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diff --git a/old/69677-0.txt b/old/69677-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 34d713b..0000000 --- a/old/69677-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,5460 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of The man in the street, by Meredith -Nicholson - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: The man in the street - Papers on American topics - -Author: Meredith Nicholson - -Release Date: January 1, 2023 [eBook #69677] - -Language: English - -Produced by: D A Alexander, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed - Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was - produced from images generously made available by Cornell - University Digital Collections) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAN IN THE STREET *** - - - - - -_BY MEREDITH NICHOLSON_ - - THE MAN IN THE STREET - BLACKSHEEP! BLACKSHEEP! - LADY LARKSPUR - THE MADNESS OF MAY - THE VALLEY OF DEMOCRACY - -_CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS_ - - - - -_THE MAN IN THE STREET_ - - - - - _THE - MAN IN THE STREET_ - - _PAPERS ON AMERICAN TOPICS_ - - _BY - MEREDITH NICHOLSON_ - - _NEW YORK - CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS - 1921_ - - - - - _Copyright, 1921, by - Charles Scribner’s Sons_ - - Published September, 1921 - - COPYRIGHT, 1914, 1915, 1916, 1920 BY THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY CO. - COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY THE YALE PUBLISHING ASSOCIATION, INC. - COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY THE NEW YORK EVENING POST, INC. - - THE SCRIBNER PRESS - - - - - _To - CORNELIA_ - - - - -_FOREWORD_ - - -My right to speak for the man in the street, the average American, -is, I am aware, open to serious question. Possibly there are amiable -persons who, if urged to pass judgment, would appraise me a trifle -higher than the average; others, I am painfully aware, would rate -me much lower. The point is, of course, one about which I am not -entitled to an opinion. I offer no apology for the apparent unrelated -character of the subjects herein discussed, for to my mind the volume -has a certain cohesion. In that part of America with which I am most -familiar, literature, politics, religion, and the changing social scene -are all of a piece. We disport ourselves in one field as blithely as in -another. Within a few blocks of this room, on the fifteenth floor of -an office-building in the centre of my home town, I can find men and -women quite competent to answer questions pertaining to any branch of -philosophy or the arts. I called a lawyer friend on the telephone only -yesterday and hummed a few bars of music that he might aid me with the -correct designation of one of Beethoven’s symphonies. In perplexity -over an elusive quotation I can, with all confidence, plant myself on -the post-office steps and some one will come along with the answer. I -do not mention these matters boastfully, but merely to illustrate the -happy conditions of life in the delectable province in which I was born. - -The papers here collected first appeared in the _Atlantic Monthly_, -except “Let Main Street Alone!” which was published in the New York -_Evening Post_, “The Cheerful Breakfast Table,” which is reprinted -from the _Yale Review_, and “The Poor Old English Language,” which -is reproduced from _Scribner’s Magazine_. The political articles are -sufficiently explained by their dates. They are reprinted without -alteration in the hope that some later student of the periods -scrutinized may find them of interest. - - M. N. - - INDIANAPOLIS, - July, 1921. - - - - -_CONTENTS_ - - - PAGE - - _Let Main Street Alone!_ 1 - - _James Whitcomb Riley_ 26 - - _The Cheerful Breakfast Table_ 65 - - _The Boulevard of Rogues_ 92 - - _The Open Season for American Novelists_ 106 - - _The Church for Honest Sinners_ 139 - - _The Second-Rate Man in Politics_ 150 - - _The Lady of Landor Lane_ 190 - - _How, Then, Should Smith Vote?_ 223 - - _The Poor Old English Language_ 263 - - - - -LET MAIN STREET ALONE! - - -I - -CERTAIN questions lie dormant for long periods and then, often with no -apparent provocation, assume an acute phase and cry insistently for -attention. The failure of the church to adjust itself to the needs of -the age; the shiftlessness of the new generation; the weaknesses of our -educational system--these and like matters are susceptible of endless -debate. Into this general classification we may gaily sweep the query -as to whether a small town is as promising a habitat for an aspiring -soul as a large city. When we have wearied of defending or opposing the -continuance of the direct primary, or have found ourselves suddenly -conscious that the attempt to decide whether immortality is desirable -is unprofitable, we may address ourselves valiantly to a discussion of -the advantages of the provinces over those of the seething metropolis, -or take the other way round, as pleases our humor. Without the -recurring stimulus of such contentions as these we should probably -be driven to the peddling of petty gossip or sink into a state of -intellectual coma. - -There are encouraging signs that we of this Republic are much less -impatient under criticism than we used to be, or possibly we are -becoming more callous. Still I think it may be said honestly that we -have reached a point where we are measurably disposed to see American -life steadily and see it whole. It is the seeing it whole that is the -continuing difficulty. We have been reminded frequently that our life -is so varied that the great American novel must inevitably be the work -of many hands, it being impossible for one writer to present more -than one phase or describe more than one geographical section. This -is “old stuff,” and nothing that need keep us awake o’ nights. One of -these days some daring hand capable of wielding a broad brush will -paint a big picture, but meanwhile we are not so badly served by those -fictionists who turn up their little spadefuls of earth and clap a -microscope upon it. Such novels as _Miss Lulu Bett_ and _Main Street_ -or such a play as Mr. Frank Craven’s _The First Year_, to take recent -examples, encourage the hope that after all we are not afraid to look -at ourselves when the mirror is held before us by a steady hand. - -A serious novel that cuts close to the quick can hardly fail to -disclose one of our most amusing weaknesses--our deeply ingrained local -pride that makes us extremely sensitive to criticism in any form of -our own bailiwick. The nation may be assailed and we are philosophical -about it; but if our home town is peppered with bird shot by some -impious huntsman we are at once ready for battle. We do like to brag of -our own particular Main Street! It is in the blood of the provincial -American to think himself more happily situated and of a higher type -than the citizens of any other province. In journeys across the -continent, I have sometimes thought that there must be a definite line -where bragging begins. I should fix it somewhere west of Pittsburgh, -attaining its maximum of innocent complacency in Indiana, diminishing -through Iowa and Nebraska, though ranging high in Kansas and Colorado -and there gathering fresh power for a dash to the coast, where stout -Cortez and all his men would indeed look at each other with a mild -surmise to hear the children of the Pacific boast of their landscape -and their climate, and the kindly fruits of their soil. - -When I travel beyond my State’s boundaries I more or less consciously -look for proof of Indiana’s superiority. Where I fail to find it I -am not without my explanations and excuses. If I should be kidnapped -and set down blindfolded in the midst of Ohio on a rainy night, I -should know, I am sure, that I was on alien soil. I frequently cross -Iowa, Kansas, and Nebraska, and never without a sense of a change of -atmosphere in passing from one to the other. Kansas, from territorial -days, has been much more strenuously advertised than Nebraska. The very -name Kansas is richer in its connotations. To think of it is to recall -instantly the days of border warfare; John Brown of Osawatomie, the New -England infusion, the Civil War soldiers who established themselves on -the free soil after Appomattox; grasshoppers and the days of famine; -populism and the Sockless Socrates of Medicine Lodge, the brilliant, -satiric Ingalls, Howe’s _Story of a Country Town_, William Allen White -of Emporia, and _A Certain Rich Man_, down to and including the present -governor, the Honorable Henry J. Allen, beyond question the most -beguiling man to sit at meat with in all America. - - -II - -A lady with whom I frequently exchange opinions on the trolley-cars of -my town took me to task recently for commending Mr. Sinclair Lewis’s -_Main Street_ as an achievement worthy of all respect. “I know a -score of Indiana towns and they are not like Gopher Prairie,” she -declared indignantly. “No,” I conceded, “they are not; but the Indiana -towns you have in mind are older than Gopher Prairie; many of them -have celebrated their centennial; they were founded by well-seasoned -pioneers of the old American stocks; and an impressive number of the -first settlers--I named half a dozen--experienced the same dismay and -disgust, and were inspired by the same noble ambition to make the -world over that Mr. Lewis has noted in Carol Kennicott’s case.” - -Not one but many of my neighbors, and friends and acquaintances in -other towns, have lately honored me with their views on provincial life -with Mr. Lewis’s novel as a text. Most of them admit that Minnesota -may be like that, but by all the gods at once things are not so in -“my State” or “my town.” This is a habit of thought, a state of mind. -There is, I think, something very delightful about it. To encounter -it is to be refreshed and uplifted. It is like meeting a stranger who -isn’t ashamed to boast of his wife’s cooking. On east and west journeys -across the region of the tall corn one must be churlish indeed to -repel the man who is keen to enlighten the ignorant as to the happy -circumstances of his life. After an hour I experience a pleasurable -sense of intimacy with his neighbors. If, when his town is reached, I -step out upon the platform with the returning Ulysses, there may be -time enough to shake hands with his wife and children, and I catch a -glimpse of his son in the waiting motor--(that boy, I’d have you know, -took all the honors of his class at our State university)--and it is -with real sorrow that I confess my inability to stop off for a day or -two to inspect the grain-elevator and the new brickyard and partake of -a chicken dinner at the country club--the snappiest in all this part of -the State! Main Street is proud of itself, and any newcomer who assumes -a critical attitude or is swollen with a desire to retouch the lily is -doomed to a chilly reception. - -My joy in _Main Street_, the book, is marred by what I am constrained -to think is a questionable assertion in the foreword, namely: “The -town is, in our tale, called Gopher Prairie, Minnesota. But its Main -Street is the continuation of Main Street everywhere. The story would -be the same in Ohio or Montana, in Kansas or Kentucky or Illinois, and -not very differently would it be told up York State or in the Carolina -Hills.” Now I should say that there are very marked differences -between Gopher Prairie and towns of approximately the same size that -have drawn upon different strains of foreign or American stock. Mr. -Lewis depicts character with a sure stroke, and he communicates the -sense of atmosphere admirably. There are paragraphs and single -lines that arrest the attention and invite re-reading, so sharply do -they bite into the consciousness. One pays him a reader’s highest -tribute--“That’s true; I’ve known just such people.” But I should -modify his claim to universality in deference to the differences in -local history so clearly written upon our maps and the dissimilar -backgrounds of young America that are not the less interesting or -important because the tracings upon them are so thin. - -Human nature, we are frequently assured, is the same the world over, -but I don’t believe it can be maintained successfully that all small -towns are alike. All manner of things contribute to the making of a -community. A college town is unlike an industrial or a farming centre -of the same size. A Scandinavian influence in a community is quite -different from a German or an Irish or a Scotch influence. There are -places in the heart of America where, in the formative period, the -Scotch-Irish exerted a very marked influence indeed in giving tone and -direction to the community life, and the observer is sensible of this a -hundred years afterward. There are varied shadings traceable to early -dominating religious forces; Catholicism, Methodism, Presbyterianism, -and Episcopalianism each imparting a coloring of its own to the social -fabric. No more fascinating field is open to the student than that -offered by the elements that have contributed to the building of -American communities as, for example, where there has been a strong -foreign infusion or such a blend as that of New Englanders with folk -of a Southern strain. Those who are curious in such matters will find -a considerable literature ready to their hand. Hardly any one at all -conversant with American life but will think instantly of groups -of men and women who in some small centre were able, by reason of -their foresight and courage, to lay a debt upon posterity, or of an -individual who has waged battle alone for public betterment. - -The trouble with Mr. Lewis’s Carol Kennicott was that she really had -nothing to offer Gopher Prairie that sensible self-respecting people -anywhere would have welcomed. A superficial creature, she was without -true vision in any direction. Plenty of men and women vastly her -superior in cultivation and blessed with a far finer sensitiveness to -the things of the spirit have in countless cases faced rude conditions, -squalor even, cheerfully and hopefully, and in time they have succeeded -in doing something to make the world a better place to live in. This -is not to say that Carol is not true to type; there is the type, but -I am not persuaded that its existence proves anything except that -there are always fools and foolish people in the world. Carol would -have been a failure anywhere. She deserved to fail in Gopher Prairie, -which does not strike me, after all, as so hateful a place as she found -it to be. She nowhere impinges upon my sympathy. I have known her by -various names in larger and lovelier communities than Gopher Prairie, -and wherever she exists she is a bore, and at times an unmitigated -nuisance. My heart warms, not to her, but to the people in Main Street -she despised. They didn’t need her uplifting hand! They were far more -valuable members of society than she proved herself to be, for they -worked honestly at their jobs and had, I am confident, a pretty fair -idea of their rights and duties, their privileges and immunities, as -children of democracy. - -Nothing in America is more reassuring than the fact that some one is -always wailing in the market-place. When we’ve got something and don’t -like it, we wait for some one to tell us how to get rid of it. Plunging -into prohibition, we at once become tolerant of the bootlegger. There’s -no point of rest. We are fickle, capricious, and pine for change. In -the course of time we score for civilization, but the gains, broadly -considered, are small and painfully won. Happiest are they who keep -sawing wood and don’t expect too much! There are always the zealous -laborers, the fit though few, who incur suspicion, awaken antagonism, -and suffer defeat, to pave the way for those who will reap the harvest -of their sowing. There are a hundred million of us and it’s too much to -ask that we all chase the same rainbow. There are diversities of gifts, -but all, we hope, animated by the same spirit. - - -III - -The Main Streets I know do not strike me as a fit subject for -commiseration. I refuse to be sorry for them. I am increasingly -impressed by their intelligence, their praiseworthy curiosity as -to things of good report, their sturdy optimism, their unshakable -ambition to excel other Main Streets. There is, to be sure, a type of -village with a few stores, a blacksmith-shop, and a gasolene station, -that seems to express the ultimate in torpor. Settlements of this -sort may be found in every State, and the older the State the more -complete seems to be their inertia. But where five thousand people -are assembled--or better, when we deal with a metropolis of ten or -twelve thousand souls--we are at once conscious of a pulse that -keeps time with the world’s heart-beat. There are compensations for -those who abide in such places. In such towns, it is quite possible, -if you are an amiable being, to know well-nigh every one. The main -thoroughfare is a place of fascinations, the stage for a continuing -drama. Carrier delivery destroys the old joy of meeting all the folks -at the post-office, but most of the citizens, male and female, find -some excuse for a daily visit to Main Street. They are bound together -by dear and close ties. You’ve got to know your neighbors whether you -want to or not, and it’s well for the health of your soul to know them -and be of use to them when you can. - -I should regard it as a calamity to be deprived of the felicity of my -occasional visits to a particular centre of enlightenment and cheer -that I have in mind. An hour’s journey on the trolley brings me to -the court-house. After one such visit the stranger needn’t trouble -to enroll himself at the inn; some one is bound to offer to put him -up. There is a dramatic club in that town that produces good plays -with remarkable skill and effectiveness. The club is an old one as -such things go, and it fixes the social standard for the community. -The auditorium of the Masonic Temple serves well as a theatre, and -our admiration for the club is enhanced by the disclosure that the -members design the scenery and also include in their membership capable -directors. After the play one may dance for an hour or two, though the -cessation of the music does not mean that you are expected to go to -bed. Very likely some one will furnish forth a supper and there will be -people “asked in” to contribute to your entertainment. - -There are in this community men and women who rank with the best -talkers I have ever heard. Their neighbors are proud of them and -produce them on occasion to represent the culture, the wit and humor, -of the town. Two women of this place are most discerning students -of character. They tell stories with a masterly touch, and with the -economy of words, the whimsical comment, the pauses and the unforeseen -climaxes that distinguished the storytelling of Twain and Riley. The -inhabitants make jokes about their Main Street. They poke fun at -themselves as being hicks and rubes, living far from the great centres -of thought, while discussing the newest books and finding, I fancy, a -mischievous pleasure in casually telling you something which you, as -a resident of the near-by capital with its three hundred and twenty -thousand people, ought to have known before. - -The value of a local literature, where it is honest, is that it -preserves a record of change. It is a safe prediction that some later -chronicler of Gopher Prairie will present a very different community -from that revealed in _Main Street_. Casting about for an instance of -a State whose history is illustrated by its literature, I pray to be -forgiven if I fall back upon Indiana. Edward Eggleston was an early, -if not indeed the first, American realist. It is now the habit of -many Indianians to flout the _Hoosier Schoolmaster_ as a libel upon -a State that struts and boasts of its culture and refuses to believe -that it ever numbered ignorant or vulgar people among its inhabitants. -Eggleston’s case is, however, well-supported by testimony that would -pass muster under the rules of evidence in any fair court of criticism. -Riley, coming later, found kindlier conditions, and sketched countless -types of the farm and the country town, and made painstaking studies -of the common speech. His observations began with a new epoch--the -return of the soldiers from the Civil War. The veracity of his work -is not to be questioned; his contribution to the social history of -his own Hoosier people is of the highest value. Just as Eggleston and -Riley left records of their respective generations, so Mr. Tarkington, -arriving opportunely to preserve unbroken the apostolic succession, -depicts his own day with the effect of contributing a third panel in a -series of historical paintings. Thanks to our provincial literature, -we may view many other sections through the eyes of novelists; as, -the Maine of Miss Jewett, the Tennessee of Miss Murfree, the Kentucky -of James Lane Allen, the Virginia of Mr. Page, Miss Johnston, and -Miss Glasgow, the Louisiana of Mr. Cable. (I am sorry for the new -generation that doesn’t know the charm of _Old Creole Days_ and _Madame -Delphine_!) No doubt scores of motorists traversing Minnesota will -hereafter see in every small town a Gopher Prairie, and peer at the -doctors’ signs in the hope of catching the name of Kennicott! - -An idealism persistently struggling to implant itself in the young -soil always has been manifest in the West, and the record of it is -very marked in the Mississippi Valley States. Emerson had a fine -appreciation of this. He left Concord frequently to brave the winter -storms in what was then pretty rough country, to deliver his message -and to observe the people. His philosophy seems to have been equal to -his hardships. “My chief adventure,” he wrote in his journal of one -such pilgrimage, “was the necessity of riding in a buggy forty-eight -miles to Grand Rapids; then after lecture twenty more in return, and -the next morning back to Kalamazoo in time for the train hither at -twelve.” Nor did small audiences disturb him. “Here is America in -the making, America in the raw. But it does not want much to go to -lectures, and ’tis a pity to drive it.” - -There is, really, something about corn--tall corn, that whispers on -summer nights in what George Ade calls the black dirt country. There -is something finely spiritual about corn that grows like a forest in -Kansas and Nebraska. And Democracy is like unto it--the plowing, and -the sowing, and the tending to keep the weeds out. We can’t scratch a -single acre and say all the soil’s bad;--it may be wonderfully rich in -the next township! - -It is the way of nature to be perverse and to fashion the good and -great out of the least promising clay. Country men and small-town men -have preponderated in our national counsels and all things considered -they haven’t done so badly. Greatness has a way of unfolding itself; -it remains true that the fault is in ourselves, and not in our stars, -that we are underlings. Out of one small town in Missouri came the two -men who, just now, hold respectively the rank of general and admiral -of our army and navy. And there is a trustworthy strength in elemental -natures--in what Whitman called “powerful uneducated persons.” Ancestry -and environment are not negligible factors, yet if Lincoln had been -born in New York and Roosevelt in a Kentucky log cabin, both would have -reached the White House. In the common phrase, you can’t keep a good -man down. The distinguishing achievement of Drinkwater’s _Lincoln_ is -not merely his superb realization of a great character, but the sense -so happily communicated, of a wisdom deep-planted in the general heart -of man. It isn’t all just luck, the workings of our democracy. If -there’s any manifestation on earth of a divine ordering of things, it -is here in America. Considering that most of the hundred million trudge -along away back in the line where the music of the band reaches them -only faintly, the army keeps step pretty well. - - -IV - -“Myself when young did eagerly frequent” lecture-halls and the abodes -of the high-minded and the high-intentioned who were zealous in the -cause of culture. This was in those years when Matthew Arnold’s -criticisms of America and democracy in general were still much -discussed. Thirty years ago it really seemed that culture was not -only desirable but readily attainable for America. We cherished happy -illusions as to the vast possibilities of education: there should -be no Main Street without its reverence for the best thought and -noblest action of all time. But those of us who are able to ponder -“the heavy and the weary weight of all this unintelligible world” in -the spirit of that period must reflect, a little ruefully, that the -new schemes and devices of education to which we pointed with pride -have not turned the trick. The machinery of enlightenment has, of -course, greatly multiplied. The flag waves on innumerable schoolhouses; -literature, art, music are nowhere friendless. The women of America -make war ceaselessly upon philistinism, and no one attentive to their -labors can question their sincerity or their intelligence. But these -are all matters as to which many hear the call but comparatively few -prostrate themselves at the mercy-seat. Culture, in the sense in which -we used the word, was not so easily to be conferred or imposed upon -great bodies of humanity; the percentage of the mass who are seriously -interested in the finest and noblest action of mankind has not -perceptibly increased. - -Odd as these statements look, now that I have set them down, I hasten -to add that they stir in me no deep and poignant sorrow. My feeling -about the business is akin to that of a traveller who has missed a -train but consoles himself with the reflection that by changing his -route a trifle he will in due course reach his destination without -serious delay, and at the same time enjoy a view of unfamiliar scenery. - -Between what Main Street wants and cries for and what Main Street -really needs there is a considerable margin for speculation. I shall -say at once that I am far less concerned than I used to be as to the -diffusion of culture in the Main Streets of all creation. Culture is a -term much soiled by ignoble use and all but relegated to the vocabulary -of cant. We cannot “wish” Plato upon resisting and hostile Main -Streets; we are even finding that Isaiah and St. Paul are not so potent -to conjure with as formerly. The church is not so generally the social -centre of small communities as it was a little while ago. Far too many -of us are less fearful of future torment than of a boost in the price -of gasolene. The motor may be making pantheists of us: I don’t know. -Hedonism in some form may be the next phase; here, again, I have no -opinion. - - -V - -Mr. St. John Ervine complains that we of the provinces lack -individuality; that we have been so smoothed out and conform so -strictly to the prevailing styles of apparel that the people in one -town look exactly like those in the next. This observation may be due -in some measure to the alien’s preconceived ideas of what the hapless -wights who live west of the Hudson ought to look like, but there is -much truth in the remark of this amiable friend from overseas. Even -the Indians I have lately seen look quite comfortable in white man’s -garb. To a great extent the ready-to-wear industry has standardized -our raiment, so that to the unsophisticated masculine eye at least the -women of Main Street are indistinguishable from their sisters in the -large cities. There is less slouch among the men than there used to be. -Mr. Howells said many years ago that in travelling Westward the polish -gradually dimmed on the shoes of the native; but the shine-parlors of -the sons of Romulus and Achilles have changed all that. - -I lean to the idea that it is not well for us all to be tuned to one -key. I like to think that the farm folk and country-town people of -Georgia and Kansas, Oklahoma and Maine are thinking independently of -each other about weighty matters, and that the solidarity of the nation -is only the more strikingly demonstrated when, finding themselves -stirred (sometimes tardily) by the national consciousness, they act -sensibly and with unity and concord. But the interurban trolley and -the low-priced motor have dealt a blow to the old smug complacency and -indifference. There is less tobacco-juice on the chins of our rural -fellow citizens; the native flavor, the raciness and the tang so highly -prized by students of local color have in many sections ceased to be. -We may yet be confronted by the necessity of preserving specimens of -the provincial native in social and ethnological museums. - -I should like to believe that the present with its bewildering changes -is only a corridor leading, politically and spiritually, toward -something more splendid than we have known. We can only hope that this -is true, and meanwhile adjust ourselves to the idea that a good many -things once prized are gone forever. I am not sure but that a town is -better advertised by enlightened sanitary ordinances duly enforced than -by the number of its citizens who are acquainted with the writings -of Walter Pater. A little while ago I should have looked upon such a -thought as blasphemy. - -The other evening, in a small college town, I passed under the windows -of a hall where a fraternity dance was in progress. I dare say the -young gentlemen of the society knew no more of the Greek alphabet than -the three letters inscribed over the door of their clubhouse. But this -does not trouble me as in “the olden golden glory of the days gone -by.” We do not know but that in some far day a prowling New Zealander, -turning up a banjo and a trap-drum amid the ruins of some American -college, will account them nobler instruments than the lyre and lute. - -Evolution brought us down chattering from the trees, and we have no -right to assume that we are reverting to the arboreal state. This is -no time to lose confidence in democracy; it is too soon to chant the -recessional of the race. Much too insistently we have sought to reform, -to improve, to plant the seeds of culture, to create moral perfection -by act of Congress. If Main Street knows what America is all about, and -bathes itself and is kind and considerate of its neighbors, why not -leave the rest on the knees of the gods? - -What really matters as to Main Street is that it shall be happy. We -can’t, merely by taking thought, lift its people to higher levels of -aspiration. Main Street is neither blind nor deaf; it knows well enough -what is going on in the world; it is not to be jostled or pushed by -condescending outsiders eager to bestow sweetness and light upon it. -It is not unaware of the desirability of such things; and in its own -fashion and at the proper time it will go after them. Meanwhile if it -is cheerful and hopeful and continues to vote with reasonable sanity -the rest of the world needn’t despair of it. After all, it’s only the -remnant of Israel that can be saved. Let Main Street alone! - - - - -JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY - - -I - -ON a day in July, 1916, thirty-five thousand people passed under -the dome of the Indiana capitol to look for the last time upon the -face of James Whitcomb Riley. The best-loved citizen of the Hoosier -commonwealth was dead, and laborers and mechanics in their working -clothes, professional and business men, women in great numbers, and -a host of children paid their tribute of respect to one whose sole -claim upon their interest lay in his power to voice their feelings of -happiness and grief in terms within the common understanding. The very -general expressions of sorrow and affection evoked by the announcement -of the poet’s death encourage the belief that the lines that formed -on the capitol steps might have been augmented endlessly by additions -drawn from every part of America. I frankly confess that, having -enjoyed his friendship through many years, I am disqualified from -passing judgment upon his writings, into much of which I inevitably -read a significance that may not be apparent to those capable of -appraising them with critical detachment. But Riley’s personality was -quite as interesting as his work, and I shall attempt to give some -hint of the man as I knew him, with special reference to his whims and -oddities. - -My acquaintance with him dates from a memorable morning when he called -on me in a law office where I copied legal documents, ran errands, -and scribbled verses. At this time he was a regular contributor to -the Sunday edition of the Indianapolis _Journal_--a newspaper of -unusual literary quality, most hospitable to fledgling bards, who were -permitted to shine in the reflected light of Riley’s growing fame. Some -verses of mine having been copied by a Cincinnati paper, Riley asked -about me at the _Journal_ office and sought me out, paper in hand, to -speak a word of encouragement. He was the most interesting, as he was -the most amusing and the most lovable man I have known. No one was -quite like Riley, and the ways in which he suggests other men merely -call attention to the fact that he was, after all, wholly different: he -was Riley! - -He was the best-known figure in our capital; this was true, indeed, of -the entire commonwealth that he sang into fame. He was below medium -height, neatly and compactly built; fair and of ruddy complexion. He -had been a tow-headed boy, and while his hair thinned in later years, -any white that crept into it was scarcely perceptible. A broad flexible -mouth and a big nose were the distinguishing features of a remarkably -mobile face. He was very near-sighted, and the rubber-rimmed glasses he -invariably wore served to obscure his noticeably large blue eyes. He -was a compound of Pennsylvania Dutch and Irish, but the Celt in him was -dominant: there were fairies in his blood. - -In his days of health he carried himself alertly and gave an impression -of smartness. He was in all ways neat and orderly; there was no -slouch about him and no Byronic affectations. He was always curious -as to the origin of any garment or piece of haberdashery displayed -by his intimates, but strangely secretive as to the source of his -own supplies. He affected obscure tailors, probably because they -were likelier to pay heed to his idiosyncrasies than more fashionable -ones. He once deplored to me the lack of attention bestowed upon the -waistcoat by sartorial artists. This was a garment he held of the -highest importance in man’s adornment. Hopkinson Smith, he averred, was -the only man he had ever seen who displayed a satisfactory taste and -was capable of realizing the finest effects in this particular. - -He inspired affection by reason of his gentleness and inherent -kindliness and sweetness. The idea that he was a convivial person, -delighting in boon companions and prolonged sessions at table, has no -basis in fact. He was a domestic, even a cloistral being; he disliked -noise and large companies; he hated familiarity, and would quote -approvingly what Lowell said somewhere about the annoyance of being -clapped on the back. Riley’s best friends never laid hands on him; I -have seen strangers or new acquaintances do so to their discomfiture. - -No background of poverty or early hardship can be provided for this -“poet of the people.” His father was a lawyer, an orator well known -in central Indiana, and Riley’s boyhood was spent in comfortable -circumstances. The curtailment of his schooling was not enforced by -necessity, but was due to his impatience of restraint and inability -to adjust his own interests to the prevailing curriculum. He spent -some time in his father’s office at Greenfield, reading general -literature, not law, and experimenting with verse. He served an -apprenticeship as a house painter, and acquired the art of “marbling” -and “graining”--long-abandoned embellishments of domestic architecture. -Then, with four other young men, he began touring Indiana, painting -signs, and, from all accounts, adding greatly to the gaiety of life -in the communities visited. To advertise their presence, Riley would -recite in the market-place, or join with his comrades in giving musical -entertainments. Or, pretending to be blind, he would laboriously climb -up on a scaffolding and before the amazed spectators execute a sign in -his best style. There was a time when he seemed anxious to forget his -early experiences as a wandering sign-painter and entertainer with -a patent-medicine van, but in his last years he spoke of them quite -frankly. - -He had a natural talent for drawing; in fact, in his younger days he -dabbled in most of the arts. He discoursed to me at length on one -occasion of musical instruments, about all of which he seemed to have -much curious lore. He had been able to play more or less successfully -upon the violin, the banjo, the guitar, and (his humor bubbling) the -snare and bass drum! “There’s nothing,” he said, “so much fun as -thumping a bass drum,” an instrument on which he had performed in the -Greenfield band. “To throw your legs over the tail of a band wagon and -thump away--there’s nothing like it!” As usual when the reminiscent -mood was upon him, he broadened the field of the discussion to include -strange characters he had known among rural musicians, and these were -of endless variety. He had known a man who was passionately fond of -the bass drum and who played solos upon it--“Sacred music”! Sometimes -the neighbors would borrow the drum, and he pictured the man’s chagrin -when after a hard day’s work he went home and found his favorite -instrument gone. - -Riley acquired various mechanical devices for creating music and -devoted himself to them with childish delight. In one of his gay moods -he would instruct a visitor in the art of pumping his player-piano, -and, having inserted a favorite “roll,” would dance about the room -snapping his fingers in time to the music. - - -II - -Riley’s reading was marked by the casualness that was part of his -nature. He liked small books that fitted comfortably into the hand, and -he brought to the mere opening of a volume and the cutting of leaves -a deliberation eloquent of all respect for the contents. Always a man -of surprises, in nothing was he more surprising than in the wide range -of his reading. It was never safe to assume that he was unacquainted -with some book which might appear to be foreign to his tastes. His -literary judgments were sound, though his prejudices (always amusing -and frequently unaccountable) occasionally led him astray. - -While his study of literature had followed the haphazard course -inevitable in one so uninfluenced by formal schooling, it may fairly -be said that he knew all that it was important for him to know of -books. He was of those for whom life and letters are of one piece and -inseparable. In a broad sense he was a humanist. What he missed in -literature he acquired from life. Shakespeare he had absorbed early; -Herrick, Keats, Tennyson, and Longfellow were deep-planted in his -memory. His excursions into history had been the slightest; biographies -and essays interested him much more, and he was constantly on the -lookout for new poets. No new volume of verse, no striking poem in a -periodical escaped his watchful eye. - -He professed to believe that Mrs. Browning was a poet greatly superior -to her husband. Nevertheless he had read Robert Browning with some -attention, for on one or two occasions he burlesqued successfully that -poet’s mannerisms. For some reason he manifested a marked antipathy to -Poe. And in this connection it may be of interest to mention that he -was born (October 7, 1849) the day Poe died! But for Riley’s cordial -dislike of Poe I might be tempted to speculate upon this coincidence as -suggesting a relinquishment of the singing robes by one poet in favor -of another. Riley had, undoubtedly, at some time felt Poe’s spell, for -there are unmistakable traces of Poe’s influence in some of his earlier -work. Indeed, his first wide advertisement came through an imitation of -Poe--a poem called “Leonanie”--palmed off as having been found written -in an old schoolbook that had been Poe’s property. Riley long resented -any reference to this hoax, though it was a harmless enough prank--the -device of a newspaper friend to prove that public neglect of Riley -was not based upon any lack of merit in his writings. It was probably -Poe’s sombreness that Riley did not like, or possibly his personal -characteristics. Still, he would close any discussion of Poe’s merits -as a writer by declaring that “The Raven” was clearly inspired by Mrs. -Browning’s “Lady Geraldine’s Courtship.” This is hardly susceptible of -proof, and Elizabeth Barrett’s gracious acceptance of the compliment -of Poe’s dedication of his volume containing “The Raven” may or may not -be conclusive as to her own judgment in the matter. - -Whitman had no attraction for Riley; he thought him something of -a charlatan. He greatly admired Stevenson and kept near at hand a -rare photograph of the Scot which Mrs. Stevenson had given him. He -had recognized Kipling’s genius early, and his meeting with that -writer in New York many years ago was one of the pleasantest and most -satisfactory of all his literary encounters. - -The contentions between Realism and Romanticism that occasionally -enliven our periodical literature never roused his interest; his -sympathies were with the conservatives and he preferred gardens that -contained familiar and firmly planted literary landmarks. He knew his -Dickens thoroughly, and his lifelong attention to “character” was due -no doubt in some measure to his study of Dickens’s portraits of the -quaint and humorous. He always confessed gratefully his indebtedness -to Longfellow, and once, when we were speaking of the older poet, he -remarked that Mark Twain and Bret Harte were other writers to whom -he owed much. Harte’s obligations to both Dickens and Longfellow -are, of course, obvious and Harte’s use of dialect in verse probably -strengthened Riley’s confidence in the Hoosier speech as a medium when -he began to find himself. - -His humor--both as expressed in his writings, and as we knew it who -lived neighbor to him--was of the same _genre_ as Mark Twain’s. And it -is not surprising that Mark Twain and Riley should have met on grounds -of common sympathy and understanding. What the Mississippi was to the -Missourian, the Old National Road that bisected Greenfield was to -Riley. The larger adventure of life that made Clemens a cosmopolitan -did not appeal to Riley, with his intense loyalty to the State of his -birth and the city that for thirty-eight years was his home. - -It gave him the greatest pleasure to send his friends books that he -thought would interest them. Among those he sent me are Professor -Woodberry’s selections from Aubrey de Vere, whose “Bard Ethell” Riley -thought a fine performance; Bradford Torrey’s _Friends on the Shelf_ -and, a few weeks before his death, a copy of G. K. Chesterton’s poems -in which he had written a substitute for one of the lines. If in these -gifts he chose some volume already known to the recipient, it was well -to conceal the fact, for it was essential to the perfect course of his -friendships that he be taken on his own terms, and no one would have -had the heart to spoil his pleasure in a “discovery.” - -He was most generous toward all aspirants in his own field, though -for years these were prone to take advantage of his good nature -by inflicting books and manuscripts upon him. I once committed -the indiscretion of uttering a volume of verse, and observed with -trepidation a considerable number of copies on the counter of the -bookstore where we did much loafing together. A few days later I was -surprised and for a moment highly edified to find the stock greatly -depleted. On cautious inquiry I found that it was Riley alone who -had been the investor--to the extent of seventy-five copies, which -he distributed widely among literary acquaintances. In the case of -another friend who published a book without large expectations of -public favor, Riley secretly purchased a hundred and scattered them -broadcast. These instances are typical: he would do a kind thing -furtively and evince the deepest embarrassment when detected. - -It is always a matter for speculation as to just what effect a -college training would have upon men of Riley’s type, who, missing -the inscribed portals, nevertheless find their way into the house of -literature. I give my opinion for what it may be worth, that he would -have been injured rather than benefited by an ampler education. He -was chiefly concerned with human nature, and it was his fortune to -know profoundly those definite phases and contrasts of life that were -susceptible of interpretation in the art of which he was sufficiently -the master. Of the general trend of society and social movements -he was as unconscious as though he lived on another planet. I am -disposed to think that he profited by his ignorance of such things, -which left him to the peaceful contemplation of the simple phenomena -of life that had early attracted him. Nothing seriously disturbed -his inveterate provincial habit of thought. He manifested Thoreau’s -indifference--without the Yankee’s scorn--for the world beyond his -dooryard. “I can see,” he once wrote me, “when you talk of your return -and the prospective housewarming of the new home, that your family’s -united heart is right here in old Indianapolis--high Heaven’s sole and -only understudy.” And this represented his very sincere feeling about -“our” town; no other was comparable to it! - - -III - -He did his writing at night, a fact which accounted for the spacious -leisure in which his days were enveloped. He usually had a poem pretty -thoroughly fixed in his mind before he sought paper, but the actual -writing was often a laborious process; and it was his habit, while a -poem was in preparation, to carry the manuscript in his pocket for -convenience of reference. The elisions required by dialect and his own -notions of punctuation--here he was a law unto himself--brought him -into frequent collision with the lords of the proof desk; but no one, -I think, ever successfully debated with him any point of folk speech. -I once ventured to suggest that his use of the phrase “durin’ the -army,” as a rustic veteran’s way of referring to the Civil War, was not -general, but probably peculiar to the individual he had heard use it. -He stoutly defended his phrase and was ready at once with witnesses in -support of it as a familiar usage of Indiana veterans. - -In the matter of our Hoosier folk speech he was an authority, though -the subject did not interest him comparatively or scientifically. He -complained to me bitterly of an editor who had directed his attention -to apparent inconsistencies of dialect in the proof of a poem. Riley -held, and rightly, that the dialect of the Hoosier is not fixed and -unalterable, but varies in certain cases, and that words are often -pronounced differently in the same sentence. Eggleston’s Hoosier is -an earlier type than Riley’s, belonging to the dark years when our -illiteracy staggered into high percentages. And Eggleston wrote -of southern Indiana, where the “poor white” strain of the South -had been most marked. Riley not only spoke for a later period, but -his acquaintance was with communities that enjoyed a better social -background; the schoolhouse and the rural “literary” were always -prominent in his perspective. - -He had preserved his youth as a place apart and unalterable, peopled -with folk who lived as he had known them in his enchanted boyhood. -Scenes and characters of that period he was able to revisualize at -will. When his homing fancy took wing, it was to bear him back to the -little town’s dooryards, set with mignonette, old-fashioned roses, -and borders of hollyhocks, or countryward to the streams that wound -their way through fields of wheat and corn. Riley kept his place at -innumerable firesides in this dream existence, hearing the veterans of -the Civil War spin their yarns, or farmers discuss crop prospects, or -the whispers of children awed by the “woo” of the wind in the chimney. -If Pan crossed his vision (he drew little upon mythology) it was to -sit under a sycamore above a “ripple” in the creek and beat time -rapturously with his goat hoof to the music of a Hoosier lad’s willow -whistle. - -The country lore that Riley had collected and stored in youth was -inexhaustible; it never seemed necessary for him to replenish his -pitcher at the fountains of original inspiration. I have read somewhere -a sketch of him in which he was depicted as walking with Wordsworthian -calm through lonely fields, but nothing could be more absurd. Fondly -as he sang of green fields and running brooks, he cultivated their -acquaintance very little after he established his home at Indianapolis. -Lamb could not have loved city streets more than he. Much as Bret Harte -wrote of California after years of absence, so Riley drew throughout -his life from scenes familiar to his boyhood and young manhood, and -with undiminished sympathy and vigor. - -His knowledge of rural life was intimate, though he knew the farm only -as a country-town boy may know it, through association with farm boys -and holidays spent in visits to country cousins. Once at the harvest -season, as we were crossing Indiana in a train, he began discoursing -on apples. He repeated Bryant’s poem “The Planting of the Apple Tree,” -as a prelude, and, looking out over the Hoosier Hesperides, began -mentioning the varieties of apples he had known and commenting on their -qualities. When I expressed surprise at the number, he said that with a -little time he thought he could recall a hundred kinds, and he did in -fact name more than fifty before we were interrupted. - -The whimsicalities and comicalities and the heart-breaking tragedies -of childhood he interpreted with rare fidelity. His wide popularity as -a poet of childhood was due to a special genius for understanding the -child mind. Yet he was very shy in the presence of children, and though -he kept track of the youngsters in the houses of his friends, and could -establish himself on good terms with them, he seemed uncomfortable when -suddenly confronted by a strange child. This was due in some measure to -the proneness of parents to exhibit their offspring that he might hear -them “recite” his own poems, or in the hope of eliciting some verses -commemorative of Johnny’s or Mary’s precocity. His children were -country-town and farm children whom he had known and lived among and -unconsciously studied and appraised for the use he later made of them. -Here, again, he drew upon impressions fixed in his own boyhood, and to -this gallery of types he never, I think, added materially. Much of his -verse for children is autobiographical, representing his own attitude -of mind as an imaginative, capricious child. Some of his best character -studies are to be found among his juvenile pieces. In “That-Air -Young-Un,” for example, he enters into the heart of an abnormal boy who - - “Come home onc’t and said ’at he - Knowed what the snake-feeders thought - When they grit their wings; and knowed - Turkle-talk, when bubbles riz - Over where the old roots growed - Where he th’owed them pets o’ his-- - Little turripuns he caught - In the County Ditch and packed - In his pockets days and days!” - -The only poem he ever contributed to the _Atlantic_ was “Old Glory,” -and I recall that he held it for a considerable period, retouching it, -and finally reading it at a club dinner to test it thoroughly by his -own standards, which were those of the ear as well as the eye. When I -asked him why he had not printed it he said he was keeping it “to boil -the dialect out of it.” On the other hand, “The Poet of the Future,” -one of his best pieces, was produced in an evening. He was little given -to displaying his poems in advance of publication, and this was one -of the few that he ever showed me in manuscript. It had been a real -inspiration; the writing of it had given him the keenest pleasure, -and the glow of success was still upon him when we met the following -morning. He wrote much occasional and personal verse which added -nothing to his reputation--a fact of which he was perfectly aware--and -there is a wide disparity between his best and his poorest. He wrote -prose with difficulty; he said he could write a column of verse much -more quickly than he could produce a like amount of prose. - -His manuscripts and letters were works of art, so careful was he of -his handwriting--a small, clear script as legible as engraving, and -with quaint effects of capitalization. In his younger days he indulged -in a large correspondence, chiefly with other writers. His letters -were marked by the good-will and cordiality, the racy humor and the -self-mockery of his familiar talk. “Your reference”--this is a typical -beginning--“to your vernal surroundings and cloistered seclusion from -the world stress and tumult of the fevered town comes to me in veriest -truth - - “‘With a Sabbath sound as of doves - In quiet neighborhoods,’ - -as that grand poet Oliver W. Longfellow so tersely puts it in his -inimitable way.” He addressed his correspondents by names specially -designed for them, and would sign himself by any one of a dozen droll -pseudonyms. - - -IV - -Riley’s talent as a reader (he disliked the term recitationist) was -hardly second to his creative genius. As an actor--in such parts, for -example, as those made familiar by Jefferson--he could not have failed -to win high rank. His art, apparently the simplest, was the result of -the most careful study and experiment; facial play, gesture, shadings -of the voice, all contributed to the completeness of his portrayals. -So vivid were his impersonations and so readily did he communicate -the sense of atmosphere, that one seemed to be witnessing a series of -dramas with a well-set stage and a diversity of players. He possessed -in a large degree the magnetism that is the birthright of great actors; -there was something very appealing and winning in his slight figure as -he came upon the platform. His diffidence (partly assumed and partly -sincere) at the welcoming applause, the first sound of his voice as he -tested it with the few introductory sentences he never omitted--these -spoken haltingly as he removed and disposed of his glasses--all tended -to pique curiosity and win the house to the tranquillity his delicate -art demanded. He said that it was possible to offend an audience by too -great an appearance of cock-sureness; a speaker did well to manifest a -certain timidity when he walked upon the stage, and he deprecated the -manner of a certain lecturer and reader, who always began by chaffing -his hearers. Riley’s programmes consisted of poems of sentiment and -pathos, such as “Good-bye, Jim” and “Out to Old Aunt Mary’s,” varied -with humorous stories in prose or verse which he told with inimitable -skill and without a trace of buffoonery. Mark Twain wrote, in “How to -Tell a Story,” that the wounded-soldier anecdote which Riley told for -years was, as Riley gave it, the funniest thing he ever listened to. - -In his travels Riley usually appeared with another reader. Richard -Malcolm Johnston, Eugene Field, and Robert J. Burdette were at various -times associated with him, but he is probably more generally known -for his joint appearances with the late Edgar W. (“Bill”) Nye. He had -for Nye the warmest affection, and in the last ten years of his life -would recount with the greatest zest incidents of their adventures on -the road--Nye’s practical jokes, his droll comments upon the people -they met, the discomforts of transportation, and the horrors of hotel -cookery. Riley’s admiration for his old comrade was so great that I -sometimes suspected that he attributed to Nye the authorship of some of -his own stories in sheer excess of devotion to Nye’s memory. - -His first reception into the inner literary circle was in 1887, when -he participated in the authors’ readings given in New York to further -the propaganda of the Copyright League. Lowell presided on these -occasions, and others who contributed to the exercises were Mark Twain, -George W. Cable, Richard Henry Stoddard, Thomas Nelson Page, Henry C. -Bunner, George William Curtis, Charles Dudley Warner, and Frank R. -Stockton. It was, I believe, Mr. Robert Underwood Johnson, then of the -_Century Magazine_ (which had just enlisted Riley as a contributor), -who was responsible for this recognition of the Hoosier. Nothing did -more to establish Riley as a serious contestant for literary honors -than his success on this occasion. He was greeted so cordially--from -contemporaneous accounts he “ran away with the show”--that on Lowell’s -urgent invitation he appeared at a second reading. - -Riley’s intimate friendships with other writers were comparatively -few, due largely to his home-keeping habit, but there were some -for whom, without ever seeing much of them, he had a liking that -approached affection. Mark Twain was one of these; Mr. Howells and -Joel Chandler Harris were others. He saw Longfellow on the occasion of -his first visit to Boston. Riley had sent him several of his poems, -which Longfellow had acknowledged in an encouraging letter; but it was -not the way of Riley to knock at any strange door, and General “Dan” -Macaulay, once mayor of Indianapolis, a confident believer in the -young Hoosier’s future, took charge of the pilgrimage. Longfellow had -been ill, but he appeared unexpectedly just as a servant was turning -the visitors away. He was wholly kind and gracious, and “shook hands -five times,” Riley said, when they parted. The slightest details of -that call--it was shortly before Longfellow’s death--were ineffaceably -written in Riley’s memory--even the lavender trousers which, he -insisted, Longfellow wore! - -Save for the years of lyceum work and the last three winters of his -life spent happily in Florida, Riley’s absences from home were -remarkably infrequent. He derived no pleasure from the hurried -travelling made necessary by his long tours as a reader; he was -without the knack of amusing himself in strange places, and the social -exactions of such journeys he found very irksome. Even in his active -years, before paralysis crippled him, his range of activities was most -circumscribed. The Lockerbie Street in which he lived so comfortably, -tucked away though it is from the noisier currents of traffic, lies, -nevertheless, within sound of the court-house bell, and he followed -for years a strict routine which he varied rarely and only with the -greatest apprehension as to the possible consequences. - -It was a mark of our highest consideration and esteem to produce -Riley at entertainments given in honor of distinguished visitors, -but this was never effected without considerable plotting. (I have -heard that in Atlanta “Uncle Remus” was even a greater problem to -his fellow citizens!) Riley’s innate modesty, always to be reckoned -with, was likely to smother his companionableness in the presence of -ultra-literary personages. His respect for scholarship, for literary -sophistication, made him reluctant to meet those who, he imagined, -breathed a divine ether to which he was unacclimated. At a small dinner -in honor of Henry James he maintained a strict silence until one of the -other guests, in an effort to “draw out” the novelist, spoke of Thomas -Hardy and the felicity of his titles, mentioning _Under the Greenwood -Tree_ and _A Pair of Blue Eyes_. Riley, for the first time addressing -the table, remarked quietly of the second of these, “It’s an odd thing -about eyes, that they usually come in sets!”--a comment which did not, -as I remember, strike Mr. James as being funny. - -Riley always seemed a little bewildered by his success, and it was far -from his nature to trade upon it. He was at pains to escape from any -company where he found himself the centre of attraction. He resented -being “shown off” (to use his own phrase) like “a white mouse with -pink eyes.” He cited as proof that he was never intended for a social -career the unhappy frustration of his attempt to escort his first -sweetheart to a party. Dressed with the greatest care, he knocked at -the beloved’s door. Her father eyed him critically and demanded: “What -you want, Jimmy?” - -“Come to take Bessie to the party.” - -“Humph! Bessie ain’t goin’ to no party; Bessie’s got the measles!” - - -V - -In so far as Riley was a critic of life and conduct, humor was his -readiest means of expression. Whimsical turns of speech colored his -familiar talk, and he could so utter a single word--always with quiet -inadvertence--as to create a roar of laughter. Apart from the commoner -type of anecdotal humor, he was most amusing in his pursuit of fancies -of the Stocktonesque order. I imagine that he and John Holmes of Old -Cambridge would have understood each other perfectly; all the Holmes -stories I ever heard--particularly the one about Methuselah and the -shoe-laces, preserved by Colonel Higginson--are very similar to yarns -invented by Riley. - -To catch his eye in a company or at a public gathering was always -dangerous, for if he was bored or some tedious matter was forward, he -would seek relief by appealing to a friend with a slight lifting of the -brows, or a telepathic reference to some similar situation in the past. -As he walked the streets with a companion his comments upon people and -trifling incidents of street traffic were often in his best humorous -vein. With his intimates he had a fashion of taking up without prelude -subjects that had been dropped weeks before. He was greatly given to -assuming characters and assigning parts to his friends in the little -comedies he was always creating. For years his favorite rôle was that -of a rural preacher of a type that had doubtless aroused his animosity -in youth. He built up a real impression of this character--a cadaverous -person of Gargantuan appetite, clad in a long black alpaca coat, who -arrived at farmhouses at meal-times and depleted the larder, while the -children of the household, awaiting the second table in trepidation, -gloomily viewed the havoc through the windows. One or another of us -would be Brother Hotchkiss, or Brother Brookwarble, and we were -expected to respond in his own key of bromidic pietism. This device, -continually elaborated, was not wholly foolishness on his part, but an -expression of his deep-seated contempt for cant and hypocrisy, which he -regarded as the most grievous of sins. - -When he described some “character” he had known, it was with an amount -of minute detail that made the person stand forth as a veritable being. -Questions from the listener would be welcomed, as evidence of sympathy -with the recital and interest in the individual under discussion. -As I journeyed homeward with him once from Philadelphia, he began -limning for two companions a young lawyer he had known years before at -Greenfield. He carried this far into the night, and at the breakfast -table was ready with other anecdotes of this extraordinary individual. -When the train reached Indianapolis the sketch, vivid and amusing, -seemed susceptible of indefinite expansion. - -In nothing was he more diverting than in the superstitions he affected. -No life could have been freer from annoyances and care than his, and -yet he encouraged the belief that he was pursued by a “hoodoo.” This -was the most harmless of delusions, and his nearest friends encouraged -the idea for the enjoyment they found in his intense satisfaction -whenever any untoward event--never anything important--actually befell -him. The bizarre, the fantastic, had a mild fascination for him; he -read occult meanings into unusual incidents of every kind. When Alfred -Tennyson Dickens visited Indianapolis I went with him to call on Riley. -A few days later Mr. Dickens died suddenly in New York, and soon -afterward I received a note that he had written me in the last hour of -his life. Riley was so deeply impressed by this that he was unable to -free his mind of it for several days. It was an astounding thing, he -said, to receive a letter from a dead man. For a time he found comfort -in the idea that I shared the malevolent manifestations to which he -fancied himself subject. We were talking in the street one day when -a brick fell from a building and struck the sidewalk at our feet. He -was drawing on a glove and quite characteristically did not start or -manifest any anxiety as to his safety. He lifted his head guardedly and -with a casual air said: “I see they’re still after you” (referring to -the fact that a few weeks earlier a sign had fallen on me in Denver). -Then, holding out his hands, he added mournfully: “They’re after me, -too!” The gloves--a pair brought him from London by a friend--were both -lefts. - -A number of years ago he gave me his own copy of the _Oxford Book of -English Verse_--an anthology of which he was very fond. In it was -pasted a book-plate that had previously escaped me. It depicted an old -scholar in knee-breeches and three-cornered hat, with an armful of -books. When asked about the plate, Riley explained that a friend had -given it to him, but that he had never used it because, on counting the -books, there seemed to be thirteen of them. However, some one having -convinced him that the number was really twelve, the evil omen was -happily dispelled. - -Politics interested him not at all, except as to the personal -characteristics of men prominent in that field. He voted only once, so -he often told me, and that was at the behest of a friend who was a -candidate for some local office. Finding later that in his ignorance of -the proper manner of preparing a ballot he had voted for his friend’s -opponent, he registered a vow, to which he held strictly, never to -vote again. My own occasional dabblings in politics caused him real -distress, and once, when I had playfully poked into a hornet’s nest, he -sought me out immediately to warn me of the dire consequences of such -temerity. “They’ll burn your barn,” he declared; “they’ll kidnap your -children!” - -His incompetence--real or pretended--in many directions was one of the -most delightful things about him. Even in the commonest transactions -of life he was rather helpless--the sort of person one instinctively -assists and protects. His deficiencies of orientation were a joke among -his friends, and though he insisted that he couldn’t find his way -anywhere, I’m disposed to think that this was part of the make-believe -in which he delighted. When he intrusted himself to another’s -leading he was always pleased if the guide proved as incapable as -himself. Lockerbie Street is a little hard to find, even for lifelong -Indianapolitans, and for a caller to confess his difficulties in -reaching it was sure to add to the warmth of his welcome. - -Riley had no patience for research, and cheerfully turned over to -friends his inquiries of every sort. Indeed he committed to others -with comical light-heartedness all matters likely to prove vexatious -or disagreeable. He was chronically in search of something that might -or might not exist. He complained for years of the loss of a trunk -containing letters from Longfellow, Mark Twain, and others, though his -ideas as to its genesis and subsequent history were altogether hazy. - -He was a past master of the art of postponement, but when anything -struck him as urgent he found no peace until he had disposed of it. -He once summoned two friends, at what was usually for him a forbidden -hour of the morning, to repair forthwith to the photographer’s, that -the three might have their pictures taken, his excuse being that one or -another might die suddenly, leaving the desired “group” unrealized--a -permanent sorrow to the survivors. - -His portrait by Sargent shows him at his happiest, but for some reason -he never appeared to care for it greatly. There was, I believe, some -vague feeling on his part that one of the hands was imperfect--a little -too sketchy, perhaps. He would speak cordially of Sargent and describe -his method of work with characteristic attention to detail; but when -his opinion of the portrait was solicited, he would answer evasively or -change the subject. - -He clung tenaciously to a few haunts, one of these being for many years -the office of the _Journal_, to which he contributed the poems in -dialect that won his first recognition. The back room of the business -office was a favorite loafing place for a number of prominent citizens -who were responsive to Riley’s humor. They maintained there something -akin to a country-store forum of which Riley was the bright particular -star. A notable figure of those days in our capital was Myron Reed, -a Presbyterian minister of singular gifts, who had been a captain -of cavalry in the Civil War. Reed and William P. Fishback, a lawyer -of distinction, also of the company, were among the first Americans -to “discover” Matthew Arnold. Riley’s only excursion abroad was in -company with Reed and Fishback, and surely no more remarkable trio -ever crossed the Atlantic. It is eloquent of the breadth of Riley’s -sympathies that he appreciated and enjoyed the society of men whose -interests and activities were so wholly different from his own. They -made the usual pious pilgrimages, but the one incident that pleased -Riley most was a supper in the Beefsteak Room adjoining Irving’s -theatre, at which Coquelin also was a guest. The theatre always had a -fascination for Riley, and this occasion and the reception accorded -his reading of some of his poems marked one of the high levels of his -career. Mr. Fishback reported that Coquelin remarked to Irving of -Riley’s recitations, that the American had by nature what they had been -twenty years acquiring. - -In keeping with the diffidence already referred to was his dread -of making awkward or unfortunate remarks, and it was like him to -exaggerate greatly his sins of this character. He illustrated Irving’s -fine nobility by an incident offered also as an instance of his own -habit of blundering. Riley had known for years an English comedian -attached to a stock company at Indianapolis, and he mentioned this -actor to Irving and described a bit of “business” he employed in the -part of First Clown in the graveyard scene in “Hamlet.” Irving not only -professed to remember the man, but confirmed in generous terms Riley’s -estimate of his performance as the grave-digger. When Riley learned -later that what he had believed to be the unique practice of his friend -had been the unbroken usage of the stage from the time of Shakespeare, -he was inconsolable, and his blunder was a sore point with him to the -end of his days. - -Though his mail was enormous, he was always solicitous that no letter -should escape. For a time it pleased him to receive mail at three -points of delivery--his house, his publisher’s, and the office of a -trust company where a desk was reserved for him. The advantage of this -was that it helped to fill in the day and to minimize the disparity -between his own preoccupations and the more exacting employments of his -friends. Once read, the letters were likely to be forgotten, but this -did not lessen his joy in receiving them. He was the meek slave of -autograph-hunters, and at the holiday season he might be found daily -inscribing books that poured in remorselessly from every part of the -country. - - -VI - -The cheery optimism, tolerance, and mercy that are the burden of his -verse summed up his religion. He told me once that he was a Methodist; -at least, he had become a member of that body in his youth, and he -was not aware, as he put it, that they had ever “fired” him. For a -time he was deeply interested in Spiritualism and attended séances; -but I imagine that he derived no consolation from these sources, as -he never mentioned the subject in later years. Though he never probed -far into such matters, speculations as to immortality always appealed -to him, and he often reiterated his confidence that we shall meet and -recognize, somewhere in the beyond, those who are dear to us on earth. -His sympathy for bereaved friends was marked by the tenderest feeling. -“It’s all right,” he would say bravely, and he did believe, sincerely, -in a benign Providence that makes things “right.” - -Here was a life singularly blessed in all its circumstances and in the -abundant realization of its hopes and aims. Few poets of any period -have received so generous an expression of public regard and affection -as fell to Riley’s lot. The very simplicity of his message and the -melodious forms in which it was delivered won him the wide hearing that -he enjoyed and that seems likely to be his continuing reward far into -the future. Yale wrote him upon her rolls as a Master of Arts, the -University of Pennsylvania made him a Doctor of Letters. The American -Academy of Arts and Letters bestowed upon him its gold medal in the -department of poetry; his last birthdays were observed in many parts of -the country. Honor, love, obedience, troops of friends were his happy -portion, and he left the world richer for the faith and hope and honest -mirth that he brought to it. - - - - -THE CHEERFUL BREAKFAST TABLE - - “A good, honest, wholesome, hungry breakfast.” - - --_The Compleat Angler._ - - -“ONE fine morning in the full London season, Major Arthur Pendennis -came over from his lodgings, according to his custom, to breakfast at a -certain club in Pall Mall, of which he was a chief ornament.” This has -always seemed to me the noblest possible opening for a tale. The zest -of a fine morning in London, the deliberation of a gentleman taking his -ease in his club and fortifying himself against the day’s events with a -satisfying breakfast, are communicated to the reader in a manner that -at once inspires confidence and arouses the liveliest expectations. I -shall not go the length of saying that all novels should begin with -breakfast, but where the disclosures are to be of moment, and we are to -be urged upon adventures calculated to tax our emotions or our staying -powers, a breakfast table serves admirably as a point of departure. We -thus begin the imaginary day where the natural day begins, and we form -the acquaintance of the characters at an hour when human nature is most -satisfactorily and profitably studied. - -It is only a superstition that night alone affords the proper -atmosphere for romance, and that the curtain must fall upon the first -scene with the dead face of the king’s messenger upturned to the moon -and the landlord bawling from an upper window to know what it’s all -about. Morning is the beginning of all things. Its hours breathe life -and hope. “Pistols and coffee!” The phrase whets the appetite both for -the encounter and the cheering cup. The duel, to be sure, is no longer -in favor, and it is not for me to lament its passing; but I mention it -as an affair of dewy mornings, indelibly associated with hours when the -hand is steady and courage runs high. - -It may be said with all assurance that breakfast has fallen into sad -neglect, due to the haste and rush of modern life--the commuter’s -anxiety touching the 8.27, the city man’s fear that he may not be able -to absorb the day’s news before his car is at the door. Breakfast has -become a negligible item of the day’s schedule. An increasing number -of American citizens are unfit to be seen at the breakfast hour; and -a man, woman, or child who cannot present a cheery countenance at -breakfast is living an unhealthy life upon the brink of disaster. A -hasty visit to the table, the gulping of coffee, the vicious snapping -of teeth upon food scarcely looked at, and a wild rush to keep the -first appointment noted on the calendar, is the poorest possible -preparation for a day of honest work. The man who follows this practice -is a terror to his business associates. Reports that “the boss isn’t -feeling well this morning” pass about the office, with a disturbance of -the morale that does not make for the efficiency of the establishment. -The wife who reaches the table dishevelled and fretful, under -compulsion of her conscience, with the idea that the lord of the house -should not be permitted to fare forth without her benediction, would do -better to keep her bed. If the eggs are overdone or the coffee is cold -and flavorless, her panicky entrance at the last moment will not save -the situation. A growl from behind the screening newspaper is a poor -return for her wifely self-denial, but she deserves it. There is guilt -upon her soul; if she had not insisted on taking the Smiths to supper -after the theatre the night before, he would have got the amount of -sleep essential to his well-being and the curtaining paper would not be -camouflaging a face to which the good-by kiss at the front door is an -affront, not a caress. - -“Have the children come down yet?” the lone breakfaster growlingly -demands. The maid replies indifferently that the children have -severally and separately partaken of their porridge and departed. Her -manner of imparting this information signifies rebellion against a -system which makes necessary the repeated offering of breakfast to -persons who accept only that they may complain of it. No happier is the -matutinal meal in humbler establishments where the wife prepares and -serves the food, and buttons up Susie’s clothes or sews a button on -Johnny’s jacket while the kettle boils. If the husband met a bootlegger -in the alley the previous night it is the wife’s disagreeable duty to -rouse him from his protracted slumbers; and if, when she has produced -him at the table, he is displeased with the menu, his resentment, -unchecked by those restraints presupposed of a higher culture, is -manifested in the playful distribution of the tableware in the general -direction of wife and offspring. The family cluster fearfully at the -door as the head of the house, with surly resignation, departs for -the scene of his daily servitude with the smoke of his pipe trailing -behind him, animated by no love for the human race but only by a firm -resolution not to lift his hand until the last echoes of the whistle -have died away. - -It is foreign to my purpose to indict a whole profession, much less -the medical fraternity, which is so sadly harassed by a generation -of Americans who demand in pills and serums what its progenitors -found in the plough handle and the axe, and yet I cannot refrain from -laying at the doors of the doctors some burden of responsibility for -the destruction of the breakfast table. The astute and diplomatic -physician, perfectly aware that he is dealing with an outraged -stomach and that the internal discomfort is due to overindulgence, is -nevertheless anxious to impose the slightest tax upon the patient’s -self-denial. Breakfast, he reflects, is no great shakes anyhow, and he -suggests that it be curtailed, or prescribes creamless coffee or offers -some other hint equally banal. This is wholly satisfactory to Jones, -who says with a sigh of relief that he never cared much for breakfast, -and that he can very easily do without it. - -About twenty-five years ago some one started a boom for the -breakfastless day as conducive to longevity. I know persons who have -clung stubbornly to this absurdity. The despicable habit contributes to -domestic unsociability and is, I am convinced by my own experiments, -detrimental to health. The chief business of the world is transacted -in the morning hours, and I am reluctant to believe that it is most -successfully done on empty stomachs. Fasting as a spiritual discipline -is, of course, quite another thing; but fasting by a tired business -man under medical compulsion can hardly be lifted to the plane of -things spiritual. To delete breakfast from the day’s programme is -sheer cowardice, a confession of invalidism which is well calculated -to reduce the powers of resistance. The man who begins the day with a -proscription that sets him apart from his neighbors may venture into -the open jauntily, persuading himself that his abstinence proves his -superior qualities; but in his heart, to say nothing of his stomach, -he knows that he has been guilty of a sneaking evasion. If he were -a normal, healthy being, he would not be skulking out of the house -breakfastless. Early rising, a prompt response to the breakfast-bell, -a joyous breaking of the night’s fast is a rite not to be despised in -civilized homes. - -Old age rises early and calls for breakfast and the day’s news. -Grandfather is entitled to his breakfast at any hour he demands it. He -is at an age when every hour stolen from the night is fairly plucked -from oblivion, and to offer him breakfast in bed as more convenient -to the household, or with a well-meant intention of easing the day -for him, is merely to wound his feelings. There is something finely -appealing in the thought of a veteran campaigner in the army of life -who doesn’t wait for the bugle to sound reveille, but kindles his fire -and eats his ration before his young comrades are awake. - -The failure of breakfast, its growing ill repute and disfavor are not, -however, wholly attributable to the imperfections of our social or -economic system. There is no more reason why the homes of the humble -should be illumined by a happy breakfast table than that the morning -scene in abodes of comfort and luxury should express cheer and a -confident faith in human destiny. Snobbishness must not enter into this -matter of breakfast reform; rich and poor alike must be persuaded that -the morning meal is deserving of all respect, that it is the first act -of the day’s drama, not to be performed in a slipshod fashion to spoil -the rest of the play. It is the first chapter of a story, and every one -who has dallied with the art of fiction knows that not merely the first -chapter but the first line must stir the reader’s imagination. - -Morning has been much sung by the poets, some of them no doubt wooing -the lyre in bed. A bard to my taste, Benjamin S. Parker, an Indiana -pioneer and poet who had lived in a log cabin and was, I am persuaded, -an early and light-hearted breakfaster, wrote many verses on which the -dew sparkles: - - “I had a dream of other days,-- - In golden luxury waved the wheat; - In tangled greenness shook the maize; - The squirrels ran with nimble feet, - And in and out among the trees - The hangbird darted like a flame; - The catbird piped his melodies, - Purloining every warbler’s fame: - And then I heard triumphal song, - ’Tis morning and the days are long.” - -I hope not to imperil my case for the cheerful breakfast table by -asserting too much in support of it, but I shall not hesitate to -say that the contemptuous disregard in which breakfast is now held -by thousands of Americans is indisputably a cause of the low state -to which the family tie has fallen. It is a common complaint of -retrospective elderly persons that the family life, as our grandparents -knew it, has been destroyed by the haste and worry incident to modern -conditions. Breakfast--a leisurely, jolly affair as I would have -it, with every member of the household present on the stroke of the -gong--is unequalled as a unifying force. The plea that everybody is in -a hurry in the morning is no excuse; if there is any hour when haste is -unprofitable it is that first morning hour. - -It is impossible to estimate at this writing the effect of the -daylight-saving movement upon breakfast and civilization. To add an -hour to the work-day is resented by sluggards who, hearing seven chime, -reflect that it is really only six, and that a little self-indulgence -is wholly pardonable. However, it is to be hoped that the change, where -accepted in good spirit, may bring many to a realization of the cheer -and inspiration to be derived from early rising. - -A day should not be “jumped into,” but approached tranquilly and with -respect and enlivened by every element of joy that can be communicated -to it. At noon we are in the midst of conflict; at nightfall we have -won or lost battles; but in the morning “all is possible and all -unknown.” If we have slept like honest folk, and are not afraid of a -dash of cold water, we meet the day blithely and with high expectation. -If the day dawn brightly, there is good reason for sharing its promise -with those who live under the same roof; if it be dark and rain beats -upon the pane, even greater is the need of family communion, that every -member may be strengthened for valiant wrestling with the day’s tasks. - -The disorder of the week-day breakfast in most households is -intensified on Sunday morning, when we are all prone to a very liberal -interpretation of the meaning of a day of rest. There was a time not -so long ago when a very large proportion of the American people rose -on Sunday morning with no other thought but to go to church. Children -went to Sunday-school, not infrequently convoyed by their parents. I -hold no brief for the stern inhibitions of the monstrous Puritan Sunday -which hung over childhood like a gray, smothering cloud. Every one has -flung a brick at Protestantism for its failures of reconstruction and -readjustment to modern needs, and I am not without my own shame in this -particular. The restoration of breakfast to its rightful place would -do much to put a household in a frame of mind for the contemplation of -the infinite. Here, at least, we are unembarrassed by the urgency of -the tasks of every day; here, for once in the week, at an hour that may -very properly be set forward, a well-managed family may meet at table -and infuse into the gathering the spirit of cheerful yesterdays and -confident to-morrows. - -No better opportunity is afforded for a friendly exchange of -confidences, for the utterance of words of encouragement and hope and -cheer. Tommy, if he has been dealt with firmly in this particular on -earlier occasions, will not revive the old and bothersome question of -whether he shall or shall not go to Sunday-school. If he is a stranger -to that institution by reason of parental incompetence or apostasy, -the hour is not a suitable one for mama to make timid suggestions as -to the importance of biblical instruction. Nor will eighteen-year-old -Madeline renew her demand for a new party dress when this matter was -disposed of definitely Saturday night. Nor will the father, unless he -be of the stuff of which brutes are made, open a debate with his wife -as to whether he shall accompany her to church or go to the club for a -luxurious hour with the barber. A well-ordered household will not begin -the week by wrangling on a morning that should, of all mornings, be -consecrated to serenity and peace. - -Great numbers of American households are dominated by that marvel -of the age, the Sunday newspaper. For this prodigious expression of -journalistic enterprise I have only the warmest admiration, but I -should certainly exclude it from the breakfast table as provocative -of discord and subversive of discipline. Amusing as the “funny page” -may be, its color scheme does not blend well either with soft-boiled -eggs or marmalade. Madeline’s appetite for news of the social world -may wait a little, and as there is no possibility of buying or selling -on the Sabbath-day, the gentleman at the head of the table may as -well curb his curiosity about the conclusions of the weekly market -review. Fragments of Sunday newspapers scattered about a breakfast -table are not decorative. They encourage bad manners and selfishness. -A newspaper is an impudent intrusion at the table at any time, but -on Sunday its presence is a crime. On an occasion, the late William -Graham Sumner was a guest in my house. Like the alert, clear-thinking -philosopher he was, he rose early and read the morning paper before -breakfast. He read it standing, and finding him erect by a window with -the journal spread wide for greater ease in scanning it quickly, I -begged him to be seated. “No,” he answered; “always read a newspaper -standing; you won’t waste time on it that way.” - -With equal firmness I should exclude the morning mail from the table. -The arrival of the post is in itself an infringement upon domestic -privacy, and the reading of letters is deadly to that conversation -which alone can make the table tolerable at any meal. Good news can -wait; bad news is better delayed until the mind and body are primed -to deal with it. If the son has been “canned” at school, or if the -daughter has overstepped her allowance, or if some absent member of the -family is ill, nothing can be done about it at the breakfast table. -On the first day of the month, the dumping of bills on the table, to -the accompaniment of expostulations, regrets, and perhaps tears, should -be forbidden. Few homes are so controlled by affection and generous -impulses as to make possible the distribution of bills at a breakfast -table without poisoning the day. A tradesman with the slightest feeling -of delicacy will never mail a bill to be delivered on the morning of -the first day of the month. Anywhere from the third or fourth to the -twentieth, and so timed as to be delivered in the afternoon--such -would be my suggestion to the worthy merchant. The head of the house -knows, at dinner time, the worst that the day has for him; if fortune -has smiled, he is likely to be merciful; if fate has thrown the dice -against him, he will be humble. And besides, a discreet wife, receiving -an account that has hung over her head ever since she made that sad, -rash purchase, has, if the bill arrive in the afternoon post, a chance -to conceal the odious thing until such time as the domestic atmosphere -is clear and bright. Attempts to sneak the dressmaker’s bill under the -coffee-pot are fraught with peril; such concealments are unworthy of -American womanhood. Let the hour or half-hour at the breakfast table be -kept free of the taint of bargain and sale, a quiet vestibule of the -day, barred against importunate creditors. - -As against the tendency, so destructive of good health and mental and -moral efficiency, to slight breakfast, the food manufacturers have set -themselves with praiseworthy determination to preserve and dignify the -meal. One has but to peruse the advertising pages of the periodicals -to learn of the many tempting preparations that are offered to grace -the breakfast table. The obtuse, inured to hasty snatches, nibbles, -and sips, are assisted to a proper appreciation of these preparations -by the most enchanting illustrations. The art of publicity has spent -itself lavishly to lure the world to an orderly and contemplative -breakfast with an infinite variety of cereals that have been subjected -to processes which make them a boon to mankind. When I hear of an -addition to the long list, I fly at once to the grocer to obtain one -of the crisp packages, and hurry home to deposit it with the cook -for early experiment. The adventurous sense is roused not only by the -seductive advertisement but by the neatness of the container, the ears -of corn or the wheat sheaf so vividly depicted on the wrapper, or the -contagious smile of a radiant child brandishing a spoon and demanding -more. - -Only a slouchy and unimaginative housewife will repeat monotonously -a breakfast schedule. A wise rotation, a continual surprise in the -food offered, does much to brighten the table. The damnable iteration -of ham and eggs has cracked the pillars of many a happy home. There -should be no ground for cavil; the various items should not only be -well-chosen, but each dish should be fashioned as for a feast of high -ceremony. Gluttony is a grievous sin; breakfast, I repeat, should be a -spiritual repast. If fruit is all that the soul craves, well enough; -but let it be of paradisiacal perfection. If coffee and a roll satisfy -the stomach’s craving, let the one be clear and not so bitter as to -keep the imbiber’s heart protesting all day, and the other hot enough -to melt butter and of ethereal lightness. The egg is the most sinned -against of all foods. It would seem that no one could or would wantonly -ruin an egg, a thing so useful, so inoffensive; and yet the proper -cooking of an egg is one of the most difficult of all culinary arts. -Millions of eggs are ruined every year in American kitchens. Better -that the whole annual output should be cast into the sea than that one -egg should offend the eye and the palate of the expectant breakfaster. - -It grieves me to be obliged to confess that in hotels and on -dining-cars, particularly west of Pittsburgh, many of my fellow -citizens are weak before the temptation of hot cakes, drenched -in syrup. I have visited homes where the griddle is an implement -frequently invoked through the winter months, and I have at times, -in my own house, met the buckwheat cake and the syrup jug and meekly -fallen before their combined assault; but the sight of a man eating hot -cakes on a flying train, after a night in a sleeper, fills me with a -sense of desolation. Verily it is not alone the drama that the tired -business man has brought to low estate! - -Sausage and buckwheat cakes have never appealed to me as an inevitable -combination like ham and eggs. Beefsteak and onions at the breakfast -hour are only for those who expect to devote the remainder of the day -to crime or wood-chopping. The scent in itself is not the incense for -rosy-fingered morn; and steak at breakfast, particularly in these -times of perpendicular prices, speaks for vulgar display rather than -generosity. - -The history of breakfast, the many forms that it has known, the -customs of various tribes and nations, assist little in any attempt to -re-establish the meal in public confidence. Plato may have done his -loftiest thinking on an empty stomach; I incline to the belief that -Sophocles was at all times a light breakfaster; Horace must regret -that he passed into the Elysian Fields without knowing the refreshing -qualities of a grapefruit. If my post-mortem terminal were less -problematical, I should like to carry him a grapefruit--a specimen -not chilled to death in cold storage--and divide it with him, perhaps -adding a splash of Falernian for memory’s sake. But the habits of the -good and great of olden times are not of the slightest importance -to us of twentieth-century America. Still, not to ignore wholly the -familiar literary associations suggested by my subject, Samuel Rogers -and his weakness for entertaining at breakfast shall have honorable -mention. Rogers’s breakfasts, one of his contemporaries hinted, were a -cunning test of the fitness of the guests to be promoted to the host’s -dinner table--a process I should have reversed, on the theory that the -qualifications for breakfast guests are far more exacting than those -for a dinner company. We have testimony that Rogers’s breakfasts, -informal and with every one at ease, were much more successful than his -dinners. Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron and Moore, Southey and Macaulay, -the Duke of Wellington and Lord John Russell were fellows to make a -lively breakfast table. At one of these functions Coleridge talked for -three hours on poetry, an occasion on which, we may assume, the variety -or quality of the food didn’t matter greatly. - -Breakfast as a social medium has never flourished in America, chiefly -because of our lack of leisure. Where recognized at all it is thrown -into the middle of the day where it becomes an anomaly, an impudent -intrusion. A breakfast that is a luncheon is not a breakfast, but a -concession to the Philistines. Once, with considerable difficulty, -I persuaded a lady of my acquaintance to undertake to popularize -breakfast by asking a company, few and fit, for eight o’clock. The -first party was delightful, and the second, moved along to nine, was -equally successful. But the hostess was so pleased with her success -that she increased the number of guests to a dozen and then to fifteen, -and advanced the hour to noon, with the result that the felicity of the -earlier hours was lost. One must have a concrete programme to be of -service in these reforms, and I shall say quite fearlessly that a round -table set for six is the ideal arrangement. - -A breakfast must be planned with greatest care. It should never be -resorted to as a means of paying social debts, but arranged with -the utmost independence. Where a wife is a desirable guest and the -husband is not, there is no reason why a plate should be wasted. On -the other hand, I should as rigidly exclude the wife who is socially -a non-conductor. The talk at a breakfast table must be spirited, and -it will not be otherwise if the company is well chosen. It’s an absurd -idea that candle-light is essential to sociability and that wit will -not sparkle in the early morning. Some of the best talk I ever listened -to has been at breakfast tables, where the guests conversed freely -under the inspiration of a mounting sun. Doctor Holmes clearly believed -the breakfast hour appropriate for the disclosure of the sprightliest -philosophy. - -An American novelist once explained that he did his writing in the -afternoon because he couldn’t make love in the morning. Not make love -in the morning! The thought is barbarous. Morning is of sentiment -all compact. Morning to the lover who possesses a soul is washed -with Olympian dews. The world is all before him where to choose and -his heart is his only guide. Love is not love that fears the morning -light.... There was a house by the sea, whence a girl used to dart -forth every morning for a run over the rocks. We used to watch her -from our windows, admiring the lightness of her step, her unconscious -grace as she was silhouetted on some high point of the shore against -the blue of sea and sky. It was to think of him, her lover, in the free -sanctuary of the new, clean day that she ran that morning race with -her own spirits. And he, perhaps knowing that she was thus preparing -herself for their first meeting, would fly after her, and they would -come running back, hand in hand, and appear with glowing cheeks and -shining eyes at the breakfast table, to communicate to the rest of us -the joy of youth. - -There are houses in which participation in the family breakfast is -frankly denied to the guest, who is informed that by pressing a button -in his room coffee will appear at any hour that pleases his fancy. -Let us consider this a little. The ideal guest is rare; the number of -persons one really enjoys having about, free to penetrate the domestic -arcana, is small indeed. This I say who am not an inhospitable soul. -That a master and mistress should keep the morning free is, however, no -sign of unfriendliness; the shoving of breakfast into a room does not -argue necessarily for churlishness, and I have never so interpreted -it. A hostess has her own affairs to look after, and the despatch of -trays up-stairs enables her to guard her morning from invasion. Still, -in a country house, a guest is entitled to a fair shot at the morning. -The day is happier when the household assembles at a fixed hour not to -be trifled with by a lazy and inconsiderate guest. - -Moreover, we are entitled to know what our fellows look like in the -morning hours. I have spoken of lovers, and there is no sterner test of -the affections than a breakfast-table inspection. Is a yawn unbecoming? -We have a right to know with what manner of yawn we are to spend our -lives. Is it painful to listen to the crunching of toast in the mouth -of the adored? Is the wit laggard in the morning hours when it should -be at its nimblest? These are grave matters not lightly to be brushed -aside. At breakfast the blemish in the damask cheek publishes itself -shamelessly; an evil temper that is subdued by candle-light will betray -itself over the morning coffee. At breakfast we are what we are, -and not what we may make ourselves for good or ill before the stars -twinkle. - -I protest against breakfast in bed as not only unsocial but unbecoming -in the children of democracy. I have never succumbed to this temptation -without experiencing a feeling of humiliation and cowardice. A proper -punishment for such self-indulgence is inflicted by the stray crumbs -that lodge between the sheets unless one be highly skilled in the -handling of breakfast trays. Crumbs in bed! Procrustes missed a chance -here. The presence of emptied dishes in a bedroom is disheartening in -itself; the sight of them brings to a sensitive soul a conviction of -incompetence and defeat. You cannot evade their significance; they are -the wreck of a battle lost before you have buckled on your armor or -fired an arrow at the foe. My experiments have been chiefly in hotels, -where I have shrunk from appearing in a vast hall built for banqueting -and wholly unsuitable for breakfasting; but better suffer this gloomy -isolating experience than huddle between covers and balance a tray on -stubborn knees that rebel at the indignity. - -The club breakfast is an infamous device designed to relieve the -mind of what should be the pleasant privilege of selection. I am -uninformed as to who invented this iniquity of numbered alternatives, -but I unhesitatingly pronounce him an enemy of mankind. Already too -many forces are operating to beat down the imagination. I charge this -monstrosity upon the propagandists of realism; certainly no romanticist -in the full possession of his powers would tolerate a thing so deadly -to the play of fancy. I want neither the No. 7 nor the No. 9 prescribed -on the card; and the waiter’s index finger wabbling down the margin -in an attempt to assist me is an affront, an impudence. Breakfast -should be an affair between man and his own soul; a business for the -initiative, not the referendum. - -Breakfast out of doors is the ideal arrangement, or in winter under -an ample screen of glass. My own taste is for a perspective of sea -or lake; but a lusty young river at the elbow is not to be despised. -The camper, of course, has always the best of it; a breakfast of -fresh-caught trout with an Indian for company serves to quicken such -vestiges of the primitive as remain in us. But we do not, if we are -wise, wait for ideal conditions. It is a part of the great game of -life to make the best of what we have, particularly in a day that finds -the world spinning madly “down the ringing grooves of change.” - -The breakfast table must be made a safe place for humanity, an -inspirational centre of democracy. A land whose people drowsily turn -over for another nap at eight o’clock, or languidly ring for coffee at -eleven, is doomed to destruction. Of such laziness is unpreparedness -born--the vanguard of the enemy already howling at the postern; treason -rampant in the citadel; wailing in the court. Breakfast, a sensible -meal at a seasonable hour; sausage or beefsteak if you are capable of -such atrocities; or only a juicy orange if your appetite be dainty; but -breakfast, a cheerful breakfast with family or friends, no matter how -great the day’s pressure. This, partaken of in a mood of kindliness and -tolerance toward all the world, is a definite accomplishment. By so -much we are victors, and whether the gulfs wash us down or we sight the -happy isles we have set sail with flags flying and to the stirring roll -of drums. - - - - -THE BOULEVARD OF ROGUES - - -NOTHING was ever funnier than Barton’s election to the city council. -However, it occurs to me that if I’m going to speak of it at all, I may -as well tell the whole story. - -At the University Club, where a dozen of us have met for luncheon every -business day for many years, Barton’s ideas on the subject of municipal -reform were always received in the most contumelious fashion. We shared -his rage that things were as they were, but as practical business -men we knew that there was no remedy. A city, Barton held, should be -conducted like any other corporation. Its affairs are so various, and -touch so intimately the comfort and security of all of us, that it -is imperative that they be administered by servants of indubitable -character and special training. He would point out that a citizen’s -rights and privileges are similar to those of a stockholder, and that -taxes are in effect assessments to which we submit only in the belief -that the sums demanded are necessary to the wise handling of the -public business; that we should be as anxious for dividends in the form -of efficient and economical service as we are for cash dividends in -other corporations. - -There is nothing foolish or unreasonable in these notions; but most of -us are not as ingenious as Barton, or as resourceful as he in finding -means of realizing them. - -Barton is a lawyer and something of a cynic. I have never known a man -whose command of irony equalled his. He usually employed it, however, -with perfect good nature, and it was impossible to ruffle him. In the -court-room I have seen him the target for attacks by a formidable array -of opposing counsel, and have heard him answer an hour’s argument in an -incisive reply compressed into ten minutes. His suggestions touching -municipal reforms were dismissed as impractical, which was absurd, for -Barton is essentially a practical man, as his professional successes -clearly proved before he was thirty. He maintained that one capable -man, working alone, could revolutionize a city’s government if he set -about it in the right spirit; and he manifested the greatest scorn for -“movements,” committees of one hundred, and that sort of thing. He had -no great confidence in the mass of mankind or in the soundness of the -majority. His ideas were, we thought, often fantastic, but it could -never be said that he lacked the courage of his convictions. He once -assembled round a mahogany table the presidents of the six principal -banks and trust companies in our town and laid before them a plan by -which, through the smothering of the city’s credit, a particularly -vicious administration might be brought to terms. The city finances -were in a bad way, and, as the result of a policy of wastefulness -and short-sightedness, the administration was constantly seeking -temporary loans, which the local banks were expected to carry. Barton -dissected the municipal budget before the financiers, and proposed -that, as another temporary accommodation was about to be asked, they -put the screws on the mayor and demand that he immediately force the -resignations of all his important appointees and replace them with men -to be designated by three citizens to be named by the bankers. Barton -had carefully formulated the whole matter, and he presented it with his -usual clarity and effectiveness; but rivalry between the banks for the -city’s business, and fear of incurring the displeasure of some of their -individual depositors who were closely allied with the bosses of the -bipartisan machine, caused the scheme to be rejected. Our lunch-table -strategy board was highly amused by Barton’s failure, which was just -what we had predicted. - -Barton accepted his defeat with equanimity and spoke kindly of the -bankers as good men but deficient in courage. But in the primaries the -following spring he got himself nominated for city councilman. No one -knew just how he had accomplished this. Of course, as things go in our -American cities, no one qualified for membership in a university club -is eligible for any municipal office, and no man of our acquaintance -had ever before offered himself for a position so utterly without honor -or dignity. Even more amazing than Barton’s nomination was Barton’s -election. Our councilmen are elected at large, and we had assumed -that any strength he might develop in the more prosperous residential -districts would be overbalanced by losses in industrial neighborhoods. - -The results proved to be quite otherwise. Barton ran his own campaign. -He made no speeches, but spent the better part of two months personally -appealing to mechanics and laborers, usually in their homes or on their -door-steps. He was at pains to keep out of the newspapers, and his own -party organization (he is a Republican) gave him only the most grudging -support. - -We joked him a good deal about his election to an office that promised -nothing to a man of his type but annoyance and humiliation. His -associates in the council were machine men, who had no knowledge -whatever of enlightened methods of conducting cities. The very -terminology in which municipal government is discussed by the informed -was as strange to them as Sanskrit. His Republican colleagues -cheerfully ignored him, and shut him out of their caucuses; the -Democrats resented his appearance in the council chamber as an -unwarranted intrusion--“almost an indelicacy,” to use Barton’s own -phrase. - -The biggest joke of all was Barton’s appointment to the chairmanship -of the Committee on Municipal Art. That this was the only recognition -his associates accorded to the keenest lawyer in the State--a man -possessing a broad knowledge of municipal methods, gathered in every -part of the world--was ludicrous, it must be confessed; but Barton was -not in the least disturbed, and continued to suffer our chaff with his -usual good humor. - -Barton is a secretive person, but we learned later that he had meekly -asked the president of the council to give him this appointment. And -it was conferred upon him chiefly because no one else wanted it, there -being, obviously, “nothing in” municipal art discernible to the bleared -eye of the average councilman. - -About that time old Sam Follonsby died, bequeathing half a million -dollars--twice as much as anybody knew he had--to be spent on fountains -and statues in the city parks and along the boulevards. - -The many attempts of the administration to divert the money to other -uses; the efforts of the mayor to throw the estate into the hands of -a trust company in which he had friends--these matters need not be -recited here. - -Suffice it to say that Barton was equal to all the demands made upon -his legal genius. When the estate was settled at the end of a year, -Barton had won every point. Follonsby’s money was definitely set -aside by the court as a special fund for the objects specified by the -testator, and Barton, as the chairman of the Committee on Municipal -Art, had so tied it up in a legal mesh of his own ingenious contriving -that it was, to all intents and purposes, subject only to his personal -check. - -It was now that Barton, long irritated by the indifference of our -people to the imperative need of municipal reform, devised a plan -for arousing the apathetic electorate. A philosopher, as well as -a connoisseur in the fine arts, he had concluded that our whole -idea of erecting statues to the good and noble serves no purpose in -stirring patriotic impulses in the bosoms of beholders. There were -plenty of statues and not a few tablets in our town commemorating -great-souled men, but they suffered sadly from public neglect. And -it must be confessed that the average statue, no matter how splendid -the achievements of its subject, is little regarded and serves only -passively as a reminder of public duty. With what has seemed to me a -sublime cynicism, Barton proceeded to spend Follonsby’s money in a -manner at once novel and arresting. He commissioned one of the most -distinguished sculptors in the country to design a statue; and at the -end of his second year in the council (he had been elected for four -years), it was set up on the new boulevard that parallels the river. - -His choice of a subject had never been made known, so that curiosity -was greatly excited on the day of the unveiling. Barton had brought -the governor of an adjoining State, who was just then much in the -public eye as a fighter of grafters, to deliver the oration. It was a -speech with a sting to it, but our people had long been hardened to -such lashings. The mayor spoke in praise of the civic spirit which had -impelled Follonsby to make so large a bequest to the public; and then, -before five thousand persons, a little schoolgirl pulled the cord, and -the statue, a splendid creation in bronze, was exposed to the amazed -populace. - -I shall not undertake to depict the horror and chagrin of the assembled -citizens when they beheld, instead of the statue of Follonsby, which -they were prepared to see, or a symbolic representation of the -city itself as a flower-crowned maiden, the familiar pudgy figure, -reproduced with the most cruel fidelity, of Mike O’Grady, known as -“Silent Mike,” a big bipartisan boss who had for years dominated -municipal affairs, and who had but lately gone to his reward. The -inscription in itself was an ironic master-stroke: - - To - Michael P. O’Grady - Protector of Saloons, Friend of Crooks - For Ten Years a City Councilman - Dominating the Affairs of the Municipality - This Statue is Erected - By Grateful Fellow-Citizens - In Recognition of his Public Services - -The effect of this was tremendously disturbing, as may be imagined. -Every newspaper in America printed a picture of the O’Grady statue; -our rival cities made merry over it at our expense. The Chamber of -Commerce, incensed at the affront to the city’s good name, passed -resolutions condemning Barton in the bitterest terms; the local press -howled; a mass-meeting was held in our biggest hall to voice public -indignation. But amid the clamor Barton remained calm, pointing to -the stipulation in Follonsby’s will that his money should be spent -in memorials of men who had enjoyed most fully the confidence of the -people. And as O’Grady had been permitted for years to run the town -about as he liked, with only feeble protests and occasional futile -efforts to get rid of him, Barton was able to defend himself against -all comers. - -Six months later Barton set up on the same boulevard a handsome tablet -commemorating the services of a mayor whose venality had brought the -city to the verge of bankruptcy, and who, when his term of office -expired, had betaken himself to parts unknown. This was greeted with -another outburst of rage, much to Barton’s delight. After a brief -interval another tablet was placed on one of the river bridges. The -building of that particular bridge had been attended with much scandal, -and the names of the councilmanic committee who were responsible for it -were set forth over these figures: - - Cost to the People $249,950.00 - Cost to the Council 131,272.81 - ---------- - Graft $118,677.19 - -The figures were exact and a matter of record. An impudent prosecuting -attorney who had broken with the machine had laid them before the -public some time earlier; but his efforts to convict the culprits -had been frustrated by a judge of the criminal court who took orders -from the bosses. Barton broke his rule against talking through the -newspapers by issuing a caustic statement imploring the infuriated -councilmen to sue him for libel as they threatened to do. - -The city was beginning to feel the edge of Barton’s little ironies. At -the club we all realized that he was animated by a definite and high -purpose in thus flaunting in enduring bronze the shame of the city. - -“It is to such men as these,” said Barton, referring to the gentlemen -he had favored with his statue and tablets, “that we confide all -our affairs. For years we have stupidly allowed a band of outlaws -to run our town. They spend our money; they manage in their own way -large affairs that concern all of us; they sneer at all the forces -of decency; they have made serfs of us. These scoundrels are our -creatures, and we encourage and foster them; they represent us and our -ideals, and it’s only fitting that we should publish their merits to -the world.” - -While Barton was fighting half a dozen injunction suits brought to -thwart the further expenditure of Follonsby’s money for memorials of -men of notorious misfeasance or malfeasance, another city election -rolled round. By this time there had been a revulsion of feeling. The -people began to see that after all there might be a way of escape. Even -the newspapers that had most bitterly assailed Barton declared that -he was just the man for the mayoralty, and he was fairly driven into -office at the head of a non-partisan municipal ticket. - -The Boulevard of Rogues we called it for a time. But after Barton had -been in the mayor’s office a year he dumped the O’Grady statue into the -river, destroyed the tablets, and returned to the Follonsby Fund out -of his own pocket the money he had paid for them. Three noble statues -of honest patriots now adorn the boulevard, and half a dozen beautiful -fountains have been distributed among the parks. - -The Barton plan is, I submit, worthy of all emulation. If every -boss-ridden, machine-managed American city could once visualize its -shame and folly as Barton compelled us to do, there would be less -complaint about the general failure of local government. There is, -when you come to think of it, nothing so preposterous in the idea -of perpetuating in outward and visible forms the public servants we -humbly permit to misgovern us. Nothing could be better calculated to -quicken the civic impulse in the lethargic citizen than the enforced -contemplation of a line of statues erected to rascals who have -prospered at the expense of the community. - -I’m a little sorry, though, that Barton never carried out one of his -plans, which looked to the planting in the centre of a down-town park -of a symbolic figure of the city, felicitously expressed by a barroom -loafer dozing on a whiskey barrel. I should have liked it, and Barton -confessed to me the other day that he was a good deal grieved himself -that he had not pulled it off! - - - - -THE OPEN SEASON FOR AMERICAN NOVELISTS - -[1915] - - -I - -THIS is the open season for American novelists. The wardens are in -hiding and any one with a blunderbuss and a horn of powder is entitled -to all the game he can kill. The trouble was started by Mr. Edward -Garnett, a poacher from abroad, who crawled under the fence and wrought -great havoc before he was detected. His invasion roused the envy -of scores of native hunters, and at their behest all laws for game -protection have been suspended, to satisfy the general craving for -slaughter. Mr. Owen Wister on his bronco leads the field, a daring and -orgulous knight, sincerely jealous for the good name of the ranges. The -fact that I was once beguiled by an alluring title into purchasing one -of his books in the fond hope that it would prove to be a gay romance -about a lady, only to find that the heroine was, in fact, a cake, does -not alter my amiable feelings toward him. I made a pious pilgrimage -to the habitat of that cake and invested in numerous replicas for -distribution all the way from Colorado to Maine, accompanied by copies -of the novel that so adroitly advertised it--a generosity which I have -refrained from mentioning to Mr. Wister or his publisher to this day. - -Mr. Wister’s personal experiences have touched our oldest and newest -civilization, and it is not for me to quarrel with him. Nor should -I be saddling Rosinante for a trot over the fearsome range had he -not taken a pot shot at poor old Democracy, that venerable offender -against the world’s peace and dignity. To drive Mr. Bryan and Mr. -Harold Bell Wright into a lonely cleft of the foot-hills and rope and -tie them together seems to me an act of inhumanity unworthy of a good -sportsman. As I am unfamiliar with Mr. Wright’s writings, I can only -express my admiration for Mr. Wister’s temerity in approaching them -close enough to apply the branding-iron. Mr. Bryan as the protagonist -of Democracy may not be dismissed so easily. To be sure, he has never -profited by any ballot of mine, but he has at times laid the lash with -a sure hand on shoulders that needed chastisement. However, it is the -free and unlimited printing of novels that here concerns us, not the -consecration of silver. - -Democracy is not so bad as its novels, nor, for that matter, is a -constitutional monarchy. The taste of many an American has been debased -by English fiction. At the risk of appearing ungracious, I fling in -Mr. Garnett’s teeth an armful of the writings of Mr. Hall Caine, Mrs. -Barclay, and Marie Corelli. The slightest regard for the literary -standards of a young and struggling republic should prompt the mother -country to keep her trash at home. It is our most grievous sin that -we have merely begun to manufacture our own rubbish, in a commendable -spirit of building up home industries. In my youth I was prone to -indulge in pirated reprints of engrossing tales of adorable curates’ -nieces who were forever playing Cinderella at hunt balls, and breaking -all the hearts in the county. They were dukes’ daughters, really, -changed in the cradle--Trollope, with a dash of bitters; but their -effect upon me I believe to have been baneful. - -A lawyer of my acquaintance used to remark in opening a conference with -opposing counsel: “I am merely thinking aloud; I don’t want to be bound -by anything I say.” It is a good deal in this spirit that I intrude -upon the field of carnage, fortified with a white flag and a Red Cross -badge. The gentle condescension of foreign critics we shall overlook as -lacking in novelty; moreover, Mr. Lowell disposed of that attitude once -and for all time. - -If anything more serious is to be required in this engagement than -these casual shots from my pop-gun I hastily tender my proxy to Mr. -Howells. And I am saying (in a husky aside) that if in England, -our sadly myopic stepmother, any one now living has served letters -with anything like the high-minded devotion of Mr. Howells, or with -achievements comparable to his for variety, sincerity, and distinction, -I shall be glad to pay postage for his name. - -We must not call names or make faces, but address ourselves cheerfully -to the business at hand. The American novel is, beyond question, in -a bad way. Something is radically wrong with it. The short story, -too, is under fire. Professor Canby would clap a Russian blouse on it -and restore its first fine careless rapture. He makes out a good case -and I cheerfully support his cause, with, however, a reservation that -we try the effect of American overalls and jumper before committing -ourselves fully to Slavic vestments. In my anxiety to be of service to -the friends of American fiction, I am willing to act as pall-bearer -or officiating minister, or even as corpse, with proper guaranties of -decent burial. - - -II - -Our slow advance in artistic achievement has been defended on the plea -that we have no background, no perspective, and that our absorption -in business affairs leaves no time for that serene contemplation of -life that is essential to the highest attainments. To omit the obvious -baccalaureate bromide that we are inheritors of the lore of all the -ages, it may be suggested that our deficiencies in the creative arts -are overbalanced by the prodigious labors of a people who have lived -a great drama in founding and maintaining a new social and political -order within little more than a century. - -Philosophers intent upon determining the causes of our failure to -contribute more importantly to all the arts have suggested that our -creative genius has been diverted into commercial and industrial -channels; that Bell and Edison have stolen and imprisoned the -Promethean fire, while the altars of the arts have been left cold. -Instead of sending mankind whirling over hill and dale at a price -within the reach of all, Mr. Henry Ford might have been our enlaurelled -Thackeray if only he had been born beneath a dancing star instead of -under the fiery wheels of Ezekiel’s vision. - -The preachiness of our novels, of which critics complain with some -bitterness, may be reprehensible, but it is not inexplicable. We are -a people bred upon the Bible; it was the only book carried into the -wilderness; it still has a considerable following among us, and all -reports of our depravity are greatly exaggerated. We are inured to much -preaching. We tolerate where we do not admire Mr. Bryan, because he is -the last of the circuit-riders, a tireless assailant of the devil and -all his works. - -I am aware of growls from the Tory benches as I timidly venture the -suggestion--fully conscious of its impiety--that existing cosmopolitan -standards may not always with justice be applied to our literary -performances. The late Colonel Higginson once supported this position -with what strikes me as an excellent illustration. “When,” he wrote, -“a vivacious Londoner like Mr. Andrew Lang attempts to deal with that -profound imaginative creation, Arthur Dimmesdale in _The Scarlet -Letter_, he fails to comprehend him from an obvious and perhaps -natural want of acquaintance with the whole environment of the man. To -Mr. Lang he is simply a commonplace clerical Lovelace, a dissenting -clergyman caught in a shabby intrigue. But if this clever writer had -known the Puritan clergy as we know them, the high priests of a Jewish -theocracy, with the whole work of God in a strange land resting on -their shoulders, he would have comprehended the awful tragedy in this -tortured soul.” - -In the same way the exalted place held by Emerson in the affections of -those of us who are the fortunate inheritors of the Emerson tradition -can hardly be appreciated by foreign critics to whom his writings -seem curiously formless and his reasoning absurdly tangential. He may -not have been a great philosopher, but he was a great philosopher for -America. There were English critics who complained bitterly of Mark -Twain’s lack of “form,” and yet I can imagine that his books might -have lost the tang and zest we find in them if they had conformed to -Old-World standards. - -On the other hand, the English in which our novels are written must -be defended by abler pens than mine. Just why American prose is so -slouchy, so lacking in distinction, touches questions that are not for -this writing. I shall not even “think aloud” about them! And yet, so -great is my anxiety to be of service and to bring as much gaiety to the -field as possible, that I shall venture one remark: that perhaps the -demand on the part of students in our colleges to be taught to write -short stories, novels, and dramas--and the demand is insistent--has -obscured the importance of mastering a sound prose before any attempt -is made to employ it creatively. It certainly cannot be complained -that the literary impulse is lacking, when publishers, editors, and -theatrical producers are invited to inspect thousands of manuscripts -every year. The editor of a popular magazine declares that there are -only fifteen American writers who are capable of producing a “good” -short story; and this, too, at a time when short fiction is in greater -demand than ever before, and at prices that would cause Poe and De -Maupassant to turn in their graves. A publisher said recently that -he had examined twenty novels from one writer, not one of which he -considered worth publishing. - -Many, indeed, are called but few are chosen, and some reason must be -found for the low level of our fiction where the output is so great. -The fault is not due to unfavorable atmospheric conditions, but to -timidity on the part of writers in seizing upon the obvious American -material. Sidney Lanier remarked of Poe that he was a great poet, but -that he did not know enough--meaning that life in its broad aspects -had not touched him. A lack of “information,” of understanding and -vision, is, I should say, the fundamental weakness of the American -novel. To see life steadily and whole is a large order, and prone as we -are to skim light-heartedly the bright surfaces, we are not easily to -be persuaded to creep to the rough edges and peer into the depths. We -have not always been anxious to welcome a “physician of the iron age” -capable of reading “each wound, each weakness clear,” and saying “thou -ailest here and here”! It is not “competent” for the artist to plead -the unattractiveness of his material at the bar of letters; it is his -business to make the best of what he finds ready to his hand. It is -because we are attempting to adjust humanity to new ideals of liberty -that we offer to ourselves, if not to the rest of the world, a pageant -of ceaseless interest and variety. - -It may be that we are too much at ease in our Zion for a deeper -probing of life than our fiction has found it agreeable to make. And -yet we are a far soberer people than we were when Mr. Matthew Arnold -complained of our lack of intellectual seriousness. The majority has -proved its soundness in a number of instances since he wrote of us. -We are less impatient of self-scrutiny. Our newly awakened social -consciousness finds expression in many books of real significance, and -it is inevitable that our fiction shall reflect this new sobriety. - -Unfortunately, since the passing of our New England Olympians, -literature as a vocation has had little real dignity among us; we -have had remarkably few novelists who have settled themselves to the -business of writing with any high or serious aim. Hawthorne as a -brooding spirit has had no successor among our fictionists. Our work -has been chiefly tentative, and all too often the experiments have -been made with an eye on the publisher’s barometer. Literary gossip is -heavy with reports of record-breaking rapidity of composition. A writer -who can dictate is the envy of an adoring circle; another who “never -revises” arouses even more poignant despair. The laborious Balzac -tearing his proofs to pieces seems only a dingy and pitiable figure. -Nobody knows the difference, and what’s a well-turned sentence more or -less? I saw recently a newspaper editorial commenting derisively on a -novelist’s confession that he was capable of only a thousand words a -day, the point being that the average newspaper writer triples this -output without fatigue. Newcomers in the field can hardly fail to be -impressed by these rumors of novels knocked off in a month or three -months, for which astonishing sums have been paid by generous magazine -editors. We shall have better fiction as soon as ambitious writers -realize that novel-writing is a high calling, and that success is to be -won only by those who are willing to serve seven and yet seven other -years in the hope of winning “the crown of time.” - -In his happy characterization of Turgenieff and his relation to the -younger French school of realists, Mr. James speaks of the “great -back-garden of his Slav imagination and his Germanic culture, into -which the door constantly stood open, and the grandsons of Balzac -were not, I think, particularly free to accompany him.” I am further -indebted to Mr. James for certain words uttered by M. Renan of the big -Russian: “His conscience was not that of an individual to whom nature -had been more or less generous; it was in some sort the conscience -of a people. Before he was born he had lived for thousands of years; -infinite successions of reveries had amassed themselves in the depths -of his heart. No man has been as much as he the incarnation of a -whole race: generations of ancestors, lost in the sleep of centuries, -speechless, came through him to life and utterance.” - -I make no apology for thrusting my tin dipper again into Mr. James’s -bubbling well for an anecdote of Flaubert, derived from Edmond de -Goncourt. Flaubert was missed one fine afternoon in a house where he -and De Goncourt were guests, and was found to have undressed and gone -to bed to _think_! - -I shall not give comfort to the enemy by any admission that our -novelists lack culture in the sense that Turgenieff and the great -French masters possessed it. A matter of which I may complain with more -propriety is their lack of “information” (and I hope this term is -sufficiently delicate) touching the tasks and aims of America. We have -been deluged with “big” novels that are “big” only in the publishers’ -advertisements. New York has lately been the scene of many novels, -but the New York adumbrated in most of them is only the metropolis as -exposed to the awed gaze of provincial tourists from the rubber-neck -wagon. Sex, lately discovered for exploitation, has resulted only in -“arrangements” of garbage in pink and yellow, lightly sprinkled with -musk. - -As Rosinante stumbles over the range I am disposed to offer a few -suggestions for the benefit of those who may ask where, then, lies the -material about which our novelists are so deficient in “information.” -No strong hand has yet been laid upon our industrial life. It has been -pecked at and trifled with, but never treated with breadth or fulness. -Here we have probably the most striking social contrasts the world has -ever seen; racial mixtures of bewildering complexity, the whole flung -against impressive backgrounds and lighted from a thousand angles. -Pennsylvania is only slightly “spotted” on the literary map, and yet -between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, nearly every possible phase and -condition of life is represented. Great passions are at work in the -fiery aisles of the steel mills that would have kindled Dostoiefsky’s -imagination. A pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night marks -a limitless field for the earnest fictionist. A Balzac would find -innumerable subjects awaiting him in the streets of Wilkesbarre! - -At this point I must bemoan the ill-fortune that has carried so many -American fiction writers to foreign shores. If Hawthorne had never -seen Italy, but had clung to Salem, I am disposed to think American -literature would be the richer. If fate had not borne Mr. Howells to -Venice, but had posted him on the Ohio during the mighty struggle of -the ’60’s, and if Mr. James had been stationed at Chicago, close to the -deep currents of national feeling, what a monumental library of vital -fiction they might have given us! If Mrs. Wharton’s splendid gifts had -been consecrated to the service of Pittsburgh rather than New York and -Paris, how much greater might be our debt to her! - -Business in itself is not interesting; business as it reacts upon -character is immensely interesting. Mineral paint has proved to be an -excellent preservative for _The Rise of Silas Lapham_, which remains -our best novel of business. But if paint may be turned to account, why -not cotton, wool, and the rest of the trade catalogue, every item with -its own distinct genesis? In _The Turmoil_ Mr. Tarkington staged, under -a fitting canopy of factory smoke, a significant drama of the conflict -between idealism and materialism. - -Turning to our preoccupation with politics, we find another field -that is all but fallow. Few novels of any real dignity may be -tendered as exhibits in this department, and these are in a sense -local--the comprehensive, the deeply searching, has yet to be done. -Mr. Churchill’s _Coniston_, and Mr. Brand Whitlock’s _The Thirteenth -District_ are the happiest experiments I recall, though possibly -there are others of equal importance. Yet politics is not only a -matter of constant discussion in every quarter, but through and by -politics many thousands solve the problem of existence. Alone of -great national capitals Washington has never been made the scene -of a novel of distinction. Years ago we had Mrs. Burnett’s _Through -One Administration_, but it failed to establish itself as a classic. -George Meredith would have found much in Washington life upon which to -exercise his ironic powers. - -With all our romantic longings it is little short of amazing that we -are not more fecund in schemes for romantic drama and fiction. The -stage, not to say the market, waits; but the settings are dingy from -much use and the characters in threadbare costumes strut forth to speak -old familiar lines. Again, there is an old superstition that we are a -humorous people, and yet humor is curiously absent from recent fiction. -“O. Henry” knew the way to the fountain of laughter, but contented -himself with the shorter form; _Huckleberry Finn_ seems destined to -stand as our nearest approach to a novel of typical humor. We have had -David Harums and Mrs. Wiggses a-plenty--kindly philosophers, often -drawn with skill--but the results are character sketches, not novels. - - -III - -It is impossible in a general view of our fiction to dissociate the -novel from the short story, which, in a way, has sapped its vitality. -An astonishing number of short stories have shown a grasp of the -movement, energy, and color of American life, but writers who have -succeeded in this field have seemed incapable of longer flight. And -the originality possessed by a great number of short-story writers -seems to be shared only meagrely by those who experiment with the -novel. When some venturesome Martian explores the Library of Congress -it may be that in the short-story division he will find the surest key -to what American life has been. There are few American novels of any -period that can tip the scale against the twenty best American short -stories, chosen for sincerity and workmanship. It would seem that our -creative talent is facile and true in miniature studies, but shrinks -from an ampler canvas and a broader brush. Frank Norris’s _The Pit_ and -_The Octopus_ continue to command respect from the fact that he had a -panoramic sense that led him to exercise his fine talents upon a great -and important theme. - -We have had, to be sure, many examples of the business and political -novel, but practically all of them have been struck from the same -die. A “big” politician or a “big” man of business, his daughter, and -a lover who brazenly sets himself up to correct the morals of the -powerful parent, is a popular device. Young love must suffer, but it -must not meet with frustration. In these experiments (if anything so -rigidly prescribed may be said to contain any element of experiment) -a little realism is sweetened with much romance. In the same way the -quasi-historical novel for years followed a stereotyped formula: the -lover was preferably a Northern spy within the Southern lines; the -heroine, a daughter of the traditional aristocratic Southern family. -Her shuddersome ride to seek General Lee’s pardon for the unfortunate -officer condemned to be shot at daybreak was as inevitable as measles. -The geography might be reversed occasionally to give a Northern girl -a chance, but in any event her brother’s animosity toward the hero -was always a pleasing factor. Another ancient formula lately revived -with slight variations gives us a shaggy, elemental man brought by -shipwreck or other means into contact with gentle womanhood. In his -play _The Great Divide_ William Vaughn Moody invested this device with -dignity and power, but it would be interesting to see what trick might -be performed with the same cards if the transformed hero should finally -take his departure for the bright boulevards, while the heroine seized -his bow and arrow and turned joyfully to the wilderness. - -When our writers cease their futile experimenting and imitating, -and wake up to the possibilities of American material we shall have -fewer complaints of the impotence of the American novel. We are just -a little impatient of the holding of the mirror up to nature, but -nevertheless we do not like to be fooled all the time. And no one is -quicker than an American to “get down to brass tacks,” when he realizes -that he must come to it. Realism is the natural medium through which a -democracy may “register” (to borrow a term from the screen-drama) its -changing emotions, its hopes and failures. We are willing to take our -recreations in imaginary kingdoms, but we are blessed with a healthy -curiosity as to what really is happening among our teeming millions, -and are not so blind as our foreign critics and the croakers at home -would have us think as to what we do and feel and believe. But the -realists must play the game straight. They must paint the wart on the -sitter’s nose--though he refuse to pay for the portrait! Half-hearted -dallying and sidling and compromising are not getting us anywhere. -The flimsiest romance is preferable to dishonest realism. It is the -meretricious stuff in the guise of realism that we are all anxious to -delete from the catalogues. - -Having thus, I hope, appeased the realists, who are an exacting -phalanx, difficult to satisfy, I feel that it is only right, just, and -proper to rally for a moment the scampering hosts of the romanticists. -It is deplorable that Realism should be so roused to bloodthirstiness -by any intrusion upon the landscape of Romanticism’s dainty frocks -and fluttering ribbons. Before Realism was, Romance ruled in many -kingdoms. If Romance had not been, Realism would not be. Let the -Cossacks keep to their side of the river and behave like gentlemen! -Others have said it who spoke with authority, and I shall not scruple -to repeat that the story for the story’s sake is a perfectly decent, -honorable, and praiseworthy thing. It is as old as human nature, and -the desire for it will not perish till man has been recreated. Neither -much argument about it, nor the limning against the gray Russian -sky-line of the august figures of Dostoiefsky, Tolstoy, and Turgenieff -will change the faith of the many who seek in fiction cheer and -recreation. - -Again, I beg, let us preserve a good temper as we ponder these matters. -More and more we shall have true realism; but more and more let us -hope for the true romance. Stevenson’s familiar contributions to the -discussion are in the best vein of the cause he espouses; and although -a New York newspaper referred to him the other day as the “Caledonian -_poseur_,” his lantern-bearers continue to signal merrily from the -heights and are not to be confused with Realism’s switch targets in -the railroad yards in the valley. The lords of the high pale brow -in classrooms and on the critical dais are much too contemptuous of -Romance. Romance we must have, to the end of time, no matter how nobly -Realism may achieve. With our predisposition as a healthy-minded and -cheerful people toward tales of the night-rider and the scratch of the -whip butt on the inn door, it is unfair to slap Romance on the wrist -and post her off to bed like a naughty stepchild. Even the stern brow -of the realist must relax at times. - -Many people of discernment found pleasure in our Richard Carvels, -Janice Merediths, and Hugh Wynnes. Miss Johnston’s _To Have and -to Hold_ and _Lewis Rand_ are books one may enjoy without shame. -The stickler for style need not be scornful of Mrs. Catherwood’s -_Lazarre_ and _The Romance of Dollard_. Out of Chicago came Mr. Henry -Fuller’s charming exotic, _The Chevalier of Piensieri-Vani_. _Monsieur -Beaucaire_ and Miss Sherwood’s _Daphne_ proved a while ago that all the -cherries have not been shaken from the tree--only the trees in these -cases, unfortunately, were not American. Surely one of these days a -new Peter Pan will fly over an American greenwood. I should bless the -hand that pressed upon me for reading to-night so diverting a skit as -Mr. Vielé’s _The Inn of the Silver Moon_. I shall not even pause to -argue with those who are plucking my coat-tails and whispering that -these are mere trifles, too frivolous to be mentioned when the novel is -the regular order of the conference. I am looking along the shelf for -Stockton, the fanciful and whimsical. How pleasant it would be to meet -Mrs. Leeks and Mrs. Aleshine again, or to lodge for a day at another -Squirrel Inn. And yet (O fame, thou fickle one!) when I asked a young -lady the other day if she knew Stockton, she replied with emphasis that -she did not; that “that old quaint stuff doesn’t go any more!” - -Having handed Realism a ticket to Pittsburgh with generous stop-over -privileges, I regret that I am unable to point Romance to any such -promising terminus. But the realm of Romance is extra-territorial; -Realism alone demands the surveyor’s certificate and abstracts of -title. An Irish poet once assured me that fairies are to be found -everywhere, and surely somewhere between Moosehead Lake and Puget Sound -some lad is piping lustily on a new silver whistle where the deer come -down to drink. - - -IV - -It is the fashion to attribute to the automobile and the motion-picture -all social phenomena not otherwise accounted for. The former has -undoubtedly increased our national restlessness, and it has robbed the -evening lamp of its cosey bookish intimacy. The screen-drama makes -possible the “reading” of a story with the minimum amount of effort. -A generation bred on the “movies” will be impatient of the tedious -methods of writers who cannot transform character by a click of the -camera, but require at least four hundred pages to turn the trick. It -is doubtful whether any of the quasi-historical novels that flourished -fifteen and twenty years ago and broke a succession of best-selling -records would meet with anything approximating the same amiable -reception if launched to-day. A trained scenario-writer, unembarrassed -by literary standards and intent upon nothing but action, can beat the -melodramatic novelist at his own game every time. A copyright novel of -adventure cannot compete with the same story at ten cents or a quarter -as presented in the epileptic drama, where it lays no burden upon the -beholder’s visualizing sense. The resources of the screen for creating -thrills are inexhaustible; it draws upon the heavens above, the earth -beneath, and the waters under the earth; and as nothing that can be -pictured can be untrue--or so the confiding “movie” patron, unfamiliar -with the tricks of the business, believes--the screen has also the -great advantage of plausibility. - -The silent drama may therefore exercise a beneficent influence, if it -shall prove to have shunted into a new channel of publication great -numbers of stories whose justification between covers was always -debatable. Already many novels of this type have been resurrected by -the industrious screen producers. If, after the long list has been -exhausted, we shall be spared the “novelization” of screen scenarios -in the fashion of the novelized play, we shall be rid of some of the -débris that has handicapped the novelists who have meekly asked to be -taken seriously. - -The fiction magazines also have cut into the sale of ephemeral novels. -For the price of one novel the uncritical reader may fortify himself -with enough reading matter to keep him diverted for a month. Nowadays -the hurrying citizen approaches the magazine counter in much the same -spirit in which he attacks the help-yourself lunch-trough--grabs -what he likes and retires for hurried consumption. It must, however, -be said for the much-execrated magazine editors that with all their -faults and defaults they are at least alive to the importance and value -of American material. They discovered O. Henry, now recognized as a -writer of significance. I should like to scribble a marginal note at -this point to the effect that writers who are praised for style, those -who are able to employ _otiose_, _meticulous_, and _ineluctable_ with -awe-inspiring inadvertence in tales of morbid introspection, are not -usually those who are deeply learned in the ways and manners of that -considerable body of our people who are obliged to work for a living. -We must avoid snobbishness in our speculations as to the available -ingredients from which American fiction must be made. Baseball players, -vaudeville and motion-picture performers, ladies employed as commercial -travellers, and Potash and Perlmutter, are all legitimate subjects for -the fictionist, and our millions undoubtedly prefer just now to view -them humorously or romantically. - - -V - -In our righteous awakening to the serious plight to which our fiction -has come it is not necessary, nor is it becoming, to point the slow -unmoving finger of scorn at those benighted but well-meaning folk -who in times past did what they could toward fashioning an American -literature. We all see their errors now; we deplore their stupidity, -we wish they had been quite different; but why drag their bones from -the grave for defilement? Cooper and Irving meant well; there are still -misguided souls who find pleasure in them. It was not Hawthorne’s fault -that he so bungled _The Scarlet Letter_, nor Poe’s that he frittered -away his time inventing the detective story. Our deep contrition must -not betray us into hardness of heart toward those unconscious sinners, -who cooled their tea in the saucer and never heard of a samovar! - -There are American novelists whose portraits I refuse to turn to the -wall. Marion Crawford had very definite ideas, which he set forth -in a most entertaining essay, as to what the novel should be, and -he followed his formula with happy results. His _Saracinesca_ still -seems to me a fine romance. There was some marrow in the bones of E. -W. Howe’s _Story of a Country Town_. I can remember when Miss Woolson -was highly regarded as a writer, and when Miss Howard’s amusing _One -Summer_ seemed not an ignoble thing. F. J. Stimson, Thomas Nelson -Page, Arthur Sherburne Hardy, Miss Murfree, Mary Hallock Foote, T. -B. Aldrich, T. R. Sullivan, H. C. Bunner, Robert Grant, and Harold -Frederic all labored sincerely for the cause of American fiction. F. -Hopkinson Smith told a good story and told it like a gentleman. Mr. -Cable’s right to a place in the front rank of American novelists is -not, I believe, questioned in any survey; if _The Grandissimes_ and -_Old Creole Days_ had been written in France, he would probably be -pointed to as an author well worthy of American emulation. - -No doubt this list might be considerably expanded, as I am drawing -from memory, and merely suggesting writers whose performances in most -instances synchronize with my first reading of American novels. I -do not believe we are helping our case materially by ignoring these -writers as though they were a lot of poor relations whenever a foreign -critic turns his condescending gaze in our direction. - - -VI - -It is a hopeful sign that we now produce one or two, or maybe three, -good novels a year. The number is bound to increase as our young -writers of ambition realize that technic and facility are not the only -essentials of success, but that they must burrow into life--honeycomb -it until their explorations carry them to the core of it. There -are novels that are half good; some are disfigured by wabbly -characterizations; or the patience necessary to a proper development -of the theme is lacking. However, sincerity and an appreciation of the -highest function of the novel as a medium for interpreting life are not -so rare as the critics would have us believe. - -I have never subscribed to the idea that the sun of American literature -rises in Indiana and sets in Kansas. We have had much provincial -fiction, and the monotony of our output would be happily varied by -attempts at something of national scope. It is not to disparage the -small picture that I suggest for experiment the broadly panoramic--“A -Hugo flare against the night”--but because the novel as we practise it -seems so pitifully small in contrast with the available material. I am -aware, of course, that a hundred pages are as good as a thousand if the -breath of life is in them. Flaubert, says Mr. James, _made_ things big. - -We must escape from this carving of cherry stones, this contentment -with the day of littleness, this use of the novel as a plaything -where it pretends to be something else. And it occurs to me at this -juncture that I might have saved myself a considerable expenditure of -ink by stating in the first place that what the American novel really -needs is a Walt Whitman to fling a barbaric yawp from the crest of the -Alleghanies and proclaim a new freedom. For what I have been trying -to say comes down to this: that we shall not greatly serve ourselves -or the world’s literature by attempts to Russianize, or Gallicize, -or Anglicize our fiction, but that we must strive more earnestly to -Americanize it--to make it express with all the art we may command the -life we are living and that pretty tangible something that we call the -American spirit. - -The bright angels of letters never appear in answer to prayer; they -come out of nowhere and knock at unwatched gates. But the wailing of -jeremiads before the high altar is not calculated to soften the hearts -of the gods who hand down genius from the skies. It is related that a -clerk in the patent office asked to be assigned to a post in some other -department on the ground that practically everything had been invented -and he wanted to change before he lost his job. That was in 1833. - -Courage, comrade! The songs have not all been written nor the tales all -told. - - - - -THE CHURCH FOR HONEST SINNERS - - -THE young man who greeted me cheerfully in the lobby of the hotel in -Warburton, my native town, and handed me a card setting forth the -hours of services at St. John’s Church, evidently assumed that I was -a commercial traveller. I was in no wise offended by his mistake, as -I sincerely admire the heralds of prosperity and sit with them at -meat whenever possible. I am a neurologist by profession, but write -occasionally, and was engaged just then in gathering material for a -magazine article on occupational diseases. A friend in the Department -of Labor had suggested Warburton as a likely hunting-ground, as -children employed there in a match-factory were constantly being -poisoned, and a paint-factory also was working dire injury to its -employees. - -“I’m afraid,” I replied to the engaging young representative of St. -John’s Men’s League, “that my religious views wouldn’t be tolerated at -St. John’s. But I thank you, just the same.” - -I had been baptized in St. John’s and remembered it well from my youth. -On my way up-town from the station I had noted its handsome new edifice -of impeccable Gothic. - -“We have the best music in town, and our minister is a live wire. -He knows how to preach to men--he’s cut big slices out of the other -churches.” - -“Gives the anxious sinner a clean bill of health, does he?” - -“Well, most of the leading citizens go there now,” he answered, -politely ignoring my uncalled-for irony. “Men who never went to church -before; the men who do things in Warburton. Our minister’s the best -preacher in the diocese. His subject this morning is ‘The Prodigal -Son.’” - -I felt guiltily that the topic might have been chosen providentially to -mark my return, and it occurred to me that this might be a good chance -to see Warburton in its best bib and tucker. However, having planned -to spend the morning in the slum which the town had acquired with its -prosperity, I hardened my heart against the young solicitor, in spite -of his unobtrusive and courteous manner of extending the invitation. - -“You represent a saint’s church,” I remarked, glancing at the card. -“I travel a good deal and I haven’t found a church specially designed -for sinners like me. I’m uncomfortable among the saints. I’m not -quarrelling with your church or its name, but I’ve long had a feeling -that our church nomenclature needs revision. Still, that’s a personal -matter. You’ve done your duty by me, and I’d be glad to come if I -didn’t have another engagement.” - -The pages of a Chicago morning newspaper that lay across my knees -probably persuaded him that I was lying. However, after a moment’s -hesitation he sat down beside me. - -“That’s funny, what you said about a church for sinners--but we have -one right here in Warburton; odd you never heard of it! It was written -up in the newspapers a good deal. It’s just across the street from St. -John’s on Water Street.” - -I recalled now that I had seen a strange church in my walk to the -hotel, but the new St. John’s had so absorbed my attention that I had -passed it with only a glance. It came back to me that it was a white -wooden structure, and that boards were nailed across its pillared -portico as though to shut out the public while repairs were in progress. - -“Saints excluded, sinners only need apply?” - -He nodded, and looked at me queerly, as though, now that I had broached -the matter, he considered the advisability of telling me more. It was -ten o’clock and half a dozen church-bells clanged importunately as a -background for the _Adeste Fideles_ rung from St. John’s chimes. - -“‘The Church For Honest Sinners,’ might suit you, only it’s -closed--closed for good, I guess,” he remarked, again scrutinizing me -closely. - -He played nervously with a pack of cards similar to the one with which -he had introduced himself. Other men, quite as unmistakably transients -as I, were lounging down from breakfast, settling themselves to their -newspapers, or seeking the barber-shop. Something in my attitude toward -the church for which he was seeking worshippers seemed to arrest him. -He was a handsome, clear-eyed, wholesome-looking young fellow, whose -life had doubtless been well sheltered from evil; there was something -refreshingly naïve about him. I liked his straightforward manner of -appealing to strangers; a bank teller, perhaps, or maybe a clerk in -the office of one of the manufacturing companies whose indifference -to the welfare of their laborers I had come to investigate. Not the -most grateful of tasks, this of passing church advertisements about in -hotel lobbies on Sunday mornings. It requires courage, true manliness. -My heart warmed to him as I saw a number of men eying us from the -cigar-stand, evidently amused that the young fellow had cornered me. A -member of the group, a stout gentleman in checks, held one of the cards -in his hand and covertly pointed with it in our direction. - -“If there’s a story about the sinners’ church I’d like to hear it,” -I remarked encouragingly. “It seemed to be closed--suppose they’re -enlarging it to accommodate the rush.” - -“Well, no; hardly that,” he replied soberly. “It was built as an -independent scheme--none of the denominations would stand for it of -course.” - -“Why the ‘of course’?” - -“Well,” he smiled, “the idea of sin isn’t exactly popular, is it? -And besides everybody isn’t wicked; there are plenty of good people. -There’s good in all men,” he added, as though quoting. - -“I can’t quarrel with that. But how about this Church For Honest -Sinners? Tell me the story.” - -“Well, it’s a queer sort of story, and as you’re a stranger and I’m not -likely to meet you again, I’ll tell you all I know. It was built by -a woman.” He crossed his legs and looked at the clock. “She was rich -as riches go in a town like this. And she was different from other -people. She was left a widow with about a hundred thousand dollars, and -she set apart half of it to use in helping others. She wouldn’t do it -through societies or churches; she did it all herself. She wasn’t very -religious--not the way we use the word--not the usual sort of church -woman who’s zealous in guilds and societies and enjoys running things. -She wasn’t above asking the factory hands to her house now and then, -and was always helping the under dog. She was splendid--the finest -woman that ever lived; but of course people thought her queer.” - -“Such people are generally considered eccentric,” I commented. - -“The business men disliked her because they said she was spoiling the -poor people and putting bad notions into their heads.” - -“I dare say they did! I can see that a woman like that would be -criticised.” - -“Then when they tore down old St. John’s and began building the new -church, she said she’d build a church after her own ideas. She spent -twenty-five thousand dollars building that church you noticed in Water -Street and she called it ‘The Church For Honest Sinners.’ She meant to -put a minister in who had some of her ideas about religion, but right -there came her first blow. As her church wasn’t tied up to any of -the denominations she couldn’t find a man willing to take the job. I -suppose the real trouble was that nobody wanted to mix up with a scheme -like that; it was too radical; didn’t seem exactly respectable. It’s -easy, I suppose, when there’s a big whooping crowd--Billy Sunday and -that sort of thing--and the air is full of emotionalism, to get people -to the mourners’ bench to confess that they’re miserable sinners. But -you can see for yourself that it takes nerve to walk into the door of a -church that’s for sinners only--seems sort o’ foolish! - -“I shouldn’t be telling you about this if I hadn’t seen that you had -the same idea the builder of that church had: that there’s too much of -the saint business and general smugness about our churches, and that a -church that frankly set out to welcome sinners would play, so to speak, -to capacity. You might think that all the Cains, Judases, and Magdalens -would feel that here at last was a door of Christian hope flung open -for them. But it doesn’t work that way--at least it didn’t in this -case. I suppose there are people in this town right now, all dressed -up to go to church, who’ve broken all the Ten Commandments without -feeling they were sinners; and of course the churches can’t go after -sin the way they used to, with hell and brimstone; the people won’t -stand for it. You’ve been thinking that a church set apart for sinners -would appeal to people who’ve done wrong and are sorry about it, but -it doesn’t; and that’s why that church on Water Street’s boarded -up--not for repairs, as you imagined, but because only one person has -ever crossed the threshold. It was the idea of the woman who built it -that the door should stand open all the time, night and day, and the -minister, if she could have found one to take the job, would have been -on the lookout to help the people who went there.” - -This was rather staggering. Perhaps, I reflected, it is better after -all to suffer the goats to pasture, with such demureness as they can -command, among the sheep. - -“I suppose,” I remarked, “that the founder of the church was satisfied -with her experiment--she hadn’t wholly wasted her money, for she had -found the answers to interesting questions as to human nature--the -vanity of rectitude, the pride of virtue, the consolations of -hypocrisy.” - -He looked at me questioningly, with his frank innocent eyes, as though -estimating the extent to which he might carry his confidences. - -“Let me say again that I shouldn’t be telling you all this if you -didn’t have her ideas--and without ever knowing her! She lived on the -corner below the church, where she could watch the door. She watched it -for about two years, day and night, without ever seeing a soul go in, -and people thought she’d lost her mind. And then, one Sunday morning -when the whole town--all her old friends and neighbors--were bound for -church, she came out of her house alone and walked straight down to -that church she had built for sinners, and in at the door. - -“You see,” he said, rising quickly, as though recalling his obligations -to St. John’s Men’s League, “she was the finest woman in town--the best -and the noblest woman that ever lived! They found her at noon lying -dead in the church. The failure of her plan broke her heart; and that -made it pretty hard--for her family--everybody.” - -He was fingering his cards nervously, and I did not question the -sincerity of the emotion his face betrayed. - -“It is possible,” I suggested, “that she had grown morbid over some sin -of her own, and had been hoping that others would avail themselves of -the hospitality of a church that was frankly open to sinners. It might -have made it easier for _her_.” - -He smiled with a childlike innocence and faith. - -“Not only not possible,” he caught me up, with quick dignity, “but -incredible! She was my mother.” - - - - -THE SECOND-RATE MAN IN POLITICS - -[1916] - - In our great modern States, where the scale of things is so large, - it does seem as if the remnant might be so increased as to become an - actual power, even though the majority be unsound.--MATTHEW ARNOLD, - _Numbers_. - - -I - -WHO governs America? - -The answer is obvious: we are a republic, a representative democracy -enjoying to the utmost government of, for, and by the people. America -is governed by persons we choose, presumably on our own initiative, to -serve us, to make, execute, and interpret laws for us. Addicted as we -are to the joy of phrases, we find in these _clichés_ unfailing delight. - -Democracy, ideally considered, is an affair of the wisest and best. -As the privileges of the ballot are generously extended to all, the -whole people are invested with an initiative and an authority which -it is their duty to exercise. We assume that all are proud of their -inheritance of liberty, jealous of their power, and alert in performing -the duties of citizenship. That we are not highly successful in -realizing this ideal is a matter that is giving increasing concern to -thoughtful Americans. - -As these words are read thousands of candidates are before the -electorate for consideration, and the patriotic citizen is presumably -possessing himself of all available information regarding them, -determined to vote only for the most desirable. The parties have done -their best, or worst, as we choose to view the matter, and it is “up -to the people” to accept or reject those who offer themselves for -place. The citizen is face to face with the problem, Shall he vote for -candidates he knows to be unfit, merely to preserve his regularity, -or shall he cast his ballot for the fittest men without respect to -the party emblems on his ballot? Opposed to the conscientious voter, -and capable of defeating his purpose, are agencies and influences -with which it is well-nigh impossible for him to cope. The higher his -intelligence and the nobler his aim, the less he is able to reckon -with forces which are stubbornly determined to nullify his vote. - -The American voter is not normally independent; it is only when there -has been some marked affront to the party’s intelligence or moral sense -that we observe any display of independence. Independent movements are -always reassuring and encouraging. The revolt against Blaine in 1884, -the Gold-Democratic movement in 1896, were most significant; and I am -disposed to give a somewhat similar value to the Progressive movement -of 1912. But the average voter is a creature of prejudice, who boasts -jauntily that he never scratches his ticket. He follows his party with -dogged submission and is more or less honestly blind to its faults. - -As my views on this subject are more usually voiced by independents -than by partisans, it may not be amiss to say that I am a party man, -a Democrat, sufficiently “regular” to vote with a good conscience -in primary elections. Living in a State where there is no point of -rest in politics, where one campaign dovetails into another, I have -for twenty-five years been an observer of political tendencies and -methods. I may say of the two great parties, as Ingersoll remarked -of the life beyond, “I have friends in both places.” One of my best -friends was a “boss” who served a term in prison for scratching a -tally-sheet. I am perfectly familiar with the theories upon which -bossism is justified, the more plausible being that only by maintaining -strong local organizations, that is to say, Machines, can a party so -intrench itself as to support effectively the policies and reforms dear -to the heart of the idealist. And bosses do, indeed, sometimes use -their power benevolently, though this happens usually where they see a -chance to win advantage or to allay popular clamor. - -It is not of the pending campaign that I write, and any references -I make to it are only for the purpose of illustrating phases or -tendencies that seem worthy of consideration at a time when public -thought is concentrated upon politics. And to give definite aim to this -inquiry I shall state it in the harshest terms possible: - -We, a self-governing people, permit our affairs to be administered, -very largely, by second-rate men. - -Our hearts throb indignantly as we ponder this. The types have a queer -look. Such an accusation is an unpardonable sin against American -institutions--against an intelligent, high-minded citizenry. It can, -however, do no harm to view the matter from various angles to determine -whether anything really may be adduced in support of it. - - -II - -In theory the weight of the majority is with the fit. This is the -pleasantest of ideas, but it is not true. It is not true at least in so -great a number of contests as to justify any virtuous complacency in -the electorate. It is probably no more untrue now than in other years, -though the cumulative effect of a long experience of government by the -unfit is having its effect upon the nation in discouraging faith in -that important and controlling function of government that has to do -with the choice and election of candidates. Only rarely--and I speak -carefully--do the best men possible for a given office ever reach it. -The best men are never even considered for thousands of State, county, -and municipal elective offices; they do not offer themselves, either -because office-holding is distasteful, or because private business -is more lucrative, or because they are aware of no demand for their -services on the part of their fellow citizens. By fitness I mean the -competence produced by experience and training, fortified with moral -character and a sense of responsibility. I should say that a fit man -for public office is one who in his private affairs has established a -reputation for efficiency and trustworthiness. - -In assuming that a democracy like ours presupposes in the electorate -a desire, no matter how feeble, to intrust public affairs to men of -fitness, to first-rate men, it would seem that with the approach of -every presidential campaign numbers of possible candidates would -receive consideration as eligible to our highest office. It will -be said that just as many candidates were available in 1916 as at -any other period in our history, but this is neither conclusive -nor heartening: there should be more! It cannot be pretended that -public service does not attract thousands of men; it can, however, be -complained that the offices fall very largely to the inferior. - -We have just witnessed the spectacle of a great republic, which -confides the broadest powers to its chief executive, strangely -limited in its choice of candidates for the presidency to a handful -of men. No new commanding figure had sprung forward from the ranks -of either party in the most trying period the country has known in -fifty years. If Mr. Wilson’s renomination had not been inevitable, it -would be very difficult to name another Democrat who, by virtue of -demonstrated strength and public confidence, would have been able to -enter the lists against him. Our only Democratic Presidents since the -Civil War stepped from a governor’s seat to the higher office; but I -know of no Democratic governor who, in 1916, could have entered the -national convention supported by any appreciable public demand for his -nomination. And no Democratic senator could have debated Mr. Wilson’s -claims to further recognition. Speaker Clark, with the prestige of his -maximum five hundred and fifty-six votes on the tenth ballot of the -Baltimore Convention, might have been able to reappear at St. Louis -with a similar showing; but the Democratic range of possibilities -certainly had not widened. To be sure, Mr. Bryan would have remained to -reckon with; but, deeply as the party and the country is indebted to -him for his courageous stand against the bosses at Baltimore, he could -hardly have received a fourth nomination. - -The Republicans were in no better case when their convention met at -Chicago. The Old Guard was stubbornly resolved, not only that Mr. -Roosevelt should not be nominated, but that he should not dictate -the choice of a Republican candidate. A short distance from the -scene of their deliberations, the Progressives, having failed to -establish themselves as a permanent contestant of the older parties, -tenaciously clung to their leader. Mr. Roosevelt’s effort to interest -the Republicans in Senator Lodge as a compromise candidate fell upon -deaf ears. Mr. Hughes’s high qualifications may not be seriously -questioned. He is a first-rate man, and the lack of enthusiasm with -which his nomination was received by the perfectly ordered and -controlled body of delegates is not to his discredit. Sore beset, the -Old Guard put forth a candidate little to their taste, one who, if -elected, would, we must assume, prove quite impatient of the harness -fashioned for Presidents by the skilled armorers of the good old days -of backward-looking Republicanism. - -In taking from the bench a gentleman who was “out of politics” the -Republicans emphasized their lamentable lack of available candidates. -Nothing was ever sadder than the roll-call of States for the nomination -of “favorite sons.” Estimable though these men are, no one could have -listened to the nominating speeches and witnessed the subsequent -mechanical demonstrations without depression. None of these nominees -had the slightest chance; the orators who piped their little lays in -praise of them knew they had not; the vast audience that witnessed -the proceedings, perfectly aware of the farcical nature of these -banalities, knew they had not, and viewed the show with contemptuous -amusement. - -The heartiness of the reception accorded Messrs. Depew and Cannon, -who were called upon to entertain the audience during a lull in the -proceedings, was not without its pathos. They dwelt upon the party’s -past glories with becoming poignancy. Mr. Borah, tactfully projected -as a representative of a newer order of Republicanism, was far less -effective. The convention was greatly stirred by no new voice; no new -leader flashed upon the stage to quicken it to new and high endeavor. -No less inspired or inspiring body of men ever gathered than those who -constituted the Republican Convention of 1916. - -I asked a successful lawyer the other day how he accounted for the -lack of presidential timber. “It’s because the average American would -rather be president of the Pennsylvania Railroad than of the United -States,” he answered. And it is true, beyond question, that our highest -genius is employed in commerce and business rather than in politics. -If we, the people, do not seek means of promoting administrative -wisdom and efficiency in our government we shall pay one of these days -a high price for our indifference. There is danger ahead unless we are -disposed to take our politics more seriously, and unless more young men -of the best talent and the highest aims can be lured into public life. -The present showing is certainly not encouraging as to the future of -American statesmanship; and to say that the fit have always been few, -is not a particularly consoling answer. - -It is true of a period still susceptible of intimate scrutiny--say, -from the Civil War--that presidential candidates have been chosen -in every case from a small group of potentialities in both parties. -We have established (stupidly in any large view of the matter) -geographical limitations upon the possible choice that greatly narrow -the field. Candidates for the presidency must be chosen with an eye to -the local effect, from States essential to success. Though Mr. Blaine’s -candidacy was surrounded by unusual circumstances, it emphasizes, -nevertheless, the importance to the parties of nominating men from the -“pivotal” States. We have had no New England President since Franklin -Pierce. This is not because the New England States have not produced -men of fitness, but is attributable solely to the small representation -of the Northeastern States in the Electoral College. - -The South, likewise, has long been eliminated from the reckoning. -Though born in Virginia Mr. Wilson is distinctly not “a Southern man” -in the familiar connotations of that term. In old times the Southern -States contributed men of the first rank to both houses of Congress; -but, apart from Mr. Underwood (who received one hundred and seventeen -and one-half votes at Baltimore) and Mr. John Sharp Williams, there are -no Southerners of conspicuous attainments in the present Senate. The -Southern bar embraces now, perhaps as truly as at any earlier period, -lawyers of distinguished ability, but they apparently do not find -public life attractive. - -No President has yet been elected from beyond the Mississippi, though -Mr. Bryan, thrice a candidate, widened the area of choice westward. -In the present year Governor Johnson and Senator Borah were the only -trans-Mississippi men mentioned as possibilities, and they cut no -figure in the contest. We are still a congeries of States, or groups of -States, rather than a nation, with a resulting political provincialism -that is disheartening when we consider the economic and political power -we wield increasingly in world affairs. - -It is a serious commentary upon the talent of recent congresses that -the House has developed no men so commanding as to awaken speculation -as to their availability for the presidency. No member of the House -figured this year in Republican presidential speculations. Why do the -second-rate predominate in a body that may be called the most typical -of our institutions? Lincoln, Hayes, Garfield, Blaine, McKinley, Bryan, -all candidates for the presidency, had been members of the House, -but it has become negligible as a training-school for Presidents. A -year ago Mr. Mann received an occasional honorable mention, but his -petulant fling at the President as “playing politics,” in the grave -hour following the despatch of the final note to Germany, effectually -silenced his admirers. Admirable as partisanship may be, there are -times when even an opposition floor-leader should be able to rise -above it! Nor is it possible for Democrats to point to Mr. Kitchin -with any degree of pride. Of both these men it may be said that never -have leaders failed so lamentably to rise to their opportunities. Mr. -Hay, of Virginia, Chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs, not -only yielded reluctantly to the public pressure for preparedness, but -established his unfitness to hold any office by tacking on the army -bill a “joker” designed to create a place for a personal friend. Mr. -Wilson, like Mr. Cleveland, has found his congresses unruly or wabbly -or egregiously stupid, manifesting astonishingly little regard for -their party principles or policies. The present majority has been -distinguished for nothing so much as impotence and parochialism. - -Without respect to party, the average representative’s vision is -no wider than his district, and he ponders national affairs solely -from a selfish standpoint. Through long years we have used him as an -errand-boy, a pension agent, a beggar at the national till. His time -is spent in demonstrating to his constituency that when “pork” is -being served he is on hand with Oliver Twist’s plate. The people of -one district, proud of their new post-office, or rejoicing in the -appearance of a government contractor’s dredge in their creek, do not -consider that their devoted congressman, to insure his own success, has -been obliged to assist other members in a like pursuit of spoils and -that the whole nation bears the burden. - -The member who carries a map of his district with him to Washington, -and never broadens his horizon, is a relic of simpler times. In days -like these we can ill afford to smile with our old tolerance at the -“plain man of the people,” who is likely to be the cheapest kind -of demagogue. A frock coat and a kind heart are not in themselves -qualifications for a congressman. Eccentricity, proudly vaunted, -whimsicalities of speech, lofty scorn of conventions, have all been -sadly overworked. Talent of the first order is needed in Congress; it -is no place for men who can’t see and think straight. - -The Senate preserves at least something of its old competence, and -the country respects, I think, the hard work recently performed by -it. While its average is low, it contains men--some of them little in -the public eye--who are specialists in certain fields. There is, I -believe, a general feeling that, with our tremendous industrial and -commercial interests, the presence in the upper house of a considerable -number of business men and of fewer lawyers would make for a better -balanced and more representative body. A first-rate senator need not -be an orator. The other day, when Senator Taggart, a new member, -protested vigorously against the latest river-and-harbor swindle the -country applauded. Refreshing, indeed, to hear a new voice in those -sacred precincts raised against waste and plunder! Senator Oliver, of -Pennsylvania, a protectionist, of course, is probably as well informed -on the tariff as any man in America. I give him the benefit of this -advertisement the more cheerfully as I do not agree with his views; but -his information is entitled to all respect. The late David Turpie, of -Indiana, by nature a recluse, and one of the most unassuming men who -ever sat in the Senate, was little known to the country at large. I -once heard Mr. Roosevelt and Judge Gray of Delaware engage in a most -interesting exchange of anecdotes illustrative of Mr. Turpie’s wide -range of information. He was a first-rate man. There is room in the -Senate for a great variety of talent, and its efficiency is not injured -by the frequent injection of new blood. What the country is impatient -of in the upper house is dead men who have little information and no -opinions of value on any subject. The election of senators directly by -the people will have in November its first trial--another step toward -pure democracy. We shall soon be able to judge whether the electorate, -acting independently, is more to be trusted than the legislatures. - -I should be sorry to apply any words of President Wilson in a quarter -where he did not intend them, but a paragraph of his address to the -Washington correspondents (May 15) might well be taken to heart by a -number of gentlemen occupying seats in the legislative branch of the -government. - -“I have a profound intellectual contempt for men who cannot see the -signs of the times. I have to deal with some men who know no more -of the modern processes of politics than if they were living in the -eighteenth century, and for them I have a profound and comprehensive -intellectual contempt. They are blind; they are hopelessly blind; and -the worst of it is I have to spend hours of my time talking to them -when I know before I start, quite as though I had finished, that it is -absolutely useless to talk to them. I am talking _in vacuo_.” - -There are, indisputably, limitations upon the patience of a first-rate -man engaged in the trying occupation of attempting to communicate a -first-rate idea to a second-rate mind. - - -III - -In recent years our periodical literature has devoted much space to -discussions of problems of efficiency. We have heard repeatedly of the -demand, not for two-thousand-dollar men, but for ten, twenty, and fifty -thousand dollar men, in the great industries. The efficiency engineer -has sprung into being; in my own city several hundred employees of an -automobile company are organized into a class, of which a professor of -psychology is the leader, the purpose being the promotion of individual -and corporate efficiency. The first-rate man is in demand as a buyer, -a salesman, a foreman, a manager. One of the largest corporations in -America pays its employees bonuses apportioned on a basis of their -value as demonstrated by actual performances from month to month. The -minutest economies are a matter of daily study in every manufacturing -and commercial house; the hunt for the first-rate man is unceasing. -Executive ability, a special genius for buying and selling, need never -go unrecognized. Recently a New York bank spent months searching for -a bond-seller and finally chose an obscure young man from a Western -town who fell by chance under the eye of a “scout” sent out to look -for talent. But this eager search for the first-rate man, so marked in -commerce and industry, only rarely touches our politics. It is only -in politics that the second-rate man finds the broadest field for the -exercise of his talents. - -A President is beset by many embarrassments in the exercise of -the appointing power. Our feudal system, by which senators and -representatives are the custodians of post-office, district -attorneyships, marshalships, and countless other positions, does not -make for the recognition of the fit. While the power to appoint is -vested in the executive, his choice must be approved by the senators or -representatives. As the system operates, it is not really the President -who appoints but the senators or representatives, and the President is -expected to meet their wishes. To question their recommendations is to -arouse animosity, and where the fate of important legislation hangs -in the balance a President is under strong temptation to accept the -recommendation of second-rate men in order to keep the members of the -law-making bodies in good humor. - -In the professions and industries, in commercial houses, even on the -farm, the second-rate man is not wanted; but political jobs, high and -low, are everywhere open to him. Everything but the public service -is standardized; politics alone puts a premium upon inferiority. The -greatest emphasis is laid upon the word service in every field but -government. The average American “wants what he wants when he wants -it,” and is proud of his ability to get it. “If it isn’t right, we -make it right,” is a popular business slogan. Hotels whose indifferent -service wins the displeasure of the travelling public are execrated -and blacklisted. On the other hand, I have listened for hours to the -laudation of good hotels, of the efficiency of railroads, of automobile -manufacturers who “give good service.” We have a pride in these things; -we like to relate incidents of our successful “kick” when the berth -that we had reserved by telegraph wasn’t forthcoming and how we “took -it up” with the railroad authorities, and how quickly our wounded -feelings were poulticed. “I guess that won’t happen again on _that_ -road!” we chortle. Conversely we make our errands to a city hall or -court-house as few as possible, knowing that the “service,” offered -at the people’s expense is of a different order, and public officials -may not be approached in that confident spirit with which we carry our -needs or complaints to the heads of a private business. - -Or, if some favor is to be asked, we brag that we have seen “Jim” -or “Bob” and that he “fixed” it for us. It happens not infrequently -that we want something “fixed” from purely selfish motives--something -that should not be “fixed”--and it gives us a pleasurable sense of our -“influence” to know that, as we have always treated “Jim” or “Bob” -all right, “Jim” or “Bob” cheerfully assists us. We chuckle over the -ease with which he accomplished the fixing where it would have been -impossible for us to effect it through a direct legitimate appeal. Thus -in hundreds of ways a boss, great or small, is able to grant favors -that cost him nothing, thereby blurring the vision of those he places -under obligations to the means by which he gains his power. - -In municipal government the second and the third rate man, on down to -a point where differentiations fade to the vanishing point, finds his -greatest hope and security. As first-rate men are not available for the -offices, they fall naturally to the inferior, the incompetent, or the -corrupt. In few cities of a hundred thousand population is a man of -trained ability and recognized fitness ever seriously considered for -the mayoralty. Modern city government, with the broad powers conferred -upon mayors, requires intelligence of the highest order. Usually -without experience in large affairs, and crippled by a well-established -tradition that he must reward party workers and personal friends, the -incumbent surrounds himself with second and third rate men, for whose -blunders the taxpayer meekly pays the bills. - -The mayor’s office is hardly second to the presidency in the variety -of its perplexities. A man of the best intentions will fail to satisfy -a whole community. There is in every city a group of reformers who -believe that a mayor should be able to effect the moral regeneration -of the human race in one term of office. The first-rate man is aware -of this, and the knowledge diminishes his anxiety to seek the place. -A common indictment against the capable man who volunteers for -municipal service is that his ignorance of political methods would -make him “impractical” if he were elected. This sentiment is expressed -frequently--often by large taxpayers. The insinuation is that a man of -character and ideals would be unable to deal with the powers that prey -by indirection. This is quite true: the fit man, the first-rate man, -who would undertake the office untrammelled by political obligations, -would not know the “good fellows” who must be dealt with in a spirit of -leniency. This delicate duty is more safely intrusted to one who brings -a certain sympathy to bear upon the task. - -Whatever may be the merits of party government in its national -application, there is no sound argument for its continuance in -municipal affairs. Its effect is to discourage utterly, in most -communities, any effort the first-rate man may be absurd enough to make -to win enough of the franchises of his fellow citizens to land him in -the mayoralty. On one occasion a Republican United States senator, -speaking for his party’s candidate for the mayoralty at the last rally -of a campaign in my own city, declared that his party must win, as -defeat would have a discouraging effect on Republicans elsewhere. -A few years ago both parties chose, in the Indianapolis primaries, -mayoralty candidates of conspicuous unfitness. The Republican candidate -was an auctioneer, whose ready tongue and drolleries on the stump -made him the central figure in a highly picturesque campaign. He was -elected and the affairs of a city of a quarter of a million people -were cheerfully turned over to him. Ignorant of the very terminology -in which municipal affairs are discussed, he avoided embarrassment by -remaining away from his office as much as possible. In the last year -of his administration--if so dignified a term may be applied to his -incumbency--he resigned, to avoid the responsibility of dealing with -disorders consequent upon a serious strike, and took refuge on the -vaudeville stage. He was no more unfit on the day he resigned than on -the day of his nomination or election--a fact of which the electorate -had ample knowledge. He was chosen merely because he was a vote-getter. -Republicans voted for him to preserve their regularity.[A] - -I am prolonging these comments on municipal government for the reason -that the city as a political factor is of so great influence in the -State and nation, and because the domination of the unfit in the -smaller unit offers more tangible instances for study. The impediments -encountered by the fit who offer themselves for public service are -many, and often ludicrous. Twice, in Indianapolis, men of the best -standing have yielded under pressure to a demand that they offer -themselves for the Republican mayoralty nomination. Neither had the -slightest intention of using the mayoralty as a stepping-stone to -higher office; the motives animating both were the highest. One of -them was quickly disposed of by the report sent “down the line” that -he had not been as regular as he might be, and by this token was an -undesirable candidate. The other was subjected to a crushing defeat in -the primary. There was nothing against him except that he was unknown -to the “boys in the trenches.” - -From the window by which I write I can see the chimneys of the -flourishing industry conducted by the first of these gentlemen. He has -constantly shown his public spirit in the most generous fashion; he -is an admirable citizen. I dare say there is not an incompetent man -or woman on his pay-roll. If he were out of employment and penniless -to-morrow, scores of responsible positions would be open to him. But -the public would not employ him; his own party would not even permit -its membership to express its opinion of him; and had he gone before -the electorate he would in all likelihood have been defeated by an -invincible combination of every element of incompetence and venality in -the city. - -The other gentleman, who began life as a bank clerk, made a success -of a commercial business, and is now president of one of the largest -banks in the State. Such men are ineligible for municipal office; they -are first-rate men; the very fact that they are men of character and -ability who could be trusted to manage public affairs as they conduct -their private business, removes them at once from consideration. - -Such experiences as these are not calculated to encourage the capable -man, the first-rate man, to attempt to gain a public position. In fact, -it is the business of political organizations to make the defeat of -such men as humiliating as possible. They must be got rid of; they must -be taught better manners! - -The good nature with which we accept the second-rate man in municipal -office is one of the most bewildering of all our political phenomena. -“Well, things have always been this way, and I guess they always will -be,” expresses the average citizen’s feeling about the matter. As he -cannot, without much personal discomfort, change the existing order, he -finds solace in the reflection that he couldn’t do anything about it if -he tried. The more intolerant he is of second-rate employees in his own -business, the more supinely he views the transfer of public business -from one set of incompetents to another. - -To lift municipal government out of politics in States where the party -organizations never shut up shop but are ceaselessly plotting and -planning to perfect their lines, is manifestly no easy task, but it may -be accomplished by effective leadership where the people are sincerely -interested. And it is significant that the present movement for an -abandonment of the old pernicious, costly system took rise from the -dire calamities that befell two cities--Galveston and Dayton--which -were suddenly confronted with problems that it would have been madness -to intrust to incompetents. This illustrates a point overlooked by that -large body of Americans who refuse to bring to their politics the test -of fitness that they enforce in private business. The second-rate man -may successfully hide his errors in normal conditions, but his faults -and weaknesses become glaringly apparent when any severe demands are -made upon him. - -I can suggest no permanent solution of the problem of municipal -government that does not embrace the training of men for its particular -duties. A development of the city-manager plan, of nation-wide scope, -fortified by special courses of training in schools able to give -the dignity of a stable profession to municipal administration may -ultimately be the remedy. - - -IV - -The debauchery of young men by the bosses is a familiar phase of our -politics and is most potent in the game of checking the advance of the -fit and assuring domination by the unfit. Several thousand young men -leave college every year with some hope of entering upon a political -career. By the time a young man is graduated he has elected to follow -the banner of some party. If he lives in a city and shows a disposition -to be of practical service, he is warmly welcomed into the fold of -one of the organizations. He quickly becomes aware that only by the -display of a servile obedience can he expect to become _persona grata_ -to the party powers. By the time he has passed through one campaign as -a trusted member of a machine, his political illusions are well-nigh -destroyed. His childish belief that only the fit should be elevated -to positions of responsibility, that public office is a public trust, -is pretty well dissipated. “Good” men, he finds, are good only by the -tests of partisanship as applied by the bosses. To strike at a boss is -_lésé majesté_, and invites drastic punishment. - -The purpose of the young men’s political clubs everywhere is to infuse -the young voter with the spirit of blind obedience and subjection. He -is graciously permitted to serve on club committees as a step toward -more important recognition as ward committeeman, or he is given a -place of some sort at headquarters during the campaign. There are -dozens of ways in which the willing young man may be of use. His -illusions rapidly vanish. He is flattered by the attentions of the -bosses, who pat him on the back and assure him that they appreciate his -loyal devotion to the party. With the hope of preferment before him it -is essential that he establish as quickly as possible a reputation for -“regularity.” If his wise elders note any restiveness, any tendency -toward independence, they at once warn him that he must “play the -game straight,” and shut his eyes to the sins of his party. Or if his -counsellors sympathize with his predicament they advise him that the -only way he can gain a position from which to make his ideas effective -is by winning the favor of the bosses and building up a personal -following. - -In a campaign preliminary to a local primary in my city I appealed -to a number of young men of good antecedents and rather exceptional -education, to oppose a particular candidate. One of them, on coming -home from an Eastern university, had introduced himself to me in the -name of a great educator who was one of my particular admirations. -In every one of these cases I was politely rebuffed. They said the -gentleman whose ambitions annoyed me was a “good fellow” and “all -right”; they couldn’t see that any good would come of antagonizing him. -And they were right. No good did come of it so far as the result was -concerned. - -There are countless ways in which a young lawyer finds his connection -with a machine helpful. A word in the right quarter brings him a -client--a saloonkeeper, perhaps, who is meeting with resistance in his -effort to secure a renewal of his license; or petty criminal cases -before magistrates--easily arranged where the machine controls the -police. He cannot fail to be impressed with the perfection of a system -that so smoothly wields power by indirection. The mystery of it all and -the potency of the names of the high powers appeal to his imagination; -there is something of romance in it. A deputyship in the office of the -prosecuting attorney leads on to a seat in the legislature, and he may -go to Congress if he is “good.” He is purchased with a price, bought, -and paid for; his status is fixed; he is a second-rate man. And by -every such young man in America the ideal of democracy, the hope of -republican government, is just so much weakened. - - -V - -Government by the unfit, domination by the inferior, is greatly -assisted by a widely accepted superstition that a second-rate man, -finding himself in a position of responsibility, is likely to display -undreamed of powers. The idea seems to be that the electorate, by a -kind of laying on of hands, confers fitness where none has previously -existed. Unfortunately such miracles are not frequent enough to form -the basis of a political philosophy. Recourse to the recall as a means -of getting rid of an undesirable office-holder strikes me as only -likely to increase the indifference, the languor, with which we now -perform our political duties. - -Contempt for the educated man, a preposterous assumption that by -the very fact of his training he is unfitted for office, continues -prevalent in many minds. Conscious of this disqualification, -President Wilson finds amusement at times in referring to himself as -a schoolmaster; much criticism of his administration is based upon -the melancholy fact that he is a “professor,” a scholar, as though a -lifelong student of history and politics were disqualified, by the very -fact of his preparation, for exalted office. - -The direct primary, as a means of assisting first-rate men to office, -has not yet realized what was hoped for it, and there is growing -scepticism as to its efficacy. It is one of our marked national -failings that we expect laws and systems to work automatically. If -the first-rate man cherishes the delusion that he need only offer -himself to his fellow partisans and they will delightedly spring to -his support, he is doomed to a sad awakening. Unless he has taken the -precaution to ask the organization’s permission to put his name on -the ballot and is promised support, he must perfect an organization -of his own with which to make his fight in the primary. He must open -headquarters from which to carry on his operations, make speeches -before as many citizens as can be assembled to hear him, enlist and -pay helpers, most of whom expect jobs in case he is successful. He -must drop money into palms of whose existence he never dreamed, the -recipients of his bounty being frequently “scouts” from his opponents’ -camps. The blackmailing of candidates by charitable organizations--and -churches are not without shame in this particular--is only one of the -thousand annoyances. He is not likely to enjoy immunity from newspaper -attack. Months of time and much money are required for a primary -campaign. I venture the assertion that many hundreds of candidates -for office in this year of grace began their campaigns for election -already encumbered by debts incurred in winning their nominations, -which brought them only half-way to the goal. Such a burden, with all -its connotations of curtailed liberty and shackling obligations, may -not be viewed with equanimity. Instead of making office-holding more -attractive to the first-rate man, the direct primary multiplies his -discouragements. - -The second-rate man, being willing to accept office as a party, -not a public, trust, and to use it in every way possible for the -strengthening of party lines, has the first-rate man, who has only his -merits to justify his ambitions, at a serious disadvantage. When an -organization (the term by which a machine prefers to be called) finds -that it is likely to meet with defeat through public resentment of -its excesses, it will sometimes turn to a first-rate man. But this is -only in cases of sheer desperation. There is nothing more amusing than -the virtuous air with which a machine will nominate a first-rate man -where there is no possible danger of party success. He it is whom the -bosses are willing to sacrifice. The trick is turned ingeniously to the -bosses’ advantage, for defeat in such instances proves to the truly -loyal that only the “regulars” can get anywhere. - -A young friend of mine once persuaded me to join him in “bucking” -a primary for the election of delegates to a State convention. I -cheerfully lent my assistance in this laudable enterprise, the more -readily when he confided to me his intention of employing machine -methods. A young man of intelligence and humor, he had, by means which -I deplored but to which I contributed, lured from the organization -one of its star performers. I speak of this without shame, that the -cynical may not complain that I am in politics a high brow or dreamy -lotus eater. Our ally knew the game; he knew how to collect and deliver -votes by the most approved machine methods. We watched him work with -the keenest satisfaction. He brought citizens in great numbers to vote -our “slate,” many of them men who had never been in the ward before. We -gloated with satisfaction as the day declined and our votes continued -to pile up. Our moral natures were in the balance; if we beat the -machine with machine methods we meant never, never to be good again! It -seemed indeed that our investment in the skilled worker could not fail -of success. When the votes were counted, oh, what a fall was there, my -countrymen! “Our man” had merely used our automobiles, and I refrain -from saying what other munitions of war, to get out the vote of the -opposition! We had in other words, accomplished our own defeat! - - -VI - -The past year has been marked by the agitation for military -preparedness; civil preparedness strikes me as being of equal -importance. If I am right--or only half right--in my assertion that we -are governed very largely by second-rate men and that public business -is confided chiefly to the unfit, then here is a matter that cannot be -ignored by those who look forward hopefully to the future of American -democracy. There are more dangers within than without, and our tame -acceptance of incompetence in civil office would certainly bring -calamity if suffered in a military establishment. The reluctance of -first-rate men to accept or seek office is more disquieting than the -slow enlistments in the army and navy. Competence in the one would do -much to assure intelligent foresight and efficiency in the other. - -It is a disturbing thought that we, the people, really care so little, -and that we are so willing to suffer government by the second-rate, -only murmuring despairingly when the unhappy results of our apathy -bring us sharply face to face with failure. - -“The fatalism of the multitude,” commented upon strikingly by Lord -Bryce, has established in us the superstition that a kindly providence -presides over our destinies and that “everything will come out right -in the end.” But government by good luck is not a safe reliance for a -nation of a hundred millions. Nothing in history supports a blind faith -in numbers or in the wisdom of majorities. America’s hope lies in the -multiplication of the fit--the saving remnant of Isaiah’s prophecies -and Plato’s philosophy--a doctrine applied to America by Matthew -Arnold, who remains one of the shrewdest and most penetrating of all -our critics. Mr. Arnold distrusted numbers and had no confidence in -majorities. He said: - - To be a voice outside the state, speaking to mankind or to the - future, perhaps shaking the actual state to pieces in doing so, one - man will suffice. But to reform the state in order to save it, to - preserve it by changing it, a body of workers is needed as well as a - leader--a considerable body of workers, placed at many points, and - operating in many directions. - -These days, amid “the thunder of the captains, and the shouting,” -there must be many thousands of Americans who are truly of the saving -remnant, who view public matters soberly and hold as something very -fine and precious our heritage of democracy. These we may suppose will -witness the dawn of election day with a lively apprehension of their -august responsibilities, and exercise their right of selection sanely -and wisely. “They only who build upon ideas, build for eternity,” wrote -Emerson. - -This nation was founded on ideas, and clearly in the ideas of the fit, -the earnest, the serious, lies its hope for the future. To eliminate -the second-rate, to encourage the first-rate man to undertake offices -of responsibility and power--such must be the immediate concern and the -urgent business of all who love America. - - - - -THE LADY OF LANDOR LANE - - -I - -“TAKE your choice; I have bungalows to burn,” said the architect. - -He and his ally, the real-estate man, had been unduly zealous in the -planting of bungalows in the new addition beyond the college. About -half of them remained unsold, and purchasers were elusive. A promised -extension of the trolley-line had not materialized; and half a dozen -houses of the bungalow type, scattered along a ridge through which -streets had been hacked in the most brutal fashion, spoke for the -sanguine temper of the projectors of Sherwood Forest. The best thing -about the new streets was their names, which were a testimony to the -fastidious taste of a professor in the college who had frequently -thundered in print against our ignoble American nomenclature. - -It was hoped that Sherwood Forest would prove particularly attractive -to newly married folk of cultivation, who spoke the same social -language. There must, therefore, be a Blackstone Road, as a lure for -struggling lawyers; a Lister Avenue, to tickle the imagination of young -physicians; and Midas Lane, in which the business man, sitting at -his own hearth side far from the jarring city, might dream of golden -harvests. To the young matron anxious to keep in touch with art and -literature, what could have been more delightful than the thought of -receiving her mail in Emerson Road, Longfellow Lane, Audubon Road, or -any one of a dozen similar highways (if indeed the new streets might -strictly be so called) almost within sound of the college bell? The -college was a quarter of a mile away, and yet near enough to shed -its light upon this new colony that had risen in a strip of forest -primeval, which, as the promoting company’s circulars more or less -accurately recited, was only thirty minutes from lobsters and head -lettuce. - -This was all a year ago, just as August haughtily relinquished the -world to the sway of September. I held the chair of applied sociology -in the college, and had taken a year off to write a number of articles -for which I had long been gathering material. It had occurred to me -that it would be worth while to write a series of sociological studies -in the form of short stories. My plan was to cut small cross-sections -in the social strata of the adjoining city, in the suburban village -which embraced the college, and in the adjacent farm region, and -attempt to portray, by a nice balancing of realism and romance, the -lives of the people in the several groups I had been observing. I had -talked to an editor about it and he had encouraged me to try my hand. - -I felt enough confidence in the scheme to risk a year’s leave, and I -now settled down to my writing zestfully. I had already submitted three -stories, which had been accepted in a cordial spirit that proved highly -stimulating to further endeavor, and the first of the series, called -_The Lords of the Round House_--a sketch of the domestic relationships -and social conditions of the people living near the railroad shops--had -been commented on favorably as a fresh and novel view of an old -subject. My second study dealt with a settlement sustained by the -canning industry, and under the title, _Eros and the Peach Crop_, I had -described the labors and recreations of this community honestly, and -yet with a degree of humor. - -As a bachelor professor I had been boarding near the college with -the widow of a minister; but now that I was giving my time wholly to -writing I found this domicile intolerable. My landlady, admirable -woman though she was, was altogether too prone to knock at my door on -trifling errands. When I had filled my note-book with memoranda for a -sketch dealing with the boarding-house evil (it has lately appeared -as _Charging What the Onion Will Bear_), I resolved to find lodgings -elsewhere. And besides, the assistant professor of natural sciences -occupied a room adjoining mine, and the visits of strange _reptilia_ to -my quarters were far from stimulating to literary labor. - -I had long been immensely curious as to those young and trusting souls -who wed in the twenties, establish homes, and, unterrified by cruel -laws enacted for the protection of confiding creditors, buy homes on -the instalment plan, keep a cow, carry life insurance, buy theatre -tickets, maintain a baby, and fit as snugly into the social structure -as though the world were made for them alone. In my tramps about the -city I had marked with professional interest the appearance of great -colonies of bungalows which had risen within a few years, and which -spoke with an appealing eloquence for an obstinate confidence in the -marriage tie. In my late afternoon excursions through these sprightly -suburban regions I had gazed with the frankest admiration upon wholly -charming young persons stepping blithely along new cement walks, -equipped with the neatest of card-cases, or bearing embroidered bags of -sewing; and maids in the smartest of caps opened doors to them. Through -windows guarded by the whitest of draperies, I had caught glimpses of -our native forests as transformed into the sturdiest of arts-and-crafts -furniture. Both flower and kitchen gardens were squeezed into compact -plots of earth; a Gerald or a Geraldine cooed from a perambulator at -the gate of at least every other establishment; and a “syndicate” -man-of-all-work moved serenely from furnace to furnace, from lawn to -lawn, as the season determined. On Sundays I saw the young husbands -hieing to church, to a golf-links somewhere, to tennis in some -vacant lot, or aiding their girlish wives in the cheerfulest fashion -imaginable to spray rose-bushes or to drive the irrepressible dandelion -from the lawn of its delight. - -These phenomena interested me more than I can say. My aim was not -wholly sociological, for not only did I wish in the spirit of strictest -scientific inquiry to understand just how all this was possible, but -the sentimental aspect of it exercised a strange fascination upon me. -When I walked these new streets at night and saw lamps lighted in -dozens of cheery habitations, with the lord and lady of the bungalow -reading or talking in greatest contentment; or when their voices -drifted out to me from nasturtium-hung verandas on summer evenings, -I was in danger of ceasing to be a philosopher and of going over -bodily to the sentimentalists. Then, the scientific spirit mastering, -I vulgarly haunted the doors of the adjacent shops and communed with -grocers’ boys and drug clerks, that I might gain data upon which to -base speculations touching this species, this “group,” which presented -so gallant a front in a world where bills are payable not later than -the tenth of every calendar month. - -“You may have the brown bungalow in Audubon Road, the gray one in -Washington Hedge, or the dark green one in Landor Lane. Take any -one you like; they all offer about the same accommodations,” said -the architect. “You can put such rent as you see fit in the nearest -squirrel box, and if you meet an intending purchaser with our -prospectus in his hand I expect you to take notice and tease him to -buy. We’ve always got another bungalow somewhere, so you won’t be -thrown in the street.” - -I chose Landor Lane for a variety of reasons. There were as yet only -three houses in the street, and this assured a degree of peace. Many -fine forest trees stood in the vacant lots, and a number had been -suffered to remain within the parking retained between sidewalk and -curb, mitigating greatly the harsh lines of the new addition. But -I think the deciding factor was the name of the little street. -Landor had always given me pleasure, and while it is possible that a -residence in Huxley Avenue might have been more suitable for a seeker -of truth, there was the further reflection that truth, touched with the -iridescent glow of romance, need suffer nothing from contact with the -spirit of Walter Savage Landor. - -Directly opposite my green bungalow was a dark brown one flung up -rather high above the lane. The promoters of the addition had refrained -from smoothing out the landscape, so that the brown bungalow was about -twenty feet above the street, while my green one was reached by only -half a dozen steps. - -On the day that I made my choice I saw a child of three playing in -the grass plot before the brown bungalow. It was Saturday afternoon, -and the typical young freeholder was doing something with an axe near -the woodshed, and even as I surveyed the scene the domestic picture -was completed by the appearance of the inevitable young woman, who -came from the direction of the trolley-terminus, carrying the usual -neat card-case in her hand. Here was exactly what I wanted--a chance -to study at close hand the bungalow type, and yet, Landor Lane was -so quiet, its trio of houses so distributed, that I might enjoy that -coveted detachment so essential to contemplative observation and wise -judgments. - -“I’ve forgotten,” mused the architect, as we viewed the scene together, -“whether the chap in that brown bungalow is Redmond, the patent -lawyer, or Manderson, the tile-grate man. There’s a baby of about the -same vintage at both houses. If that isn’t Redmond over there showing -Gladstonian prowess with the axe, it’s Manderson. Woman with child and -cart; number 58; West Gallery; artist unknown.” It pleased my friend’s -humor to quote thus from imaginary catalogues. “Well, I don’t know -whether those are the Redmonds or the Mandersons; but come to think of -it, Redmond isn’t a lawyer, but the inventor of a new office system by -which profit and loss are computed hourly by a device so simple that -any child may operate it. A man of your cloistral habits won’t care -about the neighbors, but I hope that chap isn’t Redmond. A man who -will think up a machine like that isn’t one you’d expose perfectly -good garden hose to, on dark summer nights.” - - -II - -A Japanese boy who was working his way through college offered to -assume the responsibilities of my housekeeping for his board. Banzai -brought to the task of cooking the deft hand of his race. He undertook -the purchase of furniture to set me up in the bungalow, without asking -questions--in itself a great relief. In a week’s time he announced that -all was in readiness for my transfer, so that I made the change quite -casually, without other impedimenta than a portfolio and a suitcase. - -On that first evening, as Banzai served my supper--he was a past -master of the omelet--I enjoyed a peace my life had not known before. -In collecting material for my earlier sketches I had undeniably -experienced many discomforts and annoyances; but here was an adventure -which could hardly fail to prove pleasant and profitable. - -As I loafed with my pipe after supper, I resolved to make the most of -my good fortune and perfect a study of the bungalow as an expression -of American civilization which should be the final word on that -enthralling subject. I was myself, so to speak, a bungaloyd--the owner -or occupant of a bungalow--and while I was precluded by my state of -bachelorhood from entering fully into the life which had so aroused my -curiosity, I was nevertheless confident that I should be able to probe -deeply and sympathetically into the secret of the bungalow’s happiness. - -Having arranged my books and papers I sought the open. Banzai -had secured some porch furniture of a rustic pattern, but he had -neglected to provide pillows, and as the chairs of hickory boughs -were uncomfortable, I strolled out into the lane. As I stood in the -walk, the door of the brown bungalow opened and a man came forth and -descended to the street. It was a clear night with an abundance of -stars, and the slim crescent of a young moon hung in the west. My -neighbor struck a match and drew the flame into his pipe in four or -five deliberate inhalations. In the match-flare I saw his face, which -impressed me as sombre, though this may have been the effect of his -dark, close-trimmed beard. He stood immovable for five minutes or more, -then strolled aimlessly away down the lane. - -Looking up, I saw a green-shaded lamp aglow in the front window of the -bungalow, and almost immediately the young wife opened the door and -came out hastily, anxiously. She ran half-way down the steps, with the -light of the open door falling upon her, and after a hurried glance to -right and left called softly, “Tom!” - -“Tom,” she repeated more loudly; then she ran back into the house and -reappeared, flinging a wrap over her shoulders, and walked swiftly away -in the direction taken by the lord of the bungalow. - -Could it be possible, I pondered, that the happiness I had attributed -to bungalow folk was after all of such stuff as dreams are made of? -There had been almost a sob in that second cry of “Tom!” and I resented -it. The scene was perfectly set; the green-shaded lamp had been -lighted, ready for that communing of two souls which had so deeply -moved and interested me as I had ranged the land of the bungalow; -yet here was a situation which rose blackly in my imagination. I was -surprised to find how quickly I took sides in this unhappy drama; I was -all for the woman. The glimpse I had caught of her, tripping homeward -in the lane, swinging her card-case, had been wholly pleasing; and I -recalled the joyous quick rush with which she had clasped her child. I -was sure that Tom was a monster, eccentric, selfish, indifferent. There -had been a tiff, and he had gone off to sulk in the dark like a wilful, -perverse child. - -I was patrolling my veranda half an hour later, when I heard steps -and then voices on the walk opposite, and back they came. It is a -woman’s way, I reflected, to make all the advances; and this young -wife had captured the runaway and talked him into good humor. A moment -later they were seated beside the table in the living-room, and so -disposed that the lamp did not obscure them from each other. She was -reading aloud, and occasionally glanced up, whether to make sure of -his attention or to comment upon the book I did not know; and when it -occurred to me that it was neither dignified nor decent to watch my -neighbors through their window, I went indoors and wrote several pages -of notes for a chapter which I now felt must be written, on “Bungalow -Shadows.” - -Manderson was the name; Banzai made sure of this at the grocer’s. As I -took the air of the lane the next morning before breakfast, I saw that -the Redmonds were a different sort. Redmond, a big fellow, with a loud -voice, was bidding his wife and child good-by. The youngster toddled -after him, the wife ran after the child, and there was much laughter. -They all stopped to inspect me, and Redmond introduced himself and -shook hands, with the baby clutching his knees. He presented me to his -wife, and they cordially welcomed me to the lane to the baby’s cooing -accompaniment. They restored me to confidence in the bungalow type; no -doubt of the Redmonds being the real thing! - - -III - -The lady of the brown bungalow was, however, far more attractive than -her sister of the red one, and the Mandersons as a family were far -more appealing than the Redmonds. My note-book filled with memoranda -touching the ways and manners of the Mandersons, and most of these, I -must confess, related to Mrs. Manderson. She was exactly the type I -sought, the veritable _dea ex machina_ of the bungalow world. She lived -a good deal on her veranda, and as I had established a writing-table on -mine I was able to add constantly to my notes by the mere lifting of -my eyes. I excused my impudence in watching her on scientific grounds. -She was no more to me than a new bird to an ornithologist, or a strange -plant to a botanist. - -Occasionally she would dart into the house and attack an upright piano -that stood by the broad window of the living-room. I could see the firm -clean stroke of her arms as she played. Those brilliant, flashing, -golden things of Chopin’s she did wonderfully; or again it would be -Schumann’s spirit she invoked. Once begun, she would run on for an -hour, and Banzai would leave his kitchen and crouch on our steps to -listen. She appeared at times quite fearlessly with a broom to sweep -the walk, and she seemed to find a childish delight in sprinkling the -lawn. Or she would set off, basket in hand, for the grocer’s, and would -return bearing her own purchases and none the less a lady for a’ that. -There was about her an indefinable freshness and crispness. I observed -with awe her succession of pink and blue shirt waists, in which she -caught and diffused the sun like a figure in one of Benson’s pictures; -and when she danced off with her card-case in a costume of solid white, -and with a flappy white hat, she was not less than adorable. - -Manderson nodded to me the second day, a little coldly, as we met in -the walk; and thereafter bowed or waved a hand when I fell under his -eye. One evening I heard him calling her across the dusk of the yard. -Her name was Olive, and nothing, it seemed to me, was ever more fitting -than that. - -One morning as I wrote at my table on the veranda I was aroused by -a commotion over the way. The girl of all work appeared in the front -yard screaming and wringing her hands, and I rushed across the lane -to learn that the water-heater was possessed of an evil spirit and -threatened to burst. The lady of the bungalow had gone to town and the -peril was imminent. I reversed all the visible valves, in that trustful -experimental spirit which is the flower of perfect ignorance, and -the catastrophe was averted. I returned to my work, became absorbed, -and was only aroused by a tug at my smoking-jacket. Beside me stood -the Manderson baby, extending a handful of dahlias! Her manner was -of ambassadorial gravity. No word was spoken, and she trotted off, -laboriously descended my steps, and toddled across the lane. - -Her mother waited at the curb, and as I bowed in my best manner, -holding up the dahlias, she called, “Thank you!” in the most entrancing -of voices. Mr. James declares that the way one person looks at another -may be, in effect, an incident; and how much more may “Thank you,” -flung across a quiet street, have the weight of hours of dialogue! -Her voice was precisely the voice that the loveliest of feminine names -connotes, suggesting Tennysonian harmonies and cadences, and murmuring -waters of---- - - “Sweet Catullus’s all-but-island, olive-silvery Sirmio.” - -A bunch of dahlias was just the epistolary form to which a bungalow -lady would resort in communicating with a gentleman she did not know. -The threatened explosion of the heater had thus served to introduce -me to my neighbor, and had given me at the same time a new revelation -of her sense of the proprieties, her graciousness, and charm. In my -visit to the house I had observed its appointments with a discreet but -interested eye, and I jotted down many notes with her dahlias on the -table before me. The soft tints of the walls, the well-chosen American -rugs, the comfort that spoke in the furniture reflected a consistent -taste. There was the usual den, with a long bench piled with cushions, -and near at hand a table where a tray of smoker’s articles was hedged -in with magazines, and there were books neatly shelved, and others, -lying about, testified to familiar use. The upright piano, by the -window of my frequent contemplation, bore the imprimatur of one of -the most reputable makers, and a tall rack beside it was filled with -music. Prone on the player’s seat lay a doll--a fact I noted with -satisfaction, as evidence of the bungalow baby’s supremacy even where -its mother is a veritable reincarnation of St. Cecilia. - -The same evening Manderson came home in haste and departed immediately -with a suitcase. I had hoped that he would follow the dahlias in person -to discuss the housemaid’s embarrassments with the plumbing and bring -me within the arc of his domestic circle, but such was not to be the -way of it. - -He was gone three days, and while the lady of the bungalow now bowed to -me once daily across the lane, our acquaintance progressed no further. -Nor, I may add, did my work move forward according to the schedule by -which it is my habit to write. I found myself scribbling verses--a -relaxation I had not indulged in since my college days. I walked much, -surveying the other streets in Sherwood Forest Addition and gloomily -comparing them with Landor Lane to their disadvantage. I tramped the -shore of the little lake and saw her there once and again, at play -with the baby. She and Mrs. Redmond exchanged visits frequently with -bungalow informality. One afternoon half a dozen young women appeared -for tea on the deep veranda, and the lane was gay with laughter. They -were the ladies of the surrounding bungalow district, and their party -was the merriest. I wondered whether she had waited for a day when her -husband was absent to summon these sisters. It was a gloomy fate that -had mated her with a melancholy soul like Manderson. - - -IV - -I had written several couplets imploring the protection of the gods -for the Lady of the Lane, and these I had sketched upon a large sheet -of cardboard the better to scrutinize them. And thereby hangs the -saddest of revelations. My friend the architect had sent me a number -of advertisements with a request that I should persuade Banzai to -attach them to the adjacent landscape. Returning from a tramp I beheld -Olive (as I shall not scruple to call her) studying a placard on a -telephone-post in the lane a little beyond her bungalow. It struck me -as odd that she should be so interested in a mere advertisement of -bungalows, when she was already cosily domiciled in the prettiest one -the addition boasted. She laughed aloud, then turned guardedly, saw me, -and marched demurely home without so much as glancing a second time in -my direction. - -After she had tripped up the steps and vanished I saw the grievous -thing that Banzai had done. By some inadvertence he had thrust the -card bearing my verses among the advertisements, and with all the -posts and poles and tree-boxes in Christendom to choose from, he had -with unconscious malevolence nailed my couplets to the telephone-pole -nearest the Manderson bungalow. It was an unpardonable atrocity, the -enormity of which I shall not extenuate by suppressing the verses: - - “Spirits that guard all lovely things - Bend o’er this path thy golden wings. - - Shield it from storms and powers malign: - Make stars and sun above it shine. - - May none pass here on evil bent: - Bless it to hearts of good intent, - - And when (like some bright catch of song - One hears but once though waiting long) - - Lalage suddenly at the door - Views the adoring landscape o’er, - - O swift let friendly winds attend - And faithful to her errands bend! - - Then when adown the lane she goes - Make leap before her vine and rose! - - From elfin land bring Ariel - To walk beside and guard her well. - - Defend her, pray, from faun and gnome - Till through the Lane she wanders home!” - -It was bad enough to apostrophize my neighbor’s wife in song; but to -publish my infamy to the world was an even more grievous sin. I tore -the thing down, bore it home, and thrust it into the kitchen range -before the eyes of the contrite Banzai. Across the way Olive played, -and I thought there was mockery in her playing. - -Realism is, after all, on much better terms with Romance than the -critics would have us believe. If Manderson had not thawed sufficiently -to borrow the realistic monkey-wrench which Banzai used on our -lawn-mower, and if Olive had not romantically returned it a week -later with a card on which she had scribbled “Many apologies for the -long delay,” I might never have discovered that she was not in fact -Manderson’s wife but his sister. Hers was the neatest, the best-bred of -cards, and bore the name incontrovertibly---- - - +--------------------------------+ - | | - | | - | MISS OLIVE MANDERSON | - | | - | 44 LANDOR LANE | - +--------------------------------+ - -I throw this to the realists that they may chortle over it in the -way of their grim fraternity. Were I cursed with the least taint of -romanticism I should not disclose her maiden state at this point, but -hold it for stirring dramatic use at the moment when, believing her to -be the wife of the mournful tile-grate man, I should bid her good-by -and vanish forever. - -The moment that card reached me by the hand of her housemaid she was -playing a Chopin polonaise, and I was across the lane and reverently -waiting at the door when the last chord sounded. It was late on an -afternoon at the threshold of October, but not too cool for tea _al -fresco_. When the wind blew chill from the lake she disappeared, and -returned with her hands thrust into the pockets of a white sweater. - -It was amazing how well we got on from the first. She explained herself -in the fewest words. Her brother’s wife had died two years before, and -she had helped to establish a home for him in the hope of mitigating -his loneliness. She spoke of him and the child with the tenderest -consideration. He had been badly broken by his wife’s death, and was -given to brooding. I accused myself bitterly for having so grossly -misjudged him as to think him capable of harshness toward the fair -lady of his bungalow. He came while I still sat there and greeted me -amiably, and when I left we were established on the most neighborly -footing. - -Thenceforth my work prospered. Olive revealed, with the nicest -appreciation and understanding of my needs, the joys and sorrows of -suburban bungalowhood. The deficiencies of the trolley service, the -uncertainties of the grocer’s delivery she described in the aptest -phrases, her buoyant spirit making light of all such vexations. - -The manifold resources and subterfuges of bungalow housekeeping were -unfolded with the drollest humor. The eternal procession of cooks, -the lapses of the neighborhood hired man, the fitfulness of the -electric light--all such tragedies were illuminated with her cheery -philosophy. The magazine article that I had planned expanded into a -discerning study of the secret which had baffled and lured me, as to -the flowering of the bungalow upon the rough edges of the urban world. -The aspirations expressed by the upright piano, the perambulator, the -new book on the arts-and-crafts table, the card-case borne through -innumerable quiet lanes--all such phenomena Olive elucidated for my -instruction. The shrewd economies that explained the occasional theatre -tickets; the incubator that robbed the grocer to pay the milliner; the -home-plied needle that accounted for the succession of crisp shirt -waists--into these and many other mysteries Olive initiated me. - -Sherwood Forest suddenly began to boom, and houses were in demand. -My architect friend threatened me with eviction, and to avert the -calamity I signed a contract of purchase, which bound me and my heirs -and assigns forever to certain weekly payments; and, blithe opportunist -that I am, I based a chapter on this circumstance, with the caption -“Five Dollars a Month for Life.” I wrote from notes supplied by Olive a -dissertation on “The Pursuit of the Lemon”--suggested by an adventure -of her own in search of the fruit of the _citrus limonum_ for use in -garnishing a plate of canned salmon for Sunday evening tea. - -Inspired by the tender, wistful autumn days I wrote verses laboriously, -and boldly hung them in the lane in the hope of arresting my Rosalind’s -eye. One of these (tacked to a tree in a path by the lake) I here -insert to illustrate the plight to which she had brought me: - - “At eve a line of golden light - Hung low along the west; - The first red maple bough shone bright - Upon the woodland’s breast. - - The wind blew keen across the lake, - A wave mourned on the shore; - Earth knew an instant some heartache - Unknown to earth before. - - The wandering ghosts of summers gone - Watched shore and wood and skies; - The night fell like a shadow drawn - Across your violet eyes.” - - -V - -Olive suffered my rhyming with the same composure with which she met -the unpreluded passing of a maid of all work, or the ill-natured -smoking of the furnace on the first day it was fired. She preferred -philosophy to poetry, and borrowed Nietzsche from the branch library. -She persuaded me that the ladies of the bungalows are all practical -persons, and so far as I am concerned, Olive fixed the type. It had -seemed to me, as I viewed her comings and goings at long range, that -she commanded infinite leisure; and yet her hours were crowded with -activities. I learned from her that cooks with diplomas are beyond -the purses of most bungalow housekeepers; and as Olive’s brother’s -digestive apparatus was most delicate she assumed the responsibility -of composing cakes and pastries for his pleasure. With tea (and we -indulged in much teaing) she gave me golden sponge-cake of her own -making which could not have failed to delight the severest Olympian -critic. Her sand tarts established a new standard for that most -delectable item of the cook-book. She ironed with her own hands the -baby’s more fragile frocks. Nor did such manual employments interfere -in any way whatever with the delicacy of her touch upon the piano. She -confided to me that she made a practice of reviewing French verbs at -the ironing-board with a grammar propped before her. She belonged to -a club which was studying Carlyle’s _French Revolution_, and she was -secretary of a musical society--formed exclusively of the mistresses -of bungalows, who had nobly resolved to devote the winter to the study -of the works of John Sebastian Bach. - -It gradually became clear that the romance of the American bungalow was -reinforced and strengthened by a realism that was in itself romance, -and I was immensely stimulated by this discovery. It was refreshing to -find that there are, after all, no irreconcilable differences between -a pie well made and a Chopin polonaise well played. Those who must -quibble over the point may file a demurrer, if they so please, with the -baby asleep in the perambulator on the nearest bungalow veranda, and -the child, awaking, will overrule it with a puckered face and a cry -that brings mama on the run with Carlyle in her hand. - - -VI - -Olive was twenty-five. Twenty-five is the standard age, so to speak, -of bungalow matrons. My closest scrutiny has failed to discover one -a day older. It is too early for any one to forecast the ultimate -fate of the bungalow. The bungalow speaks for youth, and whether it -will survive as an architectural type, or whether those hopeful young -married persons who trustingly kindle their domestic altars in bungalow -fireplaces will be found there in contentment at fifty, is not for this -writing. What did strike me was the fact that Olive, being twenty-five, -was an anomaly as a bungalow lady by reason of her unmarriedness. -Her domesticity was complete, her efficiency indisputable, her charm -ineffable; and it seemed that here was a chance to perfect a type -which I, with my strong scientific bent, could not suffer to pass. -By the mere process of changing the name on her visiting card, and -moving from a brown to a green bungalow, she might become the perfect -representation of the most interesting and delightful type of American -women. Half of my study of bungalow life was finished, and a publisher -to whom I submitted the early chapters returned them immediately with a -contract, whose terms were in all ways generous, so that I was able to -view the future in that jaunty confidence with which young folk intrust -their fate to the bungalow gods. - -I looked up from my writing-table, which the chill air had driven -indoors, and saw Olive on her lawn engaged in some mysterious -occupation. She was whistling the while she dabbed paint with a brush -and a sophisticated air upon the bruised legs of the baby’s high chair. - -At my approach Romance nudged Realism. Or maybe it was Realism that -nudged Romance. I cannot see that it makes the slightest difference, -one way or another, on whose initiative I spoke: let it suffice that -I did speak. Realism and Romance tripped away and left me alone -with the situation. When I had spoken Olive rose, viewed her work -musingly, with head slightly tilted, and still whistling touched the -foot-rest of the baby chair lingeringly with the paint-brush. Those -neat cans of prepared paint which place the most fascinating of joys -within the range of womankind are in every well-regulated bungalow -tool-closet--and another chapter for my book began working in my -subconsciousness. - -A little later Romance and Realism returned and stood to right and left -of us by the living-room fire. Realism, in the outward form of W. D. -H., winked at Romance as represented by R. L. S. I observed that W. D. -H., in a pepper-and-salt business suit, played with his eye-glasses; R. -L. S., in a velvet jacket, toyed with his dagger hilt. - -Olive informed me that her atrabilious brother was about to marry a -widow in Emerson Road, so there seemed to be no serious obstacle to -the immediate perfecting of Olive as a type by a visit to the young -clergyman in the white bungalow in Channing Lane, on the other side -of Sherwood Forest Addition. Romance and Realism therefore quietly -withdrew and left us to discuss the future. - -“I think,” said Olive with a far-away look in her eyes, “that there -should be a box of geraniums on our veranda rail next summer, and that -a hen-house could be built back of the coal shed without spoiling the -looks of the yard.” - -As I saw no objection whatever to these arrangements, we took the baby -for a walk, met Tom at the car, and later we all dined together at -the brown bungalow. I seem to recall that there was roast fowl for -dinner, a salad with the smoothest of mayonnaise, canned apricots, and -chocolate layer cake, and a Schumann programme afterward. - - - - -HOW, THEN, SHOULD SMITH VOTE? - -[1920] - - -THE talk on the veranda had been prolonged, and only my old friend -Smith, smoking in meditative silence, had refused to contribute to -our discussion of the men and the issues. Between campaigns Smith is -open-minded on all matters affecting the body politic. Not infrequently -his views are marked by a praiseworthy independence. Smith has brains; -Smith thinks. A Republican, he criticises his party with the utmost -freedom; and when sorely tried he renounces it with a superb gesture -of disdain. But on election day, in a mood of high consecration, he -unfailingly casts his ballot for the Republican nominee. A week earlier -he may have declared in the most convincing manner that he would not -support the ticket; and under extreme provocation I have known him to -threaten to leave the Republican fold for all time. - -Party loyalty is one of the most powerful factors in the operation of -our democracy, and it has its special psychology, to which only a -Josiah Royce could do full justice. Smith really thinks that he will -bolt; but when it comes to the scratch an influence against which he -is powerless stays his hand when he is alone in the voting booth with -his conscience and his God. Later, when gently reminded of this mood -of disaffection, he snarls that, when it comes down to brass tacks, -any Republican is better than any Democrat, anyhow--a fragment of -philosophy that is the consolation of great numbers of Smiths. - -Smith, as I was saying, had refrained from participating in our talk -on that August night where the saltless sea complained upon the beach -and the pines took counsel of the stars. Then, as the party broke up, -Smith flung his cigar into Lake Michigan and closed the discussion by -remarking with a despairing sigh-- - -“Well, either way, the people lose!” - - -I - -Smith prides himself on his ability to get what he wants when he wants -it--in everything but politics. In all else that pertains to his -welfare Smith is informed, capable, and efficient. In his own affairs -he tells the other fellow where to get off, and if told he can’t do -a thing he proceeds at once to do it and to do it well. It is only -in politics that his efforts are futile and he takes what is “handed -him.” Under strong provocation he will, in the manner of a dog in the -highway, run barking after some vehicle that awakens his ire; but -finding himself unequal to the race, he meekly trots back to his own -front yard. If the steam roller runs over him and the self-respect is -all but mashed out of him, he picks himself up and retires to consider -it yet again. He has learned nothing, except that by interposing -himself before a machine of superior size and weight he is very likely -to get hurt; and this he knew before. - -Smith and I are in the north woods thirty-five miles from a telegraph -instrument, where it is possible to ponder great questions with a -degree of detachment. Loafing with Smith is one of the most profitable -things I do; he is the best of fellows, and, as our lives have run -parallel from school-days with an unbroken intimacy, we are thoroughly -familiar with each other’s manner of thought. What I am setting down -here is really a condensed report of our talks. Just where Smith leaves -off and I begin doesn’t matter, for we speak the same language of the -Ancient Brotherhood of the Average Man. Smith is a Republican; I am a -Democrat. We have “gone to the mat” in many campaigns, each valiantly -defending his party and its heroes. But, chumming together in August, -1920, the punch had gone out of us. We talked of men and issues, but -not with our old fervor. At first we were both shy of present-day -matters, and disposed to “sidle up” to the immediate situation--to -reach it by reluctant, tangential approaches, as though we were -strangers, wary of wounding each other’s feelings. - -We mean to keep smiling about this whole business. We Americans seem -destined to rock dizzily on the brink of many precipices without ever -quite toppling over. We have lived through wars and rumors of wars, and -have escaped pestilence and famine, and we are deeply grateful that the -present campaign lays so light a tax upon the emotions. The republic -isn’t going to perish, no matter who’s elected. One thing is certain, -however, and that is that this time we--that is, Smith and I--are not -going to be jostled or pushed. - -The other day we interviewed an Indian--whether untaxed or enrolled -at the receipt of custom we didn’t ascertain. Smith asked him whether -he was for Cox or Harding, and the rightful heir to all the territory -in sight, interpreting our courteous inquiry in a restricted tribal -rather than a national spirit replied, “No whisk.” He thought we were -deputy sheriffs looking for boot-leggers. Even at that, Smith held “no -whisk” to be the most intelligent answer he had as yet received to his -question. - -Smith nearly upset the canoe one morning as he turned suddenly to -demand fiercely: “What’s this campaign all about anyhow?” This was a -dismaying question, but it precipitated a fortnight of reminiscences -of the changing fortunes of parties and of battles long ago, with -the usual profitless palaver as to whether the giants of other days -were really bigger and nobler than those of the present. We decided, -of course, that they were, having arrived at that time of life when -pygmies loom large in the twilight shades of vanishing perspectives. -The recuperative power of parties kept us interested through several -evenings. It seemed a miracle that the Democratic party survived the -Civil War. We talked much of Cleveland, speaking of him wistfully, as -the habit now is--of his courage and bluff honesty. - -In generous mood we agreed that Mr. Bryan had at times rendered -meritorious service to his country, and that it was a good thing to -encourage such evangelists occasionally to give the kettle a vigorous -stirring up. The brilliant qualities as well as the many irritating -characteristics of Colonel Roosevelt were dwelt upon, and we readily -and amiably concluded that many pages of American history would be dull -without him. He knew what America is all about, and that is something. -We lamented the disheartening circumstance that in the very nature -of our system of political management there must always be men of -first-rate capacity who can never hope to win the highest place--men, -for example, of indubitable wisdom, character, and genius, like George -F. Edmunds, Elihu Root, and Judge Gray of Delaware. - -“When I’ve got a place to fill in my business,” said Smith, “I pick out -a man I’m dead sure can handle it; I can’t afford to experiment with -fakers and amateurs. But when it comes to choosing a mayor in my town -or a President of the United States, I’ve got to take what I can get.” - -There is no justification for the party system, unless the -major parties are alert and honest in criticism and exercise a -restraining influence upon each other. It is perfectly legitimate -for the opposition to pick out all the weak spots in the record -of an administration and make the most of them. The rules of good -sportsmanship do not, unfortunately, apply in politics. With all -our insistence as a nation upon fair play, we don’t practise our -greatest game in that spirit. It was not, I should say, until after -Mr. Cleveland’s second election that the Civil War ceased to color -political discussion. Until I was well on toward manhood, I was -troubled not a little by a fear that the South would renew the war, so -continually was the great struggle of the sixties brought fearsomely -to the attention, even in local contests. In the criticism that has -been heaped upon Mr. Wilson’s administration we have been reminded -frequently that he has been far too responsive to Southern influence. - -The violence of our partisanship is responsible for the intrusion of -all manner of extraneous matters into campaigns. It would seem that -some single striking issue that touches the pocketbook, like the tariff -or silver, is necessary, if the electorate is to be thoroughly aroused. -Human nature in a democracy is quite what it is under any other form of -government, and is thoroughly disposed to view all matters selfishly. -Shantung and Fiume are too remote to interest the great number of us -whose club is the corner grocery. Anything beyond Main Street is alien -to our interest. We’ll buy food for the starving in other lands, but -that’s missionary work, not politics. Politics is electing our township -ticket, even though Bill Jones does beat his wife and is bound to make -a poor constable. - -We became slightly cynical at times, in the way of Americans who talk -politics heart-to-heart. The national convention, where there is a -thrill in the sonority of the very names of the far-flung commonwealths -as they are recited on roll-call, is, on the face of it, a glorious -expression of democracy at work. But in actual operation every one -knows that a national convention is only nominally representative. -The delegates in their appointed places are not free and independent -American citizens, assembled, as we would believe, to exercise their -best judgment as trustees of the “folks back home.” Most of them owe -their seats to the favor of a district or State boss; from the moment -the convention opens they are the playthings of the super-bosses, who -plan in advance every step in the proceedings. - -Occasionally there are slips: the ringmaster cracks his whip, confident -that the show will proceed according to programme, only to be -embarrassed by some irresponsible performer who refuses to “take” the -hoops and hurdles in the prescribed order. In other terms, some absurd -person may throw a wrench into a perfectly functioning machine and -change the pattern it has been set to weave. Such sabotage calls for a -high degree of temerariousness, and cannot be recommended to ambitious -young patriots anxious to ingratiate themselves with the powers that -control. At Baltimore, in 1912, Mr. Bryan did the trick--the most -creditable act of his career; but in accepting for his reward the -premiership for which he was so conspicuously unfit he foolishly -spoiled his record and promptly fulfilled the worst predictions of his -enemies. - -There is an oft-quoted saying that the Democratic party always may be -relied upon to do the wrong thing. Dating from 1876, when it so nearly -won the presidency, it has certainly been the victim of a great deal of -bad luck. However, remembering the blasting of many Republican hopes -and the swift passing of many Republican idols--the catastrophe that -befell the much-enduring Blaine, Mr. Taft’s melancholy adventures with -the presidency, the Progressive schism, and the manner in which Mr. -Hughes struck out with the bases full--it may hardly be said that the -gods of good-fortune have been markedly faithful to the Republicans. -Disappointments are inevitable; but even the Grant third-termers and -the followers of the Plumed Knight and the loyal Bryan phalanx outlived -their sorrows. The supporters of McAdoo and Palmer, of Wood and Lowden, -appear to be comfortably seated on the bandwagon. - -Smith was an ardent supporter of General Wood’s candidacy, and we sat -together in the gallery of the convention hall at Chicago and observed -with awe and admiration the manner in which the general received the -lethal thrust. The noisy demonstrations, the oratory, the vociferous -whoops of the galleries touched us not at all, for we are not without -our sophistication in such exhibitions. We listened with pleasure to -the impromptus of those stanch veterans of many battles, Messrs. Depew -and Cannon. At other times, during lulls that invited oratory, we heard -insistent calls for Mr. Beveridge; but these did not reach the ear, or -failed to touch the heart, of the chairman. The former senator from -Indiana had been a Progressive, and was not to be trusted before a -convention that might, with a little stimulation, have trampled the -senatorial programme under foot. - -We knew before the opening prayer was uttered that, when the delegates -chose a candidate, it would be only a _pro forma_ confirmation of a -selection made privately by half a dozen men, devout exponents of -that principle of party management which holds that the wisdom of the -few is superior to the silly clamor of the many. At that strategic -moment when it became hazardous to indulge the deadlock further, and -expediency called for an adjournment that the scene might be set for -the last act, the great lords quite shamelessly consulted in full view -of the spectators. Messrs. Lodge, Smoot, Watson, and Crane, hastily -reinforced by Mr. Herrick, who, aware that the spotlight was soon to be -turned upon Ohio, ran nimbly across the reporters’ seats to join the -conference, stood there in their majesty, like complacent Olympians -preparing to confer a boon upon mankind. It was a pretty bit of drama. -The curtain fell, as upon a second act where the developments of the -third are fully anticipated and interest is buoyed up only through the -intermission by a mild curiosity as to the manner in which the plot -will be worked out. - -My heart warmed to the enterprising reporter who attached himself to -the sacred group for a magnificent moment. His forcible ejection only -emphasized the tensity of the situation and brought into clearer relief -the august figures of the pontiffs, who naturally resented so gross an -intrusion upon their privacy. - - -II - -The other night, when every prospect divulged by the moon’s soft -radiance was pleasing and only the thought of man’s clumsy handiwork -was vile, Smith shocked me by remarking: - -“This patter of both parties about the dear people makes me sick. That -vox populi vox Dei stuff was always a fake. We think we’re hearing -an echo from heaven when it’s only a few bosses in the back room of -a hotel somewhere telling us what we ought to want.” We descanted -upon this at length, and he adduced much evidence in support of his -contention. “What we’ve got in this country,” he snorted, when I tried -to reason him out of his impious attitude, “is government of the people -by the bosses--for the bosses’ good. The people are like a flock of -silly sheep fattening for the wolf, and too stupid to lift their eyes -from the grass to see him galloping down the hill. They’ve got to be -driven to the hole in the wall and pushed through!” - -He was mightily pleased when I told him he had been anticipated by many -eminent authorities running back to Isaiah and Plato. - -“Saving remnant” was a phrase to his liking, and he kept turning -it over and investing it with modern meanings. Before we blew out -the candles we were in accord on the proposition that while we have -government by parties the parties have got to be run by some one; what -is everybody’s business being, very truly, nobody’s business. Hence the -development of party organizations and their domination by groups, with -the groups themselves deriving inspiration usually from a single head. -Under the soothing influence of these bromides Smith fell to sleep -denouncing the direct primary. - -“Instead of giving the power to the people,” he muttered drowsily, -“the bloomin’ thing has commercialized office-seeking. We’re selling -nominations to the highest bidder. If I were ass enough to chase a -United States senatorship, I wouldn’t waste any time on the people -until I’d been underwritten by a few strong banks. And if I won, I’d -be like the Dutchman who said he was getting along all right, only he -was worried because he had to die and go to hell yet. It would be my -luck to be pinched as a common felon, and to have my toga changed for a -prison suit at Leavenworth.” - -Some candidate for the doctorate, hard put for a subject, might find it -profitable to produce a thesis on American political phraseology. As a -people we are much addicted to felicitous combinations of words that -express large ideas in the smallest possible compass. Not only does -political wisdom lend itself well to condensation, but the silliest -fallacy will carry far if knocked into a fetching phrase. How rich in -its connotations even to-day is the old slogan, “Tippecanoe and Tyler -too”! and many others equally illuminative of a period might be dug -out of the records from the beginning of our history, including “the -tariff is a tax,” “the full dinner-pail,” down to “he kept us out of -war.” A telling phrase or a catchword is enormously persuasive and -convincing--the shrewdest possible advertisement. - -There is no way of knowing how many of our hundred millions ever read -a national platform, but I will hazard the guess that not more than -twenty-five per cent have perused the platforms of 1920 or will do -so before election day. The average voter is content to accept the -interpretations and laudatory comment of his party paper, with its -assurance that the declaration of principles and purposes is in keeping -with the great traditions of the grand old party. It is straining -Smith’s patriotism pretty far to ask him to read a solid page of small -type, particularly when he knows that much of it is untrue and most of -it sheer bunk. Editorial writers and campaign orators read platforms -perforce; but to Smith they are fatiguing to the eye and a weariness -to the spirit. The primary qualification for membership on a platform -committee is an utter lack--there must be no question about it--of a -sense of humor. The League of Nations plank of the Republican platform -is a refutation of the fallacy that we are a people singularly blessed -with humor. We could ask no more striking proof of the hypnotic power -of a party name than the acceptance of this plank, solemnly sawed, -trimmed, and painted red, white, and blue, in the committee-room, and -received by the delegates with joyous acclamation. - - -III - -The embarrassments of the partisan who is challenged to explain the -faith that is in him are greatly multiplied in this year of grace. -Considerable literature is available as to the rise and development -of the two major parties, but a student might exhaust the whole of -it and yet read the Chicago and San Francisco platforms as through a -glass darkly. There is a good deal of Jeffersonian democracy that is -extremely difficult to reconcile with many acts of Mr. Wilson. The -partisan who tries to square his Democracy or his Republicanism with -the faith he inherited from his grandfather is doomed to a severe -headache. The rope that separates the elephant from the donkey in the -menagerie marks only a nominal difference in species: they eat the -same fodder and, when the spectator’s back is turned, slyly wink at -each other. There is a fine ring to the phrase “a loyal Republican” -or “a loyal Democrat,” but we have reached a point of convergence -where loyalty is largely a matter of tradition and superstition. -What Jefferson said on a given point, or what Hamilton thought about -something else, avails little to a Democrat or a Republican in these -changed times. We talk blithely of fundamental principles, but are -still without the power to visualize the leaders of the past in newly -developed situations of which they never dreamed. To attempt to -interview Washington as to whether he intended his warning against -entangling alliances to apply to a League of Nations to insure the -peace of the world is ridiculous; as well invoke Julius Cæsar’s opinion -of present-day questions of Italian politics. - -Delightful and inspiring as it would doubtless be, we can’t quite -trust the government to the counsels of the ouija-board. The seats -of the cabinet or of the supreme bench will hardly be filled -with table-rapping experts until more of us are satisfied of the -authenticity of the communications that purport to be postmarked -oblivion. We quote the great spirits of the past only when we need -them to give weight and dignity to our own views. (Incidentally, a -ouija-board opinion from John Marshall as to the propriety of tacking -a police regulation like the Eighteenth Amendment to the Federal -Constitution would be first-page stuff for the newspapers.) - -Monroe was luckier than most of our patriarchs. The doctrine associated -with his name is jealously treasured by many patriotic Americans who -haven’t the slightest idea of the circumstances that called it forth; -but to mention it in a discussion of international affairs is to stamp -the speaker as a person of breeding, endowed with intellectual gifts of -the highest order. If by some post-mortem referendum we could “call up” -Monroe to explain just how far America might safely go in the defense -of his doctrine, and whether it could be advantageously extended -beyond the baths of all the western stars to keep pace with such an -expansion as that represented by the Philippines, we might profit by -his answer--and again, we might not. - -We can’t shirk our responsibilities. One generation can’t do the work -of another. In the last analysis we’ve got to stand on our own feet and -do our own thinking. The Constitution itself has to be interpreted over -and over again, and even amended occasionally; for the world does, in -spite of all efforts to stop it, continue to move right along. This is -not a year in which either of the major parties can safely harp upon -its “traditional policy.” There are skeletons in both closets that -would run like frightened rabbits if dragged into the light and ordered -to solve the riddles of 1920. - -The critics of President Wilson have dwelt much on the vision of the -founders, without conceding that he too may be blessed with a seer’s -vision and the tongue of prophecy. To his weaknesses as a leader -I shall revert later; but his high-mindedness and earnest desire -to serve the nation and the world are questioned only by the most -buckramed hostile partisan, or by those who view the present only -through the eyes of dead men. - - -IV - -When President Wilson read his war message to the Congress it must -have been in the minds of many thousands who thrilled to the news -that night, that a trinity of great American presidents was about to -be completed; that a niche awaited Mr. Wilson in the same alcove with -Washington and Lincoln. Many who were impatient and restless under the -long correspondence with the Imperial German Government were willing -to acknowledge that the delay was justified; that at last the nation -was solidly behind the administration; that amid the stirring call of -trumpets partisanship would be forgotten; and that, when the world -was made safe for law and decency, Mr. Wilson would find himself in -the enjoyment of an unparalleled popularity. It did not seem possible -that he could fail. That he did fail of these hopes and expectations -is not a matter that any true lover of America can contemplate with -jubilation. Those of us who ask the greatest and the best things of -and for America can hardly be gratified by any failure that might -be construed as a sign of weakness in democracy. But Mr. Wilson’s -inability to hold the confidence of the people, to win his adversaries -to his standard, to implant himself in the affections of the mass, -cannot be attributed to anything in our political system but wholly to -his own nature. It is one of the ironies of our political life that a -man like Mr. McKinley, without distinguished courage, originality, or -constructive genius, is able, through the possession of minor qualities -that are social rather than political, to endear himself to the great -body of his countrymen. It may be, after all our prayers for great men, -that negative rather than positive qualities are the safest attributes -of a President. - -It may fairly be said that Mr. Wilson is intellectually the equal -of most of his predecessors in the presidency, and the superior of -a very considerable number of them. The very consciousness of the -perfect functioning of his own mental machinery made him intolerant -of stupidity, and impatient of the criticism of those with whom it -has been necessary for him to do his work, who have, so to put it, -only asked to be “shown.” If the disagreeable business of working -in practical politics in all its primary branches serves no better -purpose, it at least exercises a humanizing effect; it is one way -of learning that men must be reasoned with and led, not driven. In -escaping the usual political apprenticeship, Mr. Wilson missed wholly -the liberalizing and broadening contacts common to the practical -politician. At times--for example, when the Adamson Law was passed--I -heard Republicans, with unflattering intonation, call him the shrewdest -politician of his time; but nothing could be farther from the truth. -Nominally the head of his party, and with its future prosperity in his -hands, he has shown a curious indifference to the maintenance of its -morale. - -“Produce great men; the rest follows.” The production of great men -is not so easy as Whitman imagined; but in eight tremendous years -we must ruefully confess that no new and commanding figure has risen -in either branch of Congress. Partisanship constantly to the fore, -but few manifestations of statesmanship: such is the record. It is -well-nigh unbelievable that, where the issues have so constantly -touched the very life of the nation, the discussions could have been -so marked by narrowness and bigotry. The exercise of autocratic power -by a group pursuing a policy of frustration and obstruction is as -little in keeping with the spirit of our institutions as a stubborn, -uncompromising course on the part of the executive. The conduct of the -Republican majority in the Senate is nothing of which their party can -be proud. - -Four years ago I published some reflections on the low state to which -the public service had fallen, and my views have not been changed -by more recent history. It would be manifestly unfair to lay at Mr. -Wilson’s door the inferiority of the men elected to the Congress; -but with all the potentialities of party leadership and his singular -felicity of appeal, he has done little to quicken the public conscience -with respect to the choice of administrators or representatives. It -may be said in his defense that his hours from the beginning were too -crowded to permit such excursions in political education; but we had a -right to expect him to lend the weight of his authoritative voice and -example to the elevation of the tone of the public service. Poise and -serenity of temper we admire, but not to the point where it seemingly -vanishes into indifference and a callousness to criticism. The appeal -two years ago for a Democratic Congress, that the nation’s arm might -be strengthened for the prosecution of the war, was a gratuitous slap -at the Republican representatives who had supported his war policies, -and an affront to the public intelligence, that met with just rebuke. -The cavalier discharge of Lansing and the retention of Burleson show an -equally curious inability to grasp public opinion. - - -V - -The whole handling of the League of Nations was bungled, as most of -the Democrats I know privately admit. The end of a war that had -shaken the very foundations of the earth was a fitting time to attempt -the formation of an association of the great powers to enforce the -peaceful settlement of international disputes. Here was a matter that -spoke powerfully to the conscience and the imagination, and in the -chastened mood of a war-weary world it seemed a thing possible of -achievement. Certainly, in so far as America was concerned, it was a -project to be approached in such manner that its success could in no -way be jeopardized by partisanship. The possibility of opposition by -Democratic senators, the hostility of Republican senators, which was -not merely partisan but in certain quarters tinged with bitter personal -hatred of the President, was to be anticipated and minimized. - -The President’s two trips abroad were a mistake, at least in that -they encouraged those of his critics who assailed him as an autocrat -and supreme egotist stubbornly bent upon doing the whole business in -his own way. The nation was entitled to the services in the peace -negotiations of its best talent--men strongly established in public -confidence. Mr. Wilson paid dearly for his inability to recognize -this. His own appearance at Versailles conveyed a false impression of -his powers, and the effect at home was to cause uneasiness among many -who had most cordially supported him. - -The hovering figure of Colonel House has been a constant irritation -to a public uninformed as to the training or experience that set him -apart for preferment. In sending from the homebound ship an invitation -to the august Foreign Relations committee to gather at the White House -at an hour appointed and hear the good news that a league was in -prospect, the President once more displayed a lamentable ignorance of -human nature. His attitude was a trifle too much like that of a parent -returning from a journey and piquing the curiosity of his household by -a message conveying the glad tidings that he was bringing presents for -their delight. There are one hundred millions of us, and we are not to -be managed in this way. - -Colonel Roosevelt might have done precisely these things and “got -away with it.” Many thousands would have said it was just like him, -and applauded. The effect of Mr. Wilson’s course was to precipitate -a prolonged battle over the league and leave it high in the air. It -hovers over the present campaign like a toy balloon floating within -reach of languid and indifferent spectators. In that part of the -country with whose feelings and temper on public matters I may pretend -to some knowledge, I do not believe that any one cares greatly about -it. The moment it became a partisan question, it lost its vitality as -a moral issue that promised peace and security to America and all the -world. Our attitude with respect to the league has added nothing to the -nation’s dignity; rather, by our wabbly course in this matter we have -done much to weaken the case for world democracy. Its early acceptance, -with reservations that would have stilled the cry of denationalization, -would have made it an achievement on which the Democratic party -might have gone to the people with satisfaction and confidence. Even -considered as an experiment of dubious practicability, it would have -been defensible at least as an honest attempt to blunt the sword of the -war god. The spirit in which we associated ourselves with the other -powers that resisted the Kaiser’s attempt to bestride the world like a -Colossus needed for its complete expression the further effort to make -a repetition of the gigantic struggle impossible. - -As a people we are strongly aroused and our imagination quickened by -anything that may be viewed in a glow of spirituality; and a scheme -of peace insurance already in operation would have proved a dangerous -thing to attack. But the league’s moral and spiritual aspects have -been marred or lost. The patience of the people has been exhausted -by the long debate about it, and the pettiness and insincerity, -the contemptible evasion and hair-splitting, that have marked the -controversy over what is, in its purpose and aim, a crystallization -of the hope of mankind in all the ages. Such a league might fail; -certainly its chance of success is vastly decreased by America’s -refusal to participate. - - -VI - -In the cool airs of the North Smith and I have honestly tried to reduce -the league situation to intelligible terms. Those voters who may feel -constrained to regard the election as a referendum of the league will -do well to follow our example in pondering the speeches of acceptance -of the two candidates. Before these words are read both Governor Cox -and Senator Harding will doubtless have amplified their original -statements, but these are hardly susceptible of misinterpretation as -they stand. Mr. Harding’s utterance is in effect a motion to lay on the -table, to defer action to a more convenient season, and take it up _de -novo_. Governor Cox, pledging his support to the proposition, calls for -the question. Mr. Harding defines his position thus: - - With a Senate advising, as the Constitution contemplates, I would - hopefully approach the nations of Europe and of the earth, proposing - that understanding which makes us a willing participant in the - consecration of nations to a new relationship, to commit the moral - forces of the world, America included, to peace and international - justice, still leaving America free, independent, and self-reliant, - but offering friendship to all the world. - - If men call for more specific details, I remind them that moral - committals are broad and all-inclusive, and we are contemplating - peoples in the concord of humanity’s advancement. From our own - view-point the programme is specifically American, and we mean to be - American first, to all the world. - -Mr. Cox says, “I favor going in”; and meets squarely the criticism that -the Democratic platform is not explicit as to reservations. He would -“state our interpretations of the Covenant as a matter of good faith to -our associates and as a precaution against any misunderstanding in the -future,” and quotes from an article of his own, published in the New -York _Times_ before his nomination, these words: - - In giving its assent to this treaty, the Senate has in mind the fact - that the League of Nations which it embodies was devised for the sole - purpose of maintaining peace and comity among the nations of the - earth and preventing the recurrence of such destructive conflicts as - that through which the world has just passed. The co-operation of - the United States with the league, and its continuance as a member - thereof, will naturally depend upon the adherence of the league to - that fundamental purpose. - -He proposes an addition to the Covenant of some such paragraph as this: - - It will, of course, be understood that, in carrying out the purpose - of the league, the government of the United States must at all times - act in strict harmony with the terms and intent of the United States - Constitution, which cannot in any way be altered by the treaty-making - power. - -There is no echo here of the President’s uncompromising declaration -that the Covenant must be accepted precisely as he presented it. To -the lay mind there is no discernible difference between a reservation -and an interpretation, when the sole purpose in either case would be -to make it clear to the other signatories, through the text of the -instrument itself, that we could bind ourselves in no manner that -transcended the Constitution. - -Smith is endowed with a talent for condensation, and I cheerfully quote -the result of his cogitations on the platforms and the speeches of the -candidates. “The Republican senators screamed for reservations, but -when Hiram Johnson showed symptoms of kicking out of the traces they -pretended that they never wanted the league at all. But to save their -faces they said maybe some time when the sky was high and they were -feeling good they would shuffle the deck and try a new deal. Cox is for -playing the game right through on the present layout. If you’re keen -for the League of Nations, your best chance of ever seeing America sign -up is to stand on Cox’s side of the table.” - -Other Smiths, not satisfied with his analysis, and groping in the -dark, may be grateful for the leading hand of Mr. Taft. The former -President was, in his own words, “one of the small group who, in 1915, -began the movement in this country for the League of Nations and the -participation of the United States therein.” Continuing, he said, in -the Philadelphia _Ledger_ of August 1: - - Had I been in the Senate, I would have voted for the league and - treaty as submitted; and I advocated its ratification accordingly. - I did not think and do not now think that anything in the League - Covenant as sent to the Senate would violate the Constitution of the - United States, or would involve us in wars which it would not be to - the highest interest of the world and this country to suppress by - universal boycott and, if need be, by military force. - -In response to a question whether, this being his feeling, he would not -support Mr. Cox, Mr. Taft made this reply: - - No such issue as the ratification of the League of Nations as - submitted can possibly be settled in the coming election. Only - one-third of the Senate is to be elected, and but fifteen Republican - senators out of forty-nine can be changed. There remain in the - Senate, whatever the result of the election, thirty-three Republicans - who have twice voted against the ratification of the league without - the Lodge reservations. Of the fifteen retiring Republicans, many are - certain of re-election. Thirty-three votes will defeat the league. - -Smith, placidly fishing, made the point that a man who believed in a -thing would vote for it even though it was a sure loser, and asked -where a Democratic landslide would leave Mr. Taft. When I reminded him -that he had drifted out of the pellucid waters of political discussion -and snagged the boat on a moral question, he became peevish and refused -to fish any more that day. - -The league is the paramount issue, or it is not; you can take it, or -leave it alone. The situation may be wholly changed when Mr. Root, to -whom the Republican league plank is attributed, reports the result of -his labors in organizing the international court of arbitration. Some -new proposal for an association of nations to promote or enforce peace -would be of undoubted benefit to the Republicans in case they find -their negative position difficult to maintain. - -The platforms and speeches of acceptance present, as to other matters, -nothing over which neighbors need quarrel. As to retrenchment, labor, -taxation, and other questions of immediate and grave concern, the -promises of both candidates are fair enough. They both clearly realize -that we have entered upon a period that is likely to witness a strong -pressure for modifications of our social and political structure. -Radical sentiment has been encouraged, or at least tolerated, in a -disturbing degree by the present administration. However, there is -nothing in Mr. Cox’s record as governor or in his expressed views -to sustain any suspicion that he would temporize with the forces of -destruction. The business of democracy is to build, not to destroy; -to help, not to hinder. We have from both candidates much the same -assurances of sympathy with the position held nowadays by all -straight-thinking men--that industrial peace, concord, and contentment -can be maintained only by fair dealing and good-will among all of us -for the good of all. - -From their public utterances and other testimony we are not convinced -that either candidate foreshadows a stalwart Saul striding across the -hills on his way to the leadership of Israel. Mr. Harding shows more -poise--more caution and timidity, if you will; Mr. Cox is a more alert -and forthright figure, far likelier to strike “straight at the grinning -Teeth of Things.” He is also distinctly less careful of his speech. -He reminds the Republicans that “McKinley broke the fetters of our -boundary lines, spoke of the freedom of Cuba, and carried the torch of -American idealism to the benighted Philippines”--a proud boast that -must have pained Mr. Bryan. In the same paragraph of his speech of -acceptance we are told that “Lincoln fought a war on the purely moral -question of slavery”--a statement that must ring oddly in the ears of -Southerners brought up in the belief that the South fought in defense -of State sovereignty. These may not be inadvertences, but a courageous -brushing away of old litter; he is entitled to the benefit of the -doubt. - - -VII - -Smith rose from his morning dip with the joyful countenance of a diver -who has found a rare pearl. We were making progress, he said; he -thought he had got hold of what he called the God’s truth of the whole -business. What those fellows did at Chicago and San Francisco was to -cut the barbed-wire entanglements in No Man’s Land, so that it doesn’t -make much difference on which side of the battle-line we find ourselves -on election day. The parties have unwittingly flung a challenge to -the independent voter. An extraordinary opportunity is presented to -citizens everywhere to scrutinize with unusual care their local tickets -and vote for the candidates who promise the best service. As Smith put -it, we ought to be able to scramble things a good deal. Keep the bosses -guessing: this he offered as a good slogan for the whole Smith family. -In our own Indiana we would pick and choose, registering, of course, -our disapproval of Senator Watson as a post-graduate of the Penrose -school, and voting for a Democrat for governor because Governor -Goodrich’s administration has been a continuous vaudeville of error and -confusion, and the Democratic candidate, a gentleman heretofore unknown -in politics, talks common sense in folksy language. - -We finally concluded as to the presidency that it came down to a choice -of men tested by their experience, public acts, and the influences -behind them. The imperative demand is for an efficient administration -of the federal government. The jobs must be given to big men of -demonstrated capacity. Undoubtedly Mr. Harding would have a larger -and more promising field to draw upon. If it were possible for Mr. -Cox to break a precedent and state with the frankness of which he -seems capable the order of men he would assemble for his counsellors -and administrators, he would quiet an apprehension that is foremost -in the minds of an innumerable company of hesitating voters. Fear of -continuance of Mr. Wilson’s indulgent policy toward mediocrity and a -repetition of his refusal to seek the best help the nation offered -(until compelled to call upon the expert dollar-a-year man to meet the -exigencies of war) is not a negligible factor in this campaign, and -Mr. Cox, if he is wise, will not ignore it. - -The manner of Mr. Harding’s nomination by the senatorial cabal, whose -influence upon his administration is hardly a speculative matter, -invites the consideration of progressive Republicans who rankle under -two defeats fairly chargeable to reactionary domination. It was -apparent at Chicago that the Old Guard had learned nothing and would -risk a third consecutive defeat rather than accept any candidate not -of their choosing. Mr. Harding’s emphasis upon his belief in party -government, as distinguished from personal government--obviously a slap -at Mr. Wilson--is susceptible of an unfortunate interpretation, as Mr. -Cox was quick to see. If the Republican candidate means submission to -organization chiefs, or to such a group as now controls the Senate and -the party, his declaration is not reassuring. - -If Smith, in his new mood of independence, votes for Mr. Cox, and I, -not a little bitter that my party in these eight years has failed to -meet my hopes for it, vote for Mr. Harding, which of us, I wonder, -will the better serve America? - -With renewed faith and hope we packed our belongings and made ready for -our return to the world of men. Having settled the nation’s affairs, -and being on good terms with our consciences, we turned for a last look -at the camp before embarking. Smith took the platforms and the speeches -of acceptance of the candidates for President and Vice-President of -the United States, affixed them firmly to a stone, and consigned them -without ceremony to the deep. The fish had been naughty, he said, and -he wanted to punish them for their bad manners. - - - - -THE POOR OLD ENGLISH LANGUAGE - - -IN the whole range of human endeavor no department is so hospitable to -the amateur as education. Here the gates are always open. Wide is the -field and many are the fools who disport therein. - -Politics we are all too prone to forget between campaigns; literature -and the graphic arts engage only our languid attention and science -interests us only when our imaginations are mightily stirred. But we -all know how the young idea should be taught to shoot. We are either -reactionaries, lamenting the good old times of the three _r’s_ and the -little red schoolhouse, or we discuss with much gravity such weighty -problems as the extension or curtailment of the elective system, or -we fly to the defense or demolition of the ideas of Dewey and other -reformers. It is folly not to hold opinions where no one is sure of -anything and every one is free to strut in the silken robes of wisdom. -Many of us receive at times flattering invitations to express opinions -touching the education of our youth. Though my own schooling was -concluded at the algebra age, owing to an inherent inability to master -that subject or even comprehend what it was all about, I have not -scrupled to contribute to educational symposia at every opportunity. -Perhaps I answer the riddles of the earnest critics of education the -more cheerfully from the very fact of my benightedness. When the -doors are closed and the potent, grave, and reverend signiors go into -committee of the whole to determine why education does not indeed -educate--there, in such a company, I am not only an eager listener but, -with the slightest encouragement, I announce and defend my opinions. - -Millions are expended every year for the public enlightenment, and yet -no one is satisfied either with the method or the result. Some one is -always trying to do something for culture. It seems at times that the -efforts of the women of America to increase the remnant that is amiably -disposed toward sweetness and light cannot fail, so many and so zealous -are the organizations in which they band themselves for this laudable -purpose. A little while ago we had a nation-wide better-English week -to encourage respect among the youth of this jazzy age for the poor old -English language. - -I shall express without apology my opinion that in these free States -we are making no marked headway in the attempt to improve spoken or -written English. Hardly a day passes that I do not hear graduates of -colleges confuse their pronouns; evil usages are as common as the -newspapers. And yet grammar and rhetoric are taught more or less -intelligently by a vast army of overworked and underpaid teachers, -according to the text-books fashioned by specialists who really do try -to make themselves intelligible. - -My attitude toward this whole perplexing business is one of the -greatest tolerance. I doubt seriously whether I could pass an -examination in English grammar. A Japanese waiter in a club in my town -used to lie in wait for me, when I visited the house at odd hours in -search of seclusion, for the purpose of questioning me as to certain -perplexing problems in grammar. He had flatteringly chosen me from the -club roster as a lettered person, and it was with astonishment that he -heard my embarrassed confession that I shared his bewilderment. To any -expert grammarians who, inspired by this revelation, begin a laborious -investigation of these pages in pursuit of errors, I can only say that -I wish them good luck in their adventure. At times I do manifestly -stumble, and occasionally the blunder is grievous. A poem of my -authorship once appeared in a periodical of the most exacting standards -with a singular noun mated to a plural verb. For proof-readers as a -class I entertain the greatest veneration. Often a query courteously -noted on the margin of a galley has prevented a violence to my mother -tongue which I would not consciously inflict upon it. - -To add to the fury of the grammar hounds, I will state that at times -in my life I have been able to read Greek, Latin, Italian, and French -without ever knowing anything about the grammar of either of these -languages beyond what I worked out for myself as I went along. This -method or lack of method is not, I believe, original with me, for there -are, or have been, inductive methods of teaching foreign languages -which set the student at once to reading and made something rather -incidental of the grammar. This is precisely what I should do with -English if I were responsible for the instruction of children at the -age when it is the fashion to begin hammering grammar into their -inhospitable minds. Ignorant of grammar myself, but having--if I may -assume so much--an intuitive sense of the proper and effective manner -of shaping sentences, there would be no text-books in my schoolroom. -All principals, trustees, inspectors, and educational reformers -would be excluded from my classes, and I should insist on protection -from physical manifestations of their indignation on my way to and -from the schoolhouse. The first weeks of my course would be purely -conversational. I should test the students for their vulgarities and -infelicities, and such instances, registered on the blackboard, would -visualize the errors as long as necessary. The reading of indubitably -good texts in class would, of course, be part of the programme, and the -Bible I should use freely, particularly drawing upon the Old Testament -narratives. - -I should endeavor to make it appear that clean and accurate speech is -a part of good manners, an important item in the general equipment for -life. When it came to writing, I should begin with the familiar letter, -leaving the choice of subject to the student. These compositions, read -in the class, would be criticised, as far as possible, by the students -themselves. I should efface myself completely as an instructor and -establish the relation of a fellow-seeker intent upon finding the best -way of saying a thing. If there were usages that appeared to be common -to a neighborhood, or intrusions of dialect peculiar to a State or a -section, I might search out and describe their origin, but if they -were flavorsome and truly of the soil I should not discourage their -use. Self-consciousness in these early years is to be avoided. The -weaknesses of the individual student are only discernible where he is -permitted to speak and write without timidity. - -When a youngster is made to understand from a concrete example that a -sentence is badly constructed, or that it is marred by a weak word or -a word used out of its true sense, the rules governing such instances -may be brought to his attention with every confidence that he will -understand their point. My work would be merely a preparation for the -teaching of grammar, if grammar there must be; but I should resent such -instruction if my successor failed to relate my work to his. - -I consider the memorizing of short passages of verse and prose an -important adjunct to the teaching of English by any method. “Learn -it by heart” seems to have gone out of fashion in late years. I have -recently sat in classes and listened to the listless reading, paragraph -by paragraph, of time-honored classics, knowing well that the students -were getting nothing out of them. The more good English the student -carries in his head the likelier he is to gain a respect for his -language and a confidence and effectiveness in speaking and writing it. - -Let the example precede the rule! If there is any sense in the rule -the example will clarify it; if it is without justification and -designed merely to befuddle the student, then it ought to be abolished -anyhow. The idea that children should be seen and not heard belongs -to the period when it was believed that to spare the rod was to spoil -the child. Children should be encouraged to talk, to observe and to -describe the things that interest them in the course of the day. In -this way they will form the habit of the intelligent reporter who, on -the way to his desk from an assignment, plans his article, eager to -find the best way of telling his story. Instead of making a hateful -mystery of English speech it should be made the most natural thing in -the world, worthy of the effort necessary to give it accuracy, ease, -and charm. - -The scraps of conversation I overhear every day in elevators, across -counters, on the street, and in trolley-cars are of a nature to -disturb those who view with complacency the great treasure we pour -into education. The trouble with our English is that too much is -taught and not enough is learned. The child is stuffed, not fed. Rules -crammed into him for his guidance in self-expression are imperfectly -assimilated. They never become a part of him. His first contacts with -grammar arouse his hostility, and seeing no sense in it he casts it -aside with the disdain he would manifest for a mechanical toy that -refused to work in the manner promised by the advertisement. - - - - -FOOTNOTE: - -[A] This gentleman again captured the Republican nomination for mayor -of Indianapolis in the May primary, 1921. - - - - -TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES: - - - Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_. - - Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. - - Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized. - - Archaic or variant spelling has been retained. - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAN IN THE STREET *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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