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diff --git a/6678-h/6678-h.htm b/6678-h/6678-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..25a43c1 --- /dev/null +++ b/6678-h/6678-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,5308 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?> + +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" > + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en"> + <head> + <title> + Nonsenseorship, by G. G. Putnam and Others + </title> + <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> + + body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify} + P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; } + hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;} + .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; } + blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;} + .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;} + .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;} + div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; } + div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; } + .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;} + .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;} + .pagenum {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal; + margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%; + text-align: right;} + .side { float: right; font-size: 75%; width: 25%; padding-left: 0.8em; + border-left: dashed thin; margin-left: 0.8em; text-align: left; + text-indent: 0; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; + font-weight: bold; color: black; background: #eeeeee; border: solid 1px;} + pre { font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 100%; margin-left: 10%;} + +</style> + </head> + <body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Nonsenseorship, by G. G. Putnam and Others + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Nonsenseorship + +Author: G. G. Putnam and Others + +Editor: G. G. Putnam + + +Release Date: October, 2004 [EBook #6678] +This file was first posted on January 12, 2003 +Last Updated: July 2, 2013 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NONSENSEORSHIP *** + + + + +Text file produced by Steve Schulze, Charles Franks and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team. This file was produced from +images generously made available by the CWRU Preservation +Department Digital Library + +HTML file produced by David Widger + + + + +</pre> + + <div style="height: 8em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h1> + NONSENSEORSHIP + </h1> + <h3> + SUNDRY OBSERVATIONS CONCERNING PROHIBITIONS INHIBITIONS AND ILLEGALITIES + </h3> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <h2> + By G. G. Putnam and Others + </h2> + <p> + <b>CONTRIBUTORS:</b> + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + HEYWOOD BROWN + GEORGE S. CHAPPELL + RUTH HALE + BEN HECHT + WALLACE IRWIN + ROBERT KEABLE + HELEN BULLITT LOWRY + FREDERICK O'BRIEN + DOROTHY PARKER + FRANK SWINNERTON + H. M. TOMLINSON + CHARLES HANSON TOWNE + JOHN V. A. WEAVER + ALEXANDER WOOLLCOTT + and the AUTHOR of "THE MIRRORS of WASHINGTON" + Edited by G. P. P. +</pre> + <h4> + Illustrated By Ralph Barton<br /> (Illustrations not available in this + edition) + </h4> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + WE HAVE WITH US TODAY + </h2> + <p> + At current bootliquor quotations, Haig & Haig costs twelve dollars a + quart, while any dependable booklegger can unearth a copy of "Jurgen" for + about fifteen dollars. Which indicates, at least, an economic application + of Nonsenseorship. + </p> + <p> + Its literary, social, and ethical reactions are rather more involved. To + define them somewhat we invited a group of not-too-serious thinkers to set + down their views regarding nonsenseorships in general and any pet + prohibitions in particular. + </p> + <p> + In introducing those whose gems of protest are to be found in the setting + of this volume, it is but sportsmanlike to state at the start that + admission was offered to none of notable puritanical proclivity. The + prohibitionists and censors are not represented. They require, in a + levititious literary escapade like this, no spokesman. Their viewpoint + already is amply set forth. Moreover, likely they would not be amusing.... + Also, the exponents of Nonsenseorship are victorious; and at least the + agonized cries of the vanquished, their cynical comment or outraged + protest, should be given opportunity for expression! + </p> + <p> + Not that we consider HEYWOOD BROUN agonized, cynical, or outraged. Indeed, + masquerading as a stalwart foe of inhibitions, he starts right out, at the + very head of the parade, with a vehement advocacy of prohibition. His plea + (surely, in this setting, traitorous) is to prohibit liquor to all who are + over thirty years of age! He declares that "rum was designed for youthful + days and is the animating influence which made oats wild." After thirty, + presumably, Quaker Oats.... + </p> + <p> + And at that we have quite brushed by GEORGE S. CHAPPELL. who serves a + tasty appetizer at the very threshold, a bubbling cocktail of verse + defining the authentic story of censorious gloom. + </p> + <p> + Censorship seems a species of spiritual flagellation to BEN HECHT, who, as + he says, "ten years ago prided himself upon being as indigestible a type + of the incoherent young as the land afforded." And nonsenseorship in + general he regards as a war-born Frankenstein, a frenzied virtue grown + hugely luminous; "a snowball rolling uphill toward God and gathering + furious dimensions, it has escaped the shrewd janitors of orthodoxy who + from age to age were able to keep it within bounds." + </p> + <p> + Then RUTH HALE, who visualizes glowing opportunities for feminine + achievement in the functionings of inhibited society. "If the world + outside the home is to become as circumscribed and paternalized as the + world inside it, obviously all the advantage lies with those who have been + living under nonsenseorship long enough to have learned to manage it." + </p> + <p> + WALLACE IRWIN is irrepressibly jocose (perhaps because he sailed for + unprohibited England the day his manuscript was delivered), breaking into + quite undisciplined verse anent the rosiness of life since the red light + laws went blue. + </p> + <p> + "I am not sure, as I write, that this article ever will be printed," says + ROBERT KEABLE, the English author of "Simon Called Peter." (It is). Mr. + Keable, a minister from Africa, wrote of the war as he saw it in France, + and in a way which offended people with mental blinders. He declares that + the war quite completely knocked humbug on the head and bashed shams + irreparably. "Rebels," says he, meaning those who speak their mind and + write of things as they see them, "must be drowned in a babble of words." + </p> + <p> + And then HELEN BULLITT LOWRY, the exponent of the cocktailored young lady + of today, averring that to the pocket-flask, that milepost between the + time that was and the time that is, we owe the single standard of + drinking. She maintains that the debutantalizing flapper, now driven right + out in the open by the reformers, is the real salvation of our + mid-victrolian society. + </p> + <p> + No palpitating defense of censorship would be expected from FREDERICK + O'BRIEN of the South Seas, who contributes (and deliciously defines) a + precious new word to the vocabulary of Nonsenseorship, "Wowzer." The + nature of a wowzer is hinted in a ditty sung by certain uninhibited + individuals as they lolled and imbibed among the mystic atolls and white + shadows: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "Whack the cymbal! Bang the drum! + Votaries of Bacchus! + Let the popping corks resound, + Pass the flowing goblet round! + May no mournful voice be found, + Though wowzers do attack us!" +</pre> + <p> + DOROTHY PARKER gives vent to a poignant Hymn of Hate, anent reformers, who + "think everything but the Passion Play was written by Avery Hopwood," and + whose dominant desire is to purge the sin from Cinema even though they die + in the effort. "I hope to God they do," adds the author devoutly. + </p> + <p> + From England, through the eyes of FRANK SWINNERTON, we glimpse ourselves + as others see us, and rather pathetically. In days gone by, lured by + reports of America's lawless free-and-easiness, Swinnerton says he craved + to visit us. But no more. The wish is dead. We have become hopelessly + moral and uninviting. "I see that I shall after all have to live quietly + in England with my pipe and my abstemious bottle of beer. And yet I should + like to visit America, for it has suddenly become in my imagining an + enormous country of 'Don't!' and I want to know what it is like to have + 'Don't' said by somebody who is not a woman." + </p> + <p> + Also is raised the British voice of H. M. TOMLINSON, singed with satire. + He writes as from a palely pure tomorrow when mankind shall have reached + such a state of complete uniformity of soul, mind and body, that "only a + particular inquiry will determine a man from a woman, though it may fail + to determine a fool from a man." Tomlinson's imagined nation of the future + is "as loyal and homogeneous, as contented, as stable, as a reef of + actinozoal plasm." And over each hearth hangs the sacred Symbol—a + portrait of a sheep. + </p> + <p> + Next is the usually jovial face of CHARLES HANSON TOWNE (that face which + has launched a thousand quips) now all stern in his unbattled struggle + with Prohibition, dourly surveying this "land of the spree and home of the + grave."... "My children," says Towne, "as they sip their light wine and + beer..." He is, at least, an optimist! But then, we are reminded he is + also a bachelor. + </p> + <p> + In his own American language JOHN WEAVER pictures the feelings of an + old-time saloon habitué when his former friend the barkeep, now rich from + bootlegging, with a home "on the Drive" and all that, declares his + socially-climbing daughter quite too good for this particular "Old Soak's" + son. Weaver's retrospect of "Bill's Place" will bring damp eyes to the + unregenerate: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "So neat! And over at the free-lunch counter, + Charlie the coon with a apron white like chalk, + Dishin' out hot-dogs, and them Boston Beans, + And Sad'dy night a great big hot roast ham, + Or roast beef simply yellin' to be et, + And washed down with a seidel of Old Schlitz!" +</pre> + <p> + "The Puritans disliked the theatre because it was jolly. It was a place + where people went in deliberate quest of enjoyment." So says ALEXANDER + WOOLLCOTT, who emerges as a sort of economic champion of stage morality, + though no friend at all of censorship. Despite the <i>mot</i> "nothing + risqué nothing gained," Woollcott emphatically declares the bed-ridden + play is not, as a general thing, successful. "A blush is not, of course, a + bad sign in the box-office," says he, developing his theme, "but the + chuckle of recognition is better. So is the glow of sentiment, so is the + tear of sympathy. The smutty and the scandalous are less valuable than + homely humor, melodramatic excitement or pretty sentiment." + </p> + <p> + And last in this variegated and alphabeted company the anonymous AUTHOR OF + "THE MIRRORS OF WASHINGTON" who views the applications of nonsenseorship + from the standpoint of national politics. + </p> + <h3> + G. P. P. + </h3> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + <b>CONTENTS</b> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> WE HAVE WITH US TODAY </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_TOC"> ORIGINAL CONTENTS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_ILL"> ILLUSTRATIONS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> NONSENSEORSHIP </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> EVOLUTION </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> NONSENSEORSHIP </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> LITERATURE AND THE BASTINADO </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0006"> THE WOMAN'S PLACE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0007"> OWED TO VOLSTEAD </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0008"> THE CENSORSHIP OF THOUGHT </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0009"> THE UNINHIBITED FLAPPER </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0010"> THE WOWZER IN THE SOUTH SEAS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0011"> REFORMERS: A HYMN OF HATE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0012"> PROHIBITION </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0013"> A GUESS AT UNWRITTEN HISTORY </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0014"> IN VINO DEMI-TASSE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0015"> BOOTLEG </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0016"> AND THE PLAYWRIGHT </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0017"> THE ORACLE THAT ALWAYS SAYS "NO" </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_TOC" id="link2H_TOC"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <div class="middle"> + <p> + <b>ORIGINAL CONTENTS</b> + </p> + We Have With Us Today. G. P. P. <br /> Evolution-Another of Those Outlines. + GEORGE S. CHAPPELL <br /> Nonsenseorship. HEYWOOD BROUN <br /> Literature + and the Bastinado. BEN HECHT <br /> The Woman's Place. RUTH HALE <br /> Owed + to Volstead. WALLACE IRWIN <br /> The Censorship of Thought. ROBERT KEABLE + <br /> The Uninhibited Flapper. HELEN BULLITT LOWRY <br /> The Wowzer in the + South Seas. FREDERICK O'BRIEN <br /> Reformers: A Hymn of Hate. DOROTHY + PARKER <br /> Prohibition. FRANK SWINNERTON <br /> A Guess at Unwritten + History. H. M. TOMLINSON <br /> In Vino Demi-Tasse. CHARLES HANSON TOWNE + <br /> Bootleg. JOHN V. A. WEAVER <br /> And the Playwright. ALEXANDER + WOOLLCOTT <br /> The Oracle That Always Says "No". THE AUTHOR OF "THE + MIRRORS OF WASHINGTON" <br /> + </div> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_ILL" id="link2H_ILL"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <p> + ILLUSTRATIONS + </p> + <p> + <br /> <br />George S. Chappell demonstrating his Outline of Censorship. + <br /> <br />Heywood Broun finds America suffering from a dearth of Folly. + <br /> <br />Ben Hecht chopping away at the ever-forgiving and all-condoning + Bugaboo <br />of Puritanism. <br /> <br />Ruth Hale as a XXth Century woman + guarding the Home Brew. <br /> <br />Wallace Irwin composing under the + influence of synthetic gin and Andrew <br />Volstead. <br /> <br />Robert + Keable urging the Automaton called Citizen to turn on his <br />oppressor. + <br /> <br />Helen Bullitt Lowry watching Puritanism set the Flapper free. + <br /> <br />Frederick O'Brien finds the South Seas purified and beautified + by the <br />Missionaries. <br /> <br />Dorothy Parker hating Reformers. + <br /> <br />Frank Swinnerton contemplating, from the Tight Little Isle, the + two <br />classes of prigs developed by Prohibition; those who accept it + and those <br />who rebel. <br /> <br />H. M. Tomlinson regarding, with not + too great enthusiasm, the Perfect <br />State of the Future. <br /> <br />Charles + Hanson Towne and the Law. <br /> <br />John V. A. Weaver noticing the + bartender who has been thrown out of work <br />by Prohibition. <br /> <br />Alexander + Woollcott rescuing the Playwright from the awful shears of the <br />Censor. + <br /> <br />The Periscope of the Author of the Mirrors of Washington is + turned <br />toward the Great Negative Oracle. <br /> <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h1> + NONSENSEORSHIP + </h1> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + EVOLUTION + </h2> + <h3> + <i>Another of Those Outlines</i> + </h3> + <p> + [Illustration: George S. Chappell demonstrating his Outline of + Censorship.] + </p> + <h3> + BY GEORGE S. CHAPPELL + </h3> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + I +</pre> + <p class="side"> + <i>Time. The Beginning</i>. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + When Adam sat with lovely Eve + And, pressed his Primal suit, + There was a ban, if we believe + Our Genesis, on fruit. + But did it give old Adam pause, + This One and only law there was? + + X +</pre> + <p class="side"> + <i>Nine verses are supposed to elapse</i>. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + And then great Moses, on the crest + Of Sinai, did devise + His tablets, acting for the best, + (Though some thought otherwise). + At least he showed restraint, for then + Man's sins were limited to <i>Ten</i>, + + C +</pre> + <p class="side"> + <i>Ninety-nine verses elapse</i>. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + In later days the Romans proud + Their famous Code began. + And lots of things were not allowed + By just Justinian. + He wrote a list, stupendous long; + <i>"One Hundred</i> Ways of Going Wrong." + + M +</pre> + <p class="side"> + <i>Nine hundred and ninety-nine verses elapse</i>. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Napoleon, (see Wells's book) + Improved the Roman plan + By spotting a potential crook + In every fellow-man. + And by the <i>Thousand</i> off they went + To jail, until proved innocent. + + MDCCCCXXII +</pre> + <p class="side"> + <i>Nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine verses elapse</i>. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Now in the change-about complete + Since Adam Passed from View. + For apples we are urged to eat + And all else is taboo. + A <i>Million</i> laws hold us in thrall, + And we serenely break them all! +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + NONSENSEORSHIP + </h2> + <p> + [Illustration: Heywood Broun finds America suffering from a dearth of + Folly.] + </p> + <h3> + HEYWOOD BROUN + </h3> + <p> + A censor is a man who has read about Joshua and forgotten Canute. He + believes that he can hold back the mighty traffic of life with a tin + whistle and a raised right hand. For after all it is life with which he + quarrels. Censorship is seldom greatly concerned with truth. Propriety is + its worry and obviously impropriety was allowed to creep into the + fundamental scheme of creation. It is perhaps a little unfortunate that no + right-minded censor was present during the first week in which the world + was made. The plan of sex, for instance, could have been suppressed + effectively then and Mr. Sumner might have been spared the dreadful and + dangerous ordeal of reading "Jurgen" so many centuries later. + </p> + <p> + Indeed, if there had only been right-minded supervision over the modelling + of Adam and Eve the world could worry along nicely without the aid of the + Society for the Suppression of Vice. Suppression of those biological facts + which the Society includes in its definition of Vice is now impossible. + Concealment is really what the good men are after. Somewhat after the + manner of the Babes in the Woods they would cover us over with leaves. For + men and women they have figs and for babies they have cabbages. + </p> + <p> + It must have been a censor who first hit upon the notion that what you + don't know won't hurt you. We doubt whether it is a rule which applies to + sex. Eve left Eden and took upon herself a curse for the sake of + knowledge. It seems a little heedless of this heroism to advocate that we + keep the curse and forget the knowledge. The battle against censorship + should have ended at the moment of the eating of the apple. At that moment + Man committed himself to the decision that he would know all about life + even though he died for it. Unfortunately, under the terms of the + existence of mortals one decision is not enough. We must keep reaffirming + decisions if they are to hold. Even in Eden there was the germ of a new + threat to degrade Adam and Eve back to innocence. When they ate the apple + an amoeba in a distant corner of the Garden shuddered and began the long + and difficult process of evolution. To all practical purposes John S. + Sumner was already born. + </p> + <p> + To us the whole theory of censorship is immoral. If its functions were + administered by the wisest man in the world it would still be wrong. But + of course the wisest man in the world would have too much sense to be a + censor. We are not dealing with him. His substitutes are distinctly lesser + folk. They are not even trained for their work except in the most + haphazard manner. Obviously a censor should be the most profound of + psychologists. Instead the important posts in the agencies of suppression + go to the boy who can capture the largest number of smutty post cards. + After he has confiscated a few gross he is promoted to the task of + watching over art. By that time he has been pretty thoroughly blasted for + the sins of the people. An extraordinary number of things admit of + shameful interpretations in his mind. + </p> + <p> + For instance, the sight of a woman making baby clothes is not generally + considered a vicious spectacle in many communities, but it may not be + shown on the screen in Pennsylvania by order of the state board of + censors. In New York Kipling's Anne of Austria was not allowed to "take + the wage of infamy and eat the bread of shame" in a screen version of "The + Ballad of Fisher's Boarding House." Thereby a most immoral effect was + created. Anne was shown wandering about quite casually and drinking and + conversing with sailors who were perfect strangers to her, but the censors + would not allow any stigma to be placed upon her conduct. Indeed this + decision seems to support the rather strange theory that deeds don't + matter so long as nothing is said about them. + </p> + <p> + The New York picture board is peculiarly sensitive to words. Upon one + occasion a picture was submitted with the caption, "The air of the South + Seas breathes an erotic perfume." "Cut out 'erotic,'" came back the + command of the censors. + </p> + <p> + In Illinois, Charlie Chaplin was not allowed to have a scene in "The Kid" + in which upon being asked the name of the child he shook his head and + rushed into the house, returning a moment later to answer, "Bill." That + particular board of censors seemed intent upon keeping secret the fact + that there are two sexes. + </p> + <p> + Of course, it may be argued that motion pictures are not an art and that + it makes little difference what happens to them. We cannot share that + indifference. Enough has been done in pictures to convince us that very + beautiful things might be achieved if only the censors could be put out of + the way. Not all the silliness of the modern American picture is the fault + of the producers. Much of the blame must rest with the various boards of + censorship. It is difficult to think up many stories in which there is no + passion, crime, or birth. As a matter of fact, we are of the opinion that + the entire theory of motion picture censorship is mistaken. The guardians + of morals hold that if the spectator sees a picture of a man robbing a + safe he will thereby be moved to want to rob a safe himself. In rebuttal + we offer the testimony of a gentleman much wiser in the knowledge of human + conduct than any censor. Writing in "The New Republic," George Bernard + Shaw advocated that hereafter public reading-rooms supply their patrons + only with books about evil characters. For, he argued, after reading about + evil deeds our longings for wickedness are satisfied vicariously. On the + other hand there is the danger that the public may read about saints and + heroes and drain off its aspirations in such directions without actions. + </p> + <p> + We believe this is true. We once saw a picture about a highwayman (that + was in the days before censorship was as strict as it is now) and it + convinced us that the profession would not suit us. We had not realized + the amount of compulsory riding entailed. The particular highwayman whom + we saw dined hurriedly, slept infrequently, and invariably had his boots + on. Mostly he was being pursued and hurdling over hedges. It left us sore + in every muscle to watch him. At the end of the eighth reel every bit of + longing in our soul to be a swashbuckler had abated. The man in the + picture had done the adventuring for us and we could return in comfort to + a peaceful existence. + </p> + <p> + Florid literature is the compensation for humdrummery. If we are ever + completely shut off from a chance to see or read about a little evil-doing + we shall probably be moved to go out and cut loose on our own. So far we + have not felt the necessity. We have been willing to let D'Artagnan do it. + </p> + <p> + Even so arduous an abstinence as prohibition may be made endurable through + fictional substitutes. After listening to a drinking chorus in a comic + opera and watching the amusing antics of the chief comedian who is ever so + inebriated we are almost persuaded to stay dry. Prohibition is perhaps the + climax of censorship. It has the advantage over other forms of suppression + in that at least it represents a sensible point of view. Yet, we are not + converted. There are things in the world far more important than hard + sense. + </p> + <p> + One of the officials of the Anti-Saloon League gave out a statement the + other day in which he endeavored to show all the benefits provided by + prohibition. But he did it with figures. There was a column showing the + increase of accounts in savings banks and another devoted to the decrease + of inmates in hospitals, jails and almshouses. From a utilitarian point of + view the figures, if correct, could hardly fail to be impressive, but + little has been said by either side about the spiritual aspects of rum. + Unfortunately there are no statistics on that, and yet it is the one phase + of the question which interests us. Some weeks ago we happened to observe + a letter from a man who wrote to one of the newspapers protesting against + the proposed settlement in Ireland on the ground that, "It's so damned + sensible." We have somewhat the same feeling about prohibition. It is a + movement to take the folly out of our national life and there is no + quality which America needs so sorely. + </p> + <p> + If enforcement ever becomes perfect this will be a nation composed + entirely of men who wear rubbers, put money in the bank, and go to bed at + ten. That fine old ringing phrase, "This is on me," will be gone from the + language. Conversation will be wholly instructive, for in fifty years the + last generation capable of saying, "Do you remember that night—?" + will have been gathered to its fathers. + </p> + <p> + Of course, there is no denying the shortsightedness of the forces of rum. + They cannot escape their responsibility for having aided in the advent of + Prohibition. They were slow to see the necessity of some form of + curtailment and limitation of the traffic. Such moves as they did make + were entirely wrong-headed. For instance, we had ordinances providing for + the early closing of cafés. Instead of that we should have had laws + forbidding anybody to sell liquor except between the hours of 8 P.M. and 5 + A.M. Daytime drinking was always sodden, but something is necessary to + make night worth while. Man is more than the beasts, and he should not be + driven into dull slumber just because the sun has set. + </p> + <p> + The invention of electricity, liquor, cut glass mirrors, and cards made + man the master of his environment rather than its slave. Now that liquor + is gone all the other factors are mockery. Card playing has become merely + an extension of the cruel and logical process of the survival of the + fittest. The fellow with the best hand wins, instead of the one with the + best head. Nobody draws four cards any more or stands for a raise on an + inside straight. The thing is just cut-throat and scientific and wholly + mercenary. + </p> + <p> + The kitty is gone. Nobody cares to come in to a common fund for the + purchase of mineral water and cheese sandwiches. And with the passing of + the kitty the most promising development of co-operation and communism in + America has gone. It was prophetic of a more perfectly organized society. + In the days of the kitty the fine Socialistic ideal of, "From each + according to his abilities; to each according to his needs," was made + specific and workable. And the inspiring romantic tradition of Robin Hood + was also carried over into modern life. The kitty robbed only the rich and + left the poor alone. + </p> + <p> + But now none of us will contribute unquestionably to the material comfort + of others. Each must keep his money for the savings bank. + </p> + <p> + Perhaps, something of the old friendly rivalry may be revived. In a + hundred years it may be that men will meet around a table and that one + will say to the other, "What have you got?" + </p> + <p> + "I've got $9,876.32 in first mortgages and gilt-edged securities." + </p> + <p> + "That's good. You win." + </p> + <p> + But somehow or other we doubt it. + </p> + <p> + Another mistake which was made in the policy of compromising with the drys + was the agreement that liquor should not be served to minors. On the + contrary, the provision should have been that drink ought not to be + permitted to any man more than thirty years of age. Liquor was never meant + to be a steady companion. It was the animating influence which made oats + wild. Work and responsibility are the portion of the mature man. Rum was + designed for youthful days when the reckless avidity for experience is so + great that reality must be blurred a little lest it blind us. + </p> + <p> + We happened to pick up a copy of "The Harvard Crimson" the other day and + read: "The first freshman smoker will be held at 7.45 o'clock this evening + in the living room of the Union. P. H. Theopold, '25, Chairman of the + Smoker Committee, will act as Chairman, introducing Clark Hodder, '25, and + J. H. Child, '25, the Class President and Secretary respectively. After + the speeches there will be a motion picture, and some vaudeville by a + magician from Keith's. Ginger ale, crackers, and cigarettes will be + served. All freshmen are invited to attend." + </p> + <p> + They used to be called Freshmen Beer Nights and in those days the + possibility of friendship at first sight was not fantastic. We feel sure + that it cannot be done on ginger ale. The urge for democracy does not + dwell in any soft drink. The speeches will be terrible, for there will be + no pleasant interruptions of "Aw, sit down," from the man in the back of + the room. If somebody begins to sing, "P. H. Theopold is a good old soul," + it is not likely to carry conviction. Not once during the evening will any + speaker confine himself to saying, "To Hell with Yale!" and falling off + the table. Probably the magician will not be able to find anything in the + high hat except white rabbits. + </p> + <p> + Although we have seen no first hand report of that freshman smoker, we + feel sure that it was only a crowded self-conscious gathering of a number + of young men who said little and went home early. + </p> + <p> + Even from the standpoint of the strictest of abstainers there must be some + regret for the passing of rum. What man who lived through the bad old days + does not remember the thrill of rectitude which came to him the first time + he said, "Make mine a cigar." + </p> + <p> + Though they have taken away our rum from us we have our memories. Not all + the days have been dull gray. Back in the early pages of our diary is the + entry about the trip which we made to Boston with William F——in + the hard winter of 1907. It was agreed that neither of us should drink the + same sort of drink twice. Staunch William achieved nineteen varieties, but + we topped him with twenty-four. Upon examination we observe that the entry + in the memory book was made several days later. The handwriting is a + little shaky. But for that adventure we might have lived and died entirely + ignorant of the nature of an Angel Float. + </p> + <p> + In those days human sympathy was wider. F. M. W. seemed in many respects a + matter-of-fact man, but it was he who chanced upon the 59th street Circle + just before dawn and paused to call the attention of all bystanders to the + statue of Columbus. + </p> + <p> + "Look at him," he said. "Christopher Columbus! He discovered America and + then they sent him back to Spain in chains." + </p> + <p> + He wept, and we realized for the first time that under a rough exterior + there beat a heart of gold. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + LITERATURE AND THE BASTINADO + </h2> + <p> + [Illustration: Ben Hecht chopping away at the ever-forgiving and + all-condoning Bugaboo of Puritanism.] + </p> + <h3> + BEN HECHT + </h3> + <p> + Surveying the trend of modern literature one must, unless one's mental + processes be complicated with opaque prejudices, wonder at the provoking + laxity of the national censorship. I write from the viewpoint of an + aggrieved iconoclast. + </p> + <p> + It becomes yearly more obvious that the duly elected, commissioned and + delegated high priests of the nation's morale are growing blind to the + dangers which assail them. If not, then how does it come that such enemies + of the public weal as H. L. Mencken, Floyd Dell, Sherwood Anderson, + Theodore Dreiser, Dos Passos, Mr. Cabell, Mr. Rascoe, Mr. Sandburg, Mr. + Sinclair Lewis are not in jail? How does it come Professor Frinck of + Cornell is not in jail? Bodenheim, Margaret Anderson, Mr. John Weaver are + not in jail. + </p> + <p> + Were I the President of the United States sworn to uphold the dignity of + its psychopathic repressions, pledged on a stack of Bibles to promote the + relentless pursuit and annihilation of other people's happiness, I would + have begun my reign by clapping H. L. Mencken into irons forthwith. Mr. + Cabell, I would have sent to Russia. Sherwood Anderson I would have boiled + in oil. + </p> + <p> + But what is the situation? Observe these gentlemen and their kin enjoying + not only their bodily liberty but allowed to prosper on the royalties + derived from the sale of incendiary volumes designed to destroy the + principles upon which the integrity of the commonwealth depends. The + spectacle is one aggravating to an iconoclast. There is no affront as + distressing as the tolerance of one's enemies. + </p> + <p> + Mr. H. L. Mencken is, perhaps, the outstanding victim of this depravity of + indifference which more and more characterizes the enemy. Mr. Mencken, + hurling himself for ten years against the Bugaboo of Puritanism—a + fearless and wonderfully caparisoned Knight of Alarums, Prince of + Darkness, Evangel of Chaos—Mr. Mencken pauses for a moment out of + breath casting about slyly for fresher and deadlier weapons and lo! the + Bugaboo with a gentle smile reaches out and embraces him and plants the + kiss of love on both his cheeks, strokes his hair wistfully, and invites + him to sit on the front porch. Alas, poor Mencken! It is the fate that + awaits us all. Zarathustra in the market-place feeding ground glass to the + populace is gathered to the bosom of the City Fathers and gleefully + enrolled as a member of the Guild. + </p> + <p> + This is no idle rhetoric. Dissent in the Republic has come upon hard ways. + Ten years ago the name of Mencken would have stood against the world. + Today no college freshman, no lowly professor, no charity worker, or local + alderman too puritanical to do him homage. + </p> + <p> + Whereupon the argument is that an era of enlightenment has set in, that + this same Mencken and his contemporary throat-cutters have vanquished the + Bugaboo, and that, as a result, a spirit of high intellectual life + prevails through the land. The proletaire have risen and are thumbing + their nose at the gods. Brander Matthews has sent in a five years' + subscription to the Little Review. The Comstocks overcome with the vision + of their ghastly complexes are appealing to Sigmund Freud for advice and + relief. But the argument is superficial. "Victory!" cry the iconoclasts + grinding their teeth at the absence of a foe. + </p> + <p> + But it is a victory that rankles in the soul. The foe is not vanquished + but, seemingly, bored to death has fallen asleep. It is, in any event, a + phenomenon. Many generalizations offer themselves as solace. + </p> + <p> + The first paradox of this phenomenon is that Puritanism, beaten to a pulp + by an ever-increasing herd of first, second, third, and fourth rate + iconoclasts, has triumphed completely in the legislatures of the country. + With every new volume exposing the gruesome mainsprings of the national + virtue, further taboos and restrictions crowd themselves into the statute + books. + </p> + <p> + In a sense it would seem as if the <i>bete populaire</i>, becoming + increasingly drunk with the consciousness of its own power, is elatedly + preoccupied in cutting off its own nose, tying itself up into knots, and + kicking itself in the rear, proclaiming simultaneously and in triumphant + tones, "Observe how powerful I am. I can pass laws making ipecac a + compulsory diet." + </p> + <p> + Whereupon the laws are passed and the noble masses with heroic grimaces + fall to devouring ipecac, to the confusion of all free-born stomachs. In + fact this species of ballot flagellatism, this diverting pastime of + hitting itself on the head with a stuffed club has gradually elevated the + body politic to the enviable position occupied by the all-powerful king of + Fernando Po. This mysterious being lives in the lowest depths of the + crater of Riabba. His power is in direct ratio to the taboos which hem him + in. Convinced that bathing is a crime against his dignity, that sunlight + is incompatible with his royal lineage; convinced that his prestige is + dependent upon a weekly three days' fast and a cautious observation of the + taboos against all variants of social intercourse—piously convinced + of these astounding things, the all-powerful monarch of Fernando Po sits + year in and year out motionless on his throne in the lowest depths of the + crater of Riabba, awed by himself and overcome with the contemplation of + his all-powerfulness. We have here, I trust, an illuminating analogy. + </p> + <p> + The Republic, like this King of Fernando Po, imposes daily upon itself new + taboos, new rituals. Yet there is the phenomenon of its tolerance toward + the idol breakers. From the lowest depths of the crater of Riabba in which + he sits enthroned the monarch of the Laongos condemns to death with a + twitch of his brows all who seek to question the sanctity of the taboos. + But this other occupant of the crater of Riabba-our Republic-raises gentle + eyes to the idol wreckers, to the taboo destroyers. An occasional, "tut + tut" escapes him. And nothing more. + </p> + <p> + Whereupon the argument is that our monarch of the pit is an impotent + fellow. Again, a superficial deduction. For behold the censorships with + which he belabors himself. + </p> + <p> + Censorship, almost extinct in the restriction of the national literature, + thrives in every other field. Censorships abound. Food, drink, movies, + politics, baseball, diversion, dress—all these are under the + jurisdiction of a continually aroused censorship. The pulpits and + editorial pages emit sonorous hymns of taboo. Every caption writer is an + Isaiah, every welfare worker fancies himself the handwriting on the wall. + Unchallenged by the vote of the masses or by any outward evidence of mass + dissent, the platitudes pile up, the nation is filled from morning to + morning with stentorian clamor. Puritanism in a frenetic finale approaches + a climax. + </p> + <p> + But, and we tiptoe towards the crux of this phenomenon, the Bacchanal of + Presbyterianism is an artificial climax. Unlike the day of the later + Caesars, the populace does not abandon itself in imitation of its Neros + and Caligulas. Instead, we have the spectacle of a populace apathetic + toward the spirit of its time. + </p> + <p> + The Puritan debauch is the logical culmination of the anti-Paganism and + backworldism launched two hundred centuries back. The Christian ethic, to + the bewildered chagrin of its advocates, has triumphed. Not a triumph this + time that offers itself as a cloak for Jesuitism, colonization, or empire + juggling. But an unimpeachable triumph entirely beyond the control of the + most adroit of the choir-Machiavellis. + </p> + <p> + In other words the body politic finds itself betrayed by its own + platitudes. A moral frenzy animates its horizon. But it is a frenzy of + idea escaped control, an idea grown too huge and luminous to direct any + longer. The moral frenzy of the war was the moral frenzy of such an idea—virtue + become a Frankenstein. This virtue—the Golden Rule, the Thou Shalt + Nots, the thousand and one unassailable maxims, adages, old saws invented + chiefly for the protection of the weak and the solace of the inferior—this + virtue has taken itself out of the hands of its hitherto adroit + worshippers. A snowball rolling uphill toward God and gathering furious + dimensions, it has escaped the shrewd janitors of orthodoxy who from age + to age were able to keep it within bounds. + </p> + <p> + Thus in the war, confronted with the platitude that the world must be made + safe for democracy and with the further platitude that democracy and + equality were the goals of Christianity and with a dozen similar + platitudes none of which had any authentic contact with the life of the + nation, thus confronted, the proletaire was forced to lift itself up by + its boot straps and rise to the defence of a Frankenstein idealism of + which it was the parent-victim. Disillusionment with the causes of the war + has, however, served no high purpose. The Frankenstein God, the + Frankenstein virtue is still enshrined in the Heaven of the Copy Books. + And we find the proletaire still worshipping, albeit with the squirmings + and grimacings, a horrible idealization of itself. + </p> + <p> + The Thou Shalt Nots have escaped. They increase and multiply with a life + of their own. Logic is the most irresponsible of the manias which operate + in life. Logic demands that ideas be carried to their climax and this + demand, as inexorable as Mr. Newton's law, has made a Frankenstein of the + unsuspecting Galilean. + </p> + <p> + Hypnotized by the demands of logic, bewildered by the contemplation of + this code of backworldism which he himself seems somehow to have created, + the ballot maniac stands riveted at the polls and sacrifices to his own + image by hitting himself on the head with further virtuous restrictions—a + gesture necessary to prevent his own image from giving him the lie. He + must, in other words, prove himself as virtuous, whenever public + demonstration demands, as the Frankenstein platitudes proclaim him to be. + </p> + <p> + The Puritanism of the nation, remorselessly upheld by its laws and its + public factotums is an extraneous and artificial pose into which the + blundering proletaire has tricked itself. There are innumerable + consequences. We have, firstly, the spectacle of the masses disporting + themselves slyly in the undertow of cynicism. + </p> + <p> + "Modesty," bellows Sir Frankenstein from pulpit and press, "is a cardinal + virtue." "Right O," echoes the feminine contingent and promptly bobs its + hair, shortens its skirts, and rolls down its socks. + </p> + <p> + "Abstinence, sobriety, are an economic and spiritual necessity," bellows + Sir Frankenstein. Whereupon the male contingent votes the land dry and + gets drunk. + </p> + <p> + From the foregoing we may derive glimmers of truth concerning the public + tolerance of iconoclasts. "Main Street," a volume fathered by Mencken, + Freud, and the other Chaos-Bringers, leaps into prominence as a best + seller. It is devoured and acclaimed by the ballot maniac who reads it, + smacks his lips over its "truths" and sallies forth to vote further + canonizations of hypocrisy into the legal code. Even I, who ten years ago + prided myself upon being as indigestible a type of the Incoherent Young as + the land afforded, find myself for one month a best seller [Footnote: + "Erik Dorn," Mr. Hecht's first novel.—Ed.] on my native heath. Woe + the prophet who is with honor in his country! He will flee in disgust in + quest of hair shirts and a bastinado. + </p> + <p> + Thus, the citizens. With the left hand they greet the iconoclasts and hand + them royalties. With the right hand they pass further laws for the + iconoclasts to denounce. A phenomenon results. With the thought of the + masses becoming more and more neutral in the highty-tighty war between + Good and Evil, the laws created by these same masses grow more and more + rabid. But it must be borne in mind that although the masses, carried away + by flagellant impulses, assist in the creation of these laws, in the main, + they are laws, self-created platitudes which give birth to new platitudes. + Logic is the most pernicious of the Holy Ghosts responsible for the + conception of undesirable Gods. + </p> + <p> + I am prepared now to make further revelations. The foregoing, although + bristling with inconsistencies, seems to me, nevertheless, a ground work. + I will begin the apocalyptic finale with a resume of the choir-leaders, + the high priests, the Mahatmas of Sir Frankenstein. + </p> + <p> + Item one: It is obvious that the laws of the land being the ghastly + climaxes of artificial logic and not of human desires or biological + necessities, therefore the salaried apostles of these laws must function + similarly outside nature. + </p> + <p> + The high priests, it develops indeed upon investigation, diligently + lickspittling to Sir Frankenstein, have no following. The masses are not + going to Heaven in their wake. They, the high priests, are magically out + of touch with their worshippers. And from day to day they grow further out + of touch until they are to be seen high in the clouds tending the fugitive + altars that are soaring toward God on their own power. + </p> + <p> + These high priests are the creatures elected, commissioned and delegated + by the proletaire to perpetuate its grandiose and impossible image. And + this they do. They are the custodians of the public morals, meaning the + protectors of the huge trick mirror out of which the complexes, + neurasthenias, and morbid fears of the public stare back at it in the + guise of Virtue, Honor, Decency, and Love. These custodians are also, to + leap into the denouement, the censors here under discussion; censors not + only tolerated but insisted upon by the people to annoy and harass them + and inspire them to further ballot flagellations in order that they, the + people, may be spared the disaster of discovering themselves different + from what two hundred centuries of self-idealization have driven them into + believing themselves to be. + </p> + <p> + This, the high priests do. In every village, hamlet and farm they have + their say. They chastise. They make things fit for decent people to see or + wear or drink, and people flattered to death at the idea of being + considered decent submit piously to the distastement infringements and + taboos. + </p> + <p> + All-powerful are the censors. But despite this all-powerfulness they labor + under a wretched handicap. They are stupid. Stupidity is the paradox to be + found most often in all-powerful Gods. They are stupid, the censors. And + the Devil is clever. The Seven Arts which are the Seven Incarnations of + Dionysius, the Seven Masks of an unrepentant Lucifer, elude them in the + horrific struggle. Or at least partially elude them. Occasionally a cloven + hoof is spied and sliced to the bone. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + We return now with proud and tranquil ease to the beginning of this tale, + to the phenomenon of a tolerated literary iconoclasm in a land alive with + caterwaulings of virtue. + </p> + <p> + As hinted above not all the Arts escape, nor do any of them escape all the + time. Music, whose sly and terrible vices were for centuries unperceived + by the high priests, has been brought to earth in places. "Jazz Incites to + Sin. Syncopation is Devil's Ally." Discovered! One reads the morning paper + and feels a return of hope. The High Priests are aroused. They have + disembowelled an ally. There is hope then of a bloody fray. Another + Edition and they will be on our own heads, swinging their snickersnees. + Mencken will be arrested and burned in public. Anderson will be strung up + by the heels and his estates confiscated. There will be war—red war, + and we in the army of the iconoclasts growling impotently at each other + will face about and have at them with hullaballo and manifesto and + snickersnee in turn. + </p> + <p> + "Nude Painting Banned From Window. Nab Store Keeper." We read on. The + snickersnee swings towards the vitals of Hollywood. "Movie Magnate Charges + Work of Art Cut; Sues Censors. Seeks Redress in Courts." + </p> + <p> + Valhalla! They are closing in. Another forced march and they are upon us. + </p> + <p> + Alas, our coffee cools as we wait impatiently for the alarms to sound. We + are intact. Mencken still lives. Anderson still lives. The tide of battle + sweeps us by, passes us up, and there's the end to it. + </p> + <p> + Again, our victory rankling, we cast about for reasons. Do not the censors + read our books? Yes, the censors read our books. And scratching their + necks pensively and immediately below their left ears, the censors fall + asleep. Our books were over their heads. Our broadsides aimed for their + vitals whizzed by their ears and lulled them into slumber. A hideous + victory is in our hands. + </p> + <p> + Voltaire blew God out of France for a century. But that was because God + was still an emotion in his day and not a Frankenstein of logic. He blew + up the high priests. But that was because the high priests still had + enough intelligence in that time to know what constituted an epoch-shaking + explosion. + </p> + <p> + Our enemies the censors, the hallelujah flingers, commissioned, elected, + delegated by the proletaire are not worthy our steel. Having no longer any + contact with the masses, they need no genius to perpetuate themselves. The + masses care not what they are so long as they are. Figureheads for + Frankenstein, they need only shriek themselves blue and their will, will + be done. Shrewdness, intelligence, are qualities non-essential since + virtue, no longer feeding upon shrewdness and intelligence, fattens upon + its own monstrous logic. + </p> + <p> + The high priests are vital to the lie which man has created for himself as + a heaven and out of which his own image leers godlike back at him. They + are vital for nothing else. + </p> + <p> + Therefore our immunity. Since they need no grey matter, they have none. + And unable to understand us, they ignore us. And if we grow too insistent, + as has Mencken, they put an end to the business by embracing us and + pulling our fangs by disgusting us with their stupidity. + </p> + <p> + Given free reign under the conditions herein outlined, the youth of the + land is abandoning itself to a safe and sane orgie of iconoclasm. Satanic + epigrams cloud the air of the very market-place. Poets, column conductors, + hack literary reviewers, hack romancers, lecturers, realists, imagists, + and all are gloatingly engaged in sacking the Temple, in thumbing their + nose at the taboos. + </p> + <p> + In fact so widespread is the unlicensed and unrebuked iconoclasm of the + day that a great disgust is being born in the hearts of the pioneers. + Every dog has his paradox, every hack his anti-Christ, they bewail. And + surveying the horizon despairingly they see no enemy rushing upon them + with the wind. + </p> + <p> + There are, of course, scattered here and there among the keepers of the + Seal, observant priests. They omit isolated groans. They launch Quixotic + sorties. But they retire and collapse without waiting combat. To their + denunciation of "degenerate, sinful and corrupting cesspools of alleged + art" (I quote from a review of some of my own work appearing in an issue + of the Springfield (Ill.) <i>Republican</i>), there is no answering + response. They are left abandoned, the Fiery Cross burning down to their + fingers and flickering out. They cannot be glorified into an enemy. + </p> + <p> + On the whole I fear for the result. Ideas favor a bloody battle-ground for + birthplace. And here we stand, drawn up in battle array discharging + broadsides of "Winesburgs, Ohios," "Main Streets," "Cornhuskers" and the + like; flying our colors valiantly—but there is no battle. The enemy + sleeps. Or the enemy wakes up and issues an indifferent invitation that we + stay to tea. + </p> + <p> + Comrade Dreiser may demur at all this and, peeling his vest, reveal us + wounds, honorable wounds acquired in honorable battle. And further, he may + regale us with tales of hair shirts and bastinadoes suffered by him in the + Republic. But alas, he is Telemachus, grey-bearded and full of memories. + And the youth of Athens, fallen upon softer ways, listen with envious + incredulity to such tall tales. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE WOMAN'S PLACE + </h2> + <p> + [Illustration: Ruth Hale as a XXth Century woman guarding the Home Brew.] + </p> + <h3> + RUTH HALE + </h3> + <p> + At last the women of this country are about to perform a great service—not + one of those courtesy services about which so much is so volubly said and + so little is done in repayment—but a good sturdy performance, that + will probably bring these magnificent men folks right to their knees. + </p> + <p> + They are going to teach the unfortunates how to live under prohibitions + and taboos. Of course there has never been any prodigality of freedom in + this country—or any other—but what there was belonged to the + men. The women had to take to the home and stay there. So the two sexes + adjusted themselves to life with this difference, that the women had to do + all the outwitting and circumventing, all the little smart twists and + turns, all the cunning scheming by which people snatch off what they want + without appearing to, whereas men got their much or little by prosily + sticking their hands out for it. + </p> + <p> + This developed, naturally, not only somewhat diverse temperaments, hut + also greatly diverse equipments. When men cannot get what they want now by + either asking or paying for it, they have no more resources. Bless them, + they must return into the home, where the secret has been perfected for + centuries on centuries of how to hoard a private stock and how to find a + bootlegger. Under the steadily growing nonsenseorship regime, they are + obliged to come and take lessons from the lately despised group of + creatures to whom nonsenseorship is a well-thumbed story. If the world + outside the home is to become as circumscribed and paternalized as the + world inside it, obviously all the advantage lies with those who have been + living under nonsenseorship long enough to have learned to manage it. + </p> + <p> + Thus woman moves over from her dull post as keeper of the virtues to the + far more important and exciting post as keeper of the vices. It is not an + ideal power which she thus acquires. But then none of this is about + ideals. This is just a little practical 'study in what is going to happen, + and why. Taboos never yet have added a cubit to the stature of the soul of + humanity. They have nearly always been the chattering children of fear and + pure idiocy. They have always tried to throw the race back on to all + fours, and have left the nobility of standing upright wholly out of + account. + </p> + <p> + The taboos which have surrounded women time out of mind have been so + puerile and imbecile that one quite non-partisanly wonders why on earth + they have been allowed to continue. A second thought demonstrates, of + course, that fear has had the major part in it, and that skill in cheating + has gone so far as practically to nullify the privations of the taboo. + </p> + <p> + But one must put by this hankering after nobility, and accept the plain + fact that fear is the dominant human motive. What the race would do if + fear were conquered, or at least faced sternly eye to eye, is staggering + to contemplate. Perhaps God looks upon that vision. It may be that which + gives Him patience. But man at best gives it one terrified squint in a + lifetime. All behavior must take fear into account. + </p> + <p> + The man who lately brought back from the Amazon Basin news of a + fear-dispelling drug used there by a savage tribe, would have been carried + home from the steamer on the shoulders of his compatriots if for one + moment he had been believed. His drug may do all he claimed for it, but a + country which boasts a Volstead in full stride cannot force itself to take + him seriously. The only likely part of his story was that the tribes who + prepared the drug would put to instant death any woman who happened either + to learn how to prepare it or did actually get some of it into her. + </p> + <p> + We recognize that part as familiar. We have made the same fight here + against the fearless woman as the savages made on the Amazon. The only + thing we were never smart enough to apply was the moral of the Kipling + story about the two greatest armies in the world: the men who believed + that they could not die till their time came, against those who wanted to + die as soon as possible. It was from one or the other of these two kinds + of fearlessness that women have trained themselves in wisdom. This is the + wisdom which moves them to secret laughter when they find their brothers + in the throes of Volstead and Krafts. And it is from this wisdom that they + will teach them all to be happy, though prohibited. + </p> + <p> + It is an unfortunate fact that humanity will not behave itself. It does + not really warm to any of the current virtues. When the Eighteenth + Amendment says it must not drink hard liquors, its inner heart's desire is + to drink them, even beyond its normal, and usual capacity. Prohibition is, + it is true, one of the strikingly superimposed virtues. It has nothing + whatever to recommend it in man's true feelings, and this is not true of + many of the civilized traits, though probably not any of them meets with + entire approval. We do think that before anything approaching a real art + of living is perfected among us, the present ethical system will be wholly + outmoded. Meanwhile, pressure brought to bear on the least welcome of all + virtues is merely going to make bad behavior worse. But that is Volstead's + business, not ours. Let him do battle with that octopus, while we bring up + reinforcements to his enemies. Women know all about how to be bad and + comfortable while the law goes on trying to make them good and otherwise. + Just look at a few of the things on which they have cut their teeth. + </p> + <p> + We do not know, unfortunately, just at what point in her history woman + went under the long siege of her taboos. Whether the system of keeping her + publicly helpless and interdicted goes before church and state, or was the + result of them, there is now no history to tell us. But certainly she + always had one supreme power and one supreme weakness, and somewhere in + time, her more neutrally equipped male companion played the one against + her, to save his own skin from being stripped by the other. + </p> + <p> + But if the past is foggy, the present is not. We do know what is now, and + has for a long time been, a shocking list of what she must not be allowed + to do. + </p> + <p> + She cannot own and control her own property, for instance, except here and + there in the world. Perhaps the theory was that she could not create + property. But one would have said that such of it as she inherited she had + as sound a right to as that that her brother inherited. But no such common + sense notion prevailed. No matter how she came by it, it became her + husband's as soon as she married. The law has always behaved as if a woman + became a half-wit the moment she married. Seeing what she deliberately + lost by it, perhaps the law is right. She lost control of her possessions, + including herself. She lost her citizenship, and she lost her name, though + this by custom and not by law. And finally, she never could acquire + control even over her own children, which certainly she did create. We do + not know how many of these disabilities would have been excused on the + ground that they were for her own good. It seems likelier that they came + under the head of that fine old abstraction, the general good. No longer + back than 1914, H. G. Wells, in "Social Forces in England and America" + observed that they would probably never be able to give women any real + freedom because there were the children to consider. Mr. Wells did not + appear to know that he was bridging a horrible conflict in terms with a + pretty fatuity. Nor did he later give himself pause when, towards the end + of the book, he complained that all the babies were being had by the low + grade women, while the high grade ones were quite insensible to their + duties. + </p> + <p> + It was possibly with an unruliness of this kind in contemplation that the + law decided that women should know nothing of birth control. Now there's a + taboo for you. Many of our very best people—the moral element, so + called—will not even speak the words. But that prohibition, like all + the others, has its side door—may one say its small-family entrance? + The women who do not know all there is to know about it are just those + poor, isolated, and ignorant women economically starved who should be the + first to be told. + </p> + <p> + Consider the quaintest, we think, of all the proscriptions against women—that + they cannot have citizenship in their own right. What is citizenship if it + is not the assumption, made by the State, that because you were born + within it, and had grown used to it and fond of it, and were attached to + it by all the associations of blood ties, friendships, and what not, you + were therefore entitled to take part in it, and could be called on to give + it service? If citizenship is a mere legal figment, by what right do + States send their citizens to war? Yet women are theoretically + transferred, body and bone, heart, memory, and soul, to whatever country + or nation their husbands happen to give allegiance to. Isadora Duncan, + born in California, of generations of Californians, and American all her + life, has lately married a young Russian poet. Hereafter she must enter + her country as an alien immigrant—if it so happens that the quota is + not closed. Does anybody in his senses imagine that Isadora Duncan has + been changed, or could be changed, for better or worse? An opera singer + who was in danger during the war of losing her position at the + Metropolitan Opera House because she was an enemy alien, went forth and + married an American. By that means she was actually supposed to have been + made over into an American. Can naïveté go further? + </p> + <p> + For our present purposes we merely want to point out that what is done to + one woman in the name of the public good is craftily used by the next one + to serve her own ends. There is a terrifying proportion of women in + America today who can vote, without knowing a word of our language, + without participating in one particle of our common life, because their + husbands have taken on American citizenship. They wouldn't be allowed to + become American citizens if they wanted to, by any other means. + </p> + <p> + There are scores and scores of these legal absurdities conscripting the + activities of women. Twenty books could be written about them, and + probably will be. But we must leave them, with such representation as + these few instances afford, and go from, the body of taboos that are done + in the name of the good of the State, to that collection done for Woman's + own personal good. + </p> + <p> + Some of these are legal and some are not, but they are all operative. They + are all things she has to go around, or under. She cannot serve on juries. + She is always righteously barred from courtrooms when there is to be + testimony concerning sex. Woman, the mother of children, the realist of + sex compared to whom the most sympathetic of males is at best an outsider, + is to be "protected" from a few scandalous narratives. Of course all women + know that they are barred from juries not because the happenings in court + would shock or even surprise them, but because they would embarrass their + far more sensitive and finicky men. So what they wish to know of court + proceedings, they learn from their good men, in the pleasant privacy of + their homes. If the juries are so much the worse for this sort of thing, + and they are, the matter cannot be helped by the ladies, dear knows, and + the men would die almost any death liefer than that of ravaged modesty. + </p> + <p> + Probably the most ungrateful of the restrictions on females is that + forbidding them to hold office in churches. This has been put on all sorts + of high grounds, chief among them being that women could do so much abler + work in little auxiliaries of their own. This contention was challenged + about two years ago in the House of Commons, by Maud Royden, the English + Lay Evangelist to whom the pulpits of London are forbidden, with one or + two exceptions. Miss Royden, whose preaching was being bitterly opposed by + several members of the House, annoyed them all considerably by saying that + the Church of England had already had two women as its absolute head. This + was denied in a great sputter, to which Miss Royden replied, "How about + Queen Elizabeth and Queen Victoria?" Well, this happened to be something + that nobody could gainsay, but into the wrathy silence which followed, one + member of the House rose to his feet and let the cat right out of the bag. + If women were given church authority, he said, they would refuse to accept + their husbands' authority in their homes, and England would go to rack and + ruin. This is one of the few recorded occasions when a taboo-er so far + forgot himself, and American church potentates do not like to be reminded + of it. Within a month, one of the Protestant sects in this country has + given women the right to hold minor offices, but three others, in general + convention, refused even to consider it. + </p> + <p> + Again we are going to rest our case on selected instances, and return to a + consideration of how these walled-in women have learned to live + comfortably and with some self-respect behind the garrison wall. It is + this, after all, which they must now teach their men. + </p> + <p> + The first thing that happened to the woman who married was that she became + legally non-existent. But though she was scratched off the public books, + she couldn't exactly be scratched out of her husband's scheme of general + well-being. Neither could the race make great strides without her. After + everything in the world had been done to make her as harmless as possible, + she still remained non-ignorable. Two courses were open to her; and she + has always used whichever of the two was necessary at the time. She could + be so sweet and beguiling, so full of blandishments, that man rushed out + to bring her all and more than she had been prohibited from having. Or she + could terrify him, both by her temper and her biological superiority, into + stopping his entire precious machinery against her, and thanking his stars + that he could get off with a whole skin. + </p> + <p> + Of course these things have not always worked out just so. There have been + the tragic mischances. But in the main, an oppressed people learn how to + outsmile or outsnarl the oppressor. The Eighteenth Amendment may yet live + to wish it was dead. Mr. Volstead seems to have believed that the + nonsenseorship game was new and exciting, and could be trusted to carry + itself by storm. Not while the ancient wisdom of long-borne bans and + communicadoes looked out of the female eye. There was a body of experts in + existence of whom, apparently, he had never even heard. + </p> + <p> + He never once thought how the twentieth century was to become known as the + Century of The Home, with the home brew, and the subscription editions, + and the sagacities of women. If he should complain that there is no honor + and fine living in all of this, we shall have to agree with him. But we + can answer that by guile we have preserved our joys, and cleared our way + out from the shadows of his big totem pole. If we have but little + magnificence, we have as much as anybody can ever have who is hounded by + the legal virtues. And if we may keep a little gaiety for life, by that + much do we make him bite the dust. It isn't pretty, but it's art. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + OWED TO VOLSTEAD + </h2> + <p> + [Illustration: Wallace Irwin composing under the influence of synthetic + gin and Andrew Volstead.] + </p> + <h3> + WALLACE IRWIN + </h3> + <p> + I—<i>First Round</i> + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Prune extract and bright alcohol, so wooden + One kills its flavor in rank fusel oil! + C2-H3-HO—a rather good 'un + To mix with fruity syrups in our toil + To give our social meetings after dark + Their necessary spark! + And you, most heavenly twins, + Born of one mother— + Although our woe begins + When, through our mortal sins, + We can't tell which from 'tother— + Ethyl + And Methyl! + Like Ike + And Mike + Strangely you look alike. + Like sisters I have met + You're very hard to tell apart—and yet + The one consoles more gently than a wife; + The other turns and cripples you for life. + + Such spirits as these, and many more I summon + From many a poisoned tin, + Or many a bottle falsely labelled "Gin." + Or many a vial pathetic, + Yclept "Synthetic." + Like Dante on his joy-ride Seeing Hell, + Fain would I take you down + Through sulphurous fires and caverns bilious brown + Into the Land of Mystery and Smell + Where Satan steweth + And home-breweth + While thirsty hooch-hounds yell + Their blackest curse, + Or worse: + "Vol-darn our souls with each Vol-blasted dram + That burns our throats and isn't worth a dam! + We drink, yet how we dread it— + Vol-stead it!" + They've said it. +</pre> + <p> + II—<i>Short Intermission to Change Meter</i> + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + In Eighteen Hundred and Sixty-three + A. Lincoln set the darkies free; + In Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen + A. Volstead muzzled the canteen + And freed the millions, great and small, + From bondage to King Alcohol. +</pre> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Was it not thoughtful, good and kind + For such a man of such a mind + To show an interest so grand + In his misguided native land? + And don't these statements illustrate + Our Nation's progress up to date? + We're freedom-loving and we're brave + And simply cannot stand a slave. + And when a crisis needs a man + From Mass, or Tex. or Conn, or Kan. + That man steps forward, firm of chin— + So Andrew Volstead came from Minn. + + He came from Minn, to show the world + That gin is wrong + And rye is strong + And Scotch to limbo should be hurled. + Thus with his spotless flag unfurled + He went against the Demon Rum + Who snarled, "I vum!" + Got sort of numb, + Rolled up his eyes, lay down and curled + While all the saints of heaven above + (Including Mr. Bryan's Dove) + Cried "Rah-rah-rah! + And siss-boom-ah! + Three cheers for Health and Christian Love! + But, Andrew dear— + Say, now, look here! + You're not including wine and beer!" + + Then Andrew Volstead squared his chin + And answered briefly, "Sin is sin." + No compromise + With the King of Lies! + Both liquor thick and liquor thin + We'll cease to tax + And use the axe + Invented by the Man from Minn. + For right is right and wrong is wrong— + A spell has cursed the world too long. + + The curse of drink— + Stop, friends, and think + How, reft of spirits weak or strong, + My Nation will be purified + Of all corruptions vile. + The lamb and lion, side by side, + Will smile and smile and smile. + The workman when his day is o'er + Will hurry to his cottage door + To kiss his loving wife; + He'll lay his wages in her hand + And peace will settle on the land + Without a trace of strife. + The criminals will cease to swarm, + Forgers and burglars will reform + And minor crimes will so abate + That lower courts—now open late— + Will close and let the magistrate + Go to the zoo + Or read <i>Who's Who</i>. + In short I do anticipate + A thinner, cooler human race, + Its system cleansed of every trace + Of inner fire + And hot desire + And passions spurring to disgrace. + "'Tis simple," said the Man from Minn., + "To cure the world of mortal sin— + Just legislate against it." + Then up spake Congress with a roar, + "We never thought of that before. + Let's go!" + And they commenced it. +</pre> + <p> + III—<i>Tone Picture's Suggesting Conditions in U. S. A. Some Two + Years After Alcoholic Stimulants Had Been Legislated out of Business</i> + </p> + <h3> + 1 + </h3> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Grandma's sitting in her attic, + Oiling up her automatic. + Mid-Victorian is her style, + Prim yet gentle is her smile + As she fits the cartridges + One by one, and softly says: + + "Grandson is a Dry Enforcer. + Grandpa is a Legger— + All for one and one for all— + I'll never die a beggar. + Bill brings booze from Montreal, + Grandpa lets him through— + Oh, life's been rosy for us folks + Since the red-light laws went blue." +</pre> + <h3> + 2 + </h3> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Pretty Sadie, aged fourteen, + To a lamp-post clings serene. + "What's the matter?" some may ask. + On her hip she wears a flask + Labelled "Tonic for the Hair"— + "Hic," says Sadie, "we should care!" + + "Father is a corner druggist— + Why should I abstain? + Brother is a counterfeiter, + Printing labels plain. + I can buy grain alcohol + As all the neighbors do; + And if you treat me right I'll lend + My formula to you." +</pre> + <h3> + 3 + </h3> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Sits the plumber, man of metal. + Joining gas-pipes to a kettle. + 'Neath the bed his wife is lying + Rather silent—she is dying + From some gin her husband gave her. + He's too busy now to save her. + + "Things," he sings, "are looking upward; + I am making stills. + Soon we'll cook the stuff by wholesale, + Running twenty 'mills.' + What we make and how we make it + Doesn't cut no ice. + Anything you sell in bottles + Brings the standard price." +</pre> + <h3> + 4 + </h3> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + In the gutter, quite besotted, + Lies the drunkard, sadly spotted. + People pass with unmoved faces— + Why remark such commonplaces? + Just another Volstead duckling, + Rolling in the gutter chuckling: + + "Over seas of milk and water, + Angels' wings a-flappin', + Now we're purified and holy, + Things like me can't happen. + Liquor's gone and gone forever— + Even the word is lewd: + Otherwise there's somethin' makes me + Feel like I was stewed." +</pre> + <p> + IV—<i>Finale—A Short Interview with the Human Stomach</i> + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Last night as I lay on my pillow, + Last night when they'd put me to bed + I spoke to my dear little tummy + And wept at the words that I said: + + "My sensitive, beautiful tummy + That once was so rosy and pure! + My dainty, fastidious tummy— + O what have you had to endure? + + "You once were inclined to be fussy; + You turned at inferior rye; + You moped at a dubious vintage + And shrieked if the gin wasn't dry. + + "But now you are covered with bunions + And spongy and morbid and blue; + You bite in the night like an adder— + O say, what has happened to you?" + + Then my sullen and sinister tummy + Rose slowly and spoke to my brain; + "Say, boss, what's the stuff you've been drinking + That fills me with nothing but pain? + + "Today you had 'cocktails' for luncheon— + They tasted like sulphured cologne. + They—were followed by poisonous highballs + That fell in my depths like a stone. + + "I am dripping with bootlegger brandy, + I ooze with synthetical gin; + And the beer that you make in the kitchen— + Ah, dire are the wages of sin! + + "The cursed saloon has departed, + And well we are rid of the plague; + But I'm weary of furniture polish + With the counterfeit label of Haig. + + "Yea, gone is the old-fashioned brewery + And the gilded cafe is no more...." + Here my tummy jumped over the pillow + And fell in a fit on the floor, +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE CENSORSHIP OF THOUGHT + </h2> + <p> + [Illustration: Robert Keable urging the Automaton called Citizen to turn + on his oppressor.] + </p> + <h3> + ROBERT KEABLE + </h3> + <p> + I knew a man, about a year ago, who published a novel upon which the + critics fell with such fury this side the water at least, that whether in + the body or out of the body, such was ultimately his state of + bewilderment, he could not tell, and if I am asked to discuss + "Prohibitions, Inhibitions and Illegalities" it is natural that the + incident should be foremost in my mind. True, it is becoming increasingly + the fashion for a parson to preach a sermon without announcing text, but + modern preaching, like brief bright brotherly breezy modern services, does + not seem to cut much ice. Therefore we will hark back to the manner of our + forefathers and take the incident for a text. It affords an admirable + example of nonsenseorship. + </p> + <p> + As is always done in approved sermons (but humbly entreating your + forbearance, which is less common) let us consider the context, let us + review the circumstances of the case in point. Our author left the lonely + heart of Africa for the theatre of war in France. He left a solitude, a + freedom, a beauty, of which he had become enamoured, for that assemblage + of all sorts of all nations, in a cockpit of din and fury, known as the + Western Front. He expected this, that, and the other; mainly he found the + other, that, and this. Being desirous of serving the God of things as they + are, he pondered, he observed, and, his heart burning within him, he + wrote. He had no opportunity of writing in France, so he wrote on his + return, away up in the Drakensberg mountains, alone, with the clean veld + wind blowing about him and the nearest town an hour's ride away, and that + but three houses when he reached it. He had seen vivid things and it + chanced he was able to write vividly. There were twenty chapters in his + novel and he wrote them in twenty days. + </p> + <p> + The novel finished, the MS. of it was despatched to nine publishing firms + in succession, who silently but swiftly refused it. It only went to the + tenth at all because there is luck in a round number, and it found a home + because it found a free man. On the eve of its appearance, it was hung up + for a month because it was felt that whereas the booksellers might display + a book containing a certain passage which referred to a woman's bosom, + they would not do so if it contained a plural synonym. (I offer abject + apologies for these dreadful details.) And when it finally appeared, the + main portion of the English Press cried to heaven against it, and a + smaller section clamoured for disciplinary action. For a hectic month the + author, who had simply and plainly written of things as they were, + honestly without conception that anyone existed who would doubt their + truth or the obvious necessity for saying them, sat amazed before the + storm. + </p> + <p> + Now that incident, unimportant to the world at large as it is, does afford + an admirable example of that censorship which is about us at every turn. + True, in this case, the official censor remained silent. Although prepared + to read passages from Holy Scripture in the witness-box, and challenge a + denial of the facts, the author was not called upon to do so. He had + previously given slight hints of the truth about the racial situation in + South Africa in another book and had had that volume censored out of + existence, but perhaps because this present work merely touched on morals + the official censor decided to give him rope with which to hang himself. + </p> + <p> + He was hung, of course, rightly and convincingly, hung by the neck till he + was dead. Thus a clergyman who took the book from a circulating library + because of its Scriptural title, and whose daughters wrapped it in <i>The + Church Times</i> and read it over the week-end, declined to meet him at + dinner. A bishop cut him in the street. Very rightly and properly too. The + book honestly, simply, undisguisedly, told the truth. Since then America + has been good enough to recognise it. + </p> + <p> + But this is at least the first consideration of British censorship today: + it must suppress the truth about most of the important things in life. + Take the allied case of the Unknown Warrior. We are told that he was a + crusader, that he was glad to die in a noble cause, that his valour + deserved the Victoria Cross and his religion Westminster Abbey. In short + he was a saint. But, one protests (a bit bewildered because it sounds so + good) that was not the man I knew. The man I knew lived next door and was + a damned good chap. The man I knew chucked up his business and left his + home and risked his life because everybody was doing it, because it seemed + there was a real mess-up, because one had to. + </p> + <p> + Also, it was a change. Oddly enough, Adam goes out from a modern office or + a modern factory in order to hoe up weeds in the sweat of his brow and in + danger of his life with barely a regret for the Paradise he has to leave. + Besides Eve went with him. God, there were Eves in France! Women who knew + how to make a man forget, women who didn't count the cost, women who loved + for love's sake. And for this and other causes, the Unknown Warrior was + extraordinarily bored at having to die, except that he came not to care so + much so long as he was sure he was only to be asked to die. As for his + valour—Well, said he, it's no use grousing, and if it's a question + of bayonets, it had better be mine in the other chap's stomach. Besides we + English-speaking peoples don't shout about our valour. And as for religion—Well, + if there's a God why doesn't He stop this bloody war, or, anyway, where + the blazes is He? + </p> + <p> + There you are. It's abominable to write like that. Here it is in print; + isn't it disgraceful? You see, it happens to be true. But if men said + that, loud enough and enough of them, there would be no more wars. No more + wars? There would be no more Downing Street either, and an American army + would march, as like as not, on Washington. Disgraceful! It's so + disgraceful that I am not sure, as I write, that this article will ever be + printed. + </p> + <p> + Now since the War it is noticeable that the spirit of censorship has very + visibly increased its activities among us. There is little doubt of that + and there is little doubt of the reason for it. The War, by tearing down + shams and by stripping men and women to the essentials, forced many to see + things as they are. The old lies were no use in that hour, nor the old + conventions and beliefs. Men learned to look beyond them, and they learned + not to be afraid to look. Partly it was no use being afraid in the War and + men got out of the habit, and partly, having looked, they saw something so + much better ahead. Or again the trend of modern civilisation was so + unarguably revealed in all the stark horror of its inhumanity that men saw + suddenly that it was better to be brave and revolt and be killed than be + cowardly and submit and live. + </p> + <p> + A great many of those who saw did not survive to tell the tale, but some + did. There are more men and women about today who are not to be put off + with humbugs than ever there were before. Such folk make up an element in + Society which the censors know to be something more than dangerous. They + are men who cannot easily be bribed for they have seen through the worth + of the bribe, who cannot be intimidated because they no longer fear, and + who cannot be cheated because they have seen true values. Hence your new + censorship and its methods. Rebels must be drowned in a babble of words. + They must be suppressed by the action of the unthinking masses rolled up + upon them. They must be ground to powder lest they should turn the world + upside down. + </p> + <p> + That, then, is the basis of censorship. Fear. You can do most things in + England today except tell the truth, or, at any rate, except tell the + truth in such a way that people will believe you. At the time of the + French Revolution there was a broadsheet in circulation which showed on + one side Louis XVI in his coronation robes. He was a fine figure of a man. + His flowing wig descended majestically to his broad shoulders and his + shapely leg, thrust forth, dominated a world. But on the reverse, a pimply + shrunken figure emerged from the bath. Shortly after publication they had + a revolution in France. + </p> + <p> + Now the War circulated such another broadsheet in the world. Here is the + official side of it. Marriage is made in heaven. Politicians are earnest, + devoted men. One's own country always fights for Right without Fear and + without Reproach. Millionaires are nearly always philanthropists. + Capitalism is a just, kindly, and reasonable basis for Society. The + General Confession has become the national prayer of Englishmen. Modern + Civilisation is thoroughly healthy and every day it gets better and + better. It is so. It must be so. <i>What's that?</i> You have known a + politician. . . . Your friend is married and. . . . Brother, it is + impossible. You must not say so anyway: the whole fabric of Society will + be shaken. You must not think so for a moment. + </p> + <p> + <i>You must not think so</i>. That is the creed of the new censorship. And + very sensible, too. It is an odd thing that the Middle Ages of the + Inquisition were so nonsensical, judged by our standards. Grand + inquisitors cared remarkably little how a man thought provided he did not + say what he thought too publicly. If he went to church once a year he + might be a Jew for all their interference. If he signed the Thirty-nine + Articles he might use a rosary in his own home. If Columbus thought the + world was round, he was welcome to go and see, but if Galileo said that + the Church was wrong for saying the world was flat, there was nothing for + it but to shut him up in prison. It was all rather stupid, but it was + interesting. + </p> + <p> + For above all things, the limits of censorship were well defined. + Censorship was based on hypotheses. It was conceived that Almighty God had + established St. Peter as a censor of public faith and morals, but it was + not maintained that he was established as the censor of art and literature + and life. There was thus originality in all these affairs. In a mediaeval + town every house was different, in a mediaeval cathedral no two pillars + were alike, and in the dress of a mediaeval crowd was captured the colours + of the rainbow. With an odd result. Men laughed at the devil in the + freedom of their souls. They tweaked his tail on carven misericords, and + in the mystery play he was invariably cast for the clown. + </p> + <p> + Further, and in close accord with this, a pleasant feature of the old + Inquisition was that it tried and burnt you for the good of your own soul, + and despite all calumnies and mis-representations on the part of later + writers, that remained to the end the main motive of the rack and of the + stake. Personally I find it hard to suppose that some such consideration + in any way lightened the last hours of the victim, but at least it + enlightens our judgment of the inquisitor. Heresy was to him, quite + honestly, a form of lunacy. Public opinion agreed with him. It was a + species of moral and mental hydrophobia, and the mass of men no more + desired to be converted to heresy than we desire to be bitten by mad dogs. + In their simple souls they abhorred and feared the thing. They attended an + auto-da-fé as an act of faith, piety, and rejoicing. They might have been + a Paris crowd watching the last hours of such a social pest and terror as + Landru, except that it probably occurred to few of the Parisian sightseers + to pray for that murderer's soul. + </p> + <p> + But the modern Inquisition, the neo-censorship, is out, not to save my + soul, but the souls of my contemporaries. It does not imagine that I am + preaching a hideous thing from which all men will revolt; it imagines that + I am offering them something which they will gladly and readily accept. It + does not judge me and my sayings and doings from the standpoint of an + accredited representative of society, but from the standpoint of a + non-accredited governor of society. It silences me for fear that I may be + followed, not lest I should be damned. It does not censor me for speaking + or acting against an established order in which everyone believes, but for + speaking or acting against an order in which practically everyone has + ceased to believe. "Burn him," cried Torquemada; "he has spoken what no + one thinks." "Bury him," cries your modern censor; "he has thought what no + one speaks." + </p> + <p> + Thus, today, the point is that you may not think. All the energies of the + censorship are bent towards the prohibition of thought. For one penny, + every morning, even if you are an Englishman in Paris, a daily newspaper + will tell you what to think and castigate you if you think otherwise. No, + it is three halfpence in Paris. But that is the idea. That is the great + conspiracy. Certain news-items are regaled to me, certain news-items are + suppressed, in order that I may not think amiss. Certain books are refused + me, certain plays must not be produced, certain fashions are taboo, + certain things may not be done, lest, by any chance, I should form the + habit of thinking, lest I should step out of the throng and be myself. + Lest I should make a venture of personal opinion, and be right. + </p> + <p> + The odd thing is that the average man lends himself to the deception and + even plays his part in the great game. Of course he is not altogether to + blame. The psychology of the method is so truly conceived. It is dinned + into him so repeatedly that things are so, that black is white and white + is black, that if you see it in Bottomley's <i>John Bull</i> it is so, + that he honestly comes to believe the bunkum. For he, too, fears at his + heart. He is a conservative animal. Men used to burn a heretic because + they believed in God; now they censor him out of existence because if they + did not believe in the Northcliffe press they would have nothing whatever + in which to believe. Men used to believe in the Ten Commandments; now they + accept Prohibition because if they did not accept some authority they + would have to govern themselves. Men used to believe the Bible; now they + believe the daily papers because if they did not they would be compelled + to lift up their eyes and look on life. + </p> + <p> + But Robert Louis Stevenson wrote the whole truth and nothing but the truth + a while ago. "If you teach a man to keep his eyes upon what others think + of him, unthinkingly to lead the life and hold the principles of the + majority of his contemporaries you must discredit in his eyes the + authoritative voice of his own soul. He may be a docile citizen; he will + never be a man." And Bernard Shaw was not far out when, in the + Introduction to <i>Man and Super-Man</i>, he pointed out what amiable + honest gentlemen the free-booters who built the Rhine castles were + compared with your modern millionaires, newspaper-owners, and political + bosses. The robber-baron risked his neck. The robber-baron played a game. + The robber-baron mostly warred on his own mates who were also playing the + game. But the robber-baron of today would enslave the souls of men because + he has forgotten how else to enjoy himself. + </p> + <p> + The net result then is that we are fast abandoning any attempt to think + for ourselves. Not merely is any attempt at original thought or action + cleverly stifled with pillows much as the princes were smothered in the + Tower, but the censors of our freedom shout so loudly and supply us with + mental goods so cheaply that in the end we have no real mental power of + choice left. A million advertisements tell me that all decent people shave + with Apple-Blossom soap, and with Apple-Blossom soap I shave. A score of + papers tell me Germany is undertaxed and can pay Reparations, and I sit + quiet while France occupies the Ruhr. Or vice-versa, as the case or + another may be. Every child goes to school and every school is under + Government control and every Government teaches that it is good for you to + be governed and for the world that it should govern. A few years ago we + were told that we had to be organised and schooled and managed because the + nation was at war, but the thing is fast becoming a habit, and we have now + to be managed and schooled and organised because the nation is at peace. + </p> + <p> + It is indeed just here that censorship has gone mad. It must have been + horribly unpleasant to burn at the stake, but at least you had the + satisfaction of knowing that the man who lit the faggots had some shadow + of reason behind him. He had at least an hypothesis. He acted reasonably + in its application. He believed something; he believed it with some + horse-sense; and he acted as the saviour of Society. But today our censors + have nothing behind them. No one supposes them to be more moral, more + charitable, more instructed than other men; still less does anyone suppose + them to be more inspired or dowered with divine right. They do not defend + a faith for which they, too, would die; they merely bolster up a position + because in so doing they find bread and butter. They do not object to + innovators because what they innovate is bad; they object to innovators + because they innovate. They do not object to us because they believe that + we tell lies; they object because they know that we tell the truth. + </p> + <p> + This, then, is all very well, but what is the end to be? The theologians + have always said that Almighty God left man free to sin because He did not + want automatons. It is exactly here, however, that your modern censors + improve on the Deity. They do want automatons. Only automatons will face + liquid fire and poison gas. Only automatons will live in a jerry-built + cottage in a modern town and pay heavily for the privilege. Only + automatons will vote correctly at elections and keep the political + business going and allow everything to run on smoothly for the next war. + Only automatons will agree to the lengthening of skirts from the knee to + the ankle. And only automatons will acquiesce in a system of morality + which is not built on divine revelation or even on social necessity, but + on exploded superstitions and sex domination and the conventions of the + propertied classes. + </p> + <p> + Thus the devil is coming surely hut steadily into his own. We have already + half-accepted an inverted order, allowing that all the good tunes are his + and attributing to him things which he knows well enough he has no right + to call his own. In a few years we shall neither use tobacco nor the + grape, gifts of the good God, nor dance nor choose our own clothes nor + laugh nor think. We shall scurry hither and thither before the flick of + the devil's tail and be ready for the burning. We shall have sold our + birthright of daring for an insipid mess of pottage: sold our right to + choose and to spare, to slay and to leave alive, to be glad and to be + sorry, to be martyrs if we would be, to explore, to risk, to win. We shall + be docile and respectable, and the standard of our docility and + respectability will have been set by men no better and no worse than we + are. We shall be sober by act of Parliament, and moral—if it be + morality—because we have lost the notion of being anything else. We + shall be of no use whatever to God, and precious small beer for the devil. + </p> + <p> + And is there no way of escape? There truly is, Let any man ask the first + censor that he sees by what authority he is censoring and who gave him + that authority. Let him ask by what standards he is judging and in whose + interests, and let him tell him what he thinks of his standards and + interests. Let him say BOO and see how foolish the goose can look. Laugh, + for Neo-Puritanism cannot stand laughter. Much else it can stand, but not + that. Don't argue; the old enemy is mighty good at words. Don't hit; there + are few of you strong enough. But laugh, laugh honestly, and go on + laughing, for it is the only invincible weapon in the world. There is no + more merry music either, and it is the melody for—Men. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0009" id="link2H_4_0009"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE UNINHIBITED FLAPPER + </h2> + <p> + [Illustration: Helen Bullitt Lowry watching Puritanism set the Flapper + free.] + </p> + <h3> + HELEN BULLITT LOWRY + </h3> + <p> + Two generations ago the girl was "damned." One generation ago she was + "ruined." Now, according to the best authorities and her own valuation, + she has just played out of luck. + </p> + <p> + So that for the reformers and prohibitionists, the censors and the woman's + club resolutionists! Their bi-product is Miss Twentieth Century Unlimited, + the one uninhibited creature in a Volsteaded civilisation. Controls—of + liquor and of birth—have given us The Flapper. The official + reformers, reinforcing the sagging inhibitions and corsets of the + nineteenth century, were just the final impetus needed to drive her out + into the open. + </p> + <p> + The flapper is released from the strangle hold that is throttling the rest + of us. If somebody makes a law for her, she promptly and blithely breaks + it, the pocket flask for the moment being the outward and visible sign of + the spirit—and spirits—of her wide-flung rebellion. It is the + milepost between the time that was and the time that is, that flask, and + to it we owe the single standard of drinking. + </p> + <p> + A half generation ago the sub-debs did not indulge in anything more + relaxing than coca cola. And even first and second year debbies did their + drinking from glasses issued by the hostess, not in triplicate. If a young + man of the period imported a flask from the outside, that young man was + promptly dropped from polite society, no matter how stringent was the + shortage of dancing beaux. They called a flask a "bottle of whiskey" in + those days. + </p> + <p> + Wild oats were reserved for the boys at college. If you were of Eve's + sheltered sex, you really had to become a member of the Fast Young Married + Crowd before you could get a look in. That Fast Young Married Crowd was + the first to come out of the biological fastnesses of the Mid-Victorian + era into the cocktails and jazz of our Mid-Victrolian period. + </p> + <p> + Moral: You had to keep yourself the kind of a girl you'd been told a man + wanted to marry, if you ever wanted to join in a cocktail party and slide + down the banisters uninhibited—as rumor had it the Fast Young + Married Crowd was doing on its orgies. Over the border of matrimony lay + the mysteries of the gay wild life. + </p> + <p> + In that era before our morals were legislated, being "that kind of a girl" + was a trying responsibility. There was an approved technique that every + wise virgin had to master. It consisted of letting each man, on whom she + conferred her favors, think that she really was in love with him. She + called it "being engaged." And,—if perchance she came to possess a + harem of fiancés,—remember that the young things of the period were + not so well able to conduct their own courtings as our present-day + emancipated flappers. They still had to depend on what the tide washed in. + They still did their picking from those that picked them—and sorted + 'em over at their leisure. + </p> + <p> + Then, too, a half generation ago, we had not read our Freud. We did not + know the jargon of sex. Both man and girl were apt to call "in love" the + emotion which our present-day young things frankly call something else. + Thus came it that the petting parties of the period operated under the + left wing of a near-engagement. + </p> + <p> + Yet there was a weakness to the system. Each fiance had the lordly + impression that he "possessed" the lady of his choice. And the minute the + male feels that he possesses a woman, he can get all the psychology of + "riding away" and leaving her. Our Freudian flappers are better + strategians. Man simply can't labor under the impression that he possesses + a young person, if her lingo is calling the once sacred kiss just a "flash + of pash." Applied slang is a great leveller of romance. + </p> + <p> + For times have changed since it was good form for a maid to avoid the + crass mention of sex. With prohibition has come such an outburst of Get + Moral Quick legislation that the reaction is now being felt throughout the + length and breadth of the flapper. The legislators would lengthen the + skirts to protect the defenceless male from a chance thought of legs and + the like. Whereat the flapper retaliates by conversing pretty ceaselessly + about—well, say associated subjects. + </p> + <p> + Last season the writer, being of the genus Successfully Single, woke up + with a start to realize that two desirables had toyed with her hook—and + retreated. One of them had even exited, uttering a fatal accusation about + a "trammelled soul." Such a warning calls for a taking of stock. And this + is what I found: Because of the flappers and the way they run shop, the + whole technique of the man game has changed. My method, alas, had become + as out of style as a pompadour Gibson hat. Where once girls pretended to + know less and to have experienced less than they actually had, now they + pretend to more. Therein lie all the law and the social profits. Therefore + Rule One of these dauntless rebels reads: It is not an insult but a + compliment for an admirer to explain that his intentions are frankly + carnivorous. + </p> + <p> + To my ten-year-old technique had still been clinging the cobwebs of the + past, when even Launcelot's intentions were painted as slightly honorable. + But now—the shades of Alfred Lord Tennyson help us!—it has + become the smart procedure to take Man's bold bad intentions right out + into the conversation and pretend to be tempted by them. + </p> + <p> + The truth of the matter is that those pseudo-engagements of the fox-trot + decade really were furnishing a charge account psychology. Man could close + his eyes and whisper, "Some day, my own," and still go nicely on a <i>Ladies' + Home Journal</i> cover design of "Under the Mistletoe." But, when our + flapper is not even pretending to him that she is going to marry him, and + when he is not even pretending to himself that he is going to marry her—well, + the whole sex game has then been put on a frank cash and carry basis. + </p> + <p> + Mark well, however, these worldly-wise young things of this the third year + of our Prohibition are not necessarily less virtuous technically than + their own crinolined grandmothers. Only these days they are not bragging + about their virtue. + </p> + <p> + "And have all the men afraid of you, for fear they'll be responsible for + teaching you something," explains one practical miss. "Men like to find + you in stock, ready-taught. We know how to take care of ourselves—so + we let them think what they want." In short, the whole new game, as the + earnest disciple from the half generation ago learned it, is not to reveal + the dark secret that you abide by the Ten Commandments. Man must not + suspect that you are unattainable. He must just think that he has not + attained you—yet. If you want to compete with the flappers, you've + got to play by the flapper rules. Check your conversational inhibitions! + </p> + <p> + And if by chance there be any inhibitions left over, Prohibition has + obligingly introduced new opportunities for privacy, that will help you + check them too. When a couple strays off now from group formation, there's + a perfectly good alibi available of finding a sheltered spot for a drink. + Where once it really wasn't good form to go to a man's hotel room, now it + is the national custom for the owner of hootch to register a casket for + his jewel—and then invite the young things in, one by one. A flapper + these nights can retire to that hotel bedroom for an hour in the middle of + a dance. The girl is not "talked about," and the place is not "pulled." + Even the house detective knows that she is innocently drinking a drink. + </p> + <p> + Thus has this rebel young generation forced out into the open country with + it all the contented young women in their late twenties and early + thirties, who may not have been feeling rebellious at all. And the wives + of forty-five also, to compete all over again for their own husbands. For + "poaching" on the wifely preserves has become the favorite flapper sport! + </p> + <p> + "Married men," having been forbidden to unmarried young persons for three + chaste generations, our flappers, bi-product of inhibition, are promptly + appropriating the husbands. This one item of the flapper raid on the + married men has done more than the entire twentieth century put together + to change the smug structure of American society, and bring us back to + normalcy. + </p> + <p> + Before 1865 no Southern belle considered herself worth her salt unless all + the courtly old married men in the country kissed her hand and competed + with the young blades for her quadrilles. But when black persons stopped + buttoning up the shoes of the Quality, America entered upon her 1870's, + her sombre brown stone fronts, and her cloistered husbands. The money for + doing society had simply passed into the hands of the descendants of Miles + Standish and Priscilla, who carried their consciences into their sober + mansions with them. The Age of Innocence was upon us, and has clung close + ever since. + </p> + <p> + From that fatal day on to 1917 each oncoming debutante was taught by her + mother to give unto the genus, married man, her most impersonal manner, + lest she provoke his "undesirable attentions." If poaching was done, it + was from behind a tree. Unmarried girls knew that their place was not in + somebody else's home in those days. The wives could protect their + preserves by the simple expedient of "talking about" any unmarried young + female caught on the married reservations. + </p> + <p> + And so it came to pass that the pick of the men were posted, because, as + fast as a callow youth gets worth marrying, somebody promptly marries him. + The Fast Young Married Crowd was a closed corporation and played + exclusively within itself; the female of the species had to compete only + with females of equal tonnage. The only sylph-like temptation that a + husband could encounter was a dissolute person whose reputation had + already been ruined—and she didn't count, because nobody invited her + to parties anyway. A wife could get as fat as she wanted to in those days. + </p> + <p> + Even today that same leisurely life might exist for the wives. Even today + the wives might be resting their feet under the bridge tables, secure in + the consciousness that no bobbed haired young poacher was daring to dance + with their husbands, if they had just let prohibitions enough alone—if + they had only not been swept away by the high sport of gossiping about our + Wild Young People, which struck the country in the summer of 1920. This + gossip was an intrinsic phase of the virtue wave which always immediately + precedes a crime wave. + </p> + <p> + The wives just at this point, instead of sitting tight, made the strategic + mistake of turning the full force of the ammunition of gossip, which + should have been saved for defending husbands from poachers, into an + offensive attack on the flapper's lip stick, on her cigarettes, and on her + petting parties. Whenever two or three wives were gathered together, their + topic was our Wild Young People. That summer, too, saw the launching of + that now seasoned romance about the checking of corsets. The resolutions + at clubs were being resolved. The preachers were sermonizing. The up-state + legislators were drafting bills against flappers' smoking cigarettes. + </p> + <p> + Human nature can be pushed just so far. Instead of reforming, the young + things apparently decided one might as well lose a reputation for stealing + a husband as for smoking a cigarette. The whole arsenal for combating + poachers blew up. + </p> + <p> + To make matters worse, in the excitement of the virtue wave our Wild Young + People had been attacked as a group instead of as individuals. That was + the second mistake. The whole strength of gossip consists in selecting one + member of the clan for calumny, to stand out disgraced and alone among her + exemplary sisters. Because the flappers had been gossiped about <i>en + masse</i>, the whole reason for not being gossiped about had ceased. The + poacher of that half generation ago had been the kind of a girl who + stalked her game alone. + </p> + <p> + But, when all the girls in town are seeking to steal your husband, what + are you going to do about it, if you are a woman of forty-five with a + heaviness around the hips and a disinclination to learn the camel walk? + Nor can you get the poachers off the scent by crossing the trail with an + eligible bachelor. Logically, the young things should have enough sense to + ignore a preempted husband and attend to the serious business of getting + themselves husbands. But they haven't. They seem to prefer the husbands of + the other women. And curiously, the more they engage in this exotic sport + of poaching, the less keen they become about owning a property for + somebody else to poach on. + </p> + <p> + The real interstate joke on Puritanism is that the flapper, who flaps + because Puritanism has driven her to it, will automatically bring about + its cure. The whole vitality of Puritanism rests on the unswerving + principle of letting not thy right hand know what thy left hand doeth, if + thy left hand is doing something it shouldn't. Puritanism could not last + out a week-end without the able assistance of the standardized double + life. + </p> + <p> + And that is just what the flappers refuse to respect. They are even + insisting on being taken along on the parties, which, by all the rules of + Rolf and Comstock should be confined to man's double life. Where the + chorus lady was once the only brand that had the proper and improper + equipment to jazz up an evening, now mankind has come to prefer the + flapper, who drinks as much as the Broadwayite, is just as peppy and not + quite so gold-diggish. + </p> + <p> + "It is so simple," smiles Barbara nonchalantly blowing her smoke rings. + "You old dears set man an impossible standard. As he had always to be + pretending holy emotions whenever he was around you he just naturally had + to get away half the time, to rest the muscles of his inhibitions. Why, + you funny old things actually drove man into his double life, just as you + made all of his best stories have two editions, one for a nice girl and + one for—well say one not so nice. Our crowd has done more than all + of your silly old social hygiene commissions to bring nearer the single + standard—by going part way to meet him." + </p> + <p> + The preachers are wasting their time when they rail that the flappers are + painting their faces like "fallen women." Of course they are painting them + that way—for the very good reason that mankind has demonstrated too + unmistakably that that kind of woman has "a way with her." + </p> + <p> + Not so long ago cosmetics became a moral issue. The curl rag was the only + beautifier that somehow never lost its odor of sanctity—and that was + doubtless because curl rags were a perfectly logical part of the + long-sleeved Canton flannel nightgown civilization. Curls couldn't be so + very wrong when they were so frightfully unbecoming in the making. And so + the "good woman" handed over intact to her weaker sister every beautifier + that the world had been eight thousand years accumulating. + </p> + <p> + Slowly, timidly the allurements returned. The talcum powder bought for + baby surreptitiously reached the nose. When the half generation ago was + young, we had adopted a certain lip salve, just one shade darker than the + way lips come, explaining, to save our reputations, that we were keeping + our lips from chapping. Rouge too had come coyly, back—but—and + here's the gist of the whole matter—in polite society paint was put + on to imitate nature. + </p> + <p> + We were still doing our make-up as man conducted his double life—with + intent to deceive the general public. We still belonged at heart to the + Puritan era, in spite of our wicked fox-trot. All may have been artificial + below the neck, from our Gossard corsets with their phalanx of garters on + to our hobble skirts. But above the neck, we pretended it was natural. + </p> + <p> + The flapper has changed all that. She has turned the lady up side down, as + well as the world. For the flapper is <i>au naturale</i> below the neck. + Above the neck she is the most artificially and entertainingly painted + creature that has graced society since Queen Elizabeth. With one bold + stroke of a passionately red lip stick, she has painted out Elaine the + Fair and the later-day noble Christie Girl and painted in an exotic young + person, meet to compete alike with a Ziegfield show girl, with a + heaven-born Egyptian princess or even a good Queen Bess, who could not + move her face after it was dressed up for the morning. And Bess was the + Virgin Queen. The American-Victorian is indeed the only era in history + when cosmetics became a moral issue. Even in dour Cromwellian England, + rouge registered the wrong politics but not immorality. We are merely + getting back to normalcy in cosmetics—back behind the dun wall of + the Victorian era. + </p> + <p> + And it is the flapper who has done it for us. What's more, she has done it + frankly and purposefully—because the reformer, in his naive + innocence, has explained to her that what she is doing is wicked and will + get that kind of "results." Similarly those of 'em who had not yet taken + off their corsets at dances, promptly did so when shocked elders began + repeating the corset checking story. Dear heart, the only reason that they + had not done so before was because the little dears hadn't heard that the + worst people were using ribs instead of whalebone that season. + </p> + <p> + Vice would die out from disuse, if the reformers did not advertise. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0010" id="link2H_4_0010"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE WOWZER IN THE SOUTH SEAS + </h2> + <p> + [Illustration: Frederick O'Brien finds the South Seas purified and + beautified by the Missionaries.] + </p> + <h3> + FREDERICK O'BRIEN + </h3> + <p> + All over the South Seas the censor has had his day. From New Guinea to + Easter Island, he has made his rules and enforced them. Often he wrote + glowing pages of prose and poetry about his accomplishments, for reading + in Europe and America. He was usually sincere, and determined. He felt + that it was up to him to make over the native races to suit his own ideas + of what pleased God and himself. When he had the lower hand, he prayed and + strove in agony to change the wicked hearts of his flock to Clapham or + Andover standards; he suffered the contumelies of heathen jibes, and now + and again—often enough to make a cartoon popular—he was + hotpotted or baked on hot stones as a "long pig." When he converted the + king or chief, and he always directed his sacred ammunition at the upper + classes, he took advantage of every inch of spiritual and governmental + club put in his hand, and smote the pagan hip and thigh. His sole effort + was to make the South Seas safe for theocracy, and to <i>strafe</i> Satan. + </p> + <p> + Of course, he was a missionary. It is doubtful if any other urge than a + religious one could have infused into those canny migrants of the past + century the extraordinary zeal that characterized their singular labors in + the exquisite and benighted isles of the tropics. + </p> + <p> + To leave the melancholy and futuristic atmosphere of seminaries and + bethels where the ghosts and penalties of millions of sins cast down their + hearts, where few baths and drab clothes, dark homes and poor food, made + all conscious of dwelling in a vale of tears, and after half a year or + more of hard, ship fare and the rough discipline of a tossing windjammer, + to find themselves in the most magnificent scenes on the globe, and amid + the richest bounty, was trial enough of the unstable soul of man. That + they—most of them—resisted the temptations of the tropical + demon, that they continued to preach fire and brimstone, to remain flocked + and shod, pantaletted and stayed, is proof enough of their cementation to + the rock of ages. + </p> + <p> + The men were even subjected to direr spells. They were youths, the rude + boys of farm and hamlet, schooled in simple studies, untried by the wiles + of siren blandishments. If married, their courtships had been without + passion, and their wedded years without competition, and generally without + other incidents than children. + </p> + <p> + A typical union of this kind I find in an old diary of the wife of one of + the most famous propagandists of the American God in Polynesia. He was of + Yale and Andover, and she of Bradford, the daughter of a Marlboro deacon. + She was twenty-four and he a little older when her cousin called upon her + at her Marlboro home, to ask if she would "become connected with a + missionary now an entire stranger, attach herself to a little band of + pilgrims, and visit the distant land of Hawaii." + </p> + <p> + "What could I say? We thoroughly discussed the subject. Next week is the + anticipated, dreaded interview of final decision. Last night I could + neither eat nor close my eyes in sleep." + </p> + <p> + The suitor came. "The early hours of the evening were devoted to + refreshments, to free family sociality, to singing, and to evening + worship. Then one by one the family dispersed, leaving two of similar + aspirations, introduced as strangers, to separate at midnight as + interested friends. + </p> + <p> + "In the forenoon, the sun had risen high in the heavens, when it looked + down upon two of the children of earth giving themselves wholly to their + heavenly Father, receiving each other from his hand as his good gift, + pledging themselves to each other as close companions in the race of life, + consecrating themselves and their all to a life-work among the heathen." + </p> + <p> + After six months on the wave, she approaches the "land of darkness whither + I am bound. When I reflect on the degradation and misery of the + inhabitants, follow them into the eternal world, and forward to the great + day of retribution, all my petty sufferings dwindle to a point." + </p> + <p> + They anchor, and "soon the islanders of both sexes came paddling out in + their canoes, with their island fruit. The men wore girdles, and the women + a slight piece of cloth wrapped around them, from the hips downward. To a + civilized eye their covering seemed to be revoltingly scanty. But we + learned that it was a full dress for daily occupation." + </p> + <p> + The note of nudity this really remarkable woman struck at her first sight + of the welcoming savages, was the keynote of the new domination of the + islands from Hawaii to Australia. The censors were convinced that it was a + state of ungodliness. Their reasoning was based on the fig leaf tied about + them by the first man and woman when they became conscious of sin, and it + proceeded to the logical teaching that the less of the body exposed the + more godly the condition. When they found this nakedness associated with a + relation of the sexes utterly opposed to their own, and when, especially, + the first white wives on the South Sea beaches, found the joyous, + handsome, frolicsome women of the islands, making ardent love to their + husbands, the innate heinousness of bodily bareness became fixed as a + guiding star towards bringing the infidel to the true worship. + </p> + <p> + Clothe them and sanctify them, became the motto. From the wondrous + Marquesas valleys to the American naval station of Samoa, the bonnet, the + bonnet of a half century ago, is the requirement of decency in the coral + or bamboo church, as it is in the temples of New York. The nightgown or + Mother Hubbard of Connecticut became the proper female attire for natives + in the house of God, and thus, by gradual establishment of a fashion, in + their straw homes, and everywhere. Chiefesses were induced to don calico, + and chiefs the woolen or denim trousers of refinement. The trader came to + sell them, and so business followed the Bible. Tattooing, which, with the + Polynesians and Melenesians, was probably a race memory of clothing in a + less tropical clime, was condemned bitterly by the white censors as + causing nudity. A man or woman whose legs and body were covered with + marvellous arabesques and gaudy pictures of palms and fish was not apt to + hide them under garments. + </p> + <p> + And here the censor also had an ally in the trader. The two joined, + unwittingly, to break down both the old morale of the pagan and the new + morality of the converts. The censorious cleric said that the Lord + disliked nakedness, or, at least, that unclothedness was unvirtuous, while + the seller of calico and alcohol advised the purchase of his goods for the + sake of style. He ridiculed tattooing and nudity, but he also laughed with + ribaldry at the religious arguments. The confused indigene, driven by + admonition and shame put on the hot and griming stuffs, and finally, had + them kept on him by statute. The censor in the South Seas achieved his + highest reach of holy effort. He had made into law the <i>mores</i> his + sect or tribe had coined into morals, and was able to punish by civil + tribunal the evildoers who refused to abide by his conception of the + divine wish. + </p> + <p> + But here, old Mother Nature revolted. All over the world it would appear + that she is not in touch with the divinity that shapes the ends of the + censors. The clothing donned by the natives of the South Seas killed them. + They sweated and remained foul; they swam, and kept on their garments; + they were rained on, and laid down in calico and wool, They abandoned the + games and exercises which had made them the finest physical race in the + world, and took up hymn books and tools. The physical plagues of the + whites decimated them. They passed away as the <i>tiaré</i> Tahiti withers + indoors. The censored returned to the rich earth which had bred them, and + taught them its secrets and demands. Only a mournful remnant remains to + observe the censorship. + </p> + <p> + But the curious spirit of inversion which tries to make the assumed + infinite of a finite nature, which had sacrificed a race to an invented + god, persists even in the South Seas. One of the most distinguished + authors, who has chosen that delectable clime for his researches was + arrested for napping on his own <i>paepae</i> partly clothed. The parson + informed upon him, and the <i>gendarme</i> fined him. In the British South + Seas, where I was recently, prohibition had cast a blight upon the more + poetical whites. I remember one night when my vessel was anchored for a + few hours in the roadstead of a lonely island, a group of civil servants + and a minister of the Church of England had come aboard to buy what + comforts they might from our civilized caravan. They sat on deck clinking + glasses occasionally, talking of cities where a man might be freed from + the "continuous spying of the uncoo good." That was the phrase they used, + being English or Scots, and when the word was passed that we up-anchored + with the turn of the tide at midnight, they sang in a last burst of lively + furor a song of Dionysian regret. One stanza lingers with me:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Whack the cymbal! Bang the drum! + Votaries of Bacchus! + Let the popping corks resound, + Pass the flowing goblet round! + May no mournful voice be found, + Though wowzers do attack us! +</pre> + <p> + In the darkness I called to them as they went down the gangway into their + boat, "What is a wowzer?" + </p> + <p> + "'E's a bloomin' —— 'oo wants to do unto others wot 'e's + bleedin' well done to 'imself." + </p> + <p> + The wowzers are more active in Hawaii, the most temperate portion of + Polynesia, than in the Maori isles of New Zealand. A law passed at the + last session of the Hawaiian legislature prohibits "any person over + fourteen years of age from appearing upon the streets of Honolulu in a + bathing suit unless covered suitably by an outer garment reaching at least + to the knees." There is a ferment in Honolulu over the arrest and + punishment of offenders against this new censorship. It is the result of + the control by the spiritual, or perhaps, lineal, descendants of the first + South Sea censors, of the great grand-children of those men who wore the + girdles of leaves at the landing of the Marlboro school teacher a hundred + years ago. The girdle-wearers are members of the Hawaiian legislature—soon + to be succeeded by Japanese-native-born—and the censors, likely, are + wives of financiers and sugar factors. Again the feeble remnant of the + Hawaiian race voted against the girdle. + </p> + <p> + A friend of mine, grandson of the estimable missionary and his bride of + the New England of a century ago, thus comments upon the law in a paper + sent to me:— + </p> + <p> + The facts which caused the passage of the law were, that certain residents + of Waikiki were donning their bathing suits at home, walking across and + along the public streets to the sea and returning in the same state of + undress. + </p> + <p> + If the bathing suits had been of the old-style no objection to this would + have been made. The woman's bathing suit of the olden days were a cumbrous + swaddling garment, high-necked, long-sleeved, full-skirted, + bloomer-breeched and stockinged. + </p> + <p> + Simultaneously with the outbreak of the street parade era, above noted, + there came with spontaneous-combustion-like rapidity, a radical change in + the style of female bathing suits "on the street at Waikiki." + </p> + <p> + First the sleeves, then the stockings, then the skirts, then the main + portion of the garment covering the legs, successively disappeared, until + the low-necked, sleeveless, legless one-piece suit became "the thing"; and + women clad in garments scantier than the scantiest on the ballet stage, + were parading Kalakaua avenue in the vicinity of the Moana hotel, to the + scandal and disgust of some; the devouring gaze of others; and the + interested inspection of whomsoever chose to inspect! + </p> + <p> + It was a startling sight to the uninitiated—probably unduplicated in + any other civilized country. + </p> + <p> + The South Pacific or the heart of Africa would probably have to be visited + to find virtuous women so scantily clad, making such exhibition of their + persons in public-more particularly on the public streets. + </p> + <p> + This scantiness of dress became the subject of protest, of justification, + of discussion in press, in public and in private throughout the community. + </p> + <p> + The practice was violently attacked as tending to lewdness and scandal; as + vigorously defended as a question of personal taste and liberty, and as a + matter concerning safety and comfort in swimming. + </p> + <p> + Those "old-style suits" he refers to, "full-skirted, bloomer-breeched" + were the godly ones brought to Hawaii by the censors, but which gradually + disappeared with the influx of rich tourists from America, and the + importation by Honolulu merchants of the flimsier and less concealing + kind. This new generation of whites that has sought escape from the + "cumbrous, swaddling garment" embraces the flapper, who at Waikiki is a + beautiful and wholesome sight. Browned by years of exposure to the beach + sun, charmingly modelled, and with the grace and freedom of limb of the + surf-board rider and canoeist, she has no consciousness of guilt in her + emergence dripping from the sea, in her lying in the breeze upon the sand, + nor in her walks to and from her bungalow nearby. And she refuses to be + censored. + </p> + <p> + The commentator, proprietor of the oldest newspaper in the islands, and + himself a noted diplomat, lawyer and revolutionist—he took up a + rifle against Liliuokalani—says so:— + </p> + <p> + The law has been observed by a few, ignored by a few, and caricatured by + the many. It is not an uncommon thing to see a woman walking the streets + in Waikiki in the scantiest of bathing suits, with drapery of the + flimsiest suspended from her shoulders and floating behind upon the + breeze. + </p> + <p> + The police have made a few feeble and spasmodic attempts to persuade + observance of the law, with some ill-advised attempts to enforce + individual ideas of propriety on the beach itself. + </p> + <p> + On the whole, the law is either openly and flagrantly violated or rendered + farcical by the contemptuous manner of its semi-observance. + </p> + <p> + And, cautiously but firmly, the grandson of the first missionaries to + Hawaii, himself living six decades in Honolulu, a church member and + supporter of all evangelical and commercial progress, gives advice to the + people of his territory. Urging that those opposed to the bathing suit law + try legally to secure its repeal, but that all obey it while it is on the + statute books, he says:— + </p> + <p> + As to the question of attire on the beach, there are modest and immodest + women to be found everywhere, regardless of their clothes. It is + impossible to legislate modesty into a person who is innately immodest, + and it is therefore useless to try and do so. The attire of a woman on the + beach at Waikiki as well as her conduct elsewhere, should therefore be + left to the individual woman herself. + </p> + <p> + That is the last word of a very shrewd, wealthy, experienced, religious + son of censors. But wowzerism dies hard in America or in the South Seas. + The Anglo-Saxon American has it in his blood as an inheritance from the + rise of Puritanism four hundred years ago, while with many it is an + idiosyncrasy to be explained by the glands regulating personality. In + fact, I feel that this is the enemy the would-be free must fight. We must + attack and extirpate the wowzerary gland. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0011" id="link2H_4_0011"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + REFORMERS: A HYMN OF HATE + </h2> + <p> + [Illustration: Dorothy Parker hating Reformers.] + </p> + <h3> + DOROTHY PARKER + </h3> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + I hate Reformers; + They raise my blood pressure. + + There are the Prohibitionists; + The Fathers of Bootlegging. + They made us what we are to-day— + I hope they're satisfied. + They can prove that the Johnstown flood, + And the blizzard of 1888, + And the destruction of Pompeii + Were all due to alcohol. + They have it figured out + That anyone who would give a gin daisy a friendly look + Is just wasting time out of jail, + And anyone who would stay under the same roof + With a bottle of Scotch + Is right in line for a cozy seat in the electric chair. + They fixed things all up pretty for us; + Now that they have dried up the country, + You can hardly get a drink unless you go in and order one. + They are in a nasty state over this light wines and beer idea; + They say that lips that touch liquor + Shall never touch wine. + They swear that the Eighteenth Amendment + Shall be improved upon + + Over their dead bodies— + Fair enough! + Then there are the Suppressors of Vice; + The Boys Who Made the Name of Cabell a Household Word. + Their aim is to keep art and letters in their place; + If they see a book + Which does not come right out and say + That the doctor brings babies in his little black bag, + Or find a painting of a young lady + Showing her without her rubbers, + They call out the militia. + They have a mean eye for dirt; + They can find it + In a copy of "What Katy Did at School," + Or a snapshot of Aunt Bessie in bathing at Sandy Creek, + Or a picture postcard of Moonlight in Bryant Park. + They are always running around suppressing things, + Beginning with their desires. + They get a lot of excitement out of life,— + They are constantly discovering + The New Rabelais + Or the Twentieth Century Hogarth. + Their leader is regarded + As the representative of Comstock here on earth. + How does that song of Tosti's go?— + "Good-bye, Sumner, good-bye, good-bye." + + There are the Movie Censors, + The motion picture is still in its infancy,— + They are the boys who keep it there. + If the film shows a party of clubmen tossing off ginger ale, + Or a young bride dreaming over tiny garments, + Or Douglas Fairbanks kissing Mary Pickford's hand, + They cut out the scene + And burn it in the public square. + They fix up all the historical events + So that their own mothers wouldn't know them. + They make Du Barry Mrs. Louis Fifteenth, + And show that Anthony and Cleopatra were like brother and sister, + And announce Salome's engagement to John the Baptist, + So that the audiences won't go and get ideas in their heads. + They insist that Sherlock Holmes is made to say, + "Quick, Watson, the crochet needle!" + And the state pays them for it. + They say they are going to take the sin out of cinema + If they perish in the attempt,— + I wish to God they would! +</pre> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + And then there are the All-American Crabs; + The Brave Little Band that is Against Everything. + They have got up the idea + That things are not what they were when Grandma was a girl. + They say that they don't know what we're coming to, + As if they had just written the line. + They are always running a temperature + Over the modern dances, + Or the new skirts, + Or the goings-on of the younger set. + They can barely hold themselves in + When they think of the menace of the drama; + They seem to be going ahead under the idea + That everything but the Passion Play + Was written by Avery Hopwood. + They will never feel really themselves + Until every theatre in the country is razed. + They are forever signing petitions + Urging that cigarette-smokers should be deported, + And that all places of amusement should be closed on Sunday + And kept closed all week. + They take everything personally; + They go about shaking their heads, + And sighing, "It's all wrong, it's all wrong,"— + They said it. + + I hate Reformers; + They raise my blood pressure. +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0012" id="link2H_4_0012"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + PROHIBITION + </h2> + <p> + [Illustration: Frank Swinnerton contemplating, from the Tight Little Isle, + the two classes of prigs developed by Prohibition; those who accept it and + those who rebel.] + </p> + <h3> + FRANK SWINNERTON + </h3> + <p> + I shall never forget the shock I received when an American woman, newly + arrived in England, gave me her impressions of London. She was distinctly + pleased with the town, and when I rather foolishly asked if she had been + terrified by our celebrated policemen, she said, "Why, no. I was in a + taxicab yesterday, and the driver went right on past the policeman's hand, + stealing round where he'd no business to go. And the policeman just said, + 'Here, where you going? D'you want the whole of England?' Why, in New + York, if he'd done that, he'd have been in prison inside of five minutes!" + </p> + <p> + I wonder if it will be understood how terrible disillusion on such a scale + can be. I had been thinking of the United States for so long as the home + of the free and the easy that it was hard to bring myself to the belief + that the police there were both peremptory and severe. I had thought them + all Irishmen of the humorous, or "darlint" type. It seems I was mistaken. + The little—I am now afraid misleading—paragraphs which from + time to time appear in the English papers, saying that there has been a + hold-up on Fifth Avenue, or that the Chief of Police in some great city + has been found to be the head of a gang of international assassins, that + things called Tammany and graft and saloons flourish there without let or + hindrance, had attracted me to the United States. I wanted to live in such + a country. Here, I said, is a place where every man's hand is for himself, + where the revolver plays its true part, and where, with the aid of a + humorous Irish policeman, who will find me stunned by a sandbag and take + me to his little home in 244th Street and reveal the fact that he is + descended from Cuchulain, I can be happy. + </p> + <p> + At first I thought that my friend must be exaggerating. Not lightly was I + prepared to let my dream go. But I am afraid that my confidence in America + as the home of freedom needs a tonic. She may have been right, although it + seems unbelievable. When I thought the problem out clearly I came to the + conclusion that there was a sinister sound about that comment upon our + policemen. Were they losing control of us? Apparently not. I had trouble + on the road with a policeman over the rear light of my car. There is no + doubt that England is efficiently policed. And so my mind stole back to + America with a new uneasiness. I recollected tales which I had heard about + sumptuary laws regulating the dress of American women, both in and out of + the water. I saw the police invading restaurants and snatching cigarettes + from the mouths of women. I saw drink being driven underground by + Prohibition. I began to question whether I should really like to live in + the United States after all. I asked those of my friends who had been to + America. + </p> + <p> + They told me that if I visited America I should be regaled privately with + champagne from the huge reserves of private wine-cellars, but that as a + resident I should be forbidden to drink anything that enlivened me. It was + a great shock. I am not yet recovered from it. I see that I shall after + all have to live quietly in England with my pipe and my abstemious bottle + of beer. And yet I should like to visit America, for it has suddenly + become in my imagining an enormous country of "Don't!" and I want to know + what it is like to have "Don't" said by somebody who is not a woman. + </p> + <p> + I have always hated the word "Don't." I hated it as a child, and I hate it + still. It is a nasty word, a chilling word, associated with feelings of + resentment, of discipline, of prohibition. Yes, that is it, of course, + Prohibition. I find that it is Prohibition which makes my throat so dry. I + thought it was a human characteristic, when anybody said, "You're not to + do that!" to do it at once in case there should be any misunderstanding. I + should be frightened to say "Don't!" to anybody, because I feel sure it + would precipitate unpleasantness. Is America so different from the rest of + the world that it likes having "Don't!" said to it? I cannot think that. + What occurs to me is that America has not yet worked out of its system the + strain that the English Puritan fathers brought with them. It is a + melancholy thought to me that it is really ancient English repression that + is responsible for the present state of affairs. I feel very guilty, + particularly as I have seen an article about myself in an English + newspaper headed "A Modern Puritan." It is really I, and people like me, + who have caused the great drink restrictions in the United States. I bow + my head. + </p> + <p> + The truth is, I suppose, that people in the United States take life more + seriously than we do in England. If you read any of the books which have + been written in this country during the ages to show what sort of + community is the ideal—I refer to such works as "Utopia" and "News + from Nowhere"—there is never any difference between them on one + point. All the dwellers in these ideal states appear to be thoroughly + idle. They have practically no work to do at all. All their time is spent + in talk and sylvan wandering, with music and dancing round maypoles. There + is no mistaking the fact that the Englishman's idea of life is confirmed + and justifiable laziness. He wants what he calls leisure. Charles Lamb, a + typically English author, wrote a poem beginning "Who first invented + work?" He came to the conclusion that it must have been the Devil. The + inference is clear. Observation confirms my view. It is not to be doubted + that the average Englishman spends his life in scheming to make somebody + else do the work that lies nearest to his hand. + </p> + <p> + Americans must be different. I believe they really like work. And I will + give the Prohibitionists this handsome admission. I also work much better + without stimulants. I mean, much harder. But on the other hand, I am less + happy. Does an American feel happy in his work? Does the act of work give + him a satisfaction which is not felt by an Englishman? I think that must + be the explanation. But on the other hand there is this question of + Puritanism. We tried it in England, and we had a severe reaction to + libertinism. We maintain Puritanism only in our suburban districts, where + there is exceedingly close scrutiny of all matters pertaining to conduct; + and in our theatres. In the suburbs it does not much matter, although it + rather cramps our suburban style; but in the theatre it drives some of us + to distraction. I will explain why. + </p> + <p> + Supposing a man wants to write a play, he at once thinks of getting it + produced. An unproduced play is like an unpublished novel: practically + speaking it does not exist. The author can read it, of course, and his + wife can assure him that it is a great deal better than anything she has + seen or read for years; but the author and his wife are both haunted by + the fact that there is a masterpiece which is lying—not fallow, but + unused and sterile. They grow dissatisfied. The savour of life is lost for + them. They develop persecution mania, grow very conceited, and finally + come to believe that only they of all the men and women alive truly grasp + the essentials of life. They say, if this were the silly muck that most + authors write, it would be produced, and then we should have our car and + our servants and diamonds and titles and all the paraphernalia of + happiness. As it is, we are doomed to silence and poverty, simply because + George is too much of an artist to lower himself by writing what the + public wants, and what the censor will pass. For I have not been outlining + the diseased state of mind of the merely incompetent man who writes + something that nobody will look at. I have been giving details of one of + those men who have a moral message, and who desire greatly to spread it by + means of the stage. He has written, let us say, a play in which the name + of God appears, or a play wherein a young woman has a baby and does not + wish to have a husband. The censor says that there must be no mention of + God in plays performed on the public stage, and that young women who have + babies must either have husbands or come to early graves of their own + seeking. Very well, what happens? I have described the state of mind of a + husband and wife who have a pet child—a play—which is lying + heavy on their minds and hearts and hands. They are ripe for any + temptation of the devil. And it comes. It always comes. + </p> + <p> + The devil dresses himself up in the guise of a Sunday play-producing + society. The play is surreptitiously performed in a theatre to which + admission can be obtained only by members banded together for just such + emergencies. It is very badly acted by actors and actresses who have not + been able to spare sufficient time from their daily work to learn their + parts as well as they should have done. The audience comes full of a smug + self-satisfaction at the thought that it is excessively intellectual and + select, and that it alone can appreciate blasphemy or the vagaries of + neurotic young women. It sits intellectually in the theatre, and watches + the play. The author sits intellectually in his box, and intellectually + accepts the plaudits of the audience. He lives thereafter in a highly + intellectual atmosphere. He is driven to become a member of the secret + play-producing society, and to watch other plays of a character not suited + to the requirements of the censorship. He is morally a ruined man. He will + never any more be a decent member of society, for he has become an + intellectual. He has been taught to despise ordinary human beings, for + they do not want to be wicked or silly, except in the normal humdrum way, + and they have not seen his play and are not members of his play-producing + society. He discovers that the censored is the only good art. He is driven + to the reading of all sorts of Continental drama. He is made into an + anti-English propagandist. He is like the person in the song, who, + </p> + <p> + "Praises every century but this, and every country but his own." + </p> + <p> + He has been lost for human kind, and is wedded to intellectualism and a + sense of superiority to others for the rest of his miserable life. He + institutes a new system of censorship of his own. It takes the form of + sneering at and condemning anything that does not conform to his own + ideas. He sniffs at all sorts of innocently happy people who are + inoffensively pursuing their noisy course through life. He begins to hate + noise. He makes a virtue of his abstention from ordinary pleasures. He + speaks condescendingly of the "hoi polloi." As I said, he is ruined. He is + no longer a man that one can talk to with any comfort, for his sense of + superiority is intolerable. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> +To me there is nothing more terrible than the sense of superiority to +others. It arises, not from merit or the consciousness of merit, but +from sheer tin-like flimsiness of character. It arises from limited +sympathies. The really great man, and the really sagacious man, is +one to whom nothing is contemptible. To him, even the follies of his +fellow-passengers are manifestations of human nature, revelations of the +material from which scholars and politicians no less than drunkards +and inconstants are gradually in course of time developed. Somebody +described "conceit" to me the other day as egotism in which contempt for +others is involved. It was agreed between us that egotism was normal, +since happiness is not to be attained without a sense of personal +utility to the world, and no objection was urged against it. Vanity was +to be tolerated, because it was definitely social—a recognition of the +existence and value of the good opinion of others; but never sense of +superiority. And the sense of rebellion should be added to this other +sense, as equally to be regretted. A young woman whose incredible acts +of folly had spoiled half-a-dozen lives, including her own, recently +encountered a young man whom she had jilted on the eve of her marriage +to another, whom she had also left. The young man, still smarting under +his ill-treatment, reproached her. He said, "What you want, my dear, is +discipline." "Pooh!" she answered. "I'm <i>above</i> discipline!" The poor +young man retired, unequal to the conversation. But the young woman went +on her way, defiant and self-infatuated, believing that she really was +superior to the opinions of others, the common decencies of conduct, the +inevitable give and take of ordinary life. Driven to folly by lack +of balance, she was learning to justify her folly by the argument for +rebellion. Whether she will ever learn to control her actions I do +not know, but rebelliousness from a fueling that one is too good to be +governed by normal standards is not only arrogant and unsocial. It is +silly. It is, to my mind, a criminal form of silliness. But it is +one very widely accepted by the young and the unimaginative. It must +therefore be recognized and combated. + + It springs, perhaps, from disordered shame, which makes children +noisily act in defiance of authority, particularly if there are others +present to overhear. No children are worse-behaved than those who are +over-controlled. The word "don't" at the breakfast-table produces +more acts of violent rebellion than any amount of parental weakness. +Unimaginativeness begets unimaginativeness. Rigidity in one person +creates a counter-rigidity in the other. There is a thwarting upon both +sides, a mutual shackle upon sweetness and understanding. A wildness of +action arises, with loss of affection, respect, self-respect. And the +vicious part of it is that children (we are all children, for we never +grew up in human relations), once they are embarked upon an evil +course, are driven by vanity to continue upon that course until they are +exhausted, going from defiance to defiance; and ultimately building up a +whole sophisticated gospel of axioms whereby rebellion is given warrant +and virtue. The gospel of rebellion we know to be specious and without +justification; but it is essential to us, as human beings, to +maintain self-approval for our acts. If we cannot do this socially, +by comparative standards, we do it unsocially, by subversion of those +standards. Rebels are only prigs turned upside down or inside out. +</pre> + <p> + The great defect of prohibition is that when it can be enforced by law it + makes rebels who think there is something inconceivably clever in doing + secretly that which the law forbids. They learn to think there is some + subtle merit in evading the law. They encourage others to break the law, + and so develop cliques and finally new and silly conventions. Or, + prohibition has another effect. It makes a whole class who accept its + rulings, and gradually these people, owing to a peculiarity which all + gregarious animals seem to have, begin to believe that unless all are of + their persuasion and of their number the fault lies with the rebels. First + of all they consider themselves superior to the rebels, and despise them. + Then, when they find that the rebels think that <i>they</i> are the + superior class, in defying the law or the convention, a new set of notions + arises, and this set of notions leads to persecution and to war. You + cannot introduce any restrictive or prohibitive measure without developing + fanatical conceit, narrow-mindedness, and intolerance, both in those who + welcome the measure and in those who seek to ignore and even to defy its + rulings. + </p> + <p> + The Puritanical attitude is almost wholly repressive, and naturally + invokes force to aid its repressive measures. It did so in England + centuries ago in the matter of the theatre, and we are living among all + the rotten plays which have been written since, and the theatre is for the + most part a place of ignominious diversion. The play-producing societies + have nothing to produce that is worth producing, because the atmosphere + which causes such plays as are written to be produced privately is not the + healthy atmosphere from which masterpieces arise. It is an atmosphere + impregnated with priggishness and a sense of superiority. It is an + atmosphere, if there can be such a thing, of sterility. The same thing + happens in other matters, and I do not feel at all certain that it may not + happen with drink. If you say men are not to drink you create two new + classes. There is of course the existing class that does not care for + drink and is afraid of its effects to the point of wishing to keep it away + from those who do like drink. That class already flourishes in most + communities, and so I do not place it among any two classes which are + created by the prohibition. The two classes are as follows-the class that + submits, and gradually develops priggishness and self-satisfaction at + being in the majority, and the class that rebels, and gradually develops + priggishness and self-satisfaction at being in the minority. Both classes + are objectionable, and I do not know which is the worse. They are both + inevitable in a world of prohibitions, and if the United States, to which + we are all looking as the real hope for intelligent civilization, is going + to take away our beer and turn us into supporters of play-producing + societies I cannot think what will happen to the world. Better a wicked + world than a virtuous one. Better a world in which we can hope that there + are people worse than ourselves than a world where we know that there + cannot be any better. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0013" id="link2H_4_0013"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + A GUESS AT UNWRITTEN HISTORY + </h2> + <p> + [Illustration: H. M. Tomlinson regarding, with not too great enthusiasm, + the Perfect State of the Future.] + </p> + <h3> + H. M. TOMLINSON + </h3> + <p> + That fairly violent scuffling during the years 1914-1918, the opening + skirmishes of the war between Organization and Liberty which our + fore-fathers named so strangely the "War to End War," did not appear to + conclude satisfactorily for the victorious nations, especially England. + Actually it was an excellent ground for the founding of that Perfect State + which, in the centuries that followed, arose on the lines laid largely by + chance and the exigencies of that early scramble. Yet it is possible the + victorious statesmen may not have guessed that they had done really well. + The name by which the war of those remote years was popularly known is + enough to show that the difficulties faced by those men at the end of the + war may have obscured the good they had done. That name is itself clear + evidence of the not unpleasing credulity and ridiculous but innocent + desire of the people of that time. + </p> + <p> + After all, those peoples were not so long out of the Neolithic Age. Their + memory was still strong of the freedom of their earlier wanderings when + they could go where they liked, work at what suited them, eat and drink + what pleased them, choose who should be their chief, and worship in any + Temple which promised most personal benefits. It was, then, natural for + them to make so amusing a mistake in the naming of their "Great War." They + not only certainly imagined they were ending War, but they imagined, too, + they had a right to end it, thinking that not only War, but every other + act of the State, was for their decision. Their Governors, therefore, + judged it wise to allow them this illusion to play with, so to distract + their attention from the reality, which they would have resented. This + illusion was known as Popular Government. + </p> + <p> + We may laugh at it now, but in those days the directing minds of great + nations found that common illusion no laughing matter. Some who laughed at + it openly discovered they had laughed on the wrong side of the guillotine. + It is usual in this era of science, when control by the Holy State of the + national mass-power, both of body and mind, is complete, and when national + emotion is raised by Press and Pulpit whenever it is required and put + wherever it is wanted, to ridicule the laxity of the statesmen who + directed the nations in that early war. A little reflection, however, + shows us that that laxity is but apparent. Those statesmen went as far as + they dared, and dared a little more with each success they won. They + discovered that control may be gained by announcing control to be + necessary for some quite innocent object, and then using and retaining the + power thus acquired for a real but undivulged purpose. Sheep, we are + aware, never understand they are securely folded till the completing + hurdle of the circuit is in its place, and then they soon forget it, and + begin grazing; for all sheep want is grass, and perhaps a turnip or two to + give content in a limited pasture. + </p> + <p> + It would be wrong for us, nevertheless, to blame those early folk for not + understanding, as finely as we do, the true science of government to be + complete and unquestioned mastery. We have learned much since then. Let us + look back to those days for a moment, to get the just perspective. One of + the first significant things we notice is that those people were free to + criticize their politicians—baaing across the hurdles, as it were. + That was why they had to have explained to them the "Objects of the War." + They actually did not want to die. They were reluctant to go to battle + unless they knew why they were going. True, it was easy enough to find a + reason to satisfy them, but it is necessary for us to remember that they + would not submit to mutilation and death without some reason. Much as + their governors may have desired it, those primitives would not agree + willingly to the total surrender of conscience, individual liberty, and of + life, to "politicians," as the High Priests of the Holy State were then + familiarly named. Individual conscience, therefore, had to be cajoled, had + to be bamboozled, had to be hypnotized; and a man's liberty could not be + taken from him unless he was helpless, or was looking, under clever + political finger-pointing, the other way. + </p> + <p> + It was this almost intractable matter of personal conscience and liberty + which was the cause of the angry disappointment following the Versailles + Treaty which, illustrating still further the need for subtle tact in + dealing with our hairy forefathers, was called a Peace Treaty. + </p> + <p> + What a light is thrown upon those distant days and peoples when that + ancient document, the fragmentary relic of which is now treasured in the + museum at Tobolsk, is examined with even the little knowledge we possess + of the events immediately following it! For a time, we must believe, + humanity then was deliriously bereft. One could almost believe the moon + had a greater pull in those years. + </p> + <p> + "No more secret diplomacy!" historians tell us was one of the cries of the + soldiers as they went to battle. There is considerable ground, too, for + accepting the amusing traditional tale that even at the end of the war the + then President of the American Republic (mainly confined at the time to + the Western Continent), declared the first point for the guidance of the + Peace Conference must be an open discussion of the covenant. And the first + thing to happen when the war ended was the closing of the door of the + council room by the peacemakers, who, naturally, were the very men with no + other interest till that moment but the full pursuit of war; yet nobody + noticed the door was shut, though nobody could hear what was going on + inside the room. The faith in their politicians held by the natives of the + backyard communities into which Europe was then divided—on the very + eve, we see now, of the full continental control of international + man-power by consolidated finance—was the measure of their annoyance + when, too late, naturally, the fact that the old shackles from which they + had been promised freedom were noticed to be riveted upon them several + links tighter. + </p> + <p> + But it is not their faith, so happily youthful, which so reveals their + ingenious minds as their resultant annoyance. That resentment illuminates + the essential fact for us in studying their mentality as social animals. + They really did accept without question, with open and receptive mouths + and eyes shut, what was considered pleasing enough to fortify them in the + trials of warfare. They were, difficult though it is for us to understand + it, too vacant and generous to realize that the "Objects of the War" were + but figments nicely calculated to get them busy. The figments—we + must give credit to the leaders of the time-were indeed not + un-imaginatively conjured up. Those inducing visions worked. They were + accepted readily, and even with delight. It was sincerely believed that + the pleasing dreams were substantial, that those chromatic vapours evoked + by gifted statesmen were veritable promises of divine favor for + meritorious endurance. + </p> + <p> + From that we can the more easily go with understanding to a study of the + consequences of that attractive faith of undisciplined peoples so + difficult to grasp for modern students, who witness daily the admirable + submission of our own uniform herds to the divine ordinances of the High + Priests of the Sacred Entity the State. Why, we even learn that the + survivors of the not inconsiderable armies returned from the battlefields + of 1918 with the innocent conviction that the gentlemen of England would + keep a bond as faithfully as common soldiers! The hardest tasks of the + statesmen of those days arose out of such extraordinary expectations, out + of the ruinous supposition of the childish-minded that the honoring of a + bond, the fulfilment of a promise in return for benefits received, is + equally incumbent on everybody! + </p> + <p> + With that knowledge we begin to realise the difficulties of their + statesmen. A careful computation shows us that in England, where indeed + the lavish promises had been most picturesque, and where the tough idea of + personal liberty took longest to kill, it required just four years of + severe disciplinary measures and dry bread to reduce the masses generally + to a pale, obedient, and constructive spirit. At first they would not work + unless they wanted to, and then only at their own price. They pointed, + when answering their masters, to the fact that the best-fed people never + worked at all, and lived in the best houses. They refused to cancel the + official contracts made with them, even when ordered to do so by the + police. They behaved indeed, those ex-soldiers, as though it had been <i>their</i> + war. Such a state of mind we in these days really find impossible to + elucidate. It is rather like trying to read the spots on a giraffe. It is + as inscrutable as the once general opinion that the community has a right + to decide upon its own affairs. + </p> + <p> + Today we have reached that point in the evolution of society when + uniformity is known to be more desirable, because more comfortable than + liberty; and uniformity is impossible without compulsion. A man with a + free and contentious mind is a danger to the community, for he destroys + its ease. He compels his fellows to active thought, if only to refute him. + This is a dissipation of energy, and a local weakening of the structure of + the State. It is historically true that a few men with ranging and + questioning minds have sometimes injected so strong an original virus of + thought that the community has been changed in form and nature. + </p> + <p> + It was the mistake of the earlier nations to give little attention to + these troublesome and subversive fellows, who always thought more of the + truth than they did even of the inviolability of the High Priests of the + State. They preferred to die rather than surrender the out-dated rights of + man. Therefore they had to die. The rights of man cannot be allowed to + stand in the way of a nation's perfect uniformity. It was many centuries + before man realized that the only freedom worth having is freedom from the + necessity for individual thought. Perfectly unembarrassed freedom, freedom + in which the mind may be empty and sunny, and assured happily of not the + slightest interruption from any unsanctioned unofficial idea, became + possible to a community only after the sanitary measures were devised + which sufficed against unexpected epidemics of speculative thinking. + </p> + <p> + This, we are sadly aware, took time; for the brightly-colored hopes sent + skyward so long ago as 1914, and the vistas discovered as a consequence by + young men whose eyes till then had been resting safely on the ground, and + the daring and lively questioning that was aroused by the incessant + nudging of sleeping minds, coincided, as it unluckily happened, with the + beginnings when the "Great War" ended, of mass-production and + international finance, so developing problems of government, the solving + of which could not be reconciled with any admission of individual liberty + and personal right. It was, therefore, the elimination of the notion of + justice and liberty from common opinion which occupied statesmen from 1918 + onwards. + </p> + <p> + Gradually the true social morality has been evolved—that one citizen + should be so like all other citizens that his only distinguishing + characteristic is his number; that the right ideal of citizenship, plain + for all to follow, and ensuring the stability of society, is to be so + loyal to the Holy State that an expression of a man's views in a gathering + of his fellows will rouse no more curiosity than a glass of water. + Obviously so desirable a similarity of mind and character, making + disputation impossible, and preventing all dislike of the ordinances of + the Sacred Entity, or Cabal of Inviolable Dispensers, a uniformity in + which war and peace become merely the national output of a vast machine + controlled by the Central Will, has been developed only through ages of + Press Suggestion, popular education with a bias that was designed but was + scarcely noticeable, the seizing and retaining of opportunities by + legislators whenever public opinion was sufficiently diverted, and a + development of chemical science and aeronautics which has been encouraged + by the enlightened directors of the major industries. + </p> + <p> + The war which began in 1914 showed quite clearly, for example, the value + of the Censorship. The instituting of this office was never questioned, + for it was based on man's first impulse of obedience to superiors when + faced by a sudden danger, caused by his fear of the unknown. More than + that, the English were in a lucky state of exaltation at the time, and + were ready to sacrifice everything to save from destruction what they were + told was the ancient, exquisite, and priceless civilization of France. + They did save it; but in the prolonged and costly process they learned + more than they had known before of that civilization, as well as of their + own; and so much of their fear of losing either was evaporated. By that + time, anyhow, criticism was useless, because the Censorship then was + empowered to deal even with a derisive cough when Authority was solemnly + giving orders. Once the office of the Censor was set in its place + unnoticed in a time of public nervousness and excitement, the rest was + easy, for it became possible to bring all criticism within a law which was + elastic enough to be extended even to those figments which merely worked + on the timidity of unbalanced minds. + </p> + <p> + It became unpatriotic to express a dislike for margarine, when butter was + prohibited. It was unpatriotic for a blind hunchback with heart disease to + protest that he was no soldier, if he were ordered to the Front. For + though the Censor, in the early period of that war, dealt merely with news + and opinions which might aid the enemy, yet, as the value of adding to a + nation's enemies became apparent to Authority, it became necessary to turn + into enemies of the State those who denounced profiteers for turning blood + into money, those who denounced generals for wasting the lives of boys in + purposeless actions, those who spoke against the spending of the nation's + resources to succor needy contractors, and those who asked whether the war + was to go on till all were dead, or whether it might be stopped profitably + at any time by using a little common sense. Luckily for the welfare of the + community, this need for recognizing as enemies all, at home and abroad, + who differed from the decision of the Central Will, a need which was the + natural flower of that confidence which Authority acquired through + discovering the ease of control, put within the power of the Censor by the + time of the Peace Conference every possible form of protest, every call + for light, every cry of pain, every demand that such a "horrible nonsense" + as war should cease from human affairs, every plea for compassion and + generosity. + </p> + <p> + Thus the problem of perfect government was engendered and simplified. It + was at last possible to ensure, at least outwardly, a semblance of + uniformity. The rest was a matter of evolution, till today only a + particular enquiry will determine a man from a woman, though it may fail + to determine a fool from a man. All are alike, all agree with what is + officially announced by the Sacred Entity, and the nation is as loyal and + homogeneous, as contented, as stable and industrious, as a reef of + actinozoal plasm. Thus the Perfect State has been built like a rock. The + City of God has at last arisen; and in each of the uniform homes of its + neuters, or workers, there is to be found the Patriotic Symbol—a + portrait of a Sheep, enjoined by law to hang in a principal place, and + bearing the legend "God Bless this Loyal Face." + </p> + <p> + Here, however, we see at once that such a right condition of the public + mind could never have been acquired by a Censorship, by a mere + prohibition, that is, of individual thinking and acting. That ensures + merely a simulacrum of homogeneity. The appearance of general acquiescence + may exist, though not the real thing. It is easy to compel men to do what + they would not do freely if allowed an opportunity for their reason to + work. The problem was to prevent the working of reason. Today, as we know, + an order is issued by The Chosen, and is followed by a campaign in the + Press, and by revivals exhorted from the Pulpit. There is no chance for + the intrusion of reason.—No facts are ever issued for reason to work + upon, no questioning is ever allowed. The suggestions of the Press and + Pulpit prompt loyalty and obedience, and what might, in early times, have + been resented as ridiculous, becomes the mode; and thus, if any rebels + exist, it is but briefly, for they are denounced as solitary and repugnant + independents. A suggestion becomes public opinion because the majority of + people accept it without knowing there is reason to question the + suggestion; and the minority also accept it in the end through weariness + of an unpleasant and even dangerous distinction. + </p> + <p> + Yet not, observe, all the minority. It was the experience of our + forefathers that unsuspected centres of infection always remained, and + were not discovered till they had poisoned large areas of the country. + Some bold fellow, here and there, had withstood all efforts at + intimidation, and in time made others as courageous as himself. A means + had to be found to eliminate the possibility of infection by original + minds, or clearly the Holy State could not consider itself safe. Here, + indeed, we see the hardest of the problems statesmen of the past had to + solve. From the mere negation of the Censorship, a positive advance had to + be made to the obliteration of original thought. This at first, + necessarily, was but tentative, and only the confidence gained through + successful experiment enabled governments at last to find where the real + trouble lay. + </p> + <p> + It was supposed, at first, that the destruction of subversive political + tracts and the persecution of radical views would be enough. Yet, of + course, it was learned that as fast as these were cropped, growth + elsewhere had become vigorous. The human intelligence is natively prone to + look towards new things. Then it was that, after a long suspicion of the + origin of ideals, great statesmen were led to an examination of classic + literature and a study of the arts. Then they saw, what they might have + known sooner, that in the very institutions supported by the State, the + Public Libraries and Art Galleries, were actually preserved the potent + ideals which demeaned that general opinion which the State was laboring to + establish. + </p> + <p> + The famous Day of Release was ordered. This was ordained to free mankind + from its heritage of the spirit. A test was made, and by that test any + book or picture or poem which could not be approved or understood by + native deacons of Solomon Island missions (who were imported for the + purpose) was at once extirpated. This checked a great deal of the + troublesome growth of the mind. Music, however, was strangely forgotten; + and it was proved that the great revolution which burst out in Europe 120 + years after the "Great War" began in the emotion occasioned by the + continued playing of the compositions of one Beethoven, whose work is now + fortunately lost, and other music which remained in favor in spite of the + official insistence on the use of the steam saxophone for public concerts. + Men, wherever they dared, insisted on having the best. And though the + records were at length destroyed, the tenacious memories of a few fanatics + and cranks preserved much of the old music, and that usually of the worst + and most disloyal. + </p> + <p> + Here we see another step had to be taken by men in control of the State. + The memory of what was classical was kept though in an ever-fading + condition, and now and again some point of memory fructified to almost its + original suggestive beauty in the fortuitously abnormal brain of a genius, + and thus the state work of hygiene had to be done over again; for + curiously enough people everywhere rose like a tide, and moved + spontaneously towards these manifestations of liberty and beauty, and away + from their loyalty to the God-State. A method, therefore, had to be + discovered, first for obliterating what remained in the public memory of + what was magical and rebellious, and then for the elimination of any + possibility of original genius arising; and genius was, it was seen, first + and last, the cause of all the trouble. + </p> + <p> + The destruction of all great works of art was followed, fifty years later, + by the Period of Purging. All who were denounced for having quoted + forbidden poetry, or for humming forbidden music, were executed. Such + malefactors, who refused to forget, obviously could not be allowed to + live. This gave a long period of peace, in which the Sacred Entity, the + Unassailable Authority, took concrete form. Even so, the destruction of + the treasures of the past, and of all memory of them, did not prevent the + spontaneous appearance, now and then, of extraordinary men who, by + divination it would seem, perceived a flatness and monotony in society, a + sameness of common thought, and who laughed at the estimable uniform + flocks; often, indeed, stampeding them. + </p> + <p> + Now science had its turn. It was more than a century since the works of + Darwin and other philosophers had been burned. Young students who showed + an aptitude for science, and so were potentially dangerous, were taken + early within the Sacred Precincts, initiated into the mysteries of the + Priests, and were given work and safety under the shadow of the Entity. + They rarely went wrong; and when they did they went further or were heard + of no more. + </p> + <p> + These men of science were set the problem of finding a method of + sterilizing the unfit, that is, people who showed any decadent tendency to + originality. All the increase of population by that time was occasioned + under the direction of the High Priests, so that the Holy State had not + only the power of dealing death, but of bringing new life. The new life, + it is evident, had to be determined, as far as possible, by a scientific + specification of a perfect citizen; and in the course of a century or two, + through the destruction of intelligence wherever it inadvertently + appeared, through the selection of parents sufficiently loyal and docile + to accept marriage immediately when ordered by officials, and by certain + signs, such as lustiness, by which, at a birth, the skilled Public + Watchers who accompanied midwives were made suspicious of the new-born as + possible enemies of the State, at last mankind arrived at its present + perfection, content, and happiness, with hardly an intellectual doubt or a + sign of suspicious joy to mar the whole serene horizon of the Holy State's + exactitude. + </p> + <p> + Yet, we dare ask, had it not been for that little "War to End War" of + 1914-1918, so innocently named by our forefathers who had too much liberty + to know what they were talking about, would the possibility of our present + social tranquility have arisen? It is hardly likely. The freedom we enjoy + from all criticism, from all interruptions of mind and spirit, an internal + peace which is indeed never broken except by the lethal germs of our + modern wars that, in the due course of nature, obliterate every week or so + a few of our cities, was a lucky chance that was seized upon by + public-spirited legislators who had the prescience to know its value. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0014" id="link2H_4_0014"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + IN VINO DEMI-TASSE + </h2> + <p> + [Illustration: Charles Hanson Towne and the Law.] + </p> + <h3> + CHARLES HANSON TOWNE + </h3> + <p> + The Young-Old Philosopher and I were sitting in one of the innumerable + restaurants in New York where the sanctity of the law is about as much + considered as a bicycle ride up Mt. Etna. At the next table—indeed, + all around us—rich red wine was being poured into little cups. + </p> + <p> + "The new motto of America should be '<i>In vino demi-tasse</i>,'" my + friend said, smiling. And I quite agreed with him. For it is being done + everywhere; in the most exalted circles, and in the lowest. Poor old human + nature, which an organized minority are so bent upon changing overnight, + cannot be altered; and, all the emphasis in a supposedly free country + having been placed upon not drinking, the prohibitionists are wondering + why so many of us care for liquid refreshment. + </p> + <p> + There is too much <i>verboten</i> in America today. I can remember the + time, not so long ago, when no dinner-party was counted a success unless + four or five cocktails were served before we sat down at the table. But + that era passed. It was soon evident that such foolishness would lead to + grave disaster—if not to the grave; and the young business man who + was seen to consume even one glass of beer at luncheon was frowned upon, + catalogued as unsteady, even in the face of the fact that perhaps the most + efficient people in the world were automatic beer-drinkers. + </p> + <p> + As to drinking, in America we had other ideas. Big Business, which has + become such a potent factor among us, and more a part of our national + consciousness than Art and Letters ever will be, of its own volition + placed a ban upon immoderate drinking; and the sane among us—of whom + there were still many—gladly fell in line, and either went + periodically upon the water-wagon or took a nip only occasionally when the + cares of life weighed too heavily and insistently upon us. + </p> + <p> + Why, then, the Reformers? Why the Uplift Workers? Why the Extremists? Not + content with a great and wise people working out their own salvation from + within, they must step forth in solemn battalions, and make us pure and + holy—from without. + </p> + <p> + We resent them. There is no reason why an entire nation should be indicted + for the sins and failings of a few. It would be quite as sensible to + forbid connubial bliss because there are a handful of libertines in the + world. + </p> + <p> + The cry goes up, however, that the next generation will be so much better + because of our enforced good behavior now. I am afraid that I am not + enough of an altruist to care so definitely about the morals of a race + unborn. I feel that my children, looking over the files of our newspapers, + as they sip their light wine and beer, may smile and say, "Poor grandpa! + He had so little self-control that the Government had to put the screws on + him and his friends. Too bad! They must have been a fast set in his day. + And yet—he left us a pretty good heritage of health and strength. We + wonder if he was such an awful devil as history makes out." + </p> + <p> + The truth is that nothing, in moderation, ever hurt anybody. That is why + the wise among us are against Prohibition and strongly for Temperance. + Normal men do not like to be coddled. If coddling is done, however, they + like to pick their coddlers. We don't like a lean and sour-visaged + Prohibitionist making a fuss over us, feeling our pulse, taking our + temperature, smoothing our brow. The whole trouble with the world today, + as a sane man views it, is that there has been altogether too much + coddling of the physically and mentally unfit. + </p> + <p> + We have become, through drifting, a nation of hypocrites. We make laws so + fast that the bewildered citizen cannot follow them. We add amendment + after amendment to our Constitution, and then laugh at what we have done, + the while we secretly rebel. We have few convictions, and we refuse to + face issues squarely and honestly. We pretend to be virtuous before the + rest of the world; but we are like the ostrich which hides its head in the + sands. We pretend that, just as the eugenists think of the physical + attributes of the coming generation, we consider the mental attributes—and + we turn around and raise a race of bootleggers. We permit our enormous + foreign population to see us at our legislative work; and then we go + proudly and sanctimoniously to restaurants and allow Italian, German and + French waiters to pour red wine into our demi-tasses. + </p> + <p> + Oh, we are not in our cups—only in our half-cups. It would all be + very amusing were it not so terribly serious. For we are rapidly floating + toward trouble; and, hypocritically enough, we will not admit it. When it + is said, since the tragedy of Prohibition, that the reformers will next + snatch our cigars and cigarettes out of our mouths, we shrug our + shoulders, smile and pass on, saying, "Oh, no! <i>that</i> would be going + <i>too</i> far!"—in the face of what already has been accomplished + in this land of the spree and the home of the grave. + </p> + <p> + Yes, we have become grave indeed. For there can be no doubt that there is + a feeling of great unhappiness and unrest in America now. One hears the + most solid citizens saying, "I do not try to save any more; I merely live + from day to day, hoping against hope that things will right themselves, + and that the old order will somehow return." + </p> + <p> + Who gets a long-term lease nowadays? Those of us who are old enough to + remember the simplicity and peace of the golden 'Eighties and 'Nineties + are appalled at the nervous tension and complexities of this hour. We are + all catalogued and tagged, just as they are in that Prussia we so recently + and fervently despised; and we are hounded by income-tax investigators, + surrounded by a horde of spies who search our luggage, pry into our + kitchens to see if we are making home brew, raided in restaurants—and + laughed at by king-ridden and shackled Europeans. + </p> + <p> + It isn't pleasant to realize that you are burdened with taxes partly to + cover the salaries of Federal Officers whose delicate duty it is to spy + upon you. And then when you walk out and talk to the police-man on your + street, he will whisper in your ear that he knows where he can get you + some delicious ale, and see to it that it is safely delivered at your + door. This is the America, deny it as we will, that we are living in + today. I confess that I hang my head a bit, and am ashamed to look a + Frenchman in the face. + </p> + <p> + Not long ago, at a dinner, I asked a certain politician—I refuse to + grace him with the name of statesman, though he has ambitions to be known + as such—why, if he believed in the Volstead Act, he still consumed + whiskey. His answer was intended to be amusing; to me it was disgraceful. + Said he: "I am drinking as much as I can in order to lessen the supply for + the other fellow." + </p> + <p> + And just a while back I went to a banquet at a country club near New York. + Two policemen in uniform were sent by the local authorities to "guard the + place" while much liquor was poured. These minions of the sacred law were + openly served with highballs, and laughed at the Constitution of the + United States, the while they drank. Everyone at that party was loud in + denunciation of Prohibition and what has come in its wake, yet went on + dancing with the casual remark that it was of no consequence that they + broke the law, since everyone was doing it—and everyone always + would. + </p> + <p> + Uphold the law, no matter what is injected into it, I have heard people + cry. That, it seems to me, is mere Teutonic stupidity, and has no part in + the attitude of thinking men and women in a land like America. I suppose, + arguing thus, that if a law were passed tomorrow prohibiting the carrying + of, say, hand-bags or canes, they would feel it incumbent upon themselves, + as good Americans, to fall into line, bow the knee and whisper meekly, + "All right, O most beloved country! I obey!" + </p> + <p> + A good American, as I understand it, is not one who ignorantly stands for + the letter of the law, no matter what that law may be. A good American is + one who tries to set his country right; one who looks beyond the present + ungenerous attitude of the fanatics; one who visualizes the future and + prays that our liberty may not be further jeopardized, for the good of the + generations that are to follow us. + </p> + <p> + We fought to rid the world of autocracy, yet we have suddenly become the + most autocratic nation on earth. Prohibition is a symbol of the death of + freedom. The issue at stake is as clear-cut as taxation without + representation; and our legislators should remember a certain well-known + Boston tea-party. There would have been no United States of America unless + a few honest men with sound convictions had rebelled and protested against + tyranny. The right kind of rebel makes the right kind of citizen. + </p> + <p> + I have heard a few people liken one's duty in the matter of the draft to + the Prohibition law. If we obeyed a summons to fight, whether we liked + fighting or not, we should likewise obey the law regarding drinking, they + contend. The two things are as separated as the Poles. In 1914, and + thereafter, civilization itself was at stake; and that man would have been + blind indeed who did not see the stern and clear-cut issues before us all. + We leaped to arms because we wanted to protect humanity, because the + death-knell of democracy was sounding. Prohibition, these same people + would tell us, should be enforced to save poor, weak humanity and + civilization again, and we should fight to that end. Yet as long as the + world has been moving, civilized man has been consuming a certain amount + of alcohol, and has been in no serious danger of going down to disaster. + We have progressed through the ages, despite our cheerful cups of wine; + and though of course a few imbeciles have dropped from the line, the rest + of us have been none the worse—in fact, sometimes a little better—for + our occasional libations. Let anyone deny this who has ever, for a moment + even, been in Arcady! And the dreadful and incontrovertible fact remains + that the sober nations have not proved themselves superior to those who + drink in moderation. + </p> + <p> + Who are happy over Prohibition? First, the Prohibitionists themselves, + and, secondly, the bootleggers. The more the lid is clamped on in our + great cities, the more rejoicing goes on in that mysterious inner and + under circle which dispenses liquor, and will continue to dispense it, I + fear, until the end of time. Whenever there is a "drive" on in New York to + "mop up the place," prices soar to the skies, and the illicit trade waxes + brisker than ever. No wonder the bootleggers grow happy—and rich; + and evade the income tax which the rest of us must pay. + </p> + <p> + I am not sympathetic toward those who say that they have been driven to + excessive drinking because a certain obnoxious law has been passed. The + only way to fight Prohibition is to fight it soberly; it is the jingled + and jangled arguments of bar-room bores that hurt the cause of the men and + women who are moderate drinkers, and who wish with all their hearts to see + a return to common sense in our country. + </p> + <p> + We Americans never do anything piecemeal. Probably at the root of all our + strange fanaticism about drink was the thought that the saloon had better + go; that it was time for such foul places to disappear. The pendulum had + to swing all the way. If it would swing back a little; if the Government + would step in and control the liquor traffic, do away with spirits, except + for medicinal purposes, and give the people light wine and beer, a truce + could be declared over night. Drunkenness should be made a prison offence. + No matter who the offender against public decency is he should be lodged + in jail. Whether one is a so-called gentleman coming out of his club, or + the meanest tramp in the streets, he should be punished. There would be no + visible drunkenness if a law like this were passed and rigorously + enforced. + </p> + <p> + I am afraid that so long as grapes grow on vines and apples on trees; so + long as fermentation is one of Nature's processes, there can be no such + thing as Prohibition. And the Biblical justification for drinking is + pleasant reading for those who like, now and then, a little wine at their + dinner tables. Yet there are fanatics who rise up and shout that the wine + Christ caused to appear at the marriage feast of Cana was not + intoxicating. What divination is theirs which makes them so positive? If + water was just as good, why did not water remain in the casks? + </p> + <p> + If we would spend more time making laws that worked for good, rather than + for evil—and Graft is a great evil; if we would realize that it is + not so much our concern to make the other fellow good as to make him + happy, as Stevenson so beautifully puts it—then, I say, we would be + better employed than we are today with our foolish, fussy bills and acts, + mandates, precepts and restrictions. + </p> + <p> + I believe firmly in local option in all things; but there is no reason why + New York, or any other great city, should live as Kansas and Idaho live. I + prefer New York because a big city gives me a spiritual uplift that a + prairie town does not. It is my privilege to live where I desire. I like + to hear fine music, to come in contact with intellectuals; to go to plays + that are worth while; to read books that satisfy my soul. I find such a + life in New York. I have no quarrel with the man who prefers the silence + and loneliness of forests and plains. He may be far happier than I. But I + do insist that if I let him alone, he also should let me alone. Throbbing + cities thrill me: cities with their glamour, their wonder, their + enchantment, their dreams of agate and stone, their lofty towers that + plunge to the very skies and kiss the clouds. I happen to like the + innocent laughter in a glass of champagne. You may call it wicked + hilarity. But the Continental manner of living appeals to me. I like the + color and warmth and fervor of life; and people who drink red wine with + their meals seem to me to be more cosmopolitan than those who do not. All + this seems part of the pageant of life to me. I am not provincial, and I + do not care to be made provincial by unintelligent and unimaginative + law-makers. + </p> + <p> + It may be that I am entirely wrong. I do not know. But I do know that it + seems utterly unreasonable to force me to abstain from wine if I wish it, + just because there are a few heavy imbibers of whiskey in the world. I + think it is a far more serious matter to have practically all of us + law-breakers than to have one-half of one per cent of us drunkards. + </p> + <p> + Let us have done with insincere, inelastic laws, and get back to wisdom + and truth and sanity. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0015" id="link2H_4_0015"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + BOOTLEG + </h2> + <p> + [Illustration: John V. A. Weaver noticing the bartender who has been + thrown out of work by Prohibition.] + </p> + <h3> + JOHN V. A. WEAVER + </h3> + <p> + (With a graceful bow to Don Marquis) + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + You heard me! How many times I got to tell you? + Them is my words: you leave that girl alone. + Leave her alone, you hear? Leave her alone! + You think I'll have my son foolin' around + A little snippy rat that's all stuck-up, + And thinks my son's not good enough for her? + "Yeh," that's what Bill says, "Yeh, it's like I say; + Ellen is got swell friends up on the Drive; + I'm sorry she had to break a date with Fred. + But still, you know, the world is changed a lot, + And we changed with it. You're about the same, + But me—well, I been gettin' right along, + And honest, Jack, you see the sense yourself— + Why should I let my daughter marry a clerk?" +</pre> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Can you believe it? Why, I damn near fainted. + His daughter too good for the likes of us! + Of course I got so mad I couldn't see! + Of course I pasted him square in the eye! + And if I catch him sayin' things about me + I'll knock his stuck-up head off! And I tell you, + If you go near the dirty oilcan's place, + And crawl around that snippy brat of his, + I'll kick you out into the street to stay. + You hear that? Eight out in the street you go! + The nerve! The dirty, lousy, low-down crook! + A Bootleg gettin' stuck-up over money! + The world is crazy, that's all there is to it! + Crazy, I tell you! All turned upside-down! + + Listen. It's fifteen years I know this Bill. + Them good old days, most every afternoon + On the way home from the lumber yards I'd drop in + And get a beer, and gas around a while. + That was my second home, I useta say, + And Bill's Place was a home you could be proud of. + Say. The old woman never kep' a floor + As clean as Bill's was. And the brass spittoons + And rail-you could of shaved lookin' in one. + And all the glasses polished! And the tables + So neat! And over at the free-lunch counter, + Charlie the coon with a apron white like chalk, + Dishin' out hot-dogs, and them Boston Beans, + And Sad'dy nights a great big hot roast ham, + Or roast beef simply yellin' to be et, + And washed down with a seidel of old Schlitz! + + Oh, say, that sure was fun, and don't forget it. + Old Ed, and Tom, and Baldy Frank McGee, + And the two Bentleys, we was all the reg'lars. + It was our meetin'-place. And there we stood, + And Lord! The rows about the government, + And arguin! and all about the country, + How it was goin' to the dogs. And maybe + Somebody'd start a song, and old Pop Dikes + Would have to quit the checker-game in the corner + That him and Fat Connell was always playin', + And never gettin' through. I never seen + + No bums come in and stay for more'n a minute; + Bill didn't like to have no drunks around; + He made 'em hit the air. Well, some of us, + Of course, might get just a wee mite too much + Under the belt, but who did that ever hurt? + At least we knowed the licker wasn't poison. + And when somebody would get very lit + Bill was right there to try and make him stop; + I can't see how it ever hurt us any. + + And Bill! He was some barkeep! One swell guy! + A pleasant word for everybody, always, + Straight as a string, and just the whole world's friend. + I never saw a guy was liked so much. + He hardly took a drink, just a cigar, + And oncet a while a pony, say, of lager. + And my, the way that bird could tell a story! + Why, many a time I laughed until I cried. + And if it happened I was out of dough, + Bill was right there to make a little loan. + Generous, that was Bill, and one good pal. + A great old place it was, that place of Bill's. + Them was the happy days!-them was the days. + + I never will forget that good-bye party + The night that Prohibition was wished on us. + You bet it wasn't any rough-house then. + We all stood 'round the bar, solemn and quiet, + And couldn't hardly think of what to say. + Bill—it was funny what had happened to him. + He didn't crack a smile the whole blame night. + He just would shake his head, and bite his lips, + And gosh, the way his eyes was shootin' fire. + The last thing that he said before I left, + "By God, I'll get back at 'em, you just wait! + I'm closing here. But don't you fret—I'll get 'em— + The dirty, pussy-footin' lousy skunks!" +</pre> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + I had to go home early. And the next day + I seen the wagons comin' to take the bar + And all the furniture. I felt like cryin'. + + Well, you know what this prohibition is. +</pre> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Bill goes away, and stays about three months. + And then one day I meets him on the street. + "Well, Jack," he says, "You want some real good gin?" + "Just what I need," I says. "All right," he says, + "You come down to the house at nine o'clock. + I'll fix you up. I'll give you half a case + Four Bucks a bottle."... "Four a bottle!" I says, + Thinkin' he must be kiddin'. "Sure," he says, + "I got to make my profit. There's the risk. + This is good stuff. I made it by myself. + I guarantee that it won't make you sick." + "I'm sick already, just from hearin' the price. + No thanks. Not now," I says. He says all right, + But when I want some, just remember him. + + And so, of course, later I did want some, + And had to pay that much, and even more; + But hell, what can you do? So long's you're sure + The stuff ain't goin' to burn your insides out, + You got to pay the price. And all the friends + That Bill had useta have is customers, + + And all get stung the same. And dozens more. + Them old days Bill was one fine friend for sure, + Happy and nice and straight and generous. + And now to think he high-brows you and me! + A great big house he's got, and a new Packard, + And di'monds for his wife, that scrubbed the floors + Back in the days when he was only barkeep. + That's what this Prohibition done for him, + And what's it do for me, I'd like to know? + It makes a crook of me, the same as him, + Only I'm losin' money, and he gets it. + Why, say, I catch myself all of the time + Laughin' about this Prohibition law, + And figgerin' new ways how I could break it. + And that's the way it is with everybody. + We get to see that one law is a joke, + And think it's smart to bust it all to pieces. + And pretty soon there's all the other laws, + And how're you goin' to keep from think' likewise + About a thing like stealin', and all that? + No wonder that we got these here now crime waves! + No wonder everybody is a crook! +</pre> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + But that ain't what I'm sayin' to you now! + You leave that stuck-up little Jane alone! + They's plenty of girls that's pretty in the world— + You leave that dirty oilcan's daughter be. + Ten years ago she used to run around + And rush the can for me and other folks. + Now she's a real swell lady! Damn her eyes, + And Bill's, and them there pussy-footin' fish! + The world is, crazy! And I'm goin' nuts! + High-tonin' me! You hear me? If I catch you + Foolin' around that girl, I kick you out, + So fast you won't know what has ever hit you! + + A bootleg's daughter! Hell! +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0016" id="link2H_4_0016"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + AND THE PLAYWRIGHT + </h2> + <p> + [Illustration: Alexander Woollcott rescuing the Playwright from the awful + shears of the Censor.] + </p> + <h3> + ALEXANDER WOOLLCOTT + </h3> + <p> + Every American playwright goes about his work these days oppressed by a + foreboding. He suspects that before long a censor is going to materialize + out of thin air to take stern and morose charge of the American theatre. + It is true that no statutory precipitation of such an agent has been + definitely proposed. It is true that the policeman from the nearest corner + has not gone so far as to drop around and warn him that he'd better be + careful. Nevertheless, he has the foreboding. He perceives dimly that a + desire to chasten the stage is in the air. And he is right. It, is. It has + been ever since the war. + </p> + <p> + Of course an itch to lay hands on the theatre was begetting restlessness + in the American bosom considerably prior to April 6, 1917. It is part of + this country's Puritan inheritance to believe that playgoing is somehow + bad, that an enjoyment and patronage of the theatre is sinful. This belief + flows as an unconscious undercurrent in the thought even of those + clergymen who try pathetically hard to seem and be liberal and + unpharisaical, the kind who always begin their lectures on Avery Hopwood + by saying that they yield to no one in their admiration and respect for + the many splendid ladies and gentlemen of the stage whom they are proud to + number among their acquaintances. + </p> + <p> + Shaw, in his comparatively mild-mannered preface to "The Showing Up of + Blanco Posnet," recognizes the Puritan hostility to the theatre, but, + somewhat perversely, ascribes it to the fact that the <i>promenoirs</i> + have always been used as show-windows by the courtesans of each + generation. I suspect, however, that that hostility was more deeply + rooted. The Puritans disliked the theatre because it was jolly. It was a + place where people went in deliberate quest of enjoyment. And you weren't + supposed to do that on earth. Plenty of time for that later on. + </p> + <p> + When I was a knee-breeched schoolboy in Philadelphia, some of the more + dissipated of us used to organize Saturday excursions to Keith's old + Eighth Street Theatre, a vaudeville temple known to the natives as the + Buy-Joe. Fortified with a quarter and some sandwiches, one went at eleven + in the morning and hung on till the edge of midnight. To my genuine + surprise and confusion, I gathered that some of our classmates not only + avoided these orgies, but sincerely believed that we, who indulged in them + were simply courting Hell's fire. They stayed at home and, I suppose, read + "Elsie Dinsmore." + </p> + <p> + It so happens that I never encountered that book during my formative + years, but was in my hopelessly corrupted thirties before ever I saw a + copy. Even then, it did not lack interest. And one passage, at least, + richly rewarded a glance through its pages. It seems that Elsie, arriving + from somewhere, reached some city in the late evening. Her father (a + rakish, devil-may-care fellow who thought it was all right for Elsie to + play the piano on Sunday) met her at the station and engaged a cabriolet + to take her across town to whatever shelter had been selected for the + night. As they were bowling along one of the principal streets, Elsie + noticed a building which the author described in shuddering accents as + having, if I remember correctly, "a lighted façade." The tone, if not the + precise words of the description, rather suggested that here was a + gambling hell whose lower circles were dedicated to rites of nameless + infamy. Elsie shrank back into the cloistered shadows of the cab. "Oh, + father," she cried in hurt bewilderment, "what kind of place was that?" + Smitten, apparently, with a certain remorse that he had suffered her + virginal eyes to reflect so scabrous a spot, he put a sheltering arm + around her and said, sadly: "That, little daughter, was a THEATRE." + </p> + <p> + At which limp climax, perhaps, you smile a little. But it is well to + remember that the children who were molded by "Elsie Dinsmore" are now + grown up and can be detected voting warmly at every election. Many of them + kicked over the traces long ago, but there are also many who are reading + Harold Bell Wright today. They admire Henry Ford. They sit enthralled at + the feet of Dr. John Roach Straton. And, not wryly but with undiscouraged + faith, they vote away for the Hylans and the Hardings of each recurrent + crisis. They brought the bootlegger into existence and, at a rallying cry + lifted by anyone against the theatre, they will come scurrying intently + from a thousand unsuspected flats and two-story houses. + </p> + <p> + They are the more responsive to such cries since the war. That might have + been foreseen by any one at all familiar with the psychopathology of + reform. A cigarette addict who, in a spartan moment, swears off smoking, + is familiar enough with the inner gnaw that robs him of his sleep and + roils his dinner for days and days. His body, long habituated to the + tobacco, had dutifully taken on the business of manufacturing its + antidote. When the tobacco is abruptly removed, the body continues for a + while to turn out the antidote as usual and during that while, that + antidote goes roaming angrily through the system, seeking something to + oppose and destroy. + </p> + <p> + A somewhat analogous condition has agitated the body politic ever since + the late Fall of 1918. The passage of the Eighteenth Amendment had robbed + the prohibitionists of their chief excitement; then the signing of the + Armistice took away the glamor of public-spiritedness from all those good + people who had had such a splendid time keeping an eye on their presumably + treasonable neighbors. Behold, then, the Busy Body (which is in every one + of us) all dressed up and nowhere to go. The itch became tremendous. The + moving pictures caught it first. No wonder the American playwright is + uneasy. He ought to be. + </p> + <p> + He dreads a censorship of the theatre because he suspects (not without + reason) that it will be corrupt, that it will work foolishly, and that, + having taken and relished an inch, it will take an ell. + </p> + <p> + He is the more uneasy because he realizes that the theatre presents a + special incitement and a special problem—a problem altogether + different from that presented by the bookstall, for instance. The play, + once produced, is open to all the world. It may have been written with the + thought that it would amuse Franklin P. Adams, but it is attended (in a + body) by the Unintelligentsia. It may have been heavily seasoned in the + hope that it would jounce the rough boy of Baltimore, H. L. Mencken-and + lo, there in the third row on the aisle, is Dr. Frank Crane, being made + visibly ill by it. Your playwright may write a piece to touch the memories + and stir the hearts of elderly sinners, but he has to face the fact that + the girls from Miss Spence's school may come fluttering to it, row on row. + </p> + <p> + On his desk is a seductive two-volume assemblage of "Poetica Erotica," + edited by T. R. Smith, the antiquarian. It is a book which, if flaunted, + would agitate the Postmaster General, stir up the Grand Jury, and make the + Society for the Suppression of Vice call a special mass-meeting. It is + managed as a commercial article by a system of furtive, semi-private sales + which probably enhance its value as a source of revenue and yet shut the + mouth of the heirs of Anthony Comstock. A folder announces that the juicy + Satyr icon of Petronius Arbiter will shortly issue from the same presses. + And so on, endlessly. It is a neat arrangement but one which cannot be + imitated by the playwright. When he wants to be naughty, he must make up + his mind to being naughty right out on the street-corner where every one + can see him. + </p> + <p> + And though, in the moments when he is disposed to temporize, he sometimes + thinks that suspect plays might, like saucy novels, be first inspected in + manuscript, he knows full well that no such tactics are really feasible in + the theatre. Your publisher, inwardly hot with resentment, may + nevertheless take the occasional precaution of showing the script of a + thin-ice book to the authorities—even to the self-constituted ones—thereby + forestalling prosecution by agreeing to delete in advance such phrases and + incidents as seem likely to agitate those authorities unduly. But the + flavor and significance of a play depends too much on the manner of its + performance and cannot be clearly forecast prior to that performance any + more than the hue of a goblet can be guessed before the wine is poured. I + can testify to that—I, who in my time, have seen players make a minx + out of Ophelia, a mild-mannered mouse out of Katherine, an honest woman + out of Lady Macbeth and a benevolent old gentleman out of Shylock. I have + seen French players cast as the servants of Petruchio invade "The Taming + of the Shrew" with a comic pantomime in which they fought for their turns + at the keyhole of Petruchio's bedroom wherein Kate was being subjected to + a little off-stage taming. It would have amused Shakespeare immoderately, + I imagine, and certainly it would have surprised him. Until his piece is + spoken, even the author cannot tell—and thereafter, from night to + night, he cannot be sure. + </p> + <p> + That is why there is the quality of an eternal fable in the pathetic old + tale of the stagehand who had always felt that, if chance would ever give + him even the smallest of rôles, he would show these actors where their + shortcomings were. He would not drone out even the least important and + most perfunctory of speeches. Not he. Into every syllable he would pour + real meaning, real conviction. At last, after twenty years of yearning + from the wings, chance did rush him on as an understudy. Unfortunately, he + was assigned to the role of the page in "King John," who must march into + the throne-room and announce the approach of Philip the Bastard. + </p> + <p> + So, it seems apparent that any real supervision of the theatre must + function with relation to produced plays and cannot deal with mere + unembodied and undetermined manuscripts. + </p> + <p> + Our playwright's suspicion that such supervision, if managed by a + politically appointed censor, would work foolishly, are justified by all + he has heard of such functionaries as they have worked in other fields and + in other lands. This was true of the gag which the doughty Brieux finally + pried off the mouth of the French playwright. It has certainly been true + of the mild and intermittent discipline to which the remote and slightly + puzzled Lord Chamberlain has subjected the English dramatists. Indeed, + when their mutinous mutterings finally jogged Parliament into inspecting + his activities, the Lord Chamberlain was somewhat taken aback by the + tactics of Shaw, who, instead of hissing him for forbidding public + performances of certain Shaw and Ibsen plays, derided and denounced him + instead for the plays he had <i>not</i> suppressed. And indeed, for every + play which the Lord Chamberlain has suppressed, the old playgoer of London + could point to five which, had he been more intelligent, he might more + reasonably have suppressed in its place. + </p> + <p> + But after all those scuffles on the Strand do seem part of the strange + customs of a fusty-dusty never-never land. So our American playwright + turns, instead, to the purifications effected nearer home. He looks + apprehensively into the matter of the movies. As an occasional scenario + writer, he has been instructed by bulletins sent out for his guidance, + little watch-your-step leaflets which list the alterations ordered in + earlier pictures by the august Motion Picture Commission of the State of + New York. Most of them are fussy little disapprovals of language used in + the titles. You mustn't say: "I shall kill Lester Crope." Better say: "I + shall destroy the false Lester Crope" or something like that. You mustn't + say "roué." You mustn't say: "I don't like that rich old roué hanging + around you." Better say: "I don't like that rich old sport." And when, in + a moment of self-indulgence, a title-writer allowed himself the luxury of + writing "In a moment of madness, I wronged a woman," the Censor seems to + have turned scarlet and issued the following order: "Substitute for + 'wronged' the word 'offended' or something similar." + </p> + <p> + "Or something similar." Somehow, that seems to recall an old "Spanish for + Beginners" textbook which bade me not bother with the "tutoyer" business + as it would not be needed during my travels in Spain, unless I married + there "or something similar." + </p> + <p> + At all events, no playwright can be scoffed at as an alarmist who ventures + to fear that a censorship of the drama will, in practice, be foolish. At + the thought of such frivolous and fatuous blue-pencillings of his next + drama (which is to be his master-piece, by the way) our playwright becomes + profoundly depressed and every time he goes out to dinner or finds himself + with a small, cornered audience at the club, he winds up the talk on this + bugaboo of his. + </p> + <p> + Out of the resulting prattle, two widespread impressions always come to + the top, two familiar comments on the subject which, whenever questionable + plays are mentioned, seem to emerge as regularly and as automatically as + does the applause which follows the rendition of Dixie by any restaurant + orchestra in New York. Both comments are absurd. + </p> + <p> + One comes from the man who can be counted on to say: "They tell me that + show at the Eltinge—What's it called? 'Tickling Tottie's Tummy?'—well, + they say it's pretty raw. Certainly does beat all how there are some men + who just have to see a show soon's they hear it's smutty. I can't + understand it." + </p> + <p> + This might be called the Comment Ingenuous. A man who never fails to edge + into any group whence the bent head and the hoarse chuckle tells him that + a shady story is on, a man who would have to think hard to name a friend + of his to whom he would not rush with the latest scandalous anecdote + brought in by the drummers from Utica—such a man will, nevertheless, + express a pious surprise when the crowds flock to see the latest Hopwood + farce just because it is advertised as indecorous. It is not known why he + is surprised. + </p> + <p> + Or, if he is not surprised, then he falls over backward and makes the + Comment Cynical. When he hears that "Under Betty's Bolster" is making a + fortune while "The Grey Iconoclast" is playing to empty benches next door, + he gives a sardonic little laugh (which he reserves for just such + occasions) and says: "Of course. You might have known. Old Channing + Pollock was right when he said: 'Nothing risqué, nothing gained.' Don't + the smutty shows always make money? Doesn't the public invariably stampede + to the most bedridden plays? Isn't the pornographic play the most valuable + of all theatrical properties?" + </p> + <p> + To which rhetorical questions, the answer in each case, as it happens, is + "No." The blush is not, of course, a bad sign in the box-office. But the + chuckle of recognition is a better one. So is the glow of sentiment. So is + the tear of sympathy. The smutty and the scandalous have a smaller and + less active market than homely humor, for instance, or melodramatic + excitement or pretty sentiment. When "Aphrodite" was brought here from + Paris, it was, for various reasons, impossible to recapture for the + translated dramatization the flavor of abnormal eroticism which lent the + book a certain phosphorescent glow at home. So its producers relied on + lots and lots of nudity to give it réclame here. At this the Hearst papers + did some rather pointed blushing and the next morning, there was a grand + scrimmage at the box-office and seats were hawked about for grotesque + prices. Whereupon the Comment Cynical could be heard on all sides. But + when at the end of the season or so later, "Aphrodite" was withdrawn with + a shortage of a hundred and ninety thousand dollars or so on its books, + the Cynics were too engrossed with some other play to mention the fact. To + be sure that shortage was more than made up next season on the road, but + it ought to be mentioned that "Aphrodite" knew the indignity of many and + many an empty row in New York. + </p> + <p> + The great fortunes, as a matter of fact, are made with plays like "Peg o' + My Heart" and "The First Year," both as pure as the driven snow. It is + true that Avery Hopwood has grown rich on his royalties. But not so rich + as Winchell Smith, who has dealt exclusively with sweetness and light. + Also those who laugh most caustically over the Hopwood estate usually find + it convenient to ignore the fact that the greatest single contribution to + it has been made by "The Bat," at which Dr. Straton might conceivably + faint from excitement but at which he would have to work pretty hard to do + any blushing. + </p> + <p> + So much for the familiar catch-words and their validity. A little + discouraged by the fatuity of all lay discussion, our playwright may be + pictured as retreating to the clubrooms of the American Dramatists and + there finding his fellow-craftsmen all busy as bees on scenarios + overflowing with not particularly original sin. They are turning them out + hurriedly with an "After-me-the-deluge" gleam in their haunted eyes. Some + such despairing courtship of disaster may be needed to explain the + jostling procession of harlots which marked the American Drama in the + season of 1921-1922. An unprecedentedly large percentage of the heroines + had either just been ruined (or were just about to be ruined) as the first + curtain rose. Also the plays wallowed in a defiant squalor of language + which, five years before, would have called out the reserves. + </p> + <p> + The privilege to indulge in such didos is not, as a matter of fact, + especially dear to them. They do not really prize unduly the right to use + the word "slut" once in every act. They can even bear up whenever a law + forbids disrobing on the stage. They know that most pruriency in the + theatre derives from the old frustrations sealed up and festering in the + mind of the onlooker who detects it. They suspect, from what little + reading they have managed in the psychology of outlets, that the more + mock-raping there is done on the stage of the local opera house, the less + real raping will be done on the greensward of the nearest park. But they + know, too, that the force of modesty is one of the strongest and most + ancient instincts of civilized man, that probably it is a sound and + healthy one, inextricably involved in the race's instinct of + self-preservation and self-perpetuation. Anyway, they feel that the + discussion draws them into matters unarguable. + </p> + <p> + They dread a Censor most for fear his appetite will grow by what it feeds + on. They know that the Lord Chamberlain began by exorcising obscenity from + the English theatre and ended by banning so fiercely Puritanical a play as + "Mrs. Warren's Profession" because it admitted the existence of + brothel-keeping as a business and by shutting up such innocent merriment + as "The Mikado" because its jocularity might offend the (at the moment) + dear Japanese. + </p> + <p> + Most American playwrights would derive a certain enjoyment from watching a + posse of citizens in wrathful pursuit of one of those theatrical managers + who are big brothers to the trembling crones that totter up to you on the + <i>Boulevard des Italiens</i> and try to sell you a few obscene + postal-cards. But most American playwrights would feel a genuine + apprehension lest such a posse, confused in its values and its mission, + might then turn and lock up Eugene O'Neill because of the rough talk that + lends veracity to "The Hairy Ape" or because of the steady scrutiny which + has the effect of stripping naked the unhappy creatures of his play called + "Diff'rent." + </p> + <p> + They would be perfectly willing to co-operate with a State official + appointed to prevent the use of naughty words on the American stage, but + they darkly suspect that he would then require every heroine to bring a + letter from her pastor and would end by interfering with all plays which + suggested, for instance, that government had been known, from time to + time, to prove corrupt, wealth to become oppressive and law, on rare + occasions, to seem just a wee bit unjust. They are minded to resist any + supervision of the theatre's manners for fear it might shackle in time the + theatre's thought. Today or tomorrow they may be seen temporizing or at + least negotiating with the forces of suppression in any community, but + they are really seeking all the time to frustrate those forces. And will + so seek ever and always, law or no law. It was just such frustration they + were seeking when after a season of ruined heroines (and ruined managers) + they all gravely sat down in April, 1922, and drew up a panel of 300 + pure-minded citizens from which a jury could be called to pass on any play + complained of. + </p> + <p> + And they have the comfort of knowing that any such supervision, today or + tomorrow, legalized or roundabout, mild or incessant, is bound to be + superficial, spasmodic and largely formal. They know that in the long run + the theatre in each day and community, will manage somehow to express the + taste of that day and community. They know that it is among the sweet + revenges of life that the o'er-leaping censor always defeats himself. + </p> + <p> + They derive a curious comfort from the story of the reviewer for a Boston + journal who once described a musician as remaining seated through a + concert in the pensive attitude of Buddha contemplating his navel. It is a + story within whose implications lies all that has ever been said, or ever + will be said, about censorship. The copy-readers and make-up men, it + seems, could see nothing especially infamous in their reviewer's little + simile. As poor George Sampson said of the outraged Mrs. Wilfer's + under-petticoat: "We know it's there." At all events, the offending word + passed all the sentries and was printed as written, when, too late, it + caught the horrified eye of the proprietor. At the sight of so crassly + physical a term in the chaste columns of his own paper, he rushed to the + telephone at the club and called up the managing editor. That word must + come out. But the paper was already on the presses. Even as they spoke, + these were whirling out copy after copy. Too late to reset? Yes, much too + late. But was there not still some remedy which would keep at least part + of the edition free from that dreadful word? Wasn't it still possible to + rout out the type at that point, to chisel the word away and leave a + blank? Yes, that was possible. So the presses were halted, the one word + was scraped out, the presses whirred again and the review, with a gape in + the line, went up and down Beacon Street. Whereat Boston that night shook + with a mighty laughter—the contented laughter of the unregenerate. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0017" id="link2H_4_0017"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE ORACLE THAT ALWAYS SAYS "NO" + </h2> + <p> + [Illustration: The Periscope of the Author of the Mirrors of Washington is + turned toward the Great Negative Oracle.] + </p> + <h3> + THE AUTHOR OF "THE MIRRORS OF WASHINGTON" + </h3> + <p> + Has anyone ever stopped to think what the nonsenseorship would do to our + suppressed desires? A little while ago suppressed desires were one's own + affair. One fondled them in the skeleton closet of his consciousness and + was as proud of them as anyone with a haunted house is of his right, title + and interest in a ghost. + </p> + <p> + They proved to him that though he went to church on Sunday and was + respectably married to only one woman, he was really beneath his correct + exterior a whale of a fellow, who might have been, had he but let himself + go, a Casanova or at least a Byron. He patted himself on the back for + keeping unruly instincts in subjection. He applauded himself for what he + might be and for what he was. He got it coming and going. It was a + pleasant age. + </p> + <p> + But now is he permitted to have his own secret museum of virility? I speak + only of the sex which has my deepest sympathy. + </p> + <p> + No. The nonsenseorship regards him with suspicion. He must go and have + even that part of him which lies below the level of his consciousness + dragged forth by experts in the interests of society, and if there is + anything hidden in him which might not be exhibited on the movie screens, + he must have it sublimated. He cannot even have suppressed desires. He + cannot be a devil of a fellow even to himself. He cannot be his own censor + any longer, he must submit himself to outside censoring, to the + nonsenseorship. + </p> + <p> + It all came about this way. First to establish divine right somewhere in + modern government, the doctrine was set up that the public mind was + infallible. Thereafter, naturally, attention centered on the public mind. + What was it that it had this wonderful quality of always being right? + Experience showed that it was not a thinking mind. Since it was not, then + the thinking mind was anti-social. + </p> + <p> + Then our very best American philosophers, and some French ones, for the + support of mass opinion, developed a system which set forth that reason + always led you into traps and that the only mind to trust was the + irrational, instinctive or intuitional mind. Thus the nonsenseorship, with + excellent philosophic support put the ban upon thinking. Now, I do not + contend that many suffer seriously from this restriction. For, after all, + thinking is hard work and may cheerfully be foregone in the general + interest. + </p> + <p> + But does the nonsenseorship rest content with its achievement? If the + instinctive part of us is so important, let us have a look at it, says + society; perhaps something anti-social may be unearthed there. A Viennese + explores this area of the mind. He discovers what society would forbid, + merely hidden away. Civilization has merely pressed it into dark corners, + as the law has crowded the blackjack artist into alleys and dens of + thieves. The psychic police are put on our trail. They must nab every + suppressed desire and send it to the reform school for re-education into + something beautiful and serviceable. We may not be unhappy, neurotic, mad; + our complexes must be inspected. We must suppress our reason, we may not + suppress our desire; the nonsenseorship says so, and to persuade us, its + experts offer us the reward of health and greater usefulness if we make + this further surrender. + </p> + <p> + Now, although as I have said we let reason go at the behest of the + nonsenseorship without so much as a word of protest, we do not give up our + suppressed desires so easily and without a fight. + </p> + <p> + As a result we see the nonsenseorship in a new light. We feel it more + keenly now than ever before. It is revealed as the Procrustean bed which + cramps us up until we ache inside. If there is anything the matter with + us, if we are introverted, introspective, neurotic, complicated, have too + much ego or too little ego, are dyspeptic, sick, sore, inhibited, + regressive, defeated or too successful, unhappy, cruel or too kind, if we + differ ever so slightly from the enforced average, it is because + censorship presses upon us. And the cure for censorship is more + censorship. Have your psychic insides censored; if you would be a perfect + 36 mentally and morally, with the Hart, Schaffner & Marxed soul which + modern society wills that you shall have, conform not only without but + within, and be "splendidly null"! I think it is the sudden realization + that just a little more of individuality, our hidden individuality, is + threatened, which makes the nonsenseorship irk us now as it never did + before. + </p> + <p> + The race has always had it, but in the beginning it was a crude and simple + thing, troubling itself only with externals. A woman whose official duty + it is to look after the virtue of the movies in Pennsylvania or Ohio, will + not permit on the screen any suggestion that there is a physiological + relation between a mother and a child. This method of protecting the race + has its roots back in the primitive mind of mankind. When men really did + not understand how children came about, births were catastrophic. A woman + at a certain moment had to disappear into the wilderness; she came back + having found a baby under a cabbage leaf. Any contact with her while she + was making her discovery might bring pestilence and death to the tribe. + </p> + <p> + We still believe in the pestilence even if we no longer have faith in the + cabbage leaf. The lady censor of Ohio or Pennsylvania is the tribe driving + the pregnant woman into the wilderness. On the whole the tribe did it + better than we do; it only removed the offender and the mental life of the + little community went on just as before. We keep the offender amongst us + and close our minds. Our simple ancestors covered no more with the fig + leaf than they thought it necessary to hide; we wear the fig leaf over our + eyes: that is the nonsenseorship. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Griffith recently brought out a cinema spectacle called "Orphans in + the Storm," which presented many scenes from the French Revolution. Now it + was not long ago that we Americans were all rather proud of the French + Revolution. We had had a revolution of our own and we thought with + satisfaction that the French had caught theirs from us. We were as pleased + about it as the little boy is when the neighbor's little boy catches the + mumps from him. He sees an enlargement of his ego in the swollen neck of + his playmate. + </p> + <p> + All that is changed now. Mr. Griffith picturing the triumphant mob in + Paris had to fill his screens with preachments against Bolshevism, which + had as much to do with his subject as captions about the rape of the + Sabine woman would have had to do with it. It is as if the little boy had + been taught to believe that by never saying the word mumps, he could save + his playmate from tumefying glands. + </p> + <p> + Soon some committee of morons which attends to the keeping of our + intellects on the level with their own will exclude from the schools all + histories which contain the words "the American Revolution." We must call + it the War for American Independence. That is putting the fig leaf over + our eyes. That is the nonsenseorship. + </p> + <p> + But before we decide whether or not we shall refuse to yield up our + suppressed desires as we have surrendered our reason to it, with the + approval of our leading philosopher, Mr. William James, let us consider + some of the advantages of the nonsenseorship. Perhaps it will prove worth + while to give up this little internal privilege. + </p> + <p> + First there is the simplicity of consulting the so-called public mind. The + favorite aphorism of the politician and his friend and spokesman the + editor is: "The public is always right upon a moral issue." This means + that if the politician or the propagandist can present a question to the + people in such a way that he can win his end by having the public respond + in the negative, he is sure of success. It is as if society depended for + its guidance upon the word of an oracle, a great stone image, out of which + the priests had only succeeded in producing one response, a sound very + much like, "No." The trick would consist of so framing your question that + the word "no" would give you approval for your designs. That is the art of + laying before the public a "moral issue" upon which it is inevitably + right. + </p> + <p> + Suppose, in a society ruled by the stone image, you wanted to make war + upon your neighbor. You would frame your question thus: "Shall we stand by + idly and pusillanimously while our neighbor invades our land and rapes our + women?" This is a moral issue of the deepest sanctity. You would present + it. The priests would do their little something somewhere out of sight. + From the great stone image would come a bellow which resembled "No." You + would have won on a moral issue and would then be licensed to invade your + neighbor's territory and rape his women. + </p> + <p> + Now you will perceive certain advantages in an oracle which can only say + one word. You know in advance what its answer will be. Suppose the great + stone image could have said either "yes" or "no." Suppose its answer had + been "yes" to your righteous question? It would have been embarrassing. + You could no longer say with such perfect confidence, "It is always right + upon a moral issue." + </p> + <p> + Suppose you were capital and you desired to reduce wages. You would not go + to the temple and say, "Shall we reduce wages?" That would not be a moral + issue upon which the answer would be right. You would ask, "Shall we + tamely acquiesce while the labor unions import the Russian revolution into + our very midst?" The great stone voice always to be trusted on moral + issues would thunder, "No." + </p> + <p> + Or suppose you were labor; for my oracle is even-handed—and you + wished to extend your organization—you would go to the temple and + propound the inquiry, "Shall we be eaten alive by the war profiteers?" The + always moral voice would at least whisper "No!" + </p> + <p> + It will be observed that in consulting the oracle whose answer is known in + advance, the only skill required consists in so framing the question that + you will get a louder roar of "no" than the other side can with its + question. If you can always do this you can say with perfect confidence + that old granite lungs "is always right upon a moral issue." + </p> + <p> + That is the art of being a great popular leader. + </p> + <p> + Would anyone exchange a voice like that as a ruler for the wisdom of the + world's ten wisest men? We laugh at the Greeks for their practice of + consulting the oracle at Delphi and rightly, for our oracle beats theirs + which used to hedge in its answers and leave them in doubt. Ours never + equivocates; we know its answer beforehand, for the public mind is + compounded of prejudices, fears, herd instincts, youthful hatred of + novelty, all easily calculable. + </p> + <p> + It has been my duty for many years to tell what public opinion is on many + subjects. My method, more or less unconscious, has been to say to myself, + "The public is made up largely of the unthinking. Such and such + misinformation has been presented to it. Such and such prejudices and + fears have been aroused. Its answer is invariably negative. The result is + so and so." It is thus that judges of public opinion invariably proceed. + They do not find the popular will reflected in the newspapers. They know + it as a chemist knows a reaction, from familiarity with the elements + combined. At least such a mind is highly convenient. + </p> + <p> + And after all who does make the best censor, or nonsenseor or whatever you + choose to call it? Was it not written, "The child is censor to the man?" + Well, if it was not it ought to have been, and it is now. Consider the + child as it arrives in the family. Forthwith there is not merely the One + Subject which may never be mentioned. There are a hundred subjects. A + guard is upon the lips. The little ears must be kept pure. + </p> + <p> + Now, when we set up the establishment of democracy we did take a child + into our household. I have discussed elsewhere [Footnote: Chapter V, <i>Behind + the Mirrors</i>] the parentage of this infant born of Rousseau and + Thérèse, his moron mistress. The public mind is a child mind because in + the first place the mob mind of men is primitive, youthful and + undeveloped, and again because by the wide diffusion of primary + instruction, we have steadily increased the number of persons with less + than adult mentality who contribute to the forming of public opinion. In + the nature of the case, fifty per cent. of the public must be sub-normal, + that is, youthful mentality. We have reached down to the level of nonsense + for our guide. That is why we call it in this book the nonsenseorship. + </p> + <p> + Every one who has watched the growth of a child's vocabulary has observed + that it learns to say "no," many months, perhaps more than a year, before + it ever says "yes." An infant which took to saying "yes" before it did + "no" would violate all precedents, would scandalize its parents, and would + grow up to be a revolutionist. It would have an attitude toward life with + which men should not be born and which parents and society would find + subversive. On the instinct for saying "no" rests all our institutions, + from the family to the state. It should exhibit itself early and become a + confirmed habit before the dangerous "yes" emerges. + </p> + <p> + Besides, the child needs to say "no" long before it needs to say "yes." + Foolish parents feed it mentally as they feed it physically, out of a + bottle. If it had not its automatic facility of regurgitation, both mental + and physical, it would suffer from excesses. Its "no" is its mental + throwing up. + </p> + <p> + The public mind is still in the no-saying, the mental regurgitative stage. + But is not that ideal for the nonsenseorship? Does a censor ever have need + of any other word but "no"? + </p> + <p> + I have now established the convenience of an oracle whose answer "no" can + always be foreseen; and the fitness of the child mind for saying "no," as + well as the perfect adaptation of the single word vocabulary to the + purposes of the nonsenseorship. + </p> + <p> + One of the important ends which a "no" always serves is maintaining the <i>status + quo</i>. We all cling precariously to a whirling planet. We hate change + for fear of somehow being spilled off into space. The nonsenseorship of + the child mind is splendidly conservative. The baby in the habit of + receiving its bottle from its nurse will go hungry rather than take it + from its mother or father. Gilbert was wrong. Every child is not born a + little radical or a little conservative. + </p> + <p> + Reaching down for the child mind in society, with some misgivings, we have + been delighted to find it the strongest force making for stability. An + amusing thing happened when Mr. Hearst some years ago sought readers in a + lower level of intelligence than any journalist had till then explored. To + interest the child mind he employed the old device of pictures, his + favorite illustration portraying the Plunderbund. Now, persons who thought + the cartoon of the Plunderbund looked like themselves, viewed the + experiment with alarm. But Mr. Hearst was right. He proved to be as he + said he was, "our greatest conservative force." The surest guardians of + our morals and of our social order are precisely Mr. Hearst's readers, who + learned the alphabet spelling out P-L-U-N-D-E-R-B-U-N-D. They watch keenly + and with reprobation in Mr. Hearst's press our slightest divagations. + </p> + <p> + De Gourmont, writing of education, asks: "Is it necessary to cultivate at + such pains in the minds of the young, hatred of what is new?" And he says + it is done only because the teacher naturally hates everything that has + come into the world since he won his diploma. But no; De Gourmont is + mistaken. It is because we teach the young what it is socially beneficial + that they should learn, having regard also for their aversion to novelty, + to the bottle from any other than the accustomed hands. + </p> + <p> + And we find in the child mind—and foster it by education—"the + will to believe," that great American virtue. It requires an immense "will + to believe" to grow up in the family and in society, looking at the elders + and at all that is established, and accepting all the information that + mankind has slowly accumulated and which teachers patiently offer. If the + young once doubted, once thought—but unfortunately they do not! + Anyway, we do find in the child mind, which forms the nonsenseorship, the + "will to believe,"—of immense social utility. + </p> + <p> + Now, the "will to believe"—like teeth which decay if not used upon + hard food, or muscles which grow flabby if they have not hard work to + perform—must be given something for its proper exercise. In a + chapter on "The Duty of Lying," in his brilliant book <i>Disenchantment</i>, + Mr. C. E. Montague shows what may be done with "the will to believe," + developed as it has at last been. "During the war the art of Propaganda + was little more than born." In the next war, "the whole sky would be + darkened with flights of tactical lies, so dense that the enemy would + fight in a veritable 'fog of war' darker than London's own November brews, + and the world would feel that not only the Angel of Death was abroad, but + the Angel of Delusion too, and would hear the beating of two pairs of + wings." And what may be done with the "will to believe" in time of war has + immense lessons for the days of peace. A British Tommy, quoted by Mr. + Montague, summed the moral advantages up: "They tell me we've pulled + through at last all right because our propergander dished up better lies + than what the Germans did. So I say to myself: 'If tellin' lies is all + that bloody good in war, what bloody good is tellin' truth in peace?'" + What "bloody good" is it, when you have ready to hand the well-trained + "will to believe," which those who censored reason for its social + disutility set up as the most serviceable attribute of the human mind? + </p> + <p> + I think I have written enough to prove that the child mind at the bottom + of nonsenseorship is the effective base of stability. But the heart of man + desires also permanency. Is there reasonable assurance that we shall + always be able to keep the guiding principles of our national life, the + nonsenseorship, a child mind? + </p> + <p> + It is true that we have reached as far down, through our press and through + our public men, to the levels of the low I. Q. as it is practicable to go, + until we grant actual children and not merely mental children an even + larger share than they now have in the forming of public opinion; for this + is, as you know, "the age of the child." + </p> + <p> + And no great further advance is likely to be made in the mechanical means + of uniting the whole 100,000,000 people of this country in a 24-hour a + day, 365 days a year, mass meeting. The cheap newspaper, the moving + picture, instant telegraphic bulletin going everywhere, the broadcasting + wireless telephone, and the Ford car, have accomplished all that can be + hoped toward giving the widely-scattered population the responsiveness of + a mob. + </p> + <p> + But though perhaps we may never lower the I. Q. of the nonsenseorship, no + further triumphs being possible in that direction, there is no reason why + education, what we call "creating an enlightened public opinion," should + not always maintain for us the child mind as it now is with all its + manifold advantages. + </p> + <p> + Somewhere in Bartlett there is, or ought to be, a quotation which reads + like this: "The god who always finds us young and always keeps us so." + That is education; it always finds us young and always keeps us so. + </p> + <p> + It catches us when our minds are merely acquisitive, storing up + impressions and information; and it prolongs that period of acquisition to + maturity by always throwing facts in our way. Its purpose is not to "sow + doubts," far from it, for that would have for its ideal mere intelligence + and not social usefulness. It develops instead the "will to believe," and + this serves the needs of the propagandists, who, as Mr. Will H. Hayes is + reported to have said of the movies, "shake the rattle which keeps the + American child amused so that it forgets its aches and pains." We may + safely trust education to keep the American mind infantile, merely + acquisitive and not critical. And thus the nonsenseorship seems sure to be + perpetuated, and we reach the ideal of all the ages, society in its + permanent and final form. Here we are, here we may rest. + </p> + <p> + These considerations persuade me at least that we should make the utmost + sacrifices for so perfect a social means as we now have. Let the + nonsenseorship invade the secret closets of our personality and rummage + out our most cherished suppressed desires. Let us have nothing that we may + call our own. For my part, I shall spend the proceeds of this article upon + one of the new social police, a psycho-analyst. + </p> + <div style="height: 6em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Nonsenseorship, by G. G. Putnam and Others + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NONSENSEORSHIP *** + +***** This file should be named 6678-h.htm or 6678-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/6/6/7/6678/ + + +Text file produced by Steve Schulze, Charles Franks and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team. 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