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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. 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