is a nightmare, +this life! It is without significance! What does it all mean? What +is there underneath? What is the meaning of that which is +underneath? + +"You do well to pity people," Ignat tells Foma, the boy, "only you +must use judgment with your pity. First consider the man, find out +what he is like, what use can be made of him; and if you see that he +is a strong and capable man, help him if you like. But if a man is +weak, not inclined to work--spit upon him and go your way. And you +must know that when a man complains about everything, and cries out +and groans--he is not worth more than two kopeks, he is not worthy of +pity, and will be of no use to you if you do help him." + +Such the frank and militant commercialism, bellowed out between +glasses of strong liquor. Now comes Mayakin, speaking softly and +without satire: + +"Eh, my boy, what is a beggar? A beggar is a man who is forced, by +fate, to remind us of Christ; he is Christ's brother; he is the bell +of the Lord, and rings in life for the purpose of awakening our +conscience, of stirring up the satiety of man's flesh. He stands +under the window and sings, 'For Christ's sa-ake!' and by that chant +he reminds us of Christ, of His holy command to help our neighbour. +But men have so ordered their lives that it is utterly impossible for +them to act in accordance with Christ's teaching, and Jesus Christ +has become entirely superfluous to us. Not once, but, in all +probability, a thousand times, we have given Him over to be +crucified, but still we cannot banish Him from our lives so long as +His poor brethren sing His name in the streets and remind us of Him. +And so now we have hit upon the idea of shutting up the beggars in +such special buildings, so that they may not roam about the streets +and stir up our consciences." + +But Foma will have none of it. He is neither to be enticed nor +cajoled. The cry of his nature is for light. He must have light. +And in burning revolt he goes seeking the meaning of life. "His +thoughts embraced all those petty people who toiled at hard labour. +It was strange--why did they live? What satisfaction was it to them +to live on the earth? All they did was to perform their dirty, +arduous toil, eat poorly; they were miserably clad, addicted to +drunkenness. One was sixty years old, but he still toiled side by +side with young men. And they all presented themselves to Foma's +imagination as a huge heap of worms, who were swarming over the earth +merely to eat." + +He becomes the living interrogation of life. He cannot begin living +until he knows what living means, and he seeks its meaning vainly. +"Why should I try to live life when I do not know what life is?" he +objects when Mayakin strives with him to return and manage his +business. Why should men fetch and carry for him? be slaves to him +and his money? + +"Work is not everything to a man," he says; "it is not true that +justification lies in work . . . Some people never do any work at +all, all their lives long--yet they live better than the toilers. +Why is that? And what justification have I? And how will all the +people who give their orders justify themselves? What have they +lived for? But my idea is that everybody ought, without fail, to +know solidly what he is living for. Is it possible that a man is +born to toil, accumulate money, build a house, beget children, and-- +die? No; life means something in itself. . . . A man has been born, +has lived, has died--why? All of us must consider why we are living, +by God, we must! There is no sense in our life--there is no sense at +all. Some are rich--they have money enough for a thousand men all to +themselves--and they live without occupation; others bow their backs +in toil all their life, and they haven't a penny." + +But Foma can only be destructive. He is not constructive. The dim +groping spirit of his mother and the curse of his environment press +too heavily upon him, and he is crushed to debauchery and madness. +He does not drink because liquor tastes good in his mouth. In the +vile companions who purvey to his baser appetites he finds no charm. +It is all utterly despicable and sordid, but thither his quest leads +him and he follows the quest. He knows that everything is wrong, but +he cannot right it, cannot tell why. He can only attack and +demolish. "What justification have you all in the sight of God? Why +do you live?" he demands of the conclave of merchants, of life's +successes. "You have not constructed life--you have made a cesspool! +You have disseminated filth and stifling exhalations by your deeds. +Have you any conscience? Do you remember God? A five-kopek piece-- +that is your God! But you have expelled your conscience!" + +Like the cry of Isaiah, "Go to, now, ye rich men, weep and howl for +your misfortunes that shall come upon you," is Foma's: "You blood- +suckers! You live on other people's strength; you work with other +people's hands! For all this you shall be made to pay! You shall +perish--you shall be called to account for all! For all--to the last +little tear-drop!" + +Stunned by this puddle of life, unable to make sense of it, Foma +questions, and questions vainly, whether of Sofya Medynsky in her +drawing-room of beauty, or in the foulest depths of the first chance +courtesan's heart. Linboff, whose books contradict one another, +cannot help him; nor can the pilgrims on crowded steamers, nor the +verse writers and harlots in dives and boozingkens. And so, +wondering, pondering, perplexed, amazed, whirling through the mad +whirlpool of life, dancing the dance of death, groping for the +nameless, indefinite something, the magic formula, the essence, the +intrinsic fact, the flash of light through the murk and dark--the +rational sanction for existence, in short--Foma Gordyeeff goes down +to madness and death. + +It is not a pretty book, but it is a masterful interrogation of life- +-not of life universal, but of life particular, the social life of +to-day. It is not nice; neither is the social life of to-day nice. +One lays the book down sick at heart--sick for life with all its +"lyings and its lusts." But it is a healthy book. So fearful is its +portrayal of social disease, so ruthless its stripping of the painted +charms from vice, that its tendency cannot but be strongly for good. +It is a goad, to prick sleeping human consciences awake and drive +them into the battle for humanity. + +But no story is told, nothing is finished, some one will object. +Surely, when Sasha leaped overboard and swam to Foma, something +happened. It was pregnant with possibilities. Yet it was not +finished, was not decisive. She left him to go with the son of a +rich vodka-maker. And all that was best in Sofya Medynsky was +quickened when she looked upon Foma with the look of the Mother- +Woman. She might have been a power for good in his life, she might +have shed light into it and lifted him up to safety and honour and +understanding. Yet she went away next day, and he never saw her +again. No story is told, nothing is finished. + +Ah, but surely the story of Foma Gordyeeff is told; his life is +finished, as lives are being finished each day around us. Besides, +it is the way of life, and the art of Gorky is the art of realism. +But it is a less tedious realism than that of Tolstoy or Turgenev. +It lives and breathes from page to page with a swing and dash and go +that they rarely attain. Their mantle has fallen on his young +shoulders, and he promises to wear it royally. + +Even so, but so helpless, hopeless, terrible is this life of Foma +Gordyeeff that we would be filled with profound sorrow for Gorky did +we not know that he has come up out of the Valley of Shadow. That he +hopes, we know, else would he not now be festering in a Russian +prison because he is brave enough to live the hope he feels. He +knows life, why and how it should be lived. And in conclusion, this +one thing is manifest: Foma Gordyeeff is no mere statement of an +intellectual problem. For as he lived and interrogated living, so in +sweat and blood and travail has Gorky lived. + +PIEDMONT, CALIFORNIA. +November 1901. + + + +THESE BONES SHALL RISE AGAIN + + + +Rudyard Kipling, "prophet of blood and vulgarity, prince of +ephemerals and idol of the unelect"--as a Chicago critic chortles--is +dead. It is true. He is dead, dead and buried. And a fluttering, +chirping host of men, little men and unseeing men, have heaped him +over with the uncut leaves of Kim, wrapped him in Stalky & Co., for +winding sheet, and for headstone reared his unconventional lines, The +Lesson. It was very easy. The simplest thing in the world. And the +fluttering, chirping gentlemen are rubbing their hands in amaze and +wondering why they did not do it long ago, it was so very, very +simple. + +But the centuries to come, of which the fluttering, chirping +gentlemen are prone to talk largely, will have something to say in +the matter. And when they, the future centuries, quest back to the +nineteenth century to find what manner of century it was--to find, +not what the people of the nineteenth century thought they thought, +but what they really thought, not what they thought they ought to do, +but what they really did do, then a certain man, Kipling, will be +read--and read with understanding. "They thought they read him with +understanding, those people of the nineteenth century," the future +centuries will say; "and then they thought there was no understanding +in him, and after that they did not know what they thought." + +But this is over-severe. It applies only to that class which serves +a function somewhat similar to that served by the populace of old +time in Rome. This is the unstable, mob-minded mass, which sits on +the fence, ever ready to fall this side or that and indecorously +clamber back again; which puts a Democratic administration into +office one election, and a Republican the next; which discovers and +lifts up a prophet to-day that it may stone him tomorrow; which +clamours for the book everybody else is reading, for no reason under +the sun save that everybody else is reading it. This is the class of +whim and caprice, of fad and vogue, the unstable, incoherent, mob- +mouthed, mob-minded mass, the "monkey-folk," if you please, of these +latter days. Now it may be reading The Eternal City. Yesterday it +was reading The Master Christian, and some several days before that +it was reading Kipling. Yes, almost to his shame be it, these folk +were reading him. But it was not his fault. If he depended upon +them he well deserves to be dead and buried and never to rise again. +But to them, let us be thankful, he never lived. They thought he +lived, but he was as dead then as he is now and as he always will be. + +He could not help it because he became the vogue, and it is easily +understood. When he lay ill, fighting with close grapples with +death, those who knew him were grieved. They were many, and in many +voices, to the rim of the Seven Seas, they spoke their grief. +Whereupon, and with celerity, the mob-minded mass began to inquire as +to this man whom so many mourned. If everybody else mourned, it were +fit that they mourn too. So a vast wail went up. Each was a spur to +the other's grief, and each began privately to read this man they had +never read and publicly to proclaim this man they had always read. +And straightaway next day they drowned their grief in a sea of +historical romance and forgot all about him. The reaction was +inevitable. Emerging from the sea into which they had plunged, they +became aware that they had so soon forgotten him, and would have been +ashamed, had not the fluttering, chirping men said, "Come, let us +bury him." And they put him in a hole, quickly, out of their sight. + +And when they have crept into their own little holes, and smugly laid +themselves down in their last long sleep, the future centuries will +roll the stone away and he will come forth again. For be it known: +THAT MAN OF US IS IMPERISHABLE WHO MAKES HIS CENTURY IMPERISHABLE. +That man of us who seizes upon the salient facts of our life, who +tells what we thought, what we were, and for what we stood--that man +shall be the mouthpiece to the centuries, and so long as they listen +he shall endure. + +We remember the caveman. We remember him because he made his century +imperishable. But, unhappily, we remember him dimly, in a collective +sort of way, because he memorialized his century dimly, in a +collective sort of way. He had no written speech, so he left us rude +scratchings of beasts and things, cracked marrow-bones, and weapons +of stone. It was the best expression of which he was capable. Had +he scratched his own particular name with the scratchings of beasts +and things, stamped his cracked marrowbones with his own particular +seal, trade-marked his weapons of stone with his own particular +device, that particular man would we remember. But he did the best +he could, and we remember him as best we may. + +Homer takes his place with Achilles and the Greek and Trojan heroes. +Because he remembered them, we remember him. Whether he be one or a +dozen men, or a dozen generations of men, we remember him. And so +long as the name of Greece is known on the lips of men, so long will +the name of Homer be known. There are many such names, linked with +their times, which have come down to us, many more which will yet go +down; and to them, in token that we have lived, must we add some few +of our own. + +Dealing only with the artist, be it understood, only those artists +will go down who have spoken true of us. Their truth must be the +deepest and most significant, their voices clear and strong, definite +and coherent. Half-truths and partial-truths will not do, nor will +thin piping voices and quavering lays. There must be the cosmic +quality in what they sing. They must seize upon and press into +enduring art-forms the vital facts of our existence. They must tell +why we have lived, for without any reason for living, depend upon it, +in the time to come, it will be as though we had never lived. Nor +are the things that were true of the people a thousand years or so +ago true of us to-day. The romance of Homer's Greece is the romance +of Homer's Greece. That is undeniable. It is not our romance. And +he who in our time sings the romance of Homer's Greece cannot expect +to sing it so well as Homer did, nor will he be singing about us or +our romance at all. A machine age is something quite different from +an heroic age. What is true of rapid-fire guns, stock-exchanges, and +electric motors, cannot possibly be true of hand-flung javelins and +whirring chariot wheels. Kipling knows this. He has been telling it +to us all his life, living it all his life in the work he has done. + +What the Anglo-Saxon has done, he has memorialized. And by Anglo- +Saxon is not meant merely the people of that tight little island on +the edge of the Western Ocean. Anglo-Saxon stands for the English- +speaking people of all the world, who, in forms and institutions and +traditions, are more peculiarly and definitely English than anything +else. This people Kipling has sung. Their sweat and blood and toil +have been the motives of his songs; but underlying all the motives of +his songs is the motive of motives, the sum of them all and something +more, which is one with what underlies all the Anglo-Saxon sweat and +blood and toil; namely, the genius of the race. And this is the +cosmic quality. Both that which is true of the race for all time, +and that which is true of the race for all time applied to this +particular time, he has caught up and pressed into his art-forms. He +has caught the dominant note of the Anglo-Saxon and pressed it into +wonderful rhythms which cannot be sung out in a day and which will +not be sung out in a day. + +The Anglo-Saxon is a pirate, a land robber and a sea robber. +Underneath his thin coating of culture, he is what he was in Morgan's +time, in Drake's time, in William's time, in Alfred's time. The +blood and the tradition of Hengist and Horsa are in his veins. In +battle he is subject to the blood-lusts of the Berserkers of old. +Plunder and booty fascinate him immeasurably. The schoolboy of to- +day dreams the dream of Clive and Hastings. The Anglo-Saxon is +strong of arm and heavy of hand, and he possesses a primitive +brutality all his own. There is a discontent in his blood, an +unsatisfaction that will not let him rest, but sends him adventuring +over the sea and among the lands in the midst of the sea. He does +not know when he is beaten, wherefore the term "bulldog" is attached +to him, so that all may know his unreasonableness. He has "some care +as to the purity of his ways, does not wish for strange gods, nor +juggle with intellectual phantasmagoria." He loves freedom, but is +dictatorial to others, is self-willed, has boundless energy, and does +things for himself. He is also a master of matter, an organizer of +law, and an administrator of justice. + +And in the nineteenth century he has lived up to his reputation. +Being the nineteenth century and no other century, and in so far +different from all other centuries, he has expressed himself +differently. But blood will tell, and in the name of God, the Bible, +and Democracy, he has gone out over the earth, possessing himself of +broad lands and fat revenues, and conquering by virtue of his sheer +pluck and enterprise and superior machinery. + +Now the future centuries, seeking to find out what the nineteenth +century Anglo-Saxon was and what were his works, will have small +concern with what he did not do and what he would have liked to do. +These things he did do, and for these things will he be remembered. +His claim on posterity will be that in the nineteenth century he +mastered matter; his twentieth-century claim will be, in the highest +probability, that he organized life--but that will be sung by the +twentieth-century Kiplings or the twenty-first-century Kiplings. +Rudyard Kipling of the nineteenth century has sung of "things as they +are." He has seen life as it is, "taken it up squarely," in both his +hands, and looked upon it. What better preachment upon the Anglo- +Saxon and what he has done can be had than The Bridge Builders? what +better appraisement than The White Man's Burden? As for faith and +clean ideals--not of "children and gods, but men in a world of men"-- +who has preached them better than he? + +Primarily, Kipling has stood for the doer as opposed to the dreamer-- +the doer, who lists not to idle songs of empty days, but who goes +forth and does things, with bended back and sweated brow and work- +hardened hands. The most characteristic thing about Kipling is his +lover of actuality, his intense practicality, his proper and +necessary respect for the hard-headed, hard-fisted fact. And, above +all, he has preached the gospel of work, and as potently as Carlyle +ever preached. For he has preached it not only to those in the high +places, but to the common men, to the great sweating thong of common +men who hear and understand yet stand agape at Carlyle's turgid +utterance. Do the thing to your hand, and do it with all your might. +Never mind what the thing is; so long as it is something. Do it. Do +it and remember Tomlinson, sexless and soulless Tomlinson, who was +denied at Heaven's gate. + +The blundering centuries have perseveringly pottered and groped +through the dark; but it remained for Kipling's century to roll in +the sun, to formulate, in other words, the reign of law. And of the +artists in Kipling's century, he of them all has driven the greater +measure of law in the more consummate speech: + + +Keep ye the Law--be swift in all obedience. +Clear the land of evil, drive the road and bridge the ford. + Make ye sure to each his own + That he reap what he hath sown; +By the peace among Our peoples let men know we serve the Lord. + + +- And so it runs, from McAndrew's Law, Order, Duty, and Restraint, to +his last least line, whether of The Vampire or The Recessional. And +no prophet out of Israel has cried out more loudly the sins of the +people, nor called them more awfully to repent. + +"But he is vulgar, he stirs the puddle of life," object the +fluttering, chirping gentlemen, the Tomlinsonian men. Well, and +isn't life vulgar? Can you divorce the facts of life? Much of good +is there, and much of ill; but who may draw aside his garment and +say, "I am none of them"? Can you say that the part is greater than +the whole? that the whole is more or less than the sum of the parts? +As for the puddle of life, the stench is offensive to you? Well, and +what then? Do you not live in it? Why do you not make it clean? Do +you clamour for a filter to make clean only your own particular +portion? And, made clean, are you wroth because Kipling has stirred +it muddy again? At least he has stirred it healthily, with steady +vigour and good-will. He has not brought to the surface merely its +dregs, but its most significant values. He has told the centuries to +come of our lyings and our lusts, but he has also told the centuries +to come of the seriousness which is underneath our lyings and our +lusts. And he has told us, too, and always has he told us, to be +clean and strong and to walk upright and manlike. + +"But he has no sympathy," the fluttering gentlemen chirp. "We admire +his art and intellectual brilliancy, we all admire his art and +intellectual brilliancy, his dazzling technique and rare rhythmical +sense; but . . . he is totally devoid of sympathy." Dear! Dear! +What is to be understood by this? Should he sprinkle his pages with +sympathetic adjectives, so many to the paragraph, as the country +compositor sprinkles commas? Surely not. The little gentlemen are +not quite so infinitesimal as that. There have been many tellers of +jokes, and the greater of them, it is recorded, never smiled at their +own, not even in the crucial moment when the audience wavered between +laughter and tears. + +And so with Kipling. Take The Vampire, for instance. It has been +complained that there is no touch of pity in it for the man and his +ruin, no sermon on the lesson of it, no compassion for the human +weakness, no indignation at the heartlessness. But are we +kindergarten children that the tale be told to us in words of one +syllable? Or are we men and women, able to read between the lines +what Kipling intended we should read between the lines? "For some of +him lived, but the most of him died." Is there not here all the +excitation in the world for our sorrow, our pity, our indignation? +And what more is the function of art than to excite states of +consciousness complementary to the thing portrayed? The colour of +tragedy is red. Must the artist also paint in the watery tears and +wan-faced grief? "For some of him lived, but the most of him died"-- +can the heartache of the situation be conveyed more achingly? Or +were it better that the young man, some of him alive but most of him +dead, should come out before the curtain and deliver a homily to the +weeping audience? + +The nineteenth century, so far as the Anglo-Saxon is concerned, was +remarkable for two great developments: the mastery of matter and the +expansion of the race. Three great forces operated in it: +nationalism, commercialism, democracy--the marshalling of the races, +the merciless, remorseless laissez faire of the dominant bourgeoisie, +and the practical, actual working government of men within a very +limited equality. The democracy of the nineteenth century is not the +democracy of which the eighteenth century dreamed. It is not the +democracy of the Declaration, but it is what we have practised and +lived that reconciles it to the fact of the "lesser breeds without +the Law." + +It is of these developments and forces of the nineteenth century that +Kipling has sung. And the romance of it he has sung, that which +underlies and transcends objective endeavour, which deals with race +impulses, race deeds, and race traditions. Even into the steam-laden +speech of his locomotives has he breathed our life, our spirit, our +significance. As he is our mouthpiece, so are they his mouthpieces. +And the romance of the nineteenth-century man as he has thus +expressed himself in the nineteenth century, in shaft and wheel, in +steel and steam, in far journeying and adventuring, Kipling has +caught up in wondrous songs for the future centuries to sing. + +If the nineteenth century is the century of the Hooligan, then is +Kipling the voice of the Hooligan as surely as he is the voice of the +nineteenth century. Who is more representative? Is David Harum more +representative of the nineteenth century? Is Mary Johnston, Charles +Major, or Winston Churchill? Is Bret Harte? William Dean Howells? +Gilbert Parker? Who of them all is as essentially representative of +nineteenth-century life? When Kipling is forgotten, will Robert +Louis Stevenson be remembered for his Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, his +Kidnapped and his David Balfour? Not so. His Treasure Island will +be a classic, to go down with Robinson Crusoe, Through the Looking- +Glass, and The Jungle Books. He will be remembered for his essays, +for his letters, for his philosophy of life, for himself. He will be +the well beloved, as he has been the well beloved. But his will be +another claim upon posterity than what we are considering. For each +epoch has its singer. As Scott sang the swan song of chivalry and +Dickens the burgher-fear of the rising merchant class, so Kipling, as +no one else, has sung the hymn of the dominant bourgeoisie, the war +march of the white man round the world, the triumphant paean of +commercialism and imperialism. For that will he be remembered. + +OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA. +October 1901. + + + +THE OTHER ANIMALS + + + +American journalism has its moments of fantastic hysteria, and when +it is on the rampage the only thing for a rational man to do is to +climb a tree and let the cataclysm go by. And so, some time ago, +when the word nature-faker was coined, I, for one, climbed into my +tree and stayed there. I happened to be in Hawaii at the time, and a +Honolulu reporter elicited the sentiment from me that I thanked God I +was not an authority on anything. This sentiment was promptly cabled +to America in an Associated Press despatch, whereupon the American +press (possibly annoyed because I had not climbed down out of my +tree) charged me with paying for advertising by cable at a dollar per +word--the very human way of the American press, which, when a man +refuses to come down and be licked, makes faces at him. + +But now that the storm is over, let us come and reason together. I +have been guilty of writing two animal-stories--two books about dogs. +The writing of these two stories, on my part, was in truth a protest +against the "humanizing" of animals, of which it seemed to me several +"animal writers" had been profoundly guilty. Time and again, and +many times, in my narratives, I wrote, speaking of my dog-heroes: +"He did not think these things; he merely did them," etc. And I did +this repeatedly, to the clogging of my narrative and in violation of +my artistic canons; and I did it in order to hammer into the average +human understanding that these dog-heroes of mine were not directed +by abstract reasoning, but by instinct, sensation, and emotion, and +by simple reasoning. Also, I endeavoured to make my stories in line +with the facts of evolution; I hewed them to the mark set by +scientific research, and awoke, one day, to find myself bundled neck +and crop into the camp of the nature-fakers. + +President Roosevelt was responsible for this, and he tried to condemn +me on two counts. (1) I was guilty of having a big, fighting bull- +dog whip a wolf-dog. (2) I was guilty of allowing a lynx to kill a +wolf-dog in a pitched battle. Regarding the second count, President +Roosevelt was wrong in his field observations taken while reading my +book. He must have read it hastily, for in my story I had the wolf- +dog kill the lynx. Not only did I have my wolf-dog kill the lynx, +but I made him eat the body of the lynx as well. Remains only the +first count on which to convict me of nature-faking, and the first +count does not charge me with diverging from ascertained facts. It +is merely a statement of a difference of opinion. President +Roosevelt does not think a bull-dog can lick a wolf-dog. I think a +bull-dog can lick a wolf-dog. And there we are. Difference of +opinion may make, and does make, horse-racing. I can understand that +difference of opinion can make dog-fighting. But what gets me is how +difference of opinion regarding the relative fighting merits of a +bull-dog and a wolf-dog makes me a nature-faker and President +Roosevelt a vindicated and triumphant scientist. + +Then entered John Burroughs to clinch President Roosevelt's +judgments. In this alliance there is no difference of opinion. That +Roosevelt can do no wrong is Burroughs's opinion; and that Burroughs +is always right is Roosevelt's opinion. Both are agreed that animals +do not reason. They assert that all animals below man are automatons +and perform actions only of two sorts--mechanical and reflex--and +that in such actions no reasoning enters at all. They believe that +man is the only animal capable of reasoning and that ever does +reason. This is a view that makes the twentieth-century scientist +smile. It is not modern at all. It is distinctly mediaeval. +President Roosevelt and John Burroughs, in advancing such a view, are +homocentric in the same fashion that the scholastics of earlier and +darker centuries were homocentric. Had the world not been discovered +to be round until after the births of President Roosevelt and John +Burroughs, they would have been geocentric as well in their theories +of the Cosmos. They could not have believed otherwise. The stuff of +their minds is so conditioned. They talk the argot of evolution, +while they no more understand the essence and the import of evolution +than does a South Sea Islander or Sir Oliver Lodge understand the +noumena of radio-activity. + +Now, President Roosevelt is an amateur. He may know something of +statecraft and of big-game shooting; he may be able to kill a deer +when he sees it and to measure it and weigh it after he has shot it; +he may be able to observe carefully and accurately the actions and +antics of tomtits and snipe, and, after he has observed it, +definitely and coherently to convey the information of when the first +chipmunk, in a certain year and a certain latitude and longitude, +came out in the spring and chattered and gambolled--but that he +should be able, as an individual observer, to analyze all animal life +and to synthetize and develop all that is known of the method and +significance of evolution, would require a vaster credulity for you +or me to believe than is required for us to believe the biggest +whopper ever told by an unmitigated nature-faker. No, President +Roosevelt does not understand evolution, and he does not seem to have +made much of an attempt to understand evolution. + +Remains John Burroughs, who claims to be a thorough-going +evolutionist. Now, it is rather hard for a young man to tackle an +old man. It is the nature of young men to be more controlled in such +matters, and it is the nature of old men, presuming upon the wisdom +that is very often erroneously associated with age, to do the +tackling. In this present question of nature-faking, the old men did +the tackling, while I, as one young man, kept quiet a long time. But +here goes at last. And first of all let Mr. Burroughs's position be +stated, and stated in his words. + +"Why impute reason to an animal if its behaviour can be explained on +the theory of instinct?" Remember these words, for they will be +referred to later. "A goodly number of persons seem to have +persuaded themselves that animals do reason." "But instinct suffices +for the animals . . . they get along very well without reason." +"Darwin tried hard to convince himself that animals do at times +reason in a rudimentary way; but Darwin was also a much greater +naturalist than psychologist." The preceding quotation is +tantamount, on Mr. Burroughs's part, to a flat denial that animals +reason even in a rudimentary way. And when Mr. Burrough denies that +animals reason even in a rudimentary way, it is equivalent to +affirming, in accord with the first quotation in this paragraph, that +instinct will explain every animal act that might be confounded with +reason by the unskilled or careless observer. + +Having bitten off this large mouthful, Mr. Burroughs proceeds with +serene and beautiful satisfaction to masticate it in the following +fashion. He cites a large number of instances of purely instinctive +actions on the part of animals, and triumphantly demands if they are +acts of reason. He tells of the robin that fought day after day its +reflected image in a window-pane; of the birds in South America that +were guilty of drilling clear through a mud wall, which they mistook +for a solid clay bank: of the beaver that cut down a tree four times +because it was held at the top by the branches of other trees; of the +cow that licked the skin of her stuffed calf so affectionately that +it came apart, whereupon she proceeded to eat the hay with which it +was stuffed. He tells of the phobe-bird that betrays her nest on the +porch by trying to hide it with moss in similar fashion to the way +all phobe-birds hide their nests when they are built among rocks. He +tells of the highhole that repeatedly drills through the clap-boards +of an empty house in a vain attempt to find a thickness of wood deep +enough in which to build its nest. He tells of the migrating +lemmings of Norway that plunge into the sea and drown in vast numbers +because of their instinct to swim lakes and rivers in the course of +their migrations. And, having told a few more instances of like +kidney, he triumphantly demands: "Where now is your much-vaunted +reasoning of the lower animals? + +No schoolboy in a class debate could be guilty of unfairer argument. +It is equivalent to replying to the assertion that 2+2=4, by saying: +"No; because 12/4=3; I have demonstrated my honourable opponent's +error." When a man attacks your ability as a foot-racer, promptly +prove to him that he was drunk the week before last, and the average +man in the crowd of gaping listeners will believe that you have +convincingly refuted the slander on your fleetness of foot. On my +honour, it will work. Try it some time. It is done every day. Mr. +Burroughs has done it himself, and, I doubt not, pulled the +sophistical wool over a great many pairs of eyes. No, no, Mr. +Burroughs; you can't disprove that animals reason by proving that +they possess instincts. But the worst of it is that you have at the +same time pulled the wool over your own eyes. You have set up a +straw man and knocked the stuffing out of him in the complacent +belief that it was the reasoning of lower animals you were knocking +out of the minds of those who disagreed with you. When the highhole +perforated the icehouse and let out the sawdust, you called him a +lunatic . . . + +But let us be charitable--and serious. What Mr. Burroughs instances +as acts of instinct certainly are acts of instincts. By the same +method of logic one could easily adduce a multitude of instinctive +acts on the part of man and thereby prove that man is an unreasoning +animal. But man performs actions of both sorts. Between man and the +lower animals Mr. Burroughs finds a vast gulf. This gulf divides man +from the rest of his kin by virtue of the power of reason that he +alone possesses. Man is a voluntary agent. Animals are automatons. +The robin fights its reflection in the window-pane because it is his +instinct to fight and because he cannot reason out the physical laws +that make this reflection appear real. An animal is a mechanism that +operates according to fore-ordained rules. Wrapped up in its +heredity, and determined long before it was born, is a certain +limited capacity of ganglionic response to eternal stimuli. These +responses have been fixed in the species through adaptation to +environment. Natural selection has compelled the animal +automatically to respond in a fixed manner and a certain way to all +the usual external stimuli it encounters in the course of a usual +life. Thus, under usual circumstances, it does the usual thing. +Under unusual circumstances it still does the usual thing, wherefore +the highhole perforating the ice-house is guilty of lunacy--of +unreason, in short. To do the unusual thing under unusual +circumstances, successfully to adjust to a strange environment for +which his heredity has not automatically fitted an adjustment, Mr. +Burroughs says is impossible. He says it is impossible because it +would be a non-instinctive act, and, as is well known animals act +only through instinct. And right here we catch a glimpse of Mr. +Burroughs's cart standing before his horse. He has a thesis, and +though the heavens fall he will fit the facts to the thesis. +Agassiz, in his opposition to evolution, had a similar thesis, though +neither did he fit the facts to it nor did the heavens fall. Facts +are very disagreeable at times. + +But let us see. Let us test Mr. Burroughs's test of reason and +instinct. When I was a small boy I had a dog named Rollo. According +to Mr. Burroughs, Rollo was an automaton, responding to external +stimuli mechanically as directed by his instincts. Now, as is well +known, the development of instinct in animals is a dreadfully slow +process. There is no known case of the development of a single +instinct in domestic animals in all the history of their +domestication. Whatever instincts they possess they brought with +them from the wild thousands of years ago. Therefore, all Rollo's +actions were ganglionic discharges mechanically determined by the +instincts that had been developed and fixed in the species thousands +of years ago. Very well. It is clear, therefore, that in all his +play with me he would act in old-fashioned ways, adjusting himself to +the physical and psychical factors in his environment according to +the rules of adjustment which had obtained in the wild and which had +become part of his heredity. + +Rollo and I did a great deal of rough romping. He chased me and I +chased him. He nipped my legs, arms, and hands, often so hard that I +yelled, while I rolled him and tumbled him and dragged him about, +often so strenuously as to make him yelp. In the course of the play +many variations arose. I would make believe to sit down and cry. +All repentance and anxiety, he would wag his tail and lick my face, +whereupon I would give him the laugh. He hated to be laughed at, and +promptly he would spring for me with good-natured, menacing jaws, and +the wild romp would go on. I had scored a point. Then he hit upon a +trick. Pursuing him into the woodshed, I would find him in a far +corner, pretending to sulk. Now, he dearly loved the play, and never +got enough of it. But at first he fooled me. I thought I had +somehow hurt his feelings and I came and knelt before him, petting +him, and speaking lovingly. Promptly, in a wild outburst, he was up +and away, tumbling me over on the floor as he dashed out in a mad +skurry around the yard. He had scored a point. + +After a time, it became largely a game of wits. I reasoned my acts, +of course, while his were instinctive. One day, as he pretended to +sulk in the corner, I glanced out of the woodshed doorway, simulated +pleasure in face, voice, and language, and greeted one of my +schoolboy friends. Immediately Rollo forgot to sulk, rushed out to +see the newcomer, and saw empty space. The laugh was on him, and he +knew it, and I gave it to him, too. I fooled him in this way two or +three times; then be became wise. One day I worked a variation. +Suddenly looking out the door, making believe that my eyes had been +attracted by a moving form, I said coldly, as a child educated in +turning away bill-collectors would say: "No my father is not at +home." Like a shot, Rollo was out the door. He even ran down the +alley to the front of the house in a vain attempt to find the man I +had addressed. He came back sheepishly to endure the laugh and +resume the game. + +And now we come to the test. I fooled Rollo, but how was the fooling +made possible? What precisely went on in that brain of his? +According to Mr. Burroughs, who denies even rudimentary reasoning to +the lower animals, Rollo acted instinctively, mechanically responding +to the external stimulus, furnished by me, which led him to believe +that a man was outside the door. + +Since Rollo acted instinctively, and since all instincts are very +ancient, tracing back to the pre-domestication period, we can +conclude only that Rollo's wild ancestors, at the time this +particular instinct was fixed into the heredity of the species, must +have been in close, long-continued, and vital contact with man, the +voice of man, and the expressions on the face of man. But since the +instinct must have been developed during the pre-domestication +period, how under the sun could his wild, undomesticated ancestors +have experienced the close, long-continued, and vital contact with +man? + +Mr. Burroughs says that "instinct suffices for the animals," that +"they get along very well without reason." But I say, what all the +poor nature-fakers will say, that Rollo reasoned. He was born into +the world a bundle of instincts and a pinch of brain-stuff, all +wrapped around in a framework of bone, meat, and hide. As he +adjusted to his environment he gained experiences. He remembered +these experiences. He learned that he mustn't chase the cat, kill +chickens, nor bite little girls' dresses. He learned that little +boys had little boy playmates. He learned that men came into back +yards. He learned that the animal man, on meeting with his own kind, +was given to verbal and facial greeting. He learned that when a boy +greeted a playmate he did it differently from the way he greeted a +man. All these he learned and remembered. They were so many +observations--so many propositions, if you please. Now, what went on +behind those brown eyes of his, inside that pinch of brain-stuff, +when I turned suddenly to the door and greeted an imaginary person +outside? Instantly, out of the thousands of observations stored in +his brain, came to the front of his consciousness the particular +observations connected with this particular situation. Next, he +established a relation between these observations. This relation was +his conclusion, achieved, as every psychologist will agree, by a +definite cell-action of his grey matter. From the fact that his +master turned suddenly toward the door, and from the fact that his +master's voice, facial expression, and whole demeanour expressed +surprise and delight, he concluded that a friend was outside. He +established a relation between various things, and the act of +establishing relations between things is an act of reason--of +rudimentary reason, granted, but none the less of reason. + +Of course Rollo was fooled. But that is no call for us to throw +chests about it. How often has every last one of us been fooled in +precisely similar fashion by another who turned and suddenly +addressed an imaginary intruder? Here is a case in point that +occurred in the West. A robber had held up a railroad train. He +stood in the aisle between the seats, his revolver presented at the +head of the conductor, who stood facing him. The conductor was at +his mercy. + +But the conductor suddenly looked over the robber's shoulder, at the +same time saying aloud to an imaginary person standing at the +robber's back: "Don't shoot him." Like a flash the robber whirled +about to confront this new danger, and like a flash the conductor +shot him down. Show me, Mr. Burroughs, where the mental process in +the robber's brain was a shade different from the mental processes in +Rollo's brain, and I'll quit nature-faking and join the Trappists. +Surely, when a man's mental process and a dog's mental process are +precisely similar, the much-vaunted gulf of Mr. Burroughs's fancy has +been bridged. + +I had a dog in Oakland. His name was Glen. His father was Brown, a +wolf-dog that had been brought down from Alaska., and his mother was +a half-wild mountain shepherd dog. Neither father nor mother had had +any experience with automobiles. Glen came from the country, a half- +grown puppy, to live in Oakland. Immediately he became infatuated +with an automobile. He reached the culmination of happiness when he +was permitted to sit up in the front seat alongside the chauffeur. +He would spend a whole day at a time on an automobile debauch, even +going without food. Often the machine started directly from inside +the barn, dashed out the driveway without stopping, and was gone. +Glen got left behind several times. The custom was established that +whoever was taking the machine out should toot the horn before +starting. Glen learned the signal. No matter where he was or what +he was doing, when that horn tooted he was off for the barn and up +into the front seat. + +One morning, while Glen was on the back porch eating his breakfast of +mush and milk, the chauffeur tooted. Glen rushed down the steps, +into the barn, and took his front seat, the mush and milk dripping +down his excited and happy chops. In passing, I may point out that +in thus forsaking his breakfast for the automobile he was displaying +what is called the power of choice--a peculiarly lordly attribute +that, according to Mr. Burroughs, belongs to man alone. Yet Glen +made his choice between food and fun. + +It was not that Glen wanted his breakfast less, but that he wanted +his ride more. The toot was only a joke. The automobile did not +start. Glen waited and watched. Evidently he saw no signs of an +immediate start, for finally he jumped out of the seat and went back +to his breakfast. He ate with indecent haste, like a man anxious to +catch a train. Again the horn tooted, again he deserted his +breakfast, and again he sat in the seat and waited vainly for the +machine to go. + +They came close to spoiling Glen's breakfast for him, for he was kept +on the jump between porch and barn. Then he grew wise. They tooted +the horn loudly and insistently, but he stayed by his breakfast and +finished it. Thus once more did he display power of choice, +incidentally of control, for when that horn tooted it was all he +could do to refrain from running for the barn. + +The nature-faker would analyze what went on in Glen's brain somewhat +in the following fashion. He had had, in his short life, experiences +that not one of all his ancestors had ever had. He had learned that +automobiles went fast, that once in motion it was impossible for him +to get on board, that the toot of the horn was a noise that was +peculiar to automobiles. These were so many propositions. Now +reasoning can be defined as the act or process of the brain by which, +from propositions known or assumed, new propositions are reached. +Out of the propositions which I have shown were Glen's, and which had +become his through the medium of his own observation of the phenomena +of life, he made the new proposition that when the horn tooted it was +time for him to get on board. + +But on the morning I have described, the chauffeur fooled Glen. +Somehow and much to his own disgust, his reasoning was erroneous. +The machine did not start after all. But to reason incorrectly is +very human. The great trouble in all acts of reasoning is to include +all the propositions in the problem. Glen had included every +proposition but one, namely, the human proposition, the joke in the +brain of the chauffeur. For a number of times Glen was fooled. Then +he performed another mental act. In his problem he included the +human proposition (the joke in the brain of the chauffeur), and he +reached the new conclusion that when the horn tooted the automobile +was NOT going to start. Basing his action on this conclusion, he +remained on the porch and finished his breakfast. You and I, and +even Mr. Burroughs, perform acts of reasoning precisely similar to +this every day in our lives. How Mr. Burroughs will explain Glen's +action by the instinctive theory is beyond me. In wildest fantasy, +even, my brain refuses to follow Mr. Burroughs into the primeval +forest where Glen's dim ancestors, to the tooting of automobile +horns, were fixing into the heredity of the breed the particular +instinct that would enable Glen, a few thousand years later, capably +to cope with automobiles. + +Dr. C. J. Romanes tells of a female chimpanzee who was taught to +count straws up to five. She held the straws in her hand, exposing +the ends to the number requested. If she were asked for three, she +held up three. If she were asked for four, she held up four. All +this is a mere matter of training. But consider now, Mr. Burroughs, +what follows. When she was asked for five straws and she had only +four, she doubled one straw, exposing both its ends and thus making +up the required number. She did not do this only once, and by +accident. She did it whenever more straws were asked for than she +possessed. Did she perform a distinctly reasoning act? or was her +action the result of blind, mechanical instinct? If Mr. Burroughs +cannot answer to his own satisfaction, he may call Dr. Romanes a +nature-faker and dismiss the incident from his mind. + +The foregoing is a trick of erroneous human reasoning that works very +successfully in the United States these days. It is certainly a +trick of Mr. Burroughs, of which he is guilty with distressing +frequency. When a poor devil of a writer records what he has seen, +and when what he has seen does not agree with Mr. Burroughs's +mediaeval theory, he calls said writer a nature-faker. When a man +like Mr. Hornaday comes along, Mr. Burroughs works a variation of the +trick on him. Mr. Hornaday has made a close study of the orang in +captivity and of the orang in its native state. Also, he has studied +closely many other of the higher animal types. Also, in the tropics, +he has studied the lower types of man. Mr. Hornaday is a man of +experience and reputation. When he was asked if animals reasoned, +out of all his knowledge on the subject he replied that to ask him +such a question was equivalent to asking him if fishes swim. Now Mr. +Burroughs has not had much experience in studying the lower human +types and the higher animal types. Living in a rural district in the +state of New York, and studying principally birds in that limited +habitat, he has been in contact neither with the higher animal types +nor the lower human types. But Mr. Hornaday's reply is such a facer +to him and his homocentric theory that he has to do something. And +he does it. He retorts: "I suspect that Mr. Hornaday is a better +naturalist than he is a comparative psychologist." Exit Mr. +Hornaday. Who the devil is Mr. Hornaday, anyway? The sage of +Slabsides has spoken. When Darwin concluded that animals were +capable of reasoning in a rudimentary way, Mr. Burroughs laid him out +in the same fashion by saying: "But Darwin was also a much greater +naturalist than psychologist"--and this despite Darwin's long life of +laborious research that was not wholly confined to a rural district +such as Mr. Burroughs inhabits in New York. Mr. Burroughs's method +of argument is beautiful. It reminds one of the man whose +pronunciation was vile, but who said: "Damn the dictionary; ain't I +here?" + +And now we come to the mental processes of Mr. Burroughs--to the +psychology of the ego, if you please. Mr. Burroughs has troubles of +his own with the dictionary. He violates language from the +standpoint both of logic and science. Language is a tool, and +definitions embodied in language should agree with the facts and +history of life. But Mr. Burroughs's definitions do not so agree. +This, in turn, is not the fault of his education, but of his ego. To +him, despite his well-exploited and patronizing devotion to them, the +lower animals are disgustingly low. To him, affinity and kinship +with the other animals is a repugnant thing. He will have none of +it. He is too glorious a personality not to have between him and the +other animals a vast and impassable gulf. The cause of Mr. +Burroughs's mediaeval view of the other animals is to be found, not +in his knowledge of those other animals, but in the suggestion of his +self-exalted ego. In short, Mr. Burroughs's homocentric theory has +been developed out of his homocentric ego, and by the misuse of +language he strives to make the facts of life agree with his theory. + +After the instances I have cited of actions of animals which are +impossible of explanation as due to instinct, Mr. Burroughs may +reply: "Your instances are easily explained by the simple law of +association." To this I reply, first, then why did you deny +rudimentary reason to animals? and why did you state flatly that +"instinct suffices for the animals"? And, second, with great +reluctance and with overwhelming humility, because of my youth, I +suggest that you do not know exactly what you do mean by that phrase +"the simple law of association." Your trouble, I repeat, is with +definitions. You have grasped that man performs what is called +ABSTRACT reasoning, you have made a definition of abstract reason, +and, betrayed by that great maker of theories, the ego, you have come +to think that all reasoning is abstract and that what is not abstract +reason is not reason at all. This is your attitude toward +rudimentary reason. Such a process, in one of the other animals, +must be either abstract or it is not a reasoning process. Your +intelligence tells you that such a process is not abstract reasoning, +and your homocentric thesis compels you to conclude that it can be +only a mechanical, instinctive process. + +Definitions must agree, not with egos, but with life. Mr. Burroughs +goes on the basis that a definition is something hard and fast, +absolute and eternal. He forgets that all the universe is in flux; +that definitions are arbitrary and ephemeral; that they fix, for a +fleeting instant of time, things that in the past were not, that in +the future will be not, that out of the past become, and that out of +the present pass on to the future and become other things. +Definitions cannot rule life. Definitions cannot be made to rule +life. Life must rule definitions or else the definitions perish. + +Mr. Burroughs forgets the evolution of reason. He makes a definition +of reason without regard to its history, and that definition is of +reason purely abstract. Human reason, as we know it to-day, is not a +creation, but a growth. Its history goes back to the primordial +slime that was quick with muddy life; its history goes back to the +first vitalized inorganic. And here are the steps of its ascent from +the mud to man: simple reflex action, compound reflex action, +memory, habit, rudimentary reason, and abstract reason. In the +course of the climb, thanks to natural selection, instinct was +evolved. Habit is a development in the individual. Instinct is a +race-habit. Instinct is blind, unreasoning, mechanical. This was +the dividing of the ways in the climb of aspiring life. The perfect +culmination of instinct we find in the ant-heap and the beehive. +Instinct proved a blind alley. But the other path, that of reason, +led on and on even to Mr. Burroughs and you and me. + +There are no impassable gulfs, unless one chooses, as Mr. Burroughs +does, to ignore the lower human types and the higher animal types, +and to compare human mind with bird mind. It was impossible for life +to reason abstractly until speech was developed. Equipped with +swords, with tools of thought, in short, the slow development of the +power to reason in the abstract went on. The lowest human types do +little or no reasoning in the abstract. With every word, with every +increase in the complexity of thought, with every ascertained fact so +gained, went on action and reaction in the grey matter of the speech +discoverer, and slowly, step by step, through hundreds of thousands +of years, developed the power of reason. + +Place a honey-bee in a glass bottle. Turn the bottom of the bottle +toward a lighted lamp so that the open mouth is away from the lamp. +Vainly, ceaselessly, a thousand times, undeterred by the bafflement +and the pain, the bee will hurl himself against the bottom of the +bottle as he strives to win to the light. That is instinct. Place +your dog in a back yard and go away. He is your dog. He loves you. +He yearns toward you as the bee yearns toward the light. He listens +to your departing footsteps. But the fence is too high. Then he +turns his back upon the direction in which you are departing, and +runs around the yard. He is frantic with affection and desire. But +he is not blind. He is observant. He is looking for a hole under +the fence, or through the fence, or for a place where the fence is +not so high. He sees a dry-goods box standing against the fence. +Presto! He leaps upon it, goes over the barrier, and tears down the +street to overtake you. Is that instinct? + +Here, in the household where I am writing this, is a little Tahitian +"feeding-child." He believes firmly that a tiny dwarf resides in the +box of my talking-machine and that it is the tiny dwarf who does the +singing and the talking. Not even Mr. Burroughs will affirm that the +child has reached this conclusion by an instinctive process. Of +course, the child reasons the existence of the dwarf in the box. How +else could the box talk and sing? In that child's limited experience +it has never encountered a single instance where speech and song were +produced otherwise than by direct human agency. I doubt not that the +dog is considerably surprised when he hears his master's voice coming +out of a box. + +The adult savage, on his first introduction to a telephone, rushes +around to the adjoining room to find the man who is talking through +the partition. Is this act instinctive? No. Out of his limited +experience, out of his limited knowledge of physics, he reasons that +the only explanation possible is that a man is in the other room +talking through the partition. + +But that savage cannot be fooled by a hand-mirror. We must go lower +down in the animal scale, to the monkey. The monkey swiftly learns +that the monkey it sees is not in the glass, wherefore it reaches +craftily behind the glass. Is this instinct? No. It is rudimentary +reasoning. Lower than the monkey in the scale of brain is the robin, +and the robin fights its reflection in the window-pane. Now climb +with me for a space. From the robin to the monkey, where is the +impassable gulf? and where is the impassable gulf between the monkey +and the feeding-child? between the feeding-child and the savage who +seeks the man behind the partition? ay, and between the savage and +the astute financiers Mrs. Chadwick fooled and the thousands who were +fooled by the Keeley Motor swindle? + +Let us be very humble. We who are so very human are very animal. +Kinship with the other animals is no more repugnant to Mr. Burroughs +than was the heliocentric theory to the priests who compelled Galileo +to recant. Not correct human reason, not the evidence of the +ascertained fact, but pride of ego, was responsible for the +repugnance. + +In his stiff-necked pride, Mr. Burroughs runs a hazard more +humiliating to that pride than any amount of kinship with the other +animals. When a dog exhibits choice, direction, control, and reason; +when it is shown that certain mental processes in that dog's brain +are precisely duplicated in the brain of man; and when Mr. Burroughs +convincingly proves that every action of the dog is mechanical and +automatic--then, by precisely the same arguments, can it be proved +that the similar actions of man are mechanical and automatic. No, +Mr. Burroughs, though you stand on the top of the ladder of life, you +must not kick out that ladder from under your feet. You must not +deny your relatives, the other animals. Their history is your +history, and if you kick them to the bottom of the abyss, to the +bottom of the abyss you go yourself. By them you stand or fall. +What you repudiate in them you repudiate in yourself--a pretty +spectacle, truly, of an exalted animal striving to disown the stuff +of life out of which it is made, striving by use of the very reason +that was developed by evolution to deny the possession of evolution +that developed it. This may be good egotism, but it is not good +science. + +PAPEETE, TAHITI. +March 1908. + + + +THE YELLOW PERIL + + + +No more marked contrast appears in passing from our Western land to +the paper houses and cherry blossoms of Japan than appears in passing +from Korea to China. To achieve a correct appreciation of the +Chinese the traveller should first sojourn amongst the Koreans for +several months, and then, one fine day, cross over the Yalu into +Manchuria. It would be of exceptional advantage to the correctness +of appreciation did he cross over the Yalu on the heels of a hostile +and alien army. + +War is to-day the final arbiter in the affairs of men, and it is as +yet the final test of the worth-whileness of peoples. Tested thus, +the Korean fails. He lacks the nerve to remain when a strange army +crosses his land. The few goods and chattels he may have managed to +accumulate he puts on his back, along with his doors and windows, and +away he heads for his mountain fastnesses. Later he may return, sans +goods, chattels, doors, and windows, impelled by insatiable curiosity +for a "look see." But it is curiosity merely--a timid, deerlike +curiosity. He is prepared to bound away on his long legs at the +first hint of danger or trouble. + +Northern Korea was a desolate land when the Japanese passed through. +Villages and towns were deserted. The fields lay untouched. There +was no ploughing nor sowing, no green things growing. Little or +nothing was to be purchased. One carried one's own food with him and +food for horses and servants was the anxious problem that waited at +the day's end. In many a lonely village not an ounce nor a grain of +anything could be bought, and yet there might be standing around +scores of white-garmented, stalwart Koreans, smoking yard-long pipes +and chattering, chattering--ceaselessly chattering. Love, money, or +force could not procure from them a horseshoe or a horseshoe nail. + +"Upso," was their invariable reply. "Upso," cursed word, which means +"Have not got." + +They had tramped probably forty miles that day, down from their +hiding-places, just for a "look see," and forty miles back they would +cheerfully tramp, chattering all the way over what they had seen. +Shake a stick at them as they stand chattering about your camp-fire, +and the gloom of the landscape will be filled with tall, flitting +ghosts, bounding like deer, with great springy strides which one +cannot but envy. They have splendid vigour and fine bodies, but they +are accustomed to being beaten and robbed without protest or +resistance by every chance foreigner who enters their country. + +From this nerveless, forsaken Korean land I rode down upon the sandy +islands of the Yalu. For weeks these islands had been the dread +between-the-lines of two fighting armies. The air above had been +rent by screaming projectiles. The echoes of the final battle had +scarcely died away. The trains of Japanese wounded and Japanese dead +were trailing by. + +On the conical hill, a quarter of a mile away, the Russian dead were +being buried in their trenches and in the shell holes made by the +Japanese. And here, in the thick of it all, a man was ploughing. +Green things were growing--young onions--and the man who was weeding +them paused from his labour long enough to sell me a handful. Near +by was the smoke-blackened ruin of the farmhouse, fired by the +Russians when they retreated from the riverbed. Two men were +removing the debris, cleaning the confusion, preparatory to +rebuilding. They were clad in blue. Pigtails hung down their backs. +I was in China! + +I rode to the shore, into the village of Kuelian-Ching. There were +no lounging men smoking long pipes and chattering. The previous day +the Russians had been there, a bloody battle had been fought, and to- +day the Japanese were there--but what was that to talk about? +Everybody was busy. Men were offering eggs and chickens and fruit +for sale upon the street, and bread, as I live, bread in small round +loaves or buns. I rode on into the country. Everywhere a toiling +population was in evidence. The houses and walls were strong and +substantial. Stone and brick replaced the mud walls of the Korean +dwellings. Twilight fell and deepened, and still the ploughs went up +and down the fields, the sowers following after. Trains of +wheelbarrows, heavily loaded, squeaked by, and Pekin carts, drawn by +from four to six cows, horses, mules, ponies, or jackasses--cows even +with their newborn calves tottering along on puny legs outside the +traces. Everybody worked. Everything worked. I saw a man mending +the road. I was in China. + +I came to the city of Antung, and lodged with a merchant. He was a +grain merchant. Corn he had, hundreds of bushels, stored in great +bins of stout matting; peas and beans in sacks, and in the back yard +his millstones went round and round, grinding out meal. Also, in his +back yard, were buildings containing vats sunk into the ground, and +here the tanners were at work making leather. I bought a measure of +corn from mine host for my horses, and he overcharged me thirty +cents. I was in China. Antung was jammed with Japanese troops. It +was the thick of war. But it did not matter. The work of Antung +went on just the same. The shops were wide open; the streets were +lined with pedlars. One could buy anything; get anything made. I +dined at a Chinese restaurant, cleansed myself at a public bath in a +private tub with a small boy to assist in the scrubbing. I bought +condensed milk, bitter, canned vegetables, bread, and cake. I repeat +it, cake--good cake. I bought knives, forks, and spoons, granite- +ware dishes and mugs. There were horseshoes and horseshoers. A +worker in iron realized for me new designs of mine for my tent poles. +My shoes were sent out to be repaired. A barber shampooed my hair. +A servant returned with corn-beef in tins, a bottle of port, another +of cognac, and beer, blessed beer, to wash out from my throat the +dust of an army. It was the land of Canaan. I was in China. + +The Korean is the perfect type of inefficiency--of utter +worthlessness. The Chinese is the perfect type of industry. For +sheer work no worker in the world can compare with him. Work is the +breath of his nostrils. It is his solution of existence. It is to +him what wandering and fighting in far lands and spiritual adventure +have been to other peoples. Liberty to him epitomizes itself in +access to the means of toil. To till the soil and labour +interminably with rude implements and utensils is all he asks of life +and of the powers that be. Work is what he desires above all things, +and he will work at anything for anybody. + +During the taking of the Taku forts he carried scaling ladders at the +heads of the storming columns and planted them against the walls. He +did this, not from a sense of patriotism, but for the invading +foreign devils because they paid him a daily wage of fifty cents. He +is not frightened by war. He accepts it as he does rain and +sunshine, the changing of the seasons, and other natural phenomena. +He prepares for it, endures it, and survives it, and when the tide of +battle sweeps by, the thunder of the guns still reverberating in the +distant canyons, he is seen calmly bending to his usual tasks. Nay, +war itself bears fruits whereof he may pick. Before the dead are +cold or the burial squads have arrived he is out on the field, +stripping the mangled bodies, collecting the shrapnel, and ferreting +in the shell holes for slivers and fragments of iron. + +The Chinese is no coward. He does not carry away his doors amid +windows to the mountains, but remains to guard them when alien +soldiers occupy his town. He does not hide away his chickens and his +eggs, nor any other commodity he possesses. He proceeds at once to +offer them for sale. Nor is he to be bullied into lowering his +price. What if the purchaser be a soldier and an alien made cocky by +victory and confident by overwhelming force? He has two large pears +saved over from last year which he will sell for five sen, or for the +same price three small pears. What if one soldier persist in taking +away with him three large pears? What if there be twenty other +soldiers jostling about him? He turns over his sack of fruit to +another Chinese and races down the street after his pears and the +soldier responsible for their flight, and he does not return till he +has wrenched away one large pear from that soldier's grasp. + +Nor is the Chinese the type of permanence which he has been so often +designated. He is not so ill-disposed toward new ideas and new +methods as his history would seem to indicate. True, his forms, +customs, and methods have been permanent these many centuries, but +this has been due to the fact that his government was in the hands of +the learned classes, and that these governing scholars found their +salvation lay in suppressing all progressive ideas. The ideas behind +the Boxer troubles and the outbreaks over the introduction of +railroad and other foreign devil machinations have emanated from the +minds of the literati, and been spread by their pamphlets and +propagandists. + +Originality and enterprise have been suppressed in the Chinese for +scores of generations. Only has remained to him industry, and in +this has he found the supreme expression of his being. On the other +hand, his susceptibility to new ideas has been well demonstrated +wherever he has escaped beyond the restrictions imposed upon him by +his government. So far as the business man is concerned he has +grasped far more clearly the Western code of business, the Western +ethics of business, than has the Japanese. He has learned, as a +matter of course, to keep his word or his bond. As yet, the Japanese +business man has failed to understand this. When he has signed a +time contract and when changing conditions cause him to lose by it, +the Japanese merchant cannot understand why he should live up to his +contract. It is beyond his comprehension and repulsive to his common +sense that he should live up to his contract and thereby lose money. +He firmly believes that the changing conditions themselves absolve +him. And in so far adaptable as he has shown himself to be in other +respects, he fails to grasp a radically new idea where the Chinese +succeeds. + +Here we have the Chinese, four hundred millions of him, occupying a +vast land of immense natural resources--resources of a twentieth- +century age, of a machine age; resources of coal and iron, which are +the backbone of commercial civilization. He is an indefatigable +worker. He is not dead to new ideas, new methods, new systems. +Under a capable management he can be made to do anything. Truly +would he of himself constitute the much-heralded Yellow Peril were it +not for his present management. This management, his government, is +set, crystallized. It is what binds him down to building as his +fathers built. The governing class, entrenched by the precedent and +power of centuries and by the stamp it has put upon his mind, will +never free him. It would be the suicide of the governing class, and +the governing class knows it. + +Comes now the Japanese. On the streets of Antung, of Feng-Wang- +Chang, or of any other Manchurian city, the following is a familiar +scene: One is hurrying home through the dark of the unlighted +streets when he comes upon a paper lantern resting on the ground. On +one side squats a Chinese civilian on his hams, on the other side +squats a Japanese soldier. One dips his forefinger in the dust and +writes strange, monstrous characters. The other nods understanding, +sweeps the dust slate level with his hand, and with his forefinger +inscribes similar characters. They are talking. They cannot speak +to each other, but they can write. Long ago one borrowed the other's +written language, and long before that, untold generations ago, they +diverged from a common root, the ancient Mongol stock. + +There have been changes, differentiations brought about by diverse +conditions and infusions of other blood; but down at the bottom of +their being, twisted into the fibres of them, is a heritage in +common--a sameness in kind which time has not obliterated. The +infusion of other blood, Malay, perhaps, has made the Japanese a race +of mastery and power, a fighting race through all its history, a race +which has always despised commerce and exalted fighting. + +To-day, equipped with the finest machines and systems of destruction +the Caucasian mind has devised, handling machines and systems with +remarkable and deadly accuracy, this rejuvenescent Japanese race has +embarked on a course of conquest the goal of which no man knows. The +head men of Japan are dreaming ambitiously, and the people are +dreaming blindly, a Napoleonic dream. And to this dream the Japanese +clings and will cling with bull-dog tenacity. The soldier shouting +"Nippon, Banzai!" on the walls of Wiju, the widow at home in her +paper house committing suicide so that her only son, her sole +support, may go to the front, are both expressing the unanimity of +the dream. + +The late disturbance in the Far East marked the clashing of the +dreams, for the Slav, too, is dreaming greatly. Granting that the +Japanese can hurl back the Slav and that the two great branches of +the Anglo-Saxon race do not despoil him of his spoils, the Japanese +dream takes on substantiality. Japan's population is no larger +because her people have continually pressed against the means of +subsistence. But given poor, empty Korea for a breeding colony and +Manchuria for a granary, and at once the Japanese begins to increase +by leaps and bounds. + +Even so, he would not of himself constitute a Brown Peril. He has +not the time in which to grow and realize the dream. He is only +forty-five millions, and so fast does the economic exploitation of +the planet hurry on the planet's partition amongst the Western +peoples that, before he could attain the stature requisite to menace, +he would see the Western giants in possession of the very stuff of +his dream. + +The menace to the Western world lies, not in the little brown man, +but in the four hundred millions of yellow men should the little +brown man undertake their management. The Chinese is not dead to new +ideas; he is an efficient worker; makes a good soldier, and is +wealthy in the essential materials of a machine age. Under a capable +management he will go far. The Japanese is prepared and fit to +undertake this management. Not only has he proved himself an apt +imitator of Western material progress, a sturdy worker, and a capable +organizer, but he is far more fit to manage the Chinese than are we. +The baffling enigma of the Chinese character is no baffling enigma to +him. He understands as we could never school ourselves nor hope to +understand. Their mental processes are largely the same. He thinks +with the same thought-symbols as does the Chinese, and he thinks in +the same peculiar grooves. He goes on where we are balked by the +obstacles of incomprehension. He takes the turning which we cannot +perceive, twists around the obstacle, and, presto! is out of sight in +the ramifications of the Chinese mind where we cannot follow. + +The Chinese has been called the type of permanence, and well he has +merited it, dozing as he has through the ages. And as truly was the +Japanese the type of permanence up to a generation ago, when he +suddenly awoke and startled the world with a rejuvenescence the like +of which the world had never seen before. The ideas of the West were +the leaven which quickened the Japanese; and the ideas of the West, +transmitted by the Japanese mind into ideas Japanese, may well make +the leaven powerful enough to quicken the Chinese. + +We have had Africa for the Afrikander, and at no distant day we shall +hear "Asia for the Asiatic!" Four hundred million indefatigable +workers (deft, intelligent, and unafraid to die), aroused and +rejuvenescent, managed and guided by forty-five million additional +human beings who are splendid fighting animals, scientific and +modern, constitute that menace to the Western world which has been +well named the "Yellow Peril." The possibility of race adventure has +not passed away. We are in the midst of our own. The Slav is just +girding himself up to begin. Why may not the yellow and the brown +start out on an adventure as tremendous as our own and more +strikingly unique? + +The ultimate success of such an adventure the Western mind refuses to +consider. It is not the nature of life to believe itself weak. +There is such a thing as race egotism as well as creature egotism, +and a very good thing it is. In the first place, the Western world +will not permit the rise of the yellow peril. It is firmly convinced +that it will not permit the yellow and the brown to wax strong and +menace its peace and comfort. It advances this idea with +persistency, and delivers itself of long arguments showing how and +why this menace will not be permitted to arise. Today, far more +voices are engaged in denying the yellow peril than in prophesying +it. The Western world is warned, if not armed, against the +possibility of it. + +In the second place, there is a weakness inherent in the brown man +which will bring his adventure to naught. From the West he has +borrowed all our material achievement and passed our ethical +achievement by. Our engines of production and destruction he has +made his. What was once solely ours he now duplicates, rivalling our +merchants in the commerce of the East, thrashing the Russian on sea +and land. A marvellous imitator truly, but imitating us only in +things material. Things spiritual cannot be imitated; they must be +felt and lived, woven into the very fabric of life, and here the +Japanese fails. + +It required no revolution of his nature to learn to calculate the +range and fire a field gun or to march the goose-step. It was a mere +matter of training. Our material achievement is the product of our +intellect. It is knowledge, and knowledge, like coin, is +interchangeable. It is not wrapped up in the heredity of the new- +born child, but is something to be acquired afterward. Not so with +our soul stuff, which is the product of an evolution which goes back +to the raw beginnings of the race. Our soul stuff is not a coin to +be pocketed by the first chance comer. The Japanese cannot pocket it +any more than he can thrill to short Saxon words or we can thrill to +Chinese hieroglyphics. The leopard cannot change its spots, nor can +the Japanese, nor can we. We are thumbed by the ages into what we +are, and by no conscious inward effort can we in a day rethumb +ourselves. Nor can the Japanese in a day, or a generation, rethumb +himself in our image. + +Back of our own great race adventure, back of our robberies by sea +and land, our lusts and violences and all the evil things we have +done, there is a certain integrity, a sternness of conscience, a +melancholy responsibility of life, a sympathy and comradeship and +warm human feel, which is ours, indubitably ours, and which we cannot +teach to the Oriental as we would teach logarithms or the trajectory +of projectiles. That we have groped for the way of right conduct and +agonized over the soul betokens our spiritual endowment. Though we +have strayed often and far from righteousness, the voices of the +seers have always been raised, and we have harked back to the bidding +of conscience. The colossal fact of our history is that we have made +the religion of Jesus Christ our religion. No matter how dark in +error and deed, ours has been a history of spiritual struggle and +endeavour. We are pre-eminently a religious race, which is another +way of saying that we are a right-seeking race. + +"What do you think of the Japanese?" was asked an American woman +after she had lived some time in Japan. "It seems to me that they +have no soul," was her answer. + +This must not be taken to mean that the Japanese is without soul. +But it serves to illustrate the enormous difference between their +souls and this woman's soul. There was no feel, no speech, no +recognition. This Western soul did not dream that the Eastern soul +existed, it was so different, so totally different. + +Religion, as a battle for the right in our sense of right, as a +yearning and a strife for spiritual good and purity, is unknown to +the Japanese. + +Measured by what religion means to us, the Japanese is a race without +religion. Yet it has a religion, and who shall say that it is not as +great a religion as ours, nor as efficacious? As one Japanese has +written: + +"Our reflection brought into prominence not so much the moral as the +national consciousness of the individual. . . . To us the country is +more than land and soil from which to mine gold or reap grain--it is +the sacred abode of the gods, the spirit of our forefathers; to us +the Emperor is more than the Arch Constable of a Reichsstaat, or even +the Patron of a Kulturstaat; he is the bodily representative of +heaven on earth, blending in his person its power and its mercy." + +The religion of Japan is practically a worship of the State itself. +Patriotism is the expression of this worship. The Japanese mind does +not split hairs as to whether the Emperor is Heaven incarnate or the +State incarnate. So far as the Japanese are concerned, the Emperor +lives, is himself deity. The Emperor is the object to live for and +to die for. The Japanese is not an individualist. He has developed +national consciousness instead of moral consciousness. He is not +interested in his own moral welfare except in so far as it is the +welfare of the State. The honour of the individual, per se, does not +exist. Only exists the honour of the State, which is his honour. He +does not look upon himself as a free agent, working out his own +personal salvation. Spiritual agonizing is unknown to him. He has a +"sense of calm trust in fate, a quiet submission to the inevitable, a +stoic composure in sight of danger or calamity, a disdain of life and +friendliness with death." He relates himself to the State as, +amongst bees, the worker is related to the hive; himself nothing, the +State everything; his reasons for existence the exaltation and +glorification of the State. + +The most admired quality to-day of the Japanese is his patriotism. +The Western world is in rhapsodies over it, unwittingly measuring the +Japanese patriotism by its own conceptions of patriotism. "For God, +my country, and the Czar!" cries the Russian patriot; but in the +Japanese mind there is no differentiation between the three. The +Emperor is the Emperor, and God and country as well. The patriotism +of the Japanese is blind and unswerving loyalty to what is +practically an absolutism. The Emperor can do no wrong, nor can the +five ambitious great men who have his ear and control the destiny of +Japan. + +No great race adventure can go far nor endure long which has no +deeper foundation than material success, no higher prompting than +conquest for conquest's sake and mere race glorification. To go far +and to endure, it must have behind it an ethical impulse, a sincerely +conceived righteousness. But it must be taken into consideration +that the above postulate is itself a product of Western race-egotism, +urged by our belief in our own righteousness and fostered by a faith +in ourselves which may be as erroneous as are most fond race fancies. +So be it. The world is whirling faster to-day than ever before. It +has gained impetus. Affairs rush to conclusion. The Far East is the +point of contact of the adventuring Western people as well as of the +Asiatic. We shall not have to wait for our children's time nor our +children's children. We shall ourselves see and largely determine +the adventure of the Yellow and the Brown. + +FENG-WANG-CHENG, MANCHURIA. +June 1904, + + + +WHAT LIFE MEANS TO ME + + + +I was born in the working-class. Early I discovered enthusiasm, +ambition, and ideals; and to satisfy these became the problem of my +child-life. My environment was crude and rough and raw. I had no +outlook, but an uplook rather. My place in society was at the +bottom. Here life offered nothing but sordidness and wretchedness, +both of the flesh and the spirit; for here flesh and spirit were +alike starved and tormented. + +Above me towered the colossal edifice of society, and to my mind the +only way out was up. Into this edifice I early resolved to climb. +Up above, men wore black clothes and boiled shirts, and women dressed +in beautiful gowns. Also, there were good things to eat, and there +was plenty to eat. This much for the flesh. Then there were the +things of the spirit. Up above me, I knew, were unselfishnesses of +the spirit, clean and noble thinking, keen intellectual living. I +knew all this because I read "Seaside Library" novels, in which, with +the exception of the villains and adventuresses, all men and women +thought beautiful thoughts, spoke a beautiful tongue, and performed +glorious deeds. In short, as I accepted the rising of the sun, I +accepted that up above me was all that was fine and noble and +gracious, all that gave decency and dignity to life, all that made +life worth living and that remunerated one for his travail and +misery. + +But it is not particularly easy for one to climb up out of the +working-class--especially if he is handicapped by the possession of +ideals and illusions. I lived on a ranch in California, and was hard +put to find the ladder whereby to climb. I early inquired the rate +of interest on invested money, and worried my child's brain into an +understanding of the virtues and excellences of that remarkable +invention of man, compound interest. Further, I ascertained the +current rates of wages for workers of all ages, and the cost of +living. From all this data I concluded that if I began immediately +and worked and saved until I was fifty years of age, I could then +stop working and enter into participation in a fair portion of the +delights and goodnesses that would then be open to me higher up in +society. Of course, I resolutely determined not to marry, while I +quite forgot to consider at all that great rock of disaster in the +working-class world--sickness. + +But the life that was in me demanded more than a meagre existence of +scraping and scrimping. Also, at ten years of age, I became a +newsboy on the streets of a city, and found myself with a changed +uplook. All about me were still the same sordidness and +wretchedness, and up above me was still the same paradise waiting to +be gained; but the ladder whereby to climb was a different one. It +was now the ladder of business. Why save my earnings and invest in +government bonds, when, by buying two newspapers for five cents, with +a turn of the wrist I could sell them for ten cents and double my +capital? The business ladder was the ladder for me, and I had a +vision of myself becoming a bald-headed and successful merchant +prince. + +Alas for visions! When I was sixteen I had already earned the title +of "prince." But this title was given me by a gang of cut-throats +and thieves, by whom I was called "The Prince of the Oyster Pirates." +And at that time I had climbed the first rung of the business ladder. +I was a capitalist. I owned a boat and a complete oyster-pirating +outfit. I had begun to exploit my fellow-creatures. I had a crew of +one man. As captain and owner I took two-thirds of the spoils, and +gave the crew one-third, though the crew worked just as hard as I did +and risked just as much his life and liberty. + +This one rung was the height I climbed up the business ladder. One +night I went on a raid amongst the Chinese fishermen. Ropes and nets +were worth dollars and cents. It was robbery, I grant, but it was +precisely the spirit of capitalism. The capitalist takes away the +possessions of his fellow-creatures by means of a rebate, or of a +betrayal of trust, or by the purchase of senators and supreme-court +judges. I was merely crude. That was the only difference. I used a +gun. + +But my crew that night was one of those inefficients against whom the +capitalist is wont to fulminate, because, forsooth, such inefficients +increase expenses and reduce dividends. My crew did both. What of +his carelessness he set fire to the big mainsail and totally +destroyed it. There weren't any dividends that night, and the +Chinese fishermen were richer by the nets and ropes we did not get. +I was bankrupt, unable just then to pay sixty-five dollars for a new +mainsail. I left my boat at anchor and went off on a bay-pirate boat +on a raid up the Sacramento River. While away on this trip, another +gang of bay pirates raided my boat. They stole everything, even the +anchors; and later on, when I recovered the drifting hulk, I sold it +for twenty dollars. I had slipped back the one rung I had climbed, +and never again did I attempt the business ladder. + +From then on I was mercilessly exploited by other capitalists. I had +the muscle, and they made money out of it while I made but a very +indifferent living out of it. I was a sailor before the mast, a +longshoreman, a roustabout; I worked in canneries, and factories, and +laundries; I mowed lawns, and cleaned carpets, and washed windows. +And I never got the full product of my toil. I looked at the +daughter of the cannery owner, in her carriage, and knew that it was +my muscle, in part, that helped drag along that carriage on its +rubber tyres. I looked at the son of the factory owner, going to +college, and knew that it was my muscle that helped, in part, to pay +for the wine and good fellowship he enjoyed. + +But I did not resent this. It was all in the game. They were the +strong. Very well, I was strong. I would carve my way to a place +amongst them and make money out of the muscles of other men. I was +not afraid of work. I loved hard work. I would pitch in and work +harder than ever and eventually become a pillar of society. + +And just then, as luck would have it, I found an employer that was of +the same mind. I was willing to work, and he was more than willing +that I should work. I thought I was learning a trade. In reality, I +had displaced two men. I thought he was making an electrician out of +me; as a matter of fact, he was making fifty dollars per month out of +me. The two men I had displaced had received forty dollars each per +month; I was doing the work of both for thirty dollars per month. + +This employer worked me nearly to death. A man may love oysters, but +too many oysters will disincline him toward that particular diet. +And so with me. Too much work sickened me. I did not wish ever to +see work again. I fled from work. I became a tramp, begging my way +from door to door, wandering over the United States and sweating +bloody sweats in slums and prisons. + +I had been born in the working-class, and I was now, at the age of +eighteen, beneath the point at which I had started. I was down in +the cellar of society, down in the subterranean depths of misery +about which it is neither nice nor proper to speak. I was in the +pit, the abyss, the human cesspool, the shambles and the charnel- +house of our civilization. This is the part of the edifice of +society that society chooses to ignore. Lack of space compels me +here to ignore it, and I shall say only that the things I there saw +gave me a terrible scare. + +I was scared into thinking. I saw the naked simplicities of the +complicated civilization in which I lived. Life was a matter of food +and shelter. In order to get food and shelter men sold things. The +merchant sold shoes, the politician sold his manhood, and the +representative of the people, with exceptions, of course, sold his +trust; while nearly all sold their honour. Women, too, whether on +the street or in the holy bond of wedlock, were prone to sell their +flesh. All things were commodities, all people bought and sold. The +one commodity that labour had to sell was muscle. The honour of +labour had no price in the marketplace. Labour had muscle, and +muscle alone, to sell. + +But there was a difference, a vital difference. Shoes and trust and +honour had a way of renewing themselves. They were imperishable +stocks. Muscle, on the other hand, did not renew. As the shoe +merchant sold shoes, he continued to replenish his stock. But there +was no way of replenishing the labourer's stock of muscle. The more +he sold of his muscle, the less of it remained to him. It was his +one commodity, and each day his stock of it diminished. In the end, +if he did not die before, he sold out and put up his shutters. He +was a muscle bankrupt, and nothing remained to him but to go down +into the cellar of society and perish miserably. + +I learned, further, that brain was likewise a commodity. It, too, +was different from muscle. A brain seller was only at his prime when +he was fifty or sixty years old, and his wares were fetching higher +prices than ever. But a labourer was worked out or broken down at +forty-five or fifty. I had been in the cellar of society, and I did +not like the place as a habitation. The pipes and drains were +unsanitary, and the air was bad to breathe. If I could not live on +the parlour floor of society, I could, at any rate, have a try at the +attic. It was true, the diet there was slim, but the air at least +was pure. So I resolved to sell no more muscle, and to become a +vendor of brains. + +Then began a frantic pursuit of knowledge. I returned to California +and opened the books. While thus equipping myself to become a brain +merchant, it was inevitable that I should delve into sociology. +There I found, in a certain class of books, scientifically +formulated, the simple sociological concepts I had already worked out +for myself. Other and greater minds, before I was born, had worked +out all that I had thought and a vast deal more. I discovered that I +was a socialist. + +The socialists were revolutionists, inasmuch as they struggled to +overthrow the society of the present, and out of the material to +build the society of the future. I, too, was a socialist and a +revolutionist. I joined the groups of working-class and intellectual +revolutionists, and for the first time came into intellectual living. +Here I found keen-flashing intellects and brilliant wits; for here I +met strong and alert-brained, withal horny-handed, members of the +working-class; unfrocked preachers too wide in their Christianity for +any congregation of Mammon-worshippers; professors broken on the +wheel of university subservience to the ruling class and flung out +because they were quick with knowledge which they strove to apply to +the affairs of mankind. + +Here I found, also, warm faith in the human, glowing idealism, +sweetnesses of unselfishness, renunciation, and martyrdom--all the +splendid, stinging things of the spirit. Here life was clean, noble, +and alive. Here life rehabilitated itself, became wonderful and +glorious; and I was glad to be alive. I was in touch with great +souls who exalted flesh and spirit over dollars and cents, and to +whom the thin wail of the starved slum child meant more than all the +pomp and circumstance of commercial expansion and world empire. All +about me were nobleness of purpose and heroism of effort, and my days +and nights were sunshine and starshine, all fire and dew, with before +my eyes, ever burning and blazing, the Holy Grail, Christ's own +Grail, the warm human, long-suffering and maltreated, but to be +rescued and saved at the last. + +And I, poor foolish I, deemed all this to be a mere foretaste of the +delights of living I should find higher above me in society. I had +lost many illusions since the day I read "Seaside Library" novels on +the California ranch. I was destined to lose many of the illusions I +still retained. + +As a brain merchant I was a success. Society opened its portals to +me. I entered right in on the parlour floor, and my disillusionment +proceeded rapidly. I sat down to dinner with the masters of society, +and with the wives and daughters of the masters of society. The +women were gowned beautifully, I admit; but to my naive surprise I +discovered that they were of the same clay as all the rest of the +women I had known down below in the cellar. "The colonel's lady and +Judy O'Grady were sisters under their skins"--and gowns. + +It was not this, however, so much as their materialism, that shocked +me. It is true, these beautifully gowned, beautiful women prattled +sweet little ideals and dear little moralities; but in spite of their +prattle the dominant key of the life they lived was materialistic. +And they were so sentimentally selfish! They assisted in all kinds +of sweet little charities, and informed one of the fact, while all +the time the food they ate and the beautiful clothes they wore were +bought out of dividends stained with the blood of child labour, and +sweated labour, and of prostitution itself. When I mentioned such +facts, expecting in my innocence that these sisters of Judy O'Grady +would at once strip off their blood-dyed silks and jewels, they +became excited and angry, and read me preachments about the lack of +thrift, the drink, and the innate depravity that caused all the +misery in society's cellar. When I mentioned that I couldn't quite +see that it was the lack of thrift, the intemperance, and the +depravity of a half-starved child of six that made it work twelve +hours every night in a Southern cotton mill, these sisters of Judy +O'Grady attacked my private life and called me an "agitator"--as +though that, forsooth, settled the argument. + +Nor did I fare better with the masters themselves. I had expected to +find men who were clean, noble, and alive, whose ideals were clean, +noble, and alive. I went about amongst the men who sat in the high +places--the preachers, the politicians, the business men, the +professors, and the editors. I ate meat with them, drank wine with +them, automobiled with them, and studied them. It is true, I found +many that were clean and noble; but with rare exceptions, they were +not ALIVE. I do verily believe I could count the exceptions on the +fingers of my two hands. Where they were not alive with rottenness, +quick with unclean life, there were merely the unburied dead--clean +and noble, like well-preserved mummies, but not alive. In this +connection I may especially mention the professors I met, the men who +live up to that decadent university ideal, "the passionless pursuit +of passionless intelligence." + +I met men who invoked the name of the Prince of Peace in their +diatribes against war, and who put rifles in the hands of Pinkertons +with which to shoot down strikers in their own factories. I met men +incoherent with indignation at the brutality of prize-fighting, and +who, at the same time, were parties to the adulteration of food that +killed each year more babies than even red-handed Herod had killed. + +I talked in hotels and clubs and homes and Pullmans, and steamer- +chairs with captains of industry, and marvelled at how little +travelled they were in the realm of intellect. On the other hand, I +discovered that their intellect, in the business sense, was +abnormally developed. Also, I discovered that their morality, where +business was concerned, was nil. + +This delicate, aristocratic-featured gentleman, was a dummy director +and a tool of corporations that secretly robbed widows and orphans. +This gentleman, who collected fine editions and was an especial +patron of literature, paid blackmail to a heavy-jowled, black-browed +boss of a municipal machine. This editor, who published patent +medicine advertisements and did not dare print the truth in his paper +about said patent medicines for fear of losing the advertising, +called me a scoundrelly demagogue because I told him that his +political economy was antiquated and that his biology was +contemporaneous with Pliny. + +This senator was the tool and the slave, the little puppet of a +gross, uneducated machine boss; so was this governor and this supreme +court judge; and all three rode on railroad passes. This man, +talking soberly and earnestly about the beauties of idealism and the +goodness of God, had just betrayed his comrades in a business deal. +This man, a pillar of the church and heavy contributor to foreign +missions, worked his shop girls ten hours a day on a starvation wage +and thereby directly encouraged prostitution. This man, who endowed +chairs in universities, perjured himself in courts of law over a +matter of dollars and cents. And this railroad magnate broke his +word as a gentleman and a Christian when he granted a secret rebate +to one of two captains of industry locked together in a struggle to +the death. + +It was the same everywhere, crime and betrayal, betrayal and crime-- +men who were alive, but who were neither clean nor noble, men who +were clean and noble, but who were not alive. Then there was a +great, hopeless mass, neither noble nor alive, but merely clean. It +did not sin positively nor deliberately; but it did sin passively and +ignorantly by acquiescing in the current immorality and profiting by +it. Had it been noble and alive it would not have been ignorant, and +it would have refused to share in the profits of betrayal and crime. + +I discovered that I did not like to live on the parlour floor of +society. Intellectually I was as bored. Morally and spiritually I +was sickened. I remembered my intellectuals and idealists, my +unfrocked preachers, broken professors, and clean-minded, class- +conscious working-men. I remembered my days and nights of sunshine +and starshine, where life was all a wild sweet wonder, a spiritual +paradise of unselfish adventure and ethical romance. And I saw +before me, ever blazing and burning, the Holy Grail. + +So I went back to the working-class, in which I had been born and +where I belonged. I care no longer to climb. The imposing edifice +of society above my head holds no delights for me. It is the +foundation of the edifice that interests me. There I am content to +labour, crowbar in hand, shoulder to shoulder with intellectuals, +idealists, and class-conscious working-men, getting a solid pry now +and again and setting the whole edifice rocking. Some day, when we +get a few more hands and crowbars to work, we'll topple it over, +along with all its rotten life and unburied dead, its monstrous +selfishness and sodden materialism. Then we'll cleanse the cellar +and build a new habitation for mankind, in which there will be no +parlour floor, in which all the rooms will be bright and airy, and +where the air that is breathed will be clean, noble, and alive. + +Such is my outlook. I look forward to a time when man shall progress +upon something worthier and higher than his stomach, when there will +be a finer incentive to impel men to action than the incentive of to- +day, which is the incentive of the stomach. I retain my belief in +the nobility and excellence of the human. I believe that spiritual +sweetness and unselfishness will conquer the gross gluttony of to- +day. And last of all, my faith is in the working-class. As some +Frenchman has said, "The stairway of time is ever echoing with the +wooden shoe going up, the polished boot descending." + +NEWTON, IOWA. +November 1905. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, REVOLUTION AND OTHER ESSAYS *** + +This file should be named rvlt10.txt or rvlt10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, rvlt11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, rvlt10a.txt + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we usually do not +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +We are now trying to release all our eBooks one year in advance +of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing. +Please be encouraged to tell us about any error or corrections, +even years after the official publication date. + +Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til +midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement. +The official release date of all Project Gutenberg eBooks is at +Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. A +preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment +and editing by those who wish to do so. + +Most people start at our Web sites at: +http://gutenberg.net or +http://promo.net/pg + +These Web sites include award-winning information about Project +Gutenberg, including how to donate, how to help produce our new +eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter (free!). + + +Those of you who want to download any eBook before announcement +can get to them as follows, and just download by date. This is +also a good way to get them instantly upon announcement, as the +indexes our cataloguers produce obviously take a while after an +announcement goes out in the Project Gutenberg Newsletter. + +http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext03 or +ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext03 + +Or /etext02, 01, 00, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90 + +Just search by the first five letters of the filename you want, +as it appears in our Newsletters. + + +Information about Project Gutenberg (one page) + +We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work. The +time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours +to get any eBook selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright +searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc. Our +projected audience is one hundred million readers. If the value +per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2 +million dollars per hour in 2002 as we release over 100 new text +files per month: 1240 more eBooks in 2001 for a total of 4000+ +We are already on our way to trying for 2000 more eBooks in 2002 +If they reach just 1-2% of the world's population then the total +will reach over half a trillion eBooks given away by year's end. + +The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away 1 Trillion eBooks! +This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers, +which is only about 4% of the present number of computer users. + +Here is the briefest record of our progress (* means estimated): + +eBooks Year Month + + 1 1971 July + 10 1991 January + 100 1994 January + 1000 1997 August + 1500 1998 October + 2000 1999 December + 2500 2000 December + 3000 2001 November + 4000 2001 October/November + 6000 2002 December* + 9000 2003 November* +10000 2004 January* + + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been created +to secure a future for Project Gutenberg into the next millennium. + +We need your donations more than ever! + +As of February, 2002, contributions are being solicited from people +and organizations in: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, +Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, +Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, +Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New +Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, +Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South +Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West +Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. + +We have filed in all 50 states now, but these are the only ones +that have responded. + +As the requirements for other states are met, additions to this list +will be made and fund raising will begin in the additional states. +Please feel free to ask to check the status of your state. + +In answer to various questions we have received on this: + +We are constantly working on finishing the paperwork to legally +request donations in all 50 states. If your state is not listed and +you would like to know if we have added it since the list you have, +just ask. + +While we cannot solicit donations from people in states where we are +not yet registered, we know of no prohibition against accepting +donations from donors in these states who approach us with an offer to +donate. + +International donations are accepted, but we don't know ANYTHING about +how to make them tax-deductible, or even if they CAN be made +deductible, and don't have the staff to handle it even if there are +ways. + +Donations by check or money order may be sent to: + +Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +PMB 113 +1739 University Ave. +Oxford, MS 38655-4109 + +Contact us if you want to arrange for a wire transfer or payment +method other than by check or money order. + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been approved by +the US Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) organization with EIN +[Employee Identification Number] 64-622154. Donations are +tax-deductible to the maximum extent permitted by law. As fund-raising +requirements for other states are met, additions to this list will be +made and fund-raising will begin in the additional states. + +We need your donations more than ever! + +You can get up to date donation information online at: + +http://www.gutenberg.net/donation.html + + +*** + +If you can't reach Project Gutenberg, +you can always email directly to: + +Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com> + +Prof. Hart will answer or forward your message. + +We would prefer to send you information by email. + + +**The Legal Small Print** + + +(Three Pages) + +***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS**START*** +Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers. +They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with +your copy of this eBook, even if you got it for free from +someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our +fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement +disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how +you may distribute copies of this eBook if you want to. + +*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS EBOOK +By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +eBook, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept +this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive +a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this eBook by +sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person +you got it from. If you received this eBook on a physical +medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request. + +ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM EBOOKS +This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBooks, +is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor Michael S. Hart +through the Project Gutenberg Association (the "Project"). +Among other things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright +on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and +distribute it in the United States without permission and +without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth +below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this eBook +under the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark. + +Please do not use the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark to market +any commercial products without permission. + +To create these eBooks, the Project expends considerable +efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain +works. Despite these efforts, the Project's eBooks and any +medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other +things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other +intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged +disk or other eBook medium, a computer virus, or computer +codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment. + +LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES +But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below, +[1] Michael Hart and the Foundation (and any other party you may +receive this eBook from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook) disclaims +all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including +legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR +UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT, +INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE +OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE +POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. + +If you discover a Defect in this eBook within 90 days of +receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) +you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that +time to the person you received it from. If you received it +on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and +such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement +copy. If you received it electronically, such person may +choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to +receive it electronically. + +THIS EBOOK IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS +TO THE EBOOK OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT +LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A +PARTICULAR PURPOSE. + +Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or +the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the +above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you +may have other legal rights. + +INDEMNITY +You will indemnify and hold Michael Hart, the Foundation, +and its trustees and agents, and any volunteers associated +with the production and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm +texts harmless, from all liability, cost and expense, including +legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the +following that you do or cause: [1] distribution of this eBook, +[2] alteration, modification, or addition to the eBook, +or [3] any Defect. + +DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm" +You may distribute copies of this eBook electronically, or by +disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this +"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg, +or: + +[1] Only give exact copies of it. Among other things, this + requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the + eBook or this "small print!" statement. You may however, + if you wish, distribute this eBook in machine readable + binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form, + including any form resulting from conversion by word + processing or hypertext software, but only so long as + *EITHER*: + + [*] The eBook, when displayed, is clearly readable, and + does *not* contain characters other than those + intended by the author of the work, although tilde + (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may + be used to convey punctuation intended by the + author, and additional characters may be used to + indicate hypertext links; OR + + [*] The eBook may be readily converted by the reader at + no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent + form by the program that displays the eBook (as is + the case, for instance, with most word processors); + OR + + [*] You provide, or agree to also provide on request at + no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the + eBook in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC + or other equivalent proprietary form). + +[2] Honor the eBook refund and replacement provisions of this + "Small Print!" statement. + +[3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Foundation of 20% of the + gross profits you derive calculated using the method you + already use to calculate your applicable taxes. If you + don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are + payable to "Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation" + the 60 days following each date you prepare (or were + legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent + periodic) tax return. Please contact us beforehand to + let us know your plans and to work out the details. + +WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO? +Project Gutenberg is dedicated to increasing the number of +public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed +in machine readable form. + +The Project gratefully accepts contributions of money, time, +public domain materials, or royalty free copyright licenses. +Money should be paid to the: +"Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +If you are interested in contributing scanning equipment or +software or other items, please contact Michael Hart at: +hart@pobox.com + +[Portions of this eBook's header and trailer may be reprinted only +when distributed free of all fees. Copyright (C) 2001, 2002 by +Michael S. Hart. Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be +used in any sales of Project Gutenberg eBooks or other materials be +they hardware or software or any other related product without +express permission.] + +*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS*Ver.02/11/02*END* + diff --git a/old/rvlt10.zip b/old/rvlt10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..ea79096 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/rvlt10.zip diff --git a/old/rvlt10h.htm b/old/rvlt10h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..26441fa --- /dev/null +++ b/old/rvlt10h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,5999 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII"> +<title>Revolution and Other Essays</title> +</head> +<body> +<h2> +<a href="#startoftext">Revolution and Other Essays, by Jack London</a> +</h2> +<pre> +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Revolution and Other Essays, by Jack London +(#110 in our series by Jack London) + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Revolution and Other Essays + +Author: Jack London + +Release Date: January, 2004 [EBook #4953] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on April 3, 2002] +[Most recently updated: April 3, 2002] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII +</pre> +<p> +<a name="startoftext"></a> +Transcribed from the 1910 Mills and Boon edition by David Price, email +ccx074@coventry.ac.uk.<br> +<br> +REVOLUTION AND OTHER ESSAYS<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +Contents:<br> + Revolution<br> + The Somnambulists <br> + The Dignity of Dollars<br> + Goliah<br> + The Golden Poppy<br> + The Shrinkage of the Planet<br> + The House Beautiful<br> + The Gold Hunters of the North<br> + Fomá Gordyéeff<br> + These Bones shall Rise Again<br> + The Other Animals<br> + The Yellow Peril<br> + What Life Means to Me<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +REVOLUTION<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +“The present is enough for common souls,<br> +Who, never looking forward, are indeed<br> +Mere clay, wherein the footprints of their age<br> +Are petrified for ever.”<br> +<br> +I received a letter the other day. It was from a man in Arizona. +It began, “Dear Comrade.” It ended, “Yours for +the Revolution.” I replied to the letter, and my letter +began, “Dear Comrade.” It ended, “Yours for +the Revolution.” In the United States there are 400,000 +men, of men and women nearly 1,000,000, who begin their letters “Dear +Comrade,” and end them “Yours for the Revolution.” +In Germany there are 3,000,000 men who begin their letters “Dear +Comrade” and end them “Yours for the Revolution”; +in France, 1,000,000 men; in Austria, 800,000 men; in Belgium, 300,000 +men; in Italy, 250,000 men; in England, 100,000 men; in Switzerland, +100,000 men; in Denmark, 55,000 men; in Sweden, 50,000 men; in Holland, +40,000 men; in Spain, 30,000 men - comrades all, and revolutionists.<br> +<br> +These are numbers which dwarf the grand armies of Napoleon and Xerxes. +But they are numbers not of conquest and maintenance of the established +order, but of conquest and revolution. They compose, when the +roll is called, an army of 7,000,000 men, who, in accordance with the +conditions of to-day, are fighting with all their might for the conquest +of the wealth of the world and for the complete overthrow of existing +society.<br> +<br> +There has never been anything like this revolution in the history of +the world. There is nothing analogous between it and the American +Revolution or the French Revolution. It is unique, colossal. +Other revolutions compare with it as asteroids compare with the sun. +It is alone of its kind, the first world-revolution in a world whose +history is replete with revolutions. And not only this, for it +is the first organized movement of men to become a world movement, limited +only by the limits of the planet.<br> +<br> +This revolution is unlike all other revolutions in many respects. +It is not sporadic. It is not a flame of popular discontent, arising +in a day and dying down in a day. It is older than the present +generation. It has a history and traditions, and a martyr-roll +only less extensive possibly than the martyr-roll of Christianity. +It has also a literature a myriad times more imposing, scientific, and +scholarly than the literature of any previous revolution.<br> +<br> +They call themselves “comrades,” these men, comrades in +the socialist revolution. Nor is the word empty and meaningless, +coined of mere lip service. It knits men together as brothers, +as men should be knit together who stand shoulder to shoulder under +the red banner of revolt. This red banner, by the way, symbolizes +the brotherhood of man, and does not symbolize the incendiarism that +instantly connects itself with the red banner in the affrighted bourgeois +mind. The comradeship of the revolutionists is alive and warm. +It passes over geographical lines, transcends race prejudice, and has +even proved itself mightier than the Fourth of July, spread-eagle Americanism +of our forefathers. The French socialist working-men and the German +socialist working-men forget Alsace and Lorraine, and, when war threatens, +pass resolutions declaring that as working-men and comrades they have +no quarrel with each other. Only the other day, when Japan and +Russia sprang at each other’s throats, the revolutionists of Japan +addressed the following message to the revolutionists of Russia: “Dear +Comrades - Your government and ours have recently plunged into war to +carry out their imperialistic tendencies, but for us socialists there +are no boundaries, race, country, or nationality. We are comrades, +brothers, and sisters, and have no reason to fight. Your enemies +are not the Japanese people, but our militarism and so-called patriotism. +Patriotism and militarism are our mutual enemies.”<br> +<br> +In January 1905, throughout the United States the socialists held mass-meetings +to express their sympathy for their struggling comrades, the revolutionists +of Russia, and, more to the point, to furnish the sinews of war by collecting +money and cabling it to the Russian leaders. The fact of this +call for money, and the ready response, and the very wording of the +call, make a striking and practical demonstration of the international +solidarity of this world-revolution:<br> +<br> +“Whatever may be the immediate results of the present revolt in +Russia, the socialist propaganda in that country has received from it +an impetus unparalleled in the history of modern class wars. The +heroic battle for freedom is being fought almost exclusively by the +Russian working-class under the intellectual leadership of Russian socialists, +thus once more demonstrating the fact that the class-conscious working-men +have become the vanguard of all liberating movements of modern times.”<br> +<br> +Here are 7,000,000 comrades in an organized, international, world-wide, +revolutionary movement. Here is a tremendous human force. +It must be reckoned with. Here is power. And here is romance +- romance so colossal that it seems to be beyond the ken of ordinary +mortals. These revolutionists are swayed by great passion. +They have a keen sense of personal right, much of reverence for humanity, +but little reverence, if any at all, for the rule of the dead. +They refuse to be ruled by the dead. To the bourgeois mind their +unbelief in the dominant conventions of the established order is startling. +They laugh to scorn the sweet ideals and dear moralities of bourgeois +society. They intend to destroy bourgeois society with most of +its sweet ideals and dear moralities, and chiefest among these are those +that group themselves under such heads as private ownership of capital, +survival of the fittest, and patriotism - even patriotism.<br> +<br> +Such an army of revolution, 7,000,000 strong, is a thing to make rulers +and ruling classes pause and consider. The cry of this army is, +“No quarter! We want all that you possess. We will +be content with nothing less than all that you possess. We want +in our hands the reins of power and the destiny of mankind. Here +are our hands. They are strong hands. We are going to take +your governments, your palaces, and all your purpled ease away from +you, and in that day you shall work for your bread even as the peasant +in the field or the starved and runty clerk in your metropolises. +Here are our hands. They are strong hands.”<br> +<br> +Well may rulers and ruling classes pause and consider. This is +revolution. And, further, these 7,000,000 men are not an army +on paper. Their fighting strength in the field is 7,000,000. +To-day they cast 7,000,000 votes in the civilized countries of the world.<br> +<br> +Yesterday they were not so strong. Tomorrow they will be still +stronger. And they are fighters. They love peace. +They are unafraid of war. They intend nothing less than to destroy +existing capitalist society and to take possession of the whole world. +If the law of the land permits, they fight for this end peaceably, at +the ballot-box. If the law of the land does not permit, and if +they have force meted out to them, they resort to force themselves. +They meet violence with violence. Their hands are strong and they +are unafraid. In Russia, for instance, there is no suffrage. +The government executes the revolutionists. The revolutionists +kill the officers of the government. The revolutionists meet legal +murder with assassination.<br> +<br> +Now here arises a particularly significant phase which it would be well +for the rulers to consider. Let me make it concrete. I am +a revolutionist. Yet I am a fairly sane and normal individual. +I speak, and I <i>think, </i>of these assassins in Russia as “my +comrades.” So do all the comrades in America, and all the +7,000,000 comrades in the world. Of what worth an organized, international, +revolutionary movement if our comrades are not backed up the world over! +The worth is shown by the fact that we do back up the assassinations +by our comrades in Russia. They are not disciples of Tolstoy, +nor are we. We are revolutionists.<br> +<br> +Our comrades in Russia have formed what they call “The Fighting +Organization.” This Fighting Organization accused, tried, +found guilty, and condemned to death, one Sipiaguin, Minister of Interior. +On April 2 he was shot and killed in the Maryinsky Palace. Two +years later the Fighting Organization condemned to death and executed +another Minister of Interior, Von Plehve. Having done so, it issued +a document, dated July 29, 1904, setting forth the counts of its indictment +of Von Plehve and its responsibility for the assassination. Now, +and to the point, this document was sent out to the socialists of the +world, and by them was published everywhere in the magazines and newspapers. +The point is, not that the socialists of the world were unafraid to +do it, not that they dared to do it, but that they did it as a matter +of routine, giving publication to what may be called an official document +of the international revolutionary movement.<br> +<br> +These are high lights upon the revolution - granted, but they are also +facts. And they are given to the rulers and the ruling classes, +not in bravado, not to frighten them, but for them to consider more +deeply the spirit and nature of this world-revolution. The time +has come for the revolution to demand consideration. It has fastened +upon every civilized country in the world. As fast as a country +becomes civilized, the revolution fastens upon it. With the introduction +of the machine into Japan, socialism was introduced. Socialism +marched into the Philippines shoulder to shoulder with the American +soldiers. The echoes of the last gun had scarcely died away when +socialist locals were forming in Cuba and Porto Rico. Vastly more +significant is the fact that of all the countries the revolution has +fastened upon, on not one has it relaxed its grip. On the contrary, +on every country its grip closes tighter year by year. As an active +movement it began obscurely over a generation ago. In 1867, its +voting strength in the world was 30,000. By 1871 its vote had +increased to 1,000,000. Not till 1884 did it pass the half-million +point. By 1889 it had passed the million point, it had then gained +momentum. In 1892 the socialist vote of the world was 1,798,391; +in 1893, 2,585,898; in 1895, 3,033,718; in 1898, 4,515,591; in 1902, +5,253,054; in 1903, 6,285,374; and in the year of our Lord 1905 it passed +the seven-million mark.<br> +<br> +Nor has this flame of revolution left the United States untouched. +In 1888 there were only 2,068 socialist votes. In 1902 there were +127,713 socialist votes. And in 1904 435,040 socialist votes were +cast. What fanned this flame? Not hard times. The +first four years of the twentieth century were considered prosperous +years, yet in that time more than 300,000 men added themselves to the +ranks of the revolutionists, flinging their defiance in the teeth of +bourgeois society and taking their stand under the blood-red banner. +In the state of the writer, California, one man in twelve is an avowed +and registered revolutionist.<br> +<br> +One thing must be clearly understood. This is no spontaneous and +vague uprising of a large mass of discontented and miserable people +- a blind and instinctive recoil from hurt. On the contrary, the +propaganda is intellectual; the movement is based upon economic necessity +and is in line with social evolution; while the miserable people have +not yet revolted. The revolutionist is no starved and diseased +slave in the shambles at the bottom of the social pit, but is, in the +main, a hearty, well-fed working-man, who sees the shambles waiting +for him and his children and recoils from the descent. The very +miserable people are too helpless to help themselves. But they +are being helped, and the day is not far distant when their numbers +will go to swell the ranks of the revolutionists.<br> +<br> +Another thing must be clearly understood. In spite of the fact +that middle-class men and professional men are interested in the movement, +it is nevertheless a distinctly working-class revolt. The world +over, it is a working-class revolt. The workers of the world, +as a class, are fighting the capitalists of the world, as a class. +The so-called great middle class is a growing anomaly in the social +struggle. It is a perishing class (wily statisticians to the contrary), +and its historic mission of buffer between the capitalist and working-classes +has just about been fulfilled. Little remains for it but to wail +as it passes into oblivion, as it has already begun to wail in accents +Populistic and Jeffersonian-Democratic. The fight is on. +The revolution is here now, and it is the world’s workers that +are in revolt.<br> +<br> +Naturally the question arises: Why is this so? No mere whim of +the spirit can give rise to a world-revolution. Whim does not +conduce to unanimity. There must be a deep-seated cause to make +7,000,000 men of the one mind, to make them cast off allegiance to the +bourgeois gods and lose faith in so fine a thing as patriotism. +There are many counts of the indictment which the revolutionists bring +against the capitalist class, but for present use only one need be stated, +and it is a count to which capital has never replied and can never reply.<br> +<br> +The capitalist class has managed society, and its management has failed. +And not only has it failed in its management, but it has failed deplorably, +ignobly, horribly. The capitalist class had an opportunity such +as was vouchsafed no previous ruling class in the history of the world. +It broke away from the rule of the old feudal aristocracy and made modern +society. It mastered matter, organized the machinery of life, +and made possible a wonderful era for mankind, wherein no creature should +cry aloud because it had not enough to eat, and wherein for every child +there would be opportunity for education, for intellectual and spiritual +uplift. Matter being mastered, and the machinery of life organized, +all this was possible. Here was the chance, God-given, and the +capitalist class failed. It was blind and greedy. It prattled +sweet ideals and dear moralities, rubbed its eyes not once, nor ceased +one whit in its greediness, and smashed down in a failure as tremendous +only as was the opportunity it had ignored.<br> +<br> +But all this is like so much cobwebs to the bourgeois mind. As +it was blind in the past, it is blind now and cannot see nor understand. +Well, then, let the indictment be stated more definitely, in terms sharp +and unmistakable. In the first place, consider the caveman. +He was a very simple creature. His head slanted back like an orang-outang’s, +and he had but little more intelligence. He lived in a hostile +environment, the prey of all manner of fierce life. He had no +inventions nor artifices. His natural efficiency for food-getting +was, say, 1. He did not even till the soil. With his natural +efficiency of 1, he fought off his carnivorous enemies and got himself +food and shelter. He must have done all this, else he would not +have multiplied and spread over the earth and sent his progeny down, +generation by generation, to become even you and me.<br> +<br> +The caveman, with his natural efficiency of 1, got enough to eat most +of the time, and no caveman went hungry all the time. Also, he +lived a healthy, open-air life, loafed and rested himself, and found +plenty of time in which to exercise his imagination and invent gods. +That is to say, he did not have to work all his waking moments in order +to get enough to eat. The child of the caveman (and this is true +of the children of all savage peoples) had a childhood, and by that +is meant a happy childhood of play and development.<br> +<br> +And now, how fares modern man? Consider the United States, the +most prosperous and most enlightened country of the world. In +the United States there are 10,000,000 people living in poverty. +By poverty is meant that condition in life in which, through lack of +food and adequate shelter, the mere standard of working efficiency cannot +be maintained. In the United States there are 10,000,000 people +who have not enough to eat. In the United States, because they +have not enough to eat, there are 10,000,000 people who cannot keep +the ordinary 1 measure of strength in their bodies. This means +that these 10,000,000 people are perishing, are dying, body and soul, +slowly, because they have not enough to eat. All over this broad, +prosperous, enlightened land, are men, women, and children who are living +miserably. In all the great cities, where they are segregated +in slum ghettos by hundreds of thousands and by millions, their misery +becomes beastliness. No caveman ever starved as chronically as +they starve, ever slept as vilely as they sleep, ever festered with +rottenness and disease as they fester, nor ever toiled as hard and for +as long hours as they toil.<br> +<br> +In Chicago there is a woman who toiled sixty hours per week. She +was a garment worker. She sewed buttons on clothes. Among +the Italian garment workers of Chicago, the average weekly wage of the +dressmakers is 90 cents, but they work every week in the year. +The average weekly wage of the pants finishers is $1.31, and the average +number of weeks employed in the year is 27.85. The average yearly +earnings of the dressmakers is $37; of the pants finishers, $42.4l. +Such wages means no childhood for the children, beastliness of living, +and starvation for all.<br> +<br> +Unlike the caveman, modern man cannot get food and shelter whenever +he feels like working for it. Modern man has first to find the +work, and in this he is often unsuccessful. Then misery becomes +acute. This acute misery is chronicled daily in the newspapers. +Let several of the countless instances be cited.<br> +<br> +In New York City lived a woman, Mary Mead. She had three children: +Mary, one year old; Johanna, two years old; Alice, four years old. +Her husband could find no work. They starved. They were +evicted from their shelter at 160 Steuben Street. Mary Mead strangled +her baby, Mary, one year old; strangled Alice, four years old; failed +to strangle Johanna, two years old, and then herself took poison. +Said the father to the police: “Constant poverty had driven my +wife insane. We lived at No. 160 Steuben Street until a week ago, +when we were dispossessed. I could get no work. I could +not even make enough to put food into our mouths. The babies grew +ill and weak. My wife cried nearly all the time.”<br> +<br> +“So overwhelmed is the Department of Charities with tens of thousands +of applications from men out of work that it finds itself unable to +cope with the situation.” - <i>New</i> <i>York Commercial, </i>January +11, 1905.<br> +<br> +In a daily paper, because he cannot get work in order to get something +to eat, modern man advertises as follows:<br> +<br> +“Young man, good education, unable to obtain employment, will +sell to physician and bacteriologist for experimental purposes all right +and title to his body. Address for price, box 3466, <i>Examiner</i>.”<br> +<br> +“Frank A. Mallin went to the central police station Wednesday +night and asked to be locked up on a charge of vagrancy. He said +he had been conducting an unsuccessful search for work for so long that +he was sure he must be a vagrant. In any event, he was so hungry +he must be fed. Police Judge Graham sentenced him to ninety days’ +imprisonment.”<i> - San Francisco Examiner.<br> +<br> +</i>In a room at the Soto House, 32 Fourth Street, San Francisco, was +found the body of W. G. Robbins. He had turned on the gas. +Also was found his diary, from which the following extracts are made<br> +<br> +“<i>March </i>3. - No chance of getting anything here. What +will I do?<br> +<br> +“<i>March </i>7. - Cannot find anything yet.<br> +<br> +“<i>March </i>8. - Am living on doughnuts at five cents a day.<br> +<br> +“<i>March </i>9. - My last quarter gone for room rent.<br> +<br> +“<i>March </i>10. - God help me. Have only five cents left. +Can get nothing to do. What next? Starvation or - ? +I have spent my last nickel to-night. What shall I do? Shall +it be steal, beg, or die? I have never stolen, begged, or starved +in all my fifty years of life, but now I am on the brink - death seems +the only refuge.<br> +<br> +“<i>March </i>11. - Sick all day - burning fever this afternoon. +Had nothing to eat to-day or since yesterday noon. My head, my +head. Good-bye, all.”<br> +<br> +How fares the child of modern man in this most prosperous of lands? +In the city of New York 50,000 children go hungry to school every morning. +From the same city on January 12, a press despatch was sent out over +the country of a case reported by Dr. A. E. Daniel, of the New York +Infirmary for Women and Children. The case was that of a babe, +eighteen months old, who earned by its labour fifty cents per week in +a tenement sweat-shop.<br> +<br> +“On a pile of rags in a room bare of furniture and freezing cold, +Mrs. Mary Gallin, dead from starvation, with an emaciated baby four +months old crying at her breast, was found this morning at 513 Myrtle +Avenue, Brooklyn, by Policeman McConnon of the Flushing Avenue Station. +Huddled together for warmth in another part of the room were the father, +James Gallin, and three children ranging from two to eight years of +age. The children gazed at the policeman much as ravenous animals +might have done. They were famished, and there was not a vestige +of food in their comfortless home.” - <i>New York Journal, </i>January +2, 1902.<br> +<br> +In the United States 80,000 children are toiling out their lives in +the textile mills alone. In the South they work twelve-hour shifts. +They never see the day. Those on the night shift are asleep when +the sun pours its life and warmth over the world, while those on the +day shift are at the machines before dawn and return to their miserable +dens, called “homes,” after dark. Many receive no +more than ten cents a day. There are babies who work for five +and six cents a day. Those who work on the night shift are often +kept awake by having cold water dashed in their faces. There are +children six years of age who have already to their credit eleven months’ +work on the night shift. When they become sick, and are unable +to rise from their beds to go to work, there are men employed to go +on horseback from house to house, and cajole and bully them into arising +and going to work. Ten per cent of them contract active consumption. +All are puny wrecks, distorted, stunted, mind and body. Elbert +Hubbard says of the child-labourers of the Southern cotton-mills:<br> +<br> +“I thought to lift one of the little toilers to ascertain his +weight. Straightaway through his thirty-five pounds of skin and +bones there ran a tremor of fear, and he struggled forward to tie a +broken thread. I attracted his attention by a touch, and offered +him a silver dime. He looked at me dumbly from a face that might +have belonged to a man of sixty, so furrowed, tightly drawn, and full +of pain it was. He did not reach for the money - he did not know +what it was. There were dozens of such children in this particular +mill. A physician who was with me said that they would all be +dead probably in two years, and their places filled by others - there +were plenty more. Pneumonia carries off most of them. Their +systems are ripe for disease, and when it comes there is no rebound +- no response. Medicine simply does not act - nature is whipped, +beaten, discouraged, and the child sinks into a stupor and dies.”<br> +<br> +So fares modern man and the child of modern man in the United States, +most prosperous and enlightened of all countries on earth. It +must be remembered that the instances given are instances only, but +they can be multiplied myriads of times. It must also be remembered +that what is true of the United States is true of all the civilized +world. Such misery was not true of the caveman. Then what +has happened? Has the hostile environment of the caveman grown +more hostile for his descendants? Has the caveman’s natural +efficiency of 1 for food-getting and shelter-getting diminished in modern +man to one-half or one-quarter?<br> +<br> +On the contrary, the hostile environment of the caveman has been destroyed. +For modern man it no longer exists. All carnivorous enemies, the +daily menace of the younger world, have been killed off. Many +of the species of prey have become extinct. Here and there, in +secluded portions of the world, still linger a few of man’s fiercer +enemies. But they are far from being a menace to mankind. +Modern man, when he wants recreation and change, goes to the secluded +portions of the world for a hunt. Also, in idle moments, he wails +regretfully at the passing of the “big game,” which he knows +in the not distant future will disappear from the earth.<br> +<br> +Nor since the day of the caveman has man’s efficiency for food-getting +and shelter-getting diminished. It has increased a thousandfold. +Since the day of the caveman, matter has been mastered. The secrets +of matter have been discovered. Its laws have been formulated. +Wonderful artifices have been made, and marvellous inventions, all tending +to increase tremendously man’s natural efficiency of in every +food-getting, shelter-getting exertion, in farming, mining, manufacturing, +transportation, and communication.<br> +<br> +From the caveman to the hand-workers of three generations ago, the increase +in efficiency for food- and shelter-getting has been very great. +But in this day, by machinery, the efficiency of the hand-worker of +three generations ago has in turn been increased many times. Formerly +it required 200 hours of human labour to place 100 tons of ore on a +railroad car. To-day, aided by machinery, but two hours of human +labour is required to do the same task. The United States Bureau +of Labour is responsible for the following table, showing the comparatively +recent increase in man’s food- and shelter-getting efficiency:<br> +<br> +<pre> + Machine Hand + Hours Hours +Barley (100 bushels) 9 211 +Corn (50 bushels shelled, stalks, husks and + blades cut into fodder) 34 228 +Oats (160 bushels) 28 265 +Wheat (50 bushels) 7 160 +Loading ore (loading 100 tons iron ore on cars) 2 200 +Unloading coal (transferring 200 tons from + canal-boats to bins 400 feet distant) 20 240 +Pitchforks (50 pitchforks, 12-inch tines) 12 200 +Plough (one landside plough, oak beams and + handles) 3 118 +</pre> +<p>According to the same authority, under the best conditions for organization +in farming, labour can produce 20 bushels of wheat for 66 cents, or +1 bushel for 3½ cents. This was done on a bonanza farm +of 10,000 acres in California, and was the average cost of the whole +product of the farm. Mr. Carroll D. Wright says that to-day 4,500,000 +men, aided by machinery, turn out a product that would require the labour +of 40,000,000 men if produced by hand. Professor Herzog, of Austria, +says that 5,000,000 people with the machinery of to-day, employed at +socially useful labour, would be able to supply a population of 20,000,000 +people with all the necessaries and small luxuries of life by working +1½ hours per day.<br> +<br> +This being so, matter being mastered, man’s efficiency for food- +and shelter-getting being increased a thousandfold over the efficiency +of the caveman, then why is it that millions of modern men live more +miserably than lived the caveman? This is the question the revolutionist +asks, and he asks it of the managing class, the capitalist class. +The capitalist class does not answer it. The capitalist class +cannot answer it.<br> +<br> +If modern man’s food- and shelter-getting efficiency is a thousandfold +greater than that of the caveman, why, then, are there 10,000,000 people +in the United States to-day who are not properly sheltered and properly +fed? If the child of the caveman did not have to work, why, then, +to-day, in the United States, are 80,000 children working out their +lives in the textile factories alone? If the child of the caveman +did not have to work, why, then, to-day, in the United States, are there +1,752,187 child-labourers?<br> +<br> +It is a true count in the indictment. The capitalist class has +mismanaged, is to-day mismanaging. In New York City 50,000 children +go hungry to school, and in New York City there are 1,320 millionaires. +The point, however, is not that the mass of mankind is miserable because +of the wealth the capitalist class has taken to itself. Far from +it. The point really is that the mass of mankind is miserable, +not for want of the wealth taken by the capitalist class, <i>but for +want of the wealth that was never created</i>. This wealth was +never created because the capitalist class managed too wastefully and +irrationally. The capitalist class, blind and greedy, grasping +madly, has not only not made the best of its management, but made the +worst of it. It is a management prodigiously wasteful. This +point cannot be emphasized too strongly.<br> +<br> +In face of the facts that modern man lives more wretchedly than the +caveman, and that modern man’s food- and shelter-getting efficiency +is a thousandfold greater than the caveman’s, no other solution +is possible than that the management is prodigiously wasteful.<br> +<br> +With the natural resources of the world, the machinery already invented, +a rational organization of production and distribution, and an equally +rational elimination of waste, the able-bodied workers would not have +to labour more than two or three hours per day to feed everybody, clothe +everybody, house everybody, educate everybody, and give a fair measure +of little luxuries to everybody. There would be no more material +want and wretchedness, no more children toiling out their lives, no +more men and women and babes living like beasts and dying like beasts. +Not only would matter be mastered, but the machine would be mastered. +In such a day incentive would be finer and nobler than the incentive +of to-day, which is the incentive of the stomach. No man, woman, +or child, would be impelled to action by an empty stomach. On +the contrary, they would be impelled to action as a child in a spelling +match is impelled to action, as boys and girls at games, as scientists +formulating law, as inventors applying law, as artists and sculptors +painting canvases and shaping clay, as poets and statesmen serving humanity +by singing and by statecraft. The spiritual, intellectual, and +artistic uplift consequent upon such a condition of society would be +tremendous. All the human world would surge upward in a mighty +wave.<br> +<br> +This was the opportunity vouchsafed the capitalist class. Less +blindness on its part, less greediness, and a rational management, were +all that was necessary. A wonderful era was possible for the human +race. But the capitalist class failed. It made a shambles +of civilization. Nor can the capitalist class plead not guilty. +It knew of the opportunity. Its wise men told of the opportunity, +its scholars and its scientists told it of the opportunity. All +that they said is there to-day in the books, just so much damning evidence +against it. It would not listen. It was too greedy. +It rose up (as it rises up to-day), shamelessly, in our legislative +halls, and declared that profits were impossible without the toil of +children and babes. It lulled its conscience to sleep with prattle +of sweet ideals and dear moralities, and allowed the suffering and misery +of mankind to continue and to increase, in short, the capitalist class +failed to take advantage of the opportunity.<br> +<br> +But the opportunity is still here. The capitalist class has been +tried and found wanting. Remains the working-class to see what +it can do with the opportunity. “But the working-class is +incapable,” says the capitalist class. “What do you +know about it?” the working-class replies. “Because +you have failed is no reason that we shall fail. Furthermore, +we are going to have a try at it, anyway. Seven millions of us +say so. And what have you to say to that?”<br> +<br> +And what can the capitalist class say? Grant the incapacity of +the working-class. Grant that the indictment and the argument +of the revolutionists are all wrong. The 7,000,000 revolutionists +remain. Their existence is a fact. Their belief in their +capacity, and in their indictment and their argument, is a fact. +Their constant growth is a fact. Their intention to destroy present-day +society is a fact, as is also their intention to take possession of +the world with all its wealth and machinery and governments. Moreover, +it is a fact that the working-class is vastly larger than the capitalist +class.<br> +<br> +The revolution is a revolution of the working-class. How can the +capitalist class, in the minority, stem this tide of revolution? +What has it to offer? What does it offer? Employers’ +associations, injunctions, civil suits for plundering of the treasuries +of the labour-unions, clamour and combination for the open shop, bitter +and shameless opposition to the eight-hour day, strong efforts to defeat +all reform, child-labour bills, graft in every municipal council, strong +lobbies and bribery in every legislature for the purchase of capitalist +legislation, bayonets, machine-guns, policemen’s clubs, professional +strike-breakers and armed Pinkertons - these are the things the capitalist +class is dumping in front of the tide of revolution, as though, forsooth, +to hold it back.<br> +<br> +The capitalist class is as blind to-day to the menace of the revolution +as it was blind in the past to its own God-given opportunity. +It cannot see how precarious is its position, cannot comprehend the +power and the portent of the revolution. It goes on its placid +way, prattling sweet ideals and dear moralities, and scrambling sordidly +for material benefits.<br> +<br> +No overthrown ruler or class in the past ever considered the revolution +that overthrew it, and so with the capitalist class of to-day. +Instead of compromising, instead of lengthening its lease of life by +conciliation and by removal of some of the harsher oppressions of the +working-class, it antagonizes the working-class, drives the working-class +into revolution. Every broken strike in recent years, every legally +plundered trades-union treasury, every closed shop made into an open +shop, has driven the members of the working-class directly hurt over +to socialism by hundreds and thousands. Show a working-man that +his union fails, and he becomes a revolutionist. Break a strike +with an injunction or bankrupt a union with a civil suit, and the working-men +hurt thereby listen to the siren song of the socialist and are lost +for ever to the <i>political capitalist </i>parties.<br> +<br> +Antagonism never lulled revolution, and antagonism is about all the +capitalist class offers. It is true, it offers some few antiquated +notions which were very efficacious in the past, but which are no longer +efficacious. Fourth-of-July liberty in terms of the Declaration +of Independence and of the French Encyclopædists is scarcely apposite +to-day. It does not appeal to the working-man who has had his +head broken by a policeman’s club, his union treasury bankrupted +by a court decision, or his job taken away from him by a labour-saving +invention. Nor does the Constitution of the United States appear +so glorious and constitutional to the working-man who has experienced +a bull-pen or been unconstitutionally deported from Colorado. +Nor are this particular working-man’s hurt feelings soothed by +reading in the newspapers that both the bull-pen and the deportation +were pre-eminently just, legal, and constitutional. “To +hell, then, with the Constitution!” says he, and another revolutionist +has been made - by the capitalist class.<br> +<br> +In short, so blind is the capitalist class that it does nothing to lengthen +its lease of life, while it does everything to shorten it. The +capitalist class offers nothing that is clean, noble, and alive. +The revolutionists offer everything that is clean, noble, and alive. +They offer service, unselfishness, sacrifice, martyrdom - the things +that sting awake the imagination of the people, touching their hearts +with the fervour that arises out of the impulse toward good and which +is essentially religious in its nature.<br> +<br> +But the revolutionists blow hot and blow cold. They offer facts +and statistics, economics and scientific arguments. If the working-man +be merely selfish, the revolutionists show him, mathematically demonstrate +to him, that his condition will be bettered by the revolution. +If the working-man be the higher type, moved by impulses toward right +conduct, if he have soul and spirit, the revolutionists offer him the +things of the soul and the spirit, the tremendous things that cannot +be measured by dollars and cents, nor be held down by dollars and cents. +The revolutionist cries out upon wrong and injustice, and preaches righteousness. +And, most potent of all, he sings the eternal song of human freedom +- a song of all lands and all tongues and all time.<br> +<br> +Few members of the capitalist class see the revolution. Most of +them are too ignorant, and many are too afraid to see it. It is +the same old story of every perishing ruling class in the world’s +history. Fat with power and possession, drunken with success, +and made soft by surfeit and by cessation of struggle, they are like +the drones clustered about the honey vats when the worker-bees spring +upon them to end their rotund existence.<br> +<br> +President Roosevelt vaguely sees the revolution, is frightened by it, +and recoils from seeing it. As he says: “Above all, we need +to remember that any kind of class animosity in the political world +is, if possible, even more wicked, even more destructive to national +welfare, than sectional, race, or religious animosity.”<br> +<br> +Class animosity in the political world, President Roosevelt maintains, +is wicked. But class animosity in the political world is the preachment +of the revolutionists. “Let the class wars in the industrial +world continue,” they say, “but extend the class war to +the political world.” As their leader, Eugene V. Debs says: +“So far as this struggle is concerned, there is no good capitalist +and no bad working-man. Every capitalist is your enemy and every +working-man is your friend.”<br> +<br> +Here is class animosity in the political world with a vengeance. +And here is revolution. In 1888 there were only 2,000 revolutionists +of this type in the United States; in 1900 there were 127,000 revolutionists; +in 1904, 435,000 revolutionists. Wickedness of the President Roosevelt +definition evidently flourishes and increases in the United States. +Quite so, for it is the revolution that flourishes and increases.<br> +<br> +Here and there a member of the capitalist class catches a clear glimpse +of the revolution, and raises a warning cry. But his class does +not heed. President Eliot of Harvard raised such a cry:<br> +<br> +“I am forced to believe there is a present danger of socialism +never before so imminent in America in so dangerous a form, because +never before imminent in so well organized a form. The danger +lies in the obtaining control of the trades-unions by the socialists.” +And the capitalist employers, instead of giving heed to the warnings, +are perfecting their strike-breaking organization and combining more +strongly than ever for a general assault upon that dearest of all things +to the trades-unions - the closed shop. In so far as this assault +succeeds, by just that much will the capitalist class shorten its lease +of life. It is the old, old story, over again and over again. +The drunken drones still cluster greedily about the honey vats.<br> +<br> +Possibly one of the most amusing spectacles of to-day is the attitude +of the American press toward the revolution. It is also a pathetic +spectacle. It compels the onlooker to be aware of a distinct loss +of pride in his species. Dogmatic utterance from the mouth of +ignorance may make gods laugh, but it should make men weep. And +the American editors (in the general instance) are so impressive about +it! The old “divide-up,” “men-are-<i>not</i>-born-free-and-equal,” +propositions are enunciated gravely and sagely, as things white-hot +and new from the forge of human wisdom. Their feeble vapourings +show no more than a schoolboy’s comprehension of the nature of +the revolution. Parasites themselves on the capitalist class, +serving the capitalist class by moulding public opinion, they, too, +cluster drunkenly about the honey vats.<br> +<br> +Of course, this is true only of the large majority of American editors. +To say that it is true of all of them would be to cast too great obloquy +upon the human race. Also, it would be untrue, for here and there +an occasional editor does see clearly - and in his case, ruled by stomach-incentive, +is usually afraid to say what he thinks about it. So far as the +science and the sociology of the revolution are concerned, the average +editor is a generation or so behind the facts. He is intellectually +slothful, accepts no facts until they are accepted by the majority, +and prides himself upon his conservatism. He is an instinctive +optimist, prone to believe that what ought to be, is. The revolutionist +gave this up long ago, and believes not that what ought to be, is, but +what is, is, and that it may not be what it ought to be at all.<br> +<br> +Now and then, rubbing his eyes, vigorously, an editor catches a sudden +glimpse of the revolution and breaks out in naive volubility, as, for +instance, the one who wrote the following in the <i>Chicago Chronicle: +</i>“American socialists are revolutionists. They know that +they are revolutionists. It is high time that other people should +appreciate the fact.” A white-hot, brand-new discovery, +and he proceeded to shout it out from the housetops that we, forsooth, +were revolutionists. Why, it is just what we have been doing all +these years - shouting it out from the housetops that we are revolutionists, +and stop us who can.<br> +<br> +The time should be past for the mental attitude: “Revolution is +atrocious. Sir, there is no revolution.” Likewise +should the time be past for that other familiar attitude: “Socialism +is slavery. Sir, it will never be.” It is no longer +a question of dialectics, theories, and dreams. There is no question +about it. The revolution is a fact. It is here now. +Seven million revolutionists, organized, working day and night, are +preaching the revolution - that passionate gospel, the Brotherhood of +Man. Not only is it a cold-blooded economic propaganda, but it +is in essence a religious propaganda with a fervour in it of Paul and +Christ. The capitalist class has been indicted. It has failed +in its management and its management is to be taken away from it. +Seven million men of the working-class say that they are going to get +the rest of the working-class to join with them and take the management +away. The revolution is here, now. Stop it who can.<br> +<br> +SACRAMENTO RIVER.<br> +<i>March </i>1905.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +THE SOMNAMBULISTS<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +“’Tis only fools speak evil of the clay -<br> +The very stars are made of clay like mine.”<br> +<br> +The mightiest and absurdest sleep-walker on the planet! Chained +in the circle of his own imaginings, man is only too keen to forget +his origin and to shame that flesh of his that bleeds like all flesh +and that is good to eat. Civilization (which is part of the circle +of his imaginings) has spread a veneer over the surface of the soft-shelled +animal known as man. It is a very thin veneer; but so wonderfully +is man constituted that he squirms on his bit of achievement and believes +he is garbed in armour-plate.<br> +<br> +Yet man to-day is the same man that drank from his enemy’s skull +in the dark German forests, that sacked cities, and stole his women +from neighbouring clans like any howling aborigine. The flesh-and-blood +body of man has not changed in the last several thousand years. +Nor has his mind changed. There is no faculty of the mind of man +to-day that did not exist in the minds of the men of long ago. +Man has to-day no concept that is too wide and deep and abstract for +the mind of Plato or Aristotle to grasp. Give to Plato or Aristotle +the same fund of knowledge that man to-day has access to, and Plato +and Aristotle would reason as profoundly as the man of to-day and would +achieve very similar conclusions.<br> +<br> +It is the same old animal man, smeared over, it is true, with a veneer, +thin and magical, that makes him dream drunken dreams of self-exaltation +and to sneer at the flesh and the blood of him beneath the smear. +The raw animal crouching within him is like the earthquake monster pent +in the crust of the earth. As he persuades himself against the +latter till it arouses and shakes down a city, so does he persuade himself +against the former until it shakes him out of his dreaming and he stands +undisguised, a brute like any other brute.<br> +<br> +Starve him, let him miss six meals, and see gape through the veneer +the hungry maw of the animal beneath. Get between him and the +female of his kind upon whom his mating instinct is bent, and see his +eyes blaze like an angry cat’s, hear in his throat the scream +of wild stallions, and watch his fists clench like an orang-outang’s. +Maybe he will even beat his chest. Touch his silly vanity, which +he exalts into high-sounding pride - call him a liar, and behold the +red animal in him that makes a hand clutching that is quick like the +tensing of a tiger’s claw, or an eagle’s talon, incarnate +with desire to rip and tear.<br> +<br> +It is not necessary to call him a liar to touch his vanity. Tell +a plains Indian that he has failed to steal horses from the neighbouring +tribe, or tell a man living in bourgeois society that he has failed +to pay his bills at the neighbouring grocer’s, and the results +are the same. Each, plains Indian and bourgeois, is smeared with +a slightly different veneer, that is all. It requires a slightly +different stick to scrape it off. The raw animals beneath are +identical.<br> +<br> +But intrude not violently upon man, leave him alone in his somnambulism, +and he kicks out from under his feet the ladder of life up which he +has climbed, constitutes himself the centre of the universe, dreams +sordidly about his own particular god, and maunders metaphysically about +his own blessed immortality.<br> +<br> +True, he lives in a real world, breathes real air, eats real food, and +sleeps under real blankets, in order to keep real cold away. And +there’s the rub. He has to effect adjustments with the real +world and at the same time maintain the sublimity of his dream. +The result of this admixture of the real and the unreal is confusion +thrice confounded. The man that walks the real world in his sleep +becomes such a tangled mass of contradictions, paradoxes, and lies that +he has to lie to himself in order to stay asleep.<br> +<br> +In passing, it may be noted that some men are remarkably constituted +in this matter of self-deception. They excel at deceiving themselves. +They believe, and they help others to believe. It becomes their +function in society, and some of them are paid large salaries for helping +their fellow-men to believe, for instance, that they are not as other +animals; for helping the king to believe, and his parasites and drudges +as well, that he is God’s own manager over so many square miles +of earth-crust; for helping the merchant and banking classes to believe +that society rests on their shoulders, and that civilization would go +to smash if they got out from under and ceased from their exploitations +and petty pilferings.<br> +<br> +Prize-fighting is terrible. This is the dictum of the man who +walks in his sleep. He prates about it, and writes to the papers +about it, and worries the legislators about it. There is nothing +of the brute about <i>him</i>. He is a sublimated soul that treads +the heights and breathes refined ether - in self-comparison with the +prize-fighter. The man who walks in his sleep ignores the flesh +and all its wonderful play of muscle, joint, and nerve. He feels +that there is something godlike in the mysterious deeps of his being, +denies his relationship with the brute, and proceeds to go forth into +the world and express by deeds that something godlike within him.<br> +<br> +He sits at a desk and chases dollars through the weeks and months and +years of his life. To him the life godlike resolves into a problem +something like this: <i>Since the great mass of men toil at producing +wealth, how best can he get between the great mass of men and the wealth +they produce, and get a slice for himself</i>? With tremendous +exercise of craft, deceit, and guile, he devotes his life godlike to +this purpose. As he succeeds, his somnambulism grows profound. +He bribes legislatures, buys judges, “controls” primaries, +and then goes and hires other men to tell him that it is all glorious +and right. And the funniest thing about it is that this arch-deceiver +believes all that they tell him. He reads only the newspapers +and magazines that tell him what he wants to be told, listens only to +the biologists who tell him that he is the finest product of the struggle +for existence, and herds only with his own kind, where, like the monkey-folk, +they teeter up and down and tell one another how great they are.<br> +<br> +In the course of his life godlike he ignores the flesh - until he gets +to table. He raises his hands in horror at the thought of the +brutish prize-fighter, and then sits down and gorges himself on roast +beef, rare and red, running blood under every sawing thrust of the implement +called a knife. He has a piece of cloth which he calls a napkin, +with which he wipes from his lips, and from the hair on his lips, the +greasy juices of the meat.<br> +<br> +He is fastidiously nauseated at the thought of two prize-fighters bruising +each other with their fists; and at the same time, because it will cost +him some money, he will refuse to protect the machines in his factory, +though he is aware that the lack of such protection every year mangles, +batters, and destroys out of all humanness thousands of working-men, +women, and children. He will chatter about things refined and +spiritual and godlike like himself, and he and the men who herd with +him will calmly adulterate the commodities they put upon the market +and which annually kill tens of thousands of babies and young children.<br> +<br> +He will recoil at the suggestion of the horrid spectacle of two men +confronting each other with gloved hands in the roped arena, and at +the same time he will clamour for larger armies and larger navies, for +more destructive war machines, which, with a single discharge, will +disrupt and rip to pieces more human beings than have died in the whole +history of prize-fighting. He will bribe a city council for a +franchise or a state legislature for a commercial privilege; but he +has never been known, in all his sleep-walking history, to bribe any +legislative body in order to achieve any moral end, such as, for instance, +abolition of prize-fighting, child-labour laws, pure food bills, or +old age pensions.<br> +<br> +“Ah, but we do not stand for the commercial life,” object +the refined, scholarly, and professional men. They are also sleep-walkers. +They do not stand for the commercial life, but neither do they stand +against it with all their strength. They submit to it, to the +brutality and carnage of it. They develop classical economists +who announce that the only possible way for men and women to get food +and shelter is by the existing method. They produce university +professors, men who claim the <i>rôle </i>of teachers, and who +at the same time claim that the austere ideal of learning is passionless +pursuit of passionless intelligence. They serve the men who lead +the commercial life, give to their sons somnambulistic educations, preach +that sleep-walking is the only way to walk, and that the persons who +walk otherwise are atavisms or anarchists. They paint pictures +for the commercial men, write books for them, sing songs for them, act +plays for them, and dose them with various drugs when their bodies have +grown gross or dyspeptic from overeating and lack of exercise.<br> +<br> +Then there are the good, kind somnambulists who don’t prize-fight, +who don’t play the commercial game, who don’t teach and +preach somnambulism, who don’t do anything except live on the +dividends that are coined out of the wan, white fluid that runs in the +veins of little children, out of mothers’ tears, the blood of +strong men, and the groans and sighs of the old. The receiver +is as bad as the thief - ay, and the thief is finer than the receiver; +he at least has the courage to run the risk. But the good, kind +people who don’t do anything won’t believe this, and the +assertion will make them angry - for a moment. They possess several +magic phrases, which are like the incantations of a voodoo doctor driving +devils away. The phrases that the good, kind people repeat to +themselves and to one another sound like “abstinence,” “temperance,” +“thrift,” “virtue.” Sometimes they say +them backward, when they sound like “prodigality,” “drunkenness,” +“wastefulness,” and “immorality.” They +do not really know the meaning of these phrases, but they think they +do, and that is all that is necessary for somnambulists. The calm +repetition of such phrases invariably drives away the waking devils +and lulls to slumber.<br> +<br> +Our statesmen sell themselves and their country for gold. Our +municipal servants and state legislators commit countless treasons. +The world of graft! The world of betrayal! The world of +somnambulism, whose exalted and sensitive citizens are outraged by the +knockouts of the prize-ring, and who annually not merely knock out, +but kill, thousands of babies and children by means of child labour +and adulterated food. Far better to have the front of one’s +face pushed in by the fist of an honest prize-fighter than to have the +lining of one’s stomach corroded by the embalmed beef of a dishonest +manufacturer.<br> +<br> +In a prize-fight men are classed. A lightweight fights with a +light-weight; he never fights with a heavy-weight, and foul blows are +not allowed. Yet in the world of the somnambulists, where soar +the sublimated spirits, there are no classes, and foul blows are continually +struck and never disallowed. Only they are not called foul blows. +The world of claw and fang and fist and club has passed away - so say +the somnambulists. A rebate is not an elongated claw. A +Wall Street raid is not a fang slash. Dummy boards of directors +and fake accountings are not foul blows of the fist under the belt. +A present of coal stock by a mine operator to a railroad official is +not a claw rip to the bowels of a rival mine operator. The hundred +million dollars with which a combination beats down to his knees a man +with a million dollars is not a club. The man who walks in his +sleep says it is not a club. So say all of his kind with which +he herds. They gather together and solemnly and gloatingly make +and repeat certain noises that sound like “discretion,” +“acumen,” “initiative,” “enterprise.” +These noises are especially gratifying when they are made backward. +They mean the same things, but they sound different. And in either +case, forward or backward, the spirit of the dream is not disturbed.<br> +<br> +When a man strikes a foul blow in the prize-ring the fight is immediately +stopped, he is declared the loser, and he is hissed by the audience +as he leaves the ring. But when a man who walks in his sleep strikes +a foul blow he is immediately declared the victor and awarded the prize; +and amid acclamations he forthwith turns his prize into a seat in the +United States Senate, into a grotesque palace on Fifth Avenue, and into +endowed churches, universities and libraries, to say nothing of subsidized +newspapers, to proclaim his greatness.<br> +<br> +The red animal in the somnambulist will out. He decries the carnal +combat of the prize-ring, and compels the red animal to spiritual combat. +The poisoned lie, the nasty, gossiping tongue, the brutality of the +unkind epigram, the business and social nastiness and treachery of to-day +- these are the thrusts and scratches of the red animal when the somnambulist +is in charge. They are not the upper cuts and short arm jabs and +jolts and slugging blows of the spirit. They are the foul blows +of the spirit that have never been disbarred, as the foul blows of the +prize-ring have been disbarred. (Would it not be preferable for +a man to strike one full on the mouth with his fist than for him to +tell a lie about one, or malign those that are nearest and dearest?)<br> +<br> +For these are the crimes of the spirit, and, alas! they are so much +more frequent than blows on the mouth. And whosoever exalts the +spirit over the flesh, by his own creed avers that a crime of the spirit +is vastly more terrible than a crime of the flesh. Thus stand +the somnambulists convicted by their own creed - only they are not real +men, alive and awake, and they proceed to mutter magic phrases that +dispel all doubt as to their undiminished and eternal gloriousness.<br> +<br> +It is well enough to let the ape and tiger die, but it is hardly fair +to kill off the natural and courageous apes and tigers and allow the +spawn of cowardly apes and tigers to live. The prize-fighting +apes and tigers will die all in good time in the course of natural evolution, +but they will not die so long as the cowardly, somnambulistic apes and +tigers club and scratch and slash. This is not a brief for the +prize-fighter. It is a blow of the fist between the eyes of the +somnambulists, teetering up and down, muttering magic phrases, and thanking +God that they are not as other animals.<br> +<br> +GLEN ELLEN, CALIFORNIA.<br> +<i>June </i>1900.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +THE DIGNITY OF DOLLARS<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +Man is a blind, helpless creature. He looks back with pride upon +his goodly heritage of the ages, and yet obeys unwittingly every mandate +of that heritage; for it is incarnate with him, and in it are embedded +the deepest roots of his soul. Strive as he will, he cannot escape +it - unless he be a genius, one of those rare creations to whom alone +is granted the privilege of doing entirely new and original things in +entirely new and original ways. But the common clay-born man, +possessing only talents, may do only what has been done before him. +At the best, if he work hard, and cherish himself exceedingly, he may +duplicate any or all previous performances of his kind; he may even +do some of them better; but there he stops, the composite hand of his +whole ancestry bearing heavily upon him.<br> +<br> +And again, in the matter of his ideas, which have been thrust upon him, +and which he has been busily garnering from the great world ever since +the day when his eyes first focussed and he drew, startled, against +the warm breast of his mother - the tyranny of these he cannot shake +off. Servants of his will, they at the same time master him. +They may not coerce genius, but they dictate and sway every action of +the clay-born. If he hesitate on the verge of a new departure, +they whip him back into the well-greased groove; if he pause, bewildered, +at sight of some unexplored domain, they rise like ubiquitous finger-posts +and direct him by the village path to the communal meadow. And +he permits these things, and continues to permit them, for he cannot +help them, and he is a slave. Out of his ideas he may weave cunning +theories, beautiful ideals; but he is working with ropes of sand. +At the slightest stress, the last least bit of cohesion flits away, +and each idea flies apart from its fellows, while all clamour that he +do this thing, or think this thing, in the ancient and time-honoured +way. He is only a clay-born; so he bends his neck. He knows +further that the clay-born are a pitiful, pitiless majority, and that +he may do nothing which they do not do.<br> +<br> +It is only in some way such as this that we may understand and explain +the dignity which attaches itself to dollars. In the watches of +the night, we may assure ourselves that there is no such dignity; but +jostling with our fellows in the white light of day, we find that it +does exist, and that we ourselves measure ourselves by the dollars we +happen to possess. They give us confidence and carriage and dignity +- ay, a personal dignity which goes down deeper than the garments with +which we hide our nakedness. The world, when it knows nothing +else of him, measures a man by his clothes; but the man himself, if +he be neither a genius nor a philosopher, but merely a clay-born, measures +himself by his pocket-book. He cannot help it, and can no more +fling it from him than can the bashful young man his self-consciousness +when crossing a ballroom floor.<br> +<br> +I remember once absenting myself from civilization for weary months. +When I returned, it was to a strange city in another country. +The people were but slightly removed from my own breed, and they spoke +the same tongue, barring a certain barbarous accent which I learned +was far older than the one imbibed by me with my mother’s milk. +A fur cap, soiled and singed by many camp-fires, half sheltered the +shaggy tendrils of my uncut hair. My foot-gear was of walrus hide, +cunningly blended with seal gut. The remainder of my dress was +as primal and uncouth. I was a sight to give merriment to gods +and men. Olympus must have roared at my coming. The world, +knowing me not, could judge me by my clothes alone. But I refused +to be so judged. My spiritual backbone stiffened, and I held my +head high, looking all men in the eyes. And I did these things, +not that I was an egotist, not that I was impervious to the critical +glances of my fellows, but because of a certain hogskin belt, plethoric +and sweat-bewrinkled, which buckled next the skin above the hips. +Oh, it’s absurd, I grant, but had that belt not been so circumstanced, +and so situated, I should have shrunk away into side streets and back +alleys, walking humbly and avoiding all gregarious humans except those +who were likewise abroad without belts. Why? I do not know, +save that in such way did my fathers before me.<br> +<br> +Viewed in the light of sober reason, the whole thing was preposterous. +But I walked down the gang-plank with the mien of a hero, of a barbarian +who knew himself to be greater than the civilization he invaded. +I was possessed of the arrogance of a Roman governor. At last +I knew what it was to be born to the purple, and I took my seat in the +hotel carriage as though it were my chariot about to proceed with me +to the imperial palace. People discreetly dropped their eyes before +my proud gaze, and into their hearts I know I forced the query, What +manner of man can this mortal be? I was superior to convention, +and the very garb which otherwise would have damned me tended toward +my elevation. And all this was due, not to my royal lineage, nor +to the deeds I had done and the champions I had overthrown, but to a +certain hogskin belt buckled next the skin. The sweat of months +was upon it, toil had defaced it, and it was not a creation such as +would appeal to the aesthetic mind; but it was plethoric. There +was the arcanum; each yellow grain conduced to my exaltation, and the +sum of these grains was the sum of my mightiness. Had they been +less, just so would have been my stature; more, and I should have reached +the sky.<br> +<br> +And this was my royal progress through that most loyal city. I +purchased a host of things from the tradespeople, and bought me such +pleasures and diversions as befitted one who had long been denied. +I scattered my gold lavishly, nor did I chaffer over prices in mart +or exchange. And, because of these things I did, I demanded homage. +Nor was it refused. I moved through wind-swept groves of limber +backs; across sunny glades, lighted by the beaming rays from a thousand +obsequious eyes; and when I tired of this, basked on the greensward +of popular approval. Money was very good, I thought, and for the +time was content. But there rushed upon me the words of Erasmus, +“When I get some money I shall buy me some Greek books, and afterwards +some clothes,” and a great shame wrapped me around. But, +luckily for my soul’s welfare, I reflected and was saved. +By the clearer vision vouchsafed me, I beheld Erasmus, fire-flashing, +heaven-born, while I - I was merely a clay-born, a son of earth. +For a giddy moment I had forgotten this, and tottered. And I rolled +over on my greensward, caught a glimpse of a regiment of undulating +backs, and thanked my particular gods that such moods of madness were +passing brief.<br> +<br> +But on another day, receiving with kingly condescension the service +of my good subjects’ backs, I remembered the words of another +man, long since laid away, who was by birth a nobleman, by nature a +philosopher and a gentleman, and who by circumstance yielded up his +head upon the block. “That a man of lead,” he once +remarked, “who has no more sense than a log of wood, and is as +bad as he is foolish, should have many wise and good men to serve him, +only because he has a great heap of that metal; and that if, by some +accident or trick of law (which sometimes produces as great changes +as chance itself), all this wealth should pass from the master to the +meanest varlet of his whole family, he himself would very soon become +one of his servants, as if he were a thing that belonged to his wealth, +and so was bound to follow its fortune.”<br> +<br> +And when I had remembered this much, I unwisely failed to pause and +reflect. So I gathered my belongings together, cinched my hogskin +belt tight about me, and went away to my own country. It was a +very foolish thing to do. I am sure it was. But when I had +recovered my reason, I fell upon my particular gods and berated them +mightily, and as penance for their watchlessness placed them away amongst +dust and cobwebs. Oh no, not for long. They are again enshrined, +as bright and polished as of yore, and my destiny is once more in their +keeping.<br> +<br> +It is given that travail and vicissitude mark time to man’s footsteps +as he stumbles onward toward the grave; and it is well. Without +the bitter one may not know the sweet. The other day - nay, it +was but yesterday - I fell before the rhythm of fortune. The inexorable +pendulum had swung the counter direction, and there was upon me an urgent +need. The hogskin belt was flat as famine, nor did it longer gird +my loins. From my window I could descry, at no great distance, +a very ordinary mortal of a man, working industriously among his cabbages. +I thought: Here am I, capable of teaching him much concerning the field +wherein he labours - the nitrogenic - why of the fertilizer, the alchemy +of the sun, the microscopic cell-structure of the plant, the cryptic +chemistry of root and runner - but thereat he straightened his work-wearied +back and rested. His eyes wandered over what he had produced in +the sweat of his brow, then on to mine. And as he stood there +drearily, he became reproach incarnate. “Unstable as water,” +he said (I am sure he did) - “unstable as water, thou shalt not +excel. Man, where are <i>your </i>cabbages?”<br> +<br> +I shrank back. Then I waxed rebellious. I refused to answer +the question. He had no right to ask it, and his presence was +an affront upon the landscape. And a dignity entered into me, +and my neck was stiffened, my head poised. I gathered together +certain certificates of goods and chattels, pointed my heel towards +him and his cabbages, and journeyed townward. I was yet a man. +There was naught in those certificates to be ashamed of. But alack-a-day! +While my heels thrust the cabbage-man beyond the horizon, my toes were +drawing me, faltering, like a timid old beggar, into a roaring spate +of humanity - men, women, and children without end. They had no +concern with me, nor I with them. I knew it; I felt it. +Like She, after her fire-bath in the womb of the world, I dwindled in +my own sight. My feet were uncertain and heavy, and my soul became +as a meal sack, limp with emptiness and tied in the middle. People +looked upon me scornfully, pitifully, reproachfully. (I can swear +they did.) In every eye I read the question, Man, where are your +cabbages?<br> +<br> +So I avoided their looks, shrinking close to the kerbstone and by furtive +glances directing my progress. At last I came hard by the place, +and peering stealthily to the right and left that none who knew might +behold mc, I entered hurriedly, in the manner of one committing an abomination. +‘Fore God! I had done no evil, nor had I wronged any man, +nor did I contemplate evil; yet was I aware of evil. Why? +I do not know, save that there goes much dignity with dollars, and being +devoid of the one I was destitute of the other. The person I sought +practised a profession as ancient as the oracles but far more lucrative. +It is mentioned in Exodus; so it must have been created soon after the +foundations of the world; and despite the thunder of ecclesiastics and +the mailed hand of kings and conquerors, it has endured even to this +day. Nor is it unfair to presume that the accounts of this most +remarkable business will not be closed until the Trumps of Doom are +sounded and all things brought to final balance.<br> +<br> +Wherefore it was in fear and trembling, and with great modesty of spirit, +that I entered the Presence. To confess that I was shocked were +to do my feelings an injustice. Perhaps the blame may be shouldered +upon Shylock, Fagin, and their ilk; but I had conceived an entirely +different type of individual. This man - why, he was clean to +look at, his eyes were blue, with the tired look of scholarly lucubrations, +and his skin had the normal pallor of sedentary existence. He +was reading a book, sober and leather-bound, while on his finely moulded, +intellectual head reposed a black skull-cap. For all the world +his look and attitude were those of a college professor. My heart +gave a great leap. Here was hope! But no; he fixed me with +a cold and glittering eye, searching with the chill of space till my +financial status stood before him shivering and ashamed. I communed +with myself: By his brow he is a thinker, but his intellect has been +prostituted to a mercenary exaction of toll from misery. His nerve +centres of judgment and will have not been employed in solving the problems +of life, but in maintaining his own solvency by the insolvency of others. +He trades upon sorrow and draws a livelihood from misfortune. +He transmutes tears into treasure, and from nakedness and hunger garbs +himself in clean linen and develops the round of his belly. He +is a bloodsucker and a vampire. He lays unholy hands on heaven +and hell at cent. per cent., and his very existence is a sacrilege and +a blasphemy. And yet here am I, wilting before him, an arrant +coward, with no respect for him and less for myself. Why should +this shame be? Let me rouse in my strength and smite him, and, +by so doing, wipe clean one offensive page.<br> +<br> +But no. As I said, he fixed me with a cold and glittering eye, +and in it was the aristocrat’s undisguised contempt for the <i>canaille</i>. +Behind him was the solid phalanx of a bourgeois society. Law and +order upheld him, while I titubated, cabbageless, on the ragged edge. +Moreover, he was possessed of a formula whereby to extract juice from +a flattened lemon, and he would do business with me.<br> +<br> +I told him my desires humbly, in quavering syllables. In return, +he craved my antecedents and residence, pried into my private life, +insolently demanded how many children had I and did I live in wedlock, +and asked divers other unseemly and degrading questions. Ay, I +was treated like a thief convicted before the act, till I produced my +certificates of goods and chattels aforementioned. Never had they +appeared so insignificant and paltry as then, when he sniffed over them +with the air of one disdainfully doing a disagreeable task. It +is said, “Thou shalt not lend upon usury to thy brother; usury +of money, usury of victuals, usury of anything that is lent upon usury”; +but he evidently was not my brother, for he demanded seventy per cent. +I put my signature to certain indentures, received my pottage, and fled +from his presence.<br> +<br> +Faugh! I was glad to be quit of it. How good the outside +air was! I only prayed that neither my best friend nor my worst +enemy should ever become aware of what had just transpired. Ere +I had gone a block I noticed that the sun had brightened perceptibly, +the street become less sordid, the gutter mud less filthy. In +people’s eyes the cabbage question no longer brooded. And +there was a spring to my body, an elasticity of step as I covered the +pavement. Within me coursed an unwonted sap, and I felt as though +I were about to burst out into leaves and buds and green things. +My brain was clear and refreshed. There was a new strength to +my arm. My nerves were tingling and I was a-pulse with the times. +All men were my brothers. Save one - yes, save one. I would +go back and wreck the establishment. I would disrupt that leather-bound +volume, violate that black skullcap, burn the accounts. But before +fancy could father the act, I recollected myself and all which had passed. +Nor did I marvel at my new-horn might, at my ancient dignity which had +returned. There was a tinkling chink as I ran the yellow pieces +through my fingers, and with the golden music rippling round me I caught +a deeper insight into the mystery of things.<br> +<br> +OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA.<br> +<i>February </i>1900.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +GOLIAH<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +In 1924 - to be precise, on the morning of January 3 - the city of San +Francisco awoke to read in one of its daily papers a curious letter, +which had been received by Walter Bassett and which had evidently been +written by some crank. Walter Bassett was the greatest captain +of industry west of the Rockies, and was one of the small group that +controlled the nation in everything but name. As such, he was +the recipient of lucubrations from countless cranks; but this particular +lucubration was so different from the average ruck of similar letters +that, instead of putting it into the waste-basket, he had turned it +over to a reporter. It was signed “Goliah,” and the +superscription gave his address as “Palgrave Island.” +The letter was as follows:<br> +<br> +<br> +“MR. WALTER BASSETT,<br> +“DEAR SIR:<br> +<br> +“I am inviting you, with nine of your fellow-captains of industry, +to visit me here on my island for the purpose of considering plans for +the reconstruction of society upon a more rational basis. Up to +the present, social evolution has been a blind and aimless, blundering +thing. The time has come for a change. Man has risen from +the vitalized slime of the primeval sea to the mastery of matter; but +he has not yet mastered society. Man is to-day as much the slave +to his collective stupidity, as a hundred thousand generations ago he +was a slave to matter.<br> +<br> +“There are two theoretical methods whereby man may become the +master of society, and make of society an intelligent and efficacious +device for the pursuit and capture of happiness and laughter. +The first theory advances the proposition that no government can be +wiser or better than the people that compose that government; that reform +and development must spring from the individual; that in so far as the +individuals become wiser and better, by that much will their government +become wiser and better; in short, that the majority of individuals +must become wiser and better, before their government becomes wiser +and better. The mob, the political convention, the abysmal brutality +and stupid ignorance of all concourses of people, give the lie to this +theory. In a mob the collective intelligence and mercy is that +of the least intelligent and most brutal members that compose the mob. +On the other hand, a thousand passengers will surrender themselves to +the wisdom and discretion of the captain, when their ship is in a storm +on the sea. In such matter, he is the wisest and most experienced +among them.<br> +<br> +“The second theory advances the proposition that the majority +of the people are not pioneers, that they are weighted down by the inertia +of the established; that the government that is representative of them +represents only their feebleness, and futility, and brutishness; that +this blind thing called government is not the serf of their wills, but +that they are the serfs of it; in short, speaking always of the great +mass, that they do not make government, but that government makes them, +and that government is and has been a stupid and awful monster, misbegotten +of the glimmerings of intelligence that come from the inertia-crushed +mass.<br> +<br> +“Personally, I incline to the second theory. Also, I am +impatient. For a hundred thousand generations, from the first +social groups of our savage forbears, government has remained a monster. +To-day, the inertia-crushed mass has less laughter in it than ever before. +In spite of man’s mastery of matter, human suffering and misery +and degradation mar the fair world.<br> +<br> +“Wherefore I have decided to step in and become captain of this +world-ship for a while. I have the intelligence and the wide vision +of the skilled expert. Also, I have the power. I shall be +obeyed. The men of all the world shall perform my bidding and +make governments so that they shall become laughter-producers. +These modelled governments I have in mind shall not make the people +happy, wise, and noble by decree; but they shall give opportunity for +the people to become happy, wise, and noble.<br> +<br> +“I have spoken. I have invited you, and nine of your fellow-captains, +to confer with me. On March third the yacht <i>Energon </i>will +sail from San Francisco. You are requested to be on board the +night before. This is serious. The affairs of the world +must be handled for a time by a strong hand. Mine is that strong +hand. If you fail to obey my summons, you will die. Candidly, +I do not expect that you will obey. But your death for failure +to obey will cause obedience on the part of those I subsequently summon. +You will have served a purpose. And please remember that I have +no unscientific sentimentality about the value of human life. +I carry always in the background of my consciousness the innumerable +billions of lives that are to laugh and be happy in future aeons on +the earth.<br> +<br> +“Yours for the reconstruction of society,<br> +<br> +“GOLIAH.”<br> +<br> +<br> +The publication of this letter did not cause even local amusement. +Men might have smiled to themselves as they read it, but it was so palpably +the handiwork of a crank that it did not merit discussion. Interest +did not arouse till next morning. An Associated Press despatch +to the Eastern states, followed by interviews by eager-nosed reporters, +had brought out the names of the other nine captains of industry who +had received similar letters, but who had not thought the matter of +sufficient importance to be made public. But the interest aroused +was mild, and it would have died out quickly had not Gabberton cartooned +a chronic presidential aspirant as “Goliah.” Then +came the song that was sung hilariously from sea to sea, with the refrain, +“Goliah will catch you if you don’t watch out.”<br> +<br> +The weeks passed and the incident was forgotten. Walter Bassett +had forgotten it likewise; but on the evening of February 22, he was +called to the telephone by the Collector of the Port. “I +just wanted to tell you,” said the latter, “that the yacht +<i>Energon </i>has arrived and gone to anchor in the stream off Pier +Seven.”<br> +<br> +What happened that night Walter Bassett has never divulged. But +it is known that he rode down in his auto to the water front, chartered +one of Crowley’s launches, and was put aboard the strange yacht. +It is further known that when he returned to the shore, three hours +later, he immediately despatched a sheaf of telegrams to his nine fellow-captains +of industry who had received letters from Goliah. These telegrams +were similarly worded, and read: “The yacht <i>Energon </i>has +arrived. There is something in this. I advise you to come.”<br> +<br> +Bassett was laughed at for his pains. It was a huge laugh that +went up (for his telegrams had been made public), and the popular song +on Goliah revived and became more popular than ever. Goliah and +Bassett were cartooned and lampooned unmercifully, the former, as the +Old Man of the Sea, riding on the latter’s neck. The laugh +tittered and rippled through clubs and social circles, was restrainedly +merry in the editorial columns, and broke out in loud guffaws in the +comic weeklies. There was a serious side as well, and Bassett’s +sanity was gravely questioned by many, and especially by his business +associates.<br> +<br> +Bassett had ever been a short-tempered man, and after he sent the second +sheaf of telegrams to his brother captains, and had been laughed at +again, he remained silent. In this second sheaf he had said: “Come, +I implore you. As you value your life, come.” He arranged +all his business affairs for an absence, and on the night of March 2 +went on board the <i>Energon</i>. The latter, properly cleared, +sailed next morning. And next morning the newsboys in every city +and town were crying “Extra.”<br> +<br> +In the slang of the day, Goliah had delivered the goods. The nine +captains of industry who had failed to accept his invitation were dead. +A sort of violent disintegration of the tissues was the report of the +various autopsies held on the bodies of the slain millionaires; yet +the surgeons and physicians (the most highly skilled in the land had +participated) would not venture the opinion that the men had been slain. +Much less would they venture the conclusion, “at the hands of +parties unknown.” It was all too mysterious. They +were stunned. Their scientific credulity broke down. They +had no warrant in the whole domain of science for believing that an +anonymous person on Palgrave Island had murdered the poor gentlemen.<br> +<br> +One thing was quickly learned, however; namely, that Palgrave Island +was no myth. It was charted and well known to all navigators, +lying on the line of 160 west longitude, right at its intersection by +the tenth parallel north latitude, and only a few miles away from Diana +Shoal. Like Midway and Fanning, Palgrave Island was isolated, +volcanic and coral in formation. Furthermore, it was uninhabited. +A survey ship, in 1887, had visited the place and reported the existence +of several springs and of a good harbour that was very dangerous of +approach. And that was all that was known of the tiny speck of +land that was soon to have focussed on it the awed attention of the +world.<br> +<br> +Goliah remained silent till March 24. On the morning of that day, +the newspapers published his second letter, copies of which had been +received by the ten chief politicians of the United States - ten leading +men in the political world who were conventionally known as “statesmen.” +The letter, with the same superscription as before, was as follows:<br> +<br> +<br> +“DEAR SIR:<br> +<br> +“I have spoken in no uncertain tone. I must be obeyed. +You may consider this an invitation or a summons; but if you still wish +to tread this earth and laugh, you will be aboard the yacht <i>Energon, +</i>in San Francisco harbour, not later than the evening of April 5. +It is my wish and my will that you confer with me here on Palgrave Island +in the matter of reconstructing society upon some rational basis.<br> +<br> +“Do not misunderstand me, when I tell you that I am one with a +theory. I want to see that theory work, and therefore I call upon +your cooperation. In this theory of mine, lives are but pawns; +I deal with quantities of lives. I am after laughter, and those +that stand in the way of laughter must perish. The game is big. +There are fifteen hundred million human lives to-day on the planet. +What is your single life against them? It is as naught, in my +theory. And remember that mine is the power. Remember that +I am a scientist, and that one life, or one million of lives, mean nothing +to me as arrayed against the countless billions of billions of the lives +of the generations to come. It is for their laughter that I seek +to reconstruct society now; and against them your own meagre little +life is a paltry thing indeed.<br> +<br> +“Whoso has power can command his fellows. By virtue of that +military device known as the phalanx, Alexander conquered his bit of +the world. By virtue of that chemical device, gunpowder, Cortes +with his several hundred cut-throats conquered the empire of the Montezumas. +Now I am in possession of a device that is all my own. In the +course of a century not more than half a dozen fundamental discoveries +or inventions are made. I have made such an invention. The +possession of it gives me the mastery of the world. I shall use +this invention, not for commercial exploitation, but for the good of +humanity. For that purpose I want help - willing agents, obedient +hands; and I am strong enough to compel the service. I am taking +the shortest way, though I am in no hurry. I shall not clutter +my speed with haste.<br> +<br> +“The incentive of material gain developed man from the savage +to the semi-barbarian he is today. This incentive has been a useful +device for the development of the human; but it has now fulfilled its +function and is ready to be cast aside into the scrap-heap of rudimentary +vestiges such as gills in the throat and belief in the divine right +of kings. Of course you do not think so; but I do not see that +that will prevent you from aiding me to fling the anachronism into the +scrap-heap. For I tell you now that the time has come when mere +food and shelter and similar sordid things shall be automatic, as free +and easy and involuntary of access as the air. I shall make them +automatic, what of my discovery and the power that discovery gives me. +And with food and shelter automatic, the incentive of material gain +passes away from the world for ever. With food and shelter automatic, +the higher incentives will universally obtain - the spiritual, aesthetic, +and intellectual incentives that will tend to develop and make beautiful +and noble body, mind, and spirit. Then all the world will be dominated +by happiness and laughter. It will be the reign of universal laughter.<br> +<br> +“Yours for that day,<br> +<br> +“GOLIAH.”<br> +<br> +<br> +Still the world would not believe. The ten politicians were at +Washington, so that they did not have the opportunity of being convinced +that Bassett had had, and not one of them took the trouble to journey +out to San Francisco to make the opportunity. As for Goliah, he +was hailed by the newspapers as another Tom Lawson with a panacea; and +there were specialists in mental disease who, by analysis of Goliah’s +letters, proved conclusively that he was a lunatic.<br> +<br> +The yacht <i>Energon </i>arrived in the harbour of San Francisco on +the afternoon of April 5, and Bassett came ashore. But the <i>Energon +</i>did not sail next day, for not one of the ten summoned politicians +had elected to make the journey to Palgrave Island. The newsboys, +however, called “Extra” that day in all the cities. +The ten politicians were dead. The yacht, lying peacefully at +anchor in the harbour, became the centre of excited interest. +She was surrounded by a flotilla of launches and rowboats, and many +tugs and steamboats ran excursions to her. While the rabble was +firmly kept off, the proper authorities and even reporters were permitted +to board her. The mayor of San Francisco and the chief of police +reported that nothing suspicious was to be seen upon her, and the port +authorities announced that her papers were correct and in order in every +detail. Many photographs and columns of descriptive matter were +run in the newspapers.<br> +<br> +The crew was reported to be composed principally of Scandinavians - +fair-haired, blue-eyed Swedes, Norwegians afflicted with the temperamental +melancholy of their race, stolid Russian Finns, and a slight sprinkling +of Americans and English. It was noted that there was nothing +mercurial and flyaway about them. They seemed weighty men, oppressed +by a sad and stolid bovine-sort of integrity. A sober seriousness +and enormous certitude characterized all of them. They appeared +men without nerves and without fear, as though upheld by some overwhelming +power or carried in the hollow of some superhuman hand. The captain, +a sad-eyed, strong-featured American, was cartooned in the papers as +“Gloomy Gus” (the pessimistic hero of the comic supplement).<br> +<br> +Some sea-captain recognized the <i>Energon </i>as the yacht <i>Scud, +</i>once owned by Merrivale of the New York Yacht Club. With this +clue it was soon ascertained that the <i>Scud </i>had disappeared several +years before. The agent who sold her reported the purchaser to +be merely another agent, a man he had seen neither before nor since. +The yacht had been reconstructed at Duffey’s Shipyard in New Jersey. +The change in her name and registry occurred at that time and had been +legally executed. Then the <i>Energon </i>had disappeared in the +shroud of mystery.<br> +<br> +In the meantime, Bassett was going crazy - at least his friends and +business associates said so. He kept away from his vast business +enterprises and said that he must hold his hands until the other masters +of the world could join with him in the reconstruction of society - +proof indubitable that Goliah’s bee had entered his bonnet. +To reporters he had little to say. He was not at liberty, he said, +to relate what he had seen on Palgrave Island; but he could assure them +that the matter was serious, the most serious thing that had ever happened. +His final word was that, the world was on the verge of a turnover, for +good or ill he did not know, but, one way or the other, he was absolutely +convinced that the turnover was coming. As for business, business +could go hang. He had seen things, he had, and that was all there +was to it.<br> +<br> +There was a great telegraphing, during this period, between the local +Federal officials and the state and war departments at Washington. +A secret attempt was made late one afternoon to board the <i>Energon +</i>and place the captain under arrest - the Attorney-General having +given the opinion that the captain could be held for the murder of the +ten “statesmen.” The government launch was seen to +leave Meigg’s Wharf and steer for the <i>Energon, </i>and that +was the last ever seen of the launch and the men on board of it. +The government tried to keep the affair hushed up, but the cat was slipped +out of the bag by the families of the missing men, and the papers were +filled with monstrous versions of the affair.<br> +<br> +The government now proceeded to extreme measures. The battleship +<i>Alaska </i>was ordered to capture the strange yacht, or, failing +that, to sink her. These were secret instructions; but thousands +of eyes, from the water front and from the shipping in the harbour, +witnessed what happened that afternoon. The battleship got under +way and steamed slowly toward the <i>Energon</i>. At half a mile +distant the battleship blew up - simply blew up, that was all, her shattered +frame sinking to the bottom of the bay, a riff-raff of wreckage and +a few survivors strewing the surface. Among the survivors was +a young lieutenant who had had charge of the wireless on board the <i>Alaska</i>. +The reporters got hold of him first, and he talked. No sooner +had the <i>Alaska </i>got under way, he said, than a message was received +from the <i>Energon</i>. It was in the international code, and +it was a warning to the <i>Alaska </i>to come no nearer than half a +mile. He had sent the message, through the speaking tube, immediately +to the captain. He did not know anything more, except that the +<i>Energon </i>twice repeated the message and that five minutes afterward +the explosion occurred. The captain of the <i>Alaska </i>had perished +with his ship, and nothing more was to be learned.<br> +<br> +The <i>Energon, </i>however, promptly hoisted anchor and cleared out +to sea. A great clamour was raised by the papers; the government +was charged with cowardice and vacillation in its dealings with a mere +pleasure yacht and a lunatic who called himself “Goliah,” +and immediate and decisive action was demanded. Also, a great +cry went up about the loss of life, especially the wanton killing of +the ten “statesmen.” Goliah promptly replied. +In fact, so prompt was his reply that the experts in wireless telegraphy +announced that, since it was impossible to send wireless messages so +great a distance, Goliah was in their very midst and not on Palgrave +Island. Goliah’s letter was delivered to the Associated +Press by a messenger boy who had been engaged on the street. The +letter was as follows:<br> +<br> +<br> +“What are a few paltry lives? In your insane wars you destroy +millions of lives and think nothing of it. In your fratricidal +commercial struggle you kill countless babes, women, and men, and you +triumphantly call the shambles ‘individualism.’ I +call it anarchy. I am going to put a stop to your wholesale destruction +of human beings. I want laughter, not slaughter. Those of +you who stand in the way of laughter will get slaughter.<br> +<br> +“Your government is trying to delude you into believing that the +destruction of the <i>Alaska </i>was an accident. Know here and +now that it was by my orders that the <i>Alaska </i>was destroyed. +In a few short months, all battleships on all seas will be destroyed +or flung to the scrap-heap, and all nations shall disarm; fortresses +shall be dismantled, armies disbanded, and warfare shall cease from +the earth. Mine is the power. I am the will of God. +The whole world shall be in vassalage to me, but it shall be a vassalage +of peace.<br> +<br> +“I am<br> +<br> +GOLIAH.”<br> +<br> +<br> +“Blow Palgrave Island out of the water!” was the head-line +retort of the newspapers. The government was of the same frame +of mind, and the assembling of the fleets began. Walter Bassett +broke out in ineffectual protest, but was swiftly silenced by the threat +of a lunacy commission. Goliah remained silent. Against +Palgrave Island five great fleets were hurled - the Asiatic Squadron, +the South Pacific Squadron, the North Pacific Squadron, the Caribbean +Squadron, and half of the North Atlantic Squadron, the two latter coming +through the Panama Canal.<br> +<br> +“I have the honour to report that we sighted Palgrave Island on +the evening of April 29,” ran the report of Captain Johnson, of +the battleship <i>North Dakota, </i>to the Secretary of the Navy. +“The Asiatic Squadron was delayed and did not arrive until the +morning of April 30. A council of the admirals was held, and it +was decided to attack early next morning. The destroyer, <i>Swift +VII, </i>crept in, unmolested, and reported no warlike preparations +on the island. It noted several small merchant steamers in the +harbour, and the existence of a small village in a hopelessly exposed +position that could be swept by our fire.<br> +<br> +“It had been decided that all the vessels should rush in, scattered, +upon the island, opening fire at three miles, and continuing to the +edge of the reef, there to retain loose formation and engage. +Palgrave Island repeatedly warned us, by wireless, in the international +code, to keep outside the ten-mile limit; but no heed was paid to the +warnings.<br> +<br> +“The <i>North Dakota </i>did not take part in the movement of +the morning of May 1. This was due to a slight accident of the +preceding night that temporarily disabled her steering-gear. The +morning of May 1 broke clear and calm. There was a slight breeze +from the south-west that quickly died away. The <i>North Dakota +</i>lay twelve miles off the island. At the signal the squadrons +charged in upon the island, from all sides, at full speed. Our +wireless receiver continued to tick off warnings from the island. +The ten-mile limit was passed, and nothing happened. I watched +through my glasses. At five miles nothing happened; at four miles +nothing happened; at three miles, the <i>New York, </i>in the lead on +our side of the island, opened fire. She fired only one shot. +Then she blew up. The rest of the vessels never fired a shot. +They began to blow up, everywhere, before our eyes. Several swerved +about and started back, but they failed to escape. The destroyer, +<i>Dart XXX, </i>nearly made the ten-mile limit when she blew up. +She was the last survivor. No harm came to the <i>North Dakota, +</i>and that night, the steering-gear being repaired, I gave orders +to sail for San Francisco.”<br> +<br> +To say that the United States was stunned is but to expose the inadequacy +of language. The whole world was stunned. It confronted +that blight of the human brain, the unprecedented. Human endeavour +was a jest, a monstrous futility, when a lunatic on a lonely island, +who owned a yacht and an exposed village, could destroy five of the +proudest fleets of Christendom. And how had he done it? +Nobody knew. The scientists lay down in the dust of the common +road and wailed and gibbered. They did not know. Military +experts committed suicide by scores. The mighty fabric of warfare +they had fashioned was a gossamer veil rent asunder by a miserable lunatic. +It was too much for their sanity. Mere human reason could not +withstand the shock. As the savage is crushed by the sleight-of-hand +of the witch doctor, so was the world crushed by the magic of Goliah. +How did he do it? It was the awful face of the Unknown upon which +the world gazed and by which it was frightened out of the memory of +its proudest achievements.<br> +<br> +But all the world was not stunned. There was the invariable exception +- the Island Empire of Japan. Drunken with the wine of success +deep-quaffed, without superstition and without faith in aught but its +own ascendant star, laughing at the wreckage of science and mad with +pride of race, it went forth upon the way of war. America’s +fleets had been destroyed. From the battlements of heaven the +multitudinous ancestral shades of Japan leaned down. The opportunity, +God-given, had come. The Mikado was in truth a brother to the +gods.<br> +<br> +The war-monsters of Japan were loosed in mighty fleets. The Philippines +were gathered in as a child gathers a nosegay. It took longer +for the battleships to travel to Hawaii, to Panama, and to the Pacific +Coast. The United States was panic-stricken, and there arose the +powerful party of dishonourable peace. In the midst of the clamour +the <i>Energon </i>arrived in San Francisco Bay and Goliah spoke once +more. There was a little brush as the <i>Energon </i>came in, +and a few explosions of magazines occurred along the war-tunnelled hills +as the coast defences went to smash. Also, the blowing up of the +submarine mines in the Golden Gate made a remarkably fine display. +Goliah’s message to the people of San Francisco, dated as usual +from Palgrave Island, was published in the papers. It ran:<br> +<br> +<br> +“Peace? Peace be with you. You shall have peace. +I have spoken to this purpose before. And give you me peace. +Leave my yacht <i>Energon </i>alone. Commit one overt act against +her and not one stone in San Francisco shall stand upon another.<br> +<br> +“To-morrow let all good citizens go out upon the hills that slope +down to the sea. Go with music and laughter and garlands. +Make festival for the new age that is dawning. Be like children +upon your hills, and witness the passing of war. Do not miss the +opportunity. It is your last chance to behold what henceforth +you will be compelled to seek in museums of antiquities.<br> +<br> +“I promise you a merry day,<br> +<br> +“GOLIAH.”<br> +<br> +<br> +The madness of magic was in the air. With the people it was as +if all their gods had crashed and the heavens still stood. Order +and law had passed away from the universe; but the sun still shone, +the wind still blew, the flowers still bloomed - that was the amazing +thing about it. That water should continue to run downhill was +a miracle. All the stabilities of the human mind and human achievement +were crumbling. The one stable thing that remained was Goliah, +a madman on an island. And so it was that the whole population +of San Francisco went forth next day in colossal frolic upon the hills +that overlooked the sea. Brass bands and banners went forth, brewery +wagons and Sunday-school picnics - all the strange heterogeneous groupings +of swarming metropolitan life.<br> +<br> +On the sea-rim rose the smoke from the funnels of a hundred hostile +vessels of war, all converging upon the helpless, undefended Golden +Gate. And not all undefended, for out through the Golden Gate +moved the <i>Energon, </i>a tiny toy of white, rolling like a straw +in the stiff sea on the bar where a strong ebb-tide ran in the teeth +of the summer sea-breeze. But the Japanese were cautious. +Their thirty- and forty-thousand-ton battleships slowed down half a +dozen miles offshore and manoeuvred in ponderous evolutions, while tiny +scout-boats (lean, six-funnelled destroyers) ran in, cutting blackly +the flashing sea like so many sharks. But, compared with the <i>Energon, +</i>they were leviathans. Compared with them, the <i>Energon </i>was +as the sword of the arch-angel Michael, and they the forerunners of +the hosts of hell.<br> +<br> +But the flashing of the sword, the good people of San Francisco, gathered +on her hills, never saw. Mysterious, invisible, it cleaved the +air and smote the mightiest blows of combat the world had ever witnessed. +The good people of San Francisco saw little and understood less. +They saw only a million and a half tons of brine-cleaving, thunder-flinging +fabrics hurled skyward and smashed back in ruin to sink into the sea. +It was all over in five minutes. Remained upon the wide expanse +of sea only the <i>Energon, </i>rolling white and toylike on the bar.<br> +<br> +Goliah spoke to the Mikado and the Elder Statesmen. It was only +an ordinary cable message, despatched from San Francisco by the captain +of the <i>Energon, </i>but it was of sufficient moment to cause the +immediate withdrawal of Japan from the Philippines and of her surviving +fleets from the sea. Japan the sceptical was converted. +She had felt the weight of Goliah’s arm. And meekly she +obeyed when Goliah commanded her to dismantle her war vessels and to +turn the metal into useful appliances for the arts of peace. In +all the ports, navy-yards, machine-shops, and foundries of Japan tens +of thousands of brown-skinned artisans converted the war-monsters into +myriads of useful things, such as ploughshares (Goliah insisted on ploughshares), +gasolene engines, bridge-trusses, telephone and telegraph wires, steel +rails, locomotives, and rolling stock for railways. It was a world-penance +for a world to see, and paltry indeed it made appear that earlier penance, +barefooted in the snow, of an emperor to a pope for daring to squabble +over temporal power.<br> +<br> +Goliah’s next summons was to the ten leading scientists of the +United States. This time there was no hesitancy in obeying. +The savants were ludicrously prompt, some of them waiting in San Francisco +for weeks so as not to miss the scheduled sailing-date. They departed +on the <i>Energon </i>on June 15; and while they were on the sea, on +the way to Palgrave Island, Goliah performed another spectacular feat. +Germany and France were preparing to fly at each other’s throats. +Goliah commanded peace. They ignored the command, tacitly agreeing +to fight it out on land where it seemed safer for the belligerently +inclined. Goliah set the date of June 19 for the cessation of +hostile preparations. Both countries mobilized their armies on +June 18, and hurled them at the common frontier. And on June 19, +Goliah struck. All generals, war-secretaries, and jingo-leaders +in the two countries died on that day; and that day two vast armies, +undirected, like strayed sheep, walked over each other’s frontiers +and fraternized. But the great German war lord had escaped - it +was learned, afterward, by hiding in the huge safe where were stored +the secret archives of his empire. And when he emerged he was +a very penitent war lord, and like the Mikado of Japan he was set to +work beating his sword-blades into ploughshares and pruning-hooks.<br> +<br> +But in the escape of the German Emperor was discovered a great significance. +The scientists of the world plucked up courage, got back their nerve. +One thing was conclusively evident - Goliah’s power was not magic. +Law still reigned in the universe. Goliah’s power had limitations, +else had the German Emperor not escaped by secretly hiding in a steel +safe. Many learned articles on the subject appeared in the magazines.<br> +<br> +The ten scientists arrived back from Palgrave Island on July 6. +Heavy platoons of police protected them from the reporters. No, +they had not see Goliah, they said in the one official interview that +was vouchsafed; but they had talked with him, and they had seen things. +They were not permitted to state definitely all that they had seen and +heard, but they could say that the world was about to be revolutionized. +Goliah was in the possession of a tremendous discovery that placed all +the world at his mercy, and it was a good thing for the world that Goliah +was merciful. The ten scientists proceeded directly to Washington +on a special train, where, for days, they were closeted with the heads +of government, while the nation hung breathless on the outcome.<br> +<br> +But the outcome was a long time in arriving. From Washington the +President issued commands to the masters and leading figures of the +nation. Everything was secret. Day by day deputations of +bankers, railway lords, captains of industry, and Supreme Court justices +arrived; and when they arrived they remained. The weeks dragged +on, and then, on August 25, began the famous issuance of proclamations. +Congress and the Senate co-operated with the President in this, while +the Supreme Court justices gave their sanction and the money lords and +the captains of industry agreed. War was declared upon the capitalist +masters of the nation. Martial law was declared over the whole +United States. The supreme power was vested in the President.<br> +<br> +In one day, child-labour in the whole country was abolished. It +was done by decree, and the United States was prepared with its army +to enforce its decrees. In the same day all women factory workers +were dismissed to their homes, and all the sweat-shops were closed. +“But we cannot make profits!” wailed the petty capitalists. +“Fools!” was the retort of Goliah. “As if the +meaning of life were profits! Give up your businesses and your +profit-mongering.” “But there is nobody to buy our +business!” they wailed. “Buy and sell - is that all +the meaning life has for you?” replied Goliah. “You +have nothing to sell. Turn over your little cut-throating, anarchistic +businesses to the government so that they may be rationally organized +and operated.” And the next day, by decree, the government +began taking possession of all factories, shops, mines, ships, railroads, +and producing lands.<br> +<br> +The nationalization of the means of production and distribution went +on apace. Here and there were sceptical capitalists of moment. +They were made prisoners and haled to Palgrave Island, and when they +returned they always acquiesced in what the government was doing. +A little later the journey to Palgrave Island became unnecessary. +When objection was made, the reply of the officials was “Goliah +has spoken” - which was another way of saying, “He must +be obeyed.”<br> +<br> +The captains of industry became heads of departments. It was found +that civil engineers, for instance, worked just as well in government +employ as before, they had worked in private employ. It was found +that men of high executive ability could not violate their nature. +They could not escape exercising their executive ability, any more than +a crab could escape crawling or a bird could escape flying. And +so it was that all the splendid force of the men who had previously +worked for themselves was now put to work for the good of society. +The half-dozen great railway chiefs co-operated in the organizing of +a national system of railways that was amazingly efficacious. +Never again was there such a thing as a car shortage. These chiefs +were not the Wall Street railway magnates, but they were the men who +formerly had done the real work while in the employ of the Wall Street +magnates.<br> +<br> +Wall Street was dead. There was no more buying and selling and +speculating. Nobody had anything to buy or sell. There was +nothing in which to speculate. “Put the stock gamblers to +work,” said Goliah; “give those that are young, and that +so desire, a chance to learn useful trades.” “Put +the drummers, and salesmen, and advertising agents, and real estate +agents to work,” said Goliah; and by hundreds of thousands the +erstwhile useless middlemen and parasites went into useful occupations. +The four hundred thousand idle gentlemen of the country who had lived +upon incomes were likewise put to work. Then there were a lot +of helpless men in high places who were cleared out, the remarkable +thing about this being that they were cleared out by their own fellows. +Of this class were the professional politicians, whose wisdom and power +consisted of manipulating machine politics and of grafting. There +was no longer any graft. Since there were no private interests +to purchase special privileges, no bribes were offered to legislators, +and legislators for the first time legislated for the people. +The result was that men who were efficient, not in corruption, but in +direction, found their way into the legislatures.<br> +<br> +With this rational organization of society amazing results were brought +about. The national day’s work was eight hours, and yet +production increased. In spite of the great permanent improvements +and of the immense amount of energy consumed in systematizing the competitive +chaos of society, production doubled and tripled upon itself. +The standard of living increased, and still consumption could not keep +up with production. The maximum working age was decreased to fifty +years, to forty-nine years, and to forty-eight years. The minimum +working age went up from sixteen years to eighteen years. The +eight-hour day became a seven-hour day, and in a few months the national +working day was reduced to five hours.<br> +<br> +In the meantime glimmerings were being caught, not of the identity of +Goliah, but of how he had worked and prepared for his assuming control +of the world. Little things leaked out, clues were followed up, +apparently unrelated things were pieced together. Strange stories +of blacks stolen from Africa were remembered, of Chinese and Japanese +contract coolies who had mysteriously disappeared, of lonely South Sea +Islands raided and their inhabitants carried away; stories of yachts +and merchant steamers, mysteriously purchased, that had disappeared +and the descriptions of which remotely tallied with the crafts that +had carried the Orientals and Africans and islanders away. Where +had Goliah got the sinews of war? was the question. And the surmised +answer was: By exploiting these stolen labourers. It was they +that lived in the exposed village on Palgrave Island. It was the +product of their toil that had purchased the yachts and merchant steamers +and enabled Goliah’s agents to permeate society and carry out +his will. And what was the product of their toil that had given +Goliah the wealth necessary to realize his plans? Commercial radium, +the newspapers proclaimed; and radiyte, and radiosole, and argatium, +and argyte, and the mysterious golyte (that had proved so valuable in +metallurgy). These were the new compounds, discovered in the first +decade of the twentieth century, the commercial and scientific use of +which had become so enormous in the second decade.<br> +<br> +The line of fruit boats that ran from Hawaii to San Francisco was declared +to be the property of Goliah. This was a surmise, for no other +owner could be discovered, and the agents who handled the shipments +of the fruit boats were only agents. Since no one else owned the +fruit boats, then Goliah must own them. The point of which is: +<i>that it leaked out that the major portion </i>of <i>the world</i>’<i>s +supply in these precious compounds was brought to San Francisco by those +very fruit boats</i>. That the whole chain of surmise was correct +was proved in later years when Goliah’s slaves were liberated +and honourably pensioned by the international government of the world. +It was at that time that the seal of secrecy was lifted from the lips +of his agents and higher emissaries, and those that chose revealed much +of the mystery of Goliah’s organization and methods. His +destroying angels, however, remained for ever dumb. Who the men +were who went forth to the high places and killed at his bidding will +be unknown to the end of time - for kill they did, by means of that +very subtle and then-mysterious force that Goliah had discovered and +named “Energon.”<br> +<br> +But at that time Energon, the little giant that was destined to do the +work of the world, was unknown and undreamed of. Only Goliah knew, +and he kept his secret well. Even his agents, who were armed with +it, and who, in the case of the yacht <i>Energon, </i>destroyed a mighty +fleet of war-ships by exploding their magazines, knew not what the subtle +and potent force was, nor how it was manufactured. They knew only +one of its many uses, and in that one use they had been instructed by +Goliah. It is now well known that radium, and radiyte, and radiosole, +and all the other compounds, were by-products of the manufacture of +Energon by Goliah from the sunlight; but at that time nobody knew what +Energon was, and Goliah continued to awe and rule the world.<br> +<br> +One of the uses of Energon was in wireless telegraphy. It was +by its means that Goliah was able to communicate with his agents all +over the world. At that time the apparatus required by an agent +was so clumsy that it could not be packed in anything less than a fair-sized +steamer trunk. To-day, thanks to the improvements of Hendsoll, +the perfected apparatus can be carried in a coat pocket.<br> +<br> +It was in December, 1924, that Goliah sent out his famous “Christmas +Letter,” part of the text of which is here given:<br> +<br> +<br> +“So far, while I have kept the rest of the nations from each other’s +throats, I have devoted myself particularly to the United States. +Now I have not given to the people of the United States a rational social +organization. What I have done has been to compel them to make +that organization themselves. There is more laughter in the United +States these days, and there is more sense. Food and shelter are +no longer obtained by the anarchistic methods of so-called individualism +but are now wellnigh automatic. And the beauty of it is that the +people of the United States have achieved all this for themselves. +I did not achieve it for them. I repeat, they achieved it for +themselves. All that I did was to put the fear of death in the +hearts of the few that sat in the high places and obstructed the coming +of rationality and laughter. The fear of death made those in the +high places get out of the way, that was all, and gave the intelligence +of man a chance to realize itself socially.<br> +<br> +“In the year that is to come I shall devote myself to the rest +of the world. I shall put the fear of death in the hearts of all +that sit in the high places in all the nations. And they will +do as they have done in the United States - get down out of the high +places and give the intelligence of man a chance for social rationality. +All the nations shall tread the path the United States is now on.<br> +<br> +“And when all the nations are well along on that path, I shall +have something else for them. But first they must travel that +path for themselves. They must demonstrate that the intelligence +of mankind to-day, with the mechanical energy now at its disposal, is +capable of organizing society so that food and shelter be made automatic, +labour be reduced to a three-hour day, and joy and laughter be made +universal. And when that is accomplished, not by me but by the +intelligence of mankind, then I shall make a present to the world of +a new mechanical energy. This is my discovery. This Energon +is nothing more nor less than the cosmic energy that resides in the +solar rays. When it is harnessed by mankind it will do the work +of the world. There will be no more multitudes of miners slaving +out their lives in the bowels of the earth, no more sooty firemen and +greasy engineers. All may dress in white if they so will. +The work of life will have become play and young and old will be the +children of joy, and the business of living will become joy; and they +will compete, one with another, in achieving ethical concepts and spiritual +heights, in fashioning pictures and songs, and stories, in statecraft +and beauty craft, in the sweat and the endeavour of the wrestler and +the runner and the player of games - all will compete, not for sordid +coin and base material reward, but for the joy that shall be theirs +in the development and vigour of flesh and in the development and keenness +of spirit. All will be joy-smiths, and their task shall be to +beat out laughter from the ringing anvil of life.<br> +<br> +“And now one word for the immediate future. On New Year’s +Day all nations shall disarm, all fortresses and war-ships shall be +dismantled, and all armies shall be disbanded.<br> +<br> +GOLIAH.”<br> +<br> +<br> +On New Year’s Day all the world disarmed. The millions of +soldiers and sailors and workmen in the standing armies, in the navies, +and in the countless arsenals, machine-shops, and factories for the +manufacture of war machinery, were dismissed to their homes. These +many millions of men, as well as their costly war machinery, had hitherto +been supported on the back of labour. They now went into useful +occupations, and the released labour giant heaved a mighty sigh of relief. +The policing of the world was left to the peace officers and was purely +social, whereas war had been distinctly anti-social.<br> +<br> +Ninety per cent. of the crimes against society had been crimes against +private property. With the passing of private property, at least +in the means of production, and with the organization of industry that +gave every man a chance, the crimes against private property practically +ceased. The police forces everywhere were reduced repeatedly and +again and again. Nearly all occasional and habitual criminals +ceased voluntarily from their depredations. There was no longer +any need for them to commit crime. They merely changed with changing +conditions. A smaller number of criminals was put into hospitals +and cured. And the remnant of the hopelessly criminal and degenerate +was segregated. And the courts in all countries were likewise +decreased in number again and again. Ninety-five per cent. of +all civil cases had been squabbles over property, conflicts of property-rights, +lawsuits, contests of wills, breaches of contract, bankruptcies, etc. +With the passing of private property, this ninety-five per cent. of +the cases that cluttered the courts also passed. The courts became +shadows, attenuated ghosts, rudimentary vestiges of the anarchistic +times that had preceded the coming of Goliah.<br> +<br> +The year 1925 was a lively year in the world’s history. +Goliah ruled the world with a strong hand. Kings and emperors +journeyed to Palgrave Island, saw the wonders of Energon, and went away, +with the fear of death in their hearts, to abdicate thrones and crowns +and hereditary licenses. When Goliah spoke to politicians (so-called +“statesmen”), they obeyed . . . or died. He dictated +universal reforms, dissolved refractory parliaments, and to the great +conspiracy that was formed of mutinous money lords and captains of industry +he sent his destroying angels. “The time is past for fooling,” +he told them. “You are anachronisms. You stand in +the way of humanity. To the scrap-heap with you.” +To those that protested, and they were many, he said: “This is +no time for logomachy. You can argue for centuries. It is +what you have done in the past. I have no time for argument. +Get out of the way.”<br> +<br> +With the exception of putting a stop to war, and of indicating the broad +general plan, Goliah did nothing. By putting the fear of death +into the hearts of those that sat in the high places and obstructed +progress, Goliah made the opportunity for the unshackled intelligence +of the best social thinkers of the world to exert itself. Goliah +left all the multitudinous details of reconstruction to these social +thinkers. He wanted them to prove that they were able to do it, +and they proved it. It was due to their initiative that the white +plague was stamped out from the world. It was due to them, and +in spite of a deal of protesting from the sentimentalists, that all +the extreme hereditary inefficients were segregated and denied marriage.<br> +<br> +Goliah had nothing whatever to do with the instituting of the colleges +of invention. This idea originated practically simultaneously +in the minds of thousands of social thinkers. The time was ripe +for the realization of the idea, and everywhere arose the splendid institutions +of invention. For the first time the ingenuity of man was loosed +upon the problem of simplifying life, instead of upon the making of +money-earning devices. The affairs of life, such as house-cleaning, +dish and window-washing, dust-removing, and scrubbing and clothes-washing, +and all the endless sordid and necessary details, were simplified by +invention until they became automatic. We of to-day cannot realize +the barbarously filthy and slavish lives of those that lived prior to +1925.<br> +<br> +The international government of the world was another idea that sprang +simultaneously into the minds of thousands. The successful realization +of this idea was a surprise to many, but as a surprise it was nothing +to that received by the mildly protestant sociologists and biologists +when irrefutable facts exploded the doctrine of Malthus. With +leisure and joy in the world; with an immensely higher standard of living; +and with the enormous spaciousness of opportunity for recreation, development, +and pursuit of beauty and nobility and all the higher attributes, the +birth-rate fell, and fell astoundingly. People ceased breeding +like cattle. And better than that, it was immediately noticeable +that a higher average of children was being born. The doctrine +of Malthus was knocked into a cocked hat - or flung to the scrap-heap, +as Goliah would have put it.<br> +<br> +All that Goliah had predicted that the intelligence of mankind could +accomplish with the mechanical energy at its disposal, came to pass. +Human dissatisfaction practically disappeared. The elderly people +were the great grumblers; but when they were honourably pensioned by +society, as they passed the age limit for work, the great majority ceased +grumbling. They found themselves better off in their idle old +days under the new regime, enjoying vastly more pleasure and comforts +than they had in their busy and toilsome youth under the old regime. +The younger generation had easily adapted itself too the changed order, +and the very young had never known anything else. The sum of human +happiness had increased enormously. The world had become gay and +sane. Even the old fogies of professors of sociology, who had +opposed with might and main the coming of the new regime, made no complaint. +They were a score of times better remunerated than in the old days, +and they were not worked nearly so hard. Besides, they were busy +revising sociology and writing new text-books on the subject. +Here and there, it is true, there were atavisms, men who yearned for +the flesh-pots and cannibal-feasts of the old alleged “individualism,” +creatures long of teeth and savage of claw who wanted to prey upon their +fellow-men; but they were looked upon as diseased, and were treated +in hospitals. A small remnant, however, proved incurable, and +was confined in asylums and denied marriage. Thus there was no +progeny to inherit their atavistic tendencies.<br> +<br> +As the years went by, Goliah dropped out of the running of the world. +There was nothing for him to run. The world was running itself, +and doing it smoothly and beautifully. In 1937, Goliah made his +long-promised present of Energon to the world. He himself had +devised a thousand ways in which the little giant should do the work +of the world - all of which he made public at the same time. But +instantly the colleges of invention seized upon Energon and utilized +it in a hundred thousand additional ways. In fact, as Goliah confessed +in his letter of March 1938, the colleges of invention cleared up several +puzzling features of Energon that had baffled him during the preceding +years. With the introduction of the use of Energon the two-hour +work-day was cut down almost to nothing. As Goliah had predicted, +work indeed became play. And, so tremendous was man’s productive +capacity, due to Energon and the rational social utilization of it, +that the humblest citizen enjoyed leisure and time and opportunity for +an immensely greater abundance of living than had the most favoured +under the old anarchistic system.<br> +<br> +Nobody had ever seen Goliah, and all peoples began to clamour for their +saviour to appear. While the world did not minimize his discovery +of Energon, it was decided that greater than that was his wide social +vision. He was a superman, a scientific superman; and the curiosity +of the world to see him had become wellnigh unbearable. It was +in 1941, after much hesitancy on his part, that he finally emerged from +Palgrave Island. He arrived on June 6 in San Francisco, and for +the first time, since his retirement to Palgrave Island, the world looked +upon his face. And the world was disappointed. Its imagination +had been touched. An heroic figure had been made out of Goliah. +He was the man, or the demi-god, rather, who had turned the planet over. +The deeds of Alexander, Cæsar, Genghis Khan, and Napoleon were +as the play of babes alongside his colossal achievements.<br> +<br> +And ashore in San Francisco and through its streets stepped and rode +a little old man, sixty-five years of age, well preserved, with a pink-and-white +complexion and a bald spot on his head the size of an apple. He +was short-sighted and wore spectacles. But when the spectacles +were removed, his were quizzical blue eyes like a child’s, filled +with mild wonder at the world. Also his eyes had a way of twinkling, +accompanied by a screwing up of the face, as if he laughed at the huge +joke he had played upon the world, trapping it, in spite of itself, +into happiness and laughter.<br> +<br> +For a scientific superman and world tyrant, he had remarkable weaknesses. +He loved sweets, and was inordinately fond of salted almonds and salted +pecans, especially of the latter. He always carried a paper bag +of them in his pocket, and he had a way of saying frequently that the +chemism of his nature demanded such fare. Perhaps his most astonishing +failing was cats. He had an ineradicable aversion to that domestic +animal. It will be remembered that he fainted dead away with sudden +fright, while speaking in Brotherhood Palace, when the janitor’s +cat walked out upon the stage and brushed against his legs.<br> +<br> +But no sooner had he revealed himself to the world than he was identified. +Old-time friends had no difficulty in recognizing him as Percival Stultz, +the German-American who, in 1898, had worked in the Union Iron Works, +and who, for two years at that time, had been secretary of Branch 369 +of the International Brotherhood of Machinists. It was in 1901, +then twenty-five years of age, that he had taken special scientific +courses at the University of California, at the same time supporting +himself by soliciting what was then known as “life insurance.” +His records as a student are preserved in the university museum, and +they are unenviable. He is remembered by the professors he sat +under chiefly for his absent-mindedness. Undoubtedly, even then, +he was catching glimpses of the wide visions that later were to be his.<br> +<br> +His naming himself “Goliah” and shrouding himself in mystery +was his little joke, he later explained. As Goliah, or any other +thing like that, he said, he was able to touch the imagination of the +world and turn it over; but as Percival Stultz, wearing side-whiskers +and spectacles, and weighing one hundred and eighteen pounds, he would +have been unable to turn over a pecan - “not even a salted pecan.”<br> +<br> +But the world quickly got over its disappointment in his personal appearance +and antecedents. It knew him and revered him as the master-mind +of the ages; and it loved him for himself, for his quizzical short-sighted +eyes and the inimitable way in which he screwed up his face when he +laughed; it loved him for his simplicity and comradeship and warm humanness, +and for his fondness for salted pecans and his aversion to cats. +And to-day, in the wonder-city of Asgard, rises in awful beauty that +monument to him that dwarfs the pyramids and all the monstrous blood-stained +monuments of antiquity. And on that monument, as all know, is +inscribed in imperishable bronze the prophecy and the fulfilment: “ALL +WILL BE JOY-SMITHS, AND THEIR TASK SHALL BE TO BEAT OUT LAUGHTER FROM +THE RINGING ANVIL OF LIFE.”<br> +<br> +[EDITORIAL NOTE. - This remarkable production is the work of Harry Beckwith, +a student in the Lowell High School of San Francisco, and it is here +reproduced chiefly because of the youth of its author. Far be +it from our policy to burden our readers with ancient history; and when +it is known that Harry Beckwith was only fifteen when the fore-going +was written, our motive will be understood. “Goliah” +won the Premier for high school composition in 2254, and last year Harry +Beckwith took advantage of the privilege earned, by electing to spend +six months in Asgard. The wealth of historical detail, the atmosphere +of the times, and the mature style of the composition are especially +noteworthy in one so young.]<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +THE GOLDEN POPPY<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +I have a poppy field. That is, by the grace of God and the good-nature +of editors, I am enabled to place each month divers gold pieces into +a clerical gentleman’s hands, and in return for said gold pieces +I am each month reinvested with certain proprietary-rights in a poppy +field. This field blazes on the rim of the Piedmont Hills. +Beneath lies all the world. In the distance, across the silver +sweep of bay, San Francisco smokes on her many hills like a second Rome. +Not far away, Mount Tamalpais thrusts a rugged shoulder into the sky; +and midway between is the Golden Gate, where sea mists love to linger. +From the poppy field we often see the shimmering blue of the Pacific +beyond, and the busy ships that go for ever out and in.<br> +<br> +“We shall have great joy in our poppy field,” said Bess. +“Yes,” said I; “how the poor city folk will envy when +they come to see us, and how we will make all well again when we send +them off with great golden armfuls!”<br> +<br> +“But those things will have to come down,” I added, pointing +to numerous obtrusive notices (relics of the last tenant) displayed +conspicuously along the boundaries, and bearing, each and all, this +legend:<br> +<br> +<br> +“<i>Private Grounds. No Trespassing.</i>”<br> +<br> +<br> +“Why should we refuse the poor city folk a ramble over our field, +because, forsooth, they have not the advantage of our acquaintance?”<br> +<br> +“How I abhor such things,” said Bess; “the arrogant +symbols of power.”<br> +<br> +“They disgrace human nature,” said I.<br> +<br> +“They shame the generous landscape,” she said, “and +they are abominable.”<br> +<br> +“Piggish!” quoth I, hotly. “Down with them!”<br> +<br> +We looked forward to the coming of the poppies, did Bess and I, looked +forward as only creatures of the city may look who have been long denied. +I have forgotten to mention the existence of a house above the poppy +field, a squat and wandering bungalow in which we had elected to forsake +town traditions and live in fresher and more vigorous ways. The +first poppies came, orange-yellow and golden in the standing grain, +and we went about gleefully, as though drunken with their wine, and +told each other that the poppies were there. We laughed at unexpected +moments, in the midst of silences, and at times grew ashamed and stole +forth secretly to gaze upon our treasury. But when the great wave +of poppy-flame finally spilled itself down the field, we shouted aloud, +and danced, and clapped our hands, freely and frankly mad.<br> +<br> +And then came the Goths. My face was in a lather, the time of +the first invasion, and I suspended my razor in mid-air to gaze out +on my beloved field. At the far end I saw a little girl and a +little boy, their arms filled with yellow spoil. Ah, thought I, +an unwonted benevolence burgeoning, what a delight to me is their delight! +It is sweet that children should pick poppies in my field. All +summer shall they pick poppies in my field. But they must be little +children, I added as an afterthought, and they must pick from the lower +end - this last prompted by a glance at the great golden fellows nodding +in the wheat beneath my window. Then the razor descended. +Shaving was always an absorbing task, and I did not glance out of the +window again until the operation was completed. And then I was +bewildered. Surely this was not my poppy field. No - and +yes, for there were the tall pines clustering austerely together on +one side, the magnolia tree burdened with bloom, and the Japanese quinces +splashing the driveway hedge with blood. Yes, it was the field, +but no wave of poppy-flame spilled down it, nor did the great golden +fellows nod in the wheat beneath my window. I rushed into a jacket +and out of the house. In the far distance were disappearing two +huge balls of colour, orange and yellow, for all the world like perambulating +poppies of cyclopean breed.<br> +<br> +“Johnny,” said I to the nine-year-old son of my sister, +“Johnny, whenever little girls come into our field to pick poppies, +you must go down to them, and in a very quiet and gentlemanly manner, +tell them it is not allowed.”<br> +<br> +Warm days came, and the sun drew another blaze from the free-bosomed +earth. Whereupon a neighbour’s little girl, at the behest +of her mother, duly craved and received permission from Bess to gather +a few poppies for decorative purposes. But of this I was uninformed, +and when I descried her in the midst of the field I waved my arms like +a semaphore against the sky.<br> +<br> +“Little girl!” called I. “Little girl!”<br> +<br> +The little girl’s legs blurred the landscape as she fled, and +in high elation I sought Bess to tell of the potency of my voice. +Nobly she came to the rescue, departing forthwith on an expedition of +conciliation and explanation to the little girl’s mother. +But to this day the little girl seeks cover at sight of me, and I know +the mother will never be as cordial as she would otherwise have been.<br> +<br> +Came dark, overcast days, stiff, driving winds, and pelting rains, day +on day, without end, and the city folk cowered in their dwelling-places +like flood-beset rats; and like rats, half-drowned and gasping, when +the weather cleared they crawled out and up the green Piedmont slopes +to bask in the blessed sunshine. And they invaded my field in +swarms and droves, crushing the sweet wheat into the earth and with +lustful hands ripping the poppies out by the roots.<br> +<br> +“I shall put up the warnings against trespassing,” I said.<br> +<br> +“Yes,” said Bess, with a sigh. “I’m afraid +it is necessary.”<br> +<br> +The day was yet young when she sighed again:<br> +<br> +“I’m afraid, O Man, that your signs are of no avail. +People have forgotten how to read, these days.”<br> +<br> +I went out on the porch. A city nymph, in cool summer gown and +picture hat, paused before one of my newly reared warnings and read +it through with care. Profound deliberation characterized her +movements. She was statuesquely tall, but with a toss of the head +and a flirt of the skirt she dropped on hands and knees, crawled under +the fence, and came to her feet on the inside with poppies in both her +hands. I walked down the drive and talked ethically to her, and +she went away. Then I put up more signs.<br> +<br> +At one time, years ago, these hills were carpeted with poppies. +As between the destructive forces and the will “to live,” +the poppies maintained an equilibrium with their environment. +But the city folk constituted a new and terrible destructive force, +the equilibrium was overthrown, and the poppies wellnigh perished. +Since the city folk plucked those with the longest stems and biggest +bowls, and since it is the law of kind to procreate kind, the long-stemmed, +big-bowled poppies failed to go to seed, and a stunted, short-stemmed +variety remained to the hills. And not only was it stunted and +short-stemmed, but sparsely distributed as well. Each day and +every day, for years and years, the city folk swarmed over the Piedmont +Hills, and only here and there did the genius of the race survive in +the form of miserable little flowers, close-clinging and quick-blooming, +like children of the slums dragged hastily and precariously through +youth to a shrivelled and futile maturity.<br> +<br> +On the other hand, the poppies had prospered in my field; and not only +had they been sheltered from the barbarians, but also from the birds. +Long ago the field was sown in wheat, which went to seed unharvested +each year, and in the cool depths of which the poppy seeds were hidden +from the keen-eyed songsters. And further, climbing after the +sun through the wheat stalks, the poppies grew taller and taller and +more royal even than the primordial ones of the open.<br> +<br> +So the city folk, gazing from the bare hills to my blazing, burning +field, were sorely tempted, and, it must be told, as sorely fell. +But no sorer was their fall than that of my beloved poppies. Where +the grain holds the dew and takes the bite from the sun the soil is +moist, and in such soil it is easier to pull the poppies out by the +roots than to break the stalk. Now the city folk, like other folk, +are inclined to move along the line of least resistance, and for each +flower they gathered, there were also gathered many crisp-rolled buds +and with them all the possibilities and future beauties of the plant +for all time to come.<br> +<br> +One of the city folk, a middle-aged gentleman, with white hands and +shifty eyes, especially made life interesting for me. We called +him the “Repeater,” what of his ways. When from the +porch we implored him to desist, he was wont slowly and casually to +direct his steps toward the fence, simulating finely the actions of +a man who had not heard, but whose walk, instead, had terminated of +itself or of his own volition. To heighten this effect, now and +again, still casually and carelessly, he would stoop and pluck another +poppy. Thus did he deceitfully save himself the indignity of being +put out, and rob us of the satisfaction of putting him out, but he came, +and he came often, each time getting away with an able-bodied man’s +share of plunder.<br> +<br> +It is not good to be of the city folk. Of this I am convinced. +There is something in the mode of life that breeds an alarming condition +of blindness and deafness, or so it seems with the city folk that come +to my poppy field. Of the many to whom I have talked ethically +not one has been found who ever saw the warnings so conspicuously displayed, +while of those called out to from the porch, possibly one in fifty has +heard. Also, I have discovered that the relation of city folk +to country flowers is quite analogous to that of a starving man to food. +No more than the starving man realizes that five pounds of meat is not +so good as an ounce, do they realize that five hundred poppies crushed +and bunched are less beautiful than two or three in a free cluster, +where the green leaves and golden bowls may expand to their full loveliness.<br> +<br> +Less forgivable than the unaesthetic are the mercenary. Hordes +of young rascals plunder me and rob the future that they may stand on +street corners and retail “California poppies, only five cents +a bunch!” In spite of my precautions some of them made a +dollar a day out of my field. One horde do I remember with keen +regret. Reconnoitring for a possible dog, they applied at the +kitchen door for “a drink of water, please.” While +they drank they were besought not to pick any flowers. They nodded, +wiped their mouths, and proceeded to take themselves off by the side +of the bungalow. They smote the poppy field beneath my windows, +spread out fan-shaped six wide, picking with both hands, and ripped +a swath of destruction through the very heart of the field. No +cyclone travelled faster or destroyed more completely. I shouted +after them, but they sped on the wings of the wind, great regal poppies, +broken-stalked and mangled, trailing after them or cluttering their +wake - the most high-handed act of piracy, I am confident, ever committed +off the high seas.<br> +<br> +One day I went a-fishing, and on that day a woman entered the field. +Appeals and remonstrances from the porch having no effect upon her, +Bess despatched a little girl to beg of her to pick no more poppies. +The woman calmly went on picking. Then Bess herself went down +through the heat of the day. But the woman went on picking, and +while she picked she discussed property and proprietary rights, denying +Bess’s sovereignty until deeds and documents should be produced +in proof thereof. And all the time she went on picking, never +once overlooking her hand. She was a large woman, belligerent +of aspect, and Bess was only a woman and not prone to fisticuffs. +So the invader picked until she could pick no more, said “Good-day,” +and sailed majestically away.<br> +<br> +“People have really grown worse in the last several years, I think,” +said Bess to me in a tired sort of voice that night, as we sat in the +library after dinner.<br> +<br> +Next day I was inclined to agree with her. “There’s +a woman and a little girl heading straight for the poppies,” said +May, a maid about the bungalow. I went out on the porch and waited +their advent. They plunged through the pine trees and into the +fields, and as the roots of the first poppies were pulled I called to +them. They were about a hundred feet away. The woman and +the little girl turned to the sound of my voice and looked at me. +“Please do not pick the poppies,” I pleaded. They +pondered this for a minute; then the woman said something in an undertone +to the little girl, and both backs jack-knifed as the slaughter recommenced. +I shouted, but they had become suddenly deaf. I screamed, and +so fiercely that the little girl wavered dubiously. And while +the woman went on picking I could hear her in low tones heartening the +little girl.<br> +<br> +I recollected a siren whistle with which I was wont to summon Johnny, +the son of my sister. It was a fearsome thing, of a kind to wake +the dead, and I blew and blew, but the jack-knifed backs never unclasped. +I do not mind with men, but I have never particularly favoured physical +encounters with women; yet this woman, who encouraged a little girl +in iniquity, tempted me.<br> +<br> +I went into the bungalow and fetched my rifle. Flourishing it +in a sanguinary manner and scowling fearsomely, I charged upon the invaders. +The little girl fled, screaming, to the shelter of the pines, but the +woman calmly went on picking. She took not the least notice. +I had expected her to run at sight of me, and it was embarrassing. +There was I, charging down the field like a wild bull upon a woman who +would not get out of the way. I could only slow down, supremely +conscious of how ridiculous it all was. At a distance of ten feet +she straightened up and deigned to look at me. I came to a halt +and blushed to the roots of my hair. Perhaps I really did frighten +her (I sometimes try to persuade myself that this is so), or perhaps +she took pity on me; but, at any rate, she stalked out of my field with +great composure, nay, majesty, her arms brimming with orange and gold.<br> +<br> +Nevertheless, thenceforward I saved my lungs and flourished my rifle. +Also, I made fresh generalizations. To commit robbery women take +advantage of their sex. Men have more respect for property than +women. Men are less insistent in crime than women. And women +are less afraid of guns than men. Likewise, we conquer the earth +in hazard and battle by the virtues of our mothers. We are a race +of land-robbers and sea-robbers, we Anglo-Saxons, and small wonder, +when we suckle at the breasts of a breed of women such as maraud my +poppy field.<br> +<br> +Still the pillage went on. Sirens and gun-flourishings were without +avail. The city folk were great of heart and undismayed, and I +noted the habit of “repeating” was becoming general. +What booted it how often they were driven forth if each time they were +permitted to carry away their ill-gotten plunder? When one has +turned the same person away twice and thrice an emotion arises somewhat +akin to homicide. And when one has once become conscious of this +sanguinary feeling his whole destiny seems to grip hold of him and drag +him into the abyss. More than once I found myself unconsciously +pulling the rifle into position to get a sight on the miserable trespassers. +In my sleep I slew them in manifold ways and threw their carcasses into +the reservoir. Each day the temptation to shoot them in the legs +became more luring, and every day I felt my fate calling to me imperiously. +Visions of the gallows rose up before me, and with the hemp about my +neck I saw stretched out the pitiless future of my children, dark with +disgrace and shame. I became afraid of myself, and Bess went about +with anxious face, privily beseeching my friends to entice me into taking +a vacation. Then, and at the last gasp, came the thought that +saved me:<i> Why not confiscate</i>? If their forays were bootless, +in the nature of things their forays would cease.<br> +<br> +The first to enter my field thereafter was a man.<br> +<br> +I was waiting for him And, oh joy! it was the “Repeater” +himself, smugly complacent with knowledge of past success. I dropped +the rifle negligently across the hollow of my arm and went down to him.<br> +<br> +“I am sorry to trouble you for those poppies,” I said in +my oiliest tones; “but really, you know, I must have them.”<br> +<br> +He regarded me speechlessly. It must have made a great picture. +It surely was dramatic. With the rifle across my arm and my suave +request still ringing in my ears, I felt like Black Bart, and Jesse +James, and Jack Sheppard, and Robin Hood, and whole generations of highwaymen.<br> +<br> +“Come, come,” I said, a little sharply and in what I imagined +was the true fashion; “I am sorry to inconvenience you, believe +me, but I must have those poppies.”<br> +<br> +I absently shifted the gun and smiled. That fetched him. +Without a word he passed them over and turned his toes toward the fence, +but no longer casual and careless was his carriage, I nor did he stoop +to pick the occasional poppy by the way. That was the last of +the “Repeater.” I could see by his eyes that he did +not like me, and his back reproached me all the way down the field and +out of sight.<br> +<br> +From that day the bungalow has been flooded with poppies. Every +vase and earthen jar is filled with them. They blaze on every +mantel and run riot through all the rooms. I present them to my +friends in huge bunches, and still the kind city folk come and gather +more for me. “Sit down for a moment,” I say to the +departing guest. And there we sit in the shade of the porch while +aspiring city creatures pluck my poppies and sweat under the brazen +sun. And when their arms are sufficiently weighted with my yellow +glories, I go down with the rifle over my arm and disburden them. +Thus have I become convinced that every situation has its compensations.<br> +<br> +Confiscation was successful, so far as it went; but I had forgotten +one thing; namely, the vast number of the city folk. Though the +old transgressors came no more, new ones arrived every day, and I found +myself confronted with the titanic task of educating a whole cityful +to the inexpediency of raiding my poppy field. During the process +of disburdening them I was accustomed to explaining my side of the case, +but I soon gave this over. It was a waste of breath. They +could not understand. To one lady, who insinuated that I was miserly, +I said:<br> +<br> +“My dear madam, no hardship is worked upon you. Had I not +been parsimonious yesterday and the day before, these poppies would +have been picked by the city hordes of that day and the day before, +and your eyes, which to-day have discovered this field, would have beheld +no poppies at all. The poppies you may not pick to-day are the +poppies I did not permit to be picked yesterday and the day before. +Therefore, believe me, you are denied nothing.”<br> +<br> +“But the poppies are here to-day,” she said, glaring carnivorously +upon their glow and splendour.<br> +<br> +“I will pay you for them,” said a gentleman, at another +time. (I had just relieved him of an armful.) I felt a sudden +shame, I know not why, unless it be that his words had just made clear +to me that a monetary as well as an aesthetic value was attached to +my flowers. The apparent sordidness of my position overwhelmed +me, and I said weakly: “I do not sell my poppies. You may +have what you have picked.” But before the week was out +I confronted the same gentleman again. “I will pay you for +them,” he said. “Yes,” I said, “you may +pay me for them. Twenty dollars, please.” He gasped, +looked at me searchingly, gasped again, and silently and sadly put the +poppies down. But it remained, as usual, for a woman to attain +the sheerest pitch of audacity. When I declined payment and demanded +my plucked beauties, she refused to give them up. “I picked +these poppies,” she said, “and my time is worth money. +When you have paid me for my time you may have them.” Her +cheeks flamed rebellion, and her face, withal a pretty one, was set +and determined. Now, I was a man of the hill tribes, and she a +mere woman of the city folk, and though it is not my inclination to +enter into details, it is my pleasure to state that that bunch of poppies +subsequently glorified the bungalow and that the woman departed to the +city unpaid. Anyway, they were my poppies.<br> +<br> +“They are God’s poppies,” said the Radiant Young Radical, +democratically shocked at sight of me turning city folk out of my field. +And for two weeks she hated me with a deathless hatred. I sought +her out and explained. I explained at length. I told the +story of the poppy as Maeterlinck has told the life of the bee. +I treated the question biologically, psychologically, and sociologically, +I discussed it ethically and aesthetically. I grew warm over it, +and impassioned; and when I had done, she professed conversion, but +in my heart of hearts I knew it to be compassion. I fled to other +friends for consolation. I retold the story of the poppy. +They did not appear supremely interested. I grew excited. +They were surprised and pained. They looked at me curiously. +“It ill-befits your dignity to squabble over poppies,” they +said. “It is unbecoming.”<br> +<br> +I fled away to yet other friends. I sought vindication. +The thing had become vital, and I needs must put myself right. +I felt called upon to explain, though well knowing that he who explains +is lost. I told the story of the poppy over again. I went +into the minutest details. I added to it, and expanded. +I talked myself hoarse, and when I could talk no more they looked bored. +Also, they said insipid things, and soothful things, and things concerning +other things, and not at all to the point. I was consumed with +anger, and there and then I renounced them all.<br> +<br> +At the bungalow I lie in wait for chance visitors. Craftily I +broach the subject, watching their faces closely the while to detect +first signs of disapprobation, whereupon I empty long-stored vials of +wrath upon their heads. I wrangle for hours with whosoever does +not say I am right. I am become like Guy de Maupassant’s +old man who picked up a piece of string. I am incessantly explaining, +and nobody will understand. I have become more brusque in my treatment +of the predatory city folk. No longer do I take delight in their +disburdenment, for it has become an onerous duty, a wearisome and distasteful +task. My friends look askance and murmur pityingly on the side +when we meet in the city. They rarely come to see me now. +They are afraid. I am an embittered and disappointed man, and +all the light seems to have gone out of my life and into my blazing +field. So one pays for things.<br> +<br> +PIEDMONT, CALIFORNIA.<br> +<i>April </i>1902.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +THE SHRINKAGE OF THE PLANET<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +What a tremendous affair it was, the world of Homer, with its indeterminate +boundaries, vast regions, and immeasurable distances. The Mediterranean +and the Euxine were illimitable stretches of ocean waste over which +years could be spent in endless wandering. On their mysterious +shores were the improbable homes of impossible peoples. The Great +Sea, the Broad Sea, the Boundless Sea; the Ethiopians, “dwelling +far away, the most distant of men,” and the Cimmerians, “covered +with darkness and cloud,” where “baleful night is spread +over timid mortals.” Phœnicia was a sore journey, +Egypt simply unattainable, while the Pillars of Hercules marked the +extreme edge of the universe. Ulysses was nine days in sailing +from Ismarus the city of the Ciconians, to the country of the Lotus-eaters +- a period of time which to-day would breed anxiety in the hearts of +the underwriters should it be occupied by the slowest tramp steamer +in traversing the Mediterranean and Black Seas from Gibraltar to Sebastopol.<br> +<br> +Homer’s world, restricted to less than a drummer’s circuit, +was nevertheless immense, surrounded by a thin veneer of universe - +the Stream of Ocean. But how it has shrunk! To-day, precisely +charted, weighed, and measured, a thousand times larger than the world +of Homer, it is become a tiny speck, gyrating to immutable law through +a universe the bounds of which have been pushed incalculably back. +The light of Algol shines upon it - a light which travels at one hundred +and ninety thousand miles per second, yet requires forty-seven years +to reach its destination. And the denizens of this puny ball have +come to know that Algol possesses an invisible companion, three and +a quarter millions of miles away, and that the twain move in their respective +orbits at rates of fifty-five and twenty-six miles per second. +They also know that beyond it are great chasms of space, innumerable +worlds, and vast star systems.<br> +<br> +While much of the shrinkage to which the planet has been subjected is +due to the increased knowledge of mathematics and physics, an equal, +if not greater, portion may be ascribed to the perfection of the means +of locomotion and communication. The enlargement of stellar space, +demonstrating with stunning force the insignificance of the earth, has +been negative in its effect; but the quickening of travel and intercourse, +by making the earth’s parts accessible and knitting them together, +has been positive.<br> +<br> +The advantage of the animal over the vegetable kingdom is obvious. +The cabbage, should its environment tend to become worse, must live +it out, or die; the rabbit may move on in quest of a better. But, +after all, the swift-footed creatures are circumscribed in their wanderings. +The first large river almost inevitably bars their way, and certainly +the first salt sea becomes an impassable obstacle. Better locomotion +may be classed as one of the prime aims of the old natural selection; +for in that primordial day the race was to the swift as surely as the +battle to the strong. But man, already pre-eminent in the common +domain because of other faculties, was not content with the one form +of locomotion afforded by his lower limbs. He swam in the sea, +and, still better, becoming aware of the buoyant virtues of wood, learned +to navigate its surface. Likewise, from among the land animals +he chose the more likely to bear him and his burdens. The next +step was the domestication of these useful aids. Here, in its +organic significance, natural selection ceased to concern itself with +locomotion. Man had displayed his impatience at her tedious methods +and his own superiority in the hastening of affairs. Thenceforth +he must depend upon himself, and faster-swimming or faster-running men +ceased to be bred. The one, half-amphibian, breasting the water +with muscular arms, could not hope to overtake or escape an enemy who +propelled a fire-hollowed tree trunk by means of a wooden paddle; nor +could the other, trusting to his own nimbleness, compete with a foe +who careered wildly across the plain on the back of a half-broken stallion.<br> +<br> +So, in that dim day, man took upon himself the task of increasing his +dominion over space and time, and right nobly has he acquitted himself. +Because of it he became a road builder and a bridge builder; likewise, +he wove clumsy sails of rush and matting. At a very remote period +he must also have recognized that force moves along the line of least +resistance, and in virtue thereof, placed upon his craft rude keels +which enabled him to beat to windward in a seaway. As he excelled +in these humble arts, just so did he add to his power over his less +progressive fellows and lay the foundations for the first glimmering +civilizations - crude they were beyond conception, sporadic and ephemeral, +but each formed a necessary part of the groundwork upon which was to +rise the mighty civilization of our latter-day world.<br> +<br> +Divorced from the general history of man’s upward climb, it would +seem incredible that so long a time should elapse between the moment +of his first improvements over nature in the matter of locomotion and +that of the radical changes he was ultimately to compass. The +principles which were his before history was, were his, neither more +nor less, even to the present century. He utilized improved applications, +but the principles of themselves were ever the same, whether in the +war chariots of Achilles and Pharaoh or the mail-coach and diligence +of the European traveller, the cavalry of the Huns or of Prince Rupert, +the triremes and galleys of Greece and Rome or the East India-men and +clipper ships of the last century. But when the moment came to +alter the methods of travel, the change was so sweeping that it may +be safely classed as a revolution. Though the discovery of steam +attaches to the honour of the last century, the potency of the new power +was not felt till the beginning of this. By 1800 small steamers +were being used for coasting purposes in England; 1830 witnessed the +opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway; while it was not until +1838 that the Atlantic was first crossed by the steamships <i>Great +Western </i>and <i>Sirius</i>. In 1869 the East was made next-door +neighbour to the West. Over almost the same ground where had toiled +the caravans of a thousand generations, the Suez Canal was dug. +Clive, during his first trip, was a year and a half <i>en route </i>from +England to India; were he alive to-day he could journey to Calcutta +in twenty-two days. After reading De Quincey’s hyperbolical +description of the English mail-coach, one cannot down the desire to +place that remarkable man on the pilot of the White Mail or of the Twentieth +Century.<br> +<br> +But this tremendous change in the means of locomotion meant far more +than the mere rapid transit of men from place to place. Until +then, though its influence and worth cannot be overestimated, commerce +had eked out a precarious and costly existence. The fortuitous +played too large a part in the trade of men. The mischances by +land and sea, the mistakes and delays, were adverse elements of no mean +proportions. But improved locomotion meant improved carrying, +and commerce received an impetus as remarkable as it was unexpected. +In his fondest fancies James Watt could not have foreseen even the approximate +result of his invention, the Hercules which was to spring from the puny +child of his brain and hands. An illuminating spectacle, were +it possible, would be afforded by summoning him from among the Shades +to a place in the engine-room of an ocean greyhound. The humblest +trimmer would treat him with the indulgence of a child; while an oiler, +a greasy nimbus about his head and in his hand, as sceptre, a long-snouted +can, would indeed appear to him a demigod and ruler of forces beyond +his ken.<br> +<br> +It has ever been the world’s dictum that empire and commerce go +hand in hand. In the past the one was impossible without the other. +Rome gathered to herself the wealth of the Mediterranean nations, and +it was only by an unwise distribution of it that she became emasculated +and lost both power and trade. With a just system of economics +it is highly probable that for centuries she could have held back the +welling tide of the Germanic peoples. When upon her ruins rose +the institutions of the conquering Teutons, commerce slipped away, and +with it empire. In the present, empire and commerce have become +interdependent. Such wonders has the industrial revolution wrought +in a few swift decades, and so great has been the shrinkage of the planet, +that the industrial nations have long since felt the imperative demand +for foreign markets. The favoured portions of the earth are occupied. +From their seats in the temperate zones the militant commercial nations +proceed to the exploitation of the tropics, and for the possession of +these they rush to war hot-footed. Like wolves at the end of a +gorge, they wrangle over the fragments. There are no more planets, +no more fragments, and they are yet hungry. There are no longer +Cimmerians and Ethiopians, in wide-stretching lands, awaiting them. +On either hand they confront the naked poles, and they recoil from unnavigable +space to an intenser struggle among themselves. And all the while +the planet shrinks beneath their grasp.<br> +<br> +Of this struggle one thing may be safely predicated; a commercial power +must be a sea power. Upon the control of the sea depends the control +of trade. Carthage threatened Rome till she lost her navy; and +then for thirteen days the smoke of her burning rose to the skies, and +the ground was ploughed and sown with salt on the site of her most splendid +edifices. The cities of Italy were the world’s merchants +till new trade routes were discovered and the dominion of the sea passed +on to the west and fell into other hands. Spain and Portugal, +inaugurating an era of maritime discovery, divided the new world between +them, but gave way before a breed of sea-rovers, who, after many generations +of attachment to the soil, had returned to their ancient element. +With the destruction of her Armada Spain’s colossal dream of colonial +empire passed away. Against the new power Holland strove in vain, +and when France acknowledged the superiority of the Briton upon the +sea, she at the same time relinquished her designs upon the world. +Hampered by her feeble navy, her contest for supremacy upon the land +was her last effort and with the passing of Napoleon she retired within +herself to struggle with herself as best she might. For fifty +years England held undisputed sway upon the sea, controlled markets, +and domineered trade, laying, during that period, the foundations of +her empire. Since then other naval powers have arisen, their attitudes +bearing significantly upon the future; for they have learned that the +mastery of the world belongs to the masters of the sea.<br> +<br> +That many of the phases of this world shrinkage are pathetic, goes without +question. There is much to condemn in the rise of the economic +over the imaginative spirit, much for which the energetic Philistine +can never atone. Perhaps the deepest pathos of all may be found +in the spectacle of John Ruskin weeping at the profanation of the world +by the vandalism of the age. Steam launches violate the sanctity +of the Venetian canals; where Xerxes bridged the Hellespont ply the +filthy funnels of our modern shipping; electric cars run in the shadow +of the pyramids; and it was only the other day that Lord Kitchener was +in a railroad wreck near the site of ancient Luxor. But there +is always the other side. If the economic man has defiled temples +and despoiled nature, he has also preserved. He has policed the +world and parked it, reduced the dangers of life and limb, made the +tenure of existence less precarious, and rendered a general relapse +of society impossible. There can never again be an intellectual +holocaust, such as the burning of the Alexandrian library. Civilizations +may wax and wane, but the totality of knowledge cannot decrease. +With the possible exception of a few trade secrets, arts and sciences +may be discarded, but they can never be lost. And these things +must remain true until the end of man’s time upon the earth.<br> +<br> +Up to yesterday communication for any distance beyond the sound of the +human voice or the sight of the human eye was bound up with locomotion. +A letter presupposed a carrier. The messenger started with the +message, and he could not but avail himself of the prevailing modes +of travel. If the voyage to Australia required four months, four +months were required for communication; by no known means could this +time be lessened. But with the advent of the telegraph and telephone, +communication and locomotion were divorced. In a few hours, at +most, there could be performed what by the old way would have required +months. In 1837 the needle telegraph was invented, and nine years +later the Electric Telegraph Company was formed for the purpose of bringing +it into general use. Government postal systems also came into +being, later to consolidate into an international union and to group +the nations of the earth into a local neighbourhood. The effects +of all this are obvious, and no fitter illustration may be presented +than the fact that to-day, in the matter of communication, the Klondike +is virtually nearer to Boston than was Bunker Hill in the time of Warren.<br> +<br> +A contemporaneous and remarkable shrinkage of a vast stretch of territory +may be instanced in the Northland. From its rise at Lake Linderman +the Yukon runs twenty-five hundred miles to Bering Sea, traversing an +almost unknown region, the remote recesses of which had never felt the +moccasined foot of the pathfinder. At occasional intervals men +wallowed into its dismal fastnesses, or emerged gaunt and famine-worn. +But in the fall of 1896 a great gold strike was made - greater than +any since the days of California and Australia; yet, so rude were the +means of communication, nearly a year elapsed before the news of it +reached the eager ear of the world. Passionate pilgrims disembarked +their outfits at Dyea. Over the terrible Chilcoot Pass the trail +led to the lakes, thirty miles away. Carriage was yet in its most +primitive stage, the road builder and bridge builder unheard of. +With heavy packs upon their backs men plunged waist-deep into hideous +quagmires, bridged mountain torrents by felling trees across them, toiled +against the precipitous slopes of the ice-worn mountains, and crossed +the dizzy faces of innumerable glaciers. When, after incalculable +toil they reached the lakes, they went into the woods, sawed pine trees +into lumber by hand, and built it into boats. In these, overloaded, +unseaworthy, they battled down the long chain of lakes. Within +the memory of the writer there lingers the picture of a sheltered nook +on the shores of Lake Le Barge, in which half a thousand gold seekers +lay storm-bound. Day after day they struggled against the seas +in the teeth of a northerly gale, and night after night returned to +their camps, repulsed but not disheartened. At the rapids they +ran their boats through, hit or miss, and after infinite toil and hardship, +on the breast of a jarring ice flood, arrived at the Klondike. +From the beach at Dyea to the eddy below the Barracks at Dawson, they +had paid for their temerity the tax of human life demanded by the elements. +A year later, so greatly had the country shrunk, the tourist, on disembarking +from the ocean steamship, took his seat in a modern railway coach. +A few hours later, at Lake Bennet, he stepped aboard a commodious river +steamer. At the rapids he rode around on a tramway to take passage +on another steamer below. And in a few hours more he was in Dawson, +without having once soiled the lustre of his civilized foot-gear. +Did he wish to communicate with the outside world, he strolled into +the telegraph office. A few short months before he would have +written a letter and deemed himself favoured above mortals were it delivered +within the year.<br> +<br> +From man’s drawing the world closer and closer together, his own +affairs and institutions have consolidated. Concentration may +typify the chief movement of the age - concentration, classification, +order; the reduction of friction between the parts of the social organism. +The urban tendency of the rural populations led to terrible congestion +in the great cities. There was stifling and impure air, and lo, +rapid transit at once attacked the evil. Every great city has +become but the nucleus of a greater city which surrounds it; the one +the seat of business, the other the seat of domestic happiness. +Between the two, night and morning, by electric road, steam railway, +and bicycle path, ebbs and flows the middle-class population. +And in the same direction lies the remedy for the tenement evil. +In the cleansing country air the slum cannot exist. Improvement +in road-beds and the means of locomotion, a tremor of altruism, a little +legislation, and the city by day will sleep in the country by night.<br> +<br> +What a play-ball has this planet of ours become! Steam has made +its parts accessible and drawn them closer together. The telegraph +annihilates space and time. Each morning every part knows what +every other part is thinking, contemplating, or doing. A discovery +in a German laboratory is being demonstrated in San Francisco within +twenty-four hours. A book written in South Africa is published +by simultaneous copyright in every English-speaking country, and on +the following day is in the hands of the translators. The death +of an obscure missionary in China, or of a whisky smuggler in the South +Seas, is served up, the world over, with the morning toast. The +wheat output of Argentine or the gold of Klondike is known wherever +men meet and trade. Shrinkage or centralization has been such +that the humblest clerk in any metropolis may place his hand on the +pulse of the world. And because of all this, everywhere is growing +order and organization. The church, the state; men, women, and +children; the criminal and the law, the honest man and the thief, industry +and commerce, capital and labour, the trades and the professions, the +arts and the sciences - all are organizing for pleasure, profit, policy, +or intellectual pursuit. They have come to know the strength of +numbers, solidly phalanxed and driving onward with singleness of purpose. +These purposes may be various and many, but one and all, ever discovering +new mutual interests and objects, obeying a law which is beyond them, +these petty aggregations draw closer together, forming greater aggregations +and congeries of aggregations. And these, in turn, vaguely merging +each into each, present glimmering adumbrations of the coming human +solidarity which shall be man’s crowning glory.<br> +<br> +OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA.<br> +<i>January </i>1900.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +THE HOUSE BEAUTIFUL<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +Speaking of homes, I am building one now, and I venture to assert that +very few homes have received more serious thought in the planning. +Let me tell you about it. In the first place, there will be no +grounds whatever, no fences, lawns, nor flowers. Roughly, the +dimensions will be forty-five feet by fifteen. That is, it will +be fifteen feet wide at its widest - and, if you will pardon the bull, +it will be narrower than it is wide.<br> +<br> +The details must submit to the general plan of economy. There +will be no veranda, no porch entrances, no grand staircases. I’m +ashamed to say how steep the stairways are going to be. The bedrooms +will be seven by seven, and one will be even smaller. A bedroom +is only good to sleep in, anyway. There will be no hallway, thank +goodness. Rooms were made to go through. Why a separate +passage for traffic?<br> +<br> +The bath-room will be a trifle larger than the size of the smallest +bath-tub - it won’t require so much work to keep in order. +The kitchen won’t be very much larger, but this will make it easy +for the cook. In place of a drawing-room, there will be a large +living-room - fourteen by six. The walls of this room will be +covered with books, and it can serve as library and smoking-room as +well. Then, the floor-space not being occupied, we shall use the +room as a dining-room. Incidentally, such a room not being used +after bedtime, the cook and the second boy can sleep in it. One +thing that I am temperamentally opposed to is waste, and why should +all this splendid room be wasted at night when we do not occupy it?<br> +<br> +My ideas are cramped, you say? - Oh, I forgot to tell you that this +home I am describing is to be a floating home, and that my wife and +I are to journey around the world in it for the matter of seven years +or more. I forgot also to state that there will be an engine-room +in it for a seventy-horse-power engine, a dynamo, storage batteries, +etc.; tanks for water to last long weeks at sea; space for fifteen hundred +gallons of gasolene, fire extinguishers, and life-preservers; and a +great store-room for food, spare sails, anchors, hawsers, tackles, and +a thousand and one other things.<br> +<br> +Since I have not yet built my land house, I haven’t got beyond +a few general ideas, and in presenting them I feel as cocksure as the +unmarried woman who writes the column in the Sunday supplement on how +to rear children. My first idea about a house is that it should +be built to live in. Throughout the house, in all the building +of it, this should be the paramount idea. It must be granted that +this idea is lost sight of by countless persons who build houses apparently +for every purpose under the sun except to live in them.<br> +<br> +Perhaps it is because of the practical life I have lived that I worship +utility and have come to believe that utility and beauty should be one, +and that there is no utility that need not be beautiful. What +finer beauty than strength - whether it be airy steel, or massive masonry, +or a woman’s hand? A plain black leather strap is beautiful. +It is all strength and all utility, and it is beautiful. It efficiently +performs work in the world, and it is good to look upon. Perhaps +it is because it is useful that it is beautiful. I do not know. +I sometimes wonder.<br> +<br> +A boat on the sea is beautiful. Yet it is not built for beauty. +Every graceful line of it is a utility, is designed to perform work. +It is created for the express purpose of dividing the water in front +of it, of gliding over the water beneath it, of leaving the water behind +it - and all with the least possible wastage of stress and friction. +It is not created for the purpose of filling the eye with beauty. +It is created for the purpose of moving through the sea and over the +sea with the smallest resistance and the greatest stability; yet, somehow, +it does fill the eye with its beauty. And in so far as a boat +fails in its purpose, by that much does it diminish in beauty.<br> +<br> +I am still a long way from the house I have in my mind some day to build, +yet I have arrived somewhere. I have discovered, to my own satisfaction +at any rate, that beauty and utility should be one. In applying +this general idea to the building of a house, it may be stated, in another +and better way; namely, construction and decoration must be one. +This idea is more important than the building of the house, for without +the idea the house so built is certain to be an insult to intelligence +and beauty-love.<br> +<br> +I bought a house in a hurry in the city of Oakland some time ago. +I do not live in it. I sleep in it half a dozen times a year. +I do not love the house. I am hurt every time I look at it. +No drunken rowdy or political enemy can insult me so deeply as that +house does. Let me tell you why. It is an ordinary two-storey +frame house. After it was built, the criminal that constructed +it nailed on, at the corners perpendicularly, some two-inch fluted planks. +These planks rise the height of the house, and to a drunken man have +the appearance of fluted columns. To complete the illusion in +the eyes of the drunken man, the planks are topped with wooden Ionic +capitals, nailed on, and in, I may say, bas-relief.<br> +<br> +When I analyze the irritation these fluted planks cause in me, I find +the reason in the fact that the first rule for building a house has +been violated. These decorative planks are no part of the construction. +They have no use, no work to perform. They are plastered gawds +that tell lies that nobody believes. A column is made for the +purpose of supporting weight; this is its use. A column, when +it is a utility, is beautiful. The fluted wooden columns nailed +on outside my house are not utilities. They are not beautiful. +They are nightmares. They not only support no weight, but they +themselves are a weight that drags upon the supports of the house. +Some day, when I get time, one of two things will surely happen. +Either I’ll go forth and murder the man who perpetrated the atrocity, +or else I’ll take an axe and chop off the lying, fluted planks.<br> +<br> +A thing must be true, or it is not beautiful, any more than a painted +wanton is beautiful, any more than a sky-scraper is beautiful that is +intrinsically and structurally light and that has a false massiveness +of pillars plastered on outside. The true sky-scraper <i>is </i>beautiful +- and this is the reluctant admission of a man who dislikes humanity-festering +cities. The true sky-scraper is beautiful, and it is beautiful +in so far as it is true. In its construction it is light and airy, +therefore in its appearance it must be light and airy. It dare +not, if it wishes to be beautiful, lay claim to what it is not. +And it should not bulk on the city-scape like Leviathan; it should rise +and soar, light and airy and fairylike.<br> +<br> +Man is an ethical animal - or, at least, he is more ethical than any +other animal. Wherefore he has certain yearnings for honesty. +And in no way can these yearnings be more thoroughly satisfied than +by the honesty of the house in which he lives and passes the greater +part of his life.<br> +<br> +They that dwelt in San Francisco were dishonest. They lied and +cheated in their business life (like the dwellers in all cities), and +because they lied and cheated in their business life, they lied and +cheated in the buildings they erected. Upon the tops of the simple, +severe walls of their buildings they plastered huge projecting cornices. +These cornices were not part of the construction. They made believe +to be part of the construction, and they were lies. The earth +wrinkled its back for twenty-eight seconds, and the lying cornices crashed +down as all lies are doomed to crash down. In this particular +instance, the lies crashed down upon the heads of the people fleeing +from their reeling habitations, and many were killed. They paid +the penalty of dishonesty.<br> +<br> +Not alone should the construction of a house be truthful and honest, +but the material must be honest. They that lived in San Francisco +were dishonest in the material they used. They sold one quality +of material and delivered another quality of material. They always +delivered an inferior quality. There is not one case recorded +in the business history of San Francisco where a contractor or builder +delivered a quality superior to the one sold. A seven-million-dollar +city hall became thirty cents in twenty-eight seconds. Because +the mortar was not honest, a thousand walls crashed down and scores +of lives were snuffed out. There is something, after all, in the +contention of a few religionists that the San Francisco earthquake was +a punishment for sin. It was a punishment for sin; but it was +not for sin against God. The people of San Francisco sinned against +themselves.<br> +<br> +An honest house tells the truth about itself. There is a house +here in Glen Ellen. It stands on a corner. It is built of +beautiful red stone. Yet it is not beautiful. On three sides +the stone is joined and pointed. The fourth side is the rear. +It faces the back yard. The stone is not pointed. It is +all a smudge of dirty mortar, with here and there bricks worked in when +the stone gave out. The house is not what it seems. It is +a lie. All three of the walls spend their time lying about the +fourth wall. They keep shouting out that the fourth wall is as +beautiful as they. If I lived long in that house I should not +be responsible for my morals. The house is like a man in purple +and fine linen, who hasn’t had a bath for a month. If I +lived long in that house I should become a dandy and cut out bathing +- for the same reason, I suppose, that an African is black and that +an Eskimo eats whale-blubber. I shall not build a house like that +house.<br> +<br> +Last year I started to build a barn. A man who was a liar undertook +to do the stonework and concrete work for me. He could not tell +the truth to my face; he could not tell the truth in his work. +I was building for posterity. The concrete foundations were four +feet wide and sunk three and one-half feet into the earth. The +stone walls were two feet thick and nine feet high. Upon them +were to rest the great beams that were to carry all the weight of hay +and the forty tons of the roof. The man who was a liar made beautiful +stone walls. I used to stand alongside of them and love them. +I caressed their massive strength with my hands. I thought about +them in bed, before I went to sheep. And they were lies.<br> +<br> +Came the earthquake. Fortunately the rest of the building of the +barn had been postponed. The beautiful stone walls cracked in +all directions. I started, to repair, and discovered the whole +enormous lie. The walls were shells. On each face were beautiful, +massive stones - on edge. The inside was hollow. This hollow +in some places was filled with clay and loose gravel. In other +places it was filled with air and emptiness, with here and there a piece +of kindling-wood or dry-goods box, to aid in the making of the shell. +The walls were lies. They were beautiful, but they were not useful. +Construction and decoration had been divorced. The walls were +all decoration. They hadn’t any construction in them. +“As God lets Satan live,” I let that lying man live, but +- I have built new walls from the foundation up.<br> +<br> +And now to my own house beautiful, which I shall build some seven or +ten years from now. I have a few general ideas about it. +It must be honest in construction, material, and appearance. If +any feature of it, despite my efforts, shall tell lies, I shall remove +that feature. Utility and beauty must be indissolubly wedded. +Construction and decoration must be one. If the particular details +keep true to these general ideas, all will be well.<br> +<br> +I have not thought of many details. But here are a few. +Take the bath-room, for instance. It shall be as beautiful as +any room in the house, just as it will be as useful. The chance +is, that it will be the most expensive room in the house. Upon +that we are resolved - even if we are compelled to build it first, and +to live in a tent till we can get more money to go on with the rest +of the house. In the bath-room no delights of the bath shall be +lacking. Also, a large part of the expensiveness will be due to +the use of material that will make it easy to keep the bathroom clean +and in order. Why should a servant toil unduly that my body may +be clean? On the other hand, the honesty of my own flesh, and +the square dealing I give it, are more important than all the admiration +of my friends for expensive decorative schemes and magnificent trivialities. +More delightful to me is a body that sings than a stately and costly +grand staircase built for show. Not that I like grand staircases +less, but that I like bath-rooms more.<br> +<br> +I often regret that I was born in this particular period of the world. +In the matter of servants, how I wish I were living in the golden future +of the world, where there will be no servants - naught but service of +love. But in the meantime, living here and now, being practical, +understanding the rationality and the necessity of the division of labour, +I accept servants. But such acceptance does not justify me in +lack of consideration for them. In my house beautiful their rooms +shall not be dens and holes. And on this score I foresee a fight +with the architect. They shall have bath-rooms, toilet conveniences, +and comforts for their leisure time and human life - if I have to work +Sundays to pay for it. Even under the division of labour I recognize +that no man has a right to servants who will not treat them as humans +compounded of the same clay as himself, with similar bundles of nerves +and desires, contradictions, irritabilities, and lovablenesses. +Heaven in the drawing-room and hell in the kitchen is not the atmosphere +for a growing child to breathe - nor an adult either. One of the +great and selfish objections to chattel slavery was the effect on the +masters themselves.<br> +<br> +And because of the foregoing, one chief aim in the building of my house +beautiful will be to have a house that will require the minimum of trouble +and work to keep clean and orderly. It will be no spick and span +and polished house, with an immaculateness that testifies to the tragedy +of drudge. I live in California where the days are warm. +I’d prefer that the servants had three hours to go swimming (or +hammocking) than be compelled to spend those three hours in keeping +the house spick and span. Therefore it devolves upon me to build +a house that can be kept clean and orderly without the need of those +three hours.<br> +<br> +But underneath the spick and span there is something more dreadful than +the servitude of the servants. This dreadful thing is the philosophy +of the spick and span. In Korea the national costume is white. +Nobleman and coolie dress alike in white. It is hell on the women +who do the washing, but there is more in it than that. The coolie +cannot keep his white clothes clean. He toils and they get dirty. +The dirty white of his costume is the token of his inferiority. +The nobleman’s dress is always spotless white. It means +that he doesn’t have to work. But it means, further, that +somebody else has to work for him. His superiority is not based +upon song-craft nor state-craft, upon the foot-races he has run nor +the wrestlers he has thrown. His superiority is based upon the +fact that he doesn’t have to work, and that others are compelled +to work for him. And so the Korean drone flaunts his clean white +clothes, for the same reason that the Chinese flaunts his monstrous +finger-nails, and the white man and woman flaunt the spick-and-spanness +of their spotless houses.<br> +<br> +There will be hardwood floors in my house beautiful. But these +floors will not be polished mirrors nor skating-rinks. They will +be just plain and common hardwood floors. Beautiful carpets are +not beautiful to the mind that knows they are filled with germs and +bacilli. They are no more beautiful than the hectic flush of fever, +or the silvery skin of leprosy. Besides, carpets enslave. +A thing that enslaves is a monster, and monsters are not beautiful.<br> +<br> +The fireplaces in my house will be many and large. Small fires +and cold weather mean hermetically-sealed rooms and a jealous cherishing +of heated and filth-laden air. With large fire-places and generous +heat, some windows may be open all the time, and without hardship all +the windows can be opened every little while and the rooms flushed with +clean pure air. I have nearly died in the stagnant, rotten air +of other people’s houses - especially in the Eastern states. +In Maine I have slept in a room with storm-windows immovable, and with +one small pane five inches by six, that could be opened. Did I +say slept? I panted with my mouth in the opening and blasphemed +till I ruined all my chances of heaven.<br> +<br> +For countless thousands of years my ancestors have lived and died and +drawn all their breaths in the open air. It is only recently that +we have begun to live in houses. The change is a hardship, especially +on the lungs. I’ve got only one pair of lungs, and I haven’t +the address of any repair-shop. Wherefore I stick by the open +air as much as possible. For this reason my house will have large +verandas, and, near to the kitchen, there will be a veranda dining-room. +Also, there will be a veranda fireplace, where we can breathe fresh +air and be comfortable when the evenings are touched with frost.<br> +<br> +I have a plan for my own bedroom. I spend long hours in bed, reading, +studying, and working. I have tried sleeping in the open, but +the lamp attracts all the creeping, crawling, butting, flying, fluttering +things to the pages of my book, into my ears and blankets, and down +the back of my neck. So my bedroom shall be indoors.<br> +<br> +But it will be, not be of, indoors. Three sides of it will be +open. The fourth side will divide it from the rest of the house. +The three sides will be screened against the creeping, fluttering things, +but not against the good fresh air and all the breezes that blow. +For protection against storm, to keep out the driving rain, there will +be a sliding glass, so made that when not in use it will occupy small +space and shut out very little air.<br> +<br> +There is little more to say about this house. I am to build seven +or ten years from now. There is plenty of time in which to work +up all the details in accord with the general principles I have laid +down. It will be a usable house and a beautiful house, wherein +the aesthetic guest can find comfort for his eyes as well as for his +body. It will be a happy house - or else I’ll burn it down. +It will be a house of air and sunshine and laughter. These three +cannot be divorced. Laughter without air and sunshine becomes +morbid, decadent, demoniac. I have in me a thousand generations. +Laughter that is decadent is not good for these thousand generations.<br> +<br> +GLEN ELLEN, CALIFORNIA.<br> +<i>July </i>1906.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +THE GOLD HUNTERS OF THE NORTH<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +“Where the Northern Lights come down a’ nights to dance +on the houseless snow.”<br> +<br> +<br> +“Ivan, I forbid you to go farther in this undertaking. Not +a word about this, or we are all undone. Let the Americans and +the English know that we have gold in these mountains, then we are ruined. +They will rush in on us by thousands, and crowd us to the wall - to +the death.”<br> +<br> +So spoke the old Russian governor, Baranov, at Sitka, in 1804, to one +of his Slavonian hunters, who had just drawn from his pocket a handful +of golden nuggets. Full well Baranov, fur trader and autocrat, +understood and feared the coming of the sturdy, indomitable gold hunters +of Anglo-Saxon stock. And thus he suppressed the news, as did +the governors that followed him, so that when the United States bought +Alaska in 1867, she bought it for its furs and fisheries, without a +thought of its treasures underground.<br> +<br> +No sooner, however, had Alaska become American soil than thousands of +our adventurers were afoot and afloat for the north. They were +the men of “the days of gold,” the men of California, Fraser, +Cassiar, and Cariboo. With the mysterious, infinite faith of the +prospector, they believed that the gold streak, which ran through the +Americas from Cape Horn to California, did not “peter out” +in British Columbia. That it extended farther north, was their +creed, and “Farther North” became their cry. No time +was lost, and in the early seventies, leaving the Treadwell and the +Silver Bow Basin to be discovered by those who came after, they went +plunging on into the white unknown. North, farther north, they +struggled, till their picks rang in the frozen beaches of the Arctic +Ocean, and they shivered by driftwood fires on the ruby sands of Nome.<br> +<br> +But first, in order that this colossal adventure may be fully grasped, +the recentness and the remoteness of Alaska must be emphasized. +The interior of Alaska and the contiguous Canadian territory was a vast +wilderness. Its hundreds of thousands of square miles were as +dark and chartless as Darkest Africa. In 1847, when the first +Hudson Bay Company agents crossed over the Rockies from the Mackenzie +to poach on the preserves of the Russian Bear, they thought that the +Yukon flowed north and emptied into the Arctic Ocean. Hundreds +of miles below, however, were the outposts of the Russian traders. +They, in turn, did not know where the Yukon had its source, and it was +not till later that Russ and Saxon learned that it was the same mighty +stream they were occupying. And a little over ten years later, +Frederick Whymper voyaged up the Great Bend to Fort Yukon under the +Arctic Circle.<br> +<br> +From fort to fort, from York Factory on Hudson’s Bay to Fort Yukon +in Alaska, the English traders transported their goods - a round trip +requiring from a year to a year and a half. It was one of their +deserters, in 1867, escaping down the Yukon to Bering Sea, who was the +first white man to make the North-west Passage by land from the Atlantic +to the Pacific. It was at this time that the first accurate description +of a fair portion of the Yukon was given by Dr. W. H. Ball, of the Smithsonian +Institution. But even he had never seen its source, and it was +not given him to appreciate the marvel of that great natural highway.<br> +<br> +No more remarkable river in this one particular is there in the world; +taking its rise in Crater Lake, thirty miles from the ocean, the Yukon +flows for twenty-five hundred miles, through the heart of the continent, +ere it empties into the sea. A portage of thirty miles, and then +a highway for traffic one tenth the girth of the earth!<br> +<br> +As late as 1869, Frederick Whymper, fellow of the Royal Geographical +Society, stated on hearsay that the Chilcat Indians were believed occasionally +to make a short portage across the Coast Range from salt water to the +head-reaches of the Yukon. But it remained for a gold hunter, +questing north, ever north, to be first of all white men to cross the +terrible Chilcoot Pass, and tap the Yukon at its head. This happened +only the other day, but the man has become a dim legendary hero. +Holt was his name, and already the mists of antiquity have wrapped about +the time of his passage. 1872, 1874, and 1878 are the dates variously +given - a confusion which time will never clear.<br> +<br> +Holt penetrated as far as the Hootalinqua, and on his return to the +coast reported coarse gold. The next recorded adventurer is one +Edward Bean, who in 1880 headed a party of twenty-five miners from Sitka +into the uncharted land. And in the same year, other parties (now +forgotten, for who remembers or ever hears the wanderings of the gold +hunters?) crossed the Pass, built boats out of the standing timber, +and drifted down the Yukon and farther north.<br> +<br> +And then, for a quarter of a century, the unknown and unsung heroes +grappled with the frost, and groped for the gold they were sure lay +somewhere among the shadows of the Pole. In the struggle with +the terrifying and pitiless natural forces, they returned to the primitive, +garmenting themselves in the skins of wild beasts, and covering their +feet with the walrus <i>mucluc </i>and the moosehide moccasin. +They forgot the world and its ways, as the world had forgotten them; +killed their meat as they found it; feasted in plenty and starved in +famine, and searched unceasingly for the yellow lure. They crisscrossed +the land in every direction, threaded countless unmapped rivers in precarious +birch-bark canoes, and with snowshoes and dogs broke trail through thousands +of miles of silent white, where man had never been. They struggled +on, under the aurora borealis or the midnight sun, through temperatures +that ranged from one hundred degrees above zero to eighty degrees below, +living, in the grim humour of the land, on “rabbit tracks and +salmon bellies.”<br> +<br> +To-day, a man may wander away from the trail for a hundred days, and +just as he is congratulating himself that at last he is treading virgin +soil, he will come upon some ancient and dilapidated cabin, and forget +his disappointment in wonder at the man who reared the logs. Still, +if one wanders from the trail far enough and deviously enough, he may +chance upon a few thousand square miles which he may have all to himself. +On the other hand, no matter how far and how deviously he may wander, +the possibility always remains that he may stumble, not alone upon a +deserted cabin, but upon an occupied one.<br> +<br> +As an instance of this, and of the vastness of the land, no better case +need be cited than that of Harry Maxwell. An able seaman, hailing +from New Bedford, Massachusetts, his ship, the brig <i>Fannie E. Lee, +</i>was pinched in the Arctic ice. Passing from whaleship to whaleship, +he eventually turned up at Point Barrow in the summer of 1880. +He was <i>north </i>of the Northland, and from this point of vantage +he determined to pull south of the interior in search of gold. +Across the mountains from Fort Macpherson, and a couple of hundred miles +eastward from the Mackenzie, he built a cabin and established his headquarters. +And here, for nineteen continuous years, he hunted his living and prospected. +He ranged from the never opening ice to the north as far south as the +Great Slave Lake. Here he met Warburton Pike, the author and explorer +- an incident he now looks back upon as chief among the few incidents +of his solitary life.<br> +<br> +When this sailor-miner had accumulated $20,000 worth of dust he concluded +that civilization was good enough for him, and proceeded “to pull +for the outside.” From the Mackenzie he went up the Little +Peel to its headwaters, found a pass through the mountains, nearly starved +to death on his way across to the Porcupine Hills, and eventually came +out on the Yukon River, where he learned for the first time of the Yukon +gold hunters and their discoveries. Yet for twenty years they +had been working there, his next-door neighbours, virtually, in a land +of such great spaces. At Victoria, British Columbia, previous +to his going east over the Canadian Pacific (the existence of which +he had just learned), he pregnantly remarked that he had faith in the +Mackenzie watershed, and that he was going back after he had taken in +the World’s Fair and got a whiff or two of civilization.<br> +<br> +Faith! It may or may not remove mountains, but it has certainly +made the Northland. No Christian martyr ever possessed greater +faith than did the pioneers of Alaska. They never doubted the +bleak and barren land. Those who came remained, and more ever +came. They could not leave. They “knew” the +gold was there, and they persisted. Somehow, the romance of the +land and the quest entered into their blood, the spell of it gripped +hold of them and would not let them go. Man after man of them, +after the most terrible privation and suffering, shook the muck of the +country from his moccasins and departed for good. But the following +spring always found him drifting down the Yukon on the tail of the ice +jams.<br> +<br> +Jack McQuestion aptly vindicates the grip of the North. After +a residence of thirty years he insists that the climate is delightful, +and declares that whenever he makes a trip to the States he is afflicted +with home-sickness. Needless to say, the North still has him and +will keep tight hold of him until he dies. In fact, for him to +die elsewhere would be inartistic and insincere. Of three of the +“pioneer” pioneers, Jack McQuestion alone survives. +In 1871, from one to seven years before Holt went over Chilcoot, in +the company of Al Mayo and Arthur Harper, McQuestion came into the Yukon +from the North-west over the Hudson Bay Company route from the Mackenzie +to Fort Yukon. The names of these three men, as their lives, are +bound up in the history of the country, and so long as there be histories +and charts, that long will the Mayo and McQuestion rivers and the Harper +and Ladue town site of Dawson be remembered. As an agent of the +Alaska Commercial Company, in 1873, McQuestion built Fort Reliance, +six miles below the Klondike River. In 1898 the writer met Jack +McQuestion at Minook, on the Lower Yukon. The old pioneer, though +grizzled, was hale and hearty, and as optimistic as when he first journeyed +into the land along the path of the Circle. And no man more beloved +is there in all the North. There will be great sadness there when +his soul goes questing on over the Last Divide - “farther north,” +perhaps - who can tell?<br> +<br> +Frank Dinsmore is a fair sample of the men who made the Yukon country. +A Yankee, born, in Auburn, Maine, the <i>Wanderlust </i>early laid him +by the heels, and at sixteen he was heading west on the trail that led +“farther north.” He prospected in the Black Hills, +Montana, and in the Coeur d’Alene, then heard a whisper of the +North, and went up to Juneau on the Alaskan Panhandle. But the +North still whispered, and more insistently, and he could not rest till +he went over Chilcoot, and down into the mysterious Silent Land. +This was in 1882, and he went down the chain of lakes, down the Yukon, +up the Pelly, and tried his luck on the bars of McMillan River. +In the fall, a perambulating skeleton, he came back over the Pass in +a blizzard, with a rag of shirt, tattered overalls, and a handful of +raw flour.<br> +<br> +But he was unafraid. That winter he worked for a grubstake in +Juneau, and the next spring found the heels of his moccasins turned +towards salt water and his face toward Chilcoot. This was repeated +the next spring, and the following spring, and the spring after that, +until, in 1885, he went over the Pass for good. There was to be +no return for him until he found the gold he sought.<br> +<br> +The years came and went, but he remained true to his resolve. +For eleven long years, with snow-shoe and canoe, pickaxe and gold-pan, +he wrote out his life on the face of the land. Upper Yukon, Middle +Yukon, Lower Yukon - he prospected faithfully and well. His bed +was anywhere. Winter or summer he carried neither tent nor stove, +and his six-pound sleeping-robe of Arctic hare was the warmest covering +he was ever known to possess. Rabbit tracks and salmon bellies +were his diet with a vengeance, for he depended largely on his rifle +and fishing-tackle. His endurance equalled his courage. +On a wager he lifted thirteen fifty-pound sacks of flour and walked +off with them. Winding up a seven-hundred-mile trip on the ice +with a forty-mile run, he came into camp at six o’clock in the +evening and found a “squaw dance” under way. He should +have been exhausted. Anyway, his <i>muclucs </i>were frozen stiff. +But he kicked them off and danced all night in stocking-feet.<br> +<br> +At the last fortune came to him. The quest was ended, and he gathered +up his gold and pulled for the outside. And his own end was as +fitting as that of his quest. Illness came upon him down in San +Francisco, and his splendid life ebbed slowly out as he sat in his big +easy-chair, in the Commercial Hotel, the “Yukoner’s home.” +The doctors came, discussed, consulted, the while he matured more plans +of Northland adventure; for the North still gripped him and would not +let him go. He grew weaker day by day, but each day he said, “To-morrow +I’ll be all right.” Other old-timers, “out on +furlough,”, came to see him. They wiped their eyes and swore +under their breaths, then entered and talked largely and jovially about +going in with him over the trail when spring came. But there in +the big easy-chair it was that his Long Trail ended, and the life passed +out of him still fixed on “farther north.”<br> +<br> +From the time of the first white man, famine loomed black and gloomy +over the land. It was chronic with the Indians and Eskimos; it +became chronic with the gold hunters. It was ever present, and +so it came about that life was commonly expressed in terms of “grub” +- was measured by cups of flour. Each winter, eight months long, +the heroes of the frost faced starvation. It became the custom, +as fall drew on, for partners to cut the cards or draw straws to determine +which should hit the hazardous trail for salt water, and which should +remain and endure the hazardous darkness of the Arctic night.<br> +<br> +There was never food enough to winter the whole population. The +A. C. Company worked hard to freight up the grub, but the gold hunters +came faster and dared more audaciously. When the A. C. Company +added a new stern-wheeler to its fleet, men said, “Now we shall +have plenty.” But more gold hunters poured in over the passes +to the south, more <i>voyageurs </i>and fur traders forced a way through +the Rockies from the east, more seal hunters and coast adventurers poled +up from Bering Sea on the west, more sailors deserted from the whale-ships +to the north, and they all starved together in right brotherly fashion. +More steamers were added, but the tide of prospectors welled always +in advance. Then the N. A. T. & T. Company came upon +the scene, and both companies added steadily to their fleets. +But it was the same old story; famine would not depart. In fact, +famine grew with the population, till, in the winter of 1897-1898, the +United States government was forced to equip a reindeer relief expedition. +As of old, that winter partners cut the cards and drew straws, and remained +or pulled for salt water as chance decided. They were wise of +old time, and had learned never to figure on relief expeditions. +They had heard of such things, but no mortal man of them had ever laid +eyes on one.<br> +<br> +The hard luck of other mining countries pales into insignificance before +the hard luck of the North. And as for the hardship, it cannot +be conveyed by printed page or word of mouth. No man may know +who has not undergone. And those who have undergone, out of their +knowledge, claim that in the making of the world God grew tired, and +when He came to the last barrowload, “just dumped it anyhow,” +and that was how Alaska happened to be. While no adequate conception +of the life can be given to the stay-at-home, yet the men themselves +sometimes give a clue to its rigours. One old Minook miner testified +thus: “Haven’t you noticed the expression on the faces of +us fellows? You can tell a new-comer the minute you see him; he +looks alive, enthusiastic, perhaps jolly. We old miners are always +grave, unless were drinking.”<br> +<br> +Another old-timer, out of the bitterness of a “home-mood,” +imagined himself a Martian astronomer explaining to a friend, with the +aid of a powerful telescope, the institutions of the earth. “There +are the continents,” he indicated; “and up there near the +polar cap is a country, frigid and burning and lonely and apart, called +Alaska. Now, in other countries and states there are great insane +asylums, but, though crowded, they are insufficient; so there is Alaska +given over to the worst cases. Now and then some poor insane creature +comes to his senses in those awful solitudes, and, in wondering joy, +escapes from the land and hastens back to his home. But most cases +are incurable. They just suffer along, poor devils, forgetting +their former life quite, or recalling it like a dream.” +Again the grip of the North, which will not let one go - for “<i>most +cases are incurable.</i>”<br> +<br> +For a quarter of a century the battle with frost and famine went on. +The very severity of the struggle with Nature seemed to make the gold +hunters kindly toward one another. The latch-string was always +out, and the open hand was the order of the day. Distrust was +unknown, and it was no hyperbole for a man to take the last shirt off +his back for a comrade. Most significant of all, perhaps, in this +connection, was the custom of the old days, that when August the first +came around, the prospectors who had failed to locate “pay dirt” +were permitted to go upon the ground of their more fortunate comrades +and take out enough for the next year’s grub-stake.<br> +<br> +In 1885 rich bar-washing was done on the Stewart River, and in 1886 +Cassiar Bar was struck just below the mouth of the Hootalinqua. +It was at this time that the first moderate strike was made on Forty +Mile Creek, so called because it was judged to be that distance below +Fort Reliance of Jack McQuestion fame. A prospector named Williams +started for the outside with dogs and Indians to carry the news, but +suffered such hardship on the summit of Chilcoot that he was carried +dying into the store of Captain John Healy at Dyea. But he had +brought the news through - <i>coarse</i> <i>gold</i>! Within three +months more than two hundred miners had passed in over Chilcoot, stampeding +for Forty Mile. Find followed find - Sixty Mile, Miller, Glacier, +Birch, Franklin, and the Koyokuk. But they were all moderate discoveries, +and the miners still dreamed and searched for the fabled stream, “Too +Much Gold,” where gold was so plentiful that gravel had to be +shovelled into the sluice-boxes in order to wash it.<br> +<br> +And all the time the Northland was preparing to play its own huge joke. +It was a great joke, albeit an exceeding bitter one, and it has led +the old-timers to believe that the land is left in darkness the better +part of the year because God goes away and leaves it to itself. +After all the risk and toil and faithful endeavour, it was destined +that few of the heroes should be in at the finish when Too Much Gold +turned its yellow-treasure to the stars.<br> +<br> +First, there was Robert Henderson - and this is true history. +Henderson had faith in the Indian River district. For three years, +by himself, depending mainly on his rifle, living on straight meat a +large portion of the time, he prospected many of the Indian River tributaries, +just missed finding the rich creeks, Sulphur and Dominion, and managed +to make grub (poor grub) out of Quartz Creek and Australia Creek. +Then he crossed the divide between Indian River and the Klondike, and +on one of the “feeders” of the latter found eight cents +to the pan. This was considered excellent in those simple days. +Naming the creek “Gold Bottom,” he recrossed the divide +and got three men, Munson, Dalton, and Swanson, to return with him. +The four took out $750. And be it emphasized, and emphasized again, +<i>that this was the first Klondike gold ever shovelled in and washed +out</i>. And be it also emphasized, <i>that Robert Henderson was +the discoverer of Klondike, all lies and hearsay tales to the contrary.<br> +<br> +</i>Running out of grub, Henderson again recrossed the divide, and went +down the Indian River and up the Yukon to Sixty Mile. Here Joe +Ladue ran the trading post, and here Joe Ladue had originally grub-staked +Henderson. Henderson told his tale, and a dozen men (all it contained) +deserted the Post for the scene of his find. Also, Henderson persuaded +a party of prospectors bound for Stewart River, to forgo their trip +and go down and locate with him. He loaded his boat with supplies, +drifted down the Yukon to the mouth of the Klondike, and towed and poled +up the Klondike to Gold Bottom. But at the mouth of the Klondike +he met George Carmack, and thereby hangs the tale.<br> +<br> +Carmack was a squawman. He was familiarly known as “Siwash” +George - a derogatory term which had arisen out of his affinity for +the Indians. At the time Henderson encountered him he was catching +salmon with his Indian wife and relatives on the site of what was to +become Dawson, the Golden City of the Snows. Henderson, bubbling +over with good-will, open-handed, told Carmack of his discovery. +But Carmack was satisfied where he was. He was possessed by no +overweening desire for the strenuous life. Salmon were good enough +for him. But Henderson urged him to come on and locate, until, +when he yielded, he wanted to take the whole tribe along. Henderson +refused to stand for this, said that he must give the preference over +Siwashes to his old Sixty Mile friends, and, it is rumoured, said some +things about Siwashes that were not nice.<br> +<br> +The next morning Henderson went on alone up the Klondike to Gold Bottom. +Carmack, by this time aroused, took a short cut afoot for the same place. +Accompanied by his two Indian brothers-in-law, Skookum Jim and Tagish +Charley, he went up Rabbit Creek (now Bonanza), crossed into Gold Bottom, +and staked near Henderson’s discovery. On the way up he +had panned a few shovels on Rabbit Creek, and he showed Henderson “colours” +he had obtained. Henderson made him promise, if he found anything +on the way back, that he would send up one of the Indians with the news. +Henderson also agreed to pay for his service, for he seemed to feel +that they were on the verge of something big, and he wanted to make +sure.<br> +<br> +Carmack returned down Rabbit Creek. While he was taking a sleep +on the bank about half a mile below the mouth of what was to be known +as Eldorado, Skookum Jim tried his luck, and from surface prospects +got from ten cents to a dollar to the pan. Carmack and his brother-in-law +staked and hit “the high places” for Forty Mile, where they +filed on the claims before Captain Constantine, and renamed the creek +Bonanza. And Henderson was forgotten. No word of it reached +him. Carmack broke his promise.<br> +<br> +Weeks afterward, when Bonanza and Eldorado were staked from end to end +and there was no more room, a party of late comers pushed over the divide +and down to Gold Bottom, where they found Henderson still at work. +When they told him they were from Bonanza, he was nonplussed. +He had never heard of such a place. But when they described it, +he recognized it as Rabbit Creek. Then they told him of its marvellous +richness, and, as Tappan Adney relates, when Henderson realized what +he had lost through Carmack’s treachery, “he threw down +his shovel and went and sat on the bank, so sick at heart that it was +some time before he could speak.”<br> +<br> +Then there were the rest of the old-timers, the men of Forty Mile and +Circle City. At the time of the discovery, nearly all of them +were over to the west at work in the old diggings or prospecting for +new ones. As they said of themselves, they were the kind of men +who are always caught out with forks when it rains soup. In the +stampede that followed the news of Carmack’s strike very few old +miners took part. They were not there to take part. But +the men who did go on the stampede were mainly the worthless ones, the +new-comers, and the camp hangers on. And while Bob Henderson plugged +away to the east, and the heroes plugged away to the west, the greenhorns +and rounders went up and staked Bonanza.<br> +<br> +But the Northland was not yet done with its joke. When fall came +on and the heroes returned to Forty Mile and to Circle City, they listened +calmly to the up-river tales of Siwash discoveries and loafers’ +prospects, and shook their heads. They judged by the calibre of +the men interested, and branded it a bunco game. But glowing reports +continued to trickle down the Yukon, and a few of the old-timers went +up to see. They looked over the ground - the unlikeliest place +for gold in all their experience - and they went down the river again, +“leaving it to the Swedes.”<br> +<br> +Again the Northland turned the tables. The Alaskan gold hunter +is proverbial, not so much for his unveracity, as for his inability +to tell the precise truth. In a country of exaggerations, he likewise +is prone to hyperbolic description of things actual. But when +it came to Klondike, he could not stretch the truth as fast as the truth +itself stretched. Carmack first got a dollar pan. He lied +when he said it was two dollars and a half. And when those who +doubted him did get two-and-a-half pans, they said they were getting +an ounce, and lo! ere the lie had fairly started on its way, they were +getting, not one ounce, but five ounces. This they claimed was +six ounces; but when they filled a pan of dirt to prove the lie, they +washed out twelve ounces. And so it went. They continued +valiantly to lie, but the truth continued to outrun them.<br> +<br> +But the Northland’s hyperborean laugh was not yet ended. +When Bonanza was staked from mouth to source, those who had failed to +“get in,” disgruntled and sore, went up the “pups” +and feeders. Eldorado was one of these feeders, and many men, +after locating on it, turned their backs upon their claims and never +gave them a second thought. One man sold a half-interest in five +hundred feet of it for a sack of flour. Other owners wandered +around trying to bunco men into buying them out for a song. And +then Eldorado “showed up.” It was far, far richer +than Bonanza, with an average value of a thousand dollars a foot to +every foot of it.<br> +<br> +A Swede named Charley Anderson had been at work on Miller Creek the +year of the strike, and arrived in Dawson with a few hundred dollars. +Two miners, who had staked No. 29 Eldorado, decided that he was the +proper man upon whom to “unload.” He was too canny +to approach sober, so at considerable expense they got him drunk. +Even then it was hard work, but they kept him befuddled for several +days, and finally, inveigled him into buying No. 29 for $750. +When Anderson sobered up, he wept at his folly, and pleaded to have +his money back. But the men who had duped him were hard-hearted. +They laughed at him, and kicked themselves for not having tapped him +for a couple of hundred more. Nothing remained for Anderson but +to work the worthless ground. This he did, and out of it he took +over three-quarters of a million of dollars.<br> +<br> +It was not till Frank Dinsmore, who already had big holdings on Birch +Creek, took a hand, that the old-timers developed faith in the new diggings. +Dinsmore received a letter from a man on the spot, calling it “the +biggest thing in the world,” and harnessed his dogs and went up +to investigate. And when he sent a letter back, saying that he +had never seen “anything like it,” Circle City for the first +time believed, and at once was precipitated one of the wildest stampedes +the country had ever seen or ever will see. Every dog was taken, +many went without dogs, and even the women and children and weaklings +hit the three hundred miles of ice through the long Arctic night for +the biggest thing in the world. It is related that but twenty +people, mostly cripples and unable to travel, were left in Circle City +when the smoke of the last sled disappeared up the Yukon.<br> +<br> +Since that time gold has been discovered in all manner of places, under +the grass roots of the hill-side benches, in the bottom of Monte Cristo +Island, and in the sands of the sea at Nome. And now the gold +hunter who knows his business shuns the “favourable looking” +spots, confident in his hard-won knowledge that he will find the most +gold in the least likely place. This is sometimes adduced to support +the theory that the gold hunters, rather than the explorers, are the +men who will ultimately win to the Pole. Who knows? It is +in their blood, and they are capable of it.<br> +<br> +PIEDMONT, CALIFORNIA.<br> +<i>February </i>1902.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +FOMÁ GORDYÉEFF<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +“What, without asking, hither hurried <i>Whence</i>?<br> +And, without asking, <i>Whither </i>hurried hence!<br> +Oh, many a Cup of this forbidden Wine<br> +Must drown the memory of that insolence!”<br> +<br> +“Fomá Gordyéeff” is a big book - not only +is the breadth of Russia in it, but the expanse of life. Yet, +though in each land, in this world of marts and exchanges, this age +of trade and traffic, passionate figures rise up and demand of life +what its fever is, in “Fomá Gordyéeff” it +is a Russian who so rises up and demands. For Górky, the +Bitter One, is essentially a Russian in his grasp on the facts of life +and in his treatment. All the Russian self-analysis and insistent +introspection are his. And, like all his brother Russians, ardent, +passionate protest impregnates his work. There is a purpose to +it. He writes because he has something to say which the world +should hear. From that clenched fist of his, light and airy romances, +pretty and sweet and beguiling, do not flow, but realities - yes, big +and brutal and repulsive, but real.<br> +<br> +He raises the cry of the miserable and the despised, and in a masterly +arraignment of commercialism, protests against social conditions, against +the grinding of the faces of the poor and weak, and the self-pollution +of the rich and strong, in their mad lust for place and power. +It is to be doubted strongly if the average bourgeois, smug and fat +and prosperous, can understand this man Fomá Gordyéeff. +The rebellion in his blood is something to which their own does not +thrill. To them it will be inexplicable that this man, with his +health and his millions, could not go on living as his class lived, +keeping regular hours at desk and stock exchange, driving close contracts, +underbidding his competitors, and exulting in the business disasters +of his fellows. It would appear so easy, and, after such a life, +well appointed and eminently respectable, he could die. “Ah,” +Fomá will interrupt rudely - he is given to rude interruptions +- “if to die and disappear is the end of these money-grubbing +years, why money-grub?” And the bourgeois whom he rudely +interrupted will not understand. Nor did Mayákin understand +as he laboured holily with his wayward godson.<br> +<br> +“Why do you brag?” Fomá, bursts out upon him. +“What have you to brag about? Your son - where is he? +Your daughter - what is she? Ekh, you manager of life! Come, +now, you’re clever, you know everything - tell me, why do you +live? Why do you accumulate money? Aren’t you going +to die? Well, what then?” And Mayákin finds +himself speechless and without answer, but unshaken and unconvinced.<br> +<br> +Receiving by heredity the fierce, bull-like nature of his father plus +the passive indomitableness and groping spirit of his mother, Fomá, +proud and rebellious, is repelled by the selfish, money-seeking environment +into which he is born. Ignát, his father, and Mayákin, +the godfather, and all the horde of successful merchants singing the +pæan of the strong and the praises of merciless, remorseless <i>laissez +faire, </i>cannot entice him. Why? he demands. This is a +nightmare, this life! It is without significance! What does +it all mean? What is there underneath? What is the meaning +of that which is underneath?<br> +<br> +“You do well to pity people,” Ignát tells Fomá, +the boy, “only you must use judgment with your pity. First +consider the man, find out what he is like, what use can be made of +him; and if you see that he is a strong and capable man, help him if +you like. But if a man is weak, not inclined to work - spit upon +him and go your way. And you must know that when a man complains +about everything, and cries out and groans - he is not worth more than +two kopéks, he is not worthy of pity, and will be of no use to +you if you do help him.”<br> +<br> +Such the frank and militant commercialism, bellowed out between glasses +of strong liquor. Now comes Mayákin, speaking softly and +without satire:<br> +<br> +“Eh, my boy, what is a beggar? A beggar is a man who is +forced, by fate, to remind us of Christ; he is Christ’s brother; +he is the bell of the Lord, and rings in life for the purpose of awakening +our conscience, of stirring up the satiety of man’s flesh. +He stands under the window and sings, ‘For Christ’s sa-ake!’ +and by that chant he reminds us of Christ, of His holy command to help +our neighbour. But men have so ordered their lives that it is +utterly impossible for them to act in accordance with Christ’s +teaching, and Jesus Christ has become entirely superfluous to us. +Not once, but, in all probability, a thousand times, we have given Him +over to be crucified, but still we cannot banish Him from our lives +so long as His poor brethren sing His name in the streets and remind +us of Him. And so now we have hit upon the idea of shutting up +the beggars in such special buildings, so that they may not roam about +the streets and stir up our consciences.”<br> +<br> +But Fomá will have none of it. He is neither to be enticed +nor cajoled. The cry of his nature is for light. He must +have light. And in burning revolt he goes seeking the meaning +of life. “His thoughts embraced all those petty people who +toiled at hard labour. It was strange - why did they live? +What satisfaction was it to them to live on the earth? All they +did was to perform their dirty, arduous toil, eat poorly; they were +miserably clad, addicted to drunkenness. One was sixty years old, +but he still toiled side by side with young men. And they all +presented themselves to Fomá’s imagination as a huge heap +of worms, who were swarming over the earth merely to eat.”<br> +<br> +He becomes the living interrogation of life. He cannot begin living +until he knows what living means, and he seeks its meaning vainly. +“Why should I try to live life when I do not know what life is?” +he objects when Mayákin strives with him to return and manage +his business. Why should men fetch and carry for him? be slaves +to him and his money?<br> +<br> +“Work is not everything to a man,” he says; “it is +not true that justification lies in work . . . Some people never do +any work at all, all their lives long - yet they live better than the +toilers. Why is that? And what justification have I? +And how will all the people who give their orders justify themselves? +What have they lived for? But my idea is that everybody ought, +without fail, to know solidly what he is living for. Is it possible +that a man is born to toil, accumulate money, build a house, beget children, +and - die? No; life means something in itself. . . . A man +has been born, has lived, has died - why? All of us must consider +why we are living, by God, we must! There is no sense in our life +- there is no sense at all. Some are rich - they have money enough +for a thousand men all to themselves - and they live without occupation; +others bow their backs in toil all their life, and they haven’t +a penny.”<br> +<br> +But Fomá can only be destructive. He is not constructive. +The dim groping spirit of his mother and the curse of his environment +press too heavily upon him, and he is crushed to debauchery and madness. +He does not drink because liquor tastes good in his mouth. In +the vile companions who purvey to his baser appetites he finds no charm. +It is all utterly despicable and sordid, but thither his quest leads +him and he follows the quest. He knows that everything is wrong, +but he cannot right it, cannot tell why. He can only attack and +demolish. “What justification have you all in the sight +of God? Why do you live?” he demands of the conclave of +merchants, of life’s successes. “You have not constructed +life - you have made a cesspool! You have disseminated filth and +stifling exhalations by your deeds. Have you any conscience? +Do you remember God? A five-kopék piece - that is your +God! But you have expelled your conscience!”<br> +<br> +Like the cry of Isaiah, “Go to, now, ye rich men, weep and howl +for your misfortunes that shall come upon you,” is Fomá’s: +“You blood-suckers! You live on other people’s strength; +you work with other people’s hands! For all this you shall +be made to pay! You shall perish - you shall be called to account +for all! For all - to the last little tear-drop!”<br> +<br> +Stunned by this puddle of life, unable to make sense of it, Fomá +questions, and questions vainly, whether of Sófya Medynsky in +her drawing-room of beauty, or in the foulest depths of the first chance +courtesan’s heart. Linboff, whose books contradict one another, +cannot help him; nor can the pilgrims on crowded steamers, nor the verse +writers and harlots in dives and boozingkens. And so, wondering, +pondering, perplexed, amazed, whirling through the mad whirlpool of +life, dancing the dance of death, groping for the nameless, indefinite +something, the magic formula, the essence, the intrinsic fact, the flash +of light through the murk and dark - the rational sanction for existence, +in short - Fomá Gordyéeff goes down to madness and death.<br> +<br> +It is not a pretty book, but it is a masterful interrogation of life +- not of life universal, but of life particular, the social life of +to-day. It is not nice; neither is the social life of to-day nice. +One lays the book down sick at heart - sick for life with all its “lyings +and its lusts.” But it is a healthy book. So fearful +is its portrayal of social disease, so ruthless its stripping of the +painted charms from vice, that its tendency cannot but be strongly for +good. It is a goad, to prick sleeping human consciences awake +and drive them into the battle for humanity.<br> +<br> +But no story is told, nothing is finished, some one will object. +Surely, when Sásha leaped overboard and swam to Fomá, +something happened. It was pregnant with possibilities. +Yet it was not finished, was not decisive. She left him to go +with the son of a rich vodka-maker. And all that was best in Sófya +Medynsky was quickened when she looked upon Fomá with the look +of the Mother-Woman. She might have been a power for good in his +life, she might have shed light into it and lifted him up to safety +and honour and understanding. Yet she went away next day, and +he never saw her again. No story is told, nothing is finished.<br> +<br> +Ah, but surely the story of Fomá Gordyéeff is told; his +life is finished, as lives are being finished each day around us. +Besides, it is the way of life, and the art of Górky is the art +of realism. But it is a less tedious realism than that of Tolstoy +or Turgenev. It lives and breathes from page to page with a swing +and dash and go that they rarely attain. Their mantle has fallen +on his young shoulders, and he promises to wear it royally.<br> +<br> +Even so, but so helpless, hopeless, terrible is this life of Fomá +Gordyéeff that we would be filled with profound sorrow for Górky +did we not know that he has come up out of the Valley of Shadow. +That he hopes, we know, else would he not now be festering in a Russian +prison because he is brave enough to live the hope he feels. He +knows life, why and how it should be lived. And in conclusion, +this one thing is manifest: Fomá Gordyéeff is no mere +statement of an intellectual problem. For as he lived and interrogated +living, so in sweat and blood and travail has Górky lived.<br> +<br> +PIEDMONT, CALIFORNIA.<br> +<i>November </i>1901.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +THESE BONES SHALL RISE AGAIN<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +Rudyard Kipling, “prophet of blood and vulgarity, prince of ephemerals +and idol of the unelect” - as a Chicago critic chortles - is dead. +It is true. He is dead, dead and buried. And a fluttering, +chirping host of men, little men and unseeing men, have heaped him over +with the uncut leaves of <i>Kim, </i>wrapped him in <i>Stalky </i>& +<i>Co., </i>for winding sheet, and for headstone reared his unconventional +lines, <i>The Lesson</i>. It was very easy. The simplest +thing in the world. And the fluttering, chirping gentlemen are +rubbing their hands in amaze and wondering why they did not do it long +ago, it was so very, very simple.<br> +<br> +But the centuries to come, of which the fluttering, chirping gentlemen +are prone to talk largely, will have something to say in the matter. +And when they, the future centuries, quest back to the nineteenth century +to find what manner of century it was - to find, not what the people +of the nineteenth century thought they thought, but what they really +thought, not what they thought they ought to do, but what they really +did do, then a certain man, Kipling, will be read - and read with understanding. +“They thought they read him with understanding, those people of +the nineteenth century,” the future centuries will say; “and +then they thought there was no understanding in him, and after that +they did not know what they thought.”<br> +<br> +But this is over-severe. It applies only to that class which serves +a function somewhat similar to that served by the populace of old time +in Rome. This is the unstable, mob-minded mass, which sits on +the fence, ever ready to fall this side or that and indecorously clamber +back again; which puts a Democratic administration into office one election, +and a Republican the next; which discovers and lifts up a prophet to-day +that it may stone him tomorrow; which clamours for the book everybody +else is reading, for no reason under the sun save that everybody else +is reading it. This is the class of whim and caprice, of fad and +vogue, the unstable, incoherent, mob-mouthed, mob-minded mass, the “monkey-folk,” +if you please, of these latter days. Now it may be reading <i>The +Eternal City</i>. Yesterday it was reading <i>The Master Christian, +</i>and some several days before that it was reading Kipling. +Yes, almost to his shame be it, these folk were reading him. But +it was not his fault. If he depended upon them he well deserves +to be dead and buried and never to rise again. But to them, let +us be thankful, he never lived. They thought he lived, but he +was as dead then as he is now and as he always will be.<br> +<br> +He could not help it because he became the vogue, and it is easily understood. +When he lay ill, fighting with close grapples with death, those who +knew him were grieved. They were many, and in many voices, to +the rim of the Seven Seas, they spoke their grief. Whereupon, +and with celerity, the mob-minded mass began to inquire as to this man +whom so many mourned. If everybody else mourned, it were fit that +they mourn too. So a vast wail went up. Each was a spur +to the other’s grief, and each began privately to read this man +they had never read and publicly to proclaim this man they had always +read. And straightaway next day they drowned their grief in a +sea of historical romance and forgot all about him. The reaction +was inevitable. Emerging from the sea into which they had plunged, +they became aware that they had so soon forgotten him, and would have +been ashamed, had not the fluttering, chirping men said, “Come, +let us bury him.” And they put him in a hole, quickly, out +of their sight.<br> +<br> +And when they have crept into their own little holes, and smugly laid +themselves down in their last long sleep, the future centuries will +roll the stone away and he will come forth again. For be it known: +<i>That man of us is imperishable who makes his century imperishable</i>. +That man of us who seizes upon the salient facts of our life, who tells +what we thought, what we were, and for what we stood - that man shall +be the mouthpiece to the centuries, and so long as they listen he shall +endure.<br> +<br> +We remember the caveman. We remember him because he made his century +imperishable. But, unhappily, we remember him dimly, in a collective +sort of way, because he memorialized his century dimly, in a collective +sort of way. He had no written speech, so he left us rude scratchings +of beasts and things, cracked marrow-bones, and weapons of stone. +It was the best expression of which he was capable. Had he scratched +his own particular name with the scratchings of beasts and things, stamped +his cracked marrowbones with his own particular seal, trade-marked his +weapons of stone with his own particular device, that particular man +would we remember. But he did the best he could, and we remember +him as best we may.<br> +<br> +Homer takes his place with Achilles and the Greek and Trojan heroes. +Because he remembered them, we remember him. Whether he be one +or a dozen men, or a dozen generations of men, we remember him. +And so long as the name of Greece is known on the lips of men, so long +will the name of Homer be known. There are many such names, linked +with their times, which have come down to us, many more which will yet +go down; and to them, in token that we have lived, must we add some +few of our own.<br> +<br> +Dealing only with the artist, be it understood, only those artists will +go down who have spoken true of us. Their truth must be the deepest +and most significant, their voices clear and strong, definite and coherent. +Half-truths and partial-truths will not do, nor will thin piping voices +and quavering lays. There must be the cosmic quality in what they +sing. They must seize upon and press into enduring art-forms the +vital facts of our existence. They must tell why we have lived, +for without any reason for living, depend upon it, in the time to come, +it will be as though we had never lived. Nor are the things that +were true of the people a thousand years or so ago true of us to-day. +The romance of Homer’s Greece is the romance of Homer’s +Greece. That is undeniable. It is not our romance. +And he who in our time sings the romance of Homer’s Greece cannot +expect to sing it so well as Homer did, nor will he be singing about +us or our romance at all. A machine age is something quite different +from an heroic age. What is true of rapid-fire guns, stock-exchanges, +and electric motors, cannot possibly be true of hand-flung javelins +and whirring chariot wheels. Kipling knows this. He has +been telling it to us all his life, living it all his life in the work +he has done.<br> +<br> +What the Anglo-Saxon has done, he has memorialized. And by Anglo-Saxon +is not meant merely the people of that tight little island on the edge +of the Western Ocean. Anglo-Saxon stands for the English-speaking +people of all the world, who, in forms and institutions and traditions, +are more peculiarly and definitely English than anything else. +This people Kipling has sung. Their sweat and blood and toil have +been the motives of his songs; but underlying all the motives of his +songs is the motive of motives, the sum of them all and something more, +which is one with what underlies all the Anglo-Saxon sweat and blood +and toil; namely, the genius of the race. And this is the cosmic +quality. Both that which is true of the race for all time, and +that which is true of the race for all time applied to this particular +time, he has caught up and pressed into his art-forms. He has +caught the dominant note of the Anglo-Saxon and pressed it into wonderful +rhythms which cannot be sung out in a day and which will not be sung +out in a day.<br> +<br> +The Anglo-Saxon is a pirate, a land robber and a sea robber. Underneath +his thin coating of culture, he is what he was in Morgan’s time, +in Drake’s time, in William’s time, in Alfred’s time. +The blood and the tradition of Hengist and Horsa are in his veins. +In battle he is subject to the blood-lusts of the Berserkers of old. +Plunder and booty fascinate him immeasurably. The schoolboy of +to-day dreams the dream of Clive and Hastings. The Anglo-Saxon +is strong of arm and heavy of hand, and he possesses a primitive brutality +all his own. There is a discontent in his blood, an unsatisfaction +that will not let him rest, but sends him adventuring over the sea and +among the lands in the midst of the sea. He does not know when +he is beaten, wherefore the term “bulldog” is attached to +him, so that all may know his unreasonableness. He has “some +care as to the purity of his ways, does not wish for strange gods, nor +juggle with intellectual phantasmagoria.” He loves freedom, +but is dictatorial to others, is self-willed, has boundless energy, +and does things for himself. He is also a master of matter, an +organizer of law, and an administrator of justice.<br> +<br> +And in the nineteenth century he has lived up to his reputation. +Being the nineteenth century and no other century, and in so far different +from all other centuries, he has expressed himself differently. +But blood will tell, and in the name of God, the Bible, and Democracy, +he has gone out over the earth, possessing himself of broad lands and +fat revenues, and conquering by virtue of his sheer pluck and enterprise +and superior machinery.<br> +<br> +Now the future centuries, seeking to find out what the nineteenth century +Anglo-Saxon was and what were his works, will have small concern with +what he did not do and what he would have liked to do. These things +he did do, and for these things will he be remembered. His claim +on posterity will be that in the nineteenth century he mastered matter; +his twentieth-century claim will be, in the highest probability, that +he organized life - but that will be sung by the twentieth-century Kiplings +or the twenty-first-century Kiplings. Rudyard Kipling of the nineteenth +century has sung of “things as they are.” He has seen +life as it is, “taken it up squarely,” in both his hands, +and looked upon it. What better preachment upon the Anglo-Saxon +and what he has done can be had than <i>The Bridge Builders? </i>what +better appraisement than <i>The White Man</i>’<i>s Burden</i>? +As for faith and clean ideals - not of “children and gods, but +men in a world of men” - who has preached them better than he?<br> +<br> +Primarily, Kipling has stood for the doer as opposed to the dreamer +- the doer, who lists not to idle songs of empty days, but who goes +forth and does things, with bended back and sweated brow and work-hardened +hands. The most characteristic thing about Kipling is his lover +of actuality, his intense practicality, his proper and necessary respect +for the hard-headed, hard-fisted fact. And, above all, he has +preached the gospel of work, and as potently as Carlyle ever preached. +For he has preached it not only to those in the high places, but to +the common men, to the great sweating thong of common men who hear and +understand yet stand agape at Carlyle’s turgid utterance. +Do the thing to your hand, and do it with all your might. Never +mind what the thing is; so long as it is something. Do it. +Do it and remember Tomlinson, sexless and soulless Tomlinson, who was +denied at Heaven’s gate.<br> +<br> +The blundering centuries have perseveringly pottered and groped through +the dark; but it remained for Kipling’s century to roll in the +sun, to formulate, in other words, the reign of law. And of the +artists in Kipling’s century, he of them all has driven the greater +measure of law in the more consummate speech:<br> +<br> +<br> +Keep ye the Law - be swift in all obedience.<br> +Clear the land of evil, drive the road and bridge the ford.<br> + Make ye sure to each his own<br> + That he reap what he hath sown;<br> +By the peace among Our peoples let men know we serve the Lord.<br> +<br> +<br> +- And so it runs, from McAndrew’s <i>Law, Order, Duty, and Restraint, +</i>to his last least line, whether of <i>The Vampire </i>or <i>The +Recessional</i>. And no prophet out of Israel has cried out more +loudly the sins of the people, nor called them more awfully to repent.<br> +<br> +“But he is vulgar, he stirs the puddle of life,” object +the fluttering, chirping gentlemen, the Tomlinsonian men. Well, +and isn’t life vulgar? Can you divorce the facts of life? +Much of good is there, and much of ill; but who may draw aside his garment +and say, “I am none of them”? Can you say that the +part is greater than the whole? that the whole is more or less than +the sum of the parts? As for the puddle of life, the stench is +offensive to you? Well, and what then? Do you not live in +it? Why do you not make it clean? Do you clamour for a filter +to make clean only your own particular portion? And, made clean, +are you wroth because Kipling has stirred it muddy again? At least +he has stirred it healthily, with steady vigour and good-will. +He has not brought to the surface merely its dregs, but its most significant +values. He has told the centuries to come of our lyings and our +lusts, but he has also told the centuries to come of the seriousness +which is underneath our lyings and our lusts. And he has told +us, too, and always has he told us, to be clean and strong and to walk +upright and manlike.<br> +<br> +“But he has no sympathy,” the fluttering gentlemen chirp. +“We admire his art and intellectual brilliancy, we all admire +his art and intellectual brilliancy, his dazzling technique and rare +rhythmical sense; but . . . he is totally devoid of sympathy.” +Dear! Dear! What is to be understood by this? Should +he sprinkle his pages with sympathetic adjectives, so many to the paragraph, +as the country compositor sprinkles commas? Surely not. +The little gentlemen are not quite so infinitesimal as that. There +have been many tellers of jokes, and the greater of them, it is recorded, +never smiled at their own, not even in the crucial moment when the audience +wavered between laughter and tears.<br> +<br> +And so with Kipling. Take <i>The Vampire, </i>for instance. +It has been complained that there is no touch of pity in it for the +man and his ruin, no sermon on the lesson of it, no compassion for the +human weakness, no indignation at the heartlessness. But are we +kindergarten children that the tale be told to us in words of one syllable? +Or are we men and women, able to read between the lines what Kipling +intended we should read between the lines? “For some of +him lived, but the most of him died.” Is there not here +all the excitation in the world for our sorrow, our pity, our indignation? +And what more is the function of art than to excite states of consciousness +complementary to the thing portrayed? The colour of tragedy is +red. Must the artist also paint in the watery tears and wan-faced +grief? “For some of him lived, but the most of him died” +- can the heartache of the situation be conveyed more achingly? +Or were it better that the young man, some of him alive but most of +him dead, should come out before the curtain and deliver a homily to +the weeping audience?<br> +<br> +The nineteenth century, so far as the Anglo-Saxon is concerned, was +remarkable for two great developments: the mastery of matter and the +expansion of the race. Three great forces operated in it: nationalism, +commercialism, democracy - the marshalling of the races, the merciless, +remorseless <i>laissez faire </i>of the dominant bourgeoisie, and the +practical, actual working government of men within a very limited equality. +The democracy of the nineteenth century is not the democracy of which +the eighteenth century dreamed. It is not the democracy of the +Declaration, but it is what we have practised and lived that reconciles +it to the fact of the “lesser breeds without the Law.”<br> +<br> +It is of these developments and forces of the nineteenth century that +Kipling has sung. And the romance of it he has sung, that which +underlies and transcends objective endeavour, which deals with race +impulses, race deeds, and race traditions. Even into the steam-laden +speech of his locomotives has he breathed our life, our spirit, our +significance. As he is our mouthpiece, so are they his mouthpieces. +And the romance of the nineteenth-century man as he has thus expressed +himself in the nineteenth century, in shaft and wheel, in steel and +steam, in far journeying and adventuring, Kipling has caught up in wondrous +songs for the future centuries to sing.<br> +<br> +If the nineteenth century is the century of the Hooligan, then is Kipling +the voice of the Hooligan as surely as he is the voice of the nineteenth +century. Who is more representative? Is <i>David Harum </i>more +representative of the nineteenth century? Is Mary Johnston, Charles +Major, or Winston Churchill? Is Bret Harte? William Dean +Howells? Gilbert Parker? Who of them all is as essentially +representative of nineteenth-century life? When Kipling is forgotten, +will Robert Louis Stevenson be remembered for his <i>Dr. Jekyll and +Mr. Hyde, </i>his <i>Kidnapped </i>and his <i>David Balfour</i>? +Not so. His <i>Treasure Island </i>will be a classic, to go down +with <i>Robinson Crusoe, Through the Looking-Glass, </i>and <i>The Jungle +Books</i>. He will be remembered for his essays, for his letters, +for his philosophy of life, for himself. He will be the well beloved, +as he has been the well beloved. But his will be another claim +upon posterity than what we are considering. For each epoch has +its singer. As Scott sang the swan song of chivalry and Dickens +the burgher-fear of the rising merchant class, so Kipling, as no one +else, has sung the hymn of the dominant bourgeoisie, the war march of +the white man round the world, the triumphant pæan of commercialism +and imperialism. For that will he be remembered.<br> +<br> +OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA.<br> +<i>October </i>1901.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +THE OTHER ANIMALS<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +American journalism has its moments of fantastic hysteria, and when +it is on the rampage the only thing for a rational man to do is to climb +a tree and let the cataclysm go by. And so, some time ago, when +the word <i>nature-faker </i>was coined, I, for one, climbed into my +tree and stayed there. I happened to be in Hawaii at the time, +and a Honolulu reporter elicited the sentiment from me that I thanked +God I was not an authority on anything. This sentiment was promptly +cabled to America in an Associated Press despatch, whereupon the American +press (possibly annoyed because I had not climbed down out of my tree) +charged me with paying for advertising by cable at a dollar per word +- the very human way of the American press, which, when a man refuses +to come down and be licked, makes faces at him.<br> +<br> +But now that the storm is over, let us come and reason together. +I have been guilty of writing two animal-stories - two books about dogs. +The writing of these two stories, on my part, was in truth a protest +against the “humanizing” of animals, of which it seemed +to me several “animal writers” had been profoundly guilty. +Time and again, and many times, in my narratives, I wrote, speaking +of my dog-heroes: “He did not think these things; he merely did +them,” etc. And I did this repeatedly, to the clogging of +my narrative and in violation of my artistic canons; and I did it in +order to hammer into the average human understanding that these dog-heroes +of mine were not directed by abstract reasoning, but by instinct, sensation, +and emotion, and by simple reasoning. Also, I endeavoured to make +my stories in line with the facts of evolution; I hewed them to the +mark set by scientific research, and awoke, one day, to find myself +bundled neck and crop into the camp of the nature-fakers.<br> +<br> +President Roosevelt was responsible for this, and he tried to condemn +me on two counts. (1) I was guilty of having a big, fighting bull-dog +whip a wolf-dog. (2) I was guilty of allowing a lynx to kill a +wolf-dog in a pitched battle. Regarding the second count, President +Roosevelt was wrong in his field observations taken while reading my +book. He must have read it hastily, for in my story I had the +wolf-dog kill the lynx. Not only did I have my wolf-dog kill the +lynx, but I made him eat the body of the lynx as well. Remains +only the first count on which to convict me of nature-faking, and the +first count does not charge me with diverging from ascertained facts. +It is merely a statement of a difference of opinion. President +Roosevelt does not think a bull-dog can lick a wolf-dog. I think +a bull-dog can lick a wolf-dog. And there we are. Difference +of opinion may make, and does make, horse-racing. I can understand +that difference of opinion can make dog-fighting. But what gets +me is how difference of opinion regarding the relative fighting merits +of a bull-dog and a wolf-dog makes me a nature-faker and President Roosevelt +a vindicated and triumphant scientist.<br> +<br> +Then entered John Burroughs to clinch President Roosevelt’s judgments. +In this alliance there is no difference of opinion. That Roosevelt +can do no wrong is Burroughs’s opinion; and that Burroughs is +always right is Roosevelt’s opinion. Both are agreed that +animals do not reason. They assert that all animals below man +are automatons and perform actions only of two sorts - mechanical and +reflex - and that in such actions no reasoning enters at all. +They believe that man is the only animal capable of reasoning and that +ever does reason. This is a view that makes the twentieth-century +scientist smile. It is not modern at all. It is distinctly +mediaeval. President Roosevelt and John Burroughs, in advancing +such a view, are homocentric in the same fashion that the scholastics +of earlier and darker centuries were homocentric. Had the world +not been discovered to be round until after the births of President +Roosevelt and John Burroughs, they would have been geocentric as well +in their theories of the Cosmos. They could not have believed +otherwise. The stuff of their minds is so conditioned. They +talk the argot of evolution, while they no more understand the essence +and the import of evolution than does a South Sea Islander or Sir Oliver +Lodge understand the noumena of radio-activity.<br> +<br> +Now, President Roosevelt is an amateur. He may know something +of statecraft and of big-game shooting; he may be able to kill a deer +when he sees it and to measure it and weigh it after he has shot it; +he may be able to observe carefully and accurately the actions and antics +of tomtits and snipe, and, after he has observed it, definitely and +coherently to convey the information of when the first chipmunk, in +a certain year and a certain latitude and longitude, came out in the +spring and chattered and gambolled - but that he should be able, as +an individual observer, to analyze all animal life and to synthetize +and develop all that is known of the method and significance of evolution, +would require a vaster credulity for you or me to believe than is required +for us to believe the biggest whopper ever told by an unmitigated nature-faker. +No, President Roosevelt does not understand evolution, and he does not +seem to have made much of an attempt to understand evolution.<br> +<br> +Remains John Burroughs, who claims to be a thorough-going evolutionist. +Now, it is rather hard for a young man to tackle an old man. It +is the nature of young men to be more controlled in such matters, and +it is the nature of old men, presuming upon the wisdom that is very +often erroneously associated with age, to do the tackling. In +this present question of nature-faking, the old men did the tackling, +while I, as one young man, kept quiet a long time. But here goes +at last. And first of all let Mr. Burroughs’s position be +stated, and stated in his words.<br> +<br> +“Why impute reason to an animal if its behaviour can be explained +on the theory of instinct?” Remember these words, for they +will be referred to later. “A goodly number of persons seem +to have persuaded themselves that animals do reason.” “But +instinct suffices for the animals . . . they get along very well without +reason.” “Darwin tried hard to convince himself that +animals do at times reason in a rudimentary way; but Darwin was also +a much greater naturalist than psychologist.” The preceding +quotation is tantamount, on Mr. Burroughs’s part, to a flat denial +that animals reason even in a rudimentary way. And when Mr. Burrough +denies that animals reason even in a rudimentary way, it is equivalent +to affirming, in accord with the first quotation in this paragraph, +that instinct will explain every animal act that might be confounded +with reason by the unskilled or careless observer.<br> +<br> +Having bitten off this large mouthful, Mr. Burroughs proceeds with serene +and beautiful satisfaction to masticate it in the following fashion. +He cites a large number of instances of purely instinctive actions on +the part of animals, and triumphantly demands if they are acts of reason. +He tells of the robin that fought day after day its reflected image +in a window-pane; of the birds in South America that were guilty of +drilling clear through a mud wall, which they mistook for a solid clay +bank: of the beaver that cut down a tree four times because it was held +at the top by the branches of other trees; of the cow that licked the +skin of her stuffed calf so affectionately that it came apart, whereupon +she proceeded to eat the hay with which it was stuffed. He tells +of the phœbe-bird that betrays her nest on the porch by trying +to hide it with moss in similar fashion to the way all phœbe-birds +hide their nests when they are built among rocks. He tells of +the highhole that repeatedly drills through the clap-boards of an empty +house in a vain attempt to find a thickness of wood deep enough in which +to build its nest. He tells of the migrating lemmings of Norway +that plunge into the sea and drown in vast numbers because of their +instinct to swim lakes and rivers in the course of their migrations. +And, having told a few more instances of like kidney, he triumphantly +demands: “Where now is your much-vaunted reasoning of the lower +animals?<br> +<br> +No schoolboy in a class debate could be guilty of unfairer argument. +It is equivalent to replying to the assertion that 2+2=4, by saying: +“No; because 12/4=3; I have demonstrated my honourable opponent’s +error.” When a man attacks your ability as a foot-racer, +promptly prove to him that he was drunk the week before last, and the +average man in the crowd of gaping listeners will believe that you have +convincingly refuted the slander on your fleetness of foot. On +my honour, it will work. Try it some time. It is done every +day. Mr. Burroughs has done it himself, and, I doubt not, pulled +the sophistical wool over a great many pairs of eyes. No, no, +Mr. Burroughs; you can’t disprove that animals reason by proving +that they possess instincts. But the worst of it is that you have +at the same time pulled the wool over your own eyes. You have +set up a straw man and knocked the stuffing out of him in the complacent +belief that it was the reasoning of lower animals you were knocking +out of the minds of those who disagreed with you. When the highhole +perforated the icehouse and let out the sawdust, you called him a lunatic +. . .<br> +<br> +But let us be charitable - and serious. What Mr. Burroughs instances +as acts of instinct certainly are acts of instincts. By the same +method of logic one could easily adduce a multitude of instinctive acts +on the part of man and thereby prove that man is an unreasoning animal. +But man performs actions of both sorts. Between man and the lower +animals Mr. Burroughs finds a vast gulf. This gulf divides man +from the rest of his kin by virtue of the power of reason that he alone +possesses. Man is a voluntary agent. Animals are automatons. +The robin fights its reflection in the window-pane because it is his +instinct to fight and because he cannot reason out the physical laws +that make this reflection appear real. An animal is a mechanism +that operates according to fore-ordained rules. Wrapped up in +its heredity, and determined long before it was born, is a certain limited +capacity of ganglionic response to eternal stimuli. These responses +have been fixed in the species through adaptation to environment. +Natural selection has compelled the animal automatically to respond +in a fixed manner and a certain way to all the usual external stimuli +it encounters in the course of a usual life. Thus, under usual +circumstances, it does the usual thing. Under unusual circumstances +it still does the usual thing, wherefore the highhole perforating the +ice-house is guilty of lunacy - of unreason, in short. To do the +unusual thing under unusual circumstances, successfully to adjust to +a strange environment for which his heredity has not automatically fitted +an adjustment, Mr. Burroughs says is impossible. He says it is +impossible because it would be a non-instinctive act, and, as is well +known animals act only through instinct. And right here we catch +a glimpse of Mr. Burroughs’s cart standing before his horse. +He has a thesis, and though the heavens fall he will fit the facts to +the thesis. Agassiz, in his opposition to evolution, had a similar +thesis, though neither did he fit the facts to it nor did the heavens +fall. Facts are very disagreeable at times.<br> +<br> +But let us see. Let us test Mr. Burroughs’s test of reason +and instinct. When I was a small boy I had a dog named Rollo. +According to Mr. Burroughs, Rollo was an automaton, responding to external +stimuli mechanically as directed by his instincts. Now, as is +well known, the development of instinct in animals is a dreadfully slow +process. There is no known case of the development of a single +instinct in domestic animals in all the history of their domestication. +Whatever instincts they possess they brought with them from the wild +thousands of years ago. Therefore, all Rollo’s actions were +ganglionic discharges mechanically determined by the instincts that +had been developed and fixed in the species thousands of years ago. +Very well. It is clear, therefore, that in all his play with me +he would act in old-fashioned ways, adjusting himself to the physical +and psychical factors in his environment according to the rules of adjustment +which had obtained in the wild and which had become part of his heredity.<br> +<br> +Rollo and I did a great deal of rough romping. He chased me and +I chased him. He nipped my legs, arms, and hands, often so hard +that I yelled, while I rolled him and tumbled him and dragged him about, +often so strenuously as to make him yelp. In the course of the +play many variations arose. I would make believe to sit down and +cry. All repentance and anxiety, he would wag his tail and lick +my face, whereupon I would give him the laugh. He hated to be +laughed at, and promptly he would spring for me with good-natured, menacing +jaws, and the wild romp would go on. I had scored a point. +Then he hit upon a trick. Pursuing him into the woodshed, I would +find him in a far corner, pretending to sulk. Now, he dearly loved +the play, and never got enough of it. But at first he fooled me. +I thought I had somehow hurt his feelings and I came and knelt before +him, petting him, and speaking lovingly. Promptly, in a wild outburst, +he was up and away, tumbling me over on the floor as he dashed out in +a mad skurry around the yard. He had scored a point.<br> +<br> +After a time, it became largely a game of wits. I reasoned my +acts, of course, while his were instinctive. One day, as he pretended +to sulk in the corner, I glanced out of the woodshed doorway, simulated +pleasure in face, voice, and language, and greeted one of my schoolboy +friends. Immediately Rollo forgot to sulk, rushed out to see the +newcomer, and saw empty space. The laugh was on him, and he knew +it, and I gave it to him, too. I fooled him in this way two or +three times; then be became wise. One day I worked a variation. +Suddenly looking out the door, making believe that my eyes had been +attracted by a moving form, I said coldly, as a child educated in turning +away bill-collectors would say: “No my father is not at home.” +Like a shot, Rollo was out the door. He even ran down the alley +to the front of the house in a vain attempt to find the man I had addressed. +He came back sheepishly to endure the laugh and resume the game.<br> +<br> +And now we come to the test. I fooled Rollo, but how was the fooling +made possible? What precisely went on in that brain of his? +According to Mr. Burroughs, who denies even rudimentary reasoning to +the lower animals, Rollo acted instinctively, mechanically responding +to the external stimulus, furnished by me, which led him to believe +that a man was outside the door.<br> +<br> +Since Rollo acted instinctively, and since all instincts are very ancient, +tracing back to the pre-domestication period, we can conclude only that +Rollo’s wild ancestors, at the time this particular instinct was +fixed into the heredity of the species, must have been in close, long-continued, +and vital contact with man, the voice of man, and the expressions on +the face of man. But since the instinct must have been developed +during the pre-domestication period, how under the sun could his wild, +undomesticated ancestors have experienced the close, long-continued, +and vital contact with man?<br> +<br> +Mr. Burroughs says that “instinct suffices for the animals,” +that “they get along very well without reason.” But +I say, what all the poor nature-fakers will say, that Rollo reasoned. +He was born into the world a bundle of instincts and a pinch of brain-stuff, +all wrapped around in a framework of bone, meat, and hide. As +he adjusted to his environment he gained experiences. He remembered +these experiences. He learned that he mustn’t chase the +cat, kill chickens, nor bite little girls’ dresses. He learned +that little boys had little boy playmates. He learned that men +came into back yards. He learned that the animal man, on meeting +with his own kind, was given to verbal and facial greeting. He +learned that when a boy greeted a playmate he did it differently from +the way he greeted a man. All these he learned and remembered. +They were so many observations - so many propositions, if you please. +Now, what went on behind those brown eyes of his, inside that pinch +of brain-stuff, when I turned suddenly to the door and greeted an imaginary +person outside? Instantly, out of the thousands of observations +stored in his brain, came to the front of his consciousness the particular +observations connected with this particular situation. Next, he +established a relation between these observations. This relation +was his conclusion, achieved, as every psychologist will agree, by a +definite cell-action of his grey matter. From the fact that his +master turned suddenly toward the door, and from the fact that his master’s +voice, facial expression, and whole demeanour expressed surprise and +delight, he concluded that a friend was outside. He established +a relation between various things, and the act of establishing relations +between things is an act of reason - of rudimentary reason, granted, +but none the less of reason.<br> +<br> +Of course Rollo was fooled. But that is no call for us to throw +chests about it. How often has every last one of us been fooled +in precisely similar fashion by another who turned and suddenly addressed +an imaginary intruder? Here is a case in point that occurred in +the West. A robber had held up a railroad train. He stood +in the aisle between the seats, his revolver presented at the head of +the conductor, who stood facing him. The conductor was at his +mercy.<br> +<br> +But the conductor suddenly looked over the robber’s shoulder, +at the same time saying aloud to an imaginary person standing at the +robber’s back: “Don’t shoot him.” Like +a flash the robber whirled about to confront this new danger, and like +a flash the conductor shot him down. Show me, Mr. Burroughs, where +the mental process in the robber’s brain was a shade different +from the mental processes in Rollo’s brain, and I’ll quit +nature-faking and join the Trappists. Surely, when a man’s +mental process and a dog’s mental process are precisely similar, +the much-vaunted gulf of Mr. Burroughs’s fancy has been bridged.<br> +<br> +I had a dog in Oakland. His name was Glen. His father was +Brown, a wolf-dog that had been brought down from Alaska., and his mother +was a half-wild mountain shepherd dog. Neither father nor mother +had had any experience with automobiles. Glen came from the country, +a half-grown puppy, to live in Oakland. Immediately he became +infatuated with an automobile. He reached the culmination of happiness +when he was permitted to sit up in the front seat alongside the chauffeur. +He would spend a whole day at a time on an automobile debauch, even +going without food. Often the machine started directly from inside +the barn, dashed out the driveway without stopping, and was gone. +Glen got left behind several times. The custom was established +that whoever was taking the machine out should toot the horn before +starting. Glen learned the signal. No matter where he was +or what he was doing, when that horn tooted he was off for the barn +and up into the front seat.<br> +<br> +One morning, while Glen was on the back porch eating his breakfast of +mush and milk, the chauffeur tooted. Glen rushed down the steps, +into the barn, and took his front seat, the mush and milk dripping down +his excited and happy chops. In passing, I may point out that +in thus forsaking his breakfast for the automobile he was displaying +what is called the power of choice - a peculiarly lordly attribute that, +according to Mr. Burroughs, belongs to man alone. Yet Glen made +his choice between food and fun.<br> +<br> +It was not that Glen wanted his breakfast less, but that he wanted his +ride more. The toot was only a joke. The automobile did +not start. Glen waited and watched. Evidently he saw no +signs of an immediate start, for finally he jumped out of the seat and +went back to his breakfast. He ate with indecent haste, like a +man anxious to catch a train. Again the horn tooted, again he +deserted his breakfast, and again he sat in the seat and waited vainly +for the machine to go.<br> +<br> +They came close to spoiling Glen’s breakfast for him, for he was +kept on the jump between porch and barn. Then he grew wise. +They tooted the horn loudly and insistently, but he stayed by his breakfast +and finished it. Thus once more did he display power of choice, +incidentally of control, for when that horn tooted it was all he could +do to refrain from running for the barn.<br> +<br> +The nature-faker would analyze what went on in Glen’s brain somewhat +in the following fashion. He had had, in his short life, experiences +that not one of all his ancestors had ever had. He had learned +that automobiles went fast, that once in motion it was impossible for +him to get on board, that the toot of the horn was a noise that was +peculiar to automobiles. These were so many propositions. +Now reasoning can be defined as the act or process of the brain by which, +from propositions known or assumed, new propositions are reached. +Out of the propositions which I have shown were Glen’s, and which +had become his through the medium of his own observation of the phenomena +of life, he made the new proposition that when the horn tooted it was +time for him to get on board.<br> +<br> +But on the morning I have described, the chauffeur fooled Glen. +Somehow and much to his own disgust, his reasoning was erroneous. +The machine did not start after all. But to reason incorrectly +is very human. The great trouble in all acts of reasoning is to +include all the propositions in the problem. Glen had included +every proposition but one, namely, the human proposition, the joke in +the brain of the chauffeur. For a number of times Glen was fooled. +Then he performed another mental act. In his problem he included +the human proposition (the joke in the brain of the chauffeur), and +he reached the new conclusion that when the horn tooted the automobile +was <i>not </i>going to start. Basing his action on this conclusion, +he remained on the porch and finished his breakfast. You and I, +and even Mr. Burroughs, perform acts of reasoning precisely similar +to this every day in our lives. How Mr. Burroughs will explain +Glen’s action by the instinctive theory is beyond me. In +wildest fantasy, even, my brain refuses to follow Mr. Burroughs into +the primeval forest where Glen’s dim ancestors, to the tooting +of automobile horns, were fixing into the heredity of the breed the +particular instinct that would enable Glen, a few thousand years later, +capably to cope with automobiles.<br> +<br> +Dr. C. J. Romanes tells of a female chimpanzee who was taught to count +straws up to five. She held the straws in her hand, exposing the +ends to the number requested. If she were asked for three, she +held up three. If she were asked for four, she held up four. +All this is a mere matter of training. But consider now, Mr. Burroughs, +what follows. When she was asked for five straws and she had only +four, she doubled one straw, exposing both its ends and thus making +up the required number. She did not do this only once, and by +accident. She did it whenever more straws were asked for than +she possessed. Did she perform a distinctly reasoning act? or +was her action the result of blind, mechanical instinct? If Mr. +Burroughs cannot answer to his own satisfaction, he may call Dr. Romanes +a nature-faker and dismiss the incident from his mind.<br> +<br> +The foregoing is a trick of erroneous human reasoning that works very +successfully in the United States these days. It is certainly +a trick of Mr. Burroughs, of which he is guilty with distressing frequency. +When a poor devil of a writer records what he has seen, and when what +he has seen does not agree with Mr. Burroughs’s mediaeval theory, +he calls said writer a nature-faker. When a man like Mr. Hornaday +comes along, Mr. Burroughs works a variation of the trick on him. +Mr. Hornaday has made a close study of the orang in captivity and of +the orang in its native state. Also, he has studied closely many +other of the higher animal types. Also, in the tropics, he has +studied the lower types of man. Mr. Hornaday is a man of experience +and reputation. When he was asked if animals reasoned, out of +all his knowledge on the subject he replied that to ask him such a question +was equivalent to asking him if fishes swim. Now Mr. Burroughs +has not had much experience in studying the lower human types and the +higher animal types. Living in a rural district in the state of +New York, and studying principally birds in that limited habitat, he +has been in contact neither with the higher animal types nor the lower +human types. But Mr. Hornaday’s reply is such a facer to +him and his homocentric theory that he has to do something. And +he does it. He retorts: “I suspect that Mr. Hornaday is +a better naturalist than he is a comparative psychologist.” +Exit Mr. Hornaday. Who the devil is Mr. Hornaday, anyway? +The sage of Slabsides has spoken. When Darwin concluded that animals +were capable of reasoning in a rudimentary way, Mr. Burroughs laid him +out in the same fashion by saying: “But Darwin was also a much +greater naturalist than psychologist” - and this despite Darwin’s +long life of laborious research that was not wholly confined to a rural +district such as Mr. Burroughs inhabits in New York. Mr. Burroughs’s +method of argument is beautiful. It reminds one of the man whose +pronunciation was vile, but who said: “Damn the dictionary; ain’t +I here?”<br> +<br> +And now we come to the mental processes of Mr. Burroughs - to the psychology +of the ego, if you please. Mr. Burroughs has troubles of his own +with the dictionary. He violates language from the standpoint +both of logic and science. Language is a tool, and definitions +embodied in language should agree with the facts and history of life. +But Mr. Burroughs’s definitions do not so agree. This, in +turn, is not the fault of his education, but of his ego. To him, +despite his well-exploited and patronizing devotion to them, the lower +animals are disgustingly low. To him, affinity and kinship with +the other animals is a repugnant thing. He will have none of it. +He is too glorious a personality not to have between him and the other +animals a vast and impassable gulf. The cause of Mr. Burroughs’s +mediaeval view of the other animals is to be found, not in his knowledge +of those other animals, but in the suggestion of his self-exalted ego. +In short, Mr. Burroughs’s homocentric theory has been developed +out of his homocentric ego, and by the misuse of language he strives +to make the facts of life agree with his theory.<br> +<br> +After the instances I have cited of actions of animals which are impossible +of explanation as due to instinct, Mr. Burroughs may reply: “Your +instances are easily explained by the simple law of association.” +To this I reply, first, then why did you deny rudimentary reason to +animals? and why did you state flatly that “instinct suffices +for the animals”? And, second, with great reluctance and +with overwhelming humility, because of my youth, I suggest that you +do not know exactly what you do mean by that phrase “the simple +law of association.” Your trouble, I repeat, is with definitions. +You have grasped that man performs what is called <i>abstract </i>reasoning, +you have made a definition of abstract reason, and, betrayed by that +great maker of theories, the ego, you have come to think that all reasoning +is abstract and that what is not abstract reason is not reason at all. +This is your attitude toward rudimentary reason. Such a process, +in one of the other animals, must be either abstract or it is not a +reasoning process. Your intelligence tells you that such a process +is not abstract reasoning, and your homocentric thesis compels you to +conclude that it can be only a mechanical, instinctive process.<br> +<br> +Definitions must agree, not with egos, but with life. Mr. Burroughs +goes on the basis that a definition is something hard and fast, absolute +and eternal. He forgets that all the universe is in flux; that +definitions are arbitrary and ephemeral; that they fix, for a fleeting +instant of time, things that in the past were not, that in the future +will be not, that out of the past become, and that out of the present +pass on to the future and become other things. Definitions cannot +rule life. Definitions cannot be made to rule life. Life +must rule definitions or else the definitions perish.<br> +<br> +Mr. Burroughs forgets the evolution of reason. He makes a definition +of reason without regard to its history, and that definition is of reason +purely abstract. Human reason, as we know it to-day, is not a +creation, but a growth. Its history goes back to the primordial +slime that was quick with muddy life; its history goes back to the first +vitalized inorganic. And here are the steps of its ascent from +the mud to man: simple reflex action, compound reflex action, memory, +habit, rudimentary reason, and abstract reason. In the course +of the climb, thanks to natural selection, instinct was evolved. +Habit is a development in the individual. Instinct is a race-habit. +Instinct is blind, unreasoning, mechanical. This was the dividing +of the ways in the climb of aspiring life. The perfect culmination +of instinct we find in the ant-heap and the beehive. Instinct +proved a blind alley. But the other path, that of reason, led +on and on even to Mr. Burroughs and you and me.<br> +<br> +There are no impassable gulfs, unless one chooses, as Mr. Burroughs +does, to ignore the lower human types and the higher animal types, and +to compare human mind with bird mind. It was impossible for life +to reason abstractly until speech was developed. Equipped with +swords, with tools of thought, in short, the slow development of the +power to reason in the abstract went on. The lowest human types +do little or no reasoning in the abstract. With every word, with +every increase in the complexity of thought, with every ascertained +fact so gained, went on action and reaction in the grey matter of the +speech discoverer, and slowly, step by step, through hundreds of thousands +of years, developed the power of reason.<br> +<br> +Place a honey-bee in a glass bottle. Turn the bottom of the bottle +toward a lighted lamp so that the open mouth is away from the lamp. +Vainly, ceaselessly, a thousand times, undeterred by the bafflement +and the pain, the bee will hurl himself against the bottom of the bottle +as he strives to win to the light. That is instinct. Place +your dog in a back yard and go away. He is your dog. He +loves you. He yearns toward you as the bee yearns toward the light. +He listens to your departing footsteps. But the fence is too high. +Then he turns his back upon the direction in which you are departing, +and runs around the yard. He is frantic with affection and desire. +But he is not blind. He is observant. He is looking for +a hole under the fence, or through the fence, or for a place where the +fence is not so high. He sees a dry-goods box standing against +the fence. Presto! He leaps upon it, goes over the barrier, +and tears down the street to overtake you. Is that instinct?<br> +<br> +Here, in the household where I am writing this, is a little Tahitian +“feeding-child.” He believes firmly that a tiny dwarf +resides in the box of my talking-machine and that it is the tiny dwarf +who does the singing and the talking. Not even Mr. Burroughs will +affirm that the child has reached this conclusion by an instinctive +process. Of course, the child reasons the existence of the dwarf +in the box. How else could the box talk and sing? In that +child’s limited experience it has never encountered a single instance +where speech and song were produced otherwise than by direct human agency. +I doubt not that the dog is considerably surprised when he hears his +master’s voice coming out of a box.<br> +<br> +The adult savage, on his first introduction to a telephone, rushes around +to the adjoining room to find the man who is talking through the partition. +Is this act instinctive? No. Out of his limited experience, +out of his limited knowledge of physics, he reasons that the only explanation +possible is that a man is in the other room talking through the partition.<br> +<br> +But that savage cannot be fooled by a hand-mirror. We must go +lower down in the animal scale, to the monkey. The monkey swiftly +learns that the monkey it sees is not in the glass, wherefore it reaches +craftily behind the glass. Is this instinct? No. It +is rudimentary reasoning. Lower than the monkey in the scale of +brain is the robin, and the robin fights its reflection in the window-pane. +Now climb with me for a space. From the robin to the monkey, where +is the impassable gulf? and where is the impassable gulf between the +monkey and the feeding-child? between the feeding-child and the savage +who seeks the man behind the partition? ay, and between the savage and +the astute financiers Mrs. Chadwick fooled and the thousands who were +fooled by the Keeley Motor swindle?<br> +<br> +Let us be very humble. We who are so very human are very animal. +Kinship with the other animals is no more repugnant to Mr. Burroughs +than was the heliocentric theory to the priests who compelled Galileo +to recant. Not correct human reason, not the evidence of the ascertained +fact, but pride of ego, was responsible for the repugnance.<br> +<br> +In his stiff-necked pride, Mr. Burroughs runs a hazard more humiliating +to that pride than any amount of kinship with the other animals. +When a dog exhibits choice, direction, control, and reason; when it +is shown that certain mental processes in that dog’s brain are +precisely duplicated in the brain of man; and when Mr. Burroughs convincingly +proves that every action of the dog is mechanical and automatic - then, +by precisely the same arguments, can it be proved that the similar actions +of man are mechanical and automatic. No, Mr. Burroughs, though +you stand on the top of the ladder of life, you must not kick out that +ladder from under your feet. You must not deny your relatives, +the other animals. Their history is your history, and if you kick +them to the bottom of the abyss, to the bottom of the abyss you go yourself. +By them you stand or fall. What you repudiate in them you repudiate +in yourself - a pretty spectacle, truly, of an exalted animal striving +to disown the stuff of life out of which it is made, striving by use +of the very reason that was developed by evolution to deny the possession +of evolution that developed it. This may be good egotism, but +it is not good science.<br> +<br> +PAPEETE, TAHITI.<br> +<i>March </i>1908.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +THE YELLOW PERIL<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +No more marked contrast appears in passing from our Western land to +the paper houses and cherry blossoms of Japan than appears in passing +from Korea to China. To achieve a correct appreciation of the +Chinese the traveller should first sojourn amongst the Koreans for several +months, and then, one fine day, cross over the Yalu into Manchuria. +It would be of exceptional advantage to the correctness of appreciation +did he cross over the Yalu on the heels of a hostile and alien army.<br> +<br> +War is to-day the final arbiter in the affairs of men, and it is as +yet the final test of the worth-whileness of peoples. Tested thus, +the Korean fails. He lacks the nerve to remain when a strange +army crosses his land. The few goods and chattels he may have +managed to accumulate he puts on his back, along with his doors and +windows, and away he heads for his mountain fastnesses. Later +he may return, sans goods, chattels, doors, and windows, impelled by +insatiable curiosity for a “look see.” But it is curiosity +merely - a timid, deerlike curiosity. He is prepared to bound +away on his long legs at the first hint of danger or trouble.<br> +<br> +Northern Korea was a desolate land when the Japanese passed through. +Villages and towns were deserted. The fields lay untouched. +There was no ploughing nor sowing, no green things growing. Little +or nothing was to be purchased. One carried one’s own food +with him and food for horses and servants was the anxious problem that +waited at the day’s end. In many a lonely village not an +ounce nor a grain of anything could be bought, and yet there might be +standing around scores of white-garmented, stalwart Koreans, smoking +yard-long pipes and chattering, chattering - ceaselessly chattering. +Love, money, or force could not procure from them a horseshoe or a horseshoe +nail.<br> +<br> +“Upso,” was their invariable reply. “Upso,” +cursed word, which means “Have not got.”<br> +<br> +They had tramped probably forty miles that day, down from their hiding-places, +just for a “look see,” and forty miles back they would cheerfully +tramp, chattering all the way over what they had seen. Shake a +stick at them as they stand chattering about your camp-fire, and the +gloom of the landscape will be filled with tall, flitting ghosts, bounding +like deer, with great springy strides which one cannot but envy. +They have splendid vigour and fine bodies, but they are accustomed to +being beaten and robbed without protest or resistance by every chance +foreigner who enters their country.<br> +<br> +From this nerveless, forsaken Korean land I rode down upon the sandy +islands of the Yalu. For weeks these islands had been the dread +between-the-lines of two fighting armies. The air above had been +rent by screaming projectiles. The echoes of the final battle +had scarcely died away. The trains of Japanese wounded and Japanese +dead were trailing by.<br> +<br> +On the conical hill, a quarter of a mile away, the Russian dead were +being buried in their trenches and in the shell holes made by the Japanese. +And here, in the thick of it all, a man was ploughing. Green things +were growing - young onions - and the man who was weeding them paused +from his labour long enough to sell me a handful. Near by was +the smoke-blackened ruin of the farmhouse, fired by the Russians when +they retreated from the riverbed. Two men were removing the debris, +cleaning the confusion, preparatory to rebuilding. They were clad +in blue. Pigtails hung down their backs. I was in China!<br> +<br> +I rode to the shore, into the village of Kuelian-Ching. There +were no lounging men smoking long pipes and chattering. The previous +day the Russians had been there, a bloody battle had been fought, and +to-day the Japanese were there - but what was that to talk about? +Everybody was busy. Men were offering eggs and chickens and fruit +for sale upon the street, and bread, as I live, bread in small round +loaves or buns. I rode on into the country. Everywhere a +toiling population was in evidence. The houses and walls were +strong and substantial. Stone and brick replaced the mud walls +of the Korean dwellings. Twilight fell and deepened, and still +the ploughs went up and down the fields, the sowers following after. +Trains of wheelbarrows, heavily loaded, squeaked by, and Pekin carts, +drawn by from four to six cows, horses, mules, ponies, or jackasses +- cows even with their newborn calves tottering along on puny legs outside +the traces. Everybody worked. Everything worked. I +saw a man mending the road. I was in China.<br> +<br> +I came to the city of Antung, and lodged with a merchant. He was +a grain merchant. Corn he had, hundreds of bushels, stored in +great bins of stout matting; peas and beans in sacks, and in the back +yard his millstones went round and round, grinding out meal. Also, +in his back yard, were buildings containing vats sunk into the ground, +and here the tanners were at work making leather. I bought a measure +of corn from mine host for my horses, and he overcharged me thirty cents. +I was in China. Antung was jammed with Japanese troops. +It was the thick of war. But it did not matter. The work +of Antung went on just the same. The shops were wide open; the +streets were lined with pedlars. One could buy anything; get anything +made. I dined at a Chinese restaurant, cleansed myself at a public +bath in a private tub with a small boy to assist in the scrubbing. +I bought condensed milk, bitter, canned vegetables, bread, and cake. +I repeat it, cake - good cake. I bought knives, forks, and spoons, +granite-ware dishes and mugs. There were horseshoes and horseshoers. +A worker in iron realized for me new designs of mine for my tent poles. +My shoes were sent out to be repaired. A barber shampooed my hair. +A servant returned with corn-beef in tins, a bottle of port, another +of cognac, and beer, blessed beer, to wash out from my throat the dust +of an army. It was the land of Canaan. I was in China.<br> +<br> +The Korean is the perfect type of inefficiency - of utter worthlessness. +The Chinese is the perfect type of industry. For sheer work no +worker in the world can compare with him. Work is the breath of +his nostrils. It is his solution of existence. It is to +him what wandering and fighting in far lands and spiritual adventure +have been to other peoples. Liberty to him epitomizes itself in +access to the means of toil. To till the soil and labour interminably +with rude implements and utensils is all he asks of life and of the +powers that be. Work is what he desires above all things, and +he will work at anything for anybody.<br> +<br> +During the taking of the Takú forts he carried scaling ladders +at the heads of the storming columns and planted them against the walls. +He did this, not from a sense of patriotism, but for the invading foreign +devils because they paid him a daily wage of fifty cents. He is +not frightened by war. He accepts it as he does rain and sunshine, +the changing of the seasons, and other natural phenomena. He prepares +for it, endures it, and survives it, and when the tide of battle sweeps +by, the thunder of the guns still reverberating in the distant canyons, +he is seen calmly bending to his usual tasks. Nay, war itself +bears fruits whereof he may pick. Before the dead are cold or +the burial squads have arrived he is out on the field, stripping the +mangled bodies, collecting the shrapnel, and ferreting in the shell +holes for slivers and fragments of iron.<br> +<br> +The Chinese is no coward. He does not carry away his doors amid +windows to the mountains, but remains to guard them when alien soldiers +occupy his town. He does not hide away his chickens and his eggs, +nor any other commodity he possesses. He proceeds at once to offer +them for sale. Nor is he to be bullied into lowering his price. +What if the purchaser be a soldier and an alien made cocky by victory +and confident by overwhelming force? He has two large pears saved +over from last year which he will sell for five sen, or for the same +price three small pears. What if one soldier persist in taking +away with him three large pears? What if there be twenty other +soldiers jostling about him? He turns over his sack of fruit to +another Chinese and races down the street after his pears and the soldier +responsible for their flight, and he does not return till he has wrenched +away one large pear from that soldier’s grasp.<br> +<br> +Nor is the Chinese the type of permanence which he has been so often +designated. He is not so ill-disposed toward new ideas and new +methods as his history would seem to indicate. True, his forms, +customs, and methods have been permanent these many centuries, but this +has been due to the fact that his government was in the hands of the +learned classes, and that these governing scholars found their salvation +lay in suppressing all progressive ideas. The ideas behind the +Boxer troubles and the outbreaks over the introduction of railroad and +other foreign devil machinations have emanated from the minds of the +literati, and been spread by their pamphlets and propagandists.<br> +<br> +Originality and enterprise have been suppressed in the Chinese for scores +of generations. Only has remained to him industry, and in this +has he found the supreme expression of his being. On the other +hand, his susceptibility to new ideas has been well demonstrated wherever +he has escaped beyond the restrictions imposed upon him by his government. +So far as the business man is concerned he has grasped far more clearly +the Western code of business, the Western ethics of business, than has +the Japanese. He has learned, as a matter of course, to keep his +word or his bond. As yet, the Japanese business man has failed +to understand this. When he has signed a time contract and when +changing conditions cause him to lose by it, the Japanese merchant cannot +understand why he should live up to his contract. It is beyond +his comprehension and repulsive to his common sense that he should live +up to his contract and thereby lose money. He firmly believes +that the changing conditions themselves absolve him. And in so +far adaptable as he has shown himself to be in other respects, he fails +to grasp a radically new idea where the Chinese succeeds.<br> +<br> +Here we have the Chinese, four hundred millions of him, occupying a +vast land of immense natural resources - resources of a twentieth-century +age, of a machine age; resources of coal and iron, which are the backbone +of commercial civilization. He is an indefatigable worker. +He is not dead to new ideas, new methods, new systems. Under a +capable management he can be made to do anything. Truly would +he of himself constitute the much-heralded Yellow Peril were it not +for his present management. This management, his government, is +set, crystallized. It is what binds him down to building as his +fathers built. The governing class, entrenched by the precedent +and power of centuries and by the stamp it has put upon his mind, will +never free him. It would be the suicide of the governing class, +and the governing class knows it.<br> +<br> +Comes now the Japanese. On the streets of Antung, of Feng-Wang-Chang, +or of any other Manchurian city, the following is a familiar scene: +One is hurrying home through the dark of the unlighted streets when +he comes upon a paper lantern resting on the ground. On one side +squats a Chinese civilian on his hams, on the other side squats a Japanese +soldier. One dips his forefinger in the dust and writes strange, +monstrous characters. The other nods understanding, sweeps the +dust slate level with his hand, and with his forefinger inscribes similar +characters. They are talking. They cannot speak to each +other, but they can write. Long ago one borrowed the other’s +written language, and long before that, untold generations ago, they +diverged from a common root, the ancient Mongol stock.<br> +<br> +There have been changes, differentiations brought about by diverse conditions +and infusions of other blood; but down at the bottom of their being, +twisted into the fibres of them, is a heritage in common - a sameness +in kind which time has not obliterated. The infusion of other +blood, Malay, perhaps, has made the Japanese a race of mastery and power, +a fighting race through all its history, a race which has always despised +commerce and exalted fighting.<br> +<br> +To-day, equipped with the finest machines and systems of destruction +the Caucasian mind has devised, handling machines and systems with remarkable +and deadly accuracy, this rejuvenescent Japanese race has embarked on +a course of conquest the goal of which no man knows. The head +men of Japan are dreaming ambitiously, and the people are dreaming blindly, +a Napoleonic dream. And to this dream the Japanese clings and +will cling with bull-dog tenacity. The soldier shouting “Nippon, +Banzai!” on the walls of Wiju, the widow at home in her paper +house committing suicide so that her only son, her sole support, may +go to the front, are both expressing the unanimity of the dream.<br> +<br> +The late disturbance in the Far East marked the clashing of the dreams, +for the Slav, too, is dreaming greatly. Granting that the Japanese +can hurl back the Slav and that the two great branches of the Anglo-Saxon +race do not despoil him of his spoils, the Japanese dream takes on substantiality. +Japan’s population is no larger because her people have continually +pressed against the means of subsistence. But given poor, empty +Korea for a breeding colony and Manchuria for a granary, and at once +the Japanese begins to increase by leaps and bounds.<br> +<br> +Even so, he would not of himself constitute a Brown Peril. He +has not the time in which to grow and realize the dream. He is +only forty-five millions, and so fast does the economic exploitation +of the planet hurry on the planet’s partition amongst the Western +peoples that, before he could attain the stature requisite to menace, +he would see the Western giants in possession of the very stuff of his +dream.<br> +<br> +The menace to the Western world lies, not in the little brown man, but +in the four hundred millions of yellow men should the little brown man +undertake their management. The Chinese is not dead to new ideas; +he is an efficient worker; makes a good soldier, and is wealthy in the +essential materials of a machine age. Under a capable management +he will go far. The Japanese is prepared and fit to undertake +this management. Not only has he proved himself an apt imitator +of Western material progress, a sturdy worker, and a capable organizer, +but he is far more fit to manage the Chinese than are we. The +baffling enigma of the Chinese character is no baffling enigma to him. +He understands as we could never school ourselves nor hope to understand. +Their mental processes are largely the same. He thinks with the +same thought-symbols as does the Chinese, and he thinks in the same +peculiar grooves. He goes on where we are balked by the obstacles +of incomprehension. He takes the turning which we cannot perceive, +twists around the obstacle, and, presto! is out of sight in the ramifications +of the Chinese mind where we cannot follow.<br> +<br> +The Chinese has been called the type of permanence, and well he has +merited it, dozing as he has through the ages. And as truly was +the Japanese the type of permanence up to a generation ago, when he +suddenly awoke and startled the world with a rejuvenescence the like +of which the world had never seen before. The ideas of the West +were the leaven which quickened the Japanese; and the ideas of the West, +transmitted by the Japanese mind into ideas Japanese, may well make +the leaven powerful enough to quicken the Chinese.<br> +<br> +We have had Africa for the Afrikander, and at no distant day we shall +hear “Asia for the Asiatic!” Four hundred million +indefatigable workers (deft, intelligent, and unafraid to die), aroused +and rejuvenescent, managed and guided by forty-five million additional +human beings who are splendid fighting animals, scientific and modern, +constitute that menace to the Western world which has been well named +the “Yellow Peril.” The possibility of race adventure +has not passed away. We are in the midst of our own. The +Slav is just girding himself up to begin. Why may not the yellow +and the brown start out on an adventure as tremendous as our own and +more strikingly unique?<br> +<br> +The ultimate success of such an adventure the Western mind refuses to +consider. It is not the nature of life to believe itself weak. +There is such a thing as race egotism as well as creature egotism, and +a very good thing it is. In the first place, the Western world +will not permit the rise of the yellow peril. It is firmly convinced +that it will not permit the yellow and the brown to wax strong and menace +its peace and comfort. It advances this idea with persistency, +and delivers itself of long arguments showing how and why this menace +will not be permitted to arise. Today, far more voices are engaged +in denying the yellow peril than in prophesying it. The Western +world is warned, if not armed, against the possibility of it.<br> +<br> +In the second place, there is a weakness inherent in the brown man which +will bring his adventure to naught. From the West he has borrowed +all our material achievement and passed our ethical achievement by. +Our engines of production and destruction he has made his. What +was once solely ours he now duplicates, rivalling our merchants in the +commerce of the East, thrashing the Russian on sea and land. A +marvellous imitator truly, but imitating us only in things material. +Things spiritual cannot be imitated; they must be felt and lived, woven +into the very fabric of life, and here the Japanese fails.<br> +<br> +It required no revolution of his nature to learn to calculate the range +and fire a field gun or to march the goose-step. It was a mere +matter of training. Our material achievement is the product of +our intellect. It is knowledge, and knowledge, like coin, is interchangeable. +It is not wrapped up in the heredity of the new-born child, but is something +to be acquired afterward. Not so with our soul stuff, which is +the product of an evolution which goes back to the raw beginnings of +the race. Our soul stuff is not a coin to be pocketed by the first +chance comer. The Japanese cannot pocket it any more than he can +thrill to short Saxon words or we can thrill to Chinese hieroglyphics. +The leopard cannot change its spots, nor can the Japanese, nor can we. +We are thumbed by the ages into what we are, and by no conscious inward +effort can we in a day rethumb ourselves. Nor can the Japanese +in a day, or a generation, rethumb himself in our image.<br> +<br> +Back of our own great race adventure, back of our robberies by sea and +land, our lusts and violences and all the evil things we have done, +there is a certain integrity, a sternness of conscience, a melancholy +responsibility of life, a sympathy and comradeship and warm human feel, +which is ours, indubitably ours, and which we cannot teach to the Oriental +as we would teach logarithms or the trajectory of projectiles. +That we have groped for the way of right conduct and agonized over the +soul betokens our spiritual endowment. Though we have strayed +often and far from righteousness, the voices of the seers have always +been raised, and we have harked back to the bidding of conscience. +The colossal fact of our history is that we have made the religion of +Jesus Christ our religion. No matter how dark in error and deed, +ours has been a history of spiritual struggle and endeavour. We +are pre-eminently a religious race, which is another way of saying that +we are a right-seeking race.<br> +<br> +“What do you think of the Japanese?” was asked an American +woman after she had lived some time in Japan. “It seems +to me that they have no soul,” was her answer.<br> +<br> +This must not be taken to mean that the Japanese is without soul. +But it serves to illustrate the enormous difference between their souls +and this woman’s soul. There was no feel, no speech, no +recognition. This Western soul did not dream that the Eastern +soul existed, it was so different, so totally different.<br> +<br> +Religion, as a battle for the right in our sense of right, as a yearning +and a strife for spiritual good and purity, is unknown to the Japanese.<br> +<br> +Measured by what religion means to us, the Japanese is a race without +religion. Yet it has a religion, and who shall say that it is +not as great a religion as ours, nor as efficacious? As one Japanese +has written:<br> +<br> +“Our reflection brought into prominence not so much the moral +as the national consciousness of the individual. . . . To us the country +is more than land and soil from which to mine gold or reap grain - it +is the sacred abode of the gods, the spirit of our forefathers; to us +the Emperor is more than the Arch Constable of a Reichsstaat, or even +the Patron of a Kulturstaat; he is the bodily representative of heaven +on earth, blending in his person its power and its mercy.”<br> +<br> +The religion of Japan is practically a worship of the State itself. +Patriotism is the expression of this worship. The Japanese mind +does not split hairs as to whether the Emperor is Heaven incarnate or +the State incarnate. So far as the Japanese are concerned, the +Emperor lives, is himself deity. The Emperor is the object to +live for and to die for. The Japanese is not an individualist. +He has developed national consciousness instead of moral consciousness. +He is not interested in his own moral welfare except in so far as it +is the welfare of the State. The honour of the individual, <i>per +se, </i>does not exist. Only exists the honour of the State, which +is his honour. He does not look upon himself as a free agent, +working out his own personal salvation. Spiritual agonizing is +unknown to him. He has a “sense of calm trust in fate, a +quiet submission to the inevitable, a stoic composure in sight of danger +or calamity, a disdain of life and friendliness with death.” +He relates himself to the State as, amongst bees, the worker is related +to the hive; himself nothing, the State everything; his reasons for +existence the exaltation and glorification of the State.<br> +<br> +The most admired quality to-day of the Japanese is his patriotism. +The Western world is in rhapsodies over it, unwittingly measuring the +Japanese patriotism by its own conceptions of patriotism. “For +God, my country, and the Czar!” cries the Russian patriot; but +in the Japanese mind there is no differentiation between the three. +The Emperor is the Emperor, and God and country as well. The patriotism +of the Japanese is blind and unswerving loyalty to what is practically +an absolutism. The Emperor can do no wrong, nor can the five ambitious +great men who have his ear and control the destiny of Japan.<br> +<br> +No great race adventure can go far nor endure long which has no deeper +foundation than material success, no higher prompting than conquest +for conquest’s sake and mere race glorification. To go far +and to endure, it must have behind it an ethical impulse, a sincerely +conceived righteousness. But it must be taken into consideration +that the above postulate is itself a product of Western race-egotism, +urged by our belief in our own righteousness and fostered by a faith +in ourselves which may be as erroneous as are most fond race fancies. +So be it. The world is whirling faster to-day than ever before. +It has gained impetus. Affairs rush to conclusion. The Far +East is the point of contact of the adventuring Western people as well +as of the Asiatic. We shall not have to wait for our children’s +time nor our children’s children. We shall ourselves see +and largely determine the adventure of the Yellow and the Brown.<br> +<br> +FENG-WANG-CHENG, MANCHURIA.<br> +<i>June </i>1904,<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +WHAT LIFE MEANS TO ME<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +I was born in the working-class. Early I discovered enthusiasm, +ambition, and ideals; and to satisfy these became the problem of my +child-life. My environment was crude and rough and raw. +I had no outlook, but an uplook rather. My place in society was +at the bottom. Here life offered nothing but sordidness and wretchedness, +both of the flesh and the spirit; for here flesh and spirit were alike +starved and tormented.<br> +<br> +Above me towered the colossal edifice of society, and to my mind the +only way out was up. Into this edifice I early resolved to climb. +Up above, men wore black clothes and boiled shirts, and women dressed +in beautiful gowns. Also, there were good things to eat, and there +was plenty to eat. This much for the flesh. Then there were +the things of the spirit. Up above me, I knew, were unselfishnesses +of the spirit, clean and noble thinking, keen intellectual living. +I knew all this because I read “Seaside Library” novels, +in which, with the exception of the villains and adventuresses, all +men and women thought beautiful thoughts, spoke a beautiful tongue, +and performed glorious deeds. In short, as I accepted the rising +of the sun, I accepted that up above me was all that was fine and noble +and gracious, all that gave decency and dignity to life, all that made +life worth living and that remunerated one for his travail and misery.<br> +<br> +But it is not particularly easy for one to climb up out of the working-class +- especially if he is handicapped by the possession of ideals and illusions. +I lived on a ranch in California, and was hard put to find the ladder +whereby to climb. I early inquired the rate of interest on invested +money, and worried my child’s brain into an understanding of the +virtues and excellences of that remarkable invention of man, compound +interest. Further, I ascertained the current rates of wages for +workers of all ages, and the cost of living. From all this data +I concluded that if I began immediately and worked and saved until I +was fifty years of age, I could then stop working and enter into participation +in a fair portion of the delights and goodnesses that would then be +open to me higher up in society. Of course, I resolutely determined +not to marry, while I quite forgot to consider at all that great rock +of disaster in the working-class world - sickness.<br> +<br> +But the life that was in me demanded more than a meagre existence of +scraping and scrimping. Also, at ten years of age, I became a +newsboy on the streets of a city, and found myself with a changed uplook. +All about me were still the same sordidness and wretchedness, and up +above me was still the same paradise waiting to be gained; but the ladder +whereby to climb was a different one. It was now the ladder of +business. Why save my earnings and invest in government bonds, +when, by buying two newspapers for five cents, with a turn of the wrist +I could sell them for ten cents and double my capital? The business +ladder was the ladder for me, and I had a vision of myself becoming +a bald-headed and successful merchant prince.<br> +<br> +Alas for visions! When I was sixteen I had already earned the +title of “prince.” But this title was given me by +a gang of cut-throats and thieves, by whom I was called “The Prince +of the Oyster Pirates.” And at that time I had climbed the +first rung of the business ladder. I was a capitalist. I +owned a boat and a complete oyster-pirating outfit. I had begun +to exploit my fellow-creatures. I had a crew of one man. +As captain and owner I took two-thirds of the spoils, and gave the crew +one-third, though the crew worked just as hard as I did and risked just +as much his life and liberty.<br> +<br> +This one rung was the height I climbed up the business ladder. +One night I went on a raid amongst the Chinese fishermen. Ropes +and nets were worth dollars and cents. It was robbery, I grant, +but it was precisely the spirit of capitalism. The capitalist +takes away the possessions of his fellow-creatures by means of a rebate, +or of a betrayal of trust, or by the purchase of senators and supreme-court +judges. I was merely crude. That was the only difference. +I used a gun.<br> +<br> +But my crew that night was one of those inefficients against whom the +capitalist is wont to fulminate, because, forsooth, such inefficients +increase expenses and reduce dividends. My crew did both. +What of his carelessness he set fire to the big mainsail and totally +destroyed it. There weren’t any dividends that night, and +the Chinese fishermen were richer by the nets and ropes we did not get. +I was bankrupt, unable just then to pay sixty-five dollars for a new +mainsail. I left my boat at anchor and went off on a bay-pirate +boat on a raid up the Sacramento River. While away on this trip, +another gang of bay pirates raided my boat. They stole everything, +even the anchors; and later on, when I recovered the drifting hulk, +I sold it for twenty dollars. I had slipped back the one rung +I had climbed, and never again did I attempt the business ladder.<br> +<br> +From then on I was mercilessly exploited by other capitalists. +I had the muscle, and they made money out of it while I made but a very +indifferent living out of it. I was a sailor before the mast, +a longshoreman, a roustabout; I worked in canneries, and factories, +and laundries; I mowed lawns, and cleaned carpets, and washed windows. +And I never got the full product of my toil. I looked at the daughter +of the cannery owner, in her carriage, and knew that it was my muscle, +in part, that helped drag along that carriage on its rubber tyres. +I looked at the son of the factory owner, going to college, and knew +that it was my muscle that helped, in part, to pay for the wine and +good fellowship he enjoyed.<br> +<br> +But I did not resent this. It was all in the game. They +were the strong. Very well, I was strong. I would carve +my way to a place amongst them and make money out of the muscles of +other men. I was not afraid of work. I loved hard work. +I would pitch in and work harder than ever and eventually become a pillar +of society.<br> +<br> +And just then, as luck would have it, I found an employer that was of +the same mind. I was willing to work, and he was more than willing +that I should work. I thought I was learning a trade. In +reality, I had displaced two men. I thought he was making an electrician +out of me; as a matter of fact, he was making fifty dollars per month +out of me. The two men I had displaced had received forty dollars +each per month; I was doing the work of both for thirty dollars per +month.<br> +<br> +This employer worked me nearly to death. A man may love oysters, +but too many oysters will disincline him toward that particular diet. +And so with me. Too much work sickened me. I did not wish +ever to see work again. I fled from work. I became a tramp, +begging my way from door to door, wandering over the United States and +sweating bloody sweats in slums and prisons.<br> +<br> +I had been born in the working-class, and I was now, at the age of eighteen, +beneath the point at which I had started. I was down in the cellar +of society, down in the subterranean depths of misery about which it +is neither nice nor proper to speak. I was in the pit, the abyss, +the human cesspool, the shambles and the charnel-house of our civilization. +This is the part of the edifice of society that society chooses to ignore. +Lack of space compels me here to ignore it, and I shall say only that +the things I there saw gave me a terrible scare.<br> +<br> +I was scared into thinking. I saw the naked simplicities of the +complicated civilization in which I lived. Life was a matter of +food and shelter. In order to get food and shelter men sold things. +The merchant sold shoes, the politician sold his manhood, and the representative +of the people, with exceptions, of course, sold his trust; while nearly +all sold their honour. Women, too, whether on the street or in +the holy bond of wedlock, were prone to sell their flesh. All +things were commodities, all people bought and sold. The one commodity +that labour had to sell was muscle. The honour of labour had no +price in the marketplace. Labour had muscle, and muscle alone, +to sell.<br> +<br> +But there was a difference, a vital difference. Shoes and trust +and honour had a way of renewing themselves. They were imperishable +stocks. Muscle, on the other hand, did not renew. As the +shoe merchant sold shoes, he continued to replenish his stock. +But there was no way of replenishing the labourer’s stock of muscle. +The more he sold of his muscle, the less of it remained to him. +It was his one commodity, and each day his stock of it diminished. +In the end, if he did not die before, he sold out and put up his shutters. +He was a muscle bankrupt, and nothing remained to him but to go down +into the cellar of society and perish miserably.<br> +<br> +I learned, further, that brain was likewise a commodity. It, too, +was different from muscle. A brain seller was only at his prime +when he was fifty or sixty years old, and his wares were fetching higher +prices than ever. But a labourer was worked out or broken down +at forty-five or fifty. I had been in the cellar of society, and +I did not like the place as a habitation. The pipes and drains +were unsanitary, and the air was bad to breathe. If I could not +live on the parlour floor of society, I could, at any rate, have a try +at the attic. It was true, the diet there was slim, but the air +at least was pure. So I resolved to sell no more muscle, and to +become a vendor of brains.<br> +<br> +Then began a frantic pursuit of knowledge. I returned to California +and opened the books. While thus equipping myself to become a +brain merchant, it was inevitable that I should delve into sociology. +There I found, in a certain class of books, scientifically formulated, +the simple sociological concepts I had already worked out for myself. +Other and greater minds, before I was born, had worked out all that +I had thought and a vast deal more. I discovered that I was a +socialist.<br> +<br> +The socialists were revolutionists, inasmuch as they struggled to overthrow +the society of the present, and out of the material to build the society +of the future. I, too, was a socialist and a revolutionist. +I joined the groups of working-class and intellectual revolutionists, +and for the first time came into intellectual living. Here I found +keen-flashing intellects and brilliant wits; for here I met strong and +alert-brained, withal horny-handed, members of the working-class; unfrocked +preachers too wide in their Christianity for any congregation of Mammon-worshippers; +professors broken on the wheel of university subservience to the ruling +class and flung out because they were quick with knowledge which they +strove to apply to the affairs of mankind.<br> +<br> +Here I found, also, warm faith in the human, glowing idealism, sweetnesses +of unselfishness, renunciation, and martyrdom - all the splendid, stinging +things of the spirit. Here life was clean, noble, and alive. +Here life rehabilitated itself, became wonderful and glorious; and I +was glad to be alive. I was in touch with great souls who exalted +flesh and spirit over dollars and cents, and to whom the thin wail of +the starved slum child meant more than all the pomp and circumstance +of commercial expansion and world empire. All about me were nobleness +of purpose and heroism of effort, and my days and nights were sunshine +and starshine, all fire and dew, with before my eyes, ever burning and +blazing, the Holy Grail, Christ’s own Grail, the warm human, long-suffering +and maltreated, but to be rescued and saved at the last.<br> +<br> +And I, poor foolish I, deemed all this to be a mere foretaste of the +delights of living I should find higher above me in society. I +had lost many illusions since the day I read “Seaside Library” +novels on the California ranch. I was destined to lose many of +the illusions I still retained.<br> +<br> +As a brain merchant I was a success. Society opened its portals +to me. I entered right in on the parlour floor, and my disillusionment +proceeded rapidly. I sat down to dinner with the masters of society, +and with the wives and daughters of the masters of society. The +women were gowned beautifully, I admit; but to my naïve surprise +I discovered that they were of the same clay as all the rest of the +women I had known down below in the cellar. “The colonel’s +lady and Judy O’Grady were sisters under their skins” - +and gowns.<br> +<br> +It was not this, however, so much as their materialism, that shocked +me. It is true, these beautifully gowned, beautiful women prattled +sweet little ideals and dear little moralities; but in spite of their +prattle the dominant key of the life they lived was materialistic. +And they were so sentimentally selfish! They assisted in all kinds +of sweet little charities, and informed one of the fact, while all the +time the food they ate and the beautiful clothes they wore were bought +out of dividends stained with the blood of child labour, and sweated +labour, and of prostitution itself. When I mentioned such facts, +expecting in my innocence that these sisters of Judy O’Grady would +at once strip off their blood-dyed silks and jewels, they became excited +and angry, and read me preachments about the lack of thrift, the drink, +and the innate depravity that caused all the misery in society’s +cellar. When I mentioned that I couldn’t quite see that +it was the lack of thrift, the intemperance, and the depravity of a +half-starved child of six that made it work twelve hours every night +in a Southern cotton mill, these sisters of Judy O’Grady attacked +my private life and called me an “agitator” - as though +that, forsooth, settled the argument.<br> +<br> +Nor did I fare better with the masters themselves. I had expected +to find men who were clean, noble, and alive, whose ideals were clean, +noble, and alive. I went about amongst the men who sat in the +high places - the preachers, the politicians, the business men, the +professors, and the editors. I ate meat with them, drank wine +with them, automobiled with them, and studied them. It is true, +I found many that were clean and noble; but with rare exceptions, they +were not <i>alive</i>. I do verily believe I could count the exceptions +on the fingers of my two hands. Where they were not alive with +rottenness, quick with unclean life, there were merely the unburied +dead - clean and noble, like well-preserved mummies, but not alive. +In this connection I may especially mention the professors I met, the +men who live up to that decadent university ideal, “the passionless +pursuit of passionless intelligence.”<br> +<br> +I met men who invoked the name of the Prince of Peace in their diatribes +against war, and who put rifles in the hands of Pinkertons with which +to shoot down strikers in their own factories. I met men incoherent +with indignation at the brutality of prize-fighting, and who, at the +same time, were parties to the adulteration of food that killed each +year more babies than even red-handed Herod had killed.<br> +<br> +I talked in hotels and clubs and homes and Pullmans, and steamer-chairs +with captains of industry, and marvelled at how little travelled they +were in the realm of intellect. On the other hand, I discovered +that their intellect, in the business sense, was abnormally developed. +Also, I discovered that their morality, where business was concerned, +was nil.<br> +<br> +This delicate, aristocratic-featured gentleman, was a dummy director +and a tool of corporations that secretly robbed widows and orphans. +This gentleman, who collected fine editions and was an especial patron +of literature, paid blackmail to a heavy-jowled, black-browed boss of +a municipal machine. This editor, who published patent medicine +advertisements and did not dare print the truth in his paper about said +patent medicines for fear of losing the advertising, called me a scoundrelly +demagogue because I told him that his political economy was antiquated +and that his biology was contemporaneous with Pliny.<br> +<br> +This senator was the tool and the slave, the little puppet of a gross, +uneducated machine boss; so was this governor and this supreme court +judge; and all three rode on railroad passes. This man, talking +soberly and earnestly about the beauties of idealism and the goodness +of God, had just betrayed his comrades in a business deal. This +man, a pillar of the church and heavy contributor to foreign missions, +worked his shop girls ten hours a day on a starvation wage and thereby +directly encouraged prostitution. This man, who endowed chairs +in universities, perjured himself in courts of law over a matter of +dollars and cents. And this railroad magnate broke his word as +a gentleman and a Christian when he granted a secret rebate to one of +two captains of industry locked together in a struggle to the death.<br> +<br> +It was the same everywhere, crime and betrayal, betrayal and crime - +men who were alive, but who were neither clean nor noble, men who were +clean and noble, but who were not alive. Then there was a great, +hopeless mass, neither noble nor alive, but merely clean. It did +not sin positively nor deliberately; but it did sin passively and ignorantly +by acquiescing in the current immorality and profiting by it. +Had it been noble and alive it would not have been ignorant, and it +would have refused to share in the profits of betrayal and crime.<br> +<br> +I discovered that I did not like to live on the parlour floor of society. +Intellectually I was as bored. Morally and spiritually I was sickened. +I remembered my intellectuals and idealists, my unfrocked preachers, +broken professors, and clean-minded, class-conscious working-men. +I remembered my days and nights of sunshine and starshine, where life +was all a wild sweet wonder, a spiritual paradise of unselfish adventure +and ethical romance. And I saw before me, ever blazing and burning, +the Holy Grail.<br> +<br> +So I went back to the working-class, in which I had been born and where +I belonged. I care no longer to climb. The imposing edifice +of society above my head holds no delights for me. It is the foundation +of the edifice that interests me. There I am content to labour, +crowbar in hand, shoulder to shoulder with intellectuals, idealists, +and class-conscious working-men, getting a solid pry now and again and +setting the whole edifice rocking. Some day, when we get a few +more hands and crowbars to work, we’ll topple it over, along with +all its rotten life and unburied dead, its monstrous selfishness and +sodden materialism. Then we’ll cleanse the cellar and build +a new habitation for mankind, in which there will be no parlour floor, +in which all the rooms will be bright and airy, and where the air that +is breathed will be clean, noble, and alive.<br> +<br> +Such is my outlook. I look forward to a time when man shall progress +upon something worthier and higher than his stomach, when there will +be a finer incentive to impel men to action than the incentive of to-day, +which is the incentive of the stomach. I retain my belief in the +nobility and excellence of the human. I believe that spiritual +sweetness and unselfishness will conquer the gross gluttony of to-day. +And last of all, my faith is in the working-class. As some Frenchman +has said, “The stairway of time is ever echoing with the wooden +shoe going up, the polished boot descending.”<br> +<br> +NEWTON, IOWA.<br> +November 1905.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, REVOLUTION AND OTHER ESSAYS ***<br> +<pre> + +******This file should be named rvlt10h.htm or rvlt10h.zip****** +Corrected EDITIONS of our ebooks get a new NUMBER, rvlt11h.htm +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, rvlt10ah.htm + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we usually do not +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +We are now trying to release all our eBooks one year in advance +of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing. +Please be encouraged to tell us about any error or corrections, +even years after the official publication date. + +Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til +midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement. +The official release date of all Project Gutenberg eBooks is at +Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. A +preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment +and editing by those who wish to do so. + +Most people start at our Web sites at: +http://gutenberg.net or +http://promo.net/pg + +These Web sites include award-winning information about Project +Gutenberg, including how to donate, how to help produce our new +eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter (free!). + + +Those of you who want to download any eBook before announcement +can get to them as follows, and just download by date. This is +also a good way to get them instantly upon announcement, as the +indexes our cataloguers produce obviously take a while after an +announcement goes out in the Project Gutenberg Newsletter. + +http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext03 or +ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext03 + +Or /etext02, 01, 00, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90 + +Just search by the first five letters of the filename you want, +as it appears in our Newsletters. + + +Information about Project Gutenberg (one page) + +We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work. The +time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours +to get any eBook selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright +searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc. Our +projected audience is one hundred million readers. If the value +per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2 +million dollars per hour in 2002 as we release over 100 new text +files per month: 1240 more eBooks in 2001 for a total of 4000+ +We are already on our way to trying for 2000 more eBooks in 2002 +If they reach just 1-2% of the world's population then the total +will reach over half a trillion eBooks given away by year's end. + +The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away 1 Trillion eBooks! +This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers, +which is only about 4% of the present number of computer users. + +Here is the briefest record of our progress (* means estimated): + +eBooks Year Month + + 1 1971 July + 10 1991 January + 100 1994 January + 1000 1997 August + 1500 1998 October + 2000 1999 December + 2500 2000 December + 3000 2001 November + 4000 2001 October/November + 6000 2002 December* + 9000 2003 November* +10000 2004 January* + + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been created +to secure a future for Project Gutenberg into the next millennium. + +We need your donations more than ever! + +As of February, 2002, contributions are being solicited from people +and organizations in: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, +Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, +Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, +Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New +Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, +Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South +Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West +Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. + +We have filed in all 50 states now, but these are the only ones +that have responded. + +As the requirements for other states are met, additions to this list +will be made and fund raising will begin in the additional states. +Please feel free to ask to check the status of your state. + +In answer to various questions we have received on this: + +We are constantly working on finishing the paperwork to legally +request donations in all 50 states. If your state is not listed and +you would like to know if we have added it since the list you have, +just ask. + +While we cannot solicit donations from people in states where we are +not yet registered, we know of no prohibition against accepting +donations from donors in these states who approach us with an offer to +donate. + +International donations are accepted, but we don't know ANYTHING about +how to make them tax-deductible, or even if they CAN be made +deductible, and don't have the staff to handle it even if there are +ways. + +Donations by check or money order may be sent to: + +Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +PMB 113 +1739 University Ave. +Oxford, MS 38655-4109 + +Contact us if you want to arrange for a wire transfer or payment +method other than by check or money order. + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been approved by +the US Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) organization with EIN +[Employee Identification Number] 64-622154. Donations are +tax-deductible to the maximum extent permitted by law. As fund-raising +requirements for other states are met, additions to this list will be +made and fund-raising will begin in the additional states. + +We need your donations more than ever! + +You can get up to date donation information online at: + +http://www.gutenberg.net/donation.html + + +*** + +If you can't reach Project Gutenberg, +you can always email directly to: + +Michael S. Hart hart@pobox.com + +Prof. Hart will answer or forward your message. + +We would prefer to send you information by email. + + +**The Legal Small Print** + + +(Three Pages) + +***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS**START*** +Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers. +They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with +your copy of this eBook, even if you got it for free from +someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our +fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement +disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how +you may distribute copies of this eBook if you want to. + +*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS EBOOK +By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +eBook, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept +this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive +a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this eBook by +sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person +you got it from. If you received this eBook on a physical +medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request. + +ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM EBOOKS +This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBooks, +is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor Michael S. Hart +through the Project Gutenberg Association (the "Project"). +Among other things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright +on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and +distribute it in the United States without permission and +without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth +below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this eBook +under the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark. + +Please do not use the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark to market +any commercial products without permission. + +To create these eBooks, the Project expends considerable +efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain +works. Despite these efforts, the Project's eBooks and any +medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other +things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other +intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged +disk or other eBook medium, a computer virus, or computer +codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment. + +LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES +But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below, +[1] Michael Hart and the Foundation (and any other party you may +receive this eBook from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook) disclaims +all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including +legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR +UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT, +INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE +OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE +POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. + +If you discover a Defect in this eBook within 90 days of +receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) +you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that +time to the person you received it from. If you received it +on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and +such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement +copy. If you received it electronically, such person may +choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to +receive it electronically. + +THIS EBOOK IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS +TO THE EBOOK OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT +LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A +PARTICULAR PURPOSE. + +Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or +the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the +above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you +may have other legal rights. + +INDEMNITY +You will indemnify and hold Michael Hart, the Foundation, +and its trustees and agents, and any volunteers associated +with the production and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm +texts harmless, from all liability, cost and expense, including +legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the +following that you do or cause: [1] distribution of this eBook, +[2] alteration, modification, or addition to the eBook, +or [3] any Defect. + +DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm" +You may distribute copies of this eBook electronically, or by +disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this +"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg, +or: + +[1] Only give exact copies of it. Among other things, this + requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the + eBook or this "small print!" statement. You may however, + if you wish, distribute this eBook in machine readable + binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form, + including any form resulting from conversion by word + processing or hypertext software, but only so long as + *EITHER*: + + [*] The eBook, when displayed, is clearly readable, and + does *not* contain characters other than those + intended by the author of the work, although tilde + (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may + be used to convey punctuation intended by the + author, and additional characters may be used to + indicate hypertext links; OR + + [*] The eBook may be readily converted by the reader at + no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent + form by the program that displays the eBook (as is + the case, for instance, with most word processors); + OR + + [*] You provide, or agree to also provide on request at + no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the + eBook in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC + or other equivalent proprietary form). + +[2] Honor the eBook refund and replacement provisions of this + "Small Print!" statement. + +[3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Foundation of 20% of the + gross profits you derive calculated using the method you + already use to calculate your applicable taxes. If you + don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are + payable to "Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation" + the 60 days following each date you prepare (or were + legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent + periodic) tax return. Please contact us beforehand to + let us know your plans and to work out the details. + +WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO? +Project Gutenberg is dedicated to increasing the number of +public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed +in machine readable form. + +The Project gratefully accepts contributions of money, time, +public domain materials, or royalty free copyright licenses. +Money should be paid to the: +"Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +If you are interested in contributing scanning equipment or +software or other items, please contact Michael Hart at: +hart@pobox.com + +[Portions of this eBook's header and trailer may be reprinted only +when distributed free of all fees. Copyright (C) 2001, 2002 by +Michael S. Hart. Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be +used in any sales of Project Gutenberg eBooks or other materials be +they hardware or software or any other related product without +express permission.] + +*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS*Ver.02/11/02*END* +</pre></body> +</html> diff --git a/old/rvlt10h.zip b/old/rvlt10h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..657c747 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/rvlt10h.zip |