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diff --git a/old/rvlt10.txt b/old/rvlt10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b85b8bf --- /dev/null +++ b/old/rvlt10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6033 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Revolution and Other Essays, by Jack London +(#110 in our series by Jack London) + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Revolution and Other Essays + +Author: Jack London + +Release Date: January, 2004 [EBook #4953] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on April 3, 2002] +[Most recently updated: April 3, 2002] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, REVOLUTION AND OTHER ESSAYS *** + + + + +Transcribed from the 1910 Mills and Boon edition by David Price, +email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk. + + + + +REVOLUTION AND OTHER ESSAYS + + + + +Contents: + Revolution + The Somnambulists + The Dignity of Dollars + Goliah + The Golden Poppy + The Shrinkage of the Planet + The House Beautiful + The Gold Hunters of the North + Foma Gordyeeff + These Bones shall Rise Again + The Other Animals + The Yellow Peril + What Life Means to Me + + + + +REVOLUTION + + + +"The present is enough for common souls, +Who, never looking forward, are indeed +Mere clay, wherein the footprints of their age +Are petrified for ever." + +I received a letter the other day. It was from a man in Arizona. It +began, "Dear Comrade." It ended, "Yours for the Revolution." I +replied to the letter, and my letter began, "Dear Comrade." It +ended, "Yours for the Revolution." In the United States there are +400,000 men, of men and women nearly 1,000,000, who begin their +letters "Dear Comrade," and end them "Yours for the Revolution." In +Germany there are 3,000,000 men who begin their letters "Dear +Comrade" and end them "Yours for the Revolution"; in France, +1,000,000 men; in Austria, 800,000 men; in Belgium, 300,000 men; in +Italy, 250,000 men; in England, 100,000 men; in Switzerland, 100,000 +men; in Denmark, 55,000 men; in Sweden, 50,000 men; in Holland, +40,000 men; in Spain, 30,000 men--comrades all, and revolutionists. + +These are numbers which dwarf the grand armies of Napoleon and +Xerxes. But they are numbers not of conquest and maintenance of the +established order, but of conquest and revolution. They compose, +when the roll is called, an army of 7,000,000 men, who, in accordance +with the conditions of to-day, are fighting with all their might for +the conquest of the wealth of the world and for the complete +overthrow of existing society. + +There has never been anything like this revolution in the history of +the world. There is nothing analogous between it and the American +Revolution or the French Revolution. It is unique, colossal. Other +revolutions compare with it as asteroids compare with the sun. It is +alone of its kind, the first world-revolution in a world whose +history is replete with revolutions. And not only this, for it is +the first organized movement of men to become a world movement, +limited only by the limits of the planet. + +This revolution is unlike all other revolutions in many respects. It +is not sporadic. It is not a flame of popular discontent, arising in +a day and dying down in a day. It is older than the present +generation. It has a history and traditions, and a martyr-roll only +less extensive possibly than the martyr-roll of Christianity. It has +also a literature a myriad times more imposing, scientific, and +scholarly than the literature of any previous revolution. + +They call themselves "comrades," these men, comrades in the socialist +revolution. Nor is the word empty and meaningless, coined of mere +lip service. It knits men together as brothers, as men should be +knit together who stand shoulder to shoulder under the red banner of +revolt. This red banner, by the way, symbolizes the brotherhood of +man, and does not symbolize the incendiarism that instantly connects +itself with the red banner in the affrighted bourgeois mind. The +comradeship of the revolutionists is alive and warm. It passes over +geographical lines, transcends race prejudice, and has even proved +itself mightier than the Fourth of July, spread-eagle Americanism of +our forefathers. The French socialist working-men and the German +socialist working-men forget Alsace and Lorraine, and, when war +threatens, pass resolutions declaring that as working-men and +comrades they have no quarrel with each other. Only the other day, +when Japan and Russia sprang at each other's throats, the +revolutionists of Japan addressed the following message to the +revolutionists of Russia: "Dear Comrades--Your government and ours +have recently plunged into war to carry out their imperialistic +tendencies, but for us socialists there are no boundaries, race, +country, or nationality. We are comrades, brothers, and sisters, and +have no reason to fight. Your enemies are not the Japanese people, +but our militarism and so-called patriotism. Patriotism and +militarism are our mutual enemies." + +In January 1905, throughout the United States the socialists held +mass-meetings to express their sympathy for their struggling +comrades, the revolutionists of Russia, and, more to the point, to +furnish the sinews of war by collecting money and cabling it to the +Russian leaders. The fact of this call for money, and the ready +response, and the very wording of the call, make a striking and +practical demonstration of the international solidarity of this +world-revolution: + +"Whatever may be the immediate results of the present revolt in +Russia, the socialist propaganda in that country has received from it +an impetus unparalleled in the history of modern class wars. The +heroic battle for freedom is being fought almost exclusively by the +Russian working-class under the intellectual leadership of Russian +socialists, thus once more demonstrating the fact that the class- +conscious working-men have become the vanguard of all liberating +movements of modern times." + +Here are 7,000,000 comrades in an organized, international, world- +wide, revolutionary movement. Here is a tremendous human force. It +must be reckoned with. Here is power. And here is romance--romance +so colossal that it seems to be beyond the ken of ordinary mortals. +These revolutionists are swayed by great passion. They have a keen +sense of personal right, much of reverence for humanity, but little +reverence, if any at all, for the rule of the dead. They refuse to +be ruled by the dead. To the bourgeois mind their unbelief in the +dominant conventions of the established order is startling. They +laugh to scorn the sweet ideals and dear moralities of bourgeois +society. They intend to destroy bourgeois society with most of its +sweet ideals and dear moralities, and chiefest among these are those +that group themselves under such heads as private ownership of +capital, survival of the fittest, and patriotism--even patriotism. + +Such an army of revolution, 7,000,000 strong, is a thing to make +rulers and ruling classes pause and consider. The cry of this army +is, "No quarter! We want all that you possess. We will be content +with nothing less than all that you possess. We want in our hands +the reins of power and the destiny of mankind. Here are our hands. +They are strong hands. We are going to take your governments, your +palaces, and all your purpled ease away from you, and in that day you +shall work for your bread even as the peasant in the field or the +starved and runty clerk in your metropolises. Here are our hands. +They are strong hands." + +Well may rulers and ruling classes pause and consider. This is +revolution. And, further, these 7,000,000 men are not an army on +paper. Their fighting strength in the field is 7,000,000. To-day +they cast 7,000,000 votes in the civilized countries of the world. + +Yesterday they were not so strong. Tomorrow they will be still +stronger. And they are fighters. They love peace. They are +unafraid of war. They intend nothing less than to destroy existing +capitalist society and to take possession of the whole world. If the +law of the land permits, they fight for this end peaceably, at the +ballot-box. If the law of the land does not permit, and if they have +force meted out to them, they resort to force themselves. They meet +violence with violence. Their hands are strong and they are +unafraid. In Russia, for instance, there is no suffrage. The +government executes the revolutionists. The revolutionists kill the +officers of the government. The revolutionists meet legal murder +with assassination. + +Now here arises a particularly significant phase which it would be +well for the rulers to consider. Let me make it concrete. I am a +revolutionist. Yet I am a fairly sane and normal individual. I +speak, and I THINK, of these assassins in Russia as "my comrades." +So do all the comrades in America, and all the 7,000,000 comrades in +the world. Of what worth an organized, international, revolutionary +movement if our comrades are not backed up the world over! The worth +is shown by the fact that we do back up the assassinations by our +comrades in Russia. They are not disciples of Tolstoy, nor are we. +We are revolutionists. + +Our comrades in Russia have formed what they call "The Fighting +Organization." This Fighting Organization accused, tried, found +guilty, and condemned to death, one Sipiaguin, Minister of Interior. +On April 2 he was shot and killed in the Maryinsky Palace. Two years +later the Fighting Organization condemned to death and executed +another Minister of Interior, Von Plehve. Having done so, it issued +a document, dated July 29, 1904, setting forth the counts of its +indictment of Von Plehve and its responsibility for the +assassination. Now, and to the point, this document was sent out to +the socialists of the world, and by them was published everywhere in +the magazines and newspapers. The point is, not that the socialists +of the world were unafraid to do it, not that they dared to do it, +but that they did it as a matter of routine, giving publication to +what may be called an official document of the international +revolutionary movement. + +These are high lights upon the revolution--granted, but they are also +facts. And they are given to the rulers and the ruling classes, not +in bravado, not to frighten them, but for them to consider more +deeply the spirit and nature of this world-revolution. The time has +come for the revolution to demand consideration. It has fastened +upon every civilized country in the world. As fast as a country +becomes civilized, the revolution fastens upon it. With the +introduction of the machine into Japan, socialism was introduced. +Socialism marched into the Philippines shoulder to shoulder with the +American soldiers. The echoes of the last gun had scarcely died away +when socialist locals were forming in Cuba and Porto Rico. Vastly +more significant is the fact that of all the countries the revolution +has fastened upon, on not one has it relaxed its grip. On the +contrary, on every country its grip closes tighter year by year. As +an active movement it began obscurely over a generation ago. In +1867, its voting strength in the world was 30,000. By 1871 its vote +had increased to 1,000,000. Not till 1884 did it pass the half- +million point. By 1889 it had passed the million point, it had then +gained momentum. In 1892 the socialist vote of the world was +1,798,391; in 1893, 2,585,898; in 1895, 3,033,718; in 1898, +4,515,591; in 1902, 5,253,054; in 1903, 6,285,374; and in the year of +our Lord 1905 it passed the seven-million mark. + +Nor has this flame of revolution left the United States untouched. +In 1888 there were only 2,068 socialist votes. In 1902 there were +127,713 socialist votes. And in 1904 435,040 socialist votes were +cast. What fanned this flame? Not hard times. The first four years +of the twentieth century were considered prosperous years, yet in +that time more than 300,000 men added themselves to the ranks of the +revolutionists, flinging their defiance in the teeth of bourgeois +society and taking their stand under the blood-red banner. In the +state of the writer, California, one man in twelve is an avowed and +registered revolutionist. + +One thing must be clearly understood. This is no spontaneous and +vague uprising of a large mass of discontented and miserable people-- +a blind and instinctive recoil from hurt. On the contrary, the +propaganda is intellectual; the movement is based upon economic +necessity and is in line with social evolution; while the miserable +people have not yet revolted. The revolutionist is no starved and +diseased slave in the shambles at the bottom of the social pit, but +is, in the main, a hearty, well-fed working-man, who sees the +shambles waiting for him and his children and recoils from the +descent. The very miserable people are too helpless to help +themselves. But they are being helped, and the day is not far +distant when their numbers will go to swell the ranks of the +revolutionists. + +Another thing must be clearly understood. In spite of the fact that +middle-class men and professional men are interested in the movement, +it is nevertheless a distinctly working-class revolt. The world +over, it is a working-class revolt. The workers of the world, as a +class, are fighting the capitalists of the world, as a class. The +so-called great middle class is a growing anomaly in the social +struggle. It is a perishing class (wily statisticians to the +contrary), and its historic mission of buffer between the capitalist +and working-classes has just about been fulfilled. Little remains +for it but to wail as it passes into oblivion, as it has already +begun to wail in accents Populistic and Jeffersonian-Democratic. The +fight is on. The revolution is here now, and it is the world's +workers that are in revolt. + +Naturally the question arises: Why is this so? No mere whim of the +spirit can give rise to a world-revolution. Whim does not conduce to +unanimity. There must be a deep-seated cause to make 7,000,000 men +of the one mind, to make them cast off allegiance to the bourgeois +gods and lose faith in so fine a thing as patriotism. There are many +counts of the indictment which the revolutionists bring against the +capitalist class, but for present use only one need be stated, and it +is a count to which capital has never replied and can never reply. + +The capitalist class has managed society, and its management has +failed. And not only has it failed in its management, but it has +failed deplorably, ignobly, horribly. The capitalist class had an +opportunity such as was vouchsafed no previous ruling class in the +history of the world. It broke away from the rule of the old feudal +aristocracy and made modern society. It mastered matter, organized +the machinery of life, and made possible a wonderful era for mankind, +wherein no creature should cry aloud because it had not enough to +eat, and wherein for every child there would be opportunity for +education, for intellectual and spiritual uplift. Matter being +mastered, and the machinery of life organized, all this was possible. +Here was the chance, God-given, and the capitalist class failed. It +was blind and greedy. It prattled sweet ideals and dear moralities, +rubbed its eyes not once, nor ceased one whit in its greediness, and +smashed down in a failure as tremendous only as was the opportunity +it had ignored. + +But all this is like so much cobwebs to the bourgeois mind. As it +was blind in the past, it is blind now and cannot see nor understand. +Well, then, let the indictment be stated more definitely, in terms +sharp and unmistakable. In the first place, consider the caveman. +He was a very simple creature. His head slanted back like an orang- +outang's, and he had but little more intelligence. He lived in a +hostile environment, the prey of all manner of fierce life. He had +no inventions nor artifices. His natural efficiency for food-getting +was, say, 1. He did not even till the soil. With his natural +efficiency of 1, he fought off his carnivorous enemies and got +himself food and shelter. He must have done all this, else he would +not have multiplied and spread over the earth and sent his progeny +down, generation by generation, to become even you and me. + +The caveman, with his natural efficiency of 1, got enough to eat most +of the time, and no caveman went hungry all the time. Also, he lived +a healthy, open-air life, loafed and rested himself, and found plenty +of time in which to exercise his imagination and invent gods. That +is to say, he did not have to work all his waking moments in order to +get enough to eat. The child of the caveman (and this is true of the +children of all savage peoples) had a childhood, and by that is meant +a happy childhood of play and development. + +And now, how fares modern man? Consider the United States, the most +prosperous and most enlightened country of the world. In the United +States there are 10,000,000 people living in poverty. By poverty is +meant that condition in life in which, through lack of food and +adequate shelter, the mere standard of working efficiency cannot be +maintained. In the United States there are 10,000,000 people who +have not enough to eat. In the United States, because they have not +enough to eat, there are 10,000,000 people who cannot keep the +ordinary 1 measure of strength in their bodies. This means that +these 10,000,000 people are perishing, are dying, body and soul, +slowly, because they have not enough to eat. All over this broad, +prosperous, enlightened land, are men, women, and children who are +living miserably. In all the great cities, where they are segregated +in slum ghettos by hundreds of thousands and by millions, their +misery becomes beastliness. No caveman ever starved as chronically +as they starve, ever slept as vilely as they sleep, ever festered +with rottenness and disease as they fester, nor ever toiled as hard +and for as long hours as they toil. + +In Chicago there is a woman who toiled sixty hours per week. She was +a garment worker. She sewed buttons on clothes. Among the Italian +garment workers of Chicago, the average weekly wage of the +dressmakers is 90 cents, but they work every week in the year. The +average weekly wage of the pants finishers is $1.31, and the average +number of weeks employed in the year is 27.85. The average yearly +earnings of the dressmakers is $37; of the pants finishers, $42.4l. +Such wages means no childhood for the children, beastliness of +living, and starvation for all. + +Unlike the caveman, modern man cannot get food and shelter whenever +he feels like working for it. Modern man has first to find the work, +and in this he is often unsuccessful. Then misery becomes acute. +This acute misery is chronicled daily in the newspapers. Let several +of the countless instances be cited. + +In New York City lived a woman, Mary Mead. She had three children: +Mary, one year old; Johanna, two years old; Alice, four years old. +Her husband could find no work. They starved. They were evicted +from their shelter at 160 Steuben Street. Mary Mead strangled her +baby, Mary, one year old; strangled Alice, four years old; failed to +strangle Johanna, two years old, and then herself took poison. Said +the father to the police: "Constant poverty had driven my wife +insane. We lived at No. 160 Steuben Street until a week ago, when we +were dispossessed. I could get no work. I could not even make +enough to put food into our mouths. The babies grew ill and weak. +My wife cried nearly all the time." + +"So overwhelmed is the Department of Charities with tens of thousands +of applications from men out of work that it finds itself unable to +cope with the situation."--New York Commercial, January 11, 1905. + +In a daily paper, because he cannot get work in order to get +something to eat, modern man advertises as follows: + +"Young man, good education, unable to obtain employment, will sell to +physician and bacteriologist for experimental purposes all right and +title to his body. Address for price, box 3466, Examiner." + +"Frank A. Mallin went to the central police station Wednesday night +and asked to be locked up on a charge of vagrancy. He said he had +been conducting an unsuccessful search for work for so long that he +was sure he must be a vagrant. In any event, he was so hungry he +must be fed. Police Judge Graham sentenced him to ninety days' +imprisonment."--San Francisco Examiner. + +In a room at the Soto House, 32 Fourth Street, San Francisco, was +found the body of W. G. Robbins. He had turned on the gas. Also was +found his diary, from which the following extracts are made + +"March 3.--No chance of getting anything here. What will I do? + +"March 7.--Cannot find anything yet. + +"March 8.--Am living on doughnuts at five cents a day. + +"March 9.--My last quarter gone for room rent. + +"March 10.--God help me. Have only five cents left. Can get nothing +to do. What next? Starvation or--? I have spent my last nickel to- +night. What shall I do? Shall it be steal, beg, or die? I have +never stolen, begged, or starved in all my fifty years of life, but +now I am on the brink--death seems the only refuge. + +"March 11.--Sick all day--burning fever this afternoon. Had nothing +to eat to-day or since yesterday noon. My head, my head. Good-bye, +all." + +How fares the child of modern man in this most prosperous of lands? +In the city of New York 50,000 children go hungry to school every +morning. From the same city on January 12, a press despatch was sent +out over the country of a case reported by Dr. A. E. Daniel, of the +New York Infirmary for Women and Children. The case was that of a +babe, eighteen months old, who earned by its labour fifty cents per +week in a tenement sweat-shop. + +"On a pile of rags in a room bare of furniture and freezing cold, +Mrs. Mary Gallin, dead from starvation, with an emaciated baby four +months old crying at her breast, was found this morning at 513 Myrtle +Avenue, Brooklyn, by Policeman McConnon of the Flushing Avenue +Station. Huddled together for warmth in another part of the room +were the father, James Gallin, and three children ranging from two to +eight years of age. The children gazed at the policeman much as +ravenous animals might have done. They were famished, and there was +not a vestige of food in their comfortless home."--New York Journal, +January 2, 1902. + +In the United States 80,000 children are toiling out their lives in +the textile mills alone. In the South they work twelve-hour shifts. +They never see the day. Those on the night shift are asleep when the +sun pours its life and warmth over the world, while those on the day +shift are at the machines before dawn and return to their miserable +dens, called "homes," after dark. Many receive no more than ten +cents a day. There are babies who work for five and six cents a day. +Those who work on the night shift are often kept awake by having cold +water dashed in their faces. There are children six years of age who +have already to their credit eleven months' work on the night shift. +When they become sick, and are unable to rise from their beds to go +to work, there are men employed to go on horseback from house to +house, and cajole and bully them into arising and going to work. Ten +per cent of them contract active consumption. All are puny wrecks, +distorted, stunted, mind and body. Elbert Hubbard says of the child- +labourers of the Southern cotton-mills: + +"I thought to lift one of the little toilers to ascertain his weight. +Straightaway through his thirty-five pounds of skin and bones there +ran a tremor of fear, and he struggled forward to tie a broken +thread. I attracted his attention by a touch, and offered him a +silver dime. He looked at me dumbly from a face that might have +belonged to a man of sixty, so furrowed, tightly drawn, and full of +pain it was. He did not reach for the money--he did not know what it +was. There were dozens of such children in this particular mill. A +physician who was with me said that they would all be dead probably +in two years, and their places filled by others--there were plenty +more. Pneumonia carries off most of them. Their systems are ripe +for disease, and when it comes there is no rebound--no response. +Medicine simply does not act--nature is whipped, beaten, discouraged, +and the child sinks into a stupor and dies." + +So fares modern man and the child of modern man in the United States, +most prosperous and enlightened of all countries on earth. It must +be remembered that the instances given are instances only, but they +can be multiplied myriads of times. It must also be remembered that +what is true of the United States is true of all the civilized world. +Such misery was not true of the caveman. Then what has happened? +Has the hostile environment of the caveman grown more hostile for his +descendants? Has the caveman's natural efficiency of 1 for food- +getting and shelter-getting diminished in modern man to one-half or +one-quarter? + +On the contrary, the hostile environment of the caveman has been +destroyed. For modern man it no longer exists. All carnivorous +enemies, the daily menace of the younger world, have been killed off. +Many of the species of prey have become extinct. Here and there, in +secluded portions of the world, still linger a few of man's fiercer +enemies. But they are far from being a menace to mankind. Modern +man, when he wants recreation and change, goes to the secluded +portions of the world for a hunt. Also, in idle moments, he wails +regretfully at the passing of the "big game," which he knows in the +not distant future will disappear from the earth. + +Nor since the day of the caveman has man's efficiency for food- +getting and shelter-getting diminished. It has increased a +thousandfold. Since the day of the caveman, matter has been +mastered. The secrets of matter have been discovered. Its laws have +been formulated. Wonderful artifices have been made, and marvellous +inventions, all tending to increase tremendously man's natural +efficiency of in every food-getting, shelter-getting exertion, in +farming, mining, manufacturing, transportation, and communication. + +From the caveman to the hand-workers of three generations ago, the +increase in efficiency for food- and shelter-getting has been very +great. But in this day, by machinery, the efficiency of the hand- +worker of three generations ago has in turn been increased many +times. Formerly it required 200 hours of human labour to place 100 +tons of ore on a railroad car. To-day, aided by machinery, but two +hours of human labour is required to do the same task. The United +States Bureau of Labour is responsible for the following table, +showing the comparatively recent increase in man's food- and shelter- +getting efficiency: + + Machine Hand + Hours Hours +Barley (100 bushels) 9 211 +Corn (50 bushels shelled, stalks, husks and + blades cut into fodder) 34 228 +Oats (160 bushels) 28 265 +Wheat (50 bushels) 7 160 +Loading ore (loading 100 tons iron ore on cars) 2 200 +Unloading coal (transferring 200 tons from + canal-boats to bins 400 feet distant) 20 240 +Pitchforks (50 pitchforks, 12-inch tines) 12 200 +Plough (one landside plough, oak beams and + handles) 3 118 + +According to the same authority, under the best conditions for +organization in farming, labour can produce 20 bushels of wheat for +66 cents, or 1 bushel for 3.5 cents. This was done on a bonanza farm +of 10,000 acres in California, and was the average cost of the whole +product of the farm. Mr. Carroll D. Wright says that to-day +4,500,000 men, aided by machinery, turn out a product that would +require the labour of 40,000,000 men if produced by hand. Professor +Herzog, of Austria, says that 5,000,000 people with the machinery of +to-day, employed at socially useful labour, would be able to supply a +population of 20,000,000 people with all the necessaries and small +luxuries of life by working 1.5 hours per day. + +This being so, matter being mastered, man's efficiency for food- and +shelter-getting being increased a thousandfold over the efficiency of +the caveman, then why is it that millions of modern men live more +miserably than lived the caveman? This is the question the +revolutionist asks, and he asks it of the managing class, the +capitalist class. The capitalist class does not answer it. The +capitalist class cannot answer it. + +If modern man's food- and shelter-getting efficiency is a +thousandfold greater than that of the caveman, why, then, are there +10,000,000 people in the United States to-day who are not properly +sheltered and properly fed? If the child of the caveman did not have +to work, why, then, to-day, in the United States, are 80,000 children +working out their lives in the textile factories alone? If the child +of the caveman did not have to work, why, then, to-day, in the United +States, are there 1,752,187 child-labourers? + +It is a true count in the indictment. The capitalist class has +mismanaged, is to-day mismanaging. In New York City 50,000 children +go hungry to school, and in New York City there are 1,320 +millionaires. The point, however, is not that the mass of mankind is +miserable because of the wealth the capitalist class has taken to +itself. Far from it. The point really is that the mass of mankind +is miserable, not for want of the wealth taken by the capitalist +class, BUT FOR WANT OF THE WEALTH THAT WAS NEVER CREATED. This +wealth was never created because the capitalist class managed too +wastefully and irrationally. The capitalist class, blind and greedy, +grasping madly, has not only not made the best of its management, but +made the worst of it. It is a management prodigiously wasteful. +This point cannot be emphasized too strongly. + +In face of the facts that modern man lives more wretchedly than the +caveman, and that modern man's food- and shelter-getting efficiency +is a thousandfold greater than the caveman's, no other solution is +possible than that the management is prodigiously wasteful. + +With the natural resources of the world, the machinery already +invented, a rational organization of production and distribution, and +an equally rational elimination of waste, the able-bodied workers +would not have to labour more than two or three hours per day to feed +everybody, clothe everybody, house everybody, educate everybody, and +give a fair measure of little luxuries to everybody. There would be +no more material want and wretchedness, no more children toiling out +their lives, no more men and women and babes living like beasts and +dying like beasts. Not only would matter be mastered, but the +machine would be mastered. In such a day incentive would be finer +and nobler than the incentive of to-day, which is the incentive of +the stomach. No man, woman, or child, would be impelled to action by +an empty stomach. On the contrary, they would be impelled to action +as a child in a spelling match is impelled to action, as boys and +girls at games, as scientists formulating law, as inventors applying +law, as artists and sculptors painting canvases and shaping clay, as +poets and statesmen serving humanity by singing and by statecraft. +The spiritual, intellectual, and artistic uplift consequent upon such +a condition of society would be tremendous. All the human world +would surge upward in a mighty wave. + +This was the opportunity vouchsafed the capitalist class. Less +blindness on its part, less greediness, and a rational management, +were all that was necessary. A wonderful era was possible for the +human race. But the capitalist class failed. It made a shambles of +civilization. Nor can the capitalist class plead not guilty. It +knew of the opportunity. Its wise men told of the opportunity, its +scholars and its scientists told it of the opportunity. All that +they said is there to-day in the books, just so much damning evidence +against it. It would not listen. It was too greedy. It rose up (as +it rises up to-day), shamelessly, in our legislative halls, and +declared that profits were impossible without the toil of children +and babes. It lulled its conscience to sleep with prattle of sweet +ideals and dear moralities, and allowed the suffering and misery of +mankind to continue and to increase, in short, the capitalist class +failed to take advantage of the opportunity. + +But the opportunity is still here. The capitalist class has been +tried and found wanting. Remains the working-class to see what it +can do with the opportunity. "But the working-class is incapable," +says the capitalist class. "What do you know about it?" the working- +class replies. "Because you have failed is no reason that we shall +fail. Furthermore, we are going to have a try at it, anyway. Seven +millions of us say so. And what have you to say to that?" + +And what can the capitalist class say? Grant the incapacity of the +working-class. Grant that the indictment and the argument of the +revolutionists are all wrong. The 7,000,000 revolutionists remain. +Their existence is a fact. Their belief in their capacity, and in +their indictment and their argument, is a fact. Their constant +growth is a fact. Their intention to destroy present-day society is +a fact, as is also their intention to take possession of the world +with all its wealth and machinery and governments. Moreover, it is a +fact that the working-class is vastly larger than the capitalist +class. + +The revolution is a revolution of the working-class. How can the +capitalist class, in the minority, stem this tide of revolution? +What has it to offer? What does it offer? Employers' associations, +injunctions, civil suits for plundering of the treasuries of the +labour-unions, clamour and combination for the open shop, bitter and +shameless opposition to the eight-hour day, strong efforts to defeat +all reform, child-labour bills, graft in every municipal council, +strong lobbies and bribery in every legislature for the purchase of +capitalist legislation, bayonets, machine-guns, policemen's clubs, +professional strike-breakers and armed Pinkertons--these are the +things the capitalist class is dumping in front of the tide of +revolution, as though, forsooth, to hold it back. + +The capitalist class is as blind to-day to the menace of the +revolution as it was blind in the past to its own God-given +opportunity. It cannot see how precarious is its position, cannot +comprehend the power and the portent of the revolution. It goes on +its placid way, prattling sweet ideals and dear moralities, and +scrambling sordidly for material benefits. + +No overthrown ruler or class in the past ever considered the +revolution that overthrew it, and so with the capitalist class of to- +day. Instead of compromising, instead of lengthening its lease of +life by conciliation and by removal of some of the harsher +oppressions of the working-class, it antagonizes the working-class, +drives the working-class into revolution. Every broken strike in +recent years, every legally plundered trades-union treasury, every +closed shop made into an open shop, has driven the members of the +working-class directly hurt over to socialism by hundreds and +thousands. Show a working-man that his union fails, and he becomes a +revolutionist. Break a strike with an injunction or bankrupt a union +with a civil suit, and the working-men hurt thereby listen to the +siren song of the socialist and are lost for ever to the POLITICAL +CAPITALIST parties. + +Antagonism never lulled revolution, and antagonism is about all the +capitalist class offers. It is true, it offers some few antiquated +notions which were very efficacious in the past, but which are no +longer efficacious. Fourth-of-July liberty in terms of the +Declaration of Independence and of the French Encyclopaedists is +scarcely apposite to-day. It does not appeal to the working-man who +has had his head broken by a policeman's club, his union treasury +bankrupted by a court decision, or his job taken away from him by a +labour-saving invention. Nor does the Constitution of the United +States appear so glorious and constitutional to the working-man who +has experienced a bull-pen or been unconstitutionally deported from +Colorado. Nor are this particular working-man's hurt feelings +soothed by reading in the newspapers that both the bull-pen and the +deportation were pre-eminently just, legal, and constitutional. "To +hell, then, with the Constitution!" says he, and another +revolutionist has been made--by the capitalist class. + +In short, so blind is the capitalist class that it does nothing to +lengthen its lease of life, while it does everything to shorten it. +The capitalist class offers nothing that is clean, noble, and alive. +The revolutionists offer everything that is clean, noble, and alive. +They offer service, unselfishness, sacrifice, martyrdom--the things +that sting awake the imagination of the people, touching their hearts +with the fervour that arises out of the impulse toward good and which +is essentially religious in its nature. + +But the revolutionists blow hot and blow cold. They offer facts and +statistics, economics and scientific arguments. If the working-man +be merely selfish, the revolutionists show him, mathematically +demonstrate to him, that his condition will be bettered by the +revolution. If the working-man be the higher type, moved by impulses +toward right conduct, if he have soul and spirit, the revolutionists +offer him the things of the soul and the spirit, the tremendous +things that cannot be measured by dollars and cents, nor be held down +by dollars and cents. The revolutionist cries out upon wrong and +injustice, and preaches righteousness. And, most potent of all, he +sings the eternal song of human freedom--a song of all lands and all +tongues and all time. + +Few members of the capitalist class see the revolution. Most of them +are too ignorant, and many are too afraid to see it. It is the same +old story of every perishing ruling class in the world's history. +Fat with power and possession, drunken with success, and made soft by +surfeit and by cessation of struggle, they are like the drones +clustered about the honey vats when the worker-bees spring upon them +to end their rotund existence. + +President Roosevelt vaguely sees the revolution, is frightened by it, +and recoils from seeing it. As he says: "Above all, we need to +remember that any kind of class animosity in the political world is, +if possible, even more wicked, even more destructive to national +welfare, than sectional, race, or religious animosity." + +Class animosity in the political world, President Roosevelt +maintains, is wicked. But class animosity in the political world is +the preachment of the revolutionists. "Let the class wars in the +industrial world continue," they say, "but extend the class war to +the political world." As their leader, Eugene V. Debs says: "So far +as this struggle is concerned, there is no good capitalist and no bad +working-man. Every capitalist is your enemy and every working-man is +your friend." + +Here is class animosity in the political world with a vengeance. And +here is revolution. In 1888 there were only 2,000 revolutionists of +this type in the United States; in 1900 there were 127,000 +revolutionists; in 1904, 435,000 revolutionists. Wickedness of the +President Roosevelt definition evidently flourishes and increases in +the United States. Quite so, for it is the revolution that +flourishes and increases. + +Here and there a member of the capitalist class catches a clear +glimpse of the revolution, and raises a warning cry. But his class +does not heed. President Eliot of Harvard raised such a cry: + +"I am forced to believe there is a present danger of socialism never +before so imminent in America in so dangerous a form, because never +before imminent in so well organized a form. The danger lies in the +obtaining control of the trades-unions by the socialists." And the +capitalist employers, instead of giving heed to the warnings, are +perfecting their strike-breaking organization and combining more +strongly than ever for a general assault upon that dearest of all +things to the trades-unions--the closed shop. In so far as this +assault succeeds, by just that much will the capitalist class shorten +its lease of life. It is the old, old story, over again and over +again. The drunken drones still cluster greedily about the honey +vats. + +Possibly one of the most amusing spectacles of to-day is the attitude +of the American press toward the revolution. It is also a pathetic +spectacle. It compels the onlooker to be aware of a distinct loss of +pride in his species. Dogmatic utterance from the mouth of ignorance +may make gods laugh, but it should make men weep. And the American +editors (in the general instance) are so impressive about it! The +old "divide-up," "men-are-NOT-born-free-and-equal," propositions are +enunciated gravely and sagely, as things white-hot and new from the +forge of human wisdom. Their feeble vapourings show no more than a +schoolboy's comprehension of the nature of the revolution. Parasites +themselves on the capitalist class, serving the capitalist class by +moulding public opinion, they, too, cluster drunkenly about the honey +vats. + +Of course, this is true only of the large majority of American +editors. To say that it is true of all of them would be to cast too +great obloquy upon the human race. Also, it would be untrue, for +here and there an occasional editor does see clearly--and in his +case, ruled by stomach-incentive, is usually afraid to say what he +thinks about it. So far as the science and the sociology of the +revolution are concerned, the average editor is a generation or so +behind the facts. He is intellectually slothful, accepts no facts +until they are accepted by the majority, and prides himself upon his +conservatism. He is an instinctive optimist, prone to believe that +what ought to be, is. The revolutionist gave this up long ago, and +believes not that what ought to be, is, but what is, is, and that it +may not be what it ought to be at all. + +Now and then, rubbing his eyes, vigorously, an editor catches a +sudden glimpse of the revolution and breaks out in naive volubility, +as, for instance, the one who wrote the following in the Chicago +Chronicle: "American socialists are revolutionists. They know that +they are revolutionists. It is high time that other people should +appreciate the fact." A white-hot, brand-new discovery, and he +proceeded to shout it out from the housetops that we, forsooth, were +revolutionists. Why, it is just what we have been doing all these +years--shouting it out from the housetops that we are revolutionists, +and stop us who can. + +The time should be past for the mental attitude: "Revolution is +atrocious. Sir, there is no revolution." Likewise should the time +be past for that other familiar attitude: "Socialism is slavery. +Sir, it will never be." It is no longer a question of dialectics, +theories, and dreams. There is no question about it. The revolution +is a fact. It is here now. Seven million revolutionists, organized, +working day and night, are preaching the revolution--that passionate +gospel, the Brotherhood of Man. Not only is it a cold-blooded +economic propaganda, but it is in essence a religious propaganda with +a fervour in it of Paul and Christ. The capitalist class has been +indicted. It has failed in its management and its management is to +be taken away from it. Seven million men of the working-class say +that they are going to get the rest of the working-class to join with +them and take the management away. The revolution is here, now. +Stop it who can. + +SACRAMENTO RIVER. +March 1905. + + + +THE SOMNAMBULISTS + + + +"'Tis only fools speak evil of the clay - +The very stars are made of clay like mine." + +The mightiest and absurdest sleep-walker on the planet! Chained in +the circle of his own imaginings, man is only too keen to forget his +origin and to shame that flesh of his that bleeds like all flesh and +that is good to eat. Civilization (which is part of the circle of +his imaginings) has spread a veneer over the surface of the soft- +shelled animal known as man. It is a very thin veneer; but so +wonderfully is man constituted that he squirms on his bit of +achievement and believes he is garbed in armour-plate. + +Yet man to-day is the same man that drank from his enemy's skull in +the dark German forests, that sacked cities, and stole his women from +neighbouring clans like any howling aborigine. The flesh-and-blood +body of man has not changed in the last several thousand years. Nor +has his mind changed. There is no faculty of the mind of man to-day +that did not exist in the minds of the men of long ago. Man has to- +day no concept that is too wide and deep and abstract for the mind of +Plato or Aristotle to grasp. Give to Plato or Aristotle the same +fund of knowledge that man to-day has access to, and Plato and +Aristotle would reason as profoundly as the man of to-day and would +achieve very similar conclusions. + +It is the same old animal man, smeared over, it is true, with a +veneer, thin and magical, that makes him dream drunken dreams of +self-exaltation and to sneer at the flesh and the blood of him +beneath the smear. The raw animal crouching within him is like the +earthquake monster pent in the crust of the earth. As he persuades +himself against the latter till it arouses and shakes down a city, so +does he persuade himself against the former until it shakes him out +of his dreaming and he stands undisguised, a brute like any other +brute. + +Starve him, let him miss six meals, and see gape through the veneer +the hungry maw of the animal beneath. Get between him and the female +of his kind upon whom his mating instinct is bent, and see his eyes +blaze like an angry cat's, hear in his throat the scream of wild +stallions, and watch his fists clench like an orang-outang's. Maybe +he will even beat his chest. Touch his silly vanity, which he exalts +into high-sounding pride--call him a liar, and behold the red animal +in him that makes a hand clutching that is quick like the tensing of +a tiger's claw, or an eagle's talon, incarnate with desire to rip and +tear. + +It is not necessary to call him a liar to touch his vanity. Tell a +plains Indian that he has failed to steal horses from the +neighbouring tribe, or tell a man living in bourgeois society that he +has failed to pay his bills at the neighbouring grocer's, and the +results are the same. Each, plains Indian and bourgeois, is smeared +with a slightly different veneer, that is all. It requires a +slightly different stick to scrape it off. The raw animals beneath +are identical. + +But intrude not violently upon man, leave him alone in his +somnambulism, and he kicks out from under his feet the ladder of life +up which he has climbed, constitutes himself the centre of the +universe, dreams sordidly about his own particular god, and maunders +metaphysically about his own blessed immortality. + +True, he lives in a real world, breathes real air, eats real food, +and sleeps under real blankets, in order to keep real cold away. And +there's the rub. He has to effect adjustments with the real world +and at the same time maintain the sublimity of his dream. The result +of this admixture of the real and the unreal is confusion thrice +confounded. The man that walks the real world in his sleep becomes +such a tangled mass of contradictions, paradoxes, and lies that he +has to lie to himself in order to stay asleep. + +In passing, it may be noted that some men are remarkably constituted +in this matter of self-deception. They excel at deceiving +themselves. They believe, and they help others to believe. It +becomes their function in society, and some of them are paid large +salaries for helping their fellow-men to believe, for instance, that +they are not as other animals; for helping the king to believe, and +his parasites and drudges as well, that he is God's own manager over +so many square miles of earth-crust; for helping the merchant and +banking classes to believe that society rests on their shoulders, and +that civilization would go to smash if they got out from under and +ceased from their exploitations and petty pilferings. + +Prize-fighting is terrible. This is the dictum of the man who walks +in his sleep. He prates about it, and writes to the papers about it, +and worries the legislators about it. There is nothing of the brute +about HIM. He is a sublimated soul that treads the heights and +breathes refined ether--in self-comparison with the prize-fighter. +The man who walks in his sleep ignores the flesh and all its +wonderful play of muscle, joint, and nerve. He feels that there is +something godlike in the mysterious deeps of his being, denies his +relationship with the brute, and proceeds to go forth into the world +and express by deeds that something godlike within him. + +He sits at a desk and chases dollars through the weeks and months and +years of his life. To him the life godlike resolves into a problem +something like this: SINCE THE GREAT MASS OF MEN TOIL AT PRODUCING +WEALTH, HOW BEST CAN HE GET BETWEEN THE GREAT MASS OF MEN AND THE +WEALTH THEY PRODUCE, AND GET A SLICE FOR HIMSELF? With tremendous +exercise of craft, deceit, and guile, he devotes his life godlike to +this purpose. As he succeeds, his somnambulism grows profound. He +bribes legislatures, buys judges, "controls" primaries, and then goes +and hires other men to tell him that it is all glorious and right. +And the funniest thing about it is that this arch-deceiver believes +all that they tell him. He reads only the newspapers and magazines +that tell him what he wants to be told, listens only to the +biologists who tell him that he is the finest product of the struggle +for existence, and herds only with his own kind, where, like the +monkey-folk, they teeter up and down and tell one another how great +they are. + +In the course of his life godlike he ignores the flesh--until he gets +to table. He raises his hands in horror at the thought of the +brutish prize-fighter, and then sits down and gorges himself on roast +beef, rare and red, running blood under every sawing thrust of the +implement called a knife. He has a piece of cloth which he calls a +napkin, with which he wipes from his lips, and from the hair on his +lips, the greasy juices of the meat. + +He is fastidiously nauseated at the thought of two prize-fighters +bruising each other with their fists; and at the same time, because +it will cost him some money, he will refuse to protect the machines +in his factory, though he is aware that the lack of such protection +every year mangles, batters, and destroys out of all humanness +thousands of working-men, women, and children. He will chatter about +things refined and spiritual and godlike like himself, and he and the +men who herd with him will calmly adulterate the commodities they put +upon the market and which annually kill tens of thousands of babies +and young children. + +He will recoil at the suggestion of the horrid spectacle of two men +confronting each other with gloved hands in the roped arena, and at +the same time he will clamour for larger armies and larger navies, +for more destructive war machines, which, with a single discharge, +will disrupt and rip to pieces more human beings than have died in +the whole history of prize-fighting. He will bribe a city council +for a franchise or a state legislature for a commercial privilege; +but he has never been known, in all his sleep-walking history, to +bribe any legislative body in order to achieve any moral end, such +as, for instance, abolition of prize-fighting, child-labour laws, +pure food bills, or old age pensions. + +"Ah, but we do not stand for the commercial life," object the +refined, scholarly, and professional men. They are also sleep- +walkers. They do not stand for the commercial life, but neither do +they stand against it with all their strength. They submit to it, to +the brutality and carnage of it. They develop classical economists +who announce that the only possible way for men and women to get food +and shelter is by the existing method. They produce university +professors, men who claim the role of teachers, and who at the same +time claim that the austere ideal of learning is passionless pursuit +of passionless intelligence. They serve the men who lead the +commercial life, give to their sons somnambulistic educations, preach +that sleep-walking is the only way to walk, and that the persons who +walk otherwise are atavisms or anarchists. They paint pictures for +the commercial men, write books for them, sing songs for them, act +plays for them, and dose them with various drugs when their bodies +have grown gross or dyspeptic from overeating and lack of exercise. + +Then there are the good, kind somnambulists who don't prize-fight, +who don't play the commercial game, who don't teach and preach +somnambulism, who don't do anything except live on the dividends that +are coined out of the wan, white fluid that runs in the veins of +little children, out of mothers' tears, the blood of strong men, and +the groans and sighs of the old. The receiver is as bad as the +thief--ay, and the thief is finer than the receiver; he at least has +the courage to run the risk. But the good, kind people who don't do +anything won't believe this, and the assertion will make them angry-- +for a moment. They possess several magic phrases, which are like the +incantations of a voodoo doctor driving devils away. The phrases +that the good, kind people repeat to themselves and to one another +sound like "abstinence," "temperance," "thrift," "virtue." Sometimes +they say them backward, when they sound like "prodigality," +"drunkenness," "wastefulness," and "immorality." They do not really +know the meaning of these phrases, but they think they do, and that +is all that is necessary for somnambulists. The calm repetition of +such phrases invariably drives away the waking devils and lulls to +slumber. + +Our statesmen sell themselves and their country for gold. Our +municipal servants and state legislators commit countless treasons. +The world of graft! The world of betrayal! The world of +somnambulism, whose exalted and sensitive citizens are outraged by +the knockouts of the prize-ring, and who annually not merely knock +out, but kill, thousands of babies and children by means of child +labour and adulterated food. Far better to have the front of one's +face pushed in by the fist of an honest prize-fighter than to have +the lining of one's stomach corroded by the embalmed beef of a +dishonest manufacturer. + +In a prize-fight men are classed. A lightweight fights with a light- +weight; he never fights with a heavy-weight, and foul blows are not +allowed. Yet in the world of the somnambulists, where soar the +sublimated spirits, there are no classes, and foul blows are +continually struck and never disallowed. Only they are not called +foul blows. The world of claw and fang and fist and club has passed +away--so say the somnambulists. A rebate is not an elongated claw. +A Wall Street raid is not a fang slash. Dummy boards of directors +and fake accountings are not foul blows of the fist under the belt. +A present of coal stock by a mine operator to a railroad official is +not a claw rip to the bowels of a rival mine operator. The hundred +million dollars with which a combination beats down to his knees a +man with a million dollars is not a club. The man who walks in his +sleep says it is not a club. So say all of his kind with which he +herds. They gather together and solemnly and gloatingly make and +repeat certain noises that sound like "discretion," "acumen," +"initiative," "enterprise." These noises are especially gratifying +when they are made backward. They mean the same things, but they +sound different. And in either case, forward or backward, the spirit +of the dream is not disturbed. + +When a man strikes a foul blow in the prize-ring the fight is +immediately stopped, he is declared the loser, and he is hissed by +the audience as he leaves the ring. But when a man who walks in his +sleep strikes a foul blow he is immediately declared the victor and +awarded the prize; and amid acclamations he forthwith turns his prize +into a seat in the United States Senate, into a grotesque palace on +Fifth Avenue, and into endowed churches, universities and libraries, +to say nothing of subsidized newspapers, to proclaim his greatness. + +The red animal in the somnambulist will out. He decries the carnal +combat of the prize-ring, and compels the red animal to spiritual +combat. The poisoned lie, the nasty, gossiping tongue, the brutality +of the unkind epigram, the business and social nastiness and +treachery of to-day--these are the thrusts and scratches of the red +animal when the somnambulist is in charge. They are not the upper +cuts and short arm jabs and jolts and slugging blows of the spirit. +They are the foul blows of the spirit that have never been disbarred, +as the foul blows of the prize-ring have been disbarred. (Would it +not be preferable for a man to strike one full on the mouth with his +fist than for him to tell a lie about one, or malign those that are +nearest and dearest?) + +For these are the crimes of the spirit, and, alas! they are so much +more frequent than blows on the mouth. And whosoever exalts the +spirit over the flesh, by his own creed avers that a crime of the +spirit is vastly more terrible than a crime of the flesh. Thus stand +the somnambulists convicted by their own creed--only they are not +real men, alive and awake, and they proceed to mutter magic phrases +that dispel all doubt as to their undiminished and eternal +gloriousness. + +It is well enough to let the ape and tiger die, but it is hardly fair +to kill off the natural and courageous apes and tigers and allow the +spawn of cowardly apes and tigers to live. The prize-fighting apes +and tigers will die all in good time in the course of natural +evolution, but they will not die so long as the cowardly, +somnambulistic apes and tigers club and scratch and slash. This is +not a brief for the prize-fighter. It is a blow of the fist between +the eyes of the somnambulists, teetering up and down, muttering magic +phrases, and thanking God that they are not as other animals. + +GLEN ELLEN, CALIFORNIA. +June 1900. + + + +THE DIGNITY OF DOLLARS + + + +Man is a blind, helpless creature. He looks back with pride upon his +goodly heritage of the ages, and yet obeys unwittingly every mandate +of that heritage; for it is incarnate with him, and in it are +embedded the deepest roots of his soul. Strive as he will, he cannot +escape it--unless he be a genius, one of those rare creations to whom +alone is granted the privilege of doing entirely new and original +things in entirely new and original ways. But the common clay-born +man, possessing only talents, may do only what has been done before +him. At the best, if he work hard, and cherish himself exceedingly, +he may duplicate any or all previous performances of his kind; he may +even do some of them better; but there he stops, the composite hand +of his whole ancestry bearing heavily upon him. + +And again, in the matter of his ideas, which have been thrust upon +him, and which he has been busily garnering from the great world ever +since the day when his eyes first focussed and he drew, startled, +against the warm breast of his mother--the tyranny of these he cannot +shake off. Servants of his will, they at the same time master him. +They may not coerce genius, but they dictate and sway every action of +the clay-born. If he hesitate on the verge of a new departure, they +whip him back into the well-greased groove; if he pause, bewildered, +at sight of some unexplored domain, they rise like ubiquitous finger- +posts and direct him by the village path to the communal meadow. And +he permits these things, and continues to permit them, for he cannot +help them, and he is a slave. Out of his ideas he may weave cunning +theories, beautiful ideals; but he is working with ropes of sand. At +the slightest stress, the last least bit of cohesion flits away, and +each idea flies apart from its fellows, while all clamour that he do +this thing, or think this thing, in the ancient and time-honoured +way. He is only a clay-born; so he bends his neck. He knows further +that the clay-born are a pitiful, pitiless majority, and that he may +do nothing which they do not do. + +It is only in some way such as this that we may understand and +explain the dignity which attaches itself to dollars. In the watches +of the night, we may assure ourselves that there is no such dignity; +but jostling with our fellows in the white light of day, we find that +it does exist, and that we ourselves measure ourselves by the dollars +we happen to possess. They give us confidence and carriage and +dignity--ay, a personal dignity which goes down deeper than the +garments with which we hide our nakedness. The world, when it knows +nothing else of him, measures a man by his clothes; but the man +himself, if he be neither a genius nor a philosopher, but merely a +clay-born, measures himself by his pocket-book. He cannot help it, +and can no more fling it from him than can the bashful young man his +self-consciousness when crossing a ballroom floor. + +I remember once absenting myself from civilization for weary months. +When I returned, it was to a strange city in another country. The +people were but slightly removed from my own breed, and they spoke +the same tongue, barring a certain barbarous accent which I learned +was far older than the one imbibed by me with my mother's milk. A +fur cap, soiled and singed by many camp-fires, half sheltered the +shaggy tendrils of my uncut hair. My foot-gear was of walrus hide, +cunningly blended with seal gut. The remainder of my dress was as +primal and uncouth. I was a sight to give merriment to gods and men. +Olympus must have roared at my coming. The world, knowing me not, +could judge me by my clothes alone. But I refused to be so judged. +My spiritual backbone stiffened, and I held my head high, looking all +men in the eyes. And I did these things, not that I was an egotist, +not that I was impervious to the critical glances of my fellows, but +because of a certain hogskin belt, plethoric and sweat-bewrinkled, +which buckled next the skin above the hips. Oh, it's absurd, I +grant, but had that belt not been so circumstanced, and so situated, +I should have shrunk away into side streets and back alleys, walking +humbly and avoiding all gregarious humans except those who were +likewise abroad without belts. Why? I do not know, save that in +such way did my fathers before me. + +Viewed in the light of sober reason, the whole thing was +preposterous. But I walked down the gang-plank with the mien of a +hero, of a barbarian who knew himself to be greater than the +civilization he invaded. I was possessed of the arrogance of a Roman +governor. At last I knew what it was to be born to the purple, and I +took my seat in the hotel carriage as though it were my chariot about +to proceed with me to the imperial palace. People discreetly dropped +their eyes before my proud gaze, and into their hearts I know I +forced the query, What manner of man can this mortal be? I was +superior to convention, and the very garb which otherwise would have +damned me tended toward my elevation. And all this was due, not to +my royal lineage, nor to the deeds I had done and the champions I had +overthrown, but to a certain hogskin belt buckled next the skin. The +sweat of months was upon it, toil had defaced it, and it was not a +creation such as would appeal to the aesthetic mind; but it was +plethoric. There was the arcanum; each yellow grain conduced to my +exaltation, and the sum of these grains was the sum of my mightiness. +Had they been less, just so would have been my stature; more, and I +should have reached the sky. + +And this was my royal progress through that most loyal city. I +purchased a host of things from the tradespeople, and bought me such +pleasures and diversions as befitted one who had long been denied. I +scattered my gold lavishly, nor did I chaffer over prices in mart or +exchange. And, because of these things I did, I demanded homage. +Nor was it refused. I moved through wind-swept groves of limber +backs; across sunny glades, lighted by the beaming rays from a +thousand obsequious eyes; and when I tired of this, basked on the +greensward of popular approval. Money was very good, I thought, and +for the time was content. But there rushed upon me the words of +Erasmus, "When I get some money I shall buy me some Greek books, and +afterwards some clothes," and a great shame wrapped me around. But, +luckily for my soul's welfare, I reflected and was saved. By the +clearer vision vouchsafed me, I beheld Erasmus, fire-flashing, +heaven-born, while I--I was merely a clay-born, a son of earth. For +a giddy moment I had forgotten this, and tottered. And I rolled over +on my greensward, caught a glimpse of a regiment of undulating backs, +and thanked my particular gods that such moods of madness were +passing brief. + +But on another day, receiving with kingly condescension the service +of my good subjects' backs, I remembered the words of another man, +long since laid away, who was by birth a nobleman, by nature a +philosopher and a gentleman, and who by circumstance yielded up his +head upon the block. "That a man of lead," he once remarked, "who +has no more sense than a log of wood, and is as bad as he is foolish, +should have many wise and good men to serve him, only because he has +a great heap of that metal; and that if, by some accident or trick of +law (which sometimes produces as great changes as chance itself), all +this wealth should pass from the master to the meanest varlet of his +whole family, he himself would very soon become one of his servants, +as if he were a thing that belonged to his wealth, and so was bound +to follow its fortune." + +And when I had remembered this much, I unwisely failed to pause and +reflect. So I gathered my belongings together, cinched my hogskin +belt tight about me, and went away to my own country. It was a very +foolish thing to do. I am sure it was. But when I had recovered my +reason, I fell upon my particular gods and berated them mightily, and +as penance for their watchlessness placed them away amongst dust and +cobwebs. Oh no, not for long. They are again enshrined, as bright +and polished as of yore, and my destiny is once more in their +keeping. + +It is given that travail and vicissitude mark time to man's footsteps +as he stumbles onward toward the grave; and it is well. Without the +bitter one may not know the sweet. The other day--nay, it was but +yesterday--I fell before the rhythm of fortune. The inexorable +pendulum had swung the counter direction, and there was upon me an +urgent need. The hogskin belt was flat as famine, nor did it longer +gird my loins. From my window I could descry, at no great distance, +a very ordinary mortal of a man, working industriously among his +cabbages. I thought: Here am I, capable of teaching him much +concerning the field wherein he labours--the nitrogenic--why of the +fertilizer, the alchemy of the sun, the microscopic cell-structure of +the plant, the cryptic chemistry of root and runner--but thereat he +straightened his work-wearied back and rested. His eyes wandered +over what he had produced in the sweat of his brow, then on to mine. +And as he stood there drearily, he became reproach incarnate. +"Unstable as water," he said (I am sure he did)--"unstable as water, +thou shalt not excel. Man, where are YOUR cabbages?" + +I shrank back. Then I waxed rebellious. I refused to answer the +question. He had no right to ask it, and his presence was an affront +upon the landscape. And a dignity entered into me, and my neck was +stiffened, my head poised. I gathered together certain certificates +of goods and chattels, pointed my heel towards him and his cabbages, +and journeyed townward. I was yet a man. There was naught in those +certificates to be ashamed of. But alack-a-day! While my heels +thrust the cabbage-man beyond the horizon, my toes were drawing me, +faltering, like a timid old beggar, into a roaring spate of humanity- +-men, women, and children without end. They had no concern with me, +nor I with them. I knew it; I felt it. Like She, after her fire- +bath in the womb of the world, I dwindled in my own sight. My feet +were uncertain and heavy, and my soul became as a meal sack, limp +with emptiness and tied in the middle. People looked upon me +scornfully, pitifully, reproachfully. (I can swear they did.) In +every eye I read the question, Man, where are your cabbages? + +So I avoided their looks, shrinking close to the kerbstone and by +furtive glances directing my progress. At last I came hard by the +place, and peering stealthily to the right and left that none who +knew might behold mc, I entered hurriedly, in the manner of one +committing an abomination. 'Fore God! I had done no evil, nor had I +wronged any man, nor did I contemplate evil; yet was I aware of evil. +Why? I do not know, save that there goes much dignity with dollars, +and being devoid of the one I was destitute of the other. The person +I sought practised a profession as ancient as the oracles but far +more lucrative. It is mentioned in Exodus; so it must have been +created soon after the foundations of the world; and despite the +thunder of ecclesiastics and the mailed hand of kings and conquerors, +it has endured even to this day. Nor is it unfair to presume that +the accounts of this most remarkable business will not be closed +until the Trumps of Doom are sounded and all things brought to final +balance. + +Wherefore it was in fear and trembling, and with great modesty of +spirit, that I entered the Presence. To confess that I was shocked +were to do my feelings an injustice. Perhaps the blame may be +shouldered upon Shylock, Fagin, and their ilk; but I had conceived an +entirely different type of individual. This man--why, he was clean +to look at, his eyes were blue, with the tired look of scholarly +lucubrations, and his skin had the normal pallor of sedentary +existence. He was reading a book, sober and leather-bound, while on +his finely moulded, intellectual head reposed a black skull-cap. For +all the world his look and attitude were those of a college +professor. My heart gave a great leap. Here was hope! But no; he +fixed me with a cold and glittering eye, searching with the chill of +space till my financial status stood before him shivering and +ashamed. I communed with myself: By his brow he is a thinker, but +his intellect has been prostituted to a mercenary exaction of toll +from misery. His nerve centres of judgment and will have not been +employed in solving the problems of life, but in maintaining his own +solvency by the insolvency of others. He trades upon sorrow and +draws a livelihood from misfortune. He transmutes tears into +treasure, and from nakedness and hunger garbs himself in clean linen +and develops the round of his belly. He is a bloodsucker and a +vampire. He lays unholy hands on heaven and hell at cent. per cent., +and his very existence is a sacrilege and a blasphemy. And yet here +am I, wilting before him, an arrant coward, with no respect for him +and less for myself. Why should this shame be? Let me rouse in my +strength and smite him, and, by so doing, wipe clean one offensive +page. + +But no. As I said, he fixed me with a cold and glittering eye, and +in it was the aristocrat's undisguised contempt for the canaille. +Behind him was the solid phalanx of a bourgeois society. Law and +order upheld him, while I titubated, cabbageless, on the ragged edge. +Moreover, he was possessed of a formula whereby to extract juice from +a flattened lemon, and he would do business with me. + +I told him my desires humbly, in quavering syllables. In return, he +craved my antecedents and residence, pried into my private life, +insolently demanded how many children had I and did I live in +wedlock, and asked divers other unseemly and degrading questions. +Ay, I was treated like a thief convicted before the act, till I +produced my certificates of goods and chattels aforementioned. Never +had they appeared so insignificant and paltry as then, when he +sniffed over them with the air of one disdainfully doing a +disagreeable task. It is said, "Thou shalt not lend upon usury to +thy brother; usury of money, usury of victuals, usury of anything +that is lent upon usury"; but he evidently was not my brother, for he +demanded seventy per cent. I put my signature to certain indentures, +received my pottage, and fled from his presence. + +Faugh! I was glad to be quit of it. How good the outside air was! +I only prayed that neither my best friend nor my worst enemy should +ever become aware of what had just transpired. Ere I had gone a +block I noticed that the sun had brightened perceptibly, the street +become less sordid, the gutter mud less filthy. In people's eyes the +cabbage question no longer brooded. And there was a spring to my +body, an elasticity of step as I covered the pavement. Within me +coursed an unwonted sap, and I felt as though I were about to burst +out into leaves and buds and green things. My brain was clear and +refreshed. There was a new strength to my arm. My nerves were +tingling and I was a-pulse with the times. All men were my brothers. +Save one--yes, save one. I would go back and wreck the +establishment. I would disrupt that leather-bound volume, violate +that black skullcap, burn the accounts. But before fancy could +father the act, I recollected myself and all which had passed. Nor +did I marvel at my new-horn might, at my ancient dignity which had +returned. There was a tinkling chink as I ran the yellow pieces +through my fingers, and with the golden music rippling round me I +caught a deeper insight into the mystery of things. + +OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA. +February 1900. + + + +GOLIAH + + + +In 1924--to be precise, on the morning of January 3--the city of San +Francisco awoke to read in one of its daily papers a curious letter, +which had been received by Walter Bassett and which had evidently +been written by some crank. Walter Bassett was the greatest captain +of industry west of the Rockies, and was one of the small group that +controlled the nation in everything but name. As such, he was the +recipient of lucubrations from countless cranks; but this particular +lucubration was so different from the average ruck of similar letters +that, instead of putting it into the waste-basket, he had turned it +over to a reporter. It was signed "Goliah," and the superscription +gave his address as "Palgrave Island." The letter was as follows: + + +"MR. WALTER BASSETT, +"DEAR SIR: + +"I am inviting you, with nine of your fellow-captains of industry, to +visit me here on my island for the purpose of considering plans for +the reconstruction of society upon a more rational basis. Up to the +present, social evolution has been a blind and aimless, blundering +thing. The time has come for a change. Man has risen from the +vitalized slime of the primeval sea to the mastery of matter; but he +has not yet mastered society. Man is to-day as much the slave to his +collective stupidity, as a hundred thousand generations ago he was a +slave to matter. + +"There are two theoretical methods whereby man may become the master +of society, and make of society an intelligent and efficacious device +for the pursuit and capture of happiness and laughter. The first +theory advances the proposition that no government can be wiser or +better than the people that compose that government; that reform and +development must spring from the individual; that in so far as the +individuals become wiser and better, by that much will their +government become wiser and better; in short, that the majority of +individuals must become wiser and better, before their government +becomes wiser and better. The mob, the political convention, the +abysmal brutality and stupid ignorance of all concourses of people, +give the lie to this theory. In a mob the collective intelligence +and mercy is that of the least intelligent and most brutal members +that compose the mob. On the other hand, a thousand passengers will +surrender themselves to the wisdom and discretion of the captain, +when their ship is in a storm on the sea. In such matter, he is the +wisest and most experienced among them. + +"The second theory advances the proposition that the majority of the +people are not pioneers, that they are weighted down by the inertia +of the established; that the government that is representative of +them represents only their feebleness, and futility, and brutishness; +that this blind thing called government is not the serf of their +wills, but that they are the serfs of it; in short, speaking always +of the great mass, that they do not make government, but that +government makes them, and that government is and has been a stupid +and awful monster, misbegotten of the glimmerings of intelligence +that come from the inertia-crushed mass. + +"Personally, I incline to the second theory. Also, I am impatient. +For a hundred thousand generations, from the first social groups of +our savage forbears, government has remained a monster. To-day, the +inertia-crushed mass has less laughter in it than ever before. In +spite of man's mastery of matter, human suffering and misery and +degradation mar the fair world. + +"Wherefore I have decided to step in and become captain of this +world-ship for a while. I have the intelligence and the wide vision +of the skilled expert. Also, I have the power. I shall be obeyed. +The men of all the world shall perform my bidding and make +governments so that they shall become laughter-producers. These +modelled governments I have in mind shall not make the people happy, +wise, and noble by decree; but they shall give opportunity for the +people to become happy, wise, and noble. + +"I have spoken. I have invited you, and nine of your fellow- +captains, to confer with me. On March third the yacht Energon will +sail from San Francisco. You are requested to be on board the night +before. This is serious. The affairs of the world must be handled +for a time by a strong hand. Mine is that strong hand. If you fail +to obey my summons, you will die. Candidly, I do not expect that you +will obey. But your death for failure to obey will cause obedience +on the part of those I subsequently summon. You will have served a +purpose. And please remember that I have no unscientific +sentimentality about the value of human life. I carry always in the +background of my consciousness the innumerable billions of lives that +are to laugh and be happy in future aeons on the earth. + +"Yours for the reconstruction of society, + +"GOLIAH." + + +The publication of this letter did not cause even local amusement. +Men might have smiled to themselves as they read it, but it was so +palpably the handiwork of a crank that it did not merit discussion. +Interest did not arouse till next morning. An Associated Press +despatch to the Eastern states, followed by interviews by eager-nosed +reporters, had brought out the names of the other nine captains of +industry who had received similar letters, but who had not thought +the matter of sufficient importance to be made public. But the +interest aroused was mild, and it would have died out quickly had not +Gabberton cartooned a chronic presidential aspirant as "Goliah." +Then came the song that was sung hilariously from sea to sea, with +the refrain, "Goliah will catch you if you don't watch out." + +The weeks passed and the incident was forgotten. Walter Bassett had +forgotten it likewise; but on the evening of February 22, he was +called to the telephone by the Collector of the Port. "I just wanted +to tell you," said the latter, "that the yacht Energon has arrived +and gone to anchor in the stream off Pier Seven." + +What happened that night Walter Bassett has never divulged. But it +is known that he rode down in his auto to the water front, chartered +one of Crowley's launches, and was put aboard the strange yacht. It +is further known that when he returned to the shore, three hours +later, he immediately despatched a sheaf of telegrams to his nine +fellow-captains of industry who had received letters from Goliah. +These telegrams were similarly worded, and read: "The yacht Energon +has arrived. There is something in this. I advise you to come." + +Bassett was laughed at for his pains. It was a huge laugh that went +up (for his telegrams had been made public), and the popular song on +Goliah revived and became more popular than ever. Goliah and Bassett +were cartooned and lampooned unmercifully, the former, as the Old Man +of the Sea, riding on the latter's neck. The laugh tittered and +rippled through clubs and social circles, was restrainedly merry in +the editorial columns, and broke out in loud guffaws in the comic +weeklies. There was a serious side as well, and Bassett's sanity was +gravely questioned by many, and especially by his business +associates. + +Bassett had ever been a short-tempered man, and after he sent the +second sheaf of telegrams to his brother captains, and had been +laughed at again, he remained silent. In this second sheaf he had +said: "Come, I implore you. As you value your life, come." He +arranged all his business affairs for an absence, and on the night of +March 2 went on board the Energon. The latter, properly cleared, +sailed next morning. And next morning the newsboys in every city and +town were crying "Extra." + +In the slang of the day, Goliah had delivered the goods. The nine +captains of industry who had failed to accept his invitation were +dead. A sort of violent disintegration of the tissues was the report +of the various autopsies held on the bodies of the slain +millionaires; yet the surgeons and physicians (the most highly +skilled in the land had participated) would not venture the opinion +that the men had been slain. Much less would they venture the +conclusion, "at the hands of parties unknown." It was all too +mysterious. They were stunned. Their scientific credulity broke +down. They had no warrant in the whole domain of science for +believing that an anonymous person on Palgrave Island had murdered +the poor gentlemen. + +One thing was quickly learned, however; namely, that Palgrave Island +was no myth. It was charted and well known to all navigators, lying +on the line of 160 west longitude, right at its intersection by the +tenth parallel north latitude, and only a few miles away from Diana +Shoal. Like Midway and Fanning, Palgrave Island was isolated, +volcanic and coral in formation. Furthermore, it was uninhabited. A +survey ship, in 1887, had visited the place and reported the +existence of several springs and of a good harbour that was very +dangerous of approach. And that was all that was known of the tiny +speck of land that was soon to have focussed on it the awed attention +of the world. + +Goliah remained silent till March 24. On the morning of that day, +the newspapers published his second letter, copies of which had been +received by the ten chief politicians of the United States--ten +leading men in the political world who were conventionally known as +"statesmen." The letter, with the same superscription as before, was +as follows: + + +"DEAR SIR: + +"I have spoken in no uncertain tone. I must be obeyed. You may +consider this an invitation or a summons; but if you still wish to +tread this earth and laugh, you will be aboard the yacht Energon, in +San Francisco harbour, not later than the evening of April 5. It is +my wish and my will that you confer with me here on Palgrave Island +in the matter of reconstructing society upon some rational basis. + +"Do not misunderstand me, when I tell you that I am one with a +theory. I want to see that theory work, and therefore I call upon +your cooperation. In this theory of mine, lives are but pawns; I +deal with quantities of lives. I am after laughter, and those that +stand in the way of laughter must perish. The game is big. There +are fifteen hundred million human lives to-day on the planet. What +is your single life against them? It is as naught, in my theory. +And remember that mine is the power. Remember that I am a scientist, +and that one life, or one million of lives, mean nothing to me as +arrayed against the countless billions of billions of the lives of +the generations to come. It is for their laughter that I seek to +reconstruct society now; and against them your own meagre little life +is a paltry thing indeed. + +"Whoso has power can command his fellows. By virtue of that military +device known as the phalanx, Alexander conquered his bit of the +world. By virtue of that chemical device, gunpowder, Cortes with his +several hundred cut-throats conquered the empire of the Montezumas. +Now I am in possession of a device that is all my own. In the course +of a century not more than half a dozen fundamental discoveries or +inventions are made. I have made such an invention. The possession +of it gives me the mastery of the world. I shall use this invention, +not for commercial exploitation, but for the good of humanity. For +that purpose I want help--willing agents, obedient hands; and I am +strong enough to compel the service. I am taking the shortest way, +though I am in no hurry. I shall not clutter my speed with haste. + +"The incentive of material gain developed man from the savage to the +semi-barbarian he is today. This incentive has been a useful device +for the development of the human; but it has now fulfilled its +function and is ready to be cast aside into the scrap-heap of +rudimentary vestiges such as gills in the throat and belief in the +divine right of kings. Of course you do not think so; but I do not +see that that will prevent you from aiding me to fling the +anachronism into the scrap-heap. For I tell you now that the time +has come when mere food and shelter and similar sordid things shall +be automatic, as free and easy and involuntary of access as the air. +I shall make them automatic, what of my discovery and the power that +discovery gives me. And with food and shelter automatic, the +incentive of material gain passes away from the world for ever. With +food and shelter automatic, the higher incentives will universally +obtain--the spiritual, aesthetic, and intellectual incentives that +will tend to develop and make beautiful and noble body, mind, and +spirit. Then all the world will be dominated by happiness and +laughter. It will be the reign of universal laughter. + +"Yours for that day, + +"GOLIAH." + + +Still the world would not believe. The ten politicians were at +Washington, so that they did not have the opportunity of being +convinced that Bassett had had, and not one of them took the trouble +to journey out to San Francisco to make the opportunity. As for +Goliah, he was hailed by the newspapers as another Tom Lawson with a +panacea; and there were specialists in mental disease who, by +analysis of Goliah's letters, proved conclusively that he was a +lunatic. + +The yacht Energon arrived in the harbour of San Francisco on the +afternoon of April 5, and Bassett came ashore. But the Energon did +not sail next day, for not one of the ten summoned politicians had +elected to make the journey to Palgrave Island. The newsboys, +however, called "Extra" that day in all the cities. The ten +politicians were dead. The yacht, lying peacefully at anchor in the +harbour, became the centre of excited interest. She was surrounded +by a flotilla of launches and rowboats, and many tugs and steamboats +ran excursions to her. While the rabble was firmly kept off, the +proper authorities and even reporters were permitted to board her. +The mayor of San Francisco and the chief of police reported that +nothing suspicious was to be seen upon her, and the port authorities +announced that her papers were correct and in order in every detail. +Many photographs and columns of descriptive matter were run in the +newspapers. + +The crew was reported to be composed principally of Scandinavians-- +fair-haired, blue-eyed Swedes, Norwegians afflicted with the +temperamental melancholy of their race, stolid Russian Finns, and a +slight sprinkling of Americans and English. It was noted that there +was nothing mercurial and flyaway about them. They seemed weighty +men, oppressed by a sad and stolid bovine-sort of integrity. A sober +seriousness and enormous certitude characterized all of them. They +appeared men without nerves and without fear, as though upheld by +some overwhelming power or carried in the hollow of some superhuman +hand. The captain, a sad-eyed, strong-featured American, was +cartooned in the papers as "Gloomy Gus" (the pessimistic hero of the +comic supplement). + +Some sea-captain recognized the Energon as the yacht Scud, once owned +by Merrivale of the New York Yacht Club. With this clue it was soon +ascertained that the Scud had disappeared several years before. The +agent who sold her reported the purchaser to be merely another agent, +a man he had seen neither before nor since. The yacht had been +reconstructed at Duffey's Shipyard in New Jersey. The change in her +name and registry occurred at that time and had been legally +executed. Then the Energon had disappeared in the shroud of mystery. + +In the meantime, Bassett was going crazy--at least his friends and +business associates said so. He kept away from his vast business +enterprises and said that he must hold his hands until the other +masters of the world could join with him in the reconstruction of +society--proof indubitable that Goliah's bee had entered his bonnet. +To reporters he had little to say. He was not at liberty, he said, +to relate what he had seen on Palgrave Island; but he could assure +them that the matter was serious, the most serious thing that had +ever happened. His final word was that, the world was on the verge +of a turnover, for good or ill he did not know, but, one way or the +other, he was absolutely convinced that the turnover was coming. As +for business, business could go hang. He had seen things, he had, +and that was all there was to it. + +There was a great telegraphing, during this period, between the local +Federal officials and the state and war departments at Washington. A +secret attempt was made late one afternoon to board the Energon and +place the captain under arrest--the Attorney-General having given the +opinion that the captain could be held for the murder of the ten +"statesmen." The government launch was seen to leave Meigg's Wharf +and steer for the Energon, and that was the last ever seen of the +launch and the men on board of it. The government tried to keep the +affair hushed up, but the cat was slipped out of the bag by the +families of the missing men, and the papers were filled with +monstrous versions of the affair. + +The government now proceeded to extreme measures. The battleship +Alaska was ordered to capture the strange yacht, or, failing that, to +sink her. These were secret instructions; but thousands of eyes, +from the water front and from the shipping in the harbour, witnessed +what happened that afternoon. The battleship got under way and +steamed slowly toward the Energon. At half a mile distant the +battleship blew up--simply blew up, that was all, her shattered frame +sinking to the bottom of the bay, a riff-raff of wreckage and a few +survivors strewing the surface. Among the survivors was a young +lieutenant who had had charge of the wireless on board the Alaska. +The reporters got hold of him first, and he talked. No sooner had +the Alaska got under way, he said, than a message was received from +the Energon. It was in the international code, and it was a warning +to the Alaska to come no nearer than half a mile. He had sent the +message, through the speaking tube, immediately to the captain. He +did not know anything more, except that the Energon twice repeated +the message and that five minutes afterward the explosion occurred. +The captain of the Alaska had perished with his ship, and nothing +more was to be learned. + +The Energon, however, promptly hoisted anchor and cleared out to sea. +A great clamour was raised by the papers; the government was charged +with cowardice and vacillation in its dealings with a mere pleasure +yacht and a lunatic who called himself "Goliah," and immediate and +decisive action was demanded. Also, a great cry went up about the +loss of life, especially the wanton killing of the ten "statesmen." +Goliah promptly replied. In fact, so prompt was his reply that the +experts in wireless telegraphy announced that, since it was +impossible to send wireless messages so great a distance, Goliah was +in their very midst and not on Palgrave Island. Goliah's letter was +delivered to the Associated Press by a messenger boy who had been +engaged on the street. The letter was as follows: + + +"What are a few paltry lives? In your insane wars you destroy +millions of lives and think nothing of it. In your fratricidal +commercial struggle you kill countless babes, women, and men, and you +triumphantly call the shambles 'individualism.' I call it anarchy. +I am going to put a stop to your wholesale destruction of human +beings. I want laughter, not slaughter. Those of you who stand in +the way of laughter will get slaughter. + +"Your government is trying to delude you into believing that the +destruction of the Alaska was an accident. Know here and now that it +was by my orders that the Alaska was destroyed. In a few short +months, all battleships on all seas will be destroyed or flung to the +scrap-heap, and all nations shall disarm; fortresses shall be +dismantled, armies disbanded, and warfare shall cease from the earth. +Mine is the power. I am the will of God. The whole world shall be +in vassalage to me, but it shall be a vassalage of peace. + +"I am + +GOLIAH." + + +"Blow Palgrave Island out of the water!" was the head-line retort of +the newspapers. The government was of the same frame of mind, and +the assembling of the fleets began. Walter Bassett broke out in +ineffectual protest, but was swiftly silenced by the threat of a +lunacy commission. Goliah remained silent. Against Palgrave Island +five great fleets were hurled--the Asiatic Squadron, the South +Pacific Squadron, the North Pacific Squadron, the Caribbean Squadron, +and half of the North Atlantic Squadron, the two latter coming +through the Panama Canal. + +"I have the honour to report that we sighted Palgrave Island on the +evening of April 29," ran the report of Captain Johnson, of the +battleship North Dakota, to the Secretary of the Navy. "The Asiatic +Squadron was delayed and did not arrive until the morning of April +30. A council of the admirals was held, and it was decided to attack +early next morning. The destroyer, Swift VII, crept in, unmolested, +and reported no warlike preparations on the island. It noted several +small merchant steamers in the harbour, and the existence of a small +village in a hopelessly exposed position that could be swept by our +fire. + +"It had been decided that all the vessels should rush in, scattered, +upon the island, opening fire at three miles, and continuing to the +edge of the reef, there to retain loose formation and engage. +Palgrave Island repeatedly warned us, by wireless, in the +international code, to keep outside the ten-mile limit; but no heed +was paid to the warnings. + +"The North Dakota did not take part in the movement of the morning of +May 1. This was due to a slight accident of the preceding night that +temporarily disabled her steering-gear. The morning of May 1 broke +clear and calm. There was a slight breeze from the south-west that +quickly died away. The North Dakota lay twelve miles off the island. +At the signal the squadrons charged in upon the island, from all +sides, at full speed. Our wireless receiver continued to tick off +warnings from the island. The ten-mile limit was passed, and nothing +happened. I watched through my glasses. At five miles nothing +happened; at four miles nothing happened; at three miles, the New +York, in the lead on our side of the island, opened fire. She fired +only one shot. Then she blew up. The rest of the vessels never +fired a shot. They began to blow up, everywhere, before our eyes. +Several swerved about and started back, but they failed to escape. +The destroyer, Dart XXX, nearly made the ten-mile limit when she blew +up. She was the last survivor. No harm came to the North Dakota, +and that night, the steering-gear being repaired, I gave orders to +sail for San Francisco." + +To say that the United States was stunned is but to expose the +inadequacy of language. The whole world was stunned. It confronted +that blight of the human brain, the unprecedented. Human endeavour +was a jest, a monstrous futility, when a lunatic on a lonely island, +who owned a yacht and an exposed village, could destroy five of the +proudest fleets of Christendom. And how had he done it? Nobody +knew. The scientists lay down in the dust of the common road and +wailed and gibbered. They did not know. Military experts committed +suicide by scores. The mighty fabric of warfare they had fashioned +was a gossamer veil rent asunder by a miserable lunatic. It was too +much for their sanity. Mere human reason could not withstand the +shock. As the savage is crushed by the sleight-of-hand of the witch +doctor, so was the world crushed by the magic of Goliah. How did he +do it? It was the awful face of the Unknown upon which the world +gazed and by which it was frightened out of the memory of its +proudest achievements. + +But all the world was not stunned. There was the invariable +exception--the Island Empire of Japan. Drunken with the wine of +success deep-quaffed, without superstition and without faith in aught +but its own ascendant star, laughing at the wreckage of science and +mad with pride of race, it went forth upon the way of war. America's +fleets had been destroyed. From the battlements of heaven the +multitudinous ancestral shades of Japan leaned down. The +opportunity, God-given, had come. The Mikado was in truth a brother +to the gods. + +The war-monsters of Japan were loosed in mighty fleets. The +Philippines were gathered in as a child gathers a nosegay. It took +longer for the battleships to travel to Hawaii, to Panama, and to the +Pacific Coast. The United States was panic-stricken, and there arose +the powerful party of dishonourable peace. In the midst of the +clamour the Energon arrived in San Francisco Bay and Goliah spoke +once more. There was a little brush as the Energon came in, and a +few explosions of magazines occurred along the war-tunnelled hills as +the coast defences went to smash. Also, the blowing up of the +submarine mines in the Golden Gate made a remarkably fine display. +Goliah's message to the people of San Francisco, dated as usual from +Palgrave Island, was published in the papers. It ran: + + +"Peace? Peace be with you. You shall have peace. I have spoken to +this purpose before. And give you me peace. Leave my yacht Energon +alone. Commit one overt act against her and not one stone in San +Francisco shall stand upon another. + +"To-morrow let all good citizens go out upon the hills that slope +down to the sea. Go with music and laughter and garlands. Make +festival for the new age that is dawning. Be like children upon your +hills, and witness the passing of war. Do not miss the opportunity. +It is your last chance to behold what henceforth you will be +compelled to seek in museums of antiquities. + +"I promise you a merry day, + +"GOLIAH." + + +The madness of magic was in the air. With the people it was as if +all their gods had crashed and the heavens still stood. Order and +law had passed away from the universe; but the sun still shone, the +wind still blew, the flowers still bloomed--that was the amazing +thing about it. That water should continue to run downhill was a +miracle. All the stabilities of the human mind and human achievement +were crumbling. The one stable thing that remained was Goliah, a +madman on an island. And so it was that the whole population of San +Francisco went forth next day in colossal frolic upon the hills that +overlooked the sea. Brass bands and banners went forth, brewery +wagons and Sunday-school picnics--all the strange heterogeneous +groupings of swarming metropolitan life. + +On the sea-rim rose the smoke from the funnels of a hundred hostile +vessels of war, all converging upon the helpless, undefended Golden +Gate. And not all undefended, for out through the Golden Gate moved +the Energon, a tiny toy of white, rolling like a straw in the stiff +sea on the bar where a strong ebb-tide ran in the teeth of the summer +sea-breeze. But the Japanese were cautious. Their thirty- and +forty-thousand-ton battleships slowed down half a dozen miles +offshore and manoeuvred in ponderous evolutions, while tiny scout- +boats (lean, six-funnelled destroyers) ran in, cutting blackly the +flashing sea like so many sharks. But, compared with the Energon, +they were leviathans. Compared with them, the Energon was as the +sword of the arch-angel Michael, and they the forerunners of the +hosts of hell. + +But the flashing of the sword, the good people of San Francisco, +gathered on her hills, never saw. Mysterious, invisible, it cleaved +the air and smote the mightiest blows of combat the world had ever +witnessed. The good people of San Francisco saw little and +understood less. They saw only a million and a half tons of brine- +cleaving, thunder-flinging fabrics hurled skyward and smashed back in +ruin to sink into the sea. It was all over in five minutes. +Remained upon the wide expanse of sea only the Energon, rolling white +and toylike on the bar. + +Goliah spoke to the Mikado and the Elder Statesmen. It was only an +ordinary cable message, despatched from San Francisco by the captain +of the Energon, but it was of sufficient moment to cause the +immediate withdrawal of Japan from the Philippines and of her +surviving fleets from the sea. Japan the sceptical was converted. +She had felt the weight of Goliah's arm. And meekly she obeyed when +Goliah commanded her to dismantle her war vessels and to turn the +metal into useful appliances for the arts of peace. In all the +ports, navy-yards, machine-shops, and foundries of Japan tens of +thousands of brown-skinned artisans converted the war-monsters into +myriads of useful things, such as ploughshares (Goliah insisted on +ploughshares), gasolene engines, bridge-trusses, telephone and +telegraph wires, steel rails, locomotives, and rolling stock for +railways. It was a world-penance for a world to see, and paltry +indeed it made appear that earlier penance, barefooted in the snow, +of an emperor to a pope for daring to squabble over temporal power. + +Goliah's next summons was to the ten leading scientists of the United +States. This time there was no hesitancy in obeying. The savants +were ludicrously prompt, some of them waiting in San Francisco for +weeks so as not to miss the scheduled sailing-date. They departed on +the Energon on June 15; and while they were on the sea, on the way to +Palgrave Island, Goliah performed another spectacular feat. Germany +and France were preparing to fly at each other's throats. Goliah +commanded peace. They ignored the command, tacitly agreeing to fight +it out on land where it seemed safer for the belligerently inclined. +Goliah set the date of June 19 for the cessation of hostile +preparations. Both countries mobilized their armies on June 18, and +hurled them at the common frontier. And on June 19, Goliah struck. +All generals, war-secretaries, and jingo-leaders in the two countries +died on that day; and that day two vast armies, undirected, like +strayed sheep, walked over each other's frontiers and fraternized. +But the great German war lord had escaped--it was learned, afterward, +by hiding in the huge safe where were stored the secret archives of +his empire. And when he emerged he was a very penitent war lord, and +like the Mikado of Japan he was set to work beating his sword-blades +into ploughshares and pruning-hooks. + +But in the escape of the German Emperor was discovered a great +significance. The scientists of the world plucked up courage, got +back their nerve. One thing was conclusively evident--Goliah's power +was not magic. Law still reigned in the universe. Goliah's power +had limitations, else had the German Emperor not escaped by secretly +hiding in a steel safe. Many learned articles on the subject +appeared in the magazines. + +The ten scientists arrived back from Palgrave Island on July 6. +Heavy platoons of police protected them from the reporters. No, they +had not see Goliah, they said in the one official interview that was +vouchsafed; but they had talked with him, and they had seen things. +They were not permitted to state definitely all that they had seen +and heard, but they could say that the world was about to be +revolutionized. Goliah was in the possession of a tremendous +discovery that placed all the world at his mercy, and it was a good +thing for the world that Goliah was merciful. The ten scientists +proceeded directly to Washington on a special train, where, for days, +they were closeted with the heads of government, while the nation +hung breathless on the outcome. + +But the outcome was a long time in arriving. From Washington the +President issued commands to the masters and leading figures of the +nation. Everything was secret. Day by day deputations of bankers, +railway lords, captains of industry, and Supreme Court justices +arrived; and when they arrived they remained. The weeks dragged on, +and then, on August 25, began the famous issuance of proclamations. +Congress and the Senate co-operated with the President in this, while +the Supreme Court justices gave their sanction and the money lords +and the captains of industry agreed. War was declared upon the +capitalist masters of the nation. Martial law was declared over the +whole United States. The supreme power was vested in the President. + +In one day, child-labour in the whole country was abolished. It was +done by decree, and the United States was prepared with its army to +enforce its decrees. In the same day all women factory workers were +dismissed to their homes, and all the sweat-shops were closed. "But +we cannot make profits!" wailed the petty capitalists. "Fools!" was +the retort of Goliah. "As if the meaning of life were profits! Give +up your businesses and your profit-mongering." "But there is nobody +to buy our business!" they wailed. "Buy and sell--is that all the +meaning life has for you?" replied Goliah. "You have nothing to +sell. Turn over your little cut-throating, anarchistic businesses to +the government so that they may be rationally organized and +operated." And the next day, by decree, the government began taking +possession of all factories, shops, mines, ships, railroads, and +producing lands. + +The nationalization of the means of production and distribution went +on apace. Here and there were sceptical capitalists of moment. They +were made prisoners and haled to Palgrave Island, and when they +returned they always acquiesced in what the government was doing. A +little later the journey to Palgrave Island became unnecessary. When +objection was made, the reply of the officials was "Goliah has +spoken"--which was another way of saying, "He must be obeyed." + +The captains of industry became heads of departments. It was found +that civil engineers, for instance, worked just as well in government +employ as before, they had worked in private employ. It was found +that men of high executive ability could not violate their nature. +They could not escape exercising their executive ability, any more +than a crab could escape crawling or a bird could escape flying. And +so it was that all the splendid force of the men who had previously +worked for themselves was now put to work for the good of society. +The half-dozen great railway chiefs co-operated in the organizing of +a national system of railways that was amazingly efficacious. Never +again was there such a thing as a car shortage. These chiefs were +not the Wall Street railway magnates, but they were the men who +formerly had done the real work while in the employ of the Wall +Street magnates. + +Wall Street was dead. There was no more buying and selling and +speculating. Nobody had anything to buy or sell. There was nothing +in which to speculate. "Put the stock gamblers to work," said +Goliah; "give those that are young, and that so desire, a chance to +learn useful trades." "Put the drummers, and salesmen, and +advertising agents, and real estate agents to work," said Goliah; and +by hundreds of thousands the erstwhile useless middlemen and +parasites went into useful occupations. The four hundred thousand +idle gentlemen of the country who had lived upon incomes were +likewise put to work. Then there were a lot of helpless men in high +places who were cleared out, the remarkable thing about this being +that they were cleared out by their own fellows. Of this class were +the professional politicians, whose wisdom and power consisted of +manipulating machine politics and of grafting. There was no longer +any graft. Since there were no private interests to purchase special +privileges, no bribes were offered to legislators, and legislators +for the first time legislated for the people. The result was that +men who were efficient, not in corruption, but in direction, found +their way into the legislatures. + +With this rational organization of society amazing results were +brought about. The national day's work was eight hours, and yet +production increased. In spite of the great permanent improvements +and of the immense amount of energy consumed in systematizing the +competitive chaos of society, production doubled and tripled upon +itself. The standard of living increased, and still consumption +could not keep up with production. The maximum working age was +decreased to fifty years, to forty-nine years, and to forty-eight +years. The minimum working age went up from sixteen years to +eighteen years. The eight-hour day became a seven-hour day, and in a +few months the national working day was reduced to five hours. + +In the meantime glimmerings were being caught, not of the identity of +Goliah, but of how he had worked and prepared for his assuming +control of the world. Little things leaked out, clues were followed +up, apparently unrelated things were pieced together. Strange +stories of blacks stolen from Africa were remembered, of Chinese and +Japanese contract coolies who had mysteriously disappeared, of lonely +South Sea Islands raided and their inhabitants carried away; stories +of yachts and merchant steamers, mysteriously purchased, that had +disappeared and the descriptions of which remotely tallied with the +crafts that had carried the Orientals and Africans and islanders +away. Where had Goliah got the sinews of war? was the question. And +the surmised answer was: By exploiting these stolen labourers. It +was they that lived in the exposed village on Palgrave Island. It +was the product of their toil that had purchased the yachts and +merchant steamers and enabled Goliah's agents to permeate society and +carry out his will. And what was the product of their toil that had +given Goliah the wealth necessary to realize his plans? Commercial +radium, the newspapers proclaimed; and radiyte, and radiosole, and +argatium, and argyte, and the mysterious golyte (that had proved so +valuable in metallurgy). These were the new compounds, discovered in +the first decade of the twentieth century, the commercial and +scientific use of which had become so enormous in the second decade. + +The line of fruit boats that ran from Hawaii to San Francisco was +declared to be the property of Goliah. This was a surmise, for no +other owner could be discovered, and the agents who handled the +shipments of the fruit boats were only agents. Since no one else +owned the fruit boats, then Goliah must own them. The point of which +is: THAT IT LEAKED OUT THAT THE MAJOR PORTION of THE WORLD'S SUPPLY +IN THESE PRECIOUS COMPOUNDS WAS BROUGHT TO SAN FRANCISCO BY THOSE +VERY FRUIT BOATS. That the whole chain of surmise was correct was +proved in later years when Goliah's slaves were liberated and +honourably pensioned by the international government of the world. +It was at that time that the seal of secrecy was lifted from the lips +of his agents and higher emissaries, and those that chose revealed +much of the mystery of Goliah's organization and methods. His +destroying angels, however, remained for ever dumb. Who the men were +who went forth to the high places and killed at his bidding will be +unknown to the end of time--for kill they did, by means of that very +subtle and then-mysterious force that Goliah had discovered and named +"Energon." + +But at that time Energon, the little giant that was destined to do +the work of the world, was unknown and undreamed of. Only Goliah +knew, and he kept his secret well. Even his agents, who were armed +with it, and who, in the case of the yacht Energon, destroyed a +mighty fleet of war-ships by exploding their magazines, knew not what +the subtle and potent force was, nor how it was manufactured. They +knew only one of its many uses, and in that one use they had been +instructed by Goliah. It is now well known that radium, and radiyte, +and radiosole, and all the other compounds, were by-products of the +manufacture of Energon by Goliah from the sunlight; but at that time +nobody knew what Energon was, and Goliah continued to awe and rule +the world. + +One of the uses of Energon was in wireless telegraphy. It was by its +means that Goliah was able to communicate with his agents all over +the world. At that time the apparatus required by an agent was so +clumsy that it could not be packed in anything less than a fair-sized +steamer trunk. To-day, thanks to the improvements of Hendsoll, the +perfected apparatus can be carried in a coat pocket. + +It was in December, 1924, that Goliah sent out his famous "Christmas +Letter," part of the text of which is here given: + + +"So far, while I have kept the rest of the nations from each other's +throats, I have devoted myself particularly to the United States. +Now I have not given to the people of the United States a rational +social organization. What I have done has been to compel them to +make that organization themselves. There is more laughter in the +United States these days, and there is more sense. Food and shelter +are no longer obtained by the anarchistic methods of so-called +individualism but are now wellnigh automatic. And the beauty of it +is that the people of the United States have achieved all this for +themselves. I did not achieve it for them. I repeat, they achieved +it for themselves. All that I did was to put the fear of death in +the hearts of the few that sat in the high places and obstructed the +coming of rationality and laughter. The fear of death made those in +the high places get out of the way, that was all, and gave the +intelligence of man a chance to realize itself socially. + +"In the year that is to come I shall devote myself to the rest of the +world. I shall put the fear of death in the hearts of all that sit +in the high places in all the nations. And they will do as they have +done in the United States--get down out of the high places and give +the intelligence of man a chance for social rationality. All the +nations shall tread the path the United States is now on. + +"And when all the nations are well along on that path, I shall have +something else for them. But first they must travel that path for +themselves. They must demonstrate that the intelligence of mankind +to-day, with the mechanical energy now at its disposal, is capable of +organizing society so that food and shelter be made automatic, labour +be reduced to a three-hour day, and joy and laughter be made +universal. And when that is accomplished, not by me but by the +intelligence of mankind, then I shall make a present to the world of +a new mechanical energy. This is my discovery. This Energon is +nothing more nor less than the cosmic energy that resides in the +solar rays. When it is harnessed by mankind it will do the work of +the world. There will be no more multitudes of miners slaving out +their lives in the bowels of the earth, no more sooty firemen and +greasy engineers. All may dress in white if they so will. The work +of life will have become play and young and old will be the children +of joy, and the business of living will become joy; and they will +compete, one with another, in achieving ethical concepts and +spiritual heights, in fashioning pictures and songs, and stories, in +statecraft and beauty craft, in the sweat and the endeavour of the +wrestler and the runner and the player of games--all will compete, +not for sordid coin and base material reward, but for the joy that +shall be theirs in the development and vigour of flesh and in the +development and keenness of spirit. All will be joy-smiths, and +their task shall be to beat out laughter from the ringing anvil of +life. + +"And now one word for the immediate future. On New Year's Day all +nations shall disarm, all fortresses and war-ships shall be +dismantled, and all armies shall be disbanded. + +GOLIAH." + + +On New Year's Day all the world disarmed. The millions of soldiers +and sailors and workmen in the standing armies, in the navies, and in +the countless arsenals, machine-shops, and factories for the +manufacture of war machinery, were dismissed to their homes. These +many millions of men, as well as their costly war machinery, had +hitherto been supported on the back of labour. They now went into +useful occupations, and the released labour giant heaved a mighty +sigh of relief. The policing of the world was left to the peace +officers and was purely social, whereas war had been distinctly anti- +social. + +Ninety per cent. of the crimes against society had been crimes +against private property. With the passing of private property, at +least in the means of production, and with the organization of +industry that gave every man a chance, the crimes against private +property practically ceased. The police forces everywhere were +reduced repeatedly and again and again. Nearly all occasional and +habitual criminals ceased voluntarily from their depredations. There +was no longer any need for them to commit crime. They merely changed +with changing conditions. A smaller number of criminals was put into +hospitals and cured. And the remnant of the hopelessly criminal and +degenerate was segregated. And the courts in all countries were +likewise decreased in number again and again. Ninety-five per cent. +of all civil cases had been squabbles over property, conflicts of +property-rights, lawsuits, contests of wills, breaches of contract, +bankruptcies, etc. With the passing of private property, this +ninety-five per cent. of the cases that cluttered the courts also +passed. The courts became shadows, attenuated ghosts, rudimentary +vestiges of the anarchistic times that had preceded the coming of +Goliah. + +The year 1925 was a lively year in the world's history. Goliah ruled +the world with a strong hand. Kings and emperors journeyed to +Palgrave Island, saw the wonders of Energon, and went away, with the +fear of death in their hearts, to abdicate thrones and crowns and +hereditary licenses. When Goliah spoke to politicians (so-called +"statesmen"), they obeyed . . . or died. He dictated universal +reforms, dissolved refractory parliaments, and to the great +conspiracy that was formed of mutinous money lords and captains of +industry he sent his destroying angels. "The time is past for +fooling," he told them. "You are anachronisms. You stand in the way +of humanity. To the scrap-heap with you." To those that protested, +and they were many, he said: "This is no time for logomachy. You +can argue for centuries. It is what you have done in the past. I +have no time for argument. Get out of the way." + +With the exception of putting a stop to war, and of indicating the +broad general plan, Goliah did nothing. By putting the fear of death +into the hearts of those that sat in the high places and obstructed +progress, Goliah made the opportunity for the unshackled intelligence +of the best social thinkers of the world to exert itself. Goliah +left all the multitudinous details of reconstruction to these social +thinkers. He wanted them to prove that they were able to do it, and +they proved it. It was due to their initiative that the white plague +was stamped out from the world. It was due to them, and in spite of +a deal of protesting from the sentimentalists, that all the extreme +hereditary inefficients were segregated and denied marriage. + +Goliah had nothing whatever to do with the instituting of the +colleges of invention. This idea originated practically +simultaneously in the minds of thousands of social thinkers. The +time was ripe for the realization of the idea, and everywhere arose +the splendid institutions of invention. For the first time the +ingenuity of man was loosed upon the problem of simplifying life, +instead of upon the making of money-earning devices. The affairs of +life, such as house-cleaning, dish and window-washing, dust-removing, +and scrubbing and clothes-washing, and all the endless sordid and +necessary details, were simplified by invention until they became +automatic. We of to-day cannot realize the barbarously filthy and +slavish lives of those that lived prior to 1925. + +The international government of the world was another idea that +sprang simultaneously into the minds of thousands. The successful +realization of this idea was a surprise to many, but as a surprise it +was nothing to that received by the mildly protestant sociologists +and biologists when irrefutable facts exploded the doctrine of +Malthus. With leisure and joy in the world; with an immensely higher +standard of living; and with the enormous spaciousness of opportunity +for recreation, development, and pursuit of beauty and nobility and +all the higher attributes, the birth-rate fell, and fell +astoundingly. People ceased breeding like cattle. And better than +that, it was immediately noticeable that a higher average of children +was being born. The doctrine of Malthus was knocked into a cocked +hat--or flung to the scrap-heap, as Goliah would have put it. + +All that Goliah had predicted that the intelligence of mankind could +accomplish with the mechanical energy at its disposal, came to pass. +Human dissatisfaction practically disappeared. The elderly people +were the great grumblers; but when they were honourably pensioned by +society, as they passed the age limit for work, the great majority +ceased grumbling. They found themselves better off in their idle old +days under the new regime, enjoying vastly more pleasure and comforts +than they had in their busy and toilsome youth under the old regime. +The younger generation had easily adapted itself too the changed +order, and the very young had never known anything else. The sum of +human happiness had increased enormously. The world had become gay +and sane. Even the old fogies of professors of sociology, who had +opposed with might and main the coming of the new regime, made no +complaint. They were a score of times better remunerated than in the +old days, and they were not worked nearly so hard. Besides, they +were busy revising sociology and writing new text-books on the +subject. Here and there, it is true, there were atavisms, men who +yearned for the flesh-pots and cannibal-feasts of the old alleged +"individualism," creatures long of teeth and savage of claw who +wanted to prey upon their fellow-men; but they were looked upon as +diseased, and were treated in hospitals. A small remnant, however, +proved incurable, and was confined in asylums and denied marriage. +Thus there was no progeny to inherit their atavistic tendencies. + +As the years went by, Goliah dropped out of the running of the world. +There was nothing for him to run. The world was running itself, and +doing it smoothly and beautifully. In 1937, Goliah made his long- +promised present of Energon to the world. He himself had devised a +thousand ways in which the little giant should do the work of the +world--all of which he made public at the same time. But instantly +the colleges of invention seized upon Energon and utilized it in a +hundred thousand additional ways. In fact, as Goliah confessed in +his letter of March 1938, the colleges of invention cleared up +several puzzling features of Energon that had baffled him during the +preceding years. With the introduction of the use of Energon the +two-hour work-day was cut down almost to nothing. As Goliah had +predicted, work indeed became play. And, so tremendous was man's +productive capacity, due to Energon and the rational social +utilization of it, that the humblest citizen enjoyed leisure and time +and opportunity for an immensely greater abundance of living than had +the most favoured under the old anarchistic system. + +Nobody had ever seen Goliah, and all peoples began to clamour for +their saviour to appear. While the world did not minimize his +discovery of Energon, it was decided that greater than that was his +wide social vision. He was a superman, a scientific superman; and +the curiosity of the world to see him had become wellnigh unbearable. +It was in 1941, after much hesitancy on his part, that he finally +emerged from Palgrave Island. He arrived on June 6 in San Francisco, +and for the first time, since his retirement to Palgrave Island, the +world looked upon his face. And the world was disappointed. Its +imagination had been touched. An heroic figure had been made out of +Goliah. He was the man, or the demi-god, rather, who had turned the +planet over. The deeds of Alexander, Caesar, Genghis Khan, and +Napoleon were as the play of babes alongside his colossal +achievements. + +And ashore in San Francisco and through its streets stepped and rode +a little old man, sixty-five years of age, well preserved, with a +pink-and-white complexion and a bald spot on his head the size of an +apple. He was short-sighted and wore spectacles. But when the +spectacles were removed, his were quizzical blue eyes like a child's, +filled with mild wonder at the world. Also his eyes had a way of +twinkling, accompanied by a screwing up of the face, as if he laughed +at the huge joke he had played upon the world, trapping it, in spite +of itself, into happiness and laughter. + +For a scientific superman and world tyrant, he had remarkable +weaknesses. He loved sweets, and was inordinately fond of salted +almonds and salted pecans, especially of the latter. He always +carried a paper bag of them in his pocket, and he had a way of saying +frequently that the chemism of his nature demanded such fare. +Perhaps his most astonishing failing was cats. He had an +ineradicable aversion to that domestic animal. It will be remembered +that he fainted dead away with sudden fright, while speaking in +Brotherhood Palace, when the janitor's cat walked out upon the stage +and brushed against his legs. + +But no sooner had he revealed himself to the world than he was +identified. Old-time friends had no difficulty in recognizing him as +Percival Stultz, the German-American who, in 1898, had worked in the +Union Iron Works, and who, for two years at that time, had been +secretary of Branch 369 of the International Brotherhood of +Machinists. It was in 1901, then twenty-five years of age, that he +had taken special scientific courses at the University of California, +at the same time supporting himself by soliciting what was then known +as "life insurance." His records as a student are preserved in the +university museum, and they are unenviable. He is remembered by the +professors he sat under chiefly for his absent-mindedness. +Undoubtedly, even then, he was catching glimpses of the wide visions +that later were to be his. + +His naming himself "Goliah" and shrouding himself in mystery was his +little joke, he later explained. As Goliah, or any other thing like +that, he said, he was able to touch the imagination of the world and +turn it over; but as Percival Stultz, wearing side-whiskers and +spectacles, and weighing one hundred and eighteen pounds, he would +have been unable to turn over a pecan--"not even a salted pecan." + +But the world quickly got over its disappointment in his personal +appearance and antecedents. It knew him and revered him as the +master-mind of the ages; and it loved him for himself, for his +quizzical short-sighted eyes and the inimitable way in which he +screwed up his face when he laughed; it loved him for his simplicity +and comradeship and warm humanness, and for his fondness for salted +pecans and his aversion to cats. And to-day, in the wonder-city of +Asgard, rises in awful beauty that monument to him that dwarfs the +pyramids and all the monstrous blood-stained monuments of antiquity. +And on that monument, as all know, is inscribed in imperishable +bronze the prophecy and the fulfilment: "ALL WILL BE JOY-SMITHS, AND +THEIR TASK SHALL BE TO BEAT OUT LAUGHTER FROM THE RINGING ANVIL OF +LIFE." + +[EDITORIAL NOTE.--This remarkable production is the work of Harry +Beckwith, a student in the Lowell High School of San Francisco, and +it is here reproduced chiefly because of the youth of its author. +Far be it from our policy to burden our readers with ancient history; +and when it is known that Harry Beckwith was only fifteen when the +fore-going was written, our motive will be understood. "Goliah" won +the Premier for high school composition in 2254, and last year Harry +Beckwith took advantage of the privilege earned, by electing to spend +six months in Asgard. The wealth of historical detail, the +atmosphere of the times, and the mature style of the composition are +especially noteworthy in one so young.] + + + +THE GOLDEN POPPY + + + +I have a poppy field. That is, by the grace of God and the good- +nature of editors, I am enabled to place each month divers gold +pieces into a clerical gentleman's hands, and in return for said gold +pieces I am each month reinvested with certain proprietary-rights in +a poppy field. This field blazes on the rim of the Piedmont Hills. +Beneath lies all the world. In the distance, across the silver sweep +of bay, San Francisco smokes on her many hills like a second Rome. +Not far away, Mount Tamalpais thrusts a rugged shoulder into the sky; +and midway between is the Golden Gate, where sea mists love to +linger. From the poppy field we often see the shimmering blue of the +Pacific beyond, and the busy ships that go for ever out and in. + +"We shall have great joy in our poppy field," said Bess. "Yes," said +I; "how the poor city folk will envy when they come to see us, and +how we will make all well again when we send them off with great +golden armfuls!" + +"But those things will have to come down," I added, pointing to +numerous obtrusive notices (relics of the last tenant) displayed +conspicuously along the boundaries, and bearing, each and all, this +legend: + + +"PRIVATE GROUNDS. NO TRESPASSING." + + +"Why should we refuse the poor city folk a ramble over our field, +because, forsooth, they have not the advantage of our acquaintance?" + +"How I abhor such things," said Bess; "the arrogant symbols of +power." + +"They disgrace human nature," said I. + +"They shame the generous landscape," she said, "and they are +abominable." + +"Piggish!" quoth I, hotly. "Down with them!" + +We looked forward to the coming of the poppies, did Bess and I, +looked forward as only creatures of the city may look who have been +long denied. I have forgotten to mention the existence of a house +above the poppy field, a squat and wandering bungalow in which we had +elected to forsake town traditions and live in fresher and more +vigorous ways. The first poppies came, orange-yellow and golden in +the standing grain, and we went about gleefully, as though drunken +with their wine, and told each other that the poppies were there. We +laughed at unexpected moments, in the midst of silences, and at times +grew ashamed and stole forth secretly to gaze upon our treasury. But +when the great wave of poppy-flame finally spilled itself down the +field, we shouted aloud, and danced, and clapped our hands, freely +and frankly mad. + +And then came the Goths. My face was in a lather, the time of the +first invasion, and I suspended my razor in mid-air to gaze out on my +beloved field. At the far end I saw a little girl and a little boy, +their arms filled with yellow spoil. Ah, thought I, an unwonted +benevolence burgeoning, what a delight to me is their delight! It is +sweet that children should pick poppies in my field. All summer +shall they pick poppies in my field. But they must be little +children, I added as an afterthought, and they must pick from the +lower end--this last prompted by a glance at the great golden fellows +nodding in the wheat beneath my window. Then the razor descended. +Shaving was always an absorbing task, and I did not glance out of the +window again until the operation was completed. And then I was +bewildered. Surely this was not my poppy field. No--and yes, for +there were the tall pines clustering austerely together on one side, +the magnolia tree burdened with bloom, and the Japanese quinces +splashing the driveway hedge with blood. Yes, it was the field, but +no wave of poppy-flame spilled down it, nor did the great golden +fellows nod in the wheat beneath my window. I rushed into a jacket +and out of the house. In the far distance were disappearing two huge +balls of colour, orange and yellow, for all the world like +perambulating poppies of cyclopean breed. + +"Johnny," said I to the nine-year-old son of my sister, "Johnny, +whenever little girls come into our field to pick poppies, you must +go down to them, and in a very quiet and gentlemanly manner, tell +them it is not allowed." + +Warm days came, and the sun drew another blaze from the free-bosomed +earth. Whereupon a neighbour's little girl, at the behest of her +mother, duly craved and received permission from Bess to gather a few +poppies for decorative purposes. But of this I was uninformed, and +when I descried her in the midst of the field I waved my arms like a +semaphore against the sky. + +"Little girl!" called I. "Little girl!" + +The little girl's legs blurred the landscape as she fled, and in high +elation I sought Bess to tell of the potency of my voice. Nobly she +came to the rescue, departing forthwith on an expedition of +conciliation and explanation to the little girl's mother. But to +this day the little girl seeks cover at sight of me, and I know the +mother will never be as cordial as she would otherwise have been. + +Came dark, overcast days, stiff, driving winds, and pelting rains, +day on day, without end, and the city folk cowered in their dwelling- +places like flood-beset rats; and like rats, half-drowned and +gasping, when the weather cleared they crawled out and up the green +Piedmont slopes to bask in the blessed sunshine. And they invaded my +field in swarms and droves, crushing the sweet wheat into the earth +and with lustful hands ripping the poppies out by the roots. + +"I shall put up the warnings against trespassing," I said. + +"Yes," said Bess, with a sigh. "I'm afraid it is necessary." + +The day was yet young when she sighed again: + +"I'm afraid, O Man, that your signs are of no avail. People have +forgotten how to read, these days." + +I went out on the porch. A city nymph, in cool summer gown and +picture hat, paused before one of my newly reared warnings and read +it through with care. Profound deliberation characterized her +movements. She was statuesquely tall, but with a toss of the head +and a flirt of the skirt she dropped on hands and knees, crawled +under the fence, and came to her feet on the inside with poppies in +both her hands. I walked down the drive and talked ethically to her, +and she went away. Then I put up more signs. + +At one time, years ago, these hills were carpeted with poppies. As +between the destructive forces and the will "to live," the poppies +maintained an equilibrium with their environment. But the city folk +constituted a new and terrible destructive force, the equilibrium was +overthrown, and the poppies wellnigh perished. Since the city folk +plucked those with the longest stems and biggest bowls, and since it +is the law of kind to procreate kind, the long-stemmed, big-bowled +poppies failed to go to seed, and a stunted, short-stemmed variety +remained to the hills. And not only was it stunted and short- +stemmed, but sparsely distributed as well. Each day and every day, +for years and years, the city folk swarmed over the Piedmont Hills, +and only here and there did the genius of the race survive in the +form of miserable little flowers, close-clinging and quick-blooming, +like children of the slums dragged hastily and precariously through +youth to a shrivelled and futile maturity. + +On the other hand, the poppies had prospered in my field; and not +only had they been sheltered from the barbarians, but also from the +birds. Long ago the field was sown in wheat, which went to seed +unharvested each year, and in the cool depths of which the poppy +seeds were hidden from the keen-eyed songsters. And further, +climbing after the sun through the wheat stalks, the poppies grew +taller and taller and more royal even than the primordial ones of the +open. + +So the city folk, gazing from the bare hills to my blazing, burning +field, were sorely tempted, and, it must be told, as sorely fell. +But no sorer was their fall than that of my beloved poppies. Where +the grain holds the dew and takes the bite from the sun the soil is +moist, and in such soil it is easier to pull the poppies out by the +roots than to break the stalk. Now the city folk, like other folk, +are inclined to move along the line of least resistance, and for each +flower they gathered, there were also gathered many crisp-rolled buds +and with them all the possibilities and future beauties of the plant +for all time to come. + +One of the city folk, a middle-aged gentleman, with white hands and +shifty eyes, especially made life interesting for me. We called him +the "Repeater," what of his ways. When from the porch we implored +him to desist, he was wont slowly and casually to direct his steps +toward the fence, simulating finely the actions of a man who had not +heard, but whose walk, instead, had terminated of itself or of his +own volition. To heighten this effect, now and again, still casually +and carelessly, he would stoop and pluck another poppy. Thus did he +deceitfully save himself the indignity of being put out, and rob us +of the satisfaction of putting him out, but he came, and he came +often, each time getting away with an able-bodied man's share of +plunder. + +It is not good to be of the city folk. Of this I am convinced. +There is something in the mode of life that breeds an alarming +condition of blindness and deafness, or so it seems with the city +folk that come to my poppy field. Of the many to whom I have talked +ethically not one has been found who ever saw the warnings so +conspicuously displayed, while of those called out to from the porch, +possibly one in fifty has heard. Also, I have discovered that the +relation of city folk to country flowers is quite analogous to that +of a starving man to food. No more than the starving man realizes +that five pounds of meat is not so good as an ounce, do they realize +that five hundred poppies crushed and bunched are less beautiful than +two or three in a free cluster, where the green leaves and golden +bowls may expand to their full loveliness. + +Less forgivable than the unaesthetic are the mercenary. Hordes of +young rascals plunder me and rob the future that they may stand on +street corners and retail "California poppies, only five cents a +bunch!" In spite of my precautions some of them made a dollar a day +out of my field. One horde do I remember with keen regret. +Reconnoitring for a possible dog, they applied at the kitchen door +for "a drink of water, please." While they drank they were besought +not to pick any flowers. They nodded, wiped their mouths, and +proceeded to take themselves off by the side of the bungalow. They +smote the poppy field beneath my windows, spread out fan-shaped six +wide, picking with both hands, and ripped a swath of destruction +through the very heart of the field. No cyclone travelled faster or +destroyed more completely. I shouted after them, but they sped on +the wings of the wind, great regal poppies, broken-stalked and +mangled, trailing after them or cluttering their wake--the most high- +handed act of piracy, I am confident, ever committed off the high +seas. + +One day I went a-fishing, and on that day a woman entered the field. +Appeals and remonstrances from the porch having no effect upon her, +Bess despatched a little girl to beg of her to pick no more poppies. +The woman calmly went on picking. Then Bess herself went down +through the heat of the day. But the woman went on picking, and +while she picked she discussed property and proprietary rights, +denying Bess's sovereignty until deeds and documents should be +produced in proof thereof. And all the time she went on picking, +never once overlooking her hand. She was a large woman, belligerent +of aspect, and Bess was only a woman and not prone to fisticuffs. So +the invader picked until she could pick no more, said "Good-day," and +sailed majestically away. + +"People have really grown worse in the last several years, I think," +said Bess to me in a tired sort of voice that night, as we sat in the +library after dinner. + +Next day I was inclined to agree with her. "There's a woman and a +little girl heading straight for the poppies," said May, a maid about +the bungalow. I went out on the porch and waited their advent. They +plunged through the pine trees and into the fields, and as the roots +of the first poppies were pulled I called to them. They were about a +hundred feet away. The woman and the little girl turned to the sound +of my voice and looked at me. "Please do not pick the poppies," I +pleaded. They pondered this for a minute; then the woman said +something in an undertone to the little girl, and both backs jack- +knifed as the slaughter recommenced. I shouted, but they had become +suddenly deaf. I screamed, and so fiercely that the little girl +wavered dubiously. And while the woman went on picking I could hear +her in low tones heartening the little girl. + +I recollected a siren whistle with which I was wont to summon Johnny, +the son of my sister. It was a fearsome thing, of a kind to wake the +dead, and I blew and blew, but the jack-knifed backs never unclasped. +I do not mind with men, but I have never particularly favoured +physical encounters with women; yet this woman, who encouraged a +little girl in iniquity, tempted me. + +I went into the bungalow and fetched my rifle. Flourishing it in a +sanguinary manner and scowling fearsomely, I charged upon the +invaders. The little girl fled, screaming, to the shelter of the +pines, but the woman calmly went on picking. She took not the least +notice. I had expected her to run at sight of me, and it was +embarrassing. There was I, charging down the field like a wild bull +upon a woman who would not get out of the way. I could only slow +down, supremely conscious of how ridiculous it all was. At a +distance of ten feet she straightened up and deigned to look at me. +I came to a halt and blushed to the roots of my hair. Perhaps I +really did frighten her (I sometimes try to persuade myself that this +is so), or perhaps she took pity on me; but, at any rate, she stalked +out of my field with great composure, nay, majesty, her arms brimming +with orange and gold. + +Nevertheless, thenceforward I saved my lungs and flourished my rifle. +Also, I made fresh generalizations. To commit robbery women take +advantage of their sex. Men have more respect for property than +women. Men are less insistent in crime than women. And women are +less afraid of guns than men. Likewise, we conquer the earth in +hazard and battle by the virtues of our mothers. We are a race of +land-robbers and sea-robbers, we Anglo-Saxons, and small wonder, when +we suckle at the breasts of a breed of women such as maraud my poppy +field. + +Still the pillage went on. Sirens and gun-flourishings were without +avail. The city folk were great of heart and undismayed, and I noted +the habit of "repeating" was becoming general. What booted it how +often they were driven forth if each time they were permitted to +carry away their ill-gotten plunder? When one has turned the same +person away twice and thrice an emotion arises somewhat akin to +homicide. And when one has once become conscious of this sanguinary +feeling his whole destiny seems to grip hold of him and drag him into +the abyss. More than once I found myself unconsciously pulling the +rifle into position to get a sight on the miserable trespassers. In +my sleep I slew them in manifold ways and threw their carcasses into +the reservoir. Each day the temptation to shoot them in the legs +became more luring, and every day I felt my fate calling to me +imperiously. Visions of the gallows rose up before me, and with the +hemp about my neck I saw stretched out the pitiless future of my +children, dark with disgrace and shame. I became afraid of myself, +and Bess went about with anxious face, privily beseeching my friends +to entice me into taking a vacation. Then, and at the last gasp, +came the thought that saved me: WHY NOT CONFISCATE? If their forays +were bootless, in the nature of things their forays would cease. + +The first to enter my field thereafter was a man. + +I was waiting for him And, oh joy! it was the "Repeater" himself, +smugly complacent with knowledge of past success. I dropped the +rifle negligently across the hollow of my arm and went down to him. + +"I am sorry to trouble you for those poppies," I said in my oiliest +tones; "but really, you know, I must have them." + +He regarded me speechlessly. It must have made a great picture. It +surely was dramatic. With the rifle across my arm and my suave +request still ringing in my ears, I felt like Black Bart, and Jesse +James, and Jack Sheppard, and Robin Hood, and whole generations of +highwaymen. + +"Come, come," I said, a little sharply and in what I imagined was the +true fashion; "I am sorry to inconvenience you, believe me, but I +must have those poppies." + +I absently shifted the gun and smiled. That fetched him. Without a +word he passed them over and turned his toes toward the fence, but no +longer casual and careless was his carriage, I nor did he stoop to +pick the occasional poppy by the way. That was the last of the +"Repeater." I could see by his eyes that he did not like me, and his +back reproached me all the way down the field and out of sight. + +From that day the bungalow has been flooded with poppies. Every vase +and earthen jar is filled with them. They blaze on every mantel and +run riot through all the rooms. I present them to my friends in huge +bunches, and still the kind city folk come and gather more for me. +"Sit down for a moment," I say to the departing guest. And there we +sit in the shade of the porch while aspiring city creatures pluck my +poppies and sweat under the brazen sun. And when their arms are +sufficiently weighted with my yellow glories, I go down with the +rifle over my arm and disburden them. Thus have I become convinced +that every situation has its compensations. + +Confiscation was successful, so far as it went; but I had forgotten +one thing; namely, the vast number of the city folk. Though the old +transgressors came no more, new ones arrived every day, and I found +myself confronted with the titanic task of educating a whole cityful +to the inexpediency of raiding my poppy field. During the process of +disburdening them I was accustomed to explaining my side of the case, +but I soon gave this over. It was a waste of breath. They could not +understand. To one lady, who insinuated that I was miserly, I said: + +"My dear madam, no hardship is worked upon you. Had I not been +parsimonious yesterday and the day before, these poppies would have +been picked by the city hordes of that day and the day before, and +your eyes, which to-day have discovered this field, would have beheld +no poppies at all. The poppies you may not pick to-day are the +poppies I did not permit to be picked yesterday and the day before. +Therefore, believe me, you are denied nothing." + +"But the poppies are here to-day," she said, glaring carnivorously +upon their glow and splendour. + +"I will pay you for them," said a gentleman, at another time. (I had +just relieved him of an armful.) I felt a sudden shame, I know not +why, unless it be that his words had just made clear to me that a +monetary as well as an aesthetic value was attached to my flowers. +The apparent sordidness of my position overwhelmed me, and I said +weakly: "I do not sell my poppies. You may have what you have +picked." But before the week was out I confronted the same gentleman +again. "I will pay you for them," he said. "Yes," I said, "you may +pay me for them. Twenty dollars, please." He gasped, looked at me +searchingly, gasped again, and silently and sadly put the poppies +down. But it remained, as usual, for a woman to attain the sheerest +pitch of audacity. When I declined payment and demanded my plucked +beauties, she refused to give them up. "I picked these poppies," she +said, "and my time is worth money. When you have paid me for my time +you may have them." Her cheeks flamed rebellion, and her face, +withal a pretty one, was set and determined. Now, I was a man of the +hill tribes, and she a mere woman of the city folk, and though it is +not my inclination to enter into details, it is my pleasure to state +that that bunch of poppies subsequently glorified the bungalow and +that the woman departed to the city unpaid. Anyway, they were my +poppies. + +"They are God's poppies," said the Radiant Young Radical, +democratically shocked at sight of me turning city folk out of my +field. And for two weeks she hated me with a deathless hatred. I +sought her out and explained. I explained at length. I told the +story of the poppy as Maeterlinck has told the life of the bee. I +treated the question biologically, psychologically, and +sociologically, I discussed it ethically and aesthetically. I grew +warm over it, and impassioned; and when I had done, she professed +conversion, but in my heart of hearts I knew it to be compassion. I +fled to other friends for consolation. I retold the story of the +poppy. They did not appear supremely interested. I grew excited. +They were surprised and pained. They looked at me curiously. "It +ill-befits your dignity to squabble over poppies," they said. "It is +unbecoming." + +I fled away to yet other friends. I sought vindication. The thing +had become vital, and I needs must put myself right. I felt called +upon to explain, though well knowing that he who explains is lost. I +told the story of the poppy over again. I went into the minutest +details. I added to it, and expanded. I talked myself hoarse, and +when I could talk no more they looked bored. Also, they said insipid +things, and soothful things, and things concerning other things, and +not at all to the point. I was consumed with anger, and there and +then I renounced them all. + +At the bungalow I lie in wait for chance visitors. Craftily I broach +the subject, watching their faces closely the while to detect first +signs of disapprobation, whereupon I empty long-stored vials of wrath +upon their heads. I wrangle for hours with whosoever does not say I +am right. I am become like Guy de Maupassant's old man who picked up +a piece of string. I am incessantly explaining, and nobody will +understand. I have become more brusque in my treatment of the +predatory city folk. No longer do I take delight in their +disburdenment, for it has become an onerous duty, a wearisome and +distasteful task. My friends look askance and murmur pityingly on +the side when we meet in the city. They rarely come to see me now. +They are afraid. I am an embittered and disappointed man, and all +the light seems to have gone out of my life and into my blazing +field. So one pays for things. + +PIEDMONT, CALIFORNIA. +April 1902. + + + +THE SHRINKAGE OF THE PLANET + + + +What a tremendous affair it was, the world of Homer, with its +indeterminate boundaries, vast regions, and immeasurable distances. +The Mediterranean and the Euxine were illimitable stretches of ocean +waste over which years could be spent in endless wandering. On their +mysterious shores were the improbable homes of impossible peoples. +The Great Sea, the Broad Sea, the Boundless Sea; the Ethiopians, +"dwelling far away, the most distant of men," and the Cimmerians, +"covered with darkness and cloud," where "baleful night is spread +over timid mortals." Phonicia was a sore journey, Egypt simply +unattainable, while the Pillars of Hercules marked the extreme edge +of the universe. Ulysses was nine days in sailing from Ismarus the +city of the Ciconians, to the country of the Lotus-eaters--a period +of time which to-day would breed anxiety in the hearts of the +underwriters should it be occupied by the slowest tramp steamer in +traversing the Mediterranean and Black Seas from Gibraltar to +Sebastopol. + +Homer's world, restricted to less than a drummer's circuit, was +nevertheless immense, surrounded by a thin veneer of universe--the +Stream of Ocean. But how it has shrunk! To-day, precisely charted, +weighed, and measured, a thousand times larger than the world of +Homer, it is become a tiny speck, gyrating to immutable law through a +universe the bounds of which have been pushed incalculably back. The +light of Algol shines upon it--a light which travels at one hundred +and ninety thousand miles per second, yet requires forty-seven years +to reach its destination. And the denizens of this puny ball have +come to know that Algol possesses an invisible companion, three and a +quarter millions of miles away, and that the twain move in their +respective orbits at rates of fifty-five and twenty-six miles per +second. They also know that beyond it are great chasms of space, +innumerable worlds, and vast star systems. + +While much of the shrinkage to which the planet has been subjected is +due to the increased knowledge of mathematics and physics, an equal, +if not greater, portion may be ascribed to the perfection of the +means of locomotion and communication. The enlargement of stellar +space, demonstrating with stunning force the insignificance of the +earth, has been negative in its effect; but the quickening of travel +and intercourse, by making the earth's parts accessible and knitting +them together, has been positive. + +The advantage of the animal over the vegetable kingdom is obvious. +The cabbage, should its environment tend to become worse, must live +it out, or die; the rabbit may move on in quest of a better. But, +after all, the swift-footed creatures are circumscribed in their +wanderings. The first large river almost inevitably bars their way, +and certainly the first salt sea becomes an impassable obstacle. +Better locomotion may be classed as one of the prime aims of the old +natural selection; for in that primordial day the race was to the +swift as surely as the battle to the strong. But man, already pre- +eminent in the common domain because of other faculties, was not +content with the one form of locomotion afforded by his lower limbs. +He swam in the sea, and, still better, becoming aware of the buoyant +virtues of wood, learned to navigate its surface. Likewise, from +among the land animals he chose the more likely to bear him and his +burdens. The next step was the domestication of these useful aids. +Here, in its organic significance, natural selection ceased to +concern itself with locomotion. Man had displayed his impatience at +her tedious methods and his own superiority in the hastening of +affairs. Thenceforth he must depend upon himself, and faster- +swimming or faster-running men ceased to be bred. The one, half- +amphibian, breasting the water with muscular arms, could not hope to +overtake or escape an enemy who propelled a fire-hollowed tree trunk +by means of a wooden paddle; nor could the other, trusting to his own +nimbleness, compete with a foe who careered wildly across the plain +on the back of a half-broken stallion. + +So, in that dim day, man took upon himself the task of increasing his +dominion over space and time, and right nobly has he acquitted +himself. Because of it he became a road builder and a bridge +builder; likewise, he wove clumsy sails of rush and matting. At a +very remote period he must also have recognized that force moves +along the line of least resistance, and in virtue thereof, placed +upon his craft rude keels which enabled him to beat to windward in a +seaway. As he excelled in these humble arts, just so did he add to +his power over his less progressive fellows and lay the foundations +for the first glimmering civilizations--crude they were beyond +conception, sporadic and ephemeral, but each formed a necessary part +of the groundwork upon which was to rise the mighty civilization of +our latter-day world. + +Divorced from the general history of man's upward climb, it would +seem incredible that so long a time should elapse between the moment +of his first improvements over nature in the matter of locomotion and +that of the radical changes he was ultimately to compass. The +principles which were his before history was, were his, neither more +nor less, even to the present century. He utilized improved +applications, but the principles of themselves were ever the same, +whether in the war chariots of Achilles and Pharaoh or the mail-coach +and diligence of the European traveller, the cavalry of the Huns or +of Prince Rupert, the triremes and galleys of Greece and Rome or the +East India-men and clipper ships of the last century. But when the +moment came to alter the methods of travel, the change was so +sweeping that it may be safely classed as a revolution. Though the +discovery of steam attaches to the honour of the last century, the +potency of the new power was not felt till the beginning of this. By +1800 small steamers were being used for coasting purposes in England; +1830 witnessed the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway; +while it was not until 1838 that the Atlantic was first crossed by +the steamships Great Western and Sirius. In 1869 the East was made +next-door neighbour to the West. Over almost the same ground where +had toiled the caravans of a thousand generations, the Suez Canal was +dug. Clive, during his first trip, was a year and a half en route +from England to India; were he alive to-day he could journey to +Calcutta in twenty-two days. After reading De Quincey's hyperbolical +description of the English mail-coach, one cannot down the desire to +place that remarkable man on the pilot of the White Mail or of the +Twentieth Century. + +But this tremendous change in the means of locomotion meant far more +than the mere rapid transit of men from place to place. Until then, +though its influence and worth cannot be overestimated, commerce had +eked out a precarious and costly existence. The fortuitous played +too large a part in the trade of men. The mischances by land and +sea, the mistakes and delays, were adverse elements of no mean +proportions. But improved locomotion meant improved carrying, and +commerce received an impetus as remarkable as it was unexpected. In +his fondest fancies James Watt could not have foreseen even the +approximate result of his invention, the Hercules which was to spring +from the puny child of his brain and hands. An illuminating +spectacle, were it possible, would be afforded by summoning him from +among the Shades to a place in the engine-room of an ocean greyhound. +The humblest trimmer would treat him with the indulgence of a child; +while an oiler, a greasy nimbus about his head and in his hand, as +sceptre, a long-snouted can, would indeed appear to him a demigod and +ruler of forces beyond his ken. + +It has ever been the world's dictum that empire and commerce go hand +in hand. In the past the one was impossible without the other. Rome +gathered to herself the wealth of the Mediterranean nations, and it +was only by an unwise distribution of it that she became emasculated +and lost both power and trade. With a just system of economics it is +highly probable that for centuries she could have held back the +welling tide of the Germanic peoples. When upon her ruins rose the +institutions of the conquering Teutons, commerce slipped away, and +with it empire. In the present, empire and commerce have become +interdependent. Such wonders has the industrial revolution wrought +in a few swift decades, and so great has been the shrinkage of the +planet, that the industrial nations have long since felt the +imperative demand for foreign markets. The favoured portions of the +earth are occupied. From their seats in the temperate zones the +militant commercial nations proceed to the exploitation of the +tropics, and for the possession of these they rush to war hot-footed. +Like wolves at the end of a gorge, they wrangle over the fragments. +There are no more planets, no more fragments, and they are yet +hungry. There are no longer Cimmerians and Ethiopians, in wide- +stretching lands, awaiting them. On either hand they confront the +naked poles, and they recoil from unnavigable space to an intenser +struggle among themselves. And all the while the planet shrinks +beneath their grasp. + +Of this struggle one thing may be safely predicated; a commercial +power must be a sea power. Upon the control of the sea depends the +control of trade. Carthage threatened Rome till she lost her navy; +and then for thirteen days the smoke of her burning rose to the +skies, and the ground was ploughed and sown with salt on the site of +her most splendid edifices. The cities of Italy were the world's +merchants till new trade routes were discovered and the dominion of +the sea passed on to the west and fell into other hands. Spain and +Portugal, inaugurating an era of maritime discovery, divided the new +world between them, but gave way before a breed of sea-rovers, who, +after many generations of attachment to the soil, had returned to +their ancient element. With the destruction of her Armada Spain's +colossal dream of colonial empire passed away. Against the new power +Holland strove in vain, and when France acknowledged the superiority +of the Briton upon the sea, she at the same time relinquished her +designs upon the world. Hampered by her feeble navy, her contest for +supremacy upon the land was her last effort and with the passing of +Napoleon she retired within herself to struggle with herself as best +she might. For fifty years England held undisputed sway upon the +sea, controlled markets, and domineered trade, laying, during that +period, the foundations of her empire. Since then other naval powers +have arisen, their attitudes bearing significantly upon the future; +for they have learned that the mastery of the world belongs to the +masters of the sea. + +That many of the phases of this world shrinkage are pathetic, goes +without question. There is much to condemn in the rise of the +economic over the imaginative spirit, much for which the energetic +Philistine can never atone. Perhaps the deepest pathos of all may be +found in the spectacle of John Ruskin weeping at the profanation of +the world by the vandalism of the age. Steam launches violate the +sanctity of the Venetian canals; where Xerxes bridged the Hellespont +ply the filthy funnels of our modern shipping; electric cars run in +the shadow of the pyramids; and it was only the other day that Lord +Kitchener was in a railroad wreck near the site of ancient Luxor. +But there is always the other side. If the economic man has defiled +temples and despoiled nature, he has also preserved. He has policed +the world and parked it, reduced the dangers of life and limb, made +the tenure of existence less precarious, and rendered a general +relapse of society impossible. There can never again be an +intellectual holocaust, such as the burning of the Alexandrian +library. Civilizations may wax and wane, but the totality of +knowledge cannot decrease. With the possible exception of a few +trade secrets, arts and sciences may be discarded, but they can never +be lost. And these things must remain true until the end of man's +time upon the earth. + +Up to yesterday communication for any distance beyond the sound of +the human voice or the sight of the human eye was bound up with +locomotion. A letter presupposed a carrier. The messenger started +with the message, and he could not but avail himself of the +prevailing modes of travel. If the voyage to Australia required four +months, four months were required for communication; by no known +means could this time be lessened. But with the advent of the +telegraph and telephone, communication and locomotion were divorced. +In a few hours, at most, there could be performed what by the old way +would have required months. In 1837 the needle telegraph was +invented, and nine years later the Electric Telegraph Company was +formed for the purpose of bringing it into general use. Government +postal systems also came into being, later to consolidate into an +international union and to group the nations of the earth into a +local neighbourhood. The effects of all this are obvious, and no +fitter illustration may be presented than the fact that to-day, in +the matter of communication, the Klondike is virtually nearer to +Boston than was Bunker Hill in the time of Warren. + +A contemporaneous and remarkable shrinkage of a vast stretch of +territory may be instanced in the Northland. From its rise at Lake +Linderman the Yukon runs twenty-five hundred miles to Bering Sea, +traversing an almost unknown region, the remote recesses of which had +never felt the moccasined foot of the pathfinder. At occasional +intervals men wallowed into its dismal fastnesses, or emerged gaunt +and famine-worn. But in the fall of 1896 a great gold strike was +made--greater than any since the days of California and Australia; +yet, so rude were the means of communication, nearly a year elapsed +before the news of it reached the eager ear of the world. Passionate +pilgrims disembarked their outfits at Dyea. Over the terrible +Chilcoot Pass the trail led to the lakes, thirty miles away. +Carriage was yet in its most primitive stage, the road builder and +bridge builder unheard of. With heavy packs upon their backs men +plunged waist-deep into hideous quagmires, bridged mountain torrents +by felling trees across them, toiled against the precipitous slopes +of the ice-worn mountains, and crossed the dizzy faces of innumerable +glaciers. When, after incalculable toil they reached the lakes, they +went into the woods, sawed pine trees into lumber by hand, and built +it into boats. In these, overloaded, unseaworthy, they battled down +the long chain of lakes. Within the memory of the writer there +lingers the picture of a sheltered nook on the shores of Lake Le +Barge, in which half a thousand gold seekers lay storm-bound. Day +after day they struggled against the seas in the teeth of a northerly +gale, and night after night returned to their camps, repulsed but not +disheartened. At the rapids they ran their boats through, hit or +miss, and after infinite toil and hardship, on the breast of a +jarring ice flood, arrived at the Klondike. From the beach at Dyea +to the eddy below the Barracks at Dawson, they had paid for their +temerity the tax of human life demanded by the elements. A year +later, so greatly had the country shrunk, the tourist, on +disembarking from the ocean steamship, took his seat in a modern +railway coach. A few hours later, at Lake Bennet, he stepped aboard +a commodious river steamer. At the rapids he rode around on a +tramway to take passage on another steamer below. And in a few hours +more he was in Dawson, without having once soiled the lustre of his +civilized foot-gear. Did he wish to communicate with the outside +world, he strolled into the telegraph office. A few short months +before he would have written a letter and deemed himself favoured +above mortals were it delivered within the year. + +From man's drawing the world closer and closer together, his own +affairs and institutions have consolidated. Concentration may typify +the chief movement of the age--concentration, classification, order; +the reduction of friction between the parts of the social organism. +The urban tendency of the rural populations led to terrible +congestion in the great cities. There was stifling and impure air, +and lo, rapid transit at once attacked the evil. Every great city +has become but the nucleus of a greater city which surrounds it; the +one the seat of business, the other the seat of domestic happiness. +Between the two, night and morning, by electric road, steam railway, +and bicycle path, ebbs and flows the middle-class population. And in +the same direction lies the remedy for the tenement evil. In the +cleansing country air the slum cannot exist. Improvement in road- +beds and the means of locomotion, a tremor of altruism, a little +legislation, and the city by day will sleep in the country by night. + +What a play-ball has this planet of ours become! Steam has made its +parts accessible and drawn them closer together. The telegraph +annihilates space and time. Each morning every part knows what every +other part is thinking, contemplating, or doing. A discovery in a +German laboratory is being demonstrated in San Francisco within +twenty-four hours. A book written in South Africa is published by +simultaneous copyright in every English-speaking country, and on the +following day is in the hands of the translators. The death of an +obscure missionary in China, or of a whisky smuggler in the South +Seas, is served up, the world over, with the morning toast. The +wheat output of Argentine or the gold of Klondike is known wherever +men meet and trade. Shrinkage or centralization has been such that +the humblest clerk in any metropolis may place his hand on the pulse +of the world. And because of all this, everywhere is growing order +and organization. The church, the state; men, women, and children; +the criminal and the law, the honest man and the thief, industry and +commerce, capital and labour, the trades and the professions, the +arts and the sciences--all are organizing for pleasure, profit, +policy, or intellectual pursuit. They have come to know the strength +of numbers, solidly phalanxed and driving onward with singleness of +purpose. These purposes may be various and many, but one and all, +ever discovering new mutual interests and objects, obeying a law +which is beyond them, these petty aggregations draw closer together, +forming greater aggregations and congeries of aggregations. And +these, in turn, vaguely merging each into each, present glimmering +adumbrations of the coming human solidarity which shall be man's +crowning glory. + +OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA. +January 1900. + + + +THE HOUSE BEAUTIFUL + + + +Speaking of homes, I am building one now, and I venture to assert +that very few homes have received more serious thought in the +planning. Let me tell you about it. In the first place, there will +be no grounds whatever, no fences, lawns, nor flowers. Roughly, the +dimensions will be forty-five feet by fifteen. That is, it will be +fifteen feet wide at its widest--and, if you will pardon the bull, it +will be narrower than it is wide. + +The details must submit to the general plan of economy. There will +be no veranda, no porch entrances, no grand staircases. I'm ashamed +to say how steep the stairways are going to be. The bedrooms will be +seven by seven, and one will be even smaller. A bedroom is only good +to sleep in, anyway. There will be no hallway, thank goodness. +Rooms were made to go through. Why a separate passage for traffic? + +The bath-room will be a trifle larger than the size of the smallest +bath-tub--it won't require so much work to keep in order. The +kitchen won't be very much larger, but this will make it easy for the +cook. In place of a drawing-room, there will be a large living-room- +-fourteen by six. The walls of this room will be covered with books, +and it can serve as library and smoking-room as well. Then, the +floor-space not being occupied, we shall use the room as a dining- +room. Incidentally, such a room not being used after bedtime, the +cook and the second boy can sleep in it. One thing that I am +temperamentally opposed to is waste, and why should all this splendid +room be wasted at night when we do not occupy it? + +My ideas are cramped, you say?--Oh, I forgot to tell you that this +home I am describing is to be a floating home, and that my wife and I +are to journey around the world in it for the matter of seven years +or more. I forgot also to state that there will be an engine-room in +it for a seventy-horse-power engine, a dynamo, storage batteries, +etc.; tanks for water to last long weeks at sea; space for fifteen +hundred gallons of gasolene, fire extinguishers, and life-preservers; +and a great store-room for food, spare sails, anchors, hawsers, +tackles, and a thousand and one other things. + +Since I have not yet built my land house, I haven't got beyond a few +general ideas, and in presenting them I feel as cocksure as the +unmarried woman who writes the column in the Sunday supplement on how +to rear children. My first idea about a house is that it should be +built to live in. Throughout the house, in all the building of it, +this should be the paramount idea. It must be granted that this idea +is lost sight of by countless persons who build houses apparently for +every purpose under the sun except to live in them. + +Perhaps it is because of the practical life I have lived that I +worship utility and have come to believe that utility and beauty +should be one, and that there is no utility that need not be +beautiful. What finer beauty than strength--whether it be airy +steel, or massive masonry, or a woman's hand? A plain black leather +strap is beautiful. It is all strength and all utility, and it is +beautiful. It efficiently performs work in the world, and it is good +to look upon. Perhaps it is because it is useful that it is +beautiful. I do not know. I sometimes wonder. + +A boat on the sea is beautiful. Yet it is not built for beauty. +Every graceful line of it is a utility, is designed to perform work. +It is created for the express purpose of dividing the water in front +of it, of gliding over the water beneath it, of leaving the water +behind it--and all with the least possible wastage of stress and +friction. It is not created for the purpose of filling the eye with +beauty. It is created for the purpose of moving through the sea and +over the sea with the smallest resistance and the greatest stability; +yet, somehow, it does fill the eye with its beauty. And in so far as +a boat fails in its purpose, by that much does it diminish in beauty. + +I am still a long way from the house I have in my mind some day to +build, yet I have arrived somewhere. I have discovered, to my own +satisfaction at any rate, that beauty and utility should be one. In +applying this general idea to the building of a house, it may be +stated, in another and better way; namely, construction and +decoration must be one. This idea is more important than the +building of the house, for without the idea the house so built is +certain to be an insult to intelligence and beauty-love. + +I bought a house in a hurry in the city of Oakland some time ago. I +do not live in it. I sleep in it half a dozen times a year. I do +not love the house. I am hurt every time I look at it. No drunken +rowdy or political enemy can insult me so deeply as that house does. +Let me tell you why. It is an ordinary two-storey frame house. +After it was built, the criminal that constructed it nailed on, at +the corners perpendicularly, some two-inch fluted planks. These +planks rise the height of the house, and to a drunken man have the +appearance of fluted columns. To complete the illusion in the eyes +of the drunken man, the planks are topped with wooden Ionic capitals, +nailed on, and in, I may say, bas-relief. + +When I analyze the irritation these fluted planks cause in me, I find +the reason in the fact that the first rule for building a house has +been violated. These decorative planks are no part of the +construction. They have no use, no work to perform. They are +plastered gawds that tell lies that nobody believes. A column is +made for the purpose of supporting weight; this is its use. A +column, when it is a utility, is beautiful. The fluted wooden +columns nailed on outside my house are not utilities. They are not +beautiful. They are nightmares. They not only support no weight, +but they themselves are a weight that drags upon the supports of the +house. Some day, when I get time, one of two things will surely +happen. Either I'll go forth and murder the man who perpetrated the +atrocity, or else I'll take an axe and chop off the lying, fluted +planks. + +A thing must be true, or it is not beautiful, any more than a painted +wanton is beautiful, any more than a sky-scraper is beautiful that is +intrinsically and structurally light and that has a false massiveness +of pillars plastered on outside. The true sky-scraper IS beautiful-- +and this is the reluctant admission of a man who dislikes humanity- +festering cities. The true sky-scraper is beautiful, and it is +beautiful in so far as it is true. In its construction it is light +and airy, therefore in its appearance it must be light and airy. It +dare not, if it wishes to be beautiful, lay claim to what it is not. +And it should not bulk on the city-scape like Leviathan; it should +rise and soar, light and airy and fairylike. + +Man is an ethical animal--or, at least, he is more ethical than any +other animal. Wherefore he has certain yearnings for honesty. And +in no way can these yearnings be more thoroughly satisfied than by +the honesty of the house in which he lives and passes the greater +part of his life. + +They that dwelt in San Francisco were dishonest. They lied and +cheated in their business life (like the dwellers in all cities), and +because they lied and cheated in their business life, they lied and +cheated in the buildings they erected. Upon the tops of the simple, +severe walls of their buildings they plastered huge projecting +cornices. These cornices were not part of the construction. They +made believe to be part of the construction, and they were lies. The +earth wrinkled its back for twenty-eight seconds, and the lying +cornices crashed down as all lies are doomed to crash down. In this +particular instance, the lies crashed down upon the heads of the +people fleeing from their reeling habitations, and many were killed. +They paid the penalty of dishonesty. + +Not alone should the construction of a house be truthful and honest, +but the material must be honest. They that lived in San Francisco +were dishonest in the material they used. They sold one quality of +material and delivered another quality of material. They always +delivered an inferior quality. There is not one case recorded in the +business history of San Francisco where a contractor or builder +delivered a quality superior to the one sold. A seven-million-dollar +city hall became thirty cents in twenty-eight seconds. Because the +mortar was not honest, a thousand walls crashed down and scores of +lives were snuffed out. There is something, after all, in the +contention of a few religionists that the San Francisco earthquake +was a punishment for sin. It was a punishment for sin; but it was +not for sin against God. The people of San Francisco sinned against +themselves. + +An honest house tells the truth about itself. There is a house here +in Glen Ellen. It stands on a corner. It is built of beautiful red +stone. Yet it is not beautiful. On three sides the stone is joined +and pointed. The fourth side is the rear. It faces the back yard. +The stone is not pointed. It is all a smudge of dirty mortar, with +here and there bricks worked in when the stone gave out. The house +is not what it seems. It is a lie. All three of the walls spend +their time lying about the fourth wall. They keep shouting out that +the fourth wall is as beautiful as they. If I lived long in that +house I should not be responsible for my morals. The house is like a +man in purple and fine linen, who hasn't had a bath for a month. If +I lived long in that house I should become a dandy and cut out +bathing--for the same reason, I suppose, that an African is black and +that an Eskimo eats whale-blubber. I shall not build a house like +that house. + +Last year I started to build a barn. A man who was a liar undertook +to do the stonework and concrete work for me. He could not tell the +truth to my face; he could not tell the truth in his work. I was +building for posterity. The concrete foundations were four feet wide +and sunk three and one-half feet into the earth. The stone walls +were two feet thick and nine feet high. Upon them were to rest the +great beams that were to carry all the weight of hay and the forty +tons of the roof. The man who was a liar made beautiful stone walls. +I used to stand alongside of them and love them. I caressed their +massive strength with my hands. I thought about them in bed, before +I went to sheep. And they were lies. + +Came the earthquake. Fortunately the rest of the building of the +barn had been postponed. The beautiful stone walls cracked in all +directions. I started, to repair, and discovered the whole enormous +lie. The walls were shells. On each face were beautiful, massive +stones--on edge. The inside was hollow. This hollow in some places +was filled with clay and loose gravel. In other places it was filled +with air and emptiness, with here and there a piece of kindling-wood +or dry-goods box, to aid in the making of the shell. The walls were +lies. They were beautiful, but they were not useful. Construction +and decoration had been divorced. The walls were all decoration. +They hadn't any construction in them. "As God lets Satan live," I +let that lying man live, but--I have built new walls from the +foundation up. + +And now to my own house beautiful, which I shall build some seven or +ten years from now. I have a few general ideas about it. It must be +honest in construction, material, and appearance. If any feature of +it, despite my efforts, shall tell lies, I shall remove that feature. +Utility and beauty must be indissolubly wedded. Construction and +decoration must be one. If the particular details keep true to these +general ideas, all will be well. + +I have not thought of many details. But here are a few. Take the +bath-room, for instance. It shall be as beautiful as any room in the +house, just as it will be as useful. The chance is, that it will be +the most expensive room in the house. Upon that we are resolved-- +even if we are compelled to build it first, and to live in a tent +till we can get more money to go on with the rest of the house. In +the bath-room no delights of the bath shall be lacking. Also, a +large part of the expensiveness will be due to the use of material +that will make it easy to keep the bathroom clean and in order. Why +should a servant toil unduly that my body may be clean? On the other +hand, the honesty of my own flesh, and the square dealing I give it, +are more important than all the admiration of my friends for +expensive decorative schemes and magnificent trivialities. More +delightful to me is a body that sings than a stately and costly grand +staircase built for show. Not that I like grand staircases less, but +that I like bath-rooms more. + +I often regret that I was born in this particular period of the +world. In the matter of servants, how I wish I were living in the +golden future of the world, where there will be no servants--naught +but service of love. But in the meantime, living here and now, being +practical, understanding the rationality and the necessity of the +division of labour, I accept servants. But such acceptance does not +justify me in lack of consideration for them. In my house beautiful +their rooms shall not be dens and holes. And on this score I foresee +a fight with the architect. They shall have bath-rooms, toilet +conveniences, and comforts for their leisure time and human life--if +I have to work Sundays to pay for it. Even under the division of +labour I recognize that no man has a right to servants who will not +treat them as humans compounded of the same clay as himself, with +similar bundles of nerves and desires, contradictions, +irritabilities, and lovablenesses. Heaven in the drawing-room and +hell in the kitchen is not the atmosphere for a growing child to +breathe--nor an adult either. One of the great and selfish +objections to chattel slavery was the effect on the masters +themselves. + +And because of the foregoing, one chief aim in the building of my +house beautiful will be to have a house that will require the minimum +of trouble and work to keep clean and orderly. It will be no spick +and span and polished house, with an immaculateness that testifies to +the tragedy of drudge. I live in California where the days are warm. +I'd prefer that the servants had three hours to go swimming (or +hammocking) than be compelled to spend those three hours in keeping +the house spick and span. Therefore it devolves upon me to build a +house that can be kept clean and orderly without the need of those +three hours. + +But underneath the spick and span there is something more dreadful +than the servitude of the servants. This dreadful thing is the +philosophy of the spick and span. In Korea the national costume is +white. Nobleman and coolie dress alike in white. It is hell on the +women who do the washing, but there is more in it than that. The +coolie cannot keep his white clothes clean. He toils and they get +dirty. The dirty white of his costume is the token of his +inferiority. The nobleman's dress is always spotless white. It +means that he doesn't have to work. But it means, further, that +somebody else has to work for him. His superiority is not based upon +song-craft nor state-craft, upon the foot-races he has run nor the +wrestlers he has thrown. His superiority is based upon the fact that +he doesn't have to work, and that others are compelled to work for +him. And so the Korean drone flaunts his clean white clothes, for +the same reason that the Chinese flaunts his monstrous finger-nails, +and the white man and woman flaunt the spick-and-spanness of their +spotless houses. + +There will be hardwood floors in my house beautiful. But these +floors will not be polished mirrors nor skating-rinks. They will be +just plain and common hardwood floors. Beautiful carpets are not +beautiful to the mind that knows they are filled with germs and +bacilli. They are no more beautiful than the hectic flush of fever, +or the silvery skin of leprosy. Besides, carpets enslave. A thing +that enslaves is a monster, and monsters are not beautiful. + +The fireplaces in my house will be many and large. Small fires and +cold weather mean hermetically-sealed rooms and a jealous cherishing +of heated and filth-laden air. With large fire-places and generous +heat, some windows may be open all the time, and without hardship all +the windows can be opened every little while and the rooms flushed +with clean pure air. I have nearly died in the stagnant, rotten air +of other people's houses--especially in the Eastern states. In Maine +I have slept in a room with storm-windows immovable, and with one +small pane five inches by six, that could be opened. Did I say +slept? I panted with my mouth in the opening and blasphemed till I +ruined all my chances of heaven. + +For countless thousands of years my ancestors have lived and died and +drawn all their breaths in the open air. It is only recently that we +have begun to live in houses. The change is a hardship, especially +on the lungs. I've got only one pair of lungs, and I haven't the +address of any repair-shop. Wherefore I stick by the open air as +much as possible. For this reason my house will have large verandas, +and, near to the kitchen, there will be a veranda dining-room. Also, +there will be a veranda fireplace, where we can breathe fresh air and +be comfortable when the evenings are touched with frost. + +I have a plan for my own bedroom. I spend long hours in bed, +reading, studying, and working. I have tried sleeping in the open, +but the lamp attracts all the creeping, crawling, butting, flying, +fluttering things to the pages of my book, into my ears and blankets, +and down the back of my neck. So my bedroom shall be indoors. + +But it will be, not be of, indoors. Three sides of it will be open. +The fourth side will divide it from the rest of the house. The three +sides will be screened against the creeping, fluttering things, but +not against the good fresh air and all the breezes that blow. For +protection against storm, to keep out the driving rain, there will be +a sliding glass, so made that when not in use it will occupy small +space and shut out very little air. + +There is little more to say about this house. I am to build seven or +ten years from now. There is plenty of time in which to work up all +the details in accord with the general principles I have laid down. +It will be a usable house and a beautiful house, wherein the +aesthetic guest can find comfort for his eyes as well as for his +body. It will be a happy house--or else I'll burn it down. It will +be a house of air and sunshine and laughter. These three cannot be +divorced. Laughter without air and sunshine becomes morbid, +decadent, demoniac. I have in me a thousand generations. Laughter +that is decadent is not good for these thousand generations. + +GLEN ELLEN, CALIFORNIA. +July 1906. + + + +THE GOLD HUNTERS OF THE NORTH + + + +"Where the Northern Lights come down a' nights to dance on the +houseless snow." + + +"Ivan, I forbid you to go farther in this undertaking. Not a word +about this, or we are all undone. Let the Americans and the English +know that we have gold in these mountains, then we are ruined. They +will rush in on us by thousands, and crowd us to the wall--to the +death." + +So spoke the old Russian governor, Baranov, at Sitka, in 1804, to one +of his Slavonian hunters, who had just drawn from his pocket a +handful of golden nuggets. Full well Baranov, fur trader and +autocrat, understood and feared the coming of the sturdy, indomitable +gold hunters of Anglo-Saxon stock. And thus he suppressed the news, +as did the governors that followed him, so that when the United +States bought Alaska in 1867, she bought it for its furs and +fisheries, without a thought of its treasures underground. + +No sooner, however, had Alaska become American soil than thousands of +our adventurers were afoot and afloat for the north. They were the +men of "the days of gold," the men of California, Fraser, Cassiar, +and Cariboo. With the mysterious, infinite faith of the prospector, +they believed that the gold streak, which ran through the Americas +from Cape Horn to California, did not "peter out" in British +Columbia. That it extended farther north, was their creed, and +"Farther North" became their cry. No time was lost, and in the early +seventies, leaving the Treadwell and the Silver Bow Basin to be +discovered by those who came after, they went plunging on into the +white unknown. North, farther north, they struggled, till their +picks rang in the frozen beaches of the Arctic Ocean, and they +shivered by driftwood fires on the ruby sands of Nome. + +But first, in order that this colossal adventure may be fully +grasped, the recentness and the remoteness of Alaska must be +emphasized. The interior of Alaska and the contiguous Canadian +territory was a vast wilderness. Its hundreds of thousands of square +miles were as dark and chartless as Darkest Africa. In 1847, when +the first Hudson Bay Company agents crossed over the Rockies from the +Mackenzie to poach on the preserves of the Russian Bear, they thought +that the Yukon flowed north and emptied into the Arctic Ocean. +Hundreds of miles below, however, were the outposts of the Russian +traders. They, in turn, did not know where the Yukon had its source, +and it was not till later that Russ and Saxon learned that it was the +same mighty stream they were occupying. And a little over ten years +later, Frederick Whymper voyaged up the Great Bend to Fort Yukon +under the Arctic Circle. + +From fort to fort, from York Factory on Hudson's Bay to Fort Yukon in +Alaska, the English traders transported their goods--a round trip +requiring from a year to a year and a half. It was one of their +deserters, in 1867, escaping down the Yukon to Bering Sea, who was +the first white man to make the North-west Passage by land from the +Atlantic to the Pacific. It was at this time that the first accurate +description of a fair portion of the Yukon was given by Dr. W. H. +Ball, of the Smithsonian Institution. But even he had never seen its +source, and it was not given him to appreciate the marvel of that +great natural highway. + +No more remarkable river in this one particular is there in the +world; taking its rise in Crater Lake, thirty miles from the ocean, +the Yukon flows for twenty-five hundred miles, through the heart of +the continent, ere it empties into the sea. A portage of thirty +miles, and then a highway for traffic one tenth the girth of the +earth! + +As late as 1869, Frederick Whymper, fellow of the Royal Geographical +Society, stated on hearsay that the Chilcat Indians were believed +occasionally to make a short portage across the Coast Range from salt +water to the head-reaches of the Yukon. But it remained for a gold +hunter, questing north, ever north, to be first of all white men to +cross the terrible Chilcoot Pass, and tap the Yukon at its head. +This happened only the other day, but the man has become a dim +legendary hero. Holt was his name, and already the mists of +antiquity have wrapped about the time of his passage. 1872, 1874, +and 1878 are the dates variously given--a confusion which time will +never clear. + +Holt penetrated as far as the Hootalinqua, and on his return to the +coast reported coarse gold. The next recorded adventurer is one +Edward Bean, who in 1880 headed a party of twenty-five miners from +Sitka into the uncharted land. And in the same year, other parties +(now forgotten, for who remembers or ever hears the wanderings of the +gold hunters?) crossed the Pass, built boats out of the standing +timber, and drifted down the Yukon and farther north. + +And then, for a quarter of a century, the unknown and unsung heroes +grappled with the frost, and groped for the gold they were sure lay +somewhere among the shadows of the Pole. In the struggle with the +terrifying and pitiless natural forces, they returned to the +primitive, garmenting themselves in the skins of wild beasts, and +covering their feet with the walrus mucluc and the moosehide +moccasin. They forgot the world and its ways, as the world had +forgotten them; killed their meat as they found it; feasted in plenty +and starved in famine, and searched unceasingly for the yellow lure. +They crisscrossed the land in every direction, threaded countless +unmapped rivers in precarious birch-bark canoes, and with snowshoes +and dogs broke trail through thousands of miles of silent white, +where man had never been. They struggled on, under the aurora +borealis or the midnight sun, through temperatures that ranged from +one hundred degrees above zero to eighty degrees below, living, in +the grim humour of the land, on "rabbit tracks and salmon bellies." + +To-day, a man may wander away from the trail for a hundred days, and +just as he is congratulating himself that at last he is treading +virgin soil, he will come upon some ancient and dilapidated cabin, +and forget his disappointment in wonder at the man who reared the +logs. Still, if one wanders from the trail far enough and deviously +enough, he may chance upon a few thousand square miles which he may +have all to himself. On the other hand, no matter how far and how +deviously he may wander, the possibility always remains that he may +stumble, not alone upon a deserted cabin, but upon an occupied one. + +As an instance of this, and of the vastness of the land, no better +case need be cited than that of Harry Maxwell. An able seaman, +hailing from New Bedford, Massachusetts, his ship, the brig Fannie E. +Lee, was pinched in the Arctic ice. Passing from whaleship to +whaleship, he eventually turned up at Point Barrow in the summer of +1880. He was NORTH of the Northland, and from this point of vantage +he determined to pull south of the interior in search of gold. +Across the mountains from Fort Macpherson, and a couple of hundred +miles eastward from the Mackenzie, he built a cabin and established +his headquarters. And here, for nineteen continuous years, he hunted +his living and prospected. He ranged from the never opening ice to +the north as far south as the Great Slave Lake. Here he met +Warburton Pike, the author and explorer--an incident he now looks +back upon as chief among the few incidents of his solitary life. + +When this sailor-miner had accumulated $20,000 worth of dust he +concluded that civilization was good enough for him, and proceeded +"to pull for the outside." From the Mackenzie he went up the Little +Peel to its headwaters, found a pass through the mountains, nearly +starved to death on his way across to the Porcupine Hills, and +eventually came out on the Yukon River, where he learned for the +first time of the Yukon gold hunters and their discoveries. Yet for +twenty years they had been working there, his next-door neighbours, +virtually, in a land of such great spaces. At Victoria, British +Columbia, previous to his going east over the Canadian Pacific (the +existence of which he had just learned), he pregnantly remarked that +he had faith in the Mackenzie watershed, and that he was going back +after he had taken in the World's Fair and got a whiff or two of +civilization. + +Faith! It may or may not remove mountains, but it has certainly made +the Northland. No Christian martyr ever possessed greater faith than +did the pioneers of Alaska. They never doubted the bleak and barren +land. Those who came remained, and more ever came. They could not +leave. They "knew" the gold was there, and they persisted. Somehow, +the romance of the land and the quest entered into their blood, the +spell of it gripped hold of them and would not let them go. Man +after man of them, after the most terrible privation and suffering, +shook the muck of the country from his moccasins and departed for +good. But the following spring always found him drifting down the +Yukon on the tail of the ice jams. + +Jack McQuestion aptly vindicates the grip of the North. After a +residence of thirty years he insists that the climate is delightful, +and declares that whenever he makes a trip to the States he is +afflicted with home-sickness. Needless to say, the North still has +him and will keep tight hold of him until he dies. In fact, for him +to die elsewhere would be inartistic and insincere. Of three of the +"pioneer" pioneers, Jack McQuestion alone survives. In 1871, from +one to seven years before Holt went over Chilcoot, in the company of +Al Mayo and Arthur Harper, McQuestion came into the Yukon from the +North-west over the Hudson Bay Company route from the Mackenzie to +Fort Yukon. The names of these three men, as their lives, are bound +up in the history of the country, and so long as there be histories +and charts, that long will the Mayo and McQuestion rivers and the +Harper and Ladue town site of Dawson be remembered. As an agent of +the Alaska Commercial Company, in 1873, McQuestion built Fort +Reliance, six miles below the Klondike River. In 1898 the writer met +Jack McQuestion at Minook, on the Lower Yukon. The old pioneer, +though grizzled, was hale and hearty, and as optimistic as when he +first journeyed into the land along the path of the Circle. And no +man more beloved is there in all the North. There will be great +sadness there when his soul goes questing on over the Last Divide-- +"farther north," perhaps--who can tell? + +Frank Dinsmore is a fair sample of the men who made the Yukon +country. A Yankee, born, in Auburn, Maine, the Wanderlust early laid +him by the heels, and at sixteen he was heading west on the trail +that led "farther north." He prospected in the Black Hills, Montana, +and in the Coeur d'Alene, then heard a whisper of the North, and went +up to Juneau on the Alaskan Panhandle. But the North still +whispered, and more insistently, and he could not rest till he went +over Chilcoot, and down into the mysterious Silent Land. This was in +1882, and he went down the chain of lakes, down the Yukon, up the +Pelly, and tried his luck on the bars of McMillan River. In the +fall, a perambulating skeleton, he came back over the Pass in a +blizzard, with a rag of shirt, tattered overalls, and a handful of +raw flour. + +But he was unafraid. That winter he worked for a grubstake in +Juneau, and the next spring found the heels of his moccasins turned +towards salt water and his face toward Chilcoot. This was repeated +the next spring, and the following spring, and the spring after that, +until, in 1885, he went over the Pass for good. There was to be no +return for him until he found the gold he sought. + +The years came and went, but he remained true to his resolve. For +eleven long years, with snow-shoe and canoe, pickaxe and gold-pan, he +wrote out his life on the face of the land. Upper Yukon, Middle +Yukon, Lower Yukon--he prospected faithfully and well. His bed was +anywhere. Winter or summer he carried neither tent nor stove, and +his six-pound sleeping-robe of Arctic hare was the warmest covering +he was ever known to possess. Rabbit tracks and salmon bellies were +his diet with a vengeance, for he depended largely on his rifle and +fishing-tackle. His endurance equalled his courage. On a wager he +lifted thirteen fifty-pound sacks of flour and walked off with them. +Winding up a seven-hundred-mile trip on the ice with a forty-mile +run, he came into camp at six o'clock in the evening and found a +"squaw dance" under way. He should have been exhausted. Anyway, his +muclucs were frozen stiff. But he kicked them off and danced all +night in stocking-feet. + +At the last fortune came to him. The quest was ended, and he +gathered up his gold and pulled for the outside. And his own end was +as fitting as that of his quest. Illness came upon him down in San +Francisco, and his splendid life ebbed slowly out as he sat in his +big easy-chair, in the Commercial Hotel, the "Yukoner's home." The +doctors came, discussed, consulted, the while he matured more plans +of Northland adventure; for the North still gripped him and would not +let him go. He grew weaker day by day, but each day he said, "To- +morrow I'll be all right." Other old-timers, "out on furlough,", +came to see him. They wiped their eyes and swore under their +breaths, then entered and talked largely and jovially about going in +with him over the trail when spring came. But there in the big easy- +chair it was that his Long Trail ended, and the life passed out of +him still fixed on "farther north." + +From the time of the first white man, famine loomed black and gloomy +over the land. It was chronic with the Indians and Eskimos; it +became chronic with the gold hunters. It was ever present, and so it +came about that life was commonly expressed in terms of "grub"--was +measured by cups of flour. Each winter, eight months long, the +heroes of the frost faced starvation. It became the custom, as fall +drew on, for partners to cut the cards or draw straws to determine +which should hit the hazardous trail for salt water, and which should +remain and endure the hazardous darkness of the Arctic night. + +There was never food enough to winter the whole population. The A. +C. Company worked hard to freight up the grub, but the gold hunters +came faster and dared more audaciously. When the A. C. Company added +a new stern-wheeler to its fleet, men said, "Now we shall have +plenty." But more gold hunters poured in over the passes to the +south, more voyageurs and fur traders forced a way through the +Rockies from the east, more seal hunters and coast adventurers poled +up from Bering Sea on the west, more sailors deserted from the whale- +ships to the north, and they all starved together in right brotherly +fashion. More steamers were added, but the tide of prospectors +welled always in advance. Then the N. A. T. & T. Company came upon +the scene, and both companies added steadily to their fleets. But it +was the same old story; famine would not depart. In fact, famine +grew with the population, till, in the winter of 1897-1898, the +United States government was forced to equip a reindeer relief +expedition. As of old, that winter partners cut the cards and drew +straws, and remained or pulled for salt water as chance decided. +They were wise of old time, and had learned never to figure on relief +expeditions. They had heard of such things, but no mortal man of +them had ever laid eyes on one. + +The hard luck of other mining countries pales into insignificance +before the hard luck of the North. And as for the hardship, it +cannot be conveyed by printed page or word of mouth. No man may know +who has not undergone. And those who have undergone, out of their +knowledge, claim that in the making of the world God grew tired, and +when He came to the last barrowload, "just dumped it anyhow," and +that was how Alaska happened to be. While no adequate conception of +the life can be given to the stay-at-home, yet the men themselves +sometimes give a clue to its rigours. One old Minook miner testified +thus: "Haven't you noticed the expression on the faces of us +fellows? You can tell a new-comer the minute you see him; he looks +alive, enthusiastic, perhaps jolly. We old miners are always grave, +unless were drinking." + +Another old-timer, out of the bitterness of a "home-mood," imagined +himself a Martian astronomer explaining to a friend, with the aid of +a powerful telescope, the institutions of the earth. "There are the +continents," he indicated; "and up there near the polar cap is a +country, frigid and burning and lonely and apart, called Alaska. +Now, in other countries and states there are great insane asylums, +but, though crowded, they are insufficient; so there is Alaska given +over to the worst cases. Now and then some poor insane creature +comes to his senses in those awful solitudes, and, in wondering joy, +escapes from the land and hastens back to his home. But most cases +are incurable. They just suffer along, poor devils, forgetting their +former life quite, or recalling it like a dream." Again the grip of +the North, which will not let one go--for "MOST CASES ARE INCURABLE." + +For a quarter of a century the battle with frost and famine went on. +The very severity of the struggle with Nature seemed to make the gold +hunters kindly toward one another. The latch-string was always out, +and the open hand was the order of the day. Distrust was unknown, +and it was no hyperbole for a man to take the last shirt off his back +for a comrade. Most significant of all, perhaps, in this connection, +was the custom of the old days, that when August the first came +around, the prospectors who had failed to locate "pay dirt" were +permitted to go upon the ground of their more fortunate comrades and +take out enough for the next year's grub-stake. + +In 1885 rich bar-washing was done on the Stewart River, and in 1886 +Cassiar Bar was struck just below the mouth of the Hootalinqua. It +was at this time that the first moderate strike was made on Forty +Mile Creek, so called because it was judged to be that distance below +Fort Reliance of Jack McQuestion fame. A prospector named Williams +started for the outside with dogs and Indians to carry the news, but +suffered such hardship on the summit of Chilcoot that he was carried +dying into the store of Captain John Healy at Dyea. But he had +brought the news through--COARSE GOLD! Within three months more than +two hundred miners had passed in over Chilcoot, stampeding for Forty +Mile. Find followed find--Sixty Mile, Miller, Glacier, Birch, +Franklin, and the Koyokuk. But they were all moderate discoveries, +and the miners still dreamed and searched for the fabled stream, "Too +Much Gold," where gold was so plentiful that gravel had to be +shovelled into the sluice-boxes in order to wash it. + +And all the time the Northland was preparing to play its own huge +joke. It was a great joke, albeit an exceeding bitter one, and it +has led the old-timers to believe that the land is left in darkness +the better part of the year because God goes away and leaves it to +itself. After all the risk and toil and faithful endeavour, it was +destined that few of the heroes should be in at the finish when Too +Much Gold turned its yellow-treasure to the stars. + +First, there was Robert Henderson--and this is true history. +Henderson had faith in the Indian River district. For three years, +by himself, depending mainly on his rifle, living on straight meat a +large portion of the time, he prospected many of the Indian River +tributaries, just missed finding the rich creeks, Sulphur and +Dominion, and managed to make grub (poor grub) out of Quartz Creek +and Australia Creek. Then he crossed the divide between Indian River +and the Klondike, and on one of the "feeders" of the latter found +eight cents to the pan. This was considered excellent in those +simple days. Naming the creek "Gold Bottom," he recrossed the divide +and got three men, Munson, Dalton, and Swanson, to return with him. +The four took out $750. And be it emphasized, and emphasized again, +THAT THIS WAS THE FIRST KLONDIKE GOLD EVER SHOVELLED IN AND WASHED +OUT. And be it also emphasized, THAT ROBERT HENDERSON WAS THE +DISCOVERER OF KLONDIKE, ALL LIES AND HEARSAY TALES TO THE CONTRARY. + +Running out of grub, Henderson again recrossed the divide, and went +down the Indian River and up the Yukon to Sixty Mile. Here Joe Ladue +ran the trading post, and here Joe Ladue had originally grub-staked +Henderson. Henderson told his tale, and a dozen men (all it +contained) deserted the Post for the scene of his find. Also, +Henderson persuaded a party of prospectors bound for Stewart River, +to forgo their trip and go down and locate with him. He loaded his +boat with supplies, drifted down the Yukon to the mouth of the +Klondike, and towed and poled up the Klondike to Gold Bottom. But at +the mouth of the Klondike he met George Carmack, and thereby hangs +the tale. + +Carmack was a squawman. He was familiarly known as "Siwash" George-- +a derogatory term which had arisen out of his affinity for the +Indians. At the time Henderson encountered him he was catching +salmon with his Indian wife and relatives on the site of what was to +become Dawson, the Golden City of the Snows. Henderson, bubbling +over with good-will, open-handed, told Carmack of his discovery. But +Carmack was satisfied where he was. He was possessed by no +overweening desire for the strenuous life. Salmon were good enough +for him. But Henderson urged him to come on and locate, until, when +he yielded, he wanted to take the whole tribe along. Henderson +refused to stand for this, said that he must give the preference over +Siwashes to his old Sixty Mile friends, and, it is rumoured, said +some things about Siwashes that were not nice. + +The next morning Henderson went on alone up the Klondike to Gold +Bottom. Carmack, by this time aroused, took a short cut afoot for +the same place. Accompanied by his two Indian brothers-in-law, +Skookum Jim and Tagish Charley, he went up Rabbit Creek (now +Bonanza), crossed into Gold Bottom, and staked near Henderson's +discovery. On the way up he had panned a few shovels on Rabbit +Creek, and he showed Henderson "colours" he had obtained. Henderson +made him promise, if he found anything on the way back, that he would +send up one of the Indians with the news. Henderson also agreed to +pay for his service, for he seemed to feel that they were on the +verge of something big, and he wanted to make sure. + +Carmack returned down Rabbit Creek. While he was taking a sleep on +the bank about half a mile below the mouth of what was to be known as +Eldorado, Skookum Jim tried his luck, and from surface prospects got +from ten cents to a dollar to the pan. Carmack and his brother-in- +law staked and hit "the high places" for Forty Mile, where they filed +on the claims before Captain Constantine, and renamed the creek +Bonanza. And Henderson was forgotten. No word of it reached him. +Carmack broke his promise. + +Weeks afterward, when Bonanza and Eldorado were staked from end to +end and there was no more room, a party of late comers pushed over +the divide and down to Gold Bottom, where they found Henderson still +at work. When they told him they were from Bonanza, he was +nonplussed. He had never heard of such a place. But when they +described it, he recognized it as Rabbit Creek. Then they told him +of its marvellous richness, and, as Tappan Adney relates, when +Henderson realized what he had lost through Carmack's treachery, "he +threw down his shovel and went and sat on the bank, so sick at heart +that it was some time before he could speak." + +Then there were the rest of the old-timers, the men of Forty Mile and +Circle City. At the time of the discovery, nearly all of them were +over to the west at work in the old diggings or prospecting for new +ones. As they said of themselves, they were the kind of men who are +always caught out with forks when it rains soup. In the stampede +that followed the news of Carmack's strike very few old miners took +part. They were not there to take part. But the men who did go on +the stampede were mainly the worthless ones, the new-comers, and the +camp hangers on. And while Bob Henderson plugged away to the east, +and the heroes plugged away to the west, the greenhorns and rounders +went up and staked Bonanza. + +But the Northland was not yet done with its joke. When fall came on +and the heroes returned to Forty Mile and to Circle City, they +listened calmly to the up-river tales of Siwash discoveries and +loafers' prospects, and shook their heads. They judged by the +calibre of the men interested, and branded it a bunco game. But +glowing reports continued to trickle down the Yukon, and a few of the +old-timers went up to see. They looked over the ground--the +unlikeliest place for gold in all their experience--and they went +down the river again, "leaving it to the Swedes." + +Again the Northland turned the tables. The Alaskan gold hunter is +proverbial, not so much for his unveracity, as for his inability to +tell the precise truth. In a country of exaggerations, he likewise +is prone to hyperbolic description of things actual. But when it +came to Klondike, he could not stretch the truth as fast as the truth +itself stretched. Carmack first got a dollar pan. He lied when he +said it was two dollars and a half. And when those who doubted him +did get two-and-a-half pans, they said they were getting an ounce, +and lo! ere the lie had fairly started on its way, they were getting, +not one ounce, but five ounces. This they claimed was six ounces; +but when they filled a pan of dirt to prove the lie, they washed out +twelve ounces. And so it went. They continued valiantly to lie, but +the truth continued to outrun them. + +But the Northland's hyperborean laugh was not yet ended. When +Bonanza was staked from mouth to source, those who had failed to "get +in," disgruntled and sore, went up the "pups" and feeders. Eldorado +was one of these feeders, and many men, after locating on it, turned +their backs upon their claims and never gave them a second thought. +One man sold a half-interest in five hundred feet of it for a sack of +flour. Other owners wandered around trying to bunco men into buying +them out for a song. And then Eldorado "showed up." It was far, far +richer than Bonanza, with an average value of a thousand dollars a +foot to every foot of it. + +A Swede named Charley Anderson had been at work on Miller Creek the +year of the strike, and arrived in Dawson with a few hundred dollars. +Two miners, who had staked No. 29 Eldorado, decided that he was the +proper man upon whom to "unload." He was too canny to approach +sober, so at considerable expense they got him drunk. Even then it +was hard work, but they kept him befuddled for several days, and +finally, inveigled him into buying No. 29 for $750. When Anderson +sobered up, he wept at his folly, and pleaded to have his money back. +But the men who had duped him were hard-hearted. They laughed at +him, and kicked themselves for not having tapped him for a couple of +hundred more. Nothing remained for Anderson but to work the +worthless ground. This he did, and out of it he took over three- +quarters of a million of dollars. + +It was not till Frank Dinsmore, who already had big holdings on Birch +Creek, took a hand, that the old-timers developed faith in the new +diggings. Dinsmore received a letter from a man on the spot, calling +it "the biggest thing in the world," and harnessed his dogs and went +up to investigate. And when he sent a letter back, saying that he +had never seen "anything like it," Circle City for the first time +believed, and at once was precipitated one of the wildest stampedes +the country had ever seen or ever will see. Every dog was taken, +many went without dogs, and even the women and children and weaklings +hit the three hundred miles of ice through the long Arctic night for +the biggest thing in the world. It is related that but twenty +people, mostly cripples and unable to travel, were left in Circle +City when the smoke of the last sled disappeared up the Yukon. + +Since that time gold has been discovered in all manner of places, +under the grass roots of the hill-side benches, in the bottom of +Monte Cristo Island, and in the sands of the sea at Nome. And now +the gold hunter who knows his business shuns the "favourable looking" +spots, confident in his hard-won knowledge that he will find the most +gold in the least likely place. This is sometimes adduced to support +the theory that the gold hunters, rather than the explorers, are the +men who will ultimately win to the Pole. Who knows? It is in their +blood, and they are capable of it. + +PIEDMONT, CALIFORNIA. +February 1902. + + + +FOMA GORDYEEFF + + + +"What, without asking, hither hurried WHENCE? +And, without asking, WHITHER hurried hence! +Oh, many a Cup of this forbidden Wine +Must drown the memory of that insolence!" + +"Foma Gordyeeff" is a big book--not only is the breadth of Russia in +it, but the expanse of life. Yet, though in each land, in this world +of marts and exchanges, this age of trade and traffic, passionate +figures rise up and demand of life what its fever is, in "Foma +Gordyeeff" it is a Russian who so rises up and demands. For Gorky, +the Bitter One, is essentially a Russian in his grasp on the facts of +life and in his treatment. All the Russian self-analysis and +insistent introspection are his. And, like all his brother Russians, +ardent, passionate protest impregnates his work. There is a purpose +to it. He writes because he has something to say which the world +should hear. From that clenched fist of his, light and airy +romances, pretty and sweet and beguiling, do not flow, but realities- +-yes, big and brutal and repulsive, but real. + +He raises the cry of the miserable and the despised, and in a +masterly arraignment of commercialism, protests against social +conditions, against the grinding of the faces of the poor and weak, +and the self-pollution of the rich and strong, in their mad lust for +place and power. It is to be doubted strongly if the average +bourgeois, smug and fat and prosperous, can understand this man Foma +Gordyeeff. The rebellion in his blood is something to which their +own does not thrill. To them it will be inexplicable that this man, +with his health and his millions, could not go on living as his class +lived, keeping regular hours at desk and stock exchange, driving +close contracts, underbidding his competitors, and exulting in the +business disasters of his fellows. It would appear so easy, and, +after such a life, well appointed and eminently respectable, he could +die. "Ah," Foma will interrupt rudely--he is given to rude +interruptions--"if to die and disappear is the end of these money- +grubbing years, why money-grub?" And the bourgeois whom he rudely +interrupted will not understand. Nor did Mayakin understand as he +laboured holily with his wayward godson. + +"Why do you brag?" Foma, bursts out upon him. "What have you to +brag about? Your son--where is he? Your daughter--what is she? +Ekh, you manager of life! Come, now, you're clever, you know +everything--tell me, why do you live? Why do you accumulate money? +Aren't you going to die? Well, what then?" And Mayakin finds +himself speechless and without answer, but unshaken and unconvinced. + +Receiving by heredity the fierce, bull-like nature of his father plus +the passive indomitableness and groping spirit of his mother, Foma, +proud and rebellious, is repelled by the selfish, money-seeking +environment into which he is born. Ignat, his father, and Mayakin, +the godfather, and all the horde of successful merchants singing the +paean of the strong and the praises of merciless, remorseless laissez +faire, cannot entice him. Why? he demands. This is a nightmare, +this life! It is without significance! What does it all mean? What +is there underneath? What is the meaning of that which is +underneath? + +"You do well to pity people," Ignat tells Foma, the boy, "only you +must use judgment with your pity. First consider the man, find out +what he is like, what use can be made of him; and if you see that he +is a strong and capable man, help him if you like. But if a man is +weak, not inclined to work--spit upon him and go your way. And you +must know that when a man complains about everything, and cries out +and groans--he is not worth more than two kopeks, he is not worthy of +pity, and will be of no use to you if you do help him." + +Such the frank and militant commercialism, bellowed out between +glasses of strong liquor. Now comes Mayakin, speaking softly and +without satire: + +"Eh, my boy, what is a beggar? A beggar is a man who is forced, by +fate, to remind us of Christ; he is Christ's brother; he is the bell +of the Lord, and rings in life for the purpose of awakening our +conscience, of stirring up the satiety of man's flesh. He stands +under the window and sings, 'For Christ's sa-ake!' and by that chant +he reminds us of Christ, of His holy command to help our neighbour. +But men have so ordered their lives that it is utterly impossible for +them to act in accordance with Christ's teaching, and Jesus Christ +has become entirely superfluous to us. Not once, but, in all +probability, a thousand times, we have given Him over to be +crucified, but still we cannot banish Him from our lives so long as +His poor brethren sing His name in the streets and remind us of Him. +And so now we have hit upon the idea of shutting up the beggars in +such special buildings, so that they may not roam about the streets +and stir up our consciences." + +But Foma will have none of it. He is neither to be enticed nor +cajoled. The cry of his nature is for light. He must have light. +And in burning revolt he goes seeking the meaning of life. "His +thoughts embraced all those petty people who toiled at hard labour. +It was strange--why did they live? What satisfaction was it to them +to live on the earth? All they did was to perform their dirty, +arduous toil, eat poorly; they were miserably clad, addicted to +drunkenness. One was sixty years old, but he still toiled side by +side with young men. And they all presented themselves to Foma's +imagination as a huge heap of worms, who were swarming over the earth +merely to eat." + +He becomes the living interrogation of life. He cannot begin living +until he knows what living means, and he seeks its meaning vainly. +"Why should I try to live life when I do not know what life is?" he +objects when Mayakin strives with him to return and manage his +business. Why should men fetch and carry for him? be slaves to him +and his money? + +"Work is not everything to a man," he says; "it is not true that +justification lies in work . . . Some people never do any work at +all, all their lives long--yet they live better than the toilers. +Why is that? And what justification have I? And how will all the +people who give their orders justify themselves? What have they +lived for? But my idea is that everybody ought, without fail, to +know solidly what he is living for. Is it possible that a man is +born to toil, accumulate money, build a house, beget children, and-- +die? No; life means something in itself. . . . A man has been born, +has lived, has died--why? All of us must consider why we are living, +by God, we must! There is no sense in our life--there is no sense at +all. Some are rich--they have money enough for a thousand men all to +themselves--and they live without occupation; others bow their backs +in toil all their life, and they haven't a penny." + +But Foma can only be destructive. He is not constructive. The dim +groping spirit of his mother and the curse of his environment press +too heavily upon him, and he is crushed to debauchery and madness. +He does not drink because liquor tastes good in his mouth. In the +vile companions who purvey to his baser appetites he finds no charm. +It is all utterly despicable and sordid, but thither his quest leads +him and he follows the quest. He knows that everything is wrong, but +he cannot right it, cannot tell why. He can only attack and +demolish. "What justification have you all in the sight of God? Why +do you live?" he demands of the conclave of merchants, of life's +successes. "You have not constructed life--you have made a cesspool! +You have disseminated filth and stifling exhalations by your deeds. +Have you any conscience? Do you remember God? A five-kopek piece-- +that is your God! But you have expelled your conscience!" + +Like the cry of Isaiah, "Go to, now, ye rich men, weep and howl for +your misfortunes that shall come upon you," is Foma's: "You blood- +suckers! You live on other people's strength; you work with other +people's hands! For all this you shall be made to pay! You shall +perish--you shall be called to account for all! For all--to the last +little tear-drop!" + +Stunned by this puddle of life, unable to make sense of it, Foma +questions, and questions vainly, whether of Sofya Medynsky in her +drawing-room of beauty, or in the foulest depths of the first chance +courtesan's heart. Linboff, whose books contradict one another, +cannot help him; nor can the pilgrims on crowded steamers, nor the +verse writers and harlots in dives and boozingkens. And so, +wondering, pondering, perplexed, amazed, whirling through the mad +whirlpool of life, dancing the dance of death, groping for the +nameless, indefinite something, the magic formula, the essence, the +intrinsic fact, the flash of light through the murk and dark--the +rational sanction for existence, in short--Foma Gordyeeff goes down +to madness and death. + +It is not a pretty book, but it is a masterful interrogation of life- +-not of life universal, but of life particular, the social life of +to-day. It is not nice; neither is the social life of to-day nice. +One lays the book down sick at heart--sick for life with all its +"lyings and its lusts." But it is a healthy book. So fearful is its +portrayal of social disease, so ruthless its stripping of the painted +charms from vice, that its tendency cannot but be strongly for good. +It is a goad, to prick sleeping human consciences awake and drive +them into the battle for humanity. + +But no story is told, nothing is finished, some one will object. +Surely, when Sasha leaped overboard and swam to Foma, something +happened. It was pregnant with possibilities. Yet it was not +finished, was not decisive. She left him to go with the son of a +rich vodka-maker. And all that was best in Sofya Medynsky was +quickened when she looked upon Foma with the look of the Mother- +Woman. She might have been a power for good in his life, she might +have shed light into it and lifted him up to safety and honour and +understanding. Yet she went away next day, and he never saw her +again. No story is told, nothing is finished. + +Ah, but surely the story of Foma Gordyeeff is told; his life is +finished, as lives are being finished each day around us. Besides, +it is the way of life, and the art of Gorky is the art of realism. +But it is a less tedious realism than that of Tolstoy or Turgenev. +It lives and breathes from page to page with a swing and dash and go +that they rarely attain. Their mantle has fallen on his young +shoulders, and he promises to wear it royally. + +Even so, but so helpless, hopeless, terrible is this life of Foma +Gordyeeff that we would be filled with profound sorrow for Gorky did +we not know that he has come up out of the Valley of Shadow. That he +hopes, we know, else would he not now be festering in a Russian +prison because he is brave enough to live the hope he feels. He +knows life, why and how it should be lived. And in conclusion, this +one thing is manifest: Foma Gordyeeff is no mere statement of an +intellectual problem. For as he lived and interrogated living, so in +sweat and blood and travail has Gorky lived. + +PIEDMONT, CALIFORNIA. +November 1901. + + + +THESE BONES SHALL RISE AGAIN + + + +Rudyard Kipling, "prophet of blood and vulgarity, prince of +ephemerals and idol of the unelect"--as a Chicago critic chortles--is +dead. It is true. He is dead, dead and buried. And a fluttering, +chirping host of men, little men and unseeing men, have heaped him +over with the uncut leaves of Kim, wrapped him in Stalky & Co., for +winding sheet, and for headstone reared his unconventional lines, The +Lesson. It was very easy. The simplest thing in the world. And the +fluttering, chirping gentlemen are rubbing their hands in amaze and +wondering why they did not do it long ago, it was so very, very +simple. + +But the centuries to come, of which the fluttering, chirping +gentlemen are prone to talk largely, will have something to say in +the matter. And when they, the future centuries, quest back to the +nineteenth century to find what manner of century it was--to find, +not what the people of the nineteenth century thought they thought, +but what they really thought, not what they thought they ought to do, +but what they really did do, then a certain man, Kipling, will be +read--and read with understanding. "They thought they read him with +understanding, those people of the nineteenth century," the future +centuries will say; "and then they thought there was no understanding +in him, and after that they did not know what they thought." + +But this is over-severe. It applies only to that class which serves +a function somewhat similar to that served by the populace of old +time in Rome. This is the unstable, mob-minded mass, which sits on +the fence, ever ready to fall this side or that and indecorously +clamber back again; which puts a Democratic administration into +office one election, and a Republican the next; which discovers and +lifts up a prophet to-day that it may stone him tomorrow; which +clamours for the book everybody else is reading, for no reason under +the sun save that everybody else is reading it. This is the class of +whim and caprice, of fad and vogue, the unstable, incoherent, mob- +mouthed, mob-minded mass, the "monkey-folk," if you please, of these +latter days. Now it may be reading The Eternal City. Yesterday it +was reading The Master Christian, and some several days before that +it was reading Kipling. Yes, almost to his shame be it, these folk +were reading him. But it was not his fault. If he depended upon +them he well deserves to be dead and buried and never to rise again. +But to them, let us be thankful, he never lived. They thought he +lived, but he was as dead then as he is now and as he always will be. + +He could not help it because he became the vogue, and it is easily +understood. When he lay ill, fighting with close grapples with +death, those who knew him were grieved. They were many, and in many +voices, to the rim of the Seven Seas, they spoke their grief. +Whereupon, and with celerity, the mob-minded mass began to inquire as +to this man whom so many mourned. If everybody else mourned, it were +fit that they mourn too. So a vast wail went up. Each was a spur to +the other's grief, and each began privately to read this man they had +never read and publicly to proclaim this man they had always read. +And straightaway next day they drowned their grief in a sea of +historical romance and forgot all about him. The reaction was +inevitable. Emerging from the sea into which they had plunged, they +became aware that they had so soon forgotten him, and would have been +ashamed, had not the fluttering, chirping men said, "Come, let us +bury him." And they put him in a hole, quickly, out of their sight. + +And when they have crept into their own little holes, and smugly laid +themselves down in their last long sleep, the future centuries will +roll the stone away and he will come forth again. For be it known: +THAT MAN OF US IS IMPERISHABLE WHO MAKES HIS CENTURY IMPERISHABLE. +That man of us who seizes upon the salient facts of our life, who +tells what we thought, what we were, and for what we stood--that man +shall be the mouthpiece to the centuries, and so long as they listen +he shall endure. + +We remember the caveman. We remember him because he made his century +imperishable. But, unhappily, we remember him dimly, in a collective +sort of way, because he memorialized his century dimly, in a +collective sort of way. He had no written speech, so he left us rude +scratchings of beasts and things, cracked marrow-bones, and weapons +of stone. It was the best expression of which he was capable. Had +he scratched his own particular name with the scratchings of beasts +and things, stamped his cracked marrowbones with his own particular +seal, trade-marked his weapons of stone with his own particular +device, that particular man would we remember. But he did the best +he could, and we remember him as best we may. + +Homer takes his place with Achilles and the Greek and Trojan heroes. +Because he remembered them, we remember him. Whether he be one or a +dozen men, or a dozen generations of men, we remember him. And so +long as the name of Greece is known on the lips of men, so long will +the name of Homer be known. There are many such names, linked with +their times, which have come down to us, many more which will yet go +down; and to them, in token that we have lived, must we add some few +of our own. + +Dealing only with the artist, be it understood, only those artists +will go down who have spoken true of us. Their truth must be the +deepest and most significant, their voices clear and strong, definite +and coherent. Half-truths and partial-truths will not do, nor will +thin piping voices and quavering lays. There must be the cosmic +quality in what they sing. They must seize upon and press into +enduring art-forms the vital facts of our existence. They must tell +why we have lived, for without any reason for living, depend upon it, +in the time to come, it will be as though we had never lived. Nor +are the things that were true of the people a thousand years or so +ago true of us to-day. The romance of Homer's Greece is the romance +of Homer's Greece. That is undeniable. It is not our romance. And +he who in our time sings the romance of Homer's Greece cannot expect +to sing it so well as Homer did, nor will he be singing about us or +our romance at all. A machine age is something quite different from +an heroic age. What is true of rapid-fire guns, stock-exchanges, and +electric motors, cannot possibly be true of hand-flung javelins and +whirring chariot wheels. Kipling knows this. He has been telling it +to us all his life, living it all his life in the work he has done. + +What the Anglo-Saxon has done, he has memorialized. And by Anglo- +Saxon is not meant merely the people of that tight little island on +the edge of the Western Ocean. Anglo-Saxon stands for the English- +speaking people of all the world, who, in forms and institutions and +traditions, are more peculiarly and definitely English than anything +else. This people Kipling has sung. Their sweat and blood and toil +have been the motives of his songs; but underlying all the motives of +his songs is the motive of motives, the sum of them all and something +more, which is one with what underlies all the Anglo-Saxon sweat and +blood and toil; namely, the genius of the race. And this is the +cosmic quality. Both that which is true of the race for all time, +and that which is true of the race for all time applied to this +particular time, he has caught up and pressed into his art-forms. He +has caught the dominant note of the Anglo-Saxon and pressed it into +wonderful rhythms which cannot be sung out in a day and which will +not be sung out in a day. + +The Anglo-Saxon is a pirate, a land robber and a sea robber. +Underneath his thin coating of culture, he is what he was in Morgan's +time, in Drake's time, in William's time, in Alfred's time. The +blood and the tradition of Hengist and Horsa are in his veins. In +battle he is subject to the blood-lusts of the Berserkers of old. +Plunder and booty fascinate him immeasurably. The schoolboy of to- +day dreams the dream of Clive and Hastings. The Anglo-Saxon is +strong of arm and heavy of hand, and he possesses a primitive +brutality all his own. There is a discontent in his blood, an +unsatisfaction that will not let him rest, but sends him adventuring +over the sea and among the lands in the midst of the sea. He does +not know when he is beaten, wherefore the term "bulldog" is attached +to him, so that all may know his unreasonableness. He has "some care +as to the purity of his ways, does not wish for strange gods, nor +juggle with intellectual phantasmagoria." He loves freedom, but is +dictatorial to others, is self-willed, has boundless energy, and does +things for himself. He is also a master of matter, an organizer of +law, and an administrator of justice. + +And in the nineteenth century he has lived up to his reputation. +Being the nineteenth century and no other century, and in so far +different from all other centuries, he has expressed himself +differently. But blood will tell, and in the name of God, the Bible, +and Democracy, he has gone out over the earth, possessing himself of +broad lands and fat revenues, and conquering by virtue of his sheer +pluck and enterprise and superior machinery. + +Now the future centuries, seeking to find out what the nineteenth +century Anglo-Saxon was and what were his works, will have small +concern with what he did not do and what he would have liked to do. +These things he did do, and for these things will he be remembered. +His claim on posterity will be that in the nineteenth century he +mastered matter; his twentieth-century claim will be, in the highest +probability, that he organized life--but that will be sung by the +twentieth-century Kiplings or the twenty-first-century Kiplings. +Rudyard Kipling of the nineteenth century has sung of "things as they +are." He has seen life as it is, "taken it up squarely," in both his +hands, and looked upon it. What better preachment upon the Anglo- +Saxon and what he has done can be had than The Bridge Builders? what +better appraisement than The White Man's Burden? As for faith and +clean ideals--not of "children and gods, but men in a world of men"-- +who has preached them better than he? + +Primarily, Kipling has stood for the doer as opposed to the dreamer-- +the doer, who lists not to idle songs of empty days, but who goes +forth and does things, with bended back and sweated brow and work- +hardened hands. The most characteristic thing about Kipling is his +lover of actuality, his intense practicality, his proper and +necessary respect for the hard-headed, hard-fisted fact. And, above +all, he has preached the gospel of work, and as potently as Carlyle +ever preached. For he has preached it not only to those in the high +places, but to the common men, to the great sweating thong of common +men who hear and understand yet stand agape at Carlyle's turgid +utterance. Do the thing to your hand, and do it with all your might. +Never mind what the thing is; so long as it is something. Do it. Do +it and remember Tomlinson, sexless and soulless Tomlinson, who was +denied at Heaven's gate. + +The blundering centuries have perseveringly pottered and groped +through the dark; but it remained for Kipling's century to roll in +the sun, to formulate, in other words, the reign of law. And of the +artists in Kipling's century, he of them all has driven the greater +measure of law in the more consummate speech: + + +Keep ye the Law--be swift in all obedience. +Clear the land of evil, drive the road and bridge the ford. + Make ye sure to each his own + That he reap what he hath sown; +By the peace among Our peoples let men know we serve the Lord. + + +- And so it runs, from McAndrew's Law, Order, Duty, and Restraint, to +his last least line, whether of The Vampire or The Recessional. And +no prophet out of Israel has cried out more loudly the sins of the +people, nor called them more awfully to repent. + +"But he is vulgar, he stirs the puddle of life," object the +fluttering, chirping gentlemen, the Tomlinsonian men. Well, and +isn't life vulgar? Can you divorce the facts of life? Much of good +is there, and much of ill; but who may draw aside his garment and +say, "I am none of them"? Can you say that the part is greater than +the whole? that the whole is more or less than the sum of the parts? +As for the puddle of life, the stench is offensive to you? Well, and +what then? Do you not live in it? Why do you not make it clean? Do +you clamour for a filter to make clean only your own particular +portion? And, made clean, are you wroth because Kipling has stirred +it muddy again? At least he has stirred it healthily, with steady +vigour and good-will. He has not brought to the surface merely its +dregs, but its most significant values. He has told the centuries to +come of our lyings and our lusts, but he has also told the centuries +to come of the seriousness which is underneath our lyings and our +lusts. And he has told us, too, and always has he told us, to be +clean and strong and to walk upright and manlike. + +"But he has no sympathy," the fluttering gentlemen chirp. "We admire +his art and intellectual brilliancy, we all admire his art and +intellectual brilliancy, his dazzling technique and rare rhythmical +sense; but . . . he is totally devoid of sympathy." Dear! Dear! +What is to be understood by this? Should he sprinkle his pages with +sympathetic adjectives, so many to the paragraph, as the country +compositor sprinkles commas? Surely not. The little gentlemen are +not quite so infinitesimal as that. There have been many tellers of +jokes, and the greater of them, it is recorded, never smiled at their +own, not even in the crucial moment when the audience wavered between +laughter and tears. + +And so with Kipling. Take The Vampire, for instance. It has been +complained that there is no touch of pity in it for the man and his +ruin, no sermon on the lesson of it, no compassion for the human +weakness, no indignation at the heartlessness. But are we +kindergarten children that the tale be told to us in words of one +syllable? Or are we men and women, able to read between the lines +what Kipling intended we should read between the lines? "For some of +him lived, but the most of him died." Is there not here all the +excitation in the world for our sorrow, our pity, our indignation? +And what more is the function of art than to excite states of +consciousness complementary to the thing portrayed? The colour of +tragedy is red. Must the artist also paint in the watery tears and +wan-faced grief? "For some of him lived, but the most of him died"-- +can the heartache of the situation be conveyed more achingly? Or +were it better that the young man, some of him alive but most of him +dead, should come out before the curtain and deliver a homily to the +weeping audience? + +The nineteenth century, so far as the Anglo-Saxon is concerned, was +remarkable for two great developments: the mastery of matter and the +expansion of the race. Three great forces operated in it: +nationalism, commercialism, democracy--the marshalling of the races, +the merciless, remorseless laissez faire of the dominant bourgeoisie, +and the practical, actual working government of men within a very +limited equality. The democracy of the nineteenth century is not the +democracy of which the eighteenth century dreamed. It is not the +democracy of the Declaration, but it is what we have practised and +lived that reconciles it to the fact of the "lesser breeds without +the Law." + +It is of these developments and forces of the nineteenth century that +Kipling has sung. And the romance of it he has sung, that which +underlies and transcends objective endeavour, which deals with race +impulses, race deeds, and race traditions. Even into the steam-laden +speech of his locomotives has he breathed our life, our spirit, our +significance. As he is our mouthpiece, so are they his mouthpieces. +And the romance of the nineteenth-century man as he has thus +expressed himself in the nineteenth century, in shaft and wheel, in +steel and steam, in far journeying and adventuring, Kipling has +caught up in wondrous songs for the future centuries to sing. + +If the nineteenth century is the century of the Hooligan, then is +Kipling the voice of the Hooligan as surely as he is the voice of the +nineteenth century. Who is more representative? Is David Harum more +representative of the nineteenth century? Is Mary Johnston, Charles +Major, or Winston Churchill? Is Bret Harte? William Dean Howells? +Gilbert Parker? Who of them all is as essentially representative of +nineteenth-century life? When Kipling is forgotten, will Robert +Louis Stevenson be remembered for his Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, his +Kidnapped and his David Balfour? Not so. His Treasure Island will +be a classic, to go down with Robinson Crusoe, Through the Looking- +Glass, and The Jungle Books. He will be remembered for his essays, +for his letters, for his philosophy of life, for himself. He will be +the well beloved, as he has been the well beloved. But his will be +another claim upon posterity than what we are considering. For each +epoch has its singer. As Scott sang the swan song of chivalry and +Dickens the burgher-fear of the rising merchant class, so Kipling, as +no one else, has sung the hymn of the dominant bourgeoisie, the war +march of the white man round the world, the triumphant paean of +commercialism and imperialism. For that will he be remembered. + +OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA. +October 1901. + + + +THE OTHER ANIMALS + + + +American journalism has its moments of fantastic hysteria, and when +it is on the rampage the only thing for a rational man to do is to +climb a tree and let the cataclysm go by. And so, some time ago, +when the word nature-faker was coined, I, for one, climbed into my +tree and stayed there. I happened to be in Hawaii at the time, and a +Honolulu reporter elicited the sentiment from me that I thanked God I +was not an authority on anything. This sentiment was promptly cabled +to America in an Associated Press despatch, whereupon the American +press (possibly annoyed because I had not climbed down out of my +tree) charged me with paying for advertising by cable at a dollar per +word--the very human way of the American press, which, when a man +refuses to come down and be licked, makes faces at him. + +But now that the storm is over, let us come and reason together. I +have been guilty of writing two animal-stories--two books about dogs. +The writing of these two stories, on my part, was in truth a protest +against the "humanizing" of animals, of which it seemed to me several +"animal writers" had been profoundly guilty. Time and again, and +many times, in my narratives, I wrote, speaking of my dog-heroes: +"He did not think these things; he merely did them," etc. And I did +this repeatedly, to the clogging of my narrative and in violation of +my artistic canons; and I did it in order to hammer into the average +human understanding that these dog-heroes of mine were not directed +by abstract reasoning, but by instinct, sensation, and emotion, and +by simple reasoning. Also, I endeavoured to make my stories in line +with the facts of evolution; I hewed them to the mark set by +scientific research, and awoke, one day, to find myself bundled neck +and crop into the camp of the nature-fakers. + +President Roosevelt was responsible for this, and he tried to condemn +me on two counts. (1) I was guilty of having a big, fighting bull- +dog whip a wolf-dog. (2) I was guilty of allowing a lynx to kill a +wolf-dog in a pitched battle. Regarding the second count, President +Roosevelt was wrong in his field observations taken while reading my +book. He must have read it hastily, for in my story I had the wolf- +dog kill the lynx. Not only did I have my wolf-dog kill the lynx, +but I made him eat the body of the lynx as well. Remains only the +first count on which to convict me of nature-faking, and the first +count does not charge me with diverging from ascertained facts. It +is merely a statement of a difference of opinion. President +Roosevelt does not think a bull-dog can lick a wolf-dog. I think a +bull-dog can lick a wolf-dog. And there we are. Difference of +opinion may make, and does make, horse-racing. I can understand that +difference of opinion can make dog-fighting. But what gets me is how +difference of opinion regarding the relative fighting merits of a +bull-dog and a wolf-dog makes me a nature-faker and President +Roosevelt a vindicated and triumphant scientist. + +Then entered John Burroughs to clinch President Roosevelt's +judgments. In this alliance there is no difference of opinion. That +Roosevelt can do no wrong is Burroughs's opinion; and that Burroughs +is always right is Roosevelt's opinion. Both are agreed that animals +do not reason. They assert that all animals below man are automatons +and perform actions only of two sorts--mechanical and reflex--and +that in such actions no reasoning enters at all. They believe that +man is the only animal capable of reasoning and that ever does +reason. This is a view that makes the twentieth-century scientist +smile. It is not modern at all. It is distinctly mediaeval. +President Roosevelt and John Burroughs, in advancing such a view, are +homocentric in the same fashion that the scholastics of earlier and +darker centuries were homocentric. Had the world not been discovered +to be round until after the births of President Roosevelt and John +Burroughs, they would have been geocentric as well in their theories +of the Cosmos. They could not have believed otherwise. The stuff of +their minds is so conditioned. They talk the argot of evolution, +while they no more understand the essence and the import of evolution +than does a South Sea Islander or Sir Oliver Lodge understand the +noumena of radio-activity. + +Now, President Roosevelt is an amateur. He may know something of +statecraft and of big-game shooting; he may be able to kill a deer +when he sees it and to measure it and weigh it after he has shot it; +he may be able to observe carefully and accurately the actions and +antics of tomtits and snipe, and, after he has observed it, +definitely and coherently to convey the information of when the first +chipmunk, in a certain year and a certain latitude and longitude, +came out in the spring and chattered and gambolled--but that he +should be able, as an individual observer, to analyze all animal life +and to synthetize and develop all that is known of the method and +significance of evolution, would require a vaster credulity for you +or me to believe than is required for us to believe the biggest +whopper ever told by an unmitigated nature-faker. No, President +Roosevelt does not understand evolution, and he does not seem to have +made much of an attempt to understand evolution. + +Remains John Burroughs, who claims to be a thorough-going +evolutionist. Now, it is rather hard for a young man to tackle an +old man. It is the nature of young men to be more controlled in such +matters, and it is the nature of old men, presuming upon the wisdom +that is very often erroneously associated with age, to do the +tackling. In this present question of nature-faking, the old men did +the tackling, while I, as one young man, kept quiet a long time. But +here goes at last. And first of all let Mr. Burroughs's position be +stated, and stated in his words. + +"Why impute reason to an animal if its behaviour can be explained on +the theory of instinct?" Remember these words, for they will be +referred to later. "A goodly number of persons seem to have +persuaded themselves that animals do reason." "But instinct suffices +for the animals . . . they get along very well without reason." +"Darwin tried hard to convince himself that animals do at times +reason in a rudimentary way; but Darwin was also a much greater +naturalist than psychologist." The preceding quotation is +tantamount, on Mr. Burroughs's part, to a flat denial that animals +reason even in a rudimentary way. And when Mr. Burrough denies that +animals reason even in a rudimentary way, it is equivalent to +affirming, in accord with the first quotation in this paragraph, that +instinct will explain every animal act that might be confounded with +reason by the unskilled or careless observer. + +Having bitten off this large mouthful, Mr. Burroughs proceeds with +serene and beautiful satisfaction to masticate it in the following +fashion. He cites a large number of instances of purely instinctive +actions on the part of animals, and triumphantly demands if they are +acts of reason. He tells of the robin that fought day after day its +reflected image in a window-pane; of the birds in South America that +were guilty of drilling clear through a mud wall, which they mistook +for a solid clay bank: of the beaver that cut down a tree four times +because it was held at the top by the branches of other trees; of the +cow that licked the skin of her stuffed calf so affectionately that +it came apart, whereupon she proceeded to eat the hay with which it +was stuffed. He tells of the phobe-bird that betrays her nest on the +porch by trying to hide it with moss in similar fashion to the way +all phobe-birds hide their nests when they are built among rocks. He +tells of the highhole that repeatedly drills through the clap-boards +of an empty house in a vain attempt to find a thickness of wood deep +enough in which to build its nest. He tells of the migrating +lemmings of Norway that plunge into the sea and drown in vast numbers +because of their instinct to swim lakes and rivers in the course of +their migrations. And, having told a few more instances of like +kidney, he triumphantly demands: "Where now is your much-vaunted +reasoning of the lower animals? + +No schoolboy in a class debate could be guilty of unfairer argument. +It is equivalent to replying to the assertion that 2+2=4, by saying: +"No; because 12/4=3; I have demonstrated my honourable opponent's +error." When a man attacks your ability as a foot-racer, promptly +prove to him that he was drunk the week before last, and the average +man in the crowd of gaping listeners will believe that you have +convincingly refuted the slander on your fleetness of foot. On my +honour, it will work. Try it some time. It is done every day. Mr. +Burroughs has done it himself, and, I doubt not, pulled the +sophistical wool over a great many pairs of eyes. No, no, Mr. +Burroughs; you can't disprove that animals reason by proving that +they possess instincts. But the worst of it is that you have at the +same time pulled the wool over your own eyes. You have set up a +straw man and knocked the stuffing out of him in the complacent +belief that it was the reasoning of lower animals you were knocking +out of the minds of those who disagreed with you. When the highhole +perforated the icehouse and let out the sawdust, you called him a +lunatic . . . + +But let us be charitable--and serious. What Mr. Burroughs instances +as acts of instinct certainly are acts of instincts. By the same +method of logic one could easily adduce a multitude of instinctive +acts on the part of man and thereby prove that man is an unreasoning +animal. But man performs actions of both sorts. Between man and the +lower animals Mr. Burroughs finds a vast gulf. This gulf divides man +from the rest of his kin by virtue of the power of reason that he +alone possesses. Man is a voluntary agent. Animals are automatons. +The robin fights its reflection in the window-pane because it is his +instinct to fight and because he cannot reason out the physical laws +that make this reflection appear real. An animal is a mechanism that +operates according to fore-ordained rules. Wrapped up in its +heredity, and determined long before it was born, is a certain +limited capacity of ganglionic response to eternal stimuli. These +responses have been fixed in the species through adaptation to +environment. Natural selection has compelled the animal +automatically to respond in a fixed manner and a certain way to all +the usual external stimuli it encounters in the course of a usual +life. Thus, under usual circumstances, it does the usual thing. +Under unusual circumstances it still does the usual thing, wherefore +the highhole perforating the ice-house is guilty of lunacy--of +unreason, in short. To do the unusual thing under unusual +circumstances, successfully to adjust to a strange environment for +which his heredity has not automatically fitted an adjustment, Mr. +Burroughs says is impossible. He says it is impossible because it +would be a non-instinctive act, and, as is well known animals act +only through instinct. And right here we catch a glimpse of Mr. +Burroughs's cart standing before his horse. He has a thesis, and +though the heavens fall he will fit the facts to the thesis. +Agassiz, in his opposition to evolution, had a similar thesis, though +neither did he fit the facts to it nor did the heavens fall. Facts +are very disagreeable at times. + +But let us see. Let us test Mr. Burroughs's test of reason and +instinct. When I was a small boy I had a dog named Rollo. According +to Mr. Burroughs, Rollo was an automaton, responding to external +stimuli mechanically as directed by his instincts. Now, as is well +known, the development of instinct in animals is a dreadfully slow +process. There is no known case of the development of a single +instinct in domestic animals in all the history of their +domestication. Whatever instincts they possess they brought with +them from the wild thousands of years ago. Therefore, all Rollo's +actions were ganglionic discharges mechanically determined by the +instincts that had been developed and fixed in the species thousands +of years ago. Very well. It is clear, therefore, that in all his +play with me he would act in old-fashioned ways, adjusting himself to +the physical and psychical factors in his environment according to +the rules of adjustment which had obtained in the wild and which had +become part of his heredity. + +Rollo and I did a great deal of rough romping. He chased me and I +chased him. He nipped my legs, arms, and hands, often so hard that I +yelled, while I rolled him and tumbled him and dragged him about, +often so strenuously as to make him yelp. In the course of the play +many variations arose. I would make believe to sit down and cry. +All repentance and anxiety, he would wag his tail and lick my face, +whereupon I would give him the laugh. He hated to be laughed at, and +promptly he would spring for me with good-natured, menacing jaws, and +the wild romp would go on. I had scored a point. Then he hit upon a +trick. Pursuing him into the woodshed, I would find him in a far +corner, pretending to sulk. Now, he dearly loved the play, and never +got enough of it. But at first he fooled me. I thought I had +somehow hurt his feelings and I came and knelt before him, petting +him, and speaking lovingly. Promptly, in a wild outburst, he was up +and away, tumbling me over on the floor as he dashed out in a mad +skurry around the yard. He had scored a point. + +After a time, it became largely a game of wits. I reasoned my acts, +of course, while his were instinctive. One day, as he pretended to +sulk in the corner, I glanced out of the woodshed doorway, simulated +pleasure in face, voice, and language, and greeted one of my +schoolboy friends. Immediately Rollo forgot to sulk, rushed out to +see the newcomer, and saw empty space. The laugh was on him, and he +knew it, and I gave it to him, too. I fooled him in this way two or +three times; then be became wise. One day I worked a variation. +Suddenly looking out the door, making believe that my eyes had been +attracted by a moving form, I said coldly, as a child educated in +turning away bill-collectors would say: "No my father is not at +home." Like a shot, Rollo was out the door. He even ran down the +alley to the front of the house in a vain attempt to find the man I +had addressed. He came back sheepishly to endure the laugh and +resume the game. + +And now we come to the test. I fooled Rollo, but how was the fooling +made possible? What precisely went on in that brain of his? +According to Mr. Burroughs, who denies even rudimentary reasoning to +the lower animals, Rollo acted instinctively, mechanically responding +to the external stimulus, furnished by me, which led him to believe +that a man was outside the door. + +Since Rollo acted instinctively, and since all instincts are very +ancient, tracing back to the pre-domestication period, we can +conclude only that Rollo's wild ancestors, at the time this +particular instinct was fixed into the heredity of the species, must +have been in close, long-continued, and vital contact with man, the +voice of man, and the expressions on the face of man. But since the +instinct must have been developed during the pre-domestication +period, how under the sun could his wild, undomesticated ancestors +have experienced the close, long-continued, and vital contact with +man? + +Mr. Burroughs says that "instinct suffices for the animals," that +"they get along very well without reason." But I say, what all the +poor nature-fakers will say, that Rollo reasoned. He was born into +the world a bundle of instincts and a pinch of brain-stuff, all +wrapped around in a framework of bone, meat, and hide. As he +adjusted to his environment he gained experiences. He remembered +these experiences. He learned that he mustn't chase the cat, kill +chickens, nor bite little girls' dresses. He learned that little +boys had little boy playmates. He learned that men came into back +yards. He learned that the animal man, on meeting with his own kind, +was given to verbal and facial greeting. He learned that when a boy +greeted a playmate he did it differently from the way he greeted a +man. All these he learned and remembered. They were so many +observations--so many propositions, if you please. Now, what went on +behind those brown eyes of his, inside that pinch of brain-stuff, +when I turned suddenly to the door and greeted an imaginary person +outside? Instantly, out of the thousands of observations stored in +his brain, came to the front of his consciousness the particular +observations connected with this particular situation. Next, he +established a relation between these observations. This relation was +his conclusion, achieved, as every psychologist will agree, by a +definite cell-action of his grey matter. From the fact that his +master turned suddenly toward the door, and from the fact that his +master's voice, facial expression, and whole demeanour expressed +surprise and delight, he concluded that a friend was outside. He +established a relation between various things, and the act of +establishing relations between things is an act of reason--of +rudimentary reason, granted, but none the less of reason. + +Of course Rollo was fooled. But that is no call for us to throw +chests about it. How often has every last one of us been fooled in +precisely similar fashion by another who turned and suddenly +addressed an imaginary intruder? Here is a case in point that +occurred in the West. A robber had held up a railroad train. He +stood in the aisle between the seats, his revolver presented at the +head of the conductor, who stood facing him. The conductor was at +his mercy. + +But the conductor suddenly looked over the robber's shoulder, at the +same time saying aloud to an imaginary person standing at the +robber's back: "Don't shoot him." Like a flash the robber whirled +about to confront this new danger, and like a flash the conductor +shot him down. Show me, Mr. Burroughs, where the mental process in +the robber's brain was a shade different from the mental processes in +Rollo's brain, and I'll quit nature-faking and join the Trappists. +Surely, when a man's mental process and a dog's mental process are +precisely similar, the much-vaunted gulf of Mr. Burroughs's fancy has +been bridged. + +I had a dog in Oakland. His name was Glen. His father was Brown, a +wolf-dog that had been brought down from Alaska., and his mother was +a half-wild mountain shepherd dog. Neither father nor mother had had +any experience with automobiles. Glen came from the country, a half- +grown puppy, to live in Oakland. Immediately he became infatuated +with an automobile. He reached the culmination of happiness when he +was permitted to sit up in the front seat alongside the chauffeur. +He would spend a whole day at a time on an automobile debauch, even +going without food. Often the machine started directly from inside +the barn, dashed out the driveway without stopping, and was gone. +Glen got left behind several times. The custom was established that +whoever was taking the machine out should toot the horn before +starting. Glen learned the signal. No matter where he was or what +he was doing, when that horn tooted he was off for the barn and up +into the front seat. + +One morning, while Glen was on the back porch eating his breakfast of +mush and milk, the chauffeur tooted. Glen rushed down the steps, +into the barn, and took his front seat, the mush and milk dripping +down his excited and happy chops. In passing, I may point out that +in thus forsaking his breakfast for the automobile he was displaying +what is called the power of choice--a peculiarly lordly attribute +that, according to Mr. Burroughs, belongs to man alone. Yet Glen +made his choice between food and fun. + +It was not that Glen wanted his breakfast less, but that he wanted +his ride more. The toot was only a joke. The automobile did not +start. Glen waited and watched. Evidently he saw no signs of an +immediate start, for finally he jumped out of the seat and went back +to his breakfast. He ate with indecent haste, like a man anxious to +catch a train. Again the horn tooted, again he deserted his +breakfast, and again he sat in the seat and waited vainly for the +machine to go. + +They came close to spoiling Glen's breakfast for him, for he was kept +on the jump between porch and barn. Then he grew wise. They tooted +the horn loudly and insistently, but he stayed by his breakfast and +finished it. Thus once more did he display power of choice, +incidentally of control, for when that horn tooted it was all he +could do to refrain from running for the barn. + +The nature-faker would analyze what went on in Glen's brain somewhat +in the following fashion. He had had, in his short life, experiences +that not one of all his ancestors had ever had. He had learned that +automobiles went fast, that once in motion it was impossible for him +to get on board, that the toot of the horn was a noise that was +peculiar to automobiles. These were so many propositions. Now +reasoning can be defined as the act or process of the brain by which, +from propositions known or assumed, new propositions are reached. +Out of the propositions which I have shown were Glen's, and which had +become his through the medium of his own observation of the phenomena +of life, he made the new proposition that when the horn tooted it was +time for him to get on board. + +But on the morning I have described, the chauffeur fooled Glen. +Somehow and much to his own disgust, his reasoning was erroneous. +The machine did not start after all. But to reason incorrectly is +very human. The great trouble in all acts of reasoning is to include +all the propositions in the problem. Glen had included every +proposition but one, namely, the human proposition, the joke in the +brain of the chauffeur. For a number of times Glen was fooled. Then +he performed another mental act. In his problem he included the +human proposition (the joke in the brain of the chauffeur), and he +reached the new conclusion that when the horn tooted the automobile +was NOT going to start. Basing his action on this conclusion, he +remained on the porch and finished his breakfast. You and I, and +even Mr. Burroughs, perform acts of reasoning precisely similar to +this every day in our lives. How Mr. Burroughs will explain Glen's +action by the instinctive theory is beyond me. In wildest fantasy, +even, my brain refuses to follow Mr. Burroughs into the primeval +forest where Glen's dim ancestors, to the tooting of automobile +horns, were fixing into the heredity of the breed the particular +instinct that would enable Glen, a few thousand years later, capably +to cope with automobiles. + +Dr. C. J. Romanes tells of a female chimpanzee who was taught to +count straws up to five. She held the straws in her hand, exposing +the ends to the number requested. If she were asked for three, she +held up three. If she were asked for four, she held up four. All +this is a mere matter of training. But consider now, Mr. Burroughs, +what follows. When she was asked for five straws and she had only +four, she doubled one straw, exposing both its ends and thus making +up the required number. She did not do this only once, and by +accident. She did it whenever more straws were asked for than she +possessed. Did she perform a distinctly reasoning act? or was her +action the result of blind, mechanical instinct? If Mr. Burroughs +cannot answer to his own satisfaction, he may call Dr. Romanes a +nature-faker and dismiss the incident from his mind. + +The foregoing is a trick of erroneous human reasoning that works very +successfully in the United States these days. It is certainly a +trick of Mr. Burroughs, of which he is guilty with distressing +frequency. When a poor devil of a writer records what he has seen, +and when what he has seen does not agree with Mr. Burroughs's +mediaeval theory, he calls said writer a nature-faker. When a man +like Mr. Hornaday comes along, Mr. Burroughs works a variation of the +trick on him. Mr. Hornaday has made a close study of the orang in +captivity and of the orang in its native state. Also, he has studied +closely many other of the higher animal types. Also, in the tropics, +he has studied the lower types of man. Mr. Hornaday is a man of +experience and reputation. When he was asked if animals reasoned, +out of all his knowledge on the subject he replied that to ask him +such a question was equivalent to asking him if fishes swim. Now Mr. +Burroughs has not had much experience in studying the lower human +types and the higher animal types. Living in a rural district in the +state of New York, and studying principally birds in that limited +habitat, he has been in contact neither with the higher animal types +nor the lower human types. But Mr. Hornaday's reply is such a facer +to him and his homocentric theory that he has to do something. And +he does it. He retorts: "I suspect that Mr. Hornaday is a better +naturalist than he is a comparative psychologist." Exit Mr. +Hornaday. Who the devil is Mr. Hornaday, anyway? The sage of +Slabsides has spoken. When Darwin concluded that animals were +capable of reasoning in a rudimentary way, Mr. Burroughs laid him out +in the same fashion by saying: "But Darwin was also a much greater +naturalist than psychologist"--and this despite Darwin's long life of +laborious research that was not wholly confined to a rural district +such as Mr. Burroughs inhabits in New York. Mr. Burroughs's method +of argument is beautiful. It reminds one of the man whose +pronunciation was vile, but who said: "Damn the dictionary; ain't I +here?" + +And now we come to the mental processes of Mr. Burroughs--to the +psychology of the ego, if you please. Mr. Burroughs has troubles of +his own with the dictionary. He violates language from the +standpoint both of logic and science. Language is a tool, and +definitions embodied in language should agree with the facts and +history of life. But Mr. Burroughs's definitions do not so agree. +This, in turn, is not the fault of his education, but of his ego. To +him, despite his well-exploited and patronizing devotion to them, the +lower animals are disgustingly low. To him, affinity and kinship +with the other animals is a repugnant thing. He will have none of +it. He is too glorious a personality not to have between him and the +other animals a vast and impassable gulf. The cause of Mr. +Burroughs's mediaeval view of the other animals is to be found, not +in his knowledge of those other animals, but in the suggestion of his +self-exalted ego. In short, Mr. Burroughs's homocentric theory has +been developed out of his homocentric ego, and by the misuse of +language he strives to make the facts of life agree with his theory. + +After the instances I have cited of actions of animals which are +impossible of explanation as due to instinct, Mr. Burroughs may +reply: "Your instances are easily explained by the simple law of +association." To this I reply, first, then why did you deny +rudimentary reason to animals? and why did you state flatly that +"instinct suffices for the animals"? And, second, with great +reluctance and with overwhelming humility, because of my youth, I +suggest that you do not know exactly what you do mean by that phrase +"the simple law of association." Your trouble, I repeat, is with +definitions. You have grasped that man performs what is called +ABSTRACT reasoning, you have made a definition of abstract reason, +and, betrayed by that great maker of theories, the ego, you have come +to think that all reasoning is abstract and that what is not abstract +reason is not reason at all. This is your attitude toward +rudimentary reason. Such a process, in one of the other animals, +must be either abstract or it is not a reasoning process. Your +intelligence tells you that such a process is not abstract reasoning, +and your homocentric thesis compels you to conclude that it can be +only a mechanical, instinctive process. + +Definitions must agree, not with egos, but with life. Mr. Burroughs +goes on the basis that a definition is something hard and fast, +absolute and eternal. He forgets that all the universe is in flux; +that definitions are arbitrary and ephemeral; that they fix, for a +fleeting instant of time, things that in the past were not, that in +the future will be not, that out of the past become, and that out of +the present pass on to the future and become other things. +Definitions cannot rule life. Definitions cannot be made to rule +life. Life must rule definitions or else the definitions perish. + +Mr. Burroughs forgets the evolution of reason. He makes a definition +of reason without regard to its history, and that definition is of +reason purely abstract. Human reason, as we know it to-day, is not a +creation, but a growth. Its history goes back to the primordial +slime that was quick with muddy life; its history goes back to the +first vitalized inorganic. And here are the steps of its ascent from +the mud to man: simple reflex action, compound reflex action, +memory, habit, rudimentary reason, and abstract reason. In the +course of the climb, thanks to natural selection, instinct was +evolved. Habit is a development in the individual. Instinct is a +race-habit. Instinct is blind, unreasoning, mechanical. This was +the dividing of the ways in the climb of aspiring life. The perfect +culmination of instinct we find in the ant-heap and the beehive. +Instinct proved a blind alley. But the other path, that of reason, +led on and on even to Mr. Burroughs and you and me. + +There are no impassable gulfs, unless one chooses, as Mr. Burroughs +does, to ignore the lower human types and the higher animal types, +and to compare human mind with bird mind. It was impossible for life +to reason abstractly until speech was developed. Equipped with +swords, with tools of thought, in short, the slow development of the +power to reason in the abstract went on. The lowest human types do +little or no reasoning in the abstract. With every word, with every +increase in the complexity of thought, with every ascertained fact so +gained, went on action and reaction in the grey matter of the speech +discoverer, and slowly, step by step, through hundreds of thousands +of years, developed the power of reason. + +Place a honey-bee in a glass bottle. Turn the bottom of the bottle +toward a lighted lamp so that the open mouth is away from the lamp. +Vainly, ceaselessly, a thousand times, undeterred by the bafflement +and the pain, the bee will hurl himself against the bottom of the +bottle as he strives to win to the light. That is instinct. Place +your dog in a back yard and go away. He is your dog. He loves you. +He yearns toward you as the bee yearns toward the light. He listens +to your departing footsteps. But the fence is too high. Then he +turns his back upon the direction in which you are departing, and +runs around the yard. He is frantic with affection and desire. But +he is not blind. He is observant. He is looking for a hole under +the fence, or through the fence, or for a place where the fence is +not so high. He sees a dry-goods box standing against the fence. +Presto! He leaps upon it, goes over the barrier, and tears down the +street to overtake you. Is that instinct? + +Here, in the household where I am writing this, is a little Tahitian +"feeding-child." He believes firmly that a tiny dwarf resides in the +box of my talking-machine and that it is the tiny dwarf who does the +singing and the talking. Not even Mr. Burroughs will affirm that the +child has reached this conclusion by an instinctive process. Of +course, the child reasons the existence of the dwarf in the box. How +else could the box talk and sing? In that child's limited experience +it has never encountered a single instance where speech and song were +produced otherwise than by direct human agency. I doubt not that the +dog is considerably surprised when he hears his master's voice coming +out of a box. + +The adult savage, on his first introduction to a telephone, rushes +around to the adjoining room to find the man who is talking through +the partition. Is this act instinctive? No. Out of his limited +experience, out of his limited knowledge of physics, he reasons that +the only explanation possible is that a man is in the other room +talking through the partition. + +But that savage cannot be fooled by a hand-mirror. We must go lower +down in the animal scale, to the monkey. The monkey swiftly learns +that the monkey it sees is not in the glass, wherefore it reaches +craftily behind the glass. Is this instinct? No. It is rudimentary +reasoning. Lower than the monkey in the scale of brain is the robin, +and the robin fights its reflection in the window-pane. Now climb +with me for a space. From the robin to the monkey, where is the +impassable gulf? and where is the impassable gulf between the monkey +and the feeding-child? between the feeding-child and the savage who +seeks the man behind the partition? ay, and between the savage and +the astute financiers Mrs. Chadwick fooled and the thousands who were +fooled by the Keeley Motor swindle? + +Let us be very humble. We who are so very human are very animal. +Kinship with the other animals is no more repugnant to Mr. Burroughs +than was the heliocentric theory to the priests who compelled Galileo +to recant. Not correct human reason, not the evidence of the +ascertained fact, but pride of ego, was responsible for the +repugnance. + +In his stiff-necked pride, Mr. Burroughs runs a hazard more +humiliating to that pride than any amount of kinship with the other +animals. When a dog exhibits choice, direction, control, and reason; +when it is shown that certain mental processes in that dog's brain +are precisely duplicated in the brain of man; and when Mr. Burroughs +convincingly proves that every action of the dog is mechanical and +automatic--then, by precisely the same arguments, can it be proved +that the similar actions of man are mechanical and automatic. No, +Mr. Burroughs, though you stand on the top of the ladder of life, you +must not kick out that ladder from under your feet. You must not +deny your relatives, the other animals. Their history is your +history, and if you kick them to the bottom of the abyss, to the +bottom of the abyss you go yourself. By them you stand or fall. +What you repudiate in them you repudiate in yourself--a pretty +spectacle, truly, of an exalted animal striving to disown the stuff +of life out of which it is made, striving by use of the very reason +that was developed by evolution to deny the possession of evolution +that developed it. This may be good egotism, but it is not good +science. + +PAPEETE, TAHITI. +March 1908. + + + +THE YELLOW PERIL + + + +No more marked contrast appears in passing from our Western land to +the paper houses and cherry blossoms of Japan than appears in passing +from Korea to China. To achieve a correct appreciation of the +Chinese the traveller should first sojourn amongst the Koreans for +several months, and then, one fine day, cross over the Yalu into +Manchuria. It would be of exceptional advantage to the correctness +of appreciation did he cross over the Yalu on the heels of a hostile +and alien army. + +War is to-day the final arbiter in the affairs of men, and it is as +yet the final test of the worth-whileness of peoples. Tested thus, +the Korean fails. He lacks the nerve to remain when a strange army +crosses his land. The few goods and chattels he may have managed to +accumulate he puts on his back, along with his doors and windows, and +away he heads for his mountain fastnesses. Later he may return, sans +goods, chattels, doors, and windows, impelled by insatiable curiosity +for a "look see." But it is curiosity merely--a timid, deerlike +curiosity. He is prepared to bound away on his long legs at the +first hint of danger or trouble. + +Northern Korea was a desolate land when the Japanese passed through. +Villages and towns were deserted. The fields lay untouched. There +was no ploughing nor sowing, no green things growing. Little or +nothing was to be purchased. One carried one's own food with him and +food for horses and servants was the anxious problem that waited at +the day's end. In many a lonely village not an ounce nor a grain of +anything could be bought, and yet there might be standing around +scores of white-garmented, stalwart Koreans, smoking yard-long pipes +and chattering, chattering--ceaselessly chattering. Love, money, or +force could not procure from them a horseshoe or a horseshoe nail. + +"Upso," was their invariable reply. "Upso," cursed word, which means +"Have not got." + +They had tramped probably forty miles that day, down from their +hiding-places, just for a "look see," and forty miles back they would +cheerfully tramp, chattering all the way over what they had seen. +Shake a stick at them as they stand chattering about your camp-fire, +and the gloom of the landscape will be filled with tall, flitting +ghosts, bounding like deer, with great springy strides which one +cannot but envy. They have splendid vigour and fine bodies, but they +are accustomed to being beaten and robbed without protest or +resistance by every chance foreigner who enters their country. + +From this nerveless, forsaken Korean land I rode down upon the sandy +islands of the Yalu. For weeks these islands had been the dread +between-the-lines of two fighting armies. The air above had been +rent by screaming projectiles. The echoes of the final battle had +scarcely died away. The trains of Japanese wounded and Japanese dead +were trailing by. + +On the conical hill, a quarter of a mile away, the Russian dead were +being buried in their trenches and in the shell holes made by the +Japanese. And here, in the thick of it all, a man was ploughing. +Green things were growing--young onions--and the man who was weeding +them paused from his labour long enough to sell me a handful. Near +by was the smoke-blackened ruin of the farmhouse, fired by the +Russians when they retreated from the riverbed. Two men were +removing the debris, cleaning the confusion, preparatory to +rebuilding. They were clad in blue. Pigtails hung down their backs. +I was in China! + +I rode to the shore, into the village of Kuelian-Ching. There were +no lounging men smoking long pipes and chattering. The previous day +the Russians had been there, a bloody battle had been fought, and to- +day the Japanese were there--but what was that to talk about? +Everybody was busy. Men were offering eggs and chickens and fruit +for sale upon the street, and bread, as I live, bread in small round +loaves or buns. I rode on into the country. Everywhere a toiling +population was in evidence. The houses and walls were strong and +substantial. Stone and brick replaced the mud walls of the Korean +dwellings. Twilight fell and deepened, and still the ploughs went up +and down the fields, the sowers following after. Trains of +wheelbarrows, heavily loaded, squeaked by, and Pekin carts, drawn by +from four to six cows, horses, mules, ponies, or jackasses--cows even +with their newborn calves tottering along on puny legs outside the +traces. Everybody worked. Everything worked. I saw a man mending +the road. I was in China. + +I came to the city of Antung, and lodged with a merchant. He was a +grain merchant. Corn he had, hundreds of bushels, stored in great +bins of stout matting; peas and beans in sacks, and in the back yard +his millstones went round and round, grinding out meal. Also, in his +back yard, were buildings containing vats sunk into the ground, and +here the tanners were at work making leather. I bought a measure of +corn from mine host for my horses, and he overcharged me thirty +cents. I was in China. Antung was jammed with Japanese troops. It +was the thick of war. But it did not matter. The work of Antung +went on just the same. The shops were wide open; the streets were +lined with pedlars. One could buy anything; get anything made. I +dined at a Chinese restaurant, cleansed myself at a public bath in a +private tub with a small boy to assist in the scrubbing. I bought +condensed milk, bitter, canned vegetables, bread, and cake. I repeat +it, cake--good cake. I bought knives, forks, and spoons, granite- +ware dishes and mugs. There were horseshoes and horseshoers. A +worker in iron realized for me new designs of mine for my tent poles. +My shoes were sent out to be repaired. A barber shampooed my hair. +A servant returned with corn-beef in tins, a bottle of port, another +of cognac, and beer, blessed beer, to wash out from my throat the +dust of an army. It was the land of Canaan. I was in China. + +The Korean is the perfect type of inefficiency--of utter +worthlessness. The Chinese is the perfect type of industry. For +sheer work no worker in the world can compare with him. Work is the +breath of his nostrils. It is his solution of existence. It is to +him what wandering and fighting in far lands and spiritual adventure +have been to other peoples. Liberty to him epitomizes itself in +access to the means of toil. To till the soil and labour +interminably with rude implements and utensils is all he asks of life +and of the powers that be. Work is what he desires above all things, +and he will work at anything for anybody. + +During the taking of the Taku forts he carried scaling ladders at the +heads of the storming columns and planted them against the walls. He +did this, not from a sense of patriotism, but for the invading +foreign devils because they paid him a daily wage of fifty cents. He +is not frightened by war. He accepts it as he does rain and +sunshine, the changing of the seasons, and other natural phenomena. +He prepares for it, endures it, and survives it, and when the tide of +battle sweeps by, the thunder of the guns still reverberating in the +distant canyons, he is seen calmly bending to his usual tasks. Nay, +war itself bears fruits whereof he may pick. Before the dead are +cold or the burial squads have arrived he is out on the field, +stripping the mangled bodies, collecting the shrapnel, and ferreting +in the shell holes for slivers and fragments of iron. + +The Chinese is no coward. He does not carry away his doors amid +windows to the mountains, but remains to guard them when alien +soldiers occupy his town. He does not hide away his chickens and his +eggs, nor any other commodity he possesses. He proceeds at once to +offer them for sale. Nor is he to be bullied into lowering his +price. What if the purchaser be a soldier and an alien made cocky by +victory and confident by overwhelming force? He has two large pears +saved over from last year which he will sell for five sen, or for the +same price three small pears. What if one soldier persist in taking +away with him three large pears? What if there be twenty other +soldiers jostling about him? He turns over his sack of fruit to +another Chinese and races down the street after his pears and the +soldier responsible for their flight, and he does not return till he +has wrenched away one large pear from that soldier's grasp. + +Nor is the Chinese the type of permanence which he has been so often +designated. He is not so ill-disposed toward new ideas and new +methods as his history would seem to indicate. True, his forms, +customs, and methods have been permanent these many centuries, but +this has been due to the fact that his government was in the hands of +the learned classes, and that these governing scholars found their +salvation lay in suppressing all progressive ideas. The ideas behind +the Boxer troubles and the outbreaks over the introduction of +railroad and other foreign devil machinations have emanated from the +minds of the literati, and been spread by their pamphlets and +propagandists. + +Originality and enterprise have been suppressed in the Chinese for +scores of generations. Only has remained to him industry, and in +this has he found the supreme expression of his being. On the other +hand, his susceptibility to new ideas has been well demonstrated +wherever he has escaped beyond the restrictions imposed upon him by +his government. So far as the business man is concerned he has +grasped far more clearly the Western code of business, the Western +ethics of business, than has the Japanese. He has learned, as a +matter of course, to keep his word or his bond. As yet, the Japanese +business man has failed to understand this. When he has signed a +time contract and when changing conditions cause him to lose by it, +the Japanese merchant cannot understand why he should live up to his +contract. It is beyond his comprehension and repulsive to his common +sense that he should live up to his contract and thereby lose money. +He firmly believes that the changing conditions themselves absolve +him. And in so far adaptable as he has shown himself to be in other +respects, he fails to grasp a radically new idea where the Chinese +succeeds. + +Here we have the Chinese, four hundred millions of him, occupying a +vast land of immense natural resources--resources of a twentieth- +century age, of a machine age; resources of coal and iron, which are +the backbone of commercial civilization. He is an indefatigable +worker. He is not dead to new ideas, new methods, new systems. +Under a capable management he can be made to do anything. Truly +would he of himself constitute the much-heralded Yellow Peril were it +not for his present management. This management, his government, is +set, crystallized. It is what binds him down to building as his +fathers built. The governing class, entrenched by the precedent and +power of centuries and by the stamp it has put upon his mind, will +never free him. It would be the suicide of the governing class, and +the governing class knows it. + +Comes now the Japanese. On the streets of Antung, of Feng-Wang- +Chang, or of any other Manchurian city, the following is a familiar +scene: One is hurrying home through the dark of the unlighted +streets when he comes upon a paper lantern resting on the ground. On +one side squats a Chinese civilian on his hams, on the other side +squats a Japanese soldier. One dips his forefinger in the dust and +writes strange, monstrous characters. The other nods understanding, +sweeps the dust slate level with his hand, and with his forefinger +inscribes similar characters. They are talking. They cannot speak +to each other, but they can write. Long ago one borrowed the other's +written language, and long before that, untold generations ago, they +diverged from a common root, the ancient Mongol stock. + +There have been changes, differentiations brought about by diverse +conditions and infusions of other blood; but down at the bottom of +their being, twisted into the fibres of them, is a heritage in +common--a sameness in kind which time has not obliterated. The +infusion of other blood, Malay, perhaps, has made the Japanese a race +of mastery and power, a fighting race through all its history, a race +which has always despised commerce and exalted fighting. + +To-day, equipped with the finest machines and systems of destruction +the Caucasian mind has devised, handling machines and systems with +remarkable and deadly accuracy, this rejuvenescent Japanese race has +embarked on a course of conquest the goal of which no man knows. The +head men of Japan are dreaming ambitiously, and the people are +dreaming blindly, a Napoleonic dream. And to this dream the Japanese +clings and will cling with bull-dog tenacity. The soldier shouting +"Nippon, Banzai!" on the walls of Wiju, the widow at home in her +paper house committing suicide so that her only son, her sole +support, may go to the front, are both expressing the unanimity of +the dream. + +The late disturbance in the Far East marked the clashing of the +dreams, for the Slav, too, is dreaming greatly. Granting that the +Japanese can hurl back the Slav and that the two great branches of +the Anglo-Saxon race do not despoil him of his spoils, the Japanese +dream takes on substantiality. Japan's population is no larger +because her people have continually pressed against the means of +subsistence. But given poor, empty Korea for a breeding colony and +Manchuria for a granary, and at once the Japanese begins to increase +by leaps and bounds. + +Even so, he would not of himself constitute a Brown Peril. He has +not the time in which to grow and realize the dream. He is only +forty-five millions, and so fast does the economic exploitation of +the planet hurry on the planet's partition amongst the Western +peoples that, before he could attain the stature requisite to menace, +he would see the Western giants in possession of the very stuff of +his dream. + +The menace to the Western world lies, not in the little brown man, +but in the four hundred millions of yellow men should the little +brown man undertake their management. The Chinese is not dead to new +ideas; he is an efficient worker; makes a good soldier, and is +wealthy in the essential materials of a machine age. Under a capable +management he will go far. The Japanese is prepared and fit to +undertake this management. Not only has he proved himself an apt +imitator of Western material progress, a sturdy worker, and a capable +organizer, but he is far more fit to manage the Chinese than are we. +The baffling enigma of the Chinese character is no baffling enigma to +him. He understands as we could never school ourselves nor hope to +understand. Their mental processes are largely the same. He thinks +with the same thought-symbols as does the Chinese, and he thinks in +the same peculiar grooves. He goes on where we are balked by the +obstacles of incomprehension. He takes the turning which we cannot +perceive, twists around the obstacle, and, presto! is out of sight in +the ramifications of the Chinese mind where we cannot follow. + +The Chinese has been called the type of permanence, and well he has +merited it, dozing as he has through the ages. And as truly was the +Japanese the type of permanence up to a generation ago, when he +suddenly awoke and startled the world with a rejuvenescence the like +of which the world had never seen before. The ideas of the West were +the leaven which quickened the Japanese; and the ideas of the West, +transmitted by the Japanese mind into ideas Japanese, may well make +the leaven powerful enough to quicken the Chinese. + +We have had Africa for the Afrikander, and at no distant day we shall +hear "Asia for the Asiatic!" Four hundred million indefatigable +workers (deft, intelligent, and unafraid to die), aroused and +rejuvenescent, managed and guided by forty-five million additional +human beings who are splendid fighting animals, scientific and +modern, constitute that menace to the Western world which has been +well named the "Yellow Peril." The possibility of race adventure has +not passed away. We are in the midst of our own. The Slav is just +girding himself up to begin. Why may not the yellow and the brown +start out on an adventure as tremendous as our own and more +strikingly unique? + +The ultimate success of such an adventure the Western mind refuses to +consider. It is not the nature of life to believe itself weak. +There is such a thing as race egotism as well as creature egotism, +and a very good thing it is. In the first place, the Western world +will not permit the rise of the yellow peril. It is firmly convinced +that it will not permit the yellow and the brown to wax strong and +menace its peace and comfort. It advances this idea with +persistency, and delivers itself of long arguments showing how and +why this menace will not be permitted to arise. Today, far more +voices are engaged in denying the yellow peril than in prophesying +it. The Western world is warned, if not armed, against the +possibility of it. + +In the second place, there is a weakness inherent in the brown man +which will bring his adventure to naught. From the West he has +borrowed all our material achievement and passed our ethical +achievement by. Our engines of production and destruction he has +made his. What was once solely ours he now duplicates, rivalling our +merchants in the commerce of the East, thrashing the Russian on sea +and land. A marvellous imitator truly, but imitating us only in +things material. Things spiritual cannot be imitated; they must be +felt and lived, woven into the very fabric of life, and here the +Japanese fails. + +It required no revolution of his nature to learn to calculate the +range and fire a field gun or to march the goose-step. It was a mere +matter of training. Our material achievement is the product of our +intellect. It is knowledge, and knowledge, like coin, is +interchangeable. It is not wrapped up in the heredity of the new- +born child, but is something to be acquired afterward. Not so with +our soul stuff, which is the product of an evolution which goes back +to the raw beginnings of the race. Our soul stuff is not a coin to +be pocketed by the first chance comer. The Japanese cannot pocket it +any more than he can thrill to short Saxon words or we can thrill to +Chinese hieroglyphics. The leopard cannot change its spots, nor can +the Japanese, nor can we. We are thumbed by the ages into what we +are, and by no conscious inward effort can we in a day rethumb +ourselves. Nor can the Japanese in a day, or a generation, rethumb +himself in our image. + +Back of our own great race adventure, back of our robberies by sea +and land, our lusts and violences and all the evil things we have +done, there is a certain integrity, a sternness of conscience, a +melancholy responsibility of life, a sympathy and comradeship and +warm human feel, which is ours, indubitably ours, and which we cannot +teach to the Oriental as we would teach logarithms or the trajectory +of projectiles. That we have groped for the way of right conduct and +agonized over the soul betokens our spiritual endowment. Though we +have strayed often and far from righteousness, the voices of the +seers have always been raised, and we have harked back to the bidding +of conscience. The colossal fact of our history is that we have made +the religion of Jesus Christ our religion. No matter how dark in +error and deed, ours has been a history of spiritual struggle and +endeavour. We are pre-eminently a religious race, which is another +way of saying that we are a right-seeking race. + +"What do you think of the Japanese?" was asked an American woman +after she had lived some time in Japan. "It seems to me that they +have no soul," was her answer. + +This must not be taken to mean that the Japanese is without soul. +But it serves to illustrate the enormous difference between their +souls and this woman's soul. There was no feel, no speech, no +recognition. This Western soul did not dream that the Eastern soul +existed, it was so different, so totally different. + +Religion, as a battle for the right in our sense of right, as a +yearning and a strife for spiritual good and purity, is unknown to +the Japanese. + +Measured by what religion means to us, the Japanese is a race without +religion. Yet it has a religion, and who shall say that it is not as +great a religion as ours, nor as efficacious? As one Japanese has +written: + +"Our reflection brought into prominence not so much the moral as the +national consciousness of the individual. . . . To us the country is +more than land and soil from which to mine gold or reap grain--it is +the sacred abode of the gods, the spirit of our forefathers; to us +the Emperor is more than the Arch Constable of a Reichsstaat, or even +the Patron of a Kulturstaat; he is the bodily representative of +heaven on earth, blending in his person its power and its mercy." + +The religion of Japan is practically a worship of the State itself. +Patriotism is the expression of this worship. The Japanese mind does +not split hairs as to whether the Emperor is Heaven incarnate or the +State incarnate. So far as the Japanese are concerned, the Emperor +lives, is himself deity. The Emperor is the object to live for and +to die for. The Japanese is not an individualist. He has developed +national consciousness instead of moral consciousness. He is not +interested in his own moral welfare except in so far as it is the +welfare of the State. The honour of the individual, per se, does not +exist. Only exists the honour of the State, which is his honour. He +does not look upon himself as a free agent, working out his own +personal salvation. Spiritual agonizing is unknown to him. He has a +"sense of calm trust in fate, a quiet submission to the inevitable, a +stoic composure in sight of danger or calamity, a disdain of life and +friendliness with death." He relates himself to the State as, +amongst bees, the worker is related to the hive; himself nothing, the +State everything; his reasons for existence the exaltation and +glorification of the State. + +The most admired quality to-day of the Japanese is his patriotism. +The Western world is in rhapsodies over it, unwittingly measuring the +Japanese patriotism by its own conceptions of patriotism. "For God, +my country, and the Czar!" cries the Russian patriot; but in the +Japanese mind there is no differentiation between the three. The +Emperor is the Emperor, and God and country as well. The patriotism +of the Japanese is blind and unswerving loyalty to what is +practically an absolutism. The Emperor can do no wrong, nor can the +five ambitious great men who have his ear and control the destiny of +Japan. + +No great race adventure can go far nor endure long which has no +deeper foundation than material success, no higher prompting than +conquest for conquest's sake and mere race glorification. To go far +and to endure, it must have behind it an ethical impulse, a sincerely +conceived righteousness. But it must be taken into consideration +that the above postulate is itself a product of Western race-egotism, +urged by our belief in our own righteousness and fostered by a faith +in ourselves which may be as erroneous as are most fond race fancies. +So be it. The world is whirling faster to-day than ever before. It +has gained impetus. Affairs rush to conclusion. The Far East is the +point of contact of the adventuring Western people as well as of the +Asiatic. We shall not have to wait for our children's time nor our +children's children. We shall ourselves see and largely determine +the adventure of the Yellow and the Brown. + +FENG-WANG-CHENG, MANCHURIA. +June 1904, + + + +WHAT LIFE MEANS TO ME + + + +I was born in the working-class. Early I discovered enthusiasm, +ambition, and ideals; and to satisfy these became the problem of my +child-life. My environment was crude and rough and raw. I had no +outlook, but an uplook rather. My place in society was at the +bottom. Here life offered nothing but sordidness and wretchedness, +both of the flesh and the spirit; for here flesh and spirit were +alike starved and tormented. + +Above me towered the colossal edifice of society, and to my mind the +only way out was up. Into this edifice I early resolved to climb. +Up above, men wore black clothes and boiled shirts, and women dressed +in beautiful gowns. Also, there were good things to eat, and there +was plenty to eat. This much for the flesh. Then there were the +things of the spirit. Up above me, I knew, were unselfishnesses of +the spirit, clean and noble thinking, keen intellectual living. I +knew all this because I read "Seaside Library" novels, in which, with +the exception of the villains and adventuresses, all men and women +thought beautiful thoughts, spoke a beautiful tongue, and performed +glorious deeds. In short, as I accepted the rising of the sun, I +accepted that up above me was all that was fine and noble and +gracious, all that gave decency and dignity to life, all that made +life worth living and that remunerated one for his travail and +misery. + +But it is not particularly easy for one to climb up out of the +working-class--especially if he is handicapped by the possession of +ideals and illusions. I lived on a ranch in California, and was hard +put to find the ladder whereby to climb. I early inquired the rate +of interest on invested money, and worried my child's brain into an +understanding of the virtues and excellences of that remarkable +invention of man, compound interest. Further, I ascertained the +current rates of wages for workers of all ages, and the cost of +living. From all this data I concluded that if I began immediately +and worked and saved until I was fifty years of age, I could then +stop working and enter into participation in a fair portion of the +delights and goodnesses that would then be open to me higher up in +society. Of course, I resolutely determined not to marry, while I +quite forgot to consider at all that great rock of disaster in the +working-class world--sickness. + +But the life that was in me demanded more than a meagre existence of +scraping and scrimping. Also, at ten years of age, I became a +newsboy on the streets of a city, and found myself with a changed +uplook. All about me were still the same sordidness and +wretchedness, and up above me was still the same paradise waiting to +be gained; but the ladder whereby to climb was a different one. It +was now the ladder of business. Why save my earnings and invest in +government bonds, when, by buying two newspapers for five cents, with +a turn of the wrist I could sell them for ten cents and double my +capital? The business ladder was the ladder for me, and I had a +vision of myself becoming a bald-headed and successful merchant +prince. + +Alas for visions! When I was sixteen I had already earned the title +of "prince." But this title was given me by a gang of cut-throats +and thieves, by whom I was called "The Prince of the Oyster Pirates." +And at that time I had climbed the first rung of the business ladder. +I was a capitalist. I owned a boat and a complete oyster-pirating +outfit. I had begun to exploit my fellow-creatures. I had a crew of +one man. As captain and owner I took two-thirds of the spoils, and +gave the crew one-third, though the crew worked just as hard as I did +and risked just as much his life and liberty. + +This one rung was the height I climbed up the business ladder. One +night I went on a raid amongst the Chinese fishermen. Ropes and nets +were worth dollars and cents. It was robbery, I grant, but it was +precisely the spirit of capitalism. The capitalist takes away the +possessions of his fellow-creatures by means of a rebate, or of a +betrayal of trust, or by the purchase of senators and supreme-court +judges. I was merely crude. That was the only difference. I used a +gun. + +But my crew that night was one of those inefficients against whom the +capitalist is wont to fulminate, because, forsooth, such inefficients +increase expenses and reduce dividends. My crew did both. What of +his carelessness he set fire to the big mainsail and totally +destroyed it. There weren't any dividends that night, and the +Chinese fishermen were richer by the nets and ropes we did not get. +I was bankrupt, unable just then to pay sixty-five dollars for a new +mainsail. I left my boat at anchor and went off on a bay-pirate boat +on a raid up the Sacramento River. While away on this trip, another +gang of bay pirates raided my boat. They stole everything, even the +anchors; and later on, when I recovered the drifting hulk, I sold it +for twenty dollars. I had slipped back the one rung I had climbed, +and never again did I attempt the business ladder. + +From then on I was mercilessly exploited by other capitalists. I had +the muscle, and they made money out of it while I made but a very +indifferent living out of it. I was a sailor before the mast, a +longshoreman, a roustabout; I worked in canneries, and factories, and +laundries; I mowed lawns, and cleaned carpets, and washed windows. +And I never got the full product of my toil. I looked at the +daughter of the cannery owner, in her carriage, and knew that it was +my muscle, in part, that helped drag along that carriage on its +rubber tyres. I looked at the son of the factory owner, going to +college, and knew that it was my muscle that helped, in part, to pay +for the wine and good fellowship he enjoyed. + +But I did not resent this. It was all in the game. They were the +strong. Very well, I was strong. I would carve my way to a place +amongst them and make money out of the muscles of other men. I was +not afraid of work. I loved hard work. I would pitch in and work +harder than ever and eventually become a pillar of society. + +And just then, as luck would have it, I found an employer that was of +the same mind. I was willing to work, and he was more than willing +that I should work. I thought I was learning a trade. In reality, I +had displaced two men. I thought he was making an electrician out of +me; as a matter of fact, he was making fifty dollars per month out of +me. The two men I had displaced had received forty dollars each per +month; I was doing the work of both for thirty dollars per month. + +This employer worked me nearly to death. A man may love oysters, but +too many oysters will disincline him toward that particular diet. +And so with me. Too much work sickened me. I did not wish ever to +see work again. I fled from work. I became a tramp, begging my way +from door to door, wandering over the United States and sweating +bloody sweats in slums and prisons. + +I had been born in the working-class, and I was now, at the age of +eighteen, beneath the point at which I had started. I was down in +the cellar of society, down in the subterranean depths of misery +about which it is neither nice nor proper to speak. I was in the +pit, the abyss, the human cesspool, the shambles and the charnel- +house of our civilization. This is the part of the edifice of +society that society chooses to ignore. Lack of space compels me +here to ignore it, and I shall say only that the things I there saw +gave me a terrible scare. + +I was scared into thinking. I saw the naked simplicities of the +complicated civilization in which I lived. Life was a matter of food +and shelter. In order to get food and shelter men sold things. The +merchant sold shoes, the politician sold his manhood, and the +representative of the people, with exceptions, of course, sold his +trust; while nearly all sold their honour. Women, too, whether on +the street or in the holy bond of wedlock, were prone to sell their +flesh. All things were commodities, all people bought and sold. The +one commodity that labour had to sell was muscle. The honour of +labour had no price in the marketplace. Labour had muscle, and +muscle alone, to sell. + +But there was a difference, a vital difference. Shoes and trust and +honour had a way of renewing themselves. They were imperishable +stocks. Muscle, on the other hand, did not renew. As the shoe +merchant sold shoes, he continued to replenish his stock. But there +was no way of replenishing the labourer's stock of muscle. The more +he sold of his muscle, the less of it remained to him. It was his +one commodity, and each day his stock of it diminished. In the end, +if he did not die before, he sold out and put up his shutters. He +was a muscle bankrupt, and nothing remained to him but to go down +into the cellar of society and perish miserably. + +I learned, further, that brain was likewise a commodity. It, too, +was different from muscle. A brain seller was only at his prime when +he was fifty or sixty years old, and his wares were fetching higher +prices than ever. But a labourer was worked out or broken down at +forty-five or fifty. I had been in the cellar of society, and I did +not like the place as a habitation. The pipes and drains were +unsanitary, and the air was bad to breathe. If I could not live on +the parlour floor of society, I could, at any rate, have a try at the +attic. It was true, the diet there was slim, but the air at least +was pure. So I resolved to sell no more muscle, and to become a +vendor of brains. + +Then began a frantic pursuit of knowledge. I returned to California +and opened the books. While thus equipping myself to become a brain +merchant, it was inevitable that I should delve into sociology. +There I found, in a certain class of books, scientifically +formulated, the simple sociological concepts I had already worked out +for myself. Other and greater minds, before I was born, had worked +out all that I had thought and a vast deal more. I discovered that I +was a socialist. + +The socialists were revolutionists, inasmuch as they struggled to +overthrow the society of the present, and out of the material to +build the society of the future. I, too, was a socialist and a +revolutionist. I joined the groups of working-class and intellectual +revolutionists, and for the first time came into intellectual living. +Here I found keen-flashing intellects and brilliant wits; for here I +met strong and alert-brained, withal horny-handed, members of the +working-class; unfrocked preachers too wide in their Christianity for +any congregation of Mammon-worshippers; professors broken on the +wheel of university subservience to the ruling class and flung out +because they were quick with knowledge which they strove to apply to +the affairs of mankind. + +Here I found, also, warm faith in the human, glowing idealism, +sweetnesses of unselfishness, renunciation, and martyrdom--all the +splendid, stinging things of the spirit. Here life was clean, noble, +and alive. Here life rehabilitated itself, became wonderful and +glorious; and I was glad to be alive. I was in touch with great +souls who exalted flesh and spirit over dollars and cents, and to +whom the thin wail of the starved slum child meant more than all the +pomp and circumstance of commercial expansion and world empire. All +about me were nobleness of purpose and heroism of effort, and my days +and nights were sunshine and starshine, all fire and dew, with before +my eyes, ever burning and blazing, the Holy Grail, Christ's own +Grail, the warm human, long-suffering and maltreated, but to be +rescued and saved at the last. + +And I, poor foolish I, deemed all this to be a mere foretaste of the +delights of living I should find higher above me in society. I had +lost many illusions since the day I read "Seaside Library" novels on +the California ranch. I was destined to lose many of the illusions I +still retained. + +As a brain merchant I was a success. Society opened its portals to +me. I entered right in on the parlour floor, and my disillusionment +proceeded rapidly. I sat down to dinner with the masters of society, +and with the wives and daughters of the masters of society. The +women were gowned beautifully, I admit; but to my naive surprise I +discovered that they were of the same clay as all the rest of the +women I had known down below in the cellar. "The colonel's lady and +Judy O'Grady were sisters under their skins"--and gowns. + +It was not this, however, so much as their materialism, that shocked +me. It is true, these beautifully gowned, beautiful women prattled +sweet little ideals and dear little moralities; but in spite of their +prattle the dominant key of the life they lived was materialistic. +And they were so sentimentally selfish! They assisted in all kinds +of sweet little charities, and informed one of the fact, while all +the time the food they ate and the beautiful clothes they wore were +bought out of dividends stained with the blood of child labour, and +sweated labour, and of prostitution itself. When I mentioned such +facts, expecting in my innocence that these sisters of Judy O'Grady +would at once strip off their blood-dyed silks and jewels, they +became excited and angry, and read me preachments about the lack of +thrift, the drink, and the innate depravity that caused all the +misery in society's cellar. When I mentioned that I couldn't quite +see that it was the lack of thrift, the intemperance, and the +depravity of a half-starved child of six that made it work twelve +hours every night in a Southern cotton mill, these sisters of Judy +O'Grady attacked my private life and called me an "agitator"--as +though that, forsooth, settled the argument. + +Nor did I fare better with the masters themselves. I had expected to +find men who were clean, noble, and alive, whose ideals were clean, +noble, and alive. I went about amongst the men who sat in the high +places--the preachers, the politicians, the business men, the +professors, and the editors. I ate meat with them, drank wine with +them, automobiled with them, and studied them. It is true, I found +many that were clean and noble; but with rare exceptions, they were +not ALIVE. I do verily believe I could count the exceptions on the +fingers of my two hands. Where they were not alive with rottenness, +quick with unclean life, there were merely the unburied dead--clean +and noble, like well-preserved mummies, but not alive. In this +connection I may especially mention the professors I met, the men who +live up to that decadent university ideal, "the passionless pursuit +of passionless intelligence." + +I met men who invoked the name of the Prince of Peace in their +diatribes against war, and who put rifles in the hands of Pinkertons +with which to shoot down strikers in their own factories. I met men +incoherent with indignation at the brutality of prize-fighting, and +who, at the same time, were parties to the adulteration of food that +killed each year more babies than even red-handed Herod had killed. + +I talked in hotels and clubs and homes and Pullmans, and steamer- +chairs with captains of industry, and marvelled at how little +travelled they were in the realm of intellect. On the other hand, I +discovered that their intellect, in the business sense, was +abnormally developed. Also, I discovered that their morality, where +business was concerned, was nil. + +This delicate, aristocratic-featured gentleman, was a dummy director +and a tool of corporations that secretly robbed widows and orphans. +This gentleman, who collected fine editions and was an especial +patron of literature, paid blackmail to a heavy-jowled, black-browed +boss of a municipal machine. This editor, who published patent +medicine advertisements and did not dare print the truth in his paper +about said patent medicines for fear of losing the advertising, +called me a scoundrelly demagogue because I told him that his +political economy was antiquated and that his biology was +contemporaneous with Pliny. + +This senator was the tool and the slave, the little puppet of a +gross, uneducated machine boss; so was this governor and this supreme +court judge; and all three rode on railroad passes. This man, +talking soberly and earnestly about the beauties of idealism and the +goodness of God, had just betrayed his comrades in a business deal. +This man, a pillar of the church and heavy contributor to foreign +missions, worked his shop girls ten hours a day on a starvation wage +and thereby directly encouraged prostitution. This man, who endowed +chairs in universities, perjured himself in courts of law over a +matter of dollars and cents. And this railroad magnate broke his +word as a gentleman and a Christian when he granted a secret rebate +to one of two captains of industry locked together in a struggle to +the death. + +It was the same everywhere, crime and betrayal, betrayal and crime-- +men who were alive, but who were neither clean nor noble, men who +were clean and noble, but who were not alive. Then there was a +great, hopeless mass, neither noble nor alive, but merely clean. It +did not sin positively nor deliberately; but it did sin passively and +ignorantly by acquiescing in the current immorality and profiting by +it. Had it been noble and alive it would not have been ignorant, and +it would have refused to share in the profits of betrayal and crime. + +I discovered that I did not like to live on the parlour floor of +society. Intellectually I was as bored. Morally and spiritually I +was sickened. I remembered my intellectuals and idealists, my +unfrocked preachers, broken professors, and clean-minded, class- +conscious working-men. I remembered my days and nights of sunshine +and starshine, where life was all a wild sweet wonder, a spiritual +paradise of unselfish adventure and ethical romance. And I saw +before me, ever blazing and burning, the Holy Grail. + +So I went back to the working-class, in which I had been born and +where I belonged. I care no longer to climb. The imposing edifice +of society above my head holds no delights for me. It is the +foundation of the edifice that interests me. There I am content to +labour, crowbar in hand, shoulder to shoulder with intellectuals, +idealists, and class-conscious working-men, getting a solid pry now +and again and setting the whole edifice rocking. Some day, when we +get a few more hands and crowbars to work, we'll topple it over, +along with all its rotten life and unburied dead, its monstrous +selfishness and sodden materialism. Then we'll cleanse the cellar +and build a new habitation for mankind, in which there will be no +parlour floor, in which all the rooms will be bright and airy, and +where the air that is breathed will be clean, noble, and alive. + +Such is my outlook. I look forward to a time when man shall progress +upon something worthier and higher than his stomach, when there will +be a finer incentive to impel men to action than the incentive of to- +day, which is the incentive of the stomach. I retain my belief in +the nobility and excellence of the human. I believe that spiritual +sweetness and unselfishness will conquer the gross gluttony of to- +day. And last of all, my faith is in the working-class. As some +Frenchman has said, "The stairway of time is ever echoing with the +wooden shoe going up, the polished boot descending." + +NEWTON, IOWA. +November 1905. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, REVOLUTION AND OTHER ESSAYS *** + +This file should be named rvlt10.txt or rvlt10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, rvlt11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, rvlt10a.txt + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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