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diff --git a/old/rvlt10h.htm b/old/rvlt10h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..26441fa --- /dev/null +++ b/old/rvlt10h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,5999 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII"> +<title>Revolution and Other Essays</title> +</head> +<body> +<h2> +<a href="#startoftext">Revolution and Other Essays, by Jack London</a> +</h2> +<pre> +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Revolution and Other Essays, by Jack London +(#110 in our series by Jack London) + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Revolution and Other Essays + +Author: Jack London + +Release Date: January, 2004 [EBook #4953] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on April 3, 2002] +[Most recently updated: April 3, 2002] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII +</pre> +<p> +<a name="startoftext"></a> +Transcribed from the 1910 Mills and Boon edition by David Price, email +ccx074@coventry.ac.uk.<br> +<br> +REVOLUTION AND OTHER ESSAYS<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +Contents:<br> + Revolution<br> + The Somnambulists <br> + The Dignity of Dollars<br> + Goliah<br> + The Golden Poppy<br> + The Shrinkage of the Planet<br> + The House Beautiful<br> + The Gold Hunters of the North<br> + Fomá Gordyéeff<br> + These Bones shall Rise Again<br> + The Other Animals<br> + The Yellow Peril<br> + What Life Means to Me<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +REVOLUTION<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +“The present is enough for common souls,<br> +Who, never looking forward, are indeed<br> +Mere clay, wherein the footprints of their age<br> +Are petrified for ever.”<br> +<br> +I received a letter the other day. It was from a man in Arizona. +It began, “Dear Comrade.” It ended, “Yours for +the Revolution.” I replied to the letter, and my letter +began, “Dear Comrade.” It ended, “Yours for +the Revolution.” In the United States there are 400,000 +men, of men and women nearly 1,000,000, who begin their letters “Dear +Comrade,” and end them “Yours for the Revolution.” +In Germany there are 3,000,000 men who begin their letters “Dear +Comrade” and end them “Yours for the Revolution”; +in France, 1,000,000 men; in Austria, 800,000 men; in Belgium, 300,000 +men; in Italy, 250,000 men; in England, 100,000 men; in Switzerland, +100,000 men; in Denmark, 55,000 men; in Sweden, 50,000 men; in Holland, +40,000 men; in Spain, 30,000 men - comrades all, and revolutionists.<br> +<br> +These are numbers which dwarf the grand armies of Napoleon and Xerxes. +But they are numbers not of conquest and maintenance of the established +order, but of conquest and revolution. They compose, when the +roll is called, an army of 7,000,000 men, who, in accordance with the +conditions of to-day, are fighting with all their might for the conquest +of the wealth of the world and for the complete overthrow of existing +society.<br> +<br> +There has never been anything like this revolution in the history of +the world. There is nothing analogous between it and the American +Revolution or the French Revolution. It is unique, colossal. +Other revolutions compare with it as asteroids compare with the sun. +It is alone of its kind, the first world-revolution in a world whose +history is replete with revolutions. And not only this, for it +is the first organized movement of men to become a world movement, limited +only by the limits of the planet.<br> +<br> +This revolution is unlike all other revolutions in many respects. +It is not sporadic. It is not a flame of popular discontent, arising +in a day and dying down in a day. It is older than the present +generation. It has a history and traditions, and a martyr-roll +only less extensive possibly than the martyr-roll of Christianity. +It has also a literature a myriad times more imposing, scientific, and +scholarly than the literature of any previous revolution.<br> +<br> +They call themselves “comrades,” these men, comrades in +the socialist revolution. Nor is the word empty and meaningless, +coined of mere lip service. It knits men together as brothers, +as men should be knit together who stand shoulder to shoulder under +the red banner of revolt. This red banner, by the way, symbolizes +the brotherhood of man, and does not symbolize the incendiarism that +instantly connects itself with the red banner in the affrighted bourgeois +mind. The comradeship of the revolutionists is alive and warm. +It passes over geographical lines, transcends race prejudice, and has +even proved itself mightier than the Fourth of July, spread-eagle Americanism +of our forefathers. The French socialist working-men and the German +socialist working-men forget Alsace and Lorraine, and, when war threatens, +pass resolutions declaring that as working-men and comrades they have +no quarrel with each other. Only the other day, when Japan and +Russia sprang at each other’s throats, the revolutionists of Japan +addressed the following message to the revolutionists of Russia: “Dear +Comrades - Your government and ours have recently plunged into war to +carry out their imperialistic tendencies, but for us socialists there +are no boundaries, race, country, or nationality. We are comrades, +brothers, and sisters, and have no reason to fight. Your enemies +are not the Japanese people, but our militarism and so-called patriotism. +Patriotism and militarism are our mutual enemies.”<br> +<br> +In January 1905, throughout the United States the socialists held mass-meetings +to express their sympathy for their struggling comrades, the revolutionists +of Russia, and, more to the point, to furnish the sinews of war by collecting +money and cabling it to the Russian leaders. The fact of this +call for money, and the ready response, and the very wording of the +call, make a striking and practical demonstration of the international +solidarity of this world-revolution:<br> +<br> +“Whatever may be the immediate results of the present revolt in +Russia, the socialist propaganda in that country has received from it +an impetus unparalleled in the history of modern class wars. The +heroic battle for freedom is being fought almost exclusively by the +Russian working-class under the intellectual leadership of Russian socialists, +thus once more demonstrating the fact that the class-conscious working-men +have become the vanguard of all liberating movements of modern times.”<br> +<br> +Here are 7,000,000 comrades in an organized, international, world-wide, +revolutionary movement. Here is a tremendous human force. +It must be reckoned with. Here is power. And here is romance +- romance so colossal that it seems to be beyond the ken of ordinary +mortals. These revolutionists are swayed by great passion. +They have a keen sense of personal right, much of reverence for humanity, +but little reverence, if any at all, for the rule of the dead. +They refuse to be ruled by the dead. To the bourgeois mind their +unbelief in the dominant conventions of the established order is startling. +They laugh to scorn the sweet ideals and dear moralities of bourgeois +society. They intend to destroy bourgeois society with most of +its sweet ideals and dear moralities, and chiefest among these are those +that group themselves under such heads as private ownership of capital, +survival of the fittest, and patriotism - even patriotism.<br> +<br> +Such an army of revolution, 7,000,000 strong, is a thing to make rulers +and ruling classes pause and consider. The cry of this army is, +“No quarter! We want all that you possess. We will +be content with nothing less than all that you possess. We want +in our hands the reins of power and the destiny of mankind. Here +are our hands. They are strong hands. We are going to take +your governments, your palaces, and all your purpled ease away from +you, and in that day you shall work for your bread even as the peasant +in the field or the starved and runty clerk in your metropolises. +Here are our hands. They are strong hands.”<br> +<br> +Well may rulers and ruling classes pause and consider. This is +revolution. And, further, these 7,000,000 men are not an army +on paper. Their fighting strength in the field is 7,000,000. +To-day they cast 7,000,000 votes in the civilized countries of the world.<br> +<br> +Yesterday they were not so strong. Tomorrow they will be still +stronger. And they are fighters. They love peace. +They are unafraid of war. They intend nothing less than to destroy +existing capitalist society and to take possession of the whole world. +If the law of the land permits, they fight for this end peaceably, at +the ballot-box. If the law of the land does not permit, and if +they have force meted out to them, they resort to force themselves. +They meet violence with violence. Their hands are strong and they +are unafraid. In Russia, for instance, there is no suffrage. +The government executes the revolutionists. The revolutionists +kill the officers of the government. The revolutionists meet legal +murder with assassination.<br> +<br> +Now here arises a particularly significant phase which it would be well +for the rulers to consider. Let me make it concrete. I am +a revolutionist. Yet I am a fairly sane and normal individual. +I speak, and I <i>think, </i>of these assassins in Russia as “my +comrades.” So do all the comrades in America, and all the +7,000,000 comrades in the world. Of what worth an organized, international, +revolutionary movement if our comrades are not backed up the world over! +The worth is shown by the fact that we do back up the assassinations +by our comrades in Russia. They are not disciples of Tolstoy, +nor are we. We are revolutionists.<br> +<br> +Our comrades in Russia have formed what they call “The Fighting +Organization.” This Fighting Organization accused, tried, +found guilty, and condemned to death, one Sipiaguin, Minister of Interior. +On April 2 he was shot and killed in the Maryinsky Palace. Two +years later the Fighting Organization condemned to death and executed +another Minister of Interior, Von Plehve. Having done so, it issued +a document, dated July 29, 1904, setting forth the counts of its indictment +of Von Plehve and its responsibility for the assassination. Now, +and to the point, this document was sent out to the socialists of the +world, and by them was published everywhere in the magazines and newspapers. +The point is, not that the socialists of the world were unafraid to +do it, not that they dared to do it, but that they did it as a matter +of routine, giving publication to what may be called an official document +of the international revolutionary movement.<br> +<br> +These are high lights upon the revolution - granted, but they are also +facts. And they are given to the rulers and the ruling classes, +not in bravado, not to frighten them, but for them to consider more +deeply the spirit and nature of this world-revolution. The time +has come for the revolution to demand consideration. It has fastened +upon every civilized country in the world. As fast as a country +becomes civilized, the revolution fastens upon it. With the introduction +of the machine into Japan, socialism was introduced. Socialism +marched into the Philippines shoulder to shoulder with the American +soldiers. The echoes of the last gun had scarcely died away when +socialist locals were forming in Cuba and Porto Rico. Vastly more +significant is the fact that of all the countries the revolution has +fastened upon, on not one has it relaxed its grip. On the contrary, +on every country its grip closes tighter year by year. As an active +movement it began obscurely over a generation ago. In 1867, its +voting strength in the world was 30,000. By 1871 its vote had +increased to 1,000,000. Not till 1884 did it pass the half-million +point. By 1889 it had passed the million point, it had then gained +momentum. In 1892 the socialist vote of the world was 1,798,391; +in 1893, 2,585,898; in 1895, 3,033,718; in 1898, 4,515,591; in 1902, +5,253,054; in 1903, 6,285,374; and in the year of our Lord 1905 it passed +the seven-million mark.<br> +<br> +Nor has this flame of revolution left the United States untouched. +In 1888 there were only 2,068 socialist votes. In 1902 there were +127,713 socialist votes. And in 1904 435,040 socialist votes were +cast. What fanned this flame? Not hard times. The +first four years of the twentieth century were considered prosperous +years, yet in that time more than 300,000 men added themselves to the +ranks of the revolutionists, flinging their defiance in the teeth of +bourgeois society and taking their stand under the blood-red banner. +In the state of the writer, California, one man in twelve is an avowed +and registered revolutionist.<br> +<br> +One thing must be clearly understood. This is no spontaneous and +vague uprising of a large mass of discontented and miserable people +- a blind and instinctive recoil from hurt. On the contrary, the +propaganda is intellectual; the movement is based upon economic necessity +and is in line with social evolution; while the miserable people have +not yet revolted. The revolutionist is no starved and diseased +slave in the shambles at the bottom of the social pit, but is, in the +main, a hearty, well-fed working-man, who sees the shambles waiting +for him and his children and recoils from the descent. The very +miserable people are too helpless to help themselves. But they +are being helped, and the day is not far distant when their numbers +will go to swell the ranks of the revolutionists.<br> +<br> +Another thing must be clearly understood. In spite of the fact +that middle-class men and professional men are interested in the movement, +it is nevertheless a distinctly working-class revolt. The world +over, it is a working-class revolt. The workers of the world, +as a class, are fighting the capitalists of the world, as a class. +The so-called great middle class is a growing anomaly in the social +struggle. It is a perishing class (wily statisticians to the contrary), +and its historic mission of buffer between the capitalist and working-classes +has just about been fulfilled. Little remains for it but to wail +as it passes into oblivion, as it has already begun to wail in accents +Populistic and Jeffersonian-Democratic. The fight is on. +The revolution is here now, and it is the world’s workers that +are in revolt.<br> +<br> +Naturally the question arises: Why is this so? No mere whim of +the spirit can give rise to a world-revolution. Whim does not +conduce to unanimity. There must be a deep-seated cause to make +7,000,000 men of the one mind, to make them cast off allegiance to the +bourgeois gods and lose faith in so fine a thing as patriotism. +There are many counts of the indictment which the revolutionists bring +against the capitalist class, but for present use only one need be stated, +and it is a count to which capital has never replied and can never reply.<br> +<br> +The capitalist class has managed society, and its management has failed. +And not only has it failed in its management, but it has failed deplorably, +ignobly, horribly. The capitalist class had an opportunity such +as was vouchsafed no previous ruling class in the history of the world. +It broke away from the rule of the old feudal aristocracy and made modern +society. It mastered matter, organized the machinery of life, +and made possible a wonderful era for mankind, wherein no creature should +cry aloud because it had not enough to eat, and wherein for every child +there would be opportunity for education, for intellectual and spiritual +uplift. Matter being mastered, and the machinery of life organized, +all this was possible. Here was the chance, God-given, and the +capitalist class failed. It was blind and greedy. It prattled +sweet ideals and dear moralities, rubbed its eyes not once, nor ceased +one whit in its greediness, and smashed down in a failure as tremendous +only as was the opportunity it had ignored.<br> +<br> +But all this is like so much cobwebs to the bourgeois mind. As +it was blind in the past, it is blind now and cannot see nor understand. +Well, then, let the indictment be stated more definitely, in terms sharp +and unmistakable. In the first place, consider the caveman. +He was a very simple creature. His head slanted back like an orang-outang’s, +and he had but little more intelligence. He lived in a hostile +environment, the prey of all manner of fierce life. He had no +inventions nor artifices. His natural efficiency for food-getting +was, say, 1. He did not even till the soil. With his natural +efficiency of 1, he fought off his carnivorous enemies and got himself +food and shelter. He must have done all this, else he would not +have multiplied and spread over the earth and sent his progeny down, +generation by generation, to become even you and me.<br> +<br> +The caveman, with his natural efficiency of 1, got enough to eat most +of the time, and no caveman went hungry all the time. Also, he +lived a healthy, open-air life, loafed and rested himself, and found +plenty of time in which to exercise his imagination and invent gods. +That is to say, he did not have to work all his waking moments in order +to get enough to eat. The child of the caveman (and this is true +of the children of all savage peoples) had a childhood, and by that +is meant a happy childhood of play and development.<br> +<br> +And now, how fares modern man? Consider the United States, the +most prosperous and most enlightened country of the world. In +the United States there are 10,000,000 people living in poverty. +By poverty is meant that condition in life in which, through lack of +food and adequate shelter, the mere standard of working efficiency cannot +be maintained. In the United States there are 10,000,000 people +who have not enough to eat. In the United States, because they +have not enough to eat, there are 10,000,000 people who cannot keep +the ordinary 1 measure of strength in their bodies. This means +that these 10,000,000 people are perishing, are dying, body and soul, +slowly, because they have not enough to eat. All over this broad, +prosperous, enlightened land, are men, women, and children who are living +miserably. In all the great cities, where they are segregated +in slum ghettos by hundreds of thousands and by millions, their misery +becomes beastliness. No caveman ever starved as chronically as +they starve, ever slept as vilely as they sleep, ever festered with +rottenness and disease as they fester, nor ever toiled as hard and for +as long hours as they toil.<br> +<br> +In Chicago there is a woman who toiled sixty hours per week. She +was a garment worker. She sewed buttons on clothes. Among +the Italian garment workers of Chicago, the average weekly wage of the +dressmakers is 90 cents, but they work every week in the year. +The average weekly wage of the pants finishers is $1.31, and the average +number of weeks employed in the year is 27.85. The average yearly +earnings of the dressmakers is $37; of the pants finishers, $42.4l. +Such wages means no childhood for the children, beastliness of living, +and starvation for all.<br> +<br> +Unlike the caveman, modern man cannot get food and shelter whenever +he feels like working for it. Modern man has first to find the +work, and in this he is often unsuccessful. Then misery becomes +acute. This acute misery is chronicled daily in the newspapers. +Let several of the countless instances be cited.<br> +<br> +In New York City lived a woman, Mary Mead. She had three children: +Mary, one year old; Johanna, two years old; Alice, four years old. +Her husband could find no work. They starved. They were +evicted from their shelter at 160 Steuben Street. Mary Mead strangled +her baby, Mary, one year old; strangled Alice, four years old; failed +to strangle Johanna, two years old, and then herself took poison. +Said the father to the police: “Constant poverty had driven my +wife insane. We lived at No. 160 Steuben Street until a week ago, +when we were dispossessed. I could get no work. I could +not even make enough to put food into our mouths. The babies grew +ill and weak. My wife cried nearly all the time.”<br> +<br> +“So overwhelmed is the Department of Charities with tens of thousands +of applications from men out of work that it finds itself unable to +cope with the situation.” - <i>New</i> <i>York Commercial, </i>January +11, 1905.<br> +<br> +In a daily paper, because he cannot get work in order to get something +to eat, modern man advertises as follows:<br> +<br> +“Young man, good education, unable to obtain employment, will +sell to physician and bacteriologist for experimental purposes all right +and title to his body. Address for price, box 3466, <i>Examiner</i>.”<br> +<br> +“Frank A. Mallin went to the central police station Wednesday +night and asked to be locked up on a charge of vagrancy. He said +he had been conducting an unsuccessful search for work for so long that +he was sure he must be a vagrant. In any event, he was so hungry +he must be fed. Police Judge Graham sentenced him to ninety days’ +imprisonment.”<i> - San Francisco Examiner.<br> +<br> +</i>In a room at the Soto House, 32 Fourth Street, San Francisco, was +found the body of W. G. Robbins. He had turned on the gas. +Also was found his diary, from which the following extracts are made<br> +<br> +“<i>March </i>3. - No chance of getting anything here. What +will I do?<br> +<br> +“<i>March </i>7. - Cannot find anything yet.<br> +<br> +“<i>March </i>8. - Am living on doughnuts at five cents a day.<br> +<br> +“<i>March </i>9. - My last quarter gone for room rent.<br> +<br> +“<i>March </i>10. - God help me. Have only five cents left. +Can get nothing to do. What next? Starvation or - ? +I have spent my last nickel to-night. What shall I do? Shall +it be steal, beg, or die? I have never stolen, begged, or starved +in all my fifty years of life, but now I am on the brink - death seems +the only refuge.<br> +<br> +“<i>March </i>11. - Sick all day - burning fever this afternoon. +Had nothing to eat to-day or since yesterday noon. My head, my +head. Good-bye, all.”<br> +<br> +How fares the child of modern man in this most prosperous of lands? +In the city of New York 50,000 children go hungry to school every morning. +From the same city on January 12, a press despatch was sent out over +the country of a case reported by Dr. A. E. Daniel, of the New York +Infirmary for Women and Children. The case was that of a babe, +eighteen months old, who earned by its labour fifty cents per week in +a tenement sweat-shop.<br> +<br> +“On a pile of rags in a room bare of furniture and freezing cold, +Mrs. Mary Gallin, dead from starvation, with an emaciated baby four +months old crying at her breast, was found this morning at 513 Myrtle +Avenue, Brooklyn, by Policeman McConnon of the Flushing Avenue Station. +Huddled together for warmth in another part of the room were the father, +James Gallin, and three children ranging from two to eight years of +age. The children gazed at the policeman much as ravenous animals +might have done. They were famished, and there was not a vestige +of food in their comfortless home.” - <i>New York Journal, </i>January +2, 1902.<br> +<br> +In the United States 80,000 children are toiling out their lives in +the textile mills alone. In the South they work twelve-hour shifts. +They never see the day. Those on the night shift are asleep when +the sun pours its life and warmth over the world, while those on the +day shift are at the machines before dawn and return to their miserable +dens, called “homes,” after dark. Many receive no +more than ten cents a day. There are babies who work for five +and six cents a day. Those who work on the night shift are often +kept awake by having cold water dashed in their faces. There are +children six years of age who have already to their credit eleven months’ +work on the night shift. When they become sick, and are unable +to rise from their beds to go to work, there are men employed to go +on horseback from house to house, and cajole and bully them into arising +and going to work. Ten per cent of them contract active consumption. +All are puny wrecks, distorted, stunted, mind and body. Elbert +Hubbard says of the child-labourers of the Southern cotton-mills:<br> +<br> +“I thought to lift one of the little toilers to ascertain his +weight. Straightaway through his thirty-five pounds of skin and +bones there ran a tremor of fear, and he struggled forward to tie a +broken thread. I attracted his attention by a touch, and offered +him a silver dime. He looked at me dumbly from a face that might +have belonged to a man of sixty, so furrowed, tightly drawn, and full +of pain it was. He did not reach for the money - he did not know +what it was. There were dozens of such children in this particular +mill. A physician who was with me said that they would all be +dead probably in two years, and their places filled by others - there +were plenty more. Pneumonia carries off most of them. Their +systems are ripe for disease, and when it comes there is no rebound +- no response. Medicine simply does not act - nature is whipped, +beaten, discouraged, and the child sinks into a stupor and dies.”<br> +<br> +So fares modern man and the child of modern man in the United States, +most prosperous and enlightened of all countries on earth. It +must be remembered that the instances given are instances only, but +they can be multiplied myriads of times. It must also be remembered +that what is true of the United States is true of all the civilized +world. Such misery was not true of the caveman. Then what +has happened? Has the hostile environment of the caveman grown +more hostile for his descendants? Has the caveman’s natural +efficiency of 1 for food-getting and shelter-getting diminished in modern +man to one-half or one-quarter?<br> +<br> +On the contrary, the hostile environment of the caveman has been destroyed. +For modern man it no longer exists. All carnivorous enemies, the +daily menace of the younger world, have been killed off. Many +of the species of prey have become extinct. Here and there, in +secluded portions of the world, still linger a few of man’s fiercer +enemies. But they are far from being a menace to mankind. +Modern man, when he wants recreation and change, goes to the secluded +portions of the world for a hunt. Also, in idle moments, he wails +regretfully at the passing of the “big game,” which he knows +in the not distant future will disappear from the earth.<br> +<br> +Nor since the day of the caveman has man’s efficiency for food-getting +and shelter-getting diminished. It has increased a thousandfold. +Since the day of the caveman, matter has been mastered. The secrets +of matter have been discovered. Its laws have been formulated. +Wonderful artifices have been made, and marvellous inventions, all tending +to increase tremendously man’s natural efficiency of in every +food-getting, shelter-getting exertion, in farming, mining, manufacturing, +transportation, and communication.<br> +<br> +From the caveman to the hand-workers of three generations ago, the increase +in efficiency for food- and shelter-getting has been very great. +But in this day, by machinery, the efficiency of the hand-worker of +three generations ago has in turn been increased many times. Formerly +it required 200 hours of human labour to place 100 tons of ore on a +railroad car. To-day, aided by machinery, but two hours of human +labour is required to do the same task. The United States Bureau +of Labour is responsible for the following table, showing the comparatively +recent increase in man’s food- and shelter-getting efficiency:<br> +<br> +<pre> + Machine Hand + Hours Hours +Barley (100 bushels) 9 211 +Corn (50 bushels shelled, stalks, husks and + blades cut into fodder) 34 228 +Oats (160 bushels) 28 265 +Wheat (50 bushels) 7 160 +Loading ore (loading 100 tons iron ore on cars) 2 200 +Unloading coal (transferring 200 tons from + canal-boats to bins 400 feet distant) 20 240 +Pitchforks (50 pitchforks, 12-inch tines) 12 200 +Plough (one landside plough, oak beams and + handles) 3 118 +</pre> +<p>According to the same authority, under the best conditions for organization +in farming, labour can produce 20 bushels of wheat for 66 cents, or +1 bushel for 3½ cents. This was done on a bonanza farm +of 10,000 acres in California, and was the average cost of the whole +product of the farm. Mr. Carroll D. Wright says that to-day 4,500,000 +men, aided by machinery, turn out a product that would require the labour +of 40,000,000 men if produced by hand. Professor Herzog, of Austria, +says that 5,000,000 people with the machinery of to-day, employed at +socially useful labour, would be able to supply a population of 20,000,000 +people with all the necessaries and small luxuries of life by working +1½ hours per day.<br> +<br> +This being so, matter being mastered, man’s efficiency for food- +and shelter-getting being increased a thousandfold over the efficiency +of the caveman, then why is it that millions of modern men live more +miserably than lived the caveman? This is the question the revolutionist +asks, and he asks it of the managing class, the capitalist class. +The capitalist class does not answer it. The capitalist class +cannot answer it.<br> +<br> +If modern man’s food- and shelter-getting efficiency is a thousandfold +greater than that of the caveman, why, then, are there 10,000,000 people +in the United States to-day who are not properly sheltered and properly +fed? If the child of the caveman did not have to work, why, then, +to-day, in the United States, are 80,000 children working out their +lives in the textile factories alone? If the child of the caveman +did not have to work, why, then, to-day, in the United States, are there +1,752,187 child-labourers?<br> +<br> +It is a true count in the indictment. The capitalist class has +mismanaged, is to-day mismanaging. In New York City 50,000 children +go hungry to school, and in New York City there are 1,320 millionaires. +The point, however, is not that the mass of mankind is miserable because +of the wealth the capitalist class has taken to itself. Far from +it. The point really is that the mass of mankind is miserable, +not for want of the wealth taken by the capitalist class, <i>but for +want of the wealth that was never created</i>. This wealth was +never created because the capitalist class managed too wastefully and +irrationally. The capitalist class, blind and greedy, grasping +madly, has not only not made the best of its management, but made the +worst of it. It is a management prodigiously wasteful. This +point cannot be emphasized too strongly.<br> +<br> +In face of the facts that modern man lives more wretchedly than the +caveman, and that modern man’s food- and shelter-getting efficiency +is a thousandfold greater than the caveman’s, no other solution +is possible than that the management is prodigiously wasteful.<br> +<br> +With the natural resources of the world, the machinery already invented, +a rational organization of production and distribution, and an equally +rational elimination of waste, the able-bodied workers would not have +to labour more than two or three hours per day to feed everybody, clothe +everybody, house everybody, educate everybody, and give a fair measure +of little luxuries to everybody. There would be no more material +want and wretchedness, no more children toiling out their lives, no +more men and women and babes living like beasts and dying like beasts. +Not only would matter be mastered, but the machine would be mastered. +In such a day incentive would be finer and nobler than the incentive +of to-day, which is the incentive of the stomach. No man, woman, +or child, would be impelled to action by an empty stomach. On +the contrary, they would be impelled to action as a child in a spelling +match is impelled to action, as boys and girls at games, as scientists +formulating law, as inventors applying law, as artists and sculptors +painting canvases and shaping clay, as poets and statesmen serving humanity +by singing and by statecraft. The spiritual, intellectual, and +artistic uplift consequent upon such a condition of society would be +tremendous. All the human world would surge upward in a mighty +wave.<br> +<br> +This was the opportunity vouchsafed the capitalist class. Less +blindness on its part, less greediness, and a rational management, were +all that was necessary. A wonderful era was possible for the human +race. But the capitalist class failed. It made a shambles +of civilization. Nor can the capitalist class plead not guilty. +It knew of the opportunity. Its wise men told of the opportunity, +its scholars and its scientists told it of the opportunity. All +that they said is there to-day in the books, just so much damning evidence +against it. It would not listen. It was too greedy. +It rose up (as it rises up to-day), shamelessly, in our legislative +halls, and declared that profits were impossible without the toil of +children and babes. It lulled its conscience to sleep with prattle +of sweet ideals and dear moralities, and allowed the suffering and misery +of mankind to continue and to increase, in short, the capitalist class +failed to take advantage of the opportunity.<br> +<br> +But the opportunity is still here. The capitalist class has been +tried and found wanting. Remains the working-class to see what +it can do with the opportunity. “But the working-class is +incapable,” says the capitalist class. “What do you +know about it?” the working-class replies. “Because +you have failed is no reason that we shall fail. Furthermore, +we are going to have a try at it, anyway. Seven millions of us +say so. And what have you to say to that?”<br> +<br> +And what can the capitalist class say? Grant the incapacity of +the working-class. Grant that the indictment and the argument +of the revolutionists are all wrong. The 7,000,000 revolutionists +remain. Their existence is a fact. Their belief in their +capacity, and in their indictment and their argument, is a fact. +Their constant growth is a fact. Their intention to destroy present-day +society is a fact, as is also their intention to take possession of +the world with all its wealth and machinery and governments. Moreover, +it is a fact that the working-class is vastly larger than the capitalist +class.<br> +<br> +The revolution is a revolution of the working-class. How can the +capitalist class, in the minority, stem this tide of revolution? +What has it to offer? What does it offer? Employers’ +associations, injunctions, civil suits for plundering of the treasuries +of the labour-unions, clamour and combination for the open shop, bitter +and shameless opposition to the eight-hour day, strong efforts to defeat +all reform, child-labour bills, graft in every municipal council, strong +lobbies and bribery in every legislature for the purchase of capitalist +legislation, bayonets, machine-guns, policemen’s clubs, professional +strike-breakers and armed Pinkertons - these are the things the capitalist +class is dumping in front of the tide of revolution, as though, forsooth, +to hold it back.<br> +<br> +The capitalist class is as blind to-day to the menace of the revolution +as it was blind in the past to its own God-given opportunity. +It cannot see how precarious is its position, cannot comprehend the +power and the portent of the revolution. It goes on its placid +way, prattling sweet ideals and dear moralities, and scrambling sordidly +for material benefits.<br> +<br> +No overthrown ruler or class in the past ever considered the revolution +that overthrew it, and so with the capitalist class of to-day. +Instead of compromising, instead of lengthening its lease of life by +conciliation and by removal of some of the harsher oppressions of the +working-class, it antagonizes the working-class, drives the working-class +into revolution. Every broken strike in recent years, every legally +plundered trades-union treasury, every closed shop made into an open +shop, has driven the members of the working-class directly hurt over +to socialism by hundreds and thousands. Show a working-man that +his union fails, and he becomes a revolutionist. Break a strike +with an injunction or bankrupt a union with a civil suit, and the working-men +hurt thereby listen to the siren song of the socialist and are lost +for ever to the <i>political capitalist </i>parties.<br> +<br> +Antagonism never lulled revolution, and antagonism is about all the +capitalist class offers. It is true, it offers some few antiquated +notions which were very efficacious in the past, but which are no longer +efficacious. Fourth-of-July liberty in terms of the Declaration +of Independence and of the French Encyclopædists is scarcely apposite +to-day. It does not appeal to the working-man who has had his +head broken by a policeman’s club, his union treasury bankrupted +by a court decision, or his job taken away from him by a labour-saving +invention. Nor does the Constitution of the United States appear +so glorious and constitutional to the working-man who has experienced +a bull-pen or been unconstitutionally deported from Colorado. +Nor are this particular working-man’s hurt feelings soothed by +reading in the newspapers that both the bull-pen and the deportation +were pre-eminently just, legal, and constitutional. “To +hell, then, with the Constitution!” says he, and another revolutionist +has been made - by the capitalist class.<br> +<br> +In short, so blind is the capitalist class that it does nothing to lengthen +its lease of life, while it does everything to shorten it. The +capitalist class offers nothing that is clean, noble, and alive. +The revolutionists offer everything that is clean, noble, and alive. +They offer service, unselfishness, sacrifice, martyrdom - the things +that sting awake the imagination of the people, touching their hearts +with the fervour that arises out of the impulse toward good and which +is essentially religious in its nature.<br> +<br> +But the revolutionists blow hot and blow cold. They offer facts +and statistics, economics and scientific arguments. If the working-man +be merely selfish, the revolutionists show him, mathematically demonstrate +to him, that his condition will be bettered by the revolution. +If the working-man be the higher type, moved by impulses toward right +conduct, if he have soul and spirit, the revolutionists offer him the +things of the soul and the spirit, the tremendous things that cannot +be measured by dollars and cents, nor be held down by dollars and cents. +The revolutionist cries out upon wrong and injustice, and preaches righteousness. +And, most potent of all, he sings the eternal song of human freedom +- a song of all lands and all tongues and all time.<br> +<br> +Few members of the capitalist class see the revolution. Most of +them are too ignorant, and many are too afraid to see it. It is +the same old story of every perishing ruling class in the world’s +history. Fat with power and possession, drunken with success, +and made soft by surfeit and by cessation of struggle, they are like +the drones clustered about the honey vats when the worker-bees spring +upon them to end their rotund existence.<br> +<br> +President Roosevelt vaguely sees the revolution, is frightened by it, +and recoils from seeing it. As he says: “Above all, we need +to remember that any kind of class animosity in the political world +is, if possible, even more wicked, even more destructive to national +welfare, than sectional, race, or religious animosity.”<br> +<br> +Class animosity in the political world, President Roosevelt maintains, +is wicked. But class animosity in the political world is the preachment +of the revolutionists. “Let the class wars in the industrial +world continue,” they say, “but extend the class war to +the political world.” As their leader, Eugene V. Debs says: +“So far as this struggle is concerned, there is no good capitalist +and no bad working-man. Every capitalist is your enemy and every +working-man is your friend.”<br> +<br> +Here is class animosity in the political world with a vengeance. +And here is revolution. In 1888 there were only 2,000 revolutionists +of this type in the United States; in 1900 there were 127,000 revolutionists; +in 1904, 435,000 revolutionists. Wickedness of the President Roosevelt +definition evidently flourishes and increases in the United States. +Quite so, for it is the revolution that flourishes and increases.<br> +<br> +Here and there a member of the capitalist class catches a clear glimpse +of the revolution, and raises a warning cry. But his class does +not heed. President Eliot of Harvard raised such a cry:<br> +<br> +“I am forced to believe there is a present danger of socialism +never before so imminent in America in so dangerous a form, because +never before imminent in so well organized a form. The danger +lies in the obtaining control of the trades-unions by the socialists.” +And the capitalist employers, instead of giving heed to the warnings, +are perfecting their strike-breaking organization and combining more +strongly than ever for a general assault upon that dearest of all things +to the trades-unions - the closed shop. In so far as this assault +succeeds, by just that much will the capitalist class shorten its lease +of life. It is the old, old story, over again and over again. +The drunken drones still cluster greedily about the honey vats.<br> +<br> +Possibly one of the most amusing spectacles of to-day is the attitude +of the American press toward the revolution. It is also a pathetic +spectacle. It compels the onlooker to be aware of a distinct loss +of pride in his species. Dogmatic utterance from the mouth of +ignorance may make gods laugh, but it should make men weep. And +the American editors (in the general instance) are so impressive about +it! The old “divide-up,” “men-are-<i>not</i>-born-free-and-equal,” +propositions are enunciated gravely and sagely, as things white-hot +and new from the forge of human wisdom. Their feeble vapourings +show no more than a schoolboy’s comprehension of the nature of +the revolution. Parasites themselves on the capitalist class, +serving the capitalist class by moulding public opinion, they, too, +cluster drunkenly about the honey vats.<br> +<br> +Of course, this is true only of the large majority of American editors. +To say that it is true of all of them would be to cast too great obloquy +upon the human race. Also, it would be untrue, for here and there +an occasional editor does see clearly - and in his case, ruled by stomach-incentive, +is usually afraid to say what he thinks about it. So far as the +science and the sociology of the revolution are concerned, the average +editor is a generation or so behind the facts. He is intellectually +slothful, accepts no facts until they are accepted by the majority, +and prides himself upon his conservatism. He is an instinctive +optimist, prone to believe that what ought to be, is. The revolutionist +gave this up long ago, and believes not that what ought to be, is, but +what is, is, and that it may not be what it ought to be at all.<br> +<br> +Now and then, rubbing his eyes, vigorously, an editor catches a sudden +glimpse of the revolution and breaks out in naive volubility, as, for +instance, the one who wrote the following in the <i>Chicago Chronicle: +</i>“American socialists are revolutionists. They know that +they are revolutionists. It is high time that other people should +appreciate the fact.” A white-hot, brand-new discovery, +and he proceeded to shout it out from the housetops that we, forsooth, +were revolutionists. Why, it is just what we have been doing all +these years - shouting it out from the housetops that we are revolutionists, +and stop us who can.<br> +<br> +The time should be past for the mental attitude: “Revolution is +atrocious. Sir, there is no revolution.” Likewise +should the time be past for that other familiar attitude: “Socialism +is slavery. Sir, it will never be.” It is no longer +a question of dialectics, theories, and dreams. There is no question +about it. The revolution is a fact. It is here now. +Seven million revolutionists, organized, working day and night, are +preaching the revolution - that passionate gospel, the Brotherhood of +Man. Not only is it a cold-blooded economic propaganda, but it +is in essence a religious propaganda with a fervour in it of Paul and +Christ. The capitalist class has been indicted. It has failed +in its management and its management is to be taken away from it. +Seven million men of the working-class say that they are going to get +the rest of the working-class to join with them and take the management +away. The revolution is here, now. Stop it who can.<br> +<br> +SACRAMENTO RIVER.<br> +<i>March </i>1905.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +THE SOMNAMBULISTS<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +“’Tis only fools speak evil of the clay -<br> +The very stars are made of clay like mine.”<br> +<br> +The mightiest and absurdest sleep-walker on the planet! Chained +in the circle of his own imaginings, man is only too keen to forget +his origin and to shame that flesh of his that bleeds like all flesh +and that is good to eat. Civilization (which is part of the circle +of his imaginings) has spread a veneer over the surface of the soft-shelled +animal known as man. It is a very thin veneer; but so wonderfully +is man constituted that he squirms on his bit of achievement and believes +he is garbed in armour-plate.<br> +<br> +Yet man to-day is the same man that drank from his enemy’s skull +in the dark German forests, that sacked cities, and stole his women +from neighbouring clans like any howling aborigine. The flesh-and-blood +body of man has not changed in the last several thousand years. +Nor has his mind changed. There is no faculty of the mind of man +to-day that did not exist in the minds of the men of long ago. +Man has to-day no concept that is too wide and deep and abstract for +the mind of Plato or Aristotle to grasp. Give to Plato or Aristotle +the same fund of knowledge that man to-day has access to, and Plato +and Aristotle would reason as profoundly as the man of to-day and would +achieve very similar conclusions.<br> +<br> +It is the same old animal man, smeared over, it is true, with a veneer, +thin and magical, that makes him dream drunken dreams of self-exaltation +and to sneer at the flesh and the blood of him beneath the smear. +The raw animal crouching within him is like the earthquake monster pent +in the crust of the earth. As he persuades himself against the +latter till it arouses and shakes down a city, so does he persuade himself +against the former until it shakes him out of his dreaming and he stands +undisguised, a brute like any other brute.<br> +<br> +Starve him, let him miss six meals, and see gape through the veneer +the hungry maw of the animal beneath. Get between him and the +female of his kind upon whom his mating instinct is bent, and see his +eyes blaze like an angry cat’s, hear in his throat the scream +of wild stallions, and watch his fists clench like an orang-outang’s. +Maybe he will even beat his chest. Touch his silly vanity, which +he exalts into high-sounding pride - call him a liar, and behold the +red animal in him that makes a hand clutching that is quick like the +tensing of a tiger’s claw, or an eagle’s talon, incarnate +with desire to rip and tear.<br> +<br> +It is not necessary to call him a liar to touch his vanity. Tell +a plains Indian that he has failed to steal horses from the neighbouring +tribe, or tell a man living in bourgeois society that he has failed +to pay his bills at the neighbouring grocer’s, and the results +are the same. Each, plains Indian and bourgeois, is smeared with +a slightly different veneer, that is all. It requires a slightly +different stick to scrape it off. The raw animals beneath are +identical.<br> +<br> +But intrude not violently upon man, leave him alone in his somnambulism, +and he kicks out from under his feet the ladder of life up which he +has climbed, constitutes himself the centre of the universe, dreams +sordidly about his own particular god, and maunders metaphysically about +his own blessed immortality.<br> +<br> +True, he lives in a real world, breathes real air, eats real food, and +sleeps under real blankets, in order to keep real cold away. And +there’s the rub. He has to effect adjustments with the real +world and at the same time maintain the sublimity of his dream. +The result of this admixture of the real and the unreal is confusion +thrice confounded. The man that walks the real world in his sleep +becomes such a tangled mass of contradictions, paradoxes, and lies that +he has to lie to himself in order to stay asleep.<br> +<br> +In passing, it may be noted that some men are remarkably constituted +in this matter of self-deception. They excel at deceiving themselves. +They believe, and they help others to believe. It becomes their +function in society, and some of them are paid large salaries for helping +their fellow-men to believe, for instance, that they are not as other +animals; for helping the king to believe, and his parasites and drudges +as well, that he is God’s own manager over so many square miles +of earth-crust; for helping the merchant and banking classes to believe +that society rests on their shoulders, and that civilization would go +to smash if they got out from under and ceased from their exploitations +and petty pilferings.<br> +<br> +Prize-fighting is terrible. This is the dictum of the man who +walks in his sleep. He prates about it, and writes to the papers +about it, and worries the legislators about it. There is nothing +of the brute about <i>him</i>. He is a sublimated soul that treads +the heights and breathes refined ether - in self-comparison with the +prize-fighter. The man who walks in his sleep ignores the flesh +and all its wonderful play of muscle, joint, and nerve. He feels +that there is something godlike in the mysterious deeps of his being, +denies his relationship with the brute, and proceeds to go forth into +the world and express by deeds that something godlike within him.<br> +<br> +He sits at a desk and chases dollars through the weeks and months and +years of his life. To him the life godlike resolves into a problem +something like this: <i>Since the great mass of men toil at producing +wealth, how best can he get between the great mass of men and the wealth +they produce, and get a slice for himself</i>? With tremendous +exercise of craft, deceit, and guile, he devotes his life godlike to +this purpose. As he succeeds, his somnambulism grows profound. +He bribes legislatures, buys judges, “controls” primaries, +and then goes and hires other men to tell him that it is all glorious +and right. And the funniest thing about it is that this arch-deceiver +believes all that they tell him. He reads only the newspapers +and magazines that tell him what he wants to be told, listens only to +the biologists who tell him that he is the finest product of the struggle +for existence, and herds only with his own kind, where, like the monkey-folk, +they teeter up and down and tell one another how great they are.<br> +<br> +In the course of his life godlike he ignores the flesh - until he gets +to table. He raises his hands in horror at the thought of the +brutish prize-fighter, and then sits down and gorges himself on roast +beef, rare and red, running blood under every sawing thrust of the implement +called a knife. He has a piece of cloth which he calls a napkin, +with which he wipes from his lips, and from the hair on his lips, the +greasy juices of the meat.<br> +<br> +He is fastidiously nauseated at the thought of two prize-fighters bruising +each other with their fists; and at the same time, because it will cost +him some money, he will refuse to protect the machines in his factory, +though he is aware that the lack of such protection every year mangles, +batters, and destroys out of all humanness thousands of working-men, +women, and children. He will chatter about things refined and +spiritual and godlike like himself, and he and the men who herd with +him will calmly adulterate the commodities they put upon the market +and which annually kill tens of thousands of babies and young children.<br> +<br> +He will recoil at the suggestion of the horrid spectacle of two men +confronting each other with gloved hands in the roped arena, and at +the same time he will clamour for larger armies and larger navies, for +more destructive war machines, which, with a single discharge, will +disrupt and rip to pieces more human beings than have died in the whole +history of prize-fighting. He will bribe a city council for a +franchise or a state legislature for a commercial privilege; but he +has never been known, in all his sleep-walking history, to bribe any +legislative body in order to achieve any moral end, such as, for instance, +abolition of prize-fighting, child-labour laws, pure food bills, or +old age pensions.<br> +<br> +“Ah, but we do not stand for the commercial life,” object +the refined, scholarly, and professional men. They are also sleep-walkers. +They do not stand for the commercial life, but neither do they stand +against it with all their strength. They submit to it, to the +brutality and carnage of it. They develop classical economists +who announce that the only possible way for men and women to get food +and shelter is by the existing method. They produce university +professors, men who claim the <i>rôle </i>of teachers, and who +at the same time claim that the austere ideal of learning is passionless +pursuit of passionless intelligence. They serve the men who lead +the commercial life, give to their sons somnambulistic educations, preach +that sleep-walking is the only way to walk, and that the persons who +walk otherwise are atavisms or anarchists. They paint pictures +for the commercial men, write books for them, sing songs for them, act +plays for them, and dose them with various drugs when their bodies have +grown gross or dyspeptic from overeating and lack of exercise.<br> +<br> +Then there are the good, kind somnambulists who don’t prize-fight, +who don’t play the commercial game, who don’t teach and +preach somnambulism, who don’t do anything except live on the +dividends that are coined out of the wan, white fluid that runs in the +veins of little children, out of mothers’ tears, the blood of +strong men, and the groans and sighs of the old. The receiver +is as bad as the thief - ay, and the thief is finer than the receiver; +he at least has the courage to run the risk. But the good, kind +people who don’t do anything won’t believe this, and the +assertion will make them angry - for a moment. They possess several +magic phrases, which are like the incantations of a voodoo doctor driving +devils away. The phrases that the good, kind people repeat to +themselves and to one another sound like “abstinence,” “temperance,” +“thrift,” “virtue.” Sometimes they say +them backward, when they sound like “prodigality,” “drunkenness,” +“wastefulness,” and “immorality.” They +do not really know the meaning of these phrases, but they think they +do, and that is all that is necessary for somnambulists. The calm +repetition of such phrases invariably drives away the waking devils +and lulls to slumber.<br> +<br> +Our statesmen sell themselves and their country for gold. Our +municipal servants and state legislators commit countless treasons. +The world of graft! The world of betrayal! The world of +somnambulism, whose exalted and sensitive citizens are outraged by the +knockouts of the prize-ring, and who annually not merely knock out, +but kill, thousands of babies and children by means of child labour +and adulterated food. Far better to have the front of one’s +face pushed in by the fist of an honest prize-fighter than to have the +lining of one’s stomach corroded by the embalmed beef of a dishonest +manufacturer.<br> +<br> +In a prize-fight men are classed. A lightweight fights with a +light-weight; he never fights with a heavy-weight, and foul blows are +not allowed. Yet in the world of the somnambulists, where soar +the sublimated spirits, there are no classes, and foul blows are continually +struck and never disallowed. Only they are not called foul blows. +The world of claw and fang and fist and club has passed away - so say +the somnambulists. A rebate is not an elongated claw. A +Wall Street raid is not a fang slash. Dummy boards of directors +and fake accountings are not foul blows of the fist under the belt. +A present of coal stock by a mine operator to a railroad official is +not a claw rip to the bowels of a rival mine operator. The hundred +million dollars with which a combination beats down to his knees a man +with a million dollars is not a club. The man who walks in his +sleep says it is not a club. So say all of his kind with which +he herds. They gather together and solemnly and gloatingly make +and repeat certain noises that sound like “discretion,” +“acumen,” “initiative,” “enterprise.” +These noises are especially gratifying when they are made backward. +They mean the same things, but they sound different. And in either +case, forward or backward, the spirit of the dream is not disturbed.<br> +<br> +When a man strikes a foul blow in the prize-ring the fight is immediately +stopped, he is declared the loser, and he is hissed by the audience +as he leaves the ring. But when a man who walks in his sleep strikes +a foul blow he is immediately declared the victor and awarded the prize; +and amid acclamations he forthwith turns his prize into a seat in the +United States Senate, into a grotesque palace on Fifth Avenue, and into +endowed churches, universities and libraries, to say nothing of subsidized +newspapers, to proclaim his greatness.<br> +<br> +The red animal in the somnambulist will out. He decries the carnal +combat of the prize-ring, and compels the red animal to spiritual combat. +The poisoned lie, the nasty, gossiping tongue, the brutality of the +unkind epigram, the business and social nastiness and treachery of to-day +- these are the thrusts and scratches of the red animal when the somnambulist +is in charge. They are not the upper cuts and short arm jabs and +jolts and slugging blows of the spirit. They are the foul blows +of the spirit that have never been disbarred, as the foul blows of the +prize-ring have been disbarred. (Would it not be preferable for +a man to strike one full on the mouth with his fist than for him to +tell a lie about one, or malign those that are nearest and dearest?)<br> +<br> +For these are the crimes of the spirit, and, alas! they are so much +more frequent than blows on the mouth. And whosoever exalts the +spirit over the flesh, by his own creed avers that a crime of the spirit +is vastly more terrible than a crime of the flesh. Thus stand +the somnambulists convicted by their own creed - only they are not real +men, alive and awake, and they proceed to mutter magic phrases that +dispel all doubt as to their undiminished and eternal gloriousness.<br> +<br> +It is well enough to let the ape and tiger die, but it is hardly fair +to kill off the natural and courageous apes and tigers and allow the +spawn of cowardly apes and tigers to live. The prize-fighting +apes and tigers will die all in good time in the course of natural evolution, +but they will not die so long as the cowardly, somnambulistic apes and +tigers club and scratch and slash. This is not a brief for the +prize-fighter. It is a blow of the fist between the eyes of the +somnambulists, teetering up and down, muttering magic phrases, and thanking +God that they are not as other animals.<br> +<br> +GLEN ELLEN, CALIFORNIA.<br> +<i>June </i>1900.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +THE DIGNITY OF DOLLARS<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +Man is a blind, helpless creature. He looks back with pride upon +his goodly heritage of the ages, and yet obeys unwittingly every mandate +of that heritage; for it is incarnate with him, and in it are embedded +the deepest roots of his soul. Strive as he will, he cannot escape +it - unless he be a genius, one of those rare creations to whom alone +is granted the privilege of doing entirely new and original things in +entirely new and original ways. But the common clay-born man, +possessing only talents, may do only what has been done before him. +At the best, if he work hard, and cherish himself exceedingly, he may +duplicate any or all previous performances of his kind; he may even +do some of them better; but there he stops, the composite hand of his +whole ancestry bearing heavily upon him.<br> +<br> +And again, in the matter of his ideas, which have been thrust upon him, +and which he has been busily garnering from the great world ever since +the day when his eyes first focussed and he drew, startled, against +the warm breast of his mother - the tyranny of these he cannot shake +off. Servants of his will, they at the same time master him. +They may not coerce genius, but they dictate and sway every action of +the clay-born. If he hesitate on the verge of a new departure, +they whip him back into the well-greased groove; if he pause, bewildered, +at sight of some unexplored domain, they rise like ubiquitous finger-posts +and direct him by the village path to the communal meadow. And +he permits these things, and continues to permit them, for he cannot +help them, and he is a slave. Out of his ideas he may weave cunning +theories, beautiful ideals; but he is working with ropes of sand. +At the slightest stress, the last least bit of cohesion flits away, +and each idea flies apart from its fellows, while all clamour that he +do this thing, or think this thing, in the ancient and time-honoured +way. He is only a clay-born; so he bends his neck. He knows +further that the clay-born are a pitiful, pitiless majority, and that +he may do nothing which they do not do.<br> +<br> +It is only in some way such as this that we may understand and explain +the dignity which attaches itself to dollars. In the watches of +the night, we may assure ourselves that there is no such dignity; but +jostling with our fellows in the white light of day, we find that it +does exist, and that we ourselves measure ourselves by the dollars we +happen to possess. They give us confidence and carriage and dignity +- ay, a personal dignity which goes down deeper than the garments with +which we hide our nakedness. The world, when it knows nothing +else of him, measures a man by his clothes; but the man himself, if +he be neither a genius nor a philosopher, but merely a clay-born, measures +himself by his pocket-book. He cannot help it, and can no more +fling it from him than can the bashful young man his self-consciousness +when crossing a ballroom floor.<br> +<br> +I remember once absenting myself from civilization for weary months. +When I returned, it was to a strange city in another country. +The people were but slightly removed from my own breed, and they spoke +the same tongue, barring a certain barbarous accent which I learned +was far older than the one imbibed by me with my mother’s milk. +A fur cap, soiled and singed by many camp-fires, half sheltered the +shaggy tendrils of my uncut hair. My foot-gear was of walrus hide, +cunningly blended with seal gut. The remainder of my dress was +as primal and uncouth. I was a sight to give merriment to gods +and men. Olympus must have roared at my coming. The world, +knowing me not, could judge me by my clothes alone. But I refused +to be so judged. My spiritual backbone stiffened, and I held my +head high, looking all men in the eyes. And I did these things, +not that I was an egotist, not that I was impervious to the critical +glances of my fellows, but because of a certain hogskin belt, plethoric +and sweat-bewrinkled, which buckled next the skin above the hips. +Oh, it’s absurd, I grant, but had that belt not been so circumstanced, +and so situated, I should have shrunk away into side streets and back +alleys, walking humbly and avoiding all gregarious humans except those +who were likewise abroad without belts. Why? I do not know, +save that in such way did my fathers before me.<br> +<br> +Viewed in the light of sober reason, the whole thing was preposterous. +But I walked down the gang-plank with the mien of a hero, of a barbarian +who knew himself to be greater than the civilization he invaded. +I was possessed of the arrogance of a Roman governor. At last +I knew what it was to be born to the purple, and I took my seat in the +hotel carriage as though it were my chariot about to proceed with me +to the imperial palace. People discreetly dropped their eyes before +my proud gaze, and into their hearts I know I forced the query, What +manner of man can this mortal be? I was superior to convention, +and the very garb which otherwise would have damned me tended toward +my elevation. And all this was due, not to my royal lineage, nor +to the deeds I had done and the champions I had overthrown, but to a +certain hogskin belt buckled next the skin. The sweat of months +was upon it, toil had defaced it, and it was not a creation such as +would appeal to the aesthetic mind; but it was plethoric. There +was the arcanum; each yellow grain conduced to my exaltation, and the +sum of these grains was the sum of my mightiness. Had they been +less, just so would have been my stature; more, and I should have reached +the sky.<br> +<br> +And this was my royal progress through that most loyal city. I +purchased a host of things from the tradespeople, and bought me such +pleasures and diversions as befitted one who had long been denied. +I scattered my gold lavishly, nor did I chaffer over prices in mart +or exchange. And, because of these things I did, I demanded homage. +Nor was it refused. I moved through wind-swept groves of limber +backs; across sunny glades, lighted by the beaming rays from a thousand +obsequious eyes; and when I tired of this, basked on the greensward +of popular approval. Money was very good, I thought, and for the +time was content. But there rushed upon me the words of Erasmus, +“When I get some money I shall buy me some Greek books, and afterwards +some clothes,” and a great shame wrapped me around. But, +luckily for my soul’s welfare, I reflected and was saved. +By the clearer vision vouchsafed me, I beheld Erasmus, fire-flashing, +heaven-born, while I - I was merely a clay-born, a son of earth. +For a giddy moment I had forgotten this, and tottered. And I rolled +over on my greensward, caught a glimpse of a regiment of undulating +backs, and thanked my particular gods that such moods of madness were +passing brief.<br> +<br> +But on another day, receiving with kingly condescension the service +of my good subjects’ backs, I remembered the words of another +man, long since laid away, who was by birth a nobleman, by nature a +philosopher and a gentleman, and who by circumstance yielded up his +head upon the block. “That a man of lead,” he once +remarked, “who has no more sense than a log of wood, and is as +bad as he is foolish, should have many wise and good men to serve him, +only because he has a great heap of that metal; and that if, by some +accident or trick of law (which sometimes produces as great changes +as chance itself), all this wealth should pass from the master to the +meanest varlet of his whole family, he himself would very soon become +one of his servants, as if he were a thing that belonged to his wealth, +and so was bound to follow its fortune.”<br> +<br> +And when I had remembered this much, I unwisely failed to pause and +reflect. So I gathered my belongings together, cinched my hogskin +belt tight about me, and went away to my own country. It was a +very foolish thing to do. I am sure it was. But when I had +recovered my reason, I fell upon my particular gods and berated them +mightily, and as penance for their watchlessness placed them away amongst +dust and cobwebs. Oh no, not for long. They are again enshrined, +as bright and polished as of yore, and my destiny is once more in their +keeping.<br> +<br> +It is given that travail and vicissitude mark time to man’s footsteps +as he stumbles onward toward the grave; and it is well. Without +the bitter one may not know the sweet. The other day - nay, it +was but yesterday - I fell before the rhythm of fortune. The inexorable +pendulum had swung the counter direction, and there was upon me an urgent +need. The hogskin belt was flat as famine, nor did it longer gird +my loins. From my window I could descry, at no great distance, +a very ordinary mortal of a man, working industriously among his cabbages. +I thought: Here am I, capable of teaching him much concerning the field +wherein he labours - the nitrogenic - why of the fertilizer, the alchemy +of the sun, the microscopic cell-structure of the plant, the cryptic +chemistry of root and runner - but thereat he straightened his work-wearied +back and rested. His eyes wandered over what he had produced in +the sweat of his brow, then on to mine. And as he stood there +drearily, he became reproach incarnate. “Unstable as water,” +he said (I am sure he did) - “unstable as water, thou shalt not +excel. Man, where are <i>your </i>cabbages?”<br> +<br> +I shrank back. Then I waxed rebellious. I refused to answer +the question. He had no right to ask it, and his presence was +an affront upon the landscape. And a dignity entered into me, +and my neck was stiffened, my head poised. I gathered together +certain certificates of goods and chattels, pointed my heel towards +him and his cabbages, and journeyed townward. I was yet a man. +There was naught in those certificates to be ashamed of. But alack-a-day! +While my heels thrust the cabbage-man beyond the horizon, my toes were +drawing me, faltering, like a timid old beggar, into a roaring spate +of humanity - men, women, and children without end. They had no +concern with me, nor I with them. I knew it; I felt it. +Like She, after her fire-bath in the womb of the world, I dwindled in +my own sight. My feet were uncertain and heavy, and my soul became +as a meal sack, limp with emptiness and tied in the middle. People +looked upon me scornfully, pitifully, reproachfully. (I can swear +they did.) In every eye I read the question, Man, where are your +cabbages?<br> +<br> +So I avoided their looks, shrinking close to the kerbstone and by furtive +glances directing my progress. At last I came hard by the place, +and peering stealthily to the right and left that none who knew might +behold mc, I entered hurriedly, in the manner of one committing an abomination. +‘Fore God! I had done no evil, nor had I wronged any man, +nor did I contemplate evil; yet was I aware of evil. Why? +I do not know, save that there goes much dignity with dollars, and being +devoid of the one I was destitute of the other. The person I sought +practised a profession as ancient as the oracles but far more lucrative. +It is mentioned in Exodus; so it must have been created soon after the +foundations of the world; and despite the thunder of ecclesiastics and +the mailed hand of kings and conquerors, it has endured even to this +day. Nor is it unfair to presume that the accounts of this most +remarkable business will not be closed until the Trumps of Doom are +sounded and all things brought to final balance.<br> +<br> +Wherefore it was in fear and trembling, and with great modesty of spirit, +that I entered the Presence. To confess that I was shocked were +to do my feelings an injustice. Perhaps the blame may be shouldered +upon Shylock, Fagin, and their ilk; but I had conceived an entirely +different type of individual. This man - why, he was clean to +look at, his eyes were blue, with the tired look of scholarly lucubrations, +and his skin had the normal pallor of sedentary existence. He +was reading a book, sober and leather-bound, while on his finely moulded, +intellectual head reposed a black skull-cap. For all the world +his look and attitude were those of a college professor. My heart +gave a great leap. Here was hope! But no; he fixed me with +a cold and glittering eye, searching with the chill of space till my +financial status stood before him shivering and ashamed. I communed +with myself: By his brow he is a thinker, but his intellect has been +prostituted to a mercenary exaction of toll from misery. His nerve +centres of judgment and will have not been employed in solving the problems +of life, but in maintaining his own solvency by the insolvency of others. +He trades upon sorrow and draws a livelihood from misfortune. +He transmutes tears into treasure, and from nakedness and hunger garbs +himself in clean linen and develops the round of his belly. He +is a bloodsucker and a vampire. He lays unholy hands on heaven +and hell at cent. per cent., and his very existence is a sacrilege and +a blasphemy. And yet here am I, wilting before him, an arrant +coward, with no respect for him and less for myself. Why should +this shame be? Let me rouse in my strength and smite him, and, +by so doing, wipe clean one offensive page.<br> +<br> +But no. As I said, he fixed me with a cold and glittering eye, +and in it was the aristocrat’s undisguised contempt for the <i>canaille</i>. +Behind him was the solid phalanx of a bourgeois society. Law and +order upheld him, while I titubated, cabbageless, on the ragged edge. +Moreover, he was possessed of a formula whereby to extract juice from +a flattened lemon, and he would do business with me.<br> +<br> +I told him my desires humbly, in quavering syllables. In return, +he craved my antecedents and residence, pried into my private life, +insolently demanded how many children had I and did I live in wedlock, +and asked divers other unseemly and degrading questions. Ay, I +was treated like a thief convicted before the act, till I produced my +certificates of goods and chattels aforementioned. Never had they +appeared so insignificant and paltry as then, when he sniffed over them +with the air of one disdainfully doing a disagreeable task. It +is said, “Thou shalt not lend upon usury to thy brother; usury +of money, usury of victuals, usury of anything that is lent upon usury”; +but he evidently was not my brother, for he demanded seventy per cent. +I put my signature to certain indentures, received my pottage, and fled +from his presence.<br> +<br> +Faugh! I was glad to be quit of it. How good the outside +air was! I only prayed that neither my best friend nor my worst +enemy should ever become aware of what had just transpired. Ere +I had gone a block I noticed that the sun had brightened perceptibly, +the street become less sordid, the gutter mud less filthy. In +people’s eyes the cabbage question no longer brooded. And +there was a spring to my body, an elasticity of step as I covered the +pavement. Within me coursed an unwonted sap, and I felt as though +I were about to burst out into leaves and buds and green things. +My brain was clear and refreshed. There was a new strength to +my arm. My nerves were tingling and I was a-pulse with the times. +All men were my brothers. Save one - yes, save one. I would +go back and wreck the establishment. I would disrupt that leather-bound +volume, violate that black skullcap, burn the accounts. But before +fancy could father the act, I recollected myself and all which had passed. +Nor did I marvel at my new-horn might, at my ancient dignity which had +returned. There was a tinkling chink as I ran the yellow pieces +through my fingers, and with the golden music rippling round me I caught +a deeper insight into the mystery of things.<br> +<br> +OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA.<br> +<i>February </i>1900.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +GOLIAH<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +In 1924 - to be precise, on the morning of January 3 - the city of San +Francisco awoke to read in one of its daily papers a curious letter, +which had been received by Walter Bassett and which had evidently been +written by some crank. Walter Bassett was the greatest captain +of industry west of the Rockies, and was one of the small group that +controlled the nation in everything but name. As such, he was +the recipient of lucubrations from countless cranks; but this particular +lucubration was so different from the average ruck of similar letters +that, instead of putting it into the waste-basket, he had turned it +over to a reporter. It was signed “Goliah,” and the +superscription gave his address as “Palgrave Island.” +The letter was as follows:<br> +<br> +<br> +“MR. WALTER BASSETT,<br> +“DEAR SIR:<br> +<br> +“I am inviting you, with nine of your fellow-captains of industry, +to visit me here on my island for the purpose of considering plans for +the reconstruction of society upon a more rational basis. Up to +the present, social evolution has been a blind and aimless, blundering +thing. The time has come for a change. Man has risen from +the vitalized slime of the primeval sea to the mastery of matter; but +he has not yet mastered society. Man is to-day as much the slave +to his collective stupidity, as a hundred thousand generations ago he +was a slave to matter.<br> +<br> +“There are two theoretical methods whereby man may become the +master of society, and make of society an intelligent and efficacious +device for the pursuit and capture of happiness and laughter. +The first theory advances the proposition that no government can be +wiser or better than the people that compose that government; that reform +and development must spring from the individual; that in so far as the +individuals become wiser and better, by that much will their government +become wiser and better; in short, that the majority of individuals +must become wiser and better, before their government becomes wiser +and better. The mob, the political convention, the abysmal brutality +and stupid ignorance of all concourses of people, give the lie to this +theory. In a mob the collective intelligence and mercy is that +of the least intelligent and most brutal members that compose the mob. +On the other hand, a thousand passengers will surrender themselves to +the wisdom and discretion of the captain, when their ship is in a storm +on the sea. In such matter, he is the wisest and most experienced +among them.<br> +<br> +“The second theory advances the proposition that the majority +of the people are not pioneers, that they are weighted down by the inertia +of the established; that the government that is representative of them +represents only their feebleness, and futility, and brutishness; that +this blind thing called government is not the serf of their wills, but +that they are the serfs of it; in short, speaking always of the great +mass, that they do not make government, but that government makes them, +and that government is and has been a stupid and awful monster, misbegotten +of the glimmerings of intelligence that come from the inertia-crushed +mass.<br> +<br> +“Personally, I incline to the second theory. Also, I am +impatient. For a hundred thousand generations, from the first +social groups of our savage forbears, government has remained a monster. +To-day, the inertia-crushed mass has less laughter in it than ever before. +In spite of man’s mastery of matter, human suffering and misery +and degradation mar the fair world.<br> +<br> +“Wherefore I have decided to step in and become captain of this +world-ship for a while. I have the intelligence and the wide vision +of the skilled expert. Also, I have the power. I shall be +obeyed. The men of all the world shall perform my bidding and +make governments so that they shall become laughter-producers. +These modelled governments I have in mind shall not make the people +happy, wise, and noble by decree; but they shall give opportunity for +the people to become happy, wise, and noble.<br> +<br> +“I have spoken. I have invited you, and nine of your fellow-captains, +to confer with me. On March third the yacht <i>Energon </i>will +sail from San Francisco. You are requested to be on board the +night before. This is serious. The affairs of the world +must be handled for a time by a strong hand. Mine is that strong +hand. If you fail to obey my summons, you will die. Candidly, +I do not expect that you will obey. But your death for failure +to obey will cause obedience on the part of those I subsequently summon. +You will have served a purpose. And please remember that I have +no unscientific sentimentality about the value of human life. +I carry always in the background of my consciousness the innumerable +billions of lives that are to laugh and be happy in future aeons on +the earth.<br> +<br> +“Yours for the reconstruction of society,<br> +<br> +“GOLIAH.”<br> +<br> +<br> +The publication of this letter did not cause even local amusement. +Men might have smiled to themselves as they read it, but it was so palpably +the handiwork of a crank that it did not merit discussion. Interest +did not arouse till next morning. An Associated Press despatch +to the Eastern states, followed by interviews by eager-nosed reporters, +had brought out the names of the other nine captains of industry who +had received similar letters, but who had not thought the matter of +sufficient importance to be made public. But the interest aroused +was mild, and it would have died out quickly had not Gabberton cartooned +a chronic presidential aspirant as “Goliah.” Then +came the song that was sung hilariously from sea to sea, with the refrain, +“Goliah will catch you if you don’t watch out.”<br> +<br> +The weeks passed and the incident was forgotten. Walter Bassett +had forgotten it likewise; but on the evening of February 22, he was +called to the telephone by the Collector of the Port. “I +just wanted to tell you,” said the latter, “that the yacht +<i>Energon </i>has arrived and gone to anchor in the stream off Pier +Seven.”<br> +<br> +What happened that night Walter Bassett has never divulged. But +it is known that he rode down in his auto to the water front, chartered +one of Crowley’s launches, and was put aboard the strange yacht. +It is further known that when he returned to the shore, three hours +later, he immediately despatched a sheaf of telegrams to his nine fellow-captains +of industry who had received letters from Goliah. These telegrams +were similarly worded, and read: “The yacht <i>Energon </i>has +arrived. There is something in this. I advise you to come.”<br> +<br> +Bassett was laughed at for his pains. It was a huge laugh that +went up (for his telegrams had been made public), and the popular song +on Goliah revived and became more popular than ever. Goliah and +Bassett were cartooned and lampooned unmercifully, the former, as the +Old Man of the Sea, riding on the latter’s neck. The laugh +tittered and rippled through clubs and social circles, was restrainedly +merry in the editorial columns, and broke out in loud guffaws in the +comic weeklies. There was a serious side as well, and Bassett’s +sanity was gravely questioned by many, and especially by his business +associates.<br> +<br> +Bassett had ever been a short-tempered man, and after he sent the second +sheaf of telegrams to his brother captains, and had been laughed at +again, he remained silent. In this second sheaf he had said: “Come, +I implore you. As you value your life, come.” He arranged +all his business affairs for an absence, and on the night of March 2 +went on board the <i>Energon</i>. The latter, properly cleared, +sailed next morning. And next morning the newsboys in every city +and town were crying “Extra.”<br> +<br> +In the slang of the day, Goliah had delivered the goods. The nine +captains of industry who had failed to accept his invitation were dead. +A sort of violent disintegration of the tissues was the report of the +various autopsies held on the bodies of the slain millionaires; yet +the surgeons and physicians (the most highly skilled in the land had +participated) would not venture the opinion that the men had been slain. +Much less would they venture the conclusion, “at the hands of +parties unknown.” It was all too mysterious. They +were stunned. Their scientific credulity broke down. They +had no warrant in the whole domain of science for believing that an +anonymous person on Palgrave Island had murdered the poor gentlemen.<br> +<br> +One thing was quickly learned, however; namely, that Palgrave Island +was no myth. It was charted and well known to all navigators, +lying on the line of 160 west longitude, right at its intersection by +the tenth parallel north latitude, and only a few miles away from Diana +Shoal. Like Midway and Fanning, Palgrave Island was isolated, +volcanic and coral in formation. Furthermore, it was uninhabited. +A survey ship, in 1887, had visited the place and reported the existence +of several springs and of a good harbour that was very dangerous of +approach. And that was all that was known of the tiny speck of +land that was soon to have focussed on it the awed attention of the +world.<br> +<br> +Goliah remained silent till March 24. On the morning of that day, +the newspapers published his second letter, copies of which had been +received by the ten chief politicians of the United States - ten leading +men in the political world who were conventionally known as “statesmen.” +The letter, with the same superscription as before, was as follows:<br> +<br> +<br> +“DEAR SIR:<br> +<br> +“I have spoken in no uncertain tone. I must be obeyed. +You may consider this an invitation or a summons; but if you still wish +to tread this earth and laugh, you will be aboard the yacht <i>Energon, +</i>in San Francisco harbour, not later than the evening of April 5. +It is my wish and my will that you confer with me here on Palgrave Island +in the matter of reconstructing society upon some rational basis.<br> +<br> +“Do not misunderstand me, when I tell you that I am one with a +theory. I want to see that theory work, and therefore I call upon +your cooperation. In this theory of mine, lives are but pawns; +I deal with quantities of lives. I am after laughter, and those +that stand in the way of laughter must perish. The game is big. +There are fifteen hundred million human lives to-day on the planet. +What is your single life against them? It is as naught, in my +theory. And remember that mine is the power. Remember that +I am a scientist, and that one life, or one million of lives, mean nothing +to me as arrayed against the countless billions of billions of the lives +of the generations to come. It is for their laughter that I seek +to reconstruct society now; and against them your own meagre little +life is a paltry thing indeed.<br> +<br> +“Whoso has power can command his fellows. By virtue of that +military device known as the phalanx, Alexander conquered his bit of +the world. By virtue of that chemical device, gunpowder, Cortes +with his several hundred cut-throats conquered the empire of the Montezumas. +Now I am in possession of a device that is all my own. In the +course of a century not more than half a dozen fundamental discoveries +or inventions are made. I have made such an invention. The +possession of it gives me the mastery of the world. I shall use +this invention, not for commercial exploitation, but for the good of +humanity. For that purpose I want help - willing agents, obedient +hands; and I am strong enough to compel the service. I am taking +the shortest way, though I am in no hurry. I shall not clutter +my speed with haste.<br> +<br> +“The incentive of material gain developed man from the savage +to the semi-barbarian he is today. This incentive has been a useful +device for the development of the human; but it has now fulfilled its +function and is ready to be cast aside into the scrap-heap of rudimentary +vestiges such as gills in the throat and belief in the divine right +of kings. Of course you do not think so; but I do not see that +that will prevent you from aiding me to fling the anachronism into the +scrap-heap. For I tell you now that the time has come when mere +food and shelter and similar sordid things shall be automatic, as free +and easy and involuntary of access as the air. I shall make them +automatic, what of my discovery and the power that discovery gives me. +And with food and shelter automatic, the incentive of material gain +passes away from the world for ever. With food and shelter automatic, +the higher incentives will universally obtain - the spiritual, aesthetic, +and intellectual incentives that will tend to develop and make beautiful +and noble body, mind, and spirit. Then all the world will be dominated +by happiness and laughter. It will be the reign of universal laughter.<br> +<br> +“Yours for that day,<br> +<br> +“GOLIAH.”<br> +<br> +<br> +Still the world would not believe. The ten politicians were at +Washington, so that they did not have the opportunity of being convinced +that Bassett had had, and not one of them took the trouble to journey +out to San Francisco to make the opportunity. As for Goliah, he +was hailed by the newspapers as another Tom Lawson with a panacea; and +there were specialists in mental disease who, by analysis of Goliah’s +letters, proved conclusively that he was a lunatic.<br> +<br> +The yacht <i>Energon </i>arrived in the harbour of San Francisco on +the afternoon of April 5, and Bassett came ashore. But the <i>Energon +</i>did not sail next day, for not one of the ten summoned politicians +had elected to make the journey to Palgrave Island. The newsboys, +however, called “Extra” that day in all the cities. +The ten politicians were dead. The yacht, lying peacefully at +anchor in the harbour, became the centre of excited interest. +She was surrounded by a flotilla of launches and rowboats, and many +tugs and steamboats ran excursions to her. While the rabble was +firmly kept off, the proper authorities and even reporters were permitted +to board her. The mayor of San Francisco and the chief of police +reported that nothing suspicious was to be seen upon her, and the port +authorities announced that her papers were correct and in order in every +detail. Many photographs and columns of descriptive matter were +run in the newspapers.<br> +<br> +The crew was reported to be composed principally of Scandinavians - +fair-haired, blue-eyed Swedes, Norwegians afflicted with the temperamental +melancholy of their race, stolid Russian Finns, and a slight sprinkling +of Americans and English. It was noted that there was nothing +mercurial and flyaway about them. They seemed weighty men, oppressed +by a sad and stolid bovine-sort of integrity. A sober seriousness +and enormous certitude characterized all of them. They appeared +men without nerves and without fear, as though upheld by some overwhelming +power or carried in the hollow of some superhuman hand. The captain, +a sad-eyed, strong-featured American, was cartooned in the papers as +“Gloomy Gus” (the pessimistic hero of the comic supplement).<br> +<br> +Some sea-captain recognized the <i>Energon </i>as the yacht <i>Scud, +</i>once owned by Merrivale of the New York Yacht Club. With this +clue it was soon ascertained that the <i>Scud </i>had disappeared several +years before. The agent who sold her reported the purchaser to +be merely another agent, a man he had seen neither before nor since. +The yacht had been reconstructed at Duffey’s Shipyard in New Jersey. +The change in her name and registry occurred at that time and had been +legally executed. Then the <i>Energon </i>had disappeared in the +shroud of mystery.<br> +<br> +In the meantime, Bassett was going crazy - at least his friends and +business associates said so. He kept away from his vast business +enterprises and said that he must hold his hands until the other masters +of the world could join with him in the reconstruction of society - +proof indubitable that Goliah’s bee had entered his bonnet. +To reporters he had little to say. He was not at liberty, he said, +to relate what he had seen on Palgrave Island; but he could assure them +that the matter was serious, the most serious thing that had ever happened. +His final word was that, the world was on the verge of a turnover, for +good or ill he did not know, but, one way or the other, he was absolutely +convinced that the turnover was coming. As for business, business +could go hang. He had seen things, he had, and that was all there +was to it.<br> +<br> +There was a great telegraphing, during this period, between the local +Federal officials and the state and war departments at Washington. +A secret attempt was made late one afternoon to board the <i>Energon +</i>and place the captain under arrest - the Attorney-General having +given the opinion that the captain could be held for the murder of the +ten “statesmen.” The government launch was seen to +leave Meigg’s Wharf and steer for the <i>Energon, </i>and that +was the last ever seen of the launch and the men on board of it. +The government tried to keep the affair hushed up, but the cat was slipped +out of the bag by the families of the missing men, and the papers were +filled with monstrous versions of the affair.<br> +<br> +The government now proceeded to extreme measures. The battleship +<i>Alaska </i>was ordered to capture the strange yacht, or, failing +that, to sink her. These were secret instructions; but thousands +of eyes, from the water front and from the shipping in the harbour, +witnessed what happened that afternoon. The battleship got under +way and steamed slowly toward the <i>Energon</i>. At half a mile +distant the battleship blew up - simply blew up, that was all, her shattered +frame sinking to the bottom of the bay, a riff-raff of wreckage and +a few survivors strewing the surface. Among the survivors was +a young lieutenant who had had charge of the wireless on board the <i>Alaska</i>. +The reporters got hold of him first, and he talked. No sooner +had the <i>Alaska </i>got under way, he said, than a message was received +from the <i>Energon</i>. It was in the international code, and +it was a warning to the <i>Alaska </i>to come no nearer than half a +mile. He had sent the message, through the speaking tube, immediately +to the captain. He did not know anything more, except that the +<i>Energon </i>twice repeated the message and that five minutes afterward +the explosion occurred. The captain of the <i>Alaska </i>had perished +with his ship, and nothing more was to be learned.<br> +<br> +The <i>Energon, </i>however, promptly hoisted anchor and cleared out +to sea. A great clamour was raised by the papers; the government +was charged with cowardice and vacillation in its dealings with a mere +pleasure yacht and a lunatic who called himself “Goliah,” +and immediate and decisive action was demanded. Also, a great +cry went up about the loss of life, especially the wanton killing of +the ten “statesmen.” Goliah promptly replied. +In fact, so prompt was his reply that the experts in wireless telegraphy +announced that, since it was impossible to send wireless messages so +great a distance, Goliah was in their very midst and not on Palgrave +Island. Goliah’s letter was delivered to the Associated +Press by a messenger boy who had been engaged on the street. The +letter was as follows:<br> +<br> +<br> +“What are a few paltry lives? In your insane wars you destroy +millions of lives and think nothing of it. In your fratricidal +commercial struggle you kill countless babes, women, and men, and you +triumphantly call the shambles ‘individualism.’ I +call it anarchy. I am going to put a stop to your wholesale destruction +of human beings. I want laughter, not slaughter. Those of +you who stand in the way of laughter will get slaughter.<br> +<br> +“Your government is trying to delude you into believing that the +destruction of the <i>Alaska </i>was an accident. Know here and +now that it was by my orders that the <i>Alaska </i>was destroyed. +In a few short months, all battleships on all seas will be destroyed +or flung to the scrap-heap, and all nations shall disarm; fortresses +shall be dismantled, armies disbanded, and warfare shall cease from +the earth. Mine is the power. I am the will of God. +The whole world shall be in vassalage to me, but it shall be a vassalage +of peace.<br> +<br> +“I am<br> +<br> +GOLIAH.”<br> +<br> +<br> +“Blow Palgrave Island out of the water!” was the head-line +retort of the newspapers. The government was of the same frame +of mind, and the assembling of the fleets began. Walter Bassett +broke out in ineffectual protest, but was swiftly silenced by the threat +of a lunacy commission. Goliah remained silent. Against +Palgrave Island five great fleets were hurled - the Asiatic Squadron, +the South Pacific Squadron, the North Pacific Squadron, the Caribbean +Squadron, and half of the North Atlantic Squadron, the two latter coming +through the Panama Canal.<br> +<br> +“I have the honour to report that we sighted Palgrave Island on +the evening of April 29,” ran the report of Captain Johnson, of +the battleship <i>North Dakota, </i>to the Secretary of the Navy. +“The Asiatic Squadron was delayed and did not arrive until the +morning of April 30. A council of the admirals was held, and it +was decided to attack early next morning. The destroyer, <i>Swift +VII, </i>crept in, unmolested, and reported no warlike preparations +on the island. It noted several small merchant steamers in the +harbour, and the existence of a small village in a hopelessly exposed +position that could be swept by our fire.<br> +<br> +“It had been decided that all the vessels should rush in, scattered, +upon the island, opening fire at three miles, and continuing to the +edge of the reef, there to retain loose formation and engage. +Palgrave Island repeatedly warned us, by wireless, in the international +code, to keep outside the ten-mile limit; but no heed was paid to the +warnings.<br> +<br> +“The <i>North Dakota </i>did not take part in the movement of +the morning of May 1. This was due to a slight accident of the +preceding night that temporarily disabled her steering-gear. The +morning of May 1 broke clear and calm. There was a slight breeze +from the south-west that quickly died away. The <i>North Dakota +</i>lay twelve miles off the island. At the signal the squadrons +charged in upon the island, from all sides, at full speed. Our +wireless receiver continued to tick off warnings from the island. +The ten-mile limit was passed, and nothing happened. I watched +through my glasses. At five miles nothing happened; at four miles +nothing happened; at three miles, the <i>New York, </i>in the lead on +our side of the island, opened fire. She fired only one shot. +Then she blew up. The rest of the vessels never fired a shot. +They began to blow up, everywhere, before our eyes. Several swerved +about and started back, but they failed to escape. The destroyer, +<i>Dart XXX, </i>nearly made the ten-mile limit when she blew up. +She was the last survivor. No harm came to the <i>North Dakota, +</i>and that night, the steering-gear being repaired, I gave orders +to sail for San Francisco.”<br> +<br> +To say that the United States was stunned is but to expose the inadequacy +of language. The whole world was stunned. It confronted +that blight of the human brain, the unprecedented. Human endeavour +was a jest, a monstrous futility, when a lunatic on a lonely island, +who owned a yacht and an exposed village, could destroy five of the +proudest fleets of Christendom. And how had he done it? +Nobody knew. The scientists lay down in the dust of the common +road and wailed and gibbered. They did not know. Military +experts committed suicide by scores. The mighty fabric of warfare +they had fashioned was a gossamer veil rent asunder by a miserable lunatic. +It was too much for their sanity. Mere human reason could not +withstand the shock. As the savage is crushed by the sleight-of-hand +of the witch doctor, so was the world crushed by the magic of Goliah. +How did he do it? It was the awful face of the Unknown upon which +the world gazed and by which it was frightened out of the memory of +its proudest achievements.<br> +<br> +But all the world was not stunned. There was the invariable exception +- the Island Empire of Japan. Drunken with the wine of success +deep-quaffed, without superstition and without faith in aught but its +own ascendant star, laughing at the wreckage of science and mad with +pride of race, it went forth upon the way of war. America’s +fleets had been destroyed. From the battlements of heaven the +multitudinous ancestral shades of Japan leaned down. The opportunity, +God-given, had come. The Mikado was in truth a brother to the +gods.<br> +<br> +The war-monsters of Japan were loosed in mighty fleets. The Philippines +were gathered in as a child gathers a nosegay. It took longer +for the battleships to travel to Hawaii, to Panama, and to the Pacific +Coast. The United States was panic-stricken, and there arose the +powerful party of dishonourable peace. In the midst of the clamour +the <i>Energon </i>arrived in San Francisco Bay and Goliah spoke once +more. There was a little brush as the <i>Energon </i>came in, +and a few explosions of magazines occurred along the war-tunnelled hills +as the coast defences went to smash. Also, the blowing up of the +submarine mines in the Golden Gate made a remarkably fine display. +Goliah’s message to the people of San Francisco, dated as usual +from Palgrave Island, was published in the papers. It ran:<br> +<br> +<br> +“Peace? Peace be with you. You shall have peace. +I have spoken to this purpose before. And give you me peace. +Leave my yacht <i>Energon </i>alone. Commit one overt act against +her and not one stone in San Francisco shall stand upon another.<br> +<br> +“To-morrow let all good citizens go out upon the hills that slope +down to the sea. Go with music and laughter and garlands. +Make festival for the new age that is dawning. Be like children +upon your hills, and witness the passing of war. Do not miss the +opportunity. It is your last chance to behold what henceforth +you will be compelled to seek in museums of antiquities.<br> +<br> +“I promise you a merry day,<br> +<br> +“GOLIAH.”<br> +<br> +<br> +The madness of magic was in the air. With the people it was as +if all their gods had crashed and the heavens still stood. Order +and law had passed away from the universe; but the sun still shone, +the wind still blew, the flowers still bloomed - that was the amazing +thing about it. That water should continue to run downhill was +a miracle. All the stabilities of the human mind and human achievement +were crumbling. The one stable thing that remained was Goliah, +a madman on an island. And so it was that the whole population +of San Francisco went forth next day in colossal frolic upon the hills +that overlooked the sea. Brass bands and banners went forth, brewery +wagons and Sunday-school picnics - all the strange heterogeneous groupings +of swarming metropolitan life.<br> +<br> +On the sea-rim rose the smoke from the funnels of a hundred hostile +vessels of war, all converging upon the helpless, undefended Golden +Gate. And not all undefended, for out through the Golden Gate +moved the <i>Energon, </i>a tiny toy of white, rolling like a straw +in the stiff sea on the bar where a strong ebb-tide ran in the teeth +of the summer sea-breeze. But the Japanese were cautious. +Their thirty- and forty-thousand-ton battleships slowed down half a +dozen miles offshore and manoeuvred in ponderous evolutions, while tiny +scout-boats (lean, six-funnelled destroyers) ran in, cutting blackly +the flashing sea like so many sharks. But, compared with the <i>Energon, +</i>they were leviathans. Compared with them, the <i>Energon </i>was +as the sword of the arch-angel Michael, and they the forerunners of +the hosts of hell.<br> +<br> +But the flashing of the sword, the good people of San Francisco, gathered +on her hills, never saw. Mysterious, invisible, it cleaved the +air and smote the mightiest blows of combat the world had ever witnessed. +The good people of San Francisco saw little and understood less. +They saw only a million and a half tons of brine-cleaving, thunder-flinging +fabrics hurled skyward and smashed back in ruin to sink into the sea. +It was all over in five minutes. Remained upon the wide expanse +of sea only the <i>Energon, </i>rolling white and toylike on the bar.<br> +<br> +Goliah spoke to the Mikado and the Elder Statesmen. It was only +an ordinary cable message, despatched from San Francisco by the captain +of the <i>Energon, </i>but it was of sufficient moment to cause the +immediate withdrawal of Japan from the Philippines and of her surviving +fleets from the sea. Japan the sceptical was converted. +She had felt the weight of Goliah’s arm. And meekly she +obeyed when Goliah commanded her to dismantle her war vessels and to +turn the metal into useful appliances for the arts of peace. In +all the ports, navy-yards, machine-shops, and foundries of Japan tens +of thousands of brown-skinned artisans converted the war-monsters into +myriads of useful things, such as ploughshares (Goliah insisted on ploughshares), +gasolene engines, bridge-trusses, telephone and telegraph wires, steel +rails, locomotives, and rolling stock for railways. It was a world-penance +for a world to see, and paltry indeed it made appear that earlier penance, +barefooted in the snow, of an emperor to a pope for daring to squabble +over temporal power.<br> +<br> +Goliah’s next summons was to the ten leading scientists of the +United States. This time there was no hesitancy in obeying. +The savants were ludicrously prompt, some of them waiting in San Francisco +for weeks so as not to miss the scheduled sailing-date. They departed +on the <i>Energon </i>on June 15; and while they were on the sea, on +the way to Palgrave Island, Goliah performed another spectacular feat. +Germany and France were preparing to fly at each other’s throats. +Goliah commanded peace. They ignored the command, tacitly agreeing +to fight it out on land where it seemed safer for the belligerently +inclined. Goliah set the date of June 19 for the cessation of +hostile preparations. Both countries mobilized their armies on +June 18, and hurled them at the common frontier. And on June 19, +Goliah struck. All generals, war-secretaries, and jingo-leaders +in the two countries died on that day; and that day two vast armies, +undirected, like strayed sheep, walked over each other’s frontiers +and fraternized. But the great German war lord had escaped - it +was learned, afterward, by hiding in the huge safe where were stored +the secret archives of his empire. And when he emerged he was +a very penitent war lord, and like the Mikado of Japan he was set to +work beating his sword-blades into ploughshares and pruning-hooks.<br> +<br> +But in the escape of the German Emperor was discovered a great significance. +The scientists of the world plucked up courage, got back their nerve. +One thing was conclusively evident - Goliah’s power was not magic. +Law still reigned in the universe. Goliah’s power had limitations, +else had the German Emperor not escaped by secretly hiding in a steel +safe. Many learned articles on the subject appeared in the magazines.<br> +<br> +The ten scientists arrived back from Palgrave Island on July 6. +Heavy platoons of police protected them from the reporters. No, +they had not see Goliah, they said in the one official interview that +was vouchsafed; but they had talked with him, and they had seen things. +They were not permitted to state definitely all that they had seen and +heard, but they could say that the world was about to be revolutionized. +Goliah was in the possession of a tremendous discovery that placed all +the world at his mercy, and it was a good thing for the world that Goliah +was merciful. The ten scientists proceeded directly to Washington +on a special train, where, for days, they were closeted with the heads +of government, while the nation hung breathless on the outcome.<br> +<br> +But the outcome was a long time in arriving. From Washington the +President issued commands to the masters and leading figures of the +nation. Everything was secret. Day by day deputations of +bankers, railway lords, captains of industry, and Supreme Court justices +arrived; and when they arrived they remained. The weeks dragged +on, and then, on August 25, began the famous issuance of proclamations. +Congress and the Senate co-operated with the President in this, while +the Supreme Court justices gave their sanction and the money lords and +the captains of industry agreed. War was declared upon the capitalist +masters of the nation. Martial law was declared over the whole +United States. The supreme power was vested in the President.<br> +<br> +In one day, child-labour in the whole country was abolished. It +was done by decree, and the United States was prepared with its army +to enforce its decrees. In the same day all women factory workers +were dismissed to their homes, and all the sweat-shops were closed. +“But we cannot make profits!” wailed the petty capitalists. +“Fools!” was the retort of Goliah. “As if the +meaning of life were profits! Give up your businesses and your +profit-mongering.” “But there is nobody to buy our +business!” they wailed. “Buy and sell - is that all +the meaning life has for you?” replied Goliah. “You +have nothing to sell. Turn over your little cut-throating, anarchistic +businesses to the government so that they may be rationally organized +and operated.” And the next day, by decree, the government +began taking possession of all factories, shops, mines, ships, railroads, +and producing lands.<br> +<br> +The nationalization of the means of production and distribution went +on apace. Here and there were sceptical capitalists of moment. +They were made prisoners and haled to Palgrave Island, and when they +returned they always acquiesced in what the government was doing. +A little later the journey to Palgrave Island became unnecessary. +When objection was made, the reply of the officials was “Goliah +has spoken” - which was another way of saying, “He must +be obeyed.”<br> +<br> +The captains of industry became heads of departments. It was found +that civil engineers, for instance, worked just as well in government +employ as before, they had worked in private employ. It was found +that men of high executive ability could not violate their nature. +They could not escape exercising their executive ability, any more than +a crab could escape crawling or a bird could escape flying. And +so it was that all the splendid force of the men who had previously +worked for themselves was now put to work for the good of society. +The half-dozen great railway chiefs co-operated in the organizing of +a national system of railways that was amazingly efficacious. +Never again was there such a thing as a car shortage. These chiefs +were not the Wall Street railway magnates, but they were the men who +formerly had done the real work while in the employ of the Wall Street +magnates.<br> +<br> +Wall Street was dead. There was no more buying and selling and +speculating. Nobody had anything to buy or sell. There was +nothing in which to speculate. “Put the stock gamblers to +work,” said Goliah; “give those that are young, and that +so desire, a chance to learn useful trades.” “Put +the drummers, and salesmen, and advertising agents, and real estate +agents to work,” said Goliah; and by hundreds of thousands the +erstwhile useless middlemen and parasites went into useful occupations. +The four hundred thousand idle gentlemen of the country who had lived +upon incomes were likewise put to work. Then there were a lot +of helpless men in high places who were cleared out, the remarkable +thing about this being that they were cleared out by their own fellows. +Of this class were the professional politicians, whose wisdom and power +consisted of manipulating machine politics and of grafting. There +was no longer any graft. Since there were no private interests +to purchase special privileges, no bribes were offered to legislators, +and legislators for the first time legislated for the people. +The result was that men who were efficient, not in corruption, but in +direction, found their way into the legislatures.<br> +<br> +With this rational organization of society amazing results were brought +about. The national day’s work was eight hours, and yet +production increased. In spite of the great permanent improvements +and of the immense amount of energy consumed in systematizing the competitive +chaos of society, production doubled and tripled upon itself. +The standard of living increased, and still consumption could not keep +up with production. The maximum working age was decreased to fifty +years, to forty-nine years, and to forty-eight years. The minimum +working age went up from sixteen years to eighteen years. The +eight-hour day became a seven-hour day, and in a few months the national +working day was reduced to five hours.<br> +<br> +In the meantime glimmerings were being caught, not of the identity of +Goliah, but of how he had worked and prepared for his assuming control +of the world. Little things leaked out, clues were followed up, +apparently unrelated things were pieced together. Strange stories +of blacks stolen from Africa were remembered, of Chinese and Japanese +contract coolies who had mysteriously disappeared, of lonely South Sea +Islands raided and their inhabitants carried away; stories of yachts +and merchant steamers, mysteriously purchased, that had disappeared +and the descriptions of which remotely tallied with the crafts that +had carried the Orientals and Africans and islanders away. Where +had Goliah got the sinews of war? was the question. And the surmised +answer was: By exploiting these stolen labourers. It was they +that lived in the exposed village on Palgrave Island. It was the +product of their toil that had purchased the yachts and merchant steamers +and enabled Goliah’s agents to permeate society and carry out +his will. And what was the product of their toil that had given +Goliah the wealth necessary to realize his plans? Commercial radium, +the newspapers proclaimed; and radiyte, and radiosole, and argatium, +and argyte, and the mysterious golyte (that had proved so valuable in +metallurgy). These were the new compounds, discovered in the first +decade of the twentieth century, the commercial and scientific use of +which had become so enormous in the second decade.<br> +<br> +The line of fruit boats that ran from Hawaii to San Francisco was declared +to be the property of Goliah. This was a surmise, for no other +owner could be discovered, and the agents who handled the shipments +of the fruit boats were only agents. Since no one else owned the +fruit boats, then Goliah must own them. The point of which is: +<i>that it leaked out that the major portion </i>of <i>the world</i>’<i>s +supply in these precious compounds was brought to San Francisco by those +very fruit boats</i>. That the whole chain of surmise was correct +was proved in later years when Goliah’s slaves were liberated +and honourably pensioned by the international government of the world. +It was at that time that the seal of secrecy was lifted from the lips +of his agents and higher emissaries, and those that chose revealed much +of the mystery of Goliah’s organization and methods. His +destroying angels, however, remained for ever dumb. Who the men +were who went forth to the high places and killed at his bidding will +be unknown to the end of time - for kill they did, by means of that +very subtle and then-mysterious force that Goliah had discovered and +named “Energon.”<br> +<br> +But at that time Energon, the little giant that was destined to do the +work of the world, was unknown and undreamed of. Only Goliah knew, +and he kept his secret well. Even his agents, who were armed with +it, and who, in the case of the yacht <i>Energon, </i>destroyed a mighty +fleet of war-ships by exploding their magazines, knew not what the subtle +and potent force was, nor how it was manufactured. They knew only +one of its many uses, and in that one use they had been instructed by +Goliah. It is now well known that radium, and radiyte, and radiosole, +and all the other compounds, were by-products of the manufacture of +Energon by Goliah from the sunlight; but at that time nobody knew what +Energon was, and Goliah continued to awe and rule the world.<br> +<br> +One of the uses of Energon was in wireless telegraphy. It was +by its means that Goliah was able to communicate with his agents all +over the world. At that time the apparatus required by an agent +was so clumsy that it could not be packed in anything less than a fair-sized +steamer trunk. To-day, thanks to the improvements of Hendsoll, +the perfected apparatus can be carried in a coat pocket.<br> +<br> +It was in December, 1924, that Goliah sent out his famous “Christmas +Letter,” part of the text of which is here given:<br> +<br> +<br> +“So far, while I have kept the rest of the nations from each other’s +throats, I have devoted myself particularly to the United States. +Now I have not given to the people of the United States a rational social +organization. What I have done has been to compel them to make +that organization themselves. There is more laughter in the United +States these days, and there is more sense. Food and shelter are +no longer obtained by the anarchistic methods of so-called individualism +but are now wellnigh automatic. And the beauty of it is that the +people of the United States have achieved all this for themselves. +I did not achieve it for them. I repeat, they achieved it for +themselves. All that I did was to put the fear of death in the +hearts of the few that sat in the high places and obstructed the coming +of rationality and laughter. The fear of death made those in the +high places get out of the way, that was all, and gave the intelligence +of man a chance to realize itself socially.<br> +<br> +“In the year that is to come I shall devote myself to the rest +of the world. I shall put the fear of death in the hearts of all +that sit in the high places in all the nations. And they will +do as they have done in the United States - get down out of the high +places and give the intelligence of man a chance for social rationality. +All the nations shall tread the path the United States is now on.<br> +<br> +“And when all the nations are well along on that path, I shall +have something else for them. But first they must travel that +path for themselves. They must demonstrate that the intelligence +of mankind to-day, with the mechanical energy now at its disposal, is +capable of organizing society so that food and shelter be made automatic, +labour be reduced to a three-hour day, and joy and laughter be made +universal. And when that is accomplished, not by me but by the +intelligence of mankind, then I shall make a present to the world of +a new mechanical energy. This is my discovery. This Energon +is nothing more nor less than the cosmic energy that resides in the +solar rays. When it is harnessed by mankind it will do the work +of the world. There will be no more multitudes of miners slaving +out their lives in the bowels of the earth, no more sooty firemen and +greasy engineers. All may dress in white if they so will. +The work of life will have become play and young and old will be the +children of joy, and the business of living will become joy; and they +will compete, one with another, in achieving ethical concepts and spiritual +heights, in fashioning pictures and songs, and stories, in statecraft +and beauty craft, in the sweat and the endeavour of the wrestler and +the runner and the player of games - all will compete, not for sordid +coin and base material reward, but for the joy that shall be theirs +in the development and vigour of flesh and in the development and keenness +of spirit. All will be joy-smiths, and their task shall be to +beat out laughter from the ringing anvil of life.<br> +<br> +“And now one word for the immediate future. On New Year’s +Day all nations shall disarm, all fortresses and war-ships shall be +dismantled, and all armies shall be disbanded.<br> +<br> +GOLIAH.”<br> +<br> +<br> +On New Year’s Day all the world disarmed. The millions of +soldiers and sailors and workmen in the standing armies, in the navies, +and in the countless arsenals, machine-shops, and factories for the +manufacture of war machinery, were dismissed to their homes. These +many millions of men, as well as their costly war machinery, had hitherto +been supported on the back of labour. They now went into useful +occupations, and the released labour giant heaved a mighty sigh of relief. +The policing of the world was left to the peace officers and was purely +social, whereas war had been distinctly anti-social.<br> +<br> +Ninety per cent. of the crimes against society had been crimes against +private property. With the passing of private property, at least +in the means of production, and with the organization of industry that +gave every man a chance, the crimes against private property practically +ceased. The police forces everywhere were reduced repeatedly and +again and again. Nearly all occasional and habitual criminals +ceased voluntarily from their depredations. There was no longer +any need for them to commit crime. They merely changed with changing +conditions. A smaller number of criminals was put into hospitals +and cured. And the remnant of the hopelessly criminal and degenerate +was segregated. And the courts in all countries were likewise +decreased in number again and again. Ninety-five per cent. of +all civil cases had been squabbles over property, conflicts of property-rights, +lawsuits, contests of wills, breaches of contract, bankruptcies, etc. +With the passing of private property, this ninety-five per cent. of +the cases that cluttered the courts also passed. The courts became +shadows, attenuated ghosts, rudimentary vestiges of the anarchistic +times that had preceded the coming of Goliah.<br> +<br> +The year 1925 was a lively year in the world’s history. +Goliah ruled the world with a strong hand. Kings and emperors +journeyed to Palgrave Island, saw the wonders of Energon, and went away, +with the fear of death in their hearts, to abdicate thrones and crowns +and hereditary licenses. When Goliah spoke to politicians (so-called +“statesmen”), they obeyed . . . or died. He dictated +universal reforms, dissolved refractory parliaments, and to the great +conspiracy that was formed of mutinous money lords and captains of industry +he sent his destroying angels. “The time is past for fooling,” +he told them. “You are anachronisms. You stand in +the way of humanity. To the scrap-heap with you.” +To those that protested, and they were many, he said: “This is +no time for logomachy. You can argue for centuries. It is +what you have done in the past. I have no time for argument. +Get out of the way.”<br> +<br> +With the exception of putting a stop to war, and of indicating the broad +general plan, Goliah did nothing. By putting the fear of death +into the hearts of those that sat in the high places and obstructed +progress, Goliah made the opportunity for the unshackled intelligence +of the best social thinkers of the world to exert itself. Goliah +left all the multitudinous details of reconstruction to these social +thinkers. He wanted them to prove that they were able to do it, +and they proved it. It was due to their initiative that the white +plague was stamped out from the world. It was due to them, and +in spite of a deal of protesting from the sentimentalists, that all +the extreme hereditary inefficients were segregated and denied marriage.<br> +<br> +Goliah had nothing whatever to do with the instituting of the colleges +of invention. This idea originated practically simultaneously +in the minds of thousands of social thinkers. The time was ripe +for the realization of the idea, and everywhere arose the splendid institutions +of invention. For the first time the ingenuity of man was loosed +upon the problem of simplifying life, instead of upon the making of +money-earning devices. The affairs of life, such as house-cleaning, +dish and window-washing, dust-removing, and scrubbing and clothes-washing, +and all the endless sordid and necessary details, were simplified by +invention until they became automatic. We of to-day cannot realize +the barbarously filthy and slavish lives of those that lived prior to +1925.<br> +<br> +The international government of the world was another idea that sprang +simultaneously into the minds of thousands. The successful realization +of this idea was a surprise to many, but as a surprise it was nothing +to that received by the mildly protestant sociologists and biologists +when irrefutable facts exploded the doctrine of Malthus. With +leisure and joy in the world; with an immensely higher standard of living; +and with the enormous spaciousness of opportunity for recreation, development, +and pursuit of beauty and nobility and all the higher attributes, the +birth-rate fell, and fell astoundingly. People ceased breeding +like cattle. And better than that, it was immediately noticeable +that a higher average of children was being born. The doctrine +of Malthus was knocked into a cocked hat - or flung to the scrap-heap, +as Goliah would have put it.<br> +<br> +All that Goliah had predicted that the intelligence of mankind could +accomplish with the mechanical energy at its disposal, came to pass. +Human dissatisfaction practically disappeared. The elderly people +were the great grumblers; but when they were honourably pensioned by +society, as they passed the age limit for work, the great majority ceased +grumbling. They found themselves better off in their idle old +days under the new regime, enjoying vastly more pleasure and comforts +than they had in their busy and toilsome youth under the old regime. +The younger generation had easily adapted itself too the changed order, +and the very young had never known anything else. The sum of human +happiness had increased enormously. The world had become gay and +sane. Even the old fogies of professors of sociology, who had +opposed with might and main the coming of the new regime, made no complaint. +They were a score of times better remunerated than in the old days, +and they were not worked nearly so hard. Besides, they were busy +revising sociology and writing new text-books on the subject. +Here and there, it is true, there were atavisms, men who yearned for +the flesh-pots and cannibal-feasts of the old alleged “individualism,” +creatures long of teeth and savage of claw who wanted to prey upon their +fellow-men; but they were looked upon as diseased, and were treated +in hospitals. A small remnant, however, proved incurable, and +was confined in asylums and denied marriage. Thus there was no +progeny to inherit their atavistic tendencies.<br> +<br> +As the years went by, Goliah dropped out of the running of the world. +There was nothing for him to run. The world was running itself, +and doing it smoothly and beautifully. In 1937, Goliah made his +long-promised present of Energon to the world. He himself had +devised a thousand ways in which the little giant should do the work +of the world - all of which he made public at the same time. But +instantly the colleges of invention seized upon Energon and utilized +it in a hundred thousand additional ways. In fact, as Goliah confessed +in his letter of March 1938, the colleges of invention cleared up several +puzzling features of Energon that had baffled him during the preceding +years. With the introduction of the use of Energon the two-hour +work-day was cut down almost to nothing. As Goliah had predicted, +work indeed became play. And, so tremendous was man’s productive +capacity, due to Energon and the rational social utilization of it, +that the humblest citizen enjoyed leisure and time and opportunity for +an immensely greater abundance of living than had the most favoured +under the old anarchistic system.<br> +<br> +Nobody had ever seen Goliah, and all peoples began to clamour for their +saviour to appear. While the world did not minimize his discovery +of Energon, it was decided that greater than that was his wide social +vision. He was a superman, a scientific superman; and the curiosity +of the world to see him had become wellnigh unbearable. It was +in 1941, after much hesitancy on his part, that he finally emerged from +Palgrave Island. He arrived on June 6 in San Francisco, and for +the first time, since his retirement to Palgrave Island, the world looked +upon his face. And the world was disappointed. Its imagination +had been touched. An heroic figure had been made out of Goliah. +He was the man, or the demi-god, rather, who had turned the planet over. +The deeds of Alexander, Cæsar, Genghis Khan, and Napoleon were +as the play of babes alongside his colossal achievements.<br> +<br> +And ashore in San Francisco and through its streets stepped and rode +a little old man, sixty-five years of age, well preserved, with a pink-and-white +complexion and a bald spot on his head the size of an apple. He +was short-sighted and wore spectacles. But when the spectacles +were removed, his were quizzical blue eyes like a child’s, filled +with mild wonder at the world. Also his eyes had a way of twinkling, +accompanied by a screwing up of the face, as if he laughed at the huge +joke he had played upon the world, trapping it, in spite of itself, +into happiness and laughter.<br> +<br> +For a scientific superman and world tyrant, he had remarkable weaknesses. +He loved sweets, and was inordinately fond of salted almonds and salted +pecans, especially of the latter. He always carried a paper bag +of them in his pocket, and he had a way of saying frequently that the +chemism of his nature demanded such fare. Perhaps his most astonishing +failing was cats. He had an ineradicable aversion to that domestic +animal. It will be remembered that he fainted dead away with sudden +fright, while speaking in Brotherhood Palace, when the janitor’s +cat walked out upon the stage and brushed against his legs.<br> +<br> +But no sooner had he revealed himself to the world than he was identified. +Old-time friends had no difficulty in recognizing him as Percival Stultz, +the German-American who, in 1898, had worked in the Union Iron Works, +and who, for two years at that time, had been secretary of Branch 369 +of the International Brotherhood of Machinists. It was in 1901, +then twenty-five years of age, that he had taken special scientific +courses at the University of California, at the same time supporting +himself by soliciting what was then known as “life insurance.” +His records as a student are preserved in the university museum, and +they are unenviable. He is remembered by the professors he sat +under chiefly for his absent-mindedness. Undoubtedly, even then, +he was catching glimpses of the wide visions that later were to be his.<br> +<br> +His naming himself “Goliah” and shrouding himself in mystery +was his little joke, he later explained. As Goliah, or any other +thing like that, he said, he was able to touch the imagination of the +world and turn it over; but as Percival Stultz, wearing side-whiskers +and spectacles, and weighing one hundred and eighteen pounds, he would +have been unable to turn over a pecan - “not even a salted pecan.”<br> +<br> +But the world quickly got over its disappointment in his personal appearance +and antecedents. It knew him and revered him as the master-mind +of the ages; and it loved him for himself, for his quizzical short-sighted +eyes and the inimitable way in which he screwed up his face when he +laughed; it loved him for his simplicity and comradeship and warm humanness, +and for his fondness for salted pecans and his aversion to cats. +And to-day, in the wonder-city of Asgard, rises in awful beauty that +monument to him that dwarfs the pyramids and all the monstrous blood-stained +monuments of antiquity. And on that monument, as all know, is +inscribed in imperishable bronze the prophecy and the fulfilment: “ALL +WILL BE JOY-SMITHS, AND THEIR TASK SHALL BE TO BEAT OUT LAUGHTER FROM +THE RINGING ANVIL OF LIFE.”<br> +<br> +[EDITORIAL NOTE. - This remarkable production is the work of Harry Beckwith, +a student in the Lowell High School of San Francisco, and it is here +reproduced chiefly because of the youth of its author. Far be +it from our policy to burden our readers with ancient history; and when +it is known that Harry Beckwith was only fifteen when the fore-going +was written, our motive will be understood. “Goliah” +won the Premier for high school composition in 2254, and last year Harry +Beckwith took advantage of the privilege earned, by electing to spend +six months in Asgard. The wealth of historical detail, the atmosphere +of the times, and the mature style of the composition are especially +noteworthy in one so young.]<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +THE GOLDEN POPPY<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +I have a poppy field. That is, by the grace of God and the good-nature +of editors, I am enabled to place each month divers gold pieces into +a clerical gentleman’s hands, and in return for said gold pieces +I am each month reinvested with certain proprietary-rights in a poppy +field. This field blazes on the rim of the Piedmont Hills. +Beneath lies all the world. In the distance, across the silver +sweep of bay, San Francisco smokes on her many hills like a second Rome. +Not far away, Mount Tamalpais thrusts a rugged shoulder into the sky; +and midway between is the Golden Gate, where sea mists love to linger. +From the poppy field we often see the shimmering blue of the Pacific +beyond, and the busy ships that go for ever out and in.<br> +<br> +“We shall have great joy in our poppy field,” said Bess. +“Yes,” said I; “how the poor city folk will envy when +they come to see us, and how we will make all well again when we send +them off with great golden armfuls!”<br> +<br> +“But those things will have to come down,” I added, pointing +to numerous obtrusive notices (relics of the last tenant) displayed +conspicuously along the boundaries, and bearing, each and all, this +legend:<br> +<br> +<br> +“<i>Private Grounds. No Trespassing.</i>”<br> +<br> +<br> +“Why should we refuse the poor city folk a ramble over our field, +because, forsooth, they have not the advantage of our acquaintance?”<br> +<br> +“How I abhor such things,” said Bess; “the arrogant +symbols of power.”<br> +<br> +“They disgrace human nature,” said I.<br> +<br> +“They shame the generous landscape,” she said, “and +they are abominable.”<br> +<br> +“Piggish!” quoth I, hotly. “Down with them!”<br> +<br> +We looked forward to the coming of the poppies, did Bess and I, looked +forward as only creatures of the city may look who have been long denied. +I have forgotten to mention the existence of a house above the poppy +field, a squat and wandering bungalow in which we had elected to forsake +town traditions and live in fresher and more vigorous ways. The +first poppies came, orange-yellow and golden in the standing grain, +and we went about gleefully, as though drunken with their wine, and +told each other that the poppies were there. We laughed at unexpected +moments, in the midst of silences, and at times grew ashamed and stole +forth secretly to gaze upon our treasury. But when the great wave +of poppy-flame finally spilled itself down the field, we shouted aloud, +and danced, and clapped our hands, freely and frankly mad.<br> +<br> +And then came the Goths. My face was in a lather, the time of +the first invasion, and I suspended my razor in mid-air to gaze out +on my beloved field. At the far end I saw a little girl and a +little boy, their arms filled with yellow spoil. Ah, thought I, +an unwonted benevolence burgeoning, what a delight to me is their delight! +It is sweet that children should pick poppies in my field. All +summer shall they pick poppies in my field. But they must be little +children, I added as an afterthought, and they must pick from the lower +end - this last prompted by a glance at the great golden fellows nodding +in the wheat beneath my window. Then the razor descended. +Shaving was always an absorbing task, and I did not glance out of the +window again until the operation was completed. And then I was +bewildered. Surely this was not my poppy field. No - and +yes, for there were the tall pines clustering austerely together on +one side, the magnolia tree burdened with bloom, and the Japanese quinces +splashing the driveway hedge with blood. Yes, it was the field, +but no wave of poppy-flame spilled down it, nor did the great golden +fellows nod in the wheat beneath my window. I rushed into a jacket +and out of the house. In the far distance were disappearing two +huge balls of colour, orange and yellow, for all the world like perambulating +poppies of cyclopean breed.<br> +<br> +“Johnny,” said I to the nine-year-old son of my sister, +“Johnny, whenever little girls come into our field to pick poppies, +you must go down to them, and in a very quiet and gentlemanly manner, +tell them it is not allowed.”<br> +<br> +Warm days came, and the sun drew another blaze from the free-bosomed +earth. Whereupon a neighbour’s little girl, at the behest +of her mother, duly craved and received permission from Bess to gather +a few poppies for decorative purposes. But of this I was uninformed, +and when I descried her in the midst of the field I waved my arms like +a semaphore against the sky.<br> +<br> +“Little girl!” called I. “Little girl!”<br> +<br> +The little girl’s legs blurred the landscape as she fled, and +in high elation I sought Bess to tell of the potency of my voice. +Nobly she came to the rescue, departing forthwith on an expedition of +conciliation and explanation to the little girl’s mother. +But to this day the little girl seeks cover at sight of me, and I know +the mother will never be as cordial as she would otherwise have been.<br> +<br> +Came dark, overcast days, stiff, driving winds, and pelting rains, day +on day, without end, and the city folk cowered in their dwelling-places +like flood-beset rats; and like rats, half-drowned and gasping, when +the weather cleared they crawled out and up the green Piedmont slopes +to bask in the blessed sunshine. And they invaded my field in +swarms and droves, crushing the sweet wheat into the earth and with +lustful hands ripping the poppies out by the roots.<br> +<br> +“I shall put up the warnings against trespassing,” I said.<br> +<br> +“Yes,” said Bess, with a sigh. “I’m afraid +it is necessary.”<br> +<br> +The day was yet young when she sighed again:<br> +<br> +“I’m afraid, O Man, that your signs are of no avail. +People have forgotten how to read, these days.”<br> +<br> +I went out on the porch. A city nymph, in cool summer gown and +picture hat, paused before one of my newly reared warnings and read +it through with care. Profound deliberation characterized her +movements. She was statuesquely tall, but with a toss of the head +and a flirt of the skirt she dropped on hands and knees, crawled under +the fence, and came to her feet on the inside with poppies in both her +hands. I walked down the drive and talked ethically to her, and +she went away. Then I put up more signs.<br> +<br> +At one time, years ago, these hills were carpeted with poppies. +As between the destructive forces and the will “to live,” +the poppies maintained an equilibrium with their environment. +But the city folk constituted a new and terrible destructive force, +the equilibrium was overthrown, and the poppies wellnigh perished. +Since the city folk plucked those with the longest stems and biggest +bowls, and since it is the law of kind to procreate kind, the long-stemmed, +big-bowled poppies failed to go to seed, and a stunted, short-stemmed +variety remained to the hills. And not only was it stunted and +short-stemmed, but sparsely distributed as well. Each day and +every day, for years and years, the city folk swarmed over the Piedmont +Hills, and only here and there did the genius of the race survive in +the form of miserable little flowers, close-clinging and quick-blooming, +like children of the slums dragged hastily and precariously through +youth to a shrivelled and futile maturity.<br> +<br> +On the other hand, the poppies had prospered in my field; and not only +had they been sheltered from the barbarians, but also from the birds. +Long ago the field was sown in wheat, which went to seed unharvested +each year, and in the cool depths of which the poppy seeds were hidden +from the keen-eyed songsters. And further, climbing after the +sun through the wheat stalks, the poppies grew taller and taller and +more royal even than the primordial ones of the open.<br> +<br> +So the city folk, gazing from the bare hills to my blazing, burning +field, were sorely tempted, and, it must be told, as sorely fell. +But no sorer was their fall than that of my beloved poppies. Where +the grain holds the dew and takes the bite from the sun the soil is +moist, and in such soil it is easier to pull the poppies out by the +roots than to break the stalk. Now the city folk, like other folk, +are inclined to move along the line of least resistance, and for each +flower they gathered, there were also gathered many crisp-rolled buds +and with them all the possibilities and future beauties of the plant +for all time to come.<br> +<br> +One of the city folk, a middle-aged gentleman, with white hands and +shifty eyes, especially made life interesting for me. We called +him the “Repeater,” what of his ways. When from the +porch we implored him to desist, he was wont slowly and casually to +direct his steps toward the fence, simulating finely the actions of +a man who had not heard, but whose walk, instead, had terminated of +itself or of his own volition. To heighten this effect, now and +again, still casually and carelessly, he would stoop and pluck another +poppy. Thus did he deceitfully save himself the indignity of being +put out, and rob us of the satisfaction of putting him out, but he came, +and he came often, each time getting away with an able-bodied man’s +share of plunder.<br> +<br> +It is not good to be of the city folk. Of this I am convinced. +There is something in the mode of life that breeds an alarming condition +of blindness and deafness, or so it seems with the city folk that come +to my poppy field. Of the many to whom I have talked ethically +not one has been found who ever saw the warnings so conspicuously displayed, +while of those called out to from the porch, possibly one in fifty has +heard. Also, I have discovered that the relation of city folk +to country flowers is quite analogous to that of a starving man to food. +No more than the starving man realizes that five pounds of meat is not +so good as an ounce, do they realize that five hundred poppies crushed +and bunched are less beautiful than two or three in a free cluster, +where the green leaves and golden bowls may expand to their full loveliness.<br> +<br> +Less forgivable than the unaesthetic are the mercenary. Hordes +of young rascals plunder me and rob the future that they may stand on +street corners and retail “California poppies, only five cents +a bunch!” In spite of my precautions some of them made a +dollar a day out of my field. One horde do I remember with keen +regret. Reconnoitring for a possible dog, they applied at the +kitchen door for “a drink of water, please.” While +they drank they were besought not to pick any flowers. They nodded, +wiped their mouths, and proceeded to take themselves off by the side +of the bungalow. They smote the poppy field beneath my windows, +spread out fan-shaped six wide, picking with both hands, and ripped +a swath of destruction through the very heart of the field. No +cyclone travelled faster or destroyed more completely. I shouted +after them, but they sped on the wings of the wind, great regal poppies, +broken-stalked and mangled, trailing after them or cluttering their +wake - the most high-handed act of piracy, I am confident, ever committed +off the high seas.<br> +<br> +One day I went a-fishing, and on that day a woman entered the field. +Appeals and remonstrances from the porch having no effect upon her, +Bess despatched a little girl to beg of her to pick no more poppies. +The woman calmly went on picking. Then Bess herself went down +through the heat of the day. But the woman went on picking, and +while she picked she discussed property and proprietary rights, denying +Bess’s sovereignty until deeds and documents should be produced +in proof thereof. And all the time she went on picking, never +once overlooking her hand. She was a large woman, belligerent +of aspect, and Bess was only a woman and not prone to fisticuffs. +So the invader picked until she could pick no more, said “Good-day,” +and sailed majestically away.<br> +<br> +“People have really grown worse in the last several years, I think,” +said Bess to me in a tired sort of voice that night, as we sat in the +library after dinner.<br> +<br> +Next day I was inclined to agree with her. “There’s +a woman and a little girl heading straight for the poppies,” said +May, a maid about the bungalow. I went out on the porch and waited +their advent. They plunged through the pine trees and into the +fields, and as the roots of the first poppies were pulled I called to +them. They were about a hundred feet away. The woman and +the little girl turned to the sound of my voice and looked at me. +“Please do not pick the poppies,” I pleaded. They +pondered this for a minute; then the woman said something in an undertone +to the little girl, and both backs jack-knifed as the slaughter recommenced. +I shouted, but they had become suddenly deaf. I screamed, and +so fiercely that the little girl wavered dubiously. And while +the woman went on picking I could hear her in low tones heartening the +little girl.<br> +<br> +I recollected a siren whistle with which I was wont to summon Johnny, +the son of my sister. It was a fearsome thing, of a kind to wake +the dead, and I blew and blew, but the jack-knifed backs never unclasped. +I do not mind with men, but I have never particularly favoured physical +encounters with women; yet this woman, who encouraged a little girl +in iniquity, tempted me.<br> +<br> +I went into the bungalow and fetched my rifle. Flourishing it +in a sanguinary manner and scowling fearsomely, I charged upon the invaders. +The little girl fled, screaming, to the shelter of the pines, but the +woman calmly went on picking. She took not the least notice. +I had expected her to run at sight of me, and it was embarrassing. +There was I, charging down the field like a wild bull upon a woman who +would not get out of the way. I could only slow down, supremely +conscious of how ridiculous it all was. At a distance of ten feet +she straightened up and deigned to look at me. I came to a halt +and blushed to the roots of my hair. Perhaps I really did frighten +her (I sometimes try to persuade myself that this is so), or perhaps +she took pity on me; but, at any rate, she stalked out of my field with +great composure, nay, majesty, her arms brimming with orange and gold.<br> +<br> +Nevertheless, thenceforward I saved my lungs and flourished my rifle. +Also, I made fresh generalizations. To commit robbery women take +advantage of their sex. Men have more respect for property than +women. Men are less insistent in crime than women. And women +are less afraid of guns than men. Likewise, we conquer the earth +in hazard and battle by the virtues of our mothers. We are a race +of land-robbers and sea-robbers, we Anglo-Saxons, and small wonder, +when we suckle at the breasts of a breed of women such as maraud my +poppy field.<br> +<br> +Still the pillage went on. Sirens and gun-flourishings were without +avail. The city folk were great of heart and undismayed, and I +noted the habit of “repeating” was becoming general. +What booted it how often they were driven forth if each time they were +permitted to carry away their ill-gotten plunder? When one has +turned the same person away twice and thrice an emotion arises somewhat +akin to homicide. And when one has once become conscious of this +sanguinary feeling his whole destiny seems to grip hold of him and drag +him into the abyss. More than once I found myself unconsciously +pulling the rifle into position to get a sight on the miserable trespassers. +In my sleep I slew them in manifold ways and threw their carcasses into +the reservoir. Each day the temptation to shoot them in the legs +became more luring, and every day I felt my fate calling to me imperiously. +Visions of the gallows rose up before me, and with the hemp about my +neck I saw stretched out the pitiless future of my children, dark with +disgrace and shame. I became afraid of myself, and Bess went about +with anxious face, privily beseeching my friends to entice me into taking +a vacation. Then, and at the last gasp, came the thought that +saved me:<i> Why not confiscate</i>? If their forays were bootless, +in the nature of things their forays would cease.<br> +<br> +The first to enter my field thereafter was a man.<br> +<br> +I was waiting for him And, oh joy! it was the “Repeater” +himself, smugly complacent with knowledge of past success. I dropped +the rifle negligently across the hollow of my arm and went down to him.<br> +<br> +“I am sorry to trouble you for those poppies,” I said in +my oiliest tones; “but really, you know, I must have them.”<br> +<br> +He regarded me speechlessly. It must have made a great picture. +It surely was dramatic. With the rifle across my arm and my suave +request still ringing in my ears, I felt like Black Bart, and Jesse +James, and Jack Sheppard, and Robin Hood, and whole generations of highwaymen.<br> +<br> +“Come, come,” I said, a little sharply and in what I imagined +was the true fashion; “I am sorry to inconvenience you, believe +me, but I must have those poppies.”<br> +<br> +I absently shifted the gun and smiled. That fetched him. +Without a word he passed them over and turned his toes toward the fence, +but no longer casual and careless was his carriage, I nor did he stoop +to pick the occasional poppy by the way. That was the last of +the “Repeater.” I could see by his eyes that he did +not like me, and his back reproached me all the way down the field and +out of sight.<br> +<br> +From that day the bungalow has been flooded with poppies. Every +vase and earthen jar is filled with them. They blaze on every +mantel and run riot through all the rooms. I present them to my +friends in huge bunches, and still the kind city folk come and gather +more for me. “Sit down for a moment,” I say to the +departing guest. And there we sit in the shade of the porch while +aspiring city creatures pluck my poppies and sweat under the brazen +sun. And when their arms are sufficiently weighted with my yellow +glories, I go down with the rifle over my arm and disburden them. +Thus have I become convinced that every situation has its compensations.<br> +<br> +Confiscation was successful, so far as it went; but I had forgotten +one thing; namely, the vast number of the city folk. Though the +old transgressors came no more, new ones arrived every day, and I found +myself confronted with the titanic task of educating a whole cityful +to the inexpediency of raiding my poppy field. During the process +of disburdening them I was accustomed to explaining my side of the case, +but I soon gave this over. It was a waste of breath. They +could not understand. To one lady, who insinuated that I was miserly, +I said:<br> +<br> +“My dear madam, no hardship is worked upon you. Had I not +been parsimonious yesterday and the day before, these poppies would +have been picked by the city hordes of that day and the day before, +and your eyes, which to-day have discovered this field, would have beheld +no poppies at all. The poppies you may not pick to-day are the +poppies I did not permit to be picked yesterday and the day before. +Therefore, believe me, you are denied nothing.”<br> +<br> +“But the poppies are here to-day,” she said, glaring carnivorously +upon their glow and splendour.<br> +<br> +“I will pay you for them,” said a gentleman, at another +time. (I had just relieved him of an armful.) I felt a sudden +shame, I know not why, unless it be that his words had just made clear +to me that a monetary as well as an aesthetic value was attached to +my flowers. The apparent sordidness of my position overwhelmed +me, and I said weakly: “I do not sell my poppies. You may +have what you have picked.” But before the week was out +I confronted the same gentleman again. “I will pay you for +them,” he said. “Yes,” I said, “you may +pay me for them. Twenty dollars, please.” He gasped, +looked at me searchingly, gasped again, and silently and sadly put the +poppies down. But it remained, as usual, for a woman to attain +the sheerest pitch of audacity. When I declined payment and demanded +my plucked beauties, she refused to give them up. “I picked +these poppies,” she said, “and my time is worth money. +When you have paid me for my time you may have them.” Her +cheeks flamed rebellion, and her face, withal a pretty one, was set +and determined. Now, I was a man of the hill tribes, and she a +mere woman of the city folk, and though it is not my inclination to +enter into details, it is my pleasure to state that that bunch of poppies +subsequently glorified the bungalow and that the woman departed to the +city unpaid. Anyway, they were my poppies.<br> +<br> +“They are God’s poppies,” said the Radiant Young Radical, +democratically shocked at sight of me turning city folk out of my field. +And for two weeks she hated me with a deathless hatred. I sought +her out and explained. I explained at length. I told the +story of the poppy as Maeterlinck has told the life of the bee. +I treated the question biologically, psychologically, and sociologically, +I discussed it ethically and aesthetically. I grew warm over it, +and impassioned; and when I had done, she professed conversion, but +in my heart of hearts I knew it to be compassion. I fled to other +friends for consolation. I retold the story of the poppy. +They did not appear supremely interested. I grew excited. +They were surprised and pained. They looked at me curiously. +“It ill-befits your dignity to squabble over poppies,” they +said. “It is unbecoming.”<br> +<br> +I fled away to yet other friends. I sought vindication. +The thing had become vital, and I needs must put myself right. +I felt called upon to explain, though well knowing that he who explains +is lost. I told the story of the poppy over again. I went +into the minutest details. I added to it, and expanded. +I talked myself hoarse, and when I could talk no more they looked bored. +Also, they said insipid things, and soothful things, and things concerning +other things, and not at all to the point. I was consumed with +anger, and there and then I renounced them all.<br> +<br> +At the bungalow I lie in wait for chance visitors. Craftily I +broach the subject, watching their faces closely the while to detect +first signs of disapprobation, whereupon I empty long-stored vials of +wrath upon their heads. I wrangle for hours with whosoever does +not say I am right. I am become like Guy de Maupassant’s +old man who picked up a piece of string. I am incessantly explaining, +and nobody will understand. I have become more brusque in my treatment +of the predatory city folk. No longer do I take delight in their +disburdenment, for it has become an onerous duty, a wearisome and distasteful +task. My friends look askance and murmur pityingly on the side +when we meet in the city. They rarely come to see me now. +They are afraid. I am an embittered and disappointed man, and +all the light seems to have gone out of my life and into my blazing +field. So one pays for things.<br> +<br> +PIEDMONT, CALIFORNIA.<br> +<i>April </i>1902.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +THE SHRINKAGE OF THE PLANET<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +What a tremendous affair it was, the world of Homer, with its indeterminate +boundaries, vast regions, and immeasurable distances. The Mediterranean +and the Euxine were illimitable stretches of ocean waste over which +years could be spent in endless wandering. On their mysterious +shores were the improbable homes of impossible peoples. The Great +Sea, the Broad Sea, the Boundless Sea; the Ethiopians, “dwelling +far away, the most distant of men,” and the Cimmerians, “covered +with darkness and cloud,” where “baleful night is spread +over timid mortals.” Phœnicia was a sore journey, +Egypt simply unattainable, while the Pillars of Hercules marked the +extreme edge of the universe. Ulysses was nine days in sailing +from Ismarus the city of the Ciconians, to the country of the Lotus-eaters +- a period of time which to-day would breed anxiety in the hearts of +the underwriters should it be occupied by the slowest tramp steamer +in traversing the Mediterranean and Black Seas from Gibraltar to Sebastopol.<br> +<br> +Homer’s world, restricted to less than a drummer’s circuit, +was nevertheless immense, surrounded by a thin veneer of universe - +the Stream of Ocean. But how it has shrunk! To-day, precisely +charted, weighed, and measured, a thousand times larger than the world +of Homer, it is become a tiny speck, gyrating to immutable law through +a universe the bounds of which have been pushed incalculably back. +The light of Algol shines upon it - a light which travels at one hundred +and ninety thousand miles per second, yet requires forty-seven years +to reach its destination. And the denizens of this puny ball have +come to know that Algol possesses an invisible companion, three and +a quarter millions of miles away, and that the twain move in their respective +orbits at rates of fifty-five and twenty-six miles per second. +They also know that beyond it are great chasms of space, innumerable +worlds, and vast star systems.<br> +<br> +While much of the shrinkage to which the planet has been subjected is +due to the increased knowledge of mathematics and physics, an equal, +if not greater, portion may be ascribed to the perfection of the means +of locomotion and communication. The enlargement of stellar space, +demonstrating with stunning force the insignificance of the earth, has +been negative in its effect; but the quickening of travel and intercourse, +by making the earth’s parts accessible and knitting them together, +has been positive.<br> +<br> +The advantage of the animal over the vegetable kingdom is obvious. +The cabbage, should its environment tend to become worse, must live +it out, or die; the rabbit may move on in quest of a better. But, +after all, the swift-footed creatures are circumscribed in their wanderings. +The first large river almost inevitably bars their way, and certainly +the first salt sea becomes an impassable obstacle. Better locomotion +may be classed as one of the prime aims of the old natural selection; +for in that primordial day the race was to the swift as surely as the +battle to the strong. But man, already pre-eminent in the common +domain because of other faculties, was not content with the one form +of locomotion afforded by his lower limbs. He swam in the sea, +and, still better, becoming aware of the buoyant virtues of wood, learned +to navigate its surface. Likewise, from among the land animals +he chose the more likely to bear him and his burdens. The next +step was the domestication of these useful aids. Here, in its +organic significance, natural selection ceased to concern itself with +locomotion. Man had displayed his impatience at her tedious methods +and his own superiority in the hastening of affairs. Thenceforth +he must depend upon himself, and faster-swimming or faster-running men +ceased to be bred. The one, half-amphibian, breasting the water +with muscular arms, could not hope to overtake or escape an enemy who +propelled a fire-hollowed tree trunk by means of a wooden paddle; nor +could the other, trusting to his own nimbleness, compete with a foe +who careered wildly across the plain on the back of a half-broken stallion.<br> +<br> +So, in that dim day, man took upon himself the task of increasing his +dominion over space and time, and right nobly has he acquitted himself. +Because of it he became a road builder and a bridge builder; likewise, +he wove clumsy sails of rush and matting. At a very remote period +he must also have recognized that force moves along the line of least +resistance, and in virtue thereof, placed upon his craft rude keels +which enabled him to beat to windward in a seaway. As he excelled +in these humble arts, just so did he add to his power over his less +progressive fellows and lay the foundations for the first glimmering +civilizations - crude they were beyond conception, sporadic and ephemeral, +but each formed a necessary part of the groundwork upon which was to +rise the mighty civilization of our latter-day world.<br> +<br> +Divorced from the general history of man’s upward climb, it would +seem incredible that so long a time should elapse between the moment +of his first improvements over nature in the matter of locomotion and +that of the radical changes he was ultimately to compass. The +principles which were his before history was, were his, neither more +nor less, even to the present century. He utilized improved applications, +but the principles of themselves were ever the same, whether in the +war chariots of Achilles and Pharaoh or the mail-coach and diligence +of the European traveller, the cavalry of the Huns or of Prince Rupert, +the triremes and galleys of Greece and Rome or the East India-men and +clipper ships of the last century. But when the moment came to +alter the methods of travel, the change was so sweeping that it may +be safely classed as a revolution. Though the discovery of steam +attaches to the honour of the last century, the potency of the new power +was not felt till the beginning of this. By 1800 small steamers +were being used for coasting purposes in England; 1830 witnessed the +opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway; while it was not until +1838 that the Atlantic was first crossed by the steamships <i>Great +Western </i>and <i>Sirius</i>. In 1869 the East was made next-door +neighbour to the West. Over almost the same ground where had toiled +the caravans of a thousand generations, the Suez Canal was dug. +Clive, during his first trip, was a year and a half <i>en route </i>from +England to India; were he alive to-day he could journey to Calcutta +in twenty-two days. After reading De Quincey’s hyperbolical +description of the English mail-coach, one cannot down the desire to +place that remarkable man on the pilot of the White Mail or of the Twentieth +Century.<br> +<br> +But this tremendous change in the means of locomotion meant far more +than the mere rapid transit of men from place to place. Until +then, though its influence and worth cannot be overestimated, commerce +had eked out a precarious and costly existence. The fortuitous +played too large a part in the trade of men. The mischances by +land and sea, the mistakes and delays, were adverse elements of no mean +proportions. But improved locomotion meant improved carrying, +and commerce received an impetus as remarkable as it was unexpected. +In his fondest fancies James Watt could not have foreseen even the approximate +result of his invention, the Hercules which was to spring from the puny +child of his brain and hands. An illuminating spectacle, were +it possible, would be afforded by summoning him from among the Shades +to a place in the engine-room of an ocean greyhound. The humblest +trimmer would treat him with the indulgence of a child; while an oiler, +a greasy nimbus about his head and in his hand, as sceptre, a long-snouted +can, would indeed appear to him a demigod and ruler of forces beyond +his ken.<br> +<br> +It has ever been the world’s dictum that empire and commerce go +hand in hand. In the past the one was impossible without the other. +Rome gathered to herself the wealth of the Mediterranean nations, and +it was only by an unwise distribution of it that she became emasculated +and lost both power and trade. With a just system of economics +it is highly probable that for centuries she could have held back the +welling tide of the Germanic peoples. When upon her ruins rose +the institutions of the conquering Teutons, commerce slipped away, and +with it empire. In the present, empire and commerce have become +interdependent. Such wonders has the industrial revolution wrought +in a few swift decades, and so great has been the shrinkage of the planet, +that the industrial nations have long since felt the imperative demand +for foreign markets. The favoured portions of the earth are occupied. +From their seats in the temperate zones the militant commercial nations +proceed to the exploitation of the tropics, and for the possession of +these they rush to war hot-footed. Like wolves at the end of a +gorge, they wrangle over the fragments. There are no more planets, +no more fragments, and they are yet hungry. There are no longer +Cimmerians and Ethiopians, in wide-stretching lands, awaiting them. +On either hand they confront the naked poles, and they recoil from unnavigable +space to an intenser struggle among themselves. And all the while +the planet shrinks beneath their grasp.<br> +<br> +Of this struggle one thing may be safely predicated; a commercial power +must be a sea power. Upon the control of the sea depends the control +of trade. Carthage threatened Rome till she lost her navy; and +then for thirteen days the smoke of her burning rose to the skies, and +the ground was ploughed and sown with salt on the site of her most splendid +edifices. The cities of Italy were the world’s merchants +till new trade routes were discovered and the dominion of the sea passed +on to the west and fell into other hands. Spain and Portugal, +inaugurating an era of maritime discovery, divided the new world between +them, but gave way before a breed of sea-rovers, who, after many generations +of attachment to the soil, had returned to their ancient element. +With the destruction of her Armada Spain’s colossal dream of colonial +empire passed away. Against the new power Holland strove in vain, +and when France acknowledged the superiority of the Briton upon the +sea, she at the same time relinquished her designs upon the world. +Hampered by her feeble navy, her contest for supremacy upon the land +was her last effort and with the passing of Napoleon she retired within +herself to struggle with herself as best she might. For fifty +years England held undisputed sway upon the sea, controlled markets, +and domineered trade, laying, during that period, the foundations of +her empire. Since then other naval powers have arisen, their attitudes +bearing significantly upon the future; for they have learned that the +mastery of the world belongs to the masters of the sea.<br> +<br> +That many of the phases of this world shrinkage are pathetic, goes without +question. There is much to condemn in the rise of the economic +over the imaginative spirit, much for which the energetic Philistine +can never atone. Perhaps the deepest pathos of all may be found +in the spectacle of John Ruskin weeping at the profanation of the world +by the vandalism of the age. Steam launches violate the sanctity +of the Venetian canals; where Xerxes bridged the Hellespont ply the +filthy funnels of our modern shipping; electric cars run in the shadow +of the pyramids; and it was only the other day that Lord Kitchener was +in a railroad wreck near the site of ancient Luxor. But there +is always the other side. If the economic man has defiled temples +and despoiled nature, he has also preserved. He has policed the +world and parked it, reduced the dangers of life and limb, made the +tenure of existence less precarious, and rendered a general relapse +of society impossible. There can never again be an intellectual +holocaust, such as the burning of the Alexandrian library. Civilizations +may wax and wane, but the totality of knowledge cannot decrease. +With the possible exception of a few trade secrets, arts and sciences +may be discarded, but they can never be lost. And these things +must remain true until the end of man’s time upon the earth.<br> +<br> +Up to yesterday communication for any distance beyond the sound of the +human voice or the sight of the human eye was bound up with locomotion. +A letter presupposed a carrier. The messenger started with the +message, and he could not but avail himself of the prevailing modes +of travel. If the voyage to Australia required four months, four +months were required for communication; by no known means could this +time be lessened. But with the advent of the telegraph and telephone, +communication and locomotion were divorced. In a few hours, at +most, there could be performed what by the old way would have required +months. In 1837 the needle telegraph was invented, and nine years +later the Electric Telegraph Company was formed for the purpose of bringing +it into general use. Government postal systems also came into +being, later to consolidate into an international union and to group +the nations of the earth into a local neighbourhood. The effects +of all this are obvious, and no fitter illustration may be presented +than the fact that to-day, in the matter of communication, the Klondike +is virtually nearer to Boston than was Bunker Hill in the time of Warren.<br> +<br> +A contemporaneous and remarkable shrinkage of a vast stretch of territory +may be instanced in the Northland. From its rise at Lake Linderman +the Yukon runs twenty-five hundred miles to Bering Sea, traversing an +almost unknown region, the remote recesses of which had never felt the +moccasined foot of the pathfinder. At occasional intervals men +wallowed into its dismal fastnesses, or emerged gaunt and famine-worn. +But in the fall of 1896 a great gold strike was made - greater than +any since the days of California and Australia; yet, so rude were the +means of communication, nearly a year elapsed before the news of it +reached the eager ear of the world. Passionate pilgrims disembarked +their outfits at Dyea. Over the terrible Chilcoot Pass the trail +led to the lakes, thirty miles away. Carriage was yet in its most +primitive stage, the road builder and bridge builder unheard of. +With heavy packs upon their backs men plunged waist-deep into hideous +quagmires, bridged mountain torrents by felling trees across them, toiled +against the precipitous slopes of the ice-worn mountains, and crossed +the dizzy faces of innumerable glaciers. When, after incalculable +toil they reached the lakes, they went into the woods, sawed pine trees +into lumber by hand, and built it into boats. In these, overloaded, +unseaworthy, they battled down the long chain of lakes. Within +the memory of the writer there lingers the picture of a sheltered nook +on the shores of Lake Le Barge, in which half a thousand gold seekers +lay storm-bound. Day after day they struggled against the seas +in the teeth of a northerly gale, and night after night returned to +their camps, repulsed but not disheartened. At the rapids they +ran their boats through, hit or miss, and after infinite toil and hardship, +on the breast of a jarring ice flood, arrived at the Klondike. +From the beach at Dyea to the eddy below the Barracks at Dawson, they +had paid for their temerity the tax of human life demanded by the elements. +A year later, so greatly had the country shrunk, the tourist, on disembarking +from the ocean steamship, took his seat in a modern railway coach. +A few hours later, at Lake Bennet, he stepped aboard a commodious river +steamer. At the rapids he rode around on a tramway to take passage +on another steamer below. And in a few hours more he was in Dawson, +without having once soiled the lustre of his civilized foot-gear. +Did he wish to communicate with the outside world, he strolled into +the telegraph office. A few short months before he would have +written a letter and deemed himself favoured above mortals were it delivered +within the year.<br> +<br> +From man’s drawing the world closer and closer together, his own +affairs and institutions have consolidated. Concentration may +typify the chief movement of the age - concentration, classification, +order; the reduction of friction between the parts of the social organism. +The urban tendency of the rural populations led to terrible congestion +in the great cities. There was stifling and impure air, and lo, +rapid transit at once attacked the evil. Every great city has +become but the nucleus of a greater city which surrounds it; the one +the seat of business, the other the seat of domestic happiness. +Between the two, night and morning, by electric road, steam railway, +and bicycle path, ebbs and flows the middle-class population. +And in the same direction lies the remedy for the tenement evil. +In the cleansing country air the slum cannot exist. Improvement +in road-beds and the means of locomotion, a tremor of altruism, a little +legislation, and the city by day will sleep in the country by night.<br> +<br> +What a play-ball has this planet of ours become! Steam has made +its parts accessible and drawn them closer together. The telegraph +annihilates space and time. Each morning every part knows what +every other part is thinking, contemplating, or doing. A discovery +in a German laboratory is being demonstrated in San Francisco within +twenty-four hours. A book written in South Africa is published +by simultaneous copyright in every English-speaking country, and on +the following day is in the hands of the translators. The death +of an obscure missionary in China, or of a whisky smuggler in the South +Seas, is served up, the world over, with the morning toast. The +wheat output of Argentine or the gold of Klondike is known wherever +men meet and trade. Shrinkage or centralization has been such +that the humblest clerk in any metropolis may place his hand on the +pulse of the world. And because of all this, everywhere is growing +order and organization. The church, the state; men, women, and +children; the criminal and the law, the honest man and the thief, industry +and commerce, capital and labour, the trades and the professions, the +arts and the sciences - all are organizing for pleasure, profit, policy, +or intellectual pursuit. They have come to know the strength of +numbers, solidly phalanxed and driving onward with singleness of purpose. +These purposes may be various and many, but one and all, ever discovering +new mutual interests and objects, obeying a law which is beyond them, +these petty aggregations draw closer together, forming greater aggregations +and congeries of aggregations. And these, in turn, vaguely merging +each into each, present glimmering adumbrations of the coming human +solidarity which shall be man’s crowning glory.<br> +<br> +OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA.<br> +<i>January </i>1900.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +THE HOUSE BEAUTIFUL<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +Speaking of homes, I am building one now, and I venture to assert that +very few homes have received more serious thought in the planning. +Let me tell you about it. In the first place, there will be no +grounds whatever, no fences, lawns, nor flowers. Roughly, the +dimensions will be forty-five feet by fifteen. That is, it will +be fifteen feet wide at its widest - and, if you will pardon the bull, +it will be narrower than it is wide.<br> +<br> +The details must submit to the general plan of economy. There +will be no veranda, no porch entrances, no grand staircases. I’m +ashamed to say how steep the stairways are going to be. The bedrooms +will be seven by seven, and one will be even smaller. A bedroom +is only good to sleep in, anyway. There will be no hallway, thank +goodness. Rooms were made to go through. Why a separate +passage for traffic?<br> +<br> +The bath-room will be a trifle larger than the size of the smallest +bath-tub - it won’t require so much work to keep in order. +The kitchen won’t be very much larger, but this will make it easy +for the cook. In place of a drawing-room, there will be a large +living-room - fourteen by six. The walls of this room will be +covered with books, and it can serve as library and smoking-room as +well. Then, the floor-space not being occupied, we shall use the +room as a dining-room. Incidentally, such a room not being used +after bedtime, the cook and the second boy can sleep in it. One +thing that I am temperamentally opposed to is waste, and why should +all this splendid room be wasted at night when we do not occupy it?<br> +<br> +My ideas are cramped, you say? - Oh, I forgot to tell you that this +home I am describing is to be a floating home, and that my wife and +I are to journey around the world in it for the matter of seven years +or more. I forgot also to state that there will be an engine-room +in it for a seventy-horse-power engine, a dynamo, storage batteries, +etc.; tanks for water to last long weeks at sea; space for fifteen hundred +gallons of gasolene, fire extinguishers, and life-preservers; and a +great store-room for food, spare sails, anchors, hawsers, tackles, and +a thousand and one other things.<br> +<br> +Since I have not yet built my land house, I haven’t got beyond +a few general ideas, and in presenting them I feel as cocksure as the +unmarried woman who writes the column in the Sunday supplement on how +to rear children. My first idea about a house is that it should +be built to live in. Throughout the house, in all the building +of it, this should be the paramount idea. It must be granted that +this idea is lost sight of by countless persons who build houses apparently +for every purpose under the sun except to live in them.<br> +<br> +Perhaps it is because of the practical life I have lived that I worship +utility and have come to believe that utility and beauty should be one, +and that there is no utility that need not be beautiful. What +finer beauty than strength - whether it be airy steel, or massive masonry, +or a woman’s hand? A plain black leather strap is beautiful. +It is all strength and all utility, and it is beautiful. It efficiently +performs work in the world, and it is good to look upon. Perhaps +it is because it is useful that it is beautiful. I do not know. +I sometimes wonder.<br> +<br> +A boat on the sea is beautiful. Yet it is not built for beauty. +Every graceful line of it is a utility, is designed to perform work. +It is created for the express purpose of dividing the water in front +of it, of gliding over the water beneath it, of leaving the water behind +it - and all with the least possible wastage of stress and friction. +It is not created for the purpose of filling the eye with beauty. +It is created for the purpose of moving through the sea and over the +sea with the smallest resistance and the greatest stability; yet, somehow, +it does fill the eye with its beauty. And in so far as a boat +fails in its purpose, by that much does it diminish in beauty.<br> +<br> +I am still a long way from the house I have in my mind some day to build, +yet I have arrived somewhere. I have discovered, to my own satisfaction +at any rate, that beauty and utility should be one. In applying +this general idea to the building of a house, it may be stated, in another +and better way; namely, construction and decoration must be one. +This idea is more important than the building of the house, for without +the idea the house so built is certain to be an insult to intelligence +and beauty-love.<br> +<br> +I bought a house in a hurry in the city of Oakland some time ago. +I do not live in it. I sleep in it half a dozen times a year. +I do not love the house. I am hurt every time I look at it. +No drunken rowdy or political enemy can insult me so deeply as that +house does. Let me tell you why. It is an ordinary two-storey +frame house. After it was built, the criminal that constructed +it nailed on, at the corners perpendicularly, some two-inch fluted planks. +These planks rise the height of the house, and to a drunken man have +the appearance of fluted columns. To complete the illusion in +the eyes of the drunken man, the planks are topped with wooden Ionic +capitals, nailed on, and in, I may say, bas-relief.<br> +<br> +When I analyze the irritation these fluted planks cause in me, I find +the reason in the fact that the first rule for building a house has +been violated. These decorative planks are no part of the construction. +They have no use, no work to perform. They are plastered gawds +that tell lies that nobody believes. A column is made for the +purpose of supporting weight; this is its use. A column, when +it is a utility, is beautiful. The fluted wooden columns nailed +on outside my house are not utilities. They are not beautiful. +They are nightmares. They not only support no weight, but they +themselves are a weight that drags upon the supports of the house. +Some day, when I get time, one of two things will surely happen. +Either I’ll go forth and murder the man who perpetrated the atrocity, +or else I’ll take an axe and chop off the lying, fluted planks.<br> +<br> +A thing must be true, or it is not beautiful, any more than a painted +wanton is beautiful, any more than a sky-scraper is beautiful that is +intrinsically and structurally light and that has a false massiveness +of pillars plastered on outside. The true sky-scraper <i>is </i>beautiful +- and this is the reluctant admission of a man who dislikes humanity-festering +cities. The true sky-scraper is beautiful, and it is beautiful +in so far as it is true. In its construction it is light and airy, +therefore in its appearance it must be light and airy. It dare +not, if it wishes to be beautiful, lay claim to what it is not. +And it should not bulk on the city-scape like Leviathan; it should rise +and soar, light and airy and fairylike.<br> +<br> +Man is an ethical animal - or, at least, he is more ethical than any +other animal. Wherefore he has certain yearnings for honesty. +And in no way can these yearnings be more thoroughly satisfied than +by the honesty of the house in which he lives and passes the greater +part of his life.<br> +<br> +They that dwelt in San Francisco were dishonest. They lied and +cheated in their business life (like the dwellers in all cities), and +because they lied and cheated in their business life, they lied and +cheated in the buildings they erected. Upon the tops of the simple, +severe walls of their buildings they plastered huge projecting cornices. +These cornices were not part of the construction. They made believe +to be part of the construction, and they were lies. The earth +wrinkled its back for twenty-eight seconds, and the lying cornices crashed +down as all lies are doomed to crash down. In this particular +instance, the lies crashed down upon the heads of the people fleeing +from their reeling habitations, and many were killed. They paid +the penalty of dishonesty.<br> +<br> +Not alone should the construction of a house be truthful and honest, +but the material must be honest. They that lived in San Francisco +were dishonest in the material they used. They sold one quality +of material and delivered another quality of material. They always +delivered an inferior quality. There is not one case recorded +in the business history of San Francisco where a contractor or builder +delivered a quality superior to the one sold. A seven-million-dollar +city hall became thirty cents in twenty-eight seconds. Because +the mortar was not honest, a thousand walls crashed down and scores +of lives were snuffed out. There is something, after all, in the +contention of a few religionists that the San Francisco earthquake was +a punishment for sin. It was a punishment for sin; but it was +not for sin against God. The people of San Francisco sinned against +themselves.<br> +<br> +An honest house tells the truth about itself. There is a house +here in Glen Ellen. It stands on a corner. It is built of +beautiful red stone. Yet it is not beautiful. On three sides +the stone is joined and pointed. The fourth side is the rear. +It faces the back yard. The stone is not pointed. It is +all a smudge of dirty mortar, with here and there bricks worked in when +the stone gave out. The house is not what it seems. It is +a lie. All three of the walls spend their time lying about the +fourth wall. They keep shouting out that the fourth wall is as +beautiful as they. If I lived long in that house I should not +be responsible for my morals. The house is like a man in purple +and fine linen, who hasn’t had a bath for a month. If I +lived long in that house I should become a dandy and cut out bathing +- for the same reason, I suppose, that an African is black and that +an Eskimo eats whale-blubber. I shall not build a house like that +house.<br> +<br> +Last year I started to build a barn. A man who was a liar undertook +to do the stonework and concrete work for me. He could not tell +the truth to my face; he could not tell the truth in his work. +I was building for posterity. The concrete foundations were four +feet wide and sunk three and one-half feet into the earth. The +stone walls were two feet thick and nine feet high. Upon them +were to rest the great beams that were to carry all the weight of hay +and the forty tons of the roof. The man who was a liar made beautiful +stone walls. I used to stand alongside of them and love them. +I caressed their massive strength with my hands. I thought about +them in bed, before I went to sheep. And they were lies.<br> +<br> +Came the earthquake. Fortunately the rest of the building of the +barn had been postponed. The beautiful stone walls cracked in +all directions. I started, to repair, and discovered the whole +enormous lie. The walls were shells. On each face were beautiful, +massive stones - on edge. The inside was hollow. This hollow +in some places was filled with clay and loose gravel. In other +places it was filled with air and emptiness, with here and there a piece +of kindling-wood or dry-goods box, to aid in the making of the shell. +The walls were lies. They were beautiful, but they were not useful. +Construction and decoration had been divorced. The walls were +all decoration. They hadn’t any construction in them. +“As God lets Satan live,” I let that lying man live, but +- I have built new walls from the foundation up.<br> +<br> +And now to my own house beautiful, which I shall build some seven or +ten years from now. I have a few general ideas about it. +It must be honest in construction, material, and appearance. If +any feature of it, despite my efforts, shall tell lies, I shall remove +that feature. Utility and beauty must be indissolubly wedded. +Construction and decoration must be one. If the particular details +keep true to these general ideas, all will be well.<br> +<br> +I have not thought of many details. But here are a few. +Take the bath-room, for instance. It shall be as beautiful as +any room in the house, just as it will be as useful. The chance +is, that it will be the most expensive room in the house. Upon +that we are resolved - even if we are compelled to build it first, and +to live in a tent till we can get more money to go on with the rest +of the house. In the bath-room no delights of the bath shall be +lacking. Also, a large part of the expensiveness will be due to +the use of material that will make it easy to keep the bathroom clean +and in order. Why should a servant toil unduly that my body may +be clean? On the other hand, the honesty of my own flesh, and +the square dealing I give it, are more important than all the admiration +of my friends for expensive decorative schemes and magnificent trivialities. +More delightful to me is a body that sings than a stately and costly +grand staircase built for show. Not that I like grand staircases +less, but that I like bath-rooms more.<br> +<br> +I often regret that I was born in this particular period of the world. +In the matter of servants, how I wish I were living in the golden future +of the world, where there will be no servants - naught but service of +love. But in the meantime, living here and now, being practical, +understanding the rationality and the necessity of the division of labour, +I accept servants. But such acceptance does not justify me in +lack of consideration for them. In my house beautiful their rooms +shall not be dens and holes. And on this score I foresee a fight +with the architect. They shall have bath-rooms, toilet conveniences, +and comforts for their leisure time and human life - if I have to work +Sundays to pay for it. Even under the division of labour I recognize +that no man has a right to servants who will not treat them as humans +compounded of the same clay as himself, with similar bundles of nerves +and desires, contradictions, irritabilities, and lovablenesses. +Heaven in the drawing-room and hell in the kitchen is not the atmosphere +for a growing child to breathe - nor an adult either. One of the +great and selfish objections to chattel slavery was the effect on the +masters themselves.<br> +<br> +And because of the foregoing, one chief aim in the building of my house +beautiful will be to have a house that will require the minimum of trouble +and work to keep clean and orderly. It will be no spick and span +and polished house, with an immaculateness that testifies to the tragedy +of drudge. I live in California where the days are warm. +I’d prefer that the servants had three hours to go swimming (or +hammocking) than be compelled to spend those three hours in keeping +the house spick and span. Therefore it devolves upon me to build +a house that can be kept clean and orderly without the need of those +three hours.<br> +<br> +But underneath the spick and span there is something more dreadful than +the servitude of the servants. This dreadful thing is the philosophy +of the spick and span. In Korea the national costume is white. +Nobleman and coolie dress alike in white. It is hell on the women +who do the washing, but there is more in it than that. The coolie +cannot keep his white clothes clean. He toils and they get dirty. +The dirty white of his costume is the token of his inferiority. +The nobleman’s dress is always spotless white. It means +that he doesn’t have to work. But it means, further, that +somebody else has to work for him. His superiority is not based +upon song-craft nor state-craft, upon the foot-races he has run nor +the wrestlers he has thrown. His superiority is based upon the +fact that he doesn’t have to work, and that others are compelled +to work for him. And so the Korean drone flaunts his clean white +clothes, for the same reason that the Chinese flaunts his monstrous +finger-nails, and the white man and woman flaunt the spick-and-spanness +of their spotless houses.<br> +<br> +There will be hardwood floors in my house beautiful. But these +floors will not be polished mirrors nor skating-rinks. They will +be just plain and common hardwood floors. Beautiful carpets are +not beautiful to the mind that knows they are filled with germs and +bacilli. They are no more beautiful than the hectic flush of fever, +or the silvery skin of leprosy. Besides, carpets enslave. +A thing that enslaves is a monster, and monsters are not beautiful.<br> +<br> +The fireplaces in my house will be many and large. Small fires +and cold weather mean hermetically-sealed rooms and a jealous cherishing +of heated and filth-laden air. With large fire-places and generous +heat, some windows may be open all the time, and without hardship all +the windows can be opened every little while and the rooms flushed with +clean pure air. I have nearly died in the stagnant, rotten air +of other people’s houses - especially in the Eastern states. +In Maine I have slept in a room with storm-windows immovable, and with +one small pane five inches by six, that could be opened. Did I +say slept? I panted with my mouth in the opening and blasphemed +till I ruined all my chances of heaven.<br> +<br> +For countless thousands of years my ancestors have lived and died and +drawn all their breaths in the open air. It is only recently that +we have begun to live in houses. The change is a hardship, especially +on the lungs. I’ve got only one pair of lungs, and I haven’t +the address of any repair-shop. Wherefore I stick by the open +air as much as possible. For this reason my house will have large +verandas, and, near to the kitchen, there will be a veranda dining-room. +Also, there will be a veranda fireplace, where we can breathe fresh +air and be comfortable when the evenings are touched with frost.<br> +<br> +I have a plan for my own bedroom. I spend long hours in bed, reading, +studying, and working. I have tried sleeping in the open, but +the lamp attracts all the creeping, crawling, butting, flying, fluttering +things to the pages of my book, into my ears and blankets, and down +the back of my neck. So my bedroom shall be indoors.<br> +<br> +But it will be, not be of, indoors. Three sides of it will be +open. The fourth side will divide it from the rest of the house. +The three sides will be screened against the creeping, fluttering things, +but not against the good fresh air and all the breezes that blow. +For protection against storm, to keep out the driving rain, there will +be a sliding glass, so made that when not in use it will occupy small +space and shut out very little air.<br> +<br> +There is little more to say about this house. I am to build seven +or ten years from now. There is plenty of time in which to work +up all the details in accord with the general principles I have laid +down. It will be a usable house and a beautiful house, wherein +the aesthetic guest can find comfort for his eyes as well as for his +body. It will be a happy house - or else I’ll burn it down. +It will be a house of air and sunshine and laughter. These three +cannot be divorced. Laughter without air and sunshine becomes +morbid, decadent, demoniac. I have in me a thousand generations. +Laughter that is decadent is not good for these thousand generations.<br> +<br> +GLEN ELLEN, CALIFORNIA.<br> +<i>July </i>1906.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +THE GOLD HUNTERS OF THE NORTH<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +“Where the Northern Lights come down a’ nights to dance +on the houseless snow.”<br> +<br> +<br> +“Ivan, I forbid you to go farther in this undertaking. Not +a word about this, or we are all undone. Let the Americans and +the English know that we have gold in these mountains, then we are ruined. +They will rush in on us by thousands, and crowd us to the wall - to +the death.”<br> +<br> +So spoke the old Russian governor, Baranov, at Sitka, in 1804, to one +of his Slavonian hunters, who had just drawn from his pocket a handful +of golden nuggets. Full well Baranov, fur trader and autocrat, +understood and feared the coming of the sturdy, indomitable gold hunters +of Anglo-Saxon stock. And thus he suppressed the news, as did +the governors that followed him, so that when the United States bought +Alaska in 1867, she bought it for its furs and fisheries, without a +thought of its treasures underground.<br> +<br> +No sooner, however, had Alaska become American soil than thousands of +our adventurers were afoot and afloat for the north. They were +the men of “the days of gold,” the men of California, Fraser, +Cassiar, and Cariboo. With the mysterious, infinite faith of the +prospector, they believed that the gold streak, which ran through the +Americas from Cape Horn to California, did not “peter out” +in British Columbia. That it extended farther north, was their +creed, and “Farther North” became their cry. No time +was lost, and in the early seventies, leaving the Treadwell and the +Silver Bow Basin to be discovered by those who came after, they went +plunging on into the white unknown. North, farther north, they +struggled, till their picks rang in the frozen beaches of the Arctic +Ocean, and they shivered by driftwood fires on the ruby sands of Nome.<br> +<br> +But first, in order that this colossal adventure may be fully grasped, +the recentness and the remoteness of Alaska must be emphasized. +The interior of Alaska and the contiguous Canadian territory was a vast +wilderness. Its hundreds of thousands of square miles were as +dark and chartless as Darkest Africa. In 1847, when the first +Hudson Bay Company agents crossed over the Rockies from the Mackenzie +to poach on the preserves of the Russian Bear, they thought that the +Yukon flowed north and emptied into the Arctic Ocean. Hundreds +of miles below, however, were the outposts of the Russian traders. +They, in turn, did not know where the Yukon had its source, and it was +not till later that Russ and Saxon learned that it was the same mighty +stream they were occupying. And a little over ten years later, +Frederick Whymper voyaged up the Great Bend to Fort Yukon under the +Arctic Circle.<br> +<br> +From fort to fort, from York Factory on Hudson’s Bay to Fort Yukon +in Alaska, the English traders transported their goods - a round trip +requiring from a year to a year and a half. It was one of their +deserters, in 1867, escaping down the Yukon to Bering Sea, who was the +first white man to make the North-west Passage by land from the Atlantic +to the Pacific. It was at this time that the first accurate description +of a fair portion of the Yukon was given by Dr. W. H. Ball, of the Smithsonian +Institution. But even he had never seen its source, and it was +not given him to appreciate the marvel of that great natural highway.<br> +<br> +No more remarkable river in this one particular is there in the world; +taking its rise in Crater Lake, thirty miles from the ocean, the Yukon +flows for twenty-five hundred miles, through the heart of the continent, +ere it empties into the sea. A portage of thirty miles, and then +a highway for traffic one tenth the girth of the earth!<br> +<br> +As late as 1869, Frederick Whymper, fellow of the Royal Geographical +Society, stated on hearsay that the Chilcat Indians were believed occasionally +to make a short portage across the Coast Range from salt water to the +head-reaches of the Yukon. But it remained for a gold hunter, +questing north, ever north, to be first of all white men to cross the +terrible Chilcoot Pass, and tap the Yukon at its head. This happened +only the other day, but the man has become a dim legendary hero. +Holt was his name, and already the mists of antiquity have wrapped about +the time of his passage. 1872, 1874, and 1878 are the dates variously +given - a confusion which time will never clear.<br> +<br> +Holt penetrated as far as the Hootalinqua, and on his return to the +coast reported coarse gold. The next recorded adventurer is one +Edward Bean, who in 1880 headed a party of twenty-five miners from Sitka +into the uncharted land. And in the same year, other parties (now +forgotten, for who remembers or ever hears the wanderings of the gold +hunters?) crossed the Pass, built boats out of the standing timber, +and drifted down the Yukon and farther north.<br> +<br> +And then, for a quarter of a century, the unknown and unsung heroes +grappled with the frost, and groped for the gold they were sure lay +somewhere among the shadows of the Pole. In the struggle with +the terrifying and pitiless natural forces, they returned to the primitive, +garmenting themselves in the skins of wild beasts, and covering their +feet with the walrus <i>mucluc </i>and the moosehide moccasin. +They forgot the world and its ways, as the world had forgotten them; +killed their meat as they found it; feasted in plenty and starved in +famine, and searched unceasingly for the yellow lure. They crisscrossed +the land in every direction, threaded countless unmapped rivers in precarious +birch-bark canoes, and with snowshoes and dogs broke trail through thousands +of miles of silent white, where man had never been. They struggled +on, under the aurora borealis or the midnight sun, through temperatures +that ranged from one hundred degrees above zero to eighty degrees below, +living, in the grim humour of the land, on “rabbit tracks and +salmon bellies.”<br> +<br> +To-day, a man may wander away from the trail for a hundred days, and +just as he is congratulating himself that at last he is treading virgin +soil, he will come upon some ancient and dilapidated cabin, and forget +his disappointment in wonder at the man who reared the logs. Still, +if one wanders from the trail far enough and deviously enough, he may +chance upon a few thousand square miles which he may have all to himself. +On the other hand, no matter how far and how deviously he may wander, +the possibility always remains that he may stumble, not alone upon a +deserted cabin, but upon an occupied one.<br> +<br> +As an instance of this, and of the vastness of the land, no better case +need be cited than that of Harry Maxwell. An able seaman, hailing +from New Bedford, Massachusetts, his ship, the brig <i>Fannie E. Lee, +</i>was pinched in the Arctic ice. Passing from whaleship to whaleship, +he eventually turned up at Point Barrow in the summer of 1880. +He was <i>north </i>of the Northland, and from this point of vantage +he determined to pull south of the interior in search of gold. +Across the mountains from Fort Macpherson, and a couple of hundred miles +eastward from the Mackenzie, he built a cabin and established his headquarters. +And here, for nineteen continuous years, he hunted his living and prospected. +He ranged from the never opening ice to the north as far south as the +Great Slave Lake. Here he met Warburton Pike, the author and explorer +- an incident he now looks back upon as chief among the few incidents +of his solitary life.<br> +<br> +When this sailor-miner had accumulated $20,000 worth of dust he concluded +that civilization was good enough for him, and proceeded “to pull +for the outside.” From the Mackenzie he went up the Little +Peel to its headwaters, found a pass through the mountains, nearly starved +to death on his way across to the Porcupine Hills, and eventually came +out on the Yukon River, where he learned for the first time of the Yukon +gold hunters and their discoveries. Yet for twenty years they +had been working there, his next-door neighbours, virtually, in a land +of such great spaces. At Victoria, British Columbia, previous +to his going east over the Canadian Pacific (the existence of which +he had just learned), he pregnantly remarked that he had faith in the +Mackenzie watershed, and that he was going back after he had taken in +the World’s Fair and got a whiff or two of civilization.<br> +<br> +Faith! It may or may not remove mountains, but it has certainly +made the Northland. No Christian martyr ever possessed greater +faith than did the pioneers of Alaska. They never doubted the +bleak and barren land. Those who came remained, and more ever +came. They could not leave. They “knew” the +gold was there, and they persisted. Somehow, the romance of the +land and the quest entered into their blood, the spell of it gripped +hold of them and would not let them go. Man after man of them, +after the most terrible privation and suffering, shook the muck of the +country from his moccasins and departed for good. But the following +spring always found him drifting down the Yukon on the tail of the ice +jams.<br> +<br> +Jack McQuestion aptly vindicates the grip of the North. After +a residence of thirty years he insists that the climate is delightful, +and declares that whenever he makes a trip to the States he is afflicted +with home-sickness. Needless to say, the North still has him and +will keep tight hold of him until he dies. In fact, for him to +die elsewhere would be inartistic and insincere. Of three of the +“pioneer” pioneers, Jack McQuestion alone survives. +In 1871, from one to seven years before Holt went over Chilcoot, in +the company of Al Mayo and Arthur Harper, McQuestion came into the Yukon +from the North-west over the Hudson Bay Company route from the Mackenzie +to Fort Yukon. The names of these three men, as their lives, are +bound up in the history of the country, and so long as there be histories +and charts, that long will the Mayo and McQuestion rivers and the Harper +and Ladue town site of Dawson be remembered. As an agent of the +Alaska Commercial Company, in 1873, McQuestion built Fort Reliance, +six miles below the Klondike River. In 1898 the writer met Jack +McQuestion at Minook, on the Lower Yukon. The old pioneer, though +grizzled, was hale and hearty, and as optimistic as when he first journeyed +into the land along the path of the Circle. And no man more beloved +is there in all the North. There will be great sadness there when +his soul goes questing on over the Last Divide - “farther north,” +perhaps - who can tell?<br> +<br> +Frank Dinsmore is a fair sample of the men who made the Yukon country. +A Yankee, born, in Auburn, Maine, the <i>Wanderlust </i>early laid him +by the heels, and at sixteen he was heading west on the trail that led +“farther north.” He prospected in the Black Hills, +Montana, and in the Coeur d’Alene, then heard a whisper of the +North, and went up to Juneau on the Alaskan Panhandle. But the +North still whispered, and more insistently, and he could not rest till +he went over Chilcoot, and down into the mysterious Silent Land. +This was in 1882, and he went down the chain of lakes, down the Yukon, +up the Pelly, and tried his luck on the bars of McMillan River. +In the fall, a perambulating skeleton, he came back over the Pass in +a blizzard, with a rag of shirt, tattered overalls, and a handful of +raw flour.<br> +<br> +But he was unafraid. That winter he worked for a grubstake in +Juneau, and the next spring found the heels of his moccasins turned +towards salt water and his face toward Chilcoot. This was repeated +the next spring, and the following spring, and the spring after that, +until, in 1885, he went over the Pass for good. There was to be +no return for him until he found the gold he sought.<br> +<br> +The years came and went, but he remained true to his resolve. +For eleven long years, with snow-shoe and canoe, pickaxe and gold-pan, +he wrote out his life on the face of the land. Upper Yukon, Middle +Yukon, Lower Yukon - he prospected faithfully and well. His bed +was anywhere. Winter or summer he carried neither tent nor stove, +and his six-pound sleeping-robe of Arctic hare was the warmest covering +he was ever known to possess. Rabbit tracks and salmon bellies +were his diet with a vengeance, for he depended largely on his rifle +and fishing-tackle. His endurance equalled his courage. +On a wager he lifted thirteen fifty-pound sacks of flour and walked +off with them. Winding up a seven-hundred-mile trip on the ice +with a forty-mile run, he came into camp at six o’clock in the +evening and found a “squaw dance” under way. He should +have been exhausted. Anyway, his <i>muclucs </i>were frozen stiff. +But he kicked them off and danced all night in stocking-feet.<br> +<br> +At the last fortune came to him. The quest was ended, and he gathered +up his gold and pulled for the outside. And his own end was as +fitting as that of his quest. Illness came upon him down in San +Francisco, and his splendid life ebbed slowly out as he sat in his big +easy-chair, in the Commercial Hotel, the “Yukoner’s home.” +The doctors came, discussed, consulted, the while he matured more plans +of Northland adventure; for the North still gripped him and would not +let him go. He grew weaker day by day, but each day he said, “To-morrow +I’ll be all right.” Other old-timers, “out on +furlough,”, came to see him. They wiped their eyes and swore +under their breaths, then entered and talked largely and jovially about +going in with him over the trail when spring came. But there in +the big easy-chair it was that his Long Trail ended, and the life passed +out of him still fixed on “farther north.”<br> +<br> +From the time of the first white man, famine loomed black and gloomy +over the land. It was chronic with the Indians and Eskimos; it +became chronic with the gold hunters. It was ever present, and +so it came about that life was commonly expressed in terms of “grub” +- was measured by cups of flour. Each winter, eight months long, +the heroes of the frost faced starvation. It became the custom, +as fall drew on, for partners to cut the cards or draw straws to determine +which should hit the hazardous trail for salt water, and which should +remain and endure the hazardous darkness of the Arctic night.<br> +<br> +There was never food enough to winter the whole population. The +A. C. Company worked hard to freight up the grub, but the gold hunters +came faster and dared more audaciously. When the A. C. Company +added a new stern-wheeler to its fleet, men said, “Now we shall +have plenty.” But more gold hunters poured in over the passes +to the south, more <i>voyageurs </i>and fur traders forced a way through +the Rockies from the east, more seal hunters and coast adventurers poled +up from Bering Sea on the west, more sailors deserted from the whale-ships +to the north, and they all starved together in right brotherly fashion. +More steamers were added, but the tide of prospectors welled always +in advance. Then the N. A. T. & T. Company came upon +the scene, and both companies added steadily to their fleets. +But it was the same old story; famine would not depart. In fact, +famine grew with the population, till, in the winter of 1897-1898, the +United States government was forced to equip a reindeer relief expedition. +As of old, that winter partners cut the cards and drew straws, and remained +or pulled for salt water as chance decided. They were wise of +old time, and had learned never to figure on relief expeditions. +They had heard of such things, but no mortal man of them had ever laid +eyes on one.<br> +<br> +The hard luck of other mining countries pales into insignificance before +the hard luck of the North. And as for the hardship, it cannot +be conveyed by printed page or word of mouth. No man may know +who has not undergone. And those who have undergone, out of their +knowledge, claim that in the making of the world God grew tired, and +when He came to the last barrowload, “just dumped it anyhow,” +and that was how Alaska happened to be. While no adequate conception +of the life can be given to the stay-at-home, yet the men themselves +sometimes give a clue to its rigours. One old Minook miner testified +thus: “Haven’t you noticed the expression on the faces of +us fellows? You can tell a new-comer the minute you see him; he +looks alive, enthusiastic, perhaps jolly. We old miners are always +grave, unless were drinking.”<br> +<br> +Another old-timer, out of the bitterness of a “home-mood,” +imagined himself a Martian astronomer explaining to a friend, with the +aid of a powerful telescope, the institutions of the earth. “There +are the continents,” he indicated; “and up there near the +polar cap is a country, frigid and burning and lonely and apart, called +Alaska. Now, in other countries and states there are great insane +asylums, but, though crowded, they are insufficient; so there is Alaska +given over to the worst cases. Now and then some poor insane creature +comes to his senses in those awful solitudes, and, in wondering joy, +escapes from the land and hastens back to his home. But most cases +are incurable. They just suffer along, poor devils, forgetting +their former life quite, or recalling it like a dream.” +Again the grip of the North, which will not let one go - for “<i>most +cases are incurable.</i>”<br> +<br> +For a quarter of a century the battle with frost and famine went on. +The very severity of the struggle with Nature seemed to make the gold +hunters kindly toward one another. The latch-string was always +out, and the open hand was the order of the day. Distrust was +unknown, and it was no hyperbole for a man to take the last shirt off +his back for a comrade. Most significant of all, perhaps, in this +connection, was the custom of the old days, that when August the first +came around, the prospectors who had failed to locate “pay dirt” +were permitted to go upon the ground of their more fortunate comrades +and take out enough for the next year’s grub-stake.<br> +<br> +In 1885 rich bar-washing was done on the Stewart River, and in 1886 +Cassiar Bar was struck just below the mouth of the Hootalinqua. +It was at this time that the first moderate strike was made on Forty +Mile Creek, so called because it was judged to be that distance below +Fort Reliance of Jack McQuestion fame. A prospector named Williams +started for the outside with dogs and Indians to carry the news, but +suffered such hardship on the summit of Chilcoot that he was carried +dying into the store of Captain John Healy at Dyea. But he had +brought the news through - <i>coarse</i> <i>gold</i>! Within three +months more than two hundred miners had passed in over Chilcoot, stampeding +for Forty Mile. Find followed find - Sixty Mile, Miller, Glacier, +Birch, Franklin, and the Koyokuk. But they were all moderate discoveries, +and the miners still dreamed and searched for the fabled stream, “Too +Much Gold,” where gold was so plentiful that gravel had to be +shovelled into the sluice-boxes in order to wash it.<br> +<br> +And all the time the Northland was preparing to play its own huge joke. +It was a great joke, albeit an exceeding bitter one, and it has led +the old-timers to believe that the land is left in darkness the better +part of the year because God goes away and leaves it to itself. +After all the risk and toil and faithful endeavour, it was destined +that few of the heroes should be in at the finish when Too Much Gold +turned its yellow-treasure to the stars.<br> +<br> +First, there was Robert Henderson - and this is true history. +Henderson had faith in the Indian River district. For three years, +by himself, depending mainly on his rifle, living on straight meat a +large portion of the time, he prospected many of the Indian River tributaries, +just missed finding the rich creeks, Sulphur and Dominion, and managed +to make grub (poor grub) out of Quartz Creek and Australia Creek. +Then he crossed the divide between Indian River and the Klondike, and +on one of the “feeders” of the latter found eight cents +to the pan. This was considered excellent in those simple days. +Naming the creek “Gold Bottom,” he recrossed the divide +and got three men, Munson, Dalton, and Swanson, to return with him. +The four took out $750. And be it emphasized, and emphasized again, +<i>that this was the first Klondike gold ever shovelled in and washed +out</i>. And be it also emphasized, <i>that Robert Henderson was +the discoverer of Klondike, all lies and hearsay tales to the contrary.<br> +<br> +</i>Running out of grub, Henderson again recrossed the divide, and went +down the Indian River and up the Yukon to Sixty Mile. Here Joe +Ladue ran the trading post, and here Joe Ladue had originally grub-staked +Henderson. Henderson told his tale, and a dozen men (all it contained) +deserted the Post for the scene of his find. Also, Henderson persuaded +a party of prospectors bound for Stewart River, to forgo their trip +and go down and locate with him. He loaded his boat with supplies, +drifted down the Yukon to the mouth of the Klondike, and towed and poled +up the Klondike to Gold Bottom. But at the mouth of the Klondike +he met George Carmack, and thereby hangs the tale.<br> +<br> +Carmack was a squawman. He was familiarly known as “Siwash” +George - a derogatory term which had arisen out of his affinity for +the Indians. At the time Henderson encountered him he was catching +salmon with his Indian wife and relatives on the site of what was to +become Dawson, the Golden City of the Snows. Henderson, bubbling +over with good-will, open-handed, told Carmack of his discovery. +But Carmack was satisfied where he was. He was possessed by no +overweening desire for the strenuous life. Salmon were good enough +for him. But Henderson urged him to come on and locate, until, +when he yielded, he wanted to take the whole tribe along. Henderson +refused to stand for this, said that he must give the preference over +Siwashes to his old Sixty Mile friends, and, it is rumoured, said some +things about Siwashes that were not nice.<br> +<br> +The next morning Henderson went on alone up the Klondike to Gold Bottom. +Carmack, by this time aroused, took a short cut afoot for the same place. +Accompanied by his two Indian brothers-in-law, Skookum Jim and Tagish +Charley, he went up Rabbit Creek (now Bonanza), crossed into Gold Bottom, +and staked near Henderson’s discovery. On the way up he +had panned a few shovels on Rabbit Creek, and he showed Henderson “colours” +he had obtained. Henderson made him promise, if he found anything +on the way back, that he would send up one of the Indians with the news. +Henderson also agreed to pay for his service, for he seemed to feel +that they were on the verge of something big, and he wanted to make +sure.<br> +<br> +Carmack returned down Rabbit Creek. While he was taking a sleep +on the bank about half a mile below the mouth of what was to be known +as Eldorado, Skookum Jim tried his luck, and from surface prospects +got from ten cents to a dollar to the pan. Carmack and his brother-in-law +staked and hit “the high places” for Forty Mile, where they +filed on the claims before Captain Constantine, and renamed the creek +Bonanza. And Henderson was forgotten. No word of it reached +him. Carmack broke his promise.<br> +<br> +Weeks afterward, when Bonanza and Eldorado were staked from end to end +and there was no more room, a party of late comers pushed over the divide +and down to Gold Bottom, where they found Henderson still at work. +When they told him they were from Bonanza, he was nonplussed. +He had never heard of such a place. But when they described it, +he recognized it as Rabbit Creek. Then they told him of its marvellous +richness, and, as Tappan Adney relates, when Henderson realized what +he had lost through Carmack’s treachery, “he threw down +his shovel and went and sat on the bank, so sick at heart that it was +some time before he could speak.”<br> +<br> +Then there were the rest of the old-timers, the men of Forty Mile and +Circle City. At the time of the discovery, nearly all of them +were over to the west at work in the old diggings or prospecting for +new ones. As they said of themselves, they were the kind of men +who are always caught out with forks when it rains soup. In the +stampede that followed the news of Carmack’s strike very few old +miners took part. They were not there to take part. But +the men who did go on the stampede were mainly the worthless ones, the +new-comers, and the camp hangers on. And while Bob Henderson plugged +away to the east, and the heroes plugged away to the west, the greenhorns +and rounders went up and staked Bonanza.<br> +<br> +But the Northland was not yet done with its joke. When fall came +on and the heroes returned to Forty Mile and to Circle City, they listened +calmly to the up-river tales of Siwash discoveries and loafers’ +prospects, and shook their heads. They judged by the calibre of +the men interested, and branded it a bunco game. But glowing reports +continued to trickle down the Yukon, and a few of the old-timers went +up to see. They looked over the ground - the unlikeliest place +for gold in all their experience - and they went down the river again, +“leaving it to the Swedes.”<br> +<br> +Again the Northland turned the tables. The Alaskan gold hunter +is proverbial, not so much for his unveracity, as for his inability +to tell the precise truth. In a country of exaggerations, he likewise +is prone to hyperbolic description of things actual. But when +it came to Klondike, he could not stretch the truth as fast as the truth +itself stretched. Carmack first got a dollar pan. He lied +when he said it was two dollars and a half. And when those who +doubted him did get two-and-a-half pans, they said they were getting +an ounce, and lo! ere the lie had fairly started on its way, they were +getting, not one ounce, but five ounces. This they claimed was +six ounces; but when they filled a pan of dirt to prove the lie, they +washed out twelve ounces. And so it went. They continued +valiantly to lie, but the truth continued to outrun them.<br> +<br> +But the Northland’s hyperborean laugh was not yet ended. +When Bonanza was staked from mouth to source, those who had failed to +“get in,” disgruntled and sore, went up the “pups” +and feeders. Eldorado was one of these feeders, and many men, +after locating on it, turned their backs upon their claims and never +gave them a second thought. One man sold a half-interest in five +hundred feet of it for a sack of flour. Other owners wandered +around trying to bunco men into buying them out for a song. And +then Eldorado “showed up.” It was far, far richer +than Bonanza, with an average value of a thousand dollars a foot to +every foot of it.<br> +<br> +A Swede named Charley Anderson had been at work on Miller Creek the +year of the strike, and arrived in Dawson with a few hundred dollars. +Two miners, who had staked No. 29 Eldorado, decided that he was the +proper man upon whom to “unload.” He was too canny +to approach sober, so at considerable expense they got him drunk. +Even then it was hard work, but they kept him befuddled for several +days, and finally, inveigled him into buying No. 29 for $750. +When Anderson sobered up, he wept at his folly, and pleaded to have +his money back. But the men who had duped him were hard-hearted. +They laughed at him, and kicked themselves for not having tapped him +for a couple of hundred more. Nothing remained for Anderson but +to work the worthless ground. This he did, and out of it he took +over three-quarters of a million of dollars.<br> +<br> +It was not till Frank Dinsmore, who already had big holdings on Birch +Creek, took a hand, that the old-timers developed faith in the new diggings. +Dinsmore received a letter from a man on the spot, calling it “the +biggest thing in the world,” and harnessed his dogs and went up +to investigate. And when he sent a letter back, saying that he +had never seen “anything like it,” Circle City for the first +time believed, and at once was precipitated one of the wildest stampedes +the country had ever seen or ever will see. Every dog was taken, +many went without dogs, and even the women and children and weaklings +hit the three hundred miles of ice through the long Arctic night for +the biggest thing in the world. It is related that but twenty +people, mostly cripples and unable to travel, were left in Circle City +when the smoke of the last sled disappeared up the Yukon.<br> +<br> +Since that time gold has been discovered in all manner of places, under +the grass roots of the hill-side benches, in the bottom of Monte Cristo +Island, and in the sands of the sea at Nome. And now the gold +hunter who knows his business shuns the “favourable looking” +spots, confident in his hard-won knowledge that he will find the most +gold in the least likely place. This is sometimes adduced to support +the theory that the gold hunters, rather than the explorers, are the +men who will ultimately win to the Pole. Who knows? It is +in their blood, and they are capable of it.<br> +<br> +PIEDMONT, CALIFORNIA.<br> +<i>February </i>1902.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +FOMÁ GORDYÉEFF<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +“What, without asking, hither hurried <i>Whence</i>?<br> +And, without asking, <i>Whither </i>hurried hence!<br> +Oh, many a Cup of this forbidden Wine<br> +Must drown the memory of that insolence!”<br> +<br> +“Fomá Gordyéeff” is a big book - not only +is the breadth of Russia in it, but the expanse of life. Yet, +though in each land, in this world of marts and exchanges, this age +of trade and traffic, passionate figures rise up and demand of life +what its fever is, in “Fomá Gordyéeff” it +is a Russian who so rises up and demands. For Górky, the +Bitter One, is essentially a Russian in his grasp on the facts of life +and in his treatment. All the Russian self-analysis and insistent +introspection are his. And, like all his brother Russians, ardent, +passionate protest impregnates his work. There is a purpose to +it. He writes because he has something to say which the world +should hear. From that clenched fist of his, light and airy romances, +pretty and sweet and beguiling, do not flow, but realities - yes, big +and brutal and repulsive, but real.<br> +<br> +He raises the cry of the miserable and the despised, and in a masterly +arraignment of commercialism, protests against social conditions, against +the grinding of the faces of the poor and weak, and the self-pollution +of the rich and strong, in their mad lust for place and power. +It is to be doubted strongly if the average bourgeois, smug and fat +and prosperous, can understand this man Fomá Gordyéeff. +The rebellion in his blood is something to which their own does not +thrill. To them it will be inexplicable that this man, with his +health and his millions, could not go on living as his class lived, +keeping regular hours at desk and stock exchange, driving close contracts, +underbidding his competitors, and exulting in the business disasters +of his fellows. It would appear so easy, and, after such a life, +well appointed and eminently respectable, he could die. “Ah,” +Fomá will interrupt rudely - he is given to rude interruptions +- “if to die and disappear is the end of these money-grubbing +years, why money-grub?” And the bourgeois whom he rudely +interrupted will not understand. Nor did Mayákin understand +as he laboured holily with his wayward godson.<br> +<br> +“Why do you brag?” Fomá, bursts out upon him. +“What have you to brag about? Your son - where is he? +Your daughter - what is she? Ekh, you manager of life! Come, +now, you’re clever, you know everything - tell me, why do you +live? Why do you accumulate money? Aren’t you going +to die? Well, what then?” And Mayákin finds +himself speechless and without answer, but unshaken and unconvinced.<br> +<br> +Receiving by heredity the fierce, bull-like nature of his father plus +the passive indomitableness and groping spirit of his mother, Fomá, +proud and rebellious, is repelled by the selfish, money-seeking environment +into which he is born. Ignát, his father, and Mayákin, +the godfather, and all the horde of successful merchants singing the +pæan of the strong and the praises of merciless, remorseless <i>laissez +faire, </i>cannot entice him. Why? he demands. This is a +nightmare, this life! It is without significance! What does +it all mean? What is there underneath? What is the meaning +of that which is underneath?<br> +<br> +“You do well to pity people,” Ignát tells Fomá, +the boy, “only you must use judgment with your pity. First +consider the man, find out what he is like, what use can be made of +him; and if you see that he is a strong and capable man, help him if +you like. But if a man is weak, not inclined to work - spit upon +him and go your way. And you must know that when a man complains +about everything, and cries out and groans - he is not worth more than +two kopéks, he is not worthy of pity, and will be of no use to +you if you do help him.”<br> +<br> +Such the frank and militant commercialism, bellowed out between glasses +of strong liquor. Now comes Mayákin, speaking softly and +without satire:<br> +<br> +“Eh, my boy, what is a beggar? A beggar is a man who is +forced, by fate, to remind us of Christ; he is Christ’s brother; +he is the bell of the Lord, and rings in life for the purpose of awakening +our conscience, of stirring up the satiety of man’s flesh. +He stands under the window and sings, ‘For Christ’s sa-ake!’ +and by that chant he reminds us of Christ, of His holy command to help +our neighbour. But men have so ordered their lives that it is +utterly impossible for them to act in accordance with Christ’s +teaching, and Jesus Christ has become entirely superfluous to us. +Not once, but, in all probability, a thousand times, we have given Him +over to be crucified, but still we cannot banish Him from our lives +so long as His poor brethren sing His name in the streets and remind +us of Him. And so now we have hit upon the idea of shutting up +the beggars in such special buildings, so that they may not roam about +the streets and stir up our consciences.”<br> +<br> +But Fomá will have none of it. He is neither to be enticed +nor cajoled. The cry of his nature is for light. He must +have light. And in burning revolt he goes seeking the meaning +of life. “His thoughts embraced all those petty people who +toiled at hard labour. It was strange - why did they live? +What satisfaction was it to them to live on the earth? All they +did was to perform their dirty, arduous toil, eat poorly; they were +miserably clad, addicted to drunkenness. One was sixty years old, +but he still toiled side by side with young men. And they all +presented themselves to Fomá’s imagination as a huge heap +of worms, who were swarming over the earth merely to eat.”<br> +<br> +He becomes the living interrogation of life. He cannot begin living +until he knows what living means, and he seeks its meaning vainly. +“Why should I try to live life when I do not know what life is?” +he objects when Mayákin strives with him to return and manage +his business. Why should men fetch and carry for him? be slaves +to him and his money?<br> +<br> +“Work is not everything to a man,” he says; “it is +not true that justification lies in work . . . Some people never do +any work at all, all their lives long - yet they live better than the +toilers. Why is that? And what justification have I? +And how will all the people who give their orders justify themselves? +What have they lived for? But my idea is that everybody ought, +without fail, to know solidly what he is living for. Is it possible +that a man is born to toil, accumulate money, build a house, beget children, +and - die? No; life means something in itself. . . . A man +has been born, has lived, has died - why? All of us must consider +why we are living, by God, we must! There is no sense in our life +- there is no sense at all. Some are rich - they have money enough +for a thousand men all to themselves - and they live without occupation; +others bow their backs in toil all their life, and they haven’t +a penny.”<br> +<br> +But Fomá can only be destructive. He is not constructive. +The dim groping spirit of his mother and the curse of his environment +press too heavily upon him, and he is crushed to debauchery and madness. +He does not drink because liquor tastes good in his mouth. In +the vile companions who purvey to his baser appetites he finds no charm. +It is all utterly despicable and sordid, but thither his quest leads +him and he follows the quest. He knows that everything is wrong, +but he cannot right it, cannot tell why. He can only attack and +demolish. “What justification have you all in the sight +of God? Why do you live?” he demands of the conclave of +merchants, of life’s successes. “You have not constructed +life - you have made a cesspool! You have disseminated filth and +stifling exhalations by your deeds. Have you any conscience? +Do you remember God? A five-kopék piece - that is your +God! But you have expelled your conscience!”<br> +<br> +Like the cry of Isaiah, “Go to, now, ye rich men, weep and howl +for your misfortunes that shall come upon you,” is Fomá’s: +“You blood-suckers! You live on other people’s strength; +you work with other people’s hands! For all this you shall +be made to pay! You shall perish - you shall be called to account +for all! For all - to the last little tear-drop!”<br> +<br> +Stunned by this puddle of life, unable to make sense of it, Fomá +questions, and questions vainly, whether of Sófya Medynsky in +her drawing-room of beauty, or in the foulest depths of the first chance +courtesan’s heart. Linboff, whose books contradict one another, +cannot help him; nor can the pilgrims on crowded steamers, nor the verse +writers and harlots in dives and boozingkens. And so, wondering, +pondering, perplexed, amazed, whirling through the mad whirlpool of +life, dancing the dance of death, groping for the nameless, indefinite +something, the magic formula, the essence, the intrinsic fact, the flash +of light through the murk and dark - the rational sanction for existence, +in short - Fomá Gordyéeff goes down to madness and death.<br> +<br> +It is not a pretty book, but it is a masterful interrogation of life +- not of life universal, but of life particular, the social life of +to-day. It is not nice; neither is the social life of to-day nice. +One lays the book down sick at heart - sick for life with all its “lyings +and its lusts.” But it is a healthy book. So fearful +is its portrayal of social disease, so ruthless its stripping of the +painted charms from vice, that its tendency cannot but be strongly for +good. It is a goad, to prick sleeping human consciences awake +and drive them into the battle for humanity.<br> +<br> +But no story is told, nothing is finished, some one will object. +Surely, when Sásha leaped overboard and swam to Fomá, +something happened. It was pregnant with possibilities. +Yet it was not finished, was not decisive. She left him to go +with the son of a rich vodka-maker. And all that was best in Sófya +Medynsky was quickened when she looked upon Fomá with the look +of the Mother-Woman. She might have been a power for good in his +life, she might have shed light into it and lifted him up to safety +and honour and understanding. Yet she went away next day, and +he never saw her again. No story is told, nothing is finished.<br> +<br> +Ah, but surely the story of Fomá Gordyéeff is told; his +life is finished, as lives are being finished each day around us. +Besides, it is the way of life, and the art of Górky is the art +of realism. But it is a less tedious realism than that of Tolstoy +or Turgenev. It lives and breathes from page to page with a swing +and dash and go that they rarely attain. Their mantle has fallen +on his young shoulders, and he promises to wear it royally.<br> +<br> +Even so, but so helpless, hopeless, terrible is this life of Fomá +Gordyéeff that we would be filled with profound sorrow for Górky +did we not know that he has come up out of the Valley of Shadow. +That he hopes, we know, else would he not now be festering in a Russian +prison because he is brave enough to live the hope he feels. He +knows life, why and how it should be lived. And in conclusion, +this one thing is manifest: Fomá Gordyéeff is no mere +statement of an intellectual problem. For as he lived and interrogated +living, so in sweat and blood and travail has Górky lived.<br> +<br> +PIEDMONT, CALIFORNIA.<br> +<i>November </i>1901.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +THESE BONES SHALL RISE AGAIN<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +Rudyard Kipling, “prophet of blood and vulgarity, prince of ephemerals +and idol of the unelect” - as a Chicago critic chortles - is dead. +It is true. He is dead, dead and buried. And a fluttering, +chirping host of men, little men and unseeing men, have heaped him over +with the uncut leaves of <i>Kim, </i>wrapped him in <i>Stalky </i>& +<i>Co., </i>for winding sheet, and for headstone reared his unconventional +lines, <i>The Lesson</i>. It was very easy. The simplest +thing in the world. And the fluttering, chirping gentlemen are +rubbing their hands in amaze and wondering why they did not do it long +ago, it was so very, very simple.<br> +<br> +But the centuries to come, of which the fluttering, chirping gentlemen +are prone to talk largely, will have something to say in the matter. +And when they, the future centuries, quest back to the nineteenth century +to find what manner of century it was - to find, not what the people +of the nineteenth century thought they thought, but what they really +thought, not what they thought they ought to do, but what they really +did do, then a certain man, Kipling, will be read - and read with understanding. +“They thought they read him with understanding, those people of +the nineteenth century,” the future centuries will say; “and +then they thought there was no understanding in him, and after that +they did not know what they thought.”<br> +<br> +But this is over-severe. It applies only to that class which serves +a function somewhat similar to that served by the populace of old time +in Rome. This is the unstable, mob-minded mass, which sits on +the fence, ever ready to fall this side or that and indecorously clamber +back again; which puts a Democratic administration into office one election, +and a Republican the next; which discovers and lifts up a prophet to-day +that it may stone him tomorrow; which clamours for the book everybody +else is reading, for no reason under the sun save that everybody else +is reading it. This is the class of whim and caprice, of fad and +vogue, the unstable, incoherent, mob-mouthed, mob-minded mass, the “monkey-folk,” +if you please, of these latter days. Now it may be reading <i>The +Eternal City</i>. Yesterday it was reading <i>The Master Christian, +</i>and some several days before that it was reading Kipling. +Yes, almost to his shame be it, these folk were reading him. But +it was not his fault. If he depended upon them he well deserves +to be dead and buried and never to rise again. But to them, let +us be thankful, he never lived. They thought he lived, but he +was as dead then as he is now and as he always will be.<br> +<br> +He could not help it because he became the vogue, and it is easily understood. +When he lay ill, fighting with close grapples with death, those who +knew him were grieved. They were many, and in many voices, to +the rim of the Seven Seas, they spoke their grief. Whereupon, +and with celerity, the mob-minded mass began to inquire as to this man +whom so many mourned. If everybody else mourned, it were fit that +they mourn too. So a vast wail went up. Each was a spur +to the other’s grief, and each began privately to read this man +they had never read and publicly to proclaim this man they had always +read. And straightaway next day they drowned their grief in a +sea of historical romance and forgot all about him. The reaction +was inevitable. Emerging from the sea into which they had plunged, +they became aware that they had so soon forgotten him, and would have +been ashamed, had not the fluttering, chirping men said, “Come, +let us bury him.” And they put him in a hole, quickly, out +of their sight.<br> +<br> +And when they have crept into their own little holes, and smugly laid +themselves down in their last long sleep, the future centuries will +roll the stone away and he will come forth again. For be it known: +<i>That man of us is imperishable who makes his century imperishable</i>. +That man of us who seizes upon the salient facts of our life, who tells +what we thought, what we were, and for what we stood - that man shall +be the mouthpiece to the centuries, and so long as they listen he shall +endure.<br> +<br> +We remember the caveman. We remember him because he made his century +imperishable. But, unhappily, we remember him dimly, in a collective +sort of way, because he memorialized his century dimly, in a collective +sort of way. He had no written speech, so he left us rude scratchings +of beasts and things, cracked marrow-bones, and weapons of stone. +It was the best expression of which he was capable. Had he scratched +his own particular name with the scratchings of beasts and things, stamped +his cracked marrowbones with his own particular seal, trade-marked his +weapons of stone with his own particular device, that particular man +would we remember. But he did the best he could, and we remember +him as best we may.<br> +<br> +Homer takes his place with Achilles and the Greek and Trojan heroes. +Because he remembered them, we remember him. Whether he be one +or a dozen men, or a dozen generations of men, we remember him. +And so long as the name of Greece is known on the lips of men, so long +will the name of Homer be known. There are many such names, linked +with their times, which have come down to us, many more which will yet +go down; and to them, in token that we have lived, must we add some +few of our own.<br> +<br> +Dealing only with the artist, be it understood, only those artists will +go down who have spoken true of us. Their truth must be the deepest +and most significant, their voices clear and strong, definite and coherent. +Half-truths and partial-truths will not do, nor will thin piping voices +and quavering lays. There must be the cosmic quality in what they +sing. They must seize upon and press into enduring art-forms the +vital facts of our existence. They must tell why we have lived, +for without any reason for living, depend upon it, in the time to come, +it will be as though we had never lived. Nor are the things that +were true of the people a thousand years or so ago true of us to-day. +The romance of Homer’s Greece is the romance of Homer’s +Greece. That is undeniable. It is not our romance. +And he who in our time sings the romance of Homer’s Greece cannot +expect to sing it so well as Homer did, nor will he be singing about +us or our romance at all. A machine age is something quite different +from an heroic age. What is true of rapid-fire guns, stock-exchanges, +and electric motors, cannot possibly be true of hand-flung javelins +and whirring chariot wheels. Kipling knows this. He has +been telling it to us all his life, living it all his life in the work +he has done.<br> +<br> +What the Anglo-Saxon has done, he has memorialized. And by Anglo-Saxon +is not meant merely the people of that tight little island on the edge +of the Western Ocean. Anglo-Saxon stands for the English-speaking +people of all the world, who, in forms and institutions and traditions, +are more peculiarly and definitely English than anything else. +This people Kipling has sung. Their sweat and blood and toil have +been the motives of his songs; but underlying all the motives of his +songs is the motive of motives, the sum of them all and something more, +which is one with what underlies all the Anglo-Saxon sweat and blood +and toil; namely, the genius of the race. And this is the cosmic +quality. Both that which is true of the race for all time, and +that which is true of the race for all time applied to this particular +time, he has caught up and pressed into his art-forms. He has +caught the dominant note of the Anglo-Saxon and pressed it into wonderful +rhythms which cannot be sung out in a day and which will not be sung +out in a day.<br> +<br> +The Anglo-Saxon is a pirate, a land robber and a sea robber. Underneath +his thin coating of culture, he is what he was in Morgan’s time, +in Drake’s time, in William’s time, in Alfred’s time. +The blood and the tradition of Hengist and Horsa are in his veins. +In battle he is subject to the blood-lusts of the Berserkers of old. +Plunder and booty fascinate him immeasurably. The schoolboy of +to-day dreams the dream of Clive and Hastings. The Anglo-Saxon +is strong of arm and heavy of hand, and he possesses a primitive brutality +all his own. There is a discontent in his blood, an unsatisfaction +that will not let him rest, but sends him adventuring over the sea and +among the lands in the midst of the sea. He does not know when +he is beaten, wherefore the term “bulldog” is attached to +him, so that all may know his unreasonableness. He has “some +care as to the purity of his ways, does not wish for strange gods, nor +juggle with intellectual phantasmagoria.” He loves freedom, +but is dictatorial to others, is self-willed, has boundless energy, +and does things for himself. He is also a master of matter, an +organizer of law, and an administrator of justice.<br> +<br> +And in the nineteenth century he has lived up to his reputation. +Being the nineteenth century and no other century, and in so far different +from all other centuries, he has expressed himself differently. +But blood will tell, and in the name of God, the Bible, and Democracy, +he has gone out over the earth, possessing himself of broad lands and +fat revenues, and conquering by virtue of his sheer pluck and enterprise +and superior machinery.<br> +<br> +Now the future centuries, seeking to find out what the nineteenth century +Anglo-Saxon was and what were his works, will have small concern with +what he did not do and what he would have liked to do. These things +he did do, and for these things will he be remembered. His claim +on posterity will be that in the nineteenth century he mastered matter; +his twentieth-century claim will be, in the highest probability, that +he organized life - but that will be sung by the twentieth-century Kiplings +or the twenty-first-century Kiplings. Rudyard Kipling of the nineteenth +century has sung of “things as they are.” He has seen +life as it is, “taken it up squarely,” in both his hands, +and looked upon it. What better preachment upon the Anglo-Saxon +and what he has done can be had than <i>The Bridge Builders? </i>what +better appraisement than <i>The White Man</i>’<i>s Burden</i>? +As for faith and clean ideals - not of “children and gods, but +men in a world of men” - who has preached them better than he?<br> +<br> +Primarily, Kipling has stood for the doer as opposed to the dreamer +- the doer, who lists not to idle songs of empty days, but who goes +forth and does things, with bended back and sweated brow and work-hardened +hands. The most characteristic thing about Kipling is his lover +of actuality, his intense practicality, his proper and necessary respect +for the hard-headed, hard-fisted fact. And, above all, he has +preached the gospel of work, and as potently as Carlyle ever preached. +For he has preached it not only to those in the high places, but to +the common men, to the great sweating thong of common men who hear and +understand yet stand agape at Carlyle’s turgid utterance. +Do the thing to your hand, and do it with all your might. Never +mind what the thing is; so long as it is something. Do it. +Do it and remember Tomlinson, sexless and soulless Tomlinson, who was +denied at Heaven’s gate.<br> +<br> +The blundering centuries have perseveringly pottered and groped through +the dark; but it remained for Kipling’s century to roll in the +sun, to formulate, in other words, the reign of law. And of the +artists in Kipling’s century, he of them all has driven the greater +measure of law in the more consummate speech:<br> +<br> +<br> +Keep ye the Law - be swift in all obedience.<br> +Clear the land of evil, drive the road and bridge the ford.<br> + Make ye sure to each his own<br> + That he reap what he hath sown;<br> +By the peace among Our peoples let men know we serve the Lord.<br> +<br> +<br> +- And so it runs, from McAndrew’s <i>Law, Order, Duty, and Restraint, +</i>to his last least line, whether of <i>The Vampire </i>or <i>The +Recessional</i>. And no prophet out of Israel has cried out more +loudly the sins of the people, nor called them more awfully to repent.<br> +<br> +“But he is vulgar, he stirs the puddle of life,” object +the fluttering, chirping gentlemen, the Tomlinsonian men. Well, +and isn’t life vulgar? Can you divorce the facts of life? +Much of good is there, and much of ill; but who may draw aside his garment +and say, “I am none of them”? Can you say that the +part is greater than the whole? that the whole is more or less than +the sum of the parts? As for the puddle of life, the stench is +offensive to you? Well, and what then? Do you not live in +it? Why do you not make it clean? Do you clamour for a filter +to make clean only your own particular portion? And, made clean, +are you wroth because Kipling has stirred it muddy again? At least +he has stirred it healthily, with steady vigour and good-will. +He has not brought to the surface merely its dregs, but its most significant +values. He has told the centuries to come of our lyings and our +lusts, but he has also told the centuries to come of the seriousness +which is underneath our lyings and our lusts. And he has told +us, too, and always has he told us, to be clean and strong and to walk +upright and manlike.<br> +<br> +“But he has no sympathy,” the fluttering gentlemen chirp. +“We admire his art and intellectual brilliancy, we all admire +his art and intellectual brilliancy, his dazzling technique and rare +rhythmical sense; but . . . he is totally devoid of sympathy.” +Dear! Dear! What is to be understood by this? Should +he sprinkle his pages with sympathetic adjectives, so many to the paragraph, +as the country compositor sprinkles commas? Surely not. +The little gentlemen are not quite so infinitesimal as that. There +have been many tellers of jokes, and the greater of them, it is recorded, +never smiled at their own, not even in the crucial moment when the audience +wavered between laughter and tears.<br> +<br> +And so with Kipling. Take <i>The Vampire, </i>for instance. +It has been complained that there is no touch of pity in it for the +man and his ruin, no sermon on the lesson of it, no compassion for the +human weakness, no indignation at the heartlessness. But are we +kindergarten children that the tale be told to us in words of one syllable? +Or are we men and women, able to read between the lines what Kipling +intended we should read between the lines? “For some of +him lived, but the most of him died.” Is there not here +all the excitation in the world for our sorrow, our pity, our indignation? +And what more is the function of art than to excite states of consciousness +complementary to the thing portrayed? The colour of tragedy is +red. Must the artist also paint in the watery tears and wan-faced +grief? “For some of him lived, but the most of him died” +- can the heartache of the situation be conveyed more achingly? +Or were it better that the young man, some of him alive but most of +him dead, should come out before the curtain and deliver a homily to +the weeping audience?<br> +<br> +The nineteenth century, so far as the Anglo-Saxon is concerned, was +remarkable for two great developments: the mastery of matter and the +expansion of the race. Three great forces operated in it: nationalism, +commercialism, democracy - the marshalling of the races, the merciless, +remorseless <i>laissez faire </i>of the dominant bourgeoisie, and the +practical, actual working government of men within a very limited equality. +The democracy of the nineteenth century is not the democracy of which +the eighteenth century dreamed. It is not the democracy of the +Declaration, but it is what we have practised and lived that reconciles +it to the fact of the “lesser breeds without the Law.”<br> +<br> +It is of these developments and forces of the nineteenth century that +Kipling has sung. And the romance of it he has sung, that which +underlies and transcends objective endeavour, which deals with race +impulses, race deeds, and race traditions. Even into the steam-laden +speech of his locomotives has he breathed our life, our spirit, our +significance. As he is our mouthpiece, so are they his mouthpieces. +And the romance of the nineteenth-century man as he has thus expressed +himself in the nineteenth century, in shaft and wheel, in steel and +steam, in far journeying and adventuring, Kipling has caught up in wondrous +songs for the future centuries to sing.<br> +<br> +If the nineteenth century is the century of the Hooligan, then is Kipling +the voice of the Hooligan as surely as he is the voice of the nineteenth +century. Who is more representative? Is <i>David Harum </i>more +representative of the nineteenth century? Is Mary Johnston, Charles +Major, or Winston Churchill? Is Bret Harte? William Dean +Howells? Gilbert Parker? Who of them all is as essentially +representative of nineteenth-century life? When Kipling is forgotten, +will Robert Louis Stevenson be remembered for his <i>Dr. Jekyll and +Mr. Hyde, </i>his <i>Kidnapped </i>and his <i>David Balfour</i>? +Not so. His <i>Treasure Island </i>will be a classic, to go down +with <i>Robinson Crusoe, Through the Looking-Glass, </i>and <i>The Jungle +Books</i>. He will be remembered for his essays, for his letters, +for his philosophy of life, for himself. He will be the well beloved, +as he has been the well beloved. But his will be another claim +upon posterity than what we are considering. For each epoch has +its singer. As Scott sang the swan song of chivalry and Dickens +the burgher-fear of the rising merchant class, so Kipling, as no one +else, has sung the hymn of the dominant bourgeoisie, the war march of +the white man round the world, the triumphant pæan of commercialism +and imperialism. For that will he be remembered.<br> +<br> +OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA.<br> +<i>October </i>1901.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +THE OTHER ANIMALS<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +American journalism has its moments of fantastic hysteria, and when +it is on the rampage the only thing for a rational man to do is to climb +a tree and let the cataclysm go by. And so, some time ago, when +the word <i>nature-faker </i>was coined, I, for one, climbed into my +tree and stayed there. I happened to be in Hawaii at the time, +and a Honolulu reporter elicited the sentiment from me that I thanked +God I was not an authority on anything. This sentiment was promptly +cabled to America in an Associated Press despatch, whereupon the American +press (possibly annoyed because I had not climbed down out of my tree) +charged me with paying for advertising by cable at a dollar per word +- the very human way of the American press, which, when a man refuses +to come down and be licked, makes faces at him.<br> +<br> +But now that the storm is over, let us come and reason together. +I have been guilty of writing two animal-stories - two books about dogs. +The writing of these two stories, on my part, was in truth a protest +against the “humanizing” of animals, of which it seemed +to me several “animal writers” had been profoundly guilty. +Time and again, and many times, in my narratives, I wrote, speaking +of my dog-heroes: “He did not think these things; he merely did +them,” etc. And I did this repeatedly, to the clogging of +my narrative and in violation of my artistic canons; and I did it in +order to hammer into the average human understanding that these dog-heroes +of mine were not directed by abstract reasoning, but by instinct, sensation, +and emotion, and by simple reasoning. Also, I endeavoured to make +my stories in line with the facts of evolution; I hewed them to the +mark set by scientific research, and awoke, one day, to find myself +bundled neck and crop into the camp of the nature-fakers.<br> +<br> +President Roosevelt was responsible for this, and he tried to condemn +me on two counts. (1) I was guilty of having a big, fighting bull-dog +whip a wolf-dog. (2) I was guilty of allowing a lynx to kill a +wolf-dog in a pitched battle. Regarding the second count, President +Roosevelt was wrong in his field observations taken while reading my +book. He must have read it hastily, for in my story I had the +wolf-dog kill the lynx. Not only did I have my wolf-dog kill the +lynx, but I made him eat the body of the lynx as well. Remains +only the first count on which to convict me of nature-faking, and the +first count does not charge me with diverging from ascertained facts. +It is merely a statement of a difference of opinion. President +Roosevelt does not think a bull-dog can lick a wolf-dog. I think +a bull-dog can lick a wolf-dog. And there we are. Difference +of opinion may make, and does make, horse-racing. I can understand +that difference of opinion can make dog-fighting. But what gets +me is how difference of opinion regarding the relative fighting merits +of a bull-dog and a wolf-dog makes me a nature-faker and President Roosevelt +a vindicated and triumphant scientist.<br> +<br> +Then entered John Burroughs to clinch President Roosevelt’s judgments. +In this alliance there is no difference of opinion. That Roosevelt +can do no wrong is Burroughs’s opinion; and that Burroughs is +always right is Roosevelt’s opinion. Both are agreed that +animals do not reason. They assert that all animals below man +are automatons and perform actions only of two sorts - mechanical and +reflex - and that in such actions no reasoning enters at all. +They believe that man is the only animal capable of reasoning and that +ever does reason. This is a view that makes the twentieth-century +scientist smile. It is not modern at all. It is distinctly +mediaeval. President Roosevelt and John Burroughs, in advancing +such a view, are homocentric in the same fashion that the scholastics +of earlier and darker centuries were homocentric. Had the world +not been discovered to be round until after the births of President +Roosevelt and John Burroughs, they would have been geocentric as well +in their theories of the Cosmos. They could not have believed +otherwise. The stuff of their minds is so conditioned. They +talk the argot of evolution, while they no more understand the essence +and the import of evolution than does a South Sea Islander or Sir Oliver +Lodge understand the noumena of radio-activity.<br> +<br> +Now, President Roosevelt is an amateur. He may know something +of statecraft and of big-game shooting; he may be able to kill a deer +when he sees it and to measure it and weigh it after he has shot it; +he may be able to observe carefully and accurately the actions and antics +of tomtits and snipe, and, after he has observed it, definitely and +coherently to convey the information of when the first chipmunk, in +a certain year and a certain latitude and longitude, came out in the +spring and chattered and gambolled - but that he should be able, as +an individual observer, to analyze all animal life and to synthetize +and develop all that is known of the method and significance of evolution, +would require a vaster credulity for you or me to believe than is required +for us to believe the biggest whopper ever told by an unmitigated nature-faker. +No, President Roosevelt does not understand evolution, and he does not +seem to have made much of an attempt to understand evolution.<br> +<br> +Remains John Burroughs, who claims to be a thorough-going evolutionist. +Now, it is rather hard for a young man to tackle an old man. It +is the nature of young men to be more controlled in such matters, and +it is the nature of old men, presuming upon the wisdom that is very +often erroneously associated with age, to do the tackling. In +this present question of nature-faking, the old men did the tackling, +while I, as one young man, kept quiet a long time. But here goes +at last. And first of all let Mr. Burroughs’s position be +stated, and stated in his words.<br> +<br> +“Why impute reason to an animal if its behaviour can be explained +on the theory of instinct?” Remember these words, for they +will be referred to later. “A goodly number of persons seem +to have persuaded themselves that animals do reason.” “But +instinct suffices for the animals . . . they get along very well without +reason.” “Darwin tried hard to convince himself that +animals do at times reason in a rudimentary way; but Darwin was also +a much greater naturalist than psychologist.” The preceding +quotation is tantamount, on Mr. Burroughs’s part, to a flat denial +that animals reason even in a rudimentary way. And when Mr. Burrough +denies that animals reason even in a rudimentary way, it is equivalent +to affirming, in accord with the first quotation in this paragraph, +that instinct will explain every animal act that might be confounded +with reason by the unskilled or careless observer.<br> +<br> +Having bitten off this large mouthful, Mr. Burroughs proceeds with serene +and beautiful satisfaction to masticate it in the following fashion. +He cites a large number of instances of purely instinctive actions on +the part of animals, and triumphantly demands if they are acts of reason. +He tells of the robin that fought day after day its reflected image +in a window-pane; of the birds in South America that were guilty of +drilling clear through a mud wall, which they mistook for a solid clay +bank: of the beaver that cut down a tree four times because it was held +at the top by the branches of other trees; of the cow that licked the +skin of her stuffed calf so affectionately that it came apart, whereupon +she proceeded to eat the hay with which it was stuffed. He tells +of the phœbe-bird that betrays her nest on the porch by trying +to hide it with moss in similar fashion to the way all phœbe-birds +hide their nests when they are built among rocks. He tells of +the highhole that repeatedly drills through the clap-boards of an empty +house in a vain attempt to find a thickness of wood deep enough in which +to build its nest. He tells of the migrating lemmings of Norway +that plunge into the sea and drown in vast numbers because of their +instinct to swim lakes and rivers in the course of their migrations. +And, having told a few more instances of like kidney, he triumphantly +demands: “Where now is your much-vaunted reasoning of the lower +animals?<br> +<br> +No schoolboy in a class debate could be guilty of unfairer argument. +It is equivalent to replying to the assertion that 2+2=4, by saying: +“No; because 12/4=3; I have demonstrated my honourable opponent’s +error.” When a man attacks your ability as a foot-racer, +promptly prove to him that he was drunk the week before last, and the +average man in the crowd of gaping listeners will believe that you have +convincingly refuted the slander on your fleetness of foot. On +my honour, it will work. Try it some time. It is done every +day. Mr. Burroughs has done it himself, and, I doubt not, pulled +the sophistical wool over a great many pairs of eyes. No, no, +Mr. Burroughs; you can’t disprove that animals reason by proving +that they possess instincts. But the worst of it is that you have +at the same time pulled the wool over your own eyes. You have +set up a straw man and knocked the stuffing out of him in the complacent +belief that it was the reasoning of lower animals you were knocking +out of the minds of those who disagreed with you. When the highhole +perforated the icehouse and let out the sawdust, you called him a lunatic +. . .<br> +<br> +But let us be charitable - and serious. What Mr. Burroughs instances +as acts of instinct certainly are acts of instincts. By the same +method of logic one could easily adduce a multitude of instinctive acts +on the part of man and thereby prove that man is an unreasoning animal. +But man performs actions of both sorts. Between man and the lower +animals Mr. Burroughs finds a vast gulf. This gulf divides man +from the rest of his kin by virtue of the power of reason that he alone +possesses. Man is a voluntary agent. Animals are automatons. +The robin fights its reflection in the window-pane because it is his +instinct to fight and because he cannot reason out the physical laws +that make this reflection appear real. An animal is a mechanism +that operates according to fore-ordained rules. Wrapped up in +its heredity, and determined long before it was born, is a certain limited +capacity of ganglionic response to eternal stimuli. These responses +have been fixed in the species through adaptation to environment. +Natural selection has compelled the animal automatically to respond +in a fixed manner and a certain way to all the usual external stimuli +it encounters in the course of a usual life. Thus, under usual +circumstances, it does the usual thing. Under unusual circumstances +it still does the usual thing, wherefore the highhole perforating the +ice-house is guilty of lunacy - of unreason, in short. To do the +unusual thing under unusual circumstances, successfully to adjust to +a strange environment for which his heredity has not automatically fitted +an adjustment, Mr. Burroughs says is impossible. He says it is +impossible because it would be a non-instinctive act, and, as is well +known animals act only through instinct. And right here we catch +a glimpse of Mr. Burroughs’s cart standing before his horse. +He has a thesis, and though the heavens fall he will fit the facts to +the thesis. Agassiz, in his opposition to evolution, had a similar +thesis, though neither did he fit the facts to it nor did the heavens +fall. Facts are very disagreeable at times.<br> +<br> +But let us see. Let us test Mr. Burroughs’s test of reason +and instinct. When I was a small boy I had a dog named Rollo. +According to Mr. Burroughs, Rollo was an automaton, responding to external +stimuli mechanically as directed by his instincts. Now, as is +well known, the development of instinct in animals is a dreadfully slow +process. There is no known case of the development of a single +instinct in domestic animals in all the history of their domestication. +Whatever instincts they possess they brought with them from the wild +thousands of years ago. Therefore, all Rollo’s actions were +ganglionic discharges mechanically determined by the instincts that +had been developed and fixed in the species thousands of years ago. +Very well. It is clear, therefore, that in all his play with me +he would act in old-fashioned ways, adjusting himself to the physical +and psychical factors in his environment according to the rules of adjustment +which had obtained in the wild and which had become part of his heredity.<br> +<br> +Rollo and I did a great deal of rough romping. He chased me and +I chased him. He nipped my legs, arms, and hands, often so hard +that I yelled, while I rolled him and tumbled him and dragged him about, +often so strenuously as to make him yelp. In the course of the +play many variations arose. I would make believe to sit down and +cry. All repentance and anxiety, he would wag his tail and lick +my face, whereupon I would give him the laugh. He hated to be +laughed at, and promptly he would spring for me with good-natured, menacing +jaws, and the wild romp would go on. I had scored a point. +Then he hit upon a trick. Pursuing him into the woodshed, I would +find him in a far corner, pretending to sulk. Now, he dearly loved +the play, and never got enough of it. But at first he fooled me. +I thought I had somehow hurt his feelings and I came and knelt before +him, petting him, and speaking lovingly. Promptly, in a wild outburst, +he was up and away, tumbling me over on the floor as he dashed out in +a mad skurry around the yard. He had scored a point.<br> +<br> +After a time, it became largely a game of wits. I reasoned my +acts, of course, while his were instinctive. One day, as he pretended +to sulk in the corner, I glanced out of the woodshed doorway, simulated +pleasure in face, voice, and language, and greeted one of my schoolboy +friends. Immediately Rollo forgot to sulk, rushed out to see the +newcomer, and saw empty space. The laugh was on him, and he knew +it, and I gave it to him, too. I fooled him in this way two or +three times; then be became wise. One day I worked a variation. +Suddenly looking out the door, making believe that my eyes had been +attracted by a moving form, I said coldly, as a child educated in turning +away bill-collectors would say: “No my father is not at home.” +Like a shot, Rollo was out the door. He even ran down the alley +to the front of the house in a vain attempt to find the man I had addressed. +He came back sheepishly to endure the laugh and resume the game.<br> +<br> +And now we come to the test. I fooled Rollo, but how was the fooling +made possible? What precisely went on in that brain of his? +According to Mr. Burroughs, who denies even rudimentary reasoning to +the lower animals, Rollo acted instinctively, mechanically responding +to the external stimulus, furnished by me, which led him to believe +that a man was outside the door.<br> +<br> +Since Rollo acted instinctively, and since all instincts are very ancient, +tracing back to the pre-domestication period, we can conclude only that +Rollo’s wild ancestors, at the time this particular instinct was +fixed into the heredity of the species, must have been in close, long-continued, +and vital contact with man, the voice of man, and the expressions on +the face of man. But since the instinct must have been developed +during the pre-domestication period, how under the sun could his wild, +undomesticated ancestors have experienced the close, long-continued, +and vital contact with man?<br> +<br> +Mr. Burroughs says that “instinct suffices for the animals,” +that “they get along very well without reason.” But +I say, what all the poor nature-fakers will say, that Rollo reasoned. +He was born into the world a bundle of instincts and a pinch of brain-stuff, +all wrapped around in a framework of bone, meat, and hide. As +he adjusted to his environment he gained experiences. He remembered +these experiences. He learned that he mustn’t chase the +cat, kill chickens, nor bite little girls’ dresses. He learned +that little boys had little boy playmates. He learned that men +came into back yards. He learned that the animal man, on meeting +with his own kind, was given to verbal and facial greeting. He +learned that when a boy greeted a playmate he did it differently from +the way he greeted a man. All these he learned and remembered. +They were so many observations - so many propositions, if you please. +Now, what went on behind those brown eyes of his, inside that pinch +of brain-stuff, when I turned suddenly to the door and greeted an imaginary +person outside? Instantly, out of the thousands of observations +stored in his brain, came to the front of his consciousness the particular +observations connected with this particular situation. Next, he +established a relation between these observations. This relation +was his conclusion, achieved, as every psychologist will agree, by a +definite cell-action of his grey matter. From the fact that his +master turned suddenly toward the door, and from the fact that his master’s +voice, facial expression, and whole demeanour expressed surprise and +delight, he concluded that a friend was outside. He established +a relation between various things, and the act of establishing relations +between things is an act of reason - of rudimentary reason, granted, +but none the less of reason.<br> +<br> +Of course Rollo was fooled. But that is no call for us to throw +chests about it. How often has every last one of us been fooled +in precisely similar fashion by another who turned and suddenly addressed +an imaginary intruder? Here is a case in point that occurred in +the West. A robber had held up a railroad train. He stood +in the aisle between the seats, his revolver presented at the head of +the conductor, who stood facing him. The conductor was at his +mercy.<br> +<br> +But the conductor suddenly looked over the robber’s shoulder, +at the same time saying aloud to an imaginary person standing at the +robber’s back: “Don’t shoot him.” Like +a flash the robber whirled about to confront this new danger, and like +a flash the conductor shot him down. Show me, Mr. Burroughs, where +the mental process in the robber’s brain was a shade different +from the mental processes in Rollo’s brain, and I’ll quit +nature-faking and join the Trappists. Surely, when a man’s +mental process and a dog’s mental process are precisely similar, +the much-vaunted gulf of Mr. Burroughs’s fancy has been bridged.<br> +<br> +I had a dog in Oakland. His name was Glen. His father was +Brown, a wolf-dog that had been brought down from Alaska., and his mother +was a half-wild mountain shepherd dog. Neither father nor mother +had had any experience with automobiles. Glen came from the country, +a half-grown puppy, to live in Oakland. Immediately he became +infatuated with an automobile. He reached the culmination of happiness +when he was permitted to sit up in the front seat alongside the chauffeur. +He would spend a whole day at a time on an automobile debauch, even +going without food. Often the machine started directly from inside +the barn, dashed out the driveway without stopping, and was gone. +Glen got left behind several times. The custom was established +that whoever was taking the machine out should toot the horn before +starting. Glen learned the signal. No matter where he was +or what he was doing, when that horn tooted he was off for the barn +and up into the front seat.<br> +<br> +One morning, while Glen was on the back porch eating his breakfast of +mush and milk, the chauffeur tooted. Glen rushed down the steps, +into the barn, and took his front seat, the mush and milk dripping down +his excited and happy chops. In passing, I may point out that +in thus forsaking his breakfast for the automobile he was displaying +what is called the power of choice - a peculiarly lordly attribute that, +according to Mr. Burroughs, belongs to man alone. Yet Glen made +his choice between food and fun.<br> +<br> +It was not that Glen wanted his breakfast less, but that he wanted his +ride more. The toot was only a joke. The automobile did +not start. Glen waited and watched. Evidently he saw no +signs of an immediate start, for finally he jumped out of the seat and +went back to his breakfast. He ate with indecent haste, like a +man anxious to catch a train. Again the horn tooted, again he +deserted his breakfast, and again he sat in the seat and waited vainly +for the machine to go.<br> +<br> +They came close to spoiling Glen’s breakfast for him, for he was +kept on the jump between porch and barn. Then he grew wise. +They tooted the horn loudly and insistently, but he stayed by his breakfast +and finished it. Thus once more did he display power of choice, +incidentally of control, for when that horn tooted it was all he could +do to refrain from running for the barn.<br> +<br> +The nature-faker would analyze what went on in Glen’s brain somewhat +in the following fashion. He had had, in his short life, experiences +that not one of all his ancestors had ever had. He had learned +that automobiles went fast, that once in motion it was impossible for +him to get on board, that the toot of the horn was a noise that was +peculiar to automobiles. These were so many propositions. +Now reasoning can be defined as the act or process of the brain by which, +from propositions known or assumed, new propositions are reached. +Out of the propositions which I have shown were Glen’s, and which +had become his through the medium of his own observation of the phenomena +of life, he made the new proposition that when the horn tooted it was +time for him to get on board.<br> +<br> +But on the morning I have described, the chauffeur fooled Glen. +Somehow and much to his own disgust, his reasoning was erroneous. +The machine did not start after all. But to reason incorrectly +is very human. The great trouble in all acts of reasoning is to +include all the propositions in the problem. Glen had included +every proposition but one, namely, the human proposition, the joke in +the brain of the chauffeur. For a number of times Glen was fooled. +Then he performed another mental act. In his problem he included +the human proposition (the joke in the brain of the chauffeur), and +he reached the new conclusion that when the horn tooted the automobile +was <i>not </i>going to start. Basing his action on this conclusion, +he remained on the porch and finished his breakfast. You and I, +and even Mr. Burroughs, perform acts of reasoning precisely similar +to this every day in our lives. How Mr. Burroughs will explain +Glen’s action by the instinctive theory is beyond me. In +wildest fantasy, even, my brain refuses to follow Mr. Burroughs into +the primeval forest where Glen’s dim ancestors, to the tooting +of automobile horns, were fixing into the heredity of the breed the +particular instinct that would enable Glen, a few thousand years later, +capably to cope with automobiles.<br> +<br> +Dr. C. J. Romanes tells of a female chimpanzee who was taught to count +straws up to five. She held the straws in her hand, exposing the +ends to the number requested. If she were asked for three, she +held up three. If she were asked for four, she held up four. +All this is a mere matter of training. But consider now, Mr. Burroughs, +what follows. When she was asked for five straws and she had only +four, she doubled one straw, exposing both its ends and thus making +up the required number. She did not do this only once, and by +accident. She did it whenever more straws were asked for than +she possessed. Did she perform a distinctly reasoning act? or +was her action the result of blind, mechanical instinct? If Mr. +Burroughs cannot answer to his own satisfaction, he may call Dr. Romanes +a nature-faker and dismiss the incident from his mind.<br> +<br> +The foregoing is a trick of erroneous human reasoning that works very +successfully in the United States these days. It is certainly +a trick of Mr. Burroughs, of which he is guilty with distressing frequency. +When a poor devil of a writer records what he has seen, and when what +he has seen does not agree with Mr. Burroughs’s mediaeval theory, +he calls said writer a nature-faker. When a man like Mr. Hornaday +comes along, Mr. Burroughs works a variation of the trick on him. +Mr. Hornaday has made a close study of the orang in captivity and of +the orang in its native state. Also, he has studied closely many +other of the higher animal types. Also, in the tropics, he has +studied the lower types of man. Mr. Hornaday is a man of experience +and reputation. When he was asked if animals reasoned, out of +all his knowledge on the subject he replied that to ask him such a question +was equivalent to asking him if fishes swim. Now Mr. Burroughs +has not had much experience in studying the lower human types and the +higher animal types. Living in a rural district in the state of +New York, and studying principally birds in that limited habitat, he +has been in contact neither with the higher animal types nor the lower +human types. But Mr. Hornaday’s reply is such a facer to +him and his homocentric theory that he has to do something. And +he does it. He retorts: “I suspect that Mr. Hornaday is +a better naturalist than he is a comparative psychologist.” +Exit Mr. Hornaday. Who the devil is Mr. Hornaday, anyway? +The sage of Slabsides has spoken. When Darwin concluded that animals +were capable of reasoning in a rudimentary way, Mr. Burroughs laid him +out in the same fashion by saying: “But Darwin was also a much +greater naturalist than psychologist” - and this despite Darwin’s +long life of laborious research that was not wholly confined to a rural +district such as Mr. Burroughs inhabits in New York. Mr. Burroughs’s +method of argument is beautiful. It reminds one of the man whose +pronunciation was vile, but who said: “Damn the dictionary; ain’t +I here?”<br> +<br> +And now we come to the mental processes of Mr. Burroughs - to the psychology +of the ego, if you please. Mr. Burroughs has troubles of his own +with the dictionary. He violates language from the standpoint +both of logic and science. Language is a tool, and definitions +embodied in language should agree with the facts and history of life. +But Mr. Burroughs’s definitions do not so agree. This, in +turn, is not the fault of his education, but of his ego. To him, +despite his well-exploited and patronizing devotion to them, the lower +animals are disgustingly low. To him, affinity and kinship with +the other animals is a repugnant thing. He will have none of it. +He is too glorious a personality not to have between him and the other +animals a vast and impassable gulf. The cause of Mr. Burroughs’s +mediaeval view of the other animals is to be found, not in his knowledge +of those other animals, but in the suggestion of his self-exalted ego. +In short, Mr. Burroughs’s homocentric theory has been developed +out of his homocentric ego, and by the misuse of language he strives +to make the facts of life agree with his theory.<br> +<br> +After the instances I have cited of actions of animals which are impossible +of explanation as due to instinct, Mr. Burroughs may reply: “Your +instances are easily explained by the simple law of association.” +To this I reply, first, then why did you deny rudimentary reason to +animals? and why did you state flatly that “instinct suffices +for the animals”? And, second, with great reluctance and +with overwhelming humility, because of my youth, I suggest that you +do not know exactly what you do mean by that phrase “the simple +law of association.” Your trouble, I repeat, is with definitions. +You have grasped that man performs what is called <i>abstract </i>reasoning, +you have made a definition of abstract reason, and, betrayed by that +great maker of theories, the ego, you have come to think that all reasoning +is abstract and that what is not abstract reason is not reason at all. +This is your attitude toward rudimentary reason. Such a process, +in one of the other animals, must be either abstract or it is not a +reasoning process. Your intelligence tells you that such a process +is not abstract reasoning, and your homocentric thesis compels you to +conclude that it can be only a mechanical, instinctive process.<br> +<br> +Definitions must agree, not with egos, but with life. Mr. Burroughs +goes on the basis that a definition is something hard and fast, absolute +and eternal. He forgets that all the universe is in flux; that +definitions are arbitrary and ephemeral; that they fix, for a fleeting +instant of time, things that in the past were not, that in the future +will be not, that out of the past become, and that out of the present +pass on to the future and become other things. Definitions cannot +rule life. Definitions cannot be made to rule life. Life +must rule definitions or else the definitions perish.<br> +<br> +Mr. Burroughs forgets the evolution of reason. He makes a definition +of reason without regard to its history, and that definition is of reason +purely abstract. Human reason, as we know it to-day, is not a +creation, but a growth. Its history goes back to the primordial +slime that was quick with muddy life; its history goes back to the first +vitalized inorganic. And here are the steps of its ascent from +the mud to man: simple reflex action, compound reflex action, memory, +habit, rudimentary reason, and abstract reason. In the course +of the climb, thanks to natural selection, instinct was evolved. +Habit is a development in the individual. Instinct is a race-habit. +Instinct is blind, unreasoning, mechanical. This was the dividing +of the ways in the climb of aspiring life. The perfect culmination +of instinct we find in the ant-heap and the beehive. Instinct +proved a blind alley. But the other path, that of reason, led +on and on even to Mr. Burroughs and you and me.<br> +<br> +There are no impassable gulfs, unless one chooses, as Mr. Burroughs +does, to ignore the lower human types and the higher animal types, and +to compare human mind with bird mind. It was impossible for life +to reason abstractly until speech was developed. Equipped with +swords, with tools of thought, in short, the slow development of the +power to reason in the abstract went on. The lowest human types +do little or no reasoning in the abstract. With every word, with +every increase in the complexity of thought, with every ascertained +fact so gained, went on action and reaction in the grey matter of the +speech discoverer, and slowly, step by step, through hundreds of thousands +of years, developed the power of reason.<br> +<br> +Place a honey-bee in a glass bottle. Turn the bottom of the bottle +toward a lighted lamp so that the open mouth is away from the lamp. +Vainly, ceaselessly, a thousand times, undeterred by the bafflement +and the pain, the bee will hurl himself against the bottom of the bottle +as he strives to win to the light. That is instinct. Place +your dog in a back yard and go away. He is your dog. He +loves you. He yearns toward you as the bee yearns toward the light. +He listens to your departing footsteps. But the fence is too high. +Then he turns his back upon the direction in which you are departing, +and runs around the yard. He is frantic with affection and desire. +But he is not blind. He is observant. He is looking for +a hole under the fence, or through the fence, or for a place where the +fence is not so high. He sees a dry-goods box standing against +the fence. Presto! He leaps upon it, goes over the barrier, +and tears down the street to overtake you. Is that instinct?<br> +<br> +Here, in the household where I am writing this, is a little Tahitian +“feeding-child.” He believes firmly that a tiny dwarf +resides in the box of my talking-machine and that it is the tiny dwarf +who does the singing and the talking. Not even Mr. Burroughs will +affirm that the child has reached this conclusion by an instinctive +process. Of course, the child reasons the existence of the dwarf +in the box. How else could the box talk and sing? In that +child’s limited experience it has never encountered a single instance +where speech and song were produced otherwise than by direct human agency. +I doubt not that the dog is considerably surprised when he hears his +master’s voice coming out of a box.<br> +<br> +The adult savage, on his first introduction to a telephone, rushes around +to the adjoining room to find the man who is talking through the partition. +Is this act instinctive? No. Out of his limited experience, +out of his limited knowledge of physics, he reasons that the only explanation +possible is that a man is in the other room talking through the partition.<br> +<br> +But that savage cannot be fooled by a hand-mirror. We must go +lower down in the animal scale, to the monkey. The monkey swiftly +learns that the monkey it sees is not in the glass, wherefore it reaches +craftily behind the glass. Is this instinct? No. It +is rudimentary reasoning. Lower than the monkey in the scale of +brain is the robin, and the robin fights its reflection in the window-pane. +Now climb with me for a space. From the robin to the monkey, where +is the impassable gulf? and where is the impassable gulf between the +monkey and the feeding-child? between the feeding-child and the savage +who seeks the man behind the partition? ay, and between the savage and +the astute financiers Mrs. Chadwick fooled and the thousands who were +fooled by the Keeley Motor swindle?<br> +<br> +Let us be very humble. We who are so very human are very animal. +Kinship with the other animals is no more repugnant to Mr. Burroughs +than was the heliocentric theory to the priests who compelled Galileo +to recant. Not correct human reason, not the evidence of the ascertained +fact, but pride of ego, was responsible for the repugnance.<br> +<br> +In his stiff-necked pride, Mr. Burroughs runs a hazard more humiliating +to that pride than any amount of kinship with the other animals. +When a dog exhibits choice, direction, control, and reason; when it +is shown that certain mental processes in that dog’s brain are +precisely duplicated in the brain of man; and when Mr. Burroughs convincingly +proves that every action of the dog is mechanical and automatic - then, +by precisely the same arguments, can it be proved that the similar actions +of man are mechanical and automatic. No, Mr. Burroughs, though +you stand on the top of the ladder of life, you must not kick out that +ladder from under your feet. You must not deny your relatives, +the other animals. Their history is your history, and if you kick +them to the bottom of the abyss, to the bottom of the abyss you go yourself. +By them you stand or fall. What you repudiate in them you repudiate +in yourself - a pretty spectacle, truly, of an exalted animal striving +to disown the stuff of life out of which it is made, striving by use +of the very reason that was developed by evolution to deny the possession +of evolution that developed it. This may be good egotism, but +it is not good science.<br> +<br> +PAPEETE, TAHITI.<br> +<i>March </i>1908.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +THE YELLOW PERIL<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +No more marked contrast appears in passing from our Western land to +the paper houses and cherry blossoms of Japan than appears in passing +from Korea to China. To achieve a correct appreciation of the +Chinese the traveller should first sojourn amongst the Koreans for several +months, and then, one fine day, cross over the Yalu into Manchuria. +It would be of exceptional advantage to the correctness of appreciation +did he cross over the Yalu on the heels of a hostile and alien army.<br> +<br> +War is to-day the final arbiter in the affairs of men, and it is as +yet the final test of the worth-whileness of peoples. Tested thus, +the Korean fails. He lacks the nerve to remain when a strange +army crosses his land. The few goods and chattels he may have +managed to accumulate he puts on his back, along with his doors and +windows, and away he heads for his mountain fastnesses. Later +he may return, sans goods, chattels, doors, and windows, impelled by +insatiable curiosity for a “look see.” But it is curiosity +merely - a timid, deerlike curiosity. He is prepared to bound +away on his long legs at the first hint of danger or trouble.<br> +<br> +Northern Korea was a desolate land when the Japanese passed through. +Villages and towns were deserted. The fields lay untouched. +There was no ploughing nor sowing, no green things growing. Little +or nothing was to be purchased. One carried one’s own food +with him and food for horses and servants was the anxious problem that +waited at the day’s end. In many a lonely village not an +ounce nor a grain of anything could be bought, and yet there might be +standing around scores of white-garmented, stalwart Koreans, smoking +yard-long pipes and chattering, chattering - ceaselessly chattering. +Love, money, or force could not procure from them a horseshoe or a horseshoe +nail.<br> +<br> +“Upso,” was their invariable reply. “Upso,” +cursed word, which means “Have not got.”<br> +<br> +They had tramped probably forty miles that day, down from their hiding-places, +just for a “look see,” and forty miles back they would cheerfully +tramp, chattering all the way over what they had seen. Shake a +stick at them as they stand chattering about your camp-fire, and the +gloom of the landscape will be filled with tall, flitting ghosts, bounding +like deer, with great springy strides which one cannot but envy. +They have splendid vigour and fine bodies, but they are accustomed to +being beaten and robbed without protest or resistance by every chance +foreigner who enters their country.<br> +<br> +From this nerveless, forsaken Korean land I rode down upon the sandy +islands of the Yalu. For weeks these islands had been the dread +between-the-lines of two fighting armies. The air above had been +rent by screaming projectiles. The echoes of the final battle +had scarcely died away. The trains of Japanese wounded and Japanese +dead were trailing by.<br> +<br> +On the conical hill, a quarter of a mile away, the Russian dead were +being buried in their trenches and in the shell holes made by the Japanese. +And here, in the thick of it all, a man was ploughing. Green things +were growing - young onions - and the man who was weeding them paused +from his labour long enough to sell me a handful. Near by was +the smoke-blackened ruin of the farmhouse, fired by the Russians when +they retreated from the riverbed. Two men were removing the debris, +cleaning the confusion, preparatory to rebuilding. They were clad +in blue. Pigtails hung down their backs. I was in China!<br> +<br> +I rode to the shore, into the village of Kuelian-Ching. There +were no lounging men smoking long pipes and chattering. The previous +day the Russians had been there, a bloody battle had been fought, and +to-day the Japanese were there - but what was that to talk about? +Everybody was busy. Men were offering eggs and chickens and fruit +for sale upon the street, and bread, as I live, bread in small round +loaves or buns. I rode on into the country. Everywhere a +toiling population was in evidence. The houses and walls were +strong and substantial. Stone and brick replaced the mud walls +of the Korean dwellings. Twilight fell and deepened, and still +the ploughs went up and down the fields, the sowers following after. +Trains of wheelbarrows, heavily loaded, squeaked by, and Pekin carts, +drawn by from four to six cows, horses, mules, ponies, or jackasses +- cows even with their newborn calves tottering along on puny legs outside +the traces. Everybody worked. Everything worked. I +saw a man mending the road. I was in China.<br> +<br> +I came to the city of Antung, and lodged with a merchant. He was +a grain merchant. Corn he had, hundreds of bushels, stored in +great bins of stout matting; peas and beans in sacks, and in the back +yard his millstones went round and round, grinding out meal. Also, +in his back yard, were buildings containing vats sunk into the ground, +and here the tanners were at work making leather. I bought a measure +of corn from mine host for my horses, and he overcharged me thirty cents. +I was in China. Antung was jammed with Japanese troops. +It was the thick of war. But it did not matter. The work +of Antung went on just the same. The shops were wide open; the +streets were lined with pedlars. One could buy anything; get anything +made. I dined at a Chinese restaurant, cleansed myself at a public +bath in a private tub with a small boy to assist in the scrubbing. +I bought condensed milk, bitter, canned vegetables, bread, and cake. +I repeat it, cake - good cake. I bought knives, forks, and spoons, +granite-ware dishes and mugs. There were horseshoes and horseshoers. +A worker in iron realized for me new designs of mine for my tent poles. +My shoes were sent out to be repaired. A barber shampooed my hair. +A servant returned with corn-beef in tins, a bottle of port, another +of cognac, and beer, blessed beer, to wash out from my throat the dust +of an army. It was the land of Canaan. I was in China.<br> +<br> +The Korean is the perfect type of inefficiency - of utter worthlessness. +The Chinese is the perfect type of industry. For sheer work no +worker in the world can compare with him. Work is the breath of +his nostrils. It is his solution of existence. It is to +him what wandering and fighting in far lands and spiritual adventure +have been to other peoples. Liberty to him epitomizes itself in +access to the means of toil. To till the soil and labour interminably +with rude implements and utensils is all he asks of life and of the +powers that be. Work is what he desires above all things, and +he will work at anything for anybody.<br> +<br> +During the taking of the Takú forts he carried scaling ladders +at the heads of the storming columns and planted them against the walls. +He did this, not from a sense of patriotism, but for the invading foreign +devils because they paid him a daily wage of fifty cents. He is +not frightened by war. He accepts it as he does rain and sunshine, +the changing of the seasons, and other natural phenomena. He prepares +for it, endures it, and survives it, and when the tide of battle sweeps +by, the thunder of the guns still reverberating in the distant canyons, +he is seen calmly bending to his usual tasks. Nay, war itself +bears fruits whereof he may pick. Before the dead are cold or +the burial squads have arrived he is out on the field, stripping the +mangled bodies, collecting the shrapnel, and ferreting in the shell +holes for slivers and fragments of iron.<br> +<br> +The Chinese is no coward. He does not carry away his doors amid +windows to the mountains, but remains to guard them when alien soldiers +occupy his town. He does not hide away his chickens and his eggs, +nor any other commodity he possesses. He proceeds at once to offer +them for sale. Nor is he to be bullied into lowering his price. +What if the purchaser be a soldier and an alien made cocky by victory +and confident by overwhelming force? He has two large pears saved +over from last year which he will sell for five sen, or for the same +price three small pears. What if one soldier persist in taking +away with him three large pears? What if there be twenty other +soldiers jostling about him? He turns over his sack of fruit to +another Chinese and races down the street after his pears and the soldier +responsible for their flight, and he does not return till he has wrenched +away one large pear from that soldier’s grasp.<br> +<br> +Nor is the Chinese the type of permanence which he has been so often +designated. He is not so ill-disposed toward new ideas and new +methods as his history would seem to indicate. True, his forms, +customs, and methods have been permanent these many centuries, but this +has been due to the fact that his government was in the hands of the +learned classes, and that these governing scholars found their salvation +lay in suppressing all progressive ideas. The ideas behind the +Boxer troubles and the outbreaks over the introduction of railroad and +other foreign devil machinations have emanated from the minds of the +literati, and been spread by their pamphlets and propagandists.<br> +<br> +Originality and enterprise have been suppressed in the Chinese for scores +of generations. Only has remained to him industry, and in this +has he found the supreme expression of his being. On the other +hand, his susceptibility to new ideas has been well demonstrated wherever +he has escaped beyond the restrictions imposed upon him by his government. +So far as the business man is concerned he has grasped far more clearly +the Western code of business, the Western ethics of business, than has +the Japanese. He has learned, as a matter of course, to keep his +word or his bond. As yet, the Japanese business man has failed +to understand this. When he has signed a time contract and when +changing conditions cause him to lose by it, the Japanese merchant cannot +understand why he should live up to his contract. It is beyond +his comprehension and repulsive to his common sense that he should live +up to his contract and thereby lose money. He firmly believes +that the changing conditions themselves absolve him. And in so +far adaptable as he has shown himself to be in other respects, he fails +to grasp a radically new idea where the Chinese succeeds.<br> +<br> +Here we have the Chinese, four hundred millions of him, occupying a +vast land of immense natural resources - resources of a twentieth-century +age, of a machine age; resources of coal and iron, which are the backbone +of commercial civilization. He is an indefatigable worker. +He is not dead to new ideas, new methods, new systems. Under a +capable management he can be made to do anything. Truly would +he of himself constitute the much-heralded Yellow Peril were it not +for his present management. This management, his government, is +set, crystallized. It is what binds him down to building as his +fathers built. The governing class, entrenched by the precedent +and power of centuries and by the stamp it has put upon his mind, will +never free him. It would be the suicide of the governing class, +and the governing class knows it.<br> +<br> +Comes now the Japanese. On the streets of Antung, of Feng-Wang-Chang, +or of any other Manchurian city, the following is a familiar scene: +One is hurrying home through the dark of the unlighted streets when +he comes upon a paper lantern resting on the ground. On one side +squats a Chinese civilian on his hams, on the other side squats a Japanese +soldier. One dips his forefinger in the dust and writes strange, +monstrous characters. The other nods understanding, sweeps the +dust slate level with his hand, and with his forefinger inscribes similar +characters. They are talking. They cannot speak to each +other, but they can write. Long ago one borrowed the other’s +written language, and long before that, untold generations ago, they +diverged from a common root, the ancient Mongol stock.<br> +<br> +There have been changes, differentiations brought about by diverse conditions +and infusions of other blood; but down at the bottom of their being, +twisted into the fibres of them, is a heritage in common - a sameness +in kind which time has not obliterated. The infusion of other +blood, Malay, perhaps, has made the Japanese a race of mastery and power, +a fighting race through all its history, a race which has always despised +commerce and exalted fighting.<br> +<br> +To-day, equipped with the finest machines and systems of destruction +the Caucasian mind has devised, handling machines and systems with remarkable +and deadly accuracy, this rejuvenescent Japanese race has embarked on +a course of conquest the goal of which no man knows. The head +men of Japan are dreaming ambitiously, and the people are dreaming blindly, +a Napoleonic dream. And to this dream the Japanese clings and +will cling with bull-dog tenacity. The soldier shouting “Nippon, +Banzai!” on the walls of Wiju, the widow at home in her paper +house committing suicide so that her only son, her sole support, may +go to the front, are both expressing the unanimity of the dream.<br> +<br> +The late disturbance in the Far East marked the clashing of the dreams, +for the Slav, too, is dreaming greatly. Granting that the Japanese +can hurl back the Slav and that the two great branches of the Anglo-Saxon +race do not despoil him of his spoils, the Japanese dream takes on substantiality. +Japan’s population is no larger because her people have continually +pressed against the means of subsistence. But given poor, empty +Korea for a breeding colony and Manchuria for a granary, and at once +the Japanese begins to increase by leaps and bounds.<br> +<br> +Even so, he would not of himself constitute a Brown Peril. He +has not the time in which to grow and realize the dream. He is +only forty-five millions, and so fast does the economic exploitation +of the planet hurry on the planet’s partition amongst the Western +peoples that, before he could attain the stature requisite to menace, +he would see the Western giants in possession of the very stuff of his +dream.<br> +<br> +The menace to the Western world lies, not in the little brown man, but +in the four hundred millions of yellow men should the little brown man +undertake their management. The Chinese is not dead to new ideas; +he is an efficient worker; makes a good soldier, and is wealthy in the +essential materials of a machine age. Under a capable management +he will go far. The Japanese is prepared and fit to undertake +this management. Not only has he proved himself an apt imitator +of Western material progress, a sturdy worker, and a capable organizer, +but he is far more fit to manage the Chinese than are we. The +baffling enigma of the Chinese character is no baffling enigma to him. +He understands as we could never school ourselves nor hope to understand. +Their mental processes are largely the same. He thinks with the +same thought-symbols as does the Chinese, and he thinks in the same +peculiar grooves. He goes on where we are balked by the obstacles +of incomprehension. He takes the turning which we cannot perceive, +twists around the obstacle, and, presto! is out of sight in the ramifications +of the Chinese mind where we cannot follow.<br> +<br> +The Chinese has been called the type of permanence, and well he has +merited it, dozing as he has through the ages. And as truly was +the Japanese the type of permanence up to a generation ago, when he +suddenly awoke and startled the world with a rejuvenescence the like +of which the world had never seen before. The ideas of the West +were the leaven which quickened the Japanese; and the ideas of the West, +transmitted by the Japanese mind into ideas Japanese, may well make +the leaven powerful enough to quicken the Chinese.<br> +<br> +We have had Africa for the Afrikander, and at no distant day we shall +hear “Asia for the Asiatic!” Four hundred million +indefatigable workers (deft, intelligent, and unafraid to die), aroused +and rejuvenescent, managed and guided by forty-five million additional +human beings who are splendid fighting animals, scientific and modern, +constitute that menace to the Western world which has been well named +the “Yellow Peril.” The possibility of race adventure +has not passed away. We are in the midst of our own. The +Slav is just girding himself up to begin. Why may not the yellow +and the brown start out on an adventure as tremendous as our own and +more strikingly unique?<br> +<br> +The ultimate success of such an adventure the Western mind refuses to +consider. It is not the nature of life to believe itself weak. +There is such a thing as race egotism as well as creature egotism, and +a very good thing it is. In the first place, the Western world +will not permit the rise of the yellow peril. It is firmly convinced +that it will not permit the yellow and the brown to wax strong and menace +its peace and comfort. It advances this idea with persistency, +and delivers itself of long arguments showing how and why this menace +will not be permitted to arise. Today, far more voices are engaged +in denying the yellow peril than in prophesying it. The Western +world is warned, if not armed, against the possibility of it.<br> +<br> +In the second place, there is a weakness inherent in the brown man which +will bring his adventure to naught. From the West he has borrowed +all our material achievement and passed our ethical achievement by. +Our engines of production and destruction he has made his. What +was once solely ours he now duplicates, rivalling our merchants in the +commerce of the East, thrashing the Russian on sea and land. A +marvellous imitator truly, but imitating us only in things material. +Things spiritual cannot be imitated; they must be felt and lived, woven +into the very fabric of life, and here the Japanese fails.<br> +<br> +It required no revolution of his nature to learn to calculate the range +and fire a field gun or to march the goose-step. It was a mere +matter of training. Our material achievement is the product of +our intellect. It is knowledge, and knowledge, like coin, is interchangeable. +It is not wrapped up in the heredity of the new-born child, but is something +to be acquired afterward. Not so with our soul stuff, which is +the product of an evolution which goes back to the raw beginnings of +the race. Our soul stuff is not a coin to be pocketed by the first +chance comer. The Japanese cannot pocket it any more than he can +thrill to short Saxon words or we can thrill to Chinese hieroglyphics. +The leopard cannot change its spots, nor can the Japanese, nor can we. +We are thumbed by the ages into what we are, and by no conscious inward +effort can we in a day rethumb ourselves. Nor can the Japanese +in a day, or a generation, rethumb himself in our image.<br> +<br> +Back of our own great race adventure, back of our robberies by sea and +land, our lusts and violences and all the evil things we have done, +there is a certain integrity, a sternness of conscience, a melancholy +responsibility of life, a sympathy and comradeship and warm human feel, +which is ours, indubitably ours, and which we cannot teach to the Oriental +as we would teach logarithms or the trajectory of projectiles. +That we have groped for the way of right conduct and agonized over the +soul betokens our spiritual endowment. Though we have strayed +often and far from righteousness, the voices of the seers have always +been raised, and we have harked back to the bidding of conscience. +The colossal fact of our history is that we have made the religion of +Jesus Christ our religion. No matter how dark in error and deed, +ours has been a history of spiritual struggle and endeavour. We +are pre-eminently a religious race, which is another way of saying that +we are a right-seeking race.<br> +<br> +“What do you think of the Japanese?” was asked an American +woman after she had lived some time in Japan. “It seems +to me that they have no soul,” was her answer.<br> +<br> +This must not be taken to mean that the Japanese is without soul. +But it serves to illustrate the enormous difference between their souls +and this woman’s soul. There was no feel, no speech, no +recognition. This Western soul did not dream that the Eastern +soul existed, it was so different, so totally different.<br> +<br> +Religion, as a battle for the right in our sense of right, as a yearning +and a strife for spiritual good and purity, is unknown to the Japanese.<br> +<br> +Measured by what religion means to us, the Japanese is a race without +religion. Yet it has a religion, and who shall say that it is +not as great a religion as ours, nor as efficacious? As one Japanese +has written:<br> +<br> +“Our reflection brought into prominence not so much the moral +as the national consciousness of the individual. . . . To us the country +is more than land and soil from which to mine gold or reap grain - it +is the sacred abode of the gods, the spirit of our forefathers; to us +the Emperor is more than the Arch Constable of a Reichsstaat, or even +the Patron of a Kulturstaat; he is the bodily representative of heaven +on earth, blending in his person its power and its mercy.”<br> +<br> +The religion of Japan is practically a worship of the State itself. +Patriotism is the expression of this worship. The Japanese mind +does not split hairs as to whether the Emperor is Heaven incarnate or +the State incarnate. So far as the Japanese are concerned, the +Emperor lives, is himself deity. The Emperor is the object to +live for and to die for. The Japanese is not an individualist. +He has developed national consciousness instead of moral consciousness. +He is not interested in his own moral welfare except in so far as it +is the welfare of the State. The honour of the individual, <i>per +se, </i>does not exist. Only exists the honour of the State, which +is his honour. He does not look upon himself as a free agent, +working out his own personal salvation. Spiritual agonizing is +unknown to him. He has a “sense of calm trust in fate, a +quiet submission to the inevitable, a stoic composure in sight of danger +or calamity, a disdain of life and friendliness with death.” +He relates himself to the State as, amongst bees, the worker is related +to the hive; himself nothing, the State everything; his reasons for +existence the exaltation and glorification of the State.<br> +<br> +The most admired quality to-day of the Japanese is his patriotism. +The Western world is in rhapsodies over it, unwittingly measuring the +Japanese patriotism by its own conceptions of patriotism. “For +God, my country, and the Czar!” cries the Russian patriot; but +in the Japanese mind there is no differentiation between the three. +The Emperor is the Emperor, and God and country as well. The patriotism +of the Japanese is blind and unswerving loyalty to what is practically +an absolutism. The Emperor can do no wrong, nor can the five ambitious +great men who have his ear and control the destiny of Japan.<br> +<br> +No great race adventure can go far nor endure long which has no deeper +foundation than material success, no higher prompting than conquest +for conquest’s sake and mere race glorification. To go far +and to endure, it must have behind it an ethical impulse, a sincerely +conceived righteousness. But it must be taken into consideration +that the above postulate is itself a product of Western race-egotism, +urged by our belief in our own righteousness and fostered by a faith +in ourselves which may be as erroneous as are most fond race fancies. +So be it. The world is whirling faster to-day than ever before. +It has gained impetus. Affairs rush to conclusion. The Far +East is the point of contact of the adventuring Western people as well +as of the Asiatic. We shall not have to wait for our children’s +time nor our children’s children. We shall ourselves see +and largely determine the adventure of the Yellow and the Brown.<br> +<br> +FENG-WANG-CHENG, MANCHURIA.<br> +<i>June </i>1904,<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +WHAT LIFE MEANS TO ME<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +I was born in the working-class. Early I discovered enthusiasm, +ambition, and ideals; and to satisfy these became the problem of my +child-life. My environment was crude and rough and raw. +I had no outlook, but an uplook rather. My place in society was +at the bottom. Here life offered nothing but sordidness and wretchedness, +both of the flesh and the spirit; for here flesh and spirit were alike +starved and tormented.<br> +<br> +Above me towered the colossal edifice of society, and to my mind the +only way out was up. Into this edifice I early resolved to climb. +Up above, men wore black clothes and boiled shirts, and women dressed +in beautiful gowns. Also, there were good things to eat, and there +was plenty to eat. This much for the flesh. Then there were +the things of the spirit. Up above me, I knew, were unselfishnesses +of the spirit, clean and noble thinking, keen intellectual living. +I knew all this because I read “Seaside Library” novels, +in which, with the exception of the villains and adventuresses, all +men and women thought beautiful thoughts, spoke a beautiful tongue, +and performed glorious deeds. In short, as I accepted the rising +of the sun, I accepted that up above me was all that was fine and noble +and gracious, all that gave decency and dignity to life, all that made +life worth living and that remunerated one for his travail and misery.<br> +<br> +But it is not particularly easy for one to climb up out of the working-class +- especially if he is handicapped by the possession of ideals and illusions. +I lived on a ranch in California, and was hard put to find the ladder +whereby to climb. I early inquired the rate of interest on invested +money, and worried my child’s brain into an understanding of the +virtues and excellences of that remarkable invention of man, compound +interest. Further, I ascertained the current rates of wages for +workers of all ages, and the cost of living. From all this data +I concluded that if I began immediately and worked and saved until I +was fifty years of age, I could then stop working and enter into participation +in a fair portion of the delights and goodnesses that would then be +open to me higher up in society. Of course, I resolutely determined +not to marry, while I quite forgot to consider at all that great rock +of disaster in the working-class world - sickness.<br> +<br> +But the life that was in me demanded more than a meagre existence of +scraping and scrimping. Also, at ten years of age, I became a +newsboy on the streets of a city, and found myself with a changed uplook. +All about me were still the same sordidness and wretchedness, and up +above me was still the same paradise waiting to be gained; but the ladder +whereby to climb was a different one. It was now the ladder of +business. Why save my earnings and invest in government bonds, +when, by buying two newspapers for five cents, with a turn of the wrist +I could sell them for ten cents and double my capital? The business +ladder was the ladder for me, and I had a vision of myself becoming +a bald-headed and successful merchant prince.<br> +<br> +Alas for visions! When I was sixteen I had already earned the +title of “prince.” But this title was given me by +a gang of cut-throats and thieves, by whom I was called “The Prince +of the Oyster Pirates.” And at that time I had climbed the +first rung of the business ladder. I was a capitalist. I +owned a boat and a complete oyster-pirating outfit. I had begun +to exploit my fellow-creatures. I had a crew of one man. +As captain and owner I took two-thirds of the spoils, and gave the crew +one-third, though the crew worked just as hard as I did and risked just +as much his life and liberty.<br> +<br> +This one rung was the height I climbed up the business ladder. +One night I went on a raid amongst the Chinese fishermen. Ropes +and nets were worth dollars and cents. It was robbery, I grant, +but it was precisely the spirit of capitalism. The capitalist +takes away the possessions of his fellow-creatures by means of a rebate, +or of a betrayal of trust, or by the purchase of senators and supreme-court +judges. I was merely crude. That was the only difference. +I used a gun.<br> +<br> +But my crew that night was one of those inefficients against whom the +capitalist is wont to fulminate, because, forsooth, such inefficients +increase expenses and reduce dividends. My crew did both. +What of his carelessness he set fire to the big mainsail and totally +destroyed it. There weren’t any dividends that night, and +the Chinese fishermen were richer by the nets and ropes we did not get. +I was bankrupt, unable just then to pay sixty-five dollars for a new +mainsail. I left my boat at anchor and went off on a bay-pirate +boat on a raid up the Sacramento River. While away on this trip, +another gang of bay pirates raided my boat. They stole everything, +even the anchors; and later on, when I recovered the drifting hulk, +I sold it for twenty dollars. I had slipped back the one rung +I had climbed, and never again did I attempt the business ladder.<br> +<br> +From then on I was mercilessly exploited by other capitalists. +I had the muscle, and they made money out of it while I made but a very +indifferent living out of it. I was a sailor before the mast, +a longshoreman, a roustabout; I worked in canneries, and factories, +and laundries; I mowed lawns, and cleaned carpets, and washed windows. +And I never got the full product of my toil. I looked at the daughter +of the cannery owner, in her carriage, and knew that it was my muscle, +in part, that helped drag along that carriage on its rubber tyres. +I looked at the son of the factory owner, going to college, and knew +that it was my muscle that helped, in part, to pay for the wine and +good fellowship he enjoyed.<br> +<br> +But I did not resent this. It was all in the game. They +were the strong. Very well, I was strong. I would carve +my way to a place amongst them and make money out of the muscles of +other men. I was not afraid of work. I loved hard work. +I would pitch in and work harder than ever and eventually become a pillar +of society.<br> +<br> +And just then, as luck would have it, I found an employer that was of +the same mind. I was willing to work, and he was more than willing +that I should work. I thought I was learning a trade. In +reality, I had displaced two men. I thought he was making an electrician +out of me; as a matter of fact, he was making fifty dollars per month +out of me. The two men I had displaced had received forty dollars +each per month; I was doing the work of both for thirty dollars per +month.<br> +<br> +This employer worked me nearly to death. A man may love oysters, +but too many oysters will disincline him toward that particular diet. +And so with me. Too much work sickened me. I did not wish +ever to see work again. I fled from work. I became a tramp, +begging my way from door to door, wandering over the United States and +sweating bloody sweats in slums and prisons.<br> +<br> +I had been born in the working-class, and I was now, at the age of eighteen, +beneath the point at which I had started. I was down in the cellar +of society, down in the subterranean depths of misery about which it +is neither nice nor proper to speak. I was in the pit, the abyss, +the human cesspool, the shambles and the charnel-house of our civilization. +This is the part of the edifice of society that society chooses to ignore. +Lack of space compels me here to ignore it, and I shall say only that +the things I there saw gave me a terrible scare.<br> +<br> +I was scared into thinking. I saw the naked simplicities of the +complicated civilization in which I lived. Life was a matter of +food and shelter. In order to get food and shelter men sold things. +The merchant sold shoes, the politician sold his manhood, and the representative +of the people, with exceptions, of course, sold his trust; while nearly +all sold their honour. Women, too, whether on the street or in +the holy bond of wedlock, were prone to sell their flesh. All +things were commodities, all people bought and sold. The one commodity +that labour had to sell was muscle. The honour of labour had no +price in the marketplace. Labour had muscle, and muscle alone, +to sell.<br> +<br> +But there was a difference, a vital difference. Shoes and trust +and honour had a way of renewing themselves. They were imperishable +stocks. Muscle, on the other hand, did not renew. As the +shoe merchant sold shoes, he continued to replenish his stock. +But there was no way of replenishing the labourer’s stock of muscle. +The more he sold of his muscle, the less of it remained to him. +It was his one commodity, and each day his stock of it diminished. +In the end, if he did not die before, he sold out and put up his shutters. +He was a muscle bankrupt, and nothing remained to him but to go down +into the cellar of society and perish miserably.<br> +<br> +I learned, further, that brain was likewise a commodity. It, too, +was different from muscle. A brain seller was only at his prime +when he was fifty or sixty years old, and his wares were fetching higher +prices than ever. But a labourer was worked out or broken down +at forty-five or fifty. I had been in the cellar of society, and +I did not like the place as a habitation. The pipes and drains +were unsanitary, and the air was bad to breathe. If I could not +live on the parlour floor of society, I could, at any rate, have a try +at the attic. It was true, the diet there was slim, but the air +at least was pure. So I resolved to sell no more muscle, and to +become a vendor of brains.<br> +<br> +Then began a frantic pursuit of knowledge. I returned to California +and opened the books. While thus equipping myself to become a +brain merchant, it was inevitable that I should delve into sociology. +There I found, in a certain class of books, scientifically formulated, +the simple sociological concepts I had already worked out for myself. +Other and greater minds, before I was born, had worked out all that +I had thought and a vast deal more. I discovered that I was a +socialist.<br> +<br> +The socialists were revolutionists, inasmuch as they struggled to overthrow +the society of the present, and out of the material to build the society +of the future. I, too, was a socialist and a revolutionist. +I joined the groups of working-class and intellectual revolutionists, +and for the first time came into intellectual living. Here I found +keen-flashing intellects and brilliant wits; for here I met strong and +alert-brained, withal horny-handed, members of the working-class; unfrocked +preachers too wide in their Christianity for any congregation of Mammon-worshippers; +professors broken on the wheel of university subservience to the ruling +class and flung out because they were quick with knowledge which they +strove to apply to the affairs of mankind.<br> +<br> +Here I found, also, warm faith in the human, glowing idealism, sweetnesses +of unselfishness, renunciation, and martyrdom - all the splendid, stinging +things of the spirit. Here life was clean, noble, and alive. +Here life rehabilitated itself, became wonderful and glorious; and I +was glad to be alive. I was in touch with great souls who exalted +flesh and spirit over dollars and cents, and to whom the thin wail of +the starved slum child meant more than all the pomp and circumstance +of commercial expansion and world empire. All about me were nobleness +of purpose and heroism of effort, and my days and nights were sunshine +and starshine, all fire and dew, with before my eyes, ever burning and +blazing, the Holy Grail, Christ’s own Grail, the warm human, long-suffering +and maltreated, but to be rescued and saved at the last.<br> +<br> +And I, poor foolish I, deemed all this to be a mere foretaste of the +delights of living I should find higher above me in society. I +had lost many illusions since the day I read “Seaside Library” +novels on the California ranch. I was destined to lose many of +the illusions I still retained.<br> +<br> +As a brain merchant I was a success. Society opened its portals +to me. I entered right in on the parlour floor, and my disillusionment +proceeded rapidly. I sat down to dinner with the masters of society, +and with the wives and daughters of the masters of society. The +women were gowned beautifully, I admit; but to my naïve surprise +I discovered that they were of the same clay as all the rest of the +women I had known down below in the cellar. “The colonel’s +lady and Judy O’Grady were sisters under their skins” - +and gowns.<br> +<br> +It was not this, however, so much as their materialism, that shocked +me. It is true, these beautifully gowned, beautiful women prattled +sweet little ideals and dear little moralities; but in spite of their +prattle the dominant key of the life they lived was materialistic. +And they were so sentimentally selfish! They assisted in all kinds +of sweet little charities, and informed one of the fact, while all the +time the food they ate and the beautiful clothes they wore were bought +out of dividends stained with the blood of child labour, and sweated +labour, and of prostitution itself. When I mentioned such facts, +expecting in my innocence that these sisters of Judy O’Grady would +at once strip off their blood-dyed silks and jewels, they became excited +and angry, and read me preachments about the lack of thrift, the drink, +and the innate depravity that caused all the misery in society’s +cellar. When I mentioned that I couldn’t quite see that +it was the lack of thrift, the intemperance, and the depravity of a +half-starved child of six that made it work twelve hours every night +in a Southern cotton mill, these sisters of Judy O’Grady attacked +my private life and called me an “agitator” - as though +that, forsooth, settled the argument.<br> +<br> +Nor did I fare better with the masters themselves. I had expected +to find men who were clean, noble, and alive, whose ideals were clean, +noble, and alive. I went about amongst the men who sat in the +high places - the preachers, the politicians, the business men, the +professors, and the editors. I ate meat with them, drank wine +with them, automobiled with them, and studied them. It is true, +I found many that were clean and noble; but with rare exceptions, they +were not <i>alive</i>. I do verily believe I could count the exceptions +on the fingers of my two hands. Where they were not alive with +rottenness, quick with unclean life, there were merely the unburied +dead - clean and noble, like well-preserved mummies, but not alive. +In this connection I may especially mention the professors I met, the +men who live up to that decadent university ideal, “the passionless +pursuit of passionless intelligence.”<br> +<br> +I met men who invoked the name of the Prince of Peace in their diatribes +against war, and who put rifles in the hands of Pinkertons with which +to shoot down strikers in their own factories. I met men incoherent +with indignation at the brutality of prize-fighting, and who, at the +same time, were parties to the adulteration of food that killed each +year more babies than even red-handed Herod had killed.<br> +<br> +I talked in hotels and clubs and homes and Pullmans, and steamer-chairs +with captains of industry, and marvelled at how little travelled they +were in the realm of intellect. On the other hand, I discovered +that their intellect, in the business sense, was abnormally developed. +Also, I discovered that their morality, where business was concerned, +was nil.<br> +<br> +This delicate, aristocratic-featured gentleman, was a dummy director +and a tool of corporations that secretly robbed widows and orphans. +This gentleman, who collected fine editions and was an especial patron +of literature, paid blackmail to a heavy-jowled, black-browed boss of +a municipal machine. This editor, who published patent medicine +advertisements and did not dare print the truth in his paper about said +patent medicines for fear of losing the advertising, called me a scoundrelly +demagogue because I told him that his political economy was antiquated +and that his biology was contemporaneous with Pliny.<br> +<br> +This senator was the tool and the slave, the little puppet of a gross, +uneducated machine boss; so was this governor and this supreme court +judge; and all three rode on railroad passes. This man, talking +soberly and earnestly about the beauties of idealism and the goodness +of God, had just betrayed his comrades in a business deal. This +man, a pillar of the church and heavy contributor to foreign missions, +worked his shop girls ten hours a day on a starvation wage and thereby +directly encouraged prostitution. This man, who endowed chairs +in universities, perjured himself in courts of law over a matter of +dollars and cents. And this railroad magnate broke his word as +a gentleman and a Christian when he granted a secret rebate to one of +two captains of industry locked together in a struggle to the death.<br> +<br> +It was the same everywhere, crime and betrayal, betrayal and crime - +men who were alive, but who were neither clean nor noble, men who were +clean and noble, but who were not alive. Then there was a great, +hopeless mass, neither noble nor alive, but merely clean. It did +not sin positively nor deliberately; but it did sin passively and ignorantly +by acquiescing in the current immorality and profiting by it. +Had it been noble and alive it would not have been ignorant, and it +would have refused to share in the profits of betrayal and crime.<br> +<br> +I discovered that I did not like to live on the parlour floor of society. +Intellectually I was as bored. Morally and spiritually I was sickened. +I remembered my intellectuals and idealists, my unfrocked preachers, +broken professors, and clean-minded, class-conscious working-men. +I remembered my days and nights of sunshine and starshine, where life +was all a wild sweet wonder, a spiritual paradise of unselfish adventure +and ethical romance. And I saw before me, ever blazing and burning, +the Holy Grail.<br> +<br> +So I went back to the working-class, in which I had been born and where +I belonged. I care no longer to climb. The imposing edifice +of society above my head holds no delights for me. It is the foundation +of the edifice that interests me. There I am content to labour, +crowbar in hand, shoulder to shoulder with intellectuals, idealists, +and class-conscious working-men, getting a solid pry now and again and +setting the whole edifice rocking. Some day, when we get a few +more hands and crowbars to work, we’ll topple it over, along with +all its rotten life and unburied dead, its monstrous selfishness and +sodden materialism. Then we’ll cleanse the cellar and build +a new habitation for mankind, in which there will be no parlour floor, +in which all the rooms will be bright and airy, and where the air that +is breathed will be clean, noble, and alive.<br> +<br> +Such is my outlook. I look forward to a time when man shall progress +upon something worthier and higher than his stomach, when there will +be a finer incentive to impel men to action than the incentive of to-day, +which is the incentive of the stomach. I retain my belief in the +nobility and excellence of the human. I believe that spiritual +sweetness and unselfishness will conquer the gross gluttony of to-day. +And last of all, my faith is in the working-class. As some Frenchman +has said, “The stairway of time is ever echoing with the wooden +shoe going up, the polished boot descending.”<br> +<br> +NEWTON, IOWA.<br> +November 1905.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, REVOLUTION AND OTHER ESSAYS ***<br> +<pre> + +******This file should be named rvlt10h.htm or rvlt10h.zip****** +Corrected EDITIONS of our ebooks get a new NUMBER, rvlt11h.htm +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, rvlt10ah.htm + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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